Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information or to customize your cookie preferences.

GoGreenNation News

Learn more about the issues presented in our films
Show Filters

Air, Light Pollution Increase Risk Of Thyroid Cancer In Children

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, April 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Babies exposed to air and light pollution have a higher risk of...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, April 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Babies exposed to air and light pollution have a higher risk of developing childhood thyroid cancer, a new study says.Airborne particle pollution and outdoor artificial light both increased babies’ risk of developing thyroid cancer before they turned 20, researchers recently reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.“These results are concerning, especially given how widespread both of these exposures are,” lead researcher Nicole Deziel, an environmental epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, said in a news release.“Fine particulate matter is found in urban air pollution due to automobile traffic and industrial activity, and artificial light at night is common, particularly in densely populated urban areas,” she added.Both fine particle pollution and light pollution are considered environmental carcinogens that disrupt the body’s endocrine system, including thyroid function, researchers said in background notes.Particle pollution pose a threat because they’re small enough to enter the bloodstream. The airborne particles can be smaller than 2.5 micrometers, while a human hair is 50 to 70 micrometers wide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).And outdoor artificial light can suppress melatonin and alter a person’s sleep/wake rhythm, which also influences hormone-regulated cancers, researchers said.For the study, researchers compared data from 736 young people diagnosed with thyroid cancer before age 20 with that from 36,800 healthy kids, all of whom hail from California.The team assessed the cancer patients’ exposure to air and light pollution based on their families’ home address when they were born.Results showed that for every 10 micrograms per cubic meter increase in particle pollution, a child’s odds of developing thyroid cancer rose by 7% overall.The strongest associations between air pollution and thyroid cancer were found among 15- to 19-year-olds (8% increased risk) and Hispanic children (13% increased risk), researchers said.Likewise, children born in areas with high levels of outdoor artificial light were as much as 25% more likely to develop thyroid cancer."Thyroid cancer is among the fastest growing cancers among children and adolescents, yet we know very little about what causes it in this population," Deziel said."Our study is the first large-scale investigation to suggest that these exposures early in life — specifically to PM2.5 and outdoor light at night — may play a role in this concerning trend,” she added.Compared to adults, children are often diagnosed with thyroid cancer at more advanced stages, with larger and harder-to-treat tumors, researchers said.Even if kids survive thyroid cancer, they can suffer aftereffects like headaches, physical disabilities and mental fatigue that will haunt them throughout their lives, researchers said.Researchers emphasized that more work is needed to replicate and validate their findings.“In the meantime,” Deziel noted, “our results point to the critical importance of addressing environmental factors in childhood cancer research. Reducing exposures to air pollution and managing light pollution could be important steps in protecting children's health.”SOURCE: Yale School of Public Health, news release, April 15, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Get Ready for Expensive Tomatoes and Lots of Food Contamination

You could soon be hearing a lot of news about tomatoes. That’s because the Commerce Department announced this week that Mexican tomatoes will be subject to 21 percent tariffs starting July 14. If this goes through, expect tomato prices to rise precipitously: The United States relies heavily on greenhouse-grown tomatoes, of which the Agriculture Department estimates 88 percent are imported, with most coming from Mexico.Of course, the Trump administration’s tariff policy so far has not exactly been consistent or predictable. The president could drop this tomato tariff tomorrow and announce that he and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have reached an understanding, brokered by Laura Loomer, that henceforth tomatoes imported from Mexico will be exempt from import duties and be known as “prosperity apples.” (Any publication daring to call them “tomatoes” will be kicked out of the White House press corps.)But again, if this tariff goes through, then taxing the bejeezus out of the second-most-consumed vegetable in the country will obviously have a noticeable impact on a lot of people’s grocery bills. Yet amazingly, this may be the least of American consumers’ worries right now when it comes to food disruption.The Guardian reported Tuesday that recent torrential rains have caused “millions of dollars of crop losses” in Texas and the Midwest. When added to the Trump administration’s cuts to farming infrastructure, climate-smart farming initiatives, and various food assistance programs that provided a market for some farmers, plus the trade war jeopardizing export markets in Mexico and China, this means that many U.S. farms are in trouble. “Without a bailout, we can only imagine how bad this will be for farmers,” Food and Water Watch’s Ben Murray told reporter Nina Lakhani. But other experts noted that even with a bailout, delivering the money fast enough might be an issue, and trade relations in particular could take time to rebuild. All this is in addition to, as this newsletter previously noted, substantial cuts both to the climate adaptation and mitigation efforts vital to long-term food production and to USDA’s operating budget. This week, Government Executive reported that planning documents reveal further cuts. They include firing “thousands” more USDA employees, “consolidat[ing] … local, county-based offices around the country into state committees,” and a 22 percent cut to salaries and expense accounts at the Farm Service Agency (which directly supports farms with loans and disaster assistance programs). Food safety will also take a hit. The Food and Drug Administration’s Human Foods Program, which works on food safety, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Environmental Health and Science Practice, which headed the response to the applesauce lead-poisoning fiasco in 2023, have both been gutted, Time recently reported. This comes after last month’s news that the Trump administration had axed two USDA committees advising on food safety: the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection, the former of which was busy reviewing last year’s fatal listeriosis outbreak and figuring out how to prevent repeats of the 2022 infant formula contamination that killed babies.The USDA also announced that it would be increasing line speeds at meatpacking plants and nixing “redundant” worker safety reports. This is deeply troubling on a humanitarian level, given that worker safety at meatpacking plants is already a nightmare, with gruesome injuries affecting a highly vulnerable workforce. (For more on this, read Melody Schreiber’s recent report in The Guardian or Ted Genoways’s award-winning 2023 piece for TNR about the shooting of a worker in an Oklahoma pork-processing plant.) As the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union vice president Mark Lauritsen said recently to the Times: “If the work force is under more pressure for speed, with less safety oversight, that can lead to a miscut on a carcass, bile that could leak out of the intestine, that contaminates the equipment, and then the next carcass and the next and the next.”Numerous outlets in recent years have reported the growing concerns about insufficient safeguards in the U.S. food system. Just two days after Trump’s inauguration, the Government Accountability Office delivered a report that rebuked USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service for its delays in finalizing rules to reduce pathogens in meat, and issued several recommendations for closing gaps in the agency’s approach to limiting salmonella and campylobacter outbreaks. It’s hard to imagine, given the chaos that has now befallen the entirety of the American food system and regulatory apparatus, that those recommendations are going to be speedily enacted.Stat of the Week470That’s how many wildfires the state of Wisconsin has seen this year, as of Monday this week—”double the average for this time of year,” Wisconsin Public Radio’s Danielle Kaeding reports.What I’m ReadingRevealed: Meat Industry Behind Attacks on Flagship Climate-Friendly Diet ReportIn 2019, a major, long-researched study known as the EAT-Lancet report, which compiles top recommendations for sustainable diets, sparked major backlash over one single recommendation: to cut global red meat consumption in half. Now “new evidence” indicates the backlash “was stoked by a PR firm that represents the meat and dairy sector,” investigative outlet DeSmog reports:A document seen by DeSmog appears to show the results of a campaign by the consultancy Red Flag, which catalogues the scale of the backlash to the report. The document indicates that Red Flag briefed journalists, think tanks, and social media influencers to frame the peer-reviewed research as “radical”, “out of touch” and “hypocritical”...Based on DeSmog’s review of the document, Red Flag’s attack campaign appears to have been conducted on behalf of the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA), a meat and dairy industry coalition that was set up to protect the sector against “emerging threats”. The AAA counts representatives from Cargill and Smithfield Foods—two of the world’s five largest meat companies—on its board. Red Flag is known to have previously worked for members of the AAA.Red Flag’s campaign overview evaluates the success of social media posts from the AAA attacking the EAT-Lancet report, including a paid advertising campaign launched on behalf of the alliance that reached 780,000 people.The surge of criticism had adverse consequences for the report’s authors.… In some cases, the backlash led them to withdraw from promoting the research in the media, and undermined their academic careers. Read Clare Carlile’s full report at DeSmog.This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.

