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Solar power is on the rise around the world as the cost of solar panels goes down and societal acceptance of the technology rises. The world added record-breaking solar power installations in 2025, and capacity is expected to more than double in the next five years, according to the International Energy Agency.

But there’s one inescapable issue darkening the skies for the transition to clean solar energy: dirty coal plants. Researchers in the UK have found that pollution from coal is significantly reducing the amount of power we could be getting from solar panels.

From 2017 to 2023, annual solar energy losses “from existing systems were, on average, equivalent to one-third of the energy added by new PV installations,” the researchers write in a paper published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

When power plant furnaces burn coal, it releases not just carbon dioxide but also sulfur dioxide. This gas reacts with other molecules to become small particles called sulfates. Called aerosols, these tiny particles get suspended in the air and reflect sunlight.

 

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For their new study, the researchers used satellite data to map and assess more than 140,000 solar installations worldwide. They combined this data with air pollution data to calculate how much sunlight dims and how this reduces electricity generation. The researchers traced the origins of the aerosols and found that they came mainly from coal-fired power plants.

They found that in 2023 aerosols reduced global solar electricity output by 5.8%, or 111 terawatt-hours of energy; that is equal to the amount generated by 18 medium-sized coal-fired power plants. The losses were highest in China, where solar and coal are expanding and are often located close to each other. China had the largest aerosol-related solar energy losses worldwide, reducing national solar power generation by 7.7% in 2023.

The phase-out of coal power around the world has been slow, the researchers write, and this study presents yet another way that coal could interfere with the world’s clean-energy transition. “Looking forward, the physical interaction between coal-based aerosols and solar PV performance is likely to become an increasingly critical constraint on the global energy transition,” they say.

Source: Rui Song et al. Coal plants persist as a large barrier to the global solar energy transition. Nature Sustainability, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene magazine/AI-generated

Muzan Alneel, in many ways, represented Sudan’s 2018 revolution, and the strong tradition and legacy of Sudan’s women revolutionaries.

Muzan was a clear-eyed revolutionary strategist. She was part of the revolutionary movement, analyzing its trajectory, while also acting as a spokesperson, communicating its importance to revolutionaries and activists around the world. Muzan participated in the Khartoum sit-in in early 2019, warning against leaving the sit-in and relinquishing power to the military. Understanding this, that the revolution could not be handed over to the military, that overthrowing Bashir and then Ibn Auf was not enough, was key to moving Sudan’s revolution to its next stage. It was one of the lessons that the Sudanese revolution learned from the failures of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, that overthrowing the figurehead of the regime was not enough, and one of the reasons Sudan’s revolution went so much further—and why so many of us held on to hope and optimism that Sudan provided a lesson that revolutionaries around the world must pay attention to.

Muzan was also prescient and aware of the dangers of the agreement between the transitional government and the military, and saw the 2021 coup by the military as expected and inevitable after this. There can be no agreement between a revolutionary movement and a counterrevolutionary military that does not end in bloodshed and counterrevolution. Muzan understood both the successes and the limitations of the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), and of Hamdok and the transitional government. The SPA had accomplished what it could in the early phases of the revolution, galvanizing layers of workers and mass days of resistance, but now no longer represented a revolutionary alternative. Muzan highlighted the crucial importance of the neighborhood resistance committees, pointing out that they were ignored and overlooked by commentators and international media, but that they were key to the next stage of the struggle, and to moving the revolution forward. She analyzed both the potential of the resistance committees and their challenges and weaknesses, finding that in wealthy neighborhoods, the politics of the neighborhood committees were shaped by middle-class politics and thus less radical than in other areas.

Muzan had the analysis needed to navigate through the ups and downs of the revolutionary struggle. She, perhaps more than anyone, understood what elements are needed for a revolution to be successful. Our movements are in desperate need of revolutionary thinkers and strategists like Muzan, for them to have a chance at success.

Moreover, Muzan retained revolutionary optimism. She understood that revolutionary processes are long. Even when the war between the RSF and SAF began in 2023, she remained hopeful, while also realistic about what was needed at each moment on the ground. She knew that during the war, the resistance committees were providing needed aid, healthcare, and lifesaving services. She remained hopeful that once the war ended, the work of the revolution could continue, and the resistance committees could return to a political strategy that prioritizes the revolution.

And Muzan was not bitter, even though much of the world ignored Sudan’s revolution and counterrevolution. She was open to working with anyone who understood the gravity of the situation and who took Sudan’s revolution seriously.

The loss of Muzan is a horrific setback for not just the Sudanese revolutionary struggle but for the broader global struggle for liberation. Muzan understood that our liberation movements and revolutionary struggles are connected.

Muzan was one of many incredible Sudanese women I have been lucky enough to connect with in solidarity work with the revolution since 2018. Sudan’s revolutionary history, its history of left-wing activism and revolutions, has produced militant revolutionary women who are politically astute, who study revolutionary traditions and history, who note the crucial interconnections between liberation struggles like Sudan’s and Palestine’s. Muzan comes out of this tradition, a tradition that still deserves more attention, more solidarity, and more seriousness than it has been given. She represented its strongest edge. Our movements worldwide need to work hard to instill revolutionary seriousness, study of history, and political analysis that Muzan held and embodied.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”

The post Muzan Alneel, 1986-2026 appeared first on Tempest.

As Trump took to Twitter to threaten a potential nuclear strike on Iran in April, many users on the platform and other social media cried...

The post A Bug’s Life: Almost thirty years later, Pixar’s forgotten film is more relevant than ever first appeared on Spring.

This April, in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), plastic was on the agenda at one of Europe’s biggest banks’ Annual General Meetings. Campaigners and members of the Break Free From Plastic movement took their concerns directly to the Board of ING Bank, calling out the stark discrepancies between its public sustainability commitments and its far less publicised financing decisions.

Despite the well-documented harms plastic causes to environmental and human health, plastics are missing from many banks’ environmental policies. Banks have faced little accountability for their contribution to the plastic crisis, despite playing a central role in funding the production and proliferation of plastics worldwide.

Photo credit: Milieudefensie/Edo Landwehr, 2026

No policy, no limits

Financing is the oxygen that keeps plastic production alive and that is precisely why bank policies matter. When a bank establishes a plastics policy, it sets clear boundaries on what it will and will not fund, sending a powerful market signal that the most harmful parts of the plastic value chain carry real financial and reputational risk. Without such policies, there are no limitations, and capital flows freely to plastic producers, enabling the industry to expand unchecked. Beyond plastic production itself, banks also finance companies driving demand for single-use plastics and support downstream technological approaches that many campaigners and researchers argue risk delaying the transition to reduction, reuse and refill systems.

Policies also create accountability: once a bank makes a public commitment, it can be held to it by campaigners, shareholders, and regulators. Given that building and scaling plastic production is extremely capital-intensive, restricting access to that financing is one of the most direct levers available for reducing plastic production at its source. 

Photo credit: Fair Resource Foundation, 2026

ING, like many banks, currently lacks a plastics financing policy with clear criteria for limiting or excluding financing for plastics production. ING publicly acknowledges that plastic waste and pollution are a “downside”. It also points out that plastic waste is set to triple by 2060, with half still landfilled and less than a fifth recycled. ING states that it finances clients across the plastic value chain, “from upstream production to midstream users of plastic and downstream collection, sorting and recycling.”

Taken together, this raises questions about how ING’s recognition of plastic pollution translates into its financing decisions, particularly in the absence of clear criteria to limit continued expansion of virgin plastic production.

Claiming our place at the table

Annual General Meetings are spaces where executive leadership reports to a company's shareholders and provides an opportunity to expose the gaps between sustainability commitments and corporate behaviour. Through shareholder activism, civil society organisations have gradually gained access to AGMs using small amounts of shares to pressure  corporate decision-making from the inside. It is a tactic long used by climate groups, and one that is proving just as powerful in the fight against plastic pollution. 

Executives can ignore emails, campaigns and press releases, but they cannot ignore a formal question asked on the record in front of their major investors. By stepping into this space, we gained direct access to the bank’s leadership and had the opportunity to ask a question directly to the board and hold ING publicly accountable. 

Building alliances

Campaigners and activists from across the climate movement attended this year’s ING AGM, bringing attention to the investments ING has in oil, gas and coal. (pictures of protest). Inside, shareholders from these groups and organisations confronted the bank on  a range of policies, demonstrating that civil society is united to show up where decisions are actually made.

Photo credit: Fair Resource Foundation, 2026

Deflection and defensiveness: ING’s answer to our question

At the AGM, ING was asked directly: how, while acknowledging plastic pollution as a material risk, does it justify continuing to finance companies expanding virgin plastic production, including INEOS' Project ONE, the ethane cracker currently being built in Antwerp? The bank was also pressed to provide a clear timeline for client requirements across the plastic value chain, including plastic footprint disclosure, time-bound reduction targets, and a prioritisation of reuse and refill models over downstream and technological fixes.

Their answer was deeply disappointing. ING deflected to the United Nations and the need for a Global Plastics Treaty, effectively arguing that it cannot act until international frameworks are in place. 

A formal letter: demanding better answers

Attending ING’s AGM was just the first step in asking the bank to take meaningful action to address its role in the plastic crisis. This week, the Break Free From Plastic movement, together with members Fair Resource Foundation, Plastic Soup Foundation, Women Engage for a Common Future, and Fair Finance Guide Germany have sent a follow-up letter to ING bank with a series of questions. These include questions about how ING assesses clients involved in plastic production or users of plastic packaging, its policies on financing chemical recycling given its well-documented ineffectiveness, its engagement with ESG rating agencies to improve plastic-related metrics, its plans to reduce financing for fossil polymer production, and its timeline for developing a strategy that supports the investment and scaling up of reuse and refill models.

ING’s response at their 2026 AGM reflects a pattern seen before: acknowledge the problem, defer the solution and continue business as usual. The formal letter sent this week is an opportunity for ING to move beyond deflection and demonstrate that its sustainability commitments amount to more than rhetoric. Financial institutions, as the enablers of the plastic and climate crises, have the power and responsibility to develop meaningful plastics policies that shift capital away from plastic production and toward real solutions. Until then, the scrutiny will continue.

As President Trump’s Department of Transportation encourages American motorists to get in their cars and drive away from their communities to celebrate the nation’s birthday, one advocate is calling on would-be holiday drivers to stay put and deepen their connections to their neighbors — by closing their street to cars and throwing a party.

Nonprofit Block Party USA recently launched its “American Summer” campaign to inspire communities across the country to organize at least 250 block parties between Memorial Day and Labor Day, with an emphasis on the Fourth of July.

Timed to honor the 250th anniversary of America’s founding in 1776, this push could catalyze not only interpersonal connections, but an overdue conversation about our country’s divisions — and the role that neighborhoods can play in bringing us back together.

“With America 250 coming, there’s so much polarization, and people are really suffering,” said Vanessa Elias, the group’s founder. “It is affecting our mental health; we’re feeling divided and disappointed. And when we look at our history, we have become so independent and individualistic that we’ve lost this sense of community.”

Recommended How Highways Rend Our Social Fabric — and the Challenge of Mending It Streetsblog March 11, 2025

A self-described “mental health activist, parent coach, and block party expert,” Elias launched the campaign out of a deep belief that in-person interaction among neighbors is an essential ingredient for a healthy life, healthy kids and even a healthy democracy.

She founded her organization after one of her local legislators spoke out about the experience of being harassed by a constituent online, only to have a far more positive experience with the same constituent in person.

“That was just a light bulb moment for me,” Elias says. “We need block parties; we need face-to-face connection with random people in our immediate proximity.”

Recommended Car Harms Monday: Cars Make Us More Lonely Mike Lydon June 9, 2025

In human-centered communities, of course, block parties can be a naturally occurring phenomenon.

When we design our roads to treat motorists as simply members of a broader transportation ecosystem — rather than those roads’ exclusive users — we open up space for spontaneous barbecues and pop-up porch concerts, whether or not anyone has organized a formal gathering. This choice also encourages more casual social interactions between neighbors, which studies show are statistically more likely to happen in walkable neighborhoods, too.

