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Ignore the Influencers: Simple Showers Are Still Best

By Carole Tanzer Miller HealthDay ReporterSATURDAY, Dec. 13, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Listen to the influencers, skin-care specialists say, and your...

By Carole Tanzer Miller HealthDay ReporterSATURDAY, Dec. 13, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Listen to the influencers, skin-care specialists say, and your daily shower could do more harm than good."Your skin is a barrier," said Dr. Nicole Negbenebor, a dermatologic surgeon at University of Iowa Health Care, told The Associated Press. "So you want to treat it right, and then sometimes there can be too much of a good thing."If you’re double-cleansing, exfoliating, piling on scented body rubs and shower oils and spending a lot of time in the water, you’re probably going overboard, she and other skin-care experts agree.A daily shower with lukewarm water and hypoallergenic cleanser — preferably one that’s fragrance-free, and a slather of lotion or oil afterward are all you need, they say.Here’s a guide from dermatologists to sudsing up without getting carried away:Pay attention to time and temperature. Staying in the shower too long or cranking the temperature up too high can strip away natural oils your skin needs. The upshot: You’ll be dry and irritated.Pick the right soap. Choose one, dermatologists suggest, for sensitive skin and avoid antibacterial soaps, which can cause dryness. (Antibacterial soaps can, however, be beneficial for folks with hidradenitis suppurativa, an autoimmune condition that causes abscesses and boils on the skin, they point out.)Despite the influencers, double-cleansing isn’t necessary. No need, doctors say, to use oil-based cleansers to break down makeup and excess oil and then a water-based cleanser to remove any residue. And, they add, you sure don’t need to do that to your whole body."People overuse soap all the time," Dr. Olga Bunimovich, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh, told The AP. "You should not be soaping up all of your skin period." Instead, she advised, use soap to wash skin folds and your privates.Oil up. Once you’re out of the shower but still damp, an oil will lock in moisture that hydrates the skin, Negbenebor said. Just remember: Oil itself is a sealant, not a moisturizer.Don’t go overboard with exfoliating. Using a body scrub or loofah to remove dead cells is good for the skin, but not every day, especially if you have dry skin, acne or eczema. Using products that contain lactic or glycolic acid is a gentler way to exfoliate — but not all the time.While you’re being kind to your skin, think about the environment, too. Nearly 17% of U.S. indoor water use is in the shower, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Shorter showers are good for the earth — and a lukewarm one that lasts long enough to clean your body should be sufficient most of the time.The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has more about showering.SOURCE: The Associated Press, July 10, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Health

Water

Some big water agencies in farming areas get water for free. Critics say that needs to end

The federal government is providing water to some large agricultural districts for free. In a new study, researchers urge the Trump administration to start charging more for water.

