It should not come as a shock to any of us that climate change as a result of human action, or perhaps at this point inaction, is a scientifically accepted fact. Additionally, to reach a goal of limiting average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, scientists  tell us we need to find ways to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, not just stop emitting it. 

Why? Well, it’d certainly be easier if we could pretend past emissions don’t exist. But, today, about half of all the CO2 emitted since 1850 is still in our atmosphere contributing to climate change. So, how on Earth do we capture, and store, large amounts of carbon safely? 

It turns out there’s some good news. While we work on building large-scale technologies that draw down carbon from the atmosphere, nature has provided a backup plan. Wetlands are the most productive landscape for capturing and storing carbon. Although they occupy only 7% of the earth’s surface, wetlands are currently storing about 225 billion metric tons of carbon. That’s a little more than 6 times the world’s annual CO2 emissions. 

But even as wetlands have potential to help fight climate change, a warming climate threatens their ability to capture carbon. A new study carried out by a team of scientists at the Yellow River Delta in China’s Shandong Province shows that the warmer coastal wetlands get, the less carbon dioxide they can pull from the atmosphere. 

The Yellow River Delta study found that as salt levels in the wetland’s soil increased, carbon storage capacity decreased. Let’s unpack this a bit. When salty water evaporates from wetlands, it leaves salt behind.  Evaporation, caused by increasing temperatures, makes for saltier soil. 

Okay, so what if the soil is saltier? Well, for one, saltiness determines which plants can survive in wetlands. As we might expect, salty soil leads to salt-loving plants taking over wetland landscapes. The Yellow River Delta study found that these salt-tolerant plants tend to be smaller than the plants they’re replacing. And, since plants store carbon through the process of photosynthesis, smaller plants mean less photosynthesis, and less carbon storage. 

Yellow River, Shandong Province China, Source: CGTN

As temperatures rise, wetlands are storing less carbon in the hot summer months than in the cooler autumn months. This marks a departure from plants’ normal carbon storing process. Typically, plants sequester carbon dioxide in the spring and summer when they are leafed out, storing more CO2 for the short term. Then, in the winter and fall, plants store less CO2.

The Yellow River Delta Study shows that as wetlands warm, seasonal variation reverses. Summer months will be much less productive for storing carbon than fall months. Seasonal carbon storage is short-term, but this disruption of normal carbon variations shows how deeply humans are impacting the environment.  Human-caused climate change is threatening not only seasonal carbon cycles in wetlands, but also decreasing their carbon storage capacity overall. 

As we release carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, we can expect to see saltier coastal wetlands. And as this study establishes, changes in salt levels alter the types of plants present in the wetland, affecting both seasonal carbon dioxide variations as well as the overall ability for wetlands to store carbon on a long-term scale. 

This should raise warning flags. Although they cover just 7% of our planet’s surface, humanity needs wetlands to store as much carbon as they possibly can. But the more carbon we release into the atmosphere, the less ability wetlands will have to effectively store it. We cannot depend on our ecosystems to repair the consequences of our actions. 

This is nature’s final warning to us. As we watch the most effective carbon-capturing landscape lose its potential to help us through this crisis, humanity must take broad and ambitious action to combat climate change, now. 

[Image Credit: ABC News]

The potential for exposure to lead is more complicated than you may believe. According to a new study in Science of the Total Environment published last March by researchers at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, the size of dust in your home might affect how dangerous it is.

If you are like me, you think that beyond lead mines and old paint chips, there isn’t much risk of exposure to lead. Similarly, you might think that the issue of lead poisoning isn’t relevant anymore; the developmental delays, neurologic changes, and even fatalities caused by lead poisoning are no longer a concern. Professor Mark Patrick Taylor, co-author and part of a global network working to get to the bottom of what makes up the average person’s household dust, argues that this isn’t always the case.

“A lot of dust is skin,” Taylor says, in addition to “hair, carpet fluff, clothing fibers, pet hair, soil from outside [which] is rich in organic matter, leaves, etc.” However, Taylor is most concerned about the inorganic contaminants (or non-living parts of dust) in people’s homes. When you walk into your house, your shoes track in all the contaminants you may have stepped on outside, which becomes indoor dust. This is most concerning when the dust is contaminated with toxic elements, like zinc, arsenic, and lead. The chance for these toxic elements to get into your home depends on where you live. Any area with an industrial history, like many big cities and mining towns, has the potential for these metals to get into your dust.

