News Feeds

This week is the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. coup in Iran. In our latest, we give a background on the geopolitics of the Cold War, U.S.-Soviet tension in Iran…

A new report from the city of Oakland shows that speed cameras are reducing speeding by 70 percent across locations where they are installed. This is consistent with results from other cities and countries.

More from Oakland DOT:

To test the efficacy of speed cameras, OakDOT conducted a before and after evaluation of vehicle speeds at camera locations in the summers of 2024, 2025 and 2026. Vehicle speeds were measured with pneumatic tube counts — an industry standard tool used to measure how fast vehicles are traveling.

Findings from that evaluation include:

• Compared to 2024 baseline data, 2026 tube counts show that drivers are slowing down at every speed camera location. The number of vehicles traveling 11 MPH or more over the speed limit dropped by an average of 70% across all 18 camera locations. That’s about 20,000 fewer speeding vehicles every day.
• The speed camera location with the greatest decline in speeding was 7th St. between Adeline St. and Linden St. In 2024, 1,700 vehicles passing the speed camera location were traveling 11 MPH or more over the speed limit. In 2026, that figure dropped to 150. This represents a 90% reduction.
• Traffic speeds are decreasing at all speed camera locations, as measured by the 85th percentile speed, a key traffic engineering metric. The 85th percentile speed is the speed at which 85% of vehicles are traveling at or below. Hegenberger Rd. saw the steepest decline. In 2024, 85% of vehicles were traveling at or below 57 MPH. In 2026, the 85th percentile speed dropped to 47 MPH.

A July 4, 2020 crash in West Oakland. It’s hoped speed cameras can help reduce such outcomes. Photo: Tim Courtney

The Oakland results echo similar results in San Francisco. Given the success, the East Bay Times is reporting that Oakland DOT director Josh Rowan wants to take another look at red light cameras, which were phased out in 2014.

“It is important to remember why Oakland is installing cameras, lowering speed limits, and adding speed bumps,” said Bryan Culbertson, representing the group Traffic Violence Rapid Response. “23 people were killed by drivers in Oakland last year, and 10 people have been killed so far this year.”

Despite the promising results from speed cameras in both San Francisco and Oakland, it’s clear more cameras and more safety infrastructure are still needed. An earlier report this month found that the number of serious and fatal crashes continues to climb in San Francisco and is even higher than it was in 2014, when that city first signed its pledge to reduce such crashes to zero in ten years.

Bike East Bay’s Justin Hu-Nguyen was pleased to learn of the speed reductions, but had concerns about an overreliance on cameras and funding. “We hope to see revenue and budget info included in future versions of Oakland’s speed camera program reports. For the program to be sustainable, it must be self-funded, and not detract from opportunities for proven infrastructure investments,” he said, adding that “…if the program generates a lot of revenue, this means it is writing many tickets, and therefore is not achieving its goals of adequately reducing speeding.”

The report states that “for the first six months of operation, Oakland issued 526,000 violations consisting of 194,000 citations and 332,000 warnings.” And that’s from just the 35 cameras that are part of the pilot. Readers who ride a bike should remember those numbers the next time someone says something akin to “cyclists are the real law breakers.” No, actually, it’s motorists—and with far more deadly consequences.

But advocates agreed that the most important part of cutting that down, and saving lives, isn’t speed cameras: it’s physical infrastructure. “Physical changes to streets like concrete corners on Telegraph, traffic circles on 8th, and plastic posts on International have saved lives by reducing deaths from multiple times a year down to nearly zero,” said Culbertson. “Physical changes to dangerous streets such as San Leandro, 73rd, San Pablo, etc will also be needed to stop people from being killed there too.”

“As always, speeding cars are deadly, and we need to be treating traffic violence as the public health crisis it is,’ said Hu-Nguyen. “The most effective and proven way to make our streets safer is through traffic calming, which physically prevents speeding from happening in the first place.”

Read the report here.

by David Spratt

A super El Niño could intensify heat, drought, fire and crop losses across Australia and Asia, while fertiliser shortages raise the risk of a wider food crisis.

The world is heading into a burst of global heating with a developing El Niño that is unprecedented in the observational record. Scientists were shocked when global average warming exceeded 1.5°C in 2024, but now they are estimating 2027 could be around 1.7°C, and a single month in the next year may reach 2°C.

 Figure 1: Global average warming is projected to be 1.76°C in 2027 as the full impact 
of the El Niño is experienced -The Climate Brink

This is extraordinary, with profound impacts for Australia and the region. An El Niño shifts jet streams, alters rainfall and raises global temperatures, and a ‘super’ event would sharply disrupt global weather, increasing the risk of extreme heat, droughts and flooding, and reducing crop yields. And all this is exacerbated by the ongoing war on Iran, which has cut fertiliser use and production, driving down crop yields.

Even before the full El Niño effect takes hold, food production in Europe has been battered by drought and a series of record-breaking extreme heatwaves. In the USA, the wheat acreage harvested will be the lowest in 149 years. In Korea, potatoes ‘boil’ in the ground as record heatwaves sweep across swathes of Asia. Coffee and cocoa futures have increased by up to 40 per cent as investors anticipate crop damage from Brazil to West Africa and South-East Asia.

Economists say the El Niño could cause a global food price shock lasting into 2028, and push 50 million people into acute hunger before the end of 2027. Máximo Torero, the chief economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, says his big concerns are durum wheat and rice, due to the combination of El Niño and lower fertiliser usage; in Australia, a major wheat grower, and India, the world’s biggest rice producer, yields are threatened.

As well, there is a severe water crisis in Puerto Rico, the Rhine and Po rivers in Europe are at record low levels, the Colorado River is in crisis and reservoirs have shrunk to their lowest levels since they were constructed.

So what exactly is a ‘super’ El Niño? An El Niño was formally declared by US climate agencies on 11 June 2026.

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an irregular pattern of change in sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) and winds over the tropical Pacific Ocean. In its warm, El Niño phase, increased westerly winds (weaker easterly trade winds) drive warmer tropical water east towards the Americas and reduce ocean upwelling of cooler deep water, and a positive feedback reinforces this weakening of the trade winds and surface warming. The central and eastern tropical Pacific experiences a marine heatwave.

An indicator of the state of the ENSO is the variation in short-term SSTs along the central-eastern Pacific equator in a zone known as Niño3.4. Negative (cooler) SST readings indicate a La Niña; positive (warmer) readings indicate a developing El Niño. The strongest recent El Niños were in 1997-8 and 2015-6, when SST Niño3.4 warming did not exceed 2.8°C.

Currently, projections based on all models show 4°C warming in Niño3.4 sea-surface temperatures between October and December 2026. It is an understatement to say this is a scientific shock, and constitutes a coming ‘super’ El Niño, far above recent events. This would be more intense than an epochal El Niño in 1877, whose devastating consequences were called a ‘Late Victorian Holocaust’ by the historian Mike Davis.

Figure 2: The red streak across the eastern Pacific shows the current hot sea-surface temperatures 
in the Niño3.4 band (ECMWF)

Climate change has already made extreme heatwaves more intense and persistent, as Europe, North Africa and the Middle East are experiencing right now, and they are likely to worsen during an El Niño, which adds a layer of heat on top of the trend global warming of 1.5°C. An El Niño brings persistent high-pressure weather systems and hotter and drier conditions to eastern Australia and South-East Asia, particularly Indonesia, and southern Africa. But it also increases rain and flooding in East Africa, parts of South America, and east China. El Niños generally peak between November and February.

A recent study concluded that ‘super’ El Niños are not just passing weather events, but drive ‘climate regime shifts’ that can push parts of the Earth system into new, hotter states, and could shift some regional patterns for decades, including unprecedented marine heatwaves.

El Niño impacts on most of Australia generally include these marine heatwaves, less rainfall and less cooling cloud cover, higher temperatures over land, and more extreme heatwaves, and all leading to higher evaporation rates and more intense bushfires. This super El Niño will likely destroy swathes of the Great Barrier Reef and produce record-breaking heatwaves and severe fire risk, drought and lower crop yields, heat stress for people, domestic livestock and nature, and damage to infrastructure.

In Southeast and South Asia, the El Niño will intensify heat conditions and may weaken or delay the monsoon, affecting staples such as rice and palm oil, pushing up food prices and threatening food security for lower-income households. In Indonesia, a tough dry season is forecast, with a high risk of drought and wildfires.

Crop yields decrease with global warming. For staple crops such as maize and wheat, yields have declined by 7.5 per cent and 6.0 per cent per 1°C of warming and are projected to decline by up to an additional 10 per cent for every 1°C of warming in the future.

An upper optimum during reproduction and crop yield formation of around 30°C is common for many important agricultural crops (e.g. maize, soy, cotton). Other major crops show damaging sensitivities at lower temperatures during their reproductive period (e.g. barley, beans, wheat and potatoes). As well, higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already having a serious effect on the nutritional quality of most of the world’s major crops – grains, soya, corn and rice.

Rice is the main source of calories for half the global population and supplies 20 per cent of the global dietary energy. In India, for example, 70 per cent of the caloric intake comes from rice. Summer monsoon rainfall provides up to 80 per cent of the annual precipitation in India.

And even without accounting for all the simultaneous hazards including the fertiliser crisis, scientists say that global average 2°C of warming around 2040 will reduce per capita crop production by one-third in Southeast Asia.

