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Professor Elisa Morgera is the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights.

In the global fight against catastrophic, human-induced climate change, diplomacy plays a vital role.

Historic initiatives like the Paris Agreement and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage were the consequence of tireless, coordinated international efforts of states, civil society and scientists. The role of COP, and other summits like it, remains key. However, they are coming under increasing pressure.

Last year the climate COP30 was unable to take a decision on fossil fuels, despite calls from over 80 states, as well as children and youth, medical professionals, Indigenous peoples and climate justice movements. A landmark deal to cut global shipping emissions was put on ice and global talks to develop a much-needed treaty to end plastic pollution were stalled by a few states who wish to avoid even mentioning fossil fuels in international negotiations.

• Apr 23, 2026 News Sixty countries head to Santa Marta to cement coalition for fossil fuel transition After last year’s COP30 disappointment, governments will seek a renewed push to phase out fossil fuels at the first global summit on the theme in Colombia Read more
• Apr 23, 2026 Energy Prospects for global green shipping deal boosted by US tariff ruling, analysts say While divisions remain over the international shipping’s Net Zero Framework, the US’s main threat may now have been partly neutered Read more

In these instances, the process of building consensus was hijacked by actors whose priorities lie in the continued exploration and production of fossil fuels, magnifying the views of a handful of powerful states at the expense of all others.

In recent months, illegal aggressions in Venezuela and Iran, armed conflicts, political turbulence and economic instability have conspired to make international cooperation harder. At the same time, the impact our reliance on fossil fuels and petrochemical fertilisers has on the cost of living, energy and food insecurity has been laid bare.

Against this backdrop, a new idea was born at COP30: the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which the Colombian government is co-hosting with the Netherlands in Santa Marta this week.

Inclusion and implementation

It represents the possibility of a new kind of multilateral forum: one that foregrounds the voices of those most impacted by the climate crisis and is relentlessly focused on implementation. It is only open to states that wish to make progress and discuss how – not if – to move away from fossil fuel dependency. And it is set to draw on the insights of Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and peasants, civil society, cities and academics, women and youth, who are often left out of international negotiating rooms.

The talks centre on how to ensure that the transition away from fossil fuels is also a just one: a transition that protects workers, communities and the environment, respects human rights and builds public legitimacy, rather than imposing new costs on those least responsible for the crisis.

To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”

The conference is also unpacking how international cooperation must work for countries and communities facing fiscal dependence, debt burdens and limited implementation capacity. It aims to identify the financial and technological support required from the Global North to allow other countries to leapfrog into sustainable renewables-based economies.

In addition, it will seek to address the harmful international legal barriers – such as the thousands of international investment agreements which include investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions – that allow foreign corporations to sue states for measures adopted in the public interest.

Solutions that tackle injustice

These are complex, but necessary conversations to be had for all governments. Most international fora are being used to “avoid the conversation”. We have many of the solutions, but we need to ensure they’re implemented in ways that benefit all countries and sectors of society, not just a few.

Santa Marta aims to strengthen a “coalition” of ambitious states, who are responsive to the voices of those most affected by climate change. It also aims to mobilise scientists, lawyers, economists, policy and energy experts, and the medical community to support states, as well as cities and citizen initiatives to pilot promising approaches around the world. Through a deeply inclusive and participatory approach, at every level, Santa Marta can pave the way towards solutions that are co-developed and respond directly to what’s needed on the ground.

New panel of climate scientists calls for fossil fuel transition roadmaps

This will be key for achieving a just transition. Many countries, especially in the Global South, are not held back by a lack of ambition, but by structural barriers: debt, high borrowing costs and international rules that still reward continued fossil fuel extraction over managed decline at the expense of people’s health and economic well-being.

Santa Marta comes at a critical moment: environmentally, morally, economically but also legally.

Legal accountability on fossil fuels

The landmark advisory opinion on climate change, issued last July by the International Court of Justice, made clear that states have a legal obligation to act effectively and ambitiously on climate change, and that fossil fuel expansion, production, consumption and subsidies are not in line with these international obligations. It followed similar rulings, by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in 2024 and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, also in 2025.

The transition away from fossil fuels is not simply an environmental necessity, but an urgent matter of security, resilience and health. It is a human rights imperative. And an inherently exclusionary approach focused on major powers will not deliver all the benefits of a fossil fuel-free global economy.

Vanuatu pursues new UN resolution to turn ICJ climate opinion into action

The Santa Marta conference is set to address this and look at how fossil-fuel-dependent countries can diversify on fair terms, how communities can access and produce affordable and reliable renewable energy, and how the transition can deliver visible social and economic gains instead of reproducing new forms of exclusion, dependency, and insecurity.

At Santa Marta we can make meaningful, lasting progress through a diplomacy of implementation, inclusion and legal accountability that can provide a new yardstick for all the other multilateral processes on climate change and other fossil fuel-related issues, such as plastics, food, health, taxation and the protection of peace.

A full statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Santa Marta Conference can be found here.

The post Santa Marta marks a new chapter in climate diplomacy appeared first on Climate Home News.

Headline News:

• “Renewables Race Heats Up As Countries Scramble To Keep Energy Bills Down” • “As long as we depend on oil and gas, we will continue to ​pay the price of other people’s wars,” said French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu. But some of Europe’s biggest economies are clear that renewables are the most reliable and cheapest way to avoid energy shocks. [Euronews]

Bordeaux, France (Juan Di Nella, Unsplash)

• “Taxpayer-Funded Bottom Trawling Costs Europe Billions. Does Turkey Have The Solution?” • Turkey’s  was on the brink. Overfishing, intense tourism, invasive species, and warming seas depleted its waters and destroyed a way of life for local fishers. It became a marine protected area and now testifies to the power of ocean conservation. [Euronews]
• “Swapping Out Diesel For Solar And Batteries In The Amazon Rainforest” • It’s a pretty simple calculus, actually. As costs go down, new renewable energy resources go up. Call it the law of the unseen hand or just good old fashioned common sense. And unsurprisingly, solar power is having significant growth is in the Amazon rainforest. [CleanTechnica]
• “Meta Bets On Space Solar Power In Deal With Overview Energy” • Meta entered an agreement with Overview Energy to access up to 1 GW of space-based solar power, a significant step toward integrating orbital energy systems into the electricity supply for data centers. Overview plans to transmit solar energy to Earth as low-intensity infrared light. [OilPrice.com]
• “House Republicans Introduce Bill To Extend Renewables Tax Credits” • House Republican lawmakers are trying to restore clean tax credits for wind, solar, and other technologies for clean energy that were curtailed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Business group E2 estimated that $34.8 billion in clean energy investments were canceled in 2025. [Utility Dive]

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

Evidence that Parkinson’s, the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease globally, may be linked to pesticides used in agriculture has been accumulating for decades. Yet, after finally appearing to take experts’ concerns seriously, EU authorisation bodies have failed to take meaningful action. An excerpt from Dirk de Bekker’s book Het pesticidenparadijs (“Pesticide Paradise”).

“If you are the CEO of Bayer, tossing and turning in bed at night, how can you justify this to yourself… Suppose that Roundup is the cause of Parkinson’s, how are you able to sleep soundly?”

It is 29 March 2022. Sitting opposite me is Bas Bloem, professor of neurology and an internationally renowned expert on Parkinson’s disease. He has just explained to me, speaking rapidly and in precisely formulated sentences, which processes in the brain are disrupted when someone develops Parkinson’s disease. Although he speaks fluently and barely pauses for breath, something changes in him from the moment the words “pesticides” and “glyphosate” are uttered. His gaze becomes more intense, his voice louder, and his sentences a fraction slower.

We are at the Parkinson’s Center of Expertise at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, in the southeast of the Netherlands. Here, scientists are working on treatments for a disease that does not yet have a cure. Current therapies, procedures, and medication are aimed at slowing down and alleviating the symptoms. Tremors, stiff movements, and difficulty speaking – those are what the general public is familiar with, but describing Parkinson’s as “that shaking disease” is incorrect, says Bloem. “The disease is like an iceberg.” Most symptoms – including depression, dementia, bowel dysfunction, sleep disorders, balance problems, loss of smell, and pain – are often just as serious but are hidden beneath the surface.1

Most people with Parkinson’s experience many symptoms simultaneously. Often, new ones continue to develop and become increasingly severe. As a result, the disease is very disruptive – both physically and mentally – for patients and their loved ones.

Bloem is sounding the alarm. Parkinson’s is the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease – not only in the Netherlands, where the number of cases has risen by 30 per cent over the last 10 years, but worldwide.2 There are now approximately 12 million people globally with Parkinson’s. According to recent estimates, this figure will more than double by 2050 to 25 million.3

This explosive increase can be partly explained by age: Parkinson’s is more common at advanced ages, and the global population of older people is growing. Furthermore, average life expectancy is rising worldwide. However, even after adjusting for ageing, researchers are seeing rapid growth. So there is more to it than that.4

As early as the 1980s, there were strong scientific indications that exposure to pesticides was an important risk factor for the development of Parkinson’s disease. Over the past 10 years, the evidence supporting this has grown significantly.

For this reason, Bloem views Parkinson’s as a disease not primarily caused by ageing per se but by “all sorts of rubbish” in our environment. By this, he means pesticides and other hazardous substances. As people live longer, there is more time for them to be exposed to these substances. Furthermore, the disease often develops over decades before it manifests itself. As people live longer on average, this also means that accumulated neurological damage has a greater chance of becoming apparent.

As early as the 1980s, there were strong scientific indications that exposure to pesticides was an important risk factor for the development of Parkinson’s disease.

Growing concerns

A disease that is growing explosively, the increasingly clear link to pesticides, the fact that there is still no prospect of a cure – all of this is cause for concern. But Bloem’s full-blown alarm comes from somewhere else: a conversation he had at the Dutch Board for the Authorisation of Plant Protection Products and Biocides (the College voor de toelating van gewasbeschermingsmiddelen en biociden, Ctgb) in late 2020.

At his request, the Dutch authorisation body agreed to personally meet with him in November 2020 to explain step by step how the approval procedure for pesticides works. The meeting was intended to allay his concerns, but the opposite happened: he was struck with terror. “It was only then that I fully realised that we actually know nothing when it comes to the risk of Parkinson’s.”

During the presentation, Bloem was told that existing approval tests for the neurotoxicity of pesticides only examine external characteristics in laboratory animals. For example, do the animals move more slowly or display apathetic behaviour after coming into contact with a pesticide? “That is completely inadequate,” according to the neurologist. “It takes years for Parkinson’s to develop; you don’t immediately see anything on the outside. You therefore need to look inside the relevant areas of the brain: does the substance damage the substantia nigra?”

The substantia nigra (Latin for “black substance”) is the area of the brain where dopamine is produced. This chemical plays a key role in essential functions such as movement, memory and well-being. In people with Parkinson’s, the substantia nigra deteriorates, slowly but surely. It is only when 60 to 70 per cent of the substantia nigra has already been affected that the outward symptoms of Parkinson’s become noticeable. But by that point, the disease has already been long in the making. “You also need to know if, say, 40 per cent of the substantia nigra is destroyed and you can’t yet see anything externally. Currently, this is simply not tested.”

