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What climate tech is saving the world and how you can help
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More farms are turning to automation amid labor shortages
Climate change is making farm work more difficult and dangerous. But workers worry technology could lead to further exploitation.
Jeremy Ford hates wasting water.
As a mist of rain sprinkled the fields around him in Homestead, Florida, Ford bemoaned how expensive it had been running a fossil fuel-powered irrigation system on his 5-acre farm — and how bad it was for the planet.
Earlier this month, Ford installed an automated underground system that uses a solar-powered pump to periodically saturate the roots of his crops, saving “thousands of gallons of water,” he estimated. Although they may be more costly up-front, he sees such climate-friendly investments as a necessary expense — and more affordable than expanding his workforce of two.
It’s “much more efficient,” said Ford. “We’ve tried to figure out ‘How do we do it?’ with the least amount of adding labor.”
A growing number of companies are bringing automation to agriculture. It could ease the sector’s deepening labor shortage, help farmers manage costs, and protect workers from extreme heat. Automation could also improve yields by bringing greater accuracy to planting, harvesting, and farm management, potentially mitigating some of the challenges of growing food in an ever-warmer world.
But many small farmers and producers across the country aren’t convinced. Barriers to adoption go beyond steep price tags to questions about whether the tools can do the jobs nearly as well as the workers they’d replace. Some of those same workers wonder what this trend might mean for them, and whether machines will lead to exploitation.
On some farms, driverless tractors churn through acres of corn, soybeans, lettuce, and more. Such equipment is expensive, and requires mastering new tools, but row crops are fairly easy to automate. Harvesting small, non-uniform and easily damaged fruits like blackberries, or big citruses that take a bit of strength and dexterity to pull off a tree, would be much harder.
That doesn’t deter scientists like Xin Zhang, a biological and agricultural engineer at Mississippi State University. Working with a team at Georgia Institute of Technology, she wants to apply some of the automation techniques surgeons use, and the object-recognition power of advanced cameras and computers, to create robotic berry-picking arms that can pluck the fruits without creating a sticky, purple mess.
The scientists have collaborated with farmers for field trials, but Zhang isn’t sure when the machine might be ready for consumers. Although robotic harvesting is not widespread, a smattering of products have hit the market, and can be seen working from Washington’s orchards to Florida’s produce farms.
“I feel like this is the future,” Zhang said.
But where she sees promise, others see problems.
Frank James, executive director of grassroots agriculture group Dakota Rural Action, grew up on a cattle and crop farm in northeastern South Dakota. His family once employed a handful of farmhands, but has had to cut back, due in part to the lack of available labor. Much of the work is now done by his brother and sister-in-law, while his 80-year-old father occasionally pitches in.
They swear by tractor autosteer, an automated system that communicates with a satellite to help keep the machine on track. But it can’t identify the moisture levels in the fields, which can hamstring tools or cause the tractor to get stuck, and it requires human oversight to work as it should. The technology also complicates maintenance. For these reasons, he doubts automation will become the “absolute” future of farm work.
“You build a relationship with the land, with the animals, with the place that you’re producing it. And we’re moving away from that,” said James.
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Solar power and birds? They may go together better than you think
Birds and solar-powered generation have a bit of a troubled history – mentioning the two together can dredge up memories of avian accidents involving concentrated solar power. But, new AI-enabled research has shown promising results when it comes to photovoltaic (PV) systems.
A team at Argonne National Laboratory set out to develop a camera system that could continuously monitor how birds behave around solar panels, using AI. Their results provided greater understanding of bird behaviors at large-scale solar sites, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Now, they’re testing this system across the country to build a bigger picture of bird interactions with solar systems to support ecologically responsible solar deployment.
Building enough solar energy to decarbonize the U.S. economy by 2035 could require as much as 5.7 million acres of land. While this is only about 0.3% of the contiguous United States, DOE maintains that it is critical to understand how solar infrastructure impacts local wildlife.
Early studies of solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities in the Southwest found deceased birds, leading to the hypothesis that birds are colliding with panels. However, recent studies at PV sites around the country have found that fatalities may not be as common as initially suspected, and that birds are using the sites as habitat.
With $1.3 million of funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO), Argonne National Laboratory researchers developed and tested a camera system that tracks birds as they interact with solar panels and automatically classifies their behavior using a machine learning algorithm.
Their software program uses artificial intelligence to detect a bird when it enters the camera’s field of vision and differentiate it from other moving objects, such as insects and other wildlife, plants or cables blowing in the wind, and shadows. Then, it classifies the bird’s behavior into one of six categories: flying over the panel, flying through the panels, perching on the panel, colliding with the panel, perching in the background, or landing on the ground.
The team recorded more than 17,000 hours of videos of birds interacting with solar facilities and found their system to be as high as 95% accurate in identifying bird behaviors. The system also works in real time and can quickly alert researchers and system operators of any bird behaviors of interest.
