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NEW YORK (May 14, 2026) – The National Audubon Society honored environmental journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert with the Rachel Carson Award at the Women in...

Today’s power grid was built to handle an outage at a major facility. But there is a growing risk from many smaller resources failing at once, writes Anirban Ghosh at Black & Veatch.

Naples Daily News: “What began as a fight against exploitation in Immokalee’s farm fields may now be improving the health of the next generation.” Presbyterian Hunger Program National Hunger Associate Andrew Kang Bartlett: “This groundbreaking study is a powerful affirmation that dignity at work is inseparable from health and life itself.”

The landmark health study linking the Fair Food Program to healthier farmworker mothers and children continues to make waves across the nation! 

A few weeks ago, we shared new insights from the study’s lead author on how the FFP’s comprehensive human rights enforcement may not only improve infant birth weights — a key indicator of long-term health and life outcomes — but also reduce rates of gestational diabetes and hypertension. Those findings alone are cause for celebration.

But this week, we want to share two new articles that place the study within the broader story of the Fair Food Program and the remarkable evolution from its humble beginnings in the small agricultural town of Immokalee, Florida, to becoming the new paradigm for human rights enforcement in global supply chains. That meteoric growth would not have been possible without the steadfast partnership of allies across the country — including faith communities like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), whose members have marched alongside farmworkers for decades and whose news service is now helping shine a national spotlight on the Fair Food Program’s historic gains for workers and their families.

The first article comes courtesy of the Naples Daily News, while the second is from the news service of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). 

Collier County labor program led to healthier babies, study finds

What began as a fight against exploitation in Immokalee’s farm fields may now be improving the health of the next generation.

A new study links the Fair Food Program — a farmworker-led effort created by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to enforce labor protections in agriculture — to a roughly 10% reduction in low-birth-weight babies among farmworker mothers from Latin America.

The research analyzed more than a decade of U.S. birth records from 2006 to 2018 to evaluate how improvements in agricultural working conditions influence long-term health.

Dr. Joaquin Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that findings point to measurable health effects beyond the workplace.

“Low-weight births isn’t just a number on a chart that we think about, but it’s actually really, really important,” he said in an interview with The News-Press & Naples Daily News. “It predicts that child’s cognitive development over the long term of that child, implications on long-term health and long-term earnings and competitiveness in the market.”

What is driving the improvement in birth outcomes?

The study points to higher wages and changes in working conditions as benefiting birth outcomes.

Counties that adopted the Fair Food Program saw a 24% increase in agricultural worker pay, researchers found. Coupled with protections against wage theft, that increase often moves a family of two above the poverty line during pregnancy. Researchers said this financial stability helps expectant mothers have better access to nutrition and medical care.

“It’s the individuals whose wages have been depressed for so long that now all of a sudden are getting a livable or closer to a livable wage,” Rubalcaba said. “It helps alleviate some of these trade-offs that we do when considering economics of the household: Do I buy fresh foods and vegetables? Or, do I have enough money now to go get seen for prenatal care? Do I buy food or do I buy medication?”

The Fair Food Program also mandates farms to follow strict labor standards, including rest breaks in high heat, access to water and electrolytes and zero-tolerance policies for sexual harassment and abuse. Those are all factors that researchers say can affect stress levels during pregnancy.

Judge Laura Safer Espinoza, a retired New York State Supreme Court justice and current executive director of the Fair Food Standards Council, said those conditions can directly affect maternal health.

“The increased compensation, the respectful workplace where women don’t have to leave their dignity at the farm gate in order to earn the money that their families need — I think that’s huge in terms of having a more beneficial result for their babies and their health generally,” she said…

Born in Naples’ backyard

The program grew out of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which was founded in 1993 to fight wage theft, abuse and forced labor in Southwest Florida’s agricultural industry.

At the time, federal prosecutors described Immokalee as “ground zero for modern-day slavery” due to multiple labor trafficking cases.

The Fair Food Program launched in 2011 and established a system of worker protections backed by legally binding agreements with major buyers that require them to source from farms that meet a code of conduct.

“The Fair Food Program is a human rights transformation that was born in Naples’ own backyard. It’s now the leading paradigm of human rights enforcement in global supply chains,” Safer Espinoza said.

“That’s something that Naples residents can really be proud of, especially the ones that have supported the Fair Food Program and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers over decades.”

Could this model influence public health beyond agriculture? Migrant Justice celebrates the signing of Ben & Jerry’s to participate in Milk with Dignity protecting dairy workers

The study raises questions about whether workplace standards can shape health outcomes on a broader scale.

Rubalcaba said the research was designed to move beyond correlation and examine cause and effect.

“It provided an opportunity to identify how changes in wages and working conditions for low-wage workers impacted health outcomes. As an economist, methodologically, what we were thinking about is, we want to make these causal claims, not just associations.”

Rubalcaba suggests the program’s model could apply to other low-wage industries where workers face similar economic and environmental pressures.

How far has the program expanded?

What started on a farm in Collier County has expanded into a global effort.

The Fair Food Program now operates across 22 states and has efforts in countries including Chile and South Africa. Its model has also inspired similar programs in the garment industry in Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as dairy farms in Vermont.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recognized the Fair Food Program as a “gold standard” for worker protections, offering financial incentives to growers who join.

Around the same time the Naples Daily News was casting a light on the FFP’s multi-generational impact, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s news service was also heralding the program transformative power. Below are some key excerpts from their own coverage, which you can read in full by clicking here.

Giving babies a better chance at life by improving farmworker conditions Study finds positive results for program with Presbyterian ties

LOUISVILLE — A program that has been protecting the rights of migrant farmworkers for more than a  decade has a new reason to be proud: Researchers have found that it’s good for infants and their hard-working mothers. 

