Since 2018, home insurance premiums in Wisconsin have increased by 65 percent. That’s according to a new study published last month by a Wisconsin researcher.
The post Is your home insurance rising in Wisconsin? You’re not alone. appeared first on WPR.
For decades, corn has reigned over American agriculture. It sprawls across 90 million acres — about the size of Montana — and goes into everything from livestock feed and processed foods to the ethanol blended into most of the nation’s gasoline.
But a growing body of research reveals that America’s obsession with corn has a steep price: The fertilizer used to grow it is warming the planet and contaminating water.
Corn is essential to the rural economy and to the world’s food supply, and researchers say the problem isn’t the corn itself. It’s how we grow it.
Corn farmers rely on heavy fertilizer use to sustain today’s high yields. And when that nitrogen breaks down in the soil, it releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Producing nitrogen fertilizer also emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, adding to its climate footprint.
Agriculture accounts for more than 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and corn uses more than two-thirds of all nitrogen fertilizer nationwide — making it the leading driver of agricultural nitrous oxide emissions, studies show.
The corn and ethanol industries insist that rapid growth in ethanol — which now consumes more than 40% of the U.S. corn crop — is a net environmental benefit, and they strongly dispute research suggesting otherwise.
Since 2000, U.S. corn production has surged almost 50%, further adding to the crop’s climate impact.
Yet the environmental costs of corn rarely make headlines or factor into political debates. Much of the dynamic traces back to federal policy — and to the powerful corn and ethanol lobby that helped shape it.
The Renewable Fuel Standard, passed in the mid 2000s, required that gasoline be blended with ethanol, a biofuel that in the United States comes almost entirely from corn. That mandate drove up demand and prices for corn, spurring farmers to plant more of it.
Many plant corn year after year on the same land. The practice, called “continuous corn,” demands massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and drives especially high nitrous oxide emissions.
At the same time, federal subsidies make it more lucrative to grow corn than to diversify. Taxpayers have covered more than $50 billion in corn insurance premiums over the past 30 years, according to federal data compiled by the Environmental Working Group.
Researchers say proven conservation steps — such as planting rows of trees, shrubs and grasses in corn fields — could sharply reduce these emissions. But the Trump administration has eliminated many of the incentives that helped farmers try such practices.
Experts say it all raises a larger question: If America’s most widely planted crop is worsening climate change, shouldn’t we begin growing it a different way?
Corn has been a staple of U.S. agriculture for centuries, first domesticated by Native Americans and later used by European immigrants as a versatile crop for food and animal feed. Its production really took off in the 2000s after federal mandates and incentives helped turn much of America’s corn crop into ethanol.
Corn’s dominance — and the emissions that come with it — didn’t happen by accident. It was built through a high-dollar lobbying campaign that continues today.
In the late 1990s, America’s corn farmers were in trouble. Prices had cratered amid a global grain glut and the Asian financial crisis. A 1999 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said crop prices had hit “rock bottom.”
In 2001 and 2002, the federal government gave corn farmers and ethanol producers a boost — first through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bioenergy Program, which paid ethanol producers to increase their use of farm commodities for fuel. Then the 2002 Farm Bill created programs that continue to support ethanol and other renewable energy.
Corn growers soon after mounted an all-out campaign in Washington. Their goal: persuade Congress to require gasoline to be blended with ethanol. State and national grower groups lobbied relentlessly, pitching ethanol as a way to cut greenhouse gasses, reduce oil dependence and revive rural economies.
“We got down to a couple of votes in Congress, and the corn growers were united like never before,” recalled Jon Doggett, then the industry’s chief lobbyist, in an article published by the National Corn Growers Association. “I started receiving calls from Capitol Hill saying, ‘Would you have your growers stop calling us? We are with you.’ I had not seen anything like it before and haven’t seen anything like it since.”
Their persistence paid off. In 2005, Congress created the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires that a certain amount of ethanol be blended into U.S. gasoline each year. Two years later, lawmakers expanded it further. The policy transformed the market: The amount of corn used for ethanol domestically has more than tripled in the past 20 years.
When demand for corn spiked as a result of the RFS, it pushed up prices worldwide, said Tim Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. The result, Searchinger said, is that more land around the world got cleared to grow corn. That, in turn, resulted in more emissions.
That lobbying brought clout. “King Corn” became a political force, courted by presidential hopefuls and protected by both parties. Since 2010, national corn and ethanol trade groups have spent more than $55 million on lobbying and millions more on political donations, according to campaign finance records analyzed by Floodlight.
In 2024 alone, those trade groups spent twice as much on lobbying as the National Rifle Association. Major industry players — Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and ethanol giant POET among them — have poured even more into Washington, ensuring the sector’s voice remains one of the loudest in U.S. agriculture.
Now those same groups are pushing for the next big prize: expanding higher-ethanol gasoline blends and positioning ethanol-based jet fuel as aviation’s “low-carbon” future.
Corn and ethanol trade groups didn’t make their officials available for interviews.
But on their websites and in their literature, they have promoted corn ethanol as a climate-friendly fuel.
The Renewable Fuels Association cites government and university research that finds burning ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 40-50% compared with gasoline. The ethanol industry says the climate critics have it wrong — and that most of the corn used for fuel comes from better yields and smarter farming, not from plowing up new land. The amount of fertilizer required to produce a bushel of corn has dropped sharply in recent decades, they say.
“Ethanol reduces carbon emissions, removing the carbon equivalent of 12 million cars from the road each year,” according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
Growth Energy, a major ethanol trade group, said in a written statement that U.S. farmers and biofuel producers are “constantly finding new ways to make their operations more efficient and more environmentally beneficial,” using things like cover crops to reduce their carbon footprint.
But some research tells a different story.
A recent Environmental Working Group report finds that the way corn is grown in much of the Midwest — with the same fields planted in corn year after year — carries a heavy climate cost.
Research in 2022 by agricultural land use expert Tyler Lark and colleagues links the Renewable Fuel Standard to expanded corn cultivation, heavier fertilizer use, worsening water pollution and increased emissions. Scientists typically convert greenhouse gases like nitrous oxide and methane into their carbon dioxide equivalents — or carbon intensity — so their warming impacts can be compared on the same scale.
“The carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher,” the authors concluded.
Lark’s research has been disputed by scientists at Argonne National Laboratory, Purdue University and the University of Illinois, who published a formal rebuttal arguing the study relied on “questionable assumptions” and faulty modeling — a charge Lark’s team has rejected.
A 2017 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the RFS was unlikely to meet its greenhouse gas goals because the U.S. relies predominantly on corn ethanol and produces relatively little of the cleaner, advanced biofuels made from waste.
The problem isn’t just emissions, researchers say. Corn ethanol requires millions of acres that could instead be used for food crops or more efficient energy sources. One recent study found that solar panels can generate as much energy as corn ethanol on roughly 3% of the land.
“It’s just a terrible use of land,” Searchinger, the Princeton researcher, said of ethanol. “And you can’t solve climate change if you’re going to make such terrible use of land.”
Most of the country’s top crop isn’t feeding people. More than 40% of U.S. corn goes to ethanol. A similar amount is used to feed livestock, and just 12% ends up as food or in other uses.
Globally, corn production doubled from 2000 to 2021.
That growth has been fueled by fertilizer, which emits nitrous oxide that can linger in the atmosphere for more than a century. That eats away at the ozone layer, which blocks most of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation.
