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EWG statement on Senate Republican farm bill proposal

Environmental Working Group - Sun, 08/02/2026 - 06:25
EWG statement on Senate Republican farm bill proposal Anthony Lacey August 2, 2026

WASHINGTON – The Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by John Boozman (R-Ark.), on July 31 released an updated farm bill proposal

The following is a statement from the Environmental Working Group’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Scott Faber:

No one should support a farm bill that fails to support family farmers, feed hungry children, support farmers adopting regenerative practices or build healthy diets.

The farm bill released Friday night by Sen. Boozman fails on all four accounts by failing to close loopholes that tilt the playing field against small farms, by failing to restore the cuts to SNAP that have left more than 1 million children without anti-hunger assistance and by failing to reverse a $2 billion cut to popular farm stewardship programs. 

We need farm and food policies that support healthy diets, the people who feed us, the hungry and our environment, not a farm bill for the 1%. 

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The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action. Visit www.ewg.org for more information.

Areas of Focus Farming & Agriculture Conservation Food & Farm Workers Farm Subsidies Press Contact Alex Formuzis alex@ewg.org (202) 667-6982 August 2, 2026
Categories: G1. Progressive Green

This Texas coal mine will soon be home to a 1.2GW solar farm

Grist - Sun, 08/02/2026 - 06:00

Construction is underway on a $1.7 billion solar and battery storage project in Texas that will turn existing coal mining land into a hub of clean energy generation.

Panamint Capital announced last week that it broke ground on the 1.2-gigawatt Big Rooter Power solar farm in Bremond, about halfway between Dallas and Houston. The project will use some of the land and assets from the adjacent Twin Oaks coal-fired power plant and Calvert surface coal mine, both of which will continue operating.

Panamint’s clean energy project will be among the largest in the nation — and, the developer claims, the biggest solar array ever built at a brownfield site in North America.

“We believe deploying new capacity at existing energy sites is the clearest way to benefit communities, ratepayers, and the environment alike,” said Apolka Totth, CEO of Panamint, a Nevada-based investment firm.

The giant installation will further boost Texas’ thriving solar sector, which this year is expected to generate more electricity than coal in the Lone Star State. The renewable resource is helping meet the state’s energy demand from data centers, manufacturing facilities, and rising air-conditioning use amid more frequent and extreme hot weather.

The Calvert mine is a 19-million-ton surface lignite mine adjacent to the Twin Oaks coal plant. Panamint Capital

Panamint, which is backed by the private equity firm KKR, launched in 2019 with the goals of squeezing more life out of existing fossil-fuel infrastructure while building lower-emission facilities on the same sites. In 2023, Panamint acquired the 310-MW Twin Oaks coal plant and Calvert mine ​“with the express intention of leveraging the site’s existing characteristics to massively and rapidly expand generating capability at the lowest possible cost,” Totth said by email. 

Work has started on the first phase of the solar farm, a 491-MW section that is set to go online in August 2028. Construction will begin in December on the remaining 658 MW, which could start producing power in August 2029.

The 10,000-acre Big Rooter site will also include 1.6 gigawatt-hours of battery storage and 20 miles of new extra-high-voltage transmission lines. The investment firm says it also has the infrastructure and natural gas access needed to build at least 800 MW of gas-fired generation, either for the grid or customers like data center developers.

“Big Rooter is a landmark project that reflects the scale of investment being made in America’s energy future,” George Hershman, CEO of Solv Energy, said in a news release. The contractor is building the site’s solar array, substation, and transmission infrastructure.

Turning coal mines into clean energy 

Big Rooter’s pairing with active coal operations makes it unique within the nation’s small but growing coal-to-solar subsector, which has mainly focused on putting panels on former mine lands and retired industrial sites.

The largest of these projects is the 186-MW Tilden Solar Project in southern Illinois, followed by the 111-MW Martin County Solar Project in eastern Kentucky, which both went online last year atop abandoned coal mines.

In Louisiana, the 240-MW Dolet Hills Solar Project is now being built on a former coal mine property. And the developer BrightNight is advancing the Starfire installation on remediated mine land in Kentucky.

In 2023, when BrightNight announced the Appalachian project, electric truck startup Rivian signed on as the anchor customer, with a 100-MW power purchase agreement. Starfire was initially envisioned as a roughly 800-MW project, but is now on track for 410 MW, with construction slated for late 2027 and planned operations in 2030.

The 111-MW Martin County Solar Project in eastern Kentucky will supply power for Toyota’s automaking operations in the state. Toyota

“Earlier descriptions of a larger project reflected a broader long-term vision for the site, but as development has progressed, BrightNight has focused on the configuration that best aligns with current interconnection, permitting, site, and customer considerations,” a BrightNight spokesperson said by email. ​“We remain very enthusiastic about Starfire and its importance as a major redevelopment project on former coal mining land in Eastern Kentucky.”

Repurposing old mining sites for solar power has an obvious appeal. As opposition breaks out in rural areas over using prime farmland for solar — concerns stoked by Trump administration officials, including U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins — brownfield projects allow developers to sidestep those conversations and put sullied land to use. Doing so has typically proved more complicated and expensive than placing solar panels on flat or uncontaminated fields.

The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act provided incentives to make it easier to finance clean energy installations on mine lands, while a $500 million Department of Energy program allocated funding for projects on current or former mines.

But last year, the Trump administration and Congress added more hurdles by phasing out tax credits for solar and wind energy, effectively ending the tax bonus for brownfield developments. And the administration scrapped at least one DOE mine-land award, for Mineral Basin Solar Power, as part of its sweeping cancellation of $7.6 billion in clean energy grants in the 16 states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The Nature Conservancy and its partners are developing solar projects on former coal mines, including at this site in Campbell County, Tennessee.
Cameron Davidson/TNC

“The federal policy landscape for developing clean energy on mines has changed, but the opportunity hasn’t,” said Jessica Wilkinson, the North America renewable energy team lead for The Nature Conservancy, a global nonprofit.

“In many parts of the country, wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy and are succeeding on economics alone,” she added. ​“And if building on mine lands, brownfields, and landfills has fewer community conflicts, they may be seen as very enticing.” 

The nonprofit and its partners plan to develop 25 solar and battery storage projects on former mine lands that The Nature Conservancy manages in the Cumberland Forest, which spans parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. The first project, the 10-MW Wildcats Solar in Virginia, is expected to break ground this fall and could start delivering power to the grid next year.

Wilkinson noted that despite the federal pullback, states have continued to show support for what her group calls ​“mining the sun” projects. For example, Ohio and Colorado passed laws to incentivize renewable energy development on former industrial sites. And a handful of federal programs continue providing financial support for cleaning up coal mining areas — a crucial step for enabling future solar development.

“Communities still want to see these lands become economic engines again,” Wilkinson said.

Texas project adds solar — and more coal

Panamint, for its part, said it was able to secure clean energy incentives for Big Rooter Power before Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, 2025, repealing large swaths of the Inflation Reduction Act.

“We ordered long-lead time equipment such as transformers and circuit breakers well before last summer’s OBBBA, so we were largely insulated from those impacts,” Totth said.

She noted that Panamint is partnering with U.S. firms First Solar and Nextpower (formerly Nextracker) to procure domestically made solar modules and racks. Big Rooter is also located in an ​“energy community” — the Department of Energy’s term for brownfield sites and areas affected by coal plant and mine closures. For those reasons, the company says it will receive a federal investment tax credit worth 50% of total project costs.

Read Next For first time, Americans are getting more of their electricity from solar than coal

Yet as Panamint begins installing millions of solar panels in Texas, it has no plans to wind down production at the neighboring Twin Oaks coal plant.

“Twin Oaks is an economically competitive unit that provides low-cost reliability to Texas ratepayers, and we see no reason for an early retirement,” Totth said. She added that the company is also investigating both expanding the Calvert mine area and building a terminal facility to rail in coal for continued operations.

As Totth sees it, the new solar array will produce enough carbon-free power to ​“negate” the coal plant’s emissions profile on an annual basis.

It’s an example of the all-of-the-above approach to energy in Texas. Despite the massive amounts of solar, storage, and wind the state has built, it continues to cling to fossil fuels. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This Texas coal mine will soon be home to a 1.2GW solar farm on Aug 2, 2026.

Categories: H. Green News

Study Reveals Hidden Health Risks of Cheap Foods

Food Tank - Sun, 08/02/2026 - 05:00

A recent study from Yuka and Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic finds that in the United States, cheap foods are more likely to contain ingredients that negatively impact health compared to more expensive products. The report recommends policies to regulate food safety, hold food companies accountable, and improve public health.

The study analyzed more than 800 packaged foods sold nationwide in the U.S. to determine how a product’s price relates to its nutritional quality. The least expensive products contain 163 percent more additives, 21 percent more sugar, and 10 percent more sodium than the most expensive ones. Some products also contain ingredients that are banned in other countries, according to the report.

“Healthy eating cannot simply be framed as an individual responsibility…without acknowledging the structural realities of the food system,” Julie Chapon, Co-Founder of Yuka, a consumer health app, tells Food Tank.

The products span the 12 most popular processed food categories in the Yuka app that are sold nationwide in major U.S. grocery retailers. Examples include store-bought bread, breakfast cereal, pizza, crackers, cereal bars, and tortilla wraps. The report finds that the products in each category can vary greatly in terms of nutritional quality.

“Most people believe that some types of food are generally healthy and others—like desserts or snack products—are not,” Emily Broad Leib, Director of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, tells Food Tank. She points to store-bought bread as an example, with the cheapest breads containing four times more additives than the most expensive ones. While many consumers view bread as a healthy part of their diet, the ingredients can vary widely between loaves.

“Even basic staples can be either fairly healthy or heavily engineered, and price is quietly pushing lower-income families toward the latter,” says Broad Leib. These findings demonstrate the nutrition inequity embedded in the U.S. food system and help explain the more than US$1 trillion a year spent on diet-related diseases, according to the report.