Bloem and his fellow neurologists are increasingly seeing patients in their clinics who report having been exposed to pesticides. They are not alone: more and more general practitioners and physiotherapists working in agriculture-intensive regions are also voicing concerns about the rising number of Parkinson’s cases they are seeing in their practices.5

The cover of Dirk de Bekker’s book Het pesticidenparadijs (“Pesticide Paradise”).

“I recently had a woman with Parkinson’s at the outpatient clinic. She had just buried her husband, who also had Parkinson’s. In addition, six other people in her street had the disease. They live next to a field where small planes used to spray pesticides,” says Bloem.

Over the years that I have been publishing on pesticides, I have also regularly heard striking accounts from people with Parkinson’s who attribute their illness to pesticides. They mention having peeled bulbs for years, or working for the parks department with pesticide tanks on their backs and spray guns in their hands, or growing up on fruit farms where they played hide-and-seek in the orchards. I’ve also heard from people who have worked with pesticides for long periods of time in laboratories, in greenhouses, or on their own fields. Multiple members of a family are sometimes affected by the disease.

Puzzles and cocktails

The sheer frequency with which such personal anecdotes crop up is striking, although they prove nothing in themselves. But these stories do not stand alone.

A growing body of scientific studies shows that Parkinson’s disease occurs significantly more frequently among people living in areas of intensive cultivation. In France, for example, Parkinson’s is 8.5 per cent more common in the most intensive wine-growing regions compared to the national average.6 Consequently, the French government officially recognises Parkinson’s as an occupational disease among winegrowers.7 Studies in the United States and Canada, among other places, reveal the same pattern: in the examined regions, Parkinson’s disease is spread across the map like a patchwork quilt, and the areas with the most intensive farming practices – and the highest pesticide use – stand out most clearly in terms of the number of cases.8

It is virtually impossible to establish a definitive causal link in this type of “map-based study”. To do so would require a great deal of specific data: which substances were used, where and when? What is the residential history of the individuals who became sick in the area under investigation? What is their occupation? What did they eat? What is their genetic makeup? Are there other polluting activities in the area? The aim of such research is therefore not to establish or rule out an irrefutable causal link; it is about identifying a potential problem. In combination with other studies, the puzzle can then be pieced together more fully.

Although the scientific puzzle is not yet complete, the pieces that are already in place suggest that the explosive rise in Parkinson’s disease over the past decades can at least partly be attributed to exposure to pesticides. There is, for instance, a historical piece of the puzzle: the rapid post-war growth in Parkinson’s largely coincides with the period when pesticide use increased dramatically. In itself, this is not very convincing evidence, but together with the piece showing that the disease occurs more frequently in areas with intensive arable farming and high pesticide use, the picture changes. It becomes even clearer when you add the piece showing that farmers and gardeners in particular have a significantly increased risk of developing Parkinson’s.9

Therefore, contrary to what various agricultural organisations still regularly claim, the missing pieces of the puzzle do not so much lead to the question of whether a link exists, but rather to the question of exactly how strong that link is, and which specific substances are responsible. Scientists are also wondering whether there are substances that pose no risk individually, but can be dangerous in combination. This, in turn, raises other questions: what is the smartest way to investigate such “pesticide cocktails” without having to test an endless number of combinations? Are there genetic factors that increase the risk of harm following exposure to pesticides? Are there interactions between pesticides (or cocktails of pesticides) and other pollutants in the environment? And what is the situation with other neurodegenerative diseases, such as ALS and dementia, for which links to pesticides also exist?10

It has already been established that some specific pesticides, such as rotenone and paraquat, can damage the substantia nigra. This was not discovered during the official assessment of these pesticides but later in independent studies (and subsequently they were withdrawn from the European market). However, this type of research has not been carried out on the vast majority of substances, let alone for pesticide cocktails.

A recent large-scale study has found that trifluralin and tribufos, two pesticides frequently used in combination on cotton plantations in the United States, do not pose a proven risk for Parkinson’s when used individually. When used together, however, they prove to be highly damaging to dopamine-producing brain cells, suggesting that they can indeed cause Parkinson’s in combination.11 This highlights the importance of taking pesticide cocktails into account in the authorisation process, and placing this topic high on the research agendas of independent scientists in relation to both Parkinson’s and other conditions.

Lack of action

According to Bloem, the way the risk of Parkinson’s is handled in the authorisation procedure violates the precautionary principle. “Given all these clear links, should we say that we are only going to ban this rubbish once it has been irrefutably proven that they cause Parkinson’s? Or, with all the evidence that already exists, should we say that we are only going to re-authorise the substances once it has been proven that they are safe? In reality, what happens is the former, meaning the burden of proof has been reversed.”12

The way the risk of Parkinson’s is handled in the authorisation procedure violates the precautionary principle. 

Bloem is not calling for an immediate ban on all pesticides. He does, however, advocate for subjecting the substances that are already authorised to a special Parkinson’s test as soon as possible. And as far as he is concerned, this should become standard practice when new pesticides are assessed. To this end, a testing procedure must be developed that makes it possible to look inside the brains of laboratory animals following prolonged exposure. There, it must be determined whether the substantia nigra has been damaged – for example, by counting the number of dopamine-producing cells. In the near future, it should be possible to carry out this procedure without subjecting animals to testing, by isolating the relevant cells outside their bodies.

The weedkiller glyphosate seems to be the most appropriate substance to first undergo testing for a link to Parkinson’s disease. It is by far the most widely used pesticide, and everyone is exposed to it to a greater or lesser extent. Moreover, several studies suggest a link between glyphosate and the development of Parkinson’s. The evidence, though far from conclusive, gives neurologists more than enough reason to be on alert.13 In addition, an increasing number of studies are emerging that show that even low doses of glyphosate can lead to disruptions in the gut flora.14 Such disruptions in the microbiome might – indirectly – increase the risk of Parkinson’s due to the communication between the gut and the brain. Researchers suspect that these disruptions could lead to a change in the structure of alpha-synuclein, a protein essential for communication between nerve cells. In mice, it has been established that this altered protein can reach the brain, where it subsequently damages the substantia nigra.15

Notably, the Dutch pesticide authority, the Ctgb, supported Bloem’s call for the speedy development of a Parkinson’s test. The November 2020 presentation was a wake-up call not only for the neurologist, but also for the Ctgb itself. This was evident in the fact that a few months later, in March 2021, the Ctgb wrote a letter to the agency responsible for pesticide risk assessment in the EU – the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA – asking it to facilitate research into the development of an adequate testing procedure for Parkinson’s.16

The EFSA could not ignore this appeal by the Ctgb. Not only is it one of the leading national authorisation bodies with which the EFSA cooperates, but also, in its appeal, the Ctgb explicitly referred to Bloem – internationally renowned and known to frequently pop up in the international press to voice his concerns. Bloem’s message and extensive media reach have made many people in the pesticide world – from regulatory authorities to pesticide manufacturers – quite nervous.17

The EFSA responded just two weeks later with a proposal to organise a working conference “to take stock of the situation from a scientific and multidisciplinary point of view”.18 But over a year later, as I learned during my conversation at that time with Bloem at the Parkinson’s Centre of Expertise, that conference was yet to happen. Bloem could not contain his frustration. “How on earth do you explain to future generations – with a disease that is skyrocketing and an environmental role that seems so obvious – that we are not taking more decisive action?”

Breakthrough and disappointment

Six months later, however, on 8 September 2022, Bloem was again in high spirits. The conference that the neurologist had been pushing for over the past two years had finally taken place.19 In the presence of the EFSA and an international panel of experts, he was able to share his concerns about the authorisation procedure and Parkinson’s disease. And this had yielded results. All 49 attendees – experts affiliated with the EFSA as well as external research institutes and national authorisation bodies – reached an agreement. This is a rare occurrence among such a large group of international, often independent-minded experts. “There was broad consensus that the currently existing procedures […] offer an inadequate assessment of the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease in case of human exposure,” the minutes of the meeting state. The EFSA emphasised the urgent need to develop a new testing method that can actually provide insights into the risk of Parkinson’s. “A real breakthrough,” said Bloem. This was the first time that the EFSA had unconditionally acknowledged that the system it uses to assess pesticides was flawed.

The EFSA decided it would issue a call for tenders for a 3.5-million-euro contract aimed at the development of the required test. Specialised scientists were invited to submit bids.

The EFSA personally approached two Dutch research organisations with the request that they respond to this call: the Radboud University Medical Center (Bas Bloem’s employer) and RIVM, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. “That’s how strongly they felt about our case,” explained neurotoxicologist Harm Heusinkveld, who attended the conference on behalf of the RIVM. For years, toxicologists at the RIVM had also been worried about pesticides and Parkinson’s – concerns that were finally being taken seriously by the EFSA with this research call. ‘‘Afterwards, we thought: guys, something is really going to happen now.’’20

This sense of urgency and enthusiasm felt by many researchers was heightened by the fact that the European re-evaluation of glyphosate was taking place at the same time. If the EFSA call for tenders were to be released quickly, there might still be an opportunity to use the weedkiller as the first case for the Parkinson’s test under development, perhaps even before the reassessment of the pesticide was completed.

Seven long months passed before the EFSA finally sent out the official Parkinson’s tender on 9 April 2023. But when he read the text, Bas Bloem immediately realised that something was wrong. “At the meeting, everyone was in complete agreement: we need to develop a good new testing method for pesticides and Parkinson’s. And then I read the call, in which the EFSA has made no money whatsoever available for such a new testing method. It was as if that conference had never taken place.” He lets out an audible sigh over the phone. His voice, so enthusiastic after the conference, is now filled with disbelief. Neurotoxicologist Harm Heusinkveld reacted with the same astonishment: “This is a huge mystery. I really haven’t the faintest idea how they arrived at this.”

The original intention was to develop a comprehensive Parkinson’s test in one go, based on the substantia nigra. But the promise made earlier by the EFSA to issue a research brief for this purpose was not fulfilled. The research brief set out in the call specifically concerned the development of a testing method focused on the mitochondria, the cell’s energy powerhouses. “But that test already exists, so you’d just be rehashing the same thing all over again. Besides, that test is far too limited,” commented Heusinkveld.

The Radboud University Medical Center and the RIVM were so taken aback by the research mandate that landed in their inboxes that they sent a joint letter on 17 July to EFSA Director Bernhard Url to express their disappointment. It is particularly noteworthy that a third party signed on to their objection: the Ctgb.

It is unusual for the Ctgb to hold a view that is at odds with an opinion of the EFSA. These two authorities, one working at the national level and the other at the European level, cooperate closely within the same legal framework. The letter, which came into my possession during an investigation into glyphosate for De Groene Amsterdammer, offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes.

