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AES, American Electric Power, CenterPoint Energy, Duke Energy and NiSource could be affected under a “more consumer-oriented utility commission policy,” Paul Patterson, a Glenrock Associates equity analyst, told Utility Dive.

Nurses and constituents held a press conference and protest on Wednesday, July 15 at the Chicago residence of Senator Dick Durbin to demand he donate his financial contributions from Palantir Technologies, the tech company powering ICE surveillance, to immigrant rights groups.

Regulators approved 64% of the dollar value of revenue increase requests over the past five years, suggesting today’s rate cases will continue to raise bills, according to a recent report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Millions of people around the world drink coffee to boost their energy. Researchers in South Korea have now given new meaning to the concept of coffee as fuel.

The team from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) report a way to convert soggy coffee grounds into a high-quality coal-like fuel. The process, reported in the journal Chemical Engineering Journal, takes just 90 seconds from start to finish. And the final product has fuel performance comparable to conventional charcoal, according to the researchers.

The world generates almost 10 million tons of waste coffee grounds each year. Most of this ends up in landfills or gets incinerated. The spent grounds hold a lot of energy because of their high calorific value. But they have a high moisture content, so using them as any kind of biofuel would first require a long drying process or oil extraction.

But the KIGAM researchers eliminated the pre-drying step. Instead, they developed a way to use the moisture to accelerate the reactions and improve the quality of the solid fuel.

In the new technique, called flame plasma pyrolysis, the researchers start with coffee grounds containing around 55% moisture. They create a plasma flame by burning liquefied petroleum gas and compressed air. This creates a plasma as hot as 900°C and puts the coffee waste under immense pressure.

The pressurized heat rapidly vaporizes the moisture, triggering hundreds of tiny explosions in the coffee grounds, reducing the mass of the grounds by 83.3% and transforming them into a dry, porous biochar, all within 90 seconds.

The process boosts the calorific value of the coffee gounds by about 33%. The biochar exhibited a heating value of 29 megajoules per kilogram, comparable to that of coal.

According to a press release, the new process should work on any high-moisture organic wastes, such as food waste, sewage sludge, and agricultural residues. “We plan to expand the technology to various types of high-moisture organic waste and further optimize the process for industrial-scale commercialization,” said Taejun Park, lead author of the study.

Source: Taejun Park et al. Rapid conversion of wet spent coffee grounds into high-calorific biochar via drying-free flame plasma pyrolysis for process intensification. Chemical Engineering Journal, 2026.

 

 

Headline News:

• “Food Inflation Is Finally Slowing. So Why Could Your Supermarket Bill Start Rising Again?” • Food inflation has been slowing in the eurozone. However, economists at Oxford Economics and Deutsche Bank expect food price inflation to pick up again next year as higher commodity prices feed through the food supply chain. [Euronews]

French food market (Terry Granger, Unsplash)

• “Solar Power Records Set in Spain, France, Germany, and Italy” • Solar power production increased in all major European markets, year over year. The largest increases were 16% in both France and Spain. Also, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France all set new records for solar production, according to analysis from AleaSoft Energy Forecasting. [CleanTechnica]
• “New Jersey Orders At Least One New Nuclear Plant As Energy Demand Surges, And Rate Fears Grow” • New Jersey is laying the groundwork for at least one more nuclear power plant. The New Jersey Monitor reports supporters say the effort could expand the state’s supply of low-pollution electricity, but opponents warn it may add to utility bills. [The Cool Down]
• “GB Solar Generation Hits Quarterly Record” • Great Britain generated a record 8.0 TWh of solar power during Q2 of 2026, while renewables supplied 53% of total electricity, according to Montel’s Q2 GB Electricity Market Summary. Montel said wind remained Great Britain’s largest source of electricity generation, producing 18.9 TWh. [reNews]
• “Why Europe, India, And China Should Adopt Cleantech ASAP ” • Europe, India, and China are spending billions upon billions on oil, gas, and coal from other countries. They are funding other economies heavily to buy dirty, polluting, inefficient fuel that also causes severe health problems and premature deaths among their own people. [CleanTechnica]

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

Ontario’s publicly managed water and wastewater systems are good examples of public systems that have learned from the failures of privatization and have been amended...

The post Keep Water Public: The quiet corporatization of Ontario’s water first appeared on Spring.

No reform can transform the WTO into an institution that serves the people. The time has come to build a new system that prioritizes dignity, sovereignty, and the well-being of all peoples.

The post “No reform can transform the WTO into an institution that serves the people” appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Another year, another blow to Pennsylvania transit riders.

Keystone State Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the annual budget into law last Sunday, and for the fifth year in a row, public transportation has been left to financially starve. The approved budget contains no funding for transit operations, continuing a streak that forces every agency to scrounge for its own money, to varying degrees of success.

“We’ve been left out for far too long,” remarked Connor Descheemaker, Statewide Campaign Manager for Transit for All, PA! The organization rallied transit riders to send more than 50,000 letters to state representatives and the White House-eying governor calling for transit funding, reaching every legislative district in Pennsylvania.

Those calls went largely unanswered. Riders in Lehigh Valley are now bracing for route eliminations and trip cancellations, despite already paying increased fares. Lancaster County paratransit riders will pay more as well, beginning next month.

Recommended Rural and Disabled Pennsylvanians Fighting For Transit As Keystone State Budget Nears Late Deal Ren Zaro Fitzgerald July 6, 2026

Low-income, disabled, and rural Pennsylvanians will lose access to jobs, healthcare, and loved ones. That reality hasn’t stopped their governor from declaring victory.

In a speech at last week’s budget signing ceremony, Shapiro uttered a total of three words about the state-sponsored mobility crisis: “There’s more I want to do – like raising the minimum wage, funding mass transit, and expanding access to affordable housing,” he said.

Shapiro seems to understand the need for well-funded transit. Last year, he sent $220 million to Philadelphia to boost SEPTA’s barren maintenance fund following a series of onboard fires.

One-time relief won’t keep buses running, though.

SEPTA’s aging Silverliner IV fleet caught on fire multiple times in 2025, prompting new state funding for fleet repair.

Shapiro has failed, and failed, and failed again to pass his landmark transit policy. His initial proposal would increase the share of sales tax revenue going to public transit by 2 percent. The blame isn’t all his: Even after he watered down his proposal to a 1.75-percent increase, statehouse Republicans failed to support it.

Even if it had succeeded, it’s too little, too late: The sales tax change would still be $92 million short of the $384 million that Transit for All, PA! estimates is needed to prevent further service cuts in public transportation across the state.

Transit for All, PA! has previously lobbied for its legislative package, which would have increased taxes on car rentals and leases, and raised a new tax on ride shares.

Like Shapiro’s plan, that failed, too.

“The General Assembly has deferred action to invest fully in public transit,” state Sen. Nikil Saval (D-Philadelphia), who had authored the ride share component of the legislative package. “Despite the continued activation and involvement of tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians … we will once again face this issue in 2027.”

