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Major work by regional planners is focused on flexible access to existing transmission. Some say greater emphasis on advanced transmission technologies can quickly and cost-effectively create room for new large loads.

The post Millions Face Punishing Heating Bills. They Shouldn’t Be Left Behind. appeared first on ACEEE | American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

In North America, data centers are boosting the long-term investment case for energy storage and renewables as gas turbine backlogs and rising fuel volatility drive up peaking costs, according to a Thursday note from Wood Mackenzie.

Slow Food NYC will bring together New York City food businesses, producers, chefs, and community members on October 19 for SnailFest 2026. The annual event celebrates its Snail of Approval awardees and their work to advance good, clean, and fair food.

The event, which takes place at Eataly SoHo, includes a cocktail reception and a seasonal multi-course dinner. The evening will support Slow Food NYC’s efforts to build a more sustainable and equitable local food system through education, advocacy, and community engagement.

“Slow Food NYC exists because good, clean, and fair food doesn’t happen by accident. It takes real people, showing up every day, making hard choices about how they source and serve,” says Richa Mehra, Vice Chair of Slow Food NYC. “SnailFest is our chance to celebrate our Snail of Approval awardees who do this work every day and bring them together in one room with our larger community. The energy at last year’s inaugural event was so special, and we’re excited to build on that this year!”

The Snail of Approval program recognizes New York City restaurants, bars, retailers, food producers, and other food and beverage businesses that demonstrate a commitment to Slow Food’s principles. Awardees are evaluated on practices around sourcing, environmental impact, cultural connection, community involvement, staff support, and business values.

Awardees include businesses such as Brooklyn Packers, Café Paulette & Petite Paulette, Eataly, Farm to People, GrowNYC, Matriark Foods, Norwich Meadows Farm, Oko Farms, Osteria 57, Roscioli, and The Meat Hook, among dozens of other New York City food businesses.

SnailFest 2026 will take place from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Eataly SoHo in Manhattan. Tickets can be purchased here, and include food, drinks, and access to the silent auction.

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 Anne Preble, Unsplash

The post Slow Food NYC Celebrates Good, Clean, and Fair Food appeared first on Food Tank.

“A capability to continuously track whether a project enters into service ... or is delayed, reduced, or cancelled, can help assign costs for new generation to the customers responsible for those investments,” the DOE said in a rare filing at FERC.

The District of Columbia should review its renewable portfolio standard requirements, with solar credits adding about $20 to monthly electric bills, writes Joy Ditto, former American Public Power Association CEO.

Researchers have given wallpapers a purpose beyond aesthetics. In a new paper published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials, a team of engineers from Binghamton University reports a wall-mounted panel that can convert humidity in indoor air into electrical power.

The concept could lead to a solution for generating electricity while controlling indoor humidity, said electrical and computer engineer Seokheun Choi in a press release. “We put a lot of energy into HVAC systems to remove moisture from the air, but if we use this concept, we could reduce or control moisture levels while also generating electricity.”

Small sensors and electronic devices abound in our modern homes and offices. These gadgets consume power ranging from microwatts to milliwatts. Instead of running them on disposable batteries that are made from fraught metals, researchers have been creating power generators that harvest energy from the ambient environment.

Many teams have made devices that harvest energy from human motion, artificial plants that tap into wind flow and raindrops, as well as wood-based generators that convert water flow into electricity. The Binghamton team considered moist-electric generators, which harvest moisture from air and turn it into electric current.

“All previous moist-electric generator devices are for outdoor humidity, because there is a lot of moisture out there that is an excellent energy resource,” Choi said. But the problem with harvesting outdoor humidity is that moisture levels change continuously because of extreme sunlight or weather, he added. So outdoor energy harvesters typically generate very small amounts of power.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Clothes that cool you, warm you—and make power as you move

 

Inside homes and buildings however, air typically maintains constant humidity levels between 30–60%. Activities like respiration, cooking and bathing generate added moisture. And, as the team writes in the paper, “wallpaper, with its large continuously exposed surface area and seamless architectural integration, is the most compelling platform to realize” indoor moist-energy generators.

Drawing on Choi’s previously work on papertronics, the researchers the researchers created a new paper-based MEG device. The system is designed to absorb moisture at the periphery and siphon it to the center, where it evaporates. This creates unidirectional moisture transport on a single paper sheet, which results in an electric current flow.

The wallpaper consists of 2 x 2 cm squares of paper. Each has glycerol at the edges to capture moisture from the air. A polymer structure in the intermediate area draws water inward through its small pores. Meanwhile, a wax-treated central region repels liquid water but allows vapor to escape through its tiny pores. All the wiring is on the back of the wallpaper.

For now, the power output is small. A 35-square array produced enough power to run a humidity sensor for about 15 minutes. A much larger 1,596-unit array can run a wireless keyboard with the help of a charge-storing device, while reducing indoor humidity from 38% to 32%, “transforming passive wall surfaces into self-powered, climate-responsive interfaces,” the team writes.

Source: Guangya Yuan, Yang Gao, Seokheun Choi. Moist-Electric Wallpaper With Engineered Unidirectional Moisture Transport for Indoor Energy Harvesting and Humidity Management. Advanced Energy Materials, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

After witnessing and hearing stories of Pacific islands’ vulnerability to climate change, senior climate officials have promised to strengthen efforts to limit global warming to 1.5C, despite an expected overshoot, and to help the region adapt to rising seas and other impacts.

More than 30 world leaders, ministers, climate negotiators and international development bankers travelled to the sinking atoll nation of Tuvalu on Tuesday before attending the pre-COP31 talks in Fiji, where schoolchildren told them about the effects warming-driven droughts, heatwaves and storms are having on their education.

Australia and the Pacific nations hoped to use the pre-COP to reinforce the urgency of tackling climate change to the officials from around 50 countries who travelled to the region. Fiji’s climate minister, Lynda Tabuya, told a closing press conference on Thursday they had wanted to “bring decision-makers to the climate frontlines”.

Many of those decision-makers said they had been moved by what they had seen and heard this week, and their speeches emphasised the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, a key goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

• Sep 2, 2026 Science UN sets out narrow path back to 1.5C warming after inevitable overshoot Leading scientists say warming must peak at 1.8C to be able to reverse course this century, but current government climate policies are way off track Read more
• Oct 6, 2026 News Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu Island nations seek invest in their own Pacific Resilience Facility, as they struggle with the red-tape of international climate funds Read more
• Oct 7, 2026 News New Zealand accused of breaching EU trade deal over climate rollbacks The EU’s climate trade rules face their first major test after a green group alleged New Zealand violated binding environmental provisions under its trade deal with the bloc Read more

In September, a UN report acknowledged that the 1.5C threshold will be breached but said temperatures could still be brought back down to that level by the end of the century with stepped-up climate action.

