It’s time to overhaul the chemical industry — for the sake of fenceline communities and the rest of the planet.
Climate change is quickly evolving into climate catastrophe, and there’s a narrow window of time to do something about it. While the world works on solutions, there’s surprisingly little focus on the chemical industry, which accounts for roughly 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions — as well as other environmental harms.
Weak or nonexistent regulations of the industry have led to widespread cancer, respiratory illnesses, and even facility explosions, primarily in low-income communities and communities of color.
But the industry essentially has a free pass to continue business as usual — it just keeps on keepin’ on, with little accountability.
The same holds true when it comes to the industry’s contributions to our warming planet, which is happening in three major ways:
First, fossil fuels are the “feedstocks” for chemical manufacturing, meaning that oil, natural gas and coal are used as raw material for chemicals. Global plastic production relies heavily on fossil fuel feedstocks and is expected to grow by 40% by 2030. That will bring more environmental problems. Around 98% of single-use plastic is derived from fossil fuels, and it releases greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of its life cycle. Only a small amount of plastic products are recycled. Most end up in landfills or the environment, and nearly one-quarter is incinerated, releasing millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide and other harmful air pollutants.
Second, fossil fuels power chemical manufacturing. Some of the most commonly manufactured “primary” chemicals, like ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, ammonia and methanol, account for two-thirds of the energy used by the industry, according to the International Energy Agency.
While the industry has implemented some energy efficiency measures and low-carbon technology, direct carbon dioxide emissions from chemical production have continued to increase.
Third, the chemical industry contributes to climate change by producing chemicals that are themselves potent greenhouse gases. For example, hydrofluorocarbons, used as refrigerants and foam-blowing agents, are 3,800 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide.
Under the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol, countries have committed to cutting production and consumption of HFCs by at least 80% by 2047. And just this year, the EPA announced a goal to reduce U.S. production. But this may create new problems. For example, some proposed plans for capturing HFCs (rather than replacing them with safer chemicals that don’t harm the climate) will result in emissions of other hazardous air pollutants like chloroform, hydrochloric acid, chlorine and hydrogen fluoride. All of these hazardous air pollutants contribute to the cumulative burden faced by fenceline communities.
Finally, not only does chemical production and use contribute to climate change — the intensifying weather patterns of climate change will worsen the industry’s environmental and public health impacts. Chemical and petrochemical facilities are concentrated along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana: the very same areas that are and will be hit hard by hurricanes, flooding and sea-level rise. Many of these facilities are unprepared for these effects, increasing the risk of catastrophic chemical disasters — predominantly in communities of color and low-income communities.
Across the country, hundreds of thousands of aboveground storage facilities containing hazardous chemicals — such as arsenic, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene — are NOT subject to state or federal rules designed to prevent and mitigate spills.https://t.co/C9tYm94kIP
Ultimately, to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, limit the risk of chemical disasters, and begin to remedy a legacy of environmental injustice, we must significantly reduce and replace the use of fossil fuels in every part of the chemical industry, which needs a systemic overhaul.
It’s a mighty task. Only a handful of more than 40,000 chemicals on the market have ever been restricted; even asbestos hasn’t been fully banned. There are still almost 3.5 billion pounds of hazardous releases to the environment every year. The United States is covered with 1,300 toxic “Superfund” sites, plus thousands more contaminated sites.
But that hasn’t stopped affected communities and organizations from banding together to say enough is enough. Recently a group of more than 100 health, science and environmental justice groups called for a transformation of the chemical industry with the release of the new Louisville Charter.
Named after an area in Kentucky with 11 industrial facilities that release millions of pounds of toxic air emissions every year — disproportionately impacting people of color — the Charter’s 10 principles outline a vision for how to overhaul chemical policies in favor of safety, health, equity and justice, and how to avoid false solutions that simply shift harms to other people and places.
These principles include calls to reduce or eliminate fossil fuel use, substitute toxic chemicals with safer alternatives, remedy environmental injustice, end subsidies for polluting companies, and give communities and workers information about chemical risks and the ability to act upon these disclosures.
We can make gains to achieve these goals if Congress passes the Environmental Justice for All Act and the Build Back Better Act, which would advance the some, but not all, of the Charter’s principles. More action is needed, and the Charter can guide the way.
Whether it’s to solve climate change, stop toxic chemicals from bombarding overburdened communities, or reduce hazardous substances in household products, we need to start replacing harmful chemicals with safe alternatives. No more free passes.
The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or its employees.
Freshwater mussels are some of the most imperiled species in North America. Experts say we can change that by rethinking our infrastructure.
In September 2018 an explosion rocked the Bloede Dam on Maryland’s Patapsco River, a few miles west of Baltimore. The breach and subsequent removal of the long-dormant, decaying and dangerous dam allowed the river to run free for the first time in more than a century and opened 60 miles of habitat. Experts hailed the project as a boon to public safety, recreation and ecological restoration efforts — especially since it eliminated a key barrier to migratory fish such as shad, herring and American eels.
But another small, inconspicuous animal may also get a boost from the dam removal: eastern elliptio, a freshwater mussel that’s common to the region but has long since disappeared from the river.
Sadly, its plight is becoming the norm.
North America boasts nearly one third of the world’s 900 freshwater mussel species. But pollution, invasive species, and changes in stream flows and water quality from development have all taken their toll on mussel populations. Scientists estimate that 38 of the continent’s species have gone extinct in the past 100 years, and 95 are listed as threatened or endangered in the United States.
One of the biggest factors in the U.S. decline has been the construction of dams — more than 84,000 of them, which has fragmented rivers and altered water flows, sediment, habitat and temperatures.
Fortunately, the tide seems to be turning on dams, as many have outlived their usefulness and their ecological consequences have become better understood. In the past two decades, more than 1,200 dams have been demolished across the United States.
“When people look at rivers, they might think about the fish swimming in them, but they really don’t think about all of the other creatures that are found there,” says Emilie Blevins, a biologist working on freshwater mussel conservation at the nonprofit Xerces Society.
Because they spend their lives submerged and often are dusted with sediment, freshwater mussels are one of those often overlooked, she says. But they’re also one of the most important.
The mollusks act as tiny, but efficient water filters, helping to improve water quality as they consume algae, phytoplankton, bacteria and organic particles from their surroundings. “When we lose mussels, the quality of an ecosystem goes down, and then we see those effects later downstream — you might see increased nutrient pollution, followed by algae blooms,” she says.
Western pearlshell mussels in Stillwater Creek. Photo: Roger Tabor / USFWS, (CC BY-NC 2.0).
In addition, mussel beds are known as “hotspots of biological activity” because they support so much other life. They can stabilize streambeds, provide habitat for other aquatic species, and serve as prey for an array of wildlife including birds, muskrats, turtles, otters, skunks and fish.
Their sedentary lifestyle serves all these roles — with only a single foot, freshwater mussels aren’t very mobile. “They can move meters over the course of their lifetime, not miles,” says Cody Fleece, an aquatic ecologist with the engineering services company Stantec.
But mussels do still get around, as they’ve developed an evolutionary fix to expand their ranges. Females release larva — known as glochidia — that then attach to the gills or skin of a passing fish. Some species have even developed special adaptations to lure or grab potential hosts.
As larvae-carrying fish swim up and down rivers, the glochidia hang on for weeks or months until they undergo a metamorphosis to the juvenile stage. That’s when they finally drop off — ideally, in suitable new habitat.
Success is a game of numbers. A female freshwater mussel releases thousands of glochidia, few of which will make it to the juvenile stage. But the ones that survive can be long-lived, with lifespans that can stretch across decades or even a century, depending on the species.
Of everything that needs to go right in a mussel’s life history, finding a host fish is the crux. Some mussels can rely on multiple kinds of hosts, but others prefer one particular species. For example, the endangered pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) relies on juvenile trout and salmon as their glochidia hosts.
“Freshwater mussels really don’t exist without their host fish,” says Blevins. “And that’s why they can be really sensitive to a range of impacts that affect fish, including dam building.”
Barriers to Reproduction
Eastern elliptio disappeared from the Patapsco River over the past 50 to 100 years because dams blocked the passage of migratory fish — particularly their favorite, American eels.
“When you have a blockage to migratory fish — from a series of dams or one really large dam — and you can’t get migratory fish upstream to where the mussels are, eventually reproduction just stops,” says Matt Ashton, an aquatic biologist at Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources. “You need to have the right fish and you need to have them in enough numbers.” He says the problem is prevalent in mid-Atlantic and Northeast states.
It’s a similar story in the Pacific Northwest, where freshwater mussels such as western pearlshells rely on seagoing salmon that have been blocked by dams from reaching upstream habitat — and the mussels who live there. “Based on what I’ve seen, dams are a real concern for mussels in the western U.S.,” says Blevins.
