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The latest surge in fossil-fuel prices means it is now up to nine times cheaper in the UK to drive an electric vehicle (EV) than a petrol or diesel car, shows Carbon Brief analysis.

Since February, when the US first attacked Iran, the average price of diesel has increased by 38% to £1.96 a litre, according to Carbon Brief analysis of government figures. 

Following the attack on the Kapotnya oil refinery in Russia on 20 September and with tensions in the Middle East growing, this is expected to pass a record £2 a litre. 

(Russia was the second-largest exporter of diesel in the world, but its refineries have been hit every three days on average in the first six months of 2026.)

Similarly, petrol prices have surged by 31% since February to £1.72, based on government figures, with some locations reaching nearly £2 per litre, according to BBC News.

These increases have been driven by oil prices jumping to more than $100 per barrel as the conflict between Yemen’s Houthis and Saudi Arabia escalates – a roughly 50% increase from June. 

As such, it now costs an estimated 21p per mile to drive a diesel car and 20.1p per mile for petrol, according to Carbon Brief analysis of the latest figures from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).

In contrast, it is currently nine times cheaper to drive an EV charged using an off-peak tariff, at 2.3p per mile, as shown in the chart below. 

Even if charging with electricity bought at the domestic price cap – the maximum amount a supplier can charge for a unit of energy and standing charge, set by the regulator Ofgem every three months – it still only costs around 7p per mile to drive an EV, three times cheaper than the price for petrol or diesel cars. 

The price cap is set to increase in October, but almost all of the increase is for gas, with the unit rate of electricity only expected to rise by less than 1% from 26.1p per unit to 26.3p.

A larger 20% increase in electricity unit rates under the price cap is expected in January 2027, as higher gas costs filter through to an increase in wholesale electricity prices. Nevertheless, EVs would still remain far cheaper to drive than petrol or diesel cars.

UK drivers could save around £80 by charging an EV at home, in comparison with filling up a petrol car at the pump, as shown in the figure below. This is based on comparing the cost of an average full tank of petrol with the cost of enough electricity to drive the same distance.

Despite their much higher running costs, petrol still dominates the UK’s roads, making up 55% of all cars on the road. Only 6% of the roughly 35m cars on the road are fully electric battery EVs, with a further 3% being plug-in hybrids that can run on fuel or electricity.

However, sales of EVs are continuing to increase, with around 30% of new cars sold in August being battery EVs, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT). This is up from 26.5% in August 2025.

Separate analysis from Carbon Brief in June suggested that the UK’s EV drivers were saving £1,100 a year in fuel costs, compared to petrol car drivers. Following the latest hike in fuel prices, these savings would now be even higher at £1,200 a year.

Compared with average pump prices of £1.72 per litre of petrol or £1.96 per litre of diesel, it would cost as little as 20p – around nine times cheaper than petrol – for an equivalent amount of electricity using off-peak charging.

As shown in the figure below, even charging at the household price cap would only cost the equivalent of 60p per litre, making EVs still significantly cheaper to drive.

Public charging points remain significantly more expensive than domestic rates. However, the UK government estimates that around 90% of electric car charging takes place at home.

In addition, the government plans to introduce a pay-per-mile tax on EVs from April 2028. This would add 3p per mile to the cost of driving an EV. Yet the considerably lower fuel costs mean they will remain far cheaper to drive than petrol or diesel cars.

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The post Analysis: EVs are now nine times cheaper than petrol or diesel to drive in the UK  appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Headline News:

• “Senator Sanders Has Introduced A Bill To Ban Artificial Superintelligence And Create Deptartment Of AI” • Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar introduced legislation that would ban artificial superintelligence, pause development of advanced AI systems, and create a Department of Artificial Intelligence. [ABC News]

Bernie Sanders (Anderseidesvik, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped)

• “OECD Lifts 2026 Global Economic Growth Forecast To 2.9% Despite Iran War” • In its interim outlook, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development raised its growth projection for 2026 by 0.1% from June. It says the world economy “has weathered the energy supply shock triggered by the conflict in the Middle East better than expected.” [Euronews]
• “OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs At UN Call For Global Cooperation On AI: ‘We Are At A Crossroads” • The leaders of OpenAI and Anthropic delivered a clear message to the UN Security Council: the threat of AI is real and the time to act is now. Addressing high-level foreign ministers, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said “this moment calls for extreme care.” [ABC News]
• “Gulf Nations Have Found Ways To Keep Oil Flowing” • When Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the war, to choke off sea passage for 15 million barrels of oil a day, many feared that rising prices would crater the world economy. But oil exporters and the US military found multi-layered workarounds in a clandestine game of whack-a-mole. [ABC News]
• “NYSERDA Approves State Renewable Energy Projects” • The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is initiating eight new bulk energy storage projects and thirteen large-scale renewable energy projects in the state. Combined, these projects are expected to provide 1.7 GW of new large-scale energy resources. [Solar Power World]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Labour Day 2026 in Toronto was not just our time for a lovely parade and a picnic. It isn’t what it used to be when...

The post Labour Day 2026: Workers show solidarity against ruling forces first appeared on Spring.

'Bartolina Sisa' reaffirms their commitment to continuing the struggle as socio-economic and political challenges persist, rejecting the IMF loan, which they argue is plunging Bolivians deeper into debt.

The post Bolivia: ‘Bartolina Sisa’ reaffirms its mobilisation and denounces the lack of constitutional freedoms appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

This law marks a new chapter and brings new hope for the implementation of agrarian reform - a long-awaited step toward achieving a fairer restructuring of agrarian relations that favors farmers and the people

The post Indonesia: Agrarian Reform Regulation Law Passed – SPI calls it a vital step for agrarian justice appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Leevin Camacho was brushing his teeth one day last fall when his mother called. The water is contaminated, she said. Moments later she texted him a photo of a flyer issued by the local water authority. “Cancer risk,” it warned. “Increased likelihood of adverse impacts on the liver.” And in bold capital letters, “DO NOT DRINK.”

Camacho stared at the message. Water flowed from the faucets as his children, who were 10 and 12, gulped and spit, their faces reflected in the mirrors above the two bathroom sinks.  