The water that flows down irrigation canals to some of the West’s biggest expanses of farmland comes courtesy of the federal government for a very low price — even, in some cases, for free.In a new study, researchers analyzed wholesale prices charged by the federal government in California, Arizona and Nevada, and found that large agricultural water agencies pay only a fraction of what cities pay, if anything at all. They said these “dirt-cheap” prices cost taxpayers, add to the strains on scarce water, and discourage conservation — even as the Colorado River’s depleted reservoirs continue to decline.“Federal taxpayers have been subsidizing effectively free water for a very, very long time,” said Noah Garrison, a researcher at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “We can’t address the growing water scarcity in the West while we continue to give that water away for free or close to it.”The report, released this week by UCLA and the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, examines water that local agencies get from the Colorado River as well as rivers in California’s Central Valley, and concludes that the federal government delivers them water at much lower prices than state water systems or other suppliers.The researchers recommend the Trump administration start charging a “water reliability and security surcharge” on all Colorado River water as well as water from the canals of the Central Valley Project in California. That would encourage agencies and growers to conserve, they said, while generating hundreds of millions of dollars to repair aging and damaged canals and pay for projects such as new water recycling plants.“The need for the price of water to reflect its scarcity is urgent in light of the growing Colorado River Basin crisis,” the researchers wrote. The study analyzed only wholesale prices paid by water agencies, not the prices paid by individual farmers or city residents. It found that agencies serving farming areas pay about $30 per acre-foot of water on average, whereas city water utilities pay $512 per acre-foot. In California, Arizona and Nevada, the federal government supplies more than 7 million acre-feet of water, about 14 times the total water usage of Los Angeles, for less than $1 per acre-foot. And more than half of that — nearly one-fourth of all the water the researchers analyzed — is delivered for free by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to five water agencies in farming areas: the Imperial Irrigation District, Palo Verde Irrigation District and Coachella Valley Water District, as well as the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District in Nevada and the Unit B Irrigation and Drainage District in Arizona. Along the Colorado River, about three-fourths of the water is used for agriculture.Farmers in California’s Imperial Valley receive the largest share of Colorado River water, growing hay for cattle, lettuce, spinach, broccoli and other crops on more than 450,000 acres of irrigated lands. The Imperial Irrigation District charges farmers the same rate for water that it has for years: $20 per acre-foot. Tina Shields, IID’s water department manager, said the district opposes any surcharge on water. Comparing agricultural and urban water costs, as the researchers did, she said, “is like comparing a grape to a watermelon,” given major differences in how water is distributed and treated.Shields pointed out that IID and local farmers are already conserving, and this year the savings will equal about 23% of the district’s total water allotment. “Imperial Valley growers provide the nation with a safe, reliable food supply on the thinnest of margins for many growers,” she said in an email.She acknowledged IID does not pay any fee to the government for water, but said it does pay for operating, maintaining and repairing both federal water infrastructure and the district’s own system. “I see no correlation between the cost of Colorado River water and shortages, and disagree with these inflammatory statements,” Shields said, adding that there “seems to be an intent to drive a wedge between agricultural and urban water users at a time when collaborative partnerships are more critical than ever.”The Colorado River provides water for seven states, 30 Native tribes and northern Mexico, but it’s in decline. Its reservoirs have fallen during a quarter-century of severe drought intensified by climate change. Its two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are now less than one-third full.Negotiations among the seven states on how to deal with shortages have deadlocked.Mark Gold, a co-author, said the government’s current water prices are so low that they don’t cover the costs of operating, maintaining and repairing aging aqueducts and other infrastructure. Even an increase to $50 per acre-foot of water, he said, would help modernize water systems and incentivize conservation. A spokesperson for the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, declined to comment on the proposal.The Colorado River was originally divided among the states under a 1922 agreement that overpromised what the river could provide. That century-old pact and the ingrained system of water rights, combined with water that costs next to nothing, Gold said, lead to “this slow-motion train wreck that is the Colorado right now.” Research has shown that the last 25 years were likely the driest quarter-century in the American West in at least 1,200 years, and that global warming is contributing to this megadrought.The Colorado River’s flow has decreased about 20% so far this century, and scientists have found that roughly half the decline is due to rising temperatures, driven largely by fossil fuels.In a separate report this month, scientists Jonathan Overpeck and Brad Udall said the latest science suggests that climate change will probably “exert a stronger influence, and this will mean a higher likelihood of continued lower precipitation in the headwaters of the Colorado River into the future.” Experts have urged the Trump administration to impose substantial water cuts throughout the Colorado River Basin, saying permanent reductions are necessary. Kathryn Sorensen and Sarah Porter, researchers at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, have suggested the federal government set up a voluntary program to buy and retire water-intensive farmlands, or to pay landowners who “agree to permanent restrictions on water use.”Over the last few years, California and other states have negotiated short-term deals and as part of that, some farmers in California and Arizona are temporarily leaving hay fields parched and fallow in exchange for federal payments.The UCLA researchers criticized these deals, saying water agencies “obtain water from the federal government at low or no cost, and the government then buys that water back from the districts at enormous cost to taxpayers.”Isabel Friedman, a coauthor and NRDC researcher, said adopting a surcharge would be a powerful conservation tool. “We need a long-term strategy that recognizes water as a limited resource and prices it as such,” she wrote in an article about the proposal.

Water

Park Service orders changes to staff ratings, a move experts call illegal

Lower performance ratings could be used as a factor in layoff decisions and will demoralize staff, advocates say.

