Extinction of animals and plants, #climate disasters, #Desert conditions could spread rapidly from groundwater depletion and plant destruction.

By Erika Schelby

The planet is facing multiple severe challenges that require our immediate attention. Putting an end to the dirty and suffocating fossil fuel emissions may be the most significant global priority, but limiting the misuse of water and restoring degraded land are also essential projects.

These two actions could help put the brakes on extreme weather events and slow down mounting losses in biodiversity, biocapacity, and the economy.

The Seeds of Preparedness

Human encroachment, especially in areas rich in biodiversity, has been one of the major threats to the survival of plants and nonhuman animals.

A 2023 report by NatureServe, a conservation group that networks with and analyzes the research of more than 1,000 scientists in the U.S. and Canada, puts the biodiversity crisis into perspective.

Their findings are worrisome: 40 percent of animals and 34 percent of plants are at risk of extinction in the United States. Many of these species are losing their natural habitats: 41 percent of ecosystems are threatened by collapse.

“At this moment, species are going extinct faster than any time in human history,” the report stated. “Given limited resources available for land management, conservation, and research, we need to make the most effective decisions to ensure the survival of natural communities. Data should be driving these decisions.”

The repercussions of our thoughtless actions are finally catching up with us. They threaten our existence. The United States is already experiencing natural disasters at an unparalleled scale. “The U.S. experienced 23 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the first eight months of 2023—the largest number since records began,” according to Axios.

Using resilient native seeds to repair “Earth’s Green Mantle” may help support those Americans who are losing everything due to storms, floods, landslides, or fires. It could offer them a fighting chance to start over and rebuild in a safer spot—for keeps, and not in vain.

What use would reconstruction be if the climate crisis deepens and destroys their homes again? “Without native plants, especially their seeds, we do not have the ability to restore functional ecosystems after natural disasters and mitigate the effects of climate change,” states the report, “National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration.”

To keep the human population sheltered, we can get help from something ancient and fundamental: native seeds, “which have adapted to their local environments over the course of thousands of years,” explained NPR. Sadly, we no longer have enough of them to do even the most urgent repairs. Making sure there will be a sufficient supply is the first task.

In January 2023, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released the report “An Assessment of Native Seed Needs and the Capacity for Their Supply.” It leaves no doubt about the dire shortage of native seeds and the urgency of supplying them to restore damaged natural areas.

“A limited supply of native seeds and other native plant materials is a widely acknowledged barrier to fulfilling our most critical restoration needs,” said Susan P. Harrison, a professor at the University of California, Davis, and chair of the committee that wrote the NASEM report.

The document outlines a detailed course of action, covering topics ranging from federal to state and local governments, tribal uses of native seeds, cooperative partnerships, and the problematic situations seed suppliers face. Another critical study called “Collection and Production of Native Seeds for Ecological Restoration” by Simone Pedrini and her colleagues in 2020 offered an excellent analysis of native seed requirements.

The “just-in-time” inventory business model of late capitalism is a fiasco for seeds and seedlings. Cities want to plant many more trees to mitigate extreme heat. The U.S. Forest Service intends to plant 1.2 billion trees between 2022 and 2032 to restore scorched land. But the ample supply of hardy seedlings to do this is not available.

“Seedling production in the northern U.S. fell by more than half between 2012 and 2020, the researchers found,” stated an August 2023 article in Anthropocene. It takes planning and years of careful work to harvest the desired seeds and grow the seedlings. The limited quantities of baby trees found in nurseries usually belong to vulnerable species that will not survive the harsh conditions resulting from extreme weather conditions.

Evolution: The Ultimate Disaster Proofing

The resilient seeds needed are the end-product of a long evolution. Plants have accomplished much since starting on solid ground some 500 million years ago, and they have gained far more experience on how to persist on this Earth than we have. They’ve endured the harshest conditions and have been tested and retested to the limits. Those plant species that made it know how to hold on even when heat, drought, erosion, and other perils will cause other plants to fail. Insects, animals, and humans depend on these plants for sustenance, shelter, and more.

