Tag: environment

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Environment

Palm Oil is Bad for Iowa

Palm Oil Extraction Photo Credit Wikimedia Commons
Palm Oil Extraction Photo Credit Wikimedia Commons

On Friday, Feb. 5, the benchmark crude palm-oil future contract traded on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives exchange reached its highest level since May 2014, according to NASDAQ.

Traders were feeling bullish as warm, dry weather caused by El Niño in the region receded from the prime palm plantations in Sumatra, Borneo and other parts of Indonesia.

These palm oil producing regions are half a world away, yet they matter to Iowa more than one knows.

The use of palm oil for cooking is in direct competition with soybean oil, including Iowa-grown soybeans traded on international markets. In a recent interview, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey said one out of four rows of Iowa soybeans are bound for international sales.

“India, the world’s largest importer of cooking oils, will buy more soybean and sunflower oil this year (2015) than ever before as a global glut weakens prices and prompts buyers to switch from palm oil,” according to Bloomberg News.

Because of the decline in farm commodity prices, current trends may favor soybeans over palm, but at the expense of soybean farmers. There is a clear case to be made to avoid products like chocolate, ice cream, detergent, soap and cosmetics that contain palm oil and its derivatives as a way to support Iowa farmers.

What matters more is deforestation to expand the cultivation of palm trees. Using a slash and burn methodology to clear equatorial rain forest for palm plantations, the haze covering Indonesia was visible from space.  While haze may be viewed as a temporary inconvenience, deforestation has a direct impact on the planet’s capacity to process atmospheric carbon dioxide. That’s not to mention the loss of habitat and biodiversity, as well as release of carbon stored in trees into the atmosphere.

From logging, agricultural production and other economic activities, deforestation adds more atmospheric CO2 than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world’s roads, according to Scientific American.

“The reason that logging is so bad for the climate is that when trees are felled they release the carbon they are storing into the atmosphere, where it mingles with greenhouse gases from other sources and contributes to global warming accordingly,” the article said. “The upshot is that we should be doing as much to prevent deforestation as we are to increase fuel efficiency and reduce automobile usage.”

Most corporate food conglomerates use or have used palm oil and its derivatives as an ingredient. What’s a person to do?

The first recourse in Iowa is the power of the purse. Avoid purchasing products with palm oil because it competes with Iowa-grown soybeans, and is a contributor to climate disruption. There is no such thing as sustainably grown palm oil.

Palm oil and its derivatives go under many names. A list of alternate names for palm oil can be found here along with a handy wallet sized printout.

Here is a list that discusses use of palm oil in various consumer products.

Explore the Rainforest Action Network web site, beginning with this link. There is a lot of information about the issue and actions you can take to address the most pressing aspects of deforestation.

While Indonesia may seem distant, what goes on there and in other equatorial palm plantations matters here in Iowa.

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Environment

Post Paris

Paris COP 21Yesterday the 21st Conference of the Parties, including 195 nations, adopted an agreement to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

A few people I know attended, but mostly the names and faces of the negotiators and players were reduced to certain heads of state and prominent activists.

Short version: now that the agreement is made, governments must adopt it.

A widely circulated article in The Hill quoted U.S. Senator James Inhoff.

“Senate leadership has already been outspoken in its positions that the United States is not legally bound to any agreement setting emissions targets or any financial commitment to it without approval by Congress,” he said.

Managing greenhouse gas emissions will be a challenge without U.S. leadership. The Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to consider or adopt the agreement. The Heritage Foundation asserted the administration is planning to make an end-run around Senate scrutiny. That is ridiculous given the public nature of the negotiations that produced it and the long, lead-up to the accord.

Suffice it that the Environmental Protection Agency Clean Power Plan is the primary mechanism for compliance with the terms of the Paris agreement, and the Congress has been trying to kill it. Debate on the Clean Power Plan began long before it was published Oct. 23 in the Federal Register. On Nov. 18 the Senate passed a resolution to kill the plan. On Dec. 1 the U.S. House of Representatives did likewise.

The United States is not the leader we could be on mitigating the causes of global warming. Nothing about COP21 changed that.

What has changed is the world is coming together to address the greatest threats to human survival. Not only regarding greenhouse gas emissions, but in other areas. Whether the United States will lead or follow is to be determined. The direction has been set, and while there will be tenacious resistance to changes in the fossil fuel paradigm, new leadership is emerging. Life as we know it hangs in the balance.

Let’s hope our government steps up to the challenge. We have the capacity. Whether we have the political will is an open question as the world passes us by.

