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Thursday, November 20, 2025

Artist’s concept of exoplanet GJ 9827 d. It might be a steam world, with lots of water vapor in its atmosphere. Astronomers say exoplanet atmospheres are a key to whether or not life could survive on a planet. Image via NASA/ ESA/ Leah Hustak (STScI)/ Ralf Crawford (STScI)/ University of Montreal. Scientists focus on the habitable zone (where liquid water might exist) when they are gauging whether an exoplanet could be habitable. But exoplanet atmospheres are also key to whether a planet can maintain stable, life-supporting conditions. For life to persist on a planet, the environment must be stable. A planet’s surface, oceans and atmosphere can work together to regulate the system. By Morgan Underwood, Rice University EarthSky isn’t powered by billionaires. We’re powered by you.Support EarthSky’s 2025 Donation Campaign and help keep science accessible. Exoplanet atmospheres are a key to habitability When astronomers search for planets that could host liquid water on their surface, they start by looking at a star’s habitable zone. Water is a key ingredient for life, and on a planet too close to its star, water on its surface may boil. Too far, and it could freeze. This zone marks the region in-between. But being in this sweet spot doesn’t automatically mean a planet is hospitable to life. Other factors, like whether a planet is geologically active or has processes that regulate gases in its atmosphere, play a role. The habitable zone provides a useful guide to search for signs of life on exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system orbiting other stars. But what’s in these planets’ atmospheres holds the next clue about whether liquid water – and possibly life – exists beyond Earth. The greenhouse effect On Earth, the greenhouse effect, caused by gases like carbon dioxide and water vapor, keeps the planet warm enough for liquid water and life as we know it. Without an atmosphere, Earth’s surface temperature would average around 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 C), far below the freezing point of water. The boundaries of the habitable zone are defined by how much of a greenhouse effect is necessary to maintain the surface temperatures that allow for liquid water to persist. It’s a balance between sunlight and atmospheric warming. Many planetary scientists, including me, are seeking to understand if the processes responsible for regulating Earth’s climate are operating on other habitable-zone worlds. We use what we know about Earth’s geology and climate to predict how these processes might appear elsewhere. That is where my geoscience expertise comes in. Picturing the habitable zone of a solar system analog, with Venus- and Mars-like planets outside of the “just right” temperature zone. Image via NASA. Why the habitable zone? The habitable zone is a simple and powerful idea, and for good reason. It provides a starting point, directing astronomers to where they might expect to find planets with liquid water. But without needing to know every detail about the planet’s atmosphere or history. Its definition is partially informed by what scientists know about Earth’s rocky neighbors. Mars, which lies just outside the outer edge of the habitable zone, shows clear evidence of ancient rivers and lakes where liquid water once flowed. Similarly, Venus is currently too close to the sun to be within the habitable zone. Yet, some geochemical evidence and modeling studies suggest Venus may have had water in its past. Though how much and for how long remains uncertain. These examples show that while the habitable zone is not a perfect predictor of habitability, it provides a useful starting point. How to have a stable environment What the habitable zone doesn’t do is determine whether a planet can sustain habitable conditions over long periods of time. On Earth, a stable climate allowed life to emerge and persist. Liquid water could remain on the surface, giving slow chemical reactions enough time to build the molecules of life. This let early ecosystems develop resilience to change, which reinforced habitability. Life emerged on Earth, but continued to reshape the environments it evolved in, making them more conducive to life. This stability likely unfolded over hundreds of millions of years, as the planet’s surface, oceans and atmosphere worked together as part of a slow but powerful system to regulate Earth’s temperature. Recycling inorganic carbon A key part of this system is how Earth recycles inorganic carbon between the atmosphere, surface and oceans over the course