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09-04 * 13:00 - GARDA Working Group meeting #8 (Bea)

On the arid African savanna, grasses are growing faster than they were a generation ago, boosted by rising levels of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. That is the finding of a new study that warns that faster growth could fuel larger wildfires and alter the distribution of wildlife.

Read more on E360 →

If all food waste in the US found a second life as biogas and compost, this would almost completely offset its climate impact. But, it would also create a microplastic problem spread over a gigantic area.

This is the catch-22 described in a new study from Nature Food, which explores both the massive potential and the overlooked risks of tackling food waste. There is however a solution, say its authors, which is to design packaging and get much better at separating our waste.

The research, produced by the University of Vermont, was inspired by local recycling laws which require Vermont businesses and residents to keep food waste out of their bins, ensuring that landfills remain food-scrap-free. What would that look like, scaled up to the whole of the US? The researchers found out by gathering food waste recycling data from across the US, then running a detailed lifecycle analysis on anaerobic digestion to make biogas, and food waste composting measures. For each one they looked at the associated climate emissions, nitrogen and phosphorus loading on waterways, and plastic pollution. Then they compared these two recycling measures with the alternative and all its associated impacts: dumping food waste in a landfill. 

This revealed that food recycling brings some seriously big wins for climate and nutrient pollution. Firstly, it would reduce the climate burden of food waste by between 89 and 99% in the US. Converting food waste into biogas and compost cuts nitrogen pollution by between 49 and 54%, and phosphorus loading by 78 to 98%, compared to current landfill-focused measures. 

However there’s a huge polluting underbelly to this otherwise logical solution: that is the 20,000 extra tons of plastic pollution that would be tilled into the soil as compost and organic byproducts from anaerobic digestion each year. How does plastic even come into it? Because so much of our food is now coated and packaged in this material, and it is a challenge to completely remove it. 

 

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Much of our food goes bad while still encased in plastic, and people can’t always be relied upon to peel plastic off rotting food and put it into a different bin. Equipment designed to separate old food and plastic in commercial settings involves a degree of mechanical error, which could result in potentially industrial scales of plastic entering food waste streams. Ultimately, countrywide food waste recycling would increase plastic soil pollution “by an order of magnitude, even with highly effective (99% efficient) separation technologies in place,” the researchers write. 

So how to unpick this mess? A starting point would be to design better packaging, and the researchers find that encasing our food in biodegradable materials would decrease the 100-year accumulation rate of plastic in agricultural soils by up to 99%. But biodegradable materials aren’t the whole solution and they bring challenges of their own. 

Others may argue that the more effective approach lies in reducing how much single-use packaging we use, and questioning how much of it we need in the first place — a solution that requires global systems change, far beyond the US.

Porterfield et. al. “Food waste recycling in the USA can reduce climate and nutrient pollution impacts yet risks plastic accumulation in soils.” Nature Food. 2026.

Image: Based on Karolina Grabowska/Unsplash

A version of this piece was featured in Food Tank’s newsletter, released weekly on Thursdays. To make sure it lands straight in your inbox and to be among the first to receive it, subscribe now by clicking here.

For nearly a year now, Food Tank has been bringing our live storytelling series “Voices of Farmers: A Love Story” around the world.

On sold-out stages across three continents just in the past year alone—including Sundance, London Climate Action Week, SXSW, Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, Climate Week NYC, and Adelaide Fringe in Australia—farmers have shared moving personal stories of deep connections to the land and to our food.

I love this storytelling style, because it accomplishes something bigger than just a one-night event. For farmers, it’s a launchpad to help audiences understand the many ways farmers power the food system, nourish their communities, and lead climate-smart innovation. And each of us listening can channel the emotion and passion we’re hearing onstage into transformative action steps in our own communities and professional worlds.

Next Tuesday, Aug. 25, we’re heading to Minneapolis for Celebrating Minnesota’s Farmers: A Love Story, in partnership with the City of Minneapolis, the Minnesota Farmers Union, and Niman Ranch. The event starts at 6 p.m. at the gorgeous Minneapolis Central Library, and you can reserve your FREE spot by CLICKING HERE.

Our farmer storytellers include fourth-generation organic dairy farmer Emily Zweber, food systems advocate and urban farmer Sina War, regenerative farmer and on-the-ground educator Trisha Zachman, organic farmer and trailblazing Hmong entrepreneur Mhonpaj Lee, third-generation Cameroonian farmer Anita Nain Fondikum, and seventh-generation livestock farmer and advocate Maddie Hokanson. They are all amazing!

In addition, we’ll have a fireside chat with celebrity chef and U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Andrew Zimmern and hear remarks from speakers including Ed Eiffler-Jaramillo, City of Minneapolis Mayor’s Office; Victor Stefanescu, Star Tribune; Zoe Hollomon, Midwest Farmers of Color; Gary Wertish, Minnesota Farmers Union; Mark Ritchie, Former Minnesota Secretary of State; Thom Petersen, Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture; and State Representative Pam Altendorf. We’re also honored to have video remarks from Senator Amy Klobuchar, Governor Tim Walz, and Congresswoman Kelly Morrison.

The whole show is dramaturged and directed by my Food Tank co-founder Bernard Pollack! We’ll also be debuting original Food Tank shorts created by filmmaker Haven Worley to accompany the farmers’ stories. (Haven also directed Food Tank’s original documentary short “Irish Farmers: A Love Story,” which began as a farmer storytelling theater event in Dublin and is now being accepted into major festivals. You can watch it HERE with the special password Irishfarmers.)

As someone who grew up in the Midwest, I know firsthand that this part of the United States is not a monolith or “flyover country”—it’s home to resilient, complex, forward-looking communities that are globally connected but deeply rooted. I’m so excited to hear these farmers’ stories and to share them with all of you!

If you live in Minnesota, I hope you’ll join us. And if you don’t live in Minnesota, this event is worth the drive—and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that we Midwesterners aren’t afraid of a good road trip! So CLICK HERE again to grab a free ticket, and I’ll see you next week.

And looking forward to the rest of the year, we hope you’ll join us for more farmer storytelling. To kick off Climate Week NYC, in partnership with Whole Foods on Sunday, September 20, we’re excited to present “Putting Farmers First: How Young Farmers are Shaping the Future of Food,” which you can find out more about HERE. And as part of the International Year of the Woman Farmer, we’re heading to Capitol Hill in partnership with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on December 7 as part of the 2nd Annual Food and Agriculture Policy Summit Week. Registration will open soon HERE.

We also bring you on-the-ground stories of family farmers as part of our regular Farmer Friday series, which you can find on FoodTank.com.

