Meet a Solver: Michael Hands, Inga Foundation

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Author: Alexander Dale and Francesca Eremeeva | Published: June 13, 2017 

You’ve probably heard of slash-and-burn agriculture and its impact on the world’s tropics. The Solver we’re profiling this week is working toward a more sustainable solution for tropical family farms.

Michael Hands and the Inga Foundation are providing an alternative to slash-and-burn that keeps each family’s land healthy, produces higher-value crops every year, and helps keep significant amounts of carbon stored in tropical soils in Latin America and Africa.

Michael’s team joined us by applying to our Carbon Contribution challenge last year. And now, we’ve got four new challenges waiting for your solutions. Find out how you or someone you know can apply to help solve our global challenges on Sustainable Urban Communities; Brain Health; Women and Technology; or Youth, Skills, and the Workforce of the Future.

MICHAEL HANDS’S STORY 
Q: Tell us your story: How did you first become interested in the work you do?
I was dismayed by the devastating impact that centuries of slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture has had in the world’s tropics. I was in near-disbelief while a Researcher at the University of Cambridge when I found that science could not fully explain the underlying ecology of the process—nor could it indicate a way out of the problem.

Q: Did you have a turning point moment that inspired you to think differently about your work?
There was a growing weight of evidence that certain plant nutrients could be the key to understanding the loss of soil fertility that prevents farmers’ attempts to take more than one or two crops from a slash-and-burn site. Breakthroughs in the ecology of soil phosphorus in my laboratory in Cambridge, UK, cleared away confusion and contradiction in the literature and opened the way to a promising set of field trials. These upheld the original hypotheses and led to the alternative agricultural system, in place of slash/burn, that Inga Foundation is now promoting.

Q: Tell us about your background—professionally, personally, or as a team.
Until 1984, I worked as a Topographic Surveyor on improving projects in many developing countries. Since 1988, I’ve been a Tropical Ecologist specializing in the ecology of tropical rain forests and in the ecology of slash-and-burn agriculture. I am the Founder and Trustee of Inga Foundation and Director of its Land for Life Program in Central America. Our teams in Central America are led by local foresters and agronomists who have extension assistants trained by them on our demonstration farms.

SOLUTION TEAM: INGA FOUNDATION
What is the problem you’re trying to solve?
To roll out a revolutionary and highly successful rural livelihood based on the food security provided by the proven agroforestry system developed by the Cambridge projects. This is called Alley Cropping (Inga A-C) with nitrogen-fixing trees of the tropical genus Inga.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INGA FOUNDATION HERE

Healthy Soil Microbes, Healthy People

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Authors: Mike Amaranthus and Bruce Allyn | Published: June 11, 2013

We have been hearing a lot recently about a revolution in the way we think about human health — how it is inextricably linked to the health of microbes in our gut, mouth, nasal passages, and other “habitats” in and on us. With the release last summer of the results of the five-year National Institutes of Health’s Human Microbiome Project, we are told we should think of ourselves as a “superorganism,” a residence for microbes with whom we have coevolved, who perform critical functions and provide services to us, and who outnumber our own human cells ten to one. For the first time, thanks to our ability to conduct highly efficient and low cost genetic sequencing, we now have a map of the normal microbial make-up of a healthy human, a collection of bacteria, fungi, one-celled archaea, and viruses. Collectively they weigh about three pounds — the same as our brain.

 

Now that we have this map of what microorganisms are vital to our health, many believe that the future of healthcare will focus less on traditional illnesses and more on treating disorders of the human microbiome by introducing targeted microbial species (a “probiotic”) and therapeutic foods (a “prebiotic” — food for microbes) into the gut “community.” Scientists in the Human Microbiome Project set as a core outcome the development of “a twenty-first century pharmacopoeia that includes members of the human microbiota and the chemical messengers they produce.” In short, the drugs of the future that we ingest will be full of friendly germs and the food they like to eat.