A top National Park Service official has instructed park superintendents to limit the number of staff who get top marks in performance reviews, according to three people familiar with the matter, a move that experts say violates federal code and could make it easier to lay off staff.Parks leadership generally evaluate individual employees annually on a five-point scale, with a three rating given to those who are successful in achieving their goals, with those exceeding expectations receiving a four and outstanding employees earning a five.Frank Lands, the deputy director of operations for the National Park System, told dozens of park superintendents on a conference call Thursday that “the preponderance of ratings should be 3s,” according to the people familiar, who were not authorized to comment publicly about the internal call.Lands said that roughly one to five percent of people should receive an outstanding rating and confirmed several times that about 80 percent should receive 3s, the people familiar said.Follow Climate & environmentThe Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement Friday that “there is no percentage cap” on certain performance ratings.“We are working to normalize ratings across the agency,” the statement said. “The goal of this effort is to ensure fair, consistent performance evaluations across all of our parks and programs.”Though many employers in corporate American often instruct managers to classify a majority of employee reviews in the middle tier, the Parks Service has commonly given higher ratings to a greater proportion of employees.Performance ratings are also taken into account when determining which employees are laid off first if the agency were to go ahead with “reduction in force” layoffs, as many other departments have done this year.The order appears to violate the Code of Federal Regulations, said Tim Whitehouse, a lawyer and executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The code states that the government cannot require a “forced distribution” of ratings for federal employees.“Employees are supposed to be evaluated based upon their performance, not upon a predetermined rating that doesn’t reflect how they actually performed,” he said.The Trump administration has reduced the number of parks staff this year by about 4,000 people, or roughly a quarter, according to an analysis by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. Parks advocates say the administration is deliberately seeking to demoralize staff and failing to recognize the additional work they now have to do, given the exodus of employees through voluntary resignations and early retirements.Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) said the move would artificially depress employee ratings:“You can’t square that with the legal requirements of the current regulations about how performance reviews are supposed to work.”Some details of the directive were first reported by E&E News.Park superintendents on the conference call objected to the order. Some questioned the fairness to employees whose work merited a better rating at a time when many staff are working harder to make up for the thousands of vacancies.“I need leaders who lead in adversity. And if you can’t do that, just let me know. I’ll do my best to find somebody that can,” Lands said in response, the people familiar with the call said.One superintendent who was on the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, said in an interview that Lands’ statement “was meant to be a threat.”The superintendent said they were faced with disobeying the order and potentially being fired or illegally changing employees’ evaluations.“If we change these ratings to meet the quota and violated federal law, are we subject to removal because we violated federal law and the oath we took to protect the Constitution?” the superintendent said.Myron Ebell, a board member of the American Lands Council, an advocacy group supporting the transfer of federal lands to states and counties, defended the administration’s move.“It’s exactly the same thing as grade inflation at universities. Think about it. Not everybody can be smarter than average. If everyone is doing great, that’s average,” he said.Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement that the policy could make it easier to lay off staff, after the administration already decimated the ranks of the parks service.“After the National Park Service was decimated by mass firings and pressured staff buyouts, park rangers have been working the equivalent of second, third, or even fourth jobs protecting parks,” Pierno said.“Guidance like this could very well be setting up their staff to be cannon fodder during the next round of mass firings. This would be an unconscionable move,” she added.

New York takes additional steps to address ‘forever chemicals’

The Department of Environmental Conservation issued new proposals to address PFAS in biosolids and wastewater.

Waste

Water

Trump DEI crackdown expands to national park gift shops

The Trump administration’s efforts to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government is hitting gift shops at national parks. In a memo last month, acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron called for a review of the items available for purchase in park gift shops. The memo says that items should be...

The Trump administration’s efforts to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government is hitting gift shops at national parks. In a memo last month, acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron called for a review of the items available for purchase in park gift shops. The memo says that items should be reviewed for compliance with an order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to cease activities related to DEI, accessibility or “environmental justice.” Like the order before it, the memo does not appear to define DEI. Asked whether this means that any product related to people who are minorities would be impacted, a spokesperson for the Interior Department replied, “As you saw the memo, then you know that is not what it says.” Instead, said the spokesperson, Burgum’s order “directs federal agencies to ensure that government-affiliated retail spaces remain neutral and do not promote specific viewpoints.” “To comply with this order, the National Park Service is conducting a review of retail items to ensure our gift shops remain neutral spaces that serve all visitors,” added the spokesperson, who did not sign their name in the response. “The goal is to keep National Parks focused on their core mission: preserving natural and cultural resources for the benefit of all Americans.” The review’s deadline is next Friday. The memo does not appear to lay out specific criteria for the review. The memo was made public this week by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy organization. “Banning history books from park stores and cracking down on park T-shirts and keychains is not what national park visitors want from their Park Service,” said Alan Spears, the group’s senior director for cultural resources, in a written statement. “The National Parks Conservation Association opposes this latest move from the administration because we, like the majority of Americans, support telling the full American story at our parks. That means acknowledging hard truths about slavery, climate change, and other topics that challenge us as a nation,” he added. The memo comes as part of a broader Trump administration push to reshape the portrayal of history at national parks and beyond. Earlier this year, the administration directed National Park Service units to review all public-facing content for messaging that disparages Americans or that “emphasizes matters unrelated to the beauty, abundance, or grandeur” of natural features. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Making clean energy investments more successful

Tools for forecasting and modeling technological improvements and the impacts of policy decisions can result in more effective and impactful decision-making.

