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CalMatters’ investigative journalism and newsletter take top honors in statewide contest

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Monday, July 15, 2024

In summary CalMatters’ journalism was described as “outstanding,” “top-notch” and “presented with empathy” by judges in the California Journalism Awards. CalMatters journalists took home the top two investigative awards, along with first place for in-depth reporting and first place for an email newsletter, at this weekend’s California Journalism Awards.  Byrhonda Lyons won first place for her investigative reporting on California’s parolee rehabilitation failures, which triggered statewide impact. The judges described her work as “great storytelling and impressive depth of reporting” and said this: “CalMatters’ rehab investigation by Byrhonda Lyons revealed how a prisoner rehab operator manipulated the very people who came to him for help. Lyons’ work with court records is outstanding.” Robert Lewis and Wendy Fry won first place for environmental reporting for exposing the ways California dumps toxic waste across state borders. The judges called their work a “well-reported and well-written series of articles that focuses on what could easily have been an overlooked problem.” The reporting was a finalist earlier this year in the Investigative Reporters and Editors awards contest. Their work also won second place in the investigative category, with these judges’ comments: “This is a great example of explanatory journalism about a potentially dull topic. I wasn’t bored at all as a reader, and even though it was a very long series of stories, it kept me engaged and curious about what’s being dumped in our own landfills.”  Lauren Hepler won first place for in-depth reporting for her four-part series dissecting the pandemic fiasco in the state’s unemployment system. Read more about how Hepler completed the year-long investigation involving more than 2,500 pages of public records. The judges described her work this way: “Powerful, impactful journalism done by a single staffer over the course of a year. Truly impressive. It localized a national issue while showing how deserving people suffered while criminals victimized and businesses profited.” In another category, the judges called her work “top-notch” and said she “methodically strips away the chaos and the finger pointing to show how tens of billions of dollars evaporated.” Lynn La won first place in newsletter writing for the weekday WhatMatters email newsletter. If you don’t already receive it, sign up now! The reporting awards were shared with many CalMatters journalists who brought the work to life, including: Miguel Gutierrez, Jr., with photography, Adriana Heldiz with illustrations, Jeremia Kimelman with data reporting and Liliana Michelena with web production. Other CalMatters honors include: Alexei Koseff won second place in business and economy reporting for reporting on the cannabis economy. Judges said: “This series gave an in-depth look into how the legalization of the cannabis industry changed things for the key stakeholders. The human elements to the story were presented with empathy balanced with facts and voices from those impacted.” He won first place in the Best of the West awards earlier this year for the same work. Marisa Kendall won second place in homelessness reporting for her work contrasting California’s approach to homelessness with what has worked in Texas. Ben Christopher won third place for a series of stories on housing and land-use reporting. Said one judge: “I really enjoyed Christopher’s ability to take state/local policy matters and mold them into locally relevant, well-written portraits of how things are playing out on the ground in communities like San Diego and Santa Monica.” Julie Cart won third place in environmental reporting for her story, “Harnessing a windfall.” Judges said: “Well-researched articles. Proposed questions that nobody can answer, yet was effective because that is really the whole point of the stories.” Rachel Becker won third place in feature reporting for a story examining the world’s largest dam demolition on the Klamath River. Gutierrez won third place in news photography for “Gavin Newsom, the sequel: Governor starts second term as leader of liberal America.” Nicole Foy won third place in labor reporting for “The hidden cost of California’s hot workplaces: 20,000 job injuries a year.” Koseff also won fourth place in public service journalism for “A failure to communicate: California government cuts back press access.” Joe Hong and Erica Yee won fourth place in youth and education coverage for “The teacher turnover trap.” Judges said it was “a detailed and well-presented series on the reasons why some schools struggle to hold onto experienced teachers, the effects of high turnover on student achievement and the barriers to solving the problem. The writers ask tough questions of lawmakers in charge.” Kristen Hwang, Ana Ibarra and Yee won fourth place in enterprise reporting for their coverage of maternity ward closures that are leaving large stretches of the state without care. Judges said it was “an important topic fleshed out with interviews and data; good graphics, too. Should be held up by readers demanding action.”

