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For almost half a century, the vast majority of climate experts have agreed on a solution to global warming: stop burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. But despite the political efforts of governments across the world to promote replacing these fuels, fossil sources have remained a stubbornly large share of global energy — around 80 percent at last count.

But the war in Iran, which the United States and Israel launched two months ago this week, may turn out to be the push that dislodges fossil fuels’ place atop the world’s energy system. The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway near Iran through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies flow, has been blocked since early March, with no relief in sight. This has created the biggest energy crisis in modern history. Twenty-five countries are now reporting critical road fuel, jet fuel, or heating oil shortages. 

But unlike the oil shock of the 1970s, which occurred in a time when substitutes for fossil fuels were not yet powerful or cheap enough to build at scale, this disruption is happening as renewable energy sources are beginning to outcompete fossil fuels, providing countries with new energy options at costs that have plummeted in recent years.

“We now have a viable alternative,” said Selwin C. Hart, a special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General, at a first-of-its-kind international conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Colombia this week. “Renewables have changed the equation.” 

But even though this calculus has changed, it’s too soon to say where the chips will fall as the world’s energy system evolves. While the reliability of a huge chunk of the world’s oil and natural gas is now perhaps permanently in question, it’s not certain that renewables will fill all or even most of the gap. Coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, is taking on a renewed appeal in a world desperate to replace natural gas for electricity, and it remains difficult for solar and wind to replace the around-the-clock power provided by both of those fossil fuels.

“It’s hard to say which direction things will go,” Daan Walter, a lead researcher at the energy think tank Ember, told Grist.

Still, two months after the war began it’s becoming clear which sources of energy stand to win and which stand to lose as the world changes in response to the conflict. As prices rise and supplies dwindle, countries around the globe are reevaluating their energy futures. While some have fallen back on dirty fuels to fill the gaps caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, others have announced significant investments in clean energy to chart a path away from the sources of energy they have relied on for more than a hundred years. 

Iraq has begun exporting oil by sending tanker trucks through Syria. An official said oil revenue dropped more than 70 percent in March.
Bakr ALkasem / AFP / Getty Images Losers: Oil and natural gas

The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint through which more than 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes, including exports from major producers such as Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The small nation of Qatar produces around one-fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which it exports on boats in superchilled tanks. Iran’s drone attacks have damaged Qatar’s major gas infrastructure and prevented all the nations in the region from sending both oil and LNG shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

The main buyers of this oil are in Asia, but tankers from the strait travel all over the world, including to the U.S. The first month of the war set off a scramble to replace this lost supply. Major buyers like China and Japan started hoarding refined oil products they would normally export and began rationing their strategic fuel reserves. Rich importers like Australia and California paid more to secure seaborne oil from other countries.

Most nations don’t have the same luxuries; they simply have to use less oil. In Asia, the loss of LNG compounds the problem tremendously. Several major Asian economies including Japan, Korea, and Singapore rely on LNG to run their power plants and factories. Many LNG shippers sign long-term contracts with importing countries, meaning there weren’t any spare shipments floating around, as was the case with crude oil after the start of the war. If they wanted to keep the lights on, these countries had to turn back to dirtier coal power.

Nepali consumers line up to receive partially-filled liquefied petroleum gas cylinders at a depot of the Nepal Oil Corporation in Kathmandu, Nepal, on March 14, 2026.
Sanjit Pariyar / NurPhoto / Getty Images

The loss of LNG from Qatar was a big win for the United States, which is the world’s other biggest exporter of liquefied gas. The LNG exporters who did have spare capacity available could command eye-watering prices from countries that needed the fuel. But there’s a limit to how much more gas the U.S. can send to fill the gap: liquefying natural gas requires the construction of massive factories on the coast, which can take years, and existing plants are already running at full capacity. In the meantime, the disruption has dampened enthusiasm for what had been a very popular fuel, said  Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and the former head of gas analysis at BP. 

“If you are an LNG importer and you are looking at the global market, you’re thinking, ‘do I want to be exposed in that way?’” she said.

Meanwhile, governments across Asia have rolled out a host of policies intended to cut down on the consumption of oil and natural gas: They lowered speed limits, mandated remote work, set thermostats higher despite hot weather, and asked employees to take the stairs rather than using the elevator. They have also waived fuel taxes and banned price increases to prevent an affordability crisis. These measures have contained unrest and economic collapse for now, but further warning signs are emerging. Airlines in Europe, Africa, and New Zealand have cancelled hundreds of flights, and small carriers in the U.S. are facing bankruptcy as the price of jet fuel rises.

In the long term, the oil crisis may accelerate a preexisting shift to electric vehicles and hybrids, which had already begun to outsell gas cars in many countries in Europe and Asia. In the first month of the war, electric-vehicle sales jumped by more than 50 percent in big European economies like France and Germany, and by almost 200 percent in Brazil. While gas cars still make up the vast majority of vehicles on the road today, a fast shift to EVs — juiced by government mandates such as Indonesia’s — could cause oil demand to plateau or decline in the coming years.

Winners: Coal, solar, nuclear

Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel; it produces far more carbon dioxide than oil or natural gas to generate the same amount of energy. Although some major economies like China and India still burn tremendous amounts of it, many world powers have been shifting toward liquefied natural gas and renewables over the past decade, cutting emissions in the process.

Even so, most of these coal-to-gas switchers never decommissioned their old coal plants — they just stopped using them. Since the beginning of the war, the availability of this legacy coal fleet has allowed countries across Asia to ramp up coal capacity to fill the gap in lost LNG imports. South Korea lifted a previous emissions limit that barred coal plants from running at more than 80 percent of total capacity, allowing the coal fleet to generate as much power as possible. On the other side of the globe, some European countries like Italy are extending the lifespans of their coal plants, in some cases by more than a decade. 

“The real question is how governments balance short-term energy security with long-term climate commitments,” said Dinita Setyawati, a Jakarta-based analyst for Ember who studies decarbonization in Asian economies.

Japan’s government plans to temporarily lift restrictions on coal-fired power plants like the Isogo Thermal Power Station.
Kazuhiro NOGI / AFP / Getty Images

Although most experts believe coal power will continue its decline as a major source of primary energy, Corbeau said that the crisis could prolong its lifespan in Asia, breaking natural gas’s role as a so-called “bridge fuel” between coal and renewables.

“They could definitely keep coal, add more renewables, and do less LNG in the end,” said Corbeau. “It may be that a lot of countries say that coal is a lot less subject to geopolitics, therefore we are going to use more coal.”

No renewable source is in a better position to surge than solar. Solar farms already made up the vast majority of new power plants even before the war, and Chinese exports of solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles hit records in March, according to recently-released export data. (China is by far the world’s most prolific exporter of renewable energy technology.)

The countries most affected by the Iran War are among the areas seeing the “sharpest increases in demand” for these products, according to Ember. Exports of Chinese batteries rose 44 percent; the European Union, Australia, and India were top customers. The flow of solar components to India rose by 6.6 gigawatts between February and March, a nearly 150 percent increase. Solar exports to Africa rose 176 percent over the same time frame. Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia led the way with more than a gigawatt of growth each. All told, 50 countries set records for Chinese solar imports in March. 

After Europe saw its solar market contract slightly last year, demand for rooftop solar in countries across the continent is surging as electricity bills rise, according to a report from Reuters. Three major energy equipment wholesalers interviewed for the report have seen their sales spike more than 30 percent, with one company’s net sales tripling in March. The European Commission, which released a document last week calling for more electrification, renewables, and energy efficiency measures to counteract the ongoing energy shortage, will present energy ministers with proposals for how to reduce short-term fossil fuel exposure at a meeting in Greece next month.