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Living in Society Social Commentary

It is the Season

Deer in the Park - Photo Credit Heidi Jo Smith
Deer in the Park – Photo Credit Heidi Smith

The deer population is abundant because of a lack of predators, including the mostly male deer hunters currently in the field.

People freak at the idea of wolves or large cats being near, so culling the herds has become a human activity. There is little danger of taking too many.

Almost three months into the Iowa deer hunt, the second shotgun season begins Saturday. The other day, I found a deer hoof in a parking lot, picked it up, and tossed it into a trash bin. There are no intuitive rules for disposal of deer hooves. Meanwhile, deer hides have been piling up at the home, farm and auto supply store as hunters bring them in.

Deer licenses are issued mainly to male hunters for a personal, annual ritual. They gear up with ammunition, waterproof clothing, meat grinders, jerky seasoning, hats, and undergarments designed to wick perspiration away from the skin. Male comradery—the kind deer hunters share—is both common and rare.

My experience of the hunt is minimal. Closest I got to hunter’s comradery was hanging out with Dad’s golfing partners at the public course club house. I took everything in as they threw dice, played cards, smoked cigars and cigarettes, and waited to secure early tee times. My memory is like the stories I hear when asking hunters what they do when they hunt. Male bonding never became important for me.

I recently overheard a conversation between two teenagers that went something like this:

She: Everyone knows women are smarter than men.
He: Yeah, but you menstruate.
She: Only one day a month.
He: But still, you bleed.

I was taken aback. Maybe I haven’t spent much time with teens since ours left home. Maybe it was the inherent competitiveness. What also got to me is my concurrent reading of Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn. In some of the countries depicted in the book, he would have raped her to settle the question of domination.

What line does our culture draw between commonplace banter and the realities of oppression? If there is one, it is difficult to discern. Suffice it that American cultural restraint keeps most young men from sexually assaulting women with whom they compete. At the same time, something elemental is lurking with unstated intent.

Deer hunting is acceptable social behavior with formal rules and regulations coupled with diverse, personal traditions. In some ways the annual hunt is grease on the skids of normalcy — a form of culture that can lead to civilization. I suspect the teen boy will ultimately become a deer hunter if he isn’t already.

I use fencing to protect plants I like more than deer need in an effort to coexist. Today I put out a bushel of apples for them. I am beginning to understand how to get along.

There is something appealing about the way deer hunting creates long-term relationships between hunters, and with their respective spouses. This season I’ve come to understand the blood sport more than I did — as much as I may be able.

Categories
Environment

Eve of Paris 2015

Heads of State Photo Credit www.cop21.gouv.fr
Heads of State Photo Credit http://www.cop21.gouv.fr

President Obama is scheduled to depart Washington for Paris later today to attend the 21st Convention of the Parties (COP21 or Paris 2015). Paris 2015 offers our best hope to curb greenhouse gas emissions through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

As of yesterday 150 heads of state had accepted the invitation to participate, with representatives of 196 nations planning to join. Each head of state will make a speech, with the order set by UN rules. President Obama’s speech will follow His Majesty Mohammed VI, the King of Morocco around noon local time.

In the wake of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks, Paris is on lock down. Ed Fallon described the scene.

With public demonstrations banned, would-be participants lined up pairs of shoes in one of the rally locations that would have been. As I type, a human chain is lining up between Place de la Nation and Place de la Republic.

Even though people with means have traveled to Paris to demonstrate, contrary to what people like Naomi Klein and other prominent climate change advocates have said, accompanying demonstrations don’t seem so relevant to the bigger picture. With or without them, the heads of state and dignitaries will accomplish something with regard to mitigating the causes of climate change. Let’s hope it is enough.

That’s not to say there isn’t hope, just that all of the speeches could be reminiscent of the scene from Star Wars where Queen Amidala addressed the Galactic Senate.

Queen Amidala Addresses Galactic Senat Photo Credit StarWars.com
Queen Amidala Addresses Galactic Senate Photo Credit StarWars.com

Even though the U.S. political system, the legislative branch of government particularly, is unprepared to act on climate today, I believe, and with good reason, the effects of anthropocentric climate change will become so pronounced that even the most virulent climate skeptic will recognize the need to take action to mitigate its causes.

The time for which we have long waited is upon us. Here’s hoping our leaders take action.

