Al Gore warned in An Inconvenient Truth: “We are witnessing a collision between our civilization and the Earth.” That collision is fueled not just by carbon but by entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo. A new study in Environmental Science & Technology Letters shows how corporate capture—the ability of industries to shape the very institutions meant to regulate them—remains one of the greatest obstacles to solving the climate crisis.

First studied in the 1940s, corporate capture has been documented across sectors from fossil fuels and chemicals to food, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals. The new research, led by Professor Alex Ford of the University of Portsmouth and the International Panel on Chemical Pollution, warns that without reform, capture will obstruct efforts to address what the UN calls the triple planetary crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, and chemical pollution.

Ford describes a subtle but systemic web of influence: those tasked with protecting people and the planet can become entangled—sometimes unknowingly—in a web where funding, data, and decision-making are steered by vested interests. These strategies do not always look like outright corruption; they are often subtle, systemic, and deeply embedded.

Examples range from “Frackademia,” where universities accept fossil fuel research dollars, to pesticide companies sponsoring scientific conferences, and museums criticized for partnering with oil companies. Adam Werbach, once the youngest-ever president of the Sierra Club, famously left mainstream activism to work with Walmart in the 2000s. His shift illustrated how corporate partnerships—even well-intentioned ones—can blur lines between advocacy and business interest.

In 2011, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) released The Future of Natural Gas, which stated that “natural gas provides a cost-effective bridge to a low-carbon future” and supported the exporting of liquified natural gas. A major sponsor of the report was the American Clean Skies Foundation, founded and chaired by Aubrey McClendon, CEO of the nation’s No. 2 gas producer Chesapeake Energy.

It is common for the New York Times, a prominently left-wing, liberal newspaper, to accept full page ads on how Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco are leading the renewable energy transition, while Aramco is the largest oil and gas producer in the world.

And in the Seychelles, Green Prophet has reported how even conservation groups meant to safeguard biodiversity, such as those monitoring Assomption Island near Aldabra Atoll, were appointed by the government itself. This raises a structural conflict of interest: when the very institutions charged with protecting nature are chosen by political actors who also approve destructive resort developments, their independence is compromised.

The study catalogues the recurring tactics industries use: watering down environmental laws, suppressing or delaying critical research, funding NGOs or cultural institutions to soften messaging, and using media platforms to amplify denial or disinformation.

Not all ties to industry are damaging, the authors note. The private sector has played an important role in developing innovative technologies and supporting environmental initiatives. But involvement must be transparent, accountable, and free from conflicts of interest that undermine wellbeing.

The IPCP researchers recommend stronger conflict-of-interest policies, transparent disclosure of funding, and training for students in environmental sciences to spot disinformation and influence tactics.

“This isn’t about vilifying industry,” Ford emphasizes. “It’s about recognising that commercial interests don’t always align with public or planetary health.”

From ExxonMobil’s climate deception lawsuits to Big Oil’s deepening carbon capture investments, the evidence is clear: industries are still shaping the rules of the game. And as Gore reminded us nearly twenty years ago, the stakes could not be higher: “We are facing a planetary emergency—a threat to the survival of our civilization.”

Motived to change the world? Head to New York Climate Week in 3 days to get the ball rolling.

The post Are you tangled up in climate conflict, because your job depends on it? New study appeared first on Green Prophet.

All land mammals have tear glands in their eyes, but the human tearing experience was until recently considered unique. After all, we are the only animal to shed a tear while watching Beaches. Now a new Weizmann Institute of Science study reveals that human tears have much more in common with those of other animals than previously thought: They contain chemicals that reduce aggression in others, as do the tears of, for example, mice and blind mole rats. The study, published today in PLOS Biology, showed that sniffing women’s tears lowered brain activity related to aggression in men, reducing aggressive behavior.