 

The single greatest leverage point for a sustainable and healthy future for the seven billion people on the planet is arguably immediately underfoot: the living soil, where we grow our food. But there is another major revolution in human health also just beginning based on an understanding of tiny organisms. It is driven by the same technological advances and allows us to understand and restore our collaborative relationship with microbiota not in the human gut but in another dark place: the soil.

Just as we have unwittingly destroyed vital microbes in the human gut through overuse of antibiotics and highly processed foods, we have recklessly devastated soil microbiota essential to plant health through overuse of certain chemical fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, failure to add sufficient organic matter (upon which they feed), and heavy tillage. These soil microorganisms — particularly bacteria and fungi — cycle nutrients and water to plants, to our crops, the source of our food, and ultimately our health. Soil bacteria and fungi serve as the “stomachs” of plants. They form symbiotic relationships with plant roots and “digest” nutrients, providing nitrogen, phosphorus, and many other nutrients in a form that plant cells can assimilate. Reintroducing the right bacteria and fungi to facilitate the dark fermentation process in depleted and sterile soils is analogous to eating yogurt (or taking those targeted probiotic “drugs of the future”) to restore the right microbiota deep in your digestive tract.

The good news is that the same technological advances that allow us to map the human microbiome now enable us to understand, isolate, and reintroduce microbial species into the soil to repair the damage and restore healthy microbial communities that sustain our crops and provide nutritious food. It is now much easier for us to map genetic sequences of soil microorganisms, understand what they actually do and how to grow them, and reintroduce them back to the soil.

Since the 1970s, there have been soil microbes for sale in garden shops, but most products were hit-or-miss in terms of actual effectiveness, were expensive, and were largely limited to horticulture and hydroponics. Due to new genetic sequencing and production technologies, we have now come to a point where we can effectively and at low cost identify and grow key bacteria and the right species of fungi and apply them in large-scale agriculture. We can produce these “bio fertilizers” and add them to soybean, corn, vegetables, or other crop seeds to grow with and nourish the plant. We can sow the “seeds” of microorganisms with our crop seeds and, as hundreds of independent studies confirm, increase our crop yields and reduce the need for irrigation and chemical fertilizers.

These soil microorganisms do much more than nourish plants. Just as the microbes in the human body both aid digestion and maintain our immune system, soil microorganisms both digest nutrients and protect plants against pathogens and other threats. For over four hundred million years, plants have been forming a symbiotic association with fungi that colonize their roots, creating mycorrhizae (my-cor-rhi-zee), literally “fungus roots,” which extend the reach of plant roots a hundred-fold. These fungal filaments not only channel nutrients and water back to the plant cells, they connect plants and actually enable them to communicate with one another and set up defense systems. A recent experiment in the U.K. showed that mycorrhizal filaments act as a conduit for signaling between plants, strengthening their natural defenses against pests. When attacked by aphids, a broad bean plant transmitted a signal through the mycorrhizal filaments to other bean plants nearby, acting as an early warning system, enabling those plants to begin to produce their defensive chemical that repels aphids and attracts wasps, a natural aphid predator. Another study showed that diseased tomato plants also use the underground network of mycorrhizal filaments to warn healthy tomato plants, which then activate their defenses before being attacked themselves.

Thus the microbial community in the soil, like in the human biome, provides “invasion resistance” services to its symbiotic partner. We disturb this association at our peril. As Michael Pollan recently noted, “Some researchers believe that the alarming increase in autoimmune diseases in the West may owe to a disruption in the ancient relationship between our bodies and their ‘old friends’ — the microbial symbionts with whom we coevolved.”

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A Soil Scientist With a Plan for a More Resilient Food System

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Author: Kai Olson-Sawyer | Published: July 14, 2017 

Laura Lengnick is a big thinker on agriculture and the environment. She has been guided in her work by the understanding that the problems generated by the U.S. industrial food system have been as significant as its ability to produce vast quantities of food. As she sees it, it’s not enough to produce food if there’s not a reckoning of costs and benefits from an unbalanced system.

