In Port Arthur, a small city located east of Houston along the Gulf of Mexico, a majority of residents live in close proximity to one of the 13 petrochemical facilities. For decades, residents have pushed back against blatant and unmitigated air and water pollution that has led to a host of medical problems.
One of those residents is John Beard, the founder, president, and executive director of the Port Arthur Community Action Network, as well as a former refinery worker. Beard explains that the industry exploits this allowance to pollute, affecting communities like his without concern for their lives. “We can’t simply stop breathing when they do these things,” Beard said.
Now, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has an opportunity to take action. Next spring, the federal agency will finalize its proposed regulations that may protect frontline communities like Port Arthur from petrochemical pollution. The proposed rules would strengthen monitoring standards and cut an estimated 6,000 tons of air pollution a year.
Petrochemical facilities are often clustered in low-income and communities of color along the Gulf Coast, which have long organized against the outsized impacts of pollution and exposure to carcinogenic chemicals. The industry is the largest commercial consumer of oil and gas, processing extracted resources into products like fertilizers, pesticides, soaps, and plastic products. As demand for oil and gas as a fuel declines, many companies are increasingly pivoting to petrochemicals—so advocates say strengthening and enforcing these rules is more important than ever.
“Historically, the regulation hasn’t matched the risk nearby communities live with every day,” said Dionne Delli-Gatti, the associate vice president of community engagement at the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit advocacy group. “We have seen under-regulation in the petrochemical industry for a very long time,” she added.
The rules, which EPA is expected to finalize in spring 2024, would help address the concerns of the communities who have borne the brunt of this pollution. It would mandate additional monitoring for six chemicals the agency has listed as a priority concern. The proposal would apply to 218 facilities nationwide, nearly 60 percent of which are located in Texas and Louisiana. The map below is from CLEAR Collaborative and includes the facilities impacted by the EPA’s proposed rule.
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Facilities impacted by EPA’s proposal **
** Dot size indicates relative scale of facility’s emissions
Facilities with a ring would be required to add fenceline
monitoring through EPA’s proposal
Existing local, state or federal monitors
Cancer risk
lower
higher
* Risks modeled for mapped facilities in 49km zone
Advocates say to be effective, the new standards must guard against a loophole that allows for the release of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals when sites are starting up, shutting down, or during malfunctions. In 2008, a Washington, D.C. District Court ruled that these kinds of emissions exemptions were illegal. The EPA set 2016 as a deadline for states to revise their rules, eliminating this loophole. Yet many have ignored it. Creating a federal standard will help close that gap.
Currently, the petrochemical industry is allowed to operate with a certain degree of autonomy and secrecy. This is best illustrated through the pollution allowances built into the Clean Air Act. In the case of an extreme weather event, like a hurricane, a facility will release untold amounts of chemicals in order to relieve pressure or shut down. But this can happen during minor weather events too, like when Texas’ electrical grid is strained. Facilities themselves get to decide if a situation is an SSM event. And in some cases, petrochemical facilities will pollute more in a single SSM event than in an entire year of normal operations.
Earlier this year, a Grist investigation found that this loophole has permitted companies to release 1.1 billion pounds of unpermitted pollution since 2002. Grist concluded that there was a relationship between precipitation and windspeed, and the amount of pollution facilities released: A 1 percent increase in precipitation averaged a 1.5 percent increase in pollution, and a 1 mile per hour increase in windspeed led to a 0.6 percent increase in pollution. As extreme weather events become more common, advocates fear polluting companies’ emissions excuses will increase in frequency.
Earthjustice, on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund and 15 other environmental and community organizations, submitted technical comments to the EPA calling on the agency to finalize the strongest possible version of the rule. Grassroots organizations, community members and environmental leaders also voiced support for EPA’s proposal–many calling for the safeguards to cover a wider range of chemicals at more facilities throughout the country. Comments from residents living near polluting facilities are critical, said Delli-Gatti, as they offer a nuanced, first-hand perspective on the impacts of toxic pollution, and what can be done to address community needs.
One of the most important results from the new rules may be an increase in the transparency demanded of companies that pollute, Delli-Gatti said. The proposal would require air quality monitoring at the fence line of chemical facilities. Currently, these companies self-report data on what they’re polluting, often derived from estimates, rather than actual measurements. But these emissions are often underestimated. Monitoring at the facility fence line would provide one way to verify what’s actually being emitted into the air. She argues that more needs to be done to understand the risks people face when exposed to multiple sources of the same chemical, or to several chemicals at the same time–and to ensure that regulations truly protect people’s health. Simply put, advocates say there isn’t enough accurate data about what is being polluted into the air. “Understanding what those emissions are will be really important in knowing exactly what needs to be done,” Delli-Gatti.
Advocates in Houston are hoping that a strong EPA rule will encourage state environmental agencies to adopt stricter permitting and emissions protocols. In Texas, that means regulating facilities’ risk management plans so companies aren’t allowed to claim they’re protecting communities when they don’t, said Jennifer Hadayia, the executive director of Air Alliance Houston, an environmental justice organization.
For example, facilities will frequently burn off natural gas through a process called venting or flaring. Companies can say burning these chemicals is necessary to relieve pressure from fuel tanks quickly in order to manage risk. This releases huge amounts of methane — a major contributor to climate change and a driver of poor air quality — into the atmosphere. “Industry would like us to think that flaring is the risk management plan,” Hadayia said.