But how much of that lead can actually get into your body? The answer may be in your vacuum cleaner. Sampling dust from Sydney residents’ homes, vacuum cleaner bags held the secrets the scientists were after. Their goal was to see how the size of household-dust affected the amount of lead your body might be able to take up, also called its bioaccessibility.

To do this, researcher Israel Doyi and his team collected over 300 vacuum cleaner bags from across Sydney, and sorted the dust into four different sizes:

• smaller than 45μm (the minimum width of human hair)
• 45-90μm (the width of the average human hair)
• 90-150μm (the thickness of paper)
• 150-250μm (the smallest pencil lead available, 0.2mm)

Household dust under the microscope [Image Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases]

In order to see how much lead the body might take up, researchers used simulated gastric fluid. This fluid recreates the complex chemical reactions that happen in our stomachs, and allows scientists to see how lead in dust interacts with our bodies. What they found was surprising.

The size of dust matters a lot. They were surprised to find that just because a piece of lead dust is small, that doesn’t make it more dangerous. Most significantly, they found that the very smallest (smaller than 45μm) and the largest dust (150-250μm) poses the greatest threat to our health. This knowledge is critical, because larger dust particles are much more common than smaller dust particles. Taylor summarized the finding, saying “if [people are] going to have any environmental exposures from environmental contaminants, it’s likely to be from dust.” When people spend up to 90% of their time indoors, these results are concerning, and require action.

This study should influence how we address lead exposure. Most health risk assessments assume that the risk of lead in dust is uniform, regardless of the size of the dust. This study shows otherwise. Regulators like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the Australian equivalent, the National Environmental Protection Council (NEPC), must take this study and the size of lead into account when calculating risk. Changes to risk assessment models would accurately redesignate sites as toxic and require new clean-up efforts.

Any final tips on how to keep your home clean? Taylor recommends using a wet mop or HEPA vacuum to clean, keeping separate indoor and outdoor rugs and regularly cleaning both. And next time you come back from a walk, leave your shoes at the door.

Intact rainforests may be one of our greatest defenses against disease outbreaks such as Covid-19. A recent study published in the journal Forests reveals the potential health impacts of intensifying fires in the Amazon.

In the summer of 2019, newspaper headlines screamed, “The Earth’s Lungs are on Fire.” The title refers to forest fires that ravaged the Amazon rainforest, which produces a whopping 20% of the world’s atmospheric oxygen. But the fires endanger more than the planet’s lungs—they threaten our lungs.

Smoke from the 2019 Amazonian fires reached the city of Sao Paulo, located almost 2000 miles away from the Amazon (Source: NPR).

The health risks of Amazonian fires are global in scale, but the Amazon’s frontline communities feel them most acutely. Take the example of Apyterewa Indigenous Land, an area that witnessed the second highest deforestation rates across Amazonian Indigenous communities in 2019.

Researchers first looked at the biggest driver of forest fires in Apyterewa: deforestation. They then investigated particulate matter, small particles and liquid droplets in the air. Ash, smoke, and haze from forest fires are associated with high levels of particulate matter, which when inhaled can severely damage the heart and lungs.

Using spatial and image-based analysis, the researchers found that forested areas covered 92.4% of Apyterewa Indigenous Land in 2019—a slight drop from 95.2% in 2016. In the same time period, the percentage of total land used for human activity rose by 3%. This increase corresponds with growing deforestation rates for cattle ranching and agriculture.

Apyterewa Indigenous Land is located in the north-east sector of the Xingu region. The five most deforested Indigenous Lands in the Amazon are found in the Xingu district (Source: Socioambiental)

The spike in deforestation does not come as a surprise. In 2012, an update to the Brazilian Forest Code shrunk the mandatory percentage of legally protected reserves on privately owned land in the Amazon. That put more than 15 million hectares of forest, a landmass the size of Maine, under imminent threat. Environmental deregulation has propelled cattle ranchers to purchase and clear large tracts of old-growth forest, particularly in areas where land is cheap, such as the Apyterewa Indigenous Land.

The Parakanã people, the Indigenous group of Apyterewa, are especially vulnerable to land grabbing. A weak property rights regime and limited access to legal services prevent them from countering illegal incursions.