In fact, plants have been essential for all living things in the planet’s history, and their germplasm will be crucial for the future. Humans are the new kids on the block, and our cavalier attitude toward the genetic richness of this inconspicuous and diverse greenery has gotten us into the current dilemma.

Global Boiling

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA, July 2023 was the hottest month based on NASA’s records dating back to the 1880s. In the United States, a rising percentage of the population has been confronted by extreme weather events: storms, floods, fires, landslides, long-lasting extreme heat, smoke, toxic air pollution, and drought.

To pick just one day: on July 13, more than 100 million people in several states in the United States faced extreme weather alerts. Then, by July 28, nearly 200 million Americans were under extreme weather alerts, and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced that the “era of global boiling has arrived.”

Extreme weather change is no longer something remote and abstract; it is with us, and it is real. We feel it, live it, and must deal with it. It saps energy, sabotages productivity, and destroys livelihoods. The heat boils the human body and precipitates illness and death. Governments, including our own, appear unprepared to deal with the consequences of global warming—their responses look inadequate or sluggish. And to be fair, all this might be too much for our institutions and agencies to handle.

Unprepared to Survive the Climate Catastrophe

A closer look at October 2023 figures provided by the Danger Season map, released by the Union of Concerned Scientists, reveals how the situation is slowly spiraling out of control, as a whopping “96 percent of people in the United States faced an extreme weather alert during Danger Season 2023.”

This climate catastrophe has thrown up a new set of challenges to reckon with at home and globally. While there is a vast Pentagon apparatus in place to protect Americans against threats from abroad—real or invented—we seem unprepared to protect the U.S. population who are being subjected to extreme weather aggression.

Increasingly, images of people who have lost everything in a storm or a wildfire have become common. Often depleted by shock, stress, and the elements, looking worse for wear, they are seen putting on a brave face for the camera, and saying they are thankful to have survived. Then, in tune with their reputation as can-do Americans, they make pledges to rebuild. But the question remains: how? The costs of reconstruction have risen sharply during the last few years. And what about the required homeowners’ insurance that’s far too expensive for many or unavailable altogether?

The big insurance companies, like State Farm General Insurance Company and Allstate Corporation, have stopped providing insurance coverage to new homeowners since June 2023 in climate-stricken states like California and Florida. But these are only the aftermath stories. Just like the people left behind by the weather-related calamities, these stories will rapidly fade away from public attention, when they are no longer deemed newsworthy. But make no mistake: the survivors of these catastrophes are alive. They feel and think.

Desertification of the Sahara

At this point, it is helpful to recall that long ago, the world’s largest hot desert was a lush green place. Between 11,000 and 4,000 years ago, what we now know as the Sahara had rivers, lakes, abundant vegetation, thriving wildlife, and human populations. Later, during Roman times, Tunisia and then Egypt became the breadbaskets of the empire.

Yet today, blending with and bordering on the great Sahara Desert, these countries, which receive little rain, must import much of their wheat to feed their people. What happened? A cyclical change occurred due to the “changing orbital conditions of the [E]arth,” as it has happened since time immemorial.

The Earth’s orbital axis affects climate change. It wobbles. That’s called “the polar motion,” leading to a tilt that alters the angle of solar penetration in the atmosphere. The greater the axial tilt angle, the more extreme our seasons become. This is what happened across the vast Sahara area.

This prompted the desertification of the Sahara, which is “land degradation in arid, semiarid, and subhumid areas, accruing from multiple factors.”

Our continued disregard for nature has led to the expansion of the Sahara Desert, which seems to have grown by 10 percent since 1920. “The results suggest that human-caused climate change, as well as natural climate cycles, caused the desert's expansion,” according to the National Science Foundation.

Ecosystems interact, blend, cooperate, accommodate, get along, and find solutions.

