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Working From Home During the Pandemic Has Environmental Benefits — But We Can Do Even Better
24 May
Insights + Opinion
Junjira Konsang / Pixabay
By Matt Casale
For many Americans across the country, staying home to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) means adapting to long-term telework for the first time. We're doing a lot more video conferencing and working out all the kinks that come along with it.
<p>While this particular situation is not ideal for many — for example, I'm currently writing this with an infant in a baby carrier on my chest and our almost-three-year-old belting "Let It Go" in the background — in many ways we're playing out a real-time experiment on whether telecommuting is possible on a large scale.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDc5NTEzOH0.UPtJT4Pjinn-wiHkF4vbFGF_2M2R3DrqPh_VGN_mPxQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="61bc2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4aeee8da3400abc67c12130a6bbe03ae" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The author (above) wrote this while working from home, baby in tow. Emily Anderson (author's wife/home office mate)
<p>The coronavirus will pass, but it's looking more and more like remote work will stick around. This time has demonstrated that, despite the ups and downs many of us have experienced, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likely-continue-long-after-the-pandemic/" target="_blank">telework works</a> for way more of us than we knew.</p><p>Even before this we knew that there were several benefits for both employers and employees to sidestepping the office. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrealoubier/2017/07/20/benefits-of-telecommuting-for-the-future-of-work/#3f278e0916c6" target="_blank">Studies have shown</a> that it can lead to increased productivity, higher morale and lower employee turnover. It can also reduce real estate and office operation costs for employers.</p><p>We may now also be seeing some larger societal benefits that make the case for taking telework even further. Our current situation has provided a window into how a reduction in driving, buoyed, in part, by a greater adoption of telework, could relieve some of the stress on our overburdened transportation system and help heal at least a portion of the environmental damage it causes.</p><p>Today, roads that would normally clogged at all hours of the day are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-empty-airports-trains-roads-during-coronavirus" target="_blank">virtually empty</a>, even during rush hour. And the reduced car travel leads to fewer crashes and less air pollution, which harms human health and contributes to global warming. Air that's usually cloudy with smog has cleared. Los Angeles, which has notoriously pollution-choked skies, could recently boast having the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/los-angeles-pollution-clean-air-coronavirus-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">cleanest air in the world</a>. And this year, experts predict, the transportation transformation will contribute to the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coronavirus-set-to-cause-largest-ever-annual-fall-in-co2-emissions" target="_blank">largest-ever annual decline in global carbon emissions</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODAzNTcyNX0.2WzQzdHTSN6ob08B_hb9WcYdlBeUtg53i1RoYGIO1Do/img.jpg?width=980" id="44ac4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ea0ed6763606e660a909d62f41f9d54f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Virtually empty Los Angeles streets on May 7. Chris Yarzab / CC BY 2.0
<p>Clearly not every job can be done from home, and it's not just commuting for work that has come to a halt during coronavirus lockdowns. In 2017 only around <a href="https://nhts.ornl.gov/assets/2017_nhts_summary_travel_trends.pdf" target="_blank">28 percent</a> of total miles driven were work-related. Even if telework continues or expands on a much larger scale, non-work-related car trips — shopping, recreation, visits to doctors and the like — can be expected to go back to normal.</p><p>Still, telework's potential for taking cars off the road can clearly have an impact on global warming emissions and air pollution. Just how much of an impact could telework have? As it turns out, the answer is a significant one — and with a few important steps, the benefits can be even greater and more sustainable.</p>How Much of the Workforce Could Reasonably and Permanently Transition to Telework?
<p>According to the U.S. Census Bureau, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/13/people-who-work-from-home-earn-more-than-those-who-commuteheres-why.html" target="_blank">5.2 percent of U.S. workers</a> — around 8 million people — worked from home in 2017. But that's still just a fraction of potential teleworkers. Earlier this month researchers at the University of Chicago found that <a href="https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_White-Paper_Dingel_Neiman_3.2020.pdf" target="_blank">37 percent of U.S. jobs can plausibly be performed at home</a>. The U.S. workforce reached <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV" target="_blank">164.5 million</a> in February 2020, before the pandemic, meaning approximately 61 million of those workers could plausibly telework permanently once the economy starts up again.</p><p>Of course, the full economic consequences of this public health crisis are still unknown. It's possible that coronavirus-related job losses will impact the overall number of those employed for some time. But for these purposes, this assumption of 53 million new remote workers will be useful to illustrate the potential impacts of telework.</p>How Much Driving Would Full-Capacity Telework Avoid?
<p>In 2019 Americans drove a total <a href="https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10315" target="_blank">3.23 trillion miles</a>, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The DoE doesn't break that down by reasons driving, but we know that in 2017 there were <a href="https://nhts.ornl.gov/assets/2017_nhts_summary_travel_trends.pdf" target="_blank">683 billion total commute miles</a> driven. Reducing the commuting workforce by about 32 percent (37 percent of total workers who could telecommute minus the 5.2 percent of them who already do) would theoretically decrease commuting totals by about 219 billion miles.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDE5NzkwNn0.NsQ8r0Opjbst4FFYG9IGfKIkekxBMPGG8viKKCB9Afc/img.jpg?width=980" id="f3198" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bbf1191abdd0b796a70fbb2a36b827e2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A traffic jam on January 17. Raphael Labaca Castro / CC BY-SA 2.0
<p>Of course telecommuting won't let us avoid logging <em>all</em> of those miles, since people may occasionally still need to travel to an office for meetings and may need to make new trips they wouldn't otherwise have taken (you can't stop at the grocery store on the way home from work when you work at home). Various studies have found that telecommuting actually reduces driving somewhere between <a href="https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/sb375/policies/telecommuting/telecommuting_brief120313.pdf" target="_blank">60 and 90</a> percent of commute vehicle miles traveled (VMT). We'll split the difference and calculate that telework reduces commute miles by about 75%, meaning the new teleworkers could avoid around 164 billion miles driven.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODE3NzE2NH0.x6snYt1idN9K7pPfL-rp11ITuPasCu09GYlTXCmZqH0/img.jpg?width=980" id="7175e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2862401e39968c61d3a00f932157acd" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center
<p>Still, that much of a transformation may not work for everyone, as people will still need to do face-to-face work — and, let's be honest, the other thing the lockdowns have taught us is to appreciate the value of regular social contact. That said, even if most people worked from home two to three days a week and the actual VMT reduction were closer to 2 or 3 percent, the difference would still be significant — especially considering that VMT has been <a href="https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10315" target="_blank">steadily rising</a> since the 1970s, except for a few years during economic downturns. Even if just a quarter of American workers started working from home one day a week, total vehicle miles traveled would fall by <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063006473" target="_blank">1</a> percent — not a huge amount, but enough to make a difference on a grander scale.</p>Impact on Global Warming Emissions
<p>The cars and trucks we drive every day are major sources of air pollution and global warming emissions. Transportation as a whole accounts for <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks" target="_blank">28</a> percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., more than any other source. Light-duty vehicles and medium- and heavy-duty trucks are responsible for<a href="https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions" target="_blank"> 82</a> percent of the transportation sector's emissions.</p><p>The average American car or SUV emits <a href="https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle" target="_blank">404 grams</a> of carbon dioxide (CO2) per mile traveled. So reducing commuting by 164 billion miles would avoid 66 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually. These are significant emissions reductions, but they'd only make a small dent in total transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, which reached nearly <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks" target="_blank">1.9 billion metric tons</a> in 2018.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTEzMDQ2N30.kNeCqEqhHQcOV8p2HMENkbOtLoShEGEsXOycpTdlxco/img.jpg?width=980" id="e7f7b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ce9e7ab7f9c21489e7487b820813367e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Nevertheless, it would help us move in the right direction. And while it only represents a small percentage of total emissions, it would still be the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator" target="_blank">equivalent</a> of more eliminating emissions from than 7 million homes' total energy use for one year, or the same as shutting down more than 16 coal-fired power plants.</p>
Impact on Health-harming Air Pollution
<p>People across America regularly breathe polluted air, which increases their risk of attacks and other adverse health impacts, and even premature death. In fact, in 2018 <a href="https://uspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/EnvironmentAmerica_TroubleintheAir_scrn.pdf" target="_blank">108 million Americans</a> lived in areas that experienced more than 100 days of degraded air quality. Our cars and trucks are a major source of this pollution, which includes ozone, particulate matter and other smog-forming emissions.</p><p>There's a reason the air has cleared over many of our major cities during the coronavirus lockdowns. When you remove cars from the road, you also remove smog. The lockdowns have resulted in an extreme reduction of VMT — between <a href="https://frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/america-pause-vehicle-travel-during-covid-19-and-what-comes-next" target="_blank">68 and 72</a> percent across the country (and in some places closer to 90 percent). Assuming that telework has contributed something close to its peak potential reduction of 7 percent, it seems likely that it has played at least a supporting role in helping to clear our skies.</p>Additional Emissions Reductions From Reduced Traffic
<p>The average American commuter wastes <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/us/traffic-commute-gridlock-transportation-study-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">54 hours</a> a year stuck in traffic. That's lost time with friends and families, lost productivity at work, wasted money, tons of unnecessary stress, and a lot more pollution from idling cars.</p><p>Traffic patterns are complicated because traffic is <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/12/4-steps-to-tackling-traffic-congestion/" target="_blank">non-linear</a>, meaning there isn't a one-to-one ratio of percentage of cars removed to percentage of traffic alleviated. As such, just a <a href="https://www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2017/the-access-almanac-traffic-congestion-is-counter-intuitive-and-fixable/" target="_blank">few extra cars</a> on or off the road can have an outsize impact on traffic. Reducing commute VMT by up to 7 percent would have a huge impact on rush hour traffic (when bottlenecks are at their worst and most of that driving occurs). A greater adoption of telework could give people back some of those 54 hours so they can spend it doing the things that matter to them. And slow moving or stop and go traffic results in <a href="https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-2009/traffic-congestion-greenhouse-gases/" target="_blank">greater emissions</a> than free-flowing traffic. So freeing up the roads and alleviating traffic for the remaining will result in even greater emissions reductions.</p>What Needs to Happen for Telework to Live Up to Its Potential?