CalMatters’ journalism was described as “outstanding,” “top-notch” and “presented with empathy” by judges in the California Journalism Awards.

In summary

CalMatters’ journalism was described as “outstanding,” “top-notch” and “presented with empathy” by judges in the California Journalism Awards.

CalMatters journalists took home the top two investigative awards, along with first place for in-depth reporting and first place for an email newsletter, at this weekend’s California Journalism Awards. 

Byrhonda Lyons won first place for her investigative reporting on California’s parolee rehabilitation failures, which triggered statewide impact.

The judges described her work as “great storytelling and impressive depth of reporting” and said this: “CalMatters’ rehab investigation by Byrhonda Lyons revealed how a prisoner rehab operator manipulated the very people who came to him for help. Lyons’ work with court records is outstanding.”

Robert Lewis and Wendy Fry won first place for environmental reporting for exposing the ways California dumps toxic waste across state borders. The judges called their work a “well-reported and well-written series of articles that focuses on what could easily have been an overlooked problem.” The reporting was a finalist earlier this year in the Investigative Reporters and Editors awards contest.

Their work also won second place in the investigative category, with these judges’ comments: “This is a great example of explanatory journalism about a potentially dull topic. I wasn’t bored at all as a reader, and even though it was a very long series of stories, it kept me engaged and curious about what’s being dumped in our own landfills.” 

Lauren Hepler won first place for in-depth reporting for her four-part series dissecting the pandemic fiasco in the state’s unemployment system. Read more about how Hepler completed the year-long investigation involving more than 2,500 pages of public records.

The judges described her work this way: “Powerful, impactful journalism done by a single staffer over the course of a year. Truly impressive. It localized a national issue while showing how deserving people suffered while criminals victimized and businesses profited.” In another category, the judges called her work “top-notch” and said she “methodically strips away the chaos and the finger pointing to show how tens of billions of dollars evaporated.”

Lynn La won first place in newsletter writing for the weekday WhatMatters email newsletter. If you don’t already receive it, sign up now!

The reporting awards were shared with many CalMatters journalists who brought the work to life, including: Miguel Gutierrez, Jr., with photography, Adriana Heldiz with illustrations, Jeremia Kimelman with data reporting and Liliana Michelena with web production.

Other CalMatters honors include:

  • Alexei Koseff won second place in business and economy reporting for reporting on the cannabis economy. Judges said: “This series gave an in-depth look into how the legalization of the cannabis industry changed things for the key stakeholders. The human elements to the story were presented with empathy balanced with facts and voices from those impacted.” He won first place in the Best of the West awards earlier this year for the same work.
  • Marisa Kendall won second place in homelessness reporting for her work contrasting California’s approach to homelessness with what has worked in Texas.
  • Ben Christopher won third place for a series of stories on housing and land-use reporting. Said one judge: “I really enjoyed Christopher’s ability to take state/local policy matters and mold them into locally relevant, well-written portraits of how things are playing out on the ground in communities like San Diego and Santa Monica.”
  • Julie Cart won third place in environmental reporting for her story, “Harnessing a windfall.” Judges said: “Well-researched articles. Proposed questions that nobody can answer, yet was effective because that is really the whole point of the stories.”
  • Rachel Becker won third place in feature reporting for a story examining the world’s largest dam demolition on the Klamath River.
  • Gutierrez won third place in news photography for “Gavin Newsom, the sequel: Governor starts second term as leader of liberal America.”
  • Nicole Foy won third place in labor reporting for “The hidden cost of California’s hot workplaces: 20,000 job injuries a year.”
  • Koseff also won fourth place in public service journalism for “A failure to communicate: California government cuts back press access.”
  • Joe Hong and Erica Yee won fourth place in youth and education coverage for “The teacher turnover trap.” Judges said it was “a detailed and well-presented series on the reasons why some schools struggle to hold onto experienced teachers, the effects of high turnover on student achievement and the barriers to solving the problem. The writers ask tough questions of lawmakers in charge.”
  • Kristen Hwang, Ana Ibarra and Yee won fourth place in enterprise reporting for their coverage of maternity ward closures that are leaving large stretches of the state without care. Judges said it was “an important topic fleshed out with interviews and data; good graphics, too. Should be held up by readers demanding action.”
Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