A month ago, Türkiye’s COP31 President Murat Kurum told a press conference in the northern Turkish city of Trabzon that limiting global warming to 1.5C “does not really look possible”, adding that “around 1.5C, that will be a success”. 

But after seeing the “anxiety” of Tuvaluan children and mothers caused by rising seas and the threat to their lives from high tides, Kurum told reporters in Fiji that 1.5C is a “matter of survival –  the survival of cultures, history, memories, your homeland, your homes – it’s that important.” 

“The 1.5C target is in jeopardy and we do not have a single minute, a single day to lose,” he added through an interpreter.

Jacobo Ocharan, head of political strategies at Climate Action Network International, warned that “words of concern will not protect anyone”. “The Pacific has shown the world what is at stake. Now governments must show they are ready to act,” he said. “[COP31 in] Antalya must deliver decisions that change people’s lives for the better.”

$1.5 billion for 1.5C

In Fiji, Kurum echoed the call of Australia and Pacific nations for contributions to the fledgling Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), which aims to use the returns on its investments to fund community climate adaptation projects like water storage, building sea walls and protecting homes from storms. “$1.5 billion for 1.5 degrees will save the Pacific,” he said. “It’s that easy. Life will continue in Tuvalu. Children will be smiling again.”

COP31 President Murat Kurum (left) speaks at a press conference on Thursday 8 October alongside Lynda Tabuya, Chris Bowen and Simon Stiell

Sitting next to him, Fiji’s Tabuya said she was “encouraged” by his words. “$1.5 billion for 1.5. We will hold COP 31 to that,” she said. The PRF has been promised just under $200 million so far – including about $15 million pledged by European and Pacific governments at pre-COP – and is aiming for $500 million by COP31. It has a longer-term target of mobilising $1.5 billion in capital.

After Pacific leaders on Tuesday aired a litany of concerns about the barriers to accessing the global climate finance system, Kurum joined in at Thursday’s press conference. “Justice in climate finance is essential,” he said. “Resources must reach those in need in a timely and accessible manner, not through a lot of red-tape, and we cannot accept that the same countries should always bear the burden.” 

Plan for easier access to climate finance

Australian climate and energy minister Chris Bowen, who is COP31’s president of negotiations, also lamented that “the countries that need the finance the most get it the least”. He said he would ask governments and multilateral development banks to support an access to finance plan for small island states and the world’s poorest nations, launched by Australia on Thursday.

The plan says that while there has been progress in making it easier and quicker to obtain international climate funding, “multiple persistent challenges have continued to limit access to climate finance for developing countries”.

It adds that the amounts available are insufficient to meet climate goals and stresses the need for “grant-based and highly concessional financing”, especially for adaptation and responding to loss and damage. The plan proposes an annual high-level forum on climate finance access to track implementation.

The pre-COP summit closed with an emotional plea from Fiji’s host minister Tabuya. Fighting back tears before finally succumbing, she asked delegates to “carry something of the Pacific with you”.

“Remember the people you met, the stories you heard and why we gathered. This pre-COP draws to a close tonight. Our responsibility does not,” she said to applause.

The post Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal appeared first on Climate Home News.

Britain’s new prime minister has said that Brexit was a mistake and that the country should have a much closer relationship with the European Union. But is this possible without the UK again becoming an EU member state? And with the far right on the rise on both sides of the Channel, is there enough political will to undo Brexit?

They were the words many Labour supporters had been longing to hear. 

“Brexit has done more harm than good,” Andy Burnham told the 2026 Labour party conference. Later this year, he would lay out to Britons “what I believe the different options are for Britain’s long-term relationship with our European partners. I will see if we can find consensus around one.”

Yes, a decade after Britain narrowly voted to leave the EU –  and whether that meant the single market and customs union too was entirely unclear in 2016 – Britain is coming back. Maybe. If we can agree on what we want, and if the EU lets us.

The French president Emmanuel Macron welcomed the move, but warned that if the UK rejoined it would have to compromise. “You cannot choose between the freedoms of the Union and you cannot decide to take what suits you and not the rest. So come back.”

Britain can, however, try to sign up to some aspects of the EU without actually rejoining. This approach has plenty of downsides, which is why Brexiteers rejected it after the referendum, but it represents the kind of compromise that might be able to persuade a majority of Britons.

No one seriously pretends that Brexit has not damaged Britain’s economy. The question is how much independence the country is prepared to sacrifice in order to revive the trade and benefits it lost.

The Labour government is already trying to negotiate a better relationship with the EU than Boris Johnson’s Trade and Cooperation Agreement offers, though progress has been ponderous. In exchange for “dynamic alignment” on plant and animal health regulations, carbon pricing and electricity, and limited freedom of movement for young people, the UK would get smoother access in these areas.

A partial return?

Rejoining the customs unionwould mean that the UK could no longer set its own tariffs on imports and would have to abandon the ones it has negotiated since 2020. Like Turkey, it would have to agree a bespoke arrangement with the EU. This would cut a lot of paperwork, especially in manufacturing. But whether it could boost growth much would depend on the scope of the deal. This, in turn, would depend on the degree of regulatory alignment and the EU’s demands.

Another alternative, known as the “Norway” or “Swiss” option, would return the UK to the single market, but means paying into the EU budget (Margaret Thatcher famously negotiated a rebate, which the UK would be unlikely to repeat) and accepting freedom of movement. 

Andy Burnham’s rhetoric on immigration has been confusing. In his conference speech, he said immigration control had been “weakened by Brexit”. He was probably talking about the fact that Brexit means the UK can no longer return people who arrive on small boats to France. This is correct, but glosses over the practical and diplomatic difficulties of doing so. Alternatively, Burnham may have been implying that losing access to EU workers, who can move about freely without the need for visas, had forced the UK to recruit people from Asia and Africa instead. This is also true. But the desire to have more control over immigration was a main reason for the Brexit vote.

Burnham would need to convince sceptics that, because Central European countries are richer than they were in the 2000s, freedom of movement would not lead to another wave of new arrivals from the EU. He could point to the fact that only Britain, Sweden, and Ireland chose not to impose restrictions on those workers, which is why so many came. And he is right to imply that Brexit has not “solved” tensions over immigration, even if it has given Britain more control over legal migration. It is now Britons’ top concern.

But the EU could decide – as Macron hinted – that if Britain wants to rejoin the single market, it will have to go the whole way and sign up to the EU again. Simon Usherwood, a professor of politics at the Open University, thinks the EU would probably block the Norway option. 

