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Tens of thousands of people looked set to spend another night away from home Monday as a wind-driven fire bore down on the western U.S. city of Reno.

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At first glance, Australia’s bogong moth is a decidedly unspectacular-looking creature. The moths are typically a dark, mottled brown and each weighs less than a Tic Tac mint or half a gram. But looks can be deceiving. Every spring in the Southern Hemisphere, from September to November, billions of bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) undertake an epic journey. Using the stars and the Earth’s magnetic field, these tiny insects navigate hundreds of kilometers across Australia. Their destination is the Australian Alps, located in the far southeast corner of the country, where they will shelter in cool caves for the duration of the summer. The moths are a critical resource for the many rare and wonderful species that live in these mountains. “The whole [alpine] zone relies on the bogong moths,” said Marissa Parrott, a senior conservation biologist at Zoos Victoria. “They’re the second largest influx of nutrients into the Alps every year, beaten only by the sun.” But the moth’s future is far from certain. Their numbers have been slowly declining since the 1980s, and in 2017, populations crashed, likely due to extreme drought across much of southeastern Australia. A bogong moth in Sydney. Image by John Tann via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). At several locations, cave walls that had once been densely blanketed with moths — several thousand occupying each square meter (equivalent to 11 square feet) — were all but empty. “They went from four billion to nearly undetectable,” Parrott said. The population collapse threatens the alpine ecosystem,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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The United States has never been one of the most ambitious countries when it comes to tackling climate change, but it has long maintained a program that funds innovative clean energy technology. This program is known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, or ARPA-E, and over the past 15 years it has doled out more than $4 billion to universities and startups that are trying to change the way we produce energy.

It’s very hard to raise money for this kind of moonshot technology, which can take years or even decades to scale up large enough to generate a profit. A huge number of emergent technologies never attract the funding to cross this “valley of death” between experiment and big business. The purpose of the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E, which was modeled on a similar program run by the U.S. military, was to help energy inventors span this gap and develop the climate technologies of the future.

A landmark report from the National Academies of Science, requested by Congress and released last week, has found that this high-risk, high-reward program is working: ARPA-E’s $4 billion investment has led to more than $20 billion in additional funding and more than 1,400 patents. Projects that received ARPA-E money were much more likely to get patents and additional investment than projects that were denied. The report also found that around 40 percent of ARPA-E grants led to a “crowding in” effect: After a startup proves that a new technology is feasible, other companies jump in and try to replicate it.

“We’re trying to enable very talented people who could be doing other things to spend their lives trying to do incredibly risky things that, probabilistically speaking, will not deliver a profit in time to benefit them,” said Chris Bataille, a fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy and an expert on the development of clean energy technology who was not involved in the report.

The report committee, which consisted of more than a dozen scientists and energy experts, recommended that Congress significantly expand ARPA-E’s funding. It also found that the program should shift its focus from renewables and electric vehicles toward a harder set of energy problems — a shift for which the Trump administration has signaled its partial support.

ARPA-E began in 2009, and many of its early grants focused on improving solar panels and lithium-ion batteries, which weren’t yet ready to compete with traditional energy sources on a large scale. (A different Department of Energy program offered early support to Tesla.) The technologies have since gotten hundreds of times cheaper thanks to China’s massive investment in manufacturing overcapacity. Among the report’s most notable findings is that ARPA-E doesn’t need to focus on this renewable tech anymore. This finding echoes some climate experts’ claim that solar no longer needs tax subsidies like those in the Inflation Reduction Act passed during Joe Biden’s presidency.

But solar and wind only work when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, and most of the country’s grid still relies on coal and gas plants that can run at all hours of the day. This is especially true for factories and data centers, which need large and constant infusions of electricity in order to stay online. It’s here that ARPA-E’s investments are really starting to bear fruit.

Many of the program’s more recent grantees have been companies trying to solve the problem of “clean firm” power available around the clock. The most notable is Fervo, a company that uses super-deep wells to convert the ambient geothermal heat of the Earth into electricity. The company received ARPA-E support as early as 2019 and went public this year on the heels of a few successful demonstration projects. It’s now inking deals with Google to power data centers in Nevada. Other success stories include Form Energy, which develops iron-air batteries that can store large amounts of clean energy for multiple days at a time, and X-energy, which builds small-scale nuclear reactors.