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

Photo courtesy of Frances Gunn, Unsplash

The post In Minnesota, Hear Stories from the Present and Future of Farming appeared first on Food Tank.

Headline News:

• “Germany Reports Record 14,000 Heat-Related Deaths This Year, Official Data Shows” • Germany had a record of around 14,000 heat-related deaths this summer as Europe struggled through a series of punishing heatwaves, official data showed. Around 9,600 of those deaths were recorded in one week in late June when it was over 40°C (104°F). [Euronews]

People cooling off in Berlin (Roy Zuo, CC BY-SA 4.0)

• “The Panama Canal Is To Reduce Shipping As El Niño Fuels Drought In The Lakes That Feed The Waterway” • The Panama Canal will cut the number of ships passing through it starting next month because of drought caused by the El Niño climate phenomenon, the operator of the strategic waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific said. [Euronews]
• “How Solar Panel Prices Fell 90% In 15 Years” • Solar power is by far the world’s fastest-growing form of energy production, beating out every other form of energy on Earth in 2025. Despite the recent political pivot away from renewable energy in the largest economy in the world, solar power continues to shatter its own records. [OilPrice.com]
• “Sunrun Shifts Away From Affiliates To Direct Sales” • Sunrun has been the #1 rooftop solar power installer in the US for several years now, ever since SolarCity got swallowed up by Tesla and dwindled to a relatively low level. But that doesn’t mean Sunrun hasn’t been facing its own challenges. Now it has decided to shift more to a direct sales strategy. [CleanTechnica]
• “Princeton Critical Minerals Has Raised $16 Million To Scale Lithium Production Technologies” • Princeton Critical Minerals, a startup developing technologies to extract lithium from brine, has raised $16 million to address increasing demand for critical minerals used in energy storage, electrification, and artificial intelligence infrastructure. [CleanTechnica]

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

Inger Andersen is Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme

When you live on the edge, you become acutely aware of balance.

As a young woman straight out of university in 1982, I had the privilege of teaching English at a Sudanese girls’ high school. After a couple of years, I landed a job supporting the emergency and relief work during the Sudanese drought and associated famine. 

Those communities in Sudan knew very well that their two most precious assets were the acacia trees on their lands and the seeds saved for next year’s planting season.

Acacia fixes nitrogen in the soil – a natural fertiliser – while the gum Arabic from the trees is an income source. But when drought hits and all animals are sold, and the last of the food is eaten, the only thing left is to cut and sell the trees for firewood and charcoal. Once the trees are gone, the last thing left is the seeds. And once the seeds have been sacrificed for food, nothing is left. 

After witnessing the devastating impacts of this famine, working on development and environmental sustainability became my life’s calling.

• Aug 13, 2026 Nature Will the world’s drying lands get relief from COP17 in Mongolia? Governments will discuss ways to combat drought and protect herders and their pastures from land degradation in a warming world Read more

From projects in Kordofan and Darfur in Sudan, to Northern Uganda, Somalia, and the arid and semiarid lands of Tanzania and Kenya, I saw how long-term solutions could help move us beyond just a humanitarian response. Because nature is incredibly generous, if we allow it to be.

Solutions like re-establishing the gum arabic trees with communities in Western Sudan, to working on water harvesting in arid lands. Supporting “cut and carry” schemes to replace animal grazing, a major driver of land degradation and the associated desertification. Or re-introducing the old pre-colonial approach of “al-hima”, a practice known by dryland communities for hundreds of years that protects and allows fragile land to rest, optimising soil health and land management.

Land – and its fragility – teaches us a lot. Dryland communities around the world have spent generations adapting to extremes. History that allows pastoralists, farmers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities to understand the deep interconnections between land, water, biodiversity and livelihoods.

Today climate change is pushing these finely balanced systems beyond what they can withstand. As extreme and compounding impacts intensify, the margins for resilience are shrinking, meaning landscapes, livelihoods, and communities are being pushed closer to their limits.

Land degradation now affects 3.2 billion people. Desertification impacts 45 per cent of Africa’s land. Around 95 per cent of the food we eat depends on land, while by 2050, water scarcity could affect more than three-quarters of the global population.

As migration and security rise rapidly on the global agenda, we must also recognise the role that healthy – and degraded – land can play. Healthy, productive landscapes can strengthen resilience and stability. Degraded land can deepen insecurity, intensify competition for resources and leave people with fewer options, including whether they stay or move.

• Aug 20, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier China keeps Indonesia’s battery dream afloat but future less certain Chinese capital and technology turned Indonesia into the world’s top nickel supplier, but its dependence on China and the rise of nickel-free batteries could upset its battery ecosystem plans Read more
• Aug 20, 2026 News As marine heat breaks records, countries seek ocean roadmap at COP31 Africa and the EU are leading a push for COP31 to deliver a roadmap that lays out measures to protect fast-warming oceans Read more
• Aug 17, 2026 Energy “Dangerous consequences” – how AI’s climate framing lets Big Tech off the hook Former Microsoft manager Holly Alpine explains why AI’s climate danger isn’t just data centres but also its unchecked use across the fossil fuel industry Read more

Land also shows us how interconnected our future is. We know the answer is not a simple, single-issue solution. We need to bring together science, local knowledge and multilateral cooperation to understand thresholds, navigate trade-offs and – ultimately – work with nature rather than against it.

This approach is at the heart of the World Restoration Flagships programme under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, led by the UN Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It recognises ambitious restoration initiatives that show what is possible when we move beyond protecting individual ecosystems to restoring landscapes at scale – halting land degradation, supporting livelihoods and strengthening resilience to climate change.

Now we must build on this work. A ‘Rio Trio’ year – with talks across land, biodiversity and climate change – creates a unique opportunity to put land at the centre of a more integrated response. As the first of these negotiations, COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, can help set that direction and deliver greater global ambition on desertification, land degradation and drought.

South Africa’s top court blocks Shell’s offshore oil exploration right

Drought will be a key topic. Our challenge remains shifting from reactive crisis response to prevention – stopping drought before it becomes a disaster. The Great Green Wall, a World Restoration Flagship, reminds us the most effective drought solutions are not emergency measures, but long-term investments in healthy landscapes.

That is why collective action on land is such a powerful opportunity. Land is not one issue among many. It is where climate, nature, food, water and security come together. And the places that have lived on the edge for the longest may hold the blueprint for how we can all learn to thrive within the planet’s limits.

Quite simply, land is life. 

As leaders meet in Ulaanbaatar over the next week, we must remember investing in healthy land is an investment in food, health and water security, as well as peace and economic growth. 