Solar panels on a residential building’s balconies in Germany.
Martin Schutt / picture alliance / Getty Images

In Vietnam, a company that planned to build a 4.8-gigawatt liquefied natural gas plant — which would have been the country’s largest — has axed those plans and now aims to build a wind, battery storage, and solar facility instead. South Korea recently announced a fast-tracked plan to deploy 100 gigawatts of renewables by 2030, a plan that includes 400 billion won, or roughly $270 million, for low-interest loans for village solar projects. (One hundred gigawatts is roughly enough electricity to power Ho Chi Minh City 10 times over.)

While solar is a clear winner in light of the new bottleneck in the Middle East, the outlook for wind power is less clear. On the one hand, the German wind turbine maker Nordex saw its shares reach a 24-year high in the first quarter of 2026, as demand for clean energy in Europe continues to rise. But the Iranian and American blockades of the Strait of Hormuz could stymie the delivery of wind turbine components such as foundations and substations, many of which are manufactured in the Persian Gulf. This could have a depressive effect on wind growth even if countries in Europe and the United Kingdom wish to boost development. 

There’s a chance, however, that the biggest winner may be the most controversial form of climate-friendly power. For decades, the growth of nuclear energy has been constrained by high prices and long development timelines; it can take over a decade to get a plant licensed and built. Disasters like the 2011 tsunami that damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan further dampened nuclear’s growth. In Europe, pressure from anti-nuclear environmental groups led many countries to decommission their nuclear power fleets. As a result, the share of power coming from nuclear reactors globally reached its lowest point in four decades in 2022.

Anti-nuclear sentiment was starting to soften before the war in the Middle East began, but the Iran War is speeding up this trend, prompting countries that shunned nuclear for decades to reevaluate the role that around-the-clock carbon-free energy plays on their grids. Early evidence for a nuclear surge is strongest in Asia, which is most reliant on Middle Eastern oil and natural gas. In Taiwan, a country that gets a third of its liquefied natural gas from Qatar, the state utility formally submitted a restart plan for its Maanshan nuclear plant a month after the war began.

South Korea, which already gets about 30 percent of its power from nuclear, signed a cooperative agreement with Vietnam to jointly develop new nuclear capacity, building on talks that began last year. After restarting Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, which is the world’s largest nuclear plant, in January, Japan inked a$40 billion deal to build advanced small nuclear reactors in the American south during a visit to the White House in March. Japan also signed a 5-year “memorandum of cooperation” with Indonesia aimed at advancing nuclear power and critical minerals development around the same time.

Construction at the Penly nuclear power plant in Petit-Caux on the English channel coast. France’s nuclear recovery program provides for the construction of six new reactors.
Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP via Getty Images

Elsewhere, countries are delaying nuclear phase-outs and talking about how to boost capacity. “I believe that it was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in March this year as she announced a $232 million fund to galvanize private investment in new nuclear technologies. The Commission warned member states like Spain and Belgium against prematurely phasing out nuclear power plants. In Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa reaffirmed their support for nuclear; nearly half of the countries on the continent had long-term nuclear development plans before the war began. This week, the government of Belgium began negotiations to take over a fleet of nuclear reactors that the utility Engie had been planning to shut down.

“All decommissioning activities are being halted with immediate effect,” said the country’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, in a statement.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Two months in, the Iran war has changed the global energy system forever on May 1, 2026.

I caught a raccoon almost literally red-handed the other day. The night before, it (and presumably the comrades in its pack, technically known as a “gaze” of raccoons, because sure why not) had assaulted my garden, digging holes willy-nilly and uprooting seedlings I’d just put in the ground. In my three years of gardening, I’ve never actually seen the critters I’ve been at war with, on account of their nighttime raids. I’ve only found their aftermath. But now I had solid evidence: A muddy paw print on a watering can the invaders had tipped over to get a drink. 

You might wonder, then, why in his new Netflix docuseries, This Is a Gardening Show, Zach Galifianakis gushes about the joys of adding water and nutrients to a plot of land, hoping something actually grows, and then further hoping that it doesn’t get uprooted by omnivorous nocturnal bandits. “I honestly think for human beings and for the world itself, the only future is agrarian,” says Galifianakis, himself a gardener, in an episode about composting. “We should all know how to garden. It’s a better hobby than jetskiing.”

It’s exactly because gardening can be so frustrating and seemingly arbitrary — though, admittedly, much safer than jetskiing — that it is, in fact, joyful. Visiting various farms across six short episodes, Galifianakis finds that gardeners seem happier and funnier than most folk. Maybe it’s because they get to be outside all the time, or they’ve got balanced diets, or because they’re reliving their childhoods as they search for earthworms wiggling in compost. Or, more likely, it’s because raccoons have somehow vanished from that part of the world. 

Damning evidence left by the critters ravaging my garden. Courtesy of Matt Simon

This is not the Galifianakis of Between Two Ferns fame, in which he eviscerates celebrities who are in on the joke. His new show is still funny, of course, though in a sweeter, bucolic way. (A good chunk of the humor comes from not-especially-insightful — at least as far as gardeners are concerned — segments in each episode in which he asks school children about food.) When Galifianakis is traipsing around gardens, the biting, sardonic wit of Ferns gives way to genuine awe of what these farmers can accomplish. 

I identify. While I’m walking around the garden in the morning, watering and assessing the damage, I’m also cutting flowers to hang inside and dry. I’m watching bumblebees bumble around, fertilizing my native plants. I’m snapping new spears from my asparagus plants and eating them raw. (You haven’t lived until you’ve had asparagus straight out of the ground — they’re unbelievably tender, and mine have a somewhat peppery, garlicky taste.) Unlike the masterful producers profiled in This Is a Gardening Show, I’m not generating nearly enough sustenance even to feed myself, true enough. But in my experience, that’s not the point.

A glimpse into their operations stands in stark contrast to modern industrial agriculture. Food prices are skyrocketing as farmers struggle to pay for fuel and fertilizer, especially after Iran closed the Straight of Hormuz. People are freaked out about ultra-processed fare. Droughts are exhausting water supplies as the world gets too hot to feed itself. While humble gardens can’t feed the world on their own, they can certainly help with food security, especially when tucked into cities. Heck, you can even grow crops on top of buildings, under the shade of solar panels, thus generating both nutrition and clean electricity. 

Whereas industrial farms grow monocrops, like vast fields of wheat, gardens are more diverse and adaptive to a changing planet. Galifianakis, for instance, visits Royann Petrell and Sylvain Alie, founders of Steller Raven Ecological Farm, who’ve developed a variety they call the “future of tomatoes,” in that it “doesn’t mind 140 degrees in a greenhouse.” They say its taste improves the hotter it gets, in fact. Compare that to the industrial, perfectly formed, perfectly tasteless tomato you’ll find in the supermarket. 

Asparagus spears grow out of the ground like this, ready to eat. Courtesy of Matt Simon

Even though it was released on Earth Day, this is not a show centered on climate change, which is a massive threat to farmers big and small. We can imagine that these gardeners might be struggling with water shortages or extreme heat waves withering their crops, or growing seasons getting thrown out of whack. But more often, Galifianakis jokingly predicts a kind of generalized civilizational collapse. “There will be mass population decline, and there will be a small group of people that will be able to continue on, and their lineage will be able to continue on,” he says. “But a lot of us are gonna die.” 

