Charter

Albert Arhó

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond standing outside the Supreme Court in October 2024.

 In a cryptic nine word ruling, a deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision blocking Oklahoma state funding for the nation’s first religious public charter school.

“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,” the court wrote in its decision, ending efforts by some to secure state money to support religious instruction in Oklahoma, at least for now.

Faith tried to meet funding, but justices were not sold on state-sponsored sermons.

“This is far from a settled issue,” said Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a post on X. “We are going to keep fighting for parent’s rights to instill their values in their children and against religious discrimination.”

Stitt said that although the Supreme Court upheld a unanimous decision by the Oklahoma State Supreme Court that the St. Isidore proposal was unconstitutional, he believes a similar case in the future could have a different outcome, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who recused herself, serving as the tie-breaking vote.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who filed the lawsuit challenging the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board’s decision to grant funding to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, disagreed.

“The Supreme Court’s decision represents a resounding victory for religious liberty and for the foundational principles that have guided our nation since its founding,” Drummond wrote in a statement. “This ruling ensures that Oklahoma taxpayers will not be forced to fund radical Islamic schools, while protecting the religious rights of families to choose any school they wish for their children.”

The decision moved forward despite warnings from Drummond, who cautioned that authorizing a publicly funded religious school could violate both state and federal law.

The court’s decision came less than a year after the state supreme court ruled it unconstitutional for the potential Catholic school to receive public funding. The proposed school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, was to be operated by the state’s Catholic dioceses, Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.

The decision might not have been reached so quickly without Barrett’s recusal. She did not publicly disclose her reason for recusal, but it is most likely due to her close personal relationship with Nicole Stelle Garnett, a Notre Dame Law School professor who advised the St. Isidore school during its legal proceedings.

The dioceses said they intended to implement not only “the evangelizing mission of the church,” but faith-based syllabi and hiring decisions that historically have been strictly prohibited.

In June 2023, the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted to approve an application from the dioceses to establish St. Isidore- a tuition-free, K-12 institution.

Following the state court’s rejection, St. Isidore appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and Governor Kevin Stitt submitted briefs in support of the petitioners, along with more than 60 other people and organizations, emphasizing their stance on expanding parental choice in education, including the option to attend religious schools.

They were joined in March 2025 by U.S. Senators James Lankford (R, Oklahoma City), Ted Cruz (R, Texas), Kevin Cramer (R, North Dakota), Josh Hawley (R, Missouri) and Ted Budd (R, North Carolina) who also filed in support of the St. Isidore appeal.

In late April, the schools’ lawyer, James Campbell told the justices that by excluding religious schools from the charter system, the state is discriminating against religious adherents.

While those oral arguments for this case only took place in April, many considered Thursday’s standoff as a highly anticipated yet quick surprise. More so because some analysts even suspected that justices seemed “prepared to bless” the idea then, according to Politico.

Like 45 other states, Oklahoma has implemented a charter school system to allow more flexibility and autonomy in education, which is, by law, public and most notably, non-sectarian.
Privately run but publicly funded, charter schools serve 3.8 million students in the U.S. During the 2022-23 school year, 30 charter schools served 50,716 students, or about 7.2% of the overall student population in Oklahoma public schools.

Those who oppose the concept don’t want public school to turn into Sunday school- but some conservatives want to dismantle the separation of church and state, and this was a major case of that nature. Because the vote was unable to find a majority, there was no nationwide precedent set for religious charter schools. Cases like this one have the potential to shape religious and educational freedom in the U.S.

Barring the state from approving a religious charter means that a Catholic infused curriculum and government money are now declared mutually exclusive for only Oklahoma. This could open many questions for a Christian right makeover and what conservative educators from other states could preach from the pulpit.

The case highlights tensions within the Constitution’s First Amendment; one provision, the Establishment Clause, prohibits state endorsement of religion or preference for one religion over another, while another, the Free Exercise Clause, bars religious discrimination. During this case, they were pitted against each other, said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She implied that the free exercise clause “trumps” the establishment clause- a verb that fits.

