While Midwestern dry spells aren’t unusual, the current lack of rain is compounding existing problems with dry soils and streams, experts say, potentially raising the cost of cattle feed and ultimately the price Americans pay for beef.
“These are fairly serious drought conditions we’re seeing right now,” said Dennis Todey, the director of the USDA Midwest Climate Hub in Ames in Iowa. “It’s not a major national issue yet, but it can become a larger issue if things don’t turn around soon.”
Farmer Jose Esquivel prepares to feed his livestock on June 14, 2023 in Quemado, Texas. Ranchers and farmers have begun shrinking cattle herds due to drought and high costs in the region. The shrinkage threatens steep climbs in prices for the supply of beef.
What is happening with the Midwestern drought?
Many states are reporting drought conditions, ranging from “abnormally dry” to “exceptional drought.” Those states include Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and further east to Indiana and Ohio. Missouri Gov. Michael Parson has issued an executive order to help his state manage the dry conditions.
“The Midwest and east-central Great Plains saw mostly worsening conditions and widespread crop stress and low streamflows after another week of mostly dry weather,” the federal government’s U.S. Drought Monitor warned Thursday. “Heavy rains in parts of Ohio and Kentucky led to some improvements in ongoing short-term drought. Otherwise, much of the region saw conditions stay the same or worsen this week…”
Drought at this time of year can be troublesome because it can stunt the growth of corn and grass, which are used primarily as food for cattle. Few Midwestern farmers irrigate their crops, and so they depend heavily on spring and early summer rains to provide water at this critical time.
Federal officials also noted reports of drought problems for vineyards, soybean growers and strawberry farmers.
The ground is already drier than it otherwise would be, thanks to a dry fall. So the moisture that does fall soaks deeper into the soil, which absorbs it like a sponge.
“It’s a bit of a bigger problem because some of this area has had on and off drought for several years now, so we have so very dry ground water conditions,” Todey said.
How does drought affect food prices?
A poor corn crop would help drive up feed prices, which in turn are passed along to consumers via the price they pay for beef at the supermarket. But corn and grass aren’t the only feed, and soybean crops so far are doing generally OK, Todey said.
The federal government’s January cattle survey showed the number of cattle at feedlots was down 4% over 2022.
Prices paid to beef producers have been rising steadily since mid-2020, and recently hit levels not seen since 2015. Consumer prices for beef have risen from $9.12 a pound for uncooked steak in May 2021 to $10.22 in May 2023, reflecting a 12% increase, according to federal statistics.
Some liberal politicians, including Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders, have criticized meatpacking companies, saying that they are raising prices beyond what’s necessary to cover the higher costs paid to producers.
What happened to all the snow from this winter?
While most of the West saw historic snowfall — from Colorado to Utah, Nevada and California — the Midwest and East had mild winters with less snow. Because the vast majority of that snow fell west of the Continental Divide, levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead are rising significantly, and drought conditions across the Southwest have generally eased.
How does climate change play into this?
It’s important to remember the difference between weather and climate: Weather is what happens on any given day, while climate reflects the patterns over years or decades.
While Midwest temperatures are generally cooler in December than August, climate change means temperatures in both months are likely to be warmer on average than they used to be. The average December temperature in the Midwest rose between 2.5 and 3 degrees over the last century, according to National Weather Service records.
Similar warming temperatures are altering heat and precipitation patterns across the country, climate scientists say. For the Midwest, scientists predict higher average temperatures of 5-10 degrees by the end of the century and more frequent heavy precipitation events in the winter but fewer spring and summer rains.
Smoke will keep pouring into the US as long as fires are burning in Canada. Here’s why they aren’t being put out
Alaa Elassar – July 1, 2023
Another wave of wildfire smoke has drifted into the US, dimming blue summer skies and igniting troubling concerns regarding the increasing frequency of fires, and what they have to do with climate change.
More than 100 million people are under air quality alerts from Wisconsin to Vermont and down to North Carolina as smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to waft south, though conditions are expected to improve slowly into the holiday weekend.
Air quality on both sides of the border has been affected as more than 500 active wildfires raging across Canada. Some fires are so out of control officials have no choice but to leave them burning.
Meanwhile, at least 10 countries have deployed their own firefighters to assist Canada with putting out the ones threatening communities whose residents have scrambled to evacuate.
Scientists continue to reiterate warnings the effects of climate change have arrived, emphasizing wildfires and the plumes of toxic smoke generated by them will become more frequent.
As plumes of smoke billow out of Canada’s forests, some may be wondering why many of the fires are being allowed to burn unchecked.
Here’s why:
Some of the fires are in extremely remote areas
While every Canadian province responds to the fires in their regions differently, they all have common guidelines emphasizing the importance of prioritizing which fires to fight and which to leave alone.
Massive fires burning in remote areas – like some of those currently burning in northwestern Quebec – are often too out of control to do anything about.
“If you have limited resources, and you have a lot of fires, what you do is you protect human life and property first,” Robert Gray, a Canadian wildland fire ecologist, told CNN. “You protect people, infrastructure, watersheds, so there’s a prioritization system.”
He added, “If you’ve got these fires that are burning way out in the back forty, and they’re not threatening anything immediately, then you’re going to have to let them do their thing.”
While the thought of massive fires burning through millions of hectares of forestland might sound unfathomable, it isn’t entirely new.
“There’s always been fires Canadian fire managers don’t fight. It’s expensive to do so, ecologically undesirable, and kind of just messing with nature,” said Daniel Perrakis, a fire scientist with the Canadian Forest Service.
“The smoke is a problem but even if we wanted to do something about it, it wouldn’t really be clear how to do so. You’re talking about huge areas where there’s no road access, no communities in some cases.”
Of the 522 fires currently burning, 262 are listed as out of control across Canada, including British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.
Along with remoteness and distance from people, terrain is another factor. Some of the fires are being allowed to burn simply because they are too treacherous for firefighters to even attempt to tackle.
“These fires are so big that you really can’t put people anywhere near them, the winds kick up, they move very fast, they can start out ahead of you and they can trap crews,” Gray said.
There are not enough resources to fight all the fires
Firefighters from at least 10 countries, including the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, and France, have been deployed to assist with the Canadian wildfires since the first week of June.
Firefighters from South Africa are among the crews working in Alberta, Canada, to help with ongoing fire suppression efforts. – Shiraaz Mohamed/AFP/Getty Images
“Canada doesn’t have a lot of firefighting resources,” Gray said. “Individual provinces have their own contracting crews, but they have brought in thousands of folks from outside the country to help.”
One factor contributing to the lack of resources, evident in the current fight against the out of control fires, is funding, Gray acknowledged.