1803 Fund unveils renderings of $70 million investment for Portland’s Black community

Initial site work, including permitting, is expected to take roughly two years, with construction scheduled to take another two years after that.

The 1803 Fund, an organization working to advance Portland’s Black community, unveiled new renderings Tuesday for a combined ten acres it purchased on the banks of the Willamette River near the Moda Center and in the lower Albina neighborhood.The organization, formed in 2023 with a $400 million pledge from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and wife Penny Knight, said last month it was spending $70 million on several Eastside properties. It said the redevelopment of those sites would have a tenfold economic impact via the hundreds of local jobs it expects to generate. The total projected outlay for the redevelopment remains unclear.Project leaders say they expect initial site work for what they’re calling Rebuild Albina, including permitting, to take roughly two years, with construction scheduled to take another two years after that.At a Tuesday press conference, organization leaders detailed plans for two sites: a set of grain silos on three acres formerly owned by the Louis Dreyfus Co. and now called Albina Riverside; and a seven-acre property in the lower Albina neighborhood south of the Fremont Bridge and west of Interstate 5, in a district once known as The Low End.“We intend to give that name back to the community,” Rukaiyah Adams, chief executive of the 1803 Fund, said Tuesday of The Low End district, as a carousel of renderings flashed on a wide screen behind her.The group has said it wants to see those seven acres become a neighborhood gateway that connects the Black community to downtown. The Low End is slated to become a mixed-use neighborhood with housing and public spaces with art, businesses, culture and community initiatives, according to a factsheet provided by the 1803 Fund, while plans for Albina Riverside are still in the works. Still, the Albina Riverside renderings show a reuse of the grain silos, a basketball court and what appear to be community-access steps down to the waterfront.Properties in The Low End require environmental cleanup, which project officials say they are coordinating with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. It’s not clear at this point what environmental remediation the Albina Riverside site may need, officials said.On Tuesday, project leaders said $30 million went toward properties in The Low End, while they spent $5 million on Albina Riverside. Another $35 million in Albina-area property investments are forthcoming, according to the factsheet.Mayor Keith Wilson and City Council member Loretta Smith took turns at the lectern heaping praise on Adams for her leadership of the fund.Wilson said he was committed to supporting the 1803 Fund’s “transformational projects” as the redevelopment of Albina bolsters Portland’s broader renaissance. “I keep wanting to cry every time I look at you, Rukaiyah,” the mayor said. “It’s personal for me, and I know it is for you, as well.”Smith told attendees that whenever she travels to another city, there’s a district called The Low End where members of the Black community live and gather.“It had a stigma to it, and it does have a stigma to it,” Smith said. “Now you’re taking that stigma away and saying, come on down to Albina to The Low End. It’s a cool thing to do. So thank you very much for giving us back that history and that culture.”Retaking the stage, Adams said part of what prompted the purchase of the grain silo was stories she heard years ago from former state Sen. Avel Gordly – the first Black woman sworn into the Oregon Senate – of Black men who used to work and died in the silos.Gordly implored Adams to take more of a leadership role in helping to clean up the Willamette, Adams said. “The connection of Black folks who migrated here from watersheds in the Jim Crow South to that Willamette River watershed is deep and spiritual,” Adams said. “My family left the Red River watershed in Louisiana to come to the Willamette River watershed here. “Our stories are often told as the movement between cities, but we are a people deeply connected to the water,” she said. “We wade in the water.”--Matthew Kish contributed to this article.