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Given this success, the report authors argue that ARPA-E should now shift its investment to the hardest climate problems, the ones where solutions could still be decades away. Potential opportunity areas include nuclear fusion, which in theory would provide almost limitless clean energy if it ever panned out. There’s also “seasonal energy storage,” or batteries that could store solar and wind energy for long winter months when those resources aren’t as available in a given location. Perhaps most significant for the climate would be carbon-free methods for producing steel and cement, which each account for around 8 percent of global emissions.

“You need this sort of constant innovation to move us off the fossil fuel pathway, right? Because we’re very firmly entrenched on it,” said Bataille. “We’re talking about projects that will likely be profitable, but they’re just not valued unless the government values them. There’s probably one-one-hundredth of the necessary money going into those.”

President Donald Trump tried to defund ARPA-E in his first term by withholding funds appropriated by Congress. So far, during his second term, the administration has attempted to wipe billions of dollars in Biden-era climate grants. Trump’s budget request to Congress this year called for shrinking ARPA-E by almost 50 percent, but the Department of Energy is still handing out new grants for experimental tech like long-duration energy storage, fusion reactors, and mining for critical minerals like lithium.

In a statement to Grist, the department said that ARPA-E is “advancing President Trump’s agenda to restore American energy dominance” by “backing breakthrough, high-risk technologies.” The proposed funding cut, on the other hand, “demonstrates fiscal discipline and a commitment to an efficient and effective federal government.”

Even though Trump hasn’t destroyed the program itself, his policies have hindered the growth of the clean tech field that ARPA-E helped to advance. A case in point is Natron Energy, a company that received ARPA-E grant funding to develop experimental sodium-ion batteries. The company announced in 2024 that it would build a $1.4 billion plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, but Trump’s reelection dampened private sector interest in electric vehicles, and the company failed to secure investors for its factory. The company shut down last year.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline US companies are on the cusp of big climate solutions. Thank the government. on Aug 25, 2026.

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At Hampton Court Palace, head gardener Graham Dillamore strode across the burned beige grass in the spectacular formal gardens southwest of London, laid out in the 17th century.

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A coalition may call itself a commitment. It still has to say what that commitment is. The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to send a letter to dozens of countries, pressing them to choose sides in the US-China artificial intelligence race. Those that join Beijing’s proposed AI cooperation framework would be excluded from the US-led AI coalition. “To be part of everything is to be part of nothing,” the draft says. An American official summarised the message more bluntly: countries...

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With congested, aging power lines and a densely developed landscape, the East Coast has few options for building large-scale renewable power. Meanwhile, the region’s electricity prices are rising, and states are falling behind their emissions goals.

Offshore wind offered a unique opportunity to meet those challenges, experts say, but the industry is barely surviving under economic headwinds and an openly hostile federal government. Offshore wind isn’t dead, but advocates agree that the technology is fading just when the region needs it most.

Offshore wind developers, who had already struggled with high construction costs, hit a minefield when the Trump administration took office in 2025. The administration has subjected offshore wind projects to questionable Pentagon reviews, permit revocations, and stop-work orders, some of which survived only briefly before being blocked by courts. The administration’s most consequential move may have been its decision to pay developers to surrender their rights to develop in federally managed waters. By mid-August, it had committed to roughly $4 billion in payouts, wiping an estimated 21 gigawatts of potential wind power capacity off U.S. coasts, or enough energy to power over 15 million average-sized U.S. homes. Experts say more deals could follow.

As they wait for conditions to improve, the industry must push through what offshore wind experts describe as an irked malaise.

“Companies are trying to be upbeat, but I think if you kind of peel back the layers a bit, there’s a number of emotions out there; anger, sadness,” said Mark Repsher, an energy and sustainability expert at PA Consulting. “These people like what they do … sometimes it’s been their whole career, and it’s been put on pause now.”

At least nine companies are still holding onto their offshore wind development rights, most of them European energy giants like Shell, and at least some appear unlikely to strike a deal. Denmark-based Orsted, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind energy, and the Spanish company Avangrid are the largest remaining leaseholders, with five and six undeveloped leases, respectively.

The projects are dropping at a time when the three major interstate grids in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic are all facing growing demand from data centers, electrification, and new manufacturing, while some of the region’s cleanest power is generated far from its biggest cities. New York is a case in point. Half of the state’s electricity demand is concentrated around New York City and Long Island, but much of its renewable power is generated upstate, where aging transmission lines are already a bottleneck. Meanwhile, for PJM, the grid operator covering most of the mid-Atlantic, power demand is projected to grow 7.8 gigawatts higher than available supply by 2033.

“If you had additional wind, it could be filling those gaps, reducing any of those challenges at a time the grid really, really needs that,” said Hillary Bright, executive director of Turn Forward, a nonprofit supporting offshore wind.