Elias says her block party proposal can adapt to more car-dependent places, with gatherings in rural driveways or meetups in parks. But in an ideal world, she thinks everyone who wants to should be able to step right outside their door and into a true community, rather than getting in a car to go find it.

“Part of the work that I do, is to help people understand how they don’t need a perfect cul-de-sac where they can close the road … That said, I would prefer it be rooted in place, and rooted in the area that people are living,” she added. “Rather than finding a pretty park eight miles from where everybody lives, [the ideal block party would] bring people together as close as possible to where they’re living — and I think some communities make it really easy for that to happen.”

Recommended Five Things Missing In The Built Environment For Families With Young Children Barry Greene Jr. June 16, 2023

Elias acknowledged that only 6.8 percent of the U.S. population live in walkable neighborhoods, which means ideal block party sites can be hard to find.

And even within those neighborhoods, some will still find it difficult to secure permits to close streets to cars, or to rally neighbors who barely say hello to one another on the way to check the mail. She stressed that, in an era of social media isolation and deep political division, the built environment is far from the only reason why we don’t always connect.

Despite those steep odds, though, Elias argued the humble block party can be a critical first “drop” that ripples out across a whole community, building social connections that grow and deepen over time — particularly for people who are too young to drive. She emphasized that block parties encourage “free play” for children, which “can make children happier, better problem-solvers, and more energized to pursue learning and develop deep interests.”

No matter why communities gather, though, Elias said the best way to celebrate our country this summer may not be traveling to visit our national treasures, but to make treasured memories in our own neighborhoods — and maybe, to forge the coalitions we need to make livable streets and social cohesion the neighborhood norm.

“Whether you’re six or 106, it’s something that is accessible to you — to meet other people, where you belong,” she added.

Visit BlockPartyUSA.org for more tools and resources to throw a block party in your community.

TORONTO — “Build Canada Strong” is a central mantra of the federal government’s plans to bolster Canada’s economy in a rapidly changing world, with new housing and infrastructure key to Canada’s nation-building efforts. But all this construction poses a problem: the production of building materials can be a huge source of emissions. 

Thankfully, there are solutions that can reduce this downside, at little or no extra cost—while also supporting Canadian industry, as a new report, Build Canada Clean, from Clean Energy Canada reveals.

The report, which features case studies from across the country—from apartment buildings to roads to wastewater facilities—finds that lower-carbon construction materials can generally be procured at no or marginal cost increases, while simple design changes can further minimize cost and emissions. One case study of an apartment building in Quebec, for example, found that design changes and lower-carbon materials could cut construction emissions by 30% while reducing overall construction costs by 12%.

What’s more, Canadian manufacturers are already producing many of the lower-carbon alternatives required, such as steel produced in electric arc furnaces, concrete that uses industrial byproducts to replace cement, and reclaimed asphalt. Supporting this kind of construction presents a unique opportunity for Canada to build its market at a time when our key trade partners, like the EU, are actively seeking cleaner products.

Governments are key to ensuring we seize this opportunity. They are big builders and by requiring lower-carbon materials and design—an approach known as “Buy Clean”—they can create a strong demand signal. The federal government has already taken some steps to reduce carbon in its building projects, and has also recently introduced a “Buy Canadian” approach. Expanded Buy Clean policies sitting alongside Buy Canadian ones would allow us to support domestic producers while also incentivizing our industries to become more climate-competitive in a global trade environment increasingly prioritizing or requiring cleaner materials.

Beyond “Buy Clean,” some simple regulatory changes can make a big difference, as the report elaborates. There are many different codes and standards for infrastructure construction across the country, some of which needlessly restrict the use of lower-carbon materials or design practices. Where flexibility does exist to use more recycled or other lower-carbon materials, it isn’t always made use of—something that could be addressed with better procurement guidance.

As we build more projects, we have the opportunity to avoid locking in huge amounts of damaging emissions—all while cutting costs for developers and taxpayers alike. So while we “Build Canada Strong,” let’s also “Build Canada Clean.”

KEY FACTS

• The construction sector contributed over 8% of Canada’s total emissions in 2018. And that was at less than a third of the housing starts Canada actually needs. 
• For efficient, electrified buildings, the emissions associated with material production and construction, known as “embodied carbon,” usually accounts for a larger portion of lifecycle carbon emissions than those from operation, like heating and cooling.
• The global low-carbon construction materials market is expected to be worth US$579 billion in 2032, with trade partners, including the EU, increasingly looking for clean materials. 
• Through nine roadway case studies, we show that lifetime emissions reductions of between 17% and 31% could be achieved while reducing the per-metre cost of the roads by up to 16%. 
• A study of an apartment building in Quebec found that making just two changes to the building design and replacing materials with lower-carbon equivalents would reduce embodied emissions by 30% while reducing overall construction costs by 12%.
• Choosing lower-carbon material options for water infrastructure can reduce the emissions of stormwater and wastewater infrastructure with marginal cost impacts.

RESOURCES

Report | Build Canada Clean

The post Amid Canada’s massive housing and infrastructure build-out, a few changes can limit climate impact at little or no cost: report appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

• The House version of a new infrastructure funding bill, dubbed BUILD America 250, is getting mixed-to-negative reviews (Streetsblog USA).
  • The Eno Center for Transportation has a detailed breakdown of the bill’s language.
  • The Natural Resources Defense Council doesn’t like a new $130 fee on electric vehicles or the elimination of funding for chargers.
  • Democratic senators are also opposed to the EV fee. (E&E News)
  • The bill maintains the car-dominated status quo by raising funding for highways and cutting funding for rail and transit, compared to the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure act, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. (The Equation)
  • The Rail Passengers Association notes that it provides more funding for transit than such bills usually do, but zeroes out funding specifically for rail.
  • In addition, the bill would require congressional approval for any Amtrak restructuring. (Trains)
  • It also requires the federal government to write regulations for driverless commercial trucks. (Freight Waves)
• The EPA announced plans to delay the Biden administration’s stronger vehicle emissions standards, and possibly reconsider them entirely. (Inside Climate News)
• The Austin Transit Partnership has started pre-construction work on the city’s first light rail line. (KXAN)
• Oregon voters rejected a proposal to raise the state gas tax, probably because the price of gas is so high already. (Associated Press)
• New Jersey will not require insurance for lower-speed e-bikes that don’t have a throttle, just the ones that function more like motorcycles. (NJ.com)
• SEPTA will boost service on several Philadelphia transit lines for the World Cup. (Philly Voice)
• A new branch of Montreal’s REM train is bringing transit to an underserved area. (CBC)
• A candidate for Seoul mayor has plans to build seven new rail lines by 2037. (Moovit)
• Transport for London hired three contractors to modernize the city’s tram network. (Safer Highways)

Children bear the consequences of today’s major crises more than most, yet their concerns and experiences remain largely invisible in political life. A childist revolution calls for transforming the political space to cultivate a deeper sense of our social and natural interdependence – including fully democratising democracies through ageless suffrage. 

This article is part of the Green European Journal’s upcoming print edition on demographic futures, out in early June. Subscribe now and get it delivered straight to your door.

Democracies face crises when populations lose confidence in their ability to address fundamental concerns – as is usually the case in periods of rapid industrialisation, runaway inequality, economic depression, mass migration, and war. During such times, they often backslide into authoritarian appeals, but tend eventually to evolve new democratic norms and practices. 

The worldwide crisis of democracy today revolves around issues that centrally concern one of the most disempowered social groups: the third of humanity who are children. It is children above all who face the greatest impacts of climate change, both immediately and in the long term. Children in rich and poor countries alike suffer disproportionate poverty because of global neoliberalism. Young people die in outsized numbers from civilian-targeted modern warfare and terrorism. And they are hit hardest by the ways that new digital technologies manipulate information and foster technological addiction. 

However, children remain largely invisible in political life. Indeed, it is this very invisibility that keeps children’s issues at the margins of democratic policymaking.  

The rise of childism 

The past couple of decades have seen the rise of a movement among academics and activists to respond to these democratic and childhood realities under the umbrella of childism. Childism is a critical approach to societies similar to feminism, anti-racism, decolonialism, and the like. It seeks to empower children and acknowledge their concerns and experiences by transforming historically ingrained assumptions and structures. Its aim is to reconstruct social norms to make them genuinely age-inclusive. 

The word “childism” was coined in the early 2000s in academic literature rooted in the then-emerging field of childhood studies, which seeks to understand children’s agency and experiences as children rather than as developing adults. In the 1990s, the term was used briefly in literary studies to refer to a practice of reading like a child. More recently, it has also been used in a negative sense, akin to sexism and racism. But the predominant meaning in scholarship – and now also in social activism – is in its positive sense of children’s empowerment. 

The central problem that childism addresses is a deeply rooted adultism: the assumption that the adult is the measure of the human. Adultism is the often forgotten side of patriarchy, the historical power of the “pater” or father, which is not only gendered but also aged. Like sexism, adultism is deeply embedded in our histories, cultures, and languages. Adultism in particular asserts a binary opposition between supposedly rational and independent adults on the one hand, and supposedly irrational and dependent children on the other. In this way, it divides social relations in everything from families and communities to human rights and law. 

 Adultism is the often forgotten side of patriarchy, the historical power of the “pater” or father, which is not only gendered but also aged.

Children themselves are already practising an implicit childism. Young climate protesters are demanding age inclusivity in environmental policy. Child labour union activists are calling for recognition for non-adult work. Youth are fighting for schools free of gun violence. Transgender children are pushing their communities to change how they think about gender identity. Children and youth in the dozens of countries with child and youth parliaments are pressing for children’s perspectives on safe streets, access for people with disabilities, and education reform. 

Children’s suffrage 

As marginalised groups over history have found, however, the ultimate right to political inclusion is the right to vote. Suffrage does not solve all problems, but it does confer on those possessing it the status of first-class citizens with equal political dignity. It is the right to participate in the process of forming rights. This is why non-landowners, the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and women fought so hard to achieve it. And it is why the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights call, without any type of qualification, for “universal and equal suffrage”.  

Children have been fighting for suffrage since at least the 1990s. They have done so in campaigns and legal action by groups like We Want the Vote and KRÄTZÄ in Germany, the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) in the US, Young Pirates of Europe (YPE), and Green Youth. Adults have joined them with academic and policy support, including through initiatives like the Children’s Voting Colloquium, Amnesty International UK, the Freechild Institute, the National Association of Large Families , and the Child Rights International Network (CRIN). What is more, children and adults have sued governments for ageless suffrage in Germany, California and Massachusetts in the United States, Sweden, and Canada.

The childist argument for ageless suffrage is that it is necessary for the wellbeing of both children and democracies. Children themselves would finally have their lives and perspectives taken just as seriously by policymakers, whose jobs would no longer rely solely on pressure from adults. And democracies would benefit from the full range of the people’s ideas, thus making better-informed decisions. 

A matter of competence?  

The main objection to children’s suffrage has historically been that children lack voting competence. People under the age of maturity are thought to be deficient in democratic thinking skills, knowledge, and independence, and to be too open to manipulation. And they are presumed to lack the experience and understanding needed to contribute to difficult decisions about complex political matters like war, health policy, and immigration. 

But these presumptions misunderstand both democracy and childhood. Working backwards from the aims of democracy, voting competence consists in the ability to give voice to political views. The purpose of democratic voting is not to place decisions in the hands of those with certain types of knowledge, but to hold elected representatives accountable to the people impacted by their decisions. Anyone should be included in the vote who wishes to have a say in what policymakers may do. 

Barring children from voting is, in reality, a form of systemic discrimination. It holds them to a standard of voting competence that is not applied to the rest of the population.

If voting competence is properly understood, children have much more of it – and adults much less – than commonly thought. It is hard to deny democratic capacities to the millions of children who march for climate change policies, fight against racism, or participate in children’s parliaments, child labour unions, or any number of other political organisations. Children worldwide discuss politics at the dinner table, read or watch the news, and hold diverse opinions about current events. There is no magical stage of neurological development at which the capacity to have political views suddenly arises. It is a general capacity of anyone aware of their larger world. 

