19 August 20
Will RSN Have a Budget to Continue Its Work?
When an organization does not have a corporate sugar daddy, or mommy, every fund-raising drive is the one the determines what the budget will be going forward. That's bad because we always stay hungry, but it's good because we always stay hungry. The logic of that is stark and unavoidable. Truth: We love it this way. Be a Reader Supporter, it feels great!
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18 August 20
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Charles Pierce | John Kasich Should Shut His Gob About What Qualifies as 'Extreme'
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "On Monday night, both of these people - former Congresswoman Susan Molinari and former Governor John Kasich - will be speaking at the Democratic National Convention. Julian Castro will not be speaking. Neither will Beto O'Rourke, to name only two actual Democratic politicians."
The Republican ex-governor has secured a speaking slot, along with three other Republicans, at the Democratic National Convention.
n 1996, the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention said the following about the incumbent Democratic president.
Now, think about Bill Clinton. He promises one thing and does another. He hopes we'll forget his broken promises. But I ask you -- have you forgotten that Bill Clinton promised a middle class tax cut, then passed the largest tax increase in American history? I didn't think so. Have you forgotten that Bill Clinton promised common-sense health care reform, only to impose a huge Washington-run bureaucracy health care system on all of us? And have you forgotten that Bill Clinton promised to balance the budget, first in five years, then 10, then seven, then nine, then went on to veto the first balanced budget in 25 years? Americans know that Bill Clinton's promises have the lifespan of a Big Mac on Air Force One.
Earlier that evening, another speaker at the RNC said the following:
You know, if you're like me, you grew up with parents who worked hard. My dad carried mail on his back for 29 years. My mother would rather walk than take the bus, just to save 50 cents. My parents educated three kids without a dime of student loans so their kids would have more than they had. I'm proud to serve in a Congress where our goal has been to make America better, with our children's future as our guiding star. As we approach the 21st century, we must all be part of an effort to guarantee the promise of a brighter future for all of those who will follow us, and ladies and gentlemen, that is America's greatest legacy, that our children are left with more than our parents left to us.
A big part of that promise has been our dedication and work to balance the budget. You may think that budgets are about green eye shades and numbers, but it's far more important that that. You see, budgets are about ideas. Budgets are about values. And most important, they are about people.
They will be joined by dueling Republican Whitmans—Christie Todd and Meg. A bunch of people who thrived in the days in which the Republican Party was cultivating within itself the forces that produced the current president* will kick off a convention designed to crush the monster they helped make inevitable. This is guaranteed to make me slightly more than moderately crazy.
Everybody’s gone all realpolitik on this, just as everyone suddenly developed a sweet-tooth for the likes of Bill Kristol and David Frum over the last three years as the prion disease for which they were primary vectors became full-blown. Big tent and all that. Which would be fine if Kasich hadn’t gone out of his way Monday morning to throw a ring-and-run elbow at one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent young voices. From Buzzfeed News:
“People on the extreme, whether they're on the left or on the right, they get outsized publicity that tends to define their party. You know, I listen to people all the time make these statements, and because AOC gets outsized publicity doesn't mean she represents the Democratic Party. She's just a part, just some member of it. And it's on both sides, whether it's the Republicans or whether it's the Democrats.”
OK, just to start, as my grandmother used to say, who the hell is this guy when he’s at home? Who’s John Kasich to decide where the “extreme” lies in Democratic politics? He still supports the damn Balanced Budget Amendment, not only an extreme idea, but also the worst one in American politics. He signed a bill that would imprison doctors for performing a common abortion procedure. Now, that’s extreme. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most popular figures in her political party; certainly, she’s a more popular Democrat than Kasich is a Republican. Her most prominent policy positions—the Green New Deal and Medicare For All—have widespread support inside and outside the party. And a helluva lot more Democrats would rather hear her speak than him. So John Kasich can shut his gob, take a seat, and be grateful that nobody throws produce at him from the audience.
Medical workers taking a blood test for antibodies in Miami Lakes, Florida, in July. (photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Scientists See Signs of Lasting Immunity to Covid-19, Even After Mild Infections
Katherine J. Wu, The New York Times
Wu writes: "To the immune system, not all germs are equally memorable. But our body's cells seem to be seriously studying up on the coronavirus."