“Negotiations would involve a lot of UK asking for exemptions and EU pushing back, partly because classic cherry-picking line, and partly because of precedents for other European Economic Area [EEA] states,” he says. Meanwhile, Norway and Switzerland may oppose it because the EEA is “designed for small, less-politicised countries”.

On the other hand, since the UK would have to accept EU rules without having any say in making them, we would no longer be able to try to veto the bloc – as we did in 2011 – or elect pro-Brexit MEPs like Nigel Farage who sought to disrupt it from within. The EU might appreciate that.

“Full-fat” rejoin

This has the advantage of clarity. It would give Britain full voting rights and is the obvious riposte to the question: “What’s the point of just rejoining the single market, when it means signing up to EU rules and getting no say?” Polling suggests that a pledge to rejoin the EU would win back voters whom Burnham needs, especially in Scotland and Wales.

“Half-baked calls to enter a customs union or join the single market won’t bring the transformational economic heft to avoid further drift and decline, or the political payoff to prevent Nigel Farage’s Reform UK gaining power,” says Naomi Smith, the chief executive of the pro-rejoin pressure group Best for Britain. “The choice Burnham must face is whether to go big – or go nowhere at all.”

But Burnham also knows that pro-Brexit parties are currently polling at 45 percent of the vote. And public support for rejoin fluctuates depending on what people perceive it to involve. If it means joining the euro, support falls. It will be hard to convince the public that the pound is safe if membership depends on committing to the single currency.

Then comes the question of whether Brussels will have enough confidence in Britain to start a rejoin process. Since all the right-wing parties are opposed to it, the UK can hardly be relied upon in the medium to long term. The irony is that the EU has also changed since Britain left. Far-right, often Eurosceptical, parties are on the rise. The single market will probably endure, but would the Labour party want to rejoin a bloc where France, Germany and Spain might all have far-right leaders?

The thought of another referendum is also unwelcome. It is difficult to argue that since Britain held a referendum on whether to join (in 1975) and leave (in 2016), it could rejoin without holding another one. Few of us will relish the culture wars it would probably stoke. Arguably, the amount of time Westminster spent on Brexit left some serious domestic problems to fester.

Among some Britons, too, there is a degree of stubbornness allied with an element of the sunk cost fallacy: we made our bed, so we might as well lie in it.

Burnham’s speech was the first piece of good news pro-rejoiners had had for a decade. No wonder they are excited. But they are going to need an awful lot of stamina.

This article was first published by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union. The views and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union | Global Dialogue.

Tuesday, October 6, saw vibrant mass demonstrations in dozens of French towns, as five of the nation’s six main trade union confederations mobilized in support...

The post France: Workers mobilize to support student revolt first appeared on Spring.

The Supreme Court once billed the Endangered Species Act as “the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation.” Federal protections have been key to saving nearly 300 U.S. species — including the bald eagle, American alligator, and grizzly bear — from permanent extinction. 

Each year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is primarily responsible for implementing the law, evaluates species and lists them as “endangered” or “threatened.” When federal activity or private development has the potential to harm a listed species or its habitat, project developers are required to consult with the Service or obtain a permit prior to construction.

For the last several decades, the interpretation of two words in particular — “take” and “harm” — have formed the backbone of the Nixon-era law. Its prohibition of “taking” an animal criminalized any attempts to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” at-risk species. And the provision on “harm” ensured that degrading a listed species’ habitat could be penalized. These definitions have been key to the success of the law. 

But that all changed last month when the Trump administration determined that razing the habitat where endangered or threatened species breed, feed, and shelter would no longer face federal penalties. In a separate internal memo, the administration also reinterpreted the definition of “take,” limiting it to instances of intentional killing of an endangered species. (Nearly two dozen attorneys general have sued over some of these changes.)

“These rule changes, when you zoom out, are an assault on threatened and endangered species unlike we’ve ever seen before,” said Elizabeth Forsyth, a senior attorney in the biodiversity defense program with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization. “It’s an effort to eliminate habitat protections, eliminate automatic protections for threatened species, and give industry power.”

Climate change is making matters worse, as species struggle to adapt to warming temperatures and changing ecosystems. Below, Grist reporters look at how 10 species — from lovable sea otters to a misunderstood snake — might fare as the regulatory framework that has kept them afloat is weakened. 

A North Atlantic right whale and calf swim about 19 nautical miles off Little St. Simons Island, Georgia, in 2025. Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute / NOAA permit 26919 North Atlantic right whale

North Atlantic right whales got their name perversely. Because they stick close to shore and to the surface, and float when killed, they were the “right whale” to hunt. So right that humans hunted them nearly to extinction before the practice was banned in the 1930s.

That’s not why right whales are dying today.

“Nobody goes out and says, ‘I’m gonna hit a right whale with my ship,’” said Delcianna Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School. But it happens anyway.

Though it’s not always possible to determine the cause of death for a whale, research shows that the leading cause is human activity: Ships strike the whales and fishing gear ensnares them, leading to injury and death. It happens often enough that North Atlantic right whales have been experiencing an unusual mortality event since 2017, in which 43 have died and 133 have been spotted injured or in poor health. About 380 whales remain, only 70 of whom are breeding females.

A dead 1-year-old female North Atlantic right whale calf rests on a beach in Savannah, Georgia. Experts found evidence of blunt force trauma consistent with a vessel strike. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation / NOAA permit 24359

Well before the latest changes to the Endangered Species Act, the Trump administration had already begun rolling back protections for right whales. In March, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced plans to rescind ocean speed restrictions designed to reduce the risk of vessel strikes. The agency later declined to expand the whales’ designated critical habitat to include their migratory route.

The administration will likely use its new definition of “take” to bolster those actions, Winders said. “Now they can point to this and say, ‘Look, we can’t have speed limits under the law because it only applies to intentional direct activities.’”

Right whales are “particularly vulnerable” to the changes, Winders said, both because of their critically low population figures and because their primary causes of death are incidental takes. 

“Right whales don’t have two years or four years” to wait for a new president or Congress to restore their protections, Winders said. “This is going to impact them immediately.”

— Emily Jones

An eastern massasauga rattlesnake crawls over moss and grass. Nathan Rathbun / USFWS Eastern massasauga rattlesnake

Admirers of the only venomous snake species in Michigan call the creature misunderstood. The eastern massasauga rattlesnake — which grows up to 3 feet long, with a rattle at the end of its sandy, brown-speckled body — is often vilified in rare accounts of snake bites and has been the subject of state advisories to stop harassing the animal.

