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File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

Across New York City, food system inclusivity is foundational to building healthier neighborhoods and a flourishing city life. And that’s not unique to the Big Apple: Food policy is central to urban well-being in any and every city—and both public and private institutions have a role to play.

“You can’t talk about food and climate and health without talking about culture and community and connection,” Siddhartha Sanchez, Executive Director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, said during a Climate Week NYC Summit, “People-Focused. Climate-Friendly. Food-Forward New York City.” The event was co-hosted by Food Tank in partnership with Support + Feed, Strong Roots, and the NYC Mayor’s Office. 

Watch the livestream recording on Food Tank’s YouTube channel. 

“Food connects us. And it’s what makes this city so amazing,” says Helen Arteaga, New York City Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services. “Food not only nourishes our bodies but also nourishes our minds, (and) more importantly, makes us share our stories.”

In terms of civic institutions that can drive change, schools are among the most powerful—both as sites for food system education and as incubators for innovative solutions that can be scaled up once they’re proven successful. 

“We hope that the healthy eating habits that they’re learning early on carry into adulthood,” says Brittany Saffold, Director of Partnerships, Communication, and Retention with New York City Public Schools. “How do we take something that’s happening at one school and put it citywide?”

At the Climate Week Summit, for example, students from Francis Lewis Culinary High School prepared climate-friendly recipes for attendees to try and gave an overview of the process of creating meals for events.

“We don’t just learn about cooking; we learn about food preparation and safety—and all these experiences grow all of us as people,” one student says. 

And getting the next generation of chefs and urban food system leaders engaged requires creativity.

“Gen Z wants delicious food that’s also good for the planet and on the right mission,” says Emma Curtis, Managing Director of Strong Roots. “Brands have got to do a good job at making it exciting.”

Artists can also drive important, exciting change. During the Summit at Climate Week, attendees were able to view a special pop-up exhibition of a project by illustrator Kevin Nakagawa to spotlight food memories in residential facilities for New Yorkers with disabilities, alongside Open Doors. You can view a video on the project here.

“When you listen to community, you not only hear the direct impact policies have on community but the lived reality of someone that’s failed by the system,” Sanchez said. “Folks have endless ideas, and the job of the government is to listen.”

Or, take Maggie Baird as an example. She’s the Founder and President of Support + Feed and the mother of artists Billie Eilish and Finneas. 

“When we book a tour, we tell arenas upfront what our requirements are, and some of those are at least three plant-based mains,” she said. “I feel like my life is so much better for being a plant-based eater … I think we need to share that joy and help people understand it’s not about what you take away; it’s what you add in.”

Even though they’re often disregarded, institutions like prisons are connected to the food system, too and have significant procurement power.

“We do everything we can with the resources that we have,” says Norman Priester, Executive Director of the Nutrition Service Division at the NYC Department of Correction. “Sourcing locally is always our priority when possible. … It provides the healthiest options.”

This is city life: Complex, but an environment where real change is possible with cross-disciplinary partnerships and engaged consumers.

“Be curious about your food environment,” says Ora Kemp, Senior Policy Advisor at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Food Policy. “It’s all unique to the land that you’re on.”

Explore the entire Food Tank event schedule during Climate Week NYC 2026, and live-stream every Summit on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

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

Photo by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.

The post NYC Is Leading The Charge Toward People-Focused Urban Food Policy appeared first on Food Tank.

Planting a tree in the Amazon does a lot less for the rainforest than simply leaving one alone. That’s the uncomfortable arithmetic in new research on Brazil’s jungles.

Faced with a dollar to spend on the rainforest, scientists found, you’re almost always better off protecting what’s already standing than paying to regrow what’s gone. The gap isn’t small: preventing deforestation or stopping logging and fires delivered far more carbon storage and biodiversity than restoration did, for a fraction of the cost, according to new research in Science.

And while efforts to save rainforests often focus on halting the conversion to open land, it turns out squelching logging and fires could bring even more benefits for biodiversity.

“Protection must go beyond avoiding deforestation,” said Leonardo Miranda, the study’s lead author and a biodiversity researcher at the United Kingdom’s Lancaster University. “Avoiding forest disturbances from wildfires or logging delivered the greatest benefits for forest biodiversity.”

The insights are based on the fate of more than 3 million hectares of land across Santarém and Paragominas, areas in northern Brazil, between 2010 and 2020. Using satellite images to track the condition of the forests there down to the level roughly a square kilometer, the scientists found that during the decade, nearly 160,000 hectares were entirely deforested, 273,000 were either burned or logged, and almost 130,000 hectares regrew into forest.

What would have happened to the carbon and wildlife on that land if policies had prevented all deforestation, or all logging and wildfires, or if reforestation had sped up to hit established government targets? To compare those scenarios, the scientists built computer models showing alternate versions of the jungle in 2020. They then used detailed measurements of wildlife and carbon taken in 2010 at 381 locations scattered across the jungle to estimate how these different “2020” worlds would have affected biodiversity and carbon storage.

 

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The results showed the biggest benefits came from avoiding deforestation (61% more carbon and 24% more biodiversity compared to the real 2020) or preventing logging and fires (47% for carbon and 69% more biodiversity). Both far outranked the benefits of the newly regrown forest (15% more carbon and 7% more biodiversity).

The differences between deforestation and what the scientists called more subtle “disturbance” probably come down to the different dynamics influencing carbon and wildlife, and what patches of land were affected by each kind of forest damage. Full deforestation can wipe out much more of the carbon stored in trees and the forest floor, but it tends to occur at the edges of places that have already been cleared. Those areas already have less wildlife in them, so saving that land came with fewer biodiversity benefits, the scientists concluded. By contrast, even disturbed forest held onto more carbon. But wildfires and logging tended to hit more remote, intact forests filled with more wildlife.

Still, to increase both carbon and wildlife levels in the jungle it takes more than one strategy, the scientists found.  “Net-gains in biodiversity and carbon storage were only achieved” when both deforestation and disturbance were halted, said Miranda. “Combined interventions will be even more important as climate change progresses, especially as forest restoration can be particularly vulnerable to wildfires.”

In addition to being more effective, preventing forest loss is also cheaper. The researchers calculated the cost of each strategy, both in terms of money spent and lost opportunities, such as earnings from crops grown on former forests. For every Brazilian real (the country’s currency) it cost, the biodiversity and carbon benefits of regrowing forest were a tiny fraction of the gains from protecting existing forests.

In other words, it might be politically easier to replant abandoned pastures than to tell large companies and land speculators they can’t touch the forest, or to establish new fire-fighting programs. But economically and environmentally, it’s foolhardy.

“Investing in new forests makes little sense if, at the same time, we fail to protect existing forests,” said Joice Ferreira, a co-author and scientist at Embrapa, a Brazilian research organization. “Otherwise, we are pouring money into a leaky pot.”

Miranda, et. al. “Protecting tropical forests is more cost-effective for biodiversity and climate than restoration.” Science. Sept. 17, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Council officers have allowed the access track to remain to the former Broadford Bridge oil exploration site in West Sussex.

Broadford Bridge access track

The site, near Billingshurst, has been suspended for about eight years. The operator, UK Energy Group plc (formerly UK Oil & Gas plc), is subject to official enforcement action to return the well pad to farmland.

But the track, originally constructed in about 2015, can remain, following a decision this week.

The planning permission was granted to Sheila Francis by county council officers on 21 September 2026 under delegated powers. It did not go to a planning committee meeting of councillors. Link to planning application

The approval allows retention of the 4.5m wide, 400m long track. It also permits the installation of two new 5-bar steel agricultural gates with Adversane Lane.

It requires the applicant to submit a landscaping plan within six months. This is expected to include belts of native shrub planning alongside parts of the track.

According to a report on the application, there were no objections from local councils. Three objections from members of the public focused on:

• Failure to adhere to previous commitments/planning requirements to restore the land following completion of temporary hydrocarbon exploration activities.
• No agricultural need demonstrated
• Impacts on historic landscape character
• Loss of agricultural land
• Loss of habitat and potential impacts on biodiversity

The report by planning officer, James Neave, said:

“it is considered that the development would support the needs of agriculture and would likely result in modest operational benefits to agricultural practices”.

The report also said:

“the proposed development would suitably integrate with its countryside setting and not give rise to any unacceptable landscape character or visual impacts.

“It is further considered that agricultural use of the track would be consistent with established farming activities and would not lead to any significant increase in the overall level of activity in the countryside.”

Planning breach

The Broadford Bridge exploration site, at Woodbarn Farm, has had no planning permission since March 2024 when West Sussex County Council refused an application for a fifth extension of consent. Before that, the site had been mothballed since 2018.

An operation to plug and abandon two Broadford Bridge wells ended in February 2026.

But the well pad, fencing, gates and soil bunds remain, despite a planning condition requiring the operator to return the site to farmland. West Sussex County Council took enforcement action in January 2025 and February 2026.

The officer’s report said:

“the main well pad and associated bund and fencing are in the process of being removed/the land resorted [restored] to agriculture.”

It added:

“The site is subject to live enforcement action (Breach of Condition Notices), that require the restoration of the site by the end of 2026.”

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The post Other Features Offered by Togel123 Login Alternatif appeared first on HAMBACHFOREST.

Everything in the food system is interrelated, from agriculture to nutrition to medicine to climate. And among these institutions, farms are the connective tissue that binds them together, panelists said at Climate Week NYC. The way food is grown, raised, and produced shapes its nutritional value and, ultimately, its impact on eaters’ well-being.

Ranchers, chefs, scientists, business leaders, and health experts joined an engaged crowd for the Food Tank Summit “Nourishing the Future: How Farming Practices Shape the Food We Eat, the Health We Build, and the Longevity We Seek,” in partnership with Diestel Family Ranch.

Watch the livestream recording on Food Tank’s YouTube channel. 

“Everything starts in the soil; everything is grounded in the soil,” says Heidi Diestel, a 4th Generation Family Farmer at Diestel Family Ranch. “The family farmers are the ones who have figured out not just how to farm, innovate, and market the products, but help people understand the value (of healthy food).”

The connection between better farming practices and healthier food is not theoretical—it’s science. Everything from animal health to soil biology to regenerative production practices on the farm helps shape the nutritional value of crops that leave the farm, which in turn shapes public health outcomes and societal well-being.

“For regenerative agriculture…there is pretty good evidence that crops are more nutritious, and even livestock that are pasture-raised are more nutritious,” says Dariush Mozaffarian, Cardiologist, Public Health Expert, and Director of the Tufts Food is Medicine Institute. “We have to link agriculture to human health to human productivity.” 

As Paul Lightfoot, General Manager of Patagonia Provisions, said later in the Summit, we need to be engaging more in conversations about these nuances.

“Should we eat beef? That’s not the right question; not all beef is the same,” he says.

But understanding this reality relies on conducting—and communicating—strong research. For too long, Mozaffarian says, many of the most important nutrient markers were not the ones being measured. That’s changing now, thanks to large-scale efforts like the Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI). 

“We now have the molecular tools to be able to profile foods beyond what’s conventionally on the back of the nutrition label…which allows us to elevate foods with nutrients that might not show up on a label,” says Nile Nair, Senior Program Manager for Health Science, Research, and Translation at PTFI. 

This also means strengthening local food systems that bring farmers as close as possible to the end consumer.

“Getting closer to the source oftentimes is the very beginning of the choice to having a whole food, not as much processing involved,” says Kate Fullam, Team Lead for Food Systems Resiliency at the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. “Whose voice is not at the table yet that needs to be?”

Ann Marie Hourigan, Head of Quality Standards for Whole Foods Market, echoed this sentiment: “We need to invite farmers to the conversation and understand what their needs are,” she says. 

Engaging farmers could transform entire nations, as Chef Andrew Zimmern, a Television Host, Author, and Food Advocate, said in a special fireside chat.

In Zambia, for example, changing “what they’re farming can change the landscape of a country economically,” he says. 

At the same time, panelists said, creating stronger food systems also means engaging consumers—but effective ways to reach eaters are quickly changing, says Tambra Raye Stevenson, Founder of WANDA (Women Advancing Nutrition, Dietetics, and Agriculture). 

“We are at a state of food system illiteracy, not truly understanding the impact of what’s happening to our food system,” she says. “The media and algorithms (such as TikTok) are becoming the determinant of our health.”

Interestingly, consumer interest in high-quality food is increasing—but for personal wellness reasons, not necessarily for its impact on environmental well-being. That opens up a huge opportunity for advocates to help consumers understand these links between the health of our bodies and the health of the planet. 

“Consumers are sick and tired of being sick. They’re turning to food as health more and more,” says Kristine Root, Chief Strategist and Founder of Socha. “We’re seeing mass segments of consumers who care about food quality…but they need our help in communicating better.”

When we draw straight lines from farms to tables—and when we grow crops with sustainability in mind and feed our communities with care and love—the food we’re eating literally tastes better, panelists said. 