EXCERPT:
Scientists who have been monitoring immune responses to the virus are now starting to see encouraging signs of strong, lasting immunity, even in people who developed only mild symptoms of Covid-19, a flurry of new studies suggests. Disease-fighting antibodies, as well as immune cells called B cells and T cells that are capable of recognizing the virus, appear to persist months after infections have resolved — an encouraging echo of the body’s enduring response to other viruses.
“Things are really working as they’re supposed to,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona and an author on one of the new studies, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson. (photo: Fox News)
I Had to Call Police After Tucker Carlson Targeted Me on Air, Photojournalist Says
Miranda Bryant, Guardian UK
Bryant writes: "A photojournalist said he hid in fear in his own home, locking himself in an upstairs room with his family, after people tried to break in when he was named on air by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson."
Tristan Spinski says people tried to break into his home after Carlson revealed his name over upcoming New York Times piece
photojournalist said he hid in fear in his own home, locking himself in an upstairs room with his family, after people tried to break in when he was named on air by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Freelance photographer Tristan Spinski was working on an as yet unpublished story for the New York Times about Carlson’s life in Maine, where he spends summers, when the presenter named him and reporter Murray Carpenter on his show on the night of 20 July.
Carlson told his audience of millions the newspaper was working on a story “about where my family and I live”. He also called Carpenter “a political activist”.
According to a chilling 911 transcript published by the Washington Post, within about an hour of the broadcast, people came to the door of Spinski’s home in Maine and tried to break in.
In the call, made to Lincoln county at 9.57pm, Spinski’s brother-in-law reports “loud banging noise downstairs and some threats coming to the house recently just in the past hour”.
He adds that they had received a call and a voicemail “saying ‘We know where you live, beware’ and things of that nature”.
When the dispatcher asks about the threats, Spinski’s brother-in-law explains that after the mention by Carlson, Spinski had been “getting threats all night long”.
“We’re currently upstairs but they’re trying to break in downstairs,” he says.
The transcript appears to show Spinski joining the call, saying “there is definitely people on our property” and that they are “locked upstairs in the house”.
He adds: “Yeah, there was a definite … we can feel our house when someone is trying to get into it downstairs. It was significant.”
The New York Times told the Post it had been in discussion with Fox News for “several days” and had “assured them” it did not plan to photograph Carlson’s home or publish his address.
Despite this, Carlson told viewers: “So how would Murray Carpenter and his photographer, Tristan Spinski, feel if we told you where they live? If we put pictures of their homes on the air?”
Carlson did not say where either journalist lived. Carpenter, however, also reported being harassed.
Fox News and the Lincoln county commissioner’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The New York Times pointed to its comments to the Post.
Spinski also did not immediately return a request to comment. But he has said that since the incident, he has sought to distance himself from the story.
“I’m apolitical in my work, and this has politicised my role in some ways,” he told the Post. “I can’t photog[raph] a story that I’m a part of, if that makes sense.”
Late mail order prescriptions are affecting veterans. (photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
USPS Delays Are Causing Veterans to Get Their Prescriptions Late
Rosalind Adams, Venessa Wong, Dan Vergano and Ken Bensinger, BuzzFeed
Excerpt: "Lisa Adametz has been waiting for her cholesterol medication since July 29. The Postal Service picked it up from a Veterans Affairs hospital weeks ago, but according to the tracking number, it still hasn't been shipped, or even processed."
READ MORE
A slide from an internal presentation shown to Emergent executives. (photo: WP)
The Government Spent Tens of Millions on a Treatment for Chemical Weapons Exposure. The Company That Makes It Won't Say Whether It Works.
Jon Swaine, The Washington Post
Swaine writes: "In June 2017, a director of regulatory affairs at the government contractor Emergent BioSolutions told colleagues that she objected to claims the company was making in a brochure for one of its newer products: a drug injector for victims of exposure to nerve agents."
n June 2017, a director of regulatory affairs at the government contractor Emergent BioSolutions told colleagues that she objected to claims the company was making in a brochure for one of its newer products: a drug injector for victims of exposure to nerve agents.
“Functionality testing has not been successful in this device,” Brenda Wolling wrote in comments obtained by The Washington Post. Regarding a claim that the injector was designed to withstand “challenging operational and logistical conditions,” she wrote, “No testing ever conducted.” Even to describe the product as a “treatment of nerve agent poisoning,” Wolling wrote, “implies that we have efficacy data showing it works.”
