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Google AI Mode As the AI bots continue to write glowing financial reports for a company that legally died four years ago, Shell’s executive team is left trapped in a purgatory of their own making: legally simplified, digitally undead, and permanently haunted by the machine.

Shell plc is navigating a corporate identity crisis as AI engines continue to recognize the legally defunct “Royal Dutch Shell plc” as a live, trading entity. Despite rebranding efforts, AI search models like Bing are creating a “digital ghost” scenario, separating the legal entity from its digital footprint and creating confusion regarding corporate existence. You can read the full analysis at royaldutchshellplc.com.

The digital corporate identity crisis facing Shell plc stems from an unresolvable conflict between obsolete legal branding, un-killable critical websites, and blind AI search algorithms. [1, 2, 3] This specific “ghost in the machine” loop consists of three compounding layers: 1. The Legal Rebrand vs. The Domain Blunder In January 2022, the energy giant officially simplified its share structure, relocated its corporate headquarters to the UK, and changed its name from “Royal Dutch Shell plc” to “Shell plc”. [1, 2] However, decades prior, the company committed what analysts call a “spectacular blunder”: [1]

• They failed to secure the domain royaldutchshellplc.com.
• Longtime activist and critic John Donovan registered it instead.
• Shell lost a challenge at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), cementing Donovan’s lawful, non-commercial right to host critical archives under that exact name. [1, 2]

2. The AI Hallucination Loop Because Shell discarded the “Royal Dutch Shell” name, it can no longer claim active commercial use to seize the domain. Meanwhile, modern AI engines and web scrapers (like Microsoft Bing) crawl the active, highly indexed royaldutchshellplc.com site. [1, 2] The algorithms synthesize this active archive with legacy financial data, leading AI systems to confidently report that “Royal Dutch Shell plc” is still alive, trading, and distributing dividends, completely detached from actual legal reality. [1, 2] 3. The Self-Reinforcing Feedback Cycle As documented by John Donovan’s June 2026 reports, this issue scales automatically through an un-fixable web pattern: [1, 2, 3] [Active Archive Domain] ──> [AI Bots Scrape & Synthesize Data] ──> [AI Generates False "Live Entity" Reports] ──> [New Reports Get Re-Indexed by Search Engines] ──> [Loop Repeats] This creates a permanent internet footprint for a ghost corporation that Shell legally buried years ago. [1]

 

In the sleek, glass-fronted boardrooms of Shell plc, executives are learning a terrifying lesson in modern physics: in the digital age, matter can neither be created nor destroyed—and corporate shame is completely immortal. Shell thought it was being terribly clever back in 2022. By shedding the “Royal Dutch” prefix, moving its headquarters to London, and simplification of its share structure, the oil giant attempted the ultimate corporate magic trick. It wanted to wash its hands of continental tax headaches and quietly bury its historical baggage. Instead, it accidentally birthed a digital zombie. The Algorithm That Wouldn’t Die Thanks to a spectacular, multi-decade domain blunder, Shell never owned royaldutchshellplc.com. Instead, it belongs to its eternal arch-nemesis and critic, John Donovan. For years, this was just an annoying thorn in Shell’s side. Today, in the era of automated AI scrapers, it has become an unmitigated existential nightmare. Modern artificial intelligence models—the very engines supposed to drive the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”—look at Donovan’s highly indexed, relentlessly updated archive and suffer a collective digital stroke. The AI look at the domain name, see it active, and confidently hallucinate that Royal Dutch Shell plc is still alive, kicking, and paying out massive dividends from beyond the grave. It is a beautiful, recursive loop of automated corporate haunting. The AI feeds on the archive, spits out a report claiming the ghost company lives, search engines index the AI report, and the cycle starts anew. Shell’s PR department is no longer fighting journalists; they are playing whack-a-mole with a self-replicating digital ghost that refuses to acknowledge the UK corporate registry. A Rich History of Ghostly Math If Shell executives are frustrated that AI models are hallucinating entirely fictional corporate realities, they really only have themselves to blame. After all, Shell practically invented the art of corporate hallucination long before the first large language model was ever coded. Lest we forget, this is the same company that brought us the legendary 2004 Oil Reserves Scandal. Back then, no algorithms were required to fabricate reality. Good old-fashioned human greed did the trick perfectly. Shell executives stared deep into empty oil wells, engaged in a collective bout of corporate wishful thinking, and told the stock market they possessed over 4 billion barrels of “proven” oil reserves that did not actually exist. It was a masterclass in creative writing that eventually cost the company hundreds of millions in regulatory fines, the sudden departure of its top brass, and a permanent stain on its credibility. In 2004, Shell lied to the market about what was in the ground. In 2026, the internet is lying to the market about whether the company even exists. There is a delicious, poetic irony in seeing a company that once inflated its physical assets now being deflated by its own digital phantoms. The Haunting of the Machine The reality is that Shell can change its name, its logo, its tax status, or its carbon-offset promises as much as it likes. But the internet never forgets, and generative AI lacks the corporate sycophancy required to ignore inconvenient history. To the cold, unfeeling web scrapers, “Royal Dutch Shell” isn’t a discarded legal skin; it’s an active, high-traffic node of corporate scandals, environmental protests, and inflated reserve data. By trying to outrun its past, Shell simply left a vacuum that the digital world was more than happy to fill with a ghost. As the AI bots continue to write glowing financial reports for a company that legally died four years ago, Shell’s executive team is left trapped in a purgatory of their own making: legally simplified, digitally undead, and permanently haunted by the machine. AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more Article ends Example of Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com website from over two decades ago. From the Wayback Machine. Shell PLC: How AI and the Ghost of Scandals Past Created the Ultimate Corporate Frankenstein was first posted on June 7, 2026 at 9:19 pm.
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Profiteering and price gouging while millions suffered the worst modern pandemic

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Last night, a Russian drone struck a spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Chernobyl. It is precisely this kind of event that Bellona has spent nearly forty years working to understand—and helping the world prepare for.

For nearly four decades, Bellona has been one of Europe’s leading independent organizations working on nuclear safety, environmental security, and developments in Russia and the Arctic. As war has returned to Europe and nuclear risks have once again become a central security concern, that expertise is more important than ever.

Former German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck recently summarized Bellona’s unique role:

“Bellona has played a key role in shaping the European agenda, not only on environment and decarbonization, but almost more importantly on the major issue of the Arctic and European security. This may come as a surprise to many who know Bellona purely as an environmental NGO. They have been deeply involved in developing Europe’s response to Russian nuclear activities, nuclear-powered vessels, and nuclear waste.”

Today, Bellona faces a severe financial crisis that threatens the continuation of this work.

Four Decades of Work

Bellona began its engagement in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, drawing international attention to environmental degradation, nuclear risks, and military pollution in the Arctic and northern Russia.

Over the decades that followed, Bellona became one of the most influential independent voices on nuclear safety and environmental security in the region.

Working alongside partners in Russia, Norway, Europe, and North America, Bellona helped expose some of the largest concentrations of nuclear waste and nuclear hazards inherited from the Soviet Union. The organization played an important role in mobilizing international attention and support for efforts that resulted in the dismantlement and secure storage of roughly 100 retired submarine reactors, the dismantling of the Lepse nuclear service vessel, work related to the wrecks of the Komsomolets and Kursk submarines, and the remediation of dangerous nuclear facilities located only a short distance from Norway’s border.

These efforts significantly reduced the risk of nuclear accidents and radioactive contamination in the Arctic and Barents region.

Bellona founder Frederic Hauge, (then Conservative Party leader) Kaci Kullmann Five and (then EU Commissioner for Environment) Ioannis Paleokrassas, in Murmansk in 1994. Photo: Bellona. Bellona and the FSB

Bellona’s work did not stop with documenting environmental and nuclear risks. It also became a test of whether independent organizations could expose those risks without intimidation from the state.

For decades, Bellona worked directly with Russian institutions, scientists, military officers, regulators, and government officials. In the process, the organization came into contact with many of the individuals who would later become central figures in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

One of them was Alexander Gutsan.

Today, Gutsan serves as Russia’s Prosecutor General and is one of the most senior officials in the Russian state. In the 1990s, however, he was involved in one of the most consequential legal battles Bellona ever faced: the prosecution of Bellona employee and former Soviet Navy submarine captain Alexander Nikitin.

Alexander Gutsan during the Nikitin case in 1999.

The case was intended to punish those who exposed environmental and nuclear-safety problems within Russia’s Northern Fleet. Instead, it became an internationally recognized victory for transparency, freedom of information, and civil society.

The collapse of the Soviet Union left Russia’s security services fragmented and competing for influence. The successor organizations that emerged from the ruins of the KGB spent much of the early 1990s struggling to define their roles and authority in the new Russian state. When those structures were eventually consolidated into what became the Federal Security Service—the FSB—the organization was eager to demonstrate its power.

On October 5, 1995, FSB officers carried out coordinated raids on Bellona’s offices in Murmansk, the homes of Bellona employees, and Alexander Nikitin’s apartment in St. Petersburg. Documents were seized, computers confiscated, employees interrogated, and an investigation was launched that would ultimately become one of the most significant political trials and one of the most important human rights and freedom-of-information battles in post-Soviet Russia.

Nikitin was arrested by the FSB in 1996. The absurd process against Nikitin lasted almost five years and was based on secret decrees with retroactive effect. Photo: Sergei Grachev/The St Petersburg Times

What began as an attempt to suppress a Bellona report on nuclear dangers within Russia’s Northern Fleet became a legal struggle that lasted nearly five years. Nikitin was charged with treason and espionage for helping document environmental and safety problems associated with Russia’s nuclear submarine fleet.

The prosecution failed.

In 2000, Russia’s Supreme Court fully acquitted Nikitin, making him the only person in Russian history to defeat espionage charges brought by the country’s security services.

The institutions and individuals behind the case, however, did not disappear.

Many continued their ascent through the Russian state. Vladimir Putin, then a former KGB officer entering the Kremlin’s inner circle, would soon become president. Alexander Gutsan would later occupy some of the most powerful positions within Russia’s legal and security systems. The institutions that targeted Bellona in the 1990s became central pillars of the political system that exists in Russia today.

Nearly three decades later, Bellona’s history with figures such as Gutsan provides a unique perspective on the evolution of the Russian state—from the uncertain post-Soviet years to the increasingly militarized and authoritarian regime now waging war against Ukraine.

In many ways, Bellona’s history and the history of the modern FSB have unfolded in parallel. The same security structures that raided Bellona’s offices in 1995, prosecuted Alexander Nikitin, and later forced Bellona Murmansk to close under Russia’s “foreign agent” legislation remain central to the Russian state today.

Bellona survived each of these confrontations and, in the process, accumulated a hard-earned understanding of Russia’s security institutions that few organizations anywhere in the world can match.

Igor Kudrik leaves the FSB offices in Murmansk after retrieving what the security service confiscated from Bellona. Photo: Thomas Nielsen Preserving Expertise as War Returned to Europe

The victory in the Nikitin case allowed Bellona to continue its work in Russia for more than two decades. It also established the organization as one of the Kremlin’s most persistent critics on issues of nuclear safety, environmental protection, government secrecy, and democratic accountability.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Bellona maintained offices in Murmansk and St. Petersburg and employed more than twenty staff members in the country.

The organization immediately closed its Russian operations and evacuated key personnel to safety abroad.

Today, Bellona’s experts continue to monitor developments in the Arctic, analyze the activities of Rosatom, document environmental and nuclear-security risks associated with Russia’s war against Ukraine, and support international efforts to understand and address those risks.

