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Ryan Costello, Policy Director with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), issued the following statement as the Trump administration moves to intensify its economic pressure campaign against Iran following months of war and instability:

“President Trump, the ultimate gambler in geopolitics, is poised to double down on a bad hand on Iran yet again.

“We’ve been down the maximum pressure road with Iran many times. What we’ve learned is that President Trump can impose extensive economic pain on Iran, but ordinary Iranians overwhelmingly bear the cost.. The ruling elite in Iran remains largely insulated, while Tehran has repeatedly refused to capitulate to Washington’s demands.. Trump’s gamble is that this time, amid the destruction of war, and with the reinforcement of a blockade, time is on his side and ultimately Iran will be forced to concede defeat.

“The pivot back to economic coercion comes with enormous risks the administration appears determined to ignore. After all, it was the United States that waived sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea during the height of the war in March, and again issued a waiver allowing Iran to sell oil freely in June. Now attempting to choke off those same oil sales exposes the contradiction at the heart of Trump’s strategy: Washington needed to relieve economic pressure when the consequences became too costly, yet is now betting that it can reimpose that pressure without suffering the same blowback.

“Within the United States, ordinary Americans are paying the price for this deeply unpopular war at the gas pump and in their grocery bills. Trump’s polls have plummeted amid the war - one he said he’d avoid - heading into all-important midterms. Continuing economic warfare risks deeper turmoil in the energy markets and the global economy, which could cascade into a full-blown catastrophe. Moreover, starting a trade war with China risks retaliatory measures that the U.S. economy can ill afford.

“Iran has also indicated clearly that it will not tolerate economic warfare and will escalate across the region, if necessary, to target any nation that supports President Trump’s efforts to cripple the Iranian economy. While the President may think economic warfare is less risky than military warfare, ultimately Tehran will view it as a different tactic in the same campaign to crush the country.

“None of this appears likely to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Rather, it appears intended to delay and avoid a deal that ends not just the war, but also the maximum pressure campaign that the President has waged since 2018. Oftentimes, admitting you have a problem is necessary in order to stop an addiction. President Trump has proven unable and unwilling to stop his gambling on Iran that risks further undermining U.S. and regional security and the global economy.”

‘The Great Reformulation’: How some grocery giants are cutting back on food chemicals Ketura Persellin August 24, 2026

Many grocery stores are meeting consumer demand by taking food chemicals off their shelves. 

More than 70% of U.S. adults are concerned about chemicals in their food and water – and they deserve better consumer protections than the federal government has given them.

Due to a legal loophole, almost 99% of all new food chemicals introduced in the past 20 years have been approved by companies themselves, rather than the Food and Drug Administration. The Trump administration recently took a step toward amending that loophole – but it may be years before people see changes in their shopping carts as a result.

Some grocery giants aren’t waiting to act on potentially harmful food chemicals.

Whole Foods is a leader, with a longstanding commitment to ban a lengthy list of ingredients throughout its store. H-E-B, the largest chain in Texas, has banned more than 200 ingredients of concern from its store brand products. Albertons, Kroger, Target and Wegmans have each removed around 100 food chemicals from their store brand items.

Food chemicals are just one feature of a food system that favors industry and leaves the public with too few options for eating well. But understanding how retailers are responding shows how the food landscape is shifting and can help point shoppers in the right direction.

Grocery stores have more control over store-brand products

The products at most grocery retailers fall into one of two categories: name brand goods like Cheerios, and store brand or “private label” goods like Kroger Toasted O’s. 

Private label brands make up close to 25% of most retail sales. Shoppers used to associate more affordable private label brands with lower quality. But that’s changing. More than half of consumers now say they can’t justify spending more on name brands when private label products meet their needs.  

But retailer pledges usually focus on these in-house brands because they own the product lines and have control over the supply chains, so they have more sway here than over manufacturers of brand name products.

‘The Great Reformulation’

Many major grocers are now capitalizing on consumer demand by removing ingredients or reformulating products – a trend one publication calls the Great Reformulation. Many stores’ restrictions and bans focus on ingredients like artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and sweeteners, and some include a much wider range of additives.

Here’s where some of the other top grocery retailers stand.

Retailers with clear commitments and results

Albertsons. The company has removed 110 ingredients from its private label brand, Open Nature. The brand is available in the company’s 20 grocery subsidiaries, including Jewel-Osco and Safeway.

H-E-B. The Texas staple’s store brands feature their Select Ingredients seal, indicating products are free from more than 203 ingredients.

Kroger. Kroger’s Simple Truth and Simple Truth Organic store brands date back more than a decade. As of 2021, its product lines were free of more than 101 ingredients.