Apocalypses aside, This Is a Gardening Show is a charmer, much more about triumphs of gardening than its many lows. A garden abhors arrogance — one thing after another lies in wait to humble you. From your many struggles, you realize the futility of struggling: Pests will come and go, weeds will grow even in the event of a nuclear winter, and a carefully tended vegetable will simply give up and die on you. Sometimes it’s your fault, and sometimes a plant is just trying to be difficult. Living in San Francisco, our infamous microclimates mean one species might grow big and strong in someone’s backyard a mile away, but struggle to survive in my own. I’m still learning, and will probably always be learning. And I’m very jealous of the masterful gardeners in the series.

As the seasons come and go, you find a rhythm in gardening, and things click into place. You learn that as much death as life visits a garden, and that’s OK. You problem-solve and improvise not just because you have to, but because it’s fun. Share a garden with someone and you forge a unique bond, like Petrell and Alie strolling hand-in-hand among their tomatoes. “Can I just say, off the record, seeing you guys hold hands through the garden, that’s what does it to humans, right?” Galifianakis says. “The garden is good for us. It can be a lifesaver.”

But then, inevitably, return the frustrations, which we don’t see too much of in the show, and the adaptations they demand from the gardener. For my part, I imagine raccoons are digging up my garden to find earthworms, grubs, and other invertebrates. (To be fair to raccoons, I can’t rule out an opossum as the culprit, or they might even be co-conspirators that trade off nights. But living near Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, raccoons are absolutely everywhere in my neighborhood.) But I drew the line when they repeatedly dug up my sugar pea seedlings last year, which I had for weeks grown from seed, then transplanted into the ground. So this year, instead of providing a single A-frame trellis for the plants to climb, I locked the seedlings inside by breaking a second frame in half and zip-tying the two pieces to either end of the structure. Irony among ironies, though: Research suggests that raccoons love solving puzzles for the fun of it, so they’ll get the same pleasure breaking the cage that I enjoyed improvising. 

But back to the show. The quaint farms that Galifianakis visits are as much producers of sustenance as they are of knowledge. You’ll learn a lot from the series, like where apples came from, how to graft a fruit tree, how corn will develop weirdly if not pollinated properly, and what you shouldn’t add to your compost bin (if you think plastic utensils are OK, maybe gardening isn’t for you after all). 

The short series won’t turn you into a master gardener. But it doesn’t have to, because much of the thrill of gardening is figuring it out for yourself through trial and error, when dealing with raccoons or otherwise. “Very pompously, if I were to offer a remedy to the human condition, it would be a garden,” Galifianakis says. “Or acid.”

So Zach, the next time you’re in San Francisco and want to lend me a hand, let me know. With the raccoons, not the acid.  

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline While Zach Galifianakis finds peace in gardening, I’m at war with raccoons on May 1, 2026.

Abigail Spanberger won a landslide victory in the Virginia governor’s race last November with a platform that focused on reining in rising electricity costs. Virginia is home to the world’s largest concentration of artificial-intelligence data centers, and the state’s biggest utility is straining to meet an expected surge in power demand. Spanberger, a Democrat, promised on the campaign trail to “make Virginians’ bills more affordable.”

It might seem surprising, then, that the new governor signed a bill last month that would return Virginia to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, a carbon pricing program that covers electrical utilities in states across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. Spanberger’s Republican predecessor, Glenn Youngkin, pulled out of the program in 2022.

“Cap-and-trade” programs like RGGI put a ceiling on the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide that utilities are allowed to emit when they generate electricity, and they require utilities to pay for every ton of carbon they emit below that cap. These programs can help drive utilities toward cleaner fuels, but they also increase costs, and those costs get passed on to consumers.

As a result, cap-and-trade programs have come under scrutiny as Democrats pivot to a focus on lowering costs for voters concerned about inflation. Democrats in California have called for relaxing the state’s cap-and-trade system this year, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has tried to punt on launching a cap-and-trade system that would apply to emissions from cars and buildings, on top of the state’s membership in RGGI. 

Supporters of RGGI (pronounced “reggie”) say that rather than driving bills up for Virginia households, re-entering the carbon price alliance could protect many families in the state from shouldering the costs of the data center boom. The revenues from selling pollution permits could eventually lower energy bills in many households and speed up Virginia utilities’ shift away from fossil fuels.

“Of course [RGGI] imposes costs on ratepayers, because we’re trying to internalize the costs that pollution is causing on everyone else,” said William Shobe, an original architect of the RGGI program who is now an emeritus professor of public policy at the University of Virginia. “But…if you design it right, it’s another tool for reallocating the costs that data centers are imposing on ratepayers.” 

The 10 other states in the RGGI program agree by consensus to lower the cap on emissions every few years, which should encourage utilities to get more power from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. Since the program launched in 2009, utilities in the Northeast have reduced their overall emissions twice as fast as the rest of the United States, mainly by replacing dirty coal power with natural gas.

More than half of Virginians get their electricity from a giant utility called Dominion, which serves the state’s populous coast. In the past, Dominion has dealt with RGGI costs by imposing a surcharge on all customers. It came out to around $4.50 a month for the average household. Some have argued that the utility never needed to pass on these charges, but now that Virginia is rejoining RGGI, a representative from Dominion told Grist it will seek to reimpose them.

The price of a RGGI pollution permit has doubled in the past five years — from $8 to $16 for every ton — as member states have tried to ratchet down carbon emissions. At the same time, energy consumption in Virginia has increased by around 15 percent due to the AI boom. Data centers now consume around 20 percent of the state’s electricity, a number that could increase to more than 50 percent by 2030, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, an independent research firm. 

That surge in demand means that Virginia’s utilities will have to purchase more carbon permits from RGGI, which will make it more expensive for them to burn natural gas. Even though Virginia left the alliance for a few years under Youngkin, it will have to keep up with the pace of decarbonization across the rest of the Northeast.

“[Virginia] is coming back at the allocation where they would be if they had not left,” said Andrew McKeon, the head of the nonprofit that manages RGGI, during a talk earlier this month at the BloombergNEF energy summit in New York City. 

But returning to RGGI might not harm Spanberger’s affordability agenda as much as opponents claim. States spend the revenue raised from permits on projects that help reduce energy bills. Before it left the program, Virginia spent about $250 million in RGGI funds to make low-income households more energy efficient by, for instance, weatherizing homes against temperature swings and upgrading HVAC systems. These improvements even benefit customers who don’t receive them because using less energy tamps down prices. That’s not to mention the future health benefits of reduced pollution from coal and gas plants.

Data centers themselves will likely foot a large share of the bill for rejoining RGGI, since they use such a big share of the state’s electricity. Late last year, Dominion rolled out a new rate structure for “large load” users, requiring them to pay for most of the cost of generating and distributing the power they need, an effort to ensure those costs didn’t get spread onto ordinary homeowners. Shobe said that Virginia legislators are weighing whether to change the way they spend RGGI’s revenues so that some of the money gets funneled to help low-income families pay their electric bills. 

“It [would be] an automatic mechanism for recovering some of those increased costs and giving it back,” he said. Some low-income households that don’t use much energy would see their bills go down compared to if Virginia wasn’t in RGGI. (Shobe has been appointed to Virginia’s state air pollution control board, though he doesn’t have an affiliation with the Spanberger administration.)

A coal power plant owned by Dominion Energy in Saint Paul, Virginia. The utility must replace all its fossil fuel infrastructure with renewable energy in the coming decades. Mike Belleme for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Even if RGGI doesn’t threaten Spanberger’s promise to lower energy bills, experts disagree about how much the cap-and-trade program will do to speed Virginia’s shift off fossil fuels. The state legislature has already ordered Dominion to phase out all its fossil fuel plants by 2045, although the utility is allowed to keep them open if it’s necessary to avoid blackouts. Dominion has brought around 2 gigawatts of solar power online over the past decade, and plans another 16 gigawatts over the next decade, at a cost of around $8 billion. In 2024, fossil fuels made up about 60 percent of Virginia’s energy mix, with the rest coming from nuclear and some solar.

