A View From the Air: Carbon Sequestration, Midwestern Farms and Biodiversity.

Resilience

A View From the Air: Carbon Sequestration, Midwestern Farms and Biodiversity.

Adrian Ayres Fisher, orig. pub by Ecological Gardening May 2, 2018

One afternoon in early March I flew from Boston to Chicago, returning home from an Ecological Landscape Alliance conference. Cloud cover, white and lumpy as a rumpled hotel duvet, obscured the view, until over western Pennsylvania the plane crossed the edge of the weather system. Our country’s heartland unfurled below. The gently rolling terrain flattened as the plane headed west, divided by roads delineating a grid, with fields, towns, and even woodlots squared into the design.

This tidy, Grant Woods-esque arrangement is the relic of late 18th century surveying expeditions sent out to divide the Northwest Territory into 6-mile square townships, the better to sell off, settle and tame the nearly, at the time, unfathomable expanse. As they worked, the surveyors made detailed maps, including of vegetation; they used boulders, piles of rock or even notable trees as corner markers and confirmed corner placement with nearby “witness trees.” Today, restorationists use these maps to help figure out what kinds of ecosystems they should be restoring to, when embarking on conservation or rewilding projects.

We flew on. Farm building roofs shone in the sun among the fields; only the occasional meandering river gave a hint of how the land had looked in the early 19th century. Though there’d been snow out east, here everything was shades of brown: leafless woodlot trees and tens of millions of acres of empty fields, a mid to dark brown sea of bare earth.

Bare fields full of potential
For me that landscape was a palimpsest of loss, prosperity and the potential to help mitigate climate change. The ghosts of past cultures—the Adena, the Hopewell, more recently displaced nations such as the Potawatomi and Miami, and a later thriving network of small American family farms—lay below. These successive groups inhabited a now phantom post-glacial landscape comprised of Eastern deciduous forest punctuated by areas of savanna, prairie and wetland that, as a traveler journeyed west, expanded until the prairie dominated.

Today this landscape, tended by a very few farmers utilizing all that technology has on offer, signify an evanescent prosperity precariously balanced on an extremely limited number of commodity crops. This flourishing economy could be upended tomorrow not only by ill-conceived trade wars, or weather catastrophes such as drought, but also by the mounting environmental problems, including but not exclusive to climate change, that are nearly all of our culture’s own devising.

Years ago I might have seen those fields as completely normal, even desirable. But no longer. Because I’m a regenerative gardener and natural landscape manager, when I see a piece of land, no matter the size, I see an opportunity to nurture what biodiversity is there. To me, improving a parcel of land means working with it in such a way as to increase its ecosystem functionality. I highly respect the work conventional farmers do to wrest a living from the soil; I believe that industrial farming methods are not only outmoded, but also actively dangerous.

Those Midwestern fields are losing their fertility along with their world-class topsoil; many now lack the organic matter and important microbial life that not only maintain good soil structure and health but also allow water to percolate properly. Conventional farming practices, such as leaving the earth bare from harvest until planting season, can actively harm the living soil. Fertilizer run-off pollutes waterways and overuse of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides inflict far-reaching collateral damage on living organisms from bumblebees and monarch butterflies to birds to humans, while habitat destruction imperils them further.

But what could that landscape teach about climate change mitigation and environmental renewal? It’s become evident that to hold average planetary temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), global emissions should peak by 2020, and then decline by 10% or greater each year in order to reach zero emissions by 2050. Thereafter, the downward trend then must continue into negative emissions territory. Clearly, technology-based solutions such as ramping up renewable energy while leaving fossil fuels in the ground are fundamental to mitigation. Emissions reductions and increased energy efficiency are essential in every arena, from the global to the personal. For example, if the global top 10% of individual carbon emitters reduced their carbon footprints to that of the average European, greenhouse gas emissions would decline 30%. (This, of course, includes nearly all US residents.)

However, going further means figuring out how to actively remove carbon from the air. Most schemes are in the research stage; existing mechanical carbon capture and sequestration (CSS) is expensive and difficult and only halts emissions at industrial sites. So far, only seventeen facilities, including an ethanol plant in Decatur, Illinois, use the technology to achieve neutral production emissions. Proposed biomass-based CSS systems such as BECCS (Bio-mass carbon capture and storage), with their emphasis on monocultures, have the potential to further damage ecosystems.

Solving global warming requires increasing biodiversity
Global warming, with its effects of climate weirding, is just one element—a deadly symptom, if you will—of the ongoing, global crisis of ecological destruction that also includes extinction, water scarcity, pollution and desertification. Averting this human-inflicted catastrophe will require multiple, diverse strategies and it has become increasingly clear we cannot accomplish anything without the aid of our planet’s complex natural systems. Solving the greenhouse gas puzzle requires working to help biodiversity increase worldwide and helping the currently disrupted biogeochemical cycles stabilize and recover so that all life might thrive on our beautiful blue and green planet.

This is where large-scale regenerative land management comes into play: it is the most effective tool for carbon sequestration that presently exists. Carbon sequestration through natural means includes not only vitally important conservation and restoration, but necessitates incorporation into all landscape management, from regenerative organic farming and intensively managed holistic grazing to, on the one hand, backyard landscaping with native plants and on the other, toxic chemical cleanup. Managing land along principles that foster soil health and biodiversity not only can sequester carbon on a potentially massive scale (4-12 GtCO2e or even more), but can also help regulate local water cycles, thereby helping avoid both desertification and excessive flooding. It also reduces toxic chemical use and nutrient run-off, all the while promoting biodiversity in plant and animal life, from the microbes in the soil, to pollinators, birds and other animals, to charismatic megafauna and apex predators such as ourselves.