Thumbing at his phone, Camacho googled dieldrin. The results included words like “organochlorine” and “insecticide” and “persistent environmental pollutant” that the United States had banned in 1987. Worse, high levels had been detected in his community’s water since at least 2008. “Our kids have been drinking the water,” he realized. “They’ve been cooking with the water for almost their entire lives at this point.” 

Camacho lives in Yigo, a northern village on the island of Guam. In time, he would learn that the U.S. Air Force base next to the well serving his house had reported “very high levels” of the pesticide, which it had listed as a “chemical of concern” since at least 1993. The Pentagon’s investigation, led by officials at Joint Region Marianas, is in its early stages. Local officials caution that although they suspect the base is a source of the pollution, there may be others because dieldrin was once widely used.

Leevin Camacho stands before the well serving his home in Yigo, which was found to have been contaminated with high levels of dieldrin. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

For Camacho, the news felt like the unfolding of a familiar story — one both predictable and infuriating.

Camacho had grown up as an Army brat, raised to think of the United States as Guam’s liberator from Japan during World War II. But over the past two decades, his understanding of that legacy has changed. 

“There are certain actions that the military takes that are contrary to the interests of the people who are from Guam and who live in Guam,” said Camacho, whose measured tone rarely changes, even when discussing something as emotional as what his children have been drinking. 

To Camacho, dieldrin is the latest reminder that the people of Guam continue to bear the costs of militarization. Unexploded ordnance litters jungles and lagoons. PCBs contaminate the fish. Pollutants taint the groundwater. The island and its people, who are U.S. citizens, have been inalterably changed by more than a century of American military presence.

Rear Admiral Brett Mietus, the head of Joint Region Marianas, the U.S. Navy’s regional command for Guam and neighboring islands, said he can’t speak to past pollution but the command is committed to protecting the environment and the people of Guam. 

“We spend a lot of time and we spend a lot of money making sure that we meet every U.S. regulation when it comes to anything that we’re going to do here,” he told Grist. “We’re meeting every letter of every law for environmental regulations and rules, and we’re doing that while we’re spending a ton of money to defend this island from the most advanced missiles in the world.”

A sign warns passersby not to enter a live-fire range in northern Guam. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

Today, Guam sits at the center of an ongoing military buildup, one that is reshaping the island even as it spreads across the Pacific. On Yap, more than 1,000 graves could be disturbed to make way for an American seaport and airfield. Indigenous leaders on Palau are suing to protect their lands. Less visible but just as impactful are the climate impacts of this expansion. The Pentagon is already the world’s largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gases, and its buildup will do more than contribute to the destruction of the region’s reefs, forests, and Indigenous sacred sites. It will accelerate the climate crisis that threatens the survival of Pacific islands.

The Pentagon often cites growing geopolitical tensions to justify the buildup. “The security environment in the Indo-Pacific is becoming more dangerous and defined by an increasing risk of confrontation and crisis,” Navy Admiral Sam Paparo, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, told Congress in April while seeking $122 billion for new weaponry to counter China, including offensive missiles on Guam. Three months later, a ballistic missile launched from a Chinese submarine flew near the island, underscoring why many on the island see America’s military presence as both a source of vulnerability and protection.

Sometimes it can be too much to think about. “I need to compartmentalize these things,” Camacho said. “That’s sometimes the only way that you can do this, because otherwise you will just be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things that are out there, the amount of injustice that is out there.”

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Those injustices collide in Yigo. Neighbors lost their homes earlier this year to typhoons fueled by warming seas. The Army Corps of Engineers will soon begin clearing bombs from a nearby dump site created in 1945. A new machine gun range just opened alongside a federal wildlife refuge to support the arrival of 5,000 Marines from Okinawa.

Then there’s the dieldrin contamination. “At some point,” Camacho said, “someone has to force them to do what’s right.”

Years before he became one of Guam’s leading critics of the military buildup sweeping over the island, Leevin Camacho was a young lawyer who liked to run before work. As his sneakers hit the pavement, the sun rose over Yigo. Roosters crowed and streaks of pink lightened the sky. The road, little used and lined with jungle brush, was one of the few places he could run without encountering stray dogs or morning traffic. He always ran at first light, before oppressive heat would reflect off the asphalt and the concrete buildings. It was the perfect start to what was often a day spent listening to depositions and wading through case law.

It was 2009. Camacho had returned to Guam after law school and was making more money than he ever had as a school teacher. “You dream of going to law school to provide services and to fight for people who don’t have the ability to fight, right? I’ll be honest with you, I lost my way,” Camacho said. “I had a bunch of student debt and I was satisfied just kind of going by day to day and just focusing on myself and my family.” 

The U.S. military was the backdrop to Camacho’s life but not something he worried about. He didn’t think much about the invasive tangan-tangan trees lining his running route, or the fact they had spread across Guam after the U.S. scattered their seeds to reforest the island following the war. On his morning runs, he was more likely to hear a military jet overhead than a native bird song. 

Leevin Camacho gestures at photos of his family in his home in Yigo. His grandparents lived through the brutal Japanese occupation of Guam and rarely talked about it. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

It hadn’t always been that way. Guam was among the first Pacific islands settled by seafarers from what is now the Philippines, who navigated by the stars and waves an estimated 3,500 years ago. The CHamoru people built a thriving island society known for its towering latte stones and swift outrigger sailing canoes.

That changed when Magellan landed on Guam in 1521. Spain claimed the island and the rest of the archipelago, beginning more than 500 years of ongoing colonization. The Spanish forced the Indigenous people to embrace Catholicism and banned their canoes. The United States took over the island from Spain in 1898 and imposed military rule. Naval governors burned CHamoru language books and blocked Indigenous efforts to gain U.S. citizenship. 

Then came Japan. Its invasion in 1941, on the same day it attacked Pearl Harbor, wasn’t unexpected. The U.S. Navy evacuated sailors’ dependents but left 20,000 CHamorus to endure nearly three years of forced marches and labor, malnutrition, and sexual servitude. More than 1,000 would die. When American forces retook Guam in 1944, they were welcomed as liberators. The island still celebrates Liberation Day every July. “I can’t remember a single discouraging remark that my maternal grandmother would have made about the U.S.,” Camacho said. But he does remember her saying of the Americans, “They saved us.’”

