A bald eagle flies over Lake Michigan. KURJANPHOTO / iStock / Getty Images Plus
A Michigan bald eagle proved that nature can still triumph over machines when it attacked and drowned a nearly $1,000 government drone.
The rogue eagle tussled with a drone operated by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) July 21, the department announced Thursday. EGLE asked the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) if it could issue a citation against the eagle, but the department said it had no authority over non-human wildlife.
"Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do," a DNR spokesman said. "Nature is a cruel and unforgiving mistress."
Shoreline-mapping EGLE #drone sent to watery Lake Michigan grave by U.P. bald eagle: https://t.co/cpt7Gx8kkG… https://t.co/2SeaNgzDIX— Michigan EGLE (@Michigan EGLE)1597322220.0
The drone, a $950 Phantom 4 Pro Advanced, was helping to map the Lake Michigan shoreline for erosion when the eagle struck.
EGLE environmental quality analyst and drone pilot Hunter King said he had commanded the drone to return from a mapping expedition near Escanaba in Michigan's Upper Peninsula because of weak satellite reception. He was watching it head back through a video screen when the image began to rotate violently.
"It was like a really bad rollercoaster ride," King said.
When he looked up, the drone had disappeared, and an eagle was racing away. A couple who had been birdwatching nearby said they had seen an eagle attack something, but did not know it was a drone. The eagle appeared to fly away from the incident unharmed.
"The attack could have been a territorial squabble with the electronic foe, or just a hungry eagle. Or maybe it did not like its name being misspelled," EGLE wrote.
After the eagle struck, the drone took 3.5 seconds to plummet into the water, The Associated Press reported. During that time, it sent 27 warning notifications, including one indicating one of its propellers was missing, likely torn off by the bird.
King and the couple tried and failed to find the fallen drone, EGLE said. Later attempts to recover the drone based on data pinpointing its location in the water also proved unsuccessful due to poor visibility.
It is not unusual for birds to attack drones, NBC News reported.
"Hunting birds, such as eagles and hawks, are especially dangerous," 3D Insider wrote. "They can be very territorial, and they will treat any flying object as a prey."
The Dutch police have even trained eagles to take out quadcopters because of the increased use of drones to smuggle illegal drugs or commit other crimes.
But EGLE's drone was not doing anything illegal. Instead, it was providing a beneficial service by mapping erosion to help communities respond to high water levels. To save future drones from falling in the line of duty, the department is considering using "skins" or other adjustments to make them look less like seagulls.
But while the bald eagle attack was bad news for the drone, it is ultimately a positive sign for the formerly endangered species, The Detroit News pointed out. The birds' Michigan population has soared from just 76 in the early 1970s to around 2,500 today.From Your Site Articles
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Evacuees wait to board a bus as they are evacuated by local and state government officials before the arrival of Hurricane Laura on August 26, 2020 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Joe Raedle / Getty Images
By Maria Trimarchi and Sarah Gleim
If all the glaciers and ice caps on the planet melted, global sea level would rise by about 230 feet. That amount of water would flood nearly every coastal city around the world [source: U.S. Geological Survey]. Rising temperatures, melting arctic ice, drought, desertification and other catastrophic effects of climate change are not examples of future troubles — they are reality today. Climate change isn't just about the environment; its effects touch every part of our lives, from the stability of our governments and economies to our health and where we live.
