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Tabbs Bay is east of Houston near Baytown and La Porte. 

State regulators came under intense scrutiny in 2021 when it was discovered that one-third of its leadership lived out of state.

More than half of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of a coast, so offshore wind sites are close to electricity demand centers.

We are able to track who actually builds and owns a large portion of the nation’s renewable energy.

Colorless and odorless, methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps 83 times more heat in the atmosphere over a 20-year period than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.

Two proposed wind farms off the Texas and Louisiana coasts would join offshore oil drilling rigs in the gulf as the Biden administration tries to boost the country’s clean energy supply.

A Morgan Stanley report updated Monday states that retail energy generation company Vistra could see huge windfalls from ERCOT's new 'reliability-based' business model.  

Researchers are increasingly linking oilfield activity and seismic activity, with a new report from the University of Texas at Austin connecting the two in the Delaware Basin.

The cost of electricity in Texas is tightly tied to the price of natural gas.

Statement from the National Confederation of Indigenous Native Peasant Women of Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa" - alerting about persecution, illegal detentions, and acts of torture.

The post Bolivia: The “Bartolina Sisa” Organization Reaffirms Unity. Denounces Government Attempts at Division and Co-optation appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

A federal agency will offer tens of thousands of acres in northwestern Colorado that the nation’s largest elk herd relies upon for migration, foraging, and winter habitat to oil and gas companies for lease in the state’s biggest such sale in modern history.

More than 100 parcels included in a June 16 lease sale by the Bureau of Land Management encompass elk, pronghorn, and mule deer migration corridors that extend into southern Wyoming. Many sit in Moffat County, which bills itself as the “Elk Hunting Capital of the World” and relies on the pastime in part for its economic stability.

About two-thirds of the acreage in the 156,000-acre lease sale is just south of Dinosaur National Monument, a remote park that’s among the country’s over 40 certified International Dark Sky Places — areas with exceptionally dark night skies. Tourism officials in Moffat, who saw inquiries drop by more than half this spring, voiced concern that bright lights and truck traffic that accompany fossil fuel extraction could imperil this hard-won designation.

“Things like that could put that status in jeopardy,” said Tom Kleinschnitz, the county’s director of tourism. “In the long run, I think it’s important to keep these areas as pristine as possible.”

The record June lease sale contradicts the Bureau of Land Management’s stated strategy for the national monument, as well as the 2024 amendments to area plans for northwestern Colorado that strengthened habitat protections for ungulates like elk and deer and at-risk birds such as the Gunnison sage-grouse.

Read Next ‘I need Chevron’: The oil company at the center of the California governor’s race Jake Bittle

Risks to big game and Dinosaur National Park are just a few examples of what’s at stake for the environment, the economy, and public health. A 2,360-line spreadsheet compiled by Denver-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Wild enumerates 17 rare plants and endangered species whose habitat could be imperiled by fossil fuel exploration and extraction. 

These include the black-footed ferret, wolverine, boreal toad, and Colorado pikeminnow, and threatened plants such as the Colorado hookless cactus and Parachute penstemon. The lease sale includes acreage relied upon by other species such as the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, greater sage-grouse, ferruginous hawk, and swift fox — all identified by state wildlife officers as being of special concern.

The June event is one of four large lease sales in Colorado since Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed a bill in 2025 that included provisions to encourage drilling on the nation’s public lands. This agenda lies in stark contrast to the pattern of leasing activity during President Joe Biden’s term — with just six sales in Colorado during his four years in office. Just several hundred acres were offered during that period.

The 2025  H.R. 1 legislation prioritized fossil fuel extraction over other uses such as recreation and conservation; mandated that federal officials hold a minimum of four lease sales each fiscal year in Alaska, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming; shortened public comment times; and reduced the discretion land managers hold over whether to offer acreage for lease or not.

The law also decreased oil and gas royalty rates, making it cheaper to extract fossil fuels on public lands and reducing the share of profits from such natural resources to taxpayers. Colorado alone could lose $148 million in revenue from future production from about 81,000 acres that sold in 2026, according to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.

Read Next Once a climate leader, Canada is now doubling down on oil Jake Bittle

The push to lease tens of thousands of acres to oil and gas companies comes as bipartisan polling conducted as part of Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Project found a majority of voters in eight Western states want their congressional representatives to prioritize conservation over energy development on public lands.

About 21 million acres of public lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management are leased for oil and gas development already, according to fiscal 2025 statistics on the agency’s website. Only 12 million of those acres are actually producing fossil fuels. 

This discrepancy underscores a concern of conservation groups that during the decade that energy companies hold federal oil and gas leases, the parcels by law cannot be managed for other uses such as sensitive habitat, wilderness character, or recreation.

“Folks need to understand the long-term impacts of a rush to lease so much public land,” said Peter Hart, legal director of the Wilderness Workshop, which works to conserve wildlife and the wilderness. 

“Once those leases are issued they are very hard to get rid of — they stay on the land for a long time, even if they aren’t developed.”

In response to issues raised in a 106-page comment letter filed March 13 by the Wilderness Workshop and 17 other organizations, the Bureau of Land Management wrote in an environmental assessment that it would conduct additional site-specific analysis of each parcel in the Colorado sale if a company files for a drilling permit. 

Read Next The Trump administration wants to take an ax to the East’s last great forests Grist staff

The agency also pointed out repeatedly in its 646-page report that “risks are reduced through the careful review of drilling and completion plans for proposed wells by both the BLM” and Colorado’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission.

Federal officials removed four parcels and reduced a fifth, for a total of about 4,800 acres, from the initial sale offering, citing a recent decision by the Interior Board of Land Appeals. These parcels included habitat for the greater sage-grouse and Columbian sharp-tailed grouse as well as high priority habitat for big game. Numerous other parcels with similar characteristics remain in the sale.

The environmental assessment also noted that agency officials would apply stipulations to leases issued for sensitive parcels aimed at protecting animals, plants, cultural resources, and fish.

