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Every six to seven years, climate modelling groups around the world run a coordinated set of simulations that explore how the climate could change in the future. 

These simulations form a key line of evidence for future projections used in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports. 

They are built around a set of common scenarios – or “pathways” – of future greenhouse gas emissions.

A new set of scenarios has now been published for the seventh phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP7). 

These replace the “shared socioeconomic pathways” (SSPs) that drove the previous generation of climate models and featured heavily in the IPCC’s sixth assessment report (AR6).

The new scenarios are quite different from their predecessors in a number of notable ways. 

Rather than being named, somewhat enigmatically, according to their “radiative forcing levels”, the new scenarios are named simply by their emissions trajectories – ranging from “low-to-negative” to “high”. 

They no longer consider “no-climate-policy” baseline worlds, but instead explore the implications of current policies continuing, being strengthened, or weakening.

These new scenarios also dramatically revise high-end future emissions downward, far below the highest scenarios in prior generations, in order to reflect a world where a 21st century dominated by coal use is no longer plausible.

At the same time, they revise the lowest emissions scenarios upwards relative to those featured in the AR6, with at least some “overshoot” of the Paris Agreement’s “aspirational” target to limit global warming to 1.5C now “unavoidable”.

While modelling groups are just getting started on the full Earth-system model simulations, the emissions scenarios give a clear picture of the range of futures that will inform the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle (AR7).

Here, Carbon Brief unpacks how the new scenarios were designed and how they differ from the SSPs published almost a decade ago. 

The article also compares CO2 emissions and warming outcomes between the new scenarios and their predecessors, explores the range of future warming outcomes and examines why the high end of the scenario range has shifted markedly downward. 

Finally, Carbon Brief examines the scale of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) built into the scenarios and new extensions of scenarios to 2150 and beyond.

Key highlights from Carbon Brief’s analysis of the new scenarios include:

• The seven new scenarios give a range of global warming in 2100 from 1.6C to 3.3C above pre-industrial levels – markedly narrower than the 1.5C to 4.7C range in their SSP predecessors.
• The top of the scenario range has fallen for the first time in four generations of climate modelling. The highest scenarios used in the three previous IPCC assessment cycles all produced around 4.6-4.9C of global warming in 2100, whereas CMIP7’s high scenario only reaches 3.3C and has around half the cumulative CO2 emissions.
• The new “medium” scenario that is analogous to policies in place today reaches 2.9C in 2100, crossing 2C around 2050 and 3C around 2110, with a one-in-four chance of exceeding 4C by 2150.
• The lowest scenarios have shifted modestly upwards, as a future that avoids any overshoot of 1.5C is no longer considered plausible. The very-low scenario peaks at around 1.8C mid-century before falling back close to 1.5C by 2100.
• The updated socioeconomic assumptions underpinning the new scenarios describe a more crowded and less wealthy planet than the original SSPs, with the global human population now peaking at 10.1bn people around 2080 in the medium pathway and income per person in 2100 between 10% and 25% lower.
• Every scenario that limits warming leans heavily on carbon dioxide removal, with cumulative removals by 2150 ranging from 655GtCO2 in the very-low scenario to 2,360GtCO2 in low-to-negative scenario.

Article sections

• A new generation of scenarios
• Storylines and emissions levels
• No more ‘baseline’ scenarios and other changes
• Timescales and other changes
• A narrower range of future CO2 emissions
• What the new scenarios mean for future warming
• Crossing warming thresholds
• Carbon dioxide removal
• No single climate future
• Methodology

Article Contents Expand menu

• A new generation of scenarios
• Storylines and emissions levels
• No more ‘baseline’ scenarios and other changes
• Timescales and other changes
• A narrower range of future CO2 emissions
• What the new scenarios mean for future warming
• Crossing warming thresholds
• Carbon dioxide removal
• No single climate future
• Methodology

A new generation of scenarios

To simulate how human activity could shape the climate of the future, climate modellers must estimate future levels of “radiative forcings” – the external drivers that cause global warming. These include atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, air pollutants and land-use changes.