In all 17,000 hours of video, the cameras did not detect a single collision of a bird with a solar panel, the researchers said. However, further research is needed to evaluate the extent of avian collisions at PV sites across the United States since the cameras were deployed at a limited number of sites for this study, DOE noted.
While the birds in this study did not collide with the panels, they did interact with them in other ways: researchers recorded instances of the birds perching on and flying around the panels. The birds also interacted with the panels in ways beyond what the algorithm were designed to classify. While reviewing the footage, the researchers observed the birds using the underside of the panels for activities like foraging, nesting, and roosting.
Now, the Argonne researchers are expanding on this work with $2.1 million of additional SETO funding to deploy their camera system at seven solar facilities across the country. The team is also expanding its machine learning algorithm and camera system to automatically detect more bird behaviors.
The Argonne project is part of SETO’s larger efforts to understand how solar energy interacts with wildlife and the environment.
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How Faith Groups Are Tackling the World’s Food Challenges
"What we eat is very intimate and very personal, yet it is [also] collective and political," Dr. Elisa Ascione, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at Loyola University in Rome, told WRI.
Her words cut to the root of one of the world's most pressing challenges: Changing the way people produce and consume food will be essential to fighting climate change, halting deforestation and safeguarding biodiversity. Yet, food isn't just something we eat; it's a reflection of who we are, closely tied to personal and social values. This makes shifting to more planet-friendly diets difficult.
Difficult, but not impossible. Research shows that people are more likely to follow new norms if those norms are seen as important within their social groups. Religious beliefs, in particular, can have a significant impact on food choices and food systems — from traditions that promote vegetarian diets to groups that are compelled by their faith to open community kitchens.
Faith is still an underappreciated and understudied driver of food choices. But that's beginning to change. Loyola University is just one of a growing number of organizations around the world that are leveraging this connection to help build a more food-secure and sustainable future.
How Can Faith Groups Change Food Systems?
Faith-based organizations are involved across the food value chain. They own and operate community farms, kitchens of faith-affiliated hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, food banks and houses of worship. From production and farming to distribution, consumption and waste, they have the opportunity to make a sizeable impact on the world's food systems and the planet.
For example, reducing meat consumption is a top climate priority. One study found that a 2011 announcement by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales encouraging 'meat-free Fridays' motivated 28% of U.K. Catholics to reduce their meat consumption. This eliminated 42 million meat meals per year and saved around 55,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually — equivalent to avoiding over 82,000 trans-Atlantic flights. Traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism can help reduce the environmental impact of food production by promoting plant-based diets which align with their ethical and spiritual values.
Reducing food loss and waste is also essential, given that around one-third of all food produced never gets eaten while millions go hungry. Some religious organizations are starting to recognize this as a critical issue in their communities. Recent research conducted by WRI in Rwanda showed that 83% of faith organizations surveyed considered food loss and waste to be a relevant problem for their organizations and were able to identify areas for engagement, such as improving knowledge, skills, awareness and partnerships.
To explore this emerging field further, WRI spoke with three leaders working at the nexus of faith, culture and food. We learned about their successes, challenges, hopes and how faith is inspiring food systems action.
Improving Food Systems Education
Loyola University, a Jesuit school with its main campus in Chicago, has been developing pioneering projects at the intersection of food and climate for over a decade. Driven by the fundamental principle of cura personalis (care for the whole person), the school is now working to bolster awareness and education around food systems issues.
Loyola's study abroad program in Italy offers classes and experiential learning opportunities in which students learn about how food is produced, processed and consumed — not just in theory, but also in the field. Students gain firsthand experience by visiting Puglia, an agricultural region which has faced issues of illegal migrant labor exploitation. They tour fair trade businesses and learn about tomato picking and farm workers' conditions through conversations with trade union activists and groups supporting migrant workers. This deepens their understanding of the links between labor, social justice and food systems, equipping them to tackle issues like food security and equity in their future careers.
As Dr. Ascione puts it, "Students can eat a tomato knowing that its production didn't pollute the world, and there was no exploitation behind the person who migrated from afar to do this work... Food is a powerful tool because it takes us back to experiences that we all share."Read full article
Five ways a Trump presidency would be disastrous for the climate
Second Trump term would restore climate denialism to an Oval Office efficiently dismantling protections
The climate crisis may appear peripheral in the US presidential election but a victory for Donald Trump will, more than any other issue, have profound consequences for people around a rapidly heating world, experts have warned.
During his push for the White House, Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and “one of the great scams of all time” while vowing to delete spending on clean energy, abolish “insane” incentives for Americans to drive electric cars, scrap various environmental rules and unleash a “drill, baby, drill” wave of new oil and gas.
Such an agenda would be carried out over a four year-period that nearly rounds out a crucial decade in which scientists say the US, and the world, must slash planet-heating pollution in half to avoid disastrous climate breakdown.