In contrast, humans tend to focus on a problem, plunge in, intervene, and achieve good results in a linear fashion, which may produce unintended side effects and disturbances that can escalate, cause severe difficulties, and even end up in ecological collapse. Projects may succeed in the short term and make a mess in the long term.

These risks shouldn’t scare doers away, but perhaps this could teach us to have far more respect, insight, and even a little awe about the marvelous, interconnected functioning of natural systems. Fit in with it instead of fighting and wrecking it.

Solutions That Become Problems

One instance of how a temporary solution led to more problems comes to mind: the development, use, misuse, and final banning of DDT in 1972. Did we get rid of a bad and toxic habit? Yes, for a while, but then we went a step further and invented neonicotinoid pesticides, or neonics, and these neurotoxins harm the insect’s nerves. Neonics are widely used to coat seeds to protect plants from bugs. But they do much more: they kill pollinators, birds, and butterflies, persist in the environment, and leak into surface water, groundwater, and the soil.

As Amy van Saun of the Center for Food Safety wrote, “Now, almost half of all U.S. farmland is planted with pesticide-coated seeds.” The EPA still permits the use of neonicotinoids. They are super-toxic: one GMO corn seed coated with a neonicotinoid can kill more than 80,000 bees or one songbird, according to Saun. In 2023, scientists discovered that more than half of all species live in the soil, and here we are, saturating that valuable earthly skin with poisons.

It’s not proven that Albert Einstein said it, but he may have done so, and this quote fits the pesticide charade perfectly: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And that is what we do by holding on to the same bad habits.

How We Tipped the Balance

We have disturbed the equilibrium in nature because of our bad habits, which have caused irreversible damage to the planet. For instance, humanity influenced the Earth’s wobble and made the prolonged transition from wet to arid much faster in some regions than others. They initiated desertification. How? Archeologist David Wright thinks that “humans and their goats tipped the balance.”

Archeological and environmental data show that with the beginning of pastoralism, the raising of domesticated grazing animals, and overgrazing, the elimination of local grasses and plants spread. This changed the albedo, the amount of sunlight reflected off the ground’s surface. Concurrently, subtle orbital changes and atmospheric fluctuations reduced the monsoon rainfall. The result was an unrelenting loss of vegetation, a decreasing albedo, and rising temperatures.

In contrast, an increasing albedo signifies more snow and ice on the planet, and more sunlight is reflected back to space. This allows the planet to stay cooler.

For the Sahara, the combination of human activity decreased albedo, and erasure of the green mantle put regions of this vast terrain on the fast track to desertification.

Another interesting case in point based on the latest research and related to a shift in the Earth’s rotational axis is happening right now—with a focus on water. Anyone not infected by hubris would assume that humans are too inconsequential to initiate momentous orbital alterations, but evidence shows they can do it. Moving and redistributing mass on Earth impacts the planet’s rotation. It makes sense: if you load one side of a vessel—car or boat—with greater weight, there will be a tilt.

Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in June 2023 is a study by geophysicist Ki-Weon Seo and his team at Seoul National University that researched the impact of water (which includes shrinking ice sheets, glaciers, and snowpacks in the Rocky Mountains or other mountain ranges) on Earth’s rotation.

Seo’s latest findings show that “among climate-related causes, the redistribution of groundwater has the largest impact on the drift of the rotational pole.” Water is heavy, and the rotational pole “has shifted almost one meter in a 20-year period due to groundwater being pumped from one location.”

If just 20 short years of depleting groundwater can shift Earth’s rotational pole, where does this leave us in the arid U.S. Southwest and West? As long as we insist on extreme and unsustainable practices we can expect more dramatic results.

Examples of such practices include growing large-scale water-thirsty irrigated crops like alfalfa in Arizona to feed cattle and dairy cows in other countries; filling every private swimming pool in water-starved states; ignoring about 13 percent of evaporation from our antediluvian way of storing, moving, and managing water (ancient civilizations had somewhat smarter methods); and allowing some 1.5 million grazing cattle to erase native plants on millions of acres of public land whose forests are scorched by wildfires each year.