Beard says these kinds of excuses bely common knowledge about available alternatives. Reliable backup systems, for example, can reduce pressure of natural gas within the facility system and act as an alternative to venting and flaring. He says the current regulatory process is failing in its obligation to protect communities like his. Beard has recently filed two lawsuits in Texas, one raising objections to adding an additional pipeline to GoldenPass, a liquified natural gas plant in Port Arthur. He’s also filed a second lawsuit questioning the validity of air quality permit applications by Port Arthur LNG, a subsidiary of Sempra.
“We’re sick and tired of being sacrificed for the oil and gas industry to make billions,” Beard said. “We have a right to be able to breathe clean and free air.”
One of the world’s leading international nonprofit organizations, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. To do so, EDF links science, economics, law, and innovative private-sector partnerships. With more than 3 million members and offices in the United States, China, Mexico, Indonesia and the European Union, EDF’s scientists, economists, attorneys and policy experts are working in 28 countries to turn solutions into action.
Grist’s editorial team has covered the petrochemical industry previously. This article is sponsored content from EDF and is not connected to Grist’s previous coverage. Sponsors play no role in Grist’s editorial coverage.
This story is co-published with The Guardian and produced in partnership with the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. It is part of Record High, a Grist series examining extreme heat and its impact on how — and where — we live.
Jasmine Granillo was eager for her older brother, Roendy, to get home. With their dad’s long hours at his construction job, Roendy always tried to make time for his sister. He had promised to take her shopping at a local flea market when he returned from work.
“I thought my brother was coming home,” Granillo said.
Roendy Granillo was installing floors in Melissa, Texas, in July 2015. Temperatures had reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit when he began to feel sick. He asked for a break, but his employer told him to keep working. Shortly after, he collapsed. He died on the way to the hospital from heat stroke. He was 25 years old.
A few months later, the Granillo family joined protesters on the steps of Dallas City Hall for a thirst strike to demand water breaks for construction workers. Jasmine, only 11 years old at the time, spoke to a crowd about her brother’s death. She said that she was scared, but that she “didn’t really think about the fear.”
“I just knew that it was a lot bigger than me,” she said.
Jasmine Granillo on the steps of the U.S. Capitol during another thirst strike on July 25, 2023. Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call
In December 2015, shortly after the protest, Dallas became the second city in Texas to pass an ordinance mandating water breaks for construction workers, following Austin in 2010. These protections, however, were rescinded last month when the state legislature implemented a new law blocking the local ordinances.
“I was baffled,” Granillo said. “You should be able to sit down and have a water break if you need to — if your life is on the line.”
As climate change fuels record high temperatures across the country, the number of workers who die from heat on the job has doubled since the early 1990s. Over 600 people died on the job from heat between 2005 and 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But federal regulators say these numbers are “vast underestimates,” because the health impacts of heat, the deadliest form of weather event, are infamously hard to track, especially in work environments. Medical examiners often misrepresent heat stroke as other illnesses, like heart failure, making them easy cases for workplace safety inspectors to miss. Some researchers estimate that the number of workplace fatalities is more likely in the thousands — every year.
Outdoor workers can be exposed to extreme temperatures. Grist / Columbia University
Workers who already lack labor rights are often the most at risk. In many states, undocumented laborers drive outdoor industries like agriculture, landscaping, and construction. Labor advocates say it’s easier for these workers to be denied basic necessities like water, rest breaks, or even time to use the bathroom because many fear that they’ll be retaliated against and deported if they report unsafe working conditions. Between 2010 and 2021, one-third of all worker heat fatalities were Latinos.
Yet there are almost no regulations at local, state, or federal levels across the United States to protect workers.
In 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, announced its intent to start the process of creating protections to mandate access to water, rest, and shade for outdoor workers exposed to dangerous levels of heat. But it’s uncertain whether such a rule will ever be implemented, and most OSHA regulations take an average of seven years to be finalized. In July, Democratic representatives introduced a bill that would force OSHA to speed up this process. It was their third attempt. They have failed to secure enough votes every time.
In the absence of federal protections, some states have attempted to pass their own regulations after experiencing worker fatalities during record-breaking heat waves. But trade groups for impacted industries, like agriculture and construction, have strongly opposed these efforts, claiming that such rules are costly and unnecessary. Statewide heat regulations have been blocked in some of the hottest regions of the county. Currently, just five states — California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Minnesota — have heat-related protections for workers.
“We’re asking for something so simple,” Granillo said. “Something that could save so many lives.”
Earlier this year, Paul Moradkhan, a representative from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, spoke to a committee of Nevada lawmakers. They were deciding whether to implement heat protections for indoor and outdoor workers. Nevada is one of the fastest-warming states in the country, and heat-related complaints reported to workplace safety regulators more than doubled between 2016 and 2021. Moradkhan was joined by representatives from the Nevada Home Builders Association, the Nevada Resort Association, the Nevada Restaurant Association, and the Associated Builders and Contractors of Nevada, among other industry groups, all there to argue against the proposal.
“While these requirements may appear to be common sense,” Moradkhan said at the hearing, “we do believe these regulations can be complicated, egregious, burdensome, and confusing.”
The campaign was straight from a playbook that industry groups across the country have deployed to fight worker heat protections in recent years: claiming that regulations already address heat illness, businesses already protect workers, and that a one-size-fits-all approach will be costly and ineffective.