“We believe that food is medicine, and therefore we work hard to grow food, provide quality food to families, and for the past five years, we’ve charged no one anything,” says Elder Raymond Bryant, Presiding Elder of AME Church and Co-Founder of San Antonio Million Gardens Project. “If the food is not good, people are not going to eat it. It doesn’t matter how healthy it is.”

From a family farm perspective, this could not be more true.

“Stewardship goes beyond just what we do. It’s really about the legacy of food and being intentional about the food that we’re producing,” says Jason Diestel, Farmer at Diestel Family Ranch. “I wish more people understood that what we eat matters, what we feed the soil matters. It’s just one long chain.”

Explore the entire Food Tank event schedule during Climate Week NYC 2026, and live-stream every Summit on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

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

Photo by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.

The post “It’s Just One Long Chain”: How Regenerative Farming Equals Tastier Food, Healthier Eaters, And Nourished Communities appeared first on Food Tank.

Look at the worst, most barrier-choked places for wheelchair users in your community, and you’ll likely find that they have something in common: they were all planned by 100-percent able-bodied teams, who don’t understand the real needs of people with mobility challenges. 

It’s not just about the disability realm. Planning history is littered with top-down, failed projects, where the majority imposed what it thought was best for the minority. And even if that majority was well-meaning, they got it wrong. 

That’s why experts like Charles T. Brown argue that planning teams must be led by firms that understand the unique and nuanced requirements of placemaking for all — or at least include key sub-consultants on their teams. And in an era when the very concepts of “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” are under fire in Washington and beyond, they say diverse hiring is even more important.

“Diverse firms often bring lived experiences, deep community relationship, and unique ways of seeing a problem,” added Brown, who is the Founder & CEO of the urban planning, public policy and research firm, Horizon 54, formerly called Equitable Cities. “Often, that leads us to ask questions or identify impacts that others may overlook.” 

Recommended ‘Whether They See It Or Not’: How the ‘Arrested Mobility’ of Black Americans Harms Everyone Kea Wilson May 28, 2025

Still, Brown and the other experts we interviewed for this story acknowledged that minority-owned firms face uniquely steep barriers today. Affirmative action programs were a required part of federal contracting for a half century, but President Trump signed an executive order revoking it as one of his first acts in office. The Trump administration also has banned federal contractors, subcontractors, and grant recipients from operating diversity, equity and inclusion programs of their own. 

The Ending Discrimination in Government Contracting Act introduced this April would enshrine that order into law, among other provisions to “stop federal agencies from violating the Constitution by awarding contracts based on recipients’ race or sex,” co-sponsor Sen. Glen Grothman (R – Wisc.) wrote. And several states are already undoing longstanding race- and gender-based set asides and requirements, even though the bill has yet to pass.

Minority industry leaders, though, emphasize that their community does bring unique value and results — no matter what Washington says. 

“It is not that large firms cannot do good work, because they often do,” Brown continued. “It is that perspective matters. Diverse firms do not just bring different faces to the table. We often bring different questions, experiences, and ways of understanding the people affected by the work.” 

“Why? Because we believe those closest to the problem are closest to the solution,” Brown continued.  

Planning 101 = Planning for Everyone

Experts Charnelle Hicks note that minority communities help foot the bill for public projects — even though hiring minority-led firms is the exception to rule. And that imbalance leads to unfair outcomes for travelers on the ground.

“In the public sector, taxes are paid by everyone – so you would think the plan would be for everyone, but we all know it doesn’t always turn out that way,” said Hicks, who serves as principal at Philadelphia-based CHPlanning.

Charnelle Hicks

If different people with different backgrounds are not considered from the beginning of the planning process, Hicks argues that projects will fail. 

“Whether the community is Amish or Muslim, unique perspectives exist,” she added. “You must think about [questions like,] ‘What are the things they care about?,’ and ask, ‘What are their priorities?’ At some point, we all will have disabilities. So we must design for accessibility.”

Hicks cited a plan for the Central Ohio Transit Authority that looked at sustainability not just in terms of the environment, but also in terms of how the transit system of greater Columbus, Ohio could be more inclusive.

The resulting plan didn’t simply look at sourcing environmentally friendly materials as part of the transit authority’s resilience effort. It also charted ways of sustaining economic justice by ensuring small, diverse businesses could become contractors for the transit agency, balancing social impact with economic growth. 

“Our only shareholders are the community,” she added. “[If the plan lacks an element of diversity, we need] to ask the question: ‘So you’re good with not including this consideration for the community?’” 

Nurturing home-grown growth

Cecilia V. Estolano has been working on redevelopment and economic development issues for over three decades. Her experience leading the Los Angeles-based Estolano Advisors has made her skeptical of strategies that call for luring large firms into a community with big subsidies and tax breaks without asking much in return.

Estolano said most consistent growth comes from home-grown small businesses. 

Cecilia V. Estolano

“This is how we build wealth in this country, particularly when so many folks are locked out of home ownership in high cost cities,” she added. “We need to invest in infrastructure because it is the foundation for our quality of life and for business growth. And we have to work directly with businesses to design workforce training programs tailored to their needs, but only if they can deliver jobs and careers that pay enough to support a family.”

To generate incremental, sustainable development, Estolano said cities often have to overcome cynicism and mistrust in working class communities of color — because those communities have been misled, disappointed and underestimated in past failed planning processes.

“We work closely with communities on changing the things that result from poor planning and poor policy,” she added. 

Estolano’s firm is currently leading the planning process for the future of a state-owned site in LA’s Crenshaw district that’s been shuttered for more than a decade. Served by light rail, it could be redeveloped with housing, job training and other community services.

“Our approach is, ‘how do you help people take back their power?’” she said. “How do you help communities to become places where they can actualize all their abilities? Diversity as a perspective makes our profession better.” 

When it comes to sustainability, Estolano emphasized that firms owned by people of color can frame issues of climate justice, pollution, the clean energy transition, and water quality in terms that reflect the direct experience of the communities that have been most impacted.

“We had our neighborhoods bulldozed to build freeways that caused more air pollution that seared our lungs,” she added. “We understand what it means to live within the evacuation zone of an oil refinery and can appreciate what clean cars and renewable energy can mean for our kids and their kids.”

Delivering healing to collective trauma — not just lip service

As Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles-based Thrivance Group, Dr. Destiny Thomas says equitable planning is about actions — not just words. Even when reports are couched in diverse language, she questions whether conventional planning is truly addressing the desires and needs of diverse people and communities.

“When I think about what sets so-called minority [firms] apart from others, I think about the process,” she added. “I think about opening the process, so diverse opinions are not just gathered but are a part of the plan and policy.” 

Thomas has developed what she calls “The Geography of Memory” framework, which examines how collective trauma becomes embedded in physical places and continues to shape mobility, public trust, redevelopment outcomes, and community interaction with the built environment. 

Dr. Destiny Thomas

The framework encourages agencies to map the location of police violence, highways that displaced neighborhoods, forced housing relocation, and neglected public infrastructure, among other public sites of trauma. She said when those areas are plotted and acknowledged, cities avoid “making investments that unintentionally reinforce harm.” 

Moreover, recognizing sites with negative history in a marginalized neighborhoods can help communities to move forward while shaping local trust in mobility, redevelopment and infrastructure projects.

“When you visit the street where Mike Brown was killed [in Ferguson, Missouri, or] when you visit the intersection where George Floyd was killed [in Minneapolis] – the places where their blood spilled out — it is very clear there is no process, tool, or policy that deals with the need to heal the land,” she said. 

Diversity in decision-making

Despite the current political climate, Brown emphasizes that his minority-owned firm is growing — and others can too. Because even if the rules change, his clients recognize the benefits of both his expertise and his lived experience. 

“There is a big difference between being on the team and having influence over the work,” said Brown, an award-winning transportation professional. “Too often, the minority firm is one of eight or nine subs, has a small scope, and has little say over the budget, methodology, or final recommendations. 

“Diversity at the bottom of the organizational chart is not the same as diversity in decision-making,” Brown continued. “Giving qualified, diverse firms opportunities to lead means they help shape the project from the beginning rather than simply being brought in to check a box.”

Transgender transit riders experience harassment far more often than their cisgender peers, according to a recent report. And that means public transit may be a major focal point of a larger anti-trans crisis — and that without intervention, ridership could take a hit.

Of the more than 350 trans and nonbinary riders surveyed by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, nearly 60 percent reported at least one instance of being targeted on a bus or train.

Even compared to other vulnerable groups, the rate is alarmingly high. A staggering one in four cisgender women who ride transit have experienced harassment onboard, but that’s still less than half the rate of their transgender peers.

Even so, the crisis is hardly noticed at all.

“We still know very little about the mobility experiences, challenges, and associated harassment faced by transgender people,” lead researcher Tam J. Guy wrote in the report.

Previous studies on gender-based harassment have exposed the treatment of women onboard transit, but fail to explore the unique experiences of trans and non-binary passengers.

Unsurprisingly, many of the survey’s respondents reported taking public transportation less than they wanted to — and fear of harassment played a major role in that decision. Nearly one in four respondents named it a primary reason, and slightly more said that fearing violence onboard altered their travel behaviors, even if doing so limited their mobility.

The researchers were careful to note that safety concerns weren’t the biggest reason why respondents shifted their travel behaviors. The lack of frequent, fast trains and buses often played a bigger role in motivating trans riders to take car trips instead.

Sometimes, though, slow service made experiences of harassment worse.

“Nothing makes you feel more like a sitting duck for harassment like being at the stop for 15 minutes waiting,” said Cedar, one of the trans respondents in the study.

Not all transgender riders are treated equal: the report notes that Black and women transgender individuals may be particularly vulnerable, due to the heightened levels of harassment against other groups that they identify with.

Guy emphasized that more research is necessary to draw definitive conclusions about the extent of the trans rider harassment crisis, the types of harassment experienced and what factors may heighten one’s risk of being targeted. That begins with changing how the issue is studied.

“Researchers need to change our approach to using gender assumptions,” they say in the report.

The alarming findings come as federal policymakers wage a war on minority Americans and transit.

Since the start of President Trump’s second term last January, the White House has pillaged federal funding for any research it says supports diversity, equity, and inclusion. One non-profit, the National Science Foundation, had more than 10,000 of its grants flagged for review, according to Nature. Any grant that includes a wide-range of common keywords — not limited to “gender”, “LGBT”, and “women” — appears to be flagged for cancellation.

Recommended San Francisco Advocates Document Harassment on Public Transit Indigo Rosenberg August 17, 2026

Even without federal support, public transit agencies and their riders can do more to promote safety for trans riders onboard.

Participants in the study named improved lighting at transit stops, real-time service information, and non-police station attendants amongst potentially helpful interventions. More than half of respondents stated that increasing police presence would not increase their feeling of safety.

“I can tell you that the answer is not more police,” said Nandina, one of the respondents.

Of course, transit is only one extension of the broader societal issue of anti-trans discrimination — even if transit reform can be the part of the solution, the report authors argue. Agencies can implement systemwide anti-harassment and education campaigns and train employees to intervene. Members of the public can challenge discriminatory treatment where they see it, too.

For public transit to become a safe, desirable alternative nationwide, the US needs a “general shift in the perception of trans people,” added Mahogany, a survey respondent. “The transit is fine. It’s the social aspect that’s scary.”

Activists Drop a banner at General Dynamics to protest the sale of weapons to Colombian death squads.(2001) Photo: Orin Langelle/GJEP

Tejiendo esperanza en tiempos de crisis: Informe de la 2.ª Asamblea General del Tejido Global de Alternativas THIS IS NOT YET PUBLIC, FOR INTERNAL REVIEW Introducción La segunda Asamblea presencial del Tejido Global de Alternativas () se llevó a cabo en Bandung, Indonesia, del 12 al 17 de abril de 2026, en las instalaciones de GTA

Serie de entrevistas realizadas durante la Asamblea de la GTA 2026 en Indonesia Franco Augusto y Shail Sathi llevaron a cabo estas conversaciones durante la «Confluencia Global sobre Democracia Radical, Autonomía y Autodeterminación (RaDASD)», del 11 al 17 de abril de 2026. Las grabaciones fueron producidas por Franco Augusto y ??, y editadas por Marco Andrade.<…

There aren’t very many Marxists around today who would defend central planning as practiced in the Soviet Union from the late 1920s through the 1980s. But there are many who still think some form of central planning is essential to socialism. Marxist Sociology Professor, Catalyst editor and podcaster Vivek Chibber isn’t one of them. In an aptly titled  recent interview, “Socialism Has a Future. Central Planning Doesn’t”, he explained his position.

Chibber’s critique is based on the top-down, bureaucratic planning as it was practiced in the Soviet Union. As he notes, aside from its clones in Eastern Europe, North Korea, and, for a time China, there is no other actual existing model of central planning to examine. His argument is complex but boils down to the proposition that in an economy of any significant size where there is no market there are simply too many materials, inputs, and products for any commission or central authority to allocate efficiently. Only a competitive market could do this, according to Chibber. Hence misallocation, breakdowns, waste, poor products, wrong incentives, and the inevitable accumulation of these  problems lead to a crisis of the system. No doubt this pretty much describes what actually happened in the Soviet Union and its satellites.