of millions of years. Inorganic carbon refers to carbon bound in atmospheric gases, dissolved in seawater or locked in minerals, rather than biological material. This part of the carbon cycle acts like a natural thermostat. When volcanoes release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the carbon dioxide molecules trap heat and warm the planet. As temperatures rise, rain and weathering draw carbon out of the air and store it in rocks and oceans. If the planet cools, this process slows down. This allows carbon dioxide, a warming greenhouse gas, to build up in the atmosphere again. This part of the carbon cycle has helped Earth recover from past ice ages and avoid runaway warming. Even as the sun has gradually brightened, this cycle has contributed to keeping temperatures on Earth within a range where liquid water and life can persist for long spans of time. Similar cycles in exoplanet atmospheres? Now, scientists are asking whether similar geological processes might operate on other planets. And if so, how they might detect them. For example, if researchers could observe enough rocky planets in their stars’ habitable zones, they could look for a pattern connecting the amount of sunlight a planet receives and how much carbon dioxide is in its atmosphere. Finding such a pattern may hint that the same kind of carbon-cycling process could be operating elsewhere. The mix of gases in a planet’s atmosphere is shaped by what’s happening on or below its surface. One study shows that measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide in a number of rocky planets could reveal whether their surfaces are broken into a number of moving plates, like Earth’s, or if their crusts are more rigid. On Earth, these shifting plates drive volcanism and rock weathering, which are key to carbon cycling. Simulation of what space telescopes, like the Habitable Worlds Observatory, will capture when looking at distant solar systems. Image via STScI/ NASA GSFC. Keeping an eye on distant exoplanet atmospheres The next step will be toward gaining a population-level perspective of planets in their stars’ habitable zones. By analyzing atmospheric data from many rocky planets, researchers can look for trends that reveal the influence of underlying planetary processes, such as the carbon cycle. Scientists could then compare these patterns with a planet’s position in the habitable zone. Doing so would allow them to test whether the zone accurately predicts where habitable conditions are possible, or whether some planets maintain conditions suitable for liquid water beyond the zone’s edges. This kind of approach is especially important given the diversity of exoplanets. Many exoplanets fall into categories that don’t exist in our solar system. These include super Earths and mini Neptunes. Others orbit stars smaller and cooler than the sun. NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory The datasets needed to explore and understand this diversity are just on the horizon. NASA’s upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory will be the first space telescope designed specifically to search for signs of habitability and life on planets orbiting other stars. It will directly image Earth-sized planets around sunlike stars to study their atmospheres in detail. Instruments on the observatory will analyze starlight passing through these atmospheres to detect gases like carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor and oxygen. As starlight filters through a planet’s atmosphere, different molecules absorb specific wavelengths of light, leaving behind a chemical fingerprint that reveals which gases are present. These compounds offer insight into the processes shaping these worlds. The Habitable Worlds Observatory is under active scientific and engineering development, with a potential launch targeted for the 2030s. Combined with today’s telescopes, which are increasingly capable of observing atmospheres of Earth-sized worlds, scientists may soon be able to determine whether the same planetary processes that regulate Earth’s climate are common throughout the galaxy, or uniquely our own. NASA’s planned Habitable Worlds Observatory will look for exoplanets that could potentially host life. Morgan Underwood, Ph.D. Candidate in Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Rice University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Bottom line: The habitable zone of a planet might be key to whether life can survive there. But so are exoplanet atmospheres, scientists say.The post Exoplanet atmospheres are a key to habitability first appeared on EarthSky.

