Alberta residents will vote this fall on whether to stay a province of Canada or start the process to become an independent nation. The upcoming ballot referendum brings oil-rich Alberta’s controversial separatist movement from the fringes squarely into the mainstream of public and political conversation. In a headspinning, cross-border development, the separatist fight recently spilled over into an elections scandal with links to the Michigan-based organization 10x Votes, the creator of a voter turnout app that aided United States President Donald Trump’s successful 2024 campaign.  

Separatism and scandal

Earlier this year, an official at the administrative agency Elections Alberta watched a leaked training video from a separatist group called the Centurion Project on YouTube. The video showed a Centurion database exposing the personal information of Alberta voters, prompting the agency to launch an investigation, the Canadian news organization CBC reported last month. 

The investigation later revealed Centurion’s database was based on an official voter list the organization was not authorized to view or distribute. The leaked list contained the names, addresses and polling station numbers of nearly 3 million Alberta voters in what experts called one of the “most significant privacy incidents” in Canadian history. 

Centurion made the database publicly searchable in an app used to gather support for the referendum on independence. For its part, “the organization denies any wrongdoing and said the datasets in its searchable database came from a third party,” CBC reports. 

The head of Centurion, David Parker, was served with a summons shortly after the investigation began in April. The app was shut down, and the database is now the subject of three separate investigations by Elections Alberta, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the provincial privacy commissioner, The Canadian Press reports. 

Links to the Alberta separatist movement stretch across the border 

Reporting on the separatist scandal revealed links to the Trump-appointed U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, by way of the Michigan-based organization 10x Votes. 

Hoekstra repeatedly promoted the 10x Votes app ahead of the 2024 election in his prior role as the head of Michigan’s Republican Party. The app allows users to search a public database to identify, “claim,” and seek to influence 10 infrequent voters in their family and friend circles.

Centurion’s Parker said he worked with 10x Votes over the course of nearly two years to create a version of the app for use in Alberta, later to be named the Centurion Project, the Canadian investigative news organization PressProgress reported. 

PressProgress reported Hoekstra is “personally acquainted” with the founders of 10x Votes, two wealthy and well-connected political operatives from west Michigan, though Hoekstra “denies any knowledge” of 10x Votes being used by Alberta separatists.

Two days after the PressProgress story broke, Canada’s National Observer reported that it found voter data from Alberta on 10x Votes’ website. This suggests that, beyond exchanging ideas, 10x Votes deployed data from real Alberta voters to help Parker develop the Centurion Project, the Observer reports. 

The editorial board of the Winnipeg Free Press, like many Canadians, have further concerns about the financial links yet to be discovered. “The extent to which American dollars and American help are involved in Alberta politics has to be established,” they wrote. “Foreign nationals helping Canadian separatists is simply not acceptable.”

None of this is good news for Canada-U.S. relations, which are already strained to the breaking point by Trump’s tariff wars, his references to Canada as the 51^st state, and his criticism of the NATO alliance, of which Canada is a member. Hoekstra has not particularly endeared himself to Canadians either, having defended the president’s “51st state” insult among other offensive remarks about the nation and its people. Now Trump allies face serious accusations of election meddling in a foreign country. 

Predictably, the revelations sparked a major backlash in Alberta and across Canada. News organizations have joined the pressure on Canadian Premier Mark Carney to declare Hoekstra persona non grata, while Parker has reportedly left the country and is not cooperating in the elections investigations.

Wait, why would Alberta want to leave Canada, anyway? 

Separatism is a hot-button issue in Canada, with longrunning secessionist leanings in French-speaking Quebec along with the movement in Alberta. While support for separatism in Quebec is primarily rooted in language and culture, the situation in Alberta is something different. 

Alberta is home to rich fossil fuel reserves, and resentment over Canada’s climate and economic policies is a driving force behind the province’s separatist movement. 

Lena Saleh of the York Center for Public Policy and Law in Toronto recently summarized their viewpoint: “Alberta is perched comfortably atop a mountain of wealth generated from its extensive oil and gas reserves. If liberated from Canada and the shackles of its oppressive transfer/equalization payment schemes, its wealth would remain within its borders, allowing Alberta to simply ‘take care of itself.’ Alberta, in other words, does not need Canada.”

Alberta’s sedimentary rock formations, called tar sands, contain an estimated 167 billion barrels of oil reserves, roughly four times the reserves held in the entire U.S. With a current output of just 3 million barrels a day, the resource could indeed sustain Alberta’s economy for decades if fully exploited.

However, there is a catch. Abundant as they are, Alberta’s tar sands have been described as a “carbon bomb” due to the environmental impacts of extracting oil-rich bitumen from the rock. According to some estimates, two tons of tar sands are required to produce one barrel of oil.

In past years, the carbon footprint and high expense of the operation acted as a check on investor interest in Alberta’s tar sands oil. Opposition to transporting the oil to the U.S. via projects like the failed Keystone XL pipeline is another limiting factor for landlocked Alberta, which sits just across the border from Montana. 

But as political tides change, oil interests see promise in new opportunities. That includes  an expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline originating in Alberta. The controversial project opens up access to ports in Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia, provoking outrage from climate advocates while making global export possible for Alberta tar sands oil. Last month, the Trump administration also fast-tracked an environmental review and issued a cross-border permit for the proposed 674-mile Bridger oil pipeline connecting Alberta to central Wyoming, Grist reports.

Though tar sands oil has become more competitive in global markets amid the U.S. war in Iran, it may be a stretch to argue it could support Alberta as an independent nation. S&P, for example, forecasts that growth in oil sands will slow despite the boost of war-related high oil prices, with production likely peaking at 3.5 million barrels a day as early as 2030, Jake Bittle and Naveena Sadasivam of Grist observed. 

Earlier this week Alberta Premier Danielle Smith dropped an even bigger political and financial bomb on the separatist movement in the form of a cost estimate for establishing Alberta as a fully functioning, independent government. As reported by the Calgary Herald, the calculation comes to approximately $80,000 for each resident, each year, for an annual total of almost $400 billion.

Smith seems confident the information will encourage Alberta voters to reject separatism in October. If the referendum does fail, it will stand as yet another humiliating, high-profile defeat on the world stage for Trump and his allies, who already face a hostile electorate in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections in November.

Feature image credit: CJ Toscano/Unsplash

TriplePundit]]> Taylor Haelterman https://triplepundit.com/?p=70903 2026-05-22T23:57:08Z 2026-05-29T13:00:00Z

Rye is having something of a renaissance in the San Luis Valley, thanks to its remarkable drought-tolerance, and two women behind the Rye Resurgence Project.

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This story was originally published in The Daily Yonder. For more rural reporting and small-town stories visit dailyyonder.com. It was produced with support from the LOR Foundation. LOR works with people in rural places to improve quality of life. 

Sarah Jones never thought she’d be a farmer. She grew up in San Diego and met her husband, Michael, who comes from four generations of farmers, in college in Seattle. But when — after living and working in a couple different cities — they moved to south-central Colorado’s San Luis Valley, where Michael grew up, Jones knew it was where she was supposed to be.

Jones Farm Organics is a fifth-generation family farm that grows potatoes — the San Luis Valley is the second largest potato-growing region in the United States. But when Sarah and Michael Jones moved back in 2017, they started expanding to grains to diversify their business and experiment with rotational winter crops that they can sell. First, they tried classic wheat varieties like Turkey Red and Red Fife, but those didn’t work well for their farm.

Then, Jones tried rye. “The funny thing with rye was that my father-in-law had been planting rye since the ‘80’s as a cover crop,” she said.

As it turned out, rye was the answer.

Rye uses significantly less water than other common rotational winter crops like alfalfa and barley, which require 24-26 inches of water and 18-20 inches of water per acre, respectively. In contrast, rye uses only 10-12 inches of water per acre. That’s a huge water savings when multiplied across a standard 120-acre field.

Jones wondered how that effect could be extended across the valley. “Could we convert or convince farmers to make some changes to grow more rye and less of these other crops?” she said.

In the end, neighbors were excited to join. Jones and co-founder Heather Dutton launched the Rye Resurgence Project, an effort to get more farmers growing rye — and thus saving water — in 2023.

Storms in the high desert, and some “reputation rehabilitation”

In the San Luis Valley, water is scarce. In fact, the valley is an alpine desert — it sits above 7,500 feet in elevation and receives around seven inches of rainfall a year, much less than other parts of Colorado.

This year, the water situation in the valley, and across the West, is even more dire. “Our snowpack is sitting at 13 percent of average,” said Dutton, manager of the San Luis Valley Water Conservation District, and Jones’s co-conspirator on the Rye Resurgence Project. ”We have to be that much more innovative to find these solutions where we can use even less water but still support our agriculture community,” Dutton said.

Traditionally, in the San Luis Valley, potatoes are harvested in the fall, and many farmers leave their soil bare until replanting the next spring, or grow crops like alfalfa that also require a relatively high volume of water. Rob Jones, Michael’s father, started planting rye to cover the soil over the winter since it protects against erosion during stormy seasons. But under Rob’s stewardship, the rye planted on the Jones Farm was not making much, if any, money.

