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For decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, worked across many of the world’s most food-insecure and climate-besieged regions, funding thousands of humanitarian, healthcare, food, and disaster relief programs. That all changed last year when, days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, his administration issued a stop-work order that suspended nearly all of USAID’s overseas programs. Then, last July, the administration informally dissolved the agency — leading to the largest withdrawal of American international development aid in more than 60 years. 

A new study published May 14 in the journal Science suggests the sudden USAID shutdown could have been linked to an uptick in violent conflict across much of Africa, with some of the most politically fragile regions seeing the largest spikes. Outside experts, however, caution that the findings are preliminary and may not capture the bigger picture. 

Farming and agricultural markets are easily disrupted by conflict, and when conflict occurs food security worsens because it can limit communities’ access to food. At the same time, deepening food insecurity in fragile political states contributes to social unrest. Climate impacts then layer onto this fragility. Extreme weather is second only to conflict in having the greatest effect on global hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition, according to a U.N. report. That’s in part because it increasingly causes people to migrate as they flee places destroyed by rising seas and cataclysmic storms, which, in turn, can fuel conflict. 

“It is undeniable that USAID programming around food aid, including emergency food kitchens, therapeutic foods, and health and water programming on which basic food and nutritional security is built, provided a critical lifeline to millions of women, children, and families in severe nutritional deficits,” said Zia Mehrabi, a food security and climate change researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Who in their right mind would retract healthcare and food so abruptly, in so many places, when the direct result is people suffering and dying?”

In analyzing the impact of funding cuts on conflict across 870 subnational African regions that had been receiving different levels of USAID services, the Science paper’s authors found that in the roughly 10 months that followed the administration’s immediate withdrawal of aid, areas that had previously received more USAID support may have experienced more or different types of conflict. Using two global datasets that track funding disbursements and violent conflict, the study suggests that, in areas with high historical USAID funding, there was a 12.3 percent increase in conflict overall and a 7.3 percent surge in armed battles; protests and riots in these areas rose by 6.8 percent and battle-related fatalities by 9.3 percent after the shutdown. 

According to Austin Wright, a University of Chicago researcher who studies the political economy of conflict, and a co-author of the paper, the effects have been swift and destabilizing. “There is nothing that we’re aware of in recorded human history of the magnitude of that shutdown, in terms of ending a country’s commitment at a global scale,” said Wright. 

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Established in 1961, USAID was created to encourage economic and social development in emerging nations while countering the Cold War influence of the Soviet Union. Building resilience in foreign political systems has, in recent decades, been “one of the main goals of the work of USAID,” said Chelsea Marcho, a senior director for research and policy at the Food Security Leadership Council and former USAID official under former President Joe Biden, who was not involved in the Science paper. The study showing that violence may have been less severe in places where USAID had helped build stronger institutions, she said, only underscores the value of those aid investments. One example is the largely discontinued work to develop more resilient food systems across sub-Saharan African nations facing higher rates of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. 

But what many tend to forget, said Marcho, is that USAID also funded the bulk of pivotal data collection efforts across much of the world’s most food-insecure and climate-vulnerable regions. The dissolution of the agency has prompted widespread disruptions in everything from localized weather monitoring to one of the primary global famine early-warning systems. Although some of these systems have since been restored, the gaps in monitoring coupled with the decreased capacity across aid organizations means it is all the more difficult to understand what is happening on the ground. 

Indeed, the end of USAID has buckled our ability to measure the very outcomes of the end of USAID. “The visibility that we have around food security is potentially in decline at the same time that the risks to the system are increasing,” said Marcho. “How do we actually get the data we need?”

Mehrabi finds the new paper creates “more questions than answers.” He argues the mechanisms of measurement are unclear, the analysis period is too short, and the authors don’t adequately disentangle USAID’s specific effects from Trump’s simultaneous cuts to other U.S. international funding sources, such as the State Department. “The results are clearly early and tentative,” he said. “I think it is a leap to say this is all attributable to USAID.” 

Wright, for his part, acknowledged the study has limitations, including a short post-shock observation window of just 10 months, a disbursement baseline drawn from the first Trump administration rather than the period immediately before the cuts, and a geographic scope confined to Africa — leaving much open to future research. He says the team ran extensive robustness checks addressing these concerns, detailed in the paper’s appendix. 

After running his own reanalysis of their data, Mehrabi, however, remains unconvinced. What’s more, he warns against the possible takeaway that the presence of American developmental intervention equates to stability. The U.S., he argues, could more effectively help deter widespread conflict and hunger in nations like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, through more equitable benefit-sharing of natural resource extraction from critical mineral supply chains. This would “far outweigh any benefits from foreign aid,” proposed Mehrabi. 

Nevertheless, with an annual budget of tens of billions and an institutional history spanning 64 years, USAID’s developmental footprint throughout the African continent was no small thing. “One cannot simply create USAID all over again, or give it a mandate and give it funding and assume that we have waved a wand and we can reverse the damage done,” said Wright.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump gutted USAID. Hunger and violence followed. on May 19, 2026.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, record-breaking storms and flooding are impacting Māori land, health, and culture. And, according to a new national climate report, colonization has intensified those risks. 

The 2026 National Climate Change Risk Assessment is composed of four reports, including a companion document focused on Māori communities. That report argues that climate change is likely to deepen existing inequities shaped by colonization, exclusion from decision-making, and chronic underinvestment. 

To mitigate the impacts of climate change, the assessment points to Māori-led adaptation as uniquely effective. It calls for policy grounded in Māori customs and knowledge, Indigenous data sovereignty, and stronger Māori authority in climate decision-making.

“For more than 150 years Māori have been pushed to the margins, literally, by an aggressive colonization process,” said Paora Tapsell, who is Ngāti Whakaue and Ngāti Raukawa, and the director of the Kāika Institute of Climate Resilience at Lincoln University. 

The assessment, released earlier this month, adds to a growing body of national reports that highlight the harmful impacts of colonial policies on Indigenous peoples and the environment. In 2023, the United States’ Fifth National Climate Assessment found that land theft and colonization had exacerbated climate change’s impact. The year before, Australia’s State of the Environment report was prepared with an Indigenous lead author for the first time; it found that Indigenous peoples were more likely to be impacted by extreme weather events like fires. It too called for incorporating Indigenous knowledge into climate policies. Despite these findings, Indigenous leaders around the world say national governments are still not listening to them.

Aotearoa New Zealand recently experienced one of its most active severe weather seasons on record, with multiple declared states of emergency across the nation’s two islands. It also found that the country’s Indigenous peoples are essential in responding to such disasters. “The report accurately acknowledges that many kāinga [Māori settlements], despite their relative impoverishment, are still willing first responders on the front line of increasingly severe climate events,” Shaun Awatere, who is Ngāti Porou and lead author of the companion report, said.

The assessment’s seven interconnected risk areas span environmental, cultural, and economic domains. It says the loss of protected endemic species is not only a biodiversity issue but also affects food gathering places, the Māori lunar calendar, traditional customs, and intergenerational knowledge systems. According to the report, some species could face near-irreversible decline in parts of the country under high-emissions scenarios by 2090.

