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Nakonde Airport is a an airport project that is being developed by the Zambian National Service, part of the Zambian military. Despite the opposition of the local community, who will be the most impacted by the project, the construction is going ahead. Here, members of the local community, along with some words by Stay Grounded Campaigner, Hannah Lawrence, explain more about the situation there.

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En la seva ambició de convertir el futbol en un esport veritablement global, la FIFA s’acosta cada vegada més als autòcrates i els avala obertament. Tanmateix, no són només els règims els que estan remodelant el futbol. El neoliberalisme també està transformant el joc i la relació entre els aficionats i els seus clubs. Hem parlat amb el politòleg i autodeclarat nostàlgic del futbol Cas Mudde.

Alessio Giussani: El 2025, poc abans que Trump comencés a bombardejar l’Iran, la FIFA li va concedir el seu premi de la pau. El president de la FIFA, Gianni Infantino, també va aparèixer a l’anomenada “junta de la pau” amb una gorra de Trump. Mentrestant, els aficionats normals són expulsats pels preus. Continua sent aquest el joc del poble?

Cas Mudde: El futbol mundial està cada vegada més capturat pels diners i per persones i règims dubtosos. La FIFA no és una excepció, sinó un cas extrem.

El Mundial de 2018 a Rússia va ser un torneig problemàtic, però no va generar gaire publicitat negativa. El 2022, a Qatar, era impossible ignorar la connexió entre futbol i  política. Tot i això, el règim qatarià va acabar obtenint una imatge pública força positiva: la gent es va oblidar de les vulneracions dels drets humans i de la quantitat desmesurada de diners gastada en estadis que pràcticament no tindrien utilitat després del torneig, i es va quedar amb la idea que havia estat un gran Mundial. Això és el que ha passat, pràcticament, amb tots els règims, democràtics o no, que han organitzat una Copa del Món. Aquest any, sospito, serà la primera vegada que els països amfitrions rebran més publicitat negativa que positiva.

Això no importa gaire a un país tan gran i poderós com els Estats Units, i encara menys a Trump, la base electoral del qual ni tan sols té interès pel futbol. Deixarà de preocupar-se pel torneig tan bon punt deixi de ser-li útil. Però això sí que perjudicarà la manera com la gent percep el futbol mundial.

Almenys sobre el paper, aquest no és el “Mundial MAGA”. L’organitzen tres nacions —els EUA, el Canadà i Mèxic— que representen tres espais diferents de la política mundial: els defensors dels combustibles fòssils, el liberalisme ultracentrista i el socialisme del Sud global. Quin significat li atribueixes a això?

Mark Carney també és defensor dels combustibles fòssils. El que és interessant és que aquest Mundial es coneixia inicialment com «la candidatura unificada», però en qüestió de mesos es va convertir, de fet, en el Mundial MAGA: tot gira al voltant dels Estats Units i de Trump. Això representava un repte, però també una gran oportunitat per al Canadà i Mèxic. El Canadà hauria pogut demostrar que és el bon noi de l’Amèrica del Nord; Mèxic hauria pogut demostrar que és el veritable país del futbol. El llistó és tan baix que fer el que tothom sol fer ja et fa quedar bé.

“La FIFA és, en molts sentits, un projecte increïblement colonial, que aposta per totes les coses dolentes que el colonialisme ha deixat enrere, incloses la corrupció i el lideratge personalista.

En canvi, Canadà i Mèxic no han dit res sobre el premi de la pau, del tracte a l’equip iranià i Omar Artan, i sobre l’àrbitre somali a qui es va denegar el visat. L’únic que fan és facilitar les coses a Trump i intentar suavitzar la situació quan fa alguna cosa dolenta, per això crec que també afrontaran crítiques. En general, no tinc la sensació que cap dels països amfitrions estigui particularment entusiasmat amb aquest Mundial. Claudia Sheinbaum ha impulsat algunes iniciatives realment bones a Mèxic, com ara construir centenars de camps comunitaris, però no hi veig un impuls real.

L’edició del Mundial de 2022 va ser una de les edicions més globals fins a la data, amb Qatar com a amfitrió i el Marroc arribant a les semifinals. L’edició d’enguany s’ha ampliat per incloure 48 equips en lloc de 32. Hi ha algun mèrit decolonial en l’ambició d’Infantino de fer que el futbol mundial sigui veritablement global?

El projecte d’Infantino és aconseguir la seva reelecció. Com més associacions nacionals de futbol estiguin representades al Mundial, més satisfetes estaran amb el seu lideratge. Si realment volgués decolonitzar el futbol, podria haver canviat la representació proporcional entre continents. En canvi, només va ampliar el nombre de participants sense canviar els criteris subjacents. Això vol dir tenir encara més països d’Europa, perquè són rics, i això és el que volen els patrocinadors.

La FIFA és, en molts sentits, un projecte increïblement colonial, que beneficia tots els elements negatius que el colonialisme ha deixat enrere, incloses la corrupció i el lideratge personalista. Essencialment, la FIFA dona diners a les associacions nacionals de futbol perquè els gastin com considerin millor per al progrés del futbol als seus països. Per descomptat, molts règims simplement agafen aquests diners i se’ls embutxaquen, deixant el futbol sense desenvolupar. Però a la FIFA això no li importa gaire.

La política de la FIFA també està empitjorant. El 2018, no es va pronunciar contra les polítiques russes contràries als drets LGBTQIA+, però tampoc els va donar suport. A Qatar, es va prohibir als capitans dels equips portar braçalets amb els colors de l’arc de Sant Martí. Ara, la FIFA defensa activament Trump i fins i tot el celebra.

Només una fracció de les nacions que participen al Mundial són democràcies —i encara menys liberals—, i el mateix s’aplica al conjunt dels membres de la FIFA. Hi ha maneres de defensar els valors liberals sense el postureig civilitzacional?

Si vols ser coherent, hauries de deixar la política al marge tant com puguis, perquè si converteixes la FIFA i el Mundial en un projecte liberal-democràtic, aleshores et dirigeixes a una minoria d’estats, i mai no seràs veritablement global. Es podria argumentar que ser polític, encara que de vegades siguis hipòcrita o incoherent, és millor que mantenir-se al marge de la política. Però ja no estic segur que sigui així, perquè les campanyes d’inclusió de la FIFA s’han tornat tan buides, tan vagues i tan plenes de pinkwashing que l’únic missatge que arriba és que tot el que diuen sobre política és una collonada. [Nota de la traductora: “pinkwashing” es manté en anglès perquè és un terme d’ús habitual per descriure l’ús instrumental de causes LGTBIQ+ per millorar la imatge d’una institució.]

Al mateix temps, és clar, la política sempre hi és. Organitzar un Mundial és una gran oportunitat per a qualsevol règim, i la neutralitat no fa que l’esdeveniment deixi de ser polític. Però sí que tinc un problema amb fixar expectatives elevades i no estar mai a l’altura —que és precisament el que ha fet la FIFA amb la seva agenda de drets humans i els seus grans compromisos amb la sostenibilitat. No pot existir un Mundial sostenible, i sempre hi haurà participants que no respectin els drets humans. Aleshores, per què la FIFA no introdueix una agenda menys ambiciosa però que realment compleixi?

Vivim un moment de ressorgiment del nativisme i del nacionalisme, amb l’extrema dreta en ascens arreu del món. Alimenta un Mundial farcit de política aquestes dinàmiques, o el futbol pot canalitzar el nacionalisme cap a alguna cosa més afable, fins i tot unificadora?

El sociòleg britànic Michael Billig va encunyar el terme “nacionalisme banal” per descriure les representacions quotidianes d’una nació, que construeixen un sentit compartit d’identitat nacional. Es tracta, per exemple, de banderes nacionals penjades a l’exterior dels edificis públics. El nacionalisme esportiu entra dins d’aquesta categoria, i té elements negatius. Al meu país, els Països Baixos, una part del nostre sentiment antigermànic no provenia de la Segona Guerra Mundial, sinó del futbol. Al mateix temps, els equips de futbol en molts països són més multiculturals que les societats, i jugadors de diferents ètnies esdevenen herois i models per a molts —almenys mentre guanyen.

El que és peculiar del futbol és l’emoció i la intensitat que afegeix al nacionalisme banal, fent que el nacionalisme sigui una mica secundari. Guanyar vol dir guanyar un partit, no que la teva nació domini una altra. Per molt que em desagradin les banderes, crec que hi ha un pànic moral al voltant del nacionalisme i el hooliganisme en el futbol. Hi ha elements inclusius i exclusius: pot ser tant bo com dolent.

Imparteixes un curs sobre futbol i política. Com interpretes aquesta relació, i com veus que evoluciona?

Gran part de l’atenció se centra en l’alta política: institucions, governs, partits, etcètera. A mi m’interessa més la ‘baixa’ política de l’esport, la música, la cultura, etc. Faig servir el futbol per ensenyar política, perquè el futbol reflecteix la societat de moltes maneres. Curiosament, aquest és un dels cursos més radicals que he impartit. Llegim Judith Butler i la performativitat de gènere, i parlem molt d’identitat i globalització.

