31 January
The German government wants to ban the export of pesticides no longer approved in the European Union. But manufacturers and distributors with their sights set on Africa as a growing sales market are not pleased.
They never degrade, break down, or go away: Forever chemicals, or PFAS, increase cancer risks, undermine immune systems, decrease fertility and more. State governments, along with the federal government, must end their destructive proliferation.
Pennsylvania has enacted a limit on two PFAS chemicals in drinking water, marking the first time that the state has set its own limits instead of adopting a federal standard.
Pity the poor climate reporter. Tasked to write about the costly future and gloomy topic of climate change, we often turn to food to try to relieve our misery. But in our case, that means writing about it, not eating it.
This past week, I distinctly heard the sound of a butter knife clinking against the bottom of a four-ounce jar.
Dijon mustard had joined the list of edible climate victims.
NPR sent its veteran Paris correspondent Eleanor Beardsley to the Bordeaux region. Not to report on the threat to Bordeaux wine, mind you, but on the region’s Dijon mustard. It turns out that genuine Dijon requires mustard seeds from Canada, and last year’s brutal, record-setting “heat dome” ruined the hot mustard crop.
And there’s more concern at the other end of the condiment aisle.
Olive output has suffered in recent years as more frequent winter waves of warm and chilly Mediterranean weather impact the trees’ flowering and fruiting. And as olives go, so goes olive oil.
And with our olive oil, so goes tomato sauce for pizza and pasta. About thirty percent of the world’s canned tomato crop comes from California’s Central Valley, where near-catastrophic drought threatens not a bad year, but a bad forever in one of the world’s key food-producing zones.
So, if Marie Antoinette were around to witness this, would she offer a tomato sauce workaround? Maybe, “Let them eat white clam sauce?”
Well... even for those of us who can stand white clam sauce, clams and other mollusks are vulnerable to the oceans’ rising levels of acidification.
And then there’s the wheat flour that’s turned into traditional pasta. Breadbaskets like Ukraine and the U.S. heartland are increasingly subject to drought, and nutritionists predict that rising CO2 levels could rob wheat, rice and other grains of nutrients.
As early as 2011, a study predicted problems for all manner of fruits and nuts grown throughout the world’s temperate regions. Pistachios, walnuts, cherries and peaches are among the crops that need warm summers and chilly, but not frigid winters to prosper. Warming winter temps may be a problem from Israel to Georgia.
Enough about our food for now. Let’s have a drink to relax. Are you a wine person? Well, get some Bordeaux while you can. It’s expected that the world’s prime grape-growing regions may shift with the climate.
Beer? Subtle changes in hops, barley –the yeast that turns sugar into alcohol– and other brewing essentials may not kill your favorite microbrew, but we have no idea how it will taste.
And if you prefer to inhale your escape, the folks at www.mjbizdaily.com have some news for you. The publication, which seems to regard itself as the Wall Street Journal of weed, projects marijuana growers as following the vineyards’ paths on the where cannabis will struggle, and the new places where it could thrive.
Liam Ortiz from Pixabay
Of course, our current diet is a big factor in the climate crisis. Beef, pork and chicken, all raised factory-farming style, greatly contribute to methane release and other air-pollution issues. In regions where cattle are still raised on pasture, they are to blame for the clearing of tropical rainforests, like the Amazon, wiping out one of the world's great carbon sinks.
I could lose five pounds just writing down why I’m a climate-writing, meat-eating, climate-destroying hypocrite.
Prefer seafood? Sensitive to water temperatures, forage fish like sardines and anchovies are de-camping for warmer waters. On the North American East Coast, lobsters are deserting the southern New England coast for the cooler waters of Maine. But lobstermen worry that the crustaceans are merely biding their time to dodge the thermal draft and eventually will head to Canadian waters.
For their part, North Carolina fishermen, rigged and experienced to capture summer flounder, have to chase their target hundreds of miles up the coast to New Jersey.
So some of our food is leaving us. Other food is running and hiding.
Thanks, climate change!
Peter Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist and can be reached at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.
His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate, or publisher Environmental Health Sciences.
Unless you've been off the grid, you know that Congress passed – and Biden on Tuesday signed – the biggest package of climate change legislation the United States (and the world) has seen.
