If you voted “yes” on November 2nd to stop the CMP Corridor you were in good company. An extraordinary number of voters for an off-year election drove to the polls or, like me, mailed in a ballot. 59% of all Maine voters supported the measure and, if you were between the ages of 18 and 34, 83% of your voting peers agreed with you. 

We managed to see through the lies told by the flood of expensive CMP advertising and see that CMP did not have the best interests of Mainers or the environment at heart, and decided to take a stand  at the polls. 

Despite the vote, CMP is continuing to clear cut through the heart of the Maine woods and erect power lines. Not only that, but they filed a 36-page lawsuit against the state of Maine saying the state had already issued the permit and it was unlawful of them to revoke it. 

We can–and should–continue to show up at protests and write to our representatives to ensure the peoples’ will is enforced, but we also urgently need to think bigger about the energy future we want in Maine. A lot more is at stake than just this power line. We have the opportunity to create something that more directly benefits Mainers rather than some far-off investor.

One of the most exciting and promising changes in Maine right now is the rise of consumer-owned utilities (COU). COUs are electricity companies owned by the people who depend on them. They have proven more reliable, less expensive, and better at incorporating renewable energy sources than their investor-owned counterparts. 

COUs can also be more adaptable to the extreme weather events that are becoming more common. They are less profit driven and more community oriented than utilities beholden to investors. Better disaster preparedness is a direct result of COU customers having a say in the values of their utility company. Without the pressure from investors to turn a large profit, utilities can focus more of their resources on locally tailored disaster preparation instead of cheaper and riskier blanket approaches. 

Nine COUs currently serve 97 Maine towns. But to solve the frustrations caused by high prices and sloppy billing practices of CMP and fast-track Maine’s progress towards 100% renewables, COUs need much more support. 

While the rest of us were tied up in the CMP Corridor debate, a group of energy, financial, and legal sector experts, as well as environmental and social activists and concerned citizens, were crafting a grand new vision for Maine’s energy future–Pine Tree Power Co. 

Bigger than any of Maine’s COUs thus far, Pine Tree would give Mainers an alternative to CMP and provide them with the dependable and accessible power they need. Our Power, the group behind the Pine Tree Power Co. initiative, expects the transition could be done relatively easily. It would retain workers currently working for CMP and use the existing grid to deliver energy. With Pine Tree Power, paying electricity bills means keeping the money in the Maine economy instead of forking it out to Iberdrola, the Spain-based company that owns Avangrid, CMP’s parent company. 

Maine’s energy grid badly needs updating–especially if we’re going to add a lot of solar and wind in the next decade. CMP has little interest in improving the grid beyond what’s needed to retain customers so it can pay its shareholders. Anti-renewable energy policy also benefits the company by maintaining the status quo and eliminating the need for the company to invest in energy sources that don’t boost its bottom line. Is this really the type of utility we want to be relying on for our power? With Pine Tree Power, the values of real Mainers would be better reflected in the values and actions of the company that serves us. And if we decide we care about strengthening the grid and incorporating renewables, this type of utility could help us do that. 

While Maine is already one of only seven states committed to reaching 100% renewable energy, we can reach this goal a lot sooner than 2050 with the help of Pine Tree Power. COUs are the future, and the sooner we can get Pine Tree Power up and running the better off Maine will be economically and environmentally.

We don’t need the deeply politicized and profit-driven “help” from CMP to reach our goals and secure our energy independence. By supporting COUs like Pine Tree Power, we can do it ourselves.

https://ourpowermaine.org

If you don’t have a caffeine addiction, you’re in luck. A morning cup of coffee may be hard to come by in the late 21st century.

Given ongoing climate change trends, by 2050, up to 88% of coffee farmland in Latin America could no longer be suitable for cultivation. This is considerable given that Latin America produces most of the world’s coffee.