This comprehensive outlook is a hallmark of Lengnick’s work, as is her positive vision for a more equitable and sustainable future. When it comes to her career, the question is not what work Lengnick has done to explore resilient, sustainable agriculture, but what hasn’t she done. Soil scientist, policymaker as a Senate staffer, USDA researcher, professor, sustainability consultant, advocate—Lengnick has done it all.

With her home nestled in a sunny cove in the North Carolina mountains, she bio-intensively tends to her 3,000-square-foot micro-farm. (She grows everything from greens and radishes to figs and sweet potatoes.) Based on her rich experience and deep expertise, Lengnick now views herself as a science interpreter in her interactions with farmers, public officials and the public at large. (She calls it “science-in-place.”)

Lengnick is the author of many articles and papers for scholars, practitioners and the general public, including the useful and engaging book Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate. She was also selected as a contributor to the Third National Climate Assessment, the authoritative U.S. climate report.

Over the years she’s traveled throughout the United States to meet with farmers to investigate the challenges and successes in the field and present her findings to many different audiences. Most recently, Lengnick has been invited to collaborate with the world-renowned Stockholm Resilience Centre, which will bring her views to an even larger audience. In a series of conversations, Lengnick and I spoke about her background, career, and philosophy to better explain where she is today.

Don’t Discount the Future

Innately curious, Lengnick didn’t start out imagining that she was on the road to food and agriculture—she thought of farming as grueling labor, an upbringing which her grandparents were eager to leave. In college she went into a pre-vet program, then photography and the visual arts. After she entered into landscape architecture and took a soils course, things came together. As she dug into soil science she knew she’d found her calling.

As she says, “Coming at it from the front I didn’t see all this connection and relevance you see now. But what I remember, and I think it is what’s sort of served me well in my whole career, is that if I had an option about work or if I was trying to create options for the next thing, it was always something that I was really passionate about.”

After acquiring her degrees in soil science, including a Ph.D., Lengnick was motivated to make an impact. With the passion and knowledge of soils and sustainable agriculture, she turned to a monumental question: How can we feed humanity while maintaining the health of the planet? What she observed was an out-of-whack food system where ever-greater yields and production came at a price to the surrounding environment. From plowing under healthy soils for depleted, monocropped fields to the impairment of clean air and water, she knew the current American agricultural model must do better.

To change the scenario, Lengnick went into the policy realm and became a staffer for South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, a prominent voice on farm and environmental issues, in a role where she worked on soil, water, and wetland conservation programs for farmers. She then moved on to ag research in the USDA, after which she left and spent five years on the outside, lobbying and crafting policy for sustainable ag producers at the federal level.

While Lengnick was successful in her efforts at the federal level, she felt the pace of change was too slow, and decided to leave government. It freed her to be a leader for sustainability in the academic and advocacy worlds, where she had more flexibility to address the challenges of the industrial mindset, of which the industrial food system is just one form. What she identified earlier in her career had become even clearer upon further analysis: The industrial food system was simultaneously productive and brittle, and it degraded natural resources and social bonds.

“The cost-effectiveness of the food system is the same as many other systems that are created by the industrial mind, the neoliberal mindset,” she explains. “I don’t think the food system stands out as particularly good or bad. It is another expression of industrialism, and so I see the same kind of quality in the food system. I also see the same kinds of costs in education system and in communities and any sort of modern industrial assembly of communities and materials and energy.”

Lengnick notes that the industrial system is based on a philosophy that is “laser focus[ed] on technology as being the source of solutions and the source of wealth.” While technological innovation is welcome and necessary to create a good society, the fixation on it is not. This narrow focus perpetuates the concentration of wealth and defines success as the accumulation of material things beyond the point where they retain their value.

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New State Program to Recognize Outstanding Farmers

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 Published: July 13, 2017 

You can tell a lot about a farm by looking closely at the soil. That’s why the new, statewide program to recognize Vermont’s most environmentally friendly farmers will be based on soil-sampling and monitoring. Today, Governor Phil Scott announced the pilot launch of the new Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program (VESP), which will use soil-based analysis to identify farmers who are going above and beyond to protect our natural resources.

Surrounded by state and federal officials at the North Williston Cattle Company, owned by the Whitcomb family, Governor Scott emphasized the important role farmers play in Vermont communities.