Dominion will also soon begin taking power from the country’s largest offshore wind farm, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, which is nearing completion despite interference from the Trump administration. But the company is also seeking to expand a large gas power plant over the objection of environmentalists and community groups. Dominion plans to spend even more money on gas development than on solar, and it has met data center demand by importing power from dirtier coal and gas plants in West Virginia and Ohio. The utility said last year that phasing out its use of fossil fuels to meet the state’s law would cost $270 billion. (Environmental groups have disputed these estimates.)

Given the existing Virginia Clean Economy Act mandate and the high cost of maintaining reliable round-the-clock power without fossil fuels, some doubt that RGGI will push Virginia off natural gas any faster. 

“I don’t see a magic wand, we’re hitting the ceilings everywhere,” said Shuting Pomerleau, an energy analyst at American Action Forum, a center-right think tank. “I will be very skeptical if all these things combined could accelerate the decarbonization much faster than it currently already is.”

But supporters of Virginia’s rejoining RGGI argue that it will influence decisions made by Dominion and other utilities. These companies will soon need to spend tens of billions of dollars to meet surging demand, and that power has to come from somewhere. The financial nudge of RGGI will make investment in solar and batteries look more appealing compared to holding on to fossil fuels, said Jamie Dickerson, a senior policy analyst at the Acadia Center, a climate policy think tank.

“RGGI will be a direct price signal,” Dickerson said. 

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Can a carbon price lower power bills? Virginia is betting yes. on May 1, 2026.

From low-carbon farming to community energy and Amazon restoration, Brazil’s cooperative sector is mobilizing millions to act on climate at a local level. The model highlights how existing co-op networks could be scaled to support a more just and resilient transition.

Twenty years after a global proposal to limit oil extraction, Richard Heinberg revisits its relevance in this interview and argues that equitable rationing may be key to reducing conflict and managing resource decline.

Dr. Katharine Wilkinson is an author, strategist, and teacher, working to heal the planet we call home. She addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”

The convenient myth of civic nationalism has allowed Holyrood to ignore the rising threat of Reform for too long, argues Coll McCail

The post Elections 2026: Soul searching for Scottish political identity appeared first on Red Pepper.

Paltry sales as shoppers shun cage eggs Channel News brendan 1st May 2026 Teaser Media

Anderson Bean: Could you start by introducing yourself and your role in the Guilford County Schools?

Carla Harris: I am a high school science educator. I have been teaching for the past 10 years, all in North Carolina. I am also a member of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), and I do a lot of organizing work with them.

AB: How would you describe the current state of public education in North Carolina for both teachers and students?

CH: One word that comes to mind is abysmal. The last study I saw ranked North Carolina 50th in public school funding out of all the states, so it’s pretty difficult right now. In 2008 North Carolina was 25th in teacher pay, today it is 43rd, $14,000 less than the national average. North Carolina is also currently the only state that has not passed a state budget.

You have a lot of people in this profession who really love what we do, but it’s getting really hard for people to stay. Within the past 20 years, the General Assembly has been chipping away at the public school system in many different ways. For example, they eliminated master’s pay starting in 2014, so educators with advanced degrees now earn the same as colleagues without them. For anyone entering the system after 2021, there are no longer state-provided health benefits in retirement, which discourages people from joining the profession. North Carolina has also eliminated traditional tenure and weakened due process protections for teachers. At the same time, the pay scale is structured so that salaries increase early on but then flatten out for much of a teacher’s career, with little to no meaningful raises between, roughly, years fifteen and twenty-four.

My own health insurance costs doubled this past year. Classified staff—bus drivers, custodians, and cafeteria workers—until recently weren’t even making $15 an hour. That leads to shortages, vacancies, and burnout across the board.

Conditions inside schools are also very difficult. Because of low state funding, maintenance is not always addressed in a timely way. In my school, there are several places where every time it rains, ceiling tiles have to be replaced within a couple of days. There are ongoing leaks. In a neighboring county, schools couldn’t open on time one year because of mold in multiple buildings after air conditioning was cut over the summer to save money.

Resources are scarce. Most teachers buy their own basic supplies, tissues, pencils, hand sanitizer, things that used to be provided by the school.

Health insurance has also worsened. Costs have gone up while coverage has gone down. Starting teacher salaries are so low that, when you factor in the hours worked, they fall below a living wage, which makes it even harder to bring new people into the profession.

Most schools only have a nurse one to two days a week, with nurses split across multiple buildings. That makes it difficult for them to really know students and their health needs. Mental health services are even harder to access.

These problems are tied to broader policy decisions. Legislators have chosen to maintain one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the country, with plans to reduce it to zero by 2030. At the same time, funding is being diverted away from public schools. Over the past few years, there has been a sharp increase in private school vouchers, also known as Opportunity Scholarships. This year alone, over $500 million in taxpayer dollars has gone to these vouchers, effectively siphoning money away from public schools. And the majority of recipients are already from wealthier families.

AB: What is NCAE organizing for May Day, and what are the main goals of the action?

CH: To coincide with the nationwide call to action on May Day this year, NCAE has organized a day of action under the slogan “Kids Over Corporations.” They are inviting all school employees, along with the broader community, to come to the Capitol in Raleigh. The goal is not only to stand in solidarity with one another, but also to get legislators’ attention and begin shifting policy back in our direction.

School employees are being asked to call out of work that day. The central demands are for increased funding for public education by redirecting money away from corporate tax cuts and private school vouchers.

It has been made clear that this is not a strike, but a one-day action that can serve as a step toward larger actions in the future. A longer-term goal of NCAE is to become a formalized union and win collective bargaining rights, and this action is part of building toward that.

To coincide with the nationwide call to action on May Day this year, NCAE has organized a day of action under the slogan “Kids Over Corporations.”…School employees are being asked to call out of work that day. The central demands are for increased funding for public education by redirecting money away from corporate tax cuts and private school vouchers.

So far, over fifteen school districts have been forced to close for the day. This happens when enough workers put in absences that there are not enough substitutes to cover positions, which forces districts to convert the day into an optional teacher workday. We expect that number to grow, and there are also educators participating from districts that have not officially closed.

These decisions are made at the county level. Some districts have made the day an optional teacher workday, while others have required employees to use annual leave. These kinds of responses reflect attempts to limit collective worker action.

AB: How does this year’s May Day action compare to the 2018 “Red for Ed” mobilizations in North Carolina? What feels continuous, what’s different, and how does this moment compare to being part of the broader national wave back then?

CH: North Carolina had similar actions in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, there was a national teacher strike wave across multiple states, including Arizona and West Virginia. That created a lot of momentum, and people here were ready to take action because they could see what was possible when educators organized collectively.

Now, we are building on the lessons learned from those experiences. In both moments, there has been a strong emphasis on grassroots organizing—attending local meetings, connecting with educators across districts, and collectively developing strategy. It’s often a year-long process to build toward actions like this.

This year, one of the key strategies has been organizing coordinated absences. In some districts, educators formally entered their absences into the system, while in others, workers signed commitment forms indicating they would do so if necessary. In my district alone, there were nearly 800 commitments, which was enough for the school board to act before everyone even formally submitted their absences. The collective action itself was enough to force a response.

