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Recorded live at Scoundrel and Scamp Theatre in Tucson as part of CWP’s Keep Parks Public campaign, Aaron interviews four experts about the current state of Arizona’s public lands: Matthew Nelson with the Arizona Trail Association, Russ McSpadden with the Center for Biological Diversity, Emily Burns with Sky Island Alliance, and Amy Juan from the Tohono O’odham Nation.

We discuss the impacts of border wall construction on wildlife corridors and Indigenous sites, along with staffing and funding cuts at land management agencies and rollbacks of environmental protections, from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge to Quitobaquito Springs.

News

• Death Toll Rises in Grand Canyon Flood as Search Efforts Continue – New York Times

Resources

• Keep Parks Public Tour
• Arizona Trail Association
• Center for Biological Diversity
• Sky Island Alliance
• Watch this episode on YouTube

Produced by Aaron Weiss, Lauren Bogard, Kate Groetzinger, and Lilly Bock-Brownstein
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image: CWP photo

The post LIVE from Tucson: Arizona’s Public Lands and the Border Wall appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

On the morning of August 26th, part of a glacier cliff on the north face of Langtang Lirung (a ~7,200 meter peak 60 km north of Kathmandu) collapsed. The falling mass of ice and rock released energy equivalent to a magnitude 5.2 earthquake according to the USGS, and set off a debris flow that traveled ~100 km down into the Trishuli and Bhote Koshi rivers. This buried and washed away large parts of towns, severed the only highway between Nepal and China, and damaged at least six hydropower facilities. Currently (the morning of August 28th), reports put the death toll at around 500, with roughly 2,000 people still missing across Nepal and Tibet, and we expect these numbers to continue to rise.

The tragedy is unfortunately familiar for the Langtang valley. In 2015, shaking from a magnitude 7.8 earthquake released an avalanche of ice and rock from this same mountain that buried Langtang village and killed around 300 people. But there is an important difference between the two events: in 2015 an earthquake triggered the collapse. This time there was no tectonic trigger. The mountain simply failed, and the collapse itself produced a seismic event that was initially mistaken for an earthquake.

Within hours, some people on social media were confidently asserting that climate change caused the disaster, while others were just as confidently asserting it had nothing to do with it. In this piece I’ll try and lay out what the data and the scientific literature actually supports.

The short version is this: any formal attribution of this specific collapse to climate change is premature, and single events like this are genuinely hard to attribute even after careful study. At the same time, the collapse happened on a mountain that has warmed rapidly for decades, immediately after four consecutive summers that all rank among the five warmest in at least 86 years, and in a valley that has been losing ice at an accelerating rate. A rapidly warming climate and retreating glaciers are increasing risks of these sorts of events in the region, whether or not we can ultimately attribute this particular event.

A rapidly warming mountain

Let’s take a look at how temperatures have changed in the region where the glacier collapsed. The figure below shows ERA5 surface air temperatures for the ~25 km grid cell containing the glacier, both for monthly anomalies since 1940 and the summer (June–August) average for each year.1

ERA5 2m temperature for the 0.25° grid cell containing the Langtang Lirung collapse source zone (28.25N, 85.5E, with a gridcell elevation of 4,322 m). Top: monthly anomalies relative to a 1961–1990 baseline, with a 12-month running mean. Bottom: June–August mean temperature per year, 1940–2026; the 2026 value is preliminary (ERA5T, August through the 22nd). See this article’s GitHub page for underlying data.

Summers at the site have warmed at around 0.29C per decade since 1940, with the most recent 30 years (1996-2025) averaging about 1C warmer than the 1961-1990 baseline. The four most recent summers (2022 through 2025) all rank among the five warmest on record. A newly published study of the Langtang Catchment (Silwal et al 2026) also provides a separate check on my numbers. Using the higher-resolution ERA5-Land product, they find the glacial areas of the catchment (above 4000 m) warmed at 0.31C per decade over 1960-2023.

The glacial collapse came at the end of an exceptionally warm monsoon season. July 2026 was the second warmest July in the 86-year record (at 9.4C, behind only 2024’s 9.8C). The first three weeks of August (the latest daily data available when I ran this analysis) averaged 9.3C, running above the warmest complete August on record (9.1C in 2022). The collapse came on August 26th.2

Warm summers do not by themselves knock a mountain down. But sustained warmth at a glacial cliff increases risks by melting the ice that buttresses steep slopes, sending meltwater into cracks in the rock, and degrading the permafrost that acts as a frozen glue holding fractured high-altitude rock faces together (Gruber and Haeberli 2007). As the glaciologist Jakob Steiner told Scientific American, “you basically had the lower part of a glacier tongue that sheared off because the rock below failed.”

A valley losing its ice

Next let’s look at whats been happening to the region’s glaciers. The figure below shows glacier mass balance for the surrounding region (the Randolph Glacier Inventory’s South Asia East region, which spans the Himalaya east of ~81E, including Nepal) from the WGMS annual mass change estimates, along with in-situ measurements from two Nepali glaciers where long term measurements are available. This includes Yala Glacier in the Langtang valley itself, around 10 km from the collapse site.

Annual and cumulative glacier mass balance for the RGI South Asia East region (WGMS annual mass-change estimates v2026, hydrological years 1957–2025, ±1σ shading), and annual in-situ mass balance for Yala Glacier (Langtang valley) and Mera Glacier (Everest region) from the WGMS Fluctuations of Glaciers database. See this article’s GitHub page for underlying data.

Regional glaciers have lost a cumulative 26 meters of water equivalent since 1957 – equivalent to shaving roughly 30 meters of ice thickness off the average glacier surface. More than half of that loss (about 14 m w.e.) has occurred since the year 2000, with 2024 and 1997 as the two biggest loss years on record. Yala Glacier, the closest measured glacier to the collapse site, lost an average of 0.92 m w.e. per year over 2012–2025, with its worst year (-1.90 m w.e.) in 2024.3

Yala has become something of a symbol of Himalayan ice loss: this past May, ICIMOD and local communities held a tribute ceremony at the glacier, which has shrunk by 66% and retreated 784 meters since it was first surveyed in the 1970s. In their new paper, Silwal and colleagues find Yala’s equilibrium line (the altitude above which a glacier gains mass) has risen roughly 200–250 m since the 1980s and now sits above 5600 m. This is above the top of the glacier itself, meaning the entire glacier now sits in the melt zone.

Studies of the Langtang catchment specifically have found glacier thinning nearly doubled between 1974-2006 and 2006-2015 Ragettli et al 2016, mirroring the Himalaya-wide doubling of ice loss between 1975-2000 and 2000-2016 found by Maurer et al (2019) and the global acceleration documented by Hugonnet et al (2021).

The Langtang catchment has lost around 42% of its glacier area since the Little Ice Age (~1815, Silwal et al 2026), with the rate of loss more than quadrupling from 0.11% per year over 1815-1964 to 0.49% per year over 1964-2023, and the fastest loss coming after 2000. The number of glaciers nearly doubled (58 to 115) over that period as retreating glaciers have fragmented and disconnected into pieces.