The future of people and planet will be shaped by the health of the land beneath our feet. If we restore land, so the Acacia trees across the world can grow, we restore hope in a future for every community. 

The post How safeguarding land protects our future appeared first on Climate Home News.

Repeated record-breaking heat waves cooked the European continent this summer, delivering the region’s hottest June on record. A simultaneous, though possibly related, drought shriveled rivers to record lows. In addition to their impact on public health, the dual crises put pressure on Europe’s energy system: Wind power struggled under stagnant conditions created by heat waves, and “thermal” power plants — nuclear, gas, and coal plants — had to reduce their output as European waterways warmed and dried, taking away water used for their cooling systems.

Solar power proved the only major energy source that performed better than normal during Europe’s summer of extremes, experts found. When paired with batteries, it helped supply thousands of AC units during historic hot conditions.

Scientists are still trying to understand why so many recurring heat waves materialized this summer, but studies have found that individual heat events are more likely and more intense because of climate change. The intensity of the June heat wave that scorched Western Europe was roughly 200 times more likely in today’s fossil fuel-warmed climate than it would have been two decades ago, one study found. As the continent continues to warm and Europeans install more cooling systems to cope — just 23 percent of households currently have access to or use air conditioning — experts say this summer provides lessons for the future.  

Extreme temperatures in late June bumped up Italy’s power demand by 28 percent compared to the previous week, according to the energy think tank Ember. In France, that number was 14 percent. Electricity and natural gas prices spiked in evening hours as demand grew highest and solar generation ended, with some prices hitting their highest levels since the 2022/2023 winter gas crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

As demand and prices were climbing, power generation in some areas was falling. In the United Kingdom, five gas plants reduced their output by a combined 2.5 gigawatts in generation because heat reduced their cooling systems’ effectiveness. At the same time, heat-induced low wind speeds halved the country’s typical wind farm generation in June. 

Historic dryness dropped river levels across Europe: England and Wales reported their driest July on record, while water levels in the Danube River in central and Eastern Europe reached record lows, exposing WWII shipwrecks and prehistoric relics. Europe’s hydropower production hit its lowest July level in a decade, and multiple countries curtailed nuclear power generation as warm, low rivers threatened water supplies for cooling. France lost 18 percent of its nuclear capacity to “environmental factors” in mid-July, Ember found, extending a trend of summertime nuclear outages that has plagued the country in recent years. French nuclear plants often use river water as a vital component of their cooling systems, drawing the water in at natural temperatures and then discharging it back into the rivers slightly warmer. Because French law caps the temperature of this discharged water to protect aquatic life, plants must reduce cooling operations and related power generation when the intake water from rivers is already warm because of heat waves or drought. 

But where these sources faltered, solar shone through. European heat waves tend to deliver optimal conditions for solar power: clear, sunny days. Europe’s solar panels produced 17 percent more power during the summer’s heat waves than they normally do, stabilizing the grid as afternoon cooling demand climbed, according to Ember. Battery systems helped deliver this solar power into the evening hours, when heat still lingered and air conditioners cranked to allow households to sleep.

“The next challenge is the evening period. Temperatures often remain high after sunset and AC demand can stay elevated, even as solar production declines,” said Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of SolarPower Europe, an industry group. “This is why battery storage is becoming such an important part of the energy transition.”

For as much as this summer’s extreme heat strained Europe’s grid, the continent’s cooling demand has a lot of room to grow: About half of households in Italy and Spain have air conditioning, and a quarter in France — compared to 90 percent in the United States. 

“There are places where we just can’t do without it now,” Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the Ecologist Party, said this June, a reversal in the party’s longstanding argument against air conditioning because of its greenhouse gas emissions.

France’s state-owned utility plans to spend over $10 billion to adapt its nuclear and hydropower plants to warmer temperatures and lower water availability over the next 15 years, including investments in equipment that cools the water nuclear plants discharge into rivers so that it complies with environmental standards. But adapting to that new demand could also take new generation and storage, especially as grids simultaneously increase demand from data centers. 

Solar and batteries have already been growing at a breakneck pace across Europe, with 36 gigawatt-hours installed in 2025, a 48 percent increase over new additions the previous year. Battery installations saw their 12th straight year of growth in 2025, according to industry group SolarPower Europe.

“Extreme price spikes during heatwaves are a blaring signal for regulatory changes that increase power system flexibility,” said Beatrice Petrovich, a senior energy analyst covering Europe at Ember. “Treating this summer as a turning point for energy storage would be an opportunity to remove existing barriers.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Solar buoyed Europe’s grid amid record-breaking heat and drought this summer on Aug 21, 2026.

• August 21, 2026

Extreme Weather And Rising Electricity Costs – The Green Connection Urges Parliament To Withdraw Proposed Gas Bill, Warns Of Climate, Community And Financial Risks

As communities in South Africa and around the world face increasingly severe weather events, and local households grapple with unaffordable electricity prices, following another major tariff increase, The Green Connection is urging Parliament to withdraw the proposed Gas Bill. The eco-justice organisation warns that the Bill could lock South Africa into long-term fossil-fuel infrastructure, expose electricity consumers to volatile international gas prices, weaken protections for affected communities and landowners, and give the Minister sweeping new powers. Most fundamentally, the Bill is not aligned with South Africa’s climate commitments or the Climate Change Act.

The Green Connection submitted detailed comments on the Bill to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy on 7 August 2026, calling for the legislation to be withdrawn. The proposed legislation would repeal the Gas Act of 2001 and replace it with a new framework intended to promote a gas industry that largely does not yet exist in South Africa.

The Green Connection’s Advocacy Lead, Lisa Makaula says, “The Bill makes no reference to the Climate Change Act, South Africa’s emissions targets or the just transition, despite the need for new legislation to support the country’s climate commitments. It also treats liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a “clean” or “transition” fuel, despite growing scientific concern about methane emissions and the climate impacts of expanding fossil-fuel infrastructure. Since gas licences could be issued for up to 25 years, this could potentially extend well beyond the period in which South Africa has committed to achieving net-zero emissions.”

Natural gas is made up primarily of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global warming. Over a 20-year period, methane traps roughly 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide. Reducing methane emissions is therefore considered one of the fastest ways to slow near-term global warming. However, the proposed Gas Bill contains no explicit requirements to monitor, report or limit methane leaks across the gas value chain.

At a time when communities are already experiencing the consequences of a changing climate, The Green Connection says it is deeply concerned that Parliament is considering legislation that could facilitate further fossil-fuel development without adequately addressing these climate risks.