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Across Māori lands, climate-driven extreme weather events have had a destructive impact on infrastructure. But the report outlines how flooding, erosion, storms, and wildfires also present cultural risks by threatening tribal meeting places, burial sites, and communal homes. It warns that repeated damage and displacement could lead to long-term cultural fragmentation and disconnection from ancestral land.

Climate impacts may also be felt economically. Māori-owned forestry, farming, aquaculture, and horticulture enterprises face rising pressure from climate hazards, costs, and underinvestment in adaptation. Without structural reform and targeted support, the assessment says that economic vulnerability will increase. 

Awatere said the findings confirm what tribes have been saying for years. “Climate events do not arrive one at a time,” he said. “A storm floods a road, damages a marae [tribal meeting place], erodes whenua [land], disrupts access to mahinga kai [food gathering places], and overwhelms health and welfare systems that were already stretched, all at once. Each of those harms compounds the next.”

The assessment also said climate-driven displacement and ecological degradation could disrupt the transmission of language, customary practices, lineage relationships, and Indigenous knowledge systems between generations.

Awatere highlighted ongoing structural exclusion of Māori from climate planning and adaptation systems, despite the government’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi, which is the country’s founding document. The report describes legal exclusion and governance failure as a major risk multiplier, compounding climate impacts across all domains.

Awatere said the central question is whether adaptation plans will reflect that evidence, or whether Māori communities will continue to carry a disproportionate risk of harm.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Māori climate risk worsened by colonization, report finds on May 19, 2026.

While addiction in the UK remains stigmatised as an individual failing, recognising its structural underpinnings opens up routes towards a liberatory and collective framing of sobriety, writes William Rayfet Hunter

The post On the radical politics of sobriety appeared first on Red Pepper.

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How to root a begonia leaf indoors: a complete guide from one leaf to a thriving plant

Last spring I bumped a shelf while vacuuming — classic move — and watched a gorgeous, spiral-patterned Rex begonia leaf snap clean off the stem. I stood there holding the leaf like it was evidence at a crime scene. Then a thought hit me: what if I could root a begonia leaf indoors and grow a whole new plant from this accident? Spoiler: I could. And I did. That single broken leaf became four baby begonias now sitting in tiny terra-cotta pots on my kitchen windowsill.

You can do exactly the same thing this weekend. By the time you finish reading, you’ll know three tested methods to propagate a begonia from a leaf, which begonia types cooperate best, what supplies to grab, and how to troubleshoot every common failure — rot, mold, mystery die-off, all of it.

Which begonias root from leaves (and which don’t)

Begonia leaf propagation works beautifully — but only with the right species. Not every begonia plays along, and knowing the difference saves you weeks of staring at a rotting leaf.

Rex and rhizomatous types: the gold standard

Rex begonia is a rhizomatous houseplant famous for bold, swirled foliage. Rex begonia propagates easily from a single leaf because the thick veins carry abundant meristematic tissue — basically, built-in starter cells. Other rhizomatous varieties like Begonia masoniana (Iron Cross) and B. bowerae (Eyelash begonia) respond just as well. These are your best candidates.

Cane-stemmed begonias (angel wings): skip the leaf

You’re probably wondering: does this really work with an angel wing? Honestly, not great. Cane-stemmed begonias store their growth energy in thick stems, not leaves. A leaf-only cutting from an angel wing rarely produces roots strong enough to build a plant. Stem cuttings with a node work far better for cane types.

Fibrous-rooted and tuberous types: limited success

Fibrous begonias (like wax begonias) propagate more reliably from stem cuttings or seed. Tuberous begonias prefer division of their tubers. Neither type is a good pick for the leaf methods below.

Supplies you actually need

Begonia leaf cuttings demand surprisingly little gear. Here’s the short list:

• A sharp razor blade or X-Acto knife — scissors crush the vein tissue instead of slicing cleanly, and crushed tissue invites rot.
• Rooting medium — pure perlite, moist sphagnum moss, or a 50/50 peat-perlite mix all work. I prefer sphagnum moss for vein-slitting because the leaf pins down flat against the soft surface.
• A shallow tray or clear plastic container with a lid — a repurposed bakery clamshell container is perfect. A gallon zip-lock bag works too.
• Rooting hormone (optional) — in my experience, rooting hormone shaves maybe a week off the timeline for wedge cuts. Worth using, not mandatory.
• A spray bottle, bright indirect light, and (optionally) a seedling heat mat.

Three ways to root a begonia leaf indoors

Begonia leaf propagation indoors comes down to three core techniques. Each method suits different goals and comfort levels. Here’s a side-by-side comparison before we dig in:

Method Best for Difficulty Plants per leaf Rooting time Vein-slitting (whole leaf) Rex, rhizomatous Easy 5–10+ 4–8 weeks Wedge cuts Rex, large-leaved Moderate 3–6 4–6 weeks Water rooting (petiole) Petiole cuttings Easiest 1 3–6 weeks Grab your razor blade: the vein-slitting technique

Begonia leaf vein-slitting is the method the American Begonia Society has championed since at least the 1930s, and it’s still the most satisfying way to get a crowd of babies from one leaf.

1. Select a healthy, mature Rex begonia leaf with firm texture — not a young pale leaf or an old droopy one.
2. Flip the leaf vein-side up on a clean surface.
3. Use a razor blade to make a clean cut across each major vein where the vein branches, about ½ inch long. Aim for 6–10 cuts total.
4. Lay the leaf vein-side down on a tray of pre-moistened sphagnum moss or perlite.
5. Pin the leaf flat against the medium using hairpins, toothpicks, or small pebbles — every slit needs to touch the damp surface.
6. Cover the tray with a clear lid or slip the whole tray into a plastic bag to hold humidity.
7. Place the tray in bright, indirect light. Avoid direct sun — the sealed container traps heat and can cook the leaf.

Each cut vein becomes a potential root site. Over four to eight weeks, tiny white root nubs emerge at the slits, and miniature plantlets push up shortly after. Roots. Tiny, white, beautiful roots. That moment never gets old.

The wedge method gives you more plants per leaf

Begonia leaf wedge cutting is my go-to when I want multiple plants and don’t mind a slightly more hands-on process.

1. Cut a healthy Rex begonia leaf into triangular wedges — each wedge must include a piece of a main vein running to the pointed end.
2. Let the wedges air-dry for about 15 minutes so the cut edges form a thin callus.
3. Insert each wedge pointed-end-down into moist perlite or peat-perlite mix, burying about ⅓ of the wedge.
4. Cover the container and set the container in bright indirect light.

A single large Rex leaf yields three to six wedges. Each wedge typically produces one plantlet, though some generous wedges sprout two. Rex begonia leaf wedges usually root in four to six weeks.

Rooting a begonia leaf in water — does it actually work?

Begonia leaf cuttings can root in water, especially whole-petiole cuttings. Here’s the honest truth, though: water-rooted begonias often develop weaker, more brittle roots than soil-rooted ones. The transition to potting mix can stress a water-grown cutting.

