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Thanks to termite tents, California is top U.S. emitter of a planet-warming pesticide

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Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Despite its aggressive reputation for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, California releases more of a climate-warming pesticide than all other states combined, most of it from homes fumigated for termites, according to a study published Wednesday.The termite killing gas — sulfuryl flouride — has been found to be 4,800 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat. When a team of Johns Hopkins scientists set out to map exactly where the gas was being released, they were startled to find that California generated as much as 12% of global emissions of the synthetic fumigant.“The results were puzzling because the emissions were all coming from one place,” said Scot Miller, Johns Hopkins assistant professor of environmental health and engineering. “Other greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are found everywhere across the U.S. On our sulfuryl fluoride map, only California lit up like a Christmas tree.”As much as 85% of U.S. emissions of the chemical come from California, mostly from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, the scientists found.The chemical’s primary use is the fumigation of homes and other structures, where a building is covered with an airtight tent and gas is pumped in to kill termites and other pests. The brightly colored tents have become a common sight in Southern California neighborhoods.Within the first two hours of a tent being opened, however, 90% of the gas escapes into the atmosphere, where it stays for about 40 years. (Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, remains in the atmosphere for up to 1,000 years.)The fumigant is also used to protect grains, nuts and dried fruits from pests after they are harvested. A fumigation worker stands on the roof of a Huntington Beach church that has been covered with a fumigation tent. (Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times ) The new study is not the first time the pesticide has faced scrutiny.In 2022, environmental groups filed a petition with the state requesting that use of the gas be phased out.The Center for Biological Diversity and Californians for Pesticide Reform, a coalition of 190 groups, said California was the world’s largest consumer of sulfuryl fluoride, and used 3 million pounds in 2021. The climate impact of using that much of the pesticide, the petition said, was equivalent to the carbon dioxide released from about 1 million vehicles a year.“Pesticide use in California has a significant, yet overlooked, impact on state greenhouse gas emissions,” the petition said.The groups’ petition also detailed the dangers to human health of the odorless pesticide, which works by attacking the nervous system. At least 16 deaths have been blamed on sulfuryl fluoride since 1994.California Department of Public Health scientists detailed in a 2019 report how some families had become ill from what remained of the gas even after the home was cleared for reentry.Douglas Products, which sells the pesticide under the brand name Vikane, opposed the petition. The company noted that most of the deaths happened after illegal or unauthorized entry into the homes while they were still tented.The Missouri company, which is owned by private equity firm Brightstar Capital Partners, also said the chemical had a “negligible” impact on climate because it makes up only 0.035% of total greenhouse gas emissions.The California Air Resources Board denied the environmental groups’ petition in February 2023, saying the agency lacked “sufficient information” to determine whether the pesticide should be phased out. The board said it would continue to study the issue.Use of the gas surged after sales of another fumigant called methyl bromide were sharply curtailed because of the harm it caused to the ozone layer.In the study published Wednesday, Miller and his colleagues analyzed 15,000 air samples collected between 2015 and 2019 by NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory scientists. They factored in wind speed, direction and other variables to trace the chemicals to where they were released.They noted that one caveat of their work was that there are currently no air monitors that would detect the gas in Florida, where the pesticide is also used to control termites.In an interview, Dylan Gaeta, a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins who led the study, said that the climate-warming impact of California’s annual release of sulfuryl fluoride is almost as large as what the state has saved on average annually in greenhouse gas emissions from measures required by AB 32. The 2006 law has lowered emissions through improvements such as vehicles that get better gas mileage, a switch to electric cars and more renewable power.Gaeta pointed out that pest control companies are already offering alternatives to the gas, including orange oil treatments, that are safer for humans and don’t have the same planet-warming effects.“For most greenhouse gases, California has been very intentional about how it’s going to reduce emissions,” Gaeta said. “This one has slipped under the radar.” Newsletter Toward a more sustainable California Get Boiling Point, our newsletter exploring climate change, energy and the environment, and become part of the conversation — and the solution. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Despite its environmental reputation, California emits more of a climate-warming pesticide than all other states combined, mostly from termite fumigation.