The habitable zone of a planet might be key to whether life can survive there. But so are exoplanet atmospheres, scientists say. The post Exoplanet atmospheres are a key to habitability first appeared on EarthSky.

Exoplanet atmospheres: Blue planet with thin white clouds and bright white sun and another planet in distance. — Artist’s concept of exoplanet GJ 9827 d. It might be a steam world, with lots of water vapor in its atmosphere. Astronomers say exoplanet atmospheres are a key to whether or not life could survive on a planet. Image via NASA/ ESA/ Leah Hustak (STScI)/ Ralf Crawford (STScI)/ University of Montreal.

Scientists focus on the habitable zone (where liquid water might exist) when they are gauging whether an exoplanet could be habitable.
But exoplanet atmospheres are also key to whether a planet can maintain stable, life-supporting conditions.
For life to persist on a planet, the environment must be stable. A planet’s surface, oceans and atmosphere can work together to regulate the system.

By Morgan Underwood, Rice University

EarthSky isn’t powered by billionaires. We’re powered by you.
Support EarthSky’s 2025 Donation Campaign and help keep science accessible.

Exoplanet atmospheres are a key to habitability

When astronomers search for planets that could host liquid water on their surface, they start by looking at a star’s habitable zone. Water is a key ingredient for life, and on a planet too close to its star, water on its surface may boil. Too far, and it could freeze. This zone marks the region in-between.

But being in this sweet spot doesn’t automatically mean a planet is hospitable to life. Other factors, like whether a planet is geologically active or has processes that regulate gases in its atmosphere, play a role.

The habitable zone provides a useful guide to search for signs of life on exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system orbiting other stars. But what’s in these planets’ atmospheres holds the next clue about whether liquid water – and possibly life – exists beyond Earth.

The greenhouse effect

On Earth, the greenhouse effect, caused by gases like carbon dioxide and water vapor, keeps the planet warm enough for liquid water and life as we know it. Without an atmosphere, Earth’s surface temperature would average around 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 C), far below the freezing point of water.

The boundaries of the habitable zone are defined by how much of a greenhouse effect is necessary to maintain the surface temperatures that allow for liquid water to persist. It’s a balance between sunlight and atmospheric warming.

Many planetary scientists, including me, are seeking to understand if the processes responsible for regulating Earth’s climate are operating on other habitable-zone worlds. We use what we know about Earth’s geology and climate to predict how these processes might appear elsewhere. That is where my geoscience expertise comes in.

A diagram showing three planets orbiting a star: The one closes to the star is labeled 'too hot,' the next is labeled 'just right,' and the farthest is labeled 'too cold.' — Picturing the habitable zone of a solar system analog, with Venus- and Mars-like planets outside of the “just right” temperature zone. Image via NASA.

Why the habitable zone?

The habitable zone is a simple and powerful idea, and for good reason. It provides a starting point, directing astronomers to where they might expect to find planets with liquid water. But without needing to know every detail about the planet’s atmosphere or history.

Its definition is partially informed by what scientists know about Earth’s rocky neighbors. Mars, which lies just outside the outer edge of the habitable zone, shows clear evidence of ancient rivers and lakes where liquid water once flowed.

Similarly, Venus is currently too close to the sun to be within the habitable zone. Yet, some geochemical evidence and modeling studies suggest Venus may have had water in its past. Though how much and for how long remains uncertain.

These examples show that while the habitable zone is not a perfect predictor of habitability, it provides a useful starting point.

How to have a stable environment

What the habitable zone doesn’t do is determine whether a planet can sustain habitable conditions over long periods of time. On Earth, a stable climate allowed life to emerge and persist. Liquid water could remain on the surface, giving slow chemical reactions enough time to build the molecules of life. This let early ecosystems develop resilience to change, which reinforced habitability.

Life emerged on Earth, but continued to reshape the environments it evolved in, making them more conducive to life.

This stability likely unfolded over hundreds of millions of years, as the planet’s surface, oceans and atmosphere worked together as part of a slow but powerful system to regulate Earth’s temperature.

Recycling inorganic carbon

A key part of this system is how Earth recycles inorganic carbon between the atmosphere, surface and oceans over the course of millions of years. Inorganic carbon refers to carbon bound in atmospheric gases, dissolved in seawater or locked in minerals, rather than biological material. This part of the carbon cycle acts like a natural thermostat. When volcanoes release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the carbon dioxide molecules trap heat and warm the planet. As temperatures rise, rain and weathering draw carbon out of the air and store it in rocks and oceans.