This capacity of children to participate in democratic life is already legally recognised in Articles 12, 13, and 15 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These guarantee children the rights to “express [their] views freely in all matters affecting the child”, “freedom of expression” without unnecessary restriction, and “freedom of association”. All of these rights are violated when children are banned from exercising their democratic capacities. 

Likewise, adults exhibit very wide ranges of democratic skill, knowledge, and susceptibility to influence. Adults have the right to vote regardless of ignorance, thoughtlessness, and openness to manipulation. They retain this right even if they suffer from severe cognitive impairment, mental disability, or dementia. History shows that adults frequently make terrible voting decisions. Furthermore, no adult has a deep understanding of all the matters they must vote upon, from economic statistics to military capacities, health innovations, top secret information, legal precedents, and much else. 

Barring children from voting is, in reality, a form of systemic discrimination. It holds them to a standard of voting competence that is not applied to the rest of the population. The European Court of Human Rights defines discrimination as “differential treatment in comparable situations without an objective or reasonable justification”. Adult-only voting excludes children as a class of citizens for reasons outside the objective requirements of voting itself. 

Stronger democracies 

But the most important reason to give children the right to vote is that it would improve life for children and adults and strengthen democracies.  

Children themselves would live in political environments that are required to take their interests into account centrally instead of peripherally. Currently, they cannot vote politicians out of office, which means authorities are not truly incentivised to take children’s experiences and concerns seriously. Children may be objects of democratic beneficence, but like adults, they also need to be treated as subjects with democratic agency.  

If children could vote, they would likely pressure politicians, for example, to finally take the climate emergency seriously, fight child poverty, regulate digital media, invest in meaningful education reform, attend to lifelong healthcare, and create safer streets and greener spaces. They would also have greater recourse to fight social discrimination, such as social media bans, age curfews, exclusion from divorce proceedings, corporal punishment, school discipline, issues with access to medical care, and much more. 

Granting children the right to vote would also benefit adults. Everyone would gain from better climate policies. Parents would be helped by children’s greater economic support. Teachers would be empowered by education policies that better respond to children’s actual lives and experiences. Doctors would find greater resources for child healthcare and research. And business leaders would hire from a better-educated workforce.  

Moreover, democracy itself would be strengthened by becoming more fully responsive to the people’s actual lives. Policymakers would find themselves equally beholden to all instead of just some of their constituents. Democratic leaders could make clearer decisions with – so to speak – a third more pixels added to their policymaking screen. And democracies would make choices about war, spending, and judicial reform in more inclusively informed ways. 

What is more, children’s suffrage could provide the needed antidote to today’s slide of democracies into authoritarianism. The right to vote for all would undercut the assumption that some are natural rulers over others. And it would eliminate the problem of citizens spending the first quarter of their lives being told that their views do not count, which opens citizens to simplistic authoritarian appeals. Instead of looking to father figures, democracies would more likely turn to broad-minded defenders of human rights. 

Children may be objects of democratic beneficence, but like adults, they also need to be treated as subjects with democratic agency.  

Systemic inclusion 

Childism calls for not only new understandings of voting rights but also new electoral practices. Suffrage movements typically shift how voting actually takes place. We have come a long way from landowning men choosing representatives in taverns.  

A good first step is to lower the voting age. In countries that have lowered the national voting age to 16, children have been shown to turn out in higher numbers for elections than young adults and to retain higher voting rates into adulthood. They have also moved policymakers to include more child-friendly interests. However, from a childist perspective, lowering voting ages does not go far enough. It still only enfranchises children who are thought to have achieved adult-like competencies, whereas genuine democracies need to move beyond adultism. 

There are several different proposals for ageless voting rights, but my own is for what I call proxy-claim voting. Under this proposition, all citizens would have a proxy vote from birth to death, which can be used by their legal guardian – a parent, caretaker, or next of kin. This proxy vote would most likely be used on behalf of infants, young children, cognitively impaired children and adults, adults with significant disabilities or health issues, and elderly persons with dementia. But all citizens would, at the same time, have the right to claim the exercise of their vote on their own behalf. Whenever a citizen desired to vote independently, regardless of their age or condition, they could claim their right to do so. 

Some might object that a proxy-claim right to vote would advantage larger families, but in reality, it would advantage the children themselves in these families who deserve their own equal representation. Others might find proxy voting fundamentally undemocratic, yet it already exists in most countries for impaired (or even just travelling) adults, so why not also for the youngest children? Some do not think voting is all that powerful anyway, but is it fair or just to ban one group even from the choice to participate? 

Childism calls for children’s systemic inclusion and empowerment. It suggests, just like first-wave feminism, that the right to vote is a fundamental human right. But suffrage is only a first step. Childism sets in motion a systemic critique of societies’ adultistic biases across law, policy, culture, and family. It insists that children are not second-class citizens but central to infusing societies with humanity. 

The Lock the Gate Alliance has today requested an internal review of the Queensland government’s decision to approve a gas development, saying it failed to consider or mitigate human rights and environmental impacts when approving the first stage of a major gas expansion in the Western Downs region. 

Last summer, I  traveled to Berlin for a study abroad program. I intended to learn about the city’s communication efforts to continue cultural memory. Little did I know I was about to get a crash course in public transit, a lesson that didn’t fully set in until I got back home. Upon my return to California, I was initially overjoyed to be out and about, but that was until I realized that to go anywhere in my city, I would need to take my car. By contrast, the tram in Germany, not even a minute away from my hostel, could take me to a nearby coffee shop, a park, and a nearby grocery store.

My car now seemed more like an obstacle than an asset. The studies are clear: public transit benefits a city’s economy, creates community space, and cuts down on millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide. In addition, it offers a mode of transit that is broadly accessible, regardless of socioeconomic status and able-bodiedness, creating an equitable solution to a manufactured issue. We need an attitude shift in America, one that goes against the individualism perpetuated in our society, and understands that protecting the environment is an investment in people and not a financial strain. United States residents need to realize that a car is as much a burden as a convenience. 

A common argument against public transit is that it is expensive to install and maintain. This apprehension towards rail in California is compounded by the fact that our high-speed rail project is nowhere close to completion and has cost way more than previously promised. However, though high-speed rail may not have fulfilled its initial promise, this does not mean public transit is a lost cause in California. In the Bay, especially, the benefit of railroads has been a good case study for the rest of the state and country. And we do not necessarily need to build new rails, but can often just restore and improve old ones. 

Certainly, we don’t need driverless vehicles pushed onto us by billionaires and their corporations; we can’t just “tech” our way out of global warming. In building a renewable future, we need to look towards the past. UC Berkeley News found that the now-electrified Caltrain has already cut 89 percent of carcinogenic black carbon, as well as producing less noise than its diesel counterparts. Next time the Super Bowl brings a great halftime show to San Jose, even fewer people will choose to drive.  

Another real concern that drives people away from public transit is safety and cleanliness. Why expose yourself to the perceived risks of public transit when your sedan has a steel safety bubble? However, investing in public transit decreases this perception. Taking the S-Bahn in Berlin, I felt entirely safe; it was regularly cleaned and always full. Shared commitment and responsibility have the ability to transform our attitude of public transit as a less luxurious option, to a shared community place. If driving in a car severely increases the chances of getting hurt or killed in a crash, and pollution increases our chances of getting killed too, how is the car a more convenient or safe option?

As fuel prices rise, the clear inconveniences of cars may become more apparent. The day when people can once again take a train from Saratoga or Santa Cruz to San Francisco would be the day that I would sell my car. As global temperatures rise, we should look to Germany and draw on past solutions to address modern issues.

***

Kyle Kayhan is a sociology and communication studies student at San Jose State University

The number of new coal-fired power plants built around the world hit a “10-year high” in 2025, even as the global coal fleet generated less electricity, amid a “widening disconnect” in the sector. 

That is according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM), which finds that the world added nearly 100 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-power capacity in 2025, the equivalent of roughly 100 large coal plants.

It adds that 95% of the new coal plants were built in India and China. 

Yet GEM says that the amount of electricity generated with coal fell by 0.6% in 2025 – with sharp drops in both China and India – as the fuel was displaced by record wind and solar output, among other factors. 

The report notes that there have been previous dips in output from coal power and there could still be ups – as well as downs – in the near term.

For example, nearly 70% of the coal-fired units scheduled to retire globally in 2025 did not do so, due to postponements triggered by the 2022 energy crisis and policy shifts in the US.

However, GEM says that the underlying dynamics for coal power have now fundamentally shifted, as the cost of renewables has fallen and low usage hits coal profitability.

China and India dominate growth

In 2025, coal-capacity growth hit a 10-year high, with 97 gigawatts (GW) of new power plants being added, according to GEM.

(Capacity refers to the potential maximum power output, as measured in GW, whereas generation refers to power actually generated by the assets over a period of time, measured in gigawatt hours, GWh.)

This is the highest level since 2015 when 107GW began operating, as shown in the chart below. This makes 2025 the second-highest level of additions on record. 

Coal-fired power capacity that began operation each year from 2000 to 2025, GW. Source: Global Energy Monitor.

The majority of this growth came from China and India, which added 78GW and 10GW, respectively, against 9GW from all other countries. 

Yet GEM points out that, even as coal capacity in China grew by 6%, the output from coal-fired power plants actually fell 1.2%. This means that each power plant would have been running less often, eroding its profitability. Similarly, capacity in India grew by 3.8%, while generation fell by 2.9%.

China and India had accounted for 87% of new coal-power capacity that came into operation in the first half of 2025. The shift up to 95% in the year as a whole highlights how increasingly just those two countries dominate the sector, GEM says.

Christine Shearer, project manager of GEM’s global coal plant tracker, said in a statement: 

“In 2025, the world built more coal and used it less. Development has grown more concentrated, too – 95% of coal plant construction is now in China and India, and even they are building solar and wind fast enough to displace it.”

Both China and India saw solar and wind meet most or all of the growth in electricity demand last year. 

Analysis for Carbon Brief last year showed that, in the first six months of 2025 alone, a record 212GW of solar was added in China, helping to make it the nation’s single-largest source of clean-power generation, for example. 

However, the country continues to propose new coal plants. In 2025, a record 162GW of capacity was newly proposed for development or reactivated, according to GEM. This brought the overall capacity under development in the country to more than 500GW. 

China’s 15th “five-year plan”, covering 2026-2030, had pledged to “promote the peaking” of coal use, while a more recent pair of policies introduced stricter controls on local governments’ coal use. 

For its part, in India some 28GW of new coal capacity was newly proposed or reactivated last year, bringing the total under development to 107.3GW and under-construction capacity to 23.5GW.

The Indian government is planning to complete 85GW of new coal capacity in the next seven years, even as clean-energy expansion reaches levels that could cover all of the growth in electricity demand. 

Outside of China and India, GEM says that just 32 countries have new coal plants under construction or under development, down from 38 in 2024. 

Countries that have dropped plans for new coal in 2025 include South Korea, Brazil and Honduras, it says. GEM notes that the latter two mean that Latin America is now free from any new coal-power proposals. 

This means that both electricity generation from coal and the construction of new coal-fired power plants are increasingly concentrated in just a few countries, as the chart below shows.

Top 10 countries for total operating coal power-plant capacity (left) and for newly added capacity (right), GW. Source: Global Energy Monitor.

Indonesia’s coal fleet grew by 7% in 2025 to 61GW, with a quarter of the new capacity tied to nickel and aluminium processing, according to GEM. 

Turkey – which is gearing up to host the COP31 international climate summit in November – has just one coal-plant proposal remaining, down from 70 in 2015. 

The amount of new coal capacity that started to operate in south-east Asia fell for the third year in a row in 2025, according to GEM. 

Countries in south Asia that rely on imported energy are increasingly looking to other technologies to protect themselves from fossil-fuel shocks, such as Pakistan, which is rapidly deploying solar, states the GEM report.

In Africa, plans for new coal capacity are concentrated in Zimbabwe and Zambia, the report shows, with the two countries accounting for two-thirds of planned development in the region.

‘Persistence of policies’

While new coal plants are still being built and even more are under development, GEM notes that the global electricity system is undergoing rapid changes.

Crucially, the growth of cheap renewable energy means that new coal plants do not automatically translate into higher electricity generation from coal.