Given that no one knows how the future will unfold, modellers use a handful of scenarios that span a wide range of plausible outcomes.

The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) coordinates the development and running of emissions scenarios for climate models used in IPCC reports. 

In April 2026, high-level details about the new set of scenarios for CMIP7 were published in the journal Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).  

On 1 September, the underlying emissions data was released into the public domain by the ScenarioMIP team. 

There are seven new CMIP7 scenarios designed to drive model simulations for AR7. The first model runs took place in spring 2026 and initial results are expected later this year.

The previous SSP scenarios were starting to show their age. Finalised in 2015-17 using historical data ending in 2015, several years projected by the SSP scenarios were already in the past by the time AR6 concluded in 2021. Meanwhile, the world had changed considerably. 

(For a full guide to the SSPs, see Carbon Brief‘s 2018 explainer.)

Storylines and emissions levels

The most visible change in the new generation of scenarios is their names. Where the SSPs combined five socioeconomic “storylines” with radiative forcing targets (SSP1-2.6, SSP5-8.5, etc), the CMIP7 scenarios are named simply for the emissions trajectory that they follow.

The table below summarises the seven scenarios and the integrated assessment model (IAM) that produced each “marker” run – in other words, the specific IAM run used to generate the scenario that, in turn, will be used by CMIP7 climate models. IAMs run simulations of how the future energy system and emissions may evolve under different assumptions around socioeconomics, future technology costs and climate policy.

The table below also details how the scenario fares against a number of key metrics assessed by Carbon Brief, including CO2 emissions and warming outcomes. 

(For more on Carbon Brief’s approach, see: Methodology.).

ScenarioMarker IAMUnderlying SSPEmissions pathwayNet CO2 in 2100 (GtCO2/yr)Cumulative CO2, 2024-2100 (GtCO2)Warming in 2100 (C vs 1850-1900)High (H)GCAM 8sSSP3Emissions as high as plausible with policy rollback553,8203.3 (2.6-4.4)High-to-low (HL)WITCH 6.0SSP5High to mid-century, then net-zero CO2 by 2100-12,5662.8 (2.1-4.0)Medium (M)IMAGE 3.4SSP2Current policies frozen at 2025 levels342,8142.9 (2.2-3.9)Medium-low (ML)COFFEE 1.6SSP2Medium until 2040, then decline to net-zero CO2 by 2100-91,7572.3 (1.7-3.3)Low (L)MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM 2.1SSP2Aims to keep warming likely below 2C-96731.8 (1.3-2.7)Very-low (VL)REMIND-MAgPIE 3.5-4.11SSP11.5C with as little overshoot as plausible-63101.6 (1.1-2.5)Low-to-negative (LN)AIM 3.0SSP21.5C with higher overshoot, then net-negative greenhouse gases-253841.7 (1.2-2.5)

Warming values are medians (with the 5-95% range) from the 841-member FaIR ensemble used in this article (see: Methodology); the marker model assignments come from the ScenarioMIP database. Note that scenario names in the database differ from the official CMIP7 names (for example, the high-to-low scenario appears as “SSP5 – Medium-Low Emissions_a”).

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Each of the new scenarios is built on a set of updated SSP storylines similar to those used in the original SSP scenarios. These include assumptions about future population, technological and economic growth, as well as potential for international cooperation that shape the resulting emissions pathways. The socioeconomic assumptions underlying these revised SSPs were updated in 2024 with new population and economic projections. 

Most of the new emissions scenarios are now based on the “middle-of-the-road” SSP2 that assumes current socioeconomic trends broadly continue, with only one scenario using each of SSP1 (“sustainability”), SSP3 (“regional rivalry”) and SSP5 (“fossil-fuelled development”). None of the new scenarios uses SSP4 (“inequality”). 

The solid lines in the figure below show updated global human population, GDP and GDP per capita values in CMIP7 (solid lines), compared to the original SSPs from CMIP’s sixth phase (CMIP6), shown by the dashed lines.

