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By KAY MATTHEWS

A group of about 20 people went on the forestry tour of the work being done in the Vallecitos/Chamisal area by leñeros and local contractors as part of the Rio de Las Trampas Watershed Planning Project. We started at the leñero 56-acre site near the Transfer Station, which is managed by the Las Trampas Land Grant.

The first stop was in largely ponderosa pine, which was thinned to favor the larger trees with clumps of juniper left for wildlife. The leñeros are required to take all of the woody material down to a diameter of three inches. The resulting slash is lopped and scattered along the ground for future treatment with a masticator. This is an alternative to burning that is being implemented in both the leñero and contractor sites. The Rio de Las Trampas Watershed Planning Project that oversees the thinning and provides the funding,* determined that using a masticator is actually more cost effective than burning. There are downsides with masticating, however: it essentially moves fuels around and can suppress slow burning embers if a fire does move through the area. But community people have long expressed their fears of prescribed burning, so mastication is the preferred alternative

Leñero unit of ponderosa pine

The second stop was in another ponderosa pine area thinned by the contractor Conley’s Lumber Mill, based in Española. The company contracted the project to another company that hired immigrant labor from Michoacan. J.R. Logan, who oversees the contractors, said they had done excellent work. The contractor was paid $1,400 to thin—the same prescription as the leñero site—and $800 an acre to pile the slash. The slash will also be masticated. The wood is left on the ground for the community to gather.

Ponderosa pine contractor site

Priscilla Lopez, asistente; Doug North, mayordomo; Wilbert Rodriguez; Rachel Bean, Forest Stewards Guld; Arnold Lopez, Las Trampas Land Grant

Doug North and Priscilla Lopez, mayordomo and asistente of the leñero project, encourage people to come get the firewood.

The third stop was also in a ponderosa pine contracted area (Wood Sharks) but has a different prescription. Here an initial entry leaves 200 trees per acre with a pattern of six or seven clumped trees with clearings in between. The contractor is making wind rows of the slash piles that will be burned by the Forest Service. The cost of this contract is $3,000 per acre for everything. There will need to be maintenance entries every five to ten years.

J.R. Logan, Taos Soil and Water Conservation District; Judy Goldberg, recording; Peggy De’Scoville, State Forestry

The fourth stop was in another leñero site, this time of predominantly piñon/juniper. Here the prescription also calls for clumped stands where the natural root system exists. This provides for wildlife cover as well as open space for grass growth and snow accumulation in the winter. The slash will be masticated, except for some that will be spread out along the access road. Everyone on the tour agreed that this made much more sense than the kind of Wildland/Urban/Interface (WUI) thinning along the highway and was aesthetically more pleasing.

Piñon/Juniper leñero site

There are many more acres of piñon/juniper in the project area. Approximately 40 more are slated for leñeros while project managers will determine how the rest should be treated or  left alone. Caron National Forest Planner Peter Rich was on the tour and explained that in Forest Service terms, piñon/juniper is treated with WUI mandates as demonstrated by the thinning along SH 76, while ponderosa pine is treated as forest restoration. In terms of fire suppression, total fire suppression in piñon/juniper is mandated because of its high severity burn capabilities, while ponderosa pine has a better chance for “managed fire” because of the possibility of low intensity, on-the-ground burns. This led to a discussion of whether there can be any “managed fire,” or what is colloquially referred to as “let it burn.” In the conditions that exist today—extreme drought exacerbated by no winter snowfall, megafires, and an ever increasing climate crisis—the protocol is essentially total suppression. In a situation such as the current Frijoles Fire, which is burning uncontrolled in the Pecos Wilderness, suppression amounts to air drops and fire breaks along the borders of the adjacent communities.

* Partners include the Rio de Las Trampas Forest Council, the Carson National Forest, Taos County, Forest Stewards Guild, Taos Soil and Water Conservation District, State Forestry, and Ecotone Landscape Planning.

 

The #NoKXL Solar Barn built in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline in 2013. (Photo: Mary Anne Andrei)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 18, 2026

“It’s never being built”: Bold Founder Jane Kleeb Responds to Trump Statement on Keystone XL Pipeline

Hastings, NE — Jane Kleeb, the founder and executive director of Bold Nebraska, the grassroots organization that organized landowner opposition to defeat the Keystone XL pipeline project, responded on Tuesday to a statement from President Trump announcing a “deal” with Canada that the project “may be awoken from the grave!”:

“It’s never being built. Americans don’t want a foreign export pipeline using eminent domain on farmers and ranchers. We’ve killed Keystone XL three times. We will do it again. Trump should focus on infrastructure that will actually bring costs down,” said Jane Kleeb, Founder and Executive Director at Bold Alliance.

Kleeb also spoke out back in April, when developers South Bow and Bridger jointly announced plans to revive parts of the defunct Keystone XL pipeline route with a new proposal:

“You can rename it, rebrand it, repackage it — Keystone XL will never be built. For 13 years, a foreign oil corporation used the power of eminent domain to bully American landowners to take their land, all for Big Oil’s private gain. We refused to back down. We took them to court and fought to return those easements to farmers and ranchers. Keystone XL has no route, no easements, and no support in Nebraska,” said Jane Kleeb, Bold Alliance Founder and Executive Director.

An op-ed co-authored by Bold Alliance attorney and energy policy advisor Paul Blackburn, and longtime pipeline fighter and advocate Kenny Bruno published in April further lays out the reasons why this project will never be built: “Keystone XL By Any Other Name Will Be Just As Crudely Sour.”

About Bold’s Easement Action Teams:
The Easement Action Teams are a project of the Bold Education Fund. The EATs work with local communities to provide immediate legal representation to landowners facing pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Our first priority is to protect landowners’ property rights and water. We believe landowners should have the ultimate right of what does and does not happen on their land. We stand against the use of eminent domain for private gain. (https://easementteams.org) The first landowners legal co-op formed was the Nebraska Easement Action Team, which successfully organized landowners to fight the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, and currently works with landowners fighting carbon pipelines in the state. (https://neeasement.org)

About Bold Pipeline Fighters Hub:
The Bold Pipeline Fighters Hub, a project of the Bold Education Fund, provides technical, legal, story telling and organizing assistance to any community fighting pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure, with the goal of protecting the land and water. (https://pipelinefighters.org)

About Bold:
The Bold Alliance and Bold Education Fund are coordinating state-based groups with our Pipeline Fighters Hub and landowner legal groups called the Easement Action Teams to stop pipelines from using eminent domain for private gain. (https://boldalliance.org)

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In 2024 a team of scientists with a dry sense of humor announced the name of a newly discovered but extinct species: the obliterated whitefish.

Extinction is deadly serious, but you have to admit that’s a brilliant name for a species — a name that makes us sit up and take notice of the fact that we wiped that creature out of existence.

Wordplay like that, along with other forms of comedy and satire addressing critical issues, can cut through the crap and make us think about things from angles we hadn’t considered.

They can also help release some of the damned tension and get us out of our seemingly endless cycles of doomscrolling.

Plus, sometimes it feels like laughter itself is an endangered species. In a world where political lampoons, criticism of authority, and free speech are increasingly under threat — just look at the void left by the end of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show — we need the edginess of humor more than ever.

The Revelator isn’t a comedic publication, but over the past nine years we’ve used humor more often than most other environmental publications to mock, educate, inform, or blast through the noise. Obviously all humor is subjective — one person’s comedy is another’s tragedy, or a demagogue’s perceived insult — but here are some of our favorites:

Living Will Template for Critically Endangered Species by Elizabeth Preston — Satire wielded like a scalpel.

Wasted Water: The Crappiest Places in America — Literally by Dipika Kadaba — Visuals that go a long way toward making a distasteful story more palatable.

Pattie Gonia: Nature’s Warrior Queen by Gabrielle Faust — This climate-fighting drag queen is a hoot (and a force of nature).

Critical Critters Call for Gonzovationists — Artist Ralph Steadman and writer Ceri Levy make us laugh while worrying about extinction.

Global Warming Funnies — An interview with cartoonist Tom Toro discussing humor as fuel for resistance. (For ongoing Tom Toro cartoons, subscribe to our newsletter.)

Time to Let This Conservation Jargon Go Extinct? — In which I mock some overused but underdeveloped language to make a point or six.

A Cartoonist Finds Hope Amid the Apocalypse(s) — A dual interview with Peter Kuper about his two new environmental books.

A Gulf of Misunderstanding by Karl Meyer — A journalist blasts righteous anger as President Trump tries to rebrand the Gulf of Mexico.

Here There Be Monsters (Made of Coal, Plastic and Pesticides) — Artists Laura and Gary Dumm challenge viewers with images of pop-culture monsters facing ecological collapse.

Comics for Earth: Eight New Graphic Novels About Saving the Planet and Celebrating Wildlife — The reviews aren’t so funny, but check out the books.

‘Three Rivers of Woe’ — David Quammen on Climate Change, Extinction, and Epidemics — Okay, I’ll admit it, this one doesn’t sound like a laugh riot, but Quammen (a bestselling author) talks about the value of humor in getting readers to care about environmental issues. (Similarly, wildlife journalist Jason Bittel discussed the role of humor in his writing when I interviewed him about his book, Grizzled.)

Let’s Rename the Day After Thanksgiving ‘Extinction Friday’ — Commercialism seen through the lens of its inanity.

Let’s Put More Effort Into Investigating and Prosecuting Environmental Crimes — Sometimes the photo accompanying an article serves an extra purpose.

A Steal of a Deal: How Ranchers Take Advantage of Public Lands by Dipika Kadaba and John R. Platt — A fun video on an unfun practice.

The Earth Reviews Her Activists by Rev. Billy Talen — One of many essays we’ve published by this singular activist, who headlines an artistic activist group and choir. Talen, whom we’ve also interviewed, and his partner Savitri D are masters at using confrontational humor.

Finally, here are some book columns that include a few tomes satirizing the people and systems causing climate change and other environmental problems:

• • Summer Reads: Lost Birds, Pummeled Pumas and Climate Anxiety
  • Revelator Reads: 15 Random Books That Every Environmentalist Should Read
  • 12 Environmental Novels We’re Reading This Fall
  • ‘We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us’ — December’s Most Important Environmental Books

What are your favorite examples of using humor to help the planet? Send your suggestions to comments@therevelator.org — and look forward to (or look out for) more satire or outrage from us in the weeks ahead.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy.

The post Laugh in the Face of Doom and Gloom appeared first on The Revelator.

O dzisiejszych problemach możemy mówić w kategoriach społecznych, że zatraciliśmy się w konsumpcjonizmie, nacjonalizmie i wzroście gospodarczym. Ale możemy też ujmować je jako doświadczenie osobiste, jako separację i odcięcie się od naszej rodziny i przyjaciół.

Z Edouardem Gaudotem, autorem „Les sept piliers de la Cité” („Siedmiu filarów miasta”) i Adamem Ostolskim rozmawia Jamie Kendrick.

„Siedem filarów miasta” zaczyna się od obserwacji, że żyjemy w świecie rozpadających się przekonań i brakuje nam głębszego poczucia sensu. Co skłoniło cię, aby opis sytuacji, ujmowanej na ogół jako kryzys gospodarczy, demokratyczny czy ekologiczny, przenieś na głębszy, niemalże duchowy poziom?

