Between 2023 and 2024, all nine companies boosted pay to top executives, by an average of 30%, the analysis found.*

Across the U.S. property & casualty insurance industry, which includes home and auto insurance, 2024 was a year of windfall profits, hitting an all-time high of nearly $167 billion, up 91% from 2023 and whopping 330% from 2022. Yet, 2024 was also a year of record-setting damage from climate-driven storms. In response, insurers jacked up premiums and withdrew coverage from some customers, and even entire states, where risks to insured properties threaten to trim their profits.

In 2024, there were 27 confirmed climate change-driven weather disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to impact the United States.

“Executive compensation is climbing at the same time policyholders are struggling with premium hikes, claim denials, and coverage withdrawals” said Kenny Stancil, senior researcher with Revolving Door Project. “In other words, millions of households’ economic pain shows up as better paydays for a handful of insurance bigwigs. This injustice underscores the need for major reforms aimed at expediting the clean energy transition and delivering safe and affordable housing for all. Insurer profits can no longer be prioritized over everything else.”

At most big insurance companies, executives can collect lavish pay packages without scrutiny or oversight because the companies are structured as mutuals or exchanges, meaning that their shares don’t trade publicly and they have no duty to report this information publicly. But at the publicly traded companies that do report the data, executive pay is growing at a headspinning rate:

• At Allstate, CEO Thomas Wilson took home compensation worth $26.1 million in 2024, up from $16.5 million in 2023.
• Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg’s compensation rose 9% in 2024 to $30.1 million.

“Executive compensation is increasing as pay packages have become more heavily linked to so-called ‘performance metrics’ that align CEOs’ interests with shareholders—while putting them at odds with consumers. Improving a company’s combined ratio or return on equity means more money for executives—often on the back of improper claims denials and delays,” said Dan Wagner, research director with Public Citizen. “The industry’s record profits come at the expense of homeowners, who are facing unjustified premium hikes and coverage withdrawals. And in some cases, these companies are coming to state regulators and claiming climate change justifies massive rate hikes, without letting these regulators weigh the profits these companies are raking in. It is a massive cash grab by the insurance industry as climate change is accelerating and creating havoc in markets across the country.”

And as the insurance industry urges state regulators to sign off on massive premium increases, insurance companies continue to invest in and underwrite coal, oil, and gas—even though fossil fuel pollution is exacerbating the extreme weather that insurers point to as justification for policy cancellations and rate hikes. U.S.-based insurance firms were estimated to hold between $536 billion and $582 billion in fossil fuel-related assets in 2019, and they also make billions every year from underwriting dirty energy projects.

"The home insurance industry is making record profits despite mounting climate-related damages—damages driven, in part, by the industry's continued investments in and underwriting of fossil fuels,” concluded Stancil.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“You need double the electric of what we have right now, and maybe even more than that,” Trump said, recalling a conversation with “David”—most likely White House AI czar David Sacks, a panelist at the summit. “I said, what, are you kidding? That’s double the electric that we have. Take everything we have and double it.”

At the high-profile summit on Tuesday—where, in addition to Sacks, panelists and attendees included Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat, and ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods—companies announced $92 billion in investments across various energy and AI-related ventures. These are just the latest in recent breakneck rollouts in investment around AI and energy infrastructure. A day before the Pittsburgh meeting, Mark Zuckerberg shared on Threads that Meta would be building “titan clusters” of data centers to supercharge its AI efforts. The one closest to coming online, dubbed Prometheus, is located in Ohio and will be powered by onsite gas generation, SemiAnalysis reported last week.

For an administration committed to advancing the future of fossil fuels, the location of the event was significant. Pennsylvania sits on the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, which supercharged Pennsylvania’s fracking boom in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The state is still the country’s second-most prolific natural gas producer. Pennsylvania-based natural gas had a big role at the summit: The CEO of Pittsburgh-based natural gas company EQT, Toby Rice—who dubs himself the “people’s champion of natural gas”—moderated one of the panels and sat onstage with the president during his speech.

Read Next

Trump promised to help Big Oil. Its revenues plummeted.

Tik Root

All this new demand from AI is welcome news for the natural gas industry in the US, the world’s top producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas. Global gas markets have been facing a mounting supply glut for years. Following a warm winter last year, Morgan Stanley predicted gas supply could reach “multi-decade highs” over the next few years. A jolt of new demand—like the demand represented by massive data centers—could revitalize the industry and help drive prices back up.

Natural gas from Pennsylvania and the Appalachian region, in particular, has faced market challenges both from ultra-cheap natural gas from the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico as well as a lack of infrastructure to carry supply out of the region. These economic headwinds are “why the industry is doing their best to sort of create this drumbeat or this narrative around the need for AI data centers,” says Clark Williams-Derry, an energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. It appears to be working. Pipeline companies are already pitching new projects to truck gas from the northeast—responding, they say, to data center demand.

The industry is finding a willing partner in the Trump administration. Since taking office, Trump has used AI as a lever to open up opportunities for fossil fuels, including a well-publicized effort to resuscitate coal in the name of more computing power. The summit, which was organized by Republican senator (and former hedge fund CEO) Dave McCormick, clearly reflected the administration’s priorities in this regard: No representatives from any wind or solar companies were present on any of the public panels.

Tech companies, which have expressed an interest in using any and all cheap power available for AI and have quietly pushed back against some of the administration’s anti-renewables positions, aren’t necessarily on the same page as the Trump administration. Among the announcements made at the summit was a $3 billion investment in hydropower from Google.

Read Next

Data centers are building their own gas power plants in Texas

Dylan Baddour & Arcelia Martin, Inside Climate News

This demand isn’t necessarily driven by a big concern for the climate—many tech giants have walked back their climate commitments in recent years as their focus on AI has sharpened—but rather pure economics. Financial analyst Lazard said last month that installing utility-scale solar panels and batteries is still cheaper than building out natural gas plants, even without tax incentives. Gas infrastructure is also facing a global shortage that makes the timescales for setting up power generation vastly different.

“The waiting list for a new turbine is five years,” Williams-Derry says. “If you want a new solar plant, you call China, you say, ‘I want more solar.’”

Given the ideological split at the summit, things occasionally got a little awkward. On one panel, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, who headed up a fracking company before coming to the federal government, talked at length about how the Obama and Biden administrations were on an “energy crazy train,” scoffing at those administrations’ support for wind and solar. Speaking directly after Wright, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink admitted that solar would likely support dispatchable gas in powering AI. Incredibly, fellow panel member Woods, the ExxonMobil CEO, later paid some of the only lip service to the idea of drawing down emissions heard during the entire event. (Woods was touting the oil giant’s carbon capture and storage business.)

Still, the hype train, for the most part, moved smoothly, with everyone agreeing on one thing: We’re going to need a lot of power, and soon. Blackstone CEO Jonathan Gray said that AI could help drive “40 or 50 percent more power usage over the next decade,” while Porat, of Google, mentioned some economists’ projections that AI could add $4 trillion to the US economy by 2030.

It’s easy to find any variety of headlines or reports—often based on projections produced by private companies—projecting massive growth numbers for AI. “I view all of these projections with great skepticism,” says Jonathan Koomey, a computing researcher and consultant who has contributed to research around AI and power. “I don’t think anyone has any idea, even a few years hence, how much electricity data centers are gonna use.”

In February, Koomey coauthored a report for the Bipartisan Policy Center cautioning that improvements in AI efficiency and other developments in the technology make data center power load hard to predict. But there’s “a bunch of self-interested actors,” Koomey says, involved in the hype cycle around AI and power, including energy executives, utilities, consultants and AI companies.

Koomey remembers the last time there was a hype bubble around electricity, fossil fuels, and technology. In the late 1990s, a variety of sources, including investment banks, trade publications, and experts testifying in front of Congress began to spread hype around the growth of the internet, claiming that the internet could soon consume as much as half of US electricity. More coal-fired power, many of these sources argued, would be needed to support this massive expansion. (“Dig More Coal—The PCs Are Coming” was the headline of a 1999 Forbes article that Koomey cites as being particularly influential to shaping the hype.) The prediction never came to pass, as efficiency gains in tech helped drive down the internet’s energy needs; the initial projections were also based, Koomey says, on a variety of faulty calculations.

Koomey says that he sees parallels between the late 1990s and the current craze around AI and energy. “People just need to understand the history and not fall for these self-interested narratives,” he says. There’s some signs that the AI-energy bubble may not be inflating as much as Big Tech thinks: in March, Microsoft quietly backed out of 2GW of data center leases, citing a decision to not support some training workloads from OpenAI.

“It can both be true that there’s growth in electricity use and there’s a whole bunch of people hyping it way beyond what it’s likely to happen,” Koomey says.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump and the energy industry are eager to power AI with fossil fuels on Jul 20, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Molly Taft, WIRED.

Recognizing the state’s unique air quality challenges, Congress specifically gave California the authority to set stronger tailpipe emissions standards when it passed the Clean Air Act more than five decades ago. Congress later gave other states the right to adopt California’s standards.

The following is a comment from Simon Mui, managing director for transportation at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“California’s vehicle standards reduce costs for drivers, increase customer choice, boost domestic manufacturing, improve air quality and help address the climate crisis. The only losers from cleaner vehicles are oil industry billionaires, which is why they were on hand today while the president signed the measures to nix these rules.

“States know best how to strike the right balance and protect their residents from dangerous pollution. There is no reason politicians in Washington should be stepping in at this late date to try and undercut states’ protections for their residents.

“The oil industry may be celebrating today, but the rest of us are going to continue to keep fighting for cleaner air, lower energy bills and a safer climate.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

American film star celebrity John Cusack, who describes himself on his x-page bio as an “apocalyptic shit-disturber”, has posted an open letter to the world denouncing the Israeli “mass murder” in Gaza and calling for “your outrage”.

While warning the public to “don’t stop talking about Palestine/Gaza”, he says that the “hollow ‘both sides’ rhetoric is complicity with power”.

“This is not a debate with two sides that can be normalised — and all the hired bullshit in print and on tv will never change the narrative,” he said.

• READ MORE: Israel bombs Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, unleashes wave of raids on Khan Younis
• ‘Cracks are opening up’ in Western complicity over Gaza genocide, says Minto
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

His statement comes as hundreds of directors, writers, actors have denounced Israeli genocide in Gaza and the film industry’s “silence,” “indifference” and “passivity” coinciding with the Cannes Film Festival.

More than 350 prominent directors, writers and actors signed an open letter condemning the genocide and the “official inaction” of the film industry in regard to the mass suffering.

The industry open letter was published on the first day of the Cannes festival. It began by calling attention to the fate of 25-year-old Fatma Hassouna, a Palestinian freelance photojournalist, who was murdered in an Israeli air strike on April 16.

She was assassinated after it was announced that Iranian director Sepideh Farsi’s film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, in which she Hassouna was the star, had been selected in the ACID parallel, independent film section of the festival.

She was about to get married.

Cusack’s own open letter, offered as a template at X@JohnCusack last week, said:

“To Whom it May Still Concern

“There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract — a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the so-called “land of the free” done? Applauded. Armed. Rationalised. Looked away.

London protest: ‘No to another Nakba”    Video: Al Jazeera

“The blood in Gaza does not just stain the hands of those launching the missiles. It stains every hand that signs off on the bombs, every hand that wrings itself in liberal anguish but does nothing, and every hand that beats its chest in right-wing bloodlust cheering it all on.

“The American far right sees in this mass killing a projection of its own fantasies — walls, camps, and the unrelenting dehumanisation of the “other.” No surprise there. And where are the liberals? Their silence is violence. Their hollow “both sides” rhetoric is complicity with power. And mass murder. And the machine of empire—greased with our taxes, shielded by our media, and excused by our moral debauchery .
How’s everybody at the Met gala doing tonight ?

“If you claim to care about justice — if you ever marched, ever lit a candle for any cause — then your voice should be raised now. Or it means nothing. The children of Gaza do not need your sorrow. They need your outrage. Your pressure. Your courage.

“End the siege. End the weapons shipments. End the lies. Call this what it is: a genocide.

“And if your politics cannot confront that—then your politics are worthless.

“In furious solidarity

“John Cusack”

Here’s a template –

To Whom It May Still Concern,

There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract—a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the…

— John Cusack (@johncusack) May 7, 2025

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

American film star celebrity John Cusack, who describes himself on his x-page bio as an “apocalyptic shit-disturber”, has posted an open letter to the world denouncing the Israeli “mass murder” in Gaza and calling for “your outrage”.

While warning the public to “don’t stop talking about Palestine/Gaza”, he says that the “hollow ‘both sides’ rhetoric is complicity with power”.

“This is not a debate with two sides that can be normalised — and all the hired bullshit in print and on tv will never change the narrative,” he said.

• READ MORE: Israel bombs Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, unleashes wave of raids on Khan Younis
• ‘Cracks are opening up’ in Western complicity over Gaza genocide, says Minto
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

His statement comes as hundreds of directors, writers, actors have denounced Israeli genocide in Gaza and the film industry’s “silence,” “indifference” and “passivity” coinciding with the Cannes Film Festival.

More than 350 prominent directors, writers and actors signed an open letter condemning the genocide and the “official inaction” of the film industry in regard to the mass suffering.

The industry open letter was published on the first day of the Cannes festival. It began by calling attention to the fate of 25-year-old Fatma Hassouna, a Palestinian freelance photojournalist, who was murdered in an Israeli air strike on April 16.

She was assassinated after it was announced that Iranian director Sepideh Farsi’s film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, in which she Hassouna was the star, had been selected in the ACID parallel, independent film section of the festival.

She was about to get married.

Cusack’s own open letter, offered as a template at X@JohnCusack last week, said:

“To Whom it May Still Concern

“There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract — a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the so-called “land of the free” done? Applauded. Armed. Rationalised. Looked away.

London protest: ‘No to another Nakba”    Video: Al Jazeera

“The blood in Gaza does not just stain the hands of those launching the missiles. It stains every hand that signs off on the bombs, every hand that wrings itself in liberal anguish but does nothing, and every hand that beats its chest in right-wing bloodlust cheering it all on.

“The American far right sees in this mass killing a projection of its own fantasies — walls, camps, and the unrelenting dehumanisation of the “other.” No surprise there. And where are the liberals? Their silence is violence. Their hollow “both sides” rhetoric is complicity with power. And mass murder. And the machine of empire—greased with our taxes, shielded by our media, and excused by our moral debauchery .
How’s everybody at the Met gala doing tonight ?

“If you claim to care about justice — if you ever marched, ever lit a candle for any cause — then your voice should be raised now. Or it means nothing. The children of Gaza do not need your sorrow. They need your outrage. Your pressure. Your courage.

“End the siege. End the weapons shipments. End the lies. Call this what it is: a genocide.

“And if your politics cannot confront that—then your politics are worthless.

“In furious solidarity

“John Cusack”

Here’s a template –

To Whom It May Still Concern,

There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract—a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the…

— John Cusack (@johncusack) May 7, 2025

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

American film star celebrity John Cusack, who describes himself on his x-page bio as an “apocalyptic shit-disturber”, has posted an open letter to the world denouncing the Israeli “mass murder” in Gaza and calling for “your outrage”.

While warning the public to “don’t stop talking about Palestine/Gaza”, he says that the “hollow ‘both sides’ rhetoric is complicity with power”.

“This is not a debate with two sides that can be normalised — and all the hired bullshit in print and on tv will never change the narrative,” he said.

• READ MORE: Israel bombs Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, unleashes wave of raids on Khan Younis
• ‘Cracks are opening up’ in Western complicity over Gaza genocide, says Minto
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

His statement comes as hundreds of directors, writers, actors have denounced Israeli genocide in Gaza and the film industry’s “silence,” “indifference” and “passivity” coinciding with the Cannes Film Festival.

More than 350 prominent directors, writers and actors signed an open letter condemning the genocide and the “official inaction” of the film industry in regard to the mass suffering.

The industry open letter was published on the first day of the Cannes festival. It began by calling attention to the fate of 25-year-old Fatma Hassouna, a Palestinian freelance photojournalist, who was murdered in an Israeli air strike on April 16.

She was assassinated after it was announced that Iranian director Sepideh Farsi’s film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, in which she Hassouna was the star, had been selected in the ACID parallel, independent film section of the festival.

She was about to get married.

Cusack’s own open letter, offered as a template at X@JohnCusack last week, said:

“To Whom it May Still Concern

“There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract — a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the so-called “land of the free” done? Applauded. Armed. Rationalised. Looked away.

London protest: ‘No to another Nakba”    Video: Al Jazeera

“The blood in Gaza does not just stain the hands of those launching the missiles. It stains every hand that signs off on the bombs, every hand that wrings itself in liberal anguish but does nothing, and every hand that beats its chest in right-wing bloodlust cheering it all on.

“The American far right sees in this mass killing a projection of its own fantasies — walls, camps, and the unrelenting dehumanisation of the “other.” No surprise there. And where are the liberals? Their silence is violence. Their hollow “both sides” rhetoric is complicity with power. And mass murder. And the machine of empire—greased with our taxes, shielded by our media, and excused by our moral debauchery .
How’s everybody at the Met gala doing tonight ?

“If you claim to care about justice — if you ever marched, ever lit a candle for any cause — then your voice should be raised now. Or it means nothing. The children of Gaza do not need your sorrow. They need your outrage. Your pressure. Your courage.

“End the siege. End the weapons shipments. End the lies. Call this what it is: a genocide.

“And if your politics cannot confront that—then your politics are worthless.

“In furious solidarity

“John Cusack”

Here’s a template –

To Whom It May Still Concern,

There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract—a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the…

— John Cusack (@johncusack) May 7, 2025

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

The iconic Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior will return to Aotearoa this year to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original campaign ship at Marsden Wharf in Auckland by French secret agents on 10 July 1985.

The return to Aotearoa comes at a pivotal moment — when the fight to protect our planet’s fragile life-support systems has never been as urgent, or more critical.

Here in Aotearoa, the Luxon government is waging an all-out war on nature, and on a planetary scale, climate change, ecosystem collapse, and accelerating species extinction pose an existential threat.

• READ MORE: Rainbow Warrior back in Marshall Islands on nuclear justice mission
• ‘Under no illusions’ about France, says author of new Rainbow Warrior book
• Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior

As we remember the bombing and the murder of our crew member, Fernando Pereira, it’s important to remember why the French government was compelled to commit such a cowardly act of violence.

Our ship was targeted because Greenpeace and the campaign to stop nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific were so effective. We posed a very real threat to the French government’s military programme and colonial power.

It’s also critical to remember that they failed to stop us. They failed to intimidate us, and they failed to silence us. Greenpeace only grew stronger and continued the successful campaign against nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.

Forty years later, it’s the oil industry that’s trying to stop us. This time, not with bombs but with a legal attack that threatens the existence of Greenpeace in the US and beyond.

We will not be intimidated
But just like in 1985 when the French bombed our ship, now too in 2025, we will not be intimidated, we will not back down, and we will not be silenced.

We cannot be silenced because we are a movement of people committed to peace and to protecting Earth’s ability to sustain life, protecting the blue oceans, the forests and the life we share this planet with,” says Norman.

In the 40 years since, the Rainbow Warrior has sailed on the front lines of our campaigns around the world to protect nature and promote peace. In the fight to end oil exploration, turn the tide of plastic production, stop the destruction of ancient forests and protect the ocean, the Rainbow Warrior has been there to this day.

Right now the Rainbow Warrior is preparing to sail through the Tasman Sea to expose the damage being done to ocean life, continuing a decades-long tradition of defending ocean health.

This follows the Rainbow Warrior spending six weeks in the Marshall Islands where the original ship carried out Operation Exodus, in which the Greenpeace crew evacuated the people of Rongelap from their home island that had been made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons testing by the US government.

In Auckland this year, several events will be held on and around the ship to mark the anniversary, including open days with tours of the ship for the public.

Dr Russel Norman is executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The announcement was made by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who has repeatedly stated support for stronger PFAS protections and even voted for the PFAS Action Act of 2021 to address PFAS contamination while serving in the U.S. House.

In response, Mary Grant, water program director at Food & Water Watch issued the following statement:

“Today’s decision is a shameful and dangerous capitulation to industry pressure that will allow continued contamination of our drinking water with toxic PFAS. This will cost lives.
“Zeldin and the Trump administration are illegally gutting basic water safety protections, blaming the cost of upgrades to comply with those important public health rules. Yet just last week the administration proposed to virtually eliminate the main source of federal funding that would help make the necessary water system improvements to protect from PFAS.
“Once again, the Trump administration has demonstrated that its priority is bending to corporate interests, not protecting the safety and wellbeing of everyday people. Nothing is safe from Trump’s greed-driven agenda — not even our drinking water.”

Known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS are lab-made chemicals that have been linked to a large range of health problems including various cancers, altered hormone levels, decreased birth weights, digestive inflammation, and reduced vaccine response. New research comes out almost every day that indicates no amount is safe. It is estimated that about half of all Americans are regularly exposed to PFAS contamination through their drinking water.

Last year, after decades of community organizing, the Biden EPA finalized long-awaited protections to remove six types of PFAS from drinking water. In April 2024, the EPA set maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for PFOA and PFOS of 4 ppt each; MCLs for PFHxS, PFNA and GenX at 10 ppt, and limits on a combination of four PFAS types (PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS and GenX) based on a hazard index. Utilities had five years to comply with the new limits.

Today’s decision to rollback the Biden EPA’s rules was in response to a consolidated lawsuit from water utility associations and industrial associations, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Chemistry Council and Chemours. The chemical lobby has long-fought regulations on these toxic substances, while not disclosing a growing body of evidence linking their products to serious health problems. A Food & Water Watch report found the chemical industry spent more than $110 million from 2019-2022 alone on lobbying Congress on scores of bills, including many to address the crisis of PFAS contamination throughout the country. The Trump administration has stacked the EPA with former executives and staff from the American Chemistry Council, including Nancy Beck and Lynn Ann Dekleva and lawyers like David Fotouhi, who have defended companies from PFAS pollution claims.

As a result of today’s action, the EPA is seeking to delay action to protect drinking water that will lead to the proposal of weaker protections. Although the EPA intends to defend the PFOS and PFOA regulations from court challenges, it also intends to propose a new rule this Fall and finalize it in the Spring of 2026. The Safe Drinking Water Act, however, has strong provisions barring the weakening existing drinking water regulations, so efforts to gut the existing PFAS rules should expect legal opposition. Further complicating matters, the Trump administration has issued an executive order requiring 10 rules to be tossed for every new regulation issued, making the future of any new PFAS protection uncertain.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

These establishments serve all kinds of seafood, but shrimp is the main attraction. You can order them steamed, fried, or blackened, on top of a salad or sandwiched in a po’boy, or swimming in gravy and grits. Or you can dive into the local delicacy: lowcountry boil, a melange of shrimp, sausage, corn, and potatoes, spiced and steamed and served in a succulent heap best eaten with two hands and a huge appetite.

Shrimp are abundant in the ocean off Georgia’s coast, because the same network of creeks and rivers that houses the docks and restaurants serves as an ideal nursery for baby shrimp. And for a long time, those shrimp fed not just hungry diners but a thriving industry of boats to catch them, docks to serve the boats, and packing houses to process and distribute the shrimp – and all the people those businesses employ.

But that’s not the case anymore.

“The shrimp industry in Georgia is…really declining,” said Marc Frischer, a professor at the University of Georgia’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. “We’re actually at risk of losing it.”

Fewer than 200 shrimp boats are working on Georgia’s coast these days, Frischer said, down from around 1,500 in the early 2000s. Shrimpers in other south Atlantic states and the Gulf of Mexico are facing similar declines.

The main culprit, scientists, shrimpers, and the International Trade Commission agree, is foreign imports: farm-raised shrimp from Asia and South America have flooded the market in huge quantities, cratering prices and making it impossible for the local industry to compete.

Around the same time that foreign competition skyrocketed, U.S. shrimpers started noticing another problem: a mysterious new shrimp disease. Scientists have only recently cracked that case, a condition known as black gill, and they say it’s linked to climate change: new environmental conditions have helped give rise to a new disease, a pattern that’s likely to repeat as the climate keeps warming. 

The decades-long effort to understand black gill offers some lessons for the scientific community as more climate-driven diseases emerge, even as the still-rising ocean temperatures help black gill spread into a second species of Georgia shrimp.

Read Next

The snow crab vanishes

Julia O’Malley

In the Georgia legislature this year, coastal Republican Jesse Petrea decided to take on the issue of foreign competition with a bill requiring restaurants to disclose the origin of their shrimp – because even on the shrimp-rich coast, many are serving imports. 

“You got pictures of shrimp boats on the wall, and you’re serving Indian shrimp,” Petrea said. “Somewhat consumer fraud in my opinion.”

To back up Petrea’s bill, SeaD Consulting, a Gulf-based firm that specializes in seafood mislabeling, performed genetic testing on the shrimp at 44 Savannah restaurants. The company found that 34 were actually serving foreign shrimp.

“Some people would say, ‘Well, but they’re cheap.’ They are, but at what cost?” Petrea said of the imported alternative. “I’ll pay a little more for domestic shrimp, and we all should recognize we have to pay a little more.”

American waters simply don’t have enough shrimp or shrimpers to replace foreign imports completely, Petrea said, but he hopes clearer labeling can help domestic shrimp take over a little more of the market to keep local shrimpers in business. The bill didn’t pass this year, but he said he plans to bring it back next year. Alabama passed a similar law last year, and Louisiana and Mississippi already have shrimp labeling requirements.

But shrimpers’ problems also go beyond what shrimp restaurants choose to buy.

“There’s a lot of packing houses closing down,” said Charlie Phillips, who owns a seafood packing operation and a dockside restaurant in Townsend, Georgia. 

And packers often control the docks. “A lot of the shrimpers are losing dock access. They don’t have a place to unload,” Phillips said.

Phillips doesn’t handle shrimp anymore, because just like shrimp boats, packing houses struggle to compete with cheaper imports. 

Many in the industry are hoping that the Trump administration’s new tariffs will help by driving up the price of imported shrimp. But Phillips, who also sits on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, is skeptical.

“It’s still going to be cheaper than domestic,” he said of the imported shrimp. “For the most part, the customers are going to pay the price.”

On top of the financial challenges, shrimpers have faced a medical mystery for decades. 

Shrimpers started reporting dark discoloration in shrimp gills in the 90s. The condition came to be known as black gill and was soon prevalent from the Gulf to the Chesapeake Bay. The disease’s rise coincided with a sharp decline in shrimp catch numbers in Georgia in the 2000s and 2010s, raising concerns that the two were linked.

Now, Frischer with UGA said, he and his fellow researchers know what causes black gill and much more about its impact on Georgia shrimp. 

The condition is caused by a type of microorganism commonly found in water known as a ciliate. The ciliate attaches itself to the gills, and the shrimp’s natural immune response produces melanin. Once there’s a high enough concentration of the melanin, the shrimp’s gills take on a darkened appearance to the naked eye. Affected shrimp are still safe for humans to eat, but their respiration rates and endurance are affected and they become more vulnerable to predators. 

The particular ciliate that causes this disease has probably always been there, Frischer said, but it’s never caused a problem before – in fact, it had never been identified by scientists before he and his team did so. But climate change has shifted ocean conditions. Disease, he explained, arises when just the right conditions overlap among a host, a pathogen, and the environment – in this case, shrimp, the ciliate that causes black gill, and the ocean off the southeastern U.S. coast.

“All of these things can exist, but as our environment changes, we create that intersection that creates the disease,” Frischer explained. And he said that will keep happening as the climate continues changing. “What’s happened in the shrimp here, black gill, we’re going to see a lot more stories like that in many, many more species.”

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The good news is that Georgia’s shrimp population seems to be doing all right, despite black gill. If shrimp manage to shelter from predators, it turns out they can recover because the condition is isolated to their gills. The gills are part of the shell that the shrimp periodically shed and regrow, so when they molt they can rid themselves of black gill. While the overall shrimp catch has dropped, that’s more likely because there are so many fewer boats because of the economic forces that Petrea and Phillips described. The amount of shrimp each boat brings in has remained steady  – though Frischer said there isn’t great data from before the disease emerged. And as warmer water pushes the annual emergence of black gill earlier, it does appear to be hurting the summer stock of brown shrimp, one of two main species of shrimp caught by Georgia shrimpers.

But it’s purely luck of the draw that black gill has turned out to be survivable. As climate change fosters the emergence of more new pathogens, Frischer said, some will prove harmless but some will decimate species and ecosystems. There’s no real predicting which will be which. And Frischer said there’s a bigger lesson here about the scientific response to new diseases. 

Black gill first appeared in the 90s, research began in earnest in 2013, and scientists only now have it figured out. That’s decades from outbreak to understanding, and it’s too slow, Frischer said, especially when a new climate-linked disease like this could just as easily wipe out a species as not. He compared black gill response to COVID-19 research, which built on decades of scientific understanding of viruses in general, coronaviruses specifically, vaccines, mRNA, and a host of other areas that provided a scientific baseline so researchers could quickly produce vaccines.

“We really need that basic research to deal with problems in something close to real time, not decades,” he said. “We don’t have decades.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia’s beloved shrimp industry grapples with disease and foreign imports on May 13, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Emily Jones.

The following is a statement from Kyle Jones, director of federal affairs at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“This measure would give the oil industry free rein to pillage our public lands and oceans. Instead of helping the American people and our shared public resources, it would allow the oil, coal and timber industries to pick and choose the areas they want to exploit. And it exposes irreplaceable Alaskan wilderness to destructive oil drilling, industrial roadways and mining.

“Worst of all, it allows fossil fuel companies and other big polluters to buy their way out of meaningful review or public input into their projects. So, that would mean one set of rules for the fossil fuel and logging barons, and another for the rest of us.

“The best thing that can be said about this measure, is that it may be too radical for even this Congress. For the good of Americans and our shared resources, it should be quickly cast aside and forgotten.”

Background

As part of the process of developing the reconciliation bill, the House Natural Resources committee released its draft measure last night. It includes the following provisions:

• mandatory on- and offshore oil and gas lease sales, from Alaska's Arctic Refuge to the Gulf, all while—
• allowing oil companies to select for themselves which of our public lands are leased; and
• rolling back important fiscal reforms that require producers to pay their fair share for drilling in public lands and waters;
• a pay-to-play system to rush environmental reviews and block any oversight, enabling polluters to bypass environmental safeguards with no way to hold them accountable to the public;
• four million acres of new coal leasing on public lands;
• brazen proposals to supplant the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act to further the development of yesterday’s energy sources;
• a destructive mandate to increase logging on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands by at least 25 percent over 2024 levels, while rescinding funding to identify and protect old-growth forests;
• attacks on protected spaces with chilling particularity, enabling large-scale mining in Alaska and mineral extraction just upstream of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters; and
• rescissions of an array of vital funding for projects that create jobs and support rural communities, like forest restoration, National Marine Sanctuary facilities and ecosystem restoration at the National Park Service.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Image by Edgar Serrano.

As residents of a Vermont town that recently passed the AFSC Apartheid-Free Communities pledge, we write today to ask our Vermont state and federal representatives to stop collaborating with the weapons industry made up of corporations like GlobalFoundries, General Dynamics, and Israel’s Elbit Systems that, besides building deadly weapons, have been exposed as causing severe harm to our pristine Vermont environment.

American and Israeli weapons are being used to continue the genocide in Gaza and the apartheid system in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and we oppose this warmongering system. We strongly object to Vermont being a home to these global corporations. We object especially given that our delegation to Washington, Senators Sanders and Welch and Representative Balint have brought legislation to stop the flow of offensive weapons to Israel. Besides being part of an industry that makes things that kill and oppress people, including in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, these companies also produce surveillance tools that abridge our own rights and freedoms. But that is a whole story of its own.

Voters in Winooski, Plainfield, Thetford, Newfane, and Brattleboro passed the Apartheid-Free pledge and joined together to stop support in Vermont for Israeli apartheid and occupation that makes genocide possible. At our own town meeting in Thetford, residents were reminded that in the 1980s Vermonters protested South African apartheid which resulted in the passage of a Vermont divestment bill. As Vermont voters who have signed on to the AFSC pledge, it is our task to take on the powerful weapons companies in Vermont.

The means of collaboration with these weapons companies is through our

congressional delegation’s and state government’s political aspirations to bring high tech jobs to Vermont. Our state government is also dedicating 4.5 million dollars to make Vermont a high tech hub, and as Governor Scott’s office boasts in a press release last year, “to transform the Green Mountain State into a world leader” in semiconductor production. We ask our representatives at both the state and the federal level to oppose these chip-making industries in Vermont that make targeting systems that kill civilians even though touted as “smart.” We believe that now more than ever Vermont’s business-as-usual exposes all of us to the moral hazard of Israel’s ongoing genocidal actions. We are therefore compelled to inform fellow citizens that Vermont officials are in fact collaborating with a system fueling genocide in Gaza and the apartheid system in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The weapons industry, furthermore, is a double-edged sword in Vermont. Besides being for war, the manufacture of these weapons and weapons components is ruining our environment. The largest employer in Vermont, Globalfoundries, is a major polluter. A recent article in Seven Days exposed this tragic situation: “Water samples submitted to state regulators since 2023 show 17 different PFAS present in wastewater regularly released into the [Winooski] river from the Essex Junction plant.” These “forever chemicals” linger in the environment causing cancer, birth defects, reduced immune system function, and learning and behavioral problems for children–and there is a growing call to eliminate their use. Additionally, the vast amounts of water and electricity required to make these chips puts a strain on our environment. This high tech industry is really a manifestation of the war industry in Vermont, and it is misusing our resources as well as creating a toxic environment for Vermonters.

The online news site Vermont Digger reported that the Department of Defense has awarded nearly 200 million dollars to defense contractors General Dynamics (Williston) and Elbit Systems (one of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturers based in Haifa, Israel) to supply the army with the Iron Fist Active Protection System. A General Dynamics brochure states that the system works by launching a small warhead from atop a vehicle “defeating or destructing the threat through a shock wave effect.” At the same time, another of Vermont’s large weapons manufacturers, Globalfoundries, participates in the trusted foundry program for the department of defense, producing chips for aerospace and defense systems. Globalfoundries exposes itself as a war-maker by showing the controversial F-35 fighter jet in its own promo about the “trusted foundry program.” Nothing subtle here.

As we’ve said, while these companies, and the contracts our politicians help bring in for them, build weapons of war, they also hurt our Vermont environment and will cause health problems going forward. Marguerite Adelman of the Vermont PFAS/Military Poisons Coalition contends that “after the celebrated grants and contracts have been fulfilled, Vermont citizens will be paying personally with their health and their money for a very long time.”

Vermonters don’t want these lethal things produced in our state with our tax money. We want be promoting education, health care, energy self-sufficiency, basic needs that continue to require our attention. We are asking our Vermont representatives to not collaborate with a system designed for making wars. Let’s set a good example in Vermont, and truly work towards peace and a healthy environment

Lynne Rogers and Duncan Nichols live in Thetford, Vermont

The post Don’t Collaborate With the War Industry appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ron Jacobs.

The factory prepared pre-selected workers and exchanged rehearsed questions and answers with the auditing company, said the Burmese migrant worker, who requested an alias for her safety. She told Radio Free Asia that workers were forced to lie about factory policies about sick days, holidays and overtime. They’re also pressured to say that their employer pays for their legal documents such as their certificate of identity to stay in Thailand, work permit and health certificate when workers actually pay for that themselves – an outlay of about 5,500 Thai baht (US$160).

“Most of the information [given to the auditing company] here is incorrect,” said Shwe Lin, an older, outspoken garment worker who has been in Mae Sot for more than 20 years and is trusted by her coworkers.

(Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP)

In many parts of Southeast Asia, where Western brands use third-party suppliers to produce garments and other goods, they rely on private “social auditing” companies to provide assessments on whether labor practices are ethical and socially responsible. This is in part a response to public pressure on brands to uphold human rights and environmental standards in their supply chain.

The exact number of such auditors operating in Thailand is unclear, but the Office of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand lists 30 of them.

Some labor advocates, however, contend that audits can be self-serving and overlook harsh conditions faced by workers.

“It’s essentially the industry policing itself,” said Dave Welsh, Myanmar country director of labor rights group, Solidarity Center.

“Social auditing companies do not work on behalf of unions, they work on behalf of brands and businesses covering up situations that very often, in my experience, are obviously illegal,” he told RFA.

Conflicts of interest

A 2022 report from Human Rights Watch found that social audits, while growing increasingly popular, were “riddled with conflicts of interest, loopholes, and other problems that render it an inadequate tool.”

Many of the workers in garment factories in Thailand are migrants from neighboring countries. In 2021, migrants made up about 1.2 million of garment workers and the number has likely risen significantly in the past four years. The influx of migrants into Thailand has only grown. According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.3 million Burmese entered the country in 2024, fleeing violent attacks from Myanmar’s military, forced conscription and rising joblessness.

(Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP)

RFA has previously reported on factories hiring undocumented workers, paying them illegally low wages, keeping workers indebted and providing grossly inadequate housing or facilities. Activists say that these are the kind of abusive practices that should come to light in audits.

Intertek Testing Services Thailand, an auditing firm, has faced criticism from campaign and advocacy groups like U.K.-based Labour Behind the Label, which focuses on the clothing industry, and claims the company “allegedly failed to identify serious issues” at VK Garments factory in Mae Sot up until 2020, when workers took the factory to court in Thailand.

More than 130 former employees won their case against VK Garments for unpaid overtime and severance compensation, but say the amount awarded to them was inadequate. So they are appealing their case against the factory in Thailand’s Supreme Court.

The workers allege that they endured near-100 hour work weeks, unsafe housing where one employee’s child was raped, and were forced to purchase their own equipment, like lightbulbs, to sew at their stations after dark.

(Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP)

According to an associate lawyer for the workers, who requested anonymity to avoid potential retaliation from the accused parties, an audit conducted by Intertek was used as evidence in a 2020 court case to support VK Garments’ denial of any wrongdoing.

The Thailand office of Intertek Testing Services did not respond to an RFA request for comment. Calls to its U.K. office went unanswered.

Other companies have faced similar controversy. Sportswear giant Nike has been accused by both investors and human rights groups of hiding behind its audits as well.

In 2020, over 3,300 workers Thailand’s Hong Seng Knitting factory in Bangkok, which supplies Nike, were allegedly coerced into signing documentation stating they would voluntarily forgo legal wages, according to labor rights monitoring group Workers Rights Consortium. The workers allegedly faced retaliation if they did not. As of 2024, workers were collectively owed more than US $900,000, according to the group.

Nike cited a report done by auditing company Elevate to back up its position of no wrongdoing, but has not released the report to the public, the Consortium said in an investigation released in 2024.

Nike did not respond to RFA attempts to seek comment, nor did LRQA, which acquired Elevate in 2022.

In a 2021 report, the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, a U.K.-based non-profit, cited dozens of audits across Vietnam, Pakistan and Malaysia that similarly failed to detect safety hazards, forced labor and other violations.

Failings are routine

But workers like Shwe Lin and Arkar Kyaw, who have worked at garment factories in Mae Sot for more than three years, tell RFA that failings like this are routine.

Neither have ever been selected by management to speak with an auditor despite being outspoken about violations. They say they have seen auditors prevented from interviewing non-approved workers.

Aruna Kashyap, an associate director on corporate accountability at the Human Rights Watch, believes stricter due diligence laws may be one way to crack down corporate accountability in their supply chains.

“If governments introduce laws that regulate how businesses should conduct due diligence and how the entire system is scrutinized, then some of these problems will start to surface more,” Kashyap told RFA.

The European Union, for example, introduced a directive last year that would require companies with more than 1,000 employees and over 450 million euros in worldwide revenue to identify and mitigate the “adverse human rights and environmental” impacts of themselves or their partners, which may include suppliers. It may also require them to get contractual assurances from partners, such as factories in other parts of the world, to ensure human rights are being protected in labor practices.

European companies are among the major clients of Thailand’s garment factories, collaborating alongside American and Asian brands to source apparel and accessories from the region.

“Hopefully that level of scrutiny will change what not just brands and suppliers are doing, but the auditing industry as well,” Kashyap said.

Edited by Taejun Kang, Malcolm Foster and Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kiana Duncan for RFA.

Chicago city leaders are set to consider a major overhaul in how and where polluting businesses are allowed to open, nearly two years after the city settled a civil rights complaint that alleged a pattern of discrimination threatening the health of low-income communities of color.

The measure, expected to be introduced Wednesday, would transform how heavy industry is located and operated in the country’s third largest city. If passed into law, it would require city officials to assess the cumulative pollution burden on communities before approving new industrial projects.

As the Trump administration dismantles protections for poor communities facing lopsided levels of pollution, Chicago’s ordinance is a test case for local action under a federal government hostile toward environmental justice. Over the past three months, the Trump administration has already undone long-standing orders to address uneven environmental burdens at the federal level and challenged government programs monitoring environmental justice issues across the country. 

Now, advocates are hoping the local legislation becomes a blueprint for how state and local governments can leverage zoning and permitting to protect vulnerable communities from becoming sacrifice zones. 

“The Trump administration is trying to erase history,” said Gina Ramirez, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Midwest director of environmental health. “You can’t erase our industrial past — it’s literally haunting us.”

Chicago’s industrial history is especially pronounced in low-income communities on the city’s South and West sides. The proposed ordinance would give these communities a voice in the permitting process via a new environmental justice advisory board, Ramirez said. 

“Nobody wants to be sick,” said Cheryl Johnson, an environmental activist on the Far South Side who has been advocating for pollution protections for almost 40 years.

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The Chicago ordinance is named after Johnson’s mother, Hazel Johnson, who started fighting in the 1970s for the health of her neighbors at a public housing community surrounded by a “toxic doughnut” of polluters.

Cheryl Johnson runs People for Community Recovery, an organization started by her mother, with the same mission to protect human health. “The most important thing — and the only thing that we get — is good health or bad health,” Johnson said. “That’s what my mother fought for.”

In 2020, Johnson’s group, along with several other local environmental justice organizations, launched a civil rights complaint over the city’s role in the relocation of a metal-shredding operation from its longtime home on the North Side to a majority Black and Latino neighborhood on the far South Side of the city.

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development concluded in 2022 that Chicago had long placed polluters in low-income areas, while sparing majority-white affluent neighborhoods. 

In a binding agreement with former President Joe Biden’s administration, the city promised to offer a legal fix. Former mayor Lori Lightfoot signed the agreement with HUD hours before she left office in 2023. Her successor, Mayor Brandon Johnson, vowed to follow the agreement and said that September that an ordinance proposal would be offered in short order.

But weeks and months turned into years, and community, health, and environmental advocates complained that the mayor was slow-walking his promises. Nearly two years later, the city is finally set to deliver. 

Not all community groups are happy with the proposal. Theresa McNamara, an activist with the Southwest Environmental Alliance, said at a recent public meeting she didn’t think the measure would go far enough. She called it a “weak piece of crap” based on her understanding of the main points.

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Experts said the law’s success would depend on the city’s will to execute and enforce it.

“There’s a lot of states and even cities that have assessment tools, but the question is, what do you do with those?” said Ana Baptisa, an environmental policy professor at The New School in New York.

In New Jersey, Baptista helped pass a similar ordinance — then the first of its kind — through the Newark City Council in 2016. Since then, local and state governments across the country have followed suit. At least eight states have passed this type of legislation, including California, Minnesota, New York, and Delaware. 

Still, Baptista said Newark’s bill has failed to rein in polluting industries. “It proved to be what we feared: a sort of formality that oftentimes doesn’t even get completed,” she said. 

Even without power to deny or constrain new pollution sources, the advisory board itself marks progress, according to Oscar Sanchez, whose Southeast Environmental Task Force helped file the original civil rights complaint,. 

Sanchez added that as the federal government retreats from its commitments to environmental justice, state and local entities are on the front line of buffering communities from greater pollution burdens.

“We are pushing the needle of what people can try to achieve in their own communities,” he said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline  A Chicago law could shift where heavy industry operates — and who bears the burden of pollution on Apr 16, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco.

Arlo Hemphill, Greenpeace USA Oceans are Life Campaign Lead said: “Opening up the U.S. seabed to deep sea mining runs counter to the long history of leadership in ocean stewardship set by the United States. It’s a destructive act of violence against ocean ecosystems and the Pacific communities whose culture is so closely linked to the deep ocean.”

A Desperate Power Grab by an UnprovenIndustry

Impossible Metals’ application for a deep-sea mining lease in U.S. federal waters is not a sign of industry momentum—it’s a glaring red flag of desperation. The move comes on the heels of a cascade of failures across the deep-sea mining sector that reveal the fundamental instability of the industry.

In February 2025, Impossible Metals itself was forced to postpone its highly publicized 2026 mining test in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, citing that its technology “isn’t ready.” Just weeks later, in March, Loke Marine Minerals, a Norwegian firm once poised to become the world’s largest deep-sea mining operator, filed for bankruptcy—an event that sent shockwaves through investor circles and exposed the financial fragility of the entire sector.

That same month, The Metals Company (TMC) stunned international observers by announcing it would sidestep the United Nations’ regulatory process—governed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA)—and seek a U.S. mining license under the little-known and long-dormant Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA). The announcement raised serious concerns about regulatory breakdowns and attempts to fast-track exploitation while global safeguards remain unresolved.

Adding to the pressure, in July 2024, American Samoa became the first U.S. territory to enact a moratorium on deep-sea mining, citing threats to marine life, cultural heritage, and the territory’s tuna fishery—the cornerstone of its economy. Greenpeace USA applauded this historic decision, calling it a bold act of ocean stewardship and a model for U.S. policy. That Impossible Metals would now seek a lease in federal waters adjacent to a territory that has explicitly rejected deep-sea mining is not only tone-deaf, but a profound sign of disrespect to Pacific communities and their right to self-determination.

In this context, Impossible Metals’ federal lease bid is less a step forward and more a scramble for relevance—an attempt to salvage investor confidence and secure regulatory footholds while public scrutiny and scientific warnings grow louder.

Solomon Kaho’Ohalahala, Hawaiian elder with the Maui Nui Makai Network said: “In July of last year, American Samoa decided that deep sea mining is not in their territorial interests—including the potential to impact tuna fisheries, currently their territory’s primary economic driver.

The Pacific has spoken clearly: our ocean is not a sacrifice zone. American Samoa’s moratorium reflects a deep cultural, ecological, and economic understanding of what’s at stake. For Impossible Metals to pursue a mining license just beyond those protected waters is not only reckless—it’s a betrayal of the values and sovereignty of Pacific Peoples. We as people of the Pacific do not recognize lines in the ocean drawn by Western governments. The fish can't see those lines, we don't see those lines. All of the Pacific is sacred. The U.S. government must respect the sovereignty and autonomy of Pacific Peoples and let them make decisions for their own waters, and reject any application that threatens our ocean and our way of life.”

No Science, No Safeguards, No Justification

The scientific community remains united: we lack the knowledge to mine the deep sea safely. Over 90% of species in areas like the Clarion-Clipperton Zone remain undescribed. Ecological processes, such as nutrient cycling and newly discovered phenomena like “dark oxygen” production, are only beginning to be understood. There is no adequate environmental baseline, no long-term impact data, and no way to manage what we don’t yet comprehend.

Furthermore, most current “research” is industry-led and profit-driven, not the result of independent, precautionary science. This push for premature mining risks sacrificing biodiversity for short-term speculative gains.