In spring 2023, a dust storm hit the San Luis Valley and changed the future of rye in the region. In the valley, dust storms aren’t rare in the spring — it’s a windy season all across the Southwest due to rapidly changing daily temperatures and a stronger jet stream moving north at that time of year.

When the 2023 dust storm hit, the Joneses had already started growing rye on their farm and in conversations with Dutton, the idea to apply for a state grant to support other farmers interested in experimenting with rye emerged. “It was working for us. Rye as a cover crop and a cash crop checked all the boxes for us,” Sarah Jones said.

One of the challenges of growing rye to sell was figuring out who was going to buy it. To that end, Jones said they had to do some “rye reputation rehabilitation.” Contrary to what most people might believe, “rye does not taste like caraway seed,” she said.

Rye is actually a fairly neutral grain that works well in most baked goods, from brownies to pizza to bread. It also has lower gluten and higher fiber content than wheat. To that end, one of the main goals of the Rye Resurgence Project is to find partners that would buy and use rye: bakeries, distilleries and millers.

A rye resurgence

Kris Gosar’s flour mill and sausage factory is a few miles outside of Monte Vista, Colorado, down a network of dirt roads. Gosar is the owner of Gosar Natural Foods, which produces both sausage, Gosar Sausage, and stone-ground flour, Mountain Mama Flour.

His whole-grain flour doesn’t just support better nutrition; it supports the local food ecosystem that Jones and Dutton are creating with the Rye Resurgence Project. Gosar buys grain from local farmers and mills it into flour, which is used across southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.

“Wheat has wonderful nutrient capabilities, [but] they sift out all the good nutrients to make white flour, and they mill it with a pretty high temperature so it burns out all the nutrients,” Gosar said.

Many small towns across the country used to have their own local mills, churning out fresh flour for the community. Now, milling is a concentrated industry with just 21 U.S. companies controlling 96.3 percent of the entire milling capacity of the country. Stone ground mills that produce mostly whole grain flour are even more rare. Most large-scale mills produce large quantities of white flour with very few nutrients.

Gosar is one of five generations of farmers, including his two sons, who help out with the family business. His parents started the flour mill so that they wouldn’t have to drive nearly four hours to Denver to sell their grain. In the 1970s, they were one of the first organic grain farms in Colorado. Now, Gosar doesn’t grow his own grain, but he does buy it from local farmers in the San Luis Valley. Jones Farm Organics is one of his producers.

Baking against the grain

Part of the goal of the Rye Resurgence Project is to connect farmers to consumers and try to get bakers and restaurants to use more rye. One of the bakeries that has taken up this challenge is another local San Luis Valley business, Tumbleweed Bread.

Jessica Larriva, Tumbleweed’s owner, grew up in the valley but learned to bake in Portland, Oregon. When she moved back in 2017 to care for her mother, there was a lack of bakeries in the region. Larriva started selling bread and baked goods out of her house under a cottage food license and eventually grew her business into a wholesale bakery under the name Tumbleweed Bread. In March 2025, she opened a cafe in downtown Monte Vista, selling baked goods, bread, sandwiches and soup.

Tumbleweed Bread is one of the more than 100 partners of the Rye Resurgence Project, all across Colorado. Sarah Jones sees every partner as part of her overarching goal to rebrand rye and other locally grown whole grains, as more than just a “health food.”

“I always like to use the coffee mentality,” Jones said. With coffee, she said, we buy nice beans and grind it fresh each morning. What about flour? “Fifty percent of our calories in the U.S. are from grains. And so why not care more about it? Is it freshly milled? What nutrition is in that? How is it grown? What variety is it? How is it impacting my gut?”

At Tumbleweed, Larriva cares a lot about what goes into her baked goods and loves that, in baking with rye, she is also contributing to the local food system. “We use rye in nearly all of our cookies. Rye is really a lovely grain for cookies,” said Larriva as we sat in her bakery, a sunny space filled with local art. She’s right — her rye shortbread cookies were incredibly tasty, made with rye from Jones Farms Organics.

Jessica Larriva and Sarah Jones, whom Larriva calls a “spokesperson for rye,” and the many farmers, millers, distilleries, and bakeries involved, are a testament to the future of the Rye Resurgence Project. The initial goal was for 10 farms to grow 120 acres of rye and sell 300 acres of that 1,200 total acreage.

Heather Dutton said that farmers are now growing 3,000-5,000 acres of rye a year, and the project has helped them sell 771,409 pounds of rye at an average rate of $0.62 per pound, more than they were aiming for initially. They’ve even had farmers join the project merely because they see rye working for their neighbors. “Exceeding the amount of money that farmers [were planning on] getting, the water savings that we had hoped for, the soil health goals, it feels really good,” said Dutton. Now they’re focused on the harder part — finding more businesses to buy the rye.

Dutton and Jones and the rest of the Rye Resurgence Project team will continue to seek new partners to purchase rye, and more farmers to grow it. Dutton said they are also looking for other crops that use less water, things that would be comparable to the 12 inches of water per acre required for rye. She said that quinoa and millet are strong contenders.

In the early stages, the real problem with these additional alternative grains is the branding. “We just don’t have a cool name like rye resurgence,” joked Dutton.

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

TriplePundit]]> Taylor Haelterman https://triplepundit.com/?p=70885 2026-05-26T15:57:35Z 2026-05-26T15:57:14Z

Every time a player on Bhutan's Thimphu City Football Club scores a goal this season, they're racking up funding for white-bellied heron conservation efforts.

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When a Thimphu City Football Club player celebrates scoring a goal at Changlimithang Stadium in front of 15,000 fans, their elation stems from sporting ecstasy. But a part of them also celebrates their contribution to saving one of the world’s rarest birds: the white-bellied heron.

“At first glance, football and herons may seem to live in completely different worlds,” said Hishey Tshering, who founded the football club in Bhutan’s capital city in 2012. “One thrives in roaring stadiums, the other in quiet river valleys. One celebrates noise, the other depends on silence. Yet, I began to ask myself, ‘Why must conservation remain confined to workshops and research papers? Why not take the message to where the people are?’”

With that goal in mind, Tshering devised Thimphu City’s Goals for a Cause initiative, in which donors commit to giving a fixed amount for every goal the club scores over a season. Funds go directly to white-bellied heron conservation through the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature, a Bhutanese NGO that leads the nation’s conservation efforts.

Standing 127 cm tall, the white-bellied heron is the second-largest heron on the planet and a symbol of national pride in Bhutan. As the most mountainous country in the world, its radical biodiversity has developed its reputation as a bird watcher’s paradise. Thimphu sits in a high-altitude valley in the Himalayas surrounded by steep, forested mountains. The city of 150,000 is located only a few hours from the habitats that some of the herons call home.

White-bellied herons are characterized by dark grey plumage, a distinctive white belly and long silvery plumes on their crown. Solitary and shy, the birds are usually found in remote, low-elevation river basins that are becoming increasingly rare due to human encroachment. In Bhutan, that includes unregulated mining and river rafting. Erratic weather patterns as a result of climate change, such as earlier than expected rainfall, are also affecting these river basins.

Including those living in a Bhutanese conservation center, only 49 known white-bellied herons remain in Bhutan, India, Myanmar and China — 31 of which are in Bhutan — classifying the species as critically endangered.

In 2025, Thimphu City scored 65 goals in 18 matches on the way to finishing second in the Bhutan Premier League. A single donor, who committed $25 for every goal scored, contributed $1,625 to the cause, enough to feed five white-bellied herons in the Bhutanese conservation center for three to four months.

“I tell my players, ‘Scoring goals is no longer just about winning matches, it is about protecting a species,’” Tshering said. “When we attack, we attack for a cause. When we celebrate a goal, we celebrate knowing that somewhere, a little more support flows toward protecting a river, a nest, a future.”

To promote Goals for a Cause, Thimphu City created a kit with “Save the Heron” written on the front. The team wears it for away matches played close to known white-bellied heron habitats. “Every time our players step onto the pitch, they are not only representing a club, they are carrying a conservation message,” Tshering said.

The message is attracting attention. Goals for Cause was featured on the national news, which “almost every household watches,” Tshering said.

“Football is the most popular sport in the world, as well as in our country,” he added. “It brings together youth, families and communities.”

Thimphu City was also the first sports organization in Central Asia to join the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Sports for Nature Framework, raising the club’s international brand awareness.

Still, football in Bhutan is a largely non-commercial endeavor, and the club struggles to find financial support. In major markets like Europe, a club’s primary source of income is generated by selling the rights to broadcast matches on television. But much smaller markets like Bhutan have no competition to boost the price of television rights because the Bhutan Broadcasting Service is the only domestic television broadcaster.

“Sports are not considered an economic activity,” Tshering said. “We don’t have local sponsors because there’s not enough of a market.”

With costs continuing to rise from the equivalent of US$1,000 a season in 2012, Tshering spends money from his own pocket to sustain the club. He said he hopes that the international credibility generated by joining the IUCN conservation effort — as well as qualifying for the international AFC Challenge League competition — will lead to stronger financial backing to secure the club’s future and continue raising money for the white-bellied heron.

