By Claire Carlson for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Trimmel Gomes for Florida News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration
A newly updated wildfire risk map could help level the playing field for rural communities who don't have the resources to conduct their own wildfire risk assessments, according to the independent research group Headwaters Economics.
The map, first created by the U.S. Forest Service under the direction of Congress in 2018, shows wildfire risks at the county level and ways to mitigate those risks. Every U.S. county and tribal area is included in the map.
"With this tool, the data is available for everyone to use, no matter whether you have your own staffing and expertise to produce these kinds of resources or not," said Kelly Pohl, associate director of Headwaters Economics, in a Daily Yonder interview.
Headwaters Economics was brought on as a partner in the mapping project in 2020. The group made the map's new updates by incorporating the latest vegetation and climate data, advancements in wildfire hazard simulation modeling, and the most recent building and housing unit information from the Census Bureau.
Wildfire Risk Is Increasing
Better understanding local wildfire risk could be more important for communities than ever because of the map's recent findings, which shows that about one-third of all Americans live in counties with high wildfire risk.
"There are a lot of states in the East, especially in the Southeast, that have wildfire risk," Pohl said. "And we do see parts of the country have higher wildfire risk than we previously understood." Oregon and Washington are two such states, according to Pohl.
In many parts of the country, climate change has caused hotter temperatures and drier conditions. This exacerbates wildfire risk.
Grant Opportunities
The Biden administration has implemented several grant programs to better equip communities with wildfire resilience tools in light of this increasing risk.
In February 2024, the administration launched a $5 million pilot program for rural emergency response agencies to convert vehicles to wildland fire engines using slip-on water tank units.
In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) allocated another $250 million to the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program that supports communities to develop wildfire protection plans and remove vegetation.
The wildfire risk map's new data underscores the need for the federal government to "continue these efforts through Community Wildfire Defense Grants and our work to increase the pace and scale of hazardous fuels reduction on federal and non-federal lands," according to USDA's Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, who was quoted in a press release.
Information about the grant programs and other funding opportunities can be found on the wildfire risk map's website.
Claire Carlson wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.
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By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Prairie News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration
Our food systems are in serious need of an overhaul. Over the last 60 years, per-capita meat consumption has roughly doubled, and is now at unsustainable levels. During that same period of time, the number of billionaires in the world has increased dramatically as well. This confluence of trends raises an important question: what, if anything, are the world's billionaires doing to fix our food systems, and help us transition into a more climate-friendly way of eating?
Meat production fuels a number of long term environmental impacts, which is one reason why the precipitous rise in meat consumption over the last few decades is such a big problem. The livestock industry is responsible for between 11 and 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally, with 80 percent of all agricultural land going to livestock production. Beef production is the top driver of deforestation worldwide, and deforestation is an enormously destructive process that destroys ecosystems, reduces biodiversity, erodes soil and emits massive amounts of greenhouse gasses.
At the same time, the world's population is predicted to swell to 9.7 billion people by the year 2050, which means many more people potentially eating more meat. Researchers warn that the global appetite for meat will eventually exceed our capacity to produce it on this planet.
"I was at a workshop surrounded by pork producers, chicken farmers and dairy farmers, and eight out of 10 of them agreed that they will not be able to meet growing meat [demand] on their own without the other options," says Sheila Voss, vice president of communications at the Good Food Institute, a non-profit that advocates for alternatives to meat. "We only have finite land and water."
Despite what some opponents of food systems reform claim, the goal of getting people to eat less meat is not a conspiracy of billionaires trying to replace traditional meat entirely, or aiming to force people to become vegetarians. Efforts to reform the way we produce and consume meat include investments not only in alternative proteins, but also into technologies that aim to make traditional meat production more environmentally friendly, such as feeds that reduce the methane output from cattle. (Though when these turn out to be more marketing gimmick than verifiable solution, the public should be wary.)
While there's no silver bullet for accomplishing all of these changes, the richest people in the world are certainly in a position to help fund initiatives that move us in the right direction. But have they?
To answer this question, we analyzed the investment profiles of several well-known U.S. billionaires: Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Which of them are actually giving away money to improve food systems - and which ones don't appear to invest in solving this major climate issue at all?
A Breakdown of Billionaire Investments in Food
1. Jeff Bezos
One of the more prolific donors in the field is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos - a little surprising, no doubt, since "Amazon" is hardly synonymous with "sustainable." As a company that sells and ships physical products around the world, Amazon has an enormous carbon footprint, and while it's announced several measures intended to reduce its environmental impact, the efficacy of these measures is still unclear.
