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EWG’s 20th Annual Guide to Sunscreens finds market progress, a promising new ingredient but a stubborn UVA protection gap Monica Amarelo May 18, 2026

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Working Group today released its 20th Annual Guide to Sunscreens, and after evaluating nearly 2,800 SPF products, the most comprehensive review in the guide’s history, the news is mixed.

The sunscreen market is measurably better. Finding a safer and more effective sunscreen that works for your skin and your routine remains important in making sun protection a lifelong habit. The product you will actually use is the right one.

“The market has improved. The number of harmful ingredients like oxybenzone has nosedived, the percentage of products that are mineral sunscreens has nearly tripled and consumers are more informed than ever,” said David Andrews, Ph.D., chief science officer at EWG.

“But the fundamental problem remains unsolved: Most American sunscreens fail to deliver adequate UVA protection, critical for reducing skin cancer risk, including melanoma. 

“That is not a marketing problem but a failure of sunscreen companies to develop the data showing their ingredients are safe,” said Andrews.

Twenty years ago, most Americans had no independent, science-based resource to consult when buying sunscreen. The market was flooded with harmful chemicals, misleading SPF claims and products that offered little meaningful protection against the radiation most responsible for skin cancer.

So EWG built a guide.

This year, 550 of the 2,784 SPF products EWG evaluated meet its criteria for both ingredient safety and balanced UV protection. 

Sixty-two sunscreens bear the EWG Verified® mark. To qualify, they must:

• Meet EWG’s highest standards for safety and ingredient transparency
• Satisfy EWG’s standard for ultraviolet A, or UVA, and ultraviolet B, or UVB protection 
• Surpass both U.S. and European requirements for UVA protection. 

In total 130 SPF products, including moisturizers and lip balms, are EWG Verified.

20 years of measurable progress

“Wearing any sunscreen at all is key to reducing health concerns about excess UV exposure,” said Andrews.

“But not all sunscreens are created equal. EWG’s guide is a trusted, science-based resource that consumers can turn to every year to find the sunscreens that offer the strongest broad-spectrum protection without concerning ingredients.”

When EWG launched the first Guide to Sunscreens, in 2007, oxybenzone – a chemical linked to hormone disruption and environmental harm – appeared in 70% of non-mineral sunscreens on the market. Today it’s an ingredient in just 5%.

Vitamin A, which can degrade in sunlight and potentially accelerate rather than prevent skin damage, has plummeted from 41% of sunscreens to just 2%.

Mineral sunscreens using zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, the only active sunscreen ingredients the Food and Drug Administration has proposed as generally recognized as safe and effective, have grown from 17% to 47% of products EWG reviews.

These are not small victories. They represent a sea change in how an entire industry formulates its products, driven in significant part by consumers armed with better information.

A promising new ingredient on the horizon

For the first time in more than a quarter-century, EWG has cause for optimism about what is coming to U.S. sunscreen shelves. In late 2025, the FDA proposed classifying bemotrizinol, a UV filter used safely since 1999 in European and Asian sunscreens, as safe and effective for the U.S. market. 

“Bemotrizinol is the most significant development in American sunscreen regulation in 25 years, and EWG is proud to have pushed for its inclusion in U.S. products for more than a decade,” said Alexa Friedman, Ph.D., senior scientist at EWG.

Bemotrizinol provides several advantages, including:

• strong broad-spectrum UVA and UVB protection
• greater stability in sunlight than avobenzone, currently the only chemical filter in the U.S. that provides meaningful UVA protection 
• minimal skin absorption
• potential for combination with zinc oxide for even greater UVA coverage, unlike avobenzone.

If the FDA finalizes its proposal, American consumers who prefer non-mineral sunscreens will have a better option for the first time in nearly three decades.

“But one new ingredient does not fix a marketplace that has been stuck in neutral for a generation,” said Melanie Benesh, EWG vice president of government affairs.

“The FDA proposed meaningful reforms to sunscreen regulation in 2019 and again in 2021 – stronger UVA standards, SPF value limits, better labeling, updated safety data requirements.

“None of those reforms have been finalized, and sunscreen manufacturers have failed to provide the FDA with the safety data it needs to approve better UV filters,” she said. 

“Congress must force the issue by setting enforceable deadlines for companies to submit the required data and empower the FDA to remove noncompliant ingredients from the market,” Benesh added.

Most sunscreens still fail on UVA

Progress is real. But the gap in American sun protection has not closed.

EWG’s peer-reviewed research, published in Photodermatology, Photoimmunology & Photomedicine, tested 51 U.S. sunscreens and found that products delivered on average just 59% of their labeled UVB protection and only 24% of the UVA protection implied by their SPF labels.

UVA radiation penetrates deeper into the skin than UVB, is a driver of melanoma and photo-aging, and causes damage year-round through car and office windows, on cloudy days and at high altitudes. 

Melanoma cases are projected to rise 10.6% this year, according to the American Cancer Society. The rate of new melanoma cases has tripled since the 1970s.

The problem is compounded by misleading high-SPF marketing.

In perfect laboratory conditions, an SPF 50 product blocks 98% of UVB rays. SPF 100 blocks 99%. The difference is negligible, yet manufacturers continue to push SPF 70, 80 and 100+ products using chemical boosters that may inflate the number without improving UVA protection.

SPF tests triggered a regulatory reckoning in Australia, where independent tests found that one product labeled SPF 50+ tested at just SPF 4. The scandal triggered government investigations and mass product recalls. The U.S. has the same testing inconsistencies, but the FDA has not acted.

Europe adopted more accurate, objective laboratory testing protocols in 2024. 

The U.S. still relies on subjective in vivo tests, which involves technicians visually judging skin redness on human subjects, a method so inconsistent that the same formula can produce results of SPF 51 at one lab and SPF 28 at another.

“The SPF number on your sunscreen bottle doesn’t tell you the whole story,” said Friedman. “Consumers who reach for the highest SPF because they want maximum protection are often getting the least reliable UVA coverage of all. 

“That is a public health problem, and the FDA has the authority and the obligation to fix it,” she added.

Undisclosed “fragrance” in 36% of SPF products

More than one in three sunscreens EWG evaluated in 2026 list undisclosed “fragrance” on the label. That word can conceal hundreds of chemicals, including allergens, hormone disruptors and carcinogens.

For daily sunscreen users, those exposures accumulate. A 2025 peer-reviewed paper found the cumulative health effects of repeated fragrance ingredient exposure remain poorly understood and inadequately regulated. Congress set a 2024 deadline for the FDA to address fragrance allergen labeling in cosmetics, a rule that would have covered moisturizers with SPF. The agency missed it.

There is no equivalent fragrance disclosure requirement for sunscreens, so consumers have no way to know what is hidden behind that word on a product label.

“‘Fragrance’ on a sunscreen label doesn’t describe a single ingredient,” said Jilly Senk, science analyst at EWG Verified. 

“When you apply that product every day – to your face, your children’s skin, year after year – those undisclosed exposures add up. The EWG Verified mark exists precisely because the law does not require the transparency consumers deserve,” she said

How to find a sunscreen that works for you

The 2026 Guide to Sunscreens also offers important lists, including a selection of the top-rated recreational sunscreens, the safest for kids and babies, moisturizers with SPF and lip balms. They’re the products EWG scientists ranked the highest for their overall protection from UVA and UVB rays and other factors.

EWG also recommends “12 Bang for Your Buck Kids Sunscreens,” all priced at less than $20.

Here is EWG’s guidance for choosing a sunscreen that works and that you will use:

Choose mineral protection. Look for zinc oxide, which provides stable, balanced UVA and UVB coverage. EWG also recommends titanium dioxide for daily use.