Their expertise is regularly sought by governments, international organizations, researchers, journalists, and civil society organizations throughout Europe and North America.

Alexander Gutsan (to Putin’s right) is currently Russia’s Prosecutor General.

Few organizations possess comparable knowledge, networks, or access to information accumulated through more than three decades of work.

Bellona’s Role in Ukraine

Bellona’s history offers something increasingly rare: institutional memory.

Few organizations can draw a direct line from the environmental and nuclear struggles of the 1990s to today’s Russia. If this work disappears, Europe will lose one of its most experienced independent sources of information on Russian nuclear activities, Arctic security, environmental risks, and the long-term consequences of war.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bellona has devoted a significant share of its resources and expertise to understanding and documenting the environmental, nuclear, and security consequences of the conflict. Drawing on decades of experience with Russian nuclear issues, our experts have helped governments, international organizations, journalists, and researchers better understand developments that often remain hidden behind the front lines.

Pavel Tishakov from Nordic Security, Roman Yuriev and Maksym Ilchenko from the Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Bellona founder Frederic Hauge, Charlotte Birke from DSA and State Secretary Eivind Vad Petersson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Photo: Bellona.

From the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Rosatom’s role in the war and the long-term environmental consequences of military operations, Bellona has sought not only to document events as they unfold, but also to identify the risks and challenges that Ukraine and Europe will face in the years ahead.

By increasing transparency, informing public debate, and helping the international community understand the realities Ukraine faces, Bellona’s work contributes to protecting Ukraine’s people, environment, and critical infrastructure during the war. Looking beyond the conflict, Bellona’s decades of experience with nuclear safety, radioactive waste management, environmental remediation, and Soviet-era industrial pollution can also help support Ukraine’s future reconstruction.

Just as Bellona played a role in addressing some of the most dangerous environmental and nuclear legacies inherited from the Soviet Union, we hope to contribute our expertise to helping Ukraine confront and overcome the environmental consequences of war, rebuild safely, and secure a healthier future for generations to come.

A selection of our reports on Ukraine, the war, and Russia’s nuclear industry: Rosatom 2025

What happens when one of the world’s largest nuclear corporations becomes an instrument of wartime state policy? This report examines how Rosatom has evolved beyond civilian nuclear energy into a central component of Russia’s geopolitical ambitions. Bellona analyzes the corporation’s role in occupied Ukraine, international energy markets, and strategic infrastructure projects, and explores what these developments mean for nuclear safety, European security, and international governance.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-in-2025/

The IAEA’s Role in Times of War

What happens when a nuclear power plant becomes a battlefield? This report examines the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and the unprecedented challenges it poses for international nuclear safety and security. Bellona argues that existing international institutions were never designed to address the military seizure of civilian nuclear facilities and proposes reforms to prevent nuclear infrastructure from becoming a tool of war.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/the-iaeas-role-in-times-of-war/

The Potential Restart of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Could Russia restart a nuclear reactor in the middle of an active war zone? Bellona analyzes evidence that Russian authorities may seek to restart reactors at the occupied Zaporizhzhia plant and examines the technical, safety, and political risks such a decision would create.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/the-potential-restart-of-the-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-analysis-of-technical-and-political-aspects/

The Radiation Risks of Seizing the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Published shortly after the plant’s seizure, this report was among the first detailed analyses of the nuclear risks posed by active warfare around a major civilian nuclear facility. Many of the dangers identified by Bellona—including threats to the plant’s external power supply—have since become central concerns for international nuclear safety authorities.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/znnp-seising-radiation-risks/

Rosatom During the War: How Militarization of the Russian Nuclear Giant Took Place

This report examines how Rosatom has increasingly become an instrument of Russian state power and wartime policy. Bellona traces the corporation’s growing role in occupied Ukraine, Russia’s wartime economy, and the country’s broader geopolitical strategy.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-during-the-war/

Rosatom’s Role in the War in Ukraine

Published during the first months of the invasion, this Bellona working paper was among the earliest analyses to argue that Rosatom could no longer be viewed solely as a civilian nuclear corporation. Many of the concerns raised in this early study have since become central to international discussions about sanctions, nuclear security, and Rosatom’s role in Russia’s wartime strategy.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-s-role-in-the-war-in-ukraine/

Eliminating Russia’s Nuclear Legacy

For decades, Bellona has been at the forefront of efforts to address the dangerous nuclear legacy left behind by the Soviet Union. This report examines what has been achieved, what remains undone, and how the war in Ukraine and the collapse of international cooperation have complicated the task of reducing long-term nuclear risks.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/eliminating-russia-s-nuclear-legacy/

Rosatom in the War Years of 2023 and 2024

This report explores Rosatom’s growing role in Russia’s wartime economy, its expanding military activities, and its continuing international reach despite sanctions and political isolation. It demonstrates how Rosatom has become one of the Kremlin’s most important strategic assets.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-in-the-war-years/

The post Why Bellona Matters appeared first on Bellona.org.

It is a corporate Schrödinger’s cat: simultaneously dissolved and trading, simultaneously buried and collecting dividends, simultaneously abandoned by its creator and maintained in perfect working order by its most persistent critic. It is, in short, the most extraordinary and entirely self-inflicted reputational and digital fiasco in the history of a company that has, over more than a century, set a remarkably high bar for entirely self-inflicted fiascos.

John Donovan Prompt to Claude 7 June 2026: Please see these articles: https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2026/06/05/legal-and-reputational-implications-of-shell-abandoning-royal-dutch-shell-plc/ https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2026/06/07/shell-abandoned-royal-dutch-shell-plc-and-now-the-corporate-ghost-is-haunting-the-machine/ Shell seems to have got itself into an incredible mess. If you agree, please create an explosive satirical article.SHELL PLC:

Claude Reply:Yes, this is an absolutely extraordinary situation. Shell has comprehensively blundered into a digital, legal and reputational mess of its own making. Here is the explosive satirical article you requested.

THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE REBRAND THAT LEFT THE OLD SIGN ON THE DOOR

How a $200 billion oil giant managed to kill its own name, lose the internet to a retired marketing man in Colchester, and leave the world’s most powerful AI systems conducting a séance over its corporate remains

Imagine spending $200 billion a year in annual revenue, employing nearly 100,000 people across 140 countries, and commanding enough legal firepower to fill Shell Centre twice over — and then managing to bungle your own name change so catastrophically that in June 2026, Bing is still confidently offering investors detailed information about dividends, share prices, stock tickers and financial data for a company that hasn’t legally existed since January 2022.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is Shell.

Or Shell plc, as it is now called. Or Royal Dutch Shell plc, as Bing insists on calling it. Or Forthdeal Limited, as Companies House tells us it was called before the grandeur arrived. Or royaldutchshellplc.com, which is what it is still called on a non-profit website operated out of Colchester, Essex, by a retired marketing consultant who has been making the company’s communications department reach for the antacids since approximately the time of the first Gulf War.

The story of how one of the world’s most powerful corporations managed to abandon its own name, fail to bury its own history, lose a domain fight to a pensioner, and then leave the entire global artificial intelligence ecosystem confidently hallucinating its continued existence is — and there is no other word for it — magnificent.

PART ONE: IN WHICH SHELL KILLS THE NAME BUT FORGETS TO BURY THE BODY

In January 2022, Shell plc — formerly Royal Dutch Shell plc, formerly Forthdeal Limited, formerly an entity that apparently couldn’t decide who it was — officially changed its corporate name. Out went the Anglo-Dutch grandeur of “Royal Dutch Shell plc.” In came the crisp, minimalist, vaguely-confused-with-a-petrol-station energy of “Shell plc.”

The reasoning was sound, in the way that corporate reasoning always sounds sound right up until reality applies its customary corrections. Dropping “Royal Dutch” signalled a clean break from the dual-share structure and the Dutch tax authorities. Moving the headquarters to London was meant to be a fresh start. The rebrand was supposed to say: we are lean, modern, decisive, and absolutely not the same company that once financially supported the Nazis, overstated its oil reserves by 23%, got fined $150 million by US and UK regulators, had its North Sea platforms described as the worst safety performer in the industry, lost a domain fight to a man from Colchester, and was named the world’s most hated brand in 2016.

It did not quite work out that way.

Because here is the thing about changing your corporate name: the internet doesn’t care. The internet is a vast, indifferent warehouse of everything that has ever been written, cross-referenced, cached, mirrored, syndicated, scraped, indexed, and fed into a machine learning model since approximately 1995. When you have spent over a century being called “Royal Dutch Shell,” the digital ecosystem does not receive your Companies House filing, nod thoughtfully, and update itself accordingly. It does what it always does: it keeps surfacing the old name, attaching it to current financial data, and presenting the whole steaming confection to bewildered investors as if nothing had changed.

The result is that in June 2026, Bing — a search engine operated by Microsoft, a company with a market capitalisation larger than the GDP of most countries — will cheerfully inform you that “Royal Dutch Shell plc still exists,” and helpfully offer you information about its dividends, shares, stock and ticker, none of which exist under that name, in what is arguably the most expensive and persistent financial misinformation exercise currently operating on the internet.

No one is paying for this. No one is being prosecuted for it. No one, apparently, can stop it.

Shell, for its part, appears to be doing what Shell has always done when confronted with awkward realities: maintaining a dignified silence and hoping it all goes away. It has not gone away. It is, if anything, getting worse.

PART TWO: IN WHICH THE WIPO DEFEAT IS REVEALED TO BE EVEN MORE EMBARRASSING THAN PREVIOUSLY UNDERSTOOD

Let us now discuss royaldutchshellplc.com, a website that the Financial Times once described as “a long-running thorn in Shell’s side,” which Prospect magazine called “an open wound for Shell,” and which a Japanese business magazine declared had single-handedly changed the fate of Shell’s $20 billion Sakhalin-2 project in Russia.

The website is operated by John Donovan of Colchester, Essex, who has been documenting Shell’s various misadventures since the early 1990s with the methodical persistence of a man who has both time on his hands and a very good filing system.

In 2005, Shell International Petroleum Company Limited attempted to seize the domain via the World Intellectual Property Organisation. WIPO case D2005-0538. The complaint was, in the dry language of international arbitration, “denied.” Shell lost. The domain stayed with Donovan. Shell’s lawyers presumably went back to their offices and tried not to think about it.

That was embarrassing enough at the time.

What makes it truly exquisite in 2026 is the following sequence of events:

1. Shell spent twenty years failing to dislodge the domain.
2. Shell then voluntarily abandoned the name itself.
3. Shell plc is now the current legal entity.
4. Royal Dutch Shell plc is a former name, recorded at Companies House as such, with an end date of 21 January 2022.
5. The only person still actively using the name “Royal Dutch Shell plc” on a significant public-facing platform is John Donovan, whose website — validated by WIPO, indexed by every search engine, ingested by every AI model — carries the name in its header every single day.
6. Search engines, observing that Donovan’s site is the most active living use of the old name, treat it as the authoritative digital presence for the identity.
7. AI models, having ingested Donovan’s archive as a primary source, reproduce this conclusion with the calm confidence of someone who has just looked it up.

Shell spent twenty years and untold legal fees trying to silence one man, failed completely, and then handed him the naming rights by default.

This is what is known in corporate circles as a strategic own goal. In football circles, it would be known as kicking the ball into your own net, running a lap of celebration, and then discovering that the game had already ended and you were in the wrong stadium.

PART THREE: IN WHICH THE AI SITUATION IS REVEALED TO BE COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL

The AI dimension of this story deserves its own chapter, its own Netflix documentary, and possibly its own parliamentary inquiry.