At Environmental Health Sciences, we put news and science into context. What we're seeing right now is optimism:
Those in the trenches working on climate mitigation, climate solutions, clean energy and climate justice say goals that felt impossible yesterday feel achievable today.
There are caveats of course – and we will get to those in a minute. But today's not a day to let the bad news overshadow the good.
So much is happening, so quickly, you need a way to keep up. Our team works around the clock across 11 time zones to find the most consequential news about our health and environment.
Here's a quick roundup of some reporting you may not have seen amid the torrent of coverage.
Start with the basics.
One of the better overviews comes from vlogger Hank Green, who in 23 minutes dissects the bill, its flaws, the history of climate obstruction and how the Inflation Reduction Act overcomes them. There's even, as a friend noted, "a bit of cathartic rage" at the end as a bonus.
Green captures the optimism of the moment: "Nothing gets done if you don't believe it can get done. And I, for the first time in decades of this, have started to believe it can be done."
It's long, but graphics, factoids and an interview with EPA administrator Michael Regan make it worth your time.
The Inflation Reduction Act contains a number of provisions for home efficiency credits
Credit: Bluewater Sweden/Unsplash
How does the bill help you?
"One of the most damaging legacies of the intersection between racism and fossil fuels is how highways were built to cut through Latino and Black communities…. The Inflation Reduction Act includes a federal infusion of cash for community projects aimed at addressing some of the harmful effects of these projects."
A hiker crosses an alpine meadow in Montana's Lee Metcalf Wilderness
Credit: Douglas Fischer/EHS
Major news outlets have flooded the zone with coverage, and Politico and the Washington Post are no exception. They have two fine sidebars worth attention:
The Post's Brady Dennis looks away from high-tech solutions to focus on how the bill helps … Mother Nature.
"The Inflation Reduction Act includes an acknowledgement that land is a profound ally in the fight against climate change," he writes.
And Politico's Catherine Morehouse has a delightful little poke of GOP governors opposing the Democrat-driven climate bill – and how their states stand to gain.
North America's new 'battery belt' largely overlaps its old 'rust belt.'
Credit: Axios
Axios has a sharp piece looking at how investments in battery tech promise to revive America's heartland.
All is not roses.
This is a compromise bill, and while it pours $360 million into climate change efforts, people in neighborhoods already dealing with a lot of pollution fear they will face more harm, not less, NPR's Rebecca Hersher cautions in a piece worth reading.
EHS founder Pete Myers is particularly alarmed at funding for largely discredited carbon capture and sequestration technologies
Charles Harvey and Kurt House, who launched a carbon capture venture 14 years ago, say as much in a NYT op-ed: Every Dollar Spent on This Climate Technology Is a Waste
Juice Media, an Australian political satire group, skewers the concept in an entertaining 2021 video:
The Australian Government has made an ad about Carbon Capture and Storage, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative.
\u201cI feel like the media is having a hard time metabolizing the fact that this congress has been historically productive. And acknowledging the size of these accomplishments, and the degree of difficultly, - it\u2019s just hard to do accurately without sounding a bit left leaning.\u201d— Brian Schatz (@Brian Schatz) 1660684329
A tweet thread from Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, puts the Inflation Reduction Act in a larger perspective.
The scale of legislative productiveness out of Congress, Schatz notes, is hard to portray accurately "without sounding a bit left-leaning."
The climate bill is just the latest in a string of legislation that includes an infrastructure package, postal reform, reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, veterans support.
"When you add all of this up, it’s not just a lot of bills. Each one of these was thorny, complicated, difficult, and ambitious," he tweeted.
The full tweet threadWe work hard to get you the top news when you need it. Environmental Health Sciences publishes two websites:
For the top aggregated news on climate change, visit DailyClimate.org. The "politics" tab gets you a pile of political coverage.
EHN.org focuses more broadly on our environmental health. But it also keeps those climate stories in one place.
And EHS delivers top stories to your inbox daily, free of charge:
Is our optimism overrated or clearly biased? Did we miss a story you found insightful?
We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts on the climate bill – or pass along a story URL or informative tweet thread: feedback@ehsciences.org
This story is developing. We'll update this page and share relevant suggestions.