<p>It's clear that telework can have significant societal benefits, including less global warming pollution and cleaner skies. But significant benefits are only possible if everyone whose job could plausibly be done from home has that opportunity.</p><p>To reach that goal, several barriers must be overcome:</p><p><em>Technology: </em>We've all had technical mix-ups when using Zoom or Google Hangouts or one of the other conferencing platforms. But the real technological barrier is access to broadband. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/#who-has-home-broadband" target="_blank">Roughly three-quarters</a> of American adults have broadband internet service at home, but the rate of access is much lower in rural parts of the country, according to a report by Pew Research Center. Those locations often don't have broadband infrastructure and even <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likely-continue-long-after-the-pandemic/" target="_blank">14</a> percent of households in urban areas lack access, usually because they are not able to afford it. States should make funding available to develop broadband capacity in underserved areas.</p><p><em>Employer policies and managerial reluctance</em>: Coronavirus lockdowns across the country have forced employers and managers to adapt to large-scale telework quickly on an emergency basis, meaning these barriers are less likely relevant now than before. But general employer and manager <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683455.pdf" target="_blank">reluctance</a> to embrace working from home has slowed this transition. Cities and states can encourage employer acceptance of telework by providing <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2019/07/25/gov-baker-proposes-telecommuting-tax-break-for-companies" target="_blank">tax benefits</a> or other incentives for greater adoption.</p><p><em>Car-centered transportation policies: </em>Our current transportation policies often incentivize driving or parking. From commuter and parking benefits to decades of outsized spending on <a href="https://uspirg.org/reports/usp/highway-boondoggles-5" target="_blank">highway infrastructure</a>, we tip the scales toward getting behind an automobile's wheel. In other words, our transportation policies are meant to move cars rather than incentivize things, such as telework, that would take cars off the road.</p><p>We need to rethink this approach and shift toward better "<a href="https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/plan4ops/trans_demand.htm" target="_blank">Transportation Demand Management</a>." This requires the implementation of a set of strategies aimed at maximizing traveler choices. Those strategies should include greater employer and employee incentives for telework, as well as policies designed to facilitate more walking, biking, ridesharing, vanpooling and public transportation use.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY5MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzUwNTM5OX0.9ePNI--qrX2Z32AA7sgDeU5lwKBZtReALXYY8Y9b_Sc/img.jpg?width=980" id="a9e3d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d41b19fddabdda0afee848bbc5b6c005" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/telework-environmental-benefits/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>Bikeshare in Milan, October 2019. Guilhem Vellut / CC BY 2.0
<p>That's important, because the potential gains we'd see from telework would only be sustained if that shift were paired with other policies to ensure those commuter miles aren't just replaced with other trips. We usually talk about this in relation to widening or building new highways, but when you open up highway capacity, it usually fills quickly. This is what the wonks call "<a href="https://uspirg.org/reports/usp/highway-boondoggles-5" target="_blank">induced demand</a>." People who otherwise would have driven at a different time of day, taken a different route, taken public transportation or would have avoided traffic on the highway some other way, come back to the road. The same could happen here if additional measures aren't taken.</p><p>It's likely that, even after the coronavirus lockdowns are over, telework is going to become more and more common in the American workforce. As it does, the environmental benefits will be significant. In a time when climate change presents an existential threat to life as we know it and millions of people across the world are subjected to unhealthy levels of air pollution, we need to be taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to solving these problems. Telework can clearly be a significant part of the long-term solution — especially if we take further steps to maximize its potential.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Looking south from New York City's Central Park. Ajay Suresh / Wikipedia / CC BY 4.0
By Richard leBrasseur
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered humans' relationship with natural landscapes in ways that may be long-lasting. One of its most direct effects on people's daily lives is reduced access to public parks.
<p>
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html" target="_blank">guidelines</a> urging Americans to stay at home whenever feasible, and to avoid discretionary travel and gatherings of more than 10 people. Emergency declarations and stay-at-home orders <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_local_government_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic" target="_blank">vary from state to state</a>, but many jurisdictions have closed <a href="https://thedyrt.com/magazine/local/campground-closures-list-covid-19/" target="_blank">state</a> and <a href="https://parks.arlingtonva.us/2020/04/parks-recreation-working-to-keep-people-healthy-and-safe/" target="_blank">county parks</a>, as well as smaller parks, playgrounds, beaches and other outdoor destinations.
</p>
<p>There's good reason for these actions, especially in places where people have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/us/southern-california-beaches-coronavirus-heat/index.html" target="_blank">spurned social distancing rules</a>. But particularly in urban environments, parks are important to human health and well-being.</p><p>As a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Le_Brasseur" target="_blank">landscape architect</a>, I believe that <a href="https://www.olmsted.org/the-olmsted-legacy/frederick-law-olmsted-sr" target="_blank">Frederick Law Olmsted</a>, the founder of our field, took the right approach. Olmsted served as general secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, and his knowledge of contagious diseases informed his visions for his great North American urban parks, including <a href="https://www.centralpark.com/" target="_blank">Central Park</a> in New York, <a href="https://www.lemontroyal.qc.ca/en" target="_blank">Mount Royal Park</a> in Montreal and Boston's <a href="https://www.emeraldnecklace.org/park-overview/" target="_blank">Emerald Necklace</a> park system. In my view, closing parks and public green spaces should be a temporary, last-resort measure for disease control, and reopening closed parks should be a priority as cities emerge from shutdowns.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a867752aaff56a08500b385a86246215"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lm4UD1eOTSI?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Making Healthy Places
<p>Olmsted was born in 1822 but became a landscape architect rather late in his career, at <a href="https://www.olmsted.org/the-olmsted-legacy/olmsted-theory-and-design-principles/olmsted-his-essential-theory" target="_blank">age 43</a>. His ideas evolved from a diverse and unique set of experiences.</p><p>From the start, Olmsted recognized the positive effect of nature, noting how urban trees provided a "<a href="https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Olmsted_Trees.pdf" target="_blank">soothing and refreshing sanitary influence</a>." His "sanitary style" of design offered more than mere decoration and ornamentation. "Service must precede art" was his cry.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY0Ni9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5Njk0MTU4NH0.0B1-PqUutTRmDQFUSVoUs92nvTWwyoXnAWF7IOCG0ko/img.png?width=980" id="cd54e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="56aeeebf247c3a9dd09d5fc14e90805c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Olmsted's 1874 plan for the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, DC. Architect of the Capitol
<p>Olmsted came of age in the mid-19th century, as the public health movement was rapidly developing in response to typhoid, cholera and typhus epidemics in European cities. As managing editor of Putnam's Monthly in New York City, he regularly walked the crowded tenement streets of Lower Manhattan.</p><p>At the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, Olmsted led efforts to improve sanitation in Union Army military camps and protect soldiers' health. He initiated policies for selecting proper camp locations, installing drainage and disposing of waste, ventilating tents and preparing food, all designed to reduce disease. And in 1866 he witnessed adoption of New York's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Health_Bill" target="_blank">Metropolitan Health Bill</a>, the first city law to control unhealthy housing conditions.</p>Antidotes to Urban Stress
<p>The insights Olmsted gained into connections between space, disease control and public health clearly influenced his landscape architectural career and the design of many urban park systems. For example, his design for the interlinked parks that forms Boston's <a href="https://ramboll.com/-/media/files/rgr/lcl/bgi_final-report_mit_boston_20160403.pdf?la=en" target="_blank">Emerald Necklace</a> foreshadowed the concept of green infrastructure.</p><p>This system centered on stagnant and deteriorated marshes that had became disconnected from the tidal flow of the Charles River as Boston grew. City residents were dumping trash and sewage in the marshes, creating <a href="https://landscapes.northeastern.edu/water-sanitation-and-public-health-in-boston/" target="_blank">fetid dumps that spread waterborne diseases</a>. Olmsted's design reconnected these water systems to improve flow and flush out stagnant zones, while integrating a series of smaller parks along its trailways.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY1Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMzA0MTM4Nn0.NDri69ZuP5S1-FFERwACr1MFhgb4eqhxc4DkXq8OLR0/img.png?width=980" id="4f7fc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="15936574ba99f0927e4a509d7a6b3694" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Boston's Emerald Necklace park system today. Emerald Necklace Conservancy / CC BY-ND
<p>Olmsted also designed <a href="https://www.6sqft.com/in-1894-the-first-bike-lane-in-america-was-built-on-brooklyns-ocean-parkway/" target="_blank">America's first bike lane</a>, which originated in Brooklyn, New York's Prospect Park. Of the tree-lined boulevards in his design for Central Park, Olmsted said, "Air is disinfected by sunlight and foliage. Foliage also acts mechanically to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/04419057.2013.836557" target="_blank">purify the air by screening it.</a>"</p><p>In all of his urban parks, Olmsted sought to immerse visitors in restorative and therapeutic natural landscapes — an experience he viewed as the most profound and effective antidote to the stress and ailments of urban life.</p>Parks in the Time of COVID-19
<p>Today researchers are documenting many health benefits associated with being outside. Spending time in parks and green spaces clearly benefits urban dwellers' <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2007.09.009" target="_blank">psychological, emotional and overall well-being</a>. It <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10030913" target="_blank">reduces stress</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916591231001" target="_blank">improves cognitive functioning</a> and is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40471-015-0043-7" target="_blank">improved overall health</a>.</p><p>In my view, government agencies should work to make these vital services as widely available as possible, especially during stressful periods like pandemic shutdowns. Certain types of public green spaces, such as botanical gardens, arboretums and wide trails, are well suited to maintaining social distancing rules. Other types where visitors may be likely to cluster, such as beaches and playgrounds, require stricter regulation.</p><p>There are many ways to make parks accessible with appropriate levels of control. One option is stationing agents at entry points to monitor and enforce capacity controls. Park managers can use timed entries and parking area restrictions to limit social crowding, as well as temperature screening and face mask provisions.</p><iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode twitter-embed-1258546078162419712" id="twitter-embed-1258546078162419712" lazy-loadable="true" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-1258546078162419712&created_ts=1588895742.0&screen_name=WAStatePks&text=The+weather%27s+going+to+be+awesome+this+weekend.+Heading+to+your+local+%23WaStatePark%3F+Be+like+mascots+Bagley+and+Ruth%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FBwCzquGx75&id=1258546078162419712&name=WaStatePks" frameborder="0" data-rm-shortcode-id="defaeca6d251c3f521f316ea78e9a454"></iframe><p>For example, in <a href="https://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/sps_covid.html" target="_blank">New Jersey</a>, many public parks have reopened for walking, hiking, bicycling and fishing while keeping playgrounds, picnic and camping areas and restrooms closed. They also have limited parking capacity to 50 percent of capacity.</p><p>In Shanghai, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3075224/coronavirus-parks-and-tourist-attractions-reopen-china-tries-get" target="_blank">China</a>, the government recently reopened most parks and several major attractions, including the <a href="http://en.csnbgsh.cn/sites/chenshan/chenshan_en/index.ashx" target="_blank">Chenshan Botanical Garden</a> and the <a href="http://www.smartshanghai.com/venue/2401/Shanghai_Zoo_shanghai" target="_blank">city zoo</a>. Entry requires successful screening and online reservations, and visits are limited to a maximum of two hours.</p><p>Technologies such as GPS tracking and biometrics can set a precedent for future green space interaction. Residents could sign up for reserved time slots and log into apps that monitor their entry and distancing behavior. Some Americans might be put off by such technocentric means, but officials should be clear that making visitation easy and safe for all is the priority.</p><p>There will be challenges, especially when people <a href="https://www.wxyz.com/news/coronavirus/dnr-state-park-closures-likely-if-people-dont-follow-social-distancing-rules" target="_blank">flout social distancing rules</a>. But urban parks and nature offer plenty of benefits that are especially important during a pandemic. I believe that finding ways to enjoy them now in a manner safe for all will be well worth the effort.</p>
<p>
<em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/parks-matter-more-than-ever-during-a-time-of-sickness-something-frederick-law-olmsted-understood-in-the-19th-century-137882" target="_blank">The Conversation</a></em><em>.</em>
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The Ebo Forest in Cameroon, Africa, is a biodiversity hotspot, home to an amazing range of wildlife, including forest elephants, gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, grey parrots and the goliath frog. San Diego Zoo Global
By Lamfu Fabrice Yengong and Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue
Biodiversity loss is a global crisis. In May last year, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned that over 1,000,000 species are threatened with extinction worldwide. On May 22, the International Day of Biodiversity, it is important to recall the silent victims of our country's obsession for industrial growth at the expense of our forests.