“South Africa has recently experienced severe cold conditions and snowfall in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and other provinces, while communities in Europe continue to face record-breaking heat, drought and wildfires. While individual weather events cannot simply be attributed to climate change, scientists have established that a warming climate is increasing the likelihood and intensity of many types of extreme weather,” adds Makaula.

The Bill also raises concerns about affordability because imported LNG is exposed to international markets, where gas prices can be highly volatile. Expanding gas-fired electricity generation could therefore expose South African electricity consumers to global price shocks. According to The Green Connection, these costs could ultimately be passed on to consumers through higher electricity tariffs, placing additional pressure on households already struggling with the cost of living. What South Africans need is an energy future that is affordable, sustainable and aligned with our climate
commitments. Expanding dependence on imported gas seems to be taking us in the opposite direction.

Gas pipeline infrastructure (left/top), rising household utility costs (right/bottom)

According to The Green Connection’s Outreach Ambassador, Neville van Rooy, “Another huge concern is that the Bill could reduce precious public safeguards at precisely the time when communities need a greater say in decisions affecting their lives, livelihoods and land. Repealing the current Gas Act puts existing protections at risk, including requirements relating to fair processes, notification of affected people, local-language advertising and environmental rehabilitation. Too risky for the people, the proposed Bill leaves many of these matters to ministerial discretion, without guaranteeing that equivalent protections will be put in place.”

“The Bill would also give the Minister broad powers, including to determine which activities require licences, granting exemptions and deciding whether to expropriate land. Concentrating these powers in the hands of the Minister, while weakening independent oversight and public participation, could allow decisions about nationally significant infrastructure to be made without sufficient input from the people most directly affected,” says van Rooy.

Land rights, including customary and informal land rights, are a particular concern here because the proposed Bill would allow the Minister to initiate expropriation, while removing or weakening some of these safeguards, whereas under the current framework, expropriation can take place at a licensee’s request, following a public hearing and with compensation provided. The Bill also fails to adequately protect the rights of traditional and Khoi-San communities.

He says, “South Africa’s experience shows why strong protections and meaningful participation are necessary. Communities such as those in Xolobeni have had to fight for years to protect their land, livelihoods and way of life from extractive developments. As an organisation working alongside small-scale fishers and coastal communities, we are particularly concerned that people who could be directly affected by gas infrastructure have not been adequately considered. Small-scale fishing communities, fishing co-operatives and fishing-dependent communities are absent from the Bill’s supporting socio-economic assessment, despite the potential impacts of coastal gas infrastructure on marine ecosystems and livelihoods.”

The Green Connection has raised further concerns about the Final Socio-Economic Impact Assessment System (SEIAS) report supporting the Bill, which appears to belong to an earlier version of the legislation an amendment rather than the proposed repeal-and-replacement of the Gas Act and therefore does not accurately reflect the Bill currently before Parliament. It also uses incorrect clause numbers and predates key developments in South Africa’s climate legislation. Moreover, the assessment does not adequately consider the implications for small-scale fishers, fishing co-operatives and fishing-dependent communities.

The proposed Gas Bill forms part of a broader package of fossil-fuel policy framework currently being advanced in South Africa that is not aligned with the Climate Change Act and could expose taxpayers to significant environmental liabilities. This includes the Upstream Petroleum Resources Development (UPRD) Act, which The Green Connection argues could lock the country into long-term fossil-fuel dependence while sidelining public participation and coastal communities. It also includes the proposed South African National Petroleum Company (SANPC) Bill, which seeks to consolidate state oil and gas assets.

The organisation says these legislative developments should be considered together, rather than as isolated pieces of legislation, because of their potential implications for South Africa’s climate commitments, energy costs, public finances and community livelihoods.

“We urge Parliament to withdraw the Bill and reconsider whether expanding imported gas infrastructure is consistent with South Africa’s climate commitments and broader social and economic objectives. However, should Parliament decide to proceed, the Bill requires substantial amendments to ensure that it is aligned with the Climate Change Act and national emissions targets, and it will be critical to introduce meaningful methane monitoring and reporting requirements. The Bill must protect public participation and environmental safeguards and recognise customary and informal land rights in ways that guarantee fair compensation. Meaningful consultation with communities affected by gas infrastructure must be a requirement. Finally, adequate funding must be made available for decommissioning and environmental rehabilitation,” Makaula concludes.

The Green Connection is also calling for public hearings in affected coastal provinces and for the Bill to be referred to the National Council of Provinces and the National House of Traditional and Khoi-San leaders.

The eco-justice organisation says, “The choices made today will affect generations to come. South Africa cannot afford long-term energy decisions that ignore climate science, community rights and economic realities.”

June 4, 2026 Past News JUDGMENT RESERVED: HIGH COURT CONSIDERS ARGUMENTS CHALLENGING WEST COAST SEISMIC SURVEY APPROVAL

On Tuesday afternoon, the Western Cape High Court concluded a two-day hearing in the ongoing legal challenge by Aukotowa Fisheries Primary Co-operative, The Green Connection and Natural Justice (the Applicants) against the State and TGS Geophysical Company UK Ltd.

June 26, 2026 Past News Saldanha Red Dust Emissions Decision Referred to National Environment Department

On 25 June 2026, The Green Connection welcomed the West Coast District Municipality’s decision to reject Transnet Port Terminals’ application to renew an Atmospheric Emission Licence (AEL) for the Saldanha Iron Ore Terminal.

June 30, 2026 Past News (Op-Ed) Ska Fela Moya: Don’t Give Up, Just Breathe The Fumes

When a corporation wraps itself in the language of human endurance while polluting the air that athletes breathe, we should name it for what it is. A lost opportunity.

July 14, 2026 Latest News OPEN LETTER: GREEN CONNECTION QUESTIONS ISRAELI OIL COMPANY’S BID FOR SOUTH AFRICAN OFFSHORE BLOCK AMID ICJ CASE

Environmental justice organisation The Green Connection has written an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa about reports that Israeli-owned Navitas Petroleum LP is set to become operator of offshore oil and gas exploration Block 1 CBK in the Orange Basin off South Africa’s West Coast.

The post Extreme Weather And Rising Electricity Costs – The Green Connection Urges Parliament To Withdraw Proposed Gas Bill, Warns Of Climate, Community And Financial Risks appeared first on The Green Connection.

The world has become hotter and, in many places, drier than ever before in recorded history. Just this summer, as some U.S. states battle over rights to the Colorado River, major reservoirs are at historically-low levels. In Puerto Rico, extended drought has exacerbated an infrastructure crisis, leaving residents to suffer weeks-long stretches without water. In Europe, the Danube and Rhine rivers reached record lows, causing nuclear plants to shut down, devastating crops, and revealing long-lost relics from WWII. More than 60 percent of farmland in Italy is affected by critical drought. 