<p>Where would you go if, say, a flood devastated the city you live in? Millions of people around the world have been forced to answer this question. In 2017, 68.5 million people were displaced — more than at any point in human history, according to the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-climate-crisis-migration-and-refugees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Brookings Institute</a>. More than one-third of those were uprooted by sudden weather events, including floods, forest fires and intense storms. A <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29461" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2018 report from the World Bank</a>, which focused on three regions — Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America — found that without tangible climate action, more than 143 million people in just these three areas will be forced to move to escape the impacts of climate change by 2050.</p><p>But more than <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/ecological-threat-register/" target="_blank">1 billion people worldwide</a> will live in countries with insufficient infrastructure to withstand climate change by 2050. The Pacific Islands are expected to be affected especially hard. Sea level there is already rising at almost 0.5 inches per year. Eight islands have already been submerged and two more are close to vanishing. By the year 2100, experts fear <a href="https://qrius.com/disappearing-island-nations-are-the-sinking-reality-of-climate-change/" target="_blank">48 more islands</a> in the Pacific will be completely underwater.</p><p>So what about the people who live there? What do we call these people who will be displaced? It's actually complicated. It's difficult to determine what category these migrants should fall under because no global definition exists. Why does that matter? Without a standard method of classification, there's no way to track how many people are affected or displaced by an environmental or climate event. So the most commonly used term is "environmental refugee."</p>
<p>Experts credit the term and its definition to UN Environment Program (UNEP) researcher Essam El-Hinnawi, who in 1985 wrote the United Nations report titled "<a href="http://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/2651?show=full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Environmental Refugees</a>." El-Hinnawi defined environmental refugees as:</p><p><em>... those people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life.</em></p><p>This working definition has been the baseline for current debate.</p><p>But according to the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, a refugee "is someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion" [source: <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/3b66c2aa10" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees</a>]. Environmental refugees do not legally fall under this status.</p>
<p>Why environmental refugees flee their homes is a complicated mixture of environmental degradation and desperate socioeconomic conditions. People leave their homes when their livelihoods and safety are jeopardized. What effects of climate change put them in jeopardy? Climate change triggers, among other problems, desertification and drought, <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/deforestation.htm" target="_blank">deforestation</a>, land degradation, rising sea levels, <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/flood.htm" target="_blank">floods</a>, more frequent and more extreme storms, <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/earthquake.htm" target="_blank">earthquakes</a>, <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/volcano.htm" target="_blank">volcanoes</a>, food insecurity and famine.</p><p>The September <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2020/09/ETR_2020_web-1.pdf" target="_blank">2020 Ecological Threat Register Report</a>, by the Institute for Economics & Peace, predicts the hardest hit populations will be:</p><ul><li>Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa</li><li>Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Chad, India and Pakistan (which are among the world's least peaceful countries)</li><li>Pakistan, Ethiopia and Iran are most at risk for mass displacements</li><li>Haiti faces the highest risk of all countries in Central America and the Caribbean</li><li>India and China will be among countries experiencing high or extreme water stress</li></ul>
<p>The <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/ecological-threat-register/" target="_blank">report also suggests</a> that developed countries like the United States and regions like Europe are not immune. "The European refugee crisis in the wake of wars in Syria and Iraq in 2015 saw 2 million people flee to Europe and highlights the link between rapid population shifts with political turbulence and social unrest." Developed countries including Sweden, Norway, Ireland face little to no threat, the report found.</p><p>Climate change does not impact all people and all parts of the world in the same way. While floods ravage some areas, deserts are spreading in others. Desertification and depleted resources, including shortages of water and fertile land, are long-term consequences of climate change. But one of the biggest threats will be <a href="https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/all-wasted-food-in-u-s-could-feed-84-population.htm" target="_blank">food insecurity</a>.</p><p>"Ecological threats and climate change pose serious challenges to global peacefulness," Steve Killelea, founder and executive chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/ecological-threat-register/" target="_blank">said in the in the 2020 Ecological Threat Report</a>. "Over the next 30 years, lack of access to food and water will only increase without urgent global cooperation. In the absence of action civil unrest, riots and conflict will most likely increase. COVID-19 is already exposing gaps in the global food chain."</p>
<p>The report suggests global demand for food will increase by <a href="http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/ecological-threat-register/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">50 percent by 2050</a>. That means if there's no increase in food supply, many people could starve or be forced to flee in search of food. Currently, more than 2 billion people around the world are already food insecure.</p><p>When faced with the decision to flee, most people want to stay in their own country or region. Leaving a country requires money and could mean leaving behind family; simply relocating from a rural to urban area in search of work and resources may be easier. Plus, the chance to return and resettle back home is unlikely if a family leaves their country entirely. In instances when an area is temporarily inhabitable, like after a destructive <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/hurricane.htm" target="_blank">hurricane</a>, returning home may be an option. But when coastlines — or entire islands — are underwater, the possibility of going home is out of the question.</p><p>The future impacts of climate change will disproportionately affect the world's poorest but will also pressure countries around the globe through mass migration of refugees. Adaptation and resilience will be the key to reducing displacement risk — both temporary and permanent — in the forms of early warning systems and flood-defense infrastructure, sustainable agriculture and drought-resistant crops, as well as other protections.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <u><em><a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/" target="_blank">HowStuffWorks</a><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2647788456#/" target="_self"></a> </em></u> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em><a href="https://www.howstuffworks.com/about-sarah-gleim.htm" target="_blank"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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In 'My Octopus Teacher,' Craig Foster becomes fascinated with an octopus and visits her for hundreds of days in a row. Netflix
In his latest documentary, My Octopus Teacher, free diver and filmmaker Craig Foster tells a unique story about his friendship and bond with an octopus in a kelp forest in Cape Town, South Africa. It's been labeled "the love story that we need right now" by The Cut.