<p>Tropical rainforests are estimated to harbor more than half of the world's plant and animal species. They are also essential for access to water, regulating temperature and preventing soil erosion. It's time to return the forests to indigenous and local communities. </p><p>In our country, Cameroon, the conservation of biodiversity, global climate goals and human rights of indigenous and local communities are all put at stake for industrial exploitation of the rainforest, driven by short-sighted thinking. Biodiversity hotspots are put at risk by industrial logging and agriculture, as trees are cut for the tropical timber market and entire forests cleared to make room for oil palm and rubber plantations. The government tries to assure conservationists that some space will be reserved for the wildlife in the forest it trashes, but even protected areas are not truly safe. </p><p>Companies, usually foreign-owned, are rapidly destroying rainforests that have existed for years. Local communities are left poorer after their traditional source of livelihood is desecrated. The only ones getting rich are a small group of beneficiaries that are close to the circles of power. </p><p>Some low-income countries that are rich in forests are resorting to quick solutions like logging and industrial agriculture. But industrial logging concessions and rubber and palm oil plantations are never the job-creating mechanism they promise to be. That has been demonstrated over and over again in forest countries around the world.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/407/" target="_blank">the Dja Faunal Reserve</a>, a UNESCO world heritage site in the South of Cameroon, is home to more than 100 species of mammals, including at least 14 primates, such as the endangered western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, and white-collared mangabey, as well as species such as the endangered forest elephant, and the African grey parrot, bongo antelope and leopard.</p><p>The Dja Faunal Reserve is adjacent to the Sudcam rubber plantation, mainly owned by rubber giant Halcyon Agri. Sudcam has cleared more than 10,000 hectares (approximately 25,000 acres) of dense tropical rainforest in the South region of Cameroon – an equivalent of 10 football pitches a day – to make way for a rubber plantation between 2011 and 2018. The rubber plantation has rattled the lives of several indigenous communities, namely the Baka, but it has also aggravated the lives of those numerous protected species in the Dja Reserve.</p><p>To indigenous and local forest dependent communities, the rainforest serves as a source of nutritious foods and traditional medicine, much of which science has yet to explore. The forest is also the foundation of their social life, from recreational to ritual practices. Furthermore, biodiversity loss itself is a direct and immediate threat to the livelihood of indigenous peoples like the Baka next to the Sudcam plantation.</p><p>Upon the arrival of rubber company Sudcam, the indigenous community has lost access to its forest and specifically to the animals and plants they rely on. As Sudcam gets richer, it leaves entire communities in impoverishment, abjectness and destitution. </p>
<p>That is the fate which the chiefs of the Banen people of the Littoral region in Cameroon are trying to avoid <a href="http://www.cameroon-info.net/article/cameroun-denonciation-le-peuple-banen-du-littoral-soppose-a-la-confiscation-de-ses-terres-371484.html" target="_blank">in their current struggle</a> against the destruction of large parts of the Ebo forest. </p><p>The <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/blog/ebo-forest-a-stronghold-for-cameroons-wildlife/" target="_blank">Ebo Forest</a> is a biodiversity hotspot, one of the intact forest ecosystems in the Gulf of Guinea, stretching over 2000 square kilometers (approximately 772 square miles). Ebo Forest is home to an amazing range of wildlife, including forest elephants, gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, grey parrots and the goliath frog – the largest living frog on the planet. Accordingly, it was designated over a decade ago by the Cameroon Government as a National Park. </p><p>However, on February 4, the same government of Cameroon authorized two logging concessions (<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P8O3pc1JeLaAnDF1ERXvRrIAzjnw09SG/view" target="_blank">UFA07005</a> and <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n2cgvavirDdYmApiTd5vLV0hQRova6Ed/view" target="_blank">UFA07006</a>) inside the area of Ebo Forest. The planned concessions are enormous – about the size of London. Again, the government of Cameroon wants to convince us that conservation can be done with chainsaws. </p><p>Biodiversity loss doesn't only mean our children would get to see some of the world's most marvelous creatures only in documentary films. The consequences are far greater and more tangible.</p>
<p>The extinction of forest elephants, for example, small relatives of African Savanna elephants, might also reduce the number of large trees that they support, trees that excel at storing carbon. In the Congo Basin forest, the disappearance of forest elephants might mean a loss of about three billion tons of carbon – equivalent to France's CO2 emissions over more than 25 years, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/science/elephants-climate-change.html" target="_blank">New York Times article</a> on recent research published in the journal <em>Nature Geoscience.</em> </p><p>Cameroon's government has made public commitments to preserve and protect biodiversity. Positive declarations and ambitious plans may win applause and some international funding, but all eyes should be on implementation. <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/press/8593/we-were-told-not-to-go-into-the-forest-anymore-greenpeace-investigation-exposes-human-rights-violations-by-halcyon-agri/" target="_blank">Field investigations by Greenpeace Africa</a> and others clearly show how far we are from protecting biodiversity. </p><p>In Cameroon's government, as well as in the meeting rooms and corridors of development agencies, decision makers often hold outdated views. Too often we hear that only through rapid and massive removal of the rainforest in favor of large-scale logging and industrial agriculture plantations can the country emerge out of poverty. </p><p>Yet that model has repeatedly failed the people, as short-term high profits always remained accessible only to a small circle of beneficiaries. On the contrary, local communities who have lived in harmony with nature for many generations are likely to face poverty, abuse, hunger and alcoholism <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-sustainable-development-ravaged-the-congo-basin/" target="_blank">wherever</a> forests are suddenly destroyed. It is becoming increasingly clear that the best solution for both human rights and the planet is for forests to be managed by local communities. They do so much better than the industrial loggers or plantation owners. </p>
<p>The Cameroonian government needs to realize that trashing forests is not the way to make the economy grow. Rapid and intensive exploitation of nature has more far-reaching consequences than short-term economic growth. To prevent the extinction of fauna and flora species, indigenous communities that live among them need the rights to manage their forest.</p>
<p>Standing for biodiversity means communities should get the rights to manage their forests, instead of the corporations that destroy them. </p>
<p class=""><em>Lamfu Fabrice Yengong is a Congo Basin researcher. </em></p><p><em>Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue is a forest campaigner for Greenpeace Africa.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The entrance for Liberty State Park on April 12, 2020 in Jersey City, NJ, is blocked after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy issued an order to close all State Parks. Ira L. Black / Corbis / Getty Images
By Stephen Lezak
Across the United States, local authorities have sealed off public parks and open spaces, blaming visitors who failed to maintain social distance.
<p>What started with closed urban playgrounds spread like a contagion in its own right. In California the city of Santa Cruz <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/10/when-surfing-gets-banned-surfers-get-salty/" target="_blank">banned</a> surfing. In Colorado San Juan County issued an <a href="https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/atoms/files/SheriffLetter03-21_20_Signed.publisher.pdf" target="_blank">order</a> threatening to tow vehicles belonging to backcountry skiers. "Socially distant" gradually became synonymous with "indoors."</p><p>It was only a few weeks ago that <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/article/How-to-stay-active-outdoors-during-15138081.php" target="_blank">going for a hike</a> was seen as a reasonable way to shelter in place. Then the sun came.</p><p>Beachgoers and picnickers turned out <em>en masse</em>, making headlines from San Francisco to London. Mayors and governors scolded the public on live television as they announced new restrictions.</p>
<p>A common refrain on social media lamenting the park closures has been, "Why can't we have nice things?" But blaming ourselves for crowded parks misses the underlying issue: In many parts of the country, there simply isn't enough public space to go around.</p><p>This problem is most pronounced in urban areas. An <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/08/21/parks-make-great-places-but-not-enough-americans-can-reach-them/" target="_blank">analysis</a> of the country's 100 largest cities found that only half of residents live within a half-mile of a park. Access is especially <a href="http://culturesofenergy.com/racial-and-socioeconomic-disparities-in-access-to-urban-greenspace/" target="_blank">limited</a> for communities of color and low-income groups, where neighborhoods lack public spaces to exercise, relax, gather, or simply breathe clean air.</p><p>This lack of city parks puts further pressure on nearby rural areas. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (near San Francisco) and the Blue Ridge Parkway (near Washington, D.C.) had <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/annual-visitation-highlights.htm" target="_blank">15 million visitors</a> apiece last year — more than triple the number at Yellowstone or Yosemite.</p><p>In the past decade, the National Park Service has seen a 15% <a href="https://irma.nps.gov/STATS/Reports/National" target="_blank">increase</a> in visits. But in that same decade, funding grew by less than .5% in real terms, leaving the agency unable to build new trailheads, expand parking lots or address a $12 billion repair <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/projects/restore-americas-parks/legislation" target="_blank">backlog</a>.</p>
<p>When recreation sites become overwhelmed, access becomes self-limiting. In much of the country, finding a parking spot at a trailhead is a summer adventure in its own right. We've overcrowded and underfunded ourselves into this situation.</p><p>This problem has a straightforward solution. Safeguarding access to public spaces requires protecting more land and improving infrastructure in existing parks. Doing so has the double-effect of creating more space for nature while distributing the impact of visitors. These should be easy wins to support an outdoor recreation economy <a href="https://www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/outdoor-recreation" target="_blank">valued</a> at $500 billion by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.</p><p>There are any number of ways Congress could address this issue. A simple first step: Mandate that taxes on oil and gas drilling allocated to the <a href="https://therevelator.org/lose-best-conservation-program/" target="_blank">Land and Water Conservation Fund</a> are not diverted to other projects or left unappropriated. According to Congress' in-house researchers, <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33531.pdf" target="_blank">less than half</a> of the $41 billion raised by the fund was spent to support public lands and recreation.</p>
<p>This lack of support is hardly accidental. "The Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold," <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/federal-government-should-sell-western-land-follow-constitution/" target="_blank">wrote</a> William Perry Pendley in 2016. He is now the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, overseeing a huge swath of federal public land.</p><p>Some officials are pushing a narrative in which landscapes are made whole through private development instead of public stewardship. Now, in the midst of a national emergency, we find ourselves unable to keep public spaces open at the time when we need them most — proof that this vision is gaining literal ground. With too little space to go around, staying home is the only way to stay safe.</p><p>The pandemic didn't create this crisis. But in the confines of our homes, we should ask whether we've taken our parks for granted. Our stewardship of public spaces must be continually reaffirmed, so that we can all go out in search of social distance — and perhaps even solitude.</p>
<p><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/stephenlezak/" target="_blank"><em>Stephen Lezak </em></a><em>is a geographer based at the University of Cambridge. </em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/covid-public-spaces/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A woman shops at a local farmers' market during the COVID-19 crisis. BakiBG / Getty Images
By Paolo Mutia
As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe, it has exposed and exacerbated how the corporate, industrialized food system is harming people and our planet.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Family farmers across the country, many already on the brink, have lost markets and are struggling to survive. Simultaneously, food workers, from farmworkers to slaughterhouse workers and grocery workers are on the frontlines of this crisis, facing huge risks to their health with little to no protection. And as unemployment skyrockets, more Americans than ever lack access to nutritious food.</p><p>It's clear that supporting a healthy, sustainable and just food system is crucial to overcoming this crisis and building a better future for all of us.</p><p>That's why the next stimulus bill must support the farmers who need it most: small family farmers, organic farmers and producers of color who usually supply <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/03/17/small-farms-also-struggle-as-restaurants-shut-down-due-to-coronavirus/" target="_blank">restaurants</a>, foodservice companies and other buyers whose demand has dropped off dramatically during the pandemic. It must also protect and support food workers who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 and help ensure that the growing numbers of people reliant on food assistance, and all of us, have access to healthy, fresh food.</p><p>The last coronavirus aid package included $23 billion for agriculture, which predominantly is going to the largest industrial farms, and it could happen again. Friends of the Earth is fighting to ensure the next stimulus bill doesn't bail out Big Ag, but instead supports and protects family farmers, frontline food workers and others who need it the most.</p><p>Here are three ways you can help support a resilient and regenerative local food system that can strengthen our communities' health, our local economies and our environment:</p>
