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New data shows just how bad the climate insurance crisis has become

Two Congressional reports make clear that, with increasingly frequent hurricanes, floods and fires, "the model of insurance as it stands right now isn't working."

Five hurricanes made landfall in the United States this year, causing half a trillion dollars in damages. Flooding devastated mountain towns along the East Coast. Scores of wildfires burned almost 8 million acres nationwide. As such events grow more common, and more devastating, homeowners are seeing their insurance premiums spike — or insurers ditch them all together.  An analysis released Wednesday by the Senate Committee on the Budget found that the rate at which insurance contracts are being dropped rose significantly in recent years, particularly in states most exposed to climate risks. In all, 1.9 million policies were not renewed. “Climate change is no longer just an environmental problem,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, who chairs the budget committee, said at a hearing on the matter Wednesday. “It is an economic threat, and it is an affordability issue that we should not ignore.” For those with insurance, premiums rose 44 percent between 2011 and 2021, and another 11 percent last year, according to a report the congressional Joint Economic Committee also released this week. A Democratic analyst on the Joint Economic Committee, or JEC, who requested anonymity to comment publicly, said, “The model of insurance as it stands right now isn’t working.” Clayton Aldern / Grist The JEC report included a state-by-state breakdown of premium increases and risk ranking based on climate perils. Florida topped the list on both fronts, and saw a whopping $1,272 climb in annual premiums between 2020 and 2023. Michigan saw the smallest increase at $136. No state saw a decrease over that time.  “This isn’t a red or blue state issue,” said the analyst. “It’s widely applicable across the nation.”  Florida also topped the list when it comes to the number of non-renewals, according to the Senate committee report that examined state and county level data. The rate nearly tripled between 2018 and 2023. Nationwide, in 2023, 48 of the top 50 counties — and 82 of the top 100 counties — with the highest rates of non-renewal were either flood-prone, faced elevated wildfire risk, or both. Climate-exacerbated disasters can batter insurance markets because those events create massive financial liabilities for insurance providers, and the companies, called re-insurers, that underwrite them. “Ultimately, all those groups are raising their prices and it’s the homeowners who have to pay in the end,” said Phillip Mulder, an economist and expert on risk and insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business. He was a co-author of the state-level dataset that helped underpin the JEC’s work. Not everyone at the Senate hearing agreed on the role climate change plays in insurance markets.  “The insurance industry is not in the midst of a climate-driven crisis, nor is it about to fall,” Robert Hartwig, an economist and associate professor at the University of South Carolina, told lawmakers. “Climate risk is an important determinant in the cost of insurance, but there has been a tendency, however, to over attribute the impact of climate change when describing the state of insurance markets.” What is clear is that costly natural disasters are becoming more frequent, with the average time between billion-dollar events dropping from four months in 1980 to approximately three weeks today. As those risks grow, some insurers are pulling out states entirely. For example, State Farm and Allstate have left California, and dozens of smaller companies have collapsed or fled Florida and Louisiana.  When that happens, homeowners must turn to government-backed insurers of last resort, which are available in just 26 states and typically cost more than private coverage. Enrollment in those state-run plans have skyrocketed, the JEC report notes, and they now cover more than $1 trillion in assets.  “It all falls on the states,” Rob Moore, director of the Water & Climate Team at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of the current regulatory set up. “The federal government has very little role to play on the insurance market.” The JEC report outlines a number of steps Congress could take to give itself a greater role in addressing the problem. For example, it highlights the need for more data collection through initiatives like the Wildfire Insurance Coverage Study Act to better understand the problem. It also points to the proposed Shelter Act, which would provide homeowners with a tax credit covering 25 percent of disaster mitigation improvements that bolster their property’s resilience, reduce the risk of catastrophic damage, and, consequently, lower their premiums.  Moore agreed that adapting old homes, and future-proofing new ones, will be key to righting insurance markets. “The real long term problem is we’re trying to ensure structures that were never built for the risks and vulnerabilities that they now face,” he said. “If you want an insurable structure 30 years from now, we have to build it today.” Another shift the report mentions is the possibility of the federal government becoming a re-insurer that backstops climate-stressed insurance markets, something the proposed INSURE Act calls for. France, Japan, and New Zealand have such programs, and the report argues that such a move in the U.S. “could simplify a complicated insurance sector and transfer risks associated with catastrophes to the Federal government.” For now, though, none of those initiatives have progressed in Congress and all of them are sponsored by Democrats. With Republicans taking control of the House, Senate, and presidency, it remains unclear whether the bills have much of a future.  “That’s a question everyone’s thinking about,” the committee analyst said, noting that taking a dollars-and-cents approach could make the issue resonate across the political spectrum. “Wildfires are raging and we’re seeing more and more flooding. This issue isn’t going away.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline New data shows just how bad the climate insurance crisis has become on Dec 19, 2024.

Climate
Crisis
Government

Indigenous people defending their land face a disproportionate share of violence and threats

Corporations must be accountable for attacks that advance their business interests, researchers say.

