The Soil Champion Who Might Hold the Key to a Hopeful Climate Future

Civil Eats

The Soil Champion Who Might Hold the Key to a Hopeful Climate Future

In his new book, David Montgomery goes deep on the economic and climate-saving potential of healthy soil around the world.

By Claire Luchette, Agroecology, Climate  November 6, 2018

[Editor’s note: Today, the 23rd annual U.N. climate talks begin in Bonn, Germany, and this week Civil Eats continues to explore agriculture’s role in causing—and mitigating—climate change. In addition to this interview, be sure to also read an exclusive excerpt from David Montgomery’s latest book, Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life.]

Compared to sea level rise and super storms, soil is not at the center of most people’s thinking about climate change. But David Montgomery is here to change that.

For the former MacArthur fellow’s most recent book, Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Lifeand his third book about soil, Montgomery traveled the world to document the wide range of methods farmers are using to restore the health of the world’s soil. Like a travelogue for the environmental set, the book elegantly integrates Montgomery’s research with age-old wisdom about farming.

For decades, the Professor of Earth and Spaces Sciences at the University of Washington argues, soil has been degraded and taken for granted as farming practices have become increasingly industrialized. But as he spends time with farmers from the Dakotas to Ghana, Montgomery sees firsthand that soil regeneration is the key to increasing crop production and slowing climate change.

Civil Eats recently spoke with Montgomery about his book, “crazy” farmers, and what it will take to bring back healthy soil on a global scale.

You write that soil is the resource that “consistently gets overlooked or short-changed in public discourse and policy.” Why do you think those of us who aren’t farmers and scientists fail to recognize the value of dirt?

In part because we think of it as “dirt” and not “soil.” We think of it as something we don’t want to track into the house rather than the living foundation of agricultural civilizations. And we don’t tend to think of soil as something that changes because soil erosion and degradation occur slowly enough to escape notice year by year. It is only over a lifetime that one can really notice the changes to the land. Quite simply, we take it for granted.

I’m struck by the hopeful tone of the book. When you set out to research for the book, were you feeling “positive about our long term prospects,” as you were at the end of this process?

Frankly, no. I finished my previous book, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, with a call for treating the world’s soils as an intergenerational trust. But I was not anywhere near as optimistic about our potential to actually do that before I visited farmers around the world who have already restored fertility to their land and now use far less diesel and agrochemical inputs—and spend a lot less on fertilizer and pesticides.

Can you identify a turning point—a conversation or insight—during your research at which your “ecopessimism” turned around?

I really started to see that we really could turn the ancient problem of soil degradation around when my wife, Anne Biklé, and I noticed how fast all her mulching and composting was improving the soil in our garden, bringing it back to life in remarkably short order. There was one day when we noticed that the soil in our planting beds had gotten a lot darker—it was kind of like, hey remember that khaki beach sand colored soil we had, now it’s milk chocolate. This set us off to write The Hidden Half of Nature about our experiences learning about the importance of microbes in our garden—and our gut. Wondering whether soil restoration could be done as rapidly on farms started me on the path to writing Growing a Revolution.

I especially enjoyed learning about Gabe Brown’s surprising success using cattle to rebuild soil. Do you think there’s any hope for the small farm to have a come back?

Yes, I do. I was incredibly impressed with how Gabe and his son Paul have created a viable new model for a prosperous family farm. This new style of regenerative agriculture that relies less on expensive chemical inputs can help reshape the economics of smaller farms. After the second World War, American farmers got squeezed between low commodity crop prices and rising inputs costs. By improving their soil health, so that they don’t need as much in the way of inputs, farmers can improve their bottom line. The challenge, of course, is that it requires thinking about the soil differently and walking away from conventional practices to ditch the plow, plant cover crops, and grow a diversity of plants.

The book features only conventional farmers, except for the Rodale Institute. How did you choose the farmers you did?

I wanted to visit a broad range of farms, organic and conventional, large and small, and in the developed and developing worlds to find out whether the system of conservation agriculture (no-till, cover crops, and diversity) worked across the board. So I visited large farms and ranches in the U.S. and Canada, small subsistence farms in equatorial Africa (Ghana) and coffee plantations and agroforestry farms in Central America (Costa Rica). I visited the Rodale Institute to ask about whether no-till could be done on organic farms, motivated in part by hearing from conventional farmers that it couldn’t be done [because no-till generally involves controlling weeds with herbicides]. But I found that the folks at Rodale have been doing organic no-till for years.

Most of the farmers I visited were conventional because I wanted to learn what adopting this new system could do for the soil on farms practicing [growing] functional monocultures with intensive tillage and chemical use. I [also] wanted to visit farmers who had already restored fertility to the land to find out what worked and see what could be generalized from their varied experiences and stories. I found that farmers who had adopted the general principles of conservation agriculture had not only greatly enhanced the quality and fertility of their soil, but returned profitability to their farms by spending less on diesel and chemicals. I started calling them “organic-ish” farmers because they were hardly using any chemicals.

What do you think is standing in the way of wider change to how we treat our soil?

We all know that habits are hard to break. And to abandon the plow and seek to minimize the use of agrochemicals is a really different way of looking at the soil and farming. But enough science now supports the value of restoring health and fertility to the world’s agricultural soils that I’m confident that the farmers I visited are not anomalies. And their successes have already had a great impact in the regions where they live as other farmers notice that the “crazy” folks trying out new ideas are actually prospering. [Conventional] farmers are squeezed between the low prices they get for harvesting commodity crops and the high prices of the diesel, fertilizer, pesticides, and patented seeds.

I didn’t meet a single farmer who objected to the idea of paying less for diesel and fertilizer. The challenge will be to figure out how to tailor the general principles of conservation agriculture to specific practices that work for farmers in different regions, with different soils, climates, and crops. But that is a challenge that I think farmers and researchers are up to.

If it were up to you, who would be your pick for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture?

Hands down, my choice would be Howard G. Buffett. His vision of a Brown Revolution to restore agricultural soils is inspiring and he’s a farmer who knows the business side of agriculture.

Carbon Farming Works. Can It Scale up in Time to Make a Difference?

Civil Eats

Carbon Farming Works. Can It Scale up in Time to Make a Difference?

The knowledge and tools to sequester carbon on farmland have blossomed rapidly in California; now farmers and ranchers just need funding to make it happen.

 

Lani Estill is serious about wool. And not just in a knitting-people-sweaters kind of way. Estill and her husband John own thousands of sweeping acres in the northwest corner of California, where they graze cattle and Rambouillet sheep, a cousin of the Merino with exceptionally soft, elastic wool.

“Ninety percent of our income from the sheep herd comes from the lamb we sell,” says Estill. But the wool, “it’s where my passion is.”

Wool, an often-overlooked agricultural commodity, has also opened a number of unexpected doors for Bare Ranch, the land Estill and her family call home. In fact, their small yarn and wool business has allowed Lani and John to begin “carbon farming,” or considering how and where their land can pull more carbon from the atmosphere and put it into the soil in an effort to mitigate climate change. And in a rural part of the state where talk of climate change can cause many a raised eyebrow, such a shift is pretty remarkable.

