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The success of DOE’s SPARK initiative will depend on how prepared organizations are to execute once the funding arrives, writes Al Eliasen, Spatial Business Systems CEO.

Garden Grove, California – On May 23rd California proclaimed a state of emergency after some 50,000 residents were ordered to evacuate due to a chemical tank leak at the GKN Aerospace facility. That tank held 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate or MMA, a toxic and highly flammable chemical used to make plastic, adhesives and resins. Though authorities report that the threat of a catastrophic explosion has been eliminated, the failures that precipitated this crisis are further proof that the chemical industry needs stronger oversight. Yet the U.S. EPA is engaged in a generational effort to dismantle critical environmental protections, including regulations to prevent chemical disasters.

Break Free From Plastic members respond to the toxic chemical leak

Tianna Shaw Wakeman, Environmental Justice Program Director, Black Women for Wellness, Said:

“This past week in Southern California, communities in East L.A. faced a 2,400 gallon oil spill from a ruptured pipeline while evacuated Garden Grove residents spent the weekend fearing a deadly explosion. These events are connected. Like most chemicals used to make plastic, the MMA leaked in Garden Grove is derived from oil and gas. 

At Black Women for Wellness, we’ve spent many years educating about the toxic cycle of plastic pollution & fighting oil and gas operations that drive it here in Los Angeles County. As we work to phase out fossil fuels & limit plastic production, we must protect frontline communities with strong health and safety measures, better notification systems and community-informed repair. Oil transport and toxic chemical storage most often occur in communities of color, where industries continually place residents in harm's way but aren't being held accountable. Industries must pay for clean up and harms incurred.”

Julia Cohen, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Plastic Pollution Coalition, Said:
“While the imminent crisis of a chemical explosion appears to have been stemmed, make no mistake that the chemical disaster in Garden Grove, California, is still unfolding. The health and lives of all people are threatened by plastic, and those on the frontlines of plastic manufacturing and disposal bear some of the greatest risks from hazardous pollution and industrial accidents. Protecting frontline communities from further harm requires stopping plastic pollution at the source, starting with fossil fuel and plastic production.”

Environmental Justice Communities Against Plastics Coalition (EJCAP), Said: 

“Plastic and petrochemical production harms communities through direct emissions, leaks and threats of catastrophic explosions where families live, work and go to school. Tens of thousands of residents should never have to evacuate their homes because of a preventable industrial threat. Plastics and petrochemicals, including MMA, are a public health emergency that must be prevented at the source. Garden Grove communities deserve better.”

Yvette Arellano, Executive Director, Fenceline Watch, Said:

“Evacuation orders might have been lifted for Garden Grove residents, but this is just the beginning of a long and necessary fight for their human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The GKN plastic facility's toxic release into the surrounding community is a situation that our communities along the Houston Ship Channel are very familiar with. Community members are urged to document symptoms not only in themselves but also in small pets and children, as their bodies are smaller and more susceptible to lower levels of exposure. 

Multigenerational effects are the real threat. We are learning everyday of the new health impacts plastics have on our bodies, and the true toxic harm won't be clear until much later on. From the petrochemical explosions we face in Houston, or the vinyl chloride train derailment in Ohio, we know EPA and other well-meaning officials may be underestimating the true cost this disaster has inflicted on Garden Grove.” 

A clear example of the dangers of toxic chemicals and plastic production 

Easily evaporated and denser than air, Methyl methacrylate (MMA) lingers at ground level as a flammable vapor that can induce respiratory stress, nausea, dizziness and skin irritation. Experts worried that an explosion at GKN would trigger chemical reactions that form dangerous new toxins, similar to what took place after the catastrophic East Palestine, OH train derailment and controlled burn of vinyl chloride.

Chemical disasters are not uncommon. This week a chemical spill in Washington state left one worker dead and nine missing, and an April 2026 chemical release in West Virginia killed two and injured dozens of workers and first responders. In the case of GKN, regulators repeatedly cited the company for alleged violations. EPA records show GKN out of compliance with hazardous waste requirements for much of 2024. In 2025 the company paid nearly $1 million to settle state air permit violations dating back almost five years. 

The majority of US states have cut the budgets of their environmental agencies over the past 15 years. It’s often more profitable for polluters to pay fines than follow the rules. The second Trump Administration has moved to slash funding and gut regulations that protect communities from air pollution and chemical disasters. Since 2025, EPA enforcement has collapsed. 

“Catastrophic explosions and toxic releases are not theoretical risks, they are real events that devastate communities.”  – Marc Bloom, former EPA staffer

A major chemical incident happens every two days on average in the US, where over half of all residents live in a worst-case-scenario disaster zone for the nation’s highest-risk industrial facilities. Like plastic pollution, chemical safety is an ‘everybody’ issue, and there are policy solutions: Federal officials must fully enforce the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, including local planning obligations. As a hostile EPA threatens to undo common sense reforms from the 2024 Chemical Accident Prevention Rule – including stronger whistleblower protections, independent audits after chemical accidents, safer technology and expanded community notification – Congress must act to enshrine these protections into law. 

###

 

Notes to the editor

 

Press Contacts:

• Graham Hamilton | graham@breakfreefromplastic.org

• Michael Esealuka | michael@breakfreefromplastic.org

About BFFP — #BreakFreeFromPlastic is a global movement envisioning a future free from plastic pollution. Since its launch in 2016, more than 3,700 organizations and 15,000 individual supporters worldwide have joined the movement to demand massive reductions in single-use plastics and push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis. BFFP member organizations and individuals share the values of environmental protection and social justice and work together through a holistic approach to bring about systemic change. This means tackling plastic pollution across the whole plastics value chain – from extraction to disposal – focusing on prevention rather than cure and providing effective solutions. www.breakfreefromplastic.org.