In the first-ever global study of its kind, researchers concluded that more attention needs to be paid to physical attacks and threats against land defenders, since those incidents often are the precursor to death.  Last year, a human rights and environmental watchdog group determined that 177 land defenders were killed in 2022. Land defenders are people who seek to protect their communities and environmental resources from destructive development projects ranging from pipelines to mines to farms to wind projects.  This month, however, the Alliance for Land, Indigenous, and Environmental Defenders, or ALLIED, found that there were 916 non-lethal incidents in 46 countries in 2022 — or about five for every death. Non-lethal incidents range from written and verbal threats to kidnapping or detention to physical assaults. The probable perpetrators identified by ALLIED include paramilitary forces, police, local government officials, private security guards, and corporations.  “While police was the commonly named probable perpetrator of the violence, often we see state actors operating on behalf or at the request of other parties, including private businesses,” said Eva Hershaw, who co-chairs ALLIED as part of her work with the International Land Coalition, where she heads their global data and land monitoring. ALLIED drew on news outlets, social media posts, eyewitness interviews, court filings, and police reports to make its conclusions. The group’s researchers consulted data sets from 12 organizations and talked with affected communities in these countries to assure accuracy. Roughly a third of the organizations that ALLIED worked with used locally based data collectors who confirmed acts of violence with municipalities. For many of these data collectors, this was the first time their data has been used in a global study, Hershaw said.  Of the 916 incidents that didn’t lead to death, nearly a quarter of the victims were Indigenous, despite the fact that Indigenous people make up only 6 percent of the global population. With respect to the assaults and threats that often lead up to killings, “Indigenous Peoples were disproportionately targeted with such violence,” Hershaw said.  Violent attacks and threats against Indigenous land defenders are often underreported due to victims’ fear of retaliation. Also, attacks often happen in rural places away from the eye of the media. The report detailed repeated violence and harassment against individuals as well as whole communities.  Among the most violent places for Indigenous land defenders were Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, which together accounted for 75 percent of all attacks and threats. Across the 46 countries included in the report, land defenders who spoke out against industrial agriculture and mining were the most at risk.  Read Next Nearly 200 people were killed last year protecting the environment Taylar Dawn Stagner Philippe Le Billon, a professor at the University of British Columbia who focuses on natural resources and armed conflicts, said this data is important for preventing further violence and should be utilized to develop transparency that doesn’t exist in a lot of places. “Early warning mechanisms need to be developed using this data,” he told Grist. He said companies need to hold themselves accountable to the communities in which they operate and develop procedures to address conflicts when they arise. Risk factors for violent incidents included vague and undefined land rights in a particular nation. When private businesses or infrastructure developments are already present in a community, that can increase the risk as well. Around 40 percent of violent incidents happened while the victims were actively protesting development projects that threatened their land or communities.  Another risk factor is what the report calls weak rule of law. “Weak rule of law indicates that laws are not properly or equally enforced,” said Hershaw, meaning that laws that were supposed to protect Indigenous land defenders did not lessen the threats. Verbal and written threats were the biggest act of violence documented in the report, comprising 33 percent of all non-lethal incidents. Arbitrary detentions — the act of detaining someone without evidence or without following legal due process — made up 10 percent of the incidents.  According to the report, around 30 percent of all non-lethal incidents in 2022 targeted not individuals but entire Indigenous communities. For instance, the Tumandok, an Indigenous people living in the mountains of the Philippines, have a long history of conflict with various development projects. In 2018, six tribal members were killed, then a steady stream of violence and killings led up to the forced removal of Tumandok people to make way for a hydroelectric dam. The Philippine government is courting projects in the mining sector as well, and other tribal communities across the country have decried the government’s disregard for Indigenous rights.  As mining operations increase worldwide in the service of the energy transition, Indigenous people are at greater risk of potential violence. The report recommends that national governments better document attacks and create stronger legal protections for vulnerable communities. ALLIED also says corporations need to be held accountable for violence and threats that advance their business interests.  Hershaw gave one example of what accountability could look like: This year, Hudbay Minerals settled three lawsuits filed a decade ago by the Q’eqchi’, an Indigenous Mayan group in Guatemala. The Q’eqchi’ alleged that the Canadian-owned company was responsible for the sexual assaults of nearly a dozen women and the killing of a community leader during a land rights dispute. The Q’eqchi’ were compensated for an undisclosed amount.  Le Billon said that pursuing compensation for the loss of loved ones and land is incredibly difficult for tribal communities. “Court cases are hard to put together,” he said. “You need lawyers. It costs money.” Le Billon said information and documentation, like the data ALLIED uncovered, is hard to get and it takes a lot of time to collect, creating another barrier for environmental land protectors seeking justice. “These things can last decades, literally.”  At COP30, the United Nations climate change conference slated to take place next year in Brazil, ALLIED plans to release data on non-lethal attacks in 2023 and 2024.   This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Indigenous people defending their land face a disproportionate share of violence and threats on Dec 19, 2024.