Agriculturalists and other land managers throughout the world are already changing their practices, though it’s been slow to take hold in the Midwest. Regenerative agriculture networks such as ReGenerate IL have sprung up; farmers and scientists have formed partnerships to explore and measure the soil health and carbon sequestration potential of agricultural practices both ancient and cutting edge; farmers are beginning to try methods such as cover crops and waterway buffer zones planted with native plants. In all this, the most innovative practices combine agriculture with landscape management for biodiversity. There’s even an economic case to be made. In this era of falling commodity prices, rising costs of materials and supplies, and potential economic woes, many conventional farmers are already struggling to make ends meet. Farmers are discovering that, while it requires more, different kinds of knowledge and work, regenerative farming can actually be more profitable owing to reduced production costs and higher selling prices. More might go the way of the Nebraska farmer I heard interviewed on the radio recently, who said he is considering moving at least part of his farm out of soy, corn and hogs, and into diversified organics.

A possible future landscape
What might air travelers traversing the Midwest see ten years in the future? Farms, of course. We can’t return the Midwest to the matrix of woods, prairie and savanna it was 150 years ago. But what if all that land was managed not only for food production but also for soil health, water management, biodiversity and carbon sequestration? There’d be very little bare soil. Instead, there’d be extensive cover crops blanketing fields whose crop production included diverse, multi-year rotations; wide bands of prairie and woods featuring native grasses, flowers, shrubs and trees bordering fields, waterways and roads; areas of intensively managed grazing; alley cropping, silvopasturing and other forms of agroecology; and even expanded natural areas: in short, carbon sequestering, diversified, fertile farmland that would be healthier for farmers as well as the planet.

On the western edge of Indiana, the land changed again. As we descended towards Midway airport, subdivisions, logistics terminals, golf courses and parks replaced fields. Remarkably, amidst the development reposed large, wild areas featuring irregular woods along creeks and streams and the shaggy tan carpet of dormant prairie grasses. We’d entered Cook County: home to the 5.25 million people of the Chicago metro area and the most biodiverse county in Illinois, thanks in part to the nearly seventy thousand acres of carbon-sequestering forest preserve land managed through a unique partnership of professionals and volunteers.

I fastened my seatbelt. I thought about Aldo Leopold, the Midwesterner who both worked with farmers to save and restore their land during the Great Depression and helped invent the art and science of ecological restoration. Leopold might not have known about global warming—very few at the time did—but he had a thorough understanding of the harm unthinking human activities can wreak. He wrote that most modern technologies and practices, “do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.” That has become our greatest, most significant challenge in the Midwest and worldwide. Are we up for it? Can we solve the puzzle?

References:

Ecological Landscape Alliance: https://www.ecolandscaping.org/

(4-12 GtCO2e or even more): “There’s a huge gap between the Paris climate change goals and reality Current pledges are about a third of what’s needed.”
By David Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.com Updated Nov 6, 2017, 10:56am EST https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/31/16579844/climate-gap-unep-2017

“Decatur plant at forefront of push to pipe carbon emissions underground, but costs raise questions.”
By Tony Briscoe/ Chicago Tribune /November 23,

Oklahoma ranchers learn to address wild hog overpopulation

Miami Herald – Business

Oklahoma ranchers learn to address wild hog overpopulation

The Lawton Constitution, The Associated Press May 7, 2018

Meers, Okla. John Zelbst has been at war at his ranch near Meers.

Wild hogs — vicious animals with an appetite for corn and a penchant for destruction — have made their way into the Oklahoma wilderness and have run amok unchecked by any natural predator. The invasive species tears up the ground, destroys fences and other structures, kills livestock and has driven many farmers, like Zelbst, to their wits end.

“We were having ranch employees work on the problem to trap and kill them as much as we could,” he said. “It’s so bad, they wore us out. It took so much manpower to trap them that they beat us. They won.”

Zelbst isn’t alone. The wild hog is a scourge upon the land that has left many farmers, ranchers and landowners throwing up their arms in complete defeat. In an effort to help alleviate the situation, the Great Plains Technology Center, with coordination by Agri-Business Management Coordinator Clint Janda, recently hosted an outreach meeting organized by the Comanche County, Cotton County, South Caddo County and Tillman County Conservation Districts. Josh Gaskamp, a researcher at the Noble Research Center and the main speaker of the meeting, talked to the packed crowd about how there’s a good chance everything they know about addressing the wild hog problem could be wrong, the Lawton Constitution reported.

“If you’re going to catch more pigs, you have to use multiple techniques,” he said. “But many of these techniques that are being implemented may be doing more harm than good.”

Gaskamp detailed the epidemic that the men and women in the room were facing. To help make the pork market more efficient, the pork industry genetically targeted the largest breeds of pigs that reproduced quickly and grew rapidly. Dubbed the “super hog,” Gaskamp said humans created their own worst nightmare by trying to ensure everyone has a ham on the table for Christmas and Easter and bacon on the plate in the morning alongside their eggs. These pigs have no natural predators aside from humans and can adapt to survive in just about any situation.

“There’s not a habitat that you can put in a pig in where it won’t survive,” he said.

So how did this plague begin? Zelbst said hogs were introduced into this part of the state by individuals who raised them as pets or for food and simply let them go. Others, as Gaskamp said, escaped from farms. Genetically chosen to breed quickly, the populations exploded and one or two pigs turned into dozens, if not hundreds, within a short amount of time. They have an “opportunistic diet,” which means they’re willing to eat just about anything and can survive in the harshest of conditions, such as Oklahoma summers. And they leave a path of destruction in their wake.