Governments and companies constantly face decisions about how to allocate finite amounts of money to clean energy technologies that can make a difference to the world’s climate, its economies, and to society as a whole. The process is inherently uncertain, but research has been shown to help predict which technologies will be most successful. Using data-driven bases for such decisions can have a significant impact on allowing more informed decisions that produce the desired results.The role of these predictive tools, and the areas where further research is needed, are addressed in a perspective article published Nov. 24 in Nature Energy, by professor Jessika Trancik of MIT’s Sociotechnical Systems Research Center and Institute of Data, Systems, and Society and 13 co-authors from institutions around the world.She and her co-authors span engineering and social science and share “a common interest in understanding how to best use data and models to inform decisions that influence how technology evolves,” Trancik says. They are interested in “analyzing many evolving technologies — rather than focusing on developing only one particular technology — to understand which ones can deliver.” Their paper is aimed at companies and governments, as well as researchers. “Increasingly, companies have as much agency as governments over these technology portfolio decisions,” she says, “although government policy can still do a lot because it can provide a sort of signal across the market.”The study looked at three stages of the process, starting with forecasting the actual technological changes that are likely to play important roles in coming years, then looking at how those changes could affect economic, social, and environmental conditions, and finally, how to apply these insights into the actual decision-making processes as they occur.Forecasting usually falls into two categories, either data-driven or expert-driven, or a combination of those. That provides an estimate of how technologies may be improving, as well as an estimate of the uncertainties in those predictions. Then in the next step, a variety of models are applied that are “very wide ranging,” Trancik says, “different models that cover energy systems, transportation systems, electricity, and also integrated assessment models that look at the impact of technology on the environment and on the economy.”And then, the third step is “finding structured ways to use the information from predictive models to interact with people that may be using that information to inform their decision-making process,” she says. “In all three of these steps, how you need to recognize the vast uncertainty and tease out the predictive aspects. How you deal with uncertainty is really important.”In the implementation of these decisions, “people may have different objectives, or they may have the same objective but different beliefs about how to get there. And so, part of the research is bringing in this quantitative analysis, these research results, into that process,” Trancik says. And a very important aspect of that third step, she adds, is “recognizing that it’s not just about presenting the model results and saying, ‘here you go, this is the right answer.’ Rather, you have to bring people into the process of designing the studies and interacting with the modeling results.”She adds that “the role of research is to provide information to, in this case, the decision-making processes. It’s not the role of the researchers to push for one outcome or another, in terms of balancing the trade-offs,” such as between economic, environmental, and social equity concerns. It’s about providing information, not just for the decision-makers themselves, but also for the public who may influence those decisions. “I do think it’s relevant for the public to think about this, and to think about the agency that actually they could have over how technology is evolving.”In the study, the team highlighted priorities for further research that needs to be done. Those priorities, Trancik says, include “streamlining and validating models, and also streamlining data collection,” because these days “we often have more data than we need, just tons of data,” and yet “there’s often a scarcity of data in certain key areas like technology performance and evolution. How technologies evolve is just so important in influencing our daily lives, yet it’s hard sometimes to access good representative data on what’s actually happening with this technology.” But she sees opportunities for concerted efforts to assemble large, comprehensive data on technology from publicly available sources.Trancik points out that many models are developed to represent some real-world process, and “it’s very important to test how well that model does against reality,” for example by using the model to “predict” some event whose outcome is already known and then “seeing how far off you are.” That’s easier to do with a more streamlined model, she says.“It’s tempting to develop a model that includes many, many parameters and lots of different detail. But often what you need to do is only include detail that’s relevant for the particular question you’re asking, and that allows you to make your model simpler.” Sometimes that means you can simplify the decision down to just solving an equation, and other times, “you need to simulate things, but you can still validate the model against real-world data that you have.”“The scale of energy and climate problems mean there is much more to do,” says Gregory Nemet, faculty chair in business and regulation at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was a co-author of the paper. He adds, “while we can’t accurately forecast individual technologies on their own, a variety of methods have been developed that in conjunction can enable decision-makers to make public dollars go much further, and enhance the likelihood that future investments create strong public benefits.”This work is perhaps particularly relevant now, Trancik says, in helping to address global challenges including climate change and meeting energy demand, which were in focus at the global climate conference COP 30 that just took place in Brazil. “I think with big societal challenges like climate change, always a key question is, ‘how do you make progress with limited time and limited financial resources?’” This research, she stresses, “is all about that. It’s about using data, using knowledge that’s out there, expertise that’s out there, drawing out the relevant parts of all of that, to allow people and society to be more deliberate and successful about how they’re making decisions about investing in technology.”As with other areas such as epidemiology, where the power of analytical forecasting may be more widely appreciated, she says, “in other areas of technology as well, there’s a lot we can do to anticipate where things are going, how technology is evolving at the global or at the national scale … There are these macro-level trends that you can steer in certain directions, that we actually have more agency over as a society than we might recognize.”The study included researchers in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, California, Austria, Norway, Mexico, Finland, Italy, the U.K., and the Netherlands.