Pensa en la rellevància creixent dels “equips de la diàspora”, aquelles seleccions nacionals que  estan més  formades cada vegada més per jugadors nacionals “de sang” encara que no hagin nascut ni crescut al país que representen. Senegal n’és un exemple paradigmàtic, amb gairebé la meitat dels jugadors nascuts o criats fora del país —principalment a França, la seva antiga potència colonial. Els equips de la diàspora són, en certa manera, el contrari dels “equips cívics”, formats per jugadors de minories nascuts i criats en un país, com els alemanys d’origen turc. Això mostra que fins i tot els estats molt restrictius amb la immigració poden ser molt flexibles quan es tracta d’esportistes d’elit, i que les persones antiimmigració no tenen cap problema amb això.

La UE també ha tingut un paper important en la configuració del futbol modern. La sentència Bosman del Tribunal de Justícia de la Unió Europea, el 1995 va sacsejar el sistema europeu de traspassos futbolístics per alinear-lo amb les normes del mercat únic. I com que Europa és tan dominant en el futbol global, la sentència va canviar el sistema mundial.

Interpretes el futbol com a part de la societat civil. Quin és el raonament darrere d’aquesta associació?

Solia treballar sobre la societat civil a l’Europa postcomunista a finals dels anys noranta i principis dels 2000, hi havia una associació positiva entre una societat civil forta i una democràcia saludable. Però el discurs tenia un enfocament molt limitat en grups prooccidentals, grups feministes, etcètera. M’interessaven els anomenats grups de la societat “incivilitzada”, que no eren necessàriament prodemocràtics, però que unien molt a les persones i eren políticament actius. Els hooligans i els ultres sovint tenen dues cares: tenen mala reputació, particularment a Europa, però també són actius en bones causes, com ajudar persones pobres o comunitats locals després de terratrèmols o altres desastres naturals. M’agrada aquesta complexitat.

Com ha canviat el neoliberalisme el futbol?

Per donar resposta a aquesta pregunta sovint faig servir el club al que dono suport, el PSV Eindhoven. El PSV va ser fundat per treballadors de Philips. Era, en molts sentits, una representació de l’economia industrial, d’una forma de capitalisme arrelat. Philips tenia una connexió amb Eindhoven perquè tenia fàbriques a la ciutat, i senzillament no pots  agafar fàbriques i traslladar-les a un altre lloc. Ara tens clubs, com el Manchester City, que són un reflex perfecte del neoliberalisme global. Un règim estranger decideix invertir en un club no perquè tingui una connexió amb una comunitat local, sinó perquè aquest club és una marca global i et dona accés a una audiència global. La connexió entre capitalisme i futbol sempre hi ha estat, però el capitalisme ha canviat, i el futbol està canviant amb ell.

La majoria dels aficionats al futbol no volen seure en un estadi asèptic i vigilat. Volen seure en un lloc que encara tingui atmosfera i autenticitat sense el racisme i el sexisme. I això és possible.

Sent nostàlgic, he de recordar que els vells temps no sempre van ser tan purs. Abans dels fons d’inversió, hi havia l’oligarca rus Roman Abramóvitx que va comprar el Chelsea. En contextos més petits, hi havia el venedor de cotxes de segona mà que dirigia el club local. L’escala era més petita i més local, però aquell tipus també era dubtós i feia servir el futbol per elevar la seva pròpia imatge.

El que em preocupa des del punt de vista de la societat civil és que, tot i que sempre hi va haver explotació i jerarquia, també hi havia una connexió amb la comunitat. Philips depenia d’Eindhoven. Els capitalistes d’avui no tenen aquesta connexió, i la comunitat local gairebé ja no té veu. Els grans clubs ja no depenen de la venda d’entrades com a part important dels seus ingressos. Ara els diners provenen dels drets de retransmissió i dels patrocinadors.

Els aficionats són a temps de salvar el joc en el qual s’ha convertit?

Els aficionats són una mica com els addictes: tenen el poder de destruir el sistema demà mateix si deixen d’alimentar la maquinària. Ningú no invertirà diners en el futbol si ningú no el mira. Però, si ho fan, també hi surten perdent. Per això tenen poques opcions per plantar cara. Poden resistir la mercantilització des de dins del sistema. A Alemanya, per exemple, van aconseguir frenar la implantació dels partits dels dilluns al vespre. O bé poden abandonar el sistema del tot i crear clubs alternatius propietat dels aficionats, però aquests clubs no poden competir al màxim nivell.

No soc particularment optimista perquè veig que el futbol modern es destrueix a si mateix de la mateixa manera que ho fa el capitalisme. S’expandeix a nivells insostenibles, com un esquema piramidal en què el valor es va aprimant cada cop més. Les firmes de capital privat i els règims estan injectant diners al sistema perquè esperen alguna cosa a canvi, ja sigui benefici o victòries diplomàtiques. Però poden retirar-se tan ràpidament com hi van entrar si s’adonen que ja no els queda res a guanyar. I quan la bombolla esclata, no tornem al punt on érem abans, perquè les lleialtats han desaparegut. La generació d’anglesos que ha quedat exclosa dels estadis de la Premier League pels preus no tornarà així com així.

Molts clubs de futbol es troben entre les institucions més antigues que existeixen. Han existit durant més d’un segle, i han donat sentit al fet de ser d’algun lloc. Quan una antiga ciutat minera perd un equip de futbol, és una pèrdua important per a la comunitat.

Malgrat tot, el futbol encara és capaç de crear comunitat i connexió. Hi ha res que els partits polítics o les organitzacions de la societat civil en puguin aprendre?

El tipus de relació que tens amb un club que segueixes és profundament irracional. No pots recrear aquesta relació artificialment.

Una cosa que se’n pot aprendre és la importància de l’arrelament. Si la gent continua donant suport a un club fins i tot quan perd o baixa de categoria, és perquè s’hi sent connectada. Molts clubs locals funcionen gràcies a voluntaris i persones que no en treuen diners. La professionalització creixent i la manca d’arrelament són cada vegada més febleses comuns dels moviments progressistes, i veig que una cosa semblant passarà en el futbol modern.

Si no et reconeixen com a part de la comunitat, la gent sent que has perdut el contacte. La majoria d’ONG avui dia no tenen voluntaris; tenen professionals. I per als professionals, la institució importa més que la causa. Si el que t’importa principalment és una causa, trobes maneres de fer la feina fins i tot quan s’acaben els diners. Però si el que t’importa principalment és la institució, passaràs a una altra cosa i trobaràs una altra feina. Les grans ONG s’han convertit en negocis amb llocs de treball molt ben pagats ocupats per persones que passen d’una organització a una altra. El mateix està passant al futbol.

Pel costat positiu, el futbol no s’ha tornat també més inclusiu?

Absolutament. Als anys vuitanta i noranta, les dones o les persones queer no se sentirien segures en un estadi de la Premier League, i ara sí. En certa manera, la gentrificació ha fet el futbol més accessible per a alguns grups. És clar que ha exclòs una part de la classe treballadora blanca, però una part de la classe treballadora blanca abans excloïa altres grups. Hi he pensat molt, perquè com qualsevol nostàlgic, hi havia una part que no veia. Com a home blanc heterosexual, formo part del grup que abans posseïa l’estadi, i per això mai no vaig experimentar l’exclusió.

Però la securitització i l’expulsió de la gent pels preus no són les úniques opcions per combatre la discriminació, i els aficionats més rics no són necessàriament menys racistes. Molt del sexisme, l’homofòbia i el racisme que veus als estadis és performatiu. Per tant, el camí a seguir és redefinir el paper de l’aficionat. Alemanya mostra que es poden tenir estadis assequibles que també siguin més inclusius. Funciona millor quan són els mateixos aficionats els qui es controlen i es moderen mútuament. El Borussia Dortmund, per exemple, tenia un problema important amb neonazis als anys vuitanta i, en gran mesura, va aconseguir expulsar-los.

La majoria dels aficionats al futbol no volen seure en un estadi asèptic i vigilat. Volen seure en un lloc que encara tingui atmosfera i autenticitat sense el racisme i el sexisme. I això és possible.

La popularitat del futbol femení està explotant. Pot ser una alternativa més saludable a les dinàmiques que has estat descrivint?

Sovint recorrem a les dones per resoldre els problemes que han creat els homes. Diem que els homes són així, de manera que necessitem més dones, perquè les dones són diferents. Però les dones no són necessàriament millors que els homes. Si l’estructura t’empeny en una determinada direcció, no importa qui siguis. En l’estructura actual, que el futbol femení continuï sent “pur” també voldria dir que les dones continuïn cobrant molt menys que els homes en nom d’algun ideal, i no crec que això sigui just.

En qualsevol cas, sembla que el futbol femení s’està transformant ràpidament al futbol modern i avança en la mateixa direcció que el futbol masculí —potencialment fins i tot més de pressa. La propietat de varis clubs ja és una realitat. Als EUA, un club de Columbus, Ohio, ha pagat recentment 200 milions de dòlars a la National Women’s Soccer League per incorporar-se a la lliga el 2028. Això són molts més diners del que s’està gastant en les jugadores.