Business
Indigenous
Climate

Albanese government approves four coalmine expansions as Greens condemn ‘despicable’ move

Tanya Plibersek says projects in NSW and Queensland produce coal for making essential steel as critics say move ‘opposite of climate action’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe Albanese government has approved the expansion of four coalmines that climate campaigners estimate will release more than 850m tonnes of CO2 over their lifetime – equivalent to almost double Australia’s annual emissions.The four mines will target mostly coal to be used for steelmaking with some thermal coal for burning in power stations.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

The Albanese government has approved the expansion of four coalmines that climate campaigners estimate will release more than 850 million tonnes of CO2 over their lifetime – equivalent to almost double Australia’s annual emissions.The four mines will target mostly coal to be used for steel making with some thermal coal for burning in power stations.The approvals have angered climate and environment groups, including groups in the Pacific, who said the expansions would put people at increased risk from extreme weather events and undermined the country’s case to host international climate talks in 2026.The office of the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the four projects approved were the Boggabri coalmine in New South Wales and, in Queensland, the Caval Ridge Horse Pit, the Lake Vermont Meadowbrook coalmine and the Vulcan South coalmine.Plibersek attempted to downplay the decisions, saying the projects were “all extensions of existing operations” and were producing coal for making steel that was essential for “homes, bridges, trains, wind farms, and solar panels”.“There are currently no feasible renewable alternatives for making steel,” she said.She said the projects would support up to 3,000 jobs and had to comply with Australia’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.The government had issued “240 strict conditions across the projects to ensure the environment is protected,” she said.The projects would be assessed under the government’s revised safeguard mechanism, which only accounts for emissions generated in Australia.The bulk of the emissions caused by the projects come when the coal is burned overseas, and is therefore not counted under Australia’s climate commitments.Plibersek said she had “ticked off a record 68 renewable energy projects” and “no new coalmines” this year. In September, Plibersek approved three coalmine extensions and approved a new coalmine in 2023.Greens leader Adam Bandt said the approvals were “despicable”.Greens environment spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, said Labor had “given coal for Christmas” and that approving mines that threatened koala habitat and worsened the climate crisis “should be illegal”.Joseph Sikulu, of the Pacific arm of campaign group 350.org, said: “Australia’s commitment to climate destruction makes a mockery of the ‘family’ they claim to call the Pacific.”The approvals would emit 7.5 times more carbon the Pacific nations produced in a single year, he said.The Australian government is bidding to co-host the United Nation’s climate talks in 2026 – known as COP31 – but Sikulu said to be “true hosts” Australia must “get off this dangerous trajectory”.“They can’t cover up the wound they are creating with adaptation finance or diplomatic pandering, no matter how hard they try,” he said.Gavan McFadzean, climate program manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said approving coal projects was “the opposite of climate action” and was “undermining Australia’s emissions targets and our claims to be a good global citizen and a good neighbour to Pacific nations.”He said Jellinbah’s Lake Vermont project in the Bowen Basin threatened the habitat of koalas, greater gliders and ornamental snakes that were all endangered species.BHP Mitsubishi’s Caval Ridge project threatened endangered habitats, and Idemitsu’s Boggabri project, which will also target thermal coal, threatened habitat of the regnet honeyeater songbird, he said, as well as microbats.“Coal is fuelling the climate crisis, making bushfires, heatwaves and floods more frequent and more intense,” he said.“These coalmine approvals will have consequences for Australians who are forced to live with the reality of a damaged climate.”Carmel Flint, national coordinator at Lock the Gate, said the approvals “will not only damage land, water and nature but will also put all Australians at risk of more extreme weather caused by climate change”.She said the government had failed to legislate promised reforms to national environment laws.“They’ve failed us all, in order to smooth the path for mining giants, and the real world consequences for all Australians could not be more severe,” she said.In October, the ABC reported that clearing had started at Vulcan South, including of koala habitat, before the federal environmental approvals had been granted.Dr Claire Gronow, of Lock the Gate in Queensland, said: “Any last residue of hope that we had in the Albanese Government to do the right thing for the environment and endangered species like the koala has vanished with this outrageous coalmine approval.”

Government
Climate
Crisis

Bay Nature Staff Picks of 2024

Butterflies fed with Q-tips, Hollywood moments on the trail, bird battles, beetles, and the Bay Naturiest story of 2024. (It was a competitive field.) The post Bay Nature Staff Picks of 2024 appeared first on Bay Nature.