Categories
Environment Reviews

Reading Naomi Klein

This Changes EverythingUnlike the climate crisis story spoon fed to us in decreasing numbers of corporate media stories, in social media memes, and in fleeting conversations at community gatherings, in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, author Naomi Klein said there is a nascent, global movement preparing to take climate action.

“The climate movement has yet to find its full moral voice on the world stage,” Klein wrote. “But it is most certainly clearing its throat—beginning to put the very real thefts and torments that ineluctably flow from the decision to mock international climate commitments alongside history’s most damned crimes.”

If you haven’t read Klein’s 2014 book, you should. Not because of a desire to take sides in the public discussion of global warming and the need to keep global temperature increase to two degrees or less. But because a). reading a paper book can be good for us, and b). with Klein you can hear her broader story and learn new things. Here’s more on why you should pick up a copy at your library or bookstore if you haven’t already.

In Iowa, as home to the first in the nation caucuses, we are inundated with stories about politics. Elections matter, and we have seen how in the Republican awakening after Barack Obama’s 2008 election. Progressives hardly understood that Republicans, though in the minority in the Congress, would exercise such power that much of Obama’s agenda was sidelined from the beginning. Republican comebacks in 2010 and 2014 have turned the congress from Democratic to Republican, and right-wing hardliners have more input to the legislative process than their numbers warrant. Taking climate action in Congress has, for the most part, been a non-starter.

“It’s not just the people we vote into office and then complain about—it’s us,” Klein wrote. “For most of us living in post-industrial societies, when we see the crackling black-and-white footage of general strikes in the 1930s, victory gardens in the 1940s, and Freedom Rides in the 1960s, we simply cannot imagine being part of any mobilization of that depth and scale.”

“Where would we organize?” Klein asked. “Who would we trust enough to lead us? Who, moreover, is ‘we?'”

Klein’s book frames answers to those questions: People are organizing everywhere, resisting unbridled extraction of natural resources by corporations. “We” includes almost everyone.

This Changes Everything reviews the recent history of the climate movement. It covers extreme extraction of natural resources that leave behind waste heaps, fouled water and polluted air, then are burned and produce atmospheric gases that warm the planet. Everyone from fossil fuel companies to environmental groups have been involved in what Klein calls “extractivism.” There is a growing resistance, including environmental groups divesting from investments in the fossil fuel industry, indigenous people mounting court battles, and community groups violating international trade agreements to move to renewable energy sources. The book is a snapshot of where the climate movement currently stands.

While Klein has her point of view, she depicts the complexity of a global network of fossil fuel companies seeking to extract hydrocarbons scientists tells us must be left in the ground. While the resistance may not have found its full moral voice, Klein’s book makes the case it won’t be long and recounts the significant inroads indigenous people and communities near extraction sites are making.

When we talk about taking climate action, Naomi Klein’s work should be part of our conversation.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

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Environment

The Senator and the Sierra Club

The exchange between U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Sierra Club president Aaron Mair during an Oct. 6 Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing was a brief flash in the news cycle. Was it also a debate about climate change?

The subject was to have been the impact of federal regulations on minority communities. The junior senator from Texas turned it into something else — a desultory grilling of Mair in which he brought out some old sawhorses from the climate denial tool shed. Here is the exchange:

Sierra Club board member Donna Buell posted this on Facebook after the hearing:

Donna Buell FB Snippet 10-09-15

Mair was quick to reply on behalf of the Sierra Club:

View the entire two-hour hearing if you have the stomach for it here.

Cruz asserted in an Oct. 7 press release he “proved, contrary to liberal assertions that man-caused climate change is ‘settled science,’ that there is still a healthy and vigorous debate about the causes and nature of climate change based on the data and scientific evidence.”

So does Cruz picking a fight indicate debate? Decidedly not. In fact, as Mair pointed out in his video response, Cruz’s claims during the hearing have been debunked by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency over which Cruz has oversight in his role as chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

What’s this about?

It is about the attempt of right wing politicians like Cruz to hijack reasonable discussion among people with differing opinions in favor of a personal agenda.

On Oct. 12, I was part of a Sierra Club panel of presenters in which I suggested attendees could continue the discussion Cruz and Mair started by bird dogging Cruz in Washington, Iowa Wednesday morning.

Miriam Kashia, a veteran of the Great March for Climate Action, raised her hand and said, “I’ve done that.”

She reported the incident in an Oct. 13 guest opinion in the Iowa City Press Citizen,

Then, during a media interview with Sen. Ted Cruz speaking about the terrorist threat, I jumped in and asked him, “What is your response to the fact that the Pentagon tells us that climate change is the biggest threat to America’s security?” His response, “You don’t have the right to ask any questions, because you’re not a member of the media.” The media, meanwhile, was not doing its job.