Recommended Doomsday For SEPTA Is Bad News For Everyone Kathryn Xu August 27, 2025

Pennsylvania’s last semblance of adequate transit funding ended in 2021 with the expiration of Act 89. The 10-year allocation covered statewide transportation expenses, including roadway maintenance and transit operations. 

As soon as Act 89 money dried up, agencies turned to Covid relief grants to stay afloat. Those grants, provided through the American Rescue Plan, ended in 2024. Several agencies have gone so far as to pillage their own fixed-route budgets to continue federally mandated paratransit services.

Call it luck, a Band-Aid, or a bad omen; riders on Philadelphia’s SEPTA and Pittsburgh’s PRT are momentarily safe from service cuts and fare hikes. Following last year’s budget disaster, Shapiro permitted the two agencies to raid their own maintenance funds to temporarily pay for operations.

Recommended Transit Funding in Pennsylvania Can’t Wait Alex Milone November 10, 2025

Now, both are pausing upgrades, deferring basic maintenance, and reckoning with the realities of operating – but not fixing – a large-scale transit system.

State highways, on the other hand, received $775 million in new funding from Shapiro’s budget deal.

Transit advocates in Pennsylvania are shifting strategies to preserve essential transit services. A June decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, allowed slot machines to be taxed at a higher rate.

Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have shown interest in using revenue from the so-called “skill games tax” to fund transit. The legislature must agree on a tax rate and structure, but declined to do so before finalizing the budget.

“Anytime that there is a discussion of new revenue in Pennsylvania, it needs to include public transportation,” Descheemaker said. “We are losing public transportation actively, right now in Pennsylvania. Public transportation needs to be at the center of those conversations.”

• An analysis of Smart Growth America data by CityNerd found that American roads are getting more dangerous, with pedestrian deaths rising by 72 percent compared to population growth and vehicle-miles driven. In the cities where the problem is worst, like Memphis and others in the Sun Belt, roads were designed during the height of the car era to emphasize speed over safety. (The Cool Down)
• At a recent American Public Transportation Association conference, transit leaders emphasized the need to seek other funding sources besides the federal government, as well as bringing down procurement costs. (Railway-News)
• Utility companies are working on ways to alleviate concerns about electric vehicles’ impact on the power grid. (Government Technology)
• Economist Noah Smith urges people not to give up on the suburbs. (Noahpinion)
• Cincinnati made a questionable decision to sell a rail line for $1.9 billion, and now finds itself constrained on how to spend the money. (The Guardian)
• In a counterpoint to a previously highlighted headline, MinnPost contributors argue for bus rapid transit on the Blue Line.
• The Port of Los Angeles is offering $75 million in incentives to purchase electric trucks.
• Atlanta drivers are complaining about protected bike lanes because they can’t stop hitting the barriers (WSB-TV). Would they rather hit cyclists instead?
• Chattanooga approved a plan to achieve Vision Zero by 2050. (News 9)
• Omaha adopted Vision Zero in 2023. Deaths keep rising, but city officials say they’ve only begun to start implementing safety improvements. (KETV)
• Somerville, Massachusetts has gone three years without a traffic death. (Governing)
• Montgomery County, Maryland is offering transit riders a free Capital Bikeshare membership while the Red Line is shut down. (WUSA 9)
• The world needs more bike lanes, but some of them are so poorly designed as to be useless at best. Momentum Mag gathered some of the worst.
• The French city of Grenoble is reallocating public space from advertisers to people. (Reason to Be Cheerful)

On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Nominee Jay Clayton repeatedly refused to say whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. At today's confirmation hearing, Clayton also defended Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund. Additionally, Clayton refused to come clean on his extraordinary subpoenas of New York Times journalists for reporting something the administration didn’t like as well as Trump’s efforts to interfere in Georgia’s elections. Demand Progress led a coalition of press freedom and progressive advocates who urged Senate Democrats to oppose Clayton’s nomination.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“Jay Clayton’s assignment today was to show that he wouldn’t be a submissive hatchet man for Donald Trump — and he failed spectacularly. Clayton’s trainwreck hearing showed us that he is willing to deny objective reality to avoid upsetting the president. Someone like that must not be allowed to be the Director of National Intelligence, who wields vast power and must lead the Intelligence Community with nonpartisan integrity and independence from political pressure. As Congress barrels toward another fight over FISA surveillance powers, we hope Democrats like Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes understand the clear danger someone like Clayton would pose as Trump’s pointman on government surveillance.”

On Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced his scheme to repeal a limit that Congress set on the national reach of broadcast-television conglomerates. Lifting the cap from its congressionally mandated limit of 39 percent of national audience is key to a proposed merger between two giant broadcast conglomerates: Nexstar and Tegna.

As Free Press explained in comments filed last year in the agency’s proceeding, Carr’s machinations serve the interests of broadcast lobbyists and media moguls who align themselves with the Trump administration and hope to monopolize the broadcast dial. But the FCC’s power grab ignores the law in pursuit of Carr’s partisan and self-aggrandizing aims.

In 2025, the FCC asked for public comment on changing or eliminating the national broadcast-ownership rule that Congress set. The rule prohibits any television-broadcast conglomerate from exceeding the 39 percent cap that’s designed to limit the size and national reach of giant broadcasters — like Fox Corporation, Nexstar and Sinclair — that already own hundreds of stations across the country.

At the time, Free Press explained that the agency has no authority to change the numerical limit Congress set in statute. Free Press’ filing notes that Carr’s goal is to fulfill the Trump administration’s desire “to use the Commission’s licensing authority to exert total control over the media.”

“Media consolidation and deal approvals are now explicitly a way for President Trump to further consolidate his dictatorial power, through explicit loyalty tests and pledges to use the public airwaves as a propaganda tool against the American public,” the filing reads.

Indeed, in March the FCC tried to waive this limit to approve Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna Inc. That merger would give Nexstar access to 80 percent of U.S. households over the nation’s broadcast airwaves. Although the companies rushed to close the transaction on the basis of the FCC’s unauthorized and unlawful waiver, federal courts in California halted the transaction in light of the antitrust lawsuits from both state attorneys general and private parties against this massive broadcast concentration.

Matt Wood, Free Press vice president of policy and general counsel, said:

“Brendan Carr’s arrogance matches that of his boss Donald Trump as the FCC chairman works to bend or break every rule to grow his own power and aid his political allies. But just as the FCC had no power to waive a congressional statute to grease the skids for Nexstar’s merger with Tegna, it has no power now to completely obliterate the limit Congress set.

“It’s not just advocacy groups like Free Press who’ve called out Carr’s hypocrisy and hubris. Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FCC, held an entire hearing in February to probe this question. Cruz himself eviscerated and embarrassed broadcast lobbyists over their implausible reading of the law. Chris Ruddy, the CEO of the conservative cable-news outlet Newsmax, testified at the same hearing about the difficulties other outlets face when they must compete against larger and larger broadcast conglomerates. Ruddy also noted that Congress explicitly set the national cap — and stripped the FCC of the authority to change or abandon it.

