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The second election comes after the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the employer, HCA Healthcare, the country’s largest hospital system, illegally interfered with a previous union election held in 2024. That now-invalidated 2024 election was marred by illegal interference by the employer.

Registered nurses at Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana, Calif. voted overwhelmingly on Sept. 10, 2026 to ratify their inclusion into the existing union contract covering KPC Health registered nurses represented by California Nurses Association. This first contract for Orange County Global nurses secures them important new protections to improve patient safety and nurse retention.

Michigan Nurses Association RNs at MyMichigan Medical Center Alma held a three-day unfair labor practice strike over the July 4 weekend to protest the employer’s unfair labor practices and advocate for a fair contract. 

Union nurses with California Nurses Association (CNA) celebrated the final passage through both houses of the California Legislature of two CNA-sponsored bills with landmark guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) in health care, now awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom's signature.

Nurses at Prime Healthcare facilities across the country are fired up and fed up with chronic short staffing, lack of supplies and working equipment at their hospitals, and being forced to do more with less at every turn. This is why they are unionizing, picketing, and striking from California to Maine, speaking up for their patients, their communities, and themselves.

On Aug. 27, National Nurses United in eight cities across the country held civil disobedience protests by briefly stopping traffic to demand that their hospital systems, government and elected officials, and other institutions immediately cut ties with the A.I. tech company Palantir.

A new report, released on June 2 by National Nurses United, found that three major Catholic hospital systems have spent the last decade leading the health care industry in closures of pediatric care units. Pediatric care is often reimbursed through Medicaid, whose payments Catholic hospital systems apparently do not consider high enough to generate the profit margin they want to keep a unit open.

In May, registered nurses at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago voted overwhelmingly, with 77 percent in favor, of joining National Nurses Organizing Committee, an affiliate of National Nurses United, the nation’s largest and fastest-growing registered nurse union.

On May 2, the Metro Labor Council, AFL-CIO presented District of Columbia Nurses Association RNs with the prestigious Golden Picket Award. This award recognizes a local union that has turned out the most members for mobilization, protest, or campaign for better pay and working conditions.

With a 94 percent yes vote, University of Michigan registered nurses in July approved a new contract that includes competitive wage increases, improved nurse-to-patient ratios, and stronger workplace protections.

The Minnesota Nurses Association is celebrating the ratification of first contracts at two new bargaining units, welcoming more than 600 new members.  

Last winter’s historic strike sent a clear signal to management that New York’s registered nurses are serious about the wages, benefits, and staffing levels needed to keep patients and nurses safe.

Fossil-fuel proponents have used a 'drop in the ocean' argument over their impact on the climate - a new tool developed by Australian researchers will now hold them to account.

The post Australian researchers launch “breakthrough” online tool to track climate damage of new fossil fuel projects appeared first on Renew Economy.

Greenbelt Alliance is proud to endorse Measure L in the city of Alameda. The Safer Alameda Act (Measure L) would open up new funding to prepare for flooding, earthquakes, and aging infrastructure. If approved, this $300 million local bond measure would provide a dedicated funding source to address critical infrastructure needs. These bond dollars would address identified infrastructure needs, including preventing flooding on city streets, addressing sea level rise, and supporting public safety response for emergencies.

Why It Matters

When it comes to protecting people and places,  prevention is the best strategy. That’s why we must fund climate resilience now while we still have time to adapt.

Vote YES on Measure L for a safer and more climate-resilient Alameda!

The post Vote Yes on Measure L To Better Prepare Alameda for Earthquakes, Floods, and Aging Infrastructure appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

If you've ever spent any time along the Platte River in the Fall, you may have spotted an odd sight in the river channel: Heavy farm equipment!  It can seem out of place on a wildlife sanctuary, but...

If you are a voter in Walnut Creek, vote YES on Measure U, which proposes updating zoning in Downtown Walnut Creek to allow for more than 200 high-quality senior homes on a transit-oriented site near the Walnut Creek BART station. The rezoning would create an opportunity to address the city’s growing need for senior housing while allowing residents to remain close to family, friends, healthcare, shopping, and other community services as they age.

Learn more about the Measure U campaign here.