Here, I present results from our highly unscientific poll of our ten staff members on the Bay Nature stories, talks, hikes, and fun facts from 2024 that most delighted us, changed our views of the world, or just stuck with us.Feel free to send yours: letters@baynature.org. —Kate Golden, digital editor Best Quest For this great insect schlep, scientists fed butterflies with Q-tips dipped in Fruit Punch-flavored Gatorade. Cutest Baby Animals To be specific, they are the cutest baby animals that are also a great starry-armed hope for our coasts. Least Anthropocentric Often we write about ecological restoration. Rarely from a turtle’s point of view. This one wended five miles over two months, on two-inch legs, up Redwood Creek.  Best Longread “One of Kimberly Stevenot’s responsibilities as a kid was to hang out by the side of the road and look for park rangers—or anyone else who looked like they might be trouble,” H.R. Smith begins, in a story about the making and the meaning of Dos Rios, the newest California state park. Best NBD Chat with a Superstar Author Amy Tan drove through a storm to join this conversation with our editor-in-chief! VIDEO Best Education Story Our kind of education story, that is. Most Likely to Inspire a Cold Plunge  Sachi Cunningham, a surfer and filmmaker, writes about what the ocean has meant in her own life. Wildest Dial-In Guest to a Bay Nature Talk Guest Amanda Spears joined our talk on the Farallones from the Farallones. (So did some birds, in cameo appearances.) VIDEO Most Game-Changing New Technology Best Private Sunset Hike In August, we experienced an epic sunset in the golden hills of McCormick Ranch, a special North Bay spot that isn’t generally open to the public. Most Dense With Fun Facts We love a long read here at BN, but we also live for fun facts, which are easier to dish out at parties. Best Talk about the Birds and the Bees (and Yet on Neither Bird Nor Bee) Janet Leonard’s talk on banana slug sex in September was very, very informative. VIDEO Most Fearsome Bird Battle  One could also call this a battle of birds vs. biologists. Best Headline Most Sobering Yet Mind-Blowing Introduction to a Species We’ll Never Meet “For each crayfish is a universe unto itself, a host of tiny passengers.” Most Sow’s Ear Into Silk Purse Sediment may not seem scintillating, on the surface, but Sonya Bennett-Brandt will make you care about mud. We must have it, to cement the future of the San Francisco Bay. The Climate Change Story That Got to Us Climate change touches most of our work, yet some stories hit more than others. Why this one? Maybe it was that bats are adorable and fragile-seeming, maybe that people went to such lengths to help them. Most Promising Wad of Cash for Environmental Projects As our next president has promised to axe environmental priorities, conservationists are counting their blessings that California’s voters decided to fund climate adaptation in a big way. Best Reader-Submitted Photography We are lucky to have a community of photographers, professional and amateur, who send us their unusual observations. In March, Dan Osipov beautifully captured an insect that is so rarely photographed, in fact, that federal officials contacted us about using the photos. Most Bay Nature-y News Our thanks to Eric Sanford, the UC Davis prof whose student made this momentous discovery, for the tip. Send your stories: editorial@baynature.org. Finally, a few more moments from the trail … Hardiest Hikers On an unexpectedly blustery day in June, Bay Nature members proved to be hardy sorts who braved the elements to see some coyote brush leaf beetles. Most Hollywood Moment on the Trail At Coyote Ridge in April, just when scientist Stu Weiss was explaining how grazing could control non-native grasses to help native species, a rancher-conservationist showed up … almost as if they had planned it. Best Bioblitz In November we unleashed our inner children at Ocean Beach, digging in the sand to find its treasures. Note to selves: In 2025, more of this. Mole crab (Emerita analoga), with humans.

Nature
Animals
Conservation

After Victory Over Florida in Water War, Georgia Will Let Farmers Drill New Irrigation Wells

For more than a decade, farmers in parts of southwest Georgia haven’t been able to drill new irrigation wells to the Floridian aquifer

