More than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, it is becoming clear that the economic pain has not abated for many Americans — and is worsening for some.
Researchers at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the University of Notre Dame Department of Economics are using monthly Census data to capture a nearly real-time snapshot of American poverty. Last month, even as the unemployment rate fell and more states relaxed restrictions on business operations, the poverty rate hit a pandemic high of 11.7 percent — a full percentage point greater than it was in early 2020.
For some of the most marginalized populations, the rate of poverty in March was even higher. Black poverty had retreated from the 23.3 percent high it touched last August but, at 21.2 percent, remained close to double that of the overall rate. Childhood poverty soared to a rate of 17.4 percent, and was high for less-educated people, as well, rising to 22.2 percent among those with only a high school education or less.
In both January and February of 2020, the poverty rate held steady at 10.7 percent — although even those metrics masked the challenges faced by some populations. Black poverty, for instance, was 20.7 percent in February 2020, compared to a rate of 8.9 percent for whites. The poverty rate for people without any college education was also elevated, at 19.6 percent in February 2020.
Experts say the monthly research illustrates just how instrumental Congressional fiscal aid such as the CARES Act and subsequent stimulus programs at keeping families out of poverty have been — and offers a glimpse of what could happen once those programs wind down if employment has not rebounded significantly.
“It’s astonishing that we’re seeing a high now. It does underscore how vulnerable so many people are that we still have not recovered enough that once the government aid starts tapering down… you can’t just cut off this aid overnight before the jobs come back,” said Andrew Stettner, senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “You’d hope by now things would have recovered,” he added.
Significantly, the researchers found that the poverty rate actually dropped in the early months of the pandemic, hitting a trough of 9.1 percent in May. James Sullivan, an economics professor and director of the Lab for Economic Opportunities at the University of Notre Dame and one of the research authors, said this was almost certainly a function of the combination of $1,200 stimulus payments that were distributed to most Americans, expanded unemployment benefits including benefits for gig and self-employed workers, and an extra $600 weekly benefit on top of existing state benefits.
“I feel like the most important takeaway from the work we’ve been doing since the start of the pandemic is the clear relationship between poverty and government relief efforts,” he said. “At the time, people were a little bit surprised, but then you look at the magnitude of the CARES Act, and it really makes sense that poverty would fall in the short run.”
The pandemic wreaked havoc on the finances of millions of households, but that pain was not spread evenly. Many people who were able to make the transition to working from home kept their jobs — although some did have their pay or hours reduced. But for people who worked in shuttered hotels, restaurants and malls, there were no alternatives.
“The economic impacts of the pandemic have been incredibly disparate,” Sullivan said. More recently, economists have noted the K-shaped recovery that has bifurcated Americans into haves and have-nots in the ensuing months.
The project’s authors note that while the unemployment rate has improved markedly since last April, weekly jobless claims filed still are being filed at a rate five times higher than before the pandemic. Sullivan suggested the April snapshot might show a brighter picture, though, since more families will have received financial assistance from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed into law last month. “The latest relief package is going to provide significant additional resources to households, but we haven’t seen that in the data yet,” he said.
Stettner said those dollars would benefit the broader economy, not just the recipients. “Overall, the economy is doing very well, given the pandemic. That has a lot of do with the fact that we’ve supported people at the bottom. A lot of the consumer spending in our economy is by low- and middle-income workers. When they don’t have money, the economy suffers,” he said.
As a result, he added, it is important for policymakers to keep their foot on the gas and commit to fiscal support until the labor market recovery picks up steam. “In many sectors of the economy, it’s not going to open overnight,” Stettner said. “It’s going to take time for that activity to ramp back up.”
Plastic rain is the new acid rain and a hidden threat to health, warns wildlife expert
Helena Horton April 15, 2021
Plastics line the shore of the Thames Estuary in Cliffe, Kent – Getty
Plastic rain is the new acid rain, the head of The Wildlife Trusts has said, as microplastics from the sea are polluting our soil.
Tiny particles of plastic, from bottles and other waste, are falling down on us from the sky after degrading to microplastics in the oceans.
A new study in the journal Science found that over 14 months, more than 1,000 metric tons of microplastic particles fell into 11 protected areas in the western US each year, the equivalent of over 120 million plastic water bottles.
Craig Bennett, CEO of The Wildlife Trusts, said that the world is not yet taking the plastics crisis seriously, but if we do not stop using the material we will see implications for human health.
He told The Telegraph: “This will be taken as seriously as we have taken fossil fuels and acid rain. The real story that we’re going to be talking about five to 10 years from now, is the impact of plastics and particularly microplastics on human health.”
The wildlife campaigner pointed out that although we have seen “pictures of turtles drowning in the sea because they’ve eaten plastic bags”, the impact of plastics raining down on us, and entering our food chain has not been widely explored.
He said: “The extraordinary impact of microplastics on the planet never goes away. You can’t actually properly recycle them. The problems we’re seeing now perhaps relate to the plastics that have been put out to the environment over the last 50, 60 or 70 years.
“But over the last decade or so, you see the explosion of single use plastics – and some of those haven’t even worked through the system yet. So I think there’s a huge, huge concern for the future.”
While measures by countries has reduced the acid rain problem, and the chemicals can be removed from soil and buildings, plastic rain is in some ways more worrying as the impact cannot be easily reduced. There is, at the moment, no real way to filter microplastics from the soil.
This has implications for human health; a study published last year found that microplastics were found in every human organ studied by scientists.
The Dead Sea is dying. Drinking water is scarce. Jordan faces a climate crisis
Nabih Bulos April 15, 2021
One of multiple sinkholes at the former grounds of the Numeira Salt company in Ghor Haditha, Jordan. The Dead Sea is shrinking at a rate of anywhere from 3 to 5 feet a year. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
The first time people here saw a sinkhole, they thought a small asteroid had slammed into the Dead Sea’s salt-encrusted shore.
Then others appeared.
One swallowed the edge of a state-owned building. Another opened near a house and forced the family to move. Worried farmers scanned their fields and abandoned their harvests. At one point, a chunk of highway collapsed, disappearing several stories deep and leaving a lone PVC pipe that ran like a high-wire over the crater.
Finally, the residents of Ghor Haditha realized, the problem was literally beneath their feet, a symptom of the Dead Sea’s death and a disturbing measure of the parched land Jordan has become. This small kingdom has long ranked high on the list of water-poor countries. But a mix of a ballooning population, regional conflicts, chronic industrial and agricultural mismanagement and now climate change may soon bring it another distinction: the first nation to possibly lose viable sources of freshwater.
The sinkholes are a harbinger of a future in a Middle East precariously balanced on dwindling resources. With the Dead Sea — a lake, really — shrinking at a rate of 3 to 5 feet a year, its saltwater is replaced by freshwater, which rushes in and dissolves subterranean salt layers, some of them hundreds of feet below. Cavities form, and the soil collapses into subsurface voids, creating sinkholes.
In the last three decades, the Dead Sea’s level has fallen almost 100 feet. The rate of loss is accelerating, and sinkholes now number in the thousands, like a rash spreading on the exposed seabed.
“When I was younger, the water used to reach all the way up to that field,” said Hassan Kanazri, a 63-year-old tomato farmer, as he pointed to a spot some 300 yards away from the water’s edge. He stepped onto a patch of dark brown earth speckled with holes; the soft dirt gave way underfoot.
“We can’t use tractors here. The land is too weak, so we’ve had to plow manually,” he said.
Hassan Kanazri stands beside a sinkhole in Ghor Haditha, Jordan. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
The sinkholes are a piece of a larger danger revealing how Jordan’s perennial thirst is worsening. A virtually landlocked desert kingdom with few resources, the country’s yearly decrease in rainfall could lead to a 30% reduction by 2100, according to Stanford University’s Jordan Water Project. Jordan’s aquifers, ancient groundwater reservoirs that take long to replenish, are being pumped at a furious pace, even as the pandemic has increased demand by 40%, the Water Ministry says. And precarious finances mean desalinization, which serves some of Jordan’s richer neighbors, is — for now — too expensive an option.
“The situation here is bleak,” says Water Ministry spokesman Omar Salameh. “Without a huge amount of support to execute development projects, Jordan doesn’t have the resources to provide water.”
To understand the crisis one need only take a drive on Highway 40, which stretches east from Amman toward the Iraqi border. With the capital in the rearview, you cross through to the Azraq wetlands — once a lush, water-filled stopover for migratory birds now decimated by over-reliance on an aquifer there — before you reach a vast expanse of desert. Some 92% of the country gets less than 200 millimeters — about 8 inches — of rainfall per year, with only nine countries in the world getting less annual precipitation than Jordan.
