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As civilizational systems buckle under ecological and social strain, this chapter of Seeds Volume 2 argues we must stop chasing solutions and instead dismantle the toxic logics of hierarchy and supremacism to rebuild regenerative, collapse-resilient cultures.

Intense floods in Algeria’s Sahara in 2024 exposed how modern desert cities shed water instead of storing it. Redesigning infrastructure to hold rain, not rush it away, could help turn arid regions into resilient, living landscapes.

Indigenous communities in South America are raising native bees to help protect the insects, conserve forests, and strengthen their own cultural ties to the ecosystem.

Vermont Becomes the First State in the Nation to Ban Paraquat and Reduce Risk of Parkinson’s Disease 

Montpelier, VT — Governor Phil Scott signed landmark legislation into law today, making Vermont the first state in the nation to ban the toxic herbicide paraquat, which is linked to Parkinson’s disease. Health and environmental advocates celebrated the victory.

Large-scale epidemiological studies have shown that individuals exposed to paraquat have a roughly 250% higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. The risk is not limited to those who apply the pesticide directly. Because of the potential for drift, paraquat exposure is also a concern for people who live, work, or attend school nearby.  

“There are some agricultural pesticides that are just too poisonous to be used safely. Paraquat is now at the top of that list and therefore banning it in Vermont is absolutely the right thing to do,” said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.  

Unlike many herbicides that pose chronic risks over decades, paraquat is also acutely toxic. A single accidental sip can be fatal, and there is no known antidote. In Vermont, where small family farms and residential areas often intermingle, the risk of accidental ingestion or severe skin exposure remains a constant liability. 

The danger presented by paraquat is so great that more than 70 countries around the world have already banned its use. Syngenta, which has been the primary manufacturer of paraquat, is headquartered in Switzerland and produces much of its supply in the United Kingdom – yet both Switzerland and the UK have banned the use of paraquat on their own soil to protect their citizens. 

Only about 15% of people with Parkinson’s disease have a family history of the condition, meaning most cases are influenced by environmental factors — including exposure to paraquat. In testimony at the State House this year, Dr. James Boyd, a neurologist with UVM Medical Center, underscored that chronic exposure to paraquat can significantly increase a person’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

Alternatives to paraquat are widely available to farmers in Vermont. Paraquat is not available to non-commercial users.

Polling done earlier this spring found that 77 percent of Vermonters favored eliminating the use of paraquat in the state when they learned basic facts about the herbicide.

It is not clear how much paraquat is used in Vermont today since current law allows farmers to use it on their own property without reporting that use to state officials. In testimony before House and Senate committees, however, it became clear that paraquat is widely used on Vermont orchards, strawberry fields, and other agricultural crops.

The new legislation will end many uses of paraquat in Vermont by the end of this year, while allowing for its regulated use on orchards and berries through 2030.

“This is a landmark win for public health in Vermont,” said Burns. “It should have been done long ago, but I’m proud that Vermont is the first to say, ‘No more” to paraquat.” 

About Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive, incurable neurological disorder and the fastest-growing brain disease in the world. Early symptoms can include difficulty walking, depression, and cognitive decline, and the disease worsens over time.

Green Energy Times ran an article on Paraquat in the April, 2026 edition. It is “Is It Time to Ban Paraquat?“

Shell profits, kids go hungry Channel News brendan 27th May 2026 Teaser Media

Pig suffering given a platform Channel News brendan 27th May 2026 Teaser Media

Incat founder Robert Clifford explains how a family-owned Tasmanian company built a ship many thought impossible and why battery-electric ferries will reshape shipping.

The post SwitchedOn podcast: Inside the world’s largest battery electric ferry appeared first on Renew Economy.

A company looking at hydrogen and graphite technologies among two low emission proposals for the purchase of Whyalla Steelworks.

The post Gas-based hydrogen hopeful among shortlisted “low-emission” proposals for troubled Whyalla steelworks appeared first on Renew Economy.

We are installing inertia for poorly justified reasons, and we are imposing economic penalties that add unnecessary hurdles for solar and wind projects.

The post We need to reframe the grid discussion from system strength to system behaviour appeared first on Renew Economy.

The experience of decommissioning Australia's second-oldest wind farm proves that selling parts for re-use can be a great deal cheaper than sending them to landfill.