The cause of this ice loss is clear. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report concluded that “human influence is very likely the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s.” When researchers have done formal attribution studies of individual glacier hazards (e.g. Stuart-Smith et al (2021) on the glacial lake threatening Huaraz, Peru), they have found glacier retreat that is “virtually certain” to be outside natural variability.

Why attribution of the collapse itself is premature

So why not simply connect the dots, and say that a warming mountain, retreating glaciers, and a record-warm August led to the collapse? The challenge is that the chain of causation for rock-ice avalanches is much messier than for glacier retreat, and the scientific literature on these events is consistently, and appropriately, cautious.

The Himalayan mountains have always shed ice and rock, as skeptics of any climate link will point out. The 2015 Langtang avalanche in the region was caused by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake rather than a string of warm summers. Steep glaciated faces fail for reasons of geometry, geology, and bad luck that have nothing to do with human emissions. Attribution of a specific collapse requires detailed forensic reconstructions on specific drivers before causes can be known with any certainty, and that work will take months to years.

The best precedent here is the February 2021 Chamoli disaster in the Indian Himalaya, where a rock-ice avalanche killed more than 200 people. The definitive study of that event (Shugar et al 2021 in Science) reconstructed the failure in detail but stopped short of attributing it to climate change, while noting that warming increases the probability of such events. Studies of other large glacier collapses, like the 2016 twin glacier detachments in Tibet (Kääb et al 2018), reach similarly hedged conclusions. A 2021 survey found an apparent increase in large glacier-related landslides in High Mountain Asia over 1998–2018, but its authors flagged the small sample size and cautioned that the association with warming “requires further research.” We simply do not have the kind of long, well-observed event record for high-mountain collapses that we have for heatwaves or heavy rainfall, where rapid attribution is now routine.

There is a related argument I’ve seen circulating online that events like this happened long before modern warming, and if anything a world with more glaciers should have more ice available to fall. The first part is clearly true. The largest ice avalanche ever observed in the Alps came off the Altels glacier in 1895 (around 4 million cubic meters), and a 1962 rock-ice avalanche from Huascarán in Peru killed around 4,000 people with no apparent trigger at all. Mountains were shedding ice catastrophically well before we started burning fossil fuels in earnest. But the existence of old events tells us nothing about whether the odds are changing, and heat waves happened in 1900 too (just less frequently). It is worth noting that the the best modern reanalysis of the Altels collapse, Faillettaz et al 2011, suspects hot summers in the preceding years warmed the glacier’s frozen bed toward the melting point.

Hazard from these slopes are not solely determined by how much ice sits on them. Rather, what drives risks is how fast the ice and the frozen ground beneath the ice are changing. A cold glacier frozen to its bed in a stable climate will be comparatively secure, but one in transition will be more at risk. Thinning glaciers withdraw support from the steep rock faces they once buttressed (called the “paraglacial response”, Ballantyne 2002), meltwater reaches previously dry failure planes, and warming permafrost loses the ice cement that held fractured rock together.

Its also worth listening to what experts have been saying about the event. Kristen Cook of Grenoble Alpes University told Scientific American that “it’s difficult to conclusively link a single event directly to climate change. We know it’s getting warmer in the Himalaya.” Dan Shugar, who led the Chamoli study, was cautious on this event’s specific cause while noting he is “100 percent” certain climate change will make such events more likely, “by some combination of glacier melt, permafrost thaw, and changes to precipitation and temperature patterns.”

Confident claims that climate change caused this disaster are getting ahead of the evidence. But at the same time, confident claims that it played no role ignore the rapid changes that we’ve observed in the area around where the mountain failed.

What are the takeaways here?

This is a humanitarian catastrophe, and the immediate causes of the enormous death toll include things like villages and infrastructure concentrated along narrow river corridors, a debris flow that covered 100 km, and limited warning systems that have little to do with climate change. As with other extreme events, we shouldn’t let debates about attribution distract from the urgent need to reduce vulnerability.

It is clearly premature to attribute the collapse itself to climate change. Given the messy causality of rock-ice avalanches, a definitive single-event attribution may never be possible. We will likely see careful forensic studies to be published over the next year or two (as happened after Chamoli), and I’d treat any confident causal claim made this week (in either direction) with a lot of skepticism.

But the broader context is not in doubt. The collapse happened on a mountain warming at around 0.29C per decade in summer, immediately after four consecutive summers that all rank among the five warmest in an 86-year record, during an August that was running warmer than any complete August on record, in a valley that has lost ice at an accelerating pace, and in a region where human influence is very likely the main driver of glacier retreat.

High Mountain Asia already has more people exposed to glacier flood hazards than anywhere else on Earth, and projections suggest the Hindu Kush Himalaya could lose a large fraction of its remaining ice this century, with losses scaling with emissions (Rounce et al 2023). The ice that holds these mountains together is being lost, and every tenth of a degree of additional warming pushes these systems further outside the conditions in which the region’s settlements, trails, and hydropower plants were built.

So when people ask whether climate change caused the disaster in Nepal, the answer is that we don’t know, and we may never know for this specific event. But if the question is whether a warming climate is making disasters like this one more likely in the Himalayas, the literature and essentially every scientist working on these hazards point in the same direction.

I’ve included a more detailed methods writeup and code to reproduce this analysis on my GitHub here.

1 A single 0.25° ERA5 grid cell in terrain this steep is an imperfect measure of the temperatures at the glacier itself; the grid cell spans valley floors around 1,400 m to the 7,200 m summit, with a mean elevation of 4,322 m. Early reports put the failure zone above 5,000 m. Absolute temperatures at the failure zone are substantially colder than the cell average, but anomalies and trends should be more consistent across elevations (if anything we’d expect slightly faster warming at higher elevations). ERA5 also has some limitations in the High Mountain Asia region before the satellite era (pre-1979), so I’d put less weight on individual early extremes than on the long-term trend.

2 For what it’s worth, the partial 2026 summer (8.0C) sits close to the long-term trend line, well below 2024, so the striking 2026 signal is in the July and August values specifically rather than the summer as a whole.

3 Yala is a small, debris-free, relatively low-elevation glacier that is known to lose mass faster than the regional average, and it is not a direct proxy for the hanging glaciers on Langtang Lirung’s north face. I’m showing it because it is the closest long-running measured glacier to the collapse site.

Earlier this summer we asked you to take action to protect some of southeast Utah’s most remote and ecologically sensitive landscapes from a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposal to authorize ten backcountry airstrips in the Moab and Monticello areas. Despite thousands of comments critiquing the proposal, the BLM approved all ten airstrips. SUWA appealed that decision, and on August 6, the agency withdrew its proposal in response to the appeal. Bafflingly, less than two weeks later, it reissued a nearly identical one.

The BLM is accepting public comments through this Thursday, September 3. Please tell the agency to follow the law, heed public input, and protect sensitive wild landscapes.