Farm soils are notoriously abused under conventional agriculture: they are dug up and turned over, compacted, dried out, and heaped with synthetic fertilizers. But, there’s a potential silver lining to this intensive management: all that prodding and poking may have made soil microbes on farms more resilient to climate change. 

This unusual finding comes from a recent Nature Food study, where a research team tested dozens of European and Asian soil samples taken from croplands, and from natural environments including forests, grasslands, and wetlands. Under lab conditions, they exposed the samples to temperatures of 25°C. Then they looked at how well the microbes within decomposed the soil’s organic matter—a key indicator of microbial health and functionality, which can also be taken as a measure of how well the microbiome functions under stress.

The first result was that agricultural soils fared better under the warm conditions, continuing to decompose organic matter and show high functionality, compared with the three varieties of natural soils. Going a step further, the researchers inoculated samples of a what they call artificial soil with microbial communities lifted from the cropland and natural samples. This revealed that these artificial experimental soils inoculated with cropland microbes were significantly better at remaining functional under heat stress, compared to the soils treated with microbes from natural environments. 

Next, they exchanged the microbial communities of cropland soils and wetland soil samples, which were found to be the least heat-resistant of all the natural soils. To the wetland soils, this switch brought greater functionality under stress, whereas the resilience of cropland soils was slightly depleted by being inoculated with wetland microbes. 

 

.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:Researchers find a new use for biochar: filtering microplastics from farm soils

 

Taking a final step to test their hypothesis, the researchers then identified and extracted particular microbe strains from cropland samples that were associated with the most resilient behavior and created a new, artificial assemblage. When they inserted this select, elite community of resilient specimens into wetland soil, its resilience and functionality under stress was significantly increased. 

Overall, the results suggest that agricultural soils have somehow been primed by the stress of intensive management into coping better with heat. “These findings align with the concept of ecological memory, whereby repeated disturbances can imprint adaptive features,” the researchers explain in their research.

Their findings are striking, yet they do issue a note of caution about the results. While they sourced their soils from a variety of locations, they exposed them to a limited temperature of 25°C, which doesn’t capture the higher heat extremes that some cropland soils are exposed to in parts of the world. Higher temperatures might change the outcome for microbes. They also point out that transplanting microbes from one environment into another may have unintended negative effects on the soil ecosystem, which needs to be studied in more depth. 

Nevertheless, the study is an interesting first step towards what the researchers call “agricultural microbiome engineering” for the benefit of nature—a future where farming may actually give back, by helping to restore the health and resilience of surrounding habitats. 

Jiao et. al. “Agricultural soil microbiomes are structurally and functionally more resistant to warming than adjacent natural ecosystems.” Nature Food. 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

From the Free Speech Movement to the Factory Floor: A Collective History of the International Socialists, edited by Andrew Stone Higgins (Haymarket Books, March 2026) ...

The post Remembering the International Socialists first appeared on Spring.

The world’s most comprehensive disaster database – relied on by thousands of climate scientists and policymakers – is at risk of closing as a result of cuts to US foreign aid by the Trump administration.

The “emergency events” database (EM-DAT) has for 30 years provided free-to-use information on the size and impact of extreme weather events and other disasters around the world.

Its data underpins a vast range of scientific research, government policymaking, humanitarian response efforts and environmental investigations.

However, Trump’s dismantling of the federal Agency for International Development (USAid) – which provided 90% of the funding for EM-DAT – has left the future of the database in jeopardy, scientists tell Carbon Brief.

An open letter coordinated by climate scientists and signed by more than 4,000 academics and students is calling on governments, multilateral development banks and philanthropy to step in to stop the database from closing.

‘World’s memory of disasters’

For the past three decades, a small team of researchers at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at the University of Louvain in Belgium have maintained EM-DAT.

It is the world’s most comprehensive database of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, floods and tropical storms, along with other disasters. It offers information such as the timing and length of an event, how many people were killed or displaced and the economic cost.

Since 1988, this continuous record has been free to use and independently verified by the researchers at CRED.

When considered in its entirety, the database provides more than just a list of disasters – it acts as a “memory” of how extreme weather events and their impacts on people are changing, says Prof Niko Speybroeck, an epidemiologist and director of EM-DAT. He tells Carbon Brief:

“EM-DAT can be considered the world’s memory of disasters. It contains more than 27,000 natural and technological disasters. It’s not just a database. It makes it possible to know who was affected, when, where and with what consequences.”

The database is frequently used by climate scientists. It is often cited in research papers and underpinned analysis in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the impacts of climate change.

It is also used by government officials and environmental organisations.

The database is particularly important for global-south nations, which are less likely to have comprehensive national or regional records of disasters than those in the global north.

For example, the Indonesian government used EM-DAT to develop a national strategy against disasters, says Speybroeck.

The database has also been used to document the “disproportionate climate burden” borne by small-island nations, he adds, which “prompted the UN to release more funding” for these states.

EM-DAT is of critical importance to national and multinational initiatives tracking extreme weather in Africa, says Prof Dewald van Niekerk, head of the African Centre for Disaster Studies at North-West University in South Africa. Van Niekerk was one of the climate scientists who authored the open letter calling for EM-DAT to be protected from closure. He tells Carbon Brief:

“We use it on various levels, from sub-national straight up to continental level.”