World population (left), GDP (centre) and GDP per capita (right) for SSPs 1-5 in the original 2013-era SSP database (dashed) and the 2024 update (solid). Note that the updated SSP1 and SSP5 population curves effectively overlap. GDP is shown in 2017 US dollars PPP, with the original converted from 2005 US dollars using the US GDP deflator (x1.235). Data from the IIASA SSP database; chart by Carbon Brief.

The change in socioeconomic assumptions is substantial. Global population was revised upward in nearly every scenario, with the updated SSP2 projecting there will be 9.9 billion people in 2100 – an increase of 1 billion people compared to the 2013-era SSP. 

GDP was revised downward in the high-end growth scenarios (SSP1 and SSP5), slightly upward in SSP3 and SSP4 and was largely unchanged in SS2. 

The combination of these changes means that income per person in 2100 is around 10-25% lower in most scenarios, with only SSP3 and SSP4 seeing mostly unchanged income per capita. 

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In short, the socioeconomic world underlying the new scenarios is somewhat more crowded and less wealthy per person than the one the SSPs originally imagined.

Another notable change is the shift in the SSP that underlies the highest future emissions scenario. 

In the original SSPs, the “very high” SSP5-8.5 scenario was based on SSP5, while the new “high” scenario in CMIP7 is based on SSP3. 

The GMD study explains that this is because IAM teams that developed the scenarios found that SSP3 and SSP5 variants produced similar emissions. They judged that the “fragmented” SSP3 world – which is characterised by large challenges to adaptation – to be more relevant for exploring high-end risks.

No more ‘baseline’ scenarios and other changes

In another important change, the authors of the CMIP7 scenarios decided to eliminate “baseline” scenarios that assumed a world without any climate policy. These scenarios were previously used as a counterfactual against which to compare climate-changed worlds.

Instead, the range of future emissions scenarios starts with current policies and explores ways that they could be strengthened, weakened, or kept the same. The high scenario explores a plausible “rollback of current mitigation policies“. 

The medium scenario, by contrast, extends climate policies officially implemented as of 2025, without assuming countries achieve their Paris Agreement pledges – known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – or net-zero targets that are not yet backed by legislation. 

In their GMD paper, the authors of the CMIP7 scenarios emphasise that the medium scenario “should not be considered as a ‘most likely’ scenario”, but that it can provide a benchmark against which the effect of future policy strengthening or weakening can be measured. It is roughly analogous in its emissions levels to the old SSP2-4.5 scenario.

The new low scenario explores a world where climate policy is rapidly strengthened and warming by 2100 is limited to below 2C. This makes it analogous to the old SSP1-2.6 scenario. 

The very-low scenario limits global warming to around 1.5C by 2100, similar to the old SSP1-1.9 scenario. However, it involves a greater degree of overshoot mid-century, reflecting the fact that global emissions did not begin to rapidly decline in 2020 as envisioned by SSP1-1.9. As the authors of the GMD ScenarioMIP paper point out: “At this point of time, some overshoot of the 1.5C seems unavoidable.”

In addition, there are a number of scenarios that start on one path before undertaking rapid mitigation. These high-to-low, medium-to-low and low-to-negative scenarios are intended to explore futures where mitigation is further delayed, followed by a rapid turn-around later in the century.

The scenario developers noted that there is no specific likelihood or probabilities assigned to any scenario, but rather only a judgement that all are within the realm of plausibility given where the world is today. They also said that “there might be potential futures outside the ScenarioMIP scenario range”.

Timescales and other changes

In addition to the shift away from baseline scenarios, there are three other notable design changes made in CMIP7. 

First, CMIP7 models will be driven by emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, rather than set atmospheric concentrations. 

In every previous generation of models, the ScenarioMIP experiments required that modelling groups simulate future climate using the same set of CO2 concentrations. For CMIP7, models with an interactive carbon cycle are asked to run in “emissions-driven” mode for CO2, calculating atmospheric concentrations themselves based on emissions. 

