Barack Obama Needs to Get His Hands Dirty

Esquire

Barack Obama Needs to Get His Hands Dirty

The former president will have to engage in serious political combat to defend his vision of America from Donald Trump.

By Charles P. Pierce July 3, 2018

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There was a story in The Washington Post: that caught The Cynic’s eye this week. It was about the latest scam with which the rich manage further to immiserate the poor. It was the headline that grabbed The Cynic’s attention. It contained the phrase “monetizing poor people,” which was a little too Soylent Green for The Cynic’s comfort.

“A week later, though, his 2005 Chevy pickup was in the shop, and he didn’t have enough to pay for the repairs. He needed the truck to get to work, to get the kids to school. So Huggins, a 56-year-old heavy equipment operator in Nashville, fished the check out that day in April 2017 and cashed it. Within a year, the company, Mariner Finance, sued Huggins for $3,221.27. That included the original $1,200, plus an additional $800 a company representative later persuaded him to take, plus hundreds of dollars in processing fees, insurance and other items, plus interest. It didn’t matter that he’d made a few payments already. “It would have been cheaper for me to go out and borrow money from the mob,” Huggins said before his first court hearing in April.”

This is, in fact, true. The Mob is more straight-ahead honest with its collection procedures.

“Mass-mailing checks to strangers might seem like risky business, but Mariner Finance occupies a fertile niche in the U.S. economy. The company enables some of the nation’s wealthiest investors and investment funds to make money offering high-interest loans to cash-strapped Americans. Dozens of… investment firms bought Mariner bonds last year, allowing the company to raise an additional $550 million. That allowed the lender to make more loans to people like Huggins. “It’s basically a way of monetizing poor people,” said John Lafferty, who was a manager trainee at a Mariner Finance branch for four months in 2015 in Nashville. His misgivings about the business echoed those of other former employees contacted by The Washington Post. “Maybe at the beginning, people thought these loans could help people pay their electric bill. But it has become a cash cow.””

Moo, thought The Cynic. Moo, moo, moo. These guys are payday lenders in a $5,000 suit.

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“Among its rivals, Mariner stands out for the frequent use of mass-mailed checks, which allows customers to accept a high-interest loan on an impulse — just sign the check. It has become a key marketing method. The company’s other tactics include borrowing money for as little as 4 or 5 percent — thanks to the bond market — and lending at rates as high as 36 percent, a rate that some states consider usurious; making millions of dollars by charging borrowers for insurance policies of questionable value; operating an insurance company in the Turks and Caicos, where regulations are notably lax, to profit further from the insurance policies; and aggressive collection practices that include calling delinquent customers once a day and embarrassing them by calling their friends and relatives, customers said.”

The Cynic believes—or, rather, knows in the deepest and most cynical part of his cynical heart—that the modern American corporate business model is fraud, that the primary purpose of the American financial system is to make money on money. He believed this before the crash of 2008 and he believes it today. He has believed it under at least the last five previous presidents of the United States. He believes that they believe it as well, and that all five of them, in one way or another, accepted the new business model as being as implacable a force as the wind and tides. This acceptance, the Cynic concludes, was what led directly to the election as president* of a pure product of modern American business fraud.

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This latest bit of shameless brigandage, thought The Cynic, was the perfect illustration of how the current president* got rich and famous enough to become president*. The guy with the truck is all those subcontractors, the painters and landscapers and glaziers, who trusted his word that they’d get paid and ended up wearing a barrel because the president* had turned reneging on debts into a fine art. The vultures of Mariner Finance were the administration* he put together—chockfull of crooks and sharpers who get fat on broken promises and human misery.

Then The Cynic read further along, and he came to this passage, and he thought about the administration before this one:

“Mariner Finance is owned and managed by a $11.2 billion private equity fund controlled by Warburg Pincus, a storied New York firm. The president of Warburg Pincus is Timothy F. Geithner, who, as treasury secretary in the Obama administration, condemned predatory lenders. The firm’s co-chief executives, Charles R. Kaye and Joseph P. Landy, are established figures in New York’s financial world. The minimum investment in the fund is $20 million.”

Why? The Cynic never has stopped asking this of President Barack Obama. Why Geithner, of all people, when the country was hungry for answers about who had wrecked the world economy and then cashed in the rubble? Why look forward and not back—on torture, and on massive, catastrophic fraud? At the end of the eight years, The Cynic was willing to give Obama a reluctant ‘B.’ He managed to get a national health-insurance bill passed, and damned if it hasn’t been surprisingly durable. He also signed the most sweeping financial reform bill of the previous half-century—although, as The Cynic sadly realized, that wasn’t saying much. He put two very tough liberal women on the Supreme Court. And people did look to him for honest leadership the way they hadn’t looked at politicians in a long time.

Tim Geithner. Getty Images

But the grade never got above ‘B,’ because, essentially, The Cynic believed that Obama never really understood the American people the way they are. He understood them the way he wanted them to be. The constant appeals to the country’s better angels rang hollow through history; even Lincoln couldn’t really summon them, because he got shot in the head, and then Andrew Johnson found political advantage in stirring up the race hatred that still burned throughout the country. The Cynic still believes, as he wrote the first time that he considered the phenomenon of Barack Obama:

“Why would anyone have faith in America, which is not tough but fearful, not smart but stupid, and not shrewd but willing to fall for almost anything as long it comes wrapped in a flag? Why would anyone have faith in Americans? Barack Obama says that he has that faith because of his own life, because he was able to rise to the point where he can be thought of as president of the United States. He is the country’s walking absolution. That’s his reason, the cynic thinks, but it’s not mine. There has to be confession. There has to be penance. Being Barack Obama is not enough. Not damn close to enough.

And it wasn’t. Virulent racism and crazy conspiracy theories attended his every move for eight years. One of the craziest was pushed by the guy who became his successor. This was not an accident.

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Unless things change drastically in the next two years, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are going to be history’s fraternal twins, their administrations seen as part of the same whole in the period when the survival of the American republic was in greater peril than any time since Lincoln got shot in the head. If he is not careful, The Cynic thought, Barack Obama may well be remembered through history as the president whose glorious vision of the country and considerable personal magnetism made the idea of a President* Donald Trump plausible, if only as an alternative, and as a vehicle for all those parts of the American character that Obama believed the American people could overcome.