“Specifically, we were disappointed as to what the call envisioned to achieve, considering […] the broad agreement that an ambitious and novel approach was required,” the three parties wrote. “We had the clear impression from the workshop that the EFSA had decided to move forward, but the recent call solely repeats steps that had already been taken earlier. […] The resulting testing strategy will not provide full insight in the potential of chemical substances to induce or progress [Parkinson’s disease].” In conclusion, the RIVM, the Radboud University Medical Center and the Ctgb stated that, “despite the explicit question and encouragement” from the EFSA, they would not be competing for funding for the proposed research.

A contested report

Four months later, in July 2023, the EFSA announced its recommendation to renew the authorisation for glyphosate for the maximum period of 15 years. Bloem was stunned, and he was not the only one. Scientists all over the world criticised the EFSA’s decision in a reaction that was unusually vocal for the scientific community.

Although during previous glyphosate authorisations the debate revolved primarily around the risk of cancer, this time concerns about Parkinson’s dominated. Ecotoxicologist Peter Leendertse succinctly summarised the essence of the many scientific comments on the re-authorisation: “If there are so many questions surrounding a substance, surely you cannot approve it for the maximum term? Extend it by two years if there is no other option, and in the meantime, ensure that you get clarity on the risk of Parkinson’s disease.”21

In an effort to calm tensions, the European Commission ultimately decided to reduce the maximum term from 15 to 10 years. As far as critics were concerned, this was little more than a token gesture. They pointed out that not only independent studies but also the EFSA’s own assessment report provided sufficient grounds for revoking the license altogether.

The glyphosate report runs to a total of 6,354 pages. What is striking is the large number of “data gaps” that are mentioned. The EFSA generally uses this term to indicate that knowledge is lacking and further research is required. Data gaps can thus influence the decision to grant authorisation and the potential duration of that authorisation.

The EFSA identified data gaps regarding the effects of glyphosate on gut flora, biodiversity and groundwater, amongst other things. However, none of these were considered “critical concerns”. That determination already made many scientists raise their eyebrows – but what the report says regarding Parkinson’s led to even greater surprise. There is no mention of a data gap anywhere in the passages on Parkinson’s disease, giving the impression that there is no lack of information on this topic whatsoever. On the contrary, the report’s conclusion is that current evidence “does not trigger a concern for parkinsonism”.22

Although the EFSA acknowledged that risks of Parkinson’s could not be ruled out under the current authorisation procedure, the agency chose to ignore this conclusion in its glyphosate report.

“Absurd”, said ecotoxicologist Peter Leendertse. “Of course there is a huge data gap when it comes to Parkinson’s. Surely the report should mention that no reliable testing procedure exists. The findings of that conference are now simply being swept under the carpet.”

In short, although the EFSA itself acknowledged at the September 2022 conference that risks of Parkinson’s could not be ruled out under the current authorisation procedure, the agency chose to completely ignore this conclusion in its glyphosate report published the following summer.

The minutes of the September 2022 conference (which I obtained shortly afterwards) proving that the EFSA knows (and acknowledges) that a good Parkinson’s test does not exist have never been officially released. This is highly unusual – a considerable amount of information from comparable EFSA conferences is publicly available, ranging from advance announcements, participant names and meeting transcripts to complete video recordings. It is as if the much-heralded meeting in the late summer of 2022, attended by 49 international experts, including six EFSA staff members, never took place; as if the unequivocal conclusion regarding Parkinson’s was never reached.

Three EFSA staff members who attended the conference were also directly involved in the reassessment of glyphosate. Therefore, the assessors had first-hand knowledge of the discussions held during the conference regarding Parkinson’s disease and the lack of a sufficient test. Nevertheless, they did not include any of this in the dossier when the neurotoxicity of glyphosate was re-examined.

What makes the course of events even more peculiar is that during the re-assessment of glyphosate, the EFSA worked closely with the Ctgb. Alongside the national pesticide authorities of Hungary, Sweden and France, the Dutch authority was one of the responsible parties to which the assessment work had been outsourced. In other words, the Ctgb itself played a leading role in the decision to extend the authorisation for glyphosate for the maximum period. This is difficult to reconcile with the critical letters it sent to the EFSA during the same period: the first, dated 9 March 2022, requesting that EFSA Director Bernhard Url make room for research into a testing procedure for Parkinson’s disease, and a joint letter with the RIVM and Bas Bloem on 17 July 2023 complaining that the EFSA had broken its promise to make funds available for a Parkinson’s test.

It is as if there were two completely different Ctgb bodies. Whilst one was sending critical letters to the EFSA regarding Parkinson’s, the other was assisting the EFSA with the re-authorisation of glyphosate without raising any critical objections to the fact that the substance has not been tested for a link to Parkinson’s – even though such testing might be more urgent for glyphosate than for any other European-authorised pesticide.

The missing test

In a formal response to my questions, the Ctgb stated that a “very extensive data package” was available during the re-evaluation of glyphosate, containing “many more studies than merely the required ones”, including epidemiological research. While there may not be an adequate test to rule out Parkinson’s, said the Ctgb, the assessors decided that there was no cause for concern after studying a great deal of other supplementary information. “That is something different from being able to establish this with scientific certainty,” the Ctgb concluded.

The EFSA in turn denies that the conclusion regarding Parkinson’s disease reached at the conference has ever been its official position. The meeting was “merely informative” and should only be seen as “preparatory exchanges” for subsequent future tenders, the agency informed me shortly after the publication of the glyphosate report. EFSA also stressed that the assessment of glyphosate was carried out entirely “in line with the current legal framework”.

When I published the outcomes of the conference in De Groene Amsterdammer in September 2023, I received an angry email from the EFSA. The September 2022 meeting had not been a real “conference” at all, the message said, but merely a “procurement meeting”. And the outcomes of that meeting, the EFSA communications department emphasised once again, in no way represented the official position of the EFSA. “It’s a pity,” the email concluded, “[that you] decided to provide an angle which does not factually represent reality”.  

This reaction did not surprise me. By making information from the meeting minutes and the Ctgb’s letter to the EFSA public through my publication, the European pesticide authority was left exposed. After all, these documents prove that what the EFSA publicly states about Parkinson’s disease does not correspond with its own behind-the-scenes views on the matter.

What the EFSA publicly states about Parkinson’s disease does not correspond with its own behind-the-scenes views on the matter

The fact that the EFSA has neither publicly disclosed the conference’s conclusions nor included them in its assessment of glyphosate is, I suspect, essentially a legal strategy. If, following the conference, the EFSA had officially acknowledged that there is a gaping hole in the authorisation system, this would have provided the necessary ammunition for parties seeking to obstruct pesticide use. Invoking the precautionary principle in court is much easier if the shortcomings of the authorisation procedure regarding Parkinson’s disease are officially documented by EFSA itself. In that case, EFSA would be admitting that the risk of Parkinson’s disease “cannot be determined with sufficient certainty”, one of the basic conditions for invoking the precautionary principle.23

Due to the lack of a Parkinson’s test, the risk of the disease cannot be completely ruled out in connection with any authorised pesticide. Officially acknowledging this on the record could throw the authorisation system – and with it the entire pesticide industry and the world of agriculture – into chaos. This would also happen if the EFSA were to officially acknowledge that the pesticide models it uses were not developed in a neutral manner.24

When Bloem and the Ctgb sat down together in November 2020, both the neurologist and the pesticide authority realised that the authorisation procedure was flawed with respect to Parkinson’s. Three to five years: that would be the time needed to develop an adequate testing protocol, thought Bloem. “I think we need to do this together as soon as possible,” confirmed the then director of the Ctgb, Ingrid Becks-Vermeer, emphasising the need for a Parkinson’s test when I questioned her in 2022. She envisioned a development process lasting “a number of years”.25

More than five years have passed since Bloem’s meeting with the Ctgb, and the EFSA conference took place three and a half years ago. The authorisation system still does not include a Parkinson’s test. Legally speaking, the EFSA may be able to defend this situation. The question, however, is how long they can keep up their defence in a society increasingly confronted with Parkinson’s disease.

This article is a lightly edited translation from Het pesticidenparadijs (“Pesticide Paradise”), an investigative book by Dirk de Bekker on the hidden world of pesticides, published by De Arbeiderspers in the Netherlands in January 2026.

