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A coalition of environmental and consumer protection organizations filed a lawsuit today challenging the Trump administration’s final rule rolling back federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards, a move that will make new vehicles less fuel efficient, increase gasoline consumption, and drive up costs for American drivers already facing high gas prices.

The lawsuit challenges the administration’s attempt to weaken longstanding fuel economy requirements that have helped reduce gasoline consumption and save drivers money at the pump. The rollback comes as families are already struggling with record-high gas prices, with transportation ranking as the second-largest household expense after housing, accounting for roughly 17% of average household spending.

The existing fuel economy standards would have saved 64 billion gallons of gas. Even before the current rise in gas prices, they were set to deliver $35 billion in savings to consumers over the lifetimes of the vehicles covered. Today’s final rule weakens those standards, allowing manufacturers to produce a fleet of vehicles in model year 2031 that are less efficient than the model year 2024 vehicle fleet that is already on our roads.

The administration’s own projections show that Americans will be forced to spend over $1,600 more on fuel over the life of these life-efficient vehicles, and NHTSA estimates this final rule will result in an increase of over 121 billion gallons of fuel consumption through 2050.

“With gas prices at historic highs, Trump picked the worst possible time to roll back federal mileage standards,” said David Pettit, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Oil companies will profit from less efficient cars, but drivers will take a hit to their wallets and our kids will breathe dirtier air. We’ll all pay the price for more tailpipe pollutants spewing everywhere from playgrounds to wild places. We’re asking the courts to put a stop to this callous giveaway to Big Oil and Big Auto.”

“We’re taking the Trump administration to court for this reckless rollback that prioritizes Big Oil and automaker profits over American families,” said Katherine Garcia, director of Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All. “It is unlawful for Trump to turn back the clock on fuel-efficient cars forcing drivers to waste more money on gas and communities to breathe toxic air. The Sierra Club is proud to stand with our coalition partners in defending our right to cleaner, more affordable vehicles.”

“The Trump administration is steering us toward cars that burn more gas to travel the same miles, draining family budgets along the way,” said James Crowley, senior attorney at Conservation Law Foundation. “As the needle drops toward empty, more grocery and rent money goes into the tank, while more pollution fills the air we breathe. We’re taking this administration to court because families can’t afford to be steered backward.”

“Consumers need more fuel efficient choices when considering new cars, and they deserve vehicles that get more miles per gallon and miles per dollar,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “Trump’s lawless push to roll back key safeguards on fuel economy will pollute our air, and line the pockets of oil and auto CEOs. We are confident of stopping Trump’s CAFE standards rollback.”

“The Trump administration’s rollback will mean wasted gas, more air pollution, and higher costs for Americans who are already struggling with high fuel prices,” said Andy Su, senior transportation attorney at Environmental Defense Fund. “We’re going to court to oppose this dangerous U-turn away from decades of successful work to make our cars more efficient and less expensive to drive.”

In 2025, I sat locked in a room in a private home as military officials camped on the front porch. A surveillance photo of me taken that morning was circulating on WhatsApp around Kawasi Village, where I was staying on Obi Island in Indonesia. I was visiting as a representative of Earthworks, along with colleagues from Indonesian environmental NGO WALHI.

When I heard that surveillance and harassment resulted in WALHI staff and journalists abandoning their attempted reporting trip to that same village this summer, I recognized a pattern.

The North Maluku branch of the Indonesian NGO WALHI has experienced an environment of increasing hostilities and intimidation related to their work to support and advocate with mining-impacted communities on Obi Island. I saw it first hand. Now reporters had seen it too.

Nickel mining transforms a fishing village

The story on Obi Island has global significance. Nickel mining is booming in Indonesia. The country’s annual nickel production in 2015 was 130,000 tons. In 2025, it was 2.6M tons. This island nation is now responsible for more than 60 percent of the world’s nickel production. Much of that nickel goes into batteries, including batteries for electric vehicles. 

In 2010, Obi Island, known for its fishing and spice economy, became the site of a large nickel mining and processing operation owned by Harita Group. Since its opening, the operation has  caused an explosion of environmental and social harms:

• environmental pollution, 
• toxic and carcinogenic chemical leaks that affect drinking water,
• displacement of local residents, 
• health issues, 
• mine waste facilities that are at risk for catastrophic failure, and 
• reports of threats and intimidation and harassment of people speaking out.

Accountability depends on information justice

Kawasi Village residents have called for more transparency around Harita’s operations. WALHI and the Indonesian Society of Environmental Journalists (SIEJ) point out that, “there can be no environmental justice without information justice.”

A transition to cleaner transportation needs to be built with minerals that are sourced responsibly, and operations on Obi Island are raising concerns. Buyers, consumers, human rights advocates, environmentalists, and others are starting to pay attention. 

Communities need to be able to tell their stories without fear, and the media must be able to report those stories to the public. 

Companies and governments around the world use fear and harassment to try to silence communities that are defending their rights in the face of mining operations. But at Earthworks, we know that people who are standing up for their families and their land and water are not easy to silence, and their voices must be heard in order to find lasting solutions.

Journalists cancel visit due to intimidation

Most recently, a group of journalists experienced intimidation and surveillance. Over the course of four days in June and July 2026, WALHI and SEIJ jointly organized a trip for five journalists to report about the situation on Obi Island. 

The journalists who attended were from Konde, which focuses on women’s issues in Indonesia; Mongabay, an international environmental science publication; Project Multatuli, a collective focused on underreported populations and holding power accountable; Bahalo Project; and Tempo, one of the largest and best-known newspapers in Indonesia. 

Obi Island is only reachable by boat, and the surveillance began while the group was on a ferry, en route to the island. Two people began following the group on board the ferry and asking questions about the purpose of their work and trip to Obi Island. 

When the SIEJ and WALHI group arrived on Obi Island, the police chief said that they had entered without alerting local authorities and security officials. Residents of one of the towns on the island, Kawasi Village, had to come and help transport the group to safety. 

A group from Eco Village, a village where Harita has relocated some residents impacted by their operations, also attempted to turn the reporters away at the port.

The journalists were forced to cancel their visit to the area and were unable to continue their reporting work.

Indonesian military surveillance targets Earthworks and WALHI

This is not the first time that civil society groups have faced intimidation and surveillance while visiting Obi Island for work regarding Harita Group’s operations and impacts. 