The decision did not include how each justice voted, only stating that the ruling was “affirmed by an equally divided court.” In a typical manner, most of the court’s conservatives indicated support for the school during oral arguments while liberals expressed their concerns.

According to the outcome, at least one conservative is likely to have sided with the liberals, and most suspect it to be Chief Justice John Roberts.

Largest

 

The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History Photos: Albi Arhó/KK

Oklahoma’s largest museum of natural history is also one of the largest holders of the remains of Native American and funerary objects in the country.

Now, 25 years after passage of law requiring remains be returned to families, the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History on the University of Oklahoma campus is hiring a coordinator to oversee repatriation efforts of Native American remains it holds under the Native Graves and Repatriation Act. 

The museum’s holdings represent the 18th largest collection of unrepatriated remains in the nation with over 3,800 Native American remains and more than 115,500 associated funerary objects, according to ProPublica.

---

Since 1990, there have been federal protections in place for Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony.

By enacting the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Congress recognized that human remains of any ancestry “must at all times be treated with dignity and respect.”

Visitors to the Sam Noble museum will find only a fraction of its Native American collection in the McCasland Foundation Hall of the People of Oklahoma, according to according to Marc Levine, associate curator of Archaeology at Sam Noble and associate professor in the OU Department of Anthropology, who said the exhibit was built with support from the tribes.

“The idea of an antagonist or competitive relationship between the museum and the tribes does not exist,” Levine said, “It is more so collaborative.”

The McCasland Foundation Hall of the People of Oklahoma exhibit on March
28.

Some artifacts in the McCasland Foundation Hall of the People of Oklahoma
exhibit have been removed due to Native American Graves and Repatriation Act
as of Feb. 24.

The Empty Shelf artifact exhibit.

Since the inception of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the museum has repatriated artifacts to Caddo Nation, Osage Nation, Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation, Muscogee (Creek) Nation and continues to work closely with the state’s tribes.

Between 2011 and 2024, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma conducted four repatriations from the museum. These included more than two dozen ancestors and more than 200 associated funerary objects.

“The Sam Noble staff have been great to work with, always willing to answer questions promptly and efficiently. They’ve been very respectful and professional when ancestors are physically returned to Choctaw Nation, and that is very much appreciated,” said Ian Thompson, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer at Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

While the museum works to take inventory and repatriate the cultural items and ancestors in its collection dates back several decades, the museum’s staff began to emphasize the importance of NAGPRA compliance in the mid-2010s.

“Those efforts, which included building important relationships with National Park Service staff, applying for NAGPRA-compliance grants, requesting expert consultants, and raising NAGPRA awareness on campus, laid the foundation for the University’s maturing NAGPRA compliance program,” said Tana Fitzpatrick, OU’s associate vice president for tribal relations.

“NAGPRA compliance and respecting tribal relationships is a priority for the University,” she added.

Stowed away and hidden from the public, the fifth floor of Sam Noble carries the dimly lit shelves that hold all the related artifacts and remains accumulated over years of research.

Some items sit neatly preserved, awaiting study or display, while others remain miscategorized, collecting dust in archival boxes. In these silent corridors, history lingers.

The inventory in these archival collections can sometimes still be found in its original brown paper sack, dating all the way back to the 1930s. This is a testament to Works Progress Administration America.

Where some of the public works efforts completed during this time included mitigating archaeology, excavating burials and granting museum possession of these goods but not for the purpose of exhibition.

Just like any attitude or policy is subject to change, Levine opens up the question, “Is the consent that was (provided) in the ’90s for perpetuity? Is it forever, or is it something that needs to be updated?” Currently, he ensures there is regular contact with tribal representatives and an open line of contact.

The museum has the largest archaeological collection in the state of Oklahoma that includes millions of artifacts and is actively engaged in repatriation work.

“In 2024 alone, we prepared a total of 751 sets of ancestral remains and 1,588 funerary objects for repatriation. By this measure, we are probably among the most active NAGPRA programs in the country,” Levine said. “There is still a great deal of work to do, but we are on the right track,” he added.

