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EU parliament's recent decision to authorize the commercialization of plants derived from New Genomic Techniques marks a turning point for EU agriculture, and paves the way for new GMOs to enter the market as early as 2027.

The post Europe | ECVC: The Hidden Stakes of “New GMOs” appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Meet our inaugural cohort of the Coastal Leadership Program, and learn why they're excited to start building a community of Salton Sea leaders!The mission of the Costal Leadership Program is to...

We're excited to introduce the 2026 Coastal Leadership Program cohort. Beginning this July, a group of early professionals with backgrounds spanning environmentalism, education, and the arts will be...

As 350.org, Fuel Poverty Action and coalition partners today demonstrate against rising energy prices outside the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, a new report from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) lays bare the true scale of the fossil fuel subsidy crisis: governments worldwide are on course to spend $1.1 trillion propping up the fossil fuel industry in 2026, a figure that could rise to $1.43 trillion if oil prices reach $110 a barrel.

The UNDP report, Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock, finds that governments have responded to conflict-driven oil price spikes by expanding fossil fuel subsidies, price caps and tax rebates. While these measures offer short-term relief, they are consuming public budgets that should be building schools, hospitals and clean energy infrastructure. Many developing countries entered the latest crisis already burdened by rising debt, and fossil fuel handouts to keep prices artificially low are depleting public budgets and increasing their risk of debt distress.

Anne Jellema, Executive Director of 350.org, said:

"The $1.1 trillion that governments are pouring into fossil fuel subsidies this year is not a safety net, it is a ransom payment. Every dollar spent shielding the fossil fuel industry from the consequences of its own price volatility is a dollar not spent on the clean energy systems that can bring costs down for good.

We need a phase out to end public subsidies for fossil fuel companies, and a permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel profits. Not a one-off levy, but a permanent, legislated mechanism that redirects the extraordinary profits of an industry driving this crisis into the just transition every country needs. That means affordable clean energy, retrofitted homes, and funding to protect people from the extreme weather unleashed by fossil pollution..”

The UNDP report calls for easier access to international climate financing and accelerated investment in renewable energy, and explicitly frames energy security and the energy transition as inseparable.

You’ve probably heard of COP, the big UN climate summit that makes the news every year. But every June, there’s a smaller, quieter meeting that happens first: this year it ran from 8 to 18 June in Bonn, Germany. It’s where governments, campaigners, and yes, fossil fuel lobbyists, sit down to work through the details of climate finance, adaptation, and the shift away from fossil fuels, months before COP. Think of it as the kitchen where the recipe for the next big summit gets written, long before anyone sits down to eat.

This was my first time in that kitchen. I went in feeling both overwhelmed and energized in equal measure.

Why being in the room matters

Here’s the thing about a space like Bonn: if everyday people and civil society aren’t in the room, someone else fills it. (Analysis from Kick Big Polluters Out shows the extent to which Big Banks attended COP30 in 2025 and financed $409 billion in fossil fuels in 2024). And that someone is rarely on the side of the communities I work with across East Africa like those who resist fossil fuel exploitation like EACOP and protect our ecosystems, as well as those that the REPower Afrika campaign hosts through the AfrikaVuka network . They are all mobilizing to lead the transition toward a just, decentralized, and renewable energy future for all.

I never met a lobbyist wearing a badge that said “fossil fuel industry.” That’s not how it works. But you could feel them: sitting close to government delegations, quietly slowing things down whenever real progress was within reach. I felt it most around the push to move countries away from fossil fuels. Nearly 90 countries had backed a plan for this kind of transition last year. It still didn’t make it into the final text in Bonn. That’s not an accident.

So when people ask why 350 sends someone like me to these talks, this is the answer: someone has to say, out loud and in the room, that fossil fuels are not affordable — not for the climate, and not for the communities already paying the price.

Rukiya at COP Bonn negotiations. Photo: Bonaventure Bondo

 

The people who reassured me

If you asked me to name the one person who inspired me most, I honestly couldn’t give you a single name. That would undersell what I actually experienced.

I shared the halls with climate campaigners, gender justice advocates, Indigenous leaders, students, journalists, and young organisers — all coming at the same fight from different angles, whether that’s trade, finance, gender, or human rights. Different doors into the same house. 

Over those two weeks, I sat down with people from GreenFaith, PELUM Association, Germanwatch, Power Shift Africa, CAN Africa, CAN International, Oxfam, Greenpeace and many more. I spoke with the head of the African Group of Negotiators, and with party delegates from Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda, Kenya, Gambia, Benin, and Finland, among others, along with researchers from the University of Reading. Each conversation was a small window into how differently, and even how similarly, countries and movements are approaching the same crisis and how we are all working towards the solution and all we need is political will and urgency.

Rukiya meeting African Group of Negotiators Chair Nana Dr.Antwi-Boasiako Amoah. Photo: Baboucar Nyang

Knowing that so many people are out there working toward the same goal was its own kind of reassurance. The communities we represent are not missing from these rooms. We are there.

What I’m bringing home

A few things stood out that I’ll carry back into my work across East Africa.

1. Local champions matter. Every country needs people in government and civil society who are willing to push a climate justice agenda forward — and part of our job is finding and backing them, before, during, and after moments like this.
2. Urgency is uneven. Too many governments, including from countries that are themselves vulnerable to climate change, are still treating this crisis as something to manage slowly rather than the emergency it actually is.
3. Priorities differ from country to country, and that’s useful to know. Tanzania, for example, is focused on climate finance; Nigeria is more focused on adaptation. Understanding these differences helps us support more tailored, local advocacy rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

More than anything, the conversations in Bonn gave us good bones for what comes next. They gave us a clearer sense of what our countries are actually prioritizing on the road to the next big summits. Now the work is turning that insight into real organising on the ground — connecting local priorities to regional and global ones, without leaving anyone behind. It’s also a chance to push the conversation beyond just emissions, toward the things that actually shape people’s lives: energy access, jobs, and affordability.

Rukiya with fellow CAN and AfrikaVuka Network partner Kenneth Nana Amoateng at the Loss and Damage action. Photo: Rukiya Khamis

Wherever we raise the banner for a just, community-centred shift to renewable energy — even if it’s just a handful of us — that is already a win.

The conversations in Bonn gave us more momentum for what we are already doing: a year of shifting power from polluters to the people. That’s the Great Power Shift. Join us.

The post Bonn is where the recipe gets made appeared first on 350.

This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator and climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any).

Video description

El Niño has begun, and there's high risk that it could be a Super El Niño: bringing with it extreme weather, like heatwaves, droughts and downpours. And the world is bracing itself for record smashing temperatures. But is this natural swing in the climate partly down to climate change? Is climate change shifting the balance of El Niño? Either way, El Niño and climate change are combining to threaten us like we've never seen before.

Support ClimateAdam on patreon: https://patreon.com/climateadam

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

Listen to the audio version >>

While President Trump has repeatedly declared the Green New Deal dead, Green New Deal-type programs are burgeoning at a sub-national level. These initiatives are facilitated by the advent of new technologies that have enormously improved fossil free energy production and use and made them far cheaper. This commentary takes a look at Greentech New Deal initiatives in American cities.

Solar panels. Photo credit: ivankmit, Envato

In Trump’s America the Greentech Revolution is being waged from below.

Although Trump’s attacks have slowed the advance of fossil-free technologies in the US, they have not prevented communities, cities, and states from creating their own Greentech New Deals. They are taking advantage of the enormous reduction in the cost of renewable energy and of technologies that use it despite Trump’s attempts to obliterate them.

Alongside the widespread pro-democracy resistance to Trump and MAGA, there is a constructive program being developed and implemented from below, utilizing the Greentech Revolution to make Green New Deals practical and affordable. Greentech and climate protection are at its core. But it also includes the full range of pro-people, pro-social programs represented by the Green New Deal.