It is no wonder that we are facing a climate crisis in response to this abuse. It also becomes clear why our age is called the Anthropocene: geological time now seems to be the bygone past; it’s too slow for contemporary Masters of the Universe. The majority of us tend to shoot first and ask questions later. Is that why we are pumping groundwater like there is no tomorrow, stamping out native vegetation, rushing toward desertification, and endangering the food supply?

Little Steps and Multiplying Seeds

It does not have to be this way. The world is beautiful, and we do not have to passively witness how it gets despoiled. People can vote, volunteer for seed-collecting agencies, tend community gardens, rewild small city plots, and get kids involved locally. Or they can do things alone, as independent individuals. Equally, no one is forced to outwait the endless political jousting and the tiresome struggles with vested interests. After all, we have agency, or don’t we?

By simply multiplying one seed collected, one plant raised, one bee spared, less red meat eaten, no food wasted, and personal fossil fuel use reduced as much as possible, there can soon be some significant positive results. As Eduardo Galeano understood: “Many small people, in small places, doing small things can change the world.”

Author Bio: Erika Schelby is the author of Looking for Humboldt and Searching for German Footprints in New Mexico and Beyond (Lava Gate Press, 2017) and Liberating the Future from the Past? Liberating the Past from the Future? (Lava Gate Press, 2013), which was shortlisted for the International Essay Prize Contest by the Berlin-based cultural magazine Lettre International. Schelby lives in New Mexico.

 This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

 

Rather than blame young workers for bad attitudes, we need to understand why Gen Z prioritizes its well-being over company health - and learn from them.

By  Sonali Kolhatkar 

My oldest born is a high school junior, taking his first steps into the hypercompetitive and bewildering world of undergraduate college applications and future careers. So, I was drawn to a recent headline in Fortune proclaiming, “Bosses Are Firing Gen Z Grads Just Months After Hiring Them—Here’s What They Say Needs to Change.” The story covers a new study about hiring trends among employers and rather than examine what employers need to do to attract and retain new graduates—generous salaries, good benefits, work-life balance, creativity, and job security—it was a diatribe against new graduates.

Not only do employers accuse young people of a “lack of motivation or initiative,” they complain that they are “late to work and meetings often, not wearing office-appropriate clothing, and using language appropriate for the workspace.”

Nowhere in the story is it mentioned that the class of 2024 entered as freshmen the year the world shut down. The COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant lockdowns impacted young people disproportionately. At a time in their lives when social interaction was just as important as academic work, if not more, they were forced to isolate, albeit for good reason. But their mental health suffered and we as a society made no systemic effort to address it. Instead, they were left to their own devices, to care for their mental health, and to sort out their attitudes toward work and careers.

Also, nowhere in the story is there an acknowledgment of the fact that young people’s futures have been sacrificed on the altar of corporate oil profits. As the world burns and floods and faces storms and as catastrophic climate forecasts erase Gen Z’s future, society demands they sport good attitudes and behave as though nothing is wrong and no mass intervention is needed to rectify the situation. Instead, Gen Z has to face climate devastation as individuals.

What the Fortune story covering the study of newly graduated employees does mention is how schools are trying to prepare kids for the corporate grind, citing one high school in London that “is trialing a 12-hour school day to prepare pupils for adult life.” This is shared with no sense of irony about the fact that workdays in a civilized society ought to be no more than 8 hours long.

Employers are apparently looking for workers who have “a positive attitude and more initiative.” If that sounds out of touch, there’s more. A career adviser told Fortune that young hires would do well to “[b]uild a reputation for dependability by maintaining a positive attitude, meeting deadlines, and volunteering for projects, even those outside your immediate responsibilities.” In other words, if you want to keep your job, take on more work than you were hired to do.

