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File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Ben Tracy, Climate Central

If you feel like your electricity bill just keeps climbing, you aren’t imagining it. Since 2020, U.S. residential energy prices have surged by about 30%, making power the largest household energy expense behind gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

But for residents like Alex Curtis, the days of feeling powerless against rising costs are coming to an end. Curtis is waging a war on his electric bill, and his new weapon of choice is a lightweight, thin-film solar panel.

“Oh, it’s super light too,” Curtis remarked as he unboxed the kit on the balcony of his condo in Sunnyvale, California. It weighs just about 10 pounds. 

The ‘plug-and-play’ revolution Unlike traditional rooftop solar, which requires thousands of dollars in upfront costs, specialized mounting hardware, and professional electricians, this system is designed for the everyday consumer. It’s a $400 kit from Bright Saver, a non-profit advocating for “plug-and-play” solar that works for renters and homeowners alike.

The setup is deceptively simple: you hang the panel on a balcony or prop it up in a backyard and plug it directly into a standard wall outlet.

“I did some rough math and this might save me like $30 to $50 a month,” Curtis said.

The magic happens behind the scenes. Once plugged in, a small inverter syncs the solar energy with the home’s existing electrical infrastructure. It took about 15 minutes to get it all set up. Bright Saver’s Rupert Mayer then pointed to a light on the inverter: “Ah, here it is, it’s blue.”

“This is it. Easy,” Curtis replied. Within minutes, he was generating his own clean energy. He estimates it will be enough to power an appliance like his refrigerator. 

Small panels, big impact

Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver, believes this technology is key to democratizing the green energy transition. It not only cuts an individual’s planet-warming pollution but also their electric bill. 

“Clean energy actually is the cheapest form of energy around,” Stryker said, “and we the consumers should be benefiting from that.”

While these panels won’t take a home entirely off the grid, Stryker says the units can trim monthly costs by 10% to 25% depending on how many panels a user installs. More savings can be had if the panels are paired with batteries that can store excess solar energy. 

“They cover a part of your energy bill and then you do need to draw the rest from the grid as you do now,” Stryker explained. 

The “Balkonkraftwerk” trend

While the technology is just gaining a foothold in the U.S., it is already a cultural phenomenon in Europe. In Germany, these systems are so common they have a specific name: Balkonkraftwerk, or “balcony power plant.”

An estimated 4 million balcony solar units are currently installed in Germany. The U.S., however, has been slower to adopt the tech, largely due to a patchwork of utility regulations and bureaucratic red tape. Utilities in some states have pushed back against the use of these systems citing potential hazards to the safety of the grid and line workers. 

“And that is patently ridiculous for these little systems,” Stryker said. “Those laws were intended for rooftop systems 5 to 20 times as large.”

A changing legal landscape

The tide is quickly turning. In 2025, Utah became the first state to officially authorize plug-in solar. Overall, 34 states and Washington, D.C., have introduced legislation to allow for use of the technology. It has passed in Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Virginia. 

For advocates like Stryker, it’s a matter of personal liberty: “It’s kind of like ‘don’t tell me what to do in my own backyard and on my own balcony.’”

As for Alex Curtis, he knows his Sunnyvale neighbors might have questions when they see the sleek panel hanging from his railing, but he’s focused on his newfound taste of energy independence. 

“I think that’s what gets me excited,” Curtis said. “Being able to power my own stuff and be self- sufficient like in baby steps which is pretty cool.”

Climate Central is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives. It is a policy-neutral 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Arctic Refuge Drilling Fails Again — Why Congress Must Repeal the Leasing Mandate 

On Friday, June 5, the Trump administration held its third oil and gas lease sale on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. For the third time, the results told the same story: no major oil company bid and the financial promise used to justify drilling in one of America’s last great wild places remained unfounded. 

Caribou on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge (Photo credit: Pam Miller)

Nine bids came in and just two entities placed them (AIDEA and Hex Energy). Total revenue was only $3,741,528 — less than 0.4% of the nearly $1 billion Congress claimed Arctic Refuge drilling would generate to offset the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. 

After three tries, across three lease sales, the cumulative return still hasn’t even reached 1% of what was promised. Arctic Refuge oil

What We Did to Get Here 

This moment didn’t happen in a vacuum. It is the result of years of sustained, coordinated advocacy — from Gwich’in Nation leaders, from conservationists, from faith communities, from everyday people across the country.

In the lead-up to Friday’s sale, our coalition mobilized on every front: 

More than 335,000 public comments were submitted from 22 different groups, directed at the administration, Congress, and the corporations that were being asked to participate in this sale.

126 national organizations signed on to a letter opposing the lease sale. So did 12 conservation and sportsmen’s organization CEOs, members of Congress, and faith and business leaders through the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.

The Gwich’in Steering Committee wrote directly to oil and gas CEOs requesting a meeting to hear directly from people whose homeland, whose food sovereignty, and whose cultural survival are at stake.

Community hearings in Portland, Seattle, Fairbanks, and Houston gave voice to the thousands of people who understand that the Arctic Refuge coastal plain — what the Gwich’in call the Sacred Place Where Life Begins — is not a line item in a budget reconciliation bill. It is a living landscape. It is the calving ground of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. It belongs to all of us, and most urgently, to the people who have called it home for thousands of years.

Community Hearing event in Portland, OR

Op-eds ran in the Anchorage Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Columbian. The film The Arctic: Our Last Great Wilderness screened in Leavenworth, Washington, days before the sale. Members of Congress — including Sens. Markey and Merkley and Reps. Huffman and Vasquez — spoke out publicly and forcefully in statements. Others like Rep. Vasquez and Sen. Heinrich showed up powerfully on social media. 

Why The Results Matter 

The financial argument for drilling in the Arctic Refuge has now failed three consecutive times. The world’s largest banks — Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo — walked away from financing Arctic Refuge drilling years ago. Major insurers declined to underwrite it. Oil companies with the technical and financial capacity to operate in one of the world’s most demanding environments looked at the cost structures, the accelerating permafrost instability, and the long-term demand outlook and passed. 

The only two bidders who showed up were a state development authority and a little-known company placing a handful of bids. 

As AWL Executive Director Kristen Miller put it in our statement: 

Economic gain was a false justification to permanently sell off the most ecologically and culturally significant landscapes in the United States. The American people don’t want this, the oil industry doesn’t want this, and our public lands deserve so much better.

But We Can’t Stop Here 

Friday’s sale was a market failure and a moral embarrassment, but the legal mandate that required it to happen is still on the books. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included a provision requiring the administration to hold lease sales in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain, regardless of market demand, taxpayer return, or the clear and consistent opposition of the Gwich’in Nation. 