All of the forces that produced the current president* were on vivid display during Obama’s eight years in office—the racism, the xenophobia, the lust for “taking our country back.” Guys with guns used to stalk the parking lots of arenas in which Obama was speaking. For eight years, Obama was presented with prima facie evidence that everything he said in that famous speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention was sadly wrong, that his optimism was misplaced, and that the better angels of our nature were, as they are from time to time, off-duty or rolling sevens in Vegas.

UNLESS THINGS CHANGE DRASTICALLY IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS, BARACK OBAMA AND DONALD TRUMP ARE GOING TO BE HISTORY’S FRATERNAL TWINS.

That he managed to stay sane through that, let alone get as much done as he did, while still maintaining his essential humanity, is eternal testimony to the iron in his spine and to the granite in his character. However, it will not be hard for historians to conclude that his confidence in the American people and his caution in certain policy areas left a huge opening for the dark forces that Obama’s Boston speech had dismissed as phantoms conjured up by pollsters and political consultants. Certainly, Trump’s election has to be seen as a thorough rejection of that speech, just as the administration*’s campaign to roll back Obama’s achievements is a rejection of his policies.

This is what The Cynic thinks when he sees that Tim Geithner is still operating on the modern American business model after a stint as Secretary of the Treasury. Was he completely untouched by the damage done by his lunch pals? Was he deaf to the message that his president brought to the country? Barack Obama left just enough of an opening in just enough places to make the idea of a Donald Trump’s presidency* something more than a punchline. Something like it might have happened anyway, given the raw energy of the naked racial animus that attended every move Obama made.

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Fish Fraud is Real. What Should we Eat?

Civil Eats

Fish Fraud is Real. What Should we Eat?

After a recent investigation into fish seller Sea to Table revealed some questionable practices, author Paul Greenberg asks what the hell do we do now if we want to eat local fish?

By Paul Greenberg, Labeling, Seafood, June 29, 2018

There was a time in my life, not too long ago, when the only fish I ate were the fish I caught myself. Sportfishing was my passion. Back then, I’d have sooner driven a Hummer than bought a slab of commercially caught tuna. I ended up writing a book that encapsulated much of my thinking on the subject called Four Fish. It was then that I first met Sean Dimin.

At a reading of the book at a now-defunct bookstore in Brooklyn, Dimin introduced himself and told me he had come to hear me talk because he and his father had recently founded a small seafood company whose mission was to help save the sea, oddly enough, by fishing. The business was called Sea to Table, and their plan was to buy fish from actual fishermen and sell it directly to actual fish eaters. Simplicity incarnate.

If they could make it work, they would offer an alternative to a seafood distribution system in which a fish usually changes hands at least seven times between leaving the water and hitting the frying pan. I liked the idea. I believed then and still believe that shortening the seafood supply chain could help people who really want to know where their seafood comes from as much as it could help people who really wanted to catch fish sustainably and earn a decent living in the process.

Earlier this month, eight years after my first encounter with Dimin, the Associated Press published a months-long investigation that links Sea to Table to seafood fraud stretching from Brooklyn to Micronesia. In the worst examples of the exposé, AP exhaustively documented a switcheroo in which foreign tuna of dubious origin was mislabeled and passed off to consumers as locally and sustainably caught. If the evidence is as rock-solid as it appears, it could mean the end of the Dimins’ business and a black mark on the quest to relocalize our seafood supply.

A little global context on the crazy, mixed-up world of the American fish market is in order before I continue.

Sea to Table was launched as part of a reaction against much larger economic forces. In the postwar years, America became increasingly enmeshed in the murky global seafood market. From the 1980s to the present, fish markets and individual fishmongers went from controlling 65 percent of the seafood trade to holding on to just 11 percent. Supermarkets, meanwhile, went from selling 16 percent of our seafood to selling 86 percent. Today, even though the United States controls more ocean than any country on earth, as much as 90 percent of the fish we eat is imported.

It gets worse.

The Rise of “Local” Seafood

Because of the endless trans-shipping of fish flesh from small vessels to freezer ships to processing plants, back and forth across huge swaths of water, it is common for an American fish to be caught in the U.S,, frozen whole, and sent to China, where it is defrosted, boned, refrozen, and sent back to the states double frozen. Triple and quadruple freezing also occurs. It gets even worse from a moral standpoint. A large portion of the fish that we import, often tuna, is caught illegally, sometimes using the labor of slaves.

All this prompted me to write a second seafood book called American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood. As that book went to press, a new kind of business called a “community-supported fishery” started emerging. Many of these new entrepreneurs wanted to tell me their stories. There was Real Good Fish out in Monterey, California, offering salmon and rockfish. There was Walking Fish in North Carolina, selling black drum and sheepshead. Port Clyde Fresh Catch in Maine had pollock and haddock. Dock to Dish in Montauk had porgy and butterfish.

By the time American Catch went to paperback, there were dozens of these fledgling endeavors. Each of them was trying to do the same very difficult thing: chart a course around the foreign seafood pouring into the country and resist the lowballing from seafood-buying middlemen that left fishermen with dockside prices, often below $1 per pound.

I was won over by these stories. I started regularly buying seafood instead of catching it.

The struggle caught the public’s attention, too. Increasingly I found myself writing about the plight of community-supported fisheries and organizing events on their behalf. And all along the way, Sea to Table kept showing up. The company bought dozens of copies of American Catch and distributed them to its customers.

When I wanted to help Manhattan’s New Amsterdam Market stage a pop-up festival of locally caught New York fish on the grounds of the old Fulton Fish Market, the Dimins showed up with plenty of every kind of seafood you could hope to eat. When Yale, Ohio State, and the University of Massachusetts wanted to relocalize their cafeterias, Sea to Table was there to help. When the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the nation’s leader in rating sustainable seafood, needed Alaska salmon for an event, the Dimins had pounds and pounds of it.

It was a self-reinforcing loop: Ocean nonprofits needed a case study to prove that fish could be local and sustainable. Sea to Table wanted to be that case study — and to be that case study at scale. It was even the subject of an actual case study written by the nonprofit Oceana.

