Cities are known to shape the evolution of wildlife within them, but according to a study of European cities published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, this is not a one-off event. Rather than a single urban genotype of a species spreading from one place to another, scientists found that evolution often starts from scratch, creating distinct genotypes in different cities.

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Neural tissue normally dies quickly without oxygen. Yet bird retinas—among the most energy-demanding tissues in the animal kingdom—function permanently without it. This may be relevant in future treatment of stroke patients.

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During the last ice age, the Atlantic Ocean's powerful current system remained active and continued to transport warm, salty water from the tropics to the North Atlantic despite extensive ice cover across much of the Northern Hemisphere, finds new research led by UCL scientists.

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In a paper published in Nature, a team led by University of Chicago paleoanthropologist Professor Zeresenay Alemseged reports the discovery of the first Paranthropus specimen from the Afar region of Ethiopia, 1,000 km north of the genus' previous northernmost occurrence.

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A research team led by the University of Oxford's Department of Engineering Science has shown it is possible to engineer a quantum mechanical process inside proteins, opening the door to a new class of quantum-enabled biological technologies.

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Imagine Max, a well-trained border collie, manages to ignore a squirrel in the park when his owner tells him to sit. His owner says, "Max, stop chasing that squirrel and sit down," and Max obeys. Can dogs learn and understand words the way humans do?

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The world is now using so much fresh water amid the consequences of climate change that it has entered an era of water bankruptcy, with many regions no longer able to bounce back from frequent water shortages.

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Nika Bartoo-Smith
Underscore Native News + ICT

Deconstruction of the Bateman Island causeway in southcentral Washington state began on Jan. 5 as part of greater restoration efforts along the Yakima River Delta.

For over 80 years, the Bateman Island causeway, or raised path, has created stagnant water conditions and a place for sediment to pile up. This has led to warmer water conditions where invasive non-native fish, such as small mouth bass, thrive. It has also led to toxic algae blooms and a prime breeding ground for mosquitos, said Mike Livingston, the south central region director for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Removing the causeway is going to undo 86 years of partially blocked fish passage at the Yakima Delta that was built in 1939 and ever since then, the flow of the river has been forced to go around to the north end of the island,” Livingston said.

Historically, the river would flow around both sides of the island, mixing the cool water of the Columbia River into the Yakima River.

The causeway has also made it difficult for juvenile salmon to migrate downstream in spring and early summer, and limited passage for adult salmon returning for spawning in the summer and fall.

The causeway itself was not permitted, but rather constructed for agricultural purposes and so that farmers could access the island, according to Joe Blodgett, a citizen of Yakama Nation and the Yakima Klickitat Fisheries project manager for Yakama Nation Fisheries.

“So they put it out across the river, without designing a way for fish passage or water movement through that area, just completely dammed up that portion of the Yakima River that was traditionally dumped into the Columbia [River],” Blodgett said.

With the deconstruction of the causeway, there will no longer be direct access to the island, which some members of the public expressed concern about, according to Livingston. He said they made the decision to not build another bridge for foot access to the island primarily due to the cost, as building a bridge would be more expensive than deconstruction.

The whole area also holds cultural importance to Native Nations in the region, including Yakama Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, said Philip Rigdon, a citizen of Yakama Nation and the superintendent of Yakama Nation’s Department of Natural Resources.

The deconstruction of the causeway is part of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan, a state, federal, tribal and community collaboration with a 30-year plan to address the basin’s water needs.

Funding for the deconstruction work came from a $1.2 million contract awarded to Pipkin Incorporated by the Walla Walla District of the Army Corps of Engineers. The work itself is a partnership between multiple federal, state, local and tribal governments and agencies.

On federal level that included the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries and the Environmental Protection Agency; on the state level that included the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Washington Department of Ecology and the Washington Department of Natural Resources; Yakama Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation; the Tri Cities government; along with the general public, according to Kathryn Herzog, USACE Walla Walla District planner and project manager.

“For this type of project at this scale, that is a lot of coordination,” Herzog said. “So it did take more time, but it’s really exciting.”

This deconstruction project is more than 10 years in the making, Livingston said. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife joined the effort in 2016, though the work toward deconstruction was built upon scientific studies in the area done by Yakama Nation Fisheries and Mid-Columbia Fisheries.

The Walla Walla District joined the project in 2019, starting with a feasibility report, completed in 2024, studying various solutions to improve the overall ecological health of the Yakima River Delta.

After over a decade of permitting, a feasibility study, cultural resource reviews and securing funding, deconstruction is underway and expected to take place through February.

“Yakama Nation, a long time ago, under our treaty of 1855, we’ve been fighting for the right for fish and we do consider it very important, the place and role that we have in not just wanting to say fish are coming back, but making sure that there’s fish available for our membership to catch,” Rigdon said. “And so we’re working on almost every basin through different processes.”

This story is co-published byUnderscore Native News andICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.

The post Bateman Island causeway removal to restore fish passage appeared first on ICT.

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Flinders University paleontology researchers—with local fossil experts—have discovered how prolific shorebirds, including the Plains-wanderer, once lived across South Australia's South-East during wetter times up to 60,000 years ago.

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Dreaming of harvesting peaches, plums, apples or figs from your own backyard? Growing delicious homegrown fruit starts with planting your tree correctly—and at the right time of year.

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Through sand extraction and the disposal of dredged harbor silt, about 200 million tons of sediment are relocated every year in the coastal waters of the North Sea. The Wadden Sea is particularly strongly affected. This is the result of a new study by the Helmholtz Center Hereon, which for the first time evaluated comprehensive data on dredging activities along the North Sea coasts.

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Researchers from the University of Konstanz have studied how insect brains take in complex light stimuli and process them in parallel. They are the first to have found evidence that information is processed in different layers of the lamina.

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Parking lot construction at Colorado's Dinosaur National Monument unearthed new fossils last fall, the first discovery at the monument in more than 100 years, according to the National Park Service.

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A study led by a University of Calgary researcher has come up with an AI-based early detection system for river-borne pathogens—including whirling disease in trout and salmon.