This is a significant improvement. It means that the substantial uncertainty in carbon-cycle feedbacks will now show up directly in the range of projected warming, rather than being overlooked. (The change applies to CO2 only; methane, nitrous oxide and halocarbons remain prescribed as concentrations.) 

Second, emissions match observations up to 2023. IAM modellers were asked to stay close to observed trends up to 2025 to avoid emissions diverging from reality before models were run. Scenario differences only open up after 2026, avoiding an earlier problem of scenarios diverging from reality years before the models were even run.

Finally, the period over which models are being run has been extended from 2100 to 2150. This is important as the world is already more than a quarter of the way through the 21st century. 

The extended model runs out to 2150 will provide a more thorough exploration of the warming that people born in the coming decades may experience within their lifetimes. 

In addition, all scenarios have extensions to 2500 where temperatures are eventually stabilised. These allow scientists to explore changes to long-term Earth-system processes, such as ice sheets and sea level, as well as whether warming is reversible. 

A narrower range of future CO2 emissions

Overall, the new scenarios provide a notably more narrow range of future CO2 emissions than the SSP scenarios used in CMIP6. 

The figure below shows net global CO2 emissions (combining fossil-fuel and land-use emissions) for the seven new scenarios, alongside the five SSP scenarios used for climate model runs in CMIP6 (e.g. SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5).

Net global CO2 emissions (GtCO2/yr) in the seven CMIP7 scenarios (solid lines, coloured) and the CMIP6-era SSP scenarios (dashed) for the period from 1990 to 2100. CMIP7 scenarios are harmonised to 2023, while SSP scenarios (from RCMIP) were harmonised to 2015. Data from the ScenarioMIP database and RCMIP; chart by Carbon Brief.

At the bottom of the range, the new scenarios closely track their predecessors: the very-low scenario reaches net-zero CO2 around mid-century much like SSP1-1.9, while the low scenario lands close to SSP1-2.6. 

The chart below shows total emissions for the same scenarios for the period 2024-2100.

Cumulative global CO2 emissions (GtCO2) between 2024 and 2100 in the seven CMIP7 scenarios (solid colours) and the CMIP6-era SSPs (light colours). Data from the ScenarioMIP database and RCMIP; chart by Carbon Brief.

The lowest emissions scenarios now have somewhat higher total emissions, reflecting the failure of the world to rapidly reduce emissions after 2020 that occurred in the lower SSP emissions scenarios, such as SSP1-1.9 and SSP1-2.6. The very-low scenario results in 310bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) cumulative emissions between 2024 and 2100, compared to around 110GtCO2 in SSP1-1.9.

At the top end, the change is particularly dramatic. The high scenario in CMIP7 reaches 55GtCO2 per year in 2100. The previous high scenario, SSP5-8.5, by contrast, reached around 126GtCO2 per year in 2100. 

In cumulative terms – which is what matters most for global warming – high reaches around 3,820GtCO2 over 2024-2100, half the roughly 7,600GtCO2 of SSP5-8.5 and about three-quarters of the 5,140GtCO2 of SSP3-7.0.

To put it another way: the top of the new scenario range sits between SSP2-4.5 and SSP3-7.0 in cumulative emissions terms, which is territory that CMIP6 treated as its middle ground.

To make the scale of this shift clear, Carbon Brief analysed the CO2 emissions trajectories in each of the prior generations of high-end emissions scenarios, using the same simple climate model – FaIR – to calculate future warming.

Fossil CO2 emissions relative to 1850-1900 for the highest scenario of each climate modelling generation: SRES A1FI (CMIP3, used in AR4), RCP8.5 (CMIP5, AR5), SSP5-8.5 (CMIP6, AR6) and CMIP7’s high, all run through AR6-calibrated FaIR ensemble. Data: SRES database v1.1, RCMIP v5.1, ScenarioMIP database; chart by Carbon Brief.

Below, four different generations of emissions scenarios are examined. The SRES scenarios were originally published in 2000 and used in the IPCC’s third (2001) and fourth (2007) assessment reports (and the corresponding CMIP3 model runs). The RCPs were developed in the early 2010s and used in the IPCC fifth assessment report (AR5; 2013) and CMIP5, while the SSPs were developed in the late 2010s and used in the IPCC AR6 report and CMIP6.