In April 2025, during a visit with WALHI staff to Kawasi Village, I was surveilled and harassed by military security officials. 

Within 12 hours of arriving on the ferry, my photo was circulating via WhatsApp messages. Military security contacted a colleague to let them know that they had my photo and to ask questions about the purpose and timing of my visit. Plainclothes military officials visited the home where I was staying with a local family. The officers camped out on the front porch for hours while I stayed locked away in my room. 

The harassment continued while in transit leaving Obi Island. Plainclothes military officials turned up on a neighboring island as we switched boats. They began interrogating WALHI colleagues about me and our visit to Kawasi Village. I decided to spend the nearly 24-hour trip that remained inside a small cabin to avoid further harassment by the officials.  

These tactics effectively limited Earthworks and WALHI’s ability to witness mining impacts on the village and surrounding areas and to speak with community members living near Harita’s operations. 

Intimidation pattern raises concerns

Harita Group’s operations on Obi Island are currently undergoing an audit by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. IRMA offers independent assessments of whether or not specific industrial mines meet standards for responsible mining. Voluntary standards like IRMA can be a powerful way to improve mining companies’ practices. Everyone involved, including communities and NGO staff, needs to be able to engage in the process without fear.

Both incidents took place around the time when IRMA auditors were expected to be visiting the area. The 2025 incident occurred just days before the onsite audit. Currently, Harita is nearing the end of its optional corrective action period as part of this audit. That means another review of the operations by the audit team will take place in the coming months. 

Earthworks reported these incidents to the audit team, highlighting concerns about residents’ ability to safely participate in the audit without fear of intimidation or retaliation, as well as the pattern of military security restricting access to Kawasi Village, the community most directly affected by Harita’s operations. In its July 2026 update, Harita states that “During and beyond the CAP process, communities, and other stakeholders may raise concerns at any time through our whistleblowing and public grievance channels, which allow anonymous or non-anonymous reporting, with each matter logged, reviewed, and tracked through to resolution.” 

Effective corporate grievance mechanisms like Harita’s require trust that reports will result in action to address the issue and that retaliation will not result — or they require stakeholders to carefully weigh the risks to themselves and others. Now that my experience is part of a pattern, I decided to share this story publicly.

Earthworks and Indonesian NGOs call on officials uphold human rights and transparency

WALHI and SIEJ point out that Law 40 in Indonesia protects freedom of press and freedom from interference  and Law 32 and the Indonesian Constitution protect the right to a healthy environment. Attempts to silence reporting on the impacts from mining operations on Obi Island are not in the spirit of the national laws upholding democratic institutions and good governance. 

Community members, NGO experts, and reporters must be able to speak about the impacts of mining without harassment and fear. Their knowledge and insights are important for buyers, policymakers, and advocates. We need truth, not silence, to build a sustainable future that works for everyone. 

Earthworks joins WALHI AND SIEJ’s call for Harita Group to uphold the principles of democracy, human rights, transparency, and freedom of press.

The post Silencing the Story: Surveillance and Harassment Limit Reporting on Harita’s Nickel Operations in Indonesia appeared first on Earthworks.

Federal auction of 43 parcels, including land inside SB 1137’s health protection zones, puts California’s landmark public health law in the crosshairs of Trump’s “drill baby drill” agenda

SACRAMENTO, CA — As the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) set a Dec. 1 date to auction off oil and gas drilling rights on roughly 35,000 acres of California public land — the largest oil and gas lease sale since 2009 — 75 environmental justice, health, faith, Indigenous and conservation organizations representing millions of Californians are asking Governor Newsom to protect Californians from federal overreach. 

In a letter sent to Governor Newsom, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Deputy Cabinet Secretary Sarah Swig and State Oil and Gas Supervisor Douglas Ito, the coalition warns that the Trump administration has launched “an all-out attack on our state’s health and environment” by opening up acres of land for oil drilling on the state’s federal land. It urges the Newsom administration to uphold his commitment to the progress he made during his two terms by locking in the protections of SB 1137, the landmark law that prohibits oil drilling within 3,200 feet of communities, and California’s fracking ban before his term ends.

BLM announced today that it will offer 43 parcels in Kern, Kings, San Luis Obispo and Fresno counties at an online lease sale on Dec. 1, 2026. A 30-day public protest period opened today and closes Nov. 2. BLM itself notes that leasing is only the first step, and that no development can begin until an operator applies for a permit to drill, a process in which BLM coordinates with state partners, including CalGEM. That state permit is where California has the power to say no.

“In Kern County, we already live next to thousands of oil wells. BLM calls leasing ‘just the first step.’ We know where those steps lead: to more asthma, more cancer, more families breathing in someone else’s profits. The state permit is the last line of defense, and it has to hold.” said Cesar Aguirre,  Director of the Air & Climate Justice Team Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN).

“The federal government just put a date on the calendar to auction off drilling rights next to California homes and schools. Governor Newsom has two months to make sure that when those leases are sold, the state’s answer to new wells in our neighborhoods is already written down: no.” said Ilonka Zlatar, California Climate Justice Organizer with the Oil and Gas Action Network (OGAN).

A federal lease sale that reaches into health protection zones

In June, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) opened more than a million acres of California public land to new oil and gas leasing, including fracking. More than 175,000 people submitted comments opposing it, but BLM made virtually no changes and continues to ignore California’s related laws. Its proposed December 2026 lease sale covers 44 parcels, roughly 36,000 acres in the Bakersfield and Central Coast regions. The sale includes:

• Nearly 3,800 acres inside SB 1137’s health protection zones, the 3,200-foot buffers that keep new wells away from homes, schools, daycares and hospitals
• Nearly 13,000 acres bordering Carrizo Plain National Monument
• More than 1,300 acres within the Lokern-Buena Vista and Chico Martinez Areas of Critical Environmental Concern & habitat for endangered species

“These public lands are precious wild spaces that belong to all Californians, not the polluting oil industry,” said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Trump’s nonsensical fossil fuel frenzy is no excuse to sacrifice California wildlife, communities and the climate. We won’t let this reckless land grab stand.”

BLM’s environmental assessment found “no significant impact” to the drilling expansion. It also found, preliminarily, that no historic properties would be affected, even though the land is within the ancestral homelands of the Chumash, Yokuts and Salinan peoples and near Painted Rock, one of the most significant Indigenous sacred sites in North America.

