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The next big climate deadline is for meat and dairy

News Feed
Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Piglets stand in their enclosure at a pig farm in western France. | Jean-Francois Monier/AFP/GettyImages It’s a lot sooner than you think. For years, climate scientists have called for a phase-out of fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic global warming. Now, according to a first-of-its-kind survey of more than 200 environmental and agricultural scientists, we must also drastically reduce meat and dairy production — and fast. Global livestock emissions should peak by 2030 or sooner to meet the Paris climate agreement target of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the surveyed climate experts said. In high- and middle-income countries, which produce and consume the overwhelming majority of the global meat and dairy supply, livestock emissions should peak much earlier than in low-income countries. “We need to see major changes in livestock production and consumption — really deep and rapid changes over the next decade,” said Helen Harwatt, an environmental social scientist and lead author of the survey report, which was published last week by Harvard’s animal law and policy program, where Harwatt is a fellow. The survey was also co-authored by researchers Matthew Hayek, Paul Behrens, and William Ripple. Asked how rapidly global livestock emissions should fall after they peak, the experts’ most common response was a 50 percent or more decrease within five years after peaking. And the most effective way to do that, most survey respondents agreed, is by reducing the amount of meat and dairy humanity produces and consumes. But such a peak, let alone a swift reduction in the amount of meat we eat, is nowhere in sight. Rising global meat consumption, along with vanishingly little government policy designed to change diets or cut pollution from factory farms, means we’re all but guaranteed to miss even the least ambitious targets suggested by climate and agricultural scientists in the Harvard survey. Last year, a United Nations and OECD analysis predicted global meat consumption — a good but imperfect proxy for livestock emissions — won’t actually peak until 2075. Livestock emissions are primarily generated by cows’ methane-rich burps, animal manure, and the corn and soy produced to feed farmed animals. Globally, the sector accounts for around 15 to 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and is the leading driver of deforestation, which further exacerbates climate change. Andrew Skowron/We Animals Media Cows are milked inside a 60-stall rotating carousel on a large dairy farm in Poland. But animal agriculture has largely evaded environmental regulation, and only 12 of the 175 countries that have signed on to the Paris climate agreement have committed to reduce livestock emissions. Nearly two decades ago, a United Nations report marked the livestock sector as one of the most polluting industries on the planet. Ever since, there’s been a steady drip of research on the need to scale back meat production in high- and middle-income countries. Industry is fighting back. A well-oiled PR machine composed of shadowy communications groups, industry-funded academics, and pro-meat influencers all push out the message that livestock aren’t so bad for the planet. Their claims have ranged from misleading scientific arguments to hollow corporate greenwashing to outright disinformation. Harwatt’s survey cuts through all this noise, revealing a consensus among climate scientists that the annual slaughter of around 80 billion land animals for food is simply unsustainable. How to slash meat’s carbon footprint: produce a lot less of it As pressure increases for the livestock industries to reduce emissions, companies and governments have announced a slate of technologies and farming practices they claim will help reduce meat and dairy’s carbon footprint. This includes things like improving manure management, changing animals’ diets and genetics, and “regenerative agriculture,” a type of farming that aims to sequester and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere inside the soil. But according to the new survey’s respondents, these industry-touted practices won’t do nearly as much to cut pollution from cow burps and chicken poop as raising and eating fewer animals. Around three-quarters of respondents said reducing livestock production and consumption would make a large or very large contribution to shrinking the livestock sector’s carbon footprint. Less than half of respondents said the same about the practices often promoted by industry. “We need to drastically reduce livestock numbers, particularly in high- and middle-income countries — the evidence shows that clearly,” said Pete Smith, a survey respondent and climate scientist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Smith is an authority on the issue, acting as a lead author on United Nations environmental reports for over two decades. Almost half the survey respondents said that replacing beef with lower-emissions meats like pork, poultry, and farmed fish would make a large or very large contribution to emissions reduction. But Smith warns against this because raising those species still requires a significant amount of farmland to grow corn and soy to feed them. In other words, they’re still far more carbon-intensive than plant-based foods. “They’re eating products that are grown on land that could be growing food for humans instead, so it’s still a really inefficient thing to do to swap out ruminant [beef, lamb, goat] products for other different types of meat,” Smith said. Jo-Anne McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media An industrial egg-laying facility on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain, holds hundreds of thousands of hens. Hens are typically kept in small cages to lay eggs for 18 months before they are shipped to slaughter and replaced by younger, higher-productivity hens. At this facility, the cage housing system is stacked seven rows high. It would be far better for the environment and animal welfare to transition to growing “plant-based products that can be consumed directly by humans,” he said. “I think that’s got to be the way forward. And that’s the one that will free up the most land that will allow us to create the carbon sinks that we need.” One survey question asked how our diets would need to change if the livestock sector were required to reduce emissions to align with the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Participants answered on a sliding scale, with minus five meaning a more animal-based diet, zero meaning maintaining current diets, and five meaning more plant-based diets. On average globally, respondents said, we’d need to adopt a diet much richer in plant-based foods. But scientific consensus is often no match for politics. Navigating the politics of meat In the US, there’s been no legislation passed to meaningfully reduce livestock emissions, as industry has lobbied hard against proposed regulations. European policymakers seeking to regulate animal agriculture have been met with fierce opposition. In the Netherlands, farmers have jammed up highways with tractors and set fire to hay bales in protest of new limits on livestock pollution. “As we have seen by the recent protests in Europe, it’s really becoming a left/right, or a liberal/conservative dividing line,” said Lukas Fesenfeld, a researcher at ETH Zurich and lecturer at the University of Bern who studies environmental and food policy. Fesenfeld did not participate in the survey. Fesenfeld said it’s also a political economy issue, meaning that there aren’t many actors who would benefit economically from a radical reduction in livestock numbers. Meanwhile, the powerful meat lobby has a strong interest in maintaining the status quo. There’s also the personal element: People like meat, and government policy designed to reduce its supply would be highly unpopular. A solution, Fesenfeld said, is to implement policy in a certain sequence — first carrots, then sticks — that could help reduce political blowback and ensure a more just transition. First, governments could fund research and development to make meat and dairy alternatives taste better and become more affordable, while supporting farmers growing crops for a more plant-based food supply chain. Denmark, Germany, and other countries are experimenting with such policies. Second, there’s a lot the public sector could do to change the food environment to be more climate-friendly. For example, buying more plant-based meals with government dollars — like at schools and hospitals — and working with restaurants, grocers, and cafeterias to offer more plant-based options (and better market them). Over the last two years, for example, New York City’s hospital system served 1.2 million plant-based meals, which it says reduced its food carbon footprint by 36 percent in 2023, saved money, and had high reported satisfaction from patients. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office In April 2023 at NYC Health & Hospitals’ Culinary Center, Rohit T. Aggarwala — head of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection — and Mayor Eric Adams released the city’s first integrated greenhouse gas inventory, which incorporates emissions from the production and consumption of food. These two approaches could eventually make more aggressive policies, like reducing agricultural subsidies for livestock production or making large meat companies pay for excessive pollution, more politically digestible. “It’s a really challenging thing, actually, for policymakers and the industry to think about the kind of depth and pace of the reductions that the experts are saying are needed,” Harwatt said. But after decades of inaction, we’re left with two options: aggressive policy to achieve that required depth and pace of reductions, or a dire level of global warming. A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!

