Month: March 2021

Footage Of Australia’s Massive Mouse Plague Will Haunt Your Nightmares

Footage Of Australia’s Massive Mouse Plague Will Haunt Your Nightmares

Ed Mazza, Overnight Editor                        

Parts of Australia are battling a “plague” of rodents.

Large rural portions of inland New South Wales and Queensland are being overrun by millions of mice, which have taken over farmland, homes, stores, hospitals and cars. They’re also eating everything in sight.

Reuters reported that the region’s bumper grain crop led to the surge in rodents.

“You can imagine that every time you open a cupboard, every time you go to your pantry, there are mice present,” rodent expert Steve Henry told the wire service. “And they’re eating into your food containers, they’re fouling your clean linen in your linen cupboard, they’re running across your bed at night.”

They’re also leaving behind haunting videos and images:

At one farm, the mice ate through hundreds of thousands of dollars of hay bales, reducing them to mounds of dust in a matter of weeks.

“It’s a real kick in the guts,” farmer Rowena Macrae of Coonamble told Queensland Country Life. “It’s so very hard to watch.”

“They stink whether they are alive or dead, you can’t escape the smell sometimes,” Pip Goldsmith of Coonamble, who has trapped thousands of mice, told The Guardian Australia. “It’s oppressive, but we are resilient.”

Lisa Gore of Toowoomba told the newspaper that her 12-year-old son caught 183 in a single night.

“It’s like his job at the moment,” she said. “He is very proud of himself.”

Local reports said the mouse population continues to grow and efforts to poison the rodents had started to backfire as dead critters were turning up in water tanks. One homeowner in Elong Elong investigating a water blockage encountered a “revolting” smell, according to Australia’s ABC News.

“We always filter the water going into our house from the tanks so for us, personally, we feel we’ve covered our precautions so we didn’t notice anything with the taste,” Louise Hennessy told the news agency. “But the smell of the mice at the top of the tank was so disgusting.”

Public health authorities are now warning of the potential for bacteria in the water if dead mice remain in the tanks.

Authorities said a drop in temperature or a heavy rainfall could wipe out most of the mice at any time.

Women Are More Likely To Have COVID Vaccine Side Effects Than Men. Fun!

Women Are More Likely To Have COVID Vaccine Side Effects Than Men. Fun!

Asia Ewart                       March 22, 2021

 

A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has concluded that women are more likely to experience side effects after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. According to the “First Month of COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Monitoring” study published last month, 79% of reports of the more serious symptoms caused by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines came from women.

The month long study followed the first 13,794,904 Americans who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, noting how they reacted to the shots from December 14, 2020, to January 13, 2021. People reported symptoms using the vaccine adverse event reporting system, or VAERS, for the study; the VAERS system also monitored the vaccine’s effect on the body. During this time, the most frequent side effects reported were headache, fatigue, and dizziness, along with 62 cases of anaphylaxis. One hundred and thirteen total deaths were also reported by the study’s end, including 78 among long-term care facility residents taking part. By the end of the study, it was found the vaccine’s side effects were overwhelmingly reported by women. Only 62.1% of the actual study participants were women.

Experts have pointed to differences in immune systems between men and women as a reason why one sex reported more symptoms. “We see more autoimmune diseases in women than we do in men and we know the effects of pregnancy on the immune system can be significant,” David Wohl, MD, an infectious diseases physician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, told ABC7 on Saturday. He also explained that women are more likely to report their symptoms to a medical professional compared to men.

Microbiologist and immunologist Sabra Klein, PhD, who works at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, echoed the “sex difference” in how people are affected by vaccines in The New York Times earlier this month, stating that it was “completely consistent with past reports of other vaccines.” She also noted that “there is value to preparing women that they may experience more adverse reactions. That is normal, and likely reflective of their immune system working.”

Since the study’s end, Johnson & Johnson’s COVID – 19 vaccine has been given approval for usage in the U.S., and AstraZeneca is applying for approval in April. Vaccine eligibility currently varies by state, but many frontline workers, public-facing government and other employees, and people over the age of 60 are among those being given priority. President Joe Biden announced earlier this month that all adults in the U.S. would be eligible to be vaccinated by May 1 in an effort to get the country largely back to “normal” by July 4.

What is the filibuster? A look at the Senate’s consequential quirk and debate on its future

USA Today

What is the filibuster? A look at the Senate’s consequential quirk and debate on its future

Matthew Brown                                   March 20, 2021

 

WASHINGTON – Democrats have unified control of Congress and the White House for the first time in a decade, an opportunity the party wants to use to enact an ambitious agenda of stronger labor laws, expanded health care and sweeping packages on infrastructure, climate change and voting rights.

The fate of that agenda – and any legislation passed in Congress – hinges on a rule of the Senate that requires 60 votes to end debate before a simple majority can pass any bill.

The filibuster, once an obscure procedure, has been increasingly used to stall priorities of the majority coalition, most notably on issues relating to race and civil rights. When senators have been at their most intransigent, majority parties have created filibuster exceptions for key areas of legislating, including for executive and judicial appointments.

Now, as a 50-50 Senate split puts the fate of Democrats’ priorities in the balance, many in the party call on the Senate to abolish the practice .

“The filibuster is still making a mockery of American democracy,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said during a floor speech March 10.

“The filibuster is still being misused by some senators to block legislation urgently needed and supported by a strong majority of the American people,” he argued.

Joe Biden, a longtime senator before he was elected president, expressed openness to changing the practice, which allows senators to talk on the floor to delay legislation, often for hours.

“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster; you have to do it, what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden said Wednesday during an interview with ABC News. “You had to stand up and command the floor, and you had to keep talking.”

Defenders, including Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., argued the supermajority rule requiring at least 60 votes to overcome a filibuster encourages bipartisan compromise and general decorum of the Senate. Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the filibuster protects the rights of the minority party.

McConnell warned Tuesday that removing the filibuster would lead to a “completely scorched earth Senate,” cautioning that when Republicans again held the majority, they would pass an expansive conservative agenda, and Democrats would have little recourse to stop them.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warns Democrats not to tamper with the filibuster.

