The impacts of climate change on marine life, from rising sea surface temperatures to ocean acidification, have long been studied, but new research is shedding light on the extent of these effects both currently and in the future.
Scientists developed a method that fully considers the consequences of warming oceans and acidification on fish and invertebrate animals, without canceling out certain other impacts, such as when one species begins eating more and another eats less.
“To gain a better understanding of the overall worldwide impact of climate change, marine biologists calculate its effects on all fish or all invertebrate species lumped together,” Katharina Alter, of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and lead author of the study, explained in a statement. “Yet, effects determined in different individual studies can cancel each other out: for example if invertebrate animals such as snails profit from a certain environmental change and other invertebrates, such as sea urchins, suffer from it, the overall effect for invertebrates is concluded to be zero, although both animal groups are affected.”
Previously, scientists determined three main ways that climate change can affect marine life, including reduced chances of survival, increased metabolism and weakened skeletons of invertebrates. By using the new method to evaluate the effects of climate change on marine life, researchers found negative impacts on behavior, physiology, reproduction and physical development for fish and invertebrates.
According to Alter, these findings, which were published in the journal Nature Communications, showed that the negative consequences on marine life are likely greater than previously thought.
The researchers also estimated how acidification, which happens as increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the air dissolve into the ocean, could continue to impact marine life in the future, both with and without intervention.
“Our new approach suggests that if ocean warming and acidification continue on the current trajectory, up to 100% of the biological processes in fish and invertebrate species will be affected, while previous research methods found changes in only about 20 and 25% of all processes, respectively,” Alter said.
Even in a lower carbon emissions scenario, the researchers determined that acidification will impact about 50% of biological processes in invertebrates and 30% of biological processes in fish, still higher than previous estimates.
In addition to calculating negative impacts of climate change on fish and invertebrates, the researchers considered any potential beneficial outcomes for species for a more comprehensive look at all “hidden impacts” that ocean warming and acidification have on marine life.
“The new calculation method weighs the significant deviation from the current state irrespective of its direction — be it beneficial or detrimental — and counts it as impact of warming and acidifying seawater,” Alter said. “With our new approach, you can include the broadest range of measured responses and detect impacts that were hidden in the traditional approach.”
The study authors noted that more research is needed to determine links between the changes to biological processes, both positive and negative, in marine life and how these could affect ecosystems at large.
When it comes to a green future, money isn’t everything.
In the case of Indigenous peoples, there also needs to be a variety of support and cultural understanding.
That’s according to Kimberly Yazzie, a Diné researcher in ecology at Stanford University, who has seen how Indigenous communities have been harmed in the race to establish wind, solar and mining projects.
“There’s this history of tribes not getting a fair deal, and so this history needs to be addressed,” she said. “There’s work that needs to be done.”
As lead author in an article published this week in Science, she outlined ways Indigenous peoples can move forward on the journey to save the planet.
Many green projects over the last few years have been criticized for not including tribes in important decisions that infringes or even destroys ancestral land.
Yazzie cautioned that building a just and equitable energy future will take relationship building, research, and consultation. That can take time, she admitted, and while it’s not a luxury many feel we have, it’s essential so mistakes of the past are not repeated.
“To go fast, start slow,” she said.
The three big takeaways from the paper include: flexible application deadlines, equal access to updated and accurate information, and resources to build stronger infrastructure within tribes for projects. Since 2021, federal money has been available for tribal renewable energy projects — an amount that now stands at around $14 billion dollars — and Yazzie hopes that the paper can help tribes access those dollars.
Strict deadlines, for instance,can shut tribes out from funding due to how long it takes to identify resources, secure other funding sources, and tailor competitive applications. The paper calls for rolling deadlines, and specifically mentions the Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program as an example of how more applications should accept applications at any time.
A second solution includes increasing access to updated and accurate information for tribal green energy projects. Although the federal government has a database, it can be hard to find state or private information. One solution could be a database updated with funding sources, not only from federal programs but philanthropic organizations, with funding amounts and requirements clearly outlined for easy reference. Or having readily available technical information or experts to answer nuts-and-bolts type questions about solar and electrical projects.
Clara Pratte is a Diné researcher and a tribal government consultant. She’s a co-author on the paper and said that having a more effective way to share information was very important.
“There’s no best practice guide on how to run projects like these,” she said. “And at the end of the day, we want better, more mindful, culturally competent development to happen on tribal lands.”
It’s also important that funding goes to the people on the ground and not just to the project, a way to make sure tribal members are involved. Pratte specifically said the role of “tribal energy champions” can make or break a idea. These are tribal members who stick with a given endeavor through the very early stages till its completion, and can pool information and resources from other tribal energy projects.
Pratte said that ideally this work would be done by tribal members who have cultural knowledge valuable to the ethical development of these projects.
“Just because it’s ‘green’ doesn’t mean it’s going to be done in a thoughtful way, so I think tribes and tribal people really have to be at the forefront of defining what that process looks like,” she said.