That means another sale could happen. And another after that. 

That is why passing the Arctic Refuge Protection Act matters so much. Repealing the leasing mandate is the only way to ensure that these results are the last time we have to fight this fight.

Permanent protection for the coastal plain is what the Gwich’in Nation has asked for, what the ecological science demands, and what the market has now made undeniably clear.  

What Comes Next 

We need a Congress willing to repeal the leasing mandate. We need an administration committed to honoring the Gwich’in Nation’s rights and the public’s clear preference for protection over drilling. And we need to keep the pressure on, because the next opportunity to make permanent change will come, and we will be ready. 

Gwich’in members in front of the Capitol (Photo credit: Michael Block for the Arctic Defense Campaign)

Three failed lease sales. One clear conclusion: the Arctic Refuge coastal plain deserves permanent protection. Help us finish the job.

Take Action

 

Cover photo credit: Danielle Brigida, USFWS

07-02 * 13:00 - SE TG Meeting (Bea)

Dozens of countries have called out growing “coordinated attacks” by fossil fuel interests aimed at undermining the role of climate science in the UN negotiations at the mid-year talks in Bonn.

Under the banner of ‘Friends of Science’, in an overflowing press conference room lined with negotiators and civil society supporters, diplomats from Fiji, Nepal, the European Union, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Panama vowed to ensure that decision-making in the UN climate process remains based on the “best available science”. That includes reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate science body, they said.

While steering clear of singling out any specific country, they said efforts to cast doubt on established scientific concepts, such as the 1.5 global warming limit, are led by “the usual suspects” and those who think “science threatens their economic prospects”. 

Saudi Arabia and India have opposed calls in draft texts to encourage scientific work on scenarios that would minimise the magnitude and duration of any overshoot of 1.5C, according to one negotiator in the room and summaries of closed-door discussions published by a reporting service. 

UN chief António Guterres conceded last year that a temporary breach of the key warming limit is inevitable, while urging countries to redouble efforts to bring temperatures back down.

‘Polluted narrative’

Scientists have long established that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of man-made climate change and a rapid shift away from oil, coal and gas is essential to curb global warming.

Saudi Arabia is dependent on oil and gas exports, while India largely relies on coal to power its economic development.

One negotiator said that research on how climate action can be equitable for developing countries, produced by Indian universities, had been published too late to be incorporated into the last IPCC assessment report in 2023. This incident led the Indian government to try and discredit the IPCC, they said. Some Indian scientists have argued that the IPCC’s scenarios are unfair on developing countries.

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Saudi Arabia and India have played down the importance of making sure that the latest IPCC assessments – regarded as the gold standard of climate science – are available for the next global stocktake, the UN scorecard of climate action around the world. 

“Anyone that is blocking references to science – they are not our friends,” Sivendra Michael, lead negotiator for Fiji, told a press conference, highlighting the rise of a “polluted narrative” both inside and outside the negotiating rooms.

1.5C is a ‘hard limit’

Speaking for the AILAC coalition of Latin American countries, Panama’s Ana Aguilar said they went to Bonn to negotiate positions, not to negotiate the facts laid out by science.

“We see coordinated efforts to cast doubt on the best available science driven by a narrow set of interests, not by the needs of our people,” she added. “We have seen this playbook before… manufacture doubt, delay the response and let the vulnerable people pay this bill.”

Negotiators, researchers and civil society activists attend a press conference on defending science in the UN climate process in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2026. (Photo: Teo Ormond-Skeaping) Negotiators, researchers and civil society activists attend a press conference on defending science in the UN climate process in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2026. (Photo: Teo Ormond-Skeaping)

The ‘Friends of Science’ coalition stressed that the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement cannot be negotiated, as the survival of the most climate vulnerable communities is at stake if it is permanently breached.

“Science tells us that 1.5C is a hard limit for many countries, including the small island developing states and least developed countries,” said Manjeet Dhakal, a negotiator for Nepal. “We still have a chance to keep 1.5 degrees in reach and minimise the overshoot if we act fast and drastically.”

Long-running IPCC standoff

While diplomats claimed attacks on science are broadening, one long-standing issue of contention is whether the latest assessment reports of the IPCC will be ready in time for the next UN global stocktake due to start this November and end in 2028. 

This matters because, as some experts have pointed out, previous IPCC findings played a key role in the first such exercise, which culminated at COP28 in Dubai in the landmark agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it

Since the start of the latest IPCC assessment cycle, known as AR7, a battle over the timing has dragged on for over two years at successive IPCC meetings, with governments repeatedly failing to find a breakthrough. 

A large majority of nations have been pushing for an accelerated timeline that would ensure the AR7 reports can be fed into the UN’s global stocktake. But a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, China, Russia and Kenya, have said at previous IPCC meetings they want a longer process, arguing a fast-tracked assessment would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources.

Science and the stocktake

That fight has now bled into the Bonn talks where governments began discussing the arrangements for the next stocktake. At a session earlier this week, most developed countries, Latin American and small island states, and the world’s poorest nations emphasised the assessment of collective climate action must be guided by the “best available science” – code for the findings of the IPCC reports.

The Maldives, speaking for small island states, said IPCC science remains “essential to the integrity, credibility and usefulness” of the stocktake. AILAC said that starting the process “on the right footing” requires a political decision on the timeline to deliver the AR7 reports in time. Switzerland said IPCC reports “ask more than is politically comfortable, but that is precisely why they must guide every decision we make”.

Saudi Arabia, however, said no particular scientific input – and in particular what comes out of the IPCC – should be prioritised. Similarly, India warned against creating “some kind of preferred hierarchy” in the role that any specific source of information should play in the process.

Ghana’s Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, who chairs the African Group, told a press conference on Tuesday that some countries think rushing to get IPCC inputs into the global stocktake could “undermine or compromise the IPCC process”. “Africa is for science,” he said, without saying where the continent stands on the IPCC timeline.

Crunch talks in October

At the “Friends of Science” press conference, Dhakal pushed back on the idea that science would have to be rushed to be incorporated. He said the IPCC leadership has “perfectly made it clear” that they can deliver the report before the global stocktake. “It is the scientists who are saying they can deliver it on time,” he said. 

The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace) The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace)

The discussion will be picked up again at the next IPCC session in October, where its boss Jim Skea is hoping to reach an agreement. “As a scientist myself, I cannot overstate the importance of this decision,” he told governments in Bonn last week.

Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at campaigning group 350.org, told Climate Home News that the debate may sound procedural, “but it is anything but”. “Science is the backbone of the Paris Agreement ambition cycle, and the evidence assessed through AR7 will help determine not only the emissions pathways countries pursue, but also how the world responds to mounting climate losses and who receives support,” he said in Bonn.

The post Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

What if there were an educational program that could ignite a sense of wonder in middle school students, bring science to life in unforgettable ways, and nurture a stewardship ethic? That is precisely what the Sturgeon in the Classroom program is doing. It is transforming curiosity into connection, and connection into care for the natural […]

The hard work and dedication from our Mormon Slough Restoration Association, volunteers, community members, local partners and Restore the Delta Staff, by Flood and Land Restoration Manager Artie Valencia, was covered in a recent article by Lois Henry in SJV Water.

Our Mormon Slough restoration efforts are driven by a broad coalition including local organizations, Stockton residents, scientists, environmental experts, and Tribal leaders. As a 100% community driven project, voices of the community matter at every step. 

BLOCK QUOTE: “Valencia said the Mormon Slough project is a prime example of how a locally driven project can advance both community needs and broader Delta Conservation goals…”

The article highlights how since late last year, staff and volunteers have held over 70 community meetings, knocked on more than 3,000 doors and gathered feedback from Stockon residents on the possibilities behind restoring the Mormon Slough. Last month, dozens of community members gathered for our first visioning meeting, giving their input on potential designs and plans for the waterway.

To read more on the history of ths slough and our restoration efforts, you can read the article here. 

You can also get involved by joining us at our next visionion meeting on July 25 from 10am-2pm at The Sycamore (630 E Weber Ave, Stockton, CA 95202). This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments and lunch will be served at the meeting. 

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This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Seed saving is the practice of collecting and preserving seeds to produce future crops from past harvests, creating a cycle of cultivation that has sustained agricultural communities for millennia. For thousands of years, farmers and gardeners have saved seeds, preserving biodiversity, strengthening food-system resilience, and maintaining cultural traditions.

By continually selecting and replanting seeds, farmers developed crops adapted to local conditions while maintaining genetic diversity that can improve resilience to pests, disease. Seed saving can also help farmers recover from storms, droughts, and other extreme weather.

For many communities, saving seeds is deeply connected to culture, identity, and community life. Many developed sophisticated traditions for collecting, storing, exchanging, and stewarding seeds. “We cannot separate culture and identity from the art, act, and love of growing food,” Sherry Manning, Founder and CEO of Global Seed Savers, tells Food Tank

Seeds can also serve as living records of history. Accounts collected by seed-saving organizations tell of a Holocaust survivor who smuggled bean seeds out of Auschwitz in the folds of her clothing, and gardens cultivated by internees at Germany’s Ruhleben camp during World War I. Refugees fleeing the city of Daraa in Syria carried eggplant and pepper seeds across the border to Jordan and replanted them in exile.

In her essay “Black Land Matters,” Leah Penniman, Soul Fire Farm cofounder, activist, farmer, and author of Farming While Black,  describes West African women who braided seeds into their hair before being forced onto transatlantic slave ships. “The seed was their most precious legacy,” Penniman writes, “and they believed against odds in a future of tilling and reaping the earth.”

There is evidence that hunter-gatherer communities collected and cultivated wild seeds as early as 30,000 years ago. During the emergence of agriculture around 12,000 years ago, communities around the world began selecting and replanting seeds. They gradually transformed wild species into domesticated crops that remain central to global diets today, like wheat, lentils, chickpeas, rice, and sorghum.

Farmers remained at the center of selecting and improving seed varieties for most of agricultural history. “But about 100 years ago, that began to change,” Ira Wallace, Co-owner of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, tells Food Tank.

During the 20th century, mechanization, advances in plant breeding, and the growth of commercial seed companies profoundly reshaped agriculture. As food production became more centralized and food processing more prevalent, many farmers and gardeners shifted from saving seeds to purchasing them each season, and from local varieties to genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties.

A series of court decisions and regulatory changes in the 1980s and 1990s accelerated this shift by expanding intellectual property protections for seeds. Companies gained the ability to patent genetically engineered seeds, plant varieties, breeding methods, and genetic traits, transforming many seeds from a renewable and reusable resource for farmers into proprietary products governed by licensing agreements.

As seed companies consolidated, four firms came to control more than half of global seed sales. Supporters argue consolidation has increased investment in breeding and research, while critics contend it has contributed to the loss of locally adapted varieties. Roughly 75 percent of global crop genetic diversity has disappeared over the past century, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Patent protections generally prevent farmers from saving patented seeds, increasing reliance on commercial suppliers and narrow farmers’ options. Some researchers have also linked consolidation to rising costs; according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, soybean seed prices increased by more than 200 percent between 2000 and 2020, while consumer prices rose 57 percent during the same period.

In recent decades, concerns about biodiversity loss, climate change, and consolidation in the seed industry have renewed broader interest in seed saving. That resurgence has helped fuel a broader movement centered on seed sovereignty, the idea that farmers and communities should have the right to control over the seeds they grow, save, exchange, and develop.

In Kenya, the Seed Savers Network advocates for stronger protections for Indigenous seeds while partnering with smallholder farmers to identify, preserve, and reintroduce local varieties at risk of disappearing. In the Philippines, Global Seed Savers works with farmers to establish community-owned seed libraries stocked with regionally adapted varieties.

Other initiatives focus on returning seeds to the communities that stewarded them. Nonprofits including Seed Savers Exchange have worked to rematriate heritage seed varieties to Indigenous seed keepers, while Native Seeds/SEARCH conserves thousands of traditional Indigenous crops.

Seed banks and seed exchanges have also expanded worldwide. In Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault safeguards more than 1.3 million seed samples representing over 6,000 plant species. In eastern India, Vrihi maintains one of the region’s largest folk rice seed banks and promotes the practice of non-commercial seed exchange. The Crop Trust is dedicated to making crop diversity for use globally, forever and for the benefit of everyone, and operates genebanks worldwide.

Policymakers have also begun revisiting seed laws. In 2021, Maine became the first U.S. state to enshrine a right to food in its constitution, including the right to save and exchange seeds. And in 2025, Kenya’s High Court struck down provisions of the country’s seed law that penalized farmers for saving and sharing Indigenous seeds, a decision advocates described as a major victory for food sovereignty.

