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Georgia’s Public Service Commission, or PSC — the group that has final say over how the state’s largest electric utility generates electricity and how much it charges customers — regularly hears from members of the public during its meetings. But because those meetings are almost always in Atlanta, many of the commenters typically come from the metro area. 

Since the spring, commissioner Alicia Johnson, one of two recently-elected Democrats, has been pressing the commission to meet in a different part of the state as a way to open the floor to different commenters. On Tuesday, the PSC finally did that.

“For over 100 years, the Public Service Commission has met in Atlanta and rarely, if at all, has meetings across the state,” Johnson, whose PSC district includes Chatham and Effingham counties, said. “This was an opportunity for me to have our commissioners come out and actually speak with their constituents outside of Atlanta to move away just from hearing the voices of interveners or advocates.”

The commissioners traveled to Savannah to hear from coastal residents. Following a brief administrative meeting and a presentation on the PSC’s recent actions on data centers, including approval of Georgia Power’s contract with OpenAI and new protections for regular customers, the floor opened for public comments. 

Many of those who spoke voiced concerns over the OpenAI data center that is planned for Effingham County, just outside of Savannah, and called for more transparency around the company’s contract with Georgia Power — the largest for a single customer since the utility started reporting its contracts in 2024.

“There’s a reason you’re named the Public Service Commission and not the Georgia Power service commission or the OpenAI service commission,” said Bill Wright of Pooler, a city northwest of Savannah. “Your name tells you where your loyalty should lie.”

The commissioners clarified the limited scope of their involvement with data centers: They oversee the making and selling of electricity only if a data center chooses Georgia Power as its utility. They encouraged attendees to take up their concerns with local elected officials.

Commenters also criticized the commission over power bills. 

Michael Hawthorne, an organizing strategist with the Sierra Club, argued the commission is supposed to set reasonable rates for electricity. Then he posed a question to the room at large.

“Does anybody feel like everything’s reasonably priced?” he asked.

The audience replied with a resounding “No.”

Read Next The rush to power data centers is weakening the Clean Air Act Emily Jones

The frustration and anger from the Savannah crowd wasn’t surprising, Johnson said.

“It’s what I’ve heard since running for office, and so I’m just glad that our other commissioners got to hear some of it, too,” she said.

Jason Shaw, a Republican from a south Georgia district and the PSC chair, said the meeting reinforced what he’s heard from constituents as well. In an interview after the meeting, Shaw said transparency has been a core issue with the OpenAI data center in particular, starting at the local level. But he said Georgia Power needs to share more information about its data center contracts, too.

“We’ve got to do a better job of forcing the company to be able to present more to us that’s not redacted,” he said. “And I think that’s something that we’re working really closely on.”

Some commenters accused the commissioners of failing to represent the interests of the public that elected them — and reminded them another election is coming up in November.

“If you truly want to be on this board, it’s time to step up and protect the people,” said Corey Foreman, a candidate running for the state senate from a coastal district. “If you can’t do that, I will be more than happy to help remove you.”

All five members of the PSC were Republicans from 2006 until the start of this year, when Peter Hubbard and Johnson took office after unseating two Republican incumbents in an election that focused largely on power bills and the commission’s recent history of rate increases. The two Democrats have cast dissenting votes several times and closely questioned Georgia Power officials. But both have also been candid that their ability to shift policy on emissions, rates, data centers, and other issues is limited while they are in the minority on the PSC.

The District 3 seat currently held by Hubbard and the District 5 seat recently vacated by Republican Tricia Pridemore are both on the ballot in November. If the Democratic candidates win both seats, the party would hold a majority on the commission for the first time in decades.

Hubbard was elected to a one-year term last year and is now facing former Republican commissioner Fitz Johnson in a rematch election for a six-year term. In District 5, Democrat Shelia Edwards is running against Republican Josh Tolbert. While the candidates have to live in their districts, both races are statewide.

Early voting begins October 13.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In Savannah, Georgia’s utility regulators faced public wrath over data centers on Sep 18, 2026.

Shell’s chief economist says global energy markets have so far absorbed an extraordinary loss of oil and LNG supply from the Middle East. But the mechanisms that cushioned the blow — weaker demand, inventory drawdowns, spare infrastructure and rising American production — are wearing thin. Europe enters winter with unusually low gas stocks. Asian buyers are already retreating from expensive LNG. And Shell warns that even reopening disrupted trade routes would not immediately restore normal conditions.

There are times when a single phrase explains a complicated market remarkably well.

On 16 September 2026, Adam Ritchie, chief economist at Shell Trading, told an industry conference in Oslo that global energy markets had demonstrated impressive resilience despite severe disruption in the Middle East.

But then came the warning:

“Those shock absorbers are weakening.” (London South East)

That may be the most important energy-market statement Shell has made this week.

Because according to Shell’s calculations, the world has already lost approximately:

36 million tonnes of LNG

and:

1.6 billion barrels of crude oil and condensates

since the current Middle East disruption began. (London South East)

For perspective, Reuters reports that the 36 million tonnes of missing LNG is roughly equivalent to the combined LNG imports of Britain and France last year. (London South East)

Yet the global energy system did not collapse.

The interesting question is why.

And the more important question now is what happens as the buffers that prevented collapse begin to disappear.

How did the world absorb such a large supply loss?

Shell’s answer is instructive.

The market was cushioned by a combination of:

weaker Chinese demand;

inventory drawdowns;

flexible shipping capacity;

spare pipeline capacity;

and:

rising oil and gas production in the Americas.

Together, those mechanisms absorbed a remarkable amount of disruption. (London South East)

That is what Ritchie means by “shock absorbers.”

They are not one emergency reserve controlled by one government.