You could soon be hearing a lot of news about tomatoes. That’s because the Commerce Department announced this week that Mexican tomatoes will be subject to 21 percent tariffs starting July 14. If this goes through, expect tomato prices to rise precipitously: The United States relies heavily on greenhouse-grown tomatoes, of which the Agriculture Department estimates 88 percent are imported, with most coming from Mexico.Of course, the Trump administration’s tariff policy so far has not exactly been consistent or predictable. The president could drop this tomato tariff tomorrow and announce that he and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have reached an understanding, brokered by Laura Loomer, that henceforth tomatoes imported from Mexico will be exempt from import duties and be known as “prosperity apples.” (Any publication daring to call them “tomatoes” will be kicked out of the White House press corps.)But again, if this tariff goes through, then taxing the bejeezus out of the second-most-consumed vegetable in the country will obviously have a noticeable impact on a lot of people’s grocery bills. Yet amazingly, this may be the least of American consumers’ worries right now when it comes to food disruption.The Guardian reported Tuesday that recent torrential rains have caused “millions of dollars of crop losses” in Texas and the Midwest. When added to the Trump administration’s cuts to farming infrastructure, climate-smart farming initiatives, and various food assistance programs that provided a market for some farmers, plus the trade war jeopardizing export markets in Mexico and China, this means that many U.S. farms are in trouble. “Without a bailout, we can only imagine how bad this will be for farmers,” Food and Water Watch’s Ben Murray told reporter Nina Lakhani. But other experts noted that even with a bailout, delivering the money fast enough might be an issue, and trade relations in particular could take time to rebuild. All this is in addition to, as this newsletter previously noted, substantial cuts both to the climate adaptation and mitigation efforts vital to long-term food production and to USDA’s operating budget. This week, Government Executive reported that planning documents reveal further cuts. They include firing “thousands” more USDA employees, “consolidat[ing] … local, county-based offices around the country into state committees,” and a 22 percent cut to salaries and expense accounts at the Farm Service Agency (which directly supports farms with loans and disaster assistance programs). Food safety will also take a hit. The Food and Drug Administration’s Human Foods Program, which works on food safety, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Environmental Health and Science Practice, which headed the response to the applesauce lead-poisoning fiasco in 2023, have both been gutted, Time recently reported. This comes after last month’s news that the Trump administration had axed two USDA committees advising on food safety: the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection, the former of which was busy reviewing last year’s fatal listeriosis outbreak and figuring out how to prevent repeats of the 2022 infant formula contamination that killed babies.The USDA also announced that it would be increasing line speeds at meatpacking plants and nixing “redundant” worker safety reports. This is deeply troubling on a humanitarian level, given that worker safety at meatpacking plants is already a nightmare, with gruesome injuries affecting a highly vulnerable workforce. (For more on this, read Melody Schreiber’s recent report in The Guardian or Ted Genoways’s award-winning 2023 piece for TNR about the shooting of a worker in an Oklahoma pork-processing plant.) As the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union vice president Mark Lauritsen said recently to the Times: “If the work force is under more pressure for speed, with less safety oversight, that can lead to a miscut on a carcass, bile that could leak out of the intestine, that contaminates the equipment, and then the next carcass and the next and the next.”Numerous outlets in recent years have reported the growing concerns about insufficient safeguards in the U.S. food system. Just two days after Trump’s inauguration, the Government Accountability Office delivered a report that rebuked USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service for its delays in finalizing rules to reduce pathogens in meat, and issued several recommendations for closing gaps in the agency’s approach to limiting salmonella and campylobacter outbreaks. It’s hard to imagine, given the chaos that has now befallen the entirety of the American food system and regulatory apparatus, that those recommendations are going to be speedily enacted.Stat of the Week470That’s how many wildfires the state of Wisconsin has seen this year, as of Monday this week—”double the average for this time of year,” Wisconsin Public Radio’s Danielle Kaeding reports.What I’m ReadingRevealed: Meat Industry Behind Attacks on Flagship Climate-Friendly Diet ReportIn 2019, a major, long-researched study known as the EAT-Lancet report, which compiles top recommendations for sustainable diets, sparked major backlash over one single recommendation: to cut global red meat consumption in half. Now “new evidence” indicates the backlash “was stoked by a PR firm that represents the meat and dairy sector,” investigative outlet DeSmog reports:A document seen by DeSmog appears to show the results of a campaign by the consultancy Red Flag, which catalogues the scale of the backlash to the report. The document indicates that Red Flag briefed journalists, think tanks, and social media influencers to frame the peer-reviewed research as “radical”, “out of touch” and “hypocritical”...Based on DeSmog’s review of the document, Red Flag’s attack campaign appears to have been conducted on behalf of the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA), a meat and dairy industry coalition that was set up to protect the sector against “emerging threats”. The AAA counts representatives from Cargill and Smithfield Foods—two of the world’s five largest meat companies—on its board. Red Flag is known to have previously worked for members of the AAA.Red Flag’s campaign overview evaluates the success of social media posts from the AAA attacking the EAT-Lancet report, including a paid advertising campaign launched on behalf of the alliance that reached 780,000 people.The surge of criticism had adverse consequences for the report’s authors.… In some cases, the backlash led them to withdraw from promoting the research in the media, and undermined their academic careers. Read Clare Carlile’s full report at DeSmog.This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.

Portland City Council moves to reject controversial PGE Forest Park transmission project

The Portland City Council moved Thursday to reject a PGE transmission upgrade project in Forest Park that would require the utility to clearcut more than 370 trees on about 5 acres in the park.