Long hours and extra work are part of the ethos of a dying corporate culture where workers sacrificed their lives and well-being for their bosses, and—a few decades ago—might have been rewarded with enough to live on. That capitalist contract is defunct. A separate September 2024 study of Gen Z salary satisfaction showed that 87 percent of those surveyed felt they were underpaid. A Pew study from May 2020 concluded that today’s youth “are on track to be the most well-educated generation yet.” This naturally leads to high expectations of employers. But nearly half of those surveyed in September earn only between $30,000 and $60,000 a year, which in today’s economy is not enough to live on. If young workers lack a positive attitude, they have good reason.

Pew also found that “Members of Gen Z are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation.” In the past year especially, young Americans have watched an unfolding genocide in Gaza aimed at people who look a lot like them. That genocide, funded by their parents’ tax dollars and their college endowments, has played out in horrifying detail on their Instagram and TikTok accounts, inuring them from the political punditry downplaying Israel’s culpability. Their college campus protests and encampments haven’t worked to stop U.S. funding to Israel.

It’s no wonder that Gen Z is breaking from older generations by being disproportionately and unapologetically pro-Palestinian. It’s also no wonder that they are jaded about their own future in a nation whose government actively cheers on the extermination of their Palestinian peers.

Gen Z is left to deal with massive systemic failures—climate change, pandemics, and genocide—as individuals. Why are we shocked then that they are prioritizing their own physical and mental health? No one else is doing so.

A February 2024 Stanford Report article on Gen Z workers interrogated the employment values and expectations of young people and concluded that they “question everything and everyone—from their peers, parents, or people at work,” and “[t]hey are also not afraid to challenge why things are done the way they are.” They prefer collaboration and consensus over hierarchy and, most importantly, they value mental health and work-life balance.

Gen Z workers grew up seeing their parents bring work home, work after hours, work overtime without compensation, and make themselves available to answer phone calls and emails at all hours. In return, they watched older generations suffer mass layoffs, failed union drives, and stagnating salaries. If they reject the idea of one’s work life ruling one’s home life, it seems that young workers have a lot to teach their older peers and employers rather than the other way around.

In spite of myself, I often urge my 17-year-old to focus on getting good grades so that he can get into a good college and land a good job that pays well enough to live on. But such logic assumes we live in a merit-based economy where hard work pays off. Those of us who are 40 and older know firsthand how much of a lie this is. I can tell my snarky teen barely humors me when I urge him to prioritize his grades. And I can imagine him doing the same to a future boss who might urge him to have a “positive attitude” at work.

Rutgers University public relations professor Mark Beal, author of Decoding Gen Z, told Fortune, “Gen Xers, boomers, even older millennials, they live to work. Work is driving them. It’s energizing them.” Meanwhile, “Gen Z works to live.” They prioritize their mental health over Wall Street’s financial health.

Are they on to something? Instead of excoriating young people for prioritizing their well-being overwork, we would do well to learn from them. Gen Z is shifting our collective ethos to normalize asking what bosses owe workers instead of the other way around.

Produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute

AUTHOR: Sonali Kolhatkar, an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her most recent book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.  

 

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Black Maternal Health Awareness Week is held annually on April 11-17 during National Minority Health Awareness Month to raise awareness about health disparities impacting racial and ethnic minorities and encourage action toward dismantling systems of oppression. 

 Researchers call the United States the most-dangerous developed country in which to give birth.  About 700 women die each year in the U.S. as a result of pregnancy or delivery complications.  One in three maternal deaths is preventable.  A National Institute of Health-funded study found that Black women are three times more likely to die than White women from a pregnancy-related cause.  Maternal death disparities were concentrated in postpartum cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease) and preeclampsia and eclampsia.  The mortality rate for Black women was five times higher than White women in postpartum cardiomyopathy and preeclampsia and eclampsia.   College-educated Black women have over five times higher pregnancy-related mortality than white women of similar education

Since 2018, over 21,000 infants have died each year in their first year of life.  Black infants are two to three times more likely to die than White infants in their first year of life.  The leading causes of infant mortality are birth defects, preterm birth, injuries, sudden infant death syndrome, and pregnancy complications.  The amount of infant deaths is much higher if miscarriages are factored in.  For known pregnancies, 11-16% of pregnancies end in a spontaneous loss of the pregnancy before the 20th week.  Most miscarriages occur because the fetus is not developing as anticipated.