Energy

Business

Coalmine expansions would breach climate targets, NSW government warned in ‘game-changer’ report

Environmental advocates welcome Net Zero Commission’s report which found the fossil fuel was ‘not consistent’ with emissions reductions commitments Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe New South Wales government has been warned it can no longer approve coalmine developments after the state’s climate agency found new expansions would be inconsistent with its legislated emissions targets.In what climate advocates described as a significant turning point in campaigns against new fossil fuel programs, the NSW Net Zero Commission said coalmine expansions were “not consistent” with the state’s legal emissions reductions commitments of a 50% cut (compared with 2005 levels) by 2030, a 70% cut by 2035, and reaching net zero by 2050.Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

The New South Wales government has been warned it can no longer approve coalmine developments after the state’s climate agency found new expansions would be inconsistent with its legislated emissions targets.In what climate advocates described as a significant turning point in campaigns against new fossil fuel programs, the NSW Net Zero Commission said coalmine expansions were “not consistent” with the state’s legal emissions reductions commitments of a 50% cut (compared with 2005 levels) by 2030, a 70% cut by 2035, and reaching net zero by 2050.The commission’s Coal Mining Emissions Spotlight Report said the government should consider the climate impact – including from the “scope 3” emissions released into the atmosphere when most of the state’s coal is exported and burned overseas – in all coalmine planning decisions.Environmental lawyer Elaine Johnson said the report was a “game-changer” as it argued coalmining was the state’s biggest contribution to the climate crisis and that new coal proposals were inconsistent with the legislated targets.She said it also found demand for coal was declining – consistent with recent analyses by federal Treasury and the advisory firm Climate Resource – and the state government must support affected communities to transition to new industries.“What all this means is that it is no longer lawful to keep approving more coalmine expansions in NSW,” Johnson wrote on social media site LinkedIn. “Let’s hope the Department of Planning takes careful note when it’s looking at the next coalmine expansion proposal.”The Lock the Gate Alliance, a community organisation that campaigns against fossil fuel developments, said the report showed changes were required to the state’s planning framework to make authorities assess emissions and climate damage when considering mine applications.It said this should apply to 18 mine expansions that have been proposed but not yet approved, including two “mega-coalmine expansions” at the Hunter Valley Operations and Maules Creek mines. Eight coalmine expansions have been approved since the Minns Labor government was elected in 2023.Lock the Gate’s Nic Clyde said NSW already had 37 coalmines and “we can’t keep expanding them indefinitely”. He called for an immediate moratorium on approving coal expansions until the commission’s findings had been implemented.“This week, multiple NSW communities have been battling dangerous bushfires, which are becoming increasingly severe due to climate change fuelled by coalmining and burning. Our safety and our survival depends on how the NSW government responds to this report,” he said.Net zero emissions is a target that has been adopted by governments, companies and other organisations to eliminate their contribution to the climate crisis. It is sometimes called “carbon neutrality”.The climate crisis is caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere, where they trap heat. They have already caused a significant increase in average global temperatures above pre-industrial levels recorded since the mid-20th century. Countries and others that set net zero emissions targets are pledging to stop their role in worsening this by cutting their climate pollution and balancing out whatever emissions remain by sucking an equivalent amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere.This could happen through nature projects – tree planting, for example – or using carbon dioxide removal technology.CO2 removal from the atmosphere is the “net” part in net zero. Scientists say some emissions will be hard to stop and will need to be offset. But they also say net zero targets will be effective only if carbon removal is limited to offset “hard to abate” emissions. Fossil use will still need to be dramatically reduced.After signing the 2015 Paris agreement, the global community asked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess what would be necessary to give the world a chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C.The IPCC found it would require deep cuts in global CO2 emissions: to about 45% below 2010 levels by 2030, and to net zero by about 2050.The Climate Action Tracker has found more than 145 countries have set or are considering setting net zero emissions targets. Photograph: Ashley Cooper pics/www.alamy.comThe alliance’s national coordinator, Carmel Flint, added: “It’s not just history that will judge the government harshly if they continue approving such projects following this report. Our courts are likely to as well.”The NSW Minerals Council criticised the commission’s report. Its chief executive, Stephen Galilee, said it was a “flawed and superficial analysis” that put thousands of coalmining jobs at risk. He said some coalmines would close in the years ahead but was “no reason” not to approve outstanding applications to extend the operating life of about 10 mines.Galilee said emissions from coal in NSW were falling faster than the average rate of emission reduction across the state and were “almost fully covered” by the federal government’s safeguard mechanism policy, which required mine owners to either make annual direct emissions cuts or buy offsets.He said the NSW government should “reflect on why it provides nearly $7m annually” for the commission to “campaign against thousands of NSW mining jobs”.But the state’s main environment organisation, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said the commission report showed coalmining was “incompatible with a safe climate future”.“The Net Zero Commission has shone a spotlight. Now the free ride for coalmine pollution has to end,” the council’s chief executive, Jacqui Mumford, said.The state climate change and energy minister, Penny Sharpe, said the commission was established to monitor, report and provide independent advice on how the state was meeting its legislated emissions targets, and the government would consider its advice “along with advice from other groups and agencies”.