They are the spare capacity and behavioural flexibility scattered throughout the global energy system.

Consumers use less.

Cargoes change destination.

Inventories are drawn down.

Pipelines carry more.

Producers elsewhere increase output.

Traders redirect supply.

The market adapts.

Until it cannot.

The warning is that the spare capacity is disappearing

Ritchie’s argument is not that the market has failed.

It is almost the opposite.

The market has worked extraordinarily hard.

The problem is that the mechanisms doing the work are becoming exhausted.

As inventories fall, there is less stored energy available for the next disruption.

As spare shipping capacity is deployed, there are fewer vessels available to solve the next bottleneck.

As pipeline systems operate closer to their limits, there is less ability to reroute gas.

And as alternative producers increase output, their remaining spare production capacity becomes smaller.

That makes subsequent shocks more dangerous than the first one.

A system with abundant slack can absorb bad news.

A system operating close to its limits transmits bad news directly into prices.

That is the essence of Shell’s warning.

Europe is entering winter with an uncomfortable problem

Nowhere is the vulnerability more obvious than Europe.

Reuters reported this week that European Union natural-gas storage is only about 67% full.

That is described as a record low for this point in the year and is far below the EU’s target of storage reaching 80% of capacity by December. (BOE Report)

Shell’s President of Integrated Gas, Cederic Cremers, described Europe as entering the end of autumn with historically low storage levels. (BOE Report)

That creates a familiar but dangerous dependency.

Europe now needs:

continued LNG arrivals;

continued Norwegian pipeline supply;

manageable winter temperatures;

and sufficiently weak Asian demand to prevent an aggressive bidding war for cargoes.

Lose one of those advantages and the market becomes tighter.

Lose several simultaneously and prices could move very rapidly.

Germany shows how thin the margin has become

Germany provides an especially revealing example.

Reuters reported that German gas-storage sites were only around 53% full in early September, the lowest level for that point in the year since records began approximately 15 years ago. (Yahoo Finance)

Germany’s state-owned SEFE has already begun increasing gas storage, while the government is examining additional market incentives to encourage traders to hold more winter supply. (Yahoo Finance)

That is a significant change of posture.

Europe spent years building resilience after the loss of large quantities of Russian pipeline gas.

Now it is discovering that resilience itself requires constant replenishment.

Storage is not resilience if the tanks are empty.

The Strait of Hormuz remains the critical pressure point

The most important LNG bottleneck is the Strait of Hormuz.

Before the current disruption, approximately one fifth of global LNG supply passed through the route.

Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are among the most important exporters affected.

Shell’s own LNG Outlook 2026, published in June, stated that severe disruption through Hormuz had shut in around one fifth of the world’s monthly LNG supply since the conflict began. (Shell)

That is not a marginal loss.

Global LNG trade totalled approximately 422 million tonnes in 2025.

Removing tens of millions of tonnes from that market in a short period creates an enormous reallocation problem. (Shell)

Every missing Middle Eastern cargo has to be replaced, substituted or rationed somehow.

America has helped save the market

One of the most important stabilising forces has been the growth of LNG supply from North America.

Shell itself says the ramp-up of new liquefaction capacity in North America has helped offset Middle Eastern disruption. (Shell)

That trend matters enormously.

The United States is already the world’s largest LNG exporter and is expected to expand exports substantially through the end of the decade.

For Europe, American LNG has become increasingly important as Russian pipeline supply has declined.

For Asia, the same cargoes represent competition.

And that creates one of the defining characteristics of the modern LNG market:

Europe and Asia are increasingly bidding for the same flexible supply.

Asia is already responding by buying less

High prices eventually solve a supply problem in one brutal way.

They destroy demand.

Reuters reports that Asia’s LNG imports are heading towards their weakest September in eight years.

Expected arrivals of approximately 20.09 million tonnes would be down from 22.27 million tonnes in September 2025. (BOE Report)

Why?

Because LNG has become too expensive for many buyers.

Spot prices in Asia have climbed close to $30 per million British thermal units, compared with roughly $10 before the conflict. (BOE Report)

For wealthy utilities in Japan or Europe, painful prices can sometimes be absorbed.

For price-sensitive markets in South and Southeast Asia, the response is different.

Buy less LNG.

Burn more coal.

Use more domestic gas.

Switch fuels.

Curtail demand.

Or simply go without.

That creates an uncomfortable paradox for Shell

Shell is one of the biggest beneficiaries of a global LNG market.

It is also exposed to what happens when LNG becomes too expensive.

Shell describes itself as one of the world’s leading LNG suppliers.

Its LNG business met approximately 16% of global LNG demand in 2025. (Shell)

Its portfolio includes supply from more than ten countries and sales into more than thirty.

It also controls or charters one of the world’s largest LNG shipping fleets. (Shell)

That scale gives Shell extraordinary flexibility.

If prices differ sharply between markets, Shell can redirect cargoes.

If one region weakens, another may absorb supply.

If shipping routes change, Shell’s large fleet and trading operation can adapt.

Volatility therefore creates opportunities.

But volatility also has a limit.

When prices become sufficiently high, customers leave the market.

That is not good for long-term demand.

Shell’s strategic bet on LNG is enormous

This matters because Shell has made LNG central to its corporate strategy.

At its 2025 Capital Markets Day, Shell said it intended to grow LNG sales by 4% to 5% annually through 2030. (Shell)

Its 2025 Annual Report records LNG sales of 73 million tonnes, up from 66 million tonnes the previous year.

Shell said 2025 included the highest number of LNG cargoes it had ever delivered in a single year. (Shell)

The company also expects global LNG demand to rise substantially over the long term.

