Wetland in Everglades national Park, FL, Source: National Geographic

As we race to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, wetlands are our little-known ally. With the ability to store up to fifty times more carbon than the Earth’s rainforests, wetlands are some of the most effective naturally occurring ecosystems for combating climate change. Although they occupy only 3-5% of the world’s surface, wetlands hold an astounding 20-30% of carbon stored in the Earth’s soil. 

They deliver other benefits as well. Wetlands help protect against flooding, an increasingly common side-effect of climate change as sea levels rise. And, as global water scarcity grows, they also purify much of the earth’s available freshwater. When protected, wetlands are a tremendous resource. 

Peat Bog, Nantucket Island, MA, Source: National Geographic

So, what are wetlands? They are broadly defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as areas where the ground is soaked by water for at least part if not all of the year. Water may be above the soil as, for example, in swamps, but in other cases the ground is waterlogged just below the surface. Since the definition of wetland is general, there are many differing types, ranging from coastal mangroves, to marshes, to peat bogs. 

From their broad definition you might expect wetlands to be everywhere. In reality they are disappearing rapidly. In the past 100 years nearly half of Earth’s wetlands have been destroyed. 

Swamp in Loango National Park, Gabon, Africa, Source: National Geographic

Climate change and human disturbance increasingly threaten wetlands worldwide. In a cruel paradox, humanity desperately needs wetlands to help sequester carbon dioxide, yet our carbon emissions and ever-expanding infrastructure development threaten their survival. Although international efforts to solve the climate crisis have long hinged on emissions reductions, it is now time to also focus our efforts on preserving wetlands. 

International cooperation is key to large scale preservation. Questions of land ownership, often complicated by the colonial histories of various countries, affect who has power in determining which wetlands to protect. 

Wetlands have tremendous potential to provide us with necessary resources while also contributing to a climate solution. But to fully reap the benefits of wetlands’ potential, humanity has significant conservation hurdles to jump. Through examination of their historic usage, ecological potential, and management challenges, I will explore the role wetlands should play in humanity’s future, and how we can get there. 

For nearly a century, we have known about the dangerous threat of lead. Yet a study by the World Health Organization estimated that even in 2017, lead exposure still caused 1.06 million deaths. If the science has been clear for so long, why is lead still killing us?

Scientists know how lead enters and affects our bodies. Exposure to lead occurs through contaminated water, air, dust, or food. Our bodies absorb lead when we swallow dust or tainted food, or inhale small lead particles. Lead then enters our blood stream where it travels to various organs, posing the most risk to the brain.

Alabama Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program Infographic [Image Credit: National Environmental Health Association]

The problem is that people still think that there is an “acceptable level of lead” we can have in our bodies. But at the ‘acceptable’ level in the US, children still show symptoms of lead poisoning. Even when the CDC emphasizes that there is no safe blood lead level for children, the US continues to use more lead every year in batteries and vehicles. While the US government and international institutions have taken some action to reduce lead, much of the burden of reducing exposure is still placed on communities and families.

Lead contamination is not an issue any individual can fix. It requires government programs to clean existing sites, and regulate corporations to clean up their act. But what happens when this doesn’t happen equitably? Government programs, like the EPA’s Superfund program, disproportionately clean up toxic sites in white, wealthier areas, while the cleanup process in Black and Indigenous communities is significantly slower and less well funded. Three out of five Black Americans still live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste. This results in the disproportionate impact of lead pollution in Black and Indigenous communities; 11.2% of Black children suffer lead poisoning, compared to 2.3% of white children.

For my beat, I will track down the unseen, toxic legacies of lead, such as mine waste, lead in soils, and even lead in the dust of your home. I will investigate questions like: how does lead poisoning intersect with issues like climate change? How can lead get into my home? And why is there no national or international plan to end lead exposure for good?

In the summer of 2019, flames engulfed the Amazon. 87,000 fires scorched the world’s largest rainforest, home to 30 million people, 40,000 plant types, and more than 430 species of mammal. Images of the fires blazing across large swaths of the Amazon generated outrage worldwide. The costs of losing this precious ecosystem, after all, are profound. Often referred to as the lungs of the planet, the Amazon produces 20% of Earth’s oxygen and sucks in atmospheric carbon dioxide. As natural disaster researcher Jose Marengo remarked: If the Amazon were to collapse, it “would mean bye-bye Paris,” a reference to the Paris Accord’s stated goal to limit warming to 1.5° degrees. Marengo’s warning raises key questions: Why is the Amazon on fire? What actions have been taken to combat this disaster? And what is at stake in this crisis?

The Amazon Jungle in Apui, Amazonas goes up in flames (Source: Aljazeera).