A study in the journal Demography centers on the Fair Food Program(FFP), which was started about 15 years ago by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a longtime partner of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

Farms that participate in the Fair Food Program agree to uphold ethical labor standards to ensure that migrant workers receive health and safety protections and fair wages. There’s a code of conduct aimed at eliminating abusive practices that workers would otherwise be vulnerable to…

Farmworkers in GA receive an on-the-clock, worker-to-worker education session

PHP National Hunger Associate Andrew Kang Bartlett was pleased to hear of the results.

“As longtime supporters of the CIW, we are thrilled to see the Fair Food Program create tangible benefits for the children of farmworkers!” Kang Bartlett said. “This groundbreaking study is a powerful affirmation that dignity at work is inseparable from health and life itself. The research makes clear that protecting those who harvest our food is essential to nurturing the next generation and building a truly just food system.”

Safer Espinoza, a retired New York State Supreme Court justice, welcomed the results as well. 

“We were very pleasantly surprised that the research yielded such concrete, measurable results. But when you think about it, the difference in the environment that’s been created is so dramatic that it makes perfect sense this would be one of the outcomes,” she said.

“The kinds of conditions that lead to healthy pregnancies are much more present for female workers on Fair Food Program farms than outside the program,” she added. “For starters, as the researchers found, their income is better, so they’re not subject to wage theft. They receive the Fair Food Program premium, so they’re able to feed themselves and their growing families better. And then everyone knows that working in less dangerous conditions, free of sexual harassment, free of verbal harassment, free of threat of violence and general worry about retaliation if you enforce or attempt to enforce your rights under the law — all of that makes for so much less stress and healthier pregnancies all around…” read more

While the PC(USA) article begins with the proposition that the Fair Food Program “has a new reason to be proud,” the truth is that the entire Fair Food Nation has reason to celebrate the extraordinary findings of the UNC and Indiana University public health research teams. Tens of thousands of farmworkers who fought to win the right to serve as frontline monitors of their own rights over the past 25 years. Hundreds of thousands of consumers — students, people of faith, labor and community allies, and more — who joined farmworkers from Immokalee in marches, fasts, and boycotts in communities across the country. Together, they helped make real a new kind of food system: Fair Food.

Together they — or perhaps better said, together we — built a movement capable of taking on one of the most powerful industries in the world and achieving changes once thought impossible: helping to end generations of modern-day slavery, sexual harassment and assault, dangerous working conditions, wage theft, and discrimination in the fields. The remarkable findings of this groundbreaking public health study are just the latest evidence of the profound impact that struggle has had on workers’ lives and on their families and their communities.

So wherever you are today, take a moment to recognize what you have been part of: an unprecedented movement for justice led by workers who had endured exploitation and abuse for generations, but who stood up and fought for their rights, their dignity, and their futures. And by winning not only new rights, but the power to help monitor and enforce those rights in the fields, farmworkers and their allies have measurably improved the lives of workers and their children alike in ways no one could have imagined back in 2001 when the boycott was launched and the cry first went up in Immokalee, “Taco Bell makes farmworkers poor!”

Check back soon for more news from the Campaign for Fair Food and the expansion of the Fair Food Program.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum appeared in front of the House Natural Resources Committee yesterday to defend President Donald Trump’s 2027 Interior department budget request. Today’s hearing follows Burgum’s appearances in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee, a Senate appropriations subcommittee, and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month.

At the hearing:

• Burgum refused to acknowledge that the American people are facing high energy prices due to Trump’s actions in the Middle East and his vendetta against renewable energy, falling back on his tired talking point that “the sun doesn’t shine” at night.

• Burgum struggled to defend Interior department spending on Trump’s vanity projects in Washington, D.C., like painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue and constructing a White House ballroom.

• Burgum pleaded ignorance when asked about the creation of Trump’s Freedom 250 group and corruption at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He also struggled to answer questions from Representatives Melanie Stansbury and Adelita Grijalva about massive proposed cuts to Bureau of Indian Affairs education programs.

“By refusing to take responsibility for his part in rising energy prices, Burgum is forsaking the American people in favor of fossil fuel executives,” Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Aaron Weiss said in a statement. “And in defending Trump’s vanity projects, Burgum is selling out national parks across the country to stroke President Trump’s ego.”

Quick hits Trump officials, billionaires, and the quiet reshaping of America’s public lands

Floodlight

Burgum grilled over Trump vanity projects, proposed budget cuts, how batteries work

The New Republic | SFGATE | The Hill | Heatmap | Mother Jones | E&E News

Drones enter Montana corner-crossing debate

Montana Free Press

BLM cancels bison grazing leases for American Prairie

Daily Montanan

Forest Service is not reorganizing, it is ‘dismantling,’ says union

FEDweek

Climate change starts a new clock on Colorado’s river runoff, study says

Colorado Sun

Opinion: Grand Staircase-Escalante faces a new kind of threat in Congress

Salt Lake Tribune

Editorial: Tax on foreigners shortchanges parks

Jackson Hole News & Guide

Quote of the day

We know public pressure works; it is up to us to apply it. This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the anti-parks and anti-public lands caucus. The same can be said for those of us who want nothing more than to protect them.”

—Ryan Gellert, Patagonia, Salt Lake Tribune

Picture This @vallescaldera

How many of our followers have caught this view of Valles Caldera from Pajarito Mountain?

Pajarito Mountain, Cerro Grande, Rabbit Mountain, and other nearby peaks form the caldera rim, offering outstanding views into and across this 14-mile-wide, circular depression in the Earth.