Three months later, the Trump administration awarded Emergent a $20 million no-bid contract to supply those very injectors to the State Department. The firm later received a second contract, worth up to $100 million, to supply the agency with more of the injectors — sold under the name Trobigard — and related treatments.
A Post examination found that after a number of production problems, Emergent last year quietly began to recall tens of thousands of Trobigard units from foreign buyers and removed Trobigard from the official product line on its website and in its securities filings. The examination shows that Emergent secured contracts to supply an unproven medical treatment at a time when the mission of protecting U.S. diplomats against chemical attacks had taken on fresh urgency, in an effort the government code-named Project Mandrake.
The Post obtained internal company records, reviewed emails from Emergent staffers and government officials, and interviewed nine people involved in making, selling or buying the Trobigard injectors.
Separate from its work for the State Department, Emergent is among the largest suppliers of vaccines to the Strategic National Stockpile. The company built its market position by acquiring biodefense competitors and the rights to various treatments, as it did in the case of Trobigard.
Nina DeLorenzo, an Emergent spokeswoman, said in a statement that Wolling’s views were “taken seriously” but “do not and did not necessarily represent the company’s position.”
DeLorenzo said the brochure on which Wolling commented “is old and has been superseded.” Asked whether it had been shown to State Department officials, she said: “We are contractually restricted from discussing this.”
DeLorenzo attributed the recalls of Trobigard from the militaries of the United Arab Emirates and Italy to a flaw detected by Emergent’s “rigorous quality processes” in a small minority of injector devices She said no injectors sold to the State Department were affected.
DeLorenzo said the subsequent decision to move Trobigard from the “products” section of Emergent’s website and securities filings to a “pipeline” of products in development was part of a “wide-ranging internal review” and was not due to any “specific concerns about the product.”
Asked directly whether Trobigard works, DeLorenzo said, “While we are restricted in what claims we can make about Trobigard under applicable law, it is considered by government customers to be an essential defense against a chemical weapons attack and we stand by it.” She added, “We have conducted studies to assure ourselves and our customers that the auto-injector device will perform as our government customers expect.”
Although Emergent is seeking approval for Trobigard from health authorities in Belgium, it has not sought approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — a circumstance that bars the product’s sale in the United States. The State Department told Emergent that it had obtained a legal opinion from the FDA’s general counsel saying the department could buy Trobigard for use by U.S. diplomats overseas, according to a company record.
A State Department spokesman, Ruben Harutunian, declined to comment on The Post’s findings.
In addition to the State Department deals, Emergent has been awarded contracts worth up to $75 million by the Defense Department to develop other injectors for potential use by troops to counter certain kinds of chemical attacks.
New to the market
Government officials, including at the State Department and the national stockpile, had previously bought FDA-approved auto-injectors of nerve agent antidotes from Meridian Medical Technologies, a division of Pfizer. But in 2013, Meridian halted manufacture of its injectors after some were found to be faulty. This set off shortages across the government as the devices expired and could not be restocked.
In August 2015, Emergent, primarily a vaccine maker at the time, entered the drug-injector market. The company bought the rights to an injector from an Austrian firm in a licensing deal and rebranded it as Trobigard. Emergent said the Austrian firm previously sold the injector with the same drug combination to military buyers.
Over the following year, Emergent secured contracts with governments such as the UAE and Kuwait for tens of thousands of Trobigard devices, which are spring-loaded “auto-injectors” that allow individuals to administer the antidote to themselves merely by pressing the injector firmly against a thigh.
But little testing was performed to check that the drug combination worked, The Post found. Wolling, the regulatory director, warned colleagues in a June 2016 email to “exclude efficacy claims” about Trobigard from pitches to potential buyers.
“We have not substantiated that this co-formulated product is efficacious or safe, and have never tested against nerve agents as an antidote,” Wolling wrote.
Referring to the two drugs in Trobigard, DeLorenzo acknowledged that “Emergent has not tested the safety or efficacy of atropine and obidoxime co-formulated.”
“Emergent made clear to government agencies interested in procuring Trobigard that they were doing so based on their own determination of need, without this type of safety or efficacy data from Emergent,” DeLorenzo told The Post.
But she noted that the combination was consistent with a recommendation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that nerve agent attacks be countered by administering atropine and an oxime, a class of drugs that includes obidoxime. The drugs in Trobigard also are listed as treatments for nerve agent poisoning in a federal government emergency health database, and they previously have been combined in injectors sold by smaller companies overseas.