Several of the proposed airstrips sit within BLM-identified wilderness-quality lands or directly adjacent to Bears Ears National Monument and Canyonlands National Park. Others are within breeding and nesting habitat for bighorn, pronghorn, burrowing owls, and other raptors. The BLM acknowledges that aircraft noise and visual intrusions would degrade solitude and natural soundscapes in these areas. Research also shows that noise and increased traffic from motorized recreation, including aircraft, can displace wildlife and reduce reproduction and survival.

SUWA—and commenters like you—proposed a more balanced alternative: authorize four of the airstrips while rejecting six in the most environmentally sensitive locations: Spring Canyon, Big Flat, Castle Creek, Nokai Dome, Piute, and Red Canyon. But in its new environmental assessment, the agency discards this reasonable alternative.

The BLM never officially designated use of these airstrips, so any recent or current use is unauthorized. Most of the more remote airstrips show no signs of recent use and are covered by native vegetation, making them difficult or impossible to identify on the ground. Formally opening them for aircraft use—and maintaining them over time—would require heavy equipment to remove established sagebrush, rabbitbrush, juniper, and other native vegetation.

Click here to tell the BLM to reject airstrips in these sensitive locations

Rather than adequately addressing the public’s concerns, the agency has again advanced an ill-conceived proposal that will serve a few private planes at the expense of wildlife, cultural landscapes, and overall visitor experience.

Remember, comments are due by September 3. Please take advantage of this short comment window and tell the BLM that southern Utah’s remote canyon country, wildlife, and cultural landscapes deserve better.

The post Tell BLM to Keep Private Aircraft Out of Southern Utah’s Wild, Quiet Places appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Washington’s landmark Safer Products law was built on a commonsense principle: protect health by preventing toxic chemicals from contaminating our bodies, homes, workplaces, drinking water, and environment in the first place. Safer Products for Washington (SPW) requires the Department of Ecology (Ecology) to identify priority chemicals and priority products every five years, determine whether safer […]

The post Safer Products for Washington Cycle 2: Progress, gaps, and what comes next appeared first on Toxic-Free Future.

President Donald Trump is expected to announce more most-favored nation (MFN) drug pricing deals with additional pharmaceutical companies today. Public Citizen plans to immediately file a Freedom of Information request to obtain the texts of the newly claimed White House deals. Peter Maybarduk, Access to Medicines director for Public Citizen, issued the following statement:

“It has been nearly a year since Trump announced his first secret MFN deal with Pfizer, and he has almost nothing to show for it. The new deals are a distraction from the administration’s failed plan to lower U.S. drug prices to the levels paid in other wealthy countries. A more serious approach would build international reference pricing into Medicare drug price negotiation. Instead, Trump is cozying up to Big Pharma and keeping American drug prices high.

“There still is no evidence that any pharma company has followed through on prior commitments to the Trump administration to launch new drugs at MFN-price points. Uptake of TrumpRx, which may cause consumers to overpay on medicines, has been lackluster. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not announced any state participants in a pilot to test MFN-based prices in Medicaid. And CMS has failed to issue final rules to test MFN-pricing in Medicare, while simultaneously excluding almost all drug companies from these programs.”

Standing Up for the Gualala River

Friends of Gualala River (FoGR) is working hard to protect our watershed from a new round of logging proposals and complex regulatory shifts. From challenging timber harvest plans (THPs) in court to tracking regional water quality rules, our small team is bringing every tool to the table to defend our local ecosystem.

In this issue, we’re sharing critical campaign updates, launching an easy new tool for submitting public comments, and asking for your help to keep this momentum going. Thank you for standing with us to keep our river cold, clean, and protected!

Dogwood West: The Fight Returns to the Floodplain

A decade after the fight for the South Fork Gualala’s east bank, Gualala Redwood Timber is back—this time targeting the west bank floodplain forest. THP 1-26-00021-SON (the Card THP) proposes logging ~169 acres of crucial habitat for endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead. It currently sits on CAL FIRE’s desk awaiting a Director’s Decision, expected any day.

An AI Reads What Everyone Else Skimmed: FoGR deployed CalTrees Shepherd—a Claude-based THP analysis tool developed by our partners at Friends of the South Fork Gualala (FoSFG). On July 6, we filed a 36-page public comment pointing out that Card completely failed to analyze cumulative impacts from 750 additional acres of planned logging in the same watersheds where the THP proposes to log in. Nine days later, CAL FIRE ordered the Forester to disclose these plans, forcing a 30-day recirculation. Our follow-up AI analysis revealed the disclosures were still insufficient: actual cumulative disturbance sits at 34.8% in Big Pepperwood Creek and 46–47% at the Mouth of the Gualala River—far past regulatory warning thresholds.

Legal Counsel Joins the Fight: On August 21, attorney Jason Holder of Holder Law Group filed an 89-page legal letter on our behalf, followed by formal letters requesting non-concurrence from all lead state review agencies.

The River Remembers Dogwood: Our 6-year court battle over the original Dogwood THP forced two complete rewrites of a bad plan before an appellate court ultimately allowed logging to proceed. Today, with over 1,700 additional acres logged in these drainages since Dogwood, we are using every legal and technical tool to make sure Card’s flawed cumulative impacts analysis does not stand.

Little Pepperwood THP: Next in Line

(Public Comment Deadline: September 8)

Disclosed during the Card review, Little Pepperwood (THP 1-26-00076-SON) proposes harvesting 271 acres across Big Pepperwood Creek, Lower Rockpile Creek, and Red Rock watersheds. On August 27, CAL FIRE recommended it for approval.

• Severe Water Temperatures: The plan’s own data records mainstem temperatures at 71–75°F—just below lethal limits for salmonids—yet proposes removing conifer canopy along the water.

• Habitat Impact: Removes 106 acres of nesting and roosting habitat across four Northern Spotted Owl activity centers.

• Flawed Accounting: Ignores unrecovered watershed disturbance by relying on an arbitrary 10-year lookback window—a shortcut CAL FIRE has used in at least 17 recent THPs statewide.

Action Alert: Introducing caltrees.org!

Our partners at FoSFG launched caltrees.org, a free tool that makes writing informed public comments simple—no legal background needed!

Take Action Now: The Little Pepperwood comment period closes September 8 at 5pm. Visit caltrees.org/1-26-00076-SON to send a pre-loaded, custom public comment directly to CAL FIRE in under two minutes! Alternatively, email comments to: SantaRosaPublicComment@fire.ca.gov.

Navigating the Battle Over Watershed Roads (TMDL Update)

Nearly 30 years after the Gualala River was declared environmentally impaired, state regulators and local landowners remain locked in a major debate over how to fix our watershed’s broken roads. Unmaintained, unpaved roads remain the single largest source of sediment washing into the river and choking our cold-water habitats.

To tackle this problem, the Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted the Gualala River Sediment TMDL Action Plan in February 2026 (currently awaiting final state approval). To launch the plan locally, regulators drafted a proposed order (under Water Code Section 13267) that would require large landowners—those owning over 1,000 acres—to inspect, map, and prioritize fixes for dangerous sediment sites along their road networks.

