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From Space to Soil, Tracking the Explosive Rise of Greenhouses in China

News Feed
Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Satellite image of Weifang Prefecture, China captured on May 7, 1987, by the Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5.Satellite image of Weifang Prefecture, China captured on May 20, 2024, by the Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.A recent study using satellite data shows that the global coverage of greenhouses has expanded to over 13,000 square kilometers, with the largest growth occurring in China.Greenhouses are having a moment—or rather, a few decades. According to a new analysis of satellite data published in the journal Nature Food, greenhouses now cover more than 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) of land worldwide—an area nearly the size of Connecticut. Four decades ago, they covered just 300 square kilometers (120 square miles). For reference, 1 square kilometer is 247 acres, and 1 square mile is 640 acres.China Leads in Greenhouse GrowthThe most expansion occurred in China, now home to 60 percent of the world’s greenhouses. The structures can be found on farmland in several Chinese provinces and across a range of climates, but they are most concentrated in the North China Plain—a large alluvial plain west of the Yellow and Bohai seas. The largest cluster of greenhouses in China, and the world, spreads across more than 820 square kilometers of this plain in Weifang, a prefecture-level city in Shandong Province in northeastern China. The pair of Landsat images above highlights the rapid expansion of greenhouses in Weifang. The image on the left, acquired by the TM (Thematic Mapper) on Landsat 5, shows Weifang in 1987; the image on the right, from the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, shows the same area in 2024. Large expanses of once-open farmland are now covered by a sea of plastic. Many of the greenhouses have opaque or translucent plastics that appear white from a distance, while open farmland is generally brown or green. Towns appear slightly blue or pink due to the colors of roofs.Detail view from the satellite image above captured on May 20, 2024.Agricultural Practices in Chinese GreenhousesIn this part of China, fruits and vegetables are generally grown in the greenhouses. “Cucumbers, eggplants, and tomatoes provide off-season vegetables to the whole country,” said Xiaoye Tong, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and an author of the study. “Increasingly, farmers in Weifang are also planting high-value fruits, such as strawberries, grapes, kiwi, and dragon fruit.”Farmers use plastic greenhouses because they are an effective and relatively inexpensive way to increase yields. They can be used to extend the growing season and exert control over temperature and lighting conditions. Innovations such as drip irrigation, the use of artificial soil, and hydroponics have added to the popularity of greenhouse cultivation.Technological Advances and Domestic DemandDomestic demand for produce has likely helped stir the greenhouse boom, according to the team of University of Copenhagen researchers. China’s total production of tomatoes, cucumbers, and gherkins increased sixfold between 1990 and 2020, even though exports stayed roughly the same.Detail satellite view of greenhouses in Weifang Prefecture, China, captured on May 20, 2024.The researchers used high-resolution satellite imagery from Planet Labs and the European Sentinel-2 satellite constellation to map greenhouses in 2019, the most recent year they analyzed. To track longer-term changes, they relied on imagery from Landsat, a USGS/NASA satellite program that has been operating since the 1970s. As part of the analysis, the researchers used Landsat images to identify the year when greenhouse construction first appeared in each of the 65-largest clusters of greenhouses. They also tracked changes (between 1985 and 2021) in the largest greenhouse clusters in the five countries with the most greenhouse area: Weifang, China; Almería, Spain; Bari, Italy; Antalya, Türkiye; and Chapala, Mexico.Global Trends in Greenhouse Usage“The rate of expansion is the most dramatic in China, but the increase is a global phenomenon,” Tong said. The researchers mapped greenhouses in 119 countries, including Spain (5.6 percent of the total greenhouse area), Italy (4.1 percent), Mexico (3.3 percent), Türkiye (2.4 percent), Morocco (2.3 percent), the Republic of Korea (1.8 percent), Japan (1.7 percent), the Netherlands (1.4 percent) and France (1.3 percent). They also mapped greenhouses in 22 countries in Africa, where they are primarily used for vegetable and cut flower production.The team’s mapping of greenhouse cultivation is one of the most detailed and comprehensive researchers have conducted to date. Earlier assessments of the global extent of greenhouses have been based on industry reports and have not included georeferenced information on the exact locations of greenhouses.Implications for Policy and Environmental Management“Our hope is that the detailed, georeferenced information we’re providing from satellites will be useful to policymakers, local and international development organizations, industry stakeholders, and farmers,” Tong said, “as they balance the benefits of increases in production made possible by greenhouses along with the environmental impacts of land cover change and plastic pollution.”Reference: “Global area boom for greenhouse cultivation revealed by satellite mapping” by Xiaoye Tong, Xiaoxin Zhang, Rasmus Fensholt, Peter Rosendal Dau Jensen, Sizhuo Li, Marianne Nylandsted Larsen, Florian Reiner, Feng Tian and Martin Brandt, 13 May 2024, Nature Food.DOI: 10.1038/s43016-024-00985-0NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