Tot i així, molts clubs de futbol femení són més actius políticament que els clubs masculins, perquè les jugadores són més explícites. Ser futbolista dona encara es veu com una transgressió, de manera que tendeixes a estar més compromesa políticament. Però quant menys transgressor i més mercantilitzat es torni el futbol femení, menys polític serà. De moment, continua sent una via d’escapament per a molts aficionats perquè és més assequible i més divertit —sens dubte per als grups minoritaris, i particularment per a les persones queer.

On se situa el futbol femení pel que fa a la seva dimensió comunitària i de societat civil?

Gairebé tots els clubs femenins han estat fundats per clubs masculins, de manera que molt pocs són realment l’expressió d’una comunitat. Hi ha excepcions, com el Turbine Potsdam a Alemanya, que és un dels equips femenins amb més èxit del país. Però ara han estat  superats per clubs com el Bayern de Munic i el Wolfsburg, perquè no pots competir amb els gegants.

Tanmateix, la majoria dels aficionats al futbol femení tenen un propòsit polític, i en aquest sentit són l’expressió d’una comunitat. Molts aficionats subratllen que hi són per donar suport a l’esport femení, no a un club concret. Ningú no va a un partit de futbol masculí per donar suport al moviment. Per tant, hi ha un element de comunitat.

Translated by Sandra Cruz

Sometimes a big story can be told with a very small object.

Take the hazards of plastic pollution in the ocean, and a single bottle cap floating in the Pacific Ocean near Japan.

Captured in a net by scientists aboard a Japanese research vessel in 2023, this plastic cap had been transformed into a tiny ecosystem of hundreds of creatures. Through careful detective work, scientists unraveled a journey that brought the cap, and its stowaways from tropical waters far to the south.

The discovery, detailed in a new paper in Marine Pollution Bulletin, underscores the ways in which life is adapting to an increasingly plastic-filled ocean, and the potential for buoyant, virtually indestructible bits of trash to serve as rafts for invasive species.

“We found organisms that normally live in southern tropical waters,” said Naoto Jimi, the lead author and a scientist at Nagoya University. “Geographic range extensions of some species may be occurring under the radar.”

The potential for ocean-borne plastic to act as a raft for enterprising species has been a concern for some time. Famously, Japanese flotsam from a 2011 tsunami washed ashore in North America bearing nearly 300 coastal species. Scientists have surmised that tiny floating islands of plastic in the middle of the ocean are creating novel ecosystems of their own.

In the case of the bottle cap, that ecosystem was just 35 millimeters in diameter. Despite its small size, when scientists inspected the cap they discovered a little world inhabited by 307 individual organisms representing 9 different taxa. Perhaps most impressive was a Eunice bipapillata, a type of polychaete. This particular species of bottom-dwelling worm resembles a millipede with a slender, flat ribbon of a body lined by dozens of short legs.

 

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The worm had built a protective mucus shell, which in turn offered a landscape to be colonized by a marine menagerie, what the scientists described as “a miniature reef.” The residents’ identities provided some clue about the cap’s distant origins. The worm normally is found in the tropical western Pacific.

A closer analysis of some of the organisms offered a more detailed account of their travels. The shells of foraminifera, tiny organisms commonly known as forams, provide a temperature record of the surrounding ocean water in which different parts of the shell are made, much like tree rings vary from year to year depending on rainfall. Scientists can measure ratios of two isotopes of oxygen in the parts of the shell to determine water temperature.

Two of the foram shells revealed a movement from warmer to cooler waters, with a peak of nearly 30°C down to around 22°C – roughly the water temperature where the cap was caught.

The scientists traced the movement with still more detail by using a computer model of regional ocean currents. Simulations of a tiny object dropped in the ocean arriving at the spot where it was caught revealed a likely origin in the Philippines, a journey of some 70 days and more than 1,500 kilometers. That route was a match for marks on the cap, tracing to a Philippine beverage brand.

The findings illustrate that “the marine plastic problem should therefore be considered not only from the perspectives of aesthetic damage, ingestion, and entanglement, but also from those of biogeography and invasive species risk,” said Jimi.

With an estimated 30 million metric tons of plastic already floating in the ocean, and more arriving every day, that’s a lot of bottle caps waiting to be turned into mini-reefs.

Jimi, et. al. “Multi-proxy reconstruction of bottle-cap rafting using biofouling communities, stable isotopes and drift modeling.” Marine Pollution Bulletin. July 7, 2026.

Photo: Inside a 3.5 cm plastic bottle cap: A miniature ecosystem of 307 organisms drifted from the Philippines to waters south of Japan.© Sugashima Marine Biological Laboratory, Nagoya University

Headline News:

• “Environmentalists Decry Trump Administration’s Changing Of ‘Harm’ In Endangered Species Act” • The Departments of Interior and Commerce made a change to the language of the Endangered Species Act that environmental groups believe could open protected habitats to development. The definition of the word “harm” is to be rescinded from the Act. [ABC News]

Whooping cranes (US FWS, public domain)

• “Fastest Renewable Energy Growth Ever” • Renewable Energy Statistics 2026 released by the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that renewable electricity generation grew by 9.8% in 2024. This is significantly higher than the growth recorded in 2023. Overall, renewables accounted for 31.7% of the electricity generation globally in 2024. [CleanTechnica]
• “Solar PV Offers Finland Big Untapped Potential” • Despite its high-latitude, Finland is poised to build nearly 70 GW of solar PV that complements rich wind resources and outcompetes new nuclear power. A stream of energy system research reveals how the “midnight sun” and deep sector coupling gives solar PV an important edge. [pv magazine Global]
• “Cuba Plunged Into Third Nationwide Blackout In Two Weeks As Power Grid Collapses” • Cuba has suffered another blackout of the National Electric System, or SEN, leaving the entire island country without power, officials said, in what was the third such incident in less than two weeks as a US oil embargo stresses the island’s grid. [Euronews]
• “Oil Prices Are Spiking Again. Here’s What It Means For Gas Prices” • Oil prices soared in recent days as fighting in the Middle East escalated, threatening to end a weeks-long stretch of relief for drivers at the pump. Brent crude futures, a benchmark index for worldwide trading, rose to $84.50 a barrel, marking a roughly 12% increase in three days. [ABC News]
• “‘Gigascale’ 5.2-GW, 19-GWh Solar + Storage Project Moves Forward” • Masdar reached financial close on what it calls the “world’s first gigascale round-the-clock renewable energy project.” This project will have a 5.2-GW solar plant, firmed by 19 GWh of battery storage. It will provide 1 GW of clean power continuously, 24 hours a day. [CleanTechnica]

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

On Saturday, June 20, over 3,000 people from across Europe and around the world gathered in Central Hall Westminster in London, UK for the International...

The post Lessons from the London International Conference Against War first appeared on Spring.

Issue 94, Green Energy Times’ July –October 2026 Edition, has gone to press and will soon be available at the usual locations.

It can be downloaded as a pdf file HERE.

Individual articles will soon be available. 

"The effects on farmers, livestock and crops have been catastrophic. The AGRIFISH Council, which is due to meet on 13 July 2026, must include measures to tackle this situation."

The post ECVC: The AGRIFISH Council Must Take Action to Tackle the Intense Heatwave Situation appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

In 2024, the Santa Barbara Council of Governments won a grant from Caltrans to use artificial intelligence to design a countywide bike map in collaboration with UC Santa Barbara and Simon Fraser University. The grant promised to teach AI to map bicycle infrastructure and develop a universal, regional wayfinding plan and would “revolutionize bicycle infrastructure mapping” according to a statement.

Now that revolution will be put to the test.

This week, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) launched the map in English and Spanish and is seeking feedback from bicyclists to test the map’s accuracy.

“The map is only as good as the information behind it,” SBCAG Transportation Planner Peter Williamson said in announcing the project. “The people who know our streets and neighborhoods best are the people who live, work and ride here.”

The interactive map uses artificial intelligence trained on Google Street View imagery and OpenStreetMap data to estimate how comfortable people will feel bicycling on roads throughout Santa Barbara County. Riders are being asked to review the map and report missing bike lanes, incorrect route information, inaccurate comfort ratings, and other errors before the public comment period ends on August 14.

Unlike traditional bicycle maps that simply show where bike facilities exist, the AI model attempts to classify streets based on rider comfort by analyzing roadway characteristics including bike infrastructure, traffic volumes, speed limits, lane widths, and other features visible in street imagery and mapping data.

For transportation planners, that could make the tool useful for identifying where riders are likely to feel comfortable—or where they are likely to avoid riding altogether. But only if the model matches reality.

As transportation agencies increasingly experiment with artificial intelligence, Santa Barbara’s project may become an early test of where AI can genuinely improve bicycle planning—and where it still needs human judgment.

The SBCAG project is expected to wrap-up, including publishing its final maps, in summer 2027.

Drivers who don’t move their parked cars for street cleaning are getting in the way of New York City’s viral new hobby: picking up trash. 