1. Sign Up For a CSA Membership.
<p>Purchasing a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share is a great way to access fresh, healthy, often organic, foods while supporting local small farmers that the Trump administration is leaving behind. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/dining/csa-farm-food-delivery-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">Many farmers are adapting</a> to the current crisis with more direct distribution models, from classic CSAs to custom-built boxes, no-contact drive-thru pickups, deliveries, and more.</p><p>By signing up for a CSA you can <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/dining/csa-farm-food-delivery-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">avoid going to a busy supermarket</a>, and your share can be picked up or delivered. You can <a href="https://www.localharvest.org/csa/" target="_blank">find your local CSA here</a>.</p>2. Shop at a Local Farmers' Market.
<p>Farmers markets serve as a direct channel to sustainable, healthy, locally sourced fresh fruits and vegetables and other food staples within your community. Many farmers markets remain open as <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/03/19/the-fight-to-keep-farmers-markets-open-during-coronavirus/" target="_blank">an essential service</a> during the crisis, <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/03/19/the-fight-to-keep-farmers-markets-open-during-coronavirus/" target="_blank">thanks to the efforts of local farmers and their allies.</a></p><p>Many farmers markets are instituting strict rules to keep customers safe. Coupled with a shorter supply chain than most supermarkets, farmers markets are a safe choice for meeting your family's food needs during this crisis. <a href="https://www.doubleupfoodbucks.org/national-network/" target="_blank">Double-Up Food Bucks</a> and other programs under GusNIP, which doubles the value of federal nutrition (SNAP) benefits, are also still being accepted for purchasing fresh produce at participating farmers markets, CSAs, and grocery stores. Here are some tips to help you <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/03/30/how-to-support-farmers-and-safely-shop-at-farmers-markets/?pico_action=checkout_f30ec05d-3c4e-4963-95bf-92288f13287e&pico_custom_price=1&pico_ui=login_link" target="_blank">plan your trip to any farmers' market</a> and safely shop!</p>3. Tell Congress to Support Family Farmers, Food Workers and Healthy, Sustainable Food for All.
<p>Amid the terrible impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, it's clearer than ever that we need to move towards a regenerative, resilient and just food system. Building strong and equitable local food economies make our food system more resilient to shocks and crises.</p><p>For those of us with the ability, we can make daily choices about where we shop. But what is truly needed is a shift in the public policies to make it easier to grow and access healthy, sustainable and local foods. For too long, our policies have led to increased corporate consolidation that has devastated farmer livelihoods and harmed food workers and rural communities. In the US, farm bankruptcies were up 12% last year, and farm debt is at an all-time high.</p><p>As farmers face the new crisis of the pandemic, we must come together to demand that <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/04/covid-19-stimulus-bailout-for-corporate-agribusiness-or-a-lifeline-for-our-food-system/" target="_blank">federal stimulus funding</a> and future farm policies support small and mid-scale farmers across the country who are supporting resilient and regenerative local and regional food systems.</p><p>Congress must ensure that fruit and vegetable farmers have the support they need to keep producing healthy food instead of subsidizing unhealthy factory-farmed meat and processed foods. At a time when our healthcare system is in crisis, it is more important than ever that Americans have access to healthy food. People with diet-related conditions like heart disease and diabetes are at greater risk of COVID-19 complications.</p><p>The next stimulus package must also do better for food workers and families in need. Farmworkers and other food chain workers, already some of the lowest paid and least protected workers, are also on the frontlines of this pandemic — and are incredibly vulnerable to COVID-19. Congress and the administration must ensure safe working conditions and a family-supporting livable wage. And families across the country need assistance to ensure they can continue accessing and purchasing healthy foods.</p><p>With your help, we can support and protect some of the most essential heroes of this crisis — farmers and food workers — while ensuring a resilient, regenerative, healthy and equitable food system for all of us. </p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foe.org/three-ways-to-support-a-resilient-and-just-food-system-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/" target="_blank">Friends of the Earth</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Jane Goodall: COVID-19 Is a Product of Our Unhealthy Relationship With Animals and the Environment
05 May
Insights + Opinion
An Indonesia Sun Bear is surrendered to Pekanbaru Conservation Agency in Indonesia on January 24, 2017. Afrianto Silalahi / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Jane Goodall
The world is facing unprecedented challenges. At the time of writing, the coronavirus COVID-19 has infected over 3.57 million people globally and as of the 4th of May 250,134 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
<p><br/></p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/jane-goodall-covid-19-is-a-product-of-our-unhealthy-relationship-with-animals-and-the-environment/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>
<p>At present, people in most countries around the world are self-isolating at home (either alone or with family), keeping social distance and reducing going outdoors to a minimum. Some businesses have totally closed down, some carry on with staff working from home, some people are temporarily laid off, and thousands of people around the world have lost their jobs. Already the economic cost of all this is catastrophic.</p><p>We all follow the news and pray that the lockdown will end in country after country as the peak infection and death rate is reached and then gradually drops. This has already happened in China, where the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/list/covid-19/" target="_blank">COVID-19 coronavirus</a> originated, thanks to the stringent measures undertaken by the Chinese government. We hope that a vaccine will soon be developed and that we can gradually get back to normal. But we must never forget what we have been through and we must take the necessary steps to prevent another such pandemic in the future.</p><p>The tragedy is that a pandemic of this sort has long been predicted by those studying zoonotic diseases (those that, like COVID-19, spill over from animals into humans). It is almost certain that this pandemic started with such a spill over in China's Wuhan seafood market that also sold terrestrial wildlife for food, along with chickens and fish.</p>
Zoonotic Disease Transmission in Markets
<p>When wild animals are sold in such markets, often illegally, they are typically kept in small cages, crowded together, and often slaughtered on the spot. Humans, both vendors and customers, may thus be contaminated with the fecal material, urine, blood and other bodily fluids of a large variety of species – such as civets, pangolins, bats, raccoon dogs and snakes. This provides a perfect environment for viruses to spill over from their animal hosts into humans. Another zoonotic disease, SARS, originated in another wildlife market in Guangdong.</p><p>Most <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/whats-in-a-name-wet-markets-may-hide-true-culprits-for-covid-19/" target="_blank">wet markets</a> in Asia are not dissimilar to farmers' markets in Europe and the US. There are thousands of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD5arUFkZm0" target="_blank">wet markets in Asia</a> and around the world where fresh produce – vegetables and fruit, and sometimes also meat from domestic animals – are sold at reasonable prices. And thousands of people shop there rather than in supermarkets.</p><p>It is not only in China that wildlife markets have provided the ideal conditions for viruses and other pathogens to cross the species barrier and transfer from animal hosts to us. There are markets of this sort in many Asian countries. In the bushmeat markets of Africa – where live and dead animals are sold for food – the hunting, slaughtering and selling of chimpanzees for food led to two spill overs from ape to human that resulted in the HIV-AIDS pandemic. Ebola is another zoonotic disease which crosses from animal reservoirs into apes and humans in different parts of Africa.</p>Wildlife Trafficking and the Spread of Disease
<p>Another major concern is the trafficking of wild animals and their body parts around the world. Unfortunately, this has become a highly lucrative multi-billion-dollar business, often run by criminal cartels. Not only is it very cruel and definitely contributing to the terrifying extinction of species, but it may also lead to conditions suitable for the emergence of zoonotic diseases. Wild animals or their parts exported, often illegally, from one country to another take their viruses with them.</p><p>The shocking pet trade in young wild monkeys and apes, birds, reptiles and other wild animals is another area of concern. A bite or scratch from a wild animal taken into the home could lead to something much more serious than a mild infection.</p><p>Once COVID-19 was recognized as a new <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/list/zoonotic-diseases/" target="_blank">zoonotic disease</a>, the Chinese authorities imposed a ban on the selling and eating of wild animals, the Wuhan wildlife market was closed down, and the farming of wild animals for food was forbidden.</p><p>There are thousands of small operations throughout Asia and other parts of the world where wild animals are bred for food as a way of making a living in rural areas. Unless alternative sources of income for these people, as well as for others exploiting wildlife to make a living, can be found and they can get help from their governments during their transition to other ways of making money, it is likely that these operations will be driven underground and become even more difficult to regulate.</p><p>Nevertheless, whatever the problems, it is clearly of great importance that the ban on trading, eating and breeding of wild animals for food should be permanent and enforced – for the sake of human health and the prevention of other pandemics in the future. Fortunately, a majority of Chinese and other Asian citizens who responded to surveys agree that wildlife should not be consumed, used in medicine or for their fur.</p>Medicinal Products Loopholes and Bear Bile
<p>The use of some wild animal products for traditional medicine is thus far still legal in China (though rhino horn and tiger bones are banned). And this creates a loophole that will be quickly seized on by those wanting to continue to trade in wild animals such as the highly endangered pangolin, rhinos, tigers and the Asiatic black bear, known commonly as the Moon Bear because of the crescent-shaped white marking on its chest.</p><p>Other Asian bears – brown bears and Sun bears – are also exploited for their bile. And so long as farming bears for their bile is legal, and products containing their bile is promoted, this will stimulate the demand for the bile.</p><p>It is important to consider the welfare of the animals who are unwittingly responsible for zoonotic diseases. Today we know that all the animals mentioned are sentient beings, capable of knowing fear, despair and pain. Moreover, many of them demonstrate extraordinary intelligence. Allowing the use of wildlife trading for medicinal purposes can lead to unbelievably inhumane treatment of some of these sentient beings.</p><p>This is most certainly the case, for example, with bears farmed for their bile in Asia. They may be kept for up to thirty years in extremely small cages – sometimes they cannot even stand up or turn around. The tiny cages prohibit all natural behavior for these intelligent and sentient animals, who endure a life of fear and suffering.</p><p>The bile is usually extracted, once or even twice a day, by inserting a catheter, pipe or syringe into the gall bladder, – a highly intrusive and painful procedure. The bears suffer from dehydration, starvation and a variety of infections and diseases. They develop liver cancer (caused by the bile extraction), tumors, ulcers, blindness, peritonitis, arthritis and other ailments. Their teeth are worn down or missing from continually, in desperation, gnawing at the bars that imprison them.</p><p>Not only is farming bears in this way extremely cruel, it is also of concern for public health reasons. Poor hygienic conditions, the permanent open wounds of the bears, contamination of bile with feces, bacteria, blood and other bodily fluids are reasons for serious concern. Finally, many of the bears are continuously given antibiotics to keep them alive and this contributes to antibiotic resistance and the emergence of superbugs, resistant to most known antibiotics. The same is true with the raising of domestic animals in factory farms. These superbugs have led to the death of many patients in hospitals around the world.</p><p>Unfortunately, Tan Re Qing, a product that contains bile taken from Asiatic black bears and said to be helpful in alleviating symptoms linked to respiratory infections, is being recommended as a treatment for patients infected with COVID-19. And this will encourage the continued practice of bear bile farming.</p><p>To end on a note of hope, the active component of bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid or UDCA, has been available as a synthetic variant for many years, and is a fraction of the cost of bile inhumanely harvested from bears. Unfortunately many people consider bile from wild bears to be more valuable. Traditional Chinese Medicine has great value but, even if the bile from wild bears was a valuable drug, given the cruelty and the risk involved, it should no longer be used – especially as the synthetic product has the same properties. In fact, a survey conducted by Animals Asia in 2011 indicated that 87% of Chinese respondents were in favor of banning bear bile farming, and hundreds of Chinese pharmacies have pledged never to sell bear bile products.</p><p>It would be wonderful if all bear bile farms across Asia could be closed and the bears released into those sanctuaries which have been created in China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Laos. There they would be able to walk on grass, climb, bathe in ponds and enjoy the sunshine and the company of other rescued bears. And a decrease in the demand for pangolin scales and rhino horn in many Asian countries for their supposed medicinal value would give a chance for these highly endangered animals to survive into the future. As would a ban on the farming of wild animals for their fur.</p>