Since 2018, van Niekerk has utilised EM-DAT to prepare reports on extreme weather events in Africa for the African Union. These efforts are to meet goals agreed under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, a voluntary international agreement to prevent disasters from upending development.

Without EM-DAT, it would not be possible to conduct such analyses, he says:

“Not all [African] governments can compile these databases. Where they do, they are extremely fragmented. You can’t compare apples with apples.”

(Carbon Brief has also used EM-DAT data to investigate the impact of extreme weather on Africa, finding that such events killed at least 15,000 people on the continent in 2023.)

Uncertain future

Despite having a global impact, EM-DAT’s small team of researchers require just €300,000 ($350,000) a year to maintain operations.

For decades, EM-DAT obtained 90% of this funding from USAid, the US’s federal agency for foreign aid, says Speybroeck:

“[USAid] allowed us to work in an independent and neutral way, so we were not influenced by any politics. That was one of the strengths of the database. They only asked for us to leave it open access, meaning that anyone can use it.”

USAid was dismantled by Donald Trump after he became US president for the second time in January 2025. By July, the agency officially closed its doors.

Speybroeck received a letter in February 2025 informing him that his team were to lose their funding. 

“I decided for a long time to keep silent,” he tells Carbon Brief. However, by the end of 2025, he chose to start speaking out about the impact of USAid cuts on EM-DAT.

Learning of the threats to the database, four leading climate scientists published an open letter in March calling for other governments, multilateral development banks and philanthropy to step in to stop the database from closing. It has attracted more than 4,000 signatures.

One of the letter authors, Prof Gabriele Messori, director of the Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes at Uppsala University in Sweden, tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s very worrying that a long-term dataset that has become a reference for many different sectors, when looking at the impacts of a wide range of natural and technological events on society and the economy, could be suddenly interrupted.” 

(The cuts to EM-DAT’s funding come as the Trump administration has laid off thousands of scientists and frozen research grants worth billions of dollars in the US. For more on how these actions are impacting climate science, see Carbon Brief’s explainer on how Trump is threatening polar research.)

Since going public about EM-DAT’s funding crisis, Speybroeck says he has had some “positive signals” from potential new funders, but “there is nothing on paper yet”.

Another letter author, Prof Dewald van Niekerk, says he hopes to see EM-DAT move towards a model of using multiple funding sources, to create a “more robust structure” where “no one can just pull the plug” on its work.

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Wild Kid Acres began as a neglected piece of land in Maryland, largely overlooked and used as a dumping ground. Today, it is a thriving community hub that draws tens of thousands of visitors each year. Founder Gerardo Martinez says that the transformation represents a broader vision of what farming can be.

“I want to showcase the impact of what a farm can do beyond just growing food,” says Martinez, who not only sells food through Wild Kid Acres but hosts agricultural education, including youth and family programming, and is a refuge for animal therapy.

The seeds for Wild Kid Acres were planted many years prior. After serving in the Marine Corps, Martinez traveled to Cameroon through leadership development work, where he visited a farm that inspired him to see farming as a form of community care.

“It was not just where they grew food. It’s also where they went for community. It’s where the church was. It’s also where the school was,” says Martinez. “It’s where you went if you felt bad. It’s where you went if you felt good. It was everything to them.”

Martinez was inspired to build something similar when he returned to the United States in 2019. He and his wife purchased an abandoned property that others had used to dump trash. They moved onto the land in an RV and began slowly restoring it.

As Martinez rebuilt the soil using regenerative practices, his neighbors began to take notice. Neighbors would pull their cars into his driveway to ask questions about what he was doing. Initially, he kept the farm closed off. 

“Empathy isn’t my strongest suit that I can bring to the table,” Martinez admits. But one day in late 2020, a woman pulled into his driveway, said hello, and broke down crying. The encounter convinced him to offer his property as an investment in the community.

Wild Kid Acres began opening to the public for just two hours on Saturdays. The community’s response was immediate: There were 6,000 visitors in 2021. Martinez says the farm quickly evolved into the type of gathering place he saw in Cameroon.

The team began giving away food and investing more deeply in the surrounding community. Volunteers helped build infrastructure, including a barn constructed with the help of local children.

“It started becoming this community center,” Martinez says.

By last year, Wild Kid Acres had welcomed 50,000 visitors. But more important for Martinez has been its work empowering the next generation.

“How do we grow food ethically and still care for the planet? Why isn’t anyone helping the farmers? Why aren’t there farmers that look like me? How can I become a farmer?” Martinez recalls children asking. They were able to see the range of systemic challenges facing farmers much more quickly than adults typically would, he says.

Their questions led Martinez to rethink the farm’s direction. Wild Kid Acres is now focused on building pathways into agriculture for young people. Recently, Martinez launched a new initiative to support youth-led farming ventures, which offers support to young farmers across the country with marketing, access to markets, and capital.

For Martinez, this work is urgent. He believes the future of agriculture depends on investing in those who will carry it forward.

“These kids are going to grow food and feed your kids. They should be the priority within everything you write, everything you invest,” he says. “My farm doesn’t matter unless my grandkids can take it over.

Watch Martinez’s story below and find others from our farmer storytelling events on Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

This article is part of Food Tank’s ongoing Farmer Friday series, produced in partnership with Niman Ranch, a champion for independent U.S. family farmers. The series highlights the stories of farmers working toward a more sustainable, equitable food system. Niman Ranch partners with over 500 small-scale U.S. family farmers and is committed to preserving rural agricultural communities and their way of life.

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

Photo courtesy of Wild Kid Acres

The post A Regenerative Farm Becomes a Lifeline for Community and Youth appeared first on Food Tank.