Human factors drove the Amazonian inferno last year. Experts contend that deforestation for cattle ranching, soy cultivation, and mining made for an explosive ecosystem. Forest fires also exacerbate and are intensified by the human-driven climate crisis. Longer dry seasons and higher temperatures are catapulting the “savannization” of the Amazon, a process where forests transform into savanna-like landscapes, often due to fire occurrences in the ecosystem. Savannization triggers a vicious cycle of further forest cover loss and higher intensity flames. At present, the Amazon is a major carbon sink, absorbing nearly a billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. But with rampant deforestation and raging fires, the rainforest is in danger of morphing into a carbon source, one that spews out large quantities of carbon emissions.

The forest fires mean injustices too. Hundreds of Indigenous communities live in the Brazilian Amazon. Large-scale fires threaten to displace Indigenous people and rupture intimate ties between local tribes and the surrounding land. Indigenous groups continue to fight an uphill battle to save the “soul” of the rainforest.

There was a time when Brazil dramatically curbed deforestation in the Amazon Basin. Between 2004 and 2012, deforestation rates plummeted from 27,772 to 4,571 square kilometers per year. Concerted public pressure and an effective government crackdown slowed illegal land clearing. In 2015, however, the Amazon saw a spike in cattle ranching, and deforestation began to accelerate.

Brazil’s recent political turnabout has escalated this crisis. Cattle ranchers with stakes in the beef and soy industries hold enormous lobbying power, which they use to challenge environmental regulations. To add fuel to fire, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro frequently stokes the flames of anti-environmentalism. The president’s woeful environmental record has drawn sharp criticism from the international community. Bolsonaro has fired back, decrying the “lamentable colonialist stance” of the developed world. In light of his nationalistic posturing and wildly controversial claims on the Amazon, activists have christened Bolsonaro the “exterminator of the future.”

For my beat, I will examine the fiery power dynamics shaping the future of the Amazon. I aim to engage with perspectives at the local, national, and global levels. In doing so, I hope to examine the driving factors and consequences of the forest fires, as well as proposed solutions to tackling the disaster. The Amazon rainforest is deemed the heritage of humanity. An effective—and equitable—way out of this crisis is vital. Indeed, the lungs of our planet depend on it.

Underground, soil is made of complex layers (Image source: National Geographic) 

If you’re like most people, you think about dirt only when you’re scrubbing stains out of your children’s clothes. Or maybe you’re one of the many who’s started “pandemic gardening,” and think soil comes in bags labeled Miracle-Gro. Even introductory biology courses in high school and college are dismissive in their dirt talk, reducing dirt to a nonliving resource for living things to take advantage of.

But soil is alive. More and more research tells us that soil is teeming with underground fungal networks. The fungal networks act as a telephone wire for plants, allowing them to alert one another of disease and attack by insects. These fungi also allow plants to take up more nutrients themselves, as well as share those resources with their neighbors. Even outside of fungi, soil is packed with life—one teaspoon of soil can hold a billion bacteria. Zooming out more, you’re likely familiar with the giants who call soil home, including earthworms and insects, through your own experience with soil. Your biology textbook wasn’t entirely wrong in its characterization of soil as abiotic. Soil structure is mosaic-like, with biotic and abiotic pieces coming together to make something beautiful.

Artistic Representation of Underground Fungal Networks (Image Source: BBC News)

Those abiotic bits of soil have huge consequences for living things that interact with them—including humans. The amount of minerals like zinc and iron in soil can have long-standing consequences on human health. And soil’s connections to human wellbeing don’t end there. Iodine deficiencies in soil can lead to life-long thyroid conditions.

Soil also affects health on an even larger timescale—it plays a fundamental role in mitigating human-caused climate change. Simply put, we’re past the point where climate change can be prevented. Finding ways to store excess carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is key to limiting its scope and scale. Soil, and especially well-managed soil, has the potential to act as a reservoir for that carbon, keeping it out of Earth’s atmosphere.

In looking at soil through the lenses of environmental health, public health, and climate change, I will make the case that if we care about the future of our planet and each other, we need to stop treating soil like dirt.

How the United States builds cities has changed over the last 50 years. Urban design and planning has gone from an autocratic and elitist process that disregards environmental impact, to one that is more democratic, more dynamic, and more sustainable. But it must change even more quickly to meet the challenges ahead. Since the early 2000’s, a new approach to designing our most intensely human spaces has emerged: ecological urbanism. Anne Whiston Spirn, the MIT professor credited with starting the ecological urbanism movement, defines it as the wedding between “the theory and practice of city design and planning…with the insights of ecology.”

