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TUESDAYS — YOUR INBOX — ASSUREDLY
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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS
Flood mitigation benefits from wetlands estimated at $177B
“The destruction of wetlands in the United States has increased the amount of flood insurance claims by $10 billion over the past 40 years. Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund used federal flood insurance claims data to calculate the dollar value of wetlands in reducing river flooding.
“Wetlands ease the severity of flooding. They store water, slow the velocity of its flow and reduce runoff. However, in 2023, the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision, Sackett vs. EPA, narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act and redefined wetlands to include only those with a continuous surface water connection with other waterbodies.
“The value of flood-mitigation benefits from unprotected wetlands is an estimated $177 billion, according to the study. Yet the dollar figures are likely an underestimate because the study focused on flooding along rivers and streams, and did not account for coastal and tidal inundations. Only a third of expected annual losses from flooding are insured by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), so the economic benefit of wetlands in preventing flooding is likely much higher.” [click the link for the full article]
Veggie and specialty crops more resilient than commodity crops
“A week ago, I asked for ‘real-world examples of technologies that flip the competition in favour of small and diverse’. I got a lot of comments on that article, some here, but most on Facebook.
“Some seem to interpret my post as a statement that small and diverse farms are not as good as big farms, but nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that small farms can’t compete is not an indicator of their failure, but an indicator of the failure of commodity farming.
“Many people seem to believe that small farms produce less food than bigger farms. But that is a mistake. The competitiveness of big farms is that they produce cheaper, not more and certainly not better. Some claim that small farms produce 70% of the world’s food. That is not correct, but they could produce all food.
“But regardless of whether you try to compete in commodity markets, build new markets, use the best possible technologies, or do ‘primitive’ farming, it is hard to be a small-scale farmer living off the land. Period.
“It is hard, but I believe it is harder than necessary when you try to be competitive. If you, instead, let go of that obsession, a weight is lifted from your chest. Do we WANT to be more ‘competitive’? Why? Perhaps some of us want to be more ‘collaborative’ – collaborating with people, with animals, with plants, with soils, etc.” [click the link for the full article]
Ways to avoid global food supply constraints
“Millions more people will face hunger in the coming months if the conflict in the Middle East is not resolved soon. The price of energy, which instantly affects the cost of producing and transporting food, has risen sharply due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The price of fertiliser, much of it made in the Gulf states and exported via the same stretch of water, has also soared.
“Here are four ways that the world could attempt to build a food system that would be far more resilient to future shocks.
“Make the transition to ‘green ammonia’ – ammonia produced using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. It would be possible to produce home grown fertiliser. The declining cost of renewables combined with wildly fluctuating gas prices could soon make it a more competitive.
“Places like Sweden, China and India take a longer term approach, and think beyond stockpiling things like grains, to other essential farm supplies like fertiliser and pesticides.
“Healthier diets – specifically by eating more plant proteins – could swiftly improve food security and resilience. Animal farming requires large amounts of fertiliser. Plant proteins such as legumes (beans, lentils, peas) require much less fertiliser.
“Ethanol and bio-diesel, are often portrayed as sustainable. But the crops used to produce these fuels now occupy an area at least the size of Italy. Instead, building solar or wind farms to provide energy for electric [food delivery] is a much more efficient use of land.” [click the link for the full article]
Wheat crop damage — another food price shock
“Recent Kansas weather is leading to a bad harvest for this year’s wheat crop. Some farmers are seeing up to 20% lower yield due to the drought and freezes this spring. The wheat has low test weights, which can lead to lower quality flour. Elevators may reject the crop.
“Storms ripped through western Kansas from Wallace County to Ness County in a swath ten to 15 miles wide on May 14. Wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour and hail from pea-sized to baseball-sized completely destroyed fields that were already suffering from drought stress. Neighbors in the area estimated that up to two-thirds of their crop was destroyed.” [click the links for the full articles]
The Donald’s ANWR oil lease auction a bust
“On Friday, the Trump administration’s auction of oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) drew limited interest, with no major companies bidding. The Gwich’in Steering Committee, an Alaska Native group said in a statement that the auction had ‘failed’.
“The bidders were Alaska-owned natural gas company Hex Energy, and Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), a corporation owned by the state government. AIDEA is not an oil company and would probably need to contract out any drilling.
“That only a few bids were made in Friday’s auction was similar to the auction that President Donald Trump’s first administration. AIDEA was the main buyer, those leases became tied up in litigation, and President Joe Biden’s administration later canceled them.
“60 members in the Senate and House condemned the Trump administration’s plans to auction off sacred and sensitive lands within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas companies. ‘Today, no oil company holds leases on the Coastal Plain of the Refuge. Major companies, including Chevron and BP, have abandoned their Arctic Refuge interests entirely, in some cases paying millions to walk away. Every major bank in the United States and Canada has refused to finance Arctic Refuge drilling’.