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Colorado mandates ambitious emissions cuts for its gas utilities

Colorado just set a major new climate goal for the companies that supply homes and businesses with fossil gas. By 2035, investor-owned gas utilities must cut carbon pollution by 41% from 2015 levels, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission decided in a 2–1 vote in mid-November. The target — which builds on goals…

Colorado just set a major new climate goal for the companies that supply homes and businesses with fossil gas. By 2035, investor-owned gas utilities must cut carbon pollution by 41% from 2015 levels, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission decided in a 2–1 vote in mid-November. The target — which builds on goals already set for 2025 and 2030 — is far more consistent with the state’s aim to decarbonize by 2050 than the other proposals considered. Commissioners rejected the tepid 22% to 30% cut that utilities asked for and the 31% target that state agencies recommended. Climate advocates hailed the decision as a victory for managing a transition away from burning fossil gas in Colorado buildings. “It’s a really huge deal,” said Jim Dennison, staff attorney at the Sierra Club, one of more than 20 environmental groups that advocated for an ambitious target. ​“It’s one of the strongest commitments to tangible progress that’s been made anywhere in the country.” In 2021, Colorado passed a first-in-the-nation law requiring gas utilities to find ways to deliver heat sans the emissions. That could entail swapping gas for alternative fuels, like methane from manure or hydrogen made with renewable power. But last year the utilities commission found that the most cost-effective approaches are weatherizing buildings and outfitting them with all-electric, ultraefficient appliances such as heat pumps. These double-duty devices keep homes toasty in winter and cool in summer. The clean-heat law pushes utilities to cut emissions by 4% from 2015 levels by 2025 and then 22% by 2030. But Colorado leaves exact targets for future years up to the Public Utilities Commission. Last month’s decision on the 2035 standard marks the first time that regulators have taken up that task. Gas is still a fixture in the Centennial State. About seven out of 10 Colorado households burn the fossil fuel as their primary source for heating, which accounts for about 31% of the state’s gas use. If gas utilities hit the new 2035 mandate, they’ll avoid an estimated 45.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Colorado Energy Office and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. They’d also prevent the release of hundreds more tons of nitrogen oxides and ultrafine particulates that cause respiratory and cardiovascular problems, from asthma to heart attacks. State officials predicted this would mean 58 averted premature deaths between now and 2035, nearly $1 billion in economic benefits, and $5.1 billion in avoided costs of climate change. “I think in the next five to 10 years, people will be thinking about burning fossil fuels in their home the way they now think about lead paint,” said former state Rep. Tracey Bernett, a Democrat who was the prime sponsor of the clean-heat law. Competing clean-heat targets Back in August, during proceedings to decide the 2035 target, gas utilities encouraged regulators to aim low. Citing concerns about market uptake of heat pumps and potential costs to customers, they asked for a goal as modest as 22% by 2035 — a target that wouldn’t require any progress at all in the five years after 2030. Climate advocates argued that such a weak goal would cause the state to fall short on its climate commitments. Nonprofits the Sierra Club, the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, and the Western Resource Advocates submitted a technical analysis that determined the emissions reductions the gas utilities would need to hit to align with the state’s 2050 net-zero goal: 55% by 2035, 74% by 2040, 93% by 2045, and, finally, 100% by 2050. History suggests these reductions are feasible, advocates asserted.

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The rewriting of Australia’s nature laws come as a relief, yet I can’t help feel a sense of foreboding | Georgina Woods

The minister says quick approvals can happen while protecting the environment, but my experience tells me that haste brings unintended consequencesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastI got a text from a biodiversity advocate around midday on Thursday asking me: are you glad, or sad?I wasn’t sure how to reply. Continue reading...