These snakes are actually “very shy, pretty calm,” said Adam Austin, a wildlife biologist who leads the conservation nonprofit Midwest Friends of Wildlife. They prefer to hide in the wetlands that they call home, and their name is a nod to their swampy abodes; massasauga means “great river mouth” in Anishinaabemowin, the Indigenous language spoken across the Great Lakes.

In recent years, as wetland acreage has shrunk across the Midwest — due to development, drainage, and climate change — the massasauga’s habitats have become fragmented. The resulting isolation makes it difficult for them to breed with other populations, diminishing genetic diversity and leaving them less resistant to new diseases. More than a third of the roughly 260 sites where the snake has been surveyed across the Midwest are at risk of habitat loss, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

As a result, federal officials listed the snake as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2016. The move has helped conserve millions of acres of wetlands in the region, Austin said, but recent changes to federal protections are likely to spell trouble for the rattlesnake. 

Signs mark the location for oil pipeline construction in Howell, Michigan, part of the documented territory for the eastern massasauga rattlesnake. Jim West / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Snake advocates worry that under the Trump administration, razing wetlands the massasauga roam in or accidentally killing them during construction may not be a violation of federal law. While Michigan has its own endangered species laws — eastern massasaugas are considered state-threatened — protections are narrower than the federal Endangered Species Act. The state also has strong legal protections for wetlands, but the loss of a federal backstop could shift more responsibility to the state to fill regulatory gaps, said Tara Zuardo, a senior advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. 

“Michigan’s law and the federal Endangered Species Act would suddenly be operating under the same words, but radically different legal meanings,” Zuardo said.

— Vivian La

A bull trout swims over an antler in a stream in northwest Montana. Jim Mogen / USFWS Bull trout

Bull trout, native to Montana and recognizable by their large heads and white-tipped fins, are the alpine equivalent of a canary in a coal mine. They rely on cold, clean water, and as warmer temperatures, invasive species, and sediment runoff have degraded their habitat, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the state’s wildlife management agency, has documented significant declines across half of the population. Road construction, particularly for industrial logging, poses one of the greatest threats to bull trout spawning habitat. The fish are particularly sensitive to sediment buildup, which can coat the gravelly bottom of a river and smother their eggs. 

“I could list off 10 streams right now that 15, 20 years ago had bull trout in them, and they don’t anymore,” said Brian Riggers, a retired fisheries biologist with the U.S. Forest Service who spent decades documenting bull trout in streams across western Montana. “That’s a sad thing.”

Bull trout are listed as “threatened” by the Fish and Wildlife Service in recognition that they’re likely to become endangered and at risk of extinction without protection. The listing ensures that anglers are not allowed to catch and release them like other species of trout, and it’s not legal to fish for them in most of their habitat.

Biologists measure a bull trout as part of a species survey. Shannon Downey / USFWS

The Trump administration’s proposed policy changes to weaken the Endangered Species Act, as well as rescind protections for roadless areas in national forests and allow more motorized recreation, are the latest blows to these imperiled fish.

Riggers said that without protections for their remaining habitat, bull trout will continue to face steep declines. The need to preserve their habitat has been a key component of legal challenges against large-scale logging projects in the state. Without the explicit federal protections to prevent harm to a listed species’ habitat, it could become nearly impossible to stop development projects that degrade spawning streams and block the bull trout’s ability to move through rivers. 

— Ellis Juhlin

A Florida panther, captured by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Larry W. Richardson / USFWS Florida panther

Florida panthers once roamed much of the American Southeast. But then settlers arrived and hunted them until just a few dozen remained. Their range dwindled to a small area in southern Florida — a state that, until 1950, paid a $5 bounty to any hunter who turned in a panther scalp. Today, the panthers, among the first species protected by the Endangered Species Act, are recovering, with an estimated 200 thought to live in the state. 

“It’s been a tremendous effort over the years,” said Elizabeth Fleming, a career expert on the species at Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation nonprofit that helps protect panthers. Because most Floridians haven’t lived with panthers for more than a century, recovery depends on helping people coexist with them as they spread, often through educational programs or compensating ranchers who lose livestock to panthers. Without public acceptance, “we can kiss panthers goodbye,” she said. 

But now, nearly 60 years after panthers were first federally protected, the Trump administration’s new interpretation of the law could undermine this progress.

Florida panther kittens as seen in their den. David Shindle / Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

This is particularly worrisome for Florida panthers, which were listed in the law’s early days and don’t have the additional habitat protections that became mandatory later on. Florida’s population is also booming faster than nearly any other state. That means more housing developments and highways that fragment panther habitat, and more traffic that can kill them. Vehicle collisions are the leading cause of panther deaths, Fleming said. One of the most quickly developing parts of the state directly abuts its only panther refuge. Under the new federal rules, developers may no longer need to contend with how their projects could harm panthers. 

“People don’t understand that these animals need so much more,” Fleming said. “They need a connected system in which to travel and live their lives, and with every single instance of weakened laws, regulations, and protections, it’s just another thing going against them.”

— Sachi Mulkey

Southern sea otters play and groom at Moss Landing, Monterey, California. Lilian Carswell / USFWS California sea otter

Thousands of sea otters spend their lives weaving through the towering emerald ribbons of kelp forest found around California’s central coast. Lucky kayakers might spot one taking a moment to float belly-up, perhaps cracking open a tasty sea urchin with its favorite rock. They also rest this way when they sleep, sometimes holding hands to stay together while trusting their ultra-buoyant and water-resistant fur to keep them above the waves.

These lovable marine mammals were once thought to be extinct in California, after intensive pelt hunting in the 19th and 18th centuries culled their population down from some 16,000 individuals. But a small number of otters survived and repopulated. Today, some 3,000 otters live in the Big Sur region, just south of San Francisco.

That recovery was largely possible through Endangered Species Act protections that the Trump administration has repeatedly weakened. The latest changes, which gut habitat protections, could leave sea otters especially at risk. Much like the Florida panther, they also do not have a “critical habitat designation,” an additional safeguard that only became mandatory after sea otters were already added to the list. 

When it comes to protecting otters, habitat is everything, said Sean Bothwell, the executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. In the past, conservationists rallied to fight against oil spills in otter habitat. Today, they’re turning their attention to fertilizers used for farming, which can cause algae blooms and make the shellfish that otters eat toxic. “We’re so concerned about otters because they live in the tidal zone; they are directly impacted by anything that runs off of the land,” he said. 

A raft of sea otters feeds near Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, California, in 2023. Nic Coury / AFP via Getty Images

The Trump administration’s changes to habitat protections will make it much harder to hold companies accountable for this kind of pollution, Bothwell said. His organization recently decided to pause a lawsuit against a dam that was threatening a number of endangered species, like fish and toads, because the case partly rested on the legal definition of “harming” an animal that the administration rescinded this summer.