Call for a Moratorium

Greenpeace stands with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, Indigenous communities, scientists, and governments around the world calling for an immediate moratorium on deep-sea mining. Given the irreversible risks and profound scientific uncertainty, deep-sea mining must not move forward. The deep ocean should remain off-limits to mining—now and for the foreseeable future—until and unless independent science, robust global governance, and clear social consent can truly demonstrate that it can be done without harm.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

RNZ Pacific

Pacific climate activists this week handed a letter from civil society to this year’s United Nations climate conference hosts, Brazil, emphasising their demands for the end of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy.

More than 180 indigenous, youth, and environmental organisations from across the world have signed the letter, coordinated by the campaign organisation, 350.org.

A declaration of alliance between Indigenous peoples from the Amazon, the Pacific, and Australia ahead of COP30 has also been announced.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Climate Warrior reports

The “strongly worded letter” was handed to COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago and Brazil’s Environment and Climate Change Minister Marina Silva who attended the Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL), or Free Land Camp, in Brasília.

“We, climate and social justice organisations from around the world, urgently demand that COP30 renews the global commitment and supports implementation for the just, orderly, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy,” the letter states.

“This must ensure that solutions progressively meet the needs of Indigenous, Black, marginalised and vulnerable populations and accelerate the expansion of renewables in a way that ensures the world’s wealthiest and most polluting nations pay their fair share, does not harm nature, increase deforestation by burning biomass, while upholding economic, social, and gender justice.”

‘No room for new coal mines’
It adds: “The science is unequivocal: there is no room for new coal mines or oil and gas fields if the world is to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — especially in critical ecosystems like the Amazon, where COP30 will be hosted.

“Tripling renewables by 2030 is essential, but without a managed and rapid phaseout of fossil fuels, it won’t be enough.”

350.org’s Fiji community organiser, George Nacewa, said it was now up to the Brazil COP Presidency if they would act “or lock us into climate catastrophe”.

“This is a critical time for our people — the age of deliberation is long past,” Nacewa said on behalf of the group that call themselves “Pacific Climate Warriors”.

“We need this COP to be the one that spearheads the Just Energy Transition from words to action.”

COP30 will take place in Belém, Brazil, from November 10-21.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The post Meat Industry Disinformation Misleads Public About Impacts on Health and the Planet appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

The United Nations agency is in the midst of crafting regulations to govern a new industry for deep-sea mining that involves scraping mineral deposits from the ocean floor, often referred to as nodules. But after three years of advocating on behalf of Indigenous peoples, none of Kahoʻohalahala’s or his colleagues’ recommendations had been incorporated into the latest draft proposal.

“It was disheartening and discouraging for us to be absolutely dismissed,” said Kahoʻohalahala, who is Native Hawaiian from the island of Lanaʻi in Hawaiʻi. “There was no option for us except to make our best case.” 

On the first day of the two-week gathering, Kahoʻohalahala urged the nation-state representatives gathered at the International Seabed Authority headquarters to consider Indigenous peoples’ perspectives. And to his surprise, many representatives agreed with him.

By the time he flew from the Caribbean back to the Pacific the following week, Kahoʻohalahala felt relieved and hopeful. The ISA had agreed to give him and other Indigenous advocates up until 2026 to come up with further recommendations. Moreover, the International Seabed Authority declined a request from the Pacific island country of Nauru in Micronesia to set up a process to evaluate their application to mine the high seas, and reiterated the authority’s previous commitment to finalizing the mining regulations before allowing seabed mining to proceed.

“That was very, very uplifting,” Kahoʻohalahala said. 

But no sooner had Kahoʻohalahala departed Jamaica than he’d heard the news: The Metals Company, a Canadian seabed mining company, announced it is working with the Trump administration to circumvent the international regulatory process and pursue mining in the high seas under a 1980 United States law. 

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Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company, said that the company believes they have enough knowledge to manage environmental risks. They plan to submit applications to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to mine the deep seas within the next three months.

“We’re encouraged by the growing recognition in Washington that nodules represent a strategic opportunity for America — and we’re moving forward with urgency,” he said.

The move unleashed harsh criticism from more than 40 nation-states, from the United Kingdom to China. Leticia Carvalho, the secretary-general of the International Seabed Authority, said that international law of the sea that gives the agency authority over mining in the high seas “remains the only universally recognized legitimate framework.” In other words, the U.S. doesn’t have the right to permit seabed mining beyond its national boundaries. 

“Any unilateral action would constitute a violation of international law and directly undermine the fundamental principles of multilateralism, the peaceful use of the oceans and the collective governance framework established under UNCLOS,” she said, referring to the United Nations Convention the Law of the Seas.

The U.S. Congress approved the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act of 1980 as an interim measure to govern seabed mining on the high seas “until an international regime was in place,” according to an analysis last year by the Congressional Research Service. Two years later, the United Nations Convention the Law of the Seas was adopted, establishing the International Seabed Authority. But the U.S. has never signed onto UNCLOS and while no companies have commenced mining under the 1980 Act, it remains U.S. law.

Barron at The Metals Company replied to Carvalho and other critics that the reality is  “commercial industry is not welcome at the ISA.” 

“The Authority is being influenced by a faction of States allied with environmental NGOs who see the deep-sea mining industry as their ‘last green trophy,’” he said, “with the explicit intent of killing commercial industry and leaving the aspirations and rights of developing states that took the initiative to sponsor private companies as roadkill.”

Proponents of deep-sea mining like Barron emphasize that seabed mining would supply cobalt, manganese and other critical minerals to make batteries for electric vehicles and could accelerate the global transition from gas-powered, carbon dioxide-polluting cars to cleaner battery-powered vehicles.

But many scientists and environmentalists have raised strong objections to the industry that would irrevocably strip large swaths of the ocean floor, killing rare sea creatures and removing irreplaceable nodules that took millions of years to form. The environmental opposition that Barron describes comes from an array of groups including Greenpeace, which granted Kahoʻohalahala its official observer status to enable him to participate. 

The same players are expected to get involved in the U.S. permitting process, which will require public input and environmental reviews. During the Obama administration, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration for giving a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin exploratory permits for deep-sea mining within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a nodule-rich region south of Hawai’i. The first Trump administration reached a confidential settlement with the environmental nonprofit that required the federal government to conduct an environmental impact statement before any of the Lockheed licenses could proceed.

Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the settlement additionally requires NOAA to publish any proposed seabed mining licenses on regulations.gov and give the public the opportunity to weigh in. 

Maureen O’Leary, a spokeswoman for NOAA, declined to make anyone at the agency available for an interview or address how recent staffing cuts might affect the permitting process, but confirmed mining applications will undergo a vetting process. 

“The process ensures a thorough environmental impact review, interagency consultations and opportunity for public comment,” she said. 

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Anita Hofschneider

Kahoʻohalahala is still grappling with what this new path toward seabed mining will entail, but said he’s worried that it’ll enable mining in close proximity to his home of Hawaiʻi where the industry has been preemptively banned under state law. 

The Metals Company’s shift in strategy reflects the success of Kahoʻohalahala and other Indigenous and environmental advocates at the ISA, but it also underscores the commitment by industry players to seek the most expedient path to commercialization. Already, The Metals Company has spent over half a billion dollars on research, and the New York Times reported the company is both low on cash and has a limited ability to borrow. The companyʻs CEO Barron said in his initial public statement that he believes the U.S. would give the company a “fair hearing.” 

But opponents of deep-sea mining fear that the company will have outsized sway with the Trump administration, which is reportedly weighing an executive order to fast-track the seabed mining industry and has a longstanding pattern of fast-tracking pipelines and other extractive projects despite environmental concerns. 

Thereʻs also the question of what it means for the U.S. to assert control over international waters in defiance of decades-old international law.

“This attempt to bypass international law treads into murky waters,” Sakashita said. “Mining in the sea beyond national boundaries without authorization from the International Seabed Authority should be illegal. Even though the U.S. deep sea mining law purports to have licenses available, it cannot be used as a runaround international law that applies in the high seas.” 

While it’s yet unclear what will happen next with NOAA’s deep-sea mining permitting process, Kahoʻohalahala hasn’t paused his advocacy since leaving Jamaica. He flew straight to French Polynesia where he helped urge the president to sign onto a letter opposing deep-sea mining. Now Kahoʻohalahala is preparing to fly to France in June for a U.N. oceans conference to continue to ensure his community’s concerns continue to be taken seriously. 

“The timing of this meeting puts it at a really critical time for the ocean,” he said. “We cannot miss this opportunity.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The deep-sea mining industry got tired of waiting for international approval. Enter Trump. on Apr 4, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Anita Hofschneider.

We now have a clearer picture of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs and how they will affect other trading nations, including the United States itself.

The US administration claims these tariffs on imports will reduce the US trade deficit and address what it views as unfair and non-reciprocal trade practices. Trump said this would

forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed.

The “reciprocal” tariffs are designed to impose charges on other countries equivalent to half the costs they supposedly inflict on US exporters through tariffs, currency manipulation and non-tariff barriers levied on US goods.

• READ MORE: Fiji slapped with Trump’s highest tariffs among Pacific countries
• Disproportionate and unfair, says Fiji on 32 percent tariff
• Trump tariffs live: ‘Reciprocal’ levies shake up global trade
• Luxon says New Zealand won’t launch reciprocal tariffs against US

Each nation received a tariff number that will apply to most goods. Notable sectors exempt include steel, aluminium and motor vehicles, which are already subject to new tariffs.

The minimum baseline tariff for each country is 10 percent. But many countries received higher numbers, including Vietnam (46 percent), Thailand (36 percent), China (34 percent), Indonesia (32 percent), Taiwan (32 percent) and Switzerland (31 percent).

The tariff number for China is in addition to an existing 20 percent tariff, so the total tariff applied to Chinese imports is 54 percent. Countries assigned 10 percent tariffs include Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Canada and Mexico are exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, for now, but goods from those nations are subject to a 25 percent tariff under a separate executive order.

Although some countries do charge higher tariffs on US goods than the US imposes on their exports, and the “Liberation Day” tariffs are allegedly only half the full reciprocal rate, the calculations behind them are open to challenge.

For example, non-tariff measures are notoriously difficult to estimate and “subject to much uncertainty”, according to one recent study.

LIBERATION DAY RECIPROCAL TARIFFS pic.twitter.com/ODckbUWKvO

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 2, 2025

GDP impacts with retaliation
Other countries are now likely to respond with retaliatory tariffs on US imports. Canada (the largest destination for US exports), the EU and China have all said they will respond in kind.

To estimate the impacts of this tit-for-tat trade standoff, I use a global model of the production, trade and consumption of goods and services. Similar simulation tools — known as “computable general equilibrium models” — are widely used by governments, academics and consultancies to evaluate policy changes.

The first model simulates a scenario in which the US imposes reciprocal and other new tariffs, and other countries respond with equivalent tariffs on US goods. Estimated changes in GDP due to US reciprocal tariffs and retaliatory tariffs by other nations are shown in the table below.

The tariffs decrease US GDP by US$438.4 billion (1.45 percent). Divided among the nation’s 126 million households, GDP per household decreases by $3,487 per year. That is larger than the corresponding decreases in any other country. (All figures are in US dollars.)

Proportional GDP decreases are largest in Mexico (2.24 percent) and Canada (1.65 percent) as these nations ship more than 75 percent of their exports to the US. Mexican households are worse off by $1,192 per year and Canadian households by $2,467.

Other nations that experience relatively large decreases in GDP include Vietnam (0.99 percent) and Switzerland (0.32 percent).

Some nations gain from the trade war. Typically, these face relatively low US tariffs (and consequently also impose relatively low tariffs on US goods). New Zealand (0.29 percent) and Brazil (0.28 percent) experience the largest increases in GDP. New Zealand households are better off by $397 per year.

Aggregate GDP for the rest of the world (all nations except the US) decreases by $62 billion.

At the global level, GDP decreases by $500 billion (0.43 percent). This result confirms the well-known rule that trade wars shrink the global economy.

GDP impacts without retaliation
In the second scenario, the modelling depicts what happens if other nations do not react to the US tariffs. The changes in the GDP of selected countries are presented in the table below.

Countries that face relatively high US tariffs and ship a large proportion of their exports to the US experience the largest proportional decreases in GDP. These include Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Switzerland, South Korea and China.

Countries that face relatively low new tariffs gain, with the UK experiencing the largest GDP increase.

The tariffs decrease US GDP by $149 billion (0.49 percent) because the tariffs increase production costs and consumer prices in the US.

Aggregate GDP for the rest of the world decreases by $155 billion, more than twice the corresponding decrease when there was retaliation. This indicates that the rest of the world can reduce losses by retaliating. At the same time, retaliation leads to a worse outcome for the US.

Previous tariff announcements by the Trump administration dropped sand into the cogs of international trade. The reciprocal tariffs throw a spanner into the works. Ultimately, the US may face the largest damages.

Dr Niven Winchester is professor of economics, Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

The arrival of COVID-19 in the United States kicked off an ongoing period of job insecurity within the media industry. In April 2020, the New York Times reported that about 37,000 news company employees had been laid off, furloughed, or had their salaries reduced since March of that year.

This instability was still evident in 2024, with media outlets like the Los Angeles Times, the Messenger, and HuffPost undergoing major layoffs and closures.

An October 2024 report from the executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, Inc. found that 13,279 media jobs had been cut that year. This included 3,520 cuts in the broadcast, digital, and print news industry—the most since 2020. Companies cited cost-cutting, business closures, and poor market and economic conditions as the main reasons for this downsizing.

According to Andy Challenger, a senior vice president at Challenger, Gray and Christmas. “[T]he news business… [has] changed with ad revenue being captured by Google and Facebook at such a high percentage. Now, artificial intelligence could potentially affect jobs in the news industry as well, particularly for reporting that is based on data, like sports reporting or certain financial reporting,” states a 2024 Columbia Journalism Review article.

Job insecurity has helped spur the rise of worker-owned journalism cooperatives like Flaming Hydra, Aftermath, Racket, and RANGE. According to the Poynter Institute, “[a]t least six worker-centered [news] outlets launched in 2024 alone.”

Emanuel Maiberg is a worker-owner at 404 Media, a “journalist-founded digital media company exploring the ways technology is shaping—and is shaped by—our world.” Before co-founding the company, he was the executive editor at VICE Magazine’s technoscience publication, Motherboard. He and three other former Motherboard employees launched 404 Media in August of 2023—three months after VICE filed for bankruptcy.

“We didn’t like how the company was operating at that point, and we decided to make a go of it on our own,” Maiberg says. “Given our experience at VICE and constantly having to advocate for our journalism to businesspeople and advertising people, we wanted a company owned by journalists.”

This journalist-owned business model frees cooperatives like 404 from many restrictions that non-worker-owned media outlets face. For instance, in 2023, a cyberattack shut down several of MGM Resorts International’s services in Las Vegas and other locales. The “unauthorized third party” accessed the personal information of some of the company’s customers.

“What you want to do at that moment is get someone on the ground who can report what is happening from where it is happening,” Maiberg says. “When you’re [working for] a big company like VICE and you want to do something like that, you have to go through several levels of approval [such as] your manager, your manager’s manager, and people in charge of budget, HR, and travel. That slows you down, and a lot of people want to say no because they have different priorities for what the money should be spent on. When you work at a small, worker-owned company, if the story can be better if we send someone there, we can just do it. When [the MGM hack] happened, my colleague Jason got on the plane that day and went to Las Vegas.”

Like 404 Media, Defector is a worker-owned journalism cooperative founded by former staff members of a large media outlet. “Many of us used to work at Deadspin, the sports website at G/O Media (formerly Gizmodo Media Group, and before that Gawker Media),” Defector’s website explains. “In October of 2019, new private equity ownership took over and tried to make us ‘stick to sports’—despite that violating the very spirit of Deadspin—and fired deputy editor Barry Petchesky on the spot. In response, the rest of the editorial staff quit in solidarity.”

When Defector launched in 2020, Editor-in-Chief Tom Ley wrote, “Who ultimately wins when publications start acting less like purpose-driven institutions and more like profit drivers, primarily tasked with achieving exponential scale at any cost? What material good is produced when private equity goons go on cashing their checks while simultaneously slashing payroll throughout their newsrooms? Things have gotten so bad that even publications that get away with defining themselves as anti-establishment are in fact servile to authority in all forms and exist for the sole purpose of turning their readers into a captive source of profit extraction.”

The 2021 paper “Impact of Media Ownership on News Coverage” highlighted how corporate ownership can compromise journalistic integrity, noting that “media conglomerates may place greater emphasis on profits, with media coverage reflecting the financial interests of its owners.” Similarly, a 2025 study published in the International Journal of Communication found “overwhelming evidence that ownership influences journalistic content.”

In January 2025, ScienceBlog.com presented an example of the journalistic bias and homogenization that can occur within non-employee-owned media outlets. A study of almost 290,000 articles about earnings announcements showed that news sources owned by the same companies “often present similar coverage of financial events.” Flora Sun, assistant professor of accounting at Binghamton University’s School of Management, explained, “You might be subscribing to 10 newspapers or online news websites, but the information you’re getting might be pretty similar, and all those sources happen to be owned by a common media company.”

This situation has been exacerbated by the fact that only six corporations control almost all of the media in the United States, according to a 2024 article by Motley Fool.

Rather than relying on corporate funding, outlets like 404 Media and Defector earn revenue from paid reader subscriptions. Many employee-owned media companies also take little or no money from advertisers. For instance, in 2023, Morning Brew reported that Defector got 95 percent of its revenue from subscribers during its first year [2020], and “outside of a few small, DTC brands, the company was focusing on other areas of the business rather than advertising; a year later, Defector said it had ‘largely stopped’ running ads on its site and in its newsletters.”

In 2025, Brett White, the editor-in-chief of the employee-owned entertainment news outlet Pop Heist, told Poynter he was “very adamant against on-site advertising.” He added, “Just as much as corporate interests and the Google algorithm notification of everything has ruined pop culture journalism, I think ads have as well.”

Besides helping journalists avoid pressure from advertisers and corporate overseers, employee ownership can boost job security. According to a 2022 study published by IZA World of Labor, worker-owned companies “have more stability, higher survival rates, and fewer layoffs in recessions.”

This business model has brought financial success for Defector, whose annual report for September 2023 to August 2024 showed a total revenue of $4,600,000. Meanwhile, the Nieman Journalism Lab reported in 2024 that Hell Gate “doubled its subscription revenue in its second year as a worker-owned news outlet.” Hell Gate, which launched in 2022, attributes this “growth to its hard paywall and a website redesign that made subscribing easier.”

Maiberg explains that each member of 404 Media owns an equal percentage of the company. “[When we founded this group,] our theory was that if journalists own the company, journalism leads the business, and we publish good articles, people will want to pay us for them. So far, it’s working.”

As co-owners of the business, 404 Media’s members make all their decisions by consensus. “It’s not like if it’s three against one, we go with the three,” Maiberg notes.

He adds that all the company’s members were active in VICE’s editorial union before starting 404. Rather than taking votes, the union’s 12-person bargaining committee “talked about issues until we arrived at a decision we were all comfortable with.” 404 continues to use that model. “Even if it takes time, I think it’s better to [find] something that everyone feels good about than have one person be sour about a decision they were voted down on.”

This article was produced by Local Peace Economy.

The post How Worker-Owned News Outlets Are Changing the Media Industry appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Damon Orion.

“Bowman’s nomination for vice-chair for supervision is a gift to the banking industry. Under her leadership we can expect loosening capital requirements, lax bank supervision, and neglect of emerging risks to the financial system, including from climate change.

“At a moment when insurance markets are driving instability across the country, the potential for a financial crisis driven by climate change has never been higher. The Federal Reserve needs a vice chair for supervision who is attuned to the risks climate change poses to financial stability and is willing to exercise their authority to mitigate these risks both for the financial institutions under the Federal Reserve’s supervision as well as the broader financial system and economy. During her tenure at the Federal Reserve, Bowman has been unwilling to take the steps needed to stem these risks.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In a letter to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, 195 groups including Earthjustice, Sunrise Movement, and the American Association of Justice, pointed to past efforts from the fossil fuel industry to secure a liability waiver from Congress, as well as statements from President Trump, as reason to anticipate a new push to immunize polluters.

“We have reason to believe that the fossil fuel industry and its allies will use the chaos and overreach of the new Trump administration to attempt yet again to pass some form of liability waiver and shield themselves from facing consequences for their decades of pollution and deception,” the groups wrote. “That effort — no matter what form it takes — must not be allowed to succeed.”

Dozens of state, municipal, and tribal governments have filed lawsuits against major oil and gas companies to hold them accountable and make them pay for deceiving the public about the dangers of fossil fuels. Several of those cases are advancing toward discovery and ultimately trial. Twice this year the U.S. Supreme Court has denied requests — most recently on Monday — aimed at shielding Big Oil companies from facing such lawsuits, even after industry allies targeted the justices with an unprecedented pressure campaign.

Separately, a growing number of state legislatures are advancing climate superfund bills that would compel major fossil fuel companies to contribute to funds supporting climate adaptation, infrastructure, and community rebuilding efforts based on their historical emissions. Vermont and New York passed first-of-their-kind climate superfund laws last year, both of which are now facing legal challenges from fossil fuel interests, and at least 10 additional states have introduced similar legislation in 2025.

The groups’ letter asks Schumer and Jeffries “to draw a line in the sand now — before fossil fuel industry allies divulge their specific plans — and unite your caucuses in firm opposition to any Congressional efforts to bail out climate polluters from facing legal and legislative consequences for their central role in the climate crisis.”

"Democrats need to be on guard so that Big Oil’s congressional allies can’t sneak immunity into a bill without it meeting fierce and vocal resistance,” said Aaron Regunberg, Director of Public Citizen’s climate accountability project. “No industry should be above the law — especially one whose criminal actions have fueled the greatest threat to human safety in history."

"Big Oil companies know they face massive liability, and we know they'll do everything they can to avoid facing the evidence of their climate deception in court,” said Richard Wiles, President of the Center for Climate Integrity. “Now that the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to bail out Big Oil, and lawsuits against the companies are getting closer to trial, members of Congress must not give the fossil fuel industry a 'get out of jail free card' for its fraudulent and destructive behavior."

“For decades, the fossil fuel industry has known the health and climate harms of its actions. Instead of addressing them, they have tried everything to insulate themselves from the catastrophes they cause,” said Earthjustice Action Vice President of Policy and Legislation Raúl García. “That’s not how fairness works, and it’s not how the law works. Just like anyone else, they need to be held accountable for the harms they perpetrate on people and communities. The last thing they deserve is a liability shield, and we urge Congress to oppose and block any effort to help these companies evade accountability for their actions.”

"The gun industry wrote this playbook years ago, and we've witnessed the tragic consequences when corporations secure legal shields from accountability. What's at stake here isn't just who pays for climate disasters – it's whether our democracy allows powerful industries to simply rewrite the rules when justice catches up to them,” said Cassidy DiPaola, Communications Director, Make Polluters Pay. “The fossil fuel industry spent decades burying climate science while their products fueled the crisis. Now that the bill is coming due, they want taxpayers to cover their tab. Lawmakers must decisively reject any attempt by the fossil fuel industry to evade accountability and ensure both justice today and the right of future generations to hold polluters responsible for decades of deception.”

"As people around the country and world suffer from record-breaking global temperatures and unprecedented extreme weather events, the science is clear that burning fossil fuels is the primary driver of dangerous and deadly climate change,” said Kathy Mulvey, Climate Accountability Campaign Director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Major oil and gas companies have understood for decades that their products could have catastrophic effects on people and the planet, yet they engaged in a long-term, deliberate disinformation campaign. Now, when there is growing momentum to make fossil fuel corporations begin to pay for the damage they have caused, policymakers must stand firm and protect their constituents against any attempts by the industry to evade accountability for its pollution, deception, and destruction."

"Working people are footing the bill for climate change. That's why a growing number of state and local governments are demanding that the oil and gas corporations that profit off causing the climate crisis — and mislead the public about it — start paying their fair share,” said Sunrise Movement Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay. “Congress needs to stand with working people — not Big Oil — and refuse to give immunity for oil and gas billionaires."

A copy of the letter is available here.

The 195 organizations that signed the letter are

• Adirondack Voters for Change
• ALIGN
• All Our Energy
• Allegheny County Clean Air Now
• Alliance for Justice
• Alliance of Maine Health Professionals for Climate Action
• American Association for Justice
• Americans for Financial Reform
• Arizona Health Professionals for Climate Action
• Better Future Project
• Big Reuse
• Bold Alliance
• Breathe Project
• Bronx River - Sound Shore Audubon
• California Environmental Voters
• Campaign for Renewable Energy
• Capital District Community Energy
• Community Advocates for a Sustainable Environment
• Catholic Charities Tompkins/Tioga Justice & Peace Ministry
• Center for Biological Diversity
• Center for Climate Change and Health
• Center for Climate Integrity
• Center for Justice & Democracy
• Cherokee Concerned Citizens
• Chesapeake Climate Action Network
• Church Women United in New York State
• Citizen Action of New York
• Citizens Climate Lobby - Brooklyn
• Citizens Committee for Flood Relief
• Clean Water Action
• Clean, Healthy, Educated, Safe & Sustainable Community, Inc.
• Clean+Healthy
• Climate Changemakers
• Climate Code Blue
• Climate Equity Policy Center
• Climate Families NYC
• Climate Generation
• Climate Hawks Vote
• Climate Health Now
• Climate Reality Project Chicago Metro Chapter
• Coalition to SAVE the Menominee River, Inc.
• Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island
• Communitopia
• Community Advocates for a Sustainable Environment
• Concerned Health Professionals of New York
• Consumer Federation of America
• Consumer Watchdog
• Corporate Accountability
• Courage California
• Damascus Citizens for Sustainability
• Deep Green Resistance NYC
• Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society
• Don't Gas the Meadowlands Coalition
• Earth Ethics, Inc.
• Earthjustice
• EcoEquity
• Elders Climate Action
• Elders Climate Action Mass
• Empower New Jersey
• Environmental Advocates NY
• Extinction Rebellion US
• Extreme Weather Survivors
• Food & Water Watch
• For Love of Water
• For the Many
• Fossil Free California
• Fossil Free Tompkins
• FrackBustersNY
• Friends of the Clearwater
• Friends of the Earth US
• Gas Free Seneca
• Gen-Z for Change
• Grassroots Environmental Education
• Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Green Ossining
• GreenFaith
• GreenLatinos
• HabitatMap
• Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate
• Human Impact Partners
• Impact Fund
• Indivisible ADK/Saratoga
• Indivisible Harlem
• Indivisible Mohawk Valley Climate Crisis WG
• Inner City Green Team
• Jewish Climate Action Network, NYC
• Jewish Climate Action Network, MA
• Junta Comunitaria Pastillo Tibes Corp
• Long Island Progressive Coalition
• Maine Climate Action Now
• Make Polluters Pay
• Metro Justice
• Micah Six Eight Mission
• Michigan Climate Action Network
• Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action
• Middlefield Neighbors
• Missouri River Bird Observatory
• MN350
• Mothers Out Front
• Mothers* Rebellion Global
• National Association of Consumer Advocates
• National Consumers league
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• New Paltz Interfaith Earth Action
• New York Communities for Change
• New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
• New York Progressive Action Network
• New Yorkers for Clean Power
• North American Climate, Conservation and Environment
• North Country Earth Action
• North Shore Audubon Society
• North Star Fund
• NY Public Interest Research Group
• NY State Council of Churches
• NY-GEO
• NYCD16/15 Indivisible
• NYPAN Environmental Committee
• Oil and Gas Action Network
• Oil Change International
• Oregon League of Conservation Voters
• Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Park County Environmental Council
• People for a Healthy Environment
• Peoples Climate Movement - NY
• Philadelphia Solar Energy Association
• Physicians for Social Responsibility, Colorado
• Physicians for Social Responsibility, Maine
• Physicians for Social Responsibility, Pennsylvania
• Physicians for Social Responsibility, Texas
• Progressive Schenectady
• Public Citizen
• Public Justice
• Quaker Action Mid Atlantic Region
• Ratepayer and Community Intervenors, Finger Lakes, NY
• Reach Out America
• ReAL Edgemere CLT
• Reclaim Our Power
• Regenerating Paradise
• Rise Economy
• Rising Sun Center for Opportunity
• Rivers & Mountains GreenFaith
• RPI Sunrise Movement
• San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Sane Energy Project
• Seneca Lake Guardian
• Serpentine Art and Nature Commons
• Sierra Club
• Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter
• Sisters of St Joseph of Rochester, Office of Justice and Care for Creation
• Sisters of St. Dominic of Blauvelt, NY
• Solarize Albany
• South Bronx Unite
• Stand.earth
• Staten Island Urban Center
• Stop NY Fracked Gas Pipeline
• Sunrise Movement
• SUNY New Paltz Environmental Task Force
• Sustainable Finger Lakes
• Take Action Advocacy Group
• TakeAction Minnesota
• The Climate Center
• The Climate Reality Project New York Chapters Coalition
• The Rachel Carson Council
• Third Act
• Third Act Lawyers
• Third Act Massachusetts
• Third Act Maryland
• Third Act NYC
• Third Act Upstate New York
• Third Act Virginia
• Three Rivers Waterkeeper
• TIAA-Divest!
• Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative
• Ulster Activist
• Union of Concerned Scientists
• United For Clean Energy
• United Muslim Alliance of Albany
• Upper Nyack Green Committee
• Vermont Natural Resources Council
• Vermont Public Interest Research Group
• Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action
• Virginia League of Conservation Voters
• Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Weber Sustainability Consulting
• WESPAC Foundation, Inc.
• Westchester for Change
• Worcester Congregations for Climate and Environmental Justice
• 198 methods
• 350 Bay Area
• 350 Conejo / San Fernando Valley
• 350 Wisconsin
• 350Brooklyn
• 350Hawaii
• 350PDX

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls left New Caledonia at the weekend after a one-week stay which was marked by the resumption of inclusive political talks on the French territory’s future.

He has now submitted a “synthetical” working document to be discussed further and promised he would return later this month.

During his week-long visit, Valls had taken time to meet New Caledonia’s main stakeholders, including political, economic, education, health, and civil society leaders.

• READ MORE: Valls faces Kanak ‘first people’ clash with loyalists over independence talks
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

He has confirmed France’s main pillars for its assistance to New Caledonia, nine months after deadly and destructive riots broke out, leaving 14 dead, several hundred businesses destroyed, and thousands of job losses for a total estimated damage of 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4 billion).

The French aid confirmed so far mainly consisted of a loan of up to 1 billion euros (NZ$1.8 billion) as well as grants to rebuild all damaged schools and some public buildings.

Valls also announced French funding to pay unemployment benefits (which were to expire at the end of this month) were now to be extended until the end of June.

However, the main feature of his stay, widely regarded as the major achievement, was to manage to gather all political tendencies (both pro-independence and those in favour of New Caledonia remaining a part of France) around the same table.

The initial talks were first held at New Caledonia’s Congress on February 24.

Two days later, talks resumed at the French High Commission between Wednesday and Friday last week, in the form of “tripartite” discussions between pro-France, pro-independence local parties and the French State.

As some, especially the pro-independence umbrella FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), insisted that those sessions were “discussions”, not “negotiations”, there was a general feeling that all participants now seemed to recognise the virtues of the exchanges and that they had at least managed to openly and frankly confront their respective views.

Valls, who shared a feeling of relative success in view of what he described as a sense of “historic responsibility” from political stakeholders, even extended his stay by 24 hours.

Speaking at the weekend, he said he had now left all parties with a document that was now supposed to synthesise all views expressed and the main items remaining to be further discussed.

‘A situation no longer sustainable’
“Political deadlocks, economic and social stagnation, violence, fear, and the lack of prospects for the territory’s inhabitants create a situation that is no longer sustainable. Everyone agrees on this observation,” the document states.

A cautiously hopeful Valls said views would continue to be exchanged, sometimes by video conference.

Taking part in the same visit last week was Eric Thiers, a special adviser to French Prime Minister François Bayrou.

Valls also stressed he would return to New Caledonia sometime later this month, maybe March 22-23, depending on how talks and remote exchanges were going to evolve.

In the meantime, the shared document would be subjected to many amendments and suggestions in order to take the shape of a fit-enough basis for a compromise acceptable by all.

The work-in-progress document details a wide range of subjects, such as self-determination, the relationship with France, the transfer of powers, who would be in charge of international relations, independence, a future system of governance (including the organisation of the three provinces), the electoral roll for local elections, the notion of citizenship (with a proposed system of “points-based” accession system), all these under the generic notion of “shared destiny”.

There was also a form of consensus on the fact that if a future text was to be submitted to popular approval by way of a referendum, it should not be based on a binary “yes” or “no” alternative, but on a comprehensive, wide-ranging “project”.

On each of those topics, the draft takes into account the different and sometimes opposing views expressed and enumerates a number of possible options and scenarios.

Based on this draft working document, the next round of talks would lead to a new agreement that is supposed to replace and offer a continuation to the ageing Nouméa Accord, signed in 1998 and install a new roadmap for New Caledonia’s future.

As part of discussions, another topic was the future of New Caledonia’s great council of chiefs, the Customary Senate, and possible changes from its until-now consultative status to a more executive role to turn New Caledonia’s legislative system from a Congress-only system to a bicameral one (Congress-Parliament and a chiefly Senate).

Struggling nickel mining industry
The very sensitive question of New Caledonia’s nickel mining industry was also discussed, as the crucial industry, a very significant pillar of the economy, is undergoing its worst crisis.

Since August 2024, one of its three factories and smelters, Koniambo (KNS) in the north of the main island has been mothballed and is still up for sale after its majority stakeholder, Anglo-Swiss Glencore, decided to withdraw after more than a decade of losses (more than 13 billion euros — NZ$24 billion).

Another nickel-producing unit, in the South, Prony, is currently engaged in negotiations with potential investment companies, one South African, one from  the United Arab Emirates and the other Indian.

New Caledonia’s historic nickel miner, Société le Nickel (SLN, a subsidiary of French giant Eramet), is still facing major hurdles to resume operations as it struggles to regain access to its mining sites.

The situation was compounded by a changing competition pattern on the world scale, New Caledonia’s production prices being too high and Indonesia now clearly emerging as a world leader, producing much cheaper first-class nickel and in greater quantities.

‘A new nickel strategy is needed’, Valls says
While political parties involved in the talks (all parties represented at the Congress) remained tight-lipped and media-elusive throughout last week, they recognised a spirit of “constructive talks” with a shared goal of “listening to each other”.

However,  the views remain radically opposed, even irreconcilable — pro-independence supporters’ most clear-cut position (notably that from the Union Calédonienne) consists of a demand for a quick, full independence, with a “Kanaky Accord” to be signed this year, to be followed by a five-year “transition” period.

On the pro-France side, one of the main bones of contention defended by the two main parties (Les Loyalistes and Rassemblement-LR) is to affirm that their determination to maintain New Caledonia as a part of France has been confirmed by three referenda (in 2018, 2020 and 2021) on self-determination.

Pro-independence parties argue, however, that the third and last referendum, in December 2021, was boycotted by the pro-independence movement and that it was not legitimate, even though it was ruled by the courts as valid.

They are also advocating for significant changes to be made in the way the three provinces are managed, a system described as “internal federalism” but decried by opponents as a form of separatism.

In the pro-France camp, the Calédonie Ensemble party holds relatively more open views.

In between are the more moderate pro-independence parties, PALIKA and UMP, which favour of a future status revolving around the notion of “independence in association with France”.

‘At least no one slammed the door’
“At least no one slammed the door and that, already, is a good thing,” said pro-France leader and French MP Nicolas Metzdorf.

“We’re still a long way away from a political compromise, but we have stopped moving further away from it,” he added, giving credit to Vall’s approach.

On his part, Valls stressed that he did not want to rush things in order to “maintain the thread” of talks, but that provincial elections were scheduled to take place no later than 30 October 2025.

“I don’t want to force things, I don’t want to break the thread . . . sometimes, we wanted to rush things, and that’s why it didn’t work,” he elaborated, in a direct reference to numerous and unsuccessful attempts by previous French governments, since 2022, to kick-start the comprehensive talks.

“Some work will be done by video conference. I will always take my responsibilities, because we have to move forward”, Valls told public broadcaster NC la 1ère.

He said France would then return with its proposals and offers.

“And we will take our responsibilities. The debate cannot last for months and months. We respect everyone, but we have to move forward. There is no deadline, but we all know that there are provincial elections.”

Those elections — initially scheduled in May 2024 and then in December 2024 — have already been postponed twice.

They are supposed to elect the members of New Caledonia’s three provinces (North, South and Loyalty Islands), which in turn makes up the territory’s Congress and the proportional makeup of the government and election of President.

All parties involved will now to consult with their respective supporters to get their go-ahead and a mandate to embark on full negotiations.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

COMMENTARY: By Victoria Fielding

I once heard someone say that when the Left and the Right became polarised — when they divorced from each other — the Left got all the institutions of truth including science, education, justice and democratic government.

The Right got the institution of manipulation: the media. This statement hit me for six at the time because it seemed so clearly true.

What was also immediately clear is that there was an obvious reason why the Left sided with the institutions of truth and the Right resorted to manipulation. It is because truth does not suit right-wing arguments.

• READ MORE: Other truth-telling reports

The existence of climate change does not suit fossil fuel billionaires. Evidence that wealth does not trickle down does not suit the capitalist class. The idea that diversity, equity and inclusion (yes, I put those words in that order on purpose) is better for everyone, rather than a discriminatory, hateful, destructive, divided unequal world is dangerous for the Right to admit.

The Right’s embrace of the media institution also makes sense when you consider that the institutions of truth are difficult to buy, whereas billionaires can easily own manipulative media.

Just ask Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and turned it into a political manipulation machine. Just ask Rupert Murdoch, who is currently engaged in a bitter family war to stop three of his children opposing him and his son Lachlan from using their “news” organisations as a form of political manipulation for right-wing interests.

Right-wingers also know that truthful institutions only have one way of communicating their truths to the public: via the media. Once the media environment is manipulated, we enter a post-truth world.

Experts derided as untrustworthy ‘elitists’
This is the world where billionaire fossil fuel interests undermine climate action. It is where scientists create vaccines to save lives but the manipulated public refuses to take them. Where experts are derided as untrustworthy “elitists”.

And it is where the whole idea of democratic government in the US has been overthrown to install an autocratic billionaire-enriching oligarchy led by an incompetent fool who calls himself the King.

Once you recognise this manipulated media environment, you also understand that there is not — and never has been — such as thing as a rational public debate. Those engaged in the institutions of the Left — in science, education, justice and democratic government — seem mostly unwilling to accept this fact.

Instead, they continue to believe if they just keep telling people the truth and communicating what they see as entirely rational arguments, the public will accept what they have to say.

I think part of the reason that the Left refuses to accept that public debate is not rational and rather, is a manipulated bin fire of misleading information, including mis/disinformation and propaganda, is because they are not equipped to compete in this reality. What do those on the Left do with “post-truth”?

They seem to just want to ignore it and hope it goes away.

A perfect example of this misunderstanding of the post-truth world and the manipulated media environment’s impact on the public is this paper, by political science professors at the Australian National University Ian McAllister and Nicholas Biddle.

Stunningly absolutist claim
Their research sought to understand why polling at the start of the 2023 Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum showed widespread public support for the Voice but over the course of the campaign, this support dropped to the point where the Voice was defeated with 60 per cent voting “No” and 40 per cent, “Yes”.

In presenting their study’s findings, the authors make the stunningly absolutist claim that:

‘…the public’s exposure to all forms of mass media – as we have measured it here – had no impact on the result’.

A note is then attached to this finding with the caveat:

‘As noted earlier, given the data at hand we are unable to test the possibility that the content of the media being consumed resulted in a reinforcement of existing beliefs and partisanship rather than a conversion.’

This caveat leaves a gaping hole in the finding by failing to account for how media reinforcing existing beliefs is an important media effect – as argued by Neil Gavin here. Since it was not measured, how can they possibly say there was no effect?

Furthermore, the very premise of the author’s sweeping statement that media exposure had no impact on the result of the Referendum is based on two naive assumptions:

• that voters were rational in their deliberations over the Referendum question; and
• that the information environment voters were presented with was rational.

Dual assumption of rationality
This dual assumption of rationality – one that the authors interestingly admit is an assumption – is evidenced in their hypothesis which states:

‘Voters who did not follow the campaign in the mass media were more likely to move from a yes to a no vote compared to voters who did follow the campaign in the mass media.’

This hypothesis, the authors explain, is premised on the assumption ‘that those with less information are more likely to opt for the status quo and cast a no vote’, and therefore that less exposure to media would change a vote from “Yes” to “No”.What this hypothesis assumes is that if a voter received more rational information in the media about the Referendum, that information would rationally drive their vote in the “Yes” direction. When their data disproved this hypothesis, the authors used this finding to claim that the media had no effect.

To understand the reality of what happened in the Referendum debate, the word “rational” needs to be taken out of the equation and the word “manipulated” put in.

We know, of course, that the Referendum was awash with manipulative information, which all supported the “No” campaign. For example, my study of News Corp’s Voice coverage — Australia’s largest and most influential news organisation — found that News Corp actively campaigned for the “No” proposition in concert with the “No” campaign, presenting content more like a political campaign than traditional journalism and commentary.

A study by Queensland University of Technology’s Tim Graham analysed how the Voice Referendum was discussed on social media platform, X. Far from a rational debate, Graham identified that the “No” campaign and its supporters engaged in a participatory disinformation propaganda campaign, which became a “truth market” about the Voice.

The ‘truth market’
This “truth market” was described as drawing “Yes” campaigners into a debate about the truth of the Voice, sidetracking them from promoting their own cause.

What such studies showed was that, far from McAllister and Biddle’s assumed rational information environment, the Voice Referendum public debate was awash with manipulation, propaganda, disinformation and fear-mongering.

The “No” campaign that delivered this manipulation perfectly demonstrates how the Right uses media to undermine institutions of truth, to undermine facts and to undermine the rationality of democratic debates.

The completely unfounded assumption that the more information a voter received about the Voice, the more likely they would vote “Yes”, reveals a misunderstanding of the reality of a manipulated public debate environment present across all types of media, from mainstream news to social media.

It also wrongly treats voters like rational deliberative computers by assuming that the more information that goes in, the more they accept that information. This is far from the reality of how mediated communication affects the public.

The reason the influence of media on individuals and collectives is, in reality, so difficult to measure and should never be bluntly described as having total effect or no effect, is that people are not rational when they consume media, and every individual processes information in their own unique and unconscious ways.

One person can watch a manipulated piece of communication and accept it wholeheartedly, others can accept part of it and others reject it outright.

Manipulation unknown
No one piece of information determines how people vote and not every piece of information people consume does either. That’s the point of a manipulated media environment. People who are being manipulated do not know they are being manipulated.

Importantly, when you ask individuals how their media consumption impacted on them, they of course do not know. The decisions people make based on the information they have ephemerally consumed — whether from the media, conversations, or a wide range of other information sources, are incredibly complex and irrational.

Surely the re-election of Donald Trump for a second time, despite all the rational arguments against him, is proof that the manipulated media environment is an incredibly powerful weapon — a weapon the Right, globally, is clearly proficient at wielding.

It is time those on the Left caught up and at least understood the reality they are working in.

Dr Victoria Fielding is an Independent Australia columnist. This article was first published by the Independent Australia and is republished with the author’s permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Those efforts have largely succeeded in preventing and weakening new laws, resulting in delayed climate action on a global scale. Drawing from an InfluenceMap database that tracks corporate engagement on climate policies, researchers found that fossil fuel companies and their trade associations have used similar lobbying tactics across countries, including setting up ad campaigns and front groups, appealing directly to legislators, and taking legal action. They’ve also developed tailored narratives for each region to mislead consumers and promote gas use, according to the report. 

Taken together, the campaigns have resulted “in policy wins for the fossil fuel industry,” said report co-author Emilia Piziak. “All these narratives that they’re using to prolong the role of fossil gas are counter to leading climate science and public health studies.” (“Fossil gas” is another term for natural gas, which is composed primarily of the greenhouse gas methane.)

Between construction, electricity, and heating, buildings account for 21 percent of carbon emissions globally, and about a quarter of those emissions come from burning fossil fuels on site. Replacing fossil fuel-powered heating systems and appliances with heat pumps and other electric alternatives — a strategy known as electrification — is one of the most effective ways to cut emissions and improve air quality. The report focused on the EU, Australia, and U.S. because all three are home to recently introduced electrification policies that have also faced intense industry opposition.

In the U.S., local gas bans and electrification ordinances sprung up in dozens of cities after Berkeley, California, introduced a first-in-the-nation ban on burning gas in new buildings in 2019. Fossil fuel companies and utilities have filed lawsuits and amicus briefs, published statements, and run ad campaigns to oppose these bans. Utilities have also funded community groups that appear to be grassroots, a strategy known as astroturfing, to undermine electrification policies in places like Colorado and Eugene, Oregon. 

According to the report, trade groups like the American Gas Association, the National Propane Gas Association, and Consumer Energy Alliance have also pushed for new state-level laws to prevent local governments from introducing gas bans. Such preemption laws have now passed in 26 states. Local policies have also ground to a halt: Last year, the city of Berkeley agreed to stop enforcing its gas ban following its defeat in a prolonged court battle launched by the California restaurant industry — a loss that prompted several communities to pull back similar bans.

The majority of U.S. lobbying efforts have centered around the narrative that “consumer choice must be protected,” the report found. Itai Vardi, a researcher at the utility watchdog Energy and Policy Institute who was not involved with the report, said this messaging is prevalent throughout the U.S. and “nothing less than misleading propaganda.”

“Industry is trying to harness dominant American cultural values such as ‘freedom,’ ‘choice,’ and ‘individualism’ to serve its own narrow economic interests of keeping gas in the mix,” Vardi told Grist. “Yet the main proponents of this line, gas utilities and their trade associations and front groups, are in fact monopoly entities that by definition have great control over their customers’ energy options.” 

Bryson Hull, a spokesperson for Consumer Energy Alliance, told Grist that the group is “proud of its advocacy work in multiple states to ensure natural gas remains an affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy option for Americans.”

Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the American Gas Association, reiterated the organization’s stance in response to the report. “Natural gas has been one of the primary drivers for achieving environmental progress, energy security, and economic vitality across the globe,” Harbert said. “From providing affordable energy to consumers to driving down emissions, the benefits this fuel has for our nation and our world are indisputable.” 

The National Propane Gas Association did not respond to Grist’s requests for comment in time for publication.

Industry groups in the EU and Australia are using strikingly similar tactics and arguments. In the EU, oil and gas companies successfully lobbied to add incentives for hybrid heating systems that use fossil fuels to a recent law intended to boost energy efficiency in buildings. The report found that industry arguments have most often centered around the idea that policy should be “technology neutral,” despite findings by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, the United Nations’ top scientific body on climate change, that renewables and “technology-specific” policies have lowered emissions worldwide. 

In the state of Victoria in Australia, companies ran ads to oppose a recent gas ban in new buildings, arguing that electrification would worsen affordability and energy security. This message contradicts the U.N. panel’s finding that deploying clean power makes energy cheaper and more reliable, researchers wrote. In September, the state of Victoria announced that stoves would be exempt from plans to phase out gas in existing homes.

The research provides further proof that “fossil fuel and utility industries employ highly coordinated and planned attacks against one of the most important climate and public health measures: getting buildings off of fossil fuels,” said Vardi. He added that in the U.S., utilities often charge customers for such lobbying costs, including for membership dues to trade associations.

A small number of energy companies, however, have taken science-aligned positions and supported electrification. In the U.S., for example, the trade group Advanced Energy United and the HVAC company Trane Technologies have supported federal climate and building efficiency policies. Companies should reevaluate not only their individual stances but also their membership to trade associations that are blocking building electrification, report co-author Vivek Parekh said. The utility Eversource, for instance, left the American Gas Association in 2023 to “redirect costs to more targeted associations and memberships with a focus on decarbonization.” 