In areas of the Midwest and Southeast where migratory fish aren’t the key host for freshwater mussels, the story is a little different.
“For the most part, [freshwater mussels] are using hosts that have small ranges,” says Ashton. “So the dams don’t necessarily fragment those mussels and stop reproduction, they just alter habitat.”
Freshwater mussels of the species eastern elliptio. Photo: Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program. Used with permission.
But that can also mean trouble.
The transformation of a free-flowing river into a pool of slack water behind a dam often creates unsuitable conditions for mussels (and sometimes their host fish, too). Mussels can also become stranded when water recedes in the reservoir during low flows.
“Mussels aren’t very happy right upstream of a dam in general,” says aquatic ecologist Heidi Dunn, who works as a science coordinator for the consulting firm EcoAnalysts. Right below a dam isn’t great either, she says. High-velocity water releases can become a scour zone where the fast flow prevents mussels from getting a foothold. Cold water coming from very large dams can also disrupt mussel reproduction.
That all takes a toll. “Altered flow regimes and reservoirs caused by damming have resulted in the local extirpation of 30 to 60% of the native freshwater mussel species in many United States rivers,” according to a report from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Finding Solutions
When it comes to helping freshwater mussels in already altered environments, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
“There’s an argument that downstream of dams can be some of the most stable habitat because it isn’t as affected by changes in flows,” says Julie Devers, a state biologist in Maryland for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “And so it can be a stronghold, sometimes, for freshwater mussels. But most of the aquatic biologists are on the same page that dam removal will result in a more connected ecosystem where fish can move freely, and the mussels can interact with their host fish in the most productive way.”
Because of that, more dam removals are being done with an eye to freshwater mussel protection or recovery — although fish are still often the species of primary concern.
Bloede Dam removal in process. Maryland Department of Natural Resources Fishing and Boating Services/YouTube
The nonprofit American River reports that dam removals are expected to benefit imperiled mussels on the Tallapoosa River in Alabama, on the Brandywine River in Delaware, on the Cane and Tuckasegee rivers in North Carolina, on Conewango Creek in Pennsylvania, and many more.
Dunn is involved in a project still in the permitting stages in Grand Rapids, Michigan that would involve the removal of four low-head dams in an area of the Grand River with 27 species of freshwater mussels. Restoring the river, “should be a good thing in the long run,” for those mussels, she says.
But dam removals also need to be done in ways that protect existing freshwater mussel populations.
With the 2020 removal of Six Mile Dam on the Walhonding River in Ohio, for example, teams scoured areas above and below the dam to find — and relocate — some 12,000 bivalves, including 640 threatened rabbitsfoot mussels and 720 endangered sheepnose mussels.
Water levels behind the dam were also lowered in stages so that mussels in the reservoir could be recovered before they stranded in the mud.
Once they were relocated to other suitable habitat in the river, monitoring efforts have continued. “We put pit tags on them and last summer we went out with a pit tag reader and looked for all the mussels to make sure that the ones that we had moved had survived, which they did,” says Fleece.
Restoration Efforts
In some cases where freshwater mussel populations have already been lost — like on the Patapsco — researchers must go to greater lengths to try and restore them.
After three dams, including Bloede, were removed on the Patapsco, and a fourth added passage for American eels, eel numbers began increasing. Since the snakelike fish are the preferred host for eastern elliptio, researchers started an assisted migration process.
Eastern elliptio were taken from a reproducing population and relocated into areas of the Patapsco where they were likely to encounter eels. “We moved adults and essentially founded a new population in the hopes that we can jumpstart the natural process,” says Ashton.
The first group of mussels was moved in 2018, and a couple of hundred have been translocated every year since. Researchers track the mussels with tiny microchips affixed to their shells and most are staying in place and surviving, which is the first goal of the project.
Next is to have those mussels reproduce and expand the population, he says, which will still take several more years.
Conservationists encountered a different situation on the Susquehanna River.
In Pennsylvania, eastern elliptio still existed in good habitat, but four downstream dams blocked migratory fish, so they hadn’t reproduced in a long time.
To help them, scientists relocated 120,000 American eels to two tributaries upstream of the dams. And it did the trick: Over a few years they saw an increase in the number of juveniles.
A team of biologists from the Fish and Wildlife Service captures American eels in Buffalo Creek and fits them with pit tags for monitoring. Photo: Steve Droter/Chesapeake Bay Program. Used with permission.
“In biological terms, it’s almost as close to flipping a light switch as you can have,” says Ashton.
As part of a settlement over the relicensing of the first dam on the river, which is in Maryland, the hydroelectric company Exelon is now required to move American eels by truck around the four dams, which researchers are hopeful will continue to aid freshwater mussel recovery upstream.
A Bigger Need
Ashton calls the fact that we’re beginning to understand river ecology more holistically, and beginning to manage fish and mussels together, “a big win.” But when it comes to protecting mussels, there’s still a long way to go.
There are ongoing water-pollution problems from farms, industry and water-treatment systems; in the West ongoing drought is being exacerbated by climate change, and competition for water resources among users is draining streams, further imperiling mussels.
“We also still don’t understand how certain chemicals and pharmaceuticals affect mussels,” says Ashton.
But many dam removals and river restoration projects can have big benefits for mussels — and the whole ecosystem. And Fleece, who has been involved in 19 dam removal projects so far, thinks removals are one of the restoration techniques that has the greatest benefit for the expenditure of resources.
“We can affect miles and miles and miles of habitat as part of these removals,” he says. “And sometimes for organisms that we don’t even think about, or that we’re not even aware of, it’s one of those circumstances where the ecological benefits and the societal benefits align to pull in the same direction.”
The loss of biodiversity around the planet comes with very human costs, I tell the hosts of The Silent Why podcast.
What do we lose when we lose species? And how can we turn grief into action?
As I discuss on a recent episode of The Silent Why — a podcast exploring 101 different types of grief and loss — the extinction crisis affecting this planet sometimes feels overwhelming. It can fill us with dread while it robs the world of wonder, culture and connections. Extinction leaves the world a little less amazing, and we’re all a little poorer and sadder for it.
But sometimes that grief can also drive us, deepen our capacity for empathy, renew our commitment to do better, and encourage us to celebrate life while it still exists. That’s something we can all share when we experience loss, whether it’s the death of a parent or the solastalgia we feel from the decline of nature.
And that’s just part of the hour-long episode, which also touches upon what’s causing the extinction crisis, what species I’d save if I could, and what we can all do to help. It’s a wide-ranging conversation, and hosts Claire and Chris Sandys ask some insightful questions, many of which are made even more poignant by their own love of wildlife and experiences with loss.
Listen to The Silent Why below or through your favorite podcast app.
The cliff-growing Brighamia insignis was pronounced extinct in the wild in 2020, but it persists thanks to the hard work of botanical gardens and other collections.
Known for growing on steep cliffs, Brighamia insignis has become an icon for plant conservation — not only in Hawai‘i but worldwide. Although it’s now extinct in the wild, more than 250 plants are maintained in collections at some 52 institutions globally, proof that people can sometimes save plants from extinction even when their habitats suffer.
Species name:
Brighamia insignis, ʻālula or ʻōlulu in Hawaiian. Also known as the Hawaiian or Vulcan palm (although not a member of the palm family) and even less creatively, “cabbage on a stick.”
Description:
These caudiciform (fat-trunked) succulents grow up to 16 feet (5 meters) tall. The plants are typically single-stemmed, although the stems may branch in rare cases. The fragrant flowers, which some compare to the fragrance of violets, range in length from 3 to 5.5 inches (7-14 cm) and are yellow to pale cream, or occasionally white.
Brighamia insignis at Chicago Botanic Garden’s greenhouse. Photo: Seana Walsh.
Where it’s found:
This plant is historically endemic to the Hawaiian islands of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau, where it grew on coastal cliff habitats between sea level and up to 1,300 feet (400 meters) in elevation.
IUCN Red List status:
The most recent IUCN Red List assessment of B. insignis, published in 2016, classified this rare plant as “critically endangered, possibly extinct in the wild,” based on its then very small population. At the time, only a single wild individual possibly remained, but it hadn’t been seen since 2014. That individual is now assumed lost. The IUCN Red List assessment will be updated in 2022 to classify the species as extinct in the wild.
Major threats:
The many factors that likely led to the extinction of B. insignis include hurricanes, landslides, and invasive plant and animal species (particularly goats that eat the plants and disturb their cliff habitats). In addition, the plants’ presumed pollinator, a type of hawkmoth, may also have gone extinct. To perpetuate the species in captivity, conservationists must now pollinate it by hand.
Notable conservation program(s) or legal protections:
Brighamia insignis has legal protection through its federal listing as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Although B. insignis probably no longer exists in the wild, it’s cultivated in at least 52 sites worldwide, thanks to National Tropical Botanical Garden botanists Steve Perlman and Ken Wood, who several decades ago risked their lives collecting seeds from wild plants growing on steep cliffs.