But at a certain point, small-scale fishermen, the kind of fishermen Sea to Table was encouraging, started grumbling that the company was not operating as it appeared. Why were “Montauk tuna” on Sea to Table’s list of products in the dead of winter, when Montauk Harbor was frozen and nary a tuna boat was heading out to fish? Why were Maryland blue crabs on the company’s docket in January, when the Maryland blue crab season had ended? These questions bugged me. And the complaints continued. By the time the Associated Press interviewed me for its investigation, it started to seem that the Sea to Table case study was not always holding water.

Now, after having read the full AP story, I have many questions. If what is reported turns out to be true, at what point did Sea to Table’s apparent reality veer away from its story? Did the company start out with an intent to defraud its customers, or was the intermingling of foreign tuna with locally caught fish just plain sloppy? Did it falsify the names of fishing vessels that caught supposedly local fish, as AP documented, or was it a repeated clerical error? Are the Dimins at heart good people who got confused, or did they become what they beheld because they realized that what they beheld might be the only way to make money in the fish business today?

Where Do We Go from Here?

Perhaps the most important question is the question everyone has been asking me for decades — and especially now that the AP story has dropped: What the hell do we do now if we want to eat fish?

Sea to Table has chosen to blame its tuna supplier, Gosman’s of Montauk. In a statement posted to the company’s site, Dimin asserts, “If the reporter’s allegations are accurate, the third party supplier singled out, Gosman’s, would be in clear breach of the spirit and contractual agreement that we have with them. As we further investigate, we have discontinued our working relationship with Gosman’s. The idea that we could be associated — even very loosely — with an organization that engages in poor labor practices is outright horrifying to us.

For the rest of us, the path forward is to learn more and try harder. It’s important to remember that Sea to Table was not a community-supported fishery, a fisherman’s co-op, or any other kind of fisherman-owned business. It was a fish seller that often worked with other fish sellers, like Gosman’s. But there are and there continue to be genuine community-supported fisheries. These organizations do sell directly to consumers, and they do focus exclusively on locally caught seafood. You can find most of them at LocalCatch.org.

In addition, there are supermarket chains that take seafood traceability very seriously. They are rated regularly on their traceability and sustainability systems, and you can see how they compare here.

We should also keep in mind that Sea to Table’s weaknesses are in part based on our weaknesses. The largest source of mislabeling in the Sea to Table portfolio appears to have been tuna. Do we really need to eat tuna as much as we do? In most years, tuna is the most-consumed family of fish in America. Tuna is also the largest source of mercury in the American diet, and much of it is coming from countries that have serious issues with forced labor and food safety. Couldn’t we get to know some other fish instead?

And in league with that question are many others we ought to ask ourselves.

Couldn’t we all become a little more acquainted with our own shores and come to their defense? Couldn’t we offer a word of protest when we hear that yet another commercial fishing port is being converted into a luxury harborside yacht club? Couldn’t we hold our towns and cities accountable when they don’t adequately budget for sewer systems that drain into our fishing grounds? Couldn’t we stand up for local oyster growers when they are boxed out of their home coasts by landowners who don’t want to be bothered by honest people making food?

And failing all that, couldn’t we read up on the regulations, visit a local tackle shop, and maybe one day this summer go out and catch a fish all by ourselves?

That’s my plan anyway. I’ll see you on the water.

Emails reveal close rapport between top EPA officials, those they regulate

Washington Post

Emails reveal close rapport between top EPA officials, those they regulate

By Juliet Eilperin July 1, 2018

Does Scott Pruitt have an ethics problem?

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt faces rising scrutiny over several ethics issues, including his use of taxpayer money.(Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

On the morning of April 1, 2017, Environmental Protection Agency appointee Mandy Gunasekara welcomed to her office a team of lobbyists representing the makers of portable generators.

For months, the Portable Generators Manufacturers’ Association had been trying to block federal regulations aimed at making its product less dangerous. The machines — used by many Americans during power outages after severe storms — emit more carbon monoxide than cars and cause about 70 accidental deaths a year.

Just before President Barack Obama left office, the Consumer Product Safety Commission had approved a proposal that would require generators to emit lower levels of the poisonous gas. Now industry lobbyists were warning Gunasekara of “a potential turf battle . . . brewing” between the commission and the EPA, which traditionally regulates air emissions from engines.

Less than six weeks later, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt sent a letter informing Ann Marie Buerkle, the commission’s acting chair, that his agency had primary jurisdiction over the issue. Just over three months later, Buerkle signaled she might reassess mandatory regulations and described the industry’s work toward voluntary standards as “very promising.”

The communication between the lobbyists and one of Pruitt’s top policy aides — detailed in emails the agency provided to Democratic Sens. Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Thomas R. Carper (Del.) — open a window on the often close relationship between the EPA’s political appointees and those they regulate. Littered among tens of thousands of emails that have surfaced in recent weeks, largely through a public records lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club, are dozens of requests for regulatory relief by industry players. Many have been granted.

In March 2017, for example, a lobbyist for Waste Management, one of the nation’s largest trash companies, wrote to two top EPA appointees seeking reconsideration of “two climate-related rules” affecting business. (Another lobbyist “sings your praises,” she told the pair.) The EPA subsequently delayed a rule targeting methane emissions from landfills until at least 2020.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt intervened as the Consumer Product Safety Commission was considering mandatory emissions limits for portable generators, saying the issue was instead the EPA’s domain. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Less than six weeks later, a representative of the golf industry wrote Samantha Dravis, then-associate EPA administrator for the Office of Policy, that “our guys” had been “amazed at the marked difference between our meeting today and the reception at EPA in years” past. The chief executive of the World Golf Association later sent his own email reminding Dravis of “our specific interest in repeal of the Clean Water Rule” — a rule the agency is now reviewing.

And in June 2017, Michael Formica, a lawyer for the National Pork Producers Council, sent a note “from my SwinePhone” thanking Gunasekara and other senior Pruitt aides “for your efforts to help address the recent air emission reporting issues facing livestock agriculture.” The EPA later revamped its guidelines so that pork, poultry and dairy operations do not have to report on potentially hazardous air pollutants arising from animal waste.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said many of these groups “were dealing with the costly consequences of President Obama’s policies that expanded federal overreach while doing little for the environment.”

Any rule changes underway, he added in an email, received “robust public comment” and have been developed “consistent with administrative law and the rulemaking process” with the goal of improving the environment.