Statements by Cruz and his ilk so often go unchallenged. People agree with him, and in Texas helped elevate him to power in 2012. His supporters are vocal and much of what is said serves the conservative agenda or it doesn’t get heard. I don’t doubt there is a Cruz community that buys into his world view, even though it appears to be based in something other than reality.

What becomes clearer each time people like Cruz are examined is nothing is behind the verbiage but vapidness. Sarah Beckman pointed this out about Cruz in an Oct. 13 post on Iowa Starting Line.

If you spend enough time with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, you start to get the feeling that there is something “off” about him. His long pauses, his forlorn looks out into the audience, his deep crescendos and trailing whispers, his odd pop culture references. They all paint the picture that Cruz is maybe not as honest and authentic as he lets on while campaigning.

Never is Cruz talking about what we have in common, about how we can live better with each other, or how we solve the greatest problems of our time, like mitigating the causes of global warming.

Elections matter, and when the electorate elevates people like Cruz to positions of power over NASA, NOAA and the government’s scientific bodies, we are doing ourselves no favors.

If readers plan to move to Texas to sort out this mess, and elect someone who will enter the arena to fight for all of us, then God bless. I don’t see that happening.

Cruz gives us reason enough to engage in politics. Leaving important political work to others helped produce Senators Cruz, Ernst and Grassley, and the troubled time in which we live.

There is a better way, and it’s up to us to find and follow it.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

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Environment

Electricity and Our Future

Annual MeetingIt would be great to just plug into a socket, use electricity and be done with it. There’s more to it than that.

We take lighting after sundown for granted, as we do preserving food in the ice box and proper functioning of the myriad of appliances in a modern home.

Since before the Christian Era, humans have attempted to understand how our universe works. I was reminded of this while doing research on tonight’s supermoon lunar eclipse, the mechanics of which were worked out by the ancients around 200 B.C.E., according to Robert Mutel at the University of Iowa.

Since the industrial revolution began, humans have increased development of community solutions to improve lives. The expansion of electrical usage is one of the great things to emerge, transforming lives where whale oil, then kerosene were the primary fuels used to illuminate darkness.

People continue to pay limited attention to electricity. Friday the Linn County Rural Electric Cooperative annual meeting was held at the Teamsters hall in Cedar Rapids.

The report from staff was that while the number of new connections was down in 2014, crews found plenty of maintenance work to do. The organization is financially sound.

The event turns out a lot of elderly couples who use the occasion to get out of the house, socialize with friends and neighbors, and take advantage of the free lunch, door prize drawing and gifts. Among this year’s gifts was a portable mobile phone charger, something even octogenarians might use.

LED - Incandescent Light Bulb Demonstration
LED – Incandescent Light Bulb Demonstration

A demonstration comparing electricity usage of incandescent and LED light bulbs was set up outside. When the demonstrator threw a switch, changing which bulb was turned on, the change in speed of the rotating gear on the electrical meter indicating usage was obvious. The message was buy energy efficient light bulbs and when you do, look at the number of lumens rather than wattage when picking one.

While attendees ate lunch from their laps on folding chairs — choice of cheeseburger or chicken sandwich with sides of baked beans and potato salad — a slide show enumerated financial incentives for home owners and businesses to take advantage of to reduce electricity usage when installing new appliances or constructing a new home or business.

Would that life were so simple when it comes to electricity.

The REC has this statement about how their electricity is generated on its current website.

Linn County Rural Electric Cooperative is committed to providing electricity that is reliable, cost effective and sustainable. One hundred percent of our electric power needs are provided by Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO), a generation and transmission cooperative.

CIPCO meets our energy needs with a diverse fuel mix of coal, nuclear, hydro, landfill gas, wind, natural gas and oil energy resources. In 2013, approximately 95 percent of the power CIPCO provided to its members was generated right here in Iowa; and over 60 percent of its electricity is generated from carbon free resources that minimize the impact to our natural environment.

Specific generating capacity is listed on the CIPCO website.

CIPCO Map of Generating Sources 9-27-15
CIPCO Map of Generating Sources 9-27-15

There is some political posturing here, in that CIPCO draws electricity from the NextEra Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa’s lone nuclear reactor. One assumes that is part of the “carbon free resources” mentioned, even though tremendous carbon-based resources are used in preparation for the moment heat is produced by nuclear chain reaction to boil water.