Coffee production relies predominantly on two coffee species of the 124 known to scientists. This limits existing genetic diversity and places farmers in a vulnerable position because it makes it more difficult for breeders to introduce new traits like drought resistance. It also makes it challenging for the coffee industry to survive when a stressor like high heat arrives because all plant populations are similar, and therefore equally susceptible.

But challenges are also opportunities for change. The technology to facilitate change exists already.

The solution to these challenges is likely going to come from an unlikely source: genetic modification (GM).

Coffee seems like a luxury rather than a necessity. Unlike other staple crops like wheat and rice, coffee has no calories, and therefore gets less attention from scientists and breeders. But this should certainly change going forward if one considers current solutions at the hands of stakeholders.

Agroforestry is one approach to building climate resilience in the coffee industry. It refers to increasing shading and coverage such that crops are shielded from heat and light. Coffee bags with stickers showing “Rainforest Alliance Certified” are products of agroforestry. However, in a volatile price market, farmers have little means to care for more crops on their farmland.

There is another approach that needs more attention.  Genetic technologies have been helpful in agriculture. In the past, plant genetics mostly involved cross-breeding plants to generate offspring with desirable traits. The National Agricultural Laboratories in Kenya (formerly Scott Agricultural Laboratories) have produced some of the most famous coffee cultivars from Africa, such as SL28 and SL34, and are recognized for top notch taste and drought resistance.

Modern genetic approaches accelerate the process of acquiring desirable cultivars through allowing scientists to precisely edit an organism’s genes. However, these approaches have raised concerns about impacts on human health and the environment. It’s important to emphasize that comprehensive studies from many research groups have concluded that genetically modified foods do not pose greater risk to human health. Ecological implications could certainly be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps in some cases, the potential ecological harm warrants limiting GM technology, but it would be wrong to altogether resist GM by lumping human and environmental health implications together.

Genetic tools are especially useful for the coffee industry because coffee cultivation is labor intensive. Many coffee farms sit on hills, making mechanization difficult. This means that growers are limited in their ability to divert labor and resources to practice agroforestry or polyculture on their farms, both of which can contribute to resilience. Moreover, the volatility of coffee prices means that labor availability fluctuates. When prices are down and revenues are reduced, small landowners may find it more difficult to find workers as people migrate in search of better-paying opportunities elsewhere.

Genetic tools can hasten adaptation, reduce fertilizer and pesticide use, and lessen farmers’ vulnerability to climate change. These realities make approaches in plant genetics crucial to supporting the coffee industry in face of climate change. Before searching for that NON-GMO Project Verified sticker in the grocery store aisle, take a step back and think about what might be at stake.

Image courtesy of author

A two-story, football field size corn pile loomed in front of me and my Dad. We had just finished harvesting corn silage.  We were catching our breath before the next task: throwing tires, which is exactly what it sounds like. 

Corn silage is the product of chopping up the entire corn plant into tiny pieces to use as feed for livestock. It’s usually stored in a DIY Tupperware container. Farmers pile up all the corn and cover it with a massive sheet of plastic. Then, you “seal” the Tupperware with tires － this is our version of giant Ziploc.

With my jeans and work boots covered in mud, my dad and I joked about how none of my college friends would choose to spend their Saturday afternoons on top of a corn pile, with their dad, throwing dirty tires around. I laughed, thinking about how my classmates in Massachusetts might react to my weekend activity. 

I grew up on my family’s dairy farm in Minnesota. Long story short, I love cows and early mornings. At Wellesley College, though, I am one of only a handful of farm kids. I grew up in a very agriculture-centered household. Both of my parents are agriculture advocates actively involved in regional, state, and even a few national organizations and they repeatedly told me that wherever I went, I needed to keep “telling our story.” That is, telling people not just what agriculture is, but what it means to rural people and communities like ours.

This matters now more than ever. 

If you’re up on DC politics, you know Congress (those “DC folks”) just passed a major infrastructure funding package and they’re currently considering another aimed at social programs. The passage of this bill – the Build Back Better (BBB) Act – with its support for rural America, would provide funding to support biofuels like ethanol.  