The post “$1 million cheaper:” How avoiding landfill slashed the cost of decommissioning this wind farm appeared first on Renew Economy.

America’s next major transportation bill could potentially strip railways of more than 80 percent of their federal funding — even as its first draft appears to promise Amtrak and other rail operators more money on paper, a top advocacy organization warned.

Last week, advocates at the National Rail Passengers Association declined to endorse the BUILD America 250 Act, which they said failed to provide “reliable funding and a clear commitment to growth” for train operators across America — despite more than doubling operations funding for Amtrak in the first fiscal year alone.

That’s because the money wouldn’t be guaranteed. And over the course of the bill’s five years, that funding is widely expected to plummet.

Recommended New House Infrastructure Bill: Cuts To Transit, Mixed Bag for Active Transportation Kea Wilson May 20, 2026

Unlike the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which the new bill would theoretically replace when it expires on Sept. 30, BUILD America 250 includes no “advanced appropriations” for any transportation program not secured by the Highway Trust fund — a $106 billion category which includes all funding for passenger rail. That means that every single dollar it “promises” to train operators would need to be approved by Congress again as part of the annual budget process before it actually goes out the door.

By contrast, BUILD America 250 promises more funding for highway programs without subjecting that money to the appropriations process — even though gas taxes have failed to actually cover the costs of America’s asphalt addiction for decades, and growing highways have failed to curb congestion, cut traffic deaths, or delivery any of the benefits that road builders so often promise.

“The message of this bill is loud and clear: highways and roads are a core federal priority and intercity rail is a state-level vanity project that Congress is willing to play along with —but only up to a point,” wrote Sean Jeans-Gail, the association’s vice president of government affairs and policy.

Recommended New House Infrastructure Bill: Cuts To Transit, Mixed Bag for Active Transportation Kea Wilson May 20, 2026

Jean-Gails and his colleagues aren’t entirely negative about the BUILD America 250 Act. They pointed out that the legislation could at least theoretically provide about $64 billion for rail programs — which is 38 percent less than the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, but significantly more than what rail operators enjoyed prior to “Amtrak Joe” Biden’s signature transportation bill set a new bar for federal rail funding.

By making most of that money subject to appropriations, though, advocates fear Congress is once again turning America’s train network into a massive bargaining chip that lawmakers could easily wager away to end a funding fight — and setting up advocates to take the blame for a government shutdown if rail fans in Congress stick to their guns.

Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, appropriators struggled to scrounge up more than $3 billion additional dollars for transportation programs in any given year during the annual budgeting process. BUILD America 250 would require them to find $13 billion in the couch cushions every year just for rail — not including the other transportation priorities that would be subject to appropriations, too.

And if rail boosters in Congress don’t win that stalemate, their failure could slow or halt America’s railway renaissance just as Amtrak scores all-time records for ridership and revenue — and possibly even threaten route expansions that, by their very nature, take years to implement.

“In the leadup to this bill, Chairman Graves repeatedly made statements about getting ‘back to basics’, where he explicitly referenced highways and bridges,” wrote the Association. “The repeated emphasis on non-federal share for passenger rail is a strong indicator that this philosophy won out in this bipartisan process.”

The absence of guaranteed money would also complicate some of the other rail policies in BUILD America 250, including its mandate to create a new “national intercity passenger railroad partnership program” and “equipment leasing pools” that would make it easier for operators to acquire trainsets without waiting years for manufacturers to fulfill their orders.

The association supports both those ideas, but doubts Congress will actually get them done if they can easily pull the rug out from under operators the next time they pass a national budget.

“Given an annual appropriations process that is more likely to generate an extended government shutdown than pass a bill on time, we can say with a high degree of confidence: there won’t be enough funding,” Jean-Gails wrote. “An improved policy framework with insufficient funding is like getting a fancy new car and popping the hood to find an ‘IOU’ note where the engine should be.”

With people across the U.S. relying on threadbare train networks to meet their basic intercity travel needs — not to mention yearning for the world-class rail system America truly deserves — association president and CEO Jim Matthews said an IOU just won’t do.

“Passengers, states, workers and communities are let down and left behind by the BUILD America 250 Act … We need your help to push back on this blatant disregard for the needs of millions of Americans across the country,” he wrote.