When Virginia’s Department of Labor and Industry tried to pass a heat standard in 2020, several industry groups stated that businesses should protect workers from heat in the manner best for them. The Associated General Contractors of Virginia wrote to regulators that “a one-size-fits-all approach” would harm an employer’s ability to “protect employees from heat-related illnesses.” The Prince William Chamber of Commerce, which represents the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, wrote in a public comment that the changes being proposed were already “in practice by many, if not all businesses … operating in Virginia,” and that “requiring 15 minute break[s] each hour will hurt businesses’ bottom lines.”
The state’s Safety and Health Codes Board ultimately rejected the proposal.
A billboard displays the temperature in Phoenix on July 16 during a record-breaking heat wave. Brandon Bell / Getty Images
In some states, industry influence has been strong enough that business leaders haven’t needed to debate the issue publicly.
Labor advocates in Florida have demanded that lawmakers pass heat protections for outdoor workers for the past five years. There have been more attempts to pass a heat protection bill in Florida than in any other state — but almost all of them have died without being heard in a single committee meeting. Industry groups have not spoken out publicly against these proposals, but lobbyists, activists, and lawmakers who support worker protections told Grist they are most likely conducting private conversations with state representatives to garner opposition.
“So much of this happens behind closed doors,” said Democratic State Representative Anna Eskamani, who has sponsored the bill each session. Business lobbyists would “rather just cut you a check and avoid the media attention,” rather than vocally oppose a pro-worker bill, she said.
In 2020, after years of advocacy from organized labor, the Maryland legislature passed a bill requiring the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board to develop a heat standard for workers. Industry groups opposed the bill during state congressional hearings, but did not submit any public comments to regulators when they began to draft the rule.
A construction worker pours water on his face to cool off as he digs a sanitation pipe ditch during a heat wave in 2022 in Philadelphia. Mark Makela / Getty Images
The proposal that regulators presented after two years shocked activists. It allowed businesses themselves to decide what heat conditions were safe in their workplaces and didn’t require them to create any written heat safety plans.
“It took them two and a half years to draft this and it’s two pages long,” said Scott Schneider, the director of occupational safety and health at the nonprofit Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America, who helped petition for the regulation. “We said to them, ‘This is ridiculous, if it isn’t written down, how is it enforceable?’” — referring to the fact that the regulation does not require businesses to write down their safety plans.
Advocates pushed Maryland Secretary of Labor Portia Wu to revise the rule. A representative from her office said they are currently working “to review and re-examine the standard,” but would not state whether Maryland’s rule would ultimately be amended.
After five years of inaction by the Florida legislature, WeCount! — a local labor group fighting for heat protections — spearheaded an effort to take their battle to the county level. The group pushed the Miami-Dade County Board of Supervisors to pass its own rule, hoping that the largely Latino and bipartisan district would be more sympathetic. The Miami area sees temperatures above 90 degrees for over a third of the year, a more than 60 percent increase over the last half century, putting those who work outside at considerable risk.
On September 11, the board’s Community Health Committee pushed the bill forward. It seemed possible that a heat rule could finally come to fruition in the state.
Workers and advocates with the organization WeCount! gather for a rally on June 21 in Miami to demand workplace protections against extreme heat. AP Photo / Wilfredo Lee
Industry groups decided to change their strategy and began to publicly oppose the measure. A long line of speakers representing the state’s agriculture and construction industries addressed the committee, calling the bill costly and convoluted. Barney Rutzke Jr., president of the Miami-Dade Farm Bureau, who spoke at the hearing, questioned the need for the regulation, claiming that there are “already OSHA rules and standards in place.” When a worker is seriously injured, OSHA can fine employers if they determine that their workplaces are unsafe, but the agency has no specific requirements that businesses must follow concerning heat. Carlos Carillo, executive director of the South Florida chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, said that “a vote for the ordinance is a vote against Miami-Dade’s construction and agricultural businesses.”
“They are scared,” said Esteban Wood, WeCount!’s policy director, “because they think that it might pass.”
While the hottest regions of the country have blocked heat protections for workers, there are some states in the West that have gotten it right, reacting to mounting worker deaths.
During a blistering three-week heat wave in California’s Central Valley in 2005, temperatures reached 105 degrees as Constantino Cruz struggled to sort thousands of tomatoes on top of a mechanical harvester. When his shift ended, Cruz collapsed. He was one of six workers to die from heat on the job in California that summer. United Farm Workers, one of the most powerful agricultural unions in the country, pushed lawmakers to respond. Shortly after Cruz’s death, his family joined Governor Schwartzenegger to announce an emergency heat protection for outdoor workers. A year later, the first statewide heat standard was enacted.
But the deaths continued.
A farmworker picks grapes in Lamont, California, in 2021 while dealing with extreme heat and drought conditions. Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images
The year after the law passed, three more farm workers died, and in 2007, regulators found that more than half of the employers they audited were violating the new rule.
United Farm Workers, a labor union, and the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, sued California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or Cal-OSHA, charging that the agency had failed to protect workers from heat. In 2015, Cal-OSHA settled the lawsuit by agreeing to strengthen its regulation, mandating rest breaks every two hours when temperatures reached 95 degrees and special emergency medical plans for heat illness.
Researchers began to see results. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a nonprofit research organization, analyzed worker compensation data in California and found that workplace injuries from heat had declined 30 percent since the state created its regulation.
California’s heat rule became a model for other states, and its neighbor to the north also recently finalized heat protections.
Labor rights activists had been petitioning Oregon state regulators for years to protect outdoor workers from heat. But until the 2021 disaster, “I think we all kind of thought of heat as an inconvenience more than an actual, lethal threat,” Kate Suisman, an attorney and campaign coordinator with the Northwest Workers’ Justice Project, said. That changed quickly.