“They don’t typically appropriate a lot of money upfront for firefighting,” he continued. “But once the fires break out, the governments can certainly find all the money necessary to suppress them.”
“International groups keep saying, you need to shift the focus to upfront mitigation and prevention so you’re spending less money on response and recovery,” he added. “It’s ridiculous. We spend billions of dollars once the fire breaks out, but we don’t invest the money upfront to mitigate the fires from happening in the first place.”
Not enough prevention tactics to decrease the number of fires
More work needs to be done to reduce the opportunity for future wildfires, which may someday end in catastrophic tragedy.
One of the most effective fire prevention tactics is through prescribed burns, which are fires set intentionally as part of a forest management plan to reduce the risk of more serious and damaging blazes.
“We don’t do anywhere near enough prescribed burning in BC,” Gray said. “Right now we’re burning about 10,000 hectares a year. The state of New Jersey burns more than we do here at BC.”
Prescribed burns have been an important cultural and environmental tradition in Indigenous communities, who for thousands of years set low-intensity fires to rid the land of wildfire fuel like debris, scrub, undergrowth and certain grasses. Such fuel ignites easily, allowing for more intense flames, which are harder to fight.
The intentional burning practices can increase the forests’ resiliency and decrease the likelihood of future wildfires.
Perrakis echoed Gray’s sentiments: “It would be very useful to have maybe 10 times or 20 times more prescribed burning than what we’re doing presently.”
Since prescribed burns come with liability issues and pose a risk of ending in accidental unmanageable fires if not done correctly and at the right time, this will require more funding from the government and proper training.
“We would be removing the fuel from the fire before there’s even a fire,” Perrakis said. “It wouldn’t be used all across the Canadian countryside, but very strategically around communities and other values and will be in line with the local ecosystem.”
Along with prescribed burns, other tactics, like large scale thinning, need to be ramped up, Gray said.
“We need large scale thinning in these forest types that don’t produce a lot of dimension lumber, so there’s a lot of small trees and we need to come to do something with them,” he added. “We can ship them into the bioeconomy, produce bioenergy markets, engineering, wood products; there’s a lot of things we can do with low value wood, and that’s a lot of what’s out there burning up right now.”
The ecosystem depends on fires, and climate change is making them worse
Fires have always served a vital ecological purpose on Earth, essential for many ecosystems. They restore soil nutrients, helping germinate plants and remove decaying matter. Without fires, overgrown foliage like grasses and shrubs can prime the landscape for worse flare-ups, particularly during extreme drought and heat waves.
Most of Canada is covered by boreal forest, the world’s largest and most intact biome. The ecosystem with trees like spruce, pine, and fir makes up about one-third of all forests on the planet.
But it is a fire dependent ecosystem, meaning the species in the forest have evolved in the presence of fire, and fire “is an essential process for conserving biodiversity,” according to the Nature Conservancy.
“We have records as far back as the 1700s and 1800s of yellow sky and black sky and smoky sky days.” he added. “It’s the natural cycle of the boreal forest. There really isn’t much Canadian fire management agencies can do, even if they wanted to.”
While natural fires in the system have always been present and are usually caused by natural elements like lightning, climate change is making them more frequent, increasingly unmanageable, and a lot more difficult to prevent.
One year ago, after enduring a record-breaking temperature of 121 degrees, the British Columbia village of Lytton was leveled by a wildfire, drawing stark attention to the effects of climate change.
Heat-trapping emissions have led to hotter and drier conditions, and wildfires now burn longer and are becoming hotter in places where they have always occurred; meanwhile, fires are also igniting and spreading in unexpected places.
“We know that the weather is the most important ingredient of fire behavior, and climate and weather are linked,” Perrakis said.
Another issue is the increase in the wildfires are caused by climate change, and are simultaneously making climate change worse.
“Things are changing due to climate change, and that’s catching everyone somewhat by surprise, even though we’ve been talking about it for decades,” Perrakis said. “It takes a big season like this one for everyone to really wake up to what climate change looks like. It’s pretty undeniable.”
As Canadians near the fires evacuate while firefighters try to save their homes and communities, other, bigger fires burn freely with no way to control them, and people in the US will continue breathing in unhealthy smoke.
It all begs the question: When will it end?
“People should probably get used to it, because it’s not something that has come out of nowhere,” Perrakis said. “Climate change is undeniable, and now it’s time to think about the future, 10 or 20 years down the line, and what needs to be done.”
Wildfire smoke puts Chicago among cities with worst air quality in the world
It’s the latest in a series of smoke invasions from Canada this month.
Ian Livingston – June 27, 2023
Chicago’s skyline is draped in heavy smoke from the Canadian wildfires on Tuesday. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images)
A new round of dense smoke has invaded the United States, specifically the Great Lakes region, as wildfires munch through forests across Quebec and Ontario, with more than 3.7 million acres scorched over the last week in those provinces alone. Throughout Tuesday, Chicago air quality ranked as the worst in the world among major cities.
Minneapolis and Detroit joined Chicago among the 10 worst, all dealing with conditions no better than Code Red. Air quality was even worse in other locations, such as Waukesha, Wis., west of Milwaukee, where the more severe Code Maroon was reached. Grand Rapids, Mich. — which through Tuesday has been between Red and Maroon, at Code Purple — is among places from eastern Iowa through Michigan and into Ontario that have endured air in this bout that is very unhealthy or worse.
Air quality alerts will be in effect into Wednesday or Thursday from Minnesota and Iowa through most of the Midwest, the Great Lakes region, and into parts of the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and the Carolinas.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) moves to Code Orange (unhealthy for sensitive groups) at a reading of 101. Code Red (unhealthy for everyone) starts at 151. Once reaching 201, it’s Code Purple (very unhealthy), and finally a Code Maroon (hazardous) begins at 301.
Wildfire smoke’s primary pollutant is often referred to as PM2.5. These are fine particles from burned organic matter less than or equal to 2.5 microns in diameter — a microscopic soot.
The latest on the Canadian wildfires and smoke
Haze obscures the skyline in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette via AP)
A thick pall of smoke was draped from Quebec and Ontario to the southwest, toward parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes region, and began moving into the Ohio Valley and points east in the early evening. The worst of it late Tuesday was centered over Lake Michigan and surrounding states. A particularly thick patch of smoke was approaching Chicago from the north late afternoon.
In Michigan and surrounding areas, it was a mix of smoke and low clouds.
Smoke is visible in this satellite image Tuesday morning. (Colorado State/CIRA)
Air quality values as severe as Code Purple have been recorded in Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and northern Indiana so far, with an hourly AQI near Milwaukee of 312 and climbing, according to an Environmental Protection Agency monitor late afternoon. The Canadian city of Sault Ste. Marie, on the international border of Michigan, reached an AQI reading Monday night as high as 353, which is Code Maroon. The city was under Code Purple for much of Tuesday.