Even so, conservation groups that closely monitor what’s at stake in oil and gas lease sales said that federal land managers have significantly less leeway at the permitting stage to move oil and gas operations, add conditions of approval, or to cancel a lease altogether. Together with these limitations is an inability for these officials to remove parcels that were deferred from past sales because they included habitat for sensitive species.

“During the first Trump administration, there was a sale that was initially proposed to be much larger than this and the state Bureau of Land Management was able to use its discretion to defer parcels that were inappropriate because of greater sage-grouse conflicts,” said Alison Gallensky, a conservation geographer at Rocky Mountain Wild.

“Now, they are being forced to offer a much larger sale than that one turned out to be,” she added.

Read Next Utah’s fragile desert could feel like the Sahara if America’s biggest data center gets built Leia Larsen

Greater sage-grouse are very sensitive to oil and gas infrastructure — even if it’s moved farther away from their habitat — and intuitively sense a winged predator could land on such equipment. They won’t breed if they feel that they are in danger, Gallensky said.

In addition, provisions developed to protect the birds listed in the environmental analysis for the June lease sale, such as requiring an oil and gas company to build a pad farther away from nesting locations, relies on operators to follow through — something that the federal government isn’t always staffed to monitor, she said.

Acreage included in the June sale also marks the continuation of a trend that began with last year’s federal oil and gas lease sales in Colorado. Typically, such sales offer public lands to energy companies in more remote parts of the state. 

Yet in September, the agency leased a parcel near the Aurora Reservoir, which is bordered by a densely populated Denver suburb, for about $5.6 million. The acreage is part of the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan — a more than 150-well project approved by state regulators and strongly opposed by nearby residents.

Many of the more than 340 individual comments the agency received for the June sale urged the agency not to lease similar parcels near the reservoir. Residents and conservation groups wrote that emissions from oil and gas development on this acreage would worsen pollution in an area that’s already out of compliance with federal air quality rules.

In addition, the agency estimated in its analysis for the June sale that several parcels listed in Weld County, home to the state’s largest and most productive oil field, could result in up to 150 wells. Emissions from these wells would worsen smog in a region that already fails to meet national standards, conservation groups wrote.

“BLM’s implication that this lease sale ‘would result in no emission increase’ or that emissions are not reasonably foreseeable enough to perform a conformity determination are thus entirely baseless,” said numerous organizations in the March 13 comment letter to the agency.

Federal officials responded in the environmental analysis that the agency would conduct a “project-specific emissions inventory” if companies file for drilling permits on the parcels after leasing them. Permit requests would include details such as how many wells are proposed, a drilling and completion schedule, and a list of the equipment to be used, allowing the agency to conduct a more thorough analysis, officials wrote.

In Moffat County, on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains where much of the acreage in the June oil and gas lease sale is concentrated, community representatives noted a need to balance pollution and environmental concerns with the economic reality that rising grocery and gas prices are hitting rural areas hard. Some residents in this sparsely populated region, where 80 percent of voters cast ballots for Trump in 2024, rely in part on royalties from drilling to make ends meet, said Kleinschnitz, the county’s director of tourism.

“Many people in outfitting have agricultural businesses, and hunting is incredibly important to keeping people on those landscapes,” he said. “And some of them make royalties from oil and gas and have benefited greatly from having those.”

Copyright Capital & Main 2026

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Federal agency to open tens of thousands of acres of Colorado wilderness to oil drilling  on Jun 6, 2026.

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

USDA Proposes Closure of Bee Research Facilities

Bees and other pollinators are essential to our food system. They are uncredited workers who support the production of many of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts we consume everyday. But pollinator populations are facing increasing stress due to climate change-related threats and diseases.

Globally, wild bee and native pollinator populations are declining rapidly, and managed honeybees are experiencing similar threat. Last year, commercial beekeepers in the U.S. reported losing about 60% of their honey bee colonies, the highest loss rate since tracking.

At a time when we need to increase support for bees and beekeepers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has, instead, proposed the federal closure of essential bee research facilities.

One facility is the Beltsville Bee Research Lab in Maryland which has provided support for beekeepers, run disease diagnostics, and conducted essential research for over a century.

The closure of bee research labs reflects a growing trend Food Tank has been reporting on: at the very moment when more support is needed, federal funding is instead being stripped.

Food Insecurity in the U.S. Rises Beyond COVID Rates

Similarly, last year, the US Department of Agriculture stopped collecting data on American food insecurity, arguing that the studies were “redundant” and served to “fear monger.”

But Americans are experiencing food insecurity. The data still exists and it’s shocking.

A new survey released last week from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that food insecurity in the U.S. has reached its highest rate in six years.

Hunger is now more widespread than it was during the summer of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic triggered severe economic disruption and unemployment.

As grocery prices continue to climb and Americans face higher fuel costs, many families are being forced to make impossible choices between necessities.

The report shows about 10% of families reported missing meals. For lower income families, this number doubles. Nearly 20% of families reported having to skip meals or go without food due to financial constraints.

The report also comes on the heels of the FAO’s declaration that a broader global food security crisis may be on the horizon. Geopolitical conflicts and disruptions to the supply of energy, fertilizer, and other agricultural inputs could lead to lower crop yields, and increased global hunger, in the years ahead.

The Colorado River is at a Historic Low

Just as food insecurity is rising globally, water access is becoming an increasingly urgent issue across the American West.

The rules that govern the Colorado River, the primary water source for much of the region, will expire at the end of 2026. But despite years of negotiations, the seven basin states (California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico) still have not reached an agreement on how the river should be managed.

The challenge is driven largely by climate change. More than two decades of drought, rising temperatures, and declining snowpack have reduced river flows and pushed the system’s two largest reservoirs to historically low levels.

The stakes are enormous. The Colorado River supplies water to about 40 million people and irrigates millions of acres of farmland. Any decision about how water shortages are allocated will directly affect farmers and food production.

The negotiations taking place this year will likely shape water policy across the American West for decades to come.

Climate Resiliency and Learning from Dryland Farmers

Now, more than ever, we need to focus on climate resiliency for farmers.

One of the most important places to look for solutions is in the farming communities that have been adapting to water scarcity for generations.

