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27 July 2026

Kpong, Ghana — The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA Africa) and the Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO) have commenced the in‑person segment of the Africa Zero Waste Academy 2026, a flagship program dedicated to training the next generation of zero waste practitioners, following the successful rollout of the online program last month.

Now in its second year, the Academy equips participants with practical skills to design localised zero waste systems that reduce emissions, create green jobs, and protect community health. 1, 200 climate and waste practitioners from across Africa applied, with careful selection ensuring gender and geographic diversity.

Globally, over 2.1 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste are generated annually. Localised solutions—such as organic waste management and separation of waste at source—are proving vital in tackling the waste crisis and its impacts on climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods.

Accra’s designation by the United Nations as one of 20 Cities Towards Zero Waste in March 2026 highlights the growing importance of zero waste models. GAYO’s award-winning Zero Waste Accra Project played a central role, preventing organic, plastic, and electronic waste from ending up in landfills and curbing methane emissions.

“This is not just about managing waste better; it’s about rethinking systems for climate resilience, green jobs, and community health,” said Ama Asiedu, GAIA Africa Zero Waste and Climate Program Associate.

The Academy is built on the understanding that waste and people are deeply connected. It introduces a way of thinking that protects and improves the lives of everyone who handles or is affected by waste. This work must be done through a lens of justice. By upholding human rights, safeguarding the livelihoods of waste pickers and waste workers, and designing systems that prevent harm from the very beginning.

‘’Zero waste is a systems transformation agenda that challenges us to rethink and redesign the economic and material systems that generate waste,’’ explains Fathia Selasi Charway-Glover, Project Coordinator, Zero Waste Cities, at GAYO. ‘’Achieving zero waste requires intentional investment in people, knowledge, policy coherence and inclusive infrastructure that recognises waste as a resource rather than a liability. The Academy represents a critical investment in that transformation by building the technical capacity and cross-sector collaboration needed to accelerate the transition towards a circular economy.’’

Participants have completed a five-week virtual program covering movement building, waste characterisation, and monitoring frameworks. This week’s in-person session in Ghana consolidates their learning with expert presentations and site visits to Zero Waste projects in Accra.

“We believe each participant has a vital role to play in shaping sustainable practices and policies within their communities. The insights and knowledge exchanged here will drive significant change towards achieving a Zero Waste Africa,” added Ama Asiedu.

About the Africa Zero Waste Academy

The Africa Zero Waste Academy, by GAIA Africa, is a capacity-building initiative that equips climate and waste practitioners with the skills to implement Zero Waste solutions. By fostering the next generation of leaders, the Academy empowers communities to reduce waste, curb emissions, and build sustainable livelihoods across Africa.

Press contacts:

Ibrahim Khalilulahi Usman | khalil@no-burn.org

The post Africa Zero Waste Academy Champions Next Generation of Zero Waste Leaders to Tackle Climate Crisis  first appeared on GAIA.

If done right, the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and the data centres that support it presents a unique economic opportunity for Alberta and Canada. But, as we argue in this submission to the Alberta Electricity System Operator’s (AESO)...

Contains spoilers. As a fan of animation and Daniel Chong’s “We Bare Bears,” I was so delighted when I saw the first teaser for Hoppers...

The post What “Hoppers” tells us about organizing  first appeared on Spring.

A hush has fallen over the Democratic Party — a “climate hush,” to be precise. The phrase captures the push within the party to focus more on the high cost of living and less on the planetary crisis, in hopes of addressing a popular diagnosis of why Democrats lost the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump. Since then, Democratic politicians have been mentioning the subject less on social media and in their press releases. Candidates in this summer’s primaries might have it in their platforms, but it’s the rare candidate who campaigns on it. 

But a new report pushes back against the idea that talking about climate change could cause Democrats to lose votes. The 2035 Initiative, a climate policy research center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, released polling this month that suggests that emphasizing the issue could increase support for Democratic candidates. The release comes ahead of primaries for key states — including Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia — that could determine whether Democrats regain control over Congress. 

“Our data shows pretty firmly that adding climate change to the mix is neutral to helpful from a political perspective,” said Matto Mildenberger, a political science professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who worked on the report. His team conducted two surveys this summer with roughly 3,500 total participants, weighted to represent the U.S. electorate with a mix of voters from across the political spectrum. He said it’s the first empirically rigorous evaluation of the “climate hush” hypothesis. 

It’s part of a growing pushback to the climate hushing phenomenon, spearheaded by longtime climate advocate Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and a collection of experts studying political science and public opinion. “This is a sort of a sign of where the conversation has moved, in that you do have this really robust effort to attempt to highlight that climate change is something that Democrats should continue to be talking about in a big way,” said Tré Easton, vice president for public affairs at Searchlight Institute, a Democratic-aligned think tank.

Last September, Searchlight argued that the “first rule about solving climate change” was “don’t say climate change,” provocative advice that’s been invoked as an example of climate hushing. Easton rejects that characterization. “It’s just very interesting to see Searchlight treated as, like, the prime climate-husher organization,” he said. “I didn’t know that’s where I worked.” He doesn’t advise never talking about climate change, but thinks candidates should talk about it in the context of energy policy, with Democrats arguing for a climate-conscious approach that balances trade-offs and guarantees the country can meet growing demand for electricity.

Mildenberger’s research, however, points to a more ambitious approach. His polling implies that climate change isn’t as politically toxic as it’s made out to be, finding that about two-thirds of respondents supported a government program to invest in solar and wind energy no matter how its goal was framed, whether that was “addressing climate change,” “developing new energy sources,” or “reducing pollution and protecting clean air.” About 60 percent of the Republicans surveyed would back such a policy, and using the word “climate” didn’t dent their support.

When respondents were asked to choose between pairs of candidates with randomly assigned priorities, they were more likely to pick those who made climate change a top priority, Mildenberger found. Among all voters, it led to a 4.5 percentage point increase in the candidate getting selected, and for those open to voting Republican, it made no difference (though it hurt a candidate’s chances among committed Republicans). The polling also found that people who support climate action are far more motivated to vote on it than people who oppose it, meaning that talking about climate change isn’t likely to lose votes.

The organizations described in the report as scolding Democrats for talking about climate change weren’t convinced the survey results undermined their case. Liam Kerr, co-founder of WelcomePAC — a center-left political action committee that has argued Democrats are “overly focused on climate change” — said in an email that “the Democrats winning Trump voters are mostly those who have followed the opposite advice of the researchers.” In the 2024 election, Representative Jared Golden from Maine advertised that he was “fighting against Biden’s electric car mandate” and “voting to increase domestic oil and gas production,” and wound up getting reelected in a district that voted for Trump by almost 10 percentage points. That same year, Ruben Gallego, a Democratic senator from Arizona, won in a state that voted for Trump by 5.5 points. He released an “all of the above” energy plan to tackle inflation last December and has called for Democrats to talk about energy affordability rather than climate change directly.

Senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, speaks during a recent press conference on Capitol Hill. Finn Gomez / Getty Images

There’s one thing everyone involved agrees on: Climate change is not a top priority for voters. Mildenberger’s research found that respondents ranked climate change 12th out of 15 issues, way behind the cost of living and health care but ahead of foreign policy and AI. Where you go from there has become a point of contention. In Easton’s opinion, it’s not worth chasing a small electoral benefit on an issue voters don’t prioritize. 

“If I am an operative advising a candidate, and you’re like, ‘I get a very small benefit if I talk about this thing,’ I’m not going to tell you to talk about that thing,” Easton said. “I want to encourage you to try and find a thing that gets you the biggest benefit you can with voters, especially in these hard-to-win places.”

Between the two camps, there’s a fundamental difference in thinking about what will lead to climate action. Can Democrats achieve results by working quietly behind the scenes, keeping climate change out of partisan debates? Or does staying quiet about it reduce the general sense that it’s a vital issue, eroding the political will to do anything about it?

Mildenberger is on the second team, arguing that Democrats will lose the opportunity to act on climate change the next time they’re in power if the subject slips out of the political conversation. “We’re not going to pass a climate policy bill, or prioritize it, or do what we need to do to solve this problem if there isn’t debate and conversation and attention to the issue,” he said. He pointed to the debate over how to address climate change in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election as creating the momentum for former President Joe Biden to pass the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, a package of green incentives that was the country’s widest-ranging climate law in history, at least until Republicans repealed most of it last year.