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Deusdedit Ruhangariyo
ICT

Around the world: When universities let Indigenous languages quietly die in Canada, forests versus minerals in Congo’s global resource rush and Indonesia’s forest crackdown raises power, justice questions

CANADA: When universities let Indigenous languages quietly die

For nearly two decades, Lorena Lynn Cote believed she was helping safeguard a living inheritance. At First Nations University of Canada, she taught Anihšināpēmowin, the Saulteaux language, with the hope that students would not only relearn their ancestral tongue but carry it forward. Today, that hope is fraying, reported CBC News.

“I’m losing faith in the university’s commitment,” Cote says, after watching the program she helped sustain steadily dismantled, according to CBC News. Once, Indigenous students could pursue degrees in multiple Indigenous languages. Now, Cree is the only language degree offered. Anihšināpēmowin survives only at the most basic level.

“Our language classes have been getting cancelled,” Cote said. “We do offer the 100 and 101, and that’s just basic introductory language.”

What followed was not an expansion, but contraction. The degree program disappeared. The certificate program was reduced to five courses — and even that pathway collapsed as upper-level classes were routinely canceled before enrollment could materialize. Without 200-level courses, students are structurally blocked from completing credentials.

“I’ve been here 23 years and I don’t have one graduate under my name,” Cote said, according to CBC News. “The last one who got a degree here was when my late aunt was here… late ’90s, early 2000s.”

Students feel the loss acutely. Brianna Brass, who completed the introductory sequence in 2018, committed herself fully to the language. Today, her degree audit shows she is 78 percent complete, stalled not by lack of effort, but by absent courses.

“I felt let down by FNU,” Brass said, according to CBC News. “I was very disappointed.”

Cote recalls advocating for three students in 2021, all capable of completing their studies. None could proceed. Classes were canceled for “insufficient enrollment,” even as funding confirmations for many Indigenous students arrive late in the summer — after course schedules are finalized.

The result is a quiet erosion. Languages tied to ceremony, worldview, and identity are reduced to introductory fragments, unable to sustain fluent speakers or future teachers.

“Languages are important,” Cote said. “They’re our lifeblood.”

Brass is more blunt. “The university needs to do better. Find more instructors, find elders and speakers… I am angry and very disappointed with how the university has treated the Anihšināpēmowin program. They let it fall apart.”

CONGO: Forests versus minerals in global resource rush

In southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Valery Kyembo was walking the boundary of his community’s forest when armed soldiers stopped him. One raised an automatic weapon. The message was clear: titled land does not always protect those who live on it, Mongabay reported.

“We are visiting the boundaries of our community’s property,” Kyembo said, according to Mongabay, before being forced to turn back.

The land is the Lukutwe community forest concession, created by local leaders to protect miombo forests against mining expansion in the copper-cobalt belt. The DRC holds roughly 70 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves, making these lands central to global clean energy, weapons, and technology supply chains.

Ten years earlier, neighboring villages were displaced by a mining company searching for copper and cobalt. Lukutwe responded by securing formal title — one of the few legal shields available to communities whose customary rights are otherwise vulnerable.

“These concessions constitute a guarantee against land pressures,” said Héritier Khoji of the University of Lubumbashi, according to Mongabay— though he warned that mining law often overrides forest protections.

Community forest concessions allow Indigenous and local communities to hold up to 50,000 hectares in perpetuity. They come with management plans: reforestation, agroforestry, conservation zones, and controlled resource use. Since 2016, Lukutwe alone has received $4.5 million in international funding to restore degraded forest.

Yet pressure is relentless. Mining licenses blanket the region. Chemical spills have contaminated waterways. Charcoal production and logging hollow out forests meant to be protected.

“Today, there are no more mushrooms. Medicinal plants are becoming rare,” said Hester Kyaushi, a forest monitor.

Though 227 community forest concessions now cover more than 4.48 million hectares nationwide, enforcement remains fragile. Communities report mining licenses issued without consent. Armed actors restrict access. Funding gaps leave forests vulnerable to fire and encroachment.

“This is the kind of situation these concessions are meant to address,” said Stéphane Banza of APRONAPAKAT, according to Mongabay. “Yet access to property duly obtained from authorities is becoming difficult.”

The forest title offers documents, not power. As global competition for cobalt intensifies, the struggle reveals a deeper truth: environmental protection without political weight remains precarious.

INDONESIA: Forest crackdown raises power, justice questions

Indonesia has reclaimed more than 4 million hectares of land used illegally inside forest zones — exceeding its own enforcement target by more than 400 percent in under a year. Officials describe the operation as historic. Critics call it opaque, reported Mongabay.

Led by a task force formed under President Prabowo Subianto, the crackdown targets oil palm plantations, nickel and coal mines, illegal tourism structures, and encroachment into national parks. Administrative fines totaling 2.3 trillion rupiah have been collected. Millions of hectares have been seized.

But questions mount.

“The public only sees the numbers,” said Achmad Surambo of Sawit Watch, according to Mongabay. “We don’t know what lies behind them.”

Previously, the government estimated 3.4 million hectares of oil palm overlapped forest land. Now officials suggest up to 10 million hectares could be reclaimed — implying that over half of Indonesia’s plantations may be unlawful, without transparent explanation.

What happens after seizure is even less clear.

Roughly 1.7 million hectares have been handed to state-owned palm oil company PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara, rapidly transforming it into the world’s largest palm oil firm by land area. Less than a fifth of seized land is earmarked for ecological restoration.

“Administrative fines and land takeover are being carried out,” Surambo said, according to Mongabay. “But restoration is not.”

Civil society groups warn that monoculture palm oil under state management perpetuates ecological harm. Others fear new conflicts, as land is transferred without verifying customary or smallholder claims.

“This gives legitimacy to seize assets without checking whether communities live there,” said Difa Shafira of ICEL, according to Mongabay.

The task force’s militarized composition deepens unease. While officials insist communities can report wrongful seizures, critics argue consent and participation remain secondary to enforcement optics.

