Climate Crisis Is Causing a Chocolate Market Meltdown: Study

According to a new report by independent research group Climate Central, the climate crisis has driven weeks of hot temperatures in West Africa’s “cocoa belt,” where roughly 70% of the cocoa in the world is produced, impacting harvests and likely causing record chocolate prices.

Between July of 2022 and February of last year, cocoa prices jumped by 136 percent, partially due to climate extremes in the region, a press release from Climate Central said.

Climate change, due primarily to burning oil, coal, and methane gas, is causing hotter temperatures to become more frequent in the four West African countries responsible for producing approximately 70% of the world’s cacao — the key ingredient in chocolate,” the report, Climate change is heating up West Africa’s cocoa belt, said. “While many factors, such as precipitation and insect-borne infections, can affect cacao trees, excessive heat can contribute to a reduction in the quantity and quality of the harvest — potentially increasing global chocolate prices and impacting local economies in West Africa.”

💔Climate change is melting our relationship with chocolate 🍫 In 2024 alone, human-caused climate change added 6 extra weeks of heat stress above the ideal temperature in many cacao-growing regions. More from a new Climate Central attribution science report ⤵ www.youtube.com/shorts/eyKOk…

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— Climate Central (@handle.invalid) February 12, 2025 at 2:05 PM

The bean pods of the cacao plant are used to produce cocoa, and they thrive under specific ranges of rainfall and temperature. Warm to hot temperatures as high as 90 degrees Fahrenheit are best for cacao growth, but any higher and the quantity and quality of the harvest can be affected.

The analysis looked at how human-caused climate change has impacted the frequency of the cocoa belt’s daily maximum temperatures over the past decade (2015 to 2024).

The study focused on 44 of the major cacao-growing regions in the top four cocoa-producing countries: Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Nigeria. Other major producers of cocoa include Brazil, Chile, Peru, Indonesia and Ecuador, but they were not included in the analysis.

Climate change had the largest impact on cacao-growing regions in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire — two countries which produce more than half the world’s cocoa, supporting millions of workers and farmers’ livelihoods. In both these countries, an average of roughly 40 days of daily maximum temperatures higher than 90 degrees Fahrenheit were added in the past 10 years due to climate change.

Nigeria and Cameroon saw an average of 14 and 18 more days, respectively, of cacao-limiting heat each year due to global heating.

Most — 28 of 44 — of the areas analyzed in the study experienced a minimum of six extra weeks of heat that limited cacao growth annually.

“Growing cocoa is a vital livelihood for many of the poorest people around the world and human-caused climate change is putting that under serious threat,” said Osai Ojigho, policy and public campaigns director at Christian Aid, as The Guardian reported.

Changing rainfall patterns can put additional strain on cacao growth, Climate Central said. Well-distributed and adequate rainfall is necessary for cacao plants, which do best in areas with yearly rainfall totals from 59 to 79 inches and with dry spells that last three months or less.

Much of the annual variation in cocoa production can be attributed to rainfall fluctuations. Climate change is predicted to increase frequent and/or large transitions between very wet and very dry conditions in many parts of the globe, including in West Africa, which could potentially affect cocoa production. Last year’s worldwide cocoa price increase was caused by inconsistent rainfall patterns.

Since late 2023, failed cacao harvests have contributed to a major jump in cocoa prices on the New York and London markets where cocoa is traded, reported The Guardian.

On Wednesday, cocoa prices on the New York exchange had soared to over $10,000 a tonne after a mid-December peak of more than $12,500. For decades, New York prices have mostly been steady at $2,000 to $3,000 per tonne.

Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Sprüngli said in January that it would raise prices once again to offset the rising cost of cocoa.

Future threats to cocoa production also include smuggling, illegal mining and cacao swollen shoot virus, which impact the quality and quantity of cacao harvests, creating added challenges for farmers and driving up the price of chocolate.

Heat above 90 degrees Fahrenheit not only limits chocolate production, but is dangerous for the farmworkers who harvest cocoa.

“Extreme heat compounds other dangerous and physically-demanding working conditions, including exposure to chemicals, lifting heavy loads, and long hours. Many cocoa farmers make less than $1 equivalent per day and are older adults or children — both groups that are at higher risk of heat-related illness,” the press release said. “Since about 90% of cocoa is produced by small-scale operations, the changing climate is a significant factor that directly harms the lives and livelihoods of cocoa farmers.”

Adaptations — including breeding more heat- and drought-resistant plants, shading cacao plants with taller trees and shifting production to locations that are likely to have more suitable future conditions — can help farmworkers cope with changing climate conditions, but can’t fully prevent the disruptions and challenges of cocoa production.

According to Narcisa Pricope, a geosciences professor at Mississippi University, cacao is facing an “existential threat” largely due to cacao-producing regions’ increasingly dry conditions.

Pricope said the biggest factor in the aridity was greenhouse gas emissions.

“Collective action against aridity isn’t just about saving chocolate – it’s about preserving the planet’s capacity to sustain life,” Pricope said, as The Guardian reported.