Many more locations, from eastern Minnesota to the western slopes of the Appalachians, were seeing Code Red conditions. The thickest of the smoke plume had advanced as far east as Cincinnati and Akron, Ohio.
In Chicago, the National Weather Service wrote that “low visibility due to wildfire smoke will continue today. Consider limiting prolonged outdoor activities.”
Visibility in the city was down to two miles, with smoke reported from Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The Weather Service expected visibility of one to three miles across the region for much of Tuesday.
“You can literally smell the smoke in the air today in Chicago from the Canadian wildfires,” wrote a Twitter user.
Into Wednesday, smoke should keep slowly moving east and somewhat south. It should remain in the lower Great Lakes and push into the Midwest or Ohio Valley region. Some of the smoke was beginning to spill over into the Appalachians late Tuesday.
Many such days
The number of days at Code Orange or worse as a result of wildfire smoke continues to increase in the northeastern United States, though that number is comparatively low when examined against areas immediately surrounding the fires in Canada.
Many of these days also saw spikes beyond Code Orange.
U.S. cities among the worst air quality in the world Tuesday morning. (IQAir)
This month but before the current wave, much of western Wisconsin — in the thick again — had already recorded four or five 24-hour readings at Code Orange or higher. It’s a similar story in and around Detroit, with five Code Orange days in the city and up to seven or eight in nearby locations.
Wildfire smoke, air quality and your health
(Photo by AFP PHOTO / Nova Scotia Government) (Handout/AFP/Getty Images)
More than a dozen days at Code Orange or worse have been tallied in June across the hardest-hit spots north of the border, in Ontario and Quebec, especially north and northwest of Ottawa.
The number of bad air quality days may soon increase in the Northeast, as well. The Washington, D.C., region has had two bad air days this month, both Code Red. Much of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and parts of Southern New England have piled up three such days, with a few locations at four or five.
While AQI values in this plume are somewhat lower than they were earlier in the month — when hourly AQI values soared toward 400 in the Northeast — any values of Code Red or above are concerning for the general public.
Smoke’s future travel plans
This round of smoke, like the one June 7-8 that smothered the Northeast, is moving into circulation via a crawling low-pressure area that’s now over the eastern Great Lakes.
In general, winds blow from the east to the north of the low pressure center, pushing smoke westward from the source, before winds out of the north and northwest behind the center push smoke south. As the low pressure inches east, so does the area of smoke it is carrying along with it.
Over the next several days, the low should track through the Mid-Atlantic and offshore along the East Coast. This trajectory is expected to bringsmoke eastward.
Code Red is now in the forecast Wednesday for Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, on the eastern side of the thickest plume. Code Orange is forecast for Syracuse, N.Y., Baltimore, Washington and Raleigh, N.C.
Smoke forecast through Wednesday, from the HRRR weather model. (NOAA)
Higher-level smoke will likely cover a larger area from the northern and central Plains, through the Midwest and Great Lakes region, then through the Mid-Atlantic and as far south as Georgia on Wednesday.
The potential for smoky skies could last into the weekend, although it will probably drop in intensity as the pattern shifts slightly.
Titanic submersible: 5 passengers on missing sub likely dead following ‘catastrophic implosion’
Christopher Wilson – June 22, 2023
The Coast Guard announced Thursday that it believed the five passengers who disappeared while attempting to explore the Titanic shipwreck were likely lost due to a “catastrophic implosion” of their vessel.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger announced at a press conference that on Thursday morning, five major pieces of debris had been found on the seafloor about 1,600 feet from the site of the Titanic, a finding “consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.” Mauger said they then notified the families and offered their condolences.
Shortly before Mauger’s comments, the company running the expedition, OceanGate, announced that the five passengers “have sadly been lost.”
OceanGate’s tourist submersible vessel. (OceanGate/Handout via Getty Images)
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” read the statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”
The grim announcement came four days after a 21-foot tourist submersible named the Titan was reported missing approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, triggering a massive search to find the vessel before its occupants ran out of oxygen.
The Titan had been projected to run out of its 96-hour supply of breathable air on Thursday morning. And because the door was bolted from the outside, those inside would not have been able to open it on their own even if they were able to reach the surface. Asked about the possibility of recovering remains, Mauger called the conditions “unforgiving” and said there weren’t prospects for doing so at this time.
A missing sub and extensive search
The five occupants of the Titan: Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Suleman Dawood, and the Titan. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters; Courtesy of Jannicke Mikkelsen via Reuters; Courtesy of Engro Corporation Limited via Reuters; J. Sagat/AFP via Getty Images; Courtesy of Engro Corporation Limited via Reuters; OceanGate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)More
The Titan, operated by OceanGate, a private exploration company based in Everett, Wash., launched early Sunday morning to tour the Titanic wreckage with five passengers on board: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61; British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman; and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a 77-year-old French explorer.
The Polar Prince, a Canadian research vessel and support ship for the expedition, lost contact with the submersible about an hour and 45 minutes after launch. OceanGate reported the Titan missing on Sunday evening, triggering a massive international search effort led by the U.S. Coast Guard and assisted by the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Air National Guard, Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard.
A Canadian P-3 aircraft equipped with sonar listening equipment detected underwater “banging noises” on Tuesday and Wednesday, raising hopes that the Titan crew might be found alive. But Coast Guard officials cautioned at the time they were not sure what caused the noises even while remaining adamant that the search remain in the rescue phase.
“This is a search and rescue mission, 100%,” Frederick said Wednesday. “We are smack dab in the middle of search and rescue, and we’ll continue to put every available asset that we have in an effort to find the Titan and the crew members.”
Troubling signs
OceanGate’s tourist submersible on the surface of the sea. (OceanGate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Founded in 2009, OceanGate charges up to $250,000 per person for a chance to visit the remnants of the Titanic, which sank in 1912 on its inaugural trip from England to New York. While Rush stated last year that the submersible had made it down to the wreckage a dozen times over the last two years, there had been a number of red flags about the operation. In 2018, more than three dozen oceanographers and deep-sea explorers wrote a letter to OceanGate warning that its “experimental” approach could lead to “catastrophic” consequences for its Titanic dives.
A 10-minute segment from CBS News Sunday Morning in November 2022 foreshadowed the tragedy. Journalist David Pogue discussed some of the paperwork he had to sign in an almost humorous tone, reading, “This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death,” before adding, “Where do I sign?”