Global emissions have soared alongside corn production. Between 1980 and 2020, nitrous oxide emissions from human activity climbed 40%, the Global Carbon project found.
In the United States, nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture in 2022 were equal to roughly 262 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the EPA’s inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s equivalent to putting almost 56 million passenger cars on the road.
The biggest increases are coming straight from the Corn Belt.
Ethanol’s climate footprint isn’t the only concern. The nitrogen used to grow corn and other crops is also a key source of drinking water pollution.
According to a new report by the Alliance for the Great Lakes and Clean Wisconsin, more than 90% of nitrate contamination in Wisconsin’s groundwater is linked to agricultural sources — mostly synthetic fertilizer and manure.
The same analysis estimates that in 2022, farmers applied more than 16 million pounds of nitrogen beyond what crops needed, sending runoff into wells, streams and other water systems.
For families like Tyler Frye’s, that hits close to home. In 2022, Frye and his wife moved into a new home in the rural village of Casco, Wisconsin, about 20 miles east of Green Bay. A free test soon afterward found their well water had nitrate levels more than twice the EPA’s safe limit. “We were pretty shocked,” he said.
Frye installed a reverse-osmosis system in the basement and still buys bottled water for his wife, who is breastfeeding their daughter, born in July.
One likely culprit, he suspects, are the cornfields less than 200 yards from his home.
“Crops like corn require a lot of nitrogen,” he said. “A lot of that stuff, I assume, is getting into the well water and surface water.”
When he watches manure or fertilizer being spread on nearby fields, he said, one question nags him: “Where does that go?”
Reducing corn’s climate footprint is possible — but the farmers trying to do it are swimming against the policy tide.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, backed by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, strips out the provisions of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that had rewarded farmers for climate-friendly practices.
And in April, Trump’s USDA canceled the $3 billion Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative, a grant program designed to promote farming and forestry practices to improve soil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The agency said that the program’s administrative costs meant too little money was reaching farmers, while Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins dismissed it as part of the “green new scam.”
University of Iowa professor Silvia Secchi said the rollback of the Climate-Smart program has already given farmers “cold feet” about adopting conservation practices. “The impact of this has been devastating,” said Secchi, a natural resources economist who teaches at the university’s School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability.
Research shows what’s possible if farmers had support. In its recent report, the Environmental Working Group found that four proven conservation practices — including planting trees, shrubs and hedgerows in corn fields — could make a measurable difference.
Implementing those practices on just 4% of continuous corn acres across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin would cut total greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking more than 850,000 gasoline cars off the road, EWG found.
Despite setbacks at the federal level, some farmers are already showing what a more climate-friendly Corn Belt could look like.
In northern Iowa, Wendy Johnson farms 1,200 acres of corn and soybeans with her father. On 130 of those acres, she’s trying something different: She’s planting fruit and nut trees, organic grains, shrubs and other plants that need little or no nitrogen fertilizer.
“The more perennials we can have on the ground, the better it is for the climate,” she said.
Across the rest of the farm, they enrich the soil by rotating crops and planting cover crops. They’ve also converted less productive parts of the fields into “prairie strips” — bands of prairie grass that store carbon and require no fertilizer.
Under the now-canceled Climate-Smart grant program, they were supposed to receive technical assistance and about $20,000 a year to expand those practices. The grant program was terminated before they got any of the money.
“It’s hard to take risks on your own,” Johnson said. “That’s where federal support really helps. Because agriculture is a high-risk occupation.”
The economics still favor business as usual. Johnson knows that many Midwestern corn growers feel pressure to maximize yields, keeping them hooked on corn — and nitrogen fertilizer.
“I think a lot of farmers around here are very allergic to trees,” she joked.
In southeast Iowa, sixth-generation farmer Levi Lyle, who mixes organic and conventional methods across 290 acres, uses a three-year rotation, extensive cover crops and a technique called roller-crimping — flattening rye each spring to create a mulch that suppresses weeds, feeds the soil and reduces fertilizer needs.
“The roller crimping of cover crops is a huge, huge opportunity to sequester more carbon, improve soil health, save money on chemicals and still get a similar yield,” he said.
But farmers get few government incentives to take such climate-friendly steps, Lyle said. “There is a lack of seriousness about supporting farmers to implement these new practices,” he said.
And without federal programs to offset the risk, the innovations that Lyle and Johnson are trying remain exceptions — not the norm.
Many farmers still see prairie strips or patches of trees as a waste, said Luke Gran, whose company helps Iowa farmers establish perennials.
“My eyes do not lie,” Gran said. “I have not seen extensive change to cover cropping or tillage across the broad acreage of this state that I love.”
Despite mounting research about corn’s climate costs, industry groups are pushing for policies to boost ethanol demand.
One big priority: pushing a bill to require that new cars are able to run on gas with more ethanol than what’s commonly sold today.
Corn and biofuel trade groups have also been pressing Democrats and Republicans in Congress for legislation to pave the way for ethanol-based jet fuel. While use of such “sustainable” aviation fuel is still in its early stages domestically, corn and biofuel associations have made developing a market for it a top policy priority.
Secchi, the Iowa professor, says it’s easy to see why ethanol producers are trying to expand their market: The growth in electric vehicles threatens long-term gasoline sales.
Researchers warn that producing enough ethanol-based jet fuel could trigger major land use shifts. A 2024 World Resources Institute analysis found that meeting the federal goal of 35 billion gallons of ethanol jet fuel would require about 114 million acres of corn — roughly 20% more corn acreage than the U.S. already plants for all purposes. That surge in demand, the authors concluded, would push up food prices and worsen hunger.
Secchi calls that scenario a climate and land use “disaster.” Large-scale use of ethanol-based aviation fuel, she said, would mean clearing even more land and pouring on even more nitrogen fertilizer, driving up greenhouse gas emissions.
“The result,” she said, “would be essentially to enshrine this dysfunctional system that we created.”
This story is from Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. Sign up for Floodlight’s newsletter here.
Corn’s clean energy promise is clashing with its climate footprint is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
President George W. Bush holds an ear of corn during a 2004 campaign stop at a farmer’s market in Davenport, Iowa. America’s corn industry has become a political force, courted by presidential hopefuls and protected by both parties. Corn production has surged in recent decades. But the fertilizer used to grow it is warming the planet and contaminating water, researchers have found. (Tim Sloan / AFP via Getty Images)
This story is from Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. Sign up for Floodlight’s newsletter here.
For decades, corn has reigned over American agriculture. It sprawls across 90 million acres — about the size of Montana — and goes into everything from livestock feed and processed foods to the ethanol blended into most of the nation’s gasoline.
But a growing body of research reveals that America’s obsession with corn has a steep price: The fertilizer used to grow it is warming the planet and contaminating water.
Corn is essential to the rural economy and to the world’s food supply, and researchers say the problem isn’t the corn itself. It’s how we grow it.
Corn farmers rely on heavy fertilizer use to sustain today’s high yields. And when that nitrogen breaks down in the soil, it releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Producing nitrogen fertilizer also emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, adding to its climate footprint.
Agriculture accounts for more than 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and corn uses more than two-thirds of all nitrogen fertilizer nationwide — making it the leading driver of agricultural nitrous oxide emissions, studies show.
The corn and ethanol industries insist that rapid growth in ethanol — which now consumes more than 40% of the U.S. corn crop — is a net environmental benefit, and they strongly dispute research suggesting otherwise.