The initiative would also support a mixed-use approach with community-serving retail and food-oriented businesses, creating a more vibrant and walkable downtown while supporting local businesses. By directing new housing to an area already served by BART, the initiative advances smart, sustainable growth and makes it easier for seniors to maintain mobility and independence without relying solely on a car. Greenbelt Alliance is joined by East Bay YIMBY and Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California in endorsing YES on the measure.

Why It Matters

As an organization whose mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate to ensure the Bay Area’s lands and communities are resilient to a changing climate, we know that infill development is critical to achieving this vision. Measure U advances the kind of sustainable, transit-oriented development that makes the Bay Area livable for everyone. Supporting senior housing in downtown Walnut Creek means a more vibrant community and a healthier environment.

Vote YES on Measure U to create a more vibrant and walkable downtown while creating more housing options for seniors in Walnut Creek!

The post Vote Yes on Measure U For Sensible Rezoning That Brings More Homes to Walnut Creek appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

Follow the disappearing climate money Deepa Sivarajan Mon, 09/28/2026 - 12:50 pm

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Barbara Grady

As the Western United States grapples with severe drought, leading cities to scramble for water and farmers to abandon some crops, a new scientific study has found that 122 major oil, gas, coal, and cement companies and state-owned operations are partially responsible.

The study found that climate change from all climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions over the last 70 years has resulted in a 36% decline in annual average mountain snowpacks, the major source of surface water in Western states – and that about 40% of that decline is linked to the climate pollution caused by just 122 companies.

The annual loss attributable to those 122 companies is equivalent to the amount of water held by Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, at full capacity. 

The authors of the peer-reviewed paper, “Carbon emissions exacerbating the Western US water crisis,” also found that global warming from greenhouse gas emissions has led to a 13% decline in average annual streamflows from mountains to the lower-lying areas that depend on them, and to a 4.3% increase in the need for agricultural irrigation. The study attributed about half the streamflow declines and roughly half the increased need for irrigation to the warming caused by the 122 companies. In other words, those companies’ products resulted in a 6% fall in streamflows in the region, according to the study. 

Nine scientists from the University of California at Merced and the Union of Concerned Scientists contributed to the study, published August 25 in the Nature magazine affiliate Communications Earth & Environment. 

The West relies on snowpack 

Summers are dry in the Western U.S. 

Precipitation occurs in winter, with much of it stored as snowpack in the mountains. The West’s multibillion-dollar agriculture industry and the reservoirs supplying cities and towns in 11 states depend on melted snow carried by rivers, streams, and water conveyance systems in late spring and summer. If the snowpack is scant or if snow melts early, water shortages can occur in summer when water demand is highest. 

The West’s historic megadrought has persisted for two decades. With less surface water available, farmers have had to pump more groundwater for irrigation, depleting aquifers so much that the ground is sinking in many agricultural areas. Some farmers in the Southwest have had to abandon crops or fallow fields for lack of sufficient water. Corpus Christi, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix are just some of the cities facing severe water shortages.

Tying drought to specific companies 

Emily Williams, lead study author and a postdoctoral research scientist at the University of California at Merced, said in an interview that the study allowed scientists to disentangle how much worse water scarcity became over the decade 2014 to 2024 because of climate-change-induced atmospheric warming, as well as how much worse it became specifically because of the warming emissions generated by 122 companies and their products. 

“It lets us get beyond how much more intense climate change is becoming to look at specific impacts like snowpack decline as well as specific sources” of emissions, she said. Her team found impacts on water resources “not just from climate change but because of emissions traceable to specific sources.” 

The 122 companies cited in the study are the world’s biggest producers of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions cumulatively up to 2024; they are all coal, oil, gas, and cement producers. That list, known in climate science as the carbon majors and compiled by other scientists, is based on publicly reported coal, oil, gas, and cement production data along with scientific formulas for calculating emissions per unit of product produced. Since 2024, the list has grown to include 178 entities.

Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell are the fourth-, fifth-, eighth-, and ninth-biggest cumulative emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, according to the most recent version of the list. The world’s three highest emitters are state-owned coal, oil, and gas companies from the former Soviet Union, China, and Saudi Arabia (Saudi Aramco). U.S. coal producers Core Natural Resources and Peabody Energy are also in the top 25 carbon majors. 