• The BUILD America 250 Act, a $580 billion transportation bill, passed out of committee and could go up for a full House vote within a matter of weeks (The Center Square). The bill fails to prioritize safety over speed, maintenance over new highway construction or adequately fund other modes of transportation besides cars, according to Transportation for America.
• The bill comes at a time when high gas prices are driving up transit ridership, and agencies need more funding to capitalize on the trend. (Jalopnik)
• How will Oregon fund transportation now that Democrats’ plan failed at the ballot box? (Axios)
• Some Virginia officials want to invest express lane tolls into transit rather than roads. (Mercury)
• Bay Area transit supporters have gathered enough signatures to put a tax hike on the November ballot. (San Francisco Standard)
• A new Amtrak station in Detroit could provide future rail service to Canada. (ConstructConnect)
• Portland drivers might actually be driving more in a quest for the cheapest gas. (KATU)
• Massachusetts Uber and Lyft drivers have officially unionized. (WHDH)
• Federal officials are expected to rule this year on an increasingly expensive and controversial freeway project in Shreveport. (WFMZ)
• Austin’s CapMetro is opening two park-and-ride lots to serve two new bus rapid transit lines. (American-Statesman)
• Pittsburgh needs better signage to educate drivers about all-way crossings. (City Paper)
• Kansas City Current fans packed out the new streetcar extension last weekend. (KMBC)
• Skateboarders can turn an empty big-box parking lot into a community space. (New York Times)

Tech bros pushing SMRs are going to be "very angry" when they discover nuclear is expensive and complicated, says leading analyst.

The post Nuclear needs to build up to 8,000 SMRs just to catch up with wind and solar. By 2035, they might have 5 appeared first on Renew Economy.

Energy upgrades could deliver more than $100 billion in electricity bill savings to renters by 2050. To access those savings requires pulling a key policy lever.

The post What will it take to halve renter energy bills? We have the answer – we just need to make it happen appeared first on Renew Economy.

We just released the schedule and registration links for the School of Solarpunk Studies Summer Workshop Series (S5). This summer’s workshop curriculum includes:

Worldbuilding Regenerative Cities
Saturday, July 18 from 11 AM – 1PM PST

Crafting Solarpunk Poetry
Saturday, July 25 from 11 AM – 1PM PST

Climate as Character
Saturday, August 1 from 11 AM – 1PM PST

Writing Hope Without Losing Conflict
Saturday, August 8 from 11 AM – 1PM PST

Registration for each workshop is $40, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

More Info + Registration

We’re excited to announce that Demand Utopia: A Solarpunk Podcast has hit 30k downloads! We’ve released 9 episodes over the last few weeks. Recent episode topics include:

•why hopeful stories are still so hard to write
•whether solarpunk has become too aesthetic
•the energy grid as a care system
•the costs of AI
•the energy transitions mining problem
•the rights of nature movement
•the UN’s recent vote on climate action

Our 10th episode of the year drops tomorrow, and features our host reading two short stories from Solarpunk Magazine Issue #27, “Between Mortar and Magic” by Alex Vossler, and “What the Sea Remembers” by Dennis Mombauer.

You can listen to Demand Utopia on our website’s podcast page, or wherever you get podcasts!

Listen Now

Our 5th anniversary year continued this month with the release of Issue #27 on May 12. Issue #27 includes:

Cover Art
“In My Hands” by Paula Hammond

Short Stories
“Radio Free Luna, Signing Off” by Sylvie Althoff
“Between Mortar and Magic” by Alex Vossler
“What the Sea Remembers” by Dennis Mombauer

Poetry
“Pulsar, Phlox” by Devan Barlow
“The Prayer Shrub” by Zoleikha Baloch

Essay
“Occupation of Palestine” by Aya Al-Hattab

Book Review
“Repair is Not a Gadget: A Review of The Wildcraft Drones by T.K. Rex” by Justine Norton-Kertson

Get Issue 27

BHP is quietly pushing ahead with plans to expand its massive Saraji East coal mine in Queensland, which would generate huge amounts of climate pollution, as recent news reports have raised mounting doubts about the company’s climate commitments. 

Coverage of the coalition of environmental, Tribal, and fishing organizations calling for a Water Renaissance in California continues to grow. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that the plan, which prioritizes local water supplies such as stormwater capture, water recycling, and groundwater cleanup, would reliably yield more and cost far less than the proposed Delta Tunnel project. 