In 2023, the OU Provost appointed an independent NAGPRA Oversight Committee, representing scholars in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, art history and Indigenous law, to provide advice and recommendations to the University,

Including the museum, on Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act related matters. This decision was made in conjunction with a $16,765 grant in American Rescue Plan Act funds to support repatriation work at the museum.

“Currently, the Oversight Committee is: 1) developing a central NAGPRA communication line, 2) instituting a survey to inventory the University’s collections, and 3) dedicating hours of study to ensure it can serve as a resource to the University in implementing the new NAGPRA regulations, among other priorities,” said Fitzpatrick.

“The museum’s standard of care for ancestral remains and establishing tribal relationships has been, and continues to be, a matter of priority,” she added.

Because OU has historically made necessary efforts to comply with NAGPRA, the slight reorganization of this program will not look much different from the outside. It is a constant and ongoing process. With a delegated coordinator, the project and management administration will be expedited and given necessary attention.

“When family members laid their loved ones to rest, they intended for them to stay at rest forever, not get dug up and accessioned into a collection,” said Thompson.

Tribal

 

Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, center, stands with Creek Freedmen plaintiffs Jeff Kennedy, left, Rhonda Grayson, center right, and Creek Freedmen Sharon Lenzy Scott outside the Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizenship office in Jenks, Oklahoma, Sept. 29, 2023. Photo: Albi /Black Wall Street Times

OKMULGEE, Okla.–The Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court released an order Monday (April 28) scheduling oral arguments in a case that will decide whether to uphold or reverse a tribal district ruling that that reinstated citizenship eligibility to Creek Freedmen descendants.

The oral arguments hearing, scheduled for June 20 at 10:00 a.m. CST, paves the way for the Muscogee Nation Attorney General to challenge the decision to reinstatement Creek Freedmen descendants into the tribal nation of their ancestors.

---

Justice for Greenwood, led by national civil rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, has been fighting in the courts for years on behalf of a community and history many people outside of Oklahoma don’t even know. Black Creeks, by blood, lineage or otherwise, were instrumental in the forming of Greenwood’s Black Wall Street.

“Our team is focused on preparing for the argument as we believe we are closer than ever to finally securing citizenship for the Creek Freedmen,” Jana Knot, an attorney on the plaintiffs’ legal team, told the Black Wall Street Times.

The Black Wall Street Times reached out to the office of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Attorney General. A representative said the office would not discuss it because it’s an ongoing case.

“We can’t discuss that case because it’s ongoing, and it’s on appeal, so we can’t discuss it with you,” the representative said.

Muscogee Nation AG seeks to reverse ruling for Creek Freedmen

In a historic move on September 27, 2023, Muscogee Nation District Judge Denette Mouser ruled in favor of Rhonda Grayson and Jeff Kennedy, who sued the tribe’s citizenship board for denying their right to apply for citizenship.

Almost immediately, Muscogee Nation Attorney General Geri Wisner appealed the ruling in a legal battle to keep Freedmen out of the tribe. She was quietly sanctioned by Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Judge Mouser months before the ruling for attempting to intimidate the judge.

In one hearing, AG Wisner placed a document on the judge’s desk that described how to recall a judge.

“Thus, the Court’s only inference can be that the true motive of such action was at worst a veiled threat of removal from the bench, or at best an attempt to intimidate the Court prior to its ruling on Plaintiffs’ motion and/or prior to rendering final judgement,” Judge Mouser stated in her sanction order.

Creek Freedmen attorneys ‘extremely pleased’ case will move forward

Monday’s (April 28) order moving the case forward comes after the case had been stalled for months while the tribe’s high court decided a separate issue. In question was whether the tribe’s National Council had the authority to pass a new law appointing special justices.

“The Court finds that the appointment of a Special Justice … is unconstitutional and unenforceable,” it stated in an April 22 opinion.

Palmer Scott is a Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen and an attorney. He’s attended several protests and court hearings in the case in support of Creek Freedmen citizenship.

“The National Council’s role is confined to confirming judicial nominations and creating inferior courts; it possesses no authority to impede the Court’s exercise of its constitutional jurisdiction,” Scott told the BWS Times.