Without these safeguards, he said, lawsuits that focus on habitat protections could lose their teeth. “We are worried there will be some kind of backsliding,” Bothwell said. 

— Sachi Mulkey

The rusty patched bumble bee was listed as an endangered species in 2017, making it the first bumble bee to receive federal protection. Native wildflowers are the best sources of pollen and nectar, like this bergamot flower. Mara Koenig / USFWS Rusty patched bumble bee

Like the nearly 50 other bumble bees native to North America, the rusty patched bumble bee is a fuzzy, mostly yellow-and-black insect that buzzes between plants gathering nectar and pollen. Unlike its cousins, and as its name suggests, the rare bee sports a distinctive amber spot near the middle of its back. 

When Libby Shafer, now an urban ecologist and PhD Candidate in plant biology at Northwestern University, was a biological technician with the United States Geological Survey and tried to track down the bee over the course of a three-month search that spanned Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, she had very little luck. “I personally only saw one,” she said. 

The bee, once common in 28 states including Illinois and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, has declined by nearly 90 percent over the past 30 years. Today, it occupies just 0.1 percent of its historic range.

The pollinator was listed as federally endangered in 2017, becoming the first bee species listed under the Endangered Species Act. Experts have pointed to a number of stressors that explain the bees’ dramatic decline, including habitat loss, pesticide use, disease, and climate change. For example, warmer temperatures can set off a mismatch between when bees emerge from hibernation and when native plants bloom and provide food.  

This past summer, conservationists celebrated the Fish and Wildlife Service’s designation of approximately 1.5 million acres of occupied critical habitat for the rusty patched bumble bee, which protects it from projects funded or permitted by federal agencies but not from private landowners — approximately 83 percent of the bees’ critical habitat is privately held.  

“The rusty patched bumble bee is better positioned than many listed species since critical habitat has finally been designated,” said Delcianna Winders, of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School. But she added that the Trump administration’s rescission of the regulatory definition of “harm” to exclude habitat destruction and reinterpretation of “take” pose serious threats to the species. Bumblebees are small, can easily go unnoticed, and spend about half the year in the soil, making them difficult to spot for an expert, let alone a developer building a service road over a prairie. 

“This is bad news for the rusty patched bumble bee,” Schafer said. 

— Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco

A biologist holds an Eastern hellbender, which can grow up to two and a half feet. USFWS Eastern hellbender

Wildlife advocates with the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations have been trying to get the eastern hellbender listed for more than a decade. In 2024, they came close. After Hurricane Helene felled trees and kicked up sediment, disturbing the sensitive salamander’s habitat, the Fish and Wildlife Service finally proposed the hellbender for protection, with a decision expected at the end of 2025. But the decision never came. In fact, not a single endangered species has been listed since Trump took office. 

The eastern hellbender has enjoyed state protection in places like New York and North Carolina. However, unlike other species that have been federally designated as “endangered” or “threatened,” the hellbender has had no federal protection, even as its population has dwindled dramatically. The salamander is a homebody — once it finds a place it likes to live, it often stays there its entire life. An ancient remnant of the Ice Age, it has lived in the same streams and rivers for just about 160 million years and has been called a living fossil.

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, its roughly 600 known historical populations have endured narrowing margins over the past few decades. More than 40 percent of those populations have vanished, and another 36 percent are in active decline. The hellbender breathes through its skin, meaning water pollution and sedimentation can cause disease and death. It thrives best in the cold, clear streams of the higher mountains in the Appalachian region, and shade cover is vital.  

Read Next Appalachia’s iconic salamander was slated for federal protection. It’s still in limbo. Katie Myers

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in February, demanding the Fish and Wildlife Service complete its decisionmaking process. Since then, though, there’s been no movement, with the next regulatory step listed as “to be determined,” along with hundreds of other endangered species whose protections have been similarly delayed.

According to Michael Gangloff, who studies freshwater life at Appalachian State University, human development is the biggest threat to hellbenders. But, he said, they’re also fighters. 

“These things are tough, and the fact that they’re still here attests to their toughness,” he said. “They’re an ancient, ancient group of salamanders.”

— Katie Myers

A red-cockaded woodpecker feasts on a bug. USFWS Red-cockaded woodpecker

The southeastern United States used to be a red-cockaded woodpecker’s paradise, with longleaf pine forest stretching across much of the region. Unlike many other woodpeckers that hollow out dead trees to nest, these black-and-white-spotted birds live exclusively in the trunks of living pine trees. They spend months or years hollowing out a suitable cavity, and they prefer to do it in mature trees. 

But finding suitable trees has become much harder than it was a century ago. Much of the South’s longleaf pine forest was clear-cut for timber and replaced by faster-growing species of pine. Management practices vary, but commercial timber operations often cut and replant pines before the trees are mature enough for a red-cockaded woodpecker’s liking, according to Joe Burnham, a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. 

“They have pretty specific habitat requirements,” Burnham said. “There are a whole suite of species, both plant and animal, that evolved with this ecosystem over time that really have a hard time surviving elsewhere.”

Development is booming in Georgia, with much of the state’s forested land at risk of conversion to housing or more profitable forms of agriculture. The Trump administration’s policy changes, particularly its new definition of “harm,” could put red-cockaded woodpeckers at greater risk by removing protections for their habitat. As a result, more forests could become vulnerable to conversion, further shrinking the mature pine forests they rely on. 

Still, red-cockaded woodpeckers have made substantial strides since their 1973 Endangered Species Act listing, thanks in large part to efforts to restore longleaf pine habitat and transplant birds to suitable forests so they can reestablish themselves. In 2024, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service downlisted them from endangered to threatened. Despite the change, state- and region-level restoration efforts continue, Burnham said, because the woodpeckers need them — as do the long list of other endangered and threatened species that rely on the same habitat, including gopher tortoises and indigo snakes.

“We’re managing these stands for a multitude of species,” he said. “We’ve invested a lot of conservation effort into these species.”

— Emily Jones

The palila, seen here at the Maui Bird Recovery Project, is endangered and endemic to Hawaiʻi, found only in the wild on the slopes of the Mauna Kea volcano. Eric J. Franke / The Washington Post via Getty Images Palila

Hawaiʻi is losing its lush and unique biodiversity at a rate seen hardly anywhere else, earning it the depressing distinction of being known as the “extinction capital of the world.” It may be no surprise, then, that the palila — a small, yellow-capped parrot native to the Big Island — is a poster child of the Endangered Species Act. 