“If I became skeptical of the filibuster, it’s because of your use of it,” Durbin told McConnell, saying the Kentucky Republican “can’t have it both ways. It can’t be a rare procedure and be a procedure that dominates the actual business of the Senate as this has done for so many years.”

Much of the modern debate about the filibuster centers on the merits of different governing philosophies, long-standing norms and cold political calculus. The origins of the supermajority threshold were much more accidental.

Realized as a quirk of Senate rules, it has since been entrenched through precedent. Here is how American politics reached this pivotal moment.

What is a filibuster?

A filibuster is a practice whereby any lawmaker can stall action by extending debate or using other tactics. Such strategies are as old as representative democracy – in 60 B.C., Cato the Younger effectively filibustered the Roman Senate.

The word “filibuster” has its origins in piracy. Dutch, French and Spanish all share words referring to “vribuyter,” “flibutier” and “filibustero,” or pirates who would plunder ships and colonies. The word was eventually imported into English as “flee-booter,” meaning a pirate who steals loot or “booty.”

By the 19th century, flee-booters had become “filibusters.” The word became an insult in Congress, where politicians accused lawmakers who held up legislation with a filibuster of effectively raiding the Senate.

The American filibuster is 215 years old

The filibuster as a legislative tool was accidentally created in 1806,when the Senate, at the urging of Vice President Aaron Burr a year before, eliminated the “previous question” motion, a rarely used rule that allowed the Senate to vote to move on from an issue being debated. That unexpectedly opened the door for senators to continue debate on a topic indefinitely – the filibuster.

It wasn’t regularly used until the mid-19th century, when senators used the tactic to stonewall debate over the limiting or abolition of slavery. There was no procedure to end a filibuster, so pro-slavery politicians such as Sen. John Calhoun of South Carolina stifled abolitionist and “free soil” measures against slavery’s expansion with impunity.

The filibuster was effectively limited only by Senate norms and the personal relationships between lawmakers until 1917, when the Senate enacted the cloture rule. The rule, passed to support the American war effort in World War I, allowed two-thirds of senators to end debate on a topic.

Sen. Strom Thurmond set the record for longest filibuster in 1957.

The filibuster was infrequently used and often overruled by the governing coalition. The exception during the 20th century was civil rights law. Southern senators supportive of the Jim Crow system of racial segregation and white supremacy used the filibuster to vehemently oppose any expansion of educational, economic or voting rights for Black Americans.

The longest filibuster in U.S. history was South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond’s filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957; he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition. Thurmond and other Southern senators stalled the bill’s passage from March to June 1957.

Senators also filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for two months until 71 senators came together for a cloture vote.

The evolution of the modern filibuster

Recent decades have seen the filibuster’s influence over all types of legislation grow, causing frustrated majorities to create exceptions for when the practice can be used.

In 1975, the number of votes needed to invoke cloture was brought down to 60 votes. Later years brought minor limits on debate after a filibuster was ended.

The 1970s also saw the Senate adopt rules that allowed a senator to filibuster one topic while the chamber moved on to different business.  The change, on top of the growing policy divisions between the two major parties and the increasing fragility of congressional majorities, caused the filibuster to be used for all types of Senate proceedings.

Starting in the 1990s, the filibuster progressively became a tool of the minority party to thwart the policy ambitions of the majority.

President Bill Clinton’s health care package was stalled by filibusters, frustrating the White House so much it debated ending the rule. During the George W. Bush administration, Democrats used the filibuster to stop judicial nominees they saw as too radical.

In 2013, after Republicans stonewalled any judicial nominee from President Barack Obama, the Democratic Senate eliminated the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold for the confirmation of lower court judges. Obama said the move was necessary to overcome “an unprecedented pattern of obstruction” from the opposition.

In 2017, Republicans expanded the judicial carve-out for the filibuster to include Supreme Court confirmations, clearing the way for Justice Neil Gorsuch to ascend to the high court.

The Senate has two ways to get around the modern filibuster: a “unanimous consent” motion and budget reconciliation. For a unanimous consent vote, all senators are asked if there are any objections to any debate on a given bill. If any senator objects, debate continues.

In budget reconciliation, a bill may be passed with a simple majority if all its provisions relate to the federal budget. This process was used to pass the American Rescue Plan, Democrats’ $1.9 trillion spending package to help people struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.

Future of the filibuster

At the start of 2021, McConnell pressured Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to promise to protect the legislative filibuster before Republicans would approve the rules to govern the new Congress. McConnell did so by effectively filibustering the rules package.

Manchin and Sinema allayed McConnell’s concerns, when they promised they would not vote to abolish the supermajority threshold.

The episode summed up the current dynamic: Senior Democratic leaders see the rule as a stranglehold on their agenda, and governing in general. The pressure to pass at least some of the party’s top priorities pushes Democratic leaders to call for filibuster changes.

“There’s no way under the sun that in 2021 that we are going to allow the filibuster to be used to deny voting rights. That just ain’t gonna happen. That would be catastrophic,” Democratic Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said March 7, directly calling out Manchin and Sinema.

Moderates have been difficult to read on the issue. Manchin, who briefly expressed openness to changing the filibuster, quickly backtracked and emphasized he would “never” change the rule.

Some Democrats on Capitol Hill are biding their time, assuming Republicans will force the issue by not compromising on any of Biden’s policy priorities. “If the Republicans block S. 1, that will turn up the heat on taking away Mitch McConnell’s veto,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D- Mass., claimed, referring to the For the People voting rights bill.

Though the highly polarized Senate and anxious desire among many Democrats to fulfill their campaign promises point to a dim future for the filibuster, some senators have begun trying to pull the chamber back from the brink.

“It’s something the group of 20 of us, 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats, will discuss tomorrow and decide whether we take this up. Or whether instead, we focus on the minimum wage,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told Politico in his outline of a new centrist coalition trying to cooperate on bills.