In the 2022 piece, Pogue noted that while he was on the expedition the submersible never made it to the wreck site because of communications errors. He quoted one passenger as saying, “We were lost for two and a half hours.” Pogue’s own scheduled trip to the Titanic was canceled due to poor weather, and a back-up excursion to the trip to a Continental Shelf was called off due to technical difficulties after 37 feet of descent.
In a tweet Monday, Pogue said the craft was, in fact, lost for five hours and that adding an emergency locator beacon was discussed. Pogue added, “They could still send short texts to the sub, but did not know where it was. It was quiet and very tense, and they shut off the ship’s internet to prevent us from tweeting.” The company cited the need to keep “all channels open” as a reason for cutting off internet access, he said.
Another former passenger on the Titan told the BBC on Tuesday said he had to sign a “death waiver” that “lists one way after another that you could die on the trip,” including “[mentioning] death three times on page one, and so it’s never far from your mind.”
Solar-powered cars are challenging some of the most popular EV brands — and they can drive for weeks without charging
Abby Jackson – June 16, 2023
Auto manufacturers are racing to develop the latest and greatest cars. One trend we’re seeing is the rise of solar-powered cars, but how are these sun-powered machines different from other electric vehicles?
What are electric vehicles?
Electric vehicles (EVs) are battery-powered cars that use electric motors rather than an internal combustion engine for propulsion. When you charge an EV, the electricity gets stored in a large traction battery pack. This electricity gets used by an electric traction motor to drive the car’s wheels.
Gasoline vehicles have internal combustion engines that burn gasoline fuel to drive the wheels, releasing toxic fumes and harmful carbon pollution. These engines also produce noise pollution, or excessive noise and vibration.
Each year these gas-powered cars produce 3.3 billion tons of carbon pollution worldwide. Carbon air pollution traps heat from the sun within our atmosphere, causing the planet to overheat and extreme weather events like hurricanes to intensify.
It affects our health, too — fumes from car exhaust can cause or worsen asthma and other respiratory issues.
Since EVs only run on electricity, they don’t pollute the air. One study even found that having more EVs meant fewer emergency room visits for breathing problems. And compared to internal combustion engines, electric engines don’t produce nearly as much noise pollution.
A disadvantage of EVs is that we can’t always control where the electricity that charges these cars comes from — sometimes it means using dirty energy to drive a clean-energy car.
Why isn’t everyone adopting an EV?
EVs now make up 10% of all new car sales, but early adoption of new technology — like cars that don’t need to stop for gas — can be scary, though this technology isn’t very new anymore.
Today, there’s an abundance of EVs on the market at the lowest prices we’ve ever seen, and public charging infrastructure is expanding across the nation. This still isn’t enough for some drivers to trust the switch to electric cars.
One of the biggest hangups is range anxiety — defined as the fear an EV will run out of charge before reaching its destination and leaving its passengers stranded.
Though this is a bigger issue for long-distance travel rather than the majority of Americans that drive less than 30 miles a day, range anxiety is still enough to stop people from even considering the money-saving and electric alternatives to gas-powered cars.
Solar-powered cars, on the other hand, can practically erase these fears with the ability to get energy for free.
What are solar-powered cars?
Solar-powered cars (SPCs) are EVs completely or partially powered by direct solar energy. An array of photovoltaic cells converts sunlight into usable electric energy.
The panels on today’s SPCs can add between 15 and 45 additional miles in sunny conditions. When this free energy isn’t powering the car’s propulsion, it gets stored in the car’s battery.
SPCs have the same clean air and noise reduction benefits as other EVs but offer greater range independence.
California-based Aptera Motors and Dutch company Lightyear have led innovation by producing some of the first SPCs to hit the market. And there’s more to come. The 2024 Kia EV9 is partially powered by a solar panel built into the hood.
There have been a few setbacks for these solar car companies, and it will take some time before we start seeing SPCs in Super Bowl commercials.
“This is not like going from the flip phone technology to a smartphone, where they suddenly obsolete everything else,” AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson told CNBC. “This is a decadeslong journey from the internal combustion engine to electrification, but it’s here.”
In the meantime, there are a few solutions. One is to power charging stations with clean energy, like the English Shell station that converted to chargers equipped with solar panel awnings.
Another solution is to reduce EV charging anxiety — using electric vehicle apps to find charging points, ensuring your EV has a full charge before a long journey, and taking stops along your route as opportunities to charge.
To help other EV drivers, you can also call in any issues with a charging point to get them resolved.
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Three things to watch as US intelligence prepares for Covid ‘lab leak’ reveal
Samuel Lovett – June 16, 2023
A security man moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – Ng Han Guan/AP
It’s showtime – and both lab leak enthusiasts and those who believe in natural origins (the ‘zoonati’) are nervous.
No later than Sunday, and perhaps sooner, America’s director of National Intelligence must, by law, “declassify” and make public all “information relating to the origins of Covid-19”.
It could be a huge moment, or a terrible anticlimax.
By the time the deadline is reached, it will have been 1,265 days since news of a “mystery pneumonia” first emerged from Wuhan – and for much of that time a small group of US intelligence officials have anonymously been briefing that the virus came from a lab.
It would not be the first time a pandemic had been caused by a laboratory-related accident: the 1977-1979 Russian Flu pandemic is widely thought to have been sparked by the accidental release of a virus used in a US flu vaccine that had not been fully deactivated.
Yet the off-the-record intelligence briefings have been characterised as unprofessional and unscientific by many, and in March this year, the US Congress unanimously passed a law demanding that all secret material the US holds on Covid’s origin be made public.
The P4 laboratory on the WIV campus. Opened in 2018, the P4 lab conducts research on the world’s most dangerous diseases – HECTOR RETAMAL/AP
Public Law Number 118-2, which was passed on March 20, is short at just 418 words but is to the point and gives the intelligence officials little, if any, wriggle room to hold things back.
It is one of the few things that those on either side of the Covid origins debate have come together to agree on, albeit for very different reasons.
Those who think the virus emerged naturally have dubbed it a “put up or shut up” law. Lab leakers, on the other hand, see it as a means to lift the lid on an episode they believe the US government itself is partly responsible for as it part-funded the high security lab in Wuhan.
As the deadline for the release of the US intelligence looms, we list the three key areas on which Law Number 118-2 demands full disclosure.
“Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence shall declassify any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), including:
1. “…activities performed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army.”
Issue: The background briefings have alleged that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was involved with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in creating a virus that leaked. As the Sunday Times reported, US intelligence sources believe the lab has engaged in “secret projects … on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017”.
Lab leakers rightly say this would be explosive if proven. In addition to the anonymous briefings, they point to already leaked – but heavily redacted – US cables, seemingly compiled by US analysts in Taiwan.