For now, though, “these voices are being overwhelmed by the fossil fuel industry,” said Parekh. “The overwhelming opportunity here is for those voices to strengthen their advocacy for building electrification and the phaseout of gas.”

This story has been updated with a comment from Karen Harbert of the American Gas Association.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The fossil fuel industry is trying to keep buildings hooked on gas. Here’s how. on Feb 24, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Akielly Hu.

The spotlight

This weekend, the much-anticipated third season of the HBO show White Lotus dropped its first episode. The show famously shows a dark side of tourism, illustrating the class divides between wealthy Westerners who travel to high-end resorts oozing with entitlement and the locals whose livelihoods depend on catering to their needs.

Despite that, each season of the show has supercharged tourism to the locations featured. In a story for Grist published today, Sarah Stodola explores how Koh Samui, the island off the coast of Thailand that’s the locale for Season 3, is preparing for the challenges that may bring.

Even without the boost of the show, tourism to Koh Samui — Thailand’s second-largest island and a popular travel destination — has been in conflict with the island’s natural beauty, Stodola writes. The local population of 70,000 is dwarfed by annual visitors in the millions, and the sheer volume of visitors means that local water resources are constrained, waste management is a growing problem, and construction has damaged the nearby reef and other ecosystems.

It’s a similar story in many other parts of the world, where communities have become dependent on tourism dollars while suffering from the impacts of overtourism. But there are many ways the industry can be improved from a sustainability and equity perspective, says Stodola — who wrote a book about the beach resort economy and its future on a climate-changed planet, and also writes a Substack newsletter deconstructing travel and tourism.

She pointed to places where governments have limited the overall flow of tourism, as well as companies, like hotels, that have taken on a responsibility to prioritize the needs and well-being of the local community they’re coming into. “I think that’s key to having a successful tourism industry,” Stodola said.

She cited one example of a high-end resort, NIHI Sumba, that created a tourism industry on an Indonesian island that had high rates of malaria. “They gave mosquito nets to the entire community, and malaria deaths have decreased exponentially in the population around that resort,” Stodola said. “So that’s a really positive outcome.”

But she also said better tourism might mean changing the very concept of tourism itself. “I think, partially, travelers have gotten away from expecting to have to adapt somewhat to a place,” Stodola said. Luxury hotels and all-inclusive resorts can create a kind of bubble that makes it unnecessary to, say, learn about local customs or even a few words of a language. “Shifting that mindset to expect to have to kind of assimilate into the place that you’re going, rather than the other way around, would be a really big positive,” she said.

In the Q&A below, I talked to Stodola about how governments and the private sector can work together to redesign an approach to tourism that is sustainable, economically beneficial, and tailored to the unique needs and priorities of a particular place.

Q. You’ve covered travel and tourism a lot — including some of the positive things that they can accomplish. But in your newsletter, you also talk about how travel is not inherently a good thing. Can you tell me a little more about that?

A. Right. My background was kind of doing more kind of conventional travel writing, up until the past five or six years. And I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with how positive, as a default, the coverage always was. There was just this assumption that it was a great thing.

And it is a great thing — travel and tourism do have the capacity to be really good, positive forces in the world. But like anything else, they can be positive or negative. And I do think the tide is turning now that overtourism is becoming so widely covered. But I think, up until recently, places that were cultivating new tourism industries did kind of get blinded by the revenue that it created for them, and any other impacts that were negative were always kind of taking a backseat to this economic potential that they saw.

Q. The capitalism of it all.

A. The capitalism of it all.

Q. So, can you expand a little bit on what you think the good parts of travel and tourism are? Can it be a good thing for the planet?

A. The way it’s structured right now, no. I mean, obviously this is a complicated topic, but the way it’s structured right now, so much of tourism is fundamentally based on taking a long-haul flight. And as long as that is the case, and as long as long-haul flights are as environmentally damaging as they are, then from a baseline, no.

But then, if you dig down deeper, there are players within the tourism industry that are doing good things on a more localized level. I have seen certain resorts or certain hotels that are helping to expand knowledge about how to preserve ecosystems. There are elements of it that can be positive.

Q. Are there any examples that come to mind of places you’ve encountered that are doing it right? What can that look like?

A. I don’t think that a tourism industry can be done sustainably or done responsibly without heavy government involvement. Because like you said, left to the capitalism of it all, I think the environment and the local populations kind of lose out every time.

With the Thailand example, I think the government has shown good intentions. But the sense that I’m getting from everybody I talk to is that they have enforcement issues. They’re aware of problems, they pass regulations, but they don’t really have a system of enforcement in place to make sure that everything they want to see happening is happening.

One of the things that I think that all locations should be doing as they’re growing their tourism industry right now is determining the ideal level of tourism, or the ideal number of tourists for their location based on, how big is the local population, what can the environment there handle. It’s something that places just don’t seem to be doing, and to me it seems like such an obvious benchmark that they should be working with from the outset.

Looking at Koh Samui, almost all of their water comes from this pipeline from the mainland that has a very clear capacity — it was very clear that at some point, growing this tourism industry, they weren’t going to have the water capacity for all the people on that island at any one time. And now they don’t. And they have water shortages. That’s such a clear example — they could have determined how many people they can handle on the island with the amount of water capacity that they have, and worked within those boundaries.

There’s an archipelago very far off the coast of Brazil called Fernando de Noronha, and they have built a tourism industry, but from the very outset, they limited the number of daily tourists that can be on the island at somewhere around 400. They came up with this number that seemed right for the economic benefit and then balancing that with environmental preservation, and it’s been super successful.

Of course, it’s a lot easier to implement those kinds of limits when you’re a remote island — a lot easier than someplace where you can’t really control the transportation to and from quite as carefully.

Q. One I did want to come back to — you brought up the issue of long-distance flights, and the unavoidably huge amount of carbon emissions that comes from long-distance travel. Do you see more regional and local travel as part of what the future of sustainable tourism could look like?

A. One hundred percent, I do. Especially when we’re talking about something like beach tourism — and this is a problem that’s probably going to happen as a result of White Lotus in Thailand, a lot of Americans are now going to be heading over in greater numbers to Thailand to do a beach vacation. And I don’t think most people going halfway around the world for a beach vacation are necessarily really interacting with the culture that they’re finding themselves in.

It’s an argument I’ve made before. I think, especially the bigger hotel companies that have resorts all around the world, I would argue that they should be marketing in a more regionally focused way, instead of marketing globally and trying to get people to fly halfway around the world for their beach vacation. That is one area in particular where a lot of long-haul flights could be cut.

Q. Is there anything else you see as a top priority in your vision for the future of sustainable tourism?

A. I think always prioritizing the local communities over the tourists is an important rule of thumb. I think a lot of places have gotten away from that and prioritized the tourists over the locals. I would like to see a shift back to that where, if you want to go to this place, you’re going to their community and their culture — they don’t have a responsibility to recreate your culture and comfort for you. I think that probably would have a trickle-down effect and solve a lot of other problems.

— Claire Elise Thompson

More exposure

• Read: Stodola’s Grist feature exploring what the the White Lotus-charged tourism boost will mean for Koh Samui
• Read: more about the “White Lotus effect” on travel, and how the show’s creators have chosen filming locations (BBC)
• Read: about “last chance tourism,” a phenomenon driven by climate change and its impacts on natural wonders (The New York Times)
• Read: The Last Resort: A Chronicle of Paradise, Profit, and Peril at the Beach, Stodola’s 2022 book

A parting shot

As Stodola describes in her feature, Thailand has experienced a similar Hollywood-driven tourism craze in the past. When the movie The Beach came out 25 years ago, it led to overtourism (and destruction) on Maya Bay, an enclosed beach in a national park on the uninhabited island of Phi Phi Leh. Things got so bad that the government closed the beach completely and reopened it four years later with strict regulations. This image shows boats right up at the boundary line in 2019, when the park was closed to visitors.

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Mia Torres / Grist

Parting shot: Mladen Antonov / AFP via Getty Images

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What a more sustainable tourism industry could look like on Feb 19, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Claire Elise Thompson.

The order, which claims that paper straws are “nonfunctional” and says it wants to end the “forced use” of them, immediately undoes part of a Biden-era initiative to eliminate single-use plastics, including straws, in all government operations by 2035. More broadly, Trump instructed White House staff and “relevant agencies” to issue a “national strategy to end the use of paper straws” within 45 days. The strategy would aim to eliminate all executive branch policies “designed to disfavor plastic straws” and address the federal government’s contracts with states and and other entities “that ban or penalize plastic straw purchase or use.”

“We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump said during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office. His staff secretary, Will Scharf, said that policies encouraging the use of paper straws had cost the government and private industry “an absolute ton of money, and left consumers all over the country wildly dissatisfied with their straws.” (According to one industry executive, paper straws each cost a penny more to make than their plastic counterparts.)

Plastic straws have become an international emblem of the harms of plastic pollution, and Trump’s order is the latest salvo in a culture war that pits care for the environment against values like masculinity and freedom. In terms of actually curbing or exacerbating plastic pollution, any policy that only targets straws is mostly symbolic: Of the 8 million tons of plastic waste that reaches the world’s oceans annually, straws make up just 0.025 percent, according to National Geographic.

What’s more, it’s unclear how much of the United States’ plastic straw use is driven by federal procurement, given the decentralized nature of this purchasing. The U.S. is the world’s largest buyer of goods and services, but the bulk of its spending in the former category is on drugs, metals, medical equipment, and software. It’s likely that private companies, not government agencies, buy most of the hundreds of millions of plastic straws estimated to be used nationwide each day. Some companies — Alaska Airlines and Starbucks, for example — have long ago pledged to move toward strawless or compostable straw options amid growing concerns over plastic’s impacts on wildlife and ecological health. 

Plastic straws, like other plastic products, are made almost exclusively from fossil fuels. They cannot be recycled due to their small size and light weight. When they aren’t sent to landfills or incinerators, they fester in the environment as litter, breaking into microplastics that attract pathogens, release chemicals, and clog up animals’ digestive systems.

The second part of Trump’s executive order, calling for a “national strategy to end the use of paper straws,” seems to take aim at the suite of local and regional restrictions on single-use plastic straws that have passed in recent years, including in Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City. It’s unclear, however, whether and how the strategy would affect these policies. In an extreme scenario, the Trump administration could try to use unrelated contracts, such as those related to funding for infrastructure projects, as leverage to get cities and states to drop their plastic straw restrictions.

The executive order is “open for interpretation and also a cause for concern,” said Anja Brandon, director of plastics policy for the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. “States are the testing ground for a lot of really good policies [on plastics], and we want to make sure that the states that have been taking action remain protected.” 

The White House did not respond to Grist’s request for comment.

The movement against plastic straws began around 2011, when a 9-year-old from Vermont estimated — with input from straw manufacturers — that U.S. consumers throw away half a billion straws each day. The finding was published by an advocacy group called Eco-Cycle and widely covered in the media. (Market research firms would later revise the figure downward, to somewhere between 170 million and 390 million straws daily.) 

Later, in 2015, a video of a marine biologist extracting a plastic straw out of a turtle’s nostril helped turbochange the anti-straw movement, catalyzing plastic straw bans around the world, including in Queensland, Australia; Taiwan; and Tanzania. Few, if any, jurisdictions mandated the use of a particular alternative. Some businesses in affected regions began offering paper straws, while others turned to straws made from sugarcane or wheat. Others opted for bioplastics made from corn, agave, or other nonpetroleum materials.

There’s evidence that the public outcry and bans have had an effect: One market research firm found that plastic straws lost market share between 2017 and 2022, going from nearly 100 percent of U.S. demand for straws to roughly 75 percent. 

Environmental advocates say the intense public focus on straws largely misses the point. Brandon said plastic straws are “just the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the bigger-picture problem of plastic pollution, and their visibility as litter should highlight the need to move away from all types of single-use products, such as bags, plates, takeout containers, and cutlery. Advocates say these products can either be eliminated altogether or replaced with reusables made from glass, metal, cloth, wood, or other materials.

That’s not to downplay the real-world impacts of eliminating plastic straws. Brandon said straws are one of the most commonly collected single-use plastic items at Ocean Conservancy beach cleanups. In 2023, volunteers associated with the organization collected 416,000 plastic straws from beaches and waterways, which is about the same as the number of plastic cups and plates, and slightly smaller than the number of plastic grocery bags. Plastic straw bans could, in theory, chip away at the amount of plastic that winds up on beaches.

Banning individual single-use items like straws “has an immediate positive benefit for the environment, and is an opportunity for education and conversation about the broader plastic pollution crisis that we are in,” Brandon said.

While it’s unclear whether Trump will try to roll back restrictions on other types of single-use plastic, his administration has so far been extremely supportive of fossil fuel interests, which donated more than $75 million to his 2024 presidential campaign and stand to benefit from uninhibited plastic production. Even before Election Day, the Trump campaign had suggested it would not participate in or try to water down United Nations negotiations for a global plastics treaty. Now, Industry leaders are trying to build momentum around the phrase “back to plastic,” which the president used in a social media post earlier this month.

“Straws are just the beginning,” said Plastics Industry Association CEO Matt Seaholm, in a statement. A few days later, he wrote in the Daily Wire that bans on single-use plastic were “emotional policies” promoted by “extremist groups”: “Now is the time to hit reset on the misguided policies of the past few years, heed the words of the president, and go ‘back to plastic!’”

Polls show that the public does not support policies to increase plastic use. According to one survey commissioned by the nonprofit Oceana, which advocates for reducing single-use plastics use as a means of protecting marine environments, 82 percent of U.S. voters specifically support a reduction in the amount of single-use plastic used by states and in the federal government, and 80 percent want companies to reduce the single-use packaging they offer. 

“A push to have more plastic in the U.S. is not what voters are asking for,” said Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director. “What the federal government needs to do … is pass policies to reduce the production and use of single-use plastics.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump’s attack on paper straws is mostly symbolic — but the plastics industry is celebrating on Feb 18, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

Nearly five years ago, the United States Department of Energy, or DOE, began an unusual partnership with the country’s largest lobbying group for the plastics industry. 

In a memorandum of understanding with a plastics industry trade association called the American Chemistry Council, or ACC, the Energy Department pledged to “collaborate on the development of innovative plastics recycling technologies and strengthen the domestic plastics supply chain.”

According to a press release, the collaboration would involve research into “novel collection technologies” to keep plastics out of waterways, as well as new types of plastic that are “inherently designed for recycling.” But perhaps the most significant part of the agreement referred to research on so-called “advanced recycling” — a suite of technologies also known as “chemical recycling” that are favored by the ACC and other industry groups, and intensely scrutinized by environmental advocates.

Chemical recycling refers to processes that use high heat, pressure, or solvents to break plastics into their constituent building blocks, so they can — in theory — be turned into new plastic products again and again. This differs from conventional “mechanical” recycling, in which plastics are shredded or melted before being turned into new products. Under fire for the failure of conventional recycling to mitigate the plastic pollution crisis, the petrochemical industry has turned to chemical recycling, heavily promoting it in public communications and to state legislators despite difficulties getting it to work at a large scale. Environmental groups and many scientists say the technology will never work, and that it’s a diversion from calls to reduce the production of plastic, which is made out of oil and gas. 

The agreement’s initial five-year term is scheduled to expire early this month, just days into President Trump’s second term. 

According to Ross Eisenberg, vice president of the ACC’s plastics division, the agreement never amounted to much. “The onset of COVID-19 postponed discussions, and with the subsequent change in administration, no work was conducted” under the memorandum of understanding, Eisenberg said.

But public records indicate the Department of Energy has collaborated with the plastics industry to fund and promote chemical recycling research and projects in the years since the agreement was signed. Scientists and environmental advocates say that the department’s partnerships with the industry lack transparency and represent a conflict of interest. The ACC, whose members include dozens of petrochemical companies that stand to benefit from the rapidly increasing production of plastics, has continued to lobby the department — which has a responsibility to work on behalf of the public — every year since the memorandum was announced. 

The ACC sought “to influence the policy agenda of the DOE and move it toward funding chemical recycling research and policy development as a priority over other issues,” said Lee Bell, a policy adviser for the nonprofit International Pollutants Elimination Network. “It is clearly not an appropriate relationship for an industry lobby group to have with a department charged with the expenditure of millions in public funds.”

The DOE’s chemical recycling initiatives are part of a long series of government attempts to deal with the overwhelming amount of plastic waste the country generates — and fails to recycle. As of 2019, the U.S. produced 44 million metric tons of plastic waste and recycled only 5 percent of it, according to the Energy Department. The rest was sent to landfills or incinerators, or wound up as litter in the environment. In a July 2024 report, the Biden administration said plastic pollution was “one of the most pressing and consequential environmental problems in the U.S. and around the globe.” 

The Energy Department’s role in U.S. plastics strategy has mainly been to support research, much of it on recycling and the cleanup of existing plastic waste. In 2019, it launched a “Plastics Innovation Challenge” to “accelerate energy efficient technologies that reduce plastic waste in oceans and landfills.” A month later, the department held a workshop to discuss “Plastics for a Circular Economy” — including a review of the challenges and possibilities of chemical recycling. Workshop attendees included representatives of various members of the ACC, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Dow — but no environmental organizations or citizen groups.

According to the ACC’s Eisenberg, after the Plastics Innovation Challenge was announced, “American Chemistry Council members spoke with DOE to explore ways to support the initiative from a technology perspective, leading to the development of a memorandum of understanding in February 2020.” The agency’s partnership with the ACC was described in a 2020 press release as an opportunity to “position the U.S. for global leadership in advanced recycling technologies, including plastic-to-energy conversion” — meaning the conversion of plastic waste back into fuel instead of new plastic products.

Daniel Simmons, then the DOE’s assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, praised the industry and its products during the memo’s public signing. “What does energy efficiency and renewable energy have to do with plastics recycling? It’s one: because plastics are awesome,” he said at the time. “Obviously plastics can result in greater energy efficiency, food efficiency, a whole number of wonderful things. … The problem with plastics is not that they are bad, but because they are so good, and how do we make them better for the future?”

Environmental groups were immediately skeptical. Judith Enck, president of the nonprofit Beyond Plastics and a former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, said she had “never seen this before,” referring to a multi-year agreement between a government agency and what is essentially an “advocacy lobbying group.” More typically, she said, if the government is interested in supporting a particular type of research it can funnel money to state agencies or conduct independent research through its network of national laboratories

Nearly a year after the agreement was announced, the memo had still not been posted publicly. In 2021, the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, filed a public records request for the memo and other communications between the DOE, ACC, and any other outside parties relating to chemical recycling and the department’s “Plastics Innovation Challenge.” The request was filed under the Freedom of Information Act, which entitles the public to access any federal agency records unless they are specifically exempt from public view.

Daniel Rosenberg, director of federal toxics policy at the NRDC and the author of that request, said the group is still seeking answers about how the Department of Energy’s focus on chemical recycling came about — and the role industry players continue to have in shaping the department’s approach to managing plastic pollution.

“There’s no transparency on how DOE is developing their policies around plastic waste,” said Rosenberg. “They seem very much in line with the industry agenda that’s clearly formalized in the memorandum of understanding.” 

It wasn’t until six months later that the DOE sent the NRDC the official memo — but not any related documents answering the group’s other questions. Last year, the NRDC sued the Energy Department for failing to respond to its requests and repeated outreach. “They’ve done a pretty good job over the last five years of keeping public scrutiny at bay,” said Rosenberg, who has since filed a second freedom of information request with the agency. “What DOE does on plastic, how they spend their research money, the solutions they’re promoting, all of which is consequential — we’re just trying to get to the bottom of how it all came about and how it’s continued to develop.”

The lawsuit is ongoing, but the DOE has agreed to process hundreds of documents per month regarding the original records request and deliver relevant documents to the NRDC. Though a January status report to the court shows the department has delivered more than 200 pages of documents to the NRDC since the lawsuit began, Rosenberg said he’s so far received a “small fraction” of the communications he’s sought. A public records request filed on behalf of ExxonKnews and Grist in October has not yet yielded any documents.

Even if the formal agreement between the DOE and the ACC never got off the ground, as the lobbying group claims, the Energy Department’s backing of chemical recycling research suggests that the agency has embraced the industry’s characterization of the plastic waste problem as an issue that can be solved through innovation. By January 2026, the department is set to have spent $10 million funding the “Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics,” a center for chemical recycling research and academic collaboration that includes 20 industrial partners, including ACC member companies and another plastic industry trade group that sits on the center’s “industrial advisory board.” The DOE’s latest “Strategies for Plastic Innovation” report calls for more research into chemical recycling, deeming the technologies “crucial to begin addressing the global plastic crisis.”

Last year, as part of an initiative by the Biden administration to “decarbonize energy-intensive industries,” the DOE awarded a grant of up to $375 million to a controversial chemical recycling project from the Eastman Chemical Company, an ACC member. Eastman has since asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to permit the release of an additional 114 tons of annual air pollution at its facility in Longview, Texas, where the new project is being built.

“These are extraordinary amounts that are going to high-priority serial violators of the Clean Air Act,” said Cynthia Palmer, senior analyst for petrochemicals at the nonprofit Moms Clean Air Force. At its Kingsport, Tennessee, petrochemical refinery, where Eastman’s other chemical recycling facility is housed, the EPA documented high-priority violations of the Clean Air Act every quarter of the past three years.

Working with the Energy Department was just one prong in the ACC’s campaign to legitimize chemical recycling. In the U.S., the group has also spent years lobbying state legislatures to reclassify chemical recycling as a manufacturing process, rather than waste disposal. Two dozen states have passed such reclassification bills, as of last year.

The ACC has also promoted the inclusion of chemical recycling in the United Nations’ global plastics treaty, which was scheduled to be completed last December but has been stalled by disagreements over its scope. Provisions for chemical recycling haven’t yet been incorporated into the agreement’s draft text, but experts say the compact between the ACC and the Energy Department was part of the industry’s attempt to change that by creating research to demonstrate that chemical recycling is environmentally sound.

Scientists have criticized some of the specific research conducted by the Energy Department’s national laboratories with ACC funding, like a life cycle analysis from the Argonne National Laboratory showing reduced carbon emissions from chemical recycling, compared to other waste management options. The ACC has cited this study in public communications arguing against plastic reduction.

In a 16-page rebuttal to the study shared with ExxonKnews and Grist, Bell, with IPEN, called out the study’s use of “nonreproducible data based on ‘discussions’ with industry.”

Neil Tangri, research and policy director for the nonprofit Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said the study built in “wildly unrealistic assumptions” about the possibility of substituting pyrolysis oil — a main output from the most popular chemical recycling method — for the current fossil fuel feedstock, naphtha. He also criticized the study for using confidential data that is “not transparent” and “not replicable”: “That is completely inimical to the way science works,” he said. 

Palmer, of Moms Clean Air Force, added that such life-cycle analyses don’t take into account significant environmental and public health concerns caused by plastic production or chemical recycling, making them “highly misleading.”

“National laboratories should not be aiding and abetting the deceptive practices of the petrochemical industry,” Tangri said. 

In recent months, the ACC and several of its member companies were sued by state and local governments and individuals, arguing that the industry deliberately misled the public about the viability of mechanical and chemical recycling despite knowing it would never be able to manage the waste generated by growing plastic production.

Jeffrey Seay, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Kentucky, said the prospects for some sort of chemical recycling breakthrough — the kind industry groups imply is just around the corner — are slim. “I’d love to tell you I’ve seen that research, but I haven’t,” he said. “I think it’s something worthwhile to be looking at, but I’m just not of the opinion that there’s a technology on the horizon that’s going to allow us to consume plastic the way we have always consumed plastic.”

Seay added that, contrary to industry claims, he’s “not aware of a technology where you can just dump a bunch of mixed plastic in there and get clean polymers out on the other side. There’s a lot of research going on in this area … but to commercialize that, you’d be decades away.” 

A 2023 peer-reviewed study conducted by DOE also acknowledged that three chemical recycling technologies — glycolysis, hydrolysis, and methanolysis — are “an order of magnitude” more polluting and energy-intensive than conventional recycling. 

The Biden administration Energy Department declined to comment on the status of its memorandum of understanding with the ACC, citing “the upcoming administration transition.” The agency did not respond to additional requests for comment after Trump’s inauguration.

As a newer, bolder Trump administration returns to office with fracking executive Chris Wright set to helm the DOE, Enck and other advocates are skeptical — but still hoping — that the Trump DOE will stop propping up the plastic industry altogether. 

“If the DOE was really interested in energy savings, they should be putting resources into waste reduction, refill, and reuse,” said Enck, of Beyond Plastics.

Rosenberg, of the NRDC, expressed concerns that the Trump administration could continue working with the industry behind the scenes. Either way, he said, the DOE owes Americans clarity about the nature of its work on chemical recycling.

“Whether it’s the Trump administration or the Biden administration, I don’t really care — the public should have transparency on what this department is doing on this issue, which has such serious implications for pollution and health and environment,” he said. “We’ll just keep pursuing it.” 

Editor’s note: ExxonKnews is a reporting project of the Center for Climate Integrity, an advocacy group that provides research and tools to help communities hold oil and gas corporations accountable. The center’s political staff was not involved in producing this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘Plastics are awesome’: Inside the Energy Department’s partnership with the plastics industry on Feb 3, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

New Caledonia’s mothballed northern nickel plant, Koniambo Nickel (KNS), has appointed a new chairman to steer a shareholding transfer amid the territory’s industry troubles.

He is Alexandre Rousseau, who was until now the company’s vice-president.

The company said in a release it had this month replaced Neil Meadows, who has held the position for the past three years.

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia nickel reports

Rousseau has been with the company for the past 15 years.

Like his predecessor, his main task will be to supervise the company’s main shareholder Anglo-Swiss Glencore’s transfer of shares to a yet-to-be-identified buyer.

The nickel plant, located in the north of New Caledonia’s main island, was mothballed in late August 2024, leaving about 1200 employees unemployed.

Glencore announced early last year its decision to withdraw from the venture, which had accumulated a staggering loss of 13.7 billion euros (NZ$25 billion) in 10 years of operation.

Seeking potential buyers
KNS has since been searching for potential buyers for Glencore’s 49 percent shares.

The majority shareholder (51 percent) remains Société Minière du Sud Pacifique (SMSP), which is the financial arm of New Caledonia’s Northern Province.

KNS said talks were ongoing with at least two interested international companies, which had sent inspection delegations on site during the last quarter of 2024.

Another nickel mining plant, Prony Resource, in the south of New Caledonia’s main island, is also seeking potential buyers for parts of its stock.

The most advanced talks are with South Africa’s precious metals producer Sibanye-Stillwater, which said it was considering Prony as a possible source for battery-grade nickel.

While Prony had to cease production for several months due to New Caledonia’s insurrection last year, it managed to gradually resume operations last month.

This is in view of a planned inspection visit from a Sibanye-Stillwater delegation, who want to see a functioning factory.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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More than a decade ago, loan financier Matt Martorello was worried that the golden days for his high-interest lending venture were over.

In an email to his accountants, he detailed how attorneys general in multiple states were sending cease-and-desist letters to the online enterprise he operated with a Native American tribe based in Michigan. Major banks wanted nothing to do with the business, which offered small-dollar loans at exorbitant interest rates far above limits set by many states. Federal regulators were suing his competitors.

The pressure was getting to be too much. Martorello feared the federal government seeking “every $ I have” in restitution, he wrote in the December 2012 email.

He was expecting his firm, then based in the Virgin Islands, to be audited by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and worried about the agency’s ability to put the tribal lending industry out of business. The federal agency was leaning hard on loan operations that formed alliances with tribes to claim sovereign immunity and bypass state laws that protect consumers.

“Bottom line is, this business will simply not exist in 2 to 3 years anything like it does right now,” Martorello wrote.

But none of that came to pass. In the 12 years since, the tribal loans kept flowing, fueling a multibillion-dollar industry built on punishing loan terms aimed at people who can least afford them.

How did the industry survive?

ProPublica found that tribal lending benefited from more than just sovereign immunity.

Powerful allies in the financial sector and payday loan industry, which encompasses all forms of short-term lending, have served as protectors at key junctures. Even as many states kicked out storefront payday and auto title lenders, online tribal lending flourished. Industry lobbyists helped beat back congressional plans for consumer protections, while payday industry lawyers dragged the CFPB to court and hindered the agency.

At the same time, differing approaches over three presidential administrations saw crackdowns on tribal lending excesses rise, then falter. Coming off a successful case that devastated one major tribal-affiliated operator, the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection bureau has been sidetracked by competing demands and a 2021 Supreme Court decision that constrained the agency’s ability to recover money from companies.

An FTC staff attorney who handled lending cases across a variety of industries told ProPublica that the agency monitors complaints but “can’t sue every bad actor.”

“We’re a small agency of limited resources. We have to pick and choose where we think we can make the greatest impact,” said Gregory Ashe, the attorney.

A wavering commitment at the federal level provided just enough leeway for the tribes to adapt and thrive. The consequences for consumers have been catastrophic.

Using a sample of personal bankruptcies nationwide over a three-year period, ProPublica found nearly 5% included unpaid high-interest loans linked to tribes. That translates to an estimated 19,000 cases on average per year.

“They gave me the money quick, but they also empty your pockets just as fast,” said Bobbie J. Williams, a sheet-metal worker from Rhode Island and father of four who needed an infusion of cash when he was sick with COVID-19. His 2022 bankruptcy petition included two tribal loans.

Since 2019, ProPublica found, on average more than 1,800 consumer complaints per year are routed to the FTC about these types of loans, which can carry annual percentage rates of over 600%. Complaints came from people in dire need, including single parents, people crushed under medical debt and others trying to stave off homelessness.

Consumer advocates do not expect that the second Trump administration will do anything to crack down on abusive lending practices linked to tribes or any other form of predatory lending. The billionaire Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s close adviser, posted “Delete CFPB” on X in November, signaling that the nation’s primary consumer watchdog could be on the chopping block in the new administration.

“We would like to see more enforcement action by both federal and state authorities,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center, which has advocated for tougher measures on payday lenders.

Martorello, who lives in Texas, declined through an attorney to comment for this story, citing “ongoing and pending litigation.” In the email to his accountants, which was later revealed as part of a civil suit, Martorello stressed he was operating legally and acting on the advice of major law firms. “I don’t want you to think that we are doing anything wrong, we certainly are NOT,” he wrote.

With Martorello’s fears about regulation unrealized, the website affiliated with his tribal partners — Big Picture Loans — is still online offering short-term installment loans. The tribe, which split with Martorello, charges APRs between 160% and 699%, it told ProPublica.

“We’ve helped more than 400,000 people experience a smarter way to borrow!” the website boasts.

For more than a decade, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley has tried to protect consumers from outrageous lending rates.

Over and over again — seven times in 12 years — the Oregon Democrat has proposed a bill to force internet lenders, including Native American companies, to comply with state interest rate caps and to register with the CFPB. Year after year the effort fails.

On the Senate floor in 2016, he pressed his colleagues for their support, explaining the reality of high-interest online loans. “These payday loans pull families into a vortex of debt from which they cannot escape, and this vortex destroys them financially,” he said.

Merkley got only 13 co-sponsors that year: all Democrats and one independent, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. The current version before the Senate has even fewer: 10.

His legislation has never even made it out of committee, a fate he attributes to the considerable influence of “the payday loan industry and big banks,” he told ProPublica in a prepared statement.

Payday lenders spent $4.9 million lobbying Congress in 2023, according to OpenSecrets, an organization that tracks money in politics. That includes $1.3 million laid out by the Online Lenders Alliance, a trade group that includes tribal lenders. “For Tribes involved in consumer lending, these enterprises have become a critical part of their economic development efforts as Tribes rely on business enterprises to provide essential government services to their members,” the Online Lenders Alliance told ProPublica in an email.

“This is a very entrenched industry with a lot of dollars at stake,” said University of New Mexico law professor Nathalie Martin, who has studied tribal lending.

Ellen Harnick, executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit that works to end abusive financial practices, said the payday industry hires high-priced, experienced lobbyists who ingratiate themselves with state and federal lawmakers through campaign contributions, dinner invitations and casual meetings while roaming the halls of power. The access gives them opportunities to argue that high-cost loans are beneficial for people who find it hard to obtain credit.

The result, she said, is that even legislators who would never counsel anyone they love to take on such burdensome debt nonetheless decide, “I’m not going to shut it down.”

Reform measures have been opposed by the Native American Financial Services Association, which represents tribal lenders, and a larger industry group: the American Financial Services Association, which advocates for the consumer credit industry and does not include tribal lenders.

Congressional action is a direct threat to tribal lending because while tribes claim immunity from state laws, they must comply with federal lending laws. Merkley’s bill would have given the federal government a means to force tribes to abide by state interest rate caps. The Online Lenders Alliance is against such caps, arguing they block some consumers from getting smaller loans necessary to make ends meet.

Currently, there is no federal interest rate cap, with one notable exception: Payday lenders cannot charge active-duty service members and their families more than 36% annually.

In every congressional session since 2008, separate from Merkley’s efforts, lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to extend that cap to all Americans.

Although banks and credit unions generally don’t charge over 36% for credit cards or other products, the larger financial industry has strongly opposed a cap. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2021 also formally opposed the legislation, arguing that it would harm consumers by limiting access to credit. Proponents of the cap say that 36% is high enough to facilitate lending and that unconscionable rates lead to major debt traps.

At times the role of Native Americans in the industry has been used to beat back the 36% cap. At a 2021 hearing, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, acknowledged the need to protect consumers from “bad actors and unscrupulous practices.” But he said the Senate also had to consider “the sovereignty issue” of Native Americans and the “good-paying jobs” the tribal lending industry provided in his state.

He suggested that the committee “massage this bill” to make it better, fearing that the bill as written could have negative impacts on tribes. The legislation never passed.

The Scott Tucker case, with its tales of lavish spending and colorful deception, temporarily brought attention to some of the questionable practices and partnerships associated with tribal lending.

Tucker controlled AMG Services Inc., an online payday lender that grew into a billion-dollar business. Inside the call center in Overland Park, Kansas, employees were instructed to pretend they were on tribal lands somewhere else in the country. They were given out-of-state weather reports to help play up the ruse in their small talk with customers.

AMG’s success helped fuel Tucker’s splashy lifestyle that included a side venture: Level 5 Motorsports, a professional auto racing team.

But Tucker’s life in the fast lane — complete with luxury homes, a Lear jet, and a fleet of Ferraris and Porsches — came to a screeching halt. In early 2016, a federal grand jury indicted him on charges related to collecting unlawful debts and failing to truthfully disclose loan terms. It claimed he entered into “sham business relationships” with three tribes and “systematically exploited” more than 4.5 million borrowers.

Tucker and his lawyer were convicted of participating in a racketeering enterprise, wire fraud and other charges. A judge sentenced Tucker to 200 months in prison and his lawyer to 84 months.

Tucker’s spectacular downfall, the subject of an episode of TV’s “American Greed,” sent waves of fear around the industry. Federal prosecutors also indicted a Philadelphia-area tribal lender and his lawyer around the same time as Tucker, but then brought no major criminal cases against others in the industry in the years that followed.

“I’m not aware of additional cases, and wouldn’t be able to comment on any ongoing investigations that may or may not exist,” U.S. Department of Justice spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle told ProPublica.

Earlier in the Obama administration, in an initiative dubbed Operation Choke Point, regulators sought to “choke off” fraud by pressuring bank executives and payment processors to scrutinize their relationships with industries deemed “high risk,” particularly payday lenders.

The effort briefly stalled tribal lending as the companies disabled lenders’ access to customers’ bank accounts, effectively incapacitating their operations.

But Republican lawmakers cried foul, seeing it as an attempt to stifle legal businesses. They hauled regulators into congressional hearings and chastised them. Faced with an uproar, regulators began to back off.

“I view it as tragic that it kind of blew up politically,” said Dru Stevenson, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston who studied the firestorm around Operation Choke Point.

He believes that although the program’s image suffered from a few overly aggressive officials, if it had run its course, “tribal lending would be in a different place, where it would be less abusive and less exploitative.”

The fallout likely had a long-term effect on enforcement, he said. “There’s too many people at these agencies who lived through the backlash of Operation Choke Point and it’s not worth the risk of having that come up again.”

The Trump administration officially ended Operation Choke Point and set a new, friendlier tone across agencies.

Trump’s appointee to head the CFPB, Mick Mulvaney, wrote in the CFPB’s five-year strategic plan in 2018 that the bureau would refrain from “pushing the envelope,” so as not to trample on the liberties of citizens or interfere with the sovereignty or autonomy of Native American tribes. That year he killed a case against Golden Valley Lending, a tribal lender based in California.

The CFPB, under Trump, also repealed a rule requiring payday lenders to determine whether borrowers had the ability to repay.

Another tribal lending operation in California continued for about a decade before being shut down by the FTC in May 2020 for deceptive practices. By then it had issued 285,700 consumer loans, totaling nearly $60 million. With fees and interest, borrowers had repaid a whopping $175 million. By the time the FTC acted, most of the profits had been spent or transferred overseas by nontribal business partners. The government ultimately returned less than $1 million to borrowers.

Regulation never ramped up again under President Joe Biden. In part that’s because the CFPB was hamstrung by an unfavorable appellate court ruling in a case brought by the payday lending industry that challenged the agency’s constitutionality. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court handed CFPB a major victory, upholding its funding mechanism and, therefore, its existence.

Empowered once again, the CFPB vowed to pursue predatory lenders and restart a dozen or so cases that stalled during the court fight. No tribal lender, however, appeared on that list. The CFPB, via a spokesperson, declined to comment for this story.

Matt Martorello, the Texas man who in 2012 feared the U.S. government stomping out tribal lending, ended up in court, but not because of any federal action.

A Virginia law firm, Kelly Guzzo PLC, filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of borrowers in 2017 against Martorello and council members of Michigan’s Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. Also named in the suit was Big Picture Loans LLC, which is owned by the tribe. The suit challenged the legality of the loans, given Virginia’s longstanding policies capping interest rates, and was followed by additional civil suits across the country.

Big Picture Loans settled in 2020 for $8.7 million in restitution for customers and $100 million in debt relief. Martorello, however, refused to give in.

His company, Eventide Credit Acquisitions LLC, unsuccessfully sued Big Picture Loans and its parent company to prevent it from settling. “It was a massive waste of everyone’s time and money,” the tribe told ProPublica in an email.

The tribe said it has no current relationship with Martorello following the 2016 purchase of a Martorello company that had been servicing its loans.

A judge ruled against Martorello in 2023 and ordered him to pay tens of millions to Virginia borrowers. That same judge also found that Martorello had been the “de facto head” of the tribe’s lending business, a finding he has vigorously disputed.

Earlier this year, Martorello agreed to a $65 million settlement with borrowers across the nation. But he later filed for bankruptcy and couldn’t raise enough money to fund the settlement by an agreed-upon deadline, voiding the deal. His legal battle challenging the 2023 judgment now will continue in a federal appeals court.

Eventide, the company he founded, also has filed for bankruptcy.

As part of that case, it has argued that if online tribal lending was not appropriate and violated state lending laws, then “Congress, the CFPB, and other federal agencies would have shut it down a long time ago.”

To do the best, most comprehensive reporting on this opaque industry, we want to hear from more of the people who know it best. Do you work for a tribal lending operation, either on a reservation or for an outside business partner? Do you belong to a tribe that participates in this lending or one that has rejected the industry? Are you a regulator or lawyer dealing with these issues? Have you borrowed from a tribal lender? All perspectives matter to us. Please get in touch with Megan O’Matz at megan.omatz@propublica.org or 954-873-7576, or Joel Jacobs at joel.jacobs@propublica.org or 917-512-0297. Visit propublica.org/tips for information on secure communication channels.

Mariam Elba contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Joel Jacobs and Megan O’Matz.

In response, Food & Water Watch Policy Director Jim Walsh issued the following statement:

“This study mirrors the Biden administration’s entire four-year approach to advancing a clean energy future: weak and half-hearted. Liquid natural gas exports systematically poison the most vulnerable frontline communities, pollute our air and water, and drive up domestic energy prices. We cannot continue to be victimized by the profit-driven agenda of fossil fuel corporations. President Biden must listen to the warnings of his own government by banning further LNG exports and rejecting pending LNG permits before he leaves office.

“Secretary Granholm's admission that continuing LNG exports will drive up costs and harm vulnerable communities is a sad reflection on what we have been saying for the last decade. It is time for this administration to start matching its rhetoric with action, and reject new LNG exports while it still can.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This week, Minister of Racing Winston Peters announced the end of greyhound racing in the interests of animal welfare.

Soon after, a law to criminalise killing of redundant racing dogs was passed under urgency in Parliament.

The next day, the minister introduced the Racing Industry Amendment Bill to preserve the TAB’s lucrative monopoly on sports betting which provides 90 percent of the racing industry’s revenue.

• READ MORE: Other digital platform pressure reports

“Offshore operators are consolidating a significant market share of New Zealand betting — and the revenue which New Zealand’s racing industry relies on is certainly not guaranteed,” Peters told Parliament in support of the Bill.

But offshore tech companies have also been pulling the revenue rug out from under local news media companies for years, and there has been no such speedy response to that.

Digital platforms offer cheap and easy access to unlimited overseas content — and tech companies’ dominance of the digital advertising systems and the resulting revenue is intensifying.

Profits from online ads shown to New Zealanders go offshore — and very little tax is paid on the money made here by the likes of Google and Facebook.

On Tuesday, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith did introduce legislation to repeal advertising restrictions for broadcasters on Sundays and public holidays.

“As the government we must ensure regulatory settings are enabling the best chance of success,” he said in a statement.

The media have been crying out for this low-hanging fruit for years — but the estimated $6 million boost is a drop in the bucket for broadcasters, and little help for other media.

The big bucks are in tech platforms paying for the local news they carry.

Squeezing the tech titans
In Australia, the government did it three years ago with a bargaining code that is funnelling significant sums to news media there. It also signalled the willingness of successive governments to confront the market dominance of ‘big tech’.

When Goldsmith took over here in May he said the media industry’s problems were both urgent and acute – likewise the need to “level the playing field”.

The government then picked up the former government’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, modelled on Australia’s move.

But it languishes low down on Parliament’s order paper, following threats from Google to cut news out of its platforms in New Zealand – or even cut and run from New Zealand altogether.

Six years after his Labour predecessor Kris Faafoi first pledged to follow in Australia’s footsteps in support of local media, Goldsmith said this week he now wants to wait and see how Australia’s latest tough measures pan out.

(The News Bargaining Incentive announced on Thursday could allow the Australian government to tax big digital platforms if they do not pay local news publishers there)

Meanwhile, news media cuts and closures here roll on.

The lid keeps sinking in 2024

“I’ve worked in the industry for 30 years and never seen a year like it,” RNZ’s Guyon Espiner wrote in The Listener this week, admitting to “a sense of survivor’s guilt”.

Just this month, 14 NZME local papers will close and more TVNZ news employees will be told they will lose jobs in what Espiner described as “destroy the village to save the village” strategy.

Whakaata Māori announced 27 job losses earlier this month and the end of Te Ao Māori News every weekday on TV. Its te reo channel will go online-only.

Digital start-ups with lower overheads than established news publishers and broadcasters are now struggling too.

“The Spinoff had just celebrated its 10th birthday when a fiscal hole opened up. Staff numbers are being culled, projects put on ice and a mayday was sent out calling for donations to keep the site afloat,” Espiner also wrote in his bleak survey for The Listener.

Spinoff founder Duncan Grieve has charted the economic erosion of the media all year at The Spinoff and on its weekly podcast The Fold.

In a recent edition, he said he could not carry on “pretending things would be fine” and did not want The Spinoff to go down without giving people the chance to save it.

“We get some (revenue) direct from our audience through members, some commercial revenue and we get funding for various New Zealand on Air projects typically,” Greive told RNZ Mediawatch this week.

“The members’ bucket is pretty solid. The commercial bucket was going quite well, and then we just ran into a brick wall. There has been a real system-wide shock to commercial revenues.

“But the thing that we didn’t predict which caused us to have to publish that open letter was New Zealand on Air. We’ve been able to rely on getting one or two projects up, but we’ve missed out two rounds in a row. Maybe our projects . . .  weren’t good enough, but it certainly had this immediate, near-existential challenge for us.”

Critics complained The Spinoff has had millions of dollars in public money in its first decade.

“While the state is under no obligation to fund our work, it’s hard to watch as other platforms continue to be heavily backed while your own funding stops dead,” Greive said in the open letter.

The open letter said Creative NZ funding had been halved this year, and the Public Interest Journalism Fund support for two of The Spinoff’s team of 31 was due to run out next year.

“I absolutely take on the chin the idea that we shouldn’t be reliant on that funding. Once you experience something year after year, you do build your business around that . . .  for the coming year. When a hard-to-predict event like that comes along, you are in a situation where you have to scramble,” Grieve told Mediawatch.

“We shot a flare up that our audience has responded to. We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re really pleased with the strength of support and an influx of members.”

Newshub shutdown
A recent addition to The Spinoff’s board — Glen Kyne — has already felt the force of the media’s economic headwinds in 2024.

He was the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery NZ and oversaw the biggest and most comprehensive news closure of the year — the culling of the entire Newshub operation.

“It was heart-wrenching because we had looked at and tried everything leading into that announcement. I go back to July 2022, when we started to see money coming out of the market and the cost of living crisis starting to appear,” Kyne told Mediawatch this week.

“We started taking steps immediately and were incredibly prudent with cost management. We would get to a point where we felt reasonably confident that we had a path, but the floor beneath our feet — in terms of the commercial market — kept falling. You’re seeing this with TVNZ right now.”

Warner Brothers Discovery is a multinational player in broadcast media. Did they respond to requests for help?

“They were empathetic. But Warner Brothers Discovery had lost 60-70 percent of its share price because of the issues around global media companies as well. They were very determined that we got the company to a position of profitability as quickly as we possibly could. But ultimately the economics were such that we had to make the decision.”

Smaller but sustainable in 2025? Or managed decline?

Kyne did a deal with Stuff to supply a 6pm news bulletin to TV channel Three after the demise of Newshub in July.

He is one of a handful of people who know the sums, but Stuff is certainly producing ThreeNews now with a fraction of the former budget for Newshub.

Can media outlets settle on a shape that will be sustainable, but smaller — and carry on in 2025 and beyond? Or does Kyne fear media are merely managing decline if revenue continues to slump?

“It’s slightly terrifying because the downward pressures are going to continue into next year. Three created a sustainable model for the 6pm bulletin to continue.

“Stuff is an enormous newsgathering organisation, so they were able to make it work and good luck to them. I can see that bulletin continuing to improve as the team get more experience.”

No news is really bad news
If news can’t be sustained at scale in commercial media companies even on reduced budgets, what then?

Some are already pondering a “post-journalism” future in which social media takes over as the memes of sharing news and information.

How would that pan out?

“We might be about to find out,” Greive told Mediawatch.

“Journalism doesn’t have a monopoly on information, and there are all kinds of different institutions that now have channels. A lot of what is created . . .  has a factual basis. Whether it’s a TikTok-er or a YouTuber, they are themselves consumers of news.

“A lot of people are replacing a habit of reading the newspaper and listening to ZB or RNZ with a new habit — consuming social media. Some of it has a news-like quality but it doesn’t have vetting of the information and membership of the Media Council . . .  as a way of restraining behaviour.

“We’ve got a big question facing us as a society. Either news becomes this esoteric, elite habit that is either pay-walled or alternatively there’s public media. If we [lose] freely-accessible, mass-audience channels, then we’ll find out what democracy, the business sector, the cultural sector looks like without that.