<p>As noted by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/my-octopus-teacher-craig-foster/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CNN</a>, the film follows Foster as he battles career exhaustion and depression by going for daily swims in the frigid South African coast.</p><p>He becomes fixated upon a common octopus, freediving daily to visit and observe her in her natural habitat. He's amazed by her ability to find clever ways to evade predators and adapt to her environment.</p>
<p>"Before the viewer's eyes, the octopus adapts her crab-hunting strategy for lobster, evades a pyjama shark by climbing onto its back, shape-shifts to resemble seaweed and rocks, and otherwise applies her intelligence and creativity to survive," the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2253789-my-octopus-teacher-review-the-strange-lives-of-cephalopods-up-close/" target="_blank">NewScientist</a> observed.</p><p>Foster's fascination and curiosity with her are matched by hers with him, according to a review by <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/my-octopus-teacher-netflix-doc-just-how-horny-is-it.html" target="_blank">Vulture</a>. The unlikely relationship between them is a mentorship on the fragility of life and man's connection to nature, reported The Cut. Their interaction culminates when the octopus swims up to Foster and lands on his chest, in a display of inter-species connection, the review said.</p>
<p>Throughout the film, Foster tracks the octopus' movements and thereby transports viewers into the octopus' natural world and point of view in a way that has rarely been done before, reported <a href="https://www.biznews.com/good-hope-project/2020/09/21/my-octopus-teacher" target="_blank">BizNews</a>. It brings a "level of consciousness few have experienced before him" to the life of the cephalopod, and some celebrities have vowed never to eat octopus again after watching it, according to the news report and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2020/09/22/my-octopus-teacher-netflix-documentary-unexpected-tearjerker/5860006002/" target="_blank">USA Today</a>.</p><p>"If you gain the trust of that animal over a period of months, it will actually ignore you to a certain degree and carry on with its normal life, and allow you to step inside its secret world," Foster told CNN. "The octopus showed me many behaviors that were completely new to science because this animal trusted me."</p><p>Foster told CNN that the greatest lesson the octopus taught him is that humans are part of the natural world and not simply visitors.</p>
<p>The film was backed by the Sea Change Project, an NGO Foster co-founded to create awareness about the South African sea forest. The ecosystem stretches for 800 miles along the coasts of Namibia and South Africa, according to <a href="https://www.voanews.com/arts-culture/octopus-teacher-lets-filmmaker-secret-world#:~:text=It%20has%20received%20eight%20award,film%20and%20best%20ecosystem%20film." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">VOA News</a>.</p><p>"Our group, our whole idea is to try and get this great African sea forest, kind of the home of the octopus teacher, recognized as a global icon, like the Serengeti or the Great barrier reef, because nobody really knows about it and no one realizes just how important this ecosystem is in terms of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">biodiversity</a>, in terms of how important it is for the planet," Foster said, reported BizNews. "People have sort of forgotten that the biodiversity of nature is our life support system."</p><p>Several international publications have listed <em>M</em><em>y Octopus Teacher</em> as a must-see, including The Washington Post, Hollywood reviews, and even scientific articles, according to BizNews. It has already won several prestigious awards, including best feature at the <a href="https://earthx.org/film/" target="_blank">EarthX Film Festival</a>.</p>
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A couple react as they go through their destroyed mobile home following Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on August 27, 2020. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP / Getty Images
By Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope
In this autumn of horrific fires and deadly floods, it's easy to overlook one bit of promising news on the climate front: Some major U.S. media coverage of the crisis is finally getting better.