The Portland City Council moved Thursday to reject a Portland General Electric transmission upgrade project in Forest Park that would require the utility to clearcut more than 370 trees on about 5 acres in the park. The decision Thursday night – described as “tentative” until a final vote on May 7 – came after councilors considered appeals by the Forest Park Conservancy and Forest Park Neighborhood Association to overturn a city of Portland hearings officer approval in March of PGE’s proposal. The vote followed five hours of presentations and public testimony and directs city attorneys to write an ordinance to grant the appeals and overturn the hearings officer’s decision. PGE can appeal to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals. PGE wants to rewire a 1970s transmission line and add a second line in the utility’s existing right-of-way and said the upgrade will address an increase in the region’s energy demand and prevent rolling blackouts in North and Northwest Portland. A report from Portland’s Permitting and Development Office in January recommended that the hearings officer turn down PGE’s project due to non-compliance with environmental standards and the city’s Forest Park management plan. But hearings officer Marisha Childs last month went against those recommendations, agreeing with PGE about the need for the project and finding that routing through Forest Park “is the least environmentally detrimental option” of all the alternatives PGE analyzed. The two groups that filed the appeals said PGE failed to meet city approval criteria and that project would set a precedent for further development in the park. PGE’s proposal had touched off a months-long clash between the utility and opponents who seek to protect the trees in the 5,200-acre park because they provide valuable habitat for countless wildlife species and climate benefits to all city residents. More than 3,000 people filed testimony about the project, including over 1,000 who sent in comments ahead of the appeals hearing, with the vast majority against the upgrade. Several hundred protesters gathered at City Hall before the hearing. They held cardboard cutouts of trees, animals and insects and signs that read “Save Forest Park,” “No more ecocide” and “You have to be nuts to destroy Forest Park.” A protester at Portland City Hall holds a sign opposing PGE's transmission upgrade project in Forest Park ahead of a City Council appeals hearing. Beth Nakamura“It’s important to have more energy transmission infrastructure, power lines and responsive grids, yet this is one of the situations where it is very clear there is no ambiguity. PGE can build this project elsewhere in order to keep the lights on,” Damon Motz-Storey, the Sierra Club Oregon chapter’s director, told the crowd. “These trees have been standing since before we even had electricity in homes.”Motz-Storey then led the rally in a chant: “Listen to the people and the trees, not PGE.” Protesters and park advocates filled the council chambers and two overflow rooms, testifying one after another that the PGE project runs counter to the city’s plan to sustain an old-growth forest in Forest Park and asking for the council to save the trees and protect the park. Protesters at Portland City Hall listen as the City Council considers the appeals on PGE's controversial Forest Park transmission project. Beth Nakamura“This project is unacceptable to us and the community and the critters and plants that depend on us to say no to cutting trees, building roads, bulldozing, filling in wetlands and streams and saying this is good for climate resilience,” said Scott Fogarty, executive director with Forest Park Conservancy, the group that filed one of the appeals. The conservancy formed to maintain trails and restore native habitat in the park. Fogarty said PGE’s proposed plan to offset losses from the upgrade does not address cutting down 100-year-old trees and the benefits they bring. The mitigation proposal includes planting Oregon white oak seedlings near the project area, seeding the transmission corridor and access road edges with a pollinator-friendly native seed mix and paying a fee to the city to remove invasive species in the park. He also said the upgrade would pave the way for city approval of future phases of the project in Forest Park and lead to more tree removal. PGE has said those future phases could affect another 15 acres of the park. “Is 5 acres acceptable? Is 20 acres acceptable? Where do we draw the line?” Fogarty asked the council members. “One could argue losing just one 100-year-old tree is unacceptable, let alone 5 acres. In the age of climate resilience, this project flies in the face of retaining carbon suckers in a region that is seeing increased impacts from climate change, including potential fire danger.” PGE argued before the council that the project area is neither old nor ancient forest and that the maintenance of existing transmission lines is key to preserving blackout-free electricity. A proposal by Portland General Electric to cut more than 370 trees in Forest Park to upgrade transmission lines has spurred opposition. The utility and renewable energy proponents say the upgrades are needed to address transmission bottlenecks and fulfill state clean energy mandates.courtesy of Portland General Electric“Alleviating this choke point is important because our experts predict that as early as 2028 there is the risk of outages during times of peak demand,” said Randy Franks, a senior project manager for PGE. “Think about the hottest part of the day, during an ongoing heat wave, with no fans and no air conditioning.”Franks said the more than 20 alternatives PGE examined were not practical, would require the utility to take property through eminent domain, would take too much time or cost too much – and could lead to similar or even greater negative impacts to trees and wildlife outside the park. He said the city’s Forest Park management plan acknowledges the existence of utility corridors and the need to maintain and upgrade them over time and that doing so will help reduce global warming.“If we are serious about combating climate change, we simply have to improve the grid, keep it reliable and increase transmission capacity,” Franks said. Only a handful of people testified in favor of PGE’s plans. “Utilities around the country, including ours, are facing the most rapid load increases in a generation and concomitant reliability challenges. At the same time, our state is laboring to remove from the grid the coal and gas plants that are fueling climate change locally,” said Angus Duncan, the former chair of the Northwest Conservation and Power Planning Council, a group tasked with developing and maintaining a regional power plan. “We need to rebuild the power system to exclude fossil generation.” Council members Angelita Morillo and Steve Novick questioned the assertion that PGE’s proposal would help combat climate change. Novick also asked why PGE did not provide more evidence as to why the transmission upgrades are needed by 2028, not at a later date. Other councilors said they did not feel PGE had proved an alternative outside the park was unfeasible and did not present a compelling mitigation plan. And most of the 12 council members said they disagreed with PGE and the hearings officer that the proposal meets the parameters of the park’s management plan. “Ultimately, I think what has been proposed is probably the best option in the park,” said Councilor Eric Zimmerman. But, he said, nothing in PGE’s proposal showed that the council should overrule the Forest Park management plan. “I don’t think the standard has been met to not follow that plan,” Zimmerman said.Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney agreed. “If an alternative (to the project) exists, we should not be granting an exception,” she said. Councilor Dan Ryan said the decision will likely be one of many to pit the needs for clean electricity against those of protecting the environment. “Portland will be having more and more tough decisions that include extremely difficult trade-offs. This is just where we are in managing the climate crisis,” Ryan said. “I think PGE worked really hard to find the best option and yet we all want a different option.” That’s because, he added, he – like other Portlanders – loves the park and its trees. “Forest Park is a cathedral,” Ryan said. “And maybe it’s Holy Week and I’m just treating this in a very spiritual way, but it’s just really difficult for me to think I could take a vote that would on the appearance be about deforesting Forest Park during this sacred week.” — Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

Workshop explores new advanced materials for a growing world

Speakers described challenges and potential solutions for producing materials to meet demands associated with data centers, infrastructure, and other technology.

