During last year’s energy crisis, when prices soared due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Group of 20 (G20) nations provided $1.4 trillion to boost energy supplies and keep prices from climbing even higher, according to the thinktank International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
Financial support from the G20 was in the form of money borrowed from public financial institutions, subsidies and investments made by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the IISD report, “Fanning the Flames: G20 provides record financial support for fossil fuels,” said. About one third of these funds were to back new fossil fuel projects.
According to the report, instead of subsidizing fossil fuels to reduce prices, prices need to be maintained at a level that reflects fossil fuels’ negative cost to society, in order to curb their use.
“This support perpetuates the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, paving the way for yet more energy crises due to market volatility and geopolitical security risks. It also severely limits the possibilities of achieving climate objectives set by the Paris Agreement by incentivizing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while undermining the cost-competitiveness of clean energy,” the report said. “G20 governments need to shift their financial resources away from fossil fuels to instead provide targeted, sustainable support for social protection and the scaling-up of clean energy.”
Fossil fuel subsidies by the G20 in 2022 were more than four times those in 2021, mostly thanks to expanded support for consumers.
“The largest category of consumption subsidies was ‘price support’: governments fixing retail fossil fuel prices below the international market price. Below-market pricing was more common in G20 emerging economies, where it created large holes in government and SOE budgets, either due to direct spending or foregone revenue,” the report said.
An extra $1 trillion could be raised per year if an increased carbon tax of $25 to $75 for each ton of greenhouse gases was set, the IISD found, as reported by The Guardian.
“There is huge potential in subsidy reform,” said Richard Damania, a World Bank chief economist of a sustainability group, as The Guardian reported. “By repurposing wasteful subsidies, we can free up significant sums that could instead be used to address some of the planet’s most pressing challenges.”
France, Germany and Italy provided $213 billion in energy crisis support last year.
“Helping households and businesses during an energy crisis is understandable and necessary, but there are better ways to do it than subsidizing fossil fuels, which keeps consumers locked into emissions-intensive, polluting, and price-volatile energy sources,” the IISD report said.
IISD recommendations for G20 nations included setting a deadline for the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies. The Group of Seven most advanced economies in the world chose 2025, which the IISD said “is appropriate for all developed countries.”
The IISD also recommended ensuring that low-income workers, consumers and communities have “alternative welfare mechanisms” in place during the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies, and that the G20 report on fossil fuel subsidies each year.
“The energy crisis has caused energy poverty and hardship, which have warranted strong government intervention. But fossil fuel subsidies are a notoriously inefficient way to help the poor and are perpetuating dependence on fossil fuels. Governments should instead provide social welfare through other mechanisms, like targeted welfare payments,” the report said. “Where such programs do not yet exist or cannot be implemented, energy subsidies should be targeted to the poor and vulnerable while governments incubate alternative clean energy technologies.”
Since late April, wildfires have been burning across Canada, blanketing the country and parts of the U.S. in unhealthy and sometimes dangerous smoke, in what Canadian wildfire officials have called the worst wildfire season ever recorded.
In a new study, scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) Initiative examined the conditions that lead to the record series of wildfires and concluded that they were at least twice as probable due to human-caused climate change.
“In today’s climate, intense fire weather like that observed in May-July 2023 is a moderately extreme event, expected to occur once every 20-25 years. This means in any given year such an event is expected with 4-5% probability,” the study said. “Combining lines of evidence from the synthesis results of the past climate, results from historical and future projections and physical knowledge, we conclude that January-July cumulative DSR like that experienced in 2023 is at least seven times more likely to occur, and was 50% higher than it would have been without climate change; that peak fire weather intensity (FWI7x) like the 2023 event is at least twice as likely to occur, and around 20% more intense, than it would have been without human-induced climate change; and that this trend is projected to continue if warming continues.”
The study, “Climate change more than doubled the likelihood of extreme fire weather conditions in Eastern Canada,” was conducted by scientists from the Netherlands, Canada and the UK.
The area burned by this year’s wildfire season in Canada is bigger than Greece, reported The Guardian. More than 34 million acres have been burned — more than twice the previous record.
“The word ‘unprecedented’ doesn’t do justice to the severity of the wildfires in Canada this year. From a scientific perspective, the doubling of the previous burned area record is shocking. Climate change is greatly increasing the flammability of the fuel available for wildfires – this means that a single spark, regardless of its source, can rapidly turn into a blazing inferno,” said Yan Boulanger, a research scientist at Natural Resources Canada and part of the study team, as The Guardian reported.
For the study, the scientists used the fire weather index, which measures wildfire risk using a combination of temperature, humidity, rainfall and wind speed. The conditions caused by climate change like higher temperatures, low humidity and less snow cover primed regions across Canada to be more prone to fires by drying out vegetation.
“This year, high temperatures led to the rapid thawing and disappearance of snow during May, particularly in eastern Québec, resulting in unusually early wildfires,” said Philippe Gachon, a researcher at the Université du Québec à Montréal, as reported by The Guardian.
Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at the UK’s Grantham Institute and co-founder of WWA, said the influence of climate change on this year’s Canadian wildfire season may be even greater than the figures in the report demonstrate because the estimates used by the researchers were conservative, CNN reported.
“It’s becoming evident that the dry and warm conditions conducive to wildfires are becoming more common and more intense around the world as a result of climate change,” said Clair Barnes, a Grantham Institute research associate and one of the authors of the report, as reported by CNN.
Québec has had the most area affected by the wildfires with 12.8 million acres burned so far this year — approximately 26 times more than the average through late August.
The wildfires have not only affected the air quality in Canada, but in U.S. cities like New York, Minneapolis, Chicago and Seattle.
Hundreds of fires continue to burn across the country, with one-fifth of them in the Northwest Territories. Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate there last week, with thousands more being evacuated in British Columbia as wildfire smoke floated down into the Pacific Northwest.
“Until we stop burning fossil fuels, the number of wildfires will continue to increase, burning larger areas for longer periods of time,” Otto said, as The Guardian reported.
Visitor spending around national parks in the U.S. has reached a new high, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. Visitors in 2022 spent $50.3 billion, supporting 378,400 jobs.
“At the Interior Department, we understand that nature is essential to the health, well-being and prosperity of every family and every community in America,” Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. “But outdoor recreation is not just good for the soul, it’s a significant driver of our national and local economies and job sustainability. When people visit one of our amazing parks, they are contributing to the community around them.”
The 2022 National Park Visitor Spending Effects report found that in addition to the nationwide economic benefits, more than 312 million visitors, a 5% increase from 2021, spent $23.9 billion (a 16% increase from the previous year) in the local communities near national parks, defined as local gateway regions within 60 miles of a national park.
While the $23.9 billion in visitor spending results in direct impacts to local businesses, it can also create indirect economic impacts as the businesses turn to other companies to reorder supplies and local employees spend their earnings within their communities, the report authors explained.
According to the report, the lodging industry had the highest direct impact of $9 billion in economic output, followed by restaurants with $4.6 billion in economic impact. In total, the $23.9 billion in spending contributed an estimated $17.5 billion in labor income, $29 billion in added value and $50.3 billion in economic output.