My final thoughts

Across Canada, Congo, and Indonesia, a shared pattern emerges: institutions claim protection while quietly hollowing out what they claim to defend.

In Canada, a university devoted to Indigenous renewal allows language to survive only at the level of symbolism. Introductory classes remain, but pathways to fluency are systematically blocked. This is not overt hostility; it is administrative suffocation. A language does not die from one act of violence — it dies when systems stop making completion possible.

In Congo, communities do everything they are told to do. They organize. They title land. They follow conservation plans. And still, armed power overrides paper rights. The forest concession becomes a moral document without teeth, respected only until minerals beneath the soil become more valuable than the people above it.

In Indonesia, the state demonstrates power at scale — seizing millions of hectares — yet fails to answer the most important question: what justice looks like after enforcement. Restoration lags. Community consent is secondary. Forests change hands, but ecosystems remain broken.

While geography doesn’t connect these stories, structural asymmetry does.

Languages are protected rhetorically, not structurally. Forests are titled, but not defended. Land is reclaimed, but not healed.

Each case reveals a preference for visible action over durable commitment. Certificates instead of degrees. Documents instead of enforcement. Seizures instead of restoration.

And beneath it all lies a deeper discomfort: true protection requires patience, funding, and the willingness to subordinate power to continuity. That is harder than issuing policies or staging crackdowns.

When Lorena Cote says, “Without language, we have nothing,” she is not speaking metaphorically. She is naming the boundary between cultural survival and institutional neglect.

When Congolese villagers rely on concession papers as their “support,” they are naming the fragility of legality without power.

When Indonesian activists warn that forests may be lost even after seizure, they are reminding us that control is not the same as care.

These are not isolated failures. They are warnings.

If institutions continue to confuse the appearance of protection with conditions for survival, languages will fade, forests will thin, and communities will learn again that recognition without commitment is another form of abandonment.

What is being asked, quietly but insistently, is not charity. It is continuity.

And continuity, unlike policy, cannot be postponed.

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The post GLOBAL INDIGENOUS: Reclaiming land, Indigenous language classes getting cut appeared first on ICT.

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The world is entering an era of "global water bankruptcy" with rivers, lakes and aquifers depleting faster than nature can replenish them, a United Nations research institute said on Tuesday.

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Every winter, millions of birds fly thousands of kilometers via the Central Asian Flyway (CAF) and East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), from the frozen expanses of Siberia and Central Asia to the warmer South Asia and beyond. The birds’ migration depends on a chain of intact ecosystems: primarily wetlands, riverine forests and coastal mangroves, which serve as their crucial stopover sites for rest and refueling. However, today, many of these habitats and food sources are disappearing. Researchers from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, India, the Maldives, Bhutan and Sri Lanka have assessed that wetland conversion amid agricultural expansion and rapid urbanization, unplanned fishing and pollution are degrading the wetlands, mudflats and river systems across South Asia. Bangladeshi ornithologist Sayam U. Chowdhury, a researcher at the Conservation Research Institute (CRI) under the University of Cambridge, explains how rapid urbanization and the loss of natural wetlands pose a serious threat to migratory waterbirds. Although many people associate waterbirds with fish, most migratory species — including ducks, geese and shorebirds — rely on shallow wetlands, mudflats and nearby agricultural lands. They primarily feed on aquatic vegetation, seeds and invertebrates rather than fish. “When waterbodies are drained, polluted or heavily altered, it destroys the habitats and food resources these birds depend on during their non-breeding season,” Chowdhury tells Mongabay. Bangladesh lies within both the Central Asian and the East Asian-Australian flyways and provides habitat for around 310 migratory bird species, according to Bangladesh’s National Report of COP13’s Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Before scientists even knew how many Florida scrub millipedes were left in the wild, a quiet breakthrough happened in a University of South Florida lab. The rare, giant millipedes reproduced in captivity.

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Climate change is turbocharging heat waves, wildfires, floods and tropical storms, but how deadly have extreme weather events become for people in their path?

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BIRGUNJ, Nepal — When 38-year-old Pradeep Kumar Bishwokarma was growing up in Ramgadhawa, a neighborhood in southern Nepal’s industrial town of Birgunj, he would jump into the Sirsiya River to beat the summer heat as his mother washed clothes and residents drew drinking water from it. Today, Bishwokarma and his fellow residents of the border town cover their noses with a handkerchief whenever they pass by the river that was once their village’s lifeline. The flowing liquid no longer resembles a river. It is thick and black as if a truckload of oil had been dumped into it. The air around the river feels heavy with the stench of sulfur and rotting organic matter. “This is no longer a river,” Bishwokarma said, pointing toward it. “It has become an open drain for factories, and we haven’t just lost a river, we’ve lost our self-respect,” he added. The river, which was once a crucial part of daily life, religion and agriculture in Bara and Parsa districts, is one of the 6,000-odd rivers and rivulets flowing into India from Nepal. It begins its journey from the Ramban Jhadi( forest) of Bara district farther north and passes through Nepal’s largest industrial zone, the Bara-Parsa corridor. Today, ineffective environmental regulation and poor coordination among government agencies have allowed factories to dump untreated industrial waste and sewage into the river. Even after decades of protests, multiple court cases and government committees and unimplemented wastewater treatment plans, the river remains a public health hazard, damaging local…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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In just one year, President Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the arc of federal climate and environmental policy.

Upon returning to office 12 months ago, Trump immediately declared an “energy emergency” and promised to “unleash American energy.” He packed his cabinet with oil executives and climate skeptics who have since rolled back the climate initiatives and protections of presidents Obama and Biden while accelerating fossil fuel development.

From dismantling regulations designed to cut emissions and tame pollution to repealing the country’s most ambitious climate action, Trump has reveled in reversing years of progress. He has withdrawn from both the Paris Agreement and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and undercut scientific research at every opportunity.

More on Trump’s first year

• Trump is keeping coal on life support. How long can it last?

• Trump is trying to kill clean energy. The market has other plans.

• After one year of Trump, is anything left of the American Climate Corps?