Yazzie said she’d also like to take a closer look at the future, especially when the Biden administration’s financial support ends.
“I think a question we’re going to have to ask ourselves is what are we going to do when that administration changes and when funding programs run out,” she said.
Shortly after being elected president, Joe Biden made a sweeping promise on environmental justice: With a 2021 executive order, he vowed that a full 40 percent of the benefits of certain federal government climate and environmental investments would reach historically disadvantaged communities. This initiative, known as Justice40, was the centerpiece of the administration’s environmental justice efforts and was intended to compensate for both underinvestment and environmental harms that have disproportionately burdened communities of color throughout U.S. history.
Justice40 is striking both for the simplicity and specificity of its objective and also for the big open questions that the goal depends on. For one, Justice40 was conceived before hundreds of billions of dollars in climate funding were unlocked by the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, so it’s unclear what the grand total is from which the 40 percent figure will be drawn. Second, the president promised not 40 percent of spending but 40 percent of the benefits of said spending, and it’s not obvious how the latter is derived from the former. Finally, it’s not entirely clear where exactly the money is intended to go — in other words, for the purposes of Justice40’s accounting, which communities count as “disadvantaged?”
That last question alone was the target of a yearslong, open-source White House project, which resulted in a specialized screening tool for federal agencies to use to identify disadvantaged communities. And the original executive order itself stipulated an accountability mechanism: the creation of a scorecard “detailing agency environmental justice performance measures.” Three years on, however, environmental justice advocates Grist spoke to expressed disappointment in the quality of this progress report, saying the administration’s scorecard is confusing and provides little information about whether or not federal funding is on track to meet Justice40’s lofty goal.
In its current iteration, the scorecard consists of links to multiple web pages detailing the various environmental justice efforts undertaken by each federal agency. Most agencies have reported whether or not they have dedicated environmental justice offices, the number of Justice40-related programs announced, the number of staff dedicated to environmental justice programs, and the amount of funding made available through those programs.
But the information collected provides little insight into how much of that funding has been allocated to disadvantaged communities. Since federal agencies currently don’t have a uniform method of tracking funding down to a specific zip code, that information has not been reported. In some cases, such tracking may not even be possible. For example, when the Department of Transportation builds an electric charging station along a highway, it may be used by residents of multiple communities spread out over a large area. The corresponding air quality improvements, to the extent they can be determined, may also span a vast region. Actually quantifying such benefits — whether it’s improvements in air quality or health or any number of other outcomes — is even more challenging. As a result, an interested member of the public can, for example, look at the EPA’s scorecard and see that the agency has 73 Justice40 programs and that it has made $14 billion in funding available. But how much of that money is going to disadvantaged communities — and the impact of those funds — is unknown.
“The scorecard as it was presented was not user-friendly,” said Maria López-Núñez, an environmental justice advocate with the New Jersey-based Ironbound Community Corporation and co-chair of a White House advisory council’s working group on the scorecard. “It wasn’t really showing the public what the intentions of the scorecard are. When people hear a scorecard, they think, ‘Where’s the grade?’ And we obviously didn’t see any of that.”
“Given the amount of funding that we’re talking about, it seems like a remarkable accountability failure,” added Justin Schott, project manager of the Energy Equity Project at the University of Michigan.
Schott analyzed the information provided by each agency and collated the data in a spreadsheet. He found that there were large discrepancies in the quality of information presented: Some agencies had designated hundreds of staff members to work on environmental justice efforts while others did not report any. To add to the confusion, some agencies reported figures that appear incorrect. For instance, the Department of Agriculture noted that it made 12,000 funding announcements in fiscal year 2022 even though it lists just 65 Justice40 programs. Similarly, the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported conducting an eye-popping 1,914 technical assistance outreach events, though what constitutes such an event is not specified. (A spokesperson for the Housing Department confirmed the number is accurate and noted that outreach events can range from Zoom calls between an agency staffer and a state official to in-person meetings with multiple stakeholders; a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture also confirmed the accuracy of its count of funding announcements, noting that the department included a broad range of appropriations, including those from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.)
The White House launched the first version of the scorecard, which it described as a “baseline assessment of actions taken by federal agencies in 2021 and 2022,” in early 2023. Since then it has requested recommendations from the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, a body made up primarily of community and environmental justice advocates (including López-Núñez), and solicited feedback from the public. Work on the scorecard is iterative, and the agency is expected to release an updated version later this year.
“The Environmental Justice Scorecard alone cannot fully capture the depth or range of active work or the long-term impact of the Biden-Harris Administration’s environmental justice work within communities, including zero-emission school buses, cleaning up legacy pollution, and strengthening protections for clean water and air,” an administration official wrote in response to Grist’s questions. “As future versions of the Environmental Justice Scorecard are released on an annual basis, we will be continually working to improve the tool based on public input and improving data, so that everyone can better track progress and identify opportunities to advance environmental justice.”
