Car ‘Splatometer’ Tests Reveal Huge Decline in the Number of Insects
A truck driver cleans dead bugs off his windshield at a truck stop in Baytown, Texas. Brett Coomer/AP This piece was originally published in The Guardian and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership. Two scientific studies of the number of insects splattered by cars have revealed a huge decline in abundance at European sites…
Trump Rescued a Nasty Pesticide from an EPA Ban. Now Corteva Will Stop Making It.
Pgiam/Getty Images Back in 2017, in the early days of the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency rejected a proposal by its own scientists to ban chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic pesticide suspected of causing to lower birth weights, lower IQs, attention deficit disorder and other developmental issues in children. The decision generated outrage and inspired several…
Clinton Gave Up On Rural America. Are the Democrats About To Do It Again?
Donald Trump on the campaign trail, 2016.Andrew Harnik/AP Photo President Donald Trump, speaking in Iowa last week, made a bold prediction about his prospects in the Hawkeye State this coming November: “We’re going to win the great state of Iowa, and it’s going to be a historic landslide,” he thundered. Trump may actually turn out…
Climate Change Is Making It Much Harder to Be a Young Farmer
A young woman picks fruit.Dmitry Feoktistov/Zuma This story was originally published by the Food and Environment Reporting Network. With this season’s severe flooding, raging wildfires, and delayed planting, many of the country’s farmers are struggling to adjust as climate change sets in. Yet young and beginning farmers face unique challenges, farmers and advocates say, with…
Waiter, There’s a Climate Surcharge in My Soup
Mother Jones illustration; Getty American restaurant diners don’t usually blink before adding an extra 15-20 percent tip onto their bills. In recent years, San Francisco’s eaters have even (mostly) grown accustomed to paying up to six percent extra for dinner to offset the cost of the city’s mandated healthcare program. Starting in January, at a…
The Latest Green New Deal for Farmers Would Restructure Everything About How They Make Money
eclipse_images/Getty The Green New Deal, the climate-change-fighting policy framework proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) nearly a year ago, laid down bold goals for transforming agriculture: It called for a “10-year national mobilization” to “eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector” while “supporting family farming.” The plan…