Despite its aggressive reputation for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, California releases more of a climate-warming pesticide than all other states combined, most of it from homes fumigated for termites, according to a study published Wednesday.

The termite killing gas — sulfuryl flouride — has been found to be 4,800 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat.

When a team of Johns Hopkins scientists set out to map exactly where the gas was being released, they were startled to find that California generated as much as 12% of global emissions of the synthetic fumigant.

“The results were puzzling because the emissions were all coming from one place,” said Scot Miller, Johns Hopkins assistant professor of environmental health and engineering. “Other greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are found everywhere across the U.S. On our sulfuryl fluoride map, only California lit up like a Christmas tree.”

As much as 85% of U.S. emissions of the chemical come from California, mostly from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, the scientists found.

The chemical’s primary use is the fumigation of homes and other structures, where a building is covered with an airtight tent and gas is pumped in to kill termites and other pests. The brightly colored tents have become a common sight in Southern California neighborhoods.

Within the first two hours of a tent being opened, however, 90% of the gas escapes into the atmosphere, where it stays for about 40 years. (Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, remains in the atmosphere for up to 1,000 years.)

The fumigant is also used to protect grains, nuts and dried fruits from pests after they are harvested.

A man stands on the roof of a building that has been covered with a fumigation tent.

A fumigation worker stands on the roof of a Huntington Beach church that has been covered with a fumigation tent.

(Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times )

The new study is not the first time the pesticide has faced scrutiny.

In 2022, environmental groups filed a petition with the state requesting that use of the gas be phased out.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Californians for Pesticide Reform, a coalition of 190 groups, said California was the world’s largest consumer of sulfuryl fluoride, and used 3 million pounds in 2021. The climate impact of using that much of the pesticide, the petition said, was equivalent to the carbon dioxide released from about 1 million vehicles a year.

“Pesticide use in California has a significant, yet overlooked, impact on state greenhouse gas emissions,” the petition said.

The groups’ petition also detailed the dangers to human health of the odorless pesticide, which works by attacking the nervous system. At least 16 deaths have been blamed on sulfuryl fluoride since 1994.

California Department of Public Health scientists detailed in a 2019 report how some families had become ill from what remained of the gas even after the home was cleared for reentry.

Douglas Products, which sells the pesticide under the brand name Vikane, opposed the petition. The company noted that most of the deaths happened after illegal or unauthorized entry into the homes while they were still tented.

The Missouri company, which is owned by private equity firm Brightstar Capital Partners, also said the chemical had a “negligible” impact on climate because it makes up only 0.035% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

The California Air Resources Board denied the environmental groups’ petition in February 2023, saying the agency lacked “sufficient information” to determine whether the pesticide should be phased out. The board said it would continue to study the issue.

Use of the gas surged after sales of another fumigant called methyl bromide were sharply curtailed because of the harm it caused to the ozone layer.

In the study published Wednesday, Miller and his colleagues analyzed 15,000 air samples collected between 2015 and 2019 by NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory scientists. They factored in wind speed, direction and other variables to trace the chemicals to where they were released.

They noted that one caveat of their work was that there are currently no air monitors that would detect the gas in Florida, where the pesticide is also used to control termites.

In an interview, Dylan Gaeta, a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins who led the study, said that the climate-warming impact of California’s annual release of sulfuryl fluoride is almost as large as what the state has saved on average annually in greenhouse gas emissions from measures required by AB 32. The 2006 law has lowered emissions through improvements such as vehicles that get better gas mileage, a switch to electric cars and more renewable power.

Gaeta pointed out that pest control companies are already offering alternatives to the gas, including orange oil treatments, that are safer for humans and don’t have the same planet-warming effects.