Target. Target’s private label brand, Good & Gather, is free of more than 100 ingredients of concern. In 2026, Target announced it would remove synthetic dyes from all cereal sold in its stores.

Wegmans. Wegmans launched its Food You Feel Good About line in 1991, with restrictions on artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and sweeteners. Its website currently lists close to 100 ingredients of concern that are not used in its private label products.

Whole Foods. Whole Foods has had storewide standards for colors, flavors and preservatives since it opened its doors in 1980. Today a list of 300 banned or restricted chemicals is easy to find on the Whole Foods website. 

Retailers with commitments and some signs of success

Aldi. Aldi removed 13 ingredients, including artificial colors, from its store brand line more than a decade ago. This year, Aldi announced it would ban 44 more chemical ingredients from all of its private label foods, vitamins and supplements by December 2027. 

Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s inventory is dominated by its private label products. The store generally commits to no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives in their product – with some exceptions – but doesn’t offer a full list of banned ingredients.

Walmart. Last year, Walmart pledged to eliminate synthetic dyes and 30 other ingredients from its Great Value brand. Sam’s Club, which is owned by Walmart, has already removed more than 40 ingredients of concern from its Member’s Mark products.

Retailers with pledges but few signs of progress

Ahold Delhaize USA. In 2018, Ahold Delhaize USA – owner of Giant, Hannaford’s, Food Lion and Stop and Shop – pledged to remove all synthetic colors, artificial flavors, artificial preservatives, sweeteners, MSG and high fructose corn syrup from private label products by 2025. But their 2025 annual report made no mention of the initiative, and no updates have been issued since.

Retailers without public pledges

Costco. The company has yet to announce any commitment to remove ingredients of concern from its product line, Kirkland Signature. A proposed class-action lawsuit earlier this year accused Costco of falsely advertising “no preservatives” in its rotisserie chicken.

States are stepping in to regulate chemicals of concern 

States are also leading efforts to fill gaps in federal regulation.

A 2023 California law banned four toxic chemicals from food products manufactured, distributed or sold in the state, and a 2024 law banned six food chemicals from food served in public schools. 

Other states have since launched efforts to restrict ingredients in food sold in their stores. As of August, more than 150 bills had been introduced and 20 signed into law. Take a look at EWG’s interactive food legislation map to find out more.

When it comes to harmful chemicals in food and packaging, states are often better – and faster – at providing consumer protections than the federal government. State laws have been so effective that they’re now being targeted by the food and beverage industry, which is backing legislation that would erase many state consumer protections.

What to look for when you shop

For many families, it can be hard to eat healthy. Avoiding food chemicals of concern is one challenge among many others, including affordability, access and the addictive nature of many highly processed foods.

That’s why EWG pushes for policies that can make healthy eating easier for everyone. In the meantime, there are a few tools that can help you navigate the grocery store:

• Take a look at EWG’s Dirty Dozen Guide to Food Chemicals™, which highlights some of the most concerning chemicals still allowed in the U.S. food supply.
• Consult EWG’s Food Scores to find out what’s in your food. Food Scores also flags unhealthy ultra-processed foods and can help you identify less-processed alternatives.
• Use our label reading guide. It helps you scan ingredient lists for items you wouldn’t have in your home kitchen, and make sure to check how much added sugar, salt and saturated fat is in your food.
• And when you’re on the go, check our Healthy Living app to find products.

Areas of Focus Ultra-Processed Foods Authors Ketura Persellin Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN August 25, 2026

Nurses at West Anaheim Medical Center in Anaheim, Calif.; Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno, N.V.; Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago, Ill.; and nurses and health care workers at Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding, Calif. gave notice to their employer Prime Healthcare that they will hold one-day strikes from Sept. 3 to Sept. 4 to protest the administration’s refusal to address deep concerns about patient care and safe staffing.

CEO Bob Mumgaard said the reactor, SPARC, is now “about 80% complete.” Experts remain divided over how soon they believe fusion technology could be commercialized.

Duke Energy is leading NC in the wrong direction of dirty, expensive power

Durham, N.C. – While the rest of the world makes promising advancements in solar, wind, and battery storage technologies, North Carolina remains a climate laggard instead of a climate leader. Duke Energy’s massive planned expansion of fracked gas-fired and nuclear power plants and its suppression of renewables has caused our state to fall behind in the global clean energy transition. 

Technological advancements are happening daily – Chinese scientists just set a world record by developing a new solar cell exceeding 28% efficiency. Solar abundance is now allowing many households in Australia to get three free hours of solar power every afternoon. A dozen nations now generate more electricity with renewable sources than they consume, and they export the excess. 