Small white-haired piglets with large pink ears and noses stand in a group in western France on September 7, 2014.
Piglets stand in their enclosure at a pig farm in western France. | Jean-Francois Monier/AFP/GettyImages

It’s a lot sooner than you think.

For years, climate scientists have called for a phase-out of fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic global warming. Now, according to a first-of-its-kind survey of more than 200 environmental and agricultural scientists, we must also drastically reduce meat and dairy production — and fast.

Global livestock emissions should peak by 2030 or sooner to meet the Paris climate agreement target of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the surveyed climate experts said. In high- and middle-income countries, which produce and consume the overwhelming majority of the global meat and dairy supply, livestock emissions should peak much earlier than in low-income countries.

A bar chart showing that a majority of respondents said livestock emissions in high-income countries should peak before 2025 to align with the Paris Agreement.

“We need to see major changes in livestock production and consumption — really deep and rapid changes over the next decade,” said Helen Harwatt, an environmental social scientist and lead author of the survey report, which was published last week by Harvard’s animal law and policy program, where Harwatt is a fellow. The survey was also co-authored by researchers Matthew Hayek, Paul Behrens, and William Ripple.

Asked how rapidly global livestock emissions should fall after they peak, the experts’ most common response was a 50 percent or more decrease within five years after peaking. And the most effective way to do that, most survey respondents agreed, is by reducing the amount of meat and dairy humanity produces and consumes.

But such a peak, let alone a swift reduction in the amount of meat we eat, is nowhere in sight. Rising global meat consumption, along with vanishingly little government policy designed to change diets or cut pollution from factory farms, means we’re all but guaranteed to miss even the least ambitious targets suggested by climate and agricultural scientists in the Harvard survey.

Last year, a United Nations and OECD analysis predicted global meat consumption — a good but imperfect proxy for livestock emissions — won’t actually peak until 2075.

Livestock emissions are primarily generated by cows’ methane-rich burps, animal manure, and the corn and soy produced to feed farmed animals. Globally, the sector accounts for around 15 to 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and is the leading driver of deforestation, which further exacerbates climate change.

Inside a warehouse, a large metal carousel is tightly packed with cows, who are each held in separated enclosures with their heads held in place between metal bars. Andrew Skowron/We Animals Media
Cows are milked inside a 60-stall rotating carousel on a large dairy farm in Poland.

But animal agriculture has largely evaded environmental regulation, and only 12 of the 175 countries that have signed on to the Paris climate agreement have committed to reduce livestock emissions.

Nearly two decades ago, a United Nations report marked the livestock sector as one of the most polluting industries on the planet. Ever since, there’s been a steady drip of research on the need to scale back meat production in high- and middle-income countries.

Industry is fighting back. A well-oiled PR machine composed of shadowy communications groups, industry-funded academics, and pro-meat influencers all push out the message that livestock aren’t so bad for the planet. Their claims have ranged from misleading scientific arguments to hollow corporate greenwashing to outright disinformation.

Harwatt’s survey cuts through all this noise, revealing a consensus among climate scientists that the annual slaughter of around 80 billion land animals for food is simply unsustainable.