In a recent report, the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group offered this plausible scenario for the next year:

The confluence of the super El Niño and the fertiliser crisis [may] trigger a food crisis in Asia in particular, but also around the world. The energy crisis has increased fuel costs for farmers. Reduced yields lead to higher prices. There will be food shortages, panic buying, price shocks. Many vulnerable countries are poorly prepared for disruptions to food supplies, which can hit hardest in regional and remote areas.

The combined effect of many months of unaffordably high fuel prices and a food crisis across Asia, together with almost unliveable heatwaves, leads to social unrest and conflict in vulnerable countries, much as the global wheat crisis became a trigger of the Arab Spring. Rationing of food essentials is introduced in some countries, but poor administration and corruption lead to riots. Insurgency movements and malicious non-state actors including criminal syndicates utilise the opportunity.

Are we prepared as a nation for this hotter world with a peak El Niño?

 

These utility bills are too high - let's talk line extension allowances Claire Prihoda Thu, 08/20/2026 - 2:41 pm

In Paraguay, the National Peasants’ Federation (FNC), condemns the murder of the Indigenous leader and teacher . It also expresses its deep concern regarding the situation facing indigenous and peasant communities across the country.

The post Paraguay : FNC Condemns the Killing of a Peasant leader, Denounces Criminalization appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

FENOCIN in light of recent events that undermine the constitutional rule of law, justice and collective rights in Ecuador, , unanimously express its strong rejection of the pre-trial detention order against its president, Guido Perugachi

The post Ecuador: FENOCIN denounces political persecution of Guido Perugachi appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The nation’s forest birds are in decline, their populations dropping in 65% of states since 1970. Even once-common birds are disappearing. The Wood Thrush, for example, has declined by 60...

Aug. 20th, 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact

Nina A. S. Juntereal, PhD, RN

Pennsylvania Nurse Advocacy Coordinator

Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments

nina@enviRN.org

267-240-8913

“Statement from ANHE on Gov Shapiro PA Executive Order Data Centers”

(PA)- On Tuesday Aug. 18th, PA Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order to implement the Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) standards for proposed data centers in Pennsylvania.

“Nurses understand accountability because our profession depends on it. Every order, every intervention, every outcome is tracked and documented. We need the same standard applied to data center growth: strict oversight of energy demand and supply, binding protections for ratepayers, and penalties when developers fail to commit to transparency, workforce, and environmental protection,” said Nina Juntereal, Pennsylvania Nurse Advocacy Coordinator, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. 

Katie Huffling, Executive Director at the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments said, “This is fundamentally a health issue. Three in four Americans live with at least one chronic condition. When grid strain, propelled by data centers, drives up reliance on fossil-fuel plants, Americans living with asthma, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic conditions will feel it first and worst. Clean energy isn’t a separate issue to public health; it is public health.”

We urge PA lawmakers to build on this executive order with legislation that prioritizes clean energy investment and puts real accountability structures in place, not just for utility costs, but for the health and safety of every Pennsylvanian breathing air near these facilities.

###

The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments is the only national nursing organization focused solely on the intersection of health and the environment. The mission of the Alliance is to support nurses in promoting planetary health and equity globally by educating and leading the nursing profession, advancing research, incorporating planet-safe practice, and influencing policy. http://enviRN.org

The post Statement from ANHE on Gov Shapiro PA Executive Order Data Centers appeared first on ANHE.

Staff, partners, and volunteers have been busy at Audubon’s Gillmor Sanctuary along Great Salt Lake. Ongoing restoration projects have seen over a thousand acres of invasive tamarisk trees removed...

At Audubon’s Gillmor Sanctuary at Great Salt Lake in Utah, the grass and scattered shrubs of the uplands serve as ideal habitat for Burrowing Owls. While most owls are tree dwellers, this...

DAYTON, Ohio — August 20, 2026 — Deeply Rooted Landscapes and Aullwood Audubon are expanding their partnership to make native plants more accessible to the Dayton community through a new seasonal...

Registered nurses with Contra Costa County Health Services voted 95 percent in favor of ratifying a new contract, winning protections to improve patient safety and nurse retention.

Op-ed by Sidnie Duncan, Advocacy and Outreach Fellow at CCAN, originally published in the Roanoke Times.

College students today face a dilemma with artificial intelligence (AI). On one hand, AI can make schoolwork faster, clearer and learning more personalized. On the other hand, it’s tied to growing inequality, worsening climate change and real public health concerns. College students feel trapped between utilizing AI to get ahead academically or rejecting it to avoid its harms. This binary thinking oversimplifies the reality: AI can be a valuable tool, and its negatives can be mitigated through thoughtful regulation, ethical oversight and responsible development.

As the generation inheriting the consequences of today’s decisions, college students have a stake in shaping what AI becomes and a responsibility to advocate for sustainable AI development that works for everyone, not against the planet or the communities it impacts.

I am a rising senior at Virginia Tech, part of a generation that has grown up alongside rapid technological change. From touchscreen devices to virtual reality, we’ve seen the benefits and the drawbacks firsthand. We’ve seen how devices and social media impact our sleep, attention spans, self-image and social skills. We’re now watching tech reshape the lives of the next generation. We joke about “iPad kids,” but there’s an unsettling reality behind the humor. Watching our siblings and peers lose their social skills to screens has left many college students questioning the consequences of unchecked technological growth.

Fossil-fueled data centers consume gigantic amounts of electricity and water, straining local resources while increasing air pollution and environmental noise. Research shows these environmental impacts are already taking a toll on public health. On top of that, the continued proliferation of large-scale, fossil-fueled data centers could triple electricity demand, driving up utility bills for families.

Through my fellowship with Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) doing grassroots climate advocacy, I have witnessed these impacts in Northern Virginia, widely known as the data center capital of the world. From rising electricity costs to widespread water shortages, Virginians are feeling the weight of rapid data center expansion. I have spoken to both Republicans and Democrats who share concerns about this issue, reinforcing that this is not a partisan debate. It is about protecting public health, keeping energy affordable, and ensuring that our community is not sacrificed for the profit of Big Tech developers.

As digital literacy grows to be more valuable to employers, universities are creating AI-related coursework and integrating it into assignments. Last semester, four out of five of my classes included assignments that required the use of AI. What stood out wasn’t the use of AI itself, but the lack of discussion around it. For context, my major is Environmental Conservation and Society. You would think that in a field focused on sustainability, we would at least talk about the environmental, ethical and social impacts of AI before using it so extensively, but no. There was no discussion. That disconnect is frustrating, especially in fields that emphasize systems thinking.

AI isn’t just changing how we can get ahead; it’s reinforcing inequalities of who gets a chance to succeed. Over 90% of employers rely on AI to pre-screen resumes; some tools have been proven to exhibit racial and gender biases that deny candidates based on the presence of demographic signals rather than the absence of relevant skills — echoing historical patterns of hiring discrimination. AI isn’t born biased; it’s been baked into the historical data it’s trained on. Without proper correction, this will continue to perpetuate white supremacist values in hiring and will undercut the social progress we’ve made during my lifetime. If we don’t address these failures, we aren’t just tolerating discrimination; we are automating it.

We don’t have to choose between being supportive of AI or being fair to our planet and communities. Both are possible, but only if we act quickly.

We must advocate for universities and corporations to invest in renewable energy infrastructure that will support innovative technology while reducing its environmental impact. Sustainable, equitable and accountable AI development is critical to ensure the boom of AI is looked back on as being positively revolutionary. Join forces with advocacy groups to lobby your local and state policymakers to create clean energy and environmental guardrails for data centers.

Op-ed by Sidnie Duncan, Advocacy and Outreach Fellow at CCAN, originally published in the Roanoke Times.

About the Author: Sidnie Duncan is a rising senior at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech), where she is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Conservation and Society.

She was the Advocacy and Outreach CCAN Fellow for summer 2026.

The post Generation Raised by Technology Must Shape AI’s Future appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

A tiny creature flits from plant to plant under the summer sun. It moves fast, then stops abruptly at a flower’s lip; it sips, then darts aside, its minute body humming red and green.It flies like...

DENVER — The U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) own Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on repealing the 2001 Roadless Rule, released Wednesday, documents extensive harm from the administration’s preferred plan, including increased risk of wildfire starts and only “modest” fuel reduction gains. 