Robin Mann reports on how support for both Plaid Cymru and Reform is transforming the Welsh political landscape

The post Elections 2026: The political shifts reshaping Wales appeared first on Red Pepper.

By Nagraj Adve Seeking to cushion the impacts of global warming is like aiming at a moving target. What’s worse, the target is now moving faster. Over the last decade or so, there has been a significant acceleration in the rate of warming globally, from about 0.18 degrees Celsius (°C) per decade during 1970–2010, to […]

Participants from the Maritimes, Ontario, and Puerto Rico will take part in a week of farm work, discussions, and workshops.

The post Canada: National Farmers Union Nova Scotia to Host Agroecology Brigade with Partners from Puerto Rico appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

OK, it’s not an Onion headline (except that it was 15 years ago): the state of California is studying the potential of running 140-mile-per-hour “high-speed buses” on highways, even though the state’s first high speed rail line has been in the works for decades.

We love the latest from Cities by Diana, which explores where versions of the high-speed bus concept are actually a thing around the world, and debates the pros and (mostly) cons of the model for the Golden State and beyond. It’s a big departure from her channel’s usual found-AI-urbanist-fever-dream videos (which you might have seen on Streetsblog before, because we love them), but it’s no less wild, absurd, and fascinating.

• Cities are using porous pavement, light-colored paint, and native plantings and solar panels for shade to cool down parking lots and reduce the urban heat island effect. (Associated Press)
• Suspending gas taxes hurts transportation funding a lot more than it helps drivers (NPR). Gas taxes are already inadequate, and the State Smart Transportation Initiative recommends fees based on mileage and vehicle weight.
• The Federal Transit Administration is releasing $166 million to replace aging train cars. (Metro)
• The Trump administration is loosening regulations on refrigerator trucks, which will result in millions of tons of harmful chemicals leaking into the environment. (Carbon Upfront)
• Elaborate requirements for public comment and a fear of lawsuits are paralyzing bureaucracies and making simple street safety fixes all but impossible, writes Stephanie Nakhleh. (We Can Have Nice Things)
• Car-centric cities in the Midwest and Rust Belt are redesigning their public spaces to be more people-friendly. (Common Edge)
• Salt Lake City recently completed new protected bike lanes on the South Viaduct, offering a safe route to bike and walk over train tracks and freeway approaches. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• About two out of every five pedestrians killed in Austin is a person experiencing homelessness. (KVUE)
• Crashes in the Columbus, Ohio area are down from last year, but there have still been 8,000 so far in 2026. (WOSU)
• Houston is fixing Midtown sidewalks as part of a “walkable place” pilot project. (Chron)
• Pittsburgh’s POGOH bikeshare is expanding outside the city limits. (Axios)
• Portland transit agency TriMet is lawing off hundreds of employees and cutting back bus service. (Tribune)
• Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill reorganizing the Regional Transportation District board, which oversees Denver transit. (Newsline)
• Maryland passed a law removing parking minimums near transit stops and requiring cities to zone those areas for mixed use to encourage more transit-oriented development. (National Center for Smart Growth)
• Iranian hackers were likely responsible for a March breach at the Los Angeles Metro. (Tech Crunch)
• A California city is using robots to assess sidewalk conditions. (KSBW)
• Washington, D.C. is auctioning off several unused streetcars. (DC News Now)

Community members across Perth and the South West have today staged coordinated actions across six WA Labor electorate offices, including those of Premier Roger Cook and senior ministers, calling on the state government to rule out fracking in the Kimberley. 

Rumours. False announcements. Lies. What’s going on with immigration changes in Canada these days?!

Join us on June 10 for a free online information session just for migrants like you. Let’s break through the noise together to get the facts, and learn how migrants are uniting to take action against unfair immigration rules to win permanent status for all.

What we’ll cover:

• Recent TR to PR announcement
• Changes to Express Entry
• What to do if your permit is expiring
• & more

Don’t miss out! Sign up now and invite a friend:

The post Recent immigration changes: Free online information session first appeared on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

The post Recent immigration changes: Free online information session appeared first on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

Legal papers have been submitted to the High Court in a legal challenge against plans for lower-volume fracking at an oil and gas site in East Yorkshire.

Campaigners opposed to the West Newton oil and gas site in East Yorkshire.
Photo: West Newton Said No

The case, brought by local campaigner Peter Lomas, seeks to quash the Environment Agency’s decision to permit the operation at the West Newton-A site in Holderness.

The site operator, Rathlin Energy, plans to inject liquid and proppant into the West Newton-A2 well at pressures high enough to fracture surrounding rocks.

The operation is intended to make oil and gas flow more readily to the surface and allow the commercial exploitation of the well.

The A2 well is drilled through the chalk aquifer, which supplies water locally. The West Newton-A site is 882m from the Lambwath Meadows site of special scientific interest.

The case

The case papers set out Mr Lomas’s three main reasons for applying for a judicial review of the decision:

• The EA breached environmental permitting and water protection regulations by failing to recognise the prohibition of inputting hazardous substances into groundwater. The EA has admitted an error in law by stating there would be an “indirect input” into groundwater. In fact, there would be a direct input. As a result, there was insufficient information for the public to comment, making a consultation so unfair as to be unlawful.
• The EA breached its responsibilities on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, facilitating public participation and understanding the effects of proposed work on the climate.
• The EA erred in law by granting Rathlin’s request for a variation of its environmental permit to allow fracking, without first reviewing the Hydraulic Fracturing Plan (HFP). This is a required document that aims to manage the risk of seismic events caused by fracking. Rathlin submitted the HFP to the EA three hours after the decision to allow fracking had been issued.