Others argue that climate policymaking can be “quiet” — small interventions tucked away into bigger bills without drawing the attention of the media, where it can be drawn into polarized debates. “The more that something is viewed as a pet political project of a particular political party, the more something is viewed in the partisan lens, the harder it is to achieve durable policy success on that particular thing,” Easton said. 

Easton thinks that climate change is so ingrained in the Democratic Party, it’s not going anywhere, even if politicians don’t mention it very often. Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, barely mentioned climate change in his campaign, but Easton said he doesn’t doubt Mamdani’s commitment to taking action. And in the end, Democrats can’t act on climate change, or anything else, unless they’re voted into office.

“I get it — if the cause of your life is fighting climate change and this is what you’ve devoted your career to, I understand why you want to put out work like this [survey],” Easton said. “The cause of my life is making sure that autocrats and authoritarians don’t win our government again. And hopefully when the folks who defeat those autocrats and authoritarians get in power, they will do work on any host of important things, including climate change.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘Climate hushing’ has swept the Democratic Party. New polling suggests it’s a mistake. on Jul 27, 2026.

"July 25, the International Day of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and Diaspora Women, is a day of struggle and resistance"

The post Dominican Republic: July 25 Is a Day of Struggle and Resistance appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Brazil’s groundwater under pressure Channel News brendan 27th July 2026 Teaser Media

by David Spratt

Download the submission

Climate disruption, not China,  is the key security threat facing Australia is the main message in the Safe Climate Australia submission to the AUKUS Public Inquiry.  This is the text.

Summary

• Climate disruption presents Australia’s greatest long-term security threat.
• AUKUS risks over-prioritising military competition over systemic climate risks.
• Climate impacts threaten food, water, infrastructure, health and regional stability.
• Security spending should better reflect the scale and certainty of climate risks.
• Australia needs a climate-first national security framework focused on resilience and prevention.  

The biggest security threat  

The first duty of any government is to “protect the people”: their collective and individual safety, their health and well-being, their property and livelihoods, and their civil and democratic rights.
This should be the starting point for any government’s security policy: human security, including national, regional and global security.  

But this has not been the case in Australia. Security policy has been generally constructed as a national defence and border security issue with an emphasis on the state-security institutions: police, customs, military and intelligence services. Even from this narrow perspective, Australia has not released a national security strategy since 2013, nor has security responsibility been integrated across government. 

As a result there has been a de facto privileging of defence policy as a substitute for a broad approach to “protecting the people”. The National Defence Strategy has become a military-focussed stand-in for a security policy, and even the defence policy seems in practical terms to be often reduced to an acquisitions plan.  It has become a shopping list as a substitute for a policy, and AUKUS sits atop the list.

The AUKUS plan arrived without sufficient consideration of the biggest threats to Australia and Australians’ future safety.

To start at the beginning, the greatest threats are those that may be termed existential or catastrophic risks, that is, those that have the capacity to so disrupt human society from its present structures and course of development that it is unable to (fully) recover. In general, these risks include climate and Earth system disruption, pandemics, weapons of mass destruction, near-Earth asteroid collisions and the impacts of digital technology and artificial intelligence (including disinformation).

Each year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) surveys global leaders in the public and private spheres on their risk perceptions, and from that data compiles an annual report. This year, over the longer term (ten years), respondents rated climate disruption and Earth system degradation as the top four risks, and five of the top 10 (see Figure 1).  Misinformation, AI and cyber espionage account for another three places and the remaining two were inequality and social polarisation. State-based conflict and geopolitical confrontation (such  as war involving China) didn’t make the long-term list.

Figure 1: Global risks ranked by severity, World Economic Forum, 2026

AUKUS only makes sense if siding with the USA in a war with China is identified as the security priority in the medium term. However, many expert voices, including those of the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group, have repeatedly made the point that climate, not China, is the biggest threat.

Security assessment 

In a way, some of the Australian Government’s own actions support this view.  In 2022, shortly after coming to power, the Albanese government commissioned the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) to prepare Australia’s first climate and security risk assessment, with an emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region, and as an input into the Defence Strategic Review.  It was delivered to the Government’s National Security Committee of Cabinet in December 2022, where it was met with shock and awe, with ministers saying they had not heard anything like it before. The ONI report was immediately securitised and not even members of relevant parliamentary policy committees were briefed, nor was a declassified version made public. This was the opposite of the practice for the Defence Strategic Review, where a declassified version was available immediately. 

For the past three years, the government has barely spoken about climate–security threats. Consideration of these threats in both the Defence Security Review and the subsequent 2024 National Defence Strategy and 2026 National Defence Strategy was cursory at best, more accurately tokenistic. The 2026 document contains no strategy in response to systemic climate–security risks.

The reasons for this secrecy seem obvious: the ONI report said things so drastic about the likely climate impacts on Australian and regional security that its narrative would have exposed Australia’s decisions to support and license new coal and gas exports as an act of gross climate vandalism that would undermine Australia’s future security.

This was made clear when the Government decided, for reasons that were not publicly explained, to brief a small number of independent members of the Parliament in late 2024.  One of those briefed, Senator David Pocock, called the ONI report “frankly terrifying”. “We’re woefully underprepared for what’s coming,” Pocock told The Saturday Paper, “It’s no surprise that the government has been sitting on this report from the Office of National Intelligence.” Others in attendance have made similar comments, and he and progressive independents in the House of Representatives say it is “recklessly negligent” not to let Australians know as well.

Global security risk assessment 

It is reasonable to assume that the ONI report was consistent with a similar piece of work issued two years earlier in the UK by that country’s premier security think tank, Chatham House. That report, Climate change risk assessment 2021, found that without a sharp emissions decline before 2030 (which current trajectories suggest is increasingly unlikely), impacts likely to be locked in for the period 2040–50 include:

• A 30% drop in crop yields by 2050;
• Food demand will be 50% higher; and
• One-third of cropland will be affected by severe drought each year.

The assessment warned that the world is “dangerously off track” to meet the Paris Agreement goals, that the risks are compounding, and that “without immediate action the impacts will be devastating” in the coming decades, especially for food security. It concluded that the drop in crop yields and more severe and extensive droughts would contribute to cascading climate impacts and “drive political instability and greater national insecurity, and fuel regional and international conflict”.

Twenty years ago, Kurt Campbell, who was United States Deputy Secretary of State and National Security Council coordinator for the Indo-Pacific in the Biden administration, led a group of security analysts in producing a groundbreaking report on climate and security, The Age of Consequences. In it, they described a scenario in which the world had warmed by 3°C:

“Massive nonlinear events in the global environment give rise to massive nonlinear societal events. In this scenario, nations around the world will be overwhelmed by the scale of change and pernicious challenges, such as pandemic disease. The internal cohesion of nations will be under great stress, including in the United States, both as a result of a dramatic rise in migration and changes in agricultural patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal communities around the world, especially in the Netherlands, the United States, South Asia, and China, has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities. Armed conflict between nations over resources, such as the Nile and its tributaries, is likely and nuclear war is possible. The social consequences range from increased religious fervour to outright chaos. In this scenario, climate change provokes a permanent shift in the relationship of humankind to nature’ (emphasis added).” 

This is the future Australia will face, but in our parliament it has not been a topic of serious conversation since a Senate inquiry on the topic eight years ago, despite growing evidence regarding escalating climate-related security risks.

It is no longer controversial that climate disruption is an existential threat. Pacific leaders, the UN Secretary-General, the former US Defence Secretary, and the current Australian climate minister have said it. Nobody says that China is an existential risk, and that represents the great inversion in Australian security policy: a secondary issue becomes primary policy, and the greatest threat is simply not spoken about. 

