Category Archives: Agriculture

‘Important Step’: EPA Finalizes Rule to Clean Up Forever Chemical Contamination

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While praising the move, campaigners also said that the agency “must require polluters to pay to clean up the entire class of thousands of toxic PFAS chemicals, and it must ban nonessential uses.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 4-19-2024 by Common Dreams

Used at military bases ad civilian airports, PFAS in firefighting foam has contaminate drinking water across the country. Photo: Department of Defense/Public domain

Environmental and public health advocates on Friday welcomed the Biden administration’s latest step to tackle “forever chemicals,” a new Superfund rule that “will help ensure that polluters pay to clean up their contamination” across the country.

“It is time for polluters to pay to clean up the toxic soup they’ve dumped into the environment,” declared Erik D. Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We all learned in kindergarten that if we make a mess, we should clean it up. The Biden administration’s Superfund rule is a big step in the right direction for holding polluters accountable for cleaning up decades of contamination.”

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Low-Paid Immigrant Farmworkers Most at Risk From Toxic Weedkiller US Refuses to Ban

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Farmworkers “should not be subjected to additional health risks due to the negligent actions of pesticide manufacturers, farm owners, and state regulatory agencies,” said one analyst.

By Julia Conley. Published 3-29-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: rawpixel/Public domain

Concerns about the safety of paraquat, a highly toxic herbicide, pushed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2021 to ban its use on golf courses—but the weedkiller is still permitted for agricultural use, and a new first-of-its-kind analysis shows how the EPA’s continued approval of the substance has put low-income Latino communities at disproportionate risk for health impacts.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found in a study released Wednesday that 5.3 million pounds of paraquat were sprayed over a five-year period in California, the only state with readily available figures on the herbicide.

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Steven Donziger, Lawyer Targeted by Chevron, Appeals to Biden for Pardon

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“A pardon would bring a measure of justice to a prosecution that has been widely criticized as a violation of international law… and as a grave threat to free speech,” said 14 attorneys backing the climate justice lawyer’s request.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 3-20-2024 by Common Dreams

Steven Donziger at sentencing hearing in 2021 Photo: Marisam77/Wikimedia Commons/CC

After exhausting his options in the judicial system, American attorney Steven Donziger on Wednesday launched a campaign seeking a pardon from U.S. President Joe Biden for his misdemeanor conviction—the result of a process that experts worldwide have condemned as retaliatory for his climate justice work and an abuse of the nation’s judiciary.

“No matter where one stands on the political spectrum, we should all be able to agree that what happened to me in the United States should not happen to anybody in any country that adheres to the rule of law,” Donziger said in a statement announcing a letter to Biden signed by 14 prominent lawyers and a leader at the advocacy group Amazon Watch.

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Florida GOP Passes ‘Vicious’ Bill Banning Mandatory Water Breaks for Workers

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“We will see fatalities, because of what Florida Republicans chose to do this week,” said one workers’ rights advocate.

By Julia Conley. Published 3-8-2024 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: VideoHive

Displaying “punitive cruelty” toward Florida residents who work outdoors, the Republican-controlled state House on Friday approved a bill that would ban local governments from requiring that workplaces provide water breaks and other cooling measures.

The state Senate passed the measure on Thursday, with Republicans pushing the bill through as Miami-Dade County was scheduled to vote on local water break protections. If signed into law by the Republican governor, the proposal will preempt the county’s vote.

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Civil War Risks Triggering ‘Epic, Biblical-Style Famine’ in Sudan

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“Millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake,” warned the head of the World Food Program.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 3-6-2024 by Common Dreams

South Sudanese children at the Imvepi Refugee camp in Northern Uganda. Photo: UNMISS/flickr/CC

International humanitarian organizations warned Wednesday that Sudan’s civil war risks triggering severe famine unless the fighting stops.

Fighting between rival factions of Sudan’s military government broke out nearly 11 months ago and spread rapidly throughout the northeastern African nation of 46 million people. Around 15,000 people have been killed and nearly 6 million others displaced during the war, while an estimated 1.5 million Sudanese have fled the country as refugees.