These make mention of “cyber evidence” of Chinese military involvement and “shadow labs” at the WIV. They also suggest China’s central government in Beijing knew of the outbreak of Covid-19 “earlier than they admit”.
The trouble with the cables is that they are so heavily redacted that only a few words and phrases are visible. Lab leakers will be hoping the full text bangs this virtual nail home.
The Zoonati say military links should not come as a surprise given there is hardly a high security lab anywhere in the world, including Porton Down in England, where the military do not have some involvement. They suspect the anonymous briefers have been “happily blurring shades of grey” in this respect and hope the unredacted evidence will bear this out.
2. Declassify any intelligence which shows “…coronavirus research or other related activities performed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the outbreak of Covid-19.”
Issue: The background briefings would suggest there is intelligence to show scientists at the WIV were conducting undeclared “gain-of-function” research in 2019 that sought to combine different coronaviruses and make them more infectious in humans. According to The Sunday Times, US spies also say there is evidence the lab was working on a vaccine before the pandemic started.
Lab leakers will alight on any hard evidence of any undeclared work on coronaviruses in China as a smoking gun. Some hypothesise that WIV scientists, working hand-in-hand with the military, created a mutant virus as part of a covert weapons programme which was highly effective at infecting people. That virus, now known as Sars-CoV-2, was then accidentally leaked and started spreading in Wuhan in the autumn of 2019, they say.
The Zoonati remain sceptical. They say a wrap-up of all the work the WIV conducted on coronaviruses, including a list of viruses, was submitted to Nature in October 2019 and that there was nothing unusual about the research. Further, they say, nothing “obviously nefarious or weird” happened during the submission and review process, which ran to August 2020, to suggest the Chinese were hiding secret projects.
Others say that even if declassification were to prove that WIV scientists were conducting dangerous undeclared research, this would not explain the outbreak itself. “I’d be very surprised if it was all true, but let’s pretend that it is – I think it’s still going to be really complicated trying to understand how that fits into this body of evidence that does point towards zoonotic origin,” argues Dr Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, in Canada.
3. Declassify any intelligence which shows “…researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in autumn 2019, including for any such researcher: the researcher’s name; the researcher’s symptoms; the date of the onset of the researcher’s symptoms.”
Issue: Reports have long persisted that a group of scientists at the Wuhan lab fell with coronavirus-like symptoms and were hospitalised more than a month before the virus started to spread widely throughout Wuhan, the implication being they had become infected through a lab accident.
Lab leakers point to three scientists from the WIV who they say US intelligence believe fell ill and were hospitalised in October or November 2019. They are Yu Ping, Ben Hu and Yan Zhu, all of whom worked at the lab at the time. If US intelligence proves these researchers were struck down by a Covid-like disease and hospitalised in the October-November period it would provide compelling evidence of a lab accident, the leakers say.
The Zoonati don’t dispute that the trio worked at the lab but say they don’t believe they fell ill or were hospitalised. They say they know this because, among other things, they were working with them over the period in question and have talked to them since.
Dr Danielle Anderson, an Australian scientist, was on secondment at the Wuhan lab until November 2019, when Covid is thought to have started spreading in the city. At the time, none of her colleagues displayed any coronavirus-like symptoms, she says.
“We went to dinners together, lunches, we saw each other outside of the lab,” Dr Anderson told Bloomberg in an interview from 2021.
The virologist also confirmed to The Telegraph that she had attended a conference on the Nipah virus in Singapore, in December 2019, alongside Dr Zhengli Shi, the senior scientist at the Wuhan lab and “many other” researchers from the WIV. Colleagues say if there had been a leak and three of her juniors were ill she would not have been there.
“There was no chatter,” Dr Anderson said. “Scientists are gossipy and excited. There was nothing strange from my point of view going on at that point that would make you think something is going on here.”
The Nipah Virus International Conference 2019 – SingHealth
Two more property insurance companies scaling back coverage in Florida
Rich Jones – June 15, 2023
Florida homeowners have fewer options for property insurance. Just two weeks into hurricane season, The Farmers Group and AIG say they’re scaling back policy coverage.
Both companies point to their vulnerability to natural disasters like hurricanes and flood.
Over the past 18 months in Florida, 16 property insurance companies have decided to stop writing new business to new homeowners in one form or the other.
WOKV Consumer Warrior Clark Howard says insurers are pulling out of Florida and California because the risks have become incalculable.
“Florida and California will need to offer state-backed reinsurance so that insurers can issue actuarially sound policies.”, Clark said.
Clark suggests shopping for insurance through an independent agent and then get quotes for a high deductible, the highest your mortgage company will allow you take.
“You’re eliminating for the insurer what they refer to as nuisance claims. So you become a less risky, less costly person for them to insure.”, Clark said.
Clark says the Florida Legislature is going to need to step in and address Citizens Insurance, the insurer of last resort. He says the state will have to take over the role of reinsurance, eliminate Citizens, which could allow regular insurers to come back.
“That insurers would be liable for losses up to a ceiling, whatever that is. And then after that the Florida reinsurance would cover it.”, said Clark.
Beware of ticks this summer and pay attention to these signs of Lyme disease.
Beware of ticks this summer and pay attention to these signs of Lyme disease.
While the arrival of summer brings the opportunity to spend more time lounging on your lawn or hiking woodsy trails, we’re not the only ones excited about the long, warm days ahead: Ticks are most active from April through September. And while no one wants a bug bite, ticks are significantly more threatening than most.
While treatable with antibiotics if caught early enough, if it’s left untreated, Lyme disease symptoms can spread to the joints, heart and nervous system, which is why it’s important to catch it early (or, ideally, to avoid getting it at all).
Below, infectious disease experts share the most common early symptoms of Lyme disease so you don’t end up with a chronic case of it ― and how to avoid getting it in the first place.
The Top Early Signs Of Lyme Disease
Dr. Tammy Lundstrom, an infectious disease specialist at Trinity Health in Michigan, and Dr. Sarah Park, an infectious disease clinician who works at the life sciences company Karius in Honolulu, suggested looking out for the following early signs of Lyme disease.
A ‘Bullseye’ Rash
Formally called “erythema migrans,” a rash that looks like a bullseye or target is the most common early Lyme disease symptom, according to Lundstrom.
“It can be very faint, however,” she said. “It also may be absent in 20-30% of cases and can be hard to see on darker skin tones.”
Park added that this rash typically appears within three to 30 days following a tick bite.
Flu-Like Symptoms
Between COVID, the flu and even the common cold, if you find yourself with achy joints, chills, a fever, a headache or other flu-like symptoms, Lyme disease may not be the first thing on your mind. But these symptoms could be signs of it.