“Carr claims that FCC heads in both parties have agreed that the agency still has the power to ignore and override Congress’ will, but his fabrications and spin don’t stand up to scrutiny.

“While broadcasters plead poverty and claim that they should be allowed to reach the entire country the way that online platforms do, they already can. Nothing prevents a company like Nexstar from having a national website or cable-news channel. The national cap is not a special disadvantage for broadcasters. In fact, broadcasters have a special advantage with their exclusive licenses to use precious national airwaves the way they do.

“As Free Press has shown many times, the national cap remains good policy. It promotes competition, localism and diversity in broadcasting, incentivizing stations to preserve local newsrooms and local-journalism jobs instead of duplicating stories nationwide and passing that off as local news. But whatever the law’s merits may be, the key point is that Brendan Carr cannot undo the limit that Congress set just because he feels like it.”

Third Act Upstate NY member Kim Knowlton tells a story about the soaring health costs of climate change, NY State Capitol, Dec 2024. (John Seakwood)

Stephen Danna, Kim Knowlton, Anne Lowenthal – Third Act Upstate New York

“But I don’t have a story to tell,” said a Third Act member in a recent storytelling workshop. It’s common for people to doubt their ability to tell a story. Asking someone to write and tell a story about climate change or the brighter future of clean energy is intimidating, but these stories matter. They raise awareness, persuade, connect us with others, and foster cognitive growth.

Who We Are and Why This Work?

Several years ago, Bill McKibben with some of his climate activist friends conceived of and started Third Act. We are a community of elders across the country using life experiences and resources to safeguard the climate and uplift democracy. In the northeast, Third Act has working groups in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

In January 2025, Third Act Upstate NY began looking at the upcoming legislative season with multiple clean energy and solar bills, and a governor looking to halt clean energy funding. It was clear we needed our Assembly and State Senate representatives to understand how energy legislation affects us personally. We considered citing facts and figures to representatives during lobby days and through phone calls, but facts and data are dry, and fail to inspire change, while personal stories have a human power to persuade and are a better way to be heard.

Why Are Stories More Persuasive Than Facts?

A listener can choose to ignore data or interpret them differently than intended. Since stories are personal, a listener cannot dispute, or interpret, someone else’s lived experience.

It became clear to us not everyone thinks they have a story to share. Since other Third Actors didn’t know how to frame their experiences as a story, two members, Steve and Anne, with backgrounds in education and sales got together to figure out how to help people tell their stories. A third member, Kim, with a background in public health, joined us to help people weave data and facts into their stories. Progress!

We believe the fight against climate change will happen through stories, so we developed and offer storytelling workshops. Science shows us that good stories reduce cortisol (stress hormone) and trigger the release of oxytocin (love and empathy hormone) in the brain (Storytelling is Good for Us and Our Bodies at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-stories-of-our-lives/202106/storytelling-is-good-for-us-and-our-bodies). They help us see the world differently, building awareness and hopefulness.  If we are going to make a difference in our fight against climate change, it will be through storytelling. As Katharine Hayhoe puts it, “The fight against climate change needs storytellers as much as scientists.”

Our legislative representatives can use their constituents’ stories to support their reasoning behind a vote. People with different points of view and experience can appreciate another’s perspective once they understand the underlying personal reason. That personal position might even sway someone to the side of the storyteller. At least, the story will give them another point of view to consider.

Tools for Confident Storytelling

We’ve been offering online storytelling workshops to Third Act members for a year and a half, using a story-building framework called “the four pillars, developed by Erica Vladimer of Citizen Action of New York. With Vladimer’s permission, we adapted the tool for our community’s use. There are lots of story frameworks out there, but we like hers because it’s simple and well suited for advocacy.

Our four pillars are clear and concise.

1. Name your values and tell people about the principle you hold dear;

2. Name the conflict, or tell people what’s the obstacle to your cherished value;

3. Tell your story, in which the story of your personal experience shows people how the conflict is harming you and your community; and

4. Call to action to break down the obstacle and be an invitation for others to join you in taking action.

You and your story build a human bridge that’s a catalyst for others to feel the pleasure, power and hopefulness of defending what we care about.

Finding Resources

Many people feel like they don’t have enough factual understanding to support their story. But overwhelming people with fact and figures is a sure-fire way to shut down communication. Instead, shape your story to be personal, specific, and emotional, with a hopeful action to take that opens up listening and creativity. We can share online resources to propel you with a choice fact or two to back your story points. For instance, we have links to national reports like the Fifth US National Climate Assessment (https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/61592), or regional reports like the NY State Climate Assessment (https://nysclimateimpacts.org) that detail what climate change means for health and environment, and our wallets.

So, what’s your story? How are you going to use it to bring about the change you want to see? If you need help creating your story, join our Storytelling workshop on the second Tuesday of any month at https://thirdact.org/upstate-ny/events/storytelling-for-connection-action/. You don’t have to be a member of Third Act to learn how to build your story skills!

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

One-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). Food loss occurs when food is damaged or spoiled before it reaches retailers or eaters; food waste refers to edible food that retailers or consumers discard.

Food loss and waste (FLW) undermines food security, generates substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, deplete land, water, and other natural resources, and impose significant costs on the global economy.

But certain researchers, governments, food waste nonprofits, and international organizations agree that much of FLW is interconnected and preventable, making FLW reduction a key strategy for addressing environmental, economic, and food security challenges simultaneously.

Food loss typically occurs before food reaches the retail stage—during harvesting, processing, and transportation. Limited access to storage facilities, refrigeration, and infrastructure can increase rates of food loss. Sometimes food loss is also a symptom of deeper political challenges tied to global trade says Moses Kansanga, Associate Professor of Geography and International Affairs at George Washington University.

Food waste occurs after food reaches retailers and consumers. It typically refers to food that is suitable for consumption but discarded, because of overproduction, cosmetic standards, over-purchasing, improper storage, or confusion over expiration labels.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 13 percent of food produced globally is lost between harvest and retail. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that an additional 19 percent of food is wasted at the retail, food service, and household levels.

High income countries generally waste more food per capita. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that 30 to 40 percent of the nation’s food supply is wasted. ReFED estimates that U.S. retailers generated 4.6 million tons of surplus food in one year, nearly one-third of which went to landfills or incinerators despite donation and recycling efforts.

And tragically, food loss and waste persist alongside global hunger. In 2022, 783 million people experienced hunger while more than 1 billion tons of food was wasted.

WWF estimates that the food lost and wasted each year could feed the world’s undernourished population nearly four times over. “Food waste is a global tragedy,” says Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “Millions will go hungry today as food is wasted across the world.”