Emerging research shows that a drier world is often a sicker one, too. A new paper, published last week in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, takes stock of nearly 100 scientific studies of diseases found throughout the animal kingdom — from humans to large mammals, fish, amphibians, and insects — to reveal how drought can help deadly infections and parasites spread. 

The majority of human parasites and many pathogens need water to thrive. And while cases of some infectious diseases — like schistosomiasis, a dangerous flatworm infection also known as snail fever, and malaria — sometimes fall dramatically when ponds and lakes dry up, others — like cholera, West Nile virus, and dengue — end up booming. 

This is called the “drought-disease paradox,” said Tara Stewart Merrill, an aquatic disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and coauthor of the paper. “It’s so counterintuitive,” she said. “We think a water-borne disease should thrive only when there’s plenty of water, but in some cases they thrive when there’s less water.”

She and her collaborator and coauthor, Pieter Johnson, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, became interested in how drought would affect these pathogens several years ago while studying parasites in pond ecosystems in California. Suddenly, Stewart Merrill said, more than half of their study sites dried up. 

“Beyond drought screwing up our study, we then started having conversations about how drought might be shaping disease transmission in ecosystems around the planet,” Stewart Merrill said. 

Research on climate change and infectious disease is a relatively young but fast growing field. Until recently, many studies focused on how rising temperatures, but not drought, affect the spread of diseases, Stewart Merrill said. 

Now, their paper shows how scientists are beginning to untangle the complexities of diseases and the water cycle. Understanding how drought affects the spread of certain diseases could also help scientists better predict which diseases will spread and be the most problematic for humans in the future. 

As fossil fuels warm the planet and change the climate, the hotter atmosphere sucks more water from the landscape and holds onto it longer, leading to more intense and prolonged droughts. The world is 77 percent drier than it was three decades ago, according to a United Nations report. 

The consequences for human health have already been felt. Droughts in California throughout the 2000s led to thousands of excess cases of valley fever, and in 2014, a superdrought contributed to the state’s second-highest cases of West Nile virus. In 2017, a drought in Somalia led to nearly 80,000 cases of cholera, which killed more than a thousand people. And in Brazil, where millions are afflicted with dengue each year, researchers have found that the risk of infection can rise a few months after drought.

City workers in Sao Paulo, Brazil fumigate a neighborhood to fight against an outbreak of mosquito-borne dengue in March 2024.
Andre Lucas / Getty Images

Tracking disease is fundamentally about the movement of animals that carry it, said Georgia Titcomb, a wildlife disease ecologist and assistant professor at Colorado State University. 

“Throughout history, living things have been moving to get water, and so when there are massive changes to the way water is distributed on the landscape, we’re going to also expect big changes in the ways animals move to access that water,” she said. “That’s going to remove some opportunities for transmission, and introduce new ones too.” 

For example, Titcomb said, picture watering holes in the African savannah, surrounded by animals like zebras, elephants, rhinos, and giraffes. During droughts, some of them dry up. More animals crowd around the remaining pools. These crowded areas are also full of dung from those animals, making it easier for parasites that lay their eggs in feces to spread and thrive, and more likely that the animals will encounter parasites.

Titcomb’s paper, included in the new review, found that after periods with less rainfall, parasites thrived — with more than 100,000 eggs found per each kilogram of dung.

Research in other areas has found similar dynamics: When drought results in fewer bodies of water, birds carrying West Nile virus can come into closer contact with mosquitos, resulting in more mosquitos that carry the disease and can infect humans. Drought can also make bodies of water warmer, creating conditions in which some dangerous mold, algae, and bacteria can thrive.

In other cases, drought can diminish disease. Hotter, saltier, and less oxygenated water can become unsurvivable for certain pathogens, bacteria, fungus, and parasites, the paper found. 

The severity of the drought also matters. Vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria that infects oysters and causes 80,000 cases of food poisoning in the United States each year, initially spreads during a drought but can be eliminated entirely if it goes on long enough. 

And heavy periods of precipitation can also make an outbreak worse when a drought eventually comes, said Samantha Sambado, a biologist and postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University who was not affiliated with the study.  This phenomenon, known as ‘weather whiplash,’ is becoming increasingly common as the planet warms. 

The fungus that causes valley fever, for example, grows during wet winters, and then dries and spreads as wind-borne dust in the summer, she said. “It’s a classic case of, climate change will make this worse,” she said.

The new paper sheds important light on these dynamics, Sambado said. “It’s going to be really foundational for how we teach disease ecology,” she said. 

In the coming years, improvements in satellite monitoring technology could make it easier for scientists to track water as it shifts around the planet, she said. Paying attention to how humans respond to drought and manipulate the movement of Earth’s water will become increasingly important, too: Building dams or using more irrigation on crops can create conditions that spread or foster disease. Increasingly unpredictable weather can make it harder for communities to manage their water with disease prevention in mind.

“Water touches almost every aspect of life,” Sambado said. “How do we manage this resource, knowing the future will be warmer?”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Samantha Sambado’s name.

Read more about climate change and your health A deadly bacteria is creeping up the Atlantic Coast. How worried should you be? Zoya Teirstein

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In a drier world, some infectious diseases are unexpectedly thriving on Aug 21, 2026.

For several years now, a few Republican lawmakers and their Big Ag allies have pushed federal legislation to effectively preempt, or block, state food safety and animal welfare laws.

More than just a record of the build, the film is a thoughtful exploration of the knowledge, values and community spirit behind Earthship construction.

The webinar provided a forum for farmers’ organisations, cooperatives, academics and international institutions from various countries to share experiences and learn from one another.

The post SPI, Indonesia: Agricultural Cooperatives the Cornerstone of Land Reform and Food Sovereignty appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Alberta needs buildings that can withstand increasingly severe weather. Successful retrofit projects show what it takes to make existing buildings more comfortable, resilient and affordable.A new report, Surfacing success: Learning from whole...

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21 August, 2026, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Two new studies present a fuller picture of environmental and health conditions around plastic and paper waste recycling facilities in Kuala Langat, Malaysia. One study confirms significant river pollution and microplastic contamination near factory discharge points through direct water quality testing. The other reports elevated rates of self-reported symptoms among nearby residents.

Together, the studies offer some of the first community-level evidence on the potential public health and environmental footprint of Malaysia's plastic and paper waste recycling sector. Malaysia remains one of the world's leading destinations for imported plastic waste.