A worker picks peaches from the last crop of the season in Fort Valley, Georgia, on July 23. Due to weather extremes earlier in the year, the farm’s peach season ended a month earlier than usual. Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Oregon OSHA passed the strongest heat protections in the country, covering both indoor and outdoor workers, in 2022. Washington and Colorado created their own standards that same year.
“It was an immediate hazard,” said Ryan Allen, a regulator for Washington’s Department of Occupational Safety and Health, who helped oversee the state’s rule-making process. “We needed to address it.”
Elizabeth Strater, an organizer with United Farm Workers in Washington, said that their effort faced “robust pushback” from industry leaders in agriculture and construction. But strong coalitions of labor groups, environmental advocates, and immigrant rights organizations were able to persuade policymakers to act. The visible impacts of climate change that summer helped build a consensus among advocates and regulators that heat was becoming a threat to everyone in the state.
The reality was setting in that “heat is coming for us all,” Strater said.
In 2022, Oregon Manufacturers and Commerce, Associated Oregon Loggers, Inc., and Oregon Forest & Industries Council sued the state’s OSHA to block its new rule, arguing that heat is a general hazard that affects employees beyond the workplace and should therefore be treated as a public health risk, not a workplace issue. But their lawsuit was dismissed.
In Texas, industry opposition has been more effective. Over a decade after labor advocates successfully pushed for mandatory water breaks for construction workers in Austin and Dallas, State Representative Dustin Burrows, a Republican, introduced the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, which bars cities and counties from adopting stricter regulations than the state.
A worker from CNS Signs hangs a sign outside a building amid a 2022 heat wave in El Centro, California. Mario Tama / Getty Images
The new legislation is alarming, said David Chincanchan, policy director at the labor rights group Workers Defense Project. Before, policymakers were simply ignoring their demands, he said. “Now they’ve moved beyond inaction to obstruction.”
Around the same time that Burrows introduced the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, State Representative Maria Luisa Flores, a Democrat, authored a bill that would’ve created an advisory board responsible for establishing statewide heat protections and set penalties for employers that violate the standard. Her bill never got a hearing.
The issue “just wasn’t a priority for the leadership,” she said.
Houston and San Antonio have fought back, suing the state on the grounds that the new act violates the Texas Constitution. It’s unknown whether their lawsuit will be able to overturn the law.
Jasmine Granillo worries that her father, who still works in construction, faces the same risks her brother did. She encourages him to take breaks, but sometimes his employers push him to work beyond his limits, she said. Motivated by her brother’s death, Granillo has decided to pursue medicine, and the 19-year-old continues to advocate for heat protections to honor Roendy.
“I know that doing this will always keep him alive,” she said.
Victoria D. Lynch, a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, contributed to this project. Heat-related data were produced and processed by Robbie M. Parks, an environmental epidemiologist and Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and Cascade Tuholske, a geographer and Assistant Professor at Montana State University.
Fungi are everywhere, even if we can’t see them. There are between two and four million known species of fungi on Earth with thousands more discovered every year, and we’re increasingly recognizing their ability to address plastic pollution, climate-warming greenhouse gases, and environmental toxins. Below the soil, mycelium breaks down organic matter, and mushrooms are the fruiting body that rises above ground. Some are toxic, some are medicinal, and many have specific cultural importance. The mushrooms below are just a few of the many that have proven benefits to human health. If you’re foraging and harvesting mushrooms yourself, remember to use caution and consult foraging guides to make sure you’re collecting the right species, and doing so in a way that isn’t harmful to the ecosystems you find them in.
General Health Benefits of Mushrooms
Mushrooms are high in vitamins and minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium, niacin, potassium, riboflavin, selenium, and zinc, and are good sources of protein and fiber. They also have numerous other benefits for brain, heart, and gut health, and are even showing anti-cancer properties — long believed in traditional medicine — in emerging research.
Brain Health
A 2018 study conducted in Singapore found that participants who ate two cups of mushrooms each week were 50% less likely to develop MCI: that is, mild cognitive impairment, which includes difficulty with language and memory. The study lasted from 2011 to 2017 and involved 663 participants, who ate six common mushrooms including button, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms.
Heart Health
Mushrooms have multiple features that make them beneficial for heart health and for lowering your risk of heart-related illnesses. A high intake of sodium is associated with high blood pressure and hypertension, which can cause stroke and heart diseases. Mushrooms are naturally low in sodium — a cup of white mushrooms has only five milligrams of sodium, but they can reduce the need for salt in meals while maintaining flavor. Thus, mushrooms are a great substitute for meat — even partially — in some recipes if you’re hoping to decrease sodium levels in your diet. They are also a great source of potassium, which helps reduce the impact of sodium and relieve blood vessel tension, all of which is beneficial for blood pressure.
Gut Health
Besides their high concentrations of fiber, mushrooms provide other benefits to the gut. They are high in polysaccharides — a type of carbohydrate that helps the body grow healthy bacteria — and also act as “prebiotics,” a type of fiber that cannot be digested by the body, but is stored and fermented in the large intestine by bacteria. As a prebiotic, mushrooms stimulate the growth of microbiota in the gut.
Vitamin D and Immune Health
Mushrooms have gotten increasing attention for their immune system benefits, with their concentrations of Vitamin D being one of the many factors. In fact, mushrooms are the only sufficient produce and non-animal source of vitamin D. When mushrooms are exposed to UV light, they become higher in Vitamin D. Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which is important for bone and immune health. It’s also considered a “shortfall nutrient,” meaning it’s common for Americans not to reach their recommended intake.