Rambouillet sheep. (Photo credit: Paige Green)

Rambouillet sheep. (Photo credit: Paige Green)

Over the last two years, the Estills have started checking off items from a long list of potential changes recommended in a thorough carbon plan they created in 2016 with the help of the Fibershed project and Jeffrey Creque, founder of the Carbon Cycle Institute (CCI). The plan lists steps the ranchers can take to create carbon sinks on their property. And in the first two years, they’ve gotten started by making their own compost out of manure and woodchips and spreading it in several strategic places around the land.

They’ve also planted more vegetation in the areas of the ranch that border on streams and creeks to help them absorb carbon more efficiently, and this year they’ll be putting in a 4,000-foot row of trees that will act as a windbreak, as well as a number of new trees in the pastured area, applying a practice called silvopasture.

All these practices have allowed the Estills to market their wool as “Climate Beneficial,” which is a game-changer for them. They’ve also sold wool to The North Face, which used it to developed the Cali Wool Beanie—a product the company prominently touts as climate-friendly. The company, which has marketed several other regional products as part of their ongoing collaboration with Fibershed, also gave the Estills a one-time $10,000 grant in 2016 that the ranchers combined with some state and federal funding to help them start enacting parts of their carbon plan.

Like the Estills, the owners of dozens of farms, vineyards, and ranches in 26 counties around California have drawn up ambitious carbon plans that take into account the unique properties of each operation and lay out the best, most feasible ways to absorb CO2 over the long term. In arid ranching counties like Marin, that might mean re-thinking grazing practices, while in Napa Valley it could mean building soil in vineyards by tilling less and planting cover crops, and in San Diego County, it may mean protecting existing citrus and avocado orchards from encroaching development and working with farmers to plant more orchards.

It’s early days for the effort, but in a state that plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030—the most ambitious target in North America—these plans are laying out a solid plan to help farming and ranching become heavy hitters in the fight against climate change. They’re also helping create a model that is being watched closely by lawmakers in states like Colorado and Montana, where other carbon farming projects are coming together.

Agriculture accounts for around 8 percent of California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but that number doesn’t quite reflect the impact of the gases themselves. Croplands in the state are the primary contributor of nitrous oxide, the most potent GHG, and account for 50 percent of the N2O that ends up in the atmosphere. While the bulk of the state’s methane emissions—25 times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide—also originate on animal farms. On a global level, food production accounts for between 19 and 29 percent of climate-warming GHG emissions.

Lani Estill. (Photo credit: Paige Green)

Lani Estill. (Photo credit: Paige Green)

It’s not surprising then, that some farmers are eager to be part of a solution. But as the rubber hits the road in California, the big question is how farmers will fund these changes. While solutions like the ones the Estills are tapping into, which combine consumer interest with public funding, seem promising, there’s still a long way to go before the efforts scale up in earnest around the state.

The momentum may be growing, however: The Marin Carbon Project, which pioneered carbon farming in California, recently had its day in the sun with a New York Times Magazine feature. And success stories like that of the Estills may soon bring more food producers on board.

A Beneficial Partnership

For Lani Estill, everything began to change in 2014, when she developed a small yarn brand. But she was only able to sell a small percentage of the wool directly to consumers, and most of it went to the wholesale market, where it sold for next to nothing. Some years, Estill says, they’d store it to see if they could get a better price the following year.

In 2014, Estill met Rebecca Burgess, a persuasive enthusiast of California wool with a vision to reinvigorate the supply chain for regional fiber, yarn, and cloth while building a market for those things simultaneously. Burgess, who had built a statewide network of fiber producers through her Fibershed network, was connected with the Marin Carbon Project and several other nonprofits campaigning hard to make carbon farming a reality.

When the idea came up to write a carbon plan, with funding from The North Face, Estill says it took some convincing. “Ranchers have been threatened constantly by the environmental community,” Estill told Capitol Public Radio in January. “So, we had to kind of open up our minds a little bit to accept what was being offered as a genuine offer.”

Burgess had also developed the “Backyard Project” with The North Face, which revolved around creating a shirt, and then several sweatshirts, using a transparent, mostly regional supply chain. The beanie made with climate beneficial wool was a natural next step.

“We make products so people can go explore and enjoy nature. And addressing climate is obviously an important issue,” says James Rogers, director of sustainability at The North Face. Based on their own internal lifecycle assessments, the company also determined that focusing on the types of materials it uses and how those materials are made offered the most effective way to address its environmental impact.

But Rogers says that the chance to make a positive impact was also appealing. “Frankly, a lot of companies are trying to do less bad, by reducing their environmental impact. And the thing that’s so exciting about climate beneficial wool is that through those ranching practices [the Estills] are actually taking carbon out of the atmosphere and sequestering it into the soil, while at the same time making that soil more healthy and retaining more water. So instead of just trying to be less bad, we’re actually doing more good.”

The Cali Wool Beanie was the top-selling beanie on The North Face’s website when it was released last fall, suggesting that some consumers are onboard with supporting carbon farming with their dollars.

The North Face's promotion of the Cali Wool Beanie.

The North Face’s promotion of the Cali Wool Beanie. (Photo courtesy The North Face)

But Fibershed’s Burgess adds that, although the climate benefits are front and center in the marketing, the carbon plans themselves are an ongoing process. “With the beanie, we’re working toward every pound of wool representing nine pounds of carbon sequestered. But we’re not there yet,” she says. “We actually need people [and companies] to buy more wool at a re-valued price, which that beanie provides. The more wool sells, the more carbon we can sequester at Bare Ranch. And that’s actually how regenerative systems work. It’s call and response between us and the ecosystem.”

Lani Estill, who has begun to sell more of her wool at non-commodity prices, agrees. She’s also created a community supported cloth project (a CSA for wool) as a way to invite home crafters and small brands to take part in that call and response.

Mounting Evidence

The idea of crafting farm-specific carbon plans grew out of the Marin Carbon Project, a collaborative research effort between landowners John Wick and Peggy Rathmann, scientists at the University of California, and several conservation groups. Launched in 2008, the project has spent the last decade looking at the role that applied compost and grazing management practices can play in helping soil absorb more carbon from the atmosphere on the state’s 54 million acres of rangeland.

Whendee Silver, a professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of California, Berkeley, managed a team of researchers who compared the CO2 and water retained in a series of plots of land—one where a thin layer of compost was applied, one that was plowed, one where both compost application and plowing took place, and a control plot.

In 2014, the team published the first round of evidence that showed that compost applications and other carbon farming techniques have the potential to help mitigate climate change by building biomass and transferring carbon from the atmosphere back into the soil.

The researchers found that a single application of a half-inch layer of compost on grazed rangelands can increase grass and other forage plant production by 40 to 70 percent, help soil hold up to 26,000 liters more water per hectare, and increase soil carbon sequestration by at least 1 ton per hectare per year for 30 years, without re-application. And because the dairy manure the project used to create the compost would have otherwise released methane to the atmosphere, the result was particularly promising for the climate.

Spreading compost at Bare Ranch. (Photo credit: Paige Green)

Spreading compost at Bare Ranch. (Photo credit: Paige Green)

“We’ve discovered is that there’s a version of agriculture that actually could transform atmospheric carbon into carbohydrates [i.e., grass] and soil carbon,” says Wick, who has spent over a decade evangelizing the benefits of carbon farming on his own ranch and envisioning a state where such practices become the norm. “So for us the challenge is how do we communicate that? Now that we have this new understanding, how do we inspire people to put new importance on the same old things that we’ve always looked at—like sunshine, rain, and soil?”