Bezos himself, however, has spent quite a bit of money to fund climate initiatives, including measures aimed at researching and promoting alternatives to traditional meat. He's done this primarily through the Bezos Earth Fund, a grant program for funding climate scientists and green initiatives around the world.
"Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet," Bezos wrote in an Instagram post announcing the fund. "I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share. This global initiative will fund scientists, activists, NGOs - any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world."
Bezos, one of the richest men on Earth, seeded the fund with $10 billion of his own money at the outset. That money is meant to be distributed gradually by 2030; as of this writing, $2 billion has been doled out to various climate initiatives, according to the fund's website.
The fund has committed to spending $1 billion of its overall endowment on food-related projects, with the goal of "transform[ing] food and agricultural systems to support healthy lives without degrading the planet." A lot of that money has gone to grants aimed at reducing methane output from cattle, while the Bezos' fund is also funding research into cultivated and plant-based meat.
In 2024, the fund announced that it would be spending $60 million of its endowment on research centers aimed at improving the technology behind alternative proteins. This allocation was soon increased to $100 million, and in May, the first Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein went live at North Carolina State University. The fund intends to build more of these centers in order to "establish a network of open-access research and development centers focused on sustainable protein alternatives, expanding consumer choices."
In addition to the Bezos Earth Fund, Amazon itself established the Right Now Climate Fund, a $100 million initiative aimed at reforestation and conservation. As cattle farming is the biggest driver of deforestation worldwide, this fund targets efforts, like agroforestry, that are component of food system change.
"We are not turning everybody into vegetarians," said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, in June. "But we are trying to improve the choice and the health and the vitality of the agricultural system."
2. Bill Gates
Next on our list is Bill Gates, one of two founders of Microsoft. A vocal proponent of alternative proteins, Gates has called plant-based meat "the future," and said that wealthy countries "should move to 100 percent synthetic beef" in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with cattle.
More importantly, he's put his money where his mouth is, so to speak. Gates has invested in plant-based meat companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, as well as the cultivated meat company Upside Foods, formerly known as Memphis Meats. Upside Foods is one of just two cultivated meat companies that have been given FDA approval to sell its products commercially in the U.S.
Gates has also given money to Neutral Foods, a food company that aims to be carbon neutral by purchasing carbon offsets to compensate for the emissions its products cause. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also provided grants to a number of organizations working on alternative proteins, including the Good Food Institute.
3. Elon Musk
Musk's record on the environment is mixed. There was a time when he had a reputation as an environmentalist, as the success of his electric car company Tesla was seen as a positive step in reducing transportation-related greenhouse emissions.
Over the last few years, however, Musk's politics have drifted steadily to the right, and that includes his stance on global warming and sustainability. In a recent conversation with Donald Trump, Musk downplayed climate change's urgency, claiming that "it's not like the house is on fire immediately" and that "people can still have a steak and they can still drive gasoline cars, and it's okay." Musk's statements are often contradictory, however. He went on to characterize climate action as "something we need to move towards," albeit "without causing hardship in the short term." Musk has also praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who made headlines recently for banning the sale of cultivated meat in his state.
And yet despite all of this, Musk's company SpaceX has collaborated with Aleph Farms, an Israeli company that makes alternative meat, to investigate the viability of growing cultivated meat in space. In 2022, a four-man team flew to the International Space Station on a SpaceX capsule with cultivated beef cells in tow, and studied the viability of growing those cells into edible meat in zero gravity conditions.
It seems contradictory: Musk's company participates in an experiment that promotes meat alternatives (in space, at least), yet he's also vocally downplayed beef's role in driving climate pollution (back on Earth). While only Musk knows what's going on in his head, the fact remains that his company has at least played a small role in research to advance cultivated meat technology.
Outside of that, Musk's company Tesla stopped using animal products in its cars in 2019, replacing the traditional leather seats with vinyl.
4. Mark Zuckerberg
Finally, we took a look at investments made by Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Zuckerberg has made clear that he has no problem with traditional meat, and he doesn't appear to have invested in the alternative meat or meat reduction strategies in any significant way (a Zuckerberg-backed fund did apparently invest in biotech company Modern Meadow, maker of leather alternatives, in 2019). He has made headlines, however, with two of his meat-related projects.
In 2011, Zuckerberg announced that for the next year he would only be eating meat from animals that he personally killed. He later explained that this meant he'd "basically become a vegetarian," since he was killing relatively few animals. He ended the experiment after a year.