“It’s an undeniable fact that this administration has done more for environmental justice than any of the previous administrations,” said Manuel Salgado, a federal research manager with the nonprofit WE ACT for Environmental Justice and a contributor to a White House advisory council report on the scorecard. “If you look at the numbers that are highlighted on the scorecard, that’s not necessarily reflected.”
Salgado and other members of the advisory council drafted a set of recommendations to improve the scorecard last year. Salgado said that a key impediment is the lack of uniformity in how agencies manage and track the implementation of various programs. Some agencies may be managing hundreds of programs and disbursing billions in funding while others may oversee just a handful. In a number of cases, funding is typically allocated to state agencies, which then make decisions about how and where to invest the funds.
“Every agency operates like their own fiefdom,” said López-Núñez. “They have their own set of entrenched customs and traditions that make it difficult to collaborate with other agencies.”
Those vast differences in how agencies operate led the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which has been coordinating work on the scorecard, to take a “common denominator approach,” according to Yukyan Lam, a research director and senior scientist at The New School’s Tishman Environment & Design Center and an independent contributor to the advisory council’s report on the scorecard. “Trying to bring all the agencies to the lowest common denominator made it more confusing and less clear to the public what the purpose was,” added López-Núñez.
In trying to identify metrics that were relevant to all federal agencies, the White House requested that agencies report environmental justice staffing levels, programs funded, and staff trainings conducted. While that information is useful, it “really failed to capture some of the nuances and specifics of the kinds of work that each individual agency or department was carrying out,” Yam said. When Yam and other members who worked on the report met with agencies, staff were eager to come up with ways to provide specific information relevant to the programs they oversee, she said.
As a result, the advisory council’s report emphasized the need to supplement the standard metrics with granting the agencies flexibility to report customized information most relevant to their work. “Rather than applying uniform expectations for the scorecard to all agencies, we recommend a tailored approach, allowing each agency to provide metrics that are relevant to its activities,” the report noted.
Even with the flexibility to report different metrics, however, tracking the benefits of climate funding will likely prove tricky for agencies. When the EPA provides community grants that increase tree cover in a neighborhood, or the Department of Housing and Urban Development builds more energy-efficient affordable housing, or the Department of Transportation invests in electric charging stations, those investments have environmental and public health benefits. But quantifying those benefits typically involves modeling, which requires expertise and resources. Given the challenges, advocates emphasized the need to at least first track funding.
Salgado said the scorecard is not just an accountability mechanism but also a chance for the administration to communicate its environmental justice work to the public. Most members of the public don’t have an intimate understanding of the inner workings of various federal agencies, and the scorecard could be an opportunity for the Biden administration to explain how environmental justice efforts relate to people’s everyday lives, he said.
“These are big environmental justice wins that should be communicated to the general public, especially in an election year,” said Salgado. “If we want to support our elected officials who provide us with environmental justice benefits, we have to know what they’ve done right. So it’s an opportunity for them to brag and for them to highlight all of these environmental justice wins and the great things that they’ve done over the course of this administration.”
This story has been updated to incorporate comments received from the Department of Agriculture after publication.
Despite minor improvements, major companies’ climate commitments remain “critically insufficient” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a new analysis.
The 2024 Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor, a report by the European nonprofits Carbon Market Watch and NewClimate Institute, finds that many of the world’s biggest companies are making better climate pledges — for example, by beginning to move away from misleading “carbon neutrality” claims and setting quantitative emissions reduction targets alongside their net-zero pledges.
But huge problems remain. The report finds that 51 major companies’ climate plans would, collectively, only reduce emissions about 30 percent below 2019 values by 2030 — far short of the 43 to 48 percent that scientists say the world must achieve to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C. Most companies’ targets continue to be “ambiguous,” the report says, leaving out critical supply chain emissions and banking on questionable carbon offsets.
“We’re seeing improvements from a very low baseline,” said Gilles Dufrasne, lead on global carbon markets for Carbon Market Watch and a co-author of the report. “There’s still quite a big gap between what they’re pledging to deliver and what they’re actually delivering.”
The companies analyzed span four sectors — automobiles, fashion, electric utilities, and food and agriculture — and account for about 16 percent of the world’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon Market Watch and the NewClimate Institute selected them because they have been some of the most vocal about their climate efforts.
Thirty-one of the companies were included in previous versions of the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor, or CCRM. The first report, published in 2022, found that 25 companies’ “net-zero” targets would only reduce aggregate emissions by 40 percent. The report’s 2023 iteration raised similar concerns, describing two dozen companies’ climate commitments as “misleading” and “wholly insufficient.”
This year’s report takes another look at those same companies’ net-zero targets and brings in 20 new ones, but its main focus is on their medium-term goals — stepping stones on the path to decarbonization by 2050. Bodies like the United Nations High Level Expert Group and the International Organization for Standardization have recommended interim targets so that companies (and governments) don’t wait until the last minute to cut their emissions.