Minnesota is the nation’s 4th largest ethanol producer. The 18 plants across the state produce an average of 1.3 billion gallons of ethanol each year. Many of these plants are small and located in rural communities. Local plants like the Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company in Benson process about one in twenty of those gallons.  While such a contribution seems meager, Chippewa Valley is a key player in a network of local ethanol refineries that support small towns across Minnesota. 

The BBB Act would invest $960 million in the renewable fuels industry. These funds will go towards expanding or upgrading infrastructure, like fuel dispensers and storage tanks, to increase access to fuel with higher blends of ethanol, such as E10 and E15. 

But ethanol is about more than fuel. In Minnesota, the ethanol industry supports over 14,500 full-time jobs, generates $4.4 billion in state revenue, and provides $964 million in income for Minnesota households. Individuals, families, and communities rely on the ethanol industry. An investment in ethanol is an investment in the future of Minnesota’s rural communities. 

Out of a package totaling $1.7 trillion, $960 million isn’t very much. It’s about 5%.  Plus, these funds would be distributed over a 10-year period. Each year, that’s only $96 million in new funding that will be invested in the renewable fuels industry. 

If ethanol is going to continue supporting our local economies, we need to convince the “DC Folks” why this or even a more generous provision for renewable fuels must be a part of the BBB Act.  It matters not just today, but for the future. For an industry that contributed $43 billion to the nation’s economy, $96 million a year is kernels. Farming is a generational business and we need robust generational investments. 

The future of ethanol is not guaranteed.  We must tell our stories. The everyday tasks we take for granted and assume consumers might not understand make relatable stories. Throwing tires with my dad is really about spending time with my family helping out at our small businesses. 

Our Representatives and Senators know that agriculture is a major economy in Minnesota, but we need to make sure they consider what they’re investing in. Ethanol is a source of revenue, jobs, and stability for small Minnesota towns.  BBB makes for a flashy acronym and will be a valuable near-term investment. But if these investments are about supporting communities, there’s work to be done to ensure ongoing and expanded support for ethanol in the future. 

A wholesome home-cooked meal is a central part of many families’ holiday season, mine included. Coming home to Southern California from college for the holidays, I think of all those warm meals waiting for me: eggplant casseroles, stuffed grape leaves, and my personal favorite, okra stew. Blended with the ingredients are happiness, community and comfort. 

But I know this still doesn’t tell the full story of how that food got to our table.

Growing up in California, I was always peripherally aware of farmworkers. As the largest agricultural state in the nation, seeing farmworkers planting and harvesting was part of my childhood landscape. Even now when I see “Grown in California” stickers on fruits and vegetables in the grocery store, I feel a sense of pride. But I recognize now that I held a romanticized view of what farm work was like, a view that has been chipped away as I learn about food systems in college, thousands of miles away from where I grew up. 

In keeping fresh fruits and vegetables stocked on store shelves, ensuring that people like me and my family have an array of meals at home for our holiday meals, farmworkers risk their health season after season, year after year. Their exposure to heat, which is steadily increasing due to our over reliance on fossil fuels, puts them at the center of a unique and devastating public health threat. 

Exposure to heat isn’t just an inconvenience. Our bodies are not made to live in extreme heat. When they do–like in a long 10-plus-hour shift harvesting grapes in the California heat– our bodies shut down, often in ways we don’t see right away. Heat places stress on our hearts and lungs, creating long term damage even if we feel fine in the short term. Both morbidity and mortality increase during periods of prolonged heat exposure and if you have any pre-existing health condition, heat is likely to make it worse and even become fatal. Like for Asuncion Valdivia, a farm worker and father who died a preventable death after working 10 hours picking grapes in 105-F-degree heat.