The study authors based their calculations on emissions since 1950, rather than earlier, because that was the decade when major oil and gas companies began to suspect that use of their products would cause changes to the Earth’s climate. Engineers at ExxonMobil who studied the issue determined that burning large amounts of fossil fuels would affect planetary climate systems. After its engineers shared their conclusions with management in the 1970s, ExxonMobil at first expanded that research to learn more and then – a decade later – pivoted to hiding the scientific findings and denying the existence of climate change, as reported in the Pulitzer Prize finalist series “The Road Not Taken” by Inside Climate News. Other major oil companies did the same. 

The study authors wrote that “roughly 70% of global industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions since 1854 are traceable to 122 fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers (“Carbon Majors”), and ~97% of these emissions occurred after 1950.” 

U.S. oil companies remain silent

When asked on August 27 for a comment on the water crisis study, Chevron – the largest U.S. emitter since 1950 – sent an automatic thank-you note but did not respond to the question by publication. 

Chevron’s second quarter earnings report, released August 12, highlighted record-breaking oil production. The report said the company “achieved new U.S. upstream production record of nearly 2.1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and record U.S. refinery throughput of over 1 million barrels per day” as well as “competitive growth” in operations “around the globe.” Chevron also has embarked on developing oil resources in Venezuela, which has large deposits of heavy crude – a variety of oil that’s highly polluting to process. 

A media relations receptionist for ExxonMobil, the second-largest U.S. emitter, politely pledged to convey the reporter’s question to the media relations team, but the company did not respond. 

The methodology that Williams and her eight colleagues used involved overlaying observational data of recorded temperatures, precipitation, relative humidity, and hydrologic conditions annually over the decade 2014 to 2024 in seven water basins across the Western states with global climate models. Then they introduced emissions data in three variable scenarios to disentangle the effect of emissions from the carbon majors. One scenario included all human-caused emissions since 1950, the second included no anthropogenic emissions, and the third scenario excluded emissions traced to the 122 companies. 

“By comparing these scenarios and using pattern scaling, we calculated how much of the observed changes in snowpack, streamflow, and irrigation demand are attributable to climate change and specifically to emissions from the Carbon Majors,” the authors wrote.

Governments seek damages from polluters 

The study is part of a growing body of what’s called attribution science. As scientific consensus has solidified around climate change resulting from atmospheric warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels, emissions of methane, and destruction of forests, scientists are looking more deeply at the impacts of that warming, how to minimize future warming, and the specific sources of the emissions. 

Similar studies have attributed the size of areas burned in intense wildfires, specific measures of sea level rise, and the increased likelihood and intensity of extreme heat events to emissions from the carbon majors. 

Read: Scientists agree: Climate change is real and caused by people

“We have a choice of how much worse climate change is going to get, and that is a function of how much emissions we allow,” Williams said. She said some changes to the planet’s climate system are already irreversible, but we do have a choice to avoid others and the worsening of some that are already baked in.

Many states and cities around the world are taking the biggest climate polluters to court in hopes of getting financial resources to help them address damages from extreme hurricanes, wildfires and floods whose intensification can be linked to climate change. 

Two states – New York and Vermont – have passed climate superfund laws requiring that the biggest historical emitters help pay for climate damages incurred in their states. Many other states, including California, are considering such legislation. New York’s law was recently struck down in court, but the state also plans to appeal the decision. Meanwhile, several states are suing major fossil fuel companies over the damage they allege was wrought by their emissions.

“As climate impacts become increasingly severe, communities will be asking for more action” to help recover from damage and adapt to climate changes, said Carly Phillips, another author of the water study and senior research scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

Communities, states and small countries are bearing an unfair share of the costs of the impacts of emissions, Phillips contended, compared with the companies that ignored the looming crisis for decades and even lobbied Congress against taking action sooner.

 “Given the outsized contribution of certain entities to the problem – 122 companies is a very small number – there should be some accountability,” she said.

