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After more than a decade of litigation, SAFE and fellow plaintiffs will return to Madison County Circuit Court on December 7. We’re asking our supporters to stand with us.

9/24/2026

For more than a decade, Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing Our Environment (SAFE) has challenged the process by which Illinois adopted regulations governing high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

That fight is still going.

On Monday, December 7, 2026, at 9:00 a.m., attorney, Pat Handlin and Vito Mastrangelo, representing SAFE and the other plaintiffs are scheduled to appear before Judge Foster at the Madison County Courthouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, for hearings on two motions seeking dismissal of our complaint.

This is an important moment in a case that stretches all the way back to 2014—and we would like our supporters, allies, and friends to be there.

IDNR Fracking Hearing in Chicago. How Did We Get Here?

Illinois enacted the Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act in 2013. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) was then responsible for developing the administrative rules that would govern high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the state.

Thousands of Illinois residents participated in that rulemaking process. According to the current complaint, IDNR received approximately 38,000 public comments totaling more than 43,000 pages before the rules were finalized.

SAFE was part of that public process. Our organization had already been educating Southern Illinois residents about fracking, the proposed law, and the regulations being developed under it. SAFE’s role in public education concerning the Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act and IDNR’s regulations is described in the current complaint.

But SAFE and other participants believed there were serious problems with the way the rulemaking process had been conducted.

Among other things, the plaintiffs allege that IDNR failed to follow mandatory procedures established by Illinois law and that those failures deprived Illinois citizens of their right to participate fully in the development of the regulations.

One example involves something fundamental to public participation: notice of public hearings.

The current complaint states that five public hearings were held during the rulemaking process—in Chicago, Ina, Effingham, Decatur and Carbondale. The plaintiffs allege that none received the 20 days of notice they contend was required under the applicable administrative rule. According to the complaint, Chicago received 11 days’ notice, Ina 18 days, Decatur 11 days, Carbondale 13 days, and the rescheduled Effingham hearing received no notice in the Illinois Register.

The plaintiffs contend that these and other problems impaired the public’s ability to review, understand and respond meaningfully to the proposed rules.

For SAFE, public participation in decisions that can affect our land, water and communities is not a technicality. It matters.

Reid, helping with the demonstration outside the Representative Bradley’s office in Marion, IL A Right Written Into the Illinois Constitution

There is another principle underlying SAFE’s long involvement in this fight.

Article XI of the Illinois Constitution is devoted specifically to the environment. Section 1 declares it the public policy of Illinois to “provide and maintain a healthful environment for the benefit of this and future generations.” Section 2 goes further:

“Each person has the right to a healthful environment.”

The Constitution also provides that people may enforce that right against governmental or private parties through appropriate legal proceedings, subject to reasonable limitations established by law.

That constitutional commitment has particular meaning to an organization like SAFE.

We believe decisions involving activities with the potential to affect our water, air, land and communities deserve rigorous scrutiny, sound science and meaningful public participation.

Those principles helped motivate people to become involved when Illinois was developing its fracking regulations. They continue to matter today.

INDR hearing at Rend Lake. SAFE Went to Court in 2014

On November 10, 2014, SAFE and individual plaintiffs filed the original lawsuit challenging the rulemaking process.

Four days later, on November 14, IDNR filed the high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing rules with the Illinois Secretary of State, at which point the rules became effective.

The lawsuit has continued, in various forms, ever since.

Today the plaintiffs include SAFE and seven individuals: Marie Smith, Mark Donham, Vito Mastrangelo, Sam Stearns, Tabitha Tripp, Nathan Czuba and Annette McMichael.

Many of those individual plaintiffs are Southern Illinois landowners or mineral-rights owners.

For the people who have carried this case forward, the stakes are personal. This is about protecting the land, water and communities we call home—and ensuring that ordinary citizens have a meaningful voice when government decisions may affect their environment.

It’s about the places where people live.

Video from IDNR Effingham Hearings:

More Than a Decade Later, the World Has Changed

There is something else worth remembering as this case returns to court.

Illinois’s fracking regulations were written more than a decade ago.

Since then, scientific knowledge about oil and gas development, induced seismicity and climate change has continued to grow.

The relationship between oil and gas operations and induced seismicity—earthquakes triggered by human activity—is now well established. The U.S. Geological Survey says hydraulic fracturing itself can induce earthquakes and has been linked to larger earthquakes, although wastewater disposal associated with oil and gas production is responsible for most induced earthquakes in the central United States.

That distinction is important. So is the larger lesson: activities involving the injection of fluids underground can, under certain geological conditions, cause faults to slip and produce earthquakes.

At the same time, the realities of a changing climate have become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Here in Illinois, we have witnessed extraordinary severe weather. The Illinois State Climatologist reports that as of July 1, 2026, Illinois had already recorded 173 tornadoes, breaking the previous full-year state record of 142 set in 2024. At that point, Illinois had recorded twice as many tornadoes as the next-most-active state in the nation. Illinois has now experienced more than 100 tornadoes in four consecutive years; before 2023, that threshold had been crossed only four times since 1950.

Tornado activity is influenced by many factors, and those statistics alone do not establish that climate change caused Illinois’s recent tornado outbreaks.