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Pennsylvania Governor Sues Trump Administration Over Frozen IRA Funds

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced a lawsuit on Thursday against President Donald Trump’s administration for freezing funding made available through the Inflation Reduction Act.

As Utility Dive reported, Trump ordered a freeze to IRA funds in an executive order made his first day in office. According to the governor’s office, Pennsylvania state agencies have not been able to access the Solar for All funds or other IRA funding, despite a federal judge ruling on Monday that the current administration must comply with a previous order that blocked the IRA funding freeze, CBS News reported. This means the judge had ruled that the administration cannot currently freeze funds from the IRA, although CBS News reported that multiple states have claimed that they continue to be denied access to the funds.

Shapiro argues that the state has not been able to access $1.2 billion of federal funding, and another $900 million in funding to the state has been slated for “undefined review by federal agencies” before the state can access these funds.

Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday sued President Donald Trump’s administration over its alleged failure to disburse more than $2 billion in federal funds to Pennsylvania, despite a federal court ordering the Trump administration to restore the funding. 🔗 inquirer.com/news/pennsyl…

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— Philadelphia Inquirer (@inquirer.com) February 13, 2025 at 12:27 PM

“The federal government has entered into a contract with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, promising to provide billions of dollars in Congressionally-approved funding that we have committed to serious needs — like protecting public health, cutting energy costs, providing safe, clean drinking water, and creating jobs in rural communities,” Shapiro shared in a press release. “With this funding freeze, the Trump Administration is breaking that contract — and it’s my job as Governor to protect Pennsylvania’s interests.”

Shapiro noted that he had been working with Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation for weeks to regain access to the funding to no avail.

“While multiple federal judges have ordered the Trump Administration to unfreeze this funding, access has not been restored, leaving my Administration with no choice but to pursue legal action to protect the interests of the Commonwealth and its residents,” Shapiro stated.

As the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reported, Pennsylvania was awarded $156,120,000 last year for solar installations, battery storage and energy upgrades for low-income and underserved communities in the state. In total, the state’s Solar for All program was slated to add solar installations for 14,000 households within a five-year timeframe.

Additionally, the state argued that it has been restricted from accessing grant funding for projects, such as $800 million for clean water infrastructure, $400 million for an emissions mitigation program for manufacturing and industrial companies, and additional millions of dollars earmarked for a program that brings reliable electricity to rural communities, the lawsuit stated.

NEW: 14 states sued Musk, DOGE and Trump to stop the agency’s alleged unconstitutional abuse of power. They argue Musk, who bypassed the appointment process, exceeds the authority of an unconfirmed official, violating the U.S. Constitution.

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— Democracy Docket (@democracydocket.com) February 14, 2025 at 1:15 PM

As Utility Dive reported, funds are also being withheld for a project that plugs and remediates former oil and gas well sites. 

While there are two lawsuits in progress on behalf of 22 states and private organizations against the IRA funding freeze, Shapiro is the first governor to sue over the frozen IRA funding.

“For communities throughout Pennsylvania, the Solar for All program helps lower utility bills and encourages clean, reliable energy systems that protect our environment and public health,”  Robert Routh, Pennsylvania policy director at NRDC, said in a statement. “By interrupting Solar for All funding, the Trump administration is stalling important infrastructure projects and putting Pennsylvania’s move toward a cleaner, more affordable energy economy on the line.” 

Many other states have also been impacted by the freeze to IRA and Solar for All funding. According to the NRDC, the Solar for All program consists of $7 billion toward clean and locally produced energy projects. In total, the project could bring solar energy to 900,000 low-income households and save households $350 million in energy bills.

“The administration’s EO has left local officials and grant program managers uncertain about the legality of its directives,” Routh said. “While solar energy developers and advocates wait for clarity, the funding freeze leaves upcoming projects in turmoil.”

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China’s Reliance on Coal Undermines ‘Unprecedented Pace’ of Clean Energy Production: Report

Energy production in China is pitting renewables and coal against each other, while holding back advances in energy production, said a new analysis from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

China is both the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and the largest renewable energy producer in the world, reported The Guardian.

“China’s rapid expansion of renewable energy has the potential to reshape its power system, but this opportunity is being undermined by the simultaneous large-scale expansion of coal power. The continued approval and construction of new coal plants — [one] driven by industry interests and outdated contracts rather than actual grid needs — risks locking China into fossil fuel dependence at a time when flexibility is crucial for integrating clean energy. Without decisive policy [shifts], China’s energy transition will remain an ‘energy addition’ rather than a true transformation away from coal,” said Qi Qin, the report’s lead author and China Analyst at CREA, in a press release from GEM and CREA.

🇨🇳 NEW | China – Coal power biannual review – H2 2024 ⚠️ Even as China's clean energy surged in 2024 & became key economic driver, coal remains strong – with approvals up in H2 2024 after slow start in H1 w/Global Energy Monitor 📄 Find report here: energyandcleanair.org/publication/…

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— Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (@creacleanair.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 9:55 PM

The Chinese government has promised that the country will reach peak carbon emissions before the end of the decade and become carbon neutral by 2060. However, experts are afraid the targets will remain elusive as long as China continues to prioritize coal power and approve new coal production.