Over the past two decades, the highest emissions scenarios all resulted in comparable amounts of warming in 2100: SRES A1FI (the highest SRES scenario) reached 4.6C in 2100 (5-95% range; 3.5-6.1C), RCP8.5 reached 4.9C (3.7-6.5C) and SSP5-8.5 reached 4.6C (3.5-6.2C). 

(RCP8.5 edges out its successor despite lower CO2 emissions because it assumed considerably more methane and nitrous oxide.) 

Global mean surface temperature change in 2100 relative to 1850-1900 (medians and 5-95% ranges) for the highest scenario of each climate modelling generation: SRES A1FI (CMIP3, used in AR4), RCP8.5 (CMIP5, AR5), SSP5-8.5 (CMIP6, AR6) and CMIP7’s high, all run through AR6-calibrated FaIR ensemble. Data: SRES database v1.1, RCMIP v5.1, ScenarioMIP database; chart by Carbon Brief.

CMIP7’s high scenario comes in remarkably lower, at 3.3C (2.6-4.4C).

The downward revision of future emissions in CMIP7 reflects two key changes since RCP8.5 was published back in 2011. First, the plausible baseline of a repeal of current policy has fallen. Cheap solar, wind and batteries, a global plateau in coal use and more than $2tr per year in clean-energy investment mean that a rollback in climate policy would not result in coal deployment levels assumed in the RCP8.5 scenario.

The GMD study states that CMIP6’s high-emission levels “have become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends”. 

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s recent factcheck of false claims around the retirement of the SSP5-8.5 emissions scenario. Also see Carbon Brief’s recent interview with Prof Detlef van Vuuren, a key architect of both the old SSPs and new scenarios.)

Second, part of the apparent decline reflects a correction of how scenarios are communicated – rather than real-world progress. The old high-end scenarios always represented an estimate of worst-case scenarios at the time, rather than likely outcomes. 

Genuine progress in reducing emissions probably accounts for around 0.7C of the roughly 1.7C gap between SSP5-8.5 and today’s current-policy trajectory, with the remainder reflecting that the baseline was never particularly likely.

What the new scenarios mean for future warming

To compare warming outcomes across scenario generations on a like-for-like basis, Carbon Brief ran both the seven CMIP7 scenarios and the CMIP6 SSP emission scenarios through the same simple climate model. 

(This is FaIR v2.2, using the 841-member ensemble calibrated and constrained to match the assessment of climate sensitivity in IPCC AR6, historical warming and ocean heat uptake). 

These values may differ from the ultimate results that are found by CMIP7 climate models, but give a sneak peak of what those results may look like when they become available.

Median warming relative to 1850-1900 for the seven CMIP7 scenarios, with observations to 2025 (black) and the 5-95% ensemble range shaded for the medium and low scenarios. Dashed lines show warming between 2100 and 2150. Chart by Carbon Brief.

The seven scenarios produce warming in 2100, relative to pre-industrial (1850-1900), that ranges from 1.6C (with a 5-95% range of 1.1-2.5C) in the very-low scenario to 3.3C (2.6-4.4C) in high, with the current-policy medium scenario reaching 2.9C (2.2-3.9C). Warming also continues after 2100 in both the medium and high scenarios.

The figure below shows the range of 2100 warming (5th to 95th percentile) relative to the preindustrial period expected in each of the old SSP scenarios and the new CMIP7 ones, along with a central estimate (white dots).

Warming in 2100 for CMIP7 scenarios and CMIP6 SSPs run through the identical FaIR ensemble (medians and 5-95% ranges). Chart by Carbon Brief.

The largest changes are, unsurprisingly, at the top. CMIP7’s high scenario (3.3C in 2100) produces less warming than SSP3-7.0 (3.7C in the same ensemble) and far less than SSP5-8.5 (4.7C). 

