News Feeds

• New research shows that building more housing near existing jobs, stores and transit generates more tax revenue and reduces infrastructure costs, saving taxpayers money. (Pew)
• Another new study found that development patterns are at least partly responsible for the high number of traffic deaths in the U.S. It recommends mixing households and businesses instead of putting commercial uses along dangerous arterial roads. (CNU Public Square)
• Climate Town explains that the U.S. actually has an extensive rail system, but most tracks are old, slow and owned by freight companies, so they’re unsuitable for passenger rail. (YouTube)
• Ironically, drivers are dealing with high gas prices by going out of their way to find deals and topping off their tanks more often. (NPR)
• The Rails to Trails Conservancy has tips for getting around World Cup cities by walking, biking or transit.
• Sound Transit is cutting back or delaying future Seattle transit projects to address a $34 billion deficit. (KING)
• Pittsburgh Regional Transit approved a $600 million budget that includes no fare hikes or service cuts. (WESA)
• Cyclists will soon be able to pedal around Michigan’s Belle Isle park without having to cross paths with cars. (TMDN)
• Florida didn’t suspend its gas tax, but at least residents can save on guns and camping gear for when society collapses Mad Max-style. (Orlando Weekly)
• Bus trips by young people rose almost tenfold after Scotland introduced free bus passes for everyone under age 22. (BBC)
• A new European ticket system will simplify international train travel. (European News)
• A list of the 10 most bike-friendly cities includes the usual suspects like Amsterdam, but also a few surprises like Taipei and Buenos Aires. (Islands)

Sandra “Sister” Hunter Reed, a decades-long activist and death penalty abolitionist, passed away on April 18, 2026, in Bastrop, TX, where she was born. Sandra was the mother of six sons, the most well-known of whom is Rodney Reed, wrongfully-convicted and incarcerated on Texas’ death row since 1998. Sandra organized for decades to win her son’s freedom and for an end to the death penalty, a leader on the front lines in the state she described as the “belly of the beast.”

Rodney was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence. Engaged to a police officer, Stacey was in a relationship with Rodney, who is Black; Stacey’s fiancée was an open racist who knew about their relationship. Yet prosecutors hammered at the racist assumption that Rodney’s relationship with Stacy, who was white, must have been nonconsensual. This claim was offered as the sole “evidence” in the crime and Rodney was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death.

From left to right, Walter Reed, now deceased, the father of Rodney Reed (center), and Sandra Reed.

Rodney’s conviction—and the implementation of the death penalty in the U.S. today—echoes the era of Southern lynchings and a so-called justice system that denies justice for Black people and people of color. “Until a person is in our place, you can’t really describe it,” Sandra said in an interview. “It’s a hard pill to swallow—the corruption and injustice that’s dwelling in my son’s case.” Despite this, Sandra said that “Rodney’s handling things very well—he’s remaining strong for himself. The truth keeps us all strong and believing that justice will prevail.”

George W. Bush and Rick Perry—both former governors—built their national profiles on “tough on crime” agendas, including accelerating the pace of executions at a brutal rate. Texas’ death row today, although less busy than under Bush and Perry, retains a barbaric track record: exactly 600 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982, and 59 percent of those on death row are people of color. Black people are 12 percent of the state’s population yet make up over 40 percent of the executed.

In the face of this overwhelming opposition, Sandra was an unceasing activist and brought many into the movement. She began organizing with the Austin chapter of the national Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) in 1999. She later joined the CEDP’s national board, serving alongside other abolitionists including exonerees Yusef Salaam of the formerly-known Central Park 5, and Shuja’a Graham, exonerated from California’s death row,

In a statement shared at her memorial service, Lily Hughes, a former national director of the Campaign to End the Penalty based in Austin, TX, reflected on the joys of Sandra’s friendship and the work they shared for close to three decades:

Sandra was a fierce advocate for Rodney and for so many other wrongfully convicted death row prisoners and victims of the criminal “injustice system.” She spoke at rallies, marches, meetings, and conventions in Texas and all over the country. She was a powerful voice in the abolition movement.

Sandra was so brave. She hated flying, but still she flew around the country to speak out. She disliked the limelight, yet she spoke in front of huge crowds of people. When she took the podium, she commanded the attention of all with her Grace and passion.

Sandra was so loving and supportive to her family, friends, and fellow activists. She welcomed everyone into the movement, into her community and into her home with open arms.

The campaign for Rodney has been a very long, hard road. He and his family suffered the torture of three scheduled execution dates. He has fought for many years for DNA testing of the murder weapon, a leather belt used to strangle Stacey Stites. Despite finally winning a favorable ruling with the U,S. Supreme Court in 2023, when the Court ordered the evidence to be tested, the state of Texas continued to block Rodney’s request, shifting the goal posts to argue against DNA testing on new grounds. Rodney once again fought for his case to be heard by the highest court but in March of this year, just weeks before Sandra’s death, the Supreme Court dealt his case a major blow when it refused to hear his latest appeal.

Sandra was so well-loved for her warmth, humor and generosity, and for her ongoing activism despite serious health problems in later years; her passing leaves a hole not easily filled. She was a crucial voice in shining a light on the realities of criminal “justice” in the rural South and for keeping the movement for social justice at the center. In 2009, standing alongside exonerees and family members, she joined historian Howard Zinn and writer Dave Zirin onstage at the University of Chicago for the CEDP’s national convention. “I’m in this fight for life,” she declared to the over 1,000 audience members.

Because of Sandra, many others made that same commitment. She will be in our hearts always. Sandra Reed presente!

How to support Rodney Reed:

Rodney urgently needs movement support to stop his execution from moving forward and to finally free him from decades behind bars. With the recent Supreme Court ruling against him, the way is clear for Texas to set another execution date. Please take some of these steps to join this fight:

• Sign and share the petition
• Follow the Reed Justice Initiative for updates and actions.
• Watch and share the documentary State vs Reed streaming on YouTube
• Across the country, the pace of executions has begun to pick up after a period of decline. Donald Trump is a strong supporter of capital punishment, potentially threatening those on federal and military death rows. Find out about and support ongoing campaigns including Rodney’s at Death Penalty Action.

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

The post A tribute to Sandra Reed appeared first on Tempest.

The right to strike is under attack throughout the world, including in the United States. Labor strikes are currently forbidden or restricted in the majority of countries.

Now, in a landmark 43-page advisory opinion issued May 21, the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) has determined that the right to strike is protected under the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise.

“At a moment when workers’ organizations face sustained attacks around the world, this opinion reaffirms that the freedom to withhold one’s labor is not a privilege granted by the powerful, but a fundamental human right grounded in international law,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement.

The ILO is the United Nations agency that sets global labor standards. It has 187 member states and has adopted 191 conventions since its founding in 1919. The ILO considers Convention No. 87 to be one of its 11 fundamental conventions.

In 2023, the ILO asked the ICJ to settle an internal dispute about whether Convention No. 87 gives workers the right to strike, which is not specifically addressed in the convention. Although advisory opinions of the ICJ are not legally binding, many courts accept them as authoritative legal decisions.

The ICJ ruled in its 10-4 opinion that a strike “is one of the main activities engaged in and tools used by workers and their organizations to promote their interests and improve conditions of labour, thereby ensuring the effective exercise of the freedom of association protected under Convention No. 87.”

The Court found “that protection of the right to strike is encompassed in the protection of the freedom of association provided for in Convention No. 87.”

In reaching that conclusion, the Court considered provisions in two 1996 Covenants that contain relevant rules of international law regarding the right to strike. Both refer to Convention No. 87.

Article 8, paragraph 1 (d) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) expressly protects the right to strike, if it is exercised in conformity with domestic laws.