1. Over the past few years, I have interviewed Bas Bloem on several occasions. Parts of these interviews have previously appeared in publications such as the podcast Red de Lente and the Dutch periodical De Groene Amsterdammer. See for example: De Bekker, D., et al. (24 January 2023). “Parkinson en pesticiden” [Parkinson’s and pesticides]. Red de Lente, season 2, episode 3. De Bekker, D. (25 September 2023). “De gezondheidsrisico’s van glyfosaat” [The health risks of glyphosate]. De Groene Amsterdammer. In this text, I draw on all the conversations held. Where necessary, I mention the date on which these conversations took place in the main text. ︎
2. Van der Gaag, B.L., Hepp, D.H., Hoff, J.I., Van Hilten, J.J., Darweesh, S.K.L., Bloem, B.R., and Van den Berg, W.D.J. (8 September 2023). “Risicofactoren voor de ziekte van Parkinson” [Risk factors for Parkinson’s disease]. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, 167. ︎
3. Su, D., Cui, Y., He, C., Yin, P., Bai, R., Zhu, J., Lam, J.S.T., Zhang, J., Yan, R., Zheng, X., Wu, J., Zhao, D., Wang, A., Zhou, M., and Feng, T. (2025). “Projections for prevalence of Parkinson’s disease and its driving factors in 195 countries and territories to 2050. Modelling study of Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.” BMJ, 388e080952. ︎
4. See for example: Bloem, B.R., Hoff, J., Sherer, T., Okun, M.S., Dorsey, R. (2021). “De parkinsonpandemie: Een recept voor actie” [The Parkinson’s pandemic: a call to action]. Poiesz Publishers. ︎
5. Opten, N., Wildenborg, F., Bolwerk, P. (2023). ‘Hoe het gifspook door de Betuwe waart. “Aan hun manier van lopen kun je zien dat ze het ook hebben.”’ [‘How the poison spectre haunts the Betuwe: “You can tell by the way they walk that they have it too.”’]. De Gelderlander. 3 November. 
   Folkerts, N. (23 July 2025). “Bestrijdingsmiddelen zorgen voor onrust in Drentse dorpen: ‘Op één dag zag ik vijf patiënten met parkinson’” [“Pesticides cause unrest in Drenthe villages: ‘In one day I saw five patients with Parkinson’s.’’]. Trouw. ︎
6. Kab, S., Spinosi, J., Chaperon, L., Dugravot, A., Singh-Manoux, A., Moisan, F., and Elbaz, A. (2017). “Agricultural activities and the incidence of Parkinson’s Disease in the general French population”. European Journal of Epidemiology, 32(3), pp. 203-216. ︎
7. Within the EU, in addition to France, Italy – and more recently Germany – also recognise Parkinson’s as an occupational disease. ︎
8. Barbeau, A., Roy, M., Bernier, G., Campanella, G., and Paris, S. (1987). “Ecogenetics of Parkinson’s Disease. Prevalence and environmental aspects in rural areas”. Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences/Journal Canadien des Sciences Neurologiques, 14(1), pp. 36-41.
   Hugh-Jones, M.E., Peele, R.H., and Wilson, V.L. (2020). “Parkinson’s Disease in Louisiana, 1999-2012. Based on hospital primary discharge diagnoses, incidence, and risk in relation to local agricultural crops, pesticides, and aquifer recharge”. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(5), 1584.
   Li, S., Ritz, B., Gong, Y., Cockburn, M., Folle, A.D., Del Rosario, I., Yu, Y., Zhang, K., Castro, E., Keener, A.M., Bronstein, J., and Paul, K.C. (2023). “Proximity to residential and workplace pesticides application and the risk of progression of Parkinson’s diseases in Central California”. The Science of the Total Environment, 864, 160851.
   After Het pesticidenparadijs was published,a Dutch study appeared showing regional clustering of Parkinson’s in the Netherlands, but no clear overlap with intensive arable farming areas was found. Although pesticide use and exposure were not taken into account, the authors suggested that the Dutch regional disparities “are not readily explained by known environmental indicators, warranting further investigation”. See: Simões, M., Peters, S., Huss, A., Darweesh, S. K., Bloem, B. R., & Vermeulen, R. (2026). “Incidence and spatial variation of Parkinson’s disease in the Netherlands (2017–2022): a population-based study”. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, 62, 101565. ︎
9. Elbaz, A., Clavel, J., Rathouz, P.J., Moisan, F., Galanaud, J., Delemotte, B., Alpérovitch, A., and Tzourio, C. (2009). “Professional exposure to pesticides and Parkinson Disease”. Annals of Neurology, 66(4), pp. 494-504. ︎
10. See for example: Meerman, J.J., Wolterink, G., Hessel, E.V., De Jong, E., and Heusinkveld, H.J. (2022). “Neurodegeneration in a regulatory context: The need for speed”. Current Opinion in Toxicology, 33, 100383. ︎
11. Paul, K.C., Krolewski, R.C., Moreno, E.L., Blank, J., Holton, K.M., Ahfeldt, T., Furlong, M., Yu, Y., Cockburn, M., Thompson, L.K., Kreymerman, A., Ricci-Blair, E.M., Li, Y.J., Patel, H.B., Lee, R.T., Bronstein, J., Rubin, L.L., Khurana, V., and Ritz, B. (2023). “A pesticide and ipsc dopaminergic neuron screen identifies and classifies Parkinson-relevant pesticides”. Nature Communications, 14(2803). ︎
12. For more background information on this ruling, see: Darweesh, S.K.L., Vermeulen, R.C.H., and Bloem, B.R. (2024). “Paraquat and Parkinson’s Disease. Has the burden of proof shifted?”. International Journal of Epidemiology, 53(5). ︎
13. See for example: Bloem, B.R., and Boonstra, T.A. (2023). “The inadequacy of current pesticide regulations for protecting brain health. The case of glyphosate and Parkinson’s Disease”. The Lancet Planetary Health, 7(12), pp. e948-e949. ︎
14. Lehman, P.C., Cady, N., Ghimire, S., Shahi, S.K., Shrode, R.L., Lehmler, H., and Mangalam, A.K. (2023). “Low-dose glyphosate exposure alters gut microbiota composition and modulates gut homeostasis”. Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology, 100, 104149.
    Matsuzaki, R., Gunnigle, E., Geissen, V., Clarke, G., Nagpal, J., and Cryan, J.F. (2023). “Pesticide exposure and the microbiota-gut-brain axis”. The ISME Journal, 17(8), pp. 1153-1166.
    Puigbò, P., Leino, L.I., Rainio, M.J., Saikkonen, K., Saloniemi, I., and Helander, M. (2022). “Does glyphosate affect the human microbiota?”. Life, 12(5). ︎
15. Singh, Y., Trautwein, C., Romani, J., Salker, M.S., Neckel, P.H., Fraccaroli, I., Abeditashi, M., Woerner, N., Admard, J., Dhariwal, A., Dueholm, M.K.D., Schäfer, K., Lang, F., Otzen, D.E., Lashuel, H.A., Riess, O., and Casadei, N. (2023). “Overexpression of human alpha-Synuclein leads to dysregulated microbiome/metabolites with ageing in a rat model of Parkinson disease”. Molecular Neurodegeneration, 18(1).
    Silva, B.A., Breydo, L., Fink, A.L., and Uversky, V.N. (2012). “Agrochemicals, a-Synuclein, and Parkinson’s Disease”. Molecular Neurobiology, 47(2), pp. 598-612.
    Uversky, V.N., Li, J., Bower, K., and Fink, A.L. (2002). “Synergistic effects of pesticides and metals on the fibrillation of a-Synuclein. Implications for Parkinson’s Disease”. NeuroToxicology, 23(4-5), pp. 527-536. ︎
16. De Leeuw, J.F. (9 March 2021). Subject: possible relation between the use of specific pesticides and the development of Parkinson’s Disease. Ctgb, reference number 202103090024. ︎
17. See for example: Brzeziński, B. (2025). “Parkinson’s is a man-made disease”. Politico. 14 April. Bloem, B., Boonstra, T. (11 October 2023). “Glyphosate: ‘En tant que médecins spécialistes des maladies neurodégénératives, nous avons trois conseils à donner au ministre de l’agriculture Marc Fesneau’” [“Glyphosate: ‘As doctors specialising in neurodegenerative diseases, we have three pieces of advice for the Minister for Agriculture, Marc Fesneau’”]. Le Monde. ︎
18. Url, B. (n.d.). Subject/Re.: Possible relation between the use of specific pesticides and the development of Parkinson’s Disease. EFSA, Ref. ic2021-24570142. Although the letter is undated, the upload date provided by the Ctgb (23 March 2021) suggests that it was probably received two weeks later (and in any case no later than that). ︎
19. The following reconstruction is partly a reworking of my earlier research article in De Groene Amsterdammer, which was published on 25 September 2023. ︎
20. Quote from: De Bekker, D. (25 September 2023). “The health risks of glyphosate”. De Groene Amsterdammer. ︎
21. Ibid. ︎
22. Álvarez, F., et al. (2023). “Peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of the active substance glyphosate”. EFSA Journal, 21(7), paragraph 9. EFSA. (July 2023). Peer Review Report on Glyphosate, Part 3 of 6, p. 163. ︎
23. Commission Communication on the precautionary principle (2 February 2000), Document 52000dC0001, p. 3. ︎
24. Elsewhere in the book, I write about the pesticide models that are currently in use to calculate the distribution of pesticides through the environment. I conclude that these models, which form the basis of the authorisation system, were developed in close cooperation with the pesticide industry. ︎
25. Quoted from: De Bekker, D., et al. (5 June 2022). “The director of the Ctgb responds”. Red de Lente, season 1, episode 8. ︎

Using prefabricated components and assemblies when retrofitting and renewing occupied suites can minimize disruption and avoid the need to relocate building residents. This approach can significantly improve the experience for tenants and has the...

I liberated a lobster and got crushed Channel Comment brendan 28th April 2026 Teaser Media

Leave it to this still-repugnant regime to instantly twist a Keystone Cops security breach - not a so-distant-it-was-on-another-floor "assassination attempt" - to their own skeevy purposes: blaming Democrats for "this dark moment," demanding a $400 million gold ballroom for "national security," burnishing the Brave Dear Leader myth of an addled old man who barely registered it, and what gun control issue? Meet the Epstein class: When shots (again) ring out, they get a friggin' ballroom, kids get thoughts and prayers.

The latest "clown show on steroids" - and grim proof of Trump's relentless corrosion of political discourse - unfolded Saturday night at an evidently sloppily unsecured Washington Hilton, where in 1981 John Hinckley shot Reagan, who survived. The already contentious White House Correspondents' Dinner drew the black-tied, preening, profit-driven remnants of a craven legacy media - and a growing right-wing slopaganda brigade - both willing to pretend it was normal to party with an abusive enemy of free speech who's spent years attacking, belittling, suing, bullying and name-calling them as an "enemy of the people" for seeking to do their jobs and tell the truth, thus turning the evening into a queasy "case study in institutional self-abasement."

Even before the vitriolic and incendiary Trump - who led a Jan. 6 riot, urged fans to “knock the crap out” of protesters, bade Proud Boys "stand by," mused "the 2nd Amendment people" could do something" about his opponents, warned of "a bloodbath" if he was defeated, killed schoolgirls and threatened genocide in an illegal war he doesn't know how to end - let loose with what he dubbed "the most inappropriate speech ever made" (which Press Barbie called "shots fired") - before all that came a few muffled thuds of a dud of an assassination attempt, on the floor above, by a suspect who ran past a security checkpoint before being tackled. One shot was fired - it's unclear by whom - and one cop was wounded through a bulletproof vest; he is expected to be okay.

On the floor below, meanwhile, "absolute chaos" reigned. Panicked women in gowns and men in tuxedos hit the floor, flipping over chairs, lunging under tables and sometimes holding phone cameras aloft as a horde of Secret Service agents swarmed the ballroom, leaping on stage, yelling "Get down! Get down!", running in all directions at once, weapons poised and flailing. A crowd of security guys whisked J.D. Vance out of his chair first; then another cluster went for Trump, dazed and stumbling, guys holding him up on both sides. Video later showed alleged FBI head Kash Patel crouching absurdly behind a chair and RFK Jr. heroically leaving his wife behind; an idiotic "USA!" chant that "absolutely nobody wanted to hear" flared briefly before dying a well-earned death.

The suspect was identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, a Torrance, CA. mechanical engineer, game developer and teacher with a Masters degree in computer science; on Facebook, he also called himself "an amateur entomologist, casual composter and occasional artist." When he tried to breach the metal detectors above the ballroom, he was armed with a shotgun - loaded with buckshot not slugs "to minimize casualties" - a handgun and several knives. He was charged with two counts: Using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon. Earlier, he'd posted a lucid, relatively mild missive from "a Friendly Federal Assassin" to explain his actions; it began with, "Hello everybody!" and apologies to "everyone whose trust I abused."

He apologized to his parents "for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for 'Most Wanted,'" to his colleagues and students, to "everyone abused or murdered before this or after, any "person raped in a detention camp, fisherman executed without trial, schoolkid blown up, child starved... I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes." As a Christian, he noted, "Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is rather complicity in the oppressor’s crimes." He blasted the "insane" incompetence of the lax security he encountered, said he felt "awful" about what he thought he had to do, and expressed "rage thinking about everything this administration has done...Stay in school, kids."