Chibber argues that these are unavoidable features of any centrally planned economy. Before we accept this, and with it the notion that only “market socialism” provides a workable model for the future socialist society we seek, we need to look more closely into the Soviet model and the society in which it played out. What is most glaringly absent in Chibber’s general description of the Russian model is the social reality of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s to the bitter end—above all the question of social class. This is all the more remarkable because Chibber is an ardent advocate of the almost exclusive centrality of “class analysis” when it comes to contemporary politics.

Socialism is the rule of the working class. Planning is an instrument of the democratic workers’ state for organizing production for human need under its collective political and social rule and the transition to a classless society. While the Soviet Union promoted itself as socialist and in the transition to a classless society, it was anything but. It was, in fact, a highly stratified and bureaucratized society.

Socialism is the rule of the working class. Planning is an instrument of the democratic workers’ state for organizing production for human need under its collective political and social rule…While the Soviet Union promoted itself as socialist and in the transition to a classless society…It was, in fact, a highly stratified and bureaucratized society.

By the late 1930s anti-Stalinist Marxists began to question whether the USSR was still any sort of workers’ state, degenerated, deformed or otherwise. Many, mostly in the Trotskyist tradition, though not Trotsky himself, concluded that since there was no longer even a shred of workers’ democracy or the right to dissent, to organize for change, or form independent unions, much less to exert influence on the state’s economic priorities, that the bureaucracy that controlled the state was in fact a new ruling class. This bureaucracy controlled the means of production and collectively hired and directed the Soviet workforce.  Some called it state capitalism (C.L.R. James, Tony Cliff) some bureaucratic collectivist or state collectivist (Joseph Carter, Max Shachtman, Hal Draper, Big Flame).nd Like good Marxists, they fiercely debated these differences, but all saw Russia and its offsprings as class societies.

This had enormous implications. For one, this new ruling class won and maintained its class position and power through the most ruthless means. Workers’ democracy was suppressed, no party other than the ruling Communist Party was permitted, no factions within the party were allowed, no free press, or rights to assembly, no independent unions. The potential penalty for active dissent was forced labor, the Gulag, or the firing squad. It was, in a real sense, a totalitarian society.

Chibber admits its “authoritarian” nature made things worse but insists it was not a basic cause, which was the lack of competition. In contrast, as Hal Draper wrote when the Soviet Union was at the peak of its power and influence in the early 1950s:

The Stalinist state has an economic plan. Like everything else in this totalitarian structure, it is a plan devised, imposed and enforced from above, bureaucratically. But no bureaucratic commission can itself plan such a labyrinth of social processes. Such a plan must be constantly checked from below, corrected from below; it must depend on initiative and responsibility below; it must be self-correcting through the give-and-take of democratic planning between the lower and upper echelons on every level.

And these were just what it lacked. Note that Draper wasn’t just talking about the millions of materials to be allocated to thousands of enterprises but the social processes between the various levels of planning: the central commission (GOSPLAN), regional commissions, industry, enterprise, the people who ran or worked for them, and the role of the party at every point. Of course, there was feed-back between various levels, but as Chibber points out almost everyone lied about shortages, resources, profits, etc. It wasn’t lack of competition that led to misallocations and lies, it was the repressive state, and the culture of the society as a whole, in which failure or criticism were seen as “sabotage” with serious punishment possible. This was combined, as we shall see below, with the conflicting interests of the different layers of Soviet society. Debates over inefficiencies and reforms such as those Chibber mentions took place within the central party bureaucracy aided by loyal academics and technocrats. The workers had no say in any of it.

Trotsky recognized this in 1932, at the end of Stalin’s first Five Year Plan:

The only prerogative which [the bureaucracy] ultimately left to the workers was the right to exceed production limits. Any attempt to influence economic management from below is immediately described as a right or a left deviation, that is, practically made a capital offence. The bureaucratic upper crust in the last analysis, has pronounced itself infallible in the sphere of socialist planning…. Thus the basic mechanism of socialist construction—the adaptable and elastic system of Soviet democracy—was liquidated [Emphasis in original.]

Before going further into the implications of Stalinist society’s class structure, it is necessary to look more closely at how the planning system worked.

Things, prices, money and conflicting class interests

The Five Year Plan began with a census of production and materials based on information from existing workplaces.1This description of the planning system is taken mainly from George Gary, Money, Financial Flows, and Credit in the Soviet Union, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, 1977 and Ernest Mandel, The Soviet Economic Reforms and Yugoslav Experience, October 1968, Marxists.org, https://www.marxists.org/mandel/1968/10/ref-yugo.html ; Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory, London: Merlin Press, 1971, pp. 248-604. Although it was based on actual material things, the planners did not attempt to allocate each and every item to a workplace or enterprise. Allocation was done with prices and money. Each item, whether raw materials, machinery, parts, energy, etc. was given a price based on cost plus an average profit. These were not market prices, however, since they were seldom adjusted for changes in demand or technology. Nevertheless, they served to aggregate and direct millions of items. Aggregates were adjusted at the regional and industry level. To meet the planned targets, enterprises purchased their inputs from one another up and down their supply chains at the assigned prices.

While the state allocated resources for new investment, the national, regional, and industry planning centers did not distribute physical items themselves but tracked them in monetary terms. Targets (often missed) were adjusted annually. The principle of management bonuses tied to profitability of enterprises as an incentive to reduce costs was introduced as early as 1935, while the so-called Liberman reforms of the 1960s made enterprise profits the measure of performance. Each enterprise had a line of credit and could take loans from the State Bank in order to expand and/or adjust for shortages or bottlenecks. Some enterprises were even shaped by U.S. industry. As Victor Reuther recounts from his time in Russia, Ford engineers helped shape the giant Gorky Car works along the lines of Ford’s River Rouge complex, using the latest technology, while other U.S. giants such as General Electric, RCA, DuPont, and Westinghouse concluded technical and trade agreements with the Soviet government in the early 1930s.2Victor Reuther, The Brothers Reuther and the Story of the UAW/ A Memoir, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976, pp. 90-93. Stalin, apparently, was not averse to new capitalist technology. Western inputs, though marginal, continued during the war with the lend lease program and afterward under “turnkey” projects such as a Fiat built auto plant in the 1960s. In the early days of the Soviet Union, workers often pushed themselves to help make targets, but that did not last as living standards stagnated and party-led management did the pushing.

There were various contradictions in this system. One lay in the conflicting interests between the enterprise managers and their workers, with managers receiving as much as four times the incomes of workers via bonuses. Another was that between the enterprises (and hence workers) and the bureaucratic state ruling class. According to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, cited above, to sustain and expand the state, on which the power and higher standard of living of the ruling class rested, 90 percent of state budget receipts were obtained from these enterprises.3Gary, p. 86. There was also a sales tax on consumer goods and some capital items, known as a “turnover” tax which was a form of regressive taxation.

But it was the expropriation of the profits from the enterprises -profits which came from the exploitation of the workers – that funded the state and its bureaucracy. The state budget grew by four times from 1950 to 1971, even as the economy slowed down. While Soviet enterprises could not go bankrupt, they were under pressure and incentivised via manager bonuses to produce increased surpluses to fund the state’s growth. This meant that enterprise managers were encouraged both to push the workers to create more profit, leading to poor working conditions, and to hoard resources in order to meet performance and bonus targets. Hence there were incentives for managers to both lie about their enterprises and to misallocate resources.

The contradictions in the Stalinist system of planning were most thoroughly analyzed in the mid-1960s by Polish Marxists Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski (henceforth K&M), who spent a number of years in prison for their efforts.4Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski, (henceforth K&M) “ An Open Letter to the Party”, an International  Socialism Publication, 1968; also in New Politics, vol. 5, nos. 2 & 3, 1967.   In their view “the central political bureaucracy is the ruling class” by virtue of its “exclusive command” of the means of production and the fact that “it buys the labor of the working class” collectively appropriates the surplus produced by the workers  “in order to strengthen and expand its rule over production and society.” As we saw above, the central political bureaucracy rules collectively on the basis of the surplus it extracts from the workers in the enterprises that fund the power of the state.  In practice this meant the expansion of what K&M call Department A, the production of the means of production at the expense of Department B, the production of consumer goods, a distinction similar to Marx’s division between Department I and Department II developed in volume II of Capital.

Evidence of this is that both Western and Soviet estimates for the relative growth of capital (K) and labor (L) inputs for the 1950s and 1960s show that capital inputs grew between seven  and nine times more than that of labor inputs over that period.5Martin L. Weitzman, Soviet Economic Growth and Capital-Labor Substitution,  The American Economic Review, Vol. 60, No. 4, September 1970, p. 677. Figures taken from Soviet sources also show that the growth rate of “Output of Production Means (Group A)” increased faster than that for “Output of Consumer Goods (Group B)” almost every year throughout the 1950s, 1960, and 1970s. Only as Soviet rulers desperately tried to curry favor with the workers, as the system’s crisis increased in the late 1980s, did consumer goods output grow slightly faster as the regime approached collapse.6Soviet History Archive (marxist.org), Annual Growth Rates in the Soviet Union, 1941-1989, https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/economics/statistics/growth-rates.htm#1950s

As Chibber pointed out, the state provided or subsidized some aspects of working-class subsistence—healthcare, basic education, and to some extent childcare and housing. The overall living standards rose from the still largely peasant economy of the 1920s to an industrial economy of the post-war period. But for the working class living standards grew relatively slowly,well behind that in Western industrial countries and that of the bureaucracy and the new ruling class—as Russian workers could plainly see. The provision of most consumer goods, and hence worker living standards, depended on their production in Department B and that was seen by the bureaucracy as a cost that undermined the production of the means of production that allowed for the growth of the economy, the state, and the international and domestic power of the central political bureaucracy. This included not only capital goods and raw materials, but the nation’s massive military. It also underlies the bureaucracy’s penchant for huge infrastructure projects, many of which were famously wasteful or never completed: highways that ended in the middle of nowhere, bridges that failed to cross the river, and so on. Despite the outcome, the larger the project, the more income and influence for the planners and managers. This meant a perpetual constraint on the growth of the living standards of the working-class majority. Increases in effort or nominal wages made no difference since consumer production in Department B remained relatively limited and store shelves empty.

But it also meant an increasing disproportion, indeed a contradiction, between the growing means of production and relatively slower output for consumption, that led to overproduction and underutilization of the means of production and hence waste and the crisis of slower growth. As K&M put it, “The common cause of the non-utilization of productive capacity and of accumulation of unneeded reserves is the general inadaptation of production to needs (emphasis in original)” As they summarized it: “it is a contradiction between class goals of production and consumption, and it results from existing conditions, not from mismanagement.” On the basis of this contradiction, even in the mid-1960s over two decades before the collapse of the system, K&M predicted the crisis. They wrote of this disproportion.: “Without eliminating it, without changing the goal of production and the conditions of production as a whole, it will be impossible to overcome the ever growing crisis.”7K&M, p. 34.

Banned from striking or organizing genuine unions, fighting politically, or in any way influencing the functioning of the enterprise, much less the direction of resources under Stalinist planning, the working classes of Russia and its associated Eastern European nations turned to their weapon of last resort—the withdrawal of cooperation and efficiency. That is, the withholding of effort and the tacit skills and knowledge production workers everywhere possess. Those are the skills and knowhow that Frederick Taylor attempted to shift from the workers to management by breaking down tasks and offering incentives, that Elton Mayo and the human relations school sought to manipulate with changes in lighting and other conditions, and that lean production’s “constant improvement” (Kaizen) through teamwork tried to extract from the workers.8For Taylor and Mayo see Gerard Hanlon, The Dark Side of Management: A Secret History of Management Theory, New York: Routledge, 2016; for lean production, Sungur Savran, Lean Production and Flexibility: The Highest Stage of Taylorism, in Sungar Savran and E. Ahmet Tonak (eds.), In the Tracks of Marx’s Capital: Debates in Marxian Political Economy and Lessons for 21st Century Capitalism, Cham Switzerland: palgrave macmillan, pp. 265-316. Those skills and knowledge, along with extra effort,  were withheld from the planners, bureaucrats, and managers of Stalinist central planning. As K&M point out, “The worker tries to lower efficiency and hides the reserves in his sector to delay the changes in norms; he makes a product of inferior quality in order to meet the norms more easily.”9K&M, p. 33.

Another form of worker dissatisfaction and/or resistance in the Soviet Union was the relatively high rate of labor turnover. In theory, the Soviet Union maintained full employment at all times. In reality, there was significant labor turnover due largely to job dissatisfaction.  Measured as only voluntary quits and firings in official figures (yes, workers could be fired) from 1950 to 1970, turnover in industry averaged 20 percent, while in construction it ran in the mid-30s. Workers left jobs due to poor working conditions or to seek higher wages elsewhere. This turnover was cited by Soviet sources as one of the causes of low productivity.  This figure did not include workers assigned to other jobs or regions by the state, those who left to care for children, enrollment in studies, etc. Total “separations” were much higher.10David E. Powell, Labor Turnover in the Soviet Union, Slavic Review, Vol. 36, No. 2, January 1977, pp. 268-285.

