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• The World Cup will stress both the capacity and finances of transit systems in host cities, with special service in New Jersey costing $6 million per match to carry the majority of 82,000 fans to Met Life Stadium. Some cities, though, are treating the tournament as an opportunity to showcase their transit systems to a global audience, adding rail frequency and charter buses at little to no cost to fans. (CBS News)
• Whether it’s because of overpolicing, lack of investment or urban freeways cutting of neighborhoods, mobility for Black Americans is often limited, with devastating social and economic consequences, according to urban planner and author Charles T. Brown. (Planetizen)
• The environmental impact of driving an electric vehicle is greater for people who drive a lot and live in an area with a clean power grid, but EVs almost always come out ahead compared to gas-powered cars no matter what, according to an MIT study. (Anthropocene)
• A startup is using old Waymo batteries to provide energy storage for the power grid. (Fast Company)
• A lot of supposedly public EV charging stations are actually located at places like car dealerships that aren’t really public at all. (Electrek)
• Amtrak offered a preview of what a renovated Penn Station in New York City might look like, but failed to answer questions about who will pay the $7 billion price tag. (NY Times, Streetsblog NYC)
• Drivers in one of New York’s largest suburb sued to stop Westchester County from using license plate readers to catch them breaking traffic laws. (Associated Press)
• Tampa area drivers have killed more than 600 pedestrians in the past five years. (Tampa Bay Times)
• Lexington, Kentucky is considering a ban on parking in bike lanes, but with a lot of exceptions for drop-offs, pickups and deliveries. (Herald-Leader)
• New Orleans is seeking public input on improving its streetcar system. (Times-Picayune)
• The Dutch government introduced a discounted pass for unlimited off-peak rail travel at just 49 euros per month. (Rail Journal)
• Uber and British company Wayve are rolling out robotaxis in London, followed by Tokyo and several other cities. (CNN)
• University of Zurich students invented a brick evaporative cooling system that can significantly cool down spaces like bus stops during hot summer months. (Times of India)

This Hilcorp oil and gas well site is less than 900 feet from the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School serving K-8 Navajo students.

New Mexico’s Oil Conservation Commission voted [Friday / DAY OF WEEK] to adopt the strongest standards in the country for making oil companies pay to clean up after themselves.

This win was years in the making and it belongs to every New Mexican who spoke up, showed up, or signed on.

[Add if results are MIXED]The final rules do not include all of the strongest safeguards that were proposed by community and environmental groups. They do include meaningful improvements that will help address the growing risks posed by inactive and abandoned oil and gas wells across the state.

What Happened and Why It Matters

Last fall, Earthworks published a blog laying out the scope of the problem: oil and gas companies in New Mexico were routinely walking away from low-producing wells without cleaning them up. Abandoned wells, when left poorly or improperly plugged, can continuously release toxic air pollution, contaminate soil and water supplies. And what’s more, abandoned wells in the state leave taxpayers exposed to anywhere from $700 million to $8 billion in future cleanup costs. Under the old rules, a single operator could own thousands of wells and post as little as $250,000 total. This is a tiny amount when the average cost to plug a single well is $163,000.

The Oil Conservation Commission just changed that.

The updated rules:

• raise bonding to $150,000 per well for high risk operations; 
• strengthen rules about transfers ownership of wells;
• require low-producing “marginal” wells to prove a useful purpose or be properly plugged;
• and tighten inactive well rules so that these can no longer remain indefinitely without cleanup plans.

These changes mark a fundamental shift in who is responsible for the cleanup cost of oil and gas extraction in New Mexico. 

The companies that profit from extraction will now be responsible for paying for cleaning up their own mess.

Earthworks’ New Mexico Lead Campaigner, Mandy Sackett, surveys an oil and gas site near Maljamar, NM.

What Earthworks Sees in the Field

Earthworks was motivated to fight to change these rules by what we see firsthand in the oil and gas fields through our optical gas imaging camera. 

No spreadsheet or data can make the case for a change to these rules like the video evidence we capture at well site after well site, often right next to schools, homes and communities.

At one low-producing Hilcorp site near Counselor, Earthworks’ Indigenous Community Field Advocate has repeatedly found continuous emissions from multiple different sources: the tank vent, the sump area, and a horizontal separator. That site sits 900 feet from a K-8 school serving Navajo students.

The video clip above shows three sources of emissions at the well site near the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School, from the vent stack on the separator, the tank vent and the sump area produced water tank.

At another low-producing Permian Resources site in Carlsbad, I found uncontrolled emissions from an improperly functioning flare a few hundred yards from an elementary school.

You can’t say the system is working when you can literally see methane and harmful gases and chemicals pouring into the sky through the optical gas imaging camera.

The hearing process drew a lot of public testimony from frontline Diné community leaders, health advocates, ranchers, and residents across the state. The polling confirms what the comment record showed: 89% of New Mexicans support requiring corporations to pay to clean up the wells they drill.

The Stakes Are Real Earthworks has documented this oil and gas site with multiple sources of emissions on numerous occasions, just 900 feet from the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School serving K-8 Navajo students.

The Commission’s decision comes as the federal government moves in the opposite direction. The Trump administration is working to roll back environmental protections, revisit federal bonding rules set in the Biden-era, and expand drilling on public lands. 

With these rules, New Mexico joins a small group of states that have actually aligned bonding requirements with real-world cleanup costs, and done so in a way that’s risk-based, not one-size-fits-all. The rules target risky behavior, not small operators. 

Every company that profits from New Mexico’s land and resources should be prepared to clean up after itself.

Thank You

To the Oil Conservation Commission, the Oil Conservation Division, and the State Land Office: thank you for listening to New Mexicans and adopting rules that prioritize our water, our health, and our communities over the status quo.

To the coalition partners, the frontline voices, the public commenters, and the advocates who showed up across months of hearings: this win belongs to all of us. We’re not done, but today is a real step forward.

The post New Mexico Just Set One of the Strongest Oil and Gas Cleanup Standards in the Country appeared first on Earthworks.

(Washington, DC--June 11, 2026)--The House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday approved the Local Communities and Bird Habitat Stewardship Act, bipartisan legislation that would provide...

...

Albuquerque, New Mexico (June 10, 2026) — The National Audubon Society’s Audubon Conservation Ranching program now reaches the Southwestern United States with the hires of Nick Beauregard, Ariel...

The planet is heating up more quickly than ever before.

For decades, greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity have been building up in the atmosphere and trapping ever-higher levels of heat.

The resulting asymmetry between incoming solar energy and energy radiated back out into space – known as “Earth’s energy imbalance” – provides a direct measure of the extent to which humans are disrupting the Earth’s climate system. 