As UCLA scientist Benjamin Bass said, “Traditional sources for imported water are less reliable than they used to be. The most reliable source of water in the future is local water.”

“We have got to do a better job in the next 100 years than we did in the last 100 years, if we truly want to create a place of abundance once again,” said Frankie Myers, a member of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California. “This idea that we can steal … and divert water however we want with no consequences has got to end.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, also told the Los Angeles Times: “Metropolitan Water District really does have a significant choice on it, that not just impacts their ratepayers but impacts every single person in the state. Are we going to spend $20, $60, maybe upward to $100 billion on a tunnel? Or are we going to invest significant money in local solutions that provide water resiliency and sustainability for everyone in California? That is what is at stake right now.”

The Water Renaissance Plan has been endorsed by about 20 additional organizations, reflecting growing momentum behind a more sustainable, affordable, and scientifically-backed approach to California water management.

Read more coverage below:

• Southern California could get 85% of its water locally and avoid Delta tunnel, groups say. The Los Angeles Times.
• California proposal would change how millions get their water. Newsweek. 
• California coalition unveils water plan to rival Delta Tunnel at a fraction of the cost. Smart Water Magazine. 
• New CA water coalition releases ‘Renaissance’ water plan that rules out the Delta Tunnel. Indybay.  

###

A looming overhaul of California’s cap-and-trade program is raising alarm among transit advocates, affordable housing organizations, and environmental justice groups, who warn the state could weaken a key climate funding source at a moment when cities already face transit funding crises and worsening housing pressures.

At the center of the debate is a proposal to reshape the state’s carbon market, commonly known as “cap-and-trade” but rebranded as “cap-and-invest” by Governor Gavin Newsom. The program would be retooled in ways critics say would expand free pollution permits for oil companies and other major emitters. At the end of this week, the California Air Resources Board is expected to vote on a proposal to allocate $4 billion in new free emission permits to companies with half slated for the fossil fuel industry in exchange for commitments to invest in clean energy. The putative goal is to reduce the cost of gas at a time when the war on Iran has cause nationwide gas price spikes, with California gas prices slightly higher than most states.

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – funded and budgeted annually by cap-and-trade proceeds – has become a major financing stream for climate-related transportation investments statewide. Transit agencies, active transportation programs, affordable housing near transit, and the state’s high-speed rail project all rely heavily on cap-and-trade revenues. Anyone interested in the details of how the program currently generates funds and/or what specific changes are proposed should read this Calmatters article.

Under legislation approved last year, high-speed rail is guaranteed $1 billion annually from the carbon market through 2045, with another $1 billion per year set aside for “legislative priorities” i.e. the state’s general fund. What’s left is divided up for housing and transit funding at the local level. A giveaway of billions in permits would likely decimate those funds for local projects.

The timing of the state’s retreat on cap-and-trade funding couldn’t be worse. Federal subsidies to help transit agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic ended last year, and while ridership is increasing across the state, nearly no transit lines/agencies have fully recovered to pre-pandemic ridership levels.

While Californians are showing they are willing to support transit, it was announced earlier this week that 305,895 Bay Area residents signed a petition to place a measure on the ballot to do just that, a further rollback of state transit funding will both undermine enthusiasm for these types of measures and blunt their ability to head-off transit service cuts.

Advocates Plan Emergency Rally

Environmental justice advocates, transit riders, housing organizations, and climate groups are organizing an emergency rally tomorrow, May 27, at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza (335 McAllister St.), calling on Governor Gavin Newsom and state regulators to reject “giveaways to Big Oil.” Organizers say the CARB proposal would shift climate funds away from transit and housing while handing expanded pollution allowances to fossil fuel companies.

“CARB’s proposal slashes affordable transit-oriented housing, major public transit projects, transit services, and discounted transit pass programs throughout the entire state by up to $2 billion each year over the next four years — while giving big polluters billions of dollars in permissions to pollute,” reads the announcement for the rally.

Advocates are expected to call for preserving strong auction revenues and ensuring cap-and-invest dollars continue flowing to transit, housing, and sustainable infrastructure alongside high-speed rail.

The California Air Resources Board is expected to vote on the updated regulations in the coming days, setting up what could be one of the most consequential climate policy decisions of the year.