Since 2000, U.S. corn production has surged almost 50%, further adding to the crop’s climate impact.
Yet the environmental costs of corn rarely make headlines or factor into political debates. Much of the dynamic traces back to federal policy — and to the powerful corn and ethanol lobby that helped shape it.
The Renewable Fuel Standard, passed in the mid 2000s, required that gasoline be blended with ethanol, a biofuel that in the United States comes almost entirely from corn. That mandate drove up demand and prices for corn, spurring farmers to plant more of it.
Many plant corn year after year on the same land. The practice, called “continuous corn,” demands massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and drives especially high nitrous oxide emissions.
At the same time, federal subsidies make it more lucrative to grow corn than to diversify. Taxpayers have covered more than $50 billion in corn insurance premiums over the past 30 years, according to federal data compiled by the Environmental Working Group.
Researchers say proven conservation steps — such as planting rows of trees, shrubs and grasses in corn fields — could sharply reduce these emissions. But the Trump administration has eliminated many of the incentives that helped farmers try such practices.
Experts say it all raises a larger question: If America’s most widely planted crop is worsening climate change, shouldn’t we begin growing it a different way?
Corn has been a staple of U.S. agriculture for centuries, first domesticated by Native Americans and later used by European immigrants as a versatile crop for food and animal feed. Its production really took off in the 2000s after federal mandates and incentives helped turn much of America’s corn crop into ethanol.
Corn’s dominance — and the emissions that come with it — didn’t happen by accident. It was built through a high-dollar lobbying campaign that continues today.
In the late 1990s, America’s corn farmers were in trouble. Prices had cratered amid a global grain glut and the Asian financial crisis. A 1999 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said crop prices had hit “rock bottom.”
In 2001 and 2002, the federal government gave corn farmers and ethanol producers a boost — first through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bioenergy Program, which paid ethanol producers to increase their use of farm commodities for fuel. Then the 2002 Farm Bill created programs that continue to support ethanol and other renewable energy.
Corn growers soon after mounted an all-out campaign in Washington. Their goal: persuade Congress to require gasoline to be blended with ethanol. State and national grower groups lobbied relentlessly, pitching ethanol as a way to cut greenhouse gasses, reduce oil dependence and revive rural economies.
“We got down to a couple of votes in Congress, and the corn growers were united like never before,” recalled Jon Doggett, then the industry’s chief lobbyist, in an article published by the National Corn Growers Association. “I started receiving calls from Capitol Hill saying, ‘Would you have your growers stop calling us? We are with you.’ I had not seen anything like it before and haven’t seen anything like it since.”
Their persistence paid off. In 2005, Congress created the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires that a certain amount of ethanol be blended into U.S. gasoline each year. Two years later, lawmakers expanded it further. The policy transformed the market: The amount of corn used for ethanol domestically has more than tripled in the past 20 years.
When demand for corn spiked as a result of the RFS, it pushed up prices worldwide, said Tim Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. The result, Searchinger said, is that more land around the world got cleared to grow corn. That, in turn, resulted in more emissions.
That lobbying brought clout. “King Corn” became a political force, courted by presidential hopefuls and protected by both parties. Since 2010, national corn and ethanol trade groups have spent more than $55 million on lobbying and millions more on political donations, according to campaign finance records analyzed by Floodlight.
In 2024 alone, those trade groups spent twice as much on lobbying as the National Rifle Association. Major industry players — Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and ethanol giant POET among them — have poured even more into Washington, ensuring the sector’s voice remains one of the loudest in U.S. agriculture.
Now those same groups are pushing for the next big prize: expanding higher-ethanol gasoline blends and positioning ethanol-based jet fuel as aviation’s “low-carbon” future.
Corn and ethanol trade groups didn’t make their officials available for interviews.
But on their websites and in their literature, they have promoted corn ethanol as a climate-friendly fuel.
The Renewable Fuels Association cites government and university research that finds burning ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 40-50% compared with gasoline. The ethanol industry says the climate critics have it wrong — and that most of the corn used for fuel comes from better yields and smarter farming, not from plowing up new land. The amount of fertilizer required to produce a bushel of corn has dropped sharply in recent decades, they say.
“Ethanol reduces carbon emissions, removing the carbon equivalent of 12 million cars from the road each year,” according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
Growth Energy, a major ethanol trade group, said in a written statement that U.S. farmers and biofuel producers are “constantly finding new ways to make their operations more efficient and more environmentally beneficial,” using things like cover crops to reduce their carbon footprint.
But some research tells a different story.
A recent Environmental Working Group report finds that the way corn is grown in much of the Midwest — with the same fields planted in corn year after year — carries a heavy climate cost.
Research in 2022 by agricultural land use expert Tyler Lark and colleagues links the Renewable Fuel Standard to expanded corn cultivation, heavier fertilizer use, worsening water pollution and increased emissions. Scientists typically convert greenhouse gasses like nitrous oxide and methane into their carbon-dioxide equivalents — or carbon intensity — so their warming impacts can be compared on the same scale.
“The carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher,” the authors concluded.
Lark’s research has been disputed by scientists at Argonne National Laboratory, Purdue University and the University of Illinois, who published a formal rebuttal arguing the study relied on “questionable assumptions” and faulty modeling — a charge Lark’s team has rejected.
A 2017 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the RFS was unlikely to meet its greenhouse gas goals because the U.S. relies predominantly on corn ethanol and produces relatively little of the cleaner, advanced biofuels made from waste.
The problem isn’t just emissions, researchers say. Corn ethanol requires millions of acres that could instead be used for food crops or more efficient energy sources. One recent study found that solar panels can generate as much energy as corn ethanol on roughly 3% of the land.
“It’s just a terrible use of land,” Searchinger, the Princeton researcher, said of ethanol. “And you can’t solve climate change if you’re going to make such terrible use of land.”
Most of the country’s top crop isn’t feeding people. More than 40% of U.S. corn goes to ethanol. A similar amount is used to feed livestock, and just 12% ends up as food or in other uses.
Globally, corn production doubled from 2000 to 2021.
That growth has been fueled by fertilizer, which emits nitrous oxide that can linger in the atmosphere for more than a century. That eats away at the ozone layer, which blocks most of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation.
Global emissions have soared alongside corn production. Between 1980 and 2020, nitrous oxide emissions from human activity climbed 40%, the Global Carbon project found.
In the United States, nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture in 2022 were equal to roughly 262 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the EPA’s inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s equivalent to putting almost 56 million passenger cars on the road.
The biggest increases are coming straight from the Corn Belt.
Ethanol’s climate footprint isn’t the only concern. The nitrogen used to grow corn and other crops is also a key source of drinking water pollution.
According to a new report by the Alliance for the Great Lakes and Clean Wisconsin, more than 90% of nitrate contamination in Wisconsin’s groundwater is linked to agricultural sources — mostly synthetic fertilizer and manure.
The same analysis estimates that in 2022, farmers applied more than 16 million pounds of nitrogen beyond what crops needed, sending runoff into wells, streams and other water systems.
For families like Tyler Frye’s, that hits close to home. In 2022, Frye and his wife moved into a new home in the rural village of Casco, Wisconsin, about 20 miles east of Green Bay. A free test soon afterward found their well water had nitrate levels more than twice the EPA’s safe limit. “We were pretty shocked,” he said.