For Wick and others, this shift in perspective feels especially urgent. He points to the latest International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) risk assessment, which makes it clear that “emission reductions will no longer stop this runaway destabilization of the climate. It says, ‘We must develop an ongoing strategy of removing carbon from the atmosphere that is sustainable.’ And that’s what we’ve done. Agriculture is the only system on earth large enough—directly under human influence right now—to actually transform enough carbon to actually cool the planet, not just stop how warm it gets, but actually reverse that trend.”

This year, Wick has returned his focus to his own land, while a handful of nonprofits such as the CCI and the California Climate and Ag Network, as well as county-level resource conservation districts (RCDs), are carrying on the change to scale up the statewide effort.

Since 2013, CCI has been working with RCDs all over the state to craft carbon plans that speak to the specifics of each farm’s geography, soil type, and lifecycle. “We’re not just spreading compost everywhere,” says CCI’s Torri Estrada. “We want to get on a farm and really understand the ecology, the farm production, and really push the envelope and give them a very comprehensive assessment.”

Nancy Scolari, the executive director of the Marin Resource Conservation District, says it has been interesting to see carbon farming go from a fairly abstract concept to an actual set of fundable practices in just a few years.

For many farmers, she says, the fact that they can’t actually see carbon in the air or the soil, made the Marin Carbon Project “hard to really appreciate at first.” But when Silver’s research was released, Scolari says it filled in some important gaps in the wider conservation world.

“The reason RCDs were created in the first place was all around soil, after the Dust Bowl. If you completely overuse your soils, you’ll feel it in the end. So to kind of reconnect with that past has been pretty interesting,” says Scolari. “All of the information around increasing soil organic matter and total carbon is like, ‘wow, this is the piece we’ve been missing for some time now.’ And it’s a piece that farmers really connect with.”

And while Estrada admits that the interest so far has mostly come from farmers who are already working outside the agriculture mainstream, in most counties the early adopters, who want to make—and execute on—a carbon plan for their farms still outnumber the local RCDs’ capacity there. Four northern California counties—Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Marin—have all developed templates that can be adapted in other parts of the state with rangelandsvineyardsorchards, and forests.

In Marin, 10 farms had completed carbon plans as of the end of 2017, and five more are working on them this year. But the Scolari says she only has a few small pots of potential funding—from land trusts, the state’s coastal conservancy, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resource Conservation Service—to offer farmers.

“The biggest barrier to scaling is the technical assistance of farmers,” says CCI’s Estrada. “It really requires planning assistance, implementation assistance, and then monitoring, which the RCDs and others do. But it’s really underfunded.”

For instance, planning to spread a layer of compost across every acre of your farm may sound relatively simple, but the cost of making it (or buying it), hauling it, and spreading it can add up quickly. And no farm has executed on every item in their carbon plan just yet. “We have producers doing one or two practices, which is really great. But the bottom line budget for [the whole plan] is hundreds of thousands of dollars,” says Estrada.

Piles of compost to be spread. (Photo credit: Paige Green)

Piles of compost to be spread. (Photo credit: Paige Green)

In 2017, the state set aside $7.5 million for the Healthy Soils Program and a larger Healthy Soils Act as part of its cap and trade program. That was a good start, says Estrada, but adds that Marin County alone “could spend that twice over with a full build-out of its plan.” And there are no funds allocated for healthy soils in the state’s current fiscal year budget.

Larger structural investments are also helping paving the way. Fifty million dollars from the cap and trade pool have also been made available to large dairy farms that compost their waste, at which point it can be made available to farms and ranches. And the state’s recycling agency has also set aside $72 million for new compost facilities.

When farmers are able to raise the funds to enact their carbon plans, they’re likely to see a return on their investment over the long term. “If we can increase organic matter in soils, we thereby increased water-holding capacity,” points out Scolari. And in drought-prone California, that alone has enormous value.

As John Wick sees it, money can definitely help kick-start the process of sequestering carbon on farms, but so can time.

In areas of Wick’s ranch where the soil was once losing carbon, he says, he’s seeing a slow but powerful process unfold. “Where we put compost, which we imported at first, we reversed that trend and that system is making more biomass so I can make even more compost on-site. So now making my own compost as medicine and putting a single dose on my poor soils creates even more [compost]. And so I have this sweet spot of success that’s expanding outward.”

Calla Rose Ostrander, a consultant who works with Wick as well as the People, Food and Land Foundation, acknowledges that the funding so far has been relatively small, but considering the scope of the work to be done, she believes the inflection point isn’t far off.

“It’s going to require funding from multiple places before farmers can fully get to where they are implementing this at scale on the landscape,” she says. “However, all those funding doors are open now. Now it’s just a matter of growing the size and amount of funds that come through to the ground. The pathways are built, the relationships are there, the interest is there. The crucial moment—and this happens in any movement—is how you get from, ‘we’ve got the ideas, we’ve got the policies’ to ‘we’ve got to get the money on the ground.’”

“We’ve built a new pathway from scratch,” adds Wick. “And it didn’t matter at first how much flowed through it—we’re testing it now for leaks and gaps. And so the first flow is trickling through. That’s the moment; and it’s a very exciting moment.”

Want Healthier Soil? Link it to Crop Insurance

Civil Eats

Want Healthier Soil? Link it to Crop Insurance

Scientists now say incentivizing soil health would improve food security and sustainability, especially as the climate changes.

By Elizabeth Grossman, Agroecology, Climate    June 5, 2018

 

[Update: In September 2017, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) introduced legislation that would require “all farmers who receive crop insurance premium subsidies to abide by basic conservation requirements.”]

Most farmers know that the health of their soil is important, but they don’t all prioritize it over, say, maximizing what they grow each year. Now, some scientists are looking into ways to ensure that more farmers—especially those producing commodity crops in the middle of the country—start taking soil seriously.

The world’s biggest crop insurance program, the U.S. Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) provides coverage to help farmers recover from “severe weather and bad years of production.” But recently, a pair of Cornell University scientists looked at what might happen if crop insurance were also tied to soil quality—that is, if insurance companies began considering soil data when determining rates.

In a new paper, Cornell University assistant professor of agricultural business and finance Joshua Woodard and post-doctoral research assistant Leslie Verteramo Chiu argue that tying the Crop Insurance Program to the health of a farm’s soil could make it a powerful tool for promoting more sustainable and resilient farming. Including soil data in crop insurance criteria, they write, would “open the door to improving conservation outcomes” and help farmers better manage risks to food security and from climate change.

Or, as Paul Wolfe, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) senior policy specialist, explained, “The big picture is that crop insurance could be a great way to incentivize conservation, but it isn’t now.”

Current Program Fails to Recognize Conservation Practices

What is the FCIP and why are its policies so influential? The program began in the 1930s to help farmers recover from the devastating losses of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Now it covers everything from drought-related crop losses to dips in revenue.

About 900,000 farmers participate in the program, which currently covers about 90 percent of “insurable” U.S. farmland—more than 298 million acres in 2015—with policies worth about $100 billion annually. And it covers more than 100 different crops. The program is a public-private partnership managed by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, which has been administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA) since 1996. The USDA sets insurance rates and authorizes which private insurance companies can sell policies; the costs of premiums are subsidized by the federal government to the tune of $0.62 per $1. It’s the largest direct subsidy program to domestic commercial agriculture and currently costs U.S. taxpayers about $10 billion annually.