“In communities where there isn’t a single journalist, a story can break or someone can put something out . . .  and if there’s no restraint on that and no check on it, things are going to happen.

“In other countries, most notably Australia, they’ve recognised this looming problem, and there’s a quite muscular and joined-up regulator and legislator to wrestle with the challenges that represents. And we’re just not seeing that here.”

They are in Australia.

In addition to the News Bargaining Code and the just-signalled News Bargaining Incentive, the Albanese government is banning social media for under-16s. Meta has responded to pressure to combat financial scam advertising on Facebook.

Here, the media policy paralysis makes the government’s ferries plan look decisive. What should it do in 2025?

To-do in 2025
“There are fairly obvious things that could be done that are being done in other jurisdictions, even if it’s as simple as having a system of fines and giving the Commerce Commission the power to sort of scrutinise large technology platforms,” Greive told Mediawatch.

“You’ve got this general sense of malaise over the country and a government that’s looking for a narrative. It’s shocking when you see Australia, where it’s arguably the biggest political story — but here we’re just doing nothing.”

Not quite. There was the holiday ad reform legislation this week.

“Allowing broadcasting Christmas Day and Easter is a drop in the ocean that’s not going to materially change the outcome for any company here,” Kyne told Mediawatch.

“The Fair Digital News Bargaining bill was conceived three years ago and the world has changed immeasurably.

“You’ve seen Australia also put some really thoughtful white papers together on media regulation that really does bring a level of equality between the global platforms and the local media and to have them regulated under common legislation — a bit like an Ofcom operates in the UK, where both publishers and platforms, together are overseen and managed accordingly.

“That’s the type of thing we’re desperate for in New Zealand. If we don’t get reform over the next couple of years you are going to see more community newspapers or radio stations or other things no longer able to operate.”

Grieve was one of the media execs who pushed for Commerce Commission approval for media to bargain collectively with Google and Meta for news payments.

Backing the Bill – or starting again?
Local media executives, including Grieve, recently met behind closed doors to re-assess their strategy.

“Some major industry participants are still quite gung-ho with the legislation and think that Google is bluffing when it says that it will turn news off and break its agreements. And then you’ve got another group that think that they’re not bluffing, and that events have since overtaken [the legislation],” he said.

“The technology platforms have products that are always in motion. What they’re essentially saying — particularly to smaller countries like New Zealand — is: ‘You don’t really get to make laws. We decide what can and can’t be done’.

“And that’s quite a confronting thing for legislators. It takes quite a backbone and quite a lot of confidence to sort of stand up to that kind of pressure.”

The government just appointed a minister of rail to take charge of the current Cook Strait ferry crisis. Do we need a minister of social media or tech to take charge of policy on this part of the country’s infrastructure?

“We’ve had successive governments that want to be open to technology, and high growth businesses starting here.

“But so much of the internet is controlled by a small handful of platforms that can have an anti-competitive relationship with innovation in any kind of business that seeks to build on land that they consider theirs,” Greive said.

“A lot of what’s happened in Australia has come because the ACCC, their version of the Commerce Commission, has got a a unit which scrutinises digital platforms in much the same way that we do with telecommunications, the energy market and so on.

“Here there is just no one really paying attention. And as a result, we’re getting radically different products than they do in Australia.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

New York prosecutors have charged a suspect with murder for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was gunned down in Midtown Manhattan on December 4. The suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, who was captured in Pennsylvania on Monday after a five-day nationwide search. Police say Mangione was found with a handwritten manifesto, which they have not released. Although little is known about the motive for Thompson’s killing, there has been an outpouring of rage on social media directed at the health industry, with many sharing stories of having claims for vital care denied and losing precious time with loved ones during illness. Former healthcare executive Wendell Potter, now an advocate for reform, says the anger being expressed now has always been “barely below the surface” and was one of the reasons he left the industry. “I couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to support an industry that … established themselves firmly between a patient and his or her doctor,” says Potter. “What we’re seeing, sadly, in some form or fashion probably was inevitable.”

We also speak with Derrick Crowe of the People’s Action Institute, which runs the Care Over Cost campaign, helping people fight back against health insurance claims denials. “These corporations have too much power in this country. They are blocking progress on issues like gun violence and on the epidemic of care denials in this country, either through prior authorizations or through claims denials,” says Crowe.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

On Aug. 12, the Lao police, supported by their Chinese counterparts, swooped in. Some 711 people were arrested during the first week. Another 60 Lao and Chinese nationals were arrested by the end of the month, and more arrests have been made since.

The way Vientiane frames it, Laos is now getting tough on the vast cyber-scamming industry that has infested much of mainland Southeast Asia.

In Laos, the sector could be worth as much as the equivalent of 40 percent of the formal economy, according to a United States Institute of Peace report earlier this year.

The think tank estimated that criminal gangs could be holding as many as 85,000 workers in slave-like conditions in compounds in Laos.

People in Laos tell me there is some truth to Vientiane’s assertions. This might have been why Laos was downgraded to Tier 2 on the U.S. State Department’s annual human trafficking ranking in July, while Myanmar and Cambodia were downgraded to the lower Tier 3.

According to one expert, “Laos is taking this issue more seriously than Cambodia and has more capacity to respond than Myanmar.”

Admitting a problem is the first step, but Vientiane has been somewhat fortunate in how the scam industry has structured itself differently in Laos.

In Cambodia and Myanmar, for instance, scamming tends to be geographically dispersed with compounds across the country and controlled by different syndicates.

Zhao Wei’s empire

In Laos, however, the industry was, until very recently, almost entirely centered in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, an autonomous area long notorious for organized crime and run by the Chinese crime boss Zhao Wei and his Kings Roman Group, which has close ties to organized crime in China and Hong Kong.

The United Wa State Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Myanmar-based militias with large stakes in Southeast Asia’s drug trade, are also active in criminal activity, including scam centers, within the SEZ.

Initially, this centralization of criminality was a problem.

After the Golden Triangle SEZ was founded in 2007, on a 99-year concession awarded to Zhao, it essentially operated as a mini-fiefdom. The Lao authorities were not even allowed entrance to the economic zone, giving the criminals carte blanche.

This was a concern of a few nationalists within Laos’s communist party but tolerated by the majority, who regarded crime as a lesser evil, since Zhao and his associates were bringing in considerable foreign investment — and, of course, some cash to the political elites.

However, as the cyberscam problem has metastasized since 2022, this situation has made it somewhat easier for Laos to respond.

Because Zhao and his associates had established laundering trails to China and Myanmar years earlier, it meant that, unlike in Cambodia, most of the revenue from the scam industry immediately left Laos.

This limited the amount of money needing to be recycled or laundered through local conglomerates, thus reducing the sums needed to corrupt Laotian officials, politicians, and tycoons.

This meant that officials, especially those outside Bokeo province where the SEZ is located, weren’t contaminated by scam money, so they were not invested in protecting the racket.

Sovereignty over SEZ

By comparison, the scam industry is more geographically dispersed and controlled by more numerous players in Cambodia. This means much of the revenue stays within Cambodia where it is laundered through businesses run by some of the most prominent Cambodian oligarchs and politicians.

So well-connected has the industry become that even if a faction within Cambodia’s government favored a full-frontal assault on the scammers, they know they would have to take on most of the country’s political aristocracy and oligarchy, risking strife within the ruling party.

Scamming isn’t such an existential threat for the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, or LPRP.

Indeed, the normally sedate National Assembly has noisily pressed Vientiane to tackle the scam problem, even last year rejecting a proposed government bill to toughen up regulations on SEZs for being too weak.

In May, the Lao government reshuffled the leadership of Bokeo province, where the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone is located, ostensibly to clean out officials who had been bought off.

Vientiane has somewhat reasserted its sovereignty over the zone this year.

Through discussion and threats, it got Zhao and his Kings Roman Group to accept greater access for Laotian police and troops to the economic zone. That said, Zhao and associates can still limit what Lao authorities can do in the zone

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Another advantage is that Zhao serves more at the whim of the Chinese Communist Party, which wants to crack down on parts of the scam industry in Southeast Asia, than some of the more independent operators in Cambodia and Myanmar.

And the Lao government is also more dependent on Beijing than Cambodia’s authoritarian government.

Pressure from China

That means Vientiane, which relies almost entirely on Chinese investment for economic growth and on Chinese debt relief so the state doesn’t go bust, cannot say no when Beijing orders it to move on the scammers.

The raids on the Golden Triangle SEZ in August came after a meeting earlier that month between the Lao Ministry of Public Security and Zhao – and just weeks after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Vientiane.

However, we must also ask whether Laos’s cure is actually creating a worse disease.

According to a USIP report last month, the Aug. 6 meeting between government officials and Zhao Wei, weeks before the raid on his GTSEZ, “gave criminal kingpins and their senior [scam] compound managers ample time to relocate. Many of them shifted operations to Cambodia or the Myanmar border with Thailand.”

Simply scaring off some scammers to Cambodia might not be the best regional response, although Vientiane probably won’t give a fig about this.

However, Vientiane would care if scammers are now merely set up shop elsewhere in Laos. One source tells me that they are already embedding themselves in the capital and near the Laos-China border.

Depending on how things play out, Laos might end up with a diffuse scam industry that’s structured a lot more like Cambodia’s — and which is far harder to dismantle.

Dispersing the scam compounds means increasing contacts between the criminals and officials from other provinces. Less sophisticated syndicates mean more of the scamming profits stay in-country, laundered through the local economy, infecting everything.

Narco-states like Mexico and Colombia have learned the brutal lesson that it’s simpler to deal with an illegal industry run by one dominant cartel, even one you have to tolerate, rather than a scorched-earth free-for-all between many warring factions.

Possibly, a similar impulse may be why Vientiane seemingly wants to push Zhao and his associates enough for some smaller operators to flee the country, but not enough that the Golden Triangle SEZ collapses.

David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by David Hutt.

The post #4. Natural Gas Industry Hid Health and Climate Risks of Gas Stoves appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

China has intensified its efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in the semiconductor sector in recent years, driven by export restrictions on advanced chips and manufacturing tools imposed by the U.S. and other countries. Despite this push, China still lags significantly behind the leading players in the chip industry.

The new package includes curbs on China-bound shipments of high bandwidth memory chips and new curbs on 24 additional chipmaking tools and three software tools, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security on Monday.

The bureau also established new foreign direct product controls for certain semiconductor manufacturing equipment items that originate in foreign countries, but are produced with U.S. technology, software or tools.

While equipment produced in countries such as Israel, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan will be subject to the rule, Japan and the Netherlands will be exempt.

“This action is the culmination of the Biden-Harris Administration’s targeted approach, in concert with our allies and partners, to impair the PRC’s ability to indigenize the production of advanced technologies that pose a risk to our national security,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, referring China to its official name, the People’s Republic of China.

Chinese firms facing new restrictions include nearly two dozen semiconductor companies, two investment companies and more than 100 chipmaking tool makers, including Naura Technology Group, Piotech, ACM Research and SiCarrier Technology as well as Swaysure Technology, Si’En Qingdao, and Shenzhen Pensun Technology, which work with China’s Huawei Technologies.

China vowed to take “resolute measures” in response to the new export curbs.

“We have repeatedly made clear our position on this issue. China firmly opposes the U.S.’ overstretching the concept of national security, abusing export controls, and maliciously blocking and suppressing China,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a press briefing.

“This type of behavior seriously violates the laws of market economy and the principle of fair competition, disrupts international economic and trade order, destabilizes global industrial and supply chains, and will eventually harm the interests of all countries,” he added.

Tough policy stance on China

The restrictions come as the U.S. President Joe Biden is set to leave office on Jan. 20 with President-elect Donald Trump expected to adopt a tough policy stance on China.

Trump said last month he would impose an additional 10% tariff on all products coming into the U.S. from China on his first day in office as penalties for deadly fentanyl and illegal immigrants, which he said were pouring across borders into the U.S.

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Separately, on Saturday, the president-elect threatened to impose 100% tariffs on the BRICS nations if they were to create a rival currency to the U.S. dollar.

BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising nine countries, including China and Russia.

“We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new Brics currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or they will face 100% tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

Trump’s election victory sparked concern in China, where many expect the next president to take a tougher stand than his predecessor, particularly on trade and economic issues, with negative repercussions for an already struggling Chinese economy.

Edited by RFA Staff.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

A type of lithium-ion battery called lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, is becoming increasingly prevalent in EVs around the world. Manufacturers like Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, Tesla, and others are now offering these packs as an alternative to, or an outright replacement for, the nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) and nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA) chemistries that have dominated for years. While LFP cells made up just 6 percent of the market in 2020, they’ve now jumped to roughly 30 percent.

What do all these obscure elements — and dizzying series of acronyms — really mean, and what’s the significance for the vehicles that will hit the road over the next few years? Let’s dig into the details.

First, a quick primer on how lithium-ion batteries work (for a deeper dive, check out this in-depth explainer).

Batteries have three major components: anode, cathode, and electrolyte. When there’s a draw created in an electrical circuit — for example, when you press your EV’s ​“on” button — a chemical reaction occurs within the battery. Negative ions travel between anode and cathode, across the electrolyte, to generate current. It’s the cathode that determines the battery’s behavior, including its temperature resilience, energy density, and overall lifespan.

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When we talk about lithium-ion chemistries, we’re really talking about the materials that make up the cathode, which in an LFP battery is literally lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4). More significant, though, is what’s missing from an LFP cathode.

LFP batteries have a few key advantages, but for anyone who’s concerned about the environmental and ethical impact of EV ownership, the primary benefit is that LFP batteries do not contain materials like nickel, manganese, or cobalt.

These minerals are problematic in numerous ways. Mining them takes a heavy environmental toll, damaging local ecologies in areas that lack regulations, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar. This has devastated local communities and led to the exploitation of their workers.

LFP batteries also cost significantly less. According to BloombergNEF’s analysis, LFP cells, on average, are 32 percent cheaper than NMC cells. Sunoj George, director of battery engineering and propulsion architecture at Rivian, said that his company has seen savings of 20 percent to 30 percent with LFP. In September, LFP batteries fell below $60 per kilowatt-hour, helping drive global battery cell prices to a record low.

LFP batteries are also more resilient, resulting in a longer lifespan. This means that vehicles with an LFP battery can handle more charge-discharge cycles before the battery begins to lose capacity, making EVs well suited for fleets and other applications requiring frequent recharges.

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This resilience also helps these batteries handle extreme temperatures. ​“LFP offers more thermal stability than ternary [three-part] battery systems like NCM or NCA,” Rivian’s George said. So battery fires are less of a concern for LFP-powered cars.

If LFP batteries have all those advantages, why aren’t they in every single EV? Sadly, they have some significant downsides.

The biggest is energy density. An LFP battery will offer fewer kilowatt-hours of capacity for a given weight and volume. This means fewer miles of outright range on a charge. That’s offset somewhat by the faster charging mentioned above, so for frequent, short trips, this is less of an issue. But, since so many consumers still look at maximum range before any other factor, this is a potential strike against LFP-powered cars.

Another issue is poor cold-weather performance. LFP-powered EVs lose more of their maximum range when the battery is cold and can even struggle to recharge in low temperatures.

But there are ways to address this. Rivian’s George says that the company’s ​“thermal conditioning system” makes it so that ​“the customer should not see any perceivable difference” between LFP’s cold-weather performance and that of NCM or NCA batteries.

Finally, while LFP batteries cost less to manufacture, they are also worth less when recycling. ​“There is less inherent metal value in an LFP pack versus a nickel-based pack,” said Jackson Switzer, vice president of commercial at Redwood Materials. Less value potentially means less motivation to recycle these batteries, but the good news is that they’re just as easily recyclable.

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So it’s a give-and-take, but manufacturers are increasingly deciding that the trade-offs are worthwhile, especially in their fleet applications.

Mercedes-Benz selected LFP cells for its new eSprinter van. ​“Cell degradation is lower than other batteries, ensuring durability and low maintenance requirements at the very same time as well. It’s ideal for light commercial vehicles,” said Klaus Rehkugler, head of sales and marketing at Mercedes-Benz Vans.

Lisa Drake, vice president of EV programs and energy supply chain at Ford, said that as EV charging stations become more widespread, LFP cells will make more sense: ​“People are more willing to accept shorter trips, smaller trips, but they want to [charge] more often. And they want to fast-charge more often. And LFP battery technology allows them to do that.”

The same is true for personal-use vehicles. Mercedes-Benz unveiled its Concept CLA Class last year, a small, next-generation electric sedan to debut next year. Markus Schäfer, chief technology officer at Mercedes-Benz, said that the company will offer different battery technologies. ​“We need to split, so that’s an entry version with an LFP battery with a smaller range. In terms of kilometers, it could be 500 kilometers [311 miles] on this CLA Class car,” he said. ​“But on the upper end, you could opt for more horsepower, for more range.” The performance-oriented version, then, would rely on non-LFP design.

Going forward, LFP is projected to continue to gain momentum. An April report from BloombergNEF points to a continual increase in LFP production in China by major suppliers like CATL, along with expanding output from manufacturers elsewhere in the world, like LG Energy Solution in South Korea.

Given LFP batteries’ durability and cost advantages, Ford’s Drake believes that lining up an LFP supply will be vital for manufacturers: ​“If you don’t have LFP in your fleet, I don’t know how you will really scale.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A new generation of cheaper batteries is sweeping the EV industry on Nov 17, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Tim Stevens, Canary Media.

For Samantha Magick, journalism isn’t just a job. It is a lifelong commitment to storytelling, advocacy, and empowering voices often overlooked in the Pacific.

As the managing editor and publisher at Islands Business, the Pacific Islands’ longest surviving news and business monthly magazine, Magick’s commitment to quality reporting and journalistic integrity has established her as a leading figure in the region’s news industry.

Magick’s passion for journalism began at a young age.

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“I wanted to be a journalist when I was like 12,” Magick recalls. “When I left school, that’s all I wanted to study.”

She remembers her family’s disapproval when she would write stories as a child, as they thought she was “sharing secrets”. Despite that early condemnation, Magick’s thriving journalism career has taken her across continents and exposed her to diverse media landscapes.

After completing a Bachelor of Communications with a major in journalism at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, Australia, Magick began her career at Communications Fiji Limited (CFL), a prominent Fijian commercial network.

She progressed over 11 years from a cadet to CFL’s news director.

Guidance of first boss
Magick attributes some of her early success to the guidance of her first boss and CFL’s founder, William Parkinson. She considers herself fortunate to have had a supportive mentor who led by example and dared to take risks early in life, such as founding a radio station in his 20s.

After leaving CFL, Magick’s career took her across the globe, including regional Pacific non-government organisations, news publications in Hawai’i and Indonesia, and even international legal organisations in Italy.

Magick, who is of both Fijian and Australian heritage, returned to Suva in 2018, where she began her current role as Islands Business’s managing editor.

“I’ve chosen to make my life in Fiji because I feel more myself here,” Magick says, reflecting on her deep connection to the island nation.

Magick’s vision for Islands Business focuses on delving into the deeper, underlying narratives often overshadowed by breaking news cycles and free, readily available news content.

“We need to be able to demonstrate the value of investigation, big picture reporting rather than the day-to-day stuff,” Magick says.

Magick prides herself on creating a diverse and inclusive newsroom that reflects the communities it serves.

Need for diverse newsroom
“You have to have a diverse newsroom,” she emphasises, recognising the importance of amplifying marginalised voices. “For example, there is a conscious effort to make sure our magazine is not full of photos of men shaking hands with other men.”

Magick also believes journalists have a responsibility to advocate for change, as demonstrated by Islands Business’s dedication to tackling pressing issues from climate change to media freedom.

“Why would I give a climate change denier space?” Magick questions when discussing the need to balance objectivity and advocacy. “Because it’s kind of going to sell magazines? Because it’s going to create a bit of a stir online? That’s not something we believe in.”

Despite her success, Magick’s career has not been without challenges. Magick worked through Fiji’s former draconian media restriction laws under the Media Industry Development Act 2010, while also navigating the shift to digital media.

Magick emphasises the need to constantly upskill and re-evaluate strategies to ensure she and Islands Business can effectively navigate the constantly evolving media landscape.

From learning to capitalise on social media analytics to locating reputable information sources when many of them feared to speak to the journalists due to the risk of legal retribution, Magick believes flexibility and perseverance are crucial to staying ahead in media.

In her early career, Magick also faced sexism and misogyny in the media industry. “When I think back about the way I was treated as a young journalist, I feel sick,” Magick says as she reflects on how she and her female colleagues would warn each other against interviewing certain sources alone.

Supporting aspiring journalists
The challenges Magick has faced undoubtably contribute to her dedication to supporting aspiring journalists, as evident through Kite Pareti’s journey. Starting as a freelance writer with no newswriting experience in March 2022, Pareti has since progressed to one of two full-time reporters at Islands Business.

Pareti expresses gratitude for the opportunities she’s had while working at Islands Business, and for the mentorship of Magick, whom she describes as “family”.

“Samantha took a chance on me when I had zero knowledge on news writing,” Pareti says. “So I’m grateful to God for her life and for allowing me to experience this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Magick reciprocates this sentiment. “Recently, I am inspired by some of our younger reporters in the field, and their ability to embrace and leverage technology — they’re teaching me.”

Magick anticipates an exciting period ahead for Islands Business, as she aims to attract a younger, professionally driven, and regionally focused audience to their platforms.

When asked about her aspirations for journalism in the region, Magick says she hopes to see a future where Pacific voices remain at the centre, “telling their own stories in all their diversities”.

Teagan Laszlo was a student journalist from the Queensland University of Technology who travelled to Fiji with the support of the Australian Government’s New Colombo Plan Mobility Programme. This article is published in a partnership of QUT with Asia Pacific Report, Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and The University of the South Pacific.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

The front group, Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, has conducted a series of in-person events with policymakers and key Democratic-leaning groups this year aimed at building support for its policy goals. Those agenda items include a set of dirty energy industry giveaways by Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.V.) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) that will eviscerate public interest review requirements for liquified natural gas (LNG) exports and encourage the construction of massive export terminals in largely Black, Brown, and low-income communities.

Natural Allies is led by three former Democratic members of Congress, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Tim Ryan of Ohio, and Kendrick Meek of Florida, as well as former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. The group’s corporate funders include gas industry players Williams Companies, EQT, Kinder Morgan, TC Energy, Enbridge, and Venture Global.

Key takeaways from the report include:

• Since it was launched in 2020, the group has spent $10.4 million over three years, with over $8.9 million directed to the advertising and public relations giant Omnicom, the parent company of Mercury Public Affairs—the firm that initially launched Natural Allies.
• Since its inception, Natural Allies has seen substantial growth in revenue, skyrocketing from $1.75 million in 2020 to $9.1 million in 2022, totaling $15.6 million over its first three years. The group has spent more than $1 million on Facebook ads alone, generating tens of millions of impressions.
• While using former Democratic officials to peddle their interests in Democratic circles, Natural Allies’ corporate funders overwhelmingly back Republicans. Political action committees and super PACs tied to Natural Allies’ corporate funders have spent $3.5 million on federal political races since 2020, with 79 percent going to Republicans, including EQT Corp’s $250,000 contribution to a Super PAC backing Republican Senate candidates.
• While the group deceptively pushes natural gas as a “partner” to renewables, its real goal is to promote continued use of methane, saying in an internal strategy document that “success for the natural gas industry will be rooted in whether we can message to the left and the Democratic base of black and Latino and age 18 to 34 voters as effectively as we have messaged to the right.”

Throughout 2024, the group has stepped up its visibility in Democratic Party circles, inaccurately promoting natural gas as a “clean” energy source in public meetings. The group has also been criticizing Biden administration policies that aim to consider the impacts of gas exports on communities, consumers, and the climate.

“The methane gas industry is laundering its dirty agenda by employing former Democratic politicians, using their connections from their time in public service to advocate for fossil fuel industry priorities,” said Alan Zibel, a research director at Public Citizen and an author of the report. “From voicing support for harmful gas drilling to promoting gas exports as a false climate solution, these unnatural alliances are the latest iteration of greenwashing tactics used by the fossil fuel industry.”

“The natural gas industry is leveraging the pernicious power of the ‘revolving door’ phenomenon to turbocharge their efforts to confuse Democratic politicians and voters alike about the impact of methane gas on the climate, their health, and their pocketbooks,” said Hannah Story Brown, senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project. “When former politicians lobby their ex-colleagues or hobnob with insiders at high-profile events, they have an outsized reach, with their past public service lending credibility to ideas they’re being paid to peddle. Natural Allies’ internal strategy documents reveal how they’ve capitalized on this phenomenon, hiring former politicians Mary Landrieu, Tim Ryan, Michael Nutter, and Kendrick Meek to their Leadership Council to provide ‘third-party validation’ of industry talking points.”

“The ongoing boom in fossil gas production and exports is condemning frontline communities to deadly pollution, saddling consumers with higher energy prices, and locking in catastrophic warming. Rather than telling the truth about the destructive nature of fracked gas, some former Democratic officials on the payroll of Big Oil are downplaying the harms of methane emissions while sowing doubt about the reliability and affordability of genuinely clean power,” said Revolving Door Project senior researcher Kenny Stancil. “Natural Allies’ attempt to launder the reputation of gas—a fossil fuel that worsens environmental injustice—is shameful.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

As CHOGM came to a close, Samoa rightfully basked in the resounding success for the country and people as hosts of the Commonwealth leaders’ meeting.

Footage of Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa swaying along to the siva dance as she sat beside Britain’s King Charles III encapsulated a palpable national pride, well deserved on delivering such a high-profile gathering.

Getting down to the business of dissecting the meeting outcomes — in the leaders’ statement and Samoa communiqué — there are several issues that are significant for the Pacific island members of this post-colonial club.

• READ MORE: Other CHOGM 2024 reports

As expected, climate change features prominently in the text, with more than 30 mentions including three that refer to the “climate crisis”. This will resonate highly for Pacific members, as will the support for COP 31 in 2026 to be jointly hosted by Australia and the Pacific.

Samoa’s Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa opening CHOGM 2024. Video: Talamua Media

One of the glaring contradictions of this joint COP bid is illustrated by the lack of any call to end fossil fuel extraction in the final outcomes.

Tuvalu, Fiji and Vanuatu used the CHOGM to launch the latest Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative report, with a focus on Australia’s coal and gas mining. This reflects the diversity of Commonwealth membership, which includes some states whose economies remain reliant on fossil fuel extractive industries.

As highlighted ahead of CHOGM, this multilateral gave the 56 members a chance to consider positions to take to COP 29 next month in Baku, Azerbaijan. The communiqué from the leaders highlights the importance of increased ambition when it comes to climate finance at COP 29, and particularly to address the needs of developing countries.

Another drawcard
That speaks to all the Pacific island nations and gives the region’s negotiators another drawcard on the international stage.

Then came the unexpected, Papua New Guinea made a surprise announcement that it will not attend the global conference in Baku next month. Speaking at the Commonwealth Ministerial Meeting on Small States, PNG’s Foreign Affairs Minister Justin Tkatchenko framed this decision as a stand on behalf of small island nations as a protest against “empty promises and inaction.”

As promised, a major output of this meeting was the Apia Commonwealth Ocean Declaration for One Resilient Common Future. This is the first oceans-focused declaration by the Commonwealth of Nations, and is somewhat belated given 49 of its 56 member states have ocean borders.

The declaration has positions familiar to Pacific policymakers and activists, including the recognition of national maritime boundaries despite the impacts of climate change and the need to reduce emissions from global shipping. A noticeable omission is any reference to deep-sea mining, which is also a faultline within the Pacific collective.

The text relating to reparations for trans-Atlantic slavery required extensive negotiation among the leaders, Australia’s ABC reported. While this issue has been driven by African and Caribbean states, it is one that touches the Pacific as well.

‘Blackbirding’ reparative justice
South Sea Islander “blackbirding” is one of the colonial practices that will be considered within the context of reparative justice. During the period many tens-of-thousands of Pacific Islanders were indentured to Australia’s cane fields, Fiji’s coconut plantations and elsewhere.

The trade to Queensland and New South Wales lasted from 1847 to 1904, while those destinations were British colonies until 1901. Indeed, the so-called “sugar slaves” were a way of getting cheap labour once Britain officially abolished slavery in 1834.

The next secretary-general of the Commonwealth will be Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey. Questions have been raised about the quality of her predecessor Patricia Scotland’s leadership for some time and the change will hopefully go some way in alleviating concerns.

Notably, the CHOGM has selected another woman to lead its secretariat. This is an important endorsement of female leadership among member countries where women are often dramatically underrepresented at national levels.

While it received little or no fanfare, the Commonwealth has also released its revised Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance. This is a welcome contribution, given the threats to media freedom in the Pacific and elsewhere. It reflects a longstanding commitment by the Commonwealth to supporting democratic resilience among its members.

These principles do not come with any enforcement mechanism behind them, and the most that can be done is to encourage or exhort adherence. However, they provide another potential buffer against attempts to curtail their remit for publishers, journalists, and bloggers in Commonwealth countries.

The outcomes reveal both progress and persistent challenges for Pacific island nations. While Apia’s Commonwealth Ocean Declaration emphasises oceanic issues, its lack of provisions on deep-sea mining exposes intra-Commonwealth tensions. The change in leadership offers a pivotal opportunity to prioritise equity and actionable commitments.

Ultimately, the success of this gathering will depend on translating discussions into concrete actions that address the urgent needs of Pacific communities facing an uncertain future.

But as the guests waved farewell, the question of what the Commonwealth really means for its Pacific members remains until leaders meet in two years time in Antigua and Barbuda, a small island state in the Caribbean.

Tess Newton Cain is a principal consultant at Sustineo P/L and adjunct associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. She is a former lecturer at the University of the South Pacific and has more than 25 years of experience working in the Pacific Islands region. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Tuvalu’s Transport, Energy, and Communications Minister Simon Kofe has expressed doubt about Australia’s reliability in addressing the climate crisis.

Kofe was reacting to the latest report by report by the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, which found that Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom are responsible for more than 60 percent of emissions generated from extraction of fossil fuels across Commonwealth countries since 1990.

Kofe told RNZ Pacific that the report proves that Australia has essentially undermined its own climate credibility.

• READ MORE: Is New Zealand’s immigration ‘set up’ to take in climate migrants from the Pacific?
• Other CHOGM reports

He said that there is a sense of responsibility on Tuvalu, being at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, to continue to advocate for stronger climate action and to talk to its partners.

“When the climate crisis really hits these countries, I think that might really get their attention. But that might actually be too late when countries actually begin to take this issue seriously,” he said.

He noted that Australia approved the extension of three more coal mines last month, which demonstrates that “there’s a lot of work to be done”.

‘Shoots their credibility’
“I think [that] kind of shoots their own credibility in the in the climate space.”

While Pacific leaders have endorsed Australia’s bid to host the United Nations climate change conference, or COP31, in 2026, Kofe said that if Australia really wanted to take leadership on the climate front, then they needed to show it in their actions.

“They are in control of their own policies and decisions. All we can do is continue to talk to them and put pressure on them,” he said.

“We just have to keep pressuring our partner, Australia, to do the right thing.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Janine Jackson interviewed writer/researcher Derek Seidman about insurance and climate  for the October 4, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Janine Jackson: As we watch images of devastation from Hurricane Helene, it’s hard not to hold—alongside sadness at the obvious loss—anger at the knowledge that things didn’t have to be this way. Steps could have been, still could be taken, to mitigate the impact of climate change, and making weather events more extreme, and steps could be taken that help people recover from the disastrous effects of the choices made.

As our guest explains, another key player in the slow-motion trainwreck that is US climate policy—along with fossil fuel companies and the politicians that abet them—is the insurance industry, whose role is not often talked about.

Washington Post (9/3/24)

Derek Seidman is a writer, researcher and historian. He contributes regularly to Truthout and to LittleSis. He joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Derek Seidman.

Derek Seidman: Hey, thank you. Great to be here.

JJ: In your super helpful piece for Truthout, you cite a Washington Post story from last September. Here’s the headline and subhead:

Home Insurers Cut Natural Disasters From Policies as Climate Risks Grow:

Some of the largest US insurance companies say extreme weather has led them to end certain coverages, exclude natural disaster protections and raise premiums.

I think that drops us right into the heart of the problem you outline in that piece. What’s going on, and why do you call it the insurance industry’s “self-induced crisis”?

DS: Thank you. Well, certainly there is a growing crisis. The insurance industry is pulling back from certain markets and regions and states, because the costs of insuring homes and other properties are becoming too expensive to remain profitable, with the rise of extreme weather. And so we’ve seen a lot of coverage in the past few months over this growing crisis in the insurance industry.

Derek Seidman: “The insurance industry itself is a main actor in driving the rise of extreme weather, through its very close relationship to the fossil fuel industry.”

But one of the critical things that’s left out of this is that the insurance industry itself is a main actor in driving the rise of extreme weather, through its very close relationship to the fossil fuel industry. And in this narrative in the corporate media, the insurance industry on the one hand and extreme weather on the other hand, are often treated like they’re completely separate things, and they’re just sort of coming together, and this “crisis” is being created, and it’s a real problem that the connections aren’t being made there.

So I guess a couple things that should be said, first, are that the insurance industry is the fossil fuel industry, and its operations could not exist without the insurance industry.

We can look at that relationship in two ways. So first, of course, is through insurance. The insurance giants, AIG, Liberty Mutual and so on and so on, they collectively rake in billions of dollars every year in insuring fossil fuel industry infrastructure, whether that’s pipelines or offshore oil rigs or liquified natural gas export terminals. This fossil fuel infrastructure and its continued expansion, this simply could not exist without underwriting by the insurance industry. It would not get its permit approvals, it would just not be able to operate, it couldn’t attract investors and so on. So that’s one way.

Another way is that, and this is something a lot of people might not be aware of, but the insurance industry is an enormous investor in the fossil fuel industry. Basically, one of the ways the insurance industry makes money is it takes the premiums, and it pools a chunk of it and invests those. So it’s a major investor. And the insurance industry, across the board, has tens of billions of dollars invested in the fossil fuel industry.

And this is actually stuff that anybody can go and look up, because some of it’s public. So, for example, the insurance giant AIG, because it’s a big investor, it has to disclose its investments with the SEC. And earlier this year, AIG disclosed that, for example, it had $117 million invested in ExxonMobil, $83 million invested in Chevron, $46 million in Conoco Phillips, and so on and so on.

Jacobin (2/7/22)

So, on the one hand, you have this hypocritical cycle where the insurance industry is saying to ordinary homeowners, who are quite desperate, we need to jack up the price on your premiums, or we need to pull away altogether, we can’t insure you anymore—while, on the other hand, it’s driving and enabling and profiting from the very operations, fossil fuel operations, that are causing this extreme weather in the first place, that the insurance industry is then using to justify pulling back from insuring just regular homeowners.

JJ: This is a structural problem, clearly, that you’re pointing to, and you don’t want to be too conspiratorial about it. But these folks do literally have dinner with one another, these insurance executives and the fossil fuel companies. And then I want to add, you complicate it even further by talking about knock-on effects, that include making homes uninsurable. When that happens, well, then, that contributes to this thing where banks and hedge funds buy up homes. So it’s part of an even bigger cycle that folks probably have heard about.

DS: Yeah, absolutely. This whole scenario, it’s horrible, because it impacts homeowners and renters. If you talk to landlords, they say that the rising costs of insurance are their biggest expense, and they are, in part, taking that out on tenants by raising rents, right?

But it also really threatens this global financial stability. I mean, with the rise of extreme weather, and homes becoming more expensive to insure, or even uninsurable, home values can really collapse. And when they collapse, aside from the horrific human drama of all that, banks are reacquiring foreclosed homes that, in turn, are unsellable because of extreme weather, and they can’t be insured.

The big picture of all this is that it leads to banks acquiring a growing amount of risky properties, and it can create a lot of financial instability. And we saw what happened after 2008, as you mentioned, with private equity coming in and scooping up homes. And so, yeah, it creates a lot of systemic financial instability, opens the door for financial predators like private equity and hedge funds to come in.

JJ: And it seems to require an encompassing response, a response that acknowledges the various moving pieces of this. I wonder, finally, is there responsive law or policy, either on the table now or just maybe in our imagination, that would address these concerns?

Insure Our Future

DS: There are organizers that are definitely starting to do something about it, and there are some members of Congress that are also starting to do something about it.

For this story, I interviewed some really fantastic groups. One of them is Insure Our Future, and this is sort of a broader campaign that is working with different groups around the country, and really demanding that insurers stop insuring new fossil fuel build-out, that they phase out their insurance coverage for existing fossil fuels, for all the reasons that we’ve been talking about today.

At the state level, there’s groups that are doing really important and interesting things. So one of the groups that I interviewed was called Connecticut Citizen Action Group, and they’ve been working hard, in coalition with other groups in Connecticut, to introduce and pass a state bill that would create a climate fund to support residents that are impacted by extreme weather. (Connecticut has seen its fair share of extreme weather.) And this fund would be financed by taxing insurance policies in the state that are connected to fossil fuel projects. So it’s also a disincentive to invest in fossil fuels.

In New York, a coalition of groups and lawmakers just introduced something called the Insure Our Communities bill. And this would ban insurers from underwriting new fossil fuel projects, and it would set up new protections for homeowners that are facing extreme weather disasters.

I spoke to organizers in Freeport, Texas, with a group called Better Brazoria, and these are people that are on the Gulf Coast, really on the front lines. And Better Brazoria is just one of a number of frontline groups along the Gulf Coast that are organizing around the insurance industry, and they’re trying to meet with insurance giants, and say to them, “Look, what you’re doing is, we’re losing our homeowner insurance while you’re insuring these risky LNG plants that are getting hit by hurricanes, and fires are starting,” and trying to make the case to them that this is just not even good business for them.

And then, more recently, you’ve seen Bernie Sanders and others start to hold the insurance industry’s feet to the fire a little more, opening up investigations into their connection to the fossil fuel industry, and how this is creating financial instability.

Truthout (9/27/24)

So I think this is becoming more and more of an issue that people are seeing is a real problem for the financial system, and it’s something that we should absolutely think about when we think about the climate crisis, and the broader infrastructure that’s enabling the fossil fuel industry to exist, and continue its polluting operations that are causing the climate crisis and extreme weather. So I think we’re going to see only more of this going forward.

JJ: All right, then, we’ll end it there for now.

We’ve been speaking with Derek Seidman. You can find his article, “As Florida Floods, Insurance Industry Reaps What It Sowed Backing Fossil Fuels,” on Truthout.org. Thank you so much, Derek Seidman, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

DS: Thank you.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

A South African company is reported to be the most probable bidder for shares in New Caledonia’s Prony Resources.

As part of an already advanced takeover of the ailing southern plant of Prony Resources, the most probable bidder is reported to be South African group Sibaneye-Stillwater, local new media report.

Just like the other two major mining plants and smelters in New Caledonia, Prony Resources is facing acute hardships due to the emergence of Indonesia as a major player on the world market, compounded with New Caledonia’s violent unrest that broke out in May.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia mining reports

Prony Resources has been trying to find a possible company to take over the shares held by Swiss trader Trafigura (19 percent).

The process was recently described as very favourable to a “seriously interested” buyer.

Citing reliable sources, daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes yesterday named South Africa’s Sibanye-Stillwater.

The Johannesburg-based entity is a significant player on the minerals world market (including nickel, platinum and palladium) and owns, amongst other assets, a hydro-metallurgic processing plant in Sandouville (near Le Havre, western France) with a production capacity of 12,000 tonnes per year of high-grade nickel which it bought in February 2022 from French mining giant Eramet for 85 million euros (NZ$153 million).

The ultimate goal would be, for the South African player, to become a leader on the production market for innovative electric vehicles batteries, especially on the European market.

Southern Province President Sonia Backès had already hinted last week that one buyer had now been found and that one bidder had successfully reached advanced stages in the due diligence process.

If the deal eventuated, the new entity would take over the shares held by Swiss trader Trafigura (19 percent) and another block of shares held by the Southern Province to reach a total of 74 percent participation in Prony Resources stock, as part of a major restructuration of the company’s capital.

Prony Resources, in full operation mode, employs about 1300 staff.

Another 1700 are employed indirectly through sub-contractors.

It has paused its production to retain only up to 300 staff, in safety and maintenance mode, partly due to New Caledonia’s current unrest.

New Caledonian consortium’s surprise bid for mothballed Northern plant
Meanwhile, a local consortium of New Caledonian investors is reported to have made an 11-hour offer to take over and restart activity for the now mothballed Koniambo (KNS) nickel plant.

The plant’s furnaces were placed in “cold care and maintenance” mode at the end of August, six months after major shareholder Anglo-Swiss Glencore announced it wanted to withdraw and sell the 49 percent shares it has in the project.

This caused close to 1200 job losses and further 600 among sub-contractors.

Other bidders still interested
KNS claimed at least three foreign investors were still interested at this stage, but none of these have so far materialised.

Talks were however reported to continue behind the scenes, with interested parties even ready to travel and visit on-site, KNS Vice-President and spokesman Alexandre Rousseau told Reuters news agency earlier this month.

‘Okelani Group One’
But a so-called “Okelani Group One” (OGO), made up of three local partners, said their offer could revive the project with a different business model.

They say they have made an offer to KNS’s majority shareholder SMSP (Société Minière du Sud Pacifique, New Caledonia’s Northern province financial arm).

OGO president Florent Tavernier told public broadcaster NC la 1ère much depended on what Glencore intended to do with the staggering debt of some US$13.7 billion which KNS had accumulated over the past 10 years.

Another OGO partner, Gilles Hernandez, explained: “We would be targeting a niche market of very high quality nickel used in aeronautics and edge-cutting technologies, especially in Europe, where nickel is now classified as ‘strategic metal’.”

Although KNS was designed to produce 60,000 tonnes of nickel a year, that target was never reached.

OGO said it would only aim for 15,000 tonnes per year and would only re-employ 400 of the 1200 laid-off staff.

New Caledonia’s third nickel plant, owned by historic Société Le Nickel (SLN, a subsidiary of French mining giant Eramet), which is also facing major hardships for the same reasons, is said to currently operate at minimal capacity.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Earlier this month, reports emerged that the Biden administration is preparing to block the nearly $15 billion merger on the grounds that it presents a threat to America’s national security interests. The United Steelworkers union opposes it, fearing future layoffs and weaker labor protections under new ownership. So do both major candidates for president, who are vying for votes in the Rust Belt. Supporters of the deal, like the Washington Post editorial board and the nonpartisan think tank The Atlantic Council, have cast the politicians’ opposition as election-season pandering, and argued that the national security rationale on which Biden may block it is flimsy. But one area, in which the question of whether the merger goes through could be particularly consequential, has gone largely unremarked upon in the conversation: what it means for the climate.

Some environmentalists say the deal could slow the crucial progress that the steel industry must make in order to decarbonize. Their argument stems from the fact that both U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel have been slow, compared to industry peers, to adopt the most impactful decarbonization technologies, even with federal funding available in the U.S. to do so.

The most common process by which primary steel is produced is massively carbon-intensive. The reasons for this lie in chemistry. Steel is made from iron, but the form in which iron ore occurs in the Earth’s crust is mostly iron oxide (similar to rust). In order to get usable iron from it, one needs to remove the oxygen. For centuries, iron-makers have accomplished this by using coke, a fuel made from coal, which is heated alongside iron ore in a blast furnace at such high temperatures that the iron melts into a liquid while the oxygen bonds with the carbon in the coke and produces carbon dioxide.

Blast furnaces are responsible for the lion’s share of carbon emissions from steelmaking, and the inextricability of carbon emissions from the ironmaking process is a large part of the reason why, overall, steelmaking is responsible for 7 percent of global carbon emissions, and a quarter of industrial carbon emissions. These percentages will likely grow as other sectors of the economy are decarbonized. In the U.S., demand for steel is also expected to grow dramatically over the next decade to provide the raw material of the industrial growth sparked by the Inflation Reduction Act and the planned buildout of clean energy infrastructure and transmission lines. For these reasons, the task of decarbonizing steel is as urgent as it is difficult and expensive.

Fortunately, there is a solution on offer that has recently become viable due to new technological advances — and one that the Biden administration has sought to heavily subsidize: replacing blast furnaces with a process called direct reduction, and using hydrogen as a reducing agent in place of carbon, ultimately discharging water rather than carbon dioxide. “The chemistry is sound, it’s being built, it’s been piloted and demonstrated,” said Yong Kwon, a senior advisor with the Sierra Club’s Industrial Transformation Campaign. “The question is now: Will industries adopt it?”

There are eight operating steel mills in the United States that make “primary” steel (newly created steel, rather than the generally lower-quality “secondary” steel produced from scrap metal). Three are owned by U.S. Steel. Cleveland-Cliffs, the owner of the other five, has also made an offer to buy U.S. Steel and has been much more proactive in making the shift to greener production. “The Department of Energy has made available a great deal of money to do partnerships with industry to demonstrate the value of decarbonized projects,” said Todd Tucker, director of the industrial policy and trade program at the Roosevelt Institute. “Cleveland-Cliffs has partnered on two projects and U.S. Steel has partnered on nothing.”

One of the recently announced Cleveland-Cliffs projects will replace a blast furnace at a steel mill in Middletown, Ohio, with a direct reduced iron plant — part of a $575 million award from the Department of Energy. It will not be fossil fuel-free at first. While the company works to secure a reliable source of hydrogen, that plant will initially rely on natural gas to make iron, a process which will still produce carbon emissions, though fewer than the current coal-based process. But in the long term, as low-carbon or carbon-free “green hydrogen” is developed, the new technology presents an opportunity for steel mills to shed their carbon footprint and the Rust Belt to regain lost jobs.

The stakes of the potential U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel merger are perhaps best illustrated in the city of Gary, Indiana, which was built in 1906 by U.S. Steel to house workers at its Gary Works steel mill. That mill is home to the country’s largest and most carbon-emitting blast furnace — and it’s nearing the end of its lifespan. This situation hypothetically presents the furnace’s owner with an ideal opportunity to switch to a cleaner technology, with federal funding on the table to do so. But in August, Nippon Steel announced its prospective plans for Gary Works, which include a $300 million investment in relining the furnace to extend its lifespan for another 20 years. With this announcement, Kwon said, “Not only have they back in Japan not pursued solutions that we feel are responsible; they’ve now explicitly come out and said that they’re not going to pursue the solution that is on the table for reducing the climate change and public health harms that are currently produced by the iron-making process.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The potential merger of two steel industry titans has environmentalists worried on Sep 13, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Gautama Mehta.

Image by Miguel Alcântara.

A new international coalition is disrupting airports to make one demand: the adoption of a treaty to end fossil fuels by 2030.

Under the banner Oil Kills, small groups of activists have occupied airport departure lounges, plane cabins, terminals, tarmacs and roads across three continents — and they aren’t done yet. Here are the numbers so far: 500 people, 31 airports, 22 groups, 166 arrests, 42 people on remand in prison — all in support of their one demand.

The coalition formed when members of Extinction Rebellion, the A22 Network and Stay Grounded began reaching out to other groups globally. What resulted was an unprecedented alliance of civil resistance groups focused on the sustained disruption of airports — a key pillar of the fossil fuel economy.

Unifying aims, collective strategy and diverse tactics

All Oil Kills participants are committed to nonviolent direct action and to the central demand, but from there, individual creativity and context has led to an array of actions. The resulting structure is a decentralized yet cohesive power bloc with unified aims that becomes more than the sum of its parts, rather than a lowest common denominator coalition.