Whatever senators conclude is the best path forward regarding the filibuster, the upper chamber has entered a political era reflective of the nation its lawmakers represent: closely divided, hyper-polarized and anxious about its future.

Strong reaction to first COVID-19 vaccine may signal previous infection, experts say

Strong reaction to first COVID-19 vaccine may signal previous infection, experts say

Here's what a strong reaction to the first COVID-19 vaccine shot means. (Photo: Getty Images)
Here’s what a strong reaction to the first COVID-19 vaccine shot means. (Photo: Getty Images)

 

With over 40 million Americans now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, it’s no secret that the shots can lead to unpleasant side effects such as fever, headache, body aches and fatigue. But while initial research suggested that individuals were more likely to experience these symptoms after the second dose, experts now say that those who previously had COVID-19 — whether knowingly or not — may end up reacting more strongly to the first dose.

One study released in early February from Bar-Ilan University in Israel found that the immune response created after the first dose of vaccine in those who previously had COVID-19 was “so effective” that it “opens the debate as to whether one dose of the vaccine may suffice.” Another study published in the Lancet found a 140-fold increase in antibodies after the first vaccine among those who had previously had a COVID-19 infection versus those who hadn’t.

Dr. Erin Morcomb, a family medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, Wis., and head of its COVID-19 vaccination team, confirms that the reactions can vary based on your health history. “What we’ve seen in studies is that the second dose does tend to have a little bit more potential to cause side effects than the first dose, but for people who have had COVID-19 infection previously and then recovered, they are at higher risk of having those same side effects after their first dose,” she says.

The reason, she explains, is that those who developed the infection previously have an immune system that is already primed to fight it off. “After they’ve had their COVID-19 active infection, they’ve made some antibodies themselves in their body to the national infection,” Morcomb says. “Then when they get their first dose, their body is already recognizing that they have some antibodies and they can make a really robust immune response to that first dose of vaccine.”

She notes that those who had treatment with monoclonal antibodies need to wait 90 days before getting the vaccine as they can “block the immune system for making a good response to the vaccine.”

For those who haven’t had COVID-19, the first shot of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine ends up serving as the body’s introduction to the virus. That’s why the second dose, in those who haven’t had COVID-19, can often cause a big reaction. “This time, the body recognizes it like, ‘Hey, I’ve seen this before,'” says Morcomb. “And then it really tries to ramp up the immune response.”

To be sure, that’s not to say that those who don’t have side effects should be concerned. Morcomb says there is no research suggesting that the absence of side effects is an indicator that the vaccine isn’t working. “For some reason [some individuals], their bodies just don’t show the side effects as much,” she says. “So it’s not like an absolute rule that just because you had COVID, you’re going to have side effects, because it doesn’t happen in everybody. And those people should still be reassured that they’re making a good immune response to the vaccine.”

As for how soon after a COVID-19 infection individuals can get vaccinated, she says there’s good news there as well. “Initially we had recommended waiting 90 days from a COVID infection to get the vaccine but that actually isn’t necessary — there’s not a decreased effectiveness of the vaccine if you get it before that,” she says. “So here we are recommending that once people come off of their quarantine — so 14 days — that they get their shot then.”

Electric Semi Trucks Are Actually Cheaper Per Mile Than Diesel Trucks, Report Finds

EcoWatch – Electric Vehicles

Electric Semi Trucks Are Actually Cheaper Per Mile Than Diesel Trucks, Report Finds

Climate Nexus                      March 17, 2021

Electric Semi Trucks Are Actually Cheaper Per Mile Than Diesel Trucks, Report Finds
Diesel trucks are seen driving along a U.S. highway. Lumigraphics / Getty Images

 

Heavy duty electric trucks (a.k.a. semis) cost so much less to operate per mile than diesel-powered trucks at today’s prices that they would pay for themselves in just three years, according to a new report by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UCLA, and UC-Berkeley.

Electrifying heavy-duty trucks would substantially improve air quality.

Semis account for just 11% of vehicles on the road, but more than half of carbon pollution and 71% of deadly particulate pollution.

At today’s costs, electric semis could cost 13% less per mile than a comparable diesel-powered truck, and could cost just half as much per mile by 2030 with the right mix of policy.

For a deeper dive:

E&E, The Detroit Bureau; Commentary: Forbes, Silvio Marcacci op-ed

Regenerative agriculture is the next great ally in fight against climate change

Regenerative agriculture is the next great ally in fight against climate change

Nancy Pfund                         March 11, 2021

It seems that every week a new agribusiness, consumer packaged goods company, bank, technology corporation, celebrity or Facebook friend announces support for regenerative agriculture.

For those of us who have been working on climate and/or agriculture solutions for the last couple of decades, this is both exciting and worrisome.

With the rush to be a part of something so important, the details and hard work, the incremental advancements and wins, as well as the big, hairy problems that remain can be overlooked or forgotten. When so many are swinging for the fences, it’s easy to forget that singles and doubles usually win the game.

As a managing partner and founder of DBL Partners, I have specifically sought out companies to invest in that not only have winning business models but also solve the planet’s biggest problems. I believe that agriculture can be a leading climate solution while feeding a growing population.

At the same time, I want to temper the hype, refocus the conversation and use the example of agriculture to forge a productive template for all business sectors with carbon habits to fight climate change.

First, let’s define regenerative agriculture: It encompasses practices such as cover cropping and conservation tillage that, among other things, build soil health, enhance water retention, and sequester and abate carbon.

The broad excitement around regenerative agriculture is tied to its potential to mitigate climate impact at scale. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine estimates that soil sequestration has the potential to eliminate over 250 million metric tons of CO2 per year, equivalent to 5% of U.S. emissions.

It is important to remember that regenerative practices are not new. Conservationists have advocated for cover cropping and reduced tillage for decades, and farmers have led the charge.

The reason these practices are newly revered today is that, when executed at scale, with the heft of new technology and innovation, they have demonstrated agriculture’s potential to lead the fight against climate change.

So how do we empower farmers in this carbon fight?