“In this instance, the rule of law has prevailed in the highest court of our Nation, and I remain confident that justice will be delivered to the Freedmen, consistent with promises embodied in our Treaty,” Scott said.

“The litigation team is extremely pleased with the Court’s ruling, finding NCA 24-77, the “Special Justice” law, unconstitutional and unenforceable,” Knot said.

‘It’s my birthright’

Grayson and Kennedy, along with all Creeks who descend from ancestors listed on the segregated Freedmen Dawes Rolls, were expelled from the tribe in 1979 after the voting in of a new constitution. Freedmen descendants weren’t able to participate in that vote.

Judge Mouser’s Sept. 2023 court ruling affirmed that the 1866 Treaty between the U.S. Government and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation remains the supreme law of the land.

After the tribe’s role in supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War, the treaty affirmed the tribe’s reservation boundaries and made it promise to include Creek Freedmen and their descendants as full citizens with equal rights forever.

“It’s important to me because it’s my birthright,” Creek Freedmen plaintiff Rhonda Grayson told Muscogee Nation District Judge Denette Mouser.

Flight

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, right, and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval pose for a photo before their meeting in Beijing on Dec. 18, 2024. Photo: Yao Dawei/Xinhua via APK

 

New Delhi and Beijing have agreed to restart direct flights after a five-year hiatus. caused by COVID and diplomatic tensions following the 2020 border clashes

India and China have agreed “in principle” to restart direct flights between the two countries after a five-year suspension, marking a step forward in bilateral ties following the prolonged border standoff. The decision was announced by India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Jan. 27 following Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s two-day visit to Beijing.  

Direct air connection between India and China was suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was never re-established as diplomatic ties between the neighbors deteriorated after clashes involving the countries’ troops at a disputed border.

In October 2024, New Delhi and Beijing announced an agreement on disengagement from the points of contention and vowed to work on restoring ties. The announcement of a truce came on the eve of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, where leaders Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi held an extensive bilateral meeting. 

The agreement to resume direct flights was reached during high-level talks in Beijing on Jan. 26 and Jan. 27 during which two nations built upon the agreements reached in October.

---

“The meet also agreed in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries; the relevant technical authorities on the two sides will meet and negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. According to reports in the Indian media, New Delhi had previously rejected China’s calls to resume flights. 

During the latest talks, the two sides agreed to take certain steps to stabilize and rebuild ties, which also include resuming cooperation on pilgrimage, media, and think-tank interactions.  

“It was agreed to resume these dialogues step by step and to utilize them to address each other’s priority areas of interest and concern. Specific concerns in the economic and trade areas were discussed with a view to resolving these issues and promoting long-term policy transparency and predictability,” New Delhi noted. 

The improvement and development of China-India relations are in line with the fundamental interests of the two countries and are conducive to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of Global South countries and contributing to the peace, stability, development, and prosperity of Asia and the world, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Jan. 27, according to Xinhua.  

Beijing, in a statement, noted that India will extend “full support” for China’s presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and will actively participate in the meetings under the organization’s umbrella. China will host the summit of the Eurasian group, which also includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and Iran, later this year. (Albi)

Plastics

 

Photo of an industrial factory emitting smoke. Photo: Albi

hemicals from plastics to pesticides may worsen the body’s stress response in ways that cause excessive weight gain, according to what researchers say is the first systematic review to investigate the link between pollution, stress and obesity.

Obesity is a risk factor for chronic conditions such as depression, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, and is one of the leading causes of death worldwide.

---

The findings, published this month (Jan. 17) in Obesity Reviews, suggests that pollution, stress and weight gain reinforce each other in negative ways, creating a cycle that makes obesity more likely. The associations, however, depend on sex, age and pollutant type, among other factors.

Researchers are linking certain chemical pollutants to obesity. Photo: MGN Online

Researchers focused on 42 studies—with 8,500 human and nearly 3,200 animal subjects—that investigated the effect of a range of pollutants on fat cell growth (adiposity) in humans, animals and cells, as well as how the body and mind respond to stress.