Across dryland regions like East Africa and central Australia, farmers have spent generations producing food in water-scarce and variable environments.

These farmers understand what it means to farm through drought, uncertain rainfall, and extreme heat and, as these conditions increase, this knowledge is becoming more important than ever.

Éliane Ubalijoro with CIFOR-ICRAF said recently that drylands are “rich with opportunity, ecological intelligence, and the potential to drive resilience, economic vitality, and sustainable prosperity for millions.”

Food Tank recently published a list of 10 amazing dryland crops you may not be familiar with. These crops are grown by farmers who are leaders in climate resiliency.

FIMCON Gathers Food is Medicine Professionals

Food Tank attended FIMCON, the largest gathering of food is medicine professionals, last week in Washington, D.C. The event brought together healthcare providers, researchers, policymakers, and advocates who are working to demonstrate how access to healthy, nutritious food can prevent and manage chronic diseases.

As conversations around healthcare continue to evolve, events like FIMCON showcase innovative strategies that recognize food not only as a basic necessity but also as a powerful tool for treatment and prevention.

The goal for food is medicine dialogue in the future is to ensure farmers are always at the center of these discussions.

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 Mike Newbry, Unsplash

The post Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: Colorado River at Historic Low, Dryland Farmers Lead in Resiliency, and Bee Research Facilities’ Proposed Closure appeared first on Food Tank.

Headline News:

• “Innovative Strategies The Wine Industry Is Using To Adjust To Climate Change” • An increase in heat has been found to alter the chemistry of grapes and the taste of the wine. In response, some vintners are changing the way they cultivate their crops to mitigate the effects of climate change and reduce their own carbon footprint. [ABC News]

Napa Valley vineyard (Daniel Salgado, Unsplash)

• “Governor Polis Signs Bill Countering Expensive Federal Coal Plant Orders” • Colorado Governor Polis signed a bill requiring more transparency on the costs incurred from running coal units past their retirement dates. It requires modern pollution controls for coal plants operating after 2033 and directs the PUC to help the state reach its 2030 climate targets. [CleanTechnica]
• “Fossil Fuel Imports Have Dropped Across The EU Since War On Iran, Except In Three Countries” • While the EU responded to the latest fossil fuel crisis by limiting fossil fuel imports, a trio of states, Germany, Italy, and Belgium, have “deepened their exposure by increasing them.” Overall, EU imports have fallen 1.2% since the war started in March. [Euronews]
• “Renewable Energy Is Overtaking Traditional Power Projects Across Africa, Industry Leaders Say” • Africa’s next generation of power projects is increasingly being built around solar and wind power with battery storage, as governments and investors shift away from coal and large hydropower dams in search of cheaper, faster, and more reliable electricity. [AOL.com]
• “Governor Lamont Signs Solar Energy Bill” • Connecticut Gov Ned Lamont signed a solar power bill to ensure that the state’s families and businesses can continue to choose to go solar. The new law extends rooftop solar programs, promises to bring faster solar permitting, and moves towards allowing sales of “balcony” solar systems. [Environment America]

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

Salah satu alasan terbesar di balik popularitas slot pulsa digital adalah kemudahan akses. Pengguna tidak perlu lagi melalui proses transaksi yang rumit atau bergantung pada metode pembayaran tertentu. Dengan menggunakan pulsa yang sudah tersedia di ponsel, proses deposit dapat dilakukan secara cepat dan praktis.

Kemudahan ini memberikan pengalaman yang lebih efisien bagi pengguna modern yang menginginkan segala sesuatu berjalan instan. Dalam era digital yang serba cepat, kepraktisan menjadi nilai yang sangat berharga dan slot pulsa mampu menjawab kebutuhan tersebut dengan baik.

Penetrasi Smartphone yang Semakin Tinggi

Pertumbuhan pengguna smartphone turut memberikan dampak besar terhadap perkembangan slot pulsa digital. Hampir setiap orang kini memiliki perangkat mobile yang selalu terhubung dengan internet. Kondisi ini menciptakan peluang besar bagi berbagai layanan digital untuk berkembang, termasuk platform yang menyediakan transaksi melalui pulsa.

Dengan satu perangkat di genggaman, pengguna dapat mengakses berbagai layanan kapan saja dan di mana saja. Fleksibilitas inilah yang membuat slot pulsa semakin relevan dengan gaya hidup masyarakat modern.

Jangkauan yang Lebih Luas

Fakta menarik lainnya adalah kemampuan slot pulsa menjangkau pengguna dari berbagai daerah. Tidak semua wilayah memiliki akses perbankan yang sama, tetapi hampir seluruh masyarakat memiliki nomor telepon dan pulsa.

Kondisi ini membuat slot pulsa menjadi alternatif yang lebih inklusif. Pengguna tidak harus memiliki rekening bank atau dompet digital tertentu untuk melakukan transaksi. Hasilnya, basis pengguna terus berkembang dan menciptakan pertumbuhan yang konsisten dari waktu ke waktu.

Perubahan Perilaku Konsumen Digital

Generasi digital saat ini cenderung memilih layanan yang cepat, sederhana, dan minim hambatan. Mereka mengutamakan kenyamanan dibanding proses yang panjang. Slot pulsa hadir tepat pada momentum perubahan perilaku tersebut.

Konsumen modern lebih menyukai solusi yang dapat langsung digunakan tanpa prosedur tambahan yang menyita waktu. Faktor psikologis ini sering kali menjadi alasan tersembunyi mengapa banyak pengguna beralih ke metode transaksi berbasis pulsa.

Dukungan Infrastruktur Digital yang Semakin Matang

Perkembangan jaringan internet dan teknologi telekomunikasi juga berperan penting dalam mempercepat pertumbuhan slot pulsa digital. Koneksi yang lebih stabil memungkinkan transaksi berjalan lebih lancar dan aman dibandingkan beberapa tahun lalu.

Ketika infrastruktur digital semakin kuat, kepercayaan pengguna ikut meningkat. Kombinasi antara akses mudah, kecepatan transaksi, dan kenyamanan penggunaan menciptakan ekosistem yang mendukung pertumbuhan secara berkelanjutan.