Even a state Assembly Member is following the trend, and complaining about scofflaws who refuse to move their cars when the Department of Sanitation drives street sweepers down their block. 

“The amount of garbage under this car lets me know that this car does not move,” said Assembly Member Chantel Jackson (D-East Tremont) in an Instagram video documenting her neighborhood cleanup on June 27. Jackson’s camera panned to a black sedan with trash caked around each wheel. 

View this post on Instagram

“They have not been able to clean this street, so let’s get this done,” Jackson narrated before using her trash picker and broom to try to clean the accumulated litter. “I don’t see any tickets on it, so I’m really not sure what the situation is with this car, if it’s abandoned or if the ticket agent is just skipping this one. I tried to clean it as much as I could but it’s really better if the cars move to get this done.”

Facts on the ground

Ninety-seven percent of New York City’s street parking is completely free. All the city asks of drivers is that they move their cars a few times a week for approximately 90 minutes so that DSNY’s street sweepers can vacuum up debris.

This arrangement has firmly lodged itself in city folklore. New Yorkers romanticize the “street-cleaning shuffle,” in which motorists wait in double-parked cars until sweepers come through and then quickly reclaim their parking spot. Documentary filmmaker Jon Wilson devoted an entire episode of his popular HBO series “How To” to the practice. 

In reality, free street parking encourages drivers to use the public curb as long-term car storage. The city’s meager fine for failing to move for the street sweepers — just $65 — is far less than the cost of a dedicated garage. Drivers leave their cars on the street and gladly pay the fines because parking in a garage is oftentimes far more expensive. This allows trash to accumulate underneath cars, adding to the buildup of filth in the city.

“I think there’s some deep problems in the system, and I do think that tickets would have to [increase] if the city actually wants the behavior to be changed,” said David Clarke, who grew his Instagram account @TrashTalkNYC to 45,000 followers in just 48 days by posting a daily video cleaning up city streets with little more than a picker and a broom.

View this post on Instagram

Based on his experience cleaning streets across the city, Clarke said the city’s official street cleaning system doesn’t work at all. On his block on 171st Street, he has never once seen the street sweeper make it down without any cars in the way. 

“On my street, the street sweeper only makes it to the curb once every ten times,” he told Streetsblog. “I have strong feelings about it, because to me, at that point, you might as well just have someone with a broom come through. Like, why are we paying for a system that we can’t use?”

Clarke recently began using a car to transport gear for his volunteer meetups. Looking for parking in a safe lot revealed the financial pressures at play.

“The tickets have to be proportional to the cost of parking in the area,” Clarke said of current alternate-side parking penalties. A local garage asked him to pay $400 per month to park his new ride. From his close observations of his block, he estimates he would get a $65 ticket around twice a month if he left it on the street for free — far less than the monthly garage rent.

“The city is just occasionally enforcing tickets, but not really solving the problem,” he said. 

Put a sticker on it

Both DSNY and the NYPD can ticket cars for staying put during street cleaning. NYPD issues around 1.5 million tickets per year, while DSNY issues around 500,000 per year, according to DSNY.

Some lawmakers want the city to adopt a more confrontational approach when discouraging drivers from blocking street sweepers. The city council recently passed a bill, sponsored by Council Member Gale Brewer (D-Upper West Side), that reinstates the practice of applying hard-to-remove stickers on the windows of law-breakers’ precious vehicles. 

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In May, the City Council passed a resolution that called on Albany to allow the city to install automated enforcement cameras on street sweeper vehicles. Under the relevant legislation, S1891A, those cameras would catch the license plates of cars blocking the way and issue a ticket automatically. The pending bill, sponsored by state Senator Robert Jackson (D-Upper Manhattan) and heralded by DSNY, cleared the State Senate in early June but didn’t get a vote in the State Assembly before the year’s legislative session ended.

In the absence of effective enforcement, DSNY has resorted to public shaming. Beyond the resurrected stickers, the department publishes a “Hall of Shame” of “Sidewalk Slobs” — the agency’s term for property owners and businesses who neglect to keep the sidewalk outside their buildings clean, as required by law.

After all, the department told Streetsblog the city doesn’t give out enough tickets to deter the practice. Under two million parkers are ticketed per year for not moving their cars, but you probably don’t remember the last time you walked down an entirely compliant block.

“Nearly 500,000 car owners disregard street cleaning regulations every week, keeping us from cleaning more than 3,000 miles of streets,” DSNY Commissioner Gregory Anderson said in a statement. “Our goal here is not to issue more summonses, but to send a message that if you decide that your convenience is more important than clean neighborhoods, then yes, you will receive a summons. And if Albany lets us send that message loudly and clearly to all neighborhoods, people will finally start to move their cars. We don’t want to issue summonses — we just want to clean the streets.”

Fill a government vacuum

DSNY has a complicated relationship with do-gooders like Clarke and Assembly Member Jackson, in part due to burdensome bureaucratic process that requires official city approval for volunteer clean-ups.

To officially organize a street clean-up in NYC, volunteers must plan it at least two weeks in advance. The department only approves clean-ups on streets and sidewalks, not in other public places like parks or beaches. The organized clean-ups are intended for the department to share supplies, but New York’s Strongest won’t stop people like Clarke from venturing out on their own, the agency said.

However, trash pickers still risk fines if they leave bagged trash in the wrong spot. DSNY recently established a rule that forbids any entity that cleans the streets — including business improvement districts and neighborhood associations, but also random groups of volunteers — from placing “any amount of refuse or recycling next to or against any public litter basket.”

“They make it very difficult for grassroots efforts,” said Samantha MacBride, who worked at DSNY for nearly 20 years in sustainable waste management and now teaches at Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. “The type of spontaneous community groups, like this sort of newest generation, that doesn’t work for [DSNY], because it’s very bureaucratic.” 

MacBride works in an academic field known as Discard Studies, which examines and critiques popular assumptions about waste, including those related to volunteers who pick up litter.

“Even though I critique individualizing environmental problems in the area of recycling, with litter it’s different, because it is very close to actual individual behavior and individual daily life and individual outcomes,” she said, adding that social media accounts like Clarke’s “really show the ingenuity and how much further ahead socially and technologically these groups are than large city agencies.” 

But for all the positives, MacBride cautioned against an outcome where people are picking up the government’s slack. 

“When any type of voluntary effort starts to substitute for basic provision of services,” she said, “there is reason to be concerned.”

Correction: An earlier this story incorrectly stated that Clarke had used his GoFundMe money to purchase a car. He already owned the car.

The federal government would be required to set aside a portion of future transportation funding for high-speed rail under a new Congressional bill aimed at countering a Republican-led bid to just keep building highways.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) has re-introduced the American High-Speed Rail Act, which authorizes $205 billion over five years to boost high-speed rail and, most important, would make funding for high-speed rail development automatic rather than subject to normal annual appropriations.

“America deserves the same world-class high-speed rail system that other countries have had now for decades,” said Moulton. “This isn’t just about improving convenience, it’s about creating smart, business-driven investment that will create millions of good-paying jobs, connect communities big and small, fight climate change, and ensure America leads the way in the infrastructure of the future.”

The bill puts an emphasis on transit-oriented development, expanding incentives to ensure that new rail hubs catalyze affordable housing and commercial growth in surrounding areas. It also has provisions that would encourage private investment through grants and loan eligibility and increase funding flexibility for the timing and sources of the non-federal costs.

“This legislation marks a transformative step toward creating a more connected, sustainable, and prosperous future for all Americans,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), a co-sponsor. “By investing in a national high-speed rail network, we are not only alleviating strain on our highways and airports and creating safer communities, but we are also strengthening productivity and lowering carbon emissions.”

The bill would be a necessary counterweight to the BUILD America 250 Act currently making its way through negotiations.

As Streetsblog USA has reported, the House’s proposed infrastructure legislation would be uniquely bad for passenger rail. Unlike Moulton’s proposal, it does not fund any specific funding beyond what’s secured by the Highway Trust Fund.. The proposed bill also contrasts the robust Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, expiring on Sept. 30, that secured record amounts of funding for rail projects.

Crucially, roughly $475 billion of the $580 billion that the BUILD American 250 bill would allocate over its five years is automatically set aside for highway funding without requiring annual appropriations. Meanwhile, the remaining $106 billion for transit will be subject to the give-and-take of the annual appropriation process, which, as NACTO put it in a statement, “makes it more challenging for local agencies to plan and build transit projects, as funding is not guaranteed.” 

Never a better time

The guaranteed high-speed rail funding would come as crucial high-speed rail projects — such as the California High-speed rail project between San Francisco and Los Angeles and another between Chicago and St. Louis —  are struggling to get off the ground.

The latter proposal, in particular, could use the funding guarantee after commissioners of the Illinois High Speed Rail Commission objected to the most recent cost and ridership projections.

The Commission has focused on the route that has the highest projected ridership of the options and is uniquely well-positioned for development because it’s wholly contained in Illinois. The line is projected to see over 2.8 million riders annually, almost five times the current annual ridership. The journey would be two and a half hours, a dramatic improvement from the four-and-a-half-hour car ride and the five-hour Amtrak offering.