Article 22, paragraph 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides for the right to freedom of association. The ICJ noted that for more than 25 years, the Human Rights Committee — which monitors the implementation of the ICCPR — has considered the right to strike to be encompassed in the protection of freedom of association.

Due to the high degree of overlap between the states parties to the ICESCR and ICCPR, and Convention No. 87, the ICJ determined there was a common understanding among them on the right to strike. The Court thus concluded “that an interpretation taking into account the relevant rules of international law contained in the ICESCR and the ICCPR indicates that the protection of the right to strike is encompassed in the protection of the freedom of association provided by Convention No. 87.”

No Right to Organize Without the Right to Strike

“For generations, working people have understood a simple truth: The freedom to join a union means nothing if you cannot withhold your labor when bosses refuse to listen. Now, the world’s highest court has affirmed that truth,” said Jeffrey Vogt, director of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, which issued the call for the ILO referral of this case to the ICJ.

The ICJ decision “affirms decades of judicial precedent and what workers around the world know: there is no right to organize and bargain collectively without the right to strike,” Shuler said in her statement. “When workers are barred from taking collective action on the job, they cannot defend their rights and demand the workplace conditions and contracts they are owed. The freedom to join a union becomes an empty formality.”

“This is an important day for the International Labor Organization [ILO], and for its continued relevance in the world of work. However, the significance of this opinion extends well beyond the institutional context in Geneva,” the ILAW Network wrote in a statement.

The ICJ advisory opinion came “at a moment of acute pressure on the international labour rights system,” ILAW stated. “Across the world, the right to strike is under sustained attack — through restrictive legislation, expansive judicial interpretation of essential services, the criminalisation of trade union activity, and the use of dismissals, injunctions, and damages claims to deter collective action.”

Legal restrictions on the right to strike are increasing. In 2022, strikes were outlawed or stringently restricted in 129 of the 148 countries tallied by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), one of the six organizations with consultative status at the ILO Governing Body.

The ITUC, which represents 191 million workers in 169 countries and territories, is dedicated to trade union democracy and independence. It has regional organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The ICJ decision “is important not only for workers and trade unions, but also for governments and responsible businesses,” ITUC stressed.

This decision “will serve as a powerful interpretive tool before national constitutional and labour courts, before regional human rights bodies, and before the ILO’s own supervisory bodies,” ILAW noted. “It strengthens the hand of every worker and union challenging strike bans, broad essential-services designations, criminal sanctions against strikers, prohibitions on solidarity and political strikes, and the dismissal and blacklisting of workers who exercise this right.”

Ruling Will Affect Tens of Millions of Workers

In October, 18 countries and five international organizations, including the ILO, presented oral testimony before the ICJ, and other nations filed written contributions. The majority of participants supported the right to strike, which is guaranteed in most European countries.

Harold Koh, who represented the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) before the ICJ, told the judges that the case would “affect the real rights of tens of millions of working people around the world.” If the Court ruled that the Convention didn’t protect the right to strike, Koh warned, “National employer groups would contest the right to strike country by country, focusing first on nations with compliant courts, weak civil societies and ineffective media.”

Jeffrey Vogt worked with the legal team of the ITUC on the briefs and oral arguments presented to the ICJ. Vogt’s co-authored book, The Right to Strike in International Law, provided a legal roadmap for the case.

Vogt told Truthout that “the written view of the US (under the Biden administration) was to support the right to strike, albeit on narrower grounds than what we had argued. When the Trump administration came in, they withdrew the Biden era brief but fortunately did not appear for oral arguments and take a contrary view.”

“The decision deals with the right to strike in the abstract — does the convention protect it — but does not go into the modalities,” Vogt added. The Court wrote that its “conclusion that the right to strike is protected by Convention No. 87 does not entail any determination on the precise content, scope, or conditions for the exercise of that right.”

“That was a conscious decision,” Vogt noted. “We did not want the court to attempt to define the scope, especially since we believe that is the proper role of the ILO supervisory system.” Vogt said that “the ICJ gave ‘great weight’ to the views of the supervisory system, which is helpful.” And although “the ILO has supported secondary strikes,” in which workers strike in solidarity with other workers at a different employer, the ICJ decision didn’t opine on that specific issue.

The Right to Strike in the US

“The right to withhold one’s labor, inherent in the right to strike, belongs to all workers, but it has been restricted,” Jeanne Mirer, a labor lawyer in private practice working with the International Commission for Labor Rights, told Truthout. “Many unions have agreed never to strike while a collective bargaining agreement is in effect.”

Most private sector workers in the US have the right to strike under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Employees, including international and undocumented workers, cannot be fired or disciplined for participating in a lawful strike.

“Those exempted from the NLRA, such as agricultural and domestic workers, are not restricted in the right to strike but have no protections against discharge if they strike and do not have the power to prevent such retaliation,” Mirer added.

Some states have their own laws granting protection to domestic workers and 14 states guarantee farmworkers collective bargaining rights.

Railroad and airline workers are not covered by the NLRA, but they come under the Railway Labor Act, which has several limitations on the right to strike.

In recent years, Congress and the courts have narrowed the definition of “protected concerted activity” under the NLRA. Union membership is dropping. Nevertheless, strike actions in the US increased by almost 50 percent in 2022, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

In 2023, the US Supreme Court weakened the legal protections for striking in Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, making it easier for employers to sue unions in state courts. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing, “The right to strike is fundamental to American labor law.” She noted:

Workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their masters. They are employees whose collective and peaceful decision to withhold their labor is protected by the [National Labor Relations Act] even if economic injury results.

The NLRA’s protections for private sector workers don’t extend to public sector employees. “Public employees in the United States have been restricted in many ways from striking,” Mirer said.

Federal workers are legally prohibited from striking. Thirty-six states prohibit public sector workers from striking. Three other states that haven’t addressed the issue would likely outlaw public sector strikes as well. In the 12 states where strikes are not per se unlawful, various preconditions must be met before workers can engage in strikes.

The World Federation of Trade Unions, which played a decisive role in the creation of Convention No. 87 in 1948, applauded the ICJ’s decision:

[I]t is clear that the existence of a class-oriented and militant trade union movement is the essential, decisive, and irreplaceable factor to ensure that the right to strike, as well as conventions, collective bargaining, labor laws, and workers’ achievements, are not merely empty words on paper but are implemented in practice. The WFTU reiterates its call for struggle in every country, sector, and workplace to safeguard the sacred right to strike in practice.

“It is up to workers and their organizations to build on the ICJ decision to ensure the right to strike can be an effective tool to build worker power,” Mirer said.

This article was originally published at Truthout

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 24, 2026 thru Sat, May 30, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (7 articles)

• Malnourished Gray Whales of the Eastern North Pacific Are in `Serious Trouble` The population has plummeted over the past seven years as climate change triggers mass starvation in warming Arctic waters. Inside Climate News, By Blaine Harden, May 24, 2026.
• An Unusually Early Heat Wave Breaks Temperature Records Across Western Europe 'This is an unprecedented event with a one in 1,000 chance of happening at this time of year based on the climate from 1979 to 2025 and virtually impossible in the preindustrial era,'' Christophe Cassou, a climate scientist, told Le Monde. Inside Climate News, Kiley Price, May 26, 2026.
• UK heatwave has `fingerprints of climate change all over it` It’s clearly exceptional when the May temperature record falls not once but twice in two days’ The Independent News, Nick Ferris, May 26, 2026.
• It's so friggin' hot Dr Gilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, May 26, 2026.
• `Mind-bogglingly crazy`: climate experts alarmed by deadly spring heatwaves searing Europe Scientists warn of ‘new reality’ of heat extremes that claim three times more lives than car crashes and 16 times as many as murderers The Guardian, Ajit Niranjan, May 27, 2026.
• Western Europe is roasting in unprecedented spring heat - and it`s not alone Climate scientist Christophe Cassou said the heat in France would have been virtually impossible in the preindustrial era. Yale Climate Connections, Bob Henson, May 27, 2026.
• An Arctic community on the climate front lines | Science The harsh realities of global warming are becoming difficult to ignore in Norway’s Longyearbyen Science, Sarah Boon, May 28, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (5 articles)