Although the analysis finds improvements in 19 of the companies’ interim targets over the past two years, many of them still feature the same flaws as the net-zero ones. Crucially, they tend to gloss over emissions associated with the transportation and production of materials that companies buy and the products they sell to consumers. These so-called “scope 3” emissions represent more than 90 percent of the companies’ collective climate footprint. However, firms including the automaker Toyota, the commercial truck manufacturer Daimler Truck, and the British supermarket chain Tesco have reported no plans or only limited efforts to address them.
The report notes efforts from Nestlé to transition toward renewable energy but says the company isn’t doing enough to replace animal products with plant-based alternatives.
Fabrice Coffrini / AFP via Getty Images
Other companies’ pledges lean too heavily on land-based carbon credits and carbon removal projects, initiatives that attempt to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions by avoiding them elsewhere — like by protecting forests that might otherwise have been chopped down — or by planting trees to suck carbon out of the air. Such projects have a well-documented history of accounting problems, and the carbon they remove is often vulnerable to getting reemitted in the event of wildfires. Experts say carbon removal should only be used to offset the small sliver of global emissions from hard-to-decarbonize activities, but the NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch say companies are using credits and removal as alternatives to emissions reductions.
According to the report, just eight of the companies have 2030 emissions reduction targets that are of “high or reasonable integrity.” Only four of those firms — the food companies Danone and Mars, the Spanish electric utility Iberdrola, and the automaker Volvo Group — back their targets with concrete plans to actually achieve them. Other companies, like the mega-retailer Walmart, have not updated their 2030 targets for several years. The car company Volkswagen dropped its interim target for 2025 three years ago and has not announced a replacement.
John Reilly, a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, said the report shows how companies are perhaps too eager to align with science-based emissions reduction goals such as “net-zero by 2050.” They agree to such goals “without much thought about how they would actually achieve them,” he said, adding that weaker but better substantiated emissions targets might be preferable. “If these companies had very concrete, detailed plans to get to even a 20 percent reduction by 2030, I’d feel a lot more comfortable than vague commitments to get to 43 or 48 percent.”
According to Silke Mooldijk, a researcher with the NewClimate Institute and a co-author of the report, the problem is not a lack of clarity around what companies need to do to decarbonize. “It’s very clear what measures they need to take,” she told reporters last week, naming basic steps like setting a phaseout date for coal- and oil-fired electricity generation and the sale of gasoline-powered cars. Rather, companies seem to be resisting radical transformations in favor of small steps and “creative accounting” that allow them to continue business as usual.
For example, the report commends the clothing companies H&M and Inditex — which owns Zara — for setting transparent emissions reduction goals that are of “moderate” integrity, but criticizes them for failing to envision an alternative to the highly polluting fast-fashion business model. For food and agriculture, the report notes efforts from Nestlé to transition toward renewable energy but says the company isn’t doing enough to replace animal products with plant-based alternatives. Plans from other firms like Kepco, an electric utility, appear to use carbon capture to mitigate ongoing climate pollution, potentially justifying a delay in the transition to renewable power generation.
Of the 20 companies named in the report that Grist contacted for comment, six responded in time for publication. Nestlé said it disagreed with the report; a spokesperson said the company is pursuing carbon dioxide removal as a complement to reducing its absolute emissions, a strategy that is based on recommendations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A Mars spokesperson objected to the report as well, saying that the company’s net-zero target does not rely on controversial land-based carbon removal. (Carbon Market Watch and the NewClimate Institute had said it was “unclear” whether this was the case.)
Daimler Truck, the footwear giant Adidas, and H&M outlined their existing climate plans and emissions disclosures, and the latter two highlighted new data for 2023 that was not included in the report. In 2023, Adidas said it reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 24 percent from a 2019 baseline. H&M said it reduced scope 3 emissions by 22 percent.
Five of the companies expressed an ongoing commitment to emissions reductions and highlighted their alignment with the Science-Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, a nonprofit that validates more than 4,000 private-sector climate targets. Indeed, many of the companies’ near-term climate targets fit SBTi-approved pathways to limit global warming to at least 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), even when the CCRM graded them as “poor” or “very poor.”
Dufrasne acknowledged this discrepancy and said there’s an urgent need for less flexibility across ratings programs and stronger standards overall. “I think it’s quite telling that companies don’t actually engage in the substance of the issues that are being flagged in the report and just say, ‘It’s fine, we’re being certified by SBTi,’” he told Grist.
Based on the NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch’s analysis, Walmart has not updated its 2030 targets for several years.
Viewpress / Getty Images
Dufrasne said he’s concerned that SBTi and similar organizations may actually be loosening their standards. Just last week, the SBTi’s board of trustees announced that they would begin allowing companies to use carbon credits toward their annual scope 3 emissions targets, a move critics say could undermine actual emissions reductions. Similarly, the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, or VCMI — a body that sets guidance on the use of carbon credits — released a proposal last November that would allow companies to use carbon credits for up to 50 percent of their annual scope 3 emissions every year until 2035.