Landowner Pushback vs. The Facts: During recent public workshops, large landholders and timber managers pushed back hard. They argued that the order relies on outdated data, creates unnecessary costs, and imposes strict deadlines. But our legal team stepped in to set the record straight:

• Free Support Available: Claims about unfair financial burdens ignore the fact that the Regional Board secured $5 million in state funds so landowners can get these road assessments done by qualified experts at zero cost to them.

• Plentiful Time: Claims that landowners only have 30 days to hire experts are flat-out false; the draft order gives landowners a generous three-year window (until April 2030) to complete their plans.

• Data Is Still Urgent: While landowners claim 2001 baseline data is outdated, current watershed studies show that nearly 1,500 miles of local roads still lack proof of proper storm-proofing.

FoGR Takes Action—Bringing Legal Counsel to the Table: To ensure this regulatory battle actually results in cleaner water, FoGR retained environmental attorney Mike Lozeau, who submitted a formal legal comment letter to the Regional Board on August 14.

Mike pointed out a critical flaw in the draft order: as written, it only requires landowners to make a plan, but doesn’t require them to report on whether they actually finish the repairs. Under a prior legal settlement between FoGR and the Board, regulators are required to track actual post-treatment results on the ground. Mike urged the Board to keep annual reporting active until planned road fixes are fully completed—giving landowners an incentive to finish the work and ensuring our river sees real, lasting recovery.

Field & Science Update: Weather Station Online

The Gualala Point weather news is a popular item on FoGR’s website, but it has been out of commission for some time. After good service for five years, the Davis weather station needed a new battery. Chad Watts from PG&E volunteered his time again to take it down. After inspection, we sent the moss and lichen studded unit to Davis for cleaning and maintenance. It’s back from Davis now and we will have it broadcasting again soon.We will notify you as soon as the station is up and running.

We Need Volunteer Support!

FoGR’s workload has never been heavier—and our all-volunteer board is stretched thin. While we hope to one day afford an Executive Director, our immediate goal is finding dedicated community members to join our team:

• Social Media & Outreach Coordinator: Have a few hours a month to spare? Help us post campaign updates, photos, and calls to action across our social channels to keep our 800+ supporters informed.

• Project & Administrative Lead: Help us manage project calendars, assist with campaign budgets, and coordinate contractors to free up our board for strategic planning.

• Agency Engagement Lead: Help facilitate Zoom panel discussions and establish constructive dialogue with representatives from Fish & Wildlife, Water Board, and CAL FIRE regarding THP non-concurrences.

Ready to help out? Email us at info@gualalariver.org.

Honoring 24 Years of Digital Dedication

Since launching gualalariver.org in May 2002, Dave Jordan has been the steward of our online presence. This past May, we celebrated Dave’s 24 years of service at a community gathering at the Shindig Social Club. We are thrilled to announce that Dave has recently completed a comprehensive “under-the-hood” modernization of the website. While the beautiful “magazine-style” appearance remains, the site now runs on a refreshed, high-performance platform to better serve our watershed and its supporters for years to come. Thank you, Dave, for your talent, devotion, and love of this place.

A Message From Our Secretary/Treasurer

The Gualala River and its watershed need steadfast advocates. Your donation helps us continue the work of protecting this extraordinary river, its wildlife, and the communities that depend on it.

Every contribution supports the legal efforts essential to defending the river and enables us to retain knowledgeable scientific and technical experts. Their expertise helps us evaluate threats, strengthen our advocacy, and make the strongest possible case for lasting protection.

All members of the Friends of Gualala River Board of Directors are volunteers, contributing their time, passion, and expertise at no charge.

Please donate today. Gifts of every size give us the resources to stand up for the Gualala River and safeguard it for generations to come.

Jeanne A. Jackson, Secretary/Treasurer, FoGR

To donate online::

Donate by credit card

– OR –

Donate in honor or memory of someone using credit card

If you prefer to write a check, please send it to:
Friends of Gualala River, PO Box 1543, Gualala, CA 95445

Lance Wheeler may have grown up in a Los Angeles suburb, but he always knew he wanted to be a cowboy. It was in his blood. His family raised cattle in Texas from before the Civil War until the...

A statement by Cuadrilla about the controversial Balcombe oil site in West Sussex apparently conflicts with information from officials and the company’s own partner.

Cuadrilla’s chief executive, Francis Egan, said planning permission remained in place for a well test at Balcombe, the focus of opposition for more than a decade.

But earlier this year (2026), the mineral planning authority confirmed that the permission had lapsed.

Days later, Angus Energy, which operates Balcombe on behalf of Cuadrilla and its parent company, A J Lucas, told investors it would be resubmitting a planning application.

Official records confirm this has not yet happened.

Photo: Helen Savage

Cuadrilla’s statement was part of the A J Lucas annual report, published in Australia earlier today (31 August 2026).

Mr Egan said in his report on UK operations (p10):

“On the Balcombe licence in southern England, operated by Angus Energy and in which Lucas holds at 75% carried interest, planning permission remains in place to undertake a flow test of the existing well. We continue to monitor developments and assess opportunities to unlock value from this conventional gas discovery.”

A separate section of the annual report (p16) said:

“[the Balcombe] Operator can therefore now progress”.

DrillOrDrop put the apparent conflict to A J Lucas and Cuadrilla and asked them to confirm whether no current planning permission existed for the Balcombe well test. We will update this article with any response.

Under Australian and UK law, lodging or distributing an annual report that contains false or misleading information is a serious offence.

West Sussex County Council lists eight planning applications for the Balcombe site on its online planning portal, dating from the first in 2010.

The most recent application, for an extended well test, was submitted in 2020 and refused unanimously by the West Sussex planning committee.

Angus Energy appealed and a planning inspector overturned the refusal on 13 February 2023. A High Court challenge by a local residents’ group was rejected in 2025 and a judge confirmed the company could go ahead with testing the well.

But Angus failed to complete the work by the planning deadline.

Condition 1 of the appeal decision stated:

“The development hereby permitted shall be begun before the expiration of three years from the date of this permission.”

Angus Energy did not carry out the well test by 13 February 2026.

At the time, DrillOrDrop asked West Sussex County Council whether planning permission had lapsed. The council replied:

“Yes, permission has now lapsed”.

A council spokesperson said the council was not aware of any work at the site in the previous week. The spokesperson added:

“We have not received any notification about the well test or the Lower Stumble site from Angus Energy or its agents in the past week.”

On 19 February 2026, Angus Energy said in a statement to investors:

“Following extended delays associated with the planning process at Balcombe, the Company intends to resubmit its planning application in due course and will provide further updates as appropriate.”

In Angus Energy’s most recent annual report, published on 9 April 2026, the company stated the well test would not be carried out before planning permission lapsed:

“due to the prolonged uncertainty created by the legal challenge, the Company was unable to complete the detailed engineering, procurement and contracting work required to commence the well test and the existing planning consent will expire before it can be activated.

“Accordingly, the Group intends to submit a revised planning application following completion of a technical review of the site and updated development plan. Management considers this to represent a timing and procedural matter rather than a loss of technical or commercial viability of the underlying asset.”

The company also said:

“the requirement to submit a revised application reflects timing and process constraints rather than any loss of technical or commercial potential. The company will continue to engage constructively with the local authority and local community as it progresses the revised development plan.”