Worldwide, 80% of new energy capacity comes from renewable sources. According to Stanford University Professor Mark Jacobson, this progress reflects a global transition away from dirty and dangerous fossil fuels, enabled by advances in battery technology and rapidly falling costs. 

Even in the US, where federal policy aims to hamstring the renewable energy industry, solar and batteries remain the cheapest form of electricity. Utah produced more power from solar than any other source in May for the very first time. South Dakota and Montana now generate more renewable energy than they consume. California, the fourth largest economy in the world, now produces more than 100 percent of its electricity demand from renewable energy most days.

Much of the world is realizing that fossil fuels and risky, expensive nuclear plants are becoming obsolete in the face of faster, cheaper, safer, more reliable renewable power. But Duke Energy seems set on dragging our state backward, against the flow of progress. 

“In my international work, I’m inspired by the ever-increasing expansion of solar, wind and other renewable energy across the world,” said Dale Evarts, former head of the Climate and International Group at the US Environmental Protection Agency. “Countries are reducing their reliance on expensive fossil fuels and their vulnerability to blackmail and war. It’s discouraging to see North Carolina miss out on this enormous clean energy transition that creates jobs, inspires innovation, and makes electricity more affordable.”

Duke Energy has the largest planned expansion of fracked gas-fired power plants and failure-prone nuclear plants in the nation. Duke’s top executives recently admitted to aggressively recruiting data centers, which harm communities and drive Duke’s fossil fuel buildout. 

While solar and batteries become cheaper and more accessible globally, Duke Energy repeatedly attacks North Carolina’s solar industry. In 2024, the NC Court of Appeals ruled to uphold a Duke rule change that slashed the economic benefits of installing rooftop solar. 

Solar energy is available everywhere, free from volatile fuel costs, cheap and reliable, and readily available to us at a time when scientists demand that we change course as soon as possible to avert climate chaos. In the words of journalist and environmental scholar Bill McKibben, “[the sun] is willing to provide us with all the power we could ever need. This gift has come at the last possible moment. It would be an extraordinary sin to waste it.”

Why would Duke Energy hold North Carolina back by investing in dirty, failure-prone energy instead? Governor Josh Stein must ensure that North Carolina benefits from the global clean energy revolution by investing our future in clean, cheap solar power.

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Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes.

The post North Carolina Falls Behind as World Advances in Solar, Renewables — NC WARN News Release appeared first on NC WARN.

Should ‘city slickers’ receive farm subsidies? Anthony Lacey August 24, 2026

Farm subsidies should go only to people living or working on a farm. 

That’s what Senate Agriculture Committee members Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) agreed on when the panel debated the farm bill earlier this month. Grassley, a long-time advocate for ensuring farm subsidy recipients are “actively engaged” on a farm, and Welch both said subsidies for people living in the country’s largest cities makes little sense. 

EWG has long held the same position. 

For years we’ve tracked the billions of dollars paid out in farm subsidies to people who don’t live or work on farms. We recently found that more than 92,000 “city slickers” living in some of the biggest metropolitan areas in the U.S. took in more than $2.6 billion in farm subsidies between 2020 and 2025.

Although it seems no one believes paying these city slickers makes sense, Republicans at the recent Senate farm bill hearing voted against doing anything about it.

‘Actively engaged’

Welch proposed a series of amendments to the pending farm bill that would ensure that people who collect subsidies live or work on a farm. They would also lower payment limits on those subsidies and address fraud in two of the largest farm subsidy programs. 

If adopted and enacted, these changes would help taxpayers and family farmers. 

One of his amendments would have simply required an audit of some farm subsidy recipients when a subsidy program has a high “error rate,” which indicates farmers may have been paid too much.

Welch suggested subsidies should go to people “on tractors” and offered the amendment to audit certain farms.

Grassley agreed, saying, “You and I believe that people who are actively engaged are the only ones who should be receiving farm payments.” 

Grassley also said runaway farm subsidies are driving up the cost of farming, making it harder for family farmers to compete with their larger, more heavily subsidized neighbors. “We should be helping those farmers who can’t help themselves,” not the biggest corporate farms collecting the lion’s share of farm subsidies, he said. 

When Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, in 2025, lawmakers enlarged loopholes that make it easier for the largest farm operations to get more money. 

The bill allowed every member of a farm partnership to collect up to $155,000, so long as the farm is organized as a pass-through entity, such as a joint venture, S corporation, or limited liability corporation.

Since the new law was enacted, the number of “city slickers” collecting farm subsidies has increased by 13,000 – even if some of those recipients never step foot on a farm. 

One of Welch’s amendments would have only required an audit when the “error rate” for two farm subsidy programs exceeded 6%. Agriculture Department studies show that the error rate for the two programs topped 6% in 2022 and 8% in 2023, resulting in more than $567 million in improper payments. 