But the broader climate question cannot be ignored when considering the future of fossil-fuel development.

The environmental and scientific context in which we are having this conversation today is not the same as it was when Illinois’s fracking rules were adopted in 2014.

For SAFE, that makes the principles underlying this fight no less relevant—and perhaps more important.

How carefully should government act when making decisions that can affect the environment?

What opportunity should the public have to participate in those decisions?

And what does Illinois’s constitutional promise of a healthful environment mean in practice?

Those are questions worth asking even after twelve years.

Kosie, 7 at the time of this photo, is all grown up- and she is still advocating for the environment.
What Is SAFE Asking the Court to Do?

The Fourth Amended Complaint seeks declaratory judgment and permanent injunctive relief.

For example, under one of the remaining claims, the plaintiffs ask the court to find that IDNR failed to comply with required rulemaking procedures and that plaintiffs’ rights to participate fully in the rulemaking process were violated. They ask the court to declare the HFRA rulemaking invalid, prohibit IDNR from implementing or using those rules, and direct the defendants to publish notice that the rulemaking has been invalidated. The complaint also seeks reasonable litigation expenses, including attorney fees as provided by Illinois law.

In other words, this case is not simply an argument over whether someone is “for” or “against” fracking.

It raises a fundamental question about government accountability:

When an Illinois agency creates rules governing an activity with potentially significant consequences for communities, landowners and the environment, must the agency follow the public rulemaking procedures required by law?

SAFE and the other plaintiffs believe that question matters—not only for fracking, but for meaningful public participation in government decision-making.

When SAFE, IPA and allies joined our sit-in in front of Governor’s office. Now We’re Going Back to Court

At the most recent case management conference, the court rescheduled hearings on two motions seeking dismissal of the plaintiffs’ complaint.

Those hearings are now scheduled for:

Monday, December 7, 2026
9:00 a.m.
Madison County Courthouse
Edwardsville, Illinois

The attorneys are expected to appear in person.

We are also checking on whether a Zoom option will be available for members of the public who cannot attend in person. We will update this page as soon as we know more.

The public is welcome to attend the hearing.

And SAFE would very much like to see supporters there.

Stand With SAFE on December 7

Court cases can feel distant from everyday life. They take years. They involve motions, briefs, hearings and procedural questions that rarely make headlines.

But behind all of that paperwork are people.

For more than a decade, individual plaintiffs, attorneys, SAFE volunteers and supporters have continued showing up because we believe Southern Illinois’ land, water and communities are worth protecting—and because the public deserves a meaningful voice in decisions that affect them.

On December 7, we’re asking you to show up with us.

You do not have to be a plaintiff. You do not have to be a lawyer. You don’t have to understand every count in a 66-page complaint.

You can simply be there.

A strong public presence in the courtroom is one way to demonstrate that, after all these years, people are still paying attention.

If you would like to attend but need assistance getting to Edwardsville, please contact SAFE at info@dontfractureillinois.org. We don’t want transportation or distance to prevent someone who wants to stand with us from participating.

We will share additional information about the hearing, transportation coordination and possible remote access as it becomes available. Sign up here to get on the email list.

Demonstration in front of Bradley’s office. Help SAFE Keep Going

There is another way you can help.

Please consider making a donation to SAFE.

SAFE is a small, grassroots organization. We don’t have a separate legal fund or a large institutional budget behind this work. Donations go to SAFE’s general operating account and support the organization and the work necessary to continue our mission—including public education, outreach, organizing and our continuing efforts to protect Southern Illinois from the impacts of fracking and oil and gas development.

Long-running work like this requires more than attorneys appearing in a courtroom. It requires communicating with the public, maintaining records and research, reaching supporters, keeping people informed, organizing participation and making sure that Southern Illinois voices continue to be heard.

A contribution of any size helps SAFE continue that work.

DONATE TO SAFE

At the final IDNR hearing, we packed the SIU-C ballroom with standing room only and celebrated our 38,000 comments submitted in opposition.

More Than a Decade—and We’re Still Here

When this lawsuit was first filed in November 2014, no one could have known that we would still be talking about it more than a decade later.

But some fights take time.

SAFE has spent years educating the public about fracking and oil and gas development, advocating for Southern Illinois communities, and insisting that the people who live here deserve a meaningful voice in decisions affecting their homes, property, water and environment.

On December 7, another chapter of that work will unfold in a Madison County courtroom.

We hope you’ll stand with us.

Attend the hearing. Share this story. Support SAFE. Donate if you can. And help us remind Illinois that Southern Illinois is still paying attention.

Interested in attending the hearing, please contact us at info@dontfractureillinois.org

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The decision in a suit brought by Harris County, Texas, follows a similar ruling last week. A Harris County judge called it “a really important victory for energy resilience.”

I am not a climate scientist, and I want to say that plainly. What follows is the account of a metabolism researcher who kept finding something she wasn’t looking for, until the pattern became too consistent to file under coincidence.