The entire CMIP6 “high” tier (e.g. SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0) now sits above anything in the new scenario set, at least up to 2100. Extended beyond 2100, however, high keeps climbing towards levels the previous extreme scenarios reached earlier.

At the low end, the picture is more similar. The very-low scenario (1.6C in 2100) lands close to SSP1-1.9 (1.5C) and low (1.8C) is essentially indistinguishable from SSP1-2.6 (1.8C) in 2100. 

However, the new low scenario involves more rapid late-century emissions reductions and greater amounts of carbon removal than its SSP analogue, while the very-low scenario involves greater overshoot of 1.5C mid-century.

Crossing warming thresholds

In addition to calculating 2100 and 2150 warming, Carbon Brief has calculated the likelihood of passing different global warming levels (2C, 2.5C, 3C, 4C and 5C) over time in the new CMIP7 scenarios. 

The chart below uses the IPCC approach of calculating the crossing year based on a 20-year average, rather than when a single year exceeds the warming level.

Share of the 841-member FaIR climate model runs that exceed each warming level by year under the medium (top) and high (bottom) scenarios. Marked years show the median IPCC-convention (20-year average) crossing; percentages show the chance of exceeding each level by 2150. Chart by Carbon Brief.

Under the medium scenario, which reflects a world where current policies are maintained, passing 1.5C is essentially locked in. 

Most models cross the threshold by the late 2020s or early 2030s. The 2C limit is crossed around 2050 on average and 3C by around 2110. The chance of exceeding 4C is around one-in-four by 2150, but, ultimately, rises to roughly 50% if emissions continue after that point.

Under the high scenario, 2C arrives in the 2040s, 3C in the 2080s and the chance of exceeding 4C by 2150 is around 60% (and around 95% by 2300). Even 5C is reached by 2150 in roughly 20% of climate model simulations.

The lower scenarios tell a different story. In the very-low scenario, the chance that peak warming (which the IPCC determines using a 20-year average of warming) ever exceeds 1.5C is around 90%. This reflects the fact that passing 1.5C is almost unavoidable at this point. 

However, the chance of surpassing 2C sits at around 30% and the scenario has warming falling after mid-century as more CO2 is removed from the atmosphere than is added. 

Carbon dioxide removal

Every scenario that has global warming peaking and declining requires pulling CO2 back out of the atmosphere. Otherwise, warming from CO2 emissions will persist for millennia. 

CO2 removal (CDR) remains one of the few levers available to reduce future temperatures – particularly given additional warming caused by cuts to aerosol pollution. 

The chart below shows the total CDR deployment in each of the different scenarios by year, reflecting the sum of both land-based and engineered approaches (top), as well as the total CDR deployment between 2024 and 2150 (bottom).

Total carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in the CMIP7 scenarios (solid) and their extensions (dashed), including both “engineered” and “novel” methods (bioenergy and carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture (DAC), enhanced weathering, biochar) plus land-based removals (the net land-use sink plus soil carbon management), along with with cumulative CDR for 2024-2150. Chart by Carbon Brief.

Every scenario that deeply cuts global emissions in CMIP7 also involves a large amount of CDR. 

The low-to-negative scenario pulls a cumulative 2,360GtCO2 out of the atmosphere by 2150, roughly 60 years of today’s emissions run in reverse. 

The high-to-low scenario has around 1,480GtCO2 cumulative CDR, medium-low has 1,450GtCO2 and low has 1,360GtCO2. 

Even the very-low scenario, which seeks to minimise CDR use, requires 655GtCO2 of removals between 2024 and 2150.

The degree to which scenarios rely on “engineered” removals – such as the use of biochar or direct air capture – or land-based removals – including afforestation and reforestation – ranges  across models. 

In the low scenario, roughly one-third of the removals is from the land “sink”, while low-to-negative relies almost entirely on engineered methods, with direct air capture alone reaching around 16GtCO2 per year by 2100.