Choose lotions or sticks over sprays. Sprays raise concerns about inhalation and often result in uneven coverage, especially in wind.

Skip high SPF numbers. Stick with SPF 50 or lower. Products with SPF 70, 80, or 100+ may not provide better UVA protection and can create a dangerous false sense of security.

Avoid chemicals of concern and undisclosed fragrance. Ingredients like oxybenzone and octinoxate are linked to hormone disruption and environmental harm. Undisclosed fragrance masks potentially harmful chemicals.

Use EWG’s tools. Search EWG’s Guide to Sunscreens, use the EWG Healthy Living app to scan products while you shop, and look for the EWG Verified mark, which requires sunscreens to exceed both U.S. and European UVA protection standards.

Finding a safer and more effective sunscreen that works for your skin and your routine is the final step in making sun protection a lifelong habit. The time of year does not matter. The weather does not matter. Every day is a sunscreen day – and the right product you will actually use.

###

The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Personal Care Products Sunscreen Family Health Children’s Health 80% of almost 2,800 reviewed SPF products rate poorly for skin protection or concerning ingredients Press Contact Monica Amarelo monica@ewg.org (202) 939-9140 May 19, 2026

EPA is undoing PFAS protections. How can you remove ‘forever chemicals’ from tap water? JR Culpepper May 18, 2026

“Do I have PFAS in my tap water? How can I get rid of PFAS in drinking water?”

If you’re asking these questions, you’re not alone. The Environmental Protection Agency formally proposed to undo enforceable limits for four toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS in drinking water: PFNA, PFHxS, GenX and PFBS. 

The agency is stripping protections from millions of Americans whose tap water is already contaminated, an unprecedented and likely unlawful move.

The EPA is leaving in place PFAS limits for the two most notorious and well-studied forever chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, which will help reduce levels of those chemicals in drinking water.

But the agency is also proposing to delay by two years the deadline water systems have to comply – until 2031, for utilities that ask. That risks continuing the PFOA and PFOS contamination in communities that have already waited decades for clean water.

The alarming move to scrap the four other PFAS limits may leave millions of people exposed to tap water chemicals linked to cancer, immune suppression and many other risks.

EWG estimated in 2020 that 200 million Americans could have PFAS in their tap water. The EPA’s latest national tap water data update says the number is at least 176 million.

So far, that’s all bad news. 

Here’s the good news: You can take steps that may help to reduce the amount of PFAS in your home’s tap water.

EWG is here to guide you through your options.

Are PFAS in my tap water? How to find out.

First, find out whether your tap water contains PFAS. Here are two tools:

• EWG’s Tap Water Database lets you enter your ZIP code, showing you the most up-to-date information about PFAS and other contaminants in your community's tap water. It contains data from water systems across the country, showing you exactly which chemicals have been detected and at what concentrations. 
• EWG’s interactive PFAS map shows where forever chemicals have been detected below and above the EPA’s first-time tap water limits. The map was updated with the EPA’s most recent national PFAS test data from March 2026, and includes communities, military bases and other locations. 

If you rely on a private well, your water is not monitored or tested by any public utility. If you live near a military base, industrial facility, airport or area with known PFAS contamination, consider getting your water tested.

How do I remove PFAS from my tap water?

“PFAS are in my tap water. Can I do anything about it?”

The simple answer is yes; there is something you can do – find and use a home filter designed to reduce PFAS in your drinking water. There are many brands and varieties available, at a range of prices. Not all filters remove PFAS effectively. Do not assume a filter removes PFAS unless it specifically states that it does.

There are a few different ways to filter water for PFAS. 

EWG’s guide to countertop water filters helps you navigate through some other accessible choices. EWG reviewed 10 of the leading brands and models, telling you which filter is most effective at removing PFAS, how much it costs, how quickly the filter parts must be replaced, and how easy it is to use, among other important considerations.

What’s key is the right PFAS filter option will depend on your budget and preferences:

• Carbon-based. Absorbs contaminants like PFAS as water flows through granular-activated carbon or a carbon block. Used in pitchers, under-sink filters and faucet-mounted filters, it’s often the most accessible and affordable option.
• Reverse osmosis. Pushes tap water through a semi-permeable membrane that separates particles from water molecules, cutting PFAS and other contaminants. It is typically installed under a sink, but some new counter top models are available. Reverse osmosis is a highly effective option for reducing PFAS in drinking water. 
• Ion exchange. Exchanges contaminants in the water for less-harmful ions to trap certain contaminants. Not as common in home filters and sometimes used in whole-house filtration systems, so often ends up being more expensive than point-of-use systems like filters you attach to a faucet.
• Whole-house filtration. These systems are often more expensive than other options. They’re not necessary for most homes – they’re typically just used by those with the worst contamination.

Renters may prefer counter-top, faucet-mounted or pitcher-type filters, technologies that don’t require changes to a property’s plumbing and can be easily removed when they move out. 

The best filter is the one that’s most suitable for your situation and that you will use.

Tell the EPA not to roll back PFAS standards

EWG strongly opposes the EPA’s rollback of four PFAS limits. The move could violate the Safe Drinking Water Act, the law that the agency used to first develop the standards.

If you’re also alarmed, you can make your voice heard. 

Tell the agency to keep PFAS protections in place. Preserving the limits for PFAS in water will protect health, save lives and clean up drinking water.

The EPA is taking public comment on the proposal through July 16. Use docket number EPA-HQ-OW-2025-1742 or EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0654 to tell the agency who you are, where you live and whether PFAS are in your water. Let the regulators know why these protections matter to you and your family. 

Personal stories from affected community members carry significant weight. The agency needs to hear from concerned Americans to understand just how misguided its plan is.

You can also contact your members of Congress and urge them to investigate whether the EPA’s rollback of PFAS regulations violates the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Areas of Focus Water Toxic Chemicals PFAS Chemicals Authors Anthony Lacey May 18, 2026

Trees as lived memories serve us citizens and residents, a culinary or recreational experience of engaging with them at regular intervals in our lives. A mango or jackfruit tree may bring back past relationships with our forefathers, and their ritualistic pickling processes or preservation through frying of chips. A banyan or peepal tree of the […]

May 14, 2026—Politico’s Eric He reports on Gov. Newsom’s May Revise budget proposal, which calls for deferring $3.9 billion in Proposition 98 school funding despite revenues coming in $16.5 billion above projections. The move has drawn swift condemnation from teachers unions, school boards, and Democratic lawmakers who argue the constitutionally-guaranteed funding is urgently needed — including by Los Angeles Unified, which is counting on state dollars to honor $1.2 billion in new union contracts. On the positive side for education advocates, the governor preserved $1 billion for community schools expansion. Public Advocates Managing Attorney John Affeldt weighed in on the deferral, saying that while restraints are warranted, it’s “not a crazy maneuver given the volatility of our revenue picture.”

Read the Story

The post Politico Pro: Newsom sticks with controversial funding deferral in mixed-bag schools budget appeared first on Public Advocates.

Nobody thinks they’re doing the popular front

Here’s the problem with arguing against the popular front inside DSA: Nobody in this organization thinks they’re doing it. That’s not a rhetorical observation. It’s the actual difficulty. Nobody wakes up and says, “I think we should subordinate working-class politics to bourgeois democratic forces.” That’s not how popular frontism arrives. It doesn’t announce itself. It accumulates through a hundred individual decisions, each looking reasonable until, at some point, the organization’s political orientation has shifted into something that would have been recognizable as wrong if proposed directly.