Nope, Billionaire Tom Steyer Is Not a Bellwether of Climate Politics

What should we make of billionaire Tom Steyer’s reinvention as a populist candidate for California governor, four years after garnering only 0.72 percent of the popular vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, despite obscene spending from his personal fortune? Is it evidence that he’s a hard man to discourage? (In that race, he dropped almost $24 million on South Carolina alone.) Is it evidence that billionaires get to do a lot of things the rest of us don’t? Or is it evidence that talking about climate change is for losers and Democrats need to abandon it?Politico seems to think it’s the third one: Steyer running a populist gubernatorial campaign means voters don’t care about global warming.“The billionaire environmental activist who built his political profile on climate change—and who wrote in his book last year that ‘climate is what matters most right now, and nothing else comes close’—didn’t mention the issue once in the video launching his campaign for California governor,” reporter Noah Baustin wrote recently. “That was no oversight.” Instead, “it reflects a political reality confronting Democrats ahead of the midterms, where onetime climate evangelists are running into an electorate more worried about the climbing cost of electricity bills and home insurance than a warming atmosphere.”It’s hard to know how to parse a sentence like this. The “climbing cost of electricity bills and home insurance” is, indisputably, a climate issue. Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, and home insurance is spiking because increasingly frequent and increasingly severe weather events—driven by climate change—are making large swaths of the country expensive or impossible to insure. The fact that voters are struggling to pay for utilities and insurance, therefore, is not evidence that they don’t care about climate change. Instead, it’s evidence that climate change is a kitchen table issue, and politicians are, disadvantageously, failing to embrace the obviously populist message that accompanies robust climate policy. This is a problem with Democratic messaging, not a problem with climate as a topic.The piece goes on: “Climate concern has fallen in the state over time. In 2018, when Gov. Gavin Newsom was running for office, polling found that 57 percent of likely California voters considered climate change a very serious threat to the economy and quality of life for the state’s future. Now, that figure is 50 percent.”This may sound persuasive to you. But in fact, it’s a highly selective reading of the PPIC survey data linked above. What the poll actually found is that the proportion of Californians calling climate change a “very serious” threat peaked at 57 percent in 2019, fell slightly in subsequent years, then fell precipitously by 11 points between July 2022 and July 2023, before rising similarly precipitously from July 2024 to July 2025. Why did it fall so quickly from 2022 to 2023? Sure, maybe people stopped caring about climate change. Or maybe instead, the month after the 2022 poll, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate policy in U.S. history, and people stopped being quite so worried. Why did concern then rise rapidly between July 2024 and July 2025? Well, between those two dates, Trump won the presidential election and proceeded, along with Republicans in Congress, to dismantle anything remotely resembling climate policy. The Inflation Reduction Act fell apart. I’m not saying this is the only way to read this data. But consider this: The percentage of respondents saying they were somewhat or very worried about members of their household being affected by natural disasters actually went up over the same period. The percentage saying air pollution was “a more serious health threat in lower-income areas” nearby went up. Those saying flooding, heat waves, and wildfires should be considered “a great deal” when siting new affordable housing rose a striking 12 percentage points from 2024 to 2025, and those “very concerned” about rising insurance costs “due to climate risks” rose 14 percentage points.This is not a portrait of an electorate that doesn’t care about climate change. It’s a portrait of an electorate that may actually be very ready to hear a politician convincingly embrace climate populism—championing affordability and better material conditions for working people, in part by protecting them from the predatory industries driving a cost-of-living crisis while poisoning people.This is part of a broader problem. Currently, there’s a big push from centrist Democratic institutions to argue that the party should abandon climate issues in order to win elections. The evidence for this is mixed, at best. As TNR’s Liza Featherstone recently pointed out, Democrats’ striking victories last month showed that candidates fusing climate policy with an energy affordability message did very well. Aaron Regunberg went into further detail on why talking about climate change is a smart strategy: “Right now,” he wrote, “neither party has a significant trust advantage on ‘electric utility bills’ (D+1) or ‘the cost of living’ (R+1). But Democrats do have major trust advantages on ‘climate change’ (D+14) and ‘renewable energy development’ (D+6). By articulating how their climate and clean energy agenda can address these bread-and-butter concerns, Democrats can leverage their advantage on climate to win voters’ trust on what will likely be the most significant issues in 2026 and 2028.”One of the troubles with climate change in political discourse is that some people’s understanding of environmental politics begins and ends with the spotted owl logging battles in the 1990s. This is the sort of attitude that drives the assumption that affordability policy and climate policy are not only distinct but actually opposed. But that’s wildly disconnected from present reality. Maybe Tom Steyer isn’t the guy to illustrate that! But his political fortunes, either way, don’t say much at all about climate messaging more broadly.Stat of the Week3x as many infant deathsA new study finds that babies of mothers “whose drinking water wells were downstream of PFAS releases” died at almost three times the rate in their first year of life as babies of mothers who did not live downstream of PFAS contamination. Read The Washington Post’s report on the study here.What I’m ReadingMore than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacentersAn open letter calls on Congress to pause all approvals of new data centers until regulation catches up, due to problems such as data centers’ voracious energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use. From The Guardian’s report:The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects, worth a combined $64bn, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities’ need for huge amounts of water to cool down equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier areas where supplies are scarce.These seemingly parochial concerns have now multiplied to become a potent political force, helping propel Democrats to a series of emphatic recent electoral successes in governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey as well as a stunning upset win in a special public service commission poll in Georgia, with candidates campaigning on lowering power bill costs and curbing datacenters.Read Oliver Milman’s full report at The Guardian.This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.