Nearly 18,000 CHamoru were relocated to Manenggon and other concentration camps before the Battle of Guam. Joe Rosenthal / AP Photo

That was the narrative that Camacho grew up with. Even the military taking his family’s land — part of a massive military land grab after World War II —  was accepted by his grandparents as the price of freedom from Japanese oppression. It wasn’t until Camacho learned that the Pentagon’s expansion plans would close his running route that he began to question what it meant for Guam to be an American military outpost. He pored over the buildup’s planning documents and was struck by the disconnect between how the military described its plans and the reality as he knew it. “They paid consultants a bunch of money. The comment was, ‘We drove by and we didn’t see any cars, so there’s no impact,’” he said of the running route. “And that was it.”

As Camacho read thousands of pages of documents, he saw the same pattern again and again. Proposals for bombing and machine-gun ranges, expanded undersea explosives, and projects that threatened forests and ancient latte stones were accompanied by detailed assessments that minimized what they would mean for the islands.

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On a flight home from Honolulu, Camacho was reviewing the environmental analysis of the buildup on his laptop when one passage stopped him. The proposed influx of 80,000 people would leave too little water for fire suppression, particularly in Yigo. The solution, according to the document, was to send surplus water from Andersen Air Force base to civilian communities. “That was the first time I just kind of lost it, just how stark it was,” he said. “The aquifer is our aquifer, right? Like, you’re taking our water for your people and then we don’t have enough and they’re going to divert whatever you’re taking from us that is extra.” 

Camacho and other concerned residents started We Are Guåhan, a community group focused on raising awareness about what was happening. (Guåhan is the CHamoru word for Guam.) He sued to stop a machine-gun range from being built at Pågat, an ancestral village that’s home to millennia-old latte stones. Their campaign protected the site and helped persuade the Navy not to expand its landholdings on Guam. The Department of Defense also reduced the planned transfer of Marines from Okinawa from 9,000 to 5,000. 

But it didn’t stop the buildup. The Pentagon activated Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz six years ago, and opened a new machine-gun range alongside a federal wildlife refuge just north of Yigo. “It’s so heartbreaking,” said Lola Leon Guerrero, another member of We Are Guåhan. (She is not related to Governor Lou Leon Guerrero.) “All of that effort and it still happened.”

The yellow excavator scraped away at the pale rock that lies beneath Camp Blaz under the hot May sun. A limestone forest had already been bulldozed to make way for a new machine-gun training range. A sign next to the fence read, “Guam National Wildlife Refuge” with an arrow pointing to the left and a picture of a turtle. 

“Wow,” said Moneaka Flores, one of Camacho’s clients in the lawsuit he filed against the Navy to protect the island’s endangered species. She stopped at the side of the road to watch the digger work. It had been months since she’d been here, and they’d cleared so much more forest than she realized. 

Busy construction vehicles are the most obvious sign of the Pentagon’s buildup. Beyond the new Marine Corps base, the Department of Defense is upgrading the island’s port and strengthening its infrastructure to support docked nuclear submarines. The agency is also pouring $8 billion into 16 new missile defense sites. After World War II, the Navy took two-thirds of the island. “Whatever made most sense for the military, the island was theirs for the taking,” said Michael Clement, a historian at the University of Guam. “Everyone was in refugee camps. They had the bulldozers. They built where they wanted to build. And then a year or two later, they started saying, ‘OK, where are we going to put the natives?’”

Construction on Camp Blaz proceeds in May 2026. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

The military later relinquished some land but still owns at least a quarter of the island. “If you look at where the villages were set out in 1946 and ’47, it’s the land the military didn’t need. So that’s why Guam is kind of weird to drive around, right?” Clement said. “To go across from Tumon to Mangilao, you’ve got to go around Tiyan and the airport. It wasn’t redesigned for civilians. It was redesigned for military purposes.” 

Even the island’s main highway, the six-lane Marine Corps Drive, was designed for the military, not the people. It connects Andersen in the north and Naval Base Guam in the south.

Governor Lou Leon Guerrero is among the many who welcome the financial boost that comes with the military’s investments. “They’re spending billions on their readiness plan,” she said. 

One in nine Guam residents joins the armed forces. Last year, a local economist told the Legislature that every dollar the Pentagon spends adds 75 cents to the island’s GDP and called the buildup an “unprecedented economic opportunity.” The funding infusions have helped Guam become far more commercialized than other Pacific islands, with multiple shopping malls, numerous high-rise hotels, and a growing real estate sector. 

Leon Guerrero thinks activists should pursue political self-determination instead of resisting the buildup. “These guys can yell and scream all they can,” she said. “They’re going to do the military buildup regardless, right? So why don’t we work with them and see how we can benefit?” She wants the Department of Defense to help harden local power lines and fund a hospital. “Our hospital cannot absorb mass casualties,” she said.

There are about 20,600 military personnel on Guam, a figure that’s expected to reach 29,400 by 2037. While the military is investing in additional housing both on and off base, the population influx will almost certainly continue pushing up construction and housing costs. The median home price on Guam was $216,100 in 2010, when Camacho sued the military to protect Pågat. Today it is approaching half a million dollars.

Andersen Air Force base in northern Guam is among the sites of an ongoing U.S. military buildup that stretches across the Pacific. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

Fear of another war also fuels support for the buildup. “We’ve always been a target regardless, because of where we are geographically located,” Leon Guerrero said. Guam is the largest island in the Micronesian region of the Pacific. It’s just north of the equator, a three-hour flight from Tokyo, and has a deep-water harbor that supports naval submarines. “We were a target for Spain. We were a target for the U.S. We were a target for Japan.” She worries about China, which has a ballistic missile nicknamed the “Guam Killer.” “If I’m going to have a choice, I’d rather be under the U.S. than China.”

To Flores, more military presence on Guam heightens the risk of war. In March, President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran prompted military bases on the island to raise their threat level. She feels that, as in World War II, the Indigenous people of Guam are expendable in a broader contest between empires. “What are they really here to protect if there’s so much harm taking place? Are we just collateral damage?” she said. “Because just looking at our history of being occupied by war, being used for weapons testing, it feels like the message is that we don’t matter. Our future doesn’t matter. Our survival doesn’t matter.”