A recent study using satellite data shows that the global coverage of greenhouses has expanded to over 13,000 square kilometers, with the largest growth occurring...

Weifang Prefecture 1987 Annotated

Satellite image of Weifang Prefecture, China captured on May 7, 1987, by the Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5.

Weifang Prefecture 2024 Annotated

Satellite image of Weifang Prefecture, China captured on May 20, 2024, by the Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8.

A recent study using satellite data shows that the global coverage of greenhouses has expanded to over 13,000 square kilometers, with the largest growth occurring in China.

Greenhouses are having a moment—or rather, a few decades. According to a new analysis of satellite data published in the journal Nature Food, greenhouses now cover more than 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) of land worldwide—an area nearly the size of Connecticut. Four decades ago, they covered just 300 square kilometers (120 square miles). For reference, 1 square kilometer is 247 acres, and 1 square mile is 640 acres.

China Leads in Greenhouse Growth

The most expansion occurred in China, now home to 60 percent of the world’s greenhouses. The structures can be found on farmland in several Chinese provinces and across a range of climates, but they are most concentrated in the North China Plain—a large alluvial plain west of the Yellow and Bohai seas. The largest cluster of greenhouses in China, and the world, spreads across more than 820 square kilometers of this plain in Weifang, a prefecture-level city in Shandong Province in northeastern China.

The pair of Landsat images above highlights the rapid expansion of greenhouses in Weifang. The image on the left, acquired by the TM (Thematic Mapper) on Landsat 5, shows Weifang in 1987; the image on the right, from the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, shows the same area in 2024. Large expanses of once-open farmland are now covered by a sea of plastic. Many of the greenhouses have opaque or translucent plastics that appear white from a distance, while open farmland is generally brown or green. Towns appear slightly blue or pink due to the colors of roofs.

Weifang Prefecture Greenhouses

Detail view from the satellite image above captured on May 20, 2024.

Agricultural Practices in Chinese Greenhouses

In this part of China, fruits and vegetables are generally grown in the greenhouses. “Cucumbers, eggplants, and tomatoes provide off-season vegetables to the whole country,” said Xiaoye Tong, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and an author of the study. “Increasingly, farmers in Weifang are also planting high-value fruits, such as strawberries, grapes, kiwi, and dragon fruit.”

Farmers use plastic greenhouses because they are an effective and relatively inexpensive way to increase yields. They can be used to extend the growing season and exert control over temperature and lighting conditions. Innovations such as drip irrigation, the use of artificial soil, and hydroponics have added to the popularity of greenhouse cultivation.

Technological Advances and Domestic Demand

Domestic demand for produce has likely helped stir the greenhouse boom, according to the team of University of Copenhagen researchers. China’s total production of tomatoes, cucumbers, and gherkins increased sixfold between 1990 and 2020, even though exports stayed roughly the same.

Weifang Prefecture China Greenhouses

Detail satellite view of greenhouses in Weifang Prefecture, China, captured on May 20, 2024.

The researchers used high-resolution satellite imagery from Planet Labs and the European Sentinel-2 satellite constellation to map greenhouses in 2019, the most recent year they analyzed. To track longer-term changes, they relied on imagery from Landsat, a USGS/NASA satellite program that has been operating since the 1970s. As part of the analysis, the researchers used Landsat images to identify the year when greenhouse construction first appeared in each of the 65-largest clusters of greenhouses. They also tracked changes (between 1985 and 2021) in the largest greenhouse clusters in the five countries with the most greenhouse area: Weifang, China; Almería, Spain; Bari, Italy; Antalya, Türkiye; and Chapala, Mexico.