It is clear that humankind needs increasingly more resources, from computing power to steel and concrete, to meet the growing demands associated with data centers, infrastructure, and other mainstays of society. New, cost-effective approaches for producing the advanced materials key to that growth were the focus of a two-day workshop at MIT on March 11 and 12.A theme throughout the event was the importance of collaboration between and within universities and industries. The goal is to “develop concepts that everybody can use together, instead of everybody doing something different and then trying to sort it out later at great cost,” said Lionel Kimerling, the Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT.The workshop was produced by MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory (MRL), which has an industry collegium, and MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program. The program included an address by Javier Sanfelix, lead of the Advanced Materials Team for the European Union. Sanfelix gave an overview of the EU’s strategy to developing advanced materials, which he said are “key enablers of the green and digital transition for European industry.”That strategy has already led to several initiatives. These include a material commons, or shared digital infrastructure for the design and development of advanced materials, and an advanced materials academy for educating new innovators and designers. Sanfelix also described an Advanced Materials Act for 2026 that aims to put in place a legislative framework that supports the entire innovation cycle.Sanfelix was visiting MIT to learn more about how the Institute is approaching the future of advanced materials. “We see MIT as a leader worldwide in technology, especially on materials, and there is a lot to learn about [your] industry collaborations and technology transfer with industry,” he said.Innovations in steel and concreteThe workshop began with talks about innovations involving two of the most common human-made materials in the world: steel and cement. We’ll need more of both but must reckon with the huge amounts of energy required to produce them and their impact on the environment due to greenhouse-gas emissions during that production.One way to address our need for more steel is to reuse what we have, said C. Cem Tasan, the POSCO Associate Professor of Metallurgy in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) and director of the Materials Research Laboratory.But most of the existing approaches to recycling scrap steel involve melting the metal. “And whenever you are dealing with molten metal, everything goes up, from energy use to carbon-dioxide emissions. Life is more difficult,” Tasan said.The question he and his team asked is whether they could reuse scrap steel without melting it. Could they consolidate solid scraps, then roll them together using existing equipment to create new sheet metal? From the materials-science perspective, Tasan said, that shouldn’t work, for several reasons.But it does. “We’ve demonstrated the potential in two papers and two patent applications already,” he said. Tasan noted that the approach focuses on high-quality manufacturing scrap. “This is not junkyard scrap,” he said.Tasan went on to explain how and why the new process works from a materials-science perspective, then gave examples of how the recycled steel could be used. “My favorite example is the stainless-steel countertops in restaurants. Do you really need the mechanical performance of stainless steel there?” You could use the recycled steel instead.Hessam Azarijafari addressed another common, indispensable material: concrete. This year marks the 16th anniversary of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub), which began when a set of industry leaders and politicians reached out to MIT to learn more about the benefits and environmental impacts of concrete.The hub’s work now centers around three main themes: working toward a carbon-neutral concrete industry; the development of a sustainable infrastructure, with a focus on pavement; and how to make our cities more resilient to natural hazards through investment in stronger, cooler construction.Azarijafari, the deputy director of the CSHub, went on to give several examples of research results that have come out of the CSHub. These include many models to identify different pathways to decarbonize the cement and concrete sector. Other work involves pavements, which the general public thinks of as inert, Azarijafari said. “But we have [created] a state-of-the-art model that can assess interactions between pavement and vehicles.” It turns out that pavement surface characteristics and structural performance “can influence excess fuel consumption by inducing an additional rolling resistance.”Azarijafari emphasized  the importance of working closely with policymakers and industry. That engagement is key “to sharing the lessons that we have learned so far.”Toward a resource-efficient microchip industryConsider the following: In 2020 the number of cell phones, GPS units, and other devices connected to the “cloud,” or large data centers, exceeded 50 billion. And data-center traffic in turn is scaling by 1,000 times every 10 years.But all of that computation takes energy. And “all of it has to happen at a constant cost of energy, because the gross domestic product isn’t changing at that rate,” said Kimerling. The solution is to either produce much more energy, or make information technology much more energy-efficient. Several speakers at the workshop focused on the materials and components behind the latter.Key to everything they discussed: adding photonics, or using light to carry information, to the well-established electronics behind today’s microchips. “The bottom line is that integrating photonics with electronics in the same package is the transistor for the 21st century. If we can’t figure out how to do that, then we’re not going to be able to scale forward,” said Kimerling, who is director of the MIT Microphotonics Center.MIT has long been a leader in the integration of photonics with electronics. For example, Kimerling described the Integrated Photonics System Roadmap – International (IPSR-I), a global network of more than 400 industrial and R&D partners working together to define and create photonic integrated circuit technology. IPSR-I is led by the MIT Microphotonics Center and PhotonDelta. Kimerling began the organization in 1997.Last year IPSR-I released its latest roadmap for photonics-electronics integration, “which  outlines a clear way forward and specifies an innovative learning curve for scaling performance and applications for the next 15 years,” Kimerling said.Another major MIT program focused on the future of the microchip industry is FUTUR-IC, a new global alliance for sustainable microchip manufacturing. Begun last year, FUTUR-IC is funded by the National Science Foundation.“Our goal is to build a resource-efficient microchip industry value chain,” said Anuradha Murthy Agarwal, a principal research scientist at the MRL and leader of FUTUR-IC. That includes all of the elements that go into manufacturing future microchips, including workforce education and techniques to mitigate potential environmental effects.FUTUR-IC is also focused on electronic-photonic integration. “My mantra is to use electronics for computation, [and] shift to photonics for communication to bring this energy crisis in control,” Agarwal said.But integrating electronic chips with photonic chips is not easy. To that end, Agarwal described some of the challenges involved. For example, currently it is difficult to connect the optical fibers carrying communications to a microchip. That’s because the alignment between the two must be almost perfect or the light will disperse. And the dimensions involved are minuscule. An optical fiber has a diameter of only millionths of a meter. As a result, today each connection must be actively tested with a laser to ensure that the light will come through.That said, Agarwal went on to describe a new coupler between the fiber and chip that could solve the problem and allow robots to passively assemble the chips (no laser needed). The work, which was conducted by researchers including MIT graduate student Drew Wenninger, Agarwal, and Kimerling, has been patented, and is reported in two papers. A second recent breakthrough in this area involving a printed micro-reflector was described by Juejun “JJ” Hu, John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.FUTUR-IC is also leading educational efforts for training a future workforce, as well as techniques for detecting — and potentially destroying — the perfluroalkyls (PFAS, or “forever chemicals”) released during microchip manufacturing. FUTUR-IC educational efforts, including virtual reality and game-based learning, were described by Sajan Saini, education director for FUTUR-IC. PFAS detection and remediation were discussed by Aristide Gumyusenge, an assistant professor in DMSE, and Jesus Castro Esteban, a postdoc in the Department of Chemistry.Other presenters at the workshop included Antoine Allanore, the Heather N. Lechtman Professor of Materials Science and Engineering; Katrin Daehn, a postdoc in the Allanore lab; Xuanhe Zhao, the Uncas (1923) and Helen Whitaker Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Richard Otte, CEO of Promex; and Carl Thompson, the Stavros V. Salapatas Professor in Materials Science and Engineering.