More recently, Zuckerberg revealed that he's been raising cattle on his ranch in Hawaii, with the goal of creating "some of the highest quality beef in the world." He said that the cows are wagyu and angus breeds, and that he's feeding them macadamia meal and beer that they produce on the ranch. Zuckerberg was widely criticized for this, in part because it's unclear whether macadamia meal and beer is a suitable diet for cows.
The Bottom Line
The billionaires we've looked at here are all over the map in terms of their stances on meat. Both Bezos and Gates support efforts to address how much meat the world consumes, while Zuckerberg mostly has other ideas. As for Musk, only he can know what's going on in his head.
"[Bezos and Gates] are leaning into food systems transformation, and that's fairly new," Voss says. "Our food system needs massive help, given the realities and challenges, as well as growing meat demand, and in both of these cases, the Bezos Earth fund and Gates both are supporting multiple interventions. They're not just putting their eggs in one basket."
But money talks, and what matters much more than what these people say about meat is how they've spent their money. Billionaires and the ultra-wealthy have the resources to significantly improve food systems around the world. A few have made the financial commitment, and hopefully, more of their peers will soon follow suit.
Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.
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The Environmental Protection Agency began an in-depth review of the health risks of vinyl chloride last year, part of a process required to limit or ban the chemical.
Jess Conard - Appalachia director for the advocacy group Beyond Plastics - said communities in places like East Palestine, Ohio, and in West Virginia along the Ohio River, experienced widespread harm after train derailments and leaks of the chemical.
She said she believes the heightened public awareness of the dangers of vinyl chloride prompted federal action.
"We have safe alternatives for all the consumer products on the market, and I think that the EPA is starting to recognize this," said Conard. "So I do commend the EPA for starting the process, which is the first legal step that could lead to a complete and total ban."
The EPA is accepting public comments on the ban until October 23. Vinyl chloride is used to create PVC pipes, vinyl siding, windows, flooring, packaging, and many common household products.
Research has shown exposure comes with an increased risk of liver, brain, and lung cancers - along with lymphoma and leukemia.
For decades the Charleston area, home to many industries that produced vinyl chloride and other industrial chemicals, was known as the Chemical Valley.
Conard said rather than an outright ban, the EPA is more likely to phase out the chemical, and phase in more sustainable alternatives for companies and consumers.
"We know that pipes, for example, are a big problem right now," said Conard, "because of evidence that indicates that there is leaching of these plastic chemicals into the water that the pipes are carrying."
A 2024 report by Toxic-Free Future estimates more than three million Americans live within one mile of trains carrying vinyl chloride, and that 36 million pounds of the chemical may be traveling along rail lines at any given time in the U.S.
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Savannah's leaders are pointing out the ways federal dollars are being used to boost the area's resilience against climate change.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, many residents are just now getting their power back after a week in the dark. Mayor Van Johnson said the storm has been a wakeup call for the urgent need to tackle climate change, and Savannah's resilience plan is designed to do just that.
"In 2020, the city council unanimously adopted a 100% Savannah Initiative," he said, "which means transitioning partially to clean energy in the 2030s and totally by 2050."
Johnson said 75% of the city's buildings are at risk of flooding, and 26% face wildfire threats. Despite these challenges, he noted that efforts to build climate resilience have boosted the local economy, with jobs popping up in solar energy, construction and renewable technology.
Savannah is part of a statewide initiative that recently received $156 million from the Solar for All program, part of the Inflation Reduction Act. This funding, spread across Georgia, aims to expand solar energy over the next five years.
Nicole Lee, CEO of Be Smart Home Solutions, said its efforts have already helped local families lower energy costs.
"The Thomases were our very first clients to get solar with the Georgia Bright Program," she said. "They have seen savings of more than 50% on their power bills. Just this summer, they've seen a bill of $18 from solar plus storage."
She said the solar system proved invaluable during Hurricane Helene, allowing them to power critical medical devices and even serve as a resiliency hub for their neighbors.
Chatham County Commissioner Aaron Whitley emphasized the importance of preparedness in the face of future storms, pointing to new projects aimed at enhancing community resilience.
"Chatham County is working on community resiliency hubs that will provide power during the outages like the ones we experienced last week," he said.
Officials have said these efforts are also crucial to protect vulnerable communities from the health impacts of climate change. Other projects in the works include what's known as beach "re-nourishment," a drainage basin study, and forging more partnerships with other organizations to bolster the region's preparedness.
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