According to the 333-page DEIS document released alongside the proposed rule, under Alternative 2 (USFS’s preferred option), the DEIS finds:

• The agency would strip road-building and logging protections from 44.7 million acres of national forest (p. 13, 15, 21)

• The agency’s preliminary biological assessment determined the plan is “likely to adversely affect” 327 threatened and endangered species and 71 designated critical habitats (p. 25, 161–162)

• Repeal would increase soil erosion, landslide risk, and sediment pollution (p. 108) in watersheds that supply drinking water to roughly 24 million Americans (p. 121)

• Old-growth forest that has been off-limits for 25 years would be exposed to new logging (p. 78)

• The agency assumes revenue from timber sales “would [not] be sufficient to cover the costs of constructing and maintaining all new roads related to a project” (p. 45)

• The rule opens the door to new oil, gas, and coal leasing on land currently protected by a no-surface-occupancy requirement (p. 58–59)

• USFS’s own fire scientists warn that more roadbuilding in forests could mean more human-caused wildfire ignitions (p. 101)

• The agency concedes that funding and terrain constraints would make any actual gain in fuel-treatment capacity “modest” (p. 225)

• Ignition frequency and density are currently lower in roadless areas and wilderness than on other National Forest System lands (p. 24, quantified as roughly 4x lower on p. 89)

• USFS’s own economists project the rule would cost up to $9 million a year in lost visitor spending in nearby communities (p. 223–224, combining $7 million in lost trail/dispersed-recreation spending and $2 million in lost wildlife-related-recreation spending)

• The rule would degrade scenery and backcountry access across millions of acres of primitive and semi-primitive terrain (p. 25, 192)

• The plan would add to the agency’s $6.9 billion existing road maintenance backlog (p. 43)

• Federally recognized Tribes consulted overwhelmingly oppose the repeal (p. 198), citing threats to sacred sites, treaty-protected hunting and fishing, and cultural landscapes (p. 26)

• Road construction and logging “could potentially have long-term negative impacts” on historic and archaeological sites nationwide (p. 196)

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Communications Director Kate Groetzinger:

“Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and the Trump administration are trying to spin a move to subsidize the timber industry as a wildfire mitigation strategy, but the government’s own study shows repealing the Roadless Rule could actually increase wildfire risk as well as have shocking negative impacts on Western communities.

“The government’s own scientists found that repealing the Roadless Rule could harm hundreds of species already at risk of extinction, decrease the quality of drinking water in Western communities, cost rural communities millions of tourism dollars, and grow the Forest Service’s already-massive road maintenance backlog. It also found that timber sales won’t offset the cost of building and maintaining new roads.

“Despite all of these negative implications and immense public opposition, the Trump administration seems to be dead set on moving forward with this rule. Western communities must rise up and oppose this change as loudly and forcefully as possible during this month-long comment period.”

Learn more: 

• Proposed rule – USFS
• Comment form for the rule – USFS
• Draft Environmental Impact Statement – USFS
• Comment analysis finds over 99% opposition to repealing 2001 Roadless Rule – CWP
• What is the “Roadless Rule”? – Sierra Club Oregon
• Roadless Rule Recission 2025 interactive map – Trout Unlimited

Feature image: USDA Photo by Preston Keres

The post USFS’s own analysis shows Roadless Rule repeal would harm wildlife, water, and rural communities appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

This article Atlanta offers a model for building sanctuary was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Atlanta community organizer Bassey Etuk opened a community defense workshop in June with a stark observation, and heads nodded around the crowded room. “Atlanta was a sanctuary city until the governor of Georgia made it illegal in 2009. Now Atlanta is Cop City,” he said. 

From California to Kenya, whenever I say I’m based in Atlanta, people immediately bring up Cop City, the police training facility that sparked years of protest and major campaigns to prevent it from being built on public land. The training facility was ultimately built and is now in operation. But the Stop Cop City movement reduced the size and scale of the compound and, importantly, captured the imagination of people fighting on the frontlines against policing and state violence around the world.

In 2026, organizers in Atlanta have shifted from protests and mass mobilizations to applying the lessons they learned from the campaign and building the infrastructure needed to practice real community safety every day.

I am a longtime organizer and senior strategist with Project South, where I work alongside Bassey, an Atlanta-native who organizes in the 10 historically Black neighborhoods of Brownsville in southeast Atlanta. For the past two months, Bassey, I and the ATL Get Ready Team — a coalition of community organizers and organizations from across the city — launched a community preparedness plan to respond to escalating ICE enforcement, policing and National Guard deployments in cities across the United States. Together, we have been recruiting businesses, churches, bars and community centers to become “Sanctuary Zones” — sites that commit to preventing ICE and other law enforcement from entering. 

Building sanctuary and protection for all people is critical in this period. It keeps us alive through moments of immediate crisis while positioning our communities to build the power needed for deeper, fundamental change. We share the lessons we are learning on the ground so that we are moving in coordination and solidarity with other communities all over the country who are similarly experiencing the trauma of this moment — the murders, detentions, intimidation and indictments — as fascist forces attempt to consolidate power at every level of society.

Atlanta gets ready

After witnessing ICE operations in Minnesota and National Guard deployments in Memphis and Washington, D.C., 15 Atlanta-based organizations came together in February 2026 and asked each other some hard questions. If federal agents surge into, deploy across, or occupy Atlanta, are we ready? Are we ready to resist, to protect our communities and to prevent killings and kidnappings? Are we ready to put aside old tensions and disagreements? Are we ready to see ourselves as connected and act together, applying unified pressure in pursuit of our shared goals of community protection and collective defense?

#newsletter-block_7c5408c76d70ed5c9fc95b84520ff63b { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_7c5408c76d70ed5c9fc95b84520ff63b #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter

We’ll send you a weekly email with the latest articles.

At our first coalition meeting, Adelina Nicholls of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights said it clearly: “We can no longer afford to mobilize in reaction to what is happening. We have to determine a political direction and alignment towards a real vision.”

Large-scale anti-ICE protests have been powerful demonstrations of collective dissent and people power. But we understood that without greater unity across race, class, gender and geography, we could not win.

It was a vital moment for those of us who have organized in Atlanta for a long time. Organizations that did not always work together and that openly acknowledged long-standing tensions and disagreements, decided that, given the rise in state repression and violence, we need each other differently in this moment.

In the face of ICE raids in Latino, Caribbean and African immigrant neighborhoods, ongoing police violence against Black youth, sweeps of homeless encampments ahead of the World Cup in Atlanta, and the targeting of youth and trans people at the federal and state levels, we named criminalization as a shared reality and a political baseline for our alignment and collective action.

We agreed on a single commitment: to prevent and disrupt the growing criminalization of all our people. We called ourselves the ATL Get Ready Team, and we began by sharing trainings and building our collective skills with one another and with communities across Atlanta. In all, 15 Black-led, migrant-led and queer-led organizations made the decision to work together, combining our strengths instead of continuing to work alone.

Over the past six months, that commitment has become a practice. We meet weekly to check in and coordinate on the work happening on the ground. We have facilitated community trainings, hosted educational forums, organized canvassing days and launched a shared campaign to protect our people.

The assembly affirms the vision

In the aftermath of the Stop Cop City movement in 2025, organizations across Atlanta joined forces to organize People’s Movement Assemblies to define and build real community safety — despite the mayor’s assurances that training police forces in advanced urban warfare techniques would do that for us. Assemblies are community gatherings where people come together to assess the problems they face, develop shared solutions and create plans of action.

Drawing on the lessons we learned during the Stop Cop City struggle, we shifted from resisting the city’s vision of public safety to building our own. The assembly process became a form of community governance to define that vision together. It also became a space to strengthen relationships and build the movement infrastructure needed for long-term transformation.

Previous Coverage

ICE will be at the World Cup, but organizers are ready

The ATL Get Ready Team participated in the Atlanta Citywide People’s Movement Assembly in March. It was the third assembly held since early 2025 and led by the People’s Campaign. More than 500 people poured into Project South’s historic building in South Atlanta looking for connection, skills and a plan to act. Together, our organizations facilitated a large-scale, real-life scenario exercise to prepare for the upcoming World Cup season. We walked participants through the anticipated influx of federal law enforcement, drones and surveillance expected over five weeks during the summer. The gym was full of so many people — young and old, seasoned organizers and those just coming into the movement space. Naming the heightened military presence in our communities was scary, especially as we witnessed ICE murders and violence, but there was also relief that we were naming our power to prepare and act. We told the room, “Prepared people don’t panic.”  

We then moved into a full day of practical, hands-on trainings in community first response, mutual aid organizing, ICE tracking, school protection, Know Your Rights (and the risks), and porch-sit community engagement.

By the end of the assembly, participants committed to continuing to organize together, building toward May 1, International Workers’ Day, and developing community safety plans for the World Cup season. We also began to design a campaign that invited more people to participate in protections that would reduce and eliminate law enforcement entanglements.

Recruiting Sanctuary Zones

Sanctuary Zones are spaces that commit to keeping communities safe by refusing to cooperate with ICE or other law enforcement agencies that criminalize, detain and separate people from their families.

They are also a way for businesses, faith institutions, community centers and other public spaces to demonstrate a commitment to caring for their staff, patrons and neighbors. Sanctuary Zones are a practical response to the violence, hostility and fear created by the Trump administration’s escalation of ICE raids, National Guard deployments and the criminalization of protest over the past year.

The more our organizing team learned about the preparations for the World Cup — including hundreds of millions of dollars allocated for security, expanded police deployments, street closures, surveillance technology and drones — the more convinced we became that we needed a campaign with accessible entry points for more public engagement around keeping our communities safe. 

Project South organizers participate in a canvassing day to build the Sanctuary Zone network across Atlanta to protect people from ICE and police violence. (WNV/Stephanie Guilloud)

We designed a plan to invite bars, restaurants and community centers to commit to declaring themselves as a Sanctuary Zone and to become part of a network of protection. We used the word “sanctuary” on purpose to signal that even if Georgia passes legislation to make it illegal for cities to pass sanctuary protections for migrants, independent businesses, faith centers and community spaces can declare sanctuary as autonomous spaces.

The real shift came when we named a deeper truth. We built the campaign in response to the public outrage over ICE, but we also knew we had a responsibility, and an opportunity, to make clear that ICE and the police are two arms of the same apparatus. Both function as agents of the state to control, contain, surveil and criminalize our communities. From the beginning, the ATL Get Ready Team aligned around an abolitionist position not to reinforce any part of the prison-industrial complex.

