A “Widespread Collapse of American Agriculture”

The signers, some who served in former Republican administrations, say the current administration’s policies have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, and diminished the labor supply. Specifically, they decry the “indiscriminate and haphazard nature” of the current tariffs that have increased costs for production while reducing prices for farm commodities.

They call out “bellicose rhetoric and chaotic trade policies” that have caused longtime trading partners to question the reliability of the U.S. and to turn to other countries. Additionally, cuts to foreign aid and domestic food programs are negatively impacting commodities, such as rice, wheat, and peanuts. 

They add that mass deportations under current immigration policies and removal of protected status are wreaking havoc with dairy, fruit and produce, and meat processing, causing food to go to waste and driving up costs for consumers. Additionally, they say massive and indiscriminate firings in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is affecting the ability of farmers to access important services and research. 

Farmers, they say, don't want government handouts, they want markets—referencing a $12 billion farm aid package Trump offered in December to offset trade market disruptions. The signers point out that farmer bankruptcies have doubled, barely half of all farms will be profitable this year, and the U.S. is running a historic agriculture trade deficit—reflecting a sharp reversal from record farm export surpluses and farm incomes just a few years ago.

The group lists nine recommendations to save U.S. agriculture—and the rural communities they support—such as rolling back tariffs, pursuing free trade agreements, passing a new farm bill, and fully funding research.

However, a new report from the University of Exeter and Carbon Tracker says they are not, and are relying on models that increasingly understate the failures, shocks, and risks to the economic system as the world moves toward 2°C of warming above preindustrial levels. 

The report says that the current economic models do not capture what they call the cascading failures and shocks of the risks of a warmer world. The forecasting models used by governments, banks, and investors view global warming as just a rise in average world temperatures, and see the future economic system as stable, if marginally shocked—instead of factoring in tipping points and extreme calamities.

The lead author of the report, Jesse Abrams, said that some models say there will be a ten percent loss of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) if the world heats up above two degrees Celsius, but that does not take into consideration that climate scientists are saying the economy and society will cease to function as we know it, and that there won’t be manageable adjustments. Additionally, focusing on GDP can mask the full cost of climate disasters. That number can rise during recovery, while failing to account for human death, displacement, degradation of the ecosystem, and disruption of social life.

Tipping points, like the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the collapse of Atlantic Ocean currents, or mass biodiversity loss, would have very serious effects on national economies and societies. According to Yale Environment 360, the world is about to pass the limit of keeping warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius, because a three-year period ending last year breached that average for the first time.

Now, the fear is that climate change will occur suddenly, not gradually, as the planet passes tipping points beyond which things cannot be put back together. Predicting the timing of these tipping points is hard. The physical impacts of climate change are increasingly likely to disrupt multiple sectors at once across trade, finance, and migration, undermining the very foundations of economic growth, the report says.

The results of using outdated models for economic forecasting is widespread complacency and the continued underpricing of climate risks, according to the authors, among not only institutional investors but also policy makers. They urge that efforts need to be made to ensure that the financial system is resilient against destabilizing outcomes, and there needs to be greater focus on the effects of extremes and the vulnerability of the global economic system. 

The full report, Recalibrating Climate Risk, can be found here.

Last December, about 45 Democratic members of the House of Representatives wrote to Republican leaders in the Senate urging them not to strip those funds, but their efforts were only partially successful. The Guardian reports that the cuts will hurt Michigan, Illinois, Texas, and New York the hardest, as they have highest levels of lead in pipes. 

The EPA has said that no level of exposure to lead is safe, particularly to children, who could have low birth weights, stunted development, and lower IQ scores. 

In the past, water utilities and the chemical industry have fought against rules to replace lead pipes, saying they were not feasible, and Republicans backed them up. However, according to E&E News, the American Water Works Association, which represents 4,300 utilities, recently asked Senate leaders to reject cutting funds for the program, warning that local communities would have to bear the burden. Nevertheless, Congress reduced the amount to $125 million in the February spending bill.

Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for wind energy, calling turbines ugly and falsely implying they cause cancer. At Davos, in January, he called European nations “losers” for installing them. 

In December, his Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued stop-work orders for several offshore wind projects, claiming they were a national security threat, a premise judges seemed to find full of hot air.

Indeed, these projects had nearly a decade of federal reviews and coordinated with the Department of Defense before entering into contracts to provide clean energy to consumers. Ted Kelly with the Environmental Defense Fund wrote, “Because the East Coast relies so heavily on volatile natural gas, adding more cost-stable wind power to the grid is essential for increasing supply and keeping bills down.” He added that “Offshore wind delivers immense value during electricity crunches in the winter because ocean winds are often at their strongest.”

This latest ruling allows the Sunrise Wind project, some 30 miles off the coast of New York, to resume. It joins Coastal Virginia Wind, Empire Wind, Revolution Wind, and Vineyard Wind, all of which have been cleared to continue construction.

Hillary Bright with the offshore wind advocacy group Turn Forward estimated that collectively, the projects will generate six gigawatts of electricity, enough power for 2.5 million American homes and businesses.