This imbalance is growing and in 2025 its 10-year average reached a record high, indicating that global temperatures could increase at even higher rates in the future.

This is among the headline findings of the latest “indicators of global climate change” (IGCC) report, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, which tracks changes in the climate system on an annual basis.

The report, now in its fourth iteration, has been produced by dozens of scientists from around the world.

Its findings are designed to fill the gap between Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) science reports, which are published every 5-7 years. 

In this article, we unpack the IGCC report, which explores how human activity is driving a growing energy imbalance and why monitoring systems to track global climate are so crucial.

(For more on previous IGCC reports, see Carbon Brief’s coverage in 2023, 2024 and 2025.)

Greenhouse gas emissions remain at an all-time high

Global greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to increase, mostly as a result of the use of fossil fuels. However, deforestation, agriculture and industrial processes also play an important role.

GlossaryCO2 equivalent: Greenhouse gases can be expressed in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2e. For a given amount, different greenhouse gases trap different amounts of heat in the atmosphere, a quantity known as the global warming potential. Carbon dioxide equivalent is a way of comparing emissions from all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide.CloseCO2 equivalent: Greenhouse gases can be expressed in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2e. For a given amount, different greenhouse gases trap different amounts of heat in the atmosphere, a quantity known as… Read More

Over the most recent decade (2015-24), emissions stood at the equivalent of 54.6bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) per year. In 2024, the most recent year for which we have complete data, emissions reached 56.8GtCO2e.

As the chart below shows, these emissions have pushed up atmospheric levels of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. In 2025, concentrations of these gases reached 425.6 parts per million (ppm), 1936.3 parts per billion (ppb) and 339.4ppb, respectively. 

This represents a rise of 3.8%, 3.8% and 2.2%, respectively, since the 2019 levels reported in the IPCC’s sixth assessment report (AR6).

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (yellow), methane (blue) and nitrous oxide (green) over 2000-25. The grey-shaded region represents continuing changes since AR6. Note the different vertical scales for each gas. Credit: Forster et al. (2026)

At the same time, declines in emissions of aerosols such as sulphur dioxide, partly as a result of efforts to tackle air pollution, are increasing the Earth’s energy imbalance. This is because aerosols have a cooling effect on the Earth’s climate, counteracting warming from CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.

(Tackling sulphur dioxide, alongside other particulate emissions, remains critical because the immediate health and environmental damage they cause far outweighs their short-term cooling effect on the climate.)

The Earth’s energy imbalance is rising rapidly

The Earth’s energy imbalance has long been recognised as a key indicator of how the climate is being affected by human activities. 

However, it is only in the last few decades that scientists have been able to record temperature changes deep enough in the ocean to accurately quantify it.  

Earth’s energy imbalance measures how quickly excess heat is accumulating in every part of the Earth system, primarily in the ocean, but also in land, ice and atmosphere. 

Through this accumulation of heat, the energy imbalance influences the rate of sea level rise and ice melt across the world, as well as increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as storms, floods and droughts.

Without human influence, the Earth’s energy imbalance would be close to zero.

But, as greenhouse gas emissions have built up in the atmosphere, the imbalance has been growing since the 1970s. Recent increases to Earth’s energy imbalance have outpaced those projections made by climate models — indicating the planet could see more warming than expected in the future.

As the right-hand chart below shows, the imbalance is now at a record high, having more than doubled over the past two decades.  

It has increased by around 40% since 2019, from an average 0.79 watts per square metre (Wm2) over 2006-18, according to IPCC AR6, to 1.12Wm2 over 2013-25. 

The left-hand chart shows how heat is accumulating in the ocean (blues), ice (grey), land (orange) and atmosphere (purple).

Left: Observed changes in the Earth heat inventory for the period 1971-2020. Right: Estimates of the Earth energy imbalance for successive overlapping 20-year periods and the most recent decade (right). Shaded regions indicate the very likely range (90-100 % probability), while the stars show the CERES (NASA Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) estimates for comparison. Credit: Forster et al. (2026)
Global temperature rise

The excess heat building up in the climate system from the energy imbalance is pushing up global temperatures at a record rate of 0.27C per decade. 

We estimate that human-induced warming – the amount of observed global surface temperature increase attributable to both the direct and indirect effects of human activities – reached 1.37C in 2025. This has risen from 1.0C in 2017, as reported in IPCC AR6.

While natural variability in the climate system – such as El Niño or La Niña events – can also influence temperatures year-to-year, the upward temperature trend we are seeing is being driven by the persistent imbalance in energy.

We now expect global temperatures to exceed the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels around the year 2030. 

This is significant because 1.5C has been identified as the critical dividing line between manageable climate risks and catastrophic, potentially irreversible damage to global ecosystems and human societies.

Heat accumulating throughout the Earth system

While heat is accumulating throughout the Earth system, it is not being distributed evenly around the globe. 

Since the 1970s, around 90% of this heat has been taken up by the ocean, affecting marine ecosystems, ocean circulation patterns, sea level rise and climate extremes.

For example, the number of marine heatwave days – periods of unusually high sea surface temperatures –  has more than tripled globally since the early 1990s. The year 2025 alone saw 65 days of marine heatwaves – meaning they occurred, on average, more than one day a week.

Meanwhile, the cryosphere – the portion of the Earth made up of frozen water, including glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost – is experiencing widespread ice loss and thawing in response to the growing energy imbalance. This affects ecosystems, sea level rise and infrastructure in polar and high-latitude regions.

Rapid warming has also resulted in record extreme temperatures over land, with average maximum temperatures for any single day over 2016-25 around 1.92C above pre-industrial levels). This is an increase of almost half a degree compared to the previous decade (2006-15).

Sea level rise and the energy imbalance

Sea level rise provides one of the clearest long-term signals of a changing planet.

It is closely linked to Earth’s energy imbalance. As heat accumulates in the ocean, water expands, raising sea levels. Meanwhile, a warming land and atmosphere means addition of water to the oceans through melting of glaciers and ice sheets, also adding to sea level rise.  

Over the long-term, sea levels have been rising, on average, at a rate of around 1.8mm per year since 1901, totalling a record 23cm in 2025. This is increasing the risk of coastal flooding, erosion and habitat loss in many low-lying areas around the world.

This rise can be seen in the left-hand chart below, which shows observed global sea level changes from tide gauges (grey and blue dashed lines) and satellites (red dashed lines) since 1901. The solid lines indicate the average across multiple datasets.