“They’ve torn up our fences,” Zelbst said. “They’ve torn up our yards and homes. They show up where you feed cattle and tear things up everywhere.”

The simplest and easiest solution is to shoot the hogs either by hunting or as they’re spotted. That doesn’t work, Zelbst said not really.

“You can’t shoot your way out of this problem,” he said. “There’s just too many. They breed faster than you can kill them. That’s why I’m here, to hopefully find out about new research into methods to stop them.”

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s New Transparency Rule Is Not What It Seems

Forbes

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s New Transparency Rule Is Not What It Seems

Steven Salzberg, Contributor. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Smog surrounds Bangkok, Thailand. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

You would think that the editors of the top science journals in the world would know how to write clearly. But if you read their joint statement in the journal Science last week, you might be forgiven for wondering what the heck they are talking about. It’s not that complicated, really. Let me explain.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, when he’s not busy taking expensive trips, renting rooms at a deep discount from coal lobbyists, or building $48,000 soundproof booths for his office, is doing his best to make the U.S. a friendly place for fossil fuel industries. As part of his pollution-friendly mission, Pruitt denies the scientific consensus that climate change is real and is caused in part by human activities, especially by carbon dioxide emissions.

Pruitt has devised a clever new strategy to make science denialism part of official EPA policy, while pretending otherwise: he’s issued a new proposed rule that requires the EPA to use only “transparent” science. (The official Federal Register entry is here.) In his press release, Pruitt stated

“The era of secret science at EPA is coming to an end. The ability to test, authenticate, and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of rulemaking process.”

The press release, which is titled “EPA Administrator Pruitt Proposes Rule To Strengthen Science Used In EPA Regulations”, seems to be all about science and openness. One thing I’ve got to give them credit for: the PR people at the EPA know how to obfuscate.

It turns out this is just a ruse. As Pruitt certainly knows, many of the EPA’s rules are based on studies of human subjects, which are governed by strict privacy rules–which are necessary not only to get people to participate in the studies, but also because violating people’s privacy can be highly unethical. This means that many studies showing the harms of pollution–for example, this massive study, which found that fine-scale particulate matter from coal plants increases the risk of lung and heart disease–are not “transparent” enough for the EPA, because the identities of the participants as well as all their health records are confidential.

In other words, the new EPA policy isn’t about scientific transparency. It’s a transparent (!) attempt to ignore the negative health effects of pollution, so that Pruitt can put in place new rules allowing polluters to dump more pollutants into our air and water. See how that works?

In response, the Editors-in-Chief of Science, Nature, the Public Library of Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences issued a joint statement. Alas, their statement is anything but clear. They spend about three-fourths of it explaining about how they support data sharing, and finally, in their last sentence, they write this:

“Excluding relevant studies simply because they do not meet rigid transparency standards will adversely affect decision-making processes.”

That’s it. Even the most sophisticated reader could be forgiven for not understanding what the issue is, not from this statement alone.

Here’s what they should have said: the EPA wants to ignore the health consequences of pollution when creating policy. The EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has announced a new policy that pretends to be about scientific transparency, but is nothing of the sort. Instead, this policy is designed to undermine the EPA’s mission, which is (and you can read this right on the EPA’s website “to protect human health and the environment.”

Since the EPA’s creation in 1970, the U.S. has made tremendous strides in cleaning up our air and water. Let’s not start backsliding just to enhance the profits of a few polluters.

[Note: I have written the EPA and asked for comment. I will update this article if they respond.]

Steven Salzberg is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University.

No, White Friend — You Weren’t “Embarrassed” by Barack Obama

PopSugar

No, White Friend — You Weren’t “Embarrassed” by Barack Obama

John Pavlovitz May 7, 2018, First published June 19, 2018

The following story, “No, White Friend — You Weren’t ‘Embarrassed’ by Barack Obama,” was originally published on JohnPavlovitz.com

Image Source: Getty/Alex Wong

I remember the day after the Election, a friend of mine who happens to be white, remarked on social media that he “finally wasn’t embarrassed of America and our President.”

I sprained my eyes rolling them and they have never fully recovered.

Since then I’ve heard this sentiment echoed by more white folks than I can count, especially in recent months; supposed relief at once again having a leader who instills pride.

Since I don’t have the time to ask each of the individually, I’ll ask here:

So, you were embarrassed for the past 8 years, huh?

Really?

What exactly were you embarrassed by?

Were you embarrassed by his lone and enduring twenty-five year marriage to a strong woman he’s never ceased to publicly praise, respect, or cherish?

Were you embarrassed by the way he lovingly and sweetly parented and protected his daughters?

Were you embarrassed by his Columbia University degree in Political Science or his graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School?

Maybe you were embarrassed by his white American and Black Kenyan parents, or the diversity he was raised in as normal?

Were you embarrassed by his eloquence, his quick wit, his easy humor, his seeming comfort meeting with both world leaders and street cleaners; by his bright smile or his sense of empathy or his steadiness — perhaps by his lack of personal scandals or verbal gaffes or impulsive tirades?

No. Of course you weren’t.

Honestly, I don’t believe you were ever embarrassed. That word implies an association that brings ridicule, one that makes you ashamed by association, and if that’s something you claim to have experienced over the past eight years by having Barack Obama representing you in the world — I’m going to suggest you rethink your word choice.

You weren’t “embarrassed” by Barack Obama.

You were threatened by him.
You were offended by him.
You were challenged by him.
You were enraged by him.