Others are far less enthusiastic about the EPA’s performance under Pruitt — including what appears to be an “open-door policy towards the industries they are supposed to be regulating,” said Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan public watchdog group. “As these emails show, when lobbyists ask top EPA officials to jump, the answer is often ‘how high.’ ”

On some occasions, top EPA officials pushed back on the idea that they would automatically grant industry’s requests: In a sharply worded Aug. 21 email, Dravis told a lobbyist from ConocoPhillips that “no one committed” to relaxing a rule on small incinerators at the oil and gas company’s request. Career staff, she added, had raised concerns about the move.

Although the vast majority of the emails focused on industry concerns, Pruitt aides also tried to reach out to environmentalists, including Natural Resources Defense Council attorney John Walke and Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp.

Walke, however, was unimpressed. “Scott Pruitt is at EPA only to serve the interests of polluting industries,” he said when asked about the overture. “A few token meetings with environmental groups cannot hide his destructive agenda.’’

EPA’s shifting stand on portable generators has proven particularly consequential. The Consumer Product Safety Commission had spent years examining whether to impose mandatory emissions requirements, concluding in late 2016 that the industry could not be trusted to lower emissions on its own. After Pruitt intervened, Buerkle announced last August that the commission would explore the voluntary standards being developed by the industry trade association even as rulemaking on the other front technically continued.

“Staff is obligated to proceed,” a spokeswoman for the commission said Sunday.

It is now working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to evaluate two voluntary standards that would require a generator’s engine to shut off when carbon monoxide levels get too high.

“I don’t think anyone can deny that safer generators will now be produced,” Bracewell senior principal Edward Krenik, who represents the industry, said in an email Sunday. He noted that the shift is happening “voluntarily and without protracted litigation, which would have delayed any change.”

The safety consulting and certification company UL has proposed a more restrictive limit that would require the generators to emit lower levels of carbon monoxide overall — and shut off much sooner.

In May, Buerkle wrote Nelson and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to stress how, “thanks to many years of effort by the CPSC staff and generator manufacturers, safer portable generators are coming to market soon.” However, given that older machines remain in use, she wrote, “it is crucial to keep emphasizing the message that portable generators must be kept outdoors and as far from open windows and doors as possible.”

Despite aggressive public-information campaigns by federal and local officials on that point, carbon monoxide poisoning incidents remain a serious problem. The Florida Poison Information Center Network recorded 509 patients last year, compared with 327 in 2016 and 276 in 2015.

After Hurricane Irma, Nelson said in a statement, “at least 12 people died and many more were injured by carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators in Florida.”

Nelson went on to accuse Buerkle and Pruitt of colluding “with industry and outside lobbyists to actually kill mandatory safety standards. It’s one of the worst examples of the fox guarding the henhouse I have seen, and it’s just shameful.”

Brady Dennis and Andrew Ba Tran contributed to this report.

For Pruitt, gaining Trump’s favor came through fierce allegiance

American hunter’s images of her black giraffe ‘trophy kill’ spark outrage

Fox News

American hunter’s images of her black giraffe ‘trophy kill’ spark outrage

By Holly McKay, Fox News July 1, 2018

Hunter Tess Thompson Talley ignited a firestorm over her 2017 “dream hunt.” (Photo: Tess Thompson Talley)

Photos of a female hunter from Kentucky proudly showing off the results of her “dream hunt” – a dead black giraffe in South Africa – have ignited a firestorm across social media after being picked up by a local African media outlet.

“White American savage who is partly a Neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe courtesy of South Africa stupidity,” read the June 2018 tweet, posted by Africa Digest. “Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share.”

AfricaDigest: White american savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe courtesy of South Africa stupidity. Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share

The controversial images, which were posted by a Kentucky woman identified as Tess Thompson Talley a year ago, show her standing proudly beside a dead giraffe bull along with the caption: “Prayers for my once in a lifetime dream hunt came true today! Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite a while. I knew it was the one. He was over 18 years old, 4000 lbs. and was blessed to be able to get 2000 lbs. of meat from him.”

Trophy hunting is a legal practice in a number of African countries, including South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

“The giraffe I hunted was the South African sub-species of giraffe. The numbers of this sub-species is actually increasing due, in part, to hunters and conservation efforts paid for in large part by big game hunting. The breed is not rare in any way other than it was very old. Giraffes get darker with age,” said Talley, in an email to Fox News.

She points out that the giraffe she killed was 18, too old to breed, and had killed three younger bulls who were able to breed, causing the herd’s population to decrease. Now, with the older giraffe dead, the younger bulls are able to continue to breed and can increase the population.

“This is called conservation through game management,” says Talley, who insists hers was not a “canned” hunt.

Terry Skovronek: Killing animals for fun is a sign of serious mental illness.

Prominent activist and Hollywood actor Ricky Gervais, on the same day Talley’s images went viral, tweeted that “Giraffes are now on the ‘red list’ of endangerment due to a 40% decline over the last 25 years. They could become extinct. Gone forever. And still, we allow spoilt c–ts to pay money to shoot them with a bow and arrow for fun.”

ArtbyAn: an amoebe has more brains than you! Yuk!
Shame on you to think your life is more worth than any other living creature and gives you the right to end its life! Who are you to place yourself above any other living creature. I hope nature takes revenge at you!

However, there is some debate of the “rarity” of the giraffe on Talley’s hit list.

Debra Messing: Tess Thompson Talley from Nippa, Kentucky is a disgusting, vile, amoral, heartless, selfish murderer. With joy in her black heart and a beaming smile she lies next to the dead carcass of…

“The giraffe in the photo is of the South African species Giraffa giraffe, which are not rare – they are increasing in the wild,” Julian Fennessy, Ph.D., co-founder of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation told Yahoo Lifestyle. “Legal hunting of giraffe is not a reason for their decline, despite the moral and ethical side of it which is a different story.”

Nonetheless, the images have spurred deep emotions among those opposed to the controversial practice.

“Shame on you to think your life is more than any other living creature and gives you the right to end its life! Who are you to place yourself above any other living creature,” one person tweeted. “I hope nature takes revenge on you!”