“This land holds our ancestors’ stories. This 36,000 acre oil lease is on the ancestral homelands of several Tribal Nations, including the Yokuts, Mono, Shoshone, Chumash, Kawaiisu, Tejon, Salinan, and Tübatulabal relatives. For the federal government to claim that drilling near Painted Rock would affect no historic properties shows how little regard it has for Indigenous Peoples. This affects the health of millions of community members, as well as the health of the lands, waters, and natural relatives. California must not rubber-stamp it,” said Starry Insixingmay, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples. 

The lease sale comes as the U.S. Department of Justice, representing BLM, continues its lawsuit to overturn SB 1137’s health protection zones. On March 31, 2026, a federal court refused the administration’s request to suspend the law while the case proceeds, finding that the federal government “has not demonstrated that it is likely to succeed” on the merits. The lawsuit is still ongoing.

No oil or gas well can be drilled in California, whether on federal, state or private land, without a permit from the state’s Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM). That permitting process is discretionary. The coalition is asking the Newsom administration to:

1. Direct CalGEM to require full review under the California Environmental Quality Act for any permit tied to this lease sale or any future federal lease, instead of relying on BLM’s federal environmental assessment.
2. Affirm that SB 1137’s health protection zones apply in full to every well permit, whether the land or mineral rights are federal, state or private.
3. Confirm that the state will enforce its fracking ban on all drilling projects, including those on federal leases.

The groups ask the administration to put these directives in writing through rulemakings, policies, executive orders or guidelines, so the protections outlast the current administration.

“Frontline communities fought for years to win SB 1137. We can’t let a federal agency erase it with a ‘no significant impact’ finding. The Governor has the authority to stop this, and we’re asking him to use it before he leaves office.” said Tanvi Kardile, Coalition Manager for Voices in Solidarity Against Oil in Neighbourhoods (VISION). 

The coalition points to Santa Barbara as a warning. There, the Trump administration moved to restart Sable Offshore’s long-dormant, failed pipeline over the objections of the state agencies responsible for protecting the coast. “Just as the state is fighting that action,” the letter says, “it must do everything it can to defend SB 1137 and the state’s fracking ban.California led the nation in protecting communities from the harms of oil and gas drilling,” the letter concludes. “We are asking all of you, together, to use that time and that authority now — this is your legacy to protect.”

Signers include Voices In Solidarity Against Oil in Neighborhoods (VISION), the California Environmental Justice Alliance, Communities for a Better Environment, Sierra Club California, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, Oil Change International, GreenLatinos and others. The full letter and list of signers are available here.

The post As Trump Sets Largest Oil & Gas Lease Sale in Almost 20 Years, 75 Groups Urge Gov Newsom: Protect California Before You Go appeared first on Last Chance Alliance.

Clean Air Council is seeking proposals from qualified transportation engineering and planning consultants to conduct pedestrian, bicycle and public transportation studies at three colleges in the Greater Philadelphia region.

The selected consultant will assess transportation conditions at three institutions of higher education in Philadelphia, Delaware and Bucks Counties and identify opportunities to make it safer, easier and more convenient for students, faculty and staff to walk, bike and use public transportation on and around their campuses.

The work will include evaluating existing pedestrian, bicycle and public transit infrastructure; identifying safety hazards and barriers to getting around without a car; assessing accessibility; engaging campus stakeholders; and developing recommendations for infrastructure improvements, policies and programs.

Findings and recommendations from the studies will help inform a University Toolkit for each participating college, providing strategies for improving transportation safety, accessibility, sustainability and connectivity.

About the Project

The project is supported by a Transportation Options Program (TOP) grant administered by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) and made possible with Federal Highway Administration transportation funds.

Clean Air Council will work with DVRPC, TMA Bucks, Delaware County Transportation Management Association and three participating colleges on the project.

Important Dates

Optional Info Session: October 13, 2026 at 12 p.m. ET
Register

Deadline for Written Questions: October 15, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET
Submit to Titania Markland at tmarkland@cleanair.org.

Proposal Submission Deadline: November 2, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET
Submit to Titania Markland at tmarkland@cleanair.org.

Anticipated Contract Start Date: January 15, 2027

Interested in submitting a proposal?

Review the full Request for Proposal for information about the scope of services, consultant qualifications, submission requirements and selection process.

VIEW THE FULL RFP

The extraordinary legal afterlife of the Shell-Eni OPL 245 affair has produced another important development.

The detailed judgment behind the acquittal of former Milan prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro has now been published—and it overturns the proposition that their handling of potentially favourable material in the Shell-Eni Nigeria prosecution amounted to a criminal refusal to perform their duties.

The extraordinary legal afterlife of the Shell-Eni OPL 245 affair has produced another important development.

Italy’s Court of Cassation has published the reasoning behind its decision to clear former Milan prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro, who had themselves been convicted after the collapse of the enormous corruption prosecution involving Shell, Eni and Nigeria’s controversial OPL 245 offshore oil licence.

The decision is significant because the two prosecutors had previously been convicted twice—at first instance and on appeal—and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for refusing to perform official acts.

Italy’s highest court overturned those convictions on 18 June 2026.

Now we know in much greater detail why.

In judgment No. 34812/2026, whose reasons were filed on 29 September, the Court of Cassation concluded that the action the prosecutors were accused of failing to perform was not legally mandatory and involved prosecutorial discretion. It therefore did not constitute the criminal offence for which they had been convicted. Giurisprudenza Penale

That provides an important new chapter in a story that has been running for well over a decade.

The prosecution that turned on its prosecutors

The origins lie in the notorious OPL 245 transaction.

In 2011 Shell and Eni participated in agreements involving the Nigerian government concerning rights to the enormous deep-water offshore block.

The transaction subsequently became the subject of international investigations and allegations that money paid in connection with the deal ultimately benefited Nigerian officials and other individuals.

Shell and Eni denied corruption.

Italian prosecutors eventually brought one of the largest international corporate corruption cases ever tried in Italy.

Then, on 17 March 2021, the Milan Tribunal acquitted Shell, Eni and the individual defendants. The acquittals subsequently became final after prosecutors withdrew their appeal. Shell maintains that there was never evidence of a corrupt agreement or corrupt payments. Shell

But the story did not end there.

