How are you coping with Miami’s heat and humidity? This is what ‘mucky’ feels like

How are you coping with Miami’s heat and humidity? This is what ‘mucky’ feels like

 

What does a hot swamp feel like? Just walk out your front door to find out.

Here in South Florida, we’re used to the humidity. But not quite like this. Temperatures around 90 mixed with moisture in the air mixed with storms … and you have what could be called the Miami Misery Index. Sticky. Hard to breathe. Disgusting.

“Our facility doesn’t have AC, so working here is a little bit petrifying because we sweat like crazy,” said Jackie Medina, pool manager at Rockway Park in Westchester. “We do have the pool to cool off in, so we could always jump in, refresh.”

Larry Abascal and his dog, Sweet Pea, cool off in the waters off Haulover Beach in Miami-Dade, Florida, June 21, 2021. Many people trying to find relief from the heat and humidity headed to the beach for the sand and surf.
Larry Abascal and his dog, Sweet Pea, cool off in the waters off Haulover Beach in Miami-Dade, Florida, June 21, 2021. Many people trying to find relief from the heat and humidity headed to the beach for the sand and surf.

 

On paper, 90 degrees may not seem out of the ordinary for a summer day in South Florida. But over the past few days, with more to come, it feels like it’s in the triple digits. You can thank, or rather curse, the heat index — after factoring in humidity, it’s “what it actually feels like to the human body,” said Paxton Fell, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service.

On Sunday, it “felt like” 108, and forecasters were close to issuing an extreme heat warning. It dipped a little to 105 on Monday, but it’s not getting much better on Tuesday. The heat index is forecast to stay in the triple digits the first part of the week, with a high of 88 and a “feels like” of 102, according to the National Weather Service.

Rey Jaffet skates at Haulover Skateboard Park as high heat index temperatures continue across South Florida on Monday, June 21, 2021.
Rey Jaffet skates at Haulover Skateboard Park as high heat index temperatures continue across South Florida on Monday, June 21, 2021.

So, how are people feeling about this? In a few words: sweaty and breathless.

Seated in the shade on the raised curbside in Brickell City Centre in shorts and a T-shirt on Monday, Bryson Traylor took a puff from his cigarette. On his last day of vacation, the 31-year-old from Ohio said he was going to find a pool or head to the beach.

“It’s always hot down here,” Traylor said. “But humidity is my kryptonite.”

Nearby, even close to the bayfront, sweat poured from Isaac Rondon’s face as he and his wife served customers in his food truck on Monday. But inside the truck, it’s hotter.

Worldwide Bistro food truck, parked outside The Market Milkshake Bar near Brickell Park, can reach 140 degrees, said the 22-year-old Rondon. On Monday, three people were working in the food truck, with a large fan because the air conditioning was busted.

The fan “is like the same hot air but it helps,” he said.

The truck is usually parked near the park’s outdoor seating area from noon to 9 p.m. each day. He’s managed it for a year and a half. But since the heat index has climbed, he’s noticed sales have dropped.

“In the afternoon until 8 p.m. the people don’t walk around so much because it’s like too hot to stay outside,” he said.

Seated on picnic tables by the rows of food trucks under blowing fans near the park, Andrew Garcia, 29, and Miguel Ortiz, 22, were chatting as they sipped iced coffee. Garcia, from Hollywood, and Ortiz, from Orlando, said even though they are familiar with South Florida heat, it was so bad they couldn’t breathe.

“It is hot as f— outside,” Garcia said, laughing. “It’s really uncomfortable and I can’t breathe.”

Ortiz and Garcia work at Kush By Spillover in Coconut Grove. They set up the restaurant’s outside tables dressed in all-black with tucked shirts. The heat can make their jobs unbearable.

“It’s mucky, which is weird because this past winter season was absolutely beautiful and then all of a sudden … terrible heat … at like 8 in the morning,” Garcia said.

Ortiz said they were grabbing coffee outside because they needed to have a conversation. Sweating, the two were grateful for the fans and tent along the bayfront in downtown Miami.

“Summer is coming up, but I didn’t expect it to be like this hot,” Ortiz said.

A fisherman with two girls, all wearing wide brim hats to shade from the sun, go fishing near the Haulover sandbar in Miami-Dade, Florida, June 21, 2021.
A fisherman with two girls, all wearing wide brim hats to shade from the sun, go fishing near the Haulover sandbar in Miami-Dade, Florida, June 21, 2021.

 

But Keisha Mosby, 41, said the heat was worse 11 years ago when she last visited Miami around Memorial Day. Seated with friends a few tables over, she was eating a burger while on vacation. While she didn’t pass out from the heat, she said another friend did.

“This isn’t too bad,” she said. “It’s a little bit humid. But it’s comfortable to me.”

Miami Luxury Window Tinting employees Luis Rivas, left, installs window tinting on a car while his assistant, Juan Perez, right, holds a beach umbrella to protect both of them from the searing sun at Shoma Homes, corner of Northwest 70th Avenue and 177th Street, Palm Springs North in Miami on Monday, June 21, 2021. Normally, window tinting is done in a closed area where workers are protected from the elements but because of the pandemic, Rivas has been going to the customers, and that involves working outdoors exposed to the heat and humidity.
Miami Luxury Window Tinting employees Luis Rivas, left, installs window tinting on a car while his assistant, Juan Perez, right, holds a beach umbrella to protect both of them from the searing sun at Shoma Homes, corner of Northwest 70th Avenue and 177th Street, Palm Springs North in Miami on Monday, June 21, 2021. Normally, window tinting is done in a closed area where workers are protected from the elements but because of the pandemic, Rivas has been going to the customers, and that involves working outdoors exposed to the heat and humidity.

 

Tropical Storm Claudette isn’t directly to blame for the high heat index, said Fell, the meteorologist, although South Florida did get some moisture from the tail end of the storm.

June historically has the highest heat index values, according to Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

“We actually hit a 107.4 degrees heat index twice last year, the highest value measured all year. Regardless of the tenths-of-a-degree nuances, it’s really quite rare to have a heat index above 105 degrees here,” McNoldy said in an email.

The extremely high heat on Sunday was “just a one-day thing,” and McNoldy said that he doesn’t expect to see many more of these extreme values this year. But with climate change, he said, we should expect more high temperature records to be broken.

Meanwhile, the heat and the humidity this week can be more than just uncomfortable. It can be dangerous.

“Be aware of whether you’re feeling the impacts of heat stress,” said Jane Gilbert, Miami-Dade County’s “chief heat officer.” “Make sure you get liquids, water, electrolytes, and out of the heat in any way you can, either getting to a shady spot or getting inside.”