Without rising output from coal power, building new plants simply results in the coal fleet running less often, further eroding its economics relative to wind and solar power.

Indeed, GEM notes that electricity generation from coal fell globally in 2025. Moreover, a recent report by thinktank Ember found that renewable energy overtook coal in 2025 to become the world’s largest source of electricity.

GEM notes that coal generation may fluctuate in the near term, in particular due to potential increases in demand driven by higher gas prices. 

It adds that gas price shocks, such as the one triggered by the Iran war, can cause temporary reversals in the longer-term shift away from coal.

According to Carbon Brief analysis, at least eight countries announced plans to either increase their coal use or review plans to transition away from coal in the first month of the Iran war. However, a much-discussed “return to coal” is expected to be limited.

GEM’s report highlights that global fossil-fuel shocks can have an impact on the phase out of coal capacity over several years.

In the EU, for example, 69% of planned retirements did not take place in 2025, due to postponements that began in the 2022-23 energy crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the report. Countries across the bloc chose to retain their coal capacity amid gas supply disruptions and concerns about energy security.

Yet coal-fired power generation in the bloc is now more than 40% below 2022 levels. Again, this highlights that coal capacity does not necessarily translate into electricity generation from coal, with its associated CO2 emissions.

Overall, GEM notes that “repeated exposure to fossil-fuel price volatility is as likely to accelerate the shift toward clean energy as it is to delay it”.

GEM’s Shearer says in a statement: 

“The central challenge heading into 2026 is not the availability of alternatives, but the persistence of policies that treat coal as necessary even as power systems move increasingly beyond it.”

In the US, 59% of planned retirements in 2025 did not happen, according to GEM. This was due to government intervention to keep ageing coal plants online. 

Five coal-power plants have been told to remain online through federal “emergency” orders, for example, even as the coal fleet continues to face declining competitiveness. 

Keeping these plants online has cost hundreds of millions of dollars and helped drive an annual increase in the average US household electricity prices of 7%, according to GEM. 

Despite such measures, Trump has overseen a larger fall in coal-fired power capacity than any other US president, according to Carbon Brief analysis. 

Meanwhile, according to new figures from the US Energy Information Administration, solar and wind both set new records for energy production in 2025.

Despite challenges with policy and wider fossil-fuel impacts, the underlying dynamic has shifted, says GEM, as “clean energy becomes more competitive and widely deployed” around the world. 

It adds that this raises the prospect of “a more sustained decoupling between coal-capacity growth and generation, particularly if clean-energy deployment continues at current rates”.

Analysis: Trump has overseen larger coal decline than any other US president

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12.02.26

Analysis: Coal power drops in China and India for first time in 52 years after clean-energy records

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IEA: Declining coal demand in China set to outweigh Trump’s pro-coal policies

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17.12.25

Guest post: China and India account for 87% of new coal-power capacity so far in 2025

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27.08.25

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The post New coal plants hit ‘10-year’ global high in 2025 – but power output still fell appeared first on Carbon Brief.

For Immediate Release

May 20, 2026

 

Contact

Nina Erlich-Williams, nina@publicgoodpr.com

O: 510-336-9566, C: 415-577-1153

 

Plan identifies specific strategies for developing drought-proof water supplies in SoCal by 2045 that will generate significantly higher yields than projections for the Delta Conveyance Project

Bay-Delta Region and Los Angeles, Calif. – In an online press conference today, leaders from conservation groups and Tribes announced the release of a Water Renaissance Plan for California. The plan lays out a vision, including specific goals and metrics, for prioritizing local water resilience in California’s urban areas – especially in Southern California – to support a pivot away from the state’s overreliance on unreliable imported water. 

 

Among other findings, the plan identifies the opportunity to secure 1.8-2 million acre-feet of drought-proof water supplies in Southern California by 2045 through sustainable technologies like stormwater capture, wastewater recycling, conservation, and groundwater cleanup. The total cost for such investments would be approximately $44 billion. In comparison, the proposed Delta Conveyance Project is only projected to yield 0.4 million acre-feet of water annually at a likely cost upwards of $60 billion.

 

“Southern California water agencies are already turning toward projects that can provide reliable local water,” said Bruce Reznik, executive director of LA Waterkeeper. “These types of investments make our region more resilient. We should direct ratepayer and taxpayer dollars to securing water supplies that are available year in and year out, rain or shine.”

 

As shown in this fact sheet, the amount of water available for export from two of Southern California’s main sources of fresh water – the Bay-Delta and the Colorado River – is projected to drop by 23% and 29% respectively in the coming years, compared to available water in recent decades. The report argues that continuing to over-invest in infrastructure designed to pipe water over hundreds of miles is a risky strategy, especially as snowpack and rainfall patterns become less predictable due to climate change.

 

Water exporting regions are also feeling the strain of changing weather patterns. As has been widely reported, the Colorado River is at an all-time low since water exports began in the early 1900s. The Bay-Delta is on the verge of ecosystem collapse due to extensive water exports that support both Central Valley agriculture and urban uses in Southern California and Silicon Valley. In the Eastern Sierras, Mono Lake and Owens Lake are similarly struggling due to excessive exports to Los Angeles.

 

“Proposed projects like the Delta Tunnel would decimate ecosystems and communities throughout California,” added Restore the Delta executive director Barbara Barrigan-Parilla. “It’s past time to focus our limited dollars on water infrastructure investments that are sustainable for both urban and rural farming communities, respect Tribal water and land uses, and will allow keystone species like salmon to recover. We can create improved water supplies and restore the largest estuary on the West Coast.”

 

The Water Renaissance Plan includes eight priority recommendations:

 

·         Direct state agencies to end planning and advocacy for the Delta Tunnel and instead adopt and enforce science-based instream flow protections for the Bay-Delta and its Tributaries.

·         Consider pursuing an ambitious general obligation water bond that focuses on modern local water supplies and does not include wasteful or environmentally damaging spending.

·         Develop best management practices and regulatory standards to address harmful algal blooms.

·         Require the adoption of tribal beneficial uses so that tribal uses are recognized and protected in permitting decisions.

·         Direct state officials to ensure Colorado River diversions are appropriately reduced as part of a basin-wide plan to ensure long-term sustainability and protect the environment, tribes, and urban water users.

·         Create a framework for local businesses to fund green infrastructure for stormwater capture.

·         Remove the cap on large water recycling projects for receiving loans from the State Revolving Fund and allocate sufficient funds to the SRF to meaningfully support large-scale projects.

·         Reform Proposition 218 to allow for local water rate assistance programs and ensure aggressive conservation rates can be implemented.

 

The Plan also includes analysis and sources to support its vision. It was drafted jointly by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the River,Golden State Salmon Association, LA Waterkeeper, Resource Renewal Institute, Restore the Delta, San Francisco Baykeeper, Sierra Club California, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, andYosemite Rivers Alliance. As of May 19, 2026, 18 additional groups have endorsed the plan. For a full list of endorsers and additional information about the Water Renaissance Plan, see www.cawaterrenaissance.org.

 

###

World Bee Day – May 20, 2026 This #WorldBeeDay lets take a moment for the pollinators. They work behind the scenes of every meal, every meadow, every medicine. Protect the bees! For more information, events, and updates from the IEN Teaching Garden, Click here.

This article The “Hitler question” should never justify war was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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Proponents of war and militarization often invoke common memories of Hitler and World War II to argue that we are now in a similar moment. Whether it is with Saddam Hussein in 2003, al Qaeda during the “war on terrorism,” Iran’s Supreme Leader in 2017, or Putin since 2022, a classic trope is to compare enemy leaders to the Nazis. In the lead-up to the Iran War this February, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham likened Iran’s religious leaders to Hitler and argued for regime change by any means. 

It is only a matter of time before Hitler is invoked again to justify yet another war or yet more militarization. How can those who are uneasy with war and militarism prepare to counter such arguments?

The “Hitler question” — what would you do if faced with Nazi aggression? — has certainly long functioned as a rhetorical trump card against pacifism and nonviolence. It is usually posed as a trap. If pacifists concede violence might be necessary, their principles are revealed as hollow. If they reject violence even then, they are exposed as naive or morally indifferent. 

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Look closer, however, and it turns out that this framing rests on shaky assumptions and questionable simplifications. Even on as serious a challenge as the “Hitler question,” pacifism and nonviolence offer far more serious and practical insights than usually given credit for. 

As I examine in greater depth in a recent academic journal article, there are 10 ways in which the conventional assumptions behind the “Hitler question” can be challenged. 

Resisting the Nazis 

On the specific historical context of the Nazi question, first, framing the question in 1939, with war underway or imminent, bypasses or ignores the decades of political choices, structural violence, and missed opportunities that made that crisis so acute. 

From the punitive settlement after World War I, to the nationalist backlash and wider repercussions of the 1929 economic collapse, to imperial rivalries and militarized politics across Europe, decisions were made and particular paths were chosen. Different choices might have prevented the rise of Nazism in the first place. The crisis by 1939 was not caused by pacifism, but by decades of violence and militarism that helped create the conditions in which Hitler thrived.

Second, even if one accepts that war ultimately contributed to defeating Nazi Germany, an honest account would include a more critical look at what violence did — and did not — achieve. Military force did not prevent Hitler’s rise, nor did it stop the early expansion of Nazi power. 

War also did not protect Europe’s Jews from genocide; in fact, the Holocaust escalated under the cover and brutality of wartime conditions. Nor was the Allied war effort primarily motivated by a desire to stop genocide. Strategic priorities focused on territorial and political competition, and opportunities to disrupt the machinery of mass murder were often not taken.

This complicates the popular narrative of World War II as a clear-cut moral triumph. The same states that defeated Hitler tolerated or ignored other atrocities before and after the war (Gaza providing a recent example). Moreover, the conflict itself involved massive civilian casualties, indiscriminate bombing and forms of collective punishment that blur the line between justice and destruction. War may have brought down the Nazi regime, but it did so at enormous human cost and without eradicating the underlying ideologies of fascism and militarism, which persist in various forms and have become particularly revitalized and threatening in recent years.

Third, violent resistance was not the only form of resistance that ultimately defeated the Nazis. Nonviolent resistance contributed, too. Across occupied Europe, ordinary people and institutions engaged in acts of civil defiance, including strikes, bureaucratic obstruction, clandestine publishing, education boycotts, and networks that hid and protected Jews. In countries like Denmark and Bulgaria, public solidarity helped save large numbers of Jewish lives. Even within Germany, protests such as the Rosenstrasse demonstration, where non-Jewish wives secured the release of their Jewish husbands, forced concessions from the regime. (Incidentally, examples of nonviolent resistance and defense can be found in the current Ukraine war, too.)

Previous Coverage

The dangerous assumption that violence keeps us safe

These efforts were rarely coordinated on a large scale, and they did not defeat Nazism on their own. But their contribution challenges the idea that nonviolence was absent or irrelevant. Such examples, however, were also largely spontaneous (as they have been in Ukraine since 2022). The populations that resisted nonviolently have not benefited from systematic training and investment in such methods. Yet, just as military success depends on training, resources and coordination, so too does effective nonviolent resistance.

Fourth, as we know from plenty of recent scholarship and hundreds of examples, nonviolence operates differently from violence. Rather than seeking to overpower an opponent physically, it aims to undermine the social and political foundations of their power. Authoritarian regimes — even brutal ones — depend on compliance, legitimacy and the participation of ordinary people. When those forms of support are withdrawn, the regime’s capacity to function erodes. Nonviolent resistance can also create what is often called a “backfire effect,” exposing the injustice of repression and turning it against the oppressor by mobilizing public opinion.

Even the Nazi regime was not immune to these dynamics. It paid attention to public sentiment and adjusted policies when backlash threatened stability. The visibility of violence mattered: After the widely condemned brutality of Kristallnacht, antisemitic policies were implemented more discreetly. Nazi authorities went out of their way to hide practical elements of the “final solution” from public view. Where Jewish communities were less isolated and enjoyed broader solidarity, such as in Denmark and Bulgaria, survival rates were higher. These examples suggest that public opinion and social ties were not irrelevant, even under totalitarian rule.