Since then, Angus Energy has issued 13 statements to investors, none of which mentions the resubmission of a planning application for the Balcombe well test.

• References to Balcombe in the A J Lucas annual report describe it as a “gas discovery”. Cuadrilla’s website refers to Balcombe as an “exploration oil well”. Angus Energy’s website refers to Balcombe as an oil field.

Preston New Road

The A J Lucas annual report said of Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road former shale gas site, : “our focus shifted to site restoration and aftercare”.

Earlier this month, DrillOrDrop reported that acoustic fencing had been removed from the site near Blackpool.

Cuadrilla has until 8 January 2027 to complete restoration at Preston New Road to bring the site to a standard fit for agricultural use.

Mr Egan said today the restoration work “does not affect either the underlying petroleum licence interests of the extensive shale gas resource identified through the exploration programme”.

Other Cuadrilla sites

Elswick: Cuadrilla said it was generating electricity from gas extracted at the Elswick site near Preston New Road. It said Elswick “remains an important source of self-generated cash flow and demonstrates our ability to derive value from conventional gas opportunities”.

According to official data, Elswick produced a monthly average of just over 13ksm3 of gas in the first four months of 2026 for which data is available.

Yorkshire: Cuadrilla said it continued to hold 25% in licences operated by Egdon Resources containing “a significant discovered conventional gas accumulation”.

Lucas key financial figures

(Year ending 30 June 2026)

Net profit after tax: $28.5m (2025: net loss of $15m)

Group EBITDA*: $40.7m (2025: $14.5m)

Group revenue: $119.6m (2025: 145.6m)

UK settlement of legal dispute: $25.9m (see details here)

*Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amorization

Thomas Homer-Dixon and Toby Shannan

The version of record of this op-ed appeared in The Globe and Mail.

Full Environics Research polling data, summary and highlights, and methodological details are available here.

After the breakdown of trade negotiations between Canada and the United States, Canadians across the political spectrum are rallying round the Maple Leaf. But we’re still in the confrontation’s early stage, where outrage feels good and comes easily. The true costs will come later.

Current polls of our attitudes may mislead. Dopamine flows in pulses. Foreboding and second thoughts may well follow our current high, as prices for tariffed products climb, national and provincial debts soar, and tens of thousands of good jobs vanish.

To really gauge Canadians’ commitment to resistance, regardless of our potential foe, we need data that capture our deeper, more enduring sentiments. New evidence suggests we may indeed be ready to sustain the costs of our newfound defiance.

Continue reading. 

 

The post How stiff is Canada’s spine? A poll suggests we may be ready to sustain the costs of our newfound defiance appeared first on Cascade Institute.

Written by Hailey Faurot, Student Conservation Association (SCA) intern with the Constitution Marsh Audubon Center and Sanctuary, including Buttercup Farm, Rheinstrom Hill, and Ramshorn-Livingston...

Just days after Egyptian nuclear authorities reportedly accused Rosatom of construction defects, poor management and violations of “nuclear safety culture” at the El Dabaa nuclear power plant, Cairo is considering an unusual response: buying two more Russian reactors. 

Egyptian Electricity Minister Mahmoud Esmat met Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev in Russia this week to discuss progress at El Dabaa, a four-reactor nuclear station under construction on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The talks also covered a second phase that could add two more VVER-1200 reactors. 

That would expand the plant from 4.8 to 7.2 gigawatts and deepen a nuclear relationship with Moscow that would likely to last decades. 

The timing is curious. Earlier this month, POLITICO reported that a confidential June 4 letter from Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority to Rosatom detailed a series of construction and management problems at El Dabaa. 

According to the report, Egyptian officials cited defects in foundation slabs at reactor Units 1, 2 and 3, voids behind metal cladding at Unit 4 and problems with the cylindrical wall of its reactor building. The letter also reportedly accused Rosatom personnel of “deliberate negligence” and violations of nuclear safety culture, including shortcomings in workplace safety and site security. 

Separate internal Rosatom documents obtained by POLITICO pointed to construction-quality and management problems of their own. One assessment reportedly warned that completion of El Dabaa’s first reactor could slip by as much as 18 months, from September 2028 to March 2030. 

Cairo pushes back 

Egyptian authorities have strongly rejected suggestions that the disclosures show El Dabaa is unsafe. 

The Nuclear Power Plants Authority called POLITICO’s report “inaccurate and unbalanced”  saying that construction non-conformities are routinely identified and corrected during a project of El Dabaa’s scale. Egypt’s nuclear regulator likewise said the plant is being built according to internationally recognized nuclear safety and security standards and stressed that construction remains under continuous inspection. 

Egyptian officials have also pointed to an International Atomic Energy Agency review mission in June, which concluded that Egypt has a comprehensive regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety, while also recommending further improvements to legislation, licensing and radioactive-waste policy. 

However, it’s important to bear in mind that the El Dabaa site is still under construction. El Dabaa and contains no nuclear fuel. The reported defects thus do not constitute a radiological hazard—nor does the purported existence of construction problems necessarily demonstrate that the finished reactors will be unsafe. 

But the source of the complaints makes them hard to dismiss. If authentic, the June letter reported by POLITICO did not come from an environmental organization or a Russian nuclear critic. It came from within the Egyptian state authority overseeing the project. 

“There is no question that shortcomings and defects arise during construction. Normally, these problems are resolved between the customer and the contractor,” said Alexander Nikitin, a nuclear expert with Bellona. “What is unusual in this case is that complaints about shortcomings and defects have spilled into public discussion. That may indicate that the customer and the contractor were unable to resolve these problems between themselves.” 

Dmitry Gorchakov, another of Bellona’s nuclear experts, said that what’s important about the leaked complaints is that they are addressed.  

“It is difficult to speculate about how or why this correspondence reached journalists. It could have been a deliberate leak intended to achieve certain political goals, or it could simply have been accidental: the project is enormous, and breaches of confidentiality can occur as well,” he said. “Of course, the existence of these problems is cause for concern — although we are not yet talking about radiological risks. But it would be considerably more worrying if the problems were not corrected, or if their existence were simply denied altogether.” 

Rosatom offers more than reactors 

Whatever tensions exist behind the scenes, they do not appear to be weakening Egypt’s commitment to Russian nuclear technology. Likhachev said this week that talks are underway on El Dabaa Units 5 and 6, including how the additional reactors might be financed. 

Cairo is also discussing possible cooperation with Rosatom on small modular reactors for industrial facilities, remote regions and other applications. 

That apparent contradiction points to one of Rosatom’s greatest advantages abroad: it sells much more than just the nuclear reactors. 

Under the existing El Dabaa agreements, Russia is financing much of the project while Rosatom companies are building the plant, supplying nuclear fuel for its operating lifetime, helping train Egyptian personnel, assisting with operation and maintenance during its first decade and providing equipment for storing spent nuclear fuel. 

That creates a relationship that can continue long after construction crews leave the site, and those long relationships are exactly the point, Bellona’s experts explained. 