Each participating group has adopted the central demand that governments must work together to establish a legally binding treaty to stop extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by 2030, as well as supporting and financing poorer countries to make a fast, fair and just transition. But each local group also brings its own unique knowledge and demands which are in turn supported by the coalition. Futuro Vegetal in Spain, for example, focuses on the imperative to adopt a plant-based agri-food system while Students Against EACOP in Uganda demand a stop to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline — and all stand in solidarity with one another.

Each group also brings its own creative tactics, from airport glue-ins, to plane occupations, to spray-painting terminals, to street marches. “The airports don’t know what to expect because we don’t even know exactly what to expect from each other — it’s beautiful and effective,” said a coalition member who requested to remain anonymous for legal reasons.

After the initial whirlwind of actions in July, with 37 arrests over the first two days alone, disruptions have continued steadily across three continents, with especially relentless activity in Germany where Letzte Generation has held several actions in multiple airports.

On Aug. 9, Students Against EACOP in Uganda joined the Oil Kills campaign, planning a peaceful march to the parliament in Kampala and the delivery of a petition demanding an end to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, and for their government to sign the treaty to end fossil fuels.

But the police mounted roadblocks to stop the march from starting, and arrested 45 student activists on public buses and their three bus drivers on arrival. Two students managed to slip away and regrouped, reaching the parliament building with petition in hand before also being violently arrested.

Kamya Carlos, a student at Kyambogo University and spokesperson for Students Against EACOP, connects the inequitable and ecocidal nature of today’s airline industry to its origins in neocolonial extractivism. “New oil, gas and coal infrastructure continues to exacerbate the climate crisis. As the global temperatures hit their tipping points it is clear that projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline should never be constructed in the first place,” he said. “These projects, which end up being used almost exclusively by rich people and polluting the atmosphere, should never be allowed by right thinking members of society. We demand the government to sign a fossil free treaty and call an end to EACOP.”

Even though police repression represents a major threat, on Aug. 27, 20 climate activists and persons affected by the oil pipeline came back out in another peaceful march to petition Uganda’s Ministry of Energy. They were again violently dragged from the street by police in fatigues and held on remand until Sept. 6, when the court finally granted their release on bail. All 20 have been ordered to appear for a hearing on Nov. 12.

“The resilience under extreme repression shown by Students Against EACOP is an inspiration and metaphor for the Oil Kills movement,” said Jamie McGonagill, an Oil Kills member from XR Boston. “We refuse to die.”

You can’t arrest a rising sea

As of this writing, 22 Oil Kills activists remain in custody in Uganda, six in Germany and 14 in the U.K. Speaking to the increasing criminalization of dissent, McGonagill explained that “draconian responses that imprison nonviolent climate activists, especially as we’ve seen lately in the U.K. and in Uganda, show that the authorities misunderstand us. They will not stop us. We will just get more and more creative.”

Oil Kills is not alone in facing repression. On Aug. 8 in New York City, a 63-year-old grandfather and professional cellist, John Mark Rozendaal, was arrested and hit with a criminal contempt charge, carrying a maximum sentence of seven years in jail, for performing Bach’s “Suites for Cello” at Citibank’s headquarters. Rozendaal was participating in the Summer of Heat campaign to pressure Citibank to divest from fossil fuels through sustained nonviolent civil disobedience. Connecting this case to the burgeoning international movement, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor, in following Rozendaal’s case, has expressed her “strong concern” at the severity of the charges.

In a disturbing trend that has become the new normal in Italy, peaceful eco-activists are being branded a “danger to security and public order,” served with specious charges, banned from cities without trial, and criminalized under anti-terrorist laws intended to prosecute the Mafia.

Last week in the U.K., several high profile journalists and activists affiliated with the movement for Palestinian liberation were arrested in a sweep by counter-terrorism police for their opposition to genocide. They have been held under Section 12 of the U.K.’s Terrorism Act, which outlaws support for a “proscribed organization.” Such an application of the law would mean that you can go to jail for 14 years for expressing an opinion.

XR NYC organizer Meg Starr, a long-time Puerto Rican solidarity activist and coordinator of the XR Allies sub-circle, noted that the links between genocide and ecocide — in Palestine and elsewhere — are becoming clearer and more important to emphasize. “Our targeting of Citibank,” Starr commented, “included a focus on Citi’s major support of the Israeli military as part of their role as the world’s leading financier of oil and gas expansion.”

Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, was recently sentenced to five years in prison for making a speech over Zoom in what is being called a “grotesque sham-trial.”

“Repression is not a gradual process, it leaps out at you and takes you off guard,” he warned from his prison cell. “Do you remember the Solidarity leaders in Poland? They were invited into talks with the Polish government but when they got to the meeting, they were arrested in one fell swoop and imprisoned for years. You don’t think it will happen to you and then it does.”

Hallam’s message is that we can expect more repression, but that authorities must also expect more resistance. “You can’t negotiate with physics, with a thousand peer-reviewed articles,” he wrote. “Just Stop Oil reminds us what resistance, that far-off folk memory relegated to Netflix, actually looks like in the present moment. Thousands of arrests, hundreds of imprisonments and a five-year sentence for making a speech.”

In a statement announcing a pause in international actions to allow politicians to consider their demands, Oil Kills echoed the realism of Hallam’s framing. “The facts are clear, we are flying towards the obliteration of everything we know and love. Continuing to extract and burn oil, gas and coal is an act of war against humanity. …To know these facts and yet to have no plan to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal is reckless and immoral.”

They point out that while activists sounding the alarm and demanding change are increasingly criminalized, our politicians are actually the ones who are complicit in the greatest crime in human history. “Whether those in charge realize that they are engaging in genocide is not the question. For this is how it will be seen by the next generation and all future generations,” Oil Kills warned. “For now we are taking a pause, but governments must take heed: you cannot arrest your way out of this, just as you cannot imprison a flood or serve injunctions on a wildfire.”

Oppose oil injustice, propose mobility justice

Stay Grounded is a network of individuals, local airport opposition and climate justice groups, NGOs, trade unions, initiatives fostering alternatives to aviation like night trains and organizations supporting communities that struggle against offset or projects to develop so-called “sustainable aviation fuels.” Importantly, Stay Grounded goes beyond affirming the conclusion that business as usual is not an option, and stands for a 13-step program to transform transport, society and the economy to be just and environmentally sound.

“Flying is the fastest way to fry the planet so it’s key to start by cutting pointless and unfair flights like private jets or short haul flights,” said Inês Teles, a spokesperson for Stay Grounded and an Oil Kills member. “Our actions disrupting airports should be a shock to the system that is driving us towards climate catastrophe.”

In summary, Stay Grounded’s program begins with a positive vision for justice. It includes advice for achieving a just transition, shifting to other modes of transportation, developing economies of short distances and changed modes of living, as well as strong political commitments for land rights, human rights and climate justice.

Their program then details what must be avoided — obvious yet important items like growing the harmful air travel industry, including infrastructure expansion, loopholes and privileges for aviation, and common greenwashing pitfalls like carbon offsetting, biofuels, and illusory technocentric fixes.

Though Stay Grounded’s aims are more specific to the air travel industry than Oil Kills’ unifying demand for a treaty to end fossil fuels by 2030, coalition members are able to build on these positive aims, utilizing leadership from frontline communities affected by the air travel industry. Sharing and even cross-pollinating pro-social and ecologically healthy programs, in addition to opposing destructive practices, has been an effective way of galvanizing and sustaining support across diverse movements and communities.

Covering activism isn’t activist

The choice to focus on disrupting the air travel industry in order to pressure governments to adopt a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is as bold as the demand itself. Much of the media’s reaction so far has been unsurprisingly harsh, condemning the disruptions as “not the right way to do it.” Very little critical analysis has been audible above the din, but that doesn’t mean critical analysis isn’t happening.

It turns out, if you actually listen to them, that Oil Kills activists take strategy extremely seriously — after all, they’re knowingly putting their own freedom on the line through their actions. That is not a decision to be taken lightly, especially in today’s legal context. While news coverage of their “stunts” has circulated widely, what about the reasons behind their actions and assessments of their impact?

Covering climate activism well is a critical part of getting the climate story right. Too often journalism focuses on protesters’ tactics and not the problems they’re drawing attention to or the arguments they’re making. In a recent roundtable discussion, author, journalist and activist Bill McKibben urged fellow journalists to consider that, “we can serve our audiences better, treating activists as the newsmakers they are, rigorously evaluating their arguments as we would a public official.”

Journalists often shy away from foregrounding activists as sources of information and analysis for fear of being perceived to be more “activist” than “objective.” This framing is entirely misleading however, and can more accurately be explained as the pressure to avoid platforming those seeking to change the system in deference to those whose position exists to maintain the system. Why is a politician or a business owner an appropriate subject, but not an activist? There is no objectivity in this, but there are salaries and awards.

The myth that journalism must keep activism at arms length also misses the point that many of these ordinary people taking action are some of the best informed on the biggest news story of our time: the climate and ecological emergency. Activists have been speaking on climate science and policy for decades, many have even been personally affected by ecological disaster, but they have been almost exclusively ignored by the mainstream press. After decades of fossil fuel industry gaslighting, it turns out the activists have been right all along. It’s past time to hear these people out as legitimate subjects and newsmakers, able and deserving to speak about their work and their areas of expertise.

Why target air travel?

First, the obvious answer: oil kills. And the air travel industry is very, very oily. Aviation is by far the mode of transport with the biggest climate impact. If aviation was a country, it would be one of the top 10 emitters.

Emissions from aviation are rising more rapidly than any other sector of the economy. The number of aircraft and the number of passenger-miles flown is expected to double over the next 20 years. If left unchecked, they could consume a full quarter of the available carbon budget for limiting temperature rise to 1.5 C.

Second, oil isn’t extracted equitably, burned equitably, and neither does it kill equitably. At the turn of the millennium, less than 5 percent of the world’s population had ever sat in an aircraft. But it is mostly non-flyers who bear the brunt of the climate crisis and the negative effects of airport expansion like land grabbing, noise, particle pollution and health issues. Communities in the Global South that have barely contributed to the crisis are affected most. Indeed, well before the repression of the Oil Kills coalition, climate activists — especially in Latin America — have faced what is being termed “ecopoliticide”: the targeted and strategic murder of those who dare take action.

Stephen Okwai, a project affected person who has joined the movement to stop the EACOP pipeline in Uganda, feels there is now greater risk in inaction than in protesting. A project affected person, or PAP, is a legal term for the people directly affected by land acquisition for a project through loss of part or all of their assets including land, houses, other structures, businesses, crops/trees and other components of livelihoods. They are legally owed compensation, but in the case of Okwai and others affected by EACOP, there has been no such justice.

“Currently most of us in western Uganda are being disturbed,” he explained. “You cannot know when the rain is going to start and when it will stop yet most of these people are farmers. The effect of this oil project is greatly impacted on the people.”

After he was arrested during the Aug. 27 march in Kampala, Robert Pitua, a member of Oil Kills, Students Against EACOP, and a PAP, said that, “Livelihood restoration programs [have been] insufficient, and now we cannot manage to restore the initial livelihoods we had. Most people are given unfair and inadequate compensation.” This structural and planned destruction of hundreds of communities has left PAPs no choice but to resist, and is the source of a common refrain in Students Against EACOP’s demonstrations: “We refuse to die.”

This leads to the third reason to target aviation. The Oil Kills uprising is highlighting that the problem of aviation is part of a bigger story of injustice — it is in fact a pillar helping to hold up a system of injustice. The air travel industry is contrary to the need to eliminate fossil fuel use; it is tied to the military-industrial complex; and it is connected with the undue influence of big business on public policy, including trade, economic development and climate.

Aviation remains fossil fuel dependent, yet the industry promotes false solutions such as new aircraft technologies, which do not yet exist, in order to continue to pollute for profit. Offsets and biofuels fail to reduce emissions while endangering food supplies, biodiversity and human rights.

“Not only is the air travel industry a cornerstone of globalized fossil capitalism, but it is also a symbol of inequity,” Jamie McGonagill said. “By disrupting a major column of the system, we aim to disrupt the system itself.”

Rather than plentiful data and common-sense reasoning, it is more often a powerful underlying consciousness that has spurred many to action. When asked why it was necessary to disrupt air travel across Europe and North America, Just Stop Oil spokespeople replied, “because governments and fossil fuel producers are waging war on humanity. Even so-called climate leaders have continued to approve new oil, gas and coal projects pushing the world closer to global catastrophe and condemning hundreds of millions to death.”

The Oil Kills coalition has rallied around reality with the seriousness it deserves, refusing dystopia by disrupting it, and demanding a clear and urgent path towards repair. “Our leaders from wealthier countries must seek a negotiating mandate for an emergency Fossil Fuel Treaty,” said coalition members in an Aug. 14 statement. “They also need to immediately finance and support poorer countries to make a fast, fair and just transition.”

Assessing impact

If increased media attention on the climate and ecological emergency is any indicator of success, and it is, the Oil Kills uprising is punching well above its weight. “Oil Kills” was mentioned over 2,900 times in the press during the first week of the campaign. The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative has also never attracted so much media attention worldwide, with an increase of over 1,000 percent in mentions from the week prior to the campaign’s launch. Oil Kills actions drew comments from politicians, government officials and from the vice president of Norwegian oil giant, Equinor. For only 500 people spread out over three continents, they have indeed been hard to ignore.

It is true, not all publicity is created equal — but pleasing the general public is not always the priority. In a recent article, Mark Engler and Paul Engler, coauthors of “This is an Uprising,” discussed why protest works even when not everyone likes them. They explain that a very common result is that, when asked about a demonstration that makes news headlines, respondents will report sympathy for the protesters’ demands, but they will express distaste for the tactics deployed. They will see the activists themselves as too noisy, impatient and discourteous.

The coauthors, both experienced activists and resistance scholars, point out that this is actually an age-old dynamic, and one addressed eloquently by Martin Luther King Jr. in his renowned 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” They explain that, “this letter was written not as a response to racist opponents of the movement, but rather to people who professed support for the cause while criticizing demonstrations as ‘untimely’ and deriding direct action methods. ‘Frankly I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation,’ King quipped. But confronting these criticisms, he made the case for why the movement’s campaigns were both necessary and effective.”

In a similar vein, Oil Kills participants, like medical student Regina Stephan who recently took action at the Berlin airport with Letzte Generation, feel they have no choice but to act: “Just yesterday, the state of Lower Saxony gave the green light for new gas drilling off Borkum,” Stephan said. “That can’t be true! As long as our decision-makers work hand in hand with the fossil fuel companies and put profit before human life, I’m standing here — on the tarmac — and I can’t help it!”

Joining in this sentiment, Anja Windl, who took action at Stuttgart airport said very succinctly: “As long as our livelihoods are being systematically destroyed, our protests will not stop.”

Importantly, Oil Kills participants are not demanding that everyone utilize the same tactics. Rather, these activists are urging others to join the climate justice movement in diverse ways. Anja continued, “if you also want to campaign for an end to fossil fuels, you don’t have to sit on an airfield like I did: Just come to a Disobedient Assembly near you!”

In recent years, there has been considerable research published that attempts to measure radical flank effects and track the polarizing effects of movements. Mark Engler and Paul Englers’ analysis cautions that, “while there are limits to how much protest impacts can be precisely quantified, the cumulative result of such research, in the words of one literature review, is to point to ‘strong evidence that protests or protest movements can be effective in achieving their desired outcomes,’ and that they can produce ‘positive effects on public opinion, public discourse and voting behavior.’” They conclude that both the historical experience of organizers and recent studies provide backing for the idea that “support for a movement’s issue can grow, even when a majority of people do not particularly like the tactics being used.”

Finally, success cannot be fully measured by public opinion, especially when the strategy is to trouble public consensus. Oil Kills has been very clear that they are not acting in order to sooth or please anyone — they are intentionally sounding the alarm as a way of empowering people to act. By treating the climate crisis as a crisis, and reacting accordingly, activists are, in a sense, giving other people permission to do the same and showing them how. It’s like when someone is real with you and that makes you feel like you can be real too — and we all need to get real, real fast. The spell of complacency is like the tranquilizer that helps walk a cow to slaughter. Oil Kills is shouting, “wake up and live!”

In a debrief by the Oil Kills campaign on Aug. 16, they addressed the public: “it is time to face reality: no one is coming to save us. There is no free pass, no shelter from the coming storm. Our best chance of survival is to resist. To join the growing numbers of ordinary, everyday people, from across the globe who are refusing to stand by while hundreds of millions of innocent people are murdered.”

Offering a pathway forward out of doom, Oil Kill’s messaging has remained crystal clear: “The climate crisis will not end until every single country has phased out fossil fuels, [and] those who bear the greatest responsibility and have the greatest capacity must do the most … In this time of crisis, we expect our governments to work collaboratively, as we have done, and negotiate a Fossil Fuel Treaty to end the war on humanity before we lose everything.”

The next rebellion is coming

Coming back down from the hugeness of our crisis and into ourselves as individuals often causes a feeling of paralysis, especially for the majority of people not yet interconnected within communities of resistance and solidarity. But there have been actions where small groups or even lone activists have held up an Oil Kills banner and received media coverage and support because they are part of a global campaign which can’t be ignored. Every single contribution adds to that.

In a Sept. 6 letter to climate activist prisoners of conscience, Naomi Klein wrote, “In a world that was right-side up, you would be celebrated as the ones who helped break the spell that is setting our world on fire. In truth, your actions could still do that, if enough people know about them.”

It continues to be an urgent and essential task to ensure that more and more people do know about Oil Kills and other manifestations of resistance, but it is also evident that the world’s elites already understand the threat that these actions represent — the threat of mass uprising. That threat is precisely why nonviolent direct action in defense of planetary life is being criminalized so viciously.

Klein continued, “Movements against climate arson are already converging with movements against genocide and unfettered greed. The next wave of rebellion is coming. Along with the tankers, I see it clearly on the horizon.”

The Oil Kills uprising and fellow movements around the world have placed their bodies between those tankers and our shared future to say, “here, and no further.” If enough of us line up behind them, their actions could very well lead the way to an adoption of a treaty to end fossil fuels by 2030 — that remains to be won. What is for certain is that their actions are troubling the autopilot system, disrupting the mechanics of fossil-capital’s death march and creating desperately needed space to pursue alternate routes. Whatever else lies on the horizon, their contributions are already impacting the world in ways we cannot yet know but will be unlikely to forget.

This article is co-published by ZNetwork.org, Waging Nonviolence, & the International Peace Research Association.

The post Oil Kills: Inside the International Uprising Disrupting the Aviation Industry appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Alexandria Shaner.

Between tomorrow and Friday, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) will host a weapons bazaar that ought to be called “The Merchants of Death”.

The times for these merchants are positively bullish, given that total global military expenditure exceeded US$2.4 trillion last year, an increase of 6.8 percent in real terms from 2022.

The introductory note to the event is mildly innocuous:

“The Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition is the premier platform for interaction between defence, industry and government of all levels, to meet, to do business and discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the global land defence markets.”

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The website goes on to describe the Land Defence Exposition as “the premier gateway to the land defence markets of Australia and the region, and a platform for interaction with major prime contractors from the United States and Europe”.

At the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in 2022, the event attracted 20,000 attendees, 810 “exhibitor organisations” from 25 countries, and ran 40 conferences, symposia and presentations.

From 30 nations, came 159 defence, government, industry and scientific delegations.

Land Forces 2024 is instructive as to how the military-industrial complex manifests. Featured background reading for the event involves, for instance, news about cultivating budding militarists.

Where better to start than in school?

School military ‘pathways’
From August 6, much approval is shown for the $5.1 million Federation Funding Agreement between the Australian government and the state governments of South Australia and West Australia to deliver “the Schools Pathways Programme (SPP)” as part of the Australian government’s Defence Industry Development Strategy.

The programme offers school children a chance to taste the pungent trimmings of industrial militarism — visits to military facilities, “project-based learning” and presentations.

Rather cynically, the SPP co-opts the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) aspect of government policy, carving up a direct link between school study and the defence industry.

“We need more young Australians studying STEM subjects in schools and developing skills for our future workforce,” insisted Education Minister Jason Clare. It is hard to disagree with that, but why weapons?

There is much discontent about the Land Forces exposition.

Victorian Greens MP Ellen Sandell and federal MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt wrote to Premier Jacinta Allan asking her to call off the arms event.

The party noted that such companies as Elbit Systems “and others that are currently fuelling . . . Israel’s genocide in Palestine, where 40,000 people have now been killed — will showcase and sell their products there”.

Demands on Israel dismissed
Allan icily dismissed such demands.

Disrupt Land Forces, which boasts 50 different activist collectives, has been preparing.

Defence Connect reported as early as June 4 that groups, including Wage Peace — Disrupt War and Whistleblowers, Activists and Communities Alliance, were planning to rally against the Land Force exposition.

The usual mix of carnival, activism and harrying have been planned over a week, with the goal of ultimately encircling the MCEC to halt proceedings.

Ahead of the event, the Victorian Labor government, the event’s sponsor, has mobilised 1800 more police officers from the regional areas.

Victorian Police Minister Anthony Carbines did his best to set the mood.

“If you are not going to abide by the law, if you’re not going to protest peacefully, if you’re not going to show respect and decency, then you’ll be met with the full force of the law.”

Warmongering press outlets
Let us hope the police observe those same standards.

Warmongering press outlets, the Herald Sun being a stalwart, warn of the “risks” that “Australia’s protest capital” will again be “held hostage to disruption and confrontation”, given the diversion of police.

Its August 15 editorial demonised the protesters, swallowing the optimistic incitements on the website of Disrupt Land Forces.

The editorial noted the concerns of unnamed senior police fretting about “the potential chaos outside MCEC at South Wharf and across central Melbourne”, the context for police to mount “one of the biggest security operations since the anti-vaccine/anti-lockdown protests at the height of covid in 2021–21 or the World Economic Forum chaos in 2000”.

Were it up to these editors, protesters would do better to stay at home and let the Victorian economy, arms and all, hum along.

The merchants of death could then go about negotiating the mechanics of murder in broad daylight; Victoria’s government would get its blood fill; and Melbournians could turn a blind eye to what oils the mechanics of global conflict.

The protests will, hopefully, shock the city into recognition that the arms trade is global, nefarious and indifferent as to the casualty count.

Dr Binoy Kampmark lectures in global studies at RMIT University. This article was first published by Green Left and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said the island can take advantage of its semiconductor industry not only to promote the development of the economy but also as a key reason for the world to protect the island. 

Commenting on a rumor circulating in the U.S. that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry could be the very reason for China to decide to attack Taiwan, Lai said he would try his best to protect the island’s security. 

“Since TSMC’s operating system is very complex, not any group of people could just take it and continue to operate it,” he said during a televised interview on Sunday. 

TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company.

In the first quarter of 2024, TSMC recorded a market share of 61.7% in the global semiconductor foundry market, while its closest competitor, South Korea’s Samsung, occupied 11%.

Since controlling semiconductor production and distribution can reshape global economics and trade as well as establish a new technological order, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry has become crucial in the strategic competition between the U.S. and China. 

Lai said the purpose of any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would not be about acquiring more territory, but rather about the desire to change the “rules-based world order” in order to achieve hegemony.

Counting on the international community’s support for Taiwan, the Taiwanese President said the Taiwan Strait issue was “not only a Taiwan-China issue, but also an Indo-Pacific issue, and even a world issue”. 

This echoes remarks made last month when Lai urged the world’s democratic countries to come together and act to prevent China from expanding authoritarianism.

“China has even weaponized trade. Using various pressures and threats, it’s politically manipulating not just Taiwan, but also Japan, Korea, Australia, Lithuania, Canada, and other countries,” said Lai last month. 

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China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

Regarding a rumor about his visit to the U.S., Lai said during the Sunday interview that he had no plans to do so, stressing that there were already “very good” channels of communication between Taiwan and the U.S.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This story has been updated to clarify a translation of Lai's remarks.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

The news was first reported by Reuters and confirmed to Grist on Thursday by the State Department. It represents a major shift for the United States, which had previously rejected production limits in favor of an approach focused on boosting the recycling rate and cleaning up plastic litter.

While industry groups condemned the decision as “misguided,” environmental organizations said it could sway momentum in favor of production limits at a consequential point during the negotiations. There is only one meeting left before the treaty is supposed to be finalized in 2025.

“This couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Christina Dixon, ocean campaign leader for the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency. “The U.S. position has been one of the great unknowns and they have the power to be a constructive and collaborative player, so it’s a relief to see them setting out of their stall at this critical moment.”

Negotiations over a treaty have been ongoing since March 2022, when the U.N. reached a landmark agreement to “end plastic pollution.” Over the course of the four negotiating sessions that have occurred since then, however, progress has been slow — in large part due to disagreements over the treaty’s scope.

A so-called “high-ambition” coalition of countries, supported by many scientists and environmental groups, say the treaty must prevent more plastic from being made in the first place. Some 460 million metric tons are manufactured globally each year — mostly out of fossil fuels — and only 9 percent of it is recycled. Because the manufacturing, use, and disposal of plastics contribute to climate change, experts at the nonprofit Pacific Environment have found that the treaty must cut plastic production by 75 percent by 2040 in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

The high-ambition coalition also supports specific bans or restrictions on the most problematic types of plastic — typically meaning those that are least likely to be recycled — as well as hazardous chemicals commonly used in plastic products. This coalition includes Canada, Norway, Peru, Rwanda, and the U.K., along with more than 60 other countries.

Oil-producing states like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China — backed by industry groups — oppose these measures. They want the treaty to leave production untouched and focus on managing plastic waste. The U.S. counted itself among those countries until this week.

Now, in addition to supporting restrictions on plastic production, the U.S. says it will also support creating a list of problematic plastics and hazardous chemicals, according to Reuters.

Because the U.S. carries so much weight in the treaty negotiations — and because North America produces one-fifth of the world’s plastics — Dixon said the White House’s new position could be “a welcome signal to fence-sitting countries,” encouraging them to join the high-ambition coalition. 

“I hope it will only further isolate the small group of countries who are unwilling to commit to the necessary binding regulations we need to see on the supply of plastics.”

Industry groups reacted less favorably to the news. 

Chris Jahn, president and CEO of American Chemistry Council, a plastics and petrochemical trade group, said in a statement that the U.S. had “cave[d] to the wishes of extreme NGO groups.” He described the White House’s new position as a betrayal of U.S. manufacturers that would slash jobs, harm the environment, and cause the cost of goods to rise globally.

“If the Biden-Harris administration wants to meet its sustainable development and climate goals, the world will need to rely on plastic more, not less,” he said, citing the material’s utility in renewable energy infrastructure, making buildings more energy efficient, and reducing food waste. 

Nearly 40 percent of global plastic production goes toward single-use items like packaging and food service products.

Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, shared similar sentiments to Jahn. In a statement, he said the White House had “turned its back on Americans whose livelihoods depend on our industry.”

He added that the U.S.’s reversal would undermine its influence in the treaty negotiations, “as other countries know this extreme position will not receive support in the U.S. Senate.” The Senate has to approve treaties before the U.S. can ratify them.

Despite the industry’s outrage, polling suggests that ambitious policies to address the plastics crisis are broadly popular among the public. According to one recent poll from the nonprofit National Resources Defense Council, nearly 90 percent of Americans support measures to reduce plastic production. Eighty-three percent specifically support plastic production limits as part of an international treaty, and even greater numbers support treaty provisions to eliminate “unnecessary and avoidable plastic products” and toxic chemicals.

Reducing plastic production is “what the American people want,” Anja Brandon, director of U.S. plastics policy for the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, said in a statement. She cited additional polling from her organization showing that 78 percent of Americans think ocean-bound plastic pollution is a “pressing problem.”

Brandon and other environmental advocates now say they’re eager to see how the U.S.’s new position will translate into advocacy during the final round of plastics treaty negotiations, scheduled to begin in late November in Busan, South Korea. They’re calling for the U.S. to sign onto the “Bridge to Busan,” a declaration put forward by a group of countries last April asking negotiators to “commit to achieve sustainable levels of production of primary plastic polymers,” potentially through “production freezes at specified levels, production reductions against agreed baselines, or other agreed constraints.”  

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Julie Teel Simmonds, a senior attorney for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “I look forward to seeing U.S. delegates fight for these positions at the next plastics treaty negotiations in South Korea.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The US says it now supports a more ambitious plastics treaty. Industry groups are furious. on Aug 16, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

The Canyon Mine has  been renamed Pinyon Plain Mine. 

In a move triggering a new phase in the conflict between the Navajo Nation, a uranium mining company, and state and the  federal government, on July 30 a mining corporation began trucking radioactive ore 350 miles through the Navajo Nation. This violated an agreement the Navajos thought they had with Energy Fuels, Inc. (EFI), federal and state agencies that required a two-week advance notice before hauling uranium ore through the Nation. It also violated a Navajo law that denied any hauling of radioactive material through the Nation, but Arizona and the feds declared their control over the route.  On August 3, Navajo President Buu Nygren ordered tribal police to stop the trucks which had transported “dozens of tons” of radioactive ore according to reports from the Pinyon Plain Mine on the Kaibab National Forest immediately southwest of the Navajo Nation, to EFI’s White Mesa Mill, in Blanding, Utah,  just beyond the northern, San Juan River border of the Nation. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs said she’d try to start “good faith negotiations” between the tribe and miners. Nygren produced an executive order stating that the Navajos and the mining company must reach an agreement on transporting radioactive material through the reservation, which may stop transportation for the next six months.  

Former Navajo President, Jonathan Nez put the case simply: “Prior to the arrival of uranium mining, Navajos had the lowest rate of cancer of all the tribes.” 

To take a statistical slice: in 2020 there were more than 40,000 cancer cases in Arizona and New Mexico, with a combined population of 9.5 million, while more than 20,000 occurred among 400,000 Navajos, less than half living on the Navajo Nation. That is why Navajos call cancer Yeetso, the Big Monster. Twenty thousand cases have a much greater effect on 400,000 people than 40,000 cases have on 9.5 million people.  

Protests broke out along the route: on Friday about 50 people in Cameron including President Nygren and his wife Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren; on Saturday, protesters gathered at the Flagstaff City Hall, including members of the Haul No! group; and on Sunday, more than 100 people, including Havasupai tribal members who live in Grand Canyon directly beneath the Pinyon Plain Mine, demonstrated at Grand Canyon Junction near the mine. Organizers are planning another demonstration on August 24 at Grand Canyon Junction.  

The tribes, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and hundreds of other residents of the region fought the opening of this mine for years but were defeated by federal and state governments to which they had appealed.  

Recently, Congress has made three decisions that bear directly on uranium mining on the Navajo Nation: it banned the purchase of Russian uranium processed for nuclear power-plant use, except when no other suitable uranium is available; it discontinued the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which had provided funds to about 4,600 Navajos, nearly 90-percent of the “downwind” victims who produced 30 million tons of uranium from 1944-1986; and it approved $2.7 billion for development of the domestic uranium industry, most of which may well go into the pockets of EFI, a Canadian company that owns Pinyon Plain Mine and the White Mesa Mill, the only uranium mill operating at the moment in the US. In Wyoming, EFI has two other mines and one Republican senator, John Barrasso, who authored the bill to ban the purchase of Russian uranium.  

There is no mention in the bill that companies mining in the US, like the only uranium producer in the country, Canadian-owned EFI, will be required to sell only to US buyers. An oversight?  

The discontinuation of RECA is not so much a matter of saving public funds as it is a way to forget about miners, their families, and other residents mainly on the Navajo Nation who have suffered and continue to suffer from the health effects, mainly cancer, from prolonged exposure to uranium in mines and in mine tailings, and through lack of education about the danger of radiation. The Diné College began its Uranium Education Program by producing a glossary of explanations in Navajo for  uranium-radiation terms in English. Neither the federal government nor mine owners had explained the dangers of working in their unventilated mines to Navajo workers; or the dangers of Navajos using material from mine tailings to build structures; or for their children to play in the tailings.  

The Union of Concerned Scientists reported on June 7: “’Speaker (Mike) Johnson not only has betrayed the veterans and the blue-collar uranium miners and their families but has really also profoundly impacted and wronged the Navajo people,’ said Navajo Nation spokesperson Justin Ahasteen, from his Washington, D.C. office. 

“Ahasteen said the tribe played a crucial role in World War II, from the Code Talkers to supplying the uranium used for the country’s nuclear arsenal.” 

Energy Fuels, Inc. CEO Mark Chalmers holds the opposite view. There is no history, no cancer epidemic, and the health damage from 1,500 uranium mines – 500 still not reclaimed – cannot be obliterated by his spell-binding narrative of wealth, health, and triumph of the American Way. Just buy EFI “clean energy” and you’ll be all right.  

“The U,S. should not rely on bad international actors to supply the fuel that powers our homes and workplaces with carbon-free nuclear energy,” Chalmers said in a company press release. “We applaud senators Barrasso and Manchin, Representatives McMorris Rodgers, Latta, and congressional leaders and the president for coming together in a bipartisan effort to resist foreign interests that are funding the war in Ukraine.”  

Chalmers began his career in Australia and is a dual citizen of Australia and the US. Just a few years ago, Energy Fuels, Inc. described itself as “a Toronto-based uranium and vanadium mineral exploration and development company with more than 30,000 acres of highly prospective uranium and vanadium property located in the States of Colorado, Utah and Arizona.” These days, the EFI pitch is that it is All American All the Time, with an American office in Lakewood CO, where Lockheed Martin dwells.  

The Guardian reported last week that, “At Cop28, the US endorsed an agreement to triple nuclear energy production to combat climate change, boosting the demand for uranium.” 

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is not going to bar any doors to mining interests that might do harm to Native Americans’ environments or health. Her Department of Environmental Quality has consistently approved the water pumped out of the Pinyon Plain Mine, despite its high content of uranium and other heavy metals, due to how it flows into its ponds.  

Amber Reimondo, Grand Canyon Trust energy director, reported in July: 

“All told, more than 66 million gallons of precious Grand Canyon region groundwater have been pumped out of the mine shaft as of December 31, 2023. And water loss isn’t the only concern. 

“Water pumped out of the mine shaft has shown high levels of heavy metals that could spell disaster if they ever leached into surrounding groundwater aquifers, including uranium, lead, and arsenic. In the last quarter of 2023 (remember, the mine began extracting ore in December 2023), levels increased dramatically. Uranium levels reached six times the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contaminant level for safe drinking water, lead reached 243 times the maximum contaminant level, and arsenic reached a whopping 812 times the maximum contaminant level. 

“At times, the mine’s owner has struggled to get rid of all this water. It pumps the floodwater into a large open-air pond inside the mine fence, where birds often alight to drink and bathe. Visitors to the mine site have spotted burrows and tufts of fur caught in the chain-link where thirsty animals appear to have tunneled under the fence to reach the pond. On windy days, the misted water blows through the chain-link into the surrounding national monument lands.” 

The White Mesa Mill recently received a large quantity of nuclear waste. Grand Canyon Trust staff described the event: 

“Bills of lading recently uncovered in a shipping database reveal that Energy Fuels Resources imported more than 275,000 pounds of radioactive materials from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The materials appear to have been trucked to the company’s controversial White Mesa uranium mill, a mile from Bears Ears National Monument and just up the road from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s White Mesa community.  

“The materials arrived in the port of Everett, Washington on January 16, 2024. Aerial photos taken of the mill on May 16, 2024 reveal numerous shipping containers believed to hold materials from Japan’s nuclear energy program, including uranium ores used in testing, uranium-loaded resins, filter-bed sands, and uranium-loaded carbon, which Japanese regulators view as waste.  

“’While the mill may extract a small amount of uranium from these materials, more than 99% of them will likely end up buried in the waste pits at the White Mesa Mill along with the more than 700 million pounds of radioactive waste already there,’ said Tim Peterson, cultural landscapes director for the Grand Canyon Trust. ‘This latest shipment from Japan shifts the burden of Japan’s radioactive legacy from Japanese citizens to the people of White Mesa.’ 

“Information about how much the Utah mill might have been paid to process and dispose of the materials has not been made public. Normally, a uranium mill would pay for uranium ore, but for decades the White Mesa Mill has instead earned millions in fees to process and discard radioactive materials from across North America and the world. 

“’If the mill’s operators are getting paid to receive this shipment from Japan, it’s not for processing uranium, but for disposing of waste the Japanese people don’t want near their communities,’ said Peterson. 

“This is the second time in 19 years that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency has shipped radioactive materials to White Mesa. In 2005, the agency paid the White Mesa Mill $5.8 million to unload 1 million pounds of radioactive soils.  

‘There’s no easy way for the public to track how much radioactive waste is being sent to the mill, where it’s coming from, and when. This should be a concern for anybody who drives along Utah’s highways,’ said Chaitna Sinha, staff attorney for the Grand Canyon Trust. ‘If the mill is going to function like a radioactive waste disposal business, it should be regulated like one, including obtaining the licenses and permits a commercial waste-disposal facility would have to secure to operate.’ 

“The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and community members in White Mesa are concerned that the mill’s radioactive waste processing and disposal business has created a de facto radioactive waste dump in their backyard, threatening public health, water, and air quality in White Mesa. The tribe and the grassroots group, White Mesa Concerned Community, will host a spiritual walk to protest the mill on October 12, 2024.” 

These are the kinds of prices Navajos, Havasupai, Utes, Hopis, Paiutes, and others who live on the Colorado Plateau are paying and will pay for the new campaign for domestic uranium mining to produce “clean energy.”  

Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch’s response to EFI’s unnotified transportation of radioactive ore through the reservation (called “smuggling” by President Nygren) was to insist that Navajo law be obeyed in the Nation. 

“’Particularly with something as sensitive as uranium, where there is a long legacy of contamination and disproportionate impact to the Navajo people,’ she said. “’Anyone bringing those substances onto the Nation should undertake that activity with respect and sensitivity to the psychological impact to our people, as well as the trauma of uranium development that our community continues to live with every day.” 

EFI can get away with this lawless behavior and will get away with more of it because the federal and state governments are themselves out of control. Wild tales are spinning through the minds of leaders of the Indispensable Nation – the narratives of limitless Hegemony, National Security, Monopoly Capitalism, Clean Energy, Racism, Sunbelt Growth, and Christian Fundamentalism. 

At the end of this survey, I turned to a quote of anthropologist Gladys Reichard, which appears at the conclusion of Navajo Symbols of Healing, by Donald Sandner, M.D.: “Navajo dogma connects all things, natural and experienced, from man’s skeleton to universal destiny, which encompasses even inconceivable space, in a closely interlocked unity which omits nothing,  no matter how small or how stupendous, and in which each individual has a significant function until, at his final dissolution, he not only becomes one with the ultimate harmony, but he is that harmony.” 

The Navajos’ struggle against Yeetso, the Big Monster, is also our struggle, because in defending themselves they are also defending all of us facing the growing risk of exposure to radioactivity  as “perfectly safe” nuclear power plants proliferate throughout the nation.  

In connection with EFI’s declaration that mines are safer these days due to new federal laws, residents near Gallup NM remember the Church Rock Spill, the worst radiation accident that ever occurred in the US, worse than Three Mile Island. It happened seven years after passage of the federal Clean Water Act but not many of us outside of the Southwest have ever heard about it. In 1979, the United Nuclear  Corporation‘s tailings disposal pond at its uranium mill in Church Rock breached, releasing more than 1,100 tons of solid radioactive mill waste and 84-million gallons of acidic, radioactive water into the Puerco River, the residues of which traveled 80 miles onto the Navajo Nation. The river was used widely for drinking water and for watering stock. People were not notified of the spill for several days and the New Mexico governor refused to request by the Navajo government to the declare a disaster. Five years later the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Department declared the river was still unsafe for human or stock consumption. 

The people of the Colorado Plateau have suffered enough from government dominated by a narrow clique of billionaires invested in national security anxiety, salvation through technology, and real estate growth in the Southwest, land of senior residential facilities and air-conditioning, where each summer sets a new heat record. Air-conditioning already takes 19 percent of our electricity. This can only increase with the growth of the Sunbelt and global warming.  

The post Power to the Patients: the Navajo Nation vs. the Uranium Industry appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bill Hatch.

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Is there anything more pathetic than a used plastic bag?

They rip and tear. They float away in the slightest breeze. Left in the wild, their mangled remains entangle birds and choke sea turtles that mistake them for edible jellyfish. It takes 1,000 years for the bags to disintegrate, shedding hormone-disrupting chemicals as they do. And that outcome is all but inevitable, because no system exists to routinely recycle them. It’s no wonder some states have banned them and stores give discounts to customers with reusable bags.

But the plastics industry is working to make the public feel OK about using them again.

Companies whose futures depend on plastic production, including oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them to put the label “recyclable” on bags and other plastic items virtually guaranteed to end up in landfills and incinerators.

They argue that “recyclable” should apply to anything that’s capable of being recycled. And they point to newer technologies that have been able to remake plastic bags into new products.

I spent months investigating one of those technologies, a form of chemical recycling called pyrolysis, only to find that it is largely a mirage. It’s inefficient, dirty and so limited in capacity that no one expects it to process meaningful amounts of plastic waste any time soon.

That shouldn’t matter, say proponents of the industry’s argument. If it’s physically capable of being recycled — even in extremely limited scenarios — it should be labeled “recyclable.”

They are laying out their case in comments to the Federal Trade Commission as it revises its Green Guides, documents that define how companies can use marketing labels like “recyclable” or “compostable.” The guides are meant to curb greenwashing — deceptive advertising that exaggerates the sustainability of products. They were last updated in 2012, before the explosion of social media advertising and green influencers; the agency declined to answer questions about the revision or give an idea of when it will be done.

The push for a looser definition of “recyclable” highlights a conundrum faced not just by companies represented by the Plastics Industry Association, but by members of the Consumer Brands Association, whose plastic-packaged products fill grocery shelves across the world. (Neither trade group, nor ExxonMobil, wanted to elaborate on their positions advocating for a more liberal use of the word “recyclable.”)

Under increasing pressure to reckon with the global plastics crisis, companies want to rely on recycling as the answer. But turning old plastic into new plastic is really, really hard.

Products made with dyes, flame retardants and other toxic chemicals create a health hazard when they’re heated for recycling. That severely limits the types of products you can make from recycled plastic. And most items are too small for companies in the recycling business to bother sorting and processing, or they are assembled in a way that would make it far more costly to strip them down to their useful elements than to just make new plastic. Plastic forks? Straws? Toys given out in fast food meals and party favor bags? Never actually recycled. In fact, only 5% of Americans’ plastic finds new life.

Environmental experts worry that if the FTC sides with the industry, companies could slap the “recyclable” label on virtually anything.

Though the agency only pursues a few greenwashing cases a year, its guides — which are guidelines instead of laws — are the only national benchmark for evaluating recycling claims.

They’re used by companies that want to market their products in an honest way. They also serve as a reference for state officials who are drafting laws to try to reduce plastic waste.

By 2032, for example, most single-use packaging sold in California will need to be recyclable or compostable.

What good will such laws be, environmental experts worry, if those words mean nothing?

For at least three decades, the industry has misled the public about what really is recyclable.

Take a close look at any plastic product and you’ll likely see a little number stamped on it called a resin identification code; it distinguishes what kind of plastic it’s made of. Plastic bags, for example, are labeled No. 4. Only some No. 1 and No. 2 plastics are widely recyclable. In each case, the number is surrounded by the iconic “chasing arrows” symbol, which has come to denote recyclability, regardless of whether that product can actually be recycled.

The design was created in the 1980s by a group of chemical companies working with Exxon and BP; Grist recently published a fascinating story about the effort.

Around that time, the plastic industry was contending with the nation’s growing awareness that its products were the root of an intractable pollution problem. States were weighing legislation to deal with it. And the American Plastics Council was convening meetings to head off threats. The council discussed the arrows, which they described as “consumer tested,” according to meeting notes obtained by the Center for Climate Integrity, an advocacy group that works to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable.

The industry persuaded 39 states to require the use of the symbols. Their purpose, the notes said: “to prevent bans.” They pursued the strategy despite warnings from state regulators who predicted the arrows would lead consumers to overestimate the recyclability of plastic packaging.

By 1995, state attorneys general were telling the FTC that’s exactly what was happening.

The agency ruled in 1998 that brands could continue using the codes with the recycling symbol, but could only display them prominently — by printing them next to the brand name, for example — if the product was recyclable for a “substantial majority” of consumers. If not, the symbols could be stamped in a less obvious place, like the bottom of containers.

These mandates did little to ease consumers’ confusion. “You mean we’re not supposed to throw plastic bags in recycling bins?” a colleague recently asked me.

During a tour of the New York facility that sorts the city’s recyclables, I saw the result of a million well-intentioned mistakes — countless bags sloshing over conveyor belts like the unwanted dregs at the bottom of a cereal bowl.

They’re notorious for clogging equipment. Sometimes, they start fires. And when they get stuck between layers of paper, the bags end up contaminating bales of paper that are actually recyclable, condemning much of it to the landfill.

If companies started printing the word “recyclable” on them, I wondered, how much worse could this get?

When you see something labeled as “recyclable,” it’s reasonable to expect it will be made into something new after you toss it in the nearest recycling bin.

You would be wrong.

The current Green Guides allow companies to make blanket “recyclable” claims if 60% of consumers or communities have access to recycling facilities that will take the product. The guides don’t specify whether facilities can just accept the item, or if there needs to be a reasonable assurance that the item will be made into a new product.

When the agency invited the public to comment in late 2022 on how the guides should be revised, FTC Chair Lina M. Khan predicted that one of the main issues would be “whether claims that a product is recyclable should reflect where a product ultimately ends up, not just whether it gets picked up from the curb.”

Strangely, that statement ignored the agency’s own guidance. An FTC supplement to the 2012 Green Guides stated that “recyclable” items must go to facilities “that will actually recycle” them, “not accept and ultimately discard” them.

The industry disagrees with the position.

“Recent case law confirms that the term ‘recyclable’ means ‘capable of being recycled,’ and that it is an attribute, not a guarantee,” said a comment from the Plastics Industry Association. Forcing the material to be “actually recovered” is “unnecessarily burdensome.”

Citing a consumer survey, ExxonMobil told the FTC that the majority of respondents “agreed that it was appropriate to label an item as recyclable if a product can be recycled, even if access to recycling facilities across the country varies.” The company’s comments argued against “arbitrary minimum” thresholds like the 60% rule.

The FTC also received comments urging the agency to tighten the rules. A letter from the attorneys general of 15 states and the District of Columbia suggested increasing the 60% minimum to 90%. And the Environmental Protection Agency told the FTC that “recyclable” is only valid if the facilities that collect those products can reliably make more money by selling them for recycling than by throwing them away in a landfill.

The industry argues that recycling is never guaranteed. Market changes like the pandemic could force facilities to discard material that is technically recyclable, wrote the Consumer Brands Association. There is “simply no consumer deception in a claim that clearly identifies that a product is capable of being recycled,” the group wrote, despite the fact that “an external factor several times removed from the manufacturer results in it ultimately not being recycled.”

And what if consumers stopped seeing as many products marketed as recyclable? That could “dramatically” lower recycling rates, the group wrote, because consumers would get confused, seeming to imply people wouldn’t know if they could recycle anything at all.

“Wow, that’s some weird acrobatics,” Lynn Hoffman, strategic adviser at the Alliance for Mission-Based Recycling, said of the industry’s uncertainty argument. The group is a network of nonprofit recyclers that supports a zero-waste future.

Hoffman acknowledged the inefficiencies in the system. The solution, she said, is to improve the true recyclability of products that can be reliably processed, like soda bottles, by tracking them as they pass through the supply chain, being transparent about where they end up and removing toxic chemicals from products.

Calling everything “recyclable” would be a huge mistake, she said. “We have to be realistic about the role that recycling plays,” she added.