How to slash meat’s carbon footprint: produce a lot less of it

As pressure increases for the livestock industries to reduce emissions, companies and governments have announced a slate of technologies and farming practices they claim will help reduce meat and dairy’s carbon footprint. This includes things like improving manure management, changing animals’ diets and genetics, and “regenerative agriculture,” a type of farming that aims to sequester and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere inside the soil.

But according to the new survey’s respondents, these industry-touted practices won’t do nearly as much to cut pollution from cow burps and chicken poop as raising and eating fewer animals.

A stacked bar chart depicting the response of climate and agricultural scientists when asked to rate the effectiveness of various solutions to decrease meat and dairy production emissions. The majority responded that reducing meat and dairy consumption and reducing the number of farmed animals would be the most effective solutions.

Around three-quarters of respondents said reducing livestock production and consumption would make a large or very large contribution to shrinking the livestock sector’s carbon footprint. Less than half of respondents said the same about the practices often promoted by industry.

“We need to drastically reduce livestock numbers, particularly in high- and middle-income countries — the evidence shows that clearly,” said Pete Smith, a survey respondent and climate scientist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Smith is an authority on the issue, acting as a lead author on United Nations environmental reports for over two decades.

Almost half the survey respondents said that replacing beef with lower-emissions meats like pork, poultry, and farmed fish would make a large or very large contribution to emissions reduction. But Smith warns against this because raising those species still requires a significant amount of farmland to grow corn and soy to feed them. In other words, they’re still far more carbon-intensive than plant-based foods.

“They’re eating products that are grown on land that could be growing food for humans instead, so it’s still a really inefficient thing to do to swap out ruminant [beef, lamb, goat] products for other different types of meat,” Smith said.

A person in a hazmat suit stands in a dimly lit aisle flanked on either side by fully packed chicken cages, pointing a camera at the cage before them. Jo-Anne McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media
An industrial egg-laying facility on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain, holds hundreds of thousands of hens. Hens are typically kept in small cages to lay eggs for 18 months before they are shipped to slaughter and replaced by younger, higher-productivity hens. At this facility, the cage housing system is stacked seven rows high.

It would be far better for the environment and animal welfare to transition to growing “plant-based products that can be consumed directly by humans,” he said. “I think that’s got to be the way forward. And that’s the one that will free up the most land that will allow us to create the carbon sinks that we need.”

One survey question asked how our diets would need to change if the livestock sector were required to reduce emissions to align with the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Participants answered on a sliding scale, with minus five meaning a more animal-based diet, zero meaning maintaining current diets, and five meaning more plant-based diets.

A graph depicting survey participants’ responses when asked to answer the following question: How would diets change if livestock emissions were reduced to align with the Paris Agreement? Answer: All countries would transition to more plant-based diets. High-income countries would have a significantly more plant-based diet than they currently do, followed by middle-income countries, and then low-income countries.

On average globally, respondents said, we’d need to adopt a diet much richer in plant-based foods. But scientific consensus is often no match for politics.

Navigating the politics of meat

In the US, there’s been no legislation passed to meaningfully reduce livestock emissions, as industry has lobbied hard against proposed regulations. European policymakers seeking to regulate animal agriculture have been met with fierce opposition. In the Netherlands, farmers have jammed up highways with tractors and set fire to hay bales in protest of new limits on livestock pollution.

“As we have seen by the recent protests in Europe, it’s really becoming a left/right, or a liberal/conservative dividing line,” said Lukas Fesenfeld, a researcher at ETH Zurich and lecturer at the University of Bern who studies environmental and food policy. Fesenfeld did not participate in the survey.

Fesenfeld said it’s also a political economy issue, meaning that there aren’t many actors who would benefit economically from a radical reduction in livestock numbers. Meanwhile, the powerful meat lobby has a strong interest in maintaining the status quo. There’s also the personal element: People like meat, and government policy designed to reduce its supply would be highly unpopular.

A solution, Fesenfeld said, is to implement policy in a certain sequence — first carrots, then sticks — that could help reduce political blowback and ensure a more just transition.

First, governments could fund research and development to make meat and dairy alternatives taste better and become more affordable, while supporting farmers growing crops for a more plant-based food supply chain. Denmark, Germany, and other countries are experimenting with such policies.

Second, there’s a lot the public sector could do to change the food environment to be more climate-friendly. For example, buying more plant-based meals with government dollars — like at schools and hospitals — and working with restaurants, grocers, and cafeterias to offer more plant-based options (and better market them).

Over the last two years, for example, New York City’s hospital system served 1.2 million plant-based meals, which it says reduced its food carbon footprint by 36 percent in 2023, saved money, and had high reported satisfaction from patients.

Chefs wearing tall white chef hats and black aprons serve food from buffet tables covered in lime green tablecloths. Mayor Eric Adams walks past, smiling, beside a chef wearing black-rimmed eyeglasses. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
In April 2023 at NYC Health & Hospitals’ Culinary Center, Rohit T. Aggarwala — head of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection — and Mayor Eric Adams released the city’s first integrated greenhouse gas inventory, which incorporates emissions from the production and consumption of food.

These two approaches could eventually make more aggressive policies, like reducing agricultural subsidies for livestock production or making large meat companies pay for excessive pollution, more politically digestible.