Activism

Energy

‘Soil is more important than oil’: inside the perennial grain revolution

Scientists in Kansas believe Kernza could cut emissions, restore degraded soils and reshape the future of agricultureOn the concrete floor of a greenhouse in rural Kansas stands a neat grid of 100 plastic plant pots, each holding a straggly crown of strappy, grass-like leaves. These plants are perennials – they keep growing, year after year. That single characteristic separates them from soya beans, wheat, maize, rice and every other major grain crop, all of which are annuals: plants that live and die within a single growing season.“These plants are the winners, the ones that get to pass their genes on [to future generations],” says Lee DeHaan of the Land Institute, an agricultural non-profit based in Salina, Kansas. If DeHaan’s breeding programme maintains its current progress, the descendant of these young perennial crop plants could one day usher in a wholesale revolution in agriculture. Continue reading...

On the concrete floor of a greenhouse in rural Kansas stands a neat grid of 100 plastic plant pots, each holding a straggly crown of strappy, grass-like leaves. These plants are perennials – they keep growing, year after year. That single characteristic separates them from soya beans, wheat, maize, rice and every other major grain crop, all of which are annuals: plants that live and die within a single growing season.“These plants are the winners, the ones that get to pass their genes on [to future generations],” says Lee DeHaan of the Land Institute, an agricultural non-profit based in Salina, Kansas. If DeHaan’s breeding programme maintains its current progress, the descendant of these young perennial crop plants could one day usher in a wholesale revolution in agriculture.The plants are intermediate wheatgrass. Since 2010, DeHaan has been transforming this small-seeded, wild species into a high-yielding, domesticated grain crop called Kernza. He believes it will eventually be a viable – and far more sustainable – alternative to annual wheat, the world’s most widely grown crop and the source of one in five of all calories consumed by humanity.Elite Kernza plants selected from 4,000 seedlings in the Land Institute’s perennial grain breeding programme. Photograph: Ben MartynogaAnnual plants thrive in bare ground. Growing them requires fields to be prepared, usually by ploughing or intensive herbicide treatment, and new seeds planted each year. For this reason, Tim Crews, chief scientist at the Land Institute, describes existing agricultural systems as “the greatest disturbance on the planet”. “There’s nothing like it,” he says.The damage inflicted by today’s food system is clear: one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions; ocean dead zones covering thousands of square miles; and 25bn-40bn tonnes of fertile topsoil lost each year.Replacing annual plants with perennial varieties would massively reduce agriculture’s environmental impact. Soil erosion would drop; perennials would instead build soil health, limiting runoff of nutrients and toxic farm chemicals, cutting fertiliser and pesticide use, and storing climate-heating carbon within farm soils.There is just one problem. Reliable, high-yielding perennial grain crops barely exist.The inspiration for the Land Institute’s push to develop perennial grains came from its founder, Wes Jackson, 89. For Jackson, the health of soils that generate 95% of human calories should be a primary concern for all civilisations. “Soil is more important than oil,” he says in a recent documentary. “Soil is as much of a non-renewable resource as oil. Start there, and ask: ‘What does that require of us?’”Lee DeHaan at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Photograph: Ben MartynogaJackson hit upon an answer during a visit to a native prairie reserve in Kansas in the late 1970s. Prairies are highly productive and biodiverse perennial grassland ecosystems. They don’t erode soils; they build them. Indeed, the rich soils that make much of the US midwest and Great Plains such prime agricultural lands were formed, over thousands of years, by prairie plants working with underground microbes.Why is it that we cannot have perennial grains that grow like prairie plants, Jackson wondered. “That was the epiphany that set me off,” he said in a recent interview.DeHaan, 52, learned about Jackson’s mission while he was a teenager in the early 1990s. Having grown up on a Minnesota farm, he was immediately inspired. “I would love to try to create the first perennial grain crop,” he resolved. “That became my dream.”Though still under development, Kernza is already a viable crop, grown at modest scale in 15 US states. Kernza seeds and flour are used in a range of products, from beers to breakfast cereals.The key challenge is yields. In Kansas, the best Kernza yields are about one-quarter those of annual wheat. But DeHaan says this is changing rapidly. “My best current extrapolation is that some Kernza plants could have wheat-like yields within about 15 years.”