• How the jet-setting commissaries of the climate change quango use dodgy statistics to peddle hysteria - and justify their own existence: MATT RIDLEY Op-ed is a display of classic climate-denier tactics intended to change the subject and swerve public attention from what's important. Mail Online, Matt Ridley, May 22, 2026.
• Twenty Years After His Film, Al Gore Tweaks the Climate Script Mr. Gore is still giving the slide show that ''An Inconvenient Truth''” was built around, but with changes that reflect a shift in the discussion of climate change. NYT, Chico Harlan, May 25, 2026.
• Which of your climate actions make the biggest difference? Here`s how to find out The Conversation, Charlotte A. Kukowski and Kimberly Nicholas, May 27, 2026.
• Translating Climate Awareness Into Action at New York High Schools State of the Planet, Emma Kyzivat, Aynsley Kretschmar and Laurel Zaima-Sheehy, May 28, 2026.
• Ask a Climate Therapist: Is it still `catastrophizing` if the threat is real? Psychotherapist Leslie Davenport breaks down some of the tools that can help manage anxiety in the face of mounting climate catastrophe. Grist, Leslie Davenport, May 29, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (4 articles)

• UK bets on private investors to fill climate aid gaps after cuts Humanitarian organisations say the needs of private investors and developing countries are not always aligned. The Independent News, Nick Ferris, May 23, 2026.
• When Will Emissions From Air Travel Start to Fall? Perhaps we will fly less when we accept that ''bored and restless'' is less important than ''don't cook the planet.'' NYT > Climate and Environment, Claire Brown, May 26, 2026.
• Deadly Europe Heatwave Linked to Multiple Deaths as Temperatures Continue Rising Officials have warned that without major adaptation efforts, future heatwaves could place even greater pressure on health systems and urban infrastructure. IBT, Rosemarie Zamora, May 27, 2026.
• Backlash is often swift when authorities try to plan retreat from the coast. There`s a better way Research shows why planned retreat can become divisely emotional and how planners and communities can tackle this backlash. The Conversation, Anne Maree Kreller, May 28, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (4 articles)

• TikTok’s Climate Pledges Collide with Sponsorship of Climate Deniers By backing a right-wing Canadian conference featuring anti-climate speakers, experts warn TikTok has “abandoned” its commitments to combat climate misinformation. Desmog, Rei Takver, May 22, 2026.
• Once A Climate Leader, Canada Is Now Doubling Down On Oil The reversal reveals a stark truth about the direction of global climate action: Despite the rapid deployment of clean energy, even countries and politicians once seen as climate leaders are turning to fossil fuels to protect against the turmoil of Trump’s trade disputes and the war in Iran. Grist, Jake Bittle, May 25, 2026.
• Why Kate Marvel left NASA The former NASA climate scientist explains how pronouns have become more important than the planet at the nation's space agency. HEATED, Emily Atkin, May 28, 2026.
• EPA rollbacks could raise air conditioning, refrigeration costs despite promise of lower prices A new Trump administration rule will likely cost consumers more money while creating higher emissions of climate-warming superpollutants, industry and environmental groups warn. Inside Climate News, EHN Curators, May 29, 2026.

Miscellaneous (4 articles)

• The Paradox of AI and Climate State of the Planet, Renée Cho, May 21, 2026.
• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #21 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 17, 2026 thru Sat, May 23, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, May 24, 2026.
• Document leak at Australia's richest company shows how it put off going green Mining giant BHP quietly shelved billions of dollars of green projects despite promising the public it was committed to cutting emissions, and telling its board climate action was "urgent" and any delays would "risk" its reputation. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Angus Grigg, Alex McDonald, and Jade Toomey, May 25, 2026.
• Environmentalists Turn Out in Force to Oppose Trump Coal Ash Rollbacks Proposed new regulations from the EPA would loosen requirements for protecting groundwater near power plants where the toxic residue from burning coal is stored. Inside Climate News, Arcelia Martin, May 28, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (1 article)

• Solar, wind, and EVs have knocked out a doomsday climate scenario Explosive growth in clean technologies has pushed an old coal-heavy scenario out of the realm of plausibility, according to a recent study. But there’s more work to be done. Yale Climate Connections, Dana Nuccitelli, May 29, 2026.

Geoengineering (1 article)

• With geoengineering, a fringe climate solution moves into the mainstream A decade before Exxon’s scientists warned the company’s executives about the likely fallout of burning fossil fuels, White House scientists were already advising then-president Lyndon B. Johnson on a theoretical technology that might curb the impacts of global warming: geoengineering. Atmos, Miranda Green, May 28, 2026.

Health Aspects of Climate Change (1 article)

• Climate change could significantly worsen summer air quality in future decades The Conversation, Rebecca Kaarina Saari, May 25, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)

• One Nation says it`s the only party in Australia to question climate science. It should ask itself why | Temperature Check Climate change denial has become untenable yet Hanson’s party digs in – with conspiracy theories, cherrypicking and claims that are easy to refute The Guardian, Graham Readfearn, May 21, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!

At first, he thought it was smoke.

Jackie Onsurez was driving the bustling New Mexico highway between his home in Loving and nearby Carlsbad last Tuesday evening when he thought the smoke didn’t look right. As he pulled closer, he saw that the 70-foot plume was actually a roaring geyser of toxic oilfield wastewater, commonly called produced water, spewing from a pipe at a site operated by NGL Energy Partners. 

Onsurez, who until recently was running for the state’s lieutenant governor position, said he called NGL, 911, the New Mexico Environment Department and others. He was at the site for a few minutes when an oilfield roughneck arrived in a pickup truck and tried to stop the spraying water but couldn’t. 

Stills from video footage of a geyser of oilfield wastewater at a site operated by NGL Energy Partners in southeast New Mexico. Courtesy of Jackie Onsurez

He said the man then “started to haul ass out of there. He said, ‘Get out of here. There’s gas coming out. I don’t know what’s there. Get out, get out!’”

Onsurez didn’t leave, though. He is an engineer and serves on the New Mexico State Emergency Response Commission — the day before, he had attended a commission meeting on hazardous materials spills. The serendipity wasn’t lost on him. 

“I was able to observe firsthand the equipment and the training and everything else that’s needed for here [in the oilfield],” he said. “The only people that had protective gear was the fire department when they arrived.”

The fire department cordoned off the area a few minutes after the roughneck fled. NGL representatives arrived soon after and shut off the shooting water. By that point, Onsurez had been at the site for about a half hour. He didn’t know how long it had been spewing before he arrived.

The contaminated water flowed across the road and ran into a nearby drainage ditch. Onsurez had also called Alisa Ogden, a farmer and rancher and member of the Carlsbad Soil and Water Conservation District, to let the group know of the spill. 

“I said, ‘Ms. Ogden, I hate to bother you, but it looks like this might be getting into your acequias,’” Onsurez said, using the common Spanish term for the traditional Southwest water system.

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“If you don’t know what happens, you can’t do anything about it,” Ogden said later. “Gratefully, Jackie let us know immediately when he saw it, and we got right on it and were able to keep the produced water … from flowing down towards the Pecos River,” she said.

“It doesn’t keep us up at night, but with the oilfields out here, it’s always a hazard that it could happen,” Ogden said.

According to a report filed by NGL with the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division, a one-inch nipple broke on a high-pressure water injection line, leading to the blowout. The report said 40 barrels of produced water escaped, 10 of which were recovered. The remaining 30 flowed into the nearby ditch.