<p>We're seeing the evidence this week as Covering Climate Now—a collaboration of four hundred-plus news outlets, with a combined audience of two billion people—publishes and broadcasts a profusion of stories about climate change and the 2020 U.S. elections. Climate change has been largely overlooked in general-election coverage to date, with one exception: September 14, when Donald Trump said of California's record wildfires, inaccurately, that "science doesn't know" whether the earth will keep getting hotter and his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, warned that re-electing a "climate arsonist" to the White House would ensure worse blazes in the future.</p><p>Covering Climate Now's <a href="https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/coverage-week-2020" target="_blank">week of coverage</a>, which runs September 21 through 28, aims to give climate change the attention it deserves. The collaborative, co-founded last year by CJR and <em>The Nation </em>in association with <em>The Guardian</em>, aims to help news organizations increase and improve coverage of the crisis as well as its solutions. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the looming Supreme Court battle, and the other huge news stories of 2020, "the climate emergency remains the central question facing the world," United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said in <a href="https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/climate-beat/hnmqv7o1aw1lq9l8aj007y2inrssvn" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a September 8 interview with Covering Climate Now</a>. As Justin Worland wrote in a landmark <a href="https://time.com/5864692/climate-change-defining-moment/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">special issue of <em>Time</em> magazine</a> on July 7, the U.S. elections will shape whether we "keep driving off the climate cliff or take the last exit."</p>
<p>NBC News, which joined Covering Climate Now in April, kicked off this current week of joint coverage by launching a new series, Planet 2020. Al Roker, the network's chief climate correspondent and long-time weather forecaster, has been talking about climate change on the <em>Today</em> show for months, describing its links to wildfires and hurricanes without wiggle words or alarmism. Now, Roker and cohost Savannah Sellers, the host of NBC's daily digital news show <em>Stay Tuned</em>, are connecting the dots between extreme weather, climate change, and the 2020 elections where, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXMlFFY9uEI" target="_blank">as Sellers reported</a>, "millennials and Gen-Z will make up 37 percent of eligible voters and concern over climate change is … shaping up to be more important to all voting blocs than ever before." Also this week, our partners at Reuters and Agence France Presse delivered a story to their thousands of newsroom clients around the world that <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/richest-1-emissions-twice-poorest-001208383.html" target="_blank">puts the Paris Agreement goals in a new light</a>, reporting, "The richest one percent of people are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of the world's population."</p><p>Good climate coverage by Covering Climate Now partners is begetting good climate coverage among the media as a whole. More of America's leading newspapers are speaking more loudly and plainly about climate change, notably <em>The New York Times</em>, the <em>Washington Post</em>, the <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em>, the <em>Arizona Republic</em>, and the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>. The latter headlined a September 14 <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/newsletter/2020-09-14/climate-change-wildfires-california-oregon-washington-todays-headlines/" target="_blank">story about the state's wildfires</a> "A Climate Apocalypse Now." Among magazines, Bloomberg has launched a new digital outlet and accompanying print edition, <em>Bloomberg Green</em>, that is a must-read for the far-reaching economic aspects of the climate story.</p>
<p>On television, Covering Climate Now partner PBS NewsHour continues to set the pace for sustained, informed climate coverage. And on August 8, CNN rebroadcast climate correspondent Bill Weir's "<a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2008/08/csr.01.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Road to Change</a>," a documentary that <a href="https://www.cjr.org/covering_climate_now/cnn-road-to-change-climate-crisis.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">we praised in April</a> as perhaps the best piece of climate journalism ever done by a mainstream US news outlet. </p><p>The problem is, these and other examples of first-rate climate coverage remain the exception.</p><p>Despite recent orange skies over the West Coast and fearsome storm surges in the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention the 32 years since NASA scientist James Hansen's U.S. Senate testimony that man-made global warming had begun, the climate crisis remains a marginal afterthought in most U.S. news coverage. Chris Wallace of Fox News has announced that he will not even raise the subject of climate change when moderating the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden next week.</p>
