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environmental justice
How Kenyan Grassroots Activists Defeated a Fossil Fuel Giant
At a time when "Goliath" seems to be winning so many battles, here in Kenya, "David" finally won.
Nov 02, 2025
On October 16, a high court in Kenya permanently halted a coal-fired power plant destined for the northern coast of our nation. The power plant, which would’ve been the first in East Africa, threatened to poison the air and waters near Lamu, an island with a rich ecosystem and home to the region’s oldest Swahili settlement. It is also a UNESCO Heritage Site. It took nine years of organizing, protesting, and litigation but we prevailed over Big Coal. To be sure our work is far from over. But at a time when "Goliath" seems to be winning so many battles, here in Kenya, "David" finally won.
We learned that Amu Power, a Chinese-backed corporation, planned to build the power plant in 2016 through a gazette notice in a local paper. As an activist with a background in environmental studies, I understood immediately that this project would kill marine wildlife, spew toxins that would cause health problems, and destroy farmland. It was a climate disaster waiting to happen. And Lamu would be changed forever.
Several local grassroots organizations jumped into action to oppose the project, but we were working in silos. To tackle the fossil fuel industry, a broader strategy was needed. And so, in 2016, the activist organizations Save Lamu, Katiba Institute and Natural Justice, among 16 other organizations, formed a coalition called deCOALonize. Together, we educated the public on the health dangers, the detrimental impacts on biodiversity, and the threats to their livelihoods as farmers. We organized protests, lobbied funders to abandon the project, and visited the site where the proposed power plant was to be built to gather evidence.
On June 26, 2019, the National Environmental Tribunal revoked the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) license granted to Amu Power for the construction of the 1,050 megawatt coal plant.
I have seen that the true power is with the people.
The victory was bittersweet, however. A month later, Amu Power appealed the court’s decision. We refused to back down too. Through Save Lamu, deCOALonize filed a cross-appeal that September at the Environment and Land Court in Malindi. We argued that Amu Power had violated regulations that required proper environmental assessments, public participation, and transparency about the health and environmental impacts of the proposed project prior to issuance of the license.
However, in the time it took our case to churn through the legal system, lives were being upended. Amu Power had acquired land from farm owners. Some families received no compensation; others received payments but not as much as promised. Families who left their farms struggled to find places to live, their kids were no longer going to school, and many wallowed in poverty.
The case languished in the court for years. Then, in April 2024, Amu Power filed written submissions in hopes of regaining their license. Following an agonizing wait following several court adjournments, the final judgment was delivered earlier this month. The magistrate upheld the revocation of the license and blocked any further appeals. We collectively sighed in relief.
And yet, we know we have to continue being watchdogs. There are several extraction projects being proposed, especially in Eastern Kenya.
The government claims it wants to reduce our carbon footprint. We were among the nearly 200 countries that signed the Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. And we committed to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which includes taking meaningful action to tackle the climate crisis. But we need more than words on paper. We need action. We need a road map. And we need more voices at the table, including women and youth.
Still, we are celebrating this milestone—and hope to inspire hope in others. When you are facing a multibillion-dollar operation and you are just "the people," you do wonder whether those in power will listen. But I have seen that the true power is with the people. Our voices do matter. And now we stand ready to fight again.
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If AI Knows the Planet Is Dying, Why Can't It Tell Us Who's Drowning?
AI that monitors planetary health without a justice framework becomes sophisticated surveillance rather than equitable care.
Oct 30, 2025
Seven of nine planetary boundaries have been breached. Climate change, biosphere collapse, freshwater depletion and, for the first time, ocean acidification. These boundaries are the vital signs of a planet teetering beyond the range that sustained human civilization for 12,000 years. Alarm bells ring in every chart and graph of the Planetary Health Check 2025, yet our collective response remains inadequate.
Meanwhile, a technological revolution is underway. Artificial intelligence now processes vast satellite datasets to deliver near-real-time indicators of Earth's health. Initiatives from the Potsdam Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre envision leveraging the latest satellite data and AI to create enhanced Earth monitoring systems, where machine-learning algorithms track carbon dioxide emissions, detect deforestation as it happens, and flag ecosystem stress long before human eyes register the crisis. AI promises faster, more precise environmental intelligence than ever before.
But there is a troubling blind spot in this approach. These powerful systems can quantify atmospheric CO2 down to decimal points, yet they cannot capture which communities suffer first when planetary boundaries break. They report that 22.6% of global land faces freshwater disturbance in streamflow, yet satellite dashboards remain silent on who lacks safe drinking water. They classify aerosol loading as within "safe" global limits even as monsoon disruptions devastate millions of farmers. Precise metrics obscure systemic inequities.
When aerosol pollution over South Asia weakens the monsoon—a lifeline for more than a billion people—satellites detect changing moisture indices but ignore caste-based water access, rural poverty, and entrenched social vulnerabilities that determine who drowns and who survives. Scholars warn of "computational asymmetries" and neocolonial dynamics in AI for climate action, perpetuating power imbalances by extracting information without empowering affected communities.
If AI-driven planetary monitoring is to fulfill its promise, it must be designed to protect everyone, especially the most.
Moreover, who controls these AI systems? Research centers in Europe and North America design and deploy them. Satellites are launched by NASA, the European Space Agency, and private firms. Datasets and codes are often proprietary. Access barriers exclude local researchers and grassroots organizations from meaningful participation. As a result, climate solutions driven by AI risk concentrating power in the same institutions that shaped the crisis rather than democratizing environmental protection.