In Kern County, California, one of the epicenters of my state’s agriculture production, ambulances during the summer and fall harvest are a regular sight. This is actually something I learned from my brother, formerly a physician in Kern County, over a holiday meal. In fact, agricultural counties are leading the state in heat-related ER visits. 

With climate change increasing temperatures worldwide, these numbers are only going to get worse.

Farmworkers can face the harmful consequences of heat around the clock, not just during work hours. For example, in Washington state, it is legal to house farm workers in tents, meaning that these workers get no respite from the heat even during time off. This past summer’s heat wave affecting the Pacific Northwest led to the death of another farm worker who was found unresponsive in the field after the end of his shift.

This is why farmworkers and labor protection advocates are partnering with public health and climate activists to support regulations protecting workers from heat. Currently, California is in the minority of states who provide any protections to farmworkers, mandating employers to provide workers with shade, downtime and water. Federal workers protection standards are being discussed in Congress to extend such protections nationwide, with the Asuncion Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act. The Valdivia Act for instance has a broad coalition of support, with groups like the United Farm Workers Foundation, American Public Health Association, Sierra Club and National Resources Defense Council signing off on the bill.

The executive branch is slowly getting on board too. Following the extreme heat waves of the summer, the Biden administration announced in September that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would establish federal standards to protect workers from heat. The development of these standards is also supported by a broad coalition of governmental agencies like the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

This push for federal protection comes at a crucial time. Some states, like Texas, are close to passing bills that would take away workers’ protections, like removing the requirement for employers to provide workers with even the absolute bare minimum of protection: a 10 minute water break every four hours. 

Of course, no one legislative action offers a complete solution. Other intertwining problems to address would include: enforcement of workplace standards, explicit protections for undocumented immigrants who may fear reporting poor working conditions, and fair compensation of labor that does not force farmworkers to weigh the need to make a living against risks to their health. But an expansion of federal policy is necessary and a step in the right direction. 

When I go back to Southern California for winter break, I’ll still enjoy my meal of eggplant casseroles, stuffed grape leaves, and okra stew, but I’ll also be thinking about the farmworkers who risk their lives to make that meal possible. 

Yes, we are all affected by climate change. Yes, increased temperatures are a health risk for us all. But some like farmworkers experience these risks disproportionately.  And beyond my thoughts and prayers? My congressional representatives will receive a call in support of the Valdivia Act. 

Twitter “Crypto Bros” post links encouraging you to start your investment journey.  If you’ve seen them, let’s talk.

For as little as one dollar, you can invest in Bitcoin — right from your Venmo account!

Easy access, low costs, the potential to make thousands from your cell phone – all of these are drawing young people into buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

At first, I thought cryptocurrency was a joke. Later, I was green with envy at people that invested in Bitcoin before its value skyrocketed. I only considered investing myself when my friend made $15,000 off of the meme currency Dogecoin before its inevitable value collapse. Seriously, $15,000 for an internet version of this:

A rendition of what a physical DogeCoin might look like, Cyril Ernst.

But, like pretty much everyone else, I didn’t really know what cryptocurrency was. Much like “the cloud” or “the internet,” it was this abstract concept that I know just had to do with computers, processing, and the internet. 

Now, I may not have known much about technology before, but as an Environmental Studies major, I did know quite a bit about the environment. When I found article after article reporting on the environmental consequences of cryptocurrency, I started taking it seriously. I repeatedly found that there are actual physical consequences of trading in crypto. 

And once I started looking, I learned these were not trivial impacts.  Mining and trading cryptocurrencies, alone, might undo the hard work countries are doing under the Paris Climate Accords to stop global warming.

In April, energy used for Bitcoin could’ve powered all of Georgia, USA.

Such intensive energy consumption for cryptocurrency taxes energy grids and raises energy costs for people in Kyrgyzstan, New York, and elsewhere. In some places, Bitcoin mining facilities threaten local air, water, and soil as old coal-fired power plants are reopened to make energy and space for the computers.