 

Featured image: Doug Burgum at the House Natural Resources Committee on May 13, 2026

The post Burgum struggles to defend Trump’s vanity projects, energy agenda appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Saving the planet is serious business — but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun along the way.

Twice a month cartoonist Tom Toro contributes single-panel environmental cartoons to The Revelator’s weekly newsletter. These exclusive cartoons use Toro’s uniquely odd way of looking at the world to skewer some of the issues threatening life on Earth — from climate change to pollution to the extinction crisis.

You can sign up to get these cartoons (and the rest of our newsletter) here:

Subscribe to our newsletter

But the published cartoon is just part of the story. After the finished cartoons are released into the wild, Toro also shares process videos detailing how he created them. The videos, posted to Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube (and perhaps some other social networks that haven’t descended into chaos), offer unique insight into how each cartoon is composed.

 

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“I make these process videos as a way to invite people into my studio and to enjoy the creative process,” Toro says. “But I also make them to celebrate the art of cartooning at its most fundamental, and fun, level.”

Sometimes making the videos even provides Toro with a few other opportunities to be creative. Or just to make silly voices.

 

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A post shared by Tom Toro (@tbtoro)

One great aspect of these videos is seeing the art build — from initial sketch to hand-drawn black-and-white line art, and then through the addition of incredibly detailed, painted gray tones.

 

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A post shared by Tom Toro (@tbtoro)

It’s all a welcome reminder of the power and effectiveness of physical art — and cartooning — in our digital age.

“Over the years I’ve made concessions to technology in my artistic process, sketching on digital tablets and making edits in Photoshop,” says Toro. “But I always draw my final cartoons with pen and paper. Nothing beats the tactile feel of creating something by hand. The way the ink soaks into the vellum; the momentary sheen before it dries, as if the lines are winking at me; the unpredictable bloom of watercolor across a wet patch. It’s incredibly fun. I feel as if I’m in conversation with the cartoon, as if we’re co-conspirators trying to figure things out on the fly.”

Sometimes the videos show things change as Toro layers on the details.

“Whenever mistakes happen — and they happen all the time — there’s no quick fix, no Control-Z undo,” he says. “I need to find a way to cope with the accidental mark, the sloppy daub, the errant splash. Or maybe I don’t try to correct it? Maybe I let it guide me in a new, unexpected direction? Maybe the mistake isn’t a mistake at all, but a discovery? One that I never would have stumbled upon in the digital realm.”

Watch more of Tom Toro’s process videos below — and seriously, sign up for the newsletter, which links to our latest articles and commentaries each week. We put a lot of heart (and humor) into every issue, and it always contains exclusives only available to subscribers.

 

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The post Tom Toro’s Environmental Cartoons: Process Videos appeared first on The Revelator.

State regulators will vote on whether to finalize a proposed decision by an administrative judge rejecting changes to the Community Renewable Energy Program sought by solar advocates.

The event marks three decades of the movement’s constant struggle to protect nature and uphold the dignity of rural communities.

The post Brazil: MPA Begins Fourth National Meeting in Brasília appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

This op-ed ran in several Kentucky papers in May 2026.

Over the past several decades, rural Kentucky has faced significant changes. In Eastern Kentucky, a shrinking tax base, population loss, and the decline of long-standing industries has made resilience an ever-changing challenge. Through it all, our communities have adapted and searched for new ways to build a stronger, more diverse economy.

Increasingly, a new crisis has emerged: the soaring cost of keeping the lights on. For small businesses and farms that are essential to our local economy, electric rates for commercial facilities have more than doubled over the last 20 years. When you layer in historic inflation, the math becomes overwhelming. Overhead costs eat away at already thin margins, forcing owners to choose between a new hire, a new piece of equipment, or simply paying the utility bill.

At Mountain Association, we have been supporting small businesses since 1976 and saw this energy crisis coming early. In 2008, as costs began their steep climb, we launched an energy savings program. Through this work we continually see one of the biggest challenges facing businesses is upfront capital.

That’s where the Rural Energy for America Program—REAP, for short—comes in. REAP is a federal program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that provides guaranteed loan financing and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for renewable energy systems or energy efficiency improvements. For a rural small business owner, that means a grant can cover up to 25 percent of the cost of solar more efficient HVAC system, LED lighting, or better insulation. These are the kinds of upgrades that pay for themselves in a short time, reducing overhead and improving the bottom line. But for many, the upfront cost is simply out of reach.

At Mountain Association, we have been packaging REAP grants for our clients since 2009. To date, our team has secured more than 60 REAP grants for small businesses and farms across Eastern Kentucky, totaling over $2.5 million for our clients. These energy savings projects keep rural businesses open and competitive. As a bonus, many of the projects are completed by local contractors, allowing those federal investments to go even further in supporting Eastern Kentucky’s economy. Without support from programs like REAP, some of the businesses and farms we work with simply won’t make it as costs continue to rise.

Mike Long is the general manager of Long’s Pic Pac in Pineville, a town of about 1,630 people in Southeastern Kentucky. His father started the business in 1964 with a $3,500 loan. Today, Mike is fighting to keep it the grocery store of choice for a community where the median household income is just $27,159. Grocery stores typically run on a razor-thin 2.2% profit margin. One bad year or one season of sky-high demand charges and a rural store can vanish.

For Long’s Pic Pac, a REAP grant funded 40% of a project to install solar panels on the store’s roof and a 60-kW battery. The battery can store excess solar energy and vastly reduce the punishing “demand charges” that make up more than half of the grocery’s monthly power bill. The result is an estimated cost savings of at least $15,000 per year—money that can go to staffing the deli, offsetting delivery costs, or simply keeping prices stable for families in Pineville. Long expects to pay back the entire cost of the project in just four years.