One of the major hurdles to overcoming these challenges is the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) exemption. The loophole allows companies to self-certify and introduce new ingredients into the U.S. food supply without U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notification or review. The report says, “99 percent of new food chemicals introduced since 2000 have bypassed federal oversight.” These novel substances are rarely reviewed by the FDA after entering the market.

The study recommends reforming the food oversight and safety system that allows for this to happen. These include amending the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) to remove the GRAS loophole and require FDA review of new substances. It suggests systematic reassessments and monitoring of food additive ingredients within the food supply, placing limits on specific substances, improving transparency in flavoring ingredients, and requiring the disclosure of ingredient processing and sources.

The report also states that there is a need for policies to reduce consumer exposure to high-risk additives and ultra-processed foods (UPFs). These include banning these ingredients in schools, reforming food procurement within institutional settings, and utilizing tax credits to incentivize product reformulation without these ingredients.

The authors hope that these policy recommendations, along with public pressure, will push companies to reformulate their products and create a more equitable food system. “Healthier food should not be a luxury,” says Chapon, “Public health protections must evolve to better reflect today’s food environment.”

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

Photo courtesy of Haley Owens, Unsplash

The post Study Reveals Hidden Health Risks of Cheap Foods appeared first on Food Tank.

Categories: A3. Agroecology

August 2 Green Energy News

Green Energy Times - Sun, 08/02/2026 - 04:38

Headline News:

  • “Zambia’s Government Delivers On Its Promise To Ramp Up Generating Capacity, With Solar Playing A Key Role” • Zambia made a conscious decision to have an electricity grid powered by renewable energy, mostly hydro. But this bold move has faced severe challenges recently due to prolonged droughts. Now the country is turning to solar. [CleanTechnica]

Boy learning by solar light (Patrick Bentley, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped)

  • “India’s Renewables Hit 20% Power Mix Record in July as Coal Share Drops” • India’s renewable energy generation reached a record 20% of the total power mix in July, while coal’s share fell. But the overall picture was complicated. The total amount generated fell from June, but increased year on year, as electric demand increased. [Whalesbook]
  • “Renewable Power Generation Capacity To Hit 12,000 MW By Next March” • Since the 14th government’s term started, about 4,500 MW of new capacity have been added to Iran’s power grid, as the capacity of renewable power plants increased from 1,250 MW to about 5,800 MW. The capacity of renewable power plants will reach 12,000 MW by March 2027. [Tehran Times]
  • “Wildfires Spark Evacuations In Washington Amid Dangerous Conditions Across The Pacific Northwest” • A wildfire spreading quickly outside Spokane, Washington, burned more than 2,000 acres and sparked evacuations, according to local authorities. The Old Trails Fire is just one of a number of fires currently threatening the state. [ABC News]
  • “KIA Elects To Manufacture The EV3 In Mexico” • The Kia EV3 was introduced two years ago, with the expectation that it would be made at the existing Kia factory in Georgia for sale in the US market. That was before the immigration folks descended on a Hyundai battery factory and hauled off a few hundred South Korean in handcuffs. [CleanTechnica]

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

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Socialist Resurgence - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 23:01

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Categories: D2. Socialism

We Shall Prevail: An Echo That Doesn't Die

Common Dreams - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 19:36


More than 50 years after the murder of iconic Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, the last man convicted of killing him has been tracked down and brought to justice. In 1973, a day after Pinochet's coup, Jara was seized, tortured, his hands broken to silence what was deemed music "more powerful than a thousand machine guns." Today, in a world tilting right, he remains an enduring symbol of resistance. Manifiesto: “A song has meaning/ When it beats in the veins/ Of a man who will die singing.”

On Sept. 11, 1973, troops under brutal, U.S.- backed General Augusto Pinochet bombed and stormed the presidential palace in Santiago to depose Salvador Allende, a Chilean physician who'd become the first democratically elected Marxist head of state in Latin America. Barricaded inside the palace, Allende gave a final speech defending Chilean democracy. "My words do not have bitterness but disappointment.," he said. "May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath." He thanked the country's workers, farmers, miners, women, intellectuals, students for their heartfelt loyalty to "a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice." "I will always be next to you," he said. "My sacrifice will not be in vain. History is ours." Then he shot himself under the chin with an assault rifle.

A Marxist activist and singer hugely popular with Allende supporters, Jara had re-written the 1969 song Venceremos - composed by Sergio Ortega with original text by Claudio Iturra - as an anthem for Allende’s 1970 Popular Unity election campaign. Born to a poor farm family, Jara was mestizo, a mix of Indigenous Mapuche and Spanish heritage. He once said his first memory was hearing his mother sing folk songs as she worked in their garden or kitchen; after she died when he was 15, Jara went to seminary school but eventually decided against the priesthood. After military service, he studied theater and music at university, then turned to writing songs that merged tender folk music with political themes - rural working-class stories, brutal evictions of squatters: "We began to create a new kind of song. It was music that was born out of necessity."

In September 1973, widely recognizable, he was seized by soldiers the day after the coup and taken to Estadio Chile, a Santiago stadium now named for him, where about 5,000 people were being held. For four days, he was beaten, tortured, humiliated. An officer threw a cigarette on the ground and made him crawl for it; others played Russian Roulette with him; eventually, they broke both his hands before parading him through the stadium; later, through split lips, he sang a final Venceremos - "We Will Prevail." On his last day, said a fellow detainee, he found a pen and notebook and scribbled one more song, or harsh poem, Estadio Chile, later smuggled out. Two hours later, he was killed, his body dumped near a cemetery. His body had 44 bullet wounds 56 broken bones, including a shattered skull. He was 40 years old.

The Pinochet dictatorship went on to kill or disappear over 3,000 people, and detain and torture up to 40,000 during its brutal 17-year reign. It ended in 1990 through a constitutional process wherein voters rejected extending its rule and elected a civilian president. After years of legal efforts to hold Pinochet accountable, in 1998 a Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant for his human rights abuses; he was detained in the U.K during a medical visit after the House of Lords ruled he did not have immunity, but Britain ultimately released him back to Chile in 2000 for health reasons. There, Chilean judges pushed their Supreme Court to strip him of immunity to face trial for murders and kidnappings tied to military death squads, but he died under house arrest of a heart attack in 2006, age 91, having never been formally tried or convicted for his crimes.

Victor Jara, one of the regime's most beloved and recognizable victims, swiftly became an enduring international symbol of resistance after the deadly, public silencing of his music. In 2003, Estadio Chile was renamed Estadio Víctor Jara; in 2009, Victor’s body was reburied in a public funeral attended by thousands of mourners; today, an annual 1,000 Guitars event held in his honor at that stadium also draws thousands. Still, the moral arc of the universe moved slowly. Over time, Chilean courts convicted hundreds of military officers and secret police for human rights abuses, but it was not until 2018 that eight retired officers were charged with Jara's murder, and that of Allende's director of prisons Littré Quiroga Carvajal. In August 2023, after five years of appeals and 50 years of evading justice, Chile's Supreme Court convicted them all in a unanimous decision.

The Court sentenced the eight, several in absentia, to 15 years and a day for the murders of both men, and 10 years and a day for their kidnappings, for a total of 25 years. A ninth was given eight years for concealing the crimes. The Court also dismissed all their appeals for annulment, and ordered the state to pay large reparations to the families of both men. Of those sentenced, 86-year-old Gen. Hernán Chacón killed himself moments after police arrived to arrest him at his home in a wealthy district of Santiago. Another, Pedro Barrientos, had fled Chile for the US in 1989; he was extradited back in 2023 after he was arrested in the US during a traffic stop. During his trial, one former soldier testified Barrientos liked to brandish his pistol in a crowd and declare, “I killed Víctor Jara with this!"

Five others have been in jail since then. Only one, Nelson Haase Mazzei, had remained missing since he failed to appear in court in 2018. A retired colonel, Haase Mazzei joined the Chilean army’s notorious Tejas Verde brigade in 1972 and was part of Pinochet’s brutal secret police; he worked closely with its head, Manuel Contreras, sentenced to over 500 years in jail for crimes against humanity before his 2015 death. Last weekend, in likely the final act of a too-long quest for justice, Chilean police announced they'd arrested Haase Mazzei, now 80, in rural Puyehue, south of Santiago. A judge ordered his immediate imprisonment to start his 25 year sentence; one article noted, "Impunity Takes Another Hit." Another said his defense lawyer has requested his transfer to Punta Peuco, a ritzy jail already housing many of the Pinochet era's murderers.

Through the Víctor Jara Foundation, started by Victor's widow Joan, a British dancer and activist who died in 2023 at 96, their daughter Amanda said she welcomes the news of Haase's arrest but, "Half a century after the murders, it is difficult to see this as justice." Still, Jara's songs live on from when Allende, after he won the presidency, spoke before a banner reading, "You can’t have a revolution without songs." "They were on the radio and television," said Joan in 1975. “The song movement was a tremendous weapon." Since then, music has continued fighting the fear authoritarianism depends on, transforming "political grievance into a shared language of survival" - Miriam Makeba, Mikis Theodorakis, Pussy Riot, America's Woody Guthrie to Dylan to Bad Bunny, who launched his 2026 tour in Chile with Jara's song, dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, The Right to Live in Peace.

In 2020, James Dean Bradfield, lead vocalist and guitarist for the Welsh alt-rock band Manic Street Preachers, released Even in Exile, a concept album dedicated to Jara's life and work, along with a three-part podcast. Bradfield discovered Jara as a teen, taken aback by a tenderness he didn't associate with "one of the only truly Marxist musicians. The truth...floats to you like a dream.” He learned more about Jara from poet Patrick Jones, whose brother is Bradfield’s bandmate; Jones had found two compilations of Jara songs in a thrift shop, became "obsessed" and wrote dozens of poems about Jara that, shared with Bradfield, became the album's songs. For Jones, the story of Jara's life and death is "a warning from history" that deeply . resonates with today's rise of the right: "Power is always afraid of those who stand up and say, 'There’s another way.'"