ATLANTA (AP) — Jason Cox, who grows peanuts and cotton in southwest Georgia, says farming would be economically impossible without water to irrigate his crops.“I'd be out of business,” said Cox, who farms 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares) acres around Pelham.For more than a decade, farmers in parts of southwest Georgia haven't been able to drill new irrigation wells to the Floridian aquifer, the groundwater nearest the surface. That's because Georgia put a halt to farmers drilling wells or taking additional water from streams and lakes in 2012. Farmers like Cox, though, will get a chance to drill new wells beginning in April. Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday that Georgia's Environmental Protection Division will begin accepting applications for new agricultural wells in areas along the lower Flint River starting April 1. Jeff Cown, the division's director, said in a statement that things have changed since 2012. The moratorium was imposed amid a parching drought and the collapse of the once-prolific oyster fishery in Florida's Apalachicola Bay. The state of Florida sued in 2013, arguing that Georgia's overuse of water from the Flint was causing negative impacts downstream where the Flint and Chattahoochee River join to become the Apalachicola River. But a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 rejected the lawsuit, saying Florida hadn't proved its case that water use by Flint River farmers was at fault.That was one lawsuit in decades of sprawling litigation that mostly focused on fear that Atlanta’s ever-growing population would suck up all the upstream water and leave little for uses downstream. The suits include the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint system and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa system, which flows out of Georgia to drain much of Alabama. Georgia also won victories guaranteeing that metro Atlanta had rights to water from the Chattahoochee River's Lake Lanier to quench its thirst.Georgia officials say new water withdrawals won't disregard conservation. No new withdrawals from streams or lakes will be allowed. And new wells will have to stop sucking up water from the Floridian aquifer when a drought gets too bad, in part to protect water levels in the Flint, where endangered freshwater mussels live. New wells will also be required to be connected to irrigation systems that waste less water and can be monitored electronically, according to a November presentation posted by the environmental agency.In a statement, Cown said the plans "support existing water users, including farmers, and set the stage to make room for new ones. We look forward to working with all water users as they obtain these newly, developed permits.”Georgia had already been taking baby steps in this direction by telling farmers they could withdraw water to spray vulnerable crops like blueberries during freezing temperatures.Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers, who heads the environmental organization of the same name, said Georgia's action is “good news.” He has long contended that the ban on new withdrawals was “an admission of failure," showing how Georgia had mismanaged water use along the river. But he said investments in conservation are paying off: Many farmers are installing less wasteful irrigators and some agreed to stop using existing shallow wells during drought in exchange for subsidies to drill wells to deeper aquifers that don't directly influence river flow.“What we’re going to do is make it more efficient, make it more equitable and make it more fair," Rogers said. "And we’re in the middle of doing that.”A lawyer for Florida environmental groups that contend the Apalachicola River and Bay are being harmed declined comment in an email. Representatives for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and state Attorney General Ashley Moody did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Cox, who lives about 165 miles (265 kilometers) south of Atlanta, said he's interested in drilling a new well on some land that he owns. Right now, that land relies on water from a neighboring farmer's well. He knows the drought restrictions would mean there would be times he couldn't water his crops, but said data he's seen show there wouldn't have been many days over the last 10 years when he would have been barred from irrigating, and that most of those days wouldn't have been during peak watering times for his crops.Three years ago, Cox drilled a well for some land into a deeper aquifer, but he said even spending $30,000 or more on a shallower well would boost the productivity and value of his land.“It would enhance my property if I had a well myself," Cox said.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Water
Business
Waste

South Texas groups sue TCEQ for temporarily allowing SpaceX to discharge industrial water without a permit

In the lawsuit, the groups accuse TCEQ of exceeding its authority by allowing the discharges.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. McALLEN — Rio Grande Valley groups are suing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, accusing the agency of bypassing state regulations by allowing SpaceX to temporarily discharge industrial water at its South Texas launch site without a proper permit. The groups — the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, along with the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, and Save RGV — filed the lawsuit Monday after the agency decided last month to allow SpaceX to continue its operations for 300 days or until the company obtained the appropriate permit. It is the latest in a string of lawsuits filed by environmental groups aimed at curbing the possible environmental impacts of SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica on the southern tip of Texas. Earlier this year, TCEQ cited SpaceX for discharging water into nearby waterways after it was used to protect the launchpad from heat damage during Starship launches four times this year. SpaceX did not admit to any violation but agreed to pay a $3,750 penalty. Part of the penalty was deferred until SpaceX obtains the proper permit and on the condition that future water discharges meet pollution restrictions. The environmental groups say that allowing SpaceX to continue is a violation of permitting requirements and that TCEQ is acting outside of its authority. “The Clean Water Act requires the TCEQ to follow certain procedural and technical requirements when issuing discharge permits meant to protect public participation and ensure compliance with Texas surface water quality standards," Lauren Ice, the attorney for the three Rio Grande Valley organizations, said in a statement. "By bypassing these requirements, the Commission has put the Boca Chica environment at risk of degradation," Ice said. The most important Texas news,sent weekday mornings. A TCEQ spokesperson said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation. Some of the Rio Grande Valley groups are also involved in a lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration for allegedly failing to conduct an environmental review of SpaceX's rocket test launch in April. The case remains pending in federal court. They also sued the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for agreeing to a land exchange that would give 43 acres of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX in exchange for 477 acres adjacent to Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. SpaceX canceled the deal in November. Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. Disclosure: Texas Parks And Wildlife Department 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.

Water
Health
Pollution

NZ’s dairy industry faces an uncertain future – its fate now lies in its ability to adapt

Fewer cows on the farm and a broader range of farming practices, including involvement in the emerging alternative proteins industry, could help New Zealand’s dairy sector remain viable.

