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At the southern end of Everglades National Park, a series of sloughs conveys fresh water to the Florida Bay estuary. Audubon researchers track these freshwater deliveries (or lack thereof) and their...

Good news! Based on the WET’s demonstrated utility in identifying priority locations in the Central Florida Water Initiative and Lake Okeechobee watershed, Audubon is excited to announce the...

The Biscayne Bay and Southeastern Everglades Ecosystem Restoration (BBSEER) project continues to move forward as a major planning effort under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP)...

In 2026, efforts by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to streamline projects nationwide through its “Building Infrastructure Not Paperwork” initiative have brought new urgency and new risk to...

The Caloosahatchee Estuary is a vibrant, brackish system, the primary westward outlet for Lake Okeechobee water. It is also an example of one of the most pernicious challenges of Everglades...

In January, Audubon weighed in at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Draft Integrated Delivery Schedule (IDS) workshop — pushing to accelerate construction that will deliver more water where and when...

Organized by the Everglades Coalition during Florida’s legislative session, Everglades Action Day brought nearly 40 advocates from across the state face-to-face with lawmakers from 47 offices to...

A diverse coalition converged in Naples from January 28-30 to celebrate and learn from each other as we continue to restore and protect the Everglades. The conference is the largest annual forum...

As Audubon’s new senior manager of Everglades policy, I am honored to join this work at a time of real momentum and possibility for the River of Grass. Across South Florida, we are seeing the...

State FundingFlorida lawmakers approved a $114.5 billion state budget for 2026–27 — slightly smaller than last year’s budget. State leaders framed the lower spending plan as a way to keep taxes...

By: Green Knowledge Foundation

Nigeria’s growing waste crisis is no longer just an environmental concern; it is also a major socio-economic and public health challenge. From the bustling Alaba International Market in Lagos and Igbudu Market in Warri to places such as Ojota, Ajah, Epe, Akpakpava, and Gwagwalada, heaps of unmanaged waste continue to accumulate in open spaces, drainage channels, markets, and dumpsites. 

The majority of this waste is biodegradable and decomposes, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. Beyond its environmental consequences, poor management of organic waste contributes to many challenges like disease outbreaks from poor sanitation, flooding, reduced productivity, e.g. Waste workers falling sick, leachate that affects ground water and also farm products etc and lost economic opportunities that arise from zero waste approaches to waste management. Yet, hidden within these waste streams is a valuable resource capable of creating jobs, improving soil health, supporting local agriculture, and driving a more circular and sustainable economy.

Organic waste, which includes food waste, agricultural residues, slaughterhouse waste, and other biodegradable materials, makes up a significant percentage of Nigeria’s municipal solid waste stream. When improperly managed, this waste decomposes anaerobically, emitting methane into the atmosphere and contributing significantly to climate change. 

Yet, beyond the climate implications of organic waste, there is a deeper human story, stories of poverty, health challenges, negative stigma, inequality, weak infrastructure, and other socio-vulnerabilities.

Many Nigerian communities are heavily dependent on informal waste workers. Waste pickers play a crucial role in recovering recyclable materials and diverting waste from dumpsites, often under dangerous and unregulated conditions. Their contribution to reducing landfill pressure and methane emissions is significant, yet they remain largely invisible in policy discussions. 

A visit to the Olusosun Landfill in Lagos or the Gosa Dumpsite will reveal the critical work these informal waste pickers do. At the Gosa dumpsite, once the disposal trucks finish dumping waste, waste pickers begin sorting and collecting, and, in no time, the waste is reduced to items with little or no value. For many, this might be seen as undignified work, without the social protections needed, but for the waste pickers working here, it means feeding their families.

According to the World Bank, poorly managed waste disproportionately affects vulnerable and low-income communities, contributing to flooding, disease transmission, respiratory problems from waste burning, and adverse economic impacts.

Sadly, many Nigerian communities have a bad habit of burning waste, and where organic waste is openly burned or dumped, methane emissions are often accompanied by toxic smoke and foul odours that threaten both environmental and human health.

The social stigma, and the economic burden carried by informal waste workers, is particularly alarming. Many have suffered injuries from landfill fires, exposure to hazardous waste, and long-term health complications due to unsafe working conditions. Informal waste workers face forced evictions from informal settlements near dumpsites (e.g. Karu axis in Abuja), without access to social protection or alternative livelihoods. Despite contributing to recycling and climate mitigation efforts, they are often excluded from government planning and investment opportunities.