Key Findings include:

Study 1: This study directly tested river water near the discharge points of plastic and wastepaper recycling factories in the same region, offering evidence for some of the concerns raised by residents in the health survey, particularly related to water quality:

• Turbidity, or cloudiness, represents the suspended sediments in water. Malaysia's drinking water standards cap turbidity at 5 NTU for treated drinking water. The river water tested reached as high as 996 NTU — roughly 200 times that benchmark. High turbidity also blocks sunlight, making it easier for contaminants and pathogens to persist.

• • Conductivity and dissolved solids indicate how much salts, minerals and potentially industrial byproducts are present in the water. These were markedly elevated (38,452.33–41,676.33 μS/cm; up to 1,106 mg/L), compared with national standards of around 1,000 μS/cm for conductivity and 500–1,000 mg/L for total dissolved solids in river water. The salinity levels (21.71–23.87 ppt), were also far above the safe 0.5–2 ppt range set for rivers, indicating brackish water rather than freshwater, most likely caused by heavy industrial contamination.

• Dissolved oxygen, essential for both human and aquatic sustenance, was low (1.35–2.78 mg/L; standard: 4 mg/L), indicating severely degraded water quality.

• Microplastics were detected in every sample collected, though the specific polymer types were not confirmed.

• Most chemical pollutants tested, including phthalates, bisphenol A, and most VOCs, were below detection limits, except toluene, which was found at one sampling location (3.0 μg/L).

Study 2: A cross-sectional survey of 520 residents living near recycling facilities in Kuala Langat found notable rates of self-reported respiratory, eye and skin symptoms:

• Respondents frequently reported concerns regarding fumes, smoke, unpleasant odours, and dirty water in their residential areas.
• Many participants attributed these issues to nearby recycling facilities and waste-processing activities.
• A significant portion of respondents (66.3% regarding fumes/smoke and 73.9% regarding odours) had filed formal complaints, primarily to the Department of Environment (DOE). The DOE responded to some complaints and took some actions, yet there have been no further reports filed with the Ministry of Health, nor any resolution offered.
• Respiratory: Frequently reported symptoms included cough (33.7%), sore throat (31.0%), and runny nose (26.7%).
• Ocular: Common symptoms were itchy eyes (43.5%), watery eyes (40.4%), and red eyes (36.5%).
• Dermatological: The main reports included dry or cracked skin (35.7%) and itchiness (20.3%).
• Neurological: Reported symptoms included fatigue (34.6%), low energy (27.3%), and dizziness (26.7%).

Several symptoms were significantly associated with factors such as how long residents had lived in the area, smoking status, and second-hand smoke exposure. Most respondents also raised concerns about fumes, smoke, unpleasant odour and dirty water, which they associated with nearby factories and waste-related activity.

Read together, the two studies offer complementary evidence: a water quality study found measurable, significant degradation in river water near factory discharge points; and residents near recycling facilities widely reported health concerns since the factories were established. The authors caution that two studies should be read as complementary lines of evidence and investigation, rather than direct proof of a causal link between specific pollutants and symptoms.

 

Why is this important?

As Malaysia continues to import large quantities of plastic waste each year and recycling is concentrated in industrial areas, the researchers argue that community-level health evidence is essential for environmental health surveillance and risk management — particularly in developing-country settings where such research remains scarce.

"Our research in Kuala Langat proves a vital truth: if recycling pollutes our water with microplastics and causes respiratory illness next door, it isn't a solution—it's just outsourced pollution," said Dr Sharifah Norkhadijah Syed Ismail, University Putri Malaysia (UPM).

"Recycling shouldn't cost a community its health. When imported waste turns local rivers into microplastic hotspots, it’s clear: we need cleaner processing, not just green labels," said Dr Nurulain Mustafa Udin, University Technology Mara (UiTM).

"Imported waste doesn't just disappear when it gets recycled—it settles in our rivers and spills into the air our communities breathe. True sustainability means protecting local water and health, not just moving garbage across borders," said Dr Aida Sora Shamsuddin, University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).

The study highlights an urgent need for continuous environmental health surveillance, improved community engagement, and further research that integrates health assessments with air and water quality monitoring near such facilities.

About the Studies

Study 1: Investigating the pollution footprint of imported paper and plastic waste processing plants in Malaysia on water quality and microplastics [Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management (2026)]: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-026-02608-1

Study 2: Perceived health impacts among residents living near plastic and paper waste recycling facilities in Kuala Langat, Malaysia [Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (2026)]: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-026-15741-z

For media enquiries or interviews with the study authors, please reach out to: Devayani Khare, Asia-Pacific Regional Communications Officer, Break Free From Plastic: devayani@breakfreefromplastic.org

About the Environmental & Occupational Health Society (EOHS) – a group of energetic and diverse practitioners and researchers brought together by a common interest in promoting distinction in prevention, research, and professional services across the environmental and occupational health field. https://eohsmy.wixsite.com/eohsmy

About Break Free From Plastic –  #BreakFreeFromPlastic is a global movement envisioning a future free from plastic pollution. Since its launch in 2016, more than 3,500 organizations representing millions of individual supporters around the world, have joined the movement to demand massive reductions in single-use plastics and push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis. BFFP member organizations and individuals share the values of environmental protection and social justice, and work together through a holistic approach to bring about systemic change. This means tackling plastic pollution across the whole plastics value chain—from extraction to disposal—focusing on prevention rather than cure and providing effective solutions. www.breakfreefromplastic.org

A cruelty ban without an exit plan Channel News brendan 21st August 2026 Teaser Media

CALGARY — A new report highlights key lessons from four noteworthy retrofit projects in Alberta and identifies the conditions needed to build a stronger retrofit market.Whole-building retrofit projects in Alberta are becoming more common but continue...