With such high numbers of miscarriages, infant deaths, and maternal deaths one might assume that these issues are well known among women.  However, many women report an unawareness of the issues and the available resources for grieving families. 

Losing a baby or spouse due to pregnancy or delivery complications is tragic.  For Black families, the pain of losing a loved one can be exacerbated by systemic racism, prejudices, implicit bias, microaggressions, and other forms of oppression.  

EDITORS NOTE:  Given the current attack on women’s reproductive rights, authorities have said more deaths of both Black and White women will occur.  What an unconscionable, cruel state of affairs.

Chemists are manipulating carbon dioxide to make clothing, mattresses, shoes, and more.

By Ann Leslie Davis

It’s morning, and you wake up on a comfortable foam mattress made partly from greenhouse gas. You pull on a T-shirt and sneakers manufactured using carbon dioxide pulled from factory emissions. After a good run, you stop for a cup of joe and guiltlessly toss the plastic cup in the trash, confident it will fully biodegrade into harmless organic materials. At home, you squeeze shampoo from a bottle that has lived many lifetimes, then slip into a dress fashioned from smokestack emissions. You head to work with a smile, knowing your morning routine has made Earth’s atmosphere a teeny bit cleaner.

Sound like a dream? Hardly. These products are already on the market around the world. And others are in the process of being developed. They’re part of a growing effort by academia and industry to reduce the damage caused by centuries of human activity that has sent CO2 and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

The need for action is urgent. In its 2022 report, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, stated that rising temperatures have already caused irreversible damage to the planet and increased human death and disease.

Meanwhile, the amount of CO2 emitted continues to grow. In 2023, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted that if current policy and growth trends continue, annual global CO2 emissions could increase from more than 35 billion metric tons in 2022 to 41 billion metric tons by 2050.

Capturing—and Using—Carbon

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a climate mitigation strategy with “considerable” potential, according to the IPCC, which released its first report on the technology in 2005. CCS traps CO2 from smokestacks or ambient air and pumps it underground for permanent sequestration; controversially, the fossil fuel industry has also used this technology to pump more oil out of reservoirs.

As of 2023, almost 40 CCS facilities operate worldwide, with about 225 more in development, according to Statista. The Global CCS Institute reports that, in 2022, the total annual capacity of all current and planned projects was estimated at 244 million metric tons. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $3.5 billion in funding for four U.S. direct air capture facilities.

Meanwhile, the amount of CO2 emitted continues to grow. In 2023, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted that if current policy and growth trends continue, annual global CO2 emissions could increase from more than 35 billion metric tons in 2022 to 41 billion metric tons by 2050.

Capturing—and Using—Carbon

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a climate mitigation strategy with “considerable” potential, according to the IPCC, which released its first report on the technology in 2005. CCS traps CO2 from smokestacks or ambient air and pumps it underground for permanent sequestration; controversially, the fossil fuel industry has also used this technology to pump more oil out of reservoirs.

Author Bio:  Ann Leslie Davis is an award-winning freelance climate journalist with a Master's degree in English Language and Literature/Letters and a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science. She focuses on emerging technologies for CDR (carbon dioxide removal) like Direct Air Capture, Enhanced Rock Weathering and Ocean Sequestration, along with new ways to utilize CO2 in order to reduce emissions.

She has published in Science News, Grist, Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, Modern Farmer and many other publications. Her work has won East Bay Press and New England Press awards for its depth, clarity, and relevance. She is passionate about communicating science to diverse audiences, and aims to raise awareness and knowledge on the urgent issue of climate change.

 

 

Known by its brand name Roundup, glyphosate is a clear and present danger to human health.