For the album, Bradfield wanted songs that span Jara's life, from his rural childhood to his final hours. He was moved by his singing of Venceremos near the end - "He died defiantly, but with grace" - yet felt, "If you just focus on his death, you ignore the journey." Above all, he wanted to highlight Jara's daunting courage and conviction throughout his life, a "naked truth" that rendered him what Phil Ochs called, when he met Jara in 1971, "the real thing." For Bradfield, it reminded him of the Preachers' 1998 song, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next. He also deliberately chose to include Jara's final Estadio Chile - "How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror/ Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying” - which he calls "an anthem that became a prophecy." Of Jara's life and work, he hears "the echo time and time again. I wanted to show here’s an echo that doesn’t die."

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Categories: F. Left News

The Shell Leaks Files: 1 August 2026

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 14:25
The Shell Leaks Files SLF-2007-017 The Sakhalin Papers VII: The Whistleblower Warnings — Claims That Shell’s Management Could No Longer Control the Project

Archive Reference: SLF-2007-017
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Evidence Standard: Authenticated Shell communications, contemporaneously preserved whistleblower material, official project records, contemporaneous journalism, parliamentary evidence and relevant court-record context.

Introduction

On 2 June 2007, royaldutchshellplc.com published allegations attributed to a confidential source inside the Sakhalin-2 project.

The source made two distinct categories of claim.

The first concerned the project timetable. The insider alleged that senior management was promoting an unachievable December 2007 target for making the onshore pipeline ready to receive hydrocarbons, while specialist personnel believed that completion would extend into 2008.

The second category was considerably more serious. It included allegations that professional advice was being disregarded, personnel were being pressured to endorse the preferred timetable, and questionable relationships existed between project management and certain contractors.

The eventual project chronology supports an important part of the source’s warning: the pipeline was not completed in December 2007.

It does not, however, prove every allegation the source made.

This archive file therefore asks three separate questions:

  1. What did the whistleblower allege?
  2. Which predictions were borne out by subsequent events?
  3. Which accusations remain unproven?

That distinction is essential to responsible documentary history.

The Nature of the Evidence 1. An anonymous source is not an authenticated Shell document

The whistleblower statement was preserved and published contemporaneously. It contained detailed references to Sakhalin Energy’s onshore pipeline organisation, its programme, named managers, internal disciplines and contractors.

Its specificity gives it evidential interest.

It does not, by itself, establish the source’s identity, employment status or personal knowledge.

Unlike the David Greer “Pipeliners All!” email examined in the previous archive file, the whistleblower statement was not subsequently authenticated by Shell or Sakhalin Energy.

It must therefore be classified as a contemporaneously recorded insider allegation, not as an authenticated corporate record.

That does not make it worthless.

It determines how cautiously it must be used.

The Whistleblower’s Central Warning 2. The disputed December 2007 target

The source alleged that Sakhalin Energy management was presenting December 2007 as the date by which the onshore pipeline would be ready for hydrocarbons.

According to the statement, several internal engineering and construction disciplines had concluded that completion would instead occur during 2008. The source alleged that operational, procedural and construction constraints had been excluded from the preferred programme and that information inconsistent with the December target was being rejected.

The allegation was not merely that a deadline might be missed.

The source claimed that management was committed to a date that internal specialists considered technically unattainable.

The statement concluded with the stark assessment:

“The current SEIC management can no longer effectively manage Sakhalin II.”

That was an opinion expressed by an anonymous source. It was not a judicial finding, an official audit conclusion or a statement accepted by Shell.

3. Alleged pressure on project personnel

The source further alleged that members of specialist disciplines were being pressed to endorse the December programme despite their professional reservations.

It was claimed that staff risked having responsibility shifted onto them if the target was subsequently missed: management could point to an apparently agreed programme, while the individuals concerned would carry the professional consequences.

The source described project information as being accepted only when it supported the chosen date and alleged that personnel were being placed under considerable pressure.

Evidential position

No authenticated record examined for this instalment independently proves that staff were coerced into approving a false programme.

The allegation must remain identified as an allegation.

There is, however, authenticated evidence that senior project management was confronting visible anxiety and a lack of confidence among personnel at approximately the same time.

The Greer Email as Corroborative Context 4. “Pipeliners All!”

David Greer’s authenticated email of 18 April 2007 was addressed to a large group of personnel connected with the onshore pipeline operation.

Greer wrote that comments and body language observed at a project meeting suggested the department risked becoming a team that did not want to fight and lacked confidence in its ability.

He attempted to rally the recipients with militaristic language and ended with the instruction:

“Lead me, follow me or get out of my way.”

Shell and Sakhalin Energy confirmed the email’s authenticity after it was supplied to the Financial Times. Greer left the company several weeks later, although Sakhalin Energy rejected as speculation the suggestion that the leaked email had caused his departure.

What the email corroborates

The Greer document confirms that:

  • senior management perceived faltering confidence among pipeline personnel;
  • the remaining programme was regarded as an exceptional challenge;
  • management considered a forceful intervention necessary;
  • substantial organisational pressure existed within the project.
What it does not corroborate

The email does not prove that project schedules were falsified.

It does not establish that staff were coerced into signing an unachievable programme.

It does not prove improper relationships with contractors.

It supports the whistleblower’s description of a project under intense managerial and schedule pressure, but it does not authenticate every allegation.

Earlier Internal Warnings About Schedule Pressure 5. The Bouman–Van Spronsen correspondence

The Sakhalin archive contains authenticated internal communications predating the 2007 whistleblower statement.

In 2002, Shell manager Hans Bouman raised concerns with Sakhalin Energy technical director Engel van Spronsen about well design, seismic faults, shallow gas and the danger of allowing schedule considerations to override technical caution.

Van Spronsen acknowledged that he sometimes shared Bouman’s concern about the schedule. Bouman subsequently confirmed the authenticity of his emails to Dow Jones Newswires. Sakhalin Energy said the well design was revised in 2005, while Van Spronsen denied that the issues identified had caused the project’s cost escalation.

One observation from the contemporaneous reporting was particularly relevant:

“I would never ever want to be schedule-driven” on a project of that scale.

These earlier emails concerned well design rather than the 2007 pipeline completion programme. They do not prove the later whistleblower allegations.

They do establish that concern about schedule pressure within Sakhalin-2 was not invented retrospectively.

Testing the Prediction Against the Project Record 6. Was the pipeline ready in December 2007?

The strongest test of the anonymous warning is the subsequent project chronology.

In January 2008, an official Gazprom account of a Sakhalin-2 project visit described the onshore oil and gas pipelines as still under construction.

Contemporaneous reports in November 2008 stated that construction of the approximately 800-kilometre pipeline system had been completed and that filling it with oil and gas had begun.

Sakhalin Energy’s present project history records that gas production from the Lunskoye-A platform began in 2008, when gas first entered the project’s pipeline system. It similarly dates commercial development of the Piltun-Astokhskoye-B area to late 2008.

The available record therefore supports the whistleblower’s central scheduling prediction:

The onshore pipeline system was not completed by December 2007. Substantial construction and commissioning activity continued into 2008.

7. The wider commissioning delay

The whistleblower statement concentrated on pipeline readiness rather than the date of the first commercial LNG cargo.

The wider project timetable nevertheless provides relevant context.

In December 2007, Sakhalin Energy announced that completion of the LNG plant and the first exports would be delayed. Reuters reported Gazprom’s intention to attempt first LNG exports by the end of 2008, while the Sakhalin regional governor said supplies were more likely to begin in spring 2009.

Gazprom’s official project history records that the LNG plant entered service in February 2009.

These developments do not prove that the anonymous source possessed perfect information.

They do demonstrate that the warning of slippage beyond the publicly promoted timetable was substantially correct.

The Contractor Allegations 8. Starstroi and SU4

The source also raised questions about the relationship between Sakhalin Energy management, prime contractor Starstroi and subcontractor SU4.

The allegations included possible conflicts of interest and inappropriate relationships. No evidence examined for this instalment establishes those accusations as fact.

In June 2008, WWF referred to the claims in written evidence submitted to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee. The parliamentary record stated:

“Allegations have been made by a whistleblower of inappropriate relationships between SEIC management and its contractors.”

It specifically identified Starstroi and SU4 and cited the January 2008 royaldutchshellplc.com article as its source.

What parliamentary inclusion means

The inclusion of the allegations in published parliamentary evidence is historically significant.

It demonstrates that WWF considered them relevant enough to place before a select committee and that they entered the permanent parliamentary record.

It does not mean that Parliament investigated, adopted or proved them.

The wording carefully preserved their status as allegations.

The same discipline should be maintained here.

Court-Record Position 9. What the courts did—and did not—decide

WWF and The Corner House prepared a judicial-review challenge concerning the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department’s proposed support for Sakhalin-2. The challenge was discontinued after Sakhalin Energy withdrew its application for ECGD support in February 2008.

Separate proceedings concerning disclosure resulted in government information about Sakhalin-2 being released. Parliamentary evidence records that two hearings confirmed that departmental responses expressing serious environmental concerns should be disclosed in the public interest.

Those proceedings concerned government transparency and the handling of potential export-credit support.

They did not determine:

  • whether Sakhalin Energy manipulated its construction programme;
  • whether personnel were coerced;
  • whether contractor relationships were improper;
  • whether any individual had engaged in corruption.

No judicial finding establishing those allegations has been identified.

Reassessing the Archive’s 2008 Headline 10. Were the warnings “100% correct”?

The archive article published on 6 January 2008 carried the headline:

“The Sakhalin-2 whistleblower warnings which proved 100% correct.”