Like the WEF, the Global Challenges Foundation (GCF) also releases an annual report on the big risks to humanity. Their Global Catastrophic Risks 2026 report identified the key issues as:

• Catastrophic climate change and responsibility in the age of Earth system tipping points; 
• Ecological collapse and nature in global governance; 
• Weapons of mass destruction and multi-domain escalation risk; 
• AI in military decision-making and the global governance challenge; and
• Near-Earth asteroids and how to protect Earth from the asteroid impact hazard

Regional impacts

Catastrophic climate change is coming to our region, given the present failure to rapidly reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The world has reached 1.5°C of warming, the rate is accelerating, and Earth will hit 2°C in around fifteen years on current trajectories. A survey of climate scientists found that a majority think warming will exceed 3°C given the current level of global climate action. 
Scientists have described a zone of “near-unliveable” heat at 2.7°C of global average warming, which will exhibit levels of heat beyond that ever experienced by humans, currently only found on 0.8% of the world’s surface, and that would affect 22–39% of the global population, mainly in Asia (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Projected zone of heat of “near-unliveable conditions” at 2.7°C global average warming.

It is difficult to imagine the consequences of such a world, but these impacts will become perhaps the greatest security challenge to Australia. Part of the risk is northern Australia, which will also become practically unliveable for part of the year. 

This has direct implications for AUKUS, because Australia is already spending billions upgrading facilities in northern Australia, mainly for the purpose of making them de facto US bases (Figure 3). How these bases would operate in such conditions of extreme heat seems not to have been fully considered by the government in its security planning and spending. It is another example of how climate and security risks may collide.

Figure 3: Zone of extreme heat and defence bases in northern Australia at 2.7°C global average warming (ASLCG)

This reinforces the need for a comprehensive Australian security strategy, not an acquisitions shopping list with an eye-watering price tag that will do very little to protect Australia from the biggest threats.
Security policy has to be built on solid ground, not on the shifting sands of the AUKUS. 

Rebuilding security policy

If security policy is to be truly taken seriously, here are some initial steps:

Regular government catastrophic risk assessments. An initial step would be a comprehensive assessment by ONI, drawing on agencies across government and more broadly, of the catastrophic risks Australia faces, including those identified by global leaders in the 2026 risk reports of the WEF and GCF. Such an assessment could draw upon the valuable work done by ONI in the still-classified 2022 climate and security risk assessment. The new work on the ecology of catastrophic risks Australia faces should include a declassified public version. A forward-thinking and security-aware parliament would legislate a Catastrophic Risks Assessment Bill mandating such regular work as part of ongoing security policy review and development. 

A commitment to regular climate risk assessments that are comprehensive and integrated in looking at systemic risks. They need to avoid the pitfalls that have befallen the ONI report and the domestically-focussed National Climate Risk Assessment: siloed analysis, bottom-up methodologies, narrow terms of reference and secrecy.

Rebuilding Australia’s climate science capacity, which has been so run down that scientists are in despair that Australia’s climate model, the only one in the Southern Hemisphere, is now so lacking in staff and resources that it will cease to function properly in helping understand what climate warming and the security risks will look and feel like in the future. 

Based on these three actions, the production and regular updating of a National Security Strategy would reflect the commitment of a government which genuinely seeks to protect the people, their safety and well-being.

• Download the submission

 

300,000 acres surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park could lose their protection from mineral leasing.

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 19, 2026 thru Sat, July 25, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (11 articles)

• Insane': Republicans Push To Punish Canada For Wildfires “We will not tolerate this incompetence,” vowed Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, who may not understand how climate change works. Huffington Post, Jennifer Bendery, Jul 17, 2026.
• UN to list more sites as 'in danger' from conflict or climate change Phys.org, Simon Valmary and Celia Lebur, Jul 18, 2026.
• As mosquito ranges expand, better monitoring is key to preventing disease Monitoring is expensive and labor intensive. But it helps public health officials stop outbreaks. Ars Technica, Madeline Shaw, Jul 19, 2026.
• Climate Scientists Say The Dice Are Loaded. Here's Why "Just have a Think" on Youtube, Dave Borlace, July 19, 2026.
• Opinion: Is the Colorado River in a climate doom loop? We caused a problem, and our efforts to fix the problem make it worse Colorado Newsline, Gary Wockner, Jul 20, 2026.
• Rising seas magnify the dangers of coastal Georgia`s industrial past The state’s first Superfund research center is looking into how climate change is resurfacing industrial pollution. Grist, Emily Jones, Jul 20, 2026.
• Extreme heat morphs into a major economic shock for an unprepared Europe Europe’s status as the planet’s fastest-warming continent is becoming a serious drag on its economic prospects. The Business Standard, Laura Millan, Jul 21, 2026.
• What Happens to Our Brains in a Warming World? In this era of advancing AI, when everyone is debating the nature of 'intelligence,' we have forgotten that our brains run well only within a narrow band of temperature. What happens to the brain once that temperature threshold is crossed is often overlooked in discussions of climate change. State of the Planet, Marco Tedesco and Burcin Ikiz, Jul 22, 2026.
• The year climate change came for the Tour de France Record heat, wildfire threats, and an unprecedented stage modification highlighted the growing challenge global warming poses to endurance sports. Grist, Tik Root, Jul 23, 2026.
• Climate change to obliterate $1.5 trillion in U.S. home values Climate change will wipe out about $1.47 trillion in U.S. home values over the next three decades and hasten economic gaps in U.S. communities, a report released on Monday finds. CBS News, Kate Gibson , Jul 23, 2026.
• This El Niño is set to be the largest on record by a ‘mind-blowing margin’ Forecasters predict that the monster climate pattern will combine with global warming to push global temperatures in 2027 to new heights. Nature, James Dinneen, Jul 23, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (5 articles)

• How Companies Have Abandoned Their Climate Goals and Let Themselves Off the Hook Big business made big promises about saving the planet. Following through hasn’t been easy. New York Times, David Gelles, Jul 17, 2026.
• Trump threatens new Canada tariffs over fires sending 'filthy' air into US cities US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose new tariffs on Canada after hundreds of wildfires have left much of the northern US covered by a blanket of smoke. BBC News, Nadine Yousif, Jul 18, 2026.
• Majority of US voters link extreme weather to climate crisis, study finds Top Democrat says findings show public ‘way ahead of the politicians’ as Trump dismisses global heating as ‘hoax’ The Guardian, Dharna Noor with graphics by Andrew Witherspoon, Jul 19, 2026.
• Trump Lashes Out at National Academies of Sciences Over Climate Guide For Judges Trump claimed without evidence that the manual was “fraudulent, biased, and misleading.” Inside Climate News, Dennis Pillion, July 20, 2026.
• Q&A: What the EU`s carbon market review means for climate action The European Commission has put forward new plans to cut emissions under the EU carbon market more slowly, from 2031 onwards. Carbon Brief, Orla Dwyer, Jul 20, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (3 articles)

• Why Earth is reflecting less sunlight Climate change is first and foremost an emissions problem. It’s also fast becoming a reflection problem. Climate Trunk, John Lang, Jul 21, 2026.
• The climate crisis onscreen: 14 films that made waves Climate-themed films matter more than ever as the Trump administration weakens environmental protections. Here are some of the best and most meaningful ones. Capital & Main, Alex Demyanenko, Jul 22, 2026.
• Trump calls climate change a hoax. Americans aren`t buying it New polling finds broad agreement that the climate crisis is worsening heat, floods, and wildfires. Mother Jones, Dharna Noor, Jul 24, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (3 articles)

• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #29 2026 A regular weekly survey of climate-related research from academic, government and NGO sources. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Jul 16, 2026.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #30 2026 Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Jul 23, 2026.
• France orders total evacuation of Cap Ferret peninsula as wildfire spreads ‘Unpredictable’ blaze forces evacuation of holiday spot Cap Ferret and Spain declares emergency over fires near Madrid The Guardian, Jon Henley in Paris and Sam Jones in Madrid, Jul 24, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (2 articles)

• Lake Powell shrinks and marinas must adapt “The Colorado River is in full-blown crisis mode,” said John Berggren, regional policy manager with Western Resource Advocates, an environmental nonprofit. AP News, DORANY PINEDA and JOHN LOCHER, Jul 22, 2026.
• Air conditioning is not enough to keep people cool — can scientists find an alternative? Air conditioning can end up as a climate maladaptation due to installation and operation expenses as well as serious side-effects, but advances in methods to passively cool buildings hint at solutions without drawbacks. Nature, Rachel Fieldhouse, Jul 22, 2026.

Miscellaneous (2 articles)

• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 12, 2026 thru Sat, July 18, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, Jul 19, 2026.
• Oil Firms Knew for Decades of Methane’s Danger to Planet, Documents Suggest The companies knew they were releasing more of the greenhouse gas than they publicly reported, according to industry files cited by the Center for Climate Integrity, an activist organization. NYT, Hiroko Tabuchi, Jul 21, 2026.