GOLDEN—The Trump administration has scouted sites inside Grand Teton National Park for a Major League Baseball ballpark, the Washington Post reported Saturday, after MLB asked about staging a regular-season game in a national park. National Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands toured three potential locations, including one the Post described as “already disturbed land.” WyoFile, reporting from the park Sunday, noted that while a baseball field can cover about four acres, a stadium can take 25 and a full complex with parking hundreds more, and that the park’s recently disturbed sagebrush amounts to roughly 10 acres bulldozed for a trailhead parking expansion. Visitors WyoFile spoke with greeted the news with disbelief, and neither Interior nor MLB responded to requests for comment.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Executive Director Aaron Weiss:

“Doug Burgum’s field of nightmares would drop a 20,000-seat stadium into one of America’s most-visited national parks while his department blocks hundreds of grants to the partner organizations that keep parks running. It’s another swing and a miss from the Interior secretary, who has already diverted millions of dollars from park entrance fees to the president’s botched vanity projects. We can’t afford to let Grand Teton become his single-use sandlot. A ballpark there would be bad news for the park’s bears… and every other animal.”

“America’s national parks are already in a league of their own. We have a responsibility to care for them, not turn them into a TV spectacle.”

The post STATEMENT: The National Park Service’s hare-brained plan to put a MLB ballpark in Grand Teton National Park appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The company proposing a data center and natural gas plant on federal land near Henderson, Nevada has withdrawn its proposal. The 1,000-megawatt data center could have been one of the state’s most energy-intensive, using enough energy to power between 700,000 and 1 million homes, according to NV Energy.

In a statement, the developer said it consulted with the city of Henderson and the Bureau of Land Management and decided to withdraw its application “due to the city planned urban development efforts in same area.” According to the application, the developer estimated that the construction would cost between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, saying “additional environmental impacts are expected to be minimal.”

“Americans just don’t want data centers on public lands,” said Christian Solomon, the Sierra Club’s political director. “We’re trying to be mindful of scaled growth and ensuring that these data centers are being developed with the highest environmental standards in mind, as well as our neighbors’ peace of mind.”

Quick hits Developer pulls out of proposed data center, natural gas plant on Nevada BLM land

Las Vegas Review-Journal

Trump administration considers building baseball field in Grand Teton National Park

Washington Post | The Hill

‘Chronic stress:’ Federal workers who quit under Trump tell all

SFGATE

Archaeological site damaged by border wall construction much older than originally thought

Arizona Public Media

Arizona parks lose $25 million as Interior blocks funding deals

KVOA

Hualapai protest walk targets mines on Arizona Tribal lands

Arizona Republic

Federal government issues order defying Colorado’s plans to shut down coal power plant

CBS News

Opinion: Dropping Roadless Rule means disaster for public lands

Asheville Citizen Times

Quote of the day

They were purposefully decimating the workforce and no one knew what was coming next. If those amateurs thought they were running the Park Service like a business, they were terrible businessmen.”

—Kevin Heatley, former superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, SFGATE

Picture This

@nationalparkservice

Well, I waddle outta bed, and I’m ready for some fishin’
Score myself some salmon nutrition
Chomp and chew and live the fat bear life.

Dip in the water and the salmon start jumpin’
Out on the bank, my belly starts plumpin’
With bears like me at the falls from 9 to 5!

Fishin’ 9 to 5, what a way to prep for winter!
Bearly breakin’ sweat, they don’t need to be a sprinter.
They just stand and eat, but the fish deserve some credit,
Salmon pack the calories, and the bears are here to get it.

Fishin’ 9 to 5, these bears are on a mission,
All the way downstream for a FAT BEAR WEEK promotion.
Hardly take a break, just eat and eat some more,
While humans vote for the ones that they adore.

At Katmai, a bear’s day is less about climbing the corporate ladder and more about climbing Brooks Falls to fish for salmon. From morning til dusk, the bears spend their days fishing, eating, napping, eating, and putting on as much weight as possible before winter arrives.

No meetings. No emails. No performance reviews. Just working 9 to 5, for service and devotion…to fish. All in hopes of a FAT promotion.

Don’t worry bears, your fish will come in.

NPS Photo/C. Loberg
Words inspired by “9 to 5,” by Dolly Parton.
#9to5Day

Featured image: Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada. Source: Ken Lund, Wikimedia

The post Developer withdraws proposal for data center & natural gas plant on BLM land appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.