Efek Komunitas dan Rekomendasi Pengguna

Banyak orang mulai mengenal slot pulsa melalui rekomendasi teman, komunitas online, hingga media sosial. Efek ini menciptakan pertumbuhan organik yang sangat kuat. Ketika pengguna merasa puas dengan kemudahan yang ditawarkan, mereka cenderung membagikan pengalaman tersebut kepada orang lain.

Fenomena ini menghasilkan efek berantai yang mempercepat penyebaran informasi dan memperluas jangkauan pengguna baru tanpa perlu promosi besar-besaran.

Kesimpulan

Pertumbuhan slot pulsa digital tidak hanya didorong oleh tren sesaat, tetapi oleh kombinasi faktor yang saling memperkuat. Kemudahan transaksi, tingginya penggunaan smartphone, jangkauan yang luas, perubahan perilaku konsumen, serta dukungan infrastruktur digital menjadi fondasi utama di balik perkembangannya. Semua elemen tersebut membentuk sebuah ekosistem yang membuat slot pulsa terus mendapatkan tempat di tengah transformasi digital yang berlangsung semakin cepat.

Our comrade Kim Moody tells us that union coverage in the U.S. is up. This development is only to be welcomed by all self-defined socialists, especially those who still conceive of working-class self-activity, self-education, and self-organization, particularly at the point of production, as indispensable for social revolution. But to celebrate this development too quickly and too easily, without a socially and materially grounded sense of what union membership means, is to miss the forest for a few still maturing saplings.

The reformist left tends to equate union membership with union militancy—as if the first automatically leads to the second. There are contradictions aplenty at play here, of course. One can certainly support electing Democrats and engaging in militant activity at the same time. But, at the end of the day, this equation is the germ of a strategy that submits class struggle to an electoralist strategy. Strikes and other stoppages need not last too long, be organized by rank-and-file workers, or be organized and translated into independent working-class infrastructures of dissent to build an electoralist “movement.” In fact, once absorbed into such a movement, working-class struggle is to be managed, turned on and turned off like a faucet, by those above, and dampened.

Unfortunately, then, there is no straight and easy path from union coverage to labor militancy. In fact, while coverage is up, strikes remain low. How we explain this contradiction, this gap between coverage and militancy, has real consequences for how we respond to it as a socialist organization rooted in the tradition of working-class self-emancipation and socialism from below. In what follows, I’ll go through some flawed analyses, turning to thinkers much smarter than myself to dispute them, talk a little bit about what hasn’t changed, and make some concrete, if not entirely worked out, proposals for how Tempest might respond.

Unfortunately, then, there is no straight and easy path from union coverage to labor militancy. In fact, while coverage is up, strikes remain low. Bad Analyses and Good Rebuttals

Narratives that attempt to explain the decline in both union density and militancy over the last few decades by simply saying that capitalism has changed are legion. We can find them in Brenner’s recent work on “secular stagnation” and in the work of some of his students, particularly Aaron Benenav; in the thought of “left-wing communists” like Josh Clover, who suggests that we have entered a new phase of capitalism based entirely on circulation and that, therefore, struggles at the point of production are subordinate, and should be politically subordinated, to riots that will grow until they explode into some sort of undefined commune; and in recent “techno-feudalist” accounts that claim that capital has transformed into a mode of production based predominately in techno rent-taking. These arguments simply don’t hold up.

It is, of course, obvious that capitalism has changed and continues to change. Capitalism is, in fact, marked by a dynamism and turbulence unseen in other modes of production. And this is because of what Anwar Shaikh describes as its “central regulating mechanism” of “real competition.” However, while dynamic, turbulent, and productive of heterogeneity—among firms, within the working class, between nations, etc.—capital is also a social relation with strict rules of reproduction. Its engine and goal is profitability. It is driven by and dependent on it. This has not changed.

Thinkers have similarly blamed the decline of the labor movement on deindustrialization, noting that, if functional and militant unions were full of industrial workers, our shift to a “service” economy necessitates both union decline and a search for new models of organizing and militant activity no longer tied to the millstones of the strike, stoppage, or slowdown. I won’t go into this here, but, as Michael Roberts notes, globally, the world has not deindustrialized. Nor does the growth of the service sector explain the decline of the labor movement. This sector is not inevitably stagnant or unprofitable, as some claim. It is a poorly defined industry, and one that also includes essential components of production.

The relative growth of the service sector does not signal capital’s retreat or exhaustion but rather its extension. Additionally, as Roberts explains, while industrial employment has dropped in the “mature capitalist economies,” it rose globally, between 1991 and 2012, by 46%. And these drops in the mature capitalist countries cannot be explained without attention to productivity increases imposed by capital and largely accepted, sometimes even embraced under the fiction of labor-management cooperation, by unions.

Along with all of this, more and more people have been thrown onto the labor market the world over. This ongoing process of proletarianization is unsurprising. And it points to the fact that developing organs of working-class struggle, self-organization, and self-education, which have always been helped along in one way or another by socialists, is still crucial.

…Developing organs of working-class struggle, self-organization, and self-education, which have always been helped along in one way or another by socialists, is still crucial.

The working class is not dead, nor is its most important weapon, the strike. Those who claim that the decline of the labor movement in the U.S. is based solely on major shifts in capital’s functioning ultimately turn what is a political issue—the disorganization of a militant layer of the working class and the Left—into an inevitability. This lets those of us on the Left off the hook.

The Necessity of Exploitation, Then and Now

Capital continues to create profit and chase profitability by way of exploitation. This is not a negotiable feature of capitalist social property relations. It is foundational. As Shaikh explains, under capitalist “real competition,” “cost-cutting becomes a central concern.” This is:

because prices are ultimately limited by costs. Costs, in turn, depend on the length and intensity of the working day, the wages paid to workers, and the technology in use. Hence, struggles between capital and labor over wages and working conditions are immanent in the drive for profit. So too is never-ending technical change, whose principal purpose is to reduce costs.