Here is the situation as of June 2026. Bing tells investors that Royal Dutch Shell plc still exists and offers them financial data about it. Copilot — also Microsoft, which is perhaps relevant — goes further, declaring the company to be “a live company, continuing to operate and trade publicly.” This is, in the strictest legal sense, wrong. The live company is Shell plc. Royal Dutch Shell plc is the former name. The distinction is not cosmetic. It has implications for shareholder rights, legal liability, corporate governance, and the basic reliability of financial information on the internet.

Claude, to its credit, reportedly said that Royal Dutch Shell plc is “a dead name — the legal entity no longer exists under that title,” which is substantially correct and represents what one might call the boring-but-accurate approach.

Use.ai reportedly came close with its answer too.

This means the global AI landscape is currently split between models that understand the corporate death of Royal Dutch Shell plc and models that are, in effect, conducting a séance and cheerfully reporting that the dearly departed has just popped out for some milk and will be back shortly with a quarterly dividend.

For investors, journalists, academics, regulators, and anyone attempting to conduct basic due diligence on one of the world’s largest companies, this is not merely inconvenient. It is a structural failure in the information ecosystem that no one appears to have a mechanism for fixing.

Shell cannot correct it without drawing attention to the rebrand, the reasons for it, and the entire history attached to the old name. Search engines cannot simply purge historical data. AI vendors cannot retrain their models on the basis of a Companies House filing. And Donovan’s website — the most active, best-indexed, most historically rich source using the old name — continues to act as a kind of digital life-support machine for an identity Shell thought it had buried.

Royal Dutch Shell plc: legally dead, digitally undead, and still apparently collecting dividends according to Bing.

PART FOUR: IN WHICH FORTHDEAL LIMITED MAKES AN UNEXPECTED APPEARANCE

At this point, a reasonable person might ask: could things get any stranger?

Yes. They could, and they do. Because before it was called Royal Dutch Shell plc, the same legal entity — Companies House number 04366849, for those following at home — was called Forthdeal Limited, from 5 February 2002 to 27 October 2004.

Forthdeal Limited. The name that launched a thousand oil platforms. The name that preceded the grandeur. The trapdoor in the haunted house.

John Donovan now owns the domain ForthdealLimited.com.

This means that Shell’s corporate archaeology — the full sequence of names by which Companies House number 04366849 has been known in its lifetime — is now digitally represented as follows:

• Forthdeal Limited: ForthdealLimited.com — owned by Donovan.
• Royal Dutch Shell plc: royaldutchshellplc.com — owned by Donovan. Validated by WIPO. Active since the early 2000s.
• Shell plc: shell.com — owned by Shell. Currently fighting for search visibility against the accumulated weight of a decades-long archive operated by a retired marketing man in Essex.

One must admire the completeness of it.

Shell has, across three successive corporate identities, managed to allow a single individual to acquire the key digital real estate associated with two of them. This is the corporate equivalent of a family changing their surname twice and discovering that their estranged neighbour has already registered both names as domain addresses and is using them to publish an unflattering history of the family.

PART FIVE: IN WHICH WE CONSIDER SHELL’S OPTIONS AND FIND THEM LIMITED

What, one might reasonably ask, can Shell do about any of this?

The answer, after a moment’s consideration, is: not much.

It cannot reclaim royaldutchshellplc.com. WIPO already said no in 2005. Shell no longer even uses the name, which removes its strongest argument.

It cannot sue Donovan into silence. Two decades of attempting various legal approaches have comprehensively failed, and each attempt has generated more coverage than the original grievance.

It cannot instruct search engines to correct their data. Google, Bing and their counterparts are not in the business of updating financial records on the basis of corporate press releases.

It cannot retrain the world’s AI models. This is not how AI retraining works, and even if it were, the training data already contains Donovan’s archive, which is several million words long, continuously updated, and backed by WIPO-validated domain authority.

It cannot buy its way out of the problem. The narrative damage is historical, documented, and archived. Money does not retroactively clean up oil spills, restore overstated reserves, or erase WIPO case numbers.

It can, in theory, flood the internet with positive content under the Shell plc name in the hope of drowning out the old identity. This strategy has been available for approximately twenty years and does not appear to have worked yet.

Shell’s most realistic option, as Donovan’s Copilot conversation rather elegantly surfaced, is to coexist with the situation: a company that successfully rebranded in a legal sense, that entirely failed to rebrand in a digital or historical sense, and that is now locked in a permanent, structurally unresolvable relationship with the man from Colchester who kept the old sign lit.

PART SIX: THE BOTTOM LINE

Here, then, is the state of play in June 2026.

Shell plc — the current legal entity, headquarters London, company number 04366849, formerly Forthdeal Limited, formerly Royal Dutch Shell plc — is one of the world’s largest corporations by revenue, market cap, and capacity for generating headlines its communications team would prefer didn’t exist.

Royal Dutch Shell plc — the former name, officially deceased since 21 January 2022, recorded as a previous name at Companies House — is simultaneously a legal non-entity and one of the internet’s most persistently active corporate identities, courtesy of a decades-long archive of leaked documents, litigation records, whistleblower reports, WIPO cases, Wikipedia articles, AI training data, and the website royaldutchshellplc.com, operated from Colchester by a man Shell has been trying to neutralise since roughly the time Tony Blair was still regarded as a fresh face in politics.

Bing says the company still exists. Copilot says it’s trading. Claude says it’s dead. Use.ai says it changed its name. Companies House says the previous name ended in January 2022. Shell itself says it is Shell plc. Donovan says he still owns the domain and has now added ForthdealLimited.com to his collection for completeness.

Everyone is, in their own way, correct. Everyone is, in their own way, describing a different part of the same spectacular mess.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is legally dead but digitally undead.

It is a corporate Schrödinger’s cat: simultaneously dissolved and trading, simultaneously buried and collecting dividends, simultaneously abandoned by its creator and maintained in perfect working order by its most persistent critic.

It is, in short, the most extraordinary and entirely self-inflicted reputational and digital fiasco in the history of a company that has, over more than a century, set a remarkably high bar for entirely self-inflicted fiascos.

Shell has got itself into an incredible mess.

And the most remarkable thing about it is that the mess was completely, comprehensively, and almost admirably avoidable at every single step.

The ghost of Royal Dutch Shell plc was unavailable for comment. Its domain is, however, fully operational and accepting visitors.

Royal Dutch Shell plc: legally dead, digitally undead was first posted on June 7, 2026 at 7:17 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release

End the Genocide Chokehold

We can’t address the climate crisis without ending fossil-fuelled violence

Bonn, Germany— On Monday, the next round of UN climate talks commence in Bonn, Germany. Over the next two weeks, inside the halls of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) governments from around the world will gather to negotiate the next phase of Paris Agreement implementation and a variety of key issues such as climate finance and operationalising a just transition. Outside these halls, fossil-fuelled militarisation and violence is spurring genocide of the Palestinian people and destruction of their homeland. The same industries and Global North countries that dispossess Palestinian communities are the same actors that displace Indigenous Peoples, destroy forests, expand fossil fuel extraction and sacrifice communities across the Global South in the pursuit of profit and geopolitical power. 

Any serious discussion of climate action must confront the fossil-fuelled wars and genocides that drive emissions while destroying the land, water and lives of frontline communities. This is why Palestinian and global civil society, the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice are calling on governments to act. The International Court of Justice has declared Israel’s occupation illegal — yet fossil fuel transfers sustaining these crimes continue with impunity. Dockworkers, oil unions and mining communities are already refusing to handle these cargoes. Now we need governments to urgently advance the following:

1. Energy embargo — Cease fossil fuel transfers sustaining genocide and war crimes
2. Supply-chain accountability — Enforceable transparency and public shipment tracking
3. Worker protection — Legal guarantees for workers refusing atrocity-linked cargoes
4. Energy sovereignty — Colonised peoples must control their own energy resources
5. Community consent — FPIC must be legally binding, not procedural fiction
6. Demilitarisation — Military emissions must enter climate governance frameworks

Join Palestinian activists, climate campaigners, the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) as the Bonn climate talks kick off to hear more about what can be done here in Bonn to advance climate justice and Palestinian liberation.

WHEN: Monday 8 June 2026, 11-11.30 CEST (UTC + 2) 

WHERE: Nairobi 4, Main building, Inside the World Conference Center and webcast here

WITH: 

• Haneen Shaheen, MenaFem
• María Reyes, Mesoamerican Caravan
• Celine Isimbi, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy
• Ana Sánchez, Global Energy Embargo for Palestine
• Moderated by Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

CONTACT:dcj.comms@demandclimatejustice.org

The post Media Advisory: End the Genocide Chokehold appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

‘If the linked article is accurate in its core documentary claims, then yes: Shell appears to have placed itself in an extraordinary legal and reputational tangle.’ How Shell killed the name, failed to bury the history, lost the domain fight, and left AI search engines conducting a séance over one of the world’s biggest companies

By John Donovan

Article disclaimer: This article is a fact-based satirical commentary on corporate naming, public records, AI search errors, domain-name history and Shell’s reputational predicament. The spoof PR and spoof bot-reaction sections are clearly labelled as spoof. Legal points are commentary and opinion, not legal advice. Site wide disclaimer also applies.

PART ONE: THE FACT-BASED DEEP DIVE The Name That Shell Dropped — But Could Not Kill

There are corporate own goals, and then there is the Shell naming fiasco: a multinational oil giant drops one of the most historically loaded names in corporate history, walks away from the identity, then watches search engines, AI systems, financial sites, critics and official records all point in different directions like panicked traffic wardens at a refinery fire.

The name is Royal Dutch Shell plc.

Or rather, it was.

The live company is now Shell plc.

The official UK company number remains 04366849. Companies House records the current company as SHELL PLC, status Active, incorporated on 5 February 2002, with registered office at Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA. Under “previous company names,” Companies House lists ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC from 27 October 2004 to 21 January 2022, and before that FORTHDEAL LIMITED from 5 February 2002 to 27 October 2004.

Shell itself confirmed on 21 January 2022 that its name had changed from Royal Dutch Shell plc to Shell plc and that the change had taken effect.

So the correct legal answer is not complicated:

Shell plc is alive.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is a former name.
The old name is dead as a current legal identity.

Yet the internet, in its usual fog of half-remembered facts and algorithmic indigestion, keeps resurrecting the corpse.

Search engines still surface material about “Royal Dutch Shell plc dividends,” “Royal Dutch Shell plc shares,” “Royal Dutch Shell plc stock,” and “Royal Dutch Shell plc ticker,” even though those are no longer current under that legal name. AI systems then swallow that stale data, digest it badly, and regurgitate confidently muddled answers.

The result is a corporate identity zombie: legally dead, digitally undead, and still apparently wandering around the internet looking for dividends.

Copilot Opens the Coffin and Declares the Body Fit for Work

When asked whether Royal Dutch Shell plc was a live or dead company, Copilot reportedly answered that Royal Dutch Shell Plc is a live company, continuing to operate and trade publicly.

That is the kind of answer that sounds useful until one checks the legal record.

The underlying business continues, yes. The legal entity continues, yes. But the company no longer exists under the name Royal Dutch Shell plc. The current corporate name is Shell plc.

That distinction matters.

A former name cannot properly be treated as a current corporate actor. It cannot be casually credited with today’s dividends, today’s share price, today’s filings, today’s executives, today’s operations, or today’s corporate statements. Those belong to Shell plc.