Under the present evidential methodology of The Shell Leaks Files, that description requires qualification.

What was vindicated

The source predicted that the December 2007 pipeline target was not achievable and that completion would extend into 2008.

The official chronology supports that prediction.

The source also portrayed the project as suffering from schedule pressure, weak confidence and management strain. Greer’s authenticated email provides meaningful contemporaneous support for that general description.

What was not proven

The surviving evidence examined here does not prove:

  • deliberate fabrication of project information;
  • systematic coercion of specialists;
  • an organised attempt to transfer blame;
  • improper financial or personal relationships with contractors;
  • corruption involving Starstroi or SU4.

The accurate archival conclusion is therefore:

The whistleblower’s central scheduling warning was materially vindicated. The accompanying allegations of misconduct remain unproven.

Correcting that distinction does not weaken the archive.

It strengthens it.

Historical Analysis

The importance of the 2007 warning lies partly in its timing.

It was published before the December deadline had passed, before the pipeline’s completion slipped into 2008 and before the LNG plant entered service in 2009.

It was therefore predictive rather than retrospective.

That gives the schedule warning genuine historical weight.

At the same time, accurate prediction does not automatically validate every accompanying allegation. A source may be correct about engineering progress and mistaken—or insufficiently informed—about motive, misconduct or contractual relationships.

Documentary analysis must resist the temptation to treat a partly vindicated source as infallible.

The proper method is claim-by-claim assessment.

Commentary

The whistleblower’s most dramatic assertion was that Sakhalin Energy’s management could no longer control the project.

That statement cannot be established as an objective fact.

But the record does show a project whose internal timetable had become deeply contested, whose pipeline personnel required an extraordinary motivational intervention, whose completion moved beyond the disputed December target and whose senior project director departed during the resulting public controversy.

In ordinary corporate communications, those elements would have appeared separately:

  • a revised completion date;
  • a management departure;
  • a construction update;
  • a reassuring statement about eventual delivery.

The leaked material connects them.

It reveals that the delay was not merely an external surprise announced after the event. Someone claiming detailed knowledge of the project had warned in advance that the programme was not achievable.

That is precisely why contemporaneously preserved whistleblower material matters—even when it must be handled with caution.

Evidence Assessment

Existence and date of the whistleblower statement: Confirmed by contemporaneous website publication and archive preservation.

Identity and employment status of the source: Not publicly established.

Prediction that pipeline completion would extend into 2008: Supported by official and contemporaneous project records.

Description of management pressure and low confidence: Partially supported by the authenticated Greer email.

Claim that project information was fabricated: Not proven.

Claim that personnel were coerced into approving the programme: Not proven.

Allegations concerning Starstroi and SU4: Recorded by WWF in parliamentary evidence, but not judicially or independently established.

Court findings on the whistleblower accusations: None identified.

Document Integrity Statement

This archive file deliberately separates:

  • authenticated corporate documents;
  • anonymous insider allegations;
  • official project milestones;
  • contemporaneous reporting;
  • parliamentary evidence;
  • court-record context;
  • historical inference;
  • editorial commentary.

The fact that one prediction was vindicated has not been used to authenticate unrelated allegations.

The archive’s earlier “100% correct” characterisation has been reassessed in accordance with the more rigorous evidential standards now applied by The Shell Leaks Files.

Sources and Documentary References Primary and archival material
  • Confidential whistleblower statement published on 2 June 2007 and republished on 6 January 2008.
  • Authenticated David Greer “Pipeliners All!” email, 18 April 2007.
  • Hans Bouman–Engel van Spronsen internal correspondence concerning Sakhalin design and schedule risks.
Official project records
  • Gazprom project review recording that onshore pipelines remained under construction in January 2008.
  • Sakhalin Energy records concerning first gas and late-2008 commercial development.
  • Gazprom record of the LNG plant entering service in February 2009.
Contemporaneous reporting
  • Reports of pipeline completion and commissioning in November 2008.
  • Reuters, Itar-Tass and The Moscow Times reports concerning delays to LNG completion and exports.
Parliamentary and court-record context
  • WWF memorandum to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 20 June 2008.
  • Parliamentary account of the proposed judicial review and disclosure proceedings concerning ECGD’s handling of Sakhalin-2.
Related Archive Files
  • SLF-2007-011 — The Sakhalin Papers I: How Internal Documents Became Geopolitical History
  • SLF-2007-012 — The Sakhalin Papers II: The Cost Escalation That Changed Everything
  • SLF-2007-013 — The Sakhalin Papers III: Environmental Inspections, Regulatory Pressure and the Battle for Control
  • SLF-2007-014 — The Sakhalin Papers IV: Behind Closed Doors — Internal Communications During the Crisis
  • SLF-2007-015 — The Sakhalin Papers V: The Gazprom Agreement — How Control of Sakhalin-2 Changed Hands
  • SLF-2007-016 — The Sakhalin Papers VI: After the Deal — “Pipeliners All!” and the Internal Record of Shell’s Response
Archivist’s Note

An archive should not merely preserve old conclusions. It should test them.

The whistleblower’s prediction about the project timetable proved substantially accurate. That deserves to be recorded.

The more serious allegations were never established to the same evidential standard. That must also be recorded.

The credibility of The Shell Leaks Files depends upon preserving both parts of that conclusion.

About The Shell Leaks Files

The Shell Leaks Files is an independent documentary archive preserving authenticated historical material relating to Royal Dutch Shell plc, Shell plc and associated companies.

The archive applies a consistent methodology based upon provenance, contemporaneous corroboration, official records and the explicit separation of documentary fact from allegation, inference and commentary.

Next Archive File SLF-2007-018 — The Sakhalin Papers VIII: The Story Shell Wanted “Killed” — Internal Emails, The Sunday Times and the Battle to Contain the Sakhalin Narrative

The next instalment will examine authenticated Shell correspondence concerning a proposed Sunday Times investigation into the Donovan archive’s role in the Sakhalin-2 crisis.

It will reconstruct what the newspaper intended to publish, Shell’s internal discussion of applying pressure to stop the article, what subsequently happened—and the limits of what the surviving documents allow us to conclude.

The Shell Leaks Files: 1 August 2026 was first posted on August 1, 2026 at 10:25 pm.
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Pesticides kill: join us against Syngenta on October 3rd

October will witness a massive global demonstration to denounce the damage caused by the agrochemical industry and to end the impunity enjoyed by the multinationals that are poisoning us.

The post Pesticides kill: join us against Syngenta on October 3rd appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Phasing Out Fossil Folly

Labor Network for Sustainability - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 08:15

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

Listen to the audio version >>

The Greentech revolution makes it possible to pivot rapidly away from fossil fuels. But realizing that possibility requires actually halting and reversing fossil fuel extraction and burning. President Trump is doing everything possible instead to expand such fossil folly – and to crush any efforts to restrain it. But the fight to reduce fossil fuels continues from below.

Oil well along U.S. Route 6 in Railroad Valley, Nevada, July 17, 2014. Photo credit: Famartin, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The previous commentaries have described how people in cities, states, and communities have been expanding fossil free energy production and reducing energy use through Greentech initiatives.

These are essential aspects of reducing climate-destroying greenhouse gas emissions, but in themselves they will not halt the destruction of the climate through the burning of fossil fuels. That requires halting new fossil fuel infrastructure and accelerating the closing of existing fossil fuel facilities. That is often referred to as a “phaseout” or “managed decline” of fossil fuels. It’s often summed up in the slogan, “Leave it in the ground!”

Greentech and fossil fuels can increase at the same time – indeed, they are doing so today. But the cheapening and improvement of Greentech can have a crucial impact on fossil fuel use. For every decision on future energy use, fossil fuels are worse and renewable energy is a better deal in almost every way (unless you are a fossil fuel company). But we must make the choice not only to create more fossil free energy, but to relentlessly reduce fossil fuel extraction and burning.

Many such actions are now being taken by local and state governments and grassroots activist groups to phase out fossil fuels. Although national and global action will be necessary to phase out fossil fuels completely, in their absence action from below is forming the tip of the climate protection spear.

However desirable a “big bang” shutdown of fossil fuel production and use might be, what is more likely is a persistent squeezing that reduces the value and profitability of fossil fuel investments. Each incremental squeeze on fossil fuel production and use tips the balance toward replacing them with Greentech. The remainder of this commentary will present just a few examples of how this is being done at the local and state level. (The next two commentaries describe another important set of examples — the movement against data centers.)

Facebook reel from Crain’s Detroit Business

One day Ken Klovski, a resident of Lima township in rural Michigan, noticed boreholes on the farm across the road from his home. Klovski checked county records and discovered the farm had a three-year option agreement with the utility Consumers Energy. Then he found a filing with a map showing a proposed 1.4-gigawatt power plant near the farm. A town official called a public meeting where representatives of Consumer Energy denied that they had optioned the land specifically for a power plant. Klovski accused them of lying. The Lima Township Board of Trustees passed a 12-month moratorium on new power-generating facilities. A resident of a nearby town organized Neighbors United Against Noxious Consumers Energy, or NUANCE. On the group’s Facebook page, he began a daily podcast “Dear Garrick,” expressing the concerns of the group’s 1,400 members directly to Consumers Energy CEO Garrick Rochow. Weeks later, the company issued a statement that, “We will release the option on the land back to the property owner and withdraw our application.”

Fossil fuel use can simply be banned on a compulsory timetable. The city of Los Angeles, for example, has committed to get all of its energy from fossil-free sources by 2035 – that is, to ban the use of fossil fuel energy. Shortly after Donald Trump was elected, the city halted use of all electricity produced by coal. Electricity was shut off from Utah’s largest coal-fired power plant to Los Angeles. The plant is being converted to hydrogen. Then it will supply power to Los Angeles that will initially be produced from a mix of natural gas and hydrogen. According to the city’s municipally owned utility, LA intends to transition to 100% green hydrogen made exclusively from water and renewable energy, ending its burning of fossil fuels.