The VCMI says this approach would help companies “bridge the gap” between their advertised scope 3 emissions reduction targets and the reductions they actually achieve. But Carbon Market Watch and the NewClimate Institute’s modeling suggests it could “nullify” companies’ scope 3 climate targets, allowing them to keep emissions steady or even increase them as long as they buy enough credits.
The VCMI did not respond to Grist’s request for comment. An SBTi spokesperson did not address specific parts of the report but said that the organization “urge[s] all interested parties to contribute to the development of our standards through the public consultations.”
Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan’s School for the Environment and Sustainability, said the report suggests a failure of the voluntary approach to corporate climate action. Companies must now be “more proactive in figuring out a better approach,” or risk blowback from consumers and regulators.
“I like the idea of corporations … playing a role in more stringent decarbonization pathways,” Overpeck added, “but if they can’t do it then it will have to be imposed on them.”
Benja Faecks, an expert on global carbon markets for Carbon Market Watch and a co-author of the report, offered some specific ways governments could intervene: by setting binding, sector-specific emissions reduction targets; expanding carbon pricing and cap-and-trade systems to help drive down corporate emissions; and further restricting misleading advertising about companies’ climate pledges, especially around “carbon neutrality.” Earlier this year, the European Union banned companies from labeling products as carbon neutral by 2026, but companies are still allowed to describe themselves that way.
“It doesn’t make sense for Nestlé to be able to say they’re carbon neutral when they’re not allowed to say they sell carbon neutral espresso machines,” Faecks told reporters last week.
We are running out of time to take action on climate change, says Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
In a speech titled “Two Years to Save the World,” Stiell emphasized that governments, development banks and business leaders must take steps to avert much more serious impacts of the climate crisis within that time frame, reported Reuters.
“For those who say that climate change is only one of many priorities, like ending poverty, ending hunger, ending pandemics, or improving education, I simply say this: none of these crucial tasks — indeed none of the Sustainable Development Goals — will be possible unless we get the climate crisis under control,” Stiell said in the speech, delivered at London thinktank Chatham House.
“As of today, national climate plans — called Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs — in aggregate will barely cut emissions at all by 2030,” Stiell said. “We still have a chance to make greenhouse gas emissions tumble, with a new generation of national climate plans. But we need these stronger plans, now. And while every country must submit a new plan, the reality is G20 emissions are around 80% of global emissions.”
The focus of the UN COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, will be for nations to come up with new climate finance goals to support developing countries in tackling climate change and making the transition away from fossil fuels, Reuters reported.
“A quantum leap this year in climate finance is both essential and entirely achievable. Every day, finance ministers, CEOs, investors, and development bankers direct trillions of dollars. It’s time to shift those dollars from the energy and infrastructure of the past, towards that of a cleaner, more resilient future… And to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries benefit,” Stiell said at Chatham House.
The climate chief recommended debt relief, shipping emissions taxes, less expensive financing for more impoverished countries and International Monetary Fund and World Bank reforms be used to raise more funds for climate finance, reported Reuters.
“The transformative potential of bold climate action — in tandem with steps to advance gender equality — is one of the fastest ways to move away from business as usual,” Stiell said in the speech. “In fact, business-as-usual will further entrench the gross inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest countries and communities that unchecked climate impacts are making much worse.”
“To start curing this global cancer of inequality, we need to enable bold new national climate plans by all nations that protect people, boost jobs and drive inclusive economic growth. And we need them by early next year,” Stiell added.
Stiell stressed that the necessary changes don’t just sit with governments and lawmakers, but with individuals everywhere.
“A recent survey by Gallup of 130,000 people in 125 countries found that 89% want stronger climate action by governments. Yet too often we’re seeing signs of climate action slipping down cabinet agendas,” Stiell said. “The only surefire way to get climate up the cabinet agenda is if enough people raise their voices. So my final message today is for people everywhere. Every voice matters. Yours have never been more important. If you want bolder climate action, now is the time to make yours count.”
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued the first-ever nationwide, legally enforceable limits on harmful per- polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — known as “forever chemicals” — in drinking water.
The rule is the biggest leap so far in EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap and will lower exposure to the toxic substances for roughly 100 million people, a press release from EPA said.
“Drinking water contaminated with PFAS has plagued communities across this country for too long,” said Michael S. Regan, EPA administrator, in the press release. “Our PFAS Strategic Roadmap marshals the full breadth of EPA’s authority and resources to protect people from these harmful forever chemicals. Today, I am proud to finalize this critical piece of our Roadmap, and in doing so, save thousands of lives and help ensure our children grow up healthier.”
PFAS exposure has been associated with cancer, heart and liver disease and damage to the development and immune systems of children and infants. The new rules will lead to tens of thousands of fewer related health issues while preventing thousands of fatalities.
EPA is making funding available to implement the new rule through the Biden-Harris administration’s Investing in America agenda. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, nearly $1 billion will be accessible to assist states and territories with carrying out testing for PFAS, public water system treatment and help for private well owners with addressing contamination from forever chemicals. A total of $9 billion is being invested to assist communities with PFAS and other contaminants in drinking water, as well as $12 billion for general improvements to drinking water.