Today, offset markets get the majority of the attention. Multiple private, voluntary markets for soil carbon have appeared in the last couple of years, mostly supported by corporations driven by carbon neutrality commitments to offset their carbon emissions with credit purchases.

Offset markets are a key step toward making agriculture a catalyst for a large-scale climate solution; organizations that support private carbon markets build capacity and the economic incentive to reduce emissions.

“Farming carbon” will drive demand for regenerative finance mechanisms, data analytics tools and new technology like nitrogen-fixing biologicals — all imperatives to maximize the adoption and impact of regenerative practices and spur innovation and entrepreneurship.

It’s these advancements, and not the carbon credit offsets themselves, that will permanently reduce agriculture emissions.

Offsets are a start, but they are only part of the solution. Whether generated by forestry, renewable energy, transportation or agriculture, offsets must be purchased by organizations year after year, and do not necessarily reduce a buyer’s footprint.

Inevitably, each business sector needs to decarbonize its footprint directly or create “insets” by lowering the emissions within its supply chain. The challenge is, this is not yet economically viable or logistically feasible for every organization.

For organizations that purchase and process agricultural products — from food companies to renewable fuel producers — soil carbon offsets can indirectly reduce emissions immediately while also funding strategies that directly reduce emissions permanently, starting at the farm.

DBL invests in ag companies that work on both sides of this coin: facilitating soil carbon offset generation and establishing a credit market while also building fundamentally more efficient and less carbon-intensive agribusiness supply chains.

This approach is a smart investment for agriculture players looking to reduce their climate impact. The business model also creates demand for environmental services from farmers with real staying power.

Way back in 2006, when DBL first invested in Tesla, we had no idea we would be helping to create a worldwide movement to unhinge transportation from fossil fuels.

Now, it’s agriculture’s turn. Backed by innovations in science, big data, financing and farmer networking, investing in regenerative agriculture promises to slash farming’s carbon footprint while rewarding farmers for their stewardship.

Future generations will reap the benefits of this transition, all the while asking, “What took so long?”

Goodbye, Organic; Hello, ‘Regen-Certified’—Ready for the Newest Label on Store Shelves?

Goodbye, Organic; Hello, ‘Regen-Certified’—Ready for the Newest Label on Store Shelves?

Karn Manhas                         March 9, 2021

Now that they’re spending more time at home, my young nieces have gotten into cooking and gardening. Just the other day, they called to grill me on pesticides in fruits and vegetables, and “the Dirty Dozen”—a list designed to generate awareness around pesticides in food. “Uncle Karn,” they asked, “how important is it to buy organic strawberries? What about bananas?”

This got me thinking. For many of us, the organic certification label has become a touchstone we look for to help us choose what’s good for us. Indeed, “organic” has influenced an entire generation of shoppers’ food choices.

But is it enough?

As important as the organic designation has been, it leaves a critical part of the agricultural puzzle unaddressed. We may know that our kale has been grown without certain synthetic chemicals. But how do we know if it’s been cultivated in a way that restores the planet, strengthens food security or fights climate change?

For many people, these questions are more important than ever. But to know the answers, we’d need a new label entirely, one that speaks to a farming philosophy that’s gaining widespread traction, exactly when it’s needed most: regenerative agriculture.

Regenerative Agriculture 101

So, what is it? Regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming that gives back to the land. Practices like cover crops, reduced tillage and diverse crop rotations are regenerative because they can take carbon out of the air and reinvest it back into the soil. The result is heartier soil, dense in nutrients. As the soil grows richer, crops grow healthier, boosting yields for farmers.

This stands in contrast to conventional farming methods, from mono-cropping to tilling, that strip the soil of the nutrients required to grow healthy plants. Farmers then must rely on inputs like pesticides and fertilizers to ensure crops survive. This system, which we’ve embraced for much of the last century, has now reached a point of diminishing returns, requiring ever more inputs simply to sustain yields.

But there’s another critical virtue to regenerative agriculture: Pulling carbon out of the air and into the soil is a powerful means of addressing climate change. Indeed, some studies suggest that farmland and rangelands could sequester over 600 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere. The potential of regenerative agriculture is getting attention from leaders, like U.S. President Joe Biden and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, as one solution for curbing the climate crisis.

Ultimately, regenerative agriculture aspires to be more than sustainable: The goal is to leave the earth better than we found it, setting in motion a virtuous cycle of healthier soil, healthier plants, healthier people and healthier ecosystems.

Jumpstarting the Regenerative Revolution

While the benefits of moving to regenerative agriculture practices are clear, awareness is just blossoming. And this is precisely where advocates can borrow from the organic playbook. After all, even 25 years ago, “organic” remained a niche distinction, understood and championed by a relative few. But by showing not just consumers but farmers, corporations and governments alike the upsides of embracing organic foods, these advocates jumpstarted a revolution.

Regenerative agriculture now needs to show these same stakeholders that the approach can be a win-win.

Consumers are already eager for change. The pandemic has driven demand for more sustainable, environmentally friendly and ethical products. One survey found that 83 percent of respondents take the environment into consideration when making purchases. By building awareness around regenerative agriculture as a tool to fight climate change, we can incentivize shoppers to look for regenerative foods the way they look for organic labels.

For farmers, meanwhile, regenerative agriculture promises real returns, minus some of the hurdles posed by organic farming. In the U.S., transitioning to organic requires a hefty upfront investment that many farmers can’t afford. Converting a farm to organic takes a minimum of three years. During that time, farmers often contend with steep losses that are only partly offset by higher market prices. But making the switch to regenerative pays dividends that only grow year-over-year as soil becomes healthier and more productive. A no-till farmer in Ohio, for example, earns a net of $500 more per acre than her peers who use conventional farming techniques.

For organic, the real turning point came with corporate buy in. Costco and Whole Foods were early leaders, but now nearly every grocery chain has organic options. The good news is that major companies are beginning to invest in regenerative farms. In 2019, General Mills, motivated by the business threat of climate change, committed to advance regenerative agricultural practices on one million acres of farmland by 2030. Meanwhile, Cargill has committed funds to promote regenerative systems, and food supplier Tate & Lyle has invested in a sustainable agriculture program.