But I don’t believe it had anything to do with his resume or his experience or his character or his conduct in office — because you seem fully proud right now to be associated with a three-time married, serial adulterer and confessed predator; a man whose election and business dealings and relationships are riddled with controversy and malfeasance. You’re perfectly fine being represented by a bullying, obnoxious, genitalia-grabbing, Tweet-ranting, Prime Minister-shoving charlatan who’s managed to offend all our allies in a few short months. And you’re okay with him putting on religious faith like a rented, dusty, ill-fitting tuxedo and immediately tossing it in the garbage when he’s finished with it.

None of that you’re embarrassed of? I wonder how that works.

Actually, I’m afraid I have an idea. I hope I’m wrong.

Listen, you’re perfectly within your rights to have disagreed with Barack Obama’s policies or to have taken issue with his tactics. No one’s claiming he was a flawless politician or a perfect human being. But somehow I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here. I think the thing President Obama did that really upset you, white friend — was having a complexion that was far darker than you were ever comfortable with. I think the President we have now feels much better.

Because objectively speaking, if what’s happening in our country right now doesn’t cause you great shame and doesn’t induce the continual meeting of your palm to your face — I don’t believe embarrassment is ever something you struggle with.

No, if you claimed to be “embarrassed” by Barack Obama but you’re not embarrassed by Donald Trump — I’m going to strongly suggest it was largely a pigmentation issue.

And as an American and a Christian committed to diversity and equality and to the liberty at the heart of this nation — that, embarrasses me.

The most surprising places melanoma can hide

Yahoo – Lifestyle

The most surprising places melanoma can hide

Korin Miller, Yahoo Lifestyle May 7, 2018

Melanoma can show up in some hard-to-find places. (Photo: Getty Images)

When you check your skin for suspicious moles, you probably look at your arms, chest, stomach, back, and legs. But melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, can show up anywhere you have skin — even in places that the sun doesn’t reach.

Melanomas are most commonly found on the chest and back in men and on the legs in women, according to the American Cancer Society, but they’re also likely to show up on the neck and face in both sexes. However, melanoma isn’t limited to those places.

“We see melanoma everywhere,” New York City dermatologist Doris Day, MD, author of Beyond Beautiful, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. She’s seen it show up in a person’s belly button, in between the butt cheeks, between the toes, under the nails, on the scalp, and behind the ears. In rare cases, you can even develop melanoma inside your eyes and mouth and on your genitals, according to the American Cancer Society.

That’s why it’s so important to have every inch of your skin checked by a dermatologist, Gary Goldenberg, MD, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. The American Cancer Society recommends checking your own skin once a month and having a doctor do it “regularly,” which Day says is usually once a year.

Here’s the thing, though: You have to know what you’re looking for. “Many times people are concerned about a raised spot that’s fine, but there’s another concerning one near it that they think is nothing,” Day says. “A lot of times, people don’t recognize what’s normal and what’s not.”

When you inspect your body, you want to be thorough. You can rope in a partner to help with your back and hard-to-see places, or you can use a hand-held mirror to get a good look, suggests the American Cancer Society.

In general, you’re looking for new or changing moles, and you want to follow the ABCDE rules for skin cancer detection, Day says. A stands for asymmetry (i.e. if you cut the mole in half, one side of the mole looks different from the other side), B stands for border (concerning spots may have a jagged edge), C stands for color (harmful spots can be black, gray, blue, or white), D stands for diameter (any spot larger than the size of a pencil tip eraser is concerning), and E stands for evolution (whether a spot changes in size, shape, or color over time). If you come across a spot that meets any of these criteria, you need to see a dermatologist to have it evaluated, says Goldenberg.

Melanoma is serious, and it’s not something that you want to put off or ignore. About 91,270 new melanomas will be diagnosed in 2018, according to estimates from the American Cancer Society, and more than 9,000 people will die of the disease.

If you happen to spot a mole that looks unusual on your body, it’s always best to just get it checked out to be safe, Day notes. It’s also a good idea to take a picture of it and keep taking photos during your monthly skin checks to see if it’s changing, and to have a record to show your doctor during follow-up visits.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

This is why redheads are more at risk for melanoma

The doctor’s appointment you can’t afford to miss this summer

Meet the powerful women who flaunt, not hide, their scars

A New Model for Progressive Politics in the Heart of Deindustrialization

In These Times

A New Model for Progressive Politics in the Heart of Deindustrialization

By Bruce Vail May 4, 2018

Aerial view of wheat fields and farm near Peoria, Illinois. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

It’s startling when your hometown is labeled the worst city in the United States for African Americans.

That’s what happened in Peoria in late 2016 when a survey by the online publication 24/7 Wall St. rated the central Illinois city at the top of its list of the “Worst Cities for Black Americans.”

The slap at Peoria wasn’t even the worst indignity suffered by the people of the city at that time. Shortly afterward, world-famous machinery maker Caterpillar Inc. said it would close the company’s Peoria world headquarters and move to Chicago. The decision was announced after years of discussion about the future of the company’s headquarters, during which the locals were consistently misled to believe that Caterpillar was committed to remaining in the city. The move reflects the deindustrialization and associated ills that are afflicting Peoria and scores of other small cities across the Midwest.

The two events were recently cited by labor activists as the sparks that generated the Peoria Peoples Project, a new initiative to unite labor unions and the city’s progressive elements. The goal is to improve the lives of working people across the city through political action, particularly action at the state-wide policy level, the labor activists say.

Spearheaded by local units of the American Federation of Teachers and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Project got started last year with the help of the Chicago-based Grassroots Collaborative, says Jeff Adkins-Dutro, president of the Peoria Federation of Teachers. The Collaborative is dedicated to building labor-community alliances in Chicago, Adkins-Dutro says, but is also keen to see similar alliances established in the smaller Illinois cities. Collective action from multiple city-based alliances of this sort are needed to reverse some of the statewide trends that are undermining the interests of working families in Peoria and elsewhere around the state, he says.