The report results are available as an interactive tool for those who want to see the breakdown of economic contributions by park, state or national economies and by industry sectors. According to the tool, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park had the highest visitor spending for 2022 at $2.1 billion.
“Since 1916, the National Park Service has been entrusted with the care of our national parks. With the help of volunteers and partners, we safeguard these special places and share their stories with more than 300 million visitors every year,” National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said in a statement. “The impact of tourism to national parks is undeniable: bringing jobs and revenue to communities in every state in the country and making national parks an essential driver to the national economy.”
The U.S. National Park System spans more than 85 million acres in 424 designated areas, and the National Park Service has monitored visitor spending and its economic impacts for more than three decades. The data can help provide more information for National Park Service leaders and policymakers as they make decisions regarding national parks.
Water harvesting is the practice of collecting and storing water from rain, stormwater runoff, gray water, snow, air and fog. Its use includes nonpotable purposes such as irrigation, flushing toilets, laundry and recharging groundwater supplies, and potable use such as drinking water.
As water scarcity is an issue for densely populated regions, rainwater harvesting can supply water for use by businesses and households in dry seasons, as well as create less of a demand on municipal water supplies — much of which pulls from distant areas, typically affecting those communities and ecosystems.
Since rainwater collects dust and pollutants through the atmosphere, and collects contaminants where it lands on the surface, rainwater collected from unclean surface runoffs isn’t suitable for drinking water and needs to be purified.
Water treatment processes such as flocculation, settlement and biofilm skimming can be used to get rid of bacteria, organic material and chemicals. Prefiltered water can also undergo solar water disinfection (which uses solar energy) or be treated with chlorine.
Although many areas around the world encourage and subsdize rain barrels and other rainwater harvesting systems, some areas in the United States view it as a water rights issue, and place restrictions on the practice.
Rainwater harvesting can also be used to recharge groundwater supplies, which sometimes can get so low that wells go dry.
Water can also be harvested from air using technology called an Atmospheric Water Generator, which pulls moisture from the air like a dehumidifier does and can be used to create potable water — something that could be beneficial during shortages, contamination events, natural disasters and other issues that interrupt availability of drinking water.
What Is Water Harvesting?
Water harvesting involves the harvesting of rainwater, or water from the atmosphere through systems that involve collecting it for drinking and irrigation.
Rainwater harvesting is thousands of years old, and on a smaller practical scale, rainwater is a good way to conserve water for later use, particularly during dry seasons, and also saves money from using municipal water sources while protecting groundwater supply.
On a larger scale, it provides water for areas and communities dealing with water scarcity. Currently, areas all over the world are increasingly experiencing droughts. In 2022, 73% of the Western United States alone was in severe drought classification, while 31% was in extreme drought.
According to the United Nations World Water Development Report, 2 billion people globally also don’t have access to clean and safe drinking water, and scientists estimate that 4 billion people live in regions with severe fresh water shortages for at least one month each year, which may rise to between 4.8 billion and 5.7 billion by 2050 for reasons that include climate change, polluted water supplies and increased demand due to population growth.
Building systems can be simple or elaborate. This article will discuss rainwater catchment around the world, and how you can make it happen in your own backyard.
History of Rainwater Harvesting
Waterproof cisterns thousands of years old are evidence of rainwater harvesting, for household use as well as dryland farming, in Asia, the Roman Empire and areas of the Middle East.
A cistern for rainwater collection from the 14th-16th century at Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Asciano, Tuscany. Italy, DeAgostini / Getty Images
In India, archeological evidence of water conservation and harvesting was deeply rooted in the science of ancient India with many systems differing in its various regions to adapt to its uniqueness — some of which are still in use today.
One of the methods involved taankas. First built in the year 1607, they are a traditional rainwater harvesting method that involved an underground cistern that could store water for dry seasons to give to individual households or the community, or use for livestock. They vary in size and could hold anywhere from 1000 liters to 500,000 liters of water.
Indigenous cultures in the U.S. also created trenches that brought water naturally down from the mountain to the villages for drinking, crop irrigation and livestock.
Early settlers in North America also collected rainwater in barrels to do laundry and bathing. The water that was collected was more appreciated for its softness, and it was during this era that the phrase “hard water” would come about, which was groundwater and surface waters whose mineral content was too high to use.
Rainwater harvesting in some areas lost favor for awhile, but gained traction again in the 1950s, particularly in Australia, where roaded catchments were constructed to collect water for agricultural purposes.
Interest in research for water catchment for livestock also surged around this time in the U.S., and later in the 70s and 80s, for crop purposes in Africa.
Traditional houses around an ancient cistern for rainwater harvesting in Hababa, Sana’a governorate, Yemen. DeAgostini / Getty Images
Rainwater Harvesting and the Environment
There are several environmental benefits of rainwater harvesting.
When wastewater flows through sewer systems, it requires a lot of energy at treatment plants before being pumped back through the system into local waterways where it’s used again for any number of purposes, such as drinking water, irrigating crops and sustaining aquatic life.
The energy used to do this involves fossil fuels. Wastewater treatment plants may be responsible for emitting up to 23 percent more greenhouse gases because of fossil fuels used to treat detergent-laden water from residential showers, household washing machines and industrial sites. So when you harvest and use rainwater, you’re helping to save energy and reduce carbon emissions.
A rooftop rainwater harvesting system in Rwanda. Rwanda Green Fund
Collecting rainwater for use in the garden will allow you to release it into your garden later when the ground is not saturated, to recharge groundwater supplies to continue to hydrate the soil.
Rainwater is great for plants, because it’s free of chemicals and salts that are in treated water, and can alter the chemical composition of the soil (and also end up with what you consume when you eat plants). Rainwater also has a balanced pH that is required by plants.
Collecting rainwater reduces the amount of runoff water that collects pesticides and other chemicals, and relieves sewer systems, which could overflow in areas that cannot handle the volume of runoff, which helps avoid contamination of the ground.
Water reservoirs and groundwater are usually overdrawn, particular in urban areas where there isn’t as much surface area to absorb water.
Where Can Rainwater Harvesting Be Used?
Rainwater harvesting can have a number of applications and can be from simple to elaborate.
A simple rainwater harvesting system where pipes run from rain gutters into a rain barrel or tank is known as a “dry system” because they don’t hold any water in the pipes after rain ceases. They also do not create breeding grounds for insects.
Drain pipes catch rain from a metal roof for rainwater harvesting system on a green home solar-powered and off the grid in Los Angeles, California. Citizen of the Planet / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
“Wet Systems” are used when pipes can’t run directly into tanks, which may be located far away from the collection surface, or where a series of tanks services a number of areas. These systems, where pipes go underground, can utilize a pressurized system to avoid retaining stagnant water, and can be mosquito-proofed through screens and filters.
Since rainwater collects dust and pollutants through the atmosphere, and collects contaminants where it lands on the surface, rainwater collected from unclean surface runoffs isn’t suitable for drinking water and needs to be purified.