Luiz Beling, CEO of Apeel, emphasizes that FLW is a major contributor to global GHG emissions. Producing of food that is never eaten causes 8 to 10 percent of annual GHG emissions, nearly five times the emissions produced by the global airline sector. It uses one-third of the world’s arable land and one-quarter of agricultural water, placing unnecessary pressure on soils, forests, grasslands, and biodiversity.

Discarded food continues to affect the climate after it is thrown away. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, food contributes to nearly 60 percent of landfill methane emissions.

And, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change estimates that food loss and waste cost the global economy approximately US$1 trillion annually.

Organizations and experts increasingly see FLW reduction as a powerful solution to multiple interconnected problems. Project Drawdown has described FLW reduction as a massive lever for change. According to the organization, reducing FLW can improve food security and conserve natural resources while reducing emissions and lowering costs.

Hongpeng Lei, Chief of the Mitigation Branch in the Climate Change Division at UNEP, explains, “Reducing food waste is a fast, cost-effective way to cut GHG emissions while boosting food security, saving households and businesses money, and easing pressure on land and water.” Dana Gunders, President of ReFED, describes reducing food waste as “like a Swiss Army knife.”

Because food loss and food waste occur at different stages of the food supply chain, they require different solutions. Reducing food loss often depends on investments in harvesting, storage, refrigeration, transportation, and food processing. WFP has helped reduce post-harvest grain losses by supporting the use of hermetic storage bags, moisture meters, and improved drying systems.

Reducing food waste often focuses on improving inventory management, expanding food donation programs, strengthening demand forecasting, helping consumers interpret food date labels, and encouraging meal planning, proper food storage, and the use of leftovers.

While improvements in infrastructure and technology are welcome, technical solutions alone cannot eliminate food loss, Kansanga says. He argues that reducing post-harvest losses also requires addressing the political and structural conditions that shape agricultural markets, including inequitable trade relationships that can undermine local producers.

Efforts to reduce food loss and waste are gaining momentum around the world. The United Nations established a global target to reduce FLW through Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, while UNEP and FAO now publish standardized indices that allow countries to measure food waste and food loss over time. In the United States, ReFED estimates that total surplus food fell by 2.2 percent between 2023 and 2024, driven in part by a 950,000-ton reduction in residential food waste.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

The post Food Tank Explains: Food Loss and Waste appeared first on Food Tank.

Lebanon, NH’s Central Fire Station was designed to aim for net- zero-ready status which included solar, heat pumps, and RTUs on the roof. (ReArch)

Michael J. Daley

The grand opening in April this year of the new Central Fire Station in Lebanon, New Hampshire (www.lebanonnh.gov/) was marked by a ceremonial uncoupling of linked fire hoses strung in place of the more familiar ribbon. This is a traditional way to let the citizens know a new fire station is complete and ready to serve the community.

The design and construction of the $23.78 million facility was anything but traditional. The need to replace the Central Station was identified in 2022 as the building was constructed in 1954 and no longer met current operational needs. ReArch Construction (www.rearchconstruction.com) was the construction manager. Lavallee Brensinger Architects (www.lbpa.com/project/fire-station-1/) was chosen to provide the design and directed to aim for net- zero-ready status.

The internal vehicle bay was designed with LED lights and energy-saving ventilation systems. (Photo credit: Patrick Rogers)

The City of Lebanon chose to reach the highest standard of energy efficient design by participating in the NHSaves (www.nhsaves.com) program and partnering with Liberty(www.libertyutilities.com) to take advantage of the best state of the art technical assistance and highest cost savings incentives. NHSaves requires a public safety facility to achieve an energy use intensity (EUI) of 35 or less to receive a construction incentive of $1.50 per square foot.

EUI is calculated as annual energy consumption divided by building area. The Central Fire Station design EUI is 26.9 based on the 24,531 square foot building. The project qualified and is expected to receive over $50,000 in energy efficiency incentives. Franklin Energy (www.franklinenergynhsaves.com) was instrumental in helping the town navigate through the evaluation and application process required by Liberty’s energy efficiency program.

NHSaves is a performance-based program, and the final payments will depend on the actual performance as recorded during the next year. As the partner utility, Liberty will pay the City these savings. In return, the utility and ratepayers benefit by deferring the need for expensive new electricity generation and limiting harmful emissions.

Because the new Central Fire Station was to occupy the same historic site as the original Central Fire Station, several challenges were encountered meeting energy goals. The site location and size were not sufficient to support a geo-thermal well-field. To maintain required clearances to the neighboring lot lines, much of the mechanical equipment (heat pumps, exhaust fans, dedicated outdoor air system, energy recovery ventilation units and intake vents) needed to be consolidated on the roof levels. Operating as an emergency center requires building conditions to be maintained during periods of power loss and periods of extremely low ambient temperatures.

Another handicap toward high efficiency came from a key feature of the new facility – a state-of-the-art decontamination zone. Exposure to toxic particles from our modern chemicalized buildings is the main occupational hazard faced by firefighters. The decontamination area allows cleaning of gear and bodies after a fire, moving personnel from a dirty zone to clean zone. Because of the risk of cross-contamination of water systems, heat recovery strategies for wastewater could not be employed.

Nevertheless, many specialized air-to-air heat pumps and heat exchange and recovery strategies were installed throughout the facility by ARC Mechanical Contractors (www.arcmech.com). Revision Energy (www.revisionenergy.com) installed 60 kW of solar panels on the very crowded roof space. The solar array supplies 58% of the building’s needs, including heating, and was grant funded with planning support from the city’s planning and energy departments. 

Most occupied spaces are conditioned through multi-zone variable refrigerant flow systems allowing for simultaneous heat and cooling operation as well as recovery and transfer of heating or cooling energy between disparate indoor spaces.

An obvious challenge is the fact that responding to emergencies requires opening the huge bay area to immediate exposure to external climate any time of day or night. To mitigate these frequent and serious losses, the design incorporated dedicated kitchen and vehicle exhaust systems and energy recovery from exhaust air streams to make-up and outdoor air streams to meet ventilation requirements. Air source heat pumps also provide tempering and conditioning of the make-up air supply for kitchen exhaust and the main ventilation air supply to the building. General exhaust and ventilation of the apparatus bay is provided with integral energy recovery through a unit with fixed plate air-to-air heat exchange section while a dedicated exhaust fan provides vehicle exhaust capture at each bay. An air source to water heat pump unit in combination with high efficiency, gas-fired boilers provide heating hot water to in-slab radiant floor serving the apparatus bay and hydronic terminal units or coils serving other spaces throughout the building.

All these sophisticated energy saving strategies were made possible, in part, by the financial and technical assistance of the NHSaves program and is a fine example of its core mission: When the municipalities in our communities save, we all benefit from a healthier, more sustainable environment. Franklin Energy can help Liberty commercial, industrial, and municipal customers navigate the NHSaves program. They can be reached at 603-637-4346 or NHSaves@franklinenergy.com.