Beyond providing food for herons in conservation programs, extra money raised through Thimphu City’s goals would support the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature’s wider efforts to protect the white-bellied heron, such as deploying GPS legbands to individually identify and track birds.

Tshering’s connection to the species spans three decades. After working as communication officer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature, he founded Bhutan Birding and Heritage Travels in 1998 to lead international ornithologists and tourists through Bhutan’s river valleys in search of herons and other birds. Tshering continues to lead tours alongside running Thimphu City, but the football club is where most of his passion lies.

Gross National Happiness has been Bhutan’s national measure of development and wellbeing since the 1970s. Reflecting the ecological diversity and resilience aspect of this philosophy, Tshering honors the interconnected wellbeing of people and the environment through Thimphu City.

“In a small way,” he said, “football has become another river feeding into the larger stream of hope for the white-bellied heron.”

TriplePundit]]> Mary Mazzoni https://triplepundit.com/?p=70934 2026-06-04T19:02:42Z 2026-06-04T19:02:38Z

The Everpure Foundation is focused on nature-based solutions as a way to invest in both climate mitigation and community resilience.

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The framework for assessing global risk has shifted significantly in recent years, moving toward a more holistic understanding of how our natural world supports every level of society. Understanding these systemic connections allows us to identify where our greatest risks – and our greatest strengths – truly lie.

According to the World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2026, three of the top five risks facing our world today are climate-related: extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, and critical change to Earth systems. This assessment serves as a clear call to action, signaling that future resiliency depends on our ability to protect and restore these foundational systems that underpin the global economy.

The natural world is humanity’s greatest ally in the fight against climate change. Forests, wetlands, prairies and other wild ecosystems are better at capturing carbon at scale than any technology we have today, and they keep our air and water cleaner while supporting healthy soils and species biodiversity.

Nature-based climate solutions focused on protecting and restoring the world’s ecosystems can provide over a third of the climate mitigation needed through 2030 to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. That’s why corporate foundations like the Everpure Foundation are focused on nature-based solutions as a way to invest in both climate mitigation and community resilience.

Founded over 10 years ago by the data management company Everpure, the Everpure Foundation makes strategic grants in support of the environment, workforce development, and basic human needs and disaster response.

We recently spoke with two of the Everpure Foundation’s flagship environmental grantees who are leveraging the power of nature to fight climate change while supporting community resilience from the Great Lakes to the Czech Republic.

The Nature Conservancy protects and restores peatlands in Minnesota

“Peatlands cover only 3 percent of the Earth’s surface, but they store 33 percent of global soil carbon,” says Carl McGuinness, natural climate solutions director for The Nature Conservancy, a global environmental nonprofit and 2025 Everpure Foundation grantee.

That means peatlands store twice as much carbon as all of the world’s forests combined, not to mention roughly 10 percent of global freshwater.

“Peatlands are a type of ancient wetland. They’ve been around for millennia, and you find them all over the world,” McGuinness explains. Often called bogs, fens or swamps, peatlands form as plant material slowly decays in waterlogged soils over thousands of years — resulting in a gradual buildup, layer upon layer, of carbon-dense peat soil.

Along with capturing carbon, peatlands filter water, regulate water flow, provide habitat for wildlife, and reduce flooding impacts. “They are amazing systems,” says McGuinness.

For over 15 years, The Nature Conservancy has coordinated efforts to protect and restore global peatlands to mitigate climate change. In North America, that work includes the peatland capital of the contiguous United States: Minnesota.

Minnesota is home to more than 6 million acres of peatlands, covering about a tenth of its total land area. As impressive as that is, the state actually lost about a sixth of its peatlands to ditching and draining for agriculture and other uses in the early 20th century, according to The Nature Conservancy.

When peatlands are drained, the once-waterlogged plant matter begins to dry out and decompose, slowly releasing centuries worth of stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Research supported by The Nature Conservancy recently found that Minnesota’s previously drained peatlands still contribute around 38,000 metric tons of carbon emissions each year.

While it is important to consider that environmental damage from a century ago still contributes to climate change today, it also means there’s big potential to positively impact global emissions by restoring peatlands to their former natural state.

In Minnesota alone, “restoring and re-wetting farmed and partially-drained peatlands could mitigate more than 1 million metric tons of carbon per year — equivalent to removing 233,000 gasoline-powered cars from the road each year,” the research found.

The Nature Conservancy has supported Minnesota state agencies and universities in their work to map and restore drained peatlands since 2021. Researchers from the nonprofit created the “Playbook for Minnesota Peatlands” to guide state restoration efforts and supported the development of the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources’ Potentially Restorable Peatlands mapping tool to better understand feasibility and climate mitigation potential.

“Local partners are always key to how we operate,” McGuinness says. “We look for locally-led solutions that are durable and relevant to local communities, and that’s built through major partner alliances.”

Research and capacity-building support from The Nature Conservancy and its funders like the Everpure Foundation helped Minnesota qualify for federal funding to take its work even further. The state received $20 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program in 2024, including $4 million made available to tribal nations.
“Without funding [from the Everpure Foundation], we wouldn’t have been able to provide the capacity and capability building needed to make this possible,” McGuinness says. “It’s also going to help us take these learnings and share them globally. We have a whole network of peatland projects around the world, including in places like Indonesia, Ecuador, Mongolia, Patagonia and New Zealand.”

In Minnesota, nearly 20 restoration projects were underway at high-potential sites as of January 2026, with restoration work that includes plugging ditches, re-wetting and planting native vegetation, according to the Board of Water and Soil Resources.

Several of the state’s tribal nations, who have long recognized the importance of peatlands as a source of food, clean water and habitat for wildlife, are now part of a Tribal Peatland Working Group to share knowledge on restoration practices.

“Peatlands restoration work in Minnesota is being pursued by a broad coalition of partners at all levels of government, nonprofits and research organizations,” Suzanne Rhees, who manages peatland restoration programs for the Board of Water and Soil Resources, said in a statement earlier this year. “We’re excited to see such strong engagement and support to protect this valuable resource.”

Sázíme Stromy plants trees for climate mitigation and community in the Czech Republic

In another unique take on nature-based solutions, the nonprofit Sázíme Stromy (We Plant Trees) is working with local and international volunteers to rewild more rural countryside in the Czech Republic with benefits for both environmental and community wellbeing.

When the former Czechoslovakia was under communist rule from the 1940s through 1980s, large tracts of family farmland were converted to monoculture, the practice of growing one crop in a field at a time. Trees were felled and diverse fields were unified into sprawling single plots suitable for heavy machines.

Though it improved efficiency in the short term, the move to mass monoculture ultimately accelerated soil erosion, drove water pollution, and diminished biodiversity.

“These fields are almost dead because of the large machinery,” says Martina Pavelkova, founder of Sázíme Stromy.

As their name implies, Sázíme Stromy is working to rewild more of the Czech Republic’s rural areas by planting native trees and fruit trees within rural communities. The nonprofit has planted nearly 40,000 trees over the past six years and returns regularly to tend to them with the help of volunteers.

Along with sequestering carbon, bringing more native trees back to the Czech countryside builds benefits like temperature control and biodiversity preservation along with enhancing local quality of life.

“By planting trees, we are bringing life back into the fields, and we are also bringing people back into the fields because otherwise they cannot easily pass through such huge areas,” Pavelkova says.

In many areas, traveling from one village to another, even if they are near each other, requires a motor vehicle. Planting trees serves to “renew” paths between villages, encouraging people to walk or bicycle, she says.

“Then, of course, the trees bring shade. They cool the landscape. They protect the soil against water and wind erosion,” she explains. “They serve as shelter for animals, birds, and insects. They support biodiversity in the fields because otherwise, the fields are dead.”

Local and international businesses donate money to support the tree-plantings, and municipalities receive the trees as a gift, signing an agreement with Sázíme Stromy to take care of them for the next 10 years with the help of volunteers. Everpure employees and the Everpure Foundation have worked with Sázíme Stromy for years, volunteering to care for trees and granting funds to support the nonprofit’s ongoing work in the Czech Republic.

“We always try to bring as many people together as possible. When we are planting a new alley, there are employees of the donating company, local people and representatives of the municipality,” Pavelkova says. “We believe that if people connect, it is best for the healthy growth of the trees.”

Putting vision into action: Supporting community-led nature-based programs

In 2025, the Everpure Foundation redesigned its environmental grantmaking program, committing 60 percent of its annual strategic grants budget to nature-based solutions and community-led transitions to low-carbon energy like solar and wind.

“The natural world is our most powerful partner in fighting climate change, capable of delivering over a third of the climate fixes we desperately need. By funding nature-based projects, we aren’t just investing in the planet’s future — we’re bringing ecosystems back to life and building stronger, healthier communities for everyone,” says Julie Lata, executive director of the Everpure Foundation.

This vision is already turning into real-world action. Through its collaboration with The Nature Conservancy and Sázíme Stromy, the Everpure Foundation is transforming its funding into lasting benefits for the planet, locally and around the world.