What does the Greentech revolution look like on the ground in the US in the Trump era? Much of the action around Greentech is occurring at a local level, both in municipal and county governments and in civil society. In this commentary we will describe examples of Greentech-enabled programs in US cities and their communities in Trump’s first year-and-a-half in office to give a sense of their breadth and diversity. In the next we will review such initiatives in the states.

Back in 2007, Xcel Energy won backing from the governor of Minnesota for a gas power plant in Becker, near Minneapolis, designed to replace coal-fired generators scheduled for shutdown in the mid-2020s. But clean energy advocates campaigned for better and cheaper alternatives, and regulators eventually baulked at the $1 billion price tag. Xcel gave up on the gas plant plan and instead proposed the Sherco Energy Hub, a 710-megawatt solar facility which includes a 600-megawatt storage system, the largest battery energy storage system in the Midwest. An Xcel spokesperson said, “Batteries help us store energy when it’s inexpensive to produce and dispatch it when needed, allowing us to continue delivering reliable electricity to customers while keeping bills low.” The site will also provide grazing for nearly 2,000 sheep, reducing mowing costs while also letting local sheep farmers expand their herds. Xcel also announced plans to close all its remaining coal fired plants in the region. Sherco’s solar plant will start producing electricity in 2026.

Sherco shows how Greentech’s reduction in the cost of energy and facilitation of battery storage opens the door for communities and governments to demand that fossil fuels be replaced by renewable energy. As climate journalist Tina Casey commented on CleanTechnica, the Sherco facility “demonstrates how community efforts and basic economics can push the needle on the energy transition.”

Manchester Public Schools is a suburban school district outside of Hartford CT with 17 schools, four of which are Title I schools serving low-income communities. While the state had many solar programs, by 2020 private solar developers had concluded that Manchester would “never do a project.” But in 2022, with support from the Connecticut Green Bank, solar panels were installed at 6 of Manchester’s 17 public schools, adding 1.6 MW to the town’s solar energy capacity. Now Manchester has three net-zero energy school buildings and is adopting cutting-edge technologies like ground source heat pumps. Manchester also has additional ongoing investments in net-zero buildings, including a new library. Solar installations are projected to save the Town of Manchester approximately $100,000 annually. Beyond financial savings, these renewable energy systems are now valuable educational tools, reportedly sparking curiosity and environmental awareness among students.

In Seattle, drayage trucks contribute significantly to air pollution, disproportionately impacting low-income communities along freight corridors in the Duwamish Valley. According to Seattle’s then-mayor Bruce Harrell, “Seattle’s port is the backbone of our economy, but diesel drayage trucks that transport goods are some of the Duwamish Valley neighborhoods’ heaviest polluters.” Seattle has now developed a Heavy Duty Electric Trucks Pilot to provide incentives for purchasing electric drayage trucks. The program results in part from interviews conducted with drayage truck drivers who pointed out electric trucks were too expensive for them to buy. The drivers’ insights helped shape a new approach that, according to the city’s Office of Sustainability and Environment, “centers equity to ensure a just transition for truck drivers, particularly independent owner-operators, who are critical to our region’s supply chain and who bear disproportionate environmental and economic burdens.”

Funding for the program comes from Seattle’s JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax on extremely high salaries. The funding was recommended by Seattle’s Green New Deal Oversight Board, which develops budget and policy recommendations for environmental initiatives in partnership with communities. Said then-Mayor Harrell, “Through the Heavy Duty Electric Trucks Pilot, we’re investing in the technology that will ultimately reduce emissions in frontline communities while also supporting drivers to ensure they have real opportunities in the zero-emission economy.” The trucks are expected to be in operation by the end of 2026.

The drayage truck program is only one small component of Seattle’s much broader community participation climate effort. For example, Greenspace, Seattle’s Office of Sustainability & Environment, partnered with Seattle’s Green New Deal Oversight Board, the Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council (MLK Labor), and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle to pilot “climate community assemblies” that included union members and workers, community members, and social justice and youth advocates to make decisions, influence government, and shape solutions. The Urban League’s neighborhood-based assembly focused on climate preparedness for BIPOC and working-class community members. MLK Labor, a labor council representing more than 100,000 workers in King County, led a worker assembly focused on workplace safety, green job standards, and improving public infrastructure to be ready for extreme weather. A follow-on project will turn ideas developed by the assemblies into policies for the city. And future community assemblies will help shape Seattle’s Climate Action Plan Update.

On the site of an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Southeast Washington, DC, a renewable energy project called Sycamore & Oak has just opened a “microgrid” — a self-contained system that includes energy generation and consumption. Solar panels provide electricity during daylight hours and charge batteries that continue to provide electricity during the night. The project’s workforce development program trained a cohort of 10 local residents, most of whom are from Ward 8 where the project is located, for the installation. According to Jordan Taylor of GRID Alternatives, the nonprofit that provides solar installation and workforce development for the project, “Ultimately the Black-owned businesses that are supported by Sycamore & Oak get to receive lower-cost power.” With fuel-based energy, “you’re emitting fossil fuel pollution into the local community,” which is “usually a low-income or disadvantaged community.” Taylor said that improvements in building science are not only better for the environment, but more cost-effective. These range from construction techniques to long-term energy usage over the lifetime of a building. “We can build the same structure for 90% less energy consumption. That’s both a cost-savings measure, as well as an energy efficiency and ecologically friendly one.”

Community Benefit Agreements have become an important way to ensure that Greentech developments meet social needs. The once-industrial city of Worcester MA recently laid out a 51-acre manufacturing-focused GreenTech Park on a former abrasives factory site in Worcester’s Greendale neighborhood. The Worcester Business Development Corp., the City of Worcester, and representatives of organized labor signed a community benefit agreement ensuring compliance with the City’s Specialized Stretch Code, which is designed to help Worcester meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2045. The CBA also commits the partners to compliance with the City’s Responsible Development Ordinance which ensures job opportunities for Worcester residents, people of color, women, local contractors, and apprentices. The agreement requires monthly stakeholder meetings and informational discussions with Greendale residents. Fred Taylor, president of the Worcester NAACP, business representative for Carpenters Local 336, and co-chair of the Worcester Community-Labor Coalition that helped negotiate the CBA said, “This agreement ensures responsible development that will not only create local jobs for our community members but also promote a safe working environment with good wages.” It will “increase tax revenue for the city, helping to make Worcester a better place to work and live.”

In June 2026, Montgomery County MD announced 20 clean energy and energy efficiency projects. According to the Montgomery County Executive, the initiatives will

“support practical projects that improve energy efficiency, strengthen emergency preparedness, and create more resilient public spaces, particularly in communities that are more vulnerable during extreme weather events. These investments will lower long-term operating costs for taxpayers while helping the County make meaningful progress toward our climate goals.”

The projects have a strong Greentech element. They include solar-powered backup systems at seven recreation centers; an agrivoltaics demonstration project at the Agricultural History Farm Park; and building automation system upgrades. County official David Dise says, “We are proudly advancing Montgomery County’s climate goals through innovative green energy solutions, including microgrids and resilience hubs.”

In the Bryant community in Ann Arbor MI, a quarter of residents spend more than a third of their incomes on utilities. After years of campaigning by local energy activists, 80% of Ann Arbor voters approved a new Sustainable Energy Utility. Operating alongside the existing privately-owned utility, the SEU will purchase, install, and maintain solar panels, battery backup systems, and other fossil-free energy infrastructure in residents’ homes. Those who choose to join pay a small monthly fee – far less than they save from their free solar installation. The city will own the facilities, but residents can sell whatever electricity they don’t need themselves. The plan will pilot in Bryant and spread to other locations in the city. The SEU could also build its own microgrids, for example putting solar panels on schools to provide power during school hours and then supplying other SEU users when school is out. Derrick Miller of the nonprofit Community Action Network says, “When we started having a conversation about how to decarbonize the neighborhood about four years ago, it felt outlandish. Now, it doesn’t feel like anyone can stop us.”