This is not a call to reject AI in environmental science. On the contrary, these tools can transform early warning systems, improve emissions accounting, and optimize conservation strategies. The challenge lies in embedding justice at their core. We must ask urgent questions: Who has access to the data? Who shapes the algorithms? Who defines the metrics of success? AI that monitors planetary health without a justice framework becomes sophisticated surveillance rather than equitable care.
So How Do We Move Forward?
First, codesign monitoring systems with frontline communities. Indigenous Peoples, smallholder farmers, informal settlements—they possess critical local knowledge about changing environmental conditions. Participatory data collection initiatives, community-controlled sensor networks, and open-source platforms can bridge global datasets with ground truth.
Second, adopt data sovereignty principles. Data gathered from the Global South must remain accessible to local stakeholders. Intellectual property should not become a barrier to research and advocacy. Partnerships between Western labs and regional institutions must prioritize capacity building and fair data governance, following frameworks like CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance.
Third, expand AI metrics beyond biophysical variables. Incorporate indicators of social vulnerability—income inequality, water access, health outcomes—to contextualize environmental data. For example, freshwater disturbance indices should be mapped alongside demographic data on marginalized groups.
Finally, dedicate funding to interdisciplinary teams blending Earth system scientists, social scientists, and justice advocates. Building equitable AI systems requires collaboration across domains. Grant programs should support projects that integrate algorithm development with community engagement and policy analysis.
The machines watching our planet's vital signs can tell us when thresholds are crossed. They cannot tell us who pays the price. If AI-driven planetary monitoring is to fulfill its promise, it must be designed to protect everyone, especially the most vulnerable, rather than just refine our awareness of a crisis we're already failing to solve.
Here, justice must guide the next revolution in environmental intelligence.
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Musk's xAI Is Showing Us Exactly Why We Need Public Interest Lawsuits
When powerful corporations are able to completely circumvent basic democratic accountability, public interest lawsuits are a final backstop to protect the community’s well-being.
Oct 05, 2025
The NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center are moving to sue Elon Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence company for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The company has been accused of illegally operating several dozen diesel-fueled turbines to power Musk’s “Colossus,” a massive data center located on an old industrial lot.
According to SELC, the company operated those generators to power Colossus—and released toxic pollutants—without even applying for a permit to use them.
This entire saga is an excellent example of why public interest lawsuits and strong environmental regulations are critically important. Unfortunately, both are under attack on multiple fronts. The Trump administration and the US Supreme Court have both moved to seriously weaken the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The White House and the Roberts court, joined by many “supply-side liberals” and proponents of the “abundance agenda,” are also attempting to impeach environmental regulation and public interest lawsuits in the court of public opinion.
Musk’s Memphis misadventures are a case in point of why that’s so dangerous.
No prominent abundance proponent has even attempted to square Musk’s actions with their insistence that we need to remove opportunities to sue to block development.
Colossus went into operation while adroitly sidestepping the democratic process. By dangling promises of tax revenues and economic development, xAI was able to begin operating its massive data center with even some city officials totally oblivious to the process. A company representative who was supposed to speak at a public meeting with the county commission played hooky. Add it all up and it demonstrates how, especially at the local level, powerful corporations are able to completely circumvent basic democratic accountability. In those cases, public interest lawsuits are a final backstop to protect the community’s well-being.
When the government refuses to enforce the laws and allows corporations to run amok, it falls to activists and community groups to force its hand. This is the central premise of Public Citizen founder Ralph Nader’s decades of progressive politics, and something that many centrist Democratic pundits have begun to deride.
What such pundits invariably miss, however, is that despite Nader’s successes, there are still innumerable instances where governments fail to hold powerful corporate interests accountable. In an emblematic example, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue in their bestseller Abundance that, while Nader’s approach was important in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we are now at a juncture where such litigation serves mostly to delay important policy implementation and no longer serves a critical purpose. But for all too many disproportionately poor and majority-minority communities like South Memphis, a public interest lawsuit of the sort denigrated in sweeping fashion by pundits is their last, and honestly only, means of protecting themselves.
The framework deployed by the abundance movement, which is echoed by the Trump administration and the Supreme Court, assumes away instances like xAI in Memphis. Indeed, no prominent abundance proponent has even attempted to square Musk’s actions with their insistence that we need to remove opportunities to sue to block development.
Unfortunately, Musk’s machinations along the Mississippi are part of a longstanding pattern of the government ignoring, and sometimes engaging in, development that poses acute harms to vulnerable—disproportionately majority-minority and poor—communities. South Memphis has been repeatedly left exposed to toxic waste by exploitative industrial practices and government neglect. The Tennessee Valley Authority dumped its toxic coal ash waste there. The same exact site where Colossus now sits once hosted a polluting factory.
And it isn’t just South Memphis. Across the United States, there are abundant examples of communities hung out to dry. The corridor of petrochemical factories between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana, for example, has been dubbed “Cancer Alley” because its residents are subjected to such high levels of carcinogenic pollution. Other areas with heavy fossil fuel infrastructure are called “sacrifice zones” because of how much cancer and chronic disease residents endure.
Even now waste facilities are almost always sited in poor neighborhoods that don’t have the wealth and political capital to block them. Lawsuits are the final bulwark to defend those communities. Calling for them to taken off the table is dangerous, especially with the White House and Supreme Court eager to ape such talking points to justify removing any means of blockading the whims of the powerful.
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