“When you sign contracts covering everything on the list, you become deeply dependent on the supplier—and getting out of that relationship is extremely expensive,” as countries like Ukraine and Finland have found, Nikitin said. 

Gorchakov explained that this model is attractive for customers that are new to nuclear power, or that aren’t in a position to finance the entire project themselves—and who don’t particularly care about the political consequences of cozying up to Rosatom.  

“The trade-off is political and technological dependence,“ he said. “Good relations with Russia and attractive financing terms may simply outweigh considerations of independence.” 

For Moscow, those ties have only become more valuable since the invasion of Ukraine. While sanctions have pushed Russia out of many Western markets, Rosatom continues to build reactors abroad and preserve technological, commercial and political relationships that can stretch across generations. 

The controversy at El Dabaa has thus attracted attention far beyond Egypt. Ukraine cited the reported problems in a renewed call for European Union sanctions against Rosatom, with Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha arguing that the allegations provided further evidence that the Russian nuclear corporation was not a reliable international partner. 

The allegations also resonate inside the EU. Rosatom is building two VVER-1200 reactors at Hungary’s Paks II nuclear plant—the same reactor model under construction at El Dabaa. 

“The concerns are understandable,” said Gorchakov. “At the same time, in Hungary— especially following the change of government—the customer and its regulators are far more experienced, rigorous and demanding than their counterparts in Egypt, as are the EU institutions overseeing the project. That is evident from the lengthy delays and the difficulties involved in securing the necessary approvals. In Egypt, things have been much quieter, and this leak is essentially the first major ‘scandal’ associated with the project.” 

The post Egypt complained about Rosatom’s nuclear work. Now it wants two more reactors  appeared first on Bellona.org.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced a US$500 million investment to expand domestic mineral fertilizer production. While this funding aims to boost local manufacturing, environmental groups argue that the administration should focus on regenerative solutions like legume cover crops to fundamentally reduce the nation’s reliance on synthetic inputs.

The USDA states the move will “improve supply chain resilience.” By increasing domestic manufacturing capacity, the agency hopes to shield American farmers from the extreme price volatility and geopolitical supply shocks that have plagued global fertilizer markets in recent years.

But domestic fertilizer production heavily relies on fossil fuels. Environmental conservation groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) argue that American agriculture can benefit more from incentivizing the adoption of regenerative practices like cover cropping rather than fertilizer expansion.

According to the UCS, U.S. farmers apply 30 to 50 percent more nitrogen fertilizer than their crops can effectively absorb. A recent UCS report notes that this overapplication results in substantial environmental, economic, and public health-related costs—particularly in the U.S. Corn Belt.

“When nitrogen runs off into water bodies, it creates algal blooms…algae multiply very quickly in the presence of nitrogen and use up a lot of the water’s dissolved oxygen, which can then create low oxygen zones, also called dead zones,” Omanjana Goswami, lead author of the UCS report, tells Food Tank.

Besides impacting aquatic ecosystems, soil nitrogen can break down into nitrous oxide, a super-pollutant 270 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat. Soil nitrification is currently the leading cause of nitrous oxide emissions in the U.S., and Goswami notes that agriculture is the world’s largest unmitigated source of nitrous oxide pollution.

“We’ve seen that overall, about one-third of input costs for corn farmers are budgeted towards fertilizer. So, that’s about 33 percent at a bare minimum of what farmers spend on growing,” Goswami tells Food Tank.

Across the country, farmers are “dramatically cutting nitrogen pollution without sacrificing productivity,” states a recent report by the NRDC. This can be achieved by avoiding overapplication of fertilizers and adopting practices such as adaptive nitrogen management, cover cropping, edge-of-field pollution control, and diverse crop rotation.

The UCS and NRDC hope to see more producers move away from carbon-intensive practices, but economic uncertainty makes shifting a risky move.

“Farmers [are] already operating on very thin margins; [they] need to be getting very high yields to make a profit,” William Burke—an agricultural economist at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore—tells Food Tank.

“From a public good perspective, research into green ammonia and phosphorus recovery from waste streams—that’s where the structural changes are going to come from, where you can realistically think about decoupling our fertilizer that we use and our food markets from fossil fuel markets,” explains Burke. These emerging technologies provide pathways toward long-term fertilizer infrastructure sustainability.

But nutrient management strategies like legume cover crops offer a more immediate pathway to separating our agricultural systems from fossil-fuel dependencies. Mark Peoples, agriculture and food scientist at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, notes that integrating legumes into cereal rotations naturally enhances soil structure and improves nutrient availability. “The inclusion of legumes in a cropping sequence generally results in greater microbial biomass, activity and diversity in soils,” Peoples tells Food Tank.

Nitrous oxide emissions tend to be lower from legumes compared to nitrogen-fertilized cereal crop systems as well. Properly managed systems “generally have a lower risk of leaching or runoff,” explains Peoples.

The UCS directly advocates for greater crop diversification through the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program. “We need to diversify farming operations by moving away from corn-and-soy monoculture and toward incentivizing best practices instead of maximum production of commodity crops,” Goswami notes in the report.

The UCS and NRDC suggest that expanding federal conservation program funding from the USDA can encourage crop diversification and incentivize resilient practices. “Building cover crops [and] tree cover, diversified cropping systems all help farmers move away from that fertilizer treadmill,” Goswami tells Food Tank.

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 Sam McCool, Pexels

The post Legume Cover Crops Can Reduce U.S. Corn Fertilizer Use appeared first on Food Tank.

The state alleges the Trump administration “abuses its authority” by diminishing the value of offshore wind energy leases before it makes an “unrefusable offer” to developers.

Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network North America have sued the Trump administration over the registration of trifludimoxazin, a potent PFAS pesticide that breaks down into long-lived, PFAS byproducts.

PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of chemicals characterized by ultra-strong carbon-fluorine bonds that are highly resistant to break down. Trifludimoxazin takes years to decades to break down. The groups’ lawsuit was filed Friday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of trifludimoxazin on many crops, including corn, wheat, oats, soybeans, oranges, apples, peanuts and almonds, despite acknowledging the chemical’s potential harms to wildlife and human health.

“Trifludimoxazin is a likely human carcinogen that belongs to a family of weedkillers that also causes reproductive harm, birth defects and neurological deficits in animal studies,” said Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety. “As if the health threats weren’t enough, this incredibly potent herbicide can drift to stunt crops and wild plants hundreds of yards from a sprayed field, while runoff threatens wetland plants. Potent biocides like this have no business on the American landscape.”

The EPA acknowledges that trifludimoxazin causes thyroid tumors in rodent studies but did not assess the cancer risk to farmworkers who use the pesticide or to people exposed to trifludimoxazin-contaminated food or water.

Spray drift is likely to result in widespread harm to native plants and crops grown for food. Trifludimoxazin is 10 times more toxic to plants than dicamba, the herbicide whose rampant drift and runoff has caused unprecedented damage across many millions of acres of crops since 2017.

“While everyone’s distracted by the Trump administration’s erratic actions on the world stage, it keeps approving dangerous forever pesticides right here on our own soil,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s unconscionable, immoral and illegal. Our kids and grandkids deserve better than to be saddled with pollution that never goes away.”