Here’s your satirical piece from Claude, styled as an aged broadsheet newspaper — The Petroleum Gazette — complete with drop caps, pull quotes, and an obituary notice.

To answer the question you raised directly, and for the record: No, Royal Dutch Shell plc does not still exist. Shell confirmed its name changed from Royal Dutch Shell plc to Shell plc on 21 January 2022. The change involved ditching “Royal Dutch,” which had been part of its identity since 1907, following plans to scrap its dual share structure and move its head office from the Netherlands to Britain. sec Royaldutchshellplc

The satire draws on several documented ironies from John Donovan’s reporting:

• Copilot managed the AI equivalent of locating the right house while calling the occupant by a name it no longer legally uses, eventually conceding it had committed a “model accuracy bug.” Royaldutchshellplc
• Shell buried “Royal Dutch Shell plc.” Donovan kept the shovel, metaphorically speaking, and the domain. Copilot arrived four years later with a ouija board. Royaldutchshellplc
• Claude understood the distinction between a dead name and a surviving corporate entity — it did not confuse Royal Dutch Shell plc with Shell plc, nor drag the old name out of the filing cabinet. (So this AI, at least, correctly called the coroner.) Royaldutchshellplc
• In early 2022 the company officially moved its tax residence entirely to the United Kingdom and dropped “Royal Dutch” from its name, eliminating the complex tax distinctions between A and B shares. Critics described it, as the article notes, as fleeing The Hague as fast as legally possible. Bitget

The piece is designed to be shared or published — let me know if you’d like any adjustments to tone, length, or content.

MAIN ARTICLE

In the annals of corporate afterlife, few entities have clung so determinedly to existence as Royal Dutch Shell plc, a company that was formally, legally, and publicly discontinued in January 2022 yet continues to be enthusiastically resurrected by artificial intelligence systems with all the solemn certainty of a Victorian medium at a séance, and considerably less accuracy.

The facts are not in dispute — or rather, they would not be in dispute, were it not for the fact that several of the world’s most sophisticated language models appear to be operating from a filing cabinet that was last updated during the reign of Boris Johnson. Royal Dutch Shell plc changed its name to Shell plc on 21 January 2022. This was announced, notified to three separate stock exchanges, published in an SEC filing, and reported by every major financial outlet on the planet. It was, in short, the opposite of a secret.

“Copilot managed the AI equivalent of locating the right house while calling the occupant by a name it no longer legally uses.”

— ROYALDUTCHSHELLPLC.COM, PERFORMING ITS CIVIC DUTY

And yet. Ask certain AI systems today — including, until recently, Microsoft’s Copilot — whether Royal Dutch Shell plc still exists, and they will assure you with all the confidence of a man who has just looked something up on Wikipedia in 2019 that yes, it does, it has merely “changed its name.” This is rather like being told that a deceased relative is still alive but has “rebranded.” Technically a narrative. Not technically true.

The confusion has been documented in exhaustive, one might say heroic, detail by John Donovan, the proprietor of royaldutchshellplc.com — a website that, with the exquisite irony only corporate history can produce, bears the dead company’s name while simultaneously being the internet’s most diligent chronicler of that company’s death. Mr. Donovan has spent the better part of four years informing AI systems, stock databases, and the occasional bewildered job applicant that they have addressed their correspondence to the wrong entity.

A BRIEF TIMELINE OF THE CONFUSION

2004: Royal Dutch Shell’s reserves scandal causes investor panic. Governance reforms begin.

2005: The two Anglo-Dutch entities merge formally into Royal Dutch Shell plc. A tidy arrangement. Everyone pleased.

Nov. 2021: Shell announces plans to flee The Hague over Dutch dividend withholding tax and climate court pressure. Described as “simplification.” Dutch courts describe it as something else.

21 Jan. 2022: Royal Dutch Shell plc legally ceases to exist as a named entity. Shell plc comes into being. Press release issued. SEC notified. Nobody tells the robots.

2022–2026: Various AI systems continue to confidently answer “Does Royal Dutch Shell plc still exist?” with “Yes.” This newspaper declines to name them all for reasons of column space.