Alongside the Cow Palace arena just south of San Francisco, construction has begun on the Cormorant Energy Storage Project, whose 250-megawatt capacity will make it the largest battery array in any major US urban area. It will supply energy to MCE, a community choice aggregator which purchases electricity on behalf of local residents as an alternative to for-profit utilities. The battery will bring $73 million of property tax revenue to Daly City; the developer will donate $1.5 million in community benefits.

These are only a small sampling of the Greentech-facilitated programs in American cities, but they illustrate the diversity of such initiatives. They show that Greentech-facilitated programs are in place in every region of the country, in jurisdictions large and small, and in localities blue and red, exhibiting myriad forms of both energy production and energy consumption.

Such initiatives have been retarded by Trump’s attempts to wipe out Greentech. They have also met resistance from local MAGA and NIMBY forces. But as these examples show, they are continuing to bloom.

These initiatives are significant for several reasons. They directly improve the lives of the people they affect and reduce the emission of climate-destroying greenhouse gases. They demonstrate concretely how climate protection, racial and economic justice, grassroots democracy, and quality of life can be combined. They show that people acting together can overcome Trump’s anti-Greentech counter-revolution. And looking forward, they lay a foundation for the triumph of a Greentech New Deal once Trumpian resistance is overcome.

 

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The post Greentech New Deals in the Cities first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Sugar giant faces court over deadly flood Channel News Catherine Early 1st July 2026 Teaser Media

In this episode of CELDF’s What is America 250: A Revolutionary Perspective, we speak with historian and author Tad Stoermer. Tad joined CELDF’s Education Director Ben Price and Consulting Director Tish O’Dell in a conversation about what resistance is and needs to be in this 21st century revolutionary moment.

The post What is America 250: This Revolutionary Moment appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

What whale are we talking about this month?

Thanks for asking. This time we’re looking at Rice’s whale (Balaenoptera ricei), also sometimes referred to as the Gulf of Mexico whale.

Don’t you mean the “Gulf of America” whale?

Don’t get me started.

Why not? That would actually be pretty good branding.

You know, you’re kind of right. The Trump administration, which insists on calling the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” recently put a target on these rare, uniquely American whales’ backs by prioritizing oil and gas development in the Gulf of Whatever You Choose to Call It. A 15-minute, closed-door meeting of the rarely convened Endangered Species Committee — colloquially known as the “God Squad” for its ability to override the Endangered Species Act — was all it took to remove Rice’s whales’ protection in the name of “national security.”

Many conservationists fear this will push Rice’s whales to extinction.

That sucks. Are they really that rare?

Yup. No one knows exactly how many are left, but current estimates put the population at fewer than 100, probably closer to half of that. (The most commonly used number is 51.)

Geez, that really sucks. How’d their population get so low?

Well, for one thing, these whales were kind of hiding in plain sight, so no one prioritized their conservation. For many years they were (wrongly, it turned out) considered to be a subpopulation of Bryde’s whales (B. edeni), a species with a population so healthy that they were heavily hunted in the 20th century. It wasn’t until 2021 — just five years ago — that a study of the Gulf whales’ genetics and skeletal structures revealed them to be a different species.

Rice’s whale (formerly Bryde’s whale). Photo taken under NOAA research permit #779-1633. (NOAA)

That misidentification probably made it easier to overlook how many whales in this region died from ship collisions, oil pollution, entanglement in fishing gear, and other threats, including ocean noise (which they find particularly disturbing). Those same factors continue to threaten them today, while climate change poses a long-term threat to their prey and other potential factors within the Gulf.

That makes me sad. Tell me something cool about them to pull me out of my depression spiral.

We don’t know a lot about Rice’s whales, but what we do know is pretty cool. They’re a little over 40 feet long — that’s about the length of a city transit bus or as tall as a four-story building. Scientists have documented that they make some unique sounds that resemble long moans. They’re lifelong residents of the Gulf — unlike other species, who migrate — and spend a good chunk of their days hundreds of feet beneath the surface, where they find most of their food.

Speaking of which, they’re also baleen whales, meaning they use their “teeth” to filter out yummy silver-drag driftfish and other prey from the water.

Yeah, I got the “baleen” part from their taxonomic name.

You’re right, that was a dead giveaway. Not all baleen whales are from the genus Balaenoptera, but all Balaenoptera are baleen whales.

Go figure. So speaking of the name, what’s the deal with “Rice’s?”

That’s after whale scientist Dale W. Rice, who first recognized the Gulf whales as something different in 1965, although he didn’t have the genetic tools at the time to ID them as a unique species. (Visually, they’re almost identical to Bryde’s whales.)

Rice himself was an interesting scientist who conducted groundbreaking studies of whales, including 164 scientific publications covering multiple species.

Before that, though, he was part of the team that first banded Wisdom, the world-famous albatross, on Midway Atoll in 1956. That band (a little metal ring with a unique identification number, #Z333) allowed scientists to track her for decades — and boy, have they learned a lot. Wisdom has flown more than 3 million miles over the past 70 years and is still around and active today. In fact she’s the world’s oldest known wild bird, still laying eggs as of last year.

Wow, maybe she could teach Rice’s whales to be better breeders.

I’ll see if Duolingo offers classes in albatross and whale.

Leave the snark to me, dude. So, if I wanted to see one of these amazing animals, could I take, like, a whale-watching boat or something?

Not much chance of that, I’m afraid. Rice’s whales are so rare that even scientists don’t observe them very often.

That said, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has published an excellent guide on how to identify Rice’s whales, and if you do happen to spot one you can report your sightings by calling (877) WHALE-HELP. Every observation provides critical information that can help conserve this species.

Cool. So what else can your average Joe or Jolene do to help ensure Rice’s whales will always be out there?

Great question. The biggest priority is to stand up to the Trump administration’s push for more oil and gas development in the Gulf. Call your local representative to ask for renewed protections for these animals, post-haste. Our publisher, the Center for Biological Diversity, can help you do this by email, as can some other nonprofits.

Beyond that, a less direct but important step includes making sure any seafood you purchase from the Gulf is sustainable.

And, of course, you can make all manner of choices in your life that reduce your consumption of oil and gas. The more we push the transition to renewable energy, the less profitable it will be for the fossil-fuel industry to operate in the Gulf — or anywhere, for that matter. That’s the best possible scenario for Rice’s whales.

Cool. So is that it? What whale will we talk about next month?

Yup, that’s the skinny on Rice’s whales. I’m not sure about next month yet, but I’m thinking about diving into minke whales, a species that doesn’t get a heck of a lot of discussion. Of course you can always write to me at jplatt@therevelator.org to suggest your favorite whale.

Why would I do that when we’re talking about this right now?

Well, that’s really for everyone else out there, reading this.

Everyone else? Now I feel like someone’s eavesdropping on me.

Um … maybe it’s just a few ecologists studying your behavior.

Okay, that makes me feel better. I think.

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

Songs Whales Sing: The Peculiar History of Commercial Whaling

The post Whale of the Month: Rice’s Whale appeared first on The Revelator.

In February of 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off not just the largest armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War. It also triggered an unprecedented experiment in how wars spill into the natural world.

As Russian armored vehicles poured into Ukraine, the contaminated land surrounding the defunct Chornobyl nuclear reactor turned from a massive de facto wildlife sanctuary into a battleground. By coincidence, the reaction of wildlife to this incursion was captured on more than two dozen motion-detection cameras set up the previous year to study lynx.

The resulting trove of images, which reached scientists after the Ukrainian military retook the territory in April 2022, offer a previously unseen look at how animals change behavior when their habitat becomes a war zone. The results, published in June in Science, show that the war did in fact alter the animals, sometimes in unexpected ways.

The findings point “to a broader transformation of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone — away from an ecosystem that, in the absence of human disturbance, had recovered from the reactor disaster, toward a militarized landscape in which wildlife habitat use and behavior changed,” said University of Freiburg ecologist Marco Heurich, who took part in the research.

The results underscore yet another way that wars can take a toll on wildlife. This at a time when conflicts rage on many continents, including civil conflicts in places like Sudan and Myanmar, and attacks by one country on another in Ukraine, Lebanon, and Iran. While the human tragedy of such conflicts is most shocking, nature is also a casualty.