Brighamia insignis in the wild in 1982, along the Na Pali Coast of Kaua‘i. Photo: John Game (CC BY 2.0)
More recently, conservationists have been working to identify the most appropriate pollen donors in each institution, similar to how zoos maintain a studbook for endangered rhinos and other animals. They’re also making plans to determine how any seeds produced should be best distributed to increase the genetic diversity and improve the health of collections.
My favorite experience:
Researching various aspects of the species’ biology to help inform management has been a large part of my life for about a decade now. I studied the floral biology, breeding system, pollination ecology and ex situ genetic diversity of B. insignis for my master’s thesis in botany through the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in collaboration with the National Tropical Botanical Garden and Chicago Botanic Garden. I’ve continued to work with this species since I started working at NTBG as a conservation biologist in 2015.
One of the most amazing findings to date was that nectar and volatile organic compounds of the floral scent support a moth pollination syndrome in B. insignis, which has been suspected for decades based on the flowers’ color, shape and smell. These findings were particularly interesting since B. insignis is part of an adaptive radiation in the family Campanulaceae in Hawai‘i. From a single Lobelia species colonist, the group radiated into over 150 endemic species in six genera, five of which are endemic to the Hawaiian islands. The other genera, in contrast, are scentless and have nectar typical of bird-pollinated species. However, there had never been any reports of a moth visiting the flowers, and after a floral visitor study of outplantings near the known historic range of the species, no moths and only occasional non-native insect species were observed visiting B. insignis flowers.
Several years ago, though, a woman named Shellie Fielden on Maui got in touch with me and shared a video that her son, Kesh Fielden, had taken in November 2015 of a large hawkmoth visiting the flowers of his potted B. insignis plant! Although it was a non-native hawkmoth species (Agrius cingulata) it was so exciting to see and confirm that B. insignis is indeed attractive to and visited by hawkmoths.
What else do we need to understand or do to protect this species?
Before attempting to restore natural populations of B. insignis, we must manage all threats in the wild — getting rid of invasive species and stabilizing the ground from landslides. We must also make sure that any specialized pollinators in the habitats have abundant populations.
In the meantime, additional research should include confirming possible hawkmoth pollinators. One way we’re investigating this is by collecting pollen grains from entomological collections of hawkmoth specimens from Kaua‘i and identifying it to see if B. insignis pollen is found on any of the species.
Other work could include examining (in a controlled, experimental setting) whether any of the native and/or non-native hawkmoths present on Kaua‘i would likely visit B. insignis and serve as effective pollinators. Moths could be released into an enclosure with blooming plants to observe whether they will visit and function as effective pollinators.
Key research:
Wood, J., Ballou, J.D., Callicrate, T., Fant, J.B., Griffith, M.P., Kramer, A.T., Lacy, R.C., Meyer, A., Sullivan, S., Traylor-Holzer, K., Walsh, S.K. and Havens, K. 2020. Applying the zoo model to conservation of threatened exceptional plant species. Conservation Biology, doi:10.1111/cobi.13503.
Walsh, S.K., Pender, R.J., Junker, R.R., Daehler, C.C., Morden, C.W. and Lorence, D.H. 2019. Pollination biology reveals challenges to restoring populations of Brighamia insignis (Campanulaceae), a critically endangered plant species from Hawai‘i. Flora, 259: 151448.
Fant, J.B., Havens, K., Kramer, A.T., Walsh, S.K., Callicrate, T., Lacy, R.C., Maunder, M., Meyer, A.H. and Smith, P.P. 2016. What to do when we can’t bank on seeds: What botanic gardens can learn from the zoo community about conserving plants in living collections. American Journal of Botany, 103 (9): 1541-1543.
The Environmental Protection Agency can help protect millions of people who live near industrial facilities — but only if it works now to strengthen an important federal chemical policy.
Have you ever watched somebody shake a can of soda, and then get ready to crack open the top? You know it’s going to explode, but you don’t know when, or how bad it will be. That’s what it’s like living near a chemical plant. Except the consequences can be deadly.
As a lifelong resident of Kanawha County, West Virginia — an area that has been home to dozens of industrial facilities making everything from pesticides to plastics — I know this uncertain feeling all too well. For the past several decades, I’ve listened to emergency sirens go off in my community, indicating that we need to shelter in place, while virtually no information is shared about what happened or how dangerous it might be.
All across the country, disproportionately in low-income communities and communities of color, residents are bombarded with exposure to toxic chemicals from similar facilities, despite the known risks to workers and residents. Not only from explosions, but from chronic and cumulative impacts.
Fortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency has an opportunity to make things right. The agency is in the process of updating one of the most important federal chemical policies that most people have never heard of: the Risk Management Plan Rule, which monitors more than 12,000 facilities across the country that produce, use or store certain hazardous chemicals. These chemicals have known links to cancer, autoimmune disorders and fertility problems — all of which have surfaced in my community and beyond.
The rule was first enacted after public outrage over the deadly release of methyl isocyanate at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, 37 years ago. A half a million people died or were injured, and today survivors and their children still suffer from chronic health effects and ongoing contamination. Union Carbide’s Bhopal “sister plant” was located in my neighborhood and continued for more than 25 years to manufacture and stockpile methyl isocyanate in amounts akin to what was released in India, since no federal or state policy required a transition away from highly toxic chemicals or unsafe processes. It is only by good fortune that my community didn’t suffer the same catastrophic consequences following two separate explosions, years apart, at a unit near an aboveground storage tank that held the chemical.
My community is not alone. There are approximately 177 million Americans living near high-risk facilities across the country right now. A chemical facility in California caused a huge fire and smoke plume in 2012, forcing 15,000 people to seek medical treatment. The following year, a fertilizer facility in West Texas exploded, killing 15 people, injuring 200, and flattening hundreds of homes. In 2020, a chemical plant exploded near my community in West Virginia, killing one person and causing a terrifying shelter-in-place order for all residents within 2 miles. In the past decade, there have been more than 1,500 reported chemical releases or explosions at Risk Management Plan–monitored facilities nationwide, and these are just the disasters that we can see. We have no idea how many have died or become sick from the witches’ brew of chemicals in our air and water.
UPDATE: 12/9/2020 4:30PM- An explosion and fire at a West Virginia chemical plant that shook surrounding homes killed a plant worker and injured three other people.
It happened after 10 p.m. Tuesday at Optima Chemicals Co., a tenant on the Chemours proper https://t.co/yzWN8j7CwTpic.twitter.com/x98wWBTpm4
Now EPA Administrator Michael Regan has the chance to turn the tide as his agency works to update the rule. Several common-sense protections are needed that our community has been seeking for decades:
First, a new rule must include requirements for these high-risk facilities to transition to safer chemicals and processes whenever possible.
Second, hazardous facilities at risk from climate-related extreme weather should be required to plan and prepare for these potentially disastrous events, which they currently are not. In the first week after Hurricane Ida, for example, at least nine facilities in Louisiana reported chemical releases triggered by the storm.
Third, right now analyses of “worst-case scenario” releases are only required to include one chemical per facility, even though many facilities use or store multiple hazardous substances. The Risk Management Plan must take into account a broader range of toxic chemicals, as well asnd the cumulative hazards at each facility and all nearby facilities.
Fourth, we need independent safety audits, “root cause” analysis after incidents, broad distribution of findings, and requirements to implement identified safety and prevention measures.
Finally, the updated rule must require that workers be full and active participants in prevention and hazard-reduction planning, and that surrounding community members be fully informed of potential harms and possible solutions. We also need requirements for reliable backup power, incident alerts in multiple languages, real-time fenceline air monitoring, and other proven steps to keep our families safe.
Now is the moment for the EPA to update the Risk Management Plan in a meaningful way that takes into account the health, safety and equity of fenceline communities first and foremost.
The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or its employees.
The state’s recently passed Climate and Equitable Jobs Act offers a model for other states to build coalitions to help communities and the planet.
While all eyes have been on Washington, D.C.’s budget and infrastructure negotiations, one state passed the country’s only comprehensive climate legislation designed to advance racial equity and economic justice — and it wasn’t California or New York.
By passing the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act on Sept. 15, Illinois — yes, the country’s number-four coal producer — joined just six other states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico in requiring 100% clean electricity, in this case by 2045. But unlike others, Illinois’ policy structure aims to remedy systemic racism, environmental injustice and economic inequality.
For too long, climate advocates have played an insider’s game, developing solutions with little input from the people most affected. As I have seen in my 15 years as a social justice advocate, we will continue to miss opportunities to pass ambitious policies if we fail to unite all who stand to benefit.