William West/AFP via Getty ImagesNew Zealand’s dairy sector faces an uncertain future due to several challenges, including water pollution, high emissions, animal welfare concerns and market volatility. All of these issues are building tensions and changing public perceptions of dairy farming. In my new research, I argue the time has come for the dairy sector to adopt a “just transition” framework to achieve a fair and more sustainable food future and to navigate the disruptions from alternative protein industries. The concept of a just transition is typically applied to the energy sector in shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. But a growing body of research and advocacy is calling for the same principles to be applied to food systems, especially for shifting away from intensive animal agriculture. Aotearoa New Zealand’s dairy sector is an exemplary case study for examining the possibilities of a just transition because it is so interconnected in the global production and trade of dairy, with 95% of domestic milk production exported as whole-milk powder to more than 130 countries. Environmental and economic challenges New Zealand’s dairy sector faces significant threats. This includes environmental challenges such as alarming levels of nitrate pollution in waterways caused by intensive agriculture. The sector is also a major source of emissions of biogenic methane from the burps of almost six million cows in the national dairy herd. Debates about how to account for these emissions have gone on for many years in New Zealand. But last month, the coalition government passed legislation to keep agriculture out of the Emissions Trading Scheme. This means livestock farmers, agricultural processors, fertiliser importers and manufacturers won’t have to pay for on-farm emissions. Instead, the government intends to implement a pricing system outside the Emissions Trading Scheme by 2030. To meet emissions targets, it relies on the development of technologies such as methane inhibitors. The development of plant-based and fermentation proteins poses another threat to the dairy sector. Getty Images In addition to environmental challenges, global growth and domestic initiatives in the development of alternative dairy products are changing the future of milk production and consumption. New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra is pursuing the growth of alternative dairy with significant investments in a partnership with Dutch multinational corporation Royal-DSM. This supports precision fermentation start-up Vivici, which already has market-ready products such as whey protein powder and protein water. Fonterra’s annual report states it anticipates a rise in customer preference towards dairy alternatives (plant-based or precision-fermentation dairy) due to climate-related concerns. The company says these shifting preferences could pose significant business risks for future dairy production if sustainability expectations cannot be met. Pathways to a just transition for dairy What happens when one the pillars of the economy becomes a major contributor to environmental degradation and undermines its own sustainability? Nitrate pollution and methane emissions threaten the quality of the land and waterways the dairy sector depends on. In my recent study which draws on interviews with people across New Zealand’s dairy sector, three key transition pathways are identified, which address future challenges and opportunities. Deintensification: reducing the number of dairy cows per farm. Diversification: introducing a broader range of farming practices, landuse options and market opportunities. Dairy alternatives: government and industry support to help farmers participate in emerging plant-based and precision-fermentation industries. While the pathways are not mutually exclusive, they highlight the socioeconomic and environmental implications of rural change which require active participation and engagement between the farming community and policy makers. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment recently published a guide to just transitions. It maps out general principles such as social justice and job security. But the guide is light on advice for agricultural transitions. My work puts forward recommendations to shape future policy for a more just and sustainable dairy future. This includes issues such as navigating intensification pressures, supporting the development of alternative proteins and fundamentally supporting farmer agency in the transition process. For the dairy transition to be fair and sustainable, we need buy-in from leadership and support from government, the dairy sector and the emerging alternative dairy industry to help primary producers and rural communities. This needs to be specific to different regions and farming methods. The future of New Zealand’s dairy industry depends on its ability to adapt. Climate adaptation demands balancing social license, sustainable practices and disruptions from novel protein technologies. Milena Bojovic received funding from Macquarie University as part of the RTP PhD Scholarship.

Agriculture
Animals
Business

Forty Years After the Bhopal Disaster, the Danger Still Remains

In many ways, we all live in Bhopal now. We must continue to fight for a future in which we all have the right to live in healthy environments.

Forty years ago this month, a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, sprung a toxic gas leak, exposing half a million people to toxic fumes. Thousands of people lost their lives in the immediate aftermath, with the death toll climbing to more than 20,000 over the next two decades. Countless others, including children of survivors, continue to endure chronic health issues. In the United States, the events in Bhopal ignited a grassroots movement to expose and address the toxic chemicals in our water, air, and neighborhoods. In 1986, just two years after the disaster, this growing awareness led Congress to pass the first National Right to Know Act, which requires companies to publicly disclose their use of many toxic chemicals. In India, Bhopal victims have had a long struggle for justice. In 1989, survivors flew to a Union Carbide shareholders meeting in Houston to protest the inadequate compensation for the trauma they’d suffered. The settlement awarded each Bhopal victim was a mere $500—which a spokesperson for Dow Chemical, Union Carbide’s parent company, called “plenty good for an Indian.”  Union Carbide had the survivors arrested before they could enter the meeting. Meanwhile, their abandoned chemical factory was still leaking toxic chemicals into the surrounding neighborhoods and drinking water.  Nevertheless, Bhopal survivors never stopped fighting. They opened a free clinic to treat the intergenerational health effects caused by the disaster. They marched 500 miles between Bhopal and New Delhi. They staged hunger strikes. They created memorials to the disaster and established a museum to ensure that the horrors of their collective past are not forgotten.    The survivors even obtained an extradition order for Union Carbide’s former CEO, Warren Anderson, but the U.S. government never acted on that request. Forty years later, the factory in Bhopal has never been properly cleaned and is still leaking poison.  Unfortunately, the kinds of chemicals that flow through the veins of Bhopal survivors also flow through ours. The petrochemical industry has brought us together in a perverse solidarity, having chemically trespassed into places all over the world. According to one figure, Americans are exposed to dangerous chemical fires, leaks, and explosions about once every two days. In one dramatic example in early 2023, a rail tanker filled with vinyl chloride derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, forcing the evacuation of 2,000 residents.  Nearly all Americans now carry toxic substances known as PFAS in our bodies. These have been linked to cancer, liver and kidney disease, and immune dysfunction. And the continued burning of fossil fuels is killing millions of people each year around the world through air pollution.  Petrochemical and fossil fuel companies know they can only survive if they avoid liability for the damage they are doing to our health and the planet’s ecosystems. That’s why they are heavily invested in lobbying to prevent any such accountability. Polluting industries are certain to have strong allies in the coming Trump Administration, which plans to open even more land to fossil fuel production and, under the blueprint for conservative governance known as Project 2025, to slash environmental and public health regulations. But we can take inspiration from the people of Bhopal, whose fierce commitment to health and justice sparked a global movement. Earlier this month, on the fortieth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, congressional allies of this movement including U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington, and Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, introduced a resolution designating December 3 as National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day. “Chemical disasters are often the result of corporations cutting corners and prioritizing profits over safety,” said Merkley, who chairs the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee. “These catastrophes cloud communities with toxic fumes, upending lives and threatening the health and property of those living and working close by.” He called for “stronger laws to prevent chemical disasters and keep our communities and workers safe.” This growing global alliance, which has been called the largest movement for environmental health and justice in history, is fighting for a future in which everyone has the right to live in a healthy environment. It’s a movement that unites us all. Because in many ways, we all live in Bhopal now. This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service. Gary Cohen is the president of Health Care Without Harm and a long time member of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. Read more by Gary Cohen December 18, 2024 3:25 PM