Domestic Use
As mentioned above, throughout history rainwater harvesting has been used by households for drinking water, watering the garden, laundry and other uses.
Residential rain collection can be caught from the roof or the ground. Roof catchment systems collect water from its surface and route it through a system of gutters and pipes into a rain barrel, usually located on the ground level.
A rainwater harvesting barrel at a home in Templeton, Iowa. Kieran / Flickr
Choice of roofing material for this is important since some types of material, like those with coatings or metallic finishes or asphalt, could contaminate water. It’s better to use aluminum, tiles, slate or corrugated iron roofs.
A ground residential rainwater collection system collects water via drain pipes or earthen dams and stored above or below ground in tanks. The quality of water may be lower at the ground level, rendering the captured water suitable for landscaping needs only.
Costs for systems can vary. An inexpensive DIY system could run around $200 with a 55-gallon barrel, or up to $20,000 for a more complex roof catchment.
Agricultural Use
Rainwater harvesting is a great way to sustainably irrigate crop fields. It also serves as a form of damage control by diverting heavy rainfall from damaging crops.
Vegetable greenhouses with rainwater collection basins in Nuremberg, Germany. imageBROKER / Norbert Probst / Getty Images
Urban Areas
As America’s cities struggle with water supply shortages and runoff pollution problems, capturing rainwater from rooftops provides a solution to increase water supply and improve water quality, according to a recent analysis on “Capturing Rainwater from Rooftops” by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Using rainwater catchment in urban areas also reduces one’s dependence on municipal water, which is the tap that gets treated and rerouted through pipes underground to your faucet. This lowers bills, and also reduces the carbon footprint used by the water treatment facilities before it reaches your home or business.
Some places in cities use blue roof systems which detain stormwater to mitigate flooding.
Commercial Rainwater Catchment Systems
Large-scale rainwater catchment systems on buildings can lower utility costs and provide water for flushing toilets, irrigation for landscaping, fire suppression, manufacturing processes, vehicle washes, laundries and filling pools.
Rainwater Harvesting Limitations and Disadvantages
Rainfall is not always dependable, particularly in arid regions that undergo long drought and dry seasons.
It requires regular maintenance as systems are prone to rodents, mosquitoes, algae growth, insects and lizards which can contaminate the harvested rainwater.
Several initiatives around the world utilize rainwater harvesting to provide water for communities in need.
One of them is the Global Rainwater Harvesting Collective, a project of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs. It helps provide drinking water to schools facing shortages and utilizes rooftop catchment systems on schools.
The roof of a preschool with filters made of stones for rainwater collection in Petare, Caracas on Oct. 7, 2022. LILIANA RIVAS / AFP via Getty Images
In India, NGO One Prosper provides families with filters and water harvesting systems in the Thar Desert, where many people, particularly young girls, spend up to seven hours a day trying to retrieve water from far outside of town to bring back for use, which detracts from their education. They also provide families with seeds and farm training so they can grow their own food, and build farming dykes so they can leverage rainwater to irrigate and double crop yields for those who grow millet for income.
California-based Save the Rain also provides systems at homes and at schools on several different continents where water scarcity is an issue, particularly in Tanzania. To date they have installed systems on 4710 homes, and at 365 schools. The group said that 80% of children were walking for water instead of going to school, but with these systems, schools retain up to 95% retention rates.
There are also several initiatives in Mexico such as Isla Urbana, which installs systems in communities that lack access to water.
Founded in Texas in 1994, the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association was created to renew attention to rainwater harvesting, and whose goal is to promote a favorable regulatory atmosphere, creating a resource pool and educating professionals and the general public regarding safe rainwater design, installation and maintenance practices.
Atmospheric Water Harvesting
Much like a household dehumidifier can pull moisture from air to keep things from getting moldy, the same process can pull water from the atmosphere to create potable water.
While the market is relatively small right now, the technology has been around for decades. Several companies have sold and sent devices to drought-stricken regions for disaster relief and to replace contaminated drinking water.
While there are larger for-profit enterprises, one of the more grassroots is public charity the Moses West Foundation which has been providing atmospheric water generators during crises like in Flint and Mississippi and other disenfranchised areas with water issues. Since the foundation’s inception they’ve provided 4.5 million liters of clean water.
Much of the technology that’s used differs from dehumidifiers in that water quality controls are built into the machine.
Another atmospheric water harvesting technology, hydropanels, utilizes desiccants, which are materials that soak up moisture (some are found in silica gel and baby nappies).
California-based company Water Harvesting is also developing devices that range from small kitchen countertop harvester for households to large scale industrial use for village communities.
Swedish company Drupps has built machines that harvest water from waste steam from industrial chimneys and turns it into drinkable water. According to their website, their process uses latent heat from the steam to power atmospheric water generation, while reducing energy use and carbon dioxide emissions in drying processes.
Another angle of this technology, fog harvesters, have been around for decades in regions subject to water scarcity and fog. The process uses vertical mesh nets to induce the fog-droplets to fall down into a trough.
Policies and Incentives
Globally, policies and incentives have grown over the years to mandate rainwater harvesting systems.
India has seen many mandates and reforms with rainwater harvesting systems. In New Delhi, the Ministry of Urban Development has made rainwater harvesting mandatory in all new buildings with a roof area of more than 100 square meters and in all plots with an area of more than 1000 square meters that are being developed.
The Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) has made rainwater harvesting mandatory in all institutions and residential colonies in notified areas (South and South-west Delhi and adjoining areas such as Faridabad, Gurgaon and Ghaziabad). This is also applicable to all the buildings in notified areas that have tube wells. CGWA has also banned drilling of tube wells in notified areas.
Tamil Nadu also became the first Indian state to make the practice mandatory in every building, to avoid groundwater depletion.
Various regulations include some states requiring permits and code compliance, limiting how much water is captured, and requiring nonpotable usage only.
Colorado had a longtime ban on home rainwater harvesting over the concern that household rain barrels would take water from the supply available to agriculture and other water rights holders. That ban was lifted in 2016, but now there are other strong regulations.
A guide to regulations by state can be found here.
Takewaway
There are many environmental and health benefits to water harvesting, especially as a means to provide water to communities affected by water scarcity, water contamination and/or natural disasters. While there are some drawbacks, particularly with the cost of installation, several governments and private agencies offer incentives to help install systems.
In some areas of the world, initiatives are not only providing rainwater harvesting systems, but also using them as a starting point to revive and empower communities through more jobs and food security.
A climate-conscious hospital with a rainwater collection system won the Royal Institute of British Architects International Prize 2021 for best new building in the world, in Satkhira, Bangladesh on Feb. 19, 2022. Md. Kamruzzaman / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The swarms were so thick they obscured the sun. Mohammed Adan, a farmer in northeastern Kenya, watched the horde of desert locusts first descend in late 2019. He’s been grappling with their legacy ever since.