Right now, Illinois trends in voting are very much on the minds of the leaders of the leading health care workers union, adds Beth Menz of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas, a regional grouping of SEIU locals for hospital, nursing home and home care workers. Unions of all kinds are mobilizing for the November election, she says, and are determined to defeat the re-election bid of anti-union incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner.

“There are multiple goals,” of the Peoria Peoples Project, Menz says, and increased progressive voting is just one of them. “We are more issue-based,” than concerned with the results of particular elections like Rauner’s, she tells In These Times. Quality healthcare and adequate funding for public schools are obvious priorities for the two unions involved. Most of the tens of thousands of members of the SEIU group are low-income or middle-income African-American women, so bread-and-butter economic issues are foremost, Menz says.

“Progressive organizations have been springing up in Peoria,” as a response to the right-wing agenda of Gov. Rauner and President Donald Trump, adds Chama St. Louis, an organizer for both the Peoria Peoples Project and the Grassroots Collaborative. It’s a fertile field for new organizing, she says, as the increasing power of conservative forces is inspiring pushback in many circles. Rauner’s attacks on public employee unions, for example, are being reinforced by the pending Janus U.S. Supreme Court decision, which is expected to further weaken unions. Adkins-Dutro agrees, telling In These Times that the teachers’ union is now aiming to strengthen its internal cohesiveness in the face of the Janus threat.

A year after 24/7 Wall St. insulted the city, an updated survey replaced Peoria with Erie, Penn., as the country’s worst for African. That reduces the sting a little bit, but the city still has a long way to go, St. Louis says. The Peoria Peoples Project is seen by labor unions as a step in that direction.

One initiative on the agenda for this year is to build support for an Illinois constitutional amendment on taxes. The Illinois Federation of Teachers, SEIU Healthcare and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) are all supporting an amendment that would raise taxes on high-income individuals, according to St. Louis. This kind of tax restructuring is needed to secure adequate funding for public schools and universal health care, St. Louis emphasizes.

The Project is still very much an early stage. SEIU’s Menz says, for example, that initial efforts have been focused on drawing union members and progressives together to form the solidarity needed for any effective political action down the road. The Peoria community has been badly battered by outside forces and turning things around will take time.

Bruce Vail is a Baltimore-based freelance writer with decades of experience covering labor and business stories for newspapers, magazines and new media. He was a reporter for Bloomberg BNA’s Daily Labor Report, covering collective bargaining issues in a wide range of industries, and a maritime industry reporter and editor for the Journal of Commerce, serving both in the newspaper’s New York City headquarters and in the Washington, D.C. bureau.

More by Bruce Vail

A New Model for Progressive Politics in the Heart of Deindustrialization

Bernie’s Platform Could Win in Maryland’s Gov. Race, With Support From Clinton Voters

Inside the Trump Administration’s Plan to Shrink the NLRB

Trump NLRB Appointee Behind Major Anti-Union Ruling Accused of Corruption

Here’s Why These 3 Rank-And-File Union Members Are Running for Maryland Public Office

Trump voters hurt most by Trump policies, new study finds

ThinkProgress

Trump voters hurt most by Trump policies, new study finds

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond warns southern states face greatest impact from rising temperatures.

Joe Romm May 4, 2018

During major heat wave, a construction worker dumps water from his hard hat over his head in Washington, D.C., July 2007. Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Failure to stop business-as-usual global warming will deliver a severe economic blow to Southern states, a recent paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond finds.

Remarkably, this ground-breaking study, “Temperature and Growth” concludes that “under the business-as-usual scenario, the projected trends in rising temperatures could depress U.S. economic growth by up to a third.”

As the Wall Street Journal summed up the findings: “Climate Change May Deeply Wound Long-Term U.S. Growth.”

The study focused on the impact of high temperatures in productivity and found that rising temperatures have their biggest negative economic impact in the summer — but that it’s not just outdoor work like farming and construction that suffers. Using historical data, the authors showed that the finance, retail, and real estate sectors also get hit hard during the hottest summers.

The authors note that a scenario of low CO2 emissions would sharply reduce the economic harm. But such a scenario requires far more aggressive action than the world embraced in the Paris Climate Accord.

This is what America will look like if we follow Trump’s climate policies

In reality, the Trump administration’s policies — to abandon the Paris climate deal while working to gut both domestic climate action and coastal adaptation programs — make the worst business-as-usual scenarios for climate change more likely while undermining any efforts to prepare for what’s coming.

Significantly, the researchers from the University of North Carolina, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank found that “the temperature effects are particularly strong in states with relatively higher summer temperatures, most of which are located in the South.”

The estimated summer impact “for the ten warmest states is about three times as large as their whole-country counterpart.” This means those ten states would be economically devastated in the coming decades.

NASA’s Hansen: “If We Stay on With Business as Usual, the Southern U.S. Will Become Almost Uninhabitable.”

The study ranks the states by average summer temperature. The top ten, in order, are: Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Arizona. Besides all being in the south, they all also voted for Trump.

We’ve long known the southern U.S. would be hit the hardest by climate change. Back in 2011, the nation’s top climate scientist, James Hansen (then at NASA), warned “If we stay on with business as usual, the southern U.S. will become almost uninhabitable.”

And earlier studies have found that rising temperatures would hit worker productivity hard in peak summer months globally. For instance, a study done in 2013 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that “heat-stress related labor capacity losses will double globally by 2050 with a warming climate.”