<p>And consider the scandalous absence of climate change from most coverage of the wildfires, Hurricane Laura, the Iowa derecho, and countless other extreme weather events of 2020. Only one of the ninety-three news segments that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and MSNBC aired during the week after Laura slammed the Louisiana coast connected the storm to climate change, <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/broadcast-and-cable-news-coverage-hurricane-laura-was-shallow-and" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to a study</a> by the watchdog group Media Matters. Of forty-six segments ABC, NBC, and CBS aired on the California wildfires, <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/corporate-broadcast-tv-news-fails-make-crucial-connection-between-record" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">only seven mentioned climate change. </a></p><p>This is media malpractice. It is also, from a business point of view, foolish: the public actually <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2020/9/17/voters-want-to-see-more-climate-coverage-in-the-media" target="_blank">wants more, not less</a>, climate coverage. According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/23/us-voters-climate-change-guardian-vice-poll" target="_blank">a poll released today</a> by our partners at <em>The</em> <em>Guardian</em> and VICE Media, 74 percent of likely voters want the moderators to ask climate questions at the upcoming presidential debates.</p><p><span></span>We are heartened by the progress Covering Climate Now has made in helping the media rise to the existential challenge of the climate crisis. Yet even as we celebrate that progress this week, we recognize how far there is to go, and how little time we have to get there. The first presidential debate takes place on September 29, and five weeks later is Election Day. Between now and then, newsrooms should <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-planet-is-on-a-fast-path-to-destruction-the-media-must-cover-this-like-its-the-only-story-that-matters/2018/10/08/f806a7f0-caea-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html" target="_blank">follow the advice</a> of <em>Washington Post</em> media columnist Margaret Sullivan: "This subject must be kept front and center, with the pressure on and the stakes made abundantly clear at every turn."</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://www.cjr.org/" target="_blank">Columbia Journalism Review</a><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2647788050#/" target="_self"></a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Since April 2020, farmer support for Trump has fallen from 89 percent to 71 percent, according to an August 2020 survey by DTN/The Progressive Farmer. Steve Smith / Getty Imagess
By Leanna First-Arai
In a push to capture the rural vote, 62 percent of which went to Trump in 2016, both the Trump and Biden campaigns are ramping up efforts to appeal to farmers and ranchers.
<p>On <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article245908610.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">September 22</a>, the Biden campaign launched a new radio ad blitz in eight battleground states, in which Biden appeals to older voters whose families have lived in rural areas for generations. "No longer are we going to be faced with children or grandchildren believing that the only way they can make it is to leave home and go somewhere else to get that good job," Biden's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGcsHyT0Xyw&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=JoeBiden" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">voice assures</a>. "There's no reason why it can't happen here."</p><p>In a contrasting approach, at a <a href="https://carolinapublicpress.org/37377/mountain-strength-trump-plays-to-base-with-visit-to-mills-river-nonprofit/" target="_blank">rally</a> in North Carolina, just a few hours ahead of the opening of the Republican National Convention in August, Trump claimed that, under his administration, "The American farmer has done very well. I never hear any complaints from the American farmer." Remarks later that week during the convention followed suit. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/08/24/us/rnc-fact-check#the-economy-is-coming-up-very-rapidly-our-farmers-are-doing-well-because-i-got-china-to-give-them-28-billion-because-they-were-t" target="_blank">"The economy is coming up very rapidly, our farmers are doing well because I got China to give them $28 billion because they were targeted by China,"</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/08/24/us/rnc-fact-check" target="_blank">Trump said</a> on the first night of the convention.</p><p>But that assessment doesn't square with the hardship many U.S. farmers are facing — particularly small farmers. U.S. farm bankruptcies increased <a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/2020/04/14/where-are-farm-bankruptcies-happening/" target="_blank">20 percent</a> in 2019, reaching an eight-year high, on account of factors like the trade war, increasing costs of production and crop loss related to the climate crisis.</p><p><span></span>Since April 2020, farmer support for the incumbent president <a href="https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/livestock/article/2020/08/19/agriculture-confidence-index" target="_blank">has fallen</a> from 89 percent to 71 percent, according to an August 2020 survey by DTN/The Progressive Farmer. A recent <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/708942.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> by the Government Accountability Office revealed that under the Trump administration, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Market Facilitation Program payments to farmers harmed by the trade war went disproportionately to large-scale cotton and soybean farmers, ignoring the needs of small farmers who grow food. On account of Trump administration changes in payment maximums for the USDA's Market Facilitation Program, the top <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/708942.pdf" target="_blank">1.3 percent</a> of payment recipients received an additional <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/708942.pdf" target="_blank">$519 million</a>, while the average individual farmer in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania got $11,829 and $8,661, respectively. The finding is in line with earlier analyses revealing Trump's <a href="https://www.ewg.org/agmag/2019/11/trump-s-hollow-promise-trade-war-relief-small-farms" target="_blank">disproportionate financial support</a> for the largest capitalist farmers.</p>