Wolling, who has since left Emergent, declined to comment.
In October 2016, Dan Mallon, then an Emergent executive on the Trobigard program, acknowledged to colleagues that Emergent sales representatives had made unsupported claims about Trobigard to clients and said the practice would end, according to two former company employees familiar with his remarks. The former employees, like several others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matters publicly.
Mallon, who also has left Emergent, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
DeLorenzo said Emergent initially used sales materials produced by Trobigard’s prior owner but later “upgraded” them. Asked whether unsupported claims were made to the State Department, DeLorenzo said Emergent “responded truthfully and accurately” to a solicitation.
By 2017, production problems had begun to arise. A discoloration was found on some Trobigard injector units after sterilization. The “red spots” issue, as it was known internally, led to a company review, Emergent documents show.
DeLorenzo said the cause was a chemical used inside the injectors, which was occasionally found deposited on the outside of devices. She said that the discoloration had “no adverse impact to product quality beyond visual appearance” but that discolored units were discarded.
“We have made improvements to reduce the number of times a situation like this can occur,” she said.
More concerning was that Emergent scientists also discovered that greater physical force was needed to activate some injectors than was expected, according to company records and interviews. Former Emergent employees said the problem was so persistent that some in the Trobigard team had T-shirts made with the slogan: “May the activation force be with you.”
Sales were disrupted. In January 2017, a senior Emergent executive wrote to the UAE acknowledging “production challenges.” Emergent sent the UAE 20,000 injectors needing extra activation force on the condition that they be labeled “emergency use only.”
In an email to colleagues in March 2017, Mallon said that the source of the problem had not been identified and that “the root cause may be multi-variate.”
DeLorenzo said Emergent “encountered some issues with activation force that have since been addressed.” She said a company study found “men and women with varying hand and arm strength” were able to use the devices. “All pharmaceutical products and drug-device combinations encounter hurdles in development,” she said.
In June of 2017, Wolling raised the flags about the assertions in the Trobigard product brochure. She posted 17 comments on a PDF version of the document that was circulated to colleagues. Also among them was an objection to a claim that the injector devices had been “designed to meet military requirements.”
Around this time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needed to replenish stocks of injectors in the national stockpile. After conducting market research, it opted for a rival product from a firm in Israel. The Israeli firm, Rafa Laboratories, received an emergency FDA approval for its product in April 2017.
Unusual steps taken
By September 2017, State Department officials were increasingly alarmed at chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime and the Islamic State and were anxious to boost protections for U.S. diplomats. The agency gave Emergent a one-year contract worth $20.5 million to supply auto-injectors. Under the deal, Emergent delivered 456,845 auto-injectors — enough to provide several for each of 58,000 Foreign Service officers and local employees overseas.
No bid competition was held, on the grounds that there was “unusual and compelling urgency” after Pfizer’s production halt, according to contract records. The injectors were needed to protect officials who “operate in countries with active and/or assumed chemical [redacted] programs,” the records show.
“It is vital to rapidly establish new sources of autoinjector countermeasures to maintain the safety of deployed Department employees,” the documents said.
Emergent’s 2017 deal with the State Department entailed a sharp increase in spending by the department above earlier plans. In August 2015, the department had been preparing to pay Meridian $750,000 per year for five years to replace expiring devices, according to records of an abandoned deal.
The Emergent deal called for replacing the State Department’s entire stock of Meridian injectors with Trobigard, a department spokesperson said.
The lack of FDA approval for Trobigard led both sides of the deal to take unusual steps, according to former company employees with knowledge of the arrangement.
Rather than selling Trobigard through its company structure in the United States, company documents show, Emergent used a small subsidiary in Britain. Injectors were assembled in Germany and Switzerland and transported to U.S. embassies directly from Europe.
Six weeks after the State Department signed the deal, Emergent’s first study of Trobigard’s drugs was completed. The company-funded study in the Netherlands tested the drugs on guinea pigs exposed to sarin gas and recorded positive findings. As they published their work in a scientific journal, the study’s authors warned that the results “cannot be directly extrapolated to the human situation.”
Securing further orders from the State Department was an explicit part of Emergent’s company strategy. A corporate strategy document for 2018 said the company aimed to “secure State as anchor tenant for Trobigard product” and “maximize funding for State” to buy more products. Such funding depends on appropriations by Congress.