Instead, attention turned to the conduct of the prosecutors themselves.

Accused of withholding favourable material

De Pasquale and Spadaro were accused of failing to make available material that could have assisted the defendants.

The controversy included chats and other material originating from another investigative strand being handled by fellow prosecutor Paolo Storari.

The accusation was serious: that information potentially favourable to defendants in the OPL 245 trial had not been acquired and disclosed when it should have been.

A Brescia court convicted the prosecutors, and in October 2025 an appeals court upheld their eight-month sentences.

The Brescia appeal judgment took a particularly strong position. According to ANSA’s January 2026 report on the reasons, the appeal court characterised the failure to deposit favourable material as a conscious refusal to carry out an obligatory and urgent act. ANSA.it

The Court of Cassation has now rejected the criminal-law foundation of that conclusion.

What Italy’s highest court actually decided

This is where the newly published judgment becomes particularly important.

The Cassation Court stressed that the case before it was not a general inquiry into whether every aspect of the prosecutors’ behaviour was correct.

Nor was it questioning the prosecutor’s obligation to act loyally and impartially.

The much narrower legal question was whether the particular conduct amounted to the specific criminal offence of refusing to perform an official act under Article 328 of the Italian Criminal Code.

The answer was no.

The court concluded that the act the prosecutors supposedly refused to perform was not a mandatory act required by the relevant provisions of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure. Instead, it involved what the court described as delicate discretionary assessments belonging to the prosecutor responsible for the case. Giurisprudenza Penale

That distinction is crucial.

A prosecutor may have duties of fairness and impartiality, but according to the Cassation Court it does not follow that every disputed prosecutorial decision constitutes a criminal refusal to perform an official duty.

As the court’s reasoning makes clear, not every possible breach of professional correctness is itself a crime. Giurisprudenza Penale

The disputed chats

The judgment goes further.

According to the published summary of the Cassation decision, the failure to acquire the chats identified by Storari did not involve decisive exculpatory evidence, and the decision not to acquire them was not improper in the criminal-law sense at issue before the court. Giurisprudenza Penale

The court also found that there had been no criminally relevant act of refusal or attributable omission by De Pasquale and Spadaro.

Their position had effectively been referred upwards to the Milan chief prosecutor and deputy chief prosecutor, who did not override it. Giurisprudenza Penale

That is a markedly different interpretation from that reached by the lower courts.

Two convictions wiped away

This was not a retrial producing a reduced sentence.

The Court of Cassation annulled the convictions without remitting the case for another trial, using the formula perché il fatto non sussiste—essentially, because the alleged criminal act did not exist.

The judgment therefore brought the criminal proceedings against the prosecutors to an end. Giurisprudenza Penale

Global Investigations Review now reports the decision under the succinct headline:

“Shell-Eni prosecutors didn’t breach legal duties.” globalinvestigationsreview.com

That is broadly accurate as a description of the criminal-law finding, although the judgment itself contains an important nuance: the Cassation Court deliberately distinguished the question of criminal liability from a broader assessment of prosecutorial conduct.

That distinction should not be lost.

An extraordinary reversal

The sequence is remarkable.

First, Shell, Eni and the individual defendants were prosecuted over one of the biggest alleged international corruption schemes to reach an Italian courtroom.

They were acquitted.

Then two of the prosecutors who brought the case were themselves prosecuted over their handling of potentially favourable material.

They were convicted.

Their convictions were upheld on appeal.

And now Italy’s highest court has overturned those convictions completely.

Reuters reported after the June ruling that the prosecutor-general before the Court of Cassation had himself sought the full acquittal of De Pasquale and Spadaro. Euronext

But this does not rewrite the OPL 245 record

Care is required here.

The Cassation decision does not convict Shell or Eni of anything.

Their Italian criminal acquittals remain final.

Equally, the new judgment should not be read as a judicial declaration resolving every historical controversy surrounding OPL 245.

The Court of Cassation was deciding whether De Pasquale and Spadaro committed a particular criminal offence through their handling of material during the prosecution.

It concluded they did not.

That is a much narrower proposition.

The underlying OPL 245 documentary history—including the negotiations, payment structures, internal corporate communications and differing interpretations of what participants knew—continues to exist independently of the eventual criminal outcomes.

Indeed, an extensive collection of documents from the Milan proceedings remains publicly archived by the OPL245 Papers project. OPL245 Papers

Shell and Eni are back in OPL 245

There is another reason why this historical litigation remains relevant in 2026.

OPL 245 is no longer merely an old courtroom story.

Earlier this year the Nigerian government reached an agreement enabling the former OPL 245 acreage to move forward under Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act.

The former licence has been converted into two petroleum mining leases and two petroleum prospecting licences, involving Eni as operator alongside the Nigerian national oil company and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company.

Shell describes the licences as part of its expanding Nigerian deep-water portfolio. Shell

Thus an oil block that spent years generating investigations, criminal proceedings, civil claims and international controversy is once again part of Shell and Eni’s commercial future.

The latest chapter, not necessarily the last word

The newly released Cassation judgment closes one remarkable subsidiary chapter of OPL 245.

Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro stand acquitted.

Their previous convictions have been annulled.

Italy’s highest court has found that the prosecutorial decision at issue involved discretion rather than a mandatory legal act whose refusal constituted a crime. Giurisprudenza Penale

That does not reverse Shell and Eni’s acquittals.

It does something different.

It means that the prosecutors who unsuccessfully pursued Shell and Eni have now themselves emerged from the criminal justice system without convictions.

For anyone attempting to write a definitive history of OPL 245, that distinction matters.

The case has produced an extraordinary succession of allegations, investigations, trials, acquittals, prosecutions of prosecutors, convictions of those prosecutors—and finally the annulment of those convictions by Italy’s highest court.

And after all of that, Shell and Eni are once again preparing to develop the Nigerian acreage at the centre of the entire affair.

Sources: Global Investigations Review, 1 October 2026; Italian Court of Cassation, Sixth Criminal Section, Judgment No. 34812/2026, reasons filed 29 September 2026; Reuters; Giurisprudenza Penale; Shell plc; Eni; ANSA; OPL245 Papers. globalinvestigationsreview.com

OPL 245 Twist: Italy’s Supreme Court Says Shell-Eni Prosecutors Did Not Breach Their Legal Duties was first posted on October 2, 2026 at 5:41 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

Arizona is one signature away from its fourth national park. The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent Wednesday to redesignate Chiricahua National Monument as a national park and sent it to President Trump’s desk.