TriplePundit]]> Mary Mazzoni https://triplepundit.com/?p=70926 2026-05-28T18:27:00Z 2026-05-28T18:26:51Z

A new campaign spearheaded by the NAACP reminds athletes, fans and the general public that schools in vote-restricting states depend on Black athletes to keep their programs competitive — and keep millions of dollars flowing into their coffers.

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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been under attack since its inception, and a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has practically stripped the law of all meaning. Calls for reform have already materialized. In one particularly interesting — and potentially effective — development, a movement spearheaded by the NAACP aims to leverage college sports programs in the South to press for action.

Sports and public protest

Sports are big business throughout the United States, with the National Football League being an especially powerful example of the confluence of culture, money and politics. In 2016, for example, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick touched off a media firestorm when he refused to stand for the national anthem before games, citing a series of police brutality incidents involving Black civilians.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football,” Kaepernick said in 2016. “There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Although Kaepernick lost his career in football after taking a stand, the legacy of his protest is reflected in the new NAACP campaign focusing on college sports. Called “Out of Bounds,” the campaign reminds athletes, fans and the general public that schools in vote-restricting states depend on Black athletes to keep their programs competitive — and keep millions of dollars flowing into their coffers.

Fallout from the redistricting wars

The case that sparked the new NAACP campaign is Louisiana v. Callais, a decision handed down on April 29 by the Republican-appointed majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision provided a legal framework for Republican lawmakers in Louisiana to draw new Congressional maps that suppress Black representation.

Louisiana v. Callais followed a successful gerrymandering effort in Texas and amounted to a seal of approval on racially motivated redistricting from the highest court in the land, inspiring a rush of copycat efforts in other states. “These actions happened in days, in some cases in hours, of a Supreme Court ruling that gives extremist lawmakers a playbook to erode Black representation,” a recent press statement from the NAACP reads.

The Out of Bounds campaign focuses attention on repressive redistricting plans in Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Georgia, representing eight of the member states of the lucrative Southeastern Conference in collegiate sports. Overall, the Conference marked a record-setting $1.1 billion in revenue last year. The NAACP estimates that sports programs in the eight targeted states alone generated more than $100 million in annual revenue.

Even as these states depend on attracting Black recruits to keep up with the competition, the voting rights of those same athletes are under attack, along with the rights of their families, friends and communities, the organization emphasized.

“What these states have done is not a policy disagreement. It is a sprint to erase Black political power,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

The organization urges the incoming cohort of Black student-athletes to consider committing to one of the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) instead of entering a public college in the eight targeted states. The organization also asks currently enrolled athletes to leverage their status to help press for change, or consider transferring to another school outside of the targeted eight.

“The state that is working to erase your grandmother’s congressional district is the same state whose governor will stand on the field and celebrate your touchdown or game-winning shot,” said ​​Tylik McMillan, youth and college division national director for the NAACP.

The power of Black athletes

If that seems like a rather ambitious ask, perhaps it is. With Colin Kaepernick’s experience in mind, a direct appeal to Black athletes is unlikely to gain widespread traction among students who have spent a lifetime working toward a career in college-level sports and beyond.

Writing for The Guardian last week, journalist and author Howard Bryant is among those noticing that Black athletes remained largely silent following the series of protests over the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

In another development that evokes pessimism, Black voters moved toward U.S. President Donald Trump, not away, when he swept into office for a second term. A fresh round of support from other minorities and young voters also played a role in Trump’s successful 2024 campaign.

However, Bryant also says it would be a mistake to count the young generation out.

“The NAACP action is a reminder that Black athletes have power — if they choose to use it. They are, like it or not, inextricably linked to the future of Black America because of the economic profits they generate in areas friendly and hostile, and the cultural cachet they hold,” Bryant wrote.

The power of the purse

Regardless of the choices made by Black athletes themselves, the NAACP also enlists the general public in a third course of action, taking the more familiar form of a consumer boycott.

The Out of Bounds campaign urges fans, alumni, donors and members of the general public to boycott sports programs in the eight targeted schools, including team merchandise and licensed apparel as well as tickets to games, and redirect such purchases and donations to HBCUs.

While consumer boycotts are notoriously fickle, they can be effective when deployed against brands that have already displayed symptoms of reputational decline. That certainly describes the Republican brand, considering the growing wave of anger over racist redistricting plans and the downward spiral of the party’s standard-bearer, Donald Trump, in public opinion polls.

In the primary election in South Carolina, for example, advocates traced a record-breaking turnout for early voting yesterday to the Republican redistricting plan, which would have put the minority-majority district represented by Congressman James Clyburn at risk.

“People were upset that this was taking place. And people tend to vote when they get angry. And people were very angry,” Rep. Clyburn told reporters.

Consumer boycotts can also be an effective means of attracting media attention that can have a powerful impact on public policy. In that regard, it’s instructive to recall the events leading up to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in August of 1965.

Decades of local activism led up to that moment, but the final straw was an egregiously violent effort to silence the Black vote in Selma, Alabama.

At the time, only 335 Black residents of Selma were registered out of a voting-eligible population of 15,000. When local activists organized a protest march on the state capitol, Montgomery, the 600-strong group was blocked, attacked and viciously pursued by police armed with tear gas, night sticks and whips.

The resulting media coverage is credited with motivating thousands of other citizens to travel to Alabama in support of local activists. The march to Montgomery was finally completed weeks later, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leading 25,000 citizens under the protection of federal officers and the National Guard, while the combination of media attention and mass public protest began to tip the balance in Congress.

It remains to be seen if the Out of Bounds campaign can help touch off a sequence of national engagement beyond the states currently attempting to suppress Black votes. That depends partly on follow-through by fans and other consumers. An initial wave of media attention followed the Out of Bounds launch last week, but sustaining the movement will be a challenge.

Still, voter suppression is not just a Southern issue. It skews representation in Congress, the White House and ultimately the Supreme Court, impacting all Americans, everywhere.

Featured image: Tom Pottiger/Unsplash

TriplePundit]]> Taylor Haelterman https://triplepundit.com/?p=70865 2026-05-19T21:53:02Z 2026-05-22T13:00:00Z

As family homelessness hits record highs, a few school districts are beginning to offer parking lots as safe sites for students and their families to sleep at night. Some families prefer the option over emergency shelters.

TriplePundit]]>

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education.

As an 8-year-old boy steered his bicycle in figure eights, his mother piled three plates with pizza and pineapple slices from an outdoor kitchen shared with more than a dozen other families who call this parking lot home.

She carried the plates past her family’s sedan — their last asset and, until recently, their only shelter — and placed the dinner inside a recreational vehicle assigned to them for the next six months. After dinner, she helped the third grader with his homework, then made sure he showered and brushed his teeth before bed. The next morning, she drove the 10 miles to her son’s school, where she works as a part-time site monitor. Their belongings and beds and private bathroom, meanwhile, remained secure at the city-owned lot, where homeless families like theirs find temporary stability. 

“He likes it here,” said the mother, M., who is being referred to by her first initial to protect her family’s privacy. “We can actually cook. I waste less money. There’s a lot to like.”

Since late last year, M. and her family have been living in parking lots opened by the city of San Diego, the local school district and a nonprofit partner. Priced out of San Diego’s housing market, they now call the RV lot their temporary home as they meet with a caseworker who helps them search for more permanent housing.

Family homelessness hit a record high in 2024, as the end of federal pandemic assistance and rising inflation pushed more families with children and unaccompanied youth out of their homes. A sluggish labor market and high housing costs have further strained family budgets. And now, as the number and visibility of unhoused families continue to climb, a handful of school districts are considering their parking lots as a way to shelter homeless students and their families. 

The city of San Diego began experimenting in 2017, when it partnered with nonprofit Jewish Family Service to convert the first of what are now four parking lots into safe places to  sleep. It added its first lot prioritizing families in 2023. A few months later, as the city pushed a sweeping ban on public camping, officials with San Diego Unified School District approached the city with the idea of turning a vacant elementary and other district properties into temporary shelters.  

The model is now spreading beyond California. In Ohio, the Cincinnati school district later this spring will open its first safe parking lot for families at a downtown elementary school. The teachers union for Fayette County Public Schools, in neighboring Kentucky, has asked its school board to follow Cincinnati’s lead. 

San Diego’s parking program has drawn some opposition, including from nearby residents and private developers who worry about crime and impact on property values. Progressives here also wonder, quietly, whether the program diverts attention and resources from addressing why families lose their housing in the first place. The Trump administration, meanwhile, also has criticized safe parking lots as “dystopian” and “reprehensible” — even as it plans for major cuts to long-term housing programs. With the exception of the Rose Canyon lot where M. and her family are staying, San Diego’s safe parking sites do not offer RVs. All sites offer security and portable bathrooms to families and most include microwaves and seating areas.*

But some advocates for homeless people argue the safe parking sites are an effective, if highly imperfect, short-term fix, offering autonomy and dignity to people as they search for more permanent housing. 

“Parking lots are a terrible option, but there are options that are worse,” said Jennifer Erb-Downward, director of housing stability programs and policy initiatives for Poverty Solutions, a University of Michigan project to promote economic mobility. “Often the only other option is literal homelessness, in your car and on the streets. This creates a middle ground where you can get families into the system, where you can try to meet their needs and in a place that keeps them safe.”