If the planet cools, this process slows down. This allows carbon dioxide, a warming greenhouse gas, to build up in the atmosphere again. This part of the carbon cycle has helped Earth recover from past ice ages and avoid runaway warming.

Even as the sun has gradually brightened, this cycle has contributed to keeping temperatures on Earth within a range where liquid water and life can persist for long spans of time.

Similar cycles in exoplanet atmospheres?

Now, scientists are asking whether similar geological processes might operate on other planets. And if so, how they might detect them. For example, if researchers could observe enough rocky planets in their stars’ habitable zones, they could look for a pattern connecting the amount of sunlight a planet receives and how much carbon dioxide is in its atmosphere. Finding such a pattern may hint that the same kind of carbon-cycling process could be operating elsewhere.

The mix of gases in a planet’s atmosphere is shaped by what’s happening on or below its surface. One study shows that measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide in a number of rocky planets could reveal whether their surfaces are broken into a number of moving plates, like Earth’s, or if their crusts are more rigid. On Earth, these shifting plates drive volcanism and rock weathering, which are key to carbon cycling.

A diagram showing a few small planets orbiting a star. — Simulation of what space telescopes, like the Habitable Worlds Observatory, will capture when looking at distant solar systems. Image via STScI/ NASA GSFC.

Keeping an eye on distant exoplanet atmospheres

The next step will be toward gaining a population-level perspective of planets in their stars’ habitable zones. By analyzing atmospheric data from many rocky planets, researchers can look for trends that reveal the influence of underlying planetary processes, such as the carbon cycle.

Scientists could then compare these patterns with a planet’s position in the habitable zone. Doing so would allow them to test whether the zone accurately predicts where habitable conditions are possible, or whether some planets maintain conditions suitable for liquid water beyond the zone’s edges.

This kind of approach is especially important given the diversity of exoplanets. Many exoplanets fall into categories that don’t exist in our solar system. These include super Earths and mini Neptunes. Others orbit stars smaller and cooler than the sun.

NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory

The datasets needed to explore and understand this diversity are just on the horizon. NASA’s upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory will be the first space telescope designed specifically to search for signs of habitability and life on planets orbiting other stars. It will directly image Earth-sized planets around sunlike stars to study their atmospheres in detail.

Instruments on the observatory will analyze starlight passing through these atmospheres to detect gases like carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor and oxygen. As starlight filters through a planet’s atmosphere, different molecules absorb specific wavelengths of light, leaving behind a chemical fingerprint that reveals which gases are present. These compounds offer insight into the processes shaping these worlds.

The Habitable Worlds Observatory is under active scientific and engineering development, with a potential launch targeted for the 2030s. Combined with today’s telescopes, which are increasingly capable of observing atmospheres of Earth-sized worlds, scientists may soon be able to determine whether the same planetary processes that regulate Earth’s climate are common throughout the galaxy, or uniquely our own.

NASA’s planned Habitable Worlds Observatory will look for exoplanets that could potentially host life.

Morgan Underwood, Ph.D. Candidate in Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Rice University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: The habitable zone of a planet might be key to whether life can survive there. But so are exoplanet atmospheres, scientists say.

The post Exoplanet atmospheres are a key to habitability first appeared on EarthSky.

Read the full story here.

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Some California landfills are on fire and leaking methane. Newly proposed rules could make them safer

California is considering adopting new rules to better identify and more quickly to respond to dangerous methane leaks and underground fires at landfills statewide.