This document is not an accusation. Calling something popular frontism in DSA’s context isn’t a charge of bad faith; it’s a structural observation about what happens to socialist organizations under conditions of intense conjunctural pressure. And the pressure right now is real. Trump’s second term has produced a genuine emergency for millions of people. Immigrants are being deported. Civil liberties are being dismantled. Democratic institutions are being hollowed out or captured outright. People responding to this with urgency are not wrong about the urgency.

Popular frontism doesn’t announce itself. It accumulates through a hundred individual decisions, each looking reasonable until, at some point, the organization’s political orientation has shifted into something that would have been recognizable as wrong if proposed directly.

The question is not whether to respond. The question is how, and specifically on what political basis. That question has a strategic answer and getting it wrong doesn’t just produce ineffective politics. It reproduces the conditions that got us here.

What the popular front actually is

Before making the argument, we need precision about the target. The popular front gets used loosely, and that looseness lets people slide past the critique.

The popular front is not coalition work. Socialists do coalition work all the time and should. It’s not working alongside people we disagree with, and it’s not even working in formations dominated by non-socialist forces. The popular front is specifically the subordination of working-class political independence to a cross-class coalition organized around bourgeois political goals. The test isn’t whether DSA maintains formal independence—whether we keep our name and publish our newsletter. The test is whether the political content of our work is determined by the coalition’s framework or by an independent working-class program.

The popular front is specifically the subordination of working-class political independence to a cross-class coalition organized around bourgeois political goals.

Leon Trotsky’s Struggle Against Fascism in Germany makes this case: In the 1930s, the popular front meant communist parties entering electoral alliances with “progressive” bourgeois parties, adopting their demands, deferring to their leadership, and bracketing socialist politics as divisive. The theory was that fascism posed such an extreme threat that the immediate task was to defend bourgeois democracy, with socialist demands to follow once the emergency had passed.1The standard account of the 1930s debates remains Leon Trotsky, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1971), which collects the key documents from popular front. For the consequences of the Popular Front turn, see Felix Morrow, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain (New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1938).

The emergency never passed. Socialist demands never came back. The organizations that had disciplined themselves into becoming coalition partners emerged without the political independence they’d begun with, in cases where they emerged at all.

What is being proposed and, in some cases, practiced within DSA today has the same structural features, even if it goes by different names. Coalition partners are the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, liberal NGOs, and civil society organizations. The bracketed demands are socialist ones. The logic is identical: The emergency–framed as either authoritarianism or fascism–is too severe for the luxury of political independence.

How you get there without deciding to

Coalition gravity is real. It’s not a character flaw–it’s a structural problem that operates on organizations, not just individuals.

The Democratic-Party-aligned liberal-left is large, active, and well-resourced. When a crisis hits, that infrastructure mobilizes first and fastest. The coalitions form around it. The demands, the slogans, the framing, and the action calendar are set before socialist organizations have finished their internal discussions.

For example, a DSA member shows up at an immigrant defense meeting. The meeting is mostly liberals, a few DSA members, and some NGO staff. The immediate task of supporting people facing deportation is urgent and correct. Nobody is going to walk out because politics aren’t pure enough. That would be sectarian and wrong. So, you participate. You agree with the common statement. The common statement is framed around “defending American values” and “the rule of law”—not around class power, not around the system that produces both Trump and the deportation regime he’s intensifying. You table that argument because the meeting isn’t the time. Next meeting, same dynamic.

Over months of such activity, DSA’s public face becomes indistinguishable from that of the progressive liberal opposition. The people being recruited come in through that political framework. New members’ understanding of what this organization is gets shaped by what it visibly does, which is to background the socialist politics of working class power from below.

There is nothing explicitly stated requiring anyone to abandon socialist politics. The abandonment happens through accumulation, through the logic of each individual situation. This is what conjunctural pressure does to small organizations without a consciously held, collectively maintained, regularly reasserted strategic orientation.

The antidote isn’t sectarian abstention. It’s deliberate political clarity about what we’re doing and why it’s maintained actively, not assumed.

The fascism question is doing all the work

The strategic argument for popular front practice in the current moment always rests, explicitly or implicitly, on a characterization of Trump as fascist. That characterization is doing more work than it should be trusted to do.

In contrast to the popular front, Trotsky developed the united front strategy, which is often invoked imprecisely to justify current coalition practices, particularly in response to fascism. His argument was that fascism threatened to physically destroy working-class organizations, which required those organizations to act in common, despite political differences, to survive. Even then, he insisted on a united front among labor organizations, not a cross-class coalition with bourgeois democratic forces.2Trotsky, “For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism” (1931) and “What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat” (1932), both in The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. The key formulation: the united front is “a practical agreement for struggle” between organizations “that base themselves on the working class”—not with bourgeois parties.

If Trump’s second term represents a Bonapartist conjuncture rather than a fascist one, the entire strategic logic should shift. Bonapartism, in the classical Marxist sense, describes a regime in which the state achieves relative autonomy because the ruling class is politically paralyzed—no fraction can establish stable hegemony—while the working class lacks independent political expression to fill the vacuum. The executive floats above class conflict, presenting itself as a national solution to a political impasse. This describes the current situation with considerable precision.3The Bonapartism framework originates in Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852). For its theoretical elaboration and relation to fascism, see Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (London: New Left Books, 1974) and State, Power, Socialism (London: New Left Books, 1978). Poulantzas’s critique of instrumentalist accounts of the state is particularly relevant to the question of regime characterization.

The distinction matters because Bonapartism and fascism call for different strategic responses. Fascism requires defensive mobilization to protect existing working-class organizational infrastructure from physical destruction. Bonapartism requires something harder: building independent working-class political capacity to fill the vacuum currently occupied by the Bonapartist solution.

The “no kings” framing … is the ideological form of the popular front.

The popular front’s response to Bonapartism doesn’t just fail strategically. It actively worsens the underlying condition. Bonapartism arises from two simultaneous problems: bourgeois political fragmentation and working-class political subordination to bourgeois politics. The popular front deepens the second problem by re-subordinating working-class politics to bourgeois democratic forces. You defeat this Bonaparte—if you defeat him—only to have reproduced exactly the conditions that made him possible.

The “no kings” framing that dominates current opposition politics is not accidental. It is the ideological form of the popular front: The enemy is personal despotism, the solution is constitutional democracy, and the agent of change is a broad cross-class coalition of people who love freedom. Working-class power doesn’t appear in this picture as a distinct force with distinct interests. It appears as part of the democratic people, whose political expression is progressive liberalism. Socialists who adopt this framing aren’t just making a rhetorical concession. They’re accepting a framework that makes independent working-class politics invisible by definition.

Trotsky against the Trotskyists

It’s worth being direct about the theoretical tradition being invoked to justify current practice because the invocation is wrong, and demonstrating that it’s wrong matters for the internal argument.

When comrades say, “united front, not popular front,” they’re invoking a real and important distinction from Trotsky’s work in the early 1930s. The problem is that what’s being practiced in many cases is the popular front, not the united front—and the distinction between them is precisely what Trotsky spent years insisting on.

Trotsky’s united front was between working-class organizations: German socialist and communist formations, acting in common against the Nazi threat, maintaining their distinct political programs and organizational independence, and striking together on specific, defined objectives. Political independence wasn’t incidental to the strategy—it was the whole point. A united front dissolves the moment participating organizations can no longer advance their own politics within it.4Trotsky, “The United Front for Defense” (1933), in The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. The “march separately, strike together” formulation appears in several documents from this period. Its precondition—that independent organizations capable of marching separately actually exist—is rarely emphasized in contemporary invocations.