While the numbers may be smaller so far than in 2018, we are seeing broader connections with other organizations this time. There has been collaboration with immigrant rights groups, voting rights groups, and other community organizations. There have been art builds to create banners and materials, as well as coordinated actions like banner drops and rallies. There is also a larger coalition coming together for events around May Day.

So while 2018 was defined by a powerful national wave of teacher strikes, this moment is characterized more by coalition-building and deeper connections across movements.

While [the 2018 “Red for Ed” mobilizations in North Carolina were] defined by a powerful national wave of teacher strikes, this moment is characterized more by coalition-building and deeper connections across movements.

AB: GCAE has also been active in the Triad labor movement, including solidarity with UAW struggles. Can you talk about the importance of cross-union solidarity in the region? [The Piedmont Triad is a metropolitan region in the north-central part of North Carolina that make up three cities: Greensboro, Winston Salem and High Point. – EDS]

CH: GCAE, as a local chapter of the statewide union, has supported UAW organizing efforts. That connection is very real, UAW workers manufacture our school buses, and their children attend our schools. It highlights how interconnected working-class struggles really are.

We’re all working under the same system, and we recognize that the system is not working for us. Organizing around public schools is a powerful way for people to connect because over 80 percent of working-class families send their children to public schools. Most people have some connection to a public school, which creates natural links between different struggles. Schools become a central place where broader working-class solidarity can grow.

AB: How are the struggles of other school workers, like bus drivers, cafeteria staff, and support personnel, intersecting with those of teachers right now?

CH: There’s a misconception that this action is just about teachers. NCAE represents all public school workers, so when we are asking for more funding, we are asking for better pay and improved conditions across the board.

When school funding increases, salaries can go up for everyone, and conditions improve for all school employees.

We’ve seen this in recent struggles. In Guilford County, school nutrition staff organized a two-day walkout in 2023 to demand higher wages. That action led to raises, though there were still concerns about how those increases were structured.

Even before that walkout, GCAE spent over two years organizing to raise classified staff wages to $15 an hour. That campaign shows how long it can take to win even modest gains. When we push for larger changes now, we understand that this is a long-term fight.

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: Anthony Crider; modified by Tempest.

The post Kids Over Corporations appeared first on Tempest.

The CSIPM participated in a consultation organized by the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on Empowering Family Farmers, in preparation for the Global Thematic Event that will be held during the 54th CFS Plenary Session in October 2026.

In a collective contribution, the CSIPM highlighted that the event is a key opportunity to reflect on and advance policies that strengthen family farmers, small-scale food producers, fishers, pastoralists, Indigenous Peoples, women and youth, as well as peasant and Indigenous agriculture rooted in agroecology. It also stressed that the discussion should build on commitments governments have already made within the CFS and under the United Nations Decade of Family Farming.

The CSIPM called for a critical review of policies from recent decades to better understand how they have contributed to deepening dependence on external inputs, capital, and new technologies (including digital ones); reinforcing the agro-industrial model; weakening resilience, and increasing vulnerability. It also underscored the need to recognize the structural challenges faced by family farmers, including criminalization and limited access to finance and markets.

Among the priorities that the CFS event should address, the CSIPM highlighted agrarian reform, particularly in connection with the ICARRD+20, held in Colombia; the implementation of the UN Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP); access to markets; criminalization and violence against people defending their territories; and the dependency and concentration of power that new technologies and the digitalization of agriculture may generate, among others.

The CSIPM’s initial analysis provides a clear picture of the challenges facing family farmers, based on experiences shared by different constituencies, and underscores the importance of ensuring inclusive and meaningful participation in food governance, so that policies are developed together with those who produce food and feed their communities.

Read the CSIPM contribution

• More information on the CFS Global Thematic Event
• Towards smallholder-oriented public policies. CSIPM independent report (2019)

The post Keys to strengthening policies for family farmers appeared first on CSIPM.

FIFA’s World Cup is coming up fast, and cities across America are making big plans to get soccer fans to the stadiums … and sometimes, making headlines for their astronomical transit prices. But is it a smart way for agencies to cash in on fútbol fever, a necessary evil to recoup the costs of mega-events, or simply price-gouging visitors who are doing cities a favor by choosing shared modes?

We appreciate the latest podcast from Transit Tangents, which breaks down four host cities’ approach to shared transportation during the biggest sporting event in the world, including the infrastructure they built (or didn’t) to accommodate it. And that includes one $35-million station platform extension that’s drawing a lot of scrutiny.

Now Hiring: Director of Rural Justice The Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN) is seeking a passionate and experienced leader to serve as its next Director of Rural Justice in Fresno. This full-time leadership role focuses on advancing environmental justice across the San Joaquin Valley—supporting efforts around clean water, pesticide reform, and farmworker rights. The […]

Ride the bus — and get your steps in.

Transit agencies don’t do enough to remind policy makers, and even their own customers, of the connection between good public transportation and good public health, argues a new report that asserts that better messaging can strengthen the agencies’ funding and impact.

There is obviously already a consensus around transit’s physical and mental health benefits, but report, prepared for the Transportation Research Board, calls for agencies to communicate it better.

“Transit agencies [should] acknowledge the health benefits and use it to help get resources,” said Andrew Dannenberg, an affiliate professor at the University of Washington. “It’d be great if they’re saying, ‘Take transit, it’s good for your health,’ when they’re talking to legislators trying to get funding to build, maintain, and expand transit.”

The authors identified seven healthy outcomes directly linked to public transit — such as basic physical activity, cleaner air, fewer crashes and expanding social networks — but Danneberg emphasized that transit officials shouldn’t merely recite the list, but create messaging.

For instance, he said, “A quarter of people reach their recommended daily physical activity just by walking to and from transit. That is not a trivial amount.”

Case studies demonstrate the success of good health messaging in transit funding. In Boston a decade ago, a health assessment that identified the negative consequences that service cuts would have on community health and economic well-being led to those cuts as well as fare hikes to be pared back.

“The [assessment] fed directly into the decision-makers’ process towards coming up with a solution for the budget gap,” the report said. “By presenting monetized impacts in a succinct report, it appears the results were able to gain traction, and broaden the discourse to include consideration of health impacts.”

Transit funding is so often on the chopping block to close year-over-year budgets, but policy makers must be compelled to see the long-term budgetary implications of good transit towards people’s health. A case study from rural New Mexico recalled how a bus service saved Dona Ana County more than $600,000 annually by reducing hypertension and connecting people to preventative care. And two studies in Portland found that people living near transit have lower health-care costs — not a small finding in a nation that spent $5.3 trillion, or roughly $16,000 per person, on health care in 2024.

Yet health-care savings created by transit aren’t often plowed back into transit.

“The cost that you might save in health by having people more physically active are good for society overall,” says Dannenberg. “But they don’t translate into, ‘Good, now we got extra money that we can put into the transit systems.’”

Thus, some recommendations: First, transit agencies need to know their impact on community health. As the report notes, health benefits are complex, making it challenging at times to quantify. However, the report identifies research partnerships as key to doing so. For example, Boston’s health impact assessment was conducted by its regional planning agency in collaboration with researchers from Harvard and Boston University.

Second, communicating transit’s health benefits is just as important. The dense nature of scientific research tends to limit its audience to specialists. But the Boston example demonstrates that making findings generalizable also helps transit’s case. Broadening their audience, as well as who benefits from transit (hint: everyone!), is a key pivot.

“Benefits can also be realized by people who do not use transit,” the report stresses. “This is an important distinction when communicating the value of public transportation to decision-makers and the public.”

It’s unfair to expect transit officials — who are often in a desperate struggle for funding and must spend almost all of their time simply running their systems — to create health messaging. Instead, groups like the American Public Transportation Association must reframe transit for everyone’s well being, Dannenberg said.