The palila was on the very first list of animals that the federal law protected. But conservationists soon discovered that protecting the bird itself was not enough; goats and sheep released on the island were denuding the high-elevation māmane forest that the parrot lives in. When they took the issue to court in 1979, federal courts agreed that allowing the palila’s habitat to be damaged was a violation of the Endangered Species Act and ordered the state to protect the forest from sheep and goats. The decision set a historic precedent and led to habitat protections for listed animals from industries — like mining, logging, and farming — across the United States. (The Supreme Court later cemented these protections.)

A biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service conducts a palila survey on Mauna Kea, Hawaiʻi. Emily Long / Mauna Kea Forest Restoration Project / USFWS

But the Trump administration is now upending the legal precedent that the palila once set. The court decisions meant that the Hawaiʻi government had an obligation to continually remove the feral sheep and goats that still roam in palila habitat. When a company or the state wants to build through these areas, it is often required to help offset that lost habitat by reforesting old ranch land with māmane trees. Under the Trump administration’s interpretations, however, damaging an animal’s habitat no longer counts as harming it. And killing an animal no longer counts as violating the law unless it was done on purpose. 

That means, in the administration’s view, it may now be legal to build a road through māmane forest without considering how it affects palilas. And the state may no longer be required to continue eradicating the remaining feral sheep and goats, which would hasten the bird’s demise. 

Only 600 palila still remain on the island. For a bird on the brink, the latest policy changes may accelerate its decline.

— Sachi Mulkey

A Chinook salmon migrates up Alaska’s Ship Creek in the company of pink, chum and silver salmon. Katrina Mueller / USFWS Chinook salmon

Every year, across Washington’s rivers and tributaries, hundreds of thousands of Chinook salmon sacrifice their lives for the next generation. They swim upstream for weeks, battling currents, starvation, and a flood of hormones that wreck their organs. Then they spawn — often in the river where they were born — and die. 

The completion of this journey is critical for tribal communities, commercial fisheries, and the wildlife of the Pacific Northwest that depend on salmon. But in the last century, salmon populations have plummeted. Humans have built dams and developed the land, degrading river ecosystems and blocking salmon from migrating. And recently, Washington has become the epicenter of another threat: 6PPD, a chemical used in vehicle tires that washes off roads into waterways and harms several fish species, including Chinook salmon.

The Endangered Species Act protects several area-specific populations of salmon found in Washington’s rivers, like Chinook, coho, sockeye, and chum. Environmental advocates have had success leveraging the law to protect these habitats. Dozens of dams in Washington and other Pacific Northwest states have recently been removed, and salmon populations seem to be bouncing back quickly as a result.  

But this recovery is still nascent and, as the Trump administration upends federal protections, it may be cut short. The government recently rescinded the law’s “harm” rule, which previously said modifying a habitat could be considered harming a species. Now, it only prohibits activities that kill salmon on purpose.

Read Next Salmon are vanishing from the Yukon River — and so is a way of life Max Graham

The change could devastate efforts to protect salmon, said Sean Bothwell, the executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. His organization recently began tackling 6PPD contamination in Northern California, but has had to pause these efforts because their legal strategy relied on the rescinded “harm” rule. The change may also mean dam operators can no longer be pressured to maintain adequate flows for salmon, a particular concern as climate change makes downstream areas too warm for spawning. 

“People aren’t going out there and stabbing salmon, but they are putting a chemical into the habitat that is directly killing them” or modifying their habitat by blocking the flow of rivers, Bothwell said. “That’s why this rule was so important.” 

— Sachi Mulkey

Editor’s note: Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump is gutting the Endangered Species Act. These 10 species show what’s at stake. on Oct 8, 2026.

Like many big cities, New York teems with delivery workers who bring takeout, groceries, and any number of other things to anyone with a cellphone. They work at all hours and in all conditions, often without job security, health insurance, or even access to safe restrooms. They are often hit by cars, assaulted, or robbed. Many of them are Indigenous people from Guatemala and Mexico who left home to escape violence and the impacts of climate change.

The worst impacts of that global crisis add to the risks those workers face.

“When the city is hit with with massive snowstorms, floodings, or the recent smoke fires, many deliveristas are the ones who are on the front lines doing this work and responding to the climate crisis in order to take care of New Yorkers,” said Ligia Guallpa, who is Kichwa and the co-founder and executive director of the Worker’s Justice Project and Los Deliveristas Unidos. The organization organizes app-based delivery workers and advocates on their behalf. “But the reality is that often they cannot even take care of themselves.”

A report released Monday says that exploitation is deeply embedded in the global food system, leaving many of the 1.4 billion people who produce, process, distribute, and deliver food poorly paid, inadequately protected, and vulnerable to abuse. Climate change and a global affordability crisis are intensifying those pressures, according to the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, or IPES-Food, an international food policy research organization.

Although the document does not specifically focus on Indigenous peoples, it finds that many of the forces driving that exploitation have roots in the colonialism, land dispossession, forced labor, and racialized labor systems that have long harmed Indigenous communities worldwide. 

“Here we are in the United States, a country that’s founded on stealing land and the import of enslaved people to be able to make agriculture and agricultural labor possible and cheap,” said Raj Patel, an IPES-Food expert and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “And the legacy of that is still with us.”

The report notes that Indigenous peoples remain particularly vulnerable to displacement, and pressures from industrial agriculture and climate change that can undermine traditional livelihoods. For people who have been forced off their land and are disconnected from those livelihoods, exploitative, low-paying work is often the only option. 

“If you put yourself in a situation of a woman who needs to feed her children, they can go to any extreme,” said Teresa Chemosop, who is Ogiek from Mount Elgon, Kenya, and the coordinator for the East Africa Indigenous Women-Led Assembly, which advocates for Indigenous women across the region. 

Read Next The people who feed America are going hungry Ayurella Horn-Muller

Chemosop said that Indigenous workers face severe discrimination and abuse, such as being compared to baboons and not being given utensils to eat with while working. That’s on top of low wages and long, difficult hours. 

Indigenous and intergenerational agricultural knowledge is routinely minimized or dismissed as “unskilled,” the report notes, obscuring valuable expertise and helping to justify lower wages. That knowledge, which often goes back millenia, includes skills like cultivating plant medicines and drought-resistant crops. The authors call for formally recognizing that expertise alongside broader efforts to strengthen worker rights and protections.

The people who keep the global food system running do far more than grow and harvest food. They distribute it to markets and restaurants, deliver it to homes and offices, and provide care work like cooking and feeding families, often in seasonal or subcontracted jobs. Between 60 and 80 percent of food workers are informally employed — a higher share than in any other industry — and they earn about half as much as those with conventional employment. About 30 percent of food system workers, or more than 400 million people, earn less than a living wage.