A deep sinkhole along the salt-encrusted shoreline near Ghor Haditha. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Though Jordan is uniquely challenged, it’s a preview of what the region faces as a whole. Middle Eastern nations top the list of most water-stressed countries, the World Resources Institute says.
The region is also a “global hotspot of unsustainable water use,” according to 2017 World Bank report, and whatever water is available is further degraded by brine discharge from desalination, pollution and untreated wastewater. Poor water quality costs governments as much 2.5% of their gross domestic product.
Making matters worse are broiling summers, with the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry projecting average daytime temperatures to exceed 116 degrees Fahrenheit and reaching almost 90 by night. (And it’s not just estimates; the temperature in Mitribah, in northern Kuwait, reached 129 degrees in 2016.)
Water storage containers cover rooftops in a dense neighborhood of Amman, Jordan. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Much of Jordan’s water problem is a simple matter of math: In the 1950s, its population numbered half a million people. Now there are more than 10 million, housed in a country whose water supply, researchers say, can’t sustain a population exceeding 2 million. Residents make do with 135 cubic meters, or about 36,000 gallons, of water per person per year; the U.N. defines “absolute scarcity” at 500 cubic meters per year.
That population explosion is less a result of Jordanians’ fertility than it is of the country’s reputation as a so-called oasis of stability in a not-so-stable neighborhood.
Palestinians pushed out by the creation of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent 1967 conflict; Lebanese escaping civil war in the ’80s; Iraqis fleeing U.S. bombardment and sanctions; more than a million Syrians after 2011, along with Yemenis and Libyans — if there’s a regional conflict, Jordan is probably hosting its refugees.
A 2016 census estimated the number of refugees at 2.9 million, and that’s including the approximately 1 million migrant workers in the country.
“The Syrian crisis alone raised demand for water an average of 20%,” Salameh says. It’s double that amount in northern areas of the kingdom, where most of the refugees reside, he adds.
It’s little better on the supply side, where Jordan has to contend with the tyranny of geography.
Go north from Ghor Haditha, past the baptismal site of Jesus Christ on the Jordan River (now reduced to a sewage-contaminated trickle in some parts); continue east along its main tributary, the Yarmouk River, where Lawrence of Arabia once tried and failed to blow up an Ottoman railroad, and you encounter the Al Wehda Dam, a 360-foot concrete embankment on Jordan’s border with Syria.
The Al Wehda Dam, a 360-foot concrete embankment, near Harta, Jordan. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Its capacity of 110 million cubic meters makes it Jordan’s largest dam, a reliable source of more than a third of the country’s water supply. But it’s never been more than half full. That’s because Syria, which controls the Yarmouk River’s flow into Jordan, has built upstream more than 40 dams and thousands of wells to irrigate its own crops, leaving Jordan with only a fifth of its share.
Green algae in the Yarmouk River, which flows to the Al Wehda Dam. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
“We were supposed to expand the dam and build a hydroelectric plant. The plan was we would get water, and the Syrians would get power,” said Munther Maayeh, one of the dam’s managers. “But the water we receive from the Syrians isn’t anywhere near enough for that.”
Israel too has diverted some 600 million cubic meters of water in the Sea of Galilee — another lake — from the Jordan River. The result has been a 90% plunge in the river’s flow to a paltry 200 million cubic meters per year. (Under the 1994 peace agreement, Israel regularly conducts transfers of water from the Jordan River to the kingdom.)
To make up the shortfall, Jordan increasingly turned to nonrenewable water sources such as aquifers. Jordan has 12 of them, but is already pumping 160% more than it should for them to be replenished; 10 are all but depleted.
The low supply coupled with burgeoning demand has forced the government to ration water delivery. In practical terms, that means most homes don’t get municipal water more than once a week. Many residents turn to illegal drilling of wells, Salameh says.
On the outskirts of Amman, water tank trucks back up to a communal well equipped with 9-foot-high faucets. Raafat Awamleh, a driver with his 8-year-old son, Shahem, by his side, climbed up the side of his truck, slipped a rubber hose over one of the faucets and placed the other end into his tank.
“People call us from all over Amman to deliver water,” Awamleh said, adding that the area had some six similarly equipped communal wells. The coronavirus cut a portion of his business, including water deliveries to farmers, but he expected work to pick up soon.
“In the summer we have to do this all the time,” he said. “It just gets too hot and people need water.”
Jordan’s internal topography plays a role as well. More than half of Amman’s water supply, for example, comes from the Al Disi aquifer, some 200 miles south. Another portion is taken from the Azraq aquifer, 50 miles east.
Shahem Awamleh reacts as he and his father fill a water tank truck at a community well near Amman, Jordan. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
“That’s a huge expense on the state treasury,” Salameh says, estimating the cost at $4 per cubic meter from aquifer to tap. Power requirements for pumping water amount to more than a sixth of the country’s total power production, the government says.
The failure of Jordan’s water management is increasingly apparent, says Raed Dawood, founder and head of Eco Consult, a water-use consulting firm. Rickety infrastructure means more than half of the water leaks out of pipes or is stolen. State subsidies for agriculture, a sector that consumes slightly more than 50% of Jordan’s water supply while contributing only 3% to 4% to its GDP, give farmers little incentive to use new — and expensive — irrigation techniques or choose crops that are more profitable.
“Water productivity here is about $1.50 per cubic meter. It’s $100 in the Netherlands,” Dawood says, adding that Jordan’s top crops are tomatoes and cucumbers, low-profit plants that consume a lot of water.
To make a point, he walks out of his office and returns with a plate of dates. They were plump, with a singed caramel-colored skin. The variety is known as Medjool and the kingdom is famous for them, Dawood says. This kind of crop, he adds, could more than quadruple the value farmers get out of their water.
Hamzah Rashaydeh inspects a stem from date fruit clumps at Tadros Farm. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
“We have to be selective and careful in what we grow,” he says.
“All these things are matters of policy, and yes, we’re a scarce-water country, but we have to use it effectively.”
A farmworker prepares to trim a date tree at Tadros Farm in Karamah, Jordan. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Back in Ghor Haditha, increasing industrialization, much of it centered around the Arab Potash Co., is exacerbating the water problem. The company, along with its Israeli counterpart, pumps Dead Sea water to extract minerals, adding to the sea’s retreat and compounding sinkhole formation, says William Ajalin, a resident and head of a local environmental association.
On the rooftop balcony of the association’s building, he points to the main highway bisecting Ghor Haditha: On one side lies the Dead Sea, the foot of the Karak mountains on the other.
“People are already too afraid to do anything on the side by the Dead Sea,” he says.
“Of course we’re worried this is making it worse.”
But a change of behavior, including better conservation, would have to go beyond villages like Ghor Haditha to cities, especially Amman, says Ammar Khammash, an architect who specializes in eco-friendly projects.
“We cannot continue like we did in the ’70s and ’80s. All the water of Azraq, we flushed it down the toilets of Amman,” he says. The solution, he says, is to incorporate water storage capacity in every building.
“Governments like big projects, but the solution involves smaller pieces: A place like Amman needs to become a ‘sponge city’ where every house doesn’t waste a single drop.”
Nabeel Musa smokes as he picnics along the salt-encrusted shore near Ghor Haditha. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
For now, the government is exploring other venues, such as Red to Dead, a joint project with Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It aims to build a desalination plant in Aqaba, Jordan’s sole outlet on the Red Sea, and dump the briny water to replenish the Dead Sea. The project has been on the books since 2005 without much progress.
In any case, relations between Jordan and Israel have reached a nadir, with diplomatic spats flaring over the last year between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II. The last such incident was resolved Monday when Netanyahu approved Amman’s request for extra water rations from the Jordan River, almost a month after the Jordanian government asked for it. (The peace agreement allows for Jordan to request additional water supplies.)
That has forced the kingdom to look inward, conducting deep-water exploration of desert areas and drilling wells more than a mile deep. Those efforts are expected to yield 70 million cubic meters of water by the project’s end. It’s expensive, but essential at a time when the kingdom’s relations with its neighbors over water remain a challenge.
“You can’t predict what the political situation is going to be,” Salameh says.
“As long as there is no horizon for peace in the area, Jordan will remain vulnerable to the challenges imposed on it by its situation with water.”
(This is the second in a series of occasional articles about how climate change and water scarcity are affecting the politics and landscape of the Middle East.)