Adan and 61 other farmers grow tomatoes, mangoes, watermelon, and other crops on Taleh Farm, a 309-acre property outside Garissa, a remote town not far from the Somali border. When the locusts first touched down, Garissa’s villagers resorted to traditional mitigation methods like drumming and banging pots and pans together — anything to make loud noise that might disperse the swarm. Women and children shouted at the descending crush, but their endeavors were largely fruitless.
Billions of ravenous, short-horned grasshoppers alighted, devouring every bit of living plant matter in their path. Between February and June 2020, Taleh Farm was eaten to the ground. Adan’s son, Abubakar Mohamed, who goes by Abu, estimated that the locusts caused $2,000 worth of damage that season — a devastating sum in an area where the average annual salary is below $300.
“We’ve heard about locusts from our fathers and grandfathers,” Adan, who is in his mid-50s, recalled. “But we’ve never had to deal with anything like this ourselves.”
Swarms of desert locusts fly above crops in Katitika village, Kitui County, Kenya in January 2020. Ben Curtis / AP Photo
While locust swarms spread across 10 countries over the course of early 2020, Kenya was particularly hard hit — one of the swarms feeding off the country stretched to three times the size of New York City. Three million people across the country, many of them small-scale farmers, were at risk of losing their entire season’s harvest. A legion of international organizations, including the United Nations’ World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, marshaled support in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture. Throughout the locust invasion, the FAO raised more than $230 million, which allowed it to acquire 155,600 liters of synthetic pesticides that were used to treat nearly 500,000 acres.
To handle ground-spraying operations, the Kenyan government enlisted both its army as well as members of the National Youth Service, a voluntary, government-funded vocational and training organization for young Kenyans. Meanwhile, the FAO contracted charter airline companies to conduct aerial spraying. An issue of apocalyptic scale required all hands on deck.
Farmers like Adan were relieved that the government and aid organizations were stepping in to help. “We wanted those pesticides,” he told Grist. “Otherwise, we would have lost everything.”
A community volunteer uses a motorized sprayer to disperse pesticide in February 2020 at a desert locust hatch site in eastern Kenya. TONY KARUMBA / AFP via Getty Images
But Adan didn’t know at the time that the FAO and other humanitarian groups had procured pesticides that were either already banned in the U.S. and Europe or soon would be. The synthetic pesticides in question — part of a chemical class known as organophosphates that includes chlorpyrifos, fenitrothion, malathion, and fipronil — have been known to cause dizziness, nausea, vomiting, watery eyes, and loss of appetite in humans who come into contact with them. Long-term exposure has been linked to cognitive impairment, psychiatric disorders, and infertility in men.
Subsistence farmers in Garissa believe they were accidentally poisoned while using these chemicals — and they’re still dealing with the ramifications. Adan has been suffering from a host of health maladies since 2020, including infertility and incontinence, and he has undergone five surgeries in the last few years.
Mohammed Adan, a farmer whose crops have been ravaged by locusts in past years, stands near a mango tree on Taleh Farm. Kang-Chun Cheng
Mohammed Adan showing the scars left from multiple surgeries due to urinary tract issues he believes are related to pesticide poisoning. Kang-Chun Cheng
Internal FAO documents show that the agency was aware of widespread environmental and public health problems that resulted from its distribution of pesticides. The agency’s own assessment found that the toxic chemicals were handed to farmers without any protective equipment, such as gloves and coveralls, or adequate training on how to use them safely. Christian Pantenius, a former FAO staff member who worked as an independent expert adviser to help the agency coordinate its 2020 spraying campaign in Kenya and Ethiopia, said he saw hundreds of FAO-recruited National Youth Service members handling toxic chemicals in northern Kenya without sufficient training or protective equipment.
“I was shocked,” he told Grist. “I was furious about it. Can you imagine this happening in Europe?”
In April 2020, at the height of the locust upsurge, the Taleh farmers attended an emergency training hosted by staff of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Garissa County office. During an informal three-day demonstration, Adan said they were briefed on pesticide-spraying techniques. (Ahmed Sirat, a retired agricultural extension officer who worked with the Taleh farmers at the time, confirmed the training took place.)
After receiving their allotted chemicals, the farmers set off to salvage their crops. Adan said they were warned during the training that the pesticides are dangerous to humans, but they were not provided with specific chemical profiles or protective equipment.
Mohammed Adan stands with a donkey on Taleh Farm. Kang-Chun Cheng
The farmers burned through the first round of pesticides within a matter of days. This fenitrothion-heavy batch came in 500-milliliter bottles, which Sirat had shown them how to mix with water. Fenitrothion is an inexpensive, hazardous pesticide widely used in countries like Brazil, Japan, and Australia. However, it has not been approved for use in the U.S. because it can cause nausea, dizziness, and confusion at low exposures — and respiratory paralysis and even death at high exposures. The pesticide was so strong that some of the locusts died upon contact, falling right off the fruit trees. Clearly, the chemicals were working. But the farmers needed more.
On behalf of his farming committee, Adan requested more pesticides from the county agricultural extension officers. This time, they came in 20-liter cans. “There was a picture of an airplane on the can,” Adan recalled. In retrospect, he believes they were given chemicals meant for aerial spraying, rather than ground operations.
A person in protective gear loads pesticide into an airplane before taking off to spray over a swarm of desert locusts in Meru, Kenya in 2020. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP via Getty Images
The farmers agreed to spray as a team, moving in sync. Adan remembers crouching as he mixed the chemicals with water, as instructed. He then poured the pesticide into a knapsack sprayer, a device consisting of a pressurized container that disperses liquid through a hand-held nozzle. As he was preparing to hoist the sprayer on his back, Adan accidentally hit the nozzle, spilling its contents across his stomach and back and down his groin and legs. He didn’t think much of it; the immediacy of the locust hordes captured his full attention. Adan repeated the operation and only washed the chemical off his body with water after attending to his crops.
The farmers’ efforts eventually paid off. They were able to protect some of their crops and sold them after harvest. But the farmers have since been suffering from a range of health effects that they attribute to pesticide exposure. For months after spilling chemicals on himself, Adan felt sick. A year later, in April 2021, the malaise culminated in an inability to pass urine. His muscles grew weak, and he often found himself easily fatigued.
Hussein Abdi and Adan Hussein Yusuf, who also work on Taleh Farm, were exposed to milky clouds of the pesticide when they were spraying their mango trees in 2020. The chemicals irritated their eyes, and both farmers have since had eye surgeries at hospitals in Garissa. Abdi still struggles with light sensitivity and wears shades nearly all the time, even on overcast days.
Hussein Abdi holds some of the mangos grown on Taleh Farm. He says he was exposed to pesticides while spraying mango trees for locusts in 2020. Kang-Chun Cheng
In response to Grist’s questions about the Taleh farmers’ health issues, Garissa County officials denied issuing pesticides to farmers. Ben Gachiri, an officer with the Garissa County communications office, said that it was “impossible that the farmers could have been instructed to do this themselves.” In a written statement, he claimed that no farmer or volunteer was ever issued locust-control pesticides or lodged complaints about pesticide exposure.
The FAO’s assessment, however, tells a different story.