Questionably, the projections did not account for any future transit-oriented development, underestimating the broader effects of the project. Their projections also don’t consider positive effects on the greater Midwest region. 

The High Speed Rail Alliance’s vision for a network in the Midwest hinges on Chicago as a core driver of intercity ridership in the network, with lines branching out to other midwestern hubs like Minneapolis-St. Paul, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati. 

Also overlooked in the projections is induced demand — the principle that increasing the supply or quality of something makes consumers want more. It’s often applied to “one more lane” highway expansion that leads to something like the 26-lane Katy Freeway in Houston.

The same logic applies to high-speed rail. Building it will make taking the train more attractive — it will then be faster, cheaper, and more convenient — leading to higher ridership.

For example, the Amtrak Borealis line between St. Paul and Chicago debuted in May 2024 and it beat projected ridership by nearly 60 percent even though it is just regular passenger rail service,. 

The line’s success shows that demand for safe, reliable transportation options for Americans is there and is often underestimated. A frequent and reliable high-speed option would only make the offering that much sweeter for passengers.

Americans are ready for a high-speed rail network.

In a survey conducted for the U.S High Speed Rail Association, 72 percent of registered voters say that they support creating a nationwide high-speed rail network.

The survey tells us that Americans are tired of lackluster rail options. 

Rail investment in the most-densely populated regions in the country is a no-brainer. High-speed rail connections in cities like Chicago and San Francisco that already have robust public transit networks would eliminate many car trips and lead some residents to abandon the costs and hassles of car ownership entirely.

For more information, visit the High Speed Rail Alliance.

We’ve been busy at Sound Transit. We’re in the midst of one of the most-ambitious transit expansions in the country. We set all-time records for daily and monthly ridership during the World Cup during our region’s moment as host to visitors from around the globe. And our board just closed a daunting gap in the agency’s long-term financial plan, setting us on a sustainable trajectory to continue building and operating a world-class transit system for decades to come. 

We’ve done all this while growing our light rail ridership beyond that of systems in L.A., Boston, and San Diego to claim the top spot nationally, and while we’ve driven down our monthly hours of unplanned service disruptions to a new low since we started tracking that metric in 2024. 

In March, we took a giant step forward in our system expansion when we opened the Crosslake Connection, a new light rail segment linking Seattle to the tech-oriented communities of Bellevue and Redmond on the east side of Lake Washington. The feat required groundbreaking engineering — it is, after all, the world’s first passenger rail on a floating bridge. And the support Sound Transit received on the day we cut the ribbon is something none of us at the agency will ever forget.

Getting to that moment, however, required overcoming major challenges. There were pockets of community opposition. There were lawsuits. There were thorny engineering problems to solve. The opening was ultimately delayed by almost three years. 

At a high level, what got us to that ribbon-cutting was an abiding commitment from all who worked on the project to see it through to completion. Beyond that, there are several discrete lessons we took away from the Crosslake opening that I believe can be applied to just about any ambitious public works project. Following are three of them:

Lesson 1: Know and uphold your values

Part of how we overcame project obstacles was by adhering to a clear set of values that guided our decision-making process. These longstanding agency values of safety, integrity, collaboration, and quality were not abstract principles, but pillars in the practical framework that allowed us to navigate each challenge we encountered.

In our planning of the Crosslake segment, some residents in a nearby jurisdiction were unhappy with a change in highway lane configuration due to the addition of light rail onto the bridge. In response to a lawsuit they brought — one that would have delayed permits — we eventually reached an agreement to carry out some mitigation measures.

When we made it to the Crosslake opening years later, city leaders from this community praised the new segment, even calling rail on the bridge “one of the most beautiful public train routes anywhere.”

Light rail on the I-90 floating bridge.

What started as a contentious legal battle eventually evolved into a productive relationship. Over time, we built trust with this community by adhering to our values — by being transparent and collaborative in response to both local and regional needs.

Lesson 2: Iterate, refine and test

Being the first to do something comes with difficulties and risks. Our capital delivery team and partners faced a tall order when asked to run rail across a floating bridge. There was of course no blueprint from elsewhere to reference, so it required ingenuity, resolve, and a willingness to challenge our own thinking.

To ensure we developed a piece of rail infrastructure that could move in six directions and accommodate changing water levels, wind and waves, and vehicle traffic volumes, we designed a novel track bridge inspired by systems used to retrofit large buildings for earthquakes. We then put our design to the test using full-scale models at the Transportation Technology Center in Colorado, with about 10,000 sensors placed on the trains and tracks to collect data. See this video for an in-depth technical look at the bridge project.

Once we entered the construction phase, we again had to lean on our values of safety, accountability and adaptability in navigating fabrication challenges so we could deliver not only a system that worked, but one that will function reliably and safely for generations to come. 

Lesson 3: Connect the big picture to the details

When I started as CEO, one of my first requests of staff was to hand me a delivery schedule for the Crosslake project. The project team and I then reviewed it step by step, line by line, to identify any place where we could compress the schedule without compromising safety or system resilience. In doing this, we were able to draw clearer lines between how specific steps were being carried out and related impacts to the overall schedule. 

The exercise bore fruit, as it enabled us to move up the previously assumed opening date by several months. This demonstrated how an organization’s leader is often uniquely positioned to coordinate efforts in service of a primary objective, encourage those working seemingly intractable issues to stop “suffering in silence,” accept an appropriate level of risk, and seek collaborative solutions to the toughest questions. 

After opening the Crosslake segment, our agency and region were immediately rewarded. New riders begin using the newly-expanded system to commute to and from work, attend events, or simply enjoy a trip to one of the many destinations now accessible via a $3 train trip.

• How would the BUILD America 250 Act affect your state and congressional district? In terms of raw dollars, New York and California have the most to lose from House Republicans’ five-year transportation funding bill. However, rural red states would also lose a substantial portion of their transit funding. (Urban Institute)
• Two-thirds of Americans say they would pay more to live in a walkable neighborhood, but fewer support the types of development that make walkable neighborhoods possible. (Realtor.com)
• Salvage yards are having a hard time selling used EV batteries to recyclers because it’s often cheaper to mine more minerals straight from the ground. (NPR)
• Lloyd Alter, age 73, argues that states should be testing drivers in their 70s, but most are going in the opposite direction. (Carbon Upfront!)
• Climate change is going to make highway construction even more expensive. For example, it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, to protect just one short stretch of Northern California highway from increased flooding. (Grist)
• Drivers kill eight people a day in Florida at least partly because, unlike European countries with far lower traffic death rates, the state is not serious about punishing speeders. (Florida Politics)
• Denver built, widened or repaired 41 miles of sidewalk last year, which only leaves another 1,400 miles to go. (Denver 7)
• Only a quarter of Kansas City streetcar riders were attending a FIFA fan festival, which suggests a recent extension had as much to do with record June ridership as the World Cup. (Star)
• Columbus, Ohio has finished installing the city’s longest protected bike lane, two-and-a-half miles on North 4th Street. (WOSU)
• Omaha is redesigning Ames Avenue as part of its Vision Zero plan. (3 News Now)
• Watch Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo name-drop his way out of a traffic ticket. (MeidasTouch/X)
• Portland cyclists are looking to break the world record for largest e-bike ride. (Momentum Mag)

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In their second fatal shooting of the wrong person in just days - and as his three-year-old daughter watched - ICE thugs murdered a young Colombian husband and father legally working in Biddeford, ME for simply trying to driving away. After state Dems blasted the killing and advocates insisted "this has gone too far," ICE waited 12 hours to say they fired "fearing for public safety" while "every law enforcement officer in America was scratching their head trying to figure out what that means."

Talk about following the money. Having somehow railroaded through last year's big obscene bill gifting over $170 billion to immigration and border enforcement - and last month inexplicably adding another $75 billion, seven times ICE’s annual budget (thanks Susan), with virtually no public accounting of how they spend it - the regime is now scurrying to spend their blood money by setting random, armed-to-the-teeth, 2,000-arrests-a-day benchmarks of what have become mere numbers of bodies in an ethnic cleansing of immigrants, brown and black people, or anyone standing near them. What could possibly go wrong?

For starters, a record-breaking mortality rate of 11 people fatally shot, over 20 other deaths in custody, over 70,000 mostly harmless people in concentration-camp-like detention, and a "systemic failure" of accountability. A new report by Physicians for Human Rights and Berkeley's Human Rights Center just added more: At least 412 incidents of "misuse" of brutal crowd-control tactics - teargas, pepper spray, "less-lethal kinetic impact projectiles" from rubber bullets to stun grenades - resulting in over 200 "lasting and traumatic injuries" including blindings, brain trauma, fractures often to journalists, elderly people, children.

As Maine goes, so goes the nation. Monday's murder of 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero came after ICE's relatively brief, grotesquely named Operation Catch of the Day last year that saw the arrest of over 500 people, most with no criminal records. Originally from Bucaramanga, Colombia, Guerrero was legally authorized to be here, worked two jobs, had a Social Security card and was going to a delivery job. After some initial confusion/lies, the regime said he was not the intended target of the endlessly inept, homicidal ICE goons; nor were any wearing body cameras that Congress had appropriated $20 million for.