That said, water rooting is dead simple and satisfying to watch:

1. Trim the petiole (leaf stem) to about 1–2 inches.
2. Place the petiole in a small jar of room-temperature water — just deep enough to submerge the stem, not the leaf blade.
3. Change the water every five to seven days to keep bacteria at bay.
4. Move the cutting to soil once roots reach about an inch long.

A begonia petiole cutting in water produces roots in roughly three to six weeks. What surprised me was how fast my B. bowerae rooted in a shot glass on the kitchen counter — barely three weeks.

The waiting game — aftercare that makes or breaks it

A begonia leaf cutting needs consistent conditions during the rooting phase. Neglect here is the number-one reason propagation fails.

Humidity: Keep the tray covered. Vent the lid every two to three days for about ten minutes to let fresh air circulate and discourage mold.

Light: Bright, indirect light drives photosynthesis in the mother leaf, which fuels root growth. Direct sun on a covered tray raises the temperature inside and scorches the leaf tissue fast.

Temperature: The sweet spot sits between 65 °F and 75 °F (18–24 °C). A seedling heat mat beneath the tray can shave a week or two off rooting time — especially helpful in cooler rooms.

Moisture — the “squeeze test”: Grab a small pinch of the rooting medium and squeeze. A few drops of water should barely appear. Soaking wet medium suffocates new roots. Bone-dry medium kills them.

When to transplant: Wait until each baby plantlet shows at least two to three tiny leaves and a visible root cluster. Depending on the method, the full timeline from cutting to transplant-ready plantlet runs about eight to twelve weeks.

Why begonia leaf cuttings fail (and how to fix each problem)

Begonia leaf cuttings sometimes go sideways. Here are the four failures I see most often — and the fixes that actually work.

Why did my begonia leaf cutting turn to mush?

Rot happens when the medium stays too wet and airflow is too low. The leaf tissue breaks down into translucent slime. Fix: use a chunkier medium like pure perlite, vent the lid more frequently, and trim away any mushy sections with a clean blade before they spread.

The leaf dried up and turned brown

Low humidity is the usual culprit. Sometimes the leaf was already old or damaged before cutting. Fix: choose a leaf that feels thick and waxy — you want that satisfying, almost rubbery texture under your fingers. Increase humidity by misting the inside of the lid before closing.

No roots after eight weeks

Cold temperatures and dim light slow rooting dramatically. A begonia cutting sitting in a 60 °F room with north-facing light may simply stall. Add a heat mat. Move the tray closer to an east- or west-facing window. And double-check that you’re using a variety that actually roots from leaves — a cane-stemmed begonia leaf almost never cooperates.

Fuzzy mold on the soil surface

Mold loves warm, humid, still environments — exactly what your propagation tray provides. A light dusting of ground cinnamon on the medium surface acts as a gentle natural antifungal. Better airflow during venting sessions helps too. A small amount of surface mold rarely kills the cutting, so don’t panic.

From leaf to showpiece — potting up your new begonias

Baby begonia plantlets need a gentle transition. Once each plantlet has two to three leaves and a root cluster about an inch long, carefully separate the plantlet from the mother leaf. Use a well-draining, peat-based potting mix — I like two parts peat, one part perlite, one part vermiculite.

Pot each plantlet into a 2-inch container. Keep the soil lightly moist for the first two weeks and maintain higher humidity (a loose plastic bag over the pot works). After two weeks, remove the cover and let the young begonia acclimate to normal room humidity. Start feeding with a diluted balanced fertilizer (half-strength, every two weeks) once the plantlet shows active new growth.

I think this potting-up stage is the most nerve-wracking part of the whole process. The babies look so fragile. They’re tougher than they seem.

Your next move

A few months from now, you could have a whole shelf of begonias — every single one traced back to a leaf you sliced on your kitchen counter. There’s something genuinely magical about starting new begonia plants from a leaf and watching an entire collection grow from almost nothing. The Victorian plant collectors who popularized begonias in parlor windows understood this thrill, and honestly, indoor begonia propagation hasn’t changed much since their era. Good light, a damp medium, patience, a sharp blade.

So — which leaf are you starting with?

FAQ — begonia leaf propagation questions answered Can I root a begonia leaf in just water without soil?

Yes. A begonia petiole cutting roots in water within three to six weeks. Water-rooted cuttings tend to develop more fragile roots, so transplant to soil early — once the roots reach about an inch — for the strongest long-term growth. See the water rooting section above for the full technique.

How long does a begonia leaf take to root indoors?

A begonia leaf cutting takes three to eight weeks to produce visible roots, depending on the method, the room temperature, and the variety. Wedge cuttings and water-rooted petioles tend to root fastest. Vein-slit whole leaves take longer because each slit point roots independently.

Do I need rooting hormone for begonia leaf cuttings?

Rooting hormone is optional. A light dusting of powdered rooting hormone on wedge-cut edges can speed rooting by roughly a week. Vein-slit leaves and water-rooted petioles generally root fine without the hormone. I use rooting hormone on wedge cuts and skip the hormone for everything else.

Can I propagate an angel wing begonia from a leaf?

Angel wing begonia belongs to the cane-stemmed group. A leaf-only cutting from an angel wing rarely produces strong roots. Gardeners get far better results taking a stem cutting with at least one node and rooting the stem cutting in water or moist perlite.

What time of year is best to propagate begonia leaves indoors?

Spring and early summer offer the longest daylight and warmest ambient temperatures, so begonia leaf cuttings root fastest during those months. Indoor propagation works year-round, though. A grow light and a heat mat compensate for shorter winter days and cooler rooms.

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Pricking out salvia seedlings: a hands-on guide to stronger, healthier transplants

The first time I pricked out salvia seedlings, I lost half the tray. Not to clumsiness — to hesitation. I waited too long, the roots wove together like tiny white threads in a braid, and every seedling I pulled dragged three neighbors with it. By morning, most of them had damped off in a soggy clump. That failure taught me more than any seed packet ever could. And now, a few hundred trays later, I want to walk you through the exact timing, tools, technique, and aftercare so your young salvias survive — and thrive — every single time.

The two-leaf rule — knowing when salvia seedlings are ready

Young salvias announce their readiness with a clear visual signal: the first pair of true leaves. Those rounded, smooth first leaves you see after germination? Those are cotyledons — essentially battery packs that fueled the initial push through the soil. Cotyledons look pale, fleshy, and generic. True leaves look entirely different. Salvia true leaves emerge slightly textured, oval, and sometimes faintly aromatic when you brush a fingertip across the surface. On Salvia splendens, the first true leaves carry a subtle sheen. On Salvia nemorosa, the true leaves feel rougher, almost like fine sandpaper.

You want to see two true leaves fully unfurled before you reach for the widger. For most annual bedding salvias, that moment arrives roughly three to four weeks after germination. Perennial types often take a week longer. Here’s where I see beginners stall: they wait for four or six true leaves “just to be safe.” Don’t. Waiting past four true leaves lets roots tangle into a dense mat, and the salvia seedlings stretch toward light and grow leggy. I’ve found that the two-to-four-leaf window is the sweet spot — big enough to handle, small enough that roots separate cleanly.