Environmental activist Wangari Maathai once stated, “The environment and the economy are really two sides of the same coin.” This reality is evident in Nigeria, where environmental degradation from poor waste management directly impacts livelihoods, healthcare costs, food systems, and community wellbeing.

Methane reduction presents not only an environmental opportunity but also an economic one. Investments in composting, source segregation, Black Soldier Fly (BSF) Farming and other specialised organic waste management systems can create jobs, strengthen local economies, and improve public health outcomes. Speaking on climate action, Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, emphasised that “Cutting methane is the strongest lever we have to slow climate change over the next 25 years.” For Nigeria, this means that addressing organic waste management must become a national priority within both climate and development policies.

Civil society organisations like GAIA, GKF and a host of other GAIA members across Nigeria are increasingly advocating for zero-waste systems, an all-inclusive system for waste management. 

Solving Nigeria’s methane challenge requires more than technical solutions. It demands a socio-economic approach that recognises the dignity of waste workers, invests in green infrastructure such as MRFs, and empowers communities of farmers, waste pickers, and other critical stakeholders.

This is why the MAMRN project is unique, it recognises that organic waste should no longer be treated with kid’s gloves.

This article is the third in a series on the Methane Reduction in Nigeria (MAMRN) Project, implemented in collaboration with CfEW Jos, SraDev Lagos, Pave Lagos, CODAF Epe Lagos, and SEDI Benin City.

The post Social-Economic Perspectives on Organic Waste and Methane Emissions in Nigeria first appeared on GAIA.

At Audubon Florida, our policy expertise and science-based policy solutions protect raptors across the Sunshine State. We are especially known for our long history of Bald Eagle protection, starting...

“In Las Vegas, one of the fastest warming cities in the country, you cannot live without electricity,” said protest organizer Leslie Vega, who said she’s lost loved ones to heatstroke.

Rebecca Pearce is building a model of something nobody can see: the intense heat trapped kilometres beneath Canada. It’s also a model of a better future for all. 

Pearce is a geophysicist and the science lead for the Cascade Institute’s Ultradeep Geothermal program. She studies a resource tucked so deeply out of sight that most people don’t realize it’s there. Pearce is modelling an inexhaustible zero-carbon resource that could power Canada’s prosperity for generations. 

“Geothermal energy is our next energy revolution,” she says. She and her Cascade Institute colleagues have conducted research and published reports demonstrating that existing Canadian technology and expertise (inherited from the oil and gas industry) can quickly spark big advances in geothermal.  

The Cascade Institute studies the polycrisis: the tangled web of compounding climate, energy, economic and geopolitical crises we’re living through. The Institute identifies high-leverage interventions (well-timed nudges that can ripple outward to address numerous problems at once) and works with governments and frontline actors to act on them. Geothermal energy is among the most promising of those interventions.  

Just as multiple crises can interact and snowball in pernicious cascades, so too can the right intervention at the right time spark a virtuous cascade of improvement toward a better future.  

Research shows that geothermal energy can significantly ease some of the pressures straining the global energy system while accelerating the shift to clean energy sources in response to climate change.  

Pearce aims to translate the complex geophysics of geothermal into language that resonates with the policymakers and communities who stand to benefit from it. To that end, she delivered an impassioned TEDx Talk at Royal Roads University in 2025: 

 “Beneath us lies an infinite supply of heat,” she says in the talk. Energy from just the top 10 kilometres of crust, she explains, “could supply our current global energy needs for over 200 million years.” 

Pearce has chased underground heat round the planet since pursuing her PhD at University College London. She is an expert in applied magnetotellurics (think X-rays for the ground, which allow scientists to locate geothermal hotspots deep below the surface). 

“Geothermal can truly be found anywhere,” says Pearce, who lives in Victoria, BC.  

Her fascination with the underground began early, during childhood hours spent gazing at the Royal Ontario Museum’s volcano exhibit. She was fascinated by the hidden forces that shoved continents together and pushed up mountains.  

Although the geophysics Pearce pursues is complex, the basic principles behind geothermal energy are simple: heat from underground makes steam, which spins a turbine to make electricity. It’s similar in that regard to oil and gas, with a key differentiator—geothermal doesn’t burn anything, so there are no emissions. The power is constant and clean.  

The heat beneath Canada, and much of the world, has been largely inaccessible until recent advances have made geothermal both widely achievable and affordable.  

But there’s a problem: large swaths of Canada’s underground remain unmodelled. Without a model, there’s no government support, no drilling, no progress.  

The goal, Pearce says, is for the model to be “akin to a wind or solar map, so we can illustrate to policymakers that geothermal resources exist across Canada.” 