An estimated 2.1 million people in agriculture work under forced-labor conditions, the report estimates. Migrants, who account for about a quarter of all farmworkers worldwide, are three times as likely to experience such conditions and are more likely than their peers to die on the job.

Despite their importance in feeding the world, these workers do not receive the respect or protection other essential workers enjoy. Guallpa pointed to the pandemic, when nurses and doctors were widely praised even as food service workers remained largely anonymous. “Immigrant workers, who do some of the most dangerous, dirtiest jobs, often go unseen and often are invisibilized,” she said.

The report argues that valuing food work in all its forms, from the field to the table, is just one part of building a more just system. It also calls for building worker power, establishing and sustaining workplace protections, ensuring equal rights for migrant workers, and reining in corporate power. And it makes clear that there is a false choice between affordability and worker rights, arguing that better working conditions do not have to mean higher food prices.

“We can manage all of this, and we will have to manage all of this because climate change isn’t getting better,” Patel said. “But we have choices about protecting workers, and we’re choosing not to do any of those things.”

In New York, Los Deliveristas Unidos’ organizing provides a glimpse of what workers can accomplish. It has established mutual aid chat groups and helped win minimum wages and other protections. “It is possible to give gig workers or independent contractors the ability to earn better pay, to ensure that workers have better working conditions. It is possible to regulate multi-billion-dollar corporations,” Guallpa said. “There’s a lot more to do, but I think it can be applied in every city.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline From the farm to your door: How our global food system exploits workers on Oct 8, 2026.

'We poison our soils for efficiency' Channel Comment brendan 8th October 2026 Teaser Media

• Transportation used to be a relatively nonpartisan issue — see President Obama’s appointment of Republican Ray LaHood as his first transportation secretary, or George W. Bush tapping Democrat Norm Mineta — but not anymore. Sean Duffy and the rest of MAGA revel in revving V8 engines while attacking “DEI bike lanes,” suing over congestion pricing, and withholding funding for transit and pedestrian projects. (Bloomberg CityLab)
• It’s not just in the U.S. Worldwide, the far right is railing against sustainable transportation, according to Christian Wolmar. (Transport News)
• A recent poll shows that a Bay Area transit tax referendum only has 48 percent support. A majority are at least willing to consider decimating the region’s transit system. (SFGate)
• Michigan police are arresting immigrants on minor traffic and jaywalking charges, then turning them over to ICE. (Michigan Public)
• The Washington, D.C. city council approved $300 million for Metro improvements around the new RFK football stadium (Post). However, neighborhood residents are unhappy with a planned nine-story parking deck (The Cool Down).
• An Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributor argues that the city is obligated to build light rail along the Beltline because over 70 percent of voters approved it.
• Suburban Minneapolis communities are asking the Trump administration to help them get more local road funding. (Star Tribune)
• Can Boston’s electric trains replace overhead wires? (Grist; Streetsblog MASS)
• With 10 million riders as of late September, Seattle’s scooter- and bikeshare ridership is on pace to shatter last year’s record. (PubliCola)
• There’s a lot of tension in Minneapolis between drivers who are rudely blocking walkways and homeowners who are putting up homemade, nonenforceable no-parking signs. (Axios)
• Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is a big Minecraft fan. (The Ringer)

Every year, the Week Without Driving floods social media with stories of how punishing life without a car can be in America. And every year, I wonder whether that gives motorists the wrong message about how good life can be without driving at its center.

Don’t get me wrong: since advocates in Washington state first challenged their neighbors to hang up their keys in 2021, the Seattle-born event has become one of my favorite national advocacy campaigns. I love the way it pushes motorists to undertake a radical act of empathy that’s far harder to ignore than a policy brief — and when those motorists are also public officials, the initiative can be even more transformative. If I had my way, every mayor, councilperson and transportation leader in the country would have to do it, ideally for at least seven days out of every month. 

Now that this year’s Week Without Driving is coming to a close, though, I’ve found myself reflecting on what should come next — and what it will take for the Week Without Driving to become a celebration of the benefits of car-free transportation, rather than the challenges, and a call to action to demand more of them. Because as important as it is to condemn the conditions that put those advantages out of reach, our advocacy cannot stop there.

Recommended How the ‘Week Without Driving’ Helped CHI Elected Officials Understand The Challenges of Being Car-Free Cameron Bolton October 12, 2023

Here’s the thing: most U.S. residents have been undertaking an involuntary “week without active or shared transportation” challenge every week for their entire adult lives, give or take the walk to and from the parking lot. And while a recent study found that 53 percent of them want more mobility options than policymakers are delivering, a staggering 47 percent are apparently happy with the status quo.

To understand why, just look at the more negative entries from the Week Without Driving challenge. Missing sidewalks, near-miss bike crashes, buses that never come; it can all make getting around without a car look like nothing more than a gauntlet of dangers and indignities that only a masochist would willingly undertake.

Without an understanding of the universe of solvable, structural reasons why non-automotive transportation in America can suck so much — a universe that doesn’t fit neatly into a social media post — the campaign isn’t a particularly good advertisement for car-free living, or even skipping a single trip behind the wheel.

But it can be.

Recommended Transportation Reform Has an Imagination Problem Kea Wilson September 28, 2026

Invariably, my favorite Week Without Driving posts are those that name what’s wonderful about walking, biking and transit — and those that demand policymakers give us even more of the good stuff.

The specific amount of money saved on gas in just seven days. The extra chapters of the novel read on the train, instead of dodging road-raging drivers in the rush hour crawl. The precious memories made biking a kid to a neighborhood school, instead of plunking them in the back seat with an iPad. The subtle health benefits that start to accumulate with just a week of walking to work, but can snowball until they literally add years to your life.

These are the kind of stories that I love seeing during this campaign, and I wish I saw more of them.

Recommended Opinion: Slow Transportation Should Be a Human Right Kea Wilson August 12, 2022

What if next year, a whole flank of the Week Without Driving effort focused exclusively on places where forgoing driving isn’t a challenge, or on people who have happily done it for years? How can we reach people who are skeptical that joyful, car-free living is possible — and not just in the Netherlands or New York City, but in Tempe, Arizona, suburban Houston and other neighborhoods across America? How can we reach people for whom skipping short trips in a car would authentically make life better, if they only thought to try it?

And if it’s truly not possible to enjoy life without driving in your specific town, how can we give you a glimmer of how wonderful things could be — after a few achievable policy and infrastructure shifts that give you other options?