Shell’s 2026 outlook forecasts demand increasing by approximately 65% by 2050, to nearly 700 million tonnes annually. (Shell)

So when Shell warns that the global LNG market is losing its shock absorbers, it is not offering an academic observation.

This is one of the most important markets in Shell’s entire corporate strategy.

The trading desk sits at the centre of all this

The warning also fits remarkably well with another theme visible across Shell’s recent strategy.

Trading.

Shell’s Integrated Gas business does not merely produce LNG.

It buys it.

Sells it.

Ships it.

Redirects it.

Optimises it.

Arbitrages geographic price differences.

And combines physical infrastructure with financial and contractual flexibility.

Shell’s own portfolio description says the Integrated Gas segment markets and trades natural gas, LNG, power and carbon-emission rights. (Shell)

That means disruption can enhance the value of Shell’s trading capability.

If an LNG cargo has dramatically different values in Europe and Asia, optionality becomes valuable.

If one shipping route closes, an organisation capable of redirecting supply gains an advantage.

If markets fragment, a company with physical assets in multiple regions can exploit those differences.

Shell’s scale becomes useful precisely when the system becomes complicated.

But extreme volatility can stop being profitable and start becoming destructive

There is a temptation to assume that higher energy prices automatically mean higher profits for Shell.

That is too simple.

Very high prices can create:

demand destruction;

counterparty stress;

political intervention;

windfall taxes;

subsidies;

industrial shutdowns;

fuel switching;

recession;

and accelerated investment in alternatives.

A customer who pays an expensive LNG bill is still a customer.

A customer who switches permanently to coal, domestic gas, nuclear power or renewables is not.

That is why the current crisis is strategically ambiguous for Shell.

Short-term volatility may favour Shell’s trading business.

Long-term affordability problems can undermine the growth story on which Shell’s LNG strategy depends.

What happens when the route reopens?

Perhaps the most sobering part of Ritchie’s warning concerns what comes after the disruption.

The intuitive assumption is simple:

Hormuz reopens.

Ships sail again.

Supply returns.

Prices fall.

Problem solved.

Shell says reality may be considerably messier.

Ritchie warned that even if disrupted energy chokepoints reopen, bottlenecks involving shipping, production and supply chains could prevent markets returning immediately to normal.

He suggested tight conditions could persist well into 2027, assuming no additional damage to energy infrastructure. (London South East)

Then comes the second phase.

Restocking.

The world has drawn down inventories to survive the disruption.

Those inventories eventually have to be rebuilt.

That process itself creates additional demand.

So restoring the flow of energy does not instantly restore the buffer that previously existed.

The market has borrowed resilience from the future

That may be the clearest way to understand Shell’s warning.

The global energy system has survived the current disruption partly by borrowing resilience from the future.

It used inventories that would otherwise have been available later.

It used spare pipeline capacity.

It used shipping flexibility.

It relied on weaker demand.

It accelerated alternative production.

Those mechanisms kept the system functioning.

But once used, they have to be restored.

Storage must be refilled.

Inventories rebuilt.

Ships repositioned.

Maintenance completed.

Supply chains normalised.

That means even after the immediate crisis passes, the energy system can remain fragile.

Weather now matters enormously

There is one variable nobody controls.

Winter.

Reuters reports that industry executives see a cold winter in Europe and Asia as one of the principal risks.

Wood Mackenzie chairman Simon Flowers said a colder-than-normal winter could push global LNG prices towards $40 per million BTU, although that is a scenario rather than a forecast. (BOE Report)

At such prices, further demand destruction would become likely.

A mild winter would relieve pressure.

A severe winter would do the opposite.

Energy security can therefore turn on meteorology as much as geopolitics.

Shell’s warning is also a warning to governments

There is an obvious policy implication.

Modern energy systems have been built increasingly around efficiency.

Just-in-time supply.

Optimised inventories.

Interconnected markets.

Global shipping.

Flexible trading.

Under normal conditions, that reduces cost.

Under extreme conditions, it can reduce redundancy.

Shell’s “shock absorber” metaphor therefore raises an uncomfortable question:

How much spare capacity should the global energy system deliberately maintain?

Too much spare capacity is expensive.

Too little makes consumers vulnerable to geopolitical disruption.

That problem is not unique to LNG.

Oil inventories, electricity storage, spare generation, pipelines and fuel reserves all involve the same trade-off.

Resilience costs money.

So does the absence of resilience.

There is a broader irony here

Shell has spent years arguing that LNG contributes to energy security because it allows natural gas to move across oceans rather than remaining trapped within pipeline systems.

That argument is valid.

The global LNG market genuinely creates flexibility.

But the present crisis demonstrates the other side.

LNG depends upon:

liquefaction plants;

shipping routes;

LNG carriers;

regasification terminals;

finance;

insurance;

and access through critical maritime chokepoints.

A pipeline can be geopolitically vulnerable.

So can a ship.

There is no completely geopolitics-proof energy system.

Diversification is the real protection.

Shell’s own numbers make the scale difficult to ignore

Return to the two figures:

36 million tonnes of LNG.

1.6 billion barrels of crude oil and condensates.

Those quantities have already disappeared from the expected global supply system.

And yet markets have continued functioning.

That is evidence of impressive resilience.

But resilience should not be confused with immunity.

The buffers that allowed the world to absorb those losses are smaller now than they were when the crisis began.

The next disruption therefore begins from a weaker starting point.

That is what Adam Ritchie was warning about.

Commentary

Shell’s message deserves attention precisely because the company has every reason to understand the mechanics of this market.

It is not merely an LNG producer.

It is producer, shipper, buyer, seller, trader and optimiser.

Few companies possess a better view across the entire physical LNG chain.

And the message coming from that vantage point is not:

everything is fine.