Peter Lomas said today:

“As can be seen by the grounds of my challenge it’s important that I oppose this environmental permit variation as far as I can.

“The regulators need to be held accountable at all stages of the environmental and planning processes. Scrutiny is paramount, as is transparency throughout all processes.

“Playing with figures, percentages and confusing wording when it comes to the very real risk of our precious drinking water being compromised is not negotiable. The risk of seismic events is a reality, it’s not an untruth.

“We simply cannot sit by and do nothing about it in the hope that it will all go away. We must all act and that’s why I’m acting as an individual, in the hope of quashing this permit variation.

“I thank everyone so far that have helped me in realising my legal challenge, and I hope that this will be a catalyst for others to follow suit.”

Fracking using large volumes of liquid has, in effect, been banned in England by a moratorium, in force since 2019.

But lower-volume fracking, like that proposed at West Newton and at Burniston in North Yorkshire, is allowed.

Environmental campaigners have described this as a legal loophole and urged the government to ban all forms of fracking.

• The campaign group, West Newton Said No, has launched a crowdfunder to raise money for Mr Lomas’s legal fees. At the time of writing, it had raised more than £2,000 from 36 donations. The target is £20,000.

The campaign group behind a landmark legal judgement on carbon emissions has criticised official advice to government on the climate impact of onshore oil and gas.

Methane emissions from a UK onshore hydrocarbon site.
Photo: Clean Air Task Force

The Weald Action Group, which secured the 2024 Finch Ruling at the Supreme Court, said the Climate Change Committee (CCC) may have underestimated the climate risks from onshore petroleum operations in guidance to ministers.

The CCC is required by law to provide advice to the government every five years on how onshore petroleum extraction in England affects the UK’s ability to meet its climate targets.

Earlier this year, the CCC told the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, greenhouse gas emissions from conventional onshore petroleum production in England were “a small contributor to carbon budgets and Net Zero”. The CCC also assumed that emissions would decline as onshore sites matured and closed.

But the Weald Action Group (WAG) said in a response this week that the CCC’s assessment was “incomplete” and not “a robust basis” for determining whether onshore oil and gas operations were compatible with UK carbon budgets.

In a letter to the CCC chair, Nigel Topping, the group said this year’s advice “failed to reflect the current reality of the onshore petroleum sector”.

WAG also said the CCC relied on assumptions that were “inconsistent with observed industry activity and regulatory practice”.

The CCC did not appear to have taken into account new expansion plans by onshore operators, WAG said. It said the CCC’s conclusions contradicted previous support for tighter limits on oil and gas production and a presumption against further exploration.

WAG also suggested:

“the assessment used to inform the Committee’s advice is incomplete and therefore underestimates the climate risks from onshore oil and gas under current policy and regulation.”

Expansion plans

WAG identified eight proposals to expand onshore oil and gas in the UK.

The plans include four sites in North and East Yorkshire (Burniston, Foxholes, Ebberston Moor and West Newton), three in Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire (Wressle, Whisby and Glentworth) and one in Dorset (Waddock Cross).

WAG said a moratorium on further onshore petroleum development would be a “reasonable and logical position for the CCC to adopt”.

Regulatory failure

WAG also said the climate impact of onshore oil and gas was compounded by a failure of regulators to ensure disused wells – a source of methane emissions – were decommissioned in “a timely manner”.

WAG said:

“evidence from multiple UK onshore sites indicates that decommissioning is frequently delayed, increasing the likelihood of prolonged emissions from inactive or suspended wells”.

The group accused the onshore sector of deferring well abandonment and site restoration for as long as possible “due to financial constraints, a reluctance to incur costs where funds are available, or broader political and strategic ambition”.

WAG said this was abetted by a “laissez-faire approach” from the industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA).

The group said the NSTA had allowed Star Energy to schedule decommissioning of the South Leverton field in Nottinghamshire in 2028, even though production had stopped in 2020-2021.

WAG added that at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road shale gas site in Lancashire, the NSTA extended the deadline for decommissioning wells beyond the expiry of planning permission.

“Questionable data”

WAG also said the CCC had relied data on methane emissions from upstream oil and gas activities recorded in the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI).

The group said:

“There is doubt over the reliability of using NAEI data to estimate the impact of the onshore sector on carbon budgets – particularly regarding methane emissions.”

The CCC relied upon a production emissions baseline based on what it admitted was “limited publicly available information”, WAG said.

It added that research in 2023 indicated that the NAEI data could be underestimating true methane emissions, particularly from onshore venting.

The state received high marks for its robust energy storage interconnection framework, frequent public reports on its interconnection queue and incorporating IEEE’s technical standard for DER interconnections.

Mayo, 2026

Costa Rica enfrenta una crisis de residuos con sus rellenos sanitarios casi al límite de su capacidad. El Municipio de León Cortés, por ejemplo, envía el 85% de sus residuos al relleno sanitario, y solo un 14% tiene como destino el reciclaje. Esta situación ha llevado a una proliferación de proyectos de incineración en el país, amenazando tesoros de biodiversidad como la zona Monumento Natural de los Santos, una zona rural y cafetera donde ocurre parte del proyecto de soluciones basura cero que presentaremos a través de la experiencia de Yoselin Zuñiga.

Yoselin Zúñiga, monitora ambiental del proyecto Lideresas del cambio.
© Camila Aguilera.

Yoselin vive en el barrio El Estadio, en León Cortés, y fue una de las siete promotoras ambientales del proyecto Líderesas del Cambio, impulsado por la Asociación Defensores del Monumento Natural Zona de los Santos. El proyecto nació con el fin de buscar soluciones desde el origen del problema y de llegar con esas soluciones a la vida cotidiana de las personas. 