“Vermont farmers are contributing to our economy and keeping our landscape beautiful and productive,” said Governor Phil Scott. “This new, science-based program will use soil health data to help us identify and honor farmers who are going above and beyond the regulations to protect our natural resources.”

The program is a partner effort by the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Vermont Association of Conservation Districts, Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, and the University of Vermont Extension.

“We are still accepting VESP applications, and encourage farms of all types and sizes to apply,” added Vermont’s Ag Secretary, Anson Tebbetts. “We want farmers who are going the extra mile to be recognized and celebrated for their efforts.”

Tebbetts noted that many partners across the state and federal government came together to create this innovative program.

Following Governor Scott’s remarks, farmers Lorenzo and Onan Whitcomb gave a tour of their farm, including their robotic milker, and discussed some of the conservation practices they employ. To see aerial footage, captured by drone, of some of the Whitcomb’s conservation practices, including no-til corn, cover-cropping, and buffer strips, click here: [link](link is external)

To apply for the VESP Pilot, farmers must be in compliance with all State and Federal environmental regulations, and be actively farming their land.

Applicants for the VESP Pilot will be selected for participation through a competitive application ranking process on a rolling basis; there is no fee to participate. Five to 10 farms will be accepted into the pilot program, which will inform the final parameters of the Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program, launching in 2019. For more information, please visit: https://agriculture.vermont.gov/vesp(link is external)

About the Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program:

Conceptualized in 2016 in response to statewide water-quality and environmental challenges, the Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program (VESP) is a voluntary program that encourages and supports local agricultural producers to achieve environmental and agricultural excellence. VESP’s goal is to accelerate water-quality improvements through additional voluntary implementation efforts, and to honor farmers who have already embraced a high level of land stewardship.

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Grazing to Improve Soil Health, Producer Profits

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Author: Kay Ledbetterd | Published: July 14, 2017 

Richard Teague might be considered a cowboy of a different kind. He’s not rounding up stray cattle, but rather wrangling the best management practices on ranches to help the cattle and their owners.

Teague, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research ecologist at Vernon, grew up on a farm and knows firsthand there are some unintended consequences from traditional long-standing agricultural practices that might not readily be seen.

“I’m an ecologist and know that for an adequately functioning ecosystem, you have to have good soil function,” Teague said. “Many things we do in industrial agriculture break down the function of soil. The ranchers and farmers we are working with have demonstrated how to increase productivity by improving soil health, manage for decreased inputs, improve the health of their cattle and increase profits.”

Teague’s long-term research, which began in North Texas, is getting noticed. He recently was asked to join the leadership of a research group that includes 26 researchers from 18 universities and private entities.

The project is titled “Can Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing contribute to sequestering carbon in soils and improve delivery of ecosystem services and socio-ecological resilience in grazing ecosystems?”

On this project, Teague will be in charge of the grazing management project design and oversight. He is joined on the project by fellow AgriLife Research scientist Urs Kreuter in Texas A&M University’s department of ecosystem science and management, College Station.

Teague said this study will help bridge a big gap in the science between management effects on a ranch scale and results from small-plot research.

The group started with a $500,000 grant from Shell Alberta in 2016 to do reconnaissance sampling to provide proof of concept that AMP grazing management improves ecological, water catchment and economic value, as his research showed in Texas.

“We were successful in getting some smaller grants to do preliminary sampling to make sure the principles held true in cooler areas to the north, wetter areas to the east and drier areas in the west,” he said. “With these results and data, we started putting together grants to expand this work.”

McDonald’s Corp. kicked off the effort with a $4.5 million grant and is facilitating obtaining additional funding, Teague said. Now more entities are indicating a willingness to put money into this research effort.

“The reason they support the research is because they want to help address the food and health concerns of consumers,” he said. “Agriculture has a role to play in finding solutions to our health problems. Many groups are realizing that in the future they are going to have to show their food comes from healthy sources and ones that do not damage the environment.”