Global Trends in Greenhouse Usage

“The rate of expansion is the most dramatic in China, but the increase is a global phenomenon,” Tong said. The researchers mapped greenhouses in 119 countries, including Spain (5.6 percent of the total greenhouse area), Italy (4.1 percent), Mexico (3.3 percent), Türkiye (2.4 percent), Morocco (2.3 percent), the Republic of Korea (1.8 percent), Japan (1.7 percent), the Netherlands (1.4 percent) and France (1.3 percent). They also mapped greenhouses in 22 countries in Africa, where they are primarily used for vegetable and cut flower production.

The team’s mapping of greenhouse cultivation is one of the most detailed and comprehensive researchers have conducted to date. Earlier assessments of the global extent of greenhouses have been based on industry reports and have not included georeferenced information on the exact locations of greenhouses.

Implications for Policy and Environmental Management

“Our hope is that the detailed, georeferenced information we’re providing from satellites will be useful to policymakers, local and international development organizations, industry stakeholders, and farmers,” Tong said, “as they balance the benefits of increases in production made possible by greenhouses along with the environmental impacts of land cover change and plastic pollution.”

Reference: “Global area boom for greenhouse cultivation revealed by satellite mapping” by Xiaoye Tong, Xiaoxin Zhang, Rasmus Fensholt, Peter Rosendal Dau Jensen, Sizhuo Li, Marianne Nylandsted Larsen, Florian Reiner, Feng Tian and Martin Brandt, 13 May 2024, Nature Food.
DOI: 10.1038/s43016-024-00985-0

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Read the full story here.
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More women view climate change as their number one political issue

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A new report from the Environmental Voter Project (EVP), shared first with The 19th, finds that far more women than men are listing climate and environmental issues as their top priority in voting. The nonpartisan nonprofit, which focuses on tailoring get out the vote efforts to low-propensity voters who they’ve identified as likely to list climate and environmental issues as a top priority, found that women far outpace men on the issue. Overall 62 percent of these so-called climate voters are women, compared to 37 percent of men. The gender gap is largest among young people, Black and Indigenous voters.  The nonprofit identifies these voters through a predictive model built based on surveys it conducts among registered voters. 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Of those who listed climate as their top priority, they voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris by a 10 to 1 margin.  The EVP findings are important, Stinnett says, because they also point the way to who might best lead the country in the fight against the climate crisis. “If almost two thirds of climate voters are women, then all of us need to get better at embracing women’s wisdom and leadership skills,” Stinnett said. “That doesn’t just apply to messaging. It applies to how we build and lead a movement of activists and voters.”  Though the data reveals a trend, it’s unclear why the gender gap grew in recent years. In the six years that EVP has collected data, the gap has gone from 20 percent in 2019, and then shrunk to 15 percent in 2022 before beginning to rise in 2024. In 2025, the gap grew to 25 percentage points. “I don’t know if men are caring less about climate change. I do know that they are much, much less likely now than they were before, to list it as their number one priority,” he said. “Maybe men don’t care less about climate change than they did before, right? Maybe it’s just that other things have jumped priorities over that.” A survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, a nonprofit that gauges the public’s attitude toward climate change has seen a similar trend in its work. Marija Verner, a researcher with the organization, said in 2014 there was a 7 percent gap between the number of men and women in the U.S. who said they were concerned by global warming. A decade later in 2024, that gap had nearly doubled to 12 percent.  