Frye installed a reverse-osmosis system in the basement and still buys bottled water for his wife, who is breastfeeding their daughter, born in July.
One likely culprit, he suspects, are the cornfields less than 200 yards from his home.
“Crops like corn require a lot of nitrogen,” he said. “A lot of that stuff, I assume, is getting into the well water and surface water.”
When he watches manure or fertilizer being spread on nearby fields, he said, one question nags him: “Where does that go?”
Reducing corn’s climate footprint is possible — but the farmers trying to do it are swimming against the policy tide.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, backed by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, strips out the provisions of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that had rewarded farmers for climate-friendly practices.
And in April, Trump’s USDA canceled the $3 billion Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative, a grant program designed to promote farming and forestry practices to improve soil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The agency said that the program’s administrative costs meant too little money was reaching farmers, while Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins dismissed it as part of the “green new scam.”
University of Iowa professor Silvia Secchi said the rollback of the Climate-Smart program has already given farmers “cold feet” about adopting conservation practices. “The impact of this has been devastating,” said Secchi, a natural resources economist who teaches at the university’s School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability.
Research shows what’s possible if farmers had support. In its recent report, the Environmental Working Group found that four proven conservation practices — including planting trees, shrubs and hedgerows in corn fields — could make a measurable difference.
Implementing those practices on just 4% of continuous corn acres across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin would cut total greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking more than 850,000 gasoline cars off the road, EWG found.
Despite setbacks at the federal level, some farmers are already showing what a more climate-friendly Corn Belt could look like.
In northern Iowa, Wendy Johnson farms 1,200 acres of corn and soybeans with her father. On 130 of those acres, she’s trying something different: She’s planting fruit and nut trees, organic grains, shrubs and other plants that need little or no nitrogen fertilizer.
“The more perennials we can have on the ground, the better it is for the climate,” she said.
Across the rest of the farm, they enrich the soil by rotating crops and planting cover crops. They’ve also converted less productive parts of the fields into “prairie strips” — bands of prairie grass that store carbon and require no fertilizer.
Under the now-cancelled Climate-Smart grant program, they were supposed to receive technical assistance and about $20,000 a year to expand those practices. The grant program was terminated before they got any of the money.
“It’s hard to take risks on your own,” Johnson said. “That’s where federal support really helps. Because agriculture is a high-risk occupation.”
The economics still favor business as usual. Johnson knows that many Midwestern corn growers feel pressure to maximize yields, keeping them hooked on corn — and nitrogen fertilizer.
“I think a lot of farmers around here are very allergic to trees,” she joked.
In southeast Iowa, sixth-generation farmer Levi Lyle, who mixes organic and conventional methods across 290 acres, uses a three-year rotation, extensive cover crops and a technique called roller-crimping — flattening rye each spring to create a mulch that suppresses weeds, feeds the soil and reduces fertilizer needs.
“The roller crimping of cover crops is a huge, huge opportunity to sequester more carbon, improve soil health, save money on chemicals and still get a similar yield,” he said.
But farmers get few government incentives to take such climate-friendly steps, Lyle said. “There is a lack of seriousness about supporting farmers to implement these new practices,” he said.
And without federal programs to offset the risk, the innovations that Lyle and Johnson are trying remain exceptions — not the norm.
Many farmers still see prairie strips or patches of trees as a waste, said Luke Gran, whose company helps Iowa farmers establish perennials.
“My eyes do not lie,” Gran said. “I have not seen extensive change to cover cropping or tillage across the broad acreage of this state that I love.”
Despite mounting research about corn’s climate costs, industry groups are pushing for policies to boost ethanol demand.
One big priority: Pushing a bill to require that new cars are able to run on gas with more ethanol than what’s commonly sold today.
Corn and biofuel trade groups have also been pressing Democrats and Republicans in Congress for legislation to pave the way for ethanol-based jet fuel. While use of such “sustainable” aviation fuel is still in its early stages domestically, corn and biofuel associations have made developing a market for it a top policy priority.
Secchi, the Iowa professor, says it’s easy to see why ethanol producers are trying to expand their market: The growth in electric vehicles threatens long-term gasoline sales.
Researchers warn that producing enough ethanol-based jet fuel could trigger major land-use shifts. A 2024 World Resources Institute analysis found that meeting the federal goal of 35 billion gallons of ethanol jet fuel would require about 114 million acres of corn — roughly 20% more corn acreage than the U.S. already plants for all purposes. That surge in demand, the authors concluded, would push up food prices and worsen hunger.
Secchi calls that scenario a climate and land-use “disaster.” Large-scale use of ethanol-based aviation fuel, she said, would mean clearing even more land and pouring on even more nitrogen fertilizer, driving up greenhouse gas emissions.
“The result,” she said, “would be essentially to enshrine this dysfunctional system that we created.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.
Ice cover on the Great Lakes has often been thought to cap evaporation that can influence water levels and regional weather. But a new study finds ice doesn’t play as big a role in blocking evaporation as once thought, which could prove vital for predicting future climate conditions and lake levels.
The post Great Lakes ice is thought to block evaporation. A new study says weather plays a bigger role. appeared first on WPR.
A federal court has granted a northern Wisconsin ski resort’s request to continue operating after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it struggles to survive amid lacking snow in recent years.
The post Wisconsin’s ‘snowiest’ ski resort will stay open this season after bankruptcy filing appeared first on WPR.
As COP30 is underway in Brazil, a group of researchers, including some from the University of Wisconsin-Madison published a report showing most countries are slacking on their goals to slow climate change.
The post ‘In the air for centuries’: UW researcher calls on G20 for more carbon dioxide removal appeared first on WPR.
The planet continues to warm due to human activity; bouts of cold weather don’t change this.
Satellites around the world measure temperatures at different places throughout the year. These are averaged to calculate annual global temperatures.
The past ten years (2015-2024) have been the ten hottest since modern record-keeping began in 1850, and 2024 was the all-time hottest. The last time Earth had a colder-than-average year was 1976.
Weather refers to meteorological conditions — heat, humidity, precipitation, etc. — in a given moment, while climate represents patterns of weather over time.
Cold snaps still occur, but they’re becoming less common as Earth warms from human emissions of heat-trapping gases.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Does cold weather disprove human-caused climate change? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
State Street in Wauwatosa flooded out. (Photo courtesy of Baiba Rozite)
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) is raising an alarm after Wisconsin was denied flood mitigation funds by the Trump administration. The assistance, which was denied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), would have helped the state prepare for situations like the record-breaking floods that swept through southeastern Wisconsin in August.
“The risks of severe flooding will only increase due to climate change, and our community needs to be prepared,” Moore said in a statement Thursday. “FEMA’s ill-conceived decision denies our state the opportunity to take proactive efforts to prevent future flooding and damage, which saves homeowners and taxpayers dollars in the long run.”
Research shows that severe storms and flooding will increase in Wisconsin due to climate change. Shortly after the August floods, which inundated parks and left over 1,800 homes damaged or destroyed, Wisconsin Policy Forum noted a “dramatic increase” in extreme rain and flooding events, resulting in higher payouts for flood insurance.
Although the Trump administration approved a first round of disaster funds to assist individual homes and small businesses, additional support to help repair public infrastructure was also denied in late October. Counties in areas represented by both Democrats and Republicans were denied additional assistance.