Wildfires break out across Western states amid hottest week in history

Wildfires break out across Western states amid hottest week in history

 

Last week featured one of the worst June heat waves in decades across the West, shattering hundreds of daily records, as well as several all-time hottest temperatures recorded for the month.

Death Valley soared to a blistering 128 degrees, and Denver saw a rare hat trick of three 100-degree days in a row.

Tucson saw eight straight days of temperatures 110 degrees or higher, breaking the record for the number of consecutive days above that barrier and making it the city’s hottest week. Phoenix endured a record-setting six straight days of temperatures 115 or higher.

All of this heat contributed to a high fire danger which came to fruition over the weekend when multiple blazes broke out in several Western states including California, Colorado, Arizona and Oregon.

The Willow Fire in Monterey County, which forced evacuations Friday, continued to burn over the weekend sending smoke billowing into the Bay Area.

The Cow Fire in Shasta County also prompted evacuation orders, and at one point Sunday required a large air tanker to be diverted off the Willow Fire for increased firefighting efforts.

On Monday, 7 million people were under red flag warnings across six Western states where the combination of hot temperatures, wind gusts to 40 mph and bone-dry humidity lead to a critical fire threat.

Las Vegas was included in the risk zone for the fire danger.

The most recent heat wave was focused over portions of the Four Corners, desert Southwest and Southern and Central California. Next week, however, the area of most exceptional heat could park over northern California and the Pacific Northwest.

California Wildfires (Ringo Chiu / via AP)
California Wildfires (Ringo Chiu / via AP)

 

This will lead to another week with a high risk of wildfires due to the already desiccated landscape void of much precipitation whether falling from the sky or locked in the mostly-melted snowpack.

With ground fuels already sitting at highly flammable and record-dry levels, all experts can do is warn people of the impending danger and hope for the best in what has already proven to be an early and destructive start to the Western wildfire season.

With climate change making heat waves three times more likely compared to 100 years ago and contributing to the current 22-year megadrought, wildfire seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer into the year. As the gap closes, experts say there isn’t so much a defined wildfire season in the West anymore, but instead it lasts year round.

The US could be facing its worst drought in 1,200 years, and summer hasn’t even reached its peak yet.

The US could be facing its worst drought in 1,200 years, and summer hasn’t even reached its peak yet.

A thermometer display showing record high temperatures in Death Valley National Park
A thermometer display showed a temperature of 130 degrees at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center at Death Valley National Park on June 17 in Furnace Creek, California. Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images 

  • California is bone-dry after a heat wave hit the state, with water levels dipping to all-time lows.
  • Experts said this may become the worst drought the US has seen in 1,200 years.
  • In the meantime, the West and Southwest continue to sizzle, and summer has yet to hit its peak.

Residents on the West Coast are in for a miserable, sizzling summer filled with prolonged drought and record-breaking temperatures, experts said.

A scientist The Guardian spoke with even warned that the US could experience one of the worst droughts in its modern history.

“This current drought is potentially on track to become the worst that we’ve seen in at least 1,200 years. And the reason is linked directly to human-caused climate change,” Kathleen Johnson, an associate professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, told the Guardian.

The projection came as California’s rivers and reservoirs dried up and the state recorded historically low water levels.

In particular, if water levels in Lake Oroville, California’s second-largest reservoir, continue to dwindle, it could have devastating effects on the state’s power supply. This is because the lake generates energy by flowing through the Edward Hyatt Power Plant. Low water levels may force this power plant to close. A closure would leave about 800,000 homes without energy when wildfire season swings around, CNN reported.

The heat wave hitting California prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a statewide emergency last week. Newsom called on the state’s residents to conserve energy, saying that the heat “has and will continue to put significant demand and strain on California’s energy grid.”

Energy troubles amid the heat wave are also hitting Texas. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said many power plants in the state went offline last week, months after a major outage left Texans without heat during in the middle of winter.

The Washington Post reported on June 18 that more than 40 million Americans saw triple-digit temperatures where they live in the prior week. Temperature records were also broken in Salt Lake City last Tuesday when the weather services measured a high of 107 degrees, breaking the area’s 147-year record for temperatures in June.

What makes the US’s weather troubles worse is that summer hasn’t even peaked.

The National Centers for Environmental Information’s archive of temperatures across the US from 1981 to 2010 showed that the amount of the sun’s rays reaching Earth tends to peak on the summer solstice on June 21. But the US tends to see warm temperatures increasing into July. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the summer of 2020 was one of the hottest ever seen in the US, with August, in particular, being especially “dry and destructive.”

‘It’s brutal’: Las Vegas cooks amid blazing heatwave – and it’s going to get worse

‘It’s brutal’: Las Vegas cooks amid blazing heatwave – and it’s going to get worse

 

By midnight on Wednesday, two days into a scorching heat wave to hit the US west, the air in Las Vegas had barely cooled.

 

Throughout the day and for the days that followed, temperatures in the desert city hovered close to historic highs, peaking at 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.6 Celsius), and setting a new record for such dangerously hot weather so early in the year. Meanwhile, dust and smoke from nearby wildfires hung in the stiff hot air, casting a brown haze over the valley.

Throngs of tourists still ambled along scorching-hot sidewalks on the Vegas Strip, and many others lined the labyrinths of slot machines, restaurants and shops inside air conditioned casinos. But not everyone is able to escape indoors.

“I am dying – I feel like I’m going to pass out,” said Violet, a woman clad in a denim thong and crop top.

Violet makes her living outside on the strip, posing for pictures with passersby. She was glistening, both from the body glitter covering her arms and chest and the beads of sweat collecting on her face in the midday sun. She has a heart condition, she said while leaning against a planter where she and several other women had stored water bottles to empty in-between selfies. “I am out here because I have to pay rent, but it is so hot and I get dehydrated so quickly.”

Researchers predict this week’s heatwave to be the first of several to hit the US south-west before the summer ends. Driven by the climate crisis and intensified by the city’s expansive growth, Vegas is already cooking – and it is going to get worse.

Las Vegas’s population is booming and the city is sprawling into the surrounding desert. The extra concrete adds to the sizzle. On hot days, the highways and roads are littered with broken-down automobiles – commuter cars, ambulances, delivery trucks and buses that overheat as they made their way to and from the city-center.

“Nevada’s climate is changing,” the Nevada government’s Climate Initiative website reports. “In fact, Nevadans say, they are already noticing and impacted by these changes. Climate change has come home.”