Better soil, it turns out, is better business.

Earning the Regenerative Label

As more farmers adopt regenerative farming techniques, however, there’s confusion around how their products should be labeled. Some products grown through regenerative practices are labeled sustainable, some organic. A better option would be a clear labeling system that embraces the regenerative distinction. This would help customers identify what to buy, give farmers a guide and accelerate the regenerative movement as a whole.

Options are already emerging. Companies like Patagonia and Dr. Bronner’s have partnered with the organic pioneers at the Rodale Institute to develop the Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) seal: an indication that a product promotes soil health and land management, animal welfare, and farmer and worker fairness. A bunch of grapes at the grocery store might earn the ROC standard if it’s grown using conservation tillage and was picked by farmworkers who were paid a living wage, for example.

While it’s a good start, this system uses the USDA organic certification system as a baseline—which, for all its virtues, is heavily proscriptive. By imposing a set of rules and requirements that dictate how farmers can farm, this system has proved a barrier to adoption in the past.

Instead, we should focus on a system that allows farmers to do what they do best and rewards them for outputs and outcomes, not for process. If their use of regenerative practices increases soil carbon, for example, they should qualify for the regenerative label. That way, farmers could employ the regenerative techniques most accessible and applicable in their context, be that conservation tillage, cover cropping or crop rotation, rather than having to satisfy a laundry list of costly rules.

This will hasten adoption and—as farmers see the benefits for themselves—lead to the wholesale embrace of healthier agricultural practices. Because regenerative agriculture encourages a virtuous cycle, over time, farmers would have less need for inputs like pesticides, fertilizers and antibiotics.

Indeed, this is the real power of regenerative agriculture: It creates its own forward momentum. Not only is it better for the planet, but—as soil health progressively improves—it yields better quality harvests at a better price. Much like electric car adoption is accelerating not only because vehicles are better for the planet but increasingly because they outperform and outprice competitors, so too regenerative agriculture represents a better model, whether the barometer is global health or farmers’ bottom lines. Just as most cars may one day be electric, so might all agriculture one day be regenerative.

In fact, by the time my nieces are grown, I hope their grocery trips won’t involve carefully scanning for a label. I look forward to the day where it’s a given that food is grown using the most economical, productive and healthy approach that leaves the planet better than we found it. Why would we have it any other way?

Karn Manhas is the CEO and founder of Terramera, a global agtech leader fusing science, nature and artificial intelligence to transform how food is grown and the economics of agriculture.

Scientists: Climate-whipped winds pose Great Lakes hazards

Scientists: Climate-whipped winds pose Great Lakes hazards

John Flesher                      

 

 

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Powerful gusts linked to global warming are damaging water quality and creating a hazard for fish in Lake Erie and perhaps elsewhere in the Great Lakes, according to researchers.

Extremely high winds occasionally churn up deep water with low oxygen and high levels of phosphorus in Erie’s central basin and shove it into the shallower western section, creating a hazard for fish and insects on which they feed.

Such events have happened more frequently since 1980 and particularly in recent years, scientists with the University of Guelph said in a paper published last week in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

“As temperatures increase overall, we will get higher winds and larger waves,” said Josef Ackerman, a professor of physical ecology and aquatic sciences with the Canadian university who led the study.

The findings underscore the need to limit phosphorus overloading that fuels algae-like bacterial blooms in Lake Erie’s western basin, he said — an elusive goal despite pledges by Michigan, Ohio and the Canadian province of Ontario to achieve a 40% reduction from 2008 levels by 2025.

“We can’t control the winds but maybe we could double down on our efforts to reduce inputs into the lakes to keep the ecosystems healthy,” Ackerman said. “If so, the winds won’t have as bad an impact.”

Marc Gaden, spokesman for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission who didn’t take part in the study, said it illustrates the complexity of Great Lakes ecosystems and the need for better models that can forecast how weather can disrupt them.

“Any change that’s happening like this needs to be understood by fishery managers who are making decisions on a daily basis about stocking and harvests,” Gaden said Monday.

The report adds to a growing body of scientific evidence that human activity is affecting the Great Lakes in unforeseen ways.

Some nearshore areas have too much phosphorus because of runoff from overfertilized croplands and releases from sewage plants. In others, invasive quagga mussels that were brought to the lakes in ship ballast water are trapping the nutrient in shallow waters.

Yet deeper areas of Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario and eastern Lake Erie are running short of phosphorus needed to feed algae that form a key link in food chains. Again, the mussels are suspected of playing a role.

A February study by University of Minnesota Duluth scientists found that quagga mussels, which filter phosphorus from the water and then excrete it, have become the biggest factor in determining concentrations of the nutrient in all the Great Lakes except Lake Superior.

Meanwhile, climate change resulting from emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane is believed to be warming the lakes and causing heavier storms, which also affect water quality.

Lake Erie, shallowest of the Great Lakes, is deep enough in its central basin to have two distinct temperature levels. The lower, colder level has little oxygen and lots of phosphorus. Low or depleted oxygen, a condition known as hypoxia, can cause fish die-offs.

Unusually strong winds, which usually happen in August, can be powerful enough to propel that unhealthy water into the western basin even though Erie’s prevailing current moves eastward, Ackerman said.

Those extreme events, which formerly happened a couple of times a year, more recently have happened three or four times annually, he said. In the past decade, they’ve increased more than 40 percent. They can alter lake chemistry within hours.

While adult fish can swim away from those low-oxygen, high-phosphorus zones, younger ones might be trapped and die, Ackerman said. Another victim is the mayfly, an important food for prized fish such as perch and walleye.

He said extreme gusts also might have similar effects in other waters that have experienced hypoxia, such as Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay, Lake Michigan’s Green Bay and Muskegon Lake, which opens into Lake Michigan.

Tiny Town, Big Decision: What Are We Willing to Pay to Fight the Rising Sea?

Tiny Town, Big Decision: What Are We Willing to Pay to Fight the Rising Sea?