The announcement comes as ratepayer and clean energy advocates push capacity-hungry hyperscalers to subsidize residential solar, batteries and energy efficiency.

The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.

Together, these initiatives would have made up around half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support conservation in the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.

When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge by 12 donors of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.

Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.

Alongside the US and much of Europe, the UK has significantly cut its aid budget in recent years, leading to much of its Congo rainforest spending being cancelled or reappraised.

The government says it still plans to “prioritise” rainforest regions, including the Congo basin, but civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.

COP pledge

At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030. This was backed by more than 140 nations.

The UK also made various funding pledges, including £200m to protect the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.

These commitments target the world’s three largest rainforests, all of which face major forest loss due to threats such as agriculture, logging and climate change. 

The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink. Yet, its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.

This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.

Forest cuts

Following successive aid cuts introduced by both the Conservative and then Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.

The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was launched by the UK at COP27. It was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.

CBFA set out to “empower central African nations”, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support for “community forests” and other measures to curb forest loss.

Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s recent aid cuts, intended to free up money for defence spending. 

Its original £90m budget has now been reduced to £18.8m. Government data shows that £15m of this has already been spent.

This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to this latest round of aid cuts.

The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – championed by the previous government and worth at least £12.3m – has been closed, just two years into its seven-year schedule.

Government documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk as the UK scales back its aid budget, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. 

One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”. Officials working on the other, while more optimistic, reported that the project may be forced to operate in fewer countries as the cuts set in.

Documents also reveal the difficulties that come when operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.

‘Breaking promises’

Damian Fleming, a senior director of forests at WWF International tells Carbon Brief:

“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”

In a series of recent parliamentary responses, Chapman revealed that the UK had only spent £39.8m on Congo forest finance, as of 2024. (She declined to provide any information on the Indonesia and Amazon regional goals.) 

Despite being presented as the UK’s “contribution” to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. 

Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution so far has been relatively small.

Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, tells Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:

“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world for whom the environment is an existential issue.”

Future targets

The Labour government says it has met the five-year “climate finance” target of £11.6bn that expires this year.

Ministers also say the government has met “and exceeded” the £3bn and £1.5bn sub-goals for “preserving nature” and forests, respectively, within the £11.6bn. These are the funding streams that include support for the Congo basin and other rainforests.

The UK has funded a variety of projects in line with its forest goals, including mangrove restoration in Indonesia, support for carbon-offsetting projects in Brazil and promoting “forest stewardship” among farmers in Cameroon.

Chapman has stated that the UK will continue to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest, in line with its new plan for aid spending in Africa. The UK even helped to launch a new “call to action” for Congo basin funding at COP30 last year.

The UK government also says it supported the creation of Brazil’s flagship “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” (TFFF). However, so far it has not provided any funding for the facility.

When the government announced a new climate finance pledge for 2026 onwards, it stressed that nature would still be a “focus” and said it would also generate billions in “climate and nature positive investments”. Nevertheless, it dropped the “ring-fenced” amounts for nature and forests that had appeared in its previous pledge.

The UK, alongside other developed countries, has pledged to provide biodiversity finance to developing countries, under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – a non-binding global pact to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. 

Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee of MPs, says “sub-pledges” for nature and forests are a “cost-effective and impactful” way to ensure this finance is provided, alongside climate finance. She tells Carbon Brief that she was “concerned” about the move away from this approach:

“When the minister recently appeared before the international development committee, I was concerned to hear her characterise this shift as a ‘gamble’.”

A government spokesperson tells Carbon Brief:

“We remain committed to providing finance for forests, including in the Congo basin, as a core element of our overall climate funding.”

A shorter version of this article was first published in Cropped, Carbon Brief’s fortnightly newsletter that provides a digest of food, land and nature news, on 15 July 2026. Subscribe for free.

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Wildfires are becoming a familiar part of the European summer, from the hills of Wales to the forests of Spain and southern France. And whenever they make the news, the counter argument tends to follow: wildfires aren’t really a climate story, because most of them are started by people.  More often, it’s a dropped cigarette. A barbecue left unattended. Arson. A spark from machinery, or even broken glass catching the sun just right.

It’s true. Almost all wildfires are triggered by human activity in one way or another, accidental or deliberate. But using that fact to wave away the climate connection misses the point entirely.

Fires need three things to get going, the fire triangle,  fuel, oxygen, and a source of ignition. Humans have always provided plenty of that third ingredient, and always will; cigarettes, barbecues, campfires and careless machinery aren’t going anywhere, in Britain or anywhere else. What’s changed is the first ingredient: fuel.

The hotter and drier the weather, the drier the scrub, grass and woodland become. Dry vegetation doesn’t just burn more easily, it burns faster, spreads further, and is far harder to bring under control once it’s alight. A spark that would once have fizzled out on damp ground can now, in tinder-dry conditions, become a fire that spreads across dozens or hundreds of hectares before crews can contain it.

That’s the shift climate change is driving, it’s turning the landscape into fuel. By early July 2026, wildfires had already burned around 170,000 hectares across the EU, well above the long-term average, following the hottest June ever recorded for Western Europe. France recorded its hottest day since national records began in 1947. In southern Spain, temperatures hit as high as 45°C. Scientists have linked the intensity of that heat directly to human-caused climate change.

The human cost has been severe. In Spain’s Andalusia region, a wildfire near Almería and Bédar became the deadliest the country has seen in roughly two decades, killing at least a dozen people, many caught trying to flee. Across the continent, wildfires have killed more than a dozen people this year alone, while the heat itself, separate from the flames, has been linked to thousands of excess deaths. Portugal, Greece and Turkey have also battled major blazes, and Europe has mounted its largest firefighting mobilisation yet in response.

So, who struck the match is’nt really the  question, It’s about why the ground around it is so ready to burn. And that’s a question with a clear answer: a hotter, drier climate, driven by the continued burning of fossil fuels, is loading the dice for every spark that was always going to happen anyway, whether that spark falls in Wales, Andalusia, or the Var.

If we want fewer, smaller, less destructive wildfires, tackling the ignition source is only ever going to be half the job. The rest means tackling the reason our landscapes are drying out in the first place, and holding the industry driving that heat accountable for the damage it’s causing.

The post Beyond the spark: Why wildfires across Europe are getting worse appeared first on 350.

In 2019 a nonprofit called The Ocean Cleanup conducted a major test of technology designed to remove plastic pollution from the water.

It appeared to work, and the nonprofit released photos proclaiming its success.

But some scientists noticed something else among the accumulated plastic in the Ocean Cleanup’s publicity photos.

“Earlier this year I warned that @TheOceanCleanup would catch and kill floating marine life,” marine ecologist Dr. Rebecca Helm wrote on the social media platform then known as Twitter. “This week they announced they’re collecting plastic, and their picture shows HUNDREDS of floating animals trapped with the plastic.”