I got a text from a biodiversity advocate around midday on Thursday asking me: are you glad, or sad?I wasn’t sure how to reply.The Australian parliament is amending the country’s environment laws. Thanks to negotiating by the Greens, the amended laws will not enable the fast-tracking of coal and gas mining, which the government had proposed. Decisions about coal and gas mines that harm water resources will be retained by the commonwealth and not given over wholly to state governments as the government had proposed. That is an enormous relief.And yet, I am filled with foreboding.The bill introduced into parliament only a few weeks ago proposed to take the country backwards in environmental protection. It sought to strip communities of participation in environmental decisions, hand decision-making about environmental harm to the states and territories and give the environment minister sweeping power to tailor environmental regulations for certain developments, companies or industries.The government made it clear from the outset that the convenience of business, the desire for “quick yesses” that could harm the natural environment, was its chief priority. It has been made clear that the government intends to grant fast-tracked approval to renewable energy developments and minerals mines. There is excited talk about “abundance” – which is code for sweeping forests, wetlands, woodlands and local communities out of the path of business, mining and development.The minister is adamant this can be done while protecting the environment, but my 25 years of experience with environmental regulation tell me that haste brings unintended consequences. It makes communities angry. It leads to losses of our beautiful natural heritage that are mourned for generations. It impoverishes us by eroding the natural ecosystems that actually create the “abundance” that makes our society.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThere is no abundance without reciprocity and we will learn this, to our sorrow, in the years to come if we continue treating the natural world as a magic pudding that can be cut and cut and cut and will come again.Coal and gas mining will not be fast-tracked and for that I am very glad. But the government ruled out embedding any formal consideration of the impacts of greenhouse gas pollution, the effect of climate change on Australia’s natural heritage, into decision-making. Only a few months ago, Australia’s first national climate risk assessment itemised a devastating prognosis for Australia’s marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems across the continent if global warming exceeds the limits set down in the Paris climate agreement. It spoke of ecosystems collapsing and whole species dying out. The only way to prevent that warming is to stop the pollution that comes from burning coal, gas and oil for energy, and quickly. Indeed, an International Court of Justice advisory opinion has affirmed that all countries have a legal obligation to prevent climate harm and protect the climate system. For Australia, that means preventing the pollution from our energy exports.The greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s energy exports, and the impact that this pollution is having on Australians, is not going to go away because the minister refuses to think about it, or because the prime minister is too squeamish to talk about it. The consequences will plague our descendents for generations to come, long after this generation of politicians are gone, but there will be more immediate demands from communities suffering the effects of climate change that will become increasingly impossible to ignore.

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Mind, hand, and harvest

A volunteer-driven pilot program brings low-cost organic produce to the MIT community.