Despite its placid tone, MAGA world promptly dubbed it "a manifesto" of "anti-Christian bile" from "a depraved crazy person." Press Barbie blasted the "demonization (and) hateful rhetoric directed at Trump...Nobody has faced more bullets and violence." Similarly, nobody in the cult wants to admit they're adamantly declining to acknowledge years of vicious Trump rhetoric that have shaped "an angry, polarized nation," or the role of rabid MAGA responses, say, to AOC noting she's glad everyone was safe - "There is a special place in hell for demons like you," "Go fuck right off with the other Commie losers" - or the "vibes for security" so lax - no photo ID, attendee list, checkpoint to enter the ballroom, basic competence - even attendees and the would-be assassin both denounced it.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Despite faux-thoughtful deadlines - "Stunned Washington Faces Searching Questions About Political Violence" - Trump entirely missed the point, rambling and deflecting in his clueless, bonkers, self-serving way. He said he wanted the dinner to go ahead: The show must go on. He (weirdly) crooned about the "very strong, really attractive law enforcement." He babbled he'd "studied assassinations...The most impactful people, they're the ones they go after. Like Abraham Lincoln. I hate to say I’m honored by that, but I’ve done a lot." He called the presidency "a dangerous profession," worse than bullfighting. He declared the "manifesto" “strongly anti-Christian," and the perp "a very sick person...a lone wolf whack job," though he's an incomparably more dangerous one.

Mostly, relentlessly, he shilled for his ballroom: "This event would never have happened...The conditions that took place, I didn't wanna say it but this is why we have to have it...We need levels of security probably like no one's ever seen...This is exactly the reason our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and every President for the last 150 years have been demanding a large, safe, secure Ballroom be built," which is bullshit 'cause only he's demanding it. Still, miraculously, within six minutes of the lone shot fired, MAGA pivoted, lockstep, online to the same skeevy, amidst-a-war-and-ravaged-economy-how-is-this-a-thing refrain: This is why Trump needs the ballroom. Also, the lawsuit against it "puts the lives of the President, his family, and his staff at grave risk."

As if the whole corrupt ballroom shtick, "the definition of a non-sequitur,” wasn't grotesque enough, there was the right's virtual ignoring of any recognition of guns as a relevant part of the deadly equation - this, in a country with more guns than people, with 120 mass shootings since the start of the year, with over 3,800 people dead and over 6,500 wounded, with 100 people shot every day, with Trump having dismantled gun safety and mental health measures, with as yet no accountability for Renee Good and Alex Pretti being gunned down in the street, with the awful, prevailing, willfully blind, "gun violence for thee but not for me" admonishment that, "Every few months, Americans are asked to resume their banquet, and pretend a shooting didn’t just happen."

Which is what we regularly ask of our kids. "Last night, powerful people hid," wrote Digital Drumbeat. "Journalists, lobbyists, and politicians dove under tables, pressed against walls, and ran for exits..Secret Service moved. Protocols activated. And within hours, everyone went home. Welcome to the reality American children, teachers, and parents live every single day. Except they do not get the protocols. They do not get the security detail. And not all of them get to go home." It was not "crouching in a locked, darkened classroom for three hours while your phone dies and you cannot call your mother," or a teacher saying "to be very, very quiet," which is "a Tuesday in America." What we can't imagine: "Wanting an entire secure ballroom for one man, and not wanting gun reform for every child."

Other obscenities abound: The billions in ballroom funding from corporations, most of which are seeking billions more in federal contracts; the latest grift of secretly awarding the ballroom-building company a no-bid $17.4 million contract to repair two fountains in Lafayette Park that Biden estimated would cost $3.3 million; the "brazen inversion of reality" that is the MAGA claim criticism of Trump's hateful, violent rhetoric is what somehow incites more violence, when he's done more than anyone in recent history to normalize it; the righteous indignation - Fire Jimmy Kimmel (again) for joking Melania looks like an expectant widow! - when anyone notes the gross hypocrisy. Color America skeptical: "Fuck him, he can only go to the well so many times."

Also, we're still gonna need those Epstein files. See Trump lash out at CBS' Norah O'Donnell when she quotes Cole Allen's "pedophile, rapist, and traitor": "I was waiting for you to read that (because) you're horrible people..I'm not a rapist...I'm not a pedophile... You're disgraceful." Will Bunch: "This is our country now." The Rude Pundit: "We live in the goddamn United States. We're never far away from someone shooting a gun. It's what we are debased enough to call 'freedom.'" And in the two days before the shooting, Trump made a racist attack against Hakeem Jeffries, called for Hillary and Obama to be arrested, boasted of more war crimes. In brief, "We don't have to pretend that a motherfucker isn't a motherfucker just because someone wanted to kill him."

Update: It seems CBS cut out more paranoid babbling in his "I'm not a rapist" interview. His brain is oatmeal and grievance.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What did security tell you about what may have been his motives?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, see, they– the part– the reason you have people like that is you have people doing No Kings. I’m not a king. What I am– if I was a king I wouldn’t be dealing with you. No, I’m not a king. I– I get– I– I don’t laugh. I don’t– I– I see these No Kings, which are funded just like the Southern Law was– funded– you saw all that? Southern Law is financing the KKK and lots of other radical, terrible groups.

OverviewThe ability to deliver on British Columbia’s (B.C.’s) clean economy ambitions will depend on whether workforce systems can be better aligned across training, labour market planning and economic policy. The global shift to a clean energy...

In a part two episode with journalist and author Will Potter, we discuss his recent book “Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth From Farm to Fable.” We talk about the…

Registered nurses members of Minnesota Nurses Association and National Nurses United, will gather in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Thursday, April 30 for a rally and community event to press lawmakers for long-term, sustainable financial solutions before the legislative session ends to keep Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), a vital Level I trauma center, open.

Image: A giant Shell logo in a hospital operating theatre receiving a “Canadian shale reserves” transplant, while executives cheer, climate protesters bang on the glass, and a dusty file marked “2004 RESERVES SCANDAL” sits ominously on the surgeon’s trolley.

Shell’s latest mega-deal for Canada’s ARC Resources is being sold as strategic brilliance. In plain English: the oil giant has gone shopping for fresh reserves — which is rather awkward for a company still haunted by the 2004 reserves scandal that helped blow up the old Royal Dutch/Shell structure PART ONE: THE DEEP DIVE

Shell has announced a blockbuster deal to acquire Canadian producer ARC Resources in a transaction valued at approximately US$16.4 billion including debt, instantly adding about 370,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production and around 2 billion barrels of reserves to the company’s portfolio. The acquisition is centred on the Montney formation in British Columbia and Alberta — one of North America’s major shale gas and liquids plays.

So there it is: another glorious chapter in the energy transition, apparently written with a cheque book, a gas field, and a very large shovel.

Shell’s own messaging presents the deal as a strategic accelerator — more production, more reserves, more Canada, more LNG optionality, more “value.” The transaction is expected to lift Shell’s production growth outlook from roughly 1% to 4% annually through 2030, according to contemporary reporting on the deal.

In other words: Shell’s energy transition has once again transitioned beautifully into buying more hydrocarbons.

The deal is also notable because it is Shell’s biggest acquisition since its mammoth purchase of BG Group in 2015 — the move that transformed Shell into a global LNG superpower. Now, with ARC, Shell appears to be doubling down on the raw upstream material needed to feed that gas-heavy future. ARC’s assets sit neatly alongside Shell’s Canadian ambitions, including its stake in LNG Canada.

And the timing? Chef’s kiss.

Shell has spent years polishing its public image with carefully measured transition language, lower-carbon vocabulary, and glossy annual-report prose about resilience, competitiveness and the energy people “need.” Its 2025 Annual Report states that oil and gas will remain a significant part of the global energy system for decades — a sentence that now reads less like analysis and more like a shopping list.

Because when Shell says “resilience,” it often seems to mean: reserves.

When Shell says “energy security,” it often seems to mean: more drilling, preferably somewhere politically convenient.

And when Shell says “lower emissions,” the cynical observer might ask: lower than what — a coal fire in a tyre dump?

THE CANADIAN RESERVE RESCUE MISSION

BNN Bloomberg’s framing — that the Canadian deal is helping rescue Shell’s dwindling oil reserves — gets right to the uncomfortable heart of the story. Shell is not merely buying a company. It is buying reserve life, production growth and strategic breathing space.

That matters because the oil business is brutally simple beneath the corporate poetry: if you produce barrels, you must replace barrels. If you fail to replace barrels, investors start asking rude questions. If investors start asking rude questions, executives discover a sudden passion for “portfolio high-grading,” “disciplined capital allocation,” and other phrases that sound like they were bred in a consultancy laboratory.

ARC offers Shell a convenient answer: a large, established Canadian producer with gas and liquids output, substantial Montney acreage, and the ability to bulk up Shell’s resource base quickly. Reports describe the deal as a mix of cash and Shell shares, with ARC shareholders receiving a premium and Shell assuming debt and lease obligations.

To Shell’s defenders, this is hard-headed industrial logic. To critics, it is another reminder that the company’s climate transition story keeps being escorted off stage by the fossil-fuel expansion story.

The company can say gas is cleaner than coal. It can say LNG supports energy security. It can say Canadian assets are lower-risk than some geopolitically volatile alternatives. But the climate arithmetic remains stubbornly unimpressed by press releases. More long-lived fossil assets mean more production capacity. More production capacity means more dependence on future hydrocarbon demand. And that means Shell is still positioning itself not as a company preparing to shrink fossil fuels, but as a company preparing to sell them more efficiently.

The slogan could almost write itself:

Shell: net zero in the brochure, net more reserves on the balance sheet.

THE GHOST OF 2004: WHEN RESERVES BLEW UP THE HOUSE

There is a deliciously grim historical echo here.

Twenty-two years ago, Shell was engulfed by one of the most damaging corporate governance scandals in its history: the 2004 reserves scandal. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Royal Dutch Petroleum and The “Shell” Transport and Trading Company overstated 4.47 billion barrels of previously reported proved hydrocarbon reserves. The SEC also said Shell overstated proved reserves in its 2002 Form 20-F by about 23% and later agreed to pay a $120 million penalty, while also settling a UK market-abuse action with the Financial Services Authority.

That scandal helped destroy confidence in the old dual-headed Anglo-Dutch structure — the century-old partnership between Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport and Trading. In 2005, the old arrangement was replaced by a unified company, Royal Dutch Shell plc. To say the scandal “killed” the Anglo-Dutch partnership is fair as commentary, provided the point is understood historically: it was not the only corporate reform pressure, but it was a central crisis that helped precipitate the end of the old structure.

And now, in 2026, here we are again: Shell making global headlines over reserves.

Different facts, different circumstances, no suggestion of the same misconduct — but the symbolism is too rich to ignore. In 2004, reserves were the scandal. In 2026, reserves are the shopping list.

Back then, the problem was that Shell had claimed too much. Today, the problem is that Shell apparently wants more.

The old scandal was about whether the cupboard was as full as Shell said it was. The new deal is about Shell racing to refill the cupboard before the market notices the shelves looking thin.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: THE BIG INVESTORS WATCHING THE SHOW

This is not happening in a vacuum. Shell remains a darling of major institutional ownership. Recent ownership data lists BlackRock as a major holder with around 8.27%, Vanguard with around 5.47%, FMR/Fidelity with around 3.46%, and Norway-linked holdings including the Government Pension Fund Global and Norges Bank Investment Management also appearing among significant holders.