Republicans have insisted that states should share more of the cost of anti-hunger programs when the error rate exceeds 6 percent, so simply requiring an audit when farm subsidy program error rates exceed 6 percent seems reasonable, right? 

Wrong. 

Grassley and other committee Republicans voted against Welch’s audit amendment. Democrats refuse to support the GOP farm bill in part because it fails to address deep funding cuts to anti-hunger programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP. 

So Grassley said he would not be able to support any amendments Democrats offer.

Dairy farm subsidies

Even Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) seemed to agree that farmers – or at least Welch’s dairy farmers – should have to live or work on farms if they receive farm subsidies. 

Unlike other farm subsidy programs – which can make a payment regardless of whether the “farmer” actually harvests a crop – dairy subsidies are automatically terminated if a dairy receiving them stops producing milk. 

Welch said that the principle – of subsidies going only to people who truly live and work on farms – should apply to all farmers, no matter what they produce.

He said, “Whether it’s the SNAP program or it’s a [farm] support program, the intention of Congress is that the actual farmer that gets the money or the actual person who is in need of nutrition gets the nutrition aid.” 

Areas of Focus Farming & Agriculture Farm Subsidies Authors Geoff Horsfield August 24, 2026

On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released a two-year plan for the Colorado River, requiring the Lower Basin states of Nevada, Arizona, and California to cut their use of water. The seven states that share water from the Colorado River failed to reach a consensus agreement earlier this year, prompting the federal government to step in.

Under the Bureau of Reclamation’s operating plan, the three Lower Basin states will be required to cut their Colorado River water use by 1.25 million acre-feet, with Arizona bearing the brunt of the required cuts. The Upper Basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico are also encouraged to undertake voluntary water conservation measures, but are not yet forced to make cuts in Colorado River water use under the two-year operating plan.

“What’s clear after seeing the projections for reservoir elevations over the next couple of years is that the buffer the Colorado River reservoirs provided over the last many decades is gone,” Jennifer Pitt, Colorado River program director for the Audubon Society, told the Colorado Sun. “There is real risk for the cities, farmers and ranchers, Tribes, and the entire natural world that depends on the Colorado River.”

Quick hits The BLM may stop notifying landowners about drilling under private land. Ranchers are alarmed

High Country News

National park maintenance work sidelined as Trump’s Freedom 250 takes precedence

Associated Press

A White House official helped an oil company advance its projects. Now she’ll lead its DC office

E&E News

Bigger, hotter fires are slowly erasing America’s great forests

New York Times

Developers now targeting public lands to build huge AI data centers

Cowboy State Daily

Drive for nuclear power boosts uranium industry—and Tribal health concerns in Utah

Salt Lake Tribune

Inside the struggle to dismantle America’s greenhouse gas data

DeSmog

Editorial: A simple concept lawmakers should be able to get behind

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Quote of the day

I’ve worked with really incredible federal personnel with the BLM who take every single comment to heart, and they have improved applications immensely based on public feedback, because no one knows their land better than those people who are being directly drilled on.”

—Gwen Lachelt, Western Leaders Network, High Country News

 

Picture This @usinterior

National Park Week is back!

From August 22-30, we’re celebrating the incredible places that protect America’s landscapes, history and stories.

If you love hiking, walking across a historic battlefields, watching wildlife, or standing in the places where history was made, this week is for you.

And mark your calendar: August 25 is the National Park Service’s 110th birthday. In celebration, entrance fees will be waived at NPS sites that normally charge them.

This National Park Week, get out there and find your park.

Photo of Lehman Caves at Great Basin National Park by David Caldwell

Featured image: Lake Mead, Kumar Appaiah via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0

The post Feds release 2-year Colorado River plan requiring Lower Basin cuts appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

GARNER, NC—Every spring and fall we make one of our biggest calls to action—turn off unnecessary outdoor lights at night for migrating birds. This fall is no different, and with migrating birds...

Data center agreements in Wisconsin fail to protect ratepayers, Microsoft says. Separately, PowerHouse Hillwood has accused Exelon’s ComEd of using monopoly power to quash an agreement for an Illinois data center.

Visiting Florida’s beautiful beaches is an enjoyable way to spend the weekend, but for the shorebirds that nest there, these beaches are home — essential habitat where they lay their eggs and...

On a vast network of rivers flowing through the jungles of Papua New Guinea, researchers have rediscovered the spinach pipefish, a relative of the seahorse, which had not been recorded in more than 40 years. The fish has long been sought after by conservationists, who feared it had gone extinct.