It is:

the system has coped remarkably well, but much of the spare capacity that allowed it to cope has now been consumed.

For Shell shareholders, that creates both opportunity and danger.

Scarcity increases the value of flexible supply.

Volatility increases the value of trading expertise.

Geographical price differences create arbitrage opportunities.

Shell possesses all three advantages.

But an energy market cannot become indefinitely more expensive without eventually damaging the demand it is designed to serve.

The strongest LNG business in the world still needs customers capable of buying LNG.

That may be the central tension of Shell’s LNG strategy in 2026.

The company is positioned extremely well for a volatile market.

What it cannot control is how much volatility the market itself can withstand.

What is established

Shell calculates that approximately 36 million tonnes of LNG and 1.6 billion barrels of crude oil and condensates have been lost from expected global supply during the Middle East disruption. (London South East)

Shell’s chief economist Adam Ritchie said weaker Chinese demand, inventory drawdowns, flexible shipping, spare pipeline capacity and higher American production had helped absorb the shock, but warned that those buffers were weakening. (London South East)

EU gas storage is around 67% full, described by Reuters as a record low for this time of year and below the EU’s 80% December target. (BOE Report)

Shell’s Cederic Cremers has described European storage levels entering late autumn as historically low. (BOE Report)

Shell expects LNG sales to grow by around 4–5% annually through 2030 and describes LNG as central to its Integrated Gas strategy. (Shell)

Shell’s 2026 LNG Outlook estimates that global LNG demand could rise to nearly 700 million tonnes annually by 2050. (Shell)

What remains uncertain

The duration of disruption through the Strait of Hormuz remains uncertain.

The severity of the coming northern-hemisphere winter is unknown.

Future LNG prices cannot be predicted with confidence.

The extent to which Asian demand destruction proves temporary or structural is also uncertain.

And Shell’s suggestion that normalisation could take well into 2027 should be understood as an industry assessment based on current conditions, not a guaranteed timetable.

Sources

Reuters, 16 September 2026: Shell and Equinor warn that global energy-market “shock absorbers” are weakening; includes Shell’s estimate of 36 million tonnes of lost LNG and 1.6 billion barrels of lost crude oil and condensates. (London South East)

Reuters report — Energy market shock absorbers weakening, Shell and Equinor warn

Reuters, 16 September 2026: European gas storage at approximately 67%; Shell Integrated Gas President Cederic Cremers warns of historically low stocks entering winter. (BOE Report)

Reuters report — Global LNG prices could spike this winter on low European gas stocks

Shell LNG Outlook 2026: Shell’s assessment of global LNG supply, disruption through Hormuz and long-term demand growth. (Shell)

Shell LNG Outlook 2026

Shell Annual Report and Accounts 2025: LNG sales, Integrated Gas performance and Shell’s 4–5% annual LNG sales growth target through 2030. (Shell)

Shell Annual Report and Accounts 2025

Reuters, 15 September 2026: Asian LNG demand weakened as high prices encouraged fuel switching and reduced purchases. (BOE Report)

Reuters market analysis, 16 September 2026: Asian September LNG imports expected to be the weakest for that month in eight years. (BOE Report)

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Shell Warns the World Is Running Out of Energy “Shock Absorbers” — 36 Million Tonnes of LNG Already Missing was first posted on September 18, 2026 at 9:28 am.
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The Endangered Species Act has stood as a pillar of conservation in the United States since 1973, bringing animals like bald eagles, manatees, and humpback whales back from the brink of extinction. 

But now, the Trump administration has taken its boldest step yet in an effort to strip legal protections for endangered species. Starting this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that it now considers it legal to kill a federally protected animal, as long as it wasn’t on purpose.

The directive comes after another recent revision to these legal protections went into effect this week, saying that damaging an animal’s habitat is no longer considered “harming” it. The two changes in combination take the teeth out of the Endangered Species Act and pave the way for industries to log, mine, pollute, or travel through areas without regard for what lives there.

The fate of the country’s rarest creatures could come down to the meaning of two seemingly simple words: “harm” and “take.” In this case, “take” refers to killing an animal. 

“A vessel that inadvertently strikes a whale has not taken it, because the vessel’s course was not set against the whale,” said the memo, signed by Brian Nesvik, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. “Felling a tree is not a take of the bats roosting in it unless the tree was felled for the purpose of killing or capturing them.”

Legal experts say this is an unprecedentedly narrow view of what these words mean in the Endangered Species Act, and that the moves are sure to be challenged in court. Almost two dozen states recently sued the Trump administration over changes to the law, and more lawsuits from environmental groups are expected to come. And if history is any indicator, the agency could soon find itself on the losing side of an old argument — one that’s been heard in courts before. 

“They are trying to disregard 50 years of the act, and how the agency — and everybody — has always interpreted this word,” said Ryan Shannon, an attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation nonprofit that has long spearheaded endangered species recovery efforts. “This is not a bunt — they are really swinging for the fences with this.”

That’s because the words “harm” and “take” are at the core of what makes the Endangered Species Act so effective. 

Efforts to protect the northern spotted owl are one such example. Decades of logging in the Pacific Northwest had eliminated much of its forest habitat. But after the species was listed under the act in 1990, cutting down those trees was considered to be harming the owl, and therefore illegally “taking” it.

The law has been a thorn in the side of industries for decades. Environmentalists have often sued companies that want to log, mine, or build in a particular area, using the Endangered Species Act to make their case.

Now, “the administration is telling every industry in America that killing endangered wildlife is fine as long as it wasn’t their primary goal,” said Andrew Wetzler, an executive at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement. “But unintentional harm is exactly what is driving many species towards extinction.”