The consequence of these forms of resistance was an ever-decreasing rate of productivity, along with poor quality, and missed goals throughout the system that undermined planning targets, delivery of materials, the profits meant to measure performance, and innovation, further creating shortages and other problems. This most basic resistance was expressed in the well-known Russian workers’ joke of the 1960s through the 1980s, that “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.” In other words, it wasn’t just (or even) the lack of market competition that led to inefficiency and crisis, but the suppression of democratic norms, on the one hand, and the stagnation of working-class living standards that resulted from the bureaucracy’s production goals, on the other.

It wasn’t just (or even) the lack of market competition that led to inefficiency and crisis, but the suppression of democratic norms, on the one hand, and the stagnation of working-class living standards that resulted from the bureaucracy’s production goals, on the other.

The irony here is that in the Stalinist system, the workers and public in general were paid in money and bought consumer goods with that money—like a market—but at the planners’ prices and within the constraints of Department B production. This led K&M to argue at one point that the market for needs should determine the output of consumer production. One might interpret this as advocating market socialism before the idea was common or simply that the goals of planning needed to begin with an assessment of production for needs as K&M did. In no way did they reject central planning. In their view, a democratic workers’ state “will set goals of social production, decide on the sharing and use of the national income, hence define the size and purpose of investments, the size and disbursement of expenditures for social benefits, health services, education, science and culture, the amount for the power apparatus and its current tasks.” Since such decisions “can only be made centrally” this requires a fully democratic multi-party system with workers councils and independent unions.11K&M, pp. 60-63. That is, central planning by the workers’ democratic state.

Certainly, in a workers’ democracy that must support any version of socialism in which workers possess the freedom and rights to organize economically and politically, complain, suggest, and produce for need rather than the priorities of an exploiting upper class, they will be motivated to use their skills and knowledge in the cooperative and collective pursuit of raising the living standards of the masses with whom they live and work. Workers will have a direct interest in pointing out the inefficiencies, blockages, and problems that will arise with central planning and have the power to correct them over time. They will be able to innovate for their own advancement. Few of those socialists who give thought to these questions imagine that democratic planning will emerge overnight in one stroke or reject out of hand that elements of the market might play a role in the transition to socialist planning. But to rule out central (or decentralized) planning altogether is to throw out the socialist baby with the Stalinist bathwater.

Market Socialism: An Oxymoron?

In another interview published in Jacobin, Chibber lays out his arguments for what he sees as the only viable alternative to a planned economy: market socialism. His vision of this, as yet untried, version of socialism is one in which enterprises are state- or worker-owned, hence no capitalists, the market distributes resources, and an elaborate welfare state provides a decent standard of living and safety net for all, including the inevitable losers in market competition. Rather than attempting to pick apart Chibber’s description of and detailed arguments for market socialism, I want to put some admittedly rhetorical questions to Chibber or any defenders of this version of socialism.

Chibber’s basic argument for market socialism as opposed to a planned economy goes like this:

This is the key thing, and the reason you want market socialism. The biggest failure of the planned economies was the inability to innovate, and the absence of innovation, efficiency, dynamism. The whole motivation to move toward a market socialist model is to give managers of firms, producers, an incentive to consistently innovate. And that incentive comes from competition.

That is quite an assumption-loaded statement about the incentives for socialism, not to mention about human nature or desires. Is it really true that only competition can spur innovation? Isn’t the whole economically competitive ethos of capitalism and, indeed, capitalism itself, an historically specific and limited development? In fact, isn’t it mainly the capitalists and their hangers-on who are so economically competitive? On the other hand, isn’t it the case that workers given the opportunity to form unions in their defense will struggle, as J.R. Commons put it, “to take labor out of competition.” Doesn’t even our weak labor movement attempt to lessen competition through collective organization (i.e., cooperation), bargaining, and regulatory legislation to limit capital’s competitive drive?

Chibber’s abstract version of competition with its price signals overlooks the fact that competition between firms is in reality a battle over market share in which innovation is a means to that end. If this is a real market and not just something like the Soviet “market reforms” there will be winners and losers with real consequences. As Braverman, Noble, and others have argued, technological innovation is never socially neutral.12Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, New York: Monthly Review Peress, 1998; David F. Noble, Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Would technological innovation for production for need be the same as that for increased market share?  Why would socialists want state or worker owned enterprises (and hence their workers) to fight one another over market share rather than working cooperatively through mutually agreed local and national plans to increase production for need. Capital pits workers in competition with one another—individual v. individual, black v. white, men v. women, citizen v. immigrant, firm v. firm—in order to keep wages down, effort up, the competition down, market share up, and capital accumulating. Why would worker-owned enterprises want to follow that pattern?  After all, struggle and the process of fighting for change transforms people and their values.

Why would socialists want state or worker owned enterprises (and hence their workers) to fight one another over market share rather than working cooperatively through mutually agreed local and national plans to increase production for need. Capital pits workers in competition with one another…Why would worker-owned enterprises want to follow that pattern?

Why would workers in their millions organize, struggle, sacrifice, and endanger their lives and livelihoods to get rid of the capitalist bosses just to create state or cooperatively owned businesses that compete to survive, because—advanced welfare state or not—that’s what economic competition is about as even Chibber admits at one point. Not to mention the periodic crises that competition generates. Around a million business establishments in the U.S. go under in normal years, more during recessions.13BLS, Table 3, Number of private sector establishments by direction of employment, by establishment age, 5/22/26, www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_00_table3_txt Why wouldn’t they fail under market socialism? Why wouldn’t competition under market socialism lead to pressures for work intensification in order to survive? Might workers not worry that competition would, once again, lead to pressure to contain consumption rather than increase it and increase effort rather than reducing it?

Couldn’t it be, instead, that workers, inventors, technicians, computer wizards, etc. would cooperatively innovate in production in order to lighten the workload, shorten work time, raise the standard of living and the culture of society as a whole domestically and internationally, and, indeed, to save the planet and future generations?  That instead of hoarding innovations through “proprietary” knowledge and technology, to get the upper hand in competition as competing firms do, they would share it through planning? Couldn’t it be that the incentive to collectively improve both work and life would prove as strong or stronger a motivation to innovate—this time in their own interest—than competition? Why assume that only competition and profits will motivate people to seek innovations in shifting to production for need?  Couldn’t it be that the solution to efficiency and innovation lies not in competition, but above all in worker initiative spurred by the goal of a better life and a safer world and the experience of beginning to actually achieve both? Would workers really organize collectively and fight against great odds only to compete? Isn’t our goal the cooperative commonwealth?

No transition to socialism, no expropriation of the expropriators, without a rupture

Here I have to admit that my optimistic view of worker initiative stems in part from my years at Labor Notes seeing how workers we knew understood how production and competition actually worked and why collective action was their best defense. It also comes from my visit to Portugal in the mid-1970s during its revolution. There the young officer core of the military sided with, and indeed helped lead, the revolution that overthrew the fascist government so that capital was unable to mount a violent counter revolution. When the workers moved to seize the plants and other workplaces, most of the bosses and owners fled the country. The police and army stayed in their stations and barracks. The trams and trains ran for free, run and maintained by their workers. The lights stayed on. Our small group of ISers visited several worker-run facilities, but the most impressive was the giant shipyard at Lisbon.

A shipyard is a complex of factories producing parts for the huge assembly facilities on the river. It involves almost every skill any manufacturing firm would need. We met with the elected workers’ committee running the whole shipyard which was composed of workers from several political tendencies or parties,as well as non-affiliated workers. The old management personnel stayed meekly in their offices and played no role in production or discipline. The trade unions, some of whose leaders we also met with, functioned to defend workers when necessary and process grievances. Members of the elected managing committee abided by the “a partido” ethic whereby no one spoke for their tendency and all worked together cooperatively to manage the shipyard. Imagine that, socialists of different stripes working together! Of course, outside the workplace the parties competed for supporters as you would in a democracy. But, again, the struggle for a better life changes people.

They explained the process of production and when asked how they could run such a complex operation, one replied something like—we’ve always run it. The cafeteria was flush with free food and wine. Well, it was Portugal. This was procured by barter from farmers for whom the yard’s machinists made farm equipment parts and other tools in return for the food and wine. No market there. Needed inputs came from other worker-run factories and energy from worker-controlled utilities. Not sure how they were paid for.  The biggest problem was that global capital was boycotting this and other worker-controlled firms and contracts were becoming scarce. International capital saw a precedent it didn’t like and acted to stop it. Tragically, the counter revolution, although relatively bloodless, was not far off as the Socialist Party and Communist Party made their peace with capital and its acceptably non-fascist politicians. None of the so-called socialist countries offered aid or contracts to these enterprises either, no doubt as workers’ control was as much anathema to them as to their capitalist rivals. The Portuguese workers didn’t have the opportunity to initiate planning above the enterprise level or rudimentary barter, but they did show the instincts and ability to turn to collective and cooperative production.

Remember, Chibber sees no capitalists in the market socialist economy. As he explains,14Chibber, How Socialism.

That means you’re not going to have privately owned means of production. Either you’re going to have the state owning the means of production at the national level; or you’re going to have an economy of workers’ cooperatives, in which there is no capitalist class that owns things but workers themselves have property rights.

“No capitalist class.” The expropriators are expropriated. But where did the capitalists go? Why did they go? Unlike in Portugal in the mid-1970s it is unlikely that the superrich U.S. capitalists would just pack up and leave. I checked Chibber’s manifesto, “Our Road to Power” written in 2017 to see what he said about transition. There was a lot in there about political and worker organization I agreed with (a mass cadre party with internal democracy, a certain level of discipline, rooted in the working class). But he also wrote, “Our strategic perspective has to downplay the centrality of a revolutionary rupture and navigate a more gradualist approach.”15Vivek Chibber, “Our Road to Power,” Jacobin, December 5, 2017, https://jacobin.com/2017/12/our-road-to-power “Strategic perspective”?! No matter how much one might wish to downplay rupture or attempt to move gradually, given their numbers, incredible wealth, the owners of capital in the U.S. will certainly see their impending or unfolding expropriation as a rupture of historic proportions. As, indeed, it would be. Much greater in scale and impact than the Russian Revolution no matter how it was done. It is inconceivable, given their legions of paid dependents, friends in politics and the military, their wealth, etc. that U.S. capitalists would simply surrender all of that without a vicious fight of some sort—even if, let’s imagine, a DSA-backed majority in Congress passed a law (gradually?) nationalizing their property and President Ocasio-Cortez signed the bill. I looked at the highlighted reference to “transition” in the text of the piece on market socialism, but it only led to an article about how social democracy had gone from a revolutionary movement to a reformist one as revolution ceased to be a foreseeable possibility. Hmm?

Is that really something new? Eduard Bernstein, a leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), laid the basis of modern social democratic reformism in 1899, a decade or so before one of the biggest revolutionary upsurges in European history. He argued capitalism had stabilized and revolution was off the agenda. Then came 1905, 1917, 1918, etc. Despite his famous statement that the final goal was “nothing” and the movement “everything”, Bernstein denied abandoning socialism altogether but instead downplayed a “catastrophic” revolutionary transition (rupture?) in favor of the gradual accumulation of reforms and the movement’s strength, what was called at the time “revisionism.”. In his 1909 preface to the famous Evolutionary Socialism (bad translation of his title), he insisted, “the book can, all in all, be regarded as an exposition of the theoretical and political tendencies of the German social democratic revisionists.”16Eduard Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, New York: Schocken Books, 1961, pp. viii   The revisionists would become the majority of the party’s leadership and parliamentary delegations. The leadership of the SPD consciously derailed the 1918 German revolution in which the workers initially seized production and set up workers’ councils.17Pierre Broué, The German Revolution, 1917-1923, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006, pp.129-283.

The problem is, as the history of German social democracy demonstrates, if you abandon the idea of a rupture, and simply embrace gradualism you necessarily give up the final goal: socialism of any kind in practice. As German (French, etc.) social democracy did well before the neoliberal era. 18See, for example, Hal Draper, The New Social Democratic Reformism, in Hal Draper, Socialism From Below, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019, pp. 97-114.See, for example, Hal Draper, The New Social Democratic Reformism, in Hal Draper, Socialism From Below, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019, pp. 97-114. There is no way to eliminate the capitalist class as a class without an historic social/political rupture. A world without capitalists is a qualitatively different one. You can, at least theoretically, do it by legislation rather than direct worker confiscation. You can go after the biggest ones first and work your way down the economic ladder, but it is still a rupture—and that is not a matter of semantics but of social reality. So, if you “downplay rupture”, what you are left with is a gradualism that has no way to achieve the expropriation of the expropriators. No doubt, Chibber would like to see the expropriators expropriated in order to achieve worker- or state-owned enterprises in market socialism. But he seems to have excluded any actual means of accomplishing that.