Tools and soil mix — set up before you start

Salvia seedlings don’t give you much working time once you lift them from the tray, so gather everything first. Lay it all out on your bench. Honestly, this prep phase is where the real efficiency lives.

• Cell trays or 3-inch pots hold individual seedlings and encourage strong root systems. A 72-count insert fits inside a standard 1020 flat and works perfectly for most salvias until the plants reach 3–4 inches tall.
• A dibber is a pencil-sized pointed stick. A dibber creates a planting hole 1–1.5 inches deep in seconds and keeps the root channel narrow enough to cradle fragile roots.
• A widger is a thin, flat-bladed tool about 4 inches long. A widger slides under the root mass without severing fine feeder roots. A plastic fork or an old butter knife works in a pinch.
• Pre-moistened potting mix provides the landing pad. I mix roughly 50% peat-free compost, 30% perlite, and 20% vermiculite. Alternatively, a ready-made seedling mix like Espoma Organic Seed Starter does the job — just add extra perlite for drainage.
• A spray bottle or a watering can with a fine rose delivers gentle moisture without blasting tiny transplants out of their new holes.
• Labels and a waterproof marker keep varieties straight, because trust me, all salvia seedlings look alike at this stage.

Salvias despise soggy roots more than almost any bedding annual I grow. That perlite in the mix isn’t optional — the perlite guarantees air pockets survive around the roots even after watering. My favorite trick: squeeze a fistful of the moistened mix. The mix should clump briefly and then crumble when you poke the clump. Too wet means trouble.

Step by step — pricking out salvia seedlings without breaking a sweat Water the tray an hour before you begin

Dry roots snap. Wet roots slide free. You water the seed tray about an hour before transplanting to let moisture soften the growing medium around every root system. I either bottom-soak the tray in a shallow basin for 20 minutes or mist the surface evenly until the top half-inch looks uniformly damp. The goal is moist, not dripping. Salvia seedlings sitting in waterlogged mix bruise more easily because their stems swell and turn glassy.

Loosen, lift, and hold by the leaf — never the stem

This is the moment that scares most beginners, and honestly, it scared me too. The stem of a young salvia feels like a wet thread between your fingers. One accidental squeeze and the vascular tissue collapses — game over for that seedling.

Slide the widger under the root mass at about a 45-degree angle, roughly half an inch away from the stem base. Lever upward gently. The seedling rises with a small plug of mix clinging to the roots. Now — and this part is critical — you grip the seedling by one cotyledon leaf, not the stem. Pinch the leaf lightly between your thumb and index finger. A torn cotyledon barely slows the plant down. A crushed stem kills the salvia seedling within hours. I crushed dozens before I trained my fingers to hover instead of pinch. Take it slow.

Drop into the hole and firm gently

Use the dibber to poke a hole in the center of the cell or pot. Make the hole deep enough so the roots hang straight down without bending or J-hooking at the bottom — usually about 1 to 1.5 inches deep for a three-week-old salvia. Lower the seedling in. Here’s a detail most guides skip: you bury the stem up to just below the cotyledons. That buried stem section develops adventitious roots over time, and the salvia transplant grows stockier as a result.

Press the mix around the base with two fingertips. Firm, not tight. You want soil-to-root contact, not a compacted brick. The mix should hold the seedling upright when you release your fingers.

Water in and move to shade

You water each seedling lightly right after transplanting. I use a fine-rose watering can and pour until water just begins to trickle from the drainage holes. Some growers prefer bottom-watering at this stage, which works well too — set the tray in a shallow basin of room-temperature water for 10 minutes, then remove the tray and let the excess drain.

Direct sun during the first 48 hours stresses salvia transplants badly. The roots haven’t anchored yet, and the leaves lose moisture faster than the roots can replace the moisture. Place the tray under bright indirect light, or raise your grow lights an extra 4–6 inches above the canopy. After two days, you move the salvia seedlings back to their normal light position.

The first 7 days — aftercare that makes or breaks your salvias

Freshly pricked-out salvia seedlings enter a fragile window. The roots need to explore new mix, the stem needs to stabilize, and the leaves need to resume photosynthesis — all at once. None of the top-ranking competitor pages I reviewed in 2026 dedicate a full section to this critical week, which is a shame, because aftercare determines whether your salvias take off or stall.

Keep ambient temperature between 65°F and 72°F. Salvia seedlings tolerate cooler nights down to about 58°F, and a slight nighttime temperature drop actually encourages compact growth. Place a humidity dome over the tray for the first two days, then remove the dome to let airflow circulate. Stagnant humid air invites fungal problems faster than almost anything else in my experience.

Check moisture daily. You water when the top half-inch of mix feels dry to the touch — not before. Overwatering freshly pricked-out salvias is the single most common killer, because soggy roots can’t access oxygen and the fungal pathogen Pythium thrives in saturated conditions. After one full week, you feed the salvia seedlings with half-strength balanced liquid fertilizer (something like 10-10-10 diluted to 50%). That first feeding replaces nutrients the roots have already started pulling from the fresh mix.

Trouble signs and quick fixes

Salvia seedlings communicate stress visually, and catching the signs early saves the whole tray.

Wilting after transplant. The transplanted seedlings droop for 24–48 hours. This reaction is normal. You mist the foliage lightly twice a day and keep the tray out of full sun. The salvia transplants usually perk up by day three.

Yellowing lower leaves. The oldest leaves turn pale yellow within the first week. Transplant shock or overwatering causes the yellowing in most cases. You reduce watering frequency, confirm the drainage holes are open, and wait. New green growth at the center of the plant signals recovery.

Leggy growth after pricking out. The salvia seedlings stretch upward with thin, elongated internodes. Low light intensity drives the stretching. You lower your grow lights to 3–4 inches above the canopy and drop nighttime temperature to 58–60°F. The combination slows vertical growth and encourages thicker stems.

Damping off. A dark, water-soaked ring appears at the stem base, and the seedling collapses. You remove affected salvia seedlings immediately, improve airflow around the tray, and cut back watering. Damping off spreads fast, so act the moment you notice the first casualty.

One small step for a seedling

Pricking out is a five-minute task that changes the trajectory of every plant on your bench. Once you master the lift-by-the-leaf technique and resist the urge to drown the transplants afterward, the whole seed-starting process feels less like a gamble and more like a craft. And that’s the shift I love most about this stage — the move from passive waiting to active shaping.

I still remember the first tray I pricked out successfully: 36 Salvia splendens ‘Sizzler Red,’ each one standing upright in its own cell, roots dangling straight. A week later, every single plant had pushed new growth. That row of tiny green rosettes on my shelf felt like a small victory. It still does, every spring. Try the technique this season, and let me know in the comments how your young salvias turn out — or ask a question, because chances are I’ve made the mistake you’re worried about.

Frequently asked questions Can I prick out salvia seedlings directly into the garden?

Only after your last frost date passes in your USDA zone. Salvia seedlings need nighttime temperatures above 50°F to survive outdoors. Most US gardeners prick out into cell trays indoors and harden the transplants off over 7–10 days before planting outside.

Do different salvia species need different pricking-out timing?