Climate Law and Justice (1 article)

• Trump Attacks National Academies Over Climate Chapter in Judges` Manual The president joined Republican officials who slammed the National Academies of Sciences for a chapter about climate science in an educational guide for judges. NYT, Karen Zraick, Jul 20, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)

•  Hot days, cold thermometers Why a viral graph on US days above 95F is misleading and overstates regional warmth The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather, Jul 22, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!

America’s offshore wind farms have already shown their ability to keep electricity flowing during brutal winter storms. Now, the clean energy resource has proved it can also bolster the grid during major heat waves.

Earlier this month, as dangerously hot and humid temperatures settled over the eastern United States, two wind projects near New England consistently delivered hundreds of megawatts to the grid as residents cranked up their air conditioners. The influx of wind reduced utilities’ reliance on dirty, expensive oil-burning peaker plants, which operate only when electricity demand is through the roof, according to the data firm Grid Status.

Analysts compared how the regional system performed during the July heat wave and a sweltering stretch in June 2025, before much of the current offshore wind capacity came online. Oil provided nearly 10 percent of the region’s total power supply during peak-demand conditions on July 2, 2026 — that period’s hottest day — down from nearly 15 percent at the highest point on June 24, 2025. That’s a drop of more than a gigawatt in oil-fueled generation between those two days.

Part of the decline was due to slightly weaker overall demand during the July 2 peak than during last year’s event. But Grid Status said that stronger generation from the region’s utility-scale offshore wind farms was a key factor. The projects are coming online despite repeated attempts by the Trump administration to block them.

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The surge of hydropower delivered via the New England Clean Energy Connect power line, which started carrying electricity from Canada to Maine in January, also reduced peak oil use. Meanwhile, an abundance of rooftop solar installations significantly eased overall electricity demand during the heat wave.

“Even if total demand was in line with last year, we would still be hundreds of megawatts below what the total [peak oil] burn would’ve been,” said Tim Ennis, a Grid Status analyst in Boston. ​“We didn’t have to turn the oil on as hard at lunchtime because we had the wind and [hydropower line] online as well.”

Ennis noted that offshore wind is often touted by experts for its ability to bolster grid reliability during winter. New England’s power system is becoming increasingly constrained in colder months, owing to the shift to electric space and water heating systems. Ocean winds in the region are at their strongest and steadiest during the season, meaning offshore turbines can help meet some of that growing electricity demand and reduce stress on gas-fueled power plants.

While wind speeds are generally lower during summer, the recent heat wave confirms that the projects still play a meaningful role on the hottest days — more of which are headed for the region this week.

The 806-MW Vineyard Wind, off the coast of Massachusetts, finished construction in March, and its developer had activated 49 of its 62 turbines as of early May. The 704-MW Revolution Wind, near Rhode Island, started sending power to the grid in March and is set to reach full commercial operations by the second half of 2026.

Read Next The Pentagon is blocking more than 150 wind projects over drone fears Austin Corona

Ennis said data shows that the commissioned offshore turbines relieved grid stress from July 1 to 4, during periods when air conditioning use was at its peak, offsetting some of utilities’ need to turn on oil plants, a step that adds to customers’ already high utility bills. All told, New England operators produced 42.2 gigawatt-hours of oil-fired power during that four-day heat wave, down 37 percent from the total oil burned from June 23 to 25, 2025.

Outside New England, the already completed 132-MW South Fork Wind farm had a strong showing off the coast of New York. The project, which came online in 2024, operated at nearly full capacity on July 2, sending electricity into the heat-stressed grid on Long Island, Mikkel Mæhlisen of Ørsted, which jointly owns South Fork Wind with Skyborn Renewables, recently wrote on LinkedIn.

The Independent System Operator New England has previously stressed the role that offshore wind can play in supporting the grid during extreme heat events. The regional grid operator spoke out last August after the Trump administration halted construction of Revolution Wind, which was then 80 percent complete.

Read Next ‘Why take those jobs away?’: The unionized workers decrying Trump’s war on wind Michael Sainato, The Guardian

“Recent heatwaves in New England drove demand for electricity to very high levels and demonstrated that our region needs all generation resources with market obligations to be available to meet demand and maintain required reserves,” ISO New England said in an August 25, 2025, statement, noting that delaying Revolution Wind ​“will increase risks to reliability.”

A federal judge overturned the stop-work order in September. But its developer Ørsted was forced to hit the brakes again in December after Trump’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management paused the leases for all five large-scale U.S. offshore wind projects under construction. Though judges later lifted those orders as well, the delays still cost some developers millions of dollars and threatened projects’ viability.

The Trump administration has since adopted a new tactic for kneecapping America’s fledgling offshore wind industry: paying developers to abandon plans for future wind farms, using billions of dollars in taxpayer funding. The strategy makes it highly unlikely that any new projects will be built in the next few years.

However, when all five wind farms are fully up and running, they will add nearly 6 GW in clean capacity to help the East Coast navigate days of bone-chilling cold or life-threatening heat.

“The potential costs and benefits of offshore wind have been debated for decades,” said Fara Courtney, who consults on offshore wind policies and research projects for Outer Harbor Consulting, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. ​“Now we have the first projects up and producing, [and] the data is clear: Offshore wind is a new American energy sector with a big role to play in meeting this region’s skyrocketing energy demand.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Here’s how offshore wind helped New England beat record heat on Jul 26, 2026.

The Los Angeles Food Policy Council’s (LAFPC) Cultivating Farmers program helps urban and peri-urban farmers navigate land access, business development, and long-term viability.

Through workshops, technical assistance, and free one-on-one advising, the program supports growers as they work to build and sustain their operations. For Black Thumb Farm, a nonprofit urban farm in the San Fernando Valley, that support has supported them through a years-long effort to secure long-term access to public land.

Cultivating Farmers launched in 2024 to provide business-focused support to farmers across Los Angeles. Rather than focusing on production practices, the program centers business planning, insurance, grant writing, marketing, and sales strategy.

“The program is all about supporting urban farmers with the business side of running a farm,” Nikhita Jain, Senior Urban Agriculture Program Associate at LAFPC, tells Food Tank. “Outside the work of growing food, starting and operating a farm business has its own learning curve.”

According to Jain, many urban farmers in Los Angeles face barriers that extend well beyond growing food. She says the city lacks some of the support systems available in other cities.”The City of Los Angeles does not have a dedicated person or office focused on urban agriculture,” Jain tells Food Tank.

Without those resources, Jain says many farmers rely on informal agreements with schools, churches, and community organizations to access land. While those arrangements with landowners can create opportunities, they can also leave farmers vulnerable if leadership changes or properties are sold.

“It’s all relationship-based,” Jain explains. “Maybe there’s a city council member who really believes in what the urban farmer is doing. But then if that person changes, that’s where that uncertainty comes in.”

The lack of long-term land security can make it difficult for farmers to plan. Jain says growers may hesitate to invest in infrastructure or soil improvements when they do not know whether they will still have access to the land several years later. Informal arrangements can also make it harder to access certain grants and federal programs that require documentation of land tenure.

Black Thumb Farm has experienced many of those challenges firsthand.

Founded by Alexys Romo and Analisa Joh, the nonprofit urban farm centers BIPOC youth and communities through land-based programming, culturally sustaining food production, and environmental education. The organization operates programs that introduce young people to farming, workforce development, food sovereignty, and stewardship of the natural world.

Black Thumb Farm has spent roughly five years working to secure access to a 2.3-acre publicly owned parcel in the northeastern San Fernando Valley.

“There is no formal or institutionalized process,” Jain tells Food Tank. “They just started calling the city and trying to figure out who to talk to. Eventually they got a call back.”

Throughout that effort, Black Thumb Farm has worked with partners including the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust while navigating multiple layers of local government. Jain says the experience illustrates both the persistence required of urban farmers and the need for stronger institutional support.

Helping farmers navigate those challenges is a central part of Cultivating Farmers’ mission. In addition to workshops, the program offers individualized advising sessions with Jain where growers can receive support tailored to their specific goals and obstacles.

Jain believes additional public investment and dedicated support structures could help more urban farmers establish long-term roots. But she also points to organizations like Black Thumb Farm as evidence of what is possible when growers receive the support they need.