On a sunny, warm Sunday MIT students, staff, and faculty spread out across the fields of Hannan Healthy Foods in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Some of these volunteers pluck tomatoes from their vines in a patch a few hundred feet from the cars whizzing by on Route 117. Others squat in the shade cast by the greenhouse to snip chives. Still others slice heads of Napa cabbage from their roots in a bed nearer the woods. Everything being harvested today will wind up in Harvest Boxes, which will be sold at a pop-up farm stand the next day in the lobby of the Stata Center back on the MIT campus.This initiative — a pilot collaboration between MIT’s Office of Sustainability (MITOS), the MIT Anthropology Section, Hannan Healthy Foods, and the nascent MIT Farm student organization — sold six-pound boxes of fresh, organic produce to the MIT community for $10 per box — half off the typical wholesale price. The weekly farm stands ran from Sept. 15 through Oct. 27.“There is a documented need for accessible, affordable, fresh food on college campuses,” says Heather Paxson, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and one of the organizers of the program. “The problems for a small farmer in finding a sufficient market … are connected to the challenges of food insecurity in even wealthy areas. And so, it really is about connecting those dots.”Through the six weeks of the project, farm stand shoppers purchased more than 2,000 pounds of fresh produce that they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to. Hannan, Paxson, and the team hope that this year’s pilot was successful enough to continue into future growing seasons, either in this farm stand form or as something else that can equally serve the campus community.“This year we decided to pour our heart, soul, and resources into this vision and prove what’s possible,” says Susy Jones, senior sustainability project manager at MITOS. “How can we do it in a way that is robust and goes through the official MIT channels, and yet pushes the boundaries of what’s possible at MIT?”A growing ideaMohammed Hannan, founder of Hannan Healthy Foods, first met Paxson and Jones in 2022. Jones was looking for someone local who grew vegetables common in Asian cuisine in response to a student request. Paxson wanted a small farm to host a field trip for her subject 21A.155 (Food, Culture and Politics). In July, Paxson and Jones learned about an article in the Boston Globe featuring Hannan as an example of a small farmer hit hard by federal budget cuts.They knew right away they wanted to help. They pulled in Zachary Rapaport and Aleks Banas, architecture master’s students and the co-founders of MIT Farm, an organization dedicated to getting the MIT community off campus and onto local farms. This MIT contingent connected with Hannan to come up with a plan.“These projects — when they flow, they flow,” says Jones. “There was so much common ground and excitement that we were all willing to jump on calls at 7 p.m. many nights to figure it out.”After a series of rapid-fire brainstorming sessions, the group decided to host weekly volunteer sessions at Hannan’s farm during the autumn growing season and sell the harvest at a farm stand on campus.“It fits in seamlessly with the MIT motto, ‘mind and hand,’ ‘mens et manus,’ learning by doing, as well as the heart, which has been added unofficially — mind, hand, heart,” says Paxson.Jones tapped into the MITOS network for financial, operational, student, and city partners. Rapaport and Banas put out calls for volunteers. Paxson incorporated a volunteer trip into her syllabus and allocated discretionary project funding to subsidize the cost of the produce, allowing the food to be sold at 50 percent of the wholesale price that Hannan was paid for it.“The fact that MIT students, faculty, and staff could come out to the farm, and that our harvest would circulate back to campus and into the broader community — there’s an energy around it that’s very different from academics. It feels essential to be part of something so tangible,” says Rapaport.The volunteer sessions proved to be popular. Throughout the pilot, about 75 students and half a dozen faculty and staff trekked out to Lincoln from MIT’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus at least once to clear fields and harvest vegetables. Hannan hopes the experience will change the way they think about their food.“Harvesting the produce, knowing the operation, knowing how hard it is, it’ll stick in their brain,” he says.On that September Sunday, second-year electrical engineering and computer science major Abrianna Zhang had come out with a friend after seeing a notification on the dormspam email lists. Zhang grew up in a California suburb big on supporting local farmers, but volunteering showed her a different side of the job.