“Coal-fired power generation could decline, yet the coal industry continues to expect growth, setting the stage for an increasingly unsustainable conflict between coal investments and the need to decarbonise the power system,” the report said.

The analysis found that last year’s renewables production in China reached at an “unprecedented pace,” adding 356 gigawatts (GW) of solar and wind capacity — a figure nearly equal to the total in the United States for 2024, and roughly 4.5 times more than the European Union, The Guardian reported.

NEW – China’s construction of new coal-power plants ‘reached 10-year high’ in 2024 | @anikanpatel.carbonbrief.org @creacleanair.bsky.social @globalenergymon.bsky.social Read here: https://buff.ly/4hQ6VXQ

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— Carbon Brief (@carbonbrief.org) February 12, 2025 at 7:02 PM

CREA said that, even though solar and wind took off, usage inexplicably fell during the later part of 2024.

“The record decline in solar output and the unexpected drop in wind utilisation was not explained by weather conditions, indicating rising curtailment – much of which may be unreported,” the report said.

Qin said cutbacks were largely driven by previous power purchase agreements that included minimum coal purchase quotas for local governments.

“China started to do [these agreements] in 2020 for energy security, to ensure there will be enough power throughout the year at reasonable price,” Qin said, as reported by The Guardian. “More solar and wind should be integrated into the power grid, but the fact is it wasn’t [because of these agreements].”

The rate of China’s new coal energy approvals was also a concern, according to the report.

“Chinese coal power and mining companies are sponsoring and building new coal plants beyond what is needed,” said Christine Shearer, GEM research analyst, in the press release. “The continued pursuit of coal is crowding out the country’s use of lower-cost clean energy.”

Last year the world’s second-largest economy approved 66.7 GW of coal capacity, began construction on 94.5 GW of coal power projects and resumed 3.3 GW of suspended construction projects. A single GW equals a large coal-fired power plant.

The report said 93 percent of coal power construction starts in the world last year were in China.

“Without urgent policy shifts, China risks reinforcing a pattern of energy addition rather than transition, limiting the full potential of its clean energy boom,” the report said.

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NOAA Imposes Restrictions on Scientists, Raising Concerns Over Global Forecasting

The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has placed new restrictions on scientists that those inside the agency have said could hamper the availability and quality of global weather forecasts.

Current and former high-level scientists with the federal agency said the new rules have created unease and caused alarm with partners at European agencies, reported The Guardian.

“My expectation is that it’s going to be a crackdown on climate,” said a senior NOAA scientist who wished to remain anonymous. “People are just somewhere between disturbed and terrified.”

In October, I reported on Project 2025’s plan to gut NOAA, the National Weather Service, & climate research Today The Guardian is reporting “DOGE staffers enter NOAA headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats” www.nbcnewyork.com/news/nationa…

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— Chase Cain (@chasecain.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 10:51 PM

The new NOAA restrictions, as communicated in a staff-wide message last week, said agency headquarters would implement further oversight over emails and “virtual meetings” of scientists with foreign nationals.

The new rules also require that all employees and NOAA affiliates must document “all international engagements” for approval on a case-by-case basis.

“[I]t’s a crazy amount of stuff to do. Working internationally is so routine, it’s just hardly thought of,” the scientist said. “It’s a difficult time to be a federal employee right now.”

The extra administrative burden looked to be especially taxing for the National Weather Service (NWS), which provides free weather forecasting to the public.

A hurricane specialist works on tracking unsettled weather over the eastern Gulf of Mexico on May 31, 2023 at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida. Joe Raedle / Getty Images

According to a recent study, NWS produces $73 in benefits to the American people for every dollar invested, as well as additional value to the world through free access to public data.

An email sent to NOAA Research on Wednesday said the department would start having to submit all “international engagement” to be approved, including gatherings of international organizations, travel and face-to-face meetings, The Washington Post reported.

“People have asked, ‘What if I have a postdoc [researcher] and they’re not a U.S. citizen?’” a fisheries employee said. “Nobody has an answer for those types of questions.”

A climate scientist with the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, who also preferred not to be named, said last week’s news “appalled and saddened” him, reported The Guardian.

“The climate crisis knows no boundaries, and halting international scientific collaboration can only undermine our ability to understand and combat it,” the scientist said.

NOAA staff are preparing for more staffing and budgetary cuts that would put extra strain on the agency.

Current employees were told to expect budget cuts of 30 percent and for staff to be cut in half, former NOAA officials disclosed to CBS News.

“Hearing reports that Musk’s cronies are targeting NOAA — infiltrating key systems & locking out career employees,” Chris Van Hollen, Democratic senator from Maryland, posted on X Tuesday. “NOAA is vital for weather forecasting, scientific research & more. Their critical work saves lives. My team and I are looking into this & we will not stand for it.”

A NOAA field command vehicle with a tornado in sight in Wyoming on June 5, 2009. Dr. Mike Coniglio / NOAA NSSL

Congressional aides told CBS that lawmakers had gotten multiple complaints about staff from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk, coming into NOAA offices.