Pollutants included:

Chemical preservatives like parabens.

Halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons, such as flame retardants.

Heavy metals such as cadmium, nickel, mercury and lead.

Pesticides, including the herbicides glyphosate and atrazine.

Plastics (phthalates).

“We provide evidence that in most articles, pollution is responsible for stress-response disruption and results in weight gain,” the researchers say.

This cycle may occur as:

Pollution increases stress: Air pollution and toxins could activate the stress response, raising levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol helps to maintain blood pressure, immune function and the body’s anti-inflammatory processes.

Pollutants also disrupt metabolism: Endocrine-disrupting chemicals like phthalates (used in plastics) and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, activate natural processes in the body —specifically, key signaling pathways (PPARγ and AhR)—that increase fat cell growth and fat storage.

Stress contributes to obesity: High cortisol levels sparked by stress increase appetite and cause fat cells to grow and multiply, leading to overeating and fat accumulation. Chronic stress may also erode the long-term ability of hormones like cortisol (glucocorticoids) to manage stress and inflammation and help the body process toxins.

Obesity reduces the body’s ability to clear pollutants from the body: Fat tissue stores toxins, making it harder for the body to detoxify and worsening their hazardous effects over time. Obesity can also impair the activity of certain enzymes, slowing the body’s ability to eliminate harmful substances.

The findings come amid growing evidence that pollution, stress and obesity are closely linked through biological and environmental mechanisms that affect metabolism, hormones and fat storage.

One recent study showed that exposure to “forever chemicals” may be linked to childhood obesity. Another suggested that prenatal exposure to chemicals in food packaging and plastics may increase young children’s body fat.

Only a limited number of studies, however, have investigated these three variables together, the researchers say.

The researchers say differences between the studies they reviewed might be due to the body’s natural daily cortisol cycle, among other variables, and how it is measured.

Hair cortisol reflects long-term stress levels, for instance, while blood cortisol shows short-term or immediate stress levels.

More research is needed, they conclude:

“Considering the rising exposure of global populations to pollution, psychosocial stress, and over-nutrition, further research is warranted to reduce our environmental footprint and tackle stress and obesity at the population level.”

This article was originally published by The Defender—Childrens Health Defense News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BYNCND 4.0. Originally published by U.S. Right to Know.

Pamela Ferdinand is an award-winning journalist and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology Knight Science Journalism fellow who covers the commercial determinants of public health.

Death

 

The Amnesty study, titled “Deadly Delivery,” reports that deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled in the past 20 years–from 6.6 per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006.

---

That would mean that, of the four million women who give birth each year, two to three women die each day in the U.S. from complications related to pregnancy.

While better reporting may account for some of the increase, the study speculates that it’s more likely that the figures may actually understate the problem because there are no federal requirements to report maternal deaths.

Other findings from the study:

U.S. women are now at greater risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes than women in 40 other countries–five times greater than Greek women, for example, and four times greater than German women.

And another 1.7 million U.S. women–a third of all women who become pregnant in the United States–experience some kind of pregnancy-related complication that adversely affects their health. Severe pregnancy-related complications (known as “near misses” because the woman comes close to death) have increased 25 percent since 1998, the study reports.

“No American woman should die from childbirth in 2009, we can definitely do a lot better,” says Dr. Michael Lu, associate professor of obstetrics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Why are U.S. women more likely to die during childbirth than their peers in other developed nations?

The answer is complex and a number of factors may be at play. The study says about half of U.S. women are entering pregnancy overweight. And a spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says the latest maternal mortality data suggests one in four to one in five women who die have heart disease or diseased blood vessels.

Other factors include financial and physical barriers to accessing care, including a lack of physicians in rural areas, and an overuse of risky interventions, such as inducing labor and delivering via cesarean section.

According to the CDC, about half of all maternal deaths in the U.S. are preventable. Pregnant women and new mothers are dying because of “systemic failures” in the current health system, the Amnesty report says.

The alarming data on maternal mortality are even more shocking for Black American women. They are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than White women. And even wealthy Black women have a higher rate of mortality during childbirth than wealthy White women.