A vast canyon of buried garbage has been smoldering inside a landfill in the Santa Clarita Valley, inducing geysers of liquid waste onto the surface and noxious fumes into the air.In the Inland Empire, several fires have broken out on the surface of another landfill. In the San Fernando Valley, an elementary school has occasionally canceled recess due to toxic gases emanating from rain-soaked, rotting garbage from a nearby landfill. And, in the San Francisco Bay Area, burrowing rodents may be digging into entombed trash at a landfill-turned-park, unloosing explosive levels of methane.These are just a few of the treacherous episodes that have recently transpired at landfills in California, subjecting the state’s waste management industry to growing scrutiny by residents and regulators.Landfill emissions — produced by decaying food, paper and other organic waste — are a major source of planet-warming greenhouse gases and harmful air pollution statewide. But mismanagement, aging equipment and inadequate oversight have worsened this pollution in recent years, according to environmental regulators and policy experts.This week, the California Air Resources Board will vote on adopting a new slate of requirements to better identify and more quickly respond to methane leaks and disastrous underground fires at large landfills statewide.The proposal calls for using satellites, drones and other new technologies to more comprehensively investigate methane leaks. It also would require landfill operators to take corrective action within a few days of finding methane leaks or detecting elevated temperatures within their pollution control systems.In recent years, state regulators have pinpointed at least two landfills in Southern California experiencing “rare” underground landfill fires — largely uncontrollable disasters that have burned troves of buried garbage and released toxic fumes into the air. More recently, a new state satellite program has detected 17 methane plumes from nine landfills between July and October, potentially leaking the flammable gas into unwanted areas and contributing to climate change.Proponents of the proposed rule say the added oversight could help reduce California’s second-largest source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that warms the atmosphere much more than carbon dioxide. It could also bring relief to hundreds of thousands of people who live nearby landfills and may be exposed to toxic pollutants like hydrogen sulfide or benzene.“Curbing methane emissions is a relatively quick and cost-effective way to reduce the greenhouse pollution that’s wreaking havoc with our climate,” said Bill Magavern, policy director at the Coalition for Clean Air. “But [we’ve] also been involved in updating and strengthening the rule because we’re seeing the community impacts of leaking landfills, particularly at places like Chiquita Canyon, where we have a landfill fire that is making people in the community sick.”Nearly 200 landfills statewide would be subject to the proposed requirements — 48 are privately owned and 140 are government-owned.Many landfill operators oppose the rule, saying the new requirements would saddle the industry with an untenable workload and millions of dollars each year in added costs. These costs could be passed on to residents, whose garbage fees have already risen significantly in recent years.Sacramento County officials, who operate the Kiefer Landfill, said the proposed protocols were not feasible. “As a public landfill, Kiefer cannot quickly adapt to regulatory shifts of this magnitude, and these increased costs would ultimately burden the community it serves,” Sacramento County officials wrote in a Nov. 10 letter to the state Air Resources Board.The vast majority of landfills are already required to monitor for leaks and operate a gas collection system — a network of wells that extend deep into the layers of buried waste to capture and destroy methane.A hot messChiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic has become the poster child for the issues plaguing California’s waste management system.A blistering-hot chemical reaction began inside the landfill’s main canyon in May 2022, roasting garbage in a roughly 30-acre area.Starting in April 2023, residents of Castaic and nearby Val Verde began to take notice. They called in thousands of odor complaints to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, with many citing headaches, nausea, nosebleeds and difficulty breathing.Later that year, state regulators learned that the landfill’s temperatures had risen above 200 degrees, melting plastic pipes used to collect landfill gases. An air district inspector also witnessed geysers of liquid waste bursting onto the surface and white smoke venting from large cracks spreading across the reaction area.Air sampling found elevated levels of lung-aggravating sulfur pollutants and cancer-causing benzene. Air samples in 2023 detected benzene concentrations more than eight times higher than the state’s short-term health limit at Hasley Canyon Park, which abuts Live Oak Elementary School, alarming local parents.“I personally have transferred my children to different schools further away,” said Jennifer Elkins, a Val Verde resident whose children attended Live Oak. “I spend three hours a day driving my kids to and from school. The commute has been a sacrifice, but it’s also been well worth it, because I know my children are breathing cleaner air, and I have seen their health improve.”The landfill, owned by Texas-based Waste Connections, installed new heat-resistant equipment to extract liquid waste in an attempt to reduce broiling temperatures. It also installed a large covering over the affected area to suppress odors. It permanently closed and ceased accepting waste this year.Still, the reaction area has tripled in size and could consume the entire 160-acre canyon for many more years. During other underground landfill fires, elevated temperatures have persisted for more than a decade.The issue is, once these broiling temperatures start consuming landfill waste, there’s little that landfill operators can do to snuff them out.The fumes from Chiquita Canyon have pushed some longtime residents to consider moving. After more than 25 years in Val Verde, Abigail DeSesa is contemplating starting anew somewhere else.