Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/climate-change/)
A collection of original and curated stories, reports and resources on climate change and agribusiness
Climate change is making water more scarce in some areas, but water-intensive meat production isn’t slowing down.
For those too busy to keep track of what's been happening to bees in general, and the American Bumblebee in particular, the little critters are being absolutely obliterated by Big Ag pesticides from companies including Bayer AG and Syngenta. And that's a big deal because bees pollinate a bunch of fruits and vegetables in your local grocery.
Between 1995 and 2020, the amount of crop insurance payments for drought increased about 400%, according to an analysis of government data by the Environmental Working Group.
In Iowa, drought — which is devastating to farmers — is intertwined with the flow of nitrogen — which is devastating to ecosystems and human health.
At least 65 farmworkers have died from heat-related causes since 2002, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis of OSHA data. The Biden administration has promised to address the dangers of extreme heat in workplaces.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” the report reads.
Slowing or reversing the negative impacts of climate change will need to be an all-hands-on-deck affair. And that means you and me too. We can begin by controlling what in blue blazes is happening in our kitchens.
Big Ag must have breathed a huge collective sigh of relief when President-elect Joe Biden tapped Tom Vilsack to be secretary of USDA. For Big Ag Vilsack is like your grandfather's favorite slippers – comfortable, cuddley warm, and dependable.
OK...it's once again time for your audacious commentator to give his hot takes on the agriculture stories that will make news in 2021. This year I've enlisted the help of Homer Simpson who truly knows something about predicting agricultural events before they happened (witness the Simpson take on a horsemeat scandal and the invention of the “tomacco plant”).
In the history of our planet there have been five previous major mass extinctions. Now there's a sixth mass extinction brewing.... the Holocene extinction. The Holocene is comparable in scope to the one that wiped T-Rex and all his dinosaur brethern off the face of the earth. Until recently a majority of the public had no idea about the ticking time bomb in their midst.