“These symptoms can easily be mistaken for a common viral infection such as a cold or flu,” Lundstrom said. “However, the onset of these symptoms paired with potential tick exposure ― for example, hiking in the brush, woodsy areas or tall grass ― occurring three to seven days afterward can signal Lyme disease is a possible cause. Be sure to consult with a medical professional, especially if you identify the bullseye rash or develop other noted symptoms.”
Fatigue
Sudden fatigue could also be an early Lyme disease sign.
“Fatigue is an early sign that is frequently dismissed and assumed to occur from not enough sleep or regular everyday activities like working out,” Park said.
Non-Bullseye Rashes
Other rashes that don’t look like a target could be an early sign of Lyme disease, too.
“A bullseye rash may first appear as a small red bump or a solid red patch that gradually expands, but not everyone develops this type of rash,” Park said. “Other skin manifestations like hives or discomfort similar to a sunburn can also occur.”
Fatigue is one of the hallmark signs of Lyme disease.
Fatigue is one of the hallmark signs of Lyme disease.
How To Prevent Lyme Disease
While Lyme disease is treatable when caught early enough, the best case scenario is that you don’t get it at all — which is why it’s key to protect yourself from ticks, be aware of the early signs of Lyme disease, and know when and where you’re most likely to get it.
“The illness is caused by ticks in the nymph stage, not adults,” Lundstrom said. “They may be very small, around the size of a poppy seed, and hard to see, but it is important to do a thorough check for ticks after outdoor activities. This includes skin folds and your hair. Early recognition and treatment are key to preventing chronic symptoms such as arthritis, headaches, neck stiffness and facial drooping.”
In addition to checking for tinier ticks (remember: the size of a poppyseed!) Lundstrom recommends wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts when hiking.
“Treat clothing with 0.5% permethrin or buy pretreated hiking gear, and use EPA-registered insect repellent containing DEET,” she added. “Walk in the center of trails for less contact with brush and grass, and always examine skin and clothing carefully and shower to wash off unattached ticks upon returning from a hike.”
If you prefer a DEET-free alternative, Lundstrom said picaridin, IR3535, Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus (OLE), para-menthane-diol (PMD), or 2-undecanone are options to look for in an EPA-registered repellent.
It’s also important to do regular tick checks if you live in an area with more Lyme disease and to seek help right away if you’re noticing any signs that could be symptoms of the disease.
Finally, know that in most cases, a tick has to be attached to your body for 36 to 48 hours before Lyme disease can be transmitted, which is why checking for and removing ticks quickly can make all the difference when it comes to Lyme disease prevention.
While a Lyme disease vaccine may be a possibility at some point in the future, for now, it’s a reality we’re living with. So know the signs, wear protective clothing and bug spray, and do regular tick checks this summer. Trust us, you won’t regret it.
CORRECTION: A prior version of this article incorrectly referred to ticks as insects, but they are arachnids.
The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Immokalee, Florida
Julia Knoerr – June 14, 2023
The majority of migrant farmworkers live below the federal poverty line, without easy access to healthy foods or affordable housing. To survive, many in this tight-knit community have found strategies for mutual aid and collaborative resilience.
People wait in line for food at the annual Thanksgiving in the Park gathering where residents of the farmworker community of Immokalee are provided with a free Thanksgiving meal. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
After leaving three children in Guatemala, Maria Vasquez spent 15 years working in the agricultural industry in Immokalee, Florida. She worked in the fields for three years picking jalapeños, watermelons, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, and pumpkins before spending 12 years processing tomatoes in a warehouse.
Although Vasquez handled food every day for work, she couldn’t afford to buy groceries. Instead, she began exchanging food with friends and learning about Immokalee’s community-based resources through word of mouth.
Immokalee is known as the tomato capital of the United States, yet 28 percent of the town’s 24,500 residents—the majority migrant farmworkers from Central America, Mexico, and Haiti—live below the federal poverty line and without easy access to healthy foods. This poverty rate is more than double the statewide average, and it’s compounded by higher-than-average food prices, a housing crisis, and minimal public transportation options.
A volunteer distributes bags of free food at the Meals of Hope weekly Thursday distribution at Immokalee’s Farmworker Village. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
To face these challenges, Vasquez connected with local organizations committed to mutual aid and self-reliance. She began attending meal distribution events at Misión Peniel, a ministry of Peace River Presbytery that supports the Immokalee farmworker community, and joined the mission’s women’s group to build connections.
When she gave birth to a son with Down syndrome in 2015, she gave up the demanding hours of agricultural work to care for him and began providing cleaning services for the mission. She volunteered at the community garden behind the building run by Cultivate Abundance, an organization that addresses food insecurity and livelihood challenges in low-income, migrant farmworker communities, until the group hired her on as a garden aid.
Like Vasquez, many in this tight-knit community have found strategies for collaborative resilience as the pandemic and Hurricane Ian have made food access even more challenging in recent years.
A combination of informal mutual aid networks, small-scale farms, foraging, and donated meals from local organizations such as Misión Peniel and Meals of Hope keep the community nourished. Additionally, Cultivate Abundance is growing crops such as amaranth, Haitian basket vine, and chaya (a nutritious shrub native to the Yucatan peninsula) to move beyond charity and equip community members with culturally relevant, locally recognized produce.
These efforts not only bolster food security, but they also support the community’s autonomy to grow their own food and engage in collective healing. While many Immokalee residents report that they practice grueling labor each day and have experienced xenophobia, sexual violence, and rent gouging in their recent pasts, the garden behind Misión Peniel offers a safe space for community members to speak their own languages, share memories from their home countries, practice meditation, and return to their ancestral cultural knowledge to grow their own food as stewards of the land.
One of Cultivate Abundance’s community gardens sits behind Misión Peniel and has helped the organization produce over 59 tons of produce since beginning operations in 2018. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
Food and Housing Insecurity in Immokalee
Immokalee’s Main Street boasts a few blocks of small markets featuring products from the community’s predominant Mexican, Guatemalan, and Haitian diasporas, as well as money-transfer services for migrants to send money home. Old school buses transporting farmworkers to work pull into the parking lot of La Fiesta supermarket, a key intersection in town bordering on the land owned and occupied by Misión Peniel and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a high-profile farmworker advocacy group.
Here, wild chickens cluck at all hours of the day, their chorus mixing with broadcasting from Radio Conciencia 107.7, the CIW’s community radio station. Green space is scarce, and beyond the town’s center, sidewalks fade into neighborhoods of run-down trailers and busy roads lined with fast food restaurants.