Sidney Hill, the public information officer at the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, which oversees the Oil Conservation Division, said that NGL collected samples from the ditch, and “We expect to receive them sometime this week.”

“Accidents do happen,” Ogden said. “We’ve all had accidents occur. It’s how you react to ’em.”

She said NGL is responsible and has agreed to do the cleanup. “They did everything they could at the time,” she said. “Once we get all the samples back and everything, then we’ll come up with a plan on what they need to do.”

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NGL did not respond to phone and email requests for comment.

In December 2024, an inspector from the state’s Oil Conservation Division found a pump leaking wastewater on the wellsite’s cement slab. Asked by Capital & Main about a scheduled three-month follow-up visit that didn’t appear in the well files, Hill said, “Thank you for pointing out the past due compliance. We will investigate why it isn’t closed out, but it does not seem associated with the current release.”

NGL transports oil, gas, and wastewater around oil basins from the Gulf Coast, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico. It also has a growing business disposing of produced water in deep injection wells like the one just north of Loving. In its annual report, the company claimed to be the largest independent wastewater transporter and disposal company in the U.S., handling nearly a billion barrels of the toxic water across its operations last year.

In the greater scheme of wastewater spills in New Mexico, NGL’s accident was notable for being visible, not for being big. Between Jan. 1 and May 19, 48 companies reported 356 spills, losing 15,335 barrels of wastewater across the state. The biggest was a 2,000-barrel spill in January by Hilcorp Energy Company, just 1,300 feet from a neighborhood in north Farmington. Devon Energy Corporation reported the most wastewater spills so far with 93, compared to three for NGL.

But last week’s briny geyser highlights one of the fastest-growing controversies in New Mexico’s oil and gas industry: what to do with produced water. In 2025, oil producers brought up more than 800 million barrels of oil and 2.7 billion barrels of wastewater in the state. Those barrels of wastewater increase as oil and gas production grows, and the total has doubled since 2020. There is little agreement on what to do with all of it. 

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The water occurs naturally in oil and gas formations and is highly saline, laced with petroleum-based chemicals. It is often radioactive and can include the chemical cocktails that companies inject into wells during the fracking and production processes. The recipes for those cocktails are often protected trade secrets and can differ radically from well to well. Basically, the water is toxic, and its use outside the oilfield for anything but testing is forbidden in New Mexico.

Wastewater can be used to drill new wells, but the most common disposal method is underground disposal wells — like the one near Loving — where the water is reinjected into rock formations under extreme pressure.

The report filed by NGL with the Oil Conservation Division said the broken nipple was on a pipeline charged to 2,600 pounds per square inch. But the state is running out of injection locations as the rock formations fill and shift under the intense pressure of the injections, resulting in swarms of earthquakes across the Permian Basin in both Texas and New Mexico. In addition, high-pressure wastewater deposits have breached old oil and gas wells, leading to brine leaks and geysers.

A proposal put forward by the industry group Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance to allow wastewater to be treated and used outside the petroleum industry is once again before the state’s Water Quality Control Commission. It was knocked down last year following a fracas where Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham appeared to pressure the commission to overturn a recently instituted ban on using the wastewater outside the oilfield. Earlier proposals argued that treated water could be used by other industries or possibly discharged into lakes and streams, a highly controversial use in a state that continues to suffer from a decades-long drought. 

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In separate interviews, lead lawyers from each side of the debate tackled each other’s arguments.

Matthias Sayer, co-founder of the alliance, said he views treated water as “a new source of water supply and as a reduced burden on the current management system.”

Sayer said, “Spills happen because oilfield [waste]water management is massive, constant, and operationally complex … That does not excuse spills, but it explains why a system built around moving very large volumes of high-salinity water will continue to experience [spills] unless the state improves infrastructure and creates better incentives for treatment, recycling, and beneficial reuse.”

Tannis Fox, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center and a lead attorney against the reanimated wastewater proposal, said, “The main argument that industry is making is that reuse of produced water is one solution to the water scarcity problem. And with that, we disagree. It’s not a silver bullet.” 

Sayer said a “robust body of science” shows that oilfield wastewater can be treated and safely reused. “The question is not whether it can be done, but how to craft a rule that appropriately manages the risk,” he said. “That question is answered by engaging the science and the experts behind it.”

Fox said, “There is, of course, a significant debate about what the science is telling us.” She and others are skeptical that new water treatment processes can reliably clean what’s coming out of the ground. Water testing generally starts with looking for known, likely contaminants in the water. 

But, she said, “We don’t know all the constituents in produced water because the hydraulic fracturing fluids that industry uses are protected by trade secret rules.” In addition, basic water chemistry and salinity vary widely across the state. The lack of clarity about what’s in the water “is a problem for emergency response workers if you don’t know what’s in those fluids,” she added, with a nod toward the Loving spill.

In addition, Fox said there hasn’t been large-scale testing. “There have not been studies at scale. There has not been discharge at scale. There has not been treatment at scale. Reuse of produced water at an industrial scale is not there yet. So it is not a solution to water scarcity tomorrow,” she said.

“If the [Water Quality Control Commission] approves a rule, the system will necessarily ramp up organically,” Sayer said. “This is a runway, not a light switch.”

Fox said, “It is by its nature a dirty industry, and obviously the world needs energy, and the sooner we get to clean energy, the better.”

Copyright 2026 Capital & Main

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline 70-foot wastewater geyser reflects New Mexico’s latest oilfield challenge on May 31, 2026.

Homeless Hunger, a youth-led volunteer is providing meals to unhoused individuals in Sydney, Australia. The initiative aims to cook and deliver 50 meals every one to two weeks.

Natalia Alderson, a high school student, explains that she felt unsatisfied by passively observing the hardships endured by unhoused people in her city. She realized she could offer home-cooked meals to those in need by mobilizing a group of peers at her school.

“We carry bags of food in containers and hand it out to people around Sydney Central Station and the surrounding park,” Alderson tells Food Tank. “If it’s a hot day, we try to also provide bottles of water.” The students make their delivery at a similar time and along the same route each time. They hope that this consistency allows those in need of the meals to locate them.

What began as a personal response has become a coordinated, student-led initiative to engage in direct community action. Homeless Hunger reports that they have cooked and distributed almost 500 meals.

Using Jame Oliver’s stew recipes, Alderson and her team focus on nutritious and scalable meals that are rich in protein and have broad appeal. The meals are distributed with napkins, forks, and sometimes a biscuit. And as important as the meals themselves are, Alderson emphasizes the power of human connection as one of the initiative’s most powerful components.

“While the meals provide short-term nourishment, the act of stopping, speaking, and acknowledging someone can be just as meaningful,” Alderson tells Food Tank.

According to Foodbank Australia’s 2025 Hunger Report, one in three Australian households experienced food insecurity in 2025, making hunger a highly prevalent and pressing issue to tackle nationwide 

Alderson hopes to see the program grow even further, aiming to provide hundreds more meals over the next year. She also hopes that the project serves as an example of the power and potential of grassroots youth-led direct action.

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

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The post Sydney’s Youth Work to Alleviate Hunger appeared first on Food Tank.

Sudah saatnya beralih ke pengalaman bermain yang lebih santai, praktis, namun tetap menghadirkan sensasi yang mendebarkan. Slot gacor dengan gameplay sederhana menjadi pilihan favorit banyak pemain karena mudah dipahami sejak putaran pertama.

Tanpa perlu mempelajari strategi yang kompleks, Anda sudah bisa langsung menikmati setiap putaran dengan nyaman. Tampilan yang ramah pengguna, fitur yang mudah diakses, serta alur permainan yang jelas membuat siapa saja dapat bermain dengan lebih percaya diri. Inilah alasan mengapa slot dengan mekanisme sederhana semakin diminati oleh berbagai kalangan.

Kenapa Banyak Pemain Menyukai Slot dengan Gameplay Sederhana?