The history of German social democracy demonstrates, if you abandon the idea of a rupture, and simply embrace gradualism you necessarily give up the final goal: socialism of any kind in practice…There is no way to eliminate the capitalist class as a class without an historic social/political rupture. A world without capitalists is a qualitatively different one. …So, if you “downplay rupture”, what you are left with is a gradualism that has no way to achieve the expropriation of the expropriators.

What about the Meidner Plan? The last refuge of gradualists, Sweden’s Meidner Plan came as close as one could to a non-rupture model of the transition to a version of market socialism.19I have mainly used this highly favorable account of the Meidner Plan: Joe Guinan, Socialising capital: Looking Back on the Meidner Plan, 2019, https://www.academia.edu/37368092/Socializing_capital_Looking_back_on_the_Meidner_Plan. Formulated fifty years ago, hence its current semi-centennial celebration as a panacea, by (German-born) Swedish trade union economist Rudolph Meidner, the plan proposed that each enterprise over a certain size annually issue new shares reflecting “excess profits” that would go into “wage-earner funds” that were to be governed by union officials. Its dividends were mostly to go to social projects such as worker education. The idea was that as profits grew, the number and proportion of the fund-based shares would grow. Hence, in theory at least, eventual worker-ownership under union control would result. Investment decisions, however, were left to management, not the wage-earner fund. Meidner estimated that for a highly profitable company like Volvo it would take 20 years for the wage-earner-fund to own a majority of company shares (52%)—longer for other companies. For the funds to control almost all shares (97%) it would take 100 years—and that’s for a highly profitable firm. The capitalists would be squeezed into a tiny minority of owners. Gradualism at its most glacial.

In addition, since the shares were based on increased “excess” profits it meant the workers would be encouraged to work harder and longer and/or reduce the workforce via new technology to get to socialism. Class struggle to increase worker income or improve conditions would in practice reduce profits and hence the number of shares sent to the wage-earner fund, thus lengthening the road to ownership. The incentive was for unions to minimize conflict.  Nevertheless, due to strong employer opposition and the retreat of the Social Democrats, the plan was drastically watered-down when implemented in 1984. Share ownership by the funds was controlled by government officials with some employee representatives. Wage-earner fund shares in any one company were limited to eight percent. After seven years the funds controlled only 3.5 percent of the total value of all Swedish company shares. It was a flop and further opposition from capital and its conservative government killed it in 1992.

While in its original form it might appear to have passed the non-rupture test, its dilution and eventual death, in fact, underline the basic reason why there is no transition to socialism, no expropriation of the expropriators, without a rupture: the systemically-rooted dialectic of class conflict for survival. No matter how polite or gradualist the proposed transition, the capitalist class will recognize it as a threat and will not sit still for its own demise. In Sweden the threat was minimal and this was all quite peaceful. In Russia, Germany (ask Rosa), Chile, etc. not so peaceful. Any proposed “Road to Power” that fails to take that into account is a path to defeat or worse. There is no socialism without a rupture.

The major difference between revolutionary socialists and reformists or gradualists, of course, is not about whether you fight for reforms over time. Revolutionary socialists have always fought for reforms often alongside classic reformists and liberals. Nor is it a matter of revolutionary fantasies or impatience.  It is about that big step, that rupture, the expropriation of the expropriators, no matter how it’s accomplished, without which the final goal is inconceivable.

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

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COP31’s flagship initiative to accelerate the electrification of the world’s economy has been criticised for failing to include a commitment to produce the power from clean energy. 

Governments that sign the voluntary pledge at this year’s UN climate summit will commit to increasing electricity’s share of total energy consumption to 35% globally by 2035 in line “with pathways consistent with keeping 1.5C alive”, the text unveiled by the Turkish presidency on Tuesday says. 

While the document says that the electrification goal is “complementary to efforts to expand renewable energy and improve energy efficiency”, governments are not explicitly asked to commit to producing the extra power with clean sources and driving down greenhouse gas emissions. 

The text instead says the “use of clean electricity” will vary according to national circumstances. Fossil fuels are not mentioned by name, although the pledge cites the COP28 Global Stocktake decision, which called for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” in energy systems.

• Sep 22, 2026 News Climate change and energy transition rise up national security agenda Leaders highlighted the national security risks posed by global warming and fossil fuel dependency at New York Climate Week Read more
• Sep 18, 2026 News Fossil fuel expansion threatens COP31 hosts’ credibility, experts warn Türkiye and Australia are pushing coal, oil and gas at home with no national timeline for their own fossil fuel phase-out Read more

COP31 president Murat Kurum said earlier this month that the push to make electrification more “widespread” – through measures like the rollout of electric vehicles and heat pumps –  will “automatically” lead to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. 

But many campaigners disagree, criticising the proposed pledge for failing to give an explicit signal on the fossil fuel transition. 

Lack of clarity on energy sources

“Let’s not let electrification become the Trojan horse of our times, used to hide new fossil fuel consumption rather than promote renewable energy,” Claire Smith from civil society umbrella group Beyond Fossil Fuels said in reaction to the pledge’s publication. 

She added that the commitment will only help address the climate crisis if electrification is powered by a flexible energy system where solar and wind are complemented by enhanced grids and storage. 

The pledge’s text says that the electricity goal should be supported by “diverse and sustainable energy sources”, but it stops short of explaining what these sources are. 

Alden Meyer, an international climate policy expert and senior associate at think-tank E3G, said the details of the pledge matter to how effective it will be in helping bring planet-heating emissions down.

“It has to be clean, and we haven’t got enough clarity on a guarantee that it will be a decarbonisation move,” he told Climate Home News.

China’s industrial engine starts to break its fossil fuel habit

According to an annual electricity review from energy think-tank Ember, in 2025 renewables edged ahead of coal power for the first time in 100 years. Continued growth in solar and wind pushed the share of renewables above a third of global electricity generation to just under 34%, compared with coal at 33%, it said.

Janet Milongo, energy Transition lead at CAN International, said success cannot be measured simply by how much of the world’s final energy consumption becomes electric. 

“We must ask what generates that electricity, who has access to it, who owns the infrastructure, and whether it is helping communities transition away from fossil fuels,” she added. 

Electrification alone can’t meet climate goals

Analysis published by the IEA on Tuesday, alongside the pledge, found that it would already be cost-effective to raise electricity’s share of global energy use from 23% today to around 33% with existing technologies, putting the COP31 goal “within striking distance”. Based on current policies, however, the share reaches only about 30% by 2035.

Hitting the 35% target would cut fossil fuel importers’ import bills by around $400 billion a year by 2035, the IEA said. At the higher prices caused by the conflict in the Middle East, that saving rises to more than $500 billion.

Speaking at New York Climate Week on Tuesday, IEA executive director Fatih Birol said the agency’s figures show that in 2026, about 80% of all new power plants built will run on renewables, with a few percentage points coming from nuclear power and the rest from fossils fuels. “So therefore, electrification itself will lead reduction of the [greenhouse gas] emissions,” he added.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol speaks at Climate Week NYC on September 22, 2026 (Photo: Megan Rowling / Climate Home News) IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol speaks at Climate Week NYC on September 22, 2026 (Photo: Megan Rowling / Climate Home News)

However, the IEA warned in its new report that electrification “by itself is not enough” to meet the world’s climate targets. It noted that, if “low-emission” sources of power continue to simply grow in line with current policy scenarios, that would be only just enough to cover the extra demand from electrification, driving a modest decline in emissions.

Matt Webb, associate director of global clean power diplomacy at E3G, said the pledge is a “welcome signal of leadership” and can help COP31 be a “critical moment” for countries to double down on the energy commitments made at COP28.

But to secure the full benefits of electrification, he added, it is essential that we “urgently clean up” by speeding up the rollout of renewables and developing credible national plans to transition away from fossil fuels.

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Step into the STEAM  2026 exhibition at the Pensacola Art Museum, and you step into Pippin Frisbie-Calder’s bird world: “Extinct, Threatened, Restored.”23966Spread across three walls of the...

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 22 SEPTEMBER 2026 SLF-2007-065 The Sakhalin Papers LV: The Scientist Who Walked Away — Rick Steiner’s Warning to Shell, the PA-B Tow-Out and the ISRP Resignation On 14 July 2005, Independent Scientific Review Panel member Rick Steiner sent an urgent appeal directly to Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer. The massive PA-B platform base was due to be towed to Sakhalin the following day. Steiner asked Shell to postpone it. He listed unresolved questions involving underwater noise, ship collisions, oil-spill preparedness, independent monitoring and the platform’s proximity to the feeding grounds of one of the world’s most endangered whale populations. Shell responded the next day. The tow-out went ahead. Six weeks later, Steiner resigned from the continuing scientific process.

Archive reference: SLF-2007-065
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal scientific record: IUCN Independent Scientific Review Panel report, 2005
Authenticated corporate record: The Shell Sustainability Report 2005
Contemporaneous correspondence: Rick Steiner to Jeroen van der Veer, 14 July 2005; Ian Craig, Sakhalin Energy, to Steiner, 15 July 2005; Steiner resignation email, 29 August 2005
Contemporaneous reporting: Reuters-era coverage collected in the archive; The Guardian/Observer, March–September 2005
Judicial context: Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin)
Evidence standard: Steiner’s scientific concerns and personal assessments are attributed to him. Sakhalin Energy’s responses are attributed to the company. ISRP conclusions are distinguished from Steiner’s individual position. Neither the panel nor Steiner possessed regulatory authority to stop Sakhalin II.

Introduction

The previous three instalments followed Shell’s relationship with Sakhalin into the post-2022 world of Russian decrees, missing LNG cargoes, frozen compensation and litigation.

This file goes backwards.

To understand why Sakhalin II had become such an internationally sensitive project long before Vladimir Putin dismantled its original corporate structure, it is necessary to return to 2005.

And to a scientist who eventually decided he could no longer participate.

Rick Steiner was not an outside campaigner commenting on the Independent Scientific Review Panel from a distance.

He was inside the process.

The surviving documents provide something more useful than hindsight: they record what he said before the PA-B platform was installed, how Sakhalin Energy responded, and what he said when he subsequently withdrew.

That paper trail allows the disagreement to be reconstructed without turning either side’s position into established fact.

1. Steiner’s Sakhalin concerns pre-dated the whale panel

Rick Steiner’s involvement with Sakhalin did not begin in 2005.

Years earlier, he had examined oil-spill preparedness on the island with Dan Lawn and Jonathan Wills.

Their 1999 report, Sakhalin’s Oil: Doing It Right, was explicitly intended to review environmental monitoring and oil-spill prevention and response, and to recommend improvements. The authors described themselves as independent of government, the oil industry and organised environmental groups.

The report eventually contained 78 recommendations. Its sponsors recorded that the investigators remained concerned that Sakhalin was not yet adequately prepared either to prevent or respond to a major oil spill.

Steiner brought unusual personal experience to that subject. The report identifies him as a University of Alaska professor and former commercial fisherman who had participated in the response to the Exxon Valdez spill.

His separate paper, Oil Spills: Lessons from Alaska for Sakhalin, described catastrophic tanker accidents as a serious risk and argued for much stronger prevention and emergency-response arrangements.

Those were Steiner’s assessments.

They were not judicial findings against Sakhalin Energy.

But they establish that by the time the western gray whale controversy intensified, Steiner had already been examining Sakhalin petroleum risks for years.

2. The environmental argument widened

By January 2003, environmental organisations from Russia, the United States, Japan and South Korea had issued a common set of demands concerning Sakhalin I and II.

They called for best available technology, higher pollution-control standards and application of the precautionary principle to western gray whale habitat.

Among their demands were that the proposed PA-B platform be positioned farther from the feeding habitat; offshore pipelines avoid that habitat; seabed disturbance be reduced; seismic activity be restricted while whales were present; and cumulative effects be independently studied.

Those demands were advocacy positions.

Sakhalin Energy disputed many of them.

But the same broad subjects — noise, cumulative effects, platform location, vessel risk, spill preparedness and independent scientific scrutiny — subsequently appeared in the formal independent review process.

3. Sakhalin Energy itself requested the independent review

In 2004, Sakhalin Energy asked the International Union for Conservation of Nature — IUCN to convene an independent scientific panel to examine the potential effects of Sakhalin II Phase 2 on western North Pacific gray whales.

The population was extraordinarily small.

IUCN’s published report described approximately 100 animals and classified the population as Critically Endangered at the time. (IUCN)

This point matters.

The ISRP was not imposed on Shell by a court.

It was not a Russian regulatory tribunal.

It was an independent scientific mechanism established under IUCN auspices at Sakhalin Energy’s request.

Rick Steiner became one of the participants.

4. The panel did not give Sakhalin II a clean bill of health

The final 2005 report was far more cautious than a conventional project endorsement.