This retrenchment came even as much of the world moved forward in 2025. Worldwide, renewables provided 40 percent of all electricity. Coal-fired power generation declined in India and China for the first time in two generations. Global clean energy investment was 50 percent higher than fossil fuel investment. Still, the United States has clearly ceded leadership in the climate fight. These seven charts reflect a year with implications that will be felt for a long time to come.

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The U.S. lost ground in the global EV race

Electric vehicle sales by company, 2022–2025

Tesla (U.S.)

BYD (China)

Geely (China)

VW Group (Germany)

GM (U.S.)

Source: Tesla, BYD, Geely, VW Group, GM

Clayton Aldern / Grist

The first year of Trump 2.0 brought sweeping changes to Washington’s view of electric vehicles, and American automakers felt the squeeze.

President Donald Trump and Congress took several steps to eliminate federal support for it, including eliminating the $7,500 consumer tax credit. The administration also slashed fuel-economy targets — from about 50 mpg by 2031 to roughly 35 — and eliminated penalties for automakers that miss efficiency standards. The combined effect: higher prices for many electric vehicles built in the United States, uncertainty around battery and manufacturing investments, and a weaker regulatory push that now favors hybrids and conventional vehicles. EV market share in the country, which briefly topped 10 percent in the third quarter as buyers rushed to claim the expiring credit, has since fallen to single digits.

Meanwhile, the global EV industry continues to accelerate, making the U.S. retreat look like a concession to China — and, to a lesser extent, Europe. Chinese industrial policy continues driving down costs, with industry giants CATL and BYD now supplying more than half of the world’s batteries. BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s best-selling EV manufacturer, selling 2.26 million cars in 2025 compared to Tesla’s 1.64 million. In the United States, Ford announced a $19.5 billion write-down, killed the F-150 Lightning pickup, and planned a pivot toward hybrids, citing federal policy changes as the primary driver. There was one bright spot in the data, though: The price gap between used internal combustion and electric vehicles is rapidly narrowing, and as of August it reached a record low of just $897. A glut of used EVs are also expected to hit the market over the next few years, which could drive prices down even further.

So: The first year of Trump’s second term hasn’t exactly decimated the American EV industry, but it has transformed what might have been a sustained industrial policy push into a landscape of slow growth, rapid market shifts, and further consolidation of China’s manufacturing and battery supply chains.

– Clayton Aldern, senior data reporter

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Clean energy kept growing — despite Trump’s efforts

U.S. quarterly electricity generation in terawatt-hours, 2010–2025

Source: Ember / Ottr Dan / Martin Adams / Zac Wolff / Soren H / Unsplash

Clayton Aldern / Grist

One of the more counterintuitive aspects of climate change is that cutting greenhouse gas emissions often requires more energy, not less. That’s because of electrification: Technologies like induction stoves, heat pumps for homes and factories, and electric cars all draw the grid. At the same time, the rise of artificial intelligence requires ever more power-hungry data centers, further straining the electrical system. Yet in the first year of its second term, the Trump administration did everything in its power to slow the rollout of renewables like wind and solar, and even stalled several offshore wind projects already under development — even as rising electricity demand made them increasingly necessary.

But even against these political headwinds, green energy continued to surge. States like California and Texas kept expanding solar, wind, and storage capacity, showing that market economics outweigh federal roadblocks. Electricity demand in the United States grew 3.1 percent last year, according to energy think tank Ember. At the same time, solar generation rose by 27 percent, meeting nearly two-thirds of that extra demand. Utilities have also been building huge battery banks to store that juice for use when the sun isn’t shining: California added nearly 70 percent more storage capacity in 2024 than the year before.

While it will take time to suss out the Trump administration’s impact on this energy transition, it’s clear that market forces remain a powerful driver for states that understand that a cleaner grid is a cheaper, more reliable grid.

– Matt Simon, senior staff writer

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FEMA slashed disaster resilience spending

Quarterly federal disbursements on hazard mitigation projects

Source: FEMA HMAP / Library of Congress / Unsplash

Clayton Aldern / Grist

The Federal Emergency Management Agency often makes headlines during disasters, but in recent years it also has spent billions helping hundreds of communities prepare for future catastrophes. The agency has long doled out grants to alleviate floods in low-lying areas and weatherize against storms, and under the Biden administration it launched new programs to build resilience against climate-fueled threats like wildfires and extreme heat. These programs have provided money to elevate thousands of homes in low-lying areas, manage flammable vegetation, and upgrade sewers to handle runoff from freak storms.

That effort came to a stop earlier this year after Trump vowed to shrink federal spending. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced all FEMA payments above $100,000 would require her approval, reportedly creating a billion-dollar backlog of transactions. Quarterly spending on the program fell from a peak of around $500 million under Biden to less than zero last year as FEMA clawed back money from some recipients.

The agency also has halted all new approvals for resilience projects. FEMA has continued to endorse new projects that don’t have an explicit climate focus, like installing backup generators and drafting disaster response plans, but it has shut down the Biden-era Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which funded long-term investments to reduce climate-related risks. FEMA does not appear to have approved a single project under that program since Trump’s inauguration, despite a federal court ruling in December ordering it to continue the program.

 – Jake Bittle, staff writer

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Federal environmental enforcement fell to historic lows

EPA actions taken, first 9 months of presidential administration

Source: EPA ECHO / Janusz Walczak / Unsplash

Clayton Aldern / Grist

The country’s bedrock environmental laws are only as strong as their enforcement. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice, working alongside their state counterparts, are responsible for protecting the public and holding polluters accountable. But over the past year, the Trump administration has dismantled those agencies with sweeping layoffs and budget cuts, undercutting their ability to fulfill their missions.

More than 11,500 employees of the two agencies have been laid off or resigned, including dozens from enforcement divisions. That’s left fewer federal inspectors to track pollution and fewer attorneys to pursue violators.