Massive locust surges have threatened farmers throughout the ages, but the swarms have been escalating in recent decades. Desert locust outbreaks require the perfect brew of weather, moist soil, and vegetation conditions. Researchers have found that increases in temperature and rainfall in desert regions, as well as high wind speeds during tropical cyclones, create an ideal environment for locusts to breed and migrate. The fact that many of these conditions have been amplified by climate change has only made locust outbreaks more likely.
The FAO has supported synthetic pesticides as the primary method of locust control since their popularization in the 1980s. A 2021 analysis of FAO pesticide purchase data by the environmental news website Mongabay found that more than 95 percent of the pesticides the agency delivered to East African nations during the locust outbreaks were proven to cause harm to humans and animals. Chlorpyrifos, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had already determined to have no safe level of exposure, made up more than half of the haul. (Scientific evidence linking chlorpyrifos to a slew of neurodevelopmental harms ultimately led the U.S. agency to ban its domestic use in 2021.)
A cow carcass lies in the dirt on Taleh Farm. Kenya has endured multiple failed rainy seasons in a row, which has taken a toll on humans and animals alike. Kang-Chun Cheng
The FAO is well aware of the harmful health effects of chlorpyrifos and other organophosphate pesticides, which it categorizes as “extremely hazardous.” According to an internal 2020 FAO report, which Grist obtained through an officer at Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, FAO staff and consultants observed spray sites across 18 counties in Kenya from July to September of that year. (The FAO has not replied to queries about why the document is not publicly available.)
The report found the agency failed to conduct a full environmental and social impact assessment as required under Kenya’s environmental laws, given the state of emergency produced by the massive locust outbreak. Most of the decisions made with regard to locust mitigation efforts remained opaque to the communities most affected, who received little to no guidance on the pesticides’ toxicity and were not briefed on their health or environmental effects. At several operation sites in Kenya’s far north, “communities complained of lack of information and communication” during locust control operations within their vicinity, the report noted.
In Samburu County, northwest of Garissa in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, FAO monitoring found that “non-trained personnel” took the lead on ground-spraying operations, leading to rampant user errors. The Locust Pesticide Referee Group, an independent body of experts that advises the FAO on pesticide use, recommends that knapsack-sprayers distribute 1 liter per hectare of land, which is roughly 0.11 gallons per acre. But the report noted that the untrained volunteers had sprayed about 3.63 gallons per acre — more than 30 times the recommended amount — on a rainy day when pesticides are likely to run off and pollute soil and water sources.
Young men on a boda boda, or motorbike, drive past a locust response center in Garissa, Kenya. Kang-Chun Cheng
In Lodwar, northwestern Kenya’s largest town, the FAO had trained a crew of 106 National Youth Service members on pesticide management and safety. Still, some crew members “complained of itchiness on skin during spraying,” the report noted. FAO monitoring staff noted that young children were seen playing next to carelessly disposed gloves, masks, gumboots, overalls, safety goggles, and uncollected pesticide drums.
The scathing report found that farmers and community members weren’t properly informed about when spraying occurred, how long it would last, or what the chemicals’ effects were on human and animal health. As a result, around Oldonyiro, a heavily sprayed area in Isiolo County a few hundred miles northwest of Garissa, local Ministry of Agriculture authorities did not collect accounts of cow, camel, and goat mortalities that came from community members.
Members of the National Youth Service spray pesticide on locusts at a farm in Elburgon, in Nakuru County, Kenya in March 2021. Brian Inganga / AP Photo
Less harmful alternatives to synthetic pesticides exist and have proven their efficacy, but they are not yet in widespread global use. Biopesticides developed from Metarhizium acridum fungal spores were first tested in 1989 under a private research program, after a particularly vicious three-year locust plague in East Africa. After years of painstaking testing, a commercial product finally hit the market in 2005. The FAO first used a version of the biopesticide on an operational scale in Tanzania in 2009, and later in Madagascar and Central Asia.
In 2020, Metarhizium-derived biopesticides were used on a large scale with great success in Somalia. The effectiveness was comparable to that of synthetic pesticides: 60 percent mortality after 10 days, increasing to 83 percent after 14 days. Though biopesticides have a higher initial cost than synthetics, researchers found that this was quickly offset by low environmental damage and the elimination of disposal costs. As a bonus, biopesticides can boost honey production, a common livelihood in East Africa, since they are far gentler on pollinators than synthetic chemicals.
Despite their proven track record, companies have largely been unwilling to invest in such biopesticides. That’s because the products are highly targeted and cannot be used on as wide a range of pests. And because they are derived from nature, producing identical batches has proven tricky.
“Economically it’s not as viable, and therefore not of interest to governments –– or companies,” said Pantenius.
FAO representatives declined to speak directly with Grist about the agency’s pesticide procurement procedure, or to elaborate on how decisions were made concerning its locust campaign in Kenya. To this day, the FAO has declined to publicly release reports about documented user error and exactly how much of each pesticide was sprayed.
But in an emailed statement from the FAO’s East Africa regional office, the agency emphasized that it was up to individual countries to select which pesticides they would authorize for use, and that locust control measures were “closely monitored to minimize risks to people and communities.” The FAO denied that farmers or any other untrained community members participated in spraying. The statement added that the FAO encouraged countries to use biopesticides, but that limited production of these alternatives made them insufficient for the scale of the outbreak.
Pantenius said that the FAO has worked to protect crops from being devoured by locusts in cost-effective ways while also considering environmental damage. However, he believes that it and other international humanitarian organizations must put more pressure on governments to make better-informed decisions. “It’s time that we get to a point where we draw a line and say, ‘We’re willing to help you, but won’t provide chemical pesticides,’” he said.
“By the time locusts cross over the crops, it’s already too late [to consider alternatives],” Pantenius added. “Once the plague is over, everyone quickly moves on to more pressing issues.”
Three years after the locusts first arrived, Adan has realized that he could be dealing with effects from pesticide exposure for the rest of his life.
“I’m a lot better now, but it still hurts to stand up,” he explained, lightly pounding the muscles around his thighs. Until recently, he had also been struggling with incontinence.
Adan shows medical bills and paperwork related to his illnesses. Kang-Chun Cheng
To date, Adan has undergone five surgeries, inserting and removing catheters, in an attempt to address a series of urinary tract complications from the accident. He estimates that the hospital bills have racked up to nearly $10,000 — he was forced to sell 14 camels at approximately $400 each to help cover the costs, and neighbors and relatives pitched in.
Adan’s infertility — a known ramification from exposure to synthetic organophosphates such as chlorpyrifos — has been an even greater blow, given local cultural expectations. “When one stops procreating, one’s life is effectively over,” his son Abu explained.
As of early this year, Adan’s health had deteriorated. He started having trouble passing urine again and may need a sixth surgery. Abu said that they are considering applying for a medical visa to India, with the hopes that overseas expertise might solve his lingering urinary tract issue.
Mohammed Adan reaches up to touch one of the fruit trees on his property. Kang-Chun Cheng
On a sweltering day under the equatorial sun late last November, Adan stood beneath the shade of overgrown mango trees with his friends Abdi and Yusuf. He recalled a local saying about locusts, revealing the enduring nuisance that the pests have been in the region — existing as mere folklore for some generations, a living nightmare for others.