El proyecto comenzó con un estudio de composición de residuos que arrojó que el 60% de los residuos de los hogares que iban a participar en el proyecto correspondía a residuos orgánicos que terminaban en el relleno sanitario. Por otro lado, el municipio ofrecía retiro diferenciado, pero faltaba potenciar la educación ambiental para generar los cambios que se necesitaban para que existiera un compromiso a largo plazo por parte de los hogares.

“No era citar a la gente a un salón y decirles qué hacer. Era ir a sus casas, adaptarse a sus horarios, compartir un café, conversar”, comenta Yoselin.

Promotoras ambientales, el corazón del proyecto
Monitoras ambientales.

La mayoría de los hogares que participaron en el proyecto estaban compuestos por mujeres que sostenían las tareas del hogar y que, por lo tanto, tenían dificultades para salir de la casa  y asistir a charlas o talleres. Por eso, las siete Lideresas del cambio eran mujeres del mismo barrio, también jefas de hogar, que compartían un lenguaje común y sabían cómo abordar la cotidianidad del barrio para sacar adelante el proyecto.

“Queríamos demostrar que las mujeres somos la primera base del hogar en lo que tiene que ver con reciclaje y compostaje”, explica Yoselin. “No desde un discurso feminista, sino desde la realidad cotidiana. Somos quienes sostenemos gran parte de la casa y también podemos impulsar estos cambios”.

Para cumplir la misión de hacer las visitas domiciliarias, las  monitoras recibieron una capacitación de 16 horas para fortalecer sus capacidades técnicas y habilidades sociales, prepararon materiales educativos y fichas de monitoreo. 

Llevar la educación ambiental a cada casa

Una de las decisiones del proyecto fue evitar capacitaciones masivas o charlas impersonales. Las conversaciones de las tres visitas que estaban contempladas para los 175 hogares que se sumaron al proyecto ocurrían dentro de las casas, en horarios acordados con cada familia. “No es lo mismo llegar a entregar un afiche que sentarse a conversar con alguien que ya conoce a la persona que le está hablando”, comenta Yoselin.

Recorrido por el barrio El Estadio, Costa Rica.

Las visitas se adaptaban a cada familia y fue un acompañamiento en el que se enseñó a compostar, a segregar y a reducir. Algunas personas aprendían escuchando, otras necesitaban ver ejemplos o tocar materiales. Por eso llevaban portafolios con muestras y apoyos visuales. “La idea no era solo ir a decir cosas. Era que realmente captaran el mensaje”.

Compostaje, menos malos olores y menos basura

El proyecto contempló la gestión de la fracción de orgánicos desde el comienzo. Quienes querían compostar en sus propios patios recibieron orientación y, quienes no podían hacerlo, tuvieron la opción de acceder a retiro diferenciado.  Para ello, se articuló un trabajo con Ovejas Verdes, el programa piloto municipal de gestión de residuos orgánicos, que envía los residuos a Coopetarrazu, la planta  de gestión de orgánicos industrial más grande de Costa Rica, donde el compost generado vuelve a productores de café.

Visita a la planta de compostaje de Coopetarrazu.

“El orgánico fue lo que más le gustó a mucha gente”, recuerda Yoselin . “En la segunda visita me decían: ‘Los gusanos se me quitaron de la basura, los malos olores, las cucarachas también’”.

 “Uno pasa una semana acumulando residuos orgánicos en una bolsa y claro que eso genera malos olores. Cuando empezaron a separarlos, el cambio se notó de inmediato”.

“La gente me acogió muy bonito”

Si bien cada paso que se dio permitió consolidar cambios sostenidos con impactos ambientales positivos, también se buscaba impulsar una transformación social a través del fortalecimiento del liderazgo de las promotoras y que el barrio El Estadio se convirtiera en un referente ambiental en el cantón. 

Yoselin dice que una de las cosas que más la marcó fue la forma en que las familias abrieron las puertas de sus casas.“Entrar al hogar de alguien siempre es delicado. Uno podría pensar que la gente se va a sentir incómoda si le dicen qué hacer con sus residuos”. Pero ocurrió lo contrario. “No tuve malas caras de nadie. En la segunda visita ya me decían que llegara a la hora del café o del almuerzo para compartir”.

Para Yoselin, buena parte de los resultados tuvieron que ver con la cercanía. Ese enfoque permitió que las familias se sintieran parte del proceso y no simplemente receptoras de instrucciones. “Si alguien no podía un día, reprogramábamos. Todo era muy accesible. Entonces las personas también se comprometían”.

El miedo a los basureros clandestinos y la amenaza de la incineración

Aunque el proyecto mostró buenos resultados, Yoselin dice que todavía existe preocupación por el futuro de los residuos en la zona, “Sabemos que tenemos un problema. El problema de los plásticos de un solo uso, de la contaminación tan grande que hay, de que los rellenos sanitarios ya no dan abasto. En la zona ya las municipalidades no tienen contratos con los botaderos de basura. Y lo que más miedo nos provoca a nosotros como asociación y a nosotras como promotoras son los basureros clandestinos”, explica.

También menciona la amenaza de una incineradora proyectada para la zona, “Si llega el momento en que la municipalidad no tiene dónde llevar esa basura, ¿qué va a hacer? La gente va a tirarla donde pueda o van a poner la incineradora. Una incineradora que sabemos que en San Pablo León Cortés tiene los permisos firmados. Entonces, nosotros necesitamos dar a entender que sí se puede, que el cambio se puede hacer.”