Annual bedding types like Salvia splendens grow fast — you prick them out at two true leaves, usually around three weeks after germination. Perennial species like Salvia nemorosa develop more slowly and tolerate an extra week in the seed tray. Salvia patens produces larger seedlings; move Salvia patens when the first true leaf reaches about half an inch wide.

What if the roots break during pricking out?

Salvia seedlings recover well from minor root damage. You keep the broken-root seedling slightly more humid for three to four days by misting or replacing the dome. Avoid fertilizing until new root growth appears, which usually takes about a week.

Should I pinch salvia seedlings after pricking out?

Wait until the young salvia carries four to six pairs of true leaves before pinching the growing tip. Pinching too early slows establishment right when the transplant needs all its energy directed toward root growth.

How many salvia seedlings fit in a standard 1020 tray after pricking out?

A standard 1020 tray holds 32 to 72 cells depending on the insert you choose. For most salvias, 2-inch cells in a 72-count insert work well until the plant reaches 3–4 inches tall. At that height, you pot on into 3-inch containers to give the root system room to expand.

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Why do celosia inflorescences blacken and drop off — and what you can actually do about it

You step outside with your morning coffee, glance at the bed of ‘Dragon’s Breath’ that looked absolutely electric two days ago — and your stomach drops. A dark, soggy patch is spreading across the top of the tallest cockscomb. The flower head next to it has already collapsed, almost black, sagging like a wet paper bag. By afternoon, pieces start falling to the mulch. What happened?

I’ve been there. More than once.

Blackening celosia inflorescences signal something more specific — and usually more urgent — than the gradual fading every bloom goes through at end of season. This article walks through every cause of celosia flowers turning black and dropping off, gives you a fast diagnostic method you can use while standing in your garden, and lays out fixes that actually work. No fluff, no generic “water properly” advice. Let’s get into the real reasons.

Celosia at a glance — what makes this flower tick

Celosia belongs to the Amaranthaceae family and grows as a warm-season annual across most of the United States. Celosia thrives year-round only in USDA zones 10–12; everywhere else, gardeners treat celosia as a single-season plant. The species needs full sun — six hours minimum — and well-drained soil with a slightly acidic to neutral pH.

Three main flower forms exist: crested (the classic cockscomb), plumed (feathery spikes like ‘Century Mix’), and wheat-type or spicata (slender tapers like ‘Flamingo Feather’). All three trace their ancestry to tropical West Africa.

That tropical origin matters here. Celosia evolved for heat, bright light, and sharp drainage. Every condition that deviates from that profile pushes celosia flower tissue toward stress — and stressed tissue blackens faster than healthy tissue when a pathogen, frost, or waterlogging event hits. Keep that mental model as you read the causes below.

Every reason celosia inflorescences blacken and fall off Botrytis and other fungal invaders

Botrytis cinerea is a gray-mold fungus. Botrytis thrives in humidity above 80%, spreads through airborne spores, and colonizes damaged tissue within 24 hours. On celosia, botrytis starts as small water-soaked spots on the inflorescence — spots that darken to brown, then black, within a day or two. Flip the flower head over and look for a fuzzy gray spore layer on the underside. That gray fuzz is the confirmation.

I lost an entire row of crested cockscomb to botrytis one August in zone 7a. The whole bed looked scorched overnight — but the giveaway was the gray felt coating every flower head by the second morning.

Leaf spot fungi and Fusarium oxysporum (a soil-borne wilt pathogen) can also blacken celosia flowers, though Fusarium usually kills the stem first. Fusarium wilt causes one-sided wilting and internal stem browning before the blooms collapse. Leaf spot stays on foliage until severe, then jumps to flower tissue in wet weather.

Overwatering and waterlogged soil

Celosia roots need oxygen. Waterlogged soil suffocates root cells within 48 hours, and stressed roots cannot supply the flower head with nutrients or water — paradoxically, the bloom dehydrates from above while drowning from below. Meanwhile, standing moisture on the inflorescence itself creates a perfect landing pad for fungal spores.

Here’s a quick test: push your finger two inches into the soil near the plant’s base. Soil should feel damp, not muddy. Mud means you are overwatering celosia or your drainage is failing. By the way, if celosia stems feel mushy at the base, skip ahead to the fungal section — that’s your answer.

Frost and cold snaps — the overnight disaster

Celosia has zero frost tolerance. A brief dip below 35 °F blackens celosia flower tissue overnight. Frost damage looks different from fungal damage: frost produces uniform blackening across every exposed surface, while fungal infection starts as a patchy spot and spreads outward. Frost-damaged celosia petals also feel limp and translucent, not fuzzy or slimy.

Honestly, this one surprised me the first time — a single October night at 34 °F turned a gorgeous ‘Prestige Scarlet’ bed into something that looked diseased. It wasn’t disease. It was cold, and the damage was irreversible.

The seed-setting stage nobody warns you about

Celosia blooms naturally darken, dry, and drop when the plant finishes its reproductive cycle. The flower head shifts color from the center outward, turns papery and brittle, and eventually releases tiny black seeds. This process is normal biology, not pathology.

The diagnostic difference: natural senescence produces dry, crumbly, lightweight flower heads. Pathological blackening produces mushy, heavy, often foul-smelling tissue. Squeeze the flower head gently. Dry and papery? The plant is simply done. Wet and squishy? Something else is wrong.

Sunlight starvation and heat stress

Celosia planted in partial shade grows leggy, and celosia flower heads in low light fade to pale tones, then brown, then blacken at the edges as cells die. The opposite extreme — sustained temperatures above 95 °F combined with drought — scorches celosia petal tips, producing crispy dark margins that can be mistaken for disease.

My personal rule of thumb: celosia wants hot, not scorching. Six to eight hours of direct morning-to-midday sun with light afternoon shade works best in zones 8–9 where summer heat gets brutal.

Pest damage that opens the door to blackening

Aphids, spider mites, and caterpillars wound celosia flower tissue. Wounded tissue invites fungal spores. The sequence is predictable: pests feed → micro-wounds form → Botrytis or leaf-spot fungi enter → blackening follows within days. Check the undersides of flower heads for aphid colonies or fine webbing. Sticky honeydew residue on the bloom surface is another telltale sign of active pest feeding.

How to diagnose your specific problem

Celosia blackening has at least five distinct causes, and each one leaves a slightly different fingerprint. Grab the affected flower head (wear gloves if you suspect fungus) and use this quick-reference table:

Visual clue Most likely cause First action Fuzzy gray coating on black tissue Botrytis gray mold Remove and bag infected flower heads immediately Uniform black across all exposed surfaces Frost or cold snap Check overnight low temps; cover remaining plants Mushy base, wilting stem, then black bloom Root rot / overwatering Stop watering; improve drainage Dry, papery, crumbly black flower head Natural seed-setting senescence Harvest seeds or deadhead — plant is finishing its cycle Sticky residue, tiny insects, patchy dark spots Pest damage + secondary fungal infection Blast pests with water; apply neem oil Crispy dark edges, dry soil, extreme heat Heat scorch / drought stress Water deeply at the base; add 2 inches of mulch

The “squeeze test” summarizes the whole diagnostic approach: mushy means fungal or rot, dry-crumbly means aging or frost, sticky means pests.