Christopher Flavelle                        March 15, 2021
An aerial view of Avon, N.C., March 13, 2021. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)
An aerial view of Avon, N.C., March 13, 2021. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)

 

AVON, N.C. — Bobby Outten, a county manager in the Outer Banks, delivered two pieces of bad news at a recent public meeting. Avon, a town with a few hundred full-time residents, desperately needed at least $11 million to stop its main road from washing away. And to help pay for it, Dare County wanted to increase Avon’s property taxes, in some cases by almost 50%.

Homeowners mostly agreed on the urgency of the first part. They were considerably less keen on the second.

People gave Outten their own ideas about who should pay to protect their town: the federal government. The state government. The rest of the county. Tourists. People who rent to tourists. The view for many seemed to be, anyone but them.

Outten kept responding with the same message: There’s nobody coming to the rescue. We have only ourselves.

“We’ve got to act now,” he said.

The risk to tiny Avon from climate change is particularly dire — it is, after all, located on a mere sandbar of an island chain, in a relentlessly rising Atlantic. But people in the town are facing a question that is starting to echo along the U.S. coastline as seas rise and storms intensify. What price can be put on saving a town, a neighborhood, a home where generations have built their lives?

Communities large and small are reaching for different answers. Officials in Miami, Tampa, Houston, San Francisco and elsewhere have borrowed money, raised taxes or increased water bills to help pay for efforts to shield their homes, schools and roads.

Along the Outer Banks — where tourist-friendly beaches are shrinking by more than 14 feet a year in some places, according to the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management — other towns have imposed tax increases similar to the one Avon is considering. On Monday, county officials will vote on whether Avon will join them.

This despite the reality that Avon’s battle is most likely a losing one. At its highest point, the town is just a couple dozen feet above sea level, but most houses, as well as the main road, are along the beachfront.

“Based on the science that I’ve seen for sea-level rise, at some point, the Outer Banks — the way they are today — are not forever,” said David Hallac, superintendent of the national parks in eastern North Carolina, including the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which encompasses the land around Avon. “Exactly when that happens is not clear.”

The Outer Banks have a rich past. Hatteras Island, originally home to members of the Algonquin tribe, is near the site of the so-called lost colony of Roanoke. A few miles north and several centuries later, the Wright brothers flew their first airplane.

And it is the vulnerability to the sea — the very threat Avon is wrestling with today — that, in a twist of fate, helped transform the Outer Banks into a tourist spot, according to Larry Tise, a former director of North Carolina’s Division of Archives and History.

In 1899 a terrible hurricane all but destroyed the islands, and the state decided not to spend money developing them. Land speculators later swooped in, snapping up property and marketing the curious local history to attract tourists.

Today, tourism dominates Avon, a hamlet of T-shirt shops and cedar-shake mansions on stilts lining the oceanfront. A few blocks inland sits a cluster of modest older houses, called the Village, shaded by live oaks, Eastern red cedars and wax myrtles. This is where most of the remaining lifelong Avon residents live.

Audrey Farrow’s grandmother grew up in Avon and met Farrow’s grandfather when he moved to town as a fisherman in the late 1800s. Farrow, who is 74, lives on the same piece of land she, and her mother before her, grew up on.

Standing on her porch last week, Farrow talked about how Avon had changed in her lifetime. Vacationers and buyers of second homes have brought new money but have pushed out locals.

And the ocean itself has changed. The water is now closer, she said, and the flooding more constant. The wind alone now pushes water up the small road where she lives and into her lawn.

“If we’ve had rain with it, then you feel like you’ve got waterfront property,” she said.

From any angle, the reckoning for Avon seems to be drawing nearer.

Over the past decade, hurricanes have caused $65 million in damage to Highway 12, the two-lane road that runs along the Outer Banks and connects Avon and other towns to the mainland. The federal and state governments are spending an additional $155 million to replace a section of Highway 12 with a 2.4-mile bridge, as the road can no longer be protected from the ocean. Hatteras Island has been evacuated five times since 2010.

County officials turned to what is called beach nourishment, which involves dredging sand from the ocean floor a few miles off the coast and then pushing it to shore through a pipeline and layering it on the beach. But those projects can cost tens of millions of dollars. And the county’s requests for federal or state money to pay for them went nowhere.

So the county began using local money instead, splitting the cost between two sources: revenue from a tax on tourists, and a property tax surcharge on local homes. In 2011, Nags Head became the first town in the Outer Banks to get a new beach under that formula. Others followed, including Kitty Hawk in 2017.

Ben Cahoon, the mayor of Nags Head, said that paying $20 million to rebuild the beach every few years was cheaper than buying out all the beachfront homes that would otherwise fall into the sea.

He said he could imagine another two or three cycles of beach nourishment, buying his city 20 or 25 more years. After that, he said, it’s hard to guess what the future holds.

“Beach nourishment is a great solution, as long as you can afford it,” Cahoon said. “The alternative choices are pretty stark.”

Now the county says it’s Avon’s turn. Its beach is disappearing at a rate of more than 6 feet per year in some places.

During the meeting last month, Outten described Avon’s needs. As the beach disappears, even a minor storm sends ocean water across Highway 12. Eventually, a hurricane will push enough water over that road to tear it up, leaving the town inaccessible for weeks or more.

In response, the county wants to put about 1 million cubic yards of sand on the beach. The project would cost between $11 million and $14 million and, according to Outten, would need to be repeated about every five years.

That impermanence, combined with the high cost, has led some in Avon to question whether beach nourishment is worth the money. They point to Buxton, the next town south of Avon, whose beach got new sand in 2018, paid for through higher taxes. Now, most of that sand has washed away, leaving a beachfront motel and vacation rentals teetering over the water.

“Every bit of it’s gone,” Michael David, who grew up in Avon and owns a garage in Buxton, said during last month’s meeting. “We’re just masking a problem that never gets fixed.”

Speaking after the meeting, Outten defended beach nourishment, despite its being temporary. “I don’t think we can stop erosion. I think we can only slow it down,” he said.