Para ella, la solución no pasa solamente por gestionar mejor la basura, sino por reducirla desde el origen. “La idea no es pasar la vida buscando cómo resolver los residuos. La idea es que no se generen”.

“No podemos perder a esas familias”

Cuando habla del futuro, Yoselin insiste en la continuidad. “No queremos que esto desaparezca”. Las familias ya capacitadas, dice, necesitan seguimiento, nuevas actividades y espacios donde seguir participando.

Al cerrar la conversación, vuelve a recalcar que el proyecto funcionó porque se construyó desde el barrio, entre personas que ya se conocían y compartían la vida cotidiana. “Fueron más de quinientas personas alcanzadas entre adultos y niños. No podemos perder eso”.

“La gente estaba feliz con el cambio.”

The post “La gente estaba feliz con el cambio”: las monitoras ambientales que transformaron el barrio El Estadio en Costa Rica first appeared on GAIA.

PRT Must Set & Track Goals on Ridership, Service Reliability, Rider/Worker Satisfaction and Funding 

A bus network redesign is a tool for massive change—whether good or bad. With the Bus Line Refresh, Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) has the opportunity to make positive changes that our system needs. PRT has shown a commitment to rider needs by updating its Bus Line Refresh Draft 2.0 to include valuable new neighborhood connectors, expanding service frequencies on popular routes, and more. But in order to make the system work for its riders, PRT needs to commit to improving ridership, reliability, funding, and rider/worker satisfaction—regardless of what shape the Refresh ends up taking.

A strong transit system is one in which ridership is robust, buses and trolleys show up on time, and both riders and workers feel positive about their experience with the service. A strong transit system is also one in which there is stable funding to maintain and expand the service. 

Ridership, Reliability, and Satisfaction Metrics Should Come First

At May’s Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) Board of Director’s committee meetings, we were pleased to see some progress in our organizing for more transit system accountability, with PRT staff reporting to their Board on ridership and reliability trends by month. That’s a start: with more attention paid to these metrics, we hope to see clearer plans for how PRT is going to improve them. We have seen 40% of our total transit service cut over the last 20 years, and PRT service reliability is poor- as a result, transit ridership levels are now at a devastating low. That is why it is critical that PRT identifies goals and a plan for strengthening our system, and makes it clear how the Bus Line Refresh will help meet those goals. 

The Bus Line Refresh needs to be part of a coherent broader PRT strategy around transit restoration, growth and improvement-—not just managing or accelerating decline—and the public must be able to evaluate the success of the plan implementation against those metrics. A Bus Line Refresh that clearly lays out its purpose in strengthening our transit system to the benefit of riders can then be used as a tool to organize for stable and expanded state transit funding.

Since the Bus Line Refresh is cost-neutral, any service improvements in one community must come at the expense of others. Over the last several weeks, our participatory research committee has identified the potentially harmful impacts of this proposal as well as the improvements that riders would see under Draft 2.0.

4 Key Recommendations for a Successful Refresh 1 . PRT should establish specific goals for growing ridership, improving reliability, improving rider/worker satisfaction, and supporting advocacy for expanded state funding.

Whatever the Refresh looks like, our system cannot succeed without dedicated attention and clear progress towards these vital goals.

2 . PRT must create transparency and accountability towards these goals by collecting data related to the impact of the Bus Line Refresh—before, during, and after implementation. 

PRT should report monthly on these critical metrics to the PRT website and Board of Directors, as well as the Western PA Regional Data Center. Data to report include

• Average ridership by route
• On-time performance by route
• Crowding by route
• Number and type of customer complaints and their resolutions (in particular, as a way of daylighting ongoing communications, scheduling, disability and safety-related issues). 

In addition, PRT should run parallel transit rider and transit worker satisfaction surveys, before, during, and after the implementation of the Bus Line Refresh. This will provide critical insights on whether the Refresh has improved or worsened transit outcomes for its primary stakeholders- its users and its workforce. 

Some key questions to ask riders in these surveys are: 

• Overall approval of transit
• Ease of use
• Perception of reliability 
• Satisfaction with amenities at stops, stations or on vehicles 
• Satisfaction with the safety, accessibility and proximity of the bus stops to trip origins and destinations
• First-last mile accessibility
• Satisfaction with value for the fare paid
• Total commute time
• Do you have more or fewer transfers under the Bus Line Refresh than before?
• How long is the wait time for your transfer(s)?
• Do you feel like your trip is very fast, ok, or too long?
• Are you paying more, less, or the same for transit?
• Is your bus easier or harder to identify with the new naming system?
• Demographic and geographic data, to assess Refresh impacts based on those characteristics

3. PRT should maintain features that work for current riders—and make key improvements now, during regular service changes.

• PRT should not cut bus stops as a part of the Bus Line Refresh. Bus stop usage and accessibility must be carefully evaluated before any consideration of stop removals are advanced.
• PRT should maintain the existing route names to the greatest extent possible, to keep buses familiar and legible for riders.
• PRT must minimize the number of new forced transfers under the plan. Adding transfers where riders previously had direct connections causes riders to stop taking transit.
• Some widely beneficial aspects of the Refresh—like the restorations of the 61D and 71A/C/D Downtown—do not need to wait for a full Refresh implementation, and can be implemented during regular service changes. PRT can also make immediate changes to alleviate overcrowding, expand weekend service, and make other minor improvements as appropriate. 