“March separately, strike together” is frequently quoted. What’s less frequently noted is that marching separately requires that you be marching and that there be an independent working-class political formation capable of entering a united front as a distinct pole. DSA joining a Democratic Party-led coalition isn’t a united front. There is no independent march. There is a large march that has absorbed us.

The Comintern’s move to the popular front in 1935 was not an abandonment of the united front in favor of something obviously different. It was a collapse of the united front into a cross-class coalition, dressed in the language of anti-fascist necessity. Dimitrov’s Congress speeches don’t read like a capitulation—they read like a strategic adaptation to overwhelming circumstances.5Georgi Dimitrov, “The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International,” report to the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (1935), in The United Front: The Struggle Against Fascism and War (New York: International Publishers, 1938). The rhetorical sophistication of the popular front turn is worth attending to: it was presented as a creative application of united front principles, not an abandonment of them.

The people who built the popular front thought they were being realistic, flexible, and responsive to conditions. They were wrong. The popular front delivered the Spanish Republic to Franco and the French Left to paralysis. The lesson isn’t that unity is bad. It’s that unity organized on bourgeois-democratic terms—with socialist politics bracketed as divisive, and its socialist demands deferred as premature—produces defeat even when it yields votes.

What independent politics actually looks like

The case against popular frontism is not a case for abstention, and saying so directly matters because the charge of sectarianism is always the first response.

DSA members should be in immigrant defense work. We should be in the streets around May Day and every moment of mass mobilization. We should be in coalition with whoever is organizing working-class people. None of that is in question. What’s in question is the political basis on which we’re there and the organizational form we maintain within it.

Independent politics in practice means several difficult things. It means being visibly, publicly socialist in coalition spaces, not as a condition of participation but as a contribution to it. The people being radicalized at this moment need to find a distinct pole. If DSA’s presence is indistinguishable from progressive liberalism, we’re not offering them an alternative; we’re delivering them to the Democratic Party’s orbit.

It means framing every attack as class politics, not democratic politics. Deportations are not an assault on American values. They are an assault on working people by a capitalist state that serves ruling-class interests—interests that the Democratic Party also represents, differently but genuinely. The distinction matters because it points toward a different solution. “Restore democracy” points toward the Democratic Party. “Build working-class power” points to something that doesn’t yet exist at the required scale, which means the task is to build it.

Independent politics … means treating the conjuncture as a radicalization opportunity, which requires having a distinct socialist pole for people to find.

It means doing genuine united-front work where it is actually possible, with DSA’s left currents, with socialist labor militants, with other genuine working-class formations, on terms that maintain political independence rather than dissolving into the lowest common denominator of anti-authoritarianism.

And it means treating the conjuncture as a radicalization opportunity, which requires having a distinct socialist pole for people to find. People are moving right now. The question is where they move to. If socialist organizations are invisible as a distinct political force, if our public presence is liberal coalition work, then the people being radicalized by Trump’s attacks get absorbed into the Democratic Party opposition. That is a long-term failure with consequences that will outlast the current crisis.

The organizational honesty problem

One more thing deserves to be said, even though it’s uncomfortable.

Organizations under pressure tend toward popular frontism in part because it solves an immediate organizational problem: isolation. Coalition work provides activity, visibility, a sense of mass connection, and recruiting opportunities that independent socialist politics can’t provide. This is a real organizational need being met in a politically costly way. Naming it isn’t an accusation of bad faith. It’s an attempt at honesty about the pressures that drive political drift.

The solution is not to pretend that the isolation problem doesn’t exist; it does, and it’s serious. The solution is to refuse to solve it through absorption into formations whose political gravity we need to escape. That means accepting that independent politics is harder, slower, and less immediately satisfying than coalition work. It has always been true. The organizations that maintained independence through the 1930s conjuncture were the ones that came out the other side with something to offer. The ones that dissolved into the popular front came out as smaller versions of the liberal parties, they’d subordinated themselves to—in the cases where they came out at all.

Conclusion: We’ve been here before

The argument of this document is not that DSA should disengage from the current moment of political crisis. It is precisely the crisis’s intensity that makes it necessary to be as clear as possible about our political orientation, not the reason to defer clarity until conditions are easier.

Bonapartism won’t fall to the Left that currently exists in the United States. The socialist movement is too small, too organizationally fragmented, and too politically subordinated to bourgeois parties for that. The question the conjuncture poses is not whether we can defeat Trump’s regime directly. It is whether we can use this moment to build the organizational and political infrastructure that might, eventually, constitute a genuine working-class political force, or whether we will spend it as the left wing of a liberal coalition that will absorb our energy, recruit our cadre into its own formations, and leave us smaller and less politically distinct than we started.

The popular front has always promised the second option while selling the first. We have enough history now to know how that story ends. The question is whether we’ve learned from it.

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: OsannaChil; modified by Tempest.

The post The coalition that swallows you appeared first on Tempest.

Massive Florida-based power company NextEra Energy announced today its plan to acquire Virginia’s Dominion Energy, citing the growth of A.I. data centers as the impetus for the move. In response, Public Citizen Energy Program director Tyson Slocum issued the following statement:

“This absurd proposal to merge two massive, well-capitalized utilities should be dead on arrival for state and federal regulators. Household customers have everything to lose and nothing to gain by allowing two behemoths, NextEra and Dominion, to merge.

“The claim that the tie-up is needed to address data center demand is a false narrative; the merger will do nothing to increase generating capacity, let alone desperately-needed renewable generating capacity. These mega-utilities are merely using rising concern about data centers as an excuse to concentrate political and economic power of two giant utilities to maximize financial returns to shareholders. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and state regulators should reject this outlandish, unnecessary merger as completely contrary to the public interest.“

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Protein is everywhere – it probably isn't making us healthier JR Culpepper May 18, 2026

Protein used to be the domain of bodybuilders and fitness fanatics. Now it’s everywhere: high-protein claims on Doritos chips, Dunkin’ Donuts lattes, breakfast toaster pastries and even pints of ice cream. 

There is even, somehow, “high performance man cereal” packed with protein. 

The protein powder market has become a more than $20 billion dollar industry, and demand for whey protein is so high that food and beverage companies may soon face a shortage.

But more isn’t always better. And not all protein sources are the same.

Despite mountains of marketing claims suggesting otherwise, we are not all walking around with protein deficits. In fact, some protein products being sold as a silver bullet for better health may pose their own risks.

American diets have a problem – but it’s not protein

Many of us don’t need to worry about getting more in our diets. The average U.S. adult’s consumption exceeds daily protein recommendations.

But some groups may benefit from a protein boost, including older or postmenopausal adults, pregnant or lactating individuals, athletes engaging in resistance or endurance training and, potentially, people taking GLP-1 medications.

Foods like beans, lentils, nuts, seeds and whole grains can provide protein, along with another nutrient few people get enough of: fiber. More than 90% of women and 97% of men fall short of recommended daily fiber intake, around 25 to 38 grams per day. Diets low in fiber are linked to higher risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer.

A bonus of foods high in both protein and fiber: They are often more affordable than traditional protein sources. For example, a cup of cooked lentils contains about 18 grams of protein and 16 grams of fiber – often for less than a dollar per serving.

Concerns about supplements’ safety

Much of the protein boom is driven by the marketing of protein powders. 

These are classified as dietary supplements, so the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate them the same way as food and drinks. Companies themselves are responsible for verifying the health and safety of their products.