Saving your celosia — practical fixes that actually work Cut away the damage — how and where to prune

Celosia responds well to sanitation pruning. Sterilize your shears with rubbing alcohol, cut at least one inch below the blackened area into green, firm stem tissue, and drop every removed piece into a plastic bag — not onto the ground. Do not compost blackened celosia material. Fungal spores survive composting temperatures in most home compost bins.

Fix the water situation

Water celosia at the base, never overhead. Drip irrigation or a soaker hose keeps moisture off flower heads entirely. For container-grown celosia, ensure every pot has drainage holes and use a mix containing at least 30 % perlite. Raised beds solve most in-ground drainage problems in clay-heavy soils.

Fight fungal disease with targeted treatment

Apply copper-based fungicide — Bonide Copper Fungicide is widely available at US garden centers — at the first sign of botrytis spots. Spray early in the morning so foliage dries quickly. Daconil (chlorothalonil) works as a preventive when weather forecasts predict several humid, cool nights in a row. Neem oil handles light fungal pressure and also deters soft-bodied pests, giving you a two-for-one benefit. Reapply every 7–10 days during active infection.

Protect celosia from frost (or know when to let go)

Cover celosia plants with frost cloth when overnight temperatures drop below 40 °F. Anchor the cloth at the base so trapped warmth stays around the plant. But here’s the honest truth: celosia is an annual. Once a hard freeze arrives — sustained temps below 28 °F — the plant’s life cycle ends. Harvest healthy blooms before the first frost and hang celosia flower heads upside down in a dry room. Dried celosia holds color for months.

Boost airflow and spacing

Space celosia plants 10–12 inches apart at transplant time. Remove lower leaves once the plant reaches 8 inches tall — removing lower celosia foliage improves air circulation around the base where humidity concentrates. In my experience, this single habit prevents more fungal problems than any spray.

Prevention checklist for next season

1. Choose a planting site with full sun and fast-draining soil.
2. Space celosia transplants 10–12 inches apart in every direction.
3. Water celosia at the base using drip irrigation or a soaker hose.
4. Apply balanced fertilizer (10-10-10) monthly — excess nitrogen promotes soft growth vulnerable to fungus.
5. Scout celosia plants weekly for aphids, spider mites, and caterpillars.
6. Deadhead fading celosia blooms before they become entry points for disease.
7. Monitor weather forecasts and cover celosia before any night below 40 °F.

A final thought

I’ve grown celosia for over fifteen years, and I still lose a plant now and then. The difference between my early seasons and now is that I understand why — and I catch problems three days earlier. Celosia is tough, generous, and forgiving when you give it warmth, sunshine, and dry flower heads. One bad week doesn’t have to ruin a whole season.

If you’re staring at a blackened cockscomb right now, take a breath, run through the diagnostic table, and start with the simplest fix. Most celosia plants bounce back faster than you’d expect. I’d love to hear what’s happening in your garden — drop a comment below with your cultivar, your zone, and what the flower heads look like. Let’s figure it out together.

FAQ — celosia blackening and bloom drop Can celosia recover once the flower heads have turned completely black?

Celosia cannot revive a fully blackened flower head — dead tissue stays dead. However, celosia plants often push new side shoots and secondary blooms after you remove the damaged inflorescence, provided the stem and roots remain healthy.

Is it safe to compost blackened celosia flowers?

Blackened celosia flowers may carry Botrytis spores or other fungal pathogens. Most backyard compost piles do not reach temperatures high enough to kill these spores. Bag and discard blackened celosia material with household waste instead.

Do all celosia types (crested, plumed, spicata) blacken equally?

Crested (cockscomb) celosia blackens most noticeably because crested flower heads trap moisture in their dense folds. Plumed and spicata types dry faster and resist botrytis somewhat better, though no celosia type is immune.

Could black celosia flowers indicate a soil nutrient problem?

Nutrient deficiencies rarely cause flower blackening directly. Severe phosphorus deficiency darkens celosia foliage to a purplish hue, but true black flower tissue almost always points to fungal infection, frost, or overwatering rather than a nutrient issue.

How do I tell celosia flower blackening from normal drying for seed saving?

Celosia flowers drying for seed saving turn brown, then tan, and feel papery and light. Pathological blackening produces dark, mushy, often foul-smelling tissue that feels heavy with moisture. The squeeze test — papery versus squishy — gives you the answer in seconds.

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How to keep your ageratum mother plant alive over winter (and why it’s worth the effort)

Last September, my phone buzzed with that dreaded first frost advisory, and I stood in the garden staring at a ‘Blue Horizon’ ageratum that had been blooming its heart out since June. Pulling the whole plant and tossing the remains on the compost pile felt criminal. So I didn’t. I dug the ageratum up, potted the root ball, and carried the entire sticky-stemmed, slightly pungent thing into my kitchen. That decision to keep my ageratum mother plant over winter changed the way I garden every fall — and five seasons later, I still maintain descendants of that original plant.

Here’s what most seed packets won’t tell you: ageratum is not a true annual. Ageratum houstonianum — commonly called floss flower — is a tender perennial native to Mexico and Central America. The plant thrives year-round in USDA zones 10–11 but dies at the first hard frost everywhere else. Because American gardeners overwhelmingly treat the floss flower as disposable, almost no mainstream guide explains how to overwinter a specific mother plant indoors. This article fills that gap with every step I’ve learned, tested, and occasionally botched.

Why bother overwintering ageratum?

Ageratum earns the label “tender perennial” because the plant’s roots, stems, and crown survive indefinitely in frost-free conditions. “Tender” simply means the plant lacks cold hardiness — not that the plant lacks longevity. That distinction matters, because the moment you understand ageratum can live for years, throwing one away in October starts to feel wasteful.

I genuinely believe overwintering makes sense for four practical reasons. First, gardeners preserve a specific variety or flower color they love. Tall cutting types like ‘Blue Horizon’ or ‘Red Flint’ aren’t always easy to source as transplants each spring, and seed availability fluctuates. Second, an overwintered mother plant gives you a six-to-eight-week head start on spring blooms compared to starting from seed. Third — and this surprised me the most — a single mother plant produces dozens of stem cuttings in late winter, multiplying your stock for free. Fourth, keeping a living plant simply beats adding another carcass to the compost bin.

The right time to bring ageratum indoors

Ageratum suffers visible damage once nighttime temperatures dip below 40–45 °F. Gardeners don’t need to panic at the first cool evening, but they do need to act before a genuine frost. Timing depends on where you live.

Gardeners in zones 5–6 typically move their ageratum indoors by late September. Zone 7–8 gardeners usually have until mid-October. Zone 9 gardeners may only need protection during rare cold snaps — a frost cloth over the pot can be enough. And yes, I learned this the hard way: one year I waited until the forecast said 33 °F, rushed outside at 10 p.m. with a headlamp, and dug the plant in near-darkness. The ageratum survived. My back did not enjoy the experience. Check your USDA hardiness zone, watch the ten-day forecast starting in mid-September, and plan your move during daylight hours.