“This is our life’s investment — our forever home that we were building for retirement and on the verge of paying off,” DeSesa said. “And we may have to start over.”“I don’t know that I can outlast it,” DeSesa added.Chiquita Canyon is not alone.Earlier this year, the South Coast air district learned about another fiery chemical reaction brewing inside El Sobrante Landfill in Corona. In August, Waste Management, the landfill’s owner and operator, acknowledged there was a two-acre “area of concern” where landfill staff had observed temperatures climbing above 200 degrees. Riverside County inspectors also found several fires had ignited on the landfill’s surface in recent years, according to public records.Environmental advocates fear that many more landfills may be on the precipice of these largely unmanageable disasters.According to an analysis by California Communities Against Toxics, there are 18 landfills in California that have had prolonged heat signatures detected by NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System, an online tool using satellite instruments to detect fires and thermal anomalies.At least 11 of these landfills requested and received permission from either federal or local environmental regulators to continue operating with higher temperatures than currently allowed, according to public records obtained by the environmental organization.These regulatory exemptions are part of the problem, said Jane Williams, the group’s executive director.“We have 11 landfills across California that have been granted waivers by the government to basically ‘hot rod’ the landfill,” Williams said. “We would really like EPA and state agencies to stop granting landfill waivers. It’s a permission slip to speed in a school zone.”Under newly proposed revisions to state rules, operators must be more transparent in disclosing the temperatures in their gas collection systems. If operators detect elevated temperatures, they must take action to minimize the amount of oxygen in the landfill.While these rule changes might be coming too late to fix the issues near Chiquita Canyon, locals hope it will help others who live in the orbit of the nearly 200 other large landfills in California that could be subject to these rules.“While there’s still a fight here to try to address the concerns at Chiquita Canyon Landfill, we know that there’s an opportunity to really prevent this kind of disaster from happening anywhere else in our state,” said Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo.Dangerous leaksMeanwhile, many other landfills are releasing unsafe amounts of methane, an odorless gas produced by bacteria that break down organic waste.These emissions present two critical issues.First, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas — capable of warming the atmosphere 80 times more than the same amount of carbon dioxide over 20 years. Following California’s large dairy and livestock operations, landfills emit the second-most methane statewide.Second, methane is the primary constituent in natural gas. It can ignite or explode at certain concentrations, presenting a serious safety risk in the event of uncontrolled releases. Several times over the last few years, regulators have detected potentially explosive concentrations in the air and shallow soil near several landfills.Under current landfill regulations, operators are required to monitor for excessive methane leaks four times a year. Many operators hire contractors to walk across accessible portions of the landfill with a handheld leak-monitoring device, an approach that some environmental advocates say is unreliable.In addition, some areas of the landfill are not screened for methane leaks if operators consider them to be unsafe to walk across, due to, for example, steep hills or ongoing construction activities.“Landfills have to monitor surface emissions, but they do that in a very inefficient way, using outdated technology,” Magavern said.Starting this past summer, California has partnered with the nonprofit organization Carbon Mapper to use satellites to detect methane leaks, and already has found 17 coming from landfills. In one case, researchers saw a large methane plume appear to emanate from Newby Island Landfill in San José and drift into a nearby residential neighborhood.Although the state has notified these landfill operators, it currently cannot require them to repair leaks detected via satellite. That would change under the proposed amendments to the state’s landfill regulations. Operators would also have to use state-approved technology to routinely scan portions of their landfills they deem inaccessible.The proposed amendments seek to prevent the most common causes of methane emissions. A series of surveys of landfill operators found 43% of leaks in recent years were caused by one or more of a facility’s gas collection wells being offline at the time.The new rules would require that such wells can only be offline for up to five days at a time for repairs. Operators would also be required to install gas collection systems within six months of when garbage is first placed in a new part of a landfill — rather than the 18-month time frame currently allowed.In addition, landfills would be forced to take actions to fix a leak within three days of detection, rather than 10 days. In theory, that should help reduce the risk of leaks from things like cracks in landfill covers (typically a layer of soil or plastic covering) and damaged components of gas collection systems — two other major sources of leaks that landfill operators have reported.The amended landfill rules could collectively cost private companies and local governments $12 million annually.Some say that’s well worth the cost.A contingent of residents who live near Chiquita Canyon Landfill are flying to Sacramento to attend the state Air Resources Board meeting. They are expected to testify on how the fire and landfill emissions have unraveled the fabric of the semi-rural community.Elkins, the Val Verde resident, appreciated the area’s natural beauty — picturesque hillsides, wildlife and opportunities for stargazing without bright city lights. 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How a Texas shrimper stalled Exxon’s $10bn plastics plant | Shilpi Chhotray