“There’s a lot of work that goes into raising all these crops and then getting all this manual labor,” says Zhang. “It makes me think about the economy of things. How is this even possible … for us to gain access to organic fruits or produce at a reasonable price?”Setting up shopSince mid-September, Monday has been Farm Stand day at MIT. Tables covered in green gingham tablecloths strike through the Stata Center lobby, holding stacks of cardboard boxes filled with produce. Customers wait in line to claim their piece of the fresh harvest — carrots, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, herbs, and various greens.Many of these students typically head to off-campus grocery stores to get their fresh produce. Katie Stabb, a sophomore civil and environmental engineering major and self-proclaimed “crazy plant lady,” grows her own food in the summer, but travels far from campus to shop for her vegetables during the school year. Having this stand right at MIT gives her time back, and she’s been spreading the news to her East Campus dorm mates — even picking boxes up for them when they can’t make it themselves and helping them figure out what to do with their excess ingredients.“I have encountered having way too many chives before, but that’s new for some folks,” she says. “Last week we pooled all of our chives and I made chive pancakes, kind of like scallion pancakes.”Stabb is not alone. In a multi-question customer survey conducted at the close of the Farm Stand season, 62 percent of respondents said the Harvest Box gave them the chance to try new foods and 49 percent experimented with new recipes. Seventy percent said this project helped them increase their vegetable intake.Nearly 60 percent of the survey respondents were graduate students living off campus. Banas, one of the MIT Farm co-leads, is one of those grad students enjoying the benefits.“I was cooking and making food that I bought from the farm stand and thought, ‘Oh, this is very literally influencing my life in a positive way.’ And I’m hoping that this has a similar impact for other people,” she says.The impact goes beyond the ability of students to nourish themselves with fresh vegetables. New communities have grown from this collaboration. Jones, for example, expanded her network at MITOS by tapping into expertise and resources from MIT Dining, the Vice President for Finance Merchant Services, and the MIT Federal Credit Union.“There were just these pockets of people in every corner of MIT who know how to do these very specific things that might seem not very glamorous, but make something like this possible,” says Jones. “It’s such a positive, affirming moment when you’re starting from scratch and someone’s like, ‘This is such a cool idea, how can I help?’”Strengthening communityInviting people from MIT to connect across campus and explore beyond Cambridge has helped students and employees alike feel like they’re part of something bigger.“The community that’s grown around this work is what keeps me so engaged,” says Rapaport. “MIT can have a bit of a siloing effect. It’s easy to become so focused on your classes and academics that your world revolves around them. Farm club grew out of wanting to build connections across the student body and to see ourselves and MIT as part of a larger network of people, communities, and relationships.”This particular connection will continue to grow, as Rapaport and Banas will use their architectural expertise to lead a design-build team in developing a climate-adaptive and bio-based root cellar at Hannan Healthy Foods, to improve the farm’s winter vegetable storage conditions. Community engagement is an ethos Hannan has embraced since the start of his farming journey in 2018, motivated by a desire to provision first his family and then others with healthy food.“One thing I have done over the years, I was not trying to do farming by myself,” he says. “I always reached out to as many people as I could. The idea is, if community is not involved, they just see it as an individual business.”It’s why he gifts his volunteers huge bags of tomatoes at the end of a shift, or donates some of his harvest to food banks, or engages an advisory committee of local residents to ensure he’s filling the right needs.“There’s a reciprocal dimension to gifting that needs to continue,” says Paxson. “That is what builds and maintains community — it’s classic anthropology."And much of what’s exchanged in this type of reciprocity can’t be charted or graded or marked on a spreadsheet. It’s cooking pancakes with dorm mates. It’s meeting and appreciating new colleagues. It’s grabbing a friend to harvest cabbage on a beautiful autumn Sunday.“Seeing a student who volunteered over the weekend harvesting chives come to the market on Monday and then want to take a selfie with those chives,” says Jones. “To me, that’s a cool moment.”