Potential contamination of protein powders is also a significant concern. A 2025 Consumer Reports investigation found detectable lead in nearly every sample of protein powder and shake tested. Some single servings contained enough lead to cause a woman of childbearing age to exceed the FDA’s recommended daily limit for lead from food.

Another study revealed that nearly half of protein supplements tested exceeded at least one state or federal safety limit for lead, cadmium, mercury or arsenic.

Many brands also contain artificial food dyes, sweeteners and other highly processed ingredients that offer no nutritional value and may be linked to other health harms.

Ultra-processed protein products

New products boasting added protein should also give you pause.

Many snacks, drinks and desserts now boasting protein claims – from chips to cereals to flavored coffee drinks – are ultra-processed.

Ultra-processed foods, or UPF, are industrially manufactured products that contain colors, additives or ingredients not commonly found in home kitchens. In the U.S., these foods make up more than two-thirds of children’s diets and more than half the typical adult diet. 

Leading health experts now consider UPF a key driver of chronic disease, including Type 2 diabetes, depression, and heart, kidney and gastrointestinal diseases.

Extra protein in an ultra-processed product doesn’t reduce any of these risks. It’s also unlikely to provide other beneficial nutrients, like fiber, found in minimally processed or whole foods.

What you can do

Consumers shouldn’t have to figure all of this out alone.

Companies should be required to routinely test supplements like protein powders and disclose the results, including any findings of heavy metals in powders, shakes and bars.

States like California have already successfully adopted these requirements for baby food. By reducing contamination levels in many product categories, they showed that transparency drives cleaner sourcing and safer manufacturing.

Last year, California also signed landmark legislation to ban the most harmful UPF from public schools. Now, California lawmakers are considering a state-run non-UPF certification program to make grocery shopping easier for concerned consumers.

In the meantime, people looking to learn more about their protein sources can use EWG’s Food Scores to identify nutrition, ingredient and processing concerns in more than 150,000 foods. Food Scores also flags unhealthy UPF and can help you identify alternatives. 

Or if you’re on the go, EWG’s Healthy Living app puts that information in your pocket while you shop.

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN May 18, 2026

The global annual production of plastics rose to 400 million metric tons in 2022 and is projected to double by 2050. Many items produced are used once and then thrown away, including more than 30 billion plastic water bottles sold each year in the United States alone. Less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled.

Clearly the problem of plastic pollution in land and marine environments isn’t going away. This series looks at some approaches to dealing with it, including this examination of the increasing demand for water in disposable bottles.

A whopping 88% of Americans say they consume bottled water, according to an industry survey released in 2024. In fact that year we drank an estimated 16.4 billion gallons of it — 47.1 gallons and a shocking average of about 340 individual bottles per person. The retail cost of all those bottles reached $50.6 billion.

But there’s another cost to this practice: serious effects on our health.

Recent research from Concordia University in Canada shows that people who drink bottled water ingest up to 90,000 more microparticles of plastic a year than those who drink tap water. Microplastic particles range in size from 1 micron (a thousandth of a millimeter) to 5 millimeters. For perspective, a credit card is about 1 millimeter thick.

More concerning is another study that found higher amounts of nanoparticles in water bottles than previously reported. Nanoparticles are smaller than 1 micron.

An ever-growing body of research suggests that exposure to these particles, particularly the nano-sized ones, affects our immune systems, causes reproductive issues, impairs cognitive function, and increases cancer risk.

Why We Drink Bottled Water

Why do we drink so much water from plastic bottles in the first place?

In one survey reported by Statista, reasons given by consumers included convenience, better taste, mistrust of household water quality, unsuitability of tap water, preference for sparkling or flavored water, and the fact that some of the bottled stuff has more minerals.

Researchers at Canada’s University of Waterloo suggest that the choice also taps into something deeper: our fear of death. Their 2018 paper argued that this fear makes us want to avoid risks — and many people see bottled water as safer, purer, or more controlled.

The industry promotes those perceptions with marketing campaigns using celebrities and feel-good imaging. Some even directly play on fears about the safety of tap water and mistrust in government entities (think Flint, Michigan), according to Peter H. Gleick, president emeritus and chief scientist at the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security and author of the 2010 book Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession With Bottled Water.

But is bottled water truly safer than tap?

Image by Wilson Blanco from Pixabay Bottled Versus Tap

In the United States, tap water is significantly more regulated than the bottled stuff. The Environmental Protection Agency oversees municipal tap water systems, which must meet safety standards and are regularly inspected.

The water itself is treated to remove particles, chemicals, bacteria, and other contaminants and must be frequently tested. Water suppliers are required to provide testing results to customers every year in the form of Consumer Confidence Reports, also published online.

Not that there haven’t been problems with tap water systems. A 1986 EPA report, Reducing Lead in Drinking Water, showed that 36 million Americans were using tap water with high levels of lead. Much of that exposure came from lead pipes in homes. Congressional investigations and updates to the Safe Drinking Water Act followed and most of the problems were fixed, but not all (again, Flint).

More recently per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), known as “forever chemicals,” have been found in water sources around the world. These chemicals break down very slowly and have turned up in the blood of people and animals and at low levels in a variety of food products and soil. Studies have linked exposure to some PFAS to harmful health effects.

In 2024 the EPA adopted national standards for acceptable levels of PFAs in tap water, requiring water utilities to test for it until 2027. Testing results will be used to determine future regulations for regular PFAS sampling and reporting, and after 2029 utilities must use treatment processes to remove PFAS from drinking water. Researchers are studying the effectiveness of various removal technologies.

Contaminants or pathogens sometimes end up in municipal water supplies due to issues such as flooding or equipment malfunctions. Thankfully we know about these incidents because of the required testing. But hearing about them can sow doubt, causing people to switch to bottled water even if their water source is safe.

The Food and Drug Administration regulates bottled water, but only if it’s sold across state lines. Water that is both packaged and sold within the state of origin represents most of the bottled water market, according to Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Individual states are responsible for these products, but 1 in 5 states have no regulations covering them, he adds.

And while the PFAS standards are supposed to apply to bottled water as well, Olson says: “As far as we know they haven’t been. Most bottled water probably doesn’t have PFAS, but how do we know?”

A study led by New York University researchers found that plastics — including but not limited to water bottles — are responsible for 93% of the exposure to PFOA, one of the most widely studied PFAS.

NRDC also found that about 22% of bottled water brands they tested contained chemicals at levels above state health limits or industry recommendations in at least one sample.

Ironically, an estimated 25 to 45% of bottled water is simply municipal tap water, repackaged and marked up in price, sometimes further treated, sometimes not. PepsiCo’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani, for example, are filtered tap water. Some brands, like Smartwater, promote that they use distillation to purify their water, but that process uses a lot of energy. Spring water typically requires minimal treatment but may come from stressed natural springs. The process of bottling water can be wasteful; for example, it takes 1.63 liters of water to make every liter of Dasani.

Olson points out that making and shipping plastic bottles uses a lot of fossil fuel, too. “It’s incredibly wasteful. Consuming tap water is more energy efficient and has a lower carbon footprint.”

Then there are those particles.

On April 2 the EPA announced plans to study microplastics and added microplastics as a priority contaminant group on a draft list under consideration for regulation in drinking water (along with pharmaceuticals as a group, 75 individual chemicals, and nine microbes). However, the agency has had significant layoffs and attrition under the second Trump administration. It is dispersing staff in its defunct Office of Research and Development to other programs and faces a proposed 52% cut to its budget. Food and Water Watch, a safe food, water, and climate advocate, warned that the announcement falls short of what we really need, which is a comprehensive nationwide monitoring program.

