Saving Soil, Forever Chemical (PFAS) Lawsuits Progress, We Aren’t Likely as Bad as We Think, Update on Brazil
It has only been a week since our last post, but it has been a busy week!
Soil loss and degeneration is a major problem that will threaten our food supply and economy in the coming decades which sustainable agriculture hopes to address. The magazine Anthropocene discussed research recently reported on the benefits of no-till farming. The publication is called “The Future of Soils in the Midwestern United States.”
From the research article abstract (SOC is soil organic carbon):
“Model simulations that include more widespread adoption of low-intensity tillage (i.e., no-till farming) determine that soil redistribution, SOC redistribution, and surficial SOC loss after 100 years would decrease by ∼95% if low-intensity tillage is fully adopted. Our findings indicate that low-intensity tillage could greatly decrease soil degradation and that the potential for agricultural soil erosion to influence the global carbon cycle will diminish with time due to a reduction in SOC burial.”
They conclude that more adoption of this technique is feasible and could go a long way to the regeneration of soil, one of our most precious, life-sustaining resources that we are rapidly losing and degenerating. Locking carbon in soil is also beneficial in the fight against climate change.
There has been progress in holding chemical companies responsible for poisoning our water with “forever chemicals”, PFAS or polyfluoroalkyl substances. An “agreement in principle” for a fund of 1.19 billion dollars for cleanup has been reached with three companies, and a tentative deal of 10 billion dollars has been reported with 3M with US cities and towns.
From the New York Times article:
“A trial set to begin next week in federal court in South Carolina was seen as a test case for those lawsuits. In that case, the City of Stuart, Fla., sued 3M and several other companies, claiming that firefighting foam containing PFAS — used for decades in training exercises by the city’s fire department — had contaminated the local water supply.
“The announced settlement is ‘an incredibly important next step in what has been decades of work to try to make sure that the costs of this massive PFAS ‘forever chemical’ contamination are not borne by the victims but are borne by the companies who caused the problem,’ said Rob Bilott, an environmental lawyer advising plaintiffs in the cases.”
As environmental groups point out, this is not nearly enough, but it is just a start. From the article:
“The list of cases against the companies continues to grow. Maryland filed two suits this week against 3M, DuPont and others. Days earlier, a similar one filed by Rhode Island’s attorney general accused the companies of violating state environmental and consumer protection laws.”
Also, a bit of hope: there is a pervasive perception of “moral decline” globally, yet an article in published in the journal Nature on June 7, 2023 presents evidence that this isn’t true!
They note that there has been that perception of decline documented for 70 years in at least 60 nations surveyed, yet peoples’ reports of the “morality of their contemporaries” shows no such decline. They attribute the perception of decline to an illusion based on biased exposure to information and biased memory. I suspect that is true. People have always been capable of grave injustice and evil, of short-term thinking and greed, but if that were the whole story we would have destroyed ourselves decades ago, if not centuries ago. Yet, we seem to be catching up on the destruction aspect, given our technological prowess. Let’s hope that morality is indeed deeper than we think and will prevail.
On our last post of June 3. 2023 it was noted that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was beginning to make strides on decreasing deforestation of the Amazon and indeed on June 5, 2023 he announced his four-year plan. Some aspects have been criticized as insufficient, but compared to his predecessor it is clearly a step forward.
From the article in Politico:
“According to Suely Araújo, a senior policy advisor at the Climate Observatory, the action plan is crucial for the reconstruction of Brazil’s environmental governance. For her, remarkable aspects of the plan include the integration of data and systems for remote monitoring and accountability, the alignment of infrastructure projects with deforestation reduction goals and rural credit policies tied to achieving zero deforestation.”
The beef industry holds great power in Brazil, and he has limits placed on him by the Brazilian Congress.
The article in Politico goes on to report:
“’The agribusiness group is a well-organized political group that defends interests in Congress, with many affiliated lawmakers,’ Creomar de Souza, political analyst and CEO at Dharma Politics consultancy, told The Associated Press. ‘And this creates room for what happened last week: the capacity this group has within Congress to shape and impose its agenda.’”
Let’s celebrate a step forward despite the obstacles.