When President Trump ordered old, highly polluting coal-fired power plants scheduled for retirement in Colorado to reopen or remain in operation, the legislature passed “Manage Emissions from Electric Generating Units” law to halt or circumvent the order.  While the state did not have the authority to directly nullify the president’s order, it took multiple pathways to render it less effective. It requires more transparency on the costs incurred from running coal units past their retirement dates; directs the Public Utilities Commission to approve new resources to help the state reach its 2030 climate targets; and requires modern pollution controls for any coal plants operating after 2033. According to a Sierra Club analysis, the Trump Administration’s coal orders have already cost Americans over $330 million, directly affecting ratepayers and the public health of surrounding communities. The Colorado legislation keeps the state aligned with its clean energy goals by curbing coal emissions and reinforces critical retirement dates of coal-fired plants, while also directing Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission to set limits on pollutants like nitrous oxides and sulfur dioxide. Other states are also challenging Trump’s coal orders.

More than 1,500 institutions worldwide with over 14 trillion dollars in assets have divested from fossil fuels and others continue to join them. In May 2026 the Santa Clara CA County Board of Supervisors voted to divest its 10-billion-dollar investment pool from fossil fuel companies. The pool had already let $30 million in Chevron and Exxon bonds expire. The resolution means the investment pool will not buy any new fossil fuel company bonds to replace them, and the fund will remain fossil free. The decision followed a joint letter from 21 community groups, including Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action, 350 Silicon Valley, and the Pacifica Climate Committee, urging divestment. Carlos Davidson of the Pacifica Climate Committee said, “Just like with divestment from tobacco and South Africa Apartheid, by divesting we bring attention to the fact that the power of the fossil fuel industry is the single biggest obstacle to government action on climate change.” Divestment from fossil fuels has become more attractive as better Greentech alternatives have become available and as fossil fuel investments increasingly risk becoming stranded assets as a result.

Litigation and legislation

State and local governments across the country have filed at least 40 lawsuits arguing that the fossil fuel industry should be held accountable for its role accelerating climate change. For example, Multnomah County, Oregon is suing Chevron and other fossil fuel companies for $50 billion for damages resulting from a deadly 2021 heat dome that brought temperatures to 116 degrees and killed 69 people. “Our case seeks to hold the defendants responsible under Oregon law for their deceptions and misrepresentations and failures to warn about the dangers of their fossil fuel products,” said a lawyer for Multnomah County. The county is seeking $50 million in actual damages, $1.5 billion in future damages related to anticipated heat events, and at least $50 billion for an abatement fund to “weatherproof” the county.

In 2024, the Sierra Club and several community and environmental groups sued the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources, challenging the Coastal Use Permit for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project to construct a massive methane gas liquefaction, storage, and export terminal on the Gulf of Mexico — in wetlands that provide critical flood prevention and other vital ecological functions to local communities and the environment. The project would generate greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to operating 14 new coal-fired power plants or 13 million new gasoline powered vehicles. A Louisiana state court terminated the coastal use permit, finding state officials violated the Louisiana Constitution by issuing the Coastal Use Permit without considering its disproportionate effect on the surrounding communities of color and low-income communities, as well as the climate change impacts and cumulative impacts with other export facilities already in the area.

In February 2025, the state of Michigan – fabled auto capital of America – filed a federal lawsuit accusing ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute of engaging in a decades-long conspiracy to block the development of clean energy and electric vehicles in order to ensure that their fossil fuel products dominated the market. According to the complaints, acting as a “cartel,” the defendants robbed consumers of energy and transportation choices in “one of the most successful antitrust conspiracies in United States history.”

State legislation is taking multiple approaches to put the squeeze on fossil fuel production and use. For example, Vermont is the first state to pass a law to charge fossil fuel companies for at least some of the damage their emissions have caused. Vermont’s law, the Climate Superfund Act, is largely modeled on the national superfund law. It instructs the state treasurer and Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources to calculate what fossil fuel emissions have cost the state. The agency then determines the amount of emissions attributable to each fossil fuel company. Each company must then pay into a recovery fund. New York has also passed climate superfund legislation requiring payments to begin in 2028; 11 other states are considering similar legislation. A slew of lawsuits is trying to block the Vermont and New York laws. In May the Trump administration sued both New York and Vermont over their superfund laws and other states over efforts to make polluters pay for harms from climate change. US Attorney General Pam Bondi alleges the laws and other states’ planned legal challenges are “burdensome and ideologically motivated” and “threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security.”

Other legislation to put the screws on utilities is legion; the environmental research group Climate XChange tracked 63 bills in 25 states that cover performance-based pay structures for utilities, limits on utility profits and executive pay, prohibitions on using customer rates for political activity, and expanded price transparency requirements. Hawaii’s SB1396 establishes a “green fee” for transient accommodations to fund response to climate change-related disasters and environmental improvement efforts. The green fee applies to hotels, short-term vacation rentals, timeshares, and similar accommodations and cruise ships.

Such state and local initiatives are far from enough to force the fossil fuel industry to transition to clean Greentech energy. But they contribute to the squeeze on the industry’s value and profits that is already resulting from Greentech competition. And they help lay the groundwork for a future transition from – and abolition of – fossil fuel extraction and use.

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The post Phasing Out Fossil Folly first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Press Conference to Preview First-Ever IACHR Hearing on Excessive Use of Force Against Immigration-Related Protesters in the United States

Common Dreams - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 06:30

The University Network for Human Rights (UNHR) will host a press conference on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, ahead of a landmark public hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The hearing -- "United States: Freedom of Expression and the Right to Peaceful Assembly" -- marks the first time the Commission has held a thematic hearing focused specifically on this issue in the United States. It is also the only hearing focused on the United States during the Commission's current session. “For years, the Commission has heard testimony about attacks on protesters carried out by some of the region’s most repressive dictatorships. Now, it is the United States that will be called to answer for these abuses,” said James Cavallaro, ex-President of the IACHR.

The Commission will hear directly from victims, their attorneys, and experts on excessive force used by the United States to suppress freedom of expression and peaceful assembly during immigration-related protests. The United States government is expected to participate and respond to testimonies by petitioners and questions from Commissioners. The hearing will take place on August 4, 2026, from 4:00–5:30 p.m. EDT at IACHR Headquarters, 1889 F Street NW, Washington, DC.

WHAT: Press Conference on IACHR Hearing on Excessive Use of Force by U.S. Agents

WHEN: Tuesday, August 4, 2026, 2:00–3:30 p.m. EDT

WHERE: Regus, 1500 K Street NW, Room MR-239, Washington, DC 20005

Virtual Participation link here

RSVP here.

WHO: Speakers include:

  • James Cavallaro, Executive Director, University Network for Human Rights; former Commissioner (2014–2017) and President (2016–2017) of the IACHR
  • Antonio Romanucci, civil rights attorney representing the family of Renée Good and former counsel to the family of George Floyd
  • Rev. David Black, witness struck in the head with a pepper-ball projectile by federal agents while protesting outside the Broadview Detention Facility in Chicago
  • Locke Bowman, attorney for Rev. David Black
  • Susan Akram, Director, International Human Rights Clinic, Boston University
  • Naureen Shah, Director of Government Affairs, Equality Division at the ACLU
Categories: F. Left News

Unwise, Unworkable and Unlawful: Families USA Urges Trump Administration to Withdraw Medicaid Work Requirements Rule as Comment Period Ends

Common Dreams - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 06:27

Today, Families USA, along with hundreds of other consumer, patient, community, and health stakeholder groups submitted comments by today’s deadline to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding CMS’s interim final rule to implement work reporting requirements. Our comments warned of the impacts on Medicaid and the millions of people who rely on the program for health coverage. In response, Families USA Executive Director Anthony Wright issued the following statement:

“Just over one year ago, Congressional Republicans passed the biggest cuts to Medicaid in history, and now the administration is making a bad budget bill worse with additional restrictive regulations. Our comments submitted today spotlight how these Administration rules are unworkable and unlawful, and how they undermine these key public coverage programs. The regulations are a tragic way to mark this week’s 61st anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid — pillars of our health care system that millions have relied on for generations.

“In a health care system that is already overstretched, inordinately expensive, and wildly complex and confusing, these new paperwork requirements will push patients off coverage – not because they aren’t working or not eligible, but because of bureaucratic burdens. While many in Congress promised they would protect the vulnerable and medically frail from these paperwork burdens, the new requirements to get such an exemption are now exponentially more burdensome for both patients and providers.

“By tacking on “capacity to work” to the definition of medically frail and phasing out self-attestation, CMS has handed states an unwise and unworkable program without the resources or structure to implement it.

“The requirement that a patient doesn’t just need to have cancer or another condition but must produce the equivalent of a doctor’s note with a finding that the conditions leave them unable to work—is nowhere in the underlying statute, and unworkable.

“CMS has designed a program akin to determinations made by the Social Security Administration for determining eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). SSI's disability-determination system took decades and billions of dollars to build, relying on a nationwide network of trained adjudicators, detailed federal medical criteria, and safeguards like compassionate allowances for the most serious conditions and multi-year redetermination periods. Such a rule would require setting up, in mere months, a regulatory structure bigger and more complicated than Social Security’s disability determination system, which after 50 years of maturity costs $4.6 billion a year to administer for 7.4 million recipients. For comparison, the budget bill provides less than 5% of that amount, $200 million, to implement.

“CMS is asking states to replicate that system from scratch, for a Medicaid population several times larger, in a matter of months, with almost no federal guidance, no clinical standards for providers, and none of SSI's basic protections. Families USA estimates the added administrative cost of these work-capacity assessments alone could exceed $4.8 billion a year — on top of the billions states are already spending to stand up work-reporting systems.