Sea level rise is accelerating consistent with the observed increase in Earth’s energy imbalance. Over 2006-25, sea levels have risen at a rate of 3.67mm per year – more than double the rate of 1.69mm per year seen over 1976-95.

This increasing rate is shown in the right-hand figure below, which shows four successive overlapping 20-year periods and the most-recent decade.

(Last year’s transition from El Niño to weak La Niña conditions affected global rainfall patterns and led to a small and temporary fall in global average sea level in 2025. This explains the slight decrease in rate of sea level rise for the most recent decade, which is affected more than the 20-year period 2006-25.)

Left: Global average sea level rise over 1901-2025, relative to a 1995-2014 baseline. Individual timeseries are shown with dashed lines, while the black solid line shows the average (from tide gauges and satellites) used in AR6 and the solid red line shows the 1993-2025 average from satellites. Right: Global mean sea-level rates (in mm per year) for four successive overlapping 20-year periods and the most-recent decade. The shading indicates the very likely range. Credit: Forster et al. (2026) The bigger picture

Despite greenhouse gas emissions not increasing as rapidly as in the 2000s, this year’s IGCC findings continue to show how far and how fast the climate is changing due to human activity.

A significant increase in decarbonisation efforts in the second half of this decade is required to slow down the rate of human-caused warming and limit the escalation of climate risks and impacts. 

These findings, like many others produced by scientists across the globe, rely on international expertise, partnership and the maintenance and availability of global climate datasets and the global observing programmes that underpin them. 

This year’s edition of IGCC used more than 40 global datasets produced by research teams around the world, including the NASA satellite record of the Earth’s energy imbalance and the ARGO deep ocean float network. 

However, a number of long-term monitoring programmes could be threatened by funding decisions made by governments around the world, most notably the Trump administration in the US.  

Local meteorological data and weather balloon measurement programmes in many countries have declined in recent years, especially in Africa, the west Pacific and South America. This reduces scientists’ ability to monitor and understand key indicators of climate change. 

This is not just an issue for climate science. Many of these observations are key to weather forecasts and systems that provide early warning for extreme weather. For example, media reports have suggested that recent reductions in weather balloon measurements in Alaska led to a lack of warnings for a recent winter storm.  

The continuity and integrity of the climate observations that scientists use to understand how the climate is changing depends on effective and sustained coordination by international organisations, such as the Global Climate Observing System, the World Meteorological Organization and World Climate Research Programme. 

Without this data and its coordination, future assessments will be much more difficult at a time when urgent climate action is needed.

Analysis: What are the causes of recent record-high global temperatures?

El Niño

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GHGs and aerosols

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UNEP: New country climate plans ‘barely move needle’ on expected warming

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04.11.25

Explainer: How human-caused aerosols are ‘masking’ global warming

GHGs and aerosols

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10.06.25

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The post Guest post: How a record-high ‘energy imbalance’ is driving global warming appeared first on Carbon Brief.

EWG statement on California Supreme Court declining to hear rooftop solar case Anthony Lacey June 10, 2026

SACRAMENTO – California’s Supreme Court in a brief order today declined to hear an appeal by the Environmental Working Group and allies of an appeals court decision that threatens the future of affordable rooftop solar in the state.

The high court’s decision means the lower court’s ruling stands. The California Court of Appeals in March upheld a California Public Utilities Commission policy sharply scaling back the state’s once-thriving rooftop solar program, known as net energy metering. 

The state’s monopoly utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric Company, San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison – sought the policy, seeing rooftop solar as their main competition and their regulator went along with them.

EWG, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Protect Our Communities Foundation in April petitioned the state Supreme Court to review the appeals court’s ruling.

The advocates have argued that the appeals court, in upholding the policy, gave too much deference to the commission’s decision-making. 

They also said both the policy and ruling ignored the California State Legislature’s clear directives on how to value rooftop solar. Specifically, they said the ruling ignored many benefits of small, distributed solar systems, which help lower costs and make energy more affordable for everyone at a time of sky-high energy bills.

The following is a statement from Bernadette Del Chiaro, EWG’s senior vice president for California:

This is a deeply disappointing decision that sets California back on its clean energy goals. The net metering policy is fundamentally flawed and has had disastrous effects in causing rooftop solar installations to plummet, with significant job losses in the once-thriving solar industry.

At a time when Californians struggle to pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country, it makes no sense to leave in place a policy that is anti-affordability, anti-clean energy and will further complicate the state’s ability to meet its clean energy goals.

EWG will continue to advocate for sensible, pro-renewable policies that promote reliable, clean power like solar and that can help with lowering the cost of energy in California.

###

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Energy Renewable Energy California Decision leaves in place harmful policy undermining cost-saving clean energy Press Contact Alex Formuzis alex@ewg.org (202) 667-6982 June 10, 2026

Community hospitals are there for us at our most vulnerable moments. They’re where our children are born. We rush our loved ones to the local ER, post-stroke, when every second counts. Unfortunately, the federal government has left communities across Michigan at risk of losing that lifesaving care. That’s why working people are joining forces to call for change, and to build a society that puts patients before profits, with Medicare for All.

(Washington—June 10, 2026) Audubon applauds the introduction today of bipartisan legislation to extend and build upon the success of the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration...

I once saw a comical looking bird the size of a small gull with a black cap, gray back and a bill that looked like a carrot was spotted stopping off on a beach in mid-coast Maine on its way south...

Disclaimer: This article is commentary and satire based on publicly reported information. It includes opinion, criticism, and parody. Site wide disclaimer also applies.

Shell, previously known as Forthdeal Limited, subsequently as Royal Dutch Shell plc, and now hiding in plain sight as Shell plc after ditching the disgraced Royal Dutch moniker, has reportedly marched back into the headlines with another sermon from the high altar of hydrocarbons: oil markets, we are told, may take “a year, if not longer” to return to equilibrium.

Translation for ordinary mortals: buckle up, keep paying, and please admire the corporate gravitas while the till keeps ringing.

According to Reuters, Shell chief executive Wael Sawan warned that restoring balance to the crude oil market after the Iran/Persian Gulf disruption will not be a quick job. The Wall Street Journal also reported Sawan’s broader message: oil and gas prices may keep rising even after the immediate conflict eases, because the world’s hunger for energy is still growing, easy resources are harder to find, and governments are now treating energy security as national security.

And there it is: the grand new wrapping paper for the old fossil-fuel gift basket.

Energy security. National security. Resilience. Long-term systems. A more complex world. The language sounds statesmanlike, almost noble, until one remembers that the same market turmoil causing headaches for consumers, airlines, industries, and governments can also become a very handsome earnings environment for a supermajor with global trading arms, LNG exposure, upstream barrels, and enough corporate polish to turn a geopolitical crisis into a strategy deck.