The San Diego school district says students can’t learn unless they’re safe and healthy. It refers families to city shelters, but those don’t have nearly enough space to accommodate the need. 

“The goal is for this to be a way station,” Kristy Drake, the district’s liaison for homeless and foster youth, said of the school district’s lot. “When families drive onto this lot,” Drake added, “they come into this wider network of support and resources. The goal is to move on. Hopefully no one’s there too long.”

Never before have so many families in the U.S. lived without stable housing, according to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Its annual homeless census from January 2024 found nearly 260,000 people in families with children experiencing homelessness — a jump of more than 50 percent since before the pandemic. And those figures are likely undercounts: Experts often note that HUD’s numbers don’t capture “hidden” homelessness, such as families who sometimes pay out of pocket to stay in hotels and motels or couch-surf with friends and families to avoid the streets. And while the agency still hasn’t released homeless numbers for 2025, early data from school districts and states around the country suggest youth homelessness continues to rise.

In California, which has the largest homeless population in the country, family homelessness has risen 14 percent since before the pandemic. 

“There’s this huge amount of instability that exists for children in this country that goes unrecognized,” said Erb-Downward. “Pretty much the only point of true stability they have is their school.”

M., who grew up in nearby Calexico and has lived in San Diego since 2012, lost her housing after the expiration of the subsidy her family received through a federal rental assistance program Congress created during the pandemic. The program ran out of cash last year, and M.’s subsidy expired just as her landlord planned to hike their rent by nearly a third.

“It was like, there’s no way we can do that,” said M. “We tried to look for an affordable place,” she added. “They’re all asking three times rent and a 650 credit score. That’s impossible right now.”

In San Diego County, there are roughly 1,500 people in families experiencing homelessness, but only a handful of emergency shelters offer space for children and parents. San Diego, the county and several surrounding cities have recently closed their waiting lists for housing vouchers that subsidize the cost of rent. M. did not want to leave the city, but had few options.

As the family packed their belongings into storage, M. contemplated asking friends to allow her son to crash on their couch while she and her husband slept in their vehicle. But then the principal at her son’s school learned of their situation and encouraged M. to sign up as the first family to move into a new safe parking lot at the former Central Elementary School.

A security guard station separates the gates to the Central Elementary lot from construction on a busy boulevard in the eastern City Heights neighborhood. So far, 15 families have used one of the 40 spots for vehicles there. In a pair of old portable classrooms, the district and JFS added microwaves for families to prepare food. Parents can meet with case managers while students access Wi-Fi to do homework or play on the school’s old soccer field.

For M. and some other parents, the lots are preferable to shelters, many of which keep hard curfews, require that minors be supervised at all times and lack quiet space to do homework, said Jesse Mendez, director of the safe parking program for JFS. 

By contrast, the Rose Canyon lot provides each family with their own trailer. With philanthropic support, the city and JFS also recently added the covered communal area, which includes a small library, dining and study area, charging station for electronics and the shared kitchen. 

“Here, you’re choosing who gets to sleep next to you and in a place where you’re safe,” Mendez said. “Kids end up here by no choice of their own. I don’t want them to even realize they’re experiencing homelessness.”

Not long after the Rose Canyon lot opened for families in 2023, school district leaders began to consider converting the lot at the Central Elementary school campus into a safe parking site. Eventually the district plans to develop the school into affordable housing for teachers, custodians and other district employees, but construction crews aren’t expected to break ground for years. In San Diego, salaries for many district employees are low: Hourly school staff, like classroom aides and bus monitors, can earn as little as $1,832.64 a month, with median rent topping $2,200 for a one-bedroom apartment as of January. A two-bedroom apartment would cost M.’s family a median of nearly $3,000 a month.

“We have this vacant land, sitting in the middle of a city struggling with the problem of homelessness,” said the school district’s Drake. “Why not put up this land? We just ask that our families get first dibs on spaces.”

As she waited for funding from the city to materialize, Drake began calling every family in her database that listed their residence as either unsheltered or in a hotel or motel — anyone who might be living in their car.

When funding finally came through just before Thanksgiving 2025, she quickly could refer more than two dozen families to the lot. It’s a subset of homeless families who are eligible, notes Drake — families must have their own vehicle to qualify, meaning they need enough resources to own one but do not have enough to pay rent. 

The lot at Central Elementary is open to families each day from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. There’s a row of portable restrooms, but families must wait until a nearby YMCA opens and allows them to shower. They have access to its food pantry as well.  

M. said she vastly prefers the Rose Canyon lot to the one at the school, though. There’s often construction noise from work on an apartment complex next door, she said, and “the area’s not great. There’s a lot of homeless people on the streets there. It matters, the location.”

Last year, San Diego County recorded a dramatic drop — 72 percent — in the number of families living without shelter. Some homeless and housing advocates say the city’s 2023 ban on public camping just pushed more homeless families out of sight.

Yet research on JFS’s safe parking model suggests it does make a difference for families longer-term: A 2024 study found that 40 percent of households that stayed at a JFS site between March 2020 and November 2021 had moved on to more stable housing, either permanent or temporary. Clients who had used both the parking program and emergency shelters “highly preferred” the lots, the study said. More recently, JFS reported that 53 percent of all households in the program and 76 percent at the Rose Canyon lot found more stable housing. (The national average for people moving from homeless services into permanent housing hovered just below 34 percent last year, according to HUD. And across San Diego, shelters generally reported a similar rate of only 9 percent, the study noted.)

JFS enrolls households for an initial 60 days, as case managers work with them to set goals and make progress toward stable housing. Many families stay longer. 

In March, that assistance finally paid off for Dezarae S. and her family.

She and her siblings spent most of their childhood homeless, living in San Diego’s emergency shelters, on the streets or in their mother’s car. Mendez, now with JFS, first met Dezarae years ago during one of her family’s stays at a shelter. They met again recently when Dezarae — whose surname is withheld to protect her children’s privacy — moved with her husband and their four kids onto the Rose Canyon lot.

Her twin sons, 2, are both autistic and met with specialists at the lot to prepare for preschool. The youngest boy, a 1-year-old, is a light sleeper. Her oldest daughter, 4, was potty trained in the RV.

“It doesn’t feel like we live in an RV,” said Dezarae last month, adding that her childhood memories fueled her motivation to keep her own kids out of shelters and off the streets.

Then, after three years on the city’s waiting list for a housing voucher, they finally secured one and moved into a three-bedroom apartment in late March.

“My kids are my world, and my kids are still happy,” Dezarae said. “We do everything in our power to keep their childhood innocence.”

Other districts are trying to help families experiencing homelessness by following San Diego’s lead. The Cincinnati Public Schools safe sleep lot is scheduled to open with a dozen spots; the district will hire security to monitor the lot seven days a week and build a structure to house a private bathroom, laundry and shower facilities.

Rebeka Beach, head of homeless services for Cincinnati schools, visited safe parking programs in San Diego and at Long Beach Community College before adopting the idea.

Beach acknowledged that the safe parking program was just a stopgap, with many more families needing help. She also spends more than $50,000 each year to place students and their families in short-term hotels and motels. “We know it’s not a solution. It’s just a bridge and response to an immediate crisis.”

Educators in Kentucky’s Fayette County Public Schools, which reported more than 1,100 students as homeless this year, shared a similar message. “Schools can’t take care of everything, but we feel we can help where we can,” Laura Hartke, an organizer with American Federation of Teachers-120, a local union, who is encouraging her district to adopt the model, told local media.

M., meanwhile, continues to weigh her options. She considered moving her family back to her hometown of Calexico, more than 100 miles away, but that would have meant leaving her job. The housing voucher program, now closed, isn’t an option for her family like it was for Dezarae’s. And with gas prices climbing and a high monthly bill to store their belongings, it’s difficult to save

“There’s no getting ahead,” she said.

But they find free ways to enjoy time as a family, at the beach and nearby tide pools. M. recently got her son’s bike out of the family’s storage unit too.   

Watching him ride the figure eights, she said, “We just got to make it work.”

*Clarification: This sentence has been updated to clarify the amenities available at the different safe parking sites.

Contact staff writer Neal Morton at 212-678-8247, on Signal at nealmorton.99, or via email at morton@hechingerreport.org.

This story about homeless students was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

TriplePundit]]> Taylor Haelterman https://triplepundit.com/?p=70877 2026-05-21T21:08:16Z 2026-05-21T21:08:11Z

The Trump administration continues to prop up the U.S. coal industry, relaxing emissions and discharge rules at power plants even as environmental organizations, state agencies and utilities push back in court.

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When United States President Donald Trump promised to “Make America Great Again,” his voters may not have expected an increase in pollution, lung disease, and cancer linked to coal power plants, but that’s exactly what they’re getting. The Trump administration is relaxing emissions rules and forcing outdated coal power plants to stay open. As environmental organizations, state agencies and even some utilities push back in court, voters will get another opportunity to stand up for their concerns in the upcoming midterm elections.

The return of coal?

