Category: Environment

The New York Times

How Climate Change Is Making Tampons (and Lots of Other Stuff) More Expensive

Coral Davenport – February 18, 2023

When the Agriculture Department finished its calculations last month, the findings were startling: 2022 was a disaster for upland cotton in Texas, the state where the coarse fiber is primarily grown and then sold around the globe in the form of tampons, cloth diapers, gauze pads and other products.

In the biggest loss on record, Texas farmers abandoned 74% of their planted crops — nearly 6 million acres — because of heat and parched soil, hallmarks of a megadrought made worse by climate change.

That crash has helped to push up the price of tampons in the United States 13% over the past year. The price of cloth diapers spiked 21%. Cotton balls climbed 9%, and gauze bandages increased by 8%. All of that was well above the country’s overall inflation rate of 6.5% in 2022, according to data provided by the market research firms NielsonIQ and The NPD Group.

It’s an example of how climate change is reshaping the cost of daily life in ways that consumers might not realize.

West Texas is the main source of upland cotton in the United States, which in turn is the world’s third-biggest producer and largest exporter of the fiber. That means the collapse of the upland cotton crop in West Texas will spread beyond the United States, economists say, onto store shelves around the world.

“Climate change is a secret driver of inflation,” said Nicole Corbett, a vice president at NielsonIQ. “As extreme weather continues to impact crops and production capacity, the cost of necessities will continue to rise.”

Halfway around the world in Pakistan, the world’s sixth-largest producer of upland cotton, severe flooding, made worse by climate change, destroyed half that country’s cotton crop.

There have been other drags on the global cotton supply. In 2021, the United States banned imports of cotton from the Xinjiang region of China, a major cotton-producing area, out of concerns about the use of forced labor.

But experts say that the impact of the warming planet on cotton is expanding across the planet with consequences that may be felt for decades to come.

By 2040, half of the regions around the globe where cotton is grown will face a “high or very high climate risk” from drought, floods and wildfires, according to the nonprofit group Forum for the Future.

Texas cotton offers a peek into the future. Scientists project that heat and drought exacerbated by climate change will continue to shrink yields in the Southwest — further driving up the prices of many essential items. A 2020 study found that heat and drought worsened by climate change have already lowered the production of upland cotton in Arizona and projected that future yields of cotton in the region could drop by 40% between 2036 and 2065.

Cotton is “a bellwether crop,” said Natalie Simpson, an expert in supply chain logistics at the University at Buffalo. “When weather destabilizes it, you see changes almost immediately,” Simpson said. “This is true anywhere it’s grown. And the future supply that everyone depends on is going to look very different from how it does now. The trend is already there.”

Return of the Dust Bowl

For decades, the Southwestern cotton crop has depended on water pumped from the Ogallala Aquifer, which stretches underneath eight western states from Wyoming to Texas.

But the Ogallala is declining, in part because of climate change, according to the 2018 National Climate Assessment, a report issued by 13 federal agencies. “Major portions of the Ogallala Aquifer should now be considered a nonrenewable resource,” it said.

That is the same region that was abandoned by more than 2 million people during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, caused by severe drought and poor farming practices. John Steinbeck famously chronicled the trauma in his epic “The Grapes of Wrath,” about a family of cotton farmers driven from their Oklahoma home. Lately, the novel has been weighing on the mind of Mark Brusberg, a meteorologist at the Agriculture Department.

“The last time this happened, there was a mass migration of producers from where they couldn’t survive any longer to a place where they were going to give it a shot,” Brusberg said. “But we have to figure out how to keep that from happening again.”

In the years since, the farmland over the Ogallala once again flourished as farmers drew from the aquifer to irrigate their fields. But now, with the rise in heat and drought and the decline of the aquifer, those dust storms are returning, the National Climate Assessment found. Climate change is projected to increase the duration and intensity of drought over much of the Ogallala region in the next 50 years, the report said.

Barry Evans, a fourth-generation cotton farmer near Lubbock, Texas, doesn’t need a scientific report to tell him that. Last spring, he planted 2400 acres of cotton. He harvested 500 acres.

“This is one of the worst years of farming I’ve ever seen,” he said. “We’ve lost a lot of the Ogallala Aquifer, and it’s not coming back.”