“State and local governments cannot do it alone,” said Moore. “I expect Gov. Evers will rightly appeal this denial, and I hope that request will get bipartisan support in our congressional delegation. As our communities continue to recover, it is clear there is a need to build our communities back stronger and more resilient. I will continue advocating for Wisconsin’s needs at the federal level and push back against these ill-advised decisions.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
State and local government officials in Wisconsin objected Friday to the Trump administration’s decision to deny additional disaster assistance to rebuild infrastructure in Door, Grant, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties after the historic floods in August.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said the decision left him feeling “extremely disappointed.” Crowley spoke from his office at the Milwaukee County Courthouse Friday, saying that the funds would go towards repairing parks, government buildings, and other public infrastructure damaged by the so-called flooding which swept communities two months ago.
When the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) initially sent disaster relief after the floods, Crowley said he “commended the Trump administration,” and that “I thought that we were putting politics behind us in making sure that communities can recover.” Crowley said that by Friday over $123 million in financial assistance has been distributed to county residents for home repairs.
But it’s not just local businesses and homes that were damaged. The rainfall, which fell in a torrential downpour on the weekend of Aug. 9, left Hart Park in Wauwatosa underwater. Downed trees and other debris were strewn along roadways. Cars, swept away by the overnight flooding, were abandoned in the street for days.
Over 1,800 homes were left damaged or destroyed, with an estimated $34 million in damage to public infrastructure. “The preliminary damage assessments show that the damage that we saw throughout all six counties is more than significant,” said Crowley. “Roads and bridges that our residents rely on sustained substantial damage. Public buildings and facilities were not only washed away, but in some cases had significant mold contamination that will also impact the public health and safety of our residents. Our parks and our trails, they were damaged, which will harm our quality of life in the short term, as well as the long term, and the list goes on.”
Crowley pointed to Hart Park as a prime example of an area with lingering damage additional funds could remedy. As the disaster relief is denied, Milwaukee County is also in the middle of crafting a budget which will not be padded by COVID-era federal funds. County supervisors are currently debating amendments to Crowley’s proposed $1.4 billion budget, which carries cuts to transit services and eviction legal defense programs and increases property taxes by 4.1%.
“We’re already making challenging decisions about funding not only programs and services, but future infrastructure spending, and capital projects that are needed not only now, but in the years ahead. Today’s action by the Trump administration will send us back even further. It will delay progress in our recovery efforts from this natural disaster, and it will place a financial burden solely on local taxpayers who have already had to sacrifice so much as a result of these floods.”
Gov. Tony Evers issued a statement Friday saying he filed an appeal asking the Trump administration to release more than $26.5 million in public assistance for infrastructure repair it has denied. “Denying federal assistance doesn’t just delay recovery, it sends a message to our communities that they are on their own, and that the Trump administration doesn’t think over $26 million in damages to public infrastructure is worthy of their help,” Evers said in a press statement. “I couldn’t disagree more. The federal government should not expect our communities to go through this alone, and we are going to fight tooth and nail to ensure they get every possible resource to rebuild and recover. We are hopeful that the Trump administration will reconsider this decision, so we can make sure folks have the resources and support they need.”
The denial comes during a federal government shutdown that has lasted nearly a month. In a letter to Evers, FEMA said that while the flood damage was significant, assessments determined that “the public assistance program is not warranted.”
The storm and flooding was dubbed a “thousand year storm” and dumped record-breaking amounts of rain essentially overnight. Wisconsin now has 30 days to send an appeal.
“Turning your back on families facing washed-out roads, damaged schools, and flooded homes because they’re not seen as political allies is unconscionable,” said Kerry Schumann, executive director of Wisconsin Conservation Voters in a statement. “These communities didn’t cause this crisis, but they’re living through it. They deserve leadership that helps them recover and protects them from the next flood, not one that deepens the damage.”
“By denying federal assistance, the Trump Administration is leaving Wisconsin communities to fend for themselves,” said U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. “No community can pick up these pieces alone, and Wisconsinites need support so they can rebuild and be on the road to recovery. I hope my Republican colleagues will join me in calling on the Trump administration to step up to the plate and be here for Wisconsin communities left in the lurch.
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, Democrat of Milwaukee, also expressed frustration. “Our state was forced to wait nearly two months for the Trump administration’s ill-advised and disappointing decision,” Moore said in a statement. “Communities in Milwaukee, which are still recovering, are counting on federal assistance to help fund critical repairs to public roadways, buildings, vehicles, and equipment that were severely damaged.” Nevertheless, Moore said, “Wisconsinites do not give up.”
Rep. Kalan Haywood (D-Milwaukee) also issued a statement condemning the denial. Haywood said that the Trump administration “is sending a clear message to the people of Wisconsin – ‘we do not care about you’.” Haywood added that, “these funds are so badly needed to repair infrastructure, businesses, and schools. These are all essential to reverse the trend of President Trump’s faltering economy. Our residents pay millions in federal taxes and they should not face these hardships alone.”
Haywood added that Wisconsin’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) “is on the verge of drying up.” while “communities are left to rebuild major infrastructure on their own, it is disappointing that the White House is choosing a $300 million ballroom ego-project over the well-being of the people of our state. It is my hope that FEMA reconsiders this decision to ensure that Wisconsin residents have a chance to recover and prosper. Wisconsinites deserve better and should demand better.”
Two bills related to disaster relief (AB-580 and AB-581) have been introduced to the Wisconsin Legislature as communities process the news. One bill would require the Department of Military Affairs to create a program to award grants to individuals and businesses severely impacted by disasters related to a state of emergency declared by the governor. Grants of no more than $25,000 could be awarded under the bill to an individual to help repair a residence, and grants of no more than $50,000 would go to businesses. The other bill would also work through the Department of Military Affairs, and would appropriate $10 million in disaster assistance grants for individuals, and $20 million in grants for businesses in the 2025-26 fiscal year.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
“I basically went ahead when I probably should have turned back,” climate reporter Alec Luhn recently said on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” Luhn went missing for six days this summer.
The post ‘I was flying down the mountain’: Wisconsin-born journalist Alec Luhn shares survival story appeared first on WPR.
As temperatures rise and bobbers sink, it turns out anglers have a greater effect on fish populations than global warming, according to a new study led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The post Fishing plays greater role on Midwest fish populations than warming, study finds appeared first on WPR.
This story is from Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. Sign up for Floodlight’s newsletter here.
In south-central Wisconsin, near-record warmth in January and two record-breaking summer heat waves have cross-country skiers nervous they won’t be getting much snow this winter — again.
And it’s not just skiers in Wisconsin who are worried. New research shows heat waves are prompting a growing number of Americans to make the connection between hotter weather and climate change.
Ski seasons in the United States have shrunk by an average of 5.5 to 7.1 days between 2000 and 2019 compared to the 1960s and ’70s, according to a 2024 study by researchers from Canada and Austria. And in the coming 25 years, ski seasons could be even shorter — by between two weeks and three months — depending on how much the world reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers said.
Tamara Bryant, executive director of a cross-country ski club in Madison, Wisconsin, has seen this dynamic firsthand — both in her professional and personal lives.
“I remember the winters where my son could build snow forts in the front yard, year after year, and we’re just not getting the same (amount of snow),” she said. “Having a white Christmas is not something we can totally rely on.”
Madison’s chain of lakes also aren’t freezing like they used to, creating hazards for people who fish on the ice.
Hilary Dugan, associate professor in the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says back in the 1800s, lakes would remain frozen approximately 130 days a year, but now, on average, it’s maybe 75 days a year.