NOAA found that business-as-usual policies cut labor capacity in half during peak months by century’s end.

Individual labor capacity (%) during annual minimum (upper lines) and maximum (lower lines) heat stress months. RCP8.5 (red lines) is our current emissions path. Credit: NOAA

But the Richmond Fed study is the first to focus specifically on this country: It’s “the first in the literature to systematically document the pervasive effect of summer temperatures on the cross-section of industries in the U.S.”

So it’s the first study to document that Trump’s climate policies will hit the states that voted for him the hardest.

The level of dysfunction in Trump World gets a little worse

MSNBC

The Rachael Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog

The level of dysfunction in Trump World gets a little worse

By Steve Benen May 4, 2018

File Photo: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Scott Pruitt testifies before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in…Aaron Bernstein

Who’s the most scandal-plagued member of Donald Trump’s team? It’s a subjective question, of course, but if we exclude the president himself, it’s fairly easy to make the case for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, followed by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, both of whom have faced a series of awkward questions that have proven difficult to answer.

And as it turns out, those two cabinet officials were the subject of a fascinating report in The Atlantic yesterday about Pruitt’s team “scrambling to divert the spotlight” away from their controversial boss and toward Zinke.

In the last week, a member of Pruitt’s press team, Michael Abboud, has been shopping negative stories about Zinke to multiple outlets, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the efforts, as well as correspondence reviewed by The Atlantic. […]

The stories were shopped with the intention of “taking the heat off of Pruitt,” the sources said, in the aftermath of the EPA chief’s punishing congressional hearing last week.

According to the story, which an EPA spokesperson denied the accuracy of, the member of Pruitt’s press team believed Zinke’s staff was poised to “leak damaging information about the EPA, as part of a rivalry between Zinke and Pruitt.”

Abboud, the story goes, therefore tried to defend Pruitt by beating his rivals at the other cabinet agency to the punch.

It’s not altogether clear what, if anything, Pruitt knew about the scheme, but a White House official with knowledge of the events told The Atlantic, “Absolutely nothing Scott Pruitt did would surprise me.”

At a certain level, I can appreciate why much of the public would look past a story like this. After all, it involves allegations from dueling press teams. Click-bait, it isn’t.

Indeed, I imagine some cynics might assume cutthroat D.C. politics features back-stabbing tactics like these all of the time.

But reports like these are important because they serve as a reminder of a larger truth: the level of dysfunction surrounding the Trump administration isn’t normal. It fact, it’s ridiculous and kind of scary given the importance of the administration’s power and responsibilities.

Stories like these don’t reflect business as usual in the nation’s capital; they point to a governing dynamic that’s far dumber than it should be.

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Solar panels on farmland stir debate in central Washington

Miami Herald

Solar panels on farmland stir debate in central Washington

By Hal Bernton, The Seattle Times May 5, 2018

In this March 20, 2018 photo, farmer Jackie Brunson, right, walks with Tuusso Energy co-founder Jason Evans, whose project would place photovoltaic panels on some of the Brunson land and property belonging to three other Kittitas County landowners, in Ellensburg, Wash. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

Seattle: After decades of growing alfalfa, Timothy hay and other crops, Jeff and Jackie Brunson want to lease part of their farm to a Seattle-based solar-power developer.

Not a popular move. Neighbors and other county residents don’t want the green of summer fields transformed into a black expanse of photovoltaic panels.

“They aren’t happy. But it is a business decision we have made, and we don’t regret it one iota,” said Jackie Brunson. “We owe nobody a view. It’s our farm, and it’s a great way to diversify.”

As proposed by Seattle-based Tuusso Energy, the photovoltaic panels would spread across more than 80 of the Brunsons’ 1,000 acres, and another 120 acres owned by three other Ellensburg-area landowners. If approved, this would be one of the first solar farms to come on line in Washington — and for some, an unwelcome precedent for turning crop land over to solar-energy production.

In this case, the solar panels would sit on less than a half percent of Kittitas County’s 180,000 farm acres. Still, opponents worry that a project here, combined with a rising demand for clean energy such as solar, will swallow up whole swaths of agricultural land that produce the crops and livestock that underpin the county economy.

“These projects should not be on ag land. There are plenty of other places in the county where they can go,” said Richard Carkner, Brunson’s neighbor and a founder of Save Our Farms, a nonprofit formed to oppose the development.

Such concerns prompted county commissioners to reject an earlier solar project proposed for farmland and approve a moratorium for permits for all new ones.

Developers say predictions of solar sprawl are overblown, and that county delays put the project at risk.

They have asked the state to override the county moratorium, and on April 17 they achieved initial success when the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council approved an expedited review of the Tuusso project. Council members now have two months to make a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee, who has the final say.

“We are excited about the decision,” said Jason Evans, co-founder of Tuusso Energy. “If everything goes well, we could be breaking ground by the end of the year.”

County commissioners had hoped the state council would stay out of the permitting.

“The process really takes away the voice of the local government and the local citizens and local control of what the land is going to look like,” said Laura Osiadacz, a county commissioner. “It is a very disappointing decision for the residents of Kittitas County.”

The Kittitas County clash is part of a broader battle over solar siting, one that has escalated in recent years as developers fan out across the country in search of prime locations. Their projects range from a few dozen acres to mega-solar farms like Topaz, which spreads over 6,400 acres in San Luis Obispo County in California.

The industry’s dramatic expansion has been buoyed by favorable government policies and incentives and growing consumer demand for cleaner sources of electricity.

Developers also have benefited from huge declines in the prices of photovoltaic panels, which use silicon, an element found in sand, to convert sunlight into electricity. From 2010 through 2017, the average project costs plummeted by about 80 percent, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In 2017, these solar projects generated about 2 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Solar’s share of the power market is expected to grow.