Last year, a study by the U.S. Geological Survey found PFAS in almost half of tap water samples in the country.
“The first national drinking water standards for PFAS marks a significant step towards delivering on the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to advancing environmental justice, protecting communities, and securing clean water for people across the country,” said Brenda Mallory, White House Council on Environmental Quality chair, in the press release.
The new rule establishes limits for PFOA, PFNA, PFOS, PFHxS and HFPO-DA — known as “GenX Chemicals.”
“For PFOA and PFOS, EPA is setting a Maximum Contaminant Level Goal, a non-enforceable health-based goal, at zero. This reflects the latest science showing that there is no level of exposure to these contaminants without risk of health impacts, including certain cancers,” the press release said.
For each of PFOS and PFOA, the enforceable maximum levels will be four parts per trillion (ppt).
“This standard will reduce exposure from these PFAS in our drinking water to the lowest levels that are feasible for effective implementation,” according to the press release.
Maximum levels for PFHxS, PFNA and GenX Chemicals will be 10 ppt.
The EPA rule also limits mixtures of two or more of PFNA, PFBS, PFHxS and GenX chemicals.
“We learned about GenX and other PFAS in our tap water six years ago. I raised my children on this water and watched loved ones suffer from rare or recurrent cancers. No one should ever worry if their tap water will make them sick or give them cancer,” said Emily Donovan, Clean Cape Fear co-founder. “We will keep fighting until all exposures to PFAS end and the chemical companies responsible for business-related human rights abuses are held fully accountable.”
Approximately six to 10 percent of the public drinking water systems — 66,000 of them — subject to the new rule may need to take steps to reduce PFAS in order to meet the new standards. Public water systems will have three years to finish their initial monitoring for forever chemicals. Meanwhile, they will be required to inform the public of PFAS levels in their drinking water. When PFAS is detected at levels in excess of the standards, solutions must be implemented within five years.
“The new limits in this rule are achievable using a range of available technologies and approaches including granular activated carbon, reverse osmosis, and ion exchange systems,” the press release said. “For example, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, serving Wilmington, NC — one of the communities most heavily impacted by PFAS contamination — has effectively deployed a granular activated carbon system to remove PFAS regulated by this rule. Drinking water systems will have flexibility to determine the best solution for their community.”
EPA will host informational webinars available to the public in the coming weeks. Information is available on the PFAS drinking water regulation website.
“For decades, the American people have been exposed to the family of incredibly toxic ‘forever chemicals’ known as PFAS with no protection from their government. Those chemicals now contaminate virtually all Americans from birth. That’s because for generations, PFAS chemicals slid off of every federal environmental law like a fried egg off a Teflon pan,” said Ken Cook, president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group, in the press release. “There is much work yet to be done to end PFAS pollution.”
Examples of how PFAS enter the environment and water, from a U.S. GAO report published in 2021. U.S. Government Accountability Office
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized clean air standards that will limit the toxic pollutants released by chemical plants. According to the agency, the new standards will reduce the number of people with increased cancer risks in vulnerable communities near these chemical plants by 96%.
The rule sets out to limit toxic air pollution, including from ethylene oxide and chloroprene. EPA announced that these clean air standards are expected to reduce toxic air pollution from chemical plants by 6,200 tons each year and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by 23,700 tons annually.
“This is a game changer any way you look at it,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said at a press event, as reported by NPR. “This is a game changer for the health. It’s a game changer for the prosperity. It’s a game changer for children in these communities nationwide.”
The standards are slated to reduce ethylene oxide and chloroprene emissions from chemical plant processes and equipment by about 80%. Other toxic pollutants covered by the new rule include benzene, 1,3-butadiene, ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride.
The rule will cover about 200 plants, most of which are in Louisiana and Texas, known for making synthetic organic chemicals, polymers and resins. In particular, the rule is expected to impact the Denka Performance Elastomer plant in LaPlace, Louisiana. As The Associated Press reported, this facility is the largest source of chloroprene emissions in the U.S.
“Today marks a victory in the pursuit for environmental justice, with the final rule poised to significantly reduce the toxic air pollution that harms communities in Texas’s Gulf Coast, Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, and throughout the U.S.,” Patrice Simms, Earthjustice vice president for healthy communities, said in a statement. “Setting protective air standards for over 200 chemical plants and requiring fenceline monitoring for some of the most toxic emissions shows a commitment to protecting public health. We look forward to the EPA’s swift implementation and rigorous enforcement of this critical rule.”
As part of the new standards, the EPA will also require fenceline monitoring of the toxic pollutants. Synthetic organic chemical plants will have a two-year deadline to implement their fenceline monitoring programs, while facilities manufacturing neoprene will have 90 days to begin fenceline monitoring for chloroprene emissions.
The public will be able to access the data from the monitoring programs via WebFIRE, a tool made available by the EPA.
Humans have an enormous impact on planet Earth, but from both an animal welfare and an environmental perspective, perhaps nothing is more important than our diets.