Cancer Prevention
Given their concentrations of ergothioneine — an antioxidant/amino acid that works to prevent and slow down damage to cells — there’s some evidence that mushrooms can decrease your risk of cancer. A review of a relatively small number of cancer studies between 1966 and 2020 found that consuming 18 grams of mushrooms per day could reduce the risk of developing cancer by about 45%. The study found that any variety of mushrooms was helpful, but shiitake, oyster, maitake, and king oyster have especially high concentrations of ergothioneine.
Five Super Beneficial Mushrooms
While fungi as a whole have tons of awesome health benefits, these mushrooms are especially known for their medicinal properties, and many have been used in traditional medicine throughout history.
Shiitake
A basket of freshly picked shiitake mushrooms at Le Saut aux Loups restaurant in Loire Valley, France. Tim Graham / Getty Images
Growing on fallen logs, Shiitake mushrooms have a long history in East Asia as both a source of medicine and food. Shiitake are high in vitamin B6, which is important for the formation of red blood cells and proteins. B vitamins in general help with cell growth, thus aiding hair, skin, and nails. Shiitakes are also high in eritadenine, a compound that can reduce cholesterol levels. That in combination with their inflammation-reducing beta glucans prevents cholesterol from being absorbed. So, if you’re struggling with high cholesterol, add some shiitakes to a stir fry, noodle or pasta dish, sauce, or over rice for a delicious and healthful meal.
Chaga
A chaga mushroom growing on a birch tree trunk. Ksenia Shestakova / iStock / Getty Images Plus
The first known use of Chaga was in 17th-century Russia, and now it’s famous for its immune system benefits. Chaga grows on birch trees in colder climates, and looks more like a rock than a mushroom. Its woody texture makes it a better candidate for tea or capsules than actual cooking, but it does nothing to diminish its benefits. It contains polysaccharides (that healthy, bacteria-growing carbohydrate) that help the body produce lymphocytes — white blood cells that help with immune response to infection. They also contain oodles of antioxidants — just one cup of chaga tea has the same level of antioxidants as thirty pounds of carrots.
Reishi
Reishi mushrooms growing in a forest. James Mahan / iStock / Getty Images Plus
The history of reishi’s use in traditional Chinese medicine is long — its first records were from the Han Dynasty. Like many other mushrooms, their beta glucans and glycoproteins boost the immune system. Some research also points to reishi’s anti-allergy properties due to its ability to inhibit the release of histamines, which cause cells to swell and result in typical allergy symptoms like sneezing and runny noses. By reducing dermal oxidation, reishi protects your skin from wrinkling and other symptoms of aging, while also benefiting energy levels.
Lion’s Mane
A lion’s mane mushroom on a tree trunk. Arterra / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Lion’s mane doesn’t look like your typical mushroom with a distinctive round, smooth cap — instead, it’s characterized by the tons of long, thin, pale strands hanging from a central body that looks, of course, like the head of a lion. In Chinese medicine, the mushroom was traditionally used for treating stomach problems with its strong anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties, particularly those relating to the spleen and the gut. It was called the “spirit plant,” and was believed to promote longevity. Lion’s mane also has strong neurological benefits, and early research shows that it protects against neurological damage and prompts nerve-tissue growth. It stimulates NGF — standing for nerve growth factors — which are proteins that protect neurons and help new ones grow, and thus helps nervous systems. Therefore, it could be beneficial for people with MS, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.
Turkey Tail
Turkey tail mushrooms. Arterra / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Like Lion’s mane, turkey tail looks just how the name suggests, like a flared turkey’s tail. The mushroom is greatly beneficial to the immune system, especially with its high concentrations of polysaccharides and triterpenes that have immunomodulating benefits. Turkey tail also contains PSK — a cancer drug used in Japan — and PSP: two beta-glucans that regenerate white blood cells, and create and support T-cells, macrophages, and NK (natural killer) cells, all of which support the immune system.
The Department of Energy announced on Wednesday that it would funnel $3.46 billion toward upgrading the country’s aging electric grid — marking its largest-ever investment in that part of the United States’ energy network.
The funding, which comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that President Joe Biden signed in 2021, is intended to prepare the grid for more renewable energy capacity as the U.S. transitions away from fossil fuels, and to prevent blackouts caused by increasingly severe climate disasters.
Between 2011 and 2021, the country experienced a 78 percent increase in weather-related power outages compared to the previous decade. Twenty percent of these outages were caused by hurricanes, extreme heat, and wildfires.
“Extreme weather events fueled by climate change will continue to strain the nation’s aging transmission systems,” U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. She added that the new funding would “harden systems” and “improve energy reliability and affordability.”
The new funding targets 58 projects across 44 states that, cumulatively, are expected to leverage $8 billion in federal and private investments in grid expansion and resiliency. Many of these projects involve building new “microgrids,” groups of dispersed but interconnected energy-generating units that can provide electricity even when the larger grid is down. For example, a solar microgrid involves lots of rooftop solar panels all feeding into a common pool of electricity — usually stored in a battery that serves as a source of backup power during an outage.
The funding also will also support the development of several large-scale transmission lines, including five new lines across seven Midwestern states. These lines help carry electricity from place to place, allowing clean energy to be generated in rural areas, where land tends to be more plentiful, and delivered to population centers.