When Evans began farming cotton in 1992, he said, he was able to irrigate about 90% of his fields with water from the Ogallala. Now that’s down to 5% and declining, he said. He has been growing cotton in rotation with other crops and using new technologies to maximize the precious little moisture that does arrive from the skies. But he sees farmers around him giving up.

“The decline of the Ogallala has had a strong impact on people saying it’s time to retire and stop doing this,” he said.

Kody Bessent, the CEO of Plains Cotton Growers Inc., which represents farmers who grow cotton across 4 million acres in Texas, said that land would produce 4 or 5 million bales of cotton in a typical year. Production for 2022 is projected at 1.5 million bales — a cost to the regional economy of roughly $2 billion to $3 billion, he said.

“It’s a huge loss,” he said. “It’s been a tragic year.”

From Cotton Fields to Walmart Shelves

Upland cotton is shorter and coarser than its more famous cousin, Pima cotton. It is also far more widely grown and is the staple ingredient in cheap clothes and basic household and hygiene products.

In the United States, most cotton grown is upland cotton, and the crop is concentrated in Texas. That’s unusual for a major commodity crop. While other crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans are affected by extreme weather, they are spread out geographically so that a major event afflicting some of the crop may spare the rest, said Lance Honig, an economist at the Agriculture Department.

“That’s why cotton really stands out, with this drought having such a big impact on the national crop,” Honig said.

Sam Clay of Toyo Cotton Co., a Dallas trader that buys upland cotton from farmers and sells it to mills, said the collapse of the crop had sent him scrambling. “Prices have gone sky-high, and all this is getting passed on to consumers,” he said.

Clay said he is experiencing the impacts himself. “I bought six pairs of Wranglers a year and a half ago for $35 a pair. I’m paying $58 a pair now.”

At least 50% of the denim in every pair of Wrangler and of Lee jeans is woven from U.S.-grown cotton, and the cost of that cotton can represent more than half the price tag, said Jeff Frye, the vice president of sustainability for Kontoor Brands, which owns both labels.

Frye and others who deal in denim did point out, however, that other factors have driven up price, including the ban on imports of Xinjiang cotton, high fuel costs and the complicated logistics of moving materials.

Among the cotton products most sensitive to the price of raw materials are personal care items like tampons and gauze bandages, since they require very little labor or processing like dying, spinning or weaving, said Jon Devine, an economist at Cotton Inc., a research and marketing company.

The price of Tampax, the tampon giant that sells 4.5 billion boxes globally each year, started climbing fast last year.

In an earnings call in January, Andre Schulten, chief financial officer for Procter & Gamble, which makes Tampax, said the costs of raw materials “are still a significant headwind” for the company across several products, forcing the company to raise prices.

On a recent Sunday at a Walmart in Alexandria, Virginia, several shoppers said they had noticed rising prices.

“The price of a regular box of Tampax has gone up from $9 to $11,” said Vanessa Skelton, a consultant and the mother of a 3-year-old. “That’s a regular monthly expense.”

Make Way for Polyester

Cotton farmers say that Washington can help by increasing aid in the farm bill, legislation that Congress is renewing this year.

Taxpayers have sent Texas cotton farmers an average of $1 billion annually over the past five years in crop insurance subsidies, according to Daniel Sumner, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis.

Farmers say they’d like expanded funding for disaster relief programs to cover the impact of increasingly severe drought and to pay farmers for planting cover crops that help retain soil moisture. They also say they hope that advances in genetically modified seeds and other technologies can help sustain Texas cotton.

But some economists say it may not make sense to continue support a crop that will no longer be viable in some regions as the planet continues to warm.

“Since the 1930s, government programs have been fundamental to growing cotton,” Sumner said. “But there’s not a particular economic argument to grow cotton in West Texas as the climate changes. Does it make any economic sense for a farm bill in Washington, D.C., to say, ‘West Texas is tied to cotton?’ No, it doesn’t.”

In the long run, it could just mean that cotton is no longer the main ingredient in everything from tampons to textiles, said Sumner, “and we’re all going to use polyester.”

Los Angeles Times

As the Colorado River shrinks, federal officials consider overhauling Glen Canyon Dam

Ian James – February 18, 2023

The desiccation of the Colorado River has left Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, at just 23% of capacity, its lowest level since it was filled in the 1960s.