No matter how well done, it doesn’t fix the bigger crisis. Not the microplastics infiltrating our bodies or “plastic smog” in the oceans or poisoned families living in the shadow of the chemical plants that produce it.

In fact, research has shown people can produce more waste when they think it will be recycled. When North Carolina began rolling out curbside recycling in different towns, researchers analyzed data on household waste before and after the change. They found that overall waste — the total amount of trash plus stuff in the recycling bin — rose by up to 10% after recycling became available, possibly because consumers felt less guilty.

“They get their blue bins, and they worry less about the amount of trash they generate,” said one of the researchers, Roland Geyer, a professor of industrial ecology at the University of California-Santa Barbara. “I’m probably guilty of that too.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Lisa Song.

In the expansive landscape of Pacific journalism, one magazine stands for unwavering command and unfiltered truth. Islands Business, with its roots deep beneath Fijian soil, is unafraid to be a voice for the Pacific in delivering forward-thinking analysis of current issues.

Established in Fiji’s capital, Suva, Islands Business has carved out a niche position since the 1970s and is now the longest surviving monthly magazine for the region.

With Fiji’s restrictive Media Industry Development Act (MIDA) only repealed in April 2023 following a change in government, the magazine can now publish analytical reporting without the risks it previously faced.

• READ MORE: Other QUT Journalism reports
• Islands Business website

With a greater chance for these stories to shine, communities have a greater chance that their voices will be heard and shared.

Islands Business general manager Samantha Magick notes the importance of digging below the surface of issues and uncovering injustices with her work.

“I feel like that time where you have to be objective and somehow live above the reality of the world is gone,” Samantha says.

“Quite often I can go into a story thinking one thing and come out saying, ‘I was completely wrong about that.’

‘Objective openness’
“Maybe it’s about going in with an objective openness to hear things, but then saying at some point ‘we as a publication, platform or nation should take a position on this.’”

Magick provides the example of the climate change issue.

“Our position from the start was that climate change is real. We need to be talking about this, we need to be holding these discussions in our space,” she says.

“As long as you declare that this is our position and where we stand on it, why would I give a climate denier space? Because it’s going to sell more magazines or create more of a stir online? That’s not something that we believe in.”

Despite the magazine’s dedication to probing coverage of business and social issues, new waves of digital journalism continue to affect its reach.

With an abundance of free news readily available online, media outlets around the world have seen a significant reduction in demand for paid content, recent research shows.

Despite this being a global phenomenon, the impact appears to be harsher on smaller outlets such as Islands Business compared to large media corporations.

‘Younger people expect to not pay’
“Younger people expect to not pay for their media content, due to having so much access to online content,” Magick says.

“We need to be able to demonstrate the value of investigative reporting, big picture sort of reporting, not the day-to-day stuff, and to be able to do that, we need to be able to pay high quality reporters and train them up in future writing.”

Islands Business’s newest recruit, Prerna Priyanka, agrees that this very style of reporting attracted her to work for the publication.

“Their in-depth writing style was something new for me compared to other media outlets, so learning and adapting as a rookie journalist was something that drew me to work with them,” Prerna says.

Prerna notes she has some say over the topics she can cover and strives to incorporate important issues in her work.

“I believe it’s essential to shed light on pressing issues like gender equality and environmental sustainability, and I actively seek out opportunities to do so in my work,” she says.

As Islands Business looks forward, Samantha Magick aims to ensure the diverse Pacific voices remain centred in every discourse and are an active part of the magazine’s raw, unfiltered storytelling.

Dominique Meehan is a student journalist from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT who travelled to Fiji with the support of the Australian Government’s New Colombo Plan Mobility Programme. This article is republished by Asia Pacific Report in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), QUT and The University of the South Pacific.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

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Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry touts its altruism and environmental stewardship by pointing to a voluntary levy that companies pay on their production, which is then used to clean up orphan wells that have been left to the state.

But some of Oklahoma’s biggest oil companies have opted out of the fund, forcing the state to return millions of dollars that would have otherwise gone to restoring land scarred by discarded drilling infrastructure and contaminated by leaks and spills, according to a ProPublica and Capital & Main analysis.

The list of companies that received such refunds includes some of the Oklahoma oil industry’s household names, such as Ovintiv and Chesapeake Energy Corp. It also includes the two richest people in the state: Harold Hamm, a pioneer in fracking technology and the founder of the multibillion-dollar Continental Resources, and George Kaiser, whose success as head of his family’s oil company helped him buy the Bank of Oklahoma.

All told, dozens of oil companies received refunds worth about $11 million over the past seven years, ProPublica and Capital & Main found. Put another way, for every $100 the state brought in via this funding mechanism, it sent $8.58 back to oil companies.

The Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, created by the Legislature in 1993, collects a 0.1% assessment on oil and gas production that functions like a tax on the state’s largest industry. The roughly $163 million collected — after refunds — since the levy’s inception has funded the restoration of more than 20,000 sites.

If the board had not had to issue the millions of dollars in refunds, it could have restored an additional 1,500 orphan well sites, according to the board’s average cleanup bill. Until they are plugged, these wells can leak a litany of pollutants, from toxic gasses to salty wastewater, presenting an environmental crisis across Oklahoma.

ProPublica and Capital & Main reached out to all 76 companies that requested refunds in the past seven years as well as to the main in-state trade groups, the Oklahoma Energy Producers Alliance and the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma. The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, Hamm’s Continental Resources, Kaiser’s Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., Chesapeake Energy and Ovintiv did not respond to requests for comment.

Only two oil producers answered questions: one said she requested refunds to cut down on contact with regulators, while the other dismissed concerns about the refunds, stating that “it’s not that much money.”

Zack Taylor, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Energy Producers Alliance, wrote in an email that the board “has done very important work cleaning up abandoned well sites all over Oklahoma.” But, he added, “We believe it should be an opt in program so the smaller producers and royalty owners could agree up front whether or not to participate.”

In addition to paying for orphan well site cleanup, the Energy Resources Board’s levy funds pro-fossil fuel marketing campaigns that range from K-12 curricula promoting the industry in classrooms to programming with Mike Rowe, the reality television star known for the show “Dirty Jobs.”

Mindy Stitt, the Energy Resources Board’s executive director, said the state’s oil companies “exemplify what it means to be a good neighbor.”

“They contribute millions of dollars to our programs, even if they must request a refund some years, making significant impacts across our state,” she said.

Not everyone sees it that way.

Don Scott has worked his farm in south-central Oklahoma for years, harvesting hay while carefully avoiding an orphan well that scars one of his fields. The green pump jack stood inoperable on a recent visit to the farm, rust eating through the metal. Salt contamination had turned the soil an unnatural white, the dirt cracking at the base of the well.

The well occupies otherwise productive land and could leak more pollutants into the environment. “And that ain’t counting the aggravation of having to work around it,” said Scott, whose father and grandfather worked in the oil fields and who now laments the state’s orphan well epidemic.

More than 18,000 wells have already been labeled as orphans by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the state’s main oil regulatory body. That number is likely to swell, as the state has more than a quarter-million unplugged wells — some active, some already idle — according to data from energy software firm Enverus.

But the money available for cleanup pales in comparison to the task. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission collects its own tax, which has generated only a several-million-dollar orphan well fund. The state quickly exhausted federal money it received from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to plug wells. And drillers have set aside only 0.6% of the projected cleanup cost via financial instruments called bonds, according to a ProPublica and Capital & Main analysis of state data.

This leaves the Energy Resources Board and its voluntary cleanup fund as an important tool in Oklahoma’s struggle to address its unplugged wells.

If the Energy Resources Board fund continues to be voluntary in a state that’s already slow to impose regulations on its most lucrative industry, critics say, then companies should at least be required to set aside enough money to plug their own wells.

“Local industry also has a part to play in funding remediation,” said Kara Joy McKee, director of the Sierra Club’s Oklahoma chapter. “It should be a general obligation of the industry that has received so much wealth from the resources of this state.”

Some of the state’s major oil producers top the list of companies that requested refunds.

Continental Resources received nearly $1.6 million in refunds over the seven years for which the Energy Resources Board maintains data, while Kaiser-Francis Oil took in about $490,000.

Ovintiv, an $11 billion oil company, was by far the largest recipient, as its subsidiaries and related entities got more than $3.8 million back.

Next on the list, a partnership between large driller Mach Resources and private equity firm Bayou City Energy Management received more than $2.1 million in refunds. Neither company responded to requests for comment.

The Oklahoma City-headquartered Chesapeake Energy, valued at $10 billion, also appeared on the list, getting a more than $400,000 refund.

And companies belonging to the McCasland family, longtime Oklahoma oil producers, filed dozens of requests totalling several hundred-thousand dollars in refunds. One of the family’s companies, Twin D Energy, repeatedly pursued the refund, even when it stood to only get back amounts as low as $2.57, $3.47 and $3.71 in a given year. Tom McCasland III, the president of the family’s companies, said they only request refunds for their own portion of oil production, not for other working interest owners.

Oklahoma has a sunset law that sets the date by which the state must dissolve or renew certain government agencies, and the Energy Resources Board is facing the chopping block. In 2023, its sunset date was pushed back to 2025 to give lawmakers time to decide what to do with the agency. But several bills proposed in this year’s and last year’s legislative session to extend or update the board’s mandate failed.

Instead, the state’s oil trade groups have entered negotiations to draft their own language destined for the Legislature. Some of their ideas threaten to further undermine funding for the board’s cleanup work.

On one hand, the trade groups are discussing provisions to allow the board to plug wells instead of only cleaning up surface contamination. But some oil companies are also aiming to make it easier to avoid paying the assessment that funds the board’s work, potentially only collecting money from drillers who opt in.

“There are people that don’t feel that it is really refundable,” said McCasland, who serves as the Oklahoma Energy Producers Alliance’s chairman in addition to his work with his family’s oil companies. As a result, the negotiations have included discussions about the ease of getting the money back.

Every dollar refunded is one less dollar spent cleaning up the industry’s orphan wells, so landowners like Scott, the farmer with an orphan well on his land, might have to continue waiting to see old, leaking infrastructure removed from their property.

The Energy Resources Board is a “good thing,” Scott said, and it has begun cleanup on his land. So he expressed frustration upon learning that oil companies regularly ask the board for refunds.

“Once it’s paid in,” he said, “it ought to be there permanently.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Mark Olalde, ProPublica, and Nick Bowlin, Capital & Main.

Change may be on the horizon, however, due to a 2022 agreement from United Nations member states to draft a legally binding treaty by 2025 to “end plastic pollution.” Thanks to advocacy from a small group of waste pickers, the treaty mandate recognized “the significant contribution made by workers in informal and cooperative settings,” using a euphemism often understood to refer to waste pickers. It recommended that, over the next two years of scheduled negotiations, delegates consider “lessons learned and best practices” from these informal and cooperative settings.

Now, four negotiating sessions later, the global plastics treaty has given waste pickers an unprecedented boost in visibility. The most recent draft of the agreement refers to waste pickers explicitly — albeit in brackets indicating the need for further discussion — and virtually every stakeholder involved has something to say about their importance in waste management and in shaping the treaty.

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“We’ve been unusually successful in these negotiations in highlighting the importance of waste pickers,” said Taylor Cass Talbott, advocacy coordinator for the International Alliance of Waste Pickers, or IAWP, a group that promotes the interests of nearly half a million waste pickers across 34 countries. “If this language sticks,” she added, “this is pretty historic, not just for waste pickers but for the representation of labor within a multilateral environmental agreement.”

Perhaps counterintuitively, those offering statements of support include the plastic companies and industry groups whose plastic trash gets cleaned up by waste pickers. In a document submitted to the U.N. Environment Programme before the treaty’s third negotiating session last year, the American Chemistry Council — the United States’ main petrochemical industry trade group — said the agreement should “uplift developing economies and the informal sector.” Likewise, the International Council of Chemical Associations and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers said in separate submissions that they also support the inclusion of the “informal sector” that waste pickers represent.

Consumer-facing food and beverage companies have made similar but more specific statements, sometimes elaborating on how the treaty should advance waste pickers’ interests. These include better labor protections and living wages, as well as formal integration into government waste collection schemes.

Waste pickers are also calling for a seat at the table as governments build out or redesign their waste-management systems. They fear that more formalized waste management could cut off their access to dumpsites and landfills and, thus, compensation.

In some ways, the recently heightened recognition represents a success for waste pickers, who, through the IAWP, have systematically sought to elevate their profile throughout the treaty negotiations. That transnational plastic manufacturers and product companies feel compelled to at least allude to them in policy documents could be construed as evidence of the IAWP’s growing power and influence.

Still, observers to the treaty negotiations are concerned that all of the talk won’t translate to action. “There is always the question: Is this strategic, or are we just giving them the opportunity to twist our demands?” said Andrea Lema, the global waste picker support coordinator for the nonprofit Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. She and others worry that the private sector is taking advantage of waste pickers, disingenuously expressing concern for them in order to appear more virtuous than they really are and boost their reputations in the minds of consumers.

Soledad Mella, president of Chile’s main waste picker collective, has attended all four of the plastic treaty negotiating sessions so far, and has experienced this tension firsthand. She said she’s wary of corporate greenwashing from companies for whom waste pickers have long provided a free cleanup service. But at the same time, these companies should be concerned about waste pickers, and some of them — mostly the consumer-facing brands that sell plastic products — have genuinely helped to amplify waste pickers’ demands through their own PR efforts and submissions to the U.N.

Coca-Cola, for example, has been listed as the number one plastic polluter for six years in a row, based on crowdsourced data from public litter cleanups. But Coke representatives have spoken alongside waste pickers at negotiating session side events, and together with Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Unilever, the company has launched an initiative to extend the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to the informal waste sector.

Whether such initiatives will translate to real change for waste pickers is an open question. But the IAWP considers it important to be in conversation with these companies, given the strong hand they could have in redesigning waste-management systems through extended producer responsibility laws known as EPR. These laws, broadly supported by treaty negotiators, seek to make companies financially responsible for the waste they produce. Under some scenarios, this could involve providing compensation and other support for waste pickers.

“Companies have a role to play using their leverage to ensure we are being compensated and included in EPR planning and implementation,” said Johnson Doe, founder of the Green Waste Pickers Cooperative in Ghana. His work involves going door-to-door throughout the capital city of Accra to pick up people’s recyclable waste. Others in his organization make daily trips to a landfill in Accra to scavenge, sort, and sell recyclable materials.

Involvement in new or improved EPR systems is part of Doe and the IAWP’s principal demand for a “just transition” for waste pickers, a deliberately broad term for policies that recognize and protect waste pickers’ rights as the waste-management sector develops. Crucially, this includes formally integrating waste pickers into government waste-management systems — officially hiring them to provide some of the waste collection services they have already been offering for years. Being on a city, county, or state payroll could deliver such benefits as job security, living wages, health care, and worker protections. 

Other just-transition policies might involve formalizing waste picker-led programs to repair broken products or deliver reusable containers to people’s homes, which have the added benefit of reducing the need for new plastic production.

Carsten Wachholz, of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty — a consortium of more than 200 food and beverage companies, retailers, plastic producers, and other enterprises — said his organization began engaging with the IAWP at their request, and that the two groups agreed to consult each other when developing policy recommendations and position papers. He said he didn’t want to speculate on the intentions of individual companies to support waste pickers, or whether their treaty engagement will translate to tangible improvements for waste pickers. “This will very much depend on how countries will implement their obligations under a future treaty,” he told Grist, “and if dedicated support for ensuring a just transition can be mobilized.” 

Charlene Collison, secretariat of the Fair Circularity Initiative — the business and human rights endeavor that Coca-Cola helped launch — said she could not speak on behalf of individual companies but that the initiative’s members have broadly agreed to improve waste and recycling value chains “in robust consultation with stakeholders,” including waste pickers. Earlier this year, the organization published a report offering governments and companies a methodology for determining a baseline living income for waste pickers.

A Coca-Cola spokesperson did not directly respond to questions about greenwashing but pointed to its participation in the Fair Circularity Initiative, the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, and the Responsible Sourcing Initiative, an effort to “improve livelihoods” of waste pickers through research and investment.

While Doe said that he and the IAWP are prepared to work with consumer goods companies and hold them accountable for the pledges they make, companies higher up the plastics value chain — the petrochemical producers and trade groups that say they want to “uplift” waste pickers — are another matter.

“They are a lost cause,” he told Grist, describing a fundamental mismatch between the industry’s objectives and those of waste pickers. For example, the petrochemical industry does not support limits on plastic production — in part, according to one waste picker Grist spoke with, out of an insincere concern that making less plastic would deprive waste pickers of their livelihoods. Waste pickers say they have plenty of plastic trash to collect already; even if they ran out, it would be easy to switch to other materials like aluminum cans or cardboard. 

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The petrochemical industry also opposes additional restrictions on hazardous chemicals used in plastics, an important priority for waste pickers since they are chronically exposed to these chemicals through their work.

Mella, the waste picker from Chile, said the idea that petrochemical companies support waste pickers is “laughable.” 

“It’s super nice and super interesting for them to say, ‘We the petrochemical industry are very concerned about what’s going to happen to waste pickers,’” she told Grist in Spanish. But those statements are “obsolete” when considered alongside the industry’s plans to dramatically ramp up plastic production and its promises to deal with the resulting waste through unproven technologies like so-called “chemical recycling,” a suite of technologies that the industry says can melt down plastics and turn them into new products in an endless loop. Investigations from Reuters, Beyond Plastics, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, and others have shown that, of the handful of chemical recycling facilities in the U.S., none operate at full capacity and most turn plastic into chemicals or fuel to be burned.

To Mella’s knowledge, no petrochemical industry group has reached out to the IAWP to develop policy positions that would benefit waste pickers. Mella said the industry’s discourse is mostly about boosting business. It “has nothing to do with waste pickers’ social, economic, and cultural reality,” she told Grist. “There is zero chance of us ever aligning our position with that of the petrochemical industry.”

In response to Grist’s request for comment, Matthew Kastner, a spokesperson for the International Council of Chemical Associations, or ICCA, said that his organization is advocating for measures that would support waste pickers, such as design principles to make plastics more easily recyclable, recycling targets that could drive up demand for waste pickers’ work, and chemical recycling — which he said could lead to more types of used plastic having greater value in the future.

“Altogether, there is a potential to increase the value and volume of plastics that waste pickers can profit from, and ICCA hopes to be able to collaborate with waste pickers in a responsible and mutually beneficial manner,” Kastner told Grist. He listed a handful of initiatives around the world where industry groups are engaging with local waste picker organizations, including one to integrate waste pickers into South Africa’s formal waste-management system and another to provide $230,000 to “boost recycling cooperatives and promote a humanized circular economy in Brazil.”

Plastics Europe, a trade group representing the continent’s petrochemical manufacturers, told Grist: “We indeed recognize this complex situation and urge continued discussion involving all relevant actors as the treaty process continues,” and declined to comment further. American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers did not respond to Grist’s requests for comment.

According to Lema, with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, one reason companies have been so quick to latch onto waste pickers is because they represent a more human side of the plastics issue. “When you’re talking about waste pickers, you’re talking about the lives of the people behind the treaty,” she said. 

To be sure, it’s not just the private sector that waste pickers have to worry about. Although the waste pickers and advocates Grist spoke with voiced concerns about industry invoking their name and demands, there have also been tensions with nongovernmental organizations. Mella said she’s seen “real alignment” with environmental groups, but only about half of them are incorporating the IAWP’s demands about a just transition for waste pickers into their policy positions. The rest are more single-mindedly focused on limiting global plastic production.

Cass Talbott, with the IAWP, said she’s most concerned with the positions of member states, since these are the stakeholders who will be directly responsible for determining what makes it into the final treaty text. She said she’d like to see greater specificity from any group that alludes to waste pickers as part of the treaty negotiations, and, where appropriate, for stakeholders to get in direct contact with the IAWP if they intend to invoke the rights and interests of waste pickers.

“We are willing to be at the table — we don’t want to be appropriated,” she told Grist. 

A 48-page policy document from the IAWP lists dozens of ways that waste pickers’ rights and interests have already been honored in jurisdictions around the world — for example, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where waste pickers’ role in waste management was recognized in the municipal constitution passed in the 1990s, and in Portland, Oregon, where an organization called Ground Source Association has secured contracts with city, county, and regional authorities to allow the formal employment of nearly 50 waste pickers.  

Enshrining similar victories at the global level will require more than just words of support. Cass Talbott said one of the IAWP’s main priorities at the next and final round of treaty negotiations this November will be to ensure that an article on a just transition makes it into the final draft.

“There’s been some greater will among governments to support the just-transition article and measures throughout the treaty,” she said, “and other stakeholders have to show up for it at this point.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Does the plastics industry support waste pickers? It’s complicated. on Jul 30, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

It is clear in this that even the French republic, despite having a narcotics grade addiction to the international arms industry, thought that Thales might have gone just that bit far.  Some 65 investigators from the Nanterre-based office responsible for battling corruption, financial and fiscal offences have been thrown into the operation.  A further twelve magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), with the assistance of the European agency Eurojust, aided by Dutch and Spanish officials, have all been involved in this sprawling enterprise.

The police raids arise from two separate investigations.  The first, starting at the end of 2016, involved suspicions of corruption pertaining to a foreign official, criminal association and money laundering.  The topics of interest: the sale of submarines to Brazil, along with the construction of a naval base.

The second commenced in June 2023, with claims of suspected corruption and influence peddling, criminal conspiracy and money laundering connected with the supply of military and civilian equipment to overseas clients.

Giving little by way of details, a spokesperson for Thales insisted that the corporation “strictly complies with national and international regulations.” It had “developed and implemented a global compliance program that meets with the highest industry standards.”  That, it may well turn out, is precisely the problem.

The company propaganda on such compliance with national and international regulations is plentiful and fabulously cynical.  After a time perusing such material, one forgets that this is a defence outfit much dedicated to sowing the seeds of death, a far from benign purpose.  Group Secretary and General Counsel Isabelle Simon, for instance, is quoted as saying that the company, over the course of two decades “has developed a robust policy on ethics, integrity and compliance, which are the foundations of our social responsibility and the key to building a world we can all trust.”

The anti-corruption policy, so it is claimed, is also “regularly reviewed and updated to reflect increasingly strict international rules and requirements on corruption and influence peddling,” a point “further strengthened by Thales’s progress towards ISO 37001 certification.”

Typical of the guff surrounding modern organisational behaviour, the company wonks assume that workshops and training sessions are the way to go when inspiring a spirit of compliance.  There more sessions you run, and the more do you do, the more enlightened you become.  In boasting about its “zero tolerance on corruption,” we are told that 11,270 “training sessions on corruption and influence peddling were delivered in 2019-2020.”

Other features are also mentioned to ward off any suspicions, among them a code of conduct intended to stomp on any corrupt practices, a “corruption and influence peddling risk map,” a disciplinary system, an anti-bribery management system and an internal whistleblowing program.

The presence of such measures tends to be cosmetic.  Even defence contractors need to show an iota of principle and “social responsibility”.  But an iota is what it remains.  As Bernard Keane of the Australian publication Crikey observes, “bribery might be a tool in Thales’ arsenal for dealing with defence officials around the world, along with stringing out negotiations for its own ends and refusing to comply with request [sic] for tender requirements”.

The last point Keane makes is of particular interest to Australian lawmakers, given the referral by the country’s defence department of a lucrative 10-year contract inked with Thales in 2020 to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).  The contract covers the management of two Commonwealth-owned munitions facilities at Mulwala in New South Wales and Benalla in Victoria.

The referral was prompted by a report by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), which found the extent Thales had wooed Australian officials in a skewed tender process.  A bottle of champagne, for instance, had been solicited by a defence official in the course of discussions, one that also involved providing Thales with confidential information. This all worked swimmingly for the official in question, given that he later joined the company.

Thales also got what it wanted, effectively bypassing, with the blessing of the defence department, a competitive tender process.  This took place despite a 2017 offer from the global munitions company, NIOA, and the ANAO’s own recommendation to pursue an appropriate tender option.  All in all, the audit found that “Defence’s management of probity was not effective and there was evidence of unethical conduct.”

This is putting it mildly, given that Thales had not only been involved in drafting the criteria for the request for tender (RTF) documents (some 28 workshops were held for that purpose between October 2018 and August 2019), but did so deficiently.  In October 2019, this very point was made by the Defence Department, which noted no fewer than 199 “non-compliances” by the company against the RTF.

Apart from giving officialdom their time in the sun of oversight and regulation, chastening investigations into corruption do little to alter the spoliation that arises from the defence industry.  Defence contractors are regularly feted by government authorities, often with the connivance of the revolving door.  Yesterday’s officials are today’s arms sales consultants.  The defence sector, notably for such countries as France, is simply too lucrative and important to be cleansed of its unscrupulousness.  Even as these investigations are taking place to ruffle Thales, the Brazilian military establishment, by way of example, has happily continued doing business with the French weapons giant.

In February last year, the defence group trumpeted securing a contract with the Brazilian Airspace Control Department (DECEA) for the supply and installation of ADS-B ground surveillance stations to improve the safety of commercial civil aviation.  The effort is not negligible: 66 stations to be installed in over 20 Brazilian states.

On June 17, the company announced the acquisition by the Brazilian Air Force of the Ground Master 200 Multi-mission All-in-one (GM 200 MM/A) tactical air surveillance radars.  With much bluster, the announcement goes on to describe such radars as giving the user “superior situational awareness for air surveillance, as well as ground-based air defence (GBAD) operations up to Mid-Range Air-Defence (MRAD).”  Some gloating follows: “The contract signed with the FAB consolidates Thales’ position as a leader in the radar market in Brazil.”  One can only wonder how many palms were greased, and local regulations breached, for that to happen.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

New Caledonia’s mothballed nickel plant in Koniambo (north of the main island of Grande Terre) has announced it has started mass sackings of some 1200 staff, despite efforts to identify a potential buyer.

Koniambo (KNS-Koniambo Nickel SAS) operations had already been mothballed after the announcement, in February, from its major financier, Anglo-Swiss giant Glencore, that it wanted out.

KNS is jointly owned by Glencore (49 percent) and New Caledonia’s Northern province (51 percent).

• READ MORE: Other nickel mine industry reports

While making the announcement, Glencore signalled a 6-month delay in the implementation of its decision, including payment of salaries.

The same timeframe was also supposed to be used to find potential buyers for the shares owned by Glencore.

Glencore said in February that keeping its stake in KNS was no longer sustainable.

It also recalled that the plant, in more than 10 years of existence and operation, had never made a profit.

Staggering debt
Over the past decade, KNS had accumulated a staggering 13.5 billion euros (NZ$25 billion) in debt.

As the August 31 deadline looms at the end of the six-month respite, what had been the symbol of New Caledonia’s Northern province empowerment and wealth “re-balancing” of the French Pacific archipelago’s provinces is now faced with a bleak reality.

Koniambo’s wealth relies on the Tiébaghi nickel massif, believed to hold about one quarter of New Caledonia’s nickel reserves.

Koniambo: a highly political symbol
KNS was born from a political and financial deal, including France — the “Bercy Accord” signed in December 1997, just months before the political Nouméa autonomy Accord was signed in 1998.

The deal was de facto enacting the transfer of the Tiébaghi massif to New Caledonia’s Northern province and its financial arm, the Société Minière du Sud Pacifique (SMSP).

It was the financial translation of the will to restore some balance between the affluent Southern Province and the less favoured Northern Province of New Caledonia, mostly populated by the indigenous Kanak community.

Since the Koniambo project and its construction started, the new activity has had a stimulating effect on the whole region, especially in the small towns of Voh, Koné and Pouembout.

The number of local companies increased, as well as the population.

In announcing the official lay-offs on Friday, KNS still wanted to appear optimistic: “Even though we are pursuing the search process for a potential buyer, and that three groups continue to display an interest for our company, we do not have at this stage a finalised offer”, the company admitted.

“We are therefore compelled to go ahead with the collective lay-off process on economic grounds”.

‘Cold’ sleep process
Beyond August 31, only a group of about 50 workers will remain employed in maintenance work on what will then be described as “cold” sleep process.

“But the fact that three world-class groups are still in discussions show that Koniambo Nickel still represents a strong interest for potential takeovers”, an optimistic KNS vice-president Alexandre Rousseau, told public broadcaster NC la 1ère on Saturday.

On top of the wave of sackings announced by KNS, some 600 contractors relying on the plant’s activities have also lost their jobs since February.

Local unrest – world nickel crisis
The announcement comes as New Caledonia’s economy is in a critical situation.

It has suffered a major blow, on top of an already grave financial situation.

Since May 13, violent unrest has been ongoing in New Caledonia, with a backdrop of protests against French-proposed modifications of voters’ eligibility for provincial elections, regarded by pro-independence movements as a bid to reduce the political voice of the indigenous Kanak community.

Since the riots, destruction, looting and arson began, more than 700 businesses have been destroyed, 10 people killed (eight civilians and two French gendarmes), and the overall cost of the unrest has topped 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4 billion).

During the riots and unrest, nickel mining sites have been specifically targeted several times.

Entire nickel sector in crisis
New Caledonia’s nickel industry has also been in profound turmoil over past years.

Its other two plants — in the Southern province (Prony Resources) and historic operator Société le Nickel (SLN) in Doniambo near Nouméa — owned by French mining giant Eramet — are also on the verge of collapse.

The situation comes from a world nickel market now dominated by Indonesian units, which have started to produce nickel in mass quantities and at a much lower price.

The result was a collapse of the world nickel price — it slumped by 48 per cent in 2023.

New Caledonia’s production, in this context, was also regarded as too expensive, prompting efforts for a deep reform, especially on the cost structure such as electricity.

A French assistance plan proposed in 2023 by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, including a 200 million euro (NZ$367 million) package, was declined by local authorities, who said too much was being asked by France in terms of strings attached to the massive funding loan.

The French-proposed reform also intended to diversify New Caledonia’s nickel buyers from an almost-entire reliance on Asian clients and instead turn to more European buyers, mostly car manufacturers for the purposes of production of batteries for electric cars.

Other plants on the verge of collapse
As a result of the combined effects of the current situation (the ongoing riots and the pre-existing nickel crisis), Prony Resources’ operations are at a standstill.

Eramet, which in recent months had made no secret of its desire to disengage from SLN, earlier reported a net loss of some 72 million euros (NZ$133 million) for the first half of the financial year.

New Caledonia’s nickel industry is believed to employ about 25 percent of the French Pacific archipelago’s workforce.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

But researchers have found it is no better at controlling dust than rainwater. It can also contain toxic chemicals and have radioactive concentrations several hundred times the acceptable federal limit in drinking water. Given the risks it poses to human health and the environment, Pennsylvania lawmakers and the state’s environmental agency disallowed this practice more than seven years ago. 

But oil and gas companies have continued to spread their wastewater practically unchecked across the state, thanks to a loophole in state regulations. A Grist review of records from 2019 to 2023 found that oil and gas producers submitted more than 3,000 reports of wastewater dumping to the state Department of Environmental Protection, or DEP. In total, they reported spraying nearly 2.4 million gallons of wastewater on Pennsylvania roads. This number is likely a vast undercount: About 86 percent of Pennsylvania’s smaller oil and gas drillers did not report how they disposed of their waste in 2023. 

Wastewater dumping is an open secret on Pennsylvania roads. At a legislative hearing this spring, state senators Katie Muth and Carolyn Comitta, both Democrats, said they witnessed companies spreading wastewater last fall during a tour of new fracking wells. Lawson, who has become a public face of opposition to wastewater dumping, experiences sinus pains and believes her symptoms are connected to living near roads coated with wastewater. Sometimes the pain has been so intense she’s had to leave her home “to get different air.” She’s submitted multiple complaints to DEP over the years, but she says it has done little to drag the agency off the sidelines. 

“I am told [by DEP] to catch the truck,” Lawson said. “I’m told to be my own cop.” 

Neil Shader, a spokesperson for DEP, told Grist that the department “is committed to responding to all brine/roadspreading complaints that are received from the general public” and that it investigates all complaints. “If/when a responsible party is identified, appropriate enforcement action is taken,” he said. 

Lawmakers first banned the use of wastewater from fracking wells as a dust suppressant in 2016. Two years later, the DEP issued a moratorium on the use of wastewater from traditional drilling methods as well. But conventional oil and gas companies have found a loophole that allows them to skirt these rules with impunity. The DEP requires permits for wastewater disposal, but the agency grants an exception if the wastewater can be reused for a “beneficial” purpose. Any waste that is no more injurious to the environment and human health than a commercial alternative may be classified as a “coproduct,” a designation that receives less DEP oversight.

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Under Pennsylvania law, companies can grant their wastewater coproduct status by conducting in-house analyses to determine whether their waste is harmful to human health or the environment. These tests do not have to include a radiation analysis, even though studies have shown radium from oil and gas wastewater — which often contains 300 to 560 times the acceptable levels of radioactive substances in drinking water — has made its way into roadside vegetation, fresh water, and up the food chain. A company is only required to submit its justification for using the coproduct status if asked by the DEP to do so. 

The agency rarely asks. In 2021, the DEP requested justification for claiming coproduct status from 16 companies. Only 10 responded. The DEP told them that the materials they submitted were “inadequate.”

Any conventional driller who is audited and “roadspreads” in the absence of an approved coproduct determination from the DEP — and without updating or submitting a new coproduct determination — is technically violating the agency’s moratorium, putting them in murky legal territory. But without agency enforcement, these companies face no consequences.

“As far as I am aware, there have been zero notices of violations, compliance orders, fines, and penalties for anything dealing with rogue dumping of wastewater,” said David Hess, a former DEP secretary. “No one is enforcing the moratorium.” 

Shader, the DEP spokesperson, told Grist that the coproduct term will no longer appear in waste reports because oil and gas companies “have been using the product type incorrectly,” likely misunderstanding the term’s purpose. The agency “investigates reports of unauthorized roadspreading of brine and will take enforcement action as appropriate,” he said. “DEP encourages members of the public who observe potentially unauthorized roadspreading of brine to report the activity to DEP.”

The agency’s decision to drop the classification can largely be traced to the work of Karen Feridun. Feridun is the co-founder of the environmental organization Better Path Coalition, and in 2019 she noticed that the DEP had newly listed “coproduct” as a waste type in its oil and gas reports, implying to her that the agency had tacitly issued a blanket approval of wastewater dumping on roads. She then filed a public records request, which led the DEP to request a meeting with her. During the discussion, agency representatives told her that its oil and gas division had added the term to its waste reports after an “oral request” from Pennfield Energy LLC, a conventional driller in Pennsylvania. The agency told her it had no paper trail of the communication. 

Feridun was outraged. “I am convinced they knew exactly what drillers were going to do,” she said. To her, the agency had all but confirmed it had endorsed wastewater dumping.

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The DEP has denied Feridun’s interpretation of its decision. The agency was attempting to “readily identify” which companies had already conducted waste toxicity assessments as a precursor to dumping their wastewater, Shader said. “The addition of this product type code was in no way intended to imply that the requirements [for safety and efficacy] did not need to be satisfied.” 

The incident also appeared to indicate miscommunication within the agency. State waste codes are generated by the DEP’s Bureau of Waste Management, but oilfield oversight largely rests with the agency’s oil and gas division. Feridun wondered whether the oil and gas division had informed the waste management department of its decision to include a novel term in its records. Since the department told Feridun it had no paper trail, she said it could not give her an answer.

When asked whether the DEP’s oil and gas division communicated its waste report change to the bureau of waste management in 2019, Shader said that the divisions communicate “on a regular basis to discuss activities regulated by both programs.”

Lawson’s experiences, new research, and the findings from Feridun’s records request have thrust oil and gas companies’ behavior back into the state’s political spotlight. At a state senate hearing in April, Bill Burgos, a professor of environmental engineering at Pennsylvania State University, told lawmakers “there is no more research that needs to be done” to determine whether oil and gas wastewater is safe and effective for treating roads. Burgos has published several studies on oil and gas wastewater, including one recently that found the fluid is ineffective as a dust suppressant. 

In early May, Feridun and a group of other activists delivered a letter to Governor Josh Shapiro and members of the legislature asking them to ban companies from spraying roads with wastewater. Two lawmakers have since introduced dueling bills on the issue. Representative Martin Causer, a Republican serving a swath of northern Pennsylvania, proposed to legalize the practice while Representative Greg Vitali, a Democrat representing a region east of Philadelphia, moved to ban it.

Some of the public pressure appears to have paid off. In April, the DEP proposed amending coproduct criteria to mandate an assessment of a material’s efficacy, but it is unclear if this would include radiation testing, which would give the DEP — and the public — a fuller picture of oil and gas waste’s toxicity.

Earlier this month, the agency went a step further: At a legislative hearing in front of the state house’s Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, the DEP said it supported Vitali’s bill banning oil and gas companies from spreading their wastewater on roads and preventing the fluid from being treated as a coproduct by the department. The bill advanced out of the committee with support split along party lines, but it faces a steep climb to the governor’s desk, given that Republicans control the state senate. 

Until something changes, people like Lawson continue to live near roads doused with toxic wastewater. She said the dumping has been more frequent lately. If the DEP is going to more aggressively regulate oil and gas companies, it needs to be better funded, said Hess. 

“As long as [companies] can get away with it, they will,” he said. “That has been the history of their entire existence.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘Roadspreading’ returns: How Pennsylvania’s oil industry quietly dumped waste across the state on Jul 24, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Jake Bolster.

Photograph Source: Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas – CC BY-SA 3.0

Palm oil is one of the most used vegetable oils in the world and is found in a large variety of packaged products, from shampoos and lipstick to cookies and frozen pizza. Unfortunately, the production of palm oil has been linked to severe environmental and social costs, including significant rainforest destruction and human rights abuses, particularly in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, which together account for around 85 percent of global exports.

In the United States, out of the seven commodities that were linked to forest destruction, palm oil was the most “significant contributor” to deforestation, according to a March 2024 report. This report by Trase, a “data-driven transparency initiative,” is based on an analysis of figures from October 2021 to November 2023. “[T]he United States’ direct imports of seven forest risk commodities… [are] exposed to at least 122,800 hectares of tropical and subtropical deforestation. This is an area comparable in size to the city of Los Angeles,” states the report.

If any part of the palm oil supply chain is linked to the destruction of rainforests and peatlands or human rights abuses, the product is known as Conflict Palm Oil.

According to a May 2024 report by my organization, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), palm oil is increasingly being used “as an animal feed additive,” however, “much of the international trade in palm oil-based animal feed is obscured for consumers and other stakeholders.”. This lack of transparency raises questions about the actual role of the world’s largest palm oil traders in deforestation and social conflict.

Responding to this crisis and bowing to consumer and stakeholder pressure, many companies have adopted the “No Deforestation, No Peatland, No Exploitation” (NDPE) policy to ensure responsible production. This corporate pledge is meant to prevent further deforestation, safeguard “High Conservation Value” (HCV) areas, eliminate new development on peatlands, and protect Indigenous communities.

Hidden Palm Oil in Animal Feed

Palm oil is found in many foods and household products, but it’s also used in animal feed, especially for dairy cows, and ends up in products like milk, cheese, ice cream, and chocolate. Because it is an indirect ingredient, it is known as “embedded palm oil”—often hidden and not included in companies’ deforestation-free commitments. An analysis of 2022 data by RAN revealed that palm oil-based animal feed was the largest category of palm oil products imported to the United States.

Our research reveals that most companies—15 out of 17—importing palm oil-based animal feed into the U.S. lack NDPE policies, thereby increasing the risk of deforestation and human rights abuses. Companies must include palm oil-based animal feed in their NDPE policies and deforestation-free commitments and be transparent about using palm oil in their supply chains.

Major companies like Nestlé and Ferrero make claims about lessening the impact of deforestation across their product lines. These claims are misleading because vast amounts of palm oil are enteringtheir supply chain as animal feed is not included in their accounting.

Dairy companies like Lactalis, Danone, and Fonterra are not taking enough action to ensure their products, such as milk, cheese, and chocolate, do not contribute to deforestation. Only Unilever provided an estimate to our researchers about how much palm oil-based animal feed forms part of its supply chain. Swedish-Danish company Arla has promised that there will be no palm oil in its milk supply network by 2028, ensuring it is deforestation-free.

Our research estimates that if Nestlé accounted for the embedded palm oil in its supply chain, its claim of being 96 percent deforestation-free could drop to 72 percent (in terms of crude palm oil equivalent).

Increasing Demand for Palm Oil-Based Animal Feed

Initially, animal feed contained palm kernel expeller (PKE), a co-product of crushing palm kernels. Now, new palm oil additives, known as “palm fat,” “palmitic acid,” “rumen-protected fats,” or “calcium salt” (when fortified with calcium), are used in cow diets to boost milk production and quality. These additives have become popular, especially in North America. In Canada, up to 90 percent of farmers use these additives for their dairy cows. (Similar U.S. statistics are unavailable because there is very little industry oversight about its use.)

Palm oil-based animal feed, especially calcium salt, was mainly exported from Indonesia and Malaysia to countries with large dairy industries, including the U.S., the European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and various Middle Eastern and South American countries from 2020 to 2021. Another additive, palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD), is a product of the palm oil refining process and was previously considered a waste product.

High demand for PFAD means it’s now considered an essential part of the palm oil market. Its use is not only limited to animal feed but extends to other products as well, such as biofuels, soaps, and candles. PFAD, therefore, sells for 80 percent more than palm oil. This raises concerns about its production, leading to deforestation and peatland loss, similar to virgin palm oil. Stearin, a triglyceride, is another co-product used in animal feed and foods like margarine and bakery shortening.

Tracking palm oil-based animal feed in global trade is challenging due to a lack of specific trade codes. According to our analysis of more than 30,000 shipments of palm oil products to the U.S. in 2022, feed-grade palm oil was the largest imported category of such products, making up more than a third of U.S. palm oil imports.

Most of these products came from Indonesia, where palm oil production is closely associated with deforestation. This illustrates the significant role of palm oil-based feed in causing environmental degradation.

Embedded Palm Oil Hidden in Global Supply Chains

Many consumer goods companies that adopt NDPE policies claim their supply chains are “deforestation-free,” but they often fall short and fail to meet these expectations. Our research, based on data from 2022 and 2023, indicates that only three of the ten leading consumer goods companies had NDPE policies that they implemented for all their forest-risk commodity supply networks. Additionally, none of these ten companies fully implemented NDPE policies, putting their deforestation-free claims into question.

One of the main issues is that palm oil supply chains, which comprise several co-products and intermediaries, are difficult to track. As a result, palm oil-based animal feed is often unmonitored in company reports. The best practice would be to ensure that all suppliers of palm oil products adopt NDPE policies. Some companies report on the use of soy-based animal feed but not palm oil. The Consumer Goods Forum, an industry-led network of more than 400 companies, includes soy-based feed in its roadmaps, created for various commodities to ensure “forest positive production,” but omits palm oil. If NDPE policies were to cover all parts of the supply chains that use palm oil-based products—including animal feed—companies could avoid sourcing Conflict Palm Oil and making misleading deforestation-free claims.

Major Dairy and Consumer Goods Companies Feeding the Demand

Our researchers analyzed the policies of 14 of the world’s largest dairy and consumer goods companies to see if they ensure that palm oil-based animal feed in their supply chains meets NDPE standards. These companies drive demand for palm oil-based animal feed by producing dairy, chocolate, and other processed foods. The companies analyzed include Arla, Dairy Farmers of America, Danone, Ferrero, Fonterra, FrieslandCampina, Lactalis, Mars, Mengniu, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, Saputo, Unilever, and Yili.

Out of the 14 major companies, only Arla has a strong NDPE policy that covers palm oil in animal feed. However, the company won’t execute the embedded palm oil part of the policy until 2028. This is later than the 2025 deadline set by the EU, where “products that contain palm oil will have to be proven deforestation-free by the beginning of 2025,” according to the RAN report. The other 13 companies either have weak policies or none, which means they might still be linked to deforestation and human rights abuses.

Only seven companies, including Arla, Danone, and Unilever, admit that palm oil-based animal feed is a risk for deforestation. Furthermore, most companies don’t discuss how much embedded palm oil they use. Unilever is an exception, revealing it used 30,000 tonnes of palm oil in its dairy products in 2022, though it didn’t explain how it calculated this figure.

Meanwhile, some companies make misleading claims about being deforestation-free. For instance, Nestlé says 96 percent of its “primary supply chain” of palm oil was deforestation-free in 2023 but doesn’t count the palm oil in animal feed. Without better policies and honest reporting, consumers cannot trust these claims. Companies must include embedded palm oil in their policies and be more transparent to ensure the protection of our forests.

The European Deforestation Regulation and Palm Oil-Based Animal Feed

In June 2023, the EU introduced regulation 2023/115, also called the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). This regulation mandates companies trading in products like cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, and wood to ensure that these products are not linked to deforestation activities.

This policy affects companies that source their milk or dairy products from the region. European companies like Arla, Danone, Ferrero, FrieslandCampina, and Lactalis, as well as Nestlé and Unilever, have significant operations within the EU and are affected by this regulation. Danone claims 91 percent of its supply chain is deforestation-free. But if, for example, 10 percent of its dairy cows were to be given palm oil-based feed, substantial palm oil could enter its supply chain without NDPE guarantees.

Ferrero and Mars make deforestation-free claims for their palm oil supply chains but do not account for embedded palm oil in animal feed, making their claims misleading. Both companies lack transparency in their methodologies and rely on second-party rather than independent third-party verification.

Lack of Proper Regulation for Monitoring Palm Oil-Based Animal Feed Trade

Exporters are crucial in the palm oil supply chain, but it is challenging to identify them and ensure they follow the NDPE policy. RAN’s analysis of customs data from 2022 found that about 25 percent of exporters shipping palm oil-based animal feed from Indonesia and Malaysia to the U.S. were either unknown or listed as logistics companies.

Among the known exporters, around two-thirds of the feed-grade palm oil products entering the U.S. during the same year were not covered by public NDPE policies. The two largest exporters from Indonesia and Malaysia, Jati Perkasa Nusantara and Nutrion International, accounted for nearly one-third of total exports of palm oil products; they both lacked NDPE policies.

While nine exporters had NDPE policies, they were not reporting adequately on their implementation. These policies are only effective with proper monitoring and independent verification. Most exporters rely on self-reported compliance instead of independent checks regarding the execution of the policy guidelines. A lack of policies and traceability means European importers will struggle to ensure their products are deforestation-free, risking non-compliance with the EUDR.

Meanwhile, according to RAN’s report, out of 17 importers of feed-grade palm oil products to the U.S., most were not covered by NDPE policies.

Only two importers had published NDPE policies: Wilmar International and Perdue AgriBusiness, which accounted for just 12 percent of imports. The largest importers, Nutrition Feeds and Global Agri-Trade Corporation, responsible for 57 percent of palm oil products imports, didn’t adhere to NDPE commitments. Overall, 84 percent of the palm oil-based animal feed products imported by known companies to the U.S. in 2022 were not covered by NDPE policies.

The Paradox of Self-Governance

Profit-based corporations that have adopted NDPE policies are often in an uncomfortable position. By taking the pledge, a company would have to bear the financial cost of implementing it. By not taking the pledge, a company would sustain a blow to its public image. In a 2023 paper published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Janina Grabs, associate professor of sustainability research at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and Rachael D. Garrett, a professor of conservation and development at Cambridge University, United Kingdom, call this a “paradox” in “goal-based sustainability governance” while referring to the Indonesian palm oil sector.