“It’s a really challenging thing, actually, for policymakers and the industry to think about the kind of depth and pace of the reductions that the experts are saying are needed,” Harwatt said. But after decades of inaction, we’re left with two options: aggressive policy to achieve that required depth and pace of reductions, or a dire level of global warming.

A version of this story originally appeared in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here!

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

This election, what are Labor and the Coalition offering on the energy transition, climate adaptation and emissions?

Cost of living is trumping climate at this election, but the issue won’t disappear. Here’s what major parties are offering – and what we actually need.

Composite image, Xiangli Li, Shirley Jayne Photography and geckoz/ShutterstockAustralia’s 2022 federal election was seen as the climate election. But this time round, climate policy has so far taken a back seat as the major parties focus on cost-of-living issues. Despite this, climate change remains an ever-present threat. Last year was the world’s hottest on record and extreme weather is lashing Queensland. But there are hints of progress. Australia’s emissions have begun to fall and the main power grid is now 40% renewable. So before Australians head to the polls on May 3, it’s worth closely examining the climate policies of the two major parties. What are they offering on cutting emissions, preparing for climate-boosted disasters and future-proofing our energy systems? And where are the gaps? Energy transition - Tony Wood, Grattan Institute Cost-of-living pressures, escalating damage from climate change and global policy uncertainty mean no election issue is more important than transforming Australia’s economy to achieve net zero. But our energy supply must be reliable and affordable. What should the next government prioritise? There is great pressure to deliver power bill relief. But the next government’s priority should be reducing how much a household spends on energy, rather than trying to bring down the price of electricity. Far better to give financial support for battery storage and better home insulation, to slash how much power consumers need to buy from the grid. The Liberal-led Senate inquiry has just found supporting home electrification will also help with cost of living pressures. The electricity rebates on offer from Labor and the temporary cut to fuel excise from the Coalition aren’t enough. Federal and state governments must maintain their support and investment in the new transmission lines necessary to support new renewable generation and storage. Labor needs to do more to meet its 2030 target of reaching 82% renewables in the main grid. Currently, the figure is around 40%. The Coalition’s plan to slow down renewables, keep coal going longer and burn more gas while pushing for a nuclear future carries alarmingly high risks on reliability, cost and environmental grounds. Gas shortfalls are looming for Australia’s southeast in the next few winters and the price of gas remains stubbornly high. Labor does not yet have a workable solution to either issue, while the Coalition has an idea – more and therefore cheaper gas – but no clarity on how its plan to keep more gas for domestic use would work in practice. So far, we have been offered superficially appealing ideas. The field is wide open for a leader to deliver a compelling vision and credible plan for Australia’s net-zero future. Climate adaptation – Johanna Nalau, Griffith University You would think adapting to climate change would be high on the election agenda. Southeast Queensland just weathered its first cyclone in 50 years, estimated to have caused A$1.2 billion in damage, while outback Queensland is enduring the worst flooding in 50 years. But so far, there’s little to see on adaptation. Both major parties have committed to building a weather radar in western Queensland, following local outcry. While welcome, it’s a knee-jerk response rather than good forward planning. By 2060, damage from climate change will cost Australia $73 billion a year under a low emissions scenario, according to a Deloitte report. The next federal government should invest more in disaster preparation rather than throwing money at recovery. It’s cheaper, for one thing – longer term, there are significant savings by investing in more resilient infrastructure before damage occurs. Being prepared requires having enough public servants in disaster management to do the work. The Coalition has promised to cut 41,000 jobs from the federal public service, and has not yet said where the cuts would be made. While in office, Labor has been developing a National Adaptation Plan to shape preparations and a National Climate Risk Assessment to gather evidence of the main climate risks for Australia and ways to adapt. Regardless of who takes power, these will be useful roadmaps to manage extreme weather, damage to agriculture and intensified droughts, floods and fires. Making sure climate-exposed groups such as farmers get necessary assistance to weather worse disasters, and manage new risks and challenges stemming from climate change, is not a partisan issue. Such plans will help direct investment towards adaptation methods that work at scale. New National Science Priorities are helpful too, especially the focus on new technologies able to sustainably meet Australia’s food and water needs in a changing climate. Intensifying climate change brings more threats to our food systems and farmers. Shirley Jayne Photography Emission reduction – Madeline Taylor, Macquarie University Emission reduction has so far been a footnote for the major parties. In terms of the wider energy transition, both parties are expected to announce policies to encourage household battery uptake and there’s a bipartisan focus on speeding up energy planning approvals. But there is a clear divide in where the major parties’ policies will lead Australia on its net-zero journey. Labor’s policies largely continue its approach in government, including bringing more clean power and storage into the grid within the Capacity Investment Scheme and building new transmission lines under the Rewiring Australia Plan. These policies are leading to lower emissions from the power sector. Last year, total emissions fell by 0.6%. Labor’s Future Made in Australia policies give incentives to produce critical minerals, green steel, and green manufacturing. Such policies should help Australia gain market share in the trade of low-carbon products. From January 1 this year, Labor’s new laws require some large companies to disclose emissions from operations. This is positive, giving investors essential data to make decisions. From their second reporting period, companies will have to disclose Scope 3 emissions as well – those from their supply chains. The laws will cover some companies where measuring emissions upstream is incredibly tricky, including agriculture. Coalition senators issued a dissenting report pointing this out. The Coalition has now vowed to scrap these rules. The Coalition has not committed to Labor’s target of cutting emissions 43% by 2030. Their flagship plan to go nuclear will likely mean pushing out emissions reduction goals given the likely 2040s completion timeframe for large-scale nuclear generation, unless small modular reactors become viable. On gas, there’s virtually bipartisan support. The Coalition promise to reserve more gas for domestic use is a response to looming shortfalls on the east coast. Labor has also approved more coal and gas projects largely for export, though Australian coal and gas burned overseas aren’t counted domestically. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has promised to include gas in Labor’s renewable-oriented Capacity Investment Scheme and has floated relaxing the Safeguard Mechanism on heavy emitters. The Coalition has vowed to cancel plans for three offshore wind projects and are very critical of green hydrogen funding. Both parties will likely introduce emission reduction measures, but a Coalition government would be less stringent. Scrapping corporate emissions reporting entirely would be a misstep, because accurate measurement of emissions are essential for attracting green investment and reducing climate risks. Johanna Nalau has received funding from Australian Research Council for climate adaptation research, is a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Co-chair of the Science Committee of the World Adaptation Science Program (United Nations Environment Programme) and is a technical expert with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Madeline Taylor has received funding from the Australian Research Council, ACOLA, and several industry and government partners for energy transition research. She is a board member of REAlliance, Fellow of the Climate Council, and Honorary Associate of the Sydney Environment Institute.Tony Wood may own shares in companies in relevant industries through his superannuation fund