With the reservoir now just 32 feet away from “minimum power pool” — the point at which Glen Canyon Dam would no longer generate power for six states — federal officials are studying the possibility of overhauling the dam so that it can continue to generate electricity and release water at critically low levels.

A preliminary analysis of potential modifications to the dam emerged during a virtual meeting held by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which is also reviewing options for averting a collapse of the water supply along the river. These new discussions about retooling the dam reflect growing concerns among federal officials about how climate change is contributing to the Colorado River’s reduced flows, and how declining reservoirs could force major changes in dam management for years to come.

Among the immediate concerns is the threat of the reservoir dropping below the dam’s power-generating threshold. If that were to occur, water would only flow through four 8-foot-wide bypass tubes, called the outlet works, which would create a chokepoint with reduced water-releasing capacity.

“There is now an acknowledgment, unlike any other time ever before, that the dam is not going to be suited to 21st century hydrology,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the environmental group Great Basin Water Network, who listened to the meeting. “They’re not sugarcoating that things have to change there, and they have to change pretty quickly.”

Those who participated in the Feb. 7 meeting included dozens of water mangers, representatives of electric utilities, state officials and others. They discussed proposals such as penetrating through the dam’s concrete to make new lower-level intakes, installing a new or reconfigured power plant, and tunneling a shaft around either side of the dam to a power plant, among other options.

The Interior Department declined a request for an interview, but spokesperson Tyler Cherry said in email that the briefing was part of broader conversations with state officials, tribal leaders, water managers and others “to inform our work to improve and protect the short-term sustainability of the Colorado River System and the resilience of the American West to a changing climate.”

Roerink and two other people who listened to the webinar told The Times that cost estimates for several alternatives ranged from $500 million to $3 billion. The agency will need congressional approval and will have to conduct an environmental review to analyze options.

The Bureau of Reclamation’s presentation, given by regional power manager Nick Williams, included some additional alternatives that wouldn’t require major structural modifications of the dam. Those options included adjusting operations to maximize power generation at low reservoir levels, studying ways of using the existing intakes at lower water levels, and making up for the loss of hydroelectric power by investing in solar or wind energy.

Glen Canyon Dam stands 710 feet tall, anchored to the canyon’s reddish sandstone walls in northern Arizona, about 320 miles upstream from Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir. The dam has been controversial since its inception, with environmental activists and others arguing the reservoir was unnecessary and destroyed the canyon’s pristine ecosystem.

Lake Powell and Lake Mead have declined over the last 23 years during the most severe drought in centuries. Federal officials have sought to boost Powell’s levels in recent months by reducing the amount of water they release downstream until the spring runoff arrives. They’ve said they may need to further cut water releases.

A central concern is that if the water drops below minimum power pool — 3,490 feet above sea level under the current operating rules — the main intakes would need to be shut down and water would instead flow through the dam’s lower bypass tubes. Because of those tubes’ reduced capacity, that could lead to less water passing downstream, shrinking the river’s flow in the Grand Canyon and accelerating the decline of Lake Mead toward “dead pool” — the point at which water would no longer pass through Hoover Dam to Arizona, California and Mexico.

Federal officials prepared the initial studies of alternatives for Glen Canyon Dam using $2 million that the Bureau of Reclamation secured as part of $200 million for drought response efforts.

According to a slide presentation shown at the meeting, officials see potential hazards in some of the six alternatives. Piercing the dam’s concrete to create new low-level or mid-level intakes, for example, would entail “increased risk from penetration through dam,” the presentation says.

They also describe risks due to possible “vortex formation,” or the creation of whirlpools above horizontal intakes as the water level declines. Their formation could cause damage if air is pulled into the system. The presentation says one alternative would involve lowering the minimum power pool limit and possibly installing structures on the intakes to suppress whirlpools, but it said this still would not allow for the water level to go much lower.

One of the possible fixes includes installing a new power plant that would generate electricity with water flowing from the bypass tubes, or taking a similar approach using existing infrastructure. Another would involve excavating a tunnel to the left or right side of the dam, and installing a power plant underground or in the riverbed.

Other options include changing operations at both Glen Canyon and Hoover dams “to maximize power generation under low flow conditions using existing infrastructure.”