Rear Admiral Brett Mietus, at Joint Region Marianas, said he understands such skepticism. “If I was born and raised on Guam, I would have similar concerns,” he said. But he believes the militaryʻs investment proves the opposite of what Flores fears. “Choice A is not to defend Guam against ballistic and hypersonic missiles,” he said. “Or the other choice, which is the one that we’ve made, is to spend billions of dollars to defend Guam from hypersonic and ballistic missiles. And so from my perspective, that shows a commitment not just to the military things that are on Guam, but also to the people of Guam.”

Yet Flores is far from the only Guam resident who feels expendable. When Pedro Blas, the vice mayor of Yigo, first learned about the dieldrin in his village’s water, his first thought was of his autistic sister. “All of us growing up, all our lives, our water bottles, we fill it up with the tap water, put it in the fridge: That’s our cold water,” he said. “Because we were instilled in our heads our whole lives: Tap water is OK.”

Pedro Blas, the vice-mayor of Yigo, has been hearing from many constituents who are concerned that long-term exposure to dieldrin could have caused cancer in their families. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

So far, Camacho’s firm has helped file more than 700 claims, worth $360 million, against local authorities on behalf of village residents. He hopes that pressures the island to seek compensation from the Department of Defense. “I’m so glad [Camacho] got involved,” Blas said. “We’re not letting it get swept up under the rug.” Mietus noted that Joint Region Marianas has not found high levels of dieldrin in military wells, and the Pentagon is working with local officials to determine the source of Yigoʻs pollution.

Still, Blas wonders why the investigations at Andersen Air Force base are occurring quietly behind the fence, while he hasn’t seen anyone in uniform hand out water to his constituents. “It’s beautiful to be a U.S. citizen, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But if you really take a step back and look at exactly the impacts that [the military] brought to us over the years, we should have a say in whether or not these practices are going to happen to our island. Even just being called the ‘tip of the spear’ —  we’re susceptible to any war that they’re going fight, and we just have to be OK with it.

“This contamination they bring to our island, it kind of just shows how much they really care about our people,” Blas continued. “And frankly, I think they look at Guam as real estate rather than, ‘Those are our U.S. citizens. Those are our people. Those are Americans.’”

The men and women gathered in the p’ebay, the traditional open-air Yapese meeting house with a triangular tin roof, and settled quietly on the tiled floor along each wall to listen to Camacho speak. A projector, perched above a cardboard box stacked on top of a red cooler, cast his PowerPoint presentation onto a screen. Slide after slide described the American military’s plans. A cool breeze fluttered the fronds on the palm trees surrounding the p’ebay.

It was April in the village of Tamil on Yap, one of four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. Camacho’s dieldrin work was far from over, but he’d put that aside when the island state’s government asked him to help dissect a Navy proposal to expand the seaport and airport. Tamil was one of several villages he visited to explain the plan. 

Over the past decade, Camacho has become one of Guam’s leading environmental lawyers. “The one thing about Leevin is he shows up. Again and again,” said Julian Aguon, a human rights lawyer on the island. “And he brings with him not only deep competence but a deep sense of responsibility to the people and places he serves.”

“Regulatory agencies will bend over backwards to not pick a fight with the military because of the mission and the protection and all of that,” Camacho told Grist. “And ultimately, it’s people who aren’t lawyers who end up paying the price.”

He was elected attorney general in 2018 for one term and led a historic lawsuit to force the Navy to clean up a hazardous landfill it had abandoned in the 1940s. A lower court dismissed the suit, but the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2021 that it could proceed — a decision that eventually prompted the federal government to pay Guam $48.9 million.

The newly opened U.S. Marine Corps Camp Blaz in northern Guam is expecting an influx of 5,000 Marines from Okinawa. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

He has sued the Navy to protect endangered species harmed by the construction of Camp Blaz. “For too long, our island has been treated as a sacrifice zone,” he said.

The risk of Guam falling into enemy hands, as it did in World War II, is so tangible that America’s Pacific military strategy involves spending billions of dollars to spread airfields, seaports, and training ranges across the region to remain competitive in case Guam is once again occupied by enemy forces. The U.S. is invoking decades-old agreements with the peoples of the Republic of Palau, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia to expand its presence on those islands and upgrade World War II-era seaports and airfields. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. even signed a new agreement with Papua New Guinea to use its seaports. 

On Yap, the U.S. military wants to dredge the lagoon, including two-thirds of an acre in a marine protected area, to create a seaport. The plan would remove enough sediment to fill 334 40-foot shipping containers and impact sea life, Indigenous fishers, and divers. “Plume spreads up to 800 m from disposal sites,” Camacho’s presentation noted. “Long-term reef decline and impact on reef species (fish, clams, sharks, turtles) not assessed.”  

The Navy also plans to expand the airfield to facilitate two military exercises, each two weeks long and involving up to 200 personnel, per year. The project could disturb more than 1,000 graves, including the 19th-century tombs of Chief Orothin and Chief Yaloth. Camacho noted that the military’s draft plan acknowledges a “significant adverse impact” to these cultural sites and doesn’t commit to rebury the dead or preserve ancestral sites.

Yap has a population of just about 11,500, compared to Guam’s 170,000. Although Yap is less than a 90-minute flight from Guam, it has none of the military bases, six-lane highways, or big-box stores that define the American territory. “In some ways, this will be more transformative for Yap State than the buildup was for Guam because there’s no military presence there today,” Camacho said. On Guam, he said, “It’s normal to hear a fighter jet flying over. It’s normal to see a bomber or C130. They don’t have any of that there. So this would be such a radical change.” 

One month after Camacho visited Yap, dignitaries from across the Pacific gathered in an air-conditioned conference room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Guam. The hotel sits on a long stretch of white sand beach and looks out over Tumon Bay, where high levels of dieldrin have also been found in fish samples. 

Once everyone had taken a seat, the lights dimmed and the glow of a projector filled the room. A screen showed a map of military activity across the western Pacific: not just bases, but training exercises and the routes of research vessels searching the sea floor for the critical minerals essential to many military technologies.

Political leaders from across the Pacific listen to presentations on the growing military presence in their region at a conference in Tumon, Guam. Anita Hofschneider / Grist

“We’re faced with the reality that we’re part of a larger strategic vision,” conference organizer and former Guam congressman Robert Underwood said. “All of you are in someone’s strategic plans whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not. All of us are in someone’s strategic plan.” 