The changes are particularly pronounced in Sin City and its surrounding areas, which is warming faster than almost anywhere else in the US. Heatwaves are not only getting hotter, they are also becoming more frequent. Summer weather is increasingly encroaching on spring, with less and less room for relief.

The increasing intensity hasn’t gone unnoticed among workers who have to brave the dangerous conditions, but “no one in the valley is allowed to talk,” Jeff, a valet and porter said. He declined to give his last name out of fear of retribution from his employer, a hotel off the strip.

“The ins and outs are what get you,” he added, explaining that his duties require him to constantly shift between extreme heat and frigid air conditioning.

“You get into those cars that have been sitting outside and it’s like 140F. Then the sweat just pours,” he said. “I have seen guys pass out and start shaking. It’s brutal.”

But his job offers him health and life insurance so he plans to stick it out.

Rafael Martinez, who works as a security guard, said he stands outside throughout his eight-hour shift. He’s witnessed several people lose consciousness right there on the street. “People pass out all the time,” he said. “I am sweating and I feel the heat, but I am not one to complain.” He drinks water often, which he said helps a little. He always makes sure to stand in the shade. “If you stand in the sun you are going to dry out.”

Heat is one of the most deadly weather disasters, according to data from the federal government, and in southern Nevada, coroner data shows that heat-related deaths are on the rise. Officials have emphasized the importance of not leaving people or animals in cars, and have begun enforcing a new animal cruelty ordinance that cracks down on owners who leave pets outside for more than 10 hours a day during a heat advisory, which typically applies when temperatures reach 105F.

But for workers who have be outside, low-income residents without access to in-home cooling, and the more than 6,000 unhoused residents in Las Vegas, the stifling conditions can exact a considerable toll.

“There will certainly be an impact on people who can’t get cool” said Kristina Dahl a senior climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit advocacy organization. Though heat stress and heat stroke alone can be fatal, researchers also found that those exposed to high temperatures have higher rates of chronic kidney disease. Hot weather also adds to air quality issues, trapping harmful pollutants while spikes in energy use from air conditioning increase emissions. Studies show that heat affects the brain, slowing cognitive function.

Clark county, where Las Vegas is located, provides cooling centers when the heat spikes but many of them close at night even when overnight temperatures don’t drop. That issue is attributed to the cityscape itself.

“We are seeing urban areas experiencing a more pronounced and more defined rise in the frequency of extreme heat,” Dahl said. “That is due to a combination of the overall warming we are all experiencing but in urban areas, but it gets amplified by the use of manmade materials,” she added. And, it’s not only baking locals. “As cities become more developed, and there’s less natural land cover, that’s going to amplify the signal of warming we see around the globe” she said.

Far from the glitz and glamour of the Strip, new homes seem to march, row-by-row into the desert. Even with the increasingly intense conditions, the population is growing. Numbers of residents increased by more than 64% between 2000 and 2018 in the county. Officials expect that numbers will continue to grow, projecting that in the next 40 years close to 3.2 million people will call the area home—an increase of nearly 40%.

Expecting to run out of space, a new county lands bill has petitioned the federal government for more acreage, pulling roughly 30,000 acres from public lands in the surrounding desert.

Meanwhile, the construction continues. Housing developments in various stages of completion are on full display at the fringes of the city, and even on the hottest days, workers brave the elements to complete them.

“It’s hard and it’s hot but if we don’t work we don’t get money,” said Ignacio Regrelar, who is finishing dry-wall on a development during the 116 degree day. He and his team work for 8 hours through the extreme heat. “The problem is, if the boss says he is ready, and you don’t do it, he will take other people,” he said. “Workers need work. But it’s hard”.

The residential expansion has also enveloped areas that were once rural. Las Vegas Livestock, family-owned operation that has spent six-generations raising pigs in the region, was pushed out of the city in 2018.

The farm utilizes food waste from Las Vegas casinos to feed thousands of pigs and now they are based deeper in the desert, sharing the land offered by the local landfill. “Our family has been in Vegas for 50 years but the city grew up around them so now we are out here,” said farm manager Sarah Staloard. “Hopefully houses won’t come this far but you never know”.

The pigs can handle the heat if they are regularly doused in water, “but I think the question is are we going to have people out here safely if it gets hotter,” she said. She’s worried about the rising temperatures and the Valley she calls home, especially after spending the day working through triple-digits. There’s no energy out there on the farm.

“If it continues to be super hot at night that would be a concern,” she said. “We would have to have someone out here to make sure the pigs are not getting too hot. There’d be no relief for anyone,” she added. “Even the equipment never gets a break.”

Take a look at some of the lakes in California that have been swallowed up by the ‘megadrought’

Take a look at some of the lakes in California that have been swallowed up by the ‘megadrought’

 

Take a look at some of the lakes in California that have been swallowed up by the ‘megadrought’
California drought
Associated Press
  • California has been hit by a “megadrought” that has dried up key reservoirs in the state.
  • Entire lakes have shrunk exponentially, leaving yachts and docks beached on dry land.
  • Nearly 95% of the state is experiencing “severe drought” and is susceptible to wild fires.

California is facing its worst drought in over four years.

Over 37 million people have already been impacted by the “megadrought” and nearly 95% of the state has been classified as experiencing “Severe Drought,” which puts the land in significant danger of wildfires, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).

Last year, California land was consumed by over 8,200 wildfires – a number double the state’s previous record. This year, scorching weather has dried out reservoirs and made the state even more susceptible to breakout wildfires than the record 2020 season. NIDIS analysts call the outlook for the land “grim.”

california wildfire
October 15, 2017. Jim Urquhart/Reuters

Water levels of California’s over 1,500 reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be at this time of year, Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC-Davis told the Associated Press.

In April, scorching weather turned the San Gabriel reservoir lake bed to dust. The reservoir is not expected to see rain fall until the end of the year.

The drought turned the San Gabriel reservoir lake bed to dust
The drought turned the San Gabriel reservoir lake bed to dust Getty

On Wednesday, the drought dried up a lake so much that it potentially exposed a decades old mystery, allowing officials to find a plane that had crashed in 1965.

A composite image showing Folsom Lake, California, at drought levels in 2017, and a sonar image of a plane underwater there.
Folsom Lake, California, under drought conditions in 2017 (L), and the sonar image of a plane there taken by Seafloor Systems (R) Robert Galbraith/Reuters/CBS13

 

The California drought has been caused by climate change which has pushed temperatures an average of about 2 degrees hotter, drying out soil and melting Sierra snow rivers, which causes less water to soak into the ground, as well as flow through rivers and reservoirs. The state also endured two unusually dry winters that didn’t bring needed storms to the area.