Not involving these communities also leaves policies vulnerable to attacks that threaten their durability — a lesson most recently demonstrated by the stalled progress of the Transportation Climate Initiative, where a lack of community participation in the initial design made the policy more susceptible to fossil industry assault.
Avoiding runaway climate change requires highly organized coalitions to implement policies that drive rapid, continuous emissions reductions during this critical decade. Adopting a strategy of listening sessions to develop the Jobs Act text, unlike most energy legislation, ensured it was written by communities for communities and passed with overwhelming support.
In the heart of the Midwest, the Illinois climate movement proved a big tent can deliver big results, and that leading with jobs and justice is a winning approach.
So what are the big results that set the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act apart? I spoke with several people involved to find out why it stands out and what other states can learn from the process.
Leveraging Investment Dollars to Advance Equity and Justice
Notably, the Act will phase out fossil fuels in the electricity sector by 2045, but it also tackles transportation and building emissions by investing in electric vehicles, new building codes and efficiency. Advocates estimate the law will stimulate $30 billion in total private investment to cut emissions. Measures to advance equity and justice along with protections for workers, low-income households and pollution-burdened communities form the backbone of the law.
Labor groups project the Act’s massive renewables buildout will create 50,000 construction jobs over the next 10 years in Illinois. It authorizes the Illinois Power Authority to spend $580 million per year on wind and solar development (doubling current funding), with 29% of funds allocated to community-based and brownfield solar projects. The spending is projected to enable state utilities to reach 40% renewable electricity by 2030, on the way to 100% clean power by 2045.
Some other states have stated similar goals. But Illinois’ law is the first and only comprehensive climate policy that aims to leverage real dollars to achieve economic and racial equity as core policy goals. In an email, Pastor Scott Onque’, policy director for Faith in Place, and pastor in Chicago’s South Side, called the bill “a forward-thinking, equity-rooted model for states across the U.S. to follow.” As the Illinois Environmental Council explained, no other state even requires diversity reporting for renewables projects, let alone mandates diversity goals for the entire industry.
The Act will transform Illinois’ clean energy workforce: To qualify for a state contract, developers must meet minimum equity and diversity standards by demonstrating that 10% of their work hours (rising to 30% by 2030) are done by “equity eligible persons” or by subcontracting with “equity eligible contractors” (a business owned by equity eligible persons).
So, who is an “equity eligible” person? As defined by the Act, equity eligible persons are those who have been historically marginalized and excluded from educational and career advancement opportunities because of systemic discrimination and racism. The statute includes residents of environmental justice communities, foster care alumni, previously incarcerated persons, or people living in “R3 (restore, reinvest, renew) communities” that have been harmed by violence, excessive incarceration and economic disinvestment.
The law also recognizes the need for training to ensure those eligible are job ready. It allocates $80 million for 13 workforce and contractor incubation hubs, run by local organizations in the communities that need them most, providing clean energy job training, mentorship and administrative services to cultivate small clean energy businesses. And a new “green bank” will offer lending services to jumpstart new clean energy projects in marginalized communities. Illinois communities can expect a rising cohort of clean energy entrepreneurs of color as a result.
The Act aims to overcome additional obstacles, such as a lack of access to transportation and childcare, through funding services such as travel stipends, work clothes, tools, or childcare for training and incubator program participants.
It also builds accountability by requiring the Illinois Power Agency to conduct a disparity study to determine who is benefiting, then re-evaluate programing if the law’s intentions aren’t being met. In a phone conversation, Vote Solar’s John Delurey called these initiatives truly “groundbreaking,” explaining the law, “offers a whole new set of tools to deliver equitable outcomes.”
Nation-Leading Worker Protections
The Act also serves as a landmark for workers’ rights, with the strongest labor standards of any state climate or clean energy policy in the country. In a phone conversation, Pat Devaney of the Illinois AFL-CIO said the law is “the best proof yet that a state can implement aggressive climate policies, but do it with the worker at the forefront, and making sure that the jobs we are creating are good jobs with a prevailing wage that bring people into the middle class.”
Under the Act, all utility-scale wind and solar development and all transmission projects in Illinois are required to have project labor agreement — a long-time strategy of trade unions to protect their workers and ensure fair wages. Additionally, all non-residential wind and solar projects must pay workers the prevailing wage, guaranteeing good-paying jobs even for non-unionized workers.
Just Transition and Environmental Justice
While fossil fuel power plants have burdened communities with a legacy of toxic pollution causing a range of health damages, they have also been a source of good-paying jobs and public revenue. To correct longstanding injustices, policy should prioritize fossil fuel retirements in overburdened communities, while providing adequate community transition funding.
The Jobs Act was designed to address these twin challenges. It mandates retirement of all fossil resources, shutting down the most polluting plants first. This marks an important shift in Illinois climate policy, as the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization has pointed out, by prioritizing emissions reductions from plants with the worst EJ impacts rather than solely focusing on greenhouse gas emissions.
This bill also reinvests directly in these same communities to replace fossil jobs and local tax with new clean energy investment. It commits $47 million annually to convert coal power plants to solar farms or energy storage facilities, and $40 million per year to replace lost property taxes, while supporting economic development and job training in communities where mines or power plants will close. The bill also includes a first-in-the-nation “Displaced Energy Workers Bill of Rights” to protect and support employees of plants set to close.
Since the law is more than 900 pages, it’s impossible to capture all of its equity provisions. But it’s truly comprehensive in its approach, aiming to transform entire systems — transportation, housing, energy — to advance justice. According to Pastor Scott, its equity and just transition provisions, “will ensure all Illinois communities benefit from the expansion of renewable energy.”
Building a Winning Coalition
So how did this “Green New Deal” for Illinois happen? It was more than three years in the making, led by the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, a broad and diverse group including the state’s major environmental groups along with many environmental justice, community-based, labor, faith and public health organizations. They set out to create a sweeping policy that would not only cut dangerous pollution but prioritize jobs and justice and brought these core policy goals to communities across Illinois.
But when it came to the details of how they would advance this vision, they committed to a strategy of listening first. In a phone conversation, Colleen Smith, deputy director of the Illinois Environmental Council, explained the coalition’s stance this way: “We don’t live in a static world, so climate solutions shouldn’t be static either.”
They developed their approaches from a previous failure.
Not long after the 2016 passage of Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act, which expanded the state’s renewables investments and created a new workforce development program, it became clear the bill wasn’t delivering for pollution-burdened communities. It had been written largely by the state’s utilities, with little input from environmental justice, labor or fossil-dependent communities.
In response, the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition launched a new “Listen, Lead, Share” campaign in 2018, holding more than 100 listening sessions across the state to garner input for an ambitious, inclusive bill. Coalition members learned “pain points” and gathered ideas for solutions from the most-impacted communities, which were brought back to a working group that drafted the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.
Smith told me they heard often that the community didn’t need more low-wage jobs and that any policy developed should focus on creating jobs that would build wealth in the communities that have long been denied that opportunity. Both Smith and Delurey confirmed that many of the Act’s most innovative climate justice solutions, including the contractor incubator and the green bank, came directly from listening sessions.
The coalition then engaged in another round of listening sessions to get feedback on the draft bill. At every point along the way, they sought input, even pausing to re-evaluate the bill after George Floyd’s murder to reconsider whether it went far enough in rectifying racial injustice. The result was, in Smith’s words, “a bill written by communities, for communities.”
In addition, the listening sessions built a strong base of highly networked grassroots advocates that played a key role in securing the Act’s passage. The outreach and feedback, as well as community representative’s direct involvement in negotiations, strengthened lawmaker confidence that the bill was indeed what their constituents wanted throughout the legislative process.
For Transformative Climate Policy, We Must Build a Bigger Tent
The climate policies we’re designing now will transform our energy system with wide-ranging impacts for those fossil fuel dependent workers and communities, who must have a say in shaping policies that will determine their future. To create winning coalitions and enact bold policies that will stand the test of time, we need everyone at the table.
While many critical factors helped The Climate and Equitable Jobs Act over the finish line in Illinois, including strong champions in the governor’s office and statehouse, the CJC’s work is testament to the power of an inclusive organizing strategy and policymaking process centering equity and justice.
Every state faces different challenges. Many could benefit from elements of Illinois’ new law, such as jobs training or shutting down plants based on their environmental justice impacts. But those needs may not emerge without broader discussions. That’s why the model of listening that Illinois pioneered should be at the heart of efforts in other states. They don’t need to take three years — time is of the essence — but they should be long enough to engender trust and collaboration.
As climate champions across the country race against time to pass ambitious legislation, the lesson from Illinois is clear: Building a bigger tent can make truly transformative climate policy possible.
The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or its employees.
Speak up, identify the stakes, and use language that inspires action and combats right-wing messaging, says climate communications expert Genevieve Guenther.
Do we generate energy from windmills or wind turbines? Your answer could say a lot about your views on climate change, explains Genevieve Guenther.