In Palau, Indigenous people are fighting the Pentagon’s expansion in local courts and international forums. Leaders of Angaur, one of 16 states there, filed a lawsuit accusing the U.S. of violating environmental rules and its treaty with the island nation when it cleared land for a radar facility. Indigenous chiefs from Peleliu are suing to prevent a land transfer that would support American goals. Indigenous Palauan youth filed a complaint at the United Nations alleging the U.S. military violated their right to free, prior, and informed consent to what happens on their land.

In the Northern Mariana Islands and the Marshall Islands, the U.S. military presence that started with World War II is ramping up. On Tinian, the Marine Corps is building an airfield and two live-fire training ranges, one of them for explosives. The Navy is extending its undersea sonar and explosives training across half a million square nautical miles, along with bombing practice on the neighboring island of Farallon de Medinilla.

A U.S. Navy MH-60S Seahawk helicopter assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 refuels during forward arming and refueling point training at North Field, Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, in 2013.
Lance Cpl. Antonio Rubio / U.S. Marine Corps / Department of Defense

Some hope the military’s regional expansion will enable other island nations and territories to experience the economic growth seen on Guam. But others worry about the pollution and cultural loss, and other risks that come with being a U.S. military stronghold. 

In public comments written in response to the Navy’s proposal, Jennifer Dugwen Chieng noted that Camacho’s fight to have the Navy address hazardous waste at Ordot Dump went all the way to the Supreme Court. “Additionally, there are sacred private lands and culturally significant ecosystems that no amount of money can ever replace,” she wrote. “The desecration of graves violates the general principles of respect for burial sites and human remains upheld in Yap’s traditional custom.”

She’s also worried about becoming a target in the next war. Like Palau, Yap was held by the Japanese during World War II and experienced heavy bombardment by the United States. Since then, the Pentagon hasn’t paid much attention to the island state — until now. 

“With rising tensions in the region between the U.S. and China, what does the DoD envision combat to look like?” Chieng wrote. “Will it be based on a WWII tactic of island hopping? What is the likelihood of the island becoming a battlefield if tensions were to escalate into war? Yap will be caught in the crossfire. Does the DoD intend to protect and defend the people of Yap, and if so, how does the DoD intend to do that?”

Mietus told Grist thereʻs always a level of risk in being allied with the U.S. during a conflict.

“Sometimes people believe it’s a plan to evacuate U.S. service members or family members if a war starts — there is not,” he said. “I’m in this, living in the same risk as every other person here.” He’s pushed back against Guam lawmakers’ calls for the Defense Department to fund bomb shelters for civilians, contending that the existing military projects like strengthening Guam’s harbor are a better investment. “Oftentimes people see this Department of War as kind of having an infinite amount of money, and we don’t.”

Unlike Guam, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia are independent countries that have achieved the political self-determination that Indigenous CHamoru on Guam have been denied for centuries. 

Camacho wants a plebiscite to determine Guam’s political status. He believes the island’s status as a U.S. territory — without a vote for president or voting representation in Congress — isn’t working. But while some of his colleagues in We Are Guåhan have focused on independence, Camacho sees his own role as making the government answer for its actions.

“Unless someone’s forcing the issue,” he said, “the Department of War isn’t going to voluntarily agree to be held accountable and agree to do all the things that it’s supposed to do.”

That’s why he feels compelled to seek reparations for the dieldrin contamination. So often, toxic pollution lingers on Guam and no one takes responsibility. “As a lawyer, I don’t want to fall into this situation where we’re like [the village of] Malesso, and they show up every year and say you still can’t eat the fish. That’s just not satisfactory,” he said. 

One question that drives him is what Guam will be like when his kids are grown. Will they be able to afford living there? Will they want to, given how much the island is changing? It’s a constant effort to find the right balance between working toward their future and being there for them day to day.

“I’m going to try to do the best that I can to protect my island and to have a safe place for my kids to want to live on Guam,” Camacho said. “But also be there for them and help them get better dribbling with their left hand and be good human beings.” Even though Camacho moved a lot growing up, his family never considers leaving. “That is not a choice,” he said. “Guam is home — there is nowhere else we are going to be.”

toolTips('.classtoolTips3','Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other gases that prevent heat from escaping Earth’s atmosphere. Together, they act as a blanket to keep the planet at a liveable temperature in what is known as the “greenhouse effect.” Too many of these gases, however, can cause excessive warming, disrupting fragile climates and ecosystems.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As the Pentagon expands across the Pacific, Guam offers a warning on Sep 24, 2026.

Last year was a tough time for anyone who studies climate change for a living. The United States, once respected around the world for its sprawling investments in science, suddenly reversed course. Shortly after President Donald Trump began his second term in office, his administration set to work slashing funds for America’s scientific institutions, scrapping billions of dollars in research grants and firing thousands of federal employees at agencies ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

People were “in shock,” said Aparna Shrivastava, who was a senior climate official in the Biden administration. In private chats, she found herself in conversation with dozens of experts who had recently lost their jobs or funding, but who wanted to continue studying the rapidly warming planet or trying to prevent its worst effects. But the sudden cuts left many with few options. 

All of them were trying to figure out, “What could we possibly do to address this?” Shrivastava said. Eventually, the conversations started happening in person. At a workshop convened by the Aspen Global Change Institute in Colorado last July, a group of more than 30 climate experts landed on a possible solution — one that would help fund new jobs for laid-off colleagues across the country. Today that idea is a full-fledged initiative, backed by tens of millions of dollars, with Shrivastava at the helm. They call themselves the Climate Reserve, and they’re just now taking their operation public. 

Climate Reserve functions through a network of experts with a mission to identify the most critical climate work left in limbo and find a place where it can continue, even without federal support. Sometimes that means placing a climate researcher with an organization focused on the environment or climate; other times that means finding a new home for projects that the government cut from its budget, Shrivastava said.

So far, Climate Reserve has funded more than two dozen new positions for climate experts. These people, known as their fellows, are now working across the U.S. at nonprofits such as the Environmental Protection Network and institutions like the University of Minnesota. The group has also resuscitated a number of federal projects, such as EJScreen, an online map that shows which American communities experience the worst pollution. There’s international work happening too, such as a project mapping sea level rise on islands in Panama, and another measuring greenhouse gas emissions in five African countries. 