Even with the 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels announced this year by President Donald Trump, solar projects can be built for far less money than in years past.

“We have seen panels get more efficient, and a lot more inexpensive,” said Evans, who co-founded Tuusso Energy back in 2008, and through the past decade has helped to bring on five solar projects in four states.

But some developers have faced resistance for projects that typically involve tens or hundreds of thousands of photovoltaic panels.

In Oregon, for example, the state land-use board last year overturned Jackson County’s approval of an 80-acre project on farmland.

In North Carolina’s Currituck County, where two projects have been placed on 2,260 acres of farm land, neighbors complained about noise and dust during construction and poor maintenance that allowed weeds to sprout among the solar panels. These issues, along with concerns about farmland loss, helped persuade county commissioners in February 2017 to ban new solar developments, according to Laurie LoCicero, the county planning director.

In Washington, solar has largely been confined to rooftop installations on homes and businesses, and a small demonstration project at a Puget Sound Energy (PSE) site in Kittitas County.

Most renewable-energy development during the past two decades has focused on wind power. These projects, at times, also have faced pushback in Kittitas County, which is just over the Cascade divide from the Puget Sound region.

Then-Gov. Christine Gregoire in 2007 approved the Horizon Wind project that had been turned down by county commissioners. In a legal challenges, plaintiffs argued that the turbines, visible for miles, would spoil a scenic view shed and violate local ordinances, but the state Supreme Court allowed the project to go forward.

In Washington, wind power development has slowed, with many of the prime ridge-top and other sites already claimed.

Unless PSE and other utilities venture farther afield to prime wind states like Montana, the future here is likely to include a lot more solar power. In a recent planning document, PSE tagged Eastern Washington solar as the cheapest renewable option, and forecast buying up to 266 megawatts of power from solar producers by 2023.

Tuusso’s project — known as Columbia Solar — would meet only a small part of that demand. The sites selected — and leased for 30 years — would collectively produce 25 megawatts of power.

The project would provide enough electricity for about 1,000 homes, according to Evans. The panels would sit about 8 feet high, and trees and shrubs would be planted to help screen them from view.

The project is estimated to cost $40 million to $50 million, and is made possible by a 1978 federal law — the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act — that requires PSE to buy the electricity at a price equal to or less than the cost from a traditional power plant.

In Kittitas County, Tuusso Energy has found some support, including from the Chamber of Commerce board, which voted unanimously to endorse the project.

“The feeling was that we do have to transition away from carbon fuels at some point, and solar is a good way to do it,” said Jim Armstrong, the chamber’s executive director.

County critics say they are not against solar energy, but that farmland — under the state’s Growth Management Act — is supposed to be protected.

Carkner, a retired agricultural economist, says each planted acre helps support the broader community as farmers purchase seed, fertilizer, tractors and other merchandise from local merchants, and spend their earnings in town.

So Carkner wants projects placed in more remote, undeveloped parts of the county, some of which, he said, have the three-phase electrical lines needed to handle the power produced by photovoltaic panels.

Tuusso did initially look at such land but could find no suitable sites with the three-phase transmission network in place, according to Evans. It would be possible for a large solar project to build a three-transmission network in these out-of-the-way locations. But for a smaller project, such as Columbia Solar, Evans says such development would add millions of dollars in costs and scuttle profitability.

The economics look a lot better in the irrigated agricultural zone, where an extensive three-phase transmission system already is in place, according to Evans.

But even in this farm belt, the transmission system is limited, and would largely be tapped out once photovoltaic panels were placed on some 400 acres of farmland, according to Evans. Thus, he said concerns that county farmland would be overrun by solar photovoltaic panels are unjustified.

If Columbia Solar gets a green light from Inslee, opponents still may opt to pursue a legal challenge.

But if all goes according to plan, the alfalfa and seed oats now growing in two of the Brunsons’ fields be replaced next year by some 35,000 photovoltaic panels.

Jeff Brunson figures that, even on these lands, he still will be farming.

“The sun raises my crops right now, and the sun is going to raise them in the future,” Brunson said.

In this March 20, 2018 photo, Ellensburg landowner and Microsoft employee Jay Pittenger stands on his land that Tuusso Energy wants to lease for a solar farm, in Ellensburg, Wash. The tract has not been used to grow crops. It is one of five sites, belonging to four different landowners, where Tuusso Energy wants to put solar panels. The proposed solar farm has stirred controversy in the county, as did a ridge-top wind farm shown in the distance. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

This March 20, 2018 photo shows Jeff and Jackie Brunson’s land near Ellensburg, Wash. The couple, who farm about 1,000 acres plan to lease out more than 80 acres of their land for a solar farm. If the plan is approved, solar panels would cover that property, including the parcel shown here, which is bordered by trees at left, Highway 97 in the distance and Tjossem Road at right. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

In this March 20, 2018 photo, Jeff Brunson jumps a ditch by a 100-acre field he is seeding with Timothy hay, in Ellensburg, Wash. He and his wife want to diversify by leasing some of their Kittitas County land to a solar-energy developer while continuing to farm most of their 1,000 acres. The state is considering whether to allow the project. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

In this March 20, 2018 photo, farmers Jackie and Jeff Brunson speak about hearing complaints from neighbors and others who don’t want farmland used for energy development, in Ellensburg, Wash. The Seattle Times via AP Steve Ringman

Oh Lordy!

John Hanno May 4, 2018

Oh Lordy!