The Ocean Cleanup team appeared to be oblivious to this consequence of their test before this public criticism.

It’s not surprising that any attempt to remove plastic from here would catch, and likely kill, many marine organisms, because the waters of this region aren’t a trash-filled biological desert. The area is full of neuston, marine life that lives right at the sea surface — species that may not be as charismatic as dolphins or sea turtles but are extremely ecologically important.

“This region in general has very high densities of several key species,” says Helm, now an affiliate faculty member at Georgetown University. “This ecosystem is ecologically important to species that we do care about. We can’t just go disrupting it in the name of conservation and imagine that everything is OK and that you’re doing a good thing.”

Other scientists agreed.

“Honestly, if that was me, I would have totally stopped,” Dr. Kim Martini, a physical oceanographer and founder of the oceanography equipment designer and supplier Tini Scientific, says of the incident. “Because the whole point is supposed to be about how you’re saving animals that live in the ocean.”

But while Ocean Cleanup adapted — the organization claims its latest designs have a “low adverse impact” on ocean wildlife (something its own data contradicts) — it hasn’t stopped. It continues to conduct plastic-removal operations at great financial cost, garner worldwide publicity and social media attention, and attract millions of dollars of donations.

All for an idea that, almost from the day it was announced, scientists have warned could do more harm than good.

A Meteoric Launch

It all began in 2012, when Boyan Slat, an 18-year-old Dutch aerospace engineering student, gave a TED talk announcing a bold scheme to scoop plastic trash out of the ocean. Slat envisioned building what would be the largest human-made structure ever deployed in the ocean (by far), a device that would collect plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and remove it, saving countless marine organisms.

This idea has since attracted a loyal social media following and become a nonprofit that generates millions of dollars in donations a year, a fundraising and media juggernaut in the ocean conservation space.

What you wouldn’t know from most of the media coverage and social media posts is that experts in ocean plastic pollution and ocean engineering have long been skeptical of Slat’s model, raising concerns about a fundamental misunderstanding of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and local ecology, a misunderstanding of why plastic pollution is a problem, and a lack of experience with the complex marine engineering required to pull off something like this.

That criticism and feedback haven’t dissuaded The Ocean Cleanup, despite the fact that to date it hasn’t accomplished what it set out to do, for exactly the reasons that ocean plastic pollution and ocean engineering experts said it wouldn’t work.

After building and testing expensive prototypes that led to failed tests — which failed exactly the way ocean plastic pollution and ocean engineering experts said they would — the team pivoted in 2019 toward a new model that was first suggested by critics and skeptics as an alternative in 2015. Now they mostly intercept plastic when it first leaves rivers and enters the ocean instead of trying to scoop it out of the middle of the ocean, though the open ocean work is still mentioned on their website and generates praise-filled uncritical media coverage.

Experts say The Ocean Cleanup’s history and current reality represent a useful case study in the role of evidence and expertise in solving complex global environmental problems, and why we should be skeptical of “Only I can fix it” public figures and their self-proclaimed revolutionary inventions.

Misunderstanding of the Background Issues: Ocean Plastic Pollution and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

There’s no doubt that ocean plastic pollution is a huge problem. Some organisms ingest smaller pieces of plastic, which will either choke them, poison them, or block their digestive tracts (essentially filling their stomachs with items they can’t digest so there’s no room for actual food). Larger pieces of plastic pose entanglement hazards, immobilizing and drowning marine life. This plastic has been found all over the world, and thanks to patterns of global ocean currents, it aggregates in regions called gyres.

But when most people think about the ocean plastic pollution problem and the famous “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” they picture a huge and dense plastic island so thick that you can walk on it. That’s not the case — it’s more like a soup full of tiny bits of plastic, sometimes so small that they’re invisible to the naked eye.

“If you go to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, what you see is not a big collection of trash, but ocean, and it looks pretty normal,” says Dr. Miriam Goldstein, who did her Ph.D. on this region and is now the executive director of the National Ocean Protection Coalition. “When I was doing research out there, we were looking at many, many pieces of plastic — each about the size of a crumb.”

In any situation, if you don’t understand the problem, you’re unlikely to come up with a workable solution. For example, if you incorrectly believe that there are giant mountains of dense plastic floating in the ocean, it’s easier to wrongly believe that we can engineer a way to easily just scoop that plastic out of the ocean. It’s much harder to remove lots of tiny crumb-sized pieces of plastic … at least if your goal is avoiding killing everything else that’s swimming and living nearby.

“I was extremely skeptical of the whole idea, in part because the original TED talk was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Pacific Garbage Patch and gyres,” says Dr. Clark Richards, a physical oceanographer with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “That’s the kind of picture that you get from introductory textbooks.”

It’s Hard to Build Things That Can Survive in the Ocean

A major reason why experts were skeptical of the Ocean Cleanup from the beginning was the team’s lack of experience with ocean engineering.

For one thing, the ocean is a rough environment, and it destroys human-made structures.

“You have a lot of concerns for any kind of instrumentation or large hardware that goes into the ocean,” says Dr. Martini. “Waves put a really large stress on anything mechanical. And you have issues with biofouling; anything you put in the ocean acts like a little raft and everything likes to grow on it, which makes it heavy and pulls it down.”

Dr. Richards also stressed the corrosive effect of seawater on anything metal and pointed out the complexity and expense of even getting a large structure in place.

“Equipment capable of being moored in the open ocean must be deployed from large capable offshore vessels, which typically cost about $100,000 per day,” he says.

In other words, there’s a reason why no one had built an object as large as the original vision for the Ocean Cleanup before, and it’s not because no one else had ever thought of it before.

“When I first saw the idea, I thought ‘This is very well-intentioned and heartfelt, but it won’t scale, it won’t work,’ ” Dr. Goldstein says.

At the time Goldstein and Martini, writing for the ocean blog Deep Sea News, performed a detailed technical review of proposed plans for the Ocean Cleanup, using their expertise to point out why the device could not function as claimed.

“We were trying to do them the courtesy of taking them seriously,” Dr. Goldstein said. “And also, as ocean communication people, we thought it was our duty to talk about this, since it was getting so much attention.”

Sure enough, a 2016 test run of a small-scale prototype broke for exactly the reasons Dr. Martini said it would and failed to collect a significant amount of plastic for exactly the reasons Dr. Richards said it would.

And by breaking, the Ocean Cleanup system itself became ocean pollution.

A representative for the Ocean Cleanup told me via email that they were receptive to expert criticism they received and made substantive changes to the design based on that criticism. The experts I interviewed for this article disagree.

More Issues

After fixing some of the structural issues, subsequent Ocean Cleanup designs began to collect small amounts of plastic trash — nowhere near the amount they claimed they were going to be removing and nowhere near enough to make a substantive difference — while also apparently killing enormous numbers of marine organisms.