Disease Originating from Factory Farming
<p>It is not only from wild animals that zoonotic diseases have originated. The inhumane conditions of the great factory farms, where large numbers of domestic animals are crowded together, has also provided conditions conducive to viruses spilling over into humans. The diseases commonly known as 'bird flu' and 'swine flu' resulted from handling poultry and pigs. And domestic animals are also sentient beings who experience fear and pain. MERS originated from contact with domestic dromedary camels in the Middle East, perhaps from consuming products from infected camels such as undercooked meat or milk.</p>Conclusion
<p>Scientists warn that if we continue to ignore the causes of these zoonotic diseases, we may be infected with viruses that cause pandemics even more disruptive than COVID-19.</p><p>Many people believe that we have come to a turning point in our relationship with the natural world. We need to halt <a href="https://rainforests.mongabay.com/08-deforestation.html" target="_blank">deforestation</a> and the destruction of natural habitats around the globe. We need to make use of existing nature-friendly, organic alternatives, and develop new ones, to feed ourselves and to maintain our health. We need to eliminate poverty so that people can find alternative ways to make a living other than by hunting and selling wild animals and destroying the environment. We need to assure that local people, whose lives directly depend on and are impacted by the health of the environment, own and drive good conservation decisions in their own communities as they work to improve their lives. Finally, we need to connect our brains with our hearts and appropriately use our indigenous knowledge, science and innovative technologies to make wiser decisions about people, animals and our shared environment.</p><p>While there is a justified focus on bringing COVID-19 under control, we must not forget the crisis with potentially long-term catastrophic effects on the planet and future generations – the climate crisis. The movement calling for industry and governments to impose restrictions on the emission of greenhouse gases, to protect forests, and clean up the oceans, has been growing.</p><p>This pandemic has forced industry to temporarily shut down in many parts of the world. As a result, many people have for the first time experienced the pleasure of breathing clean air and seeing the stars in the night sky.</p><p>My hope is that an understanding of how the world <em>should be</em>, along with the realization that it is our disrespect of the natural world that has led to the current pandemic, will encourage businesses and governments to put more resources into developing clean, renewable energy, alleviate poverty and help people find alternative ways of making a living that do not involve the exploitation of nature and animals.</p><p>Let us realize we are part of, and depend upon, the natural world for food, water and clean air. Let us recognize that the health of people, animals and the environment are connected. Let us show respect for each other, for the other sentient animals, and for Mother Nature. For the sake of the wellbeing of our children and theirs, and for the health of this beautiful planet Earth, our only home.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Michael Moore's 'Planet of the Humans' Documentary Attacks Climate Solutions
01 May
Insights + Opinion
Michael Moore at the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 25, 2019 in Cannes, France. Vittorio Zunino Celotto / Getty Images
By Dana Nuccitelli
Environmentalists and renewable energy advocates have long been allies in the fight to keep unchecked industrial growth from irreversibly ruining Earth's climate and threatening the future of human civilization. In their new YouTube documentary "Planet of the Humans," director Jeff Gibbs and producer Michael Moore argue for splitting the two sides. Their misleading, outdated, and scientifically sophomoric dismissal of renewable energy is perhaps the most dangerous form of climate denial, eroding support for renewable energy as a critical climate solution.
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<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from </em><a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/05/michael-moores-planet-of-the-humans-documentary-peddles-dangerous-climate-denial/" target="_blank"><em>Yale Climate Connections.</em></a></p>
<p>"Planet of the Humans" by the end of April had more than 4.7 million views and fairly high scores at the movie critic review aggregator <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/planet_of_the_humans" target="_blank">Rotten Tomatoes</a>. The documentary has received <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/24/1939980/-Planet-Of-The-Humans-Is-Moore-Trouble-Than-It-s-Worth-A-Non-Review" target="_blank">glowing reviews from numerous climate "deniers"</a> whose names are familiar to those in the climate community, including Steve Milloy, Marc Morano, and James Delingpole. Some environmentalists who have seen the movie are beginning to oppose wind and solar projects that are absolutely necessary to slow climate change.</p><p>The film by these two "progressive" filmmakers may succeed where Fox News and right-wing talk radio have failed: to undermine humanity's last best hope for positive change. As energy journalist <a href="https://ketanjoshi.co/2020/04/24/planet-of-the-humans-a-reheated-mess-of-lazy-old-myths/" target="_blank">Ketan Joshi wrote</a>, the film is "selling far-right, climate-denier myths from nearly a decade ago to left-wing environmentalists in the 2020s."</p><p>The film follows Gibbs as he visits various green technology sites in the United States and ostensibly learns that each one is just as bad as the fossil fuel infrastructure that it would replace. Unfortunately, the movie is littered with misleading, skewed, and outdated scenes.</p><p>"Planet of the Humans"' approach is fundamentally flawed – Gibbs focuses almost exclusively on the imperfections of technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, biomass, and electric cars without considering their ability to reduce carbon and other pollutants. The film suggests that because no source of energy is perfect, all are bad, thus implying that the very existence of human civilization is the problem while offering little in the way of alternative solutions.</p>
A Badly Outdated Portrait of Solar and Wind
<p>In an interview with Reuters, Michael Moore summarized the premise of the film: "I assumed solar panels would last forever. I didn't know what went into the making of them."</p><p>It's true. Solar panels and wind turbines don't last forever (though they do last several decades), and like every other industrial product, they require mining and manufacturing of raw materials. Sadly, that's about as deep as the film delves into quantifying the environmental impacts of renewable energy versus fossil fuels. In fact, the misinformation in the film is at times much worse than ignorance.</p><p>In one scene, author and film co-producer Ozzie Zehner falsely asserts, "You use more fossil fuels [manufacturing renewables infrastructure] than you're getting benefit from. You would have been better off burning the fossil fuels in the first place instead of playing pretend."</p><p><span></span>That's monumentally wrong. A <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints" target="_blank">2017 study in Nature Energy</a> found that when accounting for manufacturing and construction, the lifetime carbon footprints of solar, wind, and nuclear power are about 20 times smaller than those of coal and natural gas, even when the latter include expensive carbon capture and storage technology. The energy produced during the operation of a solar panel and wind turbine is 26 and 44 times greater than the energy needed to build and install them, respectively. There are many life-cycle assessment studies arriving at similar conclusions.</p><p>The film's case is akin to arguing that because fruit contains sugar, eating strawberries is no healthier than eating a cheesecake.</p><p>It's true that the carbon footprint of renewable energy is not zero. But the film somehow fails to mention that it's far lower than the fossil fuel alternatives, instead falsely suggesting (with zero supporting evidence) that renewables are just as bad. The closest defense of that argument comes when Zehner claims that wind and solar energy cannot displace coal, and instead retired coal power plants are being replaced by even larger natural gas plants.</p><p>In reality, coal power generation in the U.S. has declined by about half (over 1 trillion kilowatt-hours) <a href="https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-2019/" target="_blank">over the past decade</a>, and it's true that natural gas has picked up about two-thirds of that slack (670 kWh). But growth in renewables has accounted for the other one-third (370 kWh). As a result, power sector carbon emissions in the U.S. have fallen by one-third since 2008 and continue to decline steadily. In fact, electricity is the only major sector in the U.S. that's achieving significant emissions reductions.</p><p>It's true that natural gas is a fossil fuel. To reach zero emissions, it must be replaced by renewables with storage and smart grids. But thus far the path to grid decarbonization in the U.S. has been a success story that the film somehow portrays as a failure. Moreover, that decarbonization could be accelerated through policies like pricing carbon pollution, but the film does not once put a single second of thought into policy solutions.</p><p>In perhaps its most absurd scene, Gibbs and Zehner visit a former solar facility in Daggett, California, built in the mid-1980s and replaced 30 years later. Gazing upon the sand-covered landscape of the former facility, Gibbs declares in an ominous tone, "It suddenly dawned on me what we were looking at: a solar dead zone."</p><p>Daggett is located in the Mojave Desert. Sand is the natural landscape. Solar farms don't create dead zones; in fact, <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/crops-under-solar-panels-can-be-a-win-win/" target="_blank">some plants thrive</a> under the shade provided by solar panels.</p><p>It suddenly dawned on me how hard the film was trying to portray clean energy in a negative light.</p>
A Shallow Dismissal of Electric Vehicles
<p>In another science, Gibbs travels to a General Motors facility in Lansing, Michigan, circa 2010, as GM showcased its then-new Chevy Volt plug-in electric hybrid vehicle. Gibbs interviews a representative from the local municipal electric utility provider, who notes that they generate 95% of their supply by burning coal, and that the power to charge the GM facility's EVs will not come from renewables in the near future.</p><p>That is the full extent of the discussion of EVs in the film. Viewers are left to assume that because these cars are charged by burning coal, they're just <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing" target="_blank">greenwashing</a>. In reality, because of the high efficiency of electric motors, an electric car charged entirely by burning coal still produces less carbon pollution than an internal combustion engine car (though more than a hybrid). The U.S. Department of Energy has <a href="https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html" target="_blank">a useful tool</a> for comparing carbon emissions between EVs, plug-in hybrids, conventional hybrids, and gasoline-powered cars for each state. In Michigan, on average, EVs are the cleanest option of all, as is the case for the national average power grid. In West Virginia, with over 90% electricity generated from coal, hybrids are the cleanest option, but EVs are still cleaner than gasoline cars.</p><p>In short, EVs are an improvement over gasoline-powered cars everywhere, and their carbon footprints will continue to shrink as renewables expand to supply more of the power grid.</p>A Valid Critique of Wood Biomass