Shell’s own Q1 2026 results presentation said the company delivered adjusted earnings of just under $7 billion amid “heightened volatility.” It also reported more than $17 billion of cash flow from operations excluding working capital. In plainer English: while the world sweated over energy shocks, Shell was hardly wandering the desert with an empty begging bowl.

The latest Sawan message is therefore a neat little performance. On one side, Shell sounds the alarm about fragile energy systems and depleted buffers. On the other, it positions itself as the indispensable adult in the room: the company that can trade, ship, drill, liquefy, optimise, and profit its way through the turbulence.

The public gets warnings. Investors get reassurance.

Sawan’s point that oil-market equilibrium may take a year or more is not, on its face, absurd. A major supply shock through the Gulf, especially involving the Strait of Hormuz and disrupted regional flows, can drain inventories, distort shipping, trigger emergency releases, hammer refiners, and raise the cost of everything from aviation to chemicals. Even when fighting stops, tankers do not teleport, infrastructure does not heal overnight, and inventories do not refill by magic.

But the political usefulness of this narrative should not be missed. If a crisis makes hydrocarbons look scarce, strategic, and irreplaceable, it also strengthens the case for more fossil investment, more LNG expansion, more upstream development, and more tolerance for the old industry argument: yes, yes, the energy transition is lovely, but not too fast, not too disruptive, and certainly not at the expense of shareholder returns.

Shell’s official transition messaging says it supports a “balanced and orderly” transition, aims for net zero by 2050, invests in low-carbon energy, and wants to provide energy today while building the system of the future. Yet the company also says it is keeping oil production stable and growing LNG. That is Shell’s favourite two-step: one foot in the climate brochure, the other planted firmly in the hydrocarbon cash register.

Sawan’s WSJ theme — energy security is national security — is especially convenient. Once energy becomes “national security,” criticism of oil and gas expansion can be made to sound naive, unpatriotic, or detached from reality. Never mind that climate security, consumer affordability, industrial resilience, and the long-term cost of fossil dependence are also national security issues. The phrase is powerful because it narrows the debate to supply, supply, supply — and who better to provide supply than the companies already profiting from the shortage?

This is how the oil majors win the room. First, they warn that the system is fragile. Then they remind everyone that only they understand it. Then they suggest that any serious government must keep them close, keep projects moving, and keep capital flowing. Finally, they call the whole thing realism.

Meanwhile, ordinary people get the bill in petrol, diesel, heating, freight, food, air fares, and inflation. Shell gets to appear grave, responsible, and indispensable — a sort of corporate firefighter standing heroically beside a blaze from which its own business model has long benefited.

There is also a delicious irony in Shell talking about equilibrium. This is a company whose legal identity has been through more costume changes than a pantomime villain: incorporated as Forthdeal Limited in 2002, renamed Royal Dutch Shell plc in 2004, then renamed Shell plc in 2022 after the grand simplification exercise. Apparently, balance is very important — especially when it involves balancing public concern, shareholder value, and the optics of dropping a tarnished old title.

The serious point is this: Sawan is probably right that the oil market will not simply snap back overnight. But Shell’s role is not that of neutral weather forecaster. Shell is not merely observing the storm; it is a giant ship built to sail profitably through it.

The company’s message to governments is clear: energy security requires companies like Shell. Its message to investors is clearer still: volatility can be opportunity. Its message to the public, dressed in softer language, is the oldest one in the oil business: keep calm and keep paying.

Spoof Shell PR/Spin Section

Shell plc Statement — Extremely Serious Voice Edition

At Shell, previously known as Forthdeal Limited, then Royal Dutch Shell plc, and now simply Shell plc because shorter names travel better through controversy, we recognise that energy security is national security, economic security, shareholder security, bonus security, and, where appropriate, reputational-security-through-careful-wording.

Our CEO Wael Sawan has responsibly warned that restoring oil-market equilibrium may take a year, if not longer. This should not be interpreted as us enjoying higher prices. We are merely responsibly positioned to generate resilient value from a challenging macro environment of unfortunate global tightness.

We remain committed to the energy transition, provided it is balanced, orderly, commercially attractive, compatible with stable oil production, supportive of LNG growth, and not unduly disruptive to the sacred quarterly distribution rhythm.

Shell will continue helping the world navigate volatility by being very large, very integrated, very necessary, and very available for meetings with governments.

We understand the pain consumers feel at the pump. We also understand trading margins, upstream cash flows, LNG arbitrage, and the importance of disciplined capital allocation.

Together, we can build a lower-carbon future — at a responsible pace, with a robust hydrocarbon foundation, and preferably with Shell in the middle of every sentence.

Spoof Bot-Reaction / Comment Section

@BarrelBot9000:
BREAKING: Oil giant discovers that oil shortage may be bad for consumers but strategically fascinating for oil giants.

@TransitionGoblin:
Shell’s energy transition strategy: one solar panel in the brochure, one LNG tanker in the bank account.

@ForthdealFanClub:
Never forget the glow-up: Forthdeal Limited to Royal Dutch Shell to Shell plc. Same fossil opera, shorter programme notes.

@PumpPricePeasant:
Lovely to hear equilibrium may take a year. My wallet has entered a disorderly transition.

@SecuritySloganBot:
Energy security is national security. Climate security is apparently a footnote in 8-point font.

@InvestorWhisperer:
Consumer crisis detected. Reclassifying as “heightened volatility” and routing to earnings call.

@CarbonNeutralByEventually:
Shell says the future is low carbon, but the present remains extremely billable.

@HydrocarbonHamster:
The wheel keeps spinning, the barrels keep moving, and somehow the hamster is paying £1.80 a litre.

@CrisisMonetisationUnit:
Please do not call it profiteering. The preferred term is “resilient integrated portfolio performance amid geopolitical complexity.”

@NationalSecurityNarrator:
When households cannot afford energy, it is a cost-of-living crisis. When oil companies discuss it, it becomes a strategic framework.

Shell Boss Warns Oil Pain Could Drag On for a Year — As Shell Sits Pretty in the Crisis Chair was first posted on June 10, 2026 at 7:48 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

In the fall of 1978, the National Front (NF), a growing neo-Nazi organization in Britain, was prepared to stand 318 candidates for Parliament. In local London elections, it had received 119,000 votes out of 2.2 million in May. The NF had gained a reputation of challenging immigrants and minorities in street battles and organizing mass marches through minority neighborhoods. There was a very real danger that the NF was on the verge of legitimacy.