Dr. Miriam Goldstein was not surprised by this.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you try and catch things in that part of the ocean,” she says. “This was wholly predictable from a basic knowledge of that ecosystem — predictable and predicted. Our concern was a lack of fundamental understanding of both the oceanography and the animals that live among the plastic.”

A representative for the Ocean Cleanup acknowledged via email that their efforts kill some marine life but asserted that their research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests plastic pollution kills more marine life than their cleanup attempts. They further claimed that “a majority of species caught as bycatch are invasive species.” The experts interviewed for this article did not agree with either claim.

The supplementary materials of their Scientific Reports paper, meanwhile, catalogued thousands of marine animals killed during Ocean Cleanup operations, including threatened species of sharks, bony fish, and sea turtles — none of whom are invasive. It found that 84% of animals identified as “incidental catch” in their cleanup efforts were fish, including three species of sharks. The paper also detailed how “Species classified as Vulnerable or Endangered, such as sea turtles (e.g., loggerhead, green and olive ridley), have also been encountered as incidental catch during cleanup.”

Pivots

Later designs of the Ocean Cleanup moved on from the free-floating boom and net design and transitioned into what it called System 002 and System 03 — essentially a large net towed behind a pair of boats. Ocean plastic pollution experts, once again, were not impressed. Despite the expenditure of millions of dollars, this new design was just slightly modified fishing gear.

“This organization was so focused on ‘technology development’ that they would adopt whatever they found and claim that they invented it, such as rebranding trawl fishing as trash removal technology,” Dr. Richards says.

In 2019 the Ocean Cleanup team also added a new element to their portfolio: trying to stop plastic from entering the ocean by intercepting it at river mouths.

While intercepting trash in this way is a good idea (and one that had been suggested by critics of earlier designs for years), the way they went about it left a sour test in many people’s mouths.

“The river interceptor design was clearly based on existing solutions” like Mr. Trash Wheel, Dr. Richards says. “Rather than work with the organizations who had successfully been removing trash from rivers for years, they ‘reinvented’ a similar design, at a much higher cost, and claimed to be innovators.”

A representative for the Ocean Cleanup told me via email that their river interceptors are custom-designed for each river.

Other Solutions

So if we can’t scoop all the plastic trash out of the ocean without killing large numbers of marine animals, what can we do instead?

One effective (and cost-effective) solution is the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. This amazing program has removed more than 400 million pounds of trash from beaches, where it’s much easier to access than in the middle of the ocean, before it gets swept back to sea. They do this at incredibly low cost, because more than 19 million people around the world have volunteered to help.

“Our total annual budget for all our plastics advocacy work, which includes cleanup, science and policy efforts, is about $6 million,” says Jordana Lewis, director of communications for the Ocean Conservancy Director of Communications. “Every organization contributing to the International Coastal Cleanup does things a little differently, but for every $2 invested Ocean Conservancy can remove a pound of trash from the environment and invest in scientific research and upstream policy solutions to prevent plastics from being produced and/or entering our ocean in the first place.”

As of this writing, The Ocean Cleanup reports it has removed 117.3 million pounds of waste from the ocean and (mostly) rivers. The nonprofit spent more than $72 million across its 2022-2024 fiscal years, according to tax filings.

Meanwhile Dr. Richards points out that in 2024 Ocean Cleanup’s System 002 “was out there spewing diesel fumes from a ship that cost $100,000 a day, picking up less plastic than a bunch of volunteers on beaches.” (A representative for the Ocean Cleanup told me via email that they are working on improving the cost efficiency of their operations.)

Ultimately the solution to the ocean plastic pollution crisis is going to be changes to our manufacturing and waste storage and treatment processes, which will take international agreements and lots of hard work. Or we could use less plastic — which would solve all these problems at the source.

Lessons Learned?

One of the most important lessons from this is that it shows the public understands the problems that plastic pollution poses to marine life — and that they’re willing to support solutions.

Unfortunately, it also shows how some people can take certain ideas too closely to heart — and take it personally when those ideas are criticized. When experts started speaking out about the Ocean Cleanup several years ago, I witnessed several of them endure online harassment from supporters of the organization, often phrased as “At least they’re trying to do something to help, all you do is complain.” (Note that this was being said to people who devoted their lives and careers to evidence-based solutions to cleaning up the ocean).

Another recurring theme was “You’re just jealous that someone solved a problem you didn’t.” (Of course, this was being said to people pointing out that the Ocean Cleanup had not solved the problem).

Ironically the criticism seemed to cause defenders to double-down on Ocean Cleanup.

“We were cast as the haters who just didn’t want to believe, and there’s a certain personality that sees criticism itself as validation that the idea is a good one,” Dr. Goldstein said.

Of course, sometimes when experts say something doesn’t work, it’s because it doesn’t work — not because critics are jealous of an idea.

Critically, trying to help is not the same thing as actually helping, and some popular solutions either make problems worse, or fail to solve them while squandering limited resources. For example, much “Save the bees” rhetoric focuses on nonnative honeybees and not the native species that are actually endangered; far too many well-intentioned online petitions aim to solve problems that have already been solved.

Dr. Helm, who worked on the United Nations High Seas treaty as a scientific advisor, knows how complicated effective solutions to complex issues really are. There are no shortcuts to putting in the work.

“There was this spirit at the time that a few well-meaning young people with a lot of passion would find solutions, but for complex problems like this one, the teenage geniuses and their billionaire backers aren’t going to save us, and they’re going to take us on a wild and expensive ride along the way,” Helm says.

Indeed, very few complex global problems will be solved by “imported magic,” a silver bullet technological solution that requires no one to make any sacrifices or changes.

Fixing these problems will require hard work, cooperation, expertise, and evidence. It may not make for snappy social media posts, but in the end, it’s the only thing that will help.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Reflections on What Endures in Conservation

The post Why The Ocean Cleanup Hasn’t Solved the Plastic Pollution Crisis appeared first on The Revelator.

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.

Key developments Global drought and heat 

DRY THEN WET: A recent heatwave and months of low rainfall has led to a prolonged drought for Uganda, resulting in at least 16 deaths from hunger and significant crop losses, reported BBC News. Bastille Post Global suggested that “a developing El Niño later this year could bring heavier rainfall to parts of the region, raising the risk of flooding in areas now struggling with drought”. 

FUNDING FOOD: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have appealed for $200m in funding to help African nations deal with the impact of El Niño, stated Deutsche Welle. This would target 22 high-risk countries with measures, including “cash transfers, climate-resilient seeds, livestock protection and flood control.” The Guardian explained how El Niño could still “cause a severe shock to global food prices lasting into 2028”. 

FARMING FEARS: Extreme weather has devastated agriculture across the world. India saw its driest June in 12 years, reported BBC News, and France has had a “double-digit production” decline, according to Le Monde. The Financial Times reported that farmers in the UK are mitigating the impacts of extreme heat by eliminating “chemicals and intensive ploughing to improve soil quality so it retains water”.