In interviews with more than a dozen homeowners in Avon, a frequent concern was how the county wants to divide the cost. People who own property along the beach will benefit the most, Outten said, because the extra sand will protect their homes from falling into the ocean. But he said everyone in town would benefit from saving the road.

To reflect that difference, the county is proposing two tax rates. Homeowners on the ocean side of the road would pay an extra 25 cents for every $100 of assessed value — an increase of 45% over their current tax rate. On the inlet side, the extra tax would be just one-fifth that much.

Sam Eggleston, a retired optometrist who moved to Avon three years ago from outside Raleigh, North Carolina, and bought a house on the western side of town, said even that smaller amount was too much. He said that because Highway 12 is owned by the state, the state should pay to protect it.

If the government wants to help, Eggleston argued, it should pay people to move their houses somewhere else — a solution he said would at least be permanent. “To keep spending millions and millions of dollars on the beach, to me doesn’t make sense,” he said.

That view was not shared by people who live on the beach.

When Carole and Bob Peterson bought a house on the ocean in 1997, it was protected from the water by two rows of huge dunes, Peterson said. Years of storms have washed away those dunes, leaving their 2,800-square-foot home exposed to the water.

Peterson acknowledged that she and her neighbors would benefit the most from rebuilding the beach. But the rest of the town should be willing to pay for it too, she said, because it protects the jobs and services they depend on.

“People that live over there, on that side, don’t understand that the beach is what keeps them alive,” she said, pointing across the road. “If you don’t have this beach, people aren’t going to come here.”

Audrey Farrow’s son, Matthew, a commercial fisherman, said he worried about the future of the place he grew up in. Between the flooding and the demand for vacation homes, which continues to drive up real estate prices, he said, it was getting harder to make a good life in Avon.

“I’m telling my kids already,” Farrow said, “go somewheres else.”

Is Lyme Disease on the Rise?

Is Lyme Disease on the Rise?

Elaine K. Howley                                    March 15, 2021

As spring approaches and the snow recedes, our thoughts may naturally drift to the great outdoors and all the fun exploring and activities to be had in the woods and hills. But lurking among those blades of grass and fallen leaves is an army of small brown insects that could spell trouble for some people.

In particular, a tiny brown insect called Ixodes scapularis could be waiting to make a meal of you. More commonly known as the deer tick or the brown legged tick, this hard-bodied insect that’s about the size of a sesame seed is endemic to much of the United States. It can also be a carrier of a spirochete, a type of bacteria, called Borrelia burgdorferi. That’s the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

Lyme disease occurs when a tick that’s carrying the bacteria bites you. Ticks feed on the blood of a host, and for the deer tick, its primary source of food is deer blood. But human blood works just fine too, if it’s available.

It’s also worth noting that in addition to Lyme disease, ticks can also carry other pathogens that can cause other diseases including:

— Babesiosis. This illness is caused by a parasite that attacks the red blood cells and can lead to low blood pressure, anemia and kidney or liver problems.

— Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Caused by a bacteria, this disease causes flu-like symptoms along with red eyes and a splotchy rash that starts on the ankles or wrists.

— Tularemia. Also called rabbit fever, this bacterial disease causes skin ulcers, fever and swollen lymph nodes.

— Anaplasmosis. This bacterial infection attacks white blood cells leading to flu-like symptoms.

— Ehrlichiosis. This disease is similar to anaplasmosis, but is carried by the lone-star tick.

— Powassan disease. Named for the Canadian town where it was first diagnosed, Powassan disease causes headaches, fever, vomiting and cognitive changes. Loss of coordination and seizures can also occur.

[READ: 6 Sneaky Signs of Lyme Disease.]

Symptoms of Lyme Disease

Infection with the bacterium that causes Lyme disease typically causes a very specific “expanding, non-painful rash around the area of the bite,” says Dr. Andrew Schamess, an internal medicine physician at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.

“On dark skin it will usually look like a darker area than the surrounding skin with a red tinge. On light skin it will look red — sometimes solid, sometimes skin-colored with a red rim, sometimes concentric circles,” like a bull’s-eye or target.

This is the characteristic bull’s-eye ring rash that’s considered the hallmark symptom of Lyme disease. “The medical word for the target lesion is ‘erythema migrans'” Schamess says. And it’s often a highly visible indication of Lyme infection.

As the infection takes hold in the body, it can trigger additional symptoms including:

— Fatigue.

— Headaches.

— Joint and muscle aches.

— Stiff neck.

— Loss of appetite.

— Swollen glands.

— Fever.

If Lyme disease is left untreated, it can cause serious, chronic problems in several regions of the body, including:

— The nervous system. Neuropathy, or weakness, numbness and pain in parts of the body, can develop. Meningitis, which causes headache and stiff neck, can also occur.

— The heart. Arrhythmias, heart failure and other heart problems can all result from Lyme disease infection. Myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart, can also occur.

— The joints. Recurring arthritis in one or more joints and pain in the joints can also be a lasting result of Lyme disease.

In addition, some people develop a chronic condition. Though this post-Lyme disease syndrome is uncommon, it can cause fatigue, muscle aches and cognitive impairment for years after the initial infection, Schamess says.

He adds that the symptoms of this so-called chronic Lyme disease (which he notes is a misnomer because there’s no active infection) are non-specific and could be caused by more common conditions such as depression, fibromyalgia, autoimmune and neurologic disease. “Don’t fixate on a particular condition you found on the internet. It’s better to keep an open mind and work with your doctor on finding a cause.”

Rising Cases of Lyme

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are concerned about the rise in Lyme disease cases in recent years, noting that “approximately 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year.”

That’s a significant number of people, and there are a few reasons why cases are rising:

— Climate change. The tick population is rising, and that’s a consequence of climate change. “Shorter winters and warmer weather lengthen the breeding season of the Ixodes tick that carries Lyme disease,” Schamess says. “It’s one example of the ways that climate change is already affecting human health.”