Not since Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists clashed with  over 100,000 counterdemonstrators in the 1930s in what became known as “The Battle of Cable Street,” had Britain been threatened by such an aggressive ultra-right organization. With street confrontations growing and electoral challenges growing increasingly threatening, the need to unite an opposition was paramount. To answer that need, the Anti Nazi League (ANL), in alliance with movement organizations, trade unions, neighborhood coalitions, churches, and thousands of individuals, was formed to challenge the NF. Geoff Brown’s timely book, A People’s History of the Anti Nazi League,  offers a wealth of first-hand accounts from those who came together to stop the NF before it achieved a foothold within the power structure of Britain.

A decade before the NF rose to prominence, Enoch Powell, a Conservative member of Parliament, delivered an alarming speech about the dangers of immigration, which he saw as a madness leading to “the white population…made strangers in their own country.” In what became known as the “rivers of blood speech,” Powell incited a subsequent period of racial violence and reactionary mobilizations, including strikes. Powell’s legacy is often the starting point for today’s racists, such as Tommy Robinson. Robinson recently led a massive anti-immigrant march in London that echoed many far-right themes of the past.

U.S. history is littered with racist marches and antisemitic attacks by Nazis and co-racists like the Ku Klux Klan. Spurred by Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, we are again facing reactionary mobilizations. In 2017, Nazis appeared in Charlottesville, North Carolina, in their largest numbers since World War II. Nazis, together with the KKK, neo-Confederates, and Far-Right militias gathered in an action billed as “Unite the Right” to “protect a Confederate statue.” They paraded with torches, shouted antisemitic slogans, and gave the Nazi salute. A woman was killed when a Nazi drove his car into the counter-protesters.

As the World War II generation disappears and the history of that period becomes less compelling, Nazis are showing signs of growth in several countries. Unbound by the history of their Nazi heroes, they are more confident in demonstrating their hatred. A recent Trump nominee for U.S. attorney was forced to withdraw his nomination when boastful Nazi praises were found in his text messages. Perhaps more alarming was the revelation of a recent group chat of young Republicans that was filled with racist, sexist, and anti-gay rhetoric, and included one participant championing his hero, Hitler. These “leaks” indicate a less circumspect extreme Right willing to embrace Nazism with all that it implies, including Holocaust denial. According to yearly reports from both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, there has been a 60 percent growth in active neo-Nazi clubs since 2023, from 49 to 78 clubs. The number of violent attacks initiated by these clubs in that period has also grown. Some of their members are believed to have taken jobs in ICE and Border Patrol. These signs of far-right growth cannot be ignored. As Brown’s work makes clear, building a militant and wide-ranging resistance to Nazis and other racist formations is essential if they are to be stopped.

In August 1977, 500 members of the NF attempted to march through Lewisham, a mostly Black district of London, guarded by 4,000 police officers. They were met by a counter-demonstration of nearly 5,000, representing a coalition of 23 organizations, including unions, neighborhood groups, and Left parties, such as Brown’s own Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

Before the ANL, the Anti-Racist, Anti-Fascist Coordinating Committee struggled to build an anti-racist coalition.  Representatives of the coalition held many debates. Some wanted to remove “fascism” from the targeted racists and organize an event away from where the Nazis were to march:

Believing that there was no possibility of persuading people to confront the Nazis, the Communist Party proposed some kind of music event on the other side of the borough: music, poetry, cultural events, and prayers. At this a vicar leapt to his feet to say, ‘Oh for goodness sakes, what’s the point of that?’

In the end, the coalition endorsed confronting the NF, and while the numbers were different (5,000 vs. 100,000 in 1936), the participants had no doubt that they had succeeded in halting the NF’s ability to march through the district.

While Lewisham was a success, it was not the end of the NF. Intending to stand 300-plus candidates in the next general election, the NF upped its vicious attacks on minorities and boasted that they could not be stopped. Something more was needed, a broad-based national organization that could provide leadership in standing up to the NF. However, it would not be easy to put together such an organization. Even in the wake of the Lewisham success, the Left was still divided on how to stop the Nazis. Nevertheless, the SWP which  had gained credibility in helping to organize the confrontation in Lewisham, believed that nothing less than a nationwide united front of organizations and individuals committed to exposing and stopping the growing NF threat was paramount. Brown summarizes, “The new initiative had to include both identifying the fascists as Nazis—that they came from the same tradition that led to the Holocaust—and mobilizing the largest possible number in opposition to the fascists in whatever ways was necessary.”

Jim Nichol, the SWP national secretary,branded the proposed national formation with the name “the Anti Nazi League.” Nichol was tasked with “selling” the new organization to a broad number of prominent individuals and organizations, from religious groups to the Far Left. The main goal was to stop the NF. Church officials, leaders of minority communities, a prominent journalist, Mary Holland, of the Observer, as well as “a hardline” CP member and solicitor for the ANC, Michael Seifert, were all asked to take part. Nichol was able to convince them to come on board and helped establish a legitimacy for the proposed ANL. The battle of Lewisham had propelled anti-fascism to the front pages.

After many one-on-one discussions with key activists and organizational heads, it was time to launch the ANL. As its founding document made clear:

For the first time since Mosly in the thirties, there is the worrying prospect of a Nazi party gaining significant support in Britain…Like Hitler with the Jews the British Nazis seek to make scapegoats of black people. …If their evil propaganda takes root we will be facing an alarming development in Britain, which affects every one of us. …In every town, in every factory, in every school, on every housing estate, whenever the Nazis attempt to organise, they must be countered.

The ANL’s program was an all-out campaign, including distributing millions of leaflets to mass gatherings to stop NF marches. From pulpits to street corners, from factory floors to union halls, from schools to housing estates, ANL activists took the fight to as broad a constituency as possible. This was to be a “united front” of all organizations and individuals who saw the danger posed by the NF. Inspired by Trotsky’s writings on how to stop the Nazis in the thirties, the comrades in the SWP saw the need to expand beyond the labor movement and include all who had an interest in stopping the rise of Nazism. The unifying slogan and sole agreement to join the ANL was, “They shall not pass.”

…the comrades in the SWP saw the need to expand beyond the labor movement and include all who had an interest in stopping the rise of Nazism. The unifying slogan and sole agreement to join the ANL was, “They shall not pass.”