Though Immokalee sits just 30 miles from Naples, one of the wealthiest cities in Florida, wages remain a primary barrier to residents’ adequate food access. The most recent Census found an average per-capita annual income of $16,380 in Immokalee between 2017-2021. Nearly 39 percent of the town’s population was born outside of the U.S., and the number of farmworkers varies based on the season; some sources estimate that as many as 15,000–20,000 migrant seasonal farmworkers typically live in the area.
In the winter months, the majority of those workers are there to pick tomatoes. From 1980 to 2009, farmworkers received 50 cents per bucket picked rather than a guaranteed minimum wage, meaning they had to harvest at least 150 buckets per day to make enough income.
Cultivate Abundance’s banana circle offers different varieties of banans and plaintains. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
CIW’s Fair Food Program, which began in 2010 to create a fairer food industry for workers, farmers, buyers, and consumers, improved those conditions. The program is known nationally as a model for providing farmworkers with human rights, and requiring that growers selling to participating buyers (such as McDonalds, Walmart, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s) clock workers’ time and pay them minimum wage (currently $11 per hour in Florida), as required by federal law. Participating buyers also agree to pay at least a penny more per pound of tomatoes they buy, translating to a bonus that gets split among qualifying workers.
However, not all buyers participate in the Fair Food Program. The CIW continues to advocate for a consumer boycott of Publix, Kroger, and Wendy’s, which have all refused to join. Julia Perkins, education coordinator for the CIW, says even with these gains, many workers struggle to feed themselves. Agricultural work is inconsistent, and an individual’s income will vary greatly by season.
“When there is a lot of picking to be done, when it’s not raining a lot, [if] it’s the first pick, you can do pretty well for a number of weeks,” Perkins says. “[But] not well enough to feed you for the rest of the year.”
The pandemic exacerbated farmworkers’ struggle for adequate income. The market for wholesale crops declined because industries like cruises, hotels, and restaurants shut down, lowering the prices of commodities and increasing grocery store prices.
Farmworkers experienced the brunt of the economic downturn—lower demand for the crops they picked meant fewer jobs, and inflation limited their wages’ reach. If farmworkers fell sick with the virus and couldn’t go to work, they received no pay, and as they remained essential workers, they couldn’t shelter in place.
Furthermore, many Immokalee residents are undocumented, meaning they didn’t qualify for federal stimulus checks under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), nor have they received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to help them purchase food.
Beyond wages, housing often demands 60 percent of Immokalee residents’ income, according to Arol Buntzman, chairman of the Immokalee Fair Housing Coalition. The same five or six families have owned the majority of Immokalee properties for years and charge weekly rent for each individual, including small children, living in 50-year-old trailers. Multiple families and strangers often share rooms.
In September 2022, Hurricane Ian further increased the cost of rent. Intensifying the already severe housing shortage, Hurricane Ian destroyed housing in Naples and Fort Myers, leading some residents of those towns to move to Immokalee and outbid farmworkers, which Buntzman says in turn raised rents even more.
Feeding Farmworker Families
To address these growing needs, nonprofit and religious organizations have been providing fundamental support through basic health and food services.
Julyvette Pacheco, office manager at the food security organization Meals of Hope, saw need increase in the wake of Hurricane Ian, compounded by inflation. Her organization used to feed 200 families in Immokalee every week, but after the hurricane, that number rose to 350.
“Something we have been noticing since the hurricane,” Pachecho says, “is that people are not patient. When they come here, most of them are struggling. They need food, they have been waiting.”
Meanwhile, Cultivate Abundance addresses food insecurity by growing produce reflective of migrants’ foodways and empowering them with skills to grow their own. The main garden behind Misión Peniel is one-tenth of an acre and has produced more than 59 tons of fruit and vegetables since its start in 2018.
During the garden’s inception, members of the mission’s women’s group contributed to a participatory decision-making process about the type of produce they valued, and community members can now volunteer in the garden in exchange for produce to take home. Whether through their families or professional lives, staff members share connection to the agricultural industry and have built partnership with other local farms and gardens.
Lupita Vasquez-Reyes, Cultivate Abundance’s community garden and outreach manager, grew up in Immokalee as the daughter of migrant farmworkers from Mexico. After 20 years away, she returned in 2019, just one year after the garden started in collaboration with Misión Peniel. Vasquez-Reyes says the group has worked to build intentional solidarity with an intersectional approach to diversity in the garden. The beds now boast a wide variety of medicinal herbs and produce, including edible weeds like yerba mora that many would discard.
Lupita Vasquez-Reyes (left) showcases the garden’s offerings, including many plants requested by community members or grown from shared seed. Corn (right) is an essential crop for many community members, who dry corn daily to make masa and use the silk for its medicinal qualities. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
Vasquez-Reyes points to plantains, bananas, corn, chaya, edible mesquite pods, Barbados cherries, tree tomatoes native to Guatemala, and a vertical garden of herbs and lettuces. Epazote is a bitter herb that Vasquez says is helpful to make beans and other legumes easier to digest. Cactus pads have been planted to support climate and storm resilience, and a compost pile ensures that nothing goes to waste.
Cilantro is the biggest hit. “People get so joyous about being able to have it fresh,” Vasquez-Reyes says. “If we didn’t have cilantro, we probably wouldn’t have the success we have here.”
Cultivate Abundance also functions as a garden center for residents, giving out seedlings, recycled soil, fertilizer, and extra materials. Vasquez-Reyes says container gardens are accessible and can easily move with community members with very limited living space or permanence.
Landlords often deter tenants from gardening due to water costs, so many people hand water and collect rain to decrease their dependence on grocery stores.
Thursday is the official harvest day at the Misión Peniel garden; all produce goes to the mission’s meal distributions that have a policy of turning no one away. Cultivate Abundance also maintains a small budget to purchase produce from other local organic farms to supplement their own harvests for meal distributions.
Collaborating for Survival
Vasquez-Reyes says that Haitian, Guatemalan, and Mexican migrants tend to share similar conditions in Immokalee, inspiring a cross-cultural exchange of knowledge and networking. That might look like sharing food, sharing food bank tips, and comparing grocery prices between stores.
Community members will also often forage for weeds with high nutritional content or medicinal uses, according to Vasquez-Reyes. Sometimes they will return to trailer camps where they lived previously to forage plants and will then exchange information with friends about where to find different food sources.
Herbs grow vertically at Cultivate Abundance, where cilantro is the most popular crop. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
Maria Vasquez is one community member who has built a strong network of mutual care. Seven blocks over from Misión Peniel, Vasquez has a small garden at her trailer where she grows everything from amaranth to chile de árbol, mostaza [mustard plant], and epazote and shares it with people in great need. This invitation often leads them to try new foods.