<p>The film devotes a half hour to the practice of burning trees for energy. That's one form of biomass, which also includes burning wood waste, garbage, and biofuels. Last year, <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3" target="_blank">1% of U.S. electricity</a> was generated by burning wood, but it accounted for 30% of the film run time.</p><p>In fairness, Europe is a different story, where wood biomass accounts for around 5% of electricity generation, and which imports a lot of wood chips from America. It's incentivized because the European Union considers burning wood to be carbon neutral, and it can thus be used to meet climate targets. That's because new trees can be planted to replace those removed, and the EU assumes the wood being burned would have decayed and released its stored carbon anyway.</p><p>There are <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/3/4/18216045/renewable-energy-wood-pellets-biomass" target="_blank">numerous problems</a> with those assumptions, one of which is unavoidable: time. Burning trees is close to carbon neutral once a replacement tree grows to sufficient maturity to recapture the lost carbon, but that takes many decades. In the meantime, the carbon released into the atmosphere accelerates the climate crisis at a time when slashing emissions is increasingly urgent. That's why <a href="https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Scientist-Letter-to-Governor-Cooper_11-15_2017.pdf" target="_blank">climate scientists are increasingly calling on policymakers</a> to stop expanding this practice. So has 350.org founder Bill McKibben since 2016, <a href="https://350.org/response-planet-of-the-humans-documentary/" target="_blank">despite his depiction in the film</a> as a villainous proponent of clearcutting forests to burn for energy.</p><p>It's complicated, but the carbon footprint of biomass <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/is-burning-wood-for-energy-worse-for-the-climate-than-coal" target="_blank">depends on where the wood comes from</a>. Burning waste (including waste wood) as biomass that would decay anyway is justifiable, but also generally only practical at a relatively small scale. A more detailed investigation of the wood biomass industry could make for a worthwhile documentary. It's still a small-time player, but it does need to stay that way.</p>The Bottom Line
<p>Gibbs asks, "Is it possible for machines made by industrial civilization to save us from industrial civilization?"</p><p>Why not? Industrial civilization has a non-zero climate and environmental footprint, but the impact of green technologies like EVs, wind turbines, and solar panels is much smaller than the alternatives. They represent humanity's best chance to avoid a climate catastrophe.</p><p>The filmmakers call for an end to limitless economic growth and consumption. It's difficult to envision that goal being achieved anytime soon, but even if it is, human civilization will continue to exist and require energy. To avert a climate crisis, that energy must be supplied by the clean renewable technologies pilloried in the film. To expand on the earlier analogy, the filmmakers seem to believe we should improve nutrition not by eating healthier foods like strawberries, but rather by eating a bit less cheesecake.</p><p>Like Fox News and other propaganda vehicles, the film presents one biased perspective via carefully chosen voices, virtually all of whom are comfortable white men. It applies an environmental purity test that can seem convincing for viewers lacking expertise in the topic. Any imperfect technology – which is every technology – is deemed bad. It's a clear example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. In reality, this movie is the enemy of humanity's last best chance to save itself and countless other species from unchecked climate change through a transition to cleaner technologies.</p>
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Planting Projects, Backyard Habitats Can Re-Create Livable Natural Spaces
30 April
Insights + Opinion
Portland, Oregon's local Backyard Habitat Certification Program is a collaboration between Portland Audubon and Columbia Land Trust. Gaylen Beatty
By April M. Short
The world's wildlife is in danger of dying off, and inevitably taking humanity out with it. Humans have destroyed enormous portions of the planet's natural spaces, and caused a climate disaster as well as the unprecedented acceleration of mass extinction events. Among the many species struggling to stay afloat are the butterflies, birds, bats, bees and other pollinators we depend upon in order to grow basic food crops. People cannot live without the earth's diverse wild plants and animals.
<p>Scientists agree that continued disruption of the earth's ecosystems <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/to-humanity-as-climate-change-/f8lnx2/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">threatens</a> the future survival of humanity as much as <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a> does. And the two aren't entirely separate issues; healthy <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests" target="_self">forests</a> and soil systems, for example, sequester carbon naturally. As they are destroyed, there is increased carbon in the atmosphere. A <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/content-365-6448-76/f8lnx4/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">study</a> published in 2019 in the journal Science found that forest restoration is among the best possible climate change solutions.</p><p>The current pandemic brings these issues home, as the problems of climate change, habitat destruction and pollinator decline are <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ollinators-and-then-the-virus-/f8lnx6/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">intricately linked</a>, as outlined in an article by Dr. Arshad M. Khan and <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/author-meenamiriamyust-/f8lnx8/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Meena Miriam Yust</a> published in Modern Diplomacy in April.</p>
<p>And, as explained by Ensia's environment editor John Vidal in an <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ons-for-coronavirus-to-emerge-/f8lnxb/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">article</a> that appeared in Scientific American in March, the destruction of wildlife habitat in particular creates breeding grounds for new viruses — and is a likely cause of the devastating current outbreak of novel coronavirus.</p><p>Vidal writes:<br></p><blockquote>"Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harboring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans like Ebola, HIV and dengue.<br><br>"But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity's destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19 … to arise — with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections among the well-being of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems."</blockquote><p>As Vidal notes, this likely won't be the only pandemic we experience. Keeping the next one at bay hinges on protecting and stewarding habitat spaces for wildlife.</p>
<p>While the outlook on both pandemic and climate change can seem bleak, we're also witnessing a demonstration of how quickly the planet can repair itself when people merely slow down a little. In just a matter of months, without changing much other than how often we go out to work, spend and gather in public spaces, the world's skies have cleared up in places that were murky with smog for generations.</p><p>The pandemic has caused a <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-global-drop-in-air-pollution-/f8lnxd/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">steep decline</a> in air pollution levels around the globe. Weeks without hordes of tourists have deepened the blue of <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/anals-scli-intl-scn-index-html/f8lnxg/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">the waterways of Venice, Italy,</a> and there are reports of fish being visible through the clear waters for the first time in decades; the Himalayas are <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-in-india-amid-lockdown-720012/f8lnxj/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">visible</a> in parts of northern India that haven't been able to catch a glimpse of them in 30 years; Los Angeles's famous traffic has <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/rants-and-other-pandemic-perks/f8lnxl/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">eased up</a>. It's clear that the small efforts by large numbers of people can and do ripple throughout the world, and they have the potential to combat mass destruction. If so much can begin to change when all we do is ease our operations a little, what can change if we make concerted efforts together in support of nature's resilience?</p>
<h3>Planting Habitat From the Grassroots</h3><p><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/gardening">Gardening</a> to support pollinators and other wildlife is one way individuals can <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/d6-44bb-4367-a718-98346e928869/f8lnxn/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">help</a>. The movement for native habitat planting seeks to re-supply wildlife with the plants and habitat spaces that support them, by way of individual garden projects.</p><p>Since the 1970s, the native plant movement has encouraged people to garden and grow native species of plants, which can provide biodiverse habitat for birds, butterflies, amphibians and other creatures that live among us. Out of the native plant movement, many backyard and community habitat gardening certification programs have emerged across the country, to educate and incentivize people to plant habitat gardens.</p><p>The largest habitat gardening certification effort in the U.S. is the National Wildlife Federation (NWF)'s Community Wildlife Habitat Program (<a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/nityWildlifeHabitat-Home-About/f8lnxq/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">CWHP</a>), which offers tools and a certification program not just for individual backyard gardens, but for whole communities interested in participating. The program started in 1997 in the small town of Alpine, California, in San Diego County, as a grassroots effort by a few individuals who decided to team up and encourage local native garden projects. Now, the program is a concerted national effort that works with approximately 200 certified <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/abitat-Home-CurrentCommunities/f8lnxs/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">communities and municipalities across the country</a>, including some major cities, such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Houston, Texas. </p><p>NWF has encouraged people to create habitat gardens for more than 40 years through its <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/garden/f8lnxv/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Garden for Wildlife</a>. The CWHP builds upon that longstanding initiative, with a science-based program framework for community leaders to restore wildlife habitat — including wildlife corridors and road passage areas — and engage residents. The end goal for areas that participate is to be certified as a wildlife-friendly community through the NWF.</p><p>The program encourages communities to integrate a set of wildlife-friendly practices into plans for parks and general sustainability. It offers tools for its members to educate as well as motivate private community members — residents, schools, places of worship, and others — to get involved and transform their garden spaces via native trees and plants, and non-toxic practices.</p>
<p>Patrick Fitzgerald, senior director of community wildlife for NWF, says anyone can get involved with the habitat gardening effort, even people in highly urban areas, via container gardens.</p><p>"If you're planting a garden, you can really make an impact for wildlife and the environment literally right outside your front door," he says, noting that the <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2020-04-28/f8lnxx/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">monarch butterfly</a> offers a particularly potent example of a species that might be positively affected by collective individual efforts. The Western monarch's populations have been plummeting, down from the millions in the 1980s, to 200,000 in 2017, and just 30,000 as of 2018, as reported in March 2020 by <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/science-monarch-butterfly-html/f8lnxz/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>"The example of the monarch shows how the simple act of planting milkweeds in your garden, in a pot and just about anywhere, can have an impact for a very specific species," adds Fitzgerald. "A lot of folks, myself included, just love this monarch butterfly for its migration and metamorphosis. It's an amazing species. We've seen a call to action for the monarch butterfly, and so many people are planting milkweed and other native plants that they need to survive in their yards and telling us about it. … Knowing that you're part of millions of people doing this, all for the sake of one black and orange butterfly, is a pretty powerful thing. It's just tremendously rewarding."</p><p>The NWF program also works with communities interested in larger restoration efforts, such as wildlife thoroughfares, urban forestry, water conservation, planting for climate resilience and green infrastructure efforts.</p><p>"In terms of climate resilience, a lot of the actions that our teams in our cities, counties and communities are taking have multiple benefits for wildlife and for people — and they're also helpful in terms of addressing climate change in different ways," Fitzgerald says.</p><p>He points to efforts like reforestation and planting trees along waterways to reduce erosion and mitigate runoff into waterways, or efforts to increase soil carbon storage.</p><p>"A lot of folks who participate in our programs, they just love wildlife, and from there, they're looking for strategies to attract more wildlife to their neighborhoods and communities," he says.</p>