On top of that, the effort will address microplastics but not nanoplastics.

Sarah Sajedi, Ph.D., coauthor of the previously mentioned particle studies, has done experiments that found as many as 10 million nanoparticles in a liter water bottle. A major concern, she says, is that these particles accumulate in human tissues. Nanoparticles can enter the bloodstream and reach vital organs, causing chronic inflammation, oxidative stress on cells, hormonal disruption, impaired reproduction, neurological damage, and various kinds of cancer.

“We’ve only had technology in the past three to five years to detect the nanosized particles,” Sajedi says. “First you have to prove there is exposure, and now we have shown that it exists with bottled water.”

In another ironic twist, when companies started using thinner plastic in water bottles to help reduce plastic pollution, it made the particle problem worse.

Bottled water containers now typically use almost a third less PET plastic on average than other packaged beverages like soft drinks, which need thicker containers due to carbonation. But these thinner bottles shed more particles. Movement, such as from being carried around, and exposure to sunlight both increase release of particles.

“Shaking the bottle or UV exposure from leaving it in your car increases tenfold the shedding of the plastic,” says Sajedi.

Improving the quality of material used in bottles would reduce particle exposure but exacerbate the problem of plastic waste. Gleick’s book noted that people in the United States throw away 30 billion plastic water bottles each year. Only a small percent of those are recycled; many end up in the environment, often the ocean. The harms caused by this plastic pollution are well documented, with the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimating its environmental damages at about $75 billion per year back in 2018 and a 2025 study blaming it for over $1.5 trillion in health-related economic losses per year.

Image by Hans from Pixabay So What’s a Thirsty Person to Do?

In general the safest thing to do is drink tap water — absent any specific problems in your area — and drink bottled water only on (rare) occasions.

“Say you’re at a baseball game and there’s no drinking fountains,” Olson says. “You’re not evil for consuming it once in a while. We just encourage people to think about it.”

If you’re concerned about your tap water, he suggests using a home filter system, which costs much less overall than bottles. One example shows that a family of four could save $2,878 a year using a pitcher-style filter system instead of bottled water.

“Another thing is, don’t be fooled by the names and pictures on the label that imply the water is from a mountain stream or pristine spring,” Olson says. “If the label says it is from a municipal source, it probably is just untreated tap water because that’s what rules require they say.”

When you need to buy bottled water, Sajedi suggests buying larger containers. “The quality of plastic is better with the jugs, which cuts down on your exposure to particles.”

Water is an essential human need. In places without reliable, safe water sources, many of these issues are moot, although experts argue the solution is to provide or improve infrastructure rather than relying on bottled water. But for the rest of us, it may be time to rethink our drinking habits.

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The post Dangerous Drinking: Is Bottled Water Really Safer Than Tap Water? appeared first on The Revelator.

Interview with Ian Angus, author of Metabolic Rifts: Capitalism's Assault on the Earth System

Source

Workers and management at Abundance Food Cooperative in Rochester, New York recently voted to ratify their first union contract.

Ratification took place less than a year after the Co-Op’s workers voted to form a union with representation from Workers United. The new contract guarantees just-cause protections, which means the co-op can’t fire employees without a fair and proven reason. It also focuses on worker wellbeing by improving health and safety rules, offering a flexible paid time off policy and cost-of-living wage increases, and changes to improve the daily work environment. 

The collaboration in drafting of the first contract illustrates the strength of the cooperative’s labor-management partnership, says the co-op’s Marketing Coordinator Debbie Smith. And as the cost of living in Rochester climbs, the store wants workers to feel valued and cared for.

“Cooperatives exist to serve our community, and the workers are a part of our community,” Abundance Interim General Manager Vince Ularich tells Food Tank.

The Abundance leadership team also sees this step representing a commitment to the wider Rochester community. “Our neighborhood…has been described by terms such as food apartheid, a food desert or a food swamp. Statistically, we serve areas that suffer from some of the greatest food insecurity in the country,” Ularich says.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that over 13.5 percent of households in the United States are food insecure. But in Rochester, the food insecurity rate is much higher, at 21.5 percent, according to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap resource. 

Ularich says the co-op staff “strive to provide food access to all of the people in our neighborhood and the surrounding community.” He sees Abundance as more than a store, but a site that fosters community wellbeing and responds to the needs of local residents.

This means providing accessible, organic, locally sourced, and minimally processed goods. Pay-by-the-pound items are designed to improve economic accessibility. And Too-Good-To-Go bags preserve what could have otherwise been food waste, while allowing eaters to purchase products at a discount.

Special Projects Coordinator Francis Barrow tells Food Tank that the Co-Op has run into “disagreements between employees about what the union would bring and if it would benefit everyone.” But Barrow is optimistic the contract will lead to an increased sense of community. “My hope is that employees and management work hand in hand to make the co-op stronger: for the people who work here, the people who shop here, and the community as a whole.”

And Ularich has been encouraged by support for the labor movement: “Throughout this process we have been aligned in the goal of ensuring that our co-op is a business that supports workers’ rights.”

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 Abundance Food Cooperative

The post Abundance Food Co-op Ratifies First Union Contract appeared first on Food Tank.

A sensitive throat makes dental visits difficult for people who struggle with a strong physical reaction. This natural defense keeps objects away from the airway, but it can stop necessary care. Professional teams use specific methods to help every person stay calm during their treatment. They focus on comfort to ensure every visit to a local Abu Dhabi dental clinic is a smooth and easy experience for everyone.

Gentle distraction techniques:

Staff often help by moving the focus away from the mouth during a procedure. They might ask a person to lift their leg or count backwards to keep the brain busy with other tasks. Listening to music or watching a screen can also help keep the mind calm. These simple actions make the physical reaction less likely to happen while the dentist works.

Numbing sprays and gels:

Doctors use special sprays to dull the feeling in the back of the throat before they start. This temporary numbness makes it much easier to take mouth images or clean back teeth without any discomfort. When the area feels less sensitive, the urge to gag usually goes away quickly. It is a fast way to make the process feel much shorter.

Specialized breathing exercises:

Breathing through the nose is a great way to stay relaxed during a checkup. Staff guide people to take slow breaths to help keep the throat muscles from tightening up. Deep breathing sends a signal to the body that everything is safe and okay. Concentrating on the air moving in and out prevents the sudden panic that causes a physical reflex.

Using smaller tools:

Sometimes the size of the equipment is what causes the most trouble for a sensitive mouth. Dentists can use child-sized sensors or slim tools to create more space and reduce pressure. Taking frequent breaks allows the person to swallow and rest between steps. Smaller items are less likely to touch the sensitive spots that trigger a reaction during the exam.

Salt on the tongue:

A quick trick involves placing a tiny bit of salt on the tip or back of the tongue. This simple trick distracts the nerves and can shut off the reflex for a few minutes. It is a safe and natural method that works surprisingly well for many people. Most offices keep a little salt handy just for this reason to help their guests relax.