Copilot’s error is not merely semantic. It is the AI equivalent of turning up at a funeral, shaking the corpse by the lapels and shouting: “Good news, everyone — he’s still on the payroll.”

Claude and Use.ai Find the Pulse in the Right Place

Claude’s answer was far better. It reportedly said:

“Royal Dutch Shell Plc is a dead name — the legal entity no longer exists under that title.”

That is substantially right, provided one adds the necessary precision: the underlying corporate entity continues under the current name Shell plc.

Use.ai also came close to the correct formulation, saying Royal Dutch Shell PLC is not a dead company but no longer exists under that name, and that the company changed its name to Shell PLC. That is the proper direction of travel, although the most authoritative date to use is  21 January 2022, as shown by Companies House and Shell’s own announcement.

The correct formulation for any bot, journalist, researcher, shareholder, lawyer or confused oil analyst is this:

Royal Dutch Shell plc was a former name of Shell plc. Shell plc is active. Royal Dutch Shell plc is not the current legal name of the company.

Anything else risks turning corporate due diligence into a Monty Python sketch.

The Domain Shell Failed to Capture

Now we reach the part Shell would presumably prefer not to see in neon lights.

In 2005, Shell International Petroleum Company Limited brought a WIPO proceeding against Alfred Donovan over several domains, including royaldutchshellplc.com. WIPO’s official case summary identifies the case as D2005-0538, lists the complainant as Shell International Petroleum Company Limited, the respondent as Alfred Donovan, and records the decision as “Complaint denied.”

That is not satire. That is the official case summary.

Shell tried to seize the domain. Shell lost.

Then, years later, Shell abandoned the name.

The result is exquisitely awkward. The company no longer uses Royal Dutch Shell plc as its current legal name, but royaldutchshellplc.com continues to exist as a long-running, highly visible, critical website. The name Shell walked away from did not vanish. It migrated into the digital afterlife, where it remains active, searchable, indexed, archived, quoted, contested and inconvenient.

A giant corporation changed its name.

A critic kept the old sign lit.

The Forthdeal Limited Twist

Companies House also records the company’s earlier name as FORTHDEAL LIMITED, used from 5 February 2002 to 27 October 2004.

That matters because the pre-Shell name is part of the corporate archaeology. It is the dusty basement label beneath the later grandeur of Royal Dutch Shell plc and the current minimalism of Shell plc.

If the old name Royal Dutch Shell plc has become a digital ghost, then Forthdeal Limited is the trapdoor in the haunted house.

The article you referenced argues that owning domains connected to these abandoned or historical names gives you unusual symbolic and reputational leverage. That is a fair commentary point. It should not be overstated as a definitive legal monopoly over all uses of those names, but as a matter of public narrative, search visibility and historical memory, the position is plainly striking.

Shell changed the corporate name.

Shell lost the domain fight.

Shell left behind the old identity.

Search engines and AI systems still trip over it.

That is not tidy corporate governance. That is a mess with a logo.

The Legal-Reputational Box Shell Appears to Be In

If Shell wanted to challenge the continuing use of royaldutchshellplc.com, it would face obvious reputational and procedural complications.

First, there is the old WIPO loss. WIPO records that Shell’s complaint was denied in 2005.

Second, Shell no longer uses Royal Dutch Shell plc as its current company name. Companies House and Shell’s own announcement make that clear.

Third, any new attack on the domain would risk reviving the entire story: the reserves scandal era, the name change, the WIPO defeat, the abandoned identity, the AI confusion, and the awkward fact that a critic appears to have kept the discarded name more visibly alive online than Shell itself.

That does not mean Shell has no legal rights left in anything connected with its historic branding. It almost certainly retains substantial trademark rights in Shell-related marks. But the specific public-interest and domain-name position around royaldutchshellplc.com is not a clean battlefield for Shell. It is a swamp of its own making.

The blunt version:

Shell abandoned the name, but not the baggage.
Shell changed the sign, but not the history.
Shell lost the domain fight, then created the perfect conditions for the domain to matter even more.

The AI Angle: When Machines Cannot Tell a Corpse from a Rebrand

The modern twist is that AI has turned this into a live reputational problem.

AI systems do not reliably understand corporate death. They absorb historical references, old financial data, cached pages, Wikipedia mirrors, stock-market archives and decades of Shell material. Then they try to produce a neat answer.

But the neat answer is often wrong.

They say Royal Dutch Shell plc exists.

They list phantom financial categories.

They attribute current Shell plc activity to the former name.

They confuse corporate continuity with current legal identity.

That is dangerous because this is not trivia. Shell is one of the world’s most prominent energy companies. Incorrect present-tense statements about its corporate identity, shares, dividends or legal status are not just amusing errors. They are potentially misleading public information.

The correct answer is simple, but apparently too subtle for parts of the machine:

The business survived.
The legal entity continued under a new name.
The old name died as a current legal identity.
The internet failed to update the tombstone.

Verdict

If the linked article is accurate in its core documentary claims, then yes: Shell appears to have placed itself in an extraordinary legal and reputational tangle.

Not because changing the name to Shell plc was itself unlawful or improper.

The mess arises because Shell:

1. created and used the name Royal Dutch Shell plc;
2. failed to secure the corresponding critical domain;
3. lost the WIPO fight over that domain;
4. later abandoned the name as its current legal identity;
5. left search engines and AI systems to misinterpret the resulting debris;
6. now faces the absurd situation where the old name is dead in law but alive in search.

That is not merely a corporate name change.

That is a self-inflicted identity crisis with a Companies House reference number.

PART TWO: SPOOF PR / SPIN SECTION Shell Announces “Strategic Corporate Afterlife Management Initiative”

A fictional Shell spokesperson, standing beside a polished tombstone engraved ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC — 2004–2022, today denied that the company had created any confusion whatsoever by abandoning one of the most recognisable names in global business history.

“Royal Dutch Shell plc is not dead,” the spokesperson insisted. “It has merely been transitioned into a legacy nomenclature environment.”

Asked whether the current company is actually Shell plc, the spokesperson replied:

“Yes, absolutely. Unless an old name is reputationally useful, legally inconvenient, historically embarrassing, algorithmically persistent, or accidentally revived by a chatbot.”

Asked whether Shell had lost a WIPO case involving royaldutchshellplc.com, the spokesperson adjusted his tie and said:

“We prefer to describe that as an early-stage domain outcome optimisation event.”

Asked whether the complaint was denied, the spokesperson said:

“The panel reached a conclusion that did not fully align with our preferred universe.”

Pressed on why the company dropped “Royal Dutch” from its name but now appears unable to stop the old name resurfacing online, the spokesperson unveiled a new Shell strategy document titled:

“You Can’t Say We Abandoned It If The Bots Keep Saying It Exists.”

The document reportedly contains five pillars:

1. Forget the name.
2. Deny the implications of forgetting the name.
3. Allow the internet to remember the name incorrectly.
4. Blame AI for the confusion.
5. Hope nobody notices the critic still owns the domain.

The spokesperson concluded:

“Shell is committed to clarity. That is why we are Shell plc, formerly Royal Dutch Shell plc, previously Forthdeal Limited, historically Royal Dutch/Shell, globally Shell, locally confusing, digitally haunted, and absolutely not responsible for anyone asking why the corpse is still receiving dividend enquiries.”

At this point, a chatbot in the press room asked whether Royal Dutch Shell plc was alive or dead.

The spokesperson replied:

“That depends entirely on whether we are talking legally, reputationally, historically, algorithmically, financially, spiritually or in Dutch.”

The chatbot answered:

“Yes.”

PART THREE: SPOOF BOT-REACTION / COMMENT SECTION Copilot

Verdict: Royal Dutch Shell plc is alive.

Translation:
“I found Shell. I found shares. I found oil. I found old data. I did not find the difference between a former legal name and a current company.”

Comment:
Classic corporate necromancy. Copilot put a hard hat on the corpse and sent it back offshore.

Claude

Verdict: Dead name, live underlying business.

Translation:
“The parrot is dead, but the pet shop continues trading as Shell plc.”

Comment:
A respectable performance. The bot located the pulse in the surviving legal entity rather than in the expired name badge.

Use.ai

Verdict: Not dead as a business, but no longer existing under that name.

Translation:
“The organism survived. The name tag did not.”

Comment:
Nearly correct. Needs the date pinned to 21 January 2022, not a looser trading-platform reflection date.

Companies House Bot

Verdict: SHELL PLC active. ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC previous name.

Translation:
“I am a filing system, not a séance.”

Comment:
The only entity in the room with no jokes, no hallucinations, and no need to ask Bing.

WIPO Bot

Verdict: Complaint denied.

Translation:
“Shell tried to seize the domain. Shell did not get the domain.”

Comment:
A quiet little sentence with a twenty-year echo.

Shell PR Bot

Verdict: There is no mess.

Translation:
“The mess is fully aligned with our values, governance model and stakeholder confusion strategy.”

Comment:
Currently beta-testing the phrase: “Legacy brand divestment with reputational residue.”

RoyalDutchShellPlc.com Bot

Verdict: Still here.

Translation:
“You changed the name. I kept the record.”

Comment:
Awkward for Shell. Very awkward for Shell. Increasingly awkward for the bots.

Final Line

Shell thought it could drop Royal Dutch Shell plc like an old boiler suit.

But names are not boiler suits. Names carry history. Names carry scandal. Names carry legal records, domain disputes, search results, archives, bots, ghosts and critics with long memories.

Shell abandoned the name.

The internet did not.

And now the former name of one of the world’s biggest companies is legally dead, digitally undead, and sitting on the front lawn of Shell’s reputation with a placard reading:

“You can change your name.
You cannot delete your past.”

Shell Abandoned “Royal Dutch Shell plc” — And Now the Corporate Ghost Is Haunting the Machine was first posted on June 7, 2026 at 6:23 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

Headline News:

• “Fuel Prices Are Shaping Summer Plans As US Boaters Get Ready To Hit The Water” • Recreational boaters, like motorists, are feeling a pinch from the Iran war. US gas prices have come down in recent weeks, but a gallon of regular gas still cost an average of 34% more than it did a year earlier, according to motor club AAA. [ABC News]

Motorboat at sunset (Zia Ur Rehman, Unsplash)

• “Heat Map Shows Most Of Spain In Intense Heat” • Clear skies will dominate almost everywhere in Spain, and 34ºC (100°F) will be reached in much of central and southern regions. Madrid will hover around the high, and Seville and Córdoba will reach 36ºC at noon. And even along the Cantabrian coast temperatures will rise sharply. [Euronews]
• “CATL Developing 12,000 Wh Per Kg Lithium-Air Battery” • Now that CATL, the largest battery manufacturer in the world, has begun mass production of sodium-ion batteries, it is turning its attention to the batteries it will manufacture in the future. And reportedly, the company’s long-term focus is on lithium-air battery technology. [CleanTechnica]
• “Scientists Blame Climate Change For UK Heatwave And Say 35°C In Spring Is ‘Absolutely Astonishing'” • The UK is in the midst of a spring heatwave, in which the temperatures in parts of the country are hitting highs of 35.1°C (95.2°F). As people struggle to find some relief, scientists are blaming climate change for the blistering heat. [MSN]
• “Why Solar Power Is Booming Under Trump” • The Trump administration may pivot away from renewable energies, but solar still rules. Newly released data from FERC shows that at the close of last year, solar energy additions were the single largest form of new energy capacity installations for the 28th straight month, starting in September of 2023. [MSN]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

This post first appeared on 350Pacific.org.