By Randi Kaeufer, originally pub. by Medium.com – April 9, 2021
Tobias Bandel on soil health, true cost accounting, and full-hearted agriculture
Tobias Bandel is a German agronomist who was involved in various agribusiness projects in cooperation with the IFC/Worldbank and USAID. He is one of the co-founders of Soil & More Impacts where he focuses on soil fertility projects, emission reduction strategies, and impact assessment.
This is a feature of the Presencing Institute’s “Dialogues on Soil and Society”, a compilation of interviews that frame agriculture as a critical area for curbing climate change and spurring societal transformation. The goal of the series is to identify promising place-based projects and systemic interventions to support sustainable, just, and reciprocal food economies.
What were important steps in your journey that led you to your current way of thinking?
There was one initial transformative experience back in school where a small group of us thought about how to better engage with other students in class. We thought about organizing a conference at our school, which was actually the first Waldorf school on the planet. It was a very good school, but very conservative as well. Teachers at the school said: “no, that’s not going to work” and “what if it goes wrong? Our reputation is at risk.”
But we were persistent. Somehow, we had so many applications that we had to send back 100 of them because we could only take 600. We even had a 10,000 Deutsche Mark profit, which we donated to a project in Brazil. So, that was prompted by the idea of “let’s just do it, and somehow it’s going to work”. This was a very important experience: if you really want it, just start and find good friends to do it with.
Another important step in my journey was when the civil service, as an alternative to the army, took me to Egypt, to an organization called Sustainable and Holistic Development in Egypt (SEKEM). I thought I wanted to become an astronomer, but at SEKEM I was inspired by the possibilities with agricultural waste, such as twigs, leaves, branches and cow manure.
At SEKEM, I learned that you don’t have to burn agricultural waste. Instead, you can return it to the soil through composting. You can actually reclaim the desert.
In Egypt, only two percent of the surface is arable and the rest is desert. When I visited, Egypt was burning 21 million tons of rice straw every year, material that could be easily transferred into fertile soil to support food sovereignty. The second pivotal moment for me was learning, at SEKEM, that there is no such thing as waste in agriculture.
The third important experience happened when I went back to Egypt after studying agriculture in Germany. Upon returning, I was responsible for the cultivation and sales of fruits and vegetables at SEKEM. Supermarkets came and wanted to buy from us.They all had wishlists: organic, no residues, no child labor but the fruit should be perfectly looking and above all cheap. In the end, we lost the deal to our neighbor, who just offered organic but was two cents cheaper. I learned, on one level, that I was very angry with retail.
On the other hand, I realized that we are not able to capitalize on the benefits that we produce, because in the end, we’re just competing on prices.
This is now one of my key drivers, also in regard to the true cost. Unless we are able to transform sustainability into money terms, many of those efforts are not appreciated. We cannot present sustainability in a language that nobody else understands. Our homework is to not get stuck in silos and dogmas and be arrogant towards others who apparently don’t understand all the great stuff we do. Instead, we have to put our mission into terms they actually understand.
Photo by Craig Cooper on Unsplash
What is the current intention of your work?
I stayed in Egypt for five years. Then I went back to Germany and started Soil & More Impacts with two others. At the moment we have a window of opportunity because the societal wounds and needs are more than obvious, including in the field of food and farming. Basically, the world is crying and we can offer some ingredients to the solutions.
On the one hand, we focus on soil fertility. We offer practical hands-on solutions to develop and maintain soil fertility without a dependency on supplies. We work with organic and conventional crops on both large and small scales. We do not not sell compost, but we show people how they can produce the compost themselves. Obviously, this is a less profitable business case than if we were to sell the compost and make people dependent on us. But this is why it’s also more scalable.
Our goal at Soil & More is to empower people to produce their own solution.
At Soil & More, we believe sustainability is not just a tool for marketing or differentiating yourself from others. We see it as a business strategy to stay in business under changing circumstances.
Sustainability is a question of consciousness. You have to attune your radar to systems as a whole. Sustainability means that we can see upcoming risks and opportunities early on.
Soil & More offers full-hearted agricultural advice and provides a link to financial markets and resetting the logic there. Financial actors spend time, effort, and money on maintaining soil fertility. They can also access credit, better interest rates, better insurance ratings, and more.
I have an example of this. At Soil & More Impacts we were approached by a conventional bank (the German Volks- und Raiffeisenbank) that was looking for a better way to assess the credit worthiness of farmers. They realized if we talk about a new definition of risk on a farming level, which influences their credit worthiness, we have to look at soil and humus. We are exploring a few pilots with them, to see if we can scale up the program. It is still work in progress, but this example shows that we are getting closer to finding the right narrative and words for people to understand what we are trying to say, even if they are outside our space.
So, with the right logic and the proper science, we can move a step forward. Personally, I am obsessed with really changing the game here. There are a lot of sweeping statements at the CEO level, but on the procurement level it’s really still hardcore capitalism. To them, our ideas represent risks. But actually it is the other way around: sourcing too cheaply is actually a risk.
We need to raise awareness that paying a bit more today will save you a lot of repair costs tomorrow.
What is good soil management? And why is it so important for our future?
There are several aspects or attributes when you look at soil. On the one hand, there is the physical structure. It’s like a sponge that holds onto water and nutrients. If we manage the soil properly, the plants have access to water even during the droughts. But if we farm too intensively, for example by plowing, it physically destroys the structure of the soil. The result is that it can hold onto less water. In the short term, it may be good to plow more because you bring more oxygen into the soil and you can control the weeds. But, in the long run, it destroys the efficiency of your production by harming the physical structure of soil.
On the other hand, there is the biological part of the soil, the life of the soil, made up of millions and millions of microbes that store nutrients. When leaf litter or crop residue rot on the surface, it is decomposed by microorganisms, fungi and bacteria.They absorb carbon and nutrients and build up the soil with it. Let’s suppose that this happens during the fall and winter. Then, next spring, when you start planting and the seeds germinate, this sends a sign to the soil and to all these millions and millions of microbes that assimilated different substances. Now these microbes release the nutrients based on the plants’ needs.
It is a very intelligent communication system. One part of it is the well-known network of fungal spores and strings that are connecting all the roots and different components of the soil. So there’s an important biological part of the soil, which is also disturbed or destroyed by synthetic fertilizers because these mostly consist of salts. Ammonia nitrate, urea, basically mineral salts. And we all know that if you apply too much salt to a living organism, they die. Or, at least cease to operate as well as before. So, by fertilizing a lot, you hinder this natural intelligence or operational system in the soil.
There are two ingredients for good soil management: One is to keep the soil physically protected with cover crops, so that, even if there’s heavy rain or strong wind, the soil is protected. The second is to recycle as much of the organic matter on the field as possible, because crop residue, like potato leaves and wheat straws, are full of nutrients. Through recycling, you enrich the soil again. And the organic material also brings the vitality back into the soil with all the microbes detached.
Keeping the soil covered and having an ongoing closed cycle with the crop residue are two very important ingredients for sustainable soil management.
Photo by Ivan Bandura on Unsplash
What are the barriers in the system that hinder us from seeing more stories like this?
I think one of the problems is that we automatically exclude all non-organic farmers, which is the majority of the planet. But there are hundreds and thousands of them who do a brilliant job. But we don’t look at them because they are in a “bad” category because they are conventional. They may fertilize a bit, but still they are doing a good job. So, that’s one barrier to start with.
When travelling, I see more encouraging examples than dis-encouraging examples. Both on the small scale and also on the large scale. Things are possible and are actually happening as we speak.
But we need way more of this. We tend to plan only on a very short term basis, like a season or a year. But this is not how nature works.At least in farming, you need to look at a whole crop rotation. Here we are talking about at least three years, but it could also be seven years. Such a long period requires a lot of consciousness.
We don’t see the long term vision mostly because of our global incentive scheme, be it financial or other. We always look at a single point in time, at a specific crop in a specific region. Therefore we miss looking at the whole agriculture system.
Even though I’m hopeful, I am also sad. We have been ignorant for quite some time and have missed a lot of opportunities and chances to improve. The planetary boundaries, however, force us to look at things differently.
And this is why, apart from being sad, I’m also very hopeful because change is going to happen anyway. Because there is no other option and no better deal for the natural capital, soil, biodiversity and climate. Our task is to accelerate this transition and to avoid doing even more damage.
Photo by Jan Kopriva on Unsplash
Who are the stakeholders responsible for doing this short-term thinking?
It’s a bit tricky. You could say that the farmers are only interested in that one crop, because that’s what they will profit from at the end of the season, because it’s good to have breakfast before lunch. So, it’s obvious that they are sometimes forced to think short term.