My colleagues and I run randomized clinical trials to answer a narrow question: What happens to a person’s health when they change how they eat? We recruit volunteers, assign diets, and measure what clinicians care about — insulin sensitivity, weight, cholesterol, blood sugar. The work is aimed at the body, not the atmosphere. The atmosphere intruded almost by accident. We had run a trial in adults with type 1 diabetes, the autoimmune form no diet can cure. Half our participants adopted a low-fat diet built around vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and legumes; the rest ate a conventional diet with meat and dairy. The clinical results were what we’d hoped: better insulin sensitivity, less insulin needed.

Image by Joanna Wielgosz from Pixabay

But we also had detailed food records from 12 weeks of real eating, so someone on the team asked a question that had nothing to do with medicine: What was the environmental footprint of all that food?

When we looked into it, we found that the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in participants’ diets had fallen by more than half. The energy required to produce that food dropped nearly as much. Nobody had set out to produce that effect — these were people managing a brutal, lifelong disease. The climate benefit came along for the ride. I might have filed that under coincidence. Then it happened again, in a larger trial of 244 overweight adults randomized to a low-fat vegan diet or no change, followed for 16 weeks. Once more the emissions embedded in participants’ food fell by about half, driven mostly by less meat, with dairy and eggs close behind — roughly what you’d save each day by leaving a gasoline car parked instead of driving it four miles. The third time, we sharpened the comparison, still for health reasons: a low-fat vegan diet against the Mediterranean diet, the pattern nutritionists and environmentalists alike celebrate as the responsible choice for both body and planet. If anything was going to match the vegan diet’s footprint, surely it was this one. It didn’t. The Mediterranean diet cut diet-related emissions by about 20%, a real improvement, its green reputation earned. The

vegan diet cut them by 57% and slashed the energy demand of the food system by 55%. The Mediterranean diet barely moved food-related energy demand at all; its signature olive oil even nudged the footprint upward. The gap wasn’t the vegetables — both diets had those. It was the animal foods that persisted in one diet and vanished from the other.

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Three trials, three populations, three designs, each run for a medical reason that had nothing to do with climate. The same finding surfaced every time.

Here’s why I think this matters past nutrition. Almost everything we ask of people for the climate is a sacrifice: a cost paid now, by you, for a benefit collected later, by someone else, somewhere else. Insulate the house. Pay the carbon tax. Trust a ledger you’ll never personally see balance. Economists call this intertemporal discounting — weighing a certain cost today far more heavily than an uncertain, diffuse benefit decades out. Climate communicators have spent decades trying to talk people out of that instinct through duty, fear, or guilt, and global emissions keep rising anyway.

My trials kept showing me that food is one of the rare places where the ledger balances immediately, in the same body, in the same season. The changes that lowered participants’ carbon footprint also lowered their insulin needs, their weight, and their cardiovascular risk. There was no gap between actor and beneficiary to bridge. The benefit to the planet and the benefit to the body weren’t competing for the same scarce willpower — they were the same act, seen from two angles, landing on the same afternoon.

That convergence is rarer than it sounds, and our institutions are poorly built to notice it. Climate policy has organized itself, sensibly, around problems with a genuine collective-action structure — emissions trading, grid decarbonization, treaties — built for diffuse, delayed, free-rider-prone harms. That architecture is necessary; energy and transportation remain the largest levers, and no dietary shift substitutes for decarbonizing them.

But that toolkit is poorly suited to an intervention whose discount rate is close to zero, because the payoff shows up in a person’s own bloodwork within weeks. Food systems account for roughly a third of global emissions, on par with energy, yet they’re still treated as a footnote about cattle methane rather than a demand-side lever with an unusually favorable incentive structure. Health systems have been just as slow: Dietary counseling remains a peripheral, underfunded sliver of chronic-disease care, even though a doctor’s conversation about insulin resistance is, in effect, also a conversation about emissions.

Image by PIRO 4D from Pixabay

I want to be careful here, because overreach is how researchers lose people’s trust. These were secondary analyses, not the trials’ purpose, built on self-reported food records over weeks, not years, from volunteers rather than a random slice of humanity. No single study, nor all three together, can carry the weight of the global climate problem.

What they can do is point to a category of climate intervention our institutions aren’t built to reward: one where the beneficiary isn’t a future stranger but the person making the choice, this week, at their own table.

I still think of myself as a metabolism researcher. I arrived at this subject not through conviction, but by running the same kind of study three times and watching the same shadow fall across the results each time. That’s the pattern a scientist learns to trust most — not the striking one-off, which might be chance, but the finding that refuses to go away no matter how many times you look. This one has refused to go away.

Conflict of interest: The author directs clinical research at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit that advocates for plant-based nutrition, and led the trials cited in this piece.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Dangerous Drinking: Is Bottled Water Really Safer Than Tap Water?

The post Climate Policy Has a Sacrifice Problem. My Clinical Trials Kept Solving It by Accident. appeared first on The Revelator.

The decision affects a 750-MW, mixed technology project in Virginia, which Oklo said would be delayed by at least 18 months if it misses the current interconnection cycle.

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Antarctic sea ice has recorded its third-smallest winter peak extent since satellite records began 48 years ago, new data reveals.

Provisional data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that Antarctic sea ice hit its annual winter peak on 14 September, with an extent of 17.59m square kilometres (km2).