That pullback is already reshaping how often — and how forcefully — the government goes after polluters. Over the first nine months of both Trump’s first term and the Biden presidency, the Justice Department launched roughly 40 civil enforcement cases against polluters. During the same stretch last year, it initiated just 11. The slowdown extends to prosecutions as well. Under the previous two administrations, the number of consent decrees resulting from federal cases typically hovered around 50. Last year, that figure fell to just 24, weakening one of the federal government’s most effective tools for forcing cleanup and compliance.

The retreat deepens a decades-long erosion in regulatory oversight. According to the Environmental Integrity Project, many state environmental agencies — which carry out much of the day-to-day enforcement of such laws — have seen their funding for that work slashed. Between 2010 and 2024, those budgets declined in more than half of all U.S. states, and by more than one-third in at least seven. With federal enforcement budgets also being reduced, oversight is shrinking at every level of government.

– Naveena Sadasivam, senior staff writer

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Trump opened millions of acres of public lands to private interests

Administration actions to remove or weaken protections, 2025

Source: Center for American Progress / Brooke Campbell / Elijah Hiett / Alex Moliski / Unsplash

Clayton Aldern / Grist

Delivering on his campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill,” President Trump, during his inaugural address, signaled a sweeping overhaul of federal land management. Later that day, he declared a national energy emergency and promised to fast-track domestic energy production and infrastructure “from coast to coast.” The directive marked a profound shift in the management of public land and coastal waters, with the goal of rapidly expanding fossil fuel development.

In the year since, the Trump administration has targeted roughly 88 million acres that were once set aside for recreation and conservation, opening them for oil and gas development and logging. At the same time, the Bureau of Land Management, responsible for managing public lands for multiple uses and long-term sustainability, has held 22 lease sales and approved 6,027 new oil and gas permits, the highest number since 2010, according to the Center for American Progress.

Some of the nation’s most sensitive landscapes are now at risk of development. The administration has, for example, moved to end protections for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, which covers 19 million acres. Other threatened areas include forestland in the Boundary Waters region of Minnesota, the high desert mesas and canyons surrounding New Mexico’s Chaco Culture National Historical Park, approximately 58 million acres of roadless wilderness throughout the national forest system, and roughly 87 million acres of unique habitat for threatened and endangered species. These moves put ecosystems, wildlife, cultural sites, and communities at risk, transforming land once preserved for the public good into resources to be exploited by industry.

– Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, Midwest regional climate reporter

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Tribal climate and clean energy funds were slashed

$1.25 billion in programs terminated or rescinded in 2025

Source: EPA, DOE, IRA Tracker / Antonio Garcia / Melissa De Yoe / Josh McCausland / Matthew Henry / Jason Blackeye / Unsplash

Clayton Aldern / Grist

The Inflation Reduction Act set aside about $2 billion to underwrite clean energy and climate resilience projects for tribal nations. The Trump administration has slashed funding for such work, leaving communities scrambling for alternatives and undermining progress toward their energy sovereignty.

The federal grants and incentives helped tribes build solar farms, develop microgrids, expand battery storage, and advance climate-adaptation projects on their lands. For many communities, these initiatives weren’t just about clean energy, but providing a service people elsewhere take for granted. Tribal households face 6.5 times more outages than the U.S. average and a 28 percent higher energy burden. Roughly 54,000 residents of tribal lands lack electricity entirely.

Over the past year, the Trump administration has slashed or frozen programs, including a $20 million grant to an Alaska village fighting coastal erosion, and, among other actions, threatened the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant program that had promised $3 billion to 350 recipients. Without that backing, projects have stalled or teetered on collapse, leaving communities scrambling for private funding, philanthropic support, or loans to keep them moving forward.

These cuts do more than slow the clean energy transition. They threaten Indigenous sovereignty, economic opportunity, and resilience to climate change. Tribal nations are having to reconsider their plans, seek new financing, and defend projects that were years in the making. As Washington pulls back, they are pushing forward, but the stakes for their communities, their lands, and their self-determination could not be higher.

— Miacel Spotted Elk, Indigenous Affairs fellow

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Trump's trade war hit U.S. farmers hard

Percent change in U.S. monthly export volume to China vs. 2024 average

Soybeans

Cotton

Beef

Source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (GATS)

Clayton Aldern / Grist

For the nation’s farmers, 2025 was defined by uncertainty and mounting expenses as President Trump’s trade war reshaped agricultural markets. A protectionist agenda that his administration said would protect workers and lower costs instead left growers — particularly those who raise commodities like soybeans — with fewer buyers, higher bills, and an uncertain labor market.

In February, Trump announced 10 percent tariffs on all goods from China, along with 25 percent levies on most imports from Canada and Mexico. Further duties followed in April. China retaliated with a 34 percent tax on products from the United States; in May, it stopped buying U.S. soybeans altogether. The escalating trade war with one of the country’s biggest markets for agricultural exports hit soybean and other commodity farmers hard. It didn’t help that Trump’s tariffs on imported steel and aluminum led to higher prices for farm equipment.

China resumed purchasing U.S. soybeans in October, shortly before Trump announced the two countries had reached a trade deal. But prior to that, the Asian superpower had turned to other soybean producers, including Brazil and Argentina. That move has grave environmental implications. Production of the legume is a major contributor to deforestation in the Amazon and the Cerrado, a biodiverse savannah in central Brazil. Last month, Trump announced $12 billion in bridge payments to help farmers recover from the financial losses they’ve incurred. However, U.S. agricultural trade groups say it doesn’t go far enough to compensate farmers and reassure them that their livelihoods won’t rocked by future trade scuffles.

— Frida Garza, staff writer

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The consequences of Trump’s war on climate in 7 charts on Jan 21, 2026.

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In late September, Governor Spencer Cox of Utah stood on the shores of the drying Great Salt Lake, flanked by top legislative leaders and wealthy developers as he unveiled a new partnership between the state government, a nonprofit, and business owners, that he said could help refill Utah’s iconic inland sea in time for the 2034 Winter Olympics.

The lake needs to rise by more than 6 feet to reach what scientists and state resource managers consider a minimum healthy elevation, a goal that environmental advocates say would require years of substantially increased water flows.