Note to trump base. I won’t say I told you so, or actually “we” won’t say we told you so because thousands, more like many millions, pleaded with you to not vote for trump. But you went and done it anyway. You couldn’t force yourself to vote for a “woman,” even one as competent as Hillary. I realize you’re really pissed that America elected the first black president in history, and you’re all really ticked that he was so accomplished. You called him an elite, or much worse, and relished when all the old white Republi-cons in congress promised to block anything Obama proposed, to steer America back from the abyss or to solve America’s health care crisis, and righteously told yourselves, still to this day, he was unfit to be president. Well, this is where I point out the monumental hypocrisy associated with that kind of absurd reasoning. trump has proven, way beyond all of our worst fears, that he’s the most unfit president anyone still alive has witnessed. But apparently none of this trump world chaos, corruption, deception, self dealing, treasonous conduct and utter incompetence, sparks any outrage within your conservative christian ethos.

Maybe you’re part of those unfazed rabid base of supporters, trump uses to run roughshod over the cowardly Republi-cons in congress, the ones who still think trump’s doing a fantastic job. trump said he could shoot someone dead in times square and those voters would still stand with him. He’s right for once; there could be a video of that shooting, dozens of eye witnesses claiming trump pulled the trigger and a signed confession from trump, but then a day or two latter, trump could recant and claim it was all fake news and those diehards, like yourself, would believe him without a single doubt.

Its impossible to convince these folks of anything not propagandized through the trump / Fox State News Media. Many have tried reasoning with these folks; Michael Moore spent a whole chapter in a book trying to sway these low information voters from their jaundiced ideologies. Unfortunately, any Republican with common sense, fondness for facts and the truth, adherence to reality, and a notion of integrity, has either left the party or was long ago exiled to history.

There really is no Republican party left. One half of our two party system, is now a conglomeration of un-conservative self absorbed millionaires, billionaires and predatory capitalists, congressional and state legislative self serving sycophants, and this unaffected, mostly Evangelical, 30% of the voting electorate, who’s willing to sacrifice their party for that one last chance of white Christian autonomy offered by self dealing flim flamers like trump. Regrettably, they and you are stuck on the trump tarbaby and quite willing to persevere right to whatever end Prosecutor Robert Mueller has in store.

They, you, seem to relish every crazy trump tweet; the more outrageous, the better. I guess it doesn’t bother you when he still spends weeks and months ridiculing Hillary, James “Oh Lordy” Comey and dozens of other dedicated career civil servants with his tweets and is perfectly willing to destroy someone’s career at the drop of a tweet.

It’s not just the constant petty and inane tweets, which embarrasses himself, his family, his supporters, his party, and all of America; he takes fighting down to a new “low” level. More like a school-yard bully instead of an ethical world leader.

Can you remember when the biggest scandal Obama was accused of was when he wore that tan suit to a press conference. Folks were so outraged, they sent more than 4,000 tweets during the appearance alone.

I can’t think of a single trump cabinet member who hasn’t been caught in a scandal and some like EPA Director Scott Pruitt have challenged journalists and the media to try and keep up with his daily malfeasance.

You do realize there wasn’t a single scandal during Obama’s entire eight years in the White House. But as talented as he was, I think if he had tried his darnedest to find and hire criminal, conflicted and toxic employees to fill his cabinet, he still couldn’t have outdone trump’s unintended human resources buffoonery. More than 60 of trump’s best and brightest have cycled through this administration. And the few who tried to rain in his worst instincts and inclinations were quickly fired. He chooses people based on their fealty to him and not on qualifications or fitness for a job.

King donald proposes hair brained programs based on speculation and conspiracy theories, and without any input from the Democrats or Independents, who together represent a large majority of the country, and without even collaborating with his own cabinet. Then these half baked ideas are either struck down in the courts or have to be rolled back because of strong public opposition and protests. From health care legislation, to immigration, to trade, to assaults on the environment and even to their tax reform scam, this incompetent administration hasn’t a clue of how to govern responsibly or effectively.

Even stumbling into a détente with the North Koreans, realized by Kim’s Jong-un’s desperation, pressure from the Chinese and the South Korean’s bold initiatives, trump couldn’t help taking full credit for the authentic leadership displayed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in. trump and his numb-skull sycophants have already floated the possibility of a Nobel Peace Prize for trump. I can’t help but think any chance at denuclearizing North Korea and a peace agreement deal that trump might attempt to negotiate, would have to include a trump hotel or golf course somewhere on the Korean peninsula. I think the Koreans should really settle their own peace accord and keep trump out of it.

President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, met in the Demilitarized Zone last week. Credit: Pool photo, NYT

I can’t count the times trump bragged, “I’m the law and order candidate.” Yet his daily rant’s against our Departments of Justice and Intelligence and our courts proves he’s the most anti law and order president in history.

With attorney Michael Avenatti’s help, the latest presidential calamity threatens to speed up the resolution of America’s constitutional nightmare. trump’s new lawyer, Loony Giuliani said Wednesday that Trump repaid his personal attorney Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, directly contradicting the president’s and Cohen’s past statements. This after months of trump denying he knew anything about the Stormy Daniels affair at all. As most of us have known all along, trump’s been lying to anyone within earshot for the last year and a half. But maybe being lied to daily doesn’t bother you or trump’s unflinching base.

As Robert Mueller hinted, its quite probable trump will be ordered to testify before a Grand Jury, where all his past lies, deceptions and criminal conduct will be once and forever exposed and then probably leaked to the public by trump himself. Will you finally admit you were wrong for ignoring this Presidential degradation?

What will you tell your grandchildren when they ask what you did to resist trump’s assault on our Democratic principles and institutions?

John Hanno, tarbabys.com