Others have vowed that “killing animals for fun is a sign of serious mental illness,” while others have referred to Talley as a “disgusting excuse for a human being” and a “spoiled wealthy brat with no conscience.” She was also referred to as a “disgusting, vile, amoral, heartless, selfish murderer” by actress Debra Messing.

However, the self-described passionate hunter is hardly the first American to come under intense Internet fire in recent times for overseas trophy kills.

Nikki Tate, a 27-year-old lawyer and “ethical hunter” from Texas sparked outcry – and death threats – late last year after she posted pictures with her kills. But she also attested to receiving scores of messages of support too, being referred to as a “role model and inspiration” in the conservation arena.

And in 2015, Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer was internationally scorned after killing the famous “Cecile the Lion” near a national park in Zimbabwe.

“I get that hunting is not for everyone; that’s what makes this world great is the differences. But to make threats to anyone because they don’t believe the way you do is completely unacceptable. If it was any other belief that was different, threats and insults would be deemed hideous. However, for some reason it is OK to act this way because it’s hunting,” Talley wrote in her email.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the issue of trophy hunting abroad remains a controversial one legislatively as conservation and welfare groups are banding together to encourage the Trump administration to reject import permits for South African lions.

Donald Trump: Big-game trophy decision will be announced next week but will be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of Elephants or any other animal.

Under a new process instituted in March this year, trophy hunters are able to provide the U.S government with information confidentially rather than giving public notice in their quest to obtain an import permit, raising questions over the legalities how the kill was carried out, and whether or not mostly illicit practices such as “baiting” were used, violating the ethics of “fair chase.”

Big-game hunters appointed by the Trump team to assist in the re-writing of federal rules pertaining to the importing of heads from African elephants and lions last week defended the trophy hunting practice, contending that threatened and endangered species would go extinct without the anti-poaching programs financed in large part by the hefty fees wealthy Americans pay to carry out the souvenir slaughters.

Where the president himself now stands on the matter, however, remains unclear.

“Big-game trophy decision will be announced next week but will be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of Elephants or any other animal,” he tweeted in November.

Hollie McKay has been a FoxNews.com staff reporter since 2007. She has reported extensively from the Middle East on the rise and fall of terrorist groups such as ISIS in Iraq.

A suburb bets on horses, but not in the way you think

Crain’s

A suburb bets on horses, but not in the way you think

By H. Lee Murphy June 22, 2018

Tom Struzzieri, owner of Hits. Photo by John R. Boehm.

The south suburbs were devastated three years ago when the owners of the troubled Balmoral Park harness track in far south suburban Crete abruptly closed it. Horses had been running there since the mid-1920’s, and with mostly empty farmland surrounding the track, it was hard to imagine any way of reviving its fortunes.

Now, horses are back at Balmoral, though they aren’t hitched to sulky carts. An upstate New York firm called Hits acquired the 200-acre track and surrounding barns out of bankruptcy late in 2016, at a bargain price of less than $3 million, and has repurposed it as one of the nation’s premier horse show venues featuring hunters and jumpers. The dirt track is gone, replaced by 5-foot barriers and a well-mannered audience watching performers clad in the staunchly English tradition of scarlet coats and tan breeches.

The blue-collar town of Crete, population 8,300, is an unlikely backdrop for a sport that formerly was practiced in such wealthy suburbs as Barrington, Oak Brook, Wayne and Wheaton around metro Chicago. But nearly all the competing facilities in those towns have gone out of business, supplanted by the massive scale of Balmoral, which is big enough to house nine show rings, 1,500 horse stalls and a grandstand with seating for 35,000 spectators. By most standards, Balmoral suddenly ranks as the biggest horse show facility anywhere.

Tom Struzzieri, the owner of Hits (formerly Horse Shows in the Sun), has a half-dozen facilities spread between Palm Springs, Calif., and Saugerties, N.Y. Of some 1,700 horse shows in the U.S. every year, Hits stages 70 of them. Of the biggest 100 shows, it owns 40. Struzzieri, who grew up on Long Island with show horses of his own, offers several Grand Prix competitions each year with million-dollar prizes (Balmoral tops out at $500,000, at an event scheduled for August). Nobody else in the U.S. comes close.

“The big prize money attracts the best riders,” says Kevin Price, executive director of the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association in Lexington, Ky. “Hits has grown at an impressive rate. Harness tracks have fallen on hard times in a lot of places, and the reuse of Balmoral has been a win-win situation for everybody involved.”

MILLIONS INVESTED

Struzzieri, who poured $10 million of Hits money into Balmoral beyond the purchase price to recondition old barns and erect the rings, says he lost money last year in Crete and will be lucky to break even this year on 13 weeks of summer shows. But the Midwest was starved for top-flight competition—show jumping is centered on the East and West coasts—and his initial search several years ago for a venue had taken him to farms south of Rockford holding scant promise.

“We were in the right place at the right time when Balmoral became available,” Struzzieri says. He’s kept much of the old harness track memorabilia intact, down to the betting windows and posters on the walls, as well as the original finish line, maintained in the middle of the Grand Prix ring. “We wanted an old-time horsey ambiance here,” he explains. “The horses boarding here today can sense the history of the place. It gives them comfort.”

Local performers aren’t complaining. Steve Schaefer, a professional rider who owns a farm in the western Kane County town of Maple Park, competes for prize money nearly every weekend through the summer at Balmoral before moving on to Florida to compete in the winter. “This facility was a fabulous idea,” he says. “There may be no other facility in the country like this. Tom is attracting a strong following.”

Europe was once home to the biggest horse show events each summer, but Hits’ lofty prizes at Balmoral, where 75 are directly employed and $3 million will be offered this year, has managed to attract an international audience. Riders from 15 countries will be in residence in Crete in coming weeks. Gonzalo Estelles, a trainer from Argentina, brought four horses and two riders to Balmoral for the summer. “There isn’t a show-jumping place this nice anywhere in South America,” he says through an interpreter.

Michael Einhorn, Crete’s mayor for 33 years, is hoping to attract hotel and restaurant development to town to cater to the Balmoral visitors. “We have a lot of property here zoned for development and ready to go, but nobody really interested yet,” Einhorn says. He says that a new home hasn’t been built in Crete in over a decade, and the state of Indiana, three miles to the east, has siphoned away development. The CSX railroad has planned a $230 million intermodal center not far from Balmoral on 1,100 acres it acquired in 2007, but it is under review by CSX.