Deforestation imposes other—more invisible—costs on Indigenous people. The upswing in land clearing has had staggering effects on the particulate pollution emitted by deforestation-induced forest fires. Average annual levels of particulate matter increased by 58% between 2004 and 2019. Rising levels of particulate pollution contribute to degrading air quality in the rainforest, the study adds.

These jarring results strike an uncomfortable chord in our new, pandemic-driven world. According to Dr. Aron Bernstein, the interim director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, “there’s evidence that even short-term exposure to poor air quality [such as that caused by haze from forest fires] could make us vulnerable to respiratory infections,” including diseases like Covid-19.

With more than 5.5 million coronavirus cases, Brazil currently has the third highest number of cases worldwide. And the death rate among Amazon’s Indigenous people is nearly double that of the rest of Brazil. Harvey Fineberg, a doctor and the president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, notes that the links between forest related air pollution and disease spread need further investigation but underlined that “the directionality [of higher pollution levels and faster disease transmission] is pretty clear.”

Not all is dire; experts point to clear ways out of the crisis. First, to curb deforestation, the Brazilian government should reinstate the original Brazilian Forest Code. More robust monitoring and enforcement procedures are required to ensure compliance with this environmental regulation. Economic policies should also elevate the value of standing forest above deforested land. However, it is not enough to simply control deforestation. Initiatives that actively promote forest regrowth are necessary to restore a rainforest that once brimmed with plant and animal life.

Given the interlocking environmental and health crises we are faced with, these steps may produce a “dilution effect” wherein greater biodiversity mitigates the risk of virus transmission. Because forest loss itself creates optimal conditions for the spread of pathogens, a healthy ecosystem serves as a powerful protective barricade, and the loss of one, a deadly virus hotspot. To fortify our natural barriers, large-scale fires must be extinguished before they ignite widespread health damage.

The Amazonian fires last summer sent shock waves around the world, triggering visceral responses of horror and loss. Less visible, however, are the lingering effects of this tragedy: air pollution, poisoned communities, and strengthened disease vectors. The importance of an existing, breathing rainforest is no more clear than in the present, with the escalating number of Covid-19 cases worldwide and the apocalyptic state of affairs the pandemic has plunged us into. Preventing the wholesale destruction of the rainforest is our first line of defense against future pandemics. For the sake of our health, we need to rally for the Amazon.

Ever wondered why table salt usually contains iodine? Iodized salt first appeared on US grocery store shelves in the 1920s to combat the rising number of Americans suffering from Iodine Deficiency Disorder, or IDD. But iodine deficiency isn’t just an American issue. Like many other nutrients, iodine deficiency ties back to the nutritional content of our food. A September 2020 study published in Environmental Geochemistry and Health, investigates a potential way to address iodine deficiencies without the fortified salts found in the United States.

IDD has serious health consequences globally. The human body needs iodine to produce hormones, and without it there are body-wide effects. The presence of a swollen thyroid gland, or goiter, is a classic sign of IDD. In severe cases, this goiter can make it difficult to breath and swallow. IDD is especially detrimental during pregnancy where it can cause lifelong thyroid disorders and impaired brain development in developing fetuses.

Distribution and Severity of IDD Globally (Image Source: Bevis et al., 2014)

With health consequences this severe, it’s alarming that IDD remains widespread. IDD impacts over 2 billion people globally. While some countries, including the United States, have addressed this problem with their iodized salts, fortified salts are not available globally, and their use varies widely by socioeconomic status when they are available.

Previous research has indicated that the supply of nutrients in soil can mirror the nutrients in the food grown in it. Adding the missing iodine directly back to agricultural soil might make crops nutritious enough to prevent IDD. This iodine is available to everyone who eats these crops, not just those with the resources to buy fortified salt.

To tackle this problem, a team of scientists investigated biofortification of plants to increase iodine content. The study conducted at the Bunda College of Agriculture at Lilongwe University in Malawi could play a major role in reducing iodine deficiencies in soils, crops and even humans. Biofortification is a futuristic sounding word, but it actually describes a fairly simple concept—if you apply iodine directly to the soil, some of that iodine might end up in plants grown in that soil.

The September 2020 study, led by local researcher Ivy Sichinga Ligowe, looked at biofortification of crops when they are grown in different kinds of soils. This research has important implications for biofortification in Malawi, as adding iodine to soils has been explored experimentally in temperate regions, but never in tropical soils like those in Malawi. Rapeseed and Bonongwe, two commonly eaten green vegetables, were used as the research subjects in Ligowe’s work.