Read Next What do climate protests actually achieve? More than you think. Kate Yoder There is evidence that climate change and pollution impact women more than men both in the United States and globally. 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Federal corn crop insurers could see a 22 percent spike in claims filed by 2030 and a nearly 29 percent jump by mid-century, thanks to the impacts of climate change, a new study has found. Both U.S. corn growers and their insurers are poised to face a future with mounting economic uncertainty, according to the research, published on Friday in the Journal of Data Science, Statistics, and Visualisation. “Crop insurance has increased 500 percent since the early 2000s, and our simulations show that insurance costs will likely double again by 2050,” lead author Sam Pottinger, a senior researcher at the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Data Science & Environment, said in a statement. “This significant increase will result from a future in which extreme weather events will become more common, which puts both growers and insurance companies at substantial risk,” he warned. Pottinger and his colleagues at both UC Berkeley and the University of Arkansas developed an open-source, AI-powered tool through which they were able to simulate growing conditions through 2050 under varying scenarios. They found that if growing conditions remained unchanged, federal crop insurance companies would see a continuation of current claim rates in the next three decades. However, under different climate change scenarios, claims could rise by anywhere from 13 to 22 percent by 2030, before reaching about 29 percent by 2050, according to the data. Federal crop insurance, distributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), provides economic stability to U.S. farmers and other agricultural entities, the researchers explained. Most U.S. farmers receive their primary insurance through this program, with coverage determined by a grower’s annual crop yield, per the terms of the national Farm Bill. “Not only do we see the claims’ rate rise significantly in a future under climate change, but the severity of these claims increases too,” co-author Lawson Conner, an assistant professor in agricultural economics at the University of Arkansas, said in a statement. “For example, we found that insurance companies could see the average covered portion of a claim increase up to 19 percent by 2050,” Conner noted. The researchers stressed the utility of their tool for people who want to understand how crop insurance prices are established and foresee potential neighborhood-level impacts. To achieve greater security for growers and reduce financial liability for companies in the future, the authors suggested two possible avenues. The first, they contended, could involve a small change to the Farm Bill text that could incentivize farmers to adopt practices such as cover cropping and crop rotation. Although these approaches can lead to lower annual yields, they bolster crop resilience over time, the authors noted. Their second recommendation would  involve including similar such incentives in an existing USDA Risk Management Agency mechanism called 508(h), through which private companies recommend alternative and supplemental insurance products for the agency’s consideration. “We are already seeing more intense droughts, longer heat waves, and more catastrophic floods,” co-author Timothy Bowles, associate professor in environmental science at UC Berkeley, said in a statement.  “In a future that will bring even more of these, our recommendations could help protect growers and insurance providers against extreme weather impacts,” Bowles added.