Diane Wilson recognized Exxon’s playbook – and showed how local people can take on even the most entrenched industriesWhen ExxonMobil announced it would “slow the pace of development” on a $10bn plastics plant along the Texas Gulf coast, the company blamed market conditions. But it wasn’t just the market applying pressure; it was a 77-year-old shrimper named Diane Wilson who refused to stay silent. Her fight exposes big oil’s latest survival plan: ramping up oil and gas production to create plastic.I first met Wilson back in 2019 while tracking her historic lawsuit against Formosa Plastics, the Taiwanese petrochemical giant accused of dumping toxic plastic waste throughout coastal Texas. Billions of tiny plastic pellets were contaminating waterways, shorelines, and even the soil itself.Shilpi Chhotray is the co-founder and president of Counterstream Media and Host of A People’s Climate for the Nation Continue reading...

When ExxonMobil announced it would “slow the pace of development” on a $10bn plastics plant along the Texas Gulf coast, the company blamed market conditions. But it wasn’t just the market applying pressure; it was a 77-year-old shrimper named Diane Wilson who refused to stay silent. Her fight exposes big oil’s latest survival plan: ramping up oil and gas production to create plastic.I first met Wilson back in 2019 while tracking her historic lawsuit against Formosa Plastics, the Taiwanese petrochemical giant accused of dumping toxic plastic waste throughout coastal Texas. Billions of tiny plastic pellets were contaminating waterways, shorelines, and even the soil itself.When I spoke with her again a few months ago for A People’s Climate, a podcast from the Nation and Counterstream Media, she was still doing what she’s always done: holding power to account in the place she loves most. I’ve spent years covering the plastic industry’s impact on frontline communities, and Exxon’s delay isn’t a business decision to dismiss. It’s a strategic signal that the fossil-to-plastic pivot is facing growing, community-led resistance.When Exxon arrived in Calhoun county late last year, Wilson recognized the playbook: a rubber-stamp process rushed through a school-board meeting – a requirement under Texas law for the tax abatement Exxon sought. She sued that same board in May, arguing it had violated Texas open-meeting laws in what she has called “a deliberate attempt to avoid public opposition”. A district judge agreed, striking down the board’s approval of the tax abatement in late September. Less than two weeks later, Exxon announced it would pause plans for the new facility, indicating “market conditions”. The timing was hard to ignore. In a region dominated by fossil-fuel interests, that kind of outcome is unheard of.While Exxon hasn’t reached a final investment decision, this delayed matters. It shows how even the most entrenched industries can be made to pause when local people demand transparency.As gasoline demand declines, Exxon, Shell, and Dow are betting billions on petrochemicals, the feedstocks that become plastics. Industry projections show these products could drive nearly half of future oil-demand growth by 2050. Plastics are marketed as modern and indispensable, yet they come from one of the planet’s most carbon-intensive and polluting supply chains. According to Exxon’s December 2024 tax abatement application, the company’s proposed plastics plant in Calhoun county would produce 3 million tons of polyethylene pellets per year. These are the raw materials for plastic products that are used in everything from grocery bags to vinyl flooring.Exxon already runs one of the world’s largest chemical hubs, in Baytown, Texas. According to Inside Climate News, the facility would be its next link in a fossil-fuel chain stretching from gas wells in west Texas to manufacturing zones in Asia. While industry executives tout diversification, on the ground, it looks and smells like doubling down on pollution.Calhoun