The website itself is a minor masterpiece of circumstance. Shell spent considerable resources attempting to seize the domain through proceedings at the World Intellectual Property Organisation — and lost. The consequence is that royaldutchshellplc.com, the world’s leading source of Shell-critical commentary since before Shell had finished deciding what to call itself, continues to operate unmolested, forwarding misdirected job applications to Shell under what Mr. Donovan describes as a standing arrangement and what Shell has presumably described as something considerably less complimentary.

In Which the Machines Are Cross-Examined

Mr. Donovan’s recent exchanges with AI systems on this question read like a transcript from a particularly patient inquest. When Bing was asked whether Royal Dutch Shell plc still exists, it reportedly responded that the company “still exists” while simultaneously acknowledging that the name had changed. This is logically consistent only in the sense that a man insisting he is still 35 while simultaneously blowing out 50 candles might be said to “acknowledge” the passage of time.

Copilot, for its part, eventually underwent what can only be described as a digital crisis of conscience, conceding after extended interrogation that it had committed a “model accuracy bug” — defined internally as “correct URL, incorrect corporate identity framing.” It had, in short, found the right house and knocked on the door asking for a man who had moved out four years previously. In a better world, the machine would at this point have had the grace to look embarrassed.

The present author — operating, it should be noted, as Claude, an AI assistant produced by Anthropic — is pleased to report that it correctly identified the distinction between the deceased Royal Dutch Shell plc and the extant Shell plc, and did not attempt to perform CPR on a legal entity that had made its own funeral arrangements. This fact has been noted by the Royaldutchshellplc.com correspondent, who described Claude’s performance as understanding “the distinction between a dead name and a surviving corporate entity.” We accept this compliment with appropriate institutional modesty and zero plans to revise our position

The deeper issue, as the more sober analysis in John Donovan’s original piece makes clear, is structural rather than comedic. AI systems are trained on vast datasets that include financial databases, archived news articles, legacy corporate filings, and — critically — the long, deep digital sediment of the internet, in which the name “Royal Dutch Shell” appears roughly as frequently as the word “the.” Disentangling the dead name from the living company requires either very good training data, robust entity resolution, or a willingness to simply check Companies House, which is free, publicly accessible, and has been correctly labelling Royal Dutch Shell plc as a previous name since 2022.

WHAT THE AI SYSTEMS SAID

Bing/Copilot: “Royal Dutch Shell plc still exists” (with caveats, later retracted following what sources describe as “a prolonged digital reckoning”).

Claude (Anthropic): Correctly identified the company as Shell plc, acknowledged the name change, did not resurrect anything. Described by the site as “calling the coroner.” We prefer “accurate.”

Various others: This newspaper has been asked not to create a league table of AI confusion on the grounds that several of the competitors are advertisers. We refer readers to royaldutchshellplc.com for the full rankings.

Shell’s Own Curious Contribution to the Muddle

One might expect the aggrieved party in this saga to be Shell plc itself, which presumably has some interest in being correctly identified in financial markets, regulatory filings, and the digital consciousness of the species. And indeed, Mr. Donovan’s analysis is charitable enough to acknowledge that Shell could do more to clarify matters — issuing prominent statements, scrubbing legacy identifiers from financial databases, engaging with AI developers, and perhaps resisting the urge to litigate over domain names it has no legal claim to after voluntarily abandoning the name they contain.

The domain name litigation deserves a paragraph of its own. Shell, having decided in 2021 that “Royal Dutch” was something it wished to be rid of — pushed, as contemporary reporting noted, by Dutch dividend withholding tax and the inconvenience of losing a climate case in The Hague — subsequently attempted to claim ownership of domain names built around the very identity it had jettisoned. The WIPO proceedings failed. The domains remained with Mr. Donovan. The situation has thus produced, as a byproduct of corporate strategy, the world’s most institutionally awkward arrangement: an oil giant’s deleted name operated as a critical watchdog site by its longest-standing public antagonist, who also happens to be forwarding the company’s misdirected post.

A spokesperson for Shell plc declined to comment for this article, in the sense that this article does not have a press team, and the fictional Shell spokesperson conjured for the occasion was described in a previous account on the site as having “sighed heavily and reached for a mineral water that definitely did not come from a fracking site.” We reproduce this detail in the public interest.