“If you look at what’s on [the APTA] website about why transit’s good for you, health is kind of buried in there,” Dannenberg said. “But why not make that one of the stronger messages?”

In a devastating blow to what John Lewis called “the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy,” a right-wing, illegitimate SCOTUS finally gutted the Voting Rights Act they’ve long been chipping away at, ensuring communities of color will increasingly be denied “a voice in their own destiny.” By striking down a new Louisiana voting map as a bogus “racial gerrymander,” the court’s extremist hacks betrayed generations who fought and bled, said Fannie Lou Hamer, “to live as decent human beings.”

The court’s 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais kneecapped “our nation’s most important federal civil rights law," effectively voiding the last remaining provision of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act’s Section 2 that allowed voters of color to legally challenge racially discriminatory electoral maps. Specifically, they rejected Louisiana's redrawn 2024 Congressional map that created a second majority-Black district - in a one-third Black state - aimed at righting the GOP’s racist wrongs of the past, defying precedent, context and common sense to argue the move, already upheld by two courts, was ”an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.“

In another outlandish opinion, Samuel Alito, the hackiest of a cabal of hacks, didn’t directly strike down Section 2, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race; writing for the majority, he argued he was simply “properly” re-interpreting it to require proof of intentional discrimination - which Congress didn’t write into the law, which defies past rulings that redistricting must only result in discrimination, intended or no, and which is almost impossible to prove. Thus, wielding “sleight of hand and legal gibberish,” did Alito give license for corrupt politicians to further rig the system by silencing entire communities of color.

The potential death knoll for a vital law that's curtailed racial gerrymandering and discrimination for 60 years comes, of course, after years of whittling away by Roberts Court zealots, using tactics from voter ID laws to limiting registration. One advocate: "This ruling isn’t about the law, it’s about power, and giving Republicans more seats they (could) win at the ballot box." One "pernicious" result, writes Rick Hasen: To "bleach the halls" of Congress, state legislatures and city councils, the life's work of judges who see their constituency as aggrieved white men hostile to the rights of minorities - a stance that puts them "at odds with democracy itself."

In a fiery dissent, Justice Elena Kagan charged the majority “straight-facedly holds the Voting Rights Act must be brought low to make the world safe for partisan gerrymanders." The law they “eviscerate", she wrote, "is - or, now more accurately, was - one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history. It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers, and repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed - not the Members of this Court.”

Above all, critics decry the hubris and perfidy of those heedless Court members blithely stripping from millions of Americans the elemental rights so many of their descendants struggled, suffered and died for. The Rev. William Barber eviscerated a court, ignorant of the painful history of "the rights that cost our people so much," that has "decided their job is to enable extremism and systemic racism by arguing that race has no place in the American Democratic process. Race has always had a place in the process. And claiming that partisan decisions are not racist is a form of racism." "Some of us," John Lewis humbly noted of his lifetime of good trouble, "gave a little blood for (that) right."

John Lewis called the fight for voting rights "the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes."Photo from Getty Archives

So did Fannie Lou Hamer, who fought against a Jim Crow South she'd grown up in because, "I was sick and tired of being sick and tired." The granddaughter of slaves and youngest of 20 children of sharecroppers, she was 45 in 1962 when she went to a SNCC meeting at a church in Sunflower County, Mississippi and learned Black people could register to vote. The next day, she took a bus with 17 others to the county seat in Indianola. Police only let her and another person take the literacy test; she failed, but kept going back until she passed: "If I'd had any sense, I’d a been scared. But the only thing (whites) could do was kill me, and it seemed they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember."

On the way back, police stopped them and brought them back to Indianola, where the bus driver was fined for "driving a bus the wrong color." Back at the plantation, her children said the owner was angry she'd gone to vote; he told her to leave that night "because we are not ready for that in Mississippi." "I didn’t try to register for you," she said.. "I tried to register for myself." Then she left: "They set me free. It’s the best thing that could happen. Now I could work for my people." For the rest of her life, she did. She joined the voter registration campaign, helped organize Freedom Summer, became SNCC's oldest field secretary, ran for Congress.

Left with a limp after surviving childhood polio, she embraced her identity as a Black working-poor woman with a disability and little formal education, upending preconceptions of both Black colleagues and white foes. When Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. once challenged her expertise, she retorted, "How many bales of cotton have you picked?” In 1963, she became more disabled after she was arrested with other activists in Winona MS, taken to jail and brutally beaten by cops and, on their order, other black prisoners, suffering permanent damage to her eyes, legs and kidneys. She was still in jail when Medger Evers was murdered.

In August 1964, she recounted that ordeal at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, days after the funerals of murdered Freedom Riders Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. Testifying to the Credentials Committee, she challenged the seating of Mississippi's all-white delegation - from still-all-white primaries - demanding the party seat Black members of an integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party she'd helped found. In the end, MFDP delegates were not seated - party leaders offered a compromise of 2 seats, which she declined - but she had confronted them on a national stage about their own discrimination, famously asking, "Is this America?"

- YouTube www.youtube.com

During Hamer's testimony, then-president Lyndon Johnson had hastily called a news conference to divert attention for white Dem voters alarmed by her insistence on true equality. Cameras duly cut away from Hamer, but networks later showed her speech. "Hamer had pulled back the curtain," read one account. "The United States could not claim to be a democracy while withholding voting rights from millions of its citizens." Ultimately, Hamer's inclusive political vision, along with a groundswell of civil rights activism, led to Johnson's finally signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ensuring government could not “deny or abridge the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color.”

Hamer remained active through the 1960s and 1970s. She spoke with Malcolm X in Harlem, at the '68 and '72 DNC, at 1969's Vietnam War Moratorium rally in Berkeley. In 1971, she helped found the National Women's Political Caucus, aimed at recruiting, training and supporting women to run for office. The titles of her speeches reflected her resolve, her anger, her fierce hope: "We're On Our Way," "Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free,” "The Only Thing We Can Do Is Work Together," ""What Have We To Hail," "America Is A Sick Place," "To Make Democracy A Reality," and, in 1976, "We Haven't Arrived Yet."

Clearly, sorrowfully, we damn sure still haven't. Unlike so many others, Hamer lived to do her work and tell her story, for a while. She died in Mississippi on March 14, 1977, aged just 59, of breast cancer exacerbated by high blood pressure, diabetes, and complications from her jail beatings. She died, too, "from being poor, Black, and an activist in Mississippi at a time when all of that was lethal." Andrew Young gave her eulogy, telling mourners "the seeds of social change in America were sown here by the sweat and blood of you and Fannie Lou Hamer." Then they sang her favorite song: “This little light of mine." Her gravestone reads, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." May we honor her labors, and may she rest in well-earned peace and power.

“The wrongs and the sickness of this country have been swept under the rug. But I’ve come out from under the rug, and I’m going to tell it like it is.” - Fannie Lou Hamer

"To the Justices Who Took What Others Bled For: History will have its say. But so will the bridge. So will the blood on the pavement. So will the people who were told to wait, then beaten for praying, then buried for believing the Constitution meant what it said....You’ll wear this shame for the rest of your lives." - Derek Penwell

New updates from FracTracker’s community air monitoring initiatives, including sensor deployments, air sampling, and ongoing work with frontline communities in the Ohio River Valley.

The post Campaign Update: Progress on FracTracker’s Community Air Monitoring Projects appeared first on FracTracker Alliance.