Edouard Gaudot: W jakimś punkcie życia każdy z nas napotyka kryzys, który zmusza do zadawania pytań i rodzi potrzebę przebudowania siebie. Podobną podróż odbywają również społeczeństwa. Jest wiele znaków, że coraz więcej osób nie odnajduje w dzisiejszym świecie poczucia sensu i w efekcie bardzo trudno jest nam zbudować cokolwiek jako zbiorowość.

Wspólne przekonania rozpadają się. Niektóre uległy zniszczeniu. Utrata sensu w demokratycznych społeczeństwach jest moim zdaniem kluczem do dzisiejszego kryzysu. Widzę przed nami trzy drogi. Pierwsza to odbudowanie przekonań, które nas kiedyś łączyły, powrót do korzeni. Druga możliwość to rezygnacja ze wspólnych znaczeń – ale nihilizm nie jest dobrą receptą na budowę wspólnoty. Trzecią opcją byłaby zmiana sposobu myślenia, kształtującego naszą praktykę polityczną. I o to właśnie apeluję.

Adam Ostolski: Moje odczytanie tej książki idzie w przeciwnym kierunku. W tym, co piszesz, Edouardzie, najbardziej inspiruje mnie zaproszenie, aby nie zamykać się w tym przytłaczającym poczuciu kryzysu i zwrócić większą uwagę na to, co już mamy. Przede wszystkim, jesteśmy żywi, co zbyt łatwo przyjąć za oczywistość. Żyjemy i dzielimy ze sobą ten świat. A także, czy nam się to podoba, czy nie, dzielimy wiele przestrzeni w obrębie świata. Mamy przyjaciół i rzeczy, o które się troszczymy. Potrafimy zmieniać się i nie musimy grzęznąć w naszych wierzeniach. Możemy wątpić w źle działające instytucje i być nimi rozczarowani, ale nawet w tym jest wielki potencjał. Nawet na gruzowisku małe roślinki zapuszczają korzenie i przygotowują grunt dla nowych gatunków. Twoją książkę odczytuję jako gest otwarcia, poszukiwanie twórczego potencjału w obecnej sytuacji, jakkolwiek jest ona bolesna.

EG: To jest lekcja „Gwiezdnych wojen”: zawsze gdy zdaje się, że ciemność zwyciężyła, pojawia się wybuch światła. Ilekroć myślisz, że dobro zatriumfowało nad złem, pozostaje jakaś drobinka zła, która zaczyna kiełkować w ciemnościach.

Dekonstrukcja – innymi słowy, kryzys, który obecnie przeżywamy – była konieczna, abyśmy dotarli do kresu tego doświadczenia i dzięki temu mogli dowiedzieć się, czym jesteśmy, gdzie jesteśmy i kim jesteśmy. To jest podróż tak samo niezbędna dla jednostki, jak dla zbiorowości.

O dzisiejszych problemach możemy mówić w kategoriach społecznych, że zatraciliśmy się w konsumpcjonizmie, nacjonalizmie i wzroście gospodarczym. Ale możemy też ujmować je jako doświadczenie osobiste, jako separację i odcięcie się od naszej rodziny i przyjaciół. Takie doświadczenie może być niewiarygodnie wzbogacające, jednak nie nadaje się na fundament dla projektu zbiorowego. Refleksji nad doświadczeniem siebie brakuje mi we wszystkich współczesnych nurtach politycznego myślenia. Oczywiście potrzebujemy polityki dla zbiorowości, ale nie można ignorować tego, jak zbiorowość wiąże się z tym, co osobiste.

Twoja książka nie jest siedmiopunktowym programem czy manifestem. Co masz na myśli, mówiąc o „siedmiu filarach”?

EG: W rzeczy samej, programy są dla komputerów, nie dla polityki. W mojej książce usiłuję przedefiniować intelektualne, polityczne i duchowe ramy, w jakich uprawiamy politykę. Potrzebujemy zmiany w trzech obszarach. Chodzi o polityczną relację, jaką utrzymujemy sami ze sobą, polityczną relację w odniesieniu do innych oraz polityczną relację wobec planety. Tego właśnie dotyczy moje „siedem filarów”.

Dwa pierwsze filary wyznaczają konieczne, lecz niewystarczające warunki zmiany. Pierwszy z nich – niezbywalność życia – oznacza, że nie możemy zignorować niczego, co żywe. Potrzebujemy zmienić nasz sposób widzenia świata i nasze podejście do wszelkich żyjących istnień – nie tylko ludzi, lecz także zwierząt, roślin, rzek – zmierzając w stronę zrozumienia biosfery. Drugi filar, wypływający z tych samych źródeł, wymaga zmiany naszego postrzegania własności. Rywalizujemy o zasoby niczym dwie pchły sprzeczające się o to, która posiada psa. A przecież to my naprawdę należymy do Ziemi, nie odwrotnie. Jak by powiedział Mały Książę, nie powinniśmy tylko używać rzeczy, lecz także sami być użyteczni dla tego, co posiadamy.

Gdy już zmienimy te dwie perspektywy, możemy przejść do sedna, czyli zmiany politycznej. Tego dotyczy trzeci, czwarty i piąty filar w książce. Filar trzeci wiąże się ze zmianą gospodarki. Obecnie jesteśmy pożywką dla maszyny, która nie ma z nami nic wspólnego. Obojętnie, czy nazwiemy to kapitalizmem, neoliberalizmem czy konsumpcjonizmem. Ta machina przejmuje kontrolę nad naszym życiem i wcale nam nie służy – to my jej służymy. Potrzebujemy więc ekonomii nastawionej na życie. Nie chodzi po prostu o gospodarkę okrężną czy cofnięcie wzrostu gospodarczego, lecz o bardziej zasadniczą przemianę tego, jak wszystko produkujemy, od żywności po odpady i z powrotem.

Kolejny krok to zmiana naszej relacji z innymi. Polityczną formą dla inności może być tylko demokracja. Oznacza to, że nie tylko potrzebujemy odnaleźć się w równej wolności, równej godności i wzajemnym uznaniu, lecz także nauczyć się być „wolni razem”, to znaczy. wolni „z” innymi raczej niż wolni „od” innych. Zapożyczam tu sformułowanie Carla Schmitta, modyfikując jednak bez żalu związane z nim rozróżnienie „przyjaciel-wróg”. Zamiast wypierać tę opozycję albo nieustannie skupiać się na wrogu, powinnyśmy zwrócić większą uwagę na przyjaciela.

W piątym filarze chodzi o zmianę naszych relacji politycznych, nie tylko z innymi ludźmi i z planetą, lecz także z samymi sobą. Ekologię postrzegam jako ścieżkę duchową. Ekologia to nie tylko nauka i jest także czymś więcej niż polityką. Chodzi w niej także o zmianę sposobu widzenia świata i siebie, o bycie częścią czegoś większego. Otwarcie się na to może przypominać inicjację religijną bądź duchową. Masz objawienie i zaczynasz rozwijać swoją wiedzę, doświadczać złożoności. Aż w końcu docierasz do pojmowania świata jako całości, nie jako czegoś odrębnego – dochodzi do połączenia nauki i świadomości.

Z inną gospodarką, inną demokracją oraz nową relacją do siebie i świata docieramy do dwóch ostatnich filarów: anarchistycznego rządzenia i świadomości planetarnej. Przez anarchistyczne rządzenie rozumiem taką organizację instytucji, w której od hierarchicznego układu władzy przechodzimy do relacji o znacznie bardziej poziomym charakterze. Nie chodzi mi o to, żeby nie było instytucji, chodzi raczej o ład bez władzy, nieograniczony do jednego miasta czy miejsca. Zwieńczeniem tego wszystkiego jest filar siódmy – świadomość planetarna. Podążając za Bruno Latourem, kończę na wizji Europy, na duchu europejskim jako projekcie pojednania, dzięki któremu nasze wzajemne relacje opierają się na prawie i współpracy zamiast na sile.

AO: Największym atutem, a zarazem pewną słabością twojego podejścia jest właśnie to skupienie na duchowości. Duchowość może oczywiście istnieć bez religii. Ale nie jest wówczas możliwa do utrzymania w dłuższym okresie, ponieważ nie wytwarza tradycji. A jeśli buduje wspólnoty, to najczęściej są to niewielkie sekty.

Napięcie między duchowością a religią jako kształtującą wspólnotę ludzi instytucją jest równie dawne jak sama religia. W doświadczeniu jednostki duchowość może się obyć bez religii, ale nie jest wówczas istotna politycznie. W tym kontekście warto też przyjrzeć się pojęciom herezji i ortodoksji oraz relacji między nimi. Zarówno herezja, jak i ortodoksja potrzebują wspólnoty ludzi, którzy podzielają pewne wierzenia, ale nie zgadzają się między sobą w kwestii tego, jako owe wspólne wierzenia interpretować.

Wracając do kwestii bliższych sprawom politycznym, żyjemy w świecie wielu religii, co jest bardzo dobre. Nie chcemy, aby to się zmieniło. Większość ludzi, gdy odkrywają dla siebie jakąś formę duchowości, robi to w ramach którejś z wielu różnych tradycji. Jeśli więc chcemy przełożyć tę duchową wizję na coś bardziej praktycznego, to potrzebujemy – z zachowaniem niezbędnej delikatności – pomyśleć o tym, jak uruchomić i zorganizować polityczne myślenie o religii w sposób, który posunie nas naprzód.

Jakiś czas temu na zjeździe socjologicznym przysłuchiwałem się sesji na temat „alternatywnych stylów życia”. Justyna Kajta przedstawiała wyniki swoich badań biograficznych nad działaczami skrajnej prawicy w Polsce. Jednym z odkryć było to, że badani przez nią młodzi mężczyźni deklarowali, że wolą życie pożyteczne od życia szczęśliwego. Pomyślałem wtedy: „Kurczę, potrafię się w tym rozpoznać. Nie podzielam ich poglądów politycznych, ale i w moim życiu chodzi przecież o coś więcej niż mnie samego”. Potrzebujemy duchowości nie tylko po to, by odkryć i opanować siebie, lecz także po to, by siebie przekroczyć. Z tego samego powodu potrzebujemy tradycyjnych zorganizowanych religii, z różnorodnością sposobów, w jakie odnoszą się do sfery publicznej i polityki.

EG: Patrząc historycznie, ruchy skrajnej prawicy na swój sposób próbują ponownie wnieść wartości duchowe w materialistyczny świat. Tak właśnie czytam choćby „Fight Club” – zarówno książka, jak i film mają silny rys faszystowski. Lecz tym, co nadaje im taki charakter, nie jest ani przemoc, ani wątek paramilitarnej organizacji popełniającej sabotaż. Główny bohater, Tyler Durden, daje młodym mężczyznom poczucie przekroczenia swoich ograniczeń i przekroczenia życia zdefiniowanego przez konsumpcjonizm i brak odwagi. Przesłanie jest głęboko faszystowskie i silnie duchowe.