“That’s something that people around here notice because winter is a big part of life,” Dugan said. “Traditionally, winter would start in December (and) it would end probably like April. That meant that you could consistently go out and ice fish, cross-country ski, you know, winter recreation.
“We’re talking months of change — not just a couple of days.”
More than 1,700 miles away in Phoenix, dangerous heat has prompted officials to close the city’s extensive system of mountain trails. But that hasn’t stopped some from hiking in 100-degree-plus weather, leading to emergency rescues and the death of a 10-year-old last year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found 2024 was the hottest year in its 130-year climate record. NOAA reported the average annual temperature across the contiguous United States in 2024 was 55.5 degrees — or 3.5 degrees above the 20th-century average — heat that it said fueled a near-record number of tornadoes.
Hotter summers and warmer winters are not only disrupting outdoor activities. The record-breaking heat has also been driving national concern about climate change — more so even than dramatic events such as wildfires and hurricanes, according to new research.
Yale’s latest Climate Opinion Maps found that 65% of U.S. adults somewhat or strongly agree that global warming is affecting weather patterns, while 72% of adults nationally think global warming is real.
Its recent study showed that people’s interest in learning more about climate change consistently spikes during weather events like heat waves. And the public’s interest in climate change increases in specific areas experiencing extreme weather events, researchers found.
“Certain weather events — like heat waves — seem to produce consistent jumps in climate change interest across all regions simultaneously,” the researchers wrote, “while others — like wildfires — show more geographic variation.”
The study involved research through Yale’s partnership with Google. The team analyzed online search trends across the country, finding that searches on climate change followed “consistent and predictable patterns.”
Heat waves in 2023 sparked consistent interest in climate change, the study found, while Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 garnered an increase in searches only in the places affected by those storms. Similarly, interest in climate change increased during bouts of wildfires in the United States and Canada, but only in the areas most directly affected by the smoke, the study found.
The authors suggest the findings can be used by officials to help people prepare for extreme weather. And, the authors note, “this timing could help the public better understand the need to transition to renewable energy sources, reduce fossil fuels, update risk assessments, increase planning, and strengthen building codes.”
Climate Central’s analysis of heat streaks between 1970 and 2024 found that their frequency has at least doubled in nearly 200 cities across the Southwest, Northeast, Ohio River Valley and southeastern parts of the country — and those heat waves were attributed to greenhouse gas emissions.
The data, released in July by the nonprofit group of scientists and climate researchers, also found heat waves are the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States. In 2023, the group reported that 2,325 people in the United States died from extreme heat — a record high.
This heat, Phoenix Fire Department Capt. Rob McDade said, “It’s very dangerous.” In July 2024, a 10-year-old boy died from heat-related injuries while hiking South Mountain Park and Preserve with his family.
In 2021, Phoenix adopted a safety program to restrict access on parts of the city’s 200-plus miles of trails during extreme heat — especially on rugged stretches where it’s more difficult for the fire department to rescue hikers.
“We have more people hiking than ever, and we are seeing rescues that have to happen that definitely are related to the heat,” said Jarod Rogers, deputy director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.
Last year, between May 1 and Oct. 13, the city had 45 days of trail closures due to extreme heat. Since adopting the safety program, there have been fewer rescues — from 57 in 2021 down to 35 in 2024.
“The proof is in the pudding,” McDade said. “Setting up these restrictions is dramatically cutting back those extreme (heat) day mountain rescues.”
Rising temperatures are causing a different kind of risk in northern regions. Last winter, Dugan said she repeatedly heard about people being rescued after falling through melting lake ice.
“It felt higher than normal,” she said. “People are willing to go out on the thinnest ice to go get some fish. It’s definitely a passion for people here.”
Skiers are also feeling the burn from a warmer climate. Bryant, executive director for the MadNorSki Club (Madison Nordic Ski), said there has been little snow in recent years, shortening the cross-country skiing season.
Annual snowfall in Madison has decreased over the past three winters from 70 accumulated inches in 2022 to 43 inches in 2023 and 22 inches in 2024.
Bryant said popular ski races have had to cancel because of the lack of snowfall. Some event organizers have resorted to using artificially made snow.
In 2017, organizers of the American Birkebeiner race (“Birkie”), which draws more than 10,000 nordic skiers to northern Wisconsin each year, canceled its cross-country ski races due to lack of snow.
In 2024, another low-snow year, Birkie organizers used snowmaking machines to create a 10-kilometer ski loop instead of the normally linear 50- or 53-kilometer course.
“In the photos, you would see this little white ribbon of snow on the trail, and it was brown everywhere else,” Bryant said, calling the recent lack of snow in Wisconsin “freaky.”
Birkie spokesman Shawn Connelly said the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation has kept its ski events running thanks to donor funding to purchase the snow-making equipment. “As long as we have the cold, we’ll have the snow,” Connelly vowed, “and we’ll continue to host North America’s largest annual cross-country ski race.”
While the Yale study shows Americans are increasingly concerned about climate change, President Donald Trump’s administration is moving in the opposite direction.
In July, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which scientifically characterized planet-warming greenhouse gases as a danger to human health and the environment. The ruling was used as the foundation for the federal government’s regulation of emissions from vehicles and power plants for the last 16 years.
The proposal comes after the Trump administration gutted many of the initiatives of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that aimed to reduce the country’s climate impact over the next two decades.
Environmental advocates have accused the Trump administration of “burying its head in sand” when it comes to the climate crisis.
“Americans are already suffering from stronger hurricanes, more severe heat waves and floods, and more frequent fires,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a prepared statement. “(Americans) are watching these climate disasters get worse (and) the danger to their lives and health intensify.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.
From ski trails in Wisconsin to hiking paths in Phoenix, extreme heat is reshaping recreation — and our attitudes is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Four New Nuclear Reactors and Forever Radioactive Waste in Calhoun County, Texas First Intervention Against SMRs in the U.S. LONG MOTT, Texas – This week, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper (Waterkeeper) intervened to stop four proposed experimental nuclear power reactors targeted for Long Mott, Texas – a community in coastal Calhoun County – the first …
The post San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper Challenges appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.
Jessika Trancik, a professor in MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, has been named the new director of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center (SSRC), effective July 1. The SSRC convenes and supports researchers focused on problems and solutions at the intersection of technology and its societal impacts.
Trancik conducts research on technology innovation and energy systems. At the Trancik Lab, she and her team develop methods drawing on engineering knowledge, data science, and policy analysis. Their work examines the pace and drivers of technological change, helping identify where innovation is occurring most rapidly, how emerging technologies stack up against existing systems, and which performance thresholds matter most for real-world impact. Her models have been used to inform government innovation policy and have been applied across a wide range of industries.
“Professor Trancik’s deep expertise in the societal implications of technology, and her commitment to developing impactful solutions across industries, make her an excellent fit to lead SSRC,” says Maria C. Yang, interim dean of engineering and William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
Much of Trancik’s research focuses on the domain of energy systems, and establishing methods for energy technology evaluation, including of their costs, performance, and environmental impacts. She covers a wide range of energy services — including electricity, transportation, heating, and industrial processes. Her research has applications in solar and wind energy, energy storage, low-carbon fuels, electric vehicles, and nuclear fission. Trancik is also known for her research on extreme events in renewable energy availability.