Officials are predicting the water level of Lake Oroville – a primary body of water that helps the state generate energy through hydroelectric power plants – will hit a record low in August. If that happens, they would need to shut down a major hydroelectric power plant, putting extra strain on the electrical grid during the hottest part of the summer.

Earlier this month, about 130 houseboats had to be hauled out of the lake as its water levels hit 38% capacity. The water levels are only at about 45% of average June levels, according to California Department of Water Resources.

House boats pulled out of Lake Orovill
Getty

It’s going to be a rough summer for boat owners in the state.

Pictures from the Associated Press show massive lakes have run dry, leaving boats and docks completely beached

Boats at Fulsom Lake
Associated Press

Experts say the drought could devastate local wildlife populations, as well as California’s tourism industry.

California drought
Associated Press

In April, Governor Gavin Newsom held a press conference in the dried up waterbed of Lake Mendocino. Where he stood there should have been about 40 feet of water.

“This is without precedent,” Newsom said. “Oftentimes we overstate the word historic, but this is indeed an historic moment.”

California drought
Associated Press

The month before, the California Department of Water Resources reduced farmers and growers to 5% of their expected water allocation in March. A move that has farmers leaving large portions of their land unseeded, while other have been forced to purchase supplemental water, which comes at a hefty cost. Supplemental water was priced at $1,500 to $2,000 per acre-foot in mid-May, according to a report from California Farm Bureau.

It has also made it difficult for ranchers to feed and water their livestock

California drought
Getty

As California temperatures continue to rise while water reservoirs fall, the state could be in for a devastating summer. From increased fears for wildfires to the impact on state agriculture and tourism, California residents are bracing for the worst drought season since 2014.

Republicans are using baffling legalese and underhanded tactics to quietly push through their deeply unpopular policies. Don’t fall for their shady tricks.

Republicans are using baffling legalese and underhanded tactics to quietly push through their deeply unpopular policies. Don’t fall for their shady tricks.

Texas governor Greg Abbott with a feather quill drawing question marks on pieces of old parchment paper on a red background
Montinique Monroe/Getty Image; Samantha Lee/Insider 

  • The GOP’s agenda isn’t popular, so right-wing lawmakers around the country are using technical workarounds.
  • Right-wing policies like abortion restrictions don’t necessarily need to go into effect to be effective.
  • Relying on confusion and stalling tactics is the right-wing approach.
  • Eoin Higgins is a journalist in New England.
  • This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

The GOP is winning more battles than a minority party with an unpopular platform should. But they aren’t paying as high of a political price because Republican lawmakers around the country are hiding their unpopular agenda behind confusing technicalities and baffling legalese.

Republicans are using obfuscation tactics to lead Americans to believe that laws are in place when they actually aren’t, that gridlock in Washington is an unshakable truth rather than a parliamentary strategy, and that voting in the country is far harder than it is.

The GOP passes laws they know will never stand up in court, because the message of its passage is likely to change behavior even if the law ultimately falls. These officials pontificate self-importantly about the necessity of keeping parliamentary tradition and rules in place, and then turn around and break them whenever it’s convenient. The GOP deploys whatever means are necessary to bend and even outright break the political rules of engagement.

The right has been pursuing this strategy of confusion for decades. It’s a tried and true tactic to force the window of what is considered “acceptable” policy further and further to the right in hopes that enough challenges slip through and establish a precedent. Winning individual battles in the traditional sense is secondary to this broader war.

Faced with an electorate that’s broadly opposed to the details of their policies, the GOP has relied on passage, not enforcement, to get the results that they’re after. It’s a savvy approach to lawmaking for a party with a broadly disliked policy vision, allowing for various workarounds at the federal and state level to remain in power.

Most people don’t really know

In May, I talked to women in Texas who have had to fight against the state’s existing abortion restrictions. Briana McClellan, a social worker with reproductive rights group the Texas Equal Access Fund, got an abortion in Texas in 2009. The process was arduous, she told me, due mostly to cost and geography.

Today, things are even worse. Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill last month that would restrict abortions to only six weeks after conception, a ban that would effectively end Roe v Wade, which established a Constitutional right to abortion up to 24 weeks. Therein lies the trick. The law, whether or not it goes into effect, is going to make access even more difficult. Even if it is struck down in the courts, the ban’s passage through the state legislature means that there will be more confusion surrounding the issue. McClellan told me that she already frequently needs to remind clients that abortion is still legal.

“I did have to explain to them that what they were doing was legal, because a lot of the time most people don’t really know,” McClellan said.

Access is even more restricted in Mississippi, where there’s only one clinic statewide and social conservatism adds to the stigma. Serita Wheeler, a sociologist in the state, told me that she believes that is by design. Right-wing economic goals are being realized by the use of religious morality to restrict reproductive healthcare access.

“The major industries in this state are food, hospitality, tourism, and retirement; all powered by feminized poverty,” Wheeler said.

Industry and religion work together with the state’s Republican lawmakers to ensure the right to abortion is always up in the air, even while the right to reproductive access is technically in place, leaving people around Mississippi in a constant state of confusion. Just the way the GOP likes it.

Stalling tactics

Abortion laws aren’t the only deliberately confusing ones: Republicans are doing the same with voting rights. Members of the public often do not understand the laws around voting, which can change state by state and year by year. The confusion over which rights are in place and which are not can be a powerful motivator to those going to the polls.

Laws passed in GOP state legislatures, like Georgia’s ban on giving water to people waiting in line to vote, are aimed at restricting rights and making voting seem like a confusing, intractable burden. Republican-sponsored bills in state legislatures around the country are designed to reduce participation and make exercising the franchise difficult – if not impossible.

Federal attempts to solve the problem have stalled out against GOP manipulation of the Senate. Even before nominal Democrat Joe Manchin announced on Sunday that he was voting against the For the People Act, the House Democrats’ omnibus voting rights act, Republicans were blocking the bill’s passage into law in the Senate by holding up the process via the filibuster.

“Democrats’ poster child for why the Senate should change its rules is a bill that would forcibly change the rules for elections in every state in America,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday.

By using this age-old parliamentary tactic to stop any legislation from moving forward unless Democrats use reconciliation – a tactical move that the majority party has, for some reason, left to the unelected Senate Parliamentarian to decide when it can and can’t be used – the GOP are ruling from the minority and stopping the ruling party’s agenda in its tracks.