The chart below shows the deployment of engineered removals by year (top), as well as the total engineered CDR used between 2024 and 2150 (bottom). The lower plot also includes a breakdown between the portion of CDR that requires geologic storage (e.g. DAC and BECCS) and the portion that does not (e.g. enhanced weathering and biochar) and compares the total to a recent “prudent” total CO2 storage limit published in the scientific literature.

(For more on limits to carbon storage capacity, see Carbon Brief’s 2025 guest post.)

Engineered and novel CO2 removal only, with the cumulative BECCS and direct air capture component – the technologies requiring geological storage – compared against the “prudent” 1,460GtCO2 (range 1,290-2,710GtCO2) geologic storage limit set out in Gidden et al. (2025). Chart by Carbon Brief.

The amount of CDR going toward geological storage is most highest in the low-to-negative scenario, which injects around 1,750GtCO2 of BECCS and direct-air-capture CO2 underground by 2150. 

The high-to-low and low scenarios each commit around 800GtCO2 to storage by 2150. This is within the range of available geologic storage, but would require that the storage industry handles more CO2 than the mass of oil currently moved by the fossil-fuel industry. 

That said, there are other potential CDR approaches – such as enhanced rock weathering, surficial mineralisation and ocean alkalinity enhancement – that do not require injection of CO2 into geologic formations. In-situ mineralisation approaches that inject CO2 into alkaline rock formations such as basalt or peridotite could also open up more potential CO2 storage.

It is worth noting that the amount of CDR deployed in these scenarios would require planetary-scale engineering at the cost of trillions of dollars, while many of the engineered CDR approaches are still relatively early-stage technologies. 

No single climate future

The goal of scenarios is to span a range of possible futures. While it may be tempting to treat current climate and energy policies – and the medium scenario – as a forecast, there is no reason to expect that they will not change in the future. 

It is likely that policies will continue to be strengthened, as has been the case over the past two decades. However, they may also be weakened if national priorities or politics change, as has happened in the US during the two terms of the Trump administration.

In the new CMIP7 scenarios there is no “business-as-usual” scenario, but rather a narrower range of futures than was available in CMIP6, reflecting greater clarity among scientists on where the world is heading in terms of future energy use and emissions. 

The fact that the worst-case scenarios of the past have become increasingly implausible is good news. However, this is tempered by the fact that the very-low emission scenarios have, in turn, become harder to achieve given that global emissions have yet to decline.

There is also real uncertainty in the climate-system response to emissions. This is due to uncertainty around how sensitive the climate is to a build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere, as well as how the carbon cycle will respond to emissions. 

The CMIP7 medium scenario – which has a central estimate of 2.9C of warming by 2100 – still has around a 3% chance of reaching 4C by that date. If emissions continue, those odds increase to 25% by 2150. This remains far outside anything resembling a safe outcome for the climate system.

The scenarios are now being run using the new CMIP7 models, whose emissions-driven runs will fold carbon-cycle uncertainty directly into projections. These projections will subsequently be analysed in the reports of AR7. 

Ultimately, it will be decisions made by governments, businesses and individuals that decide which of these seven futures become closest to reality.

Methodology

Emissions scenarios shown in this article are the seven CMIP7 ScenarioMIP scenarios set out in van Vuuren et al. (2026), harmonised to observed 2023 emissions, with rule-based extensions to 2500 generated using the FLEX methodology. Emissions through 2100 match the ScenarioMIP database; extension trajectories are indicative and may differ from the final published extensions.

Temperature projections use FaIR v2.2 with the fair-calibrate v1.4.5 constrained ensemble (841 members set out in Smith et al. (2024), which matches the AR6 assessed climate sensitivity (ensemble ECS median 3C, 5-95% 2.0-5.1C), historical warming and ocean heat content. 

Historical emissions (1750-2022) use the FaIR historical emissions dataset, with scenario emissions spliced in after 2023. 

Solar and volcanic forcing are updated through 2025 from the Climate Indicator forcing timeseries; future volcanic forcing ramps to the 1850-2021 climatological background by 2035 (following the CMIP7 protocol) and solar forcing follows a SOLARIS-HEPPA-derived cycle projection to 2300. 