“They walked through security like it didn’t apply to them,” said Andrew Rosenberg, former NOAA deputy director, as CBS News reported. “They were there and they were going through IT systems… They’re not asking substantial questions about what NOAA does and the importance of its role. This isn’t a review to figure out efficiency.”

Policy experts inside Trump’s “inner circle” are looking to privatize the NWS, reported The Guardian. But because it’s so valuable to society, former chief of the NWS weather prediction center’s forecast operations Greg Carbin said the new NOAA restrictions can’t be viewed as strictly cost-saving measures.

“Cutting these services now would be a reckless decision that would cost far more in lives and damages than it would ever save on a balance sheet,” Carbin said. “Investing in weather and climate services is not a cost – it is an essential safeguard for the nation’s security, economy and wellbeing.”

Earlier this month, DOGE put NOAA’s head of human resources on administrative leave. It also initiated a purge of activities associated with equity, diversity and inclusion.

NOAA sources have said that the extra administrative burden, coupled with anticipated budget and staff cuts, in addition to the federal hiring freeze, will interfere with the country’s ability to keep the public weather service functional. It could also cause a restriction of freely available NOAA data abroad, leading to “a profound global impact.”

The National Hurricane Center’s Acting Director Dr. Ed Rappaport gives a televised interview concerning Hurricane Irma’s advance, at the National Weather Service’s facility in Miami, Florida on Sept. 7, 2017. Andrew Innerarity / The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Accurate forecasts protect lives, mitigate billions of dollars in disaster-related damages, and enable businesses, from agriculture to transportation, to operate more efficiently,” Carbin said, as The Guardian reported.

Approximately 4,500 scientists and technicians are normally employed by the NWS, but the agency is struggling to keep a full staff.

According to a senior NOAA official, “hundreds” of NOAA staff have accepted the Trump administration’s federal buyout.

“If the proposed cuts to NOAA and NWS are enacted, the consequences will be severe,” Carbin added. “It will lead to less accurate and slower weather forecasts and warnings – putting lives and property at risk.”

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U.S. Wildfire Suppressants Revealed as Major Sources of Toxic Metal Pollution

Some wildfire suppressants in the U.S. contain levels of toxic metals up to 2,880 times the regulator limits set for drinking water, according to a recently published study. Further, researchers found that wildfire suppressants may have contributed to around 850,000 pounds of toxic metal pollution in the western U.S. from 2009 to 2021.

When toxic metal pollution shows up in the environment after wildfires, it has previously been estimated that the pollution could be linked to human activities like mining in nearby urban areas or from ash deposition.

The US federal government and chemical makers have long concealed the contents of pink wildfire suppressants – the substances are rife with cadmium, arsenic, chromium and other toxic heavy metals.

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— Guardian US (@us.theguardian.com) February 13, 2025 at 3:14 PM

But two different sources led researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California to investigate potential toxic metals in wildfire suppressants. According to the study, the Washington Department of Ecology issued multiple citations to a USFS air tanker base in 2016 for exceeding the amount of metal concentrations allowed in waste discharge. The researchers also found an internal document for tanker bases from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that explained that a particular retardant contains ammonia, cadmium and chromium.

The study authors also credit LAist reporter Jacob Margolis, who had reached out to corresponding author Daniel McCurry back in 2019 to inquire about potential contamination by fire suppressants.

According to the authors, any wildfire suppressants, which include fire retardants, water enhancers and foams, have to be approved by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) before use. But the manufacturers can retain up to 20% of formulations as trade secrets or proprietary information, while products for public use do not need to disclose any percentage of their formulations.

In response to these findings and inquiries, the researchers purchased fire suppressant products and used mass spectrometry to quantify the amounts of vanadium, chromium, manganese, copper, arsenic, cadmium, antimony, barium, thallium and lead in the products and compared the amounts they found with data on suppressant application rates to calculate about how many heavy metals have been released by these products in the western U.S. over a 10-year timeframe.

In total, they found that at least eight heavy metals in the fires suppressants were at concentrations higher than the maximum level for drinking water set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The authors published their research in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters.

They also found that one particular product, Phos-Chek LC-95 W, had the greatest amounts of most of the heavy metals tested, although this specific product is not used by Cal Fire, LAist reported.

“I think what surprised me most was the array of metals we found,” lead author Marella Schammel said in a statement. “Some of them make sense as they’re used as corrosion inhibitors (chromium and cadmium) or are known contaminants in phosphate ores (arsenic, among others) used in the active ingredient of the retardant. But others, like vanadium — which there’s a ton of in Phos-Chek — were definitely unexpected.”

Based on their research, the authors estimated that from 2009 to 2021, about 380,000 kilograms or 1 million pounds of heavy metals had been dropped into the environment in the western U.S.

However, USFS and Cal Fire noted that they do work to avoid dropping any fire suppressants near waterways during wildfires to minimize environmental impact.

“We recognize that fire retardant is generally safe in the quantities that are applied to any given area. For sensitive areas like waterways and endangered species habitat, we restrict the use of fire retardant,” Linnea Edmeier, public information officer with Cal Fire, told LAist. “While Cal Fire prioritizes safety and environmental protection, we also recognize the critical role of fire retardants in firefighting.”