The panel acknowledged that Sakhalin Energy had spent substantial sums on whale research and mitigation.

It also concluded that significant information gaps remained.

One particularly important issue was Sakhalin Energy’s use of the engineering-risk principle:

ALARP — “as low as reasonably practicable.”

The panel said the lack of specificity in how ALARP had been applied to decisions including the PA-B platform locationprevented it from completing a rigorous evaluation of some risks and mitigation options. (IUCN Portals)

Its population modelling was equally sobering.

The panel concluded that the loss of one additional female each year, beyond then-current mortality, could drive the population towards extinction with high probability. (IUCN Portals)

The panel therefore adopted an explicitly precautionary approach.

Its strongest option was temporary suspension and delay of development around the feeding grounds while risk assessment and independent monitoring mechanisms were improved. (IUCN Portals)

That was scientific advice.

It was not an order.

5. Shell did make one major design change

The story would be distorted if the response of Shell and Sakhalin Energy were portrayed simply as rejection of the scientific process.

In March 2005, Sakhalin Energy announced that the offshore pipelines would be rerouted approximately 20 kilometresfarther from the principal feeding ground.

Contemporaneous reporting described roughly 12 additional miles of pipeline. (The Guardian)

Shell’s own Sustainability Report 2005 subsequently said that Sakhalin Energy had taken the panel’s advice and moved the offshore pipelines farther from the feeding area.

The same corporate report said advanced acoustic modelling and independent scientific observers had been used during installation of the production-platform bases and reported that installation had been completed without signs of disturbance to the whales. That was Shell’s published assessment of the outcome. (Shell)

So there was a concrete result from the scientific intervention:

the pipeline route changed.

But the platform location did not.

6. The PA-B platform became the dividing line

Contemporary press coverage immediately recognised the distinction.

The Guardian reported on 31 March 2005 that the pipelines had been rerouted but that campaigners continued demanding relocation of the platform itself. (The Guardian)

A few weeks later, Sakhalin Energy chief executive Ian Craig said the company would continue engaging whale experts and maintained that the company had been open and transparent about the project. (The Guardian)

Thus two things were simultaneously true.

Sakhalin Energy had altered part of the engineering design because of whale concerns.

And significant disagreement remained about the PA-B platform.

For Rick Steiner, that disagreement was not academic.

The concrete base was about to move.

7. 14 July 2005: an urgent letter to Jeroen van der Veer

The archive contains a remarkable one-page document dated:

14 July 2005

It is marked:

URGENT

It is addressed directly to:

Jeroen van der Veer
Chief Executive Officer
Royal Dutch Shell

The subject is:

“postponement of PA-B platform tow-out to Sakhalin.”

Steiner identifies himself as a member of the Independent Scientific Review Panel and the subsequent review process.

He says the PA-B base is scheduled to be towed to the Piltun field the following day.

His request is unambiguous:

postpone it.

8. Steiner listed what he believed remained unresolved

The significance of the letter lies in its specificity.

Steiner did not merely say that he disliked the project.

He identified outstanding subjects that he believed still required adequate resolution:

acoustic modelling;

the adequacy of the noise-impact assessment;

noise intervention and action levels;

noise-mitigation protocols;

independent oversight and monitoring;

ship-collision assessment and mitigation;

oil-spill prevention and response preparedness;

and:

independent review of the PA-B location and alternatives farther from whale habitat.

He argued that the precautionary approach required postponing the tow-out until independent review was complete and the outstanding issues had been reasonably resolved.

That is Steiner’s position in his own contemporaneous document.

It should not be conflated with a unanimous ISRP instruction.

9. The letter closely tracked concerns in the panel’s own report

This is an important distinction.

Steiner’s demand to postpone the tow-out was his.

But many of the underlying subjects were not invented by him individually.

The ISRP report itself had identified uncertainties surrounding noise, vessel collision, cumulative effects, spill risks, monitoring, mitigation and the basis for the PA-B location decision. (IUCN Portals)

The panel’s oil-spill analysis was particularly detailed.

It said effective response in Sakhalin’s severe conditions would be difficult and expensive, and noted that the PA-B Health, Safety and Environment case had not yet been completed in documentation supplied to the panel at the time of its review. (IUCN Portals)

Thus the documentary distinction is:

Steiner personally demanded postponement.

But:

the risk categories underpinning his demand had been examined by the independent panel itself.

10. Shell’s chief executive did not ignore the letter

The following day, 15 July 2005, Sakhalin Energy chief executive Ian Craig replied.

The surviving company letter says Craig had been asked by Jeroen van der Veer to respond to Steiner’s fax because van der Veer believed Craig was the appropriate person to discuss the specific matters raised.

That is significant in itself.

The appeal reached the top of Royal Dutch Shell.

And a reply came back immediately.

Craig thanked Steiner for his role in the Independent Scientific Review Panel and described the ISRP report and subsequent exchanges with Sakhalin Energy as an important contribution to the company’s efforts to mitigate potential effects on the western gray whales.

The two sides were therefore not disputing whether the science mattered.

They were disputing what should happen while the scientific process remained unfinished.

11. Sakhalin Energy said the outstanding issues were still being worked on

Craig’s reply acknowledged continuing work.

The company said a further workshop would address subjects including:

ship strikes and collisions;

noise;

oil and gas spills and accidents;

habitat disturbance and degradation;

the PA-B location;

cumulative effects;

research and monitoring;

mitigation;

and independent mechanisms for verifying compliance with protection measures.

This is an important company-side document because it confirms that, on the eve of PA-B installation, the scientific process had not simply ended.

Outstanding matters were still under discussion.

But Sakhalin Energy did not accept Steiner’s conclusion that this required stopping the platform.

12. The company relied on the Gland workshop

Craig referred to a scientific workshop held at Gland, Switzerland, in May.

According to the IUCN summary quoted in his letter, many participants accepted the proposed platform location after explanation, although some preferred no installation at that site.

The letter also said most participants considered that moving the platform to another technically accessible location was unlikely to make a significant difference to potential impacts.

Sakhalin Energy said documentation supporting that conclusion was being finalised.

Craig added that the company was concentrating on effective mitigation during installation and had gained useful experience from installation of the Lunskoye gravity-base structure earlier that month.

The company’s position can therefore be stated fairly:

continued scientific review and mitigation were compatible with proceeding with the PA-B installation.

Steiner’s position was the opposite:

the independent review should be completed before the effectively irreversible tow-out occurred.

13. This was the real disagreement

The documentary record is more interesting than a simple argument about whether Shell “listened to scientists.”

It clearly did listen in some respects.

The pipeline was rerouted.

Scientific monitoring continued.

The permanent advisory structure was later expanded.

But the PA-B episode exposed a harder governance question:

When must scientific uncertainty actually stop construction?

For Steiner, the unresolved issues justified a pause.

For Sakhalin Energy, they justified continued analysis, monitoring and mitigation while the project proceeded.

Those are materially different applications of the precautionary principle.

14. The platform proceeded

The PA-B base was subsequently installed.

Shell’s Sustainability Report 2005 presented the installation as successfully managed from the standpoint of whale disturbance, stating that external scientific observers monitored noise levels and that the platform bases were installed without observed signs of disturbance to the whales. (Shell)

That is an authenticated Shell statement.

It is not the same thing as an independent finding that every concern raised by Steiner had been resolved.

Nor does the absence of observed immediate disturbance establish the absence of every possible longer-term, cumulative or population-level effect.

The original ISRP had specifically warned against waiting for conclusive population-level evidence before addressing risks. (IUCN Portals)

15. Six weeks later, Steiner withdrew

The archive also contains Steiner’s email dated:

29 August 2005

Its heading records:

“ISRP resignation 8/29/05.”

Steiner told fellow participants:

“I have decided to opt out of further participation”

in the continuing Sakhalin II Phase 2 review process.

He said he had made his concerns clear to the other scientists, Shell and prospective lenders.

Then the email moved beyond technical criticism into personal judgment.

Steiner wrote that he believed the process was being unfairly exploited by Shell and singled out the PA-B location decision as an example.

That was Steiner’s opinion.

It was not an ISRP finding.

16. “Sub-optimization”

Steiner used a revealing concept in explaining his departure:

“sub-optimization”

He described it as doing something in the best possible way when, in his view, it should not be done at all.

He then said there was much Shell could do to make the project safer, but that he no longer believed the particular scientific process would achieve that objective.

He concluded that he could no longer participate and told potential lenders that his own recommendation was to opt out of the project.

Again, these were strong personal conclusions.

They should neither be diluted nor presented as collective findings of the other scientists.

17. The resignation became public

The dispute did not remain within scientific correspondence.

On 11 September 2005, The Observer reported Steiner’s resignation and reproduced part of his explanation.

The newspaper described the resignation as a setback for the Sakhalin project and placed it in the context of the continuing environmental controversy and the project’s sharply increasing cost. (The Guardian)

One qualification is necessary.

Some contemporary press reports simplified complicated corporate and legal developments, and not every statement in them should be accepted uncritically.

For this archive, their value is narrower:

they independently confirm that Steiner’s withdrawal and criticism were public events at the time.

The resignation was not reconstructed twenty years later.

18. Steiner did not speak for the entire panel

This point is essential.

Rick Steiner was a member of the independent scientific process.

But his resignation did not mean the entire panel had resigned.

Nor does his criticism establish that all panel members shared his assessment of Shell’s conduct.

Indeed, Ian Craig’s July reply specifically relied on the Gland discussion as evidence that many participants were prepared to accept the PA-B location after considering the alternatives.

The proper documentary formulation is therefore:

There was significant scientific concern.

There was disagreement about how the precautionary principle should affect the construction schedule.

Steiner reached a point at which he personally could no longer participate.

Others continued.

19. Nor did the scientific process disappear

In October 2006, IUCN announced the creation of the longer-term:

Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel — WGWAP

Ten scientists were initially appointed to provide continuing independent advice on Sakhalin II and wider industrial risks to the whale population. (IUCN)

This is an important counterpoint to Steiner’s resignation.

The institutional experiment did not collapse.

It became more permanent.

Indeed, the WGWAP ultimately operated for many years, generating the extensive scientific record examined in earlier Shell Leaks Files.

But later disputes show that the underlying tension did not vanish.

In 2007, IUCN reported disagreement between the scientific panel and Sakhalin Energy over underwater-noise criteria. (IUCN)

In 2009, IUCN publicly criticised Sakhalin Energy for providing important information too late for effective panel review. (IUCN)

Those later events do not retrospectively prove Steiner right about every 2005 issue.

They do establish that questions about information, timing, independent review and the relationship between scientific advice and operational decisions remained part of the Sakhalin system years after he left.

20. Shell’s own later record acknowledged the long-term value of the process

There is another side to the historical record.

Shell did not subsequently repudiate the whale-review process.

Its 2006 Sustainability Report highlighted the pipeline reroute, continuing scientific monitoring and creation of the long-term advisory panel. It said the whale population had grown and described the project’s approach as one involving independent scientific advice and operational mitigation. (Shell)

A decade later, Shell’s 2015 Sustainability Report was still citing its partnership with IUCN and the 2005 pipeline reroute as examples of efforts to reduce effects on whale habitat. (Shell)

Thus the archive should avoid an overly simple conclusion.

The scientific process both:

changed Shell’s project, and

failed to persuade Shell to accept every recommendation or every scientist’s interpretation of precaution.

Both propositions are supported by the record.

21. The controversy eventually entered an English courtroom — but on a different issue

Sakhalin II later appeared in the English High Court in:

Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth
[2008] EWHC 638 (Admin).

The case concerned access to environmental information relating to proposed UK export-credit support.

Mr Justice Mitting recorded that approximately US$650 million in project support had been sought and that Sakhalin II posed potentially serious consequences for western gray whale habitat. (vLex)

But the limits of that judgment are critical.

The court did not decide whether Steiner was correct.

It did not decide that PA-B should have been postponed.

It did not find that the platform harmed the whale population.

It did not rule that Shell had unlawfully ignored the ISRP.

The case concerned governmental disclosure.

Its relevance here is simply that the environmental controversy surrounding Sakhalin II and the western gray whale became sufficiently important to form part of an English public-law dispute over contemplated British financial support.

22. What later history can — and cannot — tell us

It is tempting to judge the 2005 dispute by looking at what subsequently happened to the whale population.

That would be too simplistic.

Later conservation work recorded encouraging population growth.

But the whales continued to face industrial, shipping, fishing and other risks.

The eventual recovery trajectory cannot tell us what would have happened under a different 2005 construction plan.

Nor can it retrospectively demonstrate that every precaution urged by Steiner was necessary.

The stronger historical comparison is procedural.

Steiner warned about:

noise;

ship collision;

spill preparedness;

cumulative effects;

independent oversight;

monitoring;

and:

making irreversible project decisions before the scientific review was complete.

Many of those same categories remained central to the WGWAP programme for years afterwards. (IUCN)

That continuity is established.

Causation is not.