“Any of the options are going to be very expensive and they’re going to be very time-consuming,” said Leslie James, executive director of the Colorado River Energy Distributors Assn., who participated in the meeting.

James praised the Bureau of Reclamation for “starting the processes to look at structural options like this.”

“I see what they’re doing here as getting an early start and at least evaluating everything that they can to look and see what may be feasible,” James said. She said she hopes Congress will provide the necessary funding to ensure continued electricity flowing from Glen Canyon Dam, given “how important hydropower is to entire communities.”

Her association represents nonprofit electric utilities that buy power produced by Glen Canyon Dam and other dams that are part of the Colorado River Storage Project. The association includes members in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. The utilities supply power in cities, rural areas, irrigation districts and tribal communities.

Power from the dam has long been a vital energy source, though its output has decreased dramatically in recent years as Lake Powell has declined. During the 2022 fiscal year, Glen Canyon Dam generated 2,591 gigawatt-hours of electricity, enough to power more than 240,000 average homes for a year.

James said electric utilities across the region have had to make up for the reduced hydropower by turning to other costlier sources.

“It’s a real challenging time,” James said. “And it is the people in these communities that are ultimately being impacted with higher electricity bills.”

Lake Powell’s level is projected to rise this spring with runoff from the above-average snowpack in the Rocky Mountains. But that boost in water levels is expected to have a limited effect on the deep water deficit that has accumulated over more than two decades.

And in the long term, scientific research indicates warming and drying will continue to take a major toll on the river.

Scientists have found that roughly half the decline in the river’s flow since 2000 has been caused by higher temperatures, that climate change is driving the aridification of the Southwest, and that for each additional 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, the river’s average flow will probably decrease about 9%.

Environmental activists have for years urged the federal government to consider draining Lake Powell, decommissioning the dam and storing the water downstream in Lake Mead.

Activists who listened to the Bureau of Reclamation’s presentation said they welcome the agency’s examination of the issues at Glen Canyon Dam but would prefer to see a broader analysis that evaluates other options, including draining the reservoir.

In a report last year, Roerink’s Great Basin Water Network and two other groups warned that the “antiquated plumbing system inside Glen Canyon Dam represents a liability to Colorado River Basin water users who may quickly find themselves in legal jeopardy and water supply shortfalls.”

“The bureau is admitting that the dam is a liability,” Roerink said. “From my perspective, that’s a good first step.”

Beyond the current focus on trying to prop up hydropower generation, Roerink said, “I think we need an option that is just a bypass option without a power plant at the end of it.”

Roerink said he expects there will be a lot of debate about issues such as evaporation from the reservoir and the high costs of modifications to the dam.

“Is it all worth it? Are the taxpayer dollars going to be worth it for those electrons?” Roerink said. “How long will it be until this just proves itself to be a futile exercise?”

John Weisheit, an activist who has advocated for removing the dam, said he was delighted to hear federal officials openly discussing these options for the first time.

“I’m glad we’re having this conversation. It’s long overdue,” said Weisheit, who is co-founder of the group Living Rivers.

Weisheit said he also thinks the agency’s alternatives aren’t broad enough, and leave unanswered questions about the dam’s life span.

“I think it’s imperative that we know exactly what the life span of this dam is,” Weisheit said. “There is so much more that needs to be discussed.”

Weisheit said one major concern should be the accumulation of sediments in the bottom of the reservoir, which, according to a recent federal survey, has lost nearly 6.8% of its water-storing capacity.

Another issue with the agency’s current alternatives, he said, is that they wouldn’t solve problems of intakes or bypass tubes sucking in air at low water levels, “just like everybody’s bathtub does,” potentially causing cavitation that would pit and tear into metal, damaging the infrastructure.

Weisheit said he also was concerned about potential threats to endangered fish in the Grand Canyon.

Overall, the modifications to the dam that the federal government is considering would be “too much investment for very little return,” Weisheit said. “And it’s going to take a long, long time.”

Weisheit said he favors the option of investing in solar and wind energy. Instead of spending up to $3 billion trying to squeeze a shrinking amount of power from the dam, he said, “you can build a lot of solar cells and turbines,” including nearby on the Navajo Nation, which needs electricity.

Weisheit said he thinks the situation shows Glen Canyon Dam isn’t needed.

“Take the dam out,” he said, “because it’s not the right dam for climate change.”