Bassey opened a Sanctuary Zone workshop at Project South’s Juneteenth gathering by naming his own experience with the police in Atlanta. “I can’t count the number of times I’ve been harassed, searched, had guns put in my face,” he said. “But in 2006 when the police shot and killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, it shifted something in this city. Police had a no-knock warrant using false information and it was the wrong house. Kathryn was old-school, she reminded me of my grandma. My grandma kept a .22 and shot it every 4th of July. When police battle rammed Kathryn’s house, she let off a single warning shot, and in return the officers fired 39 shots killing her dead. There are many battles we’ve lost, but we can’t afford to lose more battles like that if we want to win in the long-term.”

So far, some 70 sites across Atlanta have publicly declared themselves Sanctuary Zones. Barbershops, bookstores, independent businesses, bars, restaurants, retailers, churches and community spaces have all joined the network. We canvassed neighborhoods, inviting sites to display Sanctuary Zone posters in their windows and commit to the campaign. We also coordinated Know Your Rights and Risks trainings and other community preparedness workshops for participating sites, while connecting them with local policing alternatives and diversion programs that offer practical ways to respond to conflict and crisis without calling 911.

Multiple grassroots organizations canvassed over 500 sites across Atlanta as part of the ATL Get Ready Team. (WNV/Stephanie Guilloud)

The campaign engaged more than 500 sites across the city. We began by concentrating on the two-mile radius surrounding the stadium as a visible show of solidarity to the thousands of visitors expected during the World Cup. As we learned that ICE was shifting its tactics and increasingly targeting people in surrounding counties, we expanded our outreach beyond the stadium corridor to neighborhoods where watch parties and community gatherings would take place, so that vulnerable people could feel safer being in public and enjoying the matches.

Many bar owners and restaurant operators expressed their commitment to refusing ICE entry but were hesitant to display a Sanctuary Zone poster or publicly join the network out of fear of retaliation. Many Black-owned businesses appreciated that we named the connection between ICE violence and police violence. As one owner told us, “We already don’t call the cops, we can sign on to this, easy.”

In a time of economic hardship, the government’s extraordinary spending on police, ICE and surveillance feels like a slap in the face, and the people we spoke with responded with outrage at this unjust siphoning of public funds. The Federal Emergency Response Agency, or FEMA, spent more than $846 million on security and policing for the FIFA spectacle instead of responding to climate disasters. During hurricane season. During the hottest summer on record. During floods and wildfires affecting hundreds of thousands of people. 

At the same time, as many of us feared, ICE kidnappings and detentions escalated, reaching 43,000 in the month of June alone. Over the previous two months, four Black men were killed by federal troops and agents deployed in Memphis, while the military occupation of Washington, D.C., doubled from 2,500 to 5,000 troops. For comparison, the massive ICE operation in Minneapolis deployed 3,000 federal agents, creating immense harm. Faced with this reality, we refuse to give in to fear. To protect our people, we prepare and we build.

Sharing the vision

A local coffeehouse owner said, “Of course, we will sign on. I’m an immigrant, and when we are in solidarity with each other, we are stronger. What do we have to lose?”

She immediately offered the coffeehouse as a meeting space. We are now talking to business owners and church leaders about holding sessions that allow folks to share policies and practices that support protections for workers, patrons and community members.

The invitation to Sanctuary Zones is to join a larger vision: a coordinated network of sites that can be proactive and generative in times of crisis rather than reactive. These spaces are one step toward reducing our reliance on policing, which so often produces harm instead of safety. They create a concrete invitation for people beyond the usual movement circles to resist this regime through collective noncooperation. Sanctuary Zones prioritize safety over surveillance and solidarity over fear.

#support-block_6643f12e3c329ca5f1bd5df513ed5847 { background: #000000; color: #ffffff; } Support Us

Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today!

Donate

As we move out of the heat of summer and into the fall, the ATL Get Ready Team intends to keep building. Project South will facilitate Community Responder Trainings to strengthen the capacity of community members to assess emergencies, intervene and address medical situations without calling the police. The Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights will continue offering ICE tracker and legal trainings so businesses and faith institutions understand their rights and know how to prevent ICE raids.

Together, we will invite Sanctuary Zone partners to run drills and continue practicing preparedness plans that can be adapted to many kinds of crises — whether climate disasters, economic instability or state violence. Preparation is infrastructure, and in times of disaster or crisis, infrastructure is power.

Sharing the lessons

Below are a few lessons to share with groups working on similar projects: 

1. Differences are not deterrents: We can acknowledge differences and tensions but still work together towards a common vision of preventing criminalization and protecting our communities. Differences can be a strength because sharing knowledge from divergent perspectives gives us a fuller picture of the threats and opportunities to respond. 

2. Connections make our strategies stronger: We can connect ICE, policing and surveillance — an important political intervention that ensures movements to protect our immigrant neighbors are inseparable from movements to protect our Black neighbors from deadly policing. Both are connected to the growing struggles against data centers, surveillance technologies and cameras in our public spaces. We can connect daily, local police harassment to federal agents roaming our streets and to the executive orders and legislation that is targeting trans people and anyone who dissents.

3. Focused strategies are winning strategies: Collaborating around a shared strategy to name and resist the criminalization of people, poverty and protest is an important path forward. Bars, independent businesses and other community spaces want to participate in this moment, they simply need accessible ways to do so. One commitment, one poster, one campaign gives them a concrete way to say yes to noncooperation with institutions of harm, and yes to the work of creating proactive protections and solutions.

4. Local knowledge and national ripples: Rooting in local knowledge, relationships and histories is critical to building long-lasting infrastructure that engages people from diverse backgrounds. Careful reconnaissance to identify canvassing targets, direct follow-up with people with trusted relationships at neighborhood barbershops or churches, elders working with young people to engage sites from different angles, and clear recognition of local cultures and tensions make campaigns like this stronger and allow more people to participate. 

Each of our locations requires different tactics, but if we can coordinate across places and learn from one another as we have learned from Ferguson to Los Angeles, Chicago to Minneapolis, Washington, D.C. to Memphis to Atlanta, we can confront this daunting machine with greater strength, deeper solidarity and more collective power.

As Rehana Lerandeau of Critical Resistance said, “We have to make our practices and our stories fresh, radical and irresistible.” In a time of so much danger and despair, sanctuary is a practice and a vision for how we want to be together in community. This campaign invited people across a diverse range of communities in Atlanta into their own courage, and they have overwhelmingly said yes. 

This article Atlanta offers a model for building sanctuary was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Open access notables

Marine Heatwaves Overwhelm the Buffering Benefits of Marine Protected Areas: Two Decades of Collapse in a Mediterranean Gorgonian, Zentner et al., Global Change Biology

Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are driving mass mortalities of coastal foundation species globally, threatening their persistence and the ecosystems they support. However, long-term demographic evidence of these impacts at regional scales is scarce. Accordingly, whether ongoing conservation actions, mainly marine protected areas (MPAs), mitigate the impact of MHWs is still an open question. Here, we address these gaps by analysing over two decades of demographic monitoring data from 49 shallow (< 40 m depth) populations of the foundation gorgonian Paramuricea clavata paired with in situ temperature records across the north-western Mediterranean (38°–43° N, 0°–8° E). Using hierarchical Bayesian models, we estimated regional-scale trends and assessed the combined influence of MHW exposure and protection status. We found that increasingly frequent extreme thermal events have caused widespread mass mortality, resulting in a 45% median decline in biomass at the regional scale over the past two decades. Within this context of extensive decline, protection temporarily buffered MHW impacts by sustaining higher overall biomass, despite protected populations experiencing greater absolute losses. Taken together, these findings indicate that local protection alone cannot offset climate-driven mortality and underscore the urgent need to integrate conservation measures with global climate action to preserve shallow marine ecosystems.

Petermann Glacier on the brink: Progress, challenges and insights, Fahrner et al., Science Advances

Petermann Glacier (PG), the largest marine-terminating glacier in northern Greenland based on catchment area and ice discharge, plays a key role in modulating ice export from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). With an upstream catchment connected to the GrIS interior via a deep subglacial canyon, its future stability has major implications for sea level rise. This review synthesizes recent advances in understanding PG’s dynamics across three critical interfaces. At the surface, reanalysis data and regional climate models diverge from observations in estimates of air temperature and surface mass balance, underscoring the need for improved in situ data and models. At the ocean boundary, enhanced basal melting driven by subglacial runoff and Atlantic water intrusions is identified as dominant driver of recent mass loss of PG, with continued warming posing a serious threat to the stability of the floating tongue. At the bed, geophysical synthesis reveals complex geology, likely spatial variability in geothermal heat flux, and the megacanyon’s influence on seasonal hydrology and velocity fluctuations. An ongoing rifting event, initiated in September 2025, highlights PG’s vulnerability. The anticipated retreat reduces buttressing and brings the terminus closer to the grounding zone, where additional calving could trigger retreat and accelerate ice discharge. As one of Greenland’s largest floating ice tongues, PG may provide important insights into the stability of other marine-terminating glaciers across the GrIS. Improved observations, sustained monitoring of oceanographic and atmospheric parameters, and high-resolution modeling are critical for constraining projections of PG’s future and its role in GrIS stability.