Read more on E360 →

Headline News:

• “Indonesian Police Arrest 72 People Suspected Of Starting Forest Fires” • Indonesian police arrested 72 people suspected of starting recent forest and peatland fires as blazes in central and western parts of the country triggered a harmful cloud known as a choking haze. Plantation owners and traditional farmers often start fires to clear land for farming. [ABC News]

Farmland in Sumatra (ahmad hidayat, Unsplash, cropped)

• “BYD Da Han Claims Global Flagship Status” • BYD launched the new Da Han last week as a global flagship-level sedan. This is not just an evolution of the Han and BYD brand. It challenges and, in many ways, beats top models from the global premium automakers. BYD clearly has its sights set on taking the lead from legacy flagship-level sedans. [CleanTechnica]
• “Ireland Hits Solar Record As Renewables Top 30% Of July Electricity Supply” • Ireland’s power mix reached a milestone in July, with solar delivering its strongest monthly showing yet and helping renewable sources supply over 30% of the Irish electric energy. This signals a broader shift toward cleaner power that could reduce reliance on fossil fuels. [The Cool Down]
• “Maryland Announces Major Solar Energy PPA Expected To Save $300 Million” • Maryland approved a 20-year solar PPA expected to save the state hundreds of millions of dollars while expanding use of locally generated renewable energy. Governor Wes Moore and the Maryland Department of General Services announced the agreement. [fundsforNGOs News]
• “In The American Southwest, The Water Crisis Threatens Existential Harm To Millions” • Seven US states rely on the water in the Colorado River. In 1922, those seven states agreed on how to divide up the water in the Colorado River. A lot has changed since that time, and they are drawing more water now than the river can provide. [CleanTechnica]

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

O‘ahu is building its first comprehensive plan focused on food systems. It is the local government’s first attempt at formalizing its role in identifying and addressing food and agriculture issues on the Hawaiian island.

The five-year Oʻahu Food Systems Plan—led by the City and County of Honolulu’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency (CCSR)—outlines 10 broad strategies for the island’s government agencies. Following the release of the draft plan in May, CCSR received hundreds of comments during its public comment phase, ranging from calls for more accountability mechanisms to clarification on the plan’s integration of Hawaiian values. The office now works to incorporate suggestions and get a final draft adopted by the Honolulu City Council by the end of the year, according to CCSR’s Food Systems Fellow Kaitlyn Judd. 

The plan’s strategies primarily focus on reducing food insecurity, promoting food sovereignty, and ensuring the long-term resilience of Oʻahu’s natural resources and small food producers.  One of CCSR’s first priorities is the creation of a working group across numerous Oʻahu public agencies, which would help the government avoid redundant or conflicting programs as well as compile resources, knowledge, and funding.  

“A key goal is building the capacity needed to effectively coordinate and implement these actions,” Judd tells Food Tank. “The collaborative process used to develop the draft plan has already helped to establish connections between departments and provide a solid foundation for this ongoing coordination.” 

The draft plan contains around 70 actions for local government, each of which belongs to one of the 10 strategies. Many proposals build on existing government and nonprofit work to address gaps in the island’s food system. 

One action under the strategy to “enhance market opportunities and value chain coordination for local food,” for example, would expand the O‘ahu Good Food Program, which aims to support local business by making it easier for institutions to buy food from O‘ahu’s small and medium-sized producers at scale. In Hawaiʻi, where around 90 percent of food is imported, according to the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, local institutional purchasing offers a unique opportunity to boost the state’s economy and build food system resilience.

Every year, food producers brace for the impacts of seasonal Kona low storms, which can cause massive structural damage and financial losses. Farmers in Hawaiʻi also pay higher labor costs than those on the U.S. mainland due to the smaller scale of their agriculture operations and struggle to compete with lower prices from producers in states like California, according to Albie Miles—a sustainable food systems professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at West O‘ahu and the Director of its Transforming Hawaiʻi’s Food System Together initiative.    

“You start to combine these things—high rates of household food insecurity, low rates of emergency and commercial food storage, critical points of vulnerability on the south shore of O‘ahu,” Miles tells Food Tank. “If any of that is disturbed as a result of a hurricane, for example, then the structural bottleneck—the port of Honolulu—is disrupted, and that interferes with our ability to import and distribute food across the entire state.”

Other non-governmental organizations, including the Hawai‘i Good Food Alliance (HGFA), are partnering directly with CCSR to carry out the plan’s action items. Around one in three households in Hawaiʻi experience food insecurity—nearly triple the national average, per the Hawaiʻi Food Bank’s most recent data. As part of its strategy on food security, CCSR is leveraging services provided by the HGFA to reduce administrative and logistical barriers that might prevent farmers markets and other food hubs from accepting federal food assistance benefits.