The bill was sponsored by U.S. Representative Juan Ciscomani and U.S. Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego. It leaves the monument’s roughly 12,000-acre boundaries as they are, and it requires consultation with Tribes and continued access for traditional Tribal uses.

Local officials hope the new name will bring more tourists to a site that had just over 70,000 visitors last year. Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers, said Chiricahua is “certainly worthy of national park status,” but added, “Like a lot of other areas, it is most likely understaffed.”

Some of Chiricahua’s basic needs are already on hold. A new interactive map from the Center for Western Priorities shows 1,492 Park Service projects that Interior department officials classified as “low priority.” Three of them are at Chiricahua: emergency mold abatement in occupied staff housing, replacing electrical systems in historic buildings, and security upgrades. Top-priority work was fast-tracked instead, including a $16 million effort to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue.

“These are the everyday projects that keep parks open and running: roof repairs, replacing outdated computers, even buying toilet paper and garbage bags. None of that is low priority. It’s the basic work of national parks,” said Lilly Bock-Brownstein of the Center for Western Priorities.

MLB drops proposal to host baseball game at Grand Teton National Park

Major League Baseball has dropped its proposal to host a game in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Last weekend, the Washington Post reported that a National Park Service official scouted possible sites. Local leaders then sent letters to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expressing “strong opposition.” In a Thursday letter, Manfred wrote that “it has become clear the local community does not want us to continue evaluating Grand Teton National Park as a potential site.”

Quick hits Interior is paying $3.4M to repair the national mall’s turf

Washington Sun

DC judge permanently dismisses case charging ex-Olympian with vandalizing Reflecting Pool

Associated Press

The Trump admin cut funding to a conservation nonprofit. The group has no idea why

SFGATE

South Korea contests U.S. claims of new $50 billion pipeline in Alaska

Wall Street Journal

MLB drops proposal to host a baseball game at Grand Teton National Park

Associated Press | Washington Post | Jackson Hole News & Guide |

Conservation groups sue to halt expansion of Hermosa mine onto public lands in Arizona

Tucson Sentinel

Chiricahua National Park Act headed to President Trump may create Arizona’s fourth national park

Arizona’s Family | Arizona Daily Star | 13 News | KGUN | KVOA

4 more endangered California condors take flight near the Grand Canyon

Arizona Republic

Quote of the day

It’s very bewildering to see these cuts at a time when public interest and love for public lands is at an all-time high.”

—Peter Woodruff, executive director of the Great Basin Institute, SFGATE

Picture This @devilstowernps

While Katmai had its Fat Bear Week, here at Devils Tower we are entering our Fat Prairie Dog Week. In preparation for winter prairie dogs will also fatten up. The fatter the prairie dog the better chance it has of surviving the winter. While the prairie dogs in the park don’t hibernate, food can be scarce in the winter, so they need to pack on the pounds. Below is the fattest prairie dog we have ever seen at Devils Tower National Monument. What has been your best sighting of a plump animal? NPS/Brian C. #DevilsTower#FindYourPark

 

(Featured image: Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona. Photo by Ken Lund, Flickr)

The post Chiricahua positioned to become Arizona’s newest national park appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Several major banks that helped set up the UN’s now-defunct Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) in 2021 have since continued to lend money to coal companies, a new report has revealed.

Bank of America, Barclays, Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Santander were heavily involved in the NZBA and the associated Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) when it was launched by Mark Carney, then a UN climate envoy and now Canada’s leader, in the run-up to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Despite their involvement, data released this week shows those banks and some others did not reduce the amount of money they lent, nor the value of their underwriting, to coal activities between 2022 and 2025. Around half of the NZBA members who were engaged in coal financing over that time increased it and half cut it, according to the report by German environmental research group Urgewald.

Ana Botín, executive chair of Santander, was a member of the GFANZ CEO principals’ group and said at the time of the NZBA launch that her Spanish bank was “proud to be part of the founding members of this new alliance and to accelerate progress towards net zero”.

Since then, the report’s data documents that Santander has provided loans and underwriting worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year to coal companies, particularly American coal-power plant operators Duke Energy and the Southern Company. Santander did not respond to a request for comment.

Urgewald’s research adjusts the value of loans and underwriting provided to coal companies based on how much of a company’s revenues come from the most polluting fossil fuel. So a hypothetical $100 million loan to German utility RWE is valued at $21 million, as 21% of RWE’s revenue is from coal.

The research does not take account of whether companies are expanding their coal business or phasing it out for greener alternatives. Some banks have said their coal clients need to put in place transition plans by a certain date. Some also say that, by a certain date, they will stop lending money to clients that get more than a set percentage of their revenue from coal.

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Most companies expanding coal are in Asian nations like China, India and Indonesia and are largely financed by banks from their own countries. But there are examples of NZBA founding members supporting companies that are actively prolonging the life of their coal businesses.

For example, Glencore, a Switzerland-based multinational that gets 4% of its revenue from coal, has just won preliminary regulatory approval to keep on coal mining in Australia’s Hunter Valley until 2045. Last year, the company was supported by loans and underwriting from Bank of America, Citigroup, Santander, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered.

Good and bad news

Some NZBA founding members like Swiss giant UBS have reduced their loans and underwriting for coal companies, the data suggests. Others – like Triodos and Kenya Commercial Bank – have provided no support for coal companies since at least 2021.

Urgewald researcher Hannah O’Neill told Climate Home News that “the banking sector is not moving in one direction. There is a growing divide between banks that are tightening their coal policies and reducing their exposure, and those where coal policies remain weak or where financing continues.” 

Unlike the UN’s Race to Zero campaign, with which it partnered, the NZBA did not require its members to end financing for fossil fuels like coal, leading to accusations by climate campaigners that its rules were too weak.

Despite this, after Donald Trump’s re-election as US president in November 2024, several North American banks quit the alliance and the NZBA’s requirements were diluted in April 2025. After further withdrawals, the group shut itself down in October 2025.

Globally, the Urgewald report found that many banks in the European Union, Thailand, Malaysia, India and Taiwan have reduced their coal finance since governments agreed at COP26 to phase down coal power.