<p>Houston, Texas, is one of the largest communities certified by the NWF Community Wildlife Habitat Program. Kelli Ondracek, the natural resources manager for the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department, says that when the city started working toward the certification in 2016 it was a natural fit, as many of the efforts already underway in the city overlapped with the NWF's habitat certification program. The city of Houston partners with the Houston Audubon, for instance, to replace invasive plant species in public areas with bird-friendly natives, and Houston is a certified "Bird City" of Texas by the state's Parks and Wildlife program.</p><p>In order to encourage Houston residents to participate and plant backyard habitat gardens, Ondracek says they began to include information about the certification effort at all of their regular events. Since the city was already offering many of the educational events and information required for the NWF certification, once they got enough homes and common areas involved with the project, it came together citywide, by way of volunteer efforts.</p><p>Among the bigger habitat initiatives in Houston is its longstanding <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/olutions-to-unnatural-flooding/f8lny2/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">prairie restoration</a> project, which replants fields full of native prairie grasses and wildflowers throughout the city's parks, medians, and other relevant public spaces. Ondracek, who oversees the city's greenhouses, says the prairie restoration efforts have involved collecting seeds and propagating more than 10,000 gallon pots' worth of native plants.</p><p>Ondracek says the wildlife habitat project in Houston involves taking inventory of the land in their parks system — which is vast — and assess what that land would have historically looked like. Then, they work to re-create it.</p><p>"We try to get it as close as possible back to the historic habitat, with a focus on really diverse native species," Ondracek says. "We're really trying to focus on native plants — and we're growing them ourselves because often you can't really purchase them — so that we can get our restoration projects completed."</p><p>The prairie restoration project serves to provide habitat, and also to mitigate climate change–related threats such as increased flooding and drought, as detailed in a Christian Science Monitor <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/olutions-to-unnatural-flooding/f8lny2/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">article</a> published in October 2019.</p><p>Ondracek says Houston also has a native tree farm and is working to replant trees along waterways in 70 of its parks, with the goal of planting more than 200,000 trees along the city's bayous and other water systems. Trees along the waterways, known as <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/es-riparian-forest-buffers-php/f8lny4/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">riparian buffers</a>, serve to reduce the impacts of flooding and improve water quality for both humans and wildlife. The goal of this effort is twofold: to rehabitat these spaces as wildlife corridors, and to create a more climate-resilient future for the city. The tree project acts as part of Houston's <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/yc88f828/f8lny6/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Climate Action Plan</a>, which centers on large restoration projects like tree installations to mitigate inevitable increased flooding and help sequester carbon.</p>
<p>Many cities, counties and states around the U.S. offer their own habitat certification programs, unrelated to the NWF's certification. Portland, Oregon's local <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2020-04-28/f8lny8/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Backyard Habitat Certification Program (BHCP)</a>, for instance, is a collaboration between Portland Audubon and Columbia Land Trust.</p><p>Megan Van de Mark, the Portland BHCP's program manager, says the localized program is particularly hands-on and serves more than 6,100 properties throughout Oregon's Clark, Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties. The program originated in Portland, where more than 4,600 properties are enrolled, and works hands-on with community sites, including religious institutions, multi-family complexes, schools, etc., as well as private backyards.</p><p>"One person can make a difference where they live by incorporating native plants in their yards and gardens, by removing noxious weeds, by reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides, and by taking actions that steward wildlife and manage stormwater at home," Van de Mark says in an email.</p><p>Van de Mark says the program shows that the cumulative actions of individual people can add up to a significant positive impact.</p><p>"An ecosystem is an interconnected system," Van de Mark says. "What each of us does makes a difference specifically because we're all connected. The ecosystems within which we reside are home to many. By building habitat where you live and reside (i.e., by planting native plants, removing noxious weeds, reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides, and by taking actions that steward wildlife and manage stormwater on-site), you can help ensure that birds, pollinators, and other species also have enough to eat, a way to get around, and a place to call home. We're all in this together."<br></p>
<p><em>This article was reposted with permission from <a href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/local-peace-economy-/f8lnyb/609037909?h=Jm1ZmFSO2X6U0D521QCpvsHnTSsQNE3M8auqr5zV5NY" target="_blank">Local Peace Economy</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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By Robert Reich
Both our economy and the environment are in crisis. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few while the majority of Americans struggle to get by. The climate crisis is worsening inequality, as those who are most economically vulnerable bear the brunt of flooding, fires and disruptions of supplies of food, water and power.
<p>At the same time, environmental degradation and climate change are themselves byproducts of widening inequality. The political power of wealthy fossil fuel corporations has stymied action on climate change for decades. Focused only on maximizing their short-term interests, those corporations are becoming even richer and more powerful — while sidelining workers, limiting green innovation, preventing sustainable development and blocking direct action on our dire climate crisis.</p>
<p>Make no mistake: the simultaneous crisis of inequality and climate is no fluke. Both are the result of decades of deliberate choices made and policies enacted, by ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations.</p>
<p><strong>We can address both crises by doing four things:</strong></p><p><strong>First, create green jobs. </strong>Investing in renewable energy could create millions of family sustaining, union jobs and build the infrastructure we need for marginalized communities to access clean water and air. The transition to a renewable energy-powered economy can add 550,000 jobs each year while saving the U.S. economy $78 billion through 2050. In other words, a Green New Deal could turn the climate crisis into an opportunity — one that both addresses the climate emergency and creates a fairer and more equitable society.</p>
<p><strong></strong><strong>Second, stop dirty energy.</strong> A massive investment in renewable energy jobs isn't enough to combat the climate crisis. If we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must tackle the problem at its source: Stop digging up and burning more oil, gas and coal.</p><p>The potential carbon emissions from these fossil fuels in the world's currently developed fields and mines would take us well beyond the 1.5°C increased warming that Nobel Prize winning global scientists tell us the planet can afford. Given this, it's absurd to allow fossil fuel corporations to start new dirty energy projects.</p><p>Even as fossil fuel companies claim to be pivoting toward clean energy, they are planning to invest trillions of dollars in new oil and gas projects that are inconsistent with global commitments to limit climate change. And over half of the industry's expansion is projected to happen in the United States. Allowing these projects means locking ourselves into carbon emissions we can't afford now, let alone in the decades to come.</p><p>Even if the U.S. were to transition to 100 percent renewable energy today, continuing to dig fossil fuels out of the ground will lead us further into climate crisis. If the U.S. doesn't stop now, whatever we extract will simply be exported and burned overseas. We will all be affected, but the poorest and most vulnerable among us will bear the brunt of the devastating impacts of climate change.</p>
<p><strong>Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics.</strong> For decades, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP have been polluting our democracy by pouring billions of dollars into our politics and bankrolling elected officials to enact policies that protect their profits. The oil and gas industry spent over $103 million on the 2016 federal elections alone. And that's just what they were required to report: that number doesn't include the untold amounts of "dark money" they've been using to buy-off politicians and corrupt our democracy. The most conservative estimates still put their spending at 10 times that of environmental groups and the renewable energy industry.</p><p>As a result, American taxpayers are shelling out $20 billion a year to bankroll oil and gas projects — a huge transfer of wealth to the top. And that doesn't even include hundreds of billions of dollars of indirect subsidies that cost every U.S. citizen roughly $2,000 a year. This has to stop.</p><p>And we've got to stop giving away public lands for oil and gas drilling. In 2018, under Trump, the Interior Department made $1.1 billion selling public land leases to oil and gas companies, an all-time record — triple the previous 2008 record, totaling more than 1.5 million acres for drilling alone, threatening multiple cultural sites and countless wildlife. As recently as last September, the Trump administration opened 1.56 million acres of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, threatening Indigenous cultural heritage and hundreds of species that call it home.</p><p>That's not all. The ban on exporting crude oil should be reintroduced and extended to other fossil fuels. The ban, in place for 40 years, was lifted in 2015, just days after the signing of the Paris climate agreement. After years of campaigning by oil executives, industry heads and their army of lobbyists, the fossil fuel industry finally got its way.</p><p>We can't wait for these changes to be introduced in 5 or 10 years time — we need them now.</p>
<p><strong></strong><strong>Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from environmental injustice compensate the communities they've harmed.</strong></p><p>As if buying-off our democracy wasn't enough, these corporations have also deliberately misled the public for years on the amount of damage their products have been causing.</p><p>For instance, as early as 1977, Exxon's own scientists were warning managers that fossil fuel use would warm the planet and cause irreparable damage. In the 1980s, Exxon shut down its internal climate research program and shifted to funding a network of advocacy groups, lobbying arms and think tanks whose sole purpose was to cloud public discourse and block action on the climate crisis. The five largest oil companies now spend about $197 million a year on ad campaigns claiming they care about the climate — all the while massively increasing their spending on oil and gas extraction.</p><p>Meanwhile, millions of Americans, especially poor, Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, already have to fight to drink clean water and breathe clean air as their communities are devastated by climate-fueled hurricanes, floods and fires. As of 2015, nearly 21 million people relied on community water systems that violated health-based quality standards.</p><p>Going by population, that's essentially 200 Flint, Michigans, happening all at once. If we continue on our current path, many more communities run the risk of becoming "sacrifice zones," where citizens are left to survive the toxic aftermath of industrial activity with little, if any, help from the entities responsible for creating it.</p><p>Climate denial and rampant pollution are not victimless crimes. Fossil fuel corporations must be held accountable and be forced to pay for the damage they've wrought.</p>
<p><strong>If these solutions sound drastic to you, it's because they are. They have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare — it is our present day.</strong></p><p>Australia's bushfires wiped out a billion animals, California's fire season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are tearing through our communities like never before. </p><p>Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry. </p><p>We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.</p><p><em><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/author/robert-reich" target="_blank">Robert Reich</a>, is the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the the twentieth century. The author of many books, including the best-sellers <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307476332" target="_blank">Aftershock</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679736158" target="_blank">The Work of Nations</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345804376" target="_blank">Beyond Outrage</a> and, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Capitalism-Many-Not-Few/dp/0345806220" target="_blank">Saving Capitalism</a>. He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Common-Good-Robert-B-Reich/dp/052552049X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521457674&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Common+Good" target="_blank">The Common Good</a>." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.</em></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/25/solutions-climate-crisis-no-one-talking-about" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>. </em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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An environmental protester stands on top of the Wall Street Bull on October 17, 2019 in NYC. Erik McGregor / LightRocket / Getty Images
By Bill McKibben
Nineteen-seventy was a simpler time. (February was a simpler time too, but for a moment let's think outside the pandemic bubble.)
Simpler because our environmental troubles could be easily seen. The air above our cities was filthy, and the water in our lakes and streams was gross. There was nothing subtle about it. In New York City, the environmental lawyer Albert Butzel described a permanently yellow horizon: "I not only saw the pollution, I wiped it off my windowsills."