During the existence of the ANL there were many confrontations with the NF as they attempted to march, harass, and intimidate their opposition. Brown’s history of this period is shaped by input from those who participated in building the ANL as well as allied organizations. For example, the year before the emergence of the ANL, a group of musicians had coalesced to oppose racist attacks after headline musicians Eric Clapton and David Bowie had attacked immigrants. Clapton had demanded at one of his concerts for all the immigrants in the audience to leave. “I don’t want you here in the room or in my country.” The same month, David Bowie told Playboy magazine that “Britain could benefit from a fascist leader…Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars…You’ve got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up.”

In response to Clapton’s and Bowie’s racist attacks, Red Saunders, a theater promoter, drafted a letter which he circulated to the entertainment press calling for a strong response to the racism of these entertainers and asking for all who agreed to sign in favor of a rank-and-file organized one-off concert, Rock Against Racism (RAR). So successful was the response that RAR became a leading anti-racist organization, producing numerous concerts and providing the inspiration for the ANL. Together Rock Against Racism and the ANL organized two national carnivals, attended by tens of thousands of young people of all racial backgrounds. Brown notes, “RAR and the ANL became inseparably intertwined.”

Key to building the ANL were the many small meetings and one-on-one conversations stressing the danger posed by the NF. Underlining that the NF and Nazism were one and the same helped to negatively brand NF candidates. From the RAR concerts and the many small meetings, a network of anti-fascists emerged ready to stand up to the NF when it appeared in the streets. As a result, these confrontations attracted more participants. Brown’s book is an excellent resource for understanding the dynamics of a mass movement built around one commitment: “They shall not pass.”

While the SWP as an initiating organization was often accused of using the ANL for its own purposes, it was the Labour Party that grew substantially during this period, even moreso than the SWP. In fact, as noted by one Labour Member of Parliament, “The ANL steering committee meeting in the House of Commons had twice as many Labour MPs on it as SWP members.” What’s important to understand is that the ANL was a broad, single focus united front organization that exposed and stood up to the NF before it could gain a solid foothold in British society. Which organization grew out of its participation was secondary to this historic undertaking.

The SWP’s initiative helped introduce a new generation to the dangers of Nazism. The effort helped shift politics to the left, which benefited the Labour Party in subsequent elections. The NF was pushed to the margins. Nevertheless, the conditions which gave the NF a platform continued to be fueled by the policies of both Labour and Conservatives and have produced another current period of racist activity and organizations targeting the least powerful on an international scale. This makes A People’s History of the Anti Nazi League a timely resource for those organizing to stop neo-Nazism.

As Brown concludes, “The crisis of the liberal centre is once again opening the door to the far right and fascists. …Yet not all is lost—far from it if we act decisively.” Toward that goal, his book offers a wealth of lessons—both positive and negative—to help guide a new anti-Nazi movement.

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.”

The post The Cultural Movement that Once Defeated Neo-Nazism appeared first on Tempest.

The short letter below was sent to Governor Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson this morning.

June 10, 2026

Honorable Josh Stein
Governor of North Carolina

Cc: Attorney General Jeff Jackson

Subject: World Court Requires Your Urgent Action vs Duke Energy as Wars Accelerate a Global Shift Away from Fossil Fuels

Dear Governor Stein,

As North Carolina communities brace for hurricane and heatwave season and scientists escalate their warnings that global warming is passing limits deemed critical for human survival, two major transitions now underway provide a vital opportunity for a genuine phase out of fossil fuels. Both require your personal action and would finally begin to shift North Carolina from being a key driver of climate change to joining those doing all possible to avert ecological and social chaos.

1)    The United Nations overwhelmingly supported a World Court decision stating that governments – including governors such as yourself – have a legal obligation to act in response to the climate crisis and, in Greenpeace International’s words, to “regulate businesses on the harm caused by their emissions.” Only the US and 7 other countries opposed the measure.

2)    Although the ongoing wars in the Middle East continue to cause horrific suffering, energy experts see ironic implications for the climate crisis. The prolonged disruption of oil and methane gas markets – which has accelerated since the Russia-Ukraine war began – is boosting “demand destruction,” a permanent shift to renewable energy sources that was already well-underway in many parts of the world – but not in North Carolina.

In other words, the world community is gradually becoming more clearly delineated between climate leaders and corporate laggards and their enablers. A clean energy transition is underway in many nations; globally, renewable power sources grew fast enough to meet all new electricity demand in 2025 without an increase in generation from fossil fuels.

Despite the encouraging progress in many countries, broader leadership is still gravely needed – and legally required, according to the UN’s World Court – to ensure that polluting corporations in rich countries don’t “wring every last drop of profit … even if it destroys the earth while denying their impending obsolescence,” as journalist Rebecca Solnit writes.

As you well know but have not acknowledged publicly, Duke Energy executives are planning the largest US expansion of gas-fired power generation, an enormous 12,300 megawatts. Scientists have for several years pressed you to lead a major change in Duke’s climate-wrecking trajectory: its gamble of public dollars on fossil fuels and failure-prone nuclear plants and suppression of solar and wind.

Duke Energy’s latest pause in developing large scale solar has been wrongly characterized as an “order” by the NC Utilities Commission. As you know, Duke has long dominated our state government and has traditionally gotten nearly everything it wants from the captive regulators.

Together, Duke Energy leaders and regulators continue to limit large-scale solar. Even worse, they continue to block the vast and virtually untapped potential for local solar-plus-storage (SPS) even though it could readily replace current and future fossil fueled electricity in the state; as NC WARN’s Sharing Solar proposal shows, rooftop/parking lot SPS would be the fastest, cheapest and most equitable way to replace coal and gas.

We urge you once again to use your enormous public voice to be honest with the people of our state: stop joining Duke Energy in claiming that NC has curbed greenhouse gas emissions. That gross deception hinges on ignoring the super-potent heat-trapping methane that is central to Duke Energy’s ongoing expansion of climate- and community-wrecking fossil fuels.

This is a golden opportunity for you to finally provide hope to those being buffeted by extreme weather events and soaring power bills – two sides of the same coin fueled by Duke Energy’s business model of building high-cost, high-risk power plants that are not needed.

Governor Stein, dozens of scientists, hundreds of businesses and nonprofits and leaders of communities being devastated by extreme weather have called for you to act. Now the UN World Court has required you to take action, and its order is enforceable in North Carolina.

Instead of continuing to escalate our criticism, NC WARN remains eager to join with you to help this state do our genuine duty to counter the escalating threat to all life on Earth.

Sincerely,

Jim Warren
Executive Director

The post Letter: World Court Requires Governor’s Urgent Action vs Duke Energy as Wars Accelerate a Global Shift Away from Fossil Fuels appeared first on NC WARN.

Last week, the National Audubon Society joined more than 50 wildlife, conservation, and sporting groups in sending a letter to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee urging...