There’s probably more obfuscation here if one took the time for analysis. It’s not worth the time. Scientific evidence is clear that the ceaseless emission of CO2 pollution by electricity generation stations using fossil fuels is a primary cause of global warming. If people are distracted and assuaged by door prizes and flowery language, they won’t be for long. Global warming is impacting our climate in a pronounced, negative (to humans) way.

The Environmental Protection Agency recognized CO2 as a pollutant and this summer rolled out new regulations in the Clean Power Plan. As with all things governmental, there is a political aspect to the plan. Some states are resisting implementation.

Each state is required to locally implement the Clean Power Plan. In many ways the Clean Power Plan is an opportunity for democratization of how energy is produced and used, and we should take advantage of it, said historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz. He called for “an all-out mobilization with potentially far-reaching consequences,” as states adopt a plan.

In Iowa, Governor Branstad has been resistant to the Clean Power Plan, saying only that he would wait and see the final regulations before commenting. The future is well known as Iowa has consistently said the state will adopt no stricter regulations than those required by the federal government. One expects the state to take minimal steps in compliance, and only after hearing from the American Legislative Exchange Council, and waiting out initial litigation regarding the new rules.

The trouble is transition to renewable, carbon-free sources of electricity can’t occur fast enough to undo the CO2 pollution already emitted into the atmosphere. Urgency at our annual REC meeting only took the form of opening water bottles and cutlery packs with reduced physical capacity.

A lot of good work is going on regarding development of new electricity sources that directly harness the wind and sun. Our future is to accelerate development and implementation of carbon-free, nuclear free electricity. That means a lot more than using the phrase on the REC’s website or in a blog post.

People don’t react well to non-imminent threats. Our future is raising awareness of the climate crisis without causing people to withdraw from society.

While looking up a link for this post, I saw a Bobby Jindal web ad on my article. Jindal referred to the negativity in our world and said, “It’s time to turn to God.” Maybe. For those of us already oriented that direction, there is plenty of work to be done on earth to improve the human condition. Mitigating the causes of global warming is an important part of it.

Categories
Environment

Denial and Denali

Denali Photo Credit - Wikimedia Commons
Denali Photo Credit – Wikimedia Commons

Environmentalists are having trouble wrapping their head around a president who visited Alaska above the Arctic Circle on Wednesday to speak on the need to mitigate the causes of climate change, while at the same time on Aug. 17 approved Royal Dutch Shell’s exploration and development of oil there.

It’s not that hard because the challenge of our time is the lack of political will to take action to reduce CO2 emissions in a culture dependent upon fossil fuels. The problem is politics, not physics.

Bill McKibben expressed the sentiment concisely:

It’s no use crying Bill McKibben’s tears.

In 2014, the U.S. used 6.95 billion barrels of crude oil with 27 percent being imported, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. That’s 19.05 million barrels per day, including biofuels. Most of it is for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas. (The EIA explains how the oil was used here).

During President Obama’s administration the U.S. took substantial action to reduce dependence on imported oil. During the eight years of President George W. Bush, the country imported 28.6 billion barrels of oil or 3.574 billion barrels per year on average. In 2014, the U.S. imported 2.68 billion barrels or 25 percent less than the Bush average.

The rub is that in order to reduce imports, the Obama administration encouraged domestic production through an all of the above strategy that included hydraulic fracturing and increased exploration and discovery like Royal Dutch Shell had been doing in the Arctic in 2012. The strategy worked, and has been revitalized, but at what cost?

Doing nothing about global warming is not an option. The Obama administration has been and is doing something significant. As much as some would like to shut down the coal trains, end hydraulic fracturing and stop drilling for oil – leaving fossil fuels in the ground – it is only beginning to happen under Obama. Whoever is president in 2017, an “all of the above” strategy would mean quite different things with a Democrat or Republican in office.

Scientists understand the basic physics of global warming, and mostly have since the mid-1800s. As long as there is demand for fossil fuels, there is no reason to think exploration and discovery by oil companies will end any time soon. The problem with denial is not so much with political climate deniers. The physics will out, hopefully not too late.

A bigger problem is denial of our addiction to fossil fuels. Most continue to use them like there is no tomorrow. A reckoning is coming and it will take more than renaming that mountain to climb it.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

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Writing

Taking Local Out Of Local Food

Kale Salad
Kale Salad

Ingredients for this kale salad were grown within 100 feet of our kitchen. It is as local as food gets.