Step-by-step — preparing the mother plant for winter Dig, pot, and inspect

Gardeners growing ageratum in a garden bed should dig a wide circle around the root ball — roughly six inches from the main stem — to avoid slicing through feeder roots. Shake off excess garden soil gently. A healthy ageratum mother plant from the garden fits comfortably in a pot one to two inches wider than the root ball. I prefer a six-to-eight-inch terracotta pot because the clay breathes and reduces the risk of soggy roots.

Fill the pot with a well-draining mix: equal parts quality potting soil and perlite works well. Skip heavy garden soil entirely — the ageratum’s roots need airflow. Now comes the tricky part. Inspect every leaf surface, stem junction, and the soil surface for hitchhikers. Whiteflies and spider mites adore ageratum outdoors, and those populations explode in the warm, still air of a house. Flip leaves over. Look closely. One overlooked whitefly colony can infest your entire houseplant collection by December.

The quarantine period

One detail most guides skip: the ageratum needs isolation before joining your indoor plants. Place the freshly potted mother plant in a bright room away from other houseplants for seven to ten days. During quarantine, spray the entire plant — tops and undersides of leaves — with a dilute insecticidal soap solution or neem oil. Repeat the spray after five days. This two-round treatment catches pests that survived the first application as eggs or nymphs. I’ve watched a friend skip quarantine and spend all winter battling whiteflies on her fiddle-leaf fig. Not worth the risk.

Pruning before the move

Cut the ageratum back by one-third to one-half of its height using clean, sharp scissors. Remove all spent flower clusters, yellowing leaves, and any leggy or crossing stems. The mother plant looks rough after a hard prune — honestly, the first time I tried this, the result looked so pitiful by mid-October that I nearly composted the whole pot. Glad I didn’t. That aggressive haircut forces the ageratum to redirect energy toward roots and compact new growth, which is exactly what the plant needs for winter survival indoors.

Indoor care through the cold months Light requirements

Ageratum needs at least six hours of bright light each day indoors. A south-facing window handles this in most US homes from October through February. West-facing windows work as a second choice. Gardeners in northern states — Minnesota, Michigan, upstate New York — face brutally short winter days, and a windowsill alone may not provide enough light. A basic LED shop light positioned six inches above the ageratum for 12–14 hours a day solves the problem affordably. The mother plant responds to supplemental light within a week: new leaves emerge greener and stems stay compact instead of stretching toward a distant window.

Watering and humidity

Water the ageratum when the top inch of soil feels dry to the touch. The mother plant hates waterlogged roots — root rot kills more overwintering ageratum than cold ever does. But bone-dry soil stresses the plant too, causing leaf edges to crisp and lower leaves to drop. Find the middle ground. Indoor heating systems slash humidity to 20–30 %, and ageratum prefers 50 % or higher. Group the pot with other plants on a pebble tray filled with water to raise local humidity. Let’s be real: misting does almost nothing measurable for humidity. The water evaporates in minutes. A pebble tray or a small room humidifier delivers consistent results.

Temperature and feeding

Ageratum tolerates cool rooms down to about 50 °F at night but stops active growth below that threshold. Keep the room above 55 °F for the healthiest winter foliage. Avoid placing the pot near drafty doors, single-pane windows, or heating vents that blast dry air directly onto the leaves.

Feeding deserves a light touch. The ageratum rests during the shortest days of the year, so heavy fertilizer pushes weak, leggy growth. Apply a half-strength liquid fertilizer once a month from November through January, or skip feeding entirely until late February when increasing daylight triggers new growth. In my experience, under-feeding during winter causes zero problems; over-feeding causes pale, floppy stems that invite disease.

Common winter problems (and fixes)

• Leggy, pale growth signals insufficient light — move the ageratum closer to the window or add a grow light.
• Sudden leaf drop indicates overwatering or cold drafts — check soil moisture and relocate the pot away from exterior doors.
• Whiteflies appear as tiny white specks on leaf undersides — spray insecticidal soap every five days for three consecutive rounds.
• Crispy leaf edges suggest low humidity — place the pot on a pebble tray and group the ageratum with other plants.

Taking cuttings from your winter mother plant

Ageratum cuttings root easily, and late January through February is the ideal window. Days lengthen noticeably by then, and the mother plant begins pushing fresh growth — perfect cutting material. Propagating ageratum from a mother plant produces genetic clones, so every cutting preserves the exact flower color, height, and branching habit of the parent. Seed-grown ageratum can vary. Clones don’t.

Snip three-to-four-inch stem tips from non-flowering shoots, cutting just below a leaf node. Strip the lower leaves, leaving two or three leaves at the top. Dip the cut end in powdered rooting hormone — a light tap to coat, not a heavy dunk. Insert each cutting about one inch deep into a small pot of moist perlite or a 50/50 peat-perlite blend. Cover the pot loosely with a clear plastic bag to hold humidity, and set the cuttings in bright indirect light at 65–70 °F. Ageratum cuttings typically root in two to three weeks. A gentle tug that meets resistance confirms new roots. I’d argue this propagation step alone justifies overwintering — one mother plant can yield fifteen to twenty rooted cuttings, enough to fill a border or share with every neighbor on the block.

Transitioning back outdoors in spring

Ageratum rebounds fast once nighttime temperatures stay above 50 °F, but the mother plant and rooted cuttings need a hardening-off period first. Start by placing the pots outdoors in full shade for one hour on day one. Increase sun exposure and outdoor time gradually over seven to ten days. Transplant the ageratum into garden beds or larger containers after your region’s last frost date passes. The mother plant — now a seasoned survivor — typically blooms weeks before any seed-started ageratum in the neighborhood.

Frankly, there’s a quiet thrill in watching a plant you carried through a Minnesota February explode into blue blossoms by late May while everyone else’s six-packs from the garden center are still adjusting to outdoor life.

Frequently asked questions Can ageratum survive winter outdoors in any US zone?

Ageratum survives outdoors year-round only in USDA zones 10–11 — parts of southern Florida, coastal Southern California, and Hawaii. Frost kills the above-ground growth everywhere else, so gardeners in zones 9 and below need to bring the plant indoors or treat the ageratum as an annual.

Will my overwintered ageratum look the same next year?

A mother plant that receives proper light and regular pruning produces the same flower color and growth habit the following season. Ageratum maintained clonally — through cuttings or direct overwintering — stays true to the parent, unlike seed-grown plants that sometimes show variation.

How long can I keep the same ageratum mother plant alive?

Gardeners report maintaining ageratum mother plants for three to five years with annual overwintering. The plant becomes woodier at the base over time. Taking fresh cuttings each February ensures vigorous replacement stock that blooms as heavily as a young plant.

Is it easier to just start ageratum from seed every spring?

Seed starting works, but ageratum seeds need six to eight weeks of indoor growing before transplant, and germination can be uneven. An overwintered mother plant or rooted cuttings bloom weeks earlier and guarantee the exact variety the gardener wants — no surprises, no waiting.