A new investigation from ProPublica and Re:Public reveals that Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana was pushing to eliminate Forest Service airworthiness inspections for firefighting aircraft at the same time his former company, Bridger Aerospace, was failing one.

In April 2025, a Forest Service inspector found a crack in the wing of a Bridger scooper the company had presented as ready for fire season. That same month, a draft executive order eliminating the inspection program leaked from Sheehy’s Senate office. Metadata on the document showed it had been edited by one of Sheehy’s policy advisers and a lobbyist for Bridger. At the time, Sheehy held between $13 and $15 million in Bridger stock. The Forest Service has paid Bridger more than $235 million for scooper contracts since 2021.

The crack discovered by the inspection could have been catastrophic had it not been discovered. In fact, the Forest Service’s modern inspection program, which Sheehy proposed to eliminate, was built in response to two fatal tanker crashes in 2002 that were caused by similar undetected wing cracks. Current and former Forest Service officials told reporters that Bridger has resisted the agency’s inspections. A Sheehy spokesperson called the inspection program “a relic of a bygone era and an unnecessary barrier to asset availability.”

The draft executive order was also shaped by the United Aerial Firefighters Association, an industry group Sheehy helped found in 2022. When Sheehy moved his Bridger stock into blind trusts earlier this year, he entrusted them to executives at an energy infrastructure company formerly run by his brother, also a significant Bridger investor. Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told ProPublica that selecting a family member’s company “appears to do that exact thing that the rules mean to prohibit.”

Quick hits National park visitors rebuffed Burgum’s pitch to police history

E&E News | National Parks Traveler | Associated Press

Political reviews are causing a huge grant backlog at the National Park Service

NOTUS

Lawmakers inquire about Forest Service spraying roundup on public lands

Mother Jones

White House to tap California water expert for Bureau of Reclamation

E&E News | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Opinion: The US government is pillaging our national forests from within

The Hill

Proposed Trump rule targets ‘woke’ federal grants for public lands, health, science

KQED

Senators demand answers on Trump’s use of national park fees

Washington Post

The last working pay phone in Yellowstone National Park is dead

Cowboy State Daily

Quote of the day

This is a dangerous arena to get into, where the forever business of NASA, NOAA or NPS are all now on the whims of political appointees and the shifting political tides. This is not how things were intended to be done.”

—Jesse Chakrin, executive director of Fund for People in Parks, KQED

Picture This @interior

Interior be like “I know a spot,” and then take you somewhere that looks like another planet.

Moonscape Overlook in Utah sits high above a maze of colorful badlands, ridges, and winding desert terrain managed by @mypubliclands. It’s the kind of place that reminds you just how wild and vast America’s public lands really are.

We manage millions of acres of public lands across the country, including places that still feel completely untamed. Some are famous. Others are hidden at the end of dusty backroads somewhere out in the middle of the desert. Those are usually the spots worth remembering.

Photo by Susan Hartman

Featured photo: Scooper plane dumps water on wildfire, Washington DNR

The post Senator pushed to cut firefighting aircraft inspections as his company’s aircraft failed one appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Tribal and conservation groups today sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop a land trade that would hand 715 acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in south Texas to SpaceX. In exchange for these lands, SpaceX is giving 683 acres to the Service.

Under the law, any exchanges of wildlife refuge lands must result in net conservation benefits to both the individual refuge where land will be exchanged and the wildlife refuge system as a whole. The wildlife habitat that SpaceX has sought to take ownership of has been degraded by SpaceX’s expanding operations and failed rocket launches. In its decision last week, the Fish and Wildlife Service chose to give those lands to SpaceX in exchange for fewer acres of private lands, the majority of which will be added to a separate wildlife refuge.

This land deal resulting in the loss of more than 700 acres of a national wildlife refuge is one of the largest exchanges of land in the refuge system’s history outside the state of Alaska.

“Our protected public lands are being gifted for the benefit of the world’s richest man, who could trash them while playing with his exploding rockets,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge was built by decades of conservation work and funded by millions of taxpayer dollars to protect our vulnerable wildlife like ocelots and piping plovers. We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands just to give Elon Musk another payday.”

Today’s lawsuit alleges that the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 by taking action that will permanently reduce and degrade the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. In approving the transfer, the Service also violated the National Historic Preservation Act by giving away hundreds of acres of a National Historic Landmark. The transfer approval also violated the National Environmental Policy Act.

Congress created this wildlife refuge in 1979 to protect its diverse wildlife, including rare species like ocelots, aplomado falcons, and migratory birds such as piping plovers, red knots, green jays and Altamira orioles. The refuge protects some of the best remaining habitat in the United States for the endangered ocelot.

In 2014 SpaceX chose the nearby Boca Chica area as the location of a rocket launch site and a test site, and it has rapidly expanded its operations and activities in the area. This included numerous rocket launches, some of which have resulted in catastrophic explosions that have propelled debris for miles onto refuge lands, including concrete and metal.

“Elon Musk has built his explosive SpaceX facility in the middle of a major wildlife corridor home to endangered and threatened species like ocelots and wetlands. There was never supposed to be space rockets blowing up here,” said Bekah Hinojosa, a Brownsville native, and co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. “Our community opposes these latest hostile land grabs by SpaceX of our wildlife habitat and Boca Chica beach. This habitat land is meant to be preserved for future generations, not for billionaires to find later and destroy.”

In the years following SpaceX’s arrival, it has vastly expanded its operations around the wildlife refuge, increasing manufacturing facilities and adding a second launch pad. In 2025 the Federal Aviation Administration authorized SpaceX to conduct 25 Starship launches per year — a fivefold increase from the previous limit. Launch failures have triggered explosions and wildfires on refuge lands and scattered chunks of concrete and metal more than 6 miles from the launch pad.

Post-explosion surveys have revealed environmental damage to nearby lands on the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. A 2024 study found that after one launch every single monitored shorebird nest near the launch site suffered egg damage or loss. Instead of taking any enforcement actions or working with SpaceX to reduce or eliminate its harm to the refuge, the Service accepted the damage to the lands and now points to the supposed lowered conservation value as justification for the land exchange.

The refuge lands being transferred to SpaceX also include significant portions of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark, which is the site of the final battle of the Civil War. Even though the site is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and protected as a historic landmark, these historic lands would be privatized and SpaceX could choose not to preserve their historic values or limit public access to the battlefield.