Kesederhanaan bukan berarti membosankan. Justru dari konsep yang mudah dipahami itulah pemain bisa lebih fokus menikmati permainan tanpa terganggu oleh aturan yang rumit. Setiap putaran terasa lebih cepat, lebih praktis, dan lebih menghibur.

Beberapa keunggulan yang membuat slot jenis ini semakin populer antara lain:

• Mudah dimainkan oleh pemula maupun pemain berpengalaman.
• Tampilan visual yang menarik dan nyaman dilihat.
• Fitur permainan yang jelas serta tidak membingungkan.
• Proses bermain lebih cepat dan efisien.
• Memberikan pengalaman bermain yang santai namun tetap menegangkan.

Dengan kombinasi tersebut, pemain dapat menikmati hiburan yang lebih maksimal kapan saja dan di mana saja.

Sensasi Menarik di Setiap Putaran

Meskipun mengusung gameplay sederhana, slot gacor tetap mampu menghadirkan momen-momen yang membuat jantung berdebar. Setiap simbol yang muncul membawa harapan baru, sementara fitur bonus yang tersedia mampu menambah keseruan selama bermain.

Tidak heran jika banyak pemain menjadikan permainan ini sebagai pilihan utama untuk mengisi waktu luang. Selain mudah dimainkan, ritme permainan yang cepat membuat pengalaman bermain terasa lebih hidup dan tidak monoton.

Cocok untuk Pemain yang Mengutamakan Kenyamanan

Bagi Anda yang mencari permainan dengan mekanisme sederhana namun tetap menyenangkan, slot gacor jenis ini layak menjadi pilihan. Tidak perlu menghabiskan waktu memahami banyak aturan. Cukup nikmati setiap putaran dan rasakan sensasi hiburan yang mengalir secara alami.

Kemudahan akses, tampilan modern, serta pengalaman bermain yang lebih nyaman menjadikan slot dengan gameplay sederhana sebagai salah satu favorit di kalangan komunitas pemain saat ini.

Saatnya Rasakan Keseruannya Sendiri

Jangan biarkan hiburan Anda terasa membosankan. Pilih slot gacor dengan gameplay sederhana dan menarik untuk menikmati pengalaman bermain yang lebih praktis, seru, dan penuh kejutan. Setiap putaran menghadirkan peluang hiburan baru yang siap membuat waktu luang Anda terasa lebih menyenangkan.

Nikmati kesederhanaannya, rasakan keseruannya, dan temukan mengapa semakin banyak pemain memilih slot dengan konsep yang mudah dimainkan namun tetap menghadirkan pengalaman yang menghibur.

Headline News:

• “Clean Energy Saved EU €51 Billion In 2025 By Cutting Fossil Fuel Imports” • Using wind and solar to generate power meant significantly less reliance on imported oil and gas, according to energy think tank Ember. Europe looks set for further savings in 2026 as renewable energy generation hits record highs thanks to ideal Spring conditions. [Euronews]

Solar array in Italy (Sungrow EMEA, Unsplash)

• “Cuba Bets On Solar Power As Energy Crisis Deepens” • Cuba has gone through a worsening energy crisis for years, leading it to rely on Venezuelan oil. Following the US intervention in Venezuela in February, the energy crisis has grown even worse, as Cubans face regular blackouts and the economy suffers. Now Cuba is turning to solar power. [OilPrice.com]
• “California Has Lowest Wholesale Electricity Prices In USA” • Wind power, water power, and solar power all mean no fuel and low wholesale electricity prices. But given how much people love to exclaim “California is expensive,” it is a shock to find out that wholesale electricity is cheaper in California than anywhere else in the country. [CleanTechnica]
• “Company Bets $1.2 Billion On Massive Wyoming Solar And Battery Hub For Meta Data Centers” • A clean energy project tied to one of Meta’s data centers is drawing attention after Enbridge announced a $1.2 billion investment in Wyoming. The Cowboy Project combines 365 MW of solar capacity with battery storage of 200 MW and 1,600 MWh. [Yahoo Finance]
• “Connecticut Approves Plug-In Solar” • Small-scale solar is growing every year. Connecticut passed HB 5340, making the state the sixth to send a plug-in solar bill to the governor for final approval. Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Virginia, and Utah are the other states that are making it easier for consumers to add new types of solar. [CleanTechnica]

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

En un Haití sin Parlamento, el nuevo decreto minero abre la puerta a la industria extractiva

Claudia Alavez

Samuel Nesner

El 30 de marzo de 2026, el gobierno haitiano publicó en Le Moniteur un nuevo decreto minero que reorganiza las reglas para la prospección, exploración y explotación de minerales en el país.

A primera vista, el decreto parece técnico. Pero detrás de ese lenguaje jurídico se encuentra una decisión profundamente política: reorganizar el territorio y el marco legal para una nueva etapa de expansión minera en Haití.

El decreto  establece mecanismos para otorgar permisos de prospección, exploración y explotación, y crea un sistema más estructurado de control territorial mediante un “catastro minero”, administrado por el Bureau des Mines et de l’Énergie en su calidad de Autorité Minière Nationale (AMN).

El artículo 7 establece precisamente la creación de este “catastro minero”, concebido como un sistema centralizado de registro y cartografía de títulos mineros, autorizaciones y perímetros de explotación. Administrado por la AMN, este dispositivo organiza el territorio mediante coordenadas, polígonos y zonas clasificadas: —disponibles, reservadas o prohibidas—.

Para ello, el decreto define unidades territoriales específicas —“carrés” y “périmètres”— destinadas a delimitar el espacio minero. El “carré” aparece como la unidad mínima indivisible del territorio minero, mientras que el “périmètre” corresponde a conjuntos de zonas continuas sujetas a permisos o títulos de explotación.

Aunque el decreto utiliza constantemente la noción de “Autorité Minière Nationale”, el texto no define completamente si se trata de una entidad autónoma o del propio Bureau des Mines et de l’Énergie ejerciendo funciones ampliadas bajo una nueva denominación jurídica. En la práctica, una misma institución concentra competencias estratégicas sobre permisos, registros y control territorial del sector.

Haití no parte de cero. Desde hace más de una década, diferentes empresas nacionales y extranjeras han mostrado interés en el potencial minero del país, particularmente en zonas del Norte y Nordeste. Proyectos vinculados a exploración de oro y cobre han sido asociados a empresas como VCS Mining, SOMINE y Eurasian Minerals.

En territorios como Kadouch, en la comuna de Quartier-Morin, apartamento Norte del país, ya existen permisos relacionados con actividades de exploración minera. Para muchas comunidades, la minería no es una posibilidad abstracta o futura: es un proceso que ya comienza a acercarse al territorio.

La dimensión territorial del proyecto tampoco es menor. El decreto permite la constitución de perímetros mineros organizados mediante bloques territoriales y coordenadas geográficas que pueden abarcar extensas superficies. En un país pequeño y densamente habitado como Haití, estos espacios no representan territorios vacíos: son zonas agrícolas, áreas habitadas y regiones atravesadas por fuentes de agua fundamentales para las comunidades rurales.

La perla de las Antillas ¿para quién?

Uno de los aspectos más delicados del decreto no está solamente en su contenido, sino en la forma en que fue aprobado.

El texto fue adoptado por decreto en un contexto donde el Parlamento haitiano no está funcionando. Esto significa que una decisión con profundas implicaciones territoriales, ambientales y sociales fue tomada sin debate parlamentario nacional.

Y eso importa porque la minería involucra cuestiones que van mucho más allá de la economía: el control de los recursos, el uso de la tierra, el acceso al agua y el futuro ambiental del país.

En un contexto de fragilidad institucional y desconfianza hacia el Estado, la ausencia de consulta pública alimenta la percepción de que decisiones estratégicas están siendo tomadas lejos de las comunidades que vivirán sus consecuencias directas.