So — what variety are you overwintering this fall? Whether your ageratum is a compact lavender mound or a tall, wild ‘Blue Horizon’ swaying at the back of the border, that plant deserves a winter indoors and another summer in the sun. Carry the pot inside, give the ageratum decent light and restrained water, and by March you’ll have a mother plant ready to produce an army of cuttings. Spring always comes. Your ageratum will be ready for the occasion.

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The Yellow Vest, or gilets jaunes, are grassroots worker movement that have defied politics as usual in France and the rest of the world. In our latest, Scott talks with…

May 18, 2026 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Statement on Senate Vote Confirming Steve Pearce as Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – 5.18.26  Anti-public lands politician will oversee nation’s largest land management agency 

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Washington, DC – Today, by a vote of 46 – 43 the U.S. Senate confirmed anti-public lands politician and former US Representative Steve Pearce (R-NM) as the next director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM); the vote was part of an en bloc (multiple) nomination vote. Below is a statement from SUWA DC Director Travis Hammill and additional information.  

“Today’s vote is disappointing. Anyone who cares about the future of public lands, national monuments, or the redrock knows that Steve Pearce has fundamentally disqualifying views – such as opposing the very existence of public lands – and should not hold the position of Director of the Bureau of Land Management,” said Travis Hammill, DC Director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “While the Trump Administration continues its deeply unpopular efforts to undermine public lands protections, SUWA’s work continues to protect Utah’s redrock country for current and future generations.” 

Additional information: 

• SUWA’s 3.4.26 Statement on Senate Committee Vote re: Steve Pearce’s Nomination to Lead the BLM 

• SUWA’s Advocacy Action to members 

• SUWA’s 11.5.25 Statement on Steve Pearce’s Nomination to Lead the BLM 

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a federal agency, is part of the Department of the Interior, a Cabinet-level department headed by Secretary Doug Burgum. In Utah, the BLM manages 22.8 million acres of public land, ranging from “spectacular red-rock canyons and roaring rivers to high mountain peaks and expansive salt flats,” including Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (designated in 1996 and the first monument managed by the BLM) and Bears Ears National Monument (designated in 2017 and jointly managed with the US Forest Service).  

The BLM manages several congressionally-designated wilderness areas in Utah, including remarkable places such as Muddy Creek (Emery County), Canaan Mountain (Washington County), and the Cedar Mountains (Tooele County). BLM-Utah also manages more than 80 Wilderness Study Areas and other significant public landscapes including Nine Mile Canyon, Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, and the Desolation Canyon and Labyrinth Canyon stretches of the Green River (designated Wild and Scenic Rivers). SUWA’s signature bill, America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, would designate more than 8 million acres of BLM land in Utah as wilderness.  

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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org. 

 

 

The post SUWA Statement on Senate Vote Confirming Steve Pearce as Director of the BLM – 5.18.26  appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Rafael Méndez Tejeda

El Niño is (probably) coming back later this year.

And this time, it’s unfolding against a backdrop of unusually warm oceans and an even warmer climate system than the last time we experienced this natural climate pattern.

Here is what you need to know about it.

What is El Niño?

The term El Niño is part of a broader phenomenon called El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It’s a recurring climate pattern involving changes in sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern tropical Pacific.

Copernicus, a European climate data service, reported that in March 2026, the average sea surface temperatures in the Pacific reached 20.97°C – the second-highest value ever recorded for March, which suggests a likely transition toward El Niño conditions.

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation is one of the planet’s most important natural mechanisms through which the ocean and atmosphere exchange energy and reorganize the global climate from year to year.

The phenomenon has three phases: the warm phase is El Niño, the cool phase is La Niña, and between the two lies a neutral or transitional phase, when neither dominates clearly. The changes occur in the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean, within 700 miles of the equator.

The consensus among climate models – including those from NOAA – indicates with high probability the onset and subsequent intensification of El Niño starting in fall 2026, with some models suggesting it could be an unusually intense event.

We can anticipate more heat waves with a strengthening El Niño, along with more extreme events ranging from heavy rainfall to drought. El Niño tends to intensify the subtropical jet stream, favoring wetter conditions and greater storm activity across the southern United States and northern Mexico, while the northern United States and Canada experience a relatively warmer and drier pattern, affecting snow cover and water availability. At the same time, the effects of El Niño usually reduce the frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.

The return of El Niño is not synonymous with climate change

El Niño is a natural phenomenon of the ocean-atmosphere system. But when it coincides with a planet already warmed by human activity, its effects can be amplified. The World Meteorological Organization warned that during the last El Niño period (2023–2024), the combination of El Niño and climate change hit Latin America and the Caribbean with greater force, worsening droughts, heat waves, wildfires, extreme rainfall, and other impacts with significant human and economic costs.

El Niño affects more than the Pacific region

Although El Niño originates in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, its effects extend to other regions of the planet through processes known as climate teleconnections – atmospheric links that allow massive cloud formations to develop as a result of the enormous evaporation generated by the warming of ocean waters.

El Niño disrupts what is known as the Walker Cell or Walker Circulation, a tropical atmospheric circulation system that transports heat, moisture, and energy on a large scale. These disturbances propagate through the atmosphere in the form of planetary waves, modifying global pressure and wind patterns. As a result, El Niño’s influence reaches the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean, where significant changes in regional climate occur.

Among these effects are a tendency toward drier conditions in certain periods due to descending air and a redistribution of heat that contributes to higher temperatures and more intense heat waves. In short, even though El Niño occurs far from where most Yale Climate Connections readers live, its impact is clearly felt because Earth’s climate system is interconnected, and atmospheric disturbances can travel vast distances.

During El Niño, increased variability in wind direction and speed – which inhibits hurricane formation – can act as a buffer against hurricane activity. However, hurricane formation in the Atlantic depends on multiple factors, including conditions in the Atlantic itself – such as sea surface temperatures, atmospheric moisture, and the Azores High, a large semipermanent center of high atmospheric pressure that sits over the North Atlantic near the Azores islands. And when it comes to hurricanes, we should never let our guard down completely.

How El Niño affects hurricane formation in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. (Image credit: NOAA / Climate.gov)

In general terms, precipitation tends to be greater during La Niña or neutral years than during El Niño years. This does not mean the disappearance of all rainfall. But it does suggest a greater probability of rainfall deficits, water stress, and, in some cases, the development of drought conditions – which could worsen the drought already affecting Southern and Western U.S. states.

El Niño is not here yet

According to the most recent diagnostic discussion from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, current conditions are ENSO-neutral. That same assessment indicates that neutral conditions are likely through May, April, June, and July 2026, potentially extending through September, at which point a transition to the warm phase of ENSO could begin. All forecasting centers emphasize that significant uncertainty remains regarding its ultimate intensity.

El Niño does not arrive on a fixed schedule

Both NOAA and other scientific bodies agree that it appears irregularly, generally every two to seven years, though the average tends to fall closer to every three to four years. Episodes typically last between nine and 18 months, and in some cases, somewhat longer due to the effects of global warming.

05-22 * 13:00 - RD-TG meeting (Bea)

05-20 * 13:00 - Toolkit for Weaving (Bea)

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.

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EnviroReporter.com’s 20th anniversary 2006-2026 Michael Collins & Denise Duffield’s reporting valued at $9.6 BILLION!

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

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