Other projects involve more general upgrades to accommodate greater loads of electricity or improve emergency monitoring systems. Altogether, the DOE says the projects will help bring 35 gigawatts of renewable energy online, equivalent to roughly half of the U.S.’s utility-scale solar capacity in 2022. This will contribute to President Biden’s goal of moving the country’s electricity generation away from fossil fuels by 2035. As of 2021, the power sector accounted for a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The Energy Department highlighted the selected projects’ commitments under Justice40, a Biden administration initiative that promises to direct at least 40 percent of the benefits of federal investment in infrastructure, clean energy, and other climate-related projects to disadvantaged communities, often defined as those that are low-income or that have been disproportionately exposed to pollution. According to the Energy Department, 86 percent of the projects contain labor union contracts or will involve collective bargaining agreements, and the agency says they will help “maintain and create good-paying union jobs.”
Many of the projects also have a specific focus on improving grid reliability for rural or low-income households. For example, one project in Oregon aims to upgrade transmission capacity and bring carbon-free solar power to remote customers on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation. Another project in Louisiana will create a backup battery system that could reduce energy bills for disadvantaged communities.
Wednesday’s announcement allocates just some of the funds included in the Energy Department’s broader, $10.5 billion Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program, which is expected to fund more grid resiliency projects in the future. Meanwhile, experts say funding to upgrade power grids needs to double globally by 2030 in order to facilitate the transition from fossil fuels to technologies powered by electricity — electric vehicles instead of gas cars, for example, or heat pumps instead of furnaces. Otherwise, a report released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency warns that aging electric grids could become a “bottleneck for efforts to accelerate clean energy transitions and secure electricity security.”
One-third of American kitchens have gas stoves — and evidence is piling up that they’re polluting homes with toxic chemicals. A study this summer found that using a single gas stove burner on high can raise levels of cancer-causing benzene above what’s been observed from secondhand smoke.
It turns out gas stoves have much more in common with cigarettes. A new investigation by NPR and the Climate Investigations Center found that the gas industry tried to downplay the health risks of gas stoves for decades, turning to many of the same public-relations tactics the tobacco industry used to cover up the risks of smoking. Gas utilities even hired some of the same PR firms and scientists that Big Tobacco did.
Earlier this year, an investigation from DeSmog showed that the industry understood the hazards of gas appliances as far back as the 1970s and concealed what they knew from the public. The new documents fill in the details of how gas utilities and trade groups obscured the science around those health risks in an attempt to sell more gas stoves and avoid regulations — tactics still in use today.
The investigation comes amid a culture war over gas stoves. Towns across the country have passed bans on natural gas hookups in new buildings, and the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission is looking into their health hazards. The commission has said it doesn’t plan on banning gas stoves entirely after the mention of the idea sparked a backlash last December. That same month, a peer-reviewed study found that nearly 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the United States were linked to using gas stoves. But the American Gas Association, the industry’s main lobbying group, argued that those findings were “not substantiated by sound science” and that even discussing a link to asthma was “reckless.”
It’s a strategy that goes back as far back as 1972, according to the most recent investigation. That year, the gas industry got advice from Richard Darrow, who helped manufacture controversy around the health effects of smoking as the lead for tobacco accounts at the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton. At an American Gas Association conference, Darrow told utilities they needed to respond to claims that gas appliances were polluting homes and shape the narrative around the issue before critics got the chance. Scientists were starting to discover that exposure to nitrogen dioxide — a pollutant emitted by gas stoves — was linked to respiratory illnesses. So Darrow advised utilities to “mount the massive, consistent, long-range public relations programs necessary to cope with the problems.”
The American Gas Association also hired researchers to conduct studies that appeared to be independent. They included Ralph Mitchell of Battelle Laboratories, who had also been funded by Philip Morris and the Cigar Research Council. In 1974, Mitchell’s team, using a controversial analysis technique, examined the literature on gas stoves and said they found no significant evidence that the stoves caused respiratory illness. In 1981, a paper funded by the Gas Research Institute and conducted by the consulting firm Arthur D. Little — also affiliated with Big Tobacco — surveyed the research and concluded that the evidence was “incomplete and conflicting.”
These studies didn’t just confuse the public, but also the federal government. When the Environmental Protection Agency assessed the health effects of nitrogen dioxide pollution in 1982, its review included five studies finding no evidence of problems — four of which were funded by the gas industry, the Climate Investigations Center recently uncovered. The EPA, which was investigating whether it should tighten nitrogen dioxide standards outdoors, called for more research to reduce the “uncertainties” of health effects, and didn’t strengthen the standards until more than a quarter-century later.
Today, as public opinion starts to turn on gas stoves, utilities continue to deploy techniques that mirror the tobacco industry’s. Last year, the gas industry hired a toxicologist to testify at a public comment hearing over gas stoves in Multnomah County, Oregon. Julie Goodman questioned the research around the health concerns of stoves and pointed to a review showing little reason for worry, but she did not mention that she was hired by the local gas utility NW Natural. Goodman told NPR that the views were her own and argued that scientists aren’t necessarily biased in favor of their funding source.
In response to the reporting from NPR and the Climate Investigations Center, Karen Harbert, the American Gas Association’s CEO, acknowledged that the gas industry has “collaborated” with researchers to “inform and educate regulators about the safety of gas cooking appliances.” Harbert claimed that the available science “does not provide sufficient or consistent evidence demonstrating chronic health hazards from natural gas ranges” — a line that should sound familiar by now.