The same lethal incompetence marked last week's murder in Houston TX of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three who'd spent 35 years building homes and raising his U.S. citizen kids, all of whom he helped get through college. He was shot and killed by ICE agents who said he "weaponized" his vehicle; it took about 5 minutes for Araujo's three passengers, who'd witnessed it all and were quickly detained for it, to refute the claim. So did video footage of the deadly encounter. Again, the goons had the wrong guy - and outdated address info - and none were wearing body cameras Congress generously allocated for them.

On Pool Street in Biddeford, a small southern mill city of about 22,000 with a long immigrant history, marauding ICE agents in an SUV rammed the small white Kia Guerrero was driving to work shortly after 7 a.m. Video shows Guerrero, evidently fearful after armed men rammed him, turning his car around and trying to drive away. ICE agents fired what witnesses said were up to seven shots, and at least four smashed through his windshield - though law enforcement guidelines clearly prohibit firing at a moving vehicle unless there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, and call for police to (duh) just move away.

A neighbor said he heard a “pop, pop, pop,” looked out his window and saw the car still slowly moving until the SUV hit it again. After the Kia came to a stop, witnesses said Guerrero, bleeding from his head, was pulled from his car; several heard him say, "I tried to stop." Gruesome video shows ICE thugs handcuffing him on the ground, where his soon-lifeless body lay for five hours. Horrified witnesses said goons "yelled" at his young daughter, still in Bluey pajamas, trying to smell some nearby flowers. "I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body," said one. "I watched a little girl with a pink backpack crying because she’s never going to see her father again.”

One upset neighbor said an ICE agent claimed, "He tried to run me over." But here, as elsewhere, ICE has "lost the benefit of the doubt," and the city erupted in grief and rage. By mid-day, hundreds of pissed Mainers had marched, chanting "Whose Streets, Our Streets," to rally in Mechanics Park with signs: "Crush ICE," "Due Process For All," "Immigrants Make Biddeford Great," "Extrajudicial Killings Are A War Crime, and "Is This the America We Want?" Sadie Dilboy said Guerrero often came to her laundromat, giving his daughter quarters to buy vending-machine candy: "He was such a good person. He was always cleaning up.” A worker at Applebee’s, where Guerrero often picked up orders, would always ask if we needed anything: "He was always a good smile to see,” thus clearly "one of those dangerous criminal aliens who have turned America into a living hell."

Later, a crowd of protesters swarmed the local office of Susan Collins with fierce chants of "Vote her out!." One prominent sign, speaking for us all, proclaimed, "Get the Fuck Out." Collins, forever on the wrong and bloody side of history and drunken rapists, was the deciding vote last month to approve the extra, mind-boggling $75 billion in ICE funding, though most Mainers want to see it abolished. Last year, after the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, she voted against both language seeking to curtail further violence and funding for mandatory body cameras, which most thugs are clearly not wearing anyway.

In the wake of yet another senseless murder on America's streets in broad daylight, a presumably very concerned Collins urged "a full and impartial investigation." She did not condemn ICE’s actions, nor did she voice sympathy for the man whose life was just snuffed out. Her staff later cited her vote for a few measures - optional body cameras, more oversight of concentration camps, a paltry $2 million for "de-escalation training" - for better ICE "accountability." As local police blocked her office door, they also noted ICE's "work goes far beyond immigration enforcement to help protect our country" - from brown-skinned delivery drivers, taco makers, contractors, landscapers, nurses, abuelas and kids with cancer. So fuck Susan Collins.

GOP gubernatorial nominee Bobby Charles cravenly echoed her: "Maine deserves the truth about what happened." He also urged there be ”no getting ahead of the facts - let facts, not politics, drive our conclusions," adding, "Federal agents put their lives on the line every day...If an agent's life was threatened, he had every right under the law to protect himself" - presumably from brown delivery drivers, contractors, sick kids et al. So fuck him too. He wants facts? Being here legally and driving to work should not cause death by rogue morons looking for someone else. Guerrero lay in the street for five hours. His government didn't bother to name him for almost a day, but his neighbors did. We hope his daughter gets the therapy she'll need.

The largest, darkest question: "How many more people 'not the target' will die before someone in Washington decides the answer to a wrong-vehicle stop cannot be seven rounds through a windshield?" Tuesday, ICE told their goons to suspend most vehicle stops around the country; they declined to disclose "law enforcement tactics" but said they're "always evaluating our procedures to (keep) criminals off our streets," in which case they should probably remove all their own sociopaths. But they likely won't. The outrage was nationwide - "ICE murdered a 26-year-old in front of his wife & daughter. It’s just pure evil" - and global. Colombian President Gustavo Petro: "He was killed because he was believed to be an inferior being with no rights."

Hopefully, his death will impact the electoral chances of Susan Collins, who funded it. Happily, Maine Dems were unshy about voicing their rage at her abetting ICE violence that’s gone on too long. Gov. Janet Mills: “This has to end.” Senate candidate Dr. Nirav Shah, who urged support for immigrants through the Maine Solidarity Fund, blasted Collins for approving billions more for ICE to "terrorize our communities...She gave them a blank check to kill. Maybe sit this one out.” In an angry video, Rep. Chellie Pingree asked ICE, "Why are you in Maine?" given "every report we hear is somebody picked up who's legally here. It's time to get ICE off our streets."

Troy Jackson, a top Senate contender to replace Graham Platner and the only one polls show beating Collins (though several come close) attended a Portland protest Monday, charging "our immigrant communities are under attack" by a rogue ICE that must be abolished. Advocates also argued, "Our communities are hurting." Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition head Mufalo Chita: "We are furious, and we will not allow this death to be treated as routine or inevitable." Crystal Cron of Presente!, on another family "shattered by state violence": “To say we are heartbroken does not convey the depth of the exhaustion, terror, or grief we are feeling."

Maine authorities have struggled to get information from the feds, unsurprising given they just, finally turned over to Minnesota investigators evidence from the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. It took over 12 hours, till Monday night, for ICE to name their victim and say, in fascist gobbledygook, "an illegal alien" tried to "flee" during "a targeted surveillance" and a goon, "fearing for public safety," "discharged his weapon.” Notably, there was no claim of a driver "weaponizing" his vehicle, leaving national law enforcement "stunned" as to why anyone fired: “If you want to arrest someone, this is a good example of how to do everything wrong."

Murdering brown people in cold blood for no reason is likewise a good example of how to topple democratic governance and the rule of law. “Does the senseless murder of this man make any of our lives better in any way?" asked Kelli Brennan of the Maine State Nurses Association. Critics argue every member of Congress who voted for more money for ICE or DHS has blood on their hands; so do their supporters. During last spring's shutdown, Susan Collins, that act's deciding vote, whined it wasn't "fair" to those thugs to have a "cloud of uncertainty" over whether they'd be paid. “They are keeping us safe,” she mewled. Fuck Susan Collins and the incomparable real-world damage she's done. Vote like your life and many others depend on it, because they do. Fundraiser here.

Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero and his daughterPhoto from Facebook

Checks & Balances Project (C&BP) seeks all emails and other communications in which Sussex County Board of Supervisors Chairman Steve White used his state employee email for county business.

Multiple sources show White uses his state of Virginia email address for his county job, but the agency he works for won’t say where he works or whether he’s on a leave.

Since April, White has served as the acting county administrator for Sussex County, after he engineered the firing of former administrator Richard Douglas during a surprise move in the supervisors’ monthly meeting.

White’s service as acting county administrator is in apparent violation of Virginia law that says elected officials can’t serve in county jobs.

C&BP has filed requests with the FBI, Virginia Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Sussex County sheriff, and the Sussex County commonwealth attorney seeking an investigation into White’s conduct.

Multiple sources say White is routinely at the county administration building, known to locals as the Blue Box, for hours a day. If White is working there, how can he be at his regular job, as a Trades Manager II for the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS)?

The salary for that job, which is classified in salary band 6, ranges between $75,423 and $189,075, Virginia records show.

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

You may also want to read:

Checks & Balances Project files FBI complaint about White, SCVRS

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Checks & Balances Project seeks Sussex County’s recusal policy

 

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By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

Listen to the audio version >>

While Trump conducts his war against Greentech, many US states are forging ahead with energy expansion based on sun, wind, and water. Greentech’s slashing of the cost of renewable energy production and use has made states turn to it not only to protect the climate but to make energy affordable for their people. 

A photo of Donald Trump in the Oval Office with several of his Executive Orders, January 20, 2025. Photo credit: The White House, public domain.

The US federal system gives states a powerful position in energy policy. States regulate electric generation, local distribution of electricity, and infrastructure siting. They can set policy in myriad other areas from urban planning to public transit to housing that can help shape the utilization of climate-protecting Greentech.

Shortly after his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order entitled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach.” The order describes state clean energy policies as “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.” The order calls on the Attorney General to take action against these state laws, and she began to file lawsuits against them almost immediately. This executive order was followed by many other Trump efforts to hamstring or outlaw state climate policies, ranging from blocking California emission standards to forced reopening of shuttered coal-fired power plants.