Skrajna prawica odwołuje się do tej tęsknoty za czymś większym niż ja. Poza nią jedynym nurtem myśli politycznej apelującym do tego samego pragnienia jest ekologia. To dlatego uważam, że XXI wiek będzie konfrontacją między ekologią, która wykracza dalece poza ramy partii zielonych, a skrajną prawicą. Jasna i mroczna strona naszego stulecia to zielona wizja świata stojąca naprzeciwko wizji brunatnej.

Czy nie ma ryzyka, że to zainteresowanie sobą i nacisk na duchowość funkcjonuje jako forma ucieczki? Że gdy nie udało nam się zmienić świata, siadamy pod drzewem i próbujemy zacząć od zmiany siebie? A może odwrotnie, to poprzez dążenie do utopii – przez politykę, która może zmienić świat – zmieniamy również siebie?

EG: Nie chodzi o „najpierw ja”, lecz o „również ja”. Nie powinniśmy mylić utopii z idealizmem. Ideały, choćby nieosiągalne, są tak częścią polityki, jak i rozwoju osobistego. Tym, co zmienia człowieka, jest zmaganie się z trudnościami, by coś osiągnąć – zaprawić się w sporcie, opanować język. Ważny jest wysiłek, a nie ostateczny cel.

W pełni zgadzam się, że przemiana siebie, jeśli nie wiąże się z jakimś projektem zbiorowym, jest tylko samorozwojem. I szczerze mówiąc nie jest to aż tak potrzebne światu. Z drugiej strony projekty polityczne nie mogą ignorować jednostki. Aby zadbać o innych, musimy czuć się dobrze ze sobą. Ktoś, kto sam się o siebie nie troszczy, nikomu nie pomoże. To jak procedura bezpieczeństwa w samolocie: najpierw sam załóż maskę tlenową, potem pomagaj innym.

Więc tak, samorozwój musi się łączyć z czymś większym. Historia pokazuje, że kolektywne projekty, które nie troszczyły się o jednostki, okazywały się w końcu skrajnie złe, przeważnie totalitarne. Nie chcemy zbiorowiska jednostek, które mają za nic społeczeństwo, i nie chcemy społeczeństwa przekonanego, że samo wie najlepiej, co jest dla wszystkich dobre.

AO: Dla mnie punktem wyjścia do troski o siebie jest dostrzeżenie innych i wyjście im naprzeciw. Przemiana siebie nie musi zaczynać się od wewnątrz, jej katalizatorem mogą być wyzwania związane z obecnością innych ludzi, z którymi łączyć nas może przyjaźń, antypatia, wspólna praca, pożądanie czy cokolwiek innego.

To samo dotyczy naszej kolektywnej wizji siebie jako społeczeństwa. W Twojej książce jest wspaniały fragment poświęcony laickości, gdzie wyjaśniasz, jak to pojęcie stało się obecnie we Francji narzędziem kolektywnego samopotwierdzania raczej niż otwartości, której początkowo miało służyć. Ucieleśnieniem tego jest polityka Macrona. Jego wystąpienia na temat „islamskiego separatyzmu” pokazują, jak polityczne elity we Francji próbują rozwiązywać szereg problemów, od bezpieczeństwa narodowego przez edukację aż po politykę zagraniczną za pomocą ustawodawstwa dotyczącego religii. Jest w tym głęboka ironia, że dzieje się to w państwie, które uważa samo siebie za ostoję świeckości.

Francuskie kłopoty to przykład problemu, z którym mierzą się dziś wszystkie zachodnie demokracje. Jesteśmy zaaferowani pytaniami o to, kim naprawdę jesteśmy, jakie jest moje prawdziwe imię i jak mogę wyegzekwować je od świata, a także jakie jest poprawne imię innego. Czy można go nazwać imieniem tego właśnie narodu, tej właśnie płci, czy tą właśnie inną etykietą?

Ta kwestia wyrasta z tradycji religii abrahamicznych: judaizmu, chrześcijaństwa i islamu. Troska o prawdziwe „ja” – na poziomie indywidualnym i zbiorowym – a także o to, jak poprawnie można nazywać innych znalazła się dziś w centrum zmagań politycznych po lewej i po prawej stronie. Religie monoteistyczne, zwłaszcza w powiązaniu z duchowością, są niezbędne i pomocne w budowaniu demokratycznej sfery publicznej, ale mają swoje ograniczenia. Potrzebujemy również inspiracji tradycji nie-abrahamicznych jako swoistego kontrapunktu, który pozwoliłby nieco poluzować to kurczowe przywiązanie do kwestii tożsamości.

W książce postulowane są trzy zasady dla współczesnej polityki. Po pierwsze, chodzi o zachowanie, ochronę i przywrócenie naturalnej równowagi i warunków życia. Po drugie, o poszerzanie wolności, o ile nie kłóci się to z zasadą pierwszą. Po trzecie wreszcie, o powiększanie dobrostanu materialnego, o ile nie jest to sprzeczne z dwiema pierwszymi zasadami. Ale ludzie już przecież wzburzyli „naturalny porządek rzeczy” dogłębnie i na wiele sposobów. Czy nie powinniśmy raczej zaakceptować naszego sprawstwa, zamiast silić się na odbudowę równowagi w przyrodzie?

EG: Niektóre z naszych największych osiągnięć zawdzięczamy temu, że potrafimy w przemyślany sposób wycofać się z ingerencji w przyrodę. Myślę na przykład o rezerwatach morskich czy niektórych parkach narodowych, gdzie pozwalamy dzikiej przyrodzie, by sama odzyskała równowagę. Czasami najlepszą formą sprawczości w odniesieniu do przyrody jest pozostawienie jej w spokoju – przykładem takiego myślenia jest choćby unijne rozporządzenie o odbudowie zasobów przyrodniczych (Nature Restoration Law). Nie znaczy to, że mamy się odsunąć ze świata, jak chcieliby zwolennicy nurtu ekologii głębokiej. Jesteśmy częścią tego stworzenia i tej równowagi. Ale musimy się nauczyć, jak unikać zaburzania równowagi w przyrodzie, jak szanować i podtrzymywać ją.

My, ludzie, jesteśmy organizmami, a każdy organizm to w istocie organizacje rozmaitych procesów równowagi. Aktualne wyzwanie polega na tym, byśmy ponownie włączyli się świat, tak abyśmy mogli kształtować go jako organizmy, a nie manipulować nim jako pochłaniające wszystko mechanizmy. To wymaga „sprawczości”, ponieważ wycofanie się to za mało. Potrzebujemy zreformować nas samych. Dlatego właśnie uważam, że ekologia jest formą duchowości.

Tak że istnieje przestrzeń na ludzkie działanie. Chodzi o wycofanie się tam, gdziekolwiek to możliwe, lecz również przez reformację, gdziekolwiek i kiedykolwiek to możliwe – przy założeniu, że nie mówimy o geoinżynierii czy terraformowaniu Ziemi.

AO: Ludzie są także częścią ekosystemu. Nie powinniśmy na przykład myśleć o wycofywaniu się z terytoriów, gdzie równowaga w przyrodzie zależy od obecności ludzi. W miejscach, gdzie zabroniono społecznościom rdzennym kontrolowanego wypalania lasów, efektem często są megapożary.

Z drugiej strony, kiedy dajemy więcej luzu naturze, możemy też trochę poluzować oczekiwania wobec społeczeństwa. Wiemy, że bardzo dużo można uzyskać dzięki temu, że po prostu pozwolimy drzewom rosnąć czy zostawimy przestrzeń na niezakłócony rozwój ekosystemów morskich. Dodatkowa korzyść jest taka, że nie musimy poświęcać aż tyle uwagi temu, jak namówić wszystkich do weganizmu czy powstrzymać ludzi przed podróżami lotniczymi. Oznacza to, że moglibyśmy zmniejszyć presję na nasze style życia i ograniczenia nakładane na nas jako jednostki i społeczności.

Oczywiście nasze style życia wymagają reformy. Ale możemy zrobić to w sposób bardziej organiczny, jeśli nie traktujemy tego jako jedynego rozwiązania. Mechanizmy można naprawiać, ale organizmy zdrowieją. To, co można naprawić, trzeba naprawić. Lecz również potrzebujemy stworzyć – zarówno dla ludzkich społeczności, jak i ekosystemów – przestrzeń, której potrzebują dla uzdrowienia.

Co chcielibyście, żeby czytelnik wyniósł z tej książki?

AO: Polityczne etykiety są często używane jako obelgi. Myślę, że to błąd. Konserwatyzm jest szlachetną tradycją polityczną, dającą cenną perspektywę na człowieka i społeczeństwo, ale ma również ciemną stronę. Tak samo liberalizm, socjalizm, feminizm czy ekologizm – każda z tych tradycji wnosi coś cennego do naszego rozumienia człowieka i społeczeństwa i oferuje wspaniałe wizje wspólnego życia. Ale każda z nich ma też swoją ciemną stronę.

Wyobraźnia ekologiczna może wzbogacić nasze myślenie o demokracji. Ekologiczne myślenie o demokracji nie polega na tym, aby poprawiać czy naprawiać innych, narzucać im nasz sposób myślenia i zmuszać do akceptowania jedynie słusznych rozwiązań. Przeciwnie, chodzi o myślenie o tym, jak uwzględnić te różnorodne glosy w taki sposób, aby nie były krzywdzące dla innych. To duże wyzwanie, ze względu na wpisaną w każdą ideologię polityczną jej ciemną stronę. Ale to także szansa na zbudowanie wspólnego świata.

Nie powinniśmy zaczynać od tego, co mówi prawo, jaka jest prawda, czy jakie jest właściwe rozwiązanie. Punktem wyjścia powinno być pytanie o to, jak mogę dzielić ten świat, to państwo, tę Unię Europejską czy to miasto z ludźmi, którzy są ode mnie inni. Znalezienie równowagi nie jest oczywiście, na przekór pewnym modelom ekonomicznym, równoznaczne ze stabilnością. W przyrodzie równowaga jest zawsze dynamiczna, ciągle się zmienia.

To jest moim zdaniem lekcja z tej książki. Możemy uczyć się od konserwatystów, liberałów czy jakiejkolwiek innej tradycji bez utraty własnego kompasu. To daje nam szansę na zbudowanie świata, w którym możemy żyć razem. Dla mnie to jest właśnie istotą ekologii w polityce.

EG: Chciałbym zaprosić czytelnika do refleksji nad sobą. Myślę, że zawsze powinniśmy pielęgnować umiejętność wątpienia i pogłębiać nasze rozumienie siebie. Podczas gdy ciemna strona wszelkich światopoglądów sprowadza nas do dogmatyzmu, introspekcja zakłada pragnienie bycia lepszym – nie tylko w sensie lepszego funkcjonowanie, lecz bycia lepszą istotą żywą. Dla różnych osób oznaczać to będzie coś innego: udział we mszy, medytację, działalność humanitarną czy co komu w duszy zagra. To nie przypadek, że jedną z największych lekcji zachodniej filozofii jest wciąż aktualne „Poznaj samego siebie”.

Z języka angielskiego przełożył Adam Ostolski.

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Land tenure is the legal or customary framework governing the ownership, control, and transfer of land. Land tenure systems determine who can use land, for how long, and under what conditions.