Pearce and her Cascade Institute colleagues will be part of the World Geothermal Congress, which is being held this June in Calgary. Hosting the event on Canadian soil is a rare opportunity to showcase the incredible potential for geothermal energy in the country.  

Pearce points out that in 2023, the world invested $2 billion in geothermal technology; wind power, by comparison, received $200 billion That kind of money could have funded 400 full-scale geothermal demonstration projects, Pearce says, “but we currently have four.”  

“Geothermal isn’t failing us,” she told her TEDx audience. “We are failing geothermal.” 

Pearce is convinced this can change, and that Canada is unusually well-placed to change it. The country’s decades of oil and gas drilling expertise transfer almost directly to geothermal. She hopes to change that, and believes geothermal energy is on the cusp of a boom for those who seize the opportunity.   

“It will sustain us for thousands of generations to come,” she says. “That is our return on investment.” 

The post Meet the rock doctor modelling Canada’s geothermal opportunity appeared first on Cascade Institute.

Emily Smejkal is on a mission to unveil what she calls Canada’s “invisible resource.” This month, the world arrives in Canada to see it.  

Smejkal is a Cascade Institute researcher and an organizer of the World Geothermal Congress, which, from June 8 to 11, will host global experts and innovators seeking to accelerate the adoption of the clean energy resource.  

Deep underneath Canada, in rock pressure-cooked by seismic forces, is a limitless supply of non-polluting energy just waiting to be accessed.  

“It’s an invisible resource because it is hiding beneath our feet,” says Smejkal. “Most Canadians aren’t even aware we have it, let alone the important role it could play in unlocking abundant, clean energy to power our future.” 

Unlike solar and wind power — which you can feel warming your face or messing up your hair — deep geothermal energy lies so far underground that its mere existence isn’t obvious. Its potential benefits, however, are widely understood by experts like Smejkal, who hopes the World Geothermal Congress will help turn the tide of public awareness.  

As policy lead for the Cascade Institute’s Geothermal Energy Office and a research fellow on Cascade’s Ultradeep Geothermal team, Smejkal is one of the scientists working to pull geothermal energy out of obscurity and into production. 

Emily Smejkal is one of the driving forces behind the World Geothermal Congress.

Smejkal has been instrumental in pulling together the 2026 World Geothermal Congress in Calgary. The triennial event is an opportunity to showcase Canada’s largely untapped geothermal potential on a global stage — and, she hopes, demonstrate to Canadian policymakers that geothermal should be an essential part of Canada’s clean energy transition.  

The Cascade Institute views geothermal energy as a vital intervention for addressing and mitigating the polycrisis – the web of interconnected crises afflicting the world. Smejkal’s role involves demonstrating to policymakers, regulators, and the public that geothermal energy can power a better future.   

Smejkal spent the first decade of her career as a geologist in Canada’s oil and gas industry, studying the hidden architecture of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin kilometres below the prairie.  

“What’s below the Earth’s surface really fascinates me,” she says, “but I really wanted to lean into using those skills in a more environmentally sustainable way.” Geothermal was the natural fit. 

Although geothermal energy requires complex science and technology to unlock, the basic idea behind it is stunningly simple.  

“Geothermal energy literally just means earth heat,” she explains. “You bring the planet’s own warmth to the surface, run it through a turbine, and you get electricity that is renewable, carbon-free, and always on.”  

For most of history, that heat was only accessible where it was right up at the surface of the Earth, at volcanoes and hot springs. This was great for places like Iceland, but not for places where heat is trapped much deeper, like most of North America.  

Thankfully, Smejkal explains, Canada already has enormous drilling expertise from the oil industry, which translates almost perfectly to geothermal exploration. 

“Canadians are really good at drilling wells,” she says. Canada is the world’s sixth-largest oil and gas producer, and the International Energy Agency estimates that about 80 percent of oil-and-gas skills transfer directly to geothermal. 

At a time when energy is quickly becoming the world’s most contested currency, Canada sits on vast geothermal reserves while remaining reliant on energy from elsewhere. Clean electricity accessible almost anywhere in Canada is about more than climate policy, Smekjal says — it’s about sovereignty too. 

Unlike solar and wind, whose supply chains were long ago captured by China and the United States, geothermal is nascent and the supply chain is still largely up for grabs. The overlap with oil and gas also means that much of that supply chain already exists in Canada. 

“If we don’t do it now, we’re going to be a technology taker instead of a technology maker,” says Smejkal.  

Canada’s signature energy achievements of the past — the CANDU reactor, the oil sands, the unconventional gas boom — were no flukes. Each was a made-in-Canada technology driven by industrial strategy, public research, and implementing partnerships. 

