"More than 300 lobbyists for food and farming organisations have participated at this year’s United Nations climate talks, known as COP30, taking place in the Brazilian Amazon, where agribusiness is the leading cause of deforestation, a new investigation has found."
"State officials are failing to protect the health and safety of thousands of young field laborers, an investigation has found."
"To many locals, the Los Angeles River — hugged by concrete embankments and heavy vehicle traffic — hardly seems like a river at all. ... But when Doug Rosenberg came upon a shopping cart tipped over in the river's shallow waters back in 2020, he saw the potential to meet nature halfway."
"President Donald Trump’s administration moved Wednesday to roll back protections for imperiled species and the places they live, reviving a suite of changes to Endangered Species Act regulations from the Republican’s first term that were blocked under former Democratic President Joe Biden."
"California farms applied an average of 2.5m lb of Pfas “forever chemicals” per year on cropland from 2018 to 2023, or a total of about 15m lb, a new review of state records shows."
"In some states, more than 90 percent of wetlands could be excluded from safeguards provided by the Clean Water Act."
"After a bird flu outbreak tore through Midwestern barns, killing hens and spiking egg prices, the USDA didn’t investigate whether the virus was airborne. ProPublica did. Experts say ProPublica’s analysis offers a plausible explanation for how the wind could have helped spread the virus, exposing a flaw in the USDA’s playbook to fight it."
"Agribusiness companies enlisted an army of Brazilian social media influencers ahead of the United Nations climate summit, now underway in the Amazonian city of Belém, where the meat industry’s surging greenhouse gas emissions and role in deforestation are high on the agenda."
"The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday it is redefining the scope of the nation’s bedrock clean water law to significantly limit the wetlands it covers, building on a Supreme Court decision two years ago that removed federal protections for vast areas."
In “We Are Eating the Earth,” author Michael Grunwald explains masterfully how good intentions have led us astray over our food system and climate change, writes BookShelf editor Tom Henry. Whether it’s our obsession with meat, myths about biofuels and regenerative agriculture, or feel-good ideas based on bad science, Grunwald argues it’s time for a fundamental shift in values.
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