The need for this program has never been more urgent. With each devastating flood or winter storm, utility companies are forced to make expensive repairs to aging infrastructure. Businesses and ratepayers pay for those repairs through higher rates. As the frequency and intensity of these storms increase, utilities will continue passing those recovery costs back to us. For a business like Long’s Pic Pac living on a 2.2% margin, this compounding cycle of damage, recovery, and rate hikes is a threat to its existence.

REAP is a proven, efficient tool that uses modest federal investment to unlock private capital and lower operating costs. But it only works if it is funded and protected. It isn’t just an energy policy. It is the difference between closing the doors and keeping the lights on.

Josh Bills is the Senior Energy Analyst at the Mountain Association. He can be reached at josh@mtassociation.org.

The post Protect REAP, a federal program rural Kentucky can’t afford to lose appeared first on Mountain Association.

The British government has notified the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) that it will cut the contribution it pledged for 2024-2027 in half, a GCF spokesperson told Climate Home News.

The reduction, which is part of a wider UK shift from development aid to military spending, will restrict the GCF’s ability to fund projects that help developing countries cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

Harjeet Singh, director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, called the UK’s decision “moral bankruptcy”, noting that Britain has a historical responsibility for climate change “as a nation built on fossil-fuelled industrialisation”.

• Feb 21, 2025 News After US retreat, countries clash over who should make up Green Climate Fund shortfall At this week’s board meeting, Germany and Sweden encouraged wealthier developing nations to step up – an idea rejected by Saudi Arabia Read more
• Mar 19, 2026 Justice UK cuts support for climate action abroad to fund military instead The UK’s foreign minister said the cuts to the aid budget would “deliver the biggest increase in defence spending since the Cold War” Read more

Liane Schalatek, who observes GCF board meetings for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, said the UK’s move was “an unfortunate signal”, especially as it comes just before the GCF launches its next fundraising round.

She noted that the UK has been the biggest contributor to the GCF, and “with the UK halving – where doubling would be needed – this will give permission to others to do the same”.

There are fears that other countries could follow suit as governments in Europe trim their aid budgets, while the US has refused to deliver any further money under climate change-sceptic President Donald Trump and has also given up its seat on the GCF board.

The GCF was established in 2010, and has since funded over $15 billion of climate projects across the developing world. Its financing comes mainly from developed countries pledging money in regular replenishment rounds.

During the last GCF replenishment round in 2023, the UK’s previous Conservative government promised £1.622 billion ($2.18 billion) for the 2024-27 period, with then development minister Andrew Mitchell saying the pledge “underlines our sustained commitment to tackling climate change”.

But, as of March 2026, the UK had only handed over £655 million ($885 million) of that pledge, which is its third to the fund, and has now informed the GCF it will only deliver £815 million ($1.1 billion). The GCF’s total funding for the 2024-2027 period is $10.149 billion.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office declined to comment.

Approved projects unaffected

A GCF spokesperson told Climate Home News that all current projects under implementation have guaranteed funding while the GCF is assessing what the cuts mean for the projects that are being prepared and are expected to come before the GCF board in 2026 and 2027.

“Our focus will continue to be delivering the greatest impact with the investments we make, working with the largest network of partners in the financial architecture and mobilizing the greatest amount of resources to fulfill GCF’s critical and unique mandate,” the spokesperson said.

Scientists warn El Niño could intensify climate extremes in 2026

In a separate email to GCF board members, seen by Climate Home News, the GCF’s executive director Mafalda Duarte warned that the cuts are “expected to have a material impact” on the fund’s work over the next two years.

Duarte said the cuts were part of the UK wider decision to reduce international development spending “and invest more in addressing growing security threats”.

Development to military

Announcing this decision in March, UK foreign minister Yvette Cooper said the cuts were a “hugely difficult decision” and “not ideological”, but necessary “to deliver the biggest increase in defence spending since the Cold War”. The US has been pressuring countries in the NATO alliance to boost military budgets as conflict surges around the world, from Ukraine to the Middle East.

Cooper reiterated Labour’s commitment to restore overseas development spending to 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) “when fiscal circumstances allow”, but did not provide a timeline when pressed by an opposition member of parliament. UK aid was reduced from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI by the previous Conservative government in 2021, and is now set to fall further to 0.3%. 

While the UK government has claimed it is only cutting international climate finance by around 13% compared to the previous government’s level of spending, analysis by Carbon Brief suggests that the real figure is close to 50% once inflation and accounting changes are considered. 

The leadership of the UK is currently in doubt with several ministers from the ruling Labour Party calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign, with a challenge to his leadership of the party and country expected after poor local election results for Labour.

The post UK halves Green Climate Fund contribution, as it spends more on security appeared first on Climate Home News.

Canada’s forthcoming vehicle emissions standard (VES) will determine how quickly the country builds the charging network needed to support widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption. The federal government is expected to release draft VES regulations...

The Santa Marta summit moved beyond the blockages in the UN climate process, building a coalition of around 60 countries that want to tackle a shift away from fossil fuels. The host countries said the outcomes would feed into the voluntary roadmap on the energy transition being put together by COP30 hosts Brazil, which is due to be presented before COP31.

June’s mid-year climate talks in Bonn, followed by London Climate Action Week, will be key moments to reflect on the progress so far and work out ways to bring the strands closer together. How might that happen while fossil fuels remain the elephant in the UNFCCC room and there’s no formal place for a roadmap on the agenda?