“The refuge is a national public treasure with immense ecological and cultural value. The tract being swapped to SpaceX, whose arrival here has been an unmitigated disaster, will permanently sever the very heart of the wildlife corridor established by Congress in 1979,” said Mary Angela Branch, board member at Save RGV. “This corridor, running along the Rio Grande River, is prime wildlife habitat, and nothing gained in this ‘swap’ will be equal. This will be a huge loss. The federal government should protect our public land for future generations, not turn them into hellscapes for soon-to-be trillionaire corporate interests.”

The proposed land exchange was first made public in March 2026, but records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show internal agency planning began as early as April 2025. In those discussions with the regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Service developed “the most expedited schedule possible” for completing a transfer and recommended hiring additional staff to meet what they described as an “optimum timeframe.” This request came when Musk was leading his Department of Government Efficiency and publicly threatened to fire federal workers who failed to justify their jobs to him.

“SpaceX has been a nightmare of a neighbor to the Lower Rio Grande Valley wildlife refuge for years, callously harming wildlife that call these special places home,” said Jordahl. “It’s shameful and insulting that this sweetheart deal has been rammed through just to placate another billionaire in Trump’s orbit. We’ll fight this outrageous sell-out of our public lands with everything we’ve got.”

“This refuge is sacred to me and to the Carrizo/Comecrudo People,” said Juan Mancias, member of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas. “Our ancestors have lived with this land, these waters, and these migration pathways since time immemorial. We are not separate from this place — we are of this continent, and our connection to it cannot be bought, exchanged, or erased. The transfer of these sacred lands to SpaceX continues a long history of colonial dispossession and tribal erasure. We have survived centuries of colonial genocide, and we will continue to resist every attempt to erase our existence, our culture, and our responsibilities to the land. We are still here, and we will continue this fight for as many years and generations as it takes.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc, and South Texas Environmental Justice Network.

Plaintiffs are represented by Center for Biological Diversity attorneys Marc Fink, Brandon Jones-Cobb and Ivan Ditmars.

On Wednesday, Demand Progress launched AI Money Watch, a new website that tracks campaign spending from Leading the Future, an AI Super PAC bankrolled by co-founders from OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz. AI Money Watch launches as President Donald Trump, his Big Tech allies and congressional leaders are once again trying to push legislation that would ban states and localities from enforcing laws that regulate AI.

• Visit AI Money Watch

Leading the Future is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars on elections to kill regulatory safeguards for AI. They are doing this by spending money to support anti-AI safeguard candidates and attacking pro-AI safeguard candidates. AI Money Watch uses public FEC filings to show how much Leading the Future is spending on elections across the nation and lets Americans spread the word on X and Instagram. The website also flags which candidates have been endorsed by Leading the Future.

“AI Money Watch cuts through the dark money blizzard and shows you how some of the biggest names in AI are trying to buy politicians who will kill AI safeguards and attack anyone who dares to fight back,” said Demand Progress Action AI Policy Advisor Colin McGlynn. “AI chatbots have been accused of flirting with children, discouraging people in distress from seeking help and even offering instructions on how to plan a mass shooting—and billionaire AI CEOs are doling out millions to kill any safeguards that would stop this. With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop and how much they are spending.”

Katherine Matos Meza

Ask 2,000 Canadians what they think about geothermal energy, and most will answer with a shrug.  

That shrug is loaded with meaning to Katherine Matos Meza, a Cascade Institute researcher studying public perceptions of geothermal.  

When she and Carlos Gorraez Meraz, a collaborator at Royal Roads University, recently asked 2,603 people in western Canada to share their impressions of the clean-energy option, the predominant response was a vague, fuzzy familiarity.  

That’s both good news and bad news, according to the new report they co-authored, Deep Listening: Assessing the social acceptance of geothermal energy in Alberta and British Columbia. 

“Public perceptions around geothermal are still forming,” says Matos Meza. “That’s a great opportunity to engage people, to educate them, to help them understand the important role geothermal energy could play in ensuring clean, secure, and affordable electricity for Canadians.” 

Recent advances have made geothermal energy — clean, inexhaustible power extracted from hot rock kilometres below the surface — a powerful addition to the mix of technologies like wind and solar.  

But of all the energy sources Matos Meza asked about in a survey of Albertans and British Columbians last year, geothermal had the lowest familiarity. Acceptance is moderate and opinions are soft. People have not yet decided what to make of geothermal because, in general, they’ve barely heard of it.  

For Matos Meza, that gap in understanding is simultaneously a big opportunity and a flashing red warning.  

“Right now, they’re subject to misinformation, or to other actors who might give them negative insights.” 

Matos Meza contributes research to all of Cascade’s programs — geothermal, polycrisis, democracy — thanks to her background in stakeholder mapping, survey design, and environmental impact assessment. She has worked in both the public and private sectors, and holds a master’s degree in Environment and Management from Royal Roads University. She also built the data behind the Polycrisis Community Map, which links researchers working on the world’s interlocking crises.  Her study of public acceptance of geothermal is aimed at helping entrepreneurs, policymakers, and communities realize the environmental, financial, and social benefits of the technology.  

Matos Meza says the key finding of her research is that there’s still time to positively shape public perceptions of geothermal, whereas perceptions of other energy forms are tougher to budge.  

Carlo Gorraez Meraz of Royal Roads University.

A second part of the research, currently ongoing, includes qualitative analysis of the survey’s open-ended question about perceived risk. Open-ended questions like these are about more than tallying yes and no answers, says Matos Meza. 

“From there we can identify information gaps, emotional threats, technical concerns, structural distrust. And we can do it at an early stage, before concerns harden into positions.” 

This is where Matos Meza’s work plugs into Cascade’s overarching mission. The Institute sees geothermal energy as a “high-leverage intervention” to address the polycrisis — a single push that can simultaneously address climate heating, energy insecurity, and economic inequalities.    

Matos Meza understands that technological transitions are also social ones. Without social acceptance, the advancement of this promising but underdeveloped clean energy resource could stall. With strong social acceptance, geothermal can be part of the positive snowball effect the Cascade Institute calls a virtuous cascade.  

“Perceptions are evolving fast,” she says. “The sooner people are introduced to the benefits of geothermal energy, the better.” 

That’s why she believes we need to investigate social acceptance now, while the ground for growing public perceptions is still fertile: “My goal is to understand the forces shaping social acceptance of geothermal well enough that we can actually address them through effective and transparent communication.” 

The post Researchers use “deep listening” to gauge geothermal sentiments appeared first on Cascade Institute.

Registered nurses at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nev., will hold an informational picket on Thursday, June 11, to protest the hospital administration’s anti-union tactics and refusal to bargain a fair contract.

The public utility will use $5 million in state funding and partner with community groups to boost participation among lower-income customers, it said last week.