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From Greenland to Ghana, Indigenous youth work for climate justice

“No matter what happens we will stand and we will fight, and we will keep pushing for solutions.”

For the last week,  Indigenous leaders from around the world have converged in New York for the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFI. It’s the largest global gathering of Indigenous peoples and the Forum provides space for participants to bring their issues to international authorities, often when their own governments have refused to take action. This year’s Forum focuses on how U.N. member states’ have, or have not, protected the rights of Indigenous peoples, and conversations range from the environmental effects of extractive industries, to climate change, and violence against women. The Forum is an intergenerational space. Young people in attendance often work alongside elders and leaders to come up with solutions and address ongoing challenges. Grist interviewed seven Indigenous youth attending UNPFII this year hailing from Africa, the Pacific, North and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Arctic. Joshua Amponsem, 33, is Asante from Ghana and the founder of Green Africa Youth Organization, a youth-led group in Africa that promotes energy sustainability. He also is the co-director of the Youth Climate Justice Fund which provides funding opportunities to bolster youth participation in climate change solutions.  Since the Trump administration pulled all the funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, Amponsem has seen the people and groups he works with suffer from the loss of financial help. Courtesy of Joshua Amponsem It’s already hard to be a young person fighting climate change. Less than one percent of climate grants go to youth-led programs, according to the Youth Climate Justice Fund.   “I think everyone is very much worried,” he said. “That is leading to a lot of anxiety.”  Amponsem specifically mentioned the importance of groups like Africa Youth Pastoralist Initiatives — a coalition of youth who raise animals like sheep or cattle. Pastoralists need support to address climate change because the work of herding sheep and cattle gets more difficult as drought and resource scarcity persist, according to one report.  “No matter what happens we will stand and we will fight, and we will keep pushing for solutions,” he said. Janell Dymus-Kurei, 32, is Māori from the East Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a fellow with the Commonwealth Fund, a group that promotes better access to healthcare for vulnerable populations. At this year’s UNPFII, Dymus-Kurei hopes to bring attention to legislation aimed at diminishing Māori treaty rights. While one piece of legislation died this month, she doesn’t think it’s going to stop there. She hopes to remind people about the attempted legislation that would have given exclusive Maori rights to everyone in New Zealand. Courtesy of Janell Dymus-Kurei The issue gained international attention last Fall when politician Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke performed a Haka during parliament, a traditional dance that was often done before battle. The demonstration set off other large-scale Māori protests in the country.  “They are bound by the Treaty of Waitangi,” she said. Countries can address the forum, but New Zealand didn’t make it to the UNPFII.  “You would show up if you thought it was important to show up and defend your actions in one way, shape, or form,” she said. This year, she’s brought her two young children — TeAio Nitana, which means “peace and divinity” and Te Haumarangai, or “forceful wind”. Dymus-Kurei said it’s important for children to be a part of the forum, especially with so much focus on Indigenous women. “Parenting is political in every sense of the word,” she said. Avery Doxtator, 22, is Oneida, Anishinaabe and Dakota and the president of the National Association of Friendship Centres, or NAFC, which promotes cultural awareness and resources for urban Indigenous youth throughout Canada’s territories. She attended this year’s Forum to raise awareness about the rights of Indigenous peoples living in urban spaces. The NAFC brought 23 delegates from Canada this year representing all of the country’s regions. It’s the biggest group they’ve ever had, but Doxtator said everyone attending was concerned when crossing the border into the United States due to the Trump Administration’s border and immigration restrictions. Taylar Dawn Stagner “It’s a safety threat that we face as Indigenous peoples coming into a country that does not necessarily want us here,” she said. “That was our number one concern. Making sure youth are safe being in the city, but also crossing the border because of the color of our skin.” The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, protects Indigenous peoples fundamental rights of self-determination, and these rights extend to those living in cities, perhaps away from their territories. She said that she just finished her 5th year on the University of Toronto’s Water Polo Team, and will be playing on a professional team in Barcelona next year.  Around half of Indigenous peoples in Canada live in cities. In the United States around 70 percent live in cities. As a result, many can feel disconnected from their cultures, and that’s what she hopes to shed light on at the forum — that resources for Indigenous youth exist even in urban areas. Liudmyla Korotkykh, 26, is Crimean Tatar from Kyiv, one of the Indigenous peoples of Ukraine. She spoke at UNPFII about the effects of the Ukraine war on her Indigenous community. She is a manager and attorney at the Crimean Tatar Resource Center. The history of the Crimean Tatars are similar to other Indigenous populations. They have survived colonial oppression from both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union — and as a result their language and way of life is constantly under threat. Crimea is a country that was annexed by Russia around a decade ago.  