But there are also more systemic things. Financial markets are still designed in a way that goes hand in hand with short term thinking. If something doesn’t work, you just sell it or buy something new. This shows the dilemma that we are in right now. And if you look at it from a less meta level, there are great companies out there with brilliant CEOs giving statements about how to change the world. Sometimes they even talk about true cost. But, at the same time, their Chief Procurement Manager has an annual target of 10% cost reduction in procurement. So, they are definitely not drivers of change.
However, we see change happening in the financial market. The only question is how authentic it is. Even in the corona crisis, our dear Larry Fink sends out nice letters telling the CEOs that our financial market, whose playground is our planet earth, is more fragile than we think. And that only those who invest sustainably will survive. Yet, while he is saying all of this, he is a shareholder of Monsanto.
The thing is, you cannot switch things overnight. But I do believe change is possible. In the end, the economy is also based on physical goods. Working and trading with commodities simply requires fertile soil and at the moment, healthy soil is becoming increasingly scarce. Because of this, preventive actions are becoming more valuable than repair cost. This realization initiates some change.
We also see more and more change in the procurement departments. I just had this call with a big German conventional retailer that just launched this big regionality campaign, spending millions on telling the consumer that they would only buy tomatoes from the region. But now they realize that the prices they pay for these regional tomatoes doesn’t allow the farmers to actually grow the tomatoes in a way that will survive the next dry summer. Because of this, there will be no regional tomatoes after all and this whole marketing campaign was useless.
You still need to connect the dots to see where change is happening, but there are many dots to connect out there. And, in the end, it is enough to drive change.
Photo by Roman Synkevych on Unsplash
What do you think is possible by 2030?
I think it is important to remember that we shouldn’t expect everything to happen at once. That’s speaking not only time-wise, but also sector-wise.
Even within the farming sector, seeing changes in corn, wheat or soy production may take longer than in coffee, tea, cocoa and banana production.
And that’s something I find a bit annoying in scientific discussions. They show that there is a problem in coffee bean production but they don’t mention it could also apply to strawberries. We have to accept that there exists a time discrepancy and that some things are going to happen sooner than others. In the end, it’s not about the majority, like in social innovation processes, but rather about tipping points.
I believe that once we have a few precedents, where companies get devalued because they do not have up to date risk management related to the climate, that will snowball change in that sector.
As we speak, there are already things happening with crops like cocoa, coffee, tea and bananas. We need some early-on, practical examples. We need someone to walk us through this process from A to Z in order to see how it actually works. This, in turn, will provide prototypes in order to show us that it’s doable. And this can trigger change on a larger scale.
If we look at reports like the land report of the FAO and United Nations, it might seem as though we were looking at a horror movie. They estimate 300 million deaths caused by the climate if we continue on with ‘business as usual’. It could get quite dramatic. As those problems increase, I’m hopeful that people start to get moving. But, as I said before, we need those practical prototypes to show it’s possible.
Another important point is that our incentives should be built into business by actually spending more money today in order to save more tomorrow, as opposed to somebody donating something or getting a grant. We have to prove the business case of sustainable farming.
Photo by Polina Rytova on Unsplash
How can true cost accounting be adapted to local contexts?
True cost accounting is not a silver bullet. It’s just an ingredient or tool that works on different levels. Firstly, it is a tool for strategic raw material security or sourcing security. It can be used by enterprises on a large scale to make sure you can source stuff from Brazil, Argentina, or wherever you buy things from. Secondly, there’s a business side to it because it translates sustainability data into management information. Sustainability data is usually perceived as a cost because you need to have a sustainability manager. They produce a report which is very expensive and which nobody reads. It’s required as a common practice, but it’s highly questioned inside an organization.
But, if you translate this into procurement risk and say: “forget about the carbon footprint, take soil carbon as a major lever for whether there will be potatoes or not”. Then, all of a sudden, you’re talking to the CEO instead of the sustainability manager, because they see how it is central to the business and future cash flow.
On the other end of the extreme are regions in Africa or Southeast Asia, where farming is deeply rooted and embedded into the community. Here, everybody is linked to society, there’s no point in assessing one hectare for corn and knowing the true cost of corn in that specific hectare. Rather, you have to look at the impacts and dependencies on the level of the community and society. For example, you can say: “in the short term you can increase crop yields, but that will spoil the drinking water you have”. It’s more an exercise in consciousness. So, in this kind of context, true cost accounting can be used to show the cause and effect of certain things, which allows people to remember the bigger systemic connections rather than just saying: “our yield is low”. The concept has different facets or different forms.
Photo by Jens Johnsson on Unsplash
Who needs to work in solidarity to bring about systems change for food and farming?
We ourselves, as individual people and as a community, are very important stakeholders in this.
This means that we have to fundamentally change our way of thinking. But, in order to make real change, we also have to change a few rules in the economic system.
And this starts on a personal level. It’s a philosophical perspective, but I think it’s very important.
Additionally, we need cross sectoral collaboration. I would be very curious to get some deeper insights from other people in the financial market, in farming, and in trade. I would like to know what they really think about it, and what they are prepared to do. Because they live in this day-to-day reality where they have to pay salaries to employees as well. So they can’t make this move too abruptly. But, we also know that if we wait for too long, it might be too late.
The next step that I would be very enthusiastic to get engaged in is to actually take this from a meta level to a very practical level. So far, we mainly discuss theories and possibilities. But I think that practical experience is key to stimulating change.
Let’s say that there are two basic setups. One is a more macroeconomic setup, like a city or a town with tax payers, farmers, a local community, government etc. Here, you can look at what the true cost and benefit of a farm in that region is to the community. You would be able to see that, if they farm in a certain way, the society in that region has to pay for it. But, if they farm in a different way, the society might benefit from this.
The other setup is more of a microeconomic setup, which is basically trade. You take a supply chain that is independent of regulations and policies. Here, we would observe if the entrepreneurs and shareholders stay in business. In this example, the topic of soil health and natural capital is too important for their business as to leave it to the politicians. You might hear: “We have to take action ourselves, so let’s put those most obvious natural capital risks on our sourcing radar”.
So, basically, both setups have to do with the same questions: water, biodiversity, climate, etc. But one is more a macroeconomic perspective, and one is more on a micro, business level. Personally, I feel more connected to the second one, because it’s my environment. But the other one, on the level of cities, is equally important.
Tobias Bandel: Reclaiming the Desert from Presencing Institute on Vimeo.
Many thanks to Tobias Bandel, Julia Pollak, Katrin Kaeufer, Zoe Ackerman, Hannah Scharmer, Randi Kaeufer, and others who participated in the creation and curation of this interview!
NC pastor: People are leaving church — because of churches
Kate Murphy
The author is pastor of The Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte.
Earlier this week Gallup released polling data showing that less than 50% of Americans report belonging to a faith community. Back in 1970, when Gallup first began tracking this data, more than 70% of Americans belonged to religious communities. As a pastor, when I heard this news, I thought of a little known passage in the 10th chapter of the book of Ezekiel when the prophet watches in horror as the Glory of God leaves the temple.
That’s not the standard response to news like this. The party line is to blame “this generation” for being less faithful, or “the media” for corrupting hearts or “the government” for taking prayer out of school. Once we’ve finished blaming those outside our communities, we turn to those inside and pressure them to give more, work more, sacrifice more to reverse the trend. But I don’t think any of that is a faithful response.
Because, while church membership is declining, people are still as hungry for the things of God as they ever have been. People are still seeking justice, forgiveness, hope, love and belonging. People are still desperate for mercy, for meaning, for second chances. People are still seeking the Holy, and the Holy One is still seeking people. So the problem isn’t with those outside the church, and it certainly isn’t with God. The problem — and it is a problem — is with us. The problem is that most of the church in America looks more like America than the body of Christ.
The church makes the news for all the wrong reasons — seminary leaders who passionately denounce Critical Race Theory but are silent about the white supremacy that forms their curriculum and institutions. Pastors who care more about not being called racist than learning how to meaningfully participate in racial reconciliation. Christians who care more about defending their right to buy a weapon than advocating to end police brutality.
Jesus — whose parents had to flee to a foreign country to save his life — has followers who advocate to close the borders to desperate refugees. Christians shouldn’t be outraged about 666 pairs of so-called ‘Satan Shoes’ but completely resigned to voter disenfranchisement, the school-to-prison pipeline, the resegregation of public schools, the opioid crisis or the epidemic of mass shootings. And speaking of Little Nas X, believers should be horrified by his ‘Call Me By Your Name’ video — not because of the raunchy imagery but because we managed to convince a young boy that he was more likely to find love in Hell than inside the body of Christ.