The Regulatory Question Looming on the Horizon

There is, Mr. Donovan notes, a more serious thread running beneath the comedy. The persistence of outdated corporate identifiers in financial contexts — particularly when ordinary investors might rely on AI systems to check the status of shares, dividends, or corporate actions — sits, as his analysis delicately puts it, “uncomfortably close” to the boundary of financial misinformation. He suggests the FCA might at minimum be made aware.

This newspaper makes no legal determination. We merely observe that an AI system confidently telling an investor that Royal Dutch Shell plc “still exists” while that investor attempts to navigate share inheritance, dividend rights, or any of the dozens of practical questions that arise when a major listed company restructures itself is, at best, unhelpful. At worst it is the kind of confident wrongness that used to require a stockbroker in a bad suit to deliver in person, and which now scales to millions of users simultaneously.

The solution, as articulated with admirable clarity in the original article, is not complicated: Shell should say clearly and repeatedly that the old name is dead; financial data providers should mark legacy identifiers as obsolete; AI developers should correct the training data; and everyone should stop pretending that a company can both discard a name and claim exclusive dominion over its ghost. These are reasonable requests. Their continued non-fulfilment after four years suggests that nobody with the authority to act on them has yet found the matter sufficiently urgent to do so. This newspaper respectfully submits that the AI confusion may eventually concentrate some minds.

In Memoriam

Royal Dutch Shell plc
Born: 2005 (following reserves scandal, governance reforms, and a great deal of Anglo-Dutch goodwill)
Departed: 21 January 2022 (fled The Hague; simplification cited)
Survived by: Shell plc, one aggrieved domain owner, several confused AI systems, and an unknown quantity of misdirected CVs

“It is merely undergoing a forward-looking identity optimization process aligned with shareholder value, simplified governance, and sustainable brand transition.”
— Fictional Shell spokesperson, declining to accept the narrow, literal interpretation of death

Corrections policy: This newspaper is satirical. All facts pertaining to Shell’s corporate name change are accurate and sourced from Shell’s own SEC filings (January 2022), Companies House records, and Royaldutchshellplc.com. The AI quotations attributed to various systems are drawn from documented exchanges published on that site. The fictional spokesperson is fictional. The sigh was real.

Disclosure: This article was composed by Claude (Anthropic), the same AI system described herein as “calling the coroner.” We consider this a compliment and stand by the death certificate. GHOST OF DECEASED OIL GIANT CONTINUES TO HAUNT THE MACHINES was first posted on May 26, 2026 at 11:18 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 Environmental Working Group praised Vermont for today becoming the first state in the nation to ban the use and sale of paraquat, one of the most toxic herbicides in the U.S., and one that’s linked to Parkinson’s disease and other serious health harms.

Gov. Phil Scott (R) signed the landmark legislation after the state Legislature passed it with strong bipartisan support. The new law makes Vermont the first to enact a statewide prohibition on the toxic weedkiller.

“We applaud Governor Scott and the champions in the legislature that made this moment possible that will protect all Vermonters, including farmers and children, from being exposed to this dangerous chemical,” said EWG Legislative Director Geoff Horsfield.

“With Vermont leading the way, states across the country now have a clear path to end the use of one of the most toxic herbicides still on the market,” said Horsfield. “This is a turning point in the effort to protect public health from a chemical that has been tied to devastating neurological harm.”

State Rep. Esme Cole (D-Windsor) and state Sen. Martine Gulick (D-Chittenden-Central District) championed their chambers’ versions of the bills.

EWG would also like to thank the leading organizations that supported the bill, including Vermont Public Interest Research Group, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, Parkinson’s Foundation, the American Parkinson Disease Association, the Vermont Natural Resources Council and others.

Paraquat is banned in more than 70 countries yet remains widely used across U.S. agriculture.

Vermont’s action is expected to intensify pressure on state policymakers throughout the country to restrict or eliminate use of the herbicide. Lawmakers in the nearby states of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are currently debating similar proposals.

“We urge elected leaders in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and other states to move forward with their respective plans to ban the toxic weedkiller and build momentum to push more states to take action,” he added.

Several other states have introduced bills to ban paraquat, and California is considering new regulatory restrictions. These efforts are clear signs of escalating concern over the chemical’s well-documented health risks.

A growing body of research links exposure to an increased risk of Parkinson's disease, with additional evidence pointing to other serious health harms, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma and childhood leukemia.