And there’s more that the group isn’t willing to share publicly. The hope is that a measure of secrecy will keep some of its fellows and projects out of the crosshairs of the Trump administration — which has been notably punitive with some of its funding cuts. After all, many of those working within the network still rely on federal funding in some capacity, or plan to apply for federal funding in the future. 

Now that Climate Reserve is making progress, its leaders are willing to take the risk of being more open about their efforts to attract more funding for fellows. So many people are still out of work, Shrivastava said. Even the Lyft driver in Washington, D.C., who drove her to the airport to meet potential funders this spring happened to be a laid-off climate and energy expert.

The name “Climate Reserve” is meant to evoke a nature reserve as well as the Army Reserve — “the emergency group that you can call up to bring people together,” said Brittany Janis, executive director at the nonprofit Open Environmental Data Project, who was involved in the group’s discussions from the start. Her organization recently partnered with Climate Reserve to hire a former senior advisor for environmental justice programs in the Biden administration to keep the now-independent EJScreen tool up to date.  

Funding these positions is meant to provide a kind of “parachute” that can help former federal workers, along with all their specialized knowledge and the relationships they’ve built, land in a safe place, Janis said. “How can we be really thoughtful about parachuting people to the right places so we aren’t losing all that institutional knowledge and that really critical basis for climate action in the U.S.?”

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Unlike a traditional hiring or grant-funding system, the group wants to emphasize collaboration rather than competition, according to Ben Poulter, who leads an emissions-monitoring program at Spark, a climate solutions nonprofit that is in the process of hiring two Climate Reserve fellows. “We realized early on that the changes that were happening could fragment the community even further as resources became scarcer,” he said. “The whole point of Climate Reserve is that we’re all in the same boat and we need to work together.”

This philosophy — dubbed “movement generosity” by several of the group’s founders — means focusing on the broader goals of the climate movement and trying to share resources and expertise across organizations to achieve them. For instance, a single expert funded by Climate Reserve could split their time between two organizations, allowing them to coordinate on similar projects and reduce redundancy. 

Poulter, who previously coordinated greenhouse gas monitoring efforts between federal agencies, now leads a program tracking how ecosystems that are especially sensitive to warming, like wetlands, will release more planet-warming emissions as temperatures rise — a feedback loop that is often overlooked by climate models. One of the fellows working at Spark will coordinate these measurements across five African countries, while another will translate that science into policy recommendations for those countries, Poulter said. 

There’s also a lot of vitally important but “unsexy” data-crunching projects being saved by Climate Reserve, said Sonia Wang, who leads the Center for Climate and Environmental Data at the Data Foundation, a nonprofit think tank. It’s an important, and often invisible, part of understanding the realities of climate change. For example, two groups using satellites to detect methane emissions might end up with different estimates if they aren’t using the same wind speed models. 

Sorting out these discrepancies is “not the flashiest thing, but when you look under the hood, this is really what’s necessary,” Wang said. Her organization has taken on four Climate Reserve-funded experts to help with these kinds of projects that make it easier for decision-makers and scientists to trust climate data, she said.

By the end of this month, Climate Reserve will have placed 50 climate experts in new roles, and it plans to triple its funding by the end of next year, Shrivastava said. And if federal support for climate research eventually returns, its organizers hope the network they are building can make the entire field more collaborative and resilient to political shifts in the future. “We are not at all looking to replace the government. We’re just stepping up to try and meet some of the needs here,” Shrivastava said.

Climate change may be politicized in the United States, but its impacts “affect us all,” said John Balbus, a Climate Reserve fellow who spent 15 years in the federal government. Most recently, he was a senior official in the Department of Health and Human Services coordinating projects to address the health effects of climate change, such as seasonal forecasts for extreme heat and wildfire smoke. He is now continuing that work at the Federation of American Scientists and as an independent consultant.

The climate and health experts that Balbus once worked with would “do anything in their human power” to continue living a life of public service, even without a government job, he said. And the need for this kind of work, he added, isn’t going away. “The need is only going to get stronger every year.”

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 Trump cut their climate jobs. This secretive network found them new ones. on Sep 24, 2026.

PRESS CONTACTS: NICE, France – Scores of billionaire private jet owners are flying into Nice this week to shop for new super- and mega-yachts at the Monaco Yacht Show, an annual event in the Principality of Monaco on the French Riviera. Tax Private Jets is tracking private jet flights – and the carbon emissions attached to these flights – into Nice, where many attendees will board…

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The climate movement needs the kind of leverage that comes from shutting down the economy — and it can only get there through deep organizing with workers.

Honestly, in this strange world of ours, what is there to write about except, of course, Donald Trump?

Without Prop. 40 revenues, Californians could face hospital closures, job losses, increased food insecurity, and state budget cuts to public schools, yet tech billionaires are pouring millions into opposing the wealth tax.

A renewables developer with four grid-scale battery projects currently under development in Australia has been acquired by a Singapore based asset owner.

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From soil health and supply chain collaboration to the importance of farmer voices, organic food systems call for shared responsibility, meaningful investments, and tasty and affordable climate-smart ingredients. 

The past, present, and future of organic agriculture were reflected on and celebrated during “The Roots of Organic: From Soil to Shelf,” an all-day Summit at Climate Week NYC presented in partnership with Organic Trade Association, Organic Valley, Once Upon a Farm, Handsome Brook Farms, Stonyfield, and Amy’s Kitchen, and in collaboration with Organic Voices, Lundberg Family Farms, Tradin Organic, and Rodale Institute.

“The organic movement didn’t grow because of one certification,” says Danielle Nierenberg, President of Food Tank. “It grew because people built relationships that allowed ideas to spread.”

Watch the livestream recording on Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

“The farmers are the true roots of this movement,” says Matthew Dillon, Co-CEO of the Organic Trade Association. 

The organic agriculture moment was built by farmers who believed deeply in sustainability and took risks to build consumer trust, he said—and organic farmers must be recognized for their contributions to the sector’s future, too. This means giving farmers resources to adapt and ensuring their voices and expertise are centered.