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 Vincenzo Tabaglio, Unsplash

The post Food Tank Explains: Seed Saving appeared first on Food Tank.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 12, 2026) –  As the Greater Philadelphia region prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors for FIFA World Cup matches and America 250  celebrations, Clean Air Council has launched an interactive digital map to help visitors and residents reach major events without driving. 

This map highlights event locations and shows public transit and biking options, helping you avoid traffic and parking hassles, reduce pollution, and explore Philly car-free. 

The map is hosted on the Clean Air Council’s website at gophillygo.cleanair.org.

“No one wants to spend their summer sitting in traffic and paying for expensive event parking,” said Titania Markland, Clean Air Council Sustainable Transportation Program Manager. “Traveling car-free to the Philadelphia region’s many events this summer is a win for attendee experience, your wallet, and the environment. We are excited to launch GoPhillyGo: Car-Free Routes to make car-free travel planning easy and fun.”

“The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is pleased to help fund this effort to make traveling around our region without a car this summer, and beyond, a bit easier, for visitors and residents alike,” said Stacy Bartels, Manager of TDM Strategy and Marketing. “Fewer cars on the roads means less traffic congestion and air pollution, which is good for everyone.”

The fun doesn’t stop at summer’s end. Clean Air Council plans to keep the map updated with events and travel information year-round to promote a sustainable, car-free lifestyle. For more information and to access the map, please visit: gophillygo.cleanair.org.

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.

Key developments Ocean talks 

MAKING WAVES: African and Commonwealth countries issued a “call to action” to implement the High Seas Treaty at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya this week, reported the Associated Press. The summit, which ends on 18 June, is focused on ocean issues including “climate change, biodiversity and pollution”, said the newswire. The UK government announced £13.9m in marine-related funding at the summit. 

OCEAN ‘STRAIN’: Climate change, pollution, overfishing and biodiversity loss are putting oceans under “severe strain”, according to a UN report. The third “world ocean assessment” noted that conservation efforts have also “grown”, including through “nature-based solutions, ecosystem restoration and sustainable management techniques”. Meanwhile, another UN report said that fisheries and aquaculture production reached an all-time high of 235m tonnes in 2024.

OBSERVATION ISSUES: Scientists told the Guardian that the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle a key ocean-observation system run by the US would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather forecasts around the world. Several Democratic and one Republican lawmaker pushed back against the plan to get rid of the system, reported the Associated Press. [For more, see the first edition of Cited, Carbon Brief’s newsletter on climate science.]

Plant and fungi update

OFF-KILTER: Plant flowering times have “shifted significantly” over the last century, according to an AI-assisted analysis of 8m “digitised herbarium specimens” in the latest “state of the world plants and fungi” report from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. The report stated there have been “both advances and delays” in flowering date, with a median shift of 2.5 days per decade in either direction. The greatest variation was observed in the tropics, it added.

‘NEW ERA’: The report highlighted that Kew recently completed a digitisation of 7.4m herbarium and fungarium specimens in its collection. The ongoing digitisation of specimens around the world, alongside AI technology, could “transform understanding of biodiversity loss and climate change and pave the way to resolving these seemingly intractable crises”, it said.

EXTINCTION RISK: In its coverage of the report, the Guardian said that AI and digitalisation could help scientists document “vital” plant species “before they vanish”. About 40% of the world’s “assessed” 70,000 plant species are at risk of extinction, while a further 330,000 are yet to be analysed, according to the newspaper. The situation for fungi is “even more stark”, it reported, with 90% of an estimated 2m species still “unknown to science” and less than 1% of known species assessed for extinction risk.

News and views

• BEEF TRACKS: A “landmark” law in Colombia requiring the beef industry to prove supply chains are deforestation-free has taken effect, reported the Associated Press. The measure is part of efforts to “reverse decades of forest loss, much of it driven by the expansion of cattle ranching into previously forested areas”, noted the newswire. 
• CONTINGENCY PLAN: With El Niño conditions officially confirmed as underway, the Indian government called for an “overhaul” of agricultural districts’ plans for managing the impact of below-normal rainfall on crops, reported Down to Earth. Around 150-200 districts have been identified as “most critical” based on projections, the outlet noted.
• MEATIER: Global meat supply has increased fourfold in the past six decades, according to a UN report covered by the Guardian. Agriculture’s “planet-heating emissions are forecast to rise by 7.6% over the next decade” as food production continues to grow, the newspaper said. 
• TREES, NOT TARMAC: Kenya’s former chief justice, David Maraga, was among a number of protesters arrested in Nairobi for demonstrating against plans to turn 75 acres of Nairobi National Park into a car park, reported Kenya’s Daily Nation. Demonstrators were en route to deliver a petition to Kenya’s Wildlife Service when they were interrupted by anti-riot police officers, according to the newspaper.
• MANGROVES BACK, ALRIGHT: A new study covered by BBC News found that mangrove forests are “staging an unexpected comeback” globally. The broadcaster said mangroves had been “declining rapidly as they were cleared for fish farms and housing”, but the world is now “gaining more mangroves than it has been losing”. 
• ‘LIMITED’ PROGRESS: Some 59% of the world’s largest financial institutions do not have a deforestation policy in place, according to the latest “forest 500” report from Global Canopy. The report – which assesses the 150 financial institutions that provide the most financing to the 500 companies with the “greatest influence” on deforestation – described finance sector progress on forest loss in 2025 as “limited”.

Spotlight Coral reef ‘hope’ 

This week, Carbon Brief reports on research estimating coral reef resilience. 

New research offers a sliver of “hope” that 30% of the world’s coral reefs could be “resilient” against the harmful effects of climate change. 

The study, which is in the final stages of peer review and due to be published soon, identified swathes of reefs that have the best potential to withstand and recover from marine heatwaves and other stressors. 

Climate change is a major threat to the survival of coral reefs. In a 2018 report, the UN’s science body warned that reefs could decline by an additional 70-90% at 1.5C of warming and as much as 99% under 2C.

The areas of potentially resilient reefs identified in the new study span almost 166,000 square kilometres – an area twice the size of Scotland. 

These reefs are spread across 71 countries and 100 territories, but 61% are found in the territorial waters of just five nations – Australia, the Bahamas, Cuba, Indonesia and the Philippines. 

The lead study author, Dr Kyle Zawada from Macquarie University in Australia, told Carbon Brief that the research shows the areas that could most likely “persist through climate change”. He added:  

“[Coal reefs] are obviously in dire straits – but that’s not to say there are not pockets of resistance and pockets of resilience.”

Fewer than 30% of the reefs deemed to be the most climate-resilient are contained in protected or conserved areas, the study noted. 