I love the church. But I love Jesus more, and the church has done a terrible job being faithful to the way of Jesus. When we who love the church see these numbers, we shouldn’t kid ourselves. People aren’t rejecting Jesus — they are turning away from churches that represent him badly. Churches that are full of programs instead of prayer, full of doctrine but empty of mercy. Turning away from church that lies is the first step towards the truth.
Which brings me back to the prophet Ezekiel — who was called by God to prophesy judgment, not against outsiders, but against the egregious unfaithfulness of his fellow believers. In Ezekiel’s day, people loved the rituals of worship more than the God they worshiped, people loved their religious identity more than the shalom of God. And so, in anguish, God leaves their sacred building behind. But God never abandoned the people.
On the cross, Jesus cried out “it is finished.” Injustice is finished, greed and poverty are finished, hatred is finished, violence, enmity and alienation are finished. All of those old powers are condemned and crucified. On the cross, the righteousness of God’s self-giving love was unleashed to infect all the earth with holiness. Resurrection life has come. And the church, the true body of Christ full of his Spirit–the multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-generational, full of love, generosity, healing, transformation, forgiveness, joy and mutual flourishing, real church welcomes all.
Local congregations may or may not be about the new thing God is doing. When they are — they are irresistible. When they are not, well, God may leave our buildings — but God will not stop being God.
What the church needs is not more members, but more Jesus — not revival but repentance. What we should fear is not people who refuse to belong to churches, but churches who refuse to belong to Jesus.
Shortly after Lydia Chambers had her first child, in 1995, her family moved to a new home in Ohio. “It was this neighborhood with perfect lawns,” recalls Chambers, now 60. In her previous home, when a swath of dandelions appeared shortly after she and her husband moved in, she spent two weeks pulling them out by hand.
In their Ohio home, however, she had no time to take care of the yard. So she hired a service to come and treat it. At the time, she didn’t realize that the chemicals the service used might be dangerous. “Even though I kind of sensed it . . . I didn’t know,” she says.
In her professional life as a hydrogeologist, Chambers was beginning to learn about how long-term, low-dose exposures to dangerous chemicals could lead to cancer and other chronic diseases. This made her increasingly suspicious of the pesticides her landscaping company applied. By 2005, her family had moved to New Jersey and her elementary school-aged kids were playing in the yard constantly. As she did more research, she learned a particularly disturbing fact: One common weed killer, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), was also an ingredient in Agent Orange, a chemical used during the Vietnam War.
“I guess if anything flipped a switch, it was that,” she says. Chambers and her husband finally committed to taking care of their yard with no synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers—even if that meant it sprouted a few weeds. “I was proud that I had a few weeds in my grass,” she says. “It was a symbol I was doing the right thing.”
For many Americans, however, a pristine lawn is the goal, and weed-free grass is big business. American consumers spend about $35 billion per year on lawn and garden products, according to market research firm Mintel. Professional lawn-care services and consumers going the DIY route choose from a variety of pesticides and fertilizers, many with familiar brand names, such as Roundup and Scotts.
The sense of unease that Chambers felt about pesticides is grounded in evidence: A growing body of research has linked many of them, even at low levels, to potential health problems such as cardiovascular disease, says Consumer Reports senior scientist Michael Hansen, PhD, an expert in environmental health.
Also, while synthetic lawn-care products may be helpful to your yard in the short term, they can harm beneficial organisms in soil and won’t lead to a healthy ecosystem in the long run. “You wonder,” asks Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, a nonprofit that advocates for transitioning away from synthetic pesticides, “why are we still using these things?”
Part of the problem is that even when consumers look for alternatives to traditional lawn chemicals, navigating the marketplace can be tricky. Unlike with food, there’s no legal definition of “organic” when it comes to lawn products, so it’s hard to assess the safety of a product that advertises itself as “organic,” “natural,” or “environmentally friendly.”
Still, it’s possible for consumers to move away from conventional lawn care. It just requires a bit of strategy, a few new habits, and some fresh ideas about what your yard should look like.
Health Harms of Lawn Care
On one hand, it’s a minority of lawn owners who hire lawn-care companies or add fertilizers or pesticides to their lawns. In a February 2021 CR nationally representative survey of 1,772 lawn owners, 51 percent said they don’t use any pesticides or fertilizers on their lawns. And according to Peter Groffman, PhD, a professor at the Advanced Science Research Center at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, who studies ecosystem ecology, “the biggest group of homeowners are what we call passive land managers—they just mow.”
Still, many American homeowners strive for a perfectly uniform, bright green lawn. And according to research by Paul Robbins, PhD, professor and dean at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, many do this in spite of misgivings about the sometimes mysterious chemical inputs involved.
Lawn chemicals pose short- and long-term risks to health, and children are particularly vulnerable. Kids can accidentally ingest pesticides if they get their hands on them. Although acute poisonings are relatively rare, poison control centers still logged around 34,000 cases regarding pesticide exposure among children 5 and younger in 2019, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
The long-term risks of chronic exposure to chemicals on our lawns are much harder to quantify than acute poisonings, but plenty of research has been conducted into how it may affect health. One thing we know: Lawn chemicals don’t just stay on the lawn. Research has demonstrated that pesticides can be tracked inside on shoes and clothes, where they then settle into the dust on floors and other surfaces. There, children, especially young ones who crawl around on the ground and explore the world by putting things in their mouths, are more likely to get these substances into their system.
The prenatal period and early childhood are also times when people are more vulnerable to the risks of these repeated tiny exposures, which may have long-term effects, says Sheela Sathyanarayana, MD, a pediatrician and an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Washington and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
Still, the specific health effects of cumulative exposure to individual pesticides are difficult to tease out, in part because pesticides are designed to be toxic to living organisms. Scientists don’t typically expose people to them on purpose to find out what happens, as they do with medications. The evidence we do have—based on observational studies and experiments in animals and in cells—is open to interpretation.
Take, for example, the herbicides 2,4-D and glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup). They were the two most common active ingredients found in home and garden pesticides used in 2012, the last year for which data on national pesticide usage was available from the Environmental Protection Agency. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization that investigates the causes of cancer in humans, classifies 2,4-D as a possible carcinogen and glyphosate as a probable carcinogen.
Still, the science isn’t perfectly clear. The IARC’s classifications of carcinogens only indicate the strength of the evidence showing a given substance’s link to cancer. But chemicals in the same category could pose very different levels of real-world risk. Bayer, glyphosate’s manufacturer, told CR that the IARC’s analyses of carcinogens “do not reflect real-world exposure,” meaning the agency doesn’t say whether the amount of a substance you would typically be exposed to is enough to be dangerous.
The EPA has ruled that there isn’t good enough evidence to say whether 2,4-D causes cancer in humans—and that glyphosate probably doesn’t. The EPA also says that although 2,4-D was indeed an ingredient in Agent Orange, it was a different component, known as dioxin, that was found to cause cancer. And Lindsay Thompson, executive director of the Industry Task Force II on 2,4-D Research Data, told CR that regulators have “consistently found 2,4-D not to have adverse human health impacts” when used as directed on the label.
A variety of studies, particularly among agricultural communities exposed to pesticides through their work or by proximity to farms, have linked these and other common lawn chemicals to an increased risk of other health problems, too. These include neurological issues, respiratory irritation, asthma, and liver and kidney damage. One 2015 study even suggests that both 2,4-D and glyphosate could be contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
What’s more, several common lawn pesticides are suspected endocrine disrupters, meaning they might interfere with the body’s hormones. This is thought to occur at very low doses during certain vulnerable phases of life, such as the prenatal period and early childhood. Endocrine disruption may contribute to a range of issues, including diabetes and reproductive and developmental problems.
Still, industry groups maintain that the EPA’s approval of existing lawn pesticides means the chemicals should be safe to use as directed on the label. Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment, an association representing pesticide and fertilizer industry players, says the EPA reviews hundreds of studies to arrive at its approval of a pesticide. And Andrew Bray, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Landscape Professionals, says, “We look at EPA as the experts.”
The Limits of Regulation
It can be hard for consumers to know what to make of all this, especially when studies come to contrasting conclusions. After all, if these chemicals posed a real danger, why would they still be on store shelves?
In fact, David Dorman, PhD, a professor of toxicology at NC State College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh, N.C., says many dangerous products have been banned in the U.S., including DDT. Modern pesticides, he says, are “so much safer than what was used even 40, 50 years ago. So progress has been made.”