“Continuing to register new herbicides like trifludimoxazin keeps farmers on the pesticide treadmill and perpetuates the problem of herbicide resistance in weeds,” said Emily Marquez, Ph.D, staff scientist with Petitioner Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network North America. “The potential for PFAS pesticides to contaminate water and soil wherever they are used is highly concerning for the health and livelihoods of people in farming communities.”

Trifludimoxazin is one of many currently registered herbicides that kill plants by shutting down an enzyme (protoporpyhyrinogen oxidase, or PPO) that is also present in people. Even though animal research demonstrates these “PPO inhibitors” have common adverse effects on the liver and cause birth defects in fetuses exposed in utero, the EPA has refused to conduct a cumulative risk assessment of trifludimoxazin and other PPO inhibitors as required by law. This is especially concerning because two of the products approved by the EPA contain trifludimoxazin combined with saflufenacil, a second PPO inhibitor, meaning simultaneous exposure to both for workers.

Background

Trifludimoxazin was originally approved by the EPA in 2021 for nationwide use on corn, soy, fruit and nut crops. Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity sued, saying this approval violated the federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Endangered Species Act. That lawsuit noted the EPA’s finding that the herbicide had the potential to cause cancer, and that it would “likely cause severe harm" to many threatened and endangered fish, including endangered populations of Chinook salmon and steelhead trout, Atlantic sturgeon and smalltooth sawfish.

In response to the lawsuit, the pesticide company voluntarily agreed to stop the manufacture and sale of the pesticide in 2022. Despite these harms, Trump’s EPA proposed registering trifludimoxazin again for widespread use in 2025 and issued the approval in June 2026. Trifludimoxazin is the fifth PFAS pesticide approved under the second Trump administration.

The change of seasons gives us a chance to reflect on the environmental issues that affect us all.

Here are several new books about wildlife, climate change, and biological diversity that offer intriguing insights into the transformations occurring in our world and ways we can enjoy, protect, and observe the transformation from summer to autumn.

We’ve adapted the books’ official descriptions below, and the link in each title goes to the publisher’s page. You can also find any of these titles through your local bookseller and library.

The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness

by Cal Flyn

From the black sand beaches of Iceland and rivers of the Amazon to the barren beauty of Antarctica, wildernesses make up some of the world’s more alluring natural landscapes. Flyn sees a powerful, ancient concept at the intersection of landscape, philosophy, and ecology. For thousands of years, people have sought out uncharted nature in search of religious epiphany, self-actualization, and an escape from daily life. More recently these “pristine” places have been seen as the subject of a last effort to repair a planet imperiled by humans.

This book takes us into the breathtaking wilds — dark forests, mountaintops, and the hearts of deserts — asking provocative questions about the nature of wilderness, its preservation, and its meaning.

Recomposed: Music, Climate, Crisis, Change

by Kyle Devine

Can music save the world? We’re witnessing a climate-oriented transformation of what music is and how it comes to be. Recomposed shows how musicians around the world are using the cultural power of music to link climate awareness to climate action.

Award-winning author and academic Kyle Devine profiles EarthPercent, founded by Brian Eno and others to help funnel money from the music business to climate causes. Devine enrolls in a course led by ClimateEQ, which teaches carbon literacy for the music industry. He investigates a platform to help musicians finance solar energy and embeds himself in a dynamic cast of manufacturers and inventors seeking ways to make records more sustainable, from recycling old vinyl to making discs from bioplastic. At the center of this multifaceted story is the climate impact of music festivals and touring musicians.

End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World

by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

As the planet burns and shared reality melts, a new iteration of the far right is on the march. How can we understand this dangerous new development, and what resources can we draw on to resist it? In their assessment of the contemporary scene, activists and authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor explore how the religious fundamentalists, Silicon Valley technologists, and ethno-nationalists who make up this apocalyptic alliance share more than one might think: They’re united in their belief that some kind of cleansing cataclysm is coming, whether through the manifestation of messianic prophecy, the rampages of a resource- and job-consuming artificial intelligence, or the purported existential threat of immigration and cultural replacement. Rather than avoiding this conflagration, they welcome it, convinced they’ll be among the saved on the other side.

End Times Fascism is the ideology of the actors who strive to make the world unlivable and then seek to protect themselves from the fallout — whether by repairing to luxurious private islands, rocketing off to Mars, or bunkering the nation to keep their enemies at bay. The new survivalists have accumulated power, but they are far from impregnable. As Klein and Taylor show via original reporting and analysis, their many internal conflicts and contradictions and their nihilistic inability to envision a shared future, even for their ostensible allies, leave them vulnerable to a new kind of “pro-life” politics — rooted in reverence for our shared existence and regard for the earth we inhabit and must protect.

Water Lines: A Life on Marshes, Rivers, Seas and In the Rain

by Riverhorse Nakadate

A collection of essays from Riverhorse Nakadate — angler, musician, conservationist, and lifelong nomad — whose devotion to wild places and the healing power of water pulses through every page. For readers of Edward Abbey, Barry Lopez, Mary Oliver, and Jim Harrison, this book is a soulful invitation to step off the grid and into the current.

Across 32 essays Nakadate paddles, hikes, casts, surfs, and canoes through landscapes as varied as the alpine lakes of Colorado, the salt marshes of his native Texas, the trout streams of Minnesota, and the mangrove swamps of the Yucatán. Whether he’s chasing redfish in a hurricane, rescuing baby squirrels or migrating monarch butterflies, or honoring his mother’s legacy with a canoe ride and a slice of sweet potato pie, Nakadate reflects on solitude, friendship, loss, and the quiet heroism of those who strive to protect our wild spaces. A celebration of living deliberately and listening deeply to the rhythms of the earth.

The Shell Seeker: Encounters With Thirty Seashells

by Juli Berwald

Seashells are marvels; beachcombing adults and children alike are transfixed by their natural beauty and striking architecture. Discover all the incredible details of these stunning homes for mollusks and other marine life. Renowned science writer Juli Berwald draws on her passion for the ocean and its great treasures to reveal the remarkable and surprising features of 30 shells found on the shorelines of North America and oceans around the worl

Books for kids and young readers, including titles that can be paired with several of the selections above.

The Green Kids Club Books

Kids will love this collection of engaging wildlife-centered stories that help them understand the importance of nurturing our planet and its animal inhabitants. Founder Sylvia M. Medina saw a need to introduce kids to a range of animal species from around the world, exploring real issues related to habitat protection, wildlife survival, and the people working to help them.

This eye-opening book collection features stories from the wolf matriarchs of Yellowstone to a family of red foxes in the San Juan Islands to a baby elephant in Botswana and lion cubs in the African savanna. Many of the books are based on true stories, including the popular Grizzly 399 titles, one of the most famous and heavily reported-on bears in the world. All Green Kids Club titles include a science section in the back with photos and animal facts. Many have documentary films for kids to watch in synch with reading the books. The company also offers books that use Noah Text® to help make the stories accessible to all kids, including those with dyslexia as well as young English language learners.