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6 States Tapping Into the Benefits of Carbon Farming

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Author: Diana Donlon | Published: July 12, 2017 

A handful of states around the country have begun to recognize the importance of carbon farming as an expedient tool to fight climate change. What’s carbon farming? Eric Toensmeier, author of The Carbon Farming Solution, describes it as “a suite of crops and agricultural practices that sequester carbon in the soil and in perennial vegetation like trees.” If carbon farming were widely implemented, it could return billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere—where there’s currently too much, to the soil where there’s too little. Carbon in the soil, i.e. soil carbon, becomes a resource that increases food, water and climate security.

Last month, Hawaii became the first state in the nation to pass legislation officially supporting the Paris climate agreement, just days after President Trump announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the global agreement. One of the two landmark laws signed in Hawai’i was an act creating the Carbon Farming Task Force. Written and championed by Hawai’i Center for Food Safety, along with the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi and Surfrider Foundation O’ahu Chapter, the task force went into effect July 1 and will develop incentives for Hawai’i’s farmers and ranchers to improve the resilience of their lands by increasing the soil’s carbon content.

University of Hawai’i assistant professor of agricultural ecosystem ecology, Rebecca Ryals, believes “Hawai’i’s Carbon Farming Task Force is a critically important first step toward finding local solutions to global climate change, and soil carbon farming strategies should be emphasized in its incentive programs.”

Hawai’i is just one of a growing number of states preparing to protect rural livelihoods from the threats posed by climate change by tapping into the multiple benefits of carbon farming. Here are five others:

1. In May, Maryland established the Maryland Healthy Soils Program introduced by Delegate Dana Stein. Stein’s legislation (HB 1063) passed unanimously in the Senate and had the support of both the Maryland Farm Bureau and the soil and climate communities (including thousands of Center for Food Safety members who responded to our action alert in support of the bill). The act, as approved by Gov. Larry Hogan, requires the Maryland Department of Agriculture to provide incentives including research, education and technical assistance contributing to healthy soils.

2. Massachusetts is right behind Maryland. “An Act to Promote Healthy Soils” (No.3713) presented by Paul A. Schmid III, would establish a fund for education and training for those engaged in agriculture that regenerates soil health. Indicators of healthy soil include levels of carbon, rates of water infiltration and biological activity.

3. Meanwhile, in New York, Assemblywoman Didi Barrett introduced A3281, a first-of-its-kind bill to use a tax credit model for farmers who maximize carbon sequestration potential on their land. Although the bill did not pass this past year, Barrett was able to incorporate the Carbon Farming Act into the state budget which is providing $50,000 to study incentives for carbon farming tax credits, grants and other programs.

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Should ‘regenerative’ Agriculture Get Its Own Label?

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Author: Christopher Collins | Published: July 10, 2017 

The soil at Adobe House Farm in Durango, Colorado, gets better each time the landscaping trucks, brimming with leaves from a nearby housing development, make a delivery. Linley Dixon, a farmer and soil scientist for the Cornucopia Institute, says that over the years the leaves have helped raise her soil’s organic matter from 2 percent to about 8 percent.

This is good for an obvious reason: Plants grow better in soil with high levels of organic matter. But soil fertility is a reliable indicator of something else, too: how much carbon dioxide the ground can absorb from the surrounding environment. Scientists have linked high atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide to a warming climate, so the more CO2 the soil can sequester from the air, the better. Research has also indicated carbon sequestration can replenish depleted carbon networks in soil.

Dixon practices a farming method she calls “regenerative agriculture.” She uses compost, cover crops, and tills only minimally. These practices have been around since at least the 1970s, and have often been described as organic or agroecological. But Dixon says that regenerative agriculture goes further than most organic farming, and she hopes to help bring the approach to the mainstream.

Dixon and other members of the movement have used the growing threat of climate change as their rallying cry. “There’s so much doom and gloom around climate change, so if you can come up with a solution, it’s absolutely exciting,” Dixon said. At the Cornucopia Institute, regenerative agriculture is touted as a protection for farmers against the floods and droughts that are becoming more frequent in our rapidly warming world.