In theory, the EPA’s approach to regulating pesticides is precautionary—it requires manufacturers to demonstrate a chemical’s safety before bringing it to market. But many consumer advocates, including CR’s Hansen, say the EPA’s testing requirements are outdated and don’t reflect the latest in toxicological science. That allows some significant harms of pesticides to go undetected.
The problem, says Laura Vandenberg, PhD, associate professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is that a clearer understanding of some of the most serious potential effects—such as cancer—may take decades to emerge. In that time, millions of people will have already been exposed unnecessarily, she says.
The EPA told CR that it is in the process of incorporating endocrine disruption into its standard tests for pesticide safety, and that it is implementing a set of new evaluation methods designed to reduce the need for animal testing. The agency says its risk assessment “ensures that when a pesticide is used according to the label, people and the environment are adequately protected.”
Environmental Impact
Lawn chemicals don’t just stay on your lawn or end up in your household dust. They can also sink deep into the soil, float off into the air, and be carried off by stormwater, ultimately causing harm to a range of organisms they were never meant to target.
A major component in conventional lawn care, fertilizer, is a key source of water pollution. The excess nutrients get washed out by rain into local waterways or sink into groundwater.
Once the nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer reach a lake or pond, they can prompt an overgrowth of algae, which eat up the oxygen in the water. That can cause fish to die en masse and sometimes makes water toxic.
Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides may also gradually degrade the health of your soil by diminishing beneficial microbes and fungi. Healthy soil, along with being great for your grass, can help keep carbon out of the atmosphere, an important bulwark against climate change, says soil scientist Asmeret Berhe, PhD, professor of soil biogeochemistry at the University of California, Merced.
What’s a Consumer to Do?
If you’re concerned about the potential health and environmental effects of synthetic lawn chemicals, you might think the answer is choosing organic chemicals instead, or employing a green lawn-care service. But that can be harder than it sounds.
For agriculture, the federal government enforces regulations for food producers that would like to label their food as organic. But no federal laws exist for “organic” lawn-care products or service providers.
Before you hire a provider advertising organic lawn care, ask plenty of questions, says Michele Bakacs, associate professor and county agent with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension in New Jersey. “If the first thing the landscaper talks to you about is the type of product that they’re using, well, that may be a little bit of a warning sign,” she says. Instead, look for a provider that offers a soil test and talks to you about improving the health of your soil, putting the right plant in the right place for your yard and using several types of turfgrass. These are signs of a provider interested in the unique ecology of your yard.
Although uncertainty remains about the extent of the harms of lawn products, reducing risks to people and the environment is easy: Avoid using synthetic lawn chemicals. There are other ways to achieve the same goals that are better for your lawn and for your family (see “How to Rehab Your Yard”).
It can take a bit of a mindset shift, says Joseph R. Heckman, PhD, an extension specialist and professor of soil science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. “If you want to have an organic lawn, you have to have a little bit of tolerance for something less than perfect,” he says.
Over the years, the practice of pesticide-free yard care has evolved for Lydia Chambers and her husband. They still live in New Jersey, and Chambers now considers herself an environmental activist. Their latest effort: converting much of their 3-acre property from lawn into meadow. Soon, in place of acres of trimmed turf, they’ll have a spread of native wildflowers and grasses. The meadow will encourage a more diverse ecology in her lawn, she says—and there’s a bonus: “It will be way easier than handling more flower beds.”
Editor’s Note: This article also appeared in the May 2021 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.
‘Allergic reaction to US religious right’ fueling decline of religion, experts say
Adam Gabbatt April 5, 2021
Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
Fewer than half of Americans belong to a house of worship, a new stud shows, but religion – and Christianity in particular – continues to have an outsize influence in US politics, especially because it is declining faster among Democrats than Republicans.
Just 47% of the US population are members of a church, mosque or synagogue, according to a survey by Gallup, down from 70% two decades ago – in part a result of millennials turning away from religion but also, experts say, a reaction to the swirling mix of rightwing politics and Christianity pursued by the Republican party.
The evidence comes as Republicans in some states have pursued extreme “Christian nationalist” policies, attempting to force their version of Christianity on an increasingly uninterested public.
This week the governor of Arkansas signed a law allowing doctors to refuse to treat LGBTQ people on religious grounds, and other states are exploring similar legislation.
Gallup began asking Americans about their church membership in 1937 – and for decades the number was always above 70%. That began to change in 2000, and the number has steadily dropped ever since.
Some of the decline is attributable to changing generations, with about 66% of people born before 1946 are still members of a church, compared with just 36% of millennials.
Among other groups Gallup reported, the decline in church membership stands out among self-identified Democrats and independents. The number of Democratic church members dropped by 25% over the 20-year period, with independents decreasing by 18%. Republican church members declined too, but only by 12%.
David Campbell, professor and chair of the University of Notre Dame’s political science department and co-author of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, said a reason for the decline among those groups is political – an “allergic reaction to the religious right”.
“Many Americans – especially young people – see religion as bound up with political conservatism, and the Republican party specifically,” Campbell said.
“Since that is not their party, or their politics, they do not want to identify as being religious. Young people are especially allergic to the perception that many – but by no means all – American religions are hostile to LGBTQ rights.”
Research by Campbell shows that a growing number of Americans have turned away from religion as politicians – particularly Republicans – have mixed religion with their politics. Campbell says there has always been an ebb and flow in American adherence to religion, but he thinks the current decline is likely to continue.
“I see no sign that the religious right, and Christian nationalism, is fading. Which in turn suggests that the allergic reaction will continue to be seen – and thus more and more Americans will turn away from religion,” he said.
The number of people who identify as non-religious has grown steadily in recent decades, according to Michele Margolis, associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of From Politics to the Pews. More than 20% of all Americans are classed as “nones”, Margolis said, and more than a third of Americans under 30.
“That means non-identification is going to continue becoming a larger share of population over time as cohort replacement continues to occur,” Margolis said. But she agreed another factor is the rightwing’s infusion of politics with theism.
“As religion has been closed linked with conservative politics, we’ve had Democrats opting out of organized religion, or being less involved, and Republicans opting in,” she said.
Christian nationalists – who believe America was established as, and should remain, a Christian country – have pushed a range of measures to thrust their version of religion into American life.
You virtually have to wear religion on your sleeve in order to be elected
Annie Laurie Gaylor
In states including Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida, Republicans have introduced legislation which would variously hack away at LGTBQ rights, reproductive rights, challenge the ability of couples to adopt children, and see religion forced into classrooms.
“Do not make me NOT do what my God tells me I have to do,” said the Republican Montana congressman John Fuller, a supporter of the law.
Alison Gill, vice-president for legal and policy at American Atheists, who authored a report into the creep of Christian extremism in the US, warned that the drop-off in religious adherence in America could actually accelerate that effort, rather than slow it down.
“Surveys of those who identify with Christian nationalist beliefs consistently show that this group feels that they are subject to more discrimination and marginalization than any other group in society, including Islamic people, Black people, atheists, [and] Jewish people,” Gill said.
“They are experiencing their loss of prominence in American culture as an unacceptable attack on their beliefs – and this is driving much of the efforts we are seeing to cling on to power, undermine democracy, and fight for ‘religious freedom’ protections that apply only to them.”
The influence of religion over politics is stark, Gill said.
“America perceives itself to be a predominantly religious society, even if the facts no longer agree. Politicians often feel beholden to pronounce their religious faith – and are attacked for a perceived lack of it,” she said.
While the danger of a rightwing backlash is real, Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said that the Gallup data suggests the US is moving in a positive direction.
“We have this constitutional separation of church and state in America, and our constitution is godless, and it says you can’t have a religious test for public office, and yet you virtually have to wear religion on your sleeve in order to be elected,” Gaylor said.
“There is movement [away from religion], and we’re just delighted to see this. We think it’s great that Americans are finally waking up.”
Florida county fears “imminent” reservoir collapse
Li Cohen April 4, 2021
Some residents in Manatee County, Florida, were evacuated from their homes over Easter weekend as officials cited fears that a wastewater pond could collapse “at any time.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for the area on Saturday.
County officials said the pond, located at the former Piney Point phosphate processing plant, has a “significant leak,” according to CBS affiliate WTSP-TV. The Manatee County Public Safety Department told people near the plant to evacuate due to an “imminent uncontrolled release of wastewater.”
“A portion of the containment wall at the leak site shifted laterally,” said Manatee Director of Public Safety Jake Saur, “signifying that structural collapse could occur at any time.”