All warming is expressed relative to 1850-1900.

SSP comparisons run the RCMIP-harmonised CMIP6 scenario emissions through the FaIR ensemble, which yields 2081-2100 warming 0.1-0.3C below the AR6-assessed values at the high end (e.g. SSP5-8.5: 4.2C vs 4.4C assessed), reflecting differences between the AR6 assessment and the FaIR configurations used here. Updating the volcanic dataset to use CMIP7 values (which revises the eruption-rich 1850-1900 baseline period) raises all reported anomalies by 0.03-0.05C.

For CDR, the scenario database reports the technology split (for example, BECCS, direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar, ocean-based, soil carbon management). Agriculture, forestry and other land-use  (AFOLU) removals are available only as a net flux, so are shown as the net sink where negative. Soil-carbon management is grouped with land-based rather than engineered removal, and the geological storage comparison uses BECCS plus direct air capture only. 

The figure showing high-end scenarios for the past four CMIP generations runs SRES A1FI through the same ensemble using the A1G MiniCAM model from the SRES database v1.1, spliced onto historical emissions at 2000, and covering CO2 (fossil and land use), methane, nitrous oxide and sulphur; SRES-era ozone-precursor projections (nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds) lie outside the calibrated range of FaIR, so RCP8.5 values are used instead. RCP8.5 uses RCMIP v5.1 emissions, with 13 minor halogenated gases absent from the RCP database following SSP5-8.5.

Related Guest post: How CMIP7 will shape the next wave of climate science 22.05.2026 Climate modelling Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts 29.04.2026 Climate modelling Limiting global warming to 2C would not ‘rule out’ extreme impacts 25.03.2026 Climate modelling State of the climate: 2025 in top-three hottest years on record as ocean heat surges 14.01.2026 Climate modelling

The post Explainer: The CMIP7 emissions scenarios – and how they explore future climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink

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

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

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

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

A rapidly warming mountain

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

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

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

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

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

A valley losing its ice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why attribution of the collapse itself is premature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are the takeaways here?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Standing Up for the Gualala River

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

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

Dogwood West: The Fight Returns to the Floodplain

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

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

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

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

Little Pepperwood THP: Next in Line

(Public Comment Deadline: September 8)

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

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

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

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

Action Alert: Introducing caltrees.org!

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

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

Navigating the Battle Over Watershed Roads (TMDL Update)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Field & Science Update: Weather Station Online

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

We Need Volunteer Support!

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

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

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

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

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

Honoring 24 Years of Digital Dedication

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

A Message From Our Secretary/Treasurer

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

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

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

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

Jeanne A. Jackson, Secretary/Treasurer, FoGR

To donate online::

Donate by credit card

– OR –

Donate in honor or memory of someone using credit card

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

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

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

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

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

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

Official records confirm this has not yet happened.

Photo: Helen Savage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Condition 1 of the appeal decision stated:

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

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

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

“Yes, permission has now lapsed”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The company also said:

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

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

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

Preston New Road

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

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

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

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

Other Cuadrilla sites

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

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

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

Lucas key financial figures

(Year ending 30 June 2026)

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

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

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

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

*Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amorization

Thomas Homer-Dixon and Toby Shannan

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading. 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cairo pushes back 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rosatom offers more than reactors 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo courtesy of Sam McCool, Pexels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Background

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

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

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

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

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

The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness

by Cal Flyn

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

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

Recomposed: Music, Climate, Crisis, Change

by Kyle Devine

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

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

End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World

by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

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

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

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

by Riverhorse Nakadate

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

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

The Shell Seeker: Encounters With Thirty Seashells

by Juli Berwald

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

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

The Green Kids Club Books

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

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

This Book Will Make You a Scientist

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

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

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

Felix Powell, Boy Squirrel

by Erin Entrada Kelly and illustrated by Erin Entrada Kelly

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

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

We Are the Keystones: Animals That Hold Habitats Together

by Katy S. Duffield with Hannah Salyer (Illustrator)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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