El decreto incorpora referencias a “protocolos de desarrollo comunitario” y menciona estudios de impacto ambiental y social, planes de gestión ambiental y programas de rehabilitación de sitios mineros. Sin embargo, el texto parece privilegiar mecanismos de acompañamiento e información más que procesos sólidos de consentimiento comunitario .

El decreto contempla estudios de impacto ambiental y social, así como ciertas restricciones para zonas protegidas. Sin embargo, muchas de esas disposiciones quedan formuladas de manera general o sujetas a reglamentos posteriores.

Eso deja abiertas preguntas fundamentales: ¿Qué territorios estarán realmente protegidos? ¿Cómo se controlará la contaminación?¿Qué pasará con las fuentes de agua? ¿Quién supervisará efectivamente a las empresas? ¿Qué mecanismos existirán para sancionar incumplimientos?

En Haití, donde amplias zonas rurales ya enfrentan erosión, escasez de agua y vulnerabilidad climática, estas preguntas adquieren una dimensión especialmente sensible.

Por eso, más allá del lenguaje administrativo del decreto, será fundamental observar de cerca su implementación, los permisos que comiencen a otorgarse y las regiones que entren progresivamente dentro del nuevo mapa minero haitiano. Porque, retomando las palabras del sociólogo haitiano Jean Casimir, la llamada “Perla de las Antillas” rara vez ha pertenecido realmente a quienes la habitan. En un país marcado por siglos de extracción, ocupación y dependencia económica, el avance de la minería vuelve a abrir una vieja pregunta: quién decide sobre el territorio haitiano y quién termina beneficiándose de sus riquezas.

Claudia Alavez, integrante de colectivo latinoafricano, coordinadora de la UNIR en Haití, radicada en Haití desde hace 6 años.

Samuel Nesner, abogado haitiano, coordinador de SOKIJA (Asociación Cultural de Jóvenes Haitianos), militante e investigador en defensa del territorio frente a megaproyectos.

**Este artículo es la cuarta entrega de la «Serie: La minería en Haití — contexto, riesgos y debates», construida en el marco del Programa de Defensa y Resistencias de Territorio de la Universidad Itinerante de la Resistencia en Haití.

 

The pricing review proposing high fixed network tariffs has got it wrong on home batteries, dynamic pricing and the impact on households.

The post Proposal for high fixed network charges is wrong on home batteries, dynamic pricing, and impact on CER appeared first on Renew Economy.

With the official start to hurricane season right around the corner, people living in the path of hurricanes are experiencing rain, wind and stormy weather. These communities are no strangers to the full extent of damage caused by destructive weather. Many have lost everything to storms and are still building their lives back after throwing away all of their belongings, boarding up broken windows, buying generators and living out of hotel rooms. 

Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry is making more money than ever before. Six of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis – Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and TotalEnergies – are on track to make almost $3,000 in profits every single second this year, according to a new report, as households across the world grapple with soaring energy prices and inflation, which are driving a cost-of-living crisis.

The climate crisis increases global temperatures. Rising temperatures mean hurricanes that form have the potential to bring stronger winds and heavier rain, which, in turn, means more damage. But it’s not just the fossil fuel industry that is making storms worse. Oil and gas companies cannot build their destructive projects without the same corporations that hold significant power over our financial security and daily lives: insurers, banks and investors.

Insurers

Just like how we can’t drive a car or buy a house without insurance, oil and gas corporations can’t build or operate new projects without insurance. Insurance giants like Chubb, Liberty Mutual and AIG provide insurance to fossil fuel companies so more destructive projects can be built. Insurers also take the money we pay for car, health and life insurance and invest it in fossil fuel companies. It’s estimated that insurance companies have more than $534 billion invested in coal, oil, and gas companies.

Insurers know the climate crisis is happening now and that they’re on the hook to pay for the damage it’s causing. But instead of ditching fossil fuels, they’re withdrawing coverage for communities in disaster-prone areas. In Louisiana, insurance is becoming harder to find and difficult to afford. Massive claims from Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita drove large national insurance companies to scale back their coverage and remaining companies to jack up rates. Homeowners in New Orleans saw their premiums double, with some required to pay an extra $3,000 per year. After Louisiana was hit by Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Ida, and Zeta, a dozen insurers became insolvent and many others left the state. We pay more and get less protection. They do business “as usual.”

Banks

Similar to a car loan or mortgage, banks lend fossil fuel companies money that must be repaid over time with interest. Banks also give companies revolving loans or lines of credit that companies can draw from as needed, kind of like a credit card. They also help companies raise money by facilitating the sale of stocks and bonds to investors, a process called underwriting.

In 2024, the warmest year on record, JP Morgan Chase was the world’s top fossil fuel financier for the year, with $53.5 billion in fossil fuel financing. Bank of America rose two ranks to become the second biggest financier of fossil fuels globally. Over two-thirds of banks covered in the Banking on Climate Chaos report (45 banks) increased their fossil fuel financing from 2023 to 2024, with Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Barclays each financing over $12 billion more than last year.

Investors 

Investors provide the funding for fossil fuel projects by purchasing the stocks and bonds that companies issue. Institutional investors hold more than $1.6 trillion in shares and bonds across companies planning major petrochemical expansions in the U.S. Vanguard is the largest investor in fossil fuels worldwide, with $444 billion invested across the sector. The new Toxic Finance report found just five investors control nearly one-third (31%) of companies leading the U.S. petrochemical expansion: Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Capital Group, and Berkshire Hathaway.

Storms didn’t used to be this bad. It didn’t get this hot so soon. Wildfires weren’t this frequent. In fact, a new report from the UN states that the next five years are projected to be the hottest on record. Fossil fuel companies and the institutions that finance them know this, yet they won’t stop injecting their client’s money into projects that continue sacrificing communities for short-term profits. All financial institutions have a responsibility to adopt transition plans that drastically cut fossil fuel financing, including an immediate end to expansion financing. Their money would be much better spent on clean, renewable energies so we can prevent disasters before they happen.

The post Who Makes Hurricane Damage Worse? Insurers, Banks and Investors appeared first on Earthworks.

Reflexiones sobre la seguridad en una época de profunda crisis civilizatoria - Una conversación Fecha y horario * Fecha: 17 de junio, 2026 * Horario: 1pm GMT * Enlace de Registro: Aquí * Participantes: Manuel Rozental (Colombia) y Deepa Sinha (India)

Conceptualizing Security in a Time of Deep Civilizational Crisis - A conversation Date and time * Date: June 17th, 2026 * Time: 1pm GMT * Registration Link: Here * Speakers: Manuel Rozental (Colombia) and Dipa Sinha (India) * Moderation: Madhuresh Kumaralternativesalternativesalternatives

Events Upcoming events Conceptualizing security in a time of deep civilizational crisis - June 17th The first webinar will open the series with a conceptual discussion on security in a time of deep civilizational crisis. It will examine how security has traditionally been framed through the international order, the nation-state, sovereignty, militarization, and the management of threats, while asking how communities and movements are challenging this paradigm today.AlternativesalternativesT…

Eventos Próximos eventos Reflexiones sobre la seguridad en una época de profunda crisis civilizatoria Este es el primero de una serie de seminarios web que dará inicio al ciclo con un debate conceptual sobre la seguridad en una época de profunda crisis civilizatoria. Se analizará cómo se ha concebido tradicionalmente la seguridad a través del orden internacional, el Estado-nación, la soberanía, la militarización y la gestión de amenazas, al tiempo que se cuestionará cómo las comunidades y l…

Energy efficiency is a good thing—but is it being undermined by some part of human nature?

There’s a long-running debate in energy economics about whether as technology becomes more efficient, people may cancel out (or significantly decrease) energy savings because they consume more resources, not fewer.