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The Supreme Court has considered these words and their meanings before. In a 1995 case, Babbitt v. Sweet Home, it ruled that modifying a creature’s habitat — such as logging the forest where spotted owls live — counts as harming it. In a dissenting opinion, the late Justice Antonin Scalia argued that “take” means to directly kill or injure wildlife. The Trump administration’s new memo uses Scalia’s interpretation — even though the majority of the court disagreed with Scalia back then. 

Earlier this summer, in a revision that changed which actions it considers to be “harming” an animal, the Trump administration argued that there’s a “traditional meaning” of the word “take,” meaning “to kill or capture a wild animal.” But the verb “take” is so notoriously difficult to define that it’s been tormenting dictionary editors for more than a century. In 2001, the lexicographer Kory Stamper spent weeks trying to capture all the senses of the word, and she reflected that the ordeal “unspooled” her sanity, leading to panic and despair.

In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that courts — not agencies — have the power to interpret the law. That decision was generally seen as a blow to environmental efforts, but in this case, it might mean the Trump administration doesn’t have final say in how it interprets the Endangered Species Act.

All these factors make the Fish and Wildlife Service’s memo legally flimsy, if not illegal, according to Brett Hartl, director of government affairs at the Center of Biological Diversity, an environmental nonprofit. 

The memo is “essentially performative cruelty for the sake of it” and “barely worth the paper it’s printed on,” Hartl said. “They’re trying to turn it into an anti-poaching statute, but it’s actually supposed to be the strongest conservation law in the world.”

Ironically enough, the administration’s rewrite may leave companies in a tougher spot than before, Shannon said, because it blows up the settled rules they’d been following for decades. Corporate attorneys now have to choose between telling clients to take advantage of the agency’s new approach, or holding off in case a court or new administration puts the old protections back into place.

For companies that actually want long‑term regulatory certainty, like timber corporations and real estate developers, Shannon said that this deregulatory swing may be “more than they ever really would have asked for.”

If the courts do end up siding with the Trump administration, some species will suffer more than others. Those listed as endangered in more recent decades were given “critical habitat protections,” which provided an extra layer of scrutiny to activities that could harm animals and were made mandatory for all newly listed animals.

But many of the species listed during the Endangered Species Act’s early years — including the Florida panther and the California sea otter — never received those protections. Instead, they depend on broader language in the law, like “harm” and “take.” That means the animals America once wanted to protect the most could now be the most exposed.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The fate of the Endangered Species Act rests on 2 simple words on Sep 18, 2026.

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The veneration of solar has taken up the oxygen in the climate conversation. While we have a modest array ourselves, I'm worried solar has been presented to the climate-worried public as a panacea, as if a wholesale switch to solar would stabilize the climate.

Deepening fragmentation reflects an urgent challenge: our growing difficulty in identifying what truly matters, and therefore in designing policies that promote our collective well-being.

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Centre for Earth Works (CFEW) is a research-driven, youth-led organisation committed to protecting the earth by working closely with communities to build practical, lasting solutions that empower people to conserve their environment and adopt sustainable practices that support both livelihoods and ecological balance.

For nearly a decade, CFEW has consistently advanced environmental sustainability through innovative programmes, grounded research, and proactive community-based advocacy. Through this commitment, CFEW supports communities in taking ownership of environmental stewardship and responding to local challenges with locally driven solutions. 

Community members and stakeholders cheer for a photograph after a training by CfEW

CFEW is a member of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and is one of the implementing partners of the GAIA-led Methane Reduction in Nigeria (MAMRN) Project, a major zero-waste and climate-action initiative focused on diverting organic waste from open dumpsites and landfills. It aims to reduce hazardous methane emissions, build circular economies, and empower communities by turning municipal waste into economic gold. 

In this article, part of a forthcoming series, we spoke with Benson Dotun, the founder of Centre for Earth Works, about their work as a partner in Jos, Plateau State, for the project.    

Thank you for joining us, Benson. Several organisations carry out the project through different activities, but with the same goal. Can you share insights into best practices for collaborating with other organisations on a project in Nigeria?

Collaboration has been a valuable component of this project, particularly through GAIA members’ participation in several activities. Based on our experience within this project and the broader Nigerian context, a few best practices stand out for effective collaboration with other organisations.

Clarity of roles and expectations from the outset is essential. Clearly defining responsibilities, solid deliverables, and areas of contribution helps reduce overlap, manage expectations, and ensure that each organisation’s strengths are effectively utilised.

Open and consistent communication strengthens partnerships. Regular check-ins, transparent information sharing, and timely feedback help build trust and allow partners to adapt quickly to emerging challenges or changes in context.

Finally, learning-oriented collaboration enhances long-term impact. Creating space for reflection, documentation, and knowledge exchange allows partners to learn from one another and strengthens the overall quality of the project. Within this project, collaboration with GAIA members has reinforced the importance of aligning technical expertise with community-based implementation to achieve sustainable outcomes.

Could you share some perspective on the current waste crisis in Nigeria and how this project aims to address this? 

Over the past decades, Jos and Nigeria as a whole have experienced rapid population growth and urban expansion, integrating surrounding villages into the metropolitan area. This urbanisation has been paralleled by a sharp rise in municipal solid waste (MSW) generation. Without proper waste management infrastructure, indiscriminate dumping has become widespread, creating both environmental and public health hazards.

Dumpsites are particularly concerning as hotspots for methane emissions. Methane (CH₄) is produced when organic waste (such as food residues, yard waste, and animal waste) decomposes under anaerobic conditions typical of unmanaged dumpsites. 

According to the European Environment Agency (EEA, 2025), landfills and dumpsites are the third-largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions globally, after agriculture and fossil fuels. Methane is a short-lived but highly potent greenhouse gas, with 80 times the warming potential of CO₂ over 20 years. 