“Anyone, even a cow, who eats too much, you’re said to be eating like an ayah — a locust.”
Adan remains concerned about future outbreaks. If a better preparedness plan is not put in place, “It will cause more damage than this,” he said. “This is something that comes with God’s plan — that can’t be predicted by a human being.”
Anthony Langatcontributed reporting to this story.
This year, nearly 100,000 people in Bangladesh have contracted dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral disease common in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The number of infected patients is overwhelming the fragile hospital system there. More than 450 people have died so far, the deadliest dengue outbreak in the nation of approximately 170 million since record keeping began in 2000. Sri Lanka, nearby, is also experiencing a sharp spike — more than 40,000 cases of dengue this year alone.
In the United States, five cases of locally acquired dengue have been reported in Florida this month alone, prompting local health officials to put Miami-Dade and Broward counties on alert. The state has reported a total of 11 cases of locally transmitted dengue so far in 2023.
Workers from the Florida Keys’ mosquito-control department load a drone to spread BTI larvicide in an effort to eradicate dengue-carrying mosquitos on July 8, 2020, on Key Largo. Joe Raedle / Getty Images
These outbreaks are concerning, but they’re not particularly surprising to experts who have been tracking dengue for the past several decades. Cases of dengue — which can cause fever, rashes, vomiting, and, in severe instances, internal bleeding, organ failure, and death — have been rising for years.
Since the beginning of the century, global cases of the disease, carried by the Aedes genus of mosquitoes, have skyrocketed, from roughly 500,000 in 2000 to more than 5 millionin 2019. In the first seven months of 2023, worldwide cases spiked to more than 3 million, and over 1,500 deaths have been reported — numbers that are expected to rise as the summer continues.
There are likely hundreds of millions more unreported incidents each year, as dengue produces mild or no symptoms in most people. But as more people get infected, the percentage who end up developing the severe form of the disease will increase, too. Experts say a tangled web of factors is driving the surge, but one culprit stands out: climate change.
Dengue patients, protected under mosquito nets, receive treatment at the Dengue Corner of Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College & Hospital in Bangladesh. Md Rafayat Haque Khan / Eyepix Gr / Future Publishing via Getty Images
In the 1970s, global cases of dengue fever, or break-bone fever as it’s also commonly known, were low. Dengue had been more prevalent 20 years prior, but an aggressive campaign to eradicate Aedes aegypti mosquitoes using the now-banned insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT, lowered rates. The campaign was particularly successful in the Americas, where dengue and yellow fever, both carried by A. aegypti, were an omnipresent threat.
But spraying DDT, a known carcinogen, into the environment quickly became an unsustainable mosquito-control measure. By the 1980s, as DDT was being phased out and a century of rampant fossil fuel use began to significantly influence the global climate, the disease began to spread again, and fast. In the next couple of decades, dengue would be found in 100 countries, up from just a handful of countries in the 1960s. Today, it’s been detected in more than 140 nations.
“This is the [mosquito-borne] disease that has grown most substantially in the past 10 years,” Felipe J Colón-González, a climate and health researcher who works at the global charitable foundation the Wellcome Trust, told Grist. “There are many factors that are related to climate.”
In order to gauge the influence of global warming on the spread of dengue, researchers look at three interconnected clues: where mosquitoes move, how quickly they develop, and how often they reproduce.
Like any creature on earth, mosquitoes thrive within a specific temperature range. The insects can’t withstand temperatures that are too dry or cold. Anywhere below 57 degrees Fahrenheit, particularly when there’s low humidity, is unlivable. But most mosquitoes can’t withstand temperatures that are too wet or hot, either — large rainstorms wash them out and they tend to die off at 90 degrees F and above.
Human industrial activity has warmed the planet by about 2 degrees F, on average, a seemingly small change that has had enormous implications for the spread of infectious disease — and life on earth writ large.
Nepal, a mountainous country in South Asia, is a perfect example of how even a slight temperature change can open up a Pandora’s box of disease. Dengue wasn’t present in Nepal until 2004, when the first case was recorded. Less than two decades later, in 2022, the country, which is warming more than 1 degree F every decade, experienced its largest outbreak ever — 54,232 cases and 67 deaths. Researchers in Nepal noted that the nation’s mountains are undergoing “unusually large” fluctuations in temperature. Snow cover on those mountains is melting away as climate change accelerates, inviting pests into new, higher territories. Afghanistan, also long considered too mountainous for Aedes mosquitoes, is witnessing a similar trend.
A child infected with dengue at a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 14, 2023. Xinhua via Getty Images
Climate change isn’t just inspiring mosquitoes to move to higher elevations — it’s prompting the bugs to mature more quickly and produce more generations of offspring in a single season.
Warmer temperatures increase both mosquitoes’ rate of survival and development, and the rate at which they feed. Female mosquitoes, the ones that bite humans, digest blood more quickly when it’s warm and humid out. That leads to more disease. “Because the metabolism is faster, they have to feed many more times in a life cycle so there’s more probability of an infection,” said Colón-González.
Even temperatures that should be too hot for mosquitoes don’t always kill them off. The insects hide in cool corners and under couch cushions to escape the heat, seeking shade much like humans do. “Mosquitoes are annoyingly intelligent creatures,” Colón-González said.
It’s clear that climate change is helping mosquitoes, and the diseases they carry, extend their reach across much of the planet. Roughly half the globe is now at risk for dengue, Raman Velayudhan, who leads the WHO’s program for the control of neglected tropical diseases, said recently. But mosquitoes are not invincible. Researchers have had success artificially infecting Aedes mosquitoes with a bacterium that prevents the transmission of dengue from mosquitoes to humans. Pilot studies in South America and Southeast Asia have shown that the bacterium, called Wolbachia, can be incredibly effective: Cases of dengue in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, went down 77 percent following the release of Wolbachia mosquitoes.
And other, more dependable and scalable methods of curbing dengue transmission exist. As is the case with many climate-driven illnesses, keeping communities safe from dengue ultimately comes down to resources and access.
In the U.S., climate projections indicate that the atmospheric conditions for dengue will be ideal throughout much of the country by the end of the century. But it’s unlikely that dengue will become as widespread an issue as it is in underdeveloped countries. That’s because most American homes have window screens that keep bugs out, and a large portion of the population has access to air conditioners that keep humidity low inside. Houses in the U.S. are spaced further apart than elsewhere in the world, which means a mosquito that breeds in one house won’t necessarily bite people in the house next door. Americans also have widespread access to mosquito repellant. And in most areas, drinking water containers and sanitation systems are stored underground, which means mosquitoes can’t breed in them. That’s why in Texas, dengue is a rare disease while as many as 20 percent of all dengue deaths in the Americas occur in Mexico. Two places that share a border and the same environmental conditions can have two completely different health outcomes.