“How do we make sure that farmers are at the table for all of these major milestones?” asks Organic Valley CEO Shawna Nelson. “Organic farmers, I find, are the most innovative. They’re willing to continuously improve; they’re willing to look at the solutions.”

Critically, these solutions have to be financially viable, especially given a difficult economic environment for the farming sector, panelists said. Strategies like stronger supply-chain collaboration can help farmers achieve sustainability goals without taking on increased cost burdens, panelists said. At the same time, financial support tools like accessible technical assistance and cash incentives for low-emissions practices can also help farmers adopt the sustainable practices they believe deeply in.

“There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution,” says Britt Lundgren, Senior Director of Sustainability and Government Affairs at Stonyfield. But “if the cost falls at the farm level, we’re not going to succeed.”

But as organic farmers know, sustainability is not only the ethical choice but also a good business strategy.

“Sustainability is a three-legged stool. We all talk about the climate, but you also have social and financial benefits,” says Tracy Favre, Senior Vice President of Sustainability and Organic Strategies at Handsome Brook Farms. 

However, organic farmers are only one part of broader sustainable supply chains: Food producers and retailers play a significant role in communicating the specific benefits of organic agriculture and in building broader consumer interest for climate-smart eating, panelists discussed.

“We’ve just been deceived by Big Food for many years that (conventional and ultra-processed) is the only way,” says Paul Schiefer, CEO of Amy’s Kitchen. Our food choices are deeply tied to our identities and taste preferences, he said, so “we have to meet people where they’re at and help them see that they can be themselves and choose better food.”

It can be “a difficult needle to thread,” admits Jane Kuhn, Senior Director of Strategic Sourcing & Sustainability at Once Upon a Farm, but organic agriculture needs to be accessible for both farmers and consumers, without expensive bottlenecks in the value chain.

The scientific backing for organic agriculture is strong, too, said Amber Sciligo, Senior Director of The Organic Center. However, when research priorities are rooted in conventional systems and when measurements focus on individual metrics, like carbon, researchers can occasionally miss the more interconnected holistic picture. 

“Organic, regenerative, perennial systems are much more complex…and that helps them thrive,” she said. “If we want to truly understand what is happening on the farm, we have to move away from these single metrics.”

Beatriz Daim, Sustainability Specialist at Tradin Organic, echoed this point, noting that “carbon is just one metric. You need to look at a farm as a much wider ecosystem.”

This reality is complex and sometimes messy, and we need to respect that, says Abianne Falla, Founder of CatSpring Yaupon—which, she points out, “is sometimes hard when we live in a culture of soundbites.”

Farmers themselves understand the full scope of their climate-smart land management practices and efforts to reduce emissions, of course—but their time is devoted to the actual work of farming, which means food system partners need to pick up the mantle of communication and engagement. 

“There are only so many hours in a day, and dairy farming requires most of them,” says Annie Watson, an Organic Dairy Farmer at Sheepscot Valley Farm and a Stonyfield Producer. “If we don’t tell the stories of farm life, no one will know. Farms are disappearing, and so are their stories. Somebody has to tell them.”

So how does the organic movement chart a collective course forward? By continuing to place innovation and inspiration at the center, panelists said. 

“It’s easy to define organic for what it’s not,” says Maria Rodale, Board Co-Chair of the Rodale Institute. “But we have to start defining it for consumers for what it is—and what it is is safe food you can trust.”

And big-picture climate solutions must also continue to center the people who grow food and hold generations of agricultural knowledge, says Leah Penniman, a Farmer, Author, and Food Justice Activist at Soul Fire Farm. 

“There is a powerful need to take a stand for the people who know the earth most intimately,” she says. “We are not going to solve the climate puzzle by ignoring the people who are tending to the climate.” 

“It’s not just about consumer choices and labels; we have to be political advocates.”

Explore the entire Food Tank event schedule during Climate Week NYC 2026, and live-stream every Summit on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

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 by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.

The post The Roots Of Organic Agriculture—And The Future Of Climate-Smart Food—Are Farmers appeared first on Food Tank.

Dan Tehan's attempt to win the climate wars carried a whiff of napalm - dropped on the Opposition itself, and of course the industry.

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A solar-powered vehicle that straddles the line between an e-bike and a car is plotting a comeback — and sparking questions about the rise of micromobility options that don’t fit neatly into existing vehicle categories.

A crowdfunding campaign to relaunch the “ELF” has racked up more than $380,000 on the strength of a big promise to deliver “the world’s safest bike” and “the next generation of transportation.”

Originally launched in 2012 based on the acronym “electric, light, and fun,” the ELF quickly became a curiosity among many cycling advocates, who puzzled over its quirky blend of recumbent trike features — pedals, three wheels, a battery that powers a motor to get up to 28 miles per hour — and design elements more reminiscent of an automobile, like a windshield and a roof.

With an array of solar panels on top and up to 200 miles of range, though, its inventors argued that their quirky “velomobile” was actually a brand new, cutting-edge mobility solution rather than something out of the The Busy World of Richard Scarry. And with enough momentum, they claim it could have the power to get a whole new segment of Americans out of their automobiles.

The original-recipe ELF never took off at broad scale on US roads; fewer than 850 were ever produced, compared to the roughly 2.2 million e-bikes that were imported in 2025 alone. But founder Rob Cotter argues that with gas prices on the rise and the e-bike landscape rapidly shifting, light electric vehicles like his are ready for takeoff – and maybe, the ELF 3.0 can lead the surge.

“We wanted something that was sort of the Honda Civic of comfortable, safe, weather-protected bicycles,” said Cotter. “We’re not talking about pulling anybody off of their existing bicycle; it’s quite the opposite. We’re trying to pull people out of their cars. So how do we replicate a car-like experience with bicycle technology?”

How the ELF was born …

A veteran of the automobile industry, Cotter’s enthusiasm for creating a “car-like” bicycles actually began with cars themselves — before he realized how auto-centric transportation infrastructure was impoverishing American families and endangering our climate future.

As his passion for transportation reform grew, so did Cotter’s appetite for innovation — and it led him to the science-fictional fringes of the cycling universe, in addition to his local bike shop. As a member of the International Human Powered Vehicle Association, he helped launch “recumbent streamliners” capable of achieving over 80 miles per hour on flat ground without a motor, in addition to watercrafts, submersibles, and flying machines right out of a DaVinci codex.

