Climate Diet August 2026 Newsletter

Newsweek’s July 31 edition ran a two-page feature on Climate Diet’s work raising awareness of how livestock production — and its methane emissions — contributes to climate change. The piece followed a brutal European heat wave that killed roughly 5,000 people in France as temperatures reached 116–118°F, while parts of California, Nevada, and Arizona saw highs of 120–122°F. It also examined the destruction of rainforest, especially in Brazil, to raise cattle for meat consumers, noting that the U.S. is the world’s second-largest per-capita meat consumer.

The nation’s top scientific advisory body has issued a report backing a growing field of science that could help governments hold oil, gas, and coal companies responsible for damage caused by extreme weather. Known as extreme event attribution, the field tries to answer an increasingly common question: how much was the latest heat wave, downpour, drought, or wildfire worsened by climate change? Scientists have long understood that greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels intensify extreme weather — now they have tools to estimate that effect for specific places and events.

Investigators believe a cyberattack on more than 30 municipal water systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, according to U.S. and state officials — a potential act of aggression coming at a precarious moment in the U.S.-Iran conflict. Officials cautioned the assessment was preliminary and could change as more technical data is collected. At least one city’s well and treatment plant went temporarily offline, and several others switched to manual operations, though no water supply was reported to be unsafe to drink.

Politicians from both parties are demanding answers over stalled progress cleaning up PFAS “forever chemicals” at hundreds of U.S. military bases — contamination linked to low birth weight and other health risks. The delays have become a rare issue uniting Democrats and Republicans in criticism of the Pentagon. In December, Representative Jack Bergman of Michigan, an ally of the President, took to the House floor to praise the military’s strength, then pivoted to press the Pentagon to prioritize cleaning up PFAS pollution at sites nationwide.

Regional FEMA and NOAA offices determined that New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island met federal thresholds for disaster aid following a record-breaking February snowstorm, and the states submitted more than 150 pages of supporting documentation. Those recommendations were overruled at a higher level, adding new detail to a pattern of the administration rejecting disaster aid for states it treats as political adversaries.

A proposed expansion of an Elk Valley Resources coal mine in southeast British Columbia is moving through the environmental assessment process despite ongoing pollution concerns. Decades of mining in the valley have already driven up selenium concentrations downstream, affecting waterways in British Columbia and the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho. Researchers and tribal and conservation groups say current mitigation efforts fall short of addressing the selenium crisis, while mine proponents point to the project’s economic contributions.

The administration’s order keeping Orlando’s aging Stanton Unit 1 coal plant online is reviving environmental justice concerns over who bears the cost of AI’s growing energy demand. As data centers drive a surge in electricity use, the administration has extended the life of coal plants many utilities had already planned to retire — even though research has long shown Black communities are disproportionately exposed to coal-plant pollution and its associated health effects.

Vegan author Victoria Moran joins Climate Diet to discuss why animal agriculture — not cars — is a leading driver of climate change, and what a plant-based diet can do about it.