Secure land tenure refers to the assurance that individuals and communities can exercise recognized rights to access and benefit from land without fear of eviction, displacement, or competing claims. Tenure security varies with local conditions, including legal protections, social recognition, and the institutions that uphold land rights.

Ownership, tenure, or use rights are formally documented for just 35 percent of the world’s land, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). And almost one in four adults worldwide, or 1.1 billion people, believe they may lose rights to some or all of their land or housing in the next five years.

Historically marginalized groups are particularly susceptible to tenure insecurity, often facing disproportionate challenges in accessing and securing land rights. 90 percent of landholdings in low- and middle-income countries are not documented.

Indigenous Peoples and other customary tenure holders hold ownership rights for only one of the 5.5 billion hectares of land that they occupy. And men are more likely than women to own or hold secure rights to land in almost every country with available data.

Meanwhile, population growth and urbanization are driving demand for land, degradation is reducing suitable farmland, and, according to the World Resources Institute, administrative barriers to ownership are growing.

According to international organizations including FAO, UN-Habitat, and Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, and research published in the Journal of Land Use Policy and Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, clear, secure, and equitable land tenure and property rights are fundamental to improving food security, reducing poverty, supporting climate resilience, and advancing gender equality.

Land insecurity can lead to lower productivity, says FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero.

Many practices that increase production require investments that may take years to produce returns. Growers may hesitate to invest in infrastructure or soil improvements without certainty that they will retain long-term land access, Nikhita Jain, Senior Urban Agriculture Program Associate at LAFPC, tells Food Tank.

For many rural communities, access to land underpins livelihoods, and insecure tenure can limit economic opportunities and perpetuate poverty. Informal arrangements can also make it harder to access certain grants and government programs that require documentation of land tenure, Jain explains.

By supporting investment in agricultural productivity, improved access to credit and financing, and more stable livelihoods, secure tenure can help reduce vulnerability to poverty and food insecurity. “Secure land tenure is the difference between short-term survival and long-term food security,” says Torero.

Secure land tenure can also support more sustainable agriculture and climate action. Clear, protected rights can encourage farmers to invest in sustainable land management. Clear tenure can also make it easier to identify and manage land for conservation, restoration, and other climate initiatives.

Women produce more than half of all grown food, but rarely own the land they work and often have limited control over its use. “Women feed the world, but we would say that they feed it on somebody else’s land,” Michael Taylor, Secretariat Director of the International Land Coalition, tells Food Tank.

Discriminatory laws and social norms, inheritance and marital property rules, and weak enforcement can limit their rights, contributing to a gender gap that exceeds 20 percent in nearly half of countries with available data.

According to Landesa, an organization that has strengthened land rights for more than 700 million people, at least one-third of married women believe they would lose their land rights if their marriage ends. This insecurity not only restricts economic opportunities, but also increase vulnerability to poverty, hunger, displacement, and violence.

Land tenure is increasingly reflected in global development and climate commitments. U.N. Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2, and 5 address secure land rights, including access for small-scale producers and women, while the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) establishes international guidance for governing tenure. At COP26, the U.N. Climate Conference 2021 (COP26), 141 countries pledged US$1.7 billion to secure Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ land rights.

Experts recommend multiple paths to stronger tenure security. The Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty highlights recognizing Indigenous and traditional territories and supporting community-based management. WRI calls for simpler processes for communities to formalize their rights, and measures to reduce imbalances between communities and companies competing for land.

Landesa points to several approaches for strengthening women’s land rights, including improving legal literacy and expanding women’s access to and role in governing land under customary tenure systems.

Society for Conservation Biology researchers caution against one-size-fits-all approaches, recommending that interventions account for local conditions, traditional governance, and customary practices.

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 Luiza Braun

The post Food Tank Explains: Land Tenure appeared first on Food Tank.

By Bob Kennedy, 2026 Africa Zero Waste Academy Participants

There are moments in life that quietly reshape how you see the world. For me, attending the 2026 Africa Zero Waste Academy in Accra, Ghana, was one of them.

As I boarded my flight from Kenya, I carried more than a suitcase. I carried years of lived experiences as a waste picker, community organizer, and climate advocate. I carried stories from the dumpsites of Nakuru and Likoni: resilience, innovation, inequality, and hope. Like many others working in waste, I have spent years proving that what society often overlooks is, in reality, one of the most important environmental services on our planet.

When I arrived in Accra, I quickly realized I was joining something much bigger than a training programme. The Academy brought together an inspiring community of practitioners from across Africa, each working in different contexts but united by a common belief: that waste is not merely an environmental issue; it is a question of justice, public health, livelihoods, and our collective future.

Throughout the week-long Academy, I listened to stories from different countries. While our languages, cultures, and waste systems differed, the challenges felt remarkably familiar. Communities everywhere are dealing with increasing volumes of waste, inadequate infrastructure, plastic pollution, open dumping, and policies that often fail to recognize the people who recover valuable materials every day. Yet alongside these challenges, I encountered extraordinary examples of courage, innovation, and community leadership.

One of the Academy’s greatest strengths was that it did not present zero waste as a theoretical concept. Instead, it showed that zero waste is already being practiced in markets, neighbourhoods, schools, recycling centres, composting projects, and informal settlements across Africa. It reminded us that solutions already exist within our communities if we are willing to recognize and invest in them.

The discussions also challenged me to think beyond waste collection. Zero waste is about redesigning systems. It is about preventing waste before it is created, supporting reuse, composting organic materials, strengthening recycling, and holding producers accountable for the products they place on the market. It is equally about ensuring that waste pickers, the people who have sustained these systems for decades are treated with dignity, fairness, and respect.

Another lesson that will stay with me is the importance of collaboration. Governments cannot build a circular economy alone. Civil society cannot do it alone. Researchers cannot do it alone. Communities cannot do it alone. Real transformation happens when all these actors work together while recognizing the expertise that already exists on the ground.

I was particularly inspired by the openness with which participants shared both successes and failures. Honest conversations about policy implementation, community engagement, financing, and public education reminded me that building zero waste systems is a continuous learning process. Every challenge shared became an opportunity for collective problem-solving.

Beyond the classroom sessions, some of the most valuable learning happened over meals, on walks between venues, and in informal conversations late into the evening. These exchanges created connections that extended beyond professional networking. They built friendships and a shared commitment to supporting one another long after the Academy ended.

Personally, participating in the Academy reaffirmed something I have believed for years: waste pickers are not victims of the waste crisis; they are part of the solution. Every day, thousands of waste pickers recover recyclable materials, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, prevent pollution, and contribute to local economies. Yet their work often goes unrecognized and unsupported. A just transition to zero waste must place waste pickers at the centre, not at the margins.

Returning home to Kenya, I brought back more than notes and presentation slides. I returned with renewed confidence that the work happening in communities matters. I returned with practical ideas, new partnerships, and a stronger belief that Africa has the knowledge and leadership required to build waste systems that are fair, inclusive, and sustainable.

The Academy reminded me that zero waste is not only about reducing waste. It is about rethinking our relationship with resources, valuing the people who manage them, and creating systems that protect both people and the planet.

As we continue this journey, I hope more young people, community organizations, municipalities, and policymakers will recognize that the future of waste management lies not in simply disposing of waste, but in preventing it, recovering its value, and ensuring that no one is left behind.

To everyone who made the Africa Zero Waste Academy possible, thank you for creating a space where learning, collaboration, and solidarity could flourish. The conversations that began in Accra will continue to shape my work, and I believe they will continue to strengthen Africa’s growing zero waste movement for years to come.

The journey continues, and so does our shared responsibility to build an Africa where resources are valued, communities are empowered, and zero waste becomes not just an aspiration, but a lived reality.

Writer’s Bio

Bob Kennedy Okoth is a Kenyan waste picker, climate justice advocate, and circular economy practitioner. His work is rooted in the lived realities of waste pickers and communities affected by poor waste management. He is actively involved in Zero Waste, climate action and environmental justice, and is a member of YOUNGO and the Youth Policy Action Network (YPAN). Through community organising, storytelling, and advocacy, Bob works to ensure waste pickers are recognised as essential actors in building inclusive, climate-resilient, and circular cities. 

The post From Nakuru to Accra: A Waste Picker’s Journey Through the Africa Zero Waste Academy first appeared on GAIA.

Headline News:

• “Record-Breaking Investment In Renewables Could Cement Canada As New Clean Energy Superpower” • Canadian officials announced plans for “the largest clean energy investment in North American history.” A total of C$70 billion ($50.43 billion) is earmarked to increase wind and hydropower generation in the eastern part of the country. [Euronews]

Shipping blades by rail (Kelisi, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped)

• “Solar Power Passes Three Terawatts!” • Solar power has passed another big milestone. Solar has reached and quickly surpassed the 3-terawatt – yes, terawatt – marker globally. That’s how much solar power is installed in the world. And the speed of adoption of solar power is expected to increase even more. BNEF expects the world will get to 9 TW by 2036. [CleanTechnica]
• “Ørsted Unveils New Taiwan Offshore Project” • Ørsted filed early paperwork for an offshore wind project of up to 2 GW in the Taiwan Strait. The project, known as Dadu 2, will cover a 234 square kilometer space 38 km off the coast of Changhua County. The Danish developer is proposing using turbines rated between 14 MW and 22 MW. [reNews]
• “Will Gas Prices Fall If Companies Build Oil Routes To Bypass The Strait Of Hormuz?” • The war with Iran pushed US gasoline prices above $4 a gallon, increased inflation, and set the stage for the midterm elections. But it could take five years to build the infrastructure necessary to replace most of the oil that passed through the Strait before the war. [ABC News]
• “Duke’s New Energy Plan For Data Centers Requires Consumer Protections Now” • Duke Energy’s latest energy plan proposes two more gas plants and extends coal plant operations based on speculative data center developments. This underscores the need for the South Carolina PSC to adopt strong consumer protection guardrails for data center development. [CleanTechnica]

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

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The UK is pioneering the use of “super batteries” that can store energy for long periods, smoothing the output from wind and solar power as the country moves towards net-zero.

It is aiming to build “long-duration energy storage” (LDES) that fills up when supplies are plentiful, to help cover the gaps when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.

These periods can last for days or even weeks – sometimes referred to as “dunkelflaute”, a German word meaning “dark doldrums” – whereas the current batteries on the electricity system only last a matter of hours.

The nation’s energy regulator Ofgem has now identified 16 LDES projects that it is “minded to” support under a new “cap-and-floor scheme”. 

The technologies selected can be used to store energy for long periods in the form of gravity, chemical processes or electrical charge.

These include pumped hydro, which has dominated long-term storage in the past, through to large lithium-ion batteries, “flow batteries” with novel chemistry and compressed-air storage.

The use of these technologies is expected to cut energy system costs in the UK by more than £24bn between 2030 and 2050.

This Q&A looks at what LDES means and where it can come from, why it is needed and what the UK and others are doing to support its use.

• What is LDES?
• What types of LDES are available?
• How much LDES will the UK need?
• Which types of LDES is the UK planning to use?
• How could LDES impact energy bills?

Article Contents Expand menu

• What is LDES?
• What types of LDES are available?
• How much LDES will the UK need?
• Which types of LDES is the UK planning to use?
• How could LDES impact energy bills?