— Expanded geographic range. The CDC notes that the geographic range of Lyme cases is expanding, which is also in part due to climate change. Warmer conditions have expanded the geographical range of the tick responsible for Lyme, and warmer winters mean fewer ticks die off, leading to a bigger population in the spring.

— Suburban sprawl. Similarly, an increased range of humans has also contributed to the uptick in cases. Suburban sprawl has brought greater numbers of humans into formerly wooded areas where ticks live. Thus, the opportunities for contact have increased, leading to a jump in cases in recent years.

— Increased awareness and testing. Increased awareness of Lyme disease and improved testing and identification of cases has also contributed to a rise in documented cases.

[READ: First Aid for Insect and Spider Bites and Stings.]

How to Stop the Spread of Lyme Disease

Climate change is a knotty problem to solve and many factors have contributed. Solving it won’t be easy, and significant political will is going to be necessary to make the kind of substantial changes that would impact the range of the deer ticks that carry Lyme disease.

In the meantime, the CDC is working to develop better insect repellents. In August 2020, the EPA registered a newly discovered compound called nootkatone, which is found in grapefruit, Alaska yellow cedar trees and some herbs. It appears to repel ticks and mosquitoes, which can also be vectors of dangerous diseases such as malaria, Zika, West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis. The CDC reports that commercial products containing nootkatone may be available by 2022.

Educational efforts are also underway to help people better understand the risk of contracting Lyme disease and how to lower the chances of picking up a tick that could be infected. The CDC’s TickNET program is a collaborative public health initiative aimed at helping prevent tick-borne diseases.

Clinical trials are also currently being conducted to develop a safe and effective Lyme disease vaccine.

Preventing Lyme Infection

The most immediately effective way to try to lower rates of Lyme disease is to stop infection before it occurs. If you’re someone who enjoys the great outdoors in any capacity, these common-sense tips may help you avoid ticks and becoming infected with Lyme disease:

— Do a tick check every time you’ve been outdoors. Schamess says that “ticks are found in wooded areas, and areas with high grass or brush. Hiking and camping are common exposure situations.” While it’s quite possible to come into contact with a tick anytime you’re outside, the CDC reports that an infected tick must remain attached to the host for 36 to 48 hours or more to transmit the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. After potential exposure, “take a shower and do a tick check while undressed. Parents should check their children for ticks.” Removing a tick before it has an opportunity to attach is critical to avoiding infection.

— Wear white socks. Ticks often gain access by crawling up the leg from the ground. White socks can make a dark brown tick easier to spot before it reaches your skin.

— Wear long trousers and tuck them into your socks. When walking in areas where there could be ticks, it’s best to wear long pants and tuck them into your socks to prevent access to the skin by enterprising ticks.

— Wear long sleeves and a hat with a wide brim. These measures will also help prevent a potentially infected tick from finding a patch of skin it can attach to.

— Consider pre-treating your clothing. A chemical called permethrin is an insecticide that kills ticks. Schamess says you can spray a solution of 0.5% permethrin on clothes, socks and footwear to help keep ticks off your stuff. A single treatment lasts through several washings.

— Mind where and when you walk. “Stay out of tall grass and underbrush if possible,” Schamess says. Lyme disease season is the spring and fall, so be especially careful then. And if you live in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic or Upper Midwest, know that your risk is higher, as those regions of the country have higher rates of infection. People who live in those areas should be especially careful anytime they head outdoors.

— Wear insect repellent. Ticks don’t like certain kinds of insect repellent and are more likely to drop off if they encounter a barrier of one of these products on your clothes and skin. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends selecting a product that contains DEET, p-Menthane-3,8-diol, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus, citronella or IR 3535. All are compounds that have been registered with the EPA and can be found in a variety of commercially available insect repellent sprays and lotions.

— Remove any ticks. If you find a tick on your or your child’s body, remove it carefully. Schamess recommends using tweezers to “grasp the exposed portion and pull. The headpiece left in the skin will dissolve on its own.” And despite what you may have heard, “there’s no need to use heat, Vaseline or other tools for tick removal.” Just wash the area with an antibacterial soap and dry lightly afterwards.

— Save the tick. If you’ve harvested a tick from your skin, put it in a jar or a plastic bag and bring it with you to your doctor’s appointment. Your doctor might want to check what type of tick it is.

— Consider how long it might have been attached. After removing a tick, try to determine how long it may have been attached. If it’s been on your body more than 72 hours and you live in an area with a lot of Lyme disease, your doctor may recommend a preventive dose of an antibiotic called doxycycline.

— Get medical attention if you notice the tell-tale bull’s-eye rash. The hallmark bull’s-eye rash is “caused by the body’s inflammatory response to the spirochete spreading within the skin,” Schamess says. As this happens, you’ll also likely develop a fever, swollen lymph nodes and muscle aches. If any of these symptoms arise, contact your health care provider right away.

— Make sure you’re up to date on your tetanus vaccine. The bacteria that causes tetanus is often found in soil in the same places where ticks can be found. The tetanus virus can gain entry to the body via any break in the skin, such as a tick bite.

— Stay vigilant. Even if you don’t recall having been bitten by a tick, it’s still possible to have received a bite and develop Lyme disease. “If you or your child develop flu-like symptoms accompanied by a rash, it could be Lyme disease or another insect-borne illness. Contact your doctor for any flu-like syndrome with rash, even if you don’t remember a tick bite,” Schamess says.

Treatment Is Possible

Though Lyme disease can be a nasty illness, it’s treatable, and best results occur when the illness is caught at the earliest stages, right after the bite has occurred.

“Most cases of Lyme disease are treated quite easily with oral antibiotics,” Schamess says. Doxycycline is the most commonly used antibiotic, but amoxicillin and cefuroxime are also effective.

Schamess adds that “in about 15% of cases, the symptoms may get worse for a day or two on treatment before they get better. This is due to the immune response to the Lyme bacteria being killed off.”

In more severe cases, such as when the nervous system or joints become involved, more intensive intravenous treatment may be required. Ceftriaxone is usually the antibiotic used as an IV infusion in these cases.