At the same time, Utah’s elected leaders have pushed for the state to be a hub for data centers, facilities that, for decades, have relied on large amounts of water to keep their servers cool, through a process known as evaporative cooling. Since 2021, Utah has added or announced plans for at least 15 new data center buildings or campuses, according to Data Center Map, and at least a few existing facilities expanded their footprints over that time.

Asked by The Salt Lake Tribune how he squared those traditionally water-intensive industries with his Great Salt Lake goals, Cox appeared steamed. “Most of the data centers do not consume water. This is a big misnomer out there,” he said in response.

Cox warned of rising electricity prices across the nation, a trend fueled, in part, by the rise of artificial intelligence and more data centers. The governor has embraced an initiative called “Operation Gigawatt” to more than double the state’s energy generation. At the unveiling of his Great Salt Lake initiative, he praised nuclear energy and its ability to power desalination plants, which could someday free up an “abundance” of water from the world’s oceans. Cox and other officials in the state have also warned of a new global “arms race” over who will ultimately control artificial intelligence technologies and the energy they need.

“If you tell people, ‘I’m sorry, you’re just not going to have any energy for the things that we need. We’re just going to have to give up and let China rule the world, because we can’t create energy because it uses some water,’” the governor continued, “that’s crazy talk.”

Governor Spencer Cox speaks during a press conference in September to announce an initiative to save the Great Salt Lake at The Eccles Wildlife Education Center.
Bethany Baker / The Salt Lake Tribune

On the Wasatch Front, the mountain corridor where most people in Utah live, tax incentives paved the way for mammoth data campuses like the one run by Meta, the tech company behind Facebook and Instagram. The rise of AI has spurred even more demand for the thirsty and energy-intensive campuses.

“Water is extremely cheap,” said Wes Swenson, CEO of Novva, which operates a data center campus in West Jordan, a short drive south of Salt Lake City. “And cities have generally accommodated that.”

It remains to be seen whether Cox’s assurances that more data centers won’t conflict with water conservation goals will be reflected on the ground, or in a rising Great Salt Lake**.** How much water those campuses actually use can vary dramatically, an issue at least one Utah lawmaker says needs closer scrutiny in the coming legislative session.

A new bill sponsored by State Representative Jill Koford, a Republican, would require data centers to report their water use to the state, and that information would then be aggregated and released publicly without identifying individual facilities. Koford said their water use has been, for her and others, cause for concern. “We really don’t have any statewide guardrails for reporting and transparency,” she said. Some new data centers are using water resources more responsibly, but some legacy facilities, “not so much.”

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The Salt Lake Tribune requested records from the municipal water providers for all known data centers across the state and found that several of them are siphoning away vast amounts of water. The National Security Agency’s data center in Bluffdale consumed more than 126 million gallons between October 2024 and September 2025. That’s around 390 acre-feet, or enough water to meet the annual indoor needs of nearly 800 Utah households.

Aligned Data Centers used 80 million gallons in West Valley and 47.4 million gallons in West Jordan over the same period. The eBay data center in South Jordan used 19.5 million gallons.

But true to Cox’s assertion, some newer facilities use far less. The DataBank Granite Point campus in Bluffdale used a combined 7.7 million gallons over the same 12-month stretch, just a fraction of the water used by the nearby NSA facility, even though the DataBank campus includes multiple buildings and has 2.5 times more data center space.

Requiring data centers to report their consumption “is in line with what we do with other large water users,” Koford said. “It’s such a new and emerging industry that we need to have a handle on it.”

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In recent years, communities across the country have begun pushing back on the construction of data centers over concerns about scarce water resources and rising energy costs. In 2022, Salt Lake City, Utah’s capital, adopted an ordinance barring industries that use more than 200,000 gallons a day. The law wasn’t meant to target data centers specifically, said Laura Briefer, the city’s director of public utilities. But officials saw a rise in proposals for all kinds of water-intensive businesses, like bottling facilities, even as concerns grew about the region’s dire water shortages.

“We all just stepped back to say, is this appropriate in the Great Salt Lake basin?” Briefer said.

Around $64 billion worth of data center projects nationwide were blocked by local bipartisan backlash in 2024, according to a report by Data Center Watch. Almost a third of the country’s data centers lie in areas with high or extremely high water stress, including parts of Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and California.

“We need good leadership and good governance,” said Kirsten James, a water expert with Ceres, an environmental nonprofit that advises investors and asset managers, “… so we don’t wipe out the gains we have made, like water efficiency, over the years.”

James led a study of data centers in Arizona that found companies and communities aren’t accounting for data centers’ full water toll. “We need to think about the solutions holistically,” she said, “to really ensure we’re managing every drop of water in the most strategic way.”

As demand for data centers surged in recent years, some companies adopted technologies like closed-loop cooling systems, or water recycling, to lessen their impacts. While these updated systems can save water, Koford noted that the trade-off is massive electricity consumption. “There’s a balance there,” she said.

Representative Jill Koford at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City on January 2, 2026.
Bethany Baker / The Salt Lake Tribune

That energy demand devours a lot of water, too. It takes billions of gallons every year to run Utah’s fossil fuel-fired power plants, and industries also use immense volumes of water to extract coal and natural gas.

“Data centers are using water. That is the current state of affairs,” James said. “Some may be using water more efficiently … but not everyone is undertaking that best practice.”

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In West Jordan, the Novva data center covers 1.5 million square feet. It consumed 3 million gallons between October and September, public utility records show, far less than other data center campuses in Utah. Two-thirds of that water was used on the facility’s landscaping.

“I’ve lived here in Utah my whole life,” said Swenson, Novva’s CEO, “so I’m keenly aware of the long-term drought combined with population growth.”

Novva’s Utah campus used 55,000 gallons to fill up a recirculated pipe cooling system a single time, Swenson said. Had he used evaporative cooling instead, Swenson estimates his campus would use around 250 million gallons per year. But he acknowledged that Novva’s cooling system requires more energy to run.