Near-total loss of buttressing stresses observed on Pine Island Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, Wells-Moran et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Ice shelves, the floating extensions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, provide critical buttressing stresses that resist the seaward flow of ice and help set the position of the grounding line, where the ice goes afloat. As buttressing stresses are diminished by thinning or fracturing and collapse of the ice shelf, glaciers tend to accelerate. Here, we focus on the response of Pine Island Ice Shelf (PIIS) in West Antarctica to multiple calving events and the disintegration of the lateral shear margins. Using observed time-series of the surface velocity fields between 2015 and 2024, we show multiple episodes of acceleration in ice flow and a marked reduction in the buttressing stresses. These observations show that PIIS experienced a significant reduction of its buttressing capacity during the observational record. We then investigate how a model glacier responds to loss in margin buttressing, and are able to broadly reproduce observations. By linking model simulations to observations, we recreate a timeline of buttressing loss on PIIS. These losses likely foreshadow a period of grounding line retreat and acceleration of Pine Island Glacier’s contribution to global mean sea level rise.

Failure to track a stable AMOC state under rapid climate change, Westen et al., Nature Climate Change

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a tipping element of the climate system, currently has an estimated global warming threshold for collapse of +4.0 °C (uncertainty range 1.4–8 °C). However, such a threshold may not be meaningful because AMOC stability depends on the rate of radiative forcing change, not a set temperature. Here we identify an AMOC stabilizing mechanism that operates on timescales slower than present-day warming rates. Slow forcing permits coherent adjustment of surface and interior ocean properties, supported by enhanced evaporation and reduced sea-ice extent, counteracting destabilizing feedbacks. Using a slow CO2 ramp (+0.5 ppm yr−1) climate model simulation, we explicitly demonstrate the AMOC remains stable up to +5.5 °C of global warming. By contrast, under faster CO2 ramps, the AMOC collapses at substantially lower warming levels (+2 °C). Our findings demonstrate rate-induced AMOC tipping and imply that limiting the rate of emissions is critical for reducing the risk of an AMOC collapse.

Disrupting the “wrong” target? Climate protest tactics affecting entities deemed undeserving are perceived as immoral, unjust, and reduce activist support, Nylund et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology

In recent years, disruptive climate protest organisations—such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and Last Generation—have sought to convey the urgency of the climate crisis through actions that deliberately interrupt daily life. Many of these tactics have targeted entities perceived as having relatively minimal responsibility for climate change, such as cultural institutions, art galleries, or the general public, whereas others have targeted entities seen as highly responsible, such as fossil fuel companies or governments that could regulate them. Yet little empirical work has examined how the perceived responsibility—and resulting perceived deservingness—of targets shapes public reactions to disruptive climate protest. Across two preregistered studies using US participants (Study 1; N = 246) and UK participants (Study 2; N = 640), we found that climate protest tactics directed toward targets deemed undeserving (vs. deserving) were judged as less moral, provoked greater anger at the activists, and reduced support for them. Study 2 further demonstrated that these actions were evaluated as more unjust. However, target deservingness did not affect support for the broader climate movement, cause, or policies. These findings highlight the importance of perceived target deservingness in forming public judgments of disruptive protest and suggest that climate activists may reduce backlash to their activism by directing tactics toward entities seen as more responsible for contributing to the climate crisis. From this week's government/NGO section:

Temperature Check 2025–26, The Center for Climate Journalism and Communication, University of Southern California

Even though fewer Americans now hear about global warming and climate change through news, newspapers are still the top source of information for climate communicators. Climate communicators still prefer LinkedIn as their go-to social media platform for climate information, followed by Instagram and BlueSky. The use of X/Twitter for engaging in climate media continues to drop even more among climate communicators. Climate communicators are most concerned about the lack of climate action, global warming and the health impacts of climate change this year. Yet, the authors' survey shows climate communicators are also increasingly avoiding terms and phrases such as “climate change” and “global warming,” likely due to increasing politicization of the terms as well as pushback from the government as well as the public.

Climate Change in the American Mind: Politics & Policy, Spring 2026, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University and George Mason University

With the primaries in the 2026 midterm elections underway, the authors found that 58% of registered voters prefer to vote for a candidate for public office who supports action on global warming, while 14% prefer to vote for a candidate who opposes action. 42% would like to hear from political candidates more often about efforts to reduce global warming, while 23% would like to hear about this less often. 31% will only vote for a congressional candidate who supports increasing the use of renewable energy, while 7% will only vote for a candidate who supports decreasing the use of renewable energy. 25% will only vote for a candidate who supports decreasing the use of fossil fuels, while 14% will only vote for a candidate who supports increasing the use of fossil fuels. 93 articles in 45 journals by 733 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Abrupt Increase in Marine Heatwave Accumulated Days Over the Gulf Stream Extension Around 2013 Linked to Subtropical Eastern Pacific Warming, Song et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2026jc024006

Failure to track a stable AMOC state under rapid climate change, Westen et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access 10.1038/s41558-026-02730-w

Intensified Oxygen Minimum Zone in Response to Both Insolation Maxima and Carbon Dioxide?Driven Warmth in the Tropical North Atlantic, Fayolle et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Open Access 10.1029/2026pa005463

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Deforestation amplifies climate change effects on warming and cloud level rise in African montane forests, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-51324-7 26 cites.

buffer/PWSE

Observations of climate change, effects

Enhanced Subsurface Warming of the Kuroshio Revealed by Long-Term Observations During 1965–2020, Du et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl120916

From Rare to Recurrent: Intensifying Hot–Dry Extremes Across Romania, Nagavciuc & Ioni??, International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.70559

Strong human fingerprint on low snowpack amid increasing volatility, Swain, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.2620765123

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The ocean losing its breath under the heatwaves, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-51323-8 38 cites.

buffer/OBME

Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

A climate impact taxonomy operationalizing IPCC physical driver and risk concepts, Michaela et al., IIASA PURE (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis) pmh:oai:pure.iiasa.ac.at:21196

A global high-resolution dataset of snowmelt runoff onset timing from Sentinel-1 SAR, 2015–2024, Gagliano et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-5871-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Toward Low-Latency Estimation of Atmospheric CO 2 Growth Rates Using Satellite Observations: Evaluating Sampling Errors of Satellite and In Situ Observing Approaches, AGU Advances, 10.1029/2023av001145 10 cites.

buffer/WINS

Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Catalogue of strong nonlinear surprises in ocean, sea-ice, and atmospheric variables in CMIP6, Angevaare & Drijfhout, Earth System Dynamics Open Access 10.5194/esd-17-1081-2026

Heat Extremes Within Hot Summer Seasons Intensify More Than in Average Summers Under Global Warming, Pfleiderer et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008241

Intercomparison of a Regional Climate Model Ensemble for Selected European Catchments, Roque et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.70554

Pacific Warming Pattern Discrepancy Linked to Spurious Rainband in Climate Models, Wills & DiNezio, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122859

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Increasing frequency and precipitation intensity of convective storms in the Peruvian Central Andes: Projections from convection?permitting regional climate simulations, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 10.1002/qj.4820 10 cites.

buffer/MSWE

Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Bridging the weather and climate divide with artificial intelligence, Camps?Valls et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-75787-y

Rapid Evaluation Framework for the CMIP7 Assessment Fast Track, Hoffman, Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.21919074

Recent Temperature and Energy Imbalance Trends Point to Higher Estimates of Future Warming, Gyuleva et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008356

The source of uncertainty in future warming and wetting projections over Northwest China, Wei et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.08.008

Uncertainty in Land Carbon Fluxes Simulated by CMIP6 Models from Treatments of Crop Distributions and Photosynthetic Pathways, Ovwemuvwose et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-5593-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Uncertainties Inherent from Large-Scale Climate Projections in the Statistical Downscaling Projection of North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity, Journal of Climate, 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0475.1 6 cites.

buffer/GCMA

Cryosphere & climate change

Atmospheric Blocking Pattern as the Primary Driver of Subseasonal Greenland Ice Sheet Summer Melt Variability, Guo et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70547

Data-driven equation discovery of a sea ice albedo parametrisation, Atmojo et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-4437-2026

Loss of hydroclimate archives in glacier-fed basins worldwide, Vystavna et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03825-0

Near-total loss of buttressing stresses observed on Pine Island Ice Shelf, West Antarctica, Wells-Moran et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2602994123

Petermann Glacier on the brink: Progress, challenges and insights, Fahrner et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aee4522

Quick northward retreat of the permafrost boundary and controlling mechanisms in northeastern China, Zhou et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105678

Strong human fingerprint on low snowpack amid increasing volatility, Swain, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.2620765123

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
State of Wildfires 2023–2024, Earth system science data, 10.5194/essd-16-3601-2024 236 cites.

buffer/CRYO

Sea level & climate change

Large-scale climate oscillations induce accelerated high tide flooding along the U.S. East Coast, Zhu et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03932-y

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Quantifying the Mean Sea Level, Tide, and Surge Contributions to Changing Coastal High Water Levels, Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans, 10.1029/2023jc020737 11 cites.

buffer/SLCC

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Late Pleistocene glacial terminations accelerated by proglacial lakes, Climate of the past, 10.5194/cp-20-1761-2024 3 cites.

buffer/PCIM

Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Antarctic greening is constrained by biology and requires field validation, Bokhorst et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-02076-0

Climate change and conservation of caecilians (order Gymnophiona): prediction of distributional shifts and risk assessment in Chiapas, Mexico, Cabrera-Hernández et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2026.1886733