The organisation notes that the data is still preliminary, adding that “large fluctuations in extent are typical of Antarctic sea ice near the seasonal maximum”.

One expert tells Carbon Brief that it is “concerning to see these low values persisting”, but says that scientists need more time to determine whether this represents a “structural shift” in Antarctic sea ice extent.

Meanwhile, at the Earth’s other pole, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on 12 September, ranking as the joint-10th lowest in the satellite record.

The NSIDC notes that the last 20 years have seen the lowest 20 Arctic sea ice extents in the satellite record.

Antarctic peak

Dr Lettie Roach, a polar climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, tells Carbon Brief that this year’s Antarctic sea ice maximum was “well below average for the season”. She warns that, “after several decades of stable or increasing winter Antarctic sea ice conditions, it is concerning to see these low values persisting”.

She adds:

“Compared with the Arctic, it’s less clear how recent changes in Antarctic sea ice are attributable to human-caused warming vs natural variability. We need more years of observations to better understand whether this is truly a structural shift.”

Dr Clare Eayrs, a postdoctoral researcher at the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), tells Carbon Brief that, since recording a “near-average February minimum” extent, Antarctic sea ice has “returned to unusually low winter coverage”.

She notes that Antarctic sea ice extent in July and August this year were the fifth and fourth lowest on record, respectively, adding that “all five of the lowest July extents have occurred since 2022 and all four of the lowest August extents since 2023”.

The chart below shows Antarctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2023 (mid blue), the year of the smallest winter sea-ice maximum on record.

Daily Arctic sea ice extent for 2026 and 2025, with decadal averages for comparison, based on data from the NSIDC. Chart by Carbon Brief.

Eayrs tells Carbon Brief that the regional pattern of Antarctic sea ice cover “changed substantially during the growth season”.

For example, she says that “in April, the Bellingshausen Sea remained almost entirely ice-free, while the neighbouring Amundsen Sea had more ice than usual”.

However, by late August, changes in atmospheric pressure and wind meant that “the Bellingshausen deficit had largely recovered, while ice was unusually scarce in the Amundsen Sea and across much of East Antarctica”. 

Map showing the main regions of the Antarctic. Credit: Carbon Brief
Arctic minimum

Meanwhile, the Arctic recorded its minimum summer sea ice extent on 12 September. At 4.60m km2, this year ties with 2025, 2010 and 2008 as the 10th-lowest sea ice extent on record.

The chart below shows Arctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2012 (mid blue), the year of the smallest summer sea-ice minimum on record.

Daily Antarctic sea ice extent for 2026 and 2025, with decadal averages for comparison, based on data from the NSIDC. Chart by Carbon Brief.

Roach tells Carbon Brief that although this minimum is not “record setting”, it is still “lower than any sea ice minimum before 2007”. She adds:

“Human-caused climate change has reduced Arctic sea ice cover and thickness, so the region is fundamentally different compared to a few decades ago.”

Scientists have been tracking Arctic sea ice thickness using a reanalysis produced called the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) since 1979.

In March 2026, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) terminated a global dataset of air pressure that scientists relied upon to produce PIOMAS, forcing both datasets to stop publishing updates.

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The PIOMAS website says it will take “considerable effort and time” to find alternative data to use in their reanalysis. It adds that “we don’t yet have a good sense if that’s possible with available funds and if so, when we will be able to resume production of a new PIOMAS timeseries”.

Roach also notes that August saw record-breaking heat sweep across much of the world, explaining that high temperatures “extended into Arctic coastal regions, close to regions with substantial sea ice loss – particularly the Barents-Kara and East Siberian seas”.

Dr Zack Labe, a scientist at Climate Central, tells Carbon Brief that the absence of a new record does not mean that ice cover is becoming more “resilient”. He says:

“Local weather patterns across the Arctic play a really important role in year-to-year sea-ice extent, even as the long-term trend is clearly downward.”

Labe tells Carbon Brief that weather in the Arctic this summer was “influenced mainly by lower pressure toward the central Arctic, which brought cloudier and cooler conditions that limited surface melt and delayed the start of the melt season”.

He explains that this “was most obvious across parts of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, where the melt season didn’t really kick off until after early July, which was more than two weeks later than normal”. 

In contrast, he says, the Atlantic side of the Arctic “had a much more extreme summer”, with sea ice in the Barents Sea recording its “earliest melt-out on record”.

This was partly due to “unusually warm air and ocean temperatures”, Labe says. He notes, for example, that parts of western Siberia saw unusually persistent temperatures more than 5C above the 1981-2010 average for much of the summer, which extended out over the Kara Sea and contributed to substantial ice melt in this area”.

Map showing main regions of the Arctic. Credit: Carbon Brief

Labe tells Carbon Brief that, going forward, scientists need “more data and observations of other sea-ice metrics, like ice thickness, which may give us better insight into the overall condition of the ice pack, especially during years like 2026 when it is very fragmented”.

(In March 2026, Arctic sea ice reached its peak extent for this winter, clocking in as the joint-smallest in a satellite record going back almost half a century.)