The study addressed the long-standing mystery of why we cry. Charles Darwin was puzzled by emotional tearing, which appeared to have no useful function – beyond the role that tears play in lubricating the eye – so he concluded that such tearing must have evolved in humans by chance. Since then, however, numerous studies, particularly in rodents, have shown that mammalian tears contain chemicals serving as social signals that can be emitted on demand. One of their most common purposes is to reduce aggression. The tear liquid of female mice, for example, contains chemicals that affect aggression networks in the brain, thereby reducing fighting among male mice. Subordinate males of blind mole rats smear themselves in tears to reduce the dominant male’s aggressive behavior toward them.

Prof. Noam Sobel and Shani Agron

Prof. Noam Sobel, whose lab in Weizmann’s Brain Sciences Department studies olfaction, the sense of smell, has hypothesized that human tears also contain chemicals that serve as social signals. Back in 2011, in research published in Science, his team had shown that sniffing women’s emotional tears reduced testosterone levels in men, resulting in somewhat diminished levels of sexual arousal.

In the new study, researchers led by PhD student Shani Agron from Sobel’s lab wanted to determine whether tears have the same aggression-blocking affect in people as they do in rodents. In a series of experiments, men were exposed to either women’s emotional tears or saline, without knowing what they were sniffing and without being able to distinguish between the two, since both are odorless. Next, they played a two-person game. The game was designed to elicit aggressive behavior in one player toward the other player, who the men were led to believe was cheating. When given the opportunity, the men could get revenge on the other players by causing them to lose money, though they themselves gained nothing.

“We’ve shown that tears activate olfactory receptors and that they alter aggression-related brain circuits, significantly reducing aggressive behavior”

After the men sniffed women’s emotional tears, their revenge-seeking aggressive behavior during the game dropped by about 44 percent – that is, nearly in half.

This seemed equivalent to the effect observed in rodents, but rodents have a structure in their noses called the vomeronasal organ, which picks up the social chemical signals. Humans don’t have this organ, so how do they sense the social chemicals? To find an answer, the researchers applied the tears to 62 human olfactory receptors in a laboratory dish and found that four of these receptors were activated by the tears, even though tears are odorless.

Furthermore, the researchers repeated the experiments while examining the men’s brains in an MRI scanner. Functional imaging showed that two aggression-related brain regions – the prefrontal cortex and the anterior insula – were less active when the men were sniffing the tears. The greater the difference in this brain activity between saline and tears, the less often the player took revenge during the game.

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Most electrical activity in animals and insects occurs at very low frequencies you can barely notice them. But they are there and the origin of these signals, as well as medical applications have eluded scientists. A new study from Israel shows a link between electrical fields in lightning and those found in living organisms, including humans.

The study’s findings may change established notions about electrical activity in living organisms, paving the way for revolutionary, new medical treatments. Illnesses such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s are related to abnormalities in the electrical activity of the body, the researchers say.

“We show that the electrical activity in many living organisms — from zooplankton in the oceans, to sharks and even in our brains — is very similar to the electrical fields we measure and study in the atmosphere from global lightning activity,” explains Prof. Colin Price of TAU’s Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, who led the research for the study, published in the International Journal of Biometeorology. In 2008 we featured Prof. Price in the article, The Flash Before the Flood.

“We hypothesize that over evolutionary timescales living organisms adapted and evolved to actually use the electricity in the environment — global lightning,” Prof. Price continues. “This has likely not changed over billions of years and is similar to the evolution of our eyes, which evolved using the sunlight nature gave us.”

As living organisms evolved over billions of years, the natural electromagnetic resonant frequencies in the atmosphere, continuously generated by global lightning activity, provided the background electric fields for the development of cellular electrical activity. Prof. Price’s research found that, in some animals, the electrical spectrum is difficult to differentiate from the background atmospheric electric field produced by lightning.

We resonate like lightning 

“Neither biologists nor doctors can explain why the frequencies in living organisms (0-50 Hz) are similar to those in the atmosphere caused by lightning,” adds Prof. Price. “Most of them are not even aware of the similarity we presented in our paper.”

“Our review of previous studies revealed that lightning-related fields may have positive medical applications related to our biological clock (circadian rhythms), spinal cord injuries and maybe other bodily functions related to electrical activity in our bodies,” says Prof. Price. “The connection between the ever-present electromagnetic fields, between lightning in the atmosphere and human health, may have huge implications in the future for various treatments related to electrical abnormalities in our bodies.”