<p>According to the USDA, <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=58426" target="_blank">more than half</a> of the <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/farming-and-farm-income/" target="_blank">2 million farms</a> in the United States are "very small farms," grossing less than $10,000 annually. When asked what political capital this group could hold, Wingate University Assistant Professor of Political Science Chelsea Kaufman told <em>Truthout </em>that the increased pressure small farmers face from forces like the overlapping COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis could make them a "relatively unique" political force, as has been the case with farmers experiencing economic shocks during past election cycles.</p><p>In 1932, incumbent President Herbert Hoover <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3742831?casa_token=EH6FRgNDmyYAAAAA%3AWssxfIPB8xWfWNz2BCYonkaRYauNsUtajPGpuCJNNj-iz9yibMfSTuy0r9Zq6hytcZtHrcnNZut5CXzFLTeRYYU9oOJCyVywpxHyYQZyOEp9JxuKAg&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank">lost votes</a> from normally Republican-voting northern farmers, and the same happened for Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. Academics <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3742831?casa_token=EH6FRgNDmyYAAAAA%3AWssxfIPB8xWfWNz2BCYonkaRYauNsUtajPGpuCJNNj-iz9yibMfSTuy0r9Zq6hytcZtHrcnNZut5CXzFLTeRYYU9oOJCyVywpxHyYQZyOEp9JxuKAg&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">attribute this</a> to low crop prices during election years. According to the <a href="https://cookpolitical.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cook Political Report</a>, many of what are expected to be key battleground states in 2020, like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, are also <a href="https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17844" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">top agricultural producers</a>.</p><p>The majority of the smaller farmers <em>Truthout </em>spoke with for this story want to see a federal government that tackles climate change head-on and restructures agriculture to be a solution by encouraging diversified farming that stores (rather than releases) carbon. Industrial agriculture is a <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25012019/climate-change-agriculture-farming-consolidation-corn-soybeans-meat-crop-subsidies#:~:text=Hot%20Topics%3A-,Industrial%20Agriculture%2C%20an%20Extraction%20Industry%20Like%20Fossil%20Fuels%2C%20a%20Growing,damage%20as%20the%20planet%20warms.&text=change%20in%20mind.-,%22I%20can%20see%20the%20impact%20of,changing%20climate%2C%22%20he%20s" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">major contributor</a> to climate change, through its reliance on chemical fertilizers, the manufacturing of which releases carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, and depletes the soil of nutrients. It's a system that farmers are "stuck in," says Tom Rosenfeld, who grows apples, blueberries, strawberries and peaches on 120 acres of farmland in southwest Michigan. Rosenfeld purchased a conventional orchard in 2005 and has been converting it to organic ever since, which he says has been a challenge in a system that prioritizes conventional practices. Dealing with climate change has made it even more difficult, a sentiment that reflects a wider experience among farmers. In 2018, <a href="https://filesforprogress.org/memos/regenerative-farming-and-the-green-new-deal.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">75 percent</a> of Farm Aid hotline calls were related to extreme weather and weather-related crises like wildfires.</p>
<p>Rosenfeld says more frequent late freezes due to climate change have been all but impossible to bounce back from. After temperatures dropped to 25 degrees Fahrenheit in May 2020, he lost 65 percent of his strawberries, 40 percent of his blueberries and all of his Red Delicious, Gala, Empire and McIntosh apples. On top of that, the changing climate has brought new pests to the region, like the apple flea weevil, which destroyed a full season's worth of crops when it first appeared in 2010. "Every year I keep thinking, is this it?" he tells <em>Truthout. </em>"I can't afford this financially; I can't afford the time and energy and it doesn't seem to be getting to any kind of manageable place."</p><p>In 2018, when President Trump signed the latest Farm Bill, he reauthorized the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which provides financial and technical assistance to farmers who implement certain <a href="https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/national/technical/cp/ncps/?cid=nrcs143_026849" target="_blank">conservation practices</a> like mulching to protect soil, or "<a href="https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/PA_NRCSConsumption/download?cid=nrcs143_026249&ext=pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">karst sinkhole treatment</a>" to protect runoff from reaching groundwater supply.</p><p>But Rosenfeld, who is in the midst of transitioning all 110 acres from conventional to organic, says the program doesn't offer the kind of assistance he needs. When government representatives paid his farm a visit to assess what kind of EQIP program they might support, Rosenfeld says they proposed he build a retention wall near where he fills his sprayer, to help catch runoff. "But what good does that do?" he said, referring to his ultimate goal of moving away from using any kind of hazardous material on his land. "They're not offering the types of programs that are relevant to me as an organic grower."</p>