“A little while back, there was an older woman who I came to help. I brought her amaranth; I brought her cilantro,” Vasquez says in Spanish.
Today’s food system is complex.
It took her some time to gain her neighbor’s trust, but now that neighbor, who has diabetes, checks in with Vasquez if she doesn’t see her every day. “She said she had never eaten amaranth; she knew of it, but it was only for the animals,” Vasquez says. Now, she’s started cooking it, as well as other vegetables Vasquez introduced her to.
This knowledge sharing has gone directly back into the garden. Vasquez brought taquitos made with yerba mora one day for Cultivate Abundance staff to sample, and now the herb grows in the garden.
To Vasquez-Reyes, these strategies move away from a fear-based, scarcity approach to poverty and hunger. “We’ve been functioning in food insecurity in this country from a very harmful place, and we’re not centering what people are living,” Vasquez-Reyes says. “That includes the violence, but it includes also the resilience and the self-reliance component of what people are already doing—the networks, the economic alternatives.”
Vasquez-Reyes hopes the garden can also provide space for community members to give voice to their stories in their own healing processes surrounding their experiences as immigrants and laborers fueling an industry of mass consumption. These reflections often emerge as core memories of working in the fields, talking freely about the places they are from, or sharing family members’ stories.
For Vasquez-Reyes, the goal is to reimagine a better world. The practice of growing chemical-free, slow food itself flips the narrative of agriculture as an industry rooted in commodity production. Rather, Vasquez-Reyes says, Cultivate Abundance’s intentional, small-scale approach allows community volunteers and staff to again grow food in partnership with the land.
When planting the milpa (corn, squash, and beans), community members will share blessings and even make video calls to family members in their home countries who are simultaneously preparing the same crops. Through these types of exchanges, the garden space nurtures the community’s nutritional needs, their identities, and their souls.
“It’s not survival of the fittest; it’s collaborative survival,” Vasquez-Reyes says. “That’s the real sustainability.”
This reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Read a Spanish-language version of the story on El Nuevo Herald.
Did you breathe in a lot of wildfire smoke? Here’s what to do next
Katia Hetter – June 13, 2023
Smoke from more than 430 active wildfires in Canada spread south last week and led to the worst pollution the New York and Washington regions have ever experienced. More than 75 million people in the eastern US were under air quality alerts as wildfire smoke shrouded major cities. Some flights were grounded, events were canceled, and millions of people breathed unhealthy air.
Much of the smoke has dissipated, but people still have questions. Do we need to be concerned about air quality? What are the short-term effects of wildfire smoke inhalation? Are there long-term consequences? And how can people prepare for future wildfires, which, according to the UN Environment Program, will be even more frequent and more severe going forward?
To guide us through these questions, I spoke with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen. Wen is an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She previously served as Baltimore’s health commissioner.
CNN:How do people know if they are in the clear from wildfire smoke?
Dr.Leana Wen: The federal government has an excellent website, airnow.gov, where you can put in your city or zip code and see what the current air quality is in your area.
Just as the weather forecast in your area can change, so can the air quality. As we’ve seen from the spread of smoke from Canada’s wildfires, events hundreds of miles away can lead to pollution in another area. You can use this website to track air quality, and if necessary, change your plans and add precautions accordingly.
CNN: Are there people who should still be concerned about air quality due to the Canadian wildfires?
Wen: It depends on the air quality in their area and their underlying medical circumstances. The air quality in many parts of the country has gotten much better, returning to near normal, while other areas still have unhealthy levels of pollution.
Record-breaking smog due to smoke from Canada’s wildfires partially obscures the US Capitol in Washington on June 8. People with chronic lung and heart conditions should continue to monitor air quality, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen said. – Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Those most at risk during days with poor quality are young children, the elderly, pregnant individuals and people with underlying medical conditions, in particular chronic lung and heart conditions. Those people should be cautious, closely monitoring air quality in their area on a regular basis. If there are alerts and advisories, refrain from heavy exercise, stay indoors when possible and run air purifiers in indoor areas.
CNN: What are the short-term health effects of wildfire smoke inhalation?
Wen: During last week’s event, many people may have experienced adverse effects, such as throat irritation, hoarseness and cough. Some may have had worsening of their underlying asthma, bronchitis, COPD, which is short for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or other respiratory conditions. These are most pronounced in the initial days following smoke exposure. Studies have shown that exposure to wildfire smoke leads to an increase in emergency department visits and hospitalizations for respiratory disease in children and the elderly.
Studies have also demonstrated a more surprising link, which is the association between wildfire smoke exposure and serious cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and cardiac arrest. And there is research that has linked wildfire smoke exposure events to an increase in influenza months later, suggesting that there could be lagging effects.
It’s thought that many of these effects are due to microscopic particles called particulate matter that can enter deep into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream. These pollutants can induce inflammation and a stress response in the body, which can worsen existing medical conditions.
CNN: If people were exposed for a few days to bad air quality, should they be worried about long-term consequences?
Wen: There are people who live in parts of the world where exposure to hazardous amounts of particulate matter and other pollutants is an everyday reality. These populations are at risk for long-term consequences. Research has linked this type of chronic exposure to an increase in some cancers, for instance, and reduced lung capacity.
For most people, a one-time exposure event probably won’t cause major lasting problems. The worry is that these may not be one-time events going forward. Some people already live in areas prone to wildfires and could have exposure to events several times a year. And, as we have seen, wildfires from hundreds of miles away can cause such significant effects on air quality. With climate change, experts predict more frequent wildfires, which can lead to more days of hazardous air quality for all of us.
CNN: How can people prepare for future wildfires?
Wen: Invest in air purifiers for your home. Bad outdoor air leads to bad indoor air. Air purifiers can help remove smoke and those microscopic particles that are harmful to health.
Workplaces and schools can do this too, and also look to upgrade their ventilation system. Improving ventilation will also reduce virus transmission, including the spread of influenza and Covid-19.
People should optimize their medical health as much as possible. Those with lung disease especially should make sure to have an ample supply of inhalers and consult their physicians about whether there should be increased use in times of worse air quality.
Everyone should have a “go bag”— a bag of emergency supplies — to take with them when an emergency hits. That includes water, nonperishable food, prescription medications, flashlights, first aid kits and more.
Finally, we need to understand the intimate link between the environment and health, and work to prevent environmental hazards that can lead to many significant health problems, now and in the future.
Haze obscures the skyline in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette via AP)
(Photo by AFP PHOTO / Nova Scotia Government) (Handout/AFP/Getty Images)
People wait in line for food at the annual Thanksgiving in the Park gathering where residents of the farmworker community of Immokalee are provided with a free Thanksgiving meal. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