This means that capital is also compelled to respond to crises of profitability by increasing surplus value through raising the rate of exploitation. What generated the recovery that we know of as the neoliberal boom was not only the destruction of inefficient enterprises through bankruptcies, mergers, acquisitions, and the like, but also the brutal projects of holding down wages, increasing productivity, and lowering expectations in relation to living standards, including offloading social reproduction onto the family. This takes place at the point of production, of course, but it also reaches beyond it. When in the midst of crisis, as we now are and have been for some time, capital and capitalist states also impose austerity.

Those of us in Tempest already know all of this. But given the state of things—capitalism’s long depression, the global rise of the Right, the ever-intensifying attacks on working and oppressed people, and the sharpening of inter-imperial rivalry, to name only a few morbid symptoms—it can be all too easy to lose sight of the functioning of capital as capital. Capital is doing what it does and what it must. It is seeking profit and chasing profitability at the expense of working-class living conditions. What we’re living through, then, is not an aberration. Crises are regular and recurring features of capitalism, and so, too, are authoritarian responses to these crises. As Jeffrey Webber and Todd Gordon put it, “there is an authoritarian disposition at the core of capitalism, a tendency integral to its very nature as a system of exploitation, oppression, and alienation.”

This is why militant working-class struggle remains not only important to resisting capital and the capitalist state’s authoritarian turn but also non-negotiable, a lynchpin of political struggle that cannot be ignored. Trump is a nightmare. But he doesn’t represent as much of a rupture as he seems to. Ultimately, he is the head of a capitalist state that is trying desperately to both leap out of a crisis of profitability and to convince working people that the crisis of social reproduction we face is the fault of other working and oppressed people.  But under Donald Trump, the next president (likely a Democrat), and leaders the world over, whether of the Right or center, workers still work and will still work. We’re compelled to work to survive in a market-dependent world. If anything, the global economic crisis in which we remain mired means more austerity, more work for less, under the rule of right or center. Exploitation will not go away, and it has not gone away.

There has certainly been a full-throated abandonment of the so-called rules-based liberal order—even if, at base, this order was itself always a regulating fiction. Inter-imperial rivalry is, of course, both more intense and therefore more visible. And the rise of the Right the world over is both a central problem for the global Left and the oppressed and the exploited, and a serious obstacle to our organizing.

However, there is a tendency, even on the Left, to treat these phenomena as if they represent a serious departure not just from the capitalist status quo of the past fifty years or more but also from the orthodoxies of capitalism more generally. Terms intended to clarify the unprecedentedness of the Trumpian moment proliferate: neo- and post-fascism, authoritarian nationalism, plain-old fascism proper, political capitalism, U.S. Bonapartism, and so on. It is important, of course, to outline the specificities of our moment as clearly as possible. But there is a temptation built into these debates, I think, and that is to present Trump and the global Right as if they represent a kind of irregularity.

We should remember, though, that:

For much of the twentieth century, the U.S. was a deeply authoritarian society. In parts of the country, it was a one-party state. Many of its policies were inspirational to European fascist regimes. Yet it was all established and maintained without any open coup, any apparent “revolution”, or any Nazi-style party in uniforms: it always called itself democracy, not totalitarianism. The American authoritarian tradition, on which Trump draws, operated through a patchwork collaboration of state institutions, bosses, right-wing union officials, and private thugs.

Trump’s is an attempt to reconstitute this tradition of open racism, assaults on the heterogeneous working class, and crackdowns on left-wing activists and movements, immigrants, queer folks, women, and the poor. This reactionary tradition was only buried, to the limited extent that it was, by mass struggles from below.

And it was precisely the gap that developed between the organization of workers as workers, at the point of production and beyond it, and efforts to expand these gains that allowed for something like Trump’s traditionalist return with many twists. This happened not only because of assaults from above but also because of failures from below—namely, the cleaving of workplace struggle and its disciplining on the part of union bureaucrats in league with so-called progressive capitalist and convinced of the efficacy of labor-management cooperation. The largest organ of the organized Left in the U.S.—the Communist Party—took a similar tack as it embraced the Popular Front strategy.

The crisis of working-class militancy, then, is a political one. Therefore, the reconstitution of a militant layer of workers will require a lot of political work. But it also contains within it the germ of revolutionary possibility.
Because capital can only change so much, because it is driven by profitability, the best way to threaten and cajole it, and the states that depend upon and smooth its way, is still to threaten its livelihood, even if only in the short term. Whoever is in office in whatever capitalist state, this holds. That doesn’t mean that we can collapse national and historical specificities into a unilinear march toward revolution. Rather, the realization that it will take a fighting labor movement to compel both meaningful reforms in the here and now and in the future should force us to take stock of specificities, of real obstacles to and opportunities for organization in the U.S. and elsewhere.

New Epoch or Crisis

Responses to crisis matter, of course. But the response by authoritarian nationalists and centrists or liberals has largely been the same. If the first engage in revved up scapegoating, the use of state force, etc., the second do so with a more human face, until the genocide of Palestinians perpetrated by the Israeli ethno-state is on the table. Then the mask slips off.

The Right, the world over, benefits from the economic crisis and the lack of serious left-wing opposition. But, like the center, it flails in the face of this crisis, even if in more openly cruel and reactionary forms. We shouldn’t collapse all capitalist regimes into one another, of course. There are serious differences. Workers are “better off” in a relative, and very qualified sense, under less right-wing administrations. As Avery Wear argues, in the current climate, the argumentative way forward in the U.S. is not claiming that both parties of capital are simply mirror images. Rather, it is that, whatever the differences, “the Democratic Party… because it is a party dominated by the capitalist class, sabotages our class’s fight against the authoritarian and reactionary tendencies of the Republicans.” Even those of us who fall on the side of what Wear calls the “classic” argument, represented by something like Hal Draper’s “Who’s Going to be the Lesser Evil in 1968?,” should heed Wear’s advice.  Even if in fits and starts, people are moving. There is a nascent but broad resistance constituting itself, however unevenly. And while many of its members are still willing to vote Democrat in order to unseat Trump, they’re also willing to take to the streets against ICE, against Trump’s attempt to further consolidate his power and push at the edges of his authoritarian liberalism.