• Omaha is a bit late to the streetcar trend, which started to die out when Obama-era funding did. Some, like Kansas City and Cincinnati’s, have been successful. Others, like those in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, lacked enough density or didn’t go far enough to be useful. A lot of times new streetcars are better at spurring development than actually moving people. (Nebraska Public Media)
• How did the public right-of-way become synonymous with cars? (Gary’s Substack)
• New Urbanism cofounder Andres Duany named his 25 favorite American cities or neighborhoods, and the thing almost all of them have in common is that they’re laid out on a grid. (CNU Public Square)
• Cities’ ambitious long-range plans are often disconnected from the sprawl-encouraging zoning that’s actually on the ground. (Smart Growth America)
• “Enshittification” doesn’t just apply to the internet. Cory Doctorow’s apt phrase for the worsening experience of going online can describe urban environments as well, David Levinson writes. Think about ugly bus wraps, blocked sidewalks and shared e-bikes scattered on the ground. (Transportist)
• New tire efficiency rules in California will save drivers gas and keep millions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. (Grist)
• Portland is banning right turns on red at 30 particularly dangerous intersections, and could add 200 more if it works. (Oregonian)
• An overhaul of Florida property taxes could result in eliminating more than half of Pinellas County bus routes. (St. Pete Today)
• A Nevada committee appointed by state legislators did not answer the question of how to fund regional mass transit. (Current)
• Montgomery County, Maryland is upgrading its red-light cameras to catch drivers who speed up to catch a green light. (WTOP)
• Without explanation, officials in Jackson County, Missouri decided not to call for a referendum on a tax to support transit, walking and biking in Kansas City. (Star)
• The University of Pennsylvania created a digital version of Roosevelt Boulevard to test solutions for the deadly conditions on the Philadelphia road. (Penn Today)
• Minneapolis released a new interactive bike map ahead of the possible return of bikeshare. (Mpls St. Paul)
• Ride Bellevue is a service that delivers bikes to the Washington city’s downtown hotels, enabling visitors to explore without a car. (Momentum)
• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a gallery of transit photos dating back to the 1960s.

Not to alarm, but everything in America - our economy, military, education, environment, health, moral fiber - is being decimated by a petty, fragile, flailing child in a fact-free bubble who just turned our foreign policy over to North Korea because its dictator "has always been nice to me." Otherwise, he's grifting, lying, babbling, losing wars, slathering gold, raving about his vanity projects - "If you're grass, you're very happy" - and going on AI slop sprees with George Washington, spinning in his grave.

This week, the war in Iran sank deeper into the quagmire it was always doomed to be when the 60-day negotiating period expired with little public comment. Trump shrugged off the lack of new talks because "the situation is so good," then threatened the "MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN" against Iran, which said it's working with Oman to monitor shipping through Hormuz Strait, which prompted Trump to threaten to "bomb the shit out of Oman," even though it's supposedly mediating on Iran. Having announced that after "we finish defeating Iran" he wanted to declare the Strait "a territory of the U.S," Trump went online and did just that with his magic Sharpie; Iran, in turn, vowed to "correct the delusions of this delusional individual," and who could blame them. Whiplash City.

At home, alas, America will likely continue getting dumber thanks to the moronic regime deleting or altering nearly 400 federal datasets - tracking police misconduct, violence against children, pollution - to wipe out facts they don't like. Of online data released last week from over 60 agencies - environment, education, labor, law enforcement - by far the largest slice is health information, much on substance abuse, mental health, infectious disease, queer and trans people in keeping with the surreal executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government." Entirely logically, experts decry the destruction - Facts: who needs 'em? - arguing once these cretins crawl back to their caves "we are not going to have the information we need...We’re erasing our institutional memory for public health.”

Speaking of: Just in time for fall, we have "Bobby Jr's Back to School Special: Free Measles!" The folks who won't give out free lunch are instead giving us over a quarter of a million kids entering kindergarten susceptible to measles, which has hit a 36-year high along with an all-time high of vaccine exemptions after rules were loosened - a vax rate so low health experts say it cannot provide herd protection. Just to keep us on our toes, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and chickenpox vax rates are also down, good news for a regime whose only strong point is spreading preventable disease. Dems wrote a letter urging Trump to halt substituting “anti-vaccine ideology for decades of scientific evidence”; good luck to them and us on what besieged health officials deem ongoing "chaos and confusion in vaccination recommendation systems."

Meanwhile, as Americans struggle to afford food, gas, health care - 8 million have lost coverage - the mad king is insisting his "REAL Polling Numbers (are) the best they have ever been" - ie: low 20s for Independents, 13% for Black voters, down 27 points for his Latino voters as Dems flip 30 state seats, including where Mar-a-Lago is - and covering everything in gold. Like, everything. One sage: "His super power is the ability to ruin shit you didn’t even know existed." He's spent up to $900 million on vanity pr0jects and $200 million to turn the White House into a brothel-like, gimcrack-packed "Middle Eastern bazaar crossed with an opulent Cracker Barrel" - complete with gold Trump coin glued to the Oval Office door - in a lavish, tacky, Let-Them-Eat-Gold-or-at-least-Home-Depot-plastic-appliques shopping junket with (obviously) our money.

He's ordered a "golden fleet" of 15 new "Trump-class" nuclear-powered warships estimated to cost about $275 billion, though he's said he'd rather get 25 ships for $455 billion. He announced the White House was buying 250 giant new Cadillac Escalade SUVs - retail price $90,000 each, over $300,000 for armored version - because, "That’s how we look sharp in those cavalcades." Last month, he spent over $5 million to gaudily gild two 19-foot, 80,000-pound equestrian statues, Arts of War and Arts of Peace, in 23.75-karat gold leaf (though they're bronze and should have been polished), rendering them like "very, very gold" oversized children's trophies next to the austere Lincoln Memorial. "We made them the way they were plus," he moronically bragged, "and everyone’s so proud." We wonder: Is "everyone" in the room with us?

As the national debt just hit $40 trillion for the first time - it took nearly 200 years for it to reach $1 trillion in 1981- Trump remains fixated on his feckin' $600 million ballroom - oops, sorry: "military complex" - that no one asked for. After a court blocked construction, he called the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who successfully brought the suit to stop it, “TREASONISTS” who are threatening national security and exposing "top secret military features.” More weirdly, the guy supposedly worried about "national security" just imploded seven decades of careful diplomacy with South Korea - and a 1950s mutual defense treaty the State Department calls "the linchpin for security and stability in the Indo-Pacific” - to punish a longtime democratic ally for declining to join his Iran debacle and instead appease a nuclear-armed dictator.

His abrupt move Sunday night to “substantially reduce” joint exercises with South Korea, hours before 18,000 South Korean troops and thousands of Americans were set to kick off their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, was widely panned as "an unforced error" and "another inane, haphazard decision (by) a chaotic administration" - one made, as usual, not jointly with Congress but unilaterally, on social media, based on wildly false, revisionist history. His "reasons": The drills are "costly" (see statues, ballroom, mountain of gold crap), they send a signal that's "inappropriate and hostile" toward a regime that's "unthreatening," and “Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect...I understand him, and he understands me." In other words, he is Sally Fields at the 1985 Oscars: "You like me!"