The crops used in Ligowe’s study. Rapeseed (left) and Bonongwe (right) (Image Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica; A Veggie Venture)

Ligowe and her team began their research by collecting three different types of local soils to serve as the canvas for their experimental treatments. Using a scientifically rigorous experimental design, the team considered not just if biofortification would work, but under what circumstances it would work best.

The data collected from this experiment show the vegetables containing the highest amounts of iodine receive more frequent iodine treatments. This application strategy also leads to larger amounts of soil-to-plant iodine transfer overall for both crops. Results also suggest that regardless of how the iodine is applied, crops that are harvested more than once need to receive biofortification treatments between harvests to ensure that the iodine concentration in the vegetables stays high. How much iodine ended up in vegetables also tended to vary by the combination of soil types used in a treatment, suggesting that the impact of iodine biofortification needs to be tailored to the farm where it’s used.

This complex approach to evaluating biofortification treatments allowed Ligowe and her team to examine more than just how much iodine ended up in the vegetables. Results showed that the overall harvest size for both vegetables was not affected by iodine application. This suggests that farmers may not have to choose between iodine-rich vegetables that people need and high yields that turn a larger profit. This win-win scenario could make it easier to promote iodine biofortification to farmers more broadly.

Before this biofortification technique can be implemented on a large scale, further research will have to be done. There are lingering questions about if the higher iodine concentrations in leaves stay put through cooking, and how much of the iodine can be physically processed by the human body. Still, these conclusions show the potential of iodine biofortification in areas with low iodine concentrations and high rates of IDD. This study proves a point accepted by soil scientists, farmers, and epidemiologists alike—soil health is human health.

A medium-sized farm owner is usually excited to look across their acres of land, blooming with greens or grains. Unfortunately, they aren’t seeing their crops. Fields have been increasingly overrun with weeds. They don’t have the workers to maintain or harvest the few crops that have survived and they certainly can’t do it alone. The farm workers who have been working Unites States’ farms for years have either been stopped along the U.S.-Mexico border or detained in ICE raids.

This is the story of many farmers across the country, from New York dairy farmers to California pecans growers. U.S. agriculture depends on immigrant and migrant labor. The nationwide tensions around immigration policy in the U.S are high and it is hitting the agricultural sector hard, along with change and trade wars. Farming contributions to national GDP are at an all time low.

Just how much is the farm labor force changing?

The U.S. Department of Labor published a report in 2018 on The National Agricultural Workers Survey. The data, which is from the 2015-2016 fiscal year, sets the scene for the call for help we’re hearing from farmers.

Approximately 2.4 million laborers are working on U.S. farms and ranches, growing crops and tending animals. 76% of those laborers are immigrants or migrants—most coming from Mexico. Of the total labor force, 29% are U.S. citizens, having either been born in the U.S. or granted citizenship, 21% are lawful permanent residents and 1% have other work authorization.

That leaves 49% of workers—just over 1.1 million people—unauthorized or undocumented. This is likely an underestimate. It doesn’t include those who choose not to answer this question out of discomfort or fear. The nonprofit organization Farmworker Justice estimates that there could be as many as 1.7 million undocumented farmworkers.

From the beginning of his campaign, Trump has made his stance on immigration very clear. In 2019, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested approximately 143,000 undocumented immigrants and removed more than 267,000 –a significant increase in removals from the prior year. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, there were 855,093 apprehensions by Border Patrol in 2019, twice that of 2018.

Supporters of Trump’s policies argue that relying on immigrant labor does long-term harm to U.S. farmers. It makes them depend on an unpredictable and unsustainable labor supply. Strict immigration enforcement would force farmers to consolidate and mechanize, they argue, strengthening farmers’ operations and position the global agricultural market. Executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian, favors immigration restriction. “The more productive policy response would be subsidized loans to invest in machinery for small-scale farmers,” he explains “rather than revising how we import foreign workers and perpetuating the labor-intensive old-fashioned way of doing business.”

While farm owners do have the option to purchase proper working-visas for the labor force, they are expensive and entail much red tape. More often than not, they are not a viable option.

There is some light at this end of this tunnel. The U.S. House passed a bill this past December that would bring farmworkers out of the shadow economy by legalizing approximately 325,000 unauthorized laborers and providing them with a path to a green card or citizenship. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to passed by the majority of Congress or approved by Trump, who has made his stance on foreign-labor perfectly clear.