county’s history reads like a case study in corporate impunity. For decades, the oil and gas industry has promised jobs but delivered health risks, poisoned groundwater, and dead fisheries. Wilson grew up in Seadrift, the last authentic fishing village on the Texas Gulf coast. “The heart and soul of the community was the bay, the fish house, the boats,” she told me on A People’s Climate. “I’ve been on a boat since I was eight years old … It’s my life and my identity.”Her battle with Formosa began decades ago, after she discovered her tiny county ranked first in the nation for toxic dumping. An introvert by nature, she was thrust into activism overnight when local officials tried to silence her for asking questions. She’s since been arrested more than 50 times, led hunger strikes, and even scaled the White House fence – what she calls “soul power in action”. Wilson’s work helped prove what regulators had long denied: plastic pellets were flooding coastal ecosystems by the billions.Her historic $50m Clean Water Act settlement against Formosa Plastics was only possible after documenting years of illegal discharges into Lavaca Bay. It was the largest citizen-led environmental settlement in US history, and she didn’t take a cent. The money has gone towards local restoration: a fisheries co-op, oyster farms, and the community-science network known as Nurdle Patrol. (Formosa did not admit liability.)That case made her a target of local politics, but it also gave her something invaluable: the ability to turn frustration into organizing power. Her latest lawsuit against the school board wasn’t simply about procedure, but questions who gets to decide the future. Is it the people who live there or the corporations that profit from polluting it?Across the Gulf south, communities are demanding accountability. In St James Parish, Sharon Lavigne has also spent years fighting Formosa’s $9.4bn complex in what’s known as Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. In Port Arthur and Corpus Christi, organizers are fighting new gas export terminals. These aren’t isolated nimby fights; they’re part of a regional reckoning with a century of extraction. As record heat and hurricanes grow deadlier, Exxon still defends oil and petrochemical projects as “accelerating a just transition”, a phrase that borders on self-parody.Wilson’s small-town lawsuit shouldn’t matter in Exxon’s $500bn universe – but it does. It reminds us that grassroots power still works, even in refinery country. “Eventually I lost my husband, the house, the boat,” she told me due to her activism. “But you can lose it all and gain your soul.” When a community like Seadrift demands transparency, it widens the space for others to question why their towns should subsidize pollution in the name of development.With Cop30 in Belém under way, world leaders are once again pledging to phase out fossil fuels, while the same corporations responsible for the crisis expand drilling, petrochemical production, and greenwashing efforts behind the scenes. Recent reporting by Nina Lakhani revealed that more than 5,000 fossil-fuel lobbyists have gained access to UN climate talks over the past four years – underscoring how those driving oil and gas expansion are also shaping global climate policy.For Exxon, Calhoun county may be a temporary delay. But it must be permanent, and not simply relocated elsewhere. The world cannot afford another generation of plastic built on the same extractive logic that created the climate crisis in the first place. Exxon’s pause is a chance for regulators, investors, and communities to recognize that the oil-to-plastic pivot has catastrophic consequences. As Wilson told me: “We have drawn a line in the sand against plastic polluters, and that line now runs through Calhoun county.” Her story is a reminder that even the largest corporations can be stopped when ordinary people refuse to back down.

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