Dixon and the Cornucopia Institute aren’t alone. The people behind Holistic Management International, the Carbon Underground, Green America, and the Rodale Institute are all working to make inroads to bring regenerative ag to the mainstream. In some cases, these organizations are in conversations with suppliers, regulators, and manufacturers to begin using the term as a label on food. And while it’s not clear that the market has room for another eco-label, some regenerative ag advocates appear to be pushing that agenda forward.

Seizing an Opportune Moment

Because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has oversight over the certified organic label, changes to existing rules have happened slowly. Case in point: The agency spent years working on an update to the animal welfare practices put forth in the current certification. Despite some momentum at the beginning of 2017, under the Trump administration it has been delayed several times. Similarly, while organic standards call for special attention to soil fertility, not all organic farms practice those techniques.

With a growing number of large producers transitioning some or all of their business to organic to capture the market, challenges to the label’s legitimacy have arisen, as evidenced by two scathing Washington Post investigative pieces spotlighting the USDA’s failure to regulate organic products.

Although organic sales are at a record high ($43.5 billion in 2015), the organic brand is struggling with a perception problem. A 2015 study by market research firm Mintel found that more than one-third of shoppers are skeptical that organic products are any better than conventionally grown food.

And even more are confused by alternative labels: A 2016 Consumer Reports survey found that 73 percent of consumers sought out products labeled “natural”—a label with no regulatory teeth—while only 58 percent look for organic products. This may be due in part to a 2012 Stanford meta-analysis study that found organic food is only slightly more nutritious than conventionally grown food, although the report’s methodology has drawn criticism.

“The organic certification is struggling. There are people who feel like it’s been watered down,” said Ann Adams, executive director of Holistic Management International. She also points to the fact that while less than 1 percent of farmland in the U.S. is certified organic, organic sales account for closer to 4 percent of the market. “Because we can’t produce enough of these organic products in this country, we’re importing a lot and people are looking the other way.”

And while foods grown using regenerative practices may help fill the void left by inadequate organic regulation, Adams said, it would likely be an uphill battle to convince consumers to buy them. “The number one reason people buy organic is for the health of their children,” she said, pointing out that some regenerative tenets—soil health and farmworker rights, for example—may be too abstract to win over organic customers.

But Larry Kopald, president and co-founder of the Carbon Underground, sees the climate argument as an effective marketing pitch for regenerative farming. According to its website, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit specializes in “crafting campaigns that motivate people to act,” with past clients including Honda, American Express, PepsiCo, and McDonalds. “We’d like to get to a point where we can hang a sign above the apples at the co-op that says, ‘These apples helped reverse climate change.’ The pressure that would put on the apples next to them would be immense,” Kopald said.

Carbon Underground is in the early stages of discussions with “investment and development people” to bring regenerative ag to the public consciousness. Kopald declined to give details, but said that the organization has worked with California State University, Chico and the National Co-op Association on the project and he hopes to achieve “significant scale” within five years.

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Sustainable Agriculture Can Mitigate Climate Change and Involuntary Migration

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Author: UN Food and Agriculture Organisation | July 6, 2017 

Climate change poses a major risk for rural people in developing countries, often leading to distress-driven migration, and bolstering sustainable agriculture is an essential part of an effective policy response, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today.

Citing figures showing that since 2008 one person has been displaced every second by climate and weather disasters – an average of 26 million a year – and suggesting the trend is likely to intensify in the immediate future as rural areas struggle to cope with warmer weather and more erratic rainfall, he said the “solution to this great challenge” lies in bolstering the economic activities that the vast majority of rural populations are already engaged in.

Graziano da Silva and William Lacy Swing, Director-General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), spoke at a meeting during FAO’s Conference.

“Although less visible than extreme events like a hurricane, slow-onset climate change events tend to have a much greater impact over time,” Swing said, citing the drying up over 30 years of Lake Chad, now a food crisis hotspot. “Many migrants will come from rural areas, with a potentially major impact on agricultural production and food prices.”