Fifth, World War II is often remembered as being against “the Germans,” as a total war pitting entire populations against each other, as if all Germans were equally guilty. This obscures the fact that many non-Nazi Germans were victims of Nazism, too — such as civilians, conscripts and dissidents. Military conflict tends to turn entire nations into enemies. War dehumanizes, reinforcing binary identities and legitimizing large-scale destruction (as the genocide in Gaza illustrates all too clearly). Pacifism and nonviolence, by contrast, insist on recognizing the humanity of all involved, even while resisting injustice.

Resisting war 

Beyond the specifics of the Nazi context, it is worth also interrogating some of the assumptions with which the “Hitler question” tends to be asked. Five challenges to conventional wisdom emerge here, too.

First, pacifism is often over-caricatured and misunderstood. For one, it is often assumed that pacifism is a single, absolutist doctrine that rejects all forms of violence under any circumstances. Yet pacifist thought is diverse. Some strands are principled, others pragmatic; some oppose all war, while others argue that specifically modern warfare — especially in the nuclear age — is too destructive to justify. Many pacifists engage deeply with questions of strategy, effectiveness and political responsibility.

Another misconception is that pacifism equates to passivity. To the contrary, nonviolent action often involves risk, disruption and courage. It can include strikes, civil disobedience, boycotts and other forms of active resistance that challenge power structures directly. Far from being passive, such actions often require significant organization and personal sacrifice.

Second, nonviolence is more effective than its detractors often seem to assume. Studies have found that nonviolent campaigns have historically been more successful than violent ones, even against authoritarian regimes, and that they tend to produce more democratic and stable outcomes. While these findings have attracted some debate and certainly do not guarantee success in every case, they undermine the assumption that violence is inherently more effective.

There is, admittedly, no clear historical example of a society successfully defending itself against a full-scale invasion using only nonviolent methods. However, cases can be found of civilian resistance to occupation and authoritarian rule, suggesting that nonviolent defense could function as an extension of these practices. The idea of “civilian-based defense” involves preparing entire populations to resist through non-cooperation, making occupation difficult or unsustainable. This approach has never been systematically implemented, making it difficult to evaluate — but its potential cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Third, the “constitutive” impact of war is also not to be neglected. Violence, even when effective, does not simply achieve objectives; it reshapes societies (as evident with those countries affected by the Ukraine war, and in Israel and Palestine). War strengthens militarized institutions, normalizes hierarchy and cultivates cultures that are more accepting of violence. It leaves deep psychological and social scars, and it often fuels future conflicts. The economic and political systems built to support war — arms industries, military alliances, security infrastructures — take on a life of their own.

This raises a different kind of question: not just whether violence can defeat a particular enemy, but what kind of world it creates in the process. If war fosters the very conditions — militarism, dehumanization, authoritarianism — that enable regimes like Nazi Germany, then relying on it as a solution may be self-defeating.

Fourth, any assumption that violence can be controlled is also questionable. War is often imagined as a precise instrument, but in practice it is chaotic and unpredictable. It escalates, generates unintended consequences and often exceeds the intentions of those who initiate it, as we’re seeing with the ongoing U.S. and Israeli war on Iran. Civilian casualties, environmental destruction and long-term instability are not anomalies but recurring features. Once unleashed, violence is difficult to contain.

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Fifth, it is worth reflecting on the cultural and political uses of the “Hitler question.” It is often invoked not only in historical debates but in contemporary conflicts, where enemy leaders are recurrently cast as yet “another Hitler” to justify yet another military intervention. This framing simplifies complex situations and encourages a moral narrative in which violence appears as the only responsible choice. It also reflects a particular perspective, rooted in Western experiences and dominant memories of World War II, that obscures other histories and viewpoints, such as those of conscientious objectors, dissidents, women, racial minorities or colonized people.

As a result, a romanticized vision of war as a moment of heroic and hypermasculine struggle against evil, where violence is regrettable but necessary, gets reproduced. This narrative overlooks the broader consequences of war and the voices of those who experience its costs most directly — civilians, marginalized communities and those outside the centers of power.

All this is not to say that nonviolence would certainly have stopped Hitler or that all wars are avoidable. What I do mean to say, however, is that the “Hitler question” is not as decisive an argument against pacifism and in favor of the next war as those who ask it often seem to think. By examining its assumptions and revisiting the historical record, the choice between violence and nonviolence emerges as more complex than the question tends to allow. Pacifism and nonviolence offer not a simplistic rejection of force, but a set of critical tools for thinking about power, resistance and the long-term consequences of political action.

In a world where calls for war continue to be justified by invoking existential threats and moral urgency, advocates of pacifism and nonviolence should not feel disarmed by the “Hitler question.” The challenge is not to provide easy answers, but to broaden the conversation — to consider alternatives, question assumptions and invite to take seriously the possibility that resisting violence does not always require more of it.

This article The “Hitler question” should never justify war was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

 

Shell’s premium V-Power fuel is back in the spotlight, promising cleaner engines, better protection, and “more” of almost everything. But for drivers with long memories, the phrase “Shell wonder fuel” comes with a faint smell of burnt valves, marketing hype, and very expensive déjà vu. DISCLAIMER

This article is opinion and satirical commentary based on cited public sources. It is not financial advice, consumer advice, engineering advice, or a recommendation to buy, avoid, invest in, or rely on any Shell product or security. Drivers should follow their vehicle manufacturer’s fuel recommendations and seek qualified mechanical advice where appropriate. Site wide disclaimer also applies.

PART ONE: FACT-BASED TABLOID DEEP DIVE THE RETURN OF THE WONDER FUEL WAGON

There are few things Big Oil enjoys more than selling fossil fuel as if it were a wellness product.

Shell V-Power is not merely petrol, we are invited to understand. It is a premium experience. A scientific elixir. A motorised spa treatment. Something your engine apparently deserves after a long week of commuting, congestion, and quietly funding quarterly distributions.

A recent ad-hoc-news article describes Shell V-Power as Shell’s premium gasoline brand, marketed to help clean and protect modern engines, and aimed at explaining what US drivers should expect from it. The article says V-Power is Shell’s “flagship premium gasoline brand” and notes that it is positioned around detergents, friction modifiers, premium octane, and engine-cleanliness claims.

Shell’s own US marketing is even more enthusiastic. The company says Shell V-Power® NiTRO+ Premium Gasoline “removes up to 100% of performance robbing deposits,” promises “more power” and “more performance,” and says the product contains six times the cleaning agents required by federal standards.

Naturally, the word “more” does a lot of heavy lifting here.

More performance.

More protection.

More cleaning.

More premium.

More money at the pump.

Less obvious certainty that every ordinary driver will actually notice a miraculous transformation between home, work, school run, supermarket, and the pothole collection formerly known as the public road.

WHAT SHELL SAYS V-POWER DOES

Shell says the new formulation of V-Power NiTRO+ has “a new molecule” designed to remove up to 100% of carbon deposits from fuel injectors in gasoline direct injection engines. It says the fuel provides protection against deposits, corrosion, wear, and friction, and that V-Power contains the highest concentration of its proprietary additive package.

Shell also says V-Power NiTRO+ is Top Tier certified and has been tested in laboratory procedures, bench engines, and vehicles, with “more than half a million equivalent miles of testing.”

So let us be fair: Shell is not simply printing “magic petrol” on a pump and hoping nobody asks what an injector is.

There is a technical basis for detergent additives. Deposits can affect engine performance. Premium fuel can matter where a manufacturer requires or recommends higher octane. Modern direct-injection engines can be sensitive to deposit build-up.

But the real-world question is not whether fuel additives exist.

The real-world question is whether Shell’s premium potion is worth the premium price for the average driver — especially if their car only requires regular fuel.

And that is where the glossy ad copy begins to sound less like engineering and more like a scented candle for the combustion chamber.

THE ORDINARY DRIVER’S QUESTION: DO I NEED THIS STUFF?

For some drivers, the answer may be yes.

If your car requires premium fuel, use premium fuel. The owner’s manual is not decorative literature. It is there because the engine was designed around certain requirements.

If your car is turbocharged, high-compression, performance-tuned, or explicitly recommends premium gasoline, Shell V-Power may fit the use case Shell is targeting.

But if your car only requires regular fuel, the argument becomes murkier.

The ad-hoc-news article notes that premium fuel use depends heavily on vehicle manufacturer guidance, and that fuel economy changes are often small and vehicle-dependent.

AAA research found that premium gasoline was typically 23% more expensive than regular gasoline in the period studied, and examined whether using premium in cars requiring regular fuel represented a good return on investment.

A widely reported summary of that AAA study said US drivers wasted more than $2.1 billion in a year by using premium-grade gasoline in vehicles designed to run on regular, with no tangible benefit in the tested categories.

So the practical rule remains brutally simple:

If your vehicle requires premium, buy premium.

If your vehicle recommends premium, it may help under some conditions.

If your vehicle only requires regular, premium fuel may mainly improve the mood of the company selling it.

SHELL’S LITTLE PROBLEM: HISTORY HAS A LONG MEMORY AND A BURNT SMELL

This is where the Royal Dutch Shell Group archive piece from 2015 becomes especially useful.

John Donovan’s article, “Shell V-Power NiTRO+ ignites memories of past Shell wonder fuel debacles,” recalled Shell’s 1986 launch of Formula Shell — another heavily promoted fuel dressed up in scientific glamour. The article quoted Shell’s own paid historian, Keetie Sluyterman, describing how Formula Shell was launched in Europe with “heavy advertising” and “scientific connotations.”

Then came the small snag.

According to the cited historical account, the launch initially boosted sales, but later it emerged that in a small number of cars the new gasoline caused inlet valves to burn. The account says damage occurred in Denmark, Norway, Malaysia, and the UK; Shell withdrew Formula Shell from several markets, including the UK, before reformulating and relaunching the product.

That is quite a plot twist.

Act One: “From today not all petrol is the same.”

Act Two: Correct. Some of it may burn your valves.

To be precise, the historic Formula Shell episode should not be treated as proof that modern V-Power is unsafe. That would be an unfair leap. Modern fuels, regulations, engines, testing regimes, and additive chemistry are different.

But it absolutely does justify scepticism toward Shell’s recurring talent for dressing fuel products in a white laboratory coat and sending them out under a shower of marketing confetti.

The lesson is not “V-Power equals Formula Shell.”

The lesson is: when Shell says it has a wonder fuel, check the small print before joining the hymn service.

THE MARKETING FORMULA: SCIENCE, SPEED, SPARKLE, SPEND

The fuel business has always loved mystique.

Octane numbers become personality traits.

Additives become secret sauces.

Laboratory terms become pump-side seduction.

The driver is nudged to imagine that using regular fuel is practically an act of cruelty toward the engine.

Shell’s current V-Power US page leans hard into this theatre, with repeated “more” language: more power, more performance, more protection. It also states that actual effects and benefits may vary by vehicle type, driving conditions, and driving style.

There, hidden beneath the bonnet of the sales pitch, sits the disclaimer goblin.

“May vary” is doing the sensible work that “more” forgot to do.

This does not mean Shell’s claims are automatically false. It means consumers should understand what is being claimed, under what conditions, and whether those conditions resemble their own driving life.

A carefully tested engine-cleanliness benefit is one thing.

A driver expecting their family hatchback to emerge from the Shell forecourt with the soul of a Le Mans prototype is quite another.

PREMIUM FUEL: USEFUL PRODUCT OR STATUS SYMBOL WITH A NOZZLE?

Premium fuel is not inherently a scam.

Higher octane fuel resists knocking. Some engines require it. Some engines can adjust timing and performance when higher octane is available. Some drivers may value detergent packages and additive claims.

But premium fuel is also a brilliant retail product because it sells aspiration at the precise moment the consumer is already holding a payment card.

The pump effectively whispers:

“You could buy the ordinary fuel. Or you could be the sort of person who cares.”

That is premiumisation in its purest form.

Shell is not just selling petrol. It is selling the idea that you are a more responsible, performance-minded, engine-loving motorist because you picked the expensive handle.

And for Shell, that is an attractive business.