Health
Chemicals
Pollution

Montana Supreme Court upholds youth climate activists' victory

Montana’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a 2023 ruling siding with young climate activists who asserted the state government violated their right to a healthy environment. In August 2023, Montana’s First Judicial District sided with the 16 plaintiffs, who cited a state constitutional provision guaranteeing “a clean and healthful environment” to argue the state violated...

Montana’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a 2023 ruling siding with young climate activists who asserted the state government violated their right to a healthy environment. In August 2023, Montana’s First Judicial District sided with the 16 plaintiffs, who cited a state constitutional provision guaranteeing “a clean and healthful environment” to argue the state violated that right with a law that barred weighing climate impacts during the approval process for energy projects. The state supreme court upheld the finding in a 6-1 ruling Wednesday, writing, “Montana’s right to a clean and healthful environment and environmental life support system includes a stable climate system, which is clearly within the object and true principles of the Framers inclusion of the right to a clean and healthful environment.” Justice Jim Rice, who was appointed by former Gov. Judy Martz (R), was the only dissent. The court rejected an argument from Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) that state-level efforts will have no effect without action from the rest of the world, comparing that argument to “the old ad populum fallacy: ‘If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?’” The plaintiffs’ attorney, Melissa Hornbein of the Western Environmental Law Center, hailed the decision as “a monumental moment” for young people and the state. “This ruling clarifies that the Constitution sets a clear directive for Montana to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, which are among the highest in the nation on a per capita basis, and to transition to a clean, renewable energy future,” she said. Knudsen’s office criticized the decision in a statement, with Montana Justice Department Press Secretary Chase Scheuer calling the ruling “disappointing, but not surprising.” “The majority of the state Supreme Court justices yet again ruled in favor of their ideologically aligned allies and ignored the fact that Montana has no power to impact the climate,” Scheuer said. Montana Supreme Court justices are directly elected to eight-year terms but midterm replacements are appointed by the governor. Two of Montana’s governor-appointed judges were named by Gov. Steve Bullock (D), while Rice is the only justice appointed by a Republican.

Activism
Climate
Health

Study Miscalculation Has Everyone Talking about Black Plastic Spatulas Again. Experts Are Still Concerned

The scientists behind a popular study on the health effects of flame retardants in black plastic cooking utensils and toys made a calculation error but still say their revised findings are alarming