This has created an inertia similar to that seen during the Obama years. GOP Senators, faced with legislation they don’t want to pass, hold it up with a 60-vote majority needed to pass it and enforce the filibuster without having to get on the floor and actually speak.

Not only does this tactic stop the legislation, it allows the GOP to distance themselves from the actual work of opposing whatever bill is in front of the Senate. Not allowing the bills to come to the floor in the first place – by using a largely anonymized system that lets senators stop the legislative process without actually having to actually do the work of stopping it – is perfect for Republicans.

Needed change

One of the primary reasons the right relies on such convoluted, legalese tactics to get their policies into legislatures around the country is that the right-wing agenda just isn’t that popular. Poll after poll shows that the GOP’s policy prescriptions for what ails the US to be massively unpopular on a policy by policy issue (with the possible exception of tax cuts as long as they don’t go to the rich).

Democrats at both the federal and state level are complicit in this approach to governing. Bad messaging, a disinterest in holding the GOP accountable, and multiple tactical errors have left the Democrats wanting when it comes to even playing the game in the same universe as their opponents.

Progressives and rights advocates are thus constantly on the defensive. The use of disinformation and confusion to push forward an agenda as unpopular as the one Republicans have is the only tool the GOP has that can work – but it’s still working due to inertia from the other side.

If American voters don’t know whether they can go to the ballot box, think Washington is hopelessly gridlocked for no reason other than its natural state, and believe basic civil rights like the right to an abortion are up in the air – irrespective of reality – then the battle’s halfway won for the GOP already. It’s up to liberals and the left to fight back.

The lakes in California that have been swallowed up by the ‘megadrought’

Take a look at some of the lakes in California that have been swallowed up by the ‘megadrought’

Take a look at some of the lakes in California that have been swallowed up by the ‘megadrought’
California drought
Associated Press

  • California has been hit by a “megadrought” that has dried up key reservoirs in the state.
  • Entire lakes have shrunk exponentially, leaving yachts and docks beached on dry land.
  • Nearly 95% of the state is experiencing “severe drought” and is susceptible to wild fires.

California is facing its worst drought in over four years.

Over 37 million people have already been impacted by the “megadrought” and nearly 95% of the state has been classified as experiencing “Severe Drought,” which puts the land in significant danger of wildfires, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).

Last year, California land was consumed by over 8,200 wildfires – a number double the state’s previous record. This year, scorching weather has dried out reservoirs and made the state even more susceptible to breakout wildfires than the record 2020 season. NIDIS analysts call the outlook for the land “grim.”

california wildfire
October 15, 2017. Jim Urquhart/Reuters

 

Water levels of California’s over 1,500 reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be at this time of year, Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC-Davis told the Associated Press.

In April, scorching weather turned the San Gabriel reservoir lake bed to dust. The reservoir is not expected to see rain fall until the end of the year.

The drought turned the San Gabriel reservoir lake bed to dust
The drought turned the San Gabriel reservoir lake bed to dust Getty

On Wednesday, the drought dried up a lake so much that it potentially exposed a decades old mystery, allowing officials to find a plane that had crashed in 1965.

A composite image showing Folsom Lake, California, at drought levels in 2017, and a sonar image of a plane underwater there.
Folsom Lake, California, under drought conditions in 2017 (L), and the sonar image of a plane there taken by Seafloor Systems (R) Robert Galbraith/Reuters/CBS13

 

The California drought has been caused by climate change which has pushed temperatures an average of about 2 degrees hotter, drying out soil and melting Sierra snow rivers, which causes less water to soak into the ground, as well as flow through rivers and reservoirs. The state also endured two unusually dry winters that didn’t bring needed storms to the area.

Officials are predicting the water level of Lake Oroville – a primary body of water that helps the state generate energy through hydroelectric power plants – will hit a record low in August. If that happens, they would need to shut down a major hydroelectric power plant, putting extra strain on the electrical grid during the hottest part of the summer.

Earlier this month, about 130 houseboats had to be hauled out of the lake as its water levels hit 38% capacity. The water levels are only at about 45% of average June levels, according to California Department of Water Resources.

House boats pulled out of Lake Orovill
Getty

 

It’s going to be a rough summer for boat owners in the state.

Pictures from the Associated Press show massive lakes have run dry, leaving boats and docks completely beached

Boats at Fulsom Lake
Associated Press

 

Experts say the drought could devastate local wildlife populations, as well as California’s tourism industry.

California drought
Associated Press

 

In April, Governor Gavin Newsom held a press conference in the dried up waterbed of Lake Mendocino. Where he stood there should have been about 40 feet of water.

“This is without precedent,” Newsom said. “Oftentimes we overstate the word historic, but this is indeed an historic moment.”

California drought
Associated Press

 

The month before, the California Department of Water Resources reduced farmers and growers to 5% of their expected water allocation in March. A move that has farmers leaving large portions of their land unseeded, while other have been forced to purchase supplemental water, which comes at a hefty cost. Supplemental water was priced at $1,500 to $2,000 per acre-foot in mid-May, according to a report from California Farm Bureau.

It has also made it difficult for ranchers to feed and water their livestock

California drought
Getty

 

As California temperatures continue to rise while water reservoirs fall, the state could be in for a devastating summer. From increased fears for wildfires to the impact on state agriculture and tourism, California residents are bracing for the worst drought season since 2014.

Sugar isn’t just empty, fattening calories — it’s making us sick

Sugar isn’t just empty, fattening calories — it’s making us sick

<span class="caption">Don't add sugar.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="link rapid-noclick-resp" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-116939734/stock-photo-wooden-bowl-of-sugar-with-metal-spoon.html?src=JQV6o_KbozN-HPe3TJY8Mg-1-64" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" data-ylk="slk:Sugar bowl via www.shutterstock.com">Sugar bowl via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
Don’t add sugar. Sugar bowl via www.shutterstock.com

 

Children are manifesting increased rates of adult diseases like hypertension or high triglycerides. And they are getting diseases that used to be unheard of in children, like Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease. So why is this happening?

Everyone assumes this is the result of the obesity epidemic – too many calories in, too few out. Children and adults are getting fat, so they’re getting sick. And it is generally assumed that no one specific food causes it, because “a calorie is a calorie”.

I’ve been studying the role that sugar plays in contributing to chronic disease for years, and my research group at the University of California, San Francisco has just published research in the journal Obesity that challenges this assumption. If calories come from sugar, they just aren’t the same.

Diabetes is increasing faster than obesity

It’s clear that the cause of rising rates of health conditions like Type 2 diabetes isn’t as simple as people just eating too many calories.