It is clear that the farming industry is in the midst of a crisis. It is a crisis that affects us all since we all need to eat. If the industry were to lose all of the undocumented workers, agricultural production would fall anywhere from $30 to $60 billion and food prices would rise 5% to 6%.

Food for thought.

The North Atlantic right whale is the rarest of all large whales. Today, only about 400 individuals remain. Also known as Eubalaena glacialis, it was hunted to the brink of extinction by the early 1890s. Though the North Atlantic right whale has been protected under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling since the 1930s, the species has still not recovered. Their decline has been driven by human impacts. At least 17 individuals died in 2017 alone, many due to vessel strikes and entanglements with fishing gear. Given the small population size, the threats the whales face,  and their endangered status, it is crucial that the population abundance is closely monitored.

Ideally, researchers would be able to track individual whales, but this is often not possible due to the difficulty of the feat and the vast resources that would be needed. As an alternative, researchers will usually estimate the population size of a species through mark recapture where a percentage of a population is captured, marked, and then released. As you can imagine, however, capturing and marking right whales would be incredibly invasive and difficult. With this method, researchers are then able to estimate population size by taking repeated samples and assuming that the ratio of marked to unmarked animals is proportional to the greater population.

Photo identification provides an alternative. This method distinguishes between individuals using natural markings. Manually telling the difference between individuals, however, requires significant training and time. In a field that is often underfunded, the time of these researchers is precious.

During a data science competition in 2018, researchers from Poland and the United States came up with a machine learning algorithm that offers a solution. Using distinctive white patches of rough skin on top of the right whale’s head, the algorithm can identify specific whales with 87% accuracy. As you can imagine, this makes the photo identification of right whales faster, easier, and less resource intensive.

Rough, white skin atop the head of a North Atlantic Right Whale.

The researchers are now working to put their algorithm on Flukebook, a free online resource that uses machine learning to identify and track whales and dolphins using photos. Additionally, they believe that a similar technique could be successfully applied to other species with distinct markings, from other species of whales to meerkats.

Though there is room for improvement, this application of machine learning is an important step forward for not only the protection of North Atlantic right whales, but also conservation at large.

Bogucki, R., Cygan, M., Khan, C.B., Klimek, M., Milczek, J.K. and Mucha, M. (2019), Applying deep learning to right whale photo identification. Conservation Biology, 33: 676-684. doi:10.1111/cobi.13226

Global food waste amounts to 1.6 billion tons per year, costing developing and developed countries about $2.6 trillion annually — the equivalent of India’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 2017. In developed countries like the United States, forty percent of the waste is caused by consumers, and perhaps not surprising, it is the consumer who is blamed for the waste. However, with less than half of food waste generated by consumers, where does the other sixty percent of food waste come from?

 The answer: supply chains, or the network of corporate actors involved in the production and distribution of food. Supply chains are responsible for the majority of food waste.  In fact, most food is wasted before it even reaches consumers. 

 The biggest cause of food waste is overproduction. According to Marie Mourad, a sociologist and zero food waste specialist, the most sustainable and effective solution is to limit the amount of food we produce in the first place. In one of the many interviews Mourad conducted for her 2016 study, she and a member of the French Ministry of Agriculture discussed overproduction in the food industry. Regarding producers and union representatives, the cabinet member stated, “If I talked about [overproduction], they would just stand up from their chairs and leave.” Industry leaders and producers just don’t want the current system to change. They profit from business as usual operations. So, if the producers are not interested in changing our food system, what other ways are they trying to combat food waste?  

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.” Historically, the concept of the three R’s, taken up by governments, industries, non-profits, and educators, has encouraged consumers to play their part in reducing their impact on the environment. Scholars and industry professionals refer to this concept as the waste management hierarchy. Right now, it is being utilized by food waste specialists as a way to mitigate global food waste.

 As the waste management hierarchy indicates, there are a few routes we can take to curb our food waste: prevention, recovery, and recycling. Mourad, the zero food waste specialist, describes two types of prevention: “weak” and “strong”. “Weak” prevention is defined as improving technologies and increasing the efficiency of the system. Legislative focus on labelling for perishable foods is an example of “weak” prevention. Current efforts include promotion of awareness and consistency for expiration and sell-by dates stated on packaging. In addition to “weak” preventative approaches, producers and distributors have implemented what Mourad considers to be less than optimal strategies, including food recovery programs and recycling. However, these programs don’t consider the bigger issue: that we may need to restructure the global food system as a whole and limit production.