Faster, bigger, more severe: Extreme wildfire spread sets the stage for forest ecosystem change in western and boreal North America, Coop et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeg5802

Food Plant Availability Constrains Climatic Niches of Host?Specialized Europe?Centred Butterflies, Rashid et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access pdf 10.1111/ddi.70245

Linear resistance but threshold-controlled recovery of vegetation to compound heatwave–drought extremes, Zhou et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105668

Mapping climate-related forest risks: An index-based approach, Martes & Köhl, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000931

Marine Heatwaves Overwhelm the Buffering Benefits of Marine Protected Areas: Two Decades of Collapse in a Mediterranean Gorgonian, Zentner et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.71052

Quantifying the alpha diversity of vascular plants vulnerable to climate change in protected areas, Wan et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105679

Terrestrial Arthropod Responses to Arctic Cryosphere Degradation, Gillespie & Høye, Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.71062

The Biodiversity of Retreating Glaciers Leaves an Ecological Legacy in Emerging Soil Communities, Cantera et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.71040

Using a “Super” El Niño to understand how lakes respond to climate extremes, Culpepper et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001021

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Climate change and California’s terrestrial biodiversity, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2310074121 42 cites.

buffer/BIOW

GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

From Stable to Labile: Forest Expansion Drives Changes in Alpine Soil Carbon Fractions, Man et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences 10.1029/2026jg009751

Implementing methane dynamics into the LPJmL6 model, Schaphoff et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-7615-2026

Net lateral carbon export from eroding United States Atlantic and Gulf Coast marshes, Vittorio et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03911-3

No single rule explains how climate affects carbon storage in tropical forests, Uriarte & Macedo, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02291-0

Persistent Shelf?to?Basin Export of Bioavailable Dissolved Organic Carbon in the Arctic Ocean, Gao et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl124640

Soil carbon gains from salt marsh recovery in China, Zheng et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03944-8

Soil Moisture Thresholds for the Temperature Sensitivity of Ecosystem Respiration, Zhang et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71066

Sphagnum and herbaceous net ecosystem exchanges in a Pyrenean peatland: a long-term study using the ISBA model, Garisoain et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-3407-2026

Uncertainty in Land Carbon Fluxes Simulated by CMIP6 Models from Treatments of Crop Distributions and Photosynthetic Pathways, Ovwemuvwose et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-5593-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
An Independent Evaluation of GHGSat Methane Emissions: Performance Assessment, Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, 10.1029/2023jd039906 27 cites.

buffer/GHSS

CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Cities need robust carbon dioxide removal strategies to meet net-zero targets, Ulpiani et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02676-z

CO2 geological storage in China: a mini review of technical options, trade-offs, and pathways toward carbon neutrality, Zhao, Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access 10.3389/feart.2026.1873039

Influence of Deep?Sea Carbonate Sediments on the Long?Term Durability of Carbon Storage From Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement, Acksen et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2026gb009203

Techno-economics and value judgments of modeling biochar production for carbon removal in climate change mitigation scenarios, Dorndorf et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104882

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Enhanced silicate weathering accelerates forest carbon sequestration by stimulating the soil mineral carbon pump, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17464 65 cites.

buffer/CENG

Decarbonization

Impacts of solar panels on vegetation biomass shift with climate aridity, Zhai et al., AMBIO 10.1007/s13280-026-02466-z

Phased fuel transition for low-carbon shipping, Li et al., Nature Sustainability Open Access 10.1038/s41893-026-01907-7

Projected impacts of future offshore wind farms on coastal precipitation over the Northwest European shelf, Akhtar et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03852-x

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Challenges and opportunities in truck electrification revealed by big operational data, Nature Energy, 10.1038/s41560-024-01602-x 72 cites.

buffer/DCRB

Geoengineering climate

Unveiling the Shortwave Absorption Spectra of Alumina Aerosols: Radiative Implications for Solar Radiation Modification, Kapoor et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl121668

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
An assessment of ocean alkalinity enhancement using aqueous hydroxides: kinetics, efficiency, and precipitation thresholds, Biogeosciences, 10.5194/bg-21-3551-2024 31 cites.

buffer/GENG

Black carbon

Black carbon emissions and climate impacts of cost-saving Arctic transit shipping through 2050, Yi et al., Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01877-w

Aerosols

Sea Surface Temperature Feedbacks and Convective Organization Mediate the Tropical Circulation Response to Aerosols, Sokol & Wright, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122829

Climate change communications & cognition

A Rapid Systematic Map of Youth Engagement With Marine Environments in a Changing Climate, Ceglia et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70087

Disrupting the “wrong” target? Climate protest tactics affecting entities deemed undeserving are perceived as immoral, unjust, and reduce activist support, Nylund et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103184

Inoculating Voters Against Misinformation in Greenspace Ballot Measures, Pitas & Zou, Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103164

Media Framing of Climate Change and Its Dual Impact on Subjective Well-Being and Pro-Environmental Engagement, Lei & Yu, Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103178

Youth climate activism and the Global South gap in environmental citizenship research, Mubarak et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103182

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Can large language models estimate public opinion about global warming? An empirical assessment of algorithmic fidelity and bias, PLOS Climate, 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000429 29 cites.

buffer/CSCC

Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

Adoption levels of climate-smart agricultural practices through agricultural innovation systems among women smallholder farmers in Tanzania, Ndosi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1891580

Bridging local decisions and regional forest strategies under climate risks: a flexibility-based optimization framework, Labarre et al., Annals of Forest Science Open Access 10.1186/s13595-026-01355-5

Climate Change Intensifies Cropland Drought Exposure in the Indus River Basin During the 21st Century, Hussain et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70544

Climate Transitions in the Argentine Pampas Exceed Global Rates and Reshape Crop Exposure: A Multi?Period Köppen–Geiger Analysis (1901–2020), Brendel, International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70558

Disentangling the nonlinear responses of rainfed rice growth to climatic factors in South and Southeast Asia, Sun et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105673

High-resolution climate-driven potential evapotranspiration to assess climate change impacts on Mediterranean agriculture, Fonseca et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1854734

Institutions and climate risk adaptation among smallholder livestock farmers in North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia, Yilma et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000751

Methane mitigation in ruminants for sustainable livestock production in tropical climates, Oke et al., Discover Environment Open Access pdf 10.1007/s44274-026-00971-2

Quantifying methane and ammonia emissions from beef cattle finishing systems under sorghum and corn diets, Santos et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111368

Systematic review of resilience pathways for smallholder farmers in semi-arid Southern Africa, Mutatu et al., Discover Sustainability Open Access 10.1007/s43621-026-04328-w

Winter wheat yield responses to extreme heat in the North China Plain: GGCMI-AgMIP model evaluation and a heat-stress phenology improvement in JULES-crop, You et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111404

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Reducing climate change impacts from the global food system through diet shifts, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02084-1 105 cites.

buffer/AGCC

Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Hot Droughts Increase the Likelihood and Impacts of Abrupt Drought?to?Pluvial Transitions Worldwide, Fu et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008638

Physical Constraints on Future Tibetan Plateau Summer Precipitation: Emergent Relationships and Pareto Optimal Ensembles, Li et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70560

Rapid Increases in Heat?Driven Extreme Moisture Demand in the Southern Amazon, Chang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123139

Riverine flood risk mapping using GIS–AHP and climate-driven hydrodynamic simulations in an alpine basin of the Indus River system, Jamshed et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000915

The Portrait of Flood Risk in Italy: Past, Present and Future, From 1870 to 2100, Pavesi et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122987

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Rapid intensification of tropical cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico is more likely during marine heatwaves, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01578-2 45 cites.

buffer/HYCC

Climate change economics
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Renewable energy and CO2 emissions in developing and developed nations: a panel estimate approach, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1405001 44 cites.

buffer/ECCC

Climate change and the circular economy Climate change mitigation public policy research

Climate change mitigation practices in Porto's Atlantic-front municipalities: A comparative analysis, Leitão et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103094

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Feasibility of peak temperature targets in light of institutional constraints, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02073-4 47 cites.

buffer/GPCC

Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

Deferred climate-related migration, Melillo, Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1800309

Evaluating urban heat adaptation strategies for extreme heatwaves in complex terrain: A case study of Grenoble, France, Gabeiras et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103059

Intention versus reality: insights from the implementation of the Green Climate Fund's adaptation project in Ethiopia, Kidane et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100870

Opportunities for pathways approaches for adapting to complex climate change risks, Sparkes et al., Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.cosust.2026.101721

Widening climate adaptation gaps in the Chinese expressway network under climate change, Huang et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03913-1

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Relational geographies of urban unsustainability: The entanglement of California’s housing crisis with WUI growth and climate change, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2310080121 25 cites.

buffer/CCAD

Climate change impacts on human health

Drought dynamics explain once in a century yellow fever virus outbreak in Brazil with implications for climate change, Caldwell et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.adz6832

Exceeding human heat tolerance in a warming, ageing world: a global projection modelling study, Kong et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101494

Exceeding human heat tolerance in a warming, ageing world: a global projection modelling study, Kong et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101494

The effect of natural climate variability on future vector-borne disease suitability: A mathematical modelling study, Kaye et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000877

Urban heat vulnerability in a warming climate in Denmark: Projected temperature-related mortality for Copenhagen and the remaining areas, Kloster et al., Urban Climate Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103093

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Climate change and public health in California: A structured review of exposures, vulnerable populations, and adaptation measures, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2310081121 20 cites.

buffer/CCHH

Climate change & geopolitics

Strategic objectives underpin national climate pledges, Fransen & Meckling, Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-76467-7

The ocean as a unifying agenda across the climate, biodiversity, and land degradation conventions, Geddes et al., npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access 10.1038/s44183-026-00227-9

Other

The Critical Role of Moisture in the Record?Breaking Warm Event Over East Antarctica in March 2022, Cui et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2026jd047167

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Government participation in virtual negotiations: evidence from IPCC approval sessions, Climatic Change, 10.1007/s10584-024-03790-7 4 cites.

buffer/OTHR

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
State of polar climate (2025), Advances in Climate Change Research, 10.1016/j.accre.2024.08.004 20 cites.