Obesity is increasing globally at 1% per year, while diabetes is increasing globally at 4% per year. If diabetes were just a subset of obesity, how can you explain its more rapid increase?

And certain countries are obese without being diabetic (such as Iceland, Mongolia and Micronesia), while other countries are diabetic without being obese (India, Pakistan and China, for instance). Twelve percent of people in China have diabetes, but the obesity rate is much lower. The US is the fattest nation on Earth and our diabetes prevalence is 9.3%.

While 80% of the obese population in the US is metabolically ill (meaning they have conditions like diabetes, hypertension, lipid problems and heart disease), 20% is not. Conversely, 40% of the normal weight population has metabolic syndrome.

If normal weight people have these conditions, how then are they related to obesity? Indeed, we now know that obesity is a marker rather than a cause for these diseases.

Epidemiological studies have found a correlation between added sugar consumption and health conditions like cardiovascular disease. So could cutting excess sugar out of our diets reverse metabolic syndrome?

What happens when you stop feeding kids added sugar?

Our group at UCSF studied 43 Latino and African-American children with obesity and metabolic syndrome over a 10-day period. We started by assessing their metabolic status – insulin and glucose levels, as well as blood fats and other markers for disease, like lactate and free fatty acids – on their home diet.

For the next nine days, each child ate an individual tailored diet. We catered their meals to provide same number of calories and protein and fat content as their usual home diet. We gave them the same percentage of carbohydrate, but we substituted starch for sugar. The big difference: this special diet had no added sugar. This means their diet had no sugar from sugarcane or high fructose corn syrup. The kids consumed foods such as fruits and other whole foods that naturally contain some sugar. These foods also have fiber, which reduces the rate of sugar absorption, so they don’t affect the body the same way that added sugar does.

We took chicken teriyaki out. We put turkey hot dogs in. We took sweetened yogurt out. We put baked potato chips in. We took donuts out. We put bagels in. We gave them unhealthy processed food, just with no added sugar. Each child was given a scale to take home, and if their weight was declining, we made them eat more. Then we studied them again.

The children had eaten the same number of calories and had not lost any weight, and yet every aspect of their metabolic health improved. With added sugar cut out of their diet for 10 days, blood pressure, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad cholesterol”), insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance all improved. And remember, we weren’t giving them just leafy greens and tofu – we fed the kids processed foods, just ones without sugar.

Further studies are needed to see if this will also work in adults, and if the benefits are short-term or long-term.

Sugar is like alcohol

This study demonstrates that a calorie is not a calorie, and that sugar is a primary contributor to metabolic syndrome, unrelated to calories or weight gain. By removing added sugar, we improved metabolic health.

Sugar may not be the only contributor to chronic disease, but it is far and away the easiest one to avoid. Kids could improve their metabolic health – even while continuing to eat processed food – just by dumping the sugar. Can you imagine how much healthier they’d be if they ate real food?

The naysayers will say, “But sugar is natural. Sugar has been with us for thousands of years. Sugar is food, and how can food be toxic?”

Webster’s Dictionary defines food as:

material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy.

Sugar by itself furnishes energy, and that’s about it. In that sense, sugar is like alcohol. It’s got calories, but it’s not nutrition. There’s no biochemical reaction that requires it. And at high doses, alcohol can fry your liver.

Same with sugar. Fructose, the sweet molecule in sugar, contains calories that you can burn for energy, but it’s not nutrition, because there’s no biochemical reaction that requires it. In excess, it can fry your liver, just like alcohol. And this makes sense, because where do you get alcohol from? Fermentation of sugar.

Too much sugar causes diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease and tooth decay. When consumed in excess, it’s a toxin. And it’s addictive – just like alcohol. That’s why children are getting the diseases of alcohol – Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease – without alcohol. But our research suggests we could turn this around in 10 days – if we chose to.

Read more:

Robert Lustig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

My front row seat to the radicalization of the Republican Party

Op-Ed: My front row seat to the radicalization of the Republican Party

Future House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia looks over his shoulder as he arrives for a Capitol Hill news conference, Monday, Dec. 5, 1994 in Washington, after his fellow Republicans voted him as speaker. To serve alongside Gingrich, the Republicans voted Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, as House Majority Leader and Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, as House Majority Whip. (AP Photo/John Duricka)
Newt Gingrich at a Capitol Hill news conference on Dec. 5, 1994, after his fellow Republicans voted him in as speaker of the House. (John Duricka / Associated Press)

 

Since before he became president, Joe Biden has told crowds, “Folks, this is not your father’s Republican Party.” As a political reporter, I’d been hearing that lament since the late 1990’s, from far better sources — those Republican fathers’ sons and daughters.

The radicalization of the Republican Party has been the biggest story of my career. I’ve been watching it from the start, from the time I arrived in then-Democratic Texas just out of college in 1978 to my years as a reporter in Washington through four revolutions — Ronald Reagan’s, Newt Gingrich’s, the tea party’s and Donald Trump’s — each of which took the party farther right.

From this perspective, it seems clear that the antidemocratic drift of the GOP will continue, regardless of Trump’s role. He didn’t cause its crackup, he accelerated it. He took ownership of the party’s base, and gave license to its racists, conspiracists, zealots and even self-styled paramilitaries, but that base had been calling the shots in the Republican Party for some years, spurred by conservative media. Now, emboldened, its activists will carry on with or without him.

The first elections I covered in 1978, at the midterm of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, marked the beginning of the Republican Party’s reemergence from its Watergate ruins and the shift of its base from the north to the south. In a poll a year earlier, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans had identified as Republicans. Texas was a Democratic bastion. But many Democrats I met there were more conservative than Republicans I knew up north; they often bucked the national party, yet remained “yellow dog Democrats” in state and local elections — so loyal, the saying went, that they’d vote for a yellow dog over a Republican, just like voters elsewhere in the South.

Republicans revived nationally in the late ’70s largely because of the governing Democrats’ misfortunes — a global energy crisis, double-digit inflation, a stagnant economy, party infighting.

Evangelicals threw off their longtime aversion to earthly politics and took over local party organizations, becoming culture warriors. By mid-1978, the property tax revolt in California kindled an anti-tax movement nationwide. With both moderate establishment Republicans and insurgent conservatives seeing the possibility of retaking the White House in 1980, the two camps intensified their decades-long war to define the party.

It’s clear now that the norms-abiding moderates never had a chance. As right-wing activist Paul Weyrich warned, “We are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure in the country.” That could stand as conservatives’ mission statement today.