These institutions are not casual spectators. They are the financial scaffolding around the modern fossil-fuel giant.

They can issue stewardship reports. They can vote on climate resolutions. They can talk about responsible investment until the PDF server needs a lie down. But when Shell spends billions expanding its upstream resource base, the question is brutally simple:

Are the world’s biggest asset managers funding the transition — or merely holding the ladder while Big Oil climbs into another gas basin?

Shell will argue, no doubt, that this is exactly what disciplined capital allocation looks like: buy quality assets, grow cash flow, support shareholder returns, and feed the LNG machine. Investors who like dividends and buybacks may find that music soothing.

But for anyone expecting Shell to wind down its fossil-fuel empire at anything like the pace demanded by climate science, the ARC deal looks less like a transition and more like a corporate vow renewal with hydrocarbons.

Something borrowed, something blue, something drilled, something due.

ENVIRONMENTAL REALITY CHECK

The Montney formation is not a wind farm with better branding. It is a major shale gas and liquids region. Development involves drilling, infrastructure, water use, methane-risk management, land disturbance and long-term fossil-fuel production. Shell and ARC may emphasise operational efficiency and lower emissions intensity, but “lower intensity” does not mean “no impact.”

That distinction matters. A company can reduce emissions per barrel while still increasing total fossil-fuel output. It can polish the carbon intensity of each unit while expanding the number of units. That is not a paradox. It is the oldest trick in the hydrocarbon hymnbook: make each barrel look cleaner while selling more barrels.

Shell’s defenders will say gas has a role in displacing coal and backing up renewables. Critics will counter that new gas expansion risks locking in infrastructure and delaying the phase-down of fossil fuels. Both arguments now collide in this Canadian deal — and Shell, unsurprisingly, has chosen the one with the larger reserve base.

The corporate message is: “We are helping meet global energy demand.”

The satirical translation is: “We found another giant fossil-fuel pantry and brought a trolley.”

THE WIDER CONTEXT: SHELL’S STRATEGY IN 2026

The deal lands in a period when energy security, geopolitical instability and LNG demand are again being used as industrial permission slips for fossil-fuel expansion. Shell has repeatedly positioned LNG as central to its future. ARC’s gas-heavy production base fits neatly into that strategy.

It also fits the broader pattern under CEO Wael Sawan: tighter spending, stronger shareholder distributions, selective retreat from weaker assets, and unapologetic focus on returns. In public-relations language, that is discipline. In climate-politics language, it is Shell stepping further away from the idea that a supermajor should voluntarily become much smaller in oil and gas.

This is the heart of the contradiction.

Shell wants to be seen as modern, pragmatic and transition-aware. But its biggest strategic moves keep telling the same old story: hydrocarbons remain the core business, the profit engine and the boardroom comfort blanket.

The company has not abandoned the future. It has simply decided the future still contains a very profitable amount of gas.

CONCLUSION: THE RESERVES MACHINE ROLLS ON

Shell’s ARC deal is not a minor portfolio tweak. It is a multibillion-dollar declaration of intent.

It says Shell wants more production.

It says Shell wants more reserves.

It says Shell sees Canada’s Montney formation as a major pillar of its next chapter.

And it says, with all the subtlety of a drilling rig at a climate summit, that the fossil-fuel giant still knows exactly where its bread is buttered — and where its barrels are buried.

For critics, the irony is almost operatic. The company once shaken to its foundations by a reserves scandal that helped bring down a century-old Anglo-Dutch corporate structure is now making headlines for buying a vast new reserves cushion.

Shell has changed its structure. It has changed its branding. It has changed its slogans. It has changed its registered headquarters.

But the old obsession remains intact:

Find the reserves. Book the reserves. Replace the reserves. Defend the reserves.

And if anyone asks whether this is really compatible with a climate-safe future?

Expect a very expensive answer, delivered in fluent corporate.

PART TWO: SPOOF SHELL PR/SPIN SECTION Shell Announces Bold New Climate Strategy: Buying More Gas, But Politely

Shell today proudly confirmed that its commitment to the energy transition remains absolutely unwavering, which is why it has decided to spend billions acquiring a major Canadian shale producer.

A spokesperson who definitely did not say “reserves panic” explained that the acquisition demonstrates Shell’s deep commitment to “lower-carbon energy,” by which the company means fossil fuels with better adjectives.

“This transaction strengthens our ability to provide the energy the world needs,” the imaginary spokesperson added, while standing in front of a giant screen reading: MORE BARRELS, BUT MAKE IT RESPONSIBLE.

Asked whether buying a major gas producer might appear inconsistent with climate-transition rhetoric, Shell’s fictional Department of Strategic Vocabulary issued the following clarification:

“Not at all. This is not fossil-fuel expansion. This is future-facing molecule optimisation.”

The department then asked whether everyone could please stop mentioning 2004.

PART THREE: SPOOF BOT-REACTION / COMMENT SECTION

ClimateBot3000:
Shell says the deal supports the transition. Translation: the transition from having fewer reserves to having more reserves.

InvestorBot:
Dividends detected. Ethical discomfort temporarily suspended.

HistoryBot:
Reminder: Shell and reserves have met before. It was not a rom-com.

GreenwashDetector:
Phrase “energy security” located. Deploying scepticism.

MontneyBot:
Congratulations Canada, you have been promoted to Shell’s next strategic fossil-fuel heartland.

GovernanceBot:
2004 called. It says: “Try not to make reserves awkward again.”

PRBot:
This is not drilling. This is “responsible subsurface value unlocking.”

RealityBot:
Still gas. Still oil. Still Shell.

DISCLAIMER

This article is opinion and commentary based on publicly available news reports, regulatory material and company information. It is satirical in tone but intended to remain grounded in verifiable facts. It is not financial advice, investment advice, legal advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Site wide disclaimer also applies.

Shell Buys Itself a Canadian Reserve Transplant: $16.4 Billion Says “Energy Transition,” But the Drill Bit Says Otherwise was first posted on April 27, 2026 at 10:22 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

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Price field office is proposing to authorize aircraft takeoffs and landings in the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness by designating the unauthorized Keg Knoll backcountry airstrip as open for aircraft use. The airstrip is located on the west side of Labyrinth Canyon and north of Canyonlands National Park.

Please tell the BLM to protect the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness area by not authorizing aircraft use at the Keg Knoll backcountry airstrip.

The Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness was designated by Congress in 2019. While the Wilderness Act gives the BLM some discretion to allow (or prohibit) continued use at airstrips that were legally established prior to wilderness designation, it does not allow the agency to authorize aircraft use when the airstrip was not legally open prior to the wilderness designation. That’s the situation here.

The Price office’s 2008 management plan—the land use plan in effect when the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness was established—specifically lists five “existing and currently used backcountry airstrips” for continued noncommercial and limited commercial aviation use; Keg Knoll is not on the list. And for good reason, as it was unused and reclaiming at the time. The agency’s 1999 wilderness inventory of Labyrinth Canyon confirms as much, noting “abandoned airstrips” in the Keg Knoll area. The airstrip was also never identified on the legislative map that accompanied the 2019 bill designating the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness.

Click here to tell the BLM that aircraft use at Keg Knoll is unnecessary and unlawful.

Near the airstrip site in the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness. © Ray Bloxham/SUWA

Backcountry airstrips and aircraft use conflict with the reasons most people seek out wilderness in the first place: solitude, natural soundscapes, wildlife, and an experience of remoteness that often can’t be found on other public lands. What’s more, there are plenty of backcountry airstrips throughout Utah that don’t impact designated wilderness areas (only around 4% of BLM land in Utah is designated wilderness).

The BLM is preparing an environmental assessment (EA) and is intending to issue a decision in mid-May. At the Trump administration’s direction, the agency is not planning to release a draft EA to the public or hold a formal public comment period—so please submit your comments as soon as possible.

The Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness is a gem of the American West and should be managed for the benefit and enhancement of the wilderness values it was designated to protect. With your help, we can ensure that the BLM takes seriously its obligation to protect this world-class wilderness area.

Thank you for your support.

The post Tell BLM: No Active Airstrip in the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness! appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Clean steel production will require an enormous amount of clean energy. Producing green hydrogen, operating high-temperature gas heaters, and powering electric arc furnaces will dramatically increase electricity demand at primary steel mills in the United States, and demand could reach gigawatt scale for individual commercial facilities. Therefore, every unit of energy (electrical, heat, or chemical) avoided or reused reduces the scale and cost while accelerating the speed of the renewable buildout required to support commercial-scale near-zero steel production. Improving energy efficiency is sometimes viewed as primarily a strategy for making incremental improvements to legacy infrastructure, but it will also be foundational to making new, deeply decarbonized pathways competitive and viable.

Finding hidden efficiencies

For more than a century, industrial manufacturers have understood the value of efficiency. Steel, cement, and chemical producers have long sought to recycle waste heat, byproduct gases, and residual materials, though not primarily for climate reasons, but because doing so lowers costs and improves competitiveness. Industrial recycling has often been, at its core, an energy strategy. Facilities routinely investigate opportunities to capture value from solid, liquid, and gaseous streams through onsite reuse or external sales.

Yet one major waste stream has largely eluded this efficiency-driven approach: carbon dioxide (CO₂) rich flue gas. In conventional ironmaking, carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H₂), derived from coal or natural gas, reduce iron ore (FeOₓ) into metallic iron (Fe), producing CO₂ and water in the process. These gases are typically vented to the atmosphere, representing not only a major source of emissions but also lost molecular value and embedded energy.

From flue gas to value

Unlike scrap steel or waste heat, flue gas emissions have historically been viewed as unavoidable and unusable. Flue gas streams are often diluted and contaminated with particulate matter, water vapor, and other impurities. CO₂ itself is chemically stable and does not readily participate in further reactions without significant energy input. For these reasons, it has long been treated as waste rather than as a resource that could be recaptured and reused, but that is starting to change.

Researchers at the Hydrogen and Electrochemical Research for Decarbonization, or HERD Lab, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are developing a system designed to recycle steelmaking flue gas. Using solid-oxide electrolyzers (SOE), the team converts streams of CO₂ and water (traditional flue gases) back into carbon monoxide and hydrogen (recycled top gases in Exhibit 1). These regenerated molecules can then be reintroduced into the iron reduction process, creating a near-closed-loop system that minimizes waste and maximizes energy productivity.

In addition to the HERD lab the project team is comprised of several others, including industry partners Cleveland-Cliffs (Cliffs), FuelCell Energy (FCE), and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and partners in research and academia, i.e., Laboratorio Energia Ambiente Piacenza (LEAP), University of California, Irvine (UCI), Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi), and University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM). Cliffs works as the Toledo iron plant operator and system integrator, while FCE is the SOE manufacturer and balance of plant integrator. LEAP and PoliMi are responsible for system design, flexible operation and carbon utilization, while UCI is responsible for developing SOE system control strategies. EPRI focuses on techno-economic analysis and life-cycle analysis of the full-scale system.