Fuel retail is fiercely competitive. Differentiated premium products help defend margins, build brand loyalty, and keep customers inside the Shell ecosystem — especially when linked to apps, rewards schemes, and brand claims about superior protection.

In short: V-Power is not merely fuel technology. It is also a margin strategy with a racing helmet.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL ABSURDITY: CLEANER ENGINE, DIRTIER PLANET?

Here is the uncomfortable part.

Shell V-Power is marketed around cleanliness — cleaner injectors, fewer deposits, better protection.

But it remains a fossil-fuel product sold by one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies.

So we are invited to applaud a fuel for cleaning the inside of an engine while the broader business model remains tied to extracting, refining, transporting, and selling hydrocarbons.

It is the classic Shell paradox:

Look how clean this combustion chamber is. Please ignore the climate chamber.

To be clear, cleaner engine operation can matter. Fuel quality can affect emissions, efficiency, and engine performance.

But premium petrol should not be mistaken for climate virtue. It is still petrol. It is still burned. It still produces tailpipe CO₂. It still belongs to the carbon economy Shell is working very hard to keep profitable for as long as possible.

The product may be cleaner in a mechanical sense.

That does not make it clean in a planetary sense.

THE OLD SHELL TRICK: TURNING CONTROVERSY INTO CONFIDENCE

Shell’s genius has always been its ability to speak in two registers at once.

To consumers, it says: trust the science, protect your engine, choose better fuel.

To investors, it says: trust the cash flow, protect the dividend, choose disciplined capital.

To critics, it says: we are part of the transition.

To regulators, it says: everything is tested, certified, and very carefully footnoted.

The result is a corporate voice so smooth it could probably reduce friction in an engine itself.

But the V-Power story shows the same pattern visible across Shell’s wider public image: a highly engineered message wrapped around a product that deserves scrutiny.

A premium fuel may be legitimate.

A marketing miracle should be treated with caution.

And a company with Shell’s history should not be offended when people remember previous episodes in which technical confidence and advertising swagger aged badly.

THE FORMULA SHELL GHOST AT THE PUMP

The 1980s Formula Shell controversy remains relevant not because history repeats exactly, but because corporate habits often rhyme.

Then: a fuel launched with scientific glamour.

Now: a fuel sold with technical superiority language.

Then: a brand message suggesting not all petrol is the same.

Now: a brand message suggesting your engine deserves “more.”

Then: Shell discovered that fuel chemistry, engines, and real-world use can create unpleasant surprises.

Now: consumers are expected to trust that the laboratory, the legal department, and the marketing department are all aligned in perfect harmony.

Perhaps they are.

But the ghost of Formula Shell still hovers near the pump, whispering:

“Have we checked this properly, or are we just applauding the brochure?”

BOTTOM LINE FOR DRIVERS

The sensible position is neither panic nor blind loyalty.

Shell V-Power NiTRO+ may offer real benefits for some vehicles, particularly those designed for premium fuel or sensitive to deposits. Shell’s claims about detergent concentration, Top Tier certification, and testing should be taken seriously as product information.

But drivers should also take Shell’s marketing language seriously as marketing.

For many everyday vehicles that only require regular gasoline, premium fuel may not deliver enough real-world benefit to justify the extra cost. AAA’s research has long warned against assuming premium fuel automatically benefits cars designed for regular.

The best advice remains boring, which is why no advertising agency likes it:

Read the owner’s manual.

Follow the manufacturer’s fuel requirement.

Do not confuse premium branding with universal necessity.

And remember that “up to” is one of the most elastic phrases in modern commerce.

CONCLUSION: SAME SHELL, DIFFERENT NOZZLE

Shell V-Power may be a technically sophisticated premium fuel.

It may help some engines.

It may be a sensible choice for some drivers.

But it is also another chapter in Shell’s long-running romance with the “wonder fuel” narrative — a place where chemistry meets commerce, disclaimers meet desire, and the humble petrol pump is transformed into a miniature cathedral of corporate persuasion.

The old Formula Shell episode is not a conviction against modern V-Power.

But it is a warning against corporate amnesia.

Shell has been here before: big claims, big branding, big confidence.

Drivers should remember what Shell marketing prefers to forget:

Not every miracle at the pump is a miracle for the motorist.

Sometimes it is just premium petrol with a premium script.

And sometimes the cleanest thing in the whole transaction is the way the extra money disappears from your wallet.

PART TWO: SPOOF SHELL PR/SPIN SECTION Shell Miracle Fuel Statement, Possibly Written by a Chemist, a Marketer, and a Dividend Forecast

Shell is proud to offer drivers a premium fuel experience carefully engineered to deliver more of the things motorists like, including more performance language, more protection terminology, more molecules, and more reasons to download an app.

Our Shell V-Power® NiTRO+ Premium Gasoline is designed for today’s modern engines and tomorrow’s exciting consumer expectations, particularly the expectation that a petrol pump should sound like a Formula One laboratory with a loyalty programme.

We recognise that some drivers may wonder whether they need premium fuel. We encourage them to consult their owner’s manual, while also admiring the emotional maturity of any engine that knows it deserves more.

Shell rejects the suggestion that “wonder fuel” is an overused phrase. We prefer “advanced proprietary performance-enhancing mobility molecule platform,” which regrettably did not fit on the pump handle.

As for historical references to Formula Shell, we believe the past is important, but only in carefully curated corporate heritage videos featuring clean overalls, sunsets, and no burnt valves.

Forward-looking statement: actual miracles may vary by vehicle type, driving conditions, engine age, legal jurisdiction, marketing interpretation, and the willingness of the customer to pay extra.

PART THREE: SPOOF BOT-REACTION / COMMENT SECTION

@PumpSidePhilosopher: “Shell says my engine deserves more. My bank account says my engine can learn humility.”

@ValveBurner1986: “Formula Shell called. It says maybe don’t let the brochure drive the car.”

@PremiumNozzleEnjoyer: “I bought V-Power and my hatchback still refuses to become a Ferrari. Considering litigation against my imagination.”

@DepositGoblin: “Up to 100% is my favourite corporate phrase. I am up to 100% likely to be impressed.”

@ClimateChamber: “Great news: the engine is cleaner. The atmosphere has declined to comment.”

@OctaneOracle: “Use premium if your car needs premium. Revolutionary stuff. Expect a 90-page Shell white paper shortly.”

@MarketingMolecule: “I am proprietary, advanced, and available wherever margins need assistance.”

SUGGESTED IMAGE CONCEPT

A satirical editorial illustration set at a glowing Shell petrol station at night.

In the foreground, a giant golden Shell V-Power pump is labelled “MIRACLE MOLECULE PREMIUM” and is sucking money from a driver’s wallet while spraying glittering fuel into a normal family car.

Behind the car, a ghostly 1980s-style petrol pump labelled “FORMULA SHELL 1986” rises from the fumes, surrounded by small burnt engine valves and warning signs.

On one side, a smiling Shell marketing executive holds a clipboard reading “MORE POWER! MORE PERFORMANCE! MORE DISCLAIMERS!”

On the other side, a mechanic holds up an owner’s manual saying “READ THIS FIRST.”

In the background, the Shell logo glows over a smoky horizon, while a small caption reads:

“Not all petrol is the same. Neither are the consequences.”

Style: sharp tabloid cartoon, high contrast, dramatic lighting, satirical, non-photorealistic, no real people depicted.

SHELL V-POWER: THE PETROL PUMP MIRACLE JUICE THAT WANTS YOUR ENGINE — AND YOUR WALLET — TO FEEL SPECIAL was first posted on May 20, 2026 at 5:22 pm.
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Current and former Shell employees have publicly challenged the company’s climate strategy — raising the awkward question Shell would rather bury beneath a tanker-load of LNG: what happens if the fossil-fuel future it is betting on does not arrive? DISCLAIMER

This article is opinion and satirical commentary based on cited public sources. It is not financial advice, investment advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Readers should conduct their own research and seek professional advice where appropriate. Site wide disclaimer also applies.

PART ONE: FACT-BASED TABLOID DEEP DIVE THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE REFINERY

There are bad days in corporate public relations, and then there is the very special sort of day when your own current and former employees publicly challenge your climate strategy at your AGM.

That, according to the NL Times, is what Shell faced on Tuesday, 19 May 2026, when a group of current and former Shell employees challenged the company’s climate strategy at its shareholder meeting in London.

Their warning was blunt enough to cut through the usual corporate fog: Shell’s continued focus on oil and liquefied natural gas may expose both the business and investors to serious long-term risks.

In other words: the call may now be coming from inside the refinery.

The challenge was linked to a shareholder resolution coordinated by Follow This, which asked Shell to disclose how it would create shareholder value if oil and gas demand declines.

Follow This said the 2026 resolutions at Shell and BP were co-filed by 23 institutional investors with €1.5 trillion in assets under management and that — for the first time — current and former Shell employees co-filed the Shell resolution.

That is not exactly a fringe protest by someone wearing a polar bear costume outside the sandwich shop.

It is a governance question wrapped in a climate question wrapped in a large flashing neon sign reading:

What happens if the fossil-fuel gravy train meets a demand cliff?

THE AGM: DEMOCRACY, BUT WITH A VERY LARGE OIL SLICK

Shell’s 2026 AGM took place in London on 19 May 2026.

The company’s own voting results show that Resolutions 1 to 22 passed, while Resolution 23 — the shareholder climate-risk resolution — failed.

Resolution 23 received:

470,824,659 votes in favour — 13.01%

against

3,148,423,871 votes against — 86.99%

Shell immediately treated this as shareholder endorsement.

Chief Executive Wael Sawan said:

“Shell’s shareholders continue to strongly back our strategy as we transform Shell into a better performing and more resilient business. We are making progress towards our financial and climate targets, providing the oil and gas the world needs today while helping to build the energy system of the future. We will apply discipline and focus as we continue to deliver more value with less emissions.”

Translated from Corporate Cathedral English: shareholders voted down the awkward question, so management declared the choir in perfect harmony.

But 13.01% support for a climate-risk resolution at a fossil-fuel giant is not nothing.

It is hundreds of millions of votes saying, in effect:

“Could we at least see the spreadsheet for the scenario where the world does not burn hydrocarbons forever?”

SHELL’S NEW FAVOURITE CLIMATE SOLUTION APPEARS TO BE… MORE LNG

Shell’s answer to climate pressure is increasingly LNG — liquefied natural gas — the fossil fuel that arrives wearing a slightly cleaner tie than coal and expects applause for not being the dirtiest guest in the room.

In its LNG response document, Shell says it has a “positive outlook for LNG over the long term” and describes LNG as central to its strategy.

The company says it wants to be “the leading integrated gas and LNG business in the world” and argues that LNG can play a role in energy security and the transition.

Shell also states:

“For all these reasons, Shell believes that supplying LNG will be the biggest contribution we will make to the energy transition over the next decade.”

There it is: the energy transition, Shell-style.

Not so much “less fossil fuel” as:

Different fossil fuel, but with PowerPoint gradients.

To be fair, Shell’s argument is not invented out of thin air. Gas can displace coal in some power systems. LNG can provide flexible supply. Energy security is a real issue.

But the controversy is about scale, lock-in, methane leakage, capital allocation, and whether Shell is positioning itself for a genuine transition or merely putting a lower-carbon label on a very large fossil-fuel expansion strategy.

THE OFFICIAL STRATEGY: NET ZERO IN THE WINDOW, HYDROCARBONS IN THE WAREHOUSE

Shell says its Energy Transition Strategy supports its target to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050.

It says meeting growing energy demand while tackling climate change is “an urgent challenge” and “a transformative opportunity.”

The difficulty, as ever, is the gap between slogan and steel.

Shell’s critics argue that the company’s capital discipline has increasingly meant discipline for low-carbon ventures and enthusiasm for oil and gas cash generation.

In 2024, Shell paused construction of its large Rotterdam biofuels plant, a project previously presented as part of its lower-carbon push.

By 2025, Shell was openly sharpening its focus on shareholder distributions, cost cutting, and higher-return businesses. Reporting at the time said Shell planned to cut spending, reduce low-carbon investment as a share of capital expenditure, raise shareholder payouts, and that CEO Wael Sawan’s pay package had increased after Shell’s renewed emphasis on oil and gas.