Tune in to hear our expert reporters discussing this and other key topics set to headline at the Bonn session, both in the negotiations and on the sidelines! Questions and comments will be welcome from participants and used to inform our future coverage.

SPEAKERS:

• Host: Megan Rowling, editor at Climate Home News
• Guest #1: Sebastian Rodriguez, reporter for Climate Home News
• Guest #2: Joe Lo, news editor at Climate Home News
• Guest #3: Tais Gadea Lara, freelance climate journalist

DAY: Wednesday 27 May

TIME: 3pm UK time | 4pm Central Europe (CEST) | 10am US Eastern (EDT)

REGISTER HERE

Note: This event is exclusively for free essential users and paid subscribers of Climate Home News. If you’re not yet signed up, you can join us by clicking the “Subscribe Now” button.

The post Webinar: From Santa Marta to Bonn – where next for the fossil fuel transition? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Updates to the Global Methane Tracker 2026 confirm what Earthworks has been saying for more than a decade – the oil and gas methane problem is worse than companies are willing to admit. 

Despite Big Oil’s rhetoric about efforts to reduce methane emissions, the world is still far off track to stave off the worst effects of the climate crisis. Industry’s words may have changed (from climate denial to promises that industry is the solution), but our work in the oil and gas field still shows that actions haven’t. Or as the IEA, more neutrally, puts it: “transparency and reporting on abatement plans still lag the industry’s stated ambitions.”

Here are some big takeaways from the 2026 IEA Global Methane Tracker: 

Estimates are estimates…which involve little to no actual measurement

For over a decade Earthworks thermographers have been documenting pollution throughout the upstream and midstream sector at an alarming rate – often this pollution is going unreported until we discover it. Over the years it has become clear to us that pollution estimates are just that…estimates, which contain little to no actual measurements. We are happy to see that the IEA has developed new methodologies that incorporate actual measurements to supplement and reconcile company reported estimates and claims. 

Detection has improved, yet industry still refuses to act

The IEA Global Methane Tracker also points to another major issue we have been sounding the alarm on for years – even when problems are identified companies rarely take action. 

The IEA (via information from the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS)) looked at satellite based methane emissions detections and alerts at both the global and country level and found that globally only 12% of methane detection alerts were responded to in 2025. In the United States, the issue is far worse. According to the Global Methane Tracker, “Since 2022, the Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) has tracked 1,300 super-emitting oil and gas-related events in the United States – about 10% of the global total.” – that makes the United States one of the super-emitting countries. However, according to a 2025 report by the UNEP (the administrators of the MARS system) the United States has one of the lowest response rates at an abysmal 2%. 

In other words, US oil and gas companies are massive methane polluters. They claim to have the tools to stop the pollution (just read the methane reductions section of any oil and gas company’s annual climate report – here is TotalEnergies for example). They just don’t seem to take action to actually stop the pollution. What is most puzzling is that the IEA also finds that “around 30% of methane emissions from fossil fuel operations could be reduced at no cost.”

Integrity & Transparency Concerns on Gas Certification Schemes 

Furthermore, “actions” that the industry have taken are shrouded in questions. For instance, gas certification efforts from companies like Project Canary, which claim to certify companies’ methane emissions, often don’t hold up under independent scrutiny. Through our field work we even discovered that some of these efforts are little more than greenwashing. The IEA report references our effort (with OCI and the GasLeaks Project) to encourage Senator Markey (D-MA), a member of the Senate Committee on Consumer Protection, Technology, and Data Privacy (which oversees the FTC) to address certification schemes within the FTC.

Although certification typically involves independent third-party verification of emissions (enhancing buyers’ trust in reported emissions), it also faces its own unique challenges. Measurement-based quantification is not always required, raising the risk that methane emissions could be underestimated. Although volumes of certified natural gas reached 320 bcm in 2024 (roughly 7.5% of global output), certification remains concentrated in the North American upstream natural gas sector, with limited uptake outside this segment. Questions have also been raised about the integrity and transparency of some schemes, casting doubt on the reliability of emissions reported under them.

Raising the Bar: Data to Action at Earthworks

Optical gas image of pollution at Shell Plastics Plant in Beaver, County, Pennsylvania. Taken 16 February 2026.

Methane detection tools are expanding and improving. Data is becoming more available, often at no cost. Earthworks is expanding its use of satellite technology to guide and strengthen our existing ground-truthing of oil & gas pollution harms using our optical gas imaging cameras. Yet, as the IEA report shows, what was true of industry and pollution before remains true today: without proper accountability, polluters will continue to pollute.

This is especially true now with The the U.S. Trump Administration’s pay-to-play EPA stopped enforcing oil and gas methane regulations on March 12, 2025 and recently reaffirmed its intention to roll back methane standards for new and existing sources as outlined in the 2024 EPA Methane Rule. That rule is one of the best levers that everyday people across the country have currently to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for methane pollution.

We believe the narrative must change to reflect the objective truth about polluters. The obvious discrepancy between industry rhetoric and data must translate into public skepticism of every oil & gas climate claim. The facts must translate into known truth so that the well-earned pressure from the public demands industry actually take action to stop polluting the air we breathe and the climate we depend on.

We believe accountability must be universal and enforced by government policies that put people before polluters.

We believe this industry must be phased out. Detection and significant reductions in methane pollution are essential, but only as a bandaid fix. Cuts to pollution facility-by-facility only buy us time to enact other energy solutions to the climate crisis. But not even those work if the number of facilities continue to expand and total methane emissions increase.