Phos-Chek fire retardant covers the road and nearby properties after being dropped by aircraft to slow wildfires spreading in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California on Jan. 11, 2025. Jason Ryan / NurPhoto via Getty Images

With the recent fires in Los Angeles, the authors raised concerns over the amounts of fire suppressant used in residential areas.

“Are the hazardous waste thresholds the appropriate bar for these to clear, or, if they’re being used in a massive scale in populated neighborhoods, do we need to get stricter on permissible concentrations of toxic compounds?” McCurry said, as reported by The Guardian.

McCurry also said that to fully differentiate between the potential sources of toxic metal contamination in the environment, studies would need to investigate the levels of contamination before and after a wildfire.

“As rates of aerial fire retardant application have grown, likely so too have loadings of toxic metals released into the environment from their use, a trend which may intensify if wildfire frequency and intensity continues to increase,” the authors concluded. “Further work should determine the environmental fate of metals released by aerial fire suppression (i.e., determine whether they remain in the soil column, permeate into groundwater, or enter nearby surface waters via runoff), and estimate the extent to which they contribute to human and ecological health risk.”

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A Flood of Ash: The Fight for Justice in Kingston, Tennessee

Just before Christmas in 2008 in the Tennessee town of Kingston, a pile of coal ash located near the Kingston Fossil Plant broke free and spread into the 300 acres surrounding the plant and eventually into the Emory River Channel. The six-story high pile of coal ash – residue from burning coal – had accumulated over five decades in an area that had started out as a swimming hole. 

“It looked like a black wave, almost like a black tsunami swallowed a town,” says Jared Sullivan, author of Valley So Low. “It punched forward with the force of water punching through a dam. All this ash just flooded the landscape.”

View of the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant fly ash spill about a mile from the retention pond from just off Swan Pond Road. The pile of ash in the photo is 20-25 feet high, and stretches for about two miles along this inlet that empties into the Emory River. Brian Stansberry / CC BY 3.0

A billion gallons of ash, estimated to be 100 times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill, eventually spilled out of the pond, destroying dozens of homes in the area. 

“As far as I know, it is the largest environmental disaster, in terms of just the sheer volume of material that was released, in U.S. history,” Sullivan says.

Sullivan recounts the fallout of this disaster in his new book, which tells the story of the disaster, the cleanup workers, and the fight for justice against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by a determined lawyer, Jim Scott. 

“It’s an environmental book dressed up as a legal thriller,” Sullivan says. 

“I was a kid when it happened,” Sullivan recalls. “I remember watching on the news. There are people in front of the news cameras, and they say again and again this stuff poses no legitimate risk. Don’t worry about it. They really went out of their way to try to put the community and Tennesseans generally at ease.” Almost immediately, the TVA put out a statement stating the ash was not hazardous. 

Shortly afterwards, the cleanup of the site began, and Jacobs Engineering was hired by the TVA as the cleanup contractors. But once the cleanup crew started the work, they weren’t provided any protective gear, such as masks or hazmat suits. This seemed to align with what the TVA was saying publicly at the time, which was that the coal ash was non-toxic. 

“Imagine if, all of a sudden, all the workers are in hazmat suits stomping around this site. That kind of really undermines TVA’s initial claims that the coal ash doesn’t really pose any substantial threat,” Sullivan says. “The EPA had given TVA tight deadlines in which to complete this huge cleanup project, and if the workers would have been given dust masks, under federal rules around worker safety, they would have needed to take mandatory breaks so they wouldn’t overheat in the Tennessee summer.”

“I found transcripts from a meeting in 2009 where this worker’s wife basically asked a TVA senior vice president when we’re going to have hazmat suits and the TVA senior vice president responds, oh, within two weeks, we will get them to you. And that just never happened.”

Jared Sullivan author photo by Mackenzie Wray

Sullivan found in his research for the book that the ash, which contains arsenic, lead and radioactive materials, was recognized decades earlier by TVA to be toxic. 

“There are documents going back to 1964 where TVA’s top brass are telling each other that that they’ve run tests on the coal ash and it contains definite corrosive tendencies. And they also tell each other that this coal ash lands on employee’s cars at one of their plants in Kentucky, and it’s eating away at the paint.”

But Tom Bock, a top safety officer with Jacobs Engineering at the cleanup site in Kingston, claimed that the fly ash – part of the coal as that floats through the air – is “safe enough to eat.” 

“I don’t think he, in my personal opinion, carried out his job in the most effective way possible. But I really do think he was taking marching orders. He was a trusted figure, and he was in a position of authority.”

But people started to get sick, the first group being smokers. And then other people started having respiratory issues after the coal ash dried up and started to blow around the job site, affecting other workers. Sullivan dedicates large parts of Valley So Low to these workers and how their lives were upended by simply taking on the cleanup job. 

“They start coughing up blood in their truck, they start passing out in the truck. So it really snowballs,” Sullivan says. Eventually, at least 30 workers died who had worked on the cleanup site, and hundreds became sick. 