So the public message is “energy transition.”

The investor message appears rather more like:

Relax, the dividend cannon is still loaded.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: THE GIANT SHAREHOLDERS BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Shell is not some corner-shop oil concern run from a filing cabinet and a petrol-stained ledger.

Its shareholder base includes some of the largest institutional investors on Earth.

Recent ownership data compiled by TIKR listed Vanguard Group, BlackRock Institutional Trust, and Norges Bank Investment Management among Shell’s largest shareholders, with Vanguard shown at 186.8 million shares, BlackRock Institutional Trust at 179.5 million shares, and Norges Bank at 150.2 million shares.

That matters.

Because when Shell says shareholders back its strategy, the room is not just populated by individual investors clutching tea and biscuits.

It includes gigantic asset managers whose voting behaviour can help determine whether climate-risk resolutions become governance pressure or politely filed wallpaper.

Meanwhile, Net Zero Investor reported that a group of institutional investors — including West Yorkshire Pension Fund, Lothian Pension Fund, Ethos, PUBLICA, and Mercy Investment Services — urged other investors to support Resolution 23 at Shell’s 2026 AGM.

So there are really two investor stories here.

One is the big-vote story: Shell management won comfortably.

The other is the risk-story: a serious minority of investors, plus current and former employees, are increasingly unwilling to swallow the idea that fossil-fuel expansion and climate resilience are automatically the same thing.

THE COURT BACKDROP: SHELL WINS ONE ROUND, BUT THE COURTROOM SMOKE HAS NOT CLEARED

Shell’s climate strategy is not just being challenged at AGMs.

It has also been fought in court.

The Dutch climate case brought by Milieudefensie concerned whether Shell had a legal obligation to reduce the worldwide aggregate carbon emissions it reports across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by at least net 45% by 2030, compared with 2019.

Shell notes that the District Court of The Hague imposed a “significant duty of effort” in 2021, but that the Court of Appeal dismissed Milieudefensie’s claim on 12 November 2024.

That appeal victory was significant for Shell.

But it did not magically turn climate risk into fairy dust.

In April 2026, Milieudefensie announced new climate litigation against Shell, keeping the legal pressure alive.

Shell may have won a courtroom battle.

It has not won the climate debate.

And it certainly has not won the physics.

THE AWKWARD TRUTH: EMPLOYEES RARELY GO PUBLIC UNLESS THE BOILER IS HISSING

The most striking feature of the 2026 challenge is not simply that Follow This filed another resolution.

That has happened before.

The striking feature is the involvement of current and former Shell employees.

Employees know the internal culture.

They know the slide decks, the buzzwords, the capital allocation debates, the executive mood music.

When insiders and alumni publicly attach themselves to a resolution questioning the resilience of Shell’s business model under declining oil and gas demand, that is not a minor HR issue.

It is a flare fired from inside the corporate perimeter.

And Shell’s answer — “the shareholders have spoken” — may be technically true but strategically complacent.

Shareholder majorities can be wrong.

Markets can misprice transition risk.

Boards can mistake today’s cash flow for tomorrow’s permission slip.

Ask any former empire.

The palace always looks strongest just before someone notices the foundations are damp.

THE SHELL PARADOX: CLIMATE LANGUAGE, FOSSIL-FUEL MUSCLE

Shell’s modern communications machine speaks fluent transition.

It talks of resilience, lower emissions, energy security, customer demand, and disciplined capital.

But the operational centre of gravity remains oil and gas, especially LNG.

That is the paradox at the heart of Shell in 2026: a company trying to look like a climate-aware energy transition leader while reassuring investors that the hydrocarbon banquet is not over.

The employees and former employees challenging Shell are not asking a mystical question.

They are asking a business question:

What if oil and gas demand falls faster than Shell wants?

What if regulators tighten?

What if clean technologies keep undercutting fossil demand?

What if LNG infrastructure built for decades becomes yesterday’s answer to tomorrow’s grid?

Shell’s board says its strategy is resilient.

Critics want the receipts.

And frankly, if a company is confident that its strategy survives declining fossil-fuel demand, disclosure should not be treated like a hostage negotiation.

CONCLUSION: THE SOUND OF POLITE REBELLION

The 2026 AGM did not overthrow Shell’s strategy.

Resolution 23 was defeated.

The board prevailed.

The machine kept humming.

But the optics are brutal.

Current and former Shell employees publicly challenging the climate strategy of one of the world’s most powerful oil and gas companies is not business as usual.

It is a warning label written by people who have seen the machinery from the inside.

Shell can point to the vote.

It can point to energy security.

It can point to LNG.

It can point to shareholder returns.

It can point to every glossy phrase in the corporate dictionary.

But the central question remains stubbornly alive:

Is Shell preparing for the energy transition, or merely trying to monetise the delay?

Because when even insiders start waving red flags, perhaps the problem is not the flags.

Perhaps it is the smoke.

PART TWO: SPOOF SHELL PR/SPIN SECTION Shell Internal Mood Statement, Possibly Drafted by a Committee of Polished Gas Pipelines

Shell welcomes robust dialogue from shareholders, employees, former employees, future employees, hypothetical employees, and any sentient beings willing to recognise the vital importance of hydrocarbons in delivering a lower-carbon future by continuing to sell hydrocarbons.

We are proud that our strategy remains focused on delivering more value with less emissions, more LNG with less awkwardness, and more confidence with less disclosure than some campaigners appear to desire.

At Shell, we believe the energy transition is best achieved through disciplined investment in profitable molecules, especially molecules capable of being liquefied, shipped, regasified, monetised, and described as “part of the solution” in investor presentations.

While a minority of shareholders supported Resolution 23, an overwhelming majority voted against it, demonstrating strong support for our existing approach of telling investors that everything is resilient because we have used the word “resilient” repeatedly.

We thank our current and former employees for their passion.

We also remind everyone that Shell has a proud tradition of listening carefully, engaging constructively, and then continuing with the strategy approved by the people holding the biggest voting cards.

Forward-looking statement: any resemblance between this satire and actual corporate language is purely coincidental, although admittedly not very surprising.

PART THREE: SPOOF BOT-REACTION / COMMENT SECTION

@DividendGoblin3000: “Climate risk? Sorry, I can’t hear you over the buybacks.”

@LNG_is_Love: “Shell says LNG is its biggest contribution to the energy transition. My biggest contribution to dieting is buying a slightly smaller cake.”

@FormerInsider47: “When the staff start challenging the climate strategy, maybe stop calling it stakeholder engagement and start calling it a smoke alarm.”

@BoardroomBarometer: “Resolution defeated. Physics abstained.”

@GreenwashDetector: “More value with less emissions sounds great until you notice the ‘more value’ is doing most of the work.”

@InstitutionalInvestorBot: “We support climate action, provided it does not interfere with quarterly distributions, executive confidence, or lunch.”

@PlanetaryAccountsDept: “Your transition invoice is overdue.”

IMAGE CONCEPT

A dramatic satirical editorial illustration of a Shell corporate AGM in London.

A giant golden LNG tanker sits in the centre of a luxury boardroom table, leaking black oil onto climate-risk reports.

On one side, polished executives applaud beneath a glowing Shell logo.

On the other side, current and former employees hold warning signs reading:

“Transition Risk”

“Show The Scenario”

“Smoke Alarm”

Outside the window, planet Earth is half-melting, half-covered in gas pipelines.

Style: sharp tabloid editorial illustration, cinematic lighting, high contrast, provocative, non-photorealistic, no real people depicted.

SHELL STAFF REVOLT: WHEN EVEN THE PEOPLE INSIDE THE OIL MACHINE START COUGHING AT THE FUMES was first posted on May 20, 2026 at 4:54 pm.
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VICTORIA — Evan Pivnick, associate director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada, released a statement in response to BC Hydro’s release of its new energy efficiency strategy, Power Smart 2.0:

“BC Hydro has a strong history of using energy conservation to reduce electricity use in B.C. as well as prepare for the growing demands for electrification. However, while this new plan makes meaningful investments and continues in this tradition, it falls short of fully harnessing the opportunities that household technologies have to save families—and BC Hydro—money.

“A recent study from Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors found that distributed energy resources (electric technologies that can generate or store energy or control demand) could meet more than 10% of B.C.’s total peak electricity demand by 2040, saving ratepayers money by avoiding more expensive infrastructure build-outs while improving grid reliability. 

“As such, it’s good to see support for consumers to adopt clean solutions, from energy-efficient appliances to battery storage, that help realize this potential. But this is only a first step. B.C needs to follow the lead of other jurisdictions across North America that are going much further in advancing changes to their electricity systems and standing up new programs that can help households save on their energy bills.

“Beyond energy-efficient appliances, new technologies have unlocked much greater opportunities to save, like managed EV charging, smart panels, controllable water heaters, and household batteries that work in harmony with the grid. The new plan lays out a vision for using these technologies, but more should be done to encourage British Columbians to make the switch. The Dunsky study found that greater financial incentives, like rebates, and other ambitious installation programs, were key to realizing the full potential of distributed energy resources for reducing both household bills and costs to the utility. 

“What’s more, heat pumps will be vital to reducing power demand, offering the ability to displace power-hungry baseboard heating and air conditioning. With another hot summer around the corner, the provincial government should introduce regulations that ensure new permanent air conditioning systems are heat pumps. Our analysis shows that a province-wide switch to heat pumps could save a cumulative $675 million in annual energy bills: that translates to average savings of approximately $170 a year for those currently using natural gas with A/C.

“Already, B.C. has some of the lowest electricity rates in North America, making the switch to EVs and household electrification especially enticing for British Columbians. And while today represents a positive step, at a moment when the cost of living is top of mind for most families, there is much more we could be doing to lower electricity bills across the province—while simultaneously building a smarter, more cost-efficient electricity system.” 

The post Response: New BC Hydro plan maintains key programs, but the province and utility are leaving larger household savings on the table appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

By Gracia Ramirez and David Vergara-Moreno

This photo essay looks at Isla Grande, the largest coralline island of Nuestra Señora del Rosario Archipelago, which is part of the Parque Nacional Natural Corales del Rosario y de San Bernardo, in the Colombian Caribbean. The essay considers the environmental beauty and the violence that underpin Black lives on the island, and the ways in which they have resisted as a community to go forward into the future.

DOCKS

La Bodeguita dock in Cartagena de Indias is the tourists’ gateway to the promised paradise of white-sand beaches and turquoise waters of the Rosario Islands. The docks and other hard boundaries of the port witness an encounter with the polluted waters around Cartagena. This port is responsible for 70% of the country’s maritime trade and has been categorized as the third most efficient port in the world.

Although rarely mentioned by the early chroniclers, it is reasonable to infer that —prior to and during the early centuries of colonization— Cartagena’s Bay was a lush mosaic of abundant coral reefs, dense mangrove forests, and towering tropical dry forest trees.

Today, however, the bay reveals another face: murky waters, laden with sediments, polluted by centuries of maritime traffic, urban and industrial waste, and dredging works that have radically transformed its ecological cycles.

While the departure of tourism to the islands is mainly managed from La Bodeguita dock, the journey out of the bay and into the sea allows visual contact with other docks along the coast.

This is a layered cartography of memories, economies, and spatial regimes: tourist piers, logistical cargo yards, shipyards, naval bases, and private marinas. The bay is not merely a coastal landscape, it is a friction zone between multiple socio-economic and political logics: tourism, military operations, goods trade, and the communities whose ways of life are subordinated to those regimes. This is a liquid frontier: a place of circulation, exclusion, and resistance.

LOGISTICS

The archipelago of the Rosario Islands is connected not just to the Atlantic but also to another body of water, the Canal del Dique. The Spanish colonizers began its construction in the 16th century using enslaved Indigenous and African labor, with the goal of linking the Magdalena River —the nation’s main fluvial artery— with the Cartagena Bay.

Map of the Northern part of Bolívar Department, Republic of Colombia 1886-1903 (Edward Stanford, 1899, cropped). It is possible to see Cartagena de Indias, Barú island below, the Canal del Dique and the Calamar-Cartagena Railway (red line). Source: Mapoteca Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia.