 

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The Chornobyl region had already witnessed more than its share of destruction at the hands of humans. The 1986 explosion of a nuclear reactor there had left the surrounding land tainted with radiation. But the accident also led to the creation of a 4,200 square kilometer zone largely off-limits to people, giving birth to an unexpected haven for wildlife. Wild boars, roe and red deer, wolves and moose flourished. Brown bears and lynx, once extinct from the region, returned.

In early 2021, scientists set out a network of camera traps aimed at studying the revived lynx population. A year later, Russian troops turned up, then were forced out by Ukrainian fighters. The timing meant the scientists had an unusual opportunity to compare how wildlife in 2021 behaved compared to the same time in 2022 when the war had begun.

The arrival of war fits within a broader body of research studying what is commonly called the “landscape of fear.” Scientists have delved into the ways animal behavior is altered when their habitat is perceived as being more perilous, often because a predator turns up. It could be guard dogs scaring off foxes, fish restricting where they graze on algae, or the smell of predators shifting antelope feeding habits.

It’s commonly thought that animals in a war zone will shift their movements more toward the nighttime. Darkness can off be quieter and makes it easier to move undetected.

In some animals, the researchers saw just that. Brown hares, for example, showed up more often in night camera shots. But just the opposite occurred for both red deer and red fox. “The decline in nighttime detections suggests that these species have shifted their activity to daytime hours in response to increased conflict intensity,” said Svitlana Kudrenko a former Freiburg Ph.D. student who led the research.

The cameras turned up other surprises. While bombs and gunfire might be expected to trigger animals to flee spots occupied by people, both lynx and red fox turned up close to human settlements more often during the occupation.

The researchers don’t offer explanations for this divergence in how different species responded to the war. And the occupation of Chornobyl was brief enough that it was impossible to see how these immediate behavioral changes might translate into broader ecological effects.

But with the war dragging, and some parts of the country reduced to front lines of devastation and violence, there are plenty of landscapes of fear where ecosystems are have been affected by the war for years, even if there are no cameras to capture it.

Kudrenko, et. al. “Changes in wildlife activity patterns in response to war in Ukraine.” Science. June 18, 2026.

Photo: Black storks and a grey heron resting on metal structures at the former cooling pond of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (June 2020) ©Kateryna Korepanova

Note on spelling: Many people are used to the “Chernobyl” spelling. But this paper spells it “Chornobyl.” The older spelling was Russian, and the new spelling is the internationally accepted one preferred by Ukraine.

Fakta Penting Mengenai RTP

Return to Player merupakan persentase teoretis yang menggambarkan seberapa besar total taruhan diproyeksikan kembali kepada pemain dalam jangka panjang.

Sebagai ilustrasi, apabila sebuah permainan memiliki RTP sebesar 96 persen, bukan berarti setiap pemain akan memperoleh kembali 96 persen dari modal yang digunakan. Nilai tersebut merupakan hasil perhitungan statistik berdasarkan jutaan bahkan miliaran simulasi putaran yang dilakukan selama proses pengujian permainan.

Artinya, dalam praktik nyata, hasil yang diperoleh setiap pemain dapat berbeda secara signifikan. Ada pemain yang memperoleh hasil lebih tinggi dari nilai RTP, sementara pemain lain bisa mendapatkan hasil yang jauh lebih rendah dalam periode permainan tertentu.

Fakta inilah yang sering kali tidak dipahami secara utuh sehingga memunculkan berbagai asumsi yang kurang tepat di kalangan pengguna.

Mengungkap Peran Volatilitas dalam Pola Permainan

Selain RTP, volatilitas menjadi indikator kedua yang memiliki pengaruh terhadap karakteristik permainan slot digital.

Volatilitas tidak berkaitan dengan besarnya peluang menang, melainkan menggambarkan pola distribusi hadiah selama permainan berlangsung.

Permainan dengan volatilitas rendah umumnya memberikan kemenangan dalam frekuensi yang lebih sering, namun nominal hadiahnya relatif kecil. Sebaliknya, permainan dengan volatilitas tinggi cenderung menghadirkan kemenangan yang lebih jarang, tetapi memiliki potensi hadiah yang lebih besar ketika kombinasi tertentu berhasil diperoleh.

Perbedaan karakteristik tersebut membuat setiap permainan memiliki pengalaman yang berbeda bagi pemain, meskipun nilai RTP yang ditampilkan relatif sama.

Mengapa RTP dan Volatilitas Sering Disalahartikan

Hasil pengamatan terhadap berbagai forum diskusi pemain menunjukkan adanya kecenderungan menghubungkan RTP dengan peluang kemenangan instan. Tidak sedikit pula konten yang menampilkan daftar permainan dengan RTP tinggi tanpa memberikan penjelasan mengenai konsep statistik yang mendasarinya.

Di sisi lain, istilah volatilitas juga kerap dipersepsikan sebagai ukuran tingkat kesulitan permainan. Padahal volatilitas lebih tepat dipahami sebagai pola distribusi kemenangan, bukan ukuran kemampuan pemain untuk memperoleh hasil tertentu.

Fenomena tersebut diperkuat oleh banyaknya informasi yang beredar di media sosial tanpa disertai konteks teknis yang memadai. Akibatnya, pemain baru sering memperoleh pemahaman yang kurang lengkap sebelum mencoba suatu permainan.

Berbagai Sudut Pandang Mengenai Penggunaan RTP

Dari perspektif pengembang permainan, RTP merupakan parameter matematis yang digunakan untuk menjaga keseimbangan sistem permainan sesuai rancangan awal.

Sementara itu, operator platform memanfaatkan informasi tersebut sebagai bentuk transparansi kepada pengguna agar karakteristik setiap permainan dapat diketahui sebelum dimainkan.

Di sisi pemain, RTP sering dipandang sebagai acuan dalam memilih permainan yang dianggap lebih menguntungkan. Namun para analis industri menilai bahwa indikator tersebut sebaiknya digunakan sebagai referensi tambahan, bukan sebagai dasar utama dalam memperkirakan hasil permainan individual.

Pendekatan yang lebih objektif adalah memahami RTP bersamaan dengan volatilitas, mekanisme bonus, fitur permainan, serta preferensi masing-masing pengguna.

Hubungan RTP, Volatilitas, dan Random Number Generator

Salah satu aspek yang tidak kalah penting adalah keberadaan sistem Random Number Generator (RNG). Teknologi ini bertugas menghasilkan setiap putaran secara acak dan independen.

Dengan adanya RNG, hasil putaran sebelumnya tidak memengaruhi hasil putaran berikutnya. Oleh karena itu, tidak terdapat pola tertentu yang dapat menjamin kemenangan hanya berdasarkan riwayat permainan sebelumnya.

Dalam konteks tersebut, RTP dan volatilitas tidak mengubah sifat acak dari setiap putaran. Keduanya hanya memberikan gambaran mengenai karakteristik permainan berdasarkan perhitungan matematis dalam jangka panjang.

Pentingnya Literasi Informasi Bagi Pengguna

Meningkatnya akses terhadap berbagai informasi digital membuat pemain memiliki lebih banyak referensi sebelum memilih permainan. Namun, kemudahan memperoleh informasi juga membawa tantangan berupa penyebaran klaim yang belum tentu didukung oleh penjelasan teknis yang memadai.

Karena itu, literasi digital menjadi faktor penting agar pengguna mampu membedakan antara data statistik, opini komunitas, strategi pribadi, dan informasi promosi. Memahami perbedaan tersebut membantu pemain mengambil keputusan berdasarkan informasi yang lebih akurat serta menghindari kesimpulan yang tidak didukung oleh fakta.

Kesimpulan

Penelusuran terhadap berbagai aspek RTP dan volatilitas menunjukkan bahwa kedua indikator tersebut memiliki fungsi sebagai informasi statistik untuk membantu memahami karakteristik permainan, bukan sebagai alat untuk memprediksi hasil pada setiap sesi permainan.