“For most greenhouse gases, California has been very intentional about how it’s going to reduce emissions,” Gaeta said. “This one has slipped under the radar.”

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If Trump’s EPA abandons climate policy, could California take over on greenhouse gases?

Legal experts, including a former federal official and UCLA professor, say California could go it alone if the federal government stops regulating greenhouse gases. One reason to try is to protect the state’s clean-car economy.

In summary Legal experts, including a former federal official and UCLA professor, say California could go it alone if the federal government stops regulating greenhouse gases. One reason to try is to protect the state’s clean-car economy. California has long cast itself as the nation’s climate conscience — and its policy lab. Now, as the Environmental Protection Agency moves to revoke the backbone of federal climate rules — the scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health — one of the state’s top climate officials is weighing a provocative idea put forward by environmental law experts: If Washington retreats, California could lead on carbon-controlling regulation.   Absent what’s known as the endangerment finding, the EPA may soon consider abandoning the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and other sources, furthering the Trump Administration’s stated aim to dismantle U.S. climate policy.  While decrying the prospect of such a move, climate advocates say a repeal would yield a silver lining: California and other states could in theory set their own greenhouse gas rules for cars and trucks, regulations previously superseded by federal authority. Cars and trucks represent more than a third of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. A long shot regulatory gambit could clean some of the nation’s dirtiest air – and keep the state’s clean-car transition alive. “All options are currently on the table,” Lauren Sanchez, chair of the California Air Resources Board, told CalMatters in an interview. Authority states have never had before A former federal official and expert on the Clean Air Act – who is also a law professor at UCLA – first floated this idea.  Ann Carlson wrote in the law journal Environmental Forum that an aggressive federal action against climate policy “could, ironically, provide states with authority they’ve never had before.” The Trump administration now argues that greenhouse gases do not endanger health and that regulation is more harmful — a claim widely rejected by scientists, businesses and environmental groups, as well as states, including California. The Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, on Sept. 30, 2025. Photo by Stella Kalinina for CalMatters “If greenhouse gases aren’t covered by the Clean Air Act,” Carlson told CalMatters, “then California could presumably regulate them — and so could every other state.” Carlson, who ran the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration until last year and has written extensively about the landmark law, argues that the act only preempts state rules for pollutants it actually covers. States “have a pretty strong legal argument” to regulate greenhouse gases, she said. The EPA, for its part, argues that states would still be barred from setting their own standards, arguing that its broad authority over air pollution covers even emissions the agency chooses not to regulate. That’s a view shared by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade association and lobbying group, which supported overturning California’s phaseout of new, gas-powered cars, as well as the American Trucking Associations, which has opposed some of California’s rules on trucks. Carlson said that argument doesn’t hold up. In her Environmental Forum article, she wrote: “If Congress didn’t intend the act to cover greenhouse gases, as the administration argues, then it’s hard to believe Congress intended to preempt states and localities from regulating them.” In other words, she says, preemption has its limits.  Other experts agreed the idea is worth considering.  Ethan Elkind, who directs the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, said that states are free to “do whatever they want,” as long as the federal government hasn’t preempted them.  Not a slam dunk for California to step in For the better part of a century, California has worked to curb air pollution at the state and local level. The state’s vanguard status positions it well to test Trump’s move to curb federal climate regulation, say experts.  “I personally would be advocating that they move ahead,” said Mary Nichols, a former air board chair. “And if I were there, I would be looking to gain support for doing it.” California holds a unique status under federal law. It can set tougher tailpipe-emission standards than the rest of the country — a recognition of its early leadership in fighting smog. Since 1968, the state has obtained more than 100 federal waivers for its vehicle rules, and other states can adopt California’s standards under certain conditions. UC Berkeley law professor Daniel Farber said the state could even take a dual-track approach. “We don’t really think we need a waiver,” he would argue after EPA abandons the field, “but just in case we do: yes, give us one.” California’s latest clash with Washington stems from a decades-long dance over who sets the nation’s toughest clean-car rules. The state’s strict vehicle rules have helped spur innovations from catalytic converters to cleaner fuel to electric cars. The regulatory push began in Los Angeles after skies grew so smog-choked they stung peoples’ eyes. In 1966, California adopted the nation’s first tailpipe standards. When Congress passed the 1970 Clean Air Act, it gave the state rare authority to set tougher rules — making California both a laboratory and a trailblazer, so long as it secured a federal waiver. In 2002, California passed the nation’s first law regulating greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling confirmed those gases are pollutants under federal law, leading to the