A prolific researcher, Trancik has helped measure progress and inform the development of solar photovoltaics, batteries, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and other low-carbon technologies — and anticipate future trends. One of her widely cited contributions includes quantifying learning rates and identifying where targeted investments can most effectively accelerate innovation. These tools have been used by U.S. federal agencies, international organizations, and the private sector to shape energy R&D portfolios, climate policy, and infrastructure planning.
Trancik is committed to engaging and informing the public on energy consumption. She and her team developed the app carboncounter.com, which helps users choose cars with low costs and low environmental impacts.
As an educator, Trancik teaches courses for students across MIT’s five schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.
“The question guiding my teaching and research is how do we solve big societal challenges with technology, and how can we be more deliberate in developing and supporting technologies to get us there?” Trancik said in an article about course IDS.521/IDS.065 (Energy Systems for Climate Change Mitigation).
Trancik received her undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering from Cornell University. As a Rhodes Scholar, she completed her PhD in materials science at the University of Oxford. She subsequently worked for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. After serving as an Omidyar Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, she joined MIT in 2010 as a faculty member.
Trancik succeeds Fotini Christia, the Ford International Professor of Social Sciences in the Department of Political Science and director of IDSS, who previously served as director of SSRC.
(WASHINGTON, DC) — Today, it was reported that the Trump administration is preparing to cancel $7 billion in federal solar grants intended to help low- and moderate-income families access rooftop and community solar. The decision would eliminate the Solar for All program, a cornerstone of recent federal efforts to lower energy costs and expand access to clean …
The post Sun Day Responds to Trump’s Attempt to Kill $7B in Solar Grants: “A Direct Attack on American Families” appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.
Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.
There has been broad agreement about the greenhouse effect for over a century.
In 1824, Joseph Fourier calculated that Earth ought to be much colder given its distance from the sun, and theorized that the atmosphere acts as a blanket, trapping heat and keeping the planet warmer than it would be otherwise.
Scientists later hypothesized that higher concentrations of greenhouse gases could raise temperatures. In 1896, Svante Arrhenius attempted to quantify this; his predictions remain on the high end of current climate models.
The basic science of the greenhouse effect is fairly simple: certain atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide trap and redirect outgoing heat; some is radiated back downward, causing heat build up and temperatures to rise.
In 2021, the IPCC concluded it is unequivocal that human emission of greenhouse gases are the primary cause of modern warming.
See a full discussion of this at Skeptical Science
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Is the greenhouse effect still debated among climate scientists? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
A few years ago, Holly Jones started studying the micro-climate and the topography on her family farm in Crawfordsville, Iowa, about 40 miles south of Iowa City. Jones said learning more about the landscape of her fifth generation flower farm helped her recognize some of the ways weather and climate change could affect her operation.
“There are some areas of our land that are a little higher than others,” Jones said. “That’s going to impact, for example, when we’re looking out for frost advisories or frost concerns really early in the season or the end.”
Around this time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture updated its plant hardiness zones map, which divides the United States into 13 zones based on average annual minimum temperatures in a given time period.
Todd Einhorn, an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Michigan State University, said simply put plant hardiness zones help gardeners and farmers determine which plants are most likely to survive winters in a specific location.
Jones’ farm, called Evergreen Hill, is currently in zone 5b. The USDA found that for her area the temperature had increased by 1 degree Fahrenheit between 2012 and 2023 – a trend experts say will continue in the Upper Midwest.
In response to the changing climate and her deeper understanding of her land, Jones created “crossover plans” for the farm, planting flower varieties with overlapping bloom times. If one species is late to flower or runs its course early, she has other plants that can fill in as the farm’s “focal flower” at any given time.
Jones works to be transparent with customers about whether they can have certain flowers by a specific date when she takes orders.
She said she and her team have learned that they must be flexible when it comes to farming in a changing climate since she does not have control over growing conditions.
“We can prepare as much as we want, but there’s so much variability now in growing, especially in the ways that we grow that you just have to be prepared to pivot and adapt,” Jones said.
Jones won’t be the only one adapting.
Plant hardiness zones are shifting northward nationwide as the country continues to warm, affecting farmers, gardeners and producers across the country. The biggest changes in the coming decades are predicted to be in the Upper Midwest. The Midwest produces 27% of the nation’s agricultural goods.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone map has 13 zones, which serve as guidelines for growers on what kind of plants will grow well in their area.
“Hardiness zones are meant to at least delineate which species or cultivars of species could be planted based on their survival,” said Einhorn, who specializes in plant hardiness science, particularly with fruit tree species.
Each zone covers about 10 degrees — for example, Iowa lies primarily in zone 5, which means its coldest temperatures range from -20 degrees to -10 degrees Fahrenheit on average. Each zone is further divided into 5 degree half zones — the northern half of Iowa is in 5a, the southern half in 5b.
Madelynn Wuestenberg, an agricultural climatology extension specialist with Iowa State University, said that plant hardiness zones are defined by their average coldest temperatures. The averages are calculated over 30 years.
In 2023, using new averages, the USDA updated the map, moving about half of the country up by half a plant zone, meaning average minimum temperatures rose by zero to 5 degrees in the affected places.
Climate Central, a nonprofit researching climate change and how it affects people, analyzed 243 locations around the United States and found that about 67% of the locations studied based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data have already shifted to warmer planting zones from the mid-1900s to present.
The researchers found that the Northwest and the Southwest, along with Alaska, have been the most affected to date.
With unabated climate change about 90% of locations examined will likely shift to warmer planting zones by the middle of this century. The Upper Midwest is predicted to be affected most.
Wuestenberg said winter temperatures in the Midwest are becoming warmer on average, compared to decades past.
“What we saw from the 1981 to 2010 climatology versus the 1991 to 2020 climatology is we’re really starting to see warming across the U.S.,” Wuestenberg said. “And this has been observed for a long time, and really it’s a pretty consistent overall warming, but the specific amount of warming varies region to region across the U.S.”
Of the cities with the highest predicted temperature change between now and mid-century, a majority of the top 25 are in the Mississippi River Basin.
Madison, Wisconsin, for example, is projected to switch from zone 5b to 6a as the average coldest temperature is expected to increase by 8.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
Jefferson City, Missouri, will likely change from zone 6b to zone 7b as the area’s average cold temperatures are projected to increase by 8.3 degrees Fahrenheit.
In Dubuque, Iowa, the average coldest temperatures are expected to rise by 8.3 degrees Fahrenheit, and producers will go from zone 5a to 6a.
Average cold temperatures in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are on course to warm by 8.2 degrees Fahrenheit, and the region is expected to jump an entire planting zone to 6a.
The shift in plant hardiness zones could force some growers across the country to select plants that are adapted to a wider and warmer range of temperatures to survive warmer winters and earlier frosts and thaws.
In some cases, that could mean new opportunities.
Dean Colony runs Colony Acres Family Farm in North Liberty, Iowa. On his 200-acre farm, he grows pumpkins, corn, soybeans and zinnias.
His farm is currently in plant hardiness zone five, but Colony said it could be a matter of time before Iowa is able to produce peaches like Missouri and Kentucky can.
“How many more years is it going to be? I mean, we could grow peaches in Iowa, but it seems like they grow them way better down there,” Colony said. “So is it a matter of time before that comes here?”
Wuestenberg said one challenge with the shifting zones is that they are based on climatological averages and do not take atypical and significant frost or freeze events into account, which can be challenging for producers.