By Caroline Cox

Glyphosate, known by its famous brand name, Roundup, is a widely used herbicide (a pesticide designed to kill plants). It is a broad-spectrum herbicide that kills or damages all plant types: grasses, perennials, vines, shrubs, and trees. Glyphosate has been sold as an herbicide since 1974. Its use dramatically increased in the 21st century as its patents expired and genetically modified crop varieties that tolerated exposure to glyphosate became popular.

Experts now believe it is the “most heavily” used herbicide globally. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.

Glyphosate: Widespread Use and Exposure

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated glyphosate usage in 2019—based on data collected between 2012 and 2016—and concluded that almost 300 million acres of farmland were treated with about 280 million pounds of glyphosate yearly. Another 24 million pounds of the herbicide is used every year in home yards, roadways, forestry, and turf, according to a 2020 analysis by the agency.

Given this enormous use of glyphosate in the United States, it is perhaps unsurprising that exposure to it is widespread. A unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did the largest and most comprehensive study to determine glyphosate exposure using urine collected from a sample of Americans selected between 2013 and 2014 to accurately represent the entire population. Researchers found that more than 80 percent of participants, who were six years and older, had been exposed to glyphosate. In discussing the results, the CDC suggested that food was an important source of exposure to the chemical. “Participants who had not eaten for eight or more hours had lower levels of glyphosate in their urine.”

The Salinas Study: Liver Diseases and Diabetes

A growing number of studies link exposure to glyphosate with various human health problems other than the cancer hazard that IARC evaluated. Typically classified as epidemiology, this research does not formally determine cause and effect but is more realistic and often more compelling than research done using laboratory animals or cell cultures.

One example of an epidemiology study comes from the agricultural town of Salinas, California. Starting in 1999, the University of California, Berkeley, scientists recruited pregnant mothers and then their children as volunteer participants in a study called the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS), which was conducted over a period of more than 20 years. These “480 mother-child duos” mostly belonged to farmworker families in the Salinas area. The mothers provided their blood and urine samples and other health information during pregnancy, while the samples from children were collected when they were 5, 14, and then 18 years old. All of this data was used to answer essential questions about glyphosate exposure.

The CHAMACOS study compared teens with higher-than-average exposure to glyphosate as children to those with lower exposure. Teens with higher exposure to glyphosate and its primary breakdown product, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), were more likely to show signs of liver inflammation, meaning they had a higher risk of developing liver disease. They were also more likely to have metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, low levels of “good” cholesterol, and several other health problems), which could make them more susceptible to serious health concerns such as liver cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, later in life.

The study had several other interesting results. In the early years of the study (2000-2002), glyphosate exposures in children were infrequent and low. Most participants did not have glyphosate in their bodies. This changed dramatically as time went on. Glyphosate and AMPA were found in 80 to 90 percent of the 14-year-old participants. The researchers note that this mirrors the national and global increase in glyphosate use.

In addition, the Salinas study showed that glyphosate exposures in this agricultural farmworker community were similar to exposures across the country in people who were not farmworkers. According to the researchers, this suggests that the primary source of glyphosate exposure was food, concluding that “diet was a major source of glyphosate and AMPA exposure among… study participants… as indicated by higher urinary glyphosate or AMPA concentrations among those who ate more cereal, fruits, vegetables, bread, and in general, carbohydrates.”

American Women: Pregnancy Problems

Another example of epidemiology showing glyphosate hazards comes from a study of pregnant women living in California, Minnesota, New York, and Washington. This study found that more than 90 percent of these women were exposed to glyphosate and that higher exposures to glyphosate and AMPA during the second trimester were linked to shorter-than-normal pregnancies. The study participants represented all American pregnant women in terms of race, ethnicity, economic status, and urban versus suburban families. The report concluded that exposure to glyphosate “may impact reproductive health by shortening length of gestation.”