“It’s true that the climate is going to become more suitable for dengue,” Colón-González said, pointing to rising temperatures and cases all over the globe. But the built environment, human behavior, and the quality of public health systems also play important roles — and point at potential silver linings that could help mitigate the dengue burden in countries with fewer resources. “It’s not just the climate,” he said.
Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park is home to one of the most biodiverse concentrations of plant and animal life on Earth. In an historic vote of nearly 60 percent in favor, Ecuadorian citizens chose to stop the development of new oil wells in the park, the country’s National Electoral Commission said.
Approval of the referendum means about 726 million barrels of oil will stay in the ground, reported The Guardian.
The park is also the home of three of the last “uncontacted” Indigenous communities on the planet, the Taromenane, Tagaeri and Dugakaeri people, who live in voluntary isolation, Reuters reported.
By passing the referendum, Ecuador became one of the first nations to vote to restrict the extraction of resources. The measure was passed during the first round of the country’s presidential elections.
“Today is a historic day! As a Waorani woman and mother, I feel overjoyed with Ecuadorians’ resounding decision to stop oil drilling in my people’s sacred homeland,” said Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous Waorani leader and Goldman Environmental Prize winner, as reported by The Guardian. “Finally, we are going to kick oil companies out of our territory! This is a major victory for all Indigenous Peoples, for the animals, the plants, the spirits of the forest and our climate!”
Yasuní National Park became a UNESCO world biosphere reserve in 1989. The biodiversity hotspot consists of 2.5 million acres that are home to 121 reptile species, 139 amphibian species and 610 bird species.
Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park is a world biosphere reserve and biodiversity hotspot. Alan & Flora Botting / CC BY-SA 2.0
Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment and Water said 2.5 acres in Yasuní contains 650 tree species and hundreds of animal species, Reuters reported.
“This referendum presents a huge opportunity for us to create change in a tangible way,” Helena Gualinga, an Indigenous rights advocate, told CNN.
Citizens of Quito, Ecuador’s capital city, voted in another referendum to stop gold mining in the highland biosphere of Chocó Andino, located nearby.
“This victory shows that we humans are taking action to save our planet during these times of climate crisis,” said Leonidas Iza, president of Conaie, Ecuador’s umbrella Indigenous federation, reported The Guardian.
Passage of the referendum to protect Yasuní means state oil company Petroecuador has one year to stop production and will mean the loss of approximately 12 percent of the country’s output of crude oil, Reuters reported.
In a social media post, Petroecuador said it would comply with the decision of the voters.
“We will follow up to make sure the government respects the decision of the Ecuadorean people,” said Juan Bay, president of the Waorani Indigenous community, at a press conference in Quito, as reported by Reuters. “We have saved the greatest biodiversity and we have saved the communities in voluntary isolation.”
Presidential hopeful Luisa González, who was in the lead after the first round of votes, said on a local radio show that by banning oil extraction in Yasuní, not only will income be lost, but indemnity payments will have to be made to companies.
“Those indemnifications could cost $15 billion,” said González, as Reuters reported. “We need to review to see how we’ll get out, what contracts there are, how they will close. It’s a complicated scenario.”
Last year, mining brought in $2.8 billion and was Ecuador’s fourth biggest income source after bananas, oil and shrimp.
Waorani leader Ene Nenquimo said the victory represented years of suffering by Indigenous communities.
“The fight is not just today but years-long,” Nenquimo said, as reported by Reuters.
Forests managed by Indigenous nations are severely underfunded. To reach per-acre parity with forests managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, the federal government would need to increase funding by nearly $96 million every year. That’s according to a new report from the Intertribal Timber Council, a nonprofit consortium consisting primarily of tribes and Alaska Native Corporations.
In 2019, the base year for the study, tribal forests represented nearly 19 million acres in the United States, including approximately 10.2 million acres of commercial forests and woodlands. A total of 345 tribal forests are managed across the nation, with 316 of those forests being held in federal trust.
“It seems like a fairly straightforward answer that when we look at the disparity in funding between other federal agencies and tribes, that [Congress] would just increase appropriations,” said Cody Desautel, President of the Intertribal Timber Council and member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. “But that hasn’t been the case.”
According to the report, non-timber forest products are essential to many tribal communities. Traditional herbaceous plants are found within forested areas while fish, wildlife, roots, fungi and edible tree components such as sap, seeds and nuts, are harvested by communities for medicinal purposes and provide connection to lands.
“Indian forestlands are quite diverse across the country. But all have one thing in common, they are a lifeline for the tribes that live on these lands,” wrote the authors. “The tribal needs from their forests are diverse: forests provide everything from stumpage revenue to employment to harvesting game for subsistence, to being cultural and religious sanctuaries.”
Since 2013, Tribal Priority Allocations, or TPA, that provide federal funding for basic Tribal services, like ecosystem and landscape conservation, have been relatively stagnant despite rising costs for forestry management at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Coupled with sub-par funding for other services, like law enforcement and healthcare, Desautel says much of that TPA funding is often dispersed to different departments, like education.
“Because of that lack of funding and staffing, we’ve got significant backlogs in work that should have been done over the previous decades,” said Desautel. “That puts our forests at worse health and higher risk or disturbance.”
The lack of funding has created limited staffing and issues around workforce capacity which have impacted tribal forest management. “Neither the BIA nor tribes have adequate funds to pay for staffing,” said the authors of the study. “In multiple visits the team was told that the annual funding from the Bureau has not increased in 20 or more years and is no longer a sufficient amount to pay salaries it was originally designed to.”
For tribes such as the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, timber revenue made up a large fraction of their revenue, at one point providing 80 percent of their yearly budget. “It paid for that tribal council, it paid for a police force, it paid for 80 percent of our staff,” said Desautel “It was hands down the most important resource we had to ensure that we had money to function as a tribal government.” However, he adds that a transition is being made by many tribes to find funding and revenue in other places.
The study’s authors also found that climate change, wildfires, and catastrophic natural events are causing unprecedented destruction at a massive scale, making the need for forest protection and conservation even more dire.
Carbon sequestration is gaining popularity across Indian Country as well, projects such as Fond Du Lac Band Of Lake Superior Chippewa, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and Lower Brule have been embraced among tribes and have been used in commercial forest lands as sequester options. Indigenous forests, particularly in the Amazon rainforest are helping curb climate change. The world’s forests, which cover about 30% of Earth’s land, absorbed approximately 7.2 billion more tonnes of CO2 per year than they emitted between 2001 and 2021.
However, despite world leaders spending billions of dollars to protect forests, only 17 percent of global funding actually goes to Indigenous communities, like those in the United States. Desautel said government leaders must work with Indigenous peoples to provide better funding for tribal forestry.
“Tribes are vastly underfunded compared to other federal agencies, and we don’t think that should be the case,” said Desautel. “We also know that because of that lack of funding and staffing that we’ve got significant backlogs in work that should have been done over the previous decades. That puts our forests in worse health and higher risk of disturbance.”
Japan announced Tuesday that it would begin releasing treated, diluted radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as early as Aug. 24. The plan is to release the water into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years.
As Reuters reported, the first release set for Thursday will include about 7,800 cubic meters of water and will take course over about 17 days.