But with Chinese, American, Indonesian and South Korean banks increasing their support, total bank financing for the coal industry has remained broadly the same each year since 2022. 

“Coal financing is not disappearing – but it is concentrating in banks and markets where coal policies are either missing or weak,” said Heffa Schücking, director of Urgewald.

Urgewald’s definition of coal companies includes firms and their subsidiaries that explore for, process, trade, transport and mine coal, or burn it in power plants to produce electricity, or manufacture equipment for the coal industry. It does not include companies that use coal to make cement or steel – and an adjustment is made to account for how much of the business model is coal-related.

Banks defend delays

At the time of publication, most of the banks named in the report for increasing their coal finance had not responded to requests for comment. But a spokesperson for Deutsche Bank pointed Climate Home News to its May 2026 announcement that it was delaying its requirement for existing clients to present it with transition plans and cut their coal exposure.

Instead of having to present these plans by the end of 2025, the bank has given them until the end of 2027. They will also have to ensure that their revenue share from thermal coal falls below half by then, the bank added. New clients need energy transition plans to access finance.

Deutsche Bank said at the time it was delaying its requirements because of the “increasingly complex regulatory environment as well as differing speeds of energy transition in various regions beyond what was anticipated by Deutsche Bank in 2023”.

Big banks’ lending to coal backers undermines Indonesia’s green plans 

A spokesperson for Barclays told Climate Home News: “Many companies in this report are diversified energy or mining companies. We do not provide financing to companies that generate more than 30% of revenues from thermal coal mining or power generation, and we will phase out all financing by 2035.”

The Barclays spokesperson added: “Barclays is financing an energy sector in transition, providing finance to meet current energy needs and also financing the scaling of clean energy. Over the past three years, we have facilitated more than $300 billion of sustainable and transition finance, including billions to cleaner energy projects, and invested millions into climate tech.”

The post Big banks behind “net zero” alliance continued lending to coal firms appeared first on Climate Home News.

From a morning of birding in Central Park to discussions on clean energy, conservation careers, and the future of nature, birds provided a common thread throughout Audubon’s Climate Week NYC...

The post Four Ways North Carolina Can Meet Growing Electric Loads Without Increasing Utility Bills appeared first on ACEEE | American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

(2025 KXL Pipeline Fighters Gathering)

Join us for a fall gathering of Keystone XL Pipeline Fighters. We have defeated this pipeline 3 times now… and it’s NOT coming back!

• WHAT: Fall Gathering of Keystone XL Pipeline Fighters
• WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 7, 11am – 4pm
• WHERE: KC Hall, 106 S. Sherrill St., Atkinson, NE
• *PLEASE RSVP* via Text or Email:
  402-340-8548
  bdsteskal@gmail.com

Bring your Favorite Dish to Share! Tableware, Napkins, & Drinks Provided!

“Good Food is all the sweeter when shared with good Friends.”

The post Fall Gathering of Keystone XL Pipeline Fighters (Potluck) appeared first on Bold Nebraska.

Chicago, Denver and New York City joined multistate lawsuits challenging the agency’s move to end greenhouse gas emissions standards and failure to enforce requirements on existing gas-fired plants.

August brought signs of growing pressure on several fronts for Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, from questions surrounding major construction projects abroad to the first decline in its foreign revenue in a decade.

Meanwhile, at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, repeated attacks, losses of external power and difficulties securing diesel fuel underscored the precarious conditions surrounding Europe’s largest nuclear station.

Paks II faces a political — and environmental — rethink

In Hungary, the future of the Russian-built Paks II nuclear power plant has come under renewed scrutiny from the new government of Prime Minister Peter Magyar.

Magyar said in August that experts considered the existing permit for the project untenable and that the government was conducting a comprehensive review that would determine, among other things, whether Rosatom could continue building the plant.

Rosatom chief Alexey Likhachev insisted work was continuing according to plan. But Magyar pointed to the project’s long delays: under the original contract Paks II was supposed to be operating by 2024, while Hungary has already spent around 1 trillion forints (€2.8 billion) on the project. At the same time, Budapest is proposing to more than double its 2026 budget financing for Paks II, suggesting that abandonment of the project is not currently on the table.

Bellona nuclear expert Dmitry Gorchakov argues that the review should extend beyond the project’s finances. Extreme heat and exceptionally low water levels in the Danube forced the existing Paks plant to sharply reduce output this summer, raising questions about the cooling system planned for two additional reactors.

“At the same time, judging by Hungary’s continued financing of the project, a complete abandonment of Paks II does not appear to be under consideration,” Gorchakov said. “Under these circumstances, in addition to the financial questions already raised about the project’s cost, the problems facing the existing Paks plant due to extreme heat and low water levels in the Danube also raise the question of whether the project’s environmental parameters should be reconsidered — in particular, its cooling system.”

The existing plant already imposes a substantial thermal load on the Danube, while Paks II would add another 9.5 GW of thermal capacity. Gorchakov argues that increasingly frequent heat and drought could make the present cooling design difficult to sustain.

Rosatom’s foreign revenue falls

Those uncertainties come as Rosatom has acknowledged an unusual reversal in its international business. Its newly released 2025 annual report shows foreign revenue falling 4.1 percent to about $17.2 billion, even as overall revenue rose 7.9 percent to 3.33 trillion rubles. Its lifetime foreign project portfolio nevertheless increased to $206.2 billion.

Gorchakov called the decline significant because it follows 10 consecutive years of growth, with foreign revenue increasing by more than 20 percent annually during the previous five years.

Importantly, the decline does not appear to come from Rosatom’s nuclear fuel business. Bellona estimates that nuclear fuel-cycle deliveries increased substantially to the United States and China, and likewise rose in the European Union.

Instead, Rosatom’s report attributes the decline to lower revenues from nuclear plant construction. Gorchakov says this could partly reflect projects such as Bangladesh’s Rooppur plant and Turkey’s Akkuyu reaching later construction stages, but may also reflect “difficulties and additional costs associated with sanctions pressure, the search for alternative ways to transfer funds abroad, and changing suppliers.”

Egypt illustrates the ambiguity. Leaked documents concerning the Rosatom-built El Dabaa plant reportedly described construction defects, nuclear safety culture problems and a possible 18-month delay to the first reactor. Egyptian authorities disputed the characterization. Yet only days later Cairo and Rosatom began discussing adding two more Russian reactors to the four already under construction. See our article from August for more detail.