In Valley So Low, lawyer Jim Scott enters the picture on behalf of the workers to file suit against Jacobs Engineering. Sullivan traces all of the legal maneuverings and the challenges that Scott and his team faced against the corporate behemoth that is Jacobs. These led, eventually in 2023, to a settlement offer that the plaintiffs accepted. Sullivan notes that Jacobs denies any wrongdoing. 

 “It was far too little and way too late — that’s the general view of the workers. Don’t get me wrong — they were glad it was finally over. There was some relief of just like, okay, I can move on with my life.” 

“The legal system was not set up to reach an equitable or fair conclusion in these sorts of cases,” Sullivan adds. “The corporations have all the money and honestly, all the time in the world to drag these cases out. So eventually, they have to capitulate. The system does not force these cases to come to speedy resolutions. And that’s to the incredible disadvantage of everyday Americans.”

And Sullivan notes that the EPA should take responsibility as well. 

“They had people on site at Kingston, and yet did not ensure that the workers had proper respiratory protection,” he says.

“The EPA has been undercut, you know, bit by bit for so many years that it’s not an effective organ. It’s not effective at these sort of disaster cleanups.”

Hundreds of unlined coal ash dumping sites still exist around the country, leaching into the ground water and rivers. The Duke Energy Dan River coal ash spill also affected the water and rivers in the Dan River, followed by another breach in 2018 near the Cape Fear River, both in North Carolina. But in 2015, new rules stated that new coal ash piles had to have liners to prevent leaching, along with monitoring of groundwater. And then in 2024 the EPA finalized rules that force power companies to clean up their inactive piles of coal ash. 

“I think the American people will benefit from both those rules,” Sullivan says. “The problem is that the EPA still does not consider coal ash, fly ash, a hazardous material. So the fact is these EPA rules are self-enforcing. So that means that you have to trust the power company to monitor their own coal ash ponds. And you can read my book and decide for yourself whether you want to trust the power companies to be responsible for managing their coal ash ponds and being honest about it.”

Sullivan writes passionately about the TVA, nothing that it was one of the great liberal public works projects when it was created by FDR, one that rescued Tennessee’s economy and moved customers away from a privatized, corrupted power industry, but that perhaps the TVA has lost its way. But he sees a real opportunity for the TVA to seize the moment and move away from coal-fired plants in the region.

“We need to be urging it to ramp up nuclear power, in addition to other renewable energy sources,” he says. “We could sure use the seven giant nuclear power plants today to help reduce our emissions.”

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First Sighting of Critically Endangered Plains-Wanderer in Australia in More Than 3 Decades

The first sighting of the critically endangered Plains-wanderer in Australia in more than three decades was detected by Zoos Victoria in two areas of remnant grassland west of Melbourne, reported The Guardian.

Evolutionarily speaking, Plains-wanderers are unique. As the only member of the Pedionomidae family, there is no other bird like it on Earth.

“They’re in a family of their own,” said expert birdwatching guide Tim Dolby. “A lot of international birdwatchers want to see every single family of bird in the world. So at some point they have to come along and look for plains-wanderers.”

Loss of already sparse native grasslands is the Plains-wanderer’s main threat, in addition to the declining condition of grassland habitat that remains.

“They like it just right. If the grass cover becomes too thick or too sparse, they abandon the site,” Zoos Victoria said.

The zoo installed 35 “song meters” — audio recorders — on nine properties that had suitable habitat. AI was used to weed through thousands of hours of recording data, which revealed the low, soft “ooming” call of Plains-wanderer females at two of the sites, The Guardian reported.

Chris Hartnett, species program coordinator at Zoos Victoria, likened the result to “finding gold.” Hartnett said they would work with land managers and owners to protect the rare species.

The Plains-wanderer joined several other animals — including the koala, Southern Corroboree frog, malleefowl and brush-tailed rock wallaby — on the list of iconic species for New South Wales (NSW) in May of 2016, according to Trust for Nature.

As part of their listing as an iconic species and to stop their decline, the environment minister announced that priority investment would be given to the Plains-wanderer under the government of NSW’s $100 million Saving our Species program.

“Plains-wanderers are beautiful birds. They are mostly brown or buff in colour with white and blackish markings over the body, including spots and streaks on the head and neck,” Zoos Victoria said. “Plains-wanderers prefer short, sparse grasslands that provide cover and space to forage for seeds, leaves and insects. Once seen from South Australia into Victoria and up to Queensland, the Plains-wanderer has undergone a dramatic decline in the last decade. It is critically endangered and under imminent threat of extinction.”

Plains-wanderer populations in the wild have dramatically declined due to habitat loss and are now somewhere between 250 and 1,000 individuals. Less than one percent of the grasslands they call home remain in Victoria.

“They’ve held on, even though the landscape has changed pretty drastically,” Hartnett said, as reported by The Guardian.

Harnett said females of the species are larger and more colorful and dominant than males, defending their territory while males guard the eggs.

“They’re very endearing and quite eccentric,” Hartnett said, adding that the courting female formed “a shape with her wings like a jet plane and chased the males around.”

Plains-wanderers are particular about their habitat, preferring tufts of grass growing on raised mounds with no trees and interspersed with bare soil.