Even as we work with and in this broad resistance movement, we should never recoil from the project of reorienting these spaces to independent working-class action and mass mobilization, not as opposites but as both integral parts of class struggle that must be united. Therefore, even if they’re real and meaningful, differences between the capitalist parties shouldn’t be fetishized either.  When it comes to working people and the heterogeneous working class, they’re far too similar.

…Even if they’re real and meaningful, differences between the capitalist parties shouldn’t be fetishized

Both parties have responded to the crisis of profitability by displacing it onto immigrant workers, gender minorities, the houseless, the racialized, and the oppressed more generally. The Democrats’ rhetoric of moral superiority has come to equal itself as, well, empty rhetoric in the face of their full-throated support of Israel. Spending on ICE swelled under Democrats, too. Trump did not create these armed goons out of thin air. Nor is mass deportation a Trumpian invention. It was also a bedrock of the Obama and Biden administrations. Trump has certainly adopted it with more public-facing cruelty and authoritarian verve. But what we’re seeing is the intensification of an already-existing (and bipartisan) attack on immigrants.

Just look at the way Harris’s “resounding defeat by voter abstention” was blamed on “whatever marginalized group refused to sufficiently support” her “right-wing, blood-soaked, imperialist presidential bid.” This blame has been extended to immigrants, Latinx voters, trans people (and the Democrats’ supposed courting of them), Arab and Muslim voters, those who refused to support Harris’s gung-ho approach to changing absolutely nothing in the midst of a U.S.-backed genocide of the Palestinian people, and so on.

Harris’s campaign, and its possible if suicidal resumption in 2028, even if simply the product of centrist Democrat delusion, still speaks to the fact that the official opposition in the U.S., whatever their rhetoric, will continue to wage war on working and oppressed people, both in the U.S. and globally.

Even if the Right is openly pursuing imperialist aggression and much more openly attacking working-class and oppressed people than the supposed opposition, we should also avoid the trap of treating these real historical shifts as if they represent the abandonment of capital’s central logic and drive. We should be careful that, in trying to make sense of the dynamism of capitalism, we’re not falling into the traps of thinking of capitalism as progressing through “phases,” each marked by a different logic of accumulation. The authoritarian turn has not veered away from capitalism. It is latent within capitalist social relations themselves.

Even as they mobilize, unions in the U.S. still bank on the Democratic Party and on the capitalist system itself. Mass disruptive struggle may have moved into the realm of possibility with Trump’s assaults on workers, but it is yoked to an unbroken business unionism in the workplace. Struggles are limited, contained within the bounds of collective bargaining, and mainly concerned with wages and benefits rather than with the conditions of work itself.

Toward a Limited Response

Workers are clearly being drawn to unions as defensive organs, not only in relation to attacks on wages, benefits, and the conditions of work but also, importantly, in an attempt to defend themselves and their immigrant colleagues from (some of) the forces of the state, revved up by Trump’s authoritarian nationalism. In the last year, we’ve seen unions and their members take to the streets in LA, Minneapolis, and elsewhere. This is an incredible development. Even unions and locals that had become sclerotic through years of bland business unionism have turned out and have organized members to turn out to No Kings protests. And while what happened in Minneapolis was not a general strike, “it served as a starting line for new organizing efforts that can carry the movement forward on more than just momentum.” Additionally, calls for organizing around May Day 2026 drew serious attention from working-class folks in the U.S. Even if the May Day events were smaller than expected, the character and infrastructure initiated in their planning are significant. These are openings that we can’t dismiss as insufficient, even if they are insufficient. As the Tempest National Committee explains: “We can draw inspiration from the anti-ICE movement and commit to building the kind of sustained, ongoing organizing in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods that will increase our capacity and power.”

Much of this organizing was and is being done by rank-and-file workers. But there is also a schism between these, what we might call, being unfortunately imprecise, politically or outwardly-directed organizing projects, and organizing at the point of production, in the workplace, whether the factory, the schoolhouse, the warehouse, etc. Joe Burns describes this phenomenon as “labor liberalism,” distinguishing it from business unionism, but the two are relatively compatible, especially in times of crisis.

This kind of organizing threatens to replace organizing workers at work and as workers—capable of threatening the capitalist pursuit of profitability by way of conscious stoppage—with organizing members to be mobilized outside the point of production, and at will, turned on and off like a faucet. A personal example: I’m a non-tenure instructor at Howard University. Over the past year, our SEIU local has invited us to national No Kings protests and anti-ICE actions, but they also swooped into our workplace during negotiations, refused to openly bargain, even though it was the will of the majority, and actively impeded our attempts to build solidarity with other university workers. What we won is a contract that, in the midst of crackdowns on academic freedom, ultimately invests the university administration with more power over our work and our jobs more generally.

As socialists grounded in and carrying forward the tradition of socialism from below, we know that to bring about real and meaningful change, we need not only bodies in the streets but also militant workers in all kinds of workplaces. Whatever the administration, whoever the leader, capital and the capitalist state can be compelled when workers threaten to raise costs.

Whatever the administration, whoever the leader, capital and the capitalist state can be compelled when workers threaten to raise costs.

At the national level, Tempest already houses a Labor Working Group (LWG), and local LWGs and Direct Action Working Groups exist in some branches. The national Education Working Group recently completed an education series on multiracial organizing, focusing on both unions and social movements. All of this work is necessary. Much of it is excellent. But we need to develop a more coherent and intentional project of worker education—one that unites Tempest’s national resources and expertise with the embeddedness of many of our members in their own unions and local labor movements more generally.

Some less-than-concrete ideas:

1) The creation of a pool of Tempest members and collaborators willing to write on organizing strategies and tactics and on various forms of disruption. Such writings could take the form of pamphlets, leaflets, or short articles for the website. And they could focus on more abstract or theoretical questions, historical examples of working-class action, or both.

1. A specific series of labor pamphlets, leaflets, or short articles that Tempest members can print, share with their union comrades (electronically or otherwise), hand out, or put up at work, etc. These could be thought of as a kind of Organizing 101 series. Whatever lessons are presented should be drawn out for a non-socialist audience, and there should be a persistent effort to connect past historical examples to present situations.
2. Tempest members who are involved in union struggles should be encouraged to write about their experiences, and those who have been involved in struggles past or who have some historical knowledge of these struggles, why they matter, and what lessons we can draw from them, should be encouraged to share their knowledge.