The map below shows a snapshot of the findings, highlighting the Great Barrier Reef off the north-eastern coast of Australia. The light pink areas are regular reefs, while the slightly darker pink are “climate-resilient” reefs. 

Map of coral cover at the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Source: SkyTruth Reef maps

The team, led by researchers from Macquarie University and the Wildlife Conservation Society, used the findings from more than 45,000 research surveys on corals over 1960-2025 in modelling simulations to create a map of coral cover around the world in 2020 and projections for 2050.

The modelling looked at various scenarios of future emissions and the researchers developed criteria to determine which reefs could be best positioned to survive or recover from extreme events and higher temperatures.

This specified that, for example, larger-sized reefs and those with a wide diversity of coral species tend to be more resilient than smaller areas with a lower variety of coral. 

Zawada told Carbon Brief that the study does not replace real-life observations of how reefs respond to extremes. But, he added, it offers a “good guess” of areas to protect: 

“It would be nice to say that there are these little reefs of hope, obviously with the massive asterisks that this doesn’t mean that these ones are out of the woods…and to sort of use that as a rallying call for us to take that hope forward and have a look at these reefs.” 

Watch, read, listen

WAY DOWN: An interactive article in the New York Times detailed the ongoing “quest” to mine the deep sea. 

‘PING-PONG SPONGES’: The Guardian delved into the “secrets of the deep sea”. 

DENTAL DAMAGE: A dentist wrote about how “extreme heat is turning Pakistani farmworkers’ mouths into hostile environments for their own teeth” in the Earth Island Journal.  

‘PIG ELECTION’: DeSmog explored the impacts of Denmark’s plans to “radically overhaul its drinking water policy as part of a raft of sweeping reforms to the country’s livestock industry”.  

New science

• Lower rainfall levels, driven by deforestation, led to a reduction in soya bean production in southern Brazil over 1982–2018 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• A “partial ecosystem collapse scenario” that considers changes to tropical timber, wild pollination and marine fisheries services could increase the annual debt-servicing costs of 23 countries by $162bn | Nature Ecology & Evolution
• Around 7% of the global population of Tapanuli orangutans – the “world’s rarest ape” – was killed after extreme rainfall led to “widespread landslides” in Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2025 | Current Biology

In the diary

• 19 June-27 June: London climate action week 
• 21 June: Colombian presidential elections (second round)
• 22-26 June: 26th meeting of the UN open-ended informal consultative process on oceans and the law of the sea | New York City 
• 30 June-4 July: 4th meeting of partners of the Global Peatlands Initiative | Lima, Peru

Cropped 3 June 2026: Highway through the Amazon | El Niño impact | State of CO2 removal

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03.06.26

Cropped 20 May 2026: Deforestation roadmap | Melanesian Ocean Summit | Returning pet parrots to the wild

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20.05.26

Cropped 6 May 2026: Forest loss falls | Deforestation regulations | Saving ‘India’s Galapagos’

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06.05.26

Cropped 22 April 2026: Global food ‘catastrophe’ | BECCS emissions | UK solar farm controversy

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22.04.26

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The post Cropped 17 June 2026: Coral reef ‘hope’ | Ocean talks | Plant flowering times ‘shift’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Having humans nearby is a double-edged sword for rare, charismatic species.

On the one hand, humans are often the biggest threat, either indirectly by destroying habitat, or directly through poaching and wildlife trafficking. On the other side, the regular presence of people such as tourists and police can be the best defense against the depredations of other humans.

The gorillas of Cameroon’s Dipikar Island encapsulate both sides of this story. For years, poaching depleted their numbers, leaving the animals skittish and unwelcoming when humans approached. But new research shows that even gorillas battered by these human incursions can learn to accept well-behaved people, and the protection that comes with them.

The new work, published earlier this year in the African Journal of Ecology, shows that “gorillas have the capacity to distinguish between threatening people, such as poachers, and non-threatening people, such as researchers and tourists,” says lead author France Anougue, a Ph.D. student at Concordia University in Montreal. Without the daily presence of such people “these populations will become exposed to harm very quickly.”

That doesn’t mean such tolerance came quickly or easily. Scientists working in other parts of Africa have found that gorillas can become accustomed to having people nearby in as little as 28 months. But that research happened in protected areas with populations that hadn’t endured intensive poaching. When scientists in Cameroon began their work with a group of 12 gorillas, it wasn’t clear the animals there would be so accepting.

The change took years. From 2011 to 2014, researchers backed by the conservation group the World Wildlife Fund, which has promoted gorilla-related tourism, tracked this gorilla band from a distance to understand their movements and habits. The extended gorilla family they followed included a single senior male—a so-called silver back, and depending on the year, 3 or 4 adult females, 1 or 2 subadults, 2 to 3 juveniles and 1 to 3 infants.

 

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Starting in 2015, scientists and local trackers started trying to get closer to the gorillas, and to monitor the animals’ reactions. The people would approach the gorilla group while clacking their tongues or snapping their fingers to draw attention. As soon as the animal’s noticed them, the people would mimic gorilla-eating behavior and acting in a “neutral” way, the scientists wrote.

In the first few years, the gorillas greeted the people with shows of aggression nearly 30% of the time. More than 30% of the time they responded with fearful behavior. They rarely showed curiosity or indifference.

But as the years went by and the research continued, those patterns gradually flipped. By 2022, 7 years after starting, the gorillas rarely showed fear or aggression when people were nearby. Rather, they showed curiosity more than 30% of the time and disinterest roughly the same amount.

“We also observed this tolerance in younger gorillas, suggesting that behaviour is learned from other members of the group,” says Anougue. “Gaining their trust was not easy.”

These increased encounters with benign humans, paired with stepped-up poaching patrols, were also accompanied by a decline in poaching activity. Signs of poaching such as gunshots, bullet casings and campsites fell roughly by half between 2015 and 2022. Still, it’s not clear to what degree this decline in poaching was the result of the researchers’ presence or the related increase in poaching patrols and local awareness of the conservation work.

For Anougue, the results show the behavioral resilience of gorillas, which can overcome past traumas and learn to tolerate nearby people. That, in turn, could help better both their chances of survival and the economic fortunes of nearby humans. “This research shows that protecting gorillas promotes biodiversity,” she said, “and local communities benefit from the economic spinoffs of increased ecotourism.”

Anougue, et. al. “Habituation as an Effective Conservation Tool for Western Gorillas in Areas With a History of Poaching.” African Journal of Ecology. April 28, 2026.