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Have we found a greener way to do deep-sea mining?

There are widespread concerns that deep-sea mining for metals will damage fragile ecosystems. But if mining ever goes ahead, hydrogen plasma could shrink the carbon footprint of smelting the metal ores

Seafloor covered with manganese nodulesScience History Images/Alamy A process to extract metals from their ore with hydrogen could make deep-sea mining for valuable materials more sustainable than mining on land, a new study claims. Swathes of the ocean floor are littered with nodules the size of tennis balls. These polymetallic nodules are comprised largely of manganese, with smaller amounts of nickel, copper and cobalt, as well as other elements. As the construction of solar power and electric vehicles booms, demand for these metals is increasing because they are vital components of batteries and wiring. But plans to mine for the polymetallic nodules are highly controversial because operations to collect them would potentially harm the deep-sea floor – one of the last pristine ecosystems on Earth. Even so, some researchers suspect that deep-sea extraction will eventually take place. “I think there is a good chance that someday people… will mine the nodules,” says Ubaid Manzoor at the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials in Germany. “So better to have a good process [for extracting metals] after mining than to have one more dirty process.” The Metals Company, a Canadian deep-sea mining company that has applied for a deep-sea mining permit from the Trump administration, plans to extract metals using a fossil fuel-based approach involving coke and methane. Its process involves placing the nodules first in a kiln and then an electric arc furnace – a greener alternative to a traditional blast furnace. Even so, the company says its approach will produce 4.9 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions for every 1 kilogram of valuable metals. Manzoor and his colleagues have found a way to lower these extraction-related emissions. Their system doesn’t involve a kiln. Instead, the nodules would be ground into smaller pellets and placed straight into an arc furnace that also contains hydrogen and argon gas. High-energy electrons flowing from an electrode in the furnace to the pellets would knock electrons off the molecules of hydrogen gas, forming a plasma that can be heated up to temperatures exceeding 1700°C. The hydrogen ions in the plasma then react with the oxygen in the pellets, stripping the oxides away from the alloy and leaving pure metal behind. Besides water, the only by-products are manganese oxide and manganese ligates, which can be used for making batteries and steel. If the hydrogen gas used in the furnace is “green” – meaning it is produced by splitting water with electricity from renewable sources – and the electricity to run the furnace is generated from renewable sources, the process should emit no CO2, according to the researchers. Today, the vast majority of hydrogen is produced using fossil fuels. Metals like manganese are found on land as well as on the seafloor, but at concentrations about 10 times lower. Mining them on land involves moving large amounts of earth, and extracting the metal from the ore often relies on sulphuric acid. The process can result in razed rainforests and polluted rivers. However, land-based mining could be better regulated to prevent environmental destruction, and the smelting of the metals could be done with green hydrogen and renewable electricity rather than fossil fuels, argues Mario Schmidt at Pforzheim University in Germany. At that point, vacuuming up nodules from the seabed wouldn’t necessarily be more sustainable. “We do not see any fundamental advantage for deep-sea mining in terms of carbon footprint,” he says. “The sustainability of deep-sea mining fails because of the threat it poses to the biodiversity of deep-sea flora and fauna.” But the process that Manzoor and his colleagues have developed could help deep-sea mining become more economically viable, according to David Dye at Imperial College London. “In addressing how you would do the extraction metallurgy downstream of actually picking it up off the seabed, you may be able to then open up the business case and the environmental case to make that attractive,” he says. Manzoor stresses that the research isn’t meant to advocate for deep-sea mining, and the environmental impacts should be fully investigated.

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Health

Small Footprints: Crafting an Eco-Lodge in Wild Alaska

In 2008, a sustainable development project began in the middle of the Kenai Fjords of Alaska, 3 hours by boat from the nearest port of civilization. Told from the points of view of crew members, project coordinators and the Native Alaskan corporation that owns the land itself, the film is both a celebration of and a blueprint for sustainable construction, as well as an exciting battle against time and the elements deep within wild Alaska.

Sustainable
Business
Documentary

Green Waste

What if every person could actually make an impact on the world? “Green Waste” takes an in-depth look at the process of recycling and waste management in the community of Flagstaff. From recycling plastic bags, to re-using glass bottles, from recycling hazardous waste to the efforts of local businesses, the film shows how every contribution, no matter how small, can collectively make the difference for a better tomorrow. Filmed and Produced under the Emerging Filmmakers Program for youth filmmakers.

Waste
Business
Solutions

Florida Caviar

Meet three generations of women growing sturgeon in a unique farm in Pierson, Florida. They're harvesting the sturgeon for Florida caviar.

Sustainable
Business
Food

The Fellowship of the Springs

Florida’s artesian springs are a natural wonder of the world. As unique as the geysers of Yellowstone and as mesmerizing as Vernal Falls in Yosemite, these blue jewels surrounding the north Florida landscape are considered a treasure by many who see them. The state contains the largest and highest concentration of fresh water springs on earth. But today, the future of Florida’s springs is uncertain. With flow levels declining and nitrate pollution on the rise, the springs today bear the scars of a profound struggle. Florida's own government continues to approve permits for large companies that want to pump water from the springs and their springsheds, for nominal permit fees that often cost less than a day pass to Disney World. The Fellowship of the Springs takes viewers behind the scenes of the fight to save Florida's springs, from the halls of the state capitol in Tallahassee to deep caves of Ichetucknee spring.

Water
Government
Business

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