The president considers coal to be a crucial part of the U.S. energy profile and argues that burdensome regulations imposed by Democrats are artificially holding the sector back. In reality, the economics of coal haven’t worked in years for reasons that have little to do with regulation. Utility companies are rapidly replacing coal power plants with natural gas and renewables like wind and solar because they’re cheaper, more efficient, less cumbersome to transport, and come without the expense and risk of coal ash disposal.

Last year gas claimed 41 percent of power generation while coal slipped to 17 percent. Utility-scale (more than 1 megawatt in size) wind and solar farms are beginning to compete with both gas and coal, edging past coal at 18.9 percent of power generation last year. Looking ahead, the combination of utility-scale and small-scale wind and solar, hydropower, and other renewables is expected to reach 39.7 percent of generating capacity by March of 2027.

Still, the administration seems intent on propping up the dying industry, whether utilities and communities like it or not. Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to further weaken discharge rules meant to restrict the release of untreated coal wastewater into streams and rivers across the country. 

Airborne emissions usually come to mind first when considering pollution from coal power plants, but the toxicity also extends to water pollution. Coal power plants produce between 100 million and 130 million tons of combustion waste each year in the form of dry or wet ashes. Though a small portion is recycled, most of it is disposed of in unlined landfills or lagoons. Even when those impoundments are capped, they are frequently located near rivers and other waterways, and ash under the cap can continue to leach arsenic and other pollutants into groundwater. 

Though significant breaks in coal ash impoundments are rare, when they do occur the results are catastrophic. In 2008, for example, 1.7 million cubic yards of fly ash slurry escaped from a disposal site in Tennessee, burying 300 acres in sludge, damaging dozens of homes and entering the Emory River. Hundreds of cleanup workers without proper gear were sickened with respiratory problems and other ailments. Dozens died, and others fell ill when the ash spread into homes. The incident, which is still known as the largest industrial spill in U.S. history, prompted stricter regulation of coal ash sites in the following years. 

The EPA currently lists 775 coal ash disposal sites at 300 regulated coal facilities. During former President Joe Biden’s last year in office, the EPA updated its rules governing effluent from ash disposal sites including arsenic, mercury, and bromide, among other pollutants. In effect, the updated rule required plant operators to eliminate all wastewater discharges or stop burning coal altogether by 2034. 

Nevertheless, consistent with Trump’s support for fossil energy, the EPA issued a final rule delaying the updated requirements in February. And last week, it moved to eliminate another requirement that coal plants treat their wastewater to remove heavy metals and other toxins before releasing it into nearby waterways and clean up contaminated groundwater around coal ash dumps. 

The Sierra Club is among the environmental organizations pushing back, noting the updated rules would have eliminated more than 325,000 tons of coal wastewater discharged to rivers and other waterways each year. 

Research shows coal pollution rules save lives  

Along with the risk of coal ash disposal, the impacts of coal combustion itself are all too real, and the results of stricter regulations are dramatic. In a recent study, researchers estimated that exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from coal power plants was responsible for 460,000 deaths in the U.S. between 1999 and 2020, roughly double that of PM2.5 deaths from other sources. Most occurred before 2008, when PM2.5 recordings were at their peak, and the rate declined about 95 percent by 2020 under stricter air pollution rules.

“PM2.5 from coal has been treated as if it’s just another air pollutant. But it’s much more harmful than we thought, and its mortality burden has been seriously underestimated,” Lucas Henneman, an assistant professor at George Mason University who led the research team, said in a statement.

The EPA last imposed PM2.5 emissions standards on coal plants in 2012 and tightened them again in 2024, requiring power plants to upgrade their pollution control equipment or shut down. Despite the economic and public health arguments in favor of reducing emissions, last year Trump delayed enforcement of the stricter standards and exempted up to 148 coal units at 68 facilities from compliance. 

“The exemptions were granted based on the claim that pollution-control technology is ‘not available.’ That claim is wrong and indefensible,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement. “The vast majority of plants already have cleanup equipment installed that can meet — and have met — the safer pollution limits.”

Meanwhile, Trump has taken extraordinary steps to keep old coal power plants running past their scheduled retirement dates. His tool of choice consists of highly unusual emergency orders from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, summarily issued without regard to the careful, years-long planning involved in retiring coal units. 

The J.H. Campbell power plant in West Olive, Michigan, is one example. Last year, Wright issued an emergency order requiring the 1960s-era plant to stay open past its scheduled retirement date of May 31, 2025. Michigan’s Attorney General challenged the actions in court, arguing the emergency order “disregards all prior planning and regulatory approvals, in yet another example of the Trump administration arbitrarily declaring a false emergency as a pretext for advancing its policy agenda by means outside its normal authority.” 

State officials from Minnesota and Illinois supported the Michigan case in oral arguments last Friday, along with the environmental organization Earthjustice.

The owner of the plant, Consumers Energy, also challenged the emergency orders, claiming losses of $575,000 each day since May of last year caused directly by operating the plant past its retirement date, a cost that will be passed on to consumers.

Concerned citizens fight back 

Considering the Trump administration’s actions, it’s no surprise that airborne mercury and sulfur dioxide emissions from coal power plants rose in 2025 compared to a year earlier. Wright’s emergency orders resulted in higher costs for ratepayers. And the country’s remaining coal miners are suffering, as Trump rolled back federal protections meant to prevent workers from inhaling the deadly silica dust that causes black lung disease. Local groups, states and environmental organizations continue to fight back against the administration in court to mitigate these impacts.

In addition to legal battles over Energy Secretary Wright’s emergency orders, the push to properly remediate coal ash sites continues. In Alabama, for example, the legal fight to remove coal ash from a disposal site in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta region is still active. The owner of the site, Alabama Power, planned to leave the ash in place and simply cover the unlined pit, allowing arsenic, mercury and other heavy metals to remain in contact with groundwater resources.

The energy markets will also have a say. The Alabama Power case, for example, underscores the tenuous financial position of coal compared to other energy resources. The utility has already spent more than $250 million on coal ash remediation and anticipates that its total expenses will top $1 billion, Courthouse News Service reports. 

Another bellwether is the newly proposed acquisition of the power producer Dominion by another leading firm in the field, NextEra. If approved, the acquisition will create the single largest power plant developer in the world. While gas and nuclear will most likely play a role given the two companies’ focus on meeting data center demand and other large loads, NextEra’s subsidiaries are already eliminating coal power from their fleets. Dominion, the developer of a 2.5-gigawatt offshore wind farm that Trump tried to stop, has also reduced its coal fleet over recent years.  

And despite Trump’s extraordinary efforts to harm wind and solar stakeholders, these two resources are widely recognized as the fastest and most economical way to expand the nation’s power generation fleet, with energy storage adding a layer of 24/7 availability regardless of the weather or time of day.

In the end, the U.S. electorate will have the most powerful say in the matter. Voters missed a chance to take full advantage of these clean, abundant resources in 2024 when 77 million of them swept Trump — and his fossil fuel agenda — into office for the second time. But the mood has since changed. Voters have dramatically soured on Trump, with just 37 percent approving of his job performance in a New York Times and Siena poll released earlier this week. Republican voters continue to support Trump’s agenda, but disapproval among the key voting bloc of independent voters is sliding, from 69 percent in January to 62 percent in the May poll.

Feature image credit: Wigwam Jones/Flickr

TriplePundit]]> Taylor Haelterman https://triplepundit.com/?p=70801 2026-05-26T15:59:34Z 2026-05-15T13:00:00Z

Even in quieter cities, noise pollution forces birds to sing at higher pitches, diminishing their ability to defend territory and attract mates. Researchers say further noise-reduction efforts are vital for natural communication.

TriplePundit]]>

This article was originally published by The Conversation.

When Rachel Carson wrote the environmental classic “Silent Spring” in 1962, she warned that unchecked human impacts might create a silent future.

Forty years later, biologists uncovered a striking effect of noise pollution on songbirds. They found that low-pitched traffic noise in European cities forced birds to sing at higher pitches. Songbirds in a noisy park beneath the Eiffel Tower sang at a pitch of 400 Hz higher than those in quiet forests outside Paris.

My new research, published in the scientific journal Ornithological Applications with colleague Hans Slabbekoorn from the University of Leiden, shows that Paris is a success story in the battle to reduce noise pollution.

Yet even as Paris has grown quieter, birds have not returned to their natural song frequencies. Our research shows that great tits in Paris continue to sing at higher pitches than birds in wilderness areas outside the city.

Further noise-reduction efforts are vital, in urban areas throughout the world, to allow wild birds to communicate at their natural sound frequencies.

The devastating impact of noise

Human activity fills the world with noise. The sounds of cars, airplanes, boats and industrial activities produce a steady roar that impacts wild animals, birds and insects. We often overlook noise pollution as a conservation problem, yet it may have devastating effects on wildlife during an era of increasing urbanization.

Road noise interferes with the ability of birds and frogs to attract mates. Boat noise leads to decreased vocal communication in whales. And traffic noise influences predator-prey interactions between moths and bats.

Since the discovery that low-pitched traffic noise in European cities forced birds to sing at higher pitches, this pattern has been demonstrated in diverse bird populations around the world.