Here is a repost of our May Day episode from 2021. In it, we talk about the history of May Day from pagan rituals to the Haymarket Affair to International…

When Doug Burgum appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee as President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Interior department last year, he was extended the traditional benefit of the doubt, with senators chummily reminiscing about North Dakota, lobbing softballs, and avoiding tough questions on the way to voting to confirm Burgum as Interior secretary. If Burgum got the idea that this is how all hearings would go, he was mistaken. A year later, as the Interior secretary who has overseen a multi-pronged effort to dismantle the agency and sell off or sell out our national public lands, Burgum seemed totally unprepared to handle difficult questions from members of Congress, not to mention the decidedly different vibe of a budget hearing where elected representatives demanded accountability for how their constituents’ resources are being stewarded and tax dollars are being spent.

In appearances before three congressional committees so far, Burgum struggled to defend President Trump’s proposed Interior department budget and explain the administration’s chaotic, destructive, and unpopular agenda for America’s public lands. Below are five of the most head-scratching exchanges between Burgum and lawmakers—along with some useful information Secretary Burgum might want to bookmark for his next Hill appearance.

Burgum can’t provide details on the $10 billion request for ‘beautification’ in Washington, D.C.

President Trump’s budget proposal includes a $10 billion request for a new Presidential Capital Stewardship Program which would “carry out priority construction and rehabilitation projects in the Washington, D.C. area.” According to the Interior department’s own website, the deferred maintenance backlog for Washington, D.C. is just over $2 billion. When asked by Senator Angus King of Maine what the extra $8 billion is for, Burgum’s bumbling explanation was that “D.C. is like a state. It’s not just, like, the National Mall. It’s for the greater capital region. That’s a region.” But again, according to the Interior department, adding in the deferred maintenance backlog for the entire states of Maryland and Virginia—far beyond the D.C. area— would bring the total to $4 billion, still leaving more than half of Burgum’s $10 billion request unaccounted for. Meanwhile, last year’s budget for the entire National Park Service was just $4.6 billion.

During the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Senator Jeff Merkeley of Oregon also asked about the $10 billion request for the Presidential Capital Stewardship Program and if Burgum could provide a specific list of what the funds would be used for, as required by law. Burgum said he would “get you all the information you need according to law” but stopped short of agreeing to provide a detailed list. “As long as we don’t have the details, it’s a slush fund,” Merkeley responded. “You can call it something else if you want.”

Burgum learns about batteries and fossil fuel subsidies

Burgum struggled to hold his own against the expertise of Senator King—a former energy executive—on energy issues. In response to questions from King about the Trump administration’s actions to block renewable energy projects, Burgum fell back on a well-worn intermittency argument. “We have no ability to dispatch wind and solar,” Burgum claimed, and followed up with, “There are times in North Dakota when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.” But King pointed out, “That’s where batteries and storage come in.” Burgum argued that worldwide battery storage would only provide one hour’s worth of energy. However, in the United States where Burgum is Interior secretary, battery storage has been increasing rapidly, with a new record set in 2025 for energy storage installations, and is expected to reach at least 600 gigawatt hours of installed energy storage by 2030. This is the equivalent of 300 Hoover Dams, according to the Department of Energy, which offers other comparisons Burgum may find helpful. In California, 44 percent of evening peak energy is now being delivered via batteries.

Burgum also complained that he doesn’t understand “why we had to have massive taxpayer subsidies to produce” renewable energy. King pointed out that the U.S. currently pays $30 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry. The International Monetary Fund put this figure at $3 billion in explicit subsidies in 2022 alone, with an additional $754 billion in implicit subsidies. A 2025 analysis found that even without taxpayer subsidies, renewable energy sources are still the most cost-effective source of energy.

Burgum defends 24 percent of National Park Service staff coincidentally choosing to quit at the exact same time

Senator Patty Murray of Washington pressed Burgum about unacceptable cuts to on-the-ground staff at national parks in Washington and a budget that proposes to eliminate even more park staff. Arguing with the characterization that staff had been “forced out,” Burgum insisted, “There’s been no forcing of anything. These are all voluntary.” Murray wasn’t buying it: “However you want to put it, a quarter of them left over the last 15 months.” According to the National Parks Conservation Association, 4,000 staff, nearly 25 percent of the National Park Service workforce, left their jobs since January 2025 as a result of “pressured resignations and early retirements” along with hiring freezes that prevented vacancies from being filled. That’s an awful lot of people who somehow all voluntarily left their jobs at the same time.

Burgum, who voted to condemn the Rice’s whale to extinction, worries about the impact of wind turbine installation on whale populations

In response to questions from Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine, Burgum complained about the impacts to whales and other marine life from pounding pylons into the sea floor to install offshore wind turbines. Pingree immediately pointed out the disconnect between Burgum’s sudden whale-based arguments against offshore wind and his vote to remove Endangered Species Act protections for the endangered Rice’s whale in order to clear the way for more offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico: “If you’re going to be talking about pounding and those kinds of things, then we can’t have offshore drilling, and you want to re-permit the entire East Coast for offshore drilling. If you want to talk about danger to marine mammals and danger to fisheries, my next question is going to be about what happened with Deepwater Horizon, and you want to reduce the permitting standards there. There’s just a lot of hypocrisy in your arguments.”

Burgum denies erasure of history on national park signs

Burgum awkwardly tried to dodge a question from Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii about the removal of exhibits about slavery at the President’s House site in Philadelphia and other actions to erase history from national park sites across the country.

“Some of these examples that are floating around in the media saying some of these things have been removed, they haven’t been removed. In the case of Philadelphia, there’s a weird injunction where we can’t put the new signage up. And what is on the new signage, which is not hiding any points of our history, is available for anyone to read.”

Burgum referred Hirono to the President’s House Site website, where images of new panels—including information about slavery—are indeed available to view online. New physical panels at the site itself, however, are not yet in place, depriving visitors of the opportunity to learn from these interpretive materials in context during their time at the site.

Hirono also asked Burgum about the removal of signs referring to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Burgum responded, “I don’t believe that any of that information has been removed.” However, signage related to slavery and the internment of Japanese Americans, was removed from signs at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in New York City following an executive order signed by President Trump in March 2025 ordering the removal of materials that contain “improper partisan ideology.”

The post Highlight reel: The five most bewildering moments from Doug Burgum’s congressional hearings appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Why the Northwest’s oil dependence keeps fuel prices high Brett Morgan Thu, 04/30/2026 - 4:02 pm

In this issue:

Earth Month / Forest Defense team news / Our new team: Just Transition / Make Polluters Pay town hall / Arts Team news / Book Club / Neighborhood Teams / Some extra cheer!

Happy April – it’s Earth Month! April is a busy month of events, celebrations, opportunities to take action, and regrettably–a lot of corporate greenwashing. (A reminder to call out greenwashing when you see it! Ads from the largest local and global emitters and earth-destroyers, including NW Natural, Zenith, Amazon, and Google are certainly not genuine and deserve public shaming!)

Earth Day started as a protest in 1970 with tens of thousands in the streets demanding clean air and water. Thanks for helping to keep the roots of this holiday alive by joining us in the streets at No Kings last weekend! Read on for many ways you can take action with us this Earth Month, and keep an eye on the 350PDX Calendar. 

 Every day in April: Support 350PDX by ordering the “Third Planet” cocktail   at Radio Room on NE Alberta – a springy beet-infused rum with apple,   ginger, and lemon on the rocks. 50% of the proceeds from each cocktail go   directly to support 350PDX’s climate justice work. How cool is that? We have   more local businesses supporting us this Earth Month, stay tuned for more   announcements about those throughout the month, including chances to win cool prizes.