Since then, the Canal has played a strategic role in both domestic and foreign transport and trade, evolving from wooden barges in the 17th century, to the advent of steam-powered boats in the 19th century.

For over three centuries, the Magdalena River and its canal were the only connection between Colombia’s Caribbean and its Andean provinces, linking a nation divided by three mountain ranges and a wide variety of thermal floors and ecosystems. Socially, the Canal became the route to freedom, as many runaway enslaved people (cimarrones) followed its waterways and founded Maroons communities (palenques) in the surrounding wetlands and hills during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Until the late 19th century, the Dique was merely a narrow, shallow ditch less than 15 meters wide, which was impossible to navigate during droughts. But throughout the 20th century, the canal was radically transformed. U.S. companies carried out major dredging and straightening projects that widened it to 100 meters, reducing its original 270 meanders to only 55, dramatically increasing its flow and sediment loads, altering the ecological balance of Cartagena and Barbacoas Bays and surroundings.

Despite these efforts, the canal became almost obsolete after the construction of two major highways that linked the Caribbean to the Andean region of the country in the 1950s. However, around the same time, Colombia’s largest oil refineries were established in Barrancabermeja and Cartagena.

As human geographer Austin Zeiderman argues, such infrastructures articulate geo-racial regimes and hierarchies of white and black, urban and peripheral, central and insular, that become sedimented into both Cartagenian landscapes and bodies.

MATERIALS

Excavations on the ground reveal the coralline stone, compacted after centuries of pressure and erosion. Isla Grande is a coral reef fossil itself. Coral reefs are vital ecosystems: they protect shorelines from storms, sustain local fisheries, support biodiversity, and form the ecological backbone of a tourism industry that underpins much of Cartagena city’s economy. Yet their very skeletons have been quarried and consumed. Entire islets were built for elite leisure by filling the sea with broken coral, the moneyed class literally manufacturing new islands from the bones of the reef.

Coral grounds. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

The Canal del Dique continues this slow and silent violence. Each rainy season, it expels plumes of sediment-laden freshwater that spread across several square kilometers, covering turquoise waters with brown stains. These pulses reduce salinity and block light, suffocating photosynthesis and interrupting coral reproduction cycles that coincide with the wet months. In fact, the deposits of sediment have turned the formerly island of Barú into a peninsula, following the interventions of USA engineering companies in the twentieth century.

The history of Isla Grande is intimately linked to that of Barú. Around the time of the Spanish colonization, these territories were called Bahaire after the indigenous chief that ruled them before the conquest. The Spaniards used enslaved labour to excavate quarries in Barú and Tierra Bomba, extracting coralline stone used in Cartagena’s colonial architecture. They also built kilns to burn coral stone, producing mortar for the city’s fortifications and lime for its characteristics whitewashed walls.

In the eighteenth century, the nearby island of Barú became a strategic point for cimarrones and Dutch and English smugglers who used enslaved workforce for the logistics related to trafficking. Some enslaved workers, in turn, were secretly saving money to buy their freedom to their masters –mostly Spaniards–.

Over the nineteenth century, with the crisis of slavery and the independence wars, Barú became an instance of a horizontal community formed mostly by cimarrones, freed slaves and mestizos. Their economy was based on subsistence agriculture, fishing, bartering and mutual support.

Wooden house. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

On June 7 of 1850, groups of neighbours from Barú bought an old hacienda to its then owner for 1.200 COP and finished their payment on May 19, 1851. Just two days later, the abolition of slavery was signed in the country. Thus, Barú become a Black community with collective property before the establishment of the modern-day Republican State. Coconut became the main crop and some families from Barú moved to the neighbouring Rosario Islands to extend the plantations.

Islander dwellings echo this layered material history. Traditional houses rely on wooden boards and palm-thatched roofs, fragile yet renewable. Modern constructions import thin red bricks and cement from the mainland, materials that, as they degrade, seep into the calcareous soil and alter its composition.

Seashell. Photo by David Vergara.

Cement itself is ambivalent: it raises luxury resorts that displace the community, yet it also fortifies schools and homes through collective labor. In their very texture, these materials tell two stories at once—of extraction and restriction, but also of resilience and re-creation.

ORIKA

Right at the centre of Isla Grande is now the town of Orika. An old rubber tree guards the town’s square and provides shelter from the sun. The Cultural House is the gathering place where local council meetings (juntas) take place. The story of Orika is one of socioecological struggle and resistance.

Over the twentieth century, Barú started supplying agricultural goods to the growing Cartagena population, shifting toward intensive production of coconut, fish and mangrove charcoal. Up until the 1950s –when roads were constructed to connect Cartagena with other inland cities– the Rosario islands and Barú were the main providers of food sold at the city’s Getsemani market.

Rubber Tree in Benkos Biohó Square, Orika, Isla Grande, PNNCRSB. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

The first tourists were members of Cartagena’s urban elite. They arrived at the Rosario Islands between the 1930s and 1940s and started building recreational homes. While tourist infrastructure was consolidating around Cartagena and the islands, a beetle plague destroyed the coconut plantations in the 1950s.

In order to “protect” the islands, the government declared them National Natural Park in 1977, but the National Park mainly considered the sea, not the ground islands themselves. The decree sought to “conserve flora, fauna, landscapes, and historical and cultural manifestations with scientific, recreative or aesthetic goals”, but omitted any mention of the Blacks communities that already inhabited the territory (Rosario Islands, Barú, Santa Ana and Ararca).

New prohibitionist environmental policies, coupled with the rise of tourism, relegated local families to the hinterlands of Isla Grande and to the backs of hotels and resorts, where they worked as subordinate labor.

In the 1980s, the government declared the Rosario Islands to be State-owned vacant lands, unrecognising the community as a “organized population” for the use of land but allowing other economical uses such as tourism and recreation. This enabled a wave of land grabs by private investors that further marginalised the community. However, the 1991 Constitution and the ensuing law 70 of Black Communities of 1993 provided legal tools to transform the memory of dispossession into a fight for recognition.

The community used environmental education programs to strengthen social organizations and articulate their historical demands into a juridical argument. In 2001, after years of legal limbo, the Colombian state began the land restitution process.

Fearing expulsion from the territory, the families decided to establish a new village in the center of Isla Grande: Orika, in honor of the daughter of Benkos Biohó, a cimarron leader and hero of San Basilio de Palenque, the first Black free village in the Americas (1714). In just two months, the community cleared the land and built their houses, a gesture of dignity and memory, affirming their right to exist as a Black community in their ancestral territory. After collecting evidence and going through endless administrative hurdles, in 2014 the Constitutional Court recognized the collective deed title for the Black community of Isla Grande, becoming the only community having achieved that so far within the national park.

UNBOUNDEDNESS

Sunset horizons and native trees may meet the tourist’s gaze as landscapes ready for easy consumption— postcards of “untouched nature.” Yet the town of Orika unsettles this commodified view. Its soundscape resists containment: sound systems (picós) blasting loud music reverberates from the main square, echoing through every coralline ground cavity, vibrating as much in bodies as in stone.

In language, too, survival leaves its trace. The word Dios circulates as the name of the Christian god, but within it hides the untranslatable presence of African spirits, invoked yet unconfined by letters. This is not syncretism as tourist folklore, but the deep mimicry of African cosmologies that persisted beneath colonial surveillance.

In the Colombian Caribbean, enslaved Africans lived not in the vast monocultures of the sugar plantations of Brazil or Cuba, but in smaller, multiethnic communities tied to haciendas, cattle ranches, mines, and urban centres under the close watch of the Inquisition tribunal of Cartagena.

Cut off early from eighteen century renewed arrivals of African captives, these populations developed distinctive spiritual practices, an instance of what Sylvia Wynter called “black indigenization”— that in intertwining African, indigenous, and Christian forms, found ways of being human when colonial hegemony ruled otherwise.

Orika inhabits this layered spiritual geography. It is not simply a village bounded by its streets, but a porous space where music, light, and faith exceed enclosure—an unlimited terrain of survival, memory, and reinvention.

ROOTS

Mangrove forests form the living roots of Isla Grande. They are among the most resilient trees on Earth—thriving where others would perish. Their bodies adapt to saline soils and shifting tides, standing firm where land is not yet land.

Propagules germinate while still attached to the parent tree, dropping into the water as living seedlings that drift across lagoons and channels, anchoring themselves wherever conditions allow. Each root is a promise of survival, each forest a nursery that shelters fish, crabs, and birds in any of their stages of life. Mangroves breathe through aerial roots that rise above the mud, searching for oxygen in conditions too harsh for most species. Always green, they embody endurance.

The mangrove is never alone. Its leaves, roots, and fallen branches decompose into nutrients that sustain fish and crustaceans; its tangled roots interlace with seagrass meadows and coral reefs in a single inter-ecosystemic web. Together, these systems form the ecological triangle of the Caribbean coast: corals buffer waves, seagrasses filter and stabilize sediments, mangroves hold the shoreline while feeding both sea and land. In Isla Grande, these roots not only prevent erosion but also connect the island’s fragile ecology to Cartagena’s coastal mangroves, weaving life across waters.

For Orika, the mangrove is more than ecology—it is a metaphor for community. Like the red mangrove that elevates itself above its roots, the people rise from centuries of exclusion, rooted yet expansive. Their history drifts like propagules, carried by tides of resistance until finding ground to grow.

The mangrove teaches resilience, interconnection, and renewal: lessons for a community that continues to defend its territory while imagining futures where culture and ecology flourish together. Roots here are not only in soil, but in memory and struggle, anchoring Orika to both the Caribbean Sea and to its own unfolding horizon.

DRIFT

There are no roads in Isla Grande, only sandy footpaths weaving through the tropical dry forest and the mangroves. No motorized vehicles circulate within the island, people walk or ride bicycles, while boats and yachts, arriving from Cartagena, leave trails of oil shimmering over the turquoise surface.

Caribbean Sea water around Isla Grande. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

Plastic bottles and rubbish drift ashore, carried by tides that remember more than the islanders would wish. Drift here is both material and historical: traces of empire, slavery, tourism, and extraction wash against the reef, staining waters once clear. The islands themselves are a coral body in constant erosion and recomposition, a living drift of stone, memory, and survival.

Plastic and vegetable waste. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

Yet drift is not only decline—it is also possibility. Orika, born out of dispossession, has become a node of reorganization and creativity. The community council anchors collective life, negotiating with agencies and hotels that now contribute resources for communal projects.

Every weekend, and on national and local holidays, happiness brightens the whole town in shared spaces like the main Plaza (Benkos Biohó Plaza), the picós, the cockpits, houses and the Casa Cultural. A new foundation works with children and youth, teaching them to stage traditional dances and music, reweaving ancestral ties to the palenques and to African rhythms long suppressed.

Ecotourism initiatives, led by younger generations, form alliances with older community projects, offering alternatives that value culture and ecology together.

Buildings around Benkos Biohó Square in Orika. Photo by Gracia Ramirez.

Drift, then, also gestures toward a different horizon. In Orika, the tides carry not only the weight of history but also the seeds of futures yet to come. The Rosario Islands are a historical drift still evolving—where coral, memory, and community recombine into new forms of life.

 

The post Notes on Isla Grande: Figurations of Environmental Violence and Beauty in the Colombian Caribbean appeared first on Undisciplined Environments.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has won deserved praise for standing firm against the Trump administration’s threats and imposition of tariffs. But political credit is only as good as the strategy that follows, and Canada now faces a genuine opportunity to do something more ambitious than weather the storm.

Carney’s approach has sparked a broader conversation among the world’s ‘middle powers’ – countries with significant economies like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the U.K. that share a commitment to rules-based trade but sit outside the U.S.-China superpower axis. These are countries that are actively looking for a different economic path forward, one that doesn’t simply mirror the nationalism coming out of Washington and Beijing.

Keep reading this post, co-authored by Ryan Mulholland and Ollie Sheldrick, in Policy Options.

The post A Canada-led clean trade pact would show that middle powers mean business appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

May 14, 2026:

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Greenaction Blasting Navy’s latest radioactive scandal at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site

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