RTP memberikan gambaran mengenai tingkat pengembalian teoretis dalam jangka panjang, sedangkan volatilitas menjelaskan pola distribusi kemenangan yang mungkin terjadi selama permainan berlangsung. Ketika dipahami secara bersamaan, keduanya dapat menjadi referensi yang lebih bermanfaat bagi pemain dalam mengenali karakteristik suatu permainan.

Pada akhirnya, pemahaman yang komprehensif mengenai RTP, volatilitas, serta mekanisme acak melalui Random Number Generator menjadi landasan penting untuk menafsirkan informasi secara objektif. Pendekatan berbasis fakta dan literasi yang baik akan membantu pengguna menyaring berbagai klaim yang beredar sekaligus membangun pemahaman yang lebih realistis terhadap cara kerja permainan slot digital

It was a big week in British politics. On June 18, Mayor of Manchester and Labour candidate Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election on a...

The post Don’t shed a tear for Keir: How Labour botched their big chance and what comes next first appeared on Spring.

Akses Cepat Melalui Berbagai Perangkat

Perubahan pola penggunaan internet mendorong banyak platform untuk mengembangkan layanan yang fleksibel. ROYALGACOR menghadirkan sistem yang mampu menyesuaikan tampilan secara otomatis berdasarkan ukuran layar perangkat.

Responsivitas tersebut memungkinkan pengguna tetap memperoleh pengalaman yang konsisten saat berpindah dari komputer ke tablet maupun telepon pintar. Seluruh menu tetap mudah dijangkau tanpa perlu melakukan pengaturan tambahan.

Optimalisasi ini juga berdampak pada waktu muat halaman yang lebih singkat, sehingga proses berpindah antarfitur berlangsung lebih lancar dan efisien.

Informasi yang Disajikan Secara Terorganisasi

Selain menghadirkan berbagai fitur, ROYALGACOR juga menampilkan informasi dalam format yang mudah dipahami. Setiap kategori memiliki penjelasan yang sistematis sehingga pengguna dapat mengenali fungsi maupun tujuan dari masing-masing layanan.

Penyajian informasi yang terstruktur memberikan nilai tambah karena pengguna tidak perlu menafsirkan berbagai istilah teknis secara mandiri. Seluruh informasi ditampilkan dengan bahasa yang ringkas namun tetap informatif.

Pendekatan tersebut membantu menciptakan pengalaman eksplorasi yang lebih efektif sekaligus meningkatkan kenyamanan selama menggunakan platform.

Optimalisasi Kecepatan dan Stabilitas Sistem

Kecepatan akses menjadi salah satu faktor yang sangat menentukan kualitas pengalaman digital. Platform yang lambat sering kali mengurangi kenyamanan pengguna, terutama ketika berpindah dari satu menu ke menu lainnya.

ROYALGACOR mengoptimalkan performa sistem agar proses pemuatan halaman berlangsung lebih cepat. Stabilitas layanan juga menjadi perhatian utama sehingga pengguna dapat mengakses berbagai fitur secara lebih konsisten.

Performa yang baik tidak hanya meningkatkan efisiensi, tetapi juga memberikan kesan profesional terhadap keseluruhan layanan yang tersedia.

Kesimpulan

ROYALGACOR menghadirkan berbagai fitur yang dirancang untuk mendukung pengalaman digital yang praktis, responsif, dan mudah dipahami. Mulai dari antarmuka yang modern, navigasi yang terstruktur, optimalisasi kecepatan sistem, hingga penyajian informasi yang rapi, seluruh elemen disusun untuk memberikan kemudahan dalam menjelajahi setiap layanan yang tersedia.

Memahami fungsi masing-masing fitur merupakan langkah penting agar pengguna dapat memanfaatkan platform secara maksimal. Dengan eksplorasi yang tepat, setiap fasilitas dapat digunakan sesuai kebutuhan sehingga pengalaman menggunakan ROYALGACOR menjadi lebih efisien, nyaman, dan informatif. Artikel ini diharapkan dapat menjadi panduan awal bagi siapa pun yang ingin mengenal lebih jauh berbagai fitur unggulan yang ditawarkan platform tersebut.

As residential batteries have become more energy dense, cheaper, and smaller, more households are storing their excess solar power. Now, utilities and energy companies in dozens of countries are buying up those electrons, bundling them together, and using them to balance the grid.

Read more on E360 →

Headline News:

• “Biggest US Wildfire Leaves Ranchers With Dead And Missing Cattle” • As the Cottonwood Fire, the largest wildfire in the US, continued to rage in Utah, ranchers reported finding dead cattle strewn across burned grazing land, and the state agriculture commissioner said it could take years for ranchers to recover from the devastation. [ABC News]

Cattle grazing in Utah (inkknife_2000, CC BY-SA 2.0)

• “Federal Appeals Court Upholds Limits On Fossil Fuel Use In Buildings” • The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld laws that prohibit appliances burning fossil fuels in new buildings in New York City and New York State, affirming lower courts’ rulings. Communities are taking action to stop use of polluting fossil fuels in buildings. [CleanTechnica]
• “Renewables Generate Record Share Of UK Electricity, As Wind Out-Supplies Gas” • Renewable energy sources in the UK generated a record 53.1% of the country’s electricity during the first quarter of 2026, an increase of 7.4%, driven by increased wind energy generation. The share of electricity generated from fossil fuels fell to 32.8%. [Renew Economy]
• “Record-High Ocean Temperatures Could Fuel Sea Level Rise And Extreme Weather On Land” • New Copernicus data reveals that daily global sea surface heat has broken records for the time of year. The record high global sea surface temperatures are the latest sign that the world’s oceans are entering what scientists call “uncharted territory.” [Euronews]
• “Extreme Heat Forecast: What To Expect As Heat Wave Hits Midwest, Northeast” • A serious heat wave is bringing prolonged extreme heat to the Midwest, the South, and the East Coast this week. The extreme heat hit the Midwest first. The heat index is forecast to hit 105°F in Chicago and 111°F in Detroit. The heat is spreading next into the Northeast. [ABC News]

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

When rain falls on the RVs that line Big Sandy Creek, it sounds like gunfire. The harder it pours, the louder it gets. But what bothers Ashlee Willis most is how the wind makes them sway. It is so unsettling that she cowers in her camper’s narrow hallway with her two frightened cats, a Taylor Swift blanket stuffed into their carrier in case they have to flee. 

It always reminds her of that terrible night in July, when the creek ran so high and so fast that the mobile home Willis lived in actually bobbed after the water tore part of it from the foundation. Within hours, the flood would kill 10 people and destroy 74 homes in Sandy Creek, a small community in central Texas.

It was supposed to be a joyful evening. Willis and her parents, Brandy and Gregg Gerstner, had bought “a bajillion” glow sticks to illuminate the above-ground pool, and had a stockpile of fireworks to celebrate Independence Day. Rain dashed that plan, so everyone, including eight guests, went to bed. Some slept in tents pitched outside.

By 2:30 a.m. the storm was so violent it shook Brandy and Gregg awake. The creek was rising quickly as they scrambled to round up the goats, but there was no saving them. Gregg loaded two pigs into a guest’s Jeep as Brandy dashed back inside to grab her diabetes medication and Gregg’s laptop. By the time Gregg returned to the house, water was rushing in and limbs were crashing through the windows.

Gregg led Brandy to higher ground, then waded through the torrent to save two dogs and a cat in the house. Before he reached the back door, he heard screams and watched the flood sweep the Jeep away, tossing its two occupants out. Gregg rushed to save them. One grabbed a floating tire he shoved toward her, while the other latched onto a plastic drum. He heard a third guest cry out for help from the branches of a partially submerged tree and convinced him to stay put. But he couldn’t reach Willis, who had climbed onto a pool table with the five other guests, two dogs, and a pair of cats as water filled her mobile home. She called her mother to say goodbye. “There was no way to comprehend how we were going to survive,” Willis said.