Another action item in the strategy details how local government will continue to explore subway stations as “visible demonstrations of sustainable food practices,” like hosting food distribution events and growing culturally significant plants. In its strategy focused on food-producing gardens, the plan also identifies public housing as a crucial site for community gardening, and suggests that Honolulu pursue public and private funding for growing spaces. Proposals like these identify elements of the built environment as potential places for food systems change.

If adopted by Honolulu City Council, the Oʻahu Food Systems Plan will likely become the island’s primary outline for addressing a range of agriculture and food issues over the next five years. Though its action items would remain as guidance, not requirements, Judd says the plan can serve as a long-term framework and path toward idea-sharing across disciplines and sectors.

“Unless there are planning processes like the Oʻahu Food Systems Plan or other state and regional food system planning initiatives to implement policy recommendations, all this research that happens in higher education just sits there and it’s never implemented into actionable strategies,” Miles says.

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

Photo courtesy of the City and County of Honolulu’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency

The post O‘ahu Government Launches First Food Systems Plan appeared first on Food Tank.

Across Ontario, thousands of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and their families are waiting for services they need to live safely and participate...

The post When the waitlist becomes the crisis first appeared on Spring.

Dear friends,

The 2026 legislative session comes to an end on August 31, and we need your help.

Right now, we are urging legislators to ensure that harmful trailer legislation, such as the California Forever Trailer Bill targeting Solano County, does not move forward, while supporting inclusive and equitable legislation like AB 2218, the Indigenous Water Rights Bill.

Keep reading to learn how you can take action and advocate for the ecosystems and communities we all depend on.

Oppose the California Forever Trailer Bill

California Forever, a proposed development project in Solano County that would have devastating impacts on the Delta, is once again trying to circumvent legislative processes to gain preferential treatment. Similar to our Delta Tunnel Trailer Bill fight last year, California Forever proposes sweeping exemptions from environmental review to move parts of its project forward. 

The exact language of the legislation has not been publicly released, but we have good confirmation that the legislation will: 

• Eliminate environmental review for a large new industrial site in Collinsville for shipbuilding and other undisclosed industrial uses.
• Override the vote of the people of Solano County who have, since 1984, preserved the right to weigh in on land use changes through the Orderly Growth Initiative.

On Tuesday, August 25, the Solano County Board of Supervisors will vote on whether they support or oppose this legislation as it moves through the final week of the State Legislature. 

We need them to say NO.

This will send a sign to Sacramento lawmakers that local decision-makers and residents are against this last-minute legislation.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:
 

1. Attend the upcoming Solano County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, August 25 to tell our Supervisors not to support legislation. We recommend arriving at 1:00 PM to fill out your comment card prior to the start of the Board Meeting. 

• When: Tuesday, August 25 at 2:00 PM
• Where: 675 Texas St, 1st Floor, Board Chambers, Fairfield, CA 94533
• What: Item 29 of the Agenda, proposing Trailer Bill language to fast-track elements of the CA Forever Project

2. Sign the NEW petition calling on State Lawmakers not to pursue this legislation.

3. Call Sen. Cabaldon and Asm. Wilson and tell them: 

• You oppose any attempts to streamline the controversial California Forever Project, which would have a direct and detrimental impact on Delta communities and ecosystems; and 
• Trailer Bills that circumvent the policy process undermine our democratic process and should not be entertained

Support AB 2218

On February 19, 2026, Assemblymember Kalra introduced AB 2218, the Indigenous Water Rights Bill sponsored by the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and the Karuk Tribe. 

AB 2218 would establish a clear statewide policy directive acknowledging and seeking to remedy the inequities inflicted upon Tribes in California through historical state-sanctioned acts of termination, removal, and forced assimilation.

The bill directs relevant state agencies, including the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Board, to incorporate this policy into water rights decisions, regulatory actions, permitting, and grantmaking to address identified inequities. Recognizing historic harms and directing state agencies to center Tribal equity in water policy is not simply a symbolic act; it is a pathway toward stronger relationships, more inclusive decision-making, and better outcomes for the ecosystems we all depend on.

We need your help! AB 2218 will soon be heard on the Senate floor and we need your help getting it past the finish line.

Two Easy Ways You Can Take Action:
 

1. Call your Senator urging them to support AB 2218. You can find your representative here.

Please call your Senator and tell them: 

• As a constituent, I urge you to support AB 2218 when it comes before the Senate floor.
• AB 2218 supports the State’s progress towards equitable water management.
• AB 2218 is an important step toward addressing inequities affecting California Native American Tribes in state water policy and ensuring Tribal interests are meaningfully considered in decisions affecting water.