Offshore wind can send clean power straight to demand centers and ease grid pressure. The already operational Empire Wind project sends power directly to New York City through undersea cables, while the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project delivers power to the data center cluster in northern Virginia that has become one of PJM’s fastest-growing energy consumers.

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Former President Joe Biden saw offshore wind as a central pillar of his federal climate strategy, largely because of its geographic strengths. His administration permitted the first commercial-scale U.S. offshore wind project, Vineyard Wind, in 2021, then leased 1.9 million acres of coastal waters to developers — more than had been awarded during the previous three presidential terms combined.

States built the technology into their climate plans accordingly. Massachusetts has called offshore wind a “cornerstone” of its clean energy strategy; New York called it “critical”; and Maryland described it as its “greatest opportunity” to reach its emissions goals.

Without offshore wind, Eastern states don’t have a clear alternative for abundant, clean energy, experts say. Some solar power might help, but the East’s tightly packed geography just isn’t well-suited for the kind of land-based renewables deployments that have revolutionized grids in California and Texas.

“The wind resource, and even the solar resource, in the Eastern U.S. is not nearly as good as it is in the West,” Repsher said. Miles from his office in Denver, he said, eastern Colorado’s wide open, sparsely populated prairie lands have bloomed with a profusion of rotating white blades and glossy black panels.

Most Eastern states have yet to adjust their climate plans for less offshore wind. New York extended its emissions goal deadlines and loosened greenhouse gas accounting regulations in March, but offshore wind remains a large part of its plan. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, local officials have given up trying to build substations that would receive power from planned offshore wind projects after those projects were canceled or delayed beyond expected connection timelines, even as the technology remains integral to its emissions plans. In both states, planned projects have been frozen or canceled from a mix of pre-Trump economic pressures and current Trump policy pressures, including lease buyouts.

It’s questionable, Repsher said, whether there are any realistic changes states could make if they wanted to: “If you have these fairly aggressive carbon reduction targets within these states, it’s borderline impossible to meet them without having offshore wind.”

Still, some wind advocates say there are reasons for optimism: Electricity prices have risen, improving the economics of new wind projects, and the Trump administration has only two and a half years left in its term.

Kris Ohleth, executive director of Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, a pro-offshore wind nonprofit research group, said some advocates have already started planning for a post-Trump world by compiling what they’ve dubbed “Project 2029” — a policy roadmap that a future administration could adopt to support offshore wind.

“Offshore wind is still such an exciting opportunity. It’s such a cool technology,” Ohleth said. “There’s something on the horizon, and that gives me hope.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Offshore wind power projects are flailing, just when the East Coast needs them most on Aug 25, 2026.

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This year, the town of 15,000, which bills itself as the “Cherry Capital of the World,” hosted its weeklong celebration of the iconic fruit. Visitors meandered through the crowd munching on cups packed with fresh cherries and balancing paper plates of cherry pie. Booths sold cherry pancakes, cherry sausages, cherry barbecue sauces, and even cherry-flavored […]

The post Climate Change Is Devastating the ‘Cherry Capital of the World’ appeared first on Civil Eats.

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Nagprotesta ang mga manggagawa ng Harbour Centre Port Terminal, Inc. (HCPTI) sa upisina ng Department of Labor and Employment-National Capital Region (DOLE-NCR) sa Maynila noong Agosto 24. Sa pangunguna ng Unyon ng mga Manggagawa ng Harbour Centre (UMHC), binatikos nila ang ahensya sa kainutilan nitong protektahan ang karapatan ng 378 manggagawang tinanggal sa pyer noon pang Enero 2020.

Isinagawa ng kumpanya ang tanggalan sa tabing ng kunwa’y pagtatapos ng kontrata nito sa labor agency na Grasials Corporation. Nilabanan ito ng mga manggagawa at iginiit ang kanilang pagbalik sa trabaho. Noong Setyembre 2021, kinatigan sila ng Korte Suprema at inutusan ang kumpanya na ibalik sila sa trabaho at kaakibat nitong kabayaran.

Limang taon makalipas, hindi pa rin sila ibinabalik sa trabaho at wala nang ginagawa ang DOLE-NCR para tiyaking sundin ang kautusan. “Limang taon nang naghihintay ang mga manggagawa. Ikatlong apela na para sa implementation! May desisyon na, may finality na, implementation na lang ang hinihintay!” galit na pahayag ng UMHC.