Related Guest post: Climate change has caused one-fifth of Pine Island glacier retreat 29.06.2026 Antarctica ‘Very alarming’ winter sees Arctic sea ice hit record-low for second year running 27.03.2026 Ice Q&A: How Trump is threatening climate science in Earth’s polar regions 20.02.2026 Antarctica Limiting warming to 2C is ‘crucial’ to protect pristine Antarctic Peninsula 20.02.2026 Antarctica

The post ‘Concerning’ low sea ice persists as Antarctic hits third-lowest winter peak appeared first on Carbon Brief.

What would taking a week off of driving cost you — and how much would you gain if your city made living car-free a realistic choice?

Ahead of next week’s Week Without Driving event, check out the latest from Bike Bike Nudge Nudge, where he calculates all the places he can’t go, activities he can’t participate in, wasted time he can’t get back, and rides he has to beg his wife to give him … all because his city is primarily planned around the automobile.

Mark your calendars for October 1 through 8 to take the Week Without Driving challenge yourself — or better yet, tell your elected officials who have never gone a day without getting behind the wheel to do it with you.

Watch this video on YouTube here.

As the Arctic warms and tundra thaws, minerals long trapped in frozen soil are leaching into rivers, turning them orange and acidic. A study from northern Alaska found “rusting” waters to be more metallic and acidic than drainage from metal mines.

Read more on E360 →

Sit down to a plate of freezer-burned broccoli and beef, and the experience of chewing this mummified cardboard will remind you of a basic truth: unless you store your food in liquid nitrogen, it slowly deteriorates—even in the freezer. But a new study suggests that warming up our freezers by several degrees could cut millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions—without compromising the safety or quality of our food.

The idea of dialing down our freezers has been percolating for yeas now. A 2024 report estimated that if the worldwide standard food-freezing temperature was dialed back just three degrees, from -18°C to -15°C, the reduced energy consumption would avoid 17 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions per year. 

The new study, published in NPJ Science of Food, addresses the next logical question: whether freezing at warmer temperatures would negatively impact the quality or shelf-life of food.

The authors subjected nine frozen foods, including crispy chicken, fish fingers, salmon fillets, vegetables, pizza, and plant-based meat balls, to 18 months of freezing at temperatures of -18°C, -15°C, -12°C, and -9°C. Every month, samples of each food at each temperature were thawed and evaluated on several measures of quality, including bacterial abundance, nutrient content (vitamin C), fat degradation or rancidness, and attributes affecting palatability, including appearance, aroma, taste, and texture.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Upgrading cold storage comes with global climate benefits—and nuanced local tradeoffs

 

Compared to -18°C, none of the higher temperatures caused significant increases in bacterial abundance—considered an indicator of food spoilage. Meanwhile, for measurements of palatability, fat degradation, and vitamin C contents, the quality did gradually decline over time in at least some of the foods; and these declines were incrementally more rapid at warmer temperatures.

But overall, for most of the products stored at -15°C, all quality measures remained within acceptable limits until after the “use-by” date—which varies from product to product, but is generally less than 18 months.

The authors concluded that raising the standard food-freezing temperature from -18°C to -15°C was feasible, and would reduce the direct energy requirements for cooling by roughly 7 percent.

These savings may seem small on a global scale, but for nations without extensive electric grids, they could be pivotal–reducing the demands on local energy sources, such as generators, solar, and wind turbines. Combined with nascent technologies for more energy-efficient cooling systems, it could allow the global food cold chain to reach into new areas.

This could reduce food waste in local communities, where the food supply is already stretched. It could also improve the incomes of poor farmers, by allowing their crops to reach boarder, more distant markets without spoiling.

Serena, et al. “Increasing storage temperature of frozen foods: effect on sustainability and food quality.” NPJ Science of Food. 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Headline News:

• “Germany To Abandon Fossil Fuels By 2045” • Germany has unveiled a plan to end its fossil fuel reliance by 2045. It is the third in Europe to publish a plan. France was the first, though the plan’s end date is 2050, and the Netherlands has a plan. Other countries are being slow to detail their paths forward, though they had promised to do so. [Euronews]

Wind turbines in Germany (Barbara Horn, Unspash)

• “Rising Seas Are Sinking Futures: The UN Adopts Declaration On Seal Level Rise” • The UN Declaration on Sea Level Rise was adopted by consensus on as the UN chief warned that rising sea waters are already threatening the future of coastal communities worldwide. Without drastic emissions cuts, seas could rise by a meter by the end of the century. [UN News]
• “Envision Unveils 8-MW Unit For Europe” • Envision Energy has introduced a new onshore wind turbine for the European market. It is an 8-MW onshore wind turbine with a 175-meter rotor. The company said the turbine, introduced at WindEnergy Hamburg, is designed for sites with medium wind speeds and complex operating environments. [reNews]
• “Solar Farms Could Cut Dust Pollution” • Large arrays of solar panels can slow winds close to the ground and help stabilize the soil, reducing amounts of dust in the atmosphere. Modeling done at Nanjing University suggests that expanding solar farms in line with China’s 2060 carbon target could reduce airborne particles in northern China by almost 14%. [Phys.org]
• “LA Metro Secures 220 Battery-Electric Transit Buses” • LA Metro approved the purchase of 220 battery-electric buses in a major step towards Metro accelerating implementation of its zero-emission commitment to 100% electric buses. The 220-bus purchase will more than double the number of electric buses in Metro’s fleet. [CleanTechnica]

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

A unique gathering of Indigenous people impacted by conservation has demanded that “our ancestral lands, including those grabbed for parks and wildlife sanctuaries, be returned.”

