Pushed to the Brink
Dear Reader,
Happy Hump Day! Here are the top stories on the world’s most pressing health and environmental disparities. Let’s get into it.
Best regards,
Alex Ip
Publisher and Editor
🍑 A SOUTHERN FLAIR
PISGAH NATIONAL FOREST, N.C. — How a family swimming spot at a national forest became ‘a trap’ for an ICE raid (Jenae Barnes, The 19th)
“When families live in terror, environmental justice becomes impossible,” said Kim Bailey, president and CEO of Justice Outside, an environmental organization that promotes the participation of people of color in the outdoors. “Children cannot participate in outdoor programs because families fear leaving home, environmental education becomes inaccessible to communities most impacted by environmental racism, and outdoor spaces transform from healing sanctuaries into surveillance sites.”
SUMMERSVILLE, W.V. — An Antidote to the Anti-Vaccine Movement Lives in Rural West Virginia (Margaret Manto, NOTUS)
“It’s like showing up at church and suddenly there’s a different preacher,” said Mark Hall, a professor emeritus at Wake Forest University who’s studied patient-provider relationships and health care consolidation. “It doesn’t matter that they’re a perfectly good preacher. ‘Wait, where’s my preacher?’”
MIDWAY, Ga. — A new plan to preserve Georgia’s marshes: Give them space to migrate (Emily Jones, Grist and WABE)
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Flesh-eating bacteria kill at least 7 along Gulf Coast. Here's how to protect yourself. (Mark Strassmann and Alex Sundby, CBS News)
🟠 TRACKING TRUMP
Why the R-Word Is the Defining Slur of the Trump Era (Sadie Dingfelder, NOTUS Perspectives)
The resurgence of the R-word, I have come to believe, is fueled by a foundational American contradiction. We insist that every human life has equal worth. Then, when deciding who deserves the government’s help, we make clear that a person’s worth is something you earn. The intellectually disabled — many of whom, through no fault of their own, can’t support themselves — force us to confront that contradiction.
Trump administration ends NOAA support for annual Arctic Report Card (Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon)
Trump Turns National Parks into Piggybank (Scott MacFarlane, Scott MacFarlane News)
Top Science Body Deletes Climate Chapter From Judges’ Manual (Karen Zraick, The New York Times)
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🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING
HONG KONG — Ex-Observatory chief slams ‘decorative’ heat stress warning system after record temp. only triggers lowest alert (James Lee, Hong Kong Free Press)
“If even record-breaking temperatures fail to trigger [the red warning], is it not just a decorative display piece?” [former Hong Kong Observatory Chief and The Xylom contributor Chiu-Ying] Lam asked.
HAIGLER, Neb. — A Very American Invention, Pushed to an Extreme (Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News)
Within a year or two, nearly 700 acres of this county—an expanse larger than one square mile and twice the size of the country’s largest contiguous asphalt-covered parking lot, at the Astrodome in Houston—will be covered in concrete, and on it, 200,000 head of cattle will live their last months until being trucked to slaughter. They will eat roughly 20 pounds of grain a day, reaching 1,400 pounds or more each. They will consume, by some estimates, 20 gallons of water a day or more—nearly 1.5 billion gallons a year collectively. They will bake under the increasingly hot Nebraska sun during daylight hours, and spend their nights under an array of high-powered lights so bright that people 15 miles away mistake the illumination for a city.
WHITING, Ind. — Inside the nearly 5-month labor lockout at BP’s Whiting refinery (Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, Grist and Chicago Public Media)
With the workers locked out, the squat union hall has transformed into an all-hours crisis center. Makeshift shelves in a corner carry everything from simple groceries, such as canned food and pasta, to diapers and baby formula. The formula and diapers are typically the first to go, according to Michelle O’Shaughnessy, a union member who has helped run the improvised pantry since the lockout started.
EAST OMAHA, Neb. — More Than Half the Homes in East Omaha Have Unsafe Lead Levels. That Doesn’t Mean the EPA Will Clean Them Up. (Chris Bowling, Flatwater Free Press)
EMILIA-ROMAGNA, Italy — Italy’s $4.7 billion cheese economy is feeling the heat as climate change threatens its cheese banks that hold Parmigiano wheels as loan collateral (paywalled) (Catherine Gioino, FORTUNE)
Europe’s rivers are drying up. Can they be saved? (Tim Schauenberg, DW)
CARPENTER ROCKS, Australia — ‘We expected it, but now it’s here’: on the frontline of Australia’s bird flu outbreak, people are distressed (Petra Stock, The Guardian)
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