Headline News:

• “Victoria Approves The Biggest Wind Farm In The Southern Hemisphere” • Victoria’s Minister for Planning has given state environmental approval for the Warracknabeal Energy Park. The proposed 219-turbine wind farm is set to be the biggest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere. It will deliver over 1.5 GW of electric energy. [Energy Source & Distribution]

Wind farm in Victoria (Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 3.0)

• “EU Households Could Save ‘More Than €2,200’ Every Year By Switching To Heat Pumps And EVs” • Switching to green heating and transport can cut EU household energy bills by thousands of euros every year, even before accounting for fossil fuel shocks. According to a report by Danish green think tank CONCITO, the savings could be €2,200 per year. [Euronews]
• “Ethiopia Leads EV Revolution In Africa” • Two years ago, Ethiopia did something unique. It banned the importation of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines on the grounds that the nation was squandering money it didn’t have to import fuels for those vehicles. It also exempted EVs from virtually all fees and import duties. [CleanTechnica]
• “Drone Strike Ignites Fire At UAE Nuclear Plant Amid Gulf Tensions” • The Barakah nuclear plant in Abu Dhabi’s al-Dhafra region was struck by a drone for the first time since the outbreak of the Iran war, causing a fire in an electrical generator outside its inner perimeter. The $20 billion facility supplies a quarter of the UAE’s energy needs. [MSN]
• “NextEra Said To Near Record $66 Billion Deal For Dominion Energy” • Bloomberg News reported that NextEra Energy is in talks to acquire Dominion Energy. It could value Dominion at roughly $66 billion in a mostly stock transaction. If completed, the merger would be the largest utility acquisition on record and one of the biggest M&A deals of 2026. [MSN]

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

Fight for the Future, Access Now, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and other leading human rights organizations are demanding Meta immediately course correct and make good on promises to protect Instagram DMs with end-to-end encryption by default.

Led by Fight for the Future, 50 human rights groups are expressing outrage over Meta’s decision to discontinue “opt-in” end-to-end encryption for Instagram messages, as well as its apparent reversal of plans to protect Instagram messages with end-to-end encryption by default. The groups sent a letter to Meta calling on the company to immediately course correct and follow through on promises to ensure users’ direct messages (DMs) are safe from third-party access.

For the communities represented by the organizational endorsers of the letter, including activists, LGBTQ+ people, abortion seekers, journalists and other targeted groups around the world, privacy online is not “optional.” It’s a matter of life and death.

Meta’s removal of “opt-in end-to-end encryption” for direct messages on Instagram—a feature only available to users in certain regions—took effect on May 8, 2026. Meta has claimed the move was driven by “lack of interest from users.”

The decision and rationale represent a complete reversal of Meta’s well-established commitments to end-to-end encrypted communications, as well as its promises to make end-to-end encryption the default setting for Instagram messages.

”Meta has repeatedly articulated the importance of end-to-end encryption, sometimes mirroring the exact language our organizations have used for years to explain why online messages must be protected and private. Does Meta expect us to simply forget this history? Does the company expect us to accept the absurd justification that ‘users aren’t interested in E2EE’ when Meta knows very well we shouldn’t be forced to opt-in to life-saving privacy features?” said Leila Nashashibi, Campaigner at Fight for the Future. “Meta has defended E2EE in the past, even when it wasn’t politically convenient. Clearly the company’s political calculus has shifted. Is Meta axing its E2EE plans in order to curry favor with Trump, who wants unfettered access to our messages so his administration can spy on us and target us? Or does the company believe that the profit potential of violating our privacy and harvesting our most sensitive information—our private messages—is simply too great to pass up? We deserve to know the truth behind this total betrayal of users’ safety and privacy. We’re calling on organizations and users all over the world to reject this shameful move. If Meta wants to keep its Instagram users, it must make DMs safe NOW.”

”Secure E2EE messaging is a BASIC digital need and right. Several years ago, we joined in asking Meta to encrypt DMs. As Meta has acknowledged, privacy online is actually critical to people’s safety online AND offline. Now, Meta says they’re rolling this safety measure back after offering E2EE as a difficult to find optional setting? That’s so disingenuous and disappointing,” said Maya Morales of WA People’s Privacy. “If Meta wants people to use its platforms, it has to ensure that using them doesn’t actively endanger us. Without encryption, our personal conversations have been fed straight to government agencies or officials we might critique, to DHS/ICE, to data brokers, into AI models, you name it. This is not a trivial issue. Unsecured DMs can—and have—resulted in people’s entire lives being destroyed. E2EE should be the default setting for all apps that offer messaging, and AI should never be used in ANY messaging service without non-coerced, opt-in consent. If Meta’s not going to keep users safe, is it prepared for a mass-exodus?”

Fight for the Future and a coalition of civil society organizations strongly applauded Meta’s implementation of default end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger in December 2023. The move came after public outcry and pressure in response to Meta handing over unencrypted Messenger direct messages between a Nebraska teenager and her mother to law enforcement—messages that led to the teen’s prosecution for choosing to have an abortion.

In the months preceding the December 2023 announcement, Rob Sherman, VP and Deputy Chief Privacy Officer for Policy at Meta, sent a letter to Fight for the Future stating: “We remain committed to rolling out default end-to-end encryption for private conversations on Messenger in 2023, and shortly afterwards for Instagram.”

In the the letter, Mr. Sherman notes:

People expect technology companies to provide the best security to protect their personal information, and we believe end-to-end [encryption] is an important component of building trust with our users because it:

• Promotes a fundamental right to privacy, which allows loved ones to communicate without fear.
• Helps prevent both serious and common crimes like hacking and identity theft.
• Enables journalists, civil society, religious groups, scholars, and artists to exercise their rights to free and private speech without surveillance or retaliation.

Meta’s backtracking on its end-to-end encryption commitments comes on the heals of yet another disappointing decision: On May 5, Meta announced that the company will be “developing” a tool that can determine a user’s age based on visual, physical characteristics. Under the guise of kids safety, this will mean scanning every single picture posted on the platform to determine people’s ages, with no guardrails. Fight for the Future has been warning for years that online ID checks in all of its forms, regardless of the public relations term in use (age assurance, age verification, age estimation) is a censorship and privacy nightmare that will lead to Big Tech companies cobbling together even more information about users of all ages.

What is light fuel oil, and why does it matter?

Light fuel oil is a refined petroleum product similar to diesel, and is burned in generators to produce electricity. Island energy systems import this fuel by tanker, burn it locally, and pass the cost directly to governments and consumers. When global oil markets experience shocks like today’s crisis in the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz, island energy security and costs are directly impacted.

The numbers:

• EIA Global Energy Outlooks 2025 and 2026 have stark differences, In just one year, the 2050 cost projections of light fuel oil-based power rose from $0.29 to $0.45/kWh — a ~33% increase driven by geopolitical disruption in global oil and gas flows.
• For a single 50 MW island power system, that translates to roughly $34 million more in annual fuel costs
• Meanwhile, solar + battery storage projections declined by ~46% to $0.07/kWh in 2050, wind + storage by ~40% to $0.06/kWh, and geothermal is currently at $0.09/kWh.
• The gap between fossil and clean has never been wider or more consequential.

A shared system challenge — and opportunity

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has constrained a significant share of global oil and gas flows, sending ripple effects through fuel, electricity, and commodity markets worldwide. Clean electricity has transformed from an emerging option into a proven, scalable, and now dramatically cheaper pathway than the imported fuels it replaces.

The energy vulnerability that imported fuels create is not unique to one island. It is a shared system challenge, and the solution is the same everywhere: domestic, diversified, technology-driven clean power that doesn’t arrive by tanker.

Cost-effective solutions including peak demand reduction, virtual power plants, and new approaches to energy storage offer proven ways to grow with less risk and less capital. Those advantages compound over time, delivering both energy security and reduced fiscal pressure.

Why now?

• Fresh data from EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2026 vs. 2025 provides a rare apples-to-apples cost projection comparison that makes the fuel shock visible in real numbers.
• RMI has been tracking levelized cost of energy trajectories across more than a dozen island systems in the Pacific, Caribbean, and Indian Ocean.
• Continued reliance on fossil fuels risks deepening fiscal stress, price volatility, and policy trade-offs, while accelerating the clean energy transition provides a more credible path to resilience, affordability, and reduced systemic risk.