In East Palestine Derailment Trial, Railroad and Chemical Maker Agree on Who Pays Residents

Norfolk Southern reached an agreement with one of the two companies it has been trying to force to help pay for the $600 million class-action settlement it agreed to over its disastrous 2023 train derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and the toxic chemicals that were released and burned

Norfolk Southern reached an agreement with one of two companies about how much each side will help pay for a $600 million class-action settlement, which the railroad agreed to after the disastrous 2023 Ohio train derailment and toxic chemicals that were released and burned.This lawsuit doesn’t change anything about how much money people will receive from the settlement or any payments to the village of East Palestine or anyone else — those are all established in various settlement agreements. This case only affects which companies have to write the checks to pay for the class-action settlement, which is separate from the cost of the massive environmental cleanup.The railroad and OxyVinyls, the chemical company that made the vinyl chloride that was released and burned after the derailment, announced the settlement Thursday in the midst of the ongoing trial over who should pay people affected by the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.The two companies didn't disclose any details of the agreement in their brief statement.The third company involved in the lawsuit, GATX, which owned the railcar that caused the derailment, declined to comment on the settlement. The case is expected to go to the jury next week in a trial that began late last month.Residents are still waiting to receive most of the money from the settlement because of pending appeals, although some payments have started to go out.After the train derailed in East Palestine, an assortment of chemicals spilled and caught fire. Then three days later, officials blew open five tank cars filled with vinyl chloride because they feared those cars might explode, generating a massive black plume of smoke that spread over the area and forced evacuations. The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed in its investigation that the vent-and-burn operation was unnecessary because the tank cars were starting to cool off and the railroad failed to listen to the advice from OxyVinyls’ experts or share their opinions with the officials who made the decision.But during the trial, Norfolk Southern raised questions about conflicting information that OxyVinyls' representatives on scene and at headquarters provided as officials were deciding whether to release and burn the vinyl chloride.Norfolk Southern has said all along that it believes OxyVinyls should help pay because the railroad says the chemical manufacturer provided inconsistent and inaccurate information about its vinyl chloride before officials decided to burn it.Last year, Norfolk Southern lost a similar lawsuit when it tried to force GATX and OxyVinyls to help pay for the environmental cleanup after the derailment, which has cost the Atlanta-based railroad more than $1 billion. It made similar arguments in this trial to get help paying for the class-action settlement.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Hawaii Spent Millions on Housing for the Homeless. Show Us the Receipts

A Honolulu Civil Beat review found that the state agency in charge of Hawaii’s homeless villages lacks records to show how millions paid to a nonprofit to build hundreds of housing units was actually spent