The West Philadelphia Landscape Plan and Greening Project (led by Spirn herself) is a prime example of ecological urbanism’s principles at work. The Mill Creek watershed is managed as part of an approach to improve regional water quality through community development and educational reform. Community gardens and the reuse of vacant lots improved the management of water through the city and implemented landscape literacy programs for its youth.

Ecological urbanism encompasses multiple fields: community engagement and activism, urban planning and design, landscape literacy, and accessibility. It can take place at multiple scales, be it the neighborhood, the small town, the city, or the region. Ecological urbanism can influence and operate on principles that apply to a variety of settings: intensely developed cities, sprawling suburbs, and small rural towns. A fundamental tenet shared across these settings is respect: respect for the natural processes that impose limitations on our cities, respect for all the people who inhabit them, and respect for the potential that lies in achieving harmony of these components.

How will our new values and attitudes toward living be reflected in our built environment? How can we cultivate the forces of nature within the walls of the city, working with it and not banishing it? Who will have the most access to these changes in our environment? Who benefits and who faces the costs? I will answer these questions and more by exploring the field of ecological urbanism, reviewing the themes and principles tantamount to its philosophy, and evaluating the outcomes of this new approach.

Source: https://web.mit.edu/nature/overview.html

Image source: https://www.shmadrid.com/blog/en/caixaforum-madrid-a-cultural-centre-in-the-heart-of-old-madrid/

California’s Central Valley, a 20,000 square-mile stretch bound by the Sierra Nevada on the east and the California Coast Ranges on the west, is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, supplying more than half of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States. Affectionately nicknamed “America’s salad bowl”, it is the world’s largest patch of class-1 soil, temperatures are ideal, and the sun shines nearly 300 days out of the year. Yet, passing through the valley is a confusing experience. The landscape forms a patchwork, as dilapidated rural communities covered in a thick layer of brown dust are mysteriously punctuated by expansive plots of lush cropland. Mile after mile, the valley’s main artery, Interstate 5, seems torn between two distinctly different realities.

The juxtaposition of these two realities indicates that the Central Valley is in a water crisis. The climate is dry, and agricultural productivity of the area depends entirely on large-scale irrigation infrastructure, such as the 1933 Central Valley Water Project and the 1960 California State Water Project. Together, these projects have plumbed the valley with an extensive network of dams, aqueducts, and reservoirs. Now, there are years when the existing infrastructure isn’t enough. From 2011-2017 California experienced one of the most intense droughts on record, and some farmers received no water at all. 

To make up for this shortfall, many farmers instead turned to groundwater, drilling deeper and deeper wells to tap into underground aquifers. This can provide a quick fix, but over time groundwater depletion causes land subsidence, infrastructure damage, decreased water quality and local exposure to harmful substances, and geologic effects. The original solution of diverting surface water using irrigation technology is also environmentally harmful, causing habitat destruction as well as changes to erosion and sedimentation rates. 

From a purely environmental standpoint, perhaps this area of California simply shouldn’t be farmland. But if the Central Valley suddenly stopped producing, American agriculture would collapse. How much would the price of fruits and vegetables jump if 50% of the U.S supply was suddenly cut? Realistically, prices have the potential to grow high enough to threaten food security for vulnerable groups across the entire nation. Rural communities in California also depend on the industry, which provides over 250,000 jobs to an area that has long suffered from chronic poverty and unemployment. 

The Central Valley water crisis is not only an environmental problem, but one of economics, of human rights, and of the overall sustainability of America’s food systems. What can we do, and who bears the burden of our actions, and what does this say about the nature of our relationship with each other, with our food, and with the environment?

    In Colombia, armed conflicts are centered around gaining control of territory and seizing natural resources, which often create poverty, destruction, and mortality. Yet violent conflicts produce unacknowledged consequences such as food insecurity, which further perpetuates political instability. Strategies taken during the guerilla movement, from rebel members, drug traffickers, and military officials, to accumulate wealth and gain political controlled to a disruption in local food production and distribution, displacement of families, loss of land, and environmental damage. 

    The effects of the Colombian armed conflict continue to be felt today in the lives of the people who lack adequate access to food and rural areas. Despite peace negotiations that pushed the government to address rural development, little has been done to create policies that tackle food insecurity. The government’s failure to invest in food security policies continues to create social unrest, causing new fights over territory and unsettling Colombia’s political stability. 

    It is important to analyze the threats that conflicts pose to food systems affected. Promoting the safety and rights of people who produce, distribute, and consume food must be included in policies that protect rural livelihoods. A closer examination of how agriculture unfolds in areas of conflict, can help communities affected inform and organize themselves to mediate and prevent the impacts of food insecurity. It is necessary to identify the relationship between food security and violent conflicts, so that the state can work with their communities to make informed policy decisions and programs.