Manatee County Public Safety Department initially sent out emergency evacuation notices on Friday for those who were within half a mile of Piney Point, and by 11 a.m. Saturday, evacuation orders were extended to people within one mile north of the reservoir’s stacks of phosphogypsum — a fertilizer waste product — and those within half a mile to the south of the site. Surrounding stretches of highway were also closed to traffic.
Related: Bacteria on Florida beaches proves deadly
Mandatory evacuations were extended an additional half mile west and one mile southwest of the site on Saturday evening. Manatee County Public Safety Department said that 316 households are within the full evacuation area.
The closure of U.S. 41 will be expanded south from Buckeye Road to Moccasin Wallow Road. Moccasin Wallow Road will be closed west of 38th Avenue East. There are an estimated 316 households in the evacuation area. Those households will all receive an emergency alert to evacuate.
Phosphogypsum is the “radioactive waste” left over from processing phosophate ore into a state that can be used for fertilizer, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
“In addition to high concentrations of radioactive materials, phosphogypsum and processed wastewater can also contain carcinogens and heavy toxic metals,” the Center said in a statement on Saturday. “For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, the fertilizer industry creates 5 tons of radioactive phosphogypsum waste, which is stored in mountainous stacks hundreds of acres wide and hundreds of feet tall.”
Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh said in a statement Saturday that the “public must heed that notice to avoid harm.”
Officials are on site conducting a controlled release of water, roughly 22,000 gallons a minute.
The water that is currently being pumped out by officials in order to avoid a full collapse is a mix of sea water from a local dredge project, storm water and rain runoff. The water has not been treated.
“The water meets water quality standards for marine waters with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen,” the state said in a statement. “It is slightly acidic, but not at a level that is expected to be a concern, nor is it expected to be toxic.”
Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried wrote a letter to DeSantis on Saturday urging an emergency session of the Florida cabinet to discuss the situation. She wrote that the leaking water is “contaminated, radioactive wastewater,” and noted that this leak is not the property’s first.
“For more than fifty years, this Central Florida mining operation has caused numerous human health and environmental disasters and incidents,” Fried wrote. “There have been numerous, well-documented failures — which continue today — of the property’s reservoir liner, including leaks, poor welds, holes, cracks and weaknesses that existed prior to purchase by the current owner, HRK Holdings, and exacerbated since.”
Video of a Manatee County Commissioners meeting provided insight into what happened prior to the leak. On Thursday afternoon, Jeff Barath, a representative for HRK Holdings, the company that owns the site, appeared emotionally distressed while briefing the Manatee County Commissioners about the situation.
“I’m very sorry,” he said. He told commissioners he had only slept a few hours that week because he was trying to fix the situation, and through tears, said he first noticed “increased conductivities within the site’s seepage collection system” 10 days prior on March 22. This system, he said, offers drainage around the gypsum stacks.
He said he immediately notified FDEP of his concerns.
“The water was changing around the seepage. We went into a very aggressive monitoring program,” he said, to find out where the seepage was coming from.
They discovered the south side of the stack system had “increased in conductivity” and that the acidity of the water, which is normally around a 4.6, had dropped to about a 3.5, which indicated an issue.
After a few days, the water chemistry had not improved and water flows were increasing from about 120 gallons a minute to more than 400 gallons per minute in less than 48 hours, Barath said. Last Saturday night, the flow rates increased to “rates that I could not even estimate to you,” he said.
Water was filling the stacks so quickly that the ground was starting to rise, Barath said. This “bulging” was temporarily stabilized but then extended hundreds of feet.
Barath submitted a report to the state on March 26, according to the state-run “Protecting Florida Together,” website, which was created by DeSantis to allow more transparency about state water issues.
“I was anticipating that the gypstack itself was destabilizing at a very rapid rate and recommended that we consider an emergency discharge,” he told commissioners. He said he feared that “overpressurizing” the system would result in “complete failure.”
“I’ve spent most of my days and nights constantly monitoring all aspects of this gypstack system and identifying failure points within it,” he said, noting that failure points were happening “constantly, I mean hourly.”
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said that it ordered the company to “take immediate action” to prevent further leaks. On March 30, the department said that “pipes at the facility are repaired” and controlled discharges were initiated to prevent any pressure buildup.
However, based on Barath’s testimony at the meeting, the situation was far from over. He concluded his address by saying they were doing “everything possible to prevent a true catastrophe.”
On Friday, another leak was detected in the south containment area of the facility. Despite overnight work to attempt to stop this and other leaks, Manatee Director of Public Safety Jake Saur said on Saturday that the situation was “escalating.”
Town’s Water Contaminated With ‘Forever Chemicals’
Lewis Kendall April 2, 2021
On a bitterly cold afternoon earlier this year, the Haw River in North Carolina was running high—its water a bright ocher, thanks to heavy rainfall and snow melt.
Most of the water flowed south, where it would eventually connect with Jordan Lake and the rest of the Cape Fear River Basin, home to the cities of Greensboro, Durham, Fayetteville, and Wilmington, and a major source of drinking water for the eastern half of the state.
But some of it took a sharp turn, pumped up to the local water treatment plant where it was cleaned and filtered before continuing its journey, piped down the road and into a church in downtown Pittsboro, where Jim Vaughn had just finished helping hand out free lunches.
Vaughn, a retired electrical equipment salesman and longtime Pittsboro resident, had found a problem with the water coming out of the church’s tap: contamination with a group of chemicals that are linked to health concerns.
The 76-year-old is part of a collaborative project between the Guardian and Consumer Reports that tested 120 tap water samples from locations across the U.S. for dozens of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS are a group of roughly 5,000 compounds found in everything from food packaging to nonstick cookware to firefighting foam. The health risks associated with long-term PFAS exposure include cancer, liver damage, decreased fertility, and increased risk of asthma and thyroid disease.
The chemicals have been around for more than 80 years, but it wasn’t until 2016 that the Environmental Protection Agency set an advisory limit for PFAS in drinking water—70 parts per trillion (ppt).
According to the test, the water coming from the Pittsboro church’s tap measured PFAS levels of 80 ppt.
The EPA is under considerable pressure to lower its limits on PFAS. For instance, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group has proposed a total PFAS limit of 1 ppt in drinking water and groundwater.
CR’s scientists say the maximum allowed amount should be 5 ppt for a single PFAS chemical and 10 ppt for two or more. That is in line with the standards for bottled water that an industry group, the International Bottled Water Association, has its members adhere to.
Vaughn, who wears a black cowboy hat with a multicolored feather stuck in the band, wasn’t particularly surprised at the high PFAS result from the Consumer Reports and Guardian testing. His lack of surprise was also likely due to North Carolina’s long history with PFAS. In the early 1970s, the chemical company DuPont began operating a manufacturing facility that discharged PFAS into the Cape Fear River.
“There’s a feeling of helplessness,” Vaughn says. “Is there something we can do about it? Is there something that the town will do about it? Or will we let it ride and try to ignore it?”
Knowingly or unknowingly, he says, communities like Pittsboro are used to getting “dumped on.”
For more than 90 years Duke Energy operated a large coal-fired power plant in the nearby community of Moncure (population 709), right where the Haw and Deep rivers converge to become the Cape Fear. The area is now the site of a coal ash disposal pit, which is being filled with as much as 12 million tons of slag, powder, and other residual byproducts of burning coal. Multiple tests have revealed elevated levels of metals and other contaminants in groundwater near the site.
The PFAS contamination of Cape Fear River has been a source of controversy for years. A 2007 EPA study found evidence of PFAS contamination downstream from the plant and throughout the Cape Fear River Basin, including high concentrations near the Fort Bragg and Pope Field military bases. In 2016, researchers discovered contamination farther downstream, as well as in local drinking water, a revelation that spawned a spat of news coverage.
Since then the state has engaged in a back and forth with the offending companies over the issue. In 2017, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality blocked the DuPont plant (now operated by a DuPont offshoot, The Chemours Company) from discharging into the Cape Fear, and later entered into a consent order requiring that Chemours pay a $12 million fine.
Late last year the state filed a lawsuit against the companies, alleging that they “knowingly discharged vast quantities of PFAS into the air, water, sediments, and soils of . . . southeastern North Carolina.”
Asked to comment about the CR test finding in Pittsboro, Chemours spokesman Thom Sueta said in an email that the company had taken “numerous actions to reduce the emissions of fluorinated organic compounds (FOCs)—that includes PFAS,” and that its goal was to reduce them “by at least 99 percent” at its sites worldwide compared with a 2018 baseline.