One factor may be high blood pressure; Black women tend to have higher blood pressure than the rest of the population. But poverty and racism may also be factors.

JoAnne Fischer, executive director of the Maternity Care Coalition, which works with low income women to help them stay healthy during their pregnancies, says: “We do know that there is extraordinary stress involved in racism and in being poor. And we know that sometimes this creates hypertension. Hypertension, obesity and diabetes are all linked, so we have to make sure women start their pregnancies healthy.”

The increase in maternal deaths is viewed against a history of steady decreases during the 20th century.

Mortality rates reached very high levels in maternity institutions in the 1800s, sometimes climbing to 40 percent of birth giving women. At the beginning of the 1900s, maternal death rates were around 1 in 100 for live births.

The number in 2005 in the United States was 11 in 100,000, a decline by two orders of magnitude. However, that figure has begun to rise in recent years, having nearly tripled over the past decade in California.

The decline in maternal deaths has been due largely to improved asepsis, fluid management and blood transfusion, and better prenatal care.

Recommendations for reducing maternal mortality include access to health care and emergency obstetric care, funding and intrapartum care. Moreover, political will and support play a major role and without it reforms to reduce maternal mortality cannot be made.

The risk of dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth differs significantly by economic status from about 1 in 26 in Africa, to 1 in 7,300 in developed countries.

Even within countries there is a marked difference in access to skilled birth attendants, a key intervention to improve maternal health. The proportion of women whose family planning desires are satisfied is distinctly linked to wealth, with the poorest lagging behind the richest in each region.

Stupidly Led

 

Mary Robinson, then-Chair of The Elders, addresses a Security Council open debate on the topic of "maintenance of international peace and security upholding the UN Charter" at the U.N. headquarters in New York, on Jan. 9, 2020.

 (Photo:Albi Arhó APK)

Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson is urging the European Union to step up and lead the way on combating the climate emergency in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to dismantle the U.S. response to the crisis. Her remarks come as congressional Republicans are moving ahead with a plan to scale back Democrats' signature climate law passed in 2022.

Speaking on a Thursday episode of the podcast "Radio Schuman" from Euronews, Robinson said that she is "hoping that there will be a sense that actually the E.U. now has an opportunity, because the United States is being badly led on climate, actually stupidly led on climate."

Robinson highlighted the fact that Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, the global treaty aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, reprising a move from his first term in office. She also noted the Trump administration's efforts to undercut climate research. In April, the Trump administration dismissed hundreds of scientists and experts working on the 6th National Climate Assessment, the government's flagship climate report.

These moves from the U.S. come as the E.U. has tempered its climate ambitions.

When asked whether she's critical of how the E.U. is currently handling climate change, Robinson said that the "E.U. is taking a long time, and we would need to see leadership now, but it's better to get good leadership than rush leadership."

As part of an independent group of global leaders called The Elders, Robinson recently met with E.U. officials where she and her fellow leaders sought to "encourage Europe to step up."

"The E.U. should step up on climate and nature and fulfill the commitments that are necessary," she told the Euronews.

On top of the actions by the Trump administration Robinson highlighted, a GOP megabill currently making its way through Congress includes provisions that target the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—a move that green groups have slammed.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has approved a portion of the bill that would take back billions of dollars in unspent funds from IRA grant programs, and Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are pressing ahead with a portion of the bill that repeals clean energy incentives under the IRA.

Rising

A beach house adorned with "RIP HOME" is demolished by workers before it falls down the sea cliff on December 11, 2023 in Hemsby, England. The collapse of a private access road, prompted by high tides and winds, led Great Yarmouth Borough Council to declare some houses "not structurally sound and unsafe."

 (Photo: KK/Albi Arhó)

Less than six months away from the next United Nations summit for parties to the Paris climate agreement, scientists on Tuesday released a study showing that even meeting the deal's 1.5°C temperature target could lead to significant sea-level rise that drives seriously disruptive migration inland.