Meanwhile, recent headlines have publicized retrenchment in state climate policies. New York state abandoned its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2030, substituting weaker and squishier targets. California also relaxed requirements for emission reductions – although the change continues to be contested in the state legislature. In both cases energy affordability was given as a reason, although advocates of both changes acknowledged that they would not bring down energy prices any time soon. Both New York and California changes were preceded by heavy fossil fuel industry lobbying.

Such retreats register the reality that Trump’s attacks are restricting the development of the Greentech New Deal. Federal defunding of climate-protecting initiatives has made them more expensive; regulatory changes and subsidies have advantaged fossil fuels; and legal attack has undermined the Greentech revolution. But these retreats should not conceal the advances the Greentech Revolution has made in US states even during the first year-and-a-half of the Trump era.

Today’s Greentech advances in the states typically combine climate protection with affordability. That’s possible because Greentech has made production and use of renewable energy so much cheaper – rendering fossil fuels non-competitive.

California–Two steps forward, one step back?

California’s electricity is increasingly coming from solar. Photo credit: Tom Brewster Photography, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Data Source: US Energy Information Administration

California, now the world’s fourth largest economy, illustrates the collision of the irresistible force of the Greentech Revolution with the immovable object of the Trumpian fossil fuel counter-revolution. In recent years it has faced devastating heatwaves, droughts, storms, wildfires, and other extreme weather conditions resulting from global warming. Not surprisingly, an overwhelming proportion of Californians worry about climate change and back policies to fight it. In 2006 California passed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, which set targets for greenhouse gas emissions and sets a declining limit on total emissions by the state’s major polluters. Over the next twenty years California substantially raised its targets and implemented many other climate protection policies. From 2001 to 2019, California reduced its carbon emissions by 25%, leaving a typical Californian emitting only half as much as other Americans.

In 2024, California’s natural gas generation fell by 8%; coal is expected to soon be eliminated entirely from its electrical supply. By the end of 2025 the state had 2.5 times more battery storage available than it did in 2022.

As soon as Trump was inaugurated president, he began a massive attack on California’s climate protection efforts. For example, he attacked the state’s first-in-the-nation ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The state sued to preserve the ban. In 2025 it extended the cap and trade program, renamed cap and invest, by 15 years. Then Governor Newsom, under heavy lobbying from California’s oil industry, announced a new plan which offers free pollution permits worth as much as $4 billion to oil refineries and other major polluters. Legislative leaders are refusing to accept the plan, however, and have refused to fund many of Newsom’s other programs until he abandons his plan. Contested negotiations are expected to continue until the legislative session ends in September. The result is hanging in the balance.

Other states go Greentech

The California climate drama should not obscure what is happening in other states.

Soon after Trump’s inauguration, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey issued an executive order that directs the state to procure 10 GW of clean energy and 5 GW of battery storage by 2035. The governor’s office projects up to $10 billion in savings for residents and businesses. Massachusetts also announced $180 million in immediate utility rate reductions. This cut residential electricity bills by up to 25 percent for two months.

Maryland’s Utility RELIEF (Reducing Energy Load Inflation for Everyday Families) Act provides $200 million from the state’s Strategic Energy Investment Fund to accelerate local clean energy development and storage and provides targeted utility bill relief. An Affordable Solar Act which would add up to 4 GW of new solar capacity by 2035, promote plug-in solar, and improve grid access, is pending in the legislature.

Upon her inauguration, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill declared a state of emergency on utility costs. An executive order directed the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to pursue rate relief by pausing new hikes and delivering residential bill credits. Another ordered rapid expansion of solar and battery storage and streamlining of the permitting process. In March, the BPU approved the expansion of the state’s community solar program, adding 3 GW of new capacity, with low-income households guaranteed a discount of at least 25 percent on their bills. According to American Progress, this expansion was the largest of a state-run program in the country’s history, and the program has already delivered more than $70 million in bill credits to households across the state. The governor also signed a measure that increases transmission-scale storage across the state, helping store low-cost clean energy and deploy it during peak demand to reduce price spikes and improve reliability.

In Pennsylvania, the PA EDGE (Pennsylvania Economic Development for a Growing Economy) creates tax credit programs for billions of dollars in energy and advanced manufacturing investment, including clean energy technologies. In June 2026 the Pennsylvania House put a cap on profits from utility company investments in infrastructure and eliminated nearly $1.7 billion in taxes that electricity companies now pass along to consumers as part of their bills.

In Virginia, a clean energy package includes streamlining solar siting, expanding storage connections to the grid, limiting carbon-emitting backup generators at data centers, and expanding virtual power plant programs that let utilities draw on distributed clean energy sources such as rooftop solar and home batteries.

The obstacles fall

One of the main objections to renewable energy has always been that it becomes unavailable when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. This objection has been largely overcome by Greentech’s radical reduction in the cost of energy storage. As a result, the most recent wave of state programs has put battery storage front and center.

Illinois’s Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act instructs the state to procure three gigawatts of new battery storage by 2030 to help stabilize electricity prices. It also includes a “storage for all” program that provides incentives for income-qualified households and businesses to install battery systems co-located with solar projects. The Illinois Power Agency expects the act to save customers $13.4 billion over two decades.

Pennsylvania is investing $22 million to help battery manufacturer Eos Energy Enterprises expand battery manufacturing operations in the Pittsburgh area. The expansion is expected to create 735 new jobs in Allegheny County. Last year the workers at Eos Energy voted to join the United Steelworkers Union. Eos also announced a plan to develop energy storage projects across Pennsylvania.

Another obstacle facing renewable energy is that the location where it is needed is not necessarily the location where it is produced. So state policies are addressing the extreme inadequacies of the electrical grid. For example, the state of Washington has established the Washington Electric Transmission Authority, a new state entity empowered to plan, site, and finance transmission infrastructure. New Mexico and Colorado have established similar authorities.

New technology doesn’t always mean greater complexity. Witness the emergence of small solar systems that hang on a balcony and plug right into a wall socket. More than a million homes in Germany now have such “balcony power plants,” but they are forbidden in the US. Last year the Utah legislature voted unanimously to let residents use plug-in collectors. 23 other state legislatures are now considering similar bills. According to the New York Times, such legislation would “eliminate one of the technology’s biggest barriers in the United States”: homeowners or renters could install plug-in systems “without approval from their local utility.”

A common complaint against large-scale solar projects is that they use up land that would otherwise be available for agriculture. However, solar projects are now actually supporting agriculture by the new techniques known as agrivoltaics. State policies are now promoting agrivoltaics. Last year, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities launched a new dual-use pilot project to organize and accelerate agrivoltaics development in the state. The three-year pilot program calls for up to 200 megawatts of solar power, with Rutgers University applying its agrivoltaics research to develop best practices and guidelines. Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia also have agrivoltaics programs under way.

Renewable energy projects can also contribute to improved land use by utilizing currently degraded spaces like landfills and contaminated industrial sites. An example is New Jersey’s Brownfields Redevelopment Incentive Program, accompanied by a Landfill to Solar online guide for local governments and solar developers, created by the Governor’s Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy. An already completed example is the Toms River project, the largest solar power plant in New Jersey and also the largest solar array on a Superfund site anywhere in the US.

Beyond the blue

Wolf Ridge Wind Farm in Muenster, Texas. Photo credit: Ben (Out with the Old, In with the New), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

The expansion of Greentech in the Trump era has by no means been limited to blue states. Some of the most extensive installations of Greentech are in red states – witness Texas. Utility-scale solar plants produced 45 terawatts from January through September, 2025, up 50% from 2024 and nearly four times what they generated in 2021. Wind power also continued to climb, producing 87 terawatts through September – a 4% increase from 2024 and 36% more than in 2021. Together, wind and solar supplied more than a third of Texas’ electricity in the first 9 months of 2025. Battery use is also growing. Three of the four largest US battery storage projects scheduled to open in 2026 are in Texas. Solar collection and battery storage are now being systematically combined: one dual project is adding 837 megawatts of solar power and 418 megawatts in battery energy storage capacity.

In Nevada, generally regarded as a “purple” state, a third of all energy demand is now met by solar panels. The state has the highest solar electricity generation per capita in the country, as well as the most solar-industry jobs per capita. The goal of producing half of its electricity from renewables by 2030 is enshrined in the state’s constitution. The Las Vegas region has the highest concentration of residential rooftop solar in the continental US. The city’s chief sustainability officer attributes this in part to the city’s easy permitting. “You’re pretty much in and out of our office with a permit in 30 minutes.”

In the absence of federal support, states are reaching out to each other to create regional alliances to implement Greentech. For example, thirteen states have formed the Geothermal Power Accelerator collaboration to rapidly expand geothermal power development. Another example: The California State Legislature passed Assembly Bill 825 to begin the process of establishing a regional electricity partnership across the West. In late June, the state of Washington joined the partnership along with California and Quebec. And, after briefly withdrawing, Virginia rejoined the 11-member northeastern Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

In some states like Texas, the Greentech boom is occurring without much attempt to reap its potential social benefits. But in many states, as we will see in a subsequent commentary in this series, the Greentech revolution is enabling a broader program for jobs and justice that embodies the principles of the Green New Deal. That in turn is laying the basis for a national Greentech New Deal to come.