Trump Staff Cuts Hollow Out Extreme Heat Programs

Layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services have dealt a critical blow to the agency's efforts to manage rising temperatures made worse by climate change

CLIMATEWIRE | Widespread layoffs this week at the Department of Health and Human Services have effectively dismantled programs aimed at keeping Americans safe from extreme heat and other climate-driven weather.Last year was the warmest on record. But layoffs at HHS include staff that administer grants that help state and local health departments prepare and respond to extreme weather events such as heat waves, as well as federal workers tasked with maintaining online tools that raise awareness about the dangers of heat and tell people how to protect themselves from fatal conditions such as heat stroke.“This is really important, valuable work,” said Lori Freeman, CEO for the National Association of County and City Health Officials. “As entire departments are cut, we are concerned that it will decimate resources available to key state and local work.”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.That includes the entire staff of a federal program that helps low-income households pay utility bills for air conditioning and heating.Congress’ recently passed continuing resolution allocated $378 million to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It provides support to some 6 million Americans.But the staff who normally would process that money and send it to states where it can be spent to keep air conditioners running through summer heat waves are now all on administrative leave, and will be terminated June 2.“There are over 6 million families that are helped through this program, and now there is a possibility that the administration won’t allocate them,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents states. "It’s deeply disturbing."Heat can be deadly when people don't have access to air conditioning, as the majority of Americans who die from heat perish indoors. Cutting LIHEAP staff, and potentially preventing funds from reaching people in need, could cost lives, said Amneh Minkara, deputy director of the Sierra Club Building Electrification Campaign."The elimination of the staff administering LIHEAP could have dire, potentially deadly, impacts for folks who will not be able to safely cool their homes as we enter what is predicted to be another historically hot summer," she said.LIHEAP isn’t alone. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly the entire staff for the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice (DEHSP) has been axed, including those who worked in the climate and health program that provides grants to local and state health departments.Currently, the climate program, which annually receives $10 million in congressional appropriations, is funding grants to 13 state and local health departments. Those grants are in their fourth of five years, and recipients next week are supposed to submit annual reviews of how they have used the funds before they can be allocated the last year of funds.“The reports are just going to sit there because there is no one left to review them and approve their next year of funding,” said one employee who until this week worked in DEHSP’s climate and health program. The employee was granted anonymity for fear of reprisal.Asked about the funds, HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said the agency “will continue to comply with statutory requirements, and as a result of the reorganization, will be better positioned to execute on Congress’ statutory intent.”She did not respond to follow-up questions asking how HHS would allocate funds to states without help from staff members who have been laid off.Asked about HHS layoffs more broadly during a POLITICO Live event, HHS special government employee Calley Means said, “it is insane for you to insinuate that the thing standing between us and better health is more government bureaucrats.”“Those scientists demonstrably have overseen a record of utter failure,” he said.The layoffs have raised alarms among Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, who wrote in a letter to Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) that the cuts were made “indiscriminately” and “without regard to the impact that they will have on the ability of HHS and its operating divisions to meet its statutory responsibilities and its obligations to the American people.”Uncertain future for online resourcesDEHSP has in recent years created multiple online tools and trackers that combine health and weather data to show how climate change — and heat in particular — affect people's well-being.One tool, the HeatRisk tracker, marries National Weather Service and local health data to predict not just heat and humidity, but also the risk those temperatures pose to local residents with different underlying health conditions at a county level.The tool is widely used by state and county health departments.Last summer, for example, county health departments in Pennsylvania disseminated screenshots from the online tool to explain to Scranton-area residents that a mid-June heat wave “is hot enough to affect most people and impact most health systems.” The Pennsylvania Department of Health also referenced the tool in a health alert to hospitals and other health care facilities about the heat wave.But it’s not clear whether the tool will remain online this summer. One CDC climate program employee granted anonymity because of fears of reprisal said that some NWS staff who worked on the tool were probationary employees who have been laid off already.