Governments that signed on to the 2015 treaty aim to take action to limit global temperature rise by 2100 to 1.5°C beyond preindustrial levels. Last year was not only the hottest in human history but also the first in which the average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C. Multiple studies have warned of major impacts from even temporarily overshooting the target, bolstering demands for policymakers to dramatically rein in planet-heating fossil fuels.

The study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment warns that 1.5°C "is too high" and even the current 1.2°C, "if sustained, is likely to generate several meters of sea-level rise over the coming centuries, causing extensive loss and damage to coastal populations and challenging the implementation of adaptation measures."

"To avoid this requires a global mean temperature that is cooler than present and which we hypothesize to be closer to +1°C above preindustrial, possibly even lower, but further work is urgently required to more precisely determine a 'safe limit' for ice sheets," the paper states, referring to Antarctica and Greenland's continental glaciers.

Co-author Jonathan Bamber told journalists that "what we mean by safe limit is one which allows some level of adaptation, rather than catastrophic inland migration and forced migration, and the safe limit is roughly 1 centimeter a year of sea-level rise."

"If you get to that, then it becomes extremely challenging for any kind of adaptation, and you're going to see massive land migration on scales that we've never witnessed in modern civilization," said the University of Bristol professor.

In terms of timing, study lead author Chris Stokes, from the United Kingdom's Durham University, said in a statement that "rates of 1 centimeter per year are not out of the question within the lifetime of our young people."

- YouTube

There are currently around 8.18 billion people on the planet. The study—funded by the United Kingdom's Natural Environment Research Council—says that "continued mass loss from ice sheets poses an existential threat to the world's coastal populations, with an estimated 1 billion people inhabiting land less than 10 meters above sea level and around 230 million living within 1 meter."

"Without adaptation, conservative estimates suggest that 20 centimeters of [sea-level rise] by 2050 would lead to average global flood losses of $1 trillion or more per year for the world's 136 largest coastal cities," says the study, also co-authored by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Andrea Dutton and University of Massachusetts Amherst's Rob DeConto in the United States.

DeConto said Tuesday that "it is important to stress that these accelerating changes in the ice sheets and their contributions to sea level should be considered permanent on multigenerational timescales."

"Even if the Earth returns to its preindustrial temperature, it will still take hundreds to perhaps thousands of years for the ice sheets to recover," the professor explained. "If too much ice is lost, parts of these ice sheets may not recover until the Earth enters the next ice age. In other words, land lost to sea-level rise from melting ice sheets will be lost for a very, very long time. That's why it is so critical to limit warming in the first place."

While the paper sparked some international alarm, Stokes highlighted what he called "a reason for hope," which is that "we only have to go back to the early 1990s to find a time when the ice sheets looked far healthier."

"Global temperatures were around 1°C above preindustrial back then, and carbon dioxide concentrations were 350 parts per million, which others have suggested is a much safer limit for planet Earth," he said. "Carbon dioxide concentrations are currently around 424 parts per million and continue to increase."

The new paper continues an intense stream of bleak studies on the worsening climate emergency, and specifically, looming sea-level rise. Another, published by the journal Nature in February, shows that glaciers have lost an average of 273 billion metric tons of ice annually since 2000.

Despite scientists' warnings, the government whose country is responsible for the largest share of historical planet-heating emissions, the United States, is actually working to boost the fossil fuel industry. Upon returning to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump declared an "energy emergency" and ditched the Paris agreement.

Disaster

 

Albi Arhó

National Centers for Environmental Information, which has maintained the database and said before it was taken down that six to eight billion-dollar climate disasters have happened so far this year, including the wildfires that devastated parts of Los Angeles in January and caused an estimated $150 billion in damage.

The World Weather Attribution said in late January that planetary heating, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, caused weather conditions in Southern California that made the fires 35% more likely.

Hundreds of people have been laid off from NOAA in recent weeks as the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, has pushed to slash government spending, and those who have lost their jobs include scientists who helped maintain the database.

NOAA spokesperson Kim Doster toldThe Washington Post that in addition to staff changes, "evolving priorities" were also partially behind the retiring of the database, which will now show disasters that occurred only between 1980-2024.