The state agency in charge of Hawaiʻi’s homeless villages lacks the records to show how millions of dollars paid to a nonprofit to build hundreds of housing units was actually spent, a Civil Beat review of contract documents and invoices found.Since late 2023, the state has issued more than $37.1 million in no-bid contracts to HomeAid Hawaiʻi to build small dwellings as part of Gov. Josh Green’s signature Kauhale Initiative.While HomeAid has provided the Department of Human Services with balance sheets and supporting documents showing how it used state money for some of its projects, the state doesn’t have receipts or other documents detailing the specific use of public money for other projects.DHS told Civil Beat that some of those projects are not finished and will be subject to agency audits once they are.Now, Green wants $50 million more from the Legislature for his program to address homelessness. The Legislature has yet to agree on that funding as lawmakers consider what requirements to attach to the money to build kauhale villages across the state.House and Senate lawmakers have disagreed on the terms of the kauhale bill and must hash out differences during a conference committee, which has not yet been scheduled. A key point of contention is whether to require at least two bids for the construction of the villages.The Kauhale Initiative is meant to solve one of the state’s critical social issues. After running for governor on a campaign to address Hawaiʻi’s housing crisis, Green declared a state emergency on homelessness in 2023. Oʻahu’s annual Point-In-Time count at the time tallied more than 6,223 homeless people, more than half of them living outside. Green’s team quickly built 12 kauhale statewide. With the procurement code suspended under the state of emergency, Hawaiʻi waived competitive bidding and went with a no-bid development contractor, HomeAid Hawaiʻi, to implement the program. The initiative calls for creating “affordable spaces for housing and healing our people, through intentional ‘kauhale’ design and operation.”Critics, including of late Green’s former homelessness coordinator John Mizuno, have raised questions about operating costs of some kauhale. And Civil Beat’s review of construction expenditures highlights potential lapses in the Department of Human Services’ oversight of those projects.The department was unable to provide documents to show spending by HomeAid on two of the priciest kauhale projects to date — Middle Street’s Phase 2 and another one in Kahului on Maui — totaling more than $14 million. Work on those projects has just recently begun, officials said, although the nonprofit has received about $2 million up front.Details on two other contracts were also lacking. For one of those contracts – to deliver 273 homes statewide – HomeAid CEO Kimo Carvalho billed the state for nearly the entire cost of the contract all at once and provided almost no detail on how funds were used.On another contract for the Alana Ola Pono kauhale in Iwilei, the state paid out $2.5 million – half the value of the contract – up front with only a brief description of work that would be performed. Details on what became of the rest of the money weren’t provided in response to a records request from Civil Beat. That project opened in December, but is about two weeks away from completion, Carvalho said.Much of the work to review invoices was done by Jun Yang, who at the time was an employee of the Department of Transportation but also part of a kauhale team formed to aid Mizuno. Yang was so deeply involved that at one point, when there was a hold up in payment from DHS to HomeAid in September, Yang told Carvalho that if HomeAid staff sent payment request forms “we will get them taken care of.”Yang took over the top job from Mizuno in February.DHS Deputy Director Joseph Campos told Civil Beat on Wednesday that he recognizes his agency’s responsibility to the public and to legislators. The department has many processes to review the expenditures, he said, and it is not trying to skirt accountability.“Although we utilize the authority of the emergency order not to do a formal bid process, that does not mean we go willy nilly in choosing whatever we want.”Despite the absence of backup documentation to prove it in some cases, Campos said, “almost on a daily basis, we’re price-engineering or value-engineering a contract to make sure that we’re getting the best possible price out there.” Bill To Require Competitive Bidding In Question The House has sought to address questions of accountability by requiring at least two bids from builders. But the Senate removed the requirement after Yang testified that requiring two bids could delay development of projects. House Housing Committee Chairman Luke Evslin, who had amended the kauhale bill to include the two-bid requirement, said he couldn’t say what position House conferees will take during the negotiations to reconcile the two versions. Evslin has been named one of the co-chairs of the conference committee.An older version of the kauhale bill required “at least two bidders for any kauhale project”, however it was dropped in more recent versions.“For my own personal preference, the two-bid requirement makes a lot of sense to ensure accountability and efficiency,” Evslin said.Evslin acknowledged that no-bid contracts are allowed under Green’s emergency proclamation on homelessness, which suspends the state procurement code. But Evslin said requiring at least two bids makes sense as Green’s initiative matures from an emergency policy into a permanent endeavor.“Our hope is to transition the Kauhale Initiative into something that is sustainable,” he said. Green declined an interview request to discuss the kauhale bill. His spokesperson, Makana McClellan, said the administration would wait until after session to talk about active bills. Mizuno also declined to comment.McClellan said that HomeAId’s kauhale projects are routinely reviewed for compliance by the state Attorney General’s Office. How To Make The Program More Effective The rift over the two-bid requirement reflects a difference of opinion between the former and current coordinators in charge of overseeing Green’s Statewide Office on Homelessness and Housing Solutions. The overall philosophy, which isn’t disputed, is that it’s better for people and less expensive for the state to create tiny home villages with support services than to provide services to people on the street. The dispute involves how to get there.Mizuno, a longtime former lawmaker whom Green appointed to the position in December 2023, testified in February in favor of requiring two bids to build kauhale. Evslin’s housing committee amended the bill to incorporate the request.Diesel fuel and equipment to provide electricity cost $21,032 just for April — which came out to more than $1,000 a month per tiny home — according to invoices from Sunbelt Rentals examined by Civil Beat. In contrast, the average monthly bill for a full-sized residential home on Oahu is $202, according to Hawaiian Electric Co.During a tour of several properties Mizuno showed that monthly cost for another kauhale, located in a converted residential home, was just over $1,300 per bed.Generally a staunch advocate of Green’s initiative, Mizuno said he was “very concerned with off-grid kauhale.” At the time, Green said the off-grid kauhale were merely a bridge to get people off the street and into homes.By month’s end, Mizuno had stepped down from the top post to be Green’s special advisor on homelessness, replaced by Yang, who previously had been homelessness coordinator for the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation.Less than a month later, on March 12, Yang requested that lawmakers remove the two-bid requirement for kauhale construction contracts during testimony in a joint hearing of the Senate committees on Health and Human Services and Housing.Echoing Department of Human Services testimony, Yang said he was “concerned that the two-bid minimum may delay project development in certain communities if only one bid is received.” Documents Show Irregularities Those records included invoices and supporting documents typical of large construction projects and final reports required by the contracts. The request initially focused on the Middle Street and Iwilei kauhale.The department’s first response to the request two weeks later didn’t include documents detailing expenditures. Instead, the department just provided copies of the contracts themselves.The agency eventually scanned and turned over copies of invoices and supporting documents for most of the kauhale projects on April 11. It provided extensive documentation for the Middle Street project’s first phase.But there were notable irregularities concerning other projects.For example, HomeAid was granted a contract in June to provide 273 tiny home units at a cost of $5.8 million. Payment was supposed to be made in four installments between June and September, with invoices and documents accompanying each installment.Instead, HomeAid sent one invoice in August, covering $174,000 worth of work, and another in October for $5.6 million. The majority of those funds went to the broad category of “Consulting and Non Employee Expense.” There’s no breakdown of what that entailed.“I believe we’re still working through the process,” Campos said of the project. “I believe we’re only halfway through on that one.”Despite the lack of publicly available accounting on some of these contracts, the department was looking at what the payments were for. Carvalho said his team and state officials meet weekly to review expenses on projects.Yang was the subject matter expert on the kauhale initiative, Campos said, which is why he was deeply involved in reviewing invoices.In one instance, Carvalho emailed Yang on Sept. 13 to check on reimbursements for money spent on kauhale in Kahului and Iwilei, as well as other projects in Kāneʻohe and Kalihi.“Would you mind helping me to track these down?” Carvalho wrote.Yang replied a few hours later, telling Carvalho to have staff prepare payment request forms. Yang even checked in with Campos’ secretary, asking her to forward other invoices for payment.He asked Carvalho to send a coversheet and a payment form for HomeAid’s 43-unit kauhale in Iwilei.“We will process the check for $2.5 million,” Yang wrote.HomeAid sent the state an invoice a week later. HomeAid’s Iwilei contract requires it to provide an itemization of expenses, timesheets or receipts. But there are no supporting documents to show how HomeAid spent the money on the Iwilei kauhale.Instead, there is merely a description in the invoice summarizing work performed, including erosion control, installation of a dust fence and barriers, construction and environmental services and site work. None of these costs are itemized, and there’s no accounting for what was paid to various subcontractors.Campos explained that those were upfront costs that wouldn’t necessarily be accounted for at this stage. Once projects like the Iwilei kauhale are completed, Campos said the public would be able to review the audits on those projects’ costs.Carvalho acknowledged that HomeAid is behind on providing invoices for the Iwilei project.“It doesn’t mean that the state’s not aware of what is being billed every month,” he said. “There’s still at least some accountability along the way.”The state also couldn’t provide documents concerning two newer projects. HomeAid was given a $6.7 million contract in November to complete the second phase of a kauhale on Middle Street. It called for up to 30 housing units, in addition to the 20 already at the site.In December, HomeAid was given a $7.9 million contract for a kauhale project in Kahului.Both contracts called for $1 million to be paid to HomeAid up front. HomeAid was required to account for those expenses, according to the contracts. The contracts also say that subsequent payments would be made in monthly installments after submission of invoices and supporting documentation.Asked about the status of those projects and records detailing spending, Carvalho said that work has just recently begun on both of those projects.“There hasn’t been a lot of work to spend on,” he said. ‘Where Is The Accountability?’ Lawmakers have also had a hard time getting details about HomeAid’s work on other housing projects.Rep. Elle Cochran, who represents Lahaina, has asked DHS for documentation concerning construction of Ka La’i Ola, a village of temporary homes for fire survivors in her district. The project cost $185 million, or $411,000 per home, including massive infrastructure improvements for the land, which will later be used by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. The project opened in January.Cochran said she asked for documentation called for by DHS’s construction contract with HomeAid, including interim reports and a final accounting for the project. Emails from Campos to Cochran show the agency is still working on her request.Regardless of the emergency proclamation suspending the procurement law, Cochran said it’s fair to ask for an accounting now that Ka La’i Ola has been built.“If this type of money has been expended and given, then where is the breakdown? Where is the proof? Where is the receipt?” she asked. “Where is the accountability?”This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Bill would stop Texas oil drillers from secretly burying toxic waste on private property