Savannah sparrows sing higher-pitched songs near noisy oil pumps on the Canadian Prairies. European robins sing higher-pitched songs in the presence of wind turbine noise. And Australian silvereyes sing higher-pitched songs and calls in loud urban areas compared with rural areas.

These changes diminish birds’ ability to defend breeding territories and attract mates.

Fighting for a quieter city

Paris is one of the largest and most densely populated cities in Europe, yet Parisians have developed novel strategies to fight noise pollution.

The city has converted many roadways into bicycle lanes and installed anti-noise coatings on major roadways.

Automated noise cameras issue fines to excessively loud vehicles. A regional observatory called Bruitparif now monitors noise throughout the city and oversees noise-reduction efforts.

These noise-reduction efforts in Paris stand to make the city quieter for both people and wildlife. The city’s campaign in the war against noise prompts the question: can we turn down the volume on noise pollution to minimize its impact on birdsong?

Turning down the racket

In 2023, I travelled to Paris to record the songs of the great tit, a familiar European backyard bird closely related to the chickadee.

I used microphones and digital recorders to record birds in the streets, squares and parks throughout the city. I retraced the footsteps of my collaborator, Hans Slabbekoorn, the original biologist who recorded great tits in Paris in 2003.

When we compared background noise with bird songs, we found that great tits sing higher-pitched songs in noisier environments. By singing at a higher pitch, great tits avoid having their songs masked by the low-frequency noise of traffic sounds.

We also analyzed noise data collected across Paris by Bruitparif. We found that Paris is winning the war on noise pollution and the city has grown quieter in recent years. In fact, Paris today is approximately three decibels quieter than it was 10 years ago. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, a three-decibel drop represents a major reduction in sound intensity.

Despite this progress, great tits in Paris continue to sing at higher pitches than birds in wilderness areas outside the city.

Birds can revert their tune

However, there is reason for optimism. Research has shown that when cities become quieter, birds in other locations have returned to their natural pitch.

The quiet streets during COVID-19 lockdowns provided a rare opportunity to study birds in a quieter world. Biologists in San Francisco found that the urban soundscape became approximately seven decibels quieter during lockdowns — levels rarely observed since the 1950s.

The quiet airwaves allowed birds to change their tune. White-crowned sparrows in San Francisco responded by singing lower-pitched and quieter songs.

Many species of birds benefited from the quiet soundscape of the lockdown period. In a study of 47 species of songbirds in North America, our research team found that species with broad-frequency songs — sounds that are most immune to the impacts of low-frequency noise — expanded their ranges during this quiet period.

These findings reveal that noise pollution affects diverse birds, even those whose songs seem well-suited to noisy environments.

Listening to the future

Our studies in Paris show that a three-decibel reduction is not sufficient to allow birds to return to their natural song frequencies. Further noise-reduction efforts will be required for us to adequately share the airwaves with our feathered friends.

Paris also provides a hopeful lesson about battling noise pollution. Cities can reduce noise by encouraging cycling and quieter transportation. Public policy also plays an important role, exemplified by Paris’s Bruitparif agency.

If we measure noise pollution, we can strive to reduce it, improve our own well-being and create the space for wild birds to communicate at their natural sound frequencies.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Feature image credit: Giles Laurent/Wikimedia Commons

TriplePundit]]> Mary Mazzoni https://triplepundit.com/?p=70841 2026-05-13T20:53:18Z 2026-05-13T20:27:07Z

Activists and philanthropists have scrambled to fill the need for humanitarian relief after USAID was dismantled at the start of Donald Trump's second term. But private charity is no substitute for public policy.

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The United States Agency for International Development was the largest single source of humanitarian relief in the world until U.S President Donald Trump abruptly abolished it last year. The philanthropic community moved in swiftly to cover a small portion of the funded programs. However, only Congress can restore USAID to its intended role as an invaluable “soft power” asset that fortifies U.S. national security interests by uplifting people in poverty and encouraging democratic principles around the globe.

What happened to USAID?

In 1998, Congress reorganized USAID as an independent agency, meaning that only Congress can legally abolish it. But the law fell by the wayside when Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025. That same day, Trump issued an executive order that summarily abolished USAID, which at the time had an annual budget of $40 billion.

Within weeks, a brief notice was posted on the agency’s website. All global staff and 1,600 U.S. personnel were placed on administrative leave. Thousands of foreign assistance projects around the world were terminated. Files were burned or shredded, critical data was eliminated, and the website was scrubbed of all information. Though alert employees and other stakeholders preserved some invaluable data and archived the website, the damage was done.

The task of dismantling the agency was assigned to Tesla CEO Elon Musk as head of the newly established budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal once hailed DOGE as Trump’s “best idea,” which is more than a little ironic considering the massive waste and inefficiency later attributed to the office, with USAID providing one among many examples.

Instead of assessing programs according to standards and outcomes, DOGE staff simply relied on software-generated keyword searches to summarily cancel thousands of contracted programs at government agencies including USAID.

“Many of the terminated contracts had been axed by mistake, and it was evident that no one had bothered to ask what the contracts did before ending them,” Nicholas Enrich, former executive director of USAID’s Bureau of Health, wrote in an op-ed published last month.

Since being placed on administrative leave a few months after Trump took office, Enrich has worked to build public awareness of the chaos and human misery Trump and Musk fostered at USAID. His newly released book, “Into the Wood Chipper,” chronicles the early weeks of the demolition.

“Clinical trials were stopped in their tracks, interrupting novel treatment regimens for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, threatening the lives of patients and the development of new strains of TB that could evade our antibiotics of last resort,” Enrich summarized in his op-ed. “Pregnant women in need of urgent childbirth services were left stranded when emergency ambulance services halted and clinics were shuttered. Mothers were forced into the unthinkable position of choosing which of their children to feed.”

As legal cover, the Trump administration insists that USAID still exists, having been “absorbed” into the U.S. Department of State under the purview of White House budget director Russell Vought, the same man who oversaw the creation of the notorious “Project 2025” budget-cutting playbook produced by the right-wing organization Heritage Foundation.

The ensuing global humanitarian crisis has been well documented. One such project, called Impact Counter, projected that 262,915 adults and 518,428 children would die within a year if USAID’s medical programs were left unfunded. Terminated programs include PEPFAR, a George W. Bush-era HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment effort once called a “beacon to the world” by the World Health organization. Programs fighting tuberculosis, malaria, and childhood diarrhea were also eliminated or critically disrupted.

A remnant of $19 billion has been earmarked for expenses related to closing out the agency’s remaining grant programs, though some of those funds may be transferred to the State Department, Devex reported.

Triage and the role of philanthropy

The philanthropic community has rushed to fill the spending gap. Multiple fundraising efforts totaled $125 million between February and October of 2025.

“Those funds are just the most visible that private donors mobilized,” Thalia Beaty of the Associated Press reported in October. “In those early days, even with needs piling up, wealthy donors and private foundations grappled with how to respond. Of the thousands of programs the U.S. funded abroad, which ones could be saved and which would have the biggest impact if they continued?”

One answer has come in the form of the new DIV Fund, a privately endowed relaunch of the former Development Investment Ventures division of USAID with funding from the leading foundation Coefficient Giving and anonymous donors.

Over the previous 15 years, the Ventures division established a proven, step-by-step grantmaking strategy for USAID. In sharp contrast to Musk’s leadership at DOGE, the Ventures division deployed an evidence-based sequence designed to assess promising new programs at the pilot stage and work to scale them up.

The former head of the USAID Ventures division, Sarah Gallant, is co-founder and CEO of the new DIV Fund along with the Nobel Prize-winning economist Michal Kremer, who developed the Ventures division strategy and now serves as the scientific director of the DIV Fund.

Last year, the fund raised an initial round of $20 million to support programs in the Ventures pipeline that lost funding. “The fund’s investment model has yielded clear results,” the DIV Fund reported in February, emphasizing that the model first developed at USAID is designed to “deliver the greatest impact per dollar spent.”

The fund cites examples including education programs that add three years of schooling for 80 million children in Africa and South Asia and a new mobile software for frontline health workers that now covers services for more than 400 million people in 130 countries. It has also supported the clean cookstoves public health and household economy movement, citing a program that has delivered 6.3 million new fuel-efficient cookstoves.

“Analyses show that the DIV Fund’s approach has delivered an estimated $39 in social value for every dollar invested, far exceeding typical estimates for traditional aid,” the fund emphasizes, with social value referring to a holistic measurement of the effectiveness of charitable giving.

By centering an evidence-based model for charitable giving, the DIV Fund provides corporate funders with a rationale for helping to mitigate the damage rippling out from the destruction of USAID. The organization has already raised another $28 million to fund programs over the next four years, enabling it to solicit new proposals this year along with continued support for its existing portfolio.

Meanwhile, grassroots activists are working to rouse the public and press Congress for action. The elimination of PEPFAR in particular has re-energized the ACT UP organization, which formed in the 1980s to fight for HIV/AIDS funding. In April, a group of AIDS/HIV activists disrupted Vought’s testimony before the House Budget Committee, chanting “PEPFAR saves lives — spend the money.”