Already, major emitters such as the US are lagging badly in commitments to cut emissions enough to avoid a 1.5C (2.7F) rise in global temperature above the pre-industrial era. With just over 1C in average warming so far, the world already has record heatwaves, a rash of wildfires, turbocharged hurricanes, plunging wildlife losses, a crumbling and increasingly green Antarctica, the looming collapse of the oceans and a faltering ability of forests, plants and soil to absorb carbon.
“We’ve got to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s hard to see that happening in the event of a Trump victory.” Mann added that “a second Trump presidency is game over for meaningful climate action this decade, and stabilizing warming below 1.5C probably becomes impossible”.
So what would a Trump election triumph mean for the environment?
1. A dangerous and uncertain future
Amid the frenetic bombast of politics, it is easy to overlook the long legacies of electoral decisions. Action or inaction on the climate crisis in the span of just the next few years will help decide the tolerability of the climate for generations not yet born.
“We have now brought the planet into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives,” as a recent paper authored by more than a dozen scientists warned. “We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt.”
There is enough momentum behind the record growth of clean energy that it won’t be utterly derailed by a Trump presidency. But a Trump White House would still have a tangible impact, adding, by some estimates, several billion tonnes of heat-trapping gases that wouldn’t otherwise be in the atmosphere, gumming up the international response, subjecting more people to flood or fire or toxic air. It would help prod societies ever closer to the brink of an unlivable climate.
Kamala Harris has declined to lay out much of a vision on how she would tackle the climate crisis, and barely even mentions it on the campaign trail, but to some experts the stakes are compellingly clear. “With Kamala Harris, there’s a good chance we can avert truly catastrophic global climate impacts,” said Mann. “With Trump there is not. It’s night and day.”
2. Climate denialism would return to the Oval Office
A new Trump administration would bring a jarring rhetorical shift. Unlike almost every other world leader – such as Joe Biden, who has called the climate crisis an “existential threat” – Trump dismisses and even mocks the threat of global heating.
In recent weeks, the former president has said that climate change is “one of the great scams of all time, people aren’t buying it any more” and has falsely claimed the planet “has actually got a bit cooler recently”, that rising sea levels will create “more oceanfront property”, that wind energy is “bullshit, it’s horrible” and even that cows and windows will be banned by Democrats if he loses.
Trump has coupled this with demands for unfettered oil and gas production in all corners of the US and has actively courted industry executives for donations. “He wholeheartedly believes we should produce our own energy sources here in the US, there’s no grey area there,” said Thomas Pyle, president of American Energy Alliance, a free market group.
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Hong Kong social enterprise creates network to help tenants find better subdivided housing
ComHome Social Realty urges government to help subsidise renovation costs for landlords ahead of plans to clamp down on subpar flats
Sherry Deng, a 34-year-old working mother in Hong Kong, could not be happier after finding a 130 sq ft subdivided flat in Tsuen Wan.
Last year, the single mother was desperately looking to move out of her old 70 sq ft home. The place was located next to a public toilet and had poor hygiene, while her neighbours’ drinking habits made her worry for her now seven-year-old son’s safety.
She checked rental notices posted on the street and even asked for listings on the instant messaging platforms WhatsApp and WeChat.
But Deng only managed to find a place after talking to ComHome Social Realty, the city’s first social enterprise to specialise in real estate rental services.
She said the organisation spent a few days going over her housing needs and locating suitable flats before showing her the properties in a day.
The mother said she opted for her current sixth-floor home because it had huge windows, a cooking space and an individual toilet, while the building had a rooftop common area where her son could play.
She was also exempted from paying commission fees, which would have cost the equivalent of half of her monthly rent of HK$4,600 (US$590).
The social enterprise also found Deng a home-moving service for just HK$300, with such options typically costing several thousand Hong Kong dollars.
“It has saved me time and trouble in looking for a new home,” she said. “I can save money for my son’s education expenses. I can also bring him out for dinner.”
In over a year and a half, ComHome has helped 17 families in need to find new living spaces.
Tackling poor-quality housing is also a cornerstone of city leader John Lee Ka-chiu’s latest policy address, which has laid out plans to eradicate subpar subdivided flats.
But the social enterprise urged authorities to incentivise some owners to rectify their properties to help secure a supply of quality subdivided housing that could be leased at affordable rates.
Under the government’s proposed shake-up, such homes must be a minimum size of 86 sq ft and have a ceiling height of two metres (6.6 feet).
The properties must have proper windows and at least one independent toilet, while also meeting fire and structural safety requirements.
The city currently has about 110,000 subdivided flats, with authorities noting that 30 per cent of them were below standard and the rest only required minor fixes.
The coming measures will also require landlords of subdivided flats to register their properties, with owners to be given a grace period of one to two years to make the necessary changes. The homes can still be leased out during that period.
If the flats fulfil government standards, they will be redesignated as “basic housing units” and can be leased legally on the market.
But a 78-year-old retiree surnamed Wong who halved her 520 sq ft home in Sham Shui Po and leased the other half for HK$7,200 per month said she expected it would be difficult for her to comply with the proposed standard.
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