Photo: USAID Biodiversity & Forestry via Wikimedia

On quiet streets across the Californian city of Monterey Park, green-and-white “YES on Measure NDC” signs stood on front-yard lawns as volunteers walked door-to-door, drumming up support among residents to vote in favor of a ban on new data centers in their area.

They clarified the ballot wording in English, Spanish and Chinese, while distributing multilingual flyers warning about the rise in electricity demand, industrial infrastructure and environmental impacts associated with AI-related data center development.

Less than a month later, on June 2, Monterey Park voters overwhelmingly approved the ban in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, with 86.4% voting in favor and 13.6% opposed, according to county election results.

Social opposition to data centers is on the rise, especially in the US, as artificial intelligence (AI) and the technology hubs needed to support it stoke competition for electricity, water and land in communities where they are based. Industry advocates say data centers bring economic benefits and do not always result in higher power prices for households.

A front-yard sign encourages Monterey Park residents to vote “YES on Measure NDC” (No Data Centers) in the San Gabriel Valley, LA County on May 9, 2026 (Photo: Kristen Mayol) A front-yard sign encourages Monterey Park residents to vote “YES on Measure NDC” (No Data Centers) in the San Gabriel Valley, LA County on May 9, 2026 (Photo: Kristen Mayol)

The result in Monterey Park made it the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centers through a voter-approved ballot measure.

“This week our city has been celebrating the landslide results from Measure NDC,” Monterey Park Mayor Elizabeth Yang said in a phone interview.

On social media, Yang described the city’s response as the result of sustained resident organizing and civic engagement. “We want to fulfill our duty of listening to residents,” Yang told Climate Home News.

A community campaign takes shape

The vote came after months of public testimony, neighborhood outreach and organizing surrounding a proposed data center project on Saturn Street in Monterey Park. Here, developers planned to replace an existing commercial office building with a nearly 50-megawatt data center intended to serve growing demand for AI computing.

Supporters of Measure NDC (Measure No Data Centers) argued that keeping this, and other such centers, out of their community would help protect air quality, drinking water resources, public health and local infrastructure.

According to CoStar News, a real estate information platform, the backers of the Saturn Street project – Digico Infrastructure REIT and HMC Capital’s StratCap – had already withdrawn their planning application on April 3 amid growing local opposition and regulatory uncertainty, including the city’s decision to place a data center ban before voters.

Subsequently, on April 20, the Monterey Park City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting all data centers within the city limits.

Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?

Company representatives later said they would explore future “productive land uses … supported by the broader community”. Potential alternatives discussed publicly have included housing, although no formal proposal has been submitted.

Reuters reported in May that DigiCo Infrastructure, an Australian company, was exploring “monetisation options” for its two Los Angeles sites after rowing back on the Monterey Park proposal. DigiCo is also selling its Chicago data center for $750 million to pay down debt and fund the development of another site in Sydney.

DigiCo and HMC Capital did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Potential local benefits of data centers

Industry lobby groups argue that data centers can provide economic benefits to host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents major operators and developers, data centers generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.

The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households. A recent report by energy consulting firm Energy + Environmental Economics (E3), commissioned by the coalition, found no historical evidence that data centers had driven up residential electricity rates under existing utility pricing structures. It argued that factors including inflation, grid modernization costs, natural gas price volatility and investments in wildfire resilience have played a bigger role in rising electricity bills.

According to E3, large users can, under certain regulatory frameworks, reduce prices for other customers by contributing more revenue to utilities than they cost to serve. In a previous analysis of Amazon data centers, the consultancy found that payments from the facilities exceeded the incremental costs incurred by utilities. The report also noted that regulators across the US have increasingly adopted specialized pricing structures as data center demand has expanded.

An aerial photo shows the Alibaba Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center in Hangzhou, China, on April 11, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) An aerial photo shows the Alibaba Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center in Hangzhou, China, on April 11, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) Hefty carbon, water and land footprints

The concerns raised in Monterey Park mirror debates over the environmental and infrastructure demands of AI being heard in many countries around the world, from Europe to North America and Asia.

This month, a UN report estimated that the data centers required for AI globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 – roughly twice France’s 2025 power consumption.

This, it calculated, would have a carbon footprint needing some 6.7 billion trees grown over 10 years to offset, a water footprint equal to the annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a land footprint of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area. 

In a 2026 report, Key Questions on Energy and AI, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that electricity consumption from AI-focused data centers grew by approximately 50% in 2025 alone.

It warned that “social acceptability is also a growing issue, as communities push back against data center projects”, citing concerns about environmental sustainability, electricity affordability, infrastructure strain and democratic participation in land-use decisions.

Global data center electricity consumption by sensitivity case, 2020-2035

Left axis shows terawatt hours. (IEA: Licence CC BY 4.0) Left axis shows terawatt hours. (IEA: Licence CC BY 4.0)

AI-focused facilities consume substantially more electricity than traditional data centers and often require extensive supporting infrastructure, including cooling systems, industrial electrical equipment, backup generators running on diesel and large-scale energy storage systems.

The IEA also noted that operators are increasingly exploring onsite natural gas generation and battery infrastructure to maintain electrical reliability as AI workloads intensify.

Local concern over industrial infrastructure

Samuel Brown Vazquez, an East San Gabriel Valley community organizer, said doubts about the proposed data center in Monterey Park were informed by broader debates over industrial development in the area.

Brown cited community opposition to proposals that could bring battery energy storage facilities – and potentially data centers – to the former Puente Hills Mall site  in the City of Industry, where residents have raised concerns about pollution, fire risks, and the impacts of new industrial infrastructure on nearby residential neighborhoods and schools.

Many viewed the campaign as part of a larger conversation about how communities should respond to the rapid expansion of AI-related infrastructure across Southern California.

Power-hungry AI data centres seen driving demand for fossil fuels

According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data center projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 amid increasing local opposition.

Mayor Yang wants Monterey Park’s experience to encourage other communities to take a more active role in decisions about AI-related infrastructure. “We’re hoping other cities can follow similarly in banning data centers with proposed ballot measures,” she said, adding that whether such efforts succeed elsewhere will depend in part on how local officials respond to residents’ concerns.

Materials for the “Yes on Measure NDC” campaign, May, 2026 (Photos: Kristen Mayol) Materials for the “Yes on Measure NDC” campaign, May, 2026 (Photos: Kristen Mayol)

The new UN report this month called on governments and companies to address AI’s environmental impacts proactively to ensure that the technology develops sustainably and its benefits are shared fairly.

Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, who led the investigation team for the report, said AI “is a technological transformation that is improving the lives of billions of people around the world”. But, he added, it must be used “responsibly”.   