Wuestenberg said gardeners and fruit tree producers will likely be more concerned about the shifting zones, rather than row crop producers.
Fruit trees and vines need a certain number of chilling hours, which is the minimum period of cold weather a fruit tree needs to blossom.
For example, Einhorn said most apple trees require about a thousand chilling hours in the winter to break their dormancy period and bloom in the spring.
But with winters warming, even by a few degrees, apple trees will want to break dormancy earlier.
“Instead of being at 30 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, maybe now the days are at 34 (degrees Fahrenheit) and that little bit of warming actually has a humongous effect on a tree,” Einhorn said.
The apple trees could start flowering in late February or early March.
“Unfortunately, what can happen is overall, winter may have been warmer, but we still might get a March, April frost. And once that happens, those buds, those flowers, are exposed to that cold temperature, and then it kills them,” Wuestenberg said.
This could lead to reduced fruit yields later in the season.
But Einhorn said there are ways that producers can work within the unpredictable conditions.
For example, there are various methods for raising temperatures for trees during a freeze, including using fans to pull warm air out of the atmosphere and running water over plants. There are also research efforts underway breeding new plants that have either delayed blooms or can withstand the new conditions.
Meanwhile, farmers will continue to adapt. Jones, the flower farmer, has noticed strong winds and storms coming through the eastern Iowa region. She’s planted sunflowers in windier areas of the farm because they can withstand stronger gusts. More delicate flowers go near trees for natural protection. She also uses netting to help stabilize flowers from winds, rains and storms.
“At the end of the season, we’re at the mercy of our climate and the weather,” Jones said. “And that can greatly impact what we have in any given season.”
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.
A warming climate is changing growing conditions, shifting planting zones northward is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
New Poll: American Voters Support Federal Investments in Electric Vehicles Broad, Bipartisan Support for EV Investments and Incentives that Lower Costs, Expand Access, and Help the U.S. Beat China in the Race for Auto Manufacturing WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new bipartisan national poll conducted by Meeting Street Insights and Hart Research finds broad public support …
The post Support for Electric Vehicles appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.
As a major contributor to global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the transportation sector has immense potential to advance decarbonization. However, a zero-emissions global supply chain requires re-imagining reliance on a heavy-duty trucking industry that emits 810,000 tons of CO2, or 6 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and consumes 29 billion gallons of diesel annually in the U.S. alone.
A new study by MIT researchers, presented at the recent American Society of Mechanical Engineers 2024 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, quantifies the impact of a zero-emission truck’s design range on its energy storage requirements and operational revenue. The multivariable model outlined in the paper allows fleet owners and operators to better understand the design choices that impact the economic feasibility of battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell heavy-duty trucks for commercial application, equipping stakeholders to make informed fleet transition decisions.
“The whole issue [of decarbonizing trucking] is like a very big, messy pie. One of the things we can do, from an academic standpoint, is quantify some of those pieces of pie with modeling, based on information and experience we’ve learned from industry stakeholders,” says ZhiYi Liang, PhD student on the renewable hydrogen team at the MIT K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center (GEAR) and lead author of the study. Co-authored by Bryony DuPont, visiting scholar at GEAR, and Amos Winter, the Germeshausen Professor in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, the paper elucidates operational and socioeconomic factors that need to be considered in efforts to decarbonize heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs).
Operational and infrastructure challenges
The team’s model shows that a technical challenge lies in the amount of energy that needs to be stored on the truck to meet the range and towing performance needs of commercial trucking applications. Due to the high energy density and low cost of diesel, existing diesel drivetrains remain more competitive than alternative lithium battery-electric vehicle (Li-BEV) and hydrogen fuel-cell-electric vehicle (H2 FCEV) drivetrains. Although Li-BEV drivetrains have the highest energy efficiency of all three, they are limited to short-to-medium range routes (under 500 miles) with low freight capacity, due to the weight and volume of the onboard energy storage needed. In addition, the authors note that existing electric grid infrastructure will need significant upgrades to support large-scale deployment of Li-BEV HDVs.
While the hydrogen-powered drivetrain has a significant weight advantage that enables higher cargo capacity and routes over 750 miles, the current state of hydrogen fuel networks limits economic viability, especially once operational cost and projected revenue are taken into account. Deployment will most likely require government intervention in the form of incentives and subsidies to reduce the price of hydrogen by more than half, as well as continued investment by corporations to ensure a stable supply. Also, as H2-FCEVs are still a relatively new technology, the ongoing design of conformal onboard hydrogen storage systems — one of which is the subject of Liang’s PhD — is crucial to successful adoption into the HDV market.
The current efficiency of diesel systems is a result of technological developments and manufacturing processes established over many decades, a precedent that suggests similar strides can be made with alternative drivetrains. However, interactions with fleet owners, automotive manufacturers, and refueling network providers reveal another major hurdle in the way that each “slice of the pie” is interrelated — issues must be addressed simultaneously because of how they affect each other, from renewable fuel infrastructure to technological readiness and capital cost of new fleets, among other considerations. And first steps into an uncertain future, where no one sector is fully in control of potential outcomes, is inherently risky.
“Besides infrastructure limitations, we only have prototypes [of alternative HDVs] for fleet operator use, so the cost of procuring them is high, which means there isn’t demand for automakers to build manufacturing lines up to a scale that would make them economical to produce,” says Liang, describing just one step of a vicious cycle that is difficult to disrupt, especially for industry stakeholders trying to be competitive in a free market.
Quantifying a path to feasibility
“Folks in the industry know that some kind of energy transition needs to happen, but they may not necessarily know for certain what the most viable path forward is,” says Liang. Although there is no singular avenue to zero emissions, the new model provides a way to further quantify and assess at least one slice of pie to aid decision-making.
Other MIT-led efforts aimed at helping industry stakeholders navigate decarbonization include an interactive mapping tool developed by Danika MacDonell, Impact Fellow at the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC); alongside Florian Allroggen, executive director of MITs Zero Impact Aviation Alliance; and undergraduate researchers Micah Borrero, Helena De Figueiredo Valente, and Brooke Bao. The MCSC’s Geospatial Decision Support Tool supports strategic decision-making for fleet operators by allowing them to visualize regional freight flow densities, costs, emissions, planned and available infrastructure, and relevant regulations and incentives by region.
While current limitations reveal the need for joint problem-solving across sectors, the authors believe that stakeholders are motivated and ready to tackle climate problems together. Once-competing businesses already appear to be embracing a culture shift toward collaboration, with the recent agreement between General Motors and Hyundai to explore “future collaboration across key strategic areas,” including clean energy.
Liang believes that transitioning the transportation sector to zero emissions is just one part of an “energy revolution” that will require all sectors to work together, because “everything is connected. In order for the whole thing to make sense, we need to consider ourselves part of that pie, and the entire system needs to change,” says Liang. “You can’t make a revolution succeed by yourself.”
The authors acknowledge the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium for connecting them with industry members in the HDV ecosystem; and the MIT K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center and MIT Morningside Academy for Design for financial support.
© Photo: Bob Adams/Flickr
A new study on behalf of Milliken has identified the top U.S. states for sustainable energy production. The rapid rise of the sustainable energy sector worldwide has been one of the most important technological and economic stories of recent years. Continued urgency to mitigate the impact of climate change has spurred governments and companies to speed the transition …
The post States With the Most Businesses Focused on Sustainable Energy appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.
Login