EURO FIRES: Wildfires have spread across Europe, with Spain reporting at least 12 deaths so far, according to the Guardian, and France experiencing road closures, said Reuters. Wildfire Today reported that the most extreme conditions are “across France, Spain and northern Portugal, the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, the south of the UK and south-east Ireland”. CNN explained how “the climate crisis is driving hotter, drier weather, which is setting the stage for fiercer fire seasons”.

Endangering species 

REDEFINING HARM: The Trump administration “reversed decades of longstanding environmental law protecting endangered species…opening up sensitive habitats…to drilling, mining, farming and real estate development”, reported CNN.  According to the story, the change “redefines what constitutes ‘harm’” to endangered species, which historically prohibited habitat modification or degradation. Agence France-Presse reported that US environmental groups sued the Trump government over the move, arguing that it had violated “common sense, biological science and federal law”. 

OPEN SEASON: Reuters reported that the change “limits the reach of the 50-year-old Endangered Species Act” (ESA), which is a “key regulatory consideration” when granting permits for “oil and gas, mining, electric transmission and ​other operations on federal lands and water”. Legal scholars told the New York Times the US government “was acting without conducting scientific research into the impact” of the change, while the National Mining Association “applauded the announcement”. 

News and views

• INTERNATIONAL WATERS: After a significant delay, the UK ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty. Oceanographic detailed how this will allow for “marine protected areas across international waters for the first time”, but also stressed that the “hard part” starts now. 
• SCOPE-FREE: The world’s largest meat supplier JBS “scrapped a key climate goal” in its net-zero plan that accounts for its suppliers’ emissions, “which make up the vast bulk of the company’s environmental footprint”, reported the Financial Times. The company told the paper it was difficult to control these “indirect” emissions.
• DEEP TROUBLE: Pacific gray whales are facing a “catastrophic die-off” as sea-ice loss threatens their food sources, said the Guardian. Separately, conservationists warned that more than half of all molluscs that “cluster around underwater vents” could face extinction from deep-sea mining, reported Reuters.
• ETHANOL PUSHBACK: India’s new rules to promote 100% ethanol fuel and make ethanol-blended fuel mandatory at pumps “triggered a political row”, reported the Times of India. While the Indian government defended the push to automobile owners, a Hindu editorial and an Indian Express comment warned against incentivising fuels made from “water-intensive” sugarcane and rice. 
• AMAZON ACTION: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to its lowest level in a decade, but president Lula’s plans to “end illegal deforestation by 2030” could be hampered if he is not re-elected, reported Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister warned of greater environmental and climate risk under the incoming government, said the Associated Press. 
• WAR WORRIES: The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of the impact of the Iran war on Africa’s clean cooking efforts as disruption in the strait of Hormuz has stunted supplies and increased prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), explained Climate Home News. 

Spotlight UK ‘discards’ Congo rainforest funding

Amid worldwide cuts to aid spending, Carbon Brief explores how the UK is backtracking on funding for the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.

The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people. 

Together, these initiatives would have made up half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support forest conservation in the Congo basin.

When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.

Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.

COP pledge

At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030.

The UK also made various regional funding pledges, including £200m for the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.

All of these rainforests face major forest loss. The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink, but its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.

This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.

African elephant pictured in Congo. Credit: BIOSPHOTO / Alamy Stock Photo Forest cuts

Following successive aid cuts introduced by both Conservative and Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.

The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.

Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s aid cuts. Its £90m budget has been “quietly reduced by 79% to £18.8m”, according to the Times.

This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to aid cuts. The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – worth at least £12.3m – has closed five years early.

Official documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”.

Documents also show the difficulties operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.

‘Breaking promises’

Damian Fleming, a senior forests director at WWF International told Carbon Brief:

“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”

In a parliamentary response, Chapman said that the UK had spent £39.8m towards its £200m Congo target, as of 2024. 

Despite being described as the UK’s contribution to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution was relatively small.

Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, told Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:

“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world.”

The Labour government says it has met its overarching “climate finance” goals and still intends to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest. 

However, civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.

Watch, read, listen

TOXIC TROUBLES: DeSmog unpacked a new report that said Northern Ireland is being turned into a “toxic” pig and poultry farming “sacrifice zone” to satiate the UK’s meat appetite.

NEED TO NOAA: Laid-off scientists from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched Climate.Us – an independent, public-backed version of the climate information website shut down by Trump last year.

DRY FRUIT: A Dialogue Earth long read looked at how climate change is impacting apricot harvests in the “stark, high-altitude desert” region of Ladakh, India. 

READING ALOUD: A London Review of Books podcast discussed Robin Wall Kimmerer’s influential book “Braiding Sweetgrass”, weighing its compelling themes and where it veers into “scientific overreach”. 

New science

• Climate change could cause Indigenous peoples in the Amazon to lose 28-34% of their plant species and 18-23% of their associated services | Nature
• Biodiversity in forests can act as a “buffer” against compound extreme weather events | Nature Communications
• Zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia’s palm oil sector have had “no additional impacts” on reducing forest loss | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

In the diary

• 7-15 July: High-level political forum on sustainable development | New York City 
• 13-31 July: Meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council | Kingston, Jamaica
• 16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online
• 27 July-1 August: Scientific and technical subsidiary body meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity | Nairobi, Kenya

This edition of Cropped was written by Jess Milligan, Josh Gabbatiss and Aruna Chandrasekhar. Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. This edition was edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.

Cropped 1 July 2026: Heatwave scorches Europe | UK 2050 farm plan | What’s next for the High Seas Treaty

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01.07.26

Cropped 17 June 2026: Coral reef ‘hope’ | Ocean talks | Plant flowering times ‘shift’

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17.06.26

Cropped 3 June 2026: Highway through the Amazon | El Niño impact | State of CO2 removal

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03.06.26

Cropped 20 May 2026: Deforestation roadmap | Melanesian Ocean Summit | Returning pet parrots to the wild

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20.05.26

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The post Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid appeared first on Carbon Brief.

The following is a statement from Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works:

“Tomorrow, the Senate will vote on a Democratic-led Congressional Review Act resolution to stop the Trump administration’s so-called “Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model,” which is introducing AI care denials to Traditional Medicare.

WISeR is not wise at all. It is a dangerous, profit-motivated experiment that allows private third parties to use artificial intelligence to delay and deny seniors’ medical care.

Under the WISeR pilot program, which went live in January 2026, reports already show Medicare beneficiaries are waiting 2 to 4 times longer to access certain care. This is just one more example of the harm that Republicans’ disastrous healthcare agenda has already waged on American patients. Last year, Republicans slashed $1 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act spending to line their cronies’ pockets. Now, they are importing the worst parts of Medicare Advantage — automated care denials — into Traditional Medicare.

The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose Traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI. Social Security Works urges Senators to support Chairman Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) resolution, S.J.Res. 198, to protect seniors' access to care.”