There’s a lot of work ahead. Only three provinces have geothermal regulations in place. Renewable tax credits, written for wind and solar, exclude the cost of drilling. The last federally funded national geothermal energy program ended in the 1980s. 

So Smejkal does the essential work of drafting model regulations, speaking with policymakers, and coalition-building with like-minded scientists and entrepreneurs.  

The World Geothermal Congress in June is the biggest opportunity Smejkal — and Canada’s entire geothermal coalition — has ever had to showcase the invisible resource that could revolutionize clean energy.  

As vice-president of Geothermal Canada, the group hosting the conference, Smejkal has invited the world’s experts to a country that, historically, has underestimated the opportunity that lies beneath it. She believes this June in Calgary will mark a turning point for her field, especially in Canada.  

“My ultimate goal,” she says, “is for Canada to be a geothermal leader. We have the resources and skill — we just need the collective will.” 

 

The post An energy scientist invites the world to Canada appeared first on Cascade Institute.

Across Florida Bay, the Audubon Everglades Research Station team kayaked, boated, and hiked through mangroves to monitor 244 Roseate Spoonbill nests in 22 active colonies.157 nests fledged at least...

Sometimes, you have to take the long view, so this week, we’re joined by Ryan Avent, author of, “In Good Faith: How the Nature of Belief Shapes the Fate of Societies” to discuss The Big Issues: human evolution, the impact of collective knowledge and culture, and the need to create a new story about the future of society. It gets deeper than that: We also discuss grass-is-greener thinking on infrastructure, the nature of belief without the need for evidence, and the fact that there is no perfect past.

This is a “Talking Headways” for the Ages, so let’s review all the ways you can enjoy this spirited content:

• Click here for a full transcript, albeit with some AI typos.
• Click the player below to listen.
• Or check out the lightly edited excerpt below the player.

Jeff Wood: Usually when I’m thinking about cities and reading a book like “The City History” by Lewis Mumford or whatever it might be, it’s always usually going back 5,000 years. It’s not going back 100,000 years, which I got from reading your book.

That was a really important part of it, because this slow process is building upon itself and all of the cell creation and whatever was happening to apes led to civilization as it is now. And that process was really interesting because usually we think about civilization as like a point that we started building cities, and then we went from there. But actually it goes back even further to this idea of care and caring.

Ryan Avent: As humans, as historians, people love to chop things up into eras and say, “Oh, this sort of revolution unfolded here, and thereafter we were completely different.”

And we do this all the time. We do it with agriculture and the first cities and states and with the Industrial Revolution. And I think it’s important to realize a couple things. One, that these big moments come together slowly out of a lot of accumulating changes in the past, and we can only understand them in that way, right?

As much as it might seem like there are specific individuals or societies or civilizations that figure something out that no one ever figured out before, change is generally evolutionary. But the other side of that is the question of whether there is this process of cultural adaptation that’s going on throughout our whole history, right?

And we have to learn to develop the ideas and the stories that allow us to kind of exploit particular niches, right? So agriculture, when we first became dependent on it, was awful. It was way worse than hunting and gathering. People did back-breaking labor all the time and were, were malnourished and, and it sucked.

And for this to be sustainable, there had to be the emergence of ideas and ways of understanding our place in the world that made sense to people, and that somehow made it OK for them to keep doing this really arduous work. And I think the same thing is true of early settlements. Like, we weren’t born ready to inhabit an urban environment as a species.

We had to come up with the modes of thinking that allowed that to work. And so you have this process of trial and error where early settlements don’t last very long. They kind of flash in and out of existence. And it’s only over time that we come to figure out how to be urban by coming up with the ideas and the sort of cultural touchstones that allow us to adapt to that existence.

And the book sort of follows this line of thought throughout our history. And that’s kind of how we should think about how we got to modern economic growth. And I think if we want to enjoy future prosperity that’s greater than what we enjoy now, we might have to do some similar sort of adapting in terms of our ideas about what we’re doing here.

Jeff Wood: The cultural explosion was interesting as well, and you mentioned the DNA aspect of it, where you’re passing along information through DNA. But then you have this cultural kind of aspect of it, where apes can teach each other how to use a stick to get ants, those types of things. And then you share it, and then you learn it together, and then it gets shared throughout culture, and then you specialize, and then you move forward with that.

I’m wondering if you could kind of explain that a little bit in more detail. It’s really important, especially until we get to the point where Christianity and religion kind of creates this larger cultural experience throughout Europe and the Mediterranean.