This Book Will Make You a Scientist

by Dr. Sheila Kanani, with Ellen Surrey (Illustrator)

This book encourages kids to get excited about and become scientists by exploring 25 different scientific concepts inspired by ground-breaking scientists through history.

Children can learn to measure the speed of light like Albert Einstein, or train to be an astronaut like Mae Jemison and communicate with chimpanzees like Jane Goodall. This fact-filled book of step-by-step science experiments for kids are easy to try at home so children can explore subjects like DNA, electricity, evolution and gravity. This imaginative book is jam-packed with ideas for aspiring scientists everywhere.

Felix Powell, Boy Squirrel

by Erin Entrada Kelly and illustrated by Erin Entrada Kelly

Felix Powell loves to climb trees. He loves to run and jump and hide. But he’s never shoved acorns into his cheeks. He’s never gnawed at twigs to build a nest. And he’s certainly never worried about being eaten by hawks. Until now.

When his magic blanket turns Felix from an eight-year-old aspiring zoologist into a squirrel, Felix discovers that there’s more to squirrelhood than meets the eye. Will Felix triumph, avoiding predators and helping his new squirrel friend? Will he learn to jump and leap and climb? And will he turn back into a boy in time for dinner with his grandmother?

We Are the Keystones: Animals That Hold Habitats Together

by Katy S. Duffield with Hannah Salyer (Illustrator)

Meet keystone species — the hidden heroes of the natural world — and learn about the ecosystems they support in this marvelous nonfiction picture book.

Keystone species are plants, animals, or other organisms that have a huge effect on the environments around them. From beavers to elephants, alligators to hummingbirds, keystones help themselves and other species survive. Whether it’s creating habitats for themselves and other animals, leaving behind leftovers that fertilize the soil, or clearing out harmful algae, keystones live up to their name in their essential contribution to the harmony of our natural world.

That’s it for this month, but you can find hundreds of additional environmental book recommendations in the “Revelator Reads” archives to help make the end of summer fun and engaging for yourself and the young people around you.

And let us know what you’re reading: Drop us an email to ccrary@biologicaldiversity.org

The post New Environmental Books: Summer-to-Autumn Reads for the Whole Family appeared first on The Revelator.

A Lane County, Oregon initiative, part of a rising global movement, fundamentally reimagines humanity’s relationship with nature.

The post Oregon Humanities: Declaration of the Rights of Nature appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Oklo asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to order the PJM Interconnection to reinstate its 750-MW, mixed-technology project. PJM reportedly told Oklo that it never showed the project could ride through a sudden drop in grid voltage.

Manufacturers say the changes would create a more predictable process to set appliance standards but should not “apply retroactively to standards already finalized.” Efficiency advocates say potential energy savings will be lost.

Five days after a calamitous flood washed through Rasuwa, Nepal, the death toll continues to climb. Authorities said Monday that 903 people have been confirmed dead, while another 4,247 are missing, as the country reels from a disaster that experts say may be linked to the melting of glacial ice. 

Read more on E360 →

Peta persaingan game digital tidak lagi dikuasai nama lama. Studio pendatang mulai membawa mekanisme berbeda, desain lebih ringan, tema spesifik, sampai antarmuka ramah perangkat mobile. Kondisi tersebut membuat Peringkat Slot Maxwin bergerak lebih dinamis. Posisi sebuah provider tidak cukup dipertahankan hanya melalui popularitas masa lalu, sebab pemain sekarang memiliki lebih banyak pilihan untuk dibandingkan. Provider Slot Maxwin juga menghadapi perubahan perilaku pengguna. Pemain dapat berpindah dari satu katalog ke katalog lain hanya dalam beberapa sentuhan. Akibatnya, kualitas visual, kemudahan memahami fitur, performa teknis, serta konsistensi rilisan ikut membentuk perhatian pasar.

Peringkat Slot Maxwin Tidak Hanya Bergantung pada Nama Besar

Popularitas provider memang memberikan keuntungan awal. Pengguna lebih mudah mengenali studio dengan katalog luas atau permainan ikonik. Namun reputasi tersebut bukan jaminan setiap rilisan baru langsung mendapat respons tinggi. Peringkat Slot Maxwin dapat berubah ketika pemain mulai tertarik pada mekanisme alternatif. Sistem cluster, cascading reel, multiplier bertingkat, format gulungan dinamis, serta fitur bonus interaktif membuat perbandingan tidak lagi terbatas pada tampilan. Situasi ini membuka ruang bagi provider baru. Mereka tidak perlu memiliki ratusan judul sejak awal. Beberapa permainan dengan identitas kuat sudah cukup untuk menarik perhatian jika mampu menawarkan pengalaman berbeda.

Peringkat Provider Slot Maxwin Dipengaruhi Banyak Indikator

Satu daftar peringkat dapat menghasilkan urutan berbeda tergantung indikator penilaiannya. Ranking berdasarkan jumlah permainan tentu tidak sama dengan ranking berdasarkan popularitas, performa mobile, variasi fitur, atau aktivitas rilisan. Karena itu, Peringkat provider Slot Maxwin sebaiknya memiliki dasar penilaian jelas. Jumlah pengguna, tren pencarian, variasi katalog, stabilitas permainan, desain antarmuka, serta pembaruan fitur dapat dipisahkan menjadi beberapa indikator. Pendekatan tersebut memberi gambaran lebih masuk akal daripada sekadar menempatkan provider terkenal pada posisi teratas tanpa konteks.

Provider Baru Muncul Membawa Identitas Lebih Spesifik

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Rilisan Sedikit Belum Tentu Menjadi Kekurangan

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Performa Mobile Menjadi Arena Kompetisi Baru

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Posisi tinggi dalam daftar populer perlu dibedakan dari probabilitas hasil permainan. Provider dengan banyak pengguna atau rilisan viral tidak otomatis menawarkan peluang kemenangan lebih besar. Peringkat lebih tepat digunakan untuk membaca popularitas, variasi produk, atau perkembangan katalog. Untuk memahami mekanisme sebuah game, pemain tetap perlu memeriksa aturan, tabel pembayaran, volatilitas, serta informasi resmi pada permainan terkait.

Provider Slot Maxwin Memasuki Persaingan Berbasis Pengalaman

Munculnya studio baru membuat pasar semakin terfragmentasi. Provider Slot Maxwin lama memiliki reputasi dan katalog luas, sedangkan pendatang membawa kesempatan untuk bereksperimen tanpa terlalu terikat pola sebelumnya. Persaingan tersebut membuat Peringkat Slot Maxwin tidak lagi terlihat seperti daftar permanen. Posisi dapat berubah mengikuti kualitas rilisan, respons pengguna, inovasi mekanisme, serta performa pada perangkat modern. Pada akhirnya, Peringkat provider Slot Maxwin lebih berguna ketika dibaca sebagai gambaran perkembangan pasar, bukan janji hasil permainan. Saat Provider Baru Muncul dengan pendekatan segar, kompetisi justru memberi pemain katalog lebih beragam sekaligus mendorong setiap studio memperjelas identitas produknya.