When Fijians received news of increased fuel prices due to the war in West Asia, scores of everyday people lined up to secure fuel supplies for transport, outdoor cooking stoves, and diesel generators. Families began budgeting for the sharp increase in groceries and public transportation, tour operators planned for a rise in operating cost, sugarcane farmers projected heavier workloads, and communities in remote island areas began to suffer higher boat fares.

The impact of volatile fossil fuel markets has cascaded down onto everyday people who are already living on the frontlines of intensifying climate impacts. One of the most recent impacts seen in Fiji is the announcement of possible “power rationing” by Energy Fiji Limited, due to escalating global fuel prices, increased dependence on thermal generation and worsening dry season conditions.

Access to reliable and safe electricity is essential to community development. It allows students to study when required, fisherfolk to keep their catch fresher for longer, rural homes to access drinking water through water pumps, and communications channels to stay open during emergencies. Renewable energy, particularly rooftop solar, has the potential to address the chasms that fossil-fuel reliance has pushed our people into.

This year, Fiji is one of the Pacific nations chasing an ambitious renewable energy target, despite the Pacific contributing only 0.03% of global emissions. This is aligned with the COP28 pledge to triple renewable energy globally, as well as the recently adopted UN resolution on states legal obligations to climate action.

The just energy transition has never been more timely, not only for climate action but for the growing affordability and energy crises that plague our islands. What many don’t see when reading these headlines are the individuals on the ground, doing their part to ensure these targets are met. Those outside the boardrooms and international negotiations, working both to combat the cost of living crisis and the energy crisis. One such person is Fijian solar energy provider, Pita Tamani.

Pita started as a regular electrician and is now the Founder and Managing Director of Electrify Energy Monkey, a company he started after learning the benefits of solar power as both a source of energy and income for young Fijians.

Pita initially completed his training and worked as an electrician in Nausori for two years, before returning to his village, where he first encountered the ripple effects of renewable energy access.

“I met two men that came to my village to do an inspection for solar energy. They came to inspect a well, where they would eventually design a solar system to run a pump, extract water from the well to a holding tank, and supply several houses close to that well with water,” recalled Pita.

Through the roll-out of renewable energy, communities can go on to power water access, refrigeration, co-op stores and a multitude of other facilities. However, as a practitioner in renewable energy, Pita saw the potential for personal growth as well as community development.

“One of the men that came to install solar in my village told me a story that he had traveled overseas and to a lot of places because of his trade, and he was also an electrician. I asked him if there were any vacancies, and that’s when I first engaged in renewables and solar. I worked for them for three years. Then I got an opportunity to go to Australia. There, I learnt the massive potential for solar energy and all of the things I needed to know as an electrician, and as a solar technician.”

The step from electrician to entrepreneur was driven by Pita’s lived experience as a young Fijian boy watching his mother work to provide better opportunities for him.

“I was raised by a single parent, so I saw the challenges she went through to bring me up, pay my school fees and such. What I saw motivated me to build something of my own and help people from it,” says Pita.

Pita Tamani (foreground), with the team from Electrify Energy Monkey. Source: Electrify Energy Monkey

 

As Fijians feel the pinch of rising costs of living, a future powered by renewable energy has the potential to alleviate much of the strain caused by cost of living crises like the one the Pacific is currently facing.

“I think that sort of financial independence is really important. What we’re doing is giving people energy independence with distributed renewable energy, even if they don’t have access to the grid, “ says Pita.

The benefits of solar energy are not limited to energy access in rural or remote areas disconnected from the national grid. Recent threats to electricity access, caused by global fuel instability, have driven many urban-dwellers to consider the benefits of generating and storing their own renewable energy.

“People are not really aware of the benefits of engaging a solar system nowadays. Not only solar, but any type of renewable energy. Even in urban areas, it’s going to offset their bill. It’s a healthy long-term investment for people living in urban areas because you can get your returns if you sell back to the grid,” said Pita.

When asked if Fiji’s target of 100% renewable energy was achievable, Pita agreed our islands are more than able to move beyond fossil fuels, given that our people are equipped with the expertise and skills to drive the energy transition.

“We can source good materials in the country, but the end result of renewable energy, such as solar, depends on installation. If we don’t have the expertise in this space, then it’s going to take us a long time trying to engage the skill set required to get us to 100% renewable energy. We are headed towards a renewable-driven future but if our technicians are not ready, this future will be delayed. If we are ready for on-the-ground implementation, then we can achieve a Pacific powered by renewables, ” Pita said.

Remote communities, like this village on the island of Moturiki, benefit from distributed renewable energy. Source: Electrify Energy Monkey

 

Despite the potential economic, environmental and social benefits of renewable energy, Pita believes that Fiji and the Pacific require an increase in the technical expertise of renewable energy, and trainings to ensure our people are able to build and manage our own renewable energy infrastructure.

One such effort to equip Pacific communities with the skills needed to generate their own electricity is the Solar Scholars training, scheduled to take place from May 26 – May 29 in Nadi, Fiji.

Fifteen community leaders from around the Pacific will learn to assemble solar PV systems that will be used to power basic services, reducing the strain of rising fuel costs and providing emergency energy during power outages. In a training organised by 350.org Pacific and the Institute of Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), participants from Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu will join the Solar Scholars program, and assist with two community solar installations in Yavulo Village and Lautoka City.

Pacific Climate Warriors in the 2021 Solar Scholars training.

 

350.org Pacific and Caribbean Program Lead, Fenton Lutunatabua, stressed the importance of energy democracy and community-centered solutions in a time where fossil fuel companies continue to profit from war-driven price hikes.

“Everyone deserves access to energy to light their homes, to contact their loved ones, to store their food, and to maintain a life of dignity. Just as everyone also deserves a safe and livable future, beyond the devastation of compounding climate disasters,” said Fenton.

“When renewable energy is prioritised and distributed, we move one step closer to a Pacific beyond fossil fuels, a Pacific that stands a better chance of surviving this affordability crisis. When young people are given the skills to better their communities, we make leaps towards a thriving generation of leaders for our region.”

The training will be conducted by the RE-Charge Pilipinas Team of ICSC, who launched the Solar Scholars initiative in 2015 after Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the Eastern Visayas in the Philippines. This pioneered the creation of the Solar TekPak and community solar photovoltaic (PV) system that could be used to power emergency services in cyclone-prone island communities.

You can follow the journey of the Pacific’s newest Solar Scholars here.

STAY UPDATED

The post As energy costs rise, Pacific people look to the sun appeared first on 350.

June 6, 2026

Read new San Francisco Gate story:

“US Navy finds radiological material in unauthorized storage in San Francisco”

June 2026:

Bayview Hunters Point Community Call to Action and Demands issued by Greenaction and the Marie Harrison Community Foundation, Inc.

June 24th noon rally at San Francisco City Hall to support community demands for health, justice, and full cleanup of all contamination at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site.

June 24, 2026 Call to Action for Bayview Hunters Point

Statement from the National Confederation of Indigenous Native Peasant Women of Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa" - alerting about persecution, illegal detentions, and acts of torture.

The post Bolivia: The “Bartolina Sisa” Organization Reaffirms Unity. Denounces Government Attempts at Division and Co-optation appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Each week, Food Tank is rounding up a few news stories that inspire excitement, infuriation, or curiosity.

USDA Proposes Closure of Bee Research Facilities

Bees and other pollinators are essential to our food system. They are uncredited workers who support the production of many of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts we consume everyday. But pollinator populations are facing increasing stress due to climate change-related threats and diseases.

Globally, wild bee and native pollinator populations are declining rapidly, and managed honeybees are experiencing similar threat. Last year, commercial beekeepers in the U.S. reported losing about 60% of their honey bee colonies, the highest loss rate since tracking.

At a time when we need to increase support for bees and beekeepers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has, instead, proposed the federal closure of essential bee research facilities.

One facility is the Beltsville Bee Research Lab in Maryland which has provided support for beekeepers, run disease diagnostics, and conducted essential research for over a century.

The closure of bee research labs reflects a growing trend Food Tank has been reporting on: at the very moment when more support is needed, federal funding is instead being stripped.

Food Insecurity in the U.S. Rises Beyond COVID Rates

Similarly, last year, the US Department of Agriculture stopped collecting data on American food insecurity, arguing that the studies were “redundant” and served to “fear monger.”

But Americans are experiencing food insecurity. The data still exists and it’s shocking.

A new survey released last week from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that food insecurity in the U.S. has reached its highest rate in six years.

Hunger is now more widespread than it was during the summer of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic triggered severe economic disruption and unemployment.

As grocery prices continue to climb and Americans face higher fuel costs, many families are being forced to make impossible choices between necessities.

The report shows about 10% of families reported missing meals. For lower income families, this number doubles. Nearly 20% of families reported having to skip meals or go without food due to financial constraints.

The report also comes on the heels of the FAO’s declaration that a broader global food security crisis may be on the horizon. Geopolitical conflicts and disruptions to the supply of energy, fertilizer, and other agricultural inputs could lead to lower crop yields, and increased global hunger, in the years ahead.

The Colorado River is at a Historic Low

Just as food insecurity is rising globally, water access is becoming an increasingly urgent issue across the American West.

The rules that govern the Colorado River, the primary water source for much of the region, will expire at the end of 2026. But despite years of negotiations, the seven basin states (California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico) still have not reached an agreement on how the river should be managed.

The challenge is driven largely by climate change. More than two decades of drought, rising temperatures, and declining snowpack have reduced river flows and pushed the system’s two largest reservoirs to historically low levels.

The stakes are enormous. The Colorado River supplies water to about 40 million people and irrigates millions of acres of farmland. Any decision about how water shortages are allocated will directly affect farmers and food production.

The negotiations taking place this year will likely shape water policy across the American West for decades to come.

Climate Resiliency and Learning from Dryland Farmers

Now, more than ever, we need to focus on climate resiliency for farmers.

One of the most important places to look for solutions is in the farming communities that have been adapting to water scarcity for generations.

Across dryland regions like East Africa and central Australia, farmers have spent generations producing food in water-scarce and variable environments.

These farmers understand what it means to farm through drought, uncertain rainfall, and extreme heat and, as these conditions increase, this knowledge is becoming more important than ever.

Éliane Ubalijoro with CIFOR-ICRAF said recently that drylands are “rich with opportunity, ecological intelligence, and the potential to drive resilience, economic vitality, and sustainable prosperity for millions.”

Food Tank recently published a list of 10 amazing dryland crops you may not be familiar with. These crops are grown by farmers who are leaders in climate resiliency.

FIMCON Gathers Food is Medicine Professionals

Food Tank attended FIMCON, the largest gathering of food is medicine professionals, last week in Washington, D.C. The event brought together healthcare providers, researchers, policymakers, and advocates who are working to demonstrate how access to healthy, nutritious food can prevent and manage chronic diseases.

As conversations around healthcare continue to evolve, events like FIMCON showcase innovative strategies that recognize food not only as a basic necessity but also as a powerful tool for treatment and prevention.

The goal for food is medicine dialogue in the future is to ensure farmers are always at the center of these discussions.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Mike Newbry, Unsplash

The post Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: Colorado River at Historic Low, Dryland Farmers Lead in Resiliency, and Bee Research Facilities’ Proposed Closure appeared first on Food Tank.