This effect, variably known as the rebound effect or the Jevons paradox, traces way back to 1865, when the English economist William Stanley Jevons noticed that as steam engines burned coal more efficiently, Britain burned dramatically more coal, not less. Cheaper energy services, he argued, simply invite more energy use.

Few examples illustrate the Jevons paradox as starkly as the humble light bulb. A modern LED produces the same brightness as a Victorian gas lamp using less than one percent of the energy (a 1,000-fold leap in efficiency). Yet humanity now uses vastly more light than ever before: glowing billboards, 24-hour parking lots, and cities visible from space. Each efficiency gain in lighting has been met, and often surpassed, by more and more lights. Did the carbon savings we expected partly evaporate into a brighter world?

The question for the climate era is uncomfortable—but unavoidable. Nearly every national climate plan, every net-zero pledge, and every IPCC pathway leans heavily on energy efficiency as a pillar of decarbonization. How much can more efficient cars, heaters, and other appliances really help stave off climate change? 

• • • The Good News

1.  The big numbers look good. Energy efficiency has to date been one of the main drivers of emissions reductions. The International Energy Agency estimates that improvements to energy efficiency saved the world 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide from 2010 to 2022. For context, that’s more than the tailpipe emissions from 1.5 billion gas-powered passenger cars driven for an entire year. And, the IEA projects that improving fuel efficiency in vehicles, better insulation in houses, and other energy efficiency measures could deliver two-thirds of the oil demand reduction and half of the natural gas demand reduction necessary to meet net zero energy sector emissions by 2050.

2.  Jevons’ paradox is only a problem if the metric is a problem. As Adam Dorr pointed out in a blog post for the nonprofit research org RethinkX, swapping out an emissions-heavy coal plant for a more efficient solar farm may cause energy consumption to spike as prices drop, but that doesn’t mean emissions went up. We often associate energy efficiency with energy austerity. But what if a fully decarbonized economy turned that association on its head? We could use a whole lot more energy, but our emissions footprint would be undetectable. Check out Adrienne Bernhard’s piece for the BBC on “How limitless green energy would change the world.”

Source: The International Energy Agency 2026 Electricity Report

3.  A (possible) ceiling on consumption. Full-fledged rebound requires appetites without limits; in practice, energy appetites saturate. In other words, there may be a ceiling to how much energy most people actually want. A family that switches to a heat pump does not crank the thermostat to 85°F because heating got cheaper; they nudge it up a degree or two and pocket the rest. Even at a national level, at some point, enough really is—well—enough. In his New York Times article, “The Paradox Holding Back the Clean Energy Revolution,” Ed Conway cites research showing that steel and copper consumption seem to slow down as countries achieve a high standard of living.

In short, rebound may be real, but it may also be overblown within the context of carbon emissions. In fact, the strongest version of the Jevons’s claim—that efficiency raises total emissions—is, when tested against modern data, surprisingly hard to find.

• • • The Bad News

1.  AI is the wrench in the works. If ever there were a real-time Jevons experiment, it is unfolding now in data server farms in Virginia, Ireland, and Arizona. Google, for example, seems keen on energy efficiency. In their 2024 environmental report, the company reported that their latest custom processors were 2.7 times more energy efficient than the previous generation, and that they’d found ways to slash the energy required to train models by up to a thousand-fold. In their 2025 report, they highlight how improvements in hardware energy efficiency, among other things, helped them avoid two-thirds of possible emissions the previous year. And yet, that same report noted that once you include the emissions produced building and rigging up their new AI data centers, Google’s overall real-world emissions have actually risen by more than 50% between 2019 and 2024. AI systems overall were estimated to have had the same carbon footprint as New York City in 2025.

Source: The International Energy Agency 2026 Electricity Report

2.  Shipping may also have a big rebound. A 2024 study in Nature Energy found that Jevons’ may have eroded the carbon savings from regulations designed to increase fuel efficiency in long-haul trucking by more than 25 percent. “We didn’t anticipate effects of this magnitude,” Jonathan Hughes, one of the study’s authors, told Anthropocene. That’s because more fuel efficient trucking is cheaper trucking, which could encourage manufacturers to switch from the relatively cleaner, but slower rail shipping.

3.  Rebounds don’t stay in one lane. If increases in energy efficiency result in less demand from power plants for petroleum to burn, one might think this would result in a straightforward reduction in petroleum use, but not so fast. As investment management firm Van Eck pointed out in a blog post, petroleum isn’t just an energy source, it’s also a feedstock for many petrochemicals such as plastics and fertilizers. If increased energy efficiency drives down petroleum demand, basic economics suggests petroleum prices should also go down. Manufacturers might happily gobble up the cheaper feedstocks to produce more plastics and fertilizers. Considering that petrochemicals also produce emissions (around 5 percent of the US’ annual emissions), what had been a simple picture gets messier. 

 

• • • What to Keep An Eye On

1.  Autonomous vehicles. When researchers conducted a full life-cycle analysis of autonomous electric cars, they found some tell-tale signs of rebound. While autonomy cuts fuel-use emissions by about 21%, manufacturing the more complex vehicles, combined with increased travel, can surge emissions by up to 40%—and even with recycling offsetting some of that, autonomous electric vehicles end up emitting roughly 8% more greenhouse gases over their lifetime than standard electric vehicles.

2.  The Global South. Most rebound studies come from wealthy economies where appetites for light, heat, and mobility are largely saturated. In countries where billions of people are only now gaining reliable electricity, air conditioning, and personal vehicles, even modest efficiency gains may unlock enormous new demand. How the world handles that legitimate growth, and whether the energy meeting it is clean, may matter more for the global carbon trajectory than any rebound coefficient ever measured.

3.  Carbon pricing. Even where rebound is real, it is not destiny—it is a policy problem with a known fix. Inês Azevedo’s makes the point in a 2014 paper. When efficiency is paired with a carbon price, an emissions cap, or a clean-electricity standard, the freed-up money and energy cannot simply re-fuel fossil consumption, because the cap or the price is still binding. Efficiency under a carbon constraint is not Jevons’s coal mine; it is a tightening lid on a shrinking budget. The paradox, in this view, is not a law of human nature—it is what happens when you do efficiency without doing climate policy.

Top image: ©Anthropocene Magazine  

A sea of solar panels is rapidly engulfing one of the world’s largest salt deserts. By 2029, nearly 60 million panels will cover 280 square miles of India’s Rann of Kutch, extending right up to the border with Pakistan. The Khavda solar park is set to be the world’s largest and most powerful supplier of electricity from the sun, with a generating capacity of 30 gigawatts — 30 times the size of a typical coal or nuclear power station and enough to power Austria. 

With India’s economy now growing faster than China’s, Khavda epitomizes the country’s breakneck rush to electrify with solar power. Installed solar capacity in India has been growing by 40 percent a year. In March, it passed 150 gigawatts, and by 2030 is set to double again. 

Analysts say the world’s most populous nation is on the verge of becoming the first major country to power its industrialization predominantly with solar energy. 

Cheap solar is “enabling India to develop without the long fossil-fuel detour taken by the West and China,” said Kingsmill Bond, energy strategist and director at Ember, a U.K.-based think tank that tracks the world’s transition to renewable energy. “China built on coal; India is building on sun,” he said. “And what India is doing could also be mirrored in other emerging economies.” 

India’s solar revolution comes as a surprise. Just a decade ago, apart from rooftop installations and a few microgrids serving remote rural villages, solar power was virtually unknown. The government seemed hell-bent on industrializing with coal, unleashing a rising tide of carbon dioxide emissions and supercharging climate change.

Sources: Ember, Energy Institute. Yale Environment 360 / Made with Flourish

In 2015, shortly after taking office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to double coal output by 2020. And at successive international climate negotiations, his ministers pushed back angrily against demands that the country renounce the fossil fuels that drove industrialization in Europe and North America. 