Earthworks Data 2 Action To Date

•  Polluter of the Month series with partner Gas Leaks to shine a light on the biggest inconsistencies between the words and actions of the biggest polluters in the US.
• Report on Appalachian Super-emitters found nearly 100 oil and gas emission events in the Appalachian Basin, unknowingly exposing nearby communities to harmful carcinogens.
• Our work has always been covered in a Financial Times article that identified as repeat polluters several companies who advertise themselves as less polluting companies.

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The post Big Oil’s Big Methane is still a Big Problem appeared first on Earthworks.

Nature is full of fascinating creatures that produce light. From fireflies putting on mesmerizing summer displays to fish that glow eerily in the depths of the ocean, this bioluminescence is a result of chemical reactions that produce flashes of light.

In a new study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers have harnessed bioluminescent sea-dwelling algae to produce a light source that glows blue without the need for electricity or toxic chemicals. The advance could lead use in living sensors that monitor water quality, autonomous robots that work in dark environments, and eco-friendly consumer lighting such as glow sticks.

“I was curious if we could create a world in which we don’t use electricity but rather use biology to produce light,” said Wil Srubar, a civil, environmental and architectural engineering professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, in a press release. “This discovery really paves the way for engineering other living light materials and devices.”

Marine algae species such as Pyrocystis lunula produce cold blue light that is visible from the water surface. The photosynthetic organisms, which survive on sunlight and carbon dioxide, flash when they are agitated by waves, passing boats, or swimmers. The spectacular light show draws visitors to beaches in the nighttime.

But the sparking light from the glowing algae lasts for only a few milliseconds at a time. The glow is also unpredictable and is hard to control.

Acidic (top) and basic (bottom) environments trigger different bioluminescent behaviors in algae. Credit: Giulia Brachi

Researchers at UC Boulder decided to use chemistry to get the marine organisms to sustain their luminescence. In the past, researchers have suggested that exposing P. lunula to various chemical compounds could activate the algae’s luminescence reaction.

So Srubar and colleagues exposed the algae to two solutions. One was acidic, with a pH of 4, similar to that of tomato juice, while the other was a basic solution with a pH of 10, comparable to mild soap. The acidic solution was a hit. Algae in the solution stayed brightly lit for 25 minutes.

For a more practical way to use the algae, the researchers embedded the organisms into various 3D-printed objects made with naturally-derived hydrogel. In these constructs, the algae survived for weeks while glowing when exposed to the acidic solution. After four weeks, the acid-treated examples still retained 75 percent of their brightness.

Srubar and colleagues are now exploring whether P. lunula may respond to various chemicals. The goal is to harness the algae to light up when exposed to toxins and serve as a tool for water quality monitoring.

Source: Giulia Brachi et al. Chemical stimulation sustains bioluminescence of living light materials. Science Advances, 2026.

Top image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

The complaint at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission comes amid growing concern about electric affordability and calls for stricter vetting of local transmission projects.

Gippsland wind project gains planning permit, but still has to win over neighbours who brought down the first iteration.

The post Revamped Gippsland wind project wins state approval, but still to win over some near neighbours appeared first on Renew Economy.

The campaign to restore the Everglades has received a boost with completion of a key project that returns the flow of water to 55,000 acres that had once been drained for development. Experts see it as a major step forward in bringing back South Florida’s River of Grass.

Read more on E360 →

Headline News:

• “Tomatoes, Seafood, And More: Grocery Prices Are Soaring” • Grocery prices in the US increased fastest in April of any month in nearly four years, driving up the cost of foods from tomatoes and frankfurters to cupcakes, government data this week showed. The jump in food prices stems in part from a historic oil shock set off by the Iran war. [ABC News]

Groceries (nrd, Unsplash, cropped)

• “China Goes Electric, But Can It Get Off Coal?” • China has achieved the goal of adding 1,200 GW of wind and solar capacity by 2030 five years ahead of schedule. China produces over 80% of the world’s solar panels, helping drive down costs and speed up the clean energy transition globally. But clean energy boom has not yet displaced coal. [DW.com]
• “Oil Stocks Drain At Record Pace As IEA Warns Of Renewed Price Swings” • More than ten weeks into the war in the Middle East, global oil inventories are being depleted at a record pace, over 100 million barrels per month, as disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz tightens supplies, according to the International Energy Agency. [Euronews]
• “Taihan Adds Skandi Connector To Cable Vessel Fleet” • Taihan signed a sales and purchase agreement with Norway-based DOF Group to acquire the cable laying vessel Skandi Connector. The Korean company said it would use the 10,000-tonne CLV to establish a two-track submarine cable installation system, along with its existing vessel PALOS. [reNews]
• “Alsym Partners With Juniper For 500 MWh Of Sodium-Ion Grid-Scale Battery Storage” • It wasn’t that long ago that sodium-ion batteries were little more than a curiosity. But while we were not looking, they suddenly leaped from the lab to large scale production, offering lower prices, improved performance, and virtually no risk of fires. [CleanTechnica]

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

IT’S MY FIRST DAY in Fort Good Hope, and I drive to a camp near the edge of town. I add my borrowed truck to a row of a dozen others, climb out, and then make my way toward a cluster of people. At the centre of camp, Elders are instructing the younger women in a mix of Dene and English, teaching them how to tan moose and caribou hides. The process is intensive: scraping, washing, wringing, stretching, hanging, smoking, rinsing, stitching. It can take weeks, I am told, to tan a single hide, and nobody will finish one this afternoon. 

The mood is light and happy. After observing for a while, I follow the sound of laughter from a few yards away, coming from a plywood-and-sheet metal camp kitchen. I shyly poke my head through the door to see a functional kitchen space and a few women preparing food. I sit down at the table, and people stream in and out to snack on scattered plates of fruit, crackers, and cheese. Everyone chats and laughs together. People are receiving me politely, but not necessarily warmly, so I sit quietly and try to absorb everything going on around me.