For communities across Los Angeles, the benefits extend beyond food production. Farms can create green space, provide educational opportunities, and strengthen community connections. Through Cultivating Farmers, LAFPC is working to ensure that the people building those spaces have the tools and resources to succeed.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Black Thumb Farm

The post How One Los Angeles Program Helps Urban Farmers Thrive appeared first on Food Tank.

Motion on a transformative approach to the fossil fuel energy crisis

Photo by Emma Renly on Unsplash

Motion on a transformative approach to the fossil fuel energy crisis

This draft motion – which can be used to generate debate and commitment to action in union and political party branches – has been worked on and had input from supporters of Greener Jobs Alliance, Fuel Poverty Action, the Campaign Against Climate Change and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. 

The escalation of the war on Iran, and UK complicity in it, and the evacuation of a quarter of a million people from the Bordeaux region to escape the wildfire that is threatening the city, both underline the urgency of getting our movements to face up to reality and take action on it.

Feel free to adapt, but let’s push this change of course.

Paul Atkin

Motion on a transformative approach to the fossil fuel energy crisis

The impact of the US/Israeli attack on Iran, overlaid by the extreme weather impacts of climate change, is creating a violent upward pressure on the cost of living that is likely to be long-lasting.

Food prices and energy prices are rising. 

Shortages are likely. 

Therefore this branch/district/ward (delete as appropriate) believes 

1. To stop the crisis, we need to stop the war, tax war profits and transfer military spending
2. The transition to renewable energy and energy conservation is the solution.  
3. Crisis measures must be social justice measures.

Resolves

1. To campaign on these points alongside other unions and campaigns locally as part of the Trade Union Year of Climate Action, including local actions during some or all of the Global Week of Action for Climate Justice (Sept 14th -20th) the Global Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice (Sept 21 – 27th) the Weekend of action against militarisation and conscription (21/22  November) support for national anti war demonstrations and actions during the COP and help organise a local showing of the National Emergency Briefing film.
2. As part of this, to support Fuel Poverty Action’s Make Green Fair campaign for the benefits of renewable energy and new technology for heating and cooling homes, to be fairly distributed to everyone.  
3. To send delegate(s) to the conference on 31 October ‘No Non-Radical Futures Available: Winning for the Climate; Winning for Workers’ and publicise it among our members
4. To send this as a motion alongside the attached statement to 

A) Unions version

a. the local trades council,

b. our union National Executive representatives to help inform discussion at national level. 

B) Labour Party wards

our local elected representatives and Party NEC representatives. 

C) Green or Your Party branches

our local elected representatives and our Central Executive Committee representatives.

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The post Motion on a transformative approach to the fossil fuel energy crisis first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

More madness from the surreal saga of a nuclear-armed Iran oscillating between "obliterated" and "threatening our families" so we have to obliterate it though we just agreed to help nuclear-arm the brutes behind 9/11 so go figure. Meanwhile, the Pentagon pursues a gazillion bucks and testosterone-ripped troops even as a flailing president insists the last dead troops all said "very strongly" to keep fighting right before he odiously covered up their deaths so others would. Head-spinning, soul-killing.

To date, "Emperor Commodus of Covfefe's" illegal, disatrous, dim-witted Iran "excursion," a mangling of "incursion" and global clusterfuck with no clear mission, strategy, end goal or clue, has killed over 3,500 Iranians, many of them women and children, wounded over 26,500, and razed much of that country's infrastructure, including fresh water sources. At least 18 U.S. troops have been killed, with up to 500 wounded. A quarter of the world’s oil is held hostage across two vital straits, at least 70% of Americans oppose the war, recession-level prices here loom, and rage, especially among Muslim nations, is palpable, perhaps nudged along by a brilliant Iranian social-media campaign - "ONE VENGEANCE FOR ALL" - that tied America's latest atrocity to those of the past, from Native Americans, "stolen blacks" and Vietnamese villagers to Abu Ghraib, Gaza and Epstein Island.

In the bleak wake of eight missed deadlines, 28 empty claims of a "deal," several failed ceasefires and ongoing blather of a mythical "victory" on the horizon, the war is now widely seen as militarily, politically and morally "unwinnable," and even U.S. money, always there for calamitous wars, is running low. Thus did greasy dunk-tank clown and strung-tight "warfighter" zealot Pete Hegseth appear before Congress last week to plead for a profane $67 billion more in emergency funds - part of a $1.15 trillion defense bill, a 44%, $454 billion increase - added to the $37.5 billion he's already squandered in the name of a vague "generational investment," maybe to get the Strait of Hormuz closed again? Par for the inept course, only Pete, fired from two non-profits for mishandling their finances and adroit at blaming others for bad decisions, seems surprised the money's run out.

Maybe that's 'cause at the start of the Iran misadventure he was so busy posting braggadocious war porn, "some of the most loser shit ever," of tacky bellicose video games cut in with real carnage from Iran - war=Call of Duty - and delivering bombastic briefings to crow about annihilating the enemy "without mercy" in the name of "real warriors." Those briefings have now been quietly "replaced by a vacuum." Frantic to control a grim political narrative, he's held no briefings since May, emptied the Pentagon's press corps of everyone but right-wing hacks, restricted access in ways large and small, banned "unflattering" images of himself - oh vanity thy name is lame snowflake - and otherwise treated America's vital free press as an enemy to be subdued, defeated or at least hoodwinked in order to obscure his own lies, failures, abuses and all-round buffoonery.

By all accounts, Hogsbreath has been serving more as showboating fitness influencer than sober head of a functional military. He now presides over a largely broken Pentagon where morale is dismal, finances are strained, readiness is collapsing and care for troops, veterans and their families is at historic lows. Within the ranks, he's derided as an out-of-his-depth, D-list pretender and "fake-ass manly man" who looks like a Ken doll "stored too close to the furnace," relishes lecturing generals, and "dresses like he's on The Love Boat" - hair gel, makeup, showy pocket hanky resembling military honors - while somehow disastrously managing to kill 170 Iranian schoolgirls on the first day of a misbegotten war he still insists is "a historic, overwhelming victory." From Jeff Tiedrich: "He's what would happen if arrogance and an elevated blood-alcohol level became a real boy."

In a "beyond Strangelovian" move, that blustering boy recently responded to the multiple crises of his Dept. of Deep Masculine Insecurity with a bonkers video from def not his makeup studio, titled "The High-T Department of War," announcing a new program to ensure troops have enough testosterone to stay "on the leading edge of lethality." He's evidently unaware any guy who declares he's "high-T" is probs not - "Real gangsta *ss people don't flex nuts"; also, that behind most war crimes is too much testosterone and a failed moral compass, today's military doesn't do much hand-to-hand combat, studies show testosterone doesn't help focus, fatigue, memory or well-being, and "High-T For Better Killing" is maybe not a great slogan. Still, the guy fixated on "the highest male standard" is calling for mandatory annual screening of those over 30; under 30, it's voluntary.

The general response to this very cool plan has been...mixed. Many noted the discrepancy between his strident insistence on freedom from governments making our medical decisions - hence ending a decades-old flu vaccine mandate (until an outbreak led to its quiet reversal) and gender-affirming health care, which is why a judge may overturn it - and his railing against beards, fat troops, high-ranking women and people of color. Women decried flaky policy decisions inspired by "the far corners of the manosphere" or the ravings of RFK Jr.; some suggested he replace salutes with chest bumps and "Sir" with "Bro"; others wondered who'll be screening Pete "for being a dick." Above all, especially after last week's hearing, a broad consensus has emerged that no amount of testosterone pumped into his body will render him even remotely qualified for his job.

Confronted with lawmakers questioning yet more money for a debacle, Pete blustered, stuttered, sneered, fear-mongered about radical Islamists "coming for our families" with nuclear weapons "to hold us at issue (sic)." He thundered Jack Reed - West Point, Harvard, veteran, professor - should respect "the historic nature of what (Trump's) undertaking"; Reed snapped, "He should be praised for starting a war without authority?" He shrieked at Jon Ossoff for calmly listing the multiple times he's lied "Iran’s military had been, quote, destroyed." When Gary Peters cited those lies and the 30 times he's declared what's clearly "a complete failure" an "overwhelming victory," Pete screeched the word failure "smears the sacrifice of the troops" (sic) and "shame on you." He didn't use it about the troops, Peters retorted, but their leaders: "You, sir, are the failure. You don't have a strategy."