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), food waste comprises about 24% of municipal solid waste disposed of in landfills. Because it decays rapidly, food waste in landfills contributes more to methane emissions than any other landfilled material. An estimated 58% of methane emissions from municipal waste landfills are from landfilled food waste.

This project responds directly to these challenges by addressing methane emissions at their source through improved waste management practices. By promoting separation and composting, the project reduces the volume of biodegradable materials that end up in dumpsites, thereby limiting anaerobic decomposition and methane generation. In doing so, the project not only contributes to climate mitigation but also supports cleaner urban environments, improved public health outcomes, and more sustainable waste management systems within Nigeria.

Do you have a personal milestone or favourite moment in this project so far?

One of the most significant milestones for us at Centre for Earth Works has been establishing the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) and turning the concept into a space for waste sorting and recovery. 

The MRF has created a structured system for separating waste streams, particularly organic waste, which is often overlooked but is a major driver of methane emissions when disposed of in open dumpsites.

A waste recovery facility build by CFEW as part of the MAMRN Project

Another defining moment has been the pilot implementation of Black Soldier Fly (BSF) farming for organic waste management. This approach has shown the potential to divert biodegradable waste from dumpsites and convert it into useful by-products. For us at the Centre for Earth Works, this pilot has been both a learning experience and a proof of concept that low-cost, nature-based solutions can be effective in the Nigerian context.

Equally important has been the project’s growing awareness component. Through our engagement, it became clear that many waste pickers and other key stakeholders were not previously aware of the link between organic waste, methane emissions, and climate change. 

Seeing these groups begin to understand the environmental and health risks associated with unmanaged organic waste and their role in reducing those risks has been particularly rewarding. It highlights the project’s impact beyond infrastructure by building knowledge and changing perceptions around waste and methane reduction.

We have seen these key themes emerge in this project (Organic Waste Management, Infrastructure Development, Waste Picker Integration, Capacity Building and Awareness Raising, Local Government Engagement, National Policy Advocacy and Emissions Monitoring. Could you share experiences (as applicable) on any of these topics within this

Project so far?

Several of these themes have been central to the project’s progress so far and have shaped both implementation and learning at the Centre for Earth Works.

Organic Waste Management has been a core focus alongside the set-up of our Material Resource Recovery Facility and the pilot use of the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) process. These efforts have demonstrated practical ways to divert organic waste from dumpsites, reduce methane emissions, and convert biodegradable waste into useful by-products, while remaining context-appropriate and low-cost.

A CFEW-trained waste picker displays an organic compost and vegetable waste

In terms of Infrastructure Development, the establishment of the MRF represents a significant step forward. Beyond being a physical structure, it has served as an enabling platform for improved waste sorting and recovery, as well as for experimentation with organic waste treatment solutions. It has also provided a visible reference point for demonstrating what decentralised waste management infrastructure can look like at the community level.

Waste Picker Integration has been another important aspect of the project. Through engagement and sensitisation, waste pickers have been recognised not only as informal actors but as key stakeholders in waste recovery and methane reduction. The project has created space for dialogue, inclusion, and a better understanding of their role within a more organised waste management system.

Capacity Building and Awareness Raising have been critical across all project components. Training and engagements revealed significant gaps in understanding the links between organic waste, methane emissions, and climate change. 

Addressing these gaps has empowered waste pickers, community members, and other stakeholders with knowledge to adopt better practices and see their work as part of a broader climate solution.

Finally, on Local Government Engagement, the project has created opportunities to start conversations with relevant authorities on organic waste management, methane reduction, and the need for supportive local policies and infrastructure. These engagements have helped build institutional interest and lay the groundwork for longer-term collaboration.

Overall, these experiences show how the project integrates infrastructure, community engagement, policy, and learning to address organic waste and methane emissions in a holistic and scalable way.

What is the path forward for your organisation and possible next steps from this project?

The path forward for the Centre for Earth Works builds directly on the lessons, structures, and partnerships established through this project. A key next step is to consolidate and scale the organic waste management systems piloted, particularly by strengthening operations at the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) and expanding the use of nature-based solutions, such as the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) process and other composting methods, including biogas production.

Another important priority is to deepen the integration and capacity of waste pickers and community actors. Building on the awareness and skills developed during the project, CFEW plans to support more structured participation, improved working conditions, and stronger linkages between informal waste workers.

CFEW also intends to strengthen engagement with local stakeholders to translate project learnings into more sustained institutional support. This includes advocating for decentralised organic waste management, improved waste segregation practices, and approaches that reduce methane at the local level.

The post Learning-oriented collaboration enhances long-term impact: CFEW on the MAMRN Project. first appeared on GAIA.

As demand for artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital services grows, so does demand for the data centres that power them. These facilities can help strengthen Canada's digital economy, support innovation, attract investment and expand...

CALGARY — A new Pembina Institute report, From Principles to Practice: Making data centre development work for Canadians, outlines how governments, regulators, utilities, municipalities, Indigenous rights holders and host communities can translate...

Believe it or not, the United States used to be the cycling capital of the world. So how did we end up in the hellscape we’re in today?

In the most hotly anticipated crossover event since the Avengers joined forces with the Marvel Cinematic Universe — at least to niche urbanist YouTube nerds! — beloved content creators Climate Town and Not Just Bikes have finally teamed up.

With their powers combined, the two channels created the ultimate 30-minute explainer on how so much of America spiraled not just into car dependency, but into out-and-out hostility towards people on two wheels and any infrastructure that supports them.

But the story isn’t just about how our nation “morphed into a series of car countries with a country problem,” as Williams puts it. It’s also about anti-bike lane bias from some cyclists themselves, bizarre backlash from neighbors who literally compare new lanes to 9/11 and (gasp!) even a little hope for the future.