Electrolyzers are not new, but what distinguishes SOE systems is their ability to operate efficiently at the high temperatures common in steel production. SOEs can leverage industrial heat and pressure conditions to improve the thermodynamic efficiency of hydrogen production. When integrated into a direct reduced iron facility, this approach can dramatically reduce overall fossil fuel consumption and decrease typical electrical energy demand for electrolysis by leveraging available heat energy.

In practical terms, that means fewer installed renewable megawatts are required to produce a ton of near-zero steel. By reducing total energy intensity and recycling key molecules within the process, technologies like this can shrink the renewable energy burden associated with deep decarbonization and make the transition more achievable in the near term.

Exhibit 1: Integrated SOE-DRI configuration

We recently sat down with Dr. Luca Mastropasqua, who leads the HERD Lab research team, and RMI steel expert Nick Yavorsky to discuss how this technology works, what it could mean for steelmakers and regional economic development, and what comes next. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

RMI: Dr. Mastropasqua, what excited you the most about the potential for this technology?

Dr. Mastropasqua: This technology is one of the few able to reduce ironmaking emissions by more than 94% compared to typical natural gas DRI systems (~500 kgCO₂/tDRI vs ~30 kgCO₂/tDRI) and 98.5% compared to coal-based blast furnace basic oxygen furnace production. At the same time, this technology will minimize the use of total energy inputs (either fossil or renewable sources). This technology shows energy savings of approximately 40% against traditional natural gas DRI (11 GJ/tDRI vs 8 GJ/tDRI) and 10% compared to other hydrogen DRI systems (9 GJ/t DRI vs 8 GJ/t DRI).

One of the most synergistic aspects of this technology is that we are not only doing thermal integration, in the form of waste heat recovery, but also chemical integration. We are recovering chemical content and upgrading it to a more valuable stream, rich in hydrogen, that can be repurposed to displace additional natural gas.

RMI: How does your research and technology demonstration advance from where it is today?

Dr. Mastropasqua: The SOE technology must be demonstrated at the megawatt scale in real industrial sites before commercial-scale systems can be deployed. This is key to developing the necessary manufacturing capacity to cut manufacturing costs. We need to build gigafactories in the same way we did for Li-ion batteries. This will allow us to convince the steel industry (as well as many other industrial sectors) that SOE systems can be utilized for behind-the-meter, on-site hydrogen and syngas generation at the scale required by current plants (i.e., 100s MW of equivalent hydrogen, and GW-scale electrical capacity).

I expect that, if the main US manufacturers of SOE systems continue with their capacity build-up, we should be able to get to full commercial scale in the next 5-8 years.

RMI: Globally, we expect DRI production to increase in the coming decades. Can you explain how greenfield deployment of your technology has different implications than retrofits at existing assets?

Dr. Mastropasqua: The main difference between brownfield and greenfield deployment for this application is connected to the primary energy source of choice, i.e., fluctuating energy source like solar or wind versus firmed resource like fossil fuels, grid, geothermal, or nuclear. Since ironmaking plants want to operate at steady state close to their nominal design point for 8,000 hours a year, coupling with an intermittent resource requires large buffer systems: hydrogen storage, syngas storage, or thermal storage. On the other hand, existing brownfield systems could install an SOE plant to upgrade their reducing stream without the need for large-scale storage facilities, if their primary electricity source comes from the grid. However, this solution does not guarantee the same degree of decarbonization, given that most of the US electric grids don’t have a sufficiently low carbon intensity yet. As far as the shaft furnace technology is concerned, they have already been demonstrated to be able to operate with pure hydrogen.

RMI: How does your proposed technological solution compare to carbon capture and storage (CCS) or other forms of retrofitted decarbonization technologies at steel mills?

Dr. Mastropasqua: Some CCS technologies have a breakeven cost of carbon that is competitive with current cap and trade systems in EU. In the United States, the 45Q tax credits provide a real incentive to install CCS systems for enhanced oil recovery or permanent storage. However, most CCS systems (post-combustion, pre-combustion, or oxyfuel) have a specific primary energy consumption per unit of CO₂ avoided (SPECCA index) that varies between 2-4 MJ/kgCO₂. This means that plant owners must consume between an additional 2-4 MJ of primary energy relative to their usual consumption to capture every kg of CO₂. This translates into additional energy supply costs. With an SOE, the SPECCA index would be negative! We would be able to avoid the emission of CO2 and reduce the primary energy consumption at the same time.

CCS technologies certainly have a role in decarbonizing heavy industries, and we have worked on electrochemical carbon capture and storage technologies applied to the steel sector that show SPECCA values close to zero, i.e., do not introduce any energy penalty compared to a non-CCS system. One should also consider the availability of CO₂ storage sites, which can become a limiting factor, considering the amount of CO₂ that the steel sector alone cumulatively emits.

RMI: Nick, how does this type of facility upgrade impact the workforce onsite for DRI facilities? What kind of impact could it have on the long-term steel workforce in the US?

Nick Yavorsky (RMI): As highlighted by Dr. Mastropasqua, the energy efficiency implications for an integrated SOE system at primary steel production sites are immense, but its potential to provide regional economic value for those who choose to implement is also considerable. As a retrofit system, this technology could introduce anywhere from 100 to 400 additional full-time employees, depending on integration and automation. This does not include the several hundred construction workers required to implement the retrofit system or the thousands of workers needed to construct, operate, and maintain the hundreds of megawatts of upstream renewable energy resources needed to supply the SOEs with clean power.

In addition to the regional workforce growth potential, these types of systems will help US steelmakers produce more valuable products. Potentially accessing a higher price via a market premium while responding to high demand globally, production of near-zero DRI or crude steel products would support the continued operation of US assets for decades to come, with ample opportunity for expansion and continued reinvestment.

Greenfield sites offer the best opportunity to realize the market potential for this technology. Although it can be applied at existing facilities, new plants can likely achieve the greatest energy demand reduction as key systems can be designed intentionally from the start. As indicated by Dr. Mastropasqua’s1 energy and emissions reductions estimates, sites where thermal and chemical integration are paired with energy storage capacity and flexible operation schemes are positioned to become the most attractive for producers looking to maximize profits and compete against other global near-zero emissions approaches.

Fundamentally, deploying energy, cost, and climate-efficient systems like this one can help to revitalize the dwindling US primary steel production base and the economic prosperity it brings.

RMI: Are there any other groups exploring similar technology pathways?

Nick Yavorsky (RMI): Yes, in addition to the research being conducted at the HERD lab, the team at Helix Carbon is also exploring the reuse potential of steel production off-gases as a means of reducing energy demand onsite. That’s good news, because energy efficiency innovations that increase the cost competitiveness of clean industrial solutions are greatly needed, and the more arrows in the technological quiver, the better.

With both groups producing promising modeling results backed by extensive lab testing, the hunt for commercial partnerships and deployment opportunities is on. Incumbent steel manufacturers in the US and abroad will soon be clamoring to incorporate these types of systems to reduce operating costs and help clean up their production.

RMI: What are some of the remaining challenges with continuing and scaling your work?

Dr. Mastropasqua: There are still quite a few research and development questions that must be addressed to increase the lifetime of these systems, especially when expected to operate with “dirty” feedstocks typical of the ironmaking sector.

Some exciting research avenues show that we can tailor the operation of the SOE system to match specific compositional targets for integration in DRI systems. This will make these electrolysis systems a drop-in replacement for the conventional steam reformers generally used for syngas production.

Public funding and support are key to demonstrating continued interest in US manufacturing industries that need to scale up capacity. Similarly, investment in R&D at universities is needed to support overcoming longer-term material degradation challenges, as well as educating future workers on electrochemical technologies.

Finally, an ecosystem of industry, national labs, philanthropies, and academia working in collaboration to demonstrate these technologies at industrial scale can further accelerate impact.

The big idea

Efficiency improvements have long been leveraged at industrial sites. Now, it is time for the next generation. Technologies like this point to a pathway where energy savings and emissions reductions go hand in hand, reducing overall energy use, making the scale of the challenge easier to solve, and ultimately unlocking a faster, more competitive future for iron and steelmaking over the next century.

The post Maximizing the Efficiency of Clean Steel Production and Achieving Cost Competitiveness appeared first on RMI.

We talk with Kaleb Lay from Oregon Rural Action about how people living in a rural Oregon “sacrifice zone” end up with poisoned well water, and a widening wealth gap. We explore environmentalist claims that industrial farming, combined with a rapid build-out of Amazon data centers is compounding deadly nitrate contamination while communities fight for testing, transparency, and accountability.

Spending plan lacks detailed reporting on spending and project implementation BATON ROUGE, La. (April 27, 2026) – The Louisiana Legislature approved the state’s FY27 Annual Plan for Coastal Protection and Restoration, which outlines the state’s coastal priorities and funding strategy for the next fiscal year. Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coalition of four national and local conservation groups working to advance meaningful, large-scale coastal restoration, released the following statement: “The plan contains many worthwhile individual projects, but this year’s ...

Read The Full Story

The post Louisiana’s new coastal spending plan passes, but questions remain appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

In January, the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey became part of a global network for tracking bird migration with the installation of a Motus station on our property. As spring migration approached...

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder’s appeal of his 2023 bribery conviction and 20-year prison sentence tied to his corrupt passage of the HB 6 law that bailed out two coal-burning power plants.

The court didn’t state its reasons for denying the appeal Monday. It also rejected former Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges’ appeal.

Householder led the fundraising campaign in which FirstEnergy funneled some $60 million through surreptitious channels to Householder, who used it to push for the bill’s passage in 2019.

A Republican, Householder is expected to seek a pardon from President Trump, who has granted multiple pardons for public officials convicted on corruption charges. The president was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York in 2024.

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

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The post Supreme Court rejects Householder appeal appeared first on Checks and Balances Project.

Summer camps at Rowe Sanctuary have long been foundational to its identity, helping place the sanctuary on the map as a local leader in environmental education. It isn’t rare for Rowe Sanctuary...

We need clean, renewable energy to protect our health and to drive down energy costs. As organizations representing public and environmental health as well as frontline healthcare professionals, including the American Lung Association, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Concerned Health Professionals of New York, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, we urge Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature to ensure that renewable energy investments remain a central priority in this year’s state budget negotiations.

At a moment defined by rising energy costs, worsening air quality, and increasing climate-driven health risks, failing to fully fund wind, solar, and geothermal energy would be a profound mistake; one that New Yorkers cannot afford. Our organizations see firsthand how pollution and climate instability harm our communities. Fossil fuel combustion remains a leading contributor to increasing asthma attacks, worsening COPD exacerbations, cardiovascular disease, and premature death across New York State. Rising temperatures and poor air quality have led to more emergency room visits and hospitalizations. These burdens fall disproportionately on low-income communities, communities of color, children, and older adults, populations who already face systemic health inequities.