     In other cases around the world, food insecurity can be both a cause and a consequence of conflict creating vicious cycles of instability, violence, poverty, and hunger. In Nigeria, human-induced climate change has resulted in drought and desertification. Dried up grazing areas have pushed farmers into cattle herding land. The forced displacement coupled with ethnic and religious differences have made violent conflicts more common. The Nigerian government has failed to implement law enforcement to reduce violent encounters and prosecute murderers. Government regulation efforts, such as military checkpoints and outposts, have been ineffective and have reduced local chief’s power to mediate conflicts and allocate land. The Nigerian conflict for land and water demonstrates the growing needs of the state and international governments to help build resilience in communities with limited access to food and land. 

    Political leaders must be committed to prioritizing sustainable food security by learning how to address the challenges that arise from it. It is important to ask: How does food insecurity affect the poor and political stability? Are communities able to regain access to proper nutrition after violent conflicts? How can nations learn from each other to strengthen their food security? These are some questions I will address in my environmental beat.

This February kicked off Democratic presidential primary season. Before the Democratic National Committee chooses a candidate in July, voters across the country will decide which of the eight Democratic candidates they want to see on the ballot. With the pressing issue of climate change and the potential for game-changing policies like the Green New Deal, the stakes are at an all-time high. The fate of our planet will be decided this November.

Climate change is on the mind of many voters. In a poll conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication in November 2019, 66% of surveyed Democratic voters are worried about global warming. That includes a 20% increase in moderate/conservative Democrats from 2014. (x) This may come as little surprise to many since the number of headlines about climate change from the five most-read US newspapers have been drastically  increasing since 2012 (x). As public awareness on the issue increases, people are looking to politicians to do their part.

While no Democratic candidate disavows the existence or severity of climate change, the candidates differ in their approaches. Throughout the semester, I intend to delve into the environmental platforms and policies supported and rejected by the Democratic candidates. What exactly is the Green New Deal, and can it be implemented? Why are some candidates promising to ban fracking? How will that affect their relationships with voters? Do any of the candidates receive donations from dirty industries? What are the candidates’ past voting records on environmental issues?

These questions and more will help paint a clearer picture of the candidates’ promises and priorities. With the climate crisis upon us, there is little time to waste. When we cast our votes over the next few months, we will help shape the future of our country and our planet.

When I was about 10 years old, my parents took me camping on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. I remember the sharp smell of the evergreen trees mixing with salty sea spray as my parents and I hiked along the coastal cliffs. We eventually came to a lookout where a large group of people were chattering excitedly, peering around each other to get a good view of the Sound. Curious, I quickly scooted my way to the front of a group (being a child had its perks). Across the Sound there were a dozen orca whales breeching the surface of the water, swimming and diving, in my eyes frolicking, as they made their way closer to us. I had never before seen anything, anyone, so majestic and powerful.

Southern Resident orcas in the Puget Sound

Learning more about whales sparked my fascination and curiosity. Did you know the blue whale is the largest animal that ever lived? That they can weigh as much as 24 elephants? Or that bowhead whales can live for more than 200 years? Did you know that several species of whales, like orca whales, live in close-knit family groups that share knowledge with each other through their songs? And that some even share food with those less able to hunt?

I still have the same reverence for whales that I did as a child, but I have also become aware of the important role they play in marine ecosystems. Many whales are keystone species, meaning that they are a species that has an impact on the natural environment disproportionate to their abundance. If a keystone species disappears from an ecosystem or its population is greatly reduced, the ecosystem will change drastically. If whales disappear, many marine ecosystems will become destabilized. In other words, they (and we) will be in big trouble.

Commercial whaling in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries decimated the populations of many whale species. Before commercial whaling, the great whale population, including baleen and sperm whales numbered 4 to 5 million. Today, the population is estimated to be around 1.3 million (source) and six out of the thirteen species of great whales are considered endangered or vulnerable. And no wonder. Whales face declining fish stocks, habitat loss, water pollution, sound pollution . . . the list goes on and on. My beloved orcas have not escaped these threats. There were about 85 members of the Southern Resident orcas when I first saw them as a child in 2008. The population has now declined to close to 70. The creatures I have always seen as some of the most powerful, I now realize are also some of the most vulnerable.

For my beat, I will dig into why such powerful creatures are also so vulnerable. I will answer questions like: What are the biggest threats whales face? What are the sources of these threats? What are the most effective ways to address these threats and best protect whales? What are the best activism and political tactics? What makes people care about whales? What is their cultural significance? By drawing attention to the environmental problems whales face, the most effective conservation methods, and the greater meaning they hold to us as humans, I believe that we can help ensure the persistence of these awesome creatures for years to come.

Photo source: url