Obama administration’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that they harm public health. Such a move would fit California’s pattern of pushing first and asking permission later. In 2005, the state adopted its greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles and sought a waiver before it was even clear whether carbon qualified as pollution under federal law. The EPA initially denied that request in 2008 but reversed course a year later, granting the waiver in 2009. “So this wouldn’t necessarily be a slam dunk approach for the state to take, but I think the legal avenue is now there,” said Elkin, of UC Berkeley. Targeting cars with new regulation If California tried to regulate greenhouse gases on its own, it would have both experience and infrastructure to rely on. The process would look a lot like how the state has written past clean-car rules — except this time, the target would be carbon itself. California’s clean-car rules have operated within the permission-seeking framework set up by the Clean Air Act — until this year, when Trump and Congress moved to block the state’s plans to phase out gas cars and tighten diesel-truck standards. Trump’s EPA then went further by proposing to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding, framing it as a win for “consumer choice.” Most of the state’s climate programs already run under authority of California’s own groundbreaking state laws: clean-energy mandates for utilities, a carbon-trading program for businesses, even standards to cut the carbon in fuels. Cars are different. They’re sold into a national market, and tailpipe emissions have long been federally preempted — one reason California has needed Washington’s permission to go its own way. If the state decides to test those limits, regulators would need to draft new rules and open them to public review — a process that could take years. California has already started down the path of new rules for clean cars and trucks. Last month, the Air Resources Board began the process of crafting clean car rules in response to the Trump administration’s rollback of the state’s new gas-car ban — a revocation the state is also fighting in court. In December, the board plans to begin the process of writing new emissions rules for trucks. The automobile association declined to comment on the new rulemaking effort.  Patrick Kelly, vice president of energy and environmental affairs for American Trucking Associations, said the group would work with its state affiliate to “respond to specific proposals. “ “More broadly, (our group) supports achievable national standards and opposes a patchwork of state and local standards that Congress sought to avoid,” Kelly wrote in an email. Gov. Gavin Newsom swears in incoming California Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez on Oct. 1, 2025. Photo courtesy of Office of the Governor Asked by CalMatters whether the new rulemakings could become the vehicle for California to go its own way under Trump, Sanchez, the air board chair, said it’s an option staff is studying. “It’s something that staff is looking into, and I look forward to digging into myself,” Sanchez said. No downside to trying, and some upsides Even if legal experts like the idea in theory, UC Berkeley’s Dan Farber says California going forward alone is a longshot in practice.  “There’s a chance you would win,” Farber said, of the argument that the state could directly regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars. “You’re buying a lawsuit, but other than litigation expenses, I don’t think there’s much downside in trying to do it.” Farber and others point out that the Trump administration and car and truck manufacturers would almost certainly sue to block state-level efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.  The Alliance for Automotive Innovation warned, in comments to the EPA, that if states were not preempted, any unregulated emission “would then become fair game,” creating conflicting standards across the country. Automakers have long argued that letting states write their own climate rules would create a costly patchwork of standards, raising prices for consumers and complicating production for a national market. California is in somewhat of a legal quandary. The Clean Air Act requires California to meet national pollution standards, and the state still has some of the most air-polluted regions in the country. The state’s solutions rely heavily on clean-car and truck rules to meet those requirements. If California falls short, it could lose federal highway funding, a situation that Sanchez called a “no-win, Catch 22.”  After decades of regulation and incentives, California has built a reputation as a leader in electric cars, and experts said if the state pushes further on policy, that could help keep California’s clean-car transition alive and its electric-vehicle goals within reach.  Nick Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, said California could also risk getting ahead of consumers if it goes it alone. Electric cars proved less popular than policymakers expected when it originally passed its goal to do away with sales of new gas-powered cars.  “What is clear is that the program was not overwhelmingly popular amongst the public, even in California, right?” Nigro said. “That’s usually a flag for policymakers.” Craig Segall, an independent consultant and former state air board deputy, said there’s another factor to consider: by preserving demand and infrastructure for EVs, the state could maintain a beachhead for innovation that a future president might build on. With no coherent federal policy to compete in the global EV market, California could again use its regulatory and investment muscle — just as it once did in helping spawn electric car maker Tesla — to push the market forward. “What the feds are basically signaling here is that the field is open for anyone who’s serious about being a competitive car or truck company in five years,” Segall said. “One of those paths is: the world’s fourth largest economy figures out ways to take its manufacturing economic capacity and just plow ahead.”