That is not all though.  Mountains of electronic waste — leftover from cryptocurrency mining operations — poison people in places like Agloboshie, Ghana, where the wealthiest nations dump the majority of their e-waste.

Ghanians working in an e-waste site in Agbogbloshie, Marlenenapoli.

This is just a snapshot of the immediate impacts.

If Bitcoin is commonly adopted, its mining alone could push global temperatures up by 2℃ as early as 2033. 

Despite its problems, Bitcoin isn’t going anywhere. That means we must ask the question, how can we make Bitcoin sustainable? Is there another way to do cryptocurrency?

Some countries offer ideas. When El Salvador made Bitcoin a national currency in September, it raised questions about how the increase in energy needs might impact the country’s carbon footprint. It decided on using El Salvador’s volcanoes to produce clean energy to power the government facilities. Even though El Salvador was the first to make it a national currency, it wasn’t the first to use renewable energy. In Iceland and Norway, Bitcoin miners use geothermal energy and hydroelectric power for their Bitcoin mining facilities.

Other nations have taken more stringent approaches.  Sweden is pushing the European Union to ban Bitcoin to limit emissions. It still would allow for more environmentally friendly mining forms that other cryptocurrencies use. China outlawed all crypto-related activities, which would free up more energy than Finland produces in a year.

Those bans push miners elsewhere, where energy is cheaper (like in Texas) or dirtier (like in Kazakhstan). Without global action, miners will just run to wherever they can continue to make more money mining. This also doesn’t even begin to address the growing e-waste problem that adds to cryptocurrency’s environmental problems.

And so this begs the question: is it too late to stop it without a global movement to ban mining altogether? Would that even be politically feasible?

As we wait to see what global leaders might do, I have a message for fellow young people drawn into cryptocurrency by the promises of good, quick investment returns:

Please research rather than listen to wealth promises from random crypto bros on Twitter. Just because you want to be Elon Musk doesn’t mean we should take his advice as environmentally conscious. (But also, please reassess your ethics if you idolize him.)

We have made it clear that our generation is dedicated to stopping climate change and protecting the planet. With cryptocurrency, we can make matters far worse. Divest from Bitcoin. Try Ethereum or other “Proof of Stake” cryptocurrencies, which are much more environmentally friendly. 

We criticize previous generations for starting environmental problems and then just accepting that “these are how things are,” forcing our generation to fight to change the sins of the past so that we can have a livable planet. Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, might become our generation’s legacy if we don’t step up now. Let’s not go there. 

It’s the least we can do for the future.

Asian carp jumping out of the water (source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District)

Imagine you’re taking a leisurely boatride through Lake Michigan. But watch out! A giant, 100 pound Asian carp could fly out of the water and knock you down.

This danger to boaters is just one of the threats Asian carp pose to the Great Lakes ecosystem.

The fish have not reached the Great Lakes yet but they are rapidly approaching and will bring serious problems with them.

The danger to the ecosystem comes from the carp’s ability to outcompete bigger native fish and eat smaller ones. 

The carp mainly eat plankton, the base of the aquatic food chain. But they eat voraciously. A 100 pound carp can eat more than their body weight in a day. In a 2016 study looking at potential impacts in Lake Erie, researchers found Asian carp could account for 30 percent of fish within 20 years, driving a 40% decline in some native fish like white perch. That would jeopardize a fishing industry worth $7 billion. 

By being proactive, these harms can be avoided. More often than not, invasive species become a problem before anyone can do anything to stop it. People don’t realize they are a problem until they see the harms. Once an invasive species becomes established, they are very difficult to eradicate. So, it is much more effective to stop them from being introduced in the first place. Asian carp is the perfect opportunity to do so.

To fend off the Asian carp, projects either planned or in place aim to keep these fish out of the Great Lakes.

The critical player in this defensive strategy is the Brandon Road Lock and Dam project in Illinois.