The USDA itself has said that, “Improving the health of our Nation’s soil is one of the most important conservation endeavors of our time.” Healthy soil is also key to helping farmers manage the extreme weather—including droughts and floods—that comes with climate change.

But as it stands, the FCIP bases premiums on what a farm produces from year to year, without considering the conditions—such as soil quality—that influence those yields. “Crop insurance doesn’t really look beyond what you do in a single year,” said NSAC’s Wolfe. “Its goal is a very short-term effort based on the maximum a farmer can produce in one year,” he explained. “In some ways it discourages conservation practices with its extreme short-term view.”

This means that a farmer who puts in a cover crop to rebuild its soil capacity could end up paying more in premiums if that practice reduced his or her annual yield. Similarly, a farmer who puts marginal land into production to increase yields while increasing erosion or runoff would not pay a price for those impacts.

As Woodard writes, including soil type and quality information in setting crop insurance rates would be “a first step toward creating a crop insurance system” that could improve agricultural sustainability and “improve conservation outcomes.” But without this information, the program doesn’t provide any incentive for farmers to adopt practices that would, for example, increase soil water retention or increase soils’ organic matter—potentially increasing long-term productivity.

If soil data were part of crop insurance, it could also reduce the agricultural runoff now causing damaging algae blooms in the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and Gulf of Mexico, said Wolfe. And it would do so “with a carrot, not a stick.”

“As a farmer, I have always resented that the price my neighbors—who don’t do a good job with conservation—pay is the same as what someone who does practice conservation [pays],” said Bruce Knight, principal of Strategic Conservation Solutions and former chief of the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Services, who raises calves, corn, soybeans—and some years, wheat, sunflowers, and alfalfa—in South Dakota.

“We’re now subsidizing riskier operations the same as less risky ones, Knight explained. Getting information about soil “incorporated into crop insurance will completely revolutionize how that works and revolutionize taxpayers’ role as well,” he added.

Critics of the current program, including the Environmental Working Group, contend that crop insurance policies actually encourage—and subsidize—poor farming practices and could lead to another Dust Bowl in regions hardest hit by drought and heat.

Challenges of Transforming the Farm Landscape

Of course, changing the farm landscape won’t be as easy as some might hope. “Every farmer knows that … improving soil health reduces risk,” explained Meridian Institute senior partner Todd Barker. “But to effect change in the crop insurance program you have to prove without a doubt, in a data-intensive way, that there’s a correlation between A and B. Insurance companies require that level of detail.”

Through its AGree program, the nonprofit Meridian has been working with academic researchers like Woodard, farmers, conservation groups, and former USDA leaders to develop ways to incorporate soil data into the FCIP.

Linking crop insurance premium subsidies to soil data and measures of soil health would be the equivalent of a safe-driver discount on auto insurance, Wolfe explained. It would reward better practices. But getting the USDA to make such a move won’t be easy. After all, the FCIP has been in place for nearly 80 years and linking crop insurance to soil data would require changes to the Farm Bill—and would require the USDA to share information about crop yields that aren’t now readily available.

“There are some people out there who don’t want to change at all,” says Wolfe. “But a lot of people, if provided the right sort of encouragement and incentives, would be moving the needle on reducing runoff, reducing soil loss, and improving water quality.”

It’s tough to say whether any of this will come to pass in the short term. FCIP changes are expected to come under discussion as the 2018 Farm Bill is debated. But, so far, the agriculture committees mainly appear interested in reducing premium subsidies for the wealthiest farmers and insurance payouts based on inflated post-disaster harvest prices.

Newly sworn-in Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has voiced support for the crop insurance program. Yet his stance on soil protection and increase resiliency to climate change remains unclear, especially given his past dismissal of climate change science and his investments in companies that sell agricultural chemicals, including fertilizer. Still, Woodard’s paper lays the groundwork to show that if and when the USDA is ready to make a move, soil quality data could play a key role in transforming crop insurance for the better.

Ocasio-Cortez Becomes Most Ambitious Climate Democrat After Surprise Primary Win

EcoWatch

Ocasio-Cortez Becomes Most Ambitious Climate Democrat After Surprise Primary Win

Olivia Rosane       June 27, 2018

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – 2018

After what CNN called a surprise primary victory Tuesday over 10-term incumbent Representative Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th congressional district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just became the leading Democrat on fighting climate changeThe Huffington Post reported.

Ocasio-Cortez, a 28 year old Democratic Socialist, is now likely to win November’s general election in the historically Democratic district that stretches from the Bronx to Queens, meaning she will join Congress with some of the most ambitious climate plans of any current representative, according to The Huffington Post.

In an email to The Huffington Post, she explained her plans for a Green New Deal to help America switch to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035, which advocates say is our best shot of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

“The Green New Deal we are proposing will be similar in scale to the mobilization efforts seen in World War II or the Marshall Plan,” she wrote. “We must again invest in the development, manufacturing, deployment, and distribution of energy, but this time green energy.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s climate plans dovetail with some of the other progressive points on her platform, such as a Federal Jobs Guarantee and Solidarity with Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria.

Ocasio-Cortez told The Huffington Post that the island would be the ideal place to test-run a Green New Deal to help with recovery efforts.

“Our fellow Americans on the island have suffered horrendous losses and need investment at a scale that only the American government can provide,” she said.

On her platform, Ocasio-Cortez also links the fight against climate change with her commitments to economic justice and immigrant rights.

“Rather than continue a dependency on this system that posits climate change as inherent to economic life, the Green New Deal believes that radically addressing climate change is a potential path towards a more equitable economy with increased employment and widespread financial security for all,” her platform reads.

Her platform also says fighting climate change is necessary “to avoid a world refugee crisis.” Concern for immigrants is a large part of her platform. She supports abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which was created in 2003 in the post-9/11 escalation of national security operations and executive power and operates outside the Department of Justice, unlike previous immigration enforcement.

The link between the potential for global warming to increase the number of climate refugees and the need to improve the treatment of current immigrants, many of which are already fleeing deteriorating environmental conditions, is something picked up by the Democratic Socialists of America, the group to which Ocasio-Cortez belongs, on the platform for its climate and environmental justice working group, according to The Huffington Post.

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Farmers in America are killing themselves in staggering numbers

Money Watch

Farmers in America are killing themselves in staggering numbers

By Irina Ivanova        June 26, 2018

“Think about trying to live today on the income you had 15 years ago.” That’s how agriculture expert Chris Hurt describes the plight facing U.S. farmers today.

The unequal economy that’s emerged over the past decade, combined with patchy access to health care in rural areas, have had a severe impact on the people growing America’s food. Recent data shows just how much. Farmers are dying by suicide at a higher rate than any other occupational group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The suicide rate in the field of farming, fishing and forestry is 84.5 per 100,000 people — more than five times that of the population as a whole. That’s even as the nation overall has seen an increase in suicide rates over the last 30 years.

The CDC study comes with a few caveats. It looked at workers over 17 different states, but it left out some major agricultural states, like Iowa. And the occupational category that includes these workers includes small numbers of workers from related occupational groups, like fishing and forestry. (However, agricultural workers make up the vast majority of the “farming, fishing and forestry” occupational group.)

However, the figures in the CDC study mirror other recent findings. Rates of suicide have risen fastest, and are highest, in rural areas, the CDC found in a different study released earlier this month. Other countries have seen this issue, too — including India, where 60,000 farmer suicides have been linked to climate change.