“Everybody who worked on that is RIFed,” he said, referring to the reduction-in-force notifications.The same CDC staff had been working to launch a new tool aimed at examining pollen trends and correlating them with emergency room visits for asthma and other related health conditions. The project was set to launch in a couple of weeks to help medical professionals respond to the way warmer winters due to climate change are boosting pollen productions and worsening allergies.“Now people who are trying to plan for allergy season won’t have that data about how pollen seasons have shifted, and the health care professionals who might tell their patients to get their allergy shots three weeks early won’t have the information to base that decision off,” the staffer said.Preston Burt, a communications specialist in the Environment Public Health Tracking Branch who was laid off this week, called the decision to terminate the CDC staff “shortsighted to the health of our country.”“They may, on paper, think that some activities are duplicative in other aspects of the federal workforce, but that's not the case, and the work we do has real impact and affects real people," he said.HHS also is expected to lay off most staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Employees told POLITICO’s E&E News that there are only two NIOSH programs expected to remain untouched by layoffs. One is a program that monitors World Trade Center first responders from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Another monitors radiation exposure during the Cold War.Supervisors in all other departments already have received their RIF notices, while hundreds more staff, who are union members, have been told that HHS has begun a process to terminate them come June 30.Among those leaving the agency are some of the nation’s leading experts on how to keep workers safe from heat stroke as they labor in extreme temperatures.“We always do a big push as summer gets closer on social media about here is how you keep workers safe from heat, what are the symptoms of heat-related illnesses,” said one NIOSH employee granted anonymity because of fears of reprisal. “But this year, when we get to heat season, there will be nobody left to respond to questions from the public about heat stress.”The employee said that spending constraints imposed by the Trump administration meant NIOSH has been unable to reprint educational pamphlets about heat stress and workers in preparation for summer.At the end of last summer, NIOSH released a smartphone app in partnership with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to help employers plan for extreme heat. The app uses a smartphone’s location to tell users what precautions can help prevent heat-related illness based on local temperature data.NIOSH staff responsible for maintaining and updating the app to fix any bugs have all been told they will be laid off by the end of June.“It’s fair to say that if there is no one at NIOSH to maintain it, the app will start to malfunction, and so the people who were relying on the app to keep people safe won’t be able to anymore,” said Doug Parker, former OSHA administrator who helped launch the app.Until now, NIOSH has always been housed within the CDC. What remains of NIOSH after the layoffs soon will be moved to a newly created Administration for Healthy America, in the office of the assistant secretary for health.Layoffs include staff who certify masks, respiratorsNIOSH is perhaps best-known by Americans for the work it does certifying respirators and masks that protect workers from infectious diseases, such as Covid-19, and on-the-job chemical exposures, including wildfire smoke.“The N in N95 stands for NIOSH,” said Parker.But the HHS layoffs include the team of workers who conduct those certifications.The cuts could directly hamper efforts to develop respirators for firefighters who battle wildfires, usually without any lung protection, due to the unique strains of the job. It also could hamper efforts to update existing masks to make them more comfortable for outdoor workers exposed to wildfire smoke or pesticides.Asked about the layoffs, Hilliard, at HHS, said only that NIOSH, “along with its critical programs,” will soon join the Administration for a Healthy America “alongside multiple agencies to improve coordination of health resources for low-income Americans.”She did not respond to follow-up questions about how or whether respirator certifications could continue at the agency without staff who have worked on those efforts.Parker expressed doubt that those certifications could easily be taken over by staff with other expertise, noting that certifications take into account a variety of factors about how ventilation and different mask materials might affect respirators’ effectiveness.“Without the research that NIOSH does and that expertise, these respirator problems are just not going to get solved,” he said. “You are talking about profound health consequences for people who have exposures.”Reporter Ellie Borst contributed.Reach reporter Ariel Wittenberg on Signal at Awitt.40Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Plan for Norfolk megafarm rejected by councillors over environmental concerns

Application, submitted by Cranswick, would have created one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in EuropeA megafarm that would have reared almost 1 million chickens and pigs at any one time has been blocked by councillors in Norfolk over climate change and environmental concerns.Councillors on King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council unanimously rejected an application to build what would have been one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in Europe. Continue reading...