The study comprised a retrospective review of previous studies on the link between lightning-related fields in the atmosphere and human and animal health. “We collected many different studies over the years to build a clear picture of this link,” concludes Prof. Price. “Going forward, we need to design new experiments to see how these extremely low frequency fields from lightning may impact living organisms, and to investigate how these fields can be used to benefit us.

“One new experiment we are now planning is to see how these fields may impact the rate of photosynthesis in plants.”

The post We’re all electric as lightning appeared first on Green Prophet.

Nature can point us in the right green direction. Maurice learns about human nature from his cat.

I’m sure many Green Prophet readers enjoyed Jack Reichert’s recent picture story: 11Things I Learned From My Dog. He showed us how we can learn a lot about life by observing how man’s best friend relates to us as human. I decided to write a follow-up piece on how people relate to another very popular, yet often misunderstood human companion, Felis Catus or the common domestic house cat.

Many people consider cats to be the opposite of dogs, especially in their relationship (or even non-relationship) to humans. I’ve lived with several cats during my life, and have had relationships with numerous others, including what many people refer to as street or alley cats, which are quite numerous where I live in Israel. Cats also have had a bad break historically, and have been considered as symbols of bad luck and harbingers of evil – even being associated with the devil and witches (especially in the case of black cats).

So in order to present a counterpoint to dog fanciers, I’ve decided to write this article so that cats can also have their place in the sun in-so-far as their relationship to people.

Image Credit: photoslevi

The post 12 Things I've Learned About Human Nature From My Cats (Slideshow) appeared first on Green Prophet.

The other night my dog passed away. Looking back over the past ten years I realized that I had learned many valuable lessons from her. This post is a summary of those lessons, for your benefit …and a eulogy. This is not a Thoreau-ian post about how we should get back in touch with nature, but more about how I grew from seeing the world through a completely different perspective. However, isn’t – being in touch with the world around you – just what being environmentally friendly is all about?=

1. Get excited about going for a walk

Every dog owner knows that dogs have a special radar, so if you even think about going for a walk, dogs can read something in your body language and like a bullet are at the door the very instant you start thinking about a walk, let alone actually say the word “walk”. “Puppy”, my dog, would get so excited, jumping around, jumping on you, when we were getting ready to take her out it was a challenge to get the leash on her, until we taught her ‘sit’.

People aren’t built to sit in an office from 9-5 daily. A dear friend learned recently, the hard way, that if you don’t get up from time to time you can get sick, or worse. In “Stand Up While You Read This” Olivia Judson points out that “…sitting is one of the most passive things you can do. You burn more energy by chewing gum or fidgeting than you do sitting still in a chair.” Puppy taught me to go for a walk and explore the world around me.

Image credit: cloneofsnake

2. Stop and smell the flowers / Sniff out the news

When you’re a dog, you want the flowers to smell like dog-piss and Puppy would stop at every single flower to smell it. One challenging aspect of walking a dog is getting past every fire hydrant, or wall for that matter. After a rain it was always particularly difficult to get more than three feet with Puppy outside. But I guess it’s like Facebook for her. Which dog peed where? Is there anyone new it the neighborhood?

The reason why we’re obsessed with social networking is that it’s so important to know what is happening in your neighborhood. Craig’s List, and sites of a similar nature, were designed just for our “sniffing” purposes. Who’s new in town? Which is the best doctor to visit for X? Where can I get the best deals… In truth, you never know when you can lend a hand, or need an hand lent.

3. Don’t waste food

It’s a lot easier to be environmentally friendly with your waste when you have a dog. Better than a compost heap in many ways, Puppy would always jump around excitedly when the meal was over and she knew she’d be getting her treat. (Even on Fraggle Rock a compost heap doesn’t jump for joy when you give it your leftovers.) Living with Puppy heightened my awareness of what I eat, and what I potentially waste. When I cook now, I try more carefully to judge portions and not waste good food.