Unlike “weak” prevention, “strong” prevention would essentially limit the amount of food we  produce globally, thereby restricting overconsumption and overproduction. An example of “strong” prevention would entail shifting away from industrial agriculture and embracing more local forms of agricultural production and trade. This type of prevention promotes seasonality and variability. This means that the supply chain and consumers would only have access to a specific product when it was in season. Mourad’s study, in the Journal of Cleaner Production, indicated that such solutions can help actors along the supply chain achieve sustainable production and consumption in the long-term.

“Strong” prevention would essentially have a trickle-down effect leading to less choice and availability of food for consumers  – and therefore overall consumption would decrease, and consumer-generated food waste would decrease along with it. Not surprisingly, the “strong” prevention solution to food waste receives the least amount of attention from governments and industry professionals because it would require an enormous change to our current food system. 

“Strong” prevention solutions are the only way to effectively and sustainably reduce food waste addressing both producers and consumers. So, it’s time for the actors along the supply chain to take responsibility and put strong prevention strategies into action.

2017 study shows conflicting economic impacts of fracking in local communities, further complicating the debate.

“Well, you ought to vote for someone else.”

In early December 2019, Joe Biden was making a campaign stop at Water’s Edge Nature Center in Algona, Iowa. There he was approached by a climate activist who urged him to embrace a sweeping federal fracking ban. The Democratic primary candidate and former Vice President explained his intention to ban new drilling, but ultimately expressed that the activist should look elsewhere if he wanted a complete ban on hydraulic fracking.

Banning hydraulic fracking has become a polarizing political topic due to the potential environmental impacts and economic importance. The process is linked to groundwater contamination, air pollution, and earthquakes. When extracted through fracking, methane has the potential to leak, producing CH4, a potent greenhouse gas. When burned for fuel, methane produces carbon dioxide (CO2), another greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Some candidates cite these environmental damages and contributions to climate change as reasons to implement a comprehensive ban.

While other candidates do not disagree with the potential for environmental harm, some point to potential negative economic effects if a ban were implemented. But does fracking drive positive economic growth? Like other growing industries, fracking is often touted for great job growth. Some rural communities have become natural resource dependent, meaning their local economy relies on the extractive industries (e.g. coal mining, oil drilling, fracking). Banning the entire industry would require a just transition to cleaner forms of energy and different sources of employment.

A 2017 study published in Rural Sociology challenges the dominant narrative that fracking is an economic boon. Often applied to entire countries, the resource curse theory argues that dependency on a single natural resource leads to slower economic growth and an unstable local economy. The study asks if fracking is a resource curse, dragging down American communities.

To answer that question, the researchers measured the socioeconomic impact of fracking on rural and suburban/urban communities. Previous literature on extractive communities has largely focused on rural counties because that’s where industries like coal mining took place. Now, with advancing technology, fracking ventures have extended into urban and suburban communities.

To measure socio-economic wellbeing in rural and urban communities, the researchers looked at average wages, families below the poverty line, median household income, and ratio of total employment to population over eleven years (2000 to 2011). They compare this data to oil and gas production in each county and its level of urbanization.

The final results were mixed. Counties with increasing gas and oil production did see increases in employment. But, compared to counties with more varied local economies, the studied extractive communities tended to have higher poverty rates and lower earnings per job, median income, and employment. This lines up with the resource curse, which theorizes that extractive industries hinder local economic diversity, leaving the community vulnerable to instability. A potential explanation is that fracking might produce temporary jobs or hire workers from outside of the community, creating jobs, but failing to address the structural poverty of the communities.

So, what does this mean for the future of fracking in the United States? The results of this study add nuance to the already complex debate of about energy transitions and economic development. For the primary candidates that seek to ban hydraulic fracking, the negative socio-economic impacts of fracking on rural communities can be a powerful argument. On the other hand, candidates like Biden who only seek to simply regulate the fracking industry may see the increase in employment for extractive communities as further proof that fracking is integral to local economic prosperity. Either way, the candidates must be ready to back up their stance with a detailed plan for transitioning the US economy away from fossil fuels.

For more details on the individual stances of candidates, visit here.