Too little, but not too late

Regardless of the life-saving measures undertaken by the DIV Fund and others, private charity is no substitute for public policy. Nevertheless, Trump has proposed that private investment and bilateral trade agreements can replace what he destroyed.

If that seems like a non-solution, it is. While Trump and his willing enablers in Congress slash funding for public programs both domestically and abroad, they continue to waste billions of dollars — $72 billion, according to one estimate — in support of Trump’s misbegotten war in Iran and coddle his pursuit of publicly-funded vanity projects, including $1 billion in new security-earmarked funding for the White House ballroom project and the destructive “renovation” of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, among others.

Even so, it’s not too late. Regardless of Trump’s efforts to suppress Democratic voters in the upcoming mid-term elections, the voting public has another opportunity to exercise their voice in November and elect a new, more responsible Congress to start repairing the damage and restoring USAID to what it once was: a beacon to the world.

Image credits: Victoria Pickering/Flickr, Elvert Barnes/Flickr, USAID/Flickr, Sebastian Oliel/PAHO via Flickr, Stephine Ogutu/USAID via Flickr, U.S. Navy photo via Wikimedia Commons

TriplePundit]]> Taylor Haelterman https://triplepundit.com/?p=70825 2026-05-08T01:58:54Z 2026-05-08T13:00:00Z

One clinic in Miami-Dade County, Florida, offers free midwifery care directly to majority-Black and Latino neighborhoods.

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This story was originally published by Stateline.

Midwife Sheila Simms Watson leaned to gently press on the pregnant woman’s belly. Me’Asia Taylor lay on a bed fitted with tie-dyed purple printed sheets in the corner of the RV.

Far from a typical camper, this RV houses a mobile midwifery clinic for prenatal, postpartum and women’s general health care.

“Roll when you’re getting up, and we can help you. You can sit there for a moment, all right, so you’re not lightheaded, not dizzy,” said Watson, whom patients and doulas call “Mama Sheila.”

Calm and slow, led by Watson’s soothing and attentive demeanor, the appointments are unrushed.

Run by the Southern Birth Justice Network, the mobile midwifery clinic brings care to majority-Black and Latino neighborhoods across Miami-Dade County several times a month. The clinic aims to offer a more relaxed setting, where women are comfortable and heard, their cultures are integrated, and they can connect with doulas from diverse backgrounds.

On the half-moon bench inside the RV, Watson, a doula and a midwife in training sit with patients. They take blood pressures and draw blood. They ask the women about their lives: How is their mental health and sleep? Do they have support at home? Do they want to give birth at a hospital or birth center with a midwife?

Taylor said pre-eclampsia, a dangerous pregnancy condition, runs in her family. She wanted to make sure she had space and time to express her concerns about her first pregnancy.

Taylor said she wants a midwife for her delivery. Many women of color have reported feeling marginalized or dismissed in medical settings. “I’ve just seen too many people have bad experiences,” Taylor told Watson.

The United States has markedly higher maternal mortality and infant mortality rates compared with other high-income countries, and women and babies of color fare the worst. Black women’s maternal death rates are three times higher than those of white women, and American Indian and Alaska Native women’s rates are twice that of white women. Researchers point to implicit bias, less regular access to prenatal care and higher rates of poverty.

OB-GYN shortages and labor and delivery units closing continue to make getting care harder. Last year, more than two dozen hospital labor and delivery units across the nation closed, including some in South Florida. And pregnant patients living miles away, or feeling uneasy about going to the doctor, may even forgo care.

Midwives can help fill gaps, maternal health equity advocates say, and mobile clinics can meet patients where they are.

“It really helps to disrupt this idea that patients must navigate these complex systems to receive care — and instead, [mobile midwifery] reimagines care as something that should be responsive to the needs of patients and should be community-centered,” said Tufts University professor and maternal health scholar Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha.

But mobile units are not as common for midwifery as they are for other areas of care, such as dentistry or family medicine, the American College of Nurse-Midwives told Stateline. Other prenatal mobile outreach efforts in the state include an OB-GYN-run mobile unit by the University of Florida that serves areas around north-central Alachua County and an operation called The Midwife Bus in Central Florida.

To increase access to care, maternal health advocates are also pushing states to change regulations that restrict midwifery. The American College of Nurse-Midwives recently filed a lawsuit against Mississippi for requiring nurse-midwives to have agreements with physicians in order to practice. This week, Jamarah Amani, a midwife and the executive director of the Southern Birth Justice Network, joined other plaintiffs in filing a lawsuit against Georgia over its restrictions. But supporters of the rules say they are meant to protect patients and foster communication between clinicians.

Offering culturally centered prenatal care that women are more inclined to use can help address inequities in maternal health, Amani said. The group trains doulas, offers telehealth, provides referrals such as to mental health therapists, and advocates for equitable policies across the South.

Most of the mobile clinic’s clients — about 70 percent — are on Medicaid or uninsured, and the clinic is funded through federal and university grants, as well as donations.

“[Midwifery] presents like a luxury concierge-type of service,” Amani said. “Our goal is to really change that and to bring it back to the community in a very grassroots way.”

Preserving tradition

The Southern Birth Justice Network keeps a small drum on a table at a nearby booth. It represents the heartbeat, and ancestral reverence, Amani said. Drums are a universal language, and the instrument is meant to symbolize culture.

For doulas and many midwives like Amani and Watson, bringing their profession to communities today is the continuation of a significant part of Black American heritage.

Throughout history, Black midwives were venerated in their communities. Many practices were rooted in West African traditions. These midwives were the keepers of Black ancestral records, and delivered many white women’s babies. Enslaved women who were midwives traveled for deliveries. Some routes, long and traversed by foot, were dangerous in the deep rural South. During the Jim Crow era, Black Americans were denied care at hospitals or given inferior care.

“They only had protection if someone would send a carriage for them if they were going to deliver a white woman’s baby. But to care for the Black families, they often had to go in the middle of the night, alone,” Amani said. “We talk about the legacy of Black midwives as health care providers, but also as social pillars, as community leaders, as resistors of oppression.”

In the 20th century, medical institutions began to oppose midwifery, sometimes using racist and sexist campaigns to target the practice. They argued it was unhygienic and lobbied across states to dismantle midwifery. At the same time, while developing the field of obstetrics, doctors conducted gynecological experiments on Black women. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has acknowledged this history and said it’s committed to fighting racism and inequities.

Dr. Jamila Perritt, an OB-GYN and president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, said that in order to address structural barriers and close gaps, policies have to prioritize access to care, such as allowing midwives to expand their practices. Throughout the South especially, states still restrict midwives from practicing independently, despite widespread maternal health care deserts. She also pointed to research showing midwifery is associated with fewer C-sections, less preterm labor and better patient satisfaction.

“Expanding access to midwifery care, and expanding collaborations between physicians and midwives, only improves outcomes,” Perritt said.

Cultivating trust

On a recent breezy and brisk Saturday morning, the Southern Birth Justice Network’s midwives and doulas were stationed in the parking lot of the Freedom Lab, a local community center that hosts food and clothing distribution and a free urgent care center.

At the booth by the mobile clinic, under the shade of a royal-purple awning, meditation music, low-key and mellow, reverberated from a small speaker. There was a cooler filled with oranges, water and other snacks for the clinic’s pregnant patients.

“I’m going to keep giving you food. You need to eat enough,” one doula told a patient, handing her an orange and a liter of spring water.

Staff had surveys to help assess a new patient’s needs, and Florida-specific pamphlets on pregnant patients’ rights. The group is working on other state-specific guides for Louisiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Texas.

The table also held a portrait of the late midwife Ada “Becky” Sprouse, who started the mobile midwife clinic around 2008. She’d drive it to the city of Homestead, an agricultural hub in Miami-Dade County. There, she offered free midwifery care to migrant farmworkers, many of whom couldn’t afford care throughout their pregnancies.

Sprouse passed the clinic on to Amani, who relaunched the mobile unit and broadened the scope of the Southern Birth Justice Network.

Patients told Stateline trust was one of the main reasons they sought out the clinic. One patient said she spent two and a half hours on public transit that day so that she could see the team.

For now, deliveries take place at hospitals or neighboring birth centers, where some of the group’s midwives also work. But the organization recently bought a building to open its own freestanding birth center, aiming for next year, along with a larger RV.

One patient, Isis Daaga, turned to Amani to deliver her other children after her first birth at a hospital. Despite the pressure she felt and her need to push during labor, Daaga recalled, hospital staff prevented her from delivering.

“They literally held my knees together,” Daaga said. “They were like, ‘the doctor’s not here yet,’ and the nurses were scared to deliver the baby.” In many hospitals, protocol is to wait for the doctor in case an emergency occurs.

By the time the doctor came, Daaga had a severe perineal tear, and she delivered the baby in one push. She had been in labor for 15 hours.

“I was in pain, I was upset,” said Daaga, a mental health therapist who is 35 weeks pregnant.

At the mobile clinic and with the midwives, Daaga said she feels supported.

“They make me feel the way I try to make my clients feel, like, it’s a safe space. You’re not judged here. I have a lot going on,” she said. “If I’m MIA or something, most of them will call and text me and [say], ‘Girl, you need to come in.’”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

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