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Scientists Won’t Classify Anthropocene as ‘Epoch’ Yet, But Say Human Impact Undeniable

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The Anthropocene is classified as a geological “event” at this point—as are mass extinctions and rapid expansions of biodiversity.

By Julia Conley Published 3-5-2024 by Common Dreams

Pollution in New Delhi India. Photo: Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier/flickr/CC

The idea underpinning scientists’ push to recognize the current time period as a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene dates back more than 100 years, but on Tuesday, a committee of experts voted down the proposal to officially declare a new age defined by human beings’ impact on the Earth.

The panel, organized by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), was tasked with weighing whether the Holocene—the epoch that began at the close of the last ice age, more than 11,000 years ago—has ended, and if so, when precisely the Anthropocene began.

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Federal Dicamba Ruling Called ‘Vital Victory for Farmers and the Environment’

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“The court today resoundingly reaffirmed what we have always maintained: The EPA’s and Monsanto’s claims of dicamba’s safety were irresponsible and unlawful,” said one plaintiff.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 2-6-2024 by Common Dreams

CUPPED LEAVES — Soybeans showing the cupped leaves which are a symptom of dicamba injury. File photo. (U of A System Division of Agriculture)/flickr/CC

In what one plaintiff called “a sweeping victory for family farmers and dozens of endangered plants and animals,” a federal court in Arizona on Tuesday rescinded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2020 approval of the highly volatile herbicide dicamba for use on certain genetically engineered crops.

In a 47-page ruling, U.S. District Judge David C. Bury found that the EPA failed to comply with public notice and comment requirements under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), legislation passed in 1947 to protect agricultural workers, consumers, and the environment.

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FTC-DOJ Merger Guidelines Aim to ‘Restore Competition and Strengthen Democracy’

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One expert called the guidance “a game-changer for antitrust enforcement, incorporating decades of new learnings and thousands of public comments from working families and small businesses.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 12-18-2023 by Common Dreams

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. Screenshot: CNBC

Antitrust campaigners and experts on Monday celebrated the Biden administration’s new guidelines for mergers and acquisitions, which supporters say will “restore competition and strengthen democracy.”

Farm Action co-founder and chief strategy officer Joe Maxwell commended the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) “for delivering on their commitment to restore competition to our economy.”

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‘Baby Steps’ Will Not Avert Climate Catastrophe, UN Warns

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The United Nations assessment coincided with the release of “the world’s most comprehensive roadmap of how to close the global gap in climate action across sectors.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-14-2023 by Common Dreams

A resident holds a sign asking passing drivers to slow down to reduce wakes that exacerbate flooding in a suburb of Houston, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection photo by Glenn Fawcett)

“The world is failing to get a grip on the climate crisis.”

That’s how United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres began his Tuesday remarks about a new U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) report on nationally determined contributions (NDCs), or countries’ plans to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, including its 1.5°C temperature target.

The UNFCCC analysis “provides yet more evidence that the world remains massively off track to limiting global warming to 1.5°C and avoiding the worst of climate catastrophe,” said Guterres. “As the report shows, global ambition stagnated over the past year and national climate plans are strikingly misaligned with the science.”

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Nearly Half of Flowering Plant Species Face Threat of Extinction

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“Effectively managing the plants and fungi that form the building blocks of our habitable planet is key to halting wider biodiversity loss and restoring Earth’s ecosystems to full function,” says a scientific report.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 10-11-2023 by Common Dreams

Global scientists warn that 45% of known flowering plant species could be threatened with extinction. Photo: Diana Robinson/flickr/CC

Global scientists warned Tuesday that 45% of known flowering plant species could be at risk of disappearing, underscoring the need for urgent international action to tackle the planet’s sixth mass extinction—the first driven by human activity.

That figure is among the key findings from State of the World’s Plants and Fungi, the fifth annual report from the U.K.’s Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew about such species amid the intertwined biodiversity crisis and climate emergency.

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