Suddenly the water receded. It retreated far enough for everyone to gather in Ashlee’s wrecked house. They used glow sticks to spell “Help” in the windows, then sang “the sun will come out tomorrow” while waiting for it to arrive. When dawn came, they found their world remade. “It’s all gone,” Ashlee said at the time. “Everything’s gone.”

One year later, the family is still waiting to rebuild. So is the rest of the community.

Many in Sandy Creek remain in damaged homes. The occupant of this one eventually moved into an RV, but others have not been able to do even that much.
Laura Mallonee

The Gerstner-Willis family spent seven weeks in a hotel. Everyone had made it through the storm, even Brandy’s sister Donna Wright, who had been swept 2 miles downstream before being caught by a light pole. Each morning they returned to Sandy Creek to sift through the confetti the flood had made of their lives. Sometimes they found pieces of the world that once was. Brandy unearthed someone’s crystal bowl, perfectly intact, from what had been her goat pen. Not all discoveries were joyful. Workers found three human body parts. “I was there when they dug up somebody’s hip,” Brandy said.

The family eventually moved into donated RVs. They sit no more than 30 feet from Big Sandy Creek — closer than before the flood. Gregg monitors the water level with security cameras, and sometimes shows Brandy the feed to calm her. 

A few months after the flood, Brandy attended a permitting clinic the county held to help people navigate the reconstruction process. “They informed us all, ‘Any of you thinking of staying, there are new permit rules, and we are watching you all now,’” she said. “They watch us like hawks.”

The rules weren’t new — just new to Sandy Creek.

A “Keep Out” sign warns trespassers against entering a property that flooded on July 5, 2025. Several lots in Sandy Creek are, like this one, now vacant. Laura Mallonee

The Gerstner-Willis family is among hundreds of survivors struggling to recover from the July 2025 floods that killed 139 people in central Texas and caused $1.1 billion in property damage. For many, the months since the disaster have revealed the complexities of recovery, a long, hard process that goes beyond repairing what the water destroyed. 

Residents of Sandy Creek face permitting requirements, limited aid, insurance gaps, and construction costs they did not anticipate. Travis County is requiring them to meet standards locals say it rarely enforced before the flood, but the poverty that put many of the community’s 600 or so people in or near the floodplain leaves some of them unable to comply. Dozens of families remain in RVs, damaged homes, or temporary housing, caught between the need to rebuild and the cost of doing so.

For many homeowners, the problems started with a federal standard known as “substantial damage.” Anyone with damage equivalent to at least 50 percent of the home’s pre-flood market value must bring the entire structure up to code. In Travis County, houses that sit in a floodplain must be elevated at least 2 feet above the expected height of a 100-year flood. For the Gerstner-Willis family, that means building 12 feet in the air and installing a lift to reach the door. Meeting these requirements can increase costs by more than $100,000, on top of the thousands needed for engineering and surveys. For some, the burden is simply too great.

“I would say 98 percent of the people out here are not going to be able to afford their houses to be raised,” Brandy Gerstner said. 

Disaster survivors who cannot afford to rebuild depend upon a patchwork of insurance, loans, government assistance, nonprofits, and churches for help. But those in floodplains often find that this system isn’t designed for them.

“The storm’s not over,” Brandy Gertner said in May, standing on ground still studded with shards of glass and debris 10 months after the inundation. “Surviving after the storm has been much harder. We’ve had to fight for everything.”

Two years before the flood, Ashlee Willis moved into a 1,500-square-foot double-wide manufactured home on her parents’ land. Family compounds like that are common in Sandy Creek, an arrangement that has made it difficult for some to get help rebuilding. Willis isn’t on the deed, and because her home is a second structure, few organizations could assist her. Some treated her as if she didn’t own the home. Others saw her situation as a duplicate claim.

“A lot of these groups out here helping don’t come across multigenerational plots of earth,” Willis said. “It looked like double-dipping.”

By early December, when the nonprofit organization Rebuild Sandy Creek encouraged her to apply for its home-rebuilding program, Willis had recovered just 3 percent of her losses — $1,000 from a church and $5,000 from Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian relief organization. Rebuild Sandy Creek board members selected Willis from among 17 or so applicants. The organization has struggled to raise money, but said it remains committed to helping Willis with construction costs. 

Her predicament exposed some limits of the recovery system. FEMA has registered 1,212 flood-affected households in Travis County and distributed $4.3 million in assistance. That aid, capped at $43,600 per household, is meant to stabilize people, not make them whole. Rebuilding can take anywhere from a few months for those with good insurance to a few years for those without it.

Read Next Texas floods showed why many rural communities feel abandoned in a crisis Laura Mallonee

Most don’t have it. Just 2.4 percent of affected households in Travis County had flood insurance, which typically pays only enough for policyholders to rebuild what they already had. For everyone else, help ranged from federal loans to small payouts of up to $2,000 from various ministries to a county donation fund that distributed $7.85 million to 264 families, or about $30,000 each. A concert by country singer George Strait raised enough to give more than 60 families $25,000 apiece. Governor Greg Abbott handed out the checks.

Austin Disaster Relief Network, which the county deployed to coordinate volunteers, offers help including funds for construction; it is still working through roughly 80 applications. Samaritan’s Purse is installing eight manufactured homes — Wright got one — and letting homeowners choose from a furniture package that includes appliances.  

Navigating this web of nonprofits is exhausting, and residents complain of “form fatigue.” The Travis County Recovery Alliance, which coordinates with 16 nonprofits to help 155 families, hopes to make the process easier by, among other things, creating a unified intake form so survivors fill out just one application. But things are still getting off the ground. “We’re building the plane while we’re flying,” said executive director Janis Bookout.

The county has tried to make permitting easy — it waived fees, expedited paperwork, and for several months staffed a mobile office to walk people through the process. But residents have sought just 24 permits for work in the Sandy Creek Ranches subdivision since the flood, though not all were for flood-related work. Only eight were for new homes. 

Simply preparing a lot for a manufactured home requires leveling and grading the land, laying a foundation, and installing utility hookups. Jason Hefner found the prospect of applying for the permit to do that overwhelming. “I know I’m gonna need one, but I have no idea where my home’s gonna go,” he said. “Even though you might have the money to build back, it’s just like, ‘Oh my gosh, here we go.’”

He received just $20,000 from his insurer and is betting Samaritan’s Purse will replace his home. “That’s one reason,” he said, “why a lot of us aren’t looking yet to rebuild.” 

This isn’t Brandy Gerstner’s first time starting over. After tumbling through California’s foster care system, she set out on her own at 15 and made her way to Texas, where she found work in nursing. Ashlee came along in 1987. Four years later, Gerstner walked into a real estate office looking for a place to build a home. She couldn’t afford any of the properties she saw until a realtor showed her a parcel with rent-to-own terms.

It sat on the banks of Big Sandy Creek, which had flooded a decade before. Weeds loomed over Gerstner, who is 5 feet tall, and a narrow path led to a mobile home built in 1975. It was overgrown with vines and infested with tarantulas, bats, and other vermin. Rattlesnakes bred in the flower bed. She squashed 75 scorpions within weeks of moving in. “It was horrific,” she said.

Gerstner rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She fixed the plumbing, tamed the yard, and built a deck. She planted apple, plum, and pear trees, established a garden, and later put up a greenhouse. Over the years she added chickens, pigs, and goats. In 2002, she bought a double-wide, which she eventually refinanced to add more buildings, including a garage for brewing beer, bottling honey, milling spices, canning fruit, and making cheese and wine. Her home was open to all, a place where 16 people frequently crowded around a dining room table meant for six. “This was where everybody came,” she said. “They called it their garden of Eden.”