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How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling

Exclusive: Research shows oil, gas and coal firms’ unprecedented access to Cop26-29, blocking urgent climate actionMore than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

More than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The roughly 5,350 lobbyists mingling with world leaders and climate negotiators in recent years worked for at least 859 fossil fuel organizations including trade groups, foundations and 180 oil, gas and coal companies involved in every part of the supply chain from exploration and production to distribution and equipment, research shared exclusively with the Guardian has found.Just 90 of the fossil fuel corporations that sent lobbyists to climate talks between 2021 and 2024 accounted for more than half (57%) of all the oil and gas produced last year, according to the analysis by Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO), a coalition of 450 organizations campaigning to stop the fossil fuel industry blocking and delaying global climate action.These corporations, which include many of the world’s most profitable private and publicly owned oil and gas majors, accounted for the production of 33,699m barrels of oil equivalent in 2024 – enough to cover more than the entire area of Spain with a 1cm blanket of oil.The same 90 firms also account for almost two-thirds (63%) of all short-term upstream fossil fuel expansion projects which are gearing up for exploration and production, according to the newly released Global Oil and Gas Exit List – a dataset which includes more than 1,700 companies covering more than 90% of global oil and gas activity.If executed, these expansion projects will produce enough oil – 2.623m km² at 1cm thickness – to coat the entire landmass of seven European countries (France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway) combined.The findings have renewed calls for fossil fuel companies and other big polluters to be banned from the annual climate negotiations amid mounting scientific evidence that the world has failed to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial levels,.“This information clearly exposes corporate capture of the global climate process … the space that should be about science and the people has been transformed into a large carbon business hall,” said Adilson Vieira, spokesperson for the Amazonian Work Group. “While forest communities fight for survival, the same companies that cause climate collapse buy credentials and political influence to continue expanding their fossil empires.”“Not only are Indigenous peoples on the frontlines of their extractive sites suffering human rights violations, but we also face the brunt of climate chaos on our lands with worsening floods, wildfires, and extreme heat waves. We need to take down the ‘for sale’ sign on Mother Earth and bar entry to Cop for oil and gas lobbyists,” said Brenna Yellowthunder, lead coordinator for the Indigenous Environmental Network, a member of KBPO.The 30th UN climate summit (Cop30) opens on Monday in Belem, a city in the Brazilian Amazon – the world’s largest rainforest, which is being destroyed by ever-expanding fossil fuel exploitation, industrial agriculture, and mining, among other extractive industries.The annual meetings are where every country in the world negotiates on how best to tackle the climate crisis. The decisions should be driven by the legally binding United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty, and the 2015 Paris agreement to curtail global heating to under 1.5C.The research analyses the fossil fuel lobbyists known to have attended the negotiations in Glasgow (Cop26), Sharm el-Sheikh (Cop27), Dubai (Cop28) and Baku (Cop29). Until then, information about lobbyists was not collated by the UNFCCC.Growing anger at the lack of meaningful action by the world’s wealthiest, most polluting countries has been compounded by revelations that the fossil fuel industry appears to be granted greater access to the climate talks than most countries.Last year, 1,773 registered fossil fuel lobbyists attended the summit in Azerbaijan – 70% more than the total number of delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined (1,033).But the true reach of fossil fuel tentacles is undoubtedly deeper as the lobbyists data excludes executives and other