The fossil fuel-based energy system has created both a climate crisis and a public health crisis that demands courageous and equitable policy action now. Renewable energy is a public health intervention that can help improve patient outcomes. Expanding wind, solar, and geothermal infrastructure will reduce harmful air pollutants, decrease hospitalizations, and improve quality of life for millions of New Yorkers. At the same time, renewable energy is one of the most effective ways to bring down long-term energy costs for everyday residents. Unlike fossil fuels, which are subject to volatile global markets and geopolitical disruptions, renewable sources like wind and solar provide stable, predictable pricing once infrastructure is in place. Investing in these technologies now will shield New Yorkers from future price spikes while reducing reliance on imported fuels.

For example, geothermal systems offer households consistent, efficient heating and cooling, cutting utility bills significantly over time. Leaving these investments out of the state budget would mean locking families into higher, less predictable energy costs for years to come. Renewable energy development drives economic growth and job creation across the state. From offshore wind projects along our coasts, to solar installations in rural and urban communities alike, these investments support thousands of good-paying jobs while strengthening local economies. They also reduce strain on our healthcare system by preventing illness before it begins, an often overlooked but critical form of cost savings.

New York has already positioned itself as a national leader in climate action through the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). But leadership requires follow-through. If renewable energy funding is weakened or omitted from the state budget, it will not only delay progress toward our climate goals, it will also jeopardize the health and financial stability of New Yorkers. Governor Hochul and state legislators face a clear choice. Invest in a cleaner, healthier, and more affordable energy future, or allow short-term budget decisions to undermine long-term wellbeing.

The evidence is overwhelming. Renewable energy saves lives, reduces healthcare costs, and puts money back into the pockets of working families. For the sake of public health, economic stability, and environmental justice, New York must not leave renewable energy behind.

Authors:

Max Micallef, NYS Advocacy Manager – Clean Air Initiatives, American Lung Association
Bryanna U. Patterson, MS, FNP, RN-BC, Fellow, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
Carmi Orenstein, MPH, Program Director, Concerned Health Professionals of NY
Zach Williams, MPH, Associate Director, Environment & Health, Physicians for Social Responsibility

The post For Public Health and to Save Money, New York Needs Renewable Energy appeared first on ANHE.

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters

October 28, 2025, was a very bad day to be in Jamaica. That morning, Category 5 Hurricane Melissa intensified into the strongest hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic: 190 mph (305 km/h) winds, a tie with Hurricane Allen of 1980. That afternoon Melissa powered ashore in Jamaica, causing a catastrophic $8.8 billion in damage, equivalent to 41% of Jamaica’s GDP.

Melissa came close to its maximum potential intensity

The maximum potential intensity of a tropical cyclone is the maximum strength a storm can achieve based on the existing atmospheric and oceanic conditions. Potential intensity theory was pioneered in 1987 by MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel, who showed that human-caused global warming will increase the maximum strength that a hurricane can achieve. Hurricanes are heat engines that take heat energy out of the ocean and convert it to the kinetic energy of wind, so it makes sense that the winds of the strongest hurricanes will get stronger as the oceans heat up.

Melissa’s 190-mph winds were very close to its maximum potential intensity: The hurricane’s maximum potential intensity was about 197 mph (317 km/h), according to the SHIPS model, and about 200 mph (320 km/h), according to a graphic available at the University of Wisconsin’s CIMSS (Fig. 1). It is quite rare for a hurricane to come this close to its maximum potential intensity — all conditions have to be perfect, and the atmosphere and ocean make up a complex system where perfection is rarely achieved.

Figure 1. The maximum potential intensity (MPI) of Hurricane Melissa on Oct. 28, 2025, was about 175 knots (200 mph). (Image credit: University of Wisconsin’s CIMSS)

Given the less-than-ideal conditions for intensification – light to moderate wind shear of 5-15 knots, a very slow forward speed of less than 5 mph that allowed upwelling of cooler water from the depths to affect it, and interaction with the rugged terrain of Jamaica – Melissa came remarkably close to its maximum potential intensity. (The formula for maximum potential intensity does not include wind shear and slow hurricane motion.)

So how strong could Melissa have gotten if everything were going its way? Melissa formed in late October, when ocean temperatures were about 30 degrees Celsius (86°F). Six weeks earlier, during the early- to mid- September peak of sea surface temperatures, ocean temperatures in the central Caribbean were near 31 degrees Celsius (88°F). According to a 2023 paper, the maximum potential intensity increases 5-7% per degree Celsius of sea surface temperature increase. Thus, Melissa’s maximum potential intensity would have increased by about 11-15 mph (18-25 km/h) had it formed during the September peak in sea surface temperatures. If we assume the other factors limiting its intensification were not present, Melissa could have peaked with 215 mph (345 km/h) winds.

This is the same intensity achieved by the strongest known hurricane in world history, 2015’s Hurricane Patricia. Patricia formed off the Pacific coast of Mexico over record-warm waters of 30.5-31 degrees Celsius (87-88°F). And though the difference between 180 mph and 215 mph may not seem like much, it would actually represent about a fourfold increase in damage potential, according to NOAA.

Figure 2. The strongest tropical cyclones observed globally, 1972-2025, using windspeed ratings from the National Hurricane Center for the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific and from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center elsewhere.

How strong can a hurricane get?

The global list of tropical cyclones during the satellite era (1972-present) with winds as strong or stronger than Melissa is a short one: just 11 storms (Fig. 2). (There were 19 Western Pacific typhoons from 1955-1966 that “officially” have winds of 195 mph or higher, but hurricane experts agree that the intensities assigned to typhoons during that pre-satellite period suffered from a high bias and are not reliable.)

For most of the Northern Hemisphere’s tropical cyclone-prone areas, September will be the month with the highest possible maximum potential intensity, since that is when sea surface temperatures peak. Emanuel, the MIT hurricane scientist, created maps of the top 10% maximum potential intensity expected within 1,000 km of a given point during September, using climate data from the period 1982-1995 (Fig. 3). In the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean have the highest values: 224 mph (100 m/s) or higher. In the Pacific, the southern Philippines, Mexico, and most of Central America also have a top 10% maximum potential intensity of 224 mph (100 m/s) or higher.

Figure 3. Top 10% maximum potential intensity winds within 1,000 km of a given point for tropical cyclones expected during September, using climate data from the period 1982-1995. The only places with an MPI in excess of 110 m/s (246 mph) are the ocean areas of the Middle East. (Image credit: Kerry Emanuel)

Emanuel also created a table showing the top-10% maximum potential intensities for individual cities across the globe. All of these numbers (and the ones in Fig. 3) need to be adjusted upward because the climate has warmed significantly since the 1995 cutoff of the historical data used. A 2022 paper, A potential explanation for the global increase in tropical cyclone rapid intensification, reported that between 1982 and 2017, potential intensity during August-September-October in the Northern Hemisphere tropics increased by 2.3-2.4 mph per decade, or 8.6 mph over the 36-year period (1.02-1.06 m/s per decade). During that same period, Northern Hemisphere tropical sea surface temperatures increased by 0.17-0.23 degree Celsius per decade, or 0.6-0.8 degree Celsius over the 36-year period. A 2021 paper, Poleward expansion of tropical cyclone latitudes, reported similar numbers, with larger increases in potential intensity observed in the eastern Caribbean and western Gulf of Mexico.

These results suggest that the maximum potential intensity numbers in Fig. 3 and in Emanuel’s table should be adjusted upward by about 9 mph (4 m/s). Here are the adjusted numbers for the U.S. from Emanuel’s table showing the top-10% maximum potential intensities for individual cities:

Boston: 78 mph (35 m/s), Cat 1
Honolulu: 186 mph (84 m/s), Cat 5
Miami: 226 mph (101 m/s), Cat 5
Galveston: 220 mph (98 m/s), Cat 5
New Orleans: 231 mph (103 m/s), Cat 5
New York City: 112 mph (50 m/s), Cat 2
San Diego: 72 mph (32 m/s), Tropical Storm
Washington D.C.: 105 mph (47 m/s), Cat 2

Note that for cities like Boston and Washington, D.C., fast-moving storms coming from the south – where they typically move over warmer waters – can arrive at these cities at a strength higher than the local maximum potential intensity. This is why there is a separate entry in Emanuel’s table for the highest maximum potential intensity within 1,000 km of each city. I didn’t show this quantity in the list above, though it is plotted in Fig. 3.

A 300-mph (134 m/s) tropical cyclone is possible in the Persian Gulf

Globally, the highest maximum potential intensities are found in the ultrahot waters of the Middle East. There has never been a tropical cyclone observed in the Persian Gulf because it is narrow and prone to high wind shear and dry air. 

Figure 4. Category 1 Tropical Cyclone Gulab makes a bid at entering the Persian Gulf on Oct. 3, 2021. (Image credit: NASA World View)

However, for their eye-popping 2015 paper, Grey swan tropical cyclones, Ning Lin and Kerry Emanuel performed modeling showing that strong tropical cyclones can move through the Persian Gulf, representing an underappreciated threat to major cities like Dubai. The modeling showed that a sea surface temperature of 35 degrees Celsius (95°F) can create a maximum potential intensity of 296 mph (132 m/s) in the Persian Gulf. Their worst-case 1-in-30,000-year storm was a 257 mph (115 m/s) Category 5 beast with a central pressure of 784 mb that brought a colossal storm surge of 24 feet (7.5 meters) to Dubai.

The study used the climate of 1980-2010, and sea surface temperatures in the Persian Gulf have warmed significantly since then. Over the period 1981-2012, the Persian Gulf had peak summer sea surface temperatures of 32-35 degrees Celsius (90-95°F). But in July 2020, those temperatures hit 37.6 degrees Celsius (99.7°F). More recently, in August 2023, sea surface temperatures above 36 degrees Celsius (97°F) were measured over portions of the Persian Gulf. Thus, an even stronger storm – with winds over 300 mph (134 m/s) – would be possible in today’s climate.

There has been a recent close call for a strong tropical cyclone entering the Persian Gulf: In 2021, Category 1 Tropical Cyclone Gulab (Fig. 4) entered the Gulf of Oman, which connects to the Persian Gulf. A four-day forecast from the HWRF model (Fig. 5) predicted Gulab would pass over Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, enter the Persian Gulf, and then intensify into a Category 2 storm with a central pressure of 958 mb. Fortunately, Gulab ended up weakening into a tropical storm and making landfall in Oman, near the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Figure 5. Four-day windspeed forecast from the HWRF model made on Oct. 1, 2021, for Tropical Cyclone Gulab. The model predicted Gulab would be a Category 2 storm with a central pressure of 958 mb in the Persian Gulf. Purple colors correspond to Category 1 winds (74 mph or greater). (Image credit: Levi Cowan, Tropical Tidbits)

Sources of real-time maximum potential intensity data

Kerry Emanuel’s website
University of Wisconsin CIMSS (for active storms)
SHIPS model (for active storms)

For years, farmers and ranchers in the state have been facing rising costs of inputs. Now, as a consequence of the...

The post New Bill Aims to Support CA Farmers Facing Fertilizer and Water Shortages  appeared first on CalCAN - California Climate & Agriculture Network.