Looming over recent climate politics has been the issue of energy affordability. Because Greentech has made the production and use of renewable energy so much less costly than fossil fuel energy, states have accelerated their introduction of it. But the energy cost squeeze on consumers has in some cases also led states to shortsightedly reduce investment in Greentech and unleash fossil fuels.

These dynamics are now being exacerbated by the escalation in fossil fuel prices and the threat of energy insecurity that have accompanied the Iran war. The relative expense and unreliability of fossil fuel energy is likely to accelerate Greentech in the states. States that don’t want to render their economies “stranded assets” should go all out for the Greentech revolution right now.

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The post Greentech Revolution in the States first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

On a quiet stretch of land along Stinking Creek, deep in Knox County, Kentucky, the Lend‑A‑Hand Center began with two women who devoted their lives to serving community members in need. Irma Gall, a teacher and farmer, and Peggy Kemner, a nurse‑midwife, came to Knox County in 1958 to serve the community. 

In those early days, Peggy would walk or ride miles to care for a mother in labor, and Irma would build roads, bridges and tend to the farm’s livestock and produce. They would share food at their house and provide Sunday school, 4H, and Day Camp programs for children in the area. Any need someone had, from home repair to help getting back on their feet after a hardship, they would lend a hand. 

Over time, the Lend‑A‑Hand Center grew into a place the community could depend on in times of need for healthcare, food or simply connection. Today, the clinic and the food pantry continue to be critical lifelines on Stinking Creek.  

Now co-directed by Charles and Diann Carnes, the organization primarily relies on volunteers to maintain the center and its services. Volunteers sort donations and operate a twice a month pantry that serves 300 people. 

Like many small nonprofits, it has had to learn how to stretch every dollar. Keeping the lights on, the refrigerators running, and the pantry stocked takes resources. Their utility bill is their biggest overhead, costing them around $500 per month. At the same time, they desperately needed storage. 

Charles and Kathryn of Lend-A-Hand with Josh Bills of Mountain Association and a team from Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest in June 2026

“We were having to turn away donations – things that people around here can really use, like new doors and windows, you name it,” said Charles. 

With support from the Mountain Association, KY Office of Energy Policy, The Nature Conservancy, the Solar Finance Fund and Invest Appalachia, the Center is taking steps to reduce its energy costs by installing solar panels and batteries on a newly constructed building. Volunteers broke ground on the building in April 2026 and are continuing to work through the summer. The wood comes from the 500 acres the center owns with Charles processing each board at their on-site sawmill. 

“This is a generational investment,” said Kathryn Engle, Lend-A-Hand board member. “With this, our overhead will greatly decrease and we’ll be able to invest even more into the community and into our programs.” 

The batteries will serve as a backup source of power for the food pantry during outages, helping ensure refrigerated food stays safe and services can continue when the community needs them most. 

The Mountain Association’s Energy Team has assisted in system design, siting and connections to partner resources like funding from the Nature Conservancy and the KY Office of Energy Policy.

“This project shows how energy savings can be a powerful tool for strengthening communities,” said Josh Bills, Senior Energy Analyst at the Mountain Association. “The solar and battery system will provide reliable power, greater energy security and lower operating costs, allowing them to focus on serving families through whatever challenges they are facing.” 

As volunteers work through the summer to complete the new building, the investment represents another chapter in a story that began 68 years ago, ensuring that the work of lending a hand continues, one meal, one family and one act of care at a time.

The post Lend-A-Hand Grows Knox County Food Pantry with Solar Savings  appeared first on Mountain Association.

Checks & Balances Project (C&BP) filed a complaint with the FBI’s Richmond field office seeking an investigation into Sussex County Board of Supervisors Chairman Steve White and the Stony Creek Volunteer Rescue Squad (SCVRS).

The complaint cites 10 issues of concerns about White’s apparent corruption in office, including his conflicts of interest in voting to send taxpayer money to SCVRS, which he runs, and potential Medicare and Medicaid billing fraud tied to SCVRS.

C&BP has reported that White is serving as acting county administrator in apparent violation of Virginia law after he engineered the firing of County Administrator Richard Douglas in April.

C&BP also obtained a memorandum of understanding between the county and SCVRS that pays the rescue squad $422,250 a year for emergency medical services. That’s more than twice the amount of money SCVRS made in 2019, when it filed its most recent tax returns with the IRS.

The IRS stripped SCVRS of its nonprofit status in 2023 because it failed to file tax returns for three straight years. It regained its status in January 2025 but continued to solicit donations during the 18 months it had no nonprofit status.

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

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Registered nurses will hold an informational picket on Thursday, July 16 in Bakersfield, Calif., to protest proposed health care staffing reductions and service cuts at CommonSpirit Health’s Dignity Health Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and Dignity Health Mercy Hospitals that will jeopardize patient care.

By JEANNE GREEN

Alert: There is still time to comment on the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) proposing an increase in nuclear weapons at LANL. The deadline for written/e-mailed comment is July 16th.

You may not have heard about this, even though Taosenos live within about 50 miles of the nation’s only nuclear bomb factory at Los Alamos. The NNSA—National Nuclear Security Administration—is proposing an increase of production of 200+ plutonium pits/year for new nuclear weapons, 80 at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and 125 at Savannah River, South Carolina.  Plutonium pits are the core triggers for nuclear bombs. This proposal disregards the fact that there are over 15,000 reusable plutonium pits sitting at the decommissioning plant in Amarillo, Texas. These are verified reliable for at least 100 years. There are 1,200 nuclear bombs, ready to deploy a mile from the Albuquerque airport and around 4,000 deployed across the country in silos and submarines, many on hair-trigger alert.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia amassed 70,000 nuclear warheads, fueled by the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD.) Due to nuclear arms control treaties, 48,000 of these were retired. Now NNSA plans to trigger a new global nuclear arms race with new nuclear weapons that would require testing.

Officially, at least 2,056 nuclear bombs were exploded globally before treaties were established. The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty forced testing to go underground due to concerns over radioactive fallout. LANL attributes local findings of radioactive materials, including plutonium in homes, soils, fruits, to global testing. This doesn’t even take into account that the first test was detonated right here in New Mexico, without warning to locals and no accountability for the vast numbers of cancers resulting in local populations. The Center for Disease Control’s LAHDRA report also delineates the historical multitudinous releases of radioactive and hazardous materials by LANL into the air and waters of NM.

The NNSA’s PEIS (Programmatic Environmental Impact statement) required by law, gives short shrift to their justification for producing new nuclear weapons. On page 5, their mission is: “2. maintaining and enhancing the safety, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, including the ability to design, produce and test, in order to meet national security requirements.” But no future production maintains the safety and reliability of the existing tested stockpile. The 2009 JASON (an independent group of elite scientists) report for NNSA verified the longevity of the stockpile until 2080.

NNSA’s mission number 4 is “promoting international nuclear safety and non-proliferation.” In fact, new nuclear pit production conflicts with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The 1970 NPT, Article VI obliges the U.S. to “enter into serious negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament.” Despite this international treaty, the PEIS states its “missions are conducted fully consistent with current treaty obligations.” No—a new nuclear arms race and testing is the opposite of non-proliferation. Non-proliferation program funding is also being cut in the PEIS. The U.S. is a non-signatory to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons signed by 191 countries.

Pope Francis states that “possessing atomic weapons is a crime against humanity and the future,” and “relying on the fear of annihilation poisons relationships between nations and obstructs real dialogue.” Who would not question the morality of killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in seconds, for what?

LANL, in recent years, has managed to produce one pit per year due to safety infractions, radiation exposures, contamination, criticality incidents, and an aging 48-year-old production facility, the PF-4. Rocky Flats, the previous nuclear bomb factory near Denver, was shut down in 1989 by the FBI for environmental crimes. The massive contamination was imploded down and covered, but it’s still there. This is indicative of the damage we can expect to see in New Mexico with mass production.

Production facility PF-4, containing significant amounts of plutonium, is situated between two fault zones and on top of a fragile layer of volcanic tuff, within 2,000 feet of the nearest fault zone. This has been analyzed by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board (DNFSB) and declared unsafe. In their recommendation 2009-2 to the Secretary of Energy they report that “the critical NNSA assumption that the upgrades addressing seismic issues are adequate is flawed. . .  A major deficiency in the facility’s safety basis exists.” In the late 1990s cautionary upgrades were judged to be cost-prohibitive.

The DNFSB also cites the probability of post-seismic fires which would result in widespread contamination throughout New Mexico and beyond. We have already seen massive fires come within a mile of the Lab boundaries, where 10,000 barrels of radioactive waste sit atop the mesa.

Please send comments to: PitPEIS@nnsa.doe.gov with subject #DOE/EIS-0573. More information is at https://pitpeis.com/