In November 2017, Emergent hosted senior State Department officials at a facility in southern Germany where Trobigard is manufactured. The trip left a good impression on William Walters, who is a physician and was the senior department official overseeing the contracts, according to another official.
“Dr. Walters and team enjoyed the visit and facility walk more than I thought possible,” the U.S. official, Klemens Schmidt, told Emergent executives in an email the following Monday. “You hit a home run with the entire event.”
Trouble with the product
In August 2018, regular testing by Emergent revealed that some sample devices retained from batches sold to the UAE failed to deliver a full dose. “Plunger did not fully expel the drug contained in the cartridge,” said part of the text on a slide included in an internal presentation to executives.
An internal inquiry blamed an “inadequate silicone layer in the barrel of the cartridges,” records show. Emergent formally recalled eight batches of the auto-injectors from the UAE, beginning with 61,000 units in January 2019.
Emergent’s contract with the State Department said it must report “any issues with the safety and efficacy of delivered or ordered products and/or manufacturing or quality of the production lines” within two business days.
Company leaders concluded that the UAE recall did not trigger this obligation because batches used for the State Department’s orders were not affected, current and former company officials said.
DeLorenzo declined to comment on that decision. “We are contractually restricted from commenting on our interactions with the State Department,” she said.
Emergent’s management team was told of the recall in a Jan. 24, 2019, email from two senior executives. The email was labeled “for internal use only” and noted that the company would not be making a public statement.
Emergent was then on the verge of securing another deal with the State Department. Late the following month, the company announced a new contract, for up to $100 million, to supply the department with more Trobigard, lotion for treating chemical burns and other treatments. Emergent was the sole bidder.
Around that time, two senior U.S. officials assisted Emergent as it sought to sell Trobigard to foreign governments, The Post found.
In March 2019, Walters told an executive at Emergent that his counterparts in Japan wanted to buy auto-injectors and offered to broker an introduction, according to a State Department official. Walters declined to comment.
After a visit to Japan, President Trump’s health preparedness chief, Robert Kadlec, an assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, also advised Emergent’s top in-house lobbyist, Christopher Frech, about the potential opportunity in Japan, according to two people familiar with the matter.
A spokeswoman for Kadlec, Carol Danko, said, “Dr. Kadlec was contacted by Japanese senior government officials asking for American suppliers of medical countermeasures in preparation for the Olympic Games, and Kadlec provided them contacts with multiple suppliers.”
Records show that Emergent is the largest contractor to Kadlec’s office at HHS, which now controls the national stockpile. In the years before he joined the administration, Kadlec was a paid consultant to Emergent and formed a start-up firm with Emergent’s chairman. Kadlec and Emergent previously told The Post that their past work together has no impact on Kadlec’s work at HHS.
DeLorenzo declined to say whether Japan ultimately bought Trobigard.
Further testing in May 2019 found that samples drawn from Trobigard injectors sold to Italy showed problems similar to those that led to the UAE recall. Six batches of the injectors provided to Italy were recalled. In this case, the company alerted the State Department and other customers.
DeLorenzo said the company concluded that the silicone problem was “strictly limited” to the batches that were recalled. “Emergent continues to monitor Trobigard batches for conformance to the product specifications throughout the product’s shelf life,” she said.
In July, Emergent leaders ordered that Trobigard sales materials be scrapped and that the device be moved to a portion of the company’s website that lists products in development, the company confirmed. They also told staffer to make sure all future sales materials for Trobigard were approved by the company’s medical, legal and regulatory departments.
Emergent put together evidence that all injectors bought by the State Department were safe, former employees said. Government officials ultimately agreed. In September 2019, the State Department authorized the payment of a $10 million contract installment to Emergent.
A Greenpeace activist holding a banner swims to an unmanned oil production platform operated by Total in the North Sea, to occupy the Dan Bravo oil rig to demand an immediate ban on all further oil and gas exploration, in Denmark, August 18, 2020. (photo: Andrew McConnell/Greenpeace/Reuters)
Climate Activists Occupy Total Oil Platform in Danish North Sea
Reuters
Excerpt: "Four Greenpeace activists swam 500 meters to climb on to an unmanned oil production platform operated by Total in the North Sea on Tuesday, prompting the French company to halt output on it."