Headline News:

• “Innovative Strategies The Wine Industry Is Using To Adjust To Climate Change” • An increase in heat has been found to alter the chemistry of grapes and the taste of the wine. In response, some vintners are changing the way they cultivate their crops to mitigate the effects of climate change and reduce their own carbon footprint. [ABC News]

Napa Valley vineyard (Daniel Salgado, Unsplash)

• “Governor Polis Signs Bill Countering Expensive Federal Coal Plant Orders” • Colorado Governor Polis signed a bill requiring more transparency on the costs incurred from running coal units past their retirement dates. It requires modern pollution controls for coal plants operating after 2033 and directs the PUC to help the state reach its 2030 climate targets. [CleanTechnica]
• “Fossil Fuel Imports Have Dropped Across The EU Since War On Iran, Except In Three Countries” • While the EU responded to the latest fossil fuel crisis by limiting fossil fuel imports, a trio of states, Germany, Italy, and Belgium, have “deepened their exposure by increasing them.” Overall, EU imports have fallen 1.2% since the war started in March. [Euronews]
• “Renewable Energy Is Overtaking Traditional Power Projects Across Africa, Industry Leaders Say” • Africa’s next generation of power projects is increasingly being built around solar and wind power with battery storage, as governments and investors shift away from coal and large hydropower dams in search of cheaper, faster, and more reliable electricity. [AOL.com]
• “Governor Lamont Signs Solar Energy Bill” • Connecticut Gov Ned Lamont signed a solar power bill to ensure that the state’s families and businesses can continue to choose to go solar. The new law extends rooftop solar programs, promises to bring faster solar permitting, and moves towards allowing sales of “balcony” solar systems. [Environment America]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Our comrade Kim Moody tells us that union coverage in the U.S. is up. This development is only to be welcomed by all self-defined socialists, especially those who still conceive of working-class self-activity, self-education, and self-organization, particularly at the point of production, as indispensable for social revolution. But to celebrate this development too quickly and too easily, without a socially and materially grounded sense of what union membership means, is to miss the forest for a few still maturing saplings.

The reformist left tends to equate union membership with union militancy—as if the first automatically leads to the second. There are contradictions aplenty at play here, of course. One can certainly support electing Democrats and engaging in militant activity at the same time. But, at the end of the day, this equation is the germ of a strategy that submits class struggle to an electoralist strategy. Strikes and other stoppages need not last too long, be organized by rank-and-file workers, or be organized and translated into independent working-class infrastructures of dissent to build an electoralist “movement.” In fact, once absorbed into such a movement, working-class struggle is to be managed, turned on and turned off like a faucet, by those above, and dampened.

Unfortunately, then, there is no straight and easy path from union coverage to labor militancy. In fact, while coverage is up, strikes remain low. How we explain this contradiction, this gap between coverage and militancy, has real consequences for how we respond to it as a socialist organization rooted in the tradition of working-class self-emancipation and socialism from below. In what follows, I’ll go through some flawed analyses, turning to thinkers much smarter than myself to dispute them, talk a little bit about what hasn’t changed, and make some concrete, if not entirely worked out, proposals for how Tempest might respond.

Unfortunately, then, there is no straight and easy path from union coverage to labor militancy. In fact, while coverage is up, strikes remain low. Bad Analyses and Good Rebuttals

Narratives that attempt to explain the decline in both union density and militancy over the last few decades by simply saying that capitalism has changed are legion. We can find them in Brenner’s recent work on “secular stagnation” and in the work of some of his students, particularly Aaron Benenav; in the thought of “left-wing communists” like Josh Clover, who suggests that we have entered a new phase of capitalism based entirely on circulation and that, therefore, struggles at the point of production are subordinate, and should be politically subordinated, to riots that will grow until they explode into some sort of undefined commune; and in recent “techno-feudalist” accounts that claim that capital has transformed into a mode of production based predominately in techno rent-taking. These arguments simply don’t hold up.

It is, of course, obvious that capitalism has changed and continues to change. Capitalism is, in fact, marked by a dynamism and turbulence unseen in other modes of production. And this is because of what Anwar Shaikh describes as its “central regulating mechanism” of “real competition.” However, while dynamic, turbulent, and productive of heterogeneity—among firms, within the working class, between nations, etc.—capital is also a social relation with strict rules of reproduction. Its engine and goal is profitability. It is driven by and dependent on it. This has not changed.

Thinkers have similarly blamed the decline of the labor movement on deindustrialization, noting that, if functional and militant unions were full of industrial workers, our shift to a “service” economy necessitates both union decline and a search for new models of organizing and militant activity no longer tied to the millstones of the strike, stoppage, or slowdown. I won’t go into this here, but, as Michael Roberts notes, globally, the world has not deindustrialized. Nor does the growth of the service sector explain the decline of the labor movement. This sector is not inevitably stagnant or unprofitable, as some claim. It is a poorly defined industry, and one that also includes essential components of production.

The relative growth of the service sector does not signal capital’s retreat or exhaustion but rather its extension. Additionally, as Roberts explains, while industrial employment has dropped in the “mature capitalist economies,” it rose globally, between 1991 and 2012, by 46%. And these drops in the mature capitalist countries cannot be explained without attention to productivity increases imposed by capital and largely accepted, sometimes even embraced under the fiction of labor-management cooperation, by unions.

Along with all of this, more and more people have been thrown onto the labor market the world over. This ongoing process of proletarianization is unsurprising. And it points to the fact that developing organs of working-class struggle, self-organization, and self-education, which have always been helped along in one way or another by socialists, is still crucial.

…Developing organs of working-class struggle, self-organization, and self-education, which have always been helped along in one way or another by socialists, is still crucial.

The working class is not dead, nor is its most important weapon, the strike. Those who claim that the decline of the labor movement in the U.S. is based solely on major shifts in capital’s functioning ultimately turn what is a political issue—the disorganization of a militant layer of the working class and the Left—into an inevitability. This lets those of us on the Left off the hook.

The Necessity of Exploitation, Then and Now

Capital continues to create profit and chase profitability by way of exploitation. This is not a negotiable feature of capitalist social property relations. It is foundational. As Shaikh explains, under capitalist “real competition,” “cost-cutting becomes a central concern.” This is:

because prices are ultimately limited by costs. Costs, in turn, depend on the length and intensity of the working day, the wages paid to workers, and the technology in use. Hence, struggles between capital and labor over wages and working conditions are immanent in the drive for profit. So too is never-ending technical change, whose principal purpose is to reduce costs.

This means that capital is also compelled to respond to crises of profitability by increasing surplus value through raising the rate of exploitation. What generated the recovery that we know of as the neoliberal boom was not only the destruction of inefficient enterprises through bankruptcies, mergers, acquisitions, and the like, but also the brutal projects of holding down wages, increasing productivity, and lowering expectations in relation to living standards, including offloading social reproduction onto the family. This takes place at the point of production, of course, but it also reaches beyond it. When in the midst of crisis, as we now are and have been for some time, capital and capitalist states also impose austerity.

Those of us in Tempest already know all of this. But given the state of things—capitalism’s long depression, the global rise of the Right, the ever-intensifying attacks on working and oppressed people, and the sharpening of inter-imperial rivalry, to name only a few morbid symptoms—it can be all too easy to lose sight of the functioning of capital as capital. Capital is doing what it does and what it must. It is seeking profit and chasing profitability at the expense of working-class living conditions. What we’re living through, then, is not an aberration. Crises are regular and recurring features of capitalism, and so, too, are authoritarian responses to these crises. As Jeffrey Webber and Todd Gordon put it, “there is an authoritarian disposition at the core of capitalism, a tendency integral to its very nature as a system of exploitation, oppression, and alienation.”

This is why militant working-class struggle remains not only important to resisting capital and the capitalist state’s authoritarian turn but also non-negotiable, a lynchpin of political struggle that cannot be ignored. Trump is a nightmare. But he doesn’t represent as much of a rupture as he seems to. Ultimately, he is the head of a capitalist state that is trying desperately to both leap out of a crisis of profitability and to convince working people that the crisis of social reproduction we face is the fault of other working and oppressed people.  But under Donald Trump, the next president (likely a Democrat), and leaders the world over, whether of the Right or center, workers still work and will still work. We’re compelled to work to survive in a market-dependent world. If anything, the global economic crisis in which we remain mired means more austerity, more work for less, under the rule of right or center. Exploitation will not go away, and it has not gone away.

There has certainly been a full-throated abandonment of the so-called rules-based liberal order—even if, at base, this order was itself always a regulating fiction. Inter-imperial rivalry is, of course, both more intense and therefore more visible. And the rise of the Right the world over is both a central problem for the global Left and the oppressed and the exploited, and a serious obstacle to our organizing.

However, there is a tendency, even on the Left, to treat these phenomena as if they represent a serious departure not just from the capitalist status quo of the past fifty years or more but also from the orthodoxies of capitalism more generally. Terms intended to clarify the unprecedentedness of the Trumpian moment proliferate: neo- and post-fascism, authoritarian nationalism, plain-old fascism proper, political capitalism, U.S. Bonapartism, and so on. It is important, of course, to outline the specificities of our moment as clearly as possible. But there is a temptation built into these debates, I think, and that is to present Trump and the global Right as if they represent a kind of irregularity.

We should remember, though, that:

For much of the twentieth century, the U.S. was a deeply authoritarian society. In parts of the country, it was a one-party state. Many of its policies were inspirational to European fascist regimes. Yet it was all established and maintained without any open coup, any apparent “revolution”, or any Nazi-style party in uniforms: it always called itself democracy, not totalitarianism. The American authoritarian tradition, on which Trump draws, operated through a patchwork collaboration of state institutions, bosses, right-wing union officials, and private thugs.

Trump’s is an attempt to reconstitute this tradition of open racism, assaults on the heterogeneous working class, and crackdowns on left-wing activists and movements, immigrants, queer folks, women, and the poor. This reactionary tradition was only buried, to the limited extent that it was, by mass struggles from below.

And it was precisely the gap that developed between the organization of workers as workers, at the point of production and beyond it, and efforts to expand these gains that allowed for something like Trump’s traditionalist return with many twists. This happened not only because of assaults from above but also because of failures from below—namely, the cleaving of workplace struggle and its disciplining on the part of union bureaucrats in league with so-called progressive capitalist and convinced of the efficacy of labor-management cooperation. The largest organ of the organized Left in the U.S.—the Communist Party—took a similar tack as it embraced the Popular Front strategy.

The crisis of working-class militancy, then, is a political one. Therefore, the reconstitution of a militant layer of workers will require a lot of political work. But it also contains within it the germ of revolutionary possibility.
Because capital can only change so much, because it is driven by profitability, the best way to threaten and cajole it, and the states that depend upon and smooth its way, is still to threaten its livelihood, even if only in the short term. Whoever is in office in whatever capitalist state, this holds. That doesn’t mean that we can collapse national and historical specificities into a unilinear march toward revolution. Rather, the realization that it will take a fighting labor movement to compel both meaningful reforms in the here and now and in the future should force us to take stock of specificities, of real obstacles to and opportunities for organization in the U.S. and elsewhere.

New Epoch or Crisis

Responses to crisis matter, of course. But the response by authoritarian nationalists and centrists or liberals has largely been the same. If the first engage in revved up scapegoating, the use of state force, etc., the second do so with a more human face, until the genocide of Palestinians perpetrated by the Israeli ethno-state is on the table. Then the mask slips off.