Should you throw out your black plastic spatula? A recent study that reported alarming levels of several flame retardants in common black-colored plastic items (including cooking utensils, toys and hair products) had many people suddenly taking stock of their inky array of plastic kitchenware and considering wood or metal alternatives. And the reasons for the concern were understandable: the study’s findings, published in Chemosphere, highlighted potential health effects from exposure to the flame retardants, particularly decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE)—a chemical the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned in 2021 for its apparent links to cancer and reproductive, developmental and immunologic toxicity effects.But this week the study’s authors issued a correction that suggests exposure to decaBDE from the tested products isn’t as close to the EPA’s safety reference level as they initially thought. The decaBDE exposure they estimated from the screened products is still correct, but it’s one tenth of the reference dose. The study had miscalculated the comparison by an order of magnitude.The amount of flame retardants in such products is “not as harmful, with respect to the EPA guidance, as [the researchers] originally stated, although, with these chemicals, they may be harmful when you’re exposed to small amounts over a long period of time,” says Andrew Turner, a biogeochemist at the University of Plymouth in England, who wasn’t involved in the research and studies the disposal and recycling of plastic consumer goods. “It’s difficult to put numbers on these chemicals.”On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The study authors issued an apology for the mistake in which they maintained that the “calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper.”“Our results still show that when toxic additives are used in plastic, they can significantly contaminate products made with recycled content that do not require flame retardancy,” says Megan Liu, a co-author of the recent study and science and policy manager at Toxic-Free Future, an environmental health research and advocacy group. “The products found in this study to contain hazardous flame retardants included items with high exposure potential, such as things that touch our food, as well as toys, which come in contact with kids.”Why might some black plastics contain flame retardants? Flame retardants are required in certain products (often including computers, TVs and other common electronic items) to meet fire safety regulations. To reduce the amount of e-waste and fossil fuels needed to make new plastics, some of these items are recycled into black plastics. But the problem is that “you could also recycle the flame retardants and other chemicals that are associated with that plastic,” says Stuart Harrad, an environmental chemist at the University of Birmingham in England, who wasn’t involved in the paper. “Now that’s fine to some degree, I suppose, if you’re only recycling the plastic into uses like TV sets, where you need to meet fire safety regulations. But the point is here is that that isn’t happening.”The new study’s main goal was to identify any flame retardant chemicals in various common products. The researchers screened 203 items, ranging from plastic sushi take-out trays to toy necklaces—and found 17 of them were contaminated with high levels of flame retardants. Fourteen of those products contained high levels of decaBDE.The U.S. has largely banned decaBDE and other polybrominated-diphenyl-ether-based flame retardants. New electronic goods use safer flame retardants, but older electronics that contain decaBDE could still be in many households or might have been only recently tossed out for recycling, Turner says. “When you talk about some electronic devices, they last quite a long time,” he adds. These older devices might only be reaching recycling plants now.The new study’s findings generally line up with past evidence that recycled plastics—and flame retardants—can end up in toys and cooking utensils, Harrad says. But it’s been unclear whether the mere presence of flame retardants in a cooking utensil pose any health threat to humans; there are many contributing factors, including the source, the dose, the duration of exposure and any other chemicals that may be present. In a 2018 study Harrad and his colleagues tested potential exposure from black plastic cooking utensils and found that uptake through the skin from simply holding them was negligible. But when they tested them in prolonged cooking experiments with hot oil, about 20 percent of the flame retardants in a utensil transferred into the oil on average. “That’s really because the oil, particularly hot oil, is going to be a pretty good way of extracting these chemicals,” Harrad says.How did the miscalculation occur?The authors of the new study estimated humans’ potential exposure to decaBDE from the plastic products by using the calculation in Harrad’s 2018 study. They applied this calculation to the median levels of decaBDE detected in the products they tested. This wound up being an estimated 34,700 nanograms per day of decaBDE. They then compared that figure with the EPA’s reference dose of 7,000 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per day. (Some researchers note that this measurement was derived from lab tests and animal models, not direct human testing). To better assess human risk, the scientists calculated a reference dose based on a 60-kg (132-pound) person and initially found 42,000 ng per day, a value alarmingly close to the 34,700 ng per day of exposure they estimated from the new data. But 7,000 multiplied by 60 is actually 420,000. This may have been a simple math error, but the correction massively reduces how close the amount of exposure is to the maximum acceptable limit.The figure with the miscalculation was “contextualizing the levels that we saw in our study, thinking that it could be helpful for people,” Liu says. “This was really just one part of our study that isn’t even part of our key findings.”She and her co-authors have emphasized that the error shouldn’t detract from one of the study’s main conclusions: that none of these flame-retardant chemicals, especially those that have been banned, should be found, in any amount, in these products in the first place.“They're probably banging their head in frustration when they found out they made that calculation error,” Harrad says, adding that the rest of their findings “were perfectly plausible.”“The study does highlight the fact that we’ve not sorted this out yet—that we’re still finding these chemicals coming through into new goods that contain recycled plastics,” Harrad says. “We do need to step up our efforts to isolate these chemicals from waste and make sure that they don't get recycled.”So should you really ditch your black plastic spatula? Harrad says you should avoid leaving it in a hot pan or pot for long periods of time. Some experts don’t recommend reheating food in black plastic containers, although studies haven’t confirmed if this causes chemicals to leach into food. Importantly, “if you see that your black utensil is damaged in any way, just [get rid of it] and go for something else,” Turner says—pieces of the plastic could potentially break off into food.When looking for new cooking ware, Turner says that it’d be more sustainable, and potentially safer, to reduce the use of black plastic items and opt for a material or color that’s more easily recyclable. Liu says wood, stainless steel or silicone products are some safer alternatives. She adds, however, that people can’t “shop” their way out of a larger societal issue. “We can’t expect that everyone can immediately switch over to safer alternatives,” Liu says. “That’s ultimately why we’ve been calling on greater regulatory action at both the corporate and government level to regulate and restrict these harmful chemicals.”

Health
Animals
Food

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