<p>Rosenfeld says he wants to shift away from using diesel and gas-fueled tractors and to have on-site renewable energy to power his farm. But no existing government programs make that financially feasible. When he considered investing in solar panels a few years ago, he found one program that would have cost him around $30,000, but with the kind of crop loss he has experienced, he couldn't afford it.</p><p>Two hours north of Rosenfeld's farm, in White Cloud, Michigan, Luke Eising is a farmer who uses silvopasture techniques, letting cows, pigs and chickens graze together amid integrated forest and plant landscapes. Rotating the animals to different pastures encourages plants to develop more robust root systems, which returns carbon to the soil and improves soil quality. In addition to producing food for his community, Eising says, being able to help sequester carbon and rebuild degraded soil is a major reason he chose to be a farmer. According to the 2018 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/" target="_blank">report</a>, sequestering carbon in the soil is the most cost-effective option for economic activity generating "negative emissions." "I very much see it as a solution for food systems," Eising told <em>Truthout</em>.</p><p>Eising would like to see subsidies for corn and soy cut, because he thinks regenerative practices like his would become competitive. "We're fighting an uphill battle when I can see chicken breasts or pork chops in the store for less than I pay to process [my product]," he says, referring to animals raised in confinement and fed monoculture corn and soy feed the federal government subsidizes. Another issue the current administration hasn't helped with, Eising says, is a major meat processing backlog. Whereas Eising can usually get a date within six to eight weeks at a meat processing plant, given meat plant shutdowns amid COVID-19, leading to short supply of meat processing facilities, it's been hard to find a date any time before 2022. "This is not okay. I have animals outside that are ready to process, I have customers lining up because they're hungry and I have a freezer that's empty," he says. Existing laws prohibit small, local butchers from processing meat headed for market.</p>
<p>Eising tends to vote for conservative or libertarian candidates in local and national elections. In 2016, he voted for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. But Eising says he'll likely vote for Biden if polling remains close in Michigan. "Nobody else is at all interested in what regenerative farming could do for this country," he says. Biden has recently <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2009/17/se.01.html" target="_blank">talked about</a> paying farmers for "planting certain crops that in fact absorb carbon from the air," but his <a href="https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/" target="_blank">climate plan</a> makes no mention of organic, diversified or regenerative farming. According to a <a href="https://filesforprogress.org/memos/regenerative-farming-and-the-green-new-deal.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> by Data For Progress, conventional farming practices that rely on pesticides and monoculture practices are linked to $44 billion in annual damage related to soil erosion in the United States, which is perhaps felt most acutely in areas where soil can no longer retain moisture in the advent of a heavy rain, leading to catastrophic flooding.</p><p>Ecologically minded farmers in swing states outside of Michigan similarly reflect a desire for leadership that addresses climate through agricultural reform. Kemper Burt began farming 40 years ago in California. He now lives in Arizona, where he grows lettuce and other produce on a 40-acre farm powered by solar energy. Burt points out that tackling climate change will entail decolonizing the way we produce food, in direct contrast with the "feed the world" mentality behind the so-called "<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/green-revolution-norman-borlaug-race-to-fight-global-hunger/" target="_blank">Green Revolution</a>" of the 1970s, which led to the fertilizer and pesticide-heavy monoculture farming he and other small-scale farmers want to break away from. "Let's just try feeding our community, then let's just try feeding our state, and then let's just try feeding other states," Burt says. Burt is registered as an independent, though he wouldn't say exactly how he'll vote in November. "I look to what people are doing to help protect nature, which then in turn protects you and I," he said.</p><p>Many small farmers say they've yet to see a presidential candidate or down-ballot candidate fully address their needs in this election cycle. President Trump's reelection campaign has not yet put out a climate plan. And Biden's climate plan does not yet spell out what small-scale farmers say they want, like a return to the New Deal-era concept of "parity," a supply-management strategy designed to prevent the kind of wasteful over-production of soybeans and corn that wipes the land of biodiversity and results in unstable prices. Rosenfeld wants to see a shift away from crop insurance, which comprised <a href="https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/12889-farm-income-forecast-rises-on-trade-aid-crops#:~:text=Rural%20Trade%20WEST-,USDA%3A%20Nearly%20one%2Dthird%20of%202019%20farm,earnings%20due%20to%20subsidies%2C%20insurance&text=Some%2031%25%20of%20that%20income,said%20ERS%20economist%20Carrie%20Litkowski." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">one-third</a> of farmers' income in 2019, toward income insurance, which would provide financial support for people growing food, rather than cash crops.</p>