Finally Hegseth, the model avatar for a regime that never accepts responsibility for anything, laid the blame for a Pentagon famed for funding atrocities abroad with little to no accountability seeking $1.5 trillion more in blood money on...Biden and his “gross negligence.” Gross, indeed: “You cannot inherit a war you started.” Dems balked at an obscene price tag that dwarfs even the Iran debacle, noting it includes $800 million for the National Guard to keep pointlessly patrolling D.C, over $1bn to patrol the southern border which is DHS’ job, $900 million to illegally bomb more boats in the Caribbean etc. Also quietly stuck in there was the vile Save America Act (more sic) to further restrict voting, and the random horror of a move to establish a joint US-Israel tech initiative so we can further integrate our military with Israel's universally admired genocidal regime. Still, it passed, barely.

Defense bills tend to win broad bipartisan support, but the House barely squeezed through a $1.15 trillion version of this insane one with the help of six craven Dems, including Maine's fucking Jared Golden. In better news, they also passed a second, largely symbolic but heartening resolution to end the war, with four Repubs joining them. In the Senate, the measure was blocked, 47-49, by fucking John Fetterman. Also last week, the US made a deal to help the Saudis - of hacksaws and 9/11 - set up a civilian nuclear program, despite MAGA terror of Nukes For Muslims! (see war in Iran, whose painstaking deal Trump tore up). Despite longtime fears of a nuclear race in the Middle East, Trump said they have to join the "very respected" Abraham Accords with Israel and sign a hollow "safeguards agreement" with a pinky promise of "no enrichment of material!" So no worries.

Still, some were worried, also enraged. The folks at I Fucking Love Australia were already some pissed at Admiral USS Bigly and his 271 Republicans, "you spineless, belly-crawling, yellow-bellied fucking grubs" and "geography-proof fucking muppets who can't count past their own indictments," not one of whom will stand up to a doddering "windbag at the arse end of his miserable sex-offending, pedo-loving, decomposing life" as a fifth of the world's oil remains bottled up behind Hormuz, just like "HIS OWN JOINT CHIEFS WARNED HIM," using small words and a hand puppet. With Australia down to 29 days of vital diesel in reserve, they fume, "You lot couldn't poll your collective vertebrae and build a fucking prawn...Do your job." And that was before last week's Houthi attack by "a militia in sandals" on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea for breaching their naval blockade.

The bold move by a ragtag militia from the Middle East's poorest country, armed with "cheap hardware from a rusty shed - drones, hand-me-down missiles and a Telegram account" - prompted the sages at IFLA to offer a cogent, useful backstory on just what's going down in a volatile, "centuries-deep cauldron of grievance" into which "waddles Napoleon Blownapart, fresh from a Bibi slideshow in the Situation Room, convinced he can win a regional war with vibes and a Sharpie." They began by citing the Saudis' "one genuinely clever move of the war": When Hormuz shut down, they were ramming up to 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, far more than usual, through the critical Asia/Europe escape hatch of Bab Al Mandeb's east-west pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea. Then, "The Houthis just bricked it the fuck up - they welded the back door of the global oil market shut."

Pundits call Yemen's Houthis Iran "proxies,” but "they've got their own grievances, which tell you where this war is headed." IFLA "follows the thread all the way back, since apparently nobody in the White House owns a ball of string." To Houthis and hundreds of millions more, "This is now a defensive war against an attack on Muslim nations," and "you cannot drone-strike a conviction." See Vietnam, Afghanistan, ISIS etc. Not inside that tent: Saudi Arabia, who "picked the wrong side of (their) religion," watched Gaza flattened and only checked their wealth fund balance; now the Houthis "declared them fair game, and no one is holding (a) vigil for them." Righteous bottom line: "Why is the region on fire? Israel. Occupation, annexation, settlements, the slow-motion theft (that) manufactures resistance. Hamas and Hezbollah didn’t fall out of the sky. Dispossession built them, brick by bloody brick."

Brilliant strategist Trump "surveyed that flawless 0-4 record of American wars of choice, a historical record so grim you could read it by Braille, and thought, you know what this list needs? Iran, plus a bonus round against mountain fighters in Yemen who've never once lost." He thought the Houthis no longer wanted to fight; now, he's "disappointed" and "cranked up the rhetoric with his 76th ultimatum." Meanwhile, on "planet fucken consequences," oil prices spiked to over $100 a barrel amidst market chaos, and "the dumbest cunt that ever fumbled the world’s most dangerous military operation opened the gates of Hell with his own two tiny clay-colored hands." Or more accurately the Gate of Tears, Bab el-Mandeb in English. "The old sailors named it for the ships it drowned," notes IFLA. "Turns out it was just waiting all these centuries for a presidency worthy of the title."

Still, he blunders on. The same day he again boasted his war has *only* killed 18 U.S. troops - there's a chart! - vs. "hundreds of thousands" - actually 58,220, none him - in Vietnam, he went to Dover for the dignified transfer of four Americans just killed in an Iran attack at a Jordan airbase. He told reporters he was en route to "honor great heroes, actually." Then, in a "next-level ghastly" move, he put his own vile words in their young dead mouths to claim, "All of them said, very strongly, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon." Appalled responses: "Did they have tears in their eyes? Did they ask why we need to destroy their nuclear program when we've already done it five times? Vastly more plausible: They said 'What the fuck are we doing here?' or 'What the fuck is wrong with you?' and, Can any journalist ask him to name two of the fallen soldiers? Or hell, name two of his kids?"

We can name them: Sgt. Michael Swinton 30, of North Carolina, father to two kids 4 and 6, First Lt. Tyler Feehan, 25, of Hawaii, weeks away from earning his MBA, Sgt Angel Rampersad, 28, of New York, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Texas. Hours after the ceremony - where the guy who never bothered to know their names gazed blankly, blue suit gaudy among black suits and bowed heads - he went to a MAGA rally at a Georgia high school where he sweated and babbled: "We had transgender for everybody, ravaging through our cities," "We don't need the Hormuz Street in our skirmish...They're not ready to make a deal. They'll be ready soon," "We'll pass the great healthcare plan. It's called Our Great Healthcare Plan," "The communists want to blow up Mt. Rushmore" (boos), "I fought Ossoff before (boos) and we won...He reminds me of Pinky Herman."

The newly dead, wholly unreal suckers and losers to a narcissist incarnate, were clearly far from what passes for the remains of his mind. That obliviousness reflects what former Sec. of Defense and CIA director Leon Panetta charged is a "deliberate effort to withhold information from the American people, a shameful approach to sharing the responsibility we all have (in) a war." Speaking of a New York Times report the Pentagon suppressed news of dozens of military injuries - which the regime called “baseless and malicious” but anyway they're not "strictly required" to publicize them - Panetta said officials are in essence "challenging the press to find what’s really happening, and they will." "They can dodge, bob and weave," he said of a long, base tradition in American politics, "but my experience is that no matter how much you try to hide it, in the end, the truth comes out.”

The truth, says James Talarico: "We are closing schools and hospitals in this country so we can bomb schools and hospitals in other countries" - and working hard to hide it. The latest proof, again from the Times in a rare, welcome burst of journalism: The Pentagon's Casualty Analysis website just lowered the number of troop deaths from 18 to 14, with the four names just brought home scrubbed from the list. Garbled rationales ranged from deaths after Trump's April ceasefire mean no war/no deaths to "site errors due to a temporary data disruption (with) anomalies being resolved." Days later, they're still missing. Michael Swinton's widow Jamiah, asked if she had any details on the disappeared names, said nobody has reached out: "I kind of don’t have words for that.” We don't either. "They died serving our country," wrote Bill Kristol. "They should be honored, not erased." In sorrowful fact, we say they died for little besides a sick con man's lies. For that we are truly sorry. Remember who to blame.

Update: Jesus these inept hacks and clowns can't even keep track of how many gullible young people's lives they've fucked up in the name of their imperialist misadventures. Now, after their data was "quietly updated," it's 18 killed and 624 wounded. Do better, or for the love of God and gullible young people's lives just fucking stop.

