SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Kendra Klein, Kklein@foe.org
With incoming EPA Administrator unlikely to improve regulation, Friends of the Earth annual scorecard shows businesses have significant work to address risks
WASHINGTON - A new report commissioned by Friends of the Earth and carried out by Netherlands-based research group Profundo finds that the U.S. food retail sector’s use of pesticides on just four crops could result in $219 billion in financial, climate, and biodiversity risks between now and 2050. The report was released alongside Friends of the Earth’s 2024 annual retailer scorecard. The scorecard finds that companies have not done nearly enough to reduce their use of toxic pesticides while also highlighting industry leadership — Whole Foods [NASDAQ: AMZN], Kroger [NYSE: KR], and Meijer have released meaningful pesticide policies in the past year.
Given the vulnerability of food production to environmental disruption and likely further deregulation under the incoming Trump administration, these climate and biodiversity risks are significant not only for the companies themselves, but for Americans’ food security. As pesticide use kills off pollinators and devastates soil health, and climate change’s extreme droughts and floods harm farmland, growing crops may become more and more expensive — making it more and more difficult for Americans to afford basic foods. Without government action, the responsibility lies with companies to protect their own bottom lines and the U.S. food supply.
The new report analyzes the risks associated with continued pesticide use through 2050 on four crops that are embedded in products that generate an estimated 55% of U.S. food retailers’ sales: corn, soy, apples, and almonds. Apples and almonds are among the top crops sold directly to consumers. Corn and soy are the top crops processed into packaged foods and livestock feed for meat, dairy, and eggs.
By assessing potential losses in operations, financing, and reputation as well as external harms to the climate and biodiversity, Profundo finds that a value equal to nearly one-third (32%) of U.S. food retailers’ current equity — the total value of stock available to shareholders — would be lost if food retailers were held fully accountable for the risks. “A major part of the risk food retailers’ face is loss of reputation as reliable suppliers of healthy food for consumers — a risk which shareholders should take notice of,” said Gerard Rijk, equity analyst at Profundo.
The estimated costs include $4.5 billion in climate damage from the CO2-equivalent emissions associated with the production and use of pesticides. These findings signal the magnitude of harm but are likely an underestimate given that it is not possible to assess the full scope of damage nor the intrinsic value of a stable climate and biodiversity.
The report also identified $34 billion in biodiversity risks associated with pollinator-harming pesticides. Friends of the Earth’s 2024 Bee-Friendly Retailer Scorecard shows that major U.S. food retailers are increasingly acknowledging the role pesticides play in biodiversity loss. Since 2018, thirteen of the retailers ranked on the scorecard have established policies aimed at reducing toxic pesticides in their supply chains. Yet, despite this promising industry trend, efforts fall far short of what is needed to address this massive liability.
“Under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks,” said Kendra Klein, PhD, deputy director of science at Friends of the Earth. “Food retailers must urgently reduce their use of pesticides and advance organic and other ecologically regenerative approaches. They have the opportunity to lead in the fight against biodiversity collapse and climate change, helping to ensure Americans have continued access to healthy food.
The food sector is among the most vulnerable to the converging crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, and it is also a major contributor. Pesticides — a term that encompasses insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides — used in food retailer supply chains contribute directly to both crises. They are responsible for widespread harm to biodiversity, including pollinators, which are required to maintain a third of the food supply, and soil organisms, which are central to building healthy soil, sequestering carbon, conserving water, and improving farmers’ climate resilience. What’s more, pesticides are fossil fuels, the production and use of which are significant drivers of agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions.
The report indicates three strategies food retailers can take to meaningfully address the risks that pesticides pose: support the expansion of organic farming in the US and beyond, support the non-organic growers they source from to eliminate use of pollinator-harming and highly hazardous pesticides by shifting to ecological farming methods that reduce the need for pesticides, and make agrochemical input reduction a central pillar of all “regenerative” and “climate-smart” agriculture initiatives.
Friends of the Earth International is the world's largest grassroots environmental network, uniting 74 national member groups and some 5,000 local activist groups on every continent. With over 2 million members and supporters around the world, FOEI campaigns on today's most urgent environmental and social issues.
"Academics will make careers out of writing about past atrocities while ignoring the ones happening in real time," said one critic.
In what one observer decried as an "absolutely shameful" rebuff of American Historical Association members' overwhelming approval of a resolution condemning Israel's annihilation of education infrastructure in Gaza, the elected council of the nation's oldest learned society on Thursday vetoed the measure over a claimed technicality.
AHA members voted 428-88 earlier this month in favor of a resolution opposing Israeli scholasticide—defined by United Nations experts as the "systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention, or killing of teachers, students, and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure"—during the 15-month assault on the Gaza Strip.
However, the AHA's 16-member elected council voted 11-4 with one abstention to reject the measure, according toInside Higher Ed, which noted that the panel "could have accepted the resolution or sent it to the organization's roughly 10,450 members for a vote."