After a while, the snack plates are swept away to make room for tinfoil pans heaped with mashed potatoes, pork chops, and salad. People from all around camp stream inside to serve up. The plywood bench seats fill. After a long day of travel, I gratefully accept the paper plate full of food offered to me by one of the cooks. After a while, someone asks what I’m doing in town. When I explain that I had been invited to stay for two months to interview people about Imperial Oil’s nearby oilfield for my research, the mood becomes tense. Two women halfheartedly joke that I should give back the food if I’m working with Imperial Oil. 

Once I clear up the misunderstanding, explaining that I’m here as a university student and not as an employee of Imperial Oil, people are immediately more comfortable, and the mood lifts. I’m told I can keep my plate. A man jokes that I should get a T-shirt that says “Not With Imperial,” and the room laughs. We all finish our dinners, and I am offered dessert.

That summer, I spent two months conducting research in the tiny, fly-in-fly-out community of Fort Good Hope (Rádeyı̨lı̨kóé), a few kilometers south of the Arctic Circle.

Most people who live in Fort Good Hope are Dene or Métis. In this Indigenous belief system, humans and other-than-humans are tied together in a complex web of relations, bound by relationships based on respect and reciprocity.

The region’s Indigenous peoples’ cultures believe that land, water, humans, air, and animals are sentient. All beings hold power, agency, and value, as all are equal. All beings speak, even the land. The Fort Good Hope Dene and Métis people have their own distinct culture, history, and traditions. They are called the K’asho Got’ine. 

A Short History of the Norman Wells Oilfield

More than 100 years ago, in 1919, a settler working for Imperial Oil “discovered” oil on the banks of the Mackenzie River. Nearly overnight, the region was transformed. Within two years, the Norman Wells Oilfield was established, and the town of Norman Wells sprung up nearby to house its employees. Its size, output, and impact have since grown dramatically. The oilfield has been harmful to the K’asho Got’ine way of life, all while enormously benefitting Imperial Oil. In the 1980s, against the wishes of local people, the oilfield underwent a massive expansion, which included the construction of six artificial islands in the middle of the Mackenzie River.

The very embodiment of colonial extraction, a company from southern Canada extracting oil from Indigenous territory for more than a century, has a fitting, almost cartoonishly evil name: Imperial Oil. The company owns two-thirds of the Norman Wells Oilfield, and the Government of Canada owns the other third.

In years when Imperial Oil makes $200 million in revenue, and the Canadian government additionally makes $100 million, local people receive less than $300k in total royalties and only $100-200k in donations.

As of December 2020, fewer than 20% of the employees at the Norman Wells Oilfield are Indigenous to the Sahtú Region, though the workforce does fluctuate. Employment is not a notable benefit for the region.

“We don’t have anything to show for Imperial Oil having been here… Show me the library. Show me the art centre. Show me the Traditional Knowledge centre for Sahtú. Show me the swimming pool for the kids. Show me all those things that were left behind as a legacy,” said Ethel Blondin-Andrew, the first Indigenous Member of Parliament in Canada at a public hearing. Later, she added that if Imperial Oil had done positive things for the Sahtú, they were “well hidden, because I’ve been looking.”

After over a century of oil extraction, Imperial Oil has announced that they are closing the oilfield.

The company submitted a portion of its closure plan in 2022, starting with a proposal for a waste management facility. Sahtú people did not want the oilfield. They vocally opposed its expansion in the 1980s. They have experienced minimal financial benefit and extensive detriment for over a century. And yet, despite the harm brought to the North by Imperial Oil, the company’s official statement reads: “A made-in-the-north solution is appropriate rather than expecting the South to accept the North’s waste” (emphasis added). The Sahtú Secretariat Incorporated shared that they consider “this statement to be a most egregious one, bordering on colonialism… Such thinking reflects badly on the company and makes light of the sacrifices the people of the Sahtú have made over the past one hundred years.”

The company just doesn’t seem to understand how much damage they have done. 

The Value of Reciprocity

One day, a local man sat me down on a stack of pallets beside the grocery store. One story he shared that day, among many others, was that if you hit a caribou with a stick, you would never see another one. I had no plans to hit any caribou, so this did not mean much to me. He also told me that people from Fort Good Hope used to catch and dry herring in huge volumes, sometimes hundreds in a day. He lamented that it had been over 30 years since anybody had pulled that much herring out of the Mackenzie.

These two stories remained separate in my mind for weeks. Throughout my time in the Sahtú region, dozens of people warned me not to hit a caribou with a stick. I didn’t understand why everybody was telling me this. Did I look like a person who would hit a caribou?

People also recounted stories of pulling herring out of the river by the bucketful, setting up camps to dry them, selling those dried fish to the Northern Store by the bale, and feeding herring to their dog teams during the winter. Then, they would note that herring had become a rarity to catch since the 1980s, just after the oilfield expansion.

The two threads finally came together for me when another Elder went through the familiar story and imparted the same warning about hitting caribou. This Elder explained that the contamination from the islands being constructed, the noise made by trucks and heavy machinery when it was being built, the siltation and contamination, then taking so much oil and using so much water, combined with our lack of respect, amounted to mistreatment of the fish. The herring had disappeared, he believed, because expanding and operating the oilfield was like hitting a caribou with a stick.

K’asho Got’ine place incredible value on the value of reciprocity. A community – and its culture – doesn’t survive thousands of years in the harsh Arctic without treating one another and the land well. If your fish net is extra full one week, you give some fish to your neighbour. Then, if you have an unsuccessful hunt that autumn, another neighbour might share some moose with you. All beings take care of one another. If we are good to the fish, they will remain. If we strike the caribou, they will disappear.