What is LDES?

LDES is a broad category of technologies, with some variation in definition. 

The UK government defines it as technologies that can store energy for anywhere from four hours up to years. Ofgem uses a slightly different threshold of eight hours and upwards. 

Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Oxford and lead author of a Royal Society report on large-scale electricity storage, tells Carbon Brief: 

“[The Department of Energy Storage and Net-Zero] (DESNZ) seems to describe it as including things which we would regard as some short duration or medium duration [storage]. It’s a big confusion…For us, long duration is stuff that can last not just into seasons, but into years and into decades.”

LDES can be used to support several different aspects of the electricity system, including the integration of variable renewable energy. 

Currently in the UK, there is 2.8 gigawatts (GW) of LDES, made up of four pumped-hydro energy storage assets in Scotland and Wales.

(This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate all-Ireland electricity system.)

The largest of these existing sites is the Dinorwig power station in North Wales, sometimes referred to as the “electric mountain”. This is a 1,728 megawatt (MW) station opened in the 1980s, which is used to manage short-term surges in electricity demand. 

Turbine hall in Dinorwig hydroelectric power station, Wales. Credit: Clynt Garnham Environmental / Alamy Stock Photo

For example, during England’s football World Cup match against the Democratic Republic of Congo on 1 July 2026, electricity demand rose by around 1.2GW at half-time and 1.7GW at full-time. This is equivalent to the total electricity demand for the cities of Glasgow and Leeds, combined.

Pumped storage, alongside batteries, has been used to keep the electricity system balanced during such moments by providing enough electricity to keep the system secure very quickly. 

As the UK’s electricity system becomes increasingly dominated by variable renewables, however, the need for LDES to manage peaks and troughs of generation is growing.

George Martin, principal for power system modelling at analytics company LCP Delta, tells Carbon Brief that wind power creates a particular need for LDES. He says:

“[LDES is] really important for the system, particularly in a wind-driven system. You get more peaks and troughs in your renewable output and, [while] short duration [storage] can obviously help with that, with things like ‘dunkelflaute’, long-duration storage is what is needed.”

As such, the UK is working to expand the capacity and duration of storage available through LDES, as well as the range of technologies this system is based on. 

For example, in May 2026 the UK’s largest vanadium “flow battery” site opened, co-located with a 3MW solar farm in Uckfield, East Sussex. (A flow battery stores energy in liquid chemical mixtures that are pumped between tanks, via an electrochemical cell.)

The Uckfield site consists of 90 vanadium flow batteries, which can be used to store 21 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity. This is equivalent to seven hours of peak output from the attached solar farm and is roughly enough electricity to power 3,000 homes for a day. 

The batteries can be used to store surplus daytime solar generation, which can then be used in the evening and overnight.

Other LDES technologies with a longer storage capacity could be used to similarly help manage power supply and demand, but over weeks, months or seasons. This could include compressed-air energy storage, hydrogen storage and others.

The diversity of LDES technologies reflects the range of roles it is expected to play in the electricity system in the UK. This could be meeting short-term surges, helping to utilise surplus renewable energy generation or providing longer-term flexibility. 

What types of LDES are available?

There are numerous types of energy storage technology, although most fall into four main categories: mechanical; thermal; chemical; and electrochemical. 

For example, a pumped-hydro project uses surplus energy to pump water uphill to a reservoir. The mechanical energy is released when the water flows down through a turbine.

Thermal storage could be a tank of gravel that is heated up, then later used to warm up water. Electrochemical storage is familiar in the form of batteries.

Finally, chemical storage relates to energy stored in molecular bonds, for example, making hydrogen from water. (Similarly, the energy in fossil fuels, which is ultimately derived from the sun, is a form of chemical storage.)

A key consideration for each LDES technology is the amount of energy it can store, measured in watt-hours (Wh). For example, a 1MW battery with four hours of storage contains 4MWh of electricity. It can therefore be used to deliver 1MW continuously for up to four hours.

Another consideration is whether the energy can be stored for long periods before use – and whether it is economic to do so.

In recent years in the UK, battery energy storage – predominantly lithium-ion batteries with a duration of one to four hours – has dominated the storage sector. The lithium battery sector in the UK has grown from almost nothing in 2015 to more than 6GW today.  

However, as lithium-ion batteries have only tended to hold a few hours of storage, they cannot help support the grid during longer periods of low renewable energy generation. 

Technologies such as vanadium-redox flow batteries, compressed-air energy storage or hydrogen salt-cavern storage could potentially help manage supply and demand over days, weeks or even years. 

A range of LDES technology options are shown in the table below.

TechnologyTypeDurationHow does it work?Gravity storageMechanicalHoursA heavy object is lifted, storing kinetic energy that can be turned back into electrical energy by a generator.Lithium-ion batteriesElectrochemicalHoursLithium ions move between a negative anode and a positive cathode through an electrolyte within the battery.Liquid airMechanicalHours to daysAir is compressed and cooled until it becomes a liquid. When the air becomes a gas again, it drives a turbine.Vanadium flowElectrochemicalHours to daysLiquid chemical mixtures are pumped between tanks, via an electrochemical cell.Compressed airMechanicalHours to daysAir is compressed to a high pressure and stored in underground geological formations, such as salt caverns or disused oil and gas wells.Pumped hydroMechanicalHours to daysWater is pumped up a hill to a reservoir and then released to drive a turbine.Hydrogen salt cavern storageChemicalSeasonsSurplus energy is used to make hydrogen from water. The hydrogen is then stored in underground salt caverns, before being burned as fuel.Thermal energy storageThermalSeasonsA material such as gravel is heated with surplus energy and kept in an insulated store, before being used to warm water.

Each option has specific advantages and disadvantages; for example, while pumped hydro storage has a high upfront cost, it has a long lifespan of over 50 years. As such, its capital cost per kilowatt hour (kWh) is lower than many other storage options over time. 

(Pumped hydro is the most established LDES technology in the world, but no new projects have been built in the UK since the 1980s.)

While it has historically been a short-duration form of storage, some lithium-ion batteries can now store power for much longer chunks of time. 

Lithium-based grid batteries now often offer 8-12 hours of storage and – as shown in the table above – even longer durations are possible

As Ed Porter, director for Europe at data company Modo Energy, quipped on LinkedIn following the cap-and-floor scheme results: 

“Lithium [is] going far beyond 8 hours; that debate must surely be dead now.”

While even 12 hours is of limited use for gaps in generation of days, weeks or seasons, there are numerous benefits to lithium-ion batteries in comparison to other LDES technologies. For example, the cost of these batteries has fallen by an average of 20% per year over the last decade. 

Given the variation in technologies – including scale, lifespan, commercial readiness and aspects such as necessary geography – comparing the costs of each technology is challenging. 

However, utilising a diverse set of storage technologies is expected to be particularly beneficial for electricity systems, according to experts. 

Julia Souder, CEO of industry group the LDES Council, tells Carbon Brief: 

“The UK is leading the charge on technology diversity. We’re witnessing matching different LDES solutions to the real differences in market structure and country needs.

“But make no mistake: a handful of LDES technologies will do the heavy lifting over the next decade. We’re seeing that play out in which technologies are winning through the UK government’s new cap-and-floor mechanism for long duration storage.”

How much LDES will the UK need?

LDES is expected to be a key component of the UK’s electricity system in the future, particularly as it moves away from easily stored and dispatched fossil fuels such as gas. 

The government has set a target of “clean power by 2030”, in the lead-up to the wider net-zero by 2050 goal. 

In 2024, the Labour administration set out an “action plan” for reaching the 2030 target, which included substantial increases to electricity generation technologies. 

This included setting widely discussed targets to double offshore wind, triple onshore wind and quadruple solar capacity by 2030, alongside rebuilding the UK’s nuclear fleet. 

But the action plan also set a less well-known target for 4-6GW of LDES, to help balance this renewables-dominated electricity mix. This is in addition to 23-27GW of short-duration battery energy storage, new interconnectors and a big push to develop consumer-led flexibility. 

There is also a major expansion of LDES to 3.8-5.3GW by 2030 in the most recent “future energy scenarios” report from the National Electricity System Operator (Neso), as shown in the chart below. 

Neso’s pathways show LDES rising to between 16.6GW and 13.2GW by 2050, mainly dependent on how hydrogen is used in the electricity system. 

The Neso report notes that few LDES schemes are likely to come online before 2030, due to the long project development and planning times, as well as high capital expenditures.

Which types of LDES is the UK planning to use?

While the UK is pursuing a diverse range of LDES, certain technologies are likely to make up the bulk of LDES in the next decade or so. 

This is evident in the technologies that have bid successfully into the UK government’s new “cap-and-floor” mechanism for LDES. 

The scheme was first announced in 2024 and is designed to guarantee a minimum level of revenue for energy storage operators – the “floor” – as well as to put a limit on profits via the “cap”. 

(The mechanism will be funded through electricity bills. However, Ofgem expects it to be broadly cost-neutral over time.)

Similar mechanisms have been used to support the development of other technologies in the UK, in particular those with high upfront costs, such as interconnectors. Ultimately, it minimises the risk for developers by guaranteeing a certain level of future revenue. 

In 2025, 171 LDES projects with a total capacity of 52.6GW applied to enter the cap and floor scheme, which is administered by Ofgem. Of these, 77 projects (28.7GW) were deemed eligible to enter a second “assessment” phase. 

These were made up of nine different technologies, as shown in the figure below. However, lithium-ion batteries dominated the process, making up more than 20GW of the 29GW total. 

No pure vanadium-flow batteries, liquid-air energy storage, iron-air batteries, sodium-sulphur batteries or hydrogen batteries were deemed eligible for the second phase. 

(Conventional hydrogen storage was not eligible to bid into the process either, but could be supported through other means. The government is expected to release an updated hydrogen strategy later in 2026.)

Ultimately, Ofgem announced in June 2026 that it was “minded to” support 7.6GW of LDES capacity, spread across 16 projects. Of this total, 4GW is expected to be online by the end of the decade, at the bottom end of the range said to be required for the clean power 2030 target. 

The 16 projects are listed in the table below. They comprise four technologies: pumped storage hydro (3.9GW); lithium batteries (3.6GW); one vanadium-zinc flow battery (65MW); and one compressed- air energy storage site (50MW).

NameTechnologyRegionCapacity (MW)Duration (hours)Storage capacity (MWh)Earba PSHPumped storage hydroNorth Scotland1,8001527,000Coire GlasPumped storage hydroNorth Scotland1,4403246,100Loch Kemp StoragePumped storage hydroNorth Scotland6602214,500East Claydon StorageLithium batteryEast England500126,000Sundon StorageLithium batteryEast England50084,000Field NethertonLithium batteryNorth Scotland400166,400Field New DeerLithium batteryNorth Scotland400187,200Field Lond StrattonLithium batteryEast England400166,400SpringwellLithium batteryEast Midlands400114,400Drakelow (Innova)Lithium batteryWest Midlands38593,500Field RigifaLithium batteryNorth Scotland200183,600Field FyrishLithium batteryNorth Scotland200173,400Ocker Hill BESSLithium batteryWest Midlands14581,200Thornton BESS 2Lithium batteryEast Midlands100111,100Frontier LegacyVanadium-zinc flow batteryNorth Wales658500TeesCAESCompressed airNorth-east England50301,500

Welcoming Ofgem’s initial decision on the cap-and-floor mechanism, energy minister Michael Shanks said in a statement: 

“Forty years after the country’s last pumped storage facility, this government is getting Britain building again… 

“We are [going] further and faster in delivering the clean-power mission by rolling out a new generation of pumped-hydro storage and state-of-the-art batteries – making more of the clean, homegrown power we already produce, cutting waste, lowering bills and strengthening our energy security.”