The ability of corals to adapt to and survive changes in their environment, such as the recent record warming of sea surface temperatures associated with the climate crisis, appears to be more complex than scientists previously thought.
In a new study, researchers made surprising discoveries about a common Caribbean coral species that could help efforts to protect corals from bleaching and other damaging effects of climate change.
“Global ecosystems are undergoing unprecedented structural and functional changes as atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature continue to rise in the Anthropocene. One ecosystem that is particularly vulnerable to these changes is coral reefs, because most reef-building corals are found in the tropics and already live close to their upper thermal limits,” the researchers explained in the findings of the study. “A small temperature increase, as little as 1°C above the maximum monthly mean temperature for a period of 4 weeks, or 4°C heating weeks, can lead to the breakdown of the symbiotic relationship between the cnidarian animal host and their intracellular photosynthetic dinoflagellate algae. This phenomenon is commonly known as coral bleaching.”
The research team was led by assistant professor of biological sciences Carly Kenkel at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. In order to find out if coral populations that have been able to survive in higher temperatures could pass on their heat tolerance to their offspring, the team focused on Orbicella faveolata, mountainous star coral, USC Dorsife said.
The scientists were surprised to find that the offspring of a less heat-tolerant population fared better under exposure to high temperatures than those from a heat-tolerant population.
The findings contradict the commonly held belief by scientists that the offspring of corals that are heat-tolerant should be tolerant too.
“The study findings have significant implications for how we think about saving coral reefs,” Kenkel said in the press release. “It’s not as simple as just breeding more heat-tolerant corals.”
The study, “Performance of Orbicella faveolata larval cohorts does not align with previously observed thermal tolerance of adult source populations,” was published in the journal Global Change Biology.
Coral bleaching due to rising ocean temperatures weakens coral, making them more vulnerable to disease.
In order to find out which corals would be able to more readily handle increased temperatures, the research team collected coral reproductive cells, or gametes, from two coral reefs in the Florida Keys. One is located closer to shore and the second farther out.
The team used a controlled environment to breed the corals, exposing the larvae to simulated conditions of heat stress. After measuring how well the corals survived, as well as their gene activity, they were surprised to find that the larvae of the population known to be less heat tolerant had better survival rates and fewer signs of stress. This suggested that coral offspring’s ability to handle higher temperatures could be influenced by a number of factors, including if and how often their parent corals have bleached before or encountered other environmental stressors.
The scientists said more research was needed, since they focused on a specific coral species, while different species could have distinct responses. Factors other than temperature also affect reefs in the wild that were not present in the controlled laboratory setting.
The team hopes to delve more deeply into how corals adapt and pass on their resilience to offspring, taking into account how their history and relationships with other marine life, as well as overall reef health, affect them.
Kenkel said the preservation of corals may need an approach that is more comprehensive.
“Instead of focusing solely on breeding more heat-tolerant corals, we might need to consider other factors affecting coral survival and more diverse interventions,” Kenkel said in the press release, including their genetic diversity, as well as the external stressors that affect their overall health.
“We believe that this study opens up promising avenues for future research, which is critical to the success of reef management and restoration practices for this charismatic Caribbean coral species,” said first author of the study Yingqi Zhang, who contributed to the research while a Ph.D. student in Kenkel’s USC Dornsife lab, in the press release.
The main driver of the extinction of plant and wildlife species around the world is habitat loss. In the U.S. alone, approximately 650 species have become extinct or are “missing in action,” according to the National Wildlife Federation.
This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) removed 21 species from the Endangered Species Act (ESA)’s list of threatened and endangered species due to extinction. Delisting was based on “the best available science” for each species, a press release from USFWS said.
Most of the species were listed in the 1970s and 80s and had low numbers or were likely to have already been extinct at the time they were listed.
“My heart breaks over the loss of these 21 species,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a press release. “These plants and animals can never be brought back. We absolutely must do everything we can to avert the loss of even more threads in our web of life.”
USFWS proposed the delisting of 23 species due to extinction in September of 2021. However, USFWS removed the delisting of the Hawaiian plant Phyllostegia glabra var. Lanaiensis, an herb that is part of the mint family, following public comment, the USFWS press release said. Recent surveys identified new habitats that were potentially suitable for the species, which has no common name. The delisting proposal also included another species, the ivory-billed woodpecker, whose extinction status has been the subject of scientific debate.
The newly delisted 21 species emphasize the ESA’s importance in trying to protect species before their declines become irreversible. Human activity is the number one driver of species decline and extinction due to habitat loss, overuse, invasive species and diseases.
“Federal protection came too late to reverse these species’ decline, and it’s a wake-up call on the importance of conserving imperiled species before it’s too late,” said USFWS Director Martha Williams in the USFWS press release. “As we commemorate 50 years of the Endangered Species Act this year, we are reminded of the Act’s purpose to be a safety net that stops the journey toward extinction. The ultimate goal is to recover these species, so they no longer need the Act’s protection.”
The ESA has been credited with preserving 99 percent of species that are listed from extinction. More than 100 species have been delisted or reclassified to threatened due to recovery or improved conservation status. Because of the collaborative efforts of Tribes; conservation organizations; governments at the federal, state and local level; and private citizens, hundreds more are stable or improving.
However, around one million species could be lost if action is not taken quickly to protect habitats, curb the use of fossil fuels, reduce pollution and halt the exploitation of species and the spread of invasive species.
The Hawaiian birds that were delisted and declared extinct experienced decline due to the decimation of their forest habitats to make way for agriculture and development, and were directly affected by the introduction of mosquitos carrying avian diseases.