“I expect the water release to start on August 24, weather conditions permitting,” Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida said, as Reuters reported.
Japan and The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant operator, will test the ocean water and marine life and share results online, The Associated Press reported. The first results are expected sometime in September.
The plan was first approved two years ago, and the government has said that the water release is necessary in decommissioning the nuclear power plant. But the plan has come with a lot of opposition from nearby countries and the local fishing industry. According to The Associated Press, Hong Kong and Macau have banned products from 10 prefectures following the announcement to begin the water release. China has increased radiation testing on products from fisheries in Japan.
Even with filtering the water, the BBC reported that the water still contains radioactive substances, including tritium and carbon-14. The plan received a greenlight from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in July. TEPCO said that the water will contain about 190 becquerels of tritium per liter, which is within the 10,000 becquerels per liter limit set by the World Health Organization.
While some scientists say the plan to treat and dilute the water is safe, others say there needs to be more consideration of long-term impacts of the planned release.
“As long as the discharge is carried out as planned, radiation doses to people will be vanishingly small — more than a thousand times less than doses we all get from natural radiation every year,” Jim Smith, a professor of environmental science at the University of Portsmouth, told the BBC.
In 2019, then-environmental minister Shinjiro Koizumi called for a shutdown of all nuclear reactors in Japan following the Fukushima disaster. But opponents have said nuclear energy is needed to meet the country’s energy and climate goals.
The power plant, which was destroyed in 2011 by an earthquake and tsunami, has around 1.34 million metric tons of water to be released. The contaminated water was used to cool the nuclear reactors amid the disaster, but former environmental minister for Japan Yoshiaki Harada said in 2019 that the plant’s operator had run out of space to store the water.
For Jasmin Estrada, nature has always meant more than one thing. It was the summer camp in New England, where she lived, and bathing in sunlight on plastic chairs in her abuela’s hot backyard in Guatemala, waiting for food to be cooked. It was also the scorching sun over a family member’s head as they hid in the back of a truck entering the United States. Nature can be very harsh, she says, but “there’s [also] a harmony and beauty that we all deserve to connect with.”
So when she started studying adventure education at Green Mountain College in Vermont, Estrada couldn’t help but notice how “wilderness” was treated as something untouched and pure. She felt uneasy when her classes “cut folks off by telling them that they have to go through this ‘white explorer’ model to be connected.” This un-nuanced understanding of how race, culture, gender, and class affect how people engage with public lands has contributed to a landscape where most visitors to public lands are white.
Closing the “nature gap”—as some have called the lack of outdoor access people of color and other marginalized groups experience—led Estrada to her current position as community support and training manager at the Appalachian Mountain Club in Massachusetts. When The Wilderness Society knocked on the Appalachian Mountain Club door with a new public lands curriculum in 2018, Estrada was elated. It was the first time she’d seen this kind of nuanced understanding of public lands in a curriculum, she said.
The educational material, divided into six modules, incorporates important historical context for conservation efforts, highlighting the stories that are often left out, including from conservationists of color and queer communities, and the segregation and discrimination that have informed national conservation policy. It also includes lessons in climate change and how to advocate for public lands.
“If we are not telling a story about public lands where people feel seen, where people’s experiences are validated, and where we’re being authentic—and just acknowledging some of the atrocious things that happened with regards to how land has been conserved in this country—then people are going to continue to feel alienated by the conservation movement,” says Liz Vogel, education and youth engagement director with The Wilderness Society.
Since its launch, TWS’ curriculum has reached all corners of the United States, reshaping how universities, outdoor-advocacy organizations, public schools, and youth-advocacy organizations teach about public lands. About 3,500 people have downloaded the free, publicly available document, and 15 organizations have undergone personalized training with The Wilderness Society.
Filling the gaps in public lands history
Around a century after the National Park Service was established, the conservation community started self-reflecting on their achievements and shortcomings. A study found that 95% of national forest visitors and 77% of national park visitors were white—even in parks and forests close to communities of color. Only 112 out of 460 national parks and monuments recognized or were dedicated to diverse peoples and cultures. In a country where the majority of the population will not be white by 2044, it was indispensable to create a representative connection between people and public lands.
In 2016, Vogel says TWS decided to take action to change that. “If we are advocating for these places, and advocating for more land to be conserved,” Vogel says, “we need to be honest with how things happened in conservation history. Often, that history isn’t pretty.”
The Wilderness Society worked for a year alongside curriculum writing consultants, The Avarna Group, to create a curriculum that laid out the different types of public lands that span over 640 million acres in the U.S. The lessons dig into the history before the arrival of settlers, recognizing the deep ecological, cultural, and spiritual ties Indigenous communities had—and still have—with the land. It also details the violent policies—including acts of genocide—that often were put in place to create national parks and forests. The program discusses everyday environmentalists shadowed by the mythologized figures of John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. And it introduces a look into the future of conservation in the era of climate and biodiversity crises.
TWS ran a pilot of the curriculum with three long-time allies: The Boys and Girls Outdoor Leadership Development program at the YMCA; a community-based organization in New Mexico called Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions, which introduced the curriculum in public schools; and the Appalachian Mountain Club, which worked with both kids and educators in the Northeast of the country. Since then, The Wilderness Society has constantly updated the curriculum using the feedback of those who use it. “It’s a living document,” Vogel explains. “We really wanted to create this resource that was responsive and useful anywhere.”
Students learn about the natural history of New Mexico as part of the public lands curriculum. Mason Cummings
Evelyn Hatem, a rising senior in environmental studies and public policy at Dartmouth College, was one of the students in the first iterations of the program in 2018. Hiking on the ridges of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, the largest wilderness area at the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, Hatem learned for the first time about the history of the 45,000 acres of forest surrounding her. The ridge lines covered in trees, which had looked pristine when she arrived, suddenly transformed. Learning that the timber companies had left the mountains barren in the 19th century, and that it was not until 1911 that the government bought the land and decided to conserve the second-growth forest she now contemplated, “was definitely sobering,” she says.
Going through the curriculum left Hatem wanting to learn more. She has subsequently taken several classes on Native American history, and has tried to share this information in her role leading outdoor field trips for Dartmouth’s freshmen. “[Since taking the course], I have thought a lot about equity and inclusion and [the] outdoors. It was definitely a catalyst.”
Hatem’s not the only one deeply affected by the material. Estrada says after she taught the curriculum with the Appalachian Mountain Club, one girl ended up writing her college essay about public lands and their history. Another participant got involved with a local youth center.
Estrada said the curriculum encouraged understanding simultaneous truths. Rather than dwelling on atrocities, considering public lands’ complicated past can help acknowledge people’s complex mix of feelings, including respect, gratitude, and grievance. She says it’s an opportunity to ask, “How can you find the joy in advocacy?”
The Wilderness Society has compiled an educational curriculum that incorporates important historical context for conservation efforts, highlighting the stories of Black and Indigenous conservationists and diving into the violent practices that have informed American conservation policy. Its goal is to teach a more authentic and holistic story to students of all ages.