Collectively, the provisionally successful projects can provide between eight and 32 hours’ worth of electricity storage. The top ten projects in terms of duration that applied for the mechanism – those with at least 12 hours’ worth of storage – all moved forward.

Following Ofgem’s “minded-to” decision, the regulator launched a consultation that ended on  7 August 2026. It will now make a final decision on the projects that will be supported through the “cap and floor” mechanism. 

Martin tells Carbon Brief that “it’s not over” yet, with Ofgem likely to face scrutiny over the methodology it used to determine these final results. He adds: 

“There’s going to be a lot of activity and a lot of responses to that consultation. I don’t expect the overall amount of capacity that’s been awarded to change, although they could increase it – it could only go up, probably.

“But there might be some change in what projects end up getting approved as a result, or maybe they end up making some changes for the next window [of applications for LDES support].”

Alongside the cap-and-floor process being run by Ofgem, the government introduced legislation via the Planning and Infrastructure Act to support the introduction of the scheme. 

Additionally, in August 2026, Innovate UK – the UK’s national innovation agency – announced new funding for “ultra-long” duration battery energy storage. 

Up to £3m will be invested in demonstration projects as part of the first phase of the funding, with £10m available in the sector to support the development of technologies capable of storing and discharging at least 100 continuous hours of electricity. 

In a statement responding to the new funding, Dr Jamie Speirs of the University of Strathclyde and co-director of the UK Energy Research Centre, said achieving the UK’s low-carbon ambitions will rely on “unlocking” LDES to support a highly renewable system. He added:

“By providing flexibility across hours, days and even seasons, LDES could enable a resilient, low-carbon electricity system – reducing curtailment, strengthening security of supply and ensuring that intermittent renewables can maximise their contribution to the grid in all conditions. 

“Investing in innovation opportunities such as this call to support market deployment of LDES technologies is a key way to support these technologies to market, giving us the best chance to meet our net zero targets.”

Phase one of the funding is open for applications until 30 September, with grants of between £350,000 and £700,000 available for the successful projects.

Seamus Garvey, professor of dynamics at the University of Nottingham, welcomes the new funding. However, he cautions that more needs to be done to ensure the future markets for medium- and long- duration storage are not compromised by early commitments to storage at shorter timescales. He tells Carbon Brief:

“Energy storage will be required over many timescales and as we decarbonise further and further, the requirements for longer durations grow and grow. 

“One key problem in my opinion is that because we are tending to buy into lots of short-duration stores now, we are actually removing pieces of market that could be accessible by longer duration stores and that is making the (already-difficult) problem of financing these stores ever more difficult.” 

How could LDES impact energy bills?

The rollout of LDES technologies is widely expected to help reduce energy bills as the UK transitions to a clean-energy system.

There is still a significant amount of uncertainty over the development of LDES, due to the wide range of options, nascent stages of development and lack of market maturity. Nevertheless, most research agrees that it will cut electricity system costs by the middle of the century, relative to a world where LDES is not used. 

For example, adding 20GW of LDES could reduce electricity system costs by £16-51bn between 2030 and 2050, compared with a scenario that has limited flexible capacity, according to analysis for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), by thinktank Regen and LCP Delta. The analysis, published in 2023, found that 20GW of LDES could reduce costs by around £26bn. 

Analysis by LCP Delta in 2025 found that building 20GW of established medium-sized LDES technologies – pumped hydro with a capacity of 8-12 hours – by 2050 would have a system benefit of more than £10bn. 

LDES could reduce total UK electricity system costs by £7-13bn annually by 2040-2050, according to a report from the Transition Finance Council – a public-private body launched by the City of London Corporation and the UK government – citing a range of other studies. 

Windfarm in Cornwall, UK. Credit: David Noton Photography / Alamy Stock Photo

The council says this would predominantly be by avoiding “curtailment”, where some generators are paid to switch off because the electricity grid cannot accommodate their output. It says that LDES would defer the need for additional grid investment and would reduce balancing costs, including curtailment.

(In the financial year 2024-25, balancing costs reached £2.7bn, adding around £40 to the average household electricity bill. Some £1.9bn of this – £28 per household – related to constraints, where wind is “curtailed” and gas plants are switched on elsewhere.)

Curtailment is a particular issue in Scotland, where much of the UK’s wind capacity sits behind congested sections of the national electricity network. Porter notes on LinkedIn that this helps explain why 79% of the LDES projects by storage capacity are located in northern Scotland. 

Martin says LDES will allow the UK to “use our renewable fleet more efficiently”. He adds: 

“[LDES] is able to increase renewable energy and then decrease gas generation during high-demand periods, and that brings all sorts of benefits to the system.

“It reduces emissions, it reduces the overall cost of the system, it can help reduce bills for consumers. So those are the types of benefits that we’ll see as a result of [more] LDES being [on the system].”

The Transition Finance Council report adds that despite the upfront cost, LDES quickly pays for itself. It estimates that each gigawatt of long-duration flexibility on the system requires around £2-2.5bn in investment, but yields annual system savings of £0.5-1bn once operational. 

As such, even accounting for the upfront cost of developing LDES, the technologies would provide £30-60bn of electricity system savings over 25 years, the council says. It adds that this means LDES “will repay itself several times over”. 

related CCC: Faster electrification of UK will ‘put money back into people’s pockets’ 24.06.2026 Electricity Analysis: UK’s EV drivers are now saving £1,100 each a year – and £3bn in total 15.06.2026 Electricity Q&A: Can China turn hydrogen into its next clean-energy industry? 27.05.2026 Electricity Q&A: How the UK government aims to ‘break link between gas and electricity prices’ 21.04.2026 Electricity

The post Q&A: What is ‘long-duration energy storage’ – and why does the UK need it? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

A controversial scheme aimed at slashing car pollution in Central London was a boon to children in the area, whose lungs grew faster after the program was launched, researchers found.

Read more on E360 →

What if the greatest strength of modern civilization—its incredible complexity—is also its greatest weakness?

Activist Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn discusses food sovereignty, Māori leadership and challenging colonial frameworks in an interview with Agroecology Now!

Investigating how and why complex societies or civilizations have risen and fallen in human history, anthropologist and historian Joseph Tainter uncovered a dynamic that can help us make sense of our present situation and future prospects.

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• Apparently downloading music is more important to some drivers than not killing people, because researchers found that traffic deaths rose by about 15 percent on the release dates for major albums, and the trend was even more pronounced among young people. (CNN)
• A University of Minnesota study found that cheap infrastructure like bollards and curb extensions made drivers more likely to slow down and stop for pedestrians.
• Drivers have killed 28 people in Washington, D.C. already this year, topping last year’s number of 25 for all of 2025 (DC News Now). In Maryland, motorcycle deaths are up, but overall traffic fatalities are trending lower than last year’s (WTOP).
• Despite “near universal” support among visitors, Seattle is scaling back car-free hours at Pike Place because some merchants perceive that sales will drop over the winter. (The Urbanist)
• Kansas City needs to find a stable source of funding for transit instead of bailing out its transit agency at the last minute over and over. (KCUR)
• Tailpipe emissions in Utah have fallen by 73 percent since 2011, even as the population and miles driven have grown, thanks to a cleaner type of gasoline. (KUER)
• Nashville is committing another $100 million to Choose How You Move transportation projects. (Fox 17)
• A Nebraska fund is offering loans to businesses affected by Omaha streetcar construction. (KMTV)
• Charlottesville officials and cyclists are calling for safer conditions. (Right Now)
• Florida wants cities to get rid of their rainbow crosswalks, but apparently faux brick is fine. (Suncoast Searchlight)
• Villanova students are using virtual reality to study how drivers would behave before going through the expense of building new infrastructure. (NBC Philadelphia)
• An Outside contributor writes about how her Denver family became a one-car household.
• The U.S. could’ve had high-speed rail 120 years ago. (CT Mirror)

California’s rising heat and soaring utility bills make vital cooling unaffordable for many Anthony Lacey August 19, 2026 Bernadette Del Chiaro Rooftop and balcony solar systems can help provide immediate relief Josh Wink (EWG fellow) August 19, 2026 Overview

• California’s total number of hot days ranging from “moderate” to “extreme” heat has risen 12.9% over the past 20 years
• Depending on the region, the state now experiences 2 to 42 days a year of dangerous “major” or “extreme” heat — a 55% average increase over the last two decades
• To cope with California’s heat, consumers spend $4 billion per year on air conditioning, ranging from $95 to $800 annually per family
• Electricity from customer-sited rooftop and balcony solar can fully offset these costs, addressing affordability and reducing strain on the electric grid on hot, summer days

California has always been warm but climate change is driving up “major” and “extreme” heat advisories between 30% and 145% in parts of the state, new EWG research finds. Yet soaring electricity costs make home cooling unaffordable for millions, threatening public health.

This dynamic creates an impossible choice for many Californians struggling with affordability: suffer during hazardous heat or default on electricity bills.

The National Weather Service defines what qualifies as a certain heat day, and EWG’s report relies on those definitions. Even “minor” heat days can threaten the safety of heat-sensitive people. “Major” and “extreme” heat days threaten everyone’s health if people can’t get hydration and/or cooling. These latter two types of days put everyone at risk of heat stroke, severe dehydration, mental health challenges and other forms of heat injury.

On average, California saw a 55% increase in the number of heat advisory days classified as major or extreme over the last 20 years, EWG found. Certain counties saw higher numbers of days classified as major or extreme heat than others.           

CountyPercentage increase (2006-2015 vs. 2016-2025)Average major and extreme heat risk days (2015-2024)San Bernardino61.2%42Riverside58.1%34Los Angeles30.8%33San Diego40.2%21Fresno54.6%13San Francisco145%2

And it’s not just major and extreme heat days on the uptick. The total number of days deemed anywhere from “moderate” to “extreme” rose by 12.9% over the last two decades.

Air conditioning can bring much-needed relief, but EWG’s research found that home access to cooling in the state varies widely between traditionally hotter climates versus cooler climates, as well as by housing type. 

According to U.S. Census data, 92% of Californians living in inland counties, for example, have access to an air conditioner inside the home, compared to just 70% in coastal areas. And all along the Central and Northern coast, including San Francisco, community-wide rates are as low as 35%. Furthermore, just 64% of two- to four-bedroom unit apartments statewide have access to air conditioning, EWG found. 

This means the jump in major and extreme events in these areas creates a unique public health threat that many families lack the equipment to manage. 

But access to an air conditioner is only half the equation – being able to afford to run it is the other half. California consumers spend $4 billion per year on residential air conditioning. These costs amount to $95 to $800 in extra utility bill costs annually per family.