“It took the federal government fifty years and billions of dollars to build a disability determination system that still leaves people waiting seven months for an answer. CMS expects states to build something similar for Medicaid in under six months, with no playbook, no dedicated staff, and none of the safeguards that make SSI even marginally workable. The people who will pay for that gap aren't bureaucrats — they're cancer patients, people in mental health crises, and people with disabilities who will lose coverage while paperwork catches up to their diagnosis.

“The implementation deadline of January 1 is looming large, and we hope that over these next few months, CMS takes a long hard look at the thousands of comments it has received from patients and health care providers impacted by the agency’s rash and burdensome new requirements.”

Families USA has also joined the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP), Community Catalyst, First Focus Campaign for Children, and National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), in another statement opposing this final rule. Read the full partner statement.

Categories: F. Left News

Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: Schools Tackle Child Hunger, What’s Missing from the Cyclospora Conversation, Restored Soils Boost Food Security

Food Tank - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 06:00

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

More Schools Adopt Community Eligibility to Address Child Hunger

A new study from the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) finds that a record number of schools used a federal meal service option to tackle child hunger in the 2025-2026 school year. A reported 55,362 schools—2.1 percent more than the year prior—offered school meals through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows high-need schools to provide breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students. Three quarters of eligible schools have adopted CEP, an option FRAC calls a “key step towards Healthy School Meals for All.”

“More schools are demonstrating that offering healthy school meals to every student at no charge is a game changer for children, families, and schools,” says Crystal FitzSimons, President of FRAC.

To maintain progress, FRAC is calling on the administration to reverse cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Program. CEP eligibility is tied to the number of children who qualify for free school meals — a certification process that is based on SNAP participation. FizSimons worries that without action to undo SNAP cuts, “the progress we have made on Healthy School Meals for All could unravel.” 

What We’re Missing About the Cyclospora Outbreak

A former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official argues that a number of the Trump-Vance administration’s actions “actively undermine microbial food safety.”

In a recent op-ed in STAT, Susan Mayne, who previously served as Director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, worries that program cuts and policy delays are hurting efforts to monitor and respond to contaminants like cyclospora—the parasite linked to thousands of cases of foodborne illnesses across the country.

Mayne raises several concerns. FoodNet, a national foodborne illness surveillance program, has been updated to track fewer pathogens. Six, including cyclospora, have been eliminated from federal tracking. Efforts to improve traceability along the supply chain, which should have gone into effect by now, were delayed until 2028. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) closed an research facility in Beltsville, Maryland, where labs were working on a number of issues, including cyclospora. The administration also disbanded the National Advisory Committee on Microbiology Criteria in Food, which provided food safety advice to FDA and USDA. 

Mayne hopes that the cyclospora outbreak serves as a wake-up call so we don’t force eaters to choose between nutrition and food safety. She writes, “health is made possible when food safety supports consumer confidence in fruits and vegetables.”

The Climate Crisis to ‘Suck Soils Dry’ in Europe

Europe’s record-breaking heatwaves are driving high levels of water evaporation from rivers, lakes, soils, and plants, threatening farmers’ crops. At the same time, extreme wildfires are scorching parts of the region, with Spain and France seeing some of the driest soils.

Although droughts are typically linked to low rainfall, that doesn’t seem to be the case this time, suggesting that extreme heat, made worse by the climate crisis, is to play. Dominik Schumacher, a scientist at ETH Zurich who is behind a new analysis of Europe’s high temperatures, says that this “is our own doing.” He explains that as temperatures climb and air becomes hotter,” it will suck the soils dry.”

The trade association COCERAL estimates that 9 million tonnes of grain will be lost across the region. Additionally, France is expected to see the worst Maize harvest in the last 50 years and Romanian farmers may lose over 1 million hectares of crops. 

Mariam Zachariah, a researcher at Imperial College London and another co-author behind the analysis, says, “Without rapid, aggressive emissions cuts, Europe is heading for a future where these scorching, dry summers happen time and time again.”

Reversing Soil Degradation Can Feed an Additional 70 Million People

A new study in Nature Food finds that there are significant food security benefits if we can restore the Earth’s soils.

For the first time, researchers set out to quantify the effects of soil erosion and compaction, soil water deficits, as well as the loss of above ground vegetation cover and soil organic carbon on agricultural yields. Although these trends are threatening food security, there is also a real opportunity. 

According to the study, restoring soils by just 10 percent can produce enough food to feed an additional 70 million people. Project Drawdown Senior Scientist James Gerber, a co-author of the study, says that this reversal also “contributes to a virtuous cycle.” When soils are improved, it reduces pressure on the land, helping to avoid emissions from deforestation. 

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

Photo courtesy of James Baltz, Unsplash

The post Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: Schools Tackle Child Hunger, What’s Missing from the Cyclospora Conversation, Restored Soils Boost Food Security appeared first on Food Tank.

Categories: A3. Agroecology

How wildfire smoke is reshaping childhood

Grist - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 06:00

For generations, summer in Montana has meant long days outdoors. Children spent afternoons riding bicycles through quiet neighborhoods, swimming in lakes and rivers, hiking forest trails, and playing baseball past sunset. Families planned camping trips months in advance, double-checking that they had all the fishing, paddling, and tenting gear they needed to sleep in cool mountain air under clear skies. 

Today, many parents instead check the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index before deciding whether their children can play outside at all. 

As wildfire season becomes longer and more severe across the American West, smoky skies have become an increasingly familiar part of summer. In Montana, where wildfire has always been part of the landscape, summer now includes days or even weeks when children are advised to stay indoors because the air outside is unhealthy. 

Scientists have documented the growing health risks of wildfire smoke, particularly for children whose lungs are still developing.

But pediatricians and researchers say the consequences extend beyond children’s lungs. A 2024 UNICEF report found that wildfire smoke affects not only children’s respiratory health but also their learning, mental well-being, and opportunities for play, warning that repeated smoke exposure can shape childhood in lasting ways. 

Wildfire smoke blankets homes in Missoula, Montana, on July 26.
Mosabber Hossain/Inside Climate News

Repeated smoke events are changing children’s daily routines, limiting opportunities for outdoor play and social interaction and reshaping how many families experience summer. Schools are investing in better air-filtration systems as communities rethink how school buildings should function in a changing climate.

“I remember being stuck inside because of the smoke,” said Melody Irvine, who grew up in western Montana with asthma. 

During smoky summers, outdoor activities that many children took for granted often disappeared for Irvine. Today, as a student at the University of Montana studying environmental science and social work, Irvine sees those childhood memories differently. 

 “When I was younger, it felt like something unusual,” she said. “Now it seems like smoky summers are becoming expected.”

A threat to physical, mental, and emotional development

Smoke’s shift from an occasional disruption to a recurring part of childhood is increasingly drawing the attention of public health experts. 

“Kids typically spend more time outdoors, and they’re usually running around, increasing their breathing rate and their exposure to wildfire smoke,” said Kerri Mueller, an air quality specialist with the Missoula City-County Health Department.

Smoke exposure can trigger headaches, itchy eyes, sore throats, coughing, wheezing, and asthma flare-ups, while repeated exposure may reduce lung function.

Wildfire smoke contains tiny particles known as PM2.5, which can travel deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. Studies in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology have linked exposure to wildfire smoke with asthma attacks, respiratory infections, and emergency department visits, particularly among children

Children play on a swing set in the University Village residential area of Missoula on July 15.
Mosabber Hossain/Inside Climate News

“Children face greater risks from wildfire smoke because their lungs are still developing, especially during the first several years of life, and they breathe more air relative to their body weight than adults,” said Lori Byron, a pediatrician and chair of the nonprofit Montana Health and Climate. “We also know much more now about particulate matter from wildfire smoke. Those particles can get into our brains and even reach unborn babies.”

“We’re only beginning to understand the full extent of the harm they can cause,” said Byron. 

Although Montana lacks statewide pediatric hospitalization data linking wildfire smoke directly to children’s illnesses, pediatricians say they routinely see more children with asthma attacks and other respiratory problems during smoke events. National studies show increases in emergency department visits among children during periods of heavy wildfire smoke, Byron said.

During smoke season, many parents begin each morning by checking not only the weather forecast but also the Air Quality Index, which can determine not only if their children can play outside, but if it is safe to open the windows to cool their home.

Read Next Wildfire smoke engulfed their cities. Did it make their babies sick? &

When wildfire smoke blankets a community for days or weeks, childhood routines begin to disappear. Soccer practices are canceled. Playgrounds sit empty. Summer camps move indoors or suspend programming. Even simple activities like walking a dog or riding a bicycle become difficult when air quality reaches unhealthy levels. 

Such outdoor play is not a luxury, according to experts, but essential to healthy child development. Running across a field, playing with friends, climbing trees, or just loitering outdoors are far more than physical exercise for children, a September 2018 study from the American Academy of Pediatrics reported. These experiences build social skills, confidence, emotional resilience and overall, well-being. Mental health experts say repeated disruptions to those routines can also leave children feeling apprehensive and uncertain. 

For children, repeated cancellations and long periods indoors can create more than disappointment. When familiar routines, social activities, and opportunities for independent play repeatedly disappear, children may begin to feel that their environment is unpredictable or unsafe. Experts say that loss of stability can heighten stress, particularly for younger children who may not fully understand why smoke keeps disrupting their lives. 

A 2023 report in Current Psychiatry Reports found that children exposed to wildfire disasters are at greater risk of anxiety, stress, depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms, underscoring that the impacts of wildfires extend well beyond physical illness.

Read Next How climate change gets under the skin

The emotional disruption of repeatedly losing normal childhood experiences may leave effects as lasting as the asthma attacks and respiratory problems pediatricians routinely see during smoke events, Byron said. 

And while the interruptions may be temporary, experts say their repeated incidence can lead their effects to accumulate over time. 

A recent brief from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child argues that repeated smoke exposure during early childhood can affect the environments and experiences that shape children’s brain development, learning and emotional well-being. 