This Saturday, September 26, 2026, community members are gathering to mourn and protest the killing of Kaleym Davy, a Black 19 year-old who was shot...

The post Justice for Kaleym: Saturday rally demands answers for teen killed by police first appeared on Spring.

Freefalling agricultural yields, severe health problems due to rampant pollution, and livelihoods that have to be built anew: these are the daily realities of residents in India’s automotive manufacturing hub of Pune, where producers have for years disregarded environmental safeguards. And despite regulations mandating supply chain due diligence, components made in the region still make their way into the vehicles of Europe’s biggest carmakers. A Follow the Money investigation.

For 30-year-old Nilesh Mandikar, living in toxicity has become the norm. Sitting in his two-room home near Pune city, a three-hour drive from India’s Mumbai, he gestures at a sewage pipe discharging into an open plot some six metres away.  

“I had to stop cultivating fruits, grains, [seeds], and vegetables,” he says. “The soil at my plot degraded because of water pollution.” 

A foul smell lingers in the air; litres of green-white, foamy wastewater slurp from a big underground pipe into the open agricultural plot.  

Mandikar lives in Ambethan, an area part of a buzzing hub of multiple factories that are polluting the area. They produce components for cars that, an investigation by FTM shows, are then sent to Europe, where automakers – including Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and Renault, amongst others – assemble them into their vehicles.   

While Europe is racing for a cleaner environment and is increasingly betting on electric vehicles, its car production has severe consequences in India, the investigation reveals. Having analysed data points on global trade data platform Panjiva, FTM identified more than 1,000 export shipments from three factories in Pune to Europe between April 2020 and February 2025. 

The shipments included, for example, electrical connectors, metal bars, or rots for the gearbox – key components for both electric vehicles and combustion engine cars.  

For Mandikar, the pollution had life-changing consequences. With failed harvests having become more regular, Mandikar has stopped farming over the past few years. He now works as a driver, earning some 280 euros a month. And he’s not the only one: almost 90 per cent of the farmers in the village have stopped farming due to similar reasons. 

This, like days when hundreds of dead fish floated dead in a river in the region, has sparked protests across the region, with hundreds of people gathering in front of the local municipalities multiple times a year – but with limited effect. Factories seem to keep flouting environmental rules.  

“Manufacturing companies and public administrations on both sides of the chain must fulfil their obligation to enforce environmental and labour regulations,” said Claudia Bosch, head of the Fair Electronics campaign, which advocates for ethical supply chains. “A change of model is needed, one that guarantees environmental protections and, consequently, the protection of affected local communities throughout the value chain, whether for electric or combustion vehicles.” 

Toxic waters  

Dubbed the “motor city”, Chakan city is the country’s largest automobile and manufacturing hub in the sprawling metropolitan region of Pune. It is home to some 40,000 inhabitants and over 750 factories. The world’s biggest car brands, like Mercedes and Volkswagen, have their own factories there. Even more carmakers source their components from subsidiary factories.  

Residents in Ambethan, the village in Chakan where Mandikar lives, see few benefits. They attribute much of the visible pollution – think water, air, soil, crops – to factories around them.  

“Continuous noise and air pollution from factories cause constant health issues,” Mandikar said, adding that these ranged from headaches and skin allergies to waterborne diseases. 

Balasaheb Padwal, another resident, echoed the assessment. 

“Sites of industrial waste being burnt [in the open] or heaps of plastic of polluted and colourful, smelly liquid being discharged openly into drains or in open plots are common,” he said. 

Amphenol Company that manufactures EV componets discharges waste water in open drainage in Bhosari in Pune. © Varsha Torgalkar 

Groundwater is yellow, and even a representative of the local governing body, who requested anonymity due to fear of repercussions, said he accepted that it’s no longer drinkable. 

Local residents FTM spoke to said that they used to get 2.5 tonnes of peanuts from one acre just a few years ago – now, they could only get 10 to 20 kilogrammes, they said – a fall of more than 99 per cent.  

Motherson Sumi factory is part of the industrial hub in the area and situated in Ambethan. A billboard at its factory gate claims that its pollutant levels are within permissible levels – but that doesn’t seem to reflect reality: its wastewater exceeds toxicity limits.  

Reporters collected untreated sewage samples from the location where Motherson Sumi factory discharges its wastewater for Follow the Money and sent it to a lab. The test shows chemical oxygen demand (COD) of more than 2,200 mg/l – several times above the legal maximum of 600mg/l for water discharged into a public sewer, or 250 mg/l for inland surface water. COD measures how fast contaminants in the water can be gotten rid of, meaning that high levels of COD indicate higher levels of pollution. Similarly, the water’s biochemical oxygen demand – which measures specific pollutants such as pesticides and industrial chemicals – is almost double the legal limit.  