“How can anyone expect that developing countries make promises about phasing out coal [when they] still have to deal with poverty reduction?” Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav asked angrily at COP26 in Glasgow five years ago, before sabotaging the conference’s planned declaration on eliminating coal from the global economy. 

But back home, policy was already changing. The country’s sunny climate made it a natural home for solar energy, and the cost of solar panels was falling fast. Ever since the Glasgow conference, India has been introducing solar energy at an accelerating rate. Last year, for the first time, more than half its installed generating capacity was from non-fossil fuel sources. 

As booming India’s electricity demand continues to grow by more than 6 percent each year, the solar trend is set to continue. According to the International Energy Agency, or IEA, about half the growth anticipated between now and 2030 will be met by solar power, and another 25 percent from other low-carbon sources, mostly wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear. 

Leading the solar surge is the country’s largest private power producer and the world’s second largest solar developer, the Adani Group. Founded in 1988 initially as a commodity importer by Gautam Adani, a long-time confidante of Prime Minister Modi and reputedly now Asia’s richest person, it is widely regarded as having benefited from Modi’s patronage. 

Eyebrows were raised in 2023 when long-standing military protocols banning all construction within 6 miles of the border with Pakistan were set aside weeks before Adani gained control of that land for the Khavda project. And in 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Adani executives of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain lucrative supply contracts for its solar energy and hiding this from potential investors. The case was dropped this month after Adani made offers to invest in the U.S., though U.S. officials denied any link. 

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Still, the fast-growing Khavda solar park, which had an installed capacity of 9.4 gigawatts as of April, is the jewel in the Adani crown. Its panels are attended by robots that dry-clean them at night to remove desert salt and dust without requiring precious freshwater. The project also includes wind turbines in the windy coastal region on the shores of the Arabian Sea, which should secure nighttime power for the grid.

India still has a long way to go to break its dependence on fossil fuels. Coal still delivers most of the country’s baseload and fuels about 70 percent of total power generation. It helps make India the world’s third-largest carbon dioxide emitter, after China and the U.S, and is a major cause of the country’s urban smogs, which are the worst in the world. But the target to double coal mining output has been quietly forgotten, and construction of coal-fired power stations has been much reduced. Coal’s share in the energy mix is set to fall below 50 percent by 2035, according to the IEA.

Still, with its enormous generating capacity, coal remains deeply entrenched. And there are other constraints on how much solar power can contribute to keeping the lights on in India. While solar last year made up 28 percent of the country’s total installed electricity-generating capacity, it accounted for only 9.4 percent of the electricity put into supply. 

Why the difference? There are two reasons. 

The first is that the country’s outdated grid cannot yet transmit all the solar power being captured in the deserts of western India to where it is needed in the urban heartlands. At times last year, almost 40 percent of the country’s solar power output did not reach customers. 

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Charith Konda, an India-based energy researcher for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, attributes this to the rapid growth of solar facilities, which has outstripped grid development. “Solar plants typically take 18 to 24 months to build, while transmission projects usually take about five years… The grid is trying to catch up.” To that end, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has committed to spending more than $100 billion on expanding the national grid by 29 percent by 2032, through a series of green energy corridors linking solar hubs to major industrial and population centers.

But a revamped grid is only part of the answer, said Debajit Palit, who researches the country’s energy transition at the Chintan Research Foundation in New Delhi. Solar also underdelivers because India lacks the infrastructure to store renewable energy to meet demand after the sun goes down and during the cloudier monsoon season.

One solution being hurriedly adopted is to use water as a battery — so-called pumped storage. This involves linking two storage tanks or reservoirs, one higher than the other.  When the grid has surplus power, that electricity is used to pump water from the bottom tank to the top tank. Then, when the grid needs extra power, it can be generated by dropping the water through turbines to the lower tank. 

Starting later this year, a 1.4-gigawatt project is expected to pump water from one of India’s largest hydroelectric reservoirs, the Gandhi Sagar on the Chambal River in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Another, with a capacity of 3 gigawatts, is set for completion near Mumbai in 2030. In January, the country’s Central Electricity Authority identified 120 potential pumped-storage sites with a combined capacity of 180 gigawatts.

Another solution to the storage problem is lithium-ion batteries. World battery prices are falling dramatically — down 58 percent since 2023, said Ember’s global electricity analyst Kostantsa Rangelova, “making round-the-clock solar electricity increasingly viable.” 

Recognizing this, the Indian government has since last year required new solar farms to install battery storage so they can supply more constant power to the grid. Adani is currently assembling the country’s biggest battery storage system at the Khavda complex — enough to discharge over a gigawatt of power to the grid for three hours every evening. 

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An additional concern is that India remains heavily dependent on China for the technology behind its solar push. While it now manufactures most of its solar panels, the silicon materials that make the photovoltaic cells largely come from China, as do three-quarters of the lithium-ion batteries essential for energy storage. 

The Indian government is working to address this reliance on its northern neighbor for the supply chain for its renewables technologies by boosting domestic manufacturing. A more long-lasting constraint may be land. 

Solar panels require a lot of space — a difficult issue in a densely populated country that has more people than China on little more than a third of the land area. In a few places, solar companies are offering farmers the option to continue cultivating below raised solar panels, so-called agrivoltaics. But elsewhere, solar facilities are evicting peasant farmers, creating angry protests. 

Occupying areas empty of people, such as the desert salt flats of Khavda, avoids disturbing people but may put wildlife at risk. The Khavda complex abuts the Rann of Kutch Wildlife Sanctuary in Pakistan, which is home to threatened species such as striped hyenas, desert lynx, jackals, and desert foxes, as well as critically endangered great Indian bustards and migrating waterfowl following the Central Asian Flyway from Siberia to the Indian Ocean. 

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Despite such drawbacks, optimists believe that mass deployment of batteries should one day allow India to meet 90 percent of its electricity demand from solar energy. “The question is no longer whether solar can power India’s electricity system,” said Rangelova, “but how quickly it can scale.”

Not all of India’s booming industries can easily banish coal and hook up to solar-powered electricity, however. One logjam is the steel industry, which requires coal to produce the intense heat needed for blast furnaces and to convert iron ore into pig iron and then steel. India has the most ambitious plans of any country in the world for increasing steel manufacturing, aiming to double production in the coming decade. “Steel is the elephant in the room for India’s decarbonization,” said Palit. 

But in other sectors, the news is better. The country is electrifying its transportation system, for instance. The 42,000 miles of broad-gauge track in India’s vast railway network have been almost entirely electrified in the past decade. Meanwhile, electric road vehicles are moving into smoggy city streets. Most rapidly, India’s ubiquitous motorised rickshaws, often called tuk-tuks, are being electrified. Some 60 percent of sales of motorized rickshaws are now electric, making India the world leader. 

The choking of oil and gas supplies from the Middle East in recent months will only further accelerate the country’s shift to electrify its transportation sector, said Konda.

Whatever the drawbacks, the rapid advance of Indian solar power continues, and marks a sharp difference from the energy path chosen by China and, until now, what has been seen by many countries as essential for their economic development. 

For years, China was notorious for building a new coal-fired power station every week. But India is avoiding that path. Its coal use is only 40 percent of that in China at a similar stage of economic development, according to Bond. Instead, it is installing solar generating capacity at almost the same rate as China once built coal plants. 

With India’s leaders aiming to complete the country’s transition into a modern industrial economy by 2047 — the centenary of its independence from Britain — this matters for the world. India’s current per capita use of electricity is only a third of the global average, a fifth of that of China, and less than a tenth that of the U.S. Closing that gap by burning coal would be ruinous for the world’s climate. Achieving it with solar power could go a long way toward saving the planet.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A first among major nations, India is industrializing with solar on May 30, 2026.