That November, my election-night story for the Abilene Reporter-News included mention of the defeat of a young George W. Bush for a House seat representing Midland and Odessa.

Yet he and other Republicans across the South did better than expected. Some actually won, including third-time candidate Newt Gingrich in suburban Atlanta. Texans elected the first Republican governor since Reconstruction. It all signaled the wave Reagan would ride two years later, carrying other Republicans in his wake. The Democrats who won congressional races across the south, replacing some New Deal liberals who retired, were more conservative and allies-in-waiting for Reagan, many of them future defectors to his party.

By 1984, I’d moved to Washington to cover Congress and got to know Gingrich. While he was a backbencher in House Republicans’ seemingly permanent minority, he led a maverick faction calling itself the Conservative Opportunity Society (Gingrich himself was more opportunist than truly conservative, his lieutenants grumbled to me).

After he read stories I’d written about the ethics scrapes of some Democrats in Congress, Gingrich would have an aide in his congressional office contact me with dirt on others, often just allegations culled from the lawmakers’ local newspapers.

That was just one sign that he was a new breed of Republican, more interested in ruthless partisanship than in passing laws and representing constituents. His goal was nothing short of ending Democrats’ decades-long lock on the House majority and leading the next Republican revolution.

In 1990, Gingrich — by then the second-highest ranking House Republican leader — made a prediction that I found unbelievable: Republicans would win a House majority in the 1994 midterm elections. He explained to me that if George H.W. Bush lost reelection in 1992, with a Democrat in the White House the Republicans could benefit from the midterm jinx for a president’s party, and win enough seats to take control.

Gingrich did his part to weaken Bush. Most famously, he led a conservative mutiny against a bipartisan deficit-reduction deal the president had negotiated, assailing him for violating his “no new taxes” campaign promise.

With Bush’s loss to Bill Clinton, Gingrich immediately looked toward 1994. Since the late 1980s, he had mobilized a nationwide network of right-wing talk-radio hosts emerging in local markets. They echoed his talking points daily.

On election day 1994, Gingrich was confident of big gains — if not a House majority — and certain that conservative media had helped. “I think one of the great changes in the last couple of years was the rise of talk radio, which gives you an alternative validating mechanism,” separate from the mainstream media, he told me. In fact, he was about to be interviewed by a new local host — a young guy named Sean Hannity.

The Republicans triumphed beyond even Gingrich’s messianic dreams, winning House and Senate majorities for the first time since 1952. As the new speaker who’d taken the party to the promised land, Gingrich led a cult of personality presaging Trump’s.

“Be nasty,” he’d tell followers, and he kept conservatives perpetually angry at Democrats and at government generally, with the aid of his right-wing media megaphone.

On the first day of the new Republican-controlled Congress in January 1995, Gingrich had set up “Radio Row” in a Capitol corridor — table after table of talk-show hosts interviewing Republicans for conservative audiences back home. Rush Limbaugh, the king of them all, was declared an honorary House Republican. Collectively, these local celebrities became a power center within the party.

Gingrich would find governing harder and less popular than campaigning, however. He overreached to please the base, shutting down the government in a doomed bid to force deep cuts in domestic programs, and then impeaching Clinton. Within four years, after election losses and scandals, he resigned.

Back in Texas, then-Gov. George W. Bush positioned himself as the un-Gingrich for mainstream voters — a “compassionate conservative” — while telling those on the right he was different from his father: that Jesus Christ was his personal savior, he’d slash taxes, and his foreign policy would eschew interventionist nation-building. (He’d break that last promise big time in Iraq.)

But even as Bush sought to soften his party’s hard lines to win election, the GOP’s nationalistic, protectionist and even nativist populism ran deep. As president, Bush had hoped to build a broader party — for example, by giving millions of undocumented, longtime residents a path to citizenship. But the growing xenophobia among the party’s increasingly white, older and rural base foiled him.

Trump didn’t unleash those forces 16 years later. He simply harnessed and amplified them.

By the end of Bush’s presidency, conservatives were rebellious against both Bush, for his immigration proposals, Mideast wars and rising debt, and the Republican majority in Congress for its overspending and corruption.

After the near-collapse of the financial system and its bailout by the Bush administration, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first Black American elected president. Almost immediately, the third Republican revolution took shape, this one a headless movement from the bottom up: the tea party.

Republican Party leaders sought to unite with tea party activists against their common enemy — Obama. In the midterm elections of Obama’s two terms, Republicans regained control of the House in 2010 and then the Senate in 2014.

Yet just as Gingrich found with Clinton, sharing responsibility for governing requires occasional compromise with the Democratic president on must-pass bills. And compromise infuriated the Republican base and conservative media. “They don’t give a damn about governing,” former Rep. Tom Latham, an Iowa Republican, told me in 2015. Latham, who was first elected in the 1994 Gingrich revolution, had just left Congress in frustration after 20 years.

A year later, against a field of establishment Republicans vying for the presidential nomination, Trump quickly rose to the top, speaking a language of aggrievement that resonated with the mostly white, less educated voters living in rural America and long-struggling industrial areas like my Ohio hometown.

They jumped on the Trump train and stayed on even after he’d lost reelection and the GOP’s control of Congress. As Donald Trump Jr. said of other Republican officials on Jan. 6, just before the attack on the Capitol, “This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party.”

It was a straight line from Gingrich’s uncompromising, smash-mouth politics to the tea party and then to Trump.

Should Trump remain exiled at Mar-a-Lago, his MAGA army will soldier on, forcing party officials and 2024 presidential aspirants to fall in line. And if Republicans lose in 2022 or 2024, many seem poised to reject the result, turn to force or countenance those who do — Trump or no Trump.

Jackie Calmes is the White House editor for the Los Angeles Times. This article is adapted from her book “Dissent: The Radicalization of the Republican Party and Its Capture of the Court,” which will be published June 15.

Maine tries to shift the cost of recycling onto companies instead of taxpayers

Maine tries to shift the cost of recycling onto companies instead of taxpayers

 

TRENTON, Maine – At the height of tourist season, the recycling bins at this coastal town used to swell with glass and plastic, office paper and piles of cardboard from the local boatyard. But the bins are gone, and their contents now join the trash, destined either for an incinerator to generate electricity or a landfill.

Trenton is one of many Maine towns that had to cut back or close their recycling operations after events both global and local. In 2018 China, which used to take much of America’s plastic waste, banned most of those imports. Last year, a plant in Hampden, Maine, that promised to provide state-of-the-art recycling for more than 100 municipalities shut down.