In 2022, more than 82 billion livestock animals were slaughtered for meat, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, with the majority of those animals being factory farmed. In addition to enormous animal welfare implications, the practice of farming animals is estimated to account for somewhere between 11% and 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
All things considered, what is the most ethical diet? According to utilitarian moral philosopher Peter Singer, it’s one that includes zero — or at least very few — animal products.
Singer is among the most influential living philosophers and is widely credited for putting animal ethics on the map with his controversial 1975 book, Animal Liberation. Because most nonhuman animals have the capacity to suffer, Singer argues, we should not exploit their suffering for our own good, particularly with the horrific conditions of practices like factory farming.
More recently, he published an extensively revised version, Animal Liberation Now, which brings to light the brutal living conditions for tens of billions of animals today.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Singer and discussing speciesism, the conditions of factory farming and how to have an ethical diet.
You’re widely regarded as the father of the animal rights, or as you may prefer, the animal liberation movement. Can you make your case for the pursuit of animal liberation?
The case for the animal liberation movement is that to disregard or discard the interests of beings because they’re not members of our species is indefensible. I use the term “speciesism” to describe that, and that is intended to make the parallel between other -isms such as racism and sexism that most people — certainly I hope the audience that I’m addressing — reject and say that although the analogy is obviously not complete, in all of these cases there’s been a dominant group which has developed an ideology to enable it to justify using a group that it dominates. In one case, nonwhites, in another case, women, and then in this case, nonhumans. To justify using that group for its own purposes in ways that are clearly very harmful to the group, but somewhat beneficial to the dominant group.
So I think we ought to be able to see that the difference in species is not relevant to how bad it is when a being is suffering, if the being is capable of suffering. What matters is how much the being is suffering, what kind of suffering that is — can we compare it with the suffering that we humans may experience? To some extent, I believe we can. And when we make that comparison, it’s not difficult to see that there are many areas in which we inflict immense suffering on nonhuman animals for either no benefits or minor benefits to humans. So I think it follows from the idea of equal consideration of similar interests — which is a principle that I think should hold irrespective of species — it follows from that that many of the things we do to animals are unjustifiable, and that’s the case for animal liberation, or if people want to so put it in terms of recognizing the rights of animals, or, I would say, the case for equal consideration for similar interests across species.
Should we all become vegan or vegetarian?
I would say not in absolutely all circumstances, but if we’re thinking about the situation of somebody who has the option of nourishing themselves well, having an adequate diet, being healthy without consuming animal products, and if those animal products come from commercial enterprises where there’s a profit motive for not being concerned about the wellbeing of the animal beyond productivity of the enterprise, then I think it does follow that we ought not to be consuming those products.
So as I say, there are various other circumstances — that would be circumstances of people who can’t nourish themselves adequately without eating animal products — they have a much larger sacrifice to make than others. And there may be cases where you’re not getting your animal products from large commercial enterprises where the animals have good lives and are humanely killed that would need separate consideration, but the claim I make is one that obviously applies to billions of people in the world today, so that’s enough, I think, to try to get that changed.
You first published Animal Liberation in 1975. And then in May of 2023, you published an updated version, Animal Liberation Now. Surely, much has changed in terms of factory farming practices, the state of animal welfare, among many other factors. In your view, what are some of the most significant changes since 1975, and what made you decide that it was time to publish a revision of Animal Liberation?
Obviously there has been a lot of changes and that’s why it’s really virtually a new book, rather than just a new edition because I’d say probably about half of the text is new. And not so much on the philosophical argument that I just gave you. I think that that has stood up very well to criticism and discussion. But the two longest chapters of Animal Liberation are largely factual where I’m describing research done on animals, and the other describing factory farm conditions. Those chapters had to be completely rewritten. And then there were other discussions about climate change, for example — which was not on my radar or not on many people’s radars in 1975 — had to be brought in because that’s very relevant to the ethics of eating animal products. And I wanted to talk a bit about the progress that the animal movement has made and the progress that it has not made. So those are important changes to the book, and I wanted to talk about that — the new discussion about ethical questions relating to animals, which again was very much a neglected issue, hardly an issue that anybody touched upon in 1975, but now has quite a major literature. So a lot of different things. And also, I should add, there’s more research on animal sentience. So I think we can have more confidence in saying that fish, for example, are sentient, which is something that some people questioned after the first edition was published. And the sentience of octopuses, and even some crustaceans, like lobsters, I think is now much more firmly established than it was. So there’s been a lot of science that has supported the view that I was taking about animal sentience and actually has extended it.