Between 2020-24, the number of billion-dollar disasters averaged 23 per year, compared to just a few per year in the 1980s.

"This Trump administration move is the dumbest magic trick possible: covering their eyes and pretending the problem will go away if they just stop counting the costs. Households across the country already have to count these costs at their kitchen table as they budget for higher insurance costs and home repairs. Families and retirees dipping into their savings or going bankrupt to recover from wildfires and hurricanes know what disasters cost," said Carly Fabian, senior insurance policy advocate with Public Citizen's Climate Program. "Hiding the national tallies will only undermine our ability to prepare and respond to the climate crisis. Deleting the data will exacerbate the devastating delays in acting to slow climate change, and the impacts it is having on property insurance and housing costs."

NOAA's "evolving priorities" have also included decommissioning other datasets, including one tracking marine environments and one tracking ocean currents.

Without NOAA's Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database, Jeremy Porter, co-founder of the climate risk financial modeling firm First Street, toldCNN that "replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."

"What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and nonpublic data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," he said.

Chris Gloninger, a meteorologist who resigned from an Iowa news station after receiving threats for his frank, science-based coverage of climate disasters, said the retiring of the database suggests the Trump administration is "okay with spending billions of dollars on disasters."

Climate Movement

 Almost a decade ago, parties to the Paris treaty agreed to work toward limiting temperature rise this century to 1.5ºC—but 2024 was the hottest year in human history, and countries around the world show no signs of reining in planet-wrecking fossil fuels anywhere near the degree that scientists warn is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown.

"Crossing 1.5ºC for a whole calendar year is a wake-up call for the world," said Olympic gold medalist and XR U.K. spokesperson Etienne Stott, highlighting another alarming record from last year. "If we want to avoid crossing further tipping points we need a complete transformation of society."

Extinction Rebellion and other climate groups held a funeral for the Paris agreement's 1.5°C temperature target in Cambridge, England on May 10, 2025. (Photo: Derek Langley)

Scientists from universities in the United Kingdom and Germany warned in a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Earth System Dynamics last month that humankind is at risk of triggering various climate tipping points absent urgent action to dramatically reduce emissions from fossil fuels.

"There are levers policymakers can pull to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, but this requires standing up to powerful interests," Stott said Saturday. "Activists need to build power, resilience, and the world we want to see in our communities; but we also need to keep seeking the spark that will cause the worldwide transformation we need to see."

In addition to the Cambridge and U.K. arms of Extinction Rebellion, Saturday's action was organized by Cambridge Greenpeace, Cambridge Stop the War, and the Organization of Radical Cambridge Activists (ORCA).

Varsity, the independent student newspaper at the University of Cambridge, reported that the marchers "rallied at Christ's Pieces, where they heard from one of the organizers, who emphasised the harm caused by exceeding 1.5ºC of warming."

"The march then proceeded up Christ's Lane and down Sidney Street, led by a group of 'Red Rebels,' dressed in red robes with faces painted white, followed by 'pall bearers' carrying coffins painted black, with the words 'Inaction Is Death' in white," according to Varsity. "The procession was completed by a samba band who drummed as they walked, followed by protesters carrying a large sign reading 'Don't silence the science,' along with many other smaller placards."

Members of the "Red Rebel Brigade" led a procession around Cambridge, England as part of a funeral for the Paris agreement's 1.5°C temperature target on May 10, 2025. (Photo: Albert Arhó)

Photos from organizers show participants displaying banners with messages such as "No Future on a Dead Planet," and additional messages painted on the black coffins: "1.5ºC Is Dead," "Act Now," "Ecocide," "RIP Earth," and "Web of Life."

"Politicians have broken their promises to keep global temperature rises to a livable 1.5ºC," declared Zoe Flint, a spokesperson for XR Cambridge. "For decades, people around the world have been resisting environmental devastation in their own communities and beyond—often facing state repression and violence as a result."

"With dozens of political protesters now in prison in this country, that repression has come to the U.K. too," Flint noted. "But when those least responsible for climate breakdown suffer the worst effects, we can't afford to give up the fight."