Violating the reciprocal relationship between people and land, whether by hitting a caribou with a stick or by extracting oil at Norman Wells violates this important rule.

Settlers have continually taken from the land, and she has started taking back. The cost of our disrespect has so far been the near-disappearance of an entire species. What else will she take from us before we learn to listen? Imperial Engagement

In 2004, Elder Lucy Jackson said in a public hearing for Imperial Oil’s water license renewal: “We live on the fish right down the Mackenzie Valley, and the ecosystem is really a concern to the peoples. […] So, I question the credibility of how that is safe for eating.”

Ten years later, in 2014, at a hearing for Imperial Oil’s next Water License Renewal, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, the first Indigenous woman to serve in Canadian Parliament and as a federal cabinet minister, spoke. In her role as President of the Sahtú Secretariat Incorporated, acting as a representative of Indigenous people in the Sahtú region, Blondin-Andrew said that she was “not prepared to eat those fish.”

In 2024, at another public hearing, yet another community member said: “I am hesitant to eat any fish that comes out of the river today. I am worried about the effects of possible contaminants.” Many others echoed this sentiment.

Despite whatever the results of Imperial Oil’s scientific monitoring may show, if these studies are not done with full transparency and community input, if the results are not explained in ways that are easy to understand, and if they are not done in ways that build trust, the results will not matter to the community. As it stands, Imperial Oil maintains that they are not at fault. The K’asho Got’ine have their doubts.

I interviewed dozens of people in Fort Good Hope about their experiences with Imperial Oil for my Master’s research. I asked how they’d been engaged with the upcoming Norman Wells Oilfield closure planning, how they’d felt about that engagement, and what they wanted out of future engagement. I also spoke with many others on the phone, over cups of tea, at community barbecues, at the sewing club, bingo night, graduation, on boats, and at all kinds of town activities.

What I found out is that Imperial Oil’s past engagement with the K’asho Got’ine has long been ineffective because it has not been appropriate for the local culture, governance approach, or style of communication. The rare times Imperial Oil does engage with the community, the information it shares is packed with technical jargon that’s hard to follow. These sessions often feel more like lectures than conversations. People say their questions are brushed aside, or the answers they get don’t match what they asked. Trust in the company has eroded. By ignoring local values of respect and reciprocity, Imperial’s attempts at engagement and consultation have missed the mark.

The herring is another example of this. Imperial Oil’s studies do not engage with ideas of respect or reciprocity, and because Western science cannot see the connection between oilfield operations and the disappearance of herring, Imperial Oil has determined that there is no connection. 

Imperial Oil has announced its intention to close the oilfield. With the closure now approaching, we need to reaffirm the K’asho Got’ine right to lead the reclamation. They must be allowed to define how the land should be used in the future, how to handle the waste safely, and how to repair relationships with the land. K’asho Got’ine must set standards for cleanup, and must be allowed to decide what constitutes “clean” and “safe.” 

The land is speaking, the K’asho Got’ine are telling us so. Yet, we continue not to listen. Their water is polluted, their fish are disappearing. We are not listening. We are only talking. Listening to the Land

I have returned to the Sahtú Region many times since that first visit. I’ve had dinners of fish that I pulled out of a net on a frozen lake, lain in the snow watching the northern lights dance, turned sticky spruce tips into tea for a friend’s sore throat, and sewn beads onto moose hide in front of a warm woodstove. I’ve waved hello to wildflowers, hand-picked blueberries to eat with ice cream, swam in the Rabbitskin river on hot days, and watched a blazing orange sunset last for hours. I have begun to understand the reverence with which people discuss the Mackenzie River, the nearby lakes, the paths that wind around town. I, myself, have begun to love the land. And slowly, I have begun to hear the land whispering, but I can’t quite make out what she’s saying.

At the end of a recent trip, I had the window seat on the flight out. These small planes fly pretty low, so I kept my eyes glued to the ground nearly the entire time. I spotted something out the window, and as we drew closer and it came into focus, I asked the man beside me what I was looking at. With great surprise and joy, he told me that what I witnessed that day should be a secret between me and the land, to tell nobody what she said. He told me what the land was saying and how lucky I was to hear it. He has heard her loud and clear for his entire life. I only heard a fragment of what she said that day, and my, oh my, what she said was beautiful.

For over 100 years, the relationship between Imperial Oil and the K’asho Got’ine has been far from reciprocal, almost uniformly extractive, mirrored by Imperial’s relationship with the land. Imperial Oil has spent centuries taking, stealing, and extracting. 

Its disrespect has pumped billions of dollars in oil out of the ground, nearly extirpated an entire species of fish, and polluted a waterway that sustains an entire people. Despite enormous profit, very little has benefitted those who live and rely on the land. Finally, though, Imperial Oil has taken almost all it can take. 

We must make sure Imperial Oil gives back. Let us learn from the people of the Sahtú how to repay the land for all we have taken from her. If you, like me, cannot truly hear the land, then you must trust those who can. 

The land speaks to the K’asho Got’ine, and they have been trying to translate for us. All we need to do is listen.

–

This piece was edited by Sahtú Dene writer, Dakota Erutse

Citation:

King, Annie. “After a Century of Oil Extraction: Reclaiming the River at Norman Wells,” Yellowhead Institute. May 14, 2026. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2026/after-a-century-of-oil-extraction-reclaiming-the-river-at-norman-wells

Artwork: Coming in Under the Lights, Antoine Mountain

The post After a Century of Oil Extraction: Reclaiming the River at Norman Wells appeared first on Yellowhead Institute.