The Right, the world over, benefits from the economic crisis and the lack of serious left-wing opposition. But, like the center, it flails in the face of this crisis, even if in more openly cruel and reactionary forms. We shouldn’t collapse all capitalist regimes into one another, of course. There are serious differences. Workers are “better off” in a relative, and very qualified sense, under less right-wing administrations. As Avery Wear argues, in the current climate, the argumentative way forward in the U.S. is not claiming that both parties of capital are simply mirror images. Rather, it is that, whatever the differences, “the Democratic Party… because it is a party dominated by the capitalist class, sabotages our class’s fight against the authoritarian and reactionary tendencies of the Republicans.” Even those of us who fall on the side of what Wear calls the “classic” argument, represented by something like Hal Draper’s “Who’s Going to be the Lesser Evil in 1968?,” should heed Wear’s advice.  Even if in fits and starts, people are moving. There is a nascent but broad resistance constituting itself, however unevenly. And while many of its members are still willing to vote Democrat in order to unseat Trump, they’re also willing to take to the streets against ICE, against Trump’s attempt to further consolidate his power and push at the edges of his authoritarian liberalism.

Even as we work with and in this broad resistance movement, we should never recoil from the project of reorienting these spaces to independent working-class action and mass mobilization, not as opposites but as both integral parts of class struggle that must be united. Therefore, even if they’re real and meaningful, differences between the capitalist parties shouldn’t be fetishized either.  When it comes to working people and the heterogeneous working class, they’re far too similar.

…Even if they’re real and meaningful, differences between the capitalist parties shouldn’t be fetishized

Both parties have responded to the crisis of profitability by displacing it onto immigrant workers, gender minorities, the houseless, the racialized, and the oppressed more generally. The Democrats’ rhetoric of moral superiority has come to equal itself as, well, empty rhetoric in the face of their full-throated support of Israel. Spending on ICE swelled under Democrats, too. Trump did not create these armed goons out of thin air. Nor is mass deportation a Trumpian invention. It was also a bedrock of the Obama and Biden administrations. Trump has certainly adopted it with more public-facing cruelty and authoritarian verve. But what we’re seeing is the intensification of an already-existing (and bipartisan) attack on immigrants.

Just look at the way Harris’s “resounding defeat by voter abstention” was blamed on “whatever marginalized group refused to sufficiently support” her “right-wing, blood-soaked, imperialist presidential bid.” This blame has been extended to immigrants, Latinx voters, trans people (and the Democrats’ supposed courting of them), Arab and Muslim voters, those who refused to support Harris’s gung-ho approach to changing absolutely nothing in the midst of a U.S.-backed genocide of the Palestinian people, and so on.

Harris’s campaign, and its possible if suicidal resumption in 2028, even if simply the product of centrist Democrat delusion, still speaks to the fact that the official opposition in the U.S., whatever their rhetoric, will continue to wage war on working and oppressed people, both in the U.S. and globally.

Even if the Right is openly pursuing imperialist aggression and much more openly attacking working-class and oppressed people than the supposed opposition, we should also avoid the trap of treating these real historical shifts as if they represent the abandonment of capital’s central logic and drive. We should be careful that, in trying to make sense of the dynamism of capitalism, we’re not falling into the traps of thinking of capitalism as progressing through “phases,” each marked by a different logic of accumulation. The authoritarian turn has not veered away from capitalism. It is latent within capitalist social relations themselves.

Even as they mobilize, unions in the U.S. still bank on the Democratic Party and on the capitalist system itself. Mass disruptive struggle may have moved into the realm of possibility with Trump’s assaults on workers, but it is yoked to an unbroken business unionism in the workplace. Struggles are limited, contained within the bounds of collective bargaining, and mainly concerned with wages and benefits rather than with the conditions of work itself.

Toward a Limited Response

Workers are clearly being drawn to unions as defensive organs, not only in relation to attacks on wages, benefits, and the conditions of work but also, importantly, in an attempt to defend themselves and their immigrant colleagues from (some of) the forces of the state, revved up by Trump’s authoritarian nationalism. In the last year, we’ve seen unions and their members take to the streets in LA, Minneapolis, and elsewhere. This is an incredible development. Even unions and locals that had become sclerotic through years of bland business unionism have turned out and have organized members to turn out to No Kings protests. And while what happened in Minneapolis was not a general strike, “it served as a starting line for new organizing efforts that can carry the movement forward on more than just momentum.” Additionally, calls for organizing around May Day 2026 drew serious attention from working-class folks in the U.S. Even if the May Day events were smaller than expected, the character and infrastructure initiated in their planning are significant. These are openings that we can’t dismiss as insufficient, even if they are insufficient. As the Tempest National Committee explains: “We can draw inspiration from the anti-ICE movement and commit to building the kind of sustained, ongoing organizing in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods that will increase our capacity and power.”

Much of this organizing was and is being done by rank-and-file workers. But there is also a schism between these, what we might call, being unfortunately imprecise, politically or outwardly-directed organizing projects, and organizing at the point of production, in the workplace, whether the factory, the schoolhouse, the warehouse, etc. Joe Burns describes this phenomenon as “labor liberalism,” distinguishing it from business unionism, but the two are relatively compatible, especially in times of crisis.

This kind of organizing threatens to replace organizing workers at work and as workers—capable of threatening the capitalist pursuit of profitability by way of conscious stoppage—with organizing members to be mobilized outside the point of production, and at will, turned on and off like a faucet. A personal example: I’m a non-tenure instructor at Howard University. Over the past year, our SEIU local has invited us to national No Kings protests and anti-ICE actions, but they also swooped into our workplace during negotiations, refused to openly bargain, even though it was the will of the majority, and actively impeded our attempts to build solidarity with other university workers. What we won is a contract that, in the midst of crackdowns on academic freedom, ultimately invests the university administration with more power over our work and our jobs more generally.

As socialists grounded in and carrying forward the tradition of socialism from below, we know that to bring about real and meaningful change, we need not only bodies in the streets but also militant workers in all kinds of workplaces. Whatever the administration, whoever the leader, capital and the capitalist state can be compelled when workers threaten to raise costs.

Whatever the administration, whoever the leader, capital and the capitalist state can be compelled when workers threaten to raise costs.

At the national level, Tempest already houses a Labor Working Group (LWG), and local LWGs and Direct Action Working Groups exist in some branches. The national Education Working Group recently completed an education series on multiracial organizing, focusing on both unions and social movements. All of this work is necessary. Much of it is excellent. But we need to develop a more coherent and intentional project of worker education—one that unites Tempest’s national resources and expertise with the embeddedness of many of our members in their own unions and local labor movements more generally.

Some less-than-concrete ideas:

1) The creation of a pool of Tempest members and collaborators willing to write on organizing strategies and tactics and on various forms of disruption. Such writings could take the form of pamphlets, leaflets, or short articles for the website. And they could focus on more abstract or theoretical questions, historical examples of working-class action, or both.

1. A specific series of labor pamphlets, leaflets, or short articles that Tempest members can print, share with their union comrades (electronically or otherwise), hand out, or put up at work, etc. These could be thought of as a kind of Organizing 101 series. Whatever lessons are presented should be drawn out for a non-socialist audience, and there should be a persistent effort to connect past historical examples to present situations.
2. Tempest members who are involved in union struggles should be encouraged to write about their experiences, and those who have been involved in struggles past or who have some historical knowledge of these struggles, why they matter, and what lessons we can draw from them, should be encouraged to share their knowledge.

2) The development of educational materials that Tempest members can use in their unions: These materials could take the form of reading lists or syllabi, perhaps based around specific themes; pre-made but editable presentations or scripts for talks, especially on themes, lessons, or concepts that are applicable across different sectors of work; reading and study questions that Tempest members can use to facilitate reading and discussion groups in their unions; and the like.

3) A series of presentations, presentation scripts, education documents (pamphlets, articles, etc.), or reading/discussion group outlines that take up the hard work of actively building solidarity among working people the world over: These will provide an alternative to the kind of passive or reductive solidarity of the class reductionists, focusing on the necessity of fighting racism, standing up for immigrant workers, and building international solidarity not by ignoring oppression, but by actively fighting it.

4) A series of presentations, documents, etc. on the relationship between social movements and broader struggles against oppression and the labor movement.

5) The development of local labor schools or other educational infrastructures: These could host speakers from the collective as a whole—virtually or in person—even if the unions or sectors involved will differ depending on location, the embeddedness of Tempest members, etc.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Bastian Greshake Tzovaras; modified by Tempest.

The post The state of the unions in the U.S. appeared first on Tempest.

Spring 2026 Newsletter TAKE QUICK ACTION for a REAL IMPACT

 

Dear Friends, Thanks to ongoing community efforts, New Mexico officials are taking action to require DOE, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to prioritize sending LANL’s “Legacy” nuclear waste to WIPP for disposal. “Legacy Waste” is Cold War nuclear waste, created during decades of nuclear weapons research, design and fabrication. DOE promised New Mexicans that if we allowed WIPP to be built in our state, Cold War and other radioactive waste, then stored at LANL, would have priority to be disposed in WIPP. DOE has continually broken this promise over the years. New Mexico is usually far behind other states in disposing LANL’s Legacy Waste in WIPP. This has led to, among other problems, about 2500 drums of plutonium-contaminated Legacy Waste languishing for decades in tents in “Area G” in a wildfire zone. The red area shows the combined burn area of 8 wildfires between 1977 and 2022 three of which burned over LANL property. For more information about these fires, including an interactive map, go to FireOnTheMountain.xyz   On April 23, our New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued an important permit modification to WIPP’s 2023 Renewal Permit, holding LANL and DOE accountable for not prioritizing this Legacy Waste disposal as required in the 2023 WIPP Permit Renewal.   Important Points in the Proposed Permit Modification •  All Legacy Waste currently stored above-ground at LANL’s Area G shall be disposed in WIPP by July 1, 2028. (This would include the plutonium-contaminated Legacy Waste stored in the tents. •  From January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2031, at least 55% of the total volume of all waste disposed in WIPP from all national sites must be LANL Legacy Waste. •  Beginning January 1, 2032, and until all LANL legacy waste has been disposed in WIPP, LANL legacy waste must be at least 75% of the total volume of waste disposed in WIPP from all national sites. •  If at any point any of those conditions are not met, all shipments, other than those from LANL, must cease until all deficiencies are cured.   NMED needs to hear that we are in support of this permit modification.   Our full support is especially necessary because DOE is strongly opposing the modification.       To view the full Permit Modification, Public Notice, and a detailed Fact Sheet, go to:
www.env.nm.gov/hazardous-waste/wipp/
And scroll down to WIPP News 2026 For more information and sample comments go to:
www.StopForeverWIPP.org ————————————————————– Members of the Stop Forever WIPP Coalition and Fire on the Mountain as well as other community groups support this action and urge people to submit written comments in support of NMED’s action by Monday, June 22 at 5 PM.   How to submit comments     •  NMED has asked that we submit comments directly through their portal here. •  But if you find that a little intimidating you can email your comments to:      HWB-WIPP-Comment@env.nm.gov •  Or even snail mail them to NMED at:            
    Megan McLean, WIPP Program Manager
Hazardous Waste Bureau
New Mexico Environment Department
2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505-6303   For more information visit    Stop Forever WIPP https://stopforeverwipp.org
https://www.facebook.com/StopfvrWIPP/ Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) http://nuclearactive.org Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC)
http://www.sric.org/ Nuclear Watch New Mexico

https://nukewatch.org

Fire on the Mountain www.fireonthemountain.xyz

For Immediate Release:

June 5, 2026

Contact:
Ashley Castaneda, ashley@restorethedelta.org

STOCKTON, CA — In response to a recent press release from Governor Gavin Newsom, Restore the Delta’s Executive Director, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla released the following statement:

“Further proof that Governor Newsom holds the same values regarding California water management as the Trump Administration. The Governor is influencing every regulatory process for his corporate agenda hoping the next Governor will continue with these special interest, big water projects like the Delta Conveyance Project.