“A March auction of National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) areas drew significant interest, resulting in 187 lease areas sold worth $163 million and covering 1.3 million acres in the 23-million-acre reserve.” [click the links for the full articles]
Willful ignorance about oceanographic data
“The Trump administration’s National Science Foundation has begun dismantling the infrastructure of a $368 million deep-ocean observing program critical to monitoring marine ecosystems. The information about ocean temperature, chemistry, currents, biological conditions, and more is used by scientists to understand a multitude of marine research questions including the activity of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.
“The NSF plans to remove all in-water arrays and infrastructure — including hundreds of deep-sea instruments — from four of the five currently-operating sites within the project. The removal is expected to occur over the next 15 months.
“Said Hilary Palevsky, a marine biogeochemist, there’s ‘a lot of real concern’ among the oceanographic community that the Endurance Array (off the coasts of Oregon and Washington) is being dismantled just as an intense El Niño event—and associated marine heat wave — is expected this summer.” [click the link for the full article]
Transition from fossil fuels — more rhetoric or actionable steps?
“The first international Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels concluded on April 29 in Santa Marta, Colombia. The conference included countries advocating for a phase-down of fossil fuels, and included countries highly exposed to climate change.
“Its goal for now is to enable frank discussions on the practical realities of phasing down fossil fuels, and foster a coalition capable of pushing future COPs toward more concrete action. Will Santa Marta mark the beginning of a genuine transformation, or remain another symbolic milestone?
“Many proposals discussed in Santa Marta have already been raised at previous conferences. calls for global action to address climate change and help climate-vulnerable countries have largely failed to translate into concrete policies. Whether Santa Marta becomes more than rhetoric will depend on four key dynamics.
“Will participating countries remain in informal, non-binding coalitions, or will they form more structured groups focused on phasing down fossil fuels, similar to how OPEC organizes. The credibility of this process will hinge on whether countries adopt binding national measures, such as bans on new exploration, subsidies for renewables, and taxation, regulation and prohibitions. The momentum generated in Santa Marta must withstand domestic political shifts that could weaken commitments. Effective action will depend on stronger co-ordination among governments, civil society and the scientific community.” [click the link for the full article]
We’re so clever, modernity has brought us to extinction
“Why are worldviews so drastically different? Why is it that obvious truths to one person can seem like unhinged insanity to another? This post contains a bit of musing about the foundations underpinning the disconnect.
“What’s behind the disconnect may be a difference in opinion as to who’s the boss: humans or the universe? Are we now effectively and indefinitely apart from nature, in our sealed and controlled boxes? Do we put our faith in novel human thought, or in deep-time relationships?
“Human cognition facilitated the adoption of agricultural practices. The resulting mix of surplus/storage, settlement, possessions, division of labor, hierarchy, etc. instantiated numerous, novel, positive feedback loops that quickly jumped population doubling time to 2,000 years from 20,000 years or longer. Most in our culture heap praise on the agricultural innovation: unshackling humans from demeaning limits. But the innovation has an obvious fatal flaw: it sets us on a rapid and — by all appearances — unstoppable path to overshoot.
“The best wisdom might derive from placing little stock in what goes on inside human brains. Inside human brains, fault-prone fragments of logic struggle to creep along at a few tens of bits per second. Outside human brains, even the air particles in a single room are turning over information at rates around 1040 bits per second. The universe as a whole unfathomably outstrips what our puny meat-brains can track.
“Human brains—and especially the modernity-promoted left hemispheres — love separation, categorization, abstraction, decontextualization, and logic. Our modernity-steeped culture is prepared to do anything to keep the sixth mass extinction fully underway — I mean, keep modernity intact. Same thing.
“The point is, what goes on in our heads is an insubstantial veneer within a larger, robust reality. Temporary and patently unsustainable practices can easily fool our gullible brains into the convenient and flattering belief that we’ve invented the one right way to live, amplified by pride in this ‘accomplishment’. Unreserved praise of agriculture, technology, medical care, etc. is the norm. But in ecological terms, our brains have led us — and countless innocent species — down a dead-end path.” [click the link for the full article]
Toxic mining allowed in pristine Boundary Waters of Minnesota
“The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) is a critically protected wilderness region in northeastern Minnesota, encompassing over one million acres of the Superior National Forest. It forms part of the larger Quetico-Superior ecosystem, which stretches across the U.S.-Canada border.
“In April, the U.S. Senate voted 50-49 to overturn a 20-year federal suspension on mining across roughly 225,000 acres of the Superior National Forest. The measure effectively grants approval for sulfide-ore copper-nickel mining by Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta.
“In its Mine Plan of Operations, Twin Metals mentions indigenous tribes, and outlines alleged plans for responsible mining. However, scientific evidence shows something different; for example, the Environmental Protection Agency identifies sulfide mining as one of the most toxic industries in the country.
“This mine is literally a mile or so from water that drains directly into the Boundary Waters and then into Voyageurs National Park. This is particularly alarming in the BWCA because of its highly interconnected watershed and the immense scale of freshwater at risk. For decades, organizations like Friends of the Boundary Waters have argued that pollution from sulfide mining is nearly impossible to contain and could persist for centuries.” [click the link for the full article]
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