2) The development of educational materials that Tempest members can use in their unions: These materials could take the form of reading lists or syllabi, perhaps based around specific themes; pre-made but editable presentations or scripts for talks, especially on themes, lessons, or concepts that are applicable across different sectors of work; reading and study questions that Tempest members can use to facilitate reading and discussion groups in their unions; and the like.

3) A series of presentations, presentation scripts, education documents (pamphlets, articles, etc.), or reading/discussion group outlines that take up the hard work of actively building solidarity among working people the world over: These will provide an alternative to the kind of passive or reductive solidarity of the class reductionists, focusing on the necessity of fighting racism, standing up for immigrant workers, and building international solidarity not by ignoring oppression, but by actively fighting it.

4) A series of presentations, documents, etc. on the relationship between social movements and broader struggles against oppression and the labor movement.

5) The development of local labor schools or other educational infrastructures: These could host speakers from the collective as a whole—virtually or in person—even if the unions or sectors involved will differ depending on location, the embeddedness of Tempest members, etc.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Bastian Greshake Tzovaras; modified by Tempest.

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Off-grid gold mine achieves 155 consecutive hours of running on 100 pct renewables, with "engines off" - a pointer, it says, to what is possible.

The post “Significant milestone:” Off-grid mine runs 155 consecutive hours on 100 pct renewables and engines off appeared first on Renew Economy.

This year’s snowpack is grim throughout the Colorado River Basin—it’s the lowest in recorded history. Reservoirs across the Basin are low. Soils are dry.  But agriculture...

Spring 2026 Newsletter TAKE QUICK ACTION for a REAL IMPACT

 

Dear Friends, Thanks to ongoing community efforts, New Mexico officials are taking action to require DOE, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to prioritize sending LANL’s “Legacy” nuclear waste to WIPP for disposal. “Legacy Waste” is Cold War nuclear waste, created during decades of nuclear weapons research, design and fabrication. DOE promised New Mexicans that if we allowed WIPP to be built in our state, Cold War and other radioactive waste, then stored at LANL, would have priority to be disposed in WIPP. DOE has continually broken this promise over the years. New Mexico is usually far behind other states in disposing LANL’s Legacy Waste in WIPP. This has led to, among other problems, about 2500 drums of plutonium-contaminated Legacy Waste languishing for decades in tents in “Area G” in a wildfire zone. The red area shows the combined burn area of 8 wildfires between 1977 and 2022 three of which burned over LANL property. For more information about these fires, including an interactive map, go to FireOnTheMountain.xyz   On April 23, our New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued an important permit modification to WIPP’s 2023 Renewal Permit, holding LANL and DOE accountable for not prioritizing this Legacy Waste disposal as required in the 2023 WIPP Permit Renewal.   Important Points in the Proposed Permit Modification •  All Legacy Waste currently stored above-ground at LANL’s Area G shall be disposed in WIPP by July 1, 2028. (This would include the plutonium-contaminated Legacy Waste stored in the tents. •  From January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2031, at least 55% of the total volume of all waste disposed in WIPP from all national sites must be LANL Legacy Waste. •  Beginning January 1, 2032, and until all LANL legacy waste has been disposed in WIPP, LANL legacy waste must be at least 75% of the total volume of waste disposed in WIPP from all national sites. •  If at any point any of those conditions are not met, all shipments, other than those from LANL, must cease until all deficiencies are cured.   NMED needs to hear that we are in support of this permit modification.   Our full support is especially necessary because DOE is strongly opposing the modification.       To view the full Permit Modification, Public Notice, and a detailed Fact Sheet, go to:
www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/wipp/
And scroll down to WIPP News 2026 For more information and sample comments go to:
www.StopForeverWIPP.org ————————————————————– Members of the Stop Forever WIPP Coalition and Fire on the Mountain as well as other community groups support this action and urge people to submit written comments in support of NMED’s action by Monday, June 22 at 5 PM.   How to submit comments     •  NMED has asked that we submit comments directly through their portal here. •  But if you find that a little intimidating you can email your comments to:      HWB-WIPP-Comment@env.nm.gov •  Or even snail mail them to NMED at:            
    Megan McLean, WIPP Program Manager
Hazardous Waste Bureau
New Mexico Environment Department
2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505-6303   For more information visit    Stop Forever WIPP https://stopforeverwipp.org
https://www.facebook.com/StopfvrWIPP/ Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) http://nuclearactive.org Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC)
http://www.sric.org/ Nuclear Watch New Mexico

https://nukewatch.org

Fire on the Mountain www.fireonthemountain.xyz

For Immediate Release:

June 5, 2026

Contact:
Ashley Castaneda, ashley@restorethedelta.org

STOCKTON, CA — In response to a recent press release from Governor Gavin Newsom, Restore the Delta’s Executive Director, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla released the following statement:

“Further proof that Governor Newsom holds the same values regarding California water management as the Trump Administration. The Governor is influencing every regulatory process for his corporate agenda hoping the next Governor will continue with these special interest, big water projects like the Delta Conveyance Project.

Left, right, and center, the majority of Californians do not support the Delta tunnel or the water grab. They do support plans like the Water Renaissance Plan. If the top two gubernatorial candidates line up with Governor Newsom on water, they will lose a great deal of public support from voters.”

Restore the Delta further reiterates that Governor Newsom’s approach to water resources management fails the tests of morality, fairness, affordability, and protection for everyday Californians. Under this administration, the Delta has not only been neglected, it has been placed at even greater risk by policies that continue to endanger the region, its communities, and its future. 
 