Portland’s official  Earth Day Celebration is on Saturday, April 25, 11:00am – 3:00pm. Join 350PDX, Making Earth Cool, Sunnyside Environmental School, and SOLVE for the 5th annual vibrant, inclusive, and impactful day to celebrate Earth Day. We will begin with a gathering on the grounds of Sunnyside Environmental School for music, speakers, tabling, action stations, face painting, a costume competition, and lunch, followed by a parade through the Sunnyside neighborhood, featuring the 350PDX giant puppets, marching bands, singing, and dancing. Fill out this form if you’d like to volunteer at the event. You won’t want to miss this!

Forest Defense Team

April 8, 350PDX is co-sponsoring Sierra Club Oregon Chapter’s Public Townhall: The Future of Our Wild Roadless Forests. RSVP here. Join Representative Salinas and several advocacy organizations to learn and celebrate how protecting our forests from new roads supports healthy watersheds, habitat, and many more benefits for generations to come.

March was a big month for increasing youth access to green career opportunities in underserved communities. Seasonal green job opportunities are now posted at Thrive East PDX and we’re circulating a Youth Green Jobs Guide to career counselors at East Portland high schools. Big thanks to 350PDX Forest Defense Team members Carol Pinegar and Ellen Mendoza for volunteering at the March 5 Green Jobs Open House! Over 50 youths had an opportunity to talk with nine employment organizations.

Stop by Costello’s Travel Cafe (2222 NE Broadway) after April 17 to experience the Forest Defense Team’s latest installation of forest photos and prose, creating new pathways for Portlanders to access their personal connection to state forests.

New Team Focused on Just Transition

We’re excited to announce we’re starting something new with our volunteer teams. In April, our current Fossil Fuel Resistance Team and Climate Justice Policy Team will join forces! We’ll meet twice a month, working together on issues that are actively in need of attention, and spend part of the time in small groups to track various issues related to a just and sustainable energy transition.

Our first team meeting will be on Tuesday, April 14, at 6:00pm. We’ll meet at Radio Room (which is running an Earth Month special for us!) at 1101 NE Alberta St.

When: When: 2nd and 4th Tuesdays from 6:00-7:30 pm, alternating between in person and virtual

Topics: CEI Hub, Zenith, data centers, Make Polluters Pay, transportation decarbonization, PCEF, building emissions

Whether you’ve been part of one of these teams in the past or you’re interested in joining for the first time, you are welcome! Email Cherice or Dineen with any questions or to join the team (cherice@350pdx.org, dineen@350pdx.org).

Make Polluters Pay Community Town Hall

Join advocates from the Make Polluters Pay coalition from across the state for a virtual Community Town Hall on April 7 from 6:00–7:15pm. We’ll celebrate the amazing energy of our collective advocacy, reflect on the 2026 legislative session’s failure to pass the Climate Resilience Superfund Act, and look ahead at how we’re building community power to hold big polluters accountable!

WHO: Make Polluters Pay Coalition

WHEN: Tuesday, April 7th from 6:00–7:15pm

WHERE: on Zoom

WHY: To celebrate our action-takers, build community, and continue the work!

Register here

Arts Team

Our March Artbuild, attended by an eager group of climate activists and artists, was one of the highest Artbuild turnouts in years! We screenprinted, repaired puppets, painted a banner, and worked off some of the distress we’ve felt due to recent news. And then, on March 28, a crowd of 50 Arts Team puppeteers marched across the Burnside Bridge for No Kings. At Waterfront Park, we joined our Mourning Mothers puppets’ powerful display of grief over the current state of our world. More photos and video here.

April 12, from 1:00-4:00pm, we’ll have another Artbuild to create the last puppet in our current space (3639 N. Mississippi Ave). Please join us, and please let Donna know if you’ll be there, so we can plan!

And then–help bring our puppets to life at the Earth Day Parade on April 25! The more puppeteers we have, the more puppets that get to march! It’s a fun and important way to make a stand for climate justice. Reach out to Donna Murph1949@aol.com

Donna, Lauren, Dannika, Allison

Book Club

The 350PDX Book Club meets every month on the first Wednesday of the month at 6:30pm. Every other month is in person and the others are virtual. Reach out to books@350PDX.org with any questions or to join our list, and please RSVP so we can inform you of any meeting changes!

Join us on Wednesday, June 3 at 6:30pm for our next non-fiction in-person meeting. We’ll discuss Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie, a global exploration of the eight remaining species of bears―and the dangers they face.

Save the date for our other upcoming meetings:

• Wednesday, May 6 at 6:30pm (Virtual) – Book to be selected in April

• Wednesday, July 1 at 6:30pm (Virtual) – Book to be selected in June

Do you like to talk about books and climate justice? We are seeking volunteers to help facilitate! Contact books@350PDX.org to learn more.

SW Neighborhood Team

The Southwest Neighborhood Team includes neighborhoods on the south and west sides of Portland. We work together to raise awareness of the climate emergency.

Our street corner demonstrations continue weekly in February, every Friday from 3:00-4:00pm. at SW Garden Home & SW Oleson Rd. We gain attention with our climate action signs in a highly visible location. Street parking is available or reach us via bus or bike. We have extra signs to share!

Join our monthly Zoom meeting on Monday, April 20, from 6:30-7:30pm.  We’ll be discussing plans for tabling at Portland Sunday Parkways in May. To get involved, please contact Pat Kaczmarek at patk5@msn.com.

Washington County Team

Our next gathering will be our regular monthly online meetup at 6:30pm on Tuesday, April 14. We are excited to host Robin Straughn, Sustainability & Resiliency Manager for the City of Hillsboro. Robin will walk attendees through the recently approved Climate Action Plan for Hillsboro and answer questions.  We continue to converse with the City of Hillsboro regarding a second Electrification and Sustainability Fair in Hillsboro/Washington County in July.

We always welcome newcomers to our events and to our monthly online meetings (6:30pm on the second Tuesday of the month). For the link, join us here or contact us at 350washco@gmail.com.

Brooklyn Climate Action Team (BCAT)

BCAT brings Brooklyn neighbors together to take on the climate crisis — one hyper-local action at a time.

Averaging 15 neighbors per session, BCAT’s NET Training Study Group builds real momentum. Neighbors gather to work through the program’s training videos and prep for the city’s in-person NET certification. April‘s session filled up quickly, with more neighbors already lined up for the next one.

Go-Bag packing events are returning this spring, tentatively in May. Details on timing and location coming soon — start thinking about what you might need to refresh or build your emergency kit. BCAT is also exploring a volunteer partnership with a local community garden. Are you a resident of the Brooklyn Neighborhood and want to get involved? Reach out at bcat@350pdx.org.

New Milwaukie Neighborhood Team! Join Us!

Do you live in Milwaukie and want to take action for climate justice with your neighbors? There’s a group currently forming a neighborhood team and they’d love to connect with others in Milwaukie who want to help start the team, or who are interested in joining once it’s formed. To get connected, sign up here.

Some Extra Cheer! 

 A federal court struck down President Trump’s attacks against the Endangered Species Act, restoring key values of the bedrock environmental law to the status it held for decades before the first Trump administration attacked the bedrock environmental law. More here!

 350PDX’s Communications Director’s film “Roost 2020 PDX” premieres at The Portland EcoFilm Festival on April 30. What begins as a traditional natural history documentary about Portland’s crow roost becomes a chronicle of a city navigating a year of immense turmoil and unexpected beauty. More info and trailer here.

Thank you for reading our monthly newsletter. We hope to see you soon!

With gratitude,

Cherice, Dineen, Irene, Jessica, and Noelle

 

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