Left, right, and center, the majority of Californians do not support the Delta tunnel or the water grab. They do support plans like the Water Renaissance Plan. If the top two gubernatorial candidates line up with Governor Newsom on water, they will lose a great deal of public support from voters.”

Restore the Delta further reiterates that Governor Newsom’s approach to water resources management fails the tests of morality, fairness, affordability, and protection for everyday Californians. Under this administration, the Delta has not only been neglected, it has been placed at even greater risk by policies that continue to endanger the region, its communities, and its future. 
 

###

APPLY HERE

Job Title:Director of Finance and Operations
Job Location: Hybrid-based in Oakland, California: 2 days in office required.
Position Start Date: September 2026
Job Classification: Full-Time Employee, Exempt, 37.5 hours per week
Salary Range: USD $135,000-145,000 per year
Reporting To: Amanda Brown-Stevens, Executive Director

About the Opportunity:

Are you enthusiastic about bringing a numbers-savvy, strategic lens to financial oversight and management? Excited to provide leadership and direction to operational infrastructure in service of the organization’s mission and long-term sustainability? Greenbelt Alliance is hiring a Director of Finance and Operations who will be instrumental in deepening its financial management infrastructure to accommodate anticipated growth in programs and revenue while engaging deeply in the day-to-day details of nonprofit operations and human resources. This is a senior leadership role working closely with organizational leadership to support thoughtful decision-making around growth, staffing, program expansion, and funding strategy.

We are looking for someone who brings years of experience in finance and operations, who is excited to collaborate with colleagues to direct and implement organizational financial policies, procedures, management, and strategy to ensure Greenbelt Alliance’s healthy financial position carries forward and operational needs are consistently met.

You’ll be a great Director of Finance and Operations for Greenbelt Alliance if you:

• • Bring expertise in budgeting, forecasting, and monitoring of revenue and expenses
  • Enjoy translating what the numbers are indicating about annual financial health to non-financially savvy colleagues, executives, and board members 
  • Can proactively solve problems, developing and improving systems
  • Have experience building and overseeing complex, publicly-funded project budgets to philanthropic grant project budgets
  • Have excellent communication and critical thinking skills, including experience presenting to Board of Directors and Finance Committees
  • Thrive in providing leadership and oversight of organizational operations
  • Bring experience managing a high-functioning Finance and Operations department
  • Ability to create and promote a positive and supportive work environment
  • Enjoy collaborating and iterating with a talented, bright, and supportive team
  • Pride yourself on having great attention to detail
  • Bring a passion for supporting organizational excellence in our mission to ensure the Bay Area is resilient to a changing climate

Key Activities Will Include:

Strategic Financial Leadership

• Oversee all financial operations, including accounts, ledgers, AP/AR, cash management, investments, and reporting systems
• Lead annual budget development, midyear forecasting, and multi-year financial planning, including cash flow analyses and contingency planning
• Present financial reports, dashboards, and narratives to the Finance Committee and Board of Directors
• Manage monthly, quarterly, and annual financial close and internal reporting

Compliance & Audit

• Lead the annual audit process, including financial statements and IRS 990
• Develop and manage complex public funding budget proposals and oversee state and federal grant administration and compliance
• Maintain a revenue processing system for timely draw-downs and reimbursements across multiple grant periods
• Strengthen and implement internal policies and controls to protect assets and ensure financial accuracy

People Management

• Supervise and provide strategic guidance to the Sr. Finance and Grants Manager and accounting staff, serving as back-up across functions as needed
• Provide oversight to the People Operations Manager on HR and employee relations matters in collaboration with a third-party PEO

Operations Management

• Oversee organizational operations, including office management, infrastructure, and vendor relations
• Support the development and maintenance of operational systems, policies, and documentation
• Ensure operational practices reflect organizational values and foster a collaborative work environment

Desired Qualifications:

NOTE: We do not expect any single candidate to have extensive expertise/experience in all of these areas, but will prioritize candidates with demonstrated success as a critical-thinker and quick-learner.

• Experience in accounting, finance, business administration or a related field.
• Experience as a people manager with knowledge of and ability to employ effective strategies that motivate and guide other staff members.
• Excellent mathematical and analysis skills.
• Experience with nonprofit financial systems as well as operations and administration.
• Knowledge of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and nonprofit accounting.
• Proficient use of the following software is a plus: Google Suite, Quickbooks, BILL, Zoom, Salesforce, Asana, Insperity, TimeCamp, Slack.
• Ability to lead departments and individuals.
• Strong written and oral communication skills, including presenting on financial information.
• Willingness to continually improve processes and systems, and be a team player.
• Ability to strategize creatively and think critically, overcoming obstacles and offering sustainable solutions.
• Self-starting work ethic, comfortable working both collaboratively and independently.

Benefits:

• 100% Employer-Paid Health Insurance, Dental Insurance, and Vision Insurance policies. Life insurance policy also provided.
• 50% Employer-Paid Insurance policies for dependents.
• Generous Paid Time-Off package, including Vacation Days, Sick Days, and Floating Holidays. As many as 14 paid holidays off, including Winter Break.
• Professional development and training opportunities. 

How To Apply

Applications for this position will be considered on a rolling basis; however, priority consideration will be given to applications submitted by June 29, 2026. Please allow several weeks for a response, as we are reviewing applications. Be sure to attach a professional resume as a PDF document to your application. In your cover letter, state your interest in the role along with answers to the following questions: 

1. How do you communicate complex financial metrics, risks, and forecasts to non-finance staff and board members?
2. What is your leadership philosophy for managing and developing a high-performing finance and operations team?
3. Give an example of how you used financial data and forecasting to inform an organization’s strategy direction?

APPLY HERE

Work Authorization:

At this time, Greenbelt Alliance is unable to offer assistance to noncitizens or nonresidents in obtaining employer-sponsored work visas. All employees must have existing authorization from the federal government to work lawfully in the United States of America. Authorization would include US citizenship, US permanent residency (“green card”), or any other type of unexpired work authorization visa issued by the federal government.

Equal Employment Statement:

Greenbelt Alliance is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, disability, sex, gender expression, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other category. We strongly encourage people of color, LGBTQIA+ persons, people of different levels of physical ability, people with diverse national and class origins, and all qualified persons to apply for this position. Learn more about our nondiscrimination policy here.

Greenbelt Alliance encourages candidates of all abilities to apply to this position! In the case you may require any kind of special accommodation in order to complete the application or hiring process, please contact us at info@greenbelt.org.

About Greenbelt Alliance:

Greenbelt Alliance’s mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate to ensure the Bay Area’s lands and communities are resilient to a changing climate. Greenbelt Alliance has stewarded the region’s beautiful natural landscapes while promoting the growth needed for thriving communities for over 65 years. We focus on innovative policy solutions and accelerating local and regional collaboration to plan and invest in resilient communities. Learn more at greenbelt.org.

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A lower-volume frack and well test at the West Newton-A oil and gas site in East Yorkshire could start within three months, the operator revealed today.

In an update, Rathlin Energy said the operations were due to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026.

West Newton-A site in Holderness, East Yorkshire. Photo: DrillOrDrop

But the start date depended on securing additional approvals and on equipment being available, the company said.

The lower-volume frack is also facing a legal challenge at the High Court from a local campaigner.

Before work can begin, passing places must be built on part of the lorry route to the site. This is expected to take four weeks, during which Pasture Lane would be closed.

Rathlin confirmed in the update that it was considering “near-term” plans to use gas from West Newton-A to generate electricity for what it called onsite “computer facilities”.

A major investor has previously said the gas would power bitcoin mining.

Rathlin has permission to generate electricity at West Newton-A but it would need planning permission for the computer facilities.

The update said stimulation modelling for the lower-volume frack had been completed, along with the design of a year-long extended well test (EWT).

Well completion and testing companies had been contacted to determine their availability, it added.

Rathlin said the 12-month extended well test was dependent on the success of the lower-volume frack.

The test would allow it to “assess the extent and performance of the reservoir, providing the essential data required before determining the most appropriate route for full field development”, the company said.

It added:

“Until the reservoir characteristics are fully understood, through an EWT, it is too early to determine the most suitable method for transporting gas to market.

“Rathlin has reviewed several potential options, including a pipeline connection to the National Transmission System or direct supply to local industrial users.”

The update also confirmed:

• Rathlin would establish a community benefit fund before work started
• A new work programme would allow the West Newton licence, PEDL183, to be retained in its current form until June 2030.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: June 5, 2026
Contact: Anja Semanco | anja@alaskawild.org | 724-967-2777 

Arctic Refuge Lease Sale Exposes Administration’s Reckless Gamble and the Market’s Clear Rejection 

Anchorage, AK — For the third time, a lease sale in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has produced results that fall catastrophically short of what Congress promised the American people when it authorized drilling in one of the nation’s most treasured wild places. 

Today’s sale produced just nine bids from two entities—the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) and HEX Energy LLC—neither of which represents the serious industry investment required to bring Arctic Refuge oil to market. Together they generated just $3,741,528 in total revenue—0.37% of the nearly $1 billion proponents claimed would offset the costs to the federal government of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Overall, all three sales have fallen short of producing even 1% of the total revenue from the 2017 Tax Act, which is split between the federal government and state of Alaska. No major oil company participated. No credible path to the promised revenue exists. 

The pattern is undeniable. The American taxpayers told this bargain was worth opening one of the country’s last intact ecosystems are still waiting for a return that has never materialized—and by today’s results, never will. 

“When Congress passed the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the American people were told that opening the Arctic Refuge to drilling would generate close to $1 billion in federal revenue,” said Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League. “Today, the total return remains a fraction of that promise. Economic gain was a false justification to permanently sell off the most ecologically and culturally significant landscapes in the United States. The American people don’t want this, the oil industry doesn’t want this, and our public lands deserve so much better. The Arctic Refuge, traditional homelands of the Gwich’in people, deserves permanent protection.” 

This outcome was foreseeable. The world’s largest banks—Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and others—declined years ago to finance Arctic Refuge drilling. Major insurers declined to underwrite it. Oil companies with the capital and technical capacity to operate in one of the world’s most demanding environments looked at the cost structures, the logistical challenges, accelerating permafrost instability, and the long-term demand outlook for high-cost Arctic oil—and consistently chose not to bid. 

The Gwich’in Nation Has Opposed This From the Start 

The economic failure of these lease sales cannot be separated from the human cost of pursuing them. The coastal plain—what the Gwich’in people call “the Sacred Place Where Life Begins”—is the calving and nursery ground of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which the Gwich’in Nation has depended upon for thousands of years for their physical, cultural, and spiritual well-being. 

The Gwich’in were not consulted when Congress opened this land to leasing, and they have opposed drilling at every turn—in Congress, before international bodies, and in the courts. They have been unequivocal: this is not a trade-off they will accept at any price. Given that the economic projections used to override their objections have now proven fiction, the case for continuing to do so has collapsed entirely. 

Three Failed Lease Sales Are Enough 

The Arctic Refuge coastal plain is the calving ground of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, one of the largest remaining terrestrial migrations on earth, and home to polar bears, musk oxen, wolves, Dall sheep, and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds. It is a landscape that cannot be restored once industrial development begins. 

Congress opened this land on the basis of a financial promise it could not keep—a promise that has now failed three times. The legal mandate requiring the administration to continue holding lease sales, regardless of market interest, taxpayer return, or the wishes of the Gwich’in Nation, should be repealed.

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