Recommended Bill McKibben Talks How Walking Can Help End the Climate Crisis — And Make Americans Happier Streetsblog October 31, 2023

Look, I won’t pretend that this type of positive framing would work for everyone, and the research on this stuff is incredibly mixed. If we’d prefer to go negative, though, why not aim that negativity at the mode of transportation that’s killing our neighbors, our budgets, our natural environment, and so much more?

After all, as soon as the Week Without Driving challenge ends, many US residents will begin the “51 Weeks of Forced Driving” challenge that’s functionally become our national default. That means an average of $1,025 month just to own, insure, and maintain a vehicle, plus the long list of other financial, social, emotional, planetary, and public health costs of near-compulsory mass car dependency.

It would not be hard to log a social media post every day documenting the downsides of constant driving that so many of us have no choice but to experience every day — and to start doing the hard work of denormalizing them.

The Week Without Driving should expose not just the injustices endured by people outside cars, but the joys they experience, too. But the real challenge is to help our neighbors imagine what else is possible for our transportation system – and to build the collective power necessary to bring it to life.

Imagine you’re a worker on the late shift, and you just finished your job for the day. Your car has been at the shop for two weeks; you still have to pay the repair bill, and the estimate the mechanic gave you was a staggering amount you just don’t have right now. There is a bus stop across from your apartment complex ,and the route even runs near your job. On paper, you have transit access — but your shift ended at 11 p.m., and the last bus left at 7 p.m.

So you stand in the parking lot and do the math. What an Uber costs at this hour. How much of tonight’s pay that will leave you to buy groceries and pay rent. Whether to text someone for a ride again, and how many times you’ve already asked this week.

There is a bus. It just won’t get you home.  

It takes very little to put someone in this position. Only 63 percent of U.S. adults said they could cover a $400 emergency expense entirely with cash or an equivalent. When your car goes, the bus is usually what’s left — even if it leaves you stranded. 

Legally, transit agencies that receive federal funding a Title VI equity analysis before implementing major service changes. This analysis compares how a proposed change will hit minority and low-income neighborhoods compared to everyone else. If the gap stays under a certain threshold, the change is allowed. If it doesn’t, the change can’t be made.

But Title VI requires agencies to measure whether the pain is shared evenly — not whether the bus runs at all. If everyone is equally stranded, the analysis comes back clean, the service cut goes into effect, and you and every other late-shift worker still be stranded in the parking lot at 11 p.m.

Recommended Advocates Warn Short-Term Transit Cuts Could Foreshadow Deeper Long-Term Slashing Kea Wilson September 29, 2026

To better understand “transit desserts” — or neighborhoods where the demand for transit exceeds the service provided — and what that label hides, I and my fellow researchers at Syracuse University recently conducted a study where we mapped transit access in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Nashville and Dallas. 

Our comparison flagged neighborhood after neighborhood in Philadelphia, specifically, as starved for shared mobility options, and many were far worse off than the rest of the cities. That is exactly what an equity analysis like Title VI is built to catch — at least in theory. 

But then we ran a basic service screen. We asked five basic questions about each neighborhood: Is there a transit route you can walk to? Is enough of the neighborhood within a walk of a stop? Does a bus come every 30 minutes at rush hour? Does service run at least 12 hours a day? Can you reach a decent number of jobs in 45 minutes? Fail three of those five tests, and the neighborhood is not being “served,” whatever the equity analysis says.

According to the results of this test, Philadelphia’s “transit deserts” disappeared. None of its flagged neighborhoods failed the screen. In Dallas, about four in ten did; in Nashville, more than half. 

Title VI, by contrast, asks whether a given service cut falls harder on some riders than others. It doesn’t ask whether what’s left is enough to get anyone to work. A cut can clear a Title VI test and still take away the last bus someone needed. And when you make enough of those cuts, eventually no one has a bus they can rely on.

Recommended Myth-Buster: Uber and Lyft Aren’t Addressing Transit Deserts John Greenfield November 24, 2020

In a car-dependent city, the logic behind a Title VI analysis can do something even worse: it can make the places with the worst transit service look the fairest on paper. 

In car-dependent regions, anyone who can find a way to buy, borrow, finance or keep a car has usually done it. Standard measures count neighborhoods with a high concentration of households that drive every day as “not needing transit.” Once almost everyone has been pushed into a car, the gap between neighborhoods’ relative “transit need” shrinks. 

What the numbers leave out is why: the people who could leave transit behind already did. 

The same cut lands differently depending on money and flexibility, too. Some riders call an Uber when the bus doesn’t come. Others wait longer, miss work, or don’t make the trip at all. A traditional equity analysis might miss that while transit deserts often look similar on paper, some of their riders might be hit harder by service cuts: a senior who no longer drives, a teenager getting to class, anyone whose car is stuck at the dealer.

Recommended Workers Remind Philadelphia Pols That Transit Cuts Kill Kea Wilson September 2, 2025

This isn’t a hypothetical. Just last month, TriMet in Portland eliminated or reworked 33 bus lines against an originally projected $300 million shortfall. Cleveland slashed its own service in August. 

Each cut is judged on its own. Nobody adds up how these cuts collectively impact low-income riders: a route gone here, a line cut short there, one defensible decision at a time.

Agencies will say late-night service costs too much for too few riders, and offer on-demand rides instead. Fine. But the van has to actually show up at 11 p.m. — and when it doesn’t, that has to impact how an agency grades itself. 

Fortunately, there is something any advocate can do right now. Every agency that receives federal funding files a Title VI Program, usually on its website. Look yours up. Does it promise when the buses will run, or just draw lines where the routes go? If it is only lines, tell your agency’s board to screen for basic service before the next service cut. 

A neighborhood should not count as “served” by transit just because a route exists on a map. The pipeline behind this analysis is open and runs on public data. Push them to run it for your city.

A city should not be able to pass its equity analysis while someone is still standing in that parking lot at 11 p.m.. A system that looks fair on paper only because it pushed everyone else into a car is not equitable.

With the help of RAFI’s Beginning Farmer Stipend, Aronson will purchase a small 4x6 enclosed trailer to hitch it to the farm’s SUV in order to transport more product to markets, which will make farmers market participation much more financially viable.

The post Ida Aronson appeared first on RAFI.

Cameron and his wife Terris now operate Brownstone Family Farms in Scranton, South Carolina, growing produce for their local farmers market.

The post Jason Cameron appeared first on RAFI.

Class’s Beginning Farmer Stipend will be used to rehabilitate and convert a stall in the property’s 60-year-old pole barn into a drying area for seed saving.

The post Deena Class appeared first on RAFI.

With the help of RAFI’s Beginning Farmer Stipend, Hunt will invest in improving housing for the homestead’s animals to support healthier living conditions and increase productivity.

The post LaShauna Hunt appeared first on RAFI.