Almost 7 million California households are behind in their utility bill payments. Many of these families may be forced to choose to go without air conditioning rather than risk adding to their already sky-high charges. This can create public health risks for these families. People shouldn’t have to choose between affordability and their health.

Policymakers need to look for solutions that tackle both the heat and utility bills. One step is doing more to expand consumer access to distributed generation devices, such as rooftop solar or balcony solar, that can help power electricity-hungry air conditioners more cost effectively and without contributing to climate change or adding strain to the electric grid.  

A hot state gets hotter

EWG used NWS data to calculate heat risk across the state, using the NWS definitions for types of heat (see Table 1): 

Table 1. NWS heat risk definitions

Heat classificationDescriptionMinorPrimarily affects those who are extremely sensitive to heat and without cooling/hydrationModerateAffects those who are sensitive to heat, especially those without cooling/hydration, and some health systems and industriesMajorAffects anyone without cooling/hydration as well as health systems and industriesExtremeRare and/or long-duration extreme heat with no overnight relief affecting anyone without cooling/hydration as well as health systems, industries, and infrastructure

California is a hot state. Over the last decade, California counties averaged at least 191 days per year, or 52.3% of the days, experiencing some level of heat risk. 

On these days, air conditioning is desirable for people’s comfort and productivity. Indoor cooling can also be a public health necessity on even moderate heat days for sensitive populations, such as infants, young children, seniors, pregnant women and those with medical conditions.   

Major and extreme heat risk is also on the rise in California, with the state seeing a greater increase in the proportion of days that fall into these two categories over the last two decades. On these days, anyone without cooling or hydration is at risk of injury from the heat.

From 2006 to 2015, the state averaged 3.12% of days defined as major or extreme heat risk. This ticked up to an average of 4.81% of days from 2016 to 2025. While this is just a 1.69 percentage point increase, it represents a startling 54.2% spike in the proportion of major or extreme heat risk days in California (see Figures 1 and 2). This amounts to a growth from 11 days per year to 17.5 days per year labeled as major or extreme. 

Figure 1. Proportion of heat risk days reaching “major” or “extreme” levels     

Image

Dark red represents three-year moving average, solid black represents the overall trend and gray represents the annual data

Figure 2. Proportion of heat risk days reaching “moderate” levels

Image

Orange line represents three-year moving average of moderate days, solid represents the overall trend and gray represents the annual data

Different regions are seeing a greater rise in major and extreme heat than others although nearly every region in the state is seeing some level of uptick of extreme heat.  

CountyPercentage increase (2005-2014 vs. 2015-2024)Average major and extreme heat risk days (2015-2024)San Bernardino61.2%42Riverside58.1%34Los Angeles30.8%33San Diego40.2%21Fresno54.6%13Sacramento111.4%10Santa Clara100%5Santa Barbara36.8%4Sonoma36.7%4San Francisco145%2Importance of air conditioning

As more Californians face increased extreme heat, access to air conditioning becomes more important.

According to U.S. Census data, 78.61% of California households statewide have access to air conditioning devices at home, but that prevalence varies widely by dwelling type and region. 

Statewide, 80% of single-family homes have air conditioning, whereas only 64% of two- to four-bedroom apartments have air conditioning. 

EWG’s research also found that while 92% of all households in inland counties have air conditioning, that number drops to 70% in coastal counties. Many coastal counties, like San Francisco, see air conditioning rates less than half those of their inland neighbors (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Air conditioning prevalence across California counties

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AC access rate represents the percent of occupied households with functional ai conditioning access

Further elevating the challenges with rising heat is the fact that more of the state’s population is staying home than ever before. Today, 13% of Californians work from home. Many Californians are also primarily at home during the hot summer months due to many reasons ranging from seasonal work schedules, school breaks, and being permanently at home due to health issues.      

Affordability and sky-high utility bills

With major and extreme heat on the rise combined with the fact that California has the second highest average electricity rates in the nation, California faces the dual problem of public health threats from heat and energy affordability. 

This general upward trend in heat adds to California’s cost of living challenges. Consumers in the state collectively spend $4 billion per year on residential air conditioning, which can only be expected to go up as the state continues to get hotter and air conditioning becomes a greater necessity for more Californians.     

For individual households, based on peak summer rates for the least and most expensive utility service territories, the cost of running home air conditioners in California breaks down to: 

• $95 to $529 per year for an average 1-bedroom apartment, depending on the utility service territory.

• $450 to $800 per year for an average sized single-family home, depending on the utility service territory. 

Not everyone can afford to pay their utility bill even if they have access to an air conditioning device inside their home. Almost 7 million California ratepayers are in some form of utility debt (see Figure 4).

The investor-owned utility service territories with the highest arrears are mostly in the Central Valley, which also has the highest rates of air conditioning prevalence and high heat.

Figure 4. Q3 2024 utilities arrears in California by ZIP code

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Map represents total count of customers more than 30 days in arrears. Note: This map does not include customers in publicly owned utility territories.

Solar solutions can provide relief

With temperatures continuing to rise, California policymakers should do more to increase access to customer-sited solar energy solutions that can help make cooling more affordable, along with other solutions like energy efficiency.

Self-generation of electricity, either from a rooftop solar system or from a smaller balcony solar system, are two proven methods for reducing home energy bills while powering necessary air conditioning, reducing strain on the electric grid and helping fight climate change. 

There are different ways for consumers to get access to cost-saving solar energy technologies. 

The most common are professionally-installed solar photovoltaic systems. Over two million systems are located on residential properties throughout California, including hundreds of multi-family apartment buildings. These systems are hard-wired into the building and typically located on roofs but can also be built on elevated canopies over parking lots. 

These rooftop solar systems can fully cover air conditioning costs and power needs. A central air conditioning system in an average sized single-family home requires 1,372 kilowatt-hours per year according to the California Energy Commission. This is an average number. Single-family homes located in hotter regions will likely use much more electricity for cooling. 

The average residential rooftop solar system has a capacity of 6,000 watts. In California, a 6,000-watt system can be expected to generate 9,000 kilowatt hours of electricity saving families an average of $3,120 per year. Full details of EWG’s justification for the estimated costs, savings and power generation of solar systems are in the report's methodology.

When combined with home energy efficiency upgrades, these systems dramatically reduce home energy costs and allow residents to cool their homes without worrying about going into debt with their electricity bills just to stay safe during major or extreme heat events.

Benefits of balcony solar

Balcony solar, also known as plug-in solar, is another emerging form of customer-sited solar energy.  It uses the same technology found on roofs but these systems are smaller, portable and easy to install by residents.

Over the course of a year, even the smallest balcony solar system will offset the electrical costs of running a window air conditioning unit during the hot summer months.

For example, a small 180-watt balcony solar system could generate 284 kilowatt hours in a year. A small window air conditioner unit requires 289 kilowatt hours in a year, so a balcony solar system could offset that unit’s electricity needs throughout the year. This would help keep people cool in the summer without adding to their annual budget.

A larger plug in solar system that is 1,200 watts in size could generate 1,892 kilowatt-hours in a year, enough to offset a large central air conditioning system which consumes 1,372 kilowatt-hours on average. These balcony solar systems could save consumers anywhere from $95 to $800 per year on utility bill savings depending on size and location.

SB 868, a bill introduced in the California Senate by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), would open up opportunities for California consumers to access balcony or plug-in solar systems. EWG is sponsoring the legislation because it offers an environmentally-friendly financial lifeline at a time of high utility bills.

For those who live or work from home, access to solar-powered air conditioning is obvious. For those who work outside the home, pre-cooling the home or apartment during the day can also help lower electric bill costs. 

Additionally, adding a battery to either a rooftop or balcony system can enhance savings and give consumers greater flexibility in deciding when to run air conditioners. 

Need for quick action

California has always been one of the hottest states in the country. Due to climate change, the heat facing the state is getting more severe. This increased heat means increased need to run air conditioners which, given rising electricity prices, creates a dual problem for consumers. 

The state must take the lead on implementing helpful policy solutions that make it easier for Californians to access money-saving balcony and rooftop solar systems. With no foreseeable end to the rising temperatures or utility rates, this leadership is vital for both energy affordability and for public safety.

The following submission was in response to “Waymo Speaks: We Have More In Common With Urbanists Than You Might Think” by Arielle Fleisher, Waymo’s Policy Development and Research Manager.

The Deadheading Problem

Ride-hail services such as Uber and AV operators such as Waymo share a structural problem: a large share of the miles are driven empty between drop-off and pick-up. A recent piece by a Waymo representative cites a figure that roughly 40 percent of ride-hail and AV miles run empty. Those miles add to vehicle miles traveled (VMT), congestion, and pollution. Even electric cars still generate brake and tire particulate and contribute to traffic.

Fleisher’s proposed fix is staging: letting AVs park at the curb between rides instead of continuously circling. Staging is already allowed, as cars can pull over to the nearest empty curb space while waiting for the next ride, as long as they follow existing parking rules and fees. Fleisher argues cities should create a specific permitting standard to formalize staging, similar to how taxi stands work.

The centerpiece of the argument is a study, funded by Waymo, by researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Irvine modeling how staging affects VMT for a simulated San Francisco AV fleet. The model simulated roughly 1,700 AVs and found that banning staging and forcing vehicles to circle instead increased daily VMT by more than 200,000 kilometers. That’s a strange comparison, since staging isn’t currently banned in San Francisco. Waymo notes it self-restricts to one staged car per block, but the real concern seems to be a lack of available curb space, not any city law banning staging.

Who Pays for the Curb?

One question the op-ed never answers is whether Waymo wants free curb space or is proposing to pay for it. The premise of modern curb policy, based on Donald Shoup’s The High Cost of Free Parking, is that curb space is a scarce public asset that should be priced to increase turnover. San Francisco already runs a dynamic-pricing meter pilot on that logic. There’s no reason one of the most valuable companies should get free access to a public right-of-way that residents pay for.

The Local Business Claim Doesn’t Add Up

The op-ed also claims staging is a net positive for local businesses: “the cumulative value generated by staging far exceeds that of a curb space occupied by a privately owned vehicle.” For a commercial district, staging could supposedly mean eight to ten times as many potential customer visits compared to space reserved for private vehicles.

I don’t see how an empty Waymo idling outside a storefront generates more value than a parked private car, whose owner at least has some chance of being a customer. The argument rests entirely on total curb turnover, as more vehicles cycling through a spot, in theory, means more potential trip origins and destinations nearby. But that’s a claim about vehicle throughput, not foot traffic to any specific business the AV happens to be parked in front of. An AV staging on a block isn’t necessarily dropping off or picking up passengers on that block, it might just be the nearest available spot. Treating idle Waymos cycling through a space as a proxy for customer visits seems unsupported.

Who Uses the Staging Spaces?

Another question underlies both of the above: are staging zones meant to be exclusive to Waymo and other AV operators, or could locals park there too? I’d assume the former, since the pitch depends on reliable curb availability for the fleet. If so, the “benefit to local business” argument gets weaker: the city wouldn’t just be adding turnover to a general-use curb, it would be converting public spaces into a private company’s dedicated spot. That sounds less like curb management and more like a request for exclusive use of a public asset.