Guenther used to be an English professor and literary critic, specializing in the Renaissance. But a growing concern about the climate crisis caused her to switch gears — and her research — to climate communication.
Now she studies right-wing messaging on climate change — like pundits’ use of windmills to imply that wind energy is an outdated technology. She also founded End Climate Silence, an organization focused on strengthening climate change reporting and ending fossil fuel advertising in the media.
She spoke to The Revelator about what inspired her career shift, how climate change reporting has evolved, and her recommendations for how to encourage climate action.
How did you go from being an English professor to a climate activist?
I got super concerned about the climate crisis after I became a mom. My son was born in 2010, which means his life is going to play out over the 21st century. So many of these catastrophic impacts from global heating that are projected to come down the pike, if we don’t stop using fossil fuels, are really going to hit him and his generation.
Author and climate activist Genevieve Guenther. Photo: Courtesy of Genevieve Guenther
I started getting concerned about it — and I started to be concerned in particular with climate communication — because my background is in literary analysis research into how language has political effects, how it creates political dispositions.
I started to read the psychology and the sociology of climate communication. I took online courses in climate science through the edX platform. I did Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project.
I wasn’t quite sure what my role in this fight was going to be, but then in 2017 The New York Times hired columnist Bret Stephens, who at the time was on record as being a climate denier. I was so shocked that the paper of record thought that climate denial was legitimate political commentary that I actually started a petition on Change.org trying to get them to rescind his offer.
Lots of other people were really upset about this, too. The petition quickly got up to 20,000 signatures and I started using Twitter to promote it and in the process I got connected to climate scientists who also had written an open letter to the Times protesting Stephen’s hiring and then other activists and then climate journalists.
How did all of this lead to the organization you started — End Climate Silence?
When Stephens went on to publish his first column, I had this insight about why the uncertainty messaging of the right wing had been so effective, which was something that I felt like I was able to see because of my background in literary analysis. And so I came up with an idea for a book project, which I’m now writing, called the Language of Climate Politics. I realized that part of the reason that right-wing climate denial gets purchase in American culture is not just because the media is polarized, but also because the supposedly legitimate news media isn’t really talking about the climate crisis at all.
They’ll frequently run stories that are clearly climate stories about extreme weather or about energy or geopolitics or even immigration. And they’ll even describe how the climate crisis is affecting what it is they’re reporting on, but they’ll never actually mention the words climate change. And so to me, it felt like part of the problem with raising political will is that people don’t realize that climate change is happening already in the United States — and accelerating.
That’s because the news media isn’t reporting on the climate crisis accurately and with urgency. So I founded this little volunteer organization called End Climate Silence, which is dedicated to not only pushing journalists to cover the climate crisis more frequently, but also to change the paradigm for climate coverage so that it’s not seen as a kind of science or environment story — or even just an energy story — but it’s the context for almost every story that’s being told at this point in human history.
Since you started End Climate Silence in 2018 have you seen a change in the way the media covers climate change?
Yes. We backed off a bit from trying to reach out to journalists directly in part because I feel like the print news media has really changed the way it’s covered the climate crisis.
Since then The Washington Post and The New York Times have both created really world-class climate desks where some amazing reporting is getting done. Many other mainstream newspapers and magazines also have strong climate reporters now.
They’re also tending to talk about the climate crisis in stories that don’t seem to be [directly] about the climate crisis. So in The New York Times, for example, there was a news item about a baby who was born extremely prematurely. He was a twin and his sister died within 24 hours. And by way of telling his story, they also pointed out that the climate crisis is making prematurity worse — especially in the South — and gave the reasons why. That’s exactly the kind of contextualizing coverage that we were hoping to see more of.
The print media has also started to note that fossil fuels are the primary cause of the climate crisis, which is also something new. They used to use the euphemism human activities.
I’m really happy to see that shift as well, but the broadcast news media — the network primetime news and cable news — are still basically performing climate denial on the airways every night.
[For awhile] we had changed our focus to the broadcast news media but had no success whatsoever. Part of it, I think, is because television executives don’t want to alienate their fossil fuel advertisers. There’s a lot of fossil fuel advertising on television.
Then of course there’s Fox News, which talks about the climate crisis actually quite a lot, but only to deny its existence or attribute it to left identity politics and the destruction of the United States.
All of those polarizing effects get amplified by social media where Twitter and Facebook and Instagram just put content in front of you that they know that you’re going to like. So you never see opinions that you would disagree with.
This kind of polarization, which we think is what’s keeping our climate politics stuck, is actually not the problem. The problem is that the center — like The New York Times — is actually still allied with the fossil fuel industry. And that means they’re allied with the right where the climate crisis is concerned. Our politics are stuck because the fossil fuel economy is still the norm and nobody has done anything really yet to change that.
That’s why our latest project is an attempt to get The New York Times to stop making advertisements for the fossil fuel industry. We started with the Times because we’re hopeful that it would actually move on this, but also because it’s deeply embedded in creating fossil fuel propaganda for the oil and gas industry through its T Brand Studio. In our view, the better the journalism, the more credibility it gives to fossil fuel advertising.
How have you seen fossil fuel proponents use language to upend climate action?
Words have two different levels. They have the denotation level, which is what they mean in the dictionary sense. Like if you say a windmill is a machine that uses wind to generate motion or something like. But then there’s what the word windmill implies.
If you say windmill, I imagine an 18th century Dutch painting or something. That’s why right-wing commentators have started calling wind turbines windmills, right? Because they want you to feel like these extremely tall and sweet and even futuristic pieces of technology are these antiquated, homespun, rinky-dink little things that you might see in a Dutch painting. So that’s what they’re doing now — they use words that imply a belief that they want the public to hold.
And then there’s the greenwashing, which is done by pretending that the oil and gas companies are actually researching and implementing climate solutions, most of which are false solutions.
Simultaneously [fossil fuel] trade groups are going behind the scenes to lobby against climate policy in Congress and buy billions of dollars of advertising on social media to reduce support, or even generate opposition, to the climate policies that they’re lobbying against on the Hill.
What advice do you have for climate communicators?
Very often climate communicators will talk about the climate crisis and its solutions in terms that they know that Americans already like. Climate change is a threat to the economy, the solutions are a job creator, everybody likes clean air and water.
So they talk about decarbonization as something that’s going to bring clean air and water or other economic benefits. To my mind, that’s a mistake because it’s apolitical.
We shouldn’t be trying to bring on board the people who’re not already on board. Instead we should be trying to activate the vast majority of people who’re already concerned or even alarmed about the climate crisis but haven’t yet started exerting political pressure on their workplaces or on their government.
I think that communication should try to inspire the already-concerned into action.
And I think that you do that by telling the climate story as a kind of epic story of good and evil, where a band of people — who we invite you to join — are doing everything they can in their scrappy way to try to overthrow an evil empire and found a new world.
The way you do that is you talk about the climate crisis and show how it’s a personal threat to you. And especially to your children. And if that creates a kind of fear in your listener, there’s really no way around that.
But you don’t want to just scare them and leave them there. You also have to activate them into a sense of agency. And for me, the way that I think people do that the best is by inspiring outrage so that you understand that this threat is due to the actions of some people who are profiting off of your victimhood.
Then you also have to talk about what people often only talk about, which are the enormous benefits of decarbonization. They won’t be benefits for everybody. Of course, the fossil fuel industry is not going to benefit. The very wealthy who spend carbon like there’s no tomorrow — who’re insuring there is no tomorrow — they’re probably not going to benefit, at least not economically, from climate policy.
But the rest of us, most people are going to come out wealthier at the end because they’re going to spend less on electricity and heating and healthcare. There’s a whole way in which we can take this as an opportunity to remake the way our economy works to really make people’s lives wealthier, healthier, and happier in all the ways that research shows people really care about.
Global shipping is moving invasive species around the world. Can world governments agree on necessary preventative measures?
In July 2021 federal agents in New Orleans abruptly ordered the 600-foot cargo ship Pan Jasmine to leave U.S. waters. The ship, which had sailed from India, was preparing to offload goods when inspectors noticed fresh sawdust on the cargo deck and discovered non-native beetles and ants boring into wooden packaging materials. The unwelcome insects included an Asian longhorn beetle, a species that was introduced into New York 25 years ago, where it has killed thousands of trees and cost $500 million in control efforts.
The crew of beetles aboard the Pan Jasmine is not an isolated incident. That same month bee experts north of Seattle were scouring forest edges for Asian giant hornet nests. These new arrivals, famously known as “murder hornets,” first turned up in the Pacific Northwest in 2019, also likely via cargo ship. The two-inch hornets threaten crops, bee farms and wild plants by preying on native bees. Officials discovered and destroyed three nests.