Taylar Dawn Stagner In 2021, President Zelensky passed legislation to establish better rights for Indigenous peoples, but months later Russia continued its campaign against Ukraine.  Korotkykh said Crimean Tatars have been conscripted to fight for Russia against the Tatars that are now in Ukraine.  “Now we are in the situation where our peoples are divided by a frontline and our peoples are fighting against each other because some of us joined the Russian army and some joined the Ukrainian army,” she said.  Korotkykh said even though many, including the Trump Administration, consider Crimea a part of Russia, hopes that Crimean Tatars won’t be left out of future discussions of their homes.  “This is a homeland of Indigenous peoples. We don’t accept the Russian occupation,” she said. “So, when the [Trump] administration starts to discuss how we can recognize Crimea as a part of Russia, it is not acceptable to us.” Toni Chiran, 30, is Garo from Bangladesh, and a member of the Bangladesh Indigenous Youth Forum, an organization focused on protecting young Indigenous people. The country has 54 distinct Indigenous peoples, and their constitution does not recognize Indigenous rights.  In January, Chiran was part of a protest in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where he and other Indigenous people were protesting how the state was erasing the word “Indigenous” — or Adivasi in Hindi — from text books. Chiran says the move is a part of an ongoing assault by the state to erase Indigenous peoples from Bangladesh. Courtesy of Toni Chiran He said that he sustained injuries to his head and chest during the protest as counter protesters assaulted their group, and 13 protesters sustained injuries. He hopes bringing that incident, and more, to the attention of Forum members will help in the fight for Indigenous rights in Bangladesh. “There is an extreme level of human rights violations in my country due to the land related conflicts because our government still does not recognize Indigenous peoples,” he said.  The student group Students for Sovereignty were accused of attacking Chiran and his fellow protesters. During a following protest a few days later in support of Chiran and the others injured Bangladesh police used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd.  “We are still demanding justice on these issues,” he said. Aviaaija Baadsgaard, 27, is Inuit and a member of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Youth Engagement Program, a group that aims to empower the next generation of leaders in the Arctic. Baadsgaard is originally from Nuunukuu, the capital of Greenland, and this is her first year attending the UNPFII. Just last week she graduated from the University of Copenhagen with her law degree. She originally began studying law to help protect the rights of the Inuit of Greenland.. Recently, Greenland has been a global focal point due to the Trump Administration’s interest in acquiring the land and its resources – including minerals needed for the green transition like lithium and neodymium: both crucial for electric vehicles. “For me, it’s really important to speak on behalf of the Inuit of Greenland,” Baadsgaard said. Taylar Dawn Stagner Greenland is around 80 percent Indigenous, and a vast majority of the population there do not want the Greenland is around 80 percent Indigenous, and a vast majority of the population there do not want the U.S. to wrest control of the country from the Kingdom of Denmark. Many more want to be completely independent.  “I don’t want any administration to mess with our sovereignty,” she said.  Baadsgaard said her first time at the forum has connected her to a broader discussion about global Indigenous rights — a conversation she is excited to join. She wants to learn more about the complex system at the United Nations, so this trip is about getting ready for the future. Cindy Sisa Andy Aguinda, 30, is Kitchwa from Ecuador in the Amazon. She is in New York to talk about climate change, women’s health and the climate crisis. She spoke on a panel with a group of other Indigenous women about how the patriarchy and colonial violence affect women at a time of growing global unrest. Especially in the Amazon where deforestation is devastating the forests important to the Kitchwa tribe.  She said international funding is how many protect the Amazon Rainforest. As an example, last year the United States agreed to send around 40 million dollars to the country through USAID — but then the Trump administration terminated most of the department in March. Courtesy of Cindy Sisa Andy Aguinda “To continue working and caring for our lands, the rainforest, and our people, we need help,” she said through a translator. Even when international funding goes into other countries for the purposes to protect Indigenous land, only around 17 percent ends up in the hands of Indigenous-led initiatives. “In my country, it’s difficult for the authorities to take us into account,” she said.  She said despite that she had hope for the future and hopes to make it to COP30 in Brazil, the international gathering that addresses climate change, though she will probably have to foot the bill herself. She said that Indigenous tribes of the Amazon are the ones fighting everyday to protect their territories, and she said those with this relationship with the forest need to share ancestral knowledge with the world at places like the UNPFII and COP30.  “We can’t stop if we want to live well, if we want our cultural identity to remain alive,” she said. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline From Greenland to Ghana, Indigenous youth work for climate justice on Apr 25, 2025.