Documentary Findings Established

Rick Steiner had been examining Sakhalin environmental and oil-spill risks years before the 2005 Independent Scientific Review Panel.

Sakhalin Energy asked IUCN to establish an independent scientific review of Sakhalin II Phase 2 and its potential effects on the western gray whale. (IUCN)

The ISRP identified substantial uncertainty concerning risks, mitigation and aspects of Sakhalin Energy’s decision-making, including the PA-B platform location. (IUCN Portals)

The panel’s most precautionary option was suspension and delay of development near the feeding grounds while risk assessment and independent oversight were strengthened. (IUCN Portals)

Sakhalin Energy subsequently rerouted the offshore pipelines approximately 20 kilometres farther from the principal feeding area. Shell later expressly attributed that change to the scientific review. (Energy Intelligence)

The PA-B platform itself was not relocated.

On 14 July 2005, Rick Steiner sent an urgent letter to Jeroen van der Veer requesting postponement of the PA-B tow-out and identifying multiple unresolved scientific and operational issues.

On 15 July 2005, Sakhalin Energy chief executive Ian Craig replied at van der Veer’s request. The company acknowledged continuing scientific work but defended proceeding with the platform location and mitigation process.

The PA-B installation proceeded.

On 29 August 2005, Steiner withdrew from further participation in the continuing review process.

His resignation and criticism were reported publicly in September 2005. (The Guardian)

IUCN established a permanent Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel in 2006. (IUCN)

Rick Steiner’s stated position

Steiner believed the PA-B tow-out should be postponed until independent review had been completed and the outstanding scientific issues reasonably resolved.

He later concluded that the continuing process was being used in a manner with which he could no longer associate himself.

He advised prospective lenders not to support the project.

Those are Steiner’s conclusions.

They are not presented here as findings by IUCN, the full ISRP, a court or a regulator.

Sakhalin Energy’s stated position

Sakhalin Energy regarded the ISRP as a valuable contribution to whale protection.

It said the PA-B location had been extensively discussed; that many participants at the Gland workshop accepted the proposed location after explanation; that relocation within technically viable areas was not expected to produce a significant reduction in potential impact; and that mitigation and continuing scientific review could manage the remaining issues.

Shell’s subsequent Sustainability Report stated that monitoring during platform-base installation showed no signs of disturbance to the whales. (Shell)

Those are company positions and observations.

Not established

It is not established that Steiner’s July 2005 demand to postpone the PA-B tow-out represented the unanimous view of the ISRP.

It is not established that Royal Dutch Shell or Sakhalin Energy violated a legal obligation by declining to postpone the tow-out.

It is not established that installation of PA-B caused a population-level decline in western gray whales.

It is not established that the absence of observed immediate disturbance during installation proves the absence of every longer-term or cumulative effect.

It is not established that later growth in the whale population proves the 2005 scientific concerns were unnecessary.

It is not established that Steiner’s resignation invalidated the continuing IUCN scientific process.

And it is not established that the ISRP as a whole approved Sakhalin II merely because most of its members continued working with Sakhalin Energy.

Commentary

The most revealing document in this file may be the one-day exchange between Steiner and Sakhalin Energy.

On 14 July, the scientist said:

wait.

On 15 July, the company effectively said:

the scientific work will continue, but the project will continue too.

That is the point at which the abstract language of precaution met the concrete reality of a multibillion-dollar construction schedule.

The disagreement was not simply science versus ignorance.

It was more difficult than that.

Shell had commissioned independent science.

The science had already altered the project.

Shell accepted some recommendations.

It rejected — or did not accept — the operational consequence Steiner drew from others.

And the scientist then had to decide whether remaining inside the process made him more useful than leaving it.

He chose to leave.

Why the July 2005 correspondence matters

The letters also illuminate a recurrent problem in corporate scientific advisory systems.

An independent panel can investigate.

It can advise.

It can warn.

It can monitor.

But unless its mandate gives it decision-making authority, management retains the final decision.

That was true at Sakhalin.

The ISRP could identify the most precautionary option.

Steiner could appeal to Shell’s chief executive.

The scientists could continue reviewing noise, collision risks, spills and habitat.

But the scientists could not themselves order the PA-B base to remain in port.

That structural limitation does not mean the advisory process was worthless.

The pipeline reroute demonstrates the opposite.

But it explains why Steiner’s resignation deserves to be retained in the documentary history alongside Shell’s later celebration of the same scientific partnership.

Both are part of the record.

Source Record

The principal scientific source is the 2005 IUCN Independent Scientific Review Panel report, Impacts of Sakhalin II Phase 2 on Western North Pacific Gray Whales and Related Biodiversity. It records the exceptionally small whale population, the project risks, weaknesses and information gaps in some risk assessments, the panel’s concerns regarding the PA-B decision and its precautionary recommendations. (IUCN)

IUCN — Independent Scientific Review Panel report, 2005

The authenticated corporate account is The Shell Sustainability Report 2005. Shell records the establishment of the independent panel, the approximately 20-kilometre pipeline reroute, acoustic modelling, monitoring during platform-base installation and its plans for a permanent whale advisory panel. (Shell)

Shell Sustainability Report 2005

The archive holds Steiner’s 14 July 2005 urgent letter to Jeroen van der Veer, requesting postponement of the PA-B tow-out and enumerating unresolved scientific and safety issues.

It also holds Sakhalin Energy chief executive Ian Craig’s 15 July 2005 response, sent after van der Veer asked him to address Steiner’s concerns.

The archive additionally contains Steiner’s 29 August 2005 resignation email, in which he explained why he was withdrawing from further participation and set out his personal assessment of the process.

Contemporaneous reporting documents the March 2005 pipeline reroute and the continuing disagreement over the platform location. (The Guardian)

The Guardian — Shell reroutes Sakhalin pipeline, 31 March 2005

The Observer subsequently reported Steiner’s resignation on 11 September 2005. (The Guardian)

The Observer — Rick Steiner resignation, 11 September 2005

IUCN’s 2 October 2006 announcement documents the creation of the permanent Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel following the original review. (IUCN)

IUCN — New Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel, 2 October 2006

The judicial background is Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin). Mr Justice Mitting recorded the environmental significance of Sakhalin II, the western gray whale issue and the approximately US$650 million of contemplated UK-backed project finance. The case concerned environmental-information disclosure, not the merits of Steiner’s PA-B objections. (vLex)

Archive disclaimer: The direct Steiner correspondence records the views of one participant in the scientific process. His allegations and characterisations are attributed to him and are not adopted as findings of fact. Sakhalin Energy’s contemporaneous reply and Shell’s sustainability reporting record the company’s position. The ISRP’s conclusions are independent scientific assessments, not regulatory orders or judicial findings. No causal claim is made that PA-B installation produced a particular population-level outcome for western gray whales.

Site-wide disclaimer applies.

Next instalment The Sakhalin Papers LVI: Before the Whale Panel — Rick Steiner, Exxon Valdez and the 78 Warnings Shell Faced Before Sakhalin II Phase 2

The 2005 resignation was not the beginning of Rick Steiner’s Sakhalin story.

Six years earlier, he had already travelled to the island with two other oil-pollution specialists.

Their report was called:

Sakhalin’s Oil: Doing It Right

It contained:

78 recommendations.

The investigators examined tanker routes, double hulls, tug escorts, vessel monitoring, spill-response equipment, independent oversight, liability, emergency exercises and the implications of trying to clean oil from some of the harshest waters on earth.

Steiner then carried the lessons of the Exxon Valdez disaster into a separate warning about Sakhalin.

One sentence captured his central concern:

a major accident off Sakhalin would not merely be an environmental disaster — it could become an economic and social catastrophe as well.

The next file returns to 1999 and asks:

What did Steiner and his colleagues tell Shell and the Sakhalin authorities six years before he walked away from the whale-review process — and how many of those warnings were still unresolved when Sakhalin II Phase 2 moved ahead?

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 22 SEPTEMBER 2026 was first posted on September 22, 2026 at 7:09 pm.
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The food chain you learned about in school isn’t the full picture. Yes, the rat eats your garden crops, the ermine snags the rat, and the eagle picks off the ermine. But that linear story misses a whole lot of nuance. Parasites like ticks and intestinal worms feed on the eagle and ermine. When those predators die, ants and other scavengers devour their carcasses. Oh, and rats are known to eat their own babies, so they’re predators of themselves.

Capturing the extraordinary complexity of species interactions has been a time-honored — and time-consuming — process of scientists getting out in the field and spying on birds’ nests, for instance, to see what the parents feed their young. Less romantically, they’ve had to sift through scat for the bones of prey animals. 

Now they’ve got an even more powerful — and far less smelly — tool in the form of a citizen science project called Who Eats Whom. It taps into the nonprofit social network iNaturalist, which identifies species in photos that people upload and geotag. You can search for “brown rat,” for example, and find an image of an American ermine carting one off near Monty Drive in Ottawa, Canada. If that’s not metal enough for you, search for “red-tailed hawk” to see the raptors laying waste to snakes and squirrels all across the United States.

Who Eats Whom isn’t just engrossing — it could help inform conservation efforts on a rapidly warming planet. So far, it’s incorporated 17,000 interactions involving 5,700 species in more than 100 countries. “That’s just kind of the power of crowdsourcing,” said ecologist Bradley Allf, who developed the platform while at North Carolina State University but is now at Colorado State University. “You can generate a ton of valuable information in a way that you can’t if you’re just an individual scientist trying to follow snakes around and hope they eat something while you’re watching them, or waiting for them to poop and be able to take their scat.”

While the database literally offers snapshots in time, the idea is to amass data over the coming years, revealing how ecosystems are transforming alongside the planet as a whole. “Even if we look back, say, five years ago, there have been a lot of changes in the feeding patterns of these animals,” said Aditi Mallavarapu, a computer scientist at North Carolina State University and co-author of a new paper describing the work in the journal PLOS Biology. “So not only looking at what is being observed, but also noticing what is not being observed.”

Who Eats Whom, then, is more than a repository of captivating photos. If you click on “Interactive Food Web” at the top right of the site, it brings up a sprawling web of interactions. Search again for “red-tailed hawk” and you’ll see a plethora of small mammals that people have photographed them predating. (Arrows pointing to a species indicate the food going into it.) Look even closer and you’ll find that one of its meals, the American robin, eats the common buckthorn and yaupon holly. 

And let’s not forget the pollinators. Search for “Western honey bee” in the interactive food web and you’ll see that it — among many other insects — ends up in the belly of the goldenrod crab spider, an absolutely gorgeous, ghostly white arachnid. But notice also all the plants that the bee feeds on — honeysuckles, thistles, buttercups — and helps reproduce by spreading their pollen around. “There’s all kinds of complicated ways that energy moves through real food webs, and we’re trying to document that messiness as much as we can,” said Allf, who is also the lead author of the new paper.

Who Eats Whom offers plenty of surprises. People have snapped New World vultures dining on all manner of carcasses, from wild boars to raccoons to groundhogs. On a beach in California’s San Luis Obispo County, though, at least one of the birds found itself a baby white shark, which had likely been stillborn.

With so many smartphone-wielding folks wandering beaches and forests and deserts, ecologists have gained an army of invaluable allies. “The biggest challenge is really data acquisition, because there’s so many species and so many interactions out there,” said Peter Roopnarine, curator of invertebrate zoology and geology at the California Academy of Sciences, who wasn’t involved in the project. “They sometimes can be ephemeral — like it happens once in a lifetime of a species, and that’s it. And they’re dispersed all over the place.” 

By better understanding who eats whom, scientists and conservationists can better protect species. As the planet rapidly heats, species are marching toward the relative coolness of the poles. This is reshuffling ecosystems and changing how species interact. With a platform like Who Eats Whom, normal people with smartphone cameras may well be the first to document the arrival of a new animal in their area. “It’s obviously super engaging, I think, for the people who are participating,” said Rebecca Johnson, director of the Center for Biodiversity and Community Science at the California Academy of Sciences, who wasn’t involved in the project. “It gives you a new way of thinking about your nature observations that you might share.”

At the same time, invasive species — most notoriously, things like the lionfish — are shaking up ecosystems the world over. Left unchecked, hungry invaders can decimate native species, which may already be weakened by skyrocketing temperatures and worsening droughts. “We need to know who’s being consumed by these invasive species,” Roopnarine said, “and are there species on that menu that we really need to be worried about?”

To properly protect species in this topsy-turvy world, conservationists can’t just set aside some land or sea and call it a victory. They also need to ensure that carnivores and omnivores have the prey they usually hunt, and herbivores have the plants they usually graze. “Species don’t just need space — they don’t just need a habitat,” Allf said. “They need the relationships that allow them to survive.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why scientists want your photos of wildlife eating lunch on Sep 22, 2026.

Farmers across the U.S. are facing mounting economic pressures alongside the growing impacts of climate change. More than half of farms had negative income in 2024, while extreme weather disasters cost farmers billions, in addition to new tariffs and soaring input costs, and rising land prices threaten access for the next generation. 