Patuloy rin ang panawagan ng unyon para sa pananagutan sa marahas na pagbuwag sa kanilang kampuhan sa Road 10, Maynila noong Nobyembre 2022. Nasa likod ng pagbuwag sa kampuhan ang mga maton at tauhan ng HCPTI. Ang kumpanya ay pag-aari ng kapitalistang si Reghis Romero.

Si Romero rin ang itinuturong nasa likod ng mapangwasak na ₱26-bilyong waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerator sa Barangay 128, Smokey Mountain, Maynila. Ang proyekto ay isang 100 megawatt na WTE Incineration Plant na itinutulak ng Manila Integrated Environment Corp. (MIEC), kumpanyang kontrolado ng Phil. Ecology Systems Corp. (PHILECO) na pag-aari n Romero. Suportado ito ng kumpanyang Japanese na Kanadevia Corporation at nakabalangkas ang pagtatayo sa malawakang Port Modernization sa kahabaan ng pantalan sa Maynila.

Habang tuluy-tuloy ang panawagan ng mga manggagawa para ipatupad ang pagbabalik-trabaho, hinihingi nito sa gubyerno ang pagbibigay ng suportang pinansyal at tulong para sa mga nawalan ng trabaho. Gayunman, idiniin ng unyon na batid ng mga manggagwa na hindi ito kapalit ng regular na trabaho at hustisya.

The post Mga manggagawang tinanggal sa Harbour Centre, muling nagprotesta sa DOLE-NCR appeared first on PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central.

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Libu-libong Korean at kanilang mga tagasuporta ang nagmartsa sa Seoul, kapitolyo ng South Korea, noong Agosto 15 para gunitain ang ika-81 National Liberation Day ng bansa. Bahagi ng mga pagkilos ang pagbatikos sa umiigting na militarismo ng imperyalismong US at ang patuloy nitong pagkontrol sa ekonomya ng South Korea sa pamamagitan ng nakasasakal na mga taripa.

Ayon sa mga ulat, kabilang sa hanay ng 10,000 nagprotesta ang mga manggagawa sa ilalim ng Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). Bahagi ang naturang pagkilos ang malapad na 2026 August 15 Independence and Peace March Organizing Committee.

Kinundena ni Yang Gyeong-su, tagapangulo ng KCTU, ang nagpapatuloy na paggamit ni US Pres. Donald Trump sa taripa bilang sandata upang ipilit ang pamumuhunan at pandarambong nito sa South Korea. Aniya, bahagi ito sa pakikialam ng US sa lokal na ekonomya ng bansa. Nanawagan siya na patibayin ang kasalukuyang pakikibaka laban sa US at mga imperyalistang gerang agresyon nito.

Dagdag rito, kinundena sa pagkilos ang Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) 2026 na taunang war games ng imperyalismong US at pwersang militar ng Republic of Korea (ROK). Layunin nitong magpakitang-gilas ng lakas militar laban sa mga katunggaling bansa tulad ng North Korea at China. Nakatakda ito mula Agosto 17 hanggang Agosto 27 ngunit biglang ipinahinto noong Agosto 21 sa utos ni US Pres. Trump.

Kabilang din sa lumahok sa pagkilos sa Seoul ang mga Korean na naninirahan sa US at dayuhang bahagi ng Jaju Solidarity Brigade na inorganisa ng Nodutdol for Korean Community Development alinsunod sa kampanya nitong “US Out of Korea.” Ayon sa Nodutdol, ito ang kauna-unahang internasyunal na delegasyon para lumahok sa taunang protesta sa National Liberation Day.

Hindi bababa sa 21 internasyunal na mga kontra-gera at progresibong organisasyon mula US, Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, Guåhan (Guam), Pilipinas at India ang bahagi ng delegasyon. Bago ang paglahok sa malaking protesta, isang linggo silang umikot at bumisita sa mga base militar ng US para alamin ang kalayagan at epekto ng presensyang militar ng US sa mga komunidad. Nagpunta sila sa Gusan Air Base, Camp Casey at Camp Humphreys.

Ayon kay Chrisley Carpio, myembro ng standing committee ng Freedom Road Socialist Organization ng US, binista ng delegasyon ang mga bantayog ng mga batang pinatay ng mga tropa ng US, ang malalaking libingan ng mga bilanggong pulitikal na lumaban sa pananakop ng US, at ang mga lupang inagaw mula sa mga Korean para pagtayuan ng mga base. “Hindi lamang ito mga lugar ng trahedya, kundi ng pakikibaka…mayroong kilusan, kampanya, at panawagan,” aniya.