Brandy Gerstner purchased her property in Sandy Creek in 1991 and built a small hobby farm called Asher Acres that included chickens, pigs, goats, and honeybees. “Asher means happy in Hebrew,” she said. When floodwaters swamped her property last July, she fled to her greenhouse, which sits at the highest point on her property, and survived. Laura Mallonee

Inexpensive land and scant oversight attracted others to Sandy Creek. Texas is a strong property-rights state where counties have limited power to regulate what is built and how. Some have little or no permitting, especially for manufactured homes and RVs. Enforcement is often complaint-driven, and few complain in places where people move specifically to avoid municipal meddling and taxes.

Travis County began regulating floodplain development in 1982, but many structures in Sandy Creek received exemptions because the community was laid out in the 1970s. Gerstner rarely bothered with permits unless a contractor required one. Few in Sandy Creek did. “This was kind of a free-for-all out here,” she said. “The county doesn’t care about the area.” 

In many ways, the Gerstner-Willis family is a best-case scenario, even as it illustrates where disaster assistance breaks down. The resourcefulness that allowed Brandy Gerstner to transform her property into a thriving hobby farm has helped her navigate recovery better than most. The family also had flood insurance, documentation, and the patience to negotiate with nonprofits.

Yet they still live in RVs that are closer to the creek than the house it destroyed. They also pay $4,000 a year for construction insurance on a project that hasn’t started and continue fighting the insurance company for $200,000 they believe they’re owed. Willis isn’t surprised. “I just had it in my brain, ‘We’re going to be in these things for probably two years,’” she said. “Everyone thought I was crazy.”  

Brandy and Gregg Gerstner stand in front of the RV they have called home since August. It sits even closer to Big Sandy Creek than the home the flood destroyed on July 5, 2025. Laura Mallonee

She and her parents plan to build two houses connected by a breezeway so Willis can help them as they age. It will cost about $1 million. They’ve already spent $15,000 on the design, engineering, and land surveys. 

For many others, rebuilding doesn’t feel like an option.  

In December, Sara Ashworth, a nurse who has volunteered in Sandy Creek since the flood, visited an elderly woman whose floors were rotten. Rodents and cockroaches scurried about. The woman had been hesitant to let her inside, and had not sought help because she had been in and out of the hospital. Ashworth recalled telling the woman, “You need to get out of this house tonight, this is dangerous.’” A social worker arranged a hotel, then a six-month Airbnb stay.

Many remain in damaged homes, unable to afford repairs, afraid of invoking the substantial damage clause, or unwilling to leave their land and livestock. In some cases, FEMA did not classify their houses as a total loss after the flood, but they later grew rotten or moldy enough to be condemned after the assistance application period had ended. 

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Landlords do not qualify for a lot of nonprofit aid, leaving many renters — who comprise 48 percent of Travis County households affected by the flood — in subpar conditions. Michelle Warner, a speech therapist who is recovering from knee surgery, moved to Sandy Creek 20 years ago from southeast Texas after losing everything to Hurricane Rita. She pays $1,175 a month for a three-bedroom mobile home scarred by the flood. “I’m just ready for this to look like it used to look, so I’m not driving up still to a damaged house I can’t fix on my own,” she said.

Noel Hernandez’s insurance agent advised him not to file a claim on the house he rents out, which sits in a flood-risk area, because his rate would go up. It rose anyway. As a landlord, he didn’t qualify for FEMA assistance and received about $3,000 in other aid — yet spent nearly $70,000 rebuilding. A family rented the place in February. An inflatable kiddie pool sits in the yard.

Dozens of families remain in campers. “If you go out there, it’s basically an RV park,” said Michelle Varela, a cofounder of Rebuild Sandy Creek. Last winter, space heaters sparked fires in some of them, Varela said. In mid-June, flooding washed out a portions of the water crossing the Gerstner-Willis family and others use to leave their property. The county bars RVs from remaining on a given site for 180 consecutive days or more. It doesn’t look like anyone is enforcing the rule. 

“Who in the hell is monitoring that?” Brandy Gerstner asked. “What are you going to do — kick us all out of here? Make us all homeless?” 

The systems that made Sandy Creek residents vulnerable before the flood have kept them that way after it. Poverty, political disengagement, and scant regulation shape how communities are built — and how they recover.

“Low-income people tend to live in low-quality homes in low-lying areas, because that is what the market allows,” said Shannon Van Zandt, a Texas A&M researcher who studies post-disaster housing recovery. In desirable areas like western Travis County, they are even more likely to end up in flood zones. “We need to be doing a better job of making sure that income is not such an important predictor of the harm that someone receives during a disaster,” Van Zandt said.

Texas counties have limited authority to regulate what is built and where it is built in unincorporated areas, and efforts to impose stricter standards often face resistance. Van Zandt said that contributes to poor-quality housing and suffering after disasters.

Counties have no legal obligation to offset these inequities, but Van Zandt believes they have a moral and practical one because resilience requires investing in vulnerable communities before a catastrophe. But residents of such places often lack the resources to make that happen. “People who feel disenfranchised for whatever reason — whether it’s income, race, ethnicity, or even documented status — are not going to get it because they don’t ask for it, or they’re seen as not entitled to it,” Van Zandt said.

Many in Sandy Creek still rely on the generosity of others. Even now, a year after the flood, people still throw community fundraisers. There’s one coming later this month. But relying on nonprofits to fill gaps is “not sustainable,” said Michelle Meyer, Van Zandt’s colleague. As tragedies like the Texas floods grow more common, even substantial contributions will not be enough. Donors are burning out, and inflation has made rebuilding costlier.

County governments sometimes buy vulnerable homes to minimize future risks and losses, but find many residents don’t want to leave. Travis County has purchased hundreds of floodplain properties in the lower Onion Creek area, a largely Latino part of South Austin. An unpublished study by the University of Texas found that, of 176 homeowners who accepted a buyout, nearly all moved beyond the floodplain, though most ended up near it. Van Zandt said buyouts work best when they are voluntary, offer enough to secure safer comparable housing elsewhere, and include efforts to preserve community cohesion. Researcher Kijin Seon, the author of the study, believes “relocation came at the cost of social fabric.”

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The root of the problem, Van Zandt said, is too little regulation. In a meeting with rural county judges in May, she recommended higher standards for subdivision development, including installing drainage, elevating homes, and ensuring ready access. Travis County regulates these things but lacks broader land-use controls like zoning. “That’s what they need,” Van Zandt said. “They need to be able to limit development in those areas.” 

Many counties have long asked the Legislature for greater authority to do that. Travis County has generally supported “legislation giving county governments the necessary tools to manage growth, protect property values, and preserve quality of life.” But counties have found lawmakers reluctant to act.

Disasters create a “window of opportunity” in which political reform is possible, Van Zandt said. But it closes quickly if residents aren’t engaged. 

Some in Sandy Creek are trying to hold that window open. Brandy Gerstner and Ashley Willis joined two other women in creating the Sandy Creek Alliance to lobby county and state officials to address the crisis. They visited Washington D.C. to call for strengthening FEMA, and asked the governor to create Fund Texas Forever, a disaster reserve financed by the state’s rainy-day fund to expedite relief. Willis handed him a letter outlining the idea and inviting him to return to Sandy Creek to hear from survivors. He thanked her and read it. “Nothing happened,” she said. 

Andrew Mahaleris, the governor’s press secretary, told Grist in a statement, “Governor Abbott and the State of Texas continue to use all necessary resources to help Texans recover and rebuild from last year’s disastrous flooding.” He noted that the state has provided more than $500 million to assist families and communities, and that Abbott signed legislation to better protect people from catastrophic flooding events. “The governor will continue to work with the Legislature to strengthen flood regulations and preparedness,” Mahaleris said.

Meyer supports the idea of a disaster reserve, something academics have suggested with little success. Politicians don’t like setting aside money for future disasters, and cash assistance often gets tangled up with talk of welfare and self-reliance. Survivors, she said, carry more political weight in pushing for such programs.

Willis has made that her focus. She got a part-time job helping build Organizing Resilience, a new national network of disaster survivors that’s advocating for reform. “I’m a Swiftie,” she said, “I always like to joke with county and government officials, ‘Look what you made me do.’”