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'Grain bins were crumpled like aluminum foil. Three hundred thousand people remained without power in Iowa and Illinois on Friday.' (photo: Robert Franklin/AP)
Extreme Weather Just Devastated 10 Million Acres in the Midwest. Expect More of This
Art Cullen, Guardian UK
Cullen writes: "I know a stiff wind. They call this place Storm Lake, after all. But until recently most Iowans had never heard of a 'derecho.' They have now. Last Monday, a derecho tore 770 miles from Nebraska to Indiana and left a path of destruction up to 50 miles wide over 10m acres of prime cropland."
Unless we contain carbon, our food supply will be under threat. By 2050, US corn yields could decline by 30%
know a stiff wind. They call this place Storm Lake, after all. But until recently most Iowans had never heard of a “derecho”. They have now. Last Monday, a derecho tore 770 miles from Nebraska to Indiana and left a path of destruction up to 50 miles wide over 10m acres of prime cropland. It blew 113 miles per hour at the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River.
Grain bins were crumpled like aluminum foil. Three hundred thousand people remained without power in Iowa and Illinois on Friday. Cedar Rapids and Iowa City were devastated.
The corn lay flat.
Iowa’s maize yield may be cut in half. A little napkin ciphering tells me the Tall Corn State will lose $6bn from crop damage alone.
We should get used to it. Extreme weather is the new normal. Last year, the villages of Hamburg and Pacific Junction, Iowa, were washed down the Missouri River from epic floods that scoured tens of thousands of acres. This year, the Great Plains are burning up from drought. Western Iowa was steeped in severe drought when those straight-line winds barreled through the weak stalks.
A multi-decade drought is under way in the Central Plains and the south-west. Wildfires are spreading from Arizona to California, and are burning ridges north of Los Angeles not licked by flames since 1968. Cattle in huge Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma feedlots will drink the Ogallala Aquifer dry in 20 years. This drought, which could rival or exceed the Medieval Drought that occurred about AD1200, could last 30 to 50 years, according to research from the Goddard Space Institute. It will become difficult to grow corn in southern Iowa, and impossible in western Kansas. By mid-century, corn yields could decline by 30%, according to the Iowa State University climatologist Dr Gene Takle.
Takle notes that the 20th century was the wettest on record. This could be the driest.
“The last century was our Goldilocks period,” Takle said. “Just right. And that period is coming to an end.”
We have cyclone bombs in winter and derechos on top of tornadoes. We have 500-year floods every 10 years. And we have a steady increase in night-time temperatures and humidity that makes it difficult for the corn to breathe even with the latest in genetic engineering. Protein content in the kernel is falling. Livestock and plants fall prey to new diseases and pests along with extreme heat stress.
It will lead to a reckoning more quickly than most of us realize.
The pandemic exposed the fragility of the food supply when meat processing plants teetered last spring for lack of healthy workers. Prices shot up 50% at the grocery counter.
Farmers didn’t share in that windfall. Corn prices are at a 10-year low in a broken industrial system propped up by government design.
When Takle was a teenager, baling hay in 1960, there were 18-20 days a year when the temperature would get above 90 degrees. By the end of the century, Takle warns, this region could be scorched by temperatures over 100 degrees 50 to 60 days a year.
Soil that can hold water and defy heat is losing that capacity to erosion driven by extreme rains. Poor soil, combined with the extreme heat Takle describes, assures crop failures. Takle said corn crops could fail every other year if we go on with “business as usual” pumping out carbon.
It’s already happening in Latin America. Decades of drought are driving Guatemalan campesino refugees to Storm Lake to work in meatpacking. Similarly, epic migrations were driven by the Medieval Drought. It is believed that the Mill Creek people who settled here were driven north up the Missouri River to the Dakotas as they were droughted out of Iowa. That drought also led to wars in Europe, not unlike the contemporary conflicts and migrations in Africa whose roots are in failing agricultural and food systems.
The impacts of climate change are real and profound for our most basic industry: food. Fortunately, sound science tells us that we can make a real impact on climate change by planting less corn and more grass that sequesters carbon. Paying farmers to build soil health and retain water is a better investment than writing a crop insurance check for drought. Farmers on the frontlines of climate change are trying to become more resilient to extreme weather by planting permanent grass strips in crop fields, and planting cover crops for the winter that suck up nitrogen and CO2. The rate of adaptation would be quickened if conservation funding programs were not always under attack.
The derecho is yet another destructive reminder that heat leading to extreme storms will destroy our very food sources if we don’t face the climate crisis now.
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