Never mind his "unthreatening" North Korea has weapons that reach the US; they're shipping weapons to Putin's forces in Ukraine; and Thursday they shrugged off Trump's paltry olive branch by launching a barrage of missiles, dismissing the "recent measure (of) so-called good faith," and denying Trump's claim his bestie had reached out. Sen. Tim Kaine: "North Korea tests ballistic missiles and Trump decides the problem is with...our ally, South Korea." These are also the guys who killed Otto Warmbler, a 21-year-old U.S. student on a 2016 tour charged with a "hostile act against the state" after allegedly stealing a hotel poster. He was put away after a show trial; when the U.S. got him released 17 months later, he came home blind, deaf, vegetative, howling, with catastrophic brain damage and signs of torture. He died six days later. But sure, Trump and Kim Jong Un "get along GREAT!"

Along with America’s rebuff of ally South Korea, the Pentagon just chose to relieve the beleaguered USS Lincoln with the USS Washington, the Navy’s only aircraft carrier in the Asia Pacific. The move leaves no U.S. presence there for the first time since 1944, “vaporizing” U.S. influence in the region and marking “the end of an era” - maybe just as well, given the Navy’s belated admission that last month U.S. destroyer USS Benfold lost power and ran adrift in the South China Sea for four days with no food, water, AC or toilets. Heckuva job, Pete. No wonder the rude mad king lost it Monday when CNN reporter Kristen Holmes did her job and challenged him on the wisdom of said “policies.” "What I'm doing is making things safer," he snarled. Admirably, she persisted. "Quiet! You're very disrespectful, you're a loud boisterous person," he snapped. "Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet."

The rancor didn't end there. Holmes also dared to ask about a now-viral speech by Sen. Jon Ossoff, who noted the "crook president" doesn't want "to do the job." Instead, "he wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar" - a brief, incendiary reference to "weird stalker-slash-diaper-nurse" Natalie Harp, who Trump calls "sweetie." Trump brushed off Holmes' question with the always bizarre tactic of a grotesquerie tossing puerile insults at better-looking people: Ossoff is "a Pee-wee Herman look-alike." Still, the fragment of discomfiting reality - Ossoff: “Apparently, in the White House, the truth hurts” - in a 30-minute speech sparked a telling torrent of fury from MAGA cultists unaccustomed to hearing it. As a result - and 'cause they're dumb - the meltdown was laughable.

The White House declared Ossoff “the biggest cuck loser in politics,” a “feminine theater kid,” a “lightweight.” They also went for Holmes, “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment." “These scumbags are the lowest of the low,” they said. “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed.” (Cue lowest of the low.) Many others chimed in. Ossoff is “a mean-spirited jerk who traffics in slander,” “Who does this and holds their head high? This guy should be ashamed.” Hilariously, some ran with the news the quiet, studious Ossoff, known “for keeping his head down and doing the work,” spent $2,887 on make-up and prep for TV appearances. Laura Ingraham: "Beneath that pancake bronzer and rouge, we have an ambitious man, (the) most dangerous type of politician." America: "Fox ridiculing men who wear makeup is really something to behold."

Amidst the eruptions, Trump took to Truth Social, his tawdry security blanket, in a weekend spree of over 40 posts in six hours, most of it AI slopaganda. No more hiding in catering trucks: Here he is triumphant, a svelte Elvis - "President Trump ages in reverse!” - building a “WALL OF STEEL" around Iran's ports in a made-for-TV movie war where, in Nazi typeface, “We are going to win.” Also beware Elizabeth "Pocohontas" Warren, Abdul El-Sayed, and women in hijab who "are coming for your home and your belongings!" Enamored of George Washington, he saves him at Mt. Rushmore, splits a portrait with him, rides beside him on horseback (the bad guy on a black horse) and, before two huge American flags with the wrong number of stripes, consults him - shrunk shorter than Trump 'cause petty is as petty does - on his feckin' ballroom: "Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas." Consensus: "Psychotic stuff."

Dean Blundell cites the screaming dissonance of Trump’s infatuation with a leader of grace and integrity who over time “refused a crown, a palace, a third term, power itself” as he “diligently sought the public welfare.” In He’s No Washington, Blundell helpfully offers “the most humiliating side-by-side in American history.” With no fancy education, Washington had and read one key book of philosophy: A 1702 translation of Seneca’s Morals. Its chapter headings became the moral axioms Washington followed through "a lifetime of deliberate self-discipline," starting at 14 when he copied “110 Rules of Civility” into a notebook "and spent the next 50 years living them." A man who could "command a room by saying less" but naturally "most tremendous in his wrath,“ Washington's composure was "a construction project...He was a volcano that decided, every single day, not to erupt."

Blundell describes ”the moral weight of a man who asked nothing for himself.” When he took office, the Senate debated for weeks what to call him - “His Highness the President of the United States," "His High Mightiness“ - but he chose the unfussy ”Mr. President." Same with his residence; the original plan was a European-style palace four times bigger. He twice gave up power at the height of his own, for which King George called him "the greatest man in the world.” His favorite piece of writing was a play about the Roman Stoic senator Cato, who chose death over submission to Julius Caesar’s tyranny. With his army barefoot and freezing at Valley Forge, he had Cato performed for them "to remember what they were freezing for." In his farewell address, he warned of demagogues who would "ride public rage to power." He understood that in America, "the office was supposed to be bigger than the man. Power was never the prize. Character was the prize." Blundell: "Compare and weep."

Wednesday, the “visibly incoherent” current president, laser-focused on our most vital issues, led the press on a giddy tour of the work he’s ordered on the White House grounds in a scene like “a lost episode of the 1980s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” He bragged about the driveway’s “flawless granite,” autographed the ornate helipad “he insists he needs” - “It’s very strong stone, it will never break, it will never do— it’s rated million-year plus” - claimed the "military complex will have a drone-proof uh roof, and you’re gonna have on top of the roof, many drones,” and for perhaps the 10th time intoned “grass has a life like humans”: "We put brand new earth on top, so if you’re grass, you’re very happy.” America: "Hey Ma, Grandpa is in the front yard again yelling at people," "What an incredible babbling idiot," "A million years - that's how long his presidency has felt," and, "Fix the country you broke, asshole." Trump moved on to his new flagpoles. "This is a great pole," he said. "I'm very good at flagpoles."

Update: Now we're not only at war with Canada, but with the U.S. bond market. Asked how he might address volatility in the market, he offered, "The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will.” Comments:" "Operation Epic Interest Rates," "We will bomb the shit out of the bond market," "First, they eliminated the short-term interest rates traders, and I said nothing..." Make it stop.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Regional Queenslanders have raised their hands in a powerful show of unity against proposed LNP government laws that would give the Deputy Premier sweeping powers to fast-track major projects and seize private property.