Ryan Avent: This is really the heart of the book. I think when we kind of think about humans and what makes them special, we tend to focus on the fact that we’re these big-brained creatures who can reason and use logic to solve difficult problems. We can do calculus!

But I think, actually, if you look back at our history, the thing that’s really allowed us to become such technologically capable animals is this capacity to support culture. We’ve got a genetic inheritance — a lot of information that’s useful to us that gets passed to us through our genes, and that’s driven our long-run biological evolution.

But the thing that really sort of marked us off as different as we split off from our ape ancestors was this emerging capacity to use a collective knowledge and collective information processing in the form of culture. And culture, in a nutshell, is a body of information that is passed down over time socially rather than genetically, and sort of lives in the heads of all the people who are helping this process along.

And it includes instructions for all sorts of things. You know, I think when humans occupy an ecosystem, the thing that allows us to adapt and really exploit that ecosystem effectively is not, as with many animals, these biological tricks. It’s these cultural tricks that allow us to figure out when to hunt and gather and what things to take out of the ecosystem and how to prepare them and how to survive the hardships associated with that ecosystem.

But cultural knowledge also includes other things beyond sort of these kind of, you know, practical moment-to-moment things. And it’s what’s really allowed us to scale up and become the amazing creatures that we are, is the way that our social technologies evolve over time. And we’ve found ways to operate, to cooperate, I guess, in larger numbers to better purposes.

We’ve found ways to generate and preserve knowledge at enormous scale, and I think that’s kind of the fascinating part of our history, and it’s not something that individuals authored sort of using their own brains is something that kind of we stumbled on and that’s led us here, and, and now we’ve sort of forgotten that that was kind of our special trick, even though it’s still holding our societies together today.

DrillOrDrop’s round-up of announcements from three companies with UK onshore oil and gas interests: investor raises stake, director resigns and refinancing continues.

West Newton oil and gas field.
Photo: West Newton and Sproatley Gateway to the Gasfields Reabold Resources – Crypto Cousins raises stake

Reabold Resources, the majority owner of the West Newton oil and gas field in East Yorkshire, announced this morning that a US investment company had increased its interest.

Rohan Oza, through Crypto Cousins, LLC, raised his investment in Reabold from 5.6% to 14.309% of voting rights.

A statement from Reabold said the share-owning threshold was crossed on 8 May 2026 and completed today (4 June 2026).

In March 2026, the company announced that Rohan Oza’s investment group had committed to buy 1,900 million ordinary shares.

Reabold said the funds raised from that share placing would be “used primarily to progress” the West Newton project. The operator, Rathlin Energy, has planning permission for lower-volume fracking on the West Newton A-2 well.

Reabold revealed last year that the West Newton sites, currently mothballed, could be used for bitcoin mining. It unveiled plans to use gas from the wells to generate electricity.

Reabold has also announced (3 June 2026) that it had granted exclusive rights to Zenith Energy plc to evaluate the potential acquisition of Reabold shares in Daybreak Oil and Gas.

Union Jack – director resignation

Union Jack Oil, another investor in West Newton, has announced the resignation of Graham Bull, a non-executive director.

A statement yesterday (3 June 2026) said:

“Mr Bull cited the detrimental effect attacks on the Board from certain media organisations has had on him and his family in his decision to resign.”

The statement did not name any media organisations.

Angus Energy – financial restructuring

Angus Energy, which operates the UK’s largest onshore gas site at Saltfleetby in Lincolnshire, announced today (4 June 2026) that it continued “to make good progress” on legal documents associated with its proposed financial restructuring.

The company has been refinancing its loan with the main creditors, including Trafigura and Forum Energy Services Limited.

The company said in a statement to shareholders:

 “Although progress to final binding agreements has been slower than anticipated, the Company is confident that the restructuring process will conclude in the coming weeks.”

“Upon execution, the proposed restructuring is expected to materially strengthen the Group’s balance sheet, enhance liquidity, and establish a more sustainable long-term capital structure.”

Share trading in Angus has been suspended since 19 May 2026. The company said trading would resume when the restructuring had been completed.

Angus also operates the Balcombe oil site in West Sussex. Planning permission for a well test at the site lapsed in February 2026. The company said it would reapply but no application has yet been published.

The report, prepared for the Natural Gas Council, applauded reforms introduced following Winter Storm Uri in 2021 but said better coordination between the gas and electric sectors is still needed.

A complaint at FERC seeking to limit competition among transmission developers would inject uncertainty into the process and spur regulatory delays, writes Will Hazelip from National Grid Ventures US.