CLICK TO FIND AND CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES 

2. Alternatively, you can also write to your Senator, asking for their support on AB 2218. 

• Click this link to send a pre-written letter urging your Senator to support AB 2218.

Utility portals are framed as customer experience tools, but they also improve how frontline work is done.

This is a guest post by Camilo Sánchez, a communications strategist working for Greenpeace International.

We are living through a cost of living crisis that is being treated as if it were a mysterious, purely “economic” event, when in reality it has a clear, combustible cause: our dependence on coal, oil and gas. Across the United States, Europe and far beyond, the main driver of recent price surges has not been wages or “too much money” in the system, but repeated fossil fuel shocks feeding into everything from electricity bills to food prices. When we talk about inflation today, in many countries we are mostly talking about fossilflation, a price spiral rooted in the fossil fuel system itself.

War, chokepoints and the human cost of fossilflation

The US‑Israeli war on Iran is first and foremost a human catastrophe, with thousands of lives lost, families displaced and communities facing bombing, blackouts and water cuts across Iran and the wider Middle East. Those impacts are compounded by the environmental devastation of burning refineries, major oil spills, leaking pipelines and militarised shipping lanes, whose toxic fallout will last far beyond the nightly news cycle. At the same time, the decision to wage war in a region that carried a substantial share of the world’s oil and LNG has triggered what the International Energy Agency calls the worst energy crisis since the 1970s, sending fuel, food and transport prices soaring.

The closure and repeated disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, which controls around a fifth of global oil and gas shipping, has shown again how easily a single chokepoint can turn into a global economic weapon. Another fossil fuel chokepoint, the Bab al‑Mandeb strait, has become a flashpoint in a connected war over Red Sea shipping and Yemen, against the backdrop of the same energy shock. This strategically located transit route has enabled Saudi Arabia to boost its oil revenue during the crisis, even as missile threats and blockade politics deepen a humanitarian emergency and ripple into higher bills far from the frontline. As long as our energy system relies on oil and gas flowing through war‑prone chokepoints, war anywhere becomes a crisis everywhere.

The US‑Israeli war on Iran is not an isolated episode. Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, earlier energy crises and repeated OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) supply squeezes have all followed a familiar pattern, fossil fuel prices surge, inflation jumps, whiteland households are left to absorb the shock through higher bills. Each time, governments and central banks talk about “temporary energy noise”, but the reality is that every fossil shock leaves a permanent mark on the price level, pushing people deeper into hardship even after headline inflation starts to fall again.

Governments are bailing out fossil fuels, not people

August 06 2023, Canada, Alberta. Tar Sand Processing in Alberta near Fort McMurray. © Markus Mauthe / Greenpeace

Since fossilflation is driven by oil and gas, governments must cut down their countries’ dependence on fossil fuels as a response to energy shocks. But this is not what we are seeing. An analysis of seven EU countries’ responses to the US‑Israeli war on Iran shows that most emergency packages have been designed to protect fossil fuel consumption rather than to cut dependence on it. Across Europe, roughly 86% of crisis spending by governments is encouraging more fossil fuel use through fuel tax cuts, broad VAT reductions on energy (cutting sales tax on everyone’s gas and electricity bills) and untargeted subsidies (direct payments or price supports for fossil fuel costs for all consumers rather than prioritising support for the most vulnerable households. 

Spain, Germany, and Ireland have spent the most on broad fossil fuel bailouts by cutting fuel taxes across the board. This brings prices down for now, but keeps these countries hooked on imported oil and gas.

The Spanish government’s energy relief €5 billion package is a mixed bag: it includes protection for people against rising energy costs and measures towards shifting to renewables but also a massive tax break for heavy industry, making it one of Europe’s strongest renewable energy commitments and one of its biggest fossil fuel lock-ins, at the same time.

Despite its bold climate rhetoric, Germany’s actual response to the energy price shock has been almost entirely fuel tax cuts and price caps, nothing that meaningfully reduces its fossil fuel dependence.

The Netherlands and Sweden have done better, putting more money into things like energy-efficient homes, heat pump incentives, and cheaper public transport. But even they still spend heavily on fossil fuel subsidies.

Overall, none of these seven EU countries has a plan that actually ends fossil fuel dependence, all are allocating more to fossil fuel bailouts than to structural solutions.

Such measures make fossil fuels cheaper to keep using, rather than helping people use less of them which is not only inconsistent with climate goals, it also deepens inequality. Broad tax cuts and general fuel untargeted subsidies tend to benefit higher‑income households and sectors with high fossil consumption, while leaving the poorest communities with only partial relief and no long‑term protection. Only a small share of the government spending is going towards reducing fossil fuel for good, or speeding up the transition to renewables.