“We have a narrow window to ensure that the backbone of the technological revolution of our era develops within planetary limits, and that the communities who provide the critical minerals for advancing AI and the ones that host its infrastructure and e-waste are also among those who benefit from it,” he said.

This story was developed, reported and produced under the Covering Climate Now (CCNow) Climate Journalism Student Mentorship, which connects USC student journalists with professional newsrooms in CCNow’s global network. Participants receive training, editorial mentorship, and the opportunity to report and publish original climate stories with partner outlets while being paid professional freelance rates.

The post The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI appeared first on Climate Home News.

In January 2025, the Trump administration began shutting down projects within the EPA’s independent science division that touched on climate change and environmental justice. Air quality researcher Thomas Luben, who had worked at the agency for 18 years, was fired for objecting.

Read more on E360 →

Spring Magazine spoke with legendary independent filmmaker and author John Sayles and producer Maggie Renzi on their recent visit to Toronto for Declarations of Independence:...

The post “If it’s in life, it should be in the movies”: An Interview with John Sayles & Maggie Renzi  first appeared on Spring.

When Congress approved a $1 billion Energy Resilience Fund for Puerto Rico in 2022, the money was desperately needed. Multiple hurricanes had battered the island’s notoriously fragile electric grid, and lawmakers envisioned the money supporting rooftop solar and battery systems that could provide resilient backup power during emergencies.

The Biden administration’s Department of Energy developed a plan to distribute the funds to about 40,000 low-income Puerto Ricans, many of whom live with health conditions requiring access to reliable power. Biden officials envisioned a network of solar and battery systems that would keep medically vulnerable Puerto Ricans safe during storms and reduce reliance on the island’s unstable grid.

The Trump administration has different ideas.

The plan all but disappeared after President Trump took office last year. Trump’s DOE has since redirected a large share of the funds to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, the bankrupt utility that operates the island’s grid. The money is now poised to shore up PREPA’s fleet of power plants, which largely run on fossil fuels, and $50 million will fund a new natural gas pipeline. The administration has defended the decision by arguing that PREPA’s infrastructure improvements will ultimately benefit a broader swath of the island’s population.

The process by which Trump’s DOE unilaterally redirected the resilience funds, seemingly against Congress’ intent, has so far been shrouded in secrecy. But public records obtained by Grist under the Freedom of Information Act shed new light on how Trump’s political appointees engineered the change. The documents show that the DOE gave PREPA unusually favorable treatment, in part by soliciting no competing bids for the funds, fast-tracking the review process, and using Trump’s executive order announcing an “energy emergency” as the justification for the award. 

Read Next Trump is trying to kill clean energy. The market has other plans. Matt Simon

Most eyebrow-raising, perhaps, was the way that the DOE waived its typical requirement that grant recipients pony up substantial funding of their own to contribute to project costs. Exceptions are sometimes made for indigent recipients or economically distressed communities, but for large organizations such as PREPA — which has nearly $4 billion in annual revenue — the agency typically requires a 50 percent cost share. 

In PREPA’s case, the DOE accepted just a 1 percent cost share, noting that the utility was under “significant financial stress” and that waiving the cost-share requirement is “necessary in order to provide a more stable foundation for Puerto Rico to begin to perform long-term energy planning and repairs.”

Some critics who have worked at the agency in the past are unsatisfied with this explanation.

“The 1 percent cost share is potentially unprecedented for a DOE award of this size, and to a recipient with this much cash flow,” said a former Biden administration DOE official, who spoke under condition of anonymity due to concerns it would affect their current employment. The former official noted that in order for such an exception to be legal, it must have been made by the secretary of energy, Chris Wright, himself. “Congress decreed that cost-share waivers are only supposed to be available via a secretarial determination. They weren’t intended to be used often, and they haven’t been.” 

A spokesperson with the Office for Electricity at the DOE said that the agency “carefully evaluated procurement options and determined that a noncompetitive, sole-source award to PREPA was justified” and that achieving the goals of the energy resilience fund required the use of PREPA. The spokesperson acknowledged that the “reduction from the standard 50 percent cost share is significant,” but noted that the determination was made under authority provided by the Energy Policy Act. 

“PREPA continues to face severe fiscal constraints while maintaining responsibility for critical generation and transmission infrastructure,” the spokesperson said. “Requiring a 50 percent cost share would not have been feasible and would have delayed urgently needed grid stabilization and repair activities, undermining the core purpose of the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund.”

The agency seemed well aware that its decision to award the funds to PREPA without considering competing applicants — and without seeking congressional approval for reallocating the funds from their intended use — would likely draw scrutiny. A section titled “Sensitivities” in a memo drafted by the head of the agency’s Grid Deployment Office highlighted that the decision to waive a 30-day congressional notice period, not seek other bids, and “the cost-share reduction may generate negative commentary, as the initial monies were planned to fund solar installations for multi-family housing (limited to common areas), community-based healthcare facilities.” The memo also went on to state that the “sole source designation to PREPA may raise objections to fairness, and perceived undue favoritism.” (“Sole source designation” is the term of art for a noncompetitive award to a single vendor.)

Puerto Rico’s electric grid has long been fragile. The average resident on the island experienced more than 70 hours of outages in 2024. When Hurricane Maria made landfall in 2017, the island’s more than 3 million residents lost power for weeks. It took PREPA more than nine months to restore power to some parts of the island. In the aftermath of the deadly disaster, Congress allocated more than $17 billion to modernize the grid. But almost a decade later, PREPA has completed very few projects with that massive influx of funding, and the utility has continued to navigate bankruptcy proceedings since 2017. The resilience funds being redirected to PREPA are in addition to this earlier allocation. The DOE memo acknowledges these issues, noting that “all parties involved are in less than desirable financial condition.” 

“It is really surprising that DOE would plan to send these sums to PREPA itself, given its record of federal spending,” the former Biden administration official added.

Still, Trump’s DOE came to the conclusion that PREPA was best suited to receive the funds. The memo argued that even if the agency had undergone a time-consuming competitive process — one that would have taken 18 months — it would have ultimately selected PREPA because the operator has sole ownership of the island’s grid. “Given the urgency of the situation, there is no other entity in Puerto Rico with the breadth of capability, asset ownership, and legal mandate to execute energy emergency response, grid stabilization, and recovery projects at this scale,” according to the document.