“You cannot have both [no deforestation and smallholder inclusion]; you can have one, you can have the other,” a large integrated supply chain company representative told them during the anonymous interviews they conducted as part of their research. “And if you want to have both, you have to put some skin in the game and say, I will support change, and it will cost me. The problem is, if your neighbor doesn’t do it, your marketing team is going to say, ‘Why do we do that? We’re going to get hit, and we’re going to lose market shares.’ It’s an uncomfortable balance to find.”

The Role of the Consumer Goods Forum

The Consumer Goods Forum comprises leaders from 400 big retailers and manufacturers, including Danone, Nestlé, and Unilever. These companies sell products worth euro 4.6 trillion, many containing palm oil. In 2010, the CGF promised to stop deforestation by 2020 but has failed to meet this goal.

In 2020, the CGF started the Forest Positive Coalition to stop deforestation in supply chains. This coalition has a Palm Oil Roadmap to ensure responsible palm oil use by adopting NDPE policies. “However, the CGF’s methodology for calculating ‘Palm Oil Deforestation and Conversion Free’ volumes does not state the need to ensure volumes include the volume of palm oil used in animal feed. This is in contrast to the methodology for soy, which details the types of ‘embedded soy’ products that need to be included,” points out the RAN report. This omission could result in misleading deforestation-free claims by its members and the Forest Positive Coalition.

To stop deforestation, the CGF must enforce NDPE policies for all palm oil products, including animal feed, and ensure transparent reporting.

Policies and Transparency Are Essential

With climate change and biodiversity loss worsening, stopping the production and use of Conflict Palm Oil and preventing environmental and social injustices globally is crucial. Companies need transparent, well-monitored supply chains to ensure adherence to global regulations and sustainability promises. It is no longer acceptable to let millions of tons of palm oil, especially in animal feed, enter the U.S. without proper tracking.

The solution to this problem is simple: All companies must adopt a strict NDPE policy that includes embedded palm oil. The Consumer Goods Forum’s 400 companies and palm oil importers and exporters must also follow this policy. Brands must be honest about the products used in their supply chains and take tangible steps to stop human rights abuses and deforestation.

Transparency and companies taking responsibility for their actions are critical to protecting forests and upholding Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute. 

The post Is the Food Industry Concealing Possible Destruction of the Tropics From the Public? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Emma Rae Lierley.

Contrary to the carefree spirit of those outdoor activities that the state is known for, the growth of mining, and the development of its extractive practices, all have origins in the genocide and forced displacement of Indigenous peoples native to the region. A new report by a nonprofit organization called People of the Sacred Land traces the history of how state and federal officials have “systematically undermined tribal sovereignty and Native self-governance through tactics like genocide and illegal land dispossession to exploit the wealth and resources of Tribal Nations.” The report, which results from a two-year study, also contends that tribes like the Arapaho and Cheyenne never gave up their mineral rights in Colorado and are entitled to compensation appropriate to how much land was stolen. 

Rick Williams, who is Lakota and Cheyenne, is the executive director of People of the Sacred Land, and he said that the report shows how the history of Indigenous people in Colorado hasn’t been adequately understood. The three-part report is an attempt to correct the inadequate awareness and education. The second part of the report is a Historic Economic Loss Assessment, which offers a quantitative accounting of the economic impacts that American expansion into the territory has had on the Indigenous tribes. 

“It has everything to do with the people living today, because it’s those people who are benefiting from the wealth of the land, the resources of the land, the water, the oil, the gas, the gold,” he said. 

Colorado has made $1.9 trillion dollars from these dispossessed lands, which includes earnings from recreation, timber, mineral extraction, and real estate. The TREC commission thinks there should be some recognition, and compensation, to tribes for land rights they never consented to giving up. 

Starting in the late 18th century, a series of legislative decisions established that settlers could not purchase land in the Colorado territory, but many settlers did so anyway, buying land from  territorial governments and effectively excluding the tribes from the process. The report names Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver, and Pueblo as illegally established on unceded Native lands. The United States was supposed to protect land belonging to tribes, but as settlers were drawn to the area via the gold rush, the United States failed to protect the land and eventually stopped trying, according to the report. 

In the mid 1800s, tribes were often removed from their land under the threat of violence, or coerced into signing treaties under duress to make room for more settlers, who were interested in the newly established Colorado Territory. But the tribes were never fairly compensated. 

Even if one is to accept the letter of such treaties, mineral rights were often not specified as part of what the tribes were ceding. Therefore, the commission argues, if a tribe didn’t specifically give up its mineral right, then the right remains with the tribes even after all these years into colonization. Furthermore, the TERC report argues that the financial injuries borne by the region’s tribes should be recalculated. 

“Considering most contracts have recognized mineral and water rights unless specifically stated, they weren’t ceded,” said Dallin Maybee, who is Northern Arapaho and a legal scholar and commissioner on the report. “It’s no secret that the wealth of the country was built on the back of natural resources extracted from Indigenous lands.” 

Colorado Department of Natural Resources communications director Chris Arend said in response to the findings of the report, “The state of Colorado is committed to working with tribal nations to protect their lands, and further consulting with the tribal governments on these comprehensive issues.”

Colorado’s long history of mining has contributed to deforestation and water and air pollution. “Mining is an inherently destructive and invasive process, and it continues to impact the surrounding land, water, atmosphere, flora, and fauna long after sites have been abandoned,” the report said. Even unused mines still pose a danger to the environment. Currently there are 23,000 abandoned mines that impair the water quality of streams in Colorado. 

Clint Carroll, who is Cherokee, is an environmental researcher and professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He says the report outlines steps Colorado and these settler communities can take to help Indigenous communities today.  

“If you can’t name and point to it in this way, decolonization becomes somewhat a utopian dream,” he says. He mentioned that he plans on assigning reading from the TREC report in his Indigenous Environmental Issues course. “People are missing a huge part of the picture. And this is a document that helps pave the way for non-Native people to understand.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Colorado’s dirty secret: A $500 billion mining industry built on Indigenous land on Jul 8, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Taylar Dawn Stagner.

After being laid off by a large news company several years ago, Thai journalist Smanachan Buddhajak decided to strike out on his own. 

He launched an independent news website focused on the environment and funded primarily through grants from Thai and international donors. But after fewer than three years online, he was forced to shut down his operation in December.

“I had to work constantly, without a budget to hire help,” the 32-year-old told RFA affiliate BenarNews. “So when my mother fell ill and I had to care for her, I had to abandon the site for a while. When I tried to return, I couldn’t regain the same engagement.”

Smanachan is now freelance, writing on everything from football to political news – piecemeal work that he takes on no matter how low the pay. 

His experience highlights the increasingly fractured nature of Thailand’s media ecosystem and the difficulties that many journalists face to find secure employment. The industry is facing uncertainty because of inconsistent revenue from advertising and sponsorships, as well as unfair sharing of revenue from advertising platforms, observers say.

While the internet’s disruption of traditional business models is not new, this year has proven to be exceptionally difficult for the Thai media. In the first half of the year, private media companies in Southeast Asia’s second largest economy axed approximately 300 jobs.

Voice TV, owned by the family of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ceased broadcasting on all platforms in late May after losing more than 800 million baht (U.S. $22.5 million) over the past five years. Nearly 200 employees were laid off in the process. 

PPTV, another major television channel, reported a loss of 1.07 billion baht (U.S. $30 million) in 2023 and dismissed about 90 staff members in May. Elsewhere, a production company affiliated with the state-owned Channel 7 laid off 12 employees in April.

The Thai Civil Rights and Investigative Journalism (TCIJ) estimates that between 2020 and 2023 at least 1,000 jobs were cut in the media industry. It also noted that this might be an underestimate, as many outlets do not disclose dismissals.

Interviews with journalists and researchers paint a bleak picture of an industry grappling with rapid change. And many say they are concerned about the impact this could have on overall standards. 

“Layoffs in the Thai media industry will continue because revenue, mostly from sponsorship or advertising, no longer covers the operating costs of most media outlets,” Chuwat Rerksirisuk, former executive editor of the respected Prachatai news website and a 30-year journalism veteran, told BenarNews.

Overworked, underpaid

In recent years as mainstream news sources have clipped back their operations, a rush of small online outlets have emerged. According to the latest research from the TCIJ, more than 100 new digital media outlets were launched between 2015 and 2019, following redundancies at major media companies. 

Smaller players have been able to harness the popularity of YouTube, Facebook and TikTok to deliver the news. Meanwhile, traditional media outlets have been forced to adapt to changing consumption habits by creating short clips and news recaps to compete for followers and engagement.

“Online media competition is intense and is exacerbated by economic conditions as advertisers spend less,” Nattharavut Muangsuk, from the Thai Media for Democracy Alliance (DemAll), told BenarNews.

In May, audience measurement firm Nielsen said that spending on advertising spending in Thailand for the period January-April 2024 had increased by 4% compared to the same period a year earlier. But there was a 33% decline in print spending and a 2% drop in radio over the same period. Spending on linear TV – traditional satellite or cable broadcasting – rose 1% year on year. 

Most marketers attributed the increase in ad spending to social media, Nielsen said.

Journalist organizations say shrinking newsroom budgets and cutthroat competition is ramping up pressure on journalists.

In 2022, the Ministry of Labor reported there were 22,408 workers in the information, news and communication industry – a drop from 29,161 in 2021.

For journalists who have held onto their jobs, workloads are increasing and there is a shift towards more flexible “freelance” employment, according to the National Union of Journalists, Thailand (NUJT)

“Many haven’t seen a raise in 10 years. They’re overworked, covering five assignments a day across TV, print, and online platforms due to reduced staff, while editors demand more news to keep up with trends. How can reporters manage to cover all these stories?” Sumet Somkhanae, secretary-general of the NUJT, told BenarNews. 

There is little freedom to unionize or negotiate employment conditions either, Sumet said.

“Many field reporters and photographers have been laid off, forcing remaining reporters to work harder. However, their employers don’t provide overtime pay, per diems, days off, or workplace safety measures,” he said.

Kanokphorn Chanphloi, a project coordinator at the Prachatham Media Foundation, which supports independent media, said freelance journalists were not adequately compensated for their work. 

“They bear all content production costs themselves, such as travel and coordination expenses,” he told BenarNews. “These costs are bundled into the fee for a single piece of writing, which is often not worth it. But freelancers don’t dare to negotiate for fear of losing future work.”

A threat to democracy? 

Media experts and academics worry that the restructuring and closures of news outlets will affect the ability of the Thai media to act as a watchdog and scrutinize the actions of powerful interests. 

Journalists in Thailand already face considerable challenges in doing their jobs, including the threat of prosecution for reporting deemed too critical of the government and monarchy. Cybercrime laws and the charge of lèse-majesté, or royal defamation, are often used to harass journalists.

In a recent case, Nutthaphol Meksobhon, a reporter for Prachatai, and Natthaphon Phanphongsanon, a freelance photographer, were arrested for reporting on graffiti related to the royal family on a temple wall. They face up to seven years in jail. Natthaphon Phanphongsanon used to contribute photos to BenarNews.

Disruption of the traditional news business model and politics both pose a threat to media freedom in Thailand, according to a study published in April.

“The highly competitive media market, unfair revenue-sharing systems from advertising platforms, and an illiberal political regime all contribute to news organizations not fully fulfilling their social institutional role according to the journalistic mission in a democratic system,” said the authors, Assistant Professor Arin Jiajanpong of Silpakorn University and Assistant Professor Phansasiri Kularb of Chulalongkorn University.

As the Thai media adapts to new economic realities, the industry faces a challenge of maintaining quality journalism and reporting a diverse range of stories, experts said.

“These days, we only have political news from Government House, Parliament, or political parties, crime news, and sports news,” said Nattharavut, from DemAll.

“Environmental news, civil society movements, and news related to human rights protests are hardly presented anymore.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Wittayakorn Boonruang for BenarNews.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

A frustrated woman recently called the Utah official in charge of professional licensing, upset that his office couldn’t take action against a life coach she had seen. Mark Steinagel recalls the woman telling him: “I really think that we should be regulating life coaching. Because this person did a lot of damage to me.”

Reports about life coaches — who sell the promise of helping people achieve their personal or professional goals — come into Utah’s Division of Professional Licensing about once a month. But much of the time, Steinagel or his staff have to explain that there’s nothing they can do.

If the woman had been complaining about any of the therapist professions overseen by DOPL, Steinagel’s office might have been able to investigate and potentially order discipline, including fines.

But life coaches aren’t therapists and are mostly unregulated across the United States. They aren’t required to be trained in ethical boundaries the way therapists are, and there’s no universally accepted certification for those who work in the industry.

Simply put, anyone can call themselves a life coach — an industry that is rapidly growing. The International Coaching Federation has estimated that, in 2022, active life coaches generated more than $4.5 billion in revenue worldwide.

But with that growth have come complaints by clients about mistreatment by their life coaches and growing calls for some type of oversight.

In California, a woman sued her life coach in 2020, claiming the coach convinced her to sign over her home to the coach's nonprofit organization. She settled her lawsuit and got the title to her home back. A Connecticut life coach was given probation after he was charged last year with stealing money from a client with a traumatic brain injury. And this year, a Nevada life coach was sentenced to a year in jail after he admitted to taking money from clients that he was supposed to use for investments on their behalf — but that he spent at casinos instead.

In Utah, there’s a heightened sense of urgency after a therapist-turned-life-coach named Jodi Hildebrandt was sentenced to prison for abusing two of her business partner’s children.

One former client, who was not a part of Hildebrandt’s criminal case, also flagged concerns about how she conducted life coaching with him. Ethan Prete told The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica that Hildebrandt had ordered him to cut off contact with friends and family, and at one point asked him to live in a tent in order to “humble” himself. He also said Hildebrandt told him she didn’t want to be limited by the regulations therapists have to follow in Utah.

“She was like, ‘Without all these rules and regulations, now I have free rein to actually change peoples’ lives because the system is corrupt,’” Prete said.

Right now, the only Utah rules that apply kick in when life coaches diagnose clients or develop plans to manage mental health conditions. When that happens, Utah licensers can cite them with what’s known as unauthorized practice. But a records analysis by The Tribune and ProPublica shows citations and fines are seldom used and aren’t always effective — some life coaches have been cited for this multiple times.

Prosecutors can also file criminal charges, but a review of court records shows that no such cases have been brought against a life coach in at least a decade.

For more than a year, The Tribune and ProPublica have investigated obstacles that Utahns face when seeking justice against medical providers who they say hurt them — including what happens when they go to state licensers to file complaints. An August investigation by the news organizations showed how patients of a Utah County therapist had reported alleged inappropriate touching to both state licensers and local leaders within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; neither group reported the therapist to law enforcement. Both said they take allegations of sexual assault seriously and indicated that they had addressed the complaints through their own processes. The Tribune and ProPublica’s reporting led to a police investigation, and that therapist was charged last summer with nearly a dozen felonies. He’s expected to enter a plea in August.

In light of the growth of the life coaching industry, Steinagel said he feels there’s a legitimate question that he plans to work with state legislators to address: “Has life coaching become one of those fields where the potential to harm people who are vulnerable is great enough,” he asks, “that the government should step in and regulate it? I think both the Legislature and we — from what we have seen, especially in the last few years — we think the answer is probably yes.”

The scope of what life coaches can offer is undefined and broad: They can promise to help someone lose weight, run their business, change their parenting style, have better sex or improve other aspects of their lives.

Onstage at a recent natural health and wellness conference in Utah, near tables advertising essential oils, drink supplements and chiropractic adjustments, one life coach told assembled audiences she could help women reach their weight loss goals; her yearlong course cost $800.

Next on the program were a couple who, based on their experiences of both twice being divorced, said they could help people “untangle” their emotional “chaos”; another life coach advertised that he could “rewire your brain” to rid yourself of anxiety.

When licensers hear complaints about life coaches, they are most often from the customers themselves, or from a concerned family member or therapist whose patient disclosed past care from a life coach that seemed questionable, said Steinagel, DOPL’s director.

Investigators in his office usually ask dissatisfied clients the same questions: Did they diagnose you? Did they create a treatment plan? Did they treat you for anxiety, depression or another mental health disorder? If the person lodging the complaint answers “no” to these questions, Steinagel said, DOPL can’t do anything.

The public also can’t see any of the specific grievances that have been made against Utah life coaches because of this catch-22: DOPL doesn’t release complaints unless they result in disciplinary action — and DOPL can’t discipline life coaches.

A review of records shows that DOPL has cited 25 people for unauthorized practice in the mental health field in the last decade, a number that included four life coaches and at least one online “influencer” offering “therapy” services.

It appears citations have been successful a handful of times — including with the online influencer, who stopped offering those services on her Patreon account.

But at least two men have been cited for unauthorized practice multiple times and still continue working as life coaches.

One was cited twice by licensers — in 2012, and then again a year later — and now runs a program that trains life coaches. He had previously worked as a therapist, according to public records, but his license had expired. In his second citation, licensers fined him $1,000 after they said he advertised himself as a “psychotherapist” in a marketing brochure for a seven-day retreat.

Another man, Denim Slade, was cited and fined $250 just three months after he surrendered his therapy license after DOPL received two reports that he engaged in inappropriate conduct with female clients. DOPL cited him, according to public records, for advertising that he did “Lifespan Integration Therapy” and could treat trauma in his life coaching business. A year later, he was cited again for unauthorized practice after DOPL received reports that he continued to advertise that he treated mental health issues like depression, anxiety, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. The life coach told a DOPL investigator he didn’t realize those posts were still active after he gave up his license and agreed to remove them.

Slade told The Tribune and ProPublica that he has never conducted therapy or mental health treatment as a life coach. He admitted that, in his therapy practice, he had allowed “some mild boundaries to be crossed” with one client. But he also said the DOPL records did not contain “the full picture” and that he felt pressured to admit to doing something wrong after licensers received a second report years later; he denied that allegation, but rather than fighting it, he decided to relinquish his license and turned to life coaching.

“I was excited at the prospect of working with an appropriate coaching population and transitioning to helping people who were already doing fairly well in their lives and wanting, but not necessarily knowing, how to excel,” Slade said. And he said while he feels there can be “some overlap” between life coaching and therapy, he believes “these are two definably different populations with different needs. I do not think life coaches should be conducting therapy.”

He also said he believes there are already safeguards in place for people doing mental health work that requires a license, and it’s already against the law to practice therapy without a license.

“I think people ought to be able to hire someone to help them with things in their lives that they want extra help with,” he said. "Do you regulate someone wanting to get help organizing their house, teaching art to kids, teaching piano, coaching Little League sports? I don’t know where that line should be.”

Therapist organizations in Utah have been a driving force in advocating for some measure of state oversight of life coaches. “Regulation really keeps them in their lane, us in our lane, and just increases consumer safety all around,” said Sarah Stroup, a licensed therapist who is on the legislative committee for the Utah Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Jessica Black, a licensed therapist who works with the Legislature in her role with the Utah Mental Health Counselors Association, said she sees particular vulnerabilities when life coaches try to help someone struggling with their mental health.

“There’s a difference between a business coach coaching you on how to build a business,” Black said. “But when you’re dealing with somebody’s mental health, or when you’re dealing with their life — that’s how people get taken advantage of.”

There have been Utah therapists who have lost their licenses for misconduct who, despite being deemed unsafe to work with patients, have still been able to continue their careers working in the mental health field — often in the unregulated realm of life coaching.

At least 43 Utah mental health professionals have surrendered their licenses or had them revoked, denied or expired on suspension since 2010, according to a review of publicly available DOPL disciplinary records. Of those, it appears that a third have continued working in mental health, according to searches of LinkedIn profiles and business websites — as mental health “associates,” motivational speakers and life coaches.

Some of those who have continued to work with clients on their mental health or well-being had lost their therapy licenses for serious reasons, DOPL records show. Several struggled with drug or alcohol use. Others lost their licenses after being accused of having inappropriate contact with patients, including Slade, who admitted in 2013 he had an inappropriate relationship with a married client. He gave up his license in 2019 after another patient reported to DOPL that he had engaged in “inappropriate physical and verbal conduct” with her; he denied this accusation in licensing records. A second therapist was charged with sexual exploitation by a medical care professional in Idaho, and a third touched a teenage girl’s leg and torso during a therapy session in an effort to “sexually stimulate” her as part of a therapeutic technique. (This man subsequently got his license back and was again accused of unprofessional conduct; he has now agreed to stop practicing entirely — including as a life coach — while DOPL and the police investigate.)

Steinagel said it’s “very frustrating” when therapists who lose their licenses continue doing mental health work as life coaches. He also said that while licensers can’t prohibit them from working in the unregulated field of life coaching, investigators often keep a close eye on such coaches to ensure they don’t cross into therapy.

In Hildebrandt’s case, it appears she deliberately decided to leave the regulated field of therapy. Over a decade ago, in 2012, promotional materials for her self-help company leaned into her credentials as a licensed therapist and experience as an addiction counselor.

But after more than a decade of running ConneXions Classroom, Hildebrandt had changed her website: References to her credentials as a therapist were gone, and she instead began calling herself a life coach. (At the time, she was still licensed as a clinical mental health worker and could have used that designation.)

“I began practicing in the psychotherapy world, and my patients were not healing,” she wrote on her website in 2022. “When I began empowering people by educating them with principles of Truth (learning to be honest, responsible, and humble), I saw my patients radically change right in front of me!”

Prete, the former client, met Hildebrandt as he was struggling in his marriage during the pandemic and after the birth of their first child. His now-ex-wife wanted to try the ConneXions program, he said.

The help he was seeking came with a cost: To start, he had to pay a monthly charge to participate in a group video call every Saturday morning. He paid another weekly fee to be part of a men’s small group. On top of that, he paid weekly to meet one-on-one with Hildebrandt. In total, he was spending more than $1,000 a month.

“I would meet with her every week for almost a year,” he said of Hildebrandt. “And it was always like, your wife is going to leave you. If you ever want to see her again, you’ll do what I say.”

After Hildebrandt told him to cut off contact with friends and relatives, he said, he was living separately from his family and Hildebrandt told him and his wife not to speak to each other. Hildebrandt, he said, “had complete control.”

Hildebrandt is currently in prison, and DOPL revoked her license as a clinical mental health worker in May in response to her child abuse convictions. Her attorney did not respond to a list of questions sent to him for this article.

In the final days of Utah’s 2024 legislative session, Kevin Franke, the father of the children abused by Hildebrandt, made a plea to lawmakers in a letter, asking them to pass a bill that would require life coach registration.

He wrote about the impact of being a client of Hildebrandt’s with his now-ex-wife, how his marriage ended and how his children were deeply harmed. All of it, he wrote, had been at the directive “of a dangerous mental health professional who believes that she could act outside the ethical balance of her profession by labeling herself as a life coach.“

Franke also asserted that Utah’s culture makes its citizens particularly vulnerable. The state’s attorney general has acknowledged that Utah has held a decades-long reputation for being the “fraud capital of the United States.” That’s in large part because of a local culture of trust in institutions among members of the dominant religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Investment fraud targeting LDS church members, Ponzi schemes and scams carried out in a style that mimics Utah’s significant multi-level marketing industry are prevalent in the state.

Black, the therapist with the Utah Mental Health Counselors Association, said that’s why Utah legislators should lead in regulating life coaches.

“I think it is a national problem. I think Utah’s unique in the sense that they’re very easily bought into MLMs,” she said about multi-level marketing. ”That’s kind of the structure of a lot of these life coaches. The more you pay, the more access you get. The more perks you get.”

Legislators in a handful of other states have tried to enact some oversight, but so far no proposals have become law.

New Hampshire legislators debated a bill in 2019 that would have studied whether life coaches should be regulated. The bill didn’t pass.

Two years later, in Oregon, legislators considered establishing a voluntary registry for those who provide “alternative therapy,” like life coaches. It also would have allowed the state to impose discipline for certain violations. But the measure failed after several life coaches pushed back.

“Coaching is not, nor claims to be, a form of therapy,” one Oregon coach wrote. ”Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

Life coaches are not required to be certified by the International Coaching Federation or any other organization. There’s no Utah ICF chapter, and the ICF did not respond to interview requests.

The ICF did release a statement to The New York Times, which recently reported the experiences of several people who felt they had been tricked into paying for courses to become life coaches as part of a “pyramid scheme.”

Carrie Abner, the vice president of credentials and standards at the ICF, told the newspaper that coaching is a “self-regulated industry,” and clients should make sure they are working with coaches that are trained, are experienced and have credentials. Credentialed ICF members, she added, agree to abide by an ethics code.

In Utah, state Sen. David Hinkins’ bill to require life coaches to register with DOPL never got past a first hearing. State lawmakers, however, are expected to continue the discussion this month during legislative committee meetings.

Franke said in his letter that he was able to get a measure of accountability because Hildebrandt and his ex-wife — who also participated in abusing the children — broke the law and went to prison. But not every ethical violation is a crime. And people who have been taken advantage of emotionally or financially, he said, have little recourse.

“These individuals are literally ghosts,” he wrote, “and are free to sell their supposed life expertise to anyone willing to purchase it.”

Mollie Simon contributed research, and Jeff Kao contributed data reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Jessica Miller, The Salt Lake Tribune.

The problem is fast becoming a crisis that stretches far beyond the nation’s coastal states. That’s owing to another, less-talked-about kind of disaster that has wreaked havoc on states in the Midwest and the Great Plains, causing billions of dollars in damage. In response, insurers have raised premiums higher than ever and dropped customers even in inland states such as Iowa.

These so-called “severe-convective storms” are large and powerful thunderstorms that form and disappear within a few hours or days, often spinning off hail storms and tornadoes as they shoot across the flat expanses of the central United States. The insurance industry refers to these storms as “secondary perils”—the other term of art is “kitty cats,” a reference to their being smaller than big natural catastrophes or “nat cats.”

But the damage from these secondary perils has begun to add up. Losses from severe convective storms increased by about 9 percent every year between 1989 and 2022, according to the insurance firm Aon. Last year these storms caused more than $50 billion in insured losses combined—about as much as 2022’s massive Hurricane Ian. No single storm event caused more than a few billion dollars of damage, but together they were more expensive than most big disasters. The scale of loss sent the insurance industry reeling.

“As insurers, our job is to predict risk,” said Matt Junge, who oversees property coverage in the United States for the global insurance giant Swiss Re. “What we’ve missed is that it wasn’t a big event that had a big impact, it was a bunch of small surprise events that just added up. There’s this kind of this reset where we’re saying, ‘Okay, we really have to get a handle on this.’”

Part of the reason for this steady accumulation is that more people are moving to areas that are vulnerable to convective storms, which raises the damage profile of each new tornado or hailstorm. The cost of rebuilding a home has increased due to inflation and supply-chain shortages, which drives up prices. But climate change may also be playing a role: Convective storms tend to form in hot, moist, and unstable weather conditions.

“We have such a dearth of observations about hailstorms and tornadoes, so the trend analysis is tricky,” said Kelly Mahoney, a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who studies severe convective storms. “But you are taking storms that are fueled by heat and moisture, and you are watching them develop in a world that is hotter and moister than ever. It’s a tired analogy these days, but it’s still true here, of loaded dice or a stacked deck.”

Climate attribution is much harder for these ephemeral storms than it is for hurricanes and heat waves, Mahoney said, but it stands to reason that climate change will have some influence on how and where they develop. Warming has already caused the geographic range of “Tornado Alley” to extend farther south and east than it once did, delivering more twisters to states like Alabama and Mississippi.

Whatever the cause, this loss trend is making business much harder for many insurance companies. Most vulnerable are the small regional insurers with large clusters of customers in one state or metropolitan area. When a significant storm strikes, these companies have to pay claims to huge portions of their risk pool, which can drain their reserves and push them toward insolvency.

“The local mutuals, you have a couple storms, you have a bad year, and they’re in trouble, because all their business is here and that risk isn’t spread out,” said Glen Mulready, the insurance commissioner of Oklahoma. The state has some of the highest insurance premiums in the country, and Mulready said many insurers are now refusing to write new policies for homes with old roofs that are vulnerable to collapse during tornadoes and hailstorms.

Read next

As climate risks mount, the insurance safety net is collapsing

Lois Parshley

Even large “reinsurers,” which sell insurance to insurance companies around the world, are feeling the sting from these storms. Global reinsurance firms such as Swiss Re take in premium revenue from all over the globe, insuring earthquakes in Japan as well as hurricanes in Florida, so they aren’t vulnerable to collapse during local disasters, even major ones. But the increasing trend of “attritional” losses from repeated convective storms does threaten to cut into their profit margins.

“We have less of a concern about the tail on these types of events,” said Junge of Swiss Re, using the industry term for the costliest disasters. “The concern for us is just the impact on earnings.”

Ed Bolt, the mayor of Shawnee, Oklahoma, has seen this impact up close. A tornado raged down his town’s main boulevard last year and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, knocking the roof off Bolt’s own house. His insurance company paid to replace the roof, but it mailed him a letter a few months ago with a notice that his annual premium was going to increase by 50 percent, reaching around $3,600 a year.

“The cost used to tick up and tick up a little bit, but last year we knew we would get a big hit because of the tornado,” Bolt told Grist. “I’m sure that would be a pretty consistent experience across town.”

Most states require insurers to get permission from regulators before they raise rates, which presents governments with a tough dilemma. If they raise rates, they make it harder for homeowners to keep up with their insurance payments, and they also risk dampening property values. If they keep rates down, insurers might react by ceasing to write new policies or pulling out of the state. Mulready, the Oklahoma commissioner, says he had one national insurer leave his market earlier this year.

Still, the Midwest has yet to encounter a large-scale exodus, and industry representatives say it’s unlikely that they will pull out of the region the way they have from California. But it’s a safe bet that insurers will keep raising premiums as high as states will let them. Insurers may also raise deductibles, setting a higher minimum amount of damage before insurance kicks in. The upshot is a bigger financial burden for homeowners in fast-growing metro areas like Denver, where insurers’ storm exposure has skyrocketed in recent years.

Perhaps the worst part of the problem is that most states have made little progress in preparing for these storm events. Florida imposed a strict building code after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and most newer homes in the state can withstand high winds. The housing stock in the central United States is far less resilient to tornado winds and hail, and just a few cities have forced builders to fortify homes against those hazards.

Erin Collins, the lead state policy advocate at the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, the nation’s largest insurer trade group, said carriers might have to keep raising rates until the nation’s housing stock becomes more resilient to severe storms.

“It’s going to take community-scale hardening to bend that loss curve down,” she told Grist.

Read next

Extreme weather cost $80 billion this year. The true price is far higher.

Jake Bittle

That won’t be easy. Insurers need to convince large home builders that they should build with more expensive, storm-resistant materials, and they also need to nudge millions of people in existing homes to upgrade their roofs and windows, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Because severe convective storms can strike such a wide geography, it will take a long time for this mitigation work to “bend the loss curve down.”

The good news is that we know how to build storm-resistant homes, and there’s proof that building better makes a big difference, says Ian Giacomelli, a senior meteorologist at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for stronger building standards. 

Giacomelli points to the city of Moore, Oklahoma, which rolled out some of the strictest storm-resilience standards in the country after it suffered three devastating tornadoes in two decades. Now almost the city’s entire housing stock has roofs that can bounce off large hail storms and strong joints that prevent roofs from flying off during tornado events. Giacomelli says the nation’s current insurance crisis would likely ease up if more cities followed Moore’s lead.

“I think the solutions are coming into focus,” he told Grist. “It’s more about can we get the will to do them.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How ‘kitty cats’ are wrecking the home insurance industry on May 16, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Jake Bittle.

Manufacturers of the new weight-loss drugs that have taken the nation by storm are salivating at the prospect of how best to extract profits from people. What Americans eat, how they diet and exercise, what nutritional supplements they take, the sugar content of their sodas, the high fructose corn syrup in their processed foods, and the price of their diabetes medication have long been objects of endless gambling on Wall Street. Now, with drugs like Mounjaro, Wegovy, and Ozempic in the mix, new vistas of corporate exploitation have opened up. Companies are eager to figure out how best to milk people who might be losing their taste for the plentiful calories that food producers got them hooked on in the first place.

It’s not a conspiracy theory that food addiction is a tool of corporate profiteering. Consider that tobacco companies, upon being regulated out of the business of addictive smoking, turned their sights onto addictive eating. The Washington Post’s health columnist, Anahad O’Connor wrote, “In America, the steepest increase in the prevalence of hyper-palatable foods occurred between 1988 and 2001—the era when Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds owned the world’s leading food companies.” Further, “the foods that they sold were far more likely to be hyper-palatable than similar foods not owned by tobacco companies.”

Many of these ultra-processed foods are specially marketed to children, which in turn can change their brain chemistry to desire those foods for life. According to a paper published in Science Daily, “The current obesity epidemic is due, in part, to hormonal responses to changes in food quality: in particular, high-glycemic load foods, which fundamentally change metabolism.” Today we would be appalled at the idea of marketing tobacco to children, but the same companies pushed addictive foods onto kids, and even though Big Tobacco is no longer in the business of food, its practices remain widespread.

The harmful impacts of unhealthy foods also fall disproportionately along racial lines, with aggressive marketing aimed at communities of color. Black children, in particular, are subjected to significantly greater advertising of high-calorie addictive foods than their white peers.

As obesity rates have risen in the U.S., there is an all-too-familiar blame game that individualizes the harm being caused by a capitalist system that thrives off of addiction. Doctors warn people struggling to manage their weight that they must simply restrict their intake of calories while expending more calories through rigorous exercise. High-profile reality shows such as The Biggest Loser have cemented the narrative that obesity is the result of individuals not being able to manage their urges to eat. And American pop culture’s obsession with increasingly unattainable thinness generates shame spirals among individuals and further fuels the idea that people are fat simply because they are too weak to control themselves. Meanwhile, there are few, if any, government regulations on unhealthy foods in the U.S.

There’s a similar analogy to be found in personal finance. American culture is steeped in the myth of a meritocracy where people struggling to make ends meet are blamed for simply not being good managers of money and where well-meaning budgeting guides are offered without the broader context of rising inequality, suppressed wages, bloated student debt, and inflation.

The causes of both, obesity and wealth inequality, are systemic, while the solutions being offered are individualized, often spawning lucrative industries of their own.

Alongside the aggressive marketing of hyper-palatable foods is a massively profitable weight-loss industry that preys upon individual shame to the tune of more than $60 billion a year. In fact, some of the same companies pushing high-calorie foods are in the business of weight loss.

With the advent of the new revolutionary weight-loss drugs, watching the industry reconfigure itself is fascinating. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Since drugs such as Mounjaro, Wegovy, and Ozempic became sensations last year, Wall Street has rushed to work out just how disruptive the drugs, called GLP-1s, might be.” By “disruptive,” the journal is referring to a discouraging trend in food industry profits. If weight-loss drugs curb appetite, who will buy enough Krispy Kreme donuts to keep the sugar-peddling company in business? That’s a big worry for corporate CEOs and shareholders.

Another story in the Journal lamented the impact of these drugs on the weight-loss industry “which long pushed calorie-counting and willpower,” and are now “grappling with the surging popularity of new drugs.” If weight-loss drugs curb appetite without expensive gym memberships, supplements, and programs like WeightWatchers, will the traditional weight-loss industry go out of business?

Today, the manufacturers of weight-loss drugs are clear winners in the changing landscape of food consumption and weight, charging tens of thousands of dollars for a year’s supply, and ensuring that only the wealthy have access to the thinness that our culture celebrates. Not only do the high price tags keep these drugs out of the hands of low-income people struggling to manage their weight, but also out of the hands of diabetics whom the drugs were originally meant for.

The capitalist maxim of higher demand fueling higher prices is very much at work here. Ozempic for example, could have a price tag of only $57 a year its manufacturer Novo Nordisk would still reap a profit. Instead, it is being sold in the U.S. for a whopping $11,600 a year simply because the company can charge an arm and a leg, ensuring that the drugs remain in the hands of the wealthy while tidying up a nice profit for Novo Nordisk’s shareholders.

Eventually, however, the prices will come down once the elite market for the drugs saturates. And drug manufacturers are already busy ensuring their future market share by pushing doctors to prescribe the drugs widely. One obesity expert named Dr. Lee Kaplan, who received $1.4 million from Novo Nordisk, told his fellow physicians, “We are going to have to use these medications…for as long as the body wants to have obesity.” What he didn’t say out loud was that there will be obesity for as long as food manufacturers market and sell junk foods.

Ultimately, our individual appetites and waistlines are pawns in the highly lucrative game of profit extraction that private companies and industries play. It is in the interest of drug manufacturers that Americans remain hooked on hyper-palatable high-calorie foods so that a market exists for their weight-loss drugs. The ultra-processed food industry is becoming symbiotic with the weight-loss drug industry. The former ensures we eat poorly and the latter is there to feed off our shame.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The post Weight Loss Drugs Go Hand-in-Hand With Junk Food Industry appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sonali Kolhatkar.

“We want grants and not concessional loans,” is the crisp message from Papua New Guinea businesses directly affected by the Black Wednesday looting four months ago.

The businesses, which lost millions after the January 10 rioting and looting, say they need grants as part of the government’s Restock and Rebuild assistance — and not more loans.

This is the message delivered by the PNG Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday after news that the national government has so far given K7 million (NZ$3.2 million) in funding to several affected companies to pay staff salaries.

• READ MORE: The Black Wednesday riots

President Ian Tarutia said the business coalition representing impacted businesses would be meeting with the Chief Secretary and his inter-agency team this week to find out when the assistance will be given.

Their message at this crucial meeting will be the same — no loans!

“The real impact assistance that is truly beneficial is rebuilding and restocking,” Tarutia said.

“We will meet with the chief secretary hopefully this week to get an update on this component of the government’s relief assistance to affected businesses.

Concessional rate loans
Tarutia explained that an initial National Executive Council decision was to provide loans at concessional rates and managed through the National Development Bank.

“Business Coalition’s response was grants and not loans are the preferred assistance. Meeting with the Chief Secretary this week hopefully can resolve this.”

He also indicated that in the initial impact by businesses compiled in late January, the estimated cost for rebuild and restock covering loss of property, cost of clean up, loss of goods was K774 million.

“This was for 64 businesses mainly in Port Moresby but a few in Goroka, Rabaul, Kundiawa and Kavieng,” he said.

“Out of this K774 million, an amount of K273 million was submitted as needed immediately.

“Business Coalition met last Saturday morning. Business houses are looking forward to meeting Chief Secretary Pomaleu and his inter-agency team this week to find out when the assistance for rebuilding destroyed properties and restocking looted inventory will be given.”

Tarutia acknowledged that so far, the government had paid out approximately K7 million in wage support for businesses which includes eight businesses including CPL.

Businesses acknowledge the wage support to date and are appreciative on behalf of their affected staff.

Dale Luma is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders.

According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were working on stories linked to the environment.

Twenty four were murdered in Latin America and Asia — including the Pacific, which makes these two regions the most dangerous ones for environmental reporters.

• READ MORE: Other environmental journalism reports
• Other RSF reports

From restrictions on access to information and gag suits to physical attacks, the work of environmental journalists and their safety are increasingly threatened.

RSF has denounced the obstacles to the right to information about ecological and climate issues and calls on all countries to recognise the vital nature of the work of environmental journalists, and to guarantee their safety.

Nearly half of the journalists killed in India in the past 10 years — 13 of 28 — were working on environmental stories that often also involved corruption and organised crime, especially the so-called “sand mafia,” which illegally excavates millions of tons of this precious resource for the construction industry.

Amazon deforestation
Journalists covering the challenges of deforestation in the Amazon are also constantly subjected to threats and harassment that prevent them from working freely.

The scale of the problem was highlighted in 2022 by the murder of Dom Phillips, a British reporter specialised in environmental issues.

“Regarding the environmental and climate challenges we face, the freedom to cover these issues is essential,” said RSF’s editorial director Anne Bocandé.

“RSF’s staff battles tirelessly to prevent economic and political interests from obstructing the right to information. Your generosity makes this fight possible.”

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

• RSF’s annual World Press Freedom Index will be released on May 3 to provide a reality check on global press freedoms.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

The signing of a “nickel pact” to salvage New Caledonia’s embattled industry has not been signed by the end of March, as initially announced by French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire.

Le Maire had hinted at the date of March 25 last week, but New Caledonia’s territorial government President Louis Mapou wants to have his Congress endorse the pact before he signs anything.

The Congress is scheduled to put the French pact (worth hundreds of millions of euro) to the debate this Wednesday.

• READ MORE: Other nickel industry reports

The pact is supposed to bail out New Caledonia’s nickel industry players from a grave crisis, caused by the current state of the world nickel prices and the market dominance of Indonesia which produces much cheaper nickel in large quantities.

The proposed aid agreement, however, has strings attached: in return, New Caledonia’s nickel industry must undertake a far-reaching reform plan to increase its attraction and decrease its production costs.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Twenty-five years ago, Scott King, then mayor of Gary, Indiana, spoke solemnly as he described a new strategy the city was taking to deal with the flow of illegally purchased guns fueling violent crime there.

Undercover Gary police officers had fanned out across the area for Operation Hollowpoint, successfully purchasing guns and ammunition at federally licensed firearm retailers despite representing themselves as suspicious buyers. King presented surveillance footage in an 18-minute video produced by the city.

Inside one pawn shop, a bespectacled clerk and two undercover police officers are shown discussing a 9 mm pistol. After the male officer admitted he did not have the permit required to buy the gun, the female officer accompanying him told the clerk she did. The clerk then suggested she buy the gun on her partner’s behalf in violation of federal gun restrictions.

“Might as well put it in your name then so I don’t have to make a call,” the clerk responded. “The feds are constantly screwing with people.”

The footage, which documented four suspicious purchases at different retailers selling guns, showed “how easy juveniles, felons and other prohibited purchasers can acquire guns from legitimate gun dealers through the use of a straw purchaser,” King said in the video.

The stings formed the basis of the city’s historic lawsuit seeking to hold local gun retailers and major gun manufacturers, such as Smith & Wesson, Glock and others, responsible for illegal sales like those uncovered in the investigation. As part of the suit, the city sought monetary damages and changes in industry practices.

Relentless legislative and legal efforts across the country have eliminated a flurry of lawsuits initiated by cities against the industry two decades ago. A bill approved by the Indiana legislature and signed into law this month by Gov. Eric Holcomb may be the final blow to Gary’s suit, the last one standing from that original group of cases.

But the problem of illicit gun sales outlined by King and detailed in that grainy footage remains and continues to contribute to violence in northwest Indiana, nearby Chicago and beyond.

Over the years, Gary’s lawyers have sought to keep the suit going by arguing that negligence plagues the firearms industry, not just in the city but across the region, creating an ongoing public nuisance. To emphasize that point in court filings, they’ve included long lists of federal indictments of gun traffickers and their ties to illegal purchases at northwest Indiana retailers.

Combing through the suit’s voluminous records, ProPublica found and then analyzed over 100 separate criminal cases involving straw sales — transactions where suspects participated in schemes to buy guns from federally licensed retailers and resell them to people barred by law from purchasing guns themselves.

The federal gun cases represent a small but illustrative sampling of the nation’s illegal gun trade, whose contours are well known to law enforcement but shrouded in mystery to the public because of industry-backed laws that keep a tight lid on data involving illicit gun sales.

Some of the cases examined by ProPublica involve just one transaction for a single firearm. Others are part of elaborate and organized schemes, where prolific traffickers use others with clean records to purchase multiple guns from one retailer, then head to the next gun shop and repeat the process over and over again. Most can be tied back to at least one northwest Indiana gun retailer.

One of the cases involves three guns purchased in 2020 that ended up in the hands of a wanted fugitive. He later turned one of those pistols on two police officers in Wisconsin, seriously injuring both. “I knew that at some point I may die that night,” one officer later testified.

But just as those examples showcase the scope of the straw sale problem in the United States, the vigorous effort by the firearms industry to quash the suit shows its commitment to the push back against stepped-up regulation and legal threats.

The defendants have countered Gary’s claims at every turn, arguing that manufacturers have no part in the illegal gun trade and denying responsibility for criminal acts committed by buyers. In a 2000 joint response to the city’s allegations, attorneys for the defendants wrote that after manufacturers sell firearms to licensed retailers, they have no control over “the subsequent negligent or unlawful transfer, possession, ‘availability’ or use of firearms.”

In 2021, after years of legal wrangling, the Gary suit reached a crucial stage. The Lake County, Indiana, judge overseeing it ordered the sides to finalize agreements for turning over thousands of pages of internal records as part of a legal process known as discovery.

Gary’s attorneys have for years sought those documents as they try to prove that manufacturers are aware of the straw sales occurring at the Indiana retailers they supply. But the discovery process might never be completed, now that the Indiana legislature has passed a bill making the Gary lawsuit and any like it illegal. The intent of legislators was clear: The law was made retroactive to Aug. 27, 1999 — three days before Gary filed its lawsuit.

The legislative maneuver, and explanations for it, have frustrated the current mayor of Gary, Eddie Melton. Some proponents of the bill suggested that for as long as the lawsuit was allowed to continue, the firearms industry would pass over Indiana to do business in other states.

“I’ve looked at that as a slap in the face in terms of the law, the lives that have been lost and the reason that the city has been fighting this fight for so long,” he said in an interview. “We just want that fair day in court.”

Watch video ➜

In February, Melton arrived at the state Capitol with the political fight over the gun industry bill in full swing. The legislation targeted the Gary lawsuit directly by restricting the power to bring such action to the Indiana attorney general. The House had passed its version just days before, and the Senate began its deliberations.

Melton, himself a former state senator, strode to a podium inside a meeting room at the Statehouse and made his pitch. “I’m asking you to think about what kind of precedent this will set,” he said. “Local governments have the right to fight back against bad actors. What message will this send across our state and nation if Indiana were to pass a bill that allows the state to inject itself in an active lawsuit and effectively eliminate this right?”

Aaron Freeman, a Republican and one of the bill’s chief backers, was unmoved. The power of such legal action should, as the bill dictates, rest in the hands of the state’s attorney general, he said.

“This one is out of bounds,” he said of Gary’s lawsuit. “It’s a 25-year-old situation. There’s other municipalities that could do this, and I think only the state of Indiana should.”

The Senate eventually passed the bill by a vote of 33 to 15, along party lines.

More than two decades ago, when its suit was filed, Gary joined a wave of American cities that included Detroit and Chicago seeking solutions to gun violence problems through legal action. Under pressure, the firearms industry then turned to its political allies for relief.

In 2003, Congress passed a law known as the Tiahrt Amendment, which prevents the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from publicly releasing information identifying the retailers who originally sold guns confiscated by police during criminal investigations.

Two years later, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which radically altered the nation’s relationship with guns. It gave manufacturers and retailers broad protections against civil litigation. Following passage of the act, lawsuits against the industry began to crumble.

In 2015, the Indiana legislature passed its own law granting additional protections to firearm manufacturers, dealers and retailers. After then-Gov. Mike Pence signed the bill into law, defendants in the Gary suit all moved to have the case thrown out.

But an appeals court ruled that the city’s suit could proceed via a narrow exception in the law. The straw sales documented by the city provided sufficient basis for a nuisance lawsuit, the court ruled.

The reprieve freed Gary to continue pursuing financial damages for the unlawful sales and to make a case that manufacturers had turned a blind eye to the deadly problem. Since then, Gary’s attorneys have sought tightly guarded industry documents, including any internal studies or reports monitoring how guns are used or if they’re involved in shootings and plans for how products are marketed.

In September 2021, the case reached a milestone that similar lawsuits had not, as the presiding judge set a final date to complete the discovery phase. With the passage of the bill, signed into law on March 15 by Holcomb, attorneys for the city expect that process to come to a standstill.

Watch video ➜

King, the former mayor, no longer remembers even making the video on Operation Hollowpoint, but he still recalls the immediate pushback from the industry and Indiana politicians. To him, the latest effort to kill the suit is a testament to the influence of the firearms industry, which he said has for years pushed Indiana’s lawmakers toward “meddling in the operation of local government.”