Kasama rin sa mga lumahok sa pagbisita sa South Korea ang mga myembro ng Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan). Ayon sa Bayan-USA, mahigpit silang nakikiisa sa lahat ng mga pagsisikap para palayasin ang US mula sa South Korea hanggang sa Plipinas. “Ang presensyang militar ng US ay patuloy na naghahatid ng panganib sa ating mamamayan,” pahayag ni June Colcol, pangkalahatang kalihim ng Bayan-USA.

Dumalo sa pagkilos ang pangkalahatang kalihim ng Bayan Philippines na si Raymond Palatino. Nagpahayag ng mahigpit na pakikipagkaisa ang Bayan sa mamamayang Korean sa paggigiit sa pambansang soberanya at pagbatikos sa UFS 2026 at ang pagpapalawak ng militarismo ng US. “Ayaw naming makaladkad sa gerang proxy ng US, na ginagamit ang aming mamamayan bilang pambala sa kanyon, at ang aming lupa bilang mga palaruan ng gera at lunsaran ng pagpapakitang-gilas sa militar ng US,” ayon sa talumpati ni Palatino sa programa.

Sa pahayag ng Nodutdol, naging matagumpay ang Jaju Solidarity Brigade dahil pinalakas nito ang kanilang loob at kahandaan na mag-organisa at magmulat sa mga mamamayan sa kanilang uuwiang mga bansa hinggil sa kalagayan ng South Korea. “Ang progresibong kilusang masa ng South Korea ay nangangailangan ng pakikipagkapatiran ng buong mundo dahil ito ay nakikibaka upang maibalik ang soberanya ng mamamayang Koreano pagkatapos ng mahigit isang siglo ng imperyalistang dominasyon. Ang kilusang ito na para sa kapayapaan at pagpapalaya ay para sa interes ng buong sangkatauhan,” ayon sa Nodutdol.

The post Libu-libong Korean, nagmartsa para palayasin ang tropa ng US sa Korea appeared first on PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central.

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Américo Pascuala was shot dead while monitoring his community’s territory in Ucayali, prompting Indigenous groups to demand an investigation.

Indigenous leader Américo Pascuala was shot dead in Peru’s Ucayali region after confronting intruders who were extracting copaiba resin from trees inside his community’s territory, Indigenous organizations said.

RELATED: Recent Peru Earthquake Reopens Debate Over Disaster Response Capabilities

Pascuala, leader of the Onconashari Native Community in the Yurúa district, was carrying out monitoring and patrol duties when he encountered the intruders, according to the Regional Organization of Ucayali (ORAU), part of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (Aidesep).

He confronted the intruders and was shot dead, ORAU said.

Indigenous organizations said Pascuala had previously reported the presence of people entering the community’s territory without authorization but received no support from authorities to address the situation.

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Text Reads: Indigenous leader Américo Pascuala, from the Onconashari Native Community, was shot and killed in the Ucayali region of Peru after catching intruders extracting copaiba resin on communal land. The leader was carrying out monitoring and surveillance duties when he confronted the invaders and was shot and killed. The Ucayali Regional Organization (ORAU) and the National Human Rights Coordinator (CNDDHH) condemned the crime.
The organizations stated that the victim had reported the presence of invaders without receiving support from the authorities, and that unauthorized entry into Onconashari lands has been reported for 26 years. The CNDDHH demanded an immediate investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Police, with an intercultural approach.

The National Coordinator for Human Rights (CNDDHH) condemned the killing, saying the circumstances were not unknown to the state. The organization said unauthorized incursions into Onconashari territory and threats against community members had been reported to the Ministry of Culture and the National Police for 26 years.

The CNDDHH called on prosecutors and police to launch an immediate and thorough investigation with an intercultural approach, determine those responsible for the killing and provide guarantees and protection for Indigenous people.

Copaiba trees produce a resin used for medicinal purposes, including as an anti-inflammatory, healing and antiseptic substance. The resin is also used in the cosmetics, hygiene and pharmaceutical industries.

Indigenous Amazonian organizations said at least 35 Indigenous leaders have been killed in Peru since 2020 for defending their territories against criminal groups and illicit extractive activities.

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The US has proposed a new US$103,265 fee for H-1B visa petitions – a move that could ramp up the cost of hiring skilled foreign workers, with Chinese and Indian professionals particularly hard hit. It comes at a sensitive time for US-China relations, with visas already a long-running source of friction and Beijing stepping up efforts to attract global tech talent as competition intensifies between the world’s two largest economies. The US Department of Homeland Security proposed the additional...

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