House Bill 4572 would introduce new requirements for pits where drillers bury oil and gas waste.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. This story is published in partnership with Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. A bill in the Texas Legislature would require oil and gas drillers to notify landowners before burying toxic waste on their property. In addition, House Bill 4572 would strengthen other regulations for reserve pits, where oil and gas companies permanently bury waste next to drilling sites. The Texas House Energy Resources Committee heard testimony on the bill Monday. The bill builds on rulemaking the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the oil and gas industry, completed late last year to update the state’s oilfield waste regulations. State Rep. Penny Morales Shaw, who filed the bill, said it would introduce “safeguards” for the state’s groundwater and property owners. Landowners, advocates and an oilfield waste professional spoke in favor of the bill this week at the Capitol. A representative of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association spoke in opposition to the bill. “Ranch owners can pour their life savings into their dream homestead, only later to find out that they bought a toxic waste reserve,” said Morales Shaw, a Democrat who represents parts of Houston and northern Harris County. “This bill will afford landowners the opportunity to make an informed decision and to know when their interests are at risk.” The waste streams from the oil and gas industry have evolved since the widespread adoption of fracking. Oil-based muds and lubricants are now used to frack wells. Waste from wells can be laced with carcinogens including benzene and arsenic. The bill is now pending in the Energy Resources Committee and faces several hurdles to passage by the full House, if it is voted out of committee. A companion bill, Senate Bill 3017, was introduced by state Sen. José Menéndez, a Democrat from San Antonio. The Senate bill has not yet received a hearing. The clock is ticking to June 2, the last day of the Texas legislative session. Morales Shaw said she has spoken with all the committee members about the importance of the bill and the “compelling testimony from lifelong industry members.” Bill seeks “balanced” approach to waste pits HB 4572 proposes new regulations for reserve pits, also referred to as Schedule A pits by the Railroad Commission. These earthen disposal pits are dug next to drilling rigs and are filled with oily waste, including mud and cuttings from the well. The pit is left open while the well is drilled. The waste is permanently buried underground once the well is complete. The bill would require the Railroad Commission to adopt standards for where reserve pits can be located and establish bonding and groundwater monitoring rules. The bill would also require standards for “providing notice to and receiving permission from” a landowner to permanently bury waste. Morales Shaw told the committee the bill “empowers landowners with the information and consent they deserve before toxic waste is buried beneath their property.” She referenced hundreds of violations of water protection rules the Railroad Commission has issued at waste pits. She also circulated photos of pollution caused by reserve pits and cows wading through drilling mud in a pit. State Rep. R.D. “Bobby” Guerra, a Democrat from McAllen, called the images “appalling.” “I have a ranch,” he said. “And I would be, excuse the expression, pissed off if I saw this kind of stuff going on on my place.” “It’s full of chemicals and lubricants and fluids and different emulsifiers and whatnot,” said state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, a Democrat from northern Harris County. “It’s poison, it smells bad and it’s probably not good for cows.” Texas revamped its oilfield waste rules last year for the first time since the 1980s. The updated rule on reserve pits, which goes into effect July 1, will require companies to register the location of these pits for the first time. The updated rule only requires reserve pits to be lined when groundwater is within 50 feet of the bottom of the pit. There is no groundwater monitoring required. Hundreds of people submitted public comments about reserve pits during the rule-making, many of them asking the Railroad Commission to require landowner notification. However, the Railroad Commission did not include a landowner notification requirement in the final rule. At the time, Commissioner Jim Wright’s spokesperson told Inside Climate News that it would be “up to the Texas Legislature” to determine how and whether landowners should be notified of pits on their property. Wright’s staff did not immediately comment on HB 4572. Morales Shaw said the existing rule does not go far enough. “It has been 40 years since these waste pits have been permitted, and they are just now trying to figure out where they all are,” she said. “The Railroad Commission’s rules do not take meaningful and necessary steps to protect land, water supply, and livelihoods of landowners.” Landowners speak in support Public comments, both delivered in person and submitted in writing, largely supported the bill. Comal County landowner Mark Friesenhahn, who spent his career in the oil and gas industry, said over time reserve pits have become larger and more toxic chemicals and additives have been used in drilling muds. Friesenhahn, who spoke in favor of the bill, said existing practices are “no longer practical given the toxicity and contamination concerns.” Laura Briggs, whose family ranch is in Pecos County in the Permian Basin, submitted written comments. She wrote that where waste pits have been dug on their property, “the land is dead ground that caves in, and belches half-buried black plastic.” “Landowner consent does not have to be burdensome to be effective,” she wrote. Commission Shift Action, the advocacy partner of the nonprofit organization Commission Shift, is also in support of the bill. Policy manager Julie Range said in an interview that expecting companies to be good stewards isn’t enough. “If we want best practices to be followed we should put them into our statutes,” she said. The sole public comment in opposition to the bill was registered by Michael Lozano on behalf of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association. Referencing the recent rulemaking at the Railroad Commission, he recommended lawmakers wait for the updated rule to be rolled out July 1 before passing legislation regarding waste pits. “What we’d like to see is how these new environmental protections … interact and engage with this,” he said. Lozano said the cases pointed out during the hearing were examples of companies breaking the existing rules. “Clearly there are problems that are happening,” he said. “I don’t think they’re indicative of every circumstance of these pits being built.” The committee adjourned without voting on the bill. Disclosure: The Permian Basin Petroleum Association has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Tickets are on sale now for the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas’ breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Get tickets before May 1 and save big! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

RFK Jr. Says There Are No Autistic Poets. We Asked an Autistic Poet.

To Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—and contrary to medical consensus and decades of study—autism is an appalling, family-destroying “disease.” To pediatric psychiatrists and autism experts like Vanderbilt University’s Zachary Warren, speaking Wednesday to National Public Radio, autism “isn’t a single thing; it is a word we use in an attempt to […]

To Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—and contrary to medical consensus and decades of study—autism is an appalling, family-destroying “disease.” To pediatric psychiatrists and autism experts like Vanderbilt University’s Zachary Warren, speaking Wednesday to National Public Radio, autism “isn’t a single thing; it is a word we use in an attempt to capture a spectrum of behavioral strengths, differences, and vulnerabilities.” During a startling recent press conference in which Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to establish the “cause” of autism by September, the HHS secretary sparked further outrage—by, as my colleague Anna Merlan reported yesterday, saying the following: “These are kids who will never pay taxes,” Kennedy declared. “They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted. We have to recognize we are doing this to our children.”  Kennedy’s years of anti-vaccine activism have centered in large part on autism, framing it as a “preventable disease” and epidemic driven by environmental contaminants. A lawyer by training, with no medical background beyond freelance taxidermy, Kennedy has consistently peddled misinformation about autism and autistic people, presenting the condition as a vaccine-driven scourge. Increasingly, Kennedy has papered over some of the most problematic elements of his crusade—and licensed himself to ignore opposition and criticism from autistic people—by insisting that he’s referring to “profound” autism, or autism with high support needs. It’s a distinction that he’s happy to deploy when it serves his case and to gloss over when promising to end autism once and for all; and, by definition, it excludes his autistic critics from the conversation. A crucial slogan of the disability rights movement is “Nothing about us without us”—so it seemed appropriate to get the reaction of an autistic poet. I spoke with Elizabeth McClellan, an award-winning poet, attorney, and legal educator based in Memphis, Tennessee. Could you tell me about yourself and your work as a poet? I have been publishing poetry professionally since 2009, on and off. I primarily do genre poetry, which is poetry that falls sort of in the speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, [and] horror spaces. I have a book of horror poetry that will be coming soon from Kith Books that’s found poetry from Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart Is a Chainsaw. Poetry doesn’t generally pay for itself, most poets are not just poets. That’s why I supplement it with my work as an attorney. So you’re living evidence that someone can be both autistic and a poet. I am not only living evidence that someone can be autistic and a poet, I will challenge RFK Jr. to write a poem as good as me any day of the week, because I don’t think he can do it. “He’s trying to eradicate support, especially with education, that could help people live the kind of lives where they do get to write poetry.” What was your reaction to Kennedy saying that an increase in autism diagnoses is bad in part because autistic people can’t “write a poem”—not that there’s anything wrong in more people getting diagnosed. It’s completely dehumanizing. He didn’t lead with poet. He led with they’ll never pay taxes, they’ll never have a job. It’s just “useless eaters” rhetoric. And then he fluffs it up with, they’re they’ll never have a poem. They’ll never play baseball. Some people won’t, some people have higher support needs. They are still people. They have a right to live and a right to dignity. And that’s not what he wants for us. He is using the straight-up eugenicist playbook. People who can’t go to the toilet by themselves are still people. People who can’t write a poem are still people. I doubt [RFK Jr.] can write a poem, but he’s still a person. You can’t eradicate autism without eradicating autistic people. It’s genocidal rhetoric against us that’s justified by “autism destroys families. It destroys children.” No, it doesn’t. It’s bias against autistic people. He is taking an axe to the Department of Health and Human Services, [which] means that a lot of autistic people are not going to have the support that they need to thrive and survive. Now, I’ve had support to thrive and survive. I don’t need a whole lot of support to do what I do, but I need it, and I probably would have had a less miserable childhood if the diagnosis were more available. [RFK Jr.] falls into using language like Asperger’s, which, of course, was the distinction that was used to decide who would die and who would work under the Nazis. “What does he do? He chainsaws the heads off dead whales and leaves bear cubs in Central Park.” There are many autistic poets. There’s already a call for a special issue of poetry by autistic poets that will pay the poets just to do an autistic resistance. There are poets writing short poems just to help all of us recover from this person with a great deal of power saying our lives are worth nothing. He’s trying to eradicate support, especially with education, that could help people live the kind of lives where they do get to write poetry. With poetry, you have to be creative. RFK Jr’s hatred towards autistic people seems to be the opposite of that. He’s the antithesis of creativity. I’ve never seen his book of collected poems. Who are you to tell us that we can’t write poetry? When you don’t write poetry, that’s not a thing that you do. You’re not a poet. You don’t get to tell us who gets to be poets. I know so many autistic poets. I know so many poets with various kinds of neurodivergence and that adds to the way that we see the world in our unique way, and that adds to our unique voice as poets. Allistic people can write poetry too, but we have a different way of seeing the world, and that inspired some of us to take up this particular art form. Others of us paint. What does he do? He chainsaws the heads off dead whales and leaves bear cubs in Central Park. And I don’t think it’s performance art. I think it’s just that he’s creepy. What has he ever really done, other than have a last name? What this is all really about is capitalism. “Oh, they’ll never go to the toilet by themselves. That’s a miserable existence.” Plenty of people need assistance going to the bathroom—whose lives are rich and full, who will write poems, who will paint pictures, who will do things, and he doesn’t actually care whether we’re creative or not. He doesn’t actually care whether we’re writing poetry or not. It’s just the same old rhetoric over and over again that we get from eugenicists This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

NASA Rover Finds Fresh Evidence of the Warm and Wet Past of Mars

By Will DunhamWASHINGTON (Reuters) -A mineral called siderite found abundantly in rock drilled by a NASA rover on the surface of Mars is providing...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A mineral called siderite found abundantly in rock drilled by a NASA rover on the surface of Mars is providing fresh evidence of the planet's warmer and wetter ancient past when it boasted substantial bodies of water and potentially harbored life.The Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012 to explore whether Earth's planetary neighbor was ever able to support microbial life, found the mineral in rock samples drilled at three locations in 2022 and 2023 inside Gale crater, a large impact basin with a mountain in the middle.Siderite is an iron carbonate mineral. Its presence in sedimentary rocks formed billions of years ago offers evidence that Mars once had a dense atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide, a gas that would have warmed the planet through the greenhouse effect to the point that it could sustain bodies of liquid water on its surface.There are features on the Martian landscape that many scientists have interpreted as signs that liquid water once flowed across its surface, with potential oceans, lakes and rivers considered as possible habitats for past microbial life.Carbon dioxide is the main climate-regulating greenhouse gas on Earth, as it is on Mars and Venus. Its presence in the atmosphere traps heat from the sun, warming the climate.Until now, evidence indicating the Martian atmosphere previously was rich in carbon dioxide has been sparse. The hypothesis is that when the atmosphere - for reasons not fully understood - evolved from thick and rich in carbon dioxide to thin and starved of this gas, the carbon through geochemical processes became entombed in rocks in the planet's crust as a carbonate mineral.The samples obtained by Curiosity, which drills 1.2 to 1.6 inches (3-4 centimeters) down into rock to study its chemical and mineral composition, lend weight to this notion. The samples contained up to 10.5% siderite by weight, as determined by an instrument onboard the car-sized, six-wheeled rover."One of the longstanding mysteries in the study of Martian planetary evolution and habitability is: if large amounts of carbon dioxide were required to warm the planet and stabilize liquid water, why are there so few detections of carbonate minerals on the Martian surface?" said University of Calgary geochemist Benjamin Tutolo, a participating scientist on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover team and lead author of the study published on Thursday in the journal Science."Models predict that carbonate minerals should be widespread. But, to date, rover-based investigations and satellite-based orbital surveys of the Martian surface had found little evidence of their presence," Tutolo added.Because rock similar to that sampled by the rover has been identified globally on Mars, the researchers suspect it too contains an abundance of carbonate minerals and may hold a substantial portion of the carbon dioxide that once warmed Mars.The Gale crater sedimentary rocks - sandstones and mudstones - are thought to have been deposited around 3.5 billion years ago, when this was the site of a lake and before the Martian climate underwent a dramatic change."The shift of Mars' surface from more habitable in the past, to apparently sterile today, is the largest-known environmental catastrophe," said planetary scientist and study co-author Edwin Kite of the University of Chicago and Astera Institute."We do not know the cause of this change, but Mars has a very thin carbon dioxide atmosphere today, and there is evidence that the atmosphere was thicker in the past. This puts a premium on understanding where the carbon went, so discovering a major unsuspected deposit of carbon-rich materials is an important new clue," Kite added.The rover's findings offer insight into the carbon cycle on ancient Mars.On Earth, volcanoes spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the gas is absorbed by surface waters - mainly the ocean - and combines with elements such as calcium to form limestone rock. Through the geological process called plate tectonics, this rock is reheated and the carbon is ultimately released again into the atmosphere through volcanism. Mars, however, lacks plate tectonics."The important feature of the ancient Martian carbon cycle that we outline in this study is that it was imbalanced. In other words, substantially more carbon dioxide seems to have been sequestered into the rocks than was subsequently released back into the atmosphere," Tutolo said."Models of Martian climate evolution can now incorporate our new analyses, and in turn, help to refine the role of this imbalanced carbon cycle in maintaining, and ultimately losing, habitability over Mars' planetary history," Tutolo added.(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

No Results today.

Our news is updated constantly with the latest environmental stories from around the world. Reset or change your filters to find the most active current topics.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future

Our team is always growing.
Become a partner, volunteer, sponsor, or intern today.
Let us know how you would like to get involved!

CONTACT US

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Subscribers receive a free day pass for streaming Cinema Verde.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.