company representatives on official country delegations participating directly in the confidential negotiations, and those attending as guests of governments, known as overflow delegates.The largest number of known lobbyists in recent years were representing state-owned companies from the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Azerbaijan.Many of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel corporations have also been present at recent Cop summits, at a time when governments faced huge public pressure – but failed – to agree to phase out fossil fuels despite deadly climate impacts affecting every corner of the planet.Between 2021 and 2024, Shell sent a combined total of 37 lobbyists, BP sent 36, ExxonMobil 32 and Chevron 20.In the past five years, the four oil majors made more than $420bn in combined profits.On Friday the Exxon CEO Darren Woods will headline a Cop30 launch event in Brasilia hosted by the US chamber of commerce called Pragmatic Business Solutions for Carbon Accounting and Emission Reductions. The US, which like every state is legally obliged under international law to tackle the climate crisis, has withdrawn from the Paris agreement and is not sending a country delegation to the summit.Petrobas, the majority state owned Brazilian multinational which sent at least 28 lobbyists to the past four climate summits, was recently grant ed a licence to conduct exploratory oil drilling in the sea off the Amazon, which is home to multiple Indigenous communities and about 10% of the planet’s known species.A spokesperson said: “Petrobras will be present at COP30, as it has been at previous talks, because it recognizes the opportunity to discuss sustainable models… The company’s participation in COP30 reinforces its commitment to follow and contribute to international debates on climate and energy.”Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment.After years of campaigning by civil society groups, Cop delegates this year are being asked to publicly disclose who is funding their participation – and confirm that their objectives are in alignment with the UNFCCC. But the new transparency requirement excludes anyone in official government delegations or overflows, and calls for stricter conflict of interest protections to cut industry influence have not been adequately heeded, advocates say.“The new rules are a welcome start, but they come decades too late … and transparency without exclusion is performative. You cannot claim to fix a process already captured by the very corporations burning the planet and fueling wars,” said Mohammed Usrof, executive director of the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy. “The UNFCCC must move from disclosure to disqualification… without reform this process will not save the world, and instead, will just help bury it.”UNFCCC has been contacted for comment.

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Agriculture
Crisis

Climate Risk Rarely Leads to ECB Collateral Downgrade, Blog Finds

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The European Central Bank is already factoring climate-related risk into the assessment of collateral used to borrow money...

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Climate

The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart.

The environmental group gave up its singular focus on climate change for a broader agenda. The ensuing internal strife left it weakened as it takes on the Trump administration.

The environmental group gave up its singular focus on climate change for a broader agenda. The ensuing internal strife left it weakened as it takes on the Trump administration.

Climate
Social Justice

Where climate meets community

MIT’s Living Climate Futures Lab takes a human-centered approach to investigating a global challenge.

The MIT Living Climate Futures Lab (LCFL) centers the human dimensions of climate change, bringing together expertise from across MIT to address one of the world’s biggest challenges.The LCFL has three main goals: “addressing how climate change plays out in everyday life, focusing on community-oriented partnerships, and encouraging cross-disciplinary conversations around climate change on campus,” says Chris Walley, the SHASS Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and head of MIT’s Anthropology Section. “We think this is a crucial direction for MIT and will make