“As it is, the arrival of Hits here was a dream come true for us,” Einhorn says. “It’s one thing dealing with a storefront that goes dark downtown. Without Hits, what were we going to do with that 200-acre racetrack after it closed?”

Hits is hoping only for more spectators and sponsors now. Advertisements come from boot-makers and equine feed companies like Purina, but not the national names such as BMW that management covets. Hardly anybody bothers to watch classes on weekdays, while crowds on the busiest weekends top out at 5,000 or so (tickets are $5 on Saturdays; skyboxes in the covered grandstands can be rented). Hits also charges weekly rent to house the horses and an entry fee into every class they run; concessions and gifts offer another revenue stream.

Horse jumping, unique as the only Olympic sport in which men and women compete directly against each other, is an elite endeavor that may never appeal to the masses. “Even so, we have got to do more to market the sport,” Struzzieri says. “We can get much bigger here.”

Photo by John R. Boehm

Scott Pruitt Personally Involved in ‘Ratf*cking’ Ex-Aides Who He Feels Betrayed Him

Daily Beast – Order the Code Red

Scott Pruitt Personally Involved in ‘Ratf*cking’ Ex-Aides Who He Feels Betrayed Him

The EPA chief demands loyalty. He doesn’t always reciprocate, though.

Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng June 28, 2018

On May 18, a top aide to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt testified to a congressional committee that she had been tasked with procuring her boss a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Just days after news of that testimony broke, the aide, Pruitt’s now former director of scheduling Millan Hupp, submitted her resignation.

But even though Hupp was gone from the agency, Pruitt wasn’t done with her.

According to three sources familiar with the conversations, Pruitt was livid over Hupp’s testimony, which he felt had been particularly humiliating. And he personally reached out to allies in the conservative movement, including some at the influential legal group the Federalist Society, to insist that she had lied about, or at least misunderstood, the request for a used Trump mattress. He also stressed that Hupp could not be trusted—the implication being that she should not be hired at their institutions.

It was an aggressive move by a besieged, scandal-prone Cabinet member against a young staffer—one who worked on Pruitt’s attorney general campaign in Oklahoma, followed him to Washington, and by all accounts had been one of his most loyal aides at the EPA.

But it also showed a side of the EPA chief that top advisers say is not always readily apparent to the public. Though Pruitt demands loyalty among those in his inner circle, he has not reciprocated it to his aides, even as they face a legal and public-relations backlash stemming from his conduct at the agency. Sources say he’s actively undermined the reputations of former and current staffers, with campaigns that former senior EPA officials have described as “ratfucking.”

The targets aren’t just ex-schedulers either.

For months, Pruitt and top aides have suspected Kevin Chmielewski, Pruitt’s former deputy chief of staff, of leaking damaging details about the administrator’s travel and spending habits to the press. Sources say Pruitt led the charge to push back against his former senior aide. And he did so by tasking communications aides with leaking damaging information about Chmielewski’s alleged misconduct at EPA, including supposed unannounced vacations and shoddy timecard practices. Chmielewski has accused Pruitt of retaliation, a charge that is now under investigation by the Office of Special Counsel.

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Knowledgeable sources also told The Daily Beast that Pruitt instructed staff to pitch “oppo hits” to media outlets on other officials who departed on bad terms or were sidelined. The targets include David Schnare, a former member of Donald Trump’s presidential transition team, and career official John Reeder, who Pruitt would privately call a “communist,” according to two people familiar with Pruitt’s complaints and thinking.

Pruitt’s vindictiveness doesn’t put him out of place within the administration. In many respects, it reflects some of the trademark impulses of his boss, Donald J. Trump. But for staff, the episodes have proven exhausting and demoralizing.

Hupp, for her part, was legally obligated to tell investigators the truth about seeking a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel. And as Pruitt faces a mounting number of investigations into his conduct and spending at the agency, other aides are now finding themselves facing their own inquiries, with little assistance from their EPA boss.

Pruitt set up a legal defense fund this year to deal with those inquiries. But sources say he has not offered to use the fund to assist current and former aides with their own considerable legal expenses. Nor, according to sources, has he offered apologies or expressed remorse to those aides for their ongoing legal and personal woes. The mounting financial difficulties that some of those aides face has fueled distress even among those who consider themselves loyal foot soldiers for Pruitt.

Cleta Mitchell, the attorney overseeing the Pruitt legal defense fund, did not respond to requests for comment.

Asked for comment, an EPA spokesperson referred The Daily Beast to Pruitt’s comments before a House committee in May. “I am not afraid to admit that there has been a learning process and when Congress or independent bodies of oversight find fault in our decision-making I want to correct that and ensure that it does not happen again,” Pruitt said at the time. “Ultimately, as the administrator of the EPA, the responsibility for identifying and making changes necessary rests with me and no one else.”

Pruitt Proposes Weakening EPA’s Power Over Water Polluters

EcoWatch

Pruitt Proposes Weakening EPA’s Power Over Water Polluters

Olivia Rosane June 28, 2018

Cement Creek at Silverton, CO. The region downstream from the Gold King Mine has been an area of extensive USGS water quality research. U.S. Geological Survey

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt on Wednesday proposed another way to weaken U.S. environmental regulations protecting the nation’s waterways from pollution.

In a memo dated June 26 but released June 27, Pruitt asked the EPA’s Office of Water and Regional Administrators to draft a proposal that would restrict the agency’s ability to revoke permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) allowing projects to dispose of dredged or fill material in rivers, streams and other waterways, The Hill reported.

“Today, I am directing the Office of Water to take another step toward returning the agency to its core mission and providing regulatory certainty,” Pruitt wrote in the full text of the memo.

If the new proposal becomes policy, it would be the biggest change to how the EPA handles the dredging and filling of streams and waterways under the Clean Water Act in 40 years, according to The Hill.

Specifically, the proposal would block the EPA from preemptively blocking a permit to discharge materials in waterways before the USACE has issued one or revoking a permit issued by the USACE after the fact. It would also require that regional administrators get approval from EPA headquarters before vetoing a permit and that they listen to comments from the public before doing so.