None of this means staging is a bad idea, but a version of this proposal centered on effective curb management would focus on pricing a scarce resource appropriately. A priced staging system could still cut deadheading substantially, since a modest curb fee is likely cheaper for an operator than driving empty, while generating public revenue instead of giving away space for free.

The op-ed’s argument for staging access reads a bit like an ultimatum: “deadheading can never be fully eliminated, so the real question is how many empty miles the public should tolerate in exchange for AVs’ benefits.” That framing positions the VMT and congestion increase caused by AVs as a necessary price for a service that seems to mostly exist to give relatively wealthy people another option to get around in a private vehicle. It also avoids the more obvious lever for cutting AV-generated VMT: limiting how many AVs are on the road in the first place.

San Francisco has no legal permitting authority over AVs. Fleet size, operating hours, and where AVs can drive are all decided by the DMV and the California Public Utilities Commission, not City Hall. In the wake of the July 4th Waymo meltdown, Mayor Lurie called on the state to tighten restrictions on AVs. Maybe it’s also time to give cities authority to manage them.

***

Chris Kucera is a climate and transportation advocate based in San Francisco’s Alamo Square neighborhood. He holds an MBA in Sustainable Solutions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott ordered a pause on all border construction inside Big Bend National Park, days after footage of construction within the park sparked bipartisan outrage. “Last night I put a pause on all activity in that park as far as construction goes until I can get down there and do a personal evaluation,” Scott said in a video posted to X.

CBP originally denied any construction was underway, saying bulldozers were simply regrading storm-damaged roads, then acknowledged heavy machinery was working on the barrier project but called it “survey and design work — NOT construction of a wall through the park.” Scott insisted CBP was “NOT building a 30-foot wall or stadium lighting” through the park, though the agency’s map had at one point shown a 30-foot steel bollard wall across Big Bend.

“It’s difficult to trust the words of CBP,” said Bob Krumenaker, a former Big Bend superintendent who chairs Keep Big Bend Wild. “We’re hopeful that they’re honest and we can trust them, but it’s too early to know.” Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson also expressed doubts about CBP’s statement: “We can’t count on what we’re reading or seeing or anything,” he said.

Crews have already bulldozed near Santa Elena Canyon without the thirty days’ notice DHS had agreed to provide under a previous court settlement, causing irreparable damage to the landscape and the archaeological sites it contains.

Quick hits Trump blames vandals for dead grass on lawn where he held Fourth of July event

Washington Post

Public lands are at the forefront of Wyoming’s primaries

Inside Climate News

Border agency pauses construction in Big Bend National Park

NOTUS | Public Domain | E&E News | The Hill | The Travel | Axios | Texas Tribune | NPR | Wes Siler’s Newsletter

Judge denies Tohono O’odham request to halt border wall construction

Arizona Capitol Times

Colorado River plummets as lakes Powell and Mead drop to record lows

New York Times

Policy limiting public information on deaths and injuries at national parks raises concern among journalists

Aspen Times

Colorado’s private 14er

Aspen Journalism

Lower oil and gas bonds on federal land could cost taxpayers billions

Utah Public Radio

Quote of the day

If we lose places like Big Bend, we never get them back. The destruction that will be inflicted here will truly be irreparable.”

— Laiken Jordahl, Center for Biological Diversity, NPR

Picture This
@u.s.forestserviceFire personnel return from the fireline on the Black Canyon Fire in Utah.This photo shows the “fuel type” crews are working in. Building fireline in this terrain requires the use of chainsaws to clear a fuel break and hand tools to dig a fireline down to mineral soil. This is often grueling work requiring long hours under harsh conditions.

We thank all our wildland firefighters, the non-fire staff who support them, and the families at home who stand behind them throughout the fire year.

Featured photo: Big Bend National Park, National Park Service=

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As the dusk of summer nears, I feel embodied with a renewed sense of possibility. Summer has a way of inviting us into our bodies and the landscapes we inhabit. With each hike, I feel stronger. I am acutely aware of my heartbeat on steep inclines, sweat rising and drying almost instantly in the summer sun. I am in awe of the orchestra of wildflower bloom, the air alive with aromas of sage, grass, and juniper. Immersion in forests is itself a practice of health.

Summer can bring another kind of abundance through food. Vegetables and fruits that we eagerly await all year pop with the flavors of the landscape. For our family, the long-awaited fruits of the summer are Flathead cherries. Plump, sweet, tart, and minerally. We eat more whole foods grown close to home, carrying memories of soil, season, interactions with other life, and the hands of our community.

This summer, an unknown about my own health shifted the intensity with which I listen to my body. Health is something we wonder about and manage every day, yet sometimes an unknown can bring it into extraordinary focus, reminding us how deeply we value each other and participating in life. It brought me back to three deceptively simple and connected questions: What is health? How do we know what is healthy? And how do we cultivate health?

Across cultures, people have cultivated traditions of health grounded in different epistemologies, worldviews, observations, and forms of evidence. The field of medical anthropology explores this question, examining how health and healing are understood and experienced.

Ayurveda understands health, or svasthya, through balance among body, mind, food, behavior, season, and environment. Food and medicinal plants are integral to maintaining health and treating illness, with transformation central to their effects. The Ayurvedic concept of agni, often translated as digestive fire, considers what we eat and our capacity to digest and transform it, while prana speaks to the vital life force that sustains us. Agni reminds us that the same food may result in different biological exposure in different people depending on their constitution.

Traditional Chinese Medicine and Tibetan medical systems offer their own understandings of balance, including relationships among food, medicinal plants, individual constitution, season, and environment.

Years earlier, during fieldwork with Piaroa and Yekuana Amerindian communities in Venezuela’s Amazonas, I had asked this same question: What is health? Their responses expanded health beyond the individual. Health was collective, expressed through the vitality of families and communities, including the number of people in a community, and through relationships with the landscapes that sustained them. In Amazonian shamanic traditions, health extends further into cosmology. Plants, animals, people, spirits, and landscapes inhabit relational worlds in which healing extends beyond the individual body.

Since 1948, the World Health Organization has defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The NIH Whole Person Health framework similarly considers the whole person, emphasizing interconnected biological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains.

These ways of knowing reveal health as biological, personal, collective, and relational, shaped by what we eat, what our bodies make of it, the communities to which we belong, the living world we inhabit, and what we have access to.

And how do we know what is healthy? People have come to know what heals through observation and experimentation, taste and experience, and knowledge and evidence accumulated across generations. Humans learned to navigate landscapes of bitter, astringent, and potentially toxic plants through their senses and trial and error, discovering that some compounds that deter consumption can also have medicinal properties. This knowledge has shaped what people eat, avoid, and use for healing along a food-to-medicine continuum. This chemical diversity continues to shape medicine, with roughly half of small-molecule drugs tracing their structural origins to natural products.

Biomedical and molecular sciences expand how we know what is healthy through measurement. As a first-year doctoral student, I heard the late food chemist Edwin Frankel lecture on inflammation as a root of disease and the role of foods in exacerbating or mitigating inflammation. Over two decades of evidence later, inflammation has emerged as a biological thread across many chronic diseases, while diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds are associated with lower inflammation and chronic disease risk. Beyond essential nutrients, these foods contain prebiotic fibers, peptides, and diverse bioactive metabolites that interact with inflammatory pathways, metabolism, and the gut microbiome.

Human health also relies on planetary health. Understanding what is healthy means understanding what health looks like in the living landscapes that produce our food, from soil and biodiversity to the fungi, microbes, and other organisms that sustain food systems.

Omics technologies enable precise characterization of the molecular diversity of foods and their interactions across complex diets, revealing distinct biomolecular signatures. These same tools can measure biological responses to what we eat through biomarkers. AI can also connect food molecular patterns to human proteins and pathways. We can further build new evidence by backtracking to existing epidemiological and clinical studies to link molecular signatures of foods and diets with health outcomes. Predictions can then be tested experimentally and clinically, taking us from food molecular composition to biological exposure and health outcomes.

Ultimately, this growing evidence base is powerful for establishing intake ranges for food molecules whose structures and functions we may not yet know and, where scientifically supported, thresholds for harmful and health-supporting biomolecules to inform dietary guidelines and public health recommendations.

Collectively, this is the frontier of understanding food as biological exposure, one where we should dedicate resources, investments, and capacity strengthening toward healthier food systems. This is perhaps what excites me most about this emerging chapter of my career: the possibility of finally understanding the continuum of soil to food to health at unprecedented resolution and translating that knowledge to improve lives for all.

As our capacity for discovery grows, so must our capacity for stewardship. Access and Benefit Sharing, Indigenous Data Sovereignty, and attribution must advance alongside discovery.

I also thought deeply about what it means to cultivate health this summer while developing an opening keynote for the WSU Bread Lab’s Grain Gathering, Cultivating Health and Nourishing Community with Food Intelligence. Amid the dreamy, diversified farms of the Skagit Valley, the idea came alive. At six in the morning on the second day of the gathering, farmers, breeders, millers, bakers, researchers, and makers gathered around a wood-fired oven making whole-grain bagels. At the center was one of humanity’s most ancient and essential crops: wheat.

Wheat offers a lens into how we cultivate health. A breeder selects for flavor, resilience, nutrition, and performance. A farmer cultivates that potential through soil, biodiversity, climate, and management. A miller determines what flows through the system, and a baker transforms flour with water, microbes, and heat. Our emerging work through The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) is revealing how the molecular and health attributes of wheat vary among varieties and shift with production and processing practices, including fermentation. This transformation continues when we eat. Our gut microbes transform components of wheat into metabolites that interact with our immune system, metabolism, and cells.

During the bagel breakfast at the Grain Gathering, I was asked many incredible questions, but one made me stop and reflect: What makes you hopeful? In the face of uncertainty, tragedies, suffering, inequity, and threats to human and planetary health, hope itself can feel audacious. I find hope in the expansive possibility of knowing the continuum from soil to food to health at a resolution we have never known before, toward better lives for all. I find hope in gratitude for this beautiful living world. In love, higher purpose, the greater good, and faith in the goodness of humanity.

I have come to understand cultivation as creating the conditions for flourishing. Health is cultivated in much the same way. We cultivate health through the seeds we select, the landscapes we steward, the foods we grow, the knowledge we generate, the ways we move and rest, and the relationships we nourish. We cultivate it by expanding access, integrating healthy food into healthcare, and creating food systems where the healthy choice becomes the easy choice. Health is deeply personal and collective. Our health cannot be separated from the health of our communities and the living planet we share.

As the dusk of summer nears, I am grateful for the remarkable gift of participating in life. To cultivate health is to cultivate the conditions for life to flourish.

This essay is part of Food Tank’s Flourish Series: Food and Health from Molecules to Systems, authored by Selena Ahmed, exploring how food connects us to the living world while asking what it means to flourish. For more in the series, click here.

Artwork courtesy of Jeannie Ortiz commissioned for The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) and Food Tank’s Flourish Series. All rights reserved.

The post Op-Ed | Cultivating Health: Food, Relationships, and the Living World appeared first on Food Tank.

The migration journeys of Vermont’s neotropical migrants—birds that breed here in the summer and winter in the tropics—are arduous, with birds often flying thousands of miles to their wintering...