And this past autumn Pennsylvania officials urged residents to be on the lookout for spotted lanternflies, handsome, broad-winged natives of Asia discovered in 2014 and now present in at least nine eastern states. Believed to have arrived with a shipment of stone from China, the lanternfly voraciously consumes plants and foliage, threatening everything from oak trees to vineyards.
These are only a few of the more charismatic invasive species that have arrived in the U.S. by cargo ship. But less visible invaders are also coming in and may include pathogens, crabs, seeds, larvae and more — some with the potential to upend ecosystems and agricultural crops.
An Asian longhorn beetle. Photo: James Applebee/USFWS
“Commercial shipping is one the biggest ways invasive species are transported globally,” says Danielle Verna, an environmental monitoring expert who has researched the issue for more than a decade. Her work has taken her to busy ports in Maryland, Alaska and San Francisco Bay, which is considered one of the world’s most biologically invaded estuaries.
Verna, who primarily studies invasive species in marine waters, explains that commercial shipping enables organisms to effortlessly cross geographic boundaries at speeds that cannot occur naturally, which increases their survival rate. And as the volume of shipping increases, so do opportunities for invaders.
“The more shipping we do, and the more connections we make, the more potential we create for the spread of species,” says Verna.
Canadian researchers made the same point in 2019, when they predicted a global surge in invasive species by mid-century, caused by projected increases in overseas commerce. Added to that, climate change and the global shipping glut tied to the pandemic can also benefit new introductions.
By Land and by Sea — The Pathways for Pests
A cargo ship is a mighty thing. It can stretch a fifth of a mile and carry more than 10,000 containers, each holding thousands of items that have already moved by train or truck across great distances.
At any point during these journeys, native species can latch onto items or their packaging and wind up on the deck of a ship headed for another continent.
The ship itself can also be a host, especially for marine species. It’s a daunting array of vectors, but as Verna has learned, some paths are better traveled than others.
“You have to look at the trade partner and the traffic patterns,” she says, pointing out as an example that some Asian habitats resemble ones along the U.S. West Coast. Identifying such similarities can help predict where invasive hotspots may develop.
Dogs can be trained to sniff out invasive species. Photo: USDA
For marine species, Verna says the type of ship also matters. Research shows tankers and bulk carriers or “bulkers” — those carrying unpackaged commodities such as grains or coal — appear especially prone to species transport. Their hull shape, slower speed and duration in ports allow species to gather on a ship’s underside, in a process called biofouling. It inadvertently moves alga, crustations, invertebrates and others to new habitats, where they can affect both native species and infrastructure such as storm drains or even coastal power plants.
Tankers and bulkers also tend to carry more ballast water, which can be sucked aboard on one side of the ocean and discharged on the other. Along with biofouling, it’s a key way marine species reach new habitats. A particularly costly example is the European green crab, currently competing with native Dungeness crabs along the U.S. and Canadian west coasts.
Research by Verna and others on the effect of tankers and bulkers shows that the type of ship arriving in a port can be a better predictor of biological invasions than the simple volume of ships. It also means seemingly unrelated shifts in trade activity can invite a rise in foreign species. For instance, the arrival of more tankers and bulkers as coal and natural gas exports increased in Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf Coast drove up ballast discharge in local estuaries.
But while tankers and bulkers may matter most for marine invaders, container ships pose unique opportunities for the plants and insects that, like the lanternfly, can quickly spread across a landscape. In this case, the commodities and their packaging pose the greatest concern. Plants and anything made of wood are especially hazardous.
Spotted lanternflies. Photo: Stephen Ausmus/USDA
For example, in 2017 Wisconsin officials warned that log furniture imported from China and sold locally was infested with wood-boring beetles. Officials had been alerted by consumers who found sawdust as they unpacked their new furniture. The beetles and their larvae can survive for two years inside the furniture before emerging as adults, officials warned.
Rima Lucardi, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Georgia who has studied invasive species for 20 years, also points to the importance of wood packaging materials, which accompany most ocean-bound goods arriving in the United States. These include crates, pallets, skids and cases — the types of materials that got the Pan Jasmine kicked out of U.S. waters. Lucardi says species like the beetles found aboard that ship commonly stow away in packaging materials and can, if given the chance, disrupt ecosystems and economies in places like the Southeast’s lumber-producing forests.
Research increasingly shows both the outside and inside of containers provide the nooks and seams where parasites, snails, insects and other organisms can lurk or lay eggs. Such surfaces have likely spread the brown marmorated stink bug around the world, which now damages U.S. crops and was even recently blamed for delaying car shipments to Australia.
Lucardi’s work recently led her inside the shipping containers that deliver so many of the goods that surround us. Acting on a request by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspects inbound cargo, Lucardi examined the intake grilles of refrigerated containers arriving at the sprawling Garden City Terminal in Savannah, Georgia, the largest container port in the country.
Garden City Terminal. Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
“Refrigerated shipping containers are much like any refrigerator,” says Lucardi, explaining that they need constant air exchange, which means they can suck up insects and plant propagules from anywhere along their routes.
Lucardi’s research found thousands of seeds from roughly 30 species, including wild sugarcane, a federally prohibited noxious weed that has invaded parts of Florida. While conducting the work, Lucardi also experienced the fast-paced port environment that whisks goods — and invasive species — from ports to almost infinite inland locations.
“A container can get put on a truck or train within 24 hours of arriving,” says Lucardi.
That busy port environment is another important piece of the invasive species puzzle. As just one example of a range of possible impacts, at ports across the globe artificial lighting attracts swarms of native insects on a nightly basis, any number of whom may get sucked into a container’s intake grille, fly inside a container or lay eggs on a container’s surfaces.
Lucardi says these and other vectors bring non-native species to U.S. ports every day, although less than 1% become established. But that small fraction has already transformed the landscape — and even human cultures — in regions across the country.
An Old Threat, Compounded by Climate and the Pandemic
Ships have moved species about the world for ages. Researchers believe that in the 1840s a strain of the pathogen Phytophthora infestans, which causes potato blight, followed trade routes from Mexico to Belgium, where it began damaging crops. It quickly reached Ireland, where the Irish Lumper was the spud of choice. With the Lumper offering a veritable monocrop, P. infestans decimated crops and gardens, leading to famine, death and mass emigration to the United States, where people like my own great-grandmother built new lives in cities like Boston.
But that’s hardly all. In the late 19th century, a fungus that likely arrived with Asian nursery stock began killing American chestnuts. Once known as the “perfect tree” for its quality lumber, superior tannins and abundant nuts, the chestnut was wiped out in just decades. From Maine to Georgia and west to Illinois, 4 billion trees died, forever altering the landscape. In an example of cascading co-extinctions, three species of chestnut-dependent moths also disappeared.
More recently the Asian emerald ash borer, which likely harbored away in wood packaging materials, has destroyed tens of millions of U.S. trees since just 2002. Similarly, millions of hemlock trees in the eastern United States are succumbing to the woolly hemlock adelgid, which likely arrived on Japanese ornamental plants. As the hemlock slowly disappears, the region loses its most common native conifer, a unique habitat niche, and a source of long-term carbon sequestration.
A tree damaged by emerald ash borers. Photo: Judy Gallagher (CC BY 2.0)
The emerald ash borer and wooly adelgid are also getting a leg up from climate change, which has warmed winters and allowed the insects to expand their North American range. Verna and Lucardi say such climate-induced expansions are expected to continue, and not just in forests. Evidence suggests warming waters are carrying European green crabs north toward Alaska.
Both scientists also acknowledge that shipping delays associated with the pandemic may further aid invasives, whether through ships spending longer times stuck in ports or containers remaining stationary for longer periods in shipyards.
Prevention, Prevention, Prevention
Over decades the United States and other countries have spun an intricate web of regulations meant to reduce the spread of species by cargo ship. The story of the Pan Jasmine shows that in at least some cases the system can work. But governing a global fleet of thousands of ships, moving among hundreds of ports, is slow and tortuous work.
Few know that better than Marcie Merksamer, an environmental biologist and ballast water expert who has studied the issue for two decades and helped shape implementation of an international ballast water-management treaty. The agreement, governed by the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization, was written in 2004 but is only now taking effect.
Merksamer says the gap between writing the rules and implementing them includes a 13-year effort to convince enough countries to sign the treaty for it to be ratified. In that time, governments, industry, intergovernmental agencies and others wrangled over an ocean of details, from the technological to the political.
“It’s very complicated,” says Merksamer. “Regulations that work for an island nation like Fiji don’t necessarily work for a larger country like Norway.”
In the end the new rules require ships to adhere to a discharge standard that, in the interim, requires them to exchange ballast water in deep seas far from coastlines. That will later change to a requirement to equip all ships with high-tech water-treatment systems proven effective at treating organisms in ballast water.