Once a formal draft is ready, the public will have a chance to comment on Pruitt’s proposed change, and opponents can attempt to block it in court, according to The Hill.

Former EPA staffer of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Kyla Bennett told The Associated Press that the move would rob the EPA of one of its few means of protecting waterways from mining and other industry.

Instead of protecting waterways, Pruitt’s policy change would help those “he’s always concerned with: oil and gas and mining,” Bennett said. “His buddies who make money.”

Indeed, Pruitt justified the change as simplifying the permit process for businesses.

“This long-overdue update to the regulations has the promise of increasing certainty for landowners, investors, businesses and entrepreneurs to make investment decisions while preserving the EPA’s authority to restrict discharges of dredge or fill material that will have an unacceptable adverse effect on water supplies, recreation, fisheries and wildlife,” Pruitt wrote.

In practice, the EPA has rarely vetoed permits either retroactively or preemptively, though Republicans and industry have argued against their ability to do so. That ability was affirmed in a 2014 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Pruitt’s memo cited a case in which the EPA suggested it would use its veto power, under Obama, to preemptively block a permit for the pending Pebble Mine in Alaska after concerns from conservationists and Native American groups that it would harm salmon fisheries and wetlands, according to The Associated Press.

Pruitt started a process to reverse that preemptive decision, but in a surprise move, kept it in place following public outcry.

DOON, IOWA Tar Sand Oil Spill.

John Bolenbaugh WhistleBlower

June 28, 2018

DOON, IOWA Tar Sand Spill. Part 1 of 50 future videos.
Help me document this spill every few months to make sure it is cleaned up right. Go to HELPPA.org to join #teamJohnBolenbaugh and help fund a good fight against water contamination to save our children.

Most homeowners can go solar with a new program that has zero down and your solar system payment will be less than your current electric bill.

Doon, Iowa Tar Sand spill part 1

DOON, IOWA Tar Sand Spill. Part 1 of 50 future videos. Help me document this spill every few months to make sure it is cleaned up right. Go to HELPPA.org to join #teamJohnBolenbaugh and help fund a good fight against water contamination to save our children. Most homeowners can go solar with a new program that has zero down and your solar system payment will be less than your current electric bill. Push freedomfromfossilfuels.com and enter your info

Posted by John Bolenbaugh WhistleBlower on Thursday, June 28, 2018

Farming with Intentional Biodiversity

Civil Eats

Farming with Intentional Biodiversity

Klaas Martens grew up farming intensively with chemicals; now he and his wife Mary-Howell are organic devotees operating a thriving farm and grain mill helping boost the regional economy in upstate New York.

By Tamara Scully, Farmer Profiles, Farming June 27, 2018

“The day will come, probably in the near future, when prophylactically killing pests and weeds with toxic chemicals and neurotoxins will seem primitive and irresponsible,” Mary-Howell Martens of Lakeview Organic Grain exuberantly predicts.

In addition to operating a feed mill, Mary-Howell, her husband Klaas, and their son Peter farm 1,600 certified organic acres of grains and vegetables in the Finger Lakes region of New York on land they both rent and own. If anyone’s predictions on the demise of conventional farming—using chemicals to control pests, diseases, and weeds—should be taken seriously, it is that of the Martens’.

Klaas, who is a third-generation farmer, and Mary-Howell started out decades ago as conventional farmers. In their early years, they relied heavily on external inputs like herbicides and synthetic fertilizers and routinely plowed soil left bare outside of the growing season.

Then, following a pesticide-related health scare more than 20 years ago, the Martens switched “cold turkey” from conventional farming. Today, they are highly successful certified organic farmers and well-respected leaders who never tire of sharing their expertise with anyone who asks, including those who doubt that organic farming can feed the world.

Frederick white wheat fields at the Martens's Farm

Frederick white wheat fields at the Martens’s Farm

The couple’s influence stretches far: Klaas was featured as this year’s OGRAIN keynote speaker, and the two jointly gave the keynote presentation at the Canadian Organic Farmers Eco Farm Days 2018. They have contributed numerous articles to sustainable farming publications, were featured in several documentary films, won the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Patrick Madden Award in 2008, and have served on various government or non-profit boards associated with sustainable farming.

The couple are keenly aware that certified organic practices are often misunderstood. Many conventional farmers don’t understand how eliminating synthetic chemicals can produce healthier crops without sacrificing yields or profits, they say. Others simply want to substitute permitted certified organic sprays into their existing system in an attempt to reap the higher pricing associated with organics—but they do not make any other fundamental changes, such as using cultivation practices as a first defense against pest and disease concerns.

The Martens are also concerned about what they see as industrial-style organic farms skirting around the USDA National Organic Program’s standards, and in their view, seemingly operating outside the fundamental tenets that have guided the organic farming community since its inception.

“Often, organic farmers are defined by the ‘shalt nots’: no pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified organisms [GMOs], growth hormones, sewage sludge,” Mary-Howell says, referring to practices that are prohibited by USDA Organic regulations. “But in reality, it is the ‘shalts’ that make organic farming possible. The secret for success in organic agriculture is the substitution of a more skilled level of management and observation, rather than the substitution of alternative organically-approved materials.”

“Organic farming at its best uses management inputs in the place of outside inputs,” Klaas explains. As an added benefit, “our costs per unit of production are lower today than when we farmed conventionally.”

Yellow mustard fields are an important part of the rotational cropping system on Martens farm. The use of cover crops, biofumigant crops (such as the mustard), and double-cropping strategies are some of the ways in which organic farmers combat weeds and pests, build soil health, and control erosion.

Yellow mustard fields are an important part of the rotational cropping system on the Martens’s farm.

Cultivating Biodiversity, Patchwork-Style

When asked for a concise description that could convey the reality of organic farming, Mary-Howell has a ready reply: “intentional biodiversity.”

“A farm that practices intentional biodiversity develops multi-year, whole-farm crop rotations, including a variety of row crops, small grains, forages, and cover crops to deliberately nurture a healthy, diverse soil microbial population, break weed and pest cycles, build soil organic matters and enhance nutrient cycling, and prevent erosion and soil degradation,” she explains.