In the U.S., several longtime farm advocates say today’s crisis mirrors one that happened in the 1980s, when many U.S. farmers struggled economically, with an accompanying spike in farmer suicides.

“The farm crisis was so bad, there was a terrible outbreak of suicide and depression,” said Jennifer Fahy, communications director with Farm Aid, a group founded in 1985 that advocates for farmers. Today, she said, “I think it’s actually worse.”

“We’re hearing from farmers on our hotline that farmer stress is extremely high,” Fahy said. “Every time there’s more uncertainty around issues around the farm economy is another day of phones ringing off the hook.”

Finances are a major reason. Since 2013, farm income has been dropping steadily, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This year, the average farm’s income is projected to be 35 percent below its 2013 level.

“The current incomes we’ve seen for the last three years … have been about like farm incomes from early in this century,” said Hurt, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University in Indiana.

Farmers are also at the mercy of elements outside their direct control, from extreme weather events that threaten crops to commodity prices that offer less for farm goods than it costs to produce them.

“We’ve spoken to dairy farmers who are losing money on every pound of milk they sell,” said Alana Knudson, co-director of the Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis with the University of Chicago.

As America’s trading partners slap tariffs on U.S. crops, those prices are set to be further undermined. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s gradual raising of interest rates threatens the financing for many smaller farms.

A lot of our farmers take out operating loans so they can buy seed, fertilizer and spray. As we’re looking at increasing interest rates, this is going to exacerbate financial vulnerability,” Knudson said.

Unreliable finances are a major reason why three-quarters of farmers must rely on non-farm income, often from a second job. Health insurance access is another.

Health care and mental-health services can be critical, Knudson said, particularly in rural areas, where medical care may be scarce. The farm bill that passed the House last week threatens to undo that, she said, because it allows for health insurance to sell plans that exclude mental health coverage. The Senate version of the farm bill allocates $20 million to a program to connect farmers with behavioral health services.

Such programs are even more crucial today, said Fahy, because many publicly-funded programs that were created in the wake of the 1980s farm crisis have been chipped away over the years. She pointed to Minnesota, where a suicide hotline closed earlier this month after a budget dispute between the legislature and the governor.

“Farmer stress right now is extremely high, the farm economy is very precarious and not predicted to improve in the near future,” she said. However, she added, “When there are steps in place to address the root cause, which is usually financial and legal, the stress becomes manageable.”

Because people can feel stigma around issues of mental health, conversation is important, said Doug Samuel, associate psychology professor at Purdue University.

“When you’re looking at someone who you have a concern about,” Samuel advised, “don’t be afraid to ask, don’t be afraid to listen.”

This Performance Is a Uniquely American Brand of Authoritarianism

Esquire

This Performance Is a Uniquely American Brand of Authoritarianism

Some Trump supporters know it’s a shtick. That doesn’t make the consequences any less real.

By Jack Holmes      June 26, 2018

Getty Images

Like it or not, this country that has for so long called itself Exceptional can now take some cues from other nations—specifically, those that slid into authoritarianism.

We have a president who attacks and seeks to undermine all institutions of democracy that provide a check on his power, from an independent judiciary and the rule of law to the free press. (The Republican Congress no longer merits a mention.) He combines that with dehumanizing attacks on vulnerable social minorities, whom he blames for the country’s problems—real and imagined. He has cultivated a base of support whose members have incorporated support for The Leader into their basic identities.

And, as Filipino author Rin Chupeco put it so well in a series of tweets early Tuesday morning, all this has been met by a chattering class of predominantly white elites who deny efforts to resist the slide into autocracy on the basis they are “uncivil.”

Rin Chupeco: Speaking as someone born in the last years of a dictatorship, you Americans are already several steps in one. Ferdinand Marcos’ greatest trick was convincing people all protesters were communist animals, so when they went missing, few cared. Even after bodies were discovered.

Rin Chupeco: Speaking as someone born in the last years of a dictatorship, you Americans are already several steps in one. Ferdinand Marcos’ greatest trick was convincing people all protesters were communist animals, so when they went missing, few cared. Even after bodies were discovered.

Rin Chupeco: These white people & journalists talking about being civil? These were the rich people, the Fil-Chinese, the mestizos in the Philippines who knew they won’t be affected by many of Marcos’ policies, and therefore could ignore them even as the killings started.

Rin Chupeco: But Filipinos have always been susceptible to strongman personality cults, just like your Republicans. (Yeah don’t @ me on this one, Repubs still singing Reagan’s praises despite the fact he was FRIENDS with Marcos and helped him retain power, making it 1000x worse for us.)

Rin Chupeco: White people, journalists who insist on civility- you seem to think civility is a common ground you share with opponents like Trump et al. Here’s a clue – whenever you offer these assholes middle ground, they will invade that space & then claim you never gave them ground at all.

This was in evidence at President Trump’s rally in South Carolina Monday night, which was nominally on behalf of South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster. In reality, it could only ever be about Trump. This was a full exhibition of the Trumpian id, as he rated late-night hosts and talked up his verification-free nuclear deal with Kim Jong-un and explained that if Melania Trump had gotten a facelift, he would let you know.

But one moment in particular spoke to Chupeco’s point:

Aaron Rupar: Trump detours into telling the crowd about a backhanded compliment filmmaker David Lynch gave him, then tells his audience that they are “the super elites.”
“Look, everybody here makes money, works hard, pays taxes. Does a great job.” pic.twitter.com/pECbx0uF1K

Aaron Rupar: Trump calls the media “the enemy of the people,” then brags about a woman who was recently interviewed and said there was nothing Trump could possibly do to lose her support. pic.twitter.com/pHuDcFM4XW

Here Trump called the free press “the enemy of the people,” a suggestion it spreads false information to the detriment of Trump and, in his extended view, the country. Except he then told the story of a supporter who said she would never abandon him, which the president learned about because … members of “the media” interviewed her. This is part of a long-running performance from Trump, who has openly admitted he attacks the media as “fake” to defend himself against legitimate negative reporting, and that when he says “fake news,” he really means negative coverage:

donald j. trump: The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?

Of course, the most troubling thing about Trump’s account a fan is that she has completely abdicated her responsibility as a citizen to hold her elected representative accountable, instead pledging undying fealty to a politician. (You don’t really have to trust Trump on this—accounts like this are common among Trump supporters.) But both sides of this point to the irrelevance of facts, and even intention.

It doesn’t matter that Trump openly admits he derides legitimate coverage as fake. It doesn’t matter that this entire thing is delivered in bad faith, just like all the calls for “civility.” What matters is the performance: Trump, the strongman leader, bashing the Enemies. That includes undocumented immigrants, but it also includes the free press, Democrats, late-night hosts, and anyone else who might stand in the way of The Movement. The details aren’t important.

This has filtered down to the fanbase, which had a fascinating encounter with CNN’s Jim Acosta last night at the rally.

Chuck@Hyduch: This is just….wow. Trumpers scream at CNN, then ask for autographs, then ask for on air shout outs. Attention seeking morons
https://twitter.com/i/moments/1011402213401358336 …

At least some of Trump’s supporters understand his shtick as a performance, and they engage in it, too. That’s why they’re ready with “Build the Wall” and “Lock Her Up!” chants, even when they’re only tangentially related to whatever he’s ranting about. All the world’s a stage, and even Acosta got in on the act, signing autographs for people who just assaulted his integrity and suggested he did not belong there. And yet the performance, at its root, is a primal scream from White America in defense of a social order fast eroding under strain from monumental forces of change.