CEO Wes Swenson talks about how the cooling system for the server room at Novva, in West Jordan, operates without using water to cool the servers, on June 14, 2022.
Rick Egan / The Salt Lake Tribune

“We think the tradeoffs for a water-free system are worth it,” Swenson said, referring to his closed-loop cooling system, because his clients demand it and reliance on water in a drought-stricken region creates a business risk.

No matter how the centers are using water, Koford said her bill gives companies a chance to tell their side of the story — to prove that they can be the partners state leaders hope they will be. “If they’re truly using water wisely, then my bill is a no big deal for them,” she said. “If you’re using a lot of water, tell us how you’re using it. Tell us how you’re recharging the system.”

The Meta data center in Eagle Mountain has vowed to be a responsible steward of the planet’s natural resources. But in 2018, the city entered into an agreement with the tech giant to keep the 4.5 million square-foot facility’s monthly water use confidential, along with other business information deemed confidential, city officials confirmed. Eagle Mountain also agreed to alert Meta whenever someone requested its records.

Koford said she’s heard from both Eagle Mountain and Meta about her proposed legislation, and that neither is thrilled by it. “That’s fine,” she said of the pushback, noting that the public release of the information will be anonymized. “This is about getting a handle on this from the state level.”

Meta declined to provide an interview for this story, but pointed The Tribune to its sustainability reports. The company’s most recent environmental data noted the Eagle Mountain campus withdrew more than 35 million gallons in 2024 — more than double the amount of water it used in 2021. It also used more than 1 million megawatt-hours of electricity, nearly five times more energy than it tapped three years before.

The city and state offered significant incentives to attract the tech giant, including a 100 percent tax exemption on personal property and an 80 percent tax break on real property for 20 years. A sales tax perk adopted by state lawmakers could save Meta an additional $5.8 million. Jared Gray, Eagle Mountain’s new mayor, said data centers like Meta provide big benefits. Meta, for instance, committed a $100 million investment for building roads and utilities to spur more development on Utah County’s west side.

Even with the tax breaks, Gray said that the city gets much-needed revenue from both property taxes and sales tax on the data center’s energy use. “It’s literally what funds our general fund,” he said.

Gray was not aware of the city’s deal to keep Meta’s water use private. He dismissed the idea that the campus uses a significant amount. “It’s safe to say it’s a lot less than they own,” Gray said.

The Utah Division of Water Rights, however, confirmed that Meta and its affiliates do not “own” any water rights in the area. It purchases water through the city instead.

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In Millard County, in the central part of the state, officials are banking on data centers as an economic engine in rural Utah. The massive Joule Capital Partners data center campus, yet to be built, has rights to more than 10,000 acre-feet of groundwater — meaning it can use more than 3 billion gallons per year, without relying on a city or public water system. The property includes more than 4,000 acres and is still primarily agricultural land, but the plans for just its first phase call for 32 buildings covering a million square feet each.

Mark McDougal, the property owner and a managing partner of Joule, said his data complex will use closed-loop cooling systems to lower the site’s water needs. “It would be disingenuous for anyone to say that a data center uses zero water,” he said. But, he added, “they use far less water than golf courses or park strips or city parks.”

Mark McDougal, the landowner and executive behind the massive data center complex currently under construction in Millard County, overlooks the project’s plans at his office in Lehi on December 30, 2025.
[Francisco Kjolseth](The Salt Lake Tribune)

The 150-acre Sand Hollow Resort in Hurricane uses the most water of any golf course in southern Utah, a 2023 Tribune investigation found. It consumed 943 acre-feet in a year, or 307 million gallons. That’s more than double the water used in a year by the NSA data center near Salt Lake City.

Joule broke ground on its sprawling campus in November. An equally huge data center is also in the works a few miles north, in Delta. Eagle Mountain has approved another five data centers within its city limits, including a 300-acre site owned by Google and a QTS facility currently under construction. Until all the campuses come online, it’s difficult to know their full water demands, or whether they’ll live up to promises made about having neutral to beneficial impacts on the communities that host them.

Ben Abbott, an ecology professor at Brigham Young University and founder of Grow the Flow, a movement to refill the Great Salt Lake, said data center water demand still pales in comparison to the water consumed by lawns and agriculture in arid Utah.

“This is something that we should pay attention to,” Abbott said, “but it’s not something that should start our hair on fire.”

Replacing thirsty alfalfa fields with server racks, as Joule plans to do in Millard County, could even have a net benefit, Abbott said. But the only way to know for sure is to collect data on the data centers themselves.

And as the state’s legislative session approaches, Koford said that that is precisely her goal. “We live in a desert,” she added. “Let’s be smart about how we use our water.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Can you build data centers in a desert without draining the water supply? Utah is finding out. on Jan 21, 2026.

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On Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2025, we launched the Food Policy Tracker, an accountability reporting project intended to serve as a record of federal food and ag actions. Over the course of the past year, we have published hundreds of stories documenting unprecedented upheavals in U.S. food policy.

Beginning with Trump’s first day in office, we kept our eyes on myriad moves at lightning speed. That day alone, the president signed a range of executive orders affecting the food system, from a boost to fossil fuel production to a crackdown on immigration and a dismantling of environmental justice initiatives.

As we enter the second year of this immersive work, we’re taking stock of all we achieved in just one year and the lessons we’ve learned along the way. We surpassed what we thought was possible for our small team.

Multiple other publications, political commentators, politicians, and food experts have cited us; legislators have given us exclusives; and the National Press Club and the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) have featured us. We’ve talked about the Tracker on podcasts and panels. And we’ve been told that our work has been “lifesaving,” “critical,” and “transformative,” and have reached thousands of new readers.

We’ve been told that our work has been “lifesaving,” “critical,” and “transformative,” and have reached thousands of new readers.

Our indefatigable Senior Staff Reporter and Contributing Editor Lisa Held has chased every story, breaking the news and scooping mainstream media time and again. Held’s reporting detailed the mayhem unleashed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as it slashed the federal workforce across agencies. Her posts covered the administration’s cuts to funding for DEI programs, climate-smart projects, and farmer-grown food for schools and food banks, as well as new SNAP restrictions. As the cuts to farm grants kept coming, Held posted a running list.