4. Give a kiss to say “thank you”

Puppy always loved getting tasty morsels of food we left over, such as yummy chicken skin, or cheese. But whenever we gave her something she’d always kiss our hand, a quick lick. It wasn’t that she was trying to get some remaining grease, you knew when she sniffed that grease. This lick was a kiss, a quick: “Thanks for the food!” It cost her nothing, just a very quick postponement of gratification to show her appreciation. But I’ll tell you, getting those kisses made me want to keep giving her those treats.

I learned from Puppy that no small deed is too small to merit a thank you. My wife laughs when I thank her for a kiss, but I appreciate them, so I say thank you.

5. Love unconditionally

Puppy was always excited to see you. And she made sure that you KNEW it! Most dog owners I know describe the same experience: whenever I came through the door, puppy would be there jumping, excited as if I had been gone forever, even if I had only been out for an hour.

If you love someone, shouldn’t you let them know? How often do you greet the people you care about at the door?

6. Get pet any chance you get

Sitting and reading with Puppy around needed three hands: one hand to hold the book, one hand to turn pages …and one hand to pet Puppy. She wouldn’t have it any other way. We all need touch, and one thing I learned from Puppy was that if I needed a hug, or a hand held, it’s okay to ask for it. I loved petting my dog, and she loved being petted. That’s the way we are.

7. Protect the people you love

My grandmother lives with us, in a separate, but adjacent, apartment. Whenever my grandmother would go to answer the door, Puppy would come running to see who it was. She cared about us, and even saved us from several burglaries. I learned from Puppy that if I care about someone, I should make sure that they are okay. If a guest stays late, I make sure that they can get home safely — it’s not just chivalry. It’s safety.

8. Bark!

Don’t be afraid to let someone know that you don’t trust them, or what they’re up to. When someone came to the door that Puppy didn’t know, she would bark. Sure, that can be a little intimidating for guests, but I’d rather be safe. Once she saw that we trusted a guest, she would go back to her daily nap. I learned from Puppy that it’s okay to call someone out when you don’t trust them. I found that it’s usually good that I said something, because people usually put their own interests first, whether it’s justified or not.

9. Run

When we would let Puppy off her leash to run she would lose ten years, figuratively. It would always be a chore to get her back on the leash and bring her home, she loved running in the hills near our house so much. It took ten years off my age just watching her, it would bring me back to a time that everything was new, fresh. Puppy must have run through those fields hundreds of times, but she was always excited to run through them again. I learned from Puppy that a good run does you good, and it makes your life that much more fun when you get excited about things you love doing.

10. Appreciate the sunrise

Puppy used to sleep at my feet, and one summer we used to get up before I had to go out and run in the fields. Each day Puppy would wake me up a little earlier than the day before ’till we were waking up before the sunrise. After running I liked to sit by a bench on the side of the road overlooking the valley near my home and I noticed that Puppy would face the valley, even if the bench did not. I could usually tell if she had seen something that she would have liked to chase, a deer for instance. She would tense up and you could see her chasing that deer in her mind’s eye. Wishing that she were just a little closer…

On these mornings I could see that she was just looking at the view. It looked like she was just enjoying the sunrise. How often do we do that? It was really Puppy that made that happen, waking me up so that we could share those breathtaking sunrises. No wonder she couldn’t wait to get up.

11. Wear your emotions on your butt / Let people know how are feeling

You could always tell what mood Puppy was in. You just had to look at her tail. I learned about the power of being honest with my emotions from Puppy. If you don’t express how you are feeling, how can you expect the people around you to be sensitive to your needs? Like it or not, we are social, and part of living with others is giving them cues to how we are doing. Puppy would make sure I knew when she wanted to be petted, when she needed to go for a walk and when she just wanted to nap. It helped me be a good friend to her, as she was to me. Whenever I was down, she could tell and would come over and nudge me, make me pet her. It always made me feel better.

Puppy adopted my family about ten years ago, she jumped over the garden wall of my parent’s home and my father pointed out that if she could, a burglar could as well. So we kept her. She passed away from anaphylactic shock the other night after a walk, we’re not sure if it was from something she ate, or something that bit her. The vet was not able to tell, and couldn’t save her.

We’ll miss you Puppy.

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