Zaporizhzhia survives on an increasingly thin margin

The situation at Zaporizhzhia is considerably more immediate. The plant lost its sole remaining external power connection four times during August. After the fourth outage, on August 20, it remained disconnected for roughly three weeks and depended on emergency diesel generators.

That exposed another vulnerability: Russian officials told IAEA inspectors that the last delivery to the plant’s diesel storage facility had occurred in March. A planned May delivery had been prevented by fighting, leaving fuel for approximately 10 days of emergency-generator operation. Operators progressively reduced the number of running generators from seven to four and eventually two, while cooling pumps were operated intermittently to conserve electricity.

The crisis unfolded amid repeated drone incidents around the station and tentative discussion of a possible Russian-Ukrainian energy ceasefire. Bellona nuclear expert Alexander Nikitin sees a larger issue emerging from those developments: ZNPP is no longer simply a civilian nuclear facility endangered by war, but has itself acquired military and political value.

‘Despite the military value of the territory around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, judging by their actions, both sides are trying to prevent the plant from permanently losing its potential energy and political value,” Nikitin writes. “This suggests that ZNPP is viewed not only as a source of nuclear risks, but also as a potential asset in future negotiations.’

That possibility makes preserving the plant important for reasons extending beyond nuclear safety. As Nikitin notes, a destroyed plant has little negotiating value; an intact one retains both political and economic importance.

But the August outages also demonstrate why any future agreement concerning nuclear facilities would have to extend beyond simply prohibiting direct attacks on reactors. Transmission lines, substations and other external infrastructure are essential to keeping a nuclear plant safe.

As Nikitin argues, the war has blurred a boundary nuclear regulation traditionally assumed was clear: a civilian nuclear facility can remain civilian in formal terms while simultaneously becoming an element of military strategy.

The post Rosatom faces pressure abroad as Zaporizhzhia’s nuclear risks deepen appeared first on Bellona.org.

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

Week Without Driving started on Thursday! Join us in the nationwide movement to call for true mobility options for all Pennsylvanians. Take the Week Without Driving Pledge here.

Thank you to everyone who participated, the Pretzel Pedal Challenge is now complete! If you missed this year, you can still create a Share-a-Ride profile and earn points towards gift card drawings all year round. We’ll be back next with more prizes and experiences while cycling towards a cleaner and healthier Philadelphia! 

Image Source: SEPTA

Transit Forward Philadelphia: Drexel Students Share Their Transit Research – Drexel student Sydney Wieczkowski assessed the first phase of SEPTA’s New Bus Network and how it balanced transit efficiency and health equity in the region. When formulating the New Bus Network, SEPTA categorized existing routes as minority or non-minority routes, and low income or non-low-income routes. Sydney then analyzed the effects the proposed changes would have on each route. The research found that several minority and low-income routes could be disproportionately burdened by the changes. While the plan could benefit public health by improving access to public transportation and reducing air pollution, some route changes could create new challenges for riders, including longer walks or additional transfers.

Image Source: Jumping Rocks

The Conversation: What Philly can – and can’t – do to reduce the number of people killed in car crashes – Research has found that Philadelphians are killed in traffic crashes at much higher rates than comparable cities such as Chicago, Boston, and New York. Speeding and hit-and-runs occur at higher rates, and crashes are more likely to occur in dark conditions than the average in four peer cities. Data shows a 27% drop in fatal crashes in Philadelphia in 2025, and 2026 so far has been mirroring this. Automated speed enforcement cameras, such as the ones installed on Roosevelt Boulevard in 2020, have been associated with an 11% decrease in serious crashes. Similar cameras have been installed in other parts of the city, such as on Broad Street, with results still a few years away. However, other traffic-calming measures, such as increased lighting and pedestrian-focused infrastructure, are also needed to improve safety.

Image Source: Billy Penn

Billy Penn: Indego e-bikes dominate Philadelphia bike-share fleet – In July, around 75% of Indego bikes on racks were e-bikes, and some users are skipping them altogether. However, research has shown that while traditional bikes are healthier, e-bikes still improve aerobic fitness. In the first half of 2026, 72% of Indego rides in Philly were on e-bikes. Indego plans to add more traditional bikes to the fleet over the next two years to respond to demand.

Other Stories

PhillyVoice: Fishtown man is biking from Indiana to Pittsburgh to raise money for cancer research

StreetsBlog USA: Transportation Reform Has an Imagination Problem

CBS Pittsburgh: Parkway East and Parkway North seeing heavier traffic patterns lately, PennDOT says

Transportation Today: Pennsylvania begins work on more than 400 miles of “Rapid Deployment Projects”

SEPTA: SEPTA Bus Roadeo Brings Back Competition and Camaraderie

Canada sits on enough underground storage space to hold 11.7 years of current global emissions.From the CDR Centre, this infographic explains how direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) works, from capturing carbon dioxide with large fans, to...

Only utilities in the Northwest should pay the nearly $20 million in expenses for a 90-day order covering the Centralia unit, and despite the unit’s lack of output, payment is due, the agency said.

It’s unnatural to toss a fully loaded ice cream cone in the trash, but every year more than 500,000 tons of ice cream waste are thrown away by factories around the world. That’s enough to make a frozen pile larger than the U.S. Capitol building—complete with sled and toboggan runs. Scientists have now proposed that this waste could be recycled into a renewable supply of bio-diesel, aviation fuel, lubricants, or industrial solvents.

A new study published in Cleaner Engineering and Technology  demonstrates how dairy fats can be separated from factory ice cream waste and sold as raw material for making these other products that might otherwise come from petroleum. This seemingly simple problem is surprisingly hard to solve.

Your typical pint of vanilla contains a mishmash of water, ice, sugar, proteins, and fat. The fats are dispersed in microscopic droplets that are coated in milk and egg proteins. The protein coatings prevent the fat droplets from merging and rising to the top, the way oil often does in a jar of organic peanut butter. And this, in turn, keeps your cold dessert smooth and creamy—so it won’t separate into oil and crunchy ice, even if you thaw and refreeze it.

But this culinary engineering also makes those valuable fats difficult to extract and purify from ice cream waste.