The Tracker followed the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, too, particularly its support of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stated goals to rid the nation of ultra-processed foods and artificial food dyes.

And, as ICE stepped up its actions against immigrants—the foundation of the U.S. food system—we created another running list within the Tracker, documenting arrests and detentions of farm- and food workers. We paid close attention to the impact of the crackdowns on farming and food systems. At the same time, we followed changes to the H-2A Guest Worker program that could leave these workers more vulnerable to exploitation.

In August, Rebekah Alvey joined our team as staff reporter, and shortly thereafter, our senior editor, Brian Calvert, became lead editor of the Tracker, allowing us to increase the pace and breadth of our reporting. Calvert took over from Operations Matt Wheeland, who conceived of and launched the Tracker with Held.

Since that time, we have reported multiple stories around Trump’s ever-changing tariffs and their impact on farmers. We covered the One Big Beautiful Bill as it made its way through Congress, reporting on initial budget proposals, an impassioned Democratic hearing around SNAP cuts, and the final passage of the gargantuan budget bill.

As ICE stepped up its actions against immigrants—the foundation of the U.S. food system—we created a running list within the Tracker, documenting detentions of farm- and food workers.

Then in October came the longest government shutdown in history. We were there at every twist and turn, reporting on the federal food and ag work that was suddenly paused, publishing a cascade of stories about the impending halt in SNAP payments, and following the back-and-forth legal jousting over the administration’s attempts to block the release of SNAP funds. The Tracker covered the aftermath of the shutdown, too, analyzing how that long suspension of government will continue to impact the way America farms and eats.

As the year came to a close, we reported on the Environmental Protection Agency’s registration of another “forever chemical” pesticide, the looming lapse in Affordable Health Care subsidies and how that would upend farm communities, the latest twist in Trump’s tariffs, MAHA’s impact on federal and state policies, and—as Held put it—“about a million other things.”

In other words, it’s been a breakneck year. The Tracker has transformed our newsroom. Before we began this project, we were not a breaking news organization; for most of our 17-year history, we’ve sought to be additive instead, and tell underreported stories that larger, mainstream outlets often miss.

Now we’re doing both. In 2026, you can expect more breaking news from the Tracker as we continue to create a record of federal actions. Posts will be somewhat shorter, with longer news analyses building out on that reporting. And we’ll continue to publish underreported stories, too.

We’re thrilled to say that more of our Tracker posts will soon feature video. We’ve recently expanded our team to include video reporter Vanessa Johnston, and you’ll be seeing more of her work there and elsewhere on the site.

As always, we’ll be tweaking and updating as we go along, making the Food Policy Tracker as useful as possible. We welcome your suggestions by email at tracker@civileats.com.

The post Civil Eats’ Food Policy Tracker: What We Learned From Our First Year appeared first on Civil Eats.

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Recently updated federal data shows the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has 21 percent fewer employees since the start of the Trump administration, leaving some state offices entirely unstaffed.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) updated a database on the federal workforce on Jan. 8 that provides greater detail about agency employment. It also enables an important check-in on the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce.

In total, over 24,600 employees left the USDA during the first year of the Trump administration. Nearly 6,000 employees also joined the federal service during this time. The departures had an impact on staffing in key agricultural states like California, Texas, and Idaho. The total USDA workforce in California decreased by 11 percent, while the workforce in Texas and Idaho dropped 18 and 19 percent respectively.

The highest percentage of departures, however, happened in the District of Columbia and Maryland, where federal USDA offices are located.

Conservation and agriculture groups have warned of the impact of staffing cuts on USDA operations, largely those happening at state field offices. These local offices engage most directly with farmers and are critical to administering farm aid and farm programs.

Conservation and agriculture groups have warned of the impact of staffing cuts on USDA state field offices, which engage most directly with farmers and are critical to administering farm aid and farm programs.

The updated data, which reflects staffing levels as of the end of November 2025, includes 37 instances where a state-level USDA agency no longer has even a single employee present. This includes six states that no longer have employees at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and five states that no longer have a local Food and Nutrition Service staffer, according to an analysis of the data.

The data includes 400 instances in which a quarter of experienced USDA staff—those who have worked at the agency more than one year—at state offices have departed. In California, 36 percent of experienced rural development staff exited the agency. In Idaho, 53 percent of experienced staff left the state’s rural development office.

Overall, the rural development agency saw the greatest decline in staff with a 35 percent reduction, or 1,811 employees. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) saw 2,903 employees leave, which is about 23 percent of the service’s workforce. Previous documents showed about 2,400 employees at NRCS accepted resignation offers between January and April of last year.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture is the front door for America’s farmers and ranchers, who are facing more uncertainty than ever.”

The updated data follows a report from the USDA Office of Inspector General (OIG) that found many of these staffing cuts happened between January 12 and June 14 of 2025, within the first six months of the Trump administration.

Following the OIG report release, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said the cuts to the USDA staff leave food supply chains more vulnerable and hurt rural economies.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture is the front door for America’s farmers and ranchers, who are facing more uncertainty than ever,” Klobuchar said in a statement on the OIG report. “Rural Americans need a Department that is ready and capable of serving them.”

The updated OPM data also shows that the number of USDA employees participating in a union bargaining unit has declined sharply since July 2025. The percentage of employees in a bargaining unit dropped from 42 percent in July to 31 percent in November. The percentage of employees not eligible for the union also increased from 25.5 percent to nearly 43 percent in the same period.

This drop follows two executive orders from President Donald Trump that exclude many federal workers from collective bargaining due to “national security” risks. While there have been legal and legislative pushes to reverse this, agencies have moved forward with plans to rescind collective bargaining agreements.

The post Updated Federal Data Shows States With Little to No USDA Staff appeared first on Civil Eats.

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In the icy waters of Alaska's Bristol Bay, a new study reveals how a small population of beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) survive the long haul through a surprising strategy: they mate with multiple partners over several years. The combination of long-term genetics, observation and careful analysis is starting to reveal some of the most intimate insights into one of the Arctic's most elusive whales.

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