Larry Glass, NEC Board President
Caroline Griffith, NEC Executive Director
Oregon gray wolves
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the killing of three gray wolves from the Gearhart Mountain Pack in southeastern Oregon. The death of these wolves has occurred in an area known for wolf activity but also known for its right wing militia activity. Authorities from the state of Oregon are offering a $50,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. Gray wolves are listed in this part of Oregon as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
In much better news, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) recently identified two new wolf packs in the northern part of the state. The newly-named wolf families are in Plumas and Lassen Counties. In order for a wolf pack to be given a name and declared a pack, they must be spotted at least four times. In total, the CDFW says there are now seven wolfpacks, totaling between 45 and 50 wolves, in California. Wolves, which were eliminated in most of the US in the early 1900s with predator-control programs, are on the endangered species list in California.
Toxic chemicals
A federal judge in Arizona ruled in early February that the EPA erred in reapproving the use of dicamba, a “selective systemic herbicide” that has been found to volatilize in warm weather and drift into neighboring fields causing damage. The finding ruled that the agency did not post the rule change for public notice and comment as required by law.
Ultimately, the court ruled against the approval of three dicamba-based weed killers manufactured by Bayer, BASF and Syngenta, which have been blamed for millions of acres of crop damage and harm to endangered species and natural areas across the midwest and south. This is unfortunately a small percentage of the toxic chemicals that are widely used and abused by Big Ag. This is the second time a federal court has pulled these weedkillers off the market. In 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its own ban, but months later the Trump administration EPA reapproved the weed-killing products.
Meanwhile the EPA is doubling down on pesticide use with its controversial finding that another extremely toxic herbicide is safe for use despite scientific proof that it causes Parkinson’s disease. A previous approval of paraquat-based herbicides, which have been banned in over 50 countries, had been appealed by a coalition of agricultural and public health groups who charged that the EPA had ignored scientific consensus linking paraquat-based herbicides to Parkinson’s. In late January the EPA issued a report claiming that paraquat is safe if used as directed. A final ruling is expected next year.
With both of these herbicides, farm workers and people living in agricultural areas are at high risk for exposure. According to the USGS, about 1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied to US croplands and urban areas every year. How is this so when we know the danger – to people, plants and animals – that these compounds present? Pesticides are largely made from petrochemicals, so their manufacture and the processes of extracting the components of pesticides are harmful as well. As we shift away from fossil fuels, we can expect to see the petrochemical industry push harder for other uses of oil, from plastics to pesticides. For the sake of the human and more-than-human world we need to be prepared to push back.
Rising temperatures rising authoritarianism
As global temperatures move past the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) rise that many experts have warned could trigger uncontrolled reactions in the atmosphere and the climate, social scientists warn that increasing extreme weather events are likely to trigger more social unrest and authoritarian, nationalist backlashes.
In the book, “Paradise Lost? The Climate Crisis and the Human Condition”, author Paul Hoggett posits that the climate emergency is one of the big drivers of authoritarian nationalism. “At times of such huge uncertainty, a veritable plague of toxic public feelings can be unleashed, which provide the effective underpinning for political movements such as populism, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism,” he said. “When climate reality starts to get tough, you secure your borders, you secure your own sources of food and energy, and you keep out the rest of them. That’s the politics of the armed lifeboat.”
According to the UN High Commission on Refugees, 84 percent of refugees and asylum seekers in 2022 fled from highly climate-vulnerable countries, an increase from 61 per cent in 2010. Many of the people showing up at our southern border are leaving their homes because extreme weather either directly or indirectly impacted resources which in turn has created social and political instability. The reaction of the Texas governor is a prime example of how when climate migration is met with hateful and fearful rhetoric about scarcity, it can fuel authoritarian and nationalistic reactions. Rather than thinking about what we can do to collectively dismantle the systems that are causing climate migration (and that are harming us all), the reaction is often to encircle and protect what we see as “ours” from those we’ve decided are “other.”
So what is the antidote to authoritarianism? Organizing. Fighting the idea of the “armed lifeboat” by strengthening connections and building power, both within our communities and amongst them. Many of the solutions to environmental problems that we are presented with are based on new technologies, but the truth is that the solutions need to come from the bottom up, from people coming together in love and solidarity to fight the systems that harm the environment and people and to shape the world we want to live in. We need transformation, not simply a shift to low-carbon energy sources. A million offshore wind farms won’t save us if we keep fighting over who deserves access to resources.