“I don’t think there’s too many legislators whose first thought after jumping out of bed in the morning is: ‘What can I do to make it easier for more people to get guns?’” he said. “I think their motivation in many circumstances is from who’s lobbying, and unfortunately those lobbyists have proven more effective than lobbies on behalf of local government, people in cities and towns throughout the state, that are the first line that have to deal with the reality of this violence.”

Financial disclosure records reveal that the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which conducts political lobbying on behalf of the firearms industry, began ramping up its work at the state legislature last year.

The group spent around $143,000 on lobbying efforts in 2023, a huge uptick from previous years. The bill aimed at killing Gary’s lawsuit was authored by Rep. Chris Jeter, a Republican who was an attorney at the law firm that handled lobbying for the NSSF until 2015.

Jeter said no one at the law firm approached him about the measure.

The bill had another backer in Attorney General Todd Rokita, who once it went into effect became the only official in the state with the power to sue the gun industry.

As the bill began to wind its way through the Indiana Statehouse in January, Rokita, a champion of gun ownership rights, was in Las Vegas for an NSSF trade show. Speaking in an on-camera interview with one of the group’s top officials, Rokita made clear he has little intention of ever filing a suit like the one out of Gary.

“That’s not gonna happen on my watch,” he said.

Watch video ➜

The gun cases cited in the Gary suit and examined by ProPublica provide a chilling tour of illegal activity and crime in the region and beyond.

Take for instance, the case of Nathanael Benton, who was on the run in 2020 when he fired on police officers in Wisconsin. He had already shot a man in Fargo, North Dakota, in an argument over money, as he’d later admit during his trial, and had gotten rid of the gun he used in that shooting. Arriving in Indiana with police on his tail, Benton decided to obtain another one.

As a convicted felon, Benton couldn’t buy a gun for himself from a licensed dealer. So, after fleeing to Indiana to lay low, he got a friend’s estranged girlfriend to make the purchases.

Surveillance video taken from a now-shuttered gun retailer in Warsaw, Indiana, shows Benton’s friend appearing to steer the woman toward particular firearms to purchase. Later, the pair approached a car with two handguns — a Taurus .380 and Smith & Wesson .40 — and then handed the firearms through the car’s rear window to Benton. On the required federal form asking if she was purchasing the guns for herself, the woman checked “yes,” court records state.

That same day, Benton and his accomplices traveled to ADT Firearms, a tiny gun shop in Syracuse, Indiana, run out of the basement of the owner’s home. Anthony Tilson, the owner, told ProPublica that he remembered showing a man and a woman several guns before they finally settled on a Smith & Wesson 9 mm pistol.

Watching the two as they browsed, Tilson said, he felt uneasy. But the woman was familiar, a previous customer, Tilson said. And so he went through with the sale.

Two days later, outside a hotel in Delafield, Wisconsin, two police officers detained Benton as part of an investigation into a hit-and-run accident. As one of the officers frisked him, Benton pulled the Smith & Wesson .40 from his waistband and began firing, according to court testimony and other records.

Bullets hit one officer in the pelvis. The other officer was struck three times — two bullets hitting his back, while another struck him in the pelvis and pierced his abdomen, causing severe internal damage that forced him to undergo four separate surgeries. At Benton’s trial, the officer testified that the bulletproof vest stopped two of the bullets that struck him, saving him from additional injuries. Both men have left law enforcement.

Benton fled the hotel but was captured at 11 on the morning following the shooting, eight hours from when officers first confronted him, following a massive police search. He was later tried and convicted on multiple charges, including attempted murder and reckless use of a dangerous weapon.

Tilson found out about the Wisconsin shooting from a newspaper article. The 9 mm Smith & Wesson pistol Benton’s friends had purchased at ADT had been recovered at the scene.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Tilson said.

Police eventually arrested the Indiana woman Benton paid to buy guns for him. She was found guilty of one count of providing false information during the purchase of a firearm, and after a year in federal prison she was released for time served.

Tilson said that if given a second chance he would have trusted his instincts and rejected the sale. But to Tilson, retailers like himself should not be held liable for straw sales.

“We cannot control what somebody else does,” he said.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has identified straw purchases as among the most common ways in which guns fall into the wrong hands across the country.

ProPublica’s analysis of straw-purchase cases cited in the Gary suit found that guns obtained unlawfully have been linked to crimes and mayhem throughout the Midwest.

Andrew Thompson, for example, had a clean record, and that made the Fort Wayne, Indiana, resident an ideal middle man for straw purchases. Thompson bought at least 20 guns between 2017 and 2020, several of which were later recovered amid crimes in Chicago, Peoria, Illinois, and as far away as Pennsylvania and Missouri, according to court records. One gun purchased by Thompson was recovered by Kansas City police officers from a suspect who held them at bay in an armed standoff.

Court records show that in at least one case, Thompson, who a federal judge would later sentence to just over five years in prison, offered to include incendiary ammunition as part of a sale to an informant.

Upon impact, the bullet would explode into a ball of “burning magnesium that burns so hot it goes right through bone like butter and it’s burning at up to 3,000 degrees so it can LITERALLY SMOKE SOMEONE,” he wrote to one customer.

Watch video ➜

Nearly all of the manufacturers and retailers sued by Gary already have moved to dismiss the case, given the new legislation, leaving the suit’s proponents struggling to determine a way forward.

Even if the case stays alive through a potentially lengthy appeal, the discovery process will once again be on hold. Attorney Philip Bangle of the nonprofit Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which represents the city in the suit, is just as frustrated as Melton by the legislature’s action.

“This is not about the merits of Gary’s case, which have been found valid by the courts no less than three times on appeal,” he said.

In passing the bill, he said, the legislature invited “any person or corporation with ample resources or special interest” to seek legislative intervention to fend off a legal threat.

Bangle said the Brady Center plans to appeal if Gary’s lawsuit is dismissed. But Melton would have to sign off and is not yet ready to commit. Melton said that he needs to weigh what’s in the best interests of the city, along with counsel of the city’s attorneys, and that he would wait to decide until the courts rule.

Meanwhile, across the border, Chicago continues to pursue remedies to gun violence through the courts. Last week, the city filed a lawsuit against gun-maker Glock over the company’s alleged refusal to alter the design of pistols the city claims are being cheaply and easily converted into “machine guns.”

Company officials have not responded to requests for comment.

The move follows efforts by the city to revive its lawsuit against Indiana gun retailer Westforth Sports. Owned and operated by the Westforth family for decades, the now-shuttered Gary retailer was the source of hundreds of guns recovered amid investigations by Chicago police. Between 2011 and 2021, federal authorities indicted 53 people on charges related to illegal sales made at the shop, according to a filing in the original suit, which was dismissed by a judge in May 2023. The city appealed the decision later that year.

Timothy Rudd, attorney for Earl Westforth, the now-retired owner of Westforth Sports, said the court “properly dismissed the City of Chicago’s claims against Westforth last spring, and we are confident that the appellate court will uphold that decision.”

He declined to comment on the Gary lawsuit. Westforth was among the stores originally sued by the city and reached an undisclosed settlement. Nonetheless, Gary’s attorneys have continued to seek records from Westforth about its sales history.

Amid these prolonged court battles, police and prosecutors remain as busy as ever dealing with the aftermath of straw sales occurring in the region. On Feb. 22, as the Indiana Senate had begun its deliberation on the bill barring Gary’s suit, a federal judge sentenced a 25-year-old former school custodian to 18 months in federal prison for charges related to straw purchases. Federal prosecutors accused him of buying at least 19 handguns illegally from Indiana gun retailers over the course of a year.

Most of those guns have been recovered. Five remain missing.

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Tony Cook of IndyStar contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Vernal Coleman.

Yes, I am serious. That is the answer that the New York Times opinion page gave us this morning. The argument is that if students leaving school didn’t have so much debt, it would be easier for them to take relatively low-paying jobs in journalism.

This is incredibly annoying for two reasons. First, there are serious proposals for trying to save local (and national) news outlets. The New York Times has chosen not to give these options space on its opinion pages, although it has featured people whining about the decline of the industry. (Yes, I tried to get a piece in, as I’m sure have others.) The point is that if we want to have local journalism, we need to create a way to pay for it, getting lower cost labor is not the answer.

The other reason that this piece is painful is that the author is apparently ignorant of President Biden’s income-driven student debt repayment plan. Under this plan, most people with low wages would not be seriously burdened by student loan debt.

A person earning the $56,000 median pay for journalists noted in the article would be paying $193 a month under the plan, if they were single with no kids. If they had one kid, they would be paying $97 a month.

And, if they made less than this, as would be the case for half of journalists, they would be paying less. A single journalist with no kids earning $40,000 would be paying $60 a month. They would be paying zero if they had one kid and they earned this salary.

In short, with Biden’s student loan repayment plan, student debt should not be a major burden for people working at low-paying jobs in journalism. This means that free journalism school will be an incredibly trivial subsidy to the industry.

It also is striking that the New York Times cannot seem to find out about the Biden’s administration’s income-driven loan repayment plan. There seems to be little knowledge among the general public of this plan, including among millions who could benefit from it. Maybe if the media outlets like the New York Times had more competent editors and reporters there would be greater public awareness of this important program.

This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.

The RSC document features full sections on "Saving Medicare" and "Preventing Biden's Cuts to Social Security," which both push back on the president's recent comments calling out Republican attacks on the programs that serve seniors.

The caucus plan promotes premium support for Medicare Advantage plans administered by private health insurance providers as well as changes to payments made to teaching hospitals. For Social Security, the proposal calls for tying retirement age to rising life expectancy and cutting benefits for younger workers over certain income levels, including phasing out auxiliary benefits.

The document also claims that the caucus budget "would promote trust fund solvency by increasing payroll tax revenues through pro-growth tax reform, pro-growth energy policy that lifts wages, work requirements that move Americans from welfare to work, and regulatory reforms that increase economic growth."

In a lengthy Wednesday statement blasting the RSC budget, Social Security Works president Nancy Altman pointed out that last week, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee to face Biden in the November election, "toldCNBC that 'there's a lot you can do' to cut Social Security."

"Everyone who cares about the future of these vital earned benefits should vote accordingly in November."

"Now, congressional Republicans are confirming the party's support for cuts—to the tune of $1.5 trillion. They are also laying out some of those cuts," Altman said. "This budget would raise the retirement age, in line with prominent Republican influencer Ben Shapiro's recent comments that 'retirement itself is a stupid idea.' It would make annual cost-of-living increases stingier, so that benefits erode over time. It would slash middle-class benefits."

"Perhaps most insultingly, given the Republicans' claim to be the party of 'family values,' this budget would eliminate Social Security spousal benefits, as well as children's benefits, for middle-class families. That would punish women who take time out of the workforce to care for children and other loved ones," she continued. "This coming from a party that wants to take away women's reproductive rights!"

The caucus, chaired by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), included 285 bills and initiatives from 192 members in its budget plan—among them are various proposals threatening abortion care, birth control, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) nationwide.

"The RSC budget would also take away Medicare's new power to negotiate lower prices on prescription drugs, putting more money into the pockets of the GOP's Big Pharma donors," Altman warned. "And it accelerates the privatization of Medicare, handing it over to private insurance companies who have a long history of ripping off the government and delaying and denying care to those who need it."

"In recent days, Trump has tried to walk back his support for Social Security and Medicare cuts," she noted. "This budget is one of many reasons why no one should believe him. The Republican Party is the party of cutting Social Security and Medicare, while giving tax handouts to billionaires."

"The Democratic Party is the party of expanding Social Security and Medicare, paid for by requiring the ultrawealthy to contribute their fair share," Altman added. "Everyone who cares about the future of these vital earned benefits should vote accordingly in November."

Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler also targeted the Republican presidential candidate while slamming the RSC plan, saying that "Donald Trump's MAGA allies in Congress made it clear today: A vote for Trump is a vote to make the MAGA 2025 agenda of cutting Social Security, ripping away access to IVF, and banning abortion nationwide a hellish reality."

"While Trump and his allies push forward their extreme agenda, the American people are watching," Tyler added, suggesting that the RSC proposal will help motivate voters to give Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris four more years in the White House.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Golden State Natural Resources plans to construct two wood pellet plants in Lassen and Tuolumne counties, about 250 miles north of Stockton, with the goal of exporting a million tons a year. While forest-based biomass may sound innocuous, every part of the pellet production chain bears an environmental justice or pollution risk, says Rita Vaughan Frost, forest advocate at Natural Resources Defense Council. 

First, trees are logged and stacked on trucks to be driven to processing facilities. There, the wood is turned into small pellets, similar to rabbit food. Then, diesel trucks transport the material hundreds of miles to a shipping facility and export terminal, like the Port of Stockton — where storage poses a fire risk. The pellets are later shipped to markets in Europe and Asia, where they’re burned to create electricity, generating carbon emissions. 

Golden State Natural Resource’s proposal would allow it to harvest trees from forests within 100 miles of the two processing plants. This radius includes sixteen national forests in a region known for its critical biodiversity. A 20-year master stewardship agreement established with the U.S. Forest Service will allow the company to harvest from public lands through 2045, when the state is slated to achieve carbon neutrality. 

Many might be surprised to learn that burning wood pellets causes more pollution per unit of electricity than coal does, says Shaye Wolf, the climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s worsening the climate emergency at a time when we’ve got to be rapidly cutting those carbon emissions,” Wolf says. 

In Stockton, the threat of logging exports compounds environmental injustices that already exist. State laws don’t prevent companies from building polluting facilities in already overburdened areas, nor is there any statute or legal framework that forces corporations to consider federal goals of transitioning toward renewable energy sources.  

This means there are no federal or state guardrails to protect against the fact that “developers are not accounting for cumulative impacts, [or] the fact that these natural resources are finite,” Cruz says. In fact, Stockton already has a lot of pollution: It ranks in the 90th percentile statewide, according to CalEnviroScreen, an environmental hazard mapping tool. Compared with other cities across California, Stockton’s has some of the highest overall exposure to toxins like ozone, particulate matter, and groundwater threats. 

Cruz says that is intentional, noting the communities of color and farmworkers who live and work in the state’s Central Valley have always shouldered the public health consequences that industries leave in their wake. In fact, California funneled public funds to the biomass industry in the 1980s and 1990s to support the construction of factories in low-income communities. Now, the wood pellet biomass industry and Golden State Natural Resources are poised to make the situation worse.

In 2015, the state approved a new law that requires polluting corporations, like the wood pellet industry, to pay for environmental justice projects in disadvantaged cities like Stockon, but advocates like Cruz argue that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to pollute in the first place. Across the state, at least four active biomass plants are in census tracts that face the worst pollution burden. 

Looking at how the biomass industry currently operates in the Southeastern United States heightens residents’ worries. Companies there have a track record of preying on overburdened, under-resourced communities, says Vaughan Frost.

In the South, pellet mills are 50 percent more likely to be placed in communities of color that fall below the state poverty line. Although the industry likes to talk about providing jobs, in one North Carolina community, the poverty rate actually increased after a wood pellet production plant began operations. 

Wherever pellet mills take root, pollution soon follows. A powerful odor, akin to plastic burning in a campfire, often emanates from these processing facilities. Heather Hillaker, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, says that processing the wood creates volatile organic compounds, which mix with other pollutants to create ground level ozone and smog. Processing facilities also release toxins like formaldehyde, methanol, and acrolein, substances that can cause cancer even in small doses. 

Hillaker warns that federal standards established by the Clean Air Act don’t take into consideration the multiple forms of pollution that overburdened communities face, she says. 

“I’ve not really seen the pellet industry directly address, in any kind of meaningful way, the environmental justice impacts of their operations in the South,” Hillaker says. She explains they often argue “We are complying with our permits and therefore we’re not causing any harm.” But she says, “That’s not an accurate representation of what’s actually happening in these local communities.” 

Vaughan Frost is concerned that Golden State Natural Resources will similarly undermine the health and wellbeing of California communities. 

Vaughan Frost believes the industry is “exploiting the state’s traumatic experience of catastrophic wildfires to sell their plan.” The company claims that cutting down forests will provide less fuel for wildfires — a claim that the state of California has historically parroted. Many scientists disagree. One recent study found that in fire-prone western states, emissions related to broad-scale thinning biomass harvest were five times greater than those related to wildfire. California also has a history of lumping in wood pellet biomass as a “renewable” energy source, which critics say obfuscates the compounding climate threats of the industry. She says these claims — that logging can prevent wildfires and create renewable energy — are a distraction from legitimate wildfire prevention strategies, like home hardening and vegetation management. 

Advocates worry that once the forest is gone, recovery will be difficult. The wood pellet industry will soon be making incursions throughout the Sierra Nevadas, a much-loved mountain range that regularly draws outdoor tourists. Though the industry pledges to replant what they log, as climate change intensifies, there’s no guarantee monoculture saplings will be able to provide the same ecosystem services that the logged forest once did. 

With abundant wind and solar energy available, Vaughan Frost says, “We do not need to sacrifice California forests and communities for this.”

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law, and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health, and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, Beijing, and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd). Learn more at http://www.nrdc.org and follow on Twitter @NRDC.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline California’s concerning embrace of a new forest biomass industry on Mar 20, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Grist Creative.

One year since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to San Diego to unveil the AUKUS deal the news came that the first of three second-hand Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines supposed to arrive in 2032 may not happen.

Former coalition prime minister Scott Morrison announced AUKUS in September 2021 and Albanese continued to champion the pact between the US, Britain and Australia.

Phase one involves Australia acquiring eight nuclear-powered submarines as tensions in the Indo-Pacific are growing.

• READ MORE: Other AUKUS reports

Concerns about the submarines ever materialising are not new, despite the US passing its National Defence Bill 2024 which facilitates the transfer of the nuclear-powered warships.

However, the Pentagon’s 2025 fiscal year budget only set aside funding to build one Virginia submarine. This affects the AUKUS deal as the US had promised to lift production from around 1.3 submarines a year to 2.3 to meet all requirements.

Australia’s acquisition of the first of three second-hand SSNs were to bridge the submarine gap, as talk about a US-led war on China continues.

US Democratic congressperson Joe Courtney told The Sydney Morning Herald on March 12 the US was struggling with its own shipbuilding capacity, meaning promises to Australia were being deprioritised.

Production downturn
Courtney said that the downturn in production “will remove one more attack submarine from a fleet that is already 17 submarines below the navy’s long-stated requirement of 66”.

The US needs to produce 18 more submarines by 2032 to be able to pass one on to Australia.

After passing laws permitting the transfer of nuclear technology, the deal is running a year at least behind schedule.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge said on X that “When the US passed the law to set up AUKUS they put in kill switches, one of which allowed the US to decide not [to] transfer the submarines if doing so would ‘degrade the US undersea capabilities’”.

Pat Conroy, Labor’s Defence Industry Minister, retorted that the government was confident the submarines would appear.

The White House seems unfazed; it would have been aware of the problems for some time.

Meanwhile the USS Annapolis, a US nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) has docked in Boorloo/Perth.

AUKUS still under way
Regardless of whether Australia acquires any nuclear-powered vessels, the rest of the AUKUS deal, including interoperability with the US, is already underway.

Andrew Hastie, Liberal Party spokesperson, confirmed that construction at HMAS Stirling will start next year for “Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West)”, the permanent US-British nuclear-powered submarine base in WA, which is due to be completed in 2027.

SRF-West includes 700 US army personnel and their families being stationed in WA. If the second-hand nuclear submarines do not materialise, the US submarines will be on hand.

SRF-West may also serve as an alternative to the five British-designed AUKUS SSNs, slated to be built in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide over coming decades.

Australia respects the Pentagon’s warhead ambiguity policy, meaning that any US military equipment stationed here could be carrying nuclear weapons: we will never know.

Shoebridge said on March 13 he was entering a hearing to decide where the AUKUS powers can dump their nuclear waste. Local waste dumps are being considered, as the US and Britain do not have permanent radioactive waste dumps.

The waste to be dumped is said to have a low-level radioactivity. However, as former Senator Rex Patrick pointed out, SSNs produce high-level radioactive waste at the end of their shelf lives that will need to be stored somewhere, underground, forever.

‘Radioactive waste management’
The Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023, tabled last November, allows for the AUKUS SSNs to be constructed and also provides for “a radioactive waste management facility”.

The Australian public is spending US$3 billion on helping the US submarine industrial base expand capacity. An initial US$2 billion will be spent next year, followed by $100 million annually from 2026 through to 2033.

The Pentagon has budgeted US$4 billion for its submarine industry next year, with an extra US$11 billion over the following five years.

The removal of the Virginia subs, and even the AUKUS submarines from the agreement, would be in keeping with the terms of the 2014 Force Posture Agreement, signed off by then prime minister Tony Abbott.

As part of the Barack Obama administration’s 2011 “pivot to Asia”, the US-Australia Force Posture Agreement allows for 2500 Marines to be stationed in the Northern Territory.

It sets up increasing interoperability between both countries’ air forces and allows the US unimpeded access to dozens of “agreed-to facilities and areas”.

These agreed bases remain classified.

US takes full control
However, as the recent US overhaul of RAAF Base Tindall in the NT reveals, when the US decides to do that it takes full control.

Tindall has been upgraded to allow for six US B-52 bombers that may be carrying nuclear warheads.

US laws that facilitate the transfer of Virginia-class submarines also make clear that as Australia is now classified as a US domestic military source this allows the US privileged access to critical minerals, such as lithium.

Paul Gregoire writes for Sydney Criminal Lawyers where a version of this article was first published. The article has also been published at Green Left magazine and is republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Oregon state Sen. Elizabeth Steiner seemed to have a lot of power and momentum behind her effort that would have shifted the costs of wildland firefighting further onto taxpayers this year.

The influential timber industry, which stood to save millions and is a major source of campaign cash in the state, worked behind closed doors to help craft Steiner’s proposal. Republican leaders threw their support behind it. Gov. Tina Kotek, whose staff assisted in the bill’s development, also came out in favor.

But there was fallout from the effort. Media reports noted the industry’s central role in shaping the bill. Steiner, a Democrat running for state treasurer, drew a primary challenge from another Democratic state senator, Jeff Golden, who had offered a competing bill to fund wildfire preparedness and other services by raising taxes on logging. His entry into the race had the potential to turn their divergence on the industry into a campaign issue.

And then, in the Legislature’s waning moments, Steiner’s bill died. In an email to ProPublica, she blamed “technical difficulties” without specifying what they were.

“I recognize it is not perfect,” Steiner told Golden in a hearing on Feb. 28, when her bill was still moving forward. “I think it’s damn good, excuse my language, because it’s more progress than we’ve made in a really long time.”

The bill’s failure leaves unresolved a debate over how much the timber industry pays for services like fire protection in Oregon, decades after a series of massive tax cuts whose harms Oregon Public Broadcasting, The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica documented in a 2020 investigation. Those cuts have saved the industry more than $3 billion since the 1990s, the news organizations found, allowing timber companies to profit at the expense of rural communities.

Today, logging companies pay less to cut down trees than they do in neighboring Washington, state analyses have shown.

After catastrophic fires burned thousands of homes in 2020, lawmakers invested $195 million into readiness, including outfitting local fire departments and developing home hardening programs. But with costs rising and the acreage burned by fires doubling over the last decade, lawmakers are still looking for a stable source of money to prepare for and fight wildfires.

Steiner defended her ideas for raising money from taxpayers and homeowners throughout the monthlong 2024 legislative session, saying wildfires had become a statewide problem that demanded funding from all Oregonians, who already subsidize the state’s firefighting capabilities.

A lobbyist for Weyerhaeuser, Oregon’s largest private forestland owner and a participant in the drafting of Steiner’s bill, announced the initial proposal would save the company $500,000 a year. Steiner later committed to reducing the cost shift to taxpayers from $7 million to $3.5 million. When Golden proposed an amendment to ensure big timberland owners didn’t pay any less than they do now, Steiner rejected it.

A Weyerhaeuser spokesperson declined to comment about whether the company expects to pay less in future wildfire funding proposals.

“Wildfires are a shared responsibility that threatens every Oregonian,” the spokesperson said, “and moving forward we’re committed to partnering with Oregon legislators and community members on the complex issue of wildfire funding.”

One of Steiner’s fellow Democrats, state Rep. Mark Gamba, told ProPublica that Steiner’s bill would have reduced what the timber industry pays without solving a real problem that Oregon faces.

“Fires are doubling decade over decade, and our coffers to fight those fires are not doubling,” Gamba said. “I was shocked that this was even brought to us.”

Golden said Oregon needs tens of millions of dollars annually to prepare for increasing wildfire risks. Giving a tax cut to the industry, then turning to the public for more money, would be “a nonstarter,” he said.

In a departure from Steiner, Golden during the session sought voter approval to reinstate logging taxes eliminated in the 1990s. He introduced a bill that he said could have raised as much as $110 million annually for wildfire fighting, drinking water protection and the county services the logging taxes once funded. That bill stalled, was subsequently weakened to solely seek a study of those taxes, then died in committee.

As Golden and Steiner’s dueling visions for timber taxation and wildfire funding played out, Golden announced he would challenge her in the May Democratic primary for state treasurer. But he withdrew less than two weeks later, saying he realized he didn’t actually want the job.

Kotek, a Democrat, acknowledged in a Feb. 28 letter to lawmakers that differences remain about whether the timber industry is paying its fair share of wildfire costs. How much the industry contributes, she wrote, is a legitimate issue for discussion “as we work to create a comprehensive, long-term fix to our wildfire funding policies.”

Steiner, in an email to ProPublica, said her bill was always intended to be “an intermediate step toward a more equitable, sustainable solution for funding this system. We expect that the next iteration of this proposal will have more nuance.”

Golden said he will continue introducing legislation to tax the industry to pay for wildfire readiness.

“It’s going to come up in some form again,” he said, “as long as I’m in the Legislature.”

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This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Rob Davis.

Though treated as leaders of the Jewish community, they were not primarily interested in helping survivors of the Holocaust, or in stopping another Holocaust – the two things one might have assumed would be the highest priorities for anyone making the Holocaust central to their life. In fact, hardly any of the many millions the Holocaust Industry demanded from countries like Germany in reparations ever made it to Holocaust survivors, as Finkelstein documented in his book.

Instead, this small group instrumentalised the Holocaust for their own benefit: to gain money and influence by embedding themselves in an industry they had created. They became untouchables, beyond criticism because they were associated with an industry that they had made as sacred as the Holocaust itself.

A follow-up book called the Antisemitism Industry, an investigation into much the same group of people, is now overdue. These ghouls don’t care about antisemitism – in fact, they rub shoulders with the West’s most prominent antisemites, from Donald Trump to Viktor Orban.

Rather, they care about Israel – and the weaponisation of antisemitism to protect their emotional and financial investment. They profit from Israel’s central place in US political, diplomatic and military life:

• as a giant real-estate laundering exercise, based on the theft of native Palestinian land;
• as a laboratory for the production of new weapons and surveillance systems tested on Palestinians;
• as a heavily militarised colonial state, a spearpoint for the West, useful in destabilising and disrupting any threat of a unifying Arab nationalism in the oil-rich Middle East;
• and as the frontier state for eroding legal and ethical principles developed after the Second World War to stop a repeat of those atrocities.

Anyone who challenges the Antisemitism Industry’s – and therefore Israel’s – stranglehold on Jewish representation in public life is hounded as an antisemite or self-hating Jew, as is currently happening most prominently to Jewish film-maker Jonathan Glazer. He is the Oscar-winning director of The Zone of Interest, about the family of a Nazi commandant of Auschwitz who lived blind to the horrors unfolding just out of view, beyond their walled garden.

I wrote an earlier piece about the manufactured furore provoked by Glazer’s comments at the Oscars. In his acceptance speech, he denounced the hijacking of Jewishness and the Holocaust that has sustained Israel’s occupation over many decades and generated constant new victims, including the latest: those who suffered at the hands of Hamas when it attacked on October 7, and the many, many tens of thousand of Palestinians killed, maimed and orphaned by Israel over the past five months.

My latest article on what the smearing of Jonathan Glazer for his impassioned Oscars speech tells us about the charlatans who have been given a bullhorn by western establishments to speak for the Jewish community: https://t.co/j0Y38hAR61 pic.twitter.com/Wj043CuZcN

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) March 12, 2024

Israel’s walled garden

Though it is unclear whether any analogy was intended by the film-makers when they were making The Zone of Interest, the film undoubtedly has especial significance and ironic resonance right now, as Israel commits what the World Court has called a plausible genocide in Gaza.

For the past 17 years, Israelis have lived in their own walled garden, right next to an open-air concentration camp for Palestinians that has been blockaded by the Israeli military from every direction: by land, sea and air.

The Palestinian inmates were not allowed out of their cage. Their fishing boats were confined to only a mile or two from the coast. And Gaza’s skies were filled with the constant buzzing of drones watching over the population, when those same drones weren’t unleashing deadly missile strikes quite literally from out of the blue.

The concentration camp was gradually becoming a death camp. Palestinians were being left to die very slowly in their cage, too slowly for the world to notice.

For a decade, the United Nations had been warning that Gaza was becoming uninhabitable, with more than 2 million Palestinians crowded into the tiny enclave.

Most had no work, and no prospect of ever finding work. There was no meaningful trade because Israel refused to allow it, which meant there was no economy. Gaza was almost completely dependent on handouts. And Gaza’s population was fast running out of clean water, slowly poisoning themselves with water mostly drawn from overstretched and contaminated aquifers.

Israelis had no reason to care about what was happening on the other side of their walled garden – much of it land stolen in 1948 from Palestinian families like those confined to Gaza.

If Palestinian groups tried to make a noise by firing home-made rockets out of their prison, Israel had an Iron Dome system that intercepted the projectiles. Quiet – or “calm” as the western media calls it – largely reigned for Israelis. Or it did until October 7.

Were Glazer ever to make a modern retelling of The Zone of Interest, the Nova music festival, filled with young people dancing through the night on the doorstep of the Gaza concentration camp, might provide good material. Except this updated tale would have an unexpected twist: the youngsters living the dream right next to 2 million people living a nightmare suddenly found themselves caught up in the nightmare too, when Hamas broke out of the Gaza prison on October 7.

“Wrong kind of Jews”

Glazer’s crime at the Oscars was to threaten the Antisemitism Industry’s stranglehold on the West’s narrative about Israel.

In Britain, the Antisemitism Industry calls them the “wrong kind of Jews” – Jews who care about all human suffering, not just Jewish suffering. Jews who refuse to let Israel commit crimes against the Palestinian people in their name. Jews who rightly described as a witch-hunt the smearing of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, including his Jewish supporters, as antisemites.

Glazer seized the rare opportunity provided by the awards ceremony this week to grab the microphone from the Antisemitism Industry and represent a Jewish voice that westerners are not supposed to hear. He used the Oscars as a platform to highlight Palestinian suffering – and to suggest that it is normal to care about Palestinian suffering as much as it is Israeli and Jewish suffering.

In doing so, he threatened, like Finkelstein before him, to expose the fact that these antisemitism witchfinder generals are dangerous charlatans, conmen in the true sense.

Unlike the Antisemitism Industry, Glazer has profound, universal things to say about the Holocaust and the human condition. He makes his living from tapping deeply into his humanity, insight and creativity, not wielding his power like a bludgeon to terrorise everyone else into submission.

Which is the context for understanding the comments, widely cited in the media, of David Schaecter, the figurehead of the Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA.

Schaecter, who denies that Israel is occupying the Palestinian people – and therefore rejects the the very basis of international humanitarian law established to stop a repeat of the Holocaust – says it is “disgraceful for you [Glazer] to presume to speak for the six million Jews, including one and a half million children, who were murdered solely because of their Jewish identity”.

Schaecter is, of course, projecting. It is he, not Glazer, who presumes to speak for those millions of Jews.

There are plenty of Holocaust survivors who have spoken out against Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian people, including Finkelstein’s own mother and the late Hajo Meyer, the distinguished physicist who became one of Israel’s harshest critics. Meyer regularly made comparisons between what Israel did to the Palestinians and what the Nazis did to Jews like himself.

But unlike Schaecter, Meyer got no help or funding to set up a foundation in the name of Holocaust survivors. He was not feted by the western media. He was not treated as a spokesman for the Jewish community and given a bullhorn.

In fact, quite the opposite. Meyer found himself silenced, and vilified as an antisemite. He even became the pretext in 2018, four years after his death, for a new round of accusations against Corbyn for supposedly fostering antisemitism in the Labour party. The Labour leader had shared a platform with Meyer at a Holocaust Memorial Day event in 2010, five years before he became Labour leader.

Such was the onslaught that Corbyn denounced Meyer for his views and apologised for the “concerns and anxiety caused” by his appearance with the Holocaust survivor.

Today, Meyer might be astonished to find that he would be banned from being a member of the British Labour party, and that the grounds on which he would be disqualified are antisemitism. Like most other major western political parties and organisations, Labour adopted a new definition of antisemitism that equates Jew hatred with trenchant of criticism of Israel.

Meyer, the Holocaust survivor and believer in a universal ethics, would find himself unwelcome in every major British political party. Glazer, the humanitarian Jewish film-maker who cares about Palestinians as much as he does other Jews, is currently being cast out of respectable society in precisely the same way.

It can happen only because we let western establishments foist on us these Antisemitism Industry charlatans and conmen. It is time to listen to the people who care about humanity, not the people who care about their status and their wallets.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Petrochemical companies like Shell and Exxon Mobil have received nearly $9 billion in state and local tax breaks since 2012 to build or expand 50 plastics manufacturing facilities, according to a report the Environmental Integrity Project, or EIP, released today. Much of that activity occurred along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, often alongside marginalized communities. What’s more, 84 percent of the operations released more air pollutants than allowed during the past three years, despite their promises to protect public health and the environment, the nonprofit found.  

“Taxpayer subsidies are helping to fund dangerous and often illegal air pollution in communities of color,” Alexandra Shaykevich, EIP’s research manager and a co-author of the report, told Grist. She said the manufacturers should be held accountable for their environmental impact and those public funds redirected to beneficial projects like improving public schools. “If a company is breaking the law” she added, “it shouldn’t get taxpayer money.”

EIP examined 50 of the country’s 108 plastics plants, focusing only on those that have been built or expanded their production capacity since 2012. These facilities make the basic building blocks of all plastic — fossil fuel-derived substances like ethylene and propylene — that can be combined with other chemicals to create common polymers: polyethylene, for example, used in shampoo bottles and milk jugs, or polyvinyl chloride, used in pipes and window frames.

Demand for these substances is expected to surge in the coming years. The world produced 460 million metric tons of plastic in 2023, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development expects that number to reach more than 1.2 billion tons by midcentury if current growth trends continue. Recycling is unlikely to keep pace — to date, less than 10 percent of goods made with plastic has been turned into new products; the rest has been dumped into landfills, littered into the environment, or burned.

So why subsidize making more? In many cases, local and state officials offer tax breaks with the idea that new or expanded manufacturing will foster economic development. For example, a Louisiana program highlighted by EIP exempted manufacturers from 80 to 100 percent of all local taxes for 10 years and favored industrial applicants that promised to create or retain jobs. Since 2013, the program has subsidized a Dow petrochemical facility in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, with at least $230 million in tax breaks. A program in Texas discounted property taxes for petrochemical companies if they employed at least 10 people in rural areas or 25 in other areas.

It’s not clear whether the communities have seen any economic benefits — analyses from environmental groups suggest that new jobs have not materialized, or have come at a huge expense to local taxpayers by siphoning funds from schools, parks, roads, and other infrastructure. According to the nonprofit Together Louisiana, for example, every job the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program created cost the public more than half a million dollars. Another report, published last year by the nonprofit Ohio River Valley Institute, found that a Shell-owned plastics plant in Beaver County had virtually no impact on job growth and poverty reduction. 

“The truth of the matter is we don’t benefit from these industries. They don’t hire local people. And they don’t pay taxes,” Roishetta Ozane, a resident of southwest Louisiana, told EIP. 

What is clear, however, is that inviting new and bigger petrochemical facilities into an area brings significant health and environmental consequences. 

As part of their routine operations, the plastic plants EIP analyzed release tens of millions of pounds of ozone-producing nitrogen oxide, respiratory irritants called volatile organic compounds, and carcinogens like benzene and vinyl chloride every year. That’s only the start, because facilities often do not report emissions from equipment failures, chronic leaks, and accidents — all of which are disturbingly common.

Indeed, EIP found evidence of more than 1,200 breakdowns, fires, explosions, and other accidents over the past five years at 94 percent of the facilities it analyzed. These events frequently released more air pollution than allowed under the facilities’ permits — and lax reporting requirements often kept nearby communities from finding out until days or weeks later. 

Rather than heavily fining these facilities, EIP found that regulators often treated them gently — either by issuing warning letters or by granting higher pollution permits. State environmental agencies have since 2012 bumped up those limits for one-third of the 50 plants that EIP analyzed.

“It’s outrageous, and it’s been going on for the 25 years that I’ve been doing this work,” said Anne Rolfes, director of the nonprofit Louisiana Bucket Brigade. “There’s this well-worn path toward petrochemicals in our state, and we’re so deep in those tracks that our elected officials aren’t even trying to drive out of them.” 

As EIP notes, the plastics plants in question are often alongside schools, playgrounds, athletic fields, homes, and other public places. They tend to be sited near marginalized communities with underfunded schools and services. Of the nearly 600,000 people living within three miles of the plastic plants analyzed by EIP, more than two-thirds are people of color. Many of these people, like those in the industrialized corridor of southwest Louisiana known as Cancer Alley, face far greater risks of cancer and other diseases than the national average.

The EIP report includes several examples of plastic plants falling short of their promises to be ”a positive influence” and to “meet or exceed all environmental regulations,” as chemical company Indorama put it in a 2016 brochure. Between 2016 and 2022, state and local regulators approved at least $73 million in tax breaks for Indorama to restart a decommissioned plastics plant in southwest Louisiana. Once running, the plant violated its state pollution permit and failed to hire the workers it promised to. Several accidents released tens of thousands of pounds of hazardous emissions and injuries to two employees. The state environmental agency sent Indorama 13 warning letters.

Indorama declined to comment, as did 14 of the 17 other companies Grist contacted. The others — Exxon Mobil, Chevron Phillips Chemical, and Westlake Corporation — would not respond to EIP’s findings but said they strive to protect public health and the environment.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality also did not respond to a request for comment. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said it would not comment because it had not yet reviewed the report. A spokesperson for Louisiana’s economic development agency said that “double-counting of some financial data” from its industrial tax exemption program by EIP “suggests a lack of academic rigor and discredits the entire analysis.” The agency did not elaborate on what data it believed was double-counted.

To mitigate pollution from plastics facilities, EIP is calling for stricter air emissions standards and better enforcement of the federal Clean Air Act. Rather than telling communities about “emission events” after they’ve happened, Shaykevich said, pollution data should be shared publicly in real time. “It does folks very little good to be notified two weeks after” an incident, she told Grist.

Some of these reforms could be coming. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is considering rules that would reduce hazardous air pollution from chemical plants, including ethylene oxide, benzene, 1,3-butadiene, and vinyl chloride. Under the proposal, industrial facilities would have to monitor concentrations of these pollutants “at the fenceline,” meaning at their property lines, and the EPA would make the monitoring data available online. Pollution levels above a certain threshold would require facility operators to fix the problem.

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The EPA is expected to finalize the rules later this year. EIP estimates they would affect about half of the facilities studied in its report.

EIP is also calling for a dramatic reduction in public funding for plastics manufacturers. While some plastic items — like medical devices or contact lenses — are clearly useful, the organization says subsidies to produce them should be tied to environmental performance. “If companies can’t comply” with their permits, “they should be forced to reimburse taxpayers,” Shaykevich told reporters during a press conference on Thursday. 

Other types of plastic production, she added, aren’t worth the trouble they cause. Nonessential, single-use items including bags, bottles, utensils, and packaging make up some 40 percent  of plastic production and are virtually impossible to recycle. “We don’t think it’s OK to offer taxpayer support for single-use plastics,” Shaykevich told Grist. Such things, like the money that subsidizes them, are too often just thrown away.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Your tax dollars may be funding the expansion of the plastics industry on Mar 14, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

Francis was quoted on March 9 in a partially released interview suggesting Ukraine, facing possible defeat, should have the "courage" to sit down with Russia for peace negotiations, saying there is no shame in waving the "white flag."

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit out in a Telegram post and in his nightly video address, saying -- without mentioning the pope -- that "the church should be among the people. And not 2,500 kilometers away, somewhere, to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you."

Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted more directly on social media, saying, “When it comes to the 'white flag,' we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century."

Many historians have been critical of the Vatican during World War II, saying Pope Pius XII remained silent as the Holocaust raged. The Vatican has long argued that, at the time, it couldn't verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities and therefore could not denounce them.

Kuleba, in his social media post, wrote: "I urge the avoidance of repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.

"The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it 'negotiations,'" Kuleba said.

"Our flag is a yellow-and-blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags," added Kuleba, who also thanked Francis for his "constant prayers for peace" and said he hoped the pontiff will visit Ukraine, home of some 1 million Catholics.

Zelenskiy has remained firm in not speaking directly to Russia unless terms of his "peace formula" are reached.

Ukraine's terms call for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, restoring the country's 1991 post-Soviet borders, and holding Russia accountable for its actions. The Kremlin has rejected such conditions.

Following criticism of the pope’s reported comments, the head of the Vatican press service, Matteo Bruni, explained that with his words regarding Ukraine, Francis intended to "call for a cease-fire and restore the courage of negotiations," but did not mean capitulation.

"The pope uses the image of the white flag proposed by the interviewer to imply an end to hostilities, a truce that is achieved through the courage to begin negotiations," Bruni said.

"Elsewhere in the interview…referring to any situation of war, the pope clearly stated: 'Negotiations are never capitulations,'" Bruni added.

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, said Ukraine was "wounded but unconquered."

"Believe me, no one would think of giving up. Even where hostilities are taking place today; listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy! Because we know that if Ukraine, God forbid, was at least partially conquered, the line of death would spread," Shevchuk said at St. George's Church in New York.

Andriy Yurash, Ukraine's ambassador to the Vatican, told RAI News that "you don't negotiate with terrorists, with those who are recognized as criminals," referring to the Russian leadership and President Vladimir Putin. "No one tried to put Hitler at ease."

Ukraine's regional allies also expressed anger about the pope's remarks.

"How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on social media.

Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkevichs wrote on social media: "My Sunday morning conclusion: You can't capitulate to evil, you have to fight it and defeat it, so that evil raises the white flag and surrenders."

Alexandra Valkenburg, ambassador and head of the EU Delegation to the Holy See, wrote "Russia...can end this war immediately by respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. EU supports Ukraine and its peace plan."

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

The vision

“Our community, we want to envision an alternative economy that doesn’t exploit the region, that doesn’t use our people as cheap labor, that doesn’t pollute the environment, that doesn’t accelerate climate change.”

Bekah Hinojosa, an organizer in Brownsville, Texas

The spotlight

The U.S. energy mix is heavily reliant on natural gas. It makes up the greatest share of electricity generation and home heating fuel use in the country. Over the past decade, the U.S. has also become the world’s leading exporter of natural gas, building out extensive infrastructure to convert the fuel into a form that’s easier to store and transport — liquefied natural gas, or LNG — and ship it to markets in Europe. More projects are in the pipeline, which could nearly double the country’s export capacity by the end of this decade, if approved by the Department of Energy.

But in January, the Biden administration announced a pause on approvals for new LNG terminals — a move that has been largely applauded by climate advocates and local leaders in the Gulf Coast, where the majority of current and proposed terminals are located. During the pause, the DOE will review the impacts of exporting natural gas on both domestic energy prices and the climate.

Natural gas is 70 to 90 percent methane, a greenhouse gas that’s about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term. It’s also prone to leaking along its supply chain, which contributes to global heating and creates pollution and explosion risks for communities living near this infrastructure. But even in the course of typical operations, these terminals cause hazardous pollution from flares that burn off excess gas, from the massive amounts of fuel required to liquefy the gas, and from increased ship traffic.

Louisiana activist (and Grist 50 honoree) Roishetta Ozane told Grist reporters that the administration’s decision “shows that the government recognizes the need to protect the rights and well-being of [Gulf] communities.”

Communities like Ozane’s already face some of the worst pollution in the nation from the petrochemical industry, and LNG terminals threaten to worsen an already disproportionate burden. For some other communities, the battle against the LNG industry represents a last-ditch effort to prevent that same fate.

A construction site for a pipeline to bring gas to the Cheniere liquefied natural gas facility, which opened in 2018 near Portland, Texas. Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

“We’re a Gulf Coast community, but our community doesn’t look like the rest of the Gulf Coast,” said Bekah Hinojosa, an organizer in the city of Brownsville in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley (who was featured on our 2022 Grist 50 list). “We don’t have existing fossil fuel refineries here. Our port doesn’t look like the Houston ship channel. This is the first big industry trying to move into our low-income community.”

She and other local advocates have been fighting two major projects: Texas LNG and Rio Grande LNG, with the accompanying Rio Bravo pipeline that would bring fracked gas to the latter. These projects already have authorization from the Department of Energy, meaning that they won’t be halted by the Biden administration’s pause. But Hinojosa and her fellow advocates are continuing to wage their own defense. Their efforts have already yielded one victory in 2021 when a third project in the area, Annova LNG, was canceled, and they’ve successfully pressured customers and investors to back away from the others.

We spoke with Hinojosa to learn about the tools local communities like hers are using to push back against LNG expansion, as well as the fossil fuel-free future she hopes to create for her area. Her responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q. What are some of the primary concerns with LNG in the Rio Grande Valley?

A. Our coastal communities in this region are 100 percent against LNG. (Editor’s note: These 2015 articles from the Port Isabel Press offer a sense of the scale of local opposition to LNG projects.) They’ve passed city resolutions against LNG [in] communities that are down the street from Brownsville: Port Isabel, South Padre Island, Laguna Vista, Long Island Village. And they oppose LNG because it would completely destroy their way of life. Their local economies depend on shrimping and fishing and nature and ecotourism. People come here from all over the world to see sea turtles, to hike and fish and shrimp and enjoy our unique wetlands. That’s what the economy of our coastal communities thrives on. And LNG would destroy that. They would dump pollution into the ship channel where shrimp lay their eggs, [and they would] dump pollution into our low-income communities.

We don’t have good health care here. People can’t afford expensive medical bills. That’s why the communities oppose the LNG projects.

Then we have the Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe, which are the original Indigenous people of this region. They oppose LNG because these projects would build on sacred sites — specifically, the Texas LNG project would destroy a known sacred Indigenous site called Garcia Pasture that’s on the National Park Service’s list of historic sites. It has ancestral burial grounds, village sites, artifacts, and Texas LNG wants to build right on top of that. And they have never consulted with the Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe.

Q. In your Grist 50 profile, you described your opposition strategy as “death by a thousand cuts.” Is that still the approach — fighting on every possible front?

A. Yeah, absolutely. We are actively pressuring insurance companies to withdraw from these LNG projects, [as well as] banks, private equity. We’re trying to stop tax subsidies for these projects, trying to prevent customers, different corporations from signing contracts to import the gas. We’ve been working with communities all over the world that don’t want to see their countries involved with these projects. I mean, essentially, we’re yelling at any and every company involved with Rio Grande LNG and Texas LNG to immediately drop these projects, and doing that in solidarity with other impacted communities. We [held two protests last week outside of corporate offices], one in Houston and one in New York, to stop Rio Grande.

Q. Is there action you would like to see at the federal level, beyond the pause on new LNG exports that the Biden administration announced in January?