Peter Singer with a previous version of Animal Liberation, on Sept. 22, 2022. Derek Goodwin Photography
In terms of the most significant changes, well, I think some things have gotten better and some things have gotten worse. I talked about the improvements in regulation of factory farming in a few places, most notably the European Union. Also some states of the U.S., but only a minority, particularly California, which passed stricter legislation. So those are good things, but there have also been negative developments. In the case of the chicken industry — chickens are, by far, the most numerous of the land-based vertebrate animals we raise for food — that’s gotten worse because chickens have been bred to grow even faster. And this causes all sorts of problems for them and causes skeletal abnormalities. And they put on weight so fast now that their legs are immaterial for bearing their weight. Chickens are slaughtered when they’re very, very young birds — about six weeks old when they’re slaughtered. And so they’re really babies and their leg bones just aren’t strong enough to support the weight that they’ve put on because they’ve been bred to eat so much and grow so fast. So there’s actually a new cause of pain to bear. They have difficulty bearing their weight, difficulty standing up and walking around because of how fast they’ve been bred to grow. So there are new developments, like that, that make factory farming even worse in some respects than it was.
You describe yourself as a flexible vegan. So you must believe that there’s at least some wiggle room when it comes to having an ethical diet.
That’s because, you know, my ethics are utilitarian or consequentialist. I’m always looking at the consequences of what I do, and my ethics is not about rigid rules. So for me, being vegan is not like somebody — a religious person — who will only eat halal or kosher meat and will think it doesn’t matter how much non-kosher or non-halal meat you eat. It’s just wrong to do it and the wrong would be as great if you ate more of it or less of it. But for me, I want to not be complicit in supporting these industries that treat animals so badly. And the degree of complicity obviously varies by how much I’m spending — to what extent my dollars are supporting those industries. So if for most of my everyday shopping, I avoid animal products, but sometimes when I’m traveling there’s nothing much to eat that doesn’t have some, you know, something like a dairy product, let’s say in it. It’s not a significant contribution that I’m making, and if it’s going to be really difficult for me to get anything to eat that doesn’t contain an animal product — or if I’m in social circumstances where it would disturb the group if I said no, I can’t eat anything here — I’ll eat something that’s vegetarian but not vegan. So that’s the sense in which I’m flexible.
So for people who recognize the cruelty of factory farms and the climate implications of factory farms, and even the climate implications of organic animal farms, but don’t feel ready to commit fully to veganism or vegetarianism, how can those people eat more ethically?
Well, they can still avoid factory farmed products which I think is really important, because that’s where the vast majority of the suffering we inflict on nonhuman animals is. So I would say, depending on how much you feel you want to eat in terms of animal products, I think if you’re talking about the most affluent countries, including the United States, the animal product that perhaps is most easy to get in a form that is not ideal, but is still acceptable, would be eggs from pasture-raised hens. So if you can find a farm that is producing eggs, and the hens really are out on pasture — it’s not just that they’re cage-free, which still might mean that they’re locked up in a big shed — but they’re actually able to go outside and exercise, chase insects, dust bathe, all of those things that are natural for the hens, then you could at least say, well, if the hens are having a reasonably good life here (and sure they’re going to get killed prematurely, and sure the male chicks of that breed are going to get killed immediately on hatching because they’re of no commercial value), it’s a better product definitely than products from animals who are inside all of their lives, very crowded. So I would start with that.
After that, it does get harder. Many people will say, well, what about dairy products from organically raised cows — cows who are outside on pasture again. And that’s certainly better from an animal welfare point of view — as for that matter is beef from grass-fed cows — but it’s worse for the climate, because cows are ruminants and they emit a lot of methane. And the fact that they’re on grass doesn’t really help in terms of reducing their methane output. It’s still there. And in fact, some studies suggest that with grass-fed beef, it’s actually higher, because if you don’t feed them on grain as most beef is fed, for at least the last six months of their lives, they put on weight more slowly, and so for each pound of beef produced there’s more digesting and more methane produced. So you know, that’s a dilemma. But again, if people say, well, I just want to do this occasionally as I need it, or I’m not prepared to go without it, maybe eating small quantities of grass-raised or pasture-raised dairy or beef products might be the next thing to do.
I understand that you’ve recently stepped back from your teaching role at Princeton. So if you don’t mind sharing, what’s next for you?
Yeah, you’re right, I taught my last semester at Princeton now but I’m I’ve got plenty of opportunities to write, to speak, to give interviews like this one. And I’ve got offers of taking visiting positions in other parts of the world which I plan to do, the first of those probably going to Singapore for about a month during 2024. There are other possible places that I will be going to and speaking out in Europe and possibly in Asia. So yeah, I’m planning to keep pretty busy.
That’s all the questions that I had prepared for you. But I’d also like to ask if there’s anything else you’d like to share? Maybe something that we haven’t touched on that you’d like to add?
Oh, I think we’ve covered quite a lot. Obviously, I have a broader interest in bioethics beyond what we’ve spoken about. And so there are a variety of things I’m interested in and I’m continuing to work with the organization The Life You Can Save, which tries to encourage people to give to the most effective charities helping people in extreme poverty. So I think that’s also an important thing to do. And if people want to know more about my work there, they can have a look at my website, petersinger.info, or also go to thelifeyoucansave.org where they can download a free digital copy or audio copy of my book The Life You Can Save and learn more about my work for people in extreme poverty.