While the council said in a statement that it "deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, libraries, universities, and archives in Gaza," it determined that the resolution does not comply with the AHA's constitution and bylaws "because it lies outside the scope of the association's mission and purpose."
Council member and University of Oklahoma history professor Anne Hyde told Inside Higher Ed that she voted to veto the resolution "to protect the AHA's reputation as an unbiased historical actor," adding that the Gaza war "is not settled history, so we're not clear what happened or who to blame or when it began even, so it isn't something that a professional organization should be commenting on yet."
However, Van Gosse, a co-chair and founder of Historians for Peace and Democracy—the resolution's author—told the outlet that "we are extremely shocked by this decision," which "overturns the democratic decision" of members' "landslide vote."
Lake Forest College history professor Rudi Batzell said on social media: "Shame on the AHA leadership for vetoing the scholasticide in Gaza resolution. Members voted overwhelmingly to support, and the resolution was written so narrowly and so carefully to meet exactly this kind of procedural objection. Craven."
The AHA council's veto follows last week's move by the Modern Language Association executive council, as Common Dreamsreported, to block members of the preeminent U.S. professional group for scholars of language and literature from voting on a resolution supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
"Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people," Sanders wrote.
With a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel set to go into effect as soon as Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders released a statement Friday saying that he's please the Israeli security cabinet has signed off on the agreement, but highlighted the approved deal "is essentially the same agreement that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his extremist government rejected in May of last year."
"More than 10,000 people have died since that proposal was presented, and the suffering of the hostages and innocent people in Gaza only deepened," he wrote.
On Wednesday, President Biden announced the breakthrough, saying “this is the ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring."
What's more, the independent senator from Vermont said that Americans must "grapple with our role in this dark chapter." The U.S. government, he said, "allowed this mass atrocity to continue by providing an endless supply of weapons to Netanyahu and failing to exert meaningful leverage."
The U.S. has provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military aid to its ally in the Middle East since October 2023, when Israel's military campaign in Gaza commenced following an attack by Hamas on Israel. In early January the State Department informed Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale.
Local health officials in Gaza say the death toll in the enclave stands at over 46,000. However, a recently published peer-reviewed analysis estimates that Israel's assault on Gaza had actually killed 64,260 people—mostly civilian men, women, and children—have been killed between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024—a figure significantly higher than the official one reported by the enclave's health ministry.
Multiple human rights organizations have said that Israel's conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide or acts of genocide, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza. The body has also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity,
In his Friday remarks, Sanders called Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel "barbaric" and stated that Israel "clearly had the right to defend itself against Hamas."
However, he said, "Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people."
"It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people," said the president.
More than half a century after the U.S. Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment, President Joe Biden on Friday announced his administration's official opinion that the amendment is ratified and its protections against sex-based discrimination are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
The announcement has been long demanded by rights advocates including Democratic lawmakers who have recently called on Biden to affirm the ERA's ratification in order to protect reproductive rights that have been gutted by the Republican Party.
"It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people," said Biden. "In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: The 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex."
The statement came five years after Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA. With that move, state lawmakers completed the requirement that three-fourths of U.S. states ratify the amendment.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, ratification deadlines that were set by Congress after the ERA had passed by the time Virginia ratified the amendment, and five states have rescinded their approval.
But a senior White House official toldCNN Friday that the president's decision was informed by the American Bar Association's opinion that "no time limit was included in the text of the Equal Rights Amendment."
"The Constitution's framers wisely avoided the chaos that would have resulted if states were able to take back the ratifying votes at any time," according to the legal association.
Former U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who in November called on Biden to take every action available to him in order to protect reproductive rights, including ensuring the ERA was recognized as part of the Constitution, called the president's announcement "an historic and consequential step."
"For over a century, we have fought for the principle that 'equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex,'" said Bush. "These 24 words must now be published and enshrined in our Constitution to provide a crucial safeguard against discrimination for women, LGBTQ+ folks, and all marginalized communities."
With Biden issuing his opinion, advocates have held that the archivist of the United States, Colleen Shogan, must now certify and publish the amendment.
In December, Shogan released a statement saying that in 2020 and 2022, "the U.S. Department of Justice affirmed that the ratification deadline established by Congress for the ERA is valid and enforceable" arguing that the ERA could not be certified.
The senior administration official told CNN that Shogan "is required to publish an amendment once it has been effectively ratified."
"It will be up to the courts to interpret this and their view of the Equal Rights Amendment," they added.
Kate Kelly, a human rights lawyer who wrote the book Ordinary Equality about the ERA, asserted the amendment has been part of the Constitution since it was ratified by Virginia in 2020.
"The Archivist has no constitutional or legal role in the amending process," said Kelly. "She does NOT get to decide what is or is not in the U.S. Constitution. Her boss (the president of the United States) has spoken for his administration. That's it. The ERA is in! This is a victory."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Biden's action on Friday honored "the work of generations of activists and organizers for equal rights."
"While we still have much work to do to ensure that the next generation of women has more, not less, rights than previous generations, this is an important declaration," said Jayapal. "Now we must do the work to truly make this the practice of the land."