A megafarm which would have produced almost one million chickens and pigs at any one time has been blocked by councillors in Norfolk over climate change and environmental concerns.Councillors on King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council unanimously rejected an application to build what would have been one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in Europe.More than 12,000 objections were lodged against the farm near the villages of Methwold and Feltwell, and 42,000 people signed a petition against it.Objections came from a local campaign group, NGOs including WWF, Sustain, FeedBack, and the RSPB, as well as the new Labour MP for South West Norfolk, Terry Jermy, and five parish councils. Jermy told the planning meeting on Thursday the intensive farm would threaten local jobs at established farms and businesses, including the vegetarian food giant Quorn, which has a manufacturing site in Methwold.Jake White, head of legal advocacy at WWF UK, told councillors the NGO estimated that the factory farm’s two sites would produce almost 90,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Over a 20-year life span the greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial style farms would be more than 1m tonnes, he said.Cranswick plc, which provides chicken and poultry to leading British supermarkets, wants to build one of the UK’s largest industrial farms by expanding an existing site to rear 870,000 chickens and 14,000 pigs at any one time.In a briefing document submitted in the days before the planning meeting, the company said it wanted to modernise for a growing market, creating more British food to higher welfare standards through the redevelopment of existing farms.King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council was recommended to reject the application on ecology and climate change grounds by its officers. In a 200-page report, planning officers said the applicant “fails to demonstrate that the development would not result in significant adverse effects on [environmentally] protected sites”.There was also “insufficient environmental information to enable the council to reach a view” on its impact on the environment and climate change, the report added. A council lawyer said the company had not provided information on all the likely carbon emissions from the industrial farm and it would be unlawful for councillors to approve the application.There are also concerns about air pollution and the impact on a water depleted area. The Environmental Law Foundation said the farm would need more water than its abstraction licence allowed.Cranswick said the new site was needed to keep up with demand from supermarkets. Barry Lock, managing director for Cranswick in East Anglia, denied claims that the company had plans to export poultry and pork. He said 96% of the food they produce was for British customers. Lock cited food security and increased jobs for people. He said approving the megafarm would reduce carbon emissions because it would reduce the need for imports of meat from abroad.

What makes middle school even worse? Climate anxiety.

Students have big feelings about climate change. Most teachers don’t know how to help.

When the Marshall Fire swept through the grassy plains and foothills outside Boulder, Colorado, in late December 2021, it burned down more than 1,000 homes — and left many young people shaken. “It can just be pure anxiety — you’re literally watching a fire march its way across, and it’s really, really close,” said David Thesenga, an 8th grade science teacher. Some of his students at Alexander Dawson School in the small town of Lafayette lost their homes to the fire.  As more students come to school traumatized by living through fires, floods, and other extreme weather, teachers are being asked to do more than educate — they’re also acting as untrained therapists. While Thesenga’s private school has psychologists on staff, they don’t provide mental health resources dedicated to helping students work through distress related to the changing climate, whether it’s trauma from a real event or more general anxiety about an overheated future. “Sometimes you don’t need a generic [tool],” he said. “What you need is something very specific to the trauma or to the thing that is causing you stress, and that is climate change.” Middle school teachers around the country say they feel unprepared to help their students cope with the stress of living on a warming planet, according to a new survey of 63 middle school teachers across the United States by the Climate Mental Health Network and the National Environmental Education Foundation. Nearly all of the teachers surveyed reported seeing emotional reactions from their students when the subject of climate change came up, but many of them lacked the resources to respond. “Students are showing up in the classroom with a range of climate emotions that can be debilitating,” said Sarah Newman, the founder and executive director of the Climate Mental Health Network. “This is impacting students’ ability to learn and how they’re engaging in the classroom.”  One of the biggest concerns Thesenga hears from his students is that climate change feels out of their control and thinking about it seems overwhelming. “They just feel powerless, and that’s probably the scariest thing for them,” he said.  Katie Larsen, who teaches 6th and 9th grade biology at The Foote School in New Haven, Connecticut, says that her students have grown up knowing that climate change is a problem, but learning about the extent of environmental damage — like how many species go extinct every year — often surprises them. She tries to shift the conversation away from doom and gloom and toward something more hopeful, such as what people can do to save ecosystems. “I think the more positive you can make it, and action-oriented, the better,” she said. A growing body of research shows that young people’s anxieties about climate change can affect their relationships and their ability to think and function. Last November, a study in The Lancet Planetary Health found that 16- to 25-year-olds were struggling with their worries about climate change. Of the more than 15,000 young Americans surveyed, 43 percent reported that it hurt their mental health, and 38 percent said that it made their daily life worse.  Then there’s the matter that surviving a specific disaster can be traumatizing for people of any age. Living through a hurricane or flood can lead to an increased risk of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, while wildfires have been connected with anxiety, substance abuse, and sleeping problems, according to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2022. These problems are especially acute for children and adolescents. An 8-year-old walks through what remains of her grandfather’s house in a neighborhood decimated by the Marshall Fire in Louisville, Colorado. Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images To address the lack of resources for dealing with distress related to climate change, the Climate Mental Health Network and the National Environmental Education Foundation developed a new toolkit that teachers can use in their middle school classrooms. One handout, called the “climate emotions wheel,” helps students identify their emotions, arranging them into four main categories — anger, sadness, fear, and positivity — and then breaking those down to more specific feelings, such as betrayal, grief, anxiety, and empowerment. While science classrooms are a natural fit for these resources, Megan Willig, who helped create the activities with the National Environmental Education Foundation, says she hopes that teachers can use them in English, social studies, and art classes, among other subjects. They’re designed to be quick and ready to use. “Teachers shared that they’re busy, and they have a lot on their plates,” said Willig, who’s a former teacher herself. The exercises prompt students to reflect on how other young people are processing distress over climate change and explore how to turn their anxiety into action. One activity in the toolkit introduces “negativity bias,” referring to how the brain often latches onto negative thoughts, and asks students to counter that tendency by brainstorming happier emotions related to the Earth. Another prompts students to consider their “spheres of influence” and think about what they can do to contribute to solving climate change in their inner circle, their community, and in the wider world. Read Next How climate disasters hurt adolescents’ mental health Zoya Teirstein The toolkit was piloted last fall by 40 teachers who volunteered in 25 states. Afterward, all of the teachers who participated said they’d recommend it to a colleague, and a majority reported feeling more confident addressing students’ emotions — as well as their own. The tools were successful in red states like Utah, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, West Virginia, and Indiana, as well as blue ones like New York and Washington. Newman thinks it’s a sign that the need for these kinds of resources isn’t a partisan issue. She views middle school as a crucial moment to offer mental health support. “Kids are really becoming more aware of climate change and what’s actually happening,” she said. “It’s often the first time that they’re going to be learning about it in school. They have more access to social media and online news, which is amplifying their awareness and knowledge about climate change, and they’re going through really formative times.” Asked if he would try the exercises, Thesenga said he would give them a shot. “Absolutely, why the hell not?” he said. In his Facebook groups, he’s seen fellow teachers say they avoid the subject altogether in class. “That is not the answer — your students want to know,” Thesenga said. “You’re the frontline person. You have to buck it up, and you have to do this.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What makes middle school even worse? Climate anxiety. on Apr 3, 2025.

