Toxic Lakes Are Not Just a Kashmiri Problem
Dear Reader,
Happy weekend. Here’s a news digest on the world’s most pressing health and environmental disparities:
🤮 NEW from The Xylom: Why a Kashmiri Cattle Rearer Still Depends on a Lake That Made Her Sick
As pollution, sewage, and unchecked development shrink Kashmir's lakes, families who rely on them for their livelihoods have few alternatives — even when the water is toxic.
This story is produced by The Xylom and co-published by Scroll.in, India’s leading digital news organization. Read more here.
Read more: BENTIU, South Sudan — How climate change can turn toxic (Buster Emil Kirchner and Marco Simoncelli, DW News)
🍑 A SOUTHERN FLAIR
PUERTO RICO — Puerto Rico Is Rationing Water. It Could’ve Avoided It by Harvesting Rainwater (paywalled) (Yessenia Funes, WIRED)
“Even with the climate crisis and these droughts, we still have abundant water,” says [environmental lawyer Ruth] Santiago, who works with the local group Comité Diálogo Ambiental (the Environmental Dialogue Committee). “We could be harvesting rainwater right now,” she says as a storm erupts mid-conversation.
Read more from The Xylom: Old San Juan’s Cruise Growth Tests How Much the Historic City Can Take (via Luis Joel Méndez González, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo)
Read more: ‘I’m Tired of Being Resilient’ Skipping laundry. Bathing in the sea. Avoiding flushing the toilet. This is life under Puerto Rico’s water crisis. (Andrea González-Ramírez, The Cut)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Why Rick Jackson poured millions into a failing Alabama hospital (Riley Bunch, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
“Leaders of the nonprofit hospital in Alabama’s capital blamed its collapse on financial pressures, including mounting debt, staffing shortages and Alabama’s refusal to expand Medicaid that would cover more of the state’s uninsured. Critics contend mismanagement was to blame,” writes Riley Bunch.
TULSA, Okla. — Drones Target Weather Blind Spot for Military and Trading Advantage (Joe Wertz, Bloomberg)
“You see these quite small weather events that can make all the difference,” said Brad Guay, a meteorologist with Meteomatics. “A single blown forecast can cost the traders millions of dollars in a single day.”
SOUTH TEXAS — Ghost Tribe of the Texas Delta (Tristan Ahtone, Grist)
Speaking broadly about the nationwide trend of illegitimate actors and unverified groups entering the environmental movement, Kyle Whyte, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a climate justice scholar at the University of Michigan, noted the widespread damage caused by this dynamic.
“It’s actually hurting, I would say at an exponential rate, the possibility for Indigenous people to be major players in climate change,” said Whyte. “It’s completely undermining the potential that tribal nations and Indigenous people have.”
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🟠 TRACKING TRUMP
Fear of lettuce is making RFK Jr.'s food messaging harder for consumers to swallow (Marcia Brown and Sophie Gardner, POLITICO)
“HHS is simultaneously telling Americans to eat more fresh produce and warning that eating the wrong fresh produce — without being able to tell people which — puts them at risk of severe, prolonged diarrhea,” Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general during President Donald Trump’s first term, said in an email.
“That mixed message is not abstract. It is scaring people away from salads and other fresh foods right now — the exact opposite of the ‘eat real food’ goal.”
Trump launched big new solar tariffs. Here’s what it means. (Julian Spector, Canary Media)
“It gives importers a window to surge product into the U.S. market before duties take effect, which is precisely the kind of behavior our trade laws are designed to prevent,” said Tim Brightbill, an attorney who has successfully petitioned for solar tariffs for years.
LIBBY, Mont. — After Generations of Asbestos Exposure, Sickened Libby Residents Wonder Where to Turn for Care After Clinic Closure (Zoe Buhrmaster, Flathead Beacon)
“People should know what they have, and what’s going to happen to them,” [Terri Turman, who has asbestos fibers in her lungs,] said. “And they’re not going to get that anymore.”
LAWRENCE, Kan. — What’s Happening in Kansas Should Alarm Us All (M. Gessen, New York Times Opinion)
What Gives Me Hope About the Future of Public Health in the U.S. (Deb Houry, Time)
🗺️ WHAT ELSE WE'RE READING
How clean air clubs are protecting Americans from wildfire smoke (Lex Mcmenamin/The Guardian)
“Covid and climate change are two major pillars of collective denial in the last decade,” said Emily Dupree, who launched the Mendo Clean Air Club.
“So though our lending library was created in response to one kind of public failure – namely a failure of public health, which is still ongoing – it can serve as a solution in response to this second failure, of governments to adequately address the growing threat of climate change, of worsening wildfires and worsening air quality.”
NAPLES, Italy — Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein - how Italian children became so overweight (Sofia Bettiza, BBC)
"The traditional Mediterranean diet has been lost," says Doctor Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California. "Only 10% of Italians really follow it."
U.S. Cities Are Seeing More 90-Degree Days Than Ever. Is Yours One of Them? (Meryl Davids Landau, National Geographic)
SINGAPORE — Asian refiners buy more US crude as Hormuz remains blocked, traders say (Siyi Liu, Reuters)
Israel deliberately starting wildfires in southern Lebanon, firefighters say (William Christou, The Guardian)
One year on and the global plastics treaty 'is going backwards' (Rob Hutchins, Oceanographic)
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