“We have to go fast,” he says. To hit this target, his breeding scheme deploys DNA profiling, computer modelling and far-red LED lighting to push the experimental plants through two full breeding cycles each year.But yields are just one metric of success. Whereas annual wheat roots are about half a metre long and temporary, Kernza’s roots are permanent and can plunge 3 metres deep. Such roots unlock a whole suite of environmental and agricultural benefits: stabilising and enriching soils, gathering nutrients and providing water, even during droughts.A comparison of wheatgrass (left) and wheat roots at the Land Institute. Photograph: Ben Martynoga/The Land InstitutePerennial plants also tend to have far stronger in-built resistance to pests, diseases and weeds than annual plants, especially when grown in mixed plant polycultures.The Land Institute is working with collaborators across 30 countries to develop many new perennial crops: oil seeds, wheat, pulses, quinoa and several other grains.The potential applications are diverse. In Uganda, researchers are developing perennial sorghum for drought tolerance. In war-torn Ukraine, where supply chains are disrupted and rich soils are degrading, Kernza is being tested as a low-input crop. As DeHaan, Crews and colleagues write in a recent scientific paper, perennial grains represent “a farmer’s dream … a cultivar that is planted once and then harvested every season for several years with a minimum of land management.”Success is far from guaranteed. But perennial rice, grown in China since 2018, provides crucial proof of concept. Led by Yunnan University with Land Institute support, the work took just 20 years. Perennial rice now matches the yields of elite annual varieties, with research demonstrating significant greenhouse gas reductions.Perennial rice grown in a research trial in Yunnan. Photograph: Ben Martynoga/The Land InstituteDeHaan believes perennial grains are uniquely capable of rebalancing what he calls the “three-legged stool” of agricultural sustainability, whereby productivity, farm economics and environmental impact must be in balance.This metaphor is not abstract for DeHaan – he has lived it. During the 1980s, his family’s Minnesota farm produced plenty of grain but the economics failed. Spiking interest rates forced them to sell, along with thousands of other midwest farms. The environmental costs – eroding soil, contaminated water – did not appear on any ledger, but they were visible in the landscape.Current agriculture, DeHaan argues, is supported by $600bn in annual subsidies worldwide, which too often prop up production, while farming communities struggle and ecological damage mounts.Perennial grains could eventually deliver on all three fronts simultaneously. But formidable challenges must still be solved to achieve that.Kernza growing on the Land Institute’s research fields. Lee DeHaan estimates the crop’s yields could match wheat within 15 years. Photograph: Ben MartynogaYields must improve substantially. The problem of harvests tapering off, year-by-year, must also be solved. Farmers will have to develop new methods for growing and harvesting these crops. Markets present another hurdle. Current supply chains are optimised for a narrow range of staple crops, grown in monoculture, making processing costs prohibitive for new crops with different properties.Kernza grain – smaller than wheat – ready for milling. Photograph: The Land InstituteFor all these reasons, DeHaan firmly rejects the idea that perennials are a “silver bullet”. “The reason is that it’s difficult,” he says. “The trade-off is time and investment. That’s why they don’t exist yet. It’s going to take decades of work and millions of dollars.”Remarkably, DeHaan does not paint the current agricultural-industrial complex as the enemy. “Every disruptive technology is always opposed by those being disrupted,” he says. “But if the companies [that make up] the current system can adjust to the disruption, they can play in that new world just the same.”The Land Institute’s strategy is redirection rather than replacement. “Our trajectory is to eventually get the resources that are currently dedicated to annual grain crops directed to developing varieties of perennials,” says DeHaan. “That’s our [route to] success.”There are signs that this is already working, with the food firm General Mills now incorporating Kernza into its breakfast cereals.Back in the Kansas greenhouse, DeHaan strikes a reflective note. “When I started working here in 2001, these ideas were regarded as very radical. It was embarrassing to even bring up the ideas we were working on. It was laughable.”That, he says, is no longer true. Major research institutions, businesses and an expanding network of global partners are now engaging with perennial grain development.DeHaan points to his “winners” – the 100 young Kernza plants before us. Within a human generation, their descendants could be feeding millions while repairing soils that took millennia to form. “We don’t just have our head in the clouds,” he says. “We’re not just dreaming of this impossible future.”

Agriculture

Business