“We’ve often referred to the plains-wanderer as a ‘goldilocks species’,” Hartnett explained, saying they preferred their grassland “not too dense, not too sparse, but just right.”

Now that the elusive birds have been spotted on two new areas of land — one public, one private — Harnett said the researchers would continue to look for more.

“We welcome anyone who thinks they may have seen one of these birds on their property to get in touch, and we can put these audio recorders out there,” Harnett said.

The post First Sighting of Critically Endangered Plains-Wanderer in Australia in More Than 3 Decades appeared first on EcoWatch.

Beavers Engineer Long-Delayed Czech Wetlands Project

A colony of eight beavers in the Czech Republic have flooded and built dams on a former army training site that is now a protected area, saving taxpayers $1.2 million, reported AFP.

Officials had wanted to construct a dam to protect endangered crayfish in the Klabava River from acidic water and sediment spilling into the waterway from two nearby ponds.

“Beavers always know best. The places where they build dams are always chosen just right – better than when we design it on paper,” Jaroslav Obermajer, Central Bohemian office head at the Czech Nature and Landscape Protection Agency, told Radio Prague International.

Administrators of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area project — first drafted in 2018 — had been dealing with bureaucratic issues while trying to obtain building permits from authorities when they discovered that the wetlands plan had been completed by local beavers.

“Beavers are able to build a dam in one night, two nights at the most. While people have to get building permits, get the building project approved, and find the money for it. But of course a digger working on his own could build it in about a week,” said zoologist Jiri Vlček.

After plans stalled for a new dam in the Czech Republic, eight beavers saved the day seemingly overnight. “At this point, nothing that beavers do surprises me.” www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti…

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— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) February 8, 2025 at 9:35 PM

Environmentalists who came to inspect the European beavers’ work said the pools they created will provide good conditions for wetlands species like frogs and the rare stone crayfish. They will also improve water quality.

Beavers are semi-aquatic “ecosystem engineers” who use mud, rocks and wood to block streams. This creates “beaver ponds” that the rodents use as food sources and to protect them from predators, reported National Geographic.

Their ingenious structures create habitat for other species as well, including fish, insects, amphibians, herons, whooping cranes, bison and moose. They can also serve as firebreaks and carbon sinks.

“They built a wetland with pools and canals. The area is roughly twice larger than planned,” Bohumil Fišer, who heads the Brdy Protected Landscape Area and works with the Czech Nature Conservation Agency, told AFP.

The beavers have so far constructed at least four dams south of Prague and are working to build more.

While there are some critics, such as farmers who complain of the beavers felling trees, there is no farmland near the site, which sits in an area that was designated as protected in 2016.

“We don’t expect any conflict with the beaver in the next 10 years,” Fišer said.

The post Beavers Engineer Long-Delayed Czech Wetlands Project appeared first on EcoWatch.

17 Clean Energy Projects Announced for Former Coal Sites in Appalachia

A collaboration between The Nature Conservancy (TNC), TNC’s Cumberland Forest Limited Partnership, Sun Tribe Development and ENGIE aims to transform 17 former coal mining sites throughout Appalachia into clean energy projects.

In total, the projects include 14 solar energy projects with 49 megawatts of energy generation and three battery storage projects with 320 megawatts of expected storage. Together, the projects span 360 acres formerly occupied by coal mines.

TNC intends to use these projects to benefit the “3Cs” — climate, conservation and communities. 3Cs is a framework that TNC applies to projects to determine and measure their benefits. In the case of the newly announced projects, the transformed clean energy sites are slated to provide an increase in local tax revenue and construction jobs, TNC announced.

The project leaders anticipate that the solar and battery projects will power the equivalent of 6,638 homes per year in Appalachia, with projects slated for sites in Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky.

“Locating solar and battery storage on former mine lands makes perfect sense to us,” Danny Van Clief, CEO of Sun Tribe Development, said in a statement. “These sites and the communities they rest within have powered our country for more than a century — all we have to do is reimagine them for today’s energy technology.” 

According to the announcement, some of the projects plan to incorporate Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) incentives to lower costs. However, the IRA, which former President Joe Biden signed in 2022, is currently facing freezes and changes under the new administration. 

President Donald Trump froze IRA funds by executive order shortly after taking office, but the move was blocked by a court order. Still, states have said they are being denied funding, and a federal judge has since ordered the administration to comply with the block to the IRA funding freeze, CBS News reported.

The risks to federal funding have already affected other clean energy and tech projects around the country. Projects to replace diesel-fueled school buses for electric, remove lead paint, weatherize homes for improved efficiency, plug abandoned oil wells, and improve resiliency to wildfires and flooding have all been affected by the freeze and threat to pull IRA funding, NPR reported. 

“I think what sometimes gets lost in the story about Appalachia is that there is actually a tremendous amount of local energy and innovation, because people love the place, and they stay here because they love it,” Dana Kuhnline, senior program director at ReImagine Appalachia, told NPR. “And so you have a lot of folks with the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding who really had that first chance in a generation to start to kind of really do some big, big things. They tried to dream big and do a big economic improvement for their local community, and ended up in this really impossible situation.”