<p>As long as agriculture is considered a solution to the climate crisis, whether in a Green New Deal or as part of another climate plan, says Maine farmer Craig Hickman, he'd consider it a step forward, noting that he thinks his neighbors in Maine, many of whom are libertarians, would agree. "Investing in food infrastructure is as important as roads and bridges," he told <em>Truthout</em>.</p><p>In 2019, Maine, a "purple" state, passed the <a href="https://archive.thinkprogress.org/labor-union-support-maine-green-new-deal-bc048eea1c91/" target="_blank">first</a> state-level Green New Deal backed by labor unions. Facing increased pressure from forces like climate change, the potential "farm vote" could build swing power, "although it is not clear whether that would happen in 2020 or a later election year," Kaufman said. "We can look to the lessons of history: Farmers had quite unique behavior at points in time where they faced economic instability, which led them to support candidates and parties that addressed these issues."</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <u><em><a href="https://truthout.org/" target="_blank">Truthout</a><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2647787588#/" target="_self"></a> </em></u><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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An electric car at an eVgo charging station in a parking lot in Dublin, California on June 20, 2018. Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday that would ban the sale of new cars in California that run only on gasoline by the year 2035. The bid to reduce emissions and combat the climate crisis would make California the first state to ban the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines, according to POLITICO.
<p>"This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change," said Newsom in a <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/09/23/governor-newsom-announces-california-will-phase-out-gasoline-powered-cars-drastically-reduce-demand-for-fossil-fuel-in-californias-fight-against-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">statement</a> that accompanied the signing of the executive order. "For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe. Californians shouldn't have to worry if our cars are giving our kids asthma. Our cars shouldn't make wildfires worse – and create more days filled with smoky air. Cars shouldn't melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines."</p>
<p>The threats posed by the climate crisis are playing out in dramatic fashion in California. This summer, the state has seen record-setting wildfires, heat waves and drought. Those mounting climate crisis-related challenges have spurred the move away from the state's leading source of greenhouse gas emissions, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/23/california-electric-cars/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported.</p><p>"We can't continue down this path," Newsom said at a briefing, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/23/california-cars-electric-vehicles-gavin-newsom-climate-change" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported. "If you care about your kids and your grandkids, if you care about disadvantaged communities, if you care about seniors, if you care about rural communities, if you care about inner city communities that have been underserved by our fossil fuel economy, then you care about the core construct that we are advancing here in this executive order."</p><p>Newsom added that the order will create "green collar jobs" that Californians are well-positioned to capitalize on since 34 <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/electric-vehicles">electric car</a> manufacturers are already in the state.</p>
<p>"Our second largest export in the state of California are electric vehicles," he said, according to The Guardian. "Those 34 manufacturers, those public trading manufacturers, represent close to half a trillion dollars of market capitalization, some $500bn … this is an economic opportunity."</p><p>For the order to be successful, the technology, scalability, and affordability of electric cars would have to improve dramatically in the next decade. Also, the state will need to make sure charging stations are readily available. California currently has the largest market for electric and hybrid vehicles, with roughly 257,000 new registrations for electric vehicles in 2018, according to The Washington Post. Yet, that number was not even 10 percent of the state's new car market.</p><p>While the order is sure to meet legal challenges, it may set the trend that carmakers need to increase their investment in fossil-fuel-free vehicles.</p>
<p>"The automotive industry was already on the road toward electrification as a long term goal, but many automakers have been guilty of setting short term targets for their electrification strategy that never came to fruition," said Jessica Caldwell, director of insights at Edmunds, an online resource for car data, in an emailed comment to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/23/cars/california-zero-emissions-passenger-vehicles/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CNN</a>. "This rule, if implemented, establishes a specific timeline that they'll collectively need to adhere to. California is a major market that automakers desperately need to maintain sales within to ensure their own viability."</p><p>The announcement also earned the praise of environmental groups.</p><p>"The Governor's Executive Order is a meaningful step in addressing the climate crisis and protecting the health of Californians," said Coalition for Clean Air in an email to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/23/916209659/california-governor-signs-order-banning-sales-of-new-gasoline-cars-by-2035" target="_blank">NPR</a>. "Electrifying transportation will also create jobs and help California move forward in its economic recovery."</p>
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