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‘I Get Sick Every Time I Go to Work’: American Airlines Flight Attendant Claims Her ‘sexy’ New Uniform Is Making Her Ill

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Author: Regina F. Graham | Published: July 5, 2017 

An American Airlines flight attendant claims that her ‘sexy’ uniform is causing her to have serious health problems.

Heather Poole, a 20-year crew member for the popular airliner, has been blogging in recent months about the adverse effects she claims she has experienced while sporting the company-issued suiting.

‘I get sick every time I go to work,’ she wrote. ‘Every time I go to work I feel terrible.

‘Since the uniform debuted on September 20, I’ve seen more doctors than I’ve ever seen in my life and I’ve learned things about toxic chemicals I never knew before.

‘Before the new uniform I didn’t know what ‘sensitizers’ were or what ‘synergy’ meant, and I sure as heck would have never dreamed I’d develop ‘MCS’ (multiple chemical sensitivity). Now I’m practically an expert on the subject.’

Poole suffers from hypothyroidism and says the uniform has also negatively affected her condition.

However, flight attendants began complaining about rashes with those uniforms too.

In addition to flight attendants having issues with the clothing, American Airlines pilots have also complained about health issues they believe are being caused by the chemicals in the uniforms.

More than 3,000 members of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants have also filed complaints about the new uniforms.

About 100 pilots said the new uniforms were giving them rashes, swollen eyes, and making them feel generally ill, reported Bloomberg News.

‘They have to be fit for duty,’ Dennis Tajer, an Allied Pilots Association spokesman, said. ‘If the uniform is making them not fit for duty, then something has to change.’

Tajer said a couple of pilots became so sick they couldn’t fly, and others only had symptoms when the uniforms were on.

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Finding Common Ground on Carbon

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Author: Chelsea Chandler | Published: June 9, 2017 

Even though global warming is a politically polarizing topic, it’s worth considering some areas of common ground—both figuratively and literally—when it comes to how we manage the carbon dioxide (CO2) that we’re releasing into the atmosphere. Natural carbon storage, for instance, is a win-win for Wisconsin’s citizens, our land, and the global climate, and the type of common sense solution we can all get behind.

To understand natural carbon storage, it’s important to recognize that carbon naturally cycles between different reservoirs on the planet: the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, and geosphere. We can think of it like a budget: the carbon stored in one place generally offsets carbon naturally emitted in another place, creating a sort of carbon equilibrium. However, too much carbon moving into any one of these reservoirs—especially the atmosphere and oceans—can wreak havoc on this delicate balance.

Carbon overload happens when we have too much input from sources, and not enough capacity in sinks in which to store the carbon. Since the Industrial Revolution, scientists have measured more and more CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere through the burning of hydrocarbons long-stored as fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Meanwhile, by removing and degrading important ecosystems that act as carbon sinks, such as forests cleared for lumber and prairies converted to farmland or urban use, we diminish our capacity to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Just as humans can manage the sources of CO2 we add to the atmosphere, we can also play a big role in managing carbon sinks that can take up and store CO2. Forests, for instance, are important biological sinks in which carbon is stored long-term in wood and soil. Sustainably managing forestlands and working to preserve large tracts of forests are two ways in which we can help to decrease levels of atmospheric carbon.

Prairies, where the majority of carbon storage is in the soil, were once massive biological carbon sinks. However, the USGS reports that since 1830, tallgrass prairie in Wisconsin has decreased over 99%, greatly diminishing our capacity for capturing carbon. In addition to preventing further agricultural or urban land conversion, landowners can help increase our natural carbon storage capacity by working to restore prairies, forests, and wetlands.

Farmers are active land stewards. It is in their best interest to sustain the soil because it in turn sustains them. More than many other professions, farmers are intimately linked to long-term changes in the weather. When someone makes a living off the land—and provides food and resources essential to others—long-term thinking is about sustainability in every sense of the word. Many farmers are already implementing common sense land management practices for storing more carbon, though there are many other opportunities. We’re only currently tapping about 10% of the soil carbon storage potential in U.S. cropland, and there’s a lot more we can do to maintain health of our environment, locally and globally.

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