Supporting viable farms and ranches is essential to strengthening rural communities and building a more resilient food system amid these challenges.

“Farmers cannot carry the climate transition alone,” Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg said during “Thriving Farms and Ranches,” a summit held in partnership with the American Farmland Trust at Climate Week NYC. You can watch the entire event stream here.

“If we want healthier soils, if we want cleaner water, if we want to protect biodiversity, if we want nutritious food, if we want thriving rural communities, then we have to build an economy that rewards the people making those outcomes possible,” says Nierenberg.

Throughout the morning, speakers discussed how agriculture can help address climate change while ensuring the people who grow our food have the resources to thrive. A central theme emerged across conversations: Climate solutions must also support the economic well-being of farmers and rural communities.

“Even though more and more farmers are eager to follow regenerative practices, none of that makes much of a difference if farms are going out of business,” says John Piotti, President and CEO of American Farmland Trust.

Piotti highlighted the connection between farm profitability and environmental stewardship. While agriculture plays an important role in climate solutions, farmers need economic stability to sustain those efforts.

“Ultimately we need to pay farmers adequately not only for the food that they grow but for the ecological services they provide,” says Piotti. American Farmland Trust’s new Thriving Farms and Ranches initiative focuses on strengthening the economic viability of farms and ranches alongside their environmental contributions.

The economic challenges facing farmers also affect who can access land and continue farming. During a panel on farmland access for a new generation, Brooks Lamb, Director of Food Systems and Agriculture Policy at Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, described rising land values and growing barriers for young farmers.

“In a lot of communities across the country, land values have skyrocketed…Sometimes even $40,000 an acre, in part because of real estate development,” says Lamb. “We’re seeing a lot of rural gentrification.”

Dominick Grant, Partner and Managing Director of Dirt Capital Partners, says land ownership is critical to supporting farmers’ long-term investments: “Land ownership is the foundation upon which everything is built…the ability for a farmer to invest in regenerative practices, their community, and a rural economy.”

Olivia Fuller, a fourth-generation farmer at Fuller Acres, points to another way communities can help sustain local farms: simply building relationships directly with farmers. “Find out who the farmers are in your community that you can support. Build relationships, show up at the farm for events…We need more of that.”

Speakers also explored how women farmers, local procurement, and farm-to-school programs can strengthen food systems. Hillary Barile, Owner of Rabbit Hill Farms, says farmers often want to make sustainable decisions but must balance those choices with economic realities.

“Every farmer that I’ve ever met wants to make the more sustainable choice that they can for their farm…but they have to balance those decisions with economic sustainability,” says Barile.

For Heather Oppel, Senior Climate Manager at General Mills, climate and agricultural solutions must also reflect the communities implementing them. Women comprise more than one third of U.S. agricultural producers, yet they face persistent systemic barriers in securing loans, land access, and technical assistance.

“Regenerative agriculture and women go hand in hand,” says Oppel. “In order to make this transition durable, it needs to be locally relevant.”

State policies also can—and must—help farmers respond to climate pressures.

“Our farmers are experiencing the impacts of climate change every day,” says Amanda Beal, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry. “We are in a drought…we are seeing the impacts of extreme weather events, soil erosion, rivers flooding fields.”

 And local procurement is a powerful way for institutions to support farmers, economic development, and children’s health: The school cafeteria is America’s biggest restaurant. 

“Local procurement supports farmers and local economic development. Kids eat it, and therefore they will be healthier,” says Karen Ross, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “And there’s experiential learning. The children are connected with nature and understand how farming and nature can be compatible.”

Farm-to-school programs offer another way to connect farmers, communities, and the next generation. Kat Taylor, Chair of the Board of Directors at TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation, says California’s universal school meals program success demonstrates how quickly food systems can shift when investment and political will align.

“It’s not just the morally right thing to do for kids,” says Taylor. “It was also the right thing to do for the supply chain to shift it in favor of ecological and racial justice.”

Much of the work of ecological regeneration happens below the ground, in the soil. Ranchers joined the stage to speak about the realities of regenerative grazing, and how ranching can support soil health while strengthening rural economies and communities.

“The bounty is so great from the soil…and the economic impact. Our whole town is thriving,” says Will Harris, Owner of White Oak Pastures.

Finally, the program looked toward the next generation of eaters and farmers.

Access to land, economic viability, and opportunities to learn remain critical challenges to the next generation of farmers. But without more young people farming, the industry faces further consolidation or development that takes farms out of production and negatively impacts rural communities.

Connecting young people with farming and the natural world can help get children and young people excited about agriculture, says Jeff Tkach, CEO of Rodale Institute: “What gets kids excited is the world of soil. There’s a world beneath our feet…we only know about 5 percent of what we believe there is to know about it.”

And it’s working, says Deydra Steans, Manager of S3 Legacy Ranch—though young farmers still need much more education and support.

“There’s a trend. More young folks wanting to return to the farm,” says Steans.

Explore the entire Food Tank event schedule during Climate Week NYC 2026, and live-stream every Summit on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

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

Photo by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.

The post Building Thriving Farms: “Farmers Cannot Carry the Climate Transition Alone” appeared first on Food Tank.

Shell Singapore has been formally charged over two oil pollution incidents at its Pulau Bukom refinery, including allegations that the company failed to report the discharges to Singapore authorities without delay.

The charges, filed on 22 September 2026 under Singapore’s Prevention of Pollution of the Sea Act, relate to separate incidents in October and December 2024 at the Shell Singapore Energy and Chemicals Park on Pulau Bukom.

According to Channel NewsAsia, the first incident involved approximately 40 tonnes of oily mixture being discharged into Singapore waters through a hole in a pipeline within Shell’s refining facility at about 8am on 20 October 2024. (CNA)

The charge alleges that Shell did not notify the port master until approximately 12.55pm that day. (CNA)

That timing is potentially important because Singapore regulations require operators of such facilities to report pollution incidents without delay and to the fullest extent possible.

A second leak two months later

The prosecution also concerns a second pollution incident over the Christmas period of 2024.

According to the charges reported by CNA, an estimated 485kg to 956kg of oil mixture entered Singapore waters from the Pulau Bukom facility between approximately 9.30am on 26 December and 8.30am on 28 December 2024. (CNA)

Shell is again accused of failing to report the incident immediately.

The December incident had already attracted regulatory attention at the time. Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority and National Environment Agency announced on 27 December 2024 that Shell had shut down an oil-processing unit while the suspected leak was investigated.

Shell estimated at the time that a few tonnes of refined petroleum products had leaked together with cooling-water discharge. Containment booms, absorbent material, dispersants and an oil-skimming system were deployed, while government agencies used boats, satellites and drones to monitor the surrounding waters. (MPA)

Precautionary booms were also deployed at locations including the Sisters’ Islands Marine Park and Sentosa.

The October 2024 incident

The earlier October incident had involved what authorities described at the time as a leak from a Shell land-based pipeline between Bukom Island and Bukom Kecil.

The Maritime and Port Authority said on 20 October 2024 that it had been alerted at about 1pm to a leakage that had occurred at approximately 5.30am that morning. Shell deployed containment booms and vessels equipped with dispersants, while MPA deployed additional craft, drones and satellite surveillance. (MPA)

By the end of that month, Singapore authorities said the clean-up of the leaked material — described as “slop”, an oily mixture — had been completed and that no further oil sightings had been observed at sea or ashore. Investigations nevertheless remained ongoing. (MPA)

The significance of the latest development is that those investigations have now resulted in charges.

Shell asks for more time

At the 22 September court hearing, a Shell representative reportedly requested an eight-week adjournment.

According to CNA, the company said it needed time to obtain internal instructions, appoint legal counsel and locate historical records.

One complication is that the business associated with the incidents was divested in 2025, according to Shell’s representative. The company therefore said additional time would be necessary to retrieve and examine the relevant historical material before responding to the allegations. (CNA)

The proceedings were adjourned until October.

CNA also reported that Shell faces a separate prosecution by Singapore’s National Environment Agency concerning the same incidents. (CNA)

Potential penalties

The penalties are not insignificant.

According to CNA, an entity convicted as the occupier of land from which oil or an oily mixture is discharged into Singapore waters may face a fine ranging from S$1,000 to S$1 million.

A failure to report such a discharge without delay and to the fullest extent possible can attract a further fine of up to S$5,000. (CNA)

These are charges, not findings of guilt. Shell has not yet presented its substantive response to the allegations, and the issues will now proceed through Singapore’s judicial process.

From “top priority” to courtroom

There is, however, an uncomfortable contrast between the present charges and Shell’s public statements when the December 2024 leak occurred.

At the time, Shell said that the health and safety of its employees and protection of the environment were its “top priority”, while emphasising that it was cooperating with authorities and carrying out containment and clean-up operations. (CNA)

Nearly two years later, Singapore prosecutors are not merely examining how the oil escaped. They are also alleging failures in the way the incidents were reported.

That makes this more than another historical Shell spill story.

The court will have to determine whether the prosecution’s allegations are proved. But the existence of formal charges means that questions surrounding the Pulau Bukom leaks — including how the discharges occurred and how promptly Shell informed regulators — are now matters for judicial scrutiny rather than simply corporate explanation.

For a company that routinely emphasises its commitment to safety, environmental responsibility and regulatory compliance, that is a development worth watching closely.

Source: Channel NewsAsia, 22 September 2026; Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore statements concerning the October and December 2024 Pulau Bukom incidents.

Shell Singapore Charged Over Pulau Bukom Oil Leaks and Alleged Reporting Delays was first posted on September 22, 2026 at 6:47 pm.
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People around the world have donated almost $90 million to a government-led campaign to help Nepal recover from its recent devastating Himalayan flood, according to a Nepali climate negotiator, even as the UN chief slammed the tiny amount of money in a new fund to deal with such disasters.

Individuals and companies from Nepal and abroad have chipped in from $5 to “many millions” of dollars to the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund, Manjeet Dhakal, an advisor to the poorest countries at UN climate talks, told an event on Monday focused on early warning systems.

The prompt and substantial response from the public contrasts with the slower, more limited support that is potentially on offer from the UN’s new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), set up by governments to compensate developing countries for climate disasters.

Comment: Human security relies on adapting to the world’s new climate reality

Over three weeks have passed since Nepal’s finance and environment ministers asked the FRLD board to take an urgent decision to allocate funding to help Nepal protect people and restore essential services in the wake of the disaster, which caused around 1,450 deaths and left more than 5,000 people missing.

“Time is of the essence,” the ministers wrote in an appeal to the FRLD on August 31, which was swiftly followed by a letter from a group of developing-country board members urging the FRLD board’s co-chairs to organise an extraordinary meeting to come up with a response.

Loss and damage fund hesitates

Yet, despite informal online meetings, the co-chairs have yet to convene a meeting with the power to allocate funds. The board’s next scheduled meeting begins on December 15.

Dhakal said on Monday that the request has “received some positive response, but still there is some discussion ongoing about how to respond to that”.

“If they can’t respond in a timely manner, then is [the fund] fit for purpose in terms of disasters that the world would be facing in the coming years? The scale and intensity of these disasters is increasing,” he said.

With just $820 million pledged to it by rich countries and not all of that yet delivered, the FRLD has earmarked just $350 million to spend in its initial phase and without further contributions could run out of money next year.

Because of these limited funds, and a huge number of requests for funding totalling nearly $3 billion, the FRLD has said it will only give out a maximum of $20 million to each project for now. It has yet to approve funding for any projects.

Dhakal recently told The Nation magazine that this amount was just a “symbolic gesture”. Nepal’s government has estimated the costs of recovery and reconstruction at $4.8 billion, with homes, roads, bridges, hospitals and hydropower stations in the affected area needing to be repaired and rebuilt.

“Ridiculously small” funding

In a speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, the body’s outgoing Secretary-General António Guterres criticised the “ridiculously small” level of funds made available by wealthy governments to the FRLD. Developed countries should “make the loss and damage fund work at scale”, he said.

Secretary-General António Guterres speaks at UNGA (Photo: UN Photo/ Loey Felipe)

The Portuguese diplomat told world leaders that when he travelled to Nepal three years ago, he had “sounded the alarm on accelerating glacier melt, warning that the rooftops of the world are caving in”.

“Some dismissed it all as overstating dangers, but as tragic events have shown, impacts are arriving sooner, hitting harder, and spreading further than many anticipated,” he said.

A recent study by scientists with the World Weather Attribution group found that climate change contributed to the rock-ice avalanche which sparked a huge flash flood along a river valley on the Nepal-Tibet border.

Speaking at a separate event in New York on Monday, leading climate scientist Johan Rockström highlighted those findings on the role of global warming in the Himalayan disaster.

“This will be potentially the first poster-child case of a loss and damage invoice, because here we have a proven case of a catastrophe which would not have occurred if it hadn’t been for human-caused climate change,” he said.

The post As loss and damage fund stalls, Nepal crowdfunds flood relief appeared first on Climate Home News.