Sueta said there were “many sources that impact the water quality of the Cape Fear River.” At its Fayetteville, N.C., site, Chemours has installed “a thermal oxidizer that is destroying more than 99.99 percent of FOC emissions from the processes directed to it” and there was “remediation work underway to address groundwater, including our seep treatment units,” Sueta said.
Long-Standing Concerns
The highest concentrations of PFAS chemicals from the 2007 EPA study were found upstream of the Chemours plant, near Pittsboro.
That was one of the first indications that the problem might be more widespread than first thought, says Emily Sutton, at the Haw River Assembly, a nonprofit that focuses on the Haw. For Sutton, who serves as riverkeeper for the Haw and spends most of her time these days studying, thinking, and talking PFAS, the issue is threefold.
The first and often most pressing problem for locals like those in Pittsboro is the contamination in municipal drinking water. But solving this requires hugely expensive upgrades to wastewater treatment facilities (recently floated price tags for Pittsboro, a town of 4,200, range upwards of $20 million) or costly individual, in-home filtration systems. “We know that the drinking water in the town of Pittsboro is contaminated,” Sutton says. “People who are concerned are left to pay for a reverse osmosis system in their own home. That means that only people who can afford that luxury have safe drinking water.”
The second problem is identifying and stopping contamination at its source. According to Sutton, ongoing testing has revealed that much of the PFAS chemicals floating down the Haw and into Pittsboro originate from the nearby city of Burlington. Late last year, the Haw River Assembly helped forge an agreement with the city, compelling it to identify the local facilities or companies responsible for discharging PFAS.
More broadly, Sutton says, regulatory agencies in the U.S. need to reconsider their priorities. The current system favors the introduction of new chemicals, products, or processes, only later limiting or removing them after they’re proved to be harmful. Sutton would rather bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality operate under the precautionary principle—the idea that the onus lies with companies and producers to prove something is harmless before it is introduced into the environment.
PFAS chemicals are a perfect example, she adds, saying that of the some 5,000 compounds in the category, scientists can only test for roughly 30. “We can’t regulate these compounds one at a time,” Sutton says. “The science exists to demonstrate that (they) should be regulated as a class because they’re equally as harmful. It’s such an obvious step that we could take as a country to prioritize the health of our communities rather than the profit of industries.”
Officials in the town insist that they are doing everything they can to improve the water quality. Chris Kennedy, the town manager for Pittsboro, told the Guardian that that while the town was not a contributor to PFAS, it was “still diligently working towards removing PFAS from our potable water supply.” Kennedy said the town was in the process of installing infrastructure that will remove at least 90 percent of PFAS by the end of the year and that it was taking steps where it could “to reduce contamination into the Haw River, which will provide the best results long term.”
Pittsboro itself stands at a crossroads. A new 7,100-acre mixed-use development is set to add as many as 60,000 people to the town. That kind of rapid growth is likely to squeeze low-income residents and exacerbate public health disparities that already exist in the community, says Jennifer Platt, a Pittsboro resident and adjunct professor of public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Platt, who has a 12-year-old son, installed a home filtration system after she first learned about the PFAS contamination, calling it “not affordable but mandatory.” But she also recognizes that many residents don’t have the means to do what she did.
“Here it’s about equity in terms of who understands the problem with the water and who’s able to deal with it,” the 51-year-old says.
Platt is part of the local Water Quality Task Force, which recently recommended that the town build a centralized water station—fitted with a reverse osmosis filtration system—where residents could access clean water. She adds that she would like to see the money from lawsuits against PFAS polluters redistributed to affected residents to subsidize filtration systems or bottled water.
But while she is optimistic now that the ball is rolling, the whole ordeal has highlighted the failures of government and regulatory agencies to keep people safe, particularly those in more marginalized areas, Platt says.
“Our national policies are not geared toward protecting us,” she says. “Poorer communities are bearing the brunt of our pollution. What we have to do now is to continue to mitigate the problem as best as we can until we have a permanent solution.”
Editor’s Note: Reporting in North Carolina for the Guardian was supported by the Water Foundation.
There’s another pandemic under our noses, and it kills 8.7m people year
Rebecca Solnit April 2, 2021
Photograph: Jeff Zehnder/Alamy
It is undeniably horrific that more than 2.8 million people have died of Covid-19 in the past 15 months. In roughly the same period, however, more than three times as many likely died of air pollution. This should disturb us for two reasons. One is the sheer number of air pollution deaths – 8.7 million a year, according to a recent study – and another is how invisible those deaths are, how accepted, how unquestioned. The coronavirus was a terrifying and novel threat, which made its dangers something much of the world rallied to try to limit. It was unacceptable – though by shades and degrees, many places came to accept it, by deciding to let the poor and marginalized take the brunt of sickness and death and displacement and to let medical workers get crushed by the workload.
We have learned to ignore other forms of death and destruction, by which I mean we have normalized them as a kind of moral background noise. This is, as much as anything, the obstacle to addressing chronic problems, from gender violence to climate change. What if we treated those 8.7 million annual deaths from air pollution as an emergency and a crisis – and recognized that respiratory impact from particulates is only a small part of the devastating impact of burning fossil fuels? For the pandemic we succeeded in immobilizing large populations, radically reducing air traffic, and changing the way many of us live, as well as releasing vast sums of money as aid to people financially devastated by the crisis. We could do that for climate change, and we must – but the first obstacle is the lack of a sense of urgency, the second making people understand that things could be different.
I have devoted much of my writing over the past 15 years to trying to foreground two normalized phenomena, violence against women and climate change. For all of us working to bring public attention to these crises, a major part of the problem is trying to get people engaged with something that is part of the status quo. We are designed to respond with alarm to something that just happened, that breaches norms, but not to things that have been going on for decades or centuries. The first task of most human rights and environmental movements is to make the invisible visible and to make what has long been accepted unacceptable. This has of course been done to some extent, with coal-burning power plants and with fracking in some places, but not with the overall causes of climate chaos.
The first obstacle is the lack of a sense of urgency, the second making people understand that things could be different
Climate change is invisible, in everyday political consciousness, because it occurs on a scale too vast in time and space to see with the naked eye and because it concerns imperceptible phenomena such as atmospheric composition. We can only see its effects – as cherry blossoms in Kyoto, Japan, peaking earlier this year than at any time since records began being kept in 812 AD, and even there the beauty of flowers is gloriously visible while the disturbance of seasonal patterns is dry data that is easy to miss. Other effects are often overlooked or denied – there were California wildfires before climate change, but they are bigger, stronger, faster, in a longer fire season now, and recognizing that also requires paying attention to data.
Among the striking phenomena of the early weeks of the pandemic were air quality and birdsong. In the quiet as human activity halted, many people reported hearing birds singing, and across the world air pollution levels dropped dramatically. In some places in India, the Himalayas were visible again, as they had not been for decades, meaning that one of the subtle losses of pollution was vistas. According to CNBC, at the outset of the pandemic, “New Delhi recorded a 60% fall of PM2.5 from 2019 levels, Seoul registered a 54% drop, while the fall in China’s Wuhan came in at 44%.” Returning to normal means drowning out the birds and blurring out the mountains and accepting 8.7 million air pollution deaths a year.
Those deaths have been normalized; they need to be denormalized. One way to do so is by drawing attention to the cumulative effect and the quantifiable results. Another is to map out how things could be different – in the case of climate change, this means reminding people that there is no status quo, but a world being dramatically transformed, and that only bold action will limit the extremes of this change. The energy landscape is also undergoing dramatic change: the coal industry has collapsed in many parts of the world, the oil and gas industry are in decline. Renewables are proliferating because they are steadily becoming more and more effective, efficient and increasingly cheaper than fossil-fuel generated power. A lot of attention was paid to whatever actions might have caused Covid-19 to cross from animals to humans, but the actions that take fossil fuel out of the ground to produce that pollution that kills 8.7 million annually, along with acidifying oceans and climate chaos, should be considered far more outrageous a transgression against public health and safety.
My hope for a post-pandemic world is that the old excuses for doing nothing about climate – that it is impossible to change the status quo and too expensive to do so – have been stripped away. In response to the pandemic, we in the US have spent trillions of dollars and changed how we live and work. We need the will to do the same for the climate crisis. The Biden administration has taken some encouraging steps but more is needed, both here and internationally. With a drawdown on carbon emissions and a move toward cleaner power, we could have a world with more birdsong and views of mountains and fewer pollution deaths. But first we have to recognize both the problem and the possibilities.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is also the author of Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions. Her most recent book is Recollections of My Nonexistence