Climate
Indigenous
Culture

Harris County commissioners approve climate justice plan

Nearly three years in the works, the Harris County Climate Justice Plan is a 59-page document that creates long-term strategies addressing natural resource conservation, infrastructure resiliency and flood control.

Sarah GrunauFlood waters fill southwest Houston streets during Hurricane Beryl on July 8, 2024.Harris County commissioners this month approved what’s considered the county’s most comprehensive climate justice plan to date. Nearly three years in the works, the Harris County Climate Justice Plan is a 59-page document that creates long-term strategies addressing natural resource conservation, infrastructure resiliency and flood control in the Houston area. The climate justice plan was created by the Office of County Administration’s Office of Sustainability and an environmental nonprofit, Coalition for Environment, Equity and Resilience. The plan sets goals in five buckets, said Stefania Tomaskovic, the coalition director for the nonprofit. Those include ecology, infrastructure, economy, community and culture. County officials got feedback from more than 340 residents and organizations to ensure the plans reflect the needs of the community. “We held a number of community meetings to really outline the vision and values for this process and then along the way we’ve integrated more and more community members into the process of helping to identify the major buckets of work,” Tomaskovic told Hello Houston. Feedback from those involved in the planning process of the climate justice plan had a simple message — people want clean air, strong infrastructure in their communities, transparency and the opportunity to live with dignity, according to the plan. It outlines plans to protect from certain risks through preventative floodplain and watershed management, land use regulations and proactive disaster preparation. Infrastructure steps in the plan include investing in generators and solar power battery backup, and expanding coordination of programs that provide rapid direct assistance after disasters. Economic steps in the plan including expanding resources with organizations to support programs that provide food, direct cash assistance and housing. Tomaskovic said the move could be cost effective because some studies show that for every dollar spent on mitigation, you’re actually saving $6. “It can be cost effective but also if you think about, like, the whole line of costs, if we are implementing programs that help keep people out of the emergency room, we could be saving in the long run, too,” she said. Funds that will go into implementing the projects have yet to be seen. The more than $700,000 climate plan was funded by nonprofit organizations, including the Jacob & Terese Hershey Foundation. “Some of them actually are just process improvements,” Lisa Lin, director of sustainability with Harris County, told Hello Houston. “Some of them are actually low-cost, no-cost actions. Some of them are kind of leaning on things that are happening in the community or happening in the county. Some of them might be new and then we’ll be looking at different funding sources.” The county will now be charged with bringing the plan into reality, which includes conducting a benefits and impacts analysis. County staffers will also develop an implementation roadmap to identify specific leaders and partners and a plan to track its success, according to the county. “This initiative is the first time a U.S. county has prepared a resiliency plan that covers its entire population, as opposed to its bureaucracy alone," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement. "At the heart of this plan are realistic steps to advance issues like clean air, resilient infrastructure, and housing affordability and availability. Many portions of the plan are already in progress, and I look forward to continued advancement over the years."

Climate
Conservation
Resources

Suggested Viewing

Voices of Transition

Voices of Transition is an enthusiastic documentary on farmer- and community-led responses to food insecurity in a scenario of climate change, peak oil, and economic crisis. Concrete examples from Cuba, France, and the United Kingdom tell of a future society where our monoculture deserts will be restored to living soil, where fields will be introduced into our cities, and where independence from oil will help us live a richer, more fulfilling life.

Agriculture
Food
Climate

Uncovering the Permian Climate Bomb

The fossil fuel industry is building a global threat in the oil fields of West Texas. Miguel Escoto, who has lived close to this region his whole life, witnesses the industry’s villainy for the first time by viewing oil and gas site emissions through optical gas imaging cameras, becoming a stand-in for a world that has yet to grasp the gravity of the Permian Climate Bomb.

Pollution
Activism
Climate

Ser Manguezal

Ser Manguezal, created by Eliseu Cavalcante, was inspired by Josué de Castro's book "Of Men and Crabs" from 1967. De Castro was a Brazilian geographer, physician, writer and activist against world hunger. In his book, Castro envisions men as crabs, learning to walk in the mangroves. This relationship between them seems to unify and blend all together making the human being part of that specific biome. This film is part of an ongoing project that examines those who depend on the mangrove ecosystem to survive, and the delicate relationship between humans and this particular ecosystem. It seeks to recognize the hard-working crab hunters of the mangroves and make their work more visible, and to bring awareness about the importance of mangroves to the environment. Worldwide, 3,400 square kilometers (1,300 square miles) of mangrove forests were lost between 2000 and 2016, or about 2% of the global mangrove area (NASA). About 62% of the losses were due to direct human causes such as agriculture and aquaculture. Mangrove degradation is greater than the average for tropical and subtropical forest loss.

Water
Conservation
Plants

Caught in Quicksand

The Dead Sea is disappearing. The documentary, Caught in Quicksand, was made to raise public awareness about the receding of the Dead Sea.

Water
Climate
Documentary

Crossing the Divide

An Iowa farmer reacts swiftly when he hears that radical climate marchers plan to disrupt peace in his tiny town. What he does after that offers a lesson for would-be peacemakers everywhere.

Inspirational
Activism
Climate

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