4. The rollout of the Bus Line Refresh is just as important as the plan itself.

The Bus Line Refresh is a massive change to almost the entire system. Without a thoughtful, clearly communicated plan for implementation, riders will not be able to successfully navigate it. Here are some ways that PRT can ensure a clear, harm-minimized rollout:

• In implementing the full Refresh, it is important that neighborhoods gain any service improvements at the same time as any service losses, so that they do not suffer any gaps in transit service. 
• There must also be opportunities built into the implementation process in which PRT pauses and evaluates the impacts of the Refresh—and reverse course if necessary. 

• During implementation, PRT must pay careful attention to how they are scheduling multiple routes sharing a common corridor. PRT schedulers must ensure that those routes are evenly spaced, providing the most convenient level of service for riders, rather than having multiple buses arrive at the same time, with a subsequent large gap in service.
• PRT needs to ensure that their communications on their website, social media, Ready2Ride and third-party transit apps, on the printed schedule and at the bus stop are aligned, so that riders are clear about the changes before they happen.

The post How PRT’s Bus Line Refresh Draft 2.0 Can Benefit Our Region appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Sometimes, the fate of lots of small things hinge on the fate of a few very big ones. Take the story of the dung beetles and the elephant.

For a long time, scientists have warned that the loss of certain “keystone” species can cause outsized disruptions in an ecosystem. At the most extreme, it can wipe out still more species, a phenomenon known as “coextinction.”

While this domino effect makes sense in theory, documenting its occurrence in the wild has proven much trickier. Ecosystems are complex and hard to control, defying easy manipulation or observation. But scientists in Kenya appear to have done just that in an ambitious melding of computer modeling, on-the-ground experiments and detailed observations of the landscape.

The upshot: Insect diversity can hinge on the health of a single giant herbivore species. And that in turn can influence everything from nutrient cycling to seed dispersal. It’s a lesson how shifts in diversity can fray whole ecosystems.

“Our findings underscore the value of conserving elephants, not just for their own sake, but also for the biogeochemical integrity of savannas, the prosperity of pastoral and agro-ecosystems, and the cosurvival of charismatic minifauna,” the scientists wrote in a study published today in Science.

At the center of this is the interplay between dung beetles and elephants, or more specifically, elephant poop.

Dung beetles have earned plenty of attention for their appetite for feces, especially the species that roll animal dung into tidy balls and trundle them across the ground. But that’s a trick done only by some of the dozens of beetles that feed themselves and their larvae on other animal’s droppings. There are the “dwellers” that live in the dung, the “tunnelers” that store dung in holes, and then the famous “tumblers.” All told, scientists from U.S., European and African universities identified 176 different species of dung beetles at the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya, ranging in size from a grain of wheat to a chicken egg.

Elephants, of course, aren’t the only animals depositing dung piles in this part of Africa. But when these scientists set up a buffet of eight different kinds of local dung, a disproportionate number of the beetles showed a particular fondness for elephant dung. Traps set next to piles of elephant poop captured between 1.5 and 24 times more individual beetles and 2 to 6 times more species than any other kind of feces.

That might have something to do with the sheer volume deposited by a typical elephant. But it also appeared related to the animal’s digestive system. Beetles showed a preference for animals that digest plant fiber in their intestines near the end of the gut (elephants and zebras), rather than ruminants that break down food more completely in a series of stomach chambers. In other words, not all poop is the same according to some of the most discerning dung connoisseurs.

 

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When the scientists plugged the results into a computer model mapping the interactions between all the species, it showed that if elephants were removed from the landscape, it would trigger between 2 and 8 times more extinctions than if any other animal vanished from the area.

But would this digital scenario hold up in the messy real world? To find out, the scientists turned to a series of test plots, each roughly the size of one city block. Some plots were left open to all animals, others were fenced to exclude the very largest animals (i.e. elephants and giraffes), and others were fenced to exclude all herbivores.

When the scientists checked the test sites in 2023, 15 years after their creation, the areas open to elephants were a veritable dung beetle paradise. They had the highest total number of dung beetles, the largest variety of beetle species and the largest total biomass of the beetles. Sites that excluded elephants and giraffes had two-thirds fewer beetles, a 50% drop in beetle biomass and 23% fewer species. The areas without any herbivores had similar losses.

Giraffes were ruled out as a significant factor, because their dung ranked the lowest in popularity in the earlier taste test, where they had a “trifling effect,” the scientists wrote.

The results in the test plots were mirrored when scientists investigated dung beetle populations in nearby ranches where elephants had been displaced by sheep and goats.

Dung beetles’ dependence on elephants likely rippled through the entire ecosystem. Piles of dung placed on the different test plots broke down 35% more slowly in places where elephants were absent. Decomposition is a key activity in an ecosystem, helping to make nutrients available for plants and other organisms. Small fake seeds placed in the dung were also removed at double the rate in plots with elephants compared to those without.

The study not only illustrates the critical role of elephants in an ecosystem, but “also highlights the vulnerability of dung beetles and adds to growing concerns about the decline of insect populations,” Oxford University entomologist Owen Slade and Nanyang Technological University ecologist Eleanor Slade wrote in a commentary published in the same issue of Science.

Indeed, as much as people revere elephants—an feeling probably reinforced by this study – dung beetles are underappreciated ecological heroes. Their work breaking down dung not only helps disperse seeds and spread nutrients, it also reduces parasites and pests and enhances carbon storage. Their presence in the U.K. alone was estimated to have produced some $800 million in benefits to the cattle industry there in today’s dollars.

Talk about spinning feces into gold.

Gijsman, et. al. “Importance of elephants for dung beetle biodiversity and ecosystem functions.” Science. May 28, 2026.

Image: By Bernard Dupont via Flickr