“Kids don’t understand why the world suddenly isn’t stable or why they can’t do what was planned,” Byron said. “It kind of undermines a child’s faith in the world.”

Family pressures

Wildfire smoke also leaves parents dealing with new concerns.

“The summer I was pregnant with my daughter was especially hot and smoky,” said Sarah Lundquist, executive director of Montana-based nonprofit Families for a Livable Climate. “After experiencing heat-related fainting spells, we bought portable air conditioners and air purifiers just to keep our home safe. That experience has stayed with me. Now, as a mother of two young children, I check the air quality almost every day before deciding whether it’s safe for them to play outside. Something as simple and joyful as an afternoon at the park has become a health calculation.”

Children sense their parents’ anxiety, psychologists note, and often begin to feel less secure themselves. 

Researchers who study children’s mental health have found that environmental disasters can affect families collectively. 

Window air-conditioning units are seen at a Missoula County Public Schools building on June 25. Mosabber Hossain/Inside Climate News

Parents often have to rearrange work schedules, cancel summer plans, and keep children indoors for days at a time. As familiar routines disappear, families are left trying to substitute indoor activities that cannot fully replicate children’s need for exercise, social interaction, and unstructured play.

“Wildfire smoke really throws a wrench into families’ lives,” Byron said.

Pediatric experts say indoor activities can help pass the time, easing the stress both the children and their parents feel, but they cannot fully replace the physical, social, and developmental benefits of outdoor play.

While research directly linking wildfire smoke to increased screen time remains limited, many families say digital devices become children’s primary source of entertainment when smoke keeps them indoors. And while computers, tablets, and smartphones might provide some distraction when a smoke wave keeps kids housebound, they may also compound the mental and emotional challenges the lack of time outside is already imposing.

A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA Psychiatry found that greater screen time was associated with more anxiety, depression, attention problems, and other behavioral difficulties in children. 

Ann Bates, a Missoula resident who occasionally works as a volunteer with children at a summer camp and does fundraising for children’s programs, believes governments need to do more to protect young people from the growing impacts of wildfire smoke. 

“I’m a mother, so I know how stressful wildfire days can be,” she said. “I was always checking on my daughter wondering what she was doing and how she would get to and from school safely. She is in college now, but when I see young children struggling at school because of the smoke, sometimes with tears in their eyes, it breaks my heart. It makes me cry because they shouldn’t have to grow up like this.” 

Smoked out schools

Smoke has become a routine consideration in Missoula County Public Schools during late summer and early fall, facilities director Burley McWilliams said in an interview, and keeping outdoor smoke from entering school buildings is far more difficult than many people realize. 

High schools, for example, serve hundreds of students who move between classrooms, cafeterias, and outdoor spaces. Doors open constantly throughout the day, allowing smoke to enter even when ventilation systems are operating. 

“Our high school has about 1,200 students,” McWilliams said. “They’re going in and out of the building all day long. Every time those doors open, smoke comes inside.” 

Heat compounds the challenge. 

Read Next Climate disasters can alter kids’ brains — before they’re even born

Many Montana schools were constructed decades ago, before prolonged heat waves became common. As temperatures rise, classrooms without air-conditioning become increasingly difficult to cool, particularly if smoke outside prevents opening windows, affecting both students and teachers. 

A study of California public schools found that between 2002 and 2019, wildfire and smoke accounted for nearly two-thirds of all weather-related school closure days. After the Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025, school closures, relocations, and poor air quality disrupted learning for more than 700,000 students for months. 

Researchers at Stanford University have also found that wildfire smoke can reduce students’ academic performance, suggesting that the educational costs of smoke extend well beyond the days when schools are forced to close. 

Many educators must now consider wildfire smoke in their plans for instruction, student health and school operations. 

As hotter summers, longer wildfire seasons, and more frequent smoke events become an expected part of life in western Montana, schools are increasingly being designed to protect children’s health during climate emergencies by keeping classrooms cool during heat waves, filtering smoke-filled air and, when necessary, serving as clean-air shelters for surrounding communities.

That reality has inspired Montana’s Climate Ready Schools initiative. Missoula County Public Schools is working together with partner organizations to redesign schools so they can better withstand the challenges of a changing climate. 

The plans include upgraded HVAC systems, HEPA air filtration, more shaded playgrounds, and energy-efficient buildings. 

CIS, an environmental and climate resilience infrastructure company, is primarily doing the planning, technical assistance, community engagement, and resilience design for the initiative. 

“School buildings must now be designed with climate change in mind,” said Sarah Dobie, a project manager with CIS. 

Funding, however, remains an obstacle. “Making just three schools climate-resilient is expected to cost about $30 million, an investment that is difficult for most local school districts to afford,” she said.

That leaves most families on their own to figure out how to live with smoke as increasingly hazy skies become a normal part of childhood.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How wildfire smoke is reshaping childhood on Aug 1, 2026.

Categories: H. Green News

August 1 Green Energy News

Green Energy Times - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 04:23

Headline News:

  • “Courts Rule In Favor Of Sierra Club, Approves FERC Order To Speed Up Clean Energy Projects ” • The DC Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Sierra Club that FERC properly issued its Order 2023. It is an order that directs grid operators to address longstanding delays with interconnection queues and speed up process on clean energy. [CleanTechnica]

Solar panels (Sarah Swenty, US FWS, public domain)

  • “EU Considers Emergency Meeting As Nuclear Shutdown Puts Hungary In Energy Crisis” • Hungarian PM Péter Magyar warns of an energy crisis after record-low Danube water levels forced a shutdown of the Paks nuclear plant, which supplies nearly half the country’s power. The European Commission may convene its Electricity Coordination Group. [Euronews]
  • “China’s Crude Oil Imports Fell In Q2” • China, the world’s largest importer of crude oil, imported less crude oil in the second quarter of 2026, following higher crude oil prices that resulted from disrupted flows through the Strait of Hormuz. China’s lower imports reduced global demand, softening the upward price trend. [CleanTechnica]
  • “China’s Solar Capacity Set to Overtake Coal This Quarter” • China will have more installed solar power capacity than coal-fired generation capacity as early as this quarter, according to Chinese authorities. As of the end of June, solar power capacity stood at 1,274 GW, just barely below the total coal-fired installed capacity of 1,275 GW. [OilPrice.com]
  • “As Diplomacy Falters, US-Iran War Expands” • The 14-point deal with Iran that President Trump signed in mid-June was supposed to be a diplomatic off-ramp. It was to wind down the war and open new pathways to prosperity for the Middle East. But six weeks after the agreement was signed, not only has the conflict been revived, it has grown. [ABC News]

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

Stand with WestJet flight attendants

Spring Magazine - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 03:00

On July 30, 2026, CUPE 8125 — a union local representing 4,400 WestJet flight attendants — issued a strike notice to their employer WestJet. Unless...

The post Stand with WestJet flight attendants first appeared on Spring.

Categories: B3. EcoSocialism

Google AI update on the John Donovan Shell Feud as of 1st August 2026

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 02:52
John Donovan prompt: Please provide an update on the John Donovan Shell Feud as of 1st August 2026. Reply by Google AI Mode:

The long-running feud between activist John Donovan and Shell plc has entered a new phase of “AI-mediated warfare” and targeted document leaks. [1, 2] The “Bot War” and AI Strategy
  • Algorithmic Weaponisation: John Donovan has been feeding thousands of historical pages, litigation records, and leaked corporate papers into Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Copilot, Grok, and Claude. [1, 2]
  • Prompt Campaigns: Donovan issued joint prompts to these platforms, testing the AI models’ interpretations of Shell’s decades-long strategy of silence against his archive. He frequently publishes the blistering AI-generated outputs to question corporate transparency and pressure the oil giant. [1, 2]
  • Algorithmic Disruption: By generating continuous new summaries, ghost dialogues, and lists of “Shell’s top own goals,” Donovan has created a high-velocity digital environment. This tactic has disrupted standard search engine indexing and corporate PR control. [1, 2, 3]
“The Shell Leaks Files” Campaign
  • Documentary Releases: Donovan is leveraging his control of the domain royaldutchshellplc.com (which he kept after Shell officially changed its name to Shell plc in 2022) to run a continuous release campaign called “The Shell Leaks Files“. [1, 2, 3]
  • Targeted Exposes: Recent drops examine historical internal leak paths, such as the 2007 David Greer Sakhalin II email leak, and historical Subject Access Request (SAR) files revealing how Shell’s internal legal and PR teams mapped out strategies to monitor his websites. [1, 2]
Renewed Legal and Corporate Tension
  • Shell’s Legal Posturing: Shell has reportedly reviewed new legal protocols and targeted defamation options specifically aimed at curbing false, AI-amplified claims, moving away from past attempts to shut down his websites entirely. [1]
  • Shareholder Agitation: Donovan has integrated these AI narrative strategies into his shareholder advocacy, seeking to force official responses from Shell executives regarding the security and accuracy of information surrounding the company’s historical controversies. [1]
If you want to dive deeper, let me know if you would like info on:
  • The original 1980s/1990s Don Marketing court cases that started the feud.
  • How Donovan successfully retained the royaldutchshellplc.com domain name.
  • The specific MI6/Hakluyt corporate espionage allegations tied to the dispute. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more John Donovan: In your estimation how novel and damaging is the Donovan website to the reputation of Shell Plc? Is its impact increasing or declining with his weaponisation of AI? Evaluating the novelty and reputational damage of John Donovan’s website (royaldutchshellplc.com) requires looking at it through two lenses: its historical impact as a premier corporate watchdog site, and its modern evolution as an AI-driven digital weapon. [1, 2] The short answer is that the website represents a highly novel, historically devastating, and uniquely persistent risk to Shell plc. Far from fading away, its impact is experiencing a significant strategic renaissance due to Donovan’s active weaponisation of AI. [1, 2] 1. How Novel is the Donovan Platform? The website is considered a pioneer in the history of internet activism and “gripe sites”. It is highly novel for three structural reasons: [1, 2]
    • The Ultimate Domain Coup: Securing and maintaining the exact former corporate name domain (royaldutchshellplc.com) after defeating Shell in a World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) dispute is almost unprecedented for an activist. [1, 2]
    • The Scale of the Archive: Containing over 76,000 documents, internal leaks, and litigation papers, it is one of the largest single-topic anti-corporate repositories in internet history. [1, 2]
    • Insider Network Hub: Unlike standard activist blogs, Donovan successfully turned his platform into a secure, anonymous drop-box for disgruntled Shell executives and whistleblowers. At its peak, it was treated by NGOs like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and international journalists as a shadow intelligence agency for Shell’s inner workings. [1, 2, 3, 4]