And of course, Trump’s performance has real consequences:

the realkenidrawoods: A friend, Esteban Guzman sent me this video of a racist white woman harassing him while out working with his mom.

“Why do you hate us?”
“Because you’re Mexicans.”
“We are honest people right here!”
“Haha..yeah.. rapists & animals.”

Trump supporters always reveal themselves 1/2

This reality show presidency is a uniquely American flavor of authoritarianism. Citizens from the national home of The Bachelor require only a thin veneer of reality to paper over the obvious money-grabbing deceit of the production in order to be taken in. This is our version of the authoritarian slide, in which The Leader rants about Jimmy Fallon and whether his wife got a facelift as he attacks the institutions of democracy that safeguard a free society. The entire production is carried out in complete bad faith, just like when Sarah Huckabee Sanders—who works for a man who invents demeaning nicknames for opponents, bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy,” and calls predominantly black and brown countries “shitholes”—insists we need civil discourse.

It is a way of waging the trench war against any and all constraints on the range of acceptable discourse, the range of acceptable behavior, and The Leader’s power. It’s just our American version of the same impulses Chupeco highlighted:

Rin Chupeco: So you shift the goalposts, and you enable the gaslighting, even if inadvertently. “Maybe if YOU hadn’t been so rude they wouldn’t have done that.”
Bullshit. You KNOW they’ll do it anyway because again, your goddamn status quo.

People invested in putting kids in cages don’t want your civility. They don’t want you to extend them the same courtesy they never had – and never wanted – from you. What they want is for you to retreat.

Replying to RinChupeco: People invested in putting kids in cages don’t want your civility. They don’t want you to extend them the same courtesy they never had – and never wanted – from you. What they want is for you to retreat.

Rin Chupeco: And every ground you grudgingly give, hoping that they’ll construe that as some good faith on your part, is only an incentive for them to push harder until you have no ground left. Then they’re going to tell you they’ve owned the land all along.

Chupeco’s whole thread is worth reading.

The president again suggested we should suspend due process for people captured at the border last night. He is creeping up the field, seizing first the shallow ground allotted to the most vulnerable among us. No amount of civil discourse is going to convince him to turn back, or persuade any of his supporters they have chosen the wrong path. It might be reality TV, but the supporters don’t want to know. They’re enjoying the show. The tax cuts might be reserved for the rich, but the attacks on the Other are all theirs to savor. Where will the next attack be, the next ground seized?

Rick Perry gives pep talk to natural gas industry in wake of damaging climate study

ThinkProgress

Rick Perry gives pep talk to natural gas industry in wake of damaging climate study

U.S. gas industry also opposes Trump’s proposed bailout of coal and nuclear industries.

Mark Hand     June 26, 2018

Energy Secretary Rick Perry gave a keynote speech on June 26, 2018, to kick off the 2018 World Gas Conference in Washington, D.C. Credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Energy Secretary Rick Perry touted natural gas as an environmentally friendly fuel in a speech Tuesday, kicking off an international gathering of natural gas industry officials in Washington, D.C.

Perry’s pep talk at the triennial World Gas Conference, attended by thousands of industry representatives from around the world, came less than a week after the release of an important new study that found natural gas to be far more destructive to the climate than previously thought.

The new study, published last week in the journal Science, found that methane emissions from the nation’s oil and gas industry are nearly 60 percent higher than earlier estimates — effectively enough to offset much of the climate benefits of burning natural gas instead of coal.

The study’s results upend arguments made over the past decade — as the controversial practice of fracking gained momentum across the country — that natural gas could play a key role in fighting climate change, including serving as a bridge fuel to greater integration of renewable energy resources.

Perry advocated for the Trump administration’s all-of-the-above energy policy — one that he said includes wind and solar energy — although he paid the highest tribute to natural gas. The president’s strategy “includes the cleanest fossil fuel and one of the most abundant energy sources on the planet, and that’s natural gas,” Perry emphatically told the audience.

Perry criticized fossil fuel opponents who “flatly reject” an all-of-the-above energy strategy. “The answer is not to exclude oil and gas and coal from the world’s energy mix,” he said. “For the sake of environmental progress … we must honor the right of every nation to responsibly use every fuel at its disposal.”

He also claimed these opponents are ignoring the positive side of fossil fuels. “There is still this stubborn opposition to natural gas and other fossil fuels. Opposition exists even as fossil fuels have become cleaner and low-emission natural gas increases its share of total fossil production and use,” Perry said.

The new study, “Assessment of methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain,” was led by the Environmental Defense Fund. It has authors from 16 different institutions, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and Carnegie Mellon — experts who have co-authored many of the most important studies in this area.

The study found that methane emissions are so large that the total warming from natural gas-fired power plants, including leaks from transporting the gas to the plant plus emissions from the burning of gas, over a 20-year period is comparable to the total warming from coal plants over 20-year period.

Researchers concluded that if a coal-fired plant is replaced with a gas-fired plant there is no net climate benefit for at least two decades. Perhaps even more important is that other studies have shown natural gas not only does not have a climate benefit over coal, but that its use displaces many carbon-free sources of power such as wind and solar.

The argument for fracking as a climate solution just went down in flames

Although Perry received a warm welcome at Tuesday’s conference, the natural gas industry has strongly criticized Trump’s plan to subsidize the coal and nuclear power industries. The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America — the industry trade group for the North American natural gas pipeline industry — said in a statement earlier this month that it is “deeply troubled by the Trump administration’s apparent move to scapegoat natural gas to prop up uneconomic coal and nuclear plants.”

Perry didn’t address the coal and nuclear bailout in his address to the natural gas industry. On Monday, though, Perry told reporters that the Trump administration is making progress on the proposal, although he did not offer a timetable for implementation.

A small group of protesters held signs and tried to engage in conversations with attendees as they entered the Washington Convention Center for the conference. One of the protesters, Steve Norris, a member of Beyond Extreme Energy, told ThinkProgress that the “present policies of the United States government with regard to gas, the present regulatory apparatus, and the present leadership of the Department of Energy are heading us in the wrong direction.”

For several years, Beyond Extreme Energy has tried to get officials at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to consider the climate impacts of natural gas. In a change of tone at the commission, the two Democratic members of FERC — Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick — have starting highlighting the climate impacts of natural gas.

“We’ve been in their faces for the last four years,” Norris said. “And we’re seeing some changes there. Two of the commissioners, for the first time, are beginning to dissent because of climate issues. And that’s really encouraging. Rick Perry, on the other hand, has his head stuck in the ground, drinks oil for breakfast, and gas for dinner.”

Everybody hates Trump’s coal and nuclear bailout plan

ThinkProgress

Everybody hates Trump’s coal and nuclear bailout plan

Except the president’s favorite coal industry executive and a bankrupt nuke company.

Mark Hand      June 7, 2018

A truck delivers coal to a Pacificorp’s coal-fired power plant on October 9, 2017. Credit: George Frey/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s fixation on bailing out the coal and nuclear power industries has proved confounding to renewable energy advocates and climate activists. But other sectors of the energy industry, including one that Trump purportedly wants to help, are also questioning the need for the radical intervention in energy markets proposed last week.