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Cotter saw creating a human-powered vehicle for the everyday commute as a similarly heroic challenge — especially when it came to tapping the vast market of people who would never think of getting on a traditional bike, even if they had a dedicated lane right outside their door.

“There have been numerous studies about what they call the ‘blue ocean’ versus the ‘red ocean’ [of potential cyclists],” he added. “The ‘blue ocean’ is where bicyclists are currently — and there’s plenty of bicycle and e-bike manufacturers who build bikes that work for a variety of people most of the time.

“But the other category [includes the needs of potential riders] that aren’t being addressed: people who are elderly, who have disabilities, who need to carry children, who are concerned about the safety — the list goes on,” Cotter continued. “If you combined all those things together, that’s a much wider audience that bicycle industries are not currently addressing.”

… And reborn?

Of course, some advocates might argue that at least some of those needs would be better met by just building dedicated bike infrastructure or reforming to car-centric land use policies. Others might be concerned that at 3.5 feet wide, the ELF could crowd out traditional bicycles on the precious few paths we’ve already got.

Cotter argues, though, that the bicycle itself is ripe for reinvention, alongside our efforts to reinvent our cities with wider bike paths and slow-speed streets where all modes can safely intermingle. And there’s no time to do it like the present.

In the years since the ELF was last in production, Cotter notes that the ever-rising costs of car ownership have primed more Americans to explore non-automotive options for short trips, and that many state and local governments have answered with incentives to buy light electric vehicles. CNBC recently estimated that maintaining a car costs an average of $5,851 a year before any auto loan payments.

In a car-dependent country where a lot of people are hauling groceries and kids down multi-lane roads, though, Cotter says a “bike-car” might be the only e-bike many Americans would be willing to try — especially in regions prone to harsh weather.

“How can we replicate what cars do well, but base it on bicycle technology as much as we possibly can?” Cotter asked. “If you’re planning to travel long distances and want to pull a trailer — well, then this is the appropriate the vehicle for that type of use. If you’re disabled, we can make a vehicle for that. And if you just need a Class 1 vehicle to get back and forth to school with, because of your age or because the requirements in your state, we’ve created the vehicle for that, too.”

At least compared to a full-scale electric car, the ELF 3.0 looks like a bargain, with a projected sale price of $7,500, minimal maintenance costs, and no need for full-scale insurance. It also has little to no charging costs, since many riders report that the solar panels alone are enough to keep the battery full.

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Of course, some e-bike enthusiasts might argue their preferred form factor has already filled the ELF’s niche — and at a much lower price point that’s kept e-bike sales brisk for the last five years.

That surge, though, has been accompanied by an influx of ultra-fast e-motos marketed as “e-bikes,” tarnishing the reputation of the e-cycling movement as a whole as injuries caused by e-moto riders mount. State and local regulators have raced to contain the damage, but those laws vary wildly by jurisdiction, and sometimes snag perfectly safe pedal-assist vehicles in overly-restrictive dragnets.

Cotter argues the ELF 3.0 — which will certainly never be confused for a motorcycle-with-pedals — can help assuage that controversy by issuing over-the-air updates to customers in states with new laws, capping speeds at legally-compliant limits whenever regulations shift.

“It’s nice, because every state is going to be or can potentially be different,” he adds.

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The new ELF promises other novel benefits, too. Safety cameras, LED turn-signals, and full suspensions to smooth out rides are just a few of the features offered to riders; the new model’s solar capacity will double the old one, too, and it also includes “lockdown method” and trackers to prevent theft.

Cotter is particularly proud of an optional package that will allow the ELF to double as a battery back-up unit to charge phones and even power home appliances during a blackout.

“Instead of getting backup generators, here’s one that functions mostly on solar — and it also provides transportation,” he added.

Listening to Cotter rattle off the features of the new ELF, it’s hard to think of a problem the adorable bike-car wouldn’t solve — at least if you believe its founder’s hype. With no firm delivery date set for the 3.0 model, that’s a big “if.” Many of its potential riders will undoubtedly opt for already-available e-bikes in the meantime, even if it means having to wear a raincoat or strap cargo onto a rack once in a while.

The 750 people on the wait list for the next model, though, suggest that ELF could find a niche. And if more innovative options like it were broadly available — not to mention more bike-friendly places in which to ride them — it’s possible we’d have a world with a lot fewer drivers.

• Waymo is partnering with Visa to reimburse customers’ transit fares (The Verge), which David Zipper and Jeff Wood both view as a mere PR move after rideshares’ long history of bait-and-switches involving being a last-mile partner for transit agencies.
• Speaking of autonomous vehicles, the Eno Center for Transportation has a lot of technical information about where regulations are headed, both in the U.S. and internationally.
• Nashville residents have seen a lot of unusual behavior from AVs since Waymos hit town. The question of who’s liable for a crash will likely result in a lot more lawsuit settlements, because gathering data from robotaxis will be expensive, and companies will want to avoid discovery, according to the Vanderbilt School of Law.
• These are not problems confined to just a few cities, as Uber plans to invest $10 billion in robotaxis over the next few years. (Axios)
• Cops are clearly not taking their Flock responsibilities seriously. (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
• A circular firing squad in the train community has erupted after someone launched a first strike against our common enemy, the running dog airlines. (Newsweek)
• The Atlanta city council voted unanimously for a resolution in support of transit along the Beltline. But when it actually comes time to fund the $3.5 billion project, will ambivalent Mayor Andre Dickens go along? (Urbanize Atlanta)
• The Charlotte city council reversed course and granted its support for adding toll lanes to I-77. (Q City Metro)
• The Texas DOT is building more roundabouts in San Antonio. (Report)
• Vision Zero remains a priority for Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson even as she submitted a budget with $50 million worth of cuts. (My Northwest)
• Lincoln broke ground on a new downtown transit hub — on top of a parking lot, no less. (Journal-Star)
• Grow Omaha explains how transit-oriented development will benefit the city as its streetcar comes to fruition.
• Ann Arbor bike and pedestrian advocates are demanding safer streets. (MLive)
• To raise awareness for transit, two Atlanta college students broke a Guinness record for fastest time visiting all of a city’s transit stations. (AJC)