theSIGNAL ENVIRONMENT
3 November 2026
"The dose makes the poison."
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Environment

87 Kenyan Workers Take Pesticide Giants to Court

A former flower-farm sprayer who can no longer walk has joined a petition challenging how hazardous chemicals are sold in Kenya.

Reuben Muriki was doing a routine chore in his family's compound near Timau, in central Kenya, when he fainted. It was the first of many collapses. Over the following months his joints swelled, his skin changed colour and breathing became difficult. He left his job as a pesticide sprayer on a flower farm, and doctors treated him for suspected tuberculosis, without success.

Now 30, Muriki cannot walk unaided, speaks incoherently and quickly forgets what has been said to him. His mother, Margaret Mwanjaro, who cares for him around the clock, believes the cause was poisoning from the chemicals he sprayed. She is not alone in suspecting this. Timau, a town of about 10,000 people, has hosted horticultural companies for decades, and thousands of local workers have been employed by them.

Relatives say many have fallen ill over the years, and some have died young. Muriki is now one of 87 people asking to join a court petition against the Kenyan government and five agrochemical companies: Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, BASF and the Nairobi-based Twiga Chemical Industries. Filed in 2022 by the African Centre for Corrective and Preventive Action and the lawyer Kelvin Kubai, it challenges the sale of highly hazardous pesticides. Last November, the court allowed an advertisement inviting people allegedly harmed by 11 ingredients to come forward, which could turn the case into a class action.

Photo: The New York Public Library / Unsplash
Reuben Muriki and his mother, Margaret Mwanjaro, outside their home in Mukuri village, near Timau, Kenya.
Discuss
  • Why might workers who spray pesticides struggle to prove that their illnesses were caused by chemical exposure rather than disease?
  • Should companies be allowed to sell in Kenya pesticides that are banned in the European Union? Explain your reasoning.
  • How could turning the petition into a class-action lawsuit change the balance of power between workers and large companies?
Environment

An Arctic Vortex Is Wobbling Weeks Early

Stratospheric temperatures can jump 50C in a few days, and forecasters now see signs of such a shock over the Arctic. The polar vortex should be strengthening, yet models point to a sharp weakening within ten days. Only one major warming has ever been recorded this early, on 28 November 1968. If winds fully reverse, northern Europe could see calmer, colder weather later, though severe cold seems unlikely soon. Meanwhile, more than 100mm of rain may hit southern Italy, then Greece.…
  • If a rare early vortex collapse happens, how should countries prepare for uncertain winter weather?
Environment

Greenpeace Sinks Boulders to Block Trawlers

Bottom trawlers logged more than 37,200 hours inside the UK's Southern North Sea protected area in 2025, even though it exists to shelter harbour porpoises. Greenpeace has now dropped boulders there, closing 116 square kilometres to trawling by force of snagged nets. Officials have not restricted fishing across most of the zone.…
  • Should activists enforce protections that governments have declared but not policed, even if their methods break rules?
"
He would often fall and completely lose consciousness.
Margaret Mwanjaro, mother of former pesticide sprayer Reuben Muriki
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theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
highly hazardous pesticidesclass action
agrochemicalunaidedallegedly
snaggedpolar vortex
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Cleft sentences — It was X that / What I need is
Cleft sentences split a clause to put emphasis on one part. Use 'It was/is X that/who ...' to highlight a person, thing or time, and 'What + subject + verb + is/was ...' to highlight an action or idea.
It · What · that · who · was · is · where
  1. was the sudden fainting that first alarmed Reuben Muriki's family.
  2. It is his mother, Margaret Mwanjaro, looks after him around the clock.
  3. many families in Timau want is an explanation for the illnesses and early deaths.
  4. It was in 2022 the petition against the government and five companies was filed.
  5. What the court allowed last November an advertisement inviting people allegedly harmed by 11 ingredients to come forward.
  6. It was the lawyer Kelvin Kubai and a Kenyan advocacy group brought the case to court.
3IDIOMS
Define each idiom in your own words. Then write one in a sentence of your own.
  1. to be under pressure (as in 'a farming sector under pressure to produce more')
  2. to come forward
  3. to turn something into a class action (or: to open the floodgates)
  4. by force of (as in 'closing the area by force of snagged nets')
  5. to answer for something
4CRITICAL THINKING
All three stories involve a gap between a rule or a risk on paper and what actually happens in practice, whether in farm fields, the sea or the atmosphere. Which of these gaps do you think is hardest to close, and why? Consider what kind of evidence, and what kind of power, each situation would require.
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
Imagine you are Margaret Mwanjaro, speaking at a public hearing about your son's illness. Write the short speech you would give, using specific details from the article to explain what you want the court and the public to understand.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • ill→→
  • worried→→
  • unusual→→
  • change→→
  • harmful→→
  • criticise→→
8SPEAKING
  1. Describe a time you felt a rule existed on paper only.
  2. Which seems more alarming to you: slow, hidden harm or sudden disaster? Why?
  3. How much do you trust scientists who say a forecast is uncertain?
  4. What small daily choices of yours might affect people far away?