In this new study, researchers tested two strategies for stripping away the protein coatings, so the fat droplets will join together and rise, allowing fat to be skimmed off the top.

 

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In one approach, they treated the ice cream waste with protease enzymes that slice apart the proteins coating fat droplets. In the other, they added acids or bases to either lower or raise the pH of the mixture, in order to unfold the proteins—causing them to fall off the fat droplets.

Both approaches worked to some degree; but the base treatment, raising the pH to 11, was faster and more effective. In as little as two hours, it recovered 95 percent of the fat from samples of ice cream factory waste, at purity levels up to 85 percent—while avoiding the expenses of intense heating or purchasing enzymes.

The authors calculated that this process could be done cheaply enough that the extracted fats could be sold for around $0.40 per gallon—making them cheaper than similar feedstocks that are often used to make fuels, solvents, or lubricants.

This strategy won’t eliminate the kilograms of ice cream fat that accumulate around our waistlines. But it could redeem the thousands of tons of fat that factories might otherwise throw away.

Ale-Enriquez, et al. “Low-cost fat recovery from industrial ice cream waste: Separation mechanisms, process modeling, and techno-economic feasibility.” Cleaner Engineering and Technology, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Headline News:

• “How Many Birds Are Killed By Offshore Wind Turbines?” • Wildlife Imaging Systems installed 16 thermal cameras on an offshore wind turbine, covering all angles and operating 24 hours a day. Over almost a year of monitoring, including the migration seasons, in 22 possible bird collisions seen, two were confirmed and one considered highly probable. [Euronews]

Special camera’s image of flight of a gull (Wageningen University & Research)

• “Puerto Rico Faces Record Electric Rate As Demand And Costs Increase” • A record electric rate went into effect in Puerto Rico as outages persist and the power grid crumbles. A residential customer that consumes 800 kWh a month will see the monthly bill rise about 18%, from $229 to $271, according to Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau. [ABC News]
• “First Coffee Grown And Harvested In Italy” • A plantation on the outskirts of Palermo has for the first time produced Arabica coffee beans grown and harvested entirely in Italy. The result, achieved on the Morettino family estate, has been made possible by climate change, which has effectively brought the heat of the tropics to southern Italy. [Euronews]
• “Households Will Pay More For Energy Because Of Trump’s Policy Changes” • Households in the contiguous US will pay thousands of dollars more for energy through 2040 because of federal policy changes since President Donald Trump returned to office, according to modeling by the nonpartisan think tank Energy Innovation. [ABC News]
• “Santee Cooper’s New Energy Plan Is Bad News For South Carolina Customers” • In 2023, Santee proposed building 1,500 MW of solar by 2030 and 3,000 MW by 2040. Now, however, rather than meet demand with affordable solar and wind, Santee Cooper wants to double down on expensive new gas plants and delay coal plant retirements. [CleanTechnica]

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

For southeast Iowa farmer Amos Graber, the path to healthier food begins in the soil.

“I firmly believe that if I have healthy soil, then I can raise healthier crops, which in turn will mean healthier livestock,” says Graber. “And then, really the end goal, all this is healthier food for the consumer.”

Graber is the seventh generation to farm his family’s land. Alongside his father, he raises cattle in partnership with specialty meat company Niman Ranch and grows a mix of non-GMO and organic crops, including corn, soybeans, oats, alfalfa, and clover hay.

At 25 years old, Graber is experimenting with new practices to continually improve the family farm. He feeds their cattle a mineral mix including yeast and essential oils, which support animal health without synthetic antibiotics, and applies a worm compost extract to corn and soybean fields to help boost nutrient absorption.

But Graber knows that building healthier soil and livestock does not happen overnight. He is focusing on improving his land, not just sustaining it, and that’s a long-term project.

“By going the natural route, focusing on the soil health, it’s a slow grind, but you’ll start seeing the rewards from it,” says Graber. “We’re not here to just be sustainable in the soil. We’re trying to make it better.”

For Graber, this means being willing to question conventional approaches and experiment with alternatives. He says farmers can feel pressure to follow the practices of those around them, even when those methods may not be working financially or environmentally.

“Some farmers, [they say], ‘Well, this is what my neighbor does, and that’s just the only thing we can do around here,'” says Graber. Instead, he tries to think beyond the status quo at Graber Farms, recognizing that there may be more than one way to make a farm successful.

In his area, it is typical for cattle to move between several separate, specialized operations: a cow-calf ranch from birth, a backgrounder farm for early life, a feedlot for later life, and finally a packing plant. But Graber Farms raises its herd for their entire lifetime, from calves to market, and Graber believes this reduces stress on the animals while allowing him greater control over the conditions in which they are raised.

Maintaining a small, independent, sustainable farm in a highly consolidated and specialized industry is difficult, Graber says. For farms like his to survive, he argues that young farmers need more opportunities to build businesses that are diversified rather than dependent on producing a single commodity.

“To stay farming, I think we’re going to have to think outside the box,” he says. “We’re not just going to be able to grow corn one year and soybeans the other year.”

For Graber, that could mean integrating livestock with crop production, producing value-added foods, or finding markets that reward farmers for more sustainable practices, such as Niman Ranch. The network of more than 600 independent U.S. farmers and ranchers offers a guaranteed market for cattle raised to high standards of sustainable and humane farming practices.

Graber sees a growing group of farmers experimenting with cover crops, grazing livestock, and taking other approaches to improving soil health. He says change may happen gradually, but he is encouraged by a willingness among farmers to question conventional systems and try something different.

“To see people’s minds click, even if it’s just on little things, just to start thinking about it…Then [people can] hopefully see where that health of the livestock and health of the crops and health of the soil comes together,” says Graber.

Graber believes the future of farming will depend on rebuilding connections between soil, crops, and livestock, as well as between farmers and eaters. He believes farmers themselves will need to take an active role in shaping that future.

“At the end of the day, government’s not going to save anybody,” he says. “So, it’s up to us as farmers, and the local people, to work together and figure it out.”

The post Iowa Farmer Says We’re Here to Make the Soil Better appeared first on Food Tank.

Toronto — KEVIN LOCKHART, director of the Buildings program at the Pembina Institute, made the following statement in response to the federal government’s announcement of new home energy retrofit projects across Canada: "Today's announcement shows...

Indigenous communities from Biliqo Bulesa in Kenya have filed a lawsuit against a carbon credit project