With mountains of boxes and bubble wrap from online pandemic shopping now going in the trash, lawmakers are trying to make Maine the first state to shift some of the costs of its recycling onto companies – not taxpayers. If the bipartisan bill passes, Maine will join several Canadian provinces, including neighboring Quebec, and all European countries, which have for decades relied on so-called extended producer responsibility programs, or EPR, for packaging.

“It’s good that the bottom fell out,” said Rep. Nicole Grohoski, D-Ellsworth, the bill’s Democratic sponsor, whose district includes Trenton. She doesn’t believe the old system of shipping products halfway around the world to China made sense as countries try to reduce their carbon footprints.

“We have to face this problem and use our own ingenuity to solve it,” Grohoski said.

The proposed legislation, which is vehemently opposed by representatives for Maine’s retail and food producing industries, would charge large packaging producers for collecting and recycling materials as well as for disposing of non-recyclable packaging. The income generated would be reimbursed to communities like Trenton to support their recycling efforts. EPR programs already exist in many states for a variety of toxic and bulky products including pharmaceuticals, batteries, paint, carpet and mattresses. At least a dozen states, from New York to California and Hawaii, have been working on similar bills for packaging.

“Ten years ago, this would have been unthinkable,” said Dylan de Thomas, vice president of external affairs at the Recycling Partnership, who said he is seeing far more openness to EPR bills from such corporate giants as Coca-Cola and Unilever than in the past.

“It’s a reflection of the pressure they are seeing from corporate investors,” said de Thomas, who anticipates there may be similar shifts in national policies.

“That’s the big enchilada,” he said.

EPR programs for packaging, which accounts for about 40 percent of the municipal waste stream, have worked well in other countries, said Scott Cassel, CEO of the Product Stewardship Institute, who said benefits include new jobs as well as reinforcing the circular economy – or continual reuse of resources.

“These are tried-and-true strategies,” he said. None of these first bills will be perfect. But this is a path that we need to start down in the U.S.”

In Maine, the bill’s opponents raise concerns about the logistics retailers may face policing the new policies and the potential for food costs to rise for consumers who are just emerging from the pandemic. They cite a study from Toronto’s York University, which analyzed New York’s EPR bill and estimated an additional $36 to $57 per month in grocery costs for the average family of four. EPR advocates contest those findings, saying there is little evidence of significant costs ending up with consumers in other countries.

For many rural Mainers who don’t enjoy the benefits of free curbside waste collection, the debate over recycling seems irrelevant. They haul their own trash to transfer stations to avoid the $6 weekly charge for having it collected.

“I’ve never been one to recycle,” said Penny Lyons, a Trenton resident, although her family has a stash of bottles and other beverage containers on a flatbed trailer that can be turned in for cash. Her husband, who works in car sales, is able to dispose of their solid waste at work, she said.

Chocolate maker Kate McAleer, who owns chocolate maker Bixby &. Co, said that to follow federal food safety guidelines her company uses metalized film that is a challenge to recycle but protects against pests, air, sunlight and tampering. Changing that would have an impact on her products’ shelf life.

She doesn’t believe legislators understand the complexity of food safety. “I think they think there are solutions that there aren’t,” Bixby said.

Christine Cummings, executive director of the Maine Grocers and Food Producers Association, said her primary concern is “the unknowns” for businesses in a state that sits at the end of distribution routes and relies heavily on incoming goods.

“What is this going to do on our supply chain?” she asked.

Grohoski dismisses such concerns.

“We won’t be out on a limb for long,” she said, anticipating that if her bill passes, other states will soon follow suit.

In the meantime, some communities are paying a premium to continue recycling programs by shipping materials south to Portland, the state’s biggest city. Others are devising ways to process and sell recyclable materials.

In Unity, Maine, about 90 miles north of Portland, Steve Wright and Jeff Reynolds are running an eight-town sorting operation, feeding paper and plastics into giant green balers and glass into a machine that grinds bottles into a glistening powder that can be used for insulating boxes around lithium batteries or with aggregate to make driveways.

Each of the surrounding towns pays in according to its population – Unity has 2,000 residents – and individuals from further away can join for an annual fee of $30.

The pandemic has increased the piles of cardboard, particularly from pet owners leery of going inside stores, Wright sad..

The operation is powered by 40 solar panels and has room to expand – particularly if the EPR goes through.

“We have to move now,” said Rep Stanley Paige Ziegler, D-Montville, whose district includes Unity and who has worked alongside Grohoski to advance the EPR bill.

Sarah Nichols, Sustainable Maine director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, sees the bill as the logical next step for a state that has led the way in environmental policies. Maine passed one of the first bottle bills in the 1970s and in 2004 the first laws requiring manufacturers to pay the entire cost of recycling computers and televisions. In 2019, the legislature passed the nation’s first statewide ban on Styrofoam food containers that will soon go into effect.

“Maine is seen as a national leader in environmental policy,” Nichols said. “That’s why people move here and visit. It’s part of our state’s personality.”

Nichols points out that Department of Environmental Protection estimates show it can cost 67 percent more to recycle than dispose of packaging. Taxpayers pay at least $16 million annually to manage packaging material through recycling or disposal – costs they have no control over.

Nichols argues the EPR bill would give manufacturers an incentive to reduce packaging and design packaging that is more easily recycled.

Old recycling habits die-hard at the transfer station in Southwest Harbor, with its stunning views toward the forested slopes of Acadia National Park.

Residents drive up to pitch their waste into bays still bearing green signs reminding them of the old days when they sorted their waste: Glass, tin, aluminum and plastic in one; magazines, catalogues and other paper goods in another.

The baler that used to package up paper hasn’t been used for a couple of years, according to the site’s owner, Mark Worcester. Instead, Worcester is sending out a 25-30 ton container of trash – sometimes two – every day, usually to be incinerated for electricity.

“We get tons and tons of cardboard,” Worcester said.

On a busy Saturday morning, car after car pulled up loaded with packaging materials, folded ready for the recycling that would not happen.

“It’s a reflex,” said Jon Zeitler, as he broke down a box and chucked it into the bay that used to be for paper goods.

“Mentally, I have to,” said Jonathan Quebben as he, in turn, pitched his cardboard in.

Susan Raven, a third-grade teacher, said she has made a point of telling her students how to be responsible custodians of the earth. But it’s hard for them to put that into practice, she said, as she pulled out of her car’s trunk the plastic boxes her family of four always used to sort their recycling and then pitched it all into the trash.

“We can’t break the habit,” she said.