The Martens’s farm may feature amber waves of grain, but not with uninterrupted acres of a mono-crop often seen on a conventional commodity grain farm. Instead, it’s a patchwork. A field of spelt awaiting harvest may bump up against a field of soybeans ready to flower. As the Martens harvest one crop, they quickly plant another in the same location. Two crops, such as a clover cover crop planted between rows of a grain crop often share the same acreage.

“The total acreage appears to be much higher than our land base because over half of our land is double-cropped each year,” Klaas explains.

The key to this abundance is paying attention to the interaction between the crops and the role each crop plays in the farm system. As an example, Klaas highlights ancient grains—spelt, Einkorn wheat, and emmer wheat—now included in the farm’s rotations.

“Every new, well-adapted species we introduce to our system makes it stronger and more resilient,” he says. “Ancient grains have traits that make them more stress tolerant than our more highly specialized crops.” As a result, the system tolerates drought, increasing temperatures, and other less-than-ideal growing conditions much better.

Animals, too, play an integral role. The Martens raise 70 or so heifers and dry cows for nearby dairy farmers. They feed them primarily on the cover crops, crop residue, and crop by-products—clover, barley or oat residue, and corn stalks. In exchange, the animals provide manure as a natural source for soil fertility.

“The goal is to feed the animals without reducing our production of other food crops,” Klaas explains.

Because of their expertise, the Martens work regularly with Cornell University researchers on trials related to soil health and nutrition, small grains breeding, weed science, and seed propagation. They also work with the Rodale Institute, perfecting no-till best practices, including crimping and rolling rye to terminate cover crops, then planting a soybean crop into the residue.

“The overall principle that has tied all of the research together is that every agronomic problem we encounter in farming can be relieved or often eliminated by introducing the right new species into our system at the right point,” Klaas says. “Every pest, pathogen, or problem that we encounter is rooted in a chemical or biological imbalance in our farming system and is a symptom of that imbalance.”

Jeff Moyer, the executive director at the Rodale Institute, first met the Martens in the 1990s when they visited the Institute to learn. “Klaas was eager to learn everything he could about organic production, especially weed management. Learning soon morphed into teaching as both Klaas and Mary-Howell excelled in their transition an intensive conventional approach to a dynamic organic approach,” Moyer says. “Student and teacher both at the same time, that’s Klaas.”

Building Community with an Organic Grain Mill

In addition to their focus on biodiversity, the Martens have also worked to develop economic diversity on their farm and in their community. Two decades ago, they bought a defunct mill and brought it back to life as the Lakeview Organic Grain mill, which enabled them to find multiple markets for their crops—for example, their corn and rye are used for distilling, feed, and seed; their soybeans for seed, feed, and food; and their wheat for feed, seed, and straw.

The mill also revitalized the organic farming sector in the area. “The Martens have had a positive and lasting impact on the Finger Lakes Region,” says Moyer. “By creating marketing opportunities for their own farm they’ve created opportunities for the entire region. They truly are a model for how one farm can grow an organic community.”

Chef Dan Barber, who is a longtime customer of the Martens, credits the farm with widespread impacts, chronicled in his 2014 book The Third Plate. He calls the mill “one of the most vital contributions to the town’s economy,” creating jobs and incentivizing regional farmers to grow grains like triticale, oats, and barley, which improve the health of the region’s soil.

“In just two decades,” Barber writes, “Klaas and Mary-Howell have gone from harvesting a few organic grains to complex rotations that include heirloom wheat, vegetables, and legumes—many of them farmed on leased land. They’ve added seed production to the mix, and a seed distribution company to supplement the thriving mill and grain distribution business.”

The mill sells locally adapted seed and feed crops that meet the particular needs of organic farmers in the region. It buys grains from neighboring farmers, too, providing a reliable and equitable market for local operations. And it pays farmers a fair price and does so in a timely fashion—two things often missing in commodity grain sales.

“From the very start, we envisioned Lakeview Organic Grain as a community resource, providing the tools that our upstate New York organic farmers need to be successful,” Mary-Howell says. “We intentionally build the sense that this is a community, that we are all in this together.”

As the Martens learn new techniques and insights, they also actively share them with other farmers—in online forums, in published articles, at conferences, at farm open houses and on their Facebook page. “If we can help other farmers feel more secure, hopeful, and successful,” Mary-Howell says, “then our time is well spent.”

Einkorn wheat, an ancient grain. The Martens are involved in regional efforts to revive ancient grains and make them available in the food chain for use in baked goods by commercial and home bakers alike.

Einkorn wheat, an ancient grain.

Their Future of Organic Farming

The Martens’ farm is now well into its second generation, with their 30-year-old son Peter farming independently and in conjunction with his parents since his teenage years. He has taken over the operation of some of farm’s rented land. The two farms, integrally linked, share the same shop, barn, equipment, and philosophy as father and son work the land together.

“Peter is of an interesting demographic of ‘next-generation organics’—these young people who grew up on organic farms, never learning to farm conventionally,” Mary-Howell says. “Organic farming is just normal to him.”

Soon, farming organically may be the only way, she continues.

“As the climate changes and we experience increasingly unpredictable weather and market conditions, a diversified, flexible cropping system gives us more chance that at least some of our crops will be adapted and successful each year,” Mary-Howell says.

The argument that organic farming can’t feed the world will be debunked in the near future, says Mary-Howell, as new technology allows larger-scale organic production.

Although he is a steadfast proponent of soil-based farming, earlier this month Klaas expressed an openness to gene-edited crop varietals, as long as potentially breakthrough technologies like CRISPR are used to “mimic naturally occurring varieties,” rather than serving to further corporate consolidation of seeds and expanding the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.

The Martens currently use technology such as mechanical in-row cultivators, GPS systems, and solar energy generation.

“We are trying to use GPS for planting and cultivation, and we would use much more, but that is made unnecessarily difficult because of the poor internet service and poor tech support” in their rural region, Mary-Howell states.

“With diverse and well-planned crop rotations and the right equipment, we can now be completely true to organic standards and intent and grow high-quality, high-yielding crops with effective weed control on thousands of acres,” she says. “Organic farming is now on the cutting edge, and there is nothing old-fashioned about where this is going.”

Top photo: The Martens family; from left: Klaas, their daughter Elizabeth, Mary-Howell, their son Daniel, their son Peter, Peter’s wife Hanna.

All photos courtesy of Mary-Howell Martens.

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 Life, and 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.