<p><br/></p>
<p>Or consider the testimony of a city medical examiner: "The person who spent his life in the Adirondacks has nice pink lungs. The city dweller's are black as coal." You've likely heard of Cleveland's Cuyahoga River <a href="https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63" target="_blank">catching fire</a>, but here's how New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/nyregion/new-york-city-smog.html" target="_blank">described</a> the Hudson south of Albany: "one great septic tank that has been rendered nearly useless for water supply, for swimming, or to support the rich fish life that once abounded there." Everything that people say about the air and water in China and India right now was said of America's cities then.</p><p>It's no wonder that people mobilized: 20 million Americans took to the streets for the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-first-earth-day" target="_blank">first Earth Day</a> in 1970—10 percent of America's population at the time, perhaps the single greatest day of political protest in the country's history. And it worked. Worked politically because Congress quickly passed the <a href="https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-history-clean-air-act-1970.html" target="_blank">Clean Air Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act" target="_blank">Clean Water Act</a> and scientifically because those laws had the desired effect. In essence, they stuck enough filters on smokestacks, car exhausts, and factory effluent pipes that, before long, the air and water were unmistakably cleaner. The nascent Environmental Protection Agency commissioned a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-us-cities-looked-like-before-epa-regulated-pollution-2019-8#barges-filled-with-new-yorks-waste-are-pulled-down-the-east-river-to-staten-island-landfill-in-the-1970s-new-york-produced-26000-tons-of-solid-waste-every-day-22" target="_blank">series of photos</a> that showed just how filthy things were. Even for those of us who were alive then, it's hard to imagine that we tolerated this.</p><p>But we should believe it, because now we face even greater challenges that we're doing next to nothing about. And one reason is you can't see them.</p>
<p>The carbon dioxide molecule is invisible; at today's levels you can't see it or smell it, and it doesn't do anything to you. Carbon with one oxygen molecule? That's what kills you in a closed garage if you leave the car running. But two oxygen molecules? All that does is trap heat in the atmosphere. Melt ice caps. Raise seas. Change weather patterns. But slowly enough that most of the time, we don't quite see it.</p><p>And it's a more complex moment for another reason. You can filter carbon monoxide easily. It's a trace gas, a tiny percentage of what comes from a power plant. But carbon dioxide is the exact opposite. It's most of what comes pouring out when you burn coal or gas or oil. There's no catalytic converter for CO2, which means you have to take down the fossil fuel industry.</p><p>That in turn means you have to take on not just the oil companies but also the banks, asset managers, and insurance companies that invest in them (and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-energy-assets-exclusive/exclusive-us-banks-prepare-to-seize-energy-assets-as-shale-boom-goes-bust-idUSKCN21R3JI" target="_blank">may even own them</a>, in the wake of the current economic crash). You have to take on, that is, the heart of global capital.</p>
<p>And so we are. <a href="https://stopthemoneypipeline.com/" target="_blank">Stop the Money Pipeline</a>, a coalition of environmental and climate justice groups running from the small and specialized to the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, formed last fall to try to tackle the biggest money on earth. Banks like Chase—the planet's largest by market capitalization—which has funneled a <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2020/03/new-report-reveals-global-banks-funneled-27-trillion-fossil-fuels-paris" target="_blank">quarter-trillion dollars</a> to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement of 2015. Insurers like <a href="https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/environmental/liberty-mutual-facing-mounting-pressure-to-exit-fossil-fuels-219312.aspx" target="_blank">Liberty Mutual</a>, still insuring tar sands projects even as pipeline builders endanger Native communities by trying to build the Keystone XL <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/keystone-xl-pipeline-construction-2645607020.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">during a pandemic</a>.</p><p>This campaign sounds quixotic, but it seemed to be getting traction until the coronavirus pandemic hit. In January, BlackRock <a href="https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter" target="_blank">announced</a> that it was going to put climate at the heart of its investment analyses. Liberty Mutual, under similar pressure from activists, began to <a href="https://www.ran.org/press-releases/liberty-mutual-adopts-coal-policy-in-response-to-public-pressure/" target="_blank">edge away</a> from coal. And Chase—well, Earth Day would have seen activists engaging in civil disobedience in several thousand bank lobbies across America, sort of like the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3MKcYUUHxw" target="_blank">protest in January</a> that helped launch the campaign (and sent me, among others, off in handcuffs). But we called that off; there's no way we were going to risk carrying the microbe into jails, where the people already locked inside have little chance of social distancing.</p><p>Still, the pandemic may be causing as much trouble for the fossil fuel industry as our campaign hoped to. With the demand for oil cratering, it's clear that these companies have no future. The divestment campaign that, over a decade, has enlisted $14 trillion in endowments and portfolios in the climate fight has a new head of steam.</p>
<p>Our job—a more complex one than faced our Earth Day predecessors 50 years ago—is to force the spring. We need to speed the transition to the solar panels and wind turbines that engineers have worked so mightily to improve and are now the cheapest way to generate power. The only thing standing in the way is the political power of the fossil fuel companies, on clear display as <a href="https://psmag.com/news/trump-seeks-to-speed-up-oil-and-gas-projects" target="_blank">President Trump</a> does everything in his power to preserve their dominance. That's hard to overcome. Hard but simple. Just as in 1970, it demands unrelenting pressure from citizens. That pressure is coming. Indigenous nations, frontline communities, faith groups, climate scientists, and savvy investors are joining together, and their voices are getting louder. Seven million of us were in the streets <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/global-climate-strikes-week-2640790405.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">last September</a>. That's not 20 million, but it's on the way.</p><p>We can't be on the streets right now. So we'll do what we can on the boulevards of the Internet. Join us for <a href="https://www.earthdaylive2020.org/" target="_blank">Earth Day Live</a>, three days of digital activism beginning April 22. We're in a race, and we're gaining fast.</p>
<p><em>Bill McKibben is the founder of climate change campaign <a href="https://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a>, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and the author of the new book <em>Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?.</em></em></p><p><em>This story originally appeared in</em><em> <a href="https://www.thenation.com/" target="_blank">The Nation</a></em><em>,</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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19 April
Insights + Opinion
Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call / Getty Images
By Tony Corbo
As the world focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating impact on public health, the Trump Administration has been busy behind the scenes doubling down on its campaign to deregulate Big Ag. At the same time, it is not providing safeguards to food production workers and government inspectors who are being made to work on the frontlines without frontline employee protections.
The USDA Is Playing Fast and Loose With Meat Inspection Lines During the Coronavirus Outbreak
<p>USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is deregulating inspection in some of the largest pork processing facilities by reducing the number of inspectors assigned to the slaughter line. They turn over critical inspection tasks to untrained company employees, and remove the cap on how fast the line can run. FSIS anticipates that 40 hog slaughter facilities will convert to this method, which is being called the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS). Those 40 facilities process over 92% of all pork in the U.S. Some of the big names in pork processing are pushing for this, such as JBS, Tyson, Smithfield, Clemens, and Quality Pork Processors. In one plant that has been experimenting with the new system, FSIS inspectors have 2.6 seconds to determine whether the company employees have performed their tasks properly. As a consequence, it is not uncommon for hog carcasses to be contaminated with feces, hair, toe nails, and bile to be greenlit for processing into bacon, pork chops, hot dogs, sausage, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/inspectors-warn-unsafe-pork-could-make-its-way-consumers-under-n1097676" target="_blank">and other pork products</a>.</p><p>Three lawsuits to challenge NSIS have been filed by unions representing the plant workers, animal welfare groups, and food safety advocates, including Food & Water Watch and the Center for Food Safety. FSIS hid critical information from the public when it first proposed the frighteningly minimal system. Food & Water Watch was forced to file separate litigation to obtain crucial, undisclosed information which revealed that NSIS would lead to more contaminated pork entering commerce and could lead to an animal disease — to <a href="https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/new-data-shows-new-swine-inspection-system-so-dangerous-it-could-spur-another-zoonotic-pandemic" target="_blank">ravage hog herds and/or be transmitted to humans</a>. Plants that wanted to convert to NSIS had until March 30, 2020 to state their intentions. FSIS still refuses to disclose the names of those plants, leaving consumers in the dark.</p>Meat Companies Are Being Given Almost Full Control Over Their Own Inspection Standards
<p>While it is struggling to keep poultry plants properly staffed with inspectors during the pandemic, FSIS has stepped up its approvals of regulatory waivers to chicken slaughter plants that want to increase their maximum line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute. In the first two weeks of April, FSIS approved 11 such waivers for plants operated by Foster Farms, Tyson Foods (4 plants), and Wayne Farms (6 plants). These plants have all converted to the so-called New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) in which the number of government inspectors assigned to the slaughter line is reduced and many of their tasks are turned over to company employees. Under traditional inspection, each FSIS inspector is assigned 35 birds per minute to inspect. Under NPIS, there is only one FSIS inspector stationed at the end of the slaughter line. When a plant is granted a line speed waiver, that sole FSIS inspector is expected to examine 3 birds every second — or 175 birds per minute. The waiver process that FSIS uses is done in secret; it is not open to public scrutiny until the FSIS reveals that it has granted the waiver. Since taking office, the Trump USDA has approved 28 new waivers under this process, <a href="https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/188bf583-45c9-4837-9205-37e0eb1ba243/waiver_table.pdf?MOD=AJPERES" target="_blank">mostly to the big players in the poultry industry.</a></p><p>Inviting everyone to the new game, FSIS is recruiting cattle slaughter plants to deregulate inspection, too. In late March, <a href="https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/usda-prioritizes-privatizing-beef-slaughter-inspection-over-food-safety-during-pandemic" target="_blank">FSIS approved a waiver</a> through its secret process for a Tyson beef plant in Holcomb, Kansas that slaughters up to 6000 head of cattle per day. The waiver is designed to reduce the number of government inspectors assigned to its slaughter line, increasing its line speed. FSIS has not revealed how fast the line will run with this waiver or how many fewer government inspectors will be on the slaughter line, but we know it won't result in safety for consumers.</p>Meat Inspection Deregulation Threatens Food Safety
<p>All of these deregulatory moves are designed to increase production; they are not being done to improve food safety. They will contribute to expanding the industrial agriculture model by promoting the growth of factory farms. It's even more disconcerting that it is occurring in the middle of a national crisis.</p><p>As the Trump Administration has stepped on the accelerator to deregulate in recent weeks, there are numerous examples around the country of meat and poultry plants being impacted by the spread of the COVID-19 virus. While the news has been focused on urban areas racked by the pandemic, hot spots have also emerged in rural communities in Colorado, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska where meatpacking plant workers have contracted the virus while being forced to work, forcing some plants to curtail or cease operations temporarily. </p><p>In those instances where meatpackers have insisted on continuing with business-as-usual even when their employees have gotten sick, it has pitted public health officials against company officials and <a href="https://www.keloland.com/video/sioux-falls-mayor-tenhaken-describes-call-with-leaders-of-smithfield-as-heated-as-covid-19-case-numbers-go-up/4572959/#" target="_blank">even USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue</a>.</p><p>Plant workers and even government inspectors who work at these plants have not been given adequate personal protective equipment. It is virtually impossible to practice social distancing in these plants because plant workers and government inspectors work side-by-side in slaughter and processing facilities. When workers protested these conditions, Vice President Mike Pence had the audacity to urge the workers to continue "to show up and do [their] jobs."</p>Urge Officials to Take Action Against Increased Line Speeds
<p>Increased line speeds only create more opportunities for contamination and sickness. It's unnecessary and it's putting our health at risk.</p><p><a href="https://secure.foodandwaterwatch.org/act/demand-congress-stop-allowing-usda-food-safety-waivers?ms=fwws_wb_04162020_usda-removing-safeguards&oms=fwws_wb_04162020_usda-removing-safeguards" target="_blank">Tell Congress</a> to stop allowing USDA food safety waivers. This is no time to gamble with Americans' health.</p>From Your Site Articles
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