The building of village local body at Ambethan in Chakan of Pune. Mothersonsumi in Ambethan pollutes fertile soil land. © Varsha Torgalkar 

Shailaja Deshpande, environmental expert and the founder and director of Jivitnadi Living River Foundation which works to protect rivers in Pune, said that the heavy metals shown in the lab results were “directly connected to the food chain and extremely dangerous” for human health and aquatic life.  

“The raw sewage and soil reports are not only alarming but scary,” she said. “Both results convey that the water and soil both are extremely contaminated and not only harmful to humans, aquatic and terrestrial life but will be retained in water and soils for longer periods.” 

Motherson Sumi declined to comment. 

The situation doesn’t look much better in other parts of the Pune region.  

About an hour’s drive further south sits the Amphenol factory. There, the factory seems to be discharging untreated wastewater into open drains, which flow into the Indrayani and Pavana rivers. A lab analysis shows that the soil surrounding the factory contains heavy metals cadmium and nickel – both above safe limits under Indian law.  

© Varsha Torgalkar 

The two metals are highly toxic and pollute the environment, including agricultural land and water. Cadmium can also carry severe health consequences, such as renal dysfunction, bone demineralisation and respiratory problems. Nickel, meanwhile, can cause cardiovascular diseases and respiratory issues and increases the risk of cancer.  

Since it doesn’t corrode easily, cadmium was widely used for steel plating; because of its toxicity, it is heavily regulated in some parts of the world and carmakers have switched to alternatives. However, it is still being used in electrical connectors and some specialised coating, for example. It rapidly seeps into groundwater and accumulates in the food chain.  

Nickel, meanwhile, is used to produce batteries for electric vehicles, as well as to build wheel components and spark plugs, amongst others.   

Both rivers into which untreated wastewater gets discharged supply drinking water to over 5 million people, and irrigate hectares of agricultural land that provides food to millions.  

Nickel and cadmium levels are elevated across the region and exceed safe thresholds in vegetables such as spinach and cauliflower, a 2025 study found.  

Prashant Raul, an activist who runs an environment collective in Pune, warned of the long-term consequences.  

“Farmers cultivate crops in toxic soils with polluted water and consume poisonous food,” he said. “The percentage of diseases caused by pollution, like cancer, is highest in India.”  

In Dhayarkar Colony, near the Bharat Forge factory further south in Pune city itself, residents complain of similar issues.  

With the factories in the vicinity dumping their wastewater into the surrounding fields without a proper drainage system being in place, an unpleasant odour hangs in the air – and the freestanding water seems to carry its own health risks.  

Not far from the Bharat Forge factory, Abhijit Gaikwad is frustrated.  

The 37-year old activist sees that even groundwater extracted from deep underground is polluted, carrying a yellow and black colour. While residents didn’t drink the water, they still had to use it for washing their clothes and bathing, he said. 

“Residents have to use [that water] every day,” he said. Other residents in the area complained of the same issue.  

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by authorities.  

In 2021, the region’s pollution control authority MPCB asked Bharat Forge, given irregularities in the factory’s measures to prevent pollution, why the “unit shall not be directed to close down the manufacturing activity”, and instructed to file a corrective action plan within a week. 

Activist Abhijit Gaikwad and local residents with a letter of complaint against Bharat Forge to submit to Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. © Varsha Torgalkar 

The warning, obtained by FTM through Freedom of Information requests, found that oil was being discharged in open water outside the factory, and that the sewage treatment was not working at full capacity.  

Three years later, however, the factory was still operating – and received more warnings. In April 2024, the same control authority issued a warning notice to the factory, reprimanding it for showing “negligence towards pollution control and environment protection”.  

“You are therefore instructed to submit [a report on] your action taken … within 7 days,” the control board warned.  

Yet, half a year later, the control board sent another letter to Bharat Forge, asking it to submit details of how its oil was being stored on the premises. And in early 2025, the authority issued yet another warning – this time about complaints about noise and air pollution in the residential area surrounding the factory.  

For activist Gaikwad, who has been sounding the alarm about the pollution for years, the fact that Bharat Forge is still operating shows the lack of teeth the control board has.  

Even if factories are found to be violating the country’s environmental laws, enforcement is inconsistent. For manufacturers, risking fines is often less costly than compliance. Proper wastewater treatment often costs hundreds of thousands of euros. And while environmental penalties could, in theory, be expensive, they are rarely enforced, and barely any closure orders are issued.  

Palak Balyan, research lead at Delhi-based environmental organisation Climate Trends said that “industry in India is a huge contributor of particulate matter and other kinds of pollution”.  

Manufacturers were discharging heated, toxic wastewater that harmed the flora and fauna, he said.  

“They also emit fumes that cause air pollution, ultimately affecting human health and contributing to global warming,” he said. “This pollution also increases heat and affects the ozone layer. This industrial pollution, proven through research, causes severe health issues like diabetes, water-borne diseases, and cardiovascular diseases, among others.” 

Europe-bound 

From Pune, the components are sent to Europe to be assembled into vehicles. FTM tracked components, such as gear parts, electronic connectors, wiring harnesses, and other  vehicle modules that likely ended up in the supply chain of Audi, Ford, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volkswagen.  

An analysis of trade data shows that  987 shipments from Pune – from Motherson Sumi, Bharat Forge, and Amphenol – to Spain between April 2020 and February 2025, with a combined declared value of approximately $24.5 million, according to Panjiva customs data.  