“Few people realize the extent to which the crises of extinction and climate change are deeply intertwined,” Greenwald said in the Center for Biological Diversity press release. “Both threaten to undo our very way of life, leaving our children with a considerably poorer planet. One silver lining to this sad situation is that protecting and restoring forests, grasslands and other natural habitats will help address both.”
Plants and animals are the cornerstones of healthy ecosystems, which provide all the sustenance and most of the medicines humans rely on.
“It’s not too late to stop more plants and animals from going extinct, but we have to act fast,” Greenwald said.
Outside of the royal palace, in Oslo, seven Sámi youths waited to speak with King Harald V of Norway. They wore gáktis, their traditional clothing, and on the lawn, near the neoclassical building, a lávvu stood — a temporary Sámi dwelling that resembles a teepee. Just after noon, the youths were granted an audience with the king.
The meeting was the culmination of several days of protests in Oslo that captured the boldness of young Sámi activists as well as the obstacle they face: challenging the government of Norway to respect its own laws and the rights of Indigenous Sámi people. To date, they have been unsuccessful.
The protests have been fueled by frustration and anger over the $1.3 billion Fosen wind farm, the largest wind project in Norway on the nation’s central-west coast. Exactly two years before protests began, Norway’s Supreme Court ruled that the wind park had been built illegally in Sápmi, the traditional territory of the Sámi, and violated the rights of Sámi reindeer herders as well as the cultural rights of the Sámi peoples. In the wake of the ruling, the Sámi parliament of Norway demanded the wind park be torn down and the land restored for reindeer herders. However, in the years since, Norwegian officials, including those at Statkraft, the state-owned power company responsible for the project, have refused to remove the turbines, instead opting to negotiate with impacted communities in the hope that the park will continue to produce energy.
For the Sámi, that means the only authority left who may help them is King Harald V.
According to Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, one of the seven youths to meet with the king and a Sámi organizer, there was no other option.
“We have set up lávvus on Oslo’s main street,” said Hætta Isaksen. “We have occupied the parliament for a whole day. We have blocked Statkraft and closed down 11 ministries. What more can we do?”
The act of meeting with the king is grounded in history. In 1997, King Harald issued an apology for Norway’s treatment of Sámi peoples. “We must regret the injustice the Norwegian state has previously inflicted on the Sámi people,” King Harald said. “The Norwegian state therefore has a special responsibility to create the right conditions for the Sámi people to be able to build a strong and viable society. This is a time-honored right based on the Sámi’s presence in their areas going back a long way.”
Hætta Isaksen said that they had inherited the fight from their ancestors, and that while the king made no promises and carried little power to influence state leaders, the meeting was important. “We have been met with arrogance all week,” she said. “But to meet Norway’s highest leader, who understands us, [it] gives us strength to continue.”
The latest demonstration began last week, on the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling, when 14 Sámi activists, including Mihkkal Hætta, who has been living in a lávvu outside parliament for a month, began a sit-in. By the end of the day, police carried activists out of the building, but no arrests were made. By Friday, activists blocked the entrances to 11 government ministries and Statkraft until they were carried away by police, and through the weekend, campaigners continued to march through Oslo.
However, the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has refused to heed Sámi demands. Earlier this year, Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Aasland officially apologized to reindeer herders in Fosen and acknowledged that the wind park constituted a human rights violation, but has maintained that “demolition of the wind farms in their entirety is not a likely outcome.” Statkraft has also committed itself to reaching an agreement with reindeer herders that doesn’t require the removal of the wind park, as has Norway’s prime minister.
“We are having conversations about mitigating and are trying to find a solution,” said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. “Those who run those negotiations, and the reindeer herders are present, and I hope it can lead to a solution.”
Sámi rights defenders say neither apologies nor negotiations matter.
“It is simply political reluctance that stops the wind turbines from being demolished,” said Petra Laiti with the Saami Council’s Human Rights Unit. “What Nordic infrastructure projects in Sápmi call ‘green energy,’ to the rest of the world looks exactly like traditional colonialism.”
Almost 98 percent of Norway’s electricity comes from renewable sources like wind and hydropower. With a population of roughly five million people, Norway produces around 154 terawatt-hours of electricity each year. According to Statkraft, that’s enough energy to power 15 million homes in the United States for a year. In 2021, almost 26 terawatts of electricity were exported from Norway, mostly to Denmark.
“It is important for international observers to note that the image of Norway as a fair country governed by the rule of law is shattered: the true image is what we see today,” said Elle Rávdná Näkkäläjärvi, a member of the Norwegian Sámi Association’s Youth Committee. “With two years of ongoing human rights violations, we see that Norway, as a democratic state, is not functioning.”
For now, the Fosen Wind Park is still producing energy for the state, and Sámi organizers have vowed to continue fighting.
“It has been incredibly emotional to be here today and see all the youth fighting,” said 75-year-old Niillas Aslaksen Somby. “They are probably as optimistic as we were back then.”
In 1979, Aslaksen Somby was one of seven hunger-strikers that fought to stop a hydroelectric dam being built in Sápmi. Known as the Alta Action, Sámi leaders and activists also occupied a government building while Aslaksen Somby lost an arm during a failed act of sabotage to destroy a bridge on a construction road to the dam’s proposed site.
“Almost everyone who did the hunger strike with me back then are now resting in their graves,” said Aslaksen Somby. “But the fight for Sámi rights lives on.”
