Insights

New York Rolls Back Landmark Climate Legislation

Clara Chavez-Ives June 9, 2026

On May 28, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the state’s fiscal year 2027 budget into law. Just two days earlier, the state legislature approved major climate rollbacks in one of the ten bills that make up the budget. The passage of the Transportation, Economic Development and Environmental Conservation (TED) bill marked the end of a months-long fight between the Governor and the State Senate and Assembly. Coming nearly two

“So much to fight for”

Timothy Cross May 27, 2026

“The stories here—some joyful, some haunting, all true—are not just tales of loss. They are calls to action and resilience. They are an invitation to remember what we have forgotten, grieve what we have lost and imagine what can still be saved.” Susan Bodnar, adjunct associate professor of counseling and clinical psychology at Teachers College, emphasized the profound emotional resonance of the stories found in “Unmoored Yet Unbroken: Ecopsychology for

Accountability, Responsibility and the Earth in Trust

Timothy Cross May 27, 2026

“Earth is not an inert set of resources,” said CEE Executive Director Karenna Gore. “Our lives depend on the health of the biosphere.” Gore made this observation at “The Earth in Trust: Law, Faith Traditions, and the Work of Environmental Accountability,” an interdisciplinary conversation held on Thursday, April 23, at Fordham Law School in Manhattan. Gore was joined by Adam D. Orford (Fordham Law School), Kit Kennedy (NRDC) and Hakan

A Common Vision of a Just Transition

Clara Chavez-Ives May 19, 2026

A common—and justified—complaint about COP (the annual United Nations Climate Conference) is that decisions take too long and are too incremental. Established by the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the COP process has structural limitations. For one, it is consensus-based, meaning just one country (out of nearly 200) can stop action. Second, the COP has struggled to overcome the influence of fossil fuel interests. Lobbyists and petrostates

“What Does It Mean to Be Spiritually Sustained in Times Like These?”

Rosie Semlyen May 14, 2026

On May 2, CEE Executive Director Karenna Gore joined Reverend Jen Bailey for “Invoking Spirit: How Faith and Wisdom Traditions Can Inspire Climate Action,” a session at The Climate Reality Project’s 20th Anniversary Flagship Training in Nashville, Tennessee. Convened by former Vice President Al Gore to mark two decades of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps, the training brought together a new cohort of climate leaders for two days of science,

Turning Tides

Maggie Greenfield with Karenna Gore and Paul Gallay April 22, 2026

DOWNLOAD PDF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The United States stands at a pivotal moment in the history of clean water protection. More than fifty years after the Clean Water Act established the national goal of making all waters fishable and swimmable, recent legal decisions and rulemaking have dramatically weakened the Act by narrowing the definition of “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS). This redefinition threatens to remove federal safeguards from more than