More than 80 countries have signed on — representing 90% of global shipping tonnage — and the treaty is in what the IMO terms an “experience-building phase.” Merksamer describes this as a time for industry and regulators to try the rules, test the new treatment systems, and gather feedback and data. The phase was scheduled to end in 2022, but the IMO is considering delaying that until 2024, when the treaty would become more stringent.
But that’s not all, explains Merksamer. During this same long interval, the United States, which is not party to the IMO treaty, plotted its own course toward ballast-water regulation after years of lawsuits and proposed legislative solutions by industry and conservation groups. In 2018 Congress finally responded with the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, which amended the Clean Water Act to clarify regulatory roles. Rulemaking for that law is ongoing, but it’s expected to eventually create standards for commercial operations.
Similar tales surround other vectors. For instance, in 2011 the IMO finalized international voluntary guidelines to reduce biofouling on commercial vessels. The guidelines lack the force of the ballast-water treaty but are intended to create global consistency. Then in 2014, New Zealand introduced the world’s first mandatory national standards for biofouling. They align with the IMO guidelines but require ships entering the country to meet a “clean” standard or face on-site cleaning.
Ballast discharge. Photo: International Maritime Organization
Regarding the topsides of ships, international rules for wood packaging materials were established by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization in 2002 and have since been amended several times. They mandate a standardized stamp showing materials have been treated with either heat or the highly toxic methyl bromide fumigant. In the United States, Custom and Border Protection agents — like the ones who booted the Pan Jasmine out of New Orleans — inspect for the stamps. And while the story of the Pan Jasmine and other 2021 seizures are encouraging, critics point out that agents only inspect a fraction of the cargo arriving each year.
Regulation of shipping containers is far less developed. The FAO promotes voluntary cleanliness guidelines, but in 2015 it paused movement toward an international standard. Concurrent North American efforts have also only focused on voluntary practices, while a coalition of industry groups recently voiced opposition to development of any international rules. However, Australia and New Zealand now tout a partnership with industry that requires inbound containers to be cleaned inside and out and sprayed with insecticides.
With research by Lucardi and others shining a light on containers as vectors, many observers are hoping for a more anchored global policy. And while the regulatory sphere is convoluted and evolving, a unanimous thread is its focus on prevention.
Prevention is the number-one way to manage invasive species, says Verna. “It presents upfront costs, but they’ll be lower than most follow-up management actions.”
The sentiment resonates as officials across the country scramble after errant hornets, beetles, flies and crabs, and as residents grieve the loss of native denizens like chestnuts and hemlocks.
This year scientists identified birds, lizards, orchids and other species that have been lost. How many more will follow?
On Sept. 29, 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its intention to remove 23 long-unseen species from the protection of the Endangered Species Act — because they’ve probably gone extinct, and you can’t keep protecting what’s already gone.
Among the proposed dead: the ivory-billed woodpecker, an iconic lost species often referred to as “the Lord God bird,” supposedly based on the words of wonder people once exclaimed upon seeing the magnificent creature flying above them.
The news set off a firestorm of media coverage and social-media shares.
The similar extinction of a frog from Kenya did not. Nor did that of a lichen from Florida, a dragonfly from the South Atlantic or a fish from Maryland.
And that’s all too typical of the extinction crisis, which United Nations scientists predict could cost the planet up to a million species this century — most of which will disappear in silence, unnoticed, unremarked upon, even as the web of life that supports humans on this planet continues to unravel.
Yet the stories of these losses deserve telling. They help motivate efforts to save what still exists, allow us to reflect on our place in and on this world, and — especially in this age of pandemics — remind us that our ecological fates are all interconnected.
Here, briefly, are dozens of these stories — of the birds, reptiles, invertebrates, trees and other species declared extinct in 2021, pulling from scientific reports, the IUCN Red List, news articles and my own reporting. As with my lists of extinctions from 2019 and 2020, most of these lost species haven’t been seen in decades. Many may still be the subject of later searches, because proving an extinction is always hard, and hope remains eternal.
And of course, all these disappearances can be linked to human activities — a reminder of the effect we have around us.
The Lord God bird and 22 other American species — These birds, mussels, fish and other long-unseen species from the contiguous United States, Hawai‘i and Guam disappeared due to human activity, ranging from habitat destruction to pollution and the introduction of nonnative species. Most hadn’t been seen in decades; all were added to the endangered species list too late to save them.
Bachman’s warbler
Bridled white-eye
Flat pigtoe mussel
Green-blossom pearly mussel
Ivory-billed woodpecker
Kauai akialoa
Kauai nukupuu
Kauaʻi ʻōʻō
Large Kauai thrush
Little Mariana fruit bat
Maui ākepa
Maui nukupuʻu
Molokai creeper
Phyllostegia glabra var. lanaiensis
Po`ouli
San Marcos gambusia
Scioto madtom
Southern acornshell mussel
Stirrupshell mussel
Tubercled-blossom pearly mussel
Turgid-blossom pearly mussel
Upland combshell mussel
Yellow-blossom pearly mussel
Maryland darter — This 3-inch fish hasn’t been seen since 1988, despite intense searches for any evidence of its continued existence. As with the ivory-billed woodpecker, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now preparing to declare it extinct.
Norwegian wolf — Hunters and agriculture killed off the last wolves in Norway and Sweden more than 50 years ago. They were never a separate species, but research published this past year found that the wolves in these two countries were genetically distinct from the animals in nearby Finland, which have since partially repopulated their cousins’ home territory.
Half the snakes and lizards of the Guadalupe Islands — Two papers published last year identified at least 31 species (which people had forgotten even existed) that disappeared after the 1492 colonization of the islands. Introduced species such as cats and rats, along with intense transformation of the landscape by humans, appears to be to blame.
13 Australian species — This list of 12 mammals and one reptile (the Christmas Island forest skink) contains no real surprises. The species had all been declared extinct already, but the Australian government acknowledged their loss this past year and formally added them to its list of the country’s extinctions.
Eungella gastric-brooding frog — This Australian frog may be the latest victim of the amphibian-killing chytrid fungus. A last-ditch search this past year failed to find any individual frogs, and although the species hasn’t yet been formally declared extinct, things don’t look good. On the other hand, the researchers did observe three other critically endangered species in the same habitats, and they now have a chance at protection.
Epactoides giganteus — This dung beetle was newly described in 2021, based on a specimen collected on either Réunion Island or Madagascar in the 19th century and unseen since. Wherever it came from, it’s probably no longer there.
Gongylomorphus borbonicus — Another Réunion species, in this case a skink not seen since 1839, shortly after the accidental introduction to the island of the lizard-eating Southeast Asian wolf snake. The IUCN formally declared it extinct this past year.
Java stingaree — This Indonesian ray was only observed once, back in 1862. As part of an assessment finding that more than one-third of sharks and related species are now threatened, scientists have classified it as “critically endangered (possibly extinct)” due to overfishing. It joins the previously reported “lost shark” and the Red Sea torpedo in that category.
Xerces blue butterfly — No surprise here, as the striking butterfly was last seen in the 1940s and has long been considered the first North American insect driven to extinction by human activities (in this case urban development). But new genetic analysis of remaining specimens finally concluded that the Xerces blue was a unique species, not a subpopulation of another butterfly, as some had previously thought, making that extinction even more notable.
Carolina parakeet — Again, no surprise, as this bird was declared extinct in 1939 after decades of hunting for its feathers and to protect crops. But new models suggest that the parakeet actually went extinct twice, with the western subspecies disappearing around 1914 and the eastern subspecies persisting as late as the mid-1940s. Why does that matter now? As researchers wrote, “Since the Carolina parakeet was a wide-ranging species that went extinct during a period of rapid agricultural and industrial expansion, conditions that mirror those occurring in many parts of the world where parrot diversity is highest, any progress we make in unraveling the mystery of their disappearance may be vital to modern conservation efforts.”
Four Czech orchids — A thorough assessment of the orchids found in the Czech Republic classified four species as extinct: Dactylorhiza curvifolia, Gymnadenia odoratissima, Anacamptis coriophora and Herminium monorchis (some of these still exist in other nations). Agriculture, livestock and pollution get the blame for the disappearance of these plants in the country — and the remaining orchid species there aren’t doing too well, either.
Cora timucua — This Florida lichen was identified this past year, after sitting in historical collections for decades. The fungus was last collected in 1985 and most of its known habitats have been converted from their natural states. Researchers call this species “potentially extinct” and say it could still exist in Ocala National Forest, “although recent macrolichen surveys in that area did not encounter this species.”
Du Toit’s torrent frog — Last seen on Kenya’s Mount Elgon in 1962, this evolutionarily unique frog was part of a group of species that split off from other amphibians 70 million years ago. More recently, its habitat was destroyed by logging and agriculture. Intense searches have failed to find evidence that the frog still exists, and a paper published in 2021 concluded it’s probably extinct. “It’s not just losing a species, it is losing a distinctive branch of the evolutionary tree,” said coauthor Simon Loader of the Natural History Museum, London.