Southwest of Chicago, the Brandon Road Lock and Dam sits on the Des Plaines River, which connects to Lake Michigan through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The project is designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Map of Brandon Road Lock and Dam (source: US Army Corps of Engineers)

Brandon Road Lock and Dam project diagram (source: US Army Corps of Engineers)

Using various types of technology, this project has the potential to stop the fish from advancing from the Des Plaines River to Lake Michigan where they can then spread to the four other Great Lakes. One technology is an acoustic fish deterrent with speakers that play sound frequencies the carp doesn’t like to make them swim away from the noise. Another element is an air bubble curtain that shoots out a constant stream of bubbles to keep smaller fish from continuing to swim upstream.

The Army Corps estimates the project will take 3 to 4 years to fully construct. But, the timeline is based on when funds are available with federal funding being most important. 

The project is estimated to cost $830,784,000 with funding split between federal and non-federal sources, 65 and 35 percent. Federal funding will come from the Army Corps, but those funds depend upon what is allocated from the annual federal budget.

Close to $1 billion dollars is a huge amount of money to spend on one project, but it would be worth it. If the Great Lake’s fishing and boating industries are kept intact, they would protect industries worth $7 billion and $16 billion, respectively. 

The federal government should give proper funding to the Brandon Road project as quickly as possible to stop Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes and causing irreversible damage to the second largest freshwater ecosystem in the world. The alternative is lakes filled with Asian carp and significant amounts of money wasted on hopeless attempts to eradicate them.

Stephen Lipp believes he should be paid not to live in your city. He jokes that he may bring floods. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina pushed him from his home in New Orleans. In 2017 the waters came again, rising inside his home in a city just outside of Houston, Texas. He is a climate migrant, twice over.

Although Mr. Lipp and his family grieve the loss of their homes, they are among the fortunate. They have had the resources to be climate resilient, and been well enough integrated into their new community that they were able to rebuild. Local city initiatives like Houston’s Complete Communities Initiative and the Climate Action Plan are helping immigrants and climate migrants build their own climate resiliency. 

Mayors are leading the charge in addressing and preparing for climate migration. In response to Biden’s February Executive Order on climate migration, mayors from across the United States, including Houston’s mayor, wrote a letter to the administration. The letter identifies climate migration, both within the US and internationally as a priority for local leadership and asks that city officials be incorporated in the national process.

Climate migration is estimated to impact up to 1 billion people by 2050. Biden recognizes this, but change at the national level is slow. He commissioned a report by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, on how to identify those directly or indirectly displaced by climate change. The report is expected to be completed in August. 

At the end of the day though it will be in local communities that we have to act. Action may be decided top-down, but it starts from the ground up.

We are all going to be impacted one way or another by climate migration, and cities like Houston know that firsthand. Houston sheltered more than 250,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a fifth of whom, like Lipp, decided to stay. And as Lipp could tell you, Houston is also experiencing its own severe weather; thousands of residents were displaced during 2017’s Hurricane Harvey and floods returned in 2019’s Tropical Storm Imelda. 

Whether we migrate ourselves, know community or family members that move, or are seeing new faces in our communities, climate migration is unavoidable

The letter from the mayors takes a positive and optimistic tone, and all three of their asks focus on centering local leadership in solutions. First, they request that local officials in the US already doing the work are included in initiatives to receive and include climate migrants. Second, they urge that the US collaborate directly with international migrant departure cities in developing migration and resiliency pathways. Lastly, they emphasize that people – all people – should be included in the discussion. 

Support for incoming community members can also benefit those that are already settled. Houston’s Language Access Plan, ensures that all departments support non-English speaking residents. This plan will benefit the existing population, nearly half of which speaks a language other than English at home, as well as newcomers. As the letter says, local communities must ensure that incoming populations have the tools they need to “thrive in their new home and enrich our societies.”

Integrating climate migrants may happen nationally but it will be slow. First, it will start small, with us as individuals, the organizations we are part of and our local leaders. You can read the mayors’ letter here – and if your local official has yet to sign on, give them a call.