The "anomalies": Feehan, Gonzales, Swinton, RampersadPhotos from U.S. Army

News & Resources Learn more about our 2026 cohort of RAFI farmer grantees. Watch the FOCN webinar on Community Crop Variety Trials. View more trainings and workshops in our Trainings & Webinar Library. Listen to Come to the Table’s new podcast, Food & Conversations. Find farm grants, loans, and relief payment programs through Farm Aid’s […]

The post Links & Information: Farmers Connection Fall 2026 appeared first on RAFI.

Each week, Food Tank is rounding up a few news stories that inspire excitement, infuriation, or curiosity.

Bangladeshi Farmers and Environmentalists Protest Harmful Pesticides

This week, food producers and environmentalists gathered in northwestern Bangladesh, where they called on national leaders to phase out extremely hazardous pesticides including paraquat. 

Fishers say that they used to catch a wide variety of local fish, but over the years, populations—and their income—have declined. Indigenous communities are also losing wild and medicinal plants and other foods they rely on. Advocates say that Bangladesh, as a member of the Rotterdam Convention and the Stockholm Convention, is obliged to play a role in implementing international commitments. 

“Agriculture dependent on pesticides and chemicals can never be sustainable,” says Atikur Rahman, President of the Barendra Youth Forum “We want a farming system where safe food, biodiversity conservation and climate justice are ensured together.”

USDA Reorganization Threatens Major Programs

Employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are warning that the agency’s reorganization plans threaten several key programs that support food aid, food safety,  and agricultural research. 

If employees are relocated as planned, less than 10 people will oversee the billions of dollars managed through the country’s international food aid program, Food For Peace, according to Collin Bradley, President of AFSCME Local 3976, the labor union representing USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. He believes the changes will “decimate the agency.”

Last week, food safety groups also asked Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to pause the relocation of the Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Laboratory. In a letter, they wrote, “The loss of highly specialized scientific expertise would be substantial” and similar moves in the past have led to “gaps in institutional knowledge and reduced effectiveness.”

One Agricultural Research Service employee, who asked to remain anonymous, worries about the toll the moves take on morale as well, telling Politico, “everybody is just really in a bad place mentally.”

Rodale Institute Launches Campaign to Transition 10 Million Acres

Rodale Institute launched a new campaign to transition 10 million acres of U.S. farmland to organic and regenerative organic by 2030.

CEO Jeff Tkach says, “Our goal is simple: give farmers the research, education and support they need to succeed. When they do, the benefits reach far beyond the farm to strengthen our communities and the economy.”

One of the central pieces of the campaign is their Center for Regenerative Organic Innovation, which officially broke ground. Set to open in 2028, it will serve as a national hub for farmer education that includes three virtual classrooms.

The Institute aims to raise US$139 million to support the full campaign, which is guided by their new five-year Strategic Plan. These funds will help them conduct 10 long-term research trials; educate 100,000 farmers, agricultural professionals, and consumers; and reach 100 million people. At a time when the average age of U.S. farmers is on the rise, the Institute hopes to create more career paths to bring young people into agriculture. 

Brazil Invests in Thriving Namibian Food Systems

The government of Brazil announced a US$120,000 investment to continue a successful program boosting food security in Namibia. The new funding is expected to benefit more than 1,000 people. 

The project, which was implemented by the Namibian government in 2021 with support of the World Food Programme, has grown into a network of community farms that produce vegetables and eggs for schools, clinics, and vulnerable households. They also offer training to help farmers develop their business skills. 

National Planning Commission Director General Ambassador Kaire Mbuende says the program proves that people can move from relief to resilience. “Communities that once received food are now producing it,” he says. 

Mbuende sees Brazil’s support as an prime example of South-South cooperation, stating, “Brazil shares with us the lessons of its own journey, from school feeding linked to family farming to public procurement from smallholder producers. These are lessons between equals.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Immo Wegmann, Unsplash

The post Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: Farmers Protest Toxic Pesticides, USDA Plans Threaten the Agency, Rodale Institute Invests in Agricultural Transformation appeared first on Food Tank.

Christine Waugh-Fleischmann, an art teacher who said she spends up to $200 a week on gas driving to see her grandchildren, is a Democratic voter in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. One of the most competitive seats in the country, it is currently held by Republican Representative Tom Barrett and she believes the seat can be flipped, partly due to the high price of gas. 

“I do see a lot of people in my conservative neighborhood here who are very upset,” she told Reuters. “It’s gas. It’s grocery prices, it’s health care costs.”

The arithmetic of her frustration is easy to trace. After war broke out with Iran in late February, the average price of gas in Michigan jumped roughly 32 percent in three weeks, from $2.99 to $3.95 a gallon. Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a formal energy emergency to let southeast Michigan stations sell cheaper summer-blend fuel, citing both the war and tariffs. Prices kept climbing anyway — including a 90-cent spike in a single week, among the sharpest in any midterm battleground — briefly topping $4 before coming down in recent months.

Read Next Why are so many Democrats going quiet on climate change? Kate Yoder

Crisis, emergency orders, persistent pain heading into the fall: That is the narrative spine of Michigan’s midterms, and both parties know it.

A ground shift

Republicans spent years circling Michigan as their best 2026 pickup opportunity. Now doubts are creeping in. A Democrat won a special state Senate election in May by nearly 20 points in a district Kamala Harris carried by less than one, and President Donald Trump’s economic approval fell even among Republicans, from 74 percent to 62 percent, between March and April.

In a Climate Power survey of 600 likely Michigan voters conducted in mid-June, 42 percent of those polled, including 44 percent of independents, said they would be less likely to vote for a congressional candidate who supports Trump’s energy policies, as opposed to 21 percent who said they’d be more likely. And 58 percent said Trump has made energy prices more expensive, while 63 percent rejected his claim that high gas prices are a “small price to pay” for the war in Iran. Since the war began, 45 percent said they had grown more supportive of diversifying America’s energy sources, including solar and wind.

“Trump’s energy agenda is costing Michigan families at the pump and on their power bills — and voters know it,” said Tom Lenard, Climate Power’s Michigan director, warning that candidates who back it “do so at their own political peril.”

Not every voter in Barrett’s district sees it that way. Alexander Melton, a 38-year-old heating and air conditioning technician, told Reuters that he still backs the Republican congressman. “We don’t dictate the price of gas,” he said.

Affordability versus the ‘Green New Scam’

In the Democratic Senate primary, which takes place August 4, Haley Stevens, Mallory McMorrow, and Abdul El-Sayed have all tied affordability messaging to clean energy — McMorrow, before exiting the race, called it “a freedom issue, it’s a cost issue” and argued that Democrats are “on the precipice” of lowering bills. Republican Mike Rogers, who’s running for a U.S. Senate seat for the second time, countered that the push for renewables is itself what is driving up Michigan’s energy costs.

Read Next The Trump EPA ended the ‘green new scam.’ A year later, communities are still paying the price.  Sophie Hurwitz

Underneath the messaging war sits real economic damage. Michigan lost $4.1 billion in planned clean manufacturing investment and roughly 11,700 jobs after the Trump-era rollbacks, while $540 million in climate grants were canceled or delayed — including $156 million meant to help low-income residents install solar panels. And the administration ordered Consumers Energy to keep the J.H. Campbell coal plant running past its planned retirement, a move the state’s attorney general and other critics said will cost ratepayers more than transitioning away from it.

The fallout has cut across party lines. In March of last year, Representative John James of Shelby Township and at least seven other House Republicans called on their colleagues to preserve the Biden-era clean energy tax credits. “We must not neglect the sector-wide energy tax provisions that manufacturers and job creators rely on in my district,” James said.

Divided government, divided stakes

The starkest fight is in Lansing. Michigan’s 2023 Clean Energy and Jobs Act requires 100 percent renewable electricity by 2040, but the November elections could determine the law’s future. House Republicans last month passed “Project Lighthouse,” a package that would repeal the clean energy mandates; its sponsor, state Representative Pauline Wendzel, called the 2023 requirements “arbitrary” and said they help large investor-owned utilities instead of everyday ratepayers. The legislation is likely dead in the Democratic-held Senate — for now. But DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, the state’s largest utilities, will submit integrated resource plans in 2026 for the first time under the new law, meaning the election will set the ground rules just as they take effect.