Read Next Solar was poised to help Puerto Ricans survive blackouts — until Trump axed nearly $1B in funding Naveena Sadasivam

Last month, more than 40 congressional Democrats sent Secretary Wright a letter demanding to know why the agency had redirected the resilience funding. The lawmakers asked for a briefing that would detail the agency’s justification for moving funds to PREPA. 

“DOE’s lack of transparency, wasteful reuse of the funding, disregard for congressional intent, and potentially illegal cancellation of contracts — combined with the resulting increase in energy poverty and loss of energy security — raise serious questions about the Department’s uses of the Puerto Rico-Energy Resilience Fund,” the letter said. 

The lawmakers were particularly concerned about the funds being used to build a natural gas pipeline. On its website, the DOE does not detail funding of the pipeline directly but instead refers to the project as “fuel supply security between San Juan and Palo Seco.” In internal documents, however, the DOE plainly notes that it intends to allocate $50 million to construct a natural gas pipeline. According to reporting in El Nuevo Día, a Puerto Rican publication, local authorities have already been working on building a natural gas pipeline connecting power stations in San Juan and Palo Seco, which is about 9 miles away. 

“Trying to force a liquefied methane pipeline project onto the people of Puerto Rico would help lock in the need to import fuels — keeping methane gas prices exorbitant for decades to come, putting ratepayers on the hook for funding it, and adding to already astronomical electricity costs,” the lawmakers’ letter reads. 

toolTips('.classtoolTips7','A powerful greenhouse gas that accounts for about 11% of global emissions, methane is the primary component of natural gas and is emitted into the atmosphere by landfills, oil and natural gas systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, and wastewater treatment, among other pathways. Over a 20-year period, it is roughly 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside the government’s push to divert Puerto Rico solar funds to a bankrupt utility on Jun 17, 2026.

Georgia’s legislature has allotted $2 million for the first year of the Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund. Farm landowners across the state have applied for a piece of that funding to protect their land from development — for housing, warehouses, data centers, and other uses. Applicants will find out in August if they’ve been selected.

Some 30 states have what are known as “purchase of agricultural conservation easement” programs, though the amount of funding varies a great deal from state to state. Texas allocates $2 million annually, while Florida set aside $300 million in 2022 and $100 million in 2024. Georgia’s law, modeled after these initiatives, was passed in 2023, established a formal program to coordinate federal, state, and local match funding, and created an advisory council to review and approve proposals. The legislature passed the initial round of funding in 2024, and the first round of applications closed May 20.

The easements allow landowners to sell the future development rights for their land to an organization, like a land trust. An appraisal process determines the value of those development rights, and the farmer and easement holder negotiate the details of their agreement. The landowner receives an upfront payment, half of which comes from the state funds. The rest is match funding, which could come from a land trust, local government, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which allocates $450 million annually to match dollars in state conservation programs. The landowner can continue farming, growing and harvesting timber, or however else they use their land. They can even sell the land — just not to a developer who will turn it into housing, a strip mall, or an industrial site.

“It’s a compelling alternative to our farming landowners that are feeling a lot of financial crunch and are just being inundated with offers for selling out,” said Katherine Moore, president of the Georgia Conservancy, which advocated for the new state fund.

Those offers to sell can vary widely, depending on location, development plans, and many other factors. Prices in the sale of transitional land — property changing from one use to another — ranged from just over $6,000 to more than $260,000 per acre in 2025, according to a report by Saunders Land, a real estate brokerage and management firm. The value of a conservation easement varies widely too for similar reasons, though a landowner would typically receive less money for an easement than they would in an outright sale, since they’re selling rights rather than the land itself.

One such farmer is Russ Moon, who grows corn, soybeans, and strawberries and raises cattle on his family farm in Madison County, Georgia, outside of Athens. His family has worked that land for four generations, around 100 years. He wants to keep it that way and pass the farm on to his kids one day. Moon said he’s watched more housing and development come to the area over the years. It’s appealing to many, he said, to live near the University of Georgia in Athens and also enjoy the bucolic rural setting. Other farms around him have already sold, he said, and he’s worried that if left unchecked, the development rush will fundamentally change the community.

The irrigation system waters a field on Russ Moon’s family farm outside Athens, Georgia. Russ Moon

“Selling the land is really not an option,” he said of his own plans. “I intend on remaining in agriculture for as long as possible.” 

Moon said he’d only sell if forced to. But that could happen someday, for him or for his kids when they take over. Farming can be an unstable business, subject to weather and changing crop prices and global markets.

“There may be a day where they have to sell, but I don’t want the land to be developed,” he said. “That’s my desire, that’s my family’s desire.”

Some of Moon’s land is in a conservation easement, which he entered into directly with a land trust in 2019. The state’s new conservation fund aims to protect more land in a similar way by providing state funding to help facilitate such deals. 

It’s a critical step, said Moore of the Georgia Conservancy.

“It is unprecedented for Georgia to have such a program, which is a little wild when you think that, you know, agribusiness in total is our number one economic engine in the state,” she said.

Even though agriculture is Georgia’s leading industry, farmers face mounting pressure to sell to developers. The state could lose some 800,000 acres of farmland by 2040, according to the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

“That means 10 percent of our farmland will be gone in the next 15 years or so,” said state agriculture commissioner Tyler Harper. “And that’s a staggering statistic.”

That’s a concern not only because farms provide food and jobs and are a big part of the state’s economy, but also because of the potential climate impacts. 

Converting farmland to other uses can increase greenhouse gas emissions, according to the American Farmland Trust. Topsoil often has to be removed to pave the land, releasing the carbon that’s stored in it. Uses like low-density residential development or industrial operations often produce more emissions than farming. Conservation easements, on the other hand, can encourage farming and management practices that sequester more carbon, and they often protect non-agricultural land adjacent to fields — like woods and wetlands.

State leaders often tout the booming economy, proudly calling Georgia the number one state to do business. But that gives Moon pause.

“The whole time we keep being the number one place to do business, we’re hurting our number one industry,” he said. That damage could be permanent. “Once you develop a piece of property, you’re never going to — it’s never going to go back. You lose farmland, it’s gone forever,” Moon said.

He hopes that getting more farmland into conservation can help maintain some balance before it’s too late.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia is losing farmland fast. Is a state conservation fund enough to save it? on Jun 17, 2026.

The COP31 co-presidents had the idea right on global electrification targets. They got the measurement wrong.

The post We’re targeting 35 pct electrification in less than 10 years – but 35 pct of what? appeared first on Renew Economy.

Trucks and vans represent a major opportunity for emissions reductions. While these trucks make up a small share of vehicles on the road, they account for a disproportionate share of transportation emissions and fuel costs. Electrifying this sector...