Canadian Study: Glyphosate in Food

A detailed evaluation of glyphosate exposure comes from a study of about 2,000 pregnant women in 10 cities across Canada between 2008 and 2011. Based on urine analysis and questionnaires, the researchers concluded that food was a more likely source of glyphosate exposure than household pesticide use or pesticide drift. The foods linked to higher glyphosate exposures were spinach, whole grain bread, soy and rice beverages, and pasta. The strongest link was “between consumption of whole grain bread and higher urinary glyphosate concentrations.”

Government Testing

Government agencies in North America have tested foods for glyphosate contamination. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration started testing food for glyphosate in 2016-2017. In more recent testing of more than 2,000 samples from 2020, the FDA found relatively high levels of glyphosate in lentils (up to 20 parts per million, or “ppm”), garbanzo beans (up to 12 ppm), and black beans (up to 1 ppm). The U.S. Department of Agriculture tested corn (unprocessed grain) for glyphosate in 2021. Glyphosate was found in about 35 percent of the samples tested. The highest contamination level was relatively low at 0.14 ppm.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) tested a much wider variety of foods (almost 8,000 samples) between 2015 and 2017. More than 40 percent were contaminated with glyphosate. Consistent with the FDA data, CFIA found relatively high levels of glyphosate in beans (up to 8 ppm), chickpeas (up to 3 ppm), and lentils (up to 3 ppm).

The researchers found other commonly eaten foods with relatively high glyphosate levels, including couscous (up to 1 ppm), pasta (up to 1 ppm), pearl barley (up to 2 ppm), oatmeal (up to 1 ppm), infant oatmeal (up to 2 ppm), and rye flour/flakes (up to 6 ppm). Two foods with somewhat lower concentrations, but important because they are eaten often, were flour (77 percent of the samples were contaminated; with levels up to 0.8 ppm) and pizza (90 percent of samples contaminated; with levels up to 0.5 ppm). The research by CFIA found that “The highest glyphosate levels were observed in pulses and wheat products.”

Consumer Advocacy Group Testing

Several nonprofit organizations have also conducted testing of popular foods for glyphosate contamination. This testing is beneficial because the results identify brands contaminated with the herbicide, which would typically not be part of the government agency testing. Some 2022 results from the Detox Project, a research platform, provide details about glyphosate residue levels for brands such as Village Hearth’s 100% whole wheat bread (1 ppm), 365 Whole Foods Market’s whole wheat bread (1 ppm), and Quaker Oats (0.5 ppm).

In some good news, the Environmental Working Group reported in 2023 that glyphosate contamination of oat cereals and other oat-based products has decreased, with the highest levels found in Quaker Oatmeal Squares (less than 0.5 ppm).

Organic Farming

Certified organic farmers do not use glyphosate or most other synthetic pesticides. Buying and eating organic food is an excellent way to reduce glyphosate exposure. For example, a 2020 peer-reviewed study found that glyphosate exposure in four U.S. families was reduced by 70 percent within six days after they switched to an organic diet. In the CFIA study of glyphosate contamination of Canadian foods, testing of more than 1,000 organic items found that 75 percent were free of glyphosate, and most of the remaining organic products had only small amounts of the chemical. Organic products can be contaminated by drift, contaminated water, or contaminated equipment, but these levels are typically low.

The amount of organic farmland in the U.S. was almost five million acres in 2021, and organic food sales topped $60 billion for the first time in 2022, according to a 2023 survey by the Organic Trade Association.

“Organic has proven it can withstand short-term economic storms. Despite the fluctuation of any given moment, Americans are still investing in their personal health, and, with increasing interest, in the environment,” said Organic Trade Association CEO Tom Chapman, according to a May 2023 press release.

If organic farming continues to expand and is made accessible to consumers across the U.S., a future with glyphosate-free food seems within reach.

Author Bio: Caroline Cox is a retired pesticide scientist. She was a staff scientist at the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides from 1990 to 2006 and a research director and senior scientist at the Center for Environmental Health from 2006 to 2020. She has been writing about glyphosate hazards since the 1990s. She is a contributor to the Observatory

 This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.