About a third of them went to the automotive cluster in the northwestern region of Aragon, which includes around 300 companies; some of them are based near Zaragoza city. It is one of the country’s leading manufacturing hubs.  

Motherson Sumi has a subsidiary in the hub: SMR Automotive Systems Spain. That subsidiary, in turn, supplies a bigger European automotive sector. The subsidiary owns two assembly and manufacturing plants in northern Spain: SMP Ibérica SLU, in Palencia, and SMP Automotive Technologies, in Teruel. Electronic components are sent from Pune to produce exterior and interior mirrors, and vehicle modules for Audi, Ford, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volkswagen. The supply programmes include regular, electric, and hybrid cars. Its main customers in Spain are Ford, PSA, Renault, Seat, and Volkswagen. 

Bharat Forge also sends parts to Aragon. It supplies Zaragoza-based Dana Automocion S.A., a leading manufacturer of technologies that makes components, parts, and systems that transmit engine power to the wheels, enabling both traditional and electrified cars to move. Dana Automocion, in turn, supplies Stellantis Zaragoza, according to a Spain-based industry expert. That factory produces cars for Peugeot, Lancia, and Opel.  

Waste water discharged by Amephenol flows in this open public drainage system that runs in the river. © Varsha Torgalkar 

The factory also sends shipments to Etxetar S.A., from which General Motors and Jaguar buy assemblies, and works  with Volkswagen, Volvo, and Ford. 

Amphenol, meanwhile, ships components to several Spanish distributors with a value of almost 6.5 million euros between April 2020 and February 2025. From there, these parts are likely to end in the supply chains of big European brands.  

Mercedes-Benz Spain and Audi told FTM that they are asking suppliers about the case. No other car company or brand responded to requests for comment. 

Another route through which components produced in Pune reach Europe is Morocco.  

Motherson Sumi also has a subsidiary – the Samvardhana Motherson Reydel Autotecc Morocco – in Tangier. There, it manufactures interior modules for Renault cars. The Motherson Sumi factory in Pune sent components to its branch in Morocco until at least mid-2022. The vast majority of Renault’s Morocco output is exported to Europe. 

In total, FTM traced more than 1,000 exports of components from Pune to Spain and Morocco from April 2020 to April 2025.  

Green promises 

The discovery comes amid pledges by the world’s biggest companies to invest in greener technology. 

Stellantis, for example, says on its website that it is aiming to have “a broad positive impact on the environment”.  

This, the company says, also applies to its suppliers. “Our strategy consists in selecting suppliers according to environmental criteria … or their ability to develop products which incorporate green or recycled materials,” the firm says. 

In a similar vein, Renault insists that “compliance with social and environmental requirements is part of both the supplier selection process and supplier relations”. 

And Volkswagen declared that all suppliers underwent a risk analysis, with environmental and human rights being key aspects. “These criteria are mandatory and binding,” a spokesperson for Volkswagen said in an interview. 

But having criteria doesn’t necessarily mean that firms can wash their hands of responsibility for environmental harm in their supply chain. 

Under the German supply chain law, in force since 2023, companies with more than 1,000 employees have to identify and prevent human rights and environmental violations in their supply chains.  

This means that German companies like Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have to make sure that when they buy components from factories or middlemen, environmental laws are respected if they impact human rights.  

And that goes beyond simply asking suppliers to promise they are respecting the standards or relying on compliance signs posted at factory gates, says Finn Schufft, a policy advisor on corporate accountability at Germanwatch, an NGO that analyses environmental policies. 

“Relying on reported data by suppliers is not usually enough to meet the standards of the risk analysis required,” he said. “Where companies have reason to believe that there has been a violation, they cannot shield themselves with compliance data from suppliers, but need to take active steps to verify the information.” 

While communities can file complaints with German authorities if they believe that the companies aren’t living up to their due diligence obligations, this doesn’t seem to have yielded tangible results so far. 

“To date, the supervisory authority, to our knowledge, has refused to issue any concrete orders to companies or impose sanctions for violations of the Act,” said Schufft.  

Fair Electronics campaign’s Bosch echoed the assessment.  

“With electric vehicles, we want a just energy transition,” she said, “not a continuation of North-South inequalities or the externalisation of socio-environmental impacts on communities and territories of the Global South, as has been happening with combustion-engine vehicles”.  

Other companies that aren’t covered by German law, however, only have to abide by international law – which is less strict for environmental standards. 

A European-wide law, the corporate sustainability due diligence directive, aims to address that. It imposes similar obligations on companies with more than 5,000 employees and a net turnover of over 1.5 billion euros. 

All carmakers mentioned in this article would fall under the criteria. 

But although it entered into force in 2024, the law will only apply from 2029, and fines will be capped at 3 per cent of a firm’s net global turnover.  

For Mandikar, those laws are too little too late.  

“Common citizens like [us] who have no power except for one vote in elections cannot bring change,” he said.  

He looks at his poisoned land one last time before walking back to his home, just a stone’s throw from the discharge pipe. The factory hum never stops.  

This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe. It was originally published by Follow the Money.