The White House issued a statement last Friday that said Trump has directed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to “prepare immediate steps to stop the loss” of what the administration described as “fuel-secure power facilities,” a thinly veiled reference to coal and nuclear power plants. Also last Friday, Bloomberg News released a leaked draft proposal from the Energy Department that cited national security concerns as a reason for allowing Trump to require regional grid operators or electric utilities to purchase enough power from coal and nuclear plants to prevent them from closing.

But most of the energy industry concedes there’s no emergency that requires the federal government to intervene on behalf of coal and nuclear power.

Speaking earlier this week at an industry conference, Chris Crane, the CEO of Exelon Corp, the nation’s largest owner of nuclear plants, said the retirement of coal and nuclear plants is not a grid emergency that warrants urgent intervention from the federal government.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), one of the president’s biggest industry supporters, also opposes Trump’s directive. The powerful oil and gas lobbying group has joined a diverse coalition that includes wind, solar, and energy storage trade groups to fight any proposed bailout of the coal and nuclear industries that may come from Trump’s Department of Energy.

The renewable energy industry worries about the bailout plan’s potential negative impact on its finances. Investment banks and private equity firms may become skittish about investing in energy sectors that are not on the receiving end of Trump’s handouts.

“It’s a very confused and conflicted and backward-leaning policy that is finding support in no quarters apart from the coal industry,” John Morton, senior fellow at the Global Energy Center at the Atlantic Council, told ThinkProgress. “It seems like a Hail Mary pass and a dangerous political gesture at best. There’s no support for it, not simply from the renewables industry but from most parts of the nuclear industry.”

Trump plan to bail out coal industry punishes red states the most

Morton was one of the speakers at an event on Thursday in Washington, D.C. — that offered a status update on the global move to a clean energy economy — sponsored by the Atlantic Council, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century. Founded in 1961, the Atlantic Council is a think tank that focuses on international affairs.

In his interview with ThinkProgress, Morton asked why the Trump administration would seek to interfere in an electric power marketplace that is functioning fairly efficiently. “There is only one answer,” Morton said in response to his own question. “And it’s pure politics and it’s pure politics to a relatively small base. In the long run, it’s going to set us back in this race to a clean energy future.”

Tom Kiernan, CEO of of the American Wind Energy Association, pointed out at the event that despite claims of a pending catastrophe, the nation’s electric grid operators “are on the record saying that the orderly phaseout of some of these very expensive coal and nuclear plants does not constitute an emergency.”

Kiernan emphasized that coal and nuclear plants do not necessarily improve grid resilience, even though they have onsite fuel supply. During the polar vortex of early 2014, huge amounts of coal-fired plants stopped operating due in large part to frozen equipment.

Of the approximately 19,500 megawatts of capacity lost due to cold weather conditions, more than 17,700 megawatts was due to frozen equipment, according to a report on the polar vortex issued by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. There were also reports of frozen onsite supplies of coal that forced coal-fired generating facilities to shut down.

In 2011, a terrible cold snap in Texas led to frozen coal supplies and prevented equipment on some coal plants from operating properly, forcing coal units to shut down.

More recently, Hurricane Harvey knocked out two coal-fired power plants in Texas “because that wonderful onsite fuel was flooded,” Kiernan pointed out. Operators had to shut down a few wind farms in Texas due to tropical storm-strength winds. But other wind farms “powered right through” the storm, producing large amounts of electricity from the high wind speeds, he said.

Nuclear plants also often face unscheduled outages due to equipment failures or extreme weather, calling into question whether their continued operation creates a more resilient electric grid.

“The notion of promoting nuclear power on the basis of resilience is playing to its weakness,” argued Greg Wetstone, president and CEO of ACORE. “The one thing that history has demonstrated about nuclear power is that it is not resilient, and you can talk to the people at Fukushima about that.”

Morton also fears the Trump administration’s pro-fossil fuel policies are skewing policymakers’ views on renewable energy. The transition to a low-carbon economy is occurring at an extraordinarily fast clip, and one that is faster than most people realize, he told the audience.

David Livingston: “Making policy without good data is inefficient, sub-optimal and, when comes to climate and clean energy, dangerous.” Today at @AtlanticCouncil , @ACGlobalEnergy‘s John Morton kicks off our US launch of the @ren21 Global Renewables Status Report 2018, in partnership with @ACORE

There is “a dangerous gap currently between the perception of where we are in this transition to a low-carbon economy and the reality of how quickly that transition is occurring,” he said.

“If the U.S. pretends that we are playing in a world in which renewables is 2 percent of annual new energy installations and not 70 percent, which it was last year, you make a very different set of policy decisions about how to position your industry,” he said.

The lack of awareness of renewable energy’s rapid growth — and a bias toward fossil fuels — is ingrained in the thinking of Trump administration officials.

But Morton also cautioned that the current trajectory of the clean energy movement is still not occurring fast enough. “We’re not on a 2-degree pathway [set] in the Paris agreement goals,” he said. “And, of course, there are many people, myself included, that agree a 2-degree pathway is insufficient to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change.”

Those who do support Trump’s directive last week have telling motivations.

Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray, one of the few supporters of Trump’s bailout plan for the coal-fired generation, revealed the real reason he supports the initiative in an interview on Fox News Business on Thursday.

He pointed to the fact that coal’s share of the nation’s electric generation capacity is projected to drop from its peak of 58 percent three decades ago to 27 percent by 2020. This will undoubtedly have a negative impact on Murray Energy’s domestic revenues, even though the company is one of the most financially stable coal companies in the nation.

Top energy regulator points to problematic wartime language in Trump’s coal bailout plan

On Wednesday, E&E News shed new light on the close relationship between Murray and the Trump administration. The news service reported that Murray presented Trump administration officials with half a dozen draft executive orders in 2017 aimed at exiting the Paris climate agreement and reducing coal regulations.

Another one of the few supporters of Trump’s plan is FirstEnergy Solutions, the bankrupt nuclear plant-owning company that petitioned Perry earlier this year to use the emergency powers of the Federal Power Act to order regional grid operator PJM to bail out a long list of nuclear and coal power plants. At the time, NRG Energy, one of FirstEnergy’s competitors in the region, described the request as a “manufactured crisis.”

new filing in FirstEnergy Solutions’ bankruptcy case detailed how lobbyists at Akin Gump, a powerful law and lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., spent hundreds of hours in April working on a renewed campaign to secure bailouts for the utility’s coal and nuclear power plants from the Trump administration and state lawmakers in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Emails indicate Pruitt tried to recruit oil execs for EPA jobs

The Hill

Emails indicate Pruitt tried to recruit oil execs for EPA jobs

By Morgan Gstalter      June 25, 2018

© Greg Nash

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt tried to recruit top executives from oil and gas trading groups to jobs within the agency, according to emails obtained through an Freedom of Information Act request.

The emails, by the Sierra Club, show that oil company ConocoPhillips reached out to the EPA after Pruitt met with the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) board of directors.

Kevin Avery, a manager of federal government affairs at ConocoPhillips wrote to then-EPA aide Samantha Travis on March 27, 2017, describing Pruitt’s recruitment “plea.”

“I understand that Administrator Pruitt met with the API executives last week and he made a plea for candidates to fill some of the regional director positions within the agency,” Avery wrote in an email. “One of our employees has expressed interest. He is polishing up his resume. Where does he need to send it?”