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Ruta Energetica 2026–2030 (Energy Roadmap), Government of Chile

Chile se encuentra en una etapa decisiva de su transición energética, enfrentando el desafío de consolidar los avances alcanzados durante la última década y, al mismo tiempo, responder a nuevas exigencias en materia de seguridad energética, crecimiento económico y competitividad internacional. La presente Ruta 2026–2030 tiene por objetivo acelerar y robustecer la transición energética del país, promoviendo una agenda que combine seguridad del suministro, modernización institucional, competitividad económica, y desarrollo territorial equilibrado. Para ello, se busca impulsar una transición energética con foco en la seguridad, posicionando a la energía como un motor habilitante del crecimiento, inversión, empleo, productividad e innovación. En este marco, la Ruta define las prioridades estratégicas y lineamientos de acción que orientarán la gestión sectorial durante el período 2026–2030. (Chile is at a decisive stage in its energy transition, facing the challenge of consolidating the progress made during the last decade and, at the same time, respond to new demands in terms of energy security, economic growth, and international competitiveness. This roadmap 2026–2030 aims to accelerate and strengthen the energy transition of the country, promoting an agenda that combines security of supply, institutional modernization, economic competitiveness, and balanced territorial development. To this end, it seeks to promote a energy transition with a focus on security, positioning energy as an enabling engine growth, investment, employment, productivity and innovation. In this framework, the roadmap defines the strategic priorities and guidelines for action that will guide sectoral management during the period 2026–2030.)

he Demand Stack: An Assessment of the Benefits, Hledik et al., Uplight

The authors analyzed the potential for Demand Stack implementation to unlock new demand response (DR), time-of-use (TOU) rate, and energy efficiency (EE) capabilities for a representative SPP utility’s service territory. The “Demand Stack” represents a set of strategic initiatives to expand the impact and effectiveness of each individual utility’s demand-side management (DSM) portfolio through a more integrated approach to program design and implementation. Operationally, the Demand Stack allows a portfolio of demand-side programs to be collectively deployed and dispatched to reliably address system needs, similar to conventional supply-side resources. The range of Demand Stack strategies includes regulatory, operational, and behavioral measures that can enable new program offerings, increase enrollment, and improve the performance and cost-competitiveness of the portfolio. The authors focus exclusively on the quantifiable impacts that Demand Stack strategies could have by 2030 for a representative portfolio of demand-side offerings.

Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area, Jeffrey Jones, Gallup

Seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed. Barely a quarter favor these projects, with 7% strongly in favor. These results, from a March 2-18 Gallup survey, represent the first time Gallup has asked about data center construction, a topic that has met fierce opposition from local residents in many parts of the country. The March survey asked people to rate their level of concern about the environmental impact of AI data centers. Forty-six percent say they worry a great deal and 24% a fair amount, largely mirroring the degrees of opposition to data center construction. Half of opponents mention data centers’ excessive use of resources, including 18% each mentioning their use of water and energy. Sixteen percent mention a related environmental concern of pollution, including noise pollution and air and water pollution.

The Environmental Cost of Artificial Intelligence: Carbon, Water, and Land Footprints, Aczel et al., United Nations University

The authors examine one of the most underexplored consequences of AI’s rapid expansion: the environmental footprints of the energy required to power it. As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in economies, public services, research, communication, and everyday life, it depends on a growing physical infrastructure of data centers, advanced chips, cooling systems, electricity grids, water resources, land, and critical mineral supply chains. The report shows that AI is not only a digital technology, but also a material system with measurable environmental costs. The authors frame AI’s environmental footprint as a governance and justice challenge, not only a technical problem. The benefits of AI often flow across borders and sectors, while the environmental burdens of data center siting, electricity demand, water withdrawals, land use, mineral extraction, and e-waste can be concentrated in specific communities and regions. To address these risks, the authors call for a responsible AI ecosystem grounded in transparency, efficiency by design, equity and environmental justice, lifecycle responsibility, global cooperation, and sustainable use. By making AI’s carbon, water, and land footprints visible and comparable, the authors provide a practical basis for integrating AI into energy, climate, water, and land-use planning, ensuring that innovation advances without shifting environmental costs onto vulnerable communities.

Advancing Industrial Electrification in Pennsylvania, Quinn et al., The 2035 Initiative, University of California, Santa Barbara

Pennsylvania has one of the largest and most energy-intensive manufacturing sectors in the country, making it a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution. This also makes it one of the best near-term opportunities to deploy cleaner, more efficient manufacturing technologies. The Reducing Industrial Sector Emissions in Pennsylvania (RISE PA) program has allocated $396 million to industrial decarbonization, making the Commonwealth an early leader in this area. The authors explore one way the state can effectively deploy its resources: low- and medium-temperature (LMT) process heat electrification. Building on national-scale engineering models, the authors identify how electrification of Pennsylvania’s industrial sector can deliver cost-effective emissions reductions, long-term health benefits for Pennsylvanians, and economic growth in the manufacturing sector.

Global Justice Report, Aggarwal et al., World Inequality Lab

The authors attempt to set out a new vision for global progress in the 21st century: grounding human development and equality in planetary habitability. They explore the conditions under which the world could move toward this horizon and traces an economically and ecologically consistent transition path from 2026 to 2100. Their main conclusion is simple: it is possible to reconcile planetary habitability and high well-being for all, but only if the transformation rests on three pillars simultaneously. Fast decarbonization of energy systems is necessary. But we also need a major shift toward sufficiency – understood as a sharp reduction in labor hours and material footprint and large changes in consumption patterns, food habits, land use, and forest cover. In addition, neither decarbonization nor sufficiency can be financed and politically sustained without a drastic reduction in inequality of income, wealth and power, both between countries and within them. The compression of global inequality is not only compatible with deep decarbonization; it is a necessary condition for shared prosperity on a finite planet.

Temperature Check 2025–26, The Center for Climate Journalism and Communication, University of Southern California

Even though fewer Americans now hear about global warming and climate change through news, newspapers are still the top source of information for climate communicators. Climate communicators still prefer LinkedIn as their go-to social media platform for climate information, followed by Instagram and BlueSky. The use of X/Twitter for engaging in climate media continues to drop even more among climate communicators. Climate communicators are most concerned about the lack of climate action, global warming and the health impacts of climate change this year. Yet, the authors' survey shows climate communicators are also increasingly avoiding terms and phrases such as “climate change” and “global warming,” likely due to increasing politicization of the terms as well as pushback from the government as well as the public.

The New Geopolitics of LNG: Asia’s Energy Security in a Divided World, Andrews-Speed et al., The National Bureau of Asian Research

Liquefied natural gas constitutes a growing share of the global energy mix and is an increasingly important element of the energy mix in Asia. The authors examine the role of liquefied natural gas in the energy strategies of the United States, Japan, and China and assess the implications of deepening geopolitical divides for Asia’s future energy security.

Drivers of supply and demand of terrestrial animal source food, Tak et al., Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Diverse foods derived from livestock production systems, including grazing and pastoralist systems, and from the hunting of wild animals, provide high-quality proteins, important fatty acids and various vitamins and minerals – contributing to healthy diets for improved nutrition and health. Challenges related to high resource utilization and pollution, food–feed competition, greenhouse gas emissions, antimicrobial resistance and animal welfare, as well as zoonotic and food-borne diseases, accessibility and affordability, need to be solved if agrifood systems are to become more sustainable.

Clean industry rising: the foundation of resilient value chains, Mission Possible Partnership

The authors highlight the acceleration in the shift to decarbonized industrial production. The latest wave of projects includes clean fuels, chemicals, fertilizers and metals: the industrial essentials needed to grow food, build infrastructure, manufacture goods and move the products that underpin modern economies. As the need for more resilient industrial systems intensifies, clean industry is emerging as a strategic advantage. The authors explore the trends in detail, including country progress, analysis of which projects are progressing along the announced pipeline and the new clean industry value chains that are taking shape worth an estimated $4.7 trillion.

China Carbon Neutrality Tracker 2025 Annual Report Green and Low-Carbon Transition in China's Provincial Level Regions: A Decade in Review, Li et al., Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress

As China's "dual carbon" targets have been enshrined as national strategy and the "1+N" policy framework continues to take shape, the country's green and low-carbon transition has moved into a phase of accelerated implementation at the subnational level. Given China's vast territory and the significant differences among provincial level regions1 in economy, energy mix, and resource endowments, the transition varies notably across regions in terms of starting points, pathways, and outcomes. Therefore, systematically tracking subnational climate action carries significant potential to inform policymaking and ensure the timely achievement of China's "dual carbon" goals. The authors apply Subnational Low-Carbon and Green Index for China (Subnational LOGIC), an indicator tool developed by iGDP, to track and quantitatively assess the low-carbon transition of 30 provincial level regions between 2013 and 2022. Subnational LOGIC encompasses 26 specific indicators under four categories: carbon productivity; carbon emissions including six sub-categories covering energy, power, industry, buildings, transport, and agriculture; environmental conditions and land use; and policy systems and public participation, together capturing the overall quality of regional economic growth and progress on sectoral emission reductions.