As always, bonus points if you spot the Streetsblog USA cameo.

Watch this video on YouTube.

• We’ve written a lot about how Tesla’s self-proclaimed “self-driving mode” still requires human attention. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now questioning how a human driver can take control of a Cybercab with no pedals and no steering wheel. (Wall Street Journal)
• Transit officials are calling on Congress to restore transit funding that was cut by the recent continuing resolution for transportation. (Passenger Transport)
• The Trump administration is letting truckers drive 16 hours per day instead of the previous limit of 14. (Reuters)
• In big cities like Chicago and San Francisco, micromobility ridership is coming close to matching transit’s. (Government Technology)
• San Francisco residents who vote against a ballot initiative to slightly raise property taxes to fund Muni would likely see their property values drop as a result. (New York Post)
• A arbitrator awarded $40 million to the family of a woman who was run over and killed after being forced out of an Uber on a Los Angeles freeway. (ABC News)
• An Omaha pizzeria’s walk-in cooler broke, but the owner chose to blame its closure on streetcar construction. (WOWT)
• A dozen Pittsburgh bus routes will be detoured during construction of improvements to Smithfield Street. (Trib Live)
• Dallas is considering whether to let sidewalks be painted any which color, or combination thereof, in the face of a state directive banning “political signage” like rainbows. (KERA)
• If you like listening to baseball on the radio, as God intended, you’re in luck — Congress passed a bill to prevent automakers from removing AM radios from new vehicles (Jalopnik; Radio World). In all seriousness, though, AM radio remains essential for older people and those in rural areas with poor cellphone reception and internet access to hear about emergencies.
• Twenty years later, Seattle residents still fondly remember the original acronym for the light rail line that didn’t become the South Lake Union Trolley. (Axios)

A version of this article appeared on Street Stack and is republished with permission.

Recently, a righteous anger has been building inside me.

Longtime readers know I spent 8 years working in advertising before I became an urban planner. Turns out a liberal arts degree in cultural anthropology is suitable training for discovering what makes people tick, and exploiting it. For about one of those years, I aspired to be the sort of ad man who could sell ice in the winter and fire in hell. For the next seven, I increasingly felt that I was working grueling hours doing something dirty.

Today, I hate ads. I think they contribute nothing to society. I think the marketing industry has convinced a large swath of often quite smart, and occasionally genuinely creative people to grease the wheels of capital.

Let me make my bias clear from the start. I hate ads on TV; I hate them on my phone. But I really hate them in public places.

At the beginning of summer, I decided to use my AirPods and phone less during commutes. I try to be phone down, head up, ears and eyes open, to be more present in public spaces. For the first half of my commute, the results have been transformative. Bird chirps and snippets of conversation flow into my still-waking-up brain. I notice more without a podcast or song in my ear, and sometimes I create fully formed thoughts (gasp).

But then, I step into the subway, and it all goes to shit. Not because of the noise, or the dirt, or the crazies, but because of stuff like this:

Being somewhat off my phone has made me realize how much the subway is now like being physically inside a phone. I nearly crashed out one day sitting across from an endlessly looping Airbnb ad of a guy dancing across seven screens, aping the social media aesthetic I was explicitly trying to give my brain a break from.

Watch this video on YouTube.

But being forced to look at this slop has also revealed a shift — a shift I wanted to consider in its context.

About 130 years ago, the awkwardly named Associated Bill Posters Association adopted the “billboard” as the industry gold standard, consolidating itinerant flyers, hand-painted signs, and wheatpastes into a well-maintained stand that lived in a specific outdoor location. People have been complaining ever since. In a 1924 issue of Architectural Review, a writer noted that

There is no hour of waking life in which we are not besought, incited, or commanded to buy something of somebody. Our morning paper is full of it; our walk to the nearest car bristles with it; the transfer which we take blazons it … When the shades of night fall, a portentous heraldry of trade leaps in living fire from the darkness, exhorting us to drink Boozer’s Whisky or perish in our shame.

Reading Laura Baker’s excellent brief history of outdoor advertising,one learns that members of the Automobile Club of America organized billboard-removal drives to destroy ads on rural roads and civic groups like the City Club of Chicago lobbied for bans on ads on residential streets.

This ban, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1917, established a city’s right to restrict the location of advertising — but not, as many reformers wanted, the right to regulate the content of ads based on aesthetics. The groundwork was set for outdoor advertising’s explosion in the mid-20th century. From then until recently, advertising reflected and shaped a mass culture of middle-class households with General Electric appliances in the kitchen and Nabisco in the cupboards. 

With a broad audience, advertisers could conceptualize their trade as a sort of public service informing people about better lifestyles and products. This was also when the industry adopted the language of fine art, where ad-men became “art-directors” or “copy-writers” and ad companies segmented themselves into “art” departments and invented awards for “creativity.”

Outdoor advertising became popular art with aesthetic value. The poster was more powerful than the painting because many more people saw it, and in the increasing blankness of the industrial cityscape, it might be the only color and reading material on the average worker’s commute.

The marketers claimed to entertain and inform broad swaths of people. The critics said they were polluting the common spaces of the citizenry and tempting them with cigarettes and gambling.

What unified both proponents and critics of outdoor ads was a concern with “the masses.” Advertisers used to rely on a few, imprecise channels — radio, TV, and most imprecise of all, billboards — that tapped into a strong monoculture.

But today the monoculture is splintered, and we are a collection of niche interests sharing space temporarily in a subway. Ad “campaigns” are all about “targeting” and “precision” (the language of marketing borrows heavily from the language of war). In this era of Instagram ads algorithmically tailored to appeal to a few thousand viewers of a certain nail art channel, an outdoor ad has the precision of a 1000 pound bomb. 