States lead on landfill methane emissions as federal action stalls

Landfills are a major problem for the climate: They’re the United States’ third-largest source of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide in the short term. Last year, the federal government was poised to start reining in these emissions: In July, the Environmental Protection…

Landfills are a major problem for the climate: They’re the United States’ third-largest source of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide in the short term. Last year, the federal government was poised to start reining in these emissions: In July, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would release new regulations to better detect and prevent methane leaks from landfills. The Trump administration, which has announced its intention to cut the EPA’s budget by 65% or more, seems unlikely to follow through on these plans or any other policy limiting landfill emissions. But in the absence of federal leadership, states like Michigan, Oregon, Colorado, and California are moving forward with their own plans. Regulatory efforts are underway among these climate leaders to implement stricter rules for landfill operators and require the use of novel technology, like drones and satellites that monitor leaks. “These state regulations could be hugely impactful,” said Elizabeth Schroeder, the senior communications strategist at Industrious Labs, a nonprofit working to transform heavy industry. They not only have the potential to make a real dent on greenhouse gas emissions, Schroeder said, but could also set a national example for other states looking to curtail methane pollution. How states can step up regulation on landfills Currently, the EPA requires landfill operators to cover trash to minimize odor, disease risk, and fire — a practice that also minimizes methane leaks. This usually looks like a layer of dirt or ash, followed by tarps. Operators of large landfills must also install extraction systems, networks of pipes that collect methane and other gases from inside the landfill. The extraction systems then pump these emissions to burn off at flares or, increasingly, to biogas energy projects. However, landfills are dynamic systems — over time, as waste breaks down and shifts, cover develops holes and pipes crack. Maintenance is often imperfect. An analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund found that between 2021 and 2023, more than one-third of landfills had at least one violation of EPA standards. Operators of landfills that exceed a specific emissions threshold are supposed to conduct quarterly ​“walking” surveys for leaks. But experts say that these surveys are infrequent and often miss large portions of the landfill. States have an opportunity to step up those standards — not only by lowering emissions limits but by improving the maintenance and monitoring of landfills, said Tom Frankiewicz, the waste-sector methane expert at climate-focused think tank RMI. ​“While we would love to see all this done comprehensively in one national-level regulation, it’s states that are taking the lead on deployment of advanced technology and setting new best practices for landfills.” In 2010, California became the first state to develop standards for landfills that were stricter than federal rules. Those included a lower emissions threshold at which landfills had to install gas collection systems and a requirement that operators enclose flares so that the methane burns more efficiently. Other states, including Oregon and Washington, followed suit and in some respects even surpassed California, said Katherine Blauvelt, the circular-economy director for Industrious Labs. But despite this early progress, landfills in these states and elsewhere continue to spew methane and undermine climate goals. Now, though, Colorado has taken the lead on a new generation of landfill emissions regulations. The state is developing what some experts are calling a first-of-a-kind program for monitoring and responding to methane leaks from landfills. As part of the initiative, Colorado plans to implement remote-sensing technologies, including fly-overs and satellites, to detect methane leaks, which operators would then be required to address. “Colorado would be the first state to incorporate that into a rule where, instead of relying on voluntary follow-up, there would actually be requirements around mitigating emissions that are detected,” said Ellie Garland, a senior associate focusing on methane policy at RMI. A draft rule will be publicly available in April, with a final vote expected in August. In addition, Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment is considering additional requirements for landfills that include stricter rules for the maintenance of cover and a lower threshold at which landfills are required to report and control emissions, Garland said. Currently only 15 of the state’s about 50 active landfills do this, although Colorado began requiring 35 more landfills to begin reporting emissions starting on March 31, said Clay Clarke, the manager of the climate change program at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Not all landfills are required to control emissions. That’s because smaller landfills don’t generate enough gas to collect and flare. Under proposed regulations, many of these landfills would need to pipe gas to biofilters — a system that uses microorganisms to digest methane.

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