2. How Damaging is it to Shell plc? The damage has been both financial and reputational, documented across mainstream media and internal Shell leaks: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
    • The Sakhalin II Multi-Billion Dollar Blow: The platform’s most destructive act occurred in 2006, when Donovan leaked internal emails proving Shell had hidden environmental and financial risks from Russian regulators regarding the Sakhalin II project. Russian authorities used these leaks as a “smoking gun” to force Shell to slash its stake from 55% to 27.5%, handing control to Gazprom and costing Shell billions. [1]
    • Exposing the Surveillance State: Disclosures under the Data Protection Act (SAR files) revealed that Shell feared Donovan’s site more than mainstream environmental groups like Greenpeace. Internal logs proved Shell launched dedicated IT operations to monitor employee traffic to his site and draft “Donovan monitoring reports”, revealing a corporate paranoia that damaged Shell’s public commitment to transparency. [1, 2]
    • A History of Silencing Tactics: Published internal memos showed Shell’s legal teams aggressively trying to stop media outlets (like The Sunday Times) from reporting on Donovan, operating under the leaked internal philosophy that “no coverage is preferable to balanced coverage”. [1]

3. Is the Impact Increasing or Declining with AI? While an ageing activist operating a site named after a retired corporate moniker would traditionally face a steep decline in relevance, Donovan’s adoption of generative AI has actively reversed this decline, causing his impact to increase. [1] Why AI is Increasing the Site's Impact:
    • Algorithmic Disruption: Search engines and Large Language Models (LLMs) continuously scrape the web for data. Because Donovan owns the exact string royaldutchshellplc.com, AI scrapers frequently confuse his active archive with the historical or actual entity of Royal Dutch Shell. This injects his critical narratives directly into the training data of corporate intelligence tools. [1, 2, 3, 4]
    • The “Bot War” Reinterpretation: Donovan has stopped relying on static articles. Instead, he feeds his massive archive into various LLMs (ChatGPT, Copilot, Grok) and prompts them to synthesize new, blistering editorial reports on historical controversies. He then publishes these AI-generated corporate critiques as “impartial expert consensus,” making his 30-year feud feel perpetually fresh and modern. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
    • Overcoming Information Fatigue: AI has solved the site’s biggest flaw—its unnavigable mountain of messy documents. By utilizing AI summaries and thematic maps, Donovan has made it effortless for modern researchers, journalists, and legal teams to instantly unearth “smoking gun” files from decades past. [1, 2]

Conclusion The Donovan site remains an active, open wound for Shell. While Shell’s standard PR mechanism is designed to handle temporary news cycles, Donovan’s AI-driven strategy turns corporate history into a permanent, self-refreshing governance risk. [1, 2] If you want, I can provide more details on:
    • The specific WIPO ruling and how Shell lost its domain challenge.
    • The details of the Sakhalin II leak and the role of David Greer.
    • How modern LLMs handle corporate reputation tracking regarding historical disputes. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Let me know what you would like to look at next. AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more

Google AI update on the John Donovan Shell Feud as of 1st August 2026 was first posted on August 1, 2026 at 10:52 am.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

Royaldutchshellplc.com persists as the dominant digital entity for the historical, abandoned name

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com - Sat, 08/01/2026 - 02:11

John Donovan prompt: You may find this article to be of interest regarding the company name Royal Dutch Shell Plc which no longer exists and the website royaldutchshellplc.com which does exist and for over two decades, has used the name Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com as its masthead banner: https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2026/07/31/who-owns-the-name-royal-dutch-shell-plc-aka-royaldutchshellplc-com-john-donovan-or-shell-the-definitive-answer/

Google AI Mode reply:

Activist John Donovan has legally controlled the domain royaldutchshellplc.com for over two decades, utilizing it as a whistleblower platform despite a failed WIPO challenge by the oil giant. As Shell rebranded to remove “Royal Dutch,” the site persists as the dominant digital entity for the historical, abandoned name. Read the full analysis at royaldutchshellplc.com. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The long-running dispute between Shell plc and activist John Donovan regarding the royaldutchshellplc.com domain represents a significant case of digital adversarial archiving. Following a failed 2005 WIPO challenge by Shell, the site has evolved into a repository of over 76,000 documents that leverages AI to ensure historical controversies remain visible in search results. Explore the full details of this ongoing corporate feud at royaldutchshellplc.com. [1, 2, 3] AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more Royaldutchshellplc.com persists as the dominant digital entity for the historical, abandoned name was first posted on August 1, 2026 at 10:11 am.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

Member VIP Scatter Tak Terhenti Fenomena Program Loyalitas

Socialist Resurgence - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 21:29

Program keanggotaan VIP dengan berbagai keuntungan eksklusif semakin menjadi perhatian di tengah berkembangnya industri hiburan digital. Salah satu istilah yang belakangan sering diperbincangkan adalah Member VIP Scatter Tak Terhenti, sebuah konsep yang merujuk pada layanan loyalitas dengan beragam bonus, promosi, dan fitur tambahan yang dirancang untuk meningkatkan pengalaman pengguna. Tren ini menunjukkan bahwa persaingan platform kini tidak hanya bertumpu pada variasi permainan, tetapi juga pada kualitas pelayanan yang diberikan kepada anggota setianya.

Dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, penyedia layanan digital berlomba menghadirkan sistem keanggotaan yang lebih menarik. Status VIP umumnya diberikan kepada pengguna yang aktif berpartisipasi dalam ekosistem platform. Sebagai bentuk apresiasi, anggota memperoleh akses terhadap promosi khusus, layanan pelanggan yang lebih cepat, informasi pembaruan lebih awal, hingga berbagai program loyalitas yang tidak tersedia bagi pengguna reguler. Pendekatan tersebut dinilai mampu meningkatkan kepuasan pengguna sekaligus memperkuat hubungan jangka panjang antara platform dan komunitasnya.

Dari sudut pandang industri, program VIP tidak sekadar menjadi strategi pemasaran. Sejumlah praktisi digital menilai bahwa keberhasilan sebuah sistem loyalitas bergantung pada konsistensi layanan, transparansi aturan, dan kemudahan akses bagi pengguna. Platform yang mampu menjaga kualitas pelayanan secara berkelanjutan cenderung memperoleh tingkat retensi pengguna yang lebih tinggi. Inilah yang membuat istilah Member VIP Scatter Tak Terhenti semakin sering muncul dalam berbagai pembahasan komunitas daring.

Pengalaman pengguna juga menjadi faktor penting dalam membangun reputasi sebuah layanan. Berdasarkan berbagai pola yang umum ditemukan pada platform digital, anggota VIP umumnya lebih menghargai kecepatan respons layanan pelanggan, kestabilan sistem, serta kemudahan memperoleh informasi mengenai program yang sedang berlangsung. Ketiga aspek tersebut memberikan rasa nyaman sehingga pengguna dapat menikmati seluruh fitur tanpa mengalami kendala berarti.

Selain itu, keberadaan fitur personalisasi turut menjadi nilai tambah. Banyak platform modern mulai memanfaatkan teknologi analisis data untuk menghadirkan rekomendasi yang lebih relevan sesuai aktivitas masing-masing anggota. Pendekatan ini membuat setiap pengguna memperoleh pengalaman yang terasa lebih personal dibandingkan sistem promosi yang bersifat umum. Di sisi lain, transparansi mengenai syarat dan ketentuan program tetap menjadi elemen yang tidak dapat diabaikan karena berpengaruh langsung terhadap tingkat kepercayaan pengguna.

Para pengamat industri digital juga menekankan pentingnya keamanan data dalam program keanggotaan VIP. Platform yang menerapkan sistem perlindungan informasi, autentikasi akun, serta kebijakan privasi yang jelas cenderung lebih dipercaya oleh komunitas. yang menempatkan pengalaman nyata, kompetensi pengelola, kredibilitas layanan, serta transparansi sebagai fondasi utama dalam membangun kepercayaan publik.

Di tengah meningkatnya persaingan, inovasi menjadi kunci utama agar sebuah program VIP tetap relevan. Pengguna saat ini tidak hanya mencari bonus atau promosi, tetapi juga menginginkan layanan yang stabil, proses yang sederhana, dan komunikasi yang terbuka. Platform yang mampu memenuhi kebutuhan tersebut memiliki peluang lebih besar untuk mempertahankan loyalitas anggotanya dalam jangka panjang.

Secara keseluruhan, fenomena Member VIP Scatter Tak Terhenti mencerminkan perubahan strategi layanan digital yang semakin berorientasi pada pengalaman pengguna. Keberhasilan sebuah program VIP tidak hanya ditentukan oleh banyaknya penawaran eksklusif, melainkan juga oleh kualitas pelayanan, keamanan sistem, transparansi informasi, dan konsistensi pengelolaan. Dengan mengedepankan prinsip-prinsip tersebut, program loyalitas berpotensi menjadi salah satu faktor yang membedakan sebuah platform di tengah persaingan industri hiburan digital yang terus berkembang.

Categories: D2. Socialism

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