The community is still rebuilding, but nature has reclaimed land ruined by the flood, just as Tamerra Garcia predicted it would a few weeks after the disaster. Before the summer heat settled in, the fields were ablaze with sunflowers. Prairie verbena, firewheels, and beebalm growing along the road swayed in the breeze.

The trees that once obscured Sandy Creek are gone, leaving the banks barren but for a few saplings. Neighbors who never saw each other before the flood now see into each other’s backyards. They also hear every trash can being rolled to the curb on Wednesday nights.

In a lot that belonged to Garcia’s grandfather, Harold Sherwood, a cardinal perched on a beam. Not much else remains of Sherwood’s home, which was razed after water reached 5 feet up the walls. It was there, amid the muck and the stench, that Garcia made her prediction.

A cross draped in red, white, and blue fabric stands on a concrete pad beside what is left of Harold Sherwood’s home. Laura Mallonee

Her grandfather did not live to see it come true. Overwhelmed by the prospect of building a home 12 feet in the air to comply with the building code, he planned to live out his life in an RV. He eventually had a change of heart and decided to rebuild. 

He died a short time later, around Christmas, of cancer. His health deteriorated quickly after the flood and “all the stress [of] losing everything you’ve had for all your life,” Brandy Gerstner said.  

Friends and neighbors held a poignant memorial in early January on the land where his home once stood. The tattooed minister stood before a cross of branches draped in red, white, and blue fabric to honor Sherwood’s military service. He reminded those gathered around it that Jesus was a carpenter, then invited them to imagine him building Sherwood a heavenly mansion.

This story has been updated to provide Sara Ashford’s full name.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline One year after the Texas floods, home feels further away than ever on Jul 1, 2026.

For the past two years, more than a dozen major banks have been not only reneging on their climate commitments, they’ve been actively making the crisis worse. 

In 2024 and 2025, during the leadup to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, all six of the nation’s largest banks abandoned the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a voluntary climate coalition, precipitating the Alliance’s complete shutdown in October. Since then, others including Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, HSBC, NatWest, Santander, and JPMorgan Chase have either weakened or scrapped their decarbonization targets.

Now, new evidence shows banks are ramping up spending on fossil fuels. Beyond helping companies extract more oil and gas, they are bankrolling the industry’s pivot to plastics, fertilizers, and other petrochemical products.

Two reports released earlier this month illustrate the trend. An analysis from the Rainforest Action Network, or RAN, and other environmental groups found the world’s top 65 banks contributed $508 billion to companies expanding fossil fuel development in 2025. That’s a 27 percent increase since 2024, and more than any other year since at least 2016, based on the organization’s past analyses.

The second report comes from the nonprofit Center for International Environmental Law, or CIEL. It found that, between January 2019 and June 2025, big banks gave the world’s top 15 petrochemical companies at least $591 billion in loans and underwriting. Some of that benefited integrated oil and gas corporations; the amount CIEL could directly attribute to petrochemical activities was $252 billion. (For context, New Zealand’s GDP is about $279 billion.)

Together, the reports suggest that large financial institutions are enabling a long-term viability strategy for the fossil fuel industry, one in which declining demand for oil and gas in energy systems and transportation is offset by a boom in petrochemicals. Indeed, in recent years oil majors including Exxon Mobil, Shell, and Saudi Aramco have invested heavily in that field by, among other things, acquiring majority stakes in plastics and chemical companies and retrofitting oil refineries to accommodate a shift in production.

These investments reflect projections from the International Energy Agency that plastics, agrichemicals, and other petrochemical products will account for more than one-third of the growth in oil demand through 2030, and nearly half of it by 2050 — much more than other sectors like aviation and shipping. 

“Petrochemicals are not just a general growth area for fossil fuel companies,” said Ximena Banegas, global plastics and petrochemicals campaigner for CIEL and the author of the organization’s report. “They are a deliberate and pivotal strategy to ensure that we continue using fossil fuels.”

Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and the Japanese bank Mizuho Financial were among the top banks increasing financing for fossil fuel expansion last year, RAN’s analysis found. All 65 banks it analyzed boosted funding across the board for new oil and gas exploration, transportation, and refining. But the largest growth by far was for transportation — including new pipelines and capital-intensive LNG export terminals, which can create a decades-long commitment to using methane gas. 

“It’s overall disappointing,” said Allison Fajans-Turner, a senior energy finance campaigner for RAN. “Banks are unfortunately continuing to put profits over responsible societal action.” She noted that fossil fuel financing is becoming more concentrated among a smaller number of large banks, primarily those based in North America and Japan, as several European banks have begun to scale back funding.

RAN’s report didn’t look directly at financing for the production of petrochemicals, but some of its findings indicate growing interest in this portion of the industry. A significant increase in loans and underwriting for coal expansion, for example, is at least partially linked to a recent spike in the number of coal-to-chemical plants planned globally — mostly in China and India. Environmental advocates say these investments risk giving coal “a new lease of life.”

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Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Mizuho Financial are also among the top funders of petrochemical activities, according to CIEL’s report. The top 15 recipients of this funding include a mix of oil and gas, agriculture, plastics, and chemical companies, such as Exxon Mobil, Syngenta, LyondellBasell, and Dow.

Although CIEL didn’t compare each year between 2019 and 2025, it did notice a significant jump in petrochemical finance in 2024, the last full year examined. As evidence of the industry’s ongoing expansion, Banegas pointed to a recent report estimating that 127 new polyethylene projects will come online between 2025 and 2030. 

CIEL’s report also notes the petrochemical industry’s outsize contribution to toxic chemical pollution and global warming. As of 2020, petrochemicals’ annual greenhouse gas emissions amounted to 1.9 billion metric tons, more than twice that of aviation and shipping.

Fredric Bauer, a senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden, has conducted similar research on petrochemical financing between 2010 and 2020. He said it’s not surprising to see continued interest in big plastics and chemicals projects, although it is perhaps counterintuitive. Despite warnings from industry analysts that the petrochemical industry is in “structural decline” — as shown by a large number of canceled or delayed projects, downgradings from multiple credit rating agencies, and the recent plastics and agrichemicals price shocks due to the war with Iran — companies keep investing because they often “do not respond to conventional market signals,” he said.

Rather than say, ‘“Oh, there’s oversupply, we should probably not invest in more supply or production capacity right now,’” their priority is “to ensure long-term markets for oil and gas.”

A coalition of advocacy groups including CIEL are calling on big banks to end their support for fossil fuel and petrochemical expansion. They’d like to see policies against financing companies building facilities to produce virgin plastics and fossil fuel-derived fertilizers. They also want banks to require clients to adopt credible transition plans to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which may include targets to reduce plastics use and phase out some pesticides. 

Fajans-Turner said the upward swing in fossil fuel financing reveals the weakness of voluntary sustainability commitments and reinforces the need for regulation. She suggested that, in addition to mandating more robust decarbonization plans from financial institutions, governments should require improved incorporation of climate risks when determining a borrower’s creditworthiness. “That would actually have many downstream consequences about who gets funding and who does not,” she said.

Joel Tickner, a professor of public health at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and founder of an independent research initiative on sustainable chemicals, said it’s important that governments scale back loans and tax incentives supporting the fossil fuel industry, subsidies that amount to more than $1 trillion annually. Some of this money could help finance the development and commercialization of greener chemistry.

Fossil fuel companies “have received decades of subsidies and financial support,” Tickner said. “If we’re serious about sustainable materials, then we need to put our money where we want to go.”

toolTips('.classtoolTips4','The process of reducing the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that drive climate change, most often by deprioritizing the use of fossil fuels like oil and gas in favor of renewable sources of energy.'); toolTips('.classtoolTips7','A powerful greenhouse gas that accounts for about 11% of global emissions, methane is the primary component of natural gas and is emitted into the atmosphere by landfills, oil and natural gas systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, and wastewater treatment, among other pathways. Over a 20-year period, it is roughly 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Banks are financing the fossil fuel industry’s next growth strategy on Jul 1, 2026.

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