A Caribbean transition

 The Caribbean’s energy transition represents a transformational opportunity to break free from dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets and reshape the region’s development trajectory through renewable energy and energy efficiency — reducing costs, strengthening energy security, and building resilience against climate change. To guide this shift, RMI’s A Caribbean Regional Transition Scenario offers seven major categories of transition milestones that span policy frameworks, financial mechanisms, equity considerations, and public participation. Each section is broken down into supporting activities and key stakeholders to serve as a practical implementation roadmap.

The post As Islands Grapple with Spiking Fuel Costs, Renewables Offer a More Secure and Affordable Option appeared first on RMI.

Plans for a celebrity-backed “hyperscale” data center in rural Utah, so massive that it would consume more than double the state’s current electricity use, have generated an intense public and political backlash in a state where the motto is “industry” and a Republican supermajority tends to be deferential to development. 

The project, brought by “Shark Tank” TV personality Kevin O’Leary, would span 40,000 acres, demand 9 gigawatts of power once completed, and raise the state’s carbon emissions by 64 percent, according to estimates. While its water needs remain unknown, the sprawling data center would neighbor the northernmost tip of the shrinking Great Salt Lake, which will likely hit a record-low elevation this year following an unprecedented dry winter.

It could also create a massive heat island capable of devastating the area’s ecology, said Robert Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University. Davies estimated that the finished project would cover about as many square miles as Washington, D.C., making it the largest data center on the planet, and that it could produce enough heat to spike nighttime temperatures by as much as 28 degrees Fahrenheit in the high-desert valley. 

“I suspected it would not be good,” Davies said. “What I’ve found is, it’s so much worse than I even thought it would be.”

News of the proposed data complex, dubbed the Stratos Project, became public in April after the three commissioners of Box Elder County, the mostly agricultural community that would host it, approved the project. They pointed to the project’s approval by more powerful state agencies and asserted that stopping it was out of their hands, while refusing to hear comments from more than 1,000 people who showed up to share their concerns. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, has since walked back some of his full-throated support.

“Many are asking questions about water, air quality, energy, land use, and the long-term impact on rural Utah,” Cox wrote in a thread on X earlier this month after intense public outcry over the project. “Those are real concerns, and all Utahns should expect clear standards and accountability.”

The controversy in Utah is a stark illustration of a wider trend. Across the United States, data centers are drawing bipartisan backlash as communities clash with tech giants and developers over strained water supplies and spiking energy costs.

At least two other massive data campus projects are proposed elsewhere in Utah, but they have not received anywhere near the pushback as the Stratos Project. Many opponents have pointed to efforts state leaders have made in recent years to support water conservation — Utah is among the driest states in the country — and the state legislature’s multimillion dollar investments to help the Great Salt Lake refill. The lake’s drying bed has already become a source of toxic dust threatening the health of millions of residents living on the Wasatch Front, Utah’s urban core. 

It seems contradictory, then, to build a potentially water-intensive and explosively hot industrial development right next door to such an endangered and iconic spot. 

“The greed behind this deal is clearly blinding the officials to just how much is at stake for the rest of us,” wrote Monika Norwid of Salt Lake City, one of the Utah residents who sent comments to the state’s Division of Water Rights protesting the project. “I refuse to let this greed imperil our already fragile wildlife, I refuse to allow some useless technology steal the rest of our insufficient water for a project that is way beyond the scale of this area.”

In an interview with CNN, O’Leary downplayed the environmental impact of his project, saying Stratos is “not going to destroy air quality” and “not going to drain the Great Salt Lake.”

Kevin O’Leary attends Consensus Miami 2026 at Miami Beach Convention Center on May 6, 2026, in Florida.
Romain Maurice / Getty Images

Austin Pritchett, a cofounder of West GenCo, the developer partnering with O’Leary Digital Limited on the project, said that they plan to purchase roughly 3,000 acre‑feet of on‑site water rights and already have around 10,000 acre‑feet under contract from the nearby town of Snowville if needed. 

Added together, that’s enough water to supply the basic needs of more than 20,000 Utah households. Utah’s Division of Water Rights has only received one application for the project so far — to transfer 1,900 acre-feet currently used for irrigation by the Bar H Ranch. That application was pulled last week, but a representative with the ranch said it will refile and “fully intends to move forward with the project.” A division spokesperson said they anticipate more applications from the data center developers soon.

Some scientists worry the project’s power demands and resulting heat island effect will transform its high-desert climate into something more akin to the Sahara.

Stratos would build its own power plant, state supporters have said, and its fuel will likely come from a corridor carrying natural gas from Wyoming to Nevada, Oregon, and California called the Ruby Pipeline. O’Leary specifically chose Box Elder County’s Hansel Valley to build the complex because the pipeline spans it, state officials have said.

“It could generate power at a significant level,” said Paul Morris, executive director of Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority, a powerful quasi-governmental state agency that provides tax incentives for development, during a public meeting in April. “This location was picked because of the gas pipeline.”

Hansel Valley in Utah, where Stratos wants to build a power plant.
Rick Egan / The Salt Lake Tribune

Davies, the physics professor, has done some back-of-the-envelope calculations to better understand the sheer scale of the 9-gigawatt project. And what he’s penciled out so far has him alarmed.

“Nine gigawatts, that’s a number that’s really challenging to get your brain around,” the professor said. ”Communicating the scale has been a real problem.”

The entire project will actually produce roughly 16 gigawatts of thermal energy, according to Davies. It starts with the massive on-site power generation, which will generate 7 to 8 gigawatts of waste heat just producing the needed electricity for the data center, since gas plants are only about 57 percent efficient.

And once that electricity reaches the data center, every watt will turn into pure heat, because anytime a gadget consumes power, it converts it into heat, Davies explained, whether it’s a toaster, a car, or a sprawling rack of computer servers.

Typically, waste heat from end uses of electricity is dumped far from a power plant, in homes, businesses, or on roads where it dissipates. In this case, the Stratos project will release roughly 16 gigawatts of thermal energy into Hansel Valley, according to Davies. That trapped thermal load is the “equivalent of about 23 atom bombs’ worth of energy dumped into this local environment every single day,” Davies said.

That doesn’t mean the project would wipe out the landscape with an explosion or release dangerous nuclear radiation, but the heat it creates could devastate the local ecology.

“What happens if you deposit that much energy continuously into a topography like this?” Davies wondered. “Right at the north end of the Great Salt Lake, a watershed that’s in collapse. A high-desert environment? A valley?”

Davies thinks dumping that much heat into Hansel Valley will raise local temperatures by 5 degrees F during the day and up to 28 degrees at night.

“That’s the difference between Utah’s semi-arid climate and the Sahara Desert,” said Ben Abbott, an ecology professor at Brigham Young University who has reviewed Davies’ estimates. “This would absolutely change the landscape.”

Evaporation would spike. The dew point could collapse, with devastating consequences on wildlife, plants, and the fertility of land owned by other ranchers in the valley, Abbott and Davies said. Abbott suspects Hansel Valley would become another source of dust on the Wasatch Front, in addition to the exposed and drying lake bed of the shrinking Great Salt Lake.

“I’m happy to be further educated. Maybe I’m getting something wrong here,” Davies said. “But that is kind of the point, right? You literally have a hyperscale project that is getting no due diligence.”

Salt Lake Tribune reporter Samantha Moilanen contributed to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Utah’s fragile desert could feel like the Sahara if America’s biggest data center gets built on May 18, 2026.