It is not clear whether the progress of the projects is dependent on the IRA incentives, and some projects may not be affected at all by the risks to this funding. 

However, TNC addresses the potential threats to climate policy on its website, stating, “We also jump into defense mode when it appears that conservation and climate policies are going to be scaled back. We do so, in part, by sharing stories about farmers, fishermen, forest landowners and the many other people who benefit from government policies. Wins at all levels of government are meaningful. What is most important between now and the end of the decade is to keep the momentum going by continuing to help create, implement and defend policies that make conservation and climate action possible.”

The newly announced projects add to eight previously announced clean energy projects by TNC, Sun Tribe and Dominion Energy. These projects will be developed around the Cumberland Forest. The first project is a solar plant in Virginia that will begin construction by 2026. This project alone could generate $800,000 in tax revenue for the local community in addition to providing clean solar power and cleaning up a former coal mine site. The other solar energy projects are expected to be completed by 2029, TNC reported.

The post 17 Clean Energy Projects Announced for Former Coal Sites in Appalachia appeared first on EcoWatch.

Humpback Whale Song Has Striking Similarities to Human Language: Study

New research has found that the structure of humpback whale song is similar to human language — both use shorter sounds more frequently than those that are more complex, reported The Guardian.

The structure helps infants of both species learn to communicate from their elders more quickly.

“Language has long been considered a uniquely human trait, with features that mark it out as distinct from the communication of all other species,” a press release from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem said. “However, research published today in Science has uncovered the same statistical structure that is a hallmark of human language in humpback whale song. Humpback whale song is a striking example of a complex, culturally transmitted behavior, but up to now, there was little evidence it has language-like structure.”

A thread explaining our new discovery about humpback whale song published today in Science… We found key statistical properties that characterise all human languages in another species for the first time. We have more in common with whales than we previously thought! doi.org/10.1126/scie…

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— Simon Kirby (@simonkirby.bsky.social) February 7, 2025 at 6:48 AM

All known human languages follow the same pattern — known as Zipf’s law — wherein the most frequently occuring word is twice as prevalent as the second most, recurs three times as often as the third, and on and on, the researchers wrote in The Conversation.

Scientists have searched for evidence of the same pattern in the commutation of other species, but had not found it until now.

When infants learn, they need to learn to understand where words begin and end, as speech is continuous, without gaps between words. Three decades of statistical learning  has shown that babies figure this out by listening for sounds with a surprising context, such as those between words.

The study, “Whale song shows language-like statistical structure,” was led by Dr. Inbal Arnon, a psychology professor at Hebrew University; Dr. Ellen Garland, a principal research fellow in the School of Biology at University of St. Andrews; and Professor Simon Kirby, a British cognitive scientist who currently holds the Chair of Language Evolution at The University of Edinburgh.

“Using insights and methods from how babies learn language allowed us to discover previously undetected structure in whale song,” Arnon said in the press release. “This work shows how learning and cultural transmission can shape the structure of communication systems: we may find similar statistical structure wherever complex sequential behaviour is transmitted culturally.”

“It raises the intriguing possibility that humpback whales, like human babies, may learn their song by tracking transitional probabilities between sound elements, and using dips in those probabilities as a cue to segment the song,” Arnon said.

In the study, the research team’s analysis of whale song data used the same method.

“Unexpectedly, using this technique revealed in whale song the same statistical properties that are found in all languages. It turns out both human language and whale song have statistically coherent parts,” the researchers wrote in The Conversation. “In other words, they both contain recurring parts where the transitions between elements are more predictable within the part. Moreover, these recurring sub-sequences we detected follow the Zipfian frequency distribution found across all human languages, and not found before in other species.”

These recurring language properties illustrate the “deep commonality” between whales and humans, two unrelated species united by their culturally transmitted communication systems.

The findings demonstrate the important parts learning and transmission play in the structure of such systems. They reveal that the foundational characteristics of human language could be found across evolutionary distant species.

“Revealing this hidden language-like structure in whale song was unexpected, but it strongly suggests this cultural behaviour holds crucial insight into the evolution of complex communication across the animal kingdom,” Garland said in the press release. “Whale song is not a language; it lacks semantic meaning. It may be more reminiscent of human music, which also has this statistical structure, but lacks the expressive meaning found in language.”

“Whether the units we detected using the infant-inspired method are salient to the whales themselves remains an open question,” Garland added.

Kirby said the findings suggest that it can be useful to look not just to our closest primate relatives to understand the evolution of language, but to also examine examples of “convergent evolution elsewhere in nature.”

“Looking beyond the way language is used to express meaning, we should consider how language is learned and transmitted culturally over multiple generations,” Kirby said in the press release. “These findings challenge long held assumptions about the uniqueness of human language, uncovering deep commonalities between evolutionarily distant species.”

Proud supervisor moment! Ella's masters thesis paper on Okinawa humpback #whale #song complexity and evolution is out today in RSOS. Awesome collaboration with Nozomi Kobayashi et al. @francae.bsky.social @lrendell.bsky.social @seamammalresearch.bsky.social doi.org/10.1098/rsos…

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— Ellen Garland (@ellengarland.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 9:33 PM

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