###

APPLY HERE

Job Title:Director of Finance and Operations
Job Location: Hybrid-based in Oakland, California: 2 days in office required.
Position Start Date: September 2026
Job Classification: Full-Time Employee, Exempt, 37.5 hours per week
Salary Range: USD $135,000-145,000 per year
Reporting To: Amanda Brown-Stevens, Executive Director

About the Opportunity:

Are you enthusiastic about bringing a numbers-savvy, strategic lens to financial oversight and management? Excited to provide leadership and direction to operational infrastructure in service of the organization’s mission and long-term sustainability? Greenbelt Alliance is hiring a Director of Finance and Operations who will be instrumental in deepening its financial management infrastructure to accommodate anticipated growth in programs and revenue while engaging deeply in the day-to-day details of nonprofit operations and human resources. This is a senior leadership role working closely with organizational leadership to support thoughtful decision-making around growth, staffing, program expansion, and funding strategy.

We are looking for someone who brings years of experience in finance and operations, who is excited to collaborate with colleagues to direct and implement organizational financial policies, procedures, management, and strategy to ensure Greenbelt Alliance’s healthy financial position carries forward and operational needs are consistently met.

You’ll be a great Director of Finance and Operations for Greenbelt Alliance if you:

• • Bring expertise in budgeting, forecasting, and monitoring of revenue and expenses
  • Enjoy translating what the numbers are indicating about annual financial health to non-financially savvy colleagues, executives, and board members 
  • Can proactively solve problems, developing and improving systems
  • Have experience building and overseeing complex, publicly-funded project budgets to philanthropic grant project budgets
  • Have excellent communication and critical thinking skills, including experience presenting to Board of Directors and Finance Committees
  • Thrive in providing leadership and oversight of organizational operations
  • Bring experience managing a high-functioning Finance and Operations department
  • Ability to create and promote a positive and supportive work environment
  • Enjoy collaborating and iterating with a talented, bright, and supportive team
  • Pride yourself on having great attention to detail
  • Bring a passion for supporting organizational excellence in our mission to ensure the Bay Area is resilient to a changing climate

Key Activities Will Include:

Strategic Financial Leadership

• Oversee all financial operations, including accounts, ledgers, AP/AR, cash management, investments, and reporting systems
• Lead annual budget development, midyear forecasting, and multi-year financial planning, including cash flow analyses and contingency planning
• Present financial reports, dashboards, and narratives to the Finance Committee and Board of Directors
• Manage monthly, quarterly, and annual financial close and internal reporting

Compliance & Audit

• Lead the annual audit process, including financial statements and IRS 990
• Develop and manage complex public funding budget proposals and oversee state and federal grant administration and compliance
• Maintain a revenue processing system for timely draw-downs and reimbursements across multiple grant periods
• Strengthen and implement internal policies and controls to protect assets and ensure financial accuracy

People Management

• Supervise and provide strategic guidance to the Sr. Finance and Grants Manager and accounting staff, serving as back-up across functions as needed
• Provide oversight to the People Operations Manager on HR and employee relations matters in collaboration with a third-party PEO

Operations Management

• Oversee organizational operations, including office management, infrastructure, and vendor relations
• Support the development and maintenance of operational systems, policies, and documentation
• Ensure operational practices reflect organizational values and foster a collaborative work environment

Desired Qualifications:

NOTE: We do not expect any single candidate to have extensive expertise/experience in all of these areas, but will prioritize candidates with demonstrated success as a critical-thinker and quick-learner.

• Experience in accounting, finance, business administration or a related field.
• Experience as a people manager with knowledge of and ability to employ effective strategies that motivate and guide other staff members.
• Excellent mathematical and analysis skills.
• Experience with nonprofit financial systems as well as operations and administration.
• Knowledge of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and nonprofit accounting.
• Proficient use of the following software is a plus: Google Suite, Quickbooks, BILL, Zoom, Salesforce, Asana, Insperity, TimeCamp, Slack.
• Ability to lead departments and individuals.
• Strong written and oral communication skills, including presenting on financial information.
• Willingness to continually improve processes and systems, and be a team player.
• Ability to strategize creatively and think critically, overcoming obstacles and offering sustainable solutions.
• Self-starting work ethic, comfortable working both collaboratively and independently.

Benefits:

• 100% Employer-Paid Health Insurance, Dental Insurance, and Vision Insurance policies. Life insurance policy also provided.
• 50% Employer-Paid Insurance policies for dependents.
• Generous Paid Time-Off package, including Vacation Days, Sick Days, and Floating Holidays. As many as 14 paid holidays off, including Winter Break.
• Professional development and training opportunities. 

How To Apply

Applications for this position will be considered on a rolling basis; however, priority consideration will be given to applications submitted by June 29, 2026. Please allow several weeks for a response, as we are reviewing applications. Be sure to attach a professional resume as a PDF document to your application. In your cover letter, state your interest in the role along with answers to the following questions: 

1. How do you communicate complex financial metrics, risks, and forecasts to non-finance staff and board members?
2. What is your leadership philosophy for managing and developing a high-performing finance and operations team?
3. Give an example of how you used financial data and forecasting to inform an organization’s strategy direction?

APPLY HERE

Work Authorization:

At this time, Greenbelt Alliance is unable to offer assistance to noncitizens or nonresidents in obtaining employer-sponsored work visas. All employees must have existing authorization from the federal government to work lawfully in the United States of America. Authorization would include US citizenship, US permanent residency (“green card”), or any other type of unexpired work authorization visa issued by the federal government.

Equal Employment Statement:

Greenbelt Alliance is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, disability, sex, gender expression, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other category. We strongly encourage people of color, LGBTQIA+ persons, people of different levels of physical ability, people with diverse national and class origins, and all qualified persons to apply for this position. Learn more about our nondiscrimination policy here.

Greenbelt Alliance encourages candidates of all abilities to apply to this position! In the case you may require any kind of special accommodation in order to complete the application or hiring process, please contact us at info@greenbelt.org.

About Greenbelt Alliance:

Greenbelt Alliance’s mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate to ensure the Bay Area’s lands and communities are resilient to a changing climate. Greenbelt Alliance has stewarded the region’s beautiful natural landscapes while promoting the growth needed for thriving communities for over 65 years. We focus on innovative policy solutions and accelerating local and regional collaboration to plan and invest in resilient communities. Learn more at greenbelt.org.

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