And yet, outdoor ads seem to be multiplying. New York has long subsidized public transit with advertising. The MTA brought in $180 million from ads across its properties in 2025, up from $136 million in 2019. With Outfront, the MTA’s media partner, it has developed and installed a series of new formats, from illuminated billboards to digital displays running looping video.

Many of these formats copy the aesthetic we’ve seen on our phones and feeds for years: Quick cuts, in-your-face visuals, bright colors, scrolling text.

It’s also worth considering not just the format but the content of these ads, which are increasingly about tech or lifestyle products that are aimed at an infinitesimal number of subway riders — engineers at Google, hiring managers at financial institutions, wellness consumers of a specific peptide stack — but are nevertheless seen by thousands of people to whom they have no relevance.

This is a paradigm shift. Ads that were widely seen used to strive for mass appeal. Anyone could fall down at work and need to call Celino & Barnes. Now, ads that may still be seen by thousands are fine being relevant to only a small number of viewers. See if you belong in any of the audience segments Outfront Media promises to reach through its subway advertising. If you don’t, you’ll see the ads anyway. 

Using a subway ad to sell an AI trading agent to an “executive commuter” is like killing an ant with a shotgun. For anyone who’s not the intended target, the sense of disorientation and confusion might be part of the point. I have, after all, gotten so mad that I’ve written an entire post and shared pictures of ads with my subscribers. This is what those in the biz call “organic reach” — a funny term to use for the deeply inorganic process of creating mass marketing.

When I worked in advertising, we used to talk about the “bizarreness effect,” the psychological principle that strange or nonsensical things become distinctive because they present a problem for our brain to solve. A coworker once used this sentence as an example. “Dogs are not like other animals. Compared to tea kettles, they are much more red.”

Many subway ads now have the same effect. They are impossible to understand but somehow also impossible to ignore. How Outfront can claim the below is beyond me. I’m sorry, Cait, but you are a loser.

This is all pitched as a neccecity to maintain good service.

“Ad revenue is an incredibly important source of revenue for the MTA outside our farebox. Revenue sources like this are what help us keep fares low for customers, or those increases low year-over-year,” Mary John, the MTA’s director of commercial ventures, said in an interview with Gothamist. This is not all that different from the original concept of TV or radio ads as something we tolerate because it pays for what we actually want — we bring you the Knicks game or the hard-hitting journalism of Walter Cronkite every night for free, and in exchange you watch the Marlboro Man smoke for thirty seconds.

CBS used to be free, once you got a TV anyway. You paid for it with your attention. Now I pay through the nose to stream the Knicks, and guess what, there are still ads. We’re all paying twice, and when I ride the subway I feel like I’m paying thrice.

I’m an urban planner; I know $3 is far below the true cost of riding, and the MTA desperately needs more money to maintain and upgrade the world’s oldest subway system. And yet I feel cheated. I pay the ever-increasing fares; my taxes fund the MTA, and through my (tiny) 401k and mutual fund holdings, I’ve purchased its bonds. On the rare occasion I take a cab home, I now give it even more money through Congestion Pricing.

All this to an agency that (meaningful strides aside) is still riddled with financial inefficiencies. And yet I have to sit trapped in a subway car that feels built to annoy me.

I’m clearly not alone in my angst. The comedians Harris Alterman and Dave Ross have been pasting parody tech ads across stations. A few of them are almost too subtle. 

A study in Poland actually considered how much Warsaw residents would collectively pay not to see outdoor ads, and found it was between five and nine million euros a year depending on the size of reductions. Recently, I came across a parody(?) video for a “tunnel vision” device that could block out subway ads in your peripheral vision. The video’s creator, Jack Klein, also created a mountable screen that blocks out digital ads in train cars.

But I haven’t seen actions proposed for making any of this more bearable. Like the AI apocalypse or climate change, we seem resigned to a future where the subway rots our brains.

At the very least, I would love the MTA to set limits on motion and brightness in its ads consistent with growing science showing short-form video is harmful to our attention spans and cognitive abilities. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind banning digital displays altogether for anything other than transit info.

But what needs to change most is the idea that advertising is a sacred source of revenue for the MTA. $180 million dollars is a lot of money, but it’s a tiny fraction of the budget for an agency whose projects cost billions.

Smarter people than me have proposed new revenue or cost-saving measures for the agency. We could rely less on outside consultants, sell more air rights over stations, or increase the payroll mobility tax. Space given to ads could be used to expand the MTA’s excellent public art programs, which are increasingly drowned out by slop. 

History is littered with people who hated ads and lost. “In modern life…contemplation is almost a lost faculty.” Wrote the president of the Chicago Art Institute… in 1912.

But never forget: the subway is funded by you and me. A pleasant commute is not too much to ask for. And if nothing happens, I guess I’ll just put my AirPods back in.

Visual identity Logotype Available here. Colors Font types Headers font: Expletus Sans Body font: Open Sans

On September 16, 1982, Lebanese Phalange forces, led and protected by Israeli troops, entered Sabra and Shatila, where thousands of Palestinian refugees were located southwest of Beirut and slaughtered perhaps…

Canada’s last epishelf lake drained into the Arctic Ocean following the 2020 breakup of the Milne Ice Shelf and will not recover, a new study confirms.

In early July 2026, Stanford postdoctoral researcher Alex Honeyman and graduate student Mark Leone attached a box the size of a briefcase to a firetruck in Colorado that was about to be dispatched to a wildfire 300 miles away.

In 2021, MIT set campus decarbonization goals as part of its Fast Forward climate action plan.

Geographers at FAU involved in international study – a lack of data hampers reliable prediction of rising global sea levels.