Gas share in global power mix has declined for a fifth consecutive year, Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, Ember

The author examines how the role of gas in the global power sector is changing as renewable electricity expands across major economies. She explores long-term trends in gas-fired generation globally and across key markets, including the G7, China, India and Brazil.

Climate Change in the American Mind: Politics & Policy, Spring 2026, Leiserowitz et al., Yale University and George Mason University

With the primaries in the 2026 midterm elections underway, the authors found that 58% of registered voters prefer to vote for a candidate for public office who supports action on global warming, while 14% prefer to vote for a candidate who opposes action. 42% would like to hear from political candidates more often about efforts to reduce global warming, while 23% would like to hear about this less often. 31% will only vote for a congressional candidate who supports increasing the use of renewable energy, while 7% will only vote for a candidate who supports decreasing the use of renewable energy. 25% will only vote for a candidate who supports decreasing the use of fossil fuels, while 14% will only vote for a candidate who supports increasing the use of fossil fuels.

The Intersection of Data Center Development, Water Availability, and Environmental Justice In California, Stewart-Frey et al., NEXT 10

The authors assess the intersection of direct water use by data centers with water availability and distribution in California, focusing on the potential effect of large-scale data center operations on local water resources. The authors also evaluate how data centers might affect the water access and sustainability for communities located near these facilities, highlighting potential disparities in water access for particularly vulnerable communities. As part of this assessment, the authors developed a comprehensive database of California data centers, as well as a newly developed index to evaluate water scarcity and community vulnerability.

Banking on Climate Crisis. Fossil Fuel Finance Report 2026, Lusiani et al., Banking on Climate Chaos Coalition

Affordable energy, environmental justice, respect for human rights, and a livable climate are all critical pillars of society, and all profoundly influenced by choices made by the world’s largest banks. Many of these banks continue to put their — and others — money into the fragile fossil fuel energy system, which has become a source of great wealth for the few and a deepening fault line of vulnerability for everyone else. At a time of great change in the global energy sector, this 17th edition of the Banking on Climate Chaos report tracks these financing choices by the world’s largest banks and provides a roadmap of how to phase out bank financing for fossil fuels.

SLCP Impact Report: A decade of driving decent working conditions, The Social and Labor Convergence Program

In 2025, SLCP added new climate data points to the Converged Assessment Framework (CAF) ensuring alignment with Human Rights Due Diligence requirements and recognizing that climate change is no longer solely an environmental sustainability issue, but that it directly affects worker wellbeing too. The authors who that 69% of facilities are not preparing for climate effects and have not yet made a formal plan for dealing with climate change. This is particularly urgent given that 16% of SLCP facilities maintain indoor temperatures exceeding 31°C, a level that sits dangerously close to or above recognized safe heat thresholds for workers. About New Research

Click here for the why and how of Skeptical Science New Research.

Suggestions

Please let us know if you're aware of an article you think may be of interest for Skeptical Science research news, or if we've missed something that may be important. Send your input to Skeptical Science via our contact form.

Previous edition

The previous edition of Skeptical Science New Research may be found here.

Utah Senator Mike Lee is at it again. Earlier this year, he led a failed legislative attempt to undo the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Management Plan. In July, he couldn’t contain his joy when President Trump illegally decimated both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. And now he’s set the wheel in motion to use the same legislative tool – a fast-tracked resolution via the Congressional Review Act – to attack the Bears Ears Monument Management Plan.

Please contact your members of Congress today (House & Senate) and tell them: Vote NO to Mike Lee’s attack on Bears Ears National Monument.

You might be wondering: does a monument management plan still matter after Trump’s illegal reductions? The answer is a resounding yes! Until a new management plan is finalized for Bears Ears, the existing plan remains in place. The current plan—finalized in early 2025 in consultation with the Bears Ears Commission—will continue to govern day-to-day activities in the monument. There is one major exception: mining. Trump’s proclamations directed that on September 11, 2026, the lands cut out of both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante will be opened to new mining claims and potential oil and gas leasing.

The Bears Ears Management plan was the first of its kind, incorporating significant and meaningful input from Tribal Nations through the Bears Ears Commission. It took important steps towards protecting unique natural and cultural landscapes, while at the same time providing opportunities for respectful appreciation and enjoyment of this remarkable place. All of that is at risk.

Members of Congress have been speaking out in opposition to Trump’s illegal reductions of the national monuments. This is their chance to back up words with action—ensuring that Senator Lee’s effort to fast-track the undoing of the Bears Ears Monument Management Plan goes nowhere.

Please contact your members of Congress today (House & Senate) and tell them: Vote NO to Mike Lee’s attack on Bears Ears National Monument.

Earlier this year, the Protect Wild Utah movement ensured that Grand Staircase-Escalante Management Plan remained in place—it was an extraordinary effort, against the odds, that involved a whole-of-organization effort for SUWA and our supporters. We’ll be mounting a similar campaign for Bears Ears and will need your help again. Thank you—we know you’ll help us rise to the occasion. We’ll be in touch as we have more updates.

>> Want to do more to defend Bears Ears? Click here to get in contact with a Regional Organizer.

 

The post Take Action to Defend Bears Ears National Monument appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

The federal government’s wildfire response system is lacking resources during what is on track to be one of the most destructive fire years on record. In an August 14 memo, the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Center told fire managers it cannot “provide all requested resources for every fire,” and an August 11 memo warned of “no immediate relief anticipated.”

Wildfires have burned 7.3 million acres as of August 18, the most acres for this point in the year since federal tracking began in 1994, compared with a 30-year average of 4.3 million acres. Seventy-six large fires remain uncontained, and at points this season all 38 of the nation’s standby incident management teams, each requiring at least 24 people, have been committed simultaneously.

This resource strain follows roughly 3,400 firings at the Forest Service under the Trump administration’s workforce cuts. Officials say frontline firefighters were spared, but the incident management teams coordinating the response were not. “These require the most seasoned and experienced managers. And we lost a lot of them last year,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, Executive Director for Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology. “We are just now seeing the impact of that.”

Bulldozers move into protected Arizona desert as second border wall advances near Quitobaquito Springs

A second 30-foot border wall is being built about 100 feet north of the existing barrier in Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, with crews bulldozing a corridor roughly 2.5 miles east of Quitobaquito Springs, home to three endangered species found nowhere else on Earth. “This is the beginning of another destructive chapter for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Quitobaquito Springs,” said Russ McSpadden, southwest conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, who documented the construction activity.

Join us in Tucson: We’ll be discussing Arizona’s public lands and the border wall in a conversation with advocates including Russ McSpadden. RSVP to join on Friday, August 28 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre.

Quick hits Fish and Wildlife Service pauses plan to change wetlands policy

Outdoor Life | E&E News

Bulldozers move into protected Arizona desert as second border wall advances near Quitobaquito Springs

Arizona Daily Star | KGUN 9 | KJZZ | Sierra Sun Times

Poll shows Utahns oppose Trump’s monument reductions

Deseret News

Report: Public lands at risk

Outdoor Alliance

Wildland firefighting bill gains steam as smoke reaches Congress

Roll Call

Trump proposes rescinding roadless rule for 45M forest acres

Arizona Republic | E&E News | Capital Press | AZPM | Grist

Trump administration moves to kill ‘roadless rule,’ but Colorado has its own protections

CPR | Aspen Times

Land acquisition protecting ‘one of the best views of Colorado’ will add 262 acres to national forest

Aspen Times

Quote of the day

We want expertise, and the mistreatment of the federal expertise, the civil service, is going to hurt us for decades to come.”

—Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Roll Call

Picture This @zionnps

Aww, a baby condor! But who’s the other one?

The California condor shown here is baby Milagra. Milagra’s story reminds us that not all of the condors we see in Zion begin their journeys in the park: in fact, some don’t begin them in the wild at all.

All condors spend some time in captivity. Ideally, they only stay in facilities for brief visits – routine check-ups to make sure they’re healthy. Some, spend extended time in human care, as we follow means necessary to best protect this endangered species.

50% of condor mortalities are due to lead poisoning, when a condor is exposed to lead through carrion. If that carrion is the remains of an animal shot by a lead bullet, the scavenger animals that eat it (like condors) are subject to extreme illness. Other threats to condors include microtrash, fire, and other types of illness.

Milagra was rescued as an egg, after her mother was found dead of avian flu a short distance from their nesting site. Once hatched, Milagra was raised in captivity, first with puppets, and later by a pair of adopted parents. After she was released, Milagra immediately ran into her biological father: the two recognized each other and shared a meal. Her story is one of hope. With proper care and attention for these wild species, we can hopefully share this world with them for many more years to come.

Photo from the Peregrine Fund

 

Featured photo: The Woolsey Fire, California, 2018. Peter Buschmann/U.S. Forest Service

The post Firefighting resources are ‘critically low’ in record fire year appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.