We enjoy garden produce in high summer — when nature’s bounty yields so much food we either preserve or give it away. Any more our household gives away more than it preserves because the pantry is well stocked with previous years’ harvests.

Friends and family talk about the “local food movement.” In Iowa it is being assimilated into lifestyles that gladly incorporate ingredients from all over the globe. This assimilation has taken the local out of local food.

From an intellectual standpoint, it wouldn’t be hard to replace food grown in China, Mexico, California and Florida with crops grown here in Iowa. The number of acres required is surprisingly small. For example, local farmer Paul Rasch once estimated it would take about 110 acres to keep a county of 160,000 people in apples all year. The political will to encourage home-grown solutions in the food supply chain doesn’t currently exist. Until it does, rational, local solutions to food supply remain in the ether of unrealized ideas.

A vendor at the Iowa City Farmers Market was recently suspended for violating a rule that produce sold there must be grown by the vendor. Just walk the market and ask booth workers from where they hail. Often he/she is an employee or contractor working for a farm seeking coverage around many Eastern Iowa farmers markets. Too often they are anything but local growers. What’s been lost in this commercialization of local food is the face of the farmer.

Knowing where one’s food comes from is a basic tenant of the local foods movement. I enjoy working with local growers on a small acreage to produce food for families. At the same time, I seldom purchase a box of cereal from the supermarket even though I’ve seen the grain trucks queue up to unload at the cereal mills in Cedar Rapids.

For example, my garden doesn’t produce enough garlic for the year. I’d rather buy a supplemental bag of peeled garlic cloves produced at Christopher Ranch in Gilroy, Calif. than cloves lacking discernible origin at a farmers market. I know how Christopher Ranch produces their garlic. Absent the face of the farmer, there is value in understanding food origins, and that means some percentage of a household’s food supply will not be local.

There is a lot of marketing hype around “organic,” “GMO-free,” and “gluten free” foods, and this has to be impacting the customer base of local food producers. If consumers feel they can get a reasonably priced, “healthy option” at the supermarket, why make an extra trip to the farmers market, except for the occasional special experience? Why wouldn’t one pick up a bag of Earthbound Farms organic carrots when local growers can never produce enough to meet demand? At the same time, marketing hype is just what the name suggests.

Food security and sustainability are complicated. Before the local foods movement came into its own, it already is being assimilated faster than one can say snap peas. From a consumer standpoint the local came out of local foods some time ago, and it may not be back.

Categories
Environment

Oak Leaf Tatters and Herbicides

White Oak Leaf Tatters
White Oak Leaf Tatters Photo Credit Plant Management Network

What to make of a study of the impact of herbicide drift from farming operations on oak trees?

In a peer reviewed 2004 study at the University of Illinois, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in Urbana, Ill., scientists found drift of chloroacetamide herbicides is a possible cause of the leaf tatters syndrome in White Oak trees.

During the last few decades, white oak (Quercus alba L.) in the north central region have developed malformed spring leaves often called “leaf tatters.” The symptoms begin with the death of some interveinal leaf tissues, eventually leaving only the main leaf veins with little interveinal tissues present (See Illustration Above). Leaf tatters reduces the overall canopy of trees, making them more susceptible to other stresses. Leaf tatters has been reported in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin.

It’s a single study, probably not enough data to fully ratify the relationship, even if there is concern among foresters about how herbicide drift may be affecting stands of trees in both urban and rural areas.

The topic is worth more study than it is getting, as chloroacetamide is the active ingredient in a number of herbicides used with row crop corn and soybeans.

Preserving our woodland heritage is more complicated than letting a stand of trees go on as it has. Existing oak-hickory forests are being subjected to a wide range of stress including growth of invasive species below the canopy, and a lack of significant events, like forest fires, to remove mature trees, permitting new growth. After being in place for thousands of years, the oak-hickory forest will become a thing of the past without modern forestry management.

If there are other studies of the impact of herbicide drift on forests, I couldn’t easily find them. In fact, I had to contact an acquaintance to locate the study referenced in this post. Besides a small group of scientists and foresters, I don’t know who else is even looking at this.

What this study suggests to me, and to others whose opinion I value, is chemical drift from large scale farming operations can impact life in urban areas where most of the population lives.

As we escape rural areas in favor of cities we remain connected to what goes on in the country. Part of that, perhaps, includes maladies caused by chemical drift from large farms.

It is time we, as a society, spent time and resources determining what the relationship between chemical drift and our lives in the city is.