Instead of using limited  public budgets to insulate buildings, expand clean public transport, support agroecology and tax windfall fossil profits, many governments are effectively writing cheques to the fossil fuel industry, hoping that temporary discounts will buy social peace.

Fossilflation, inequality and peace

Fossilflation is not just a technical issue for central bankers, it is a justice and peace issue. Every time oil and gas prices surge, it is ordinary households, especially in low‑income communities on the frontlines of climate impacts, that pay the price through rising bills and reduced public services. In the first 50 days of the US‑Israeli war on Iran, an estimated 150 billion dollars moved from households to oil and gas companies through higher energy prices alone, while governments worldwide are on track to spend around 1.1 trillion US dollars propping up the fossil fuel industry in 2026.

Meanwhile, the social and environmental costs of fossilflation are enormous too. Air pollution from burning coal, oil and gas is linked to roughly 8.7 million premature deaths a year worldwide, and climate‑driven disasters such as floods and heatwaves add hundreds of millions of euros to energy bills in countries like France and Germany on top of lives lost. When governments choose to preserve fossil fuel profits and military alliances over people’s wellbeing, they are effectively trading peace and stability for an economy built on volatile, violent energy sources.

May 01 2002, Germany, Ingolstadt. Esso Refinery. © Jens Küsters / Greenpeace

Dependence on fossil fuel chokepoints such as Hormuz and Bab al‑Mandeb also undermines peace directly. It gives armed actors leverage over global energy prices, incentivises military protection of shipping lanes, and turns entire regions into geopolitical battlegrounds where civilians pay in parts: first through war and destruction, then through the economic fallout and ultimately, through more extreme weather. Breaking this dependence is therefore imperative not only to the climate imperative but also to peace.

The way out: decentralised renewables and a fair response to fossilflation

August 16 2023, Indonesia, Jakarta. Electric Bus in Jakarta.© Jurnasyanto Sukarno / Greenpeace

The evidence from the US, Europe and conflict zones points to a clear conclusion: tackling fossilflation means ending our dependence on oil and gas. There is no shortage of sunlight or wind threatening our energy security, what keeps our societies vulnerable is the decision to stick with fuels whose price and supply can be disrupted at any moment by Trump’s mood, a pipeline explosion or a war.

A coherent response needs four pillars.

• Decentralised, price‑stable renewables. Wind and solar have become the cheapest forms of new electricity generation in history, with solar costs falling by around 87% and battery storage by more than 90% since 2010, and they do not depend on shipping through war‑prone chokepoints. Scaling up local energy communities, rooftop solar, heat pumps, smart grids and green storage can turn households and communities from passive bill‑payers into active participants in a resilient energy system.
• Demand reduction and fair transport. Instead of subsidising fossil fuels for private cars, governments can introduce affordable climate tickets for public transport, strengthen rail networks and night trains, and support remote working and speed limits to cut oil demand. Fair transport policies reduce emissions and shield people from future oil price spikes.

June 10 2015, Japan, Kanagawa-ken. Neighbors Visiting at Farmer’s Market in Japan © Kayo Sawaguchi / Greenpeace

• Resilient food system. Large‑scale renovation of homes, phasing out gas from buildings, and investing in agroecology to break dependence on fossil‑based fertilisers can turn cities and rural areas into climate‑resilient spaces, while making heating and food more affordable in the long run.
• Tax justice and ending fossil fuel bailouts. Ending fossil fuel subsidies and broad tax cuts, introducing permanent taxes on super‑profits and on the ultra‑rich, and banning fossil fuel advertising can help fund solutions that can actually protect people from energy shocks while accelerating the transition.

February 24 2025, Germany, Nauen. Wind Farm. © Paul Langrock / Greenpeace

Breaking free from fossil fuels is not just climate policy, it is an anti-inflation policy, social policy and peace policy. As long as we remain locked into oil and gas, we will remain trapped in repeated cycles of fossilflation, war‑fuelled price shocks and widening inequality. Shifting to renewables, efficiency, fair taxation and justice‑based solutions, is both the opportunity and the precondition for real energy independence, economic stability and lasting peace.

What can you do?

For us to fully tackle this situation, we have to look at both its causes and its solutions. You can start by calling it the right way: fossilflation, so that we put the light on the oil and gas addiction that is causing this crisis in the first place.

Together with that, you can also demand your government to tax those fossil fuel polluters that are reaping astronomical profits from the war. That money would fund the policies and measures that are needed to protect you and your community in this and the next crises, as well as to finance the shift towards the clean, stable and renewable energies that we so urgently need.

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