A few days later, on April 4, Avery emailed Travis again with the resume of a company employee as well as a friend of one of the executives.

The resumes were reportedly never sent to the EPA.

“We are not aware of that ‘recruiting plea’ but EPA has sought a diverse range of individuals to serve in the Agency and help advance President Trump’s agenda of environmental stewardship and regulatory certainty,” an EPA spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill.

However, Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club, blasted Pruitt’s attempt to outsource the position.

“This is Scott Pruitt trying to outsource his job to protect our air and water to the exact people responsible for polluting them. Pruitt’s corrupt tenure at EPA has been a dereliction of the duties he swore to uphold. He’s gotten sweetheart deals from corporate lobbyists and then turned around and pushed their agenda, all while trying to enrich himself at the expense of taxpayers,” Brune said in a statement.

Dozens of CEOs from the oil industry were in attendance for the March 23 dinner at the Trump International Hotel.

Avery offered up the resumes of Brad Thomas and Kim Estes shortly after the dinner, according to Buzzfeed News.

Avery praised Thomas in the email as someone who is “very knowledge on a host of EPA regulations and policies” in Alaska, where he worked for ConocoPhillips.

“The other candidate is recommended by our Vice President for State and Federal Government Affairs, John Dabbar,” Avery wrote in the email. “He is a personal friend of Mr. Estes’ and would be willing to give you any additional information you might need.”

Estes’s consulting company, the Estes Group LLC, works on environmental health and safety issues and emergency response in California.

Estes confirmed to the outlet that he his name had been submitted as a candidate to possible lead the EPA’s Region 9 office in San Francisco.

Dabbar did tell him about the position but Estes said he never submitted a formal application or have an in-person interview.

Why are migrants fleeing their home countries?

USA Today

Thousands of immigrants pass through the Southern border. Why are they fleeing their home countries?

Christal Hayes, USA Today         June 25, 2018

Government provided video shows more than 1,100 people inside metal cages in a warehouse that’s divided into separate wings for unaccompanied children, adults on their own, and mothers and fathers with children. USA TODAY

Every day thousands of migrants pass through the U.S. Southern border. 

     (Photo John Moore, Getty Images)

Some travel as far as 1,000 miles, walking through deserts and carrying water jugs and the small possessions they need to start a new life. It is a perilous journey that isn’t for the faint of heart: More than 400 died trying to make it to the U.S. last year, according to the United Nations’ migration agency.

So why are they risking their lives and the possibility of being separated from family?

While Mexico is the country most-often talked about in the immigration debate, many of those crossing the border are traveling from Central American countries synonymous with corruption, crime and poverty. These root problems have been a driving force for years for immigrants to make the journey to the U.S.

President Donald Trump enacted a “zero-tolerance” policy when it came to those trying to cross the border illegally, hoping to dissuade migrants. He’s also talked about ending aid to already impoverished countries where these migrants are traveling from to reduce the numbers of travelers.

But that hasn’t stopped immigrants. While totals on borders crossings are down, the number of families coming through the Southwest border jumped six-fold in May to 9,485 compared with the same month in 2017. There are now an estimated 11 undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

More: Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ border prosecutions led to time served, $10 fees

Since October, more than 58,000 have arrived, the bulk from Guatemala, followed by Honduras and El Salvador.

While Republicans and Democrats debate what to do with those seeking a new life in America and future immigration policies, those making the trek have several key motivations.

Violence

It doesn’t take much to understand why those living in the so-called Northern Triangle countries — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras  — would want to leave.

El Salvador was the murder capital of the world with a staggering rate of 104 people per 100,000 in 2015. The country still has a higher homicide rate than all countries suffering armed conflict except for Syria, according to the most recent global study by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey.

Similarly, residents of Honduras live in fear because of extortion and criminals demanding a “war tax,” which, if not paid, could mean death.

More: Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy sparks outrage in Central America

More: Families fleeing violence keep coming to US illegally despite Trump zero tolerance policy

“This isn’t about immigrants chasing the American dream anymore,” Sofia Martinez, a Guatemala-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, told the Associated Press. “It’s about escaping a death sentence.”

Those fleeing Mexico also are hoping to get away from the violence.

Georgina Ayala Mendoza, her husband and their three kids fled Michoacán, a state along the west coast of Mexico, on May 3. One day earlier, gunmen — Ayala believes they were members of a cartel — entered her mother-in-law’s home and killed two of her husband’s brothers, she said.

More: Along California-Mexico border, more Mexicans fleeing violence seek asylum

She worried the cartel would try to recruit her husband to work with them — or face the same fate as his brothers.

In March, the U.S. State Department listed Michoacán as one of five Mexican states to which U.S. citizens should not travel. Violence in the country has been on the rise, and last year more homicides were recorded than in any year since the government started tracking them, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Poverty

More than half of all residents in Guatemala and Honduras are living in poverty, according to CNN, which cited data from the World Bank Group.

Honduras is considered the second-poorest country in Central America where 60 percent of its population is in poverty. The conditions are echoed in Guatemala, where even though it has the largest economy out of other Central American countries, poverty rates have also nearly hit 60 percent.

            Border Patrol detains immigrant families crossing US-Mexico border

        Border Patrol agents take a group of migrant families to a safer place to be transported after intercepting them near McAllen, Texas, on June 19, 2018. More than 2,300 children have been separated from their parents at the border as a result of the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy, creating a deepening crisis for the government on how to care for the children.  Courtney Sacco, Caller-Times via USA TODAY NETWORK

       Border Patrol detains immigrant families crossing US-Mexico border

The president’s crackdown on illegal migrants could end up worsening the security and economic situation in Central America, Martinez said, leading even more people to flee in the future.

Earlier this year, Trump ended temporary protected status for 57,000 Hondurans and 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants, some of whom have been living in the U.S. for decades. If deported, they’ll return to countries ill-equipped to absorb them and generating too few jobs to provide opportunities to work.

Gangs and drug cartels

Lawlessness rules many of these countries where immigrants flee, and drug cartels, gangs and bribes are part of everyday life that runs similar to war zones in some areas.

The groups enforce informal curfews, demand taxes and force recruitment on young people.

Last year, 35 bus drivers, passengers and fare collectors were killed while riding buses into gang-controlled neighborhoods, while those that were spared a bullet were extorted to the tune of $19 million, according to the Salvadoran public transport owners’ association.

More: DOJ: Trump’s immigration crackdown ‘diverting’ resources from drug cases

The number of people displaced in the nation of 6.5 million by turf battles between El Savador’s two biggest gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, skyrocketed last year to 296,000, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

In Mexico, the government has been fighting drug cartels for years, which when combined with the battle between cartels over territory has left behind a trail of destruction and blood. Homicide rates have broken records recently, which many believe is tied to the arrest and extradition of former drug boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

His arrest caused an instability in Mexico’s drug trade and allowed other groups to move in, thus causing a behind-the-scenes battle for territory and the killings of both criminals and innocents throughout the country.

Immigrant families in the spotlight

                An immigrant child looks out the window of a bus as protesters try to block a bus carrying migrant children out of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Detention Center on June 23, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. Dozens of protesters blocked the bus from leaving the center resulting in scuffles with police and Border Patrol agents before the bus retreated back to the center.  Spencer Platt, Getty Images