Arachis rigonii — No one has seen this yellow-flowering South American legume — a relative of the peanut and nutmeg — in the wild since 1959, and they likely won’t see it again. It only grew in one location, which is now “in one of the most populated cities of Bolivia,” according to the IUCN, which declared it “extinct in the wild” in 2021.
Rodrigues blue-dotted day gecko — Native to the island nation of Mauritius — famously also home to the dodo — this once-common reptile hasn’t been seen in more than 100 years. The IUCN declared it extinct this past year, blaming its disappearance on invasive rats, and possibly on the cats brought to the island to control the rats. Deforestation also likely played a role in this extinction.
Bois Julien — Also from Mauritius, this tree isn’t technically extinct, but you can’t get much closer to gone. One wild specimen remains, fenced in on private property, “but it is not producing viable fruits,” according to the IUCN, which declared the species “extinct in the wild” last year. Several nonfruiting clones also exist, but the likelihood of propagation or rewilding seems slim.
Myoporum rimatarense — This tree from French Polynesia was only collected once, back in 1921, and extensive plant surveys have failed to find another. The IUCN declared it extinct this past year, blaming habitat destruction and logging for its loss.
Bourreria veracruzana — No one has seen this Mexican tree since 1984. The IUCN declared it extinct in 2021, blaming habitat degradation “by agro-industry farming and agro-industry-ranching.”
Tetramolopium lepidotum arbusculum — This Hawaiian plant, part of the daisy family, once grew on the island of Maui. Last seen in 1842, the IUCN assessed it as extinct this past year, blaming “severe decline in habitat due to the impacts of invasive plants and animals.”
Boesenbergia albolutea and Boesenbergia rubrolutea — Neither of these plants (ginger relatives native, respectively, to the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean and northeastern India) have been seen since the late 19th century. A paper published last year recommended classifying them each as “extinct in the wild,” although they remain unseen. The IUCN currently lists B. albolutea as “data deficient” but does not have a listing for B. rubrolutea.
St. Helena darter — This dragonfly, native to the South Atlantic volcanic island for which it’s named, was last seen in 1963, when a single female was collected. The species was assessed as extinct in 1986, then listed by the IUCN as “data deficient” in 2011, and then “critically endangered (possibly extinct)” in 2019. Last year it was reassessed again, removing the “possibly” from the equation — although the invasive frogs that killed it off appear to be doing just fine.
Licaria mexicana — An evergreen tree from Hidalgo and Veracruz, Mexico, last seen around 1930 and unlikely to persist “as a result of forest clearance in the area and habitat completely destroyed where it was known from,” according to the IUCN.
Gallirallus astolfoi — Scientists described this rail, a type of bird, in a paper published Dec. 20, making it the last reported extinction of 2021. This potentially flightless bird from the island of Rapa Iti in the South Pacific is known only from a single leg bone, although that was enough to declare it a “new” species — the seventh extinct rail species from French Polynesia. This one probably went extinct hundreds of years ago after humans colonized the island. Other extinctions on Rapa Iti have been blamed on predation by people and feral goats, as well as rats and cats, along with habitat destruction. Exactly how this species disappeared remains a mystery.
A new study looked at a group of forest lands that hold big conservation potential but aren’t adequately protected.
It’s a small world for relictual slender salamanders, who live only in California. Development has slashed their suitable habitat to just two small areas in the mountains of Kern County — so keeping those last vestiges wild is critical to the amphibians’ survival.
And there’s some hope for that, because half of the salamanders’ habitat is in what’s known as “inventoried roadless areas.”
The lands, designated under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, are generally undeveloped areas that are 5,000 acres or larger and not already classified as protected wilderness. The roadless rule — which applies to 58 million acres of national forest lands in the United States — leaves these landscapes open to uses like hunting and camping, and even oil development, but limits most road construction and commercial logging. Some areas have been degraded by livestock grazing, which is permitted by the rule, but most are relatively intact wild lands that provide enormous conservation value.
But just how much?
A new study by scientists from the Wilderness Society, published in Global Ecology and Conservation, looked at the importance of national forest roadless areas for vulnerable wildlife species — like the relictual slender salamander — and more than 500 other mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles in the contiguous United States.
The research is time sensitive.
“One of the most pressing challenges facing the country right now is the looming extinction crisis,” says Matthew Dietz, lead ecologist at the Wilderness Society and lead author of the study.
For years scientists and conservation activists have been calling for the world’s governments to help halt the loss of biodiversity by protecting 30% of the Earth’s land and water by 2030 and 50% by 2050.
It’s not clear yet how the United States will hit that target. So Dietz and his colleagues decided to see what role roadless areas could play.
“We wanted to know how valuable they could be in stemming the extinction crisis in the United States,” he says.
Shifting Ground
It’s possible, the research shows, that focusing on conserving inventoried roadless areas would be a low-cost strategy with big ecological gains.
That’s because the lands are “already federally owned, they’re ecologically intact, and they have minimal current conflicting uses,” says Dietz.
But there’s one big catch: Their fate is a bit tenuous. Any administration can create exemptions or change the regulations with public process, and states can also petition to change the roadless rules, as both Alaska and Utah have both done in recent years.
The Trump administration stripped roadless protections away from 9 million acres of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest — a move that President Biden has sought to undo.
In 2020, roadless restrictions were lifted in the Tongass National Forest—areas previously determined by the @forestservice to be critical for protection—putting wildlife, communities, and the planet at risk. Now we have a chance to reverse this decision: https://t.co/Sn2BKDxP02pic.twitter.com/aLBjh8sRXk
But as Dietz’s study found, efforts to give stronger protections to roadless areas could go a long way in helping to reach conservation goals and slow extinctions.
The research found that of the 537 species identified as being of conservation concern, 57% had at least some suitable habitat in one or more of the inventoried roadless areas.
“That’s pretty surprising considering that these roadless areas make up just 2% of the lower 48 states,” says Dietz. “And especially since they tend to be concentrated geographically mostly in the West, mostly biased toward mountain ranges and almost exclusively of a single biome type — forests.”
Every roadless area, they found, provides critical habitat for at least two vulnerable wildlife species and in one case — Tumacacori in Arizona — up to 62 species. For some wildlife, roadless areas made up a significant portion of their habitat. There were eight that had 20% of their total suitable habitat in inventoried roadless areas and 45 species with more than 10%. The relictual slender salamander was the highest, with 50%.
“That’s a species for which inventoried roadless areas are very important,” says Dietz.
It’s important to strengthen protections for roadless areas to maintain suitable habitat for species that rely heavily on it now, he says. But these wild lands could also be vital in the future for some animals to recolonize — like woodland caribou, for example.
In 2019 the last member of the South Selkirk herd — the only population of woodland caribou left in the lower 48 — was moved into a captive-breeding program.
However, more than one third of the animal’s total suitable habitat in the contiguous United States remains in roadless areas. So there’s habitat for the caribou — but no caribou currently. That could change.
“If there’s any hope of bringing woodland caribou back to the contiguous United States, a lot is going to depend on preserving that roadless habitat,” says Dietz.
Stronger Protections
So what’s the best way to make sure roadless areas have enduring protections?
One strategy would be an administrative action. “During national forest land management planning processes, the agency can recommend any roadless lands to be designated as wilderness by Congress,” says Dietz. And until Congress decides on whether or not to act on that, the Forest Service would manage them as de facto wilderness. This definition would forbid almost all human activity on these lands, with the exception of research and non-mechanized recreation such as hiking or horseback riding.
The second way would be for Congress itself to pass a law designating all or some roadless areas as wilderness. That, says Dietz, is the gold standard for land protection. But Congress could also codify into federal law the protections that exist under the current roadless area conservation rule.
Kootznoowoo Wilderness, a federally-protected wildlerness area on Admiralty Island, Alaska. Photo: Forest Service/Don MacDougall (CC BY 2.0)
H.R. 279, the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2021, would do just that, although the bill hasn’t moved forward since it was introduced a year ago and its fate seems uncertain in today’s partisan political environment.
Whatever happens, making sure protections endure for roadless areas wouldn’t get the country all the way to its 30×30 goal, nor would it be the only solution needed to halt the extinction crisis, says Dietz.
But it would be a big — and necessary — conservation step.
“As a nation, we have to ask ourselves this question,” says Dietz. “If we can’t protect these federal public lands that are some of the last of our country’s wild, ecologically intact and unroaded forests — that also provide habitat for the majority of our most vulnerable wildlife species — what can we protect?”
Known for growing on steep cliffs, Brighamia insignis has become an icon for plant conservation — not only in Hawai‘i but worldwide. Although it’s now extinct in the wild, more than 250 plants are maintained in collections at some 52 institutions globally, proof that people can sometimes save plants from extinction even when their habitats suffer.