Ben Poulson, state government affairs director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, argued the repeal legislation reaches further than its sponsors let on. “It repeals a lot of programs that we have been using to lower energy waste and lessens the accountability that we have on utility companies here in the state,” he told Planet Detroit.

Denise Keele, executive director of the Michigan Climate Action Network, said that climate change is showing up on the campaign trail under a different name. “We’re seeing it show up as energy affordability,” she said, noting that Michiganders pay some of the highest residential electricity and gas rates in the country. House Republicans, she said, “are essentially blaming clean and renewable energy as [to] why those energy prices are going up” — even though renewables make up only about 11 percent of the state’s mix and wind and solar are cheaper and faster to build. Her frustration cuts both ways: Not enough Democrats, she argued, are running on renewable energy’s success, a reticence she likened to what acclaimed environmental activist and journalist Bill McKibben calls “climate hushing.” The honest case — that prices will rise less with renewables than with fossil fuels — “is apparently too hard to message.”

Data centers and utility money

The hottest flashpoint may be data centers, which have driven up utility rates while promising jobs — and split traditional Democratic constituencies. Gubernatorial frontrunner Jocelyn Benson, endorsed by the Michigan League of Conservation Voters at a Grand Rapids riverfront event, has pledged enforceable guardrails on data centers and utilities and a moratorium on companies that violate environmental standards. Her platform centers on expanding clean energy to lower utility bills, replacing aging water infrastructure and reinstating polluter pay laws. 

Read Next America’s data center backlash is bipartisan — can it stay that way? Zoya Teirstein & Kate Yoder

But some unions back the data center projects. “We respectfully urge policymakers to support a responsible path forward for data center development that protects communities, grows the tax base, strengthens our workforce and keeps Michigan competitive for decades to come,” Douglas W. Stockwell, business manager and general vice president of Operating Engineers 324, testified at a hearing in Michigan’s House of Representatives.

Voter anger at the utilities is reshaping the money race, too. More than 150 Michigan politicians from both parties have pledged to reject campaign funding from Consumers Energy and DTE, according to the Michigan League of Conservation Voters — even as Consumers Energy requested another rate hike for its electricity customers this week. 

“This is disgusting what’s happening and it’s exploitative, it’s extractive, it’s unethical,” said Jerry Norris, a Lansing community activist who said he is following the money this cycle. “It might not own everybody when they accept money like that, but it influences it, and it creates an obligation and it creates a debt,” he told WILX10.

For voters like Alexis Jones of Lansing, the debate comes down to a number on an envelope. His utility bill is “almost $400,” he said. 

“It’s terrible. And not only do I have to look out for me, but I’ve got little munchkins, grandkids, to look after. And things are out of control.”

Copyright 2026 Capital & Main

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In Michigan, the price of energy is on the ballot and both parties know it on Jul 25, 2026.

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On Saturday, July 25, over 330 communities across the United States will hold vigils, protests, and demonstrations to demand justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastian Guerrero, and many more who have been killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Neighbors will gather to pay their respects, pray, mourn, and demand ICE OUT!

The national movement follows two recent, horrific killings by ICE agents. On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a beloved father and worker, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston, Texas, while driving a work van. On July 13, ICE agents killed 26-year-old Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, in front of his partner and toddler.

There have now been 53 deaths in ICE custody since Trump was inaugurated, 33 deaths in fiscal year 2026 alone. As the death toll grows, communities across the country are taking to the streets to protest and mourn together, demanding that the ICE agents involved in these killings, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and all related agencies under the Trump administration be held accountable. Given the pending confirmation of Todd Blanche as Attorney General, this need for transparency, accountability and public pressure is particularly important now.

Find all events here.

Organizers and participants are calling for:

• Immediate Transparency: DHS must immediately release the key witnesses to Lorenzo’s death and halt their deportation proceedings so they can safely participate in any investigation and legal process.
• Full, Independent Investigations: Investigations must include full transparency and cooperation from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and all other law enforcement agencies. Accountability for any officer found to have committed misconduct or violated the law.
• ICE Out: All state and local leaders should stop using their resources to support federal immigration enforcement and stop all coordination with ICE. DHS must remove all ICE agents from the streets.
• Corporate Responsibility: Businesses and corporations must exercise their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to protect their employees, customers, and communities, and decline to cooperate with ICE, including by refusing access to private property, customer information, or other resources.

“We refuse to grieve quietly. We refuse to accept this terror and violence as inevitable”, said Crystal Cron, Executive Director, Presente! Maine. “Johan Sebastián should still be here with his wife and daughter — and instead, his name joins a growing list of people killed by an institution that treats our communities as disposable. This is bigger than one shooting, bigger than Biddeford, bigger than Maine. We will not stop fighting until there is justice for the Durán Guerrero family and a total dismantling of this lawless, criminal agency that took him from them.”

“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a husband, a father of three, and a small business owner who built his American dream with his own hands. Johan Sebastian Guerrero was killed in front of his partner and his toddler,” said Juan Proaño, Chief Executive Officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). “ICE has now taken the lives of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike, and if they can kill Lorenzo and Johan, they can kill anyone. On July 25, LULAC’s members and councils will stand vigil with neighbors in communities across this country to demand transparency, independent investigations, and accountability for every life taken.”

“We are all in danger from the brutality of ICE, and the killings of Lorenzo, Johan, Juan Hairo —and all those who have been killed by this rogue agency—prove that no one is safe,” said Erika Andiola, NDLON Political Director. “We must unite to defend ourselves and honor immigrant workers and day laborers, who endure the worst anti-immigrant hatred while building our communities and defending human rights. Today, we gather to mourn them and demand an end to ICE’s reign of terror.”

“A government-authorized paramilitary force is roaming our streets, terrorizing, abducting and murdering human beings,” said Robert Weissman, Co-President of Public Citizen. “This weekend, thousands of Americans at hundreds of events across the country will gather to mourn the shameful loss of life, demand accountability for perpetrators and insist on an end to the cruel and deliberate Trump administration policy choices that make these kinds of killings all but inevitable.”

“ICE kills people, separates families, and threatens community safety across the country – full stop. No one is safe when ICE is present – whether on the streets or in one of the agency’s more than 200 abuse-ridden detention facilities,” said Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network. “People are dying in ICE detention at a record-breaking rate, ICE agents are tearing families apart and shooting people on the streets, making people less safe, and causing chaos wherever they go — whether in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Biddeford, or beyond. No more abuse and death at the hands of ICE and no more ICE funding while people lose health care, struggle to pay rent and kids go hungry. We demand an end to the ICE age.”

“The deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastián Guerrero, and now Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran are not isolated tragedies; they are the direct result of the administration’s drastic and dangerous expansion of immigration enforcement, fueled by the $270 billion in funding to ICE and CBP. These hundreds of billions to terrorize communities are financed by historic cuts to health care, and the American public is rightly outraged by these killings and cruelty,” said Todd Schulte, President of FWD.us. “We will continue to fight against this ICE violence that is tearing families apart, against the expansion of enforcement and for a more just and human approach to immigration.”

“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving to a job site with his crew. Johan Sebastian Guerrero was starting his day as a delivery driver, with his wife and toddler beside him. They were doing what millions of immigrants do every day. And ICE agents gunned them down; for working. This is not immigration enforcement. This is lethal state violence against people who are our neighbors, family members, and friends, and it has to stop. For over a year, Workers Circle activists have taken action week after week through our Freedom Vigils, bearing witness outside detention facilities like Alligator Alcatraz until we shut it down in June and refusing to let this cruelty happen in the dark across the nation. Lorenzo and Johan’s deaths are part of the same fight for human dignity and Constitutional rights, now out in the open for the whole country to see” said Noelle Damico, Director of Social Justice at The Workers Circle. “On July 25, we’re bringing that same determination and love to communities from Houston to Maine and everywhere in between, because we owe Lorenzo and Johan and their families more than grief — we owe them justice. We will not look away, and we will keep speaking out until we end ICE’s reign of terror in our communities once and for all.”

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The July 25 Day of Action is being organized by volunteers, neighbors, families, and organizations nationwide, with support from the Disappeared in America project hosted by Public Citizen, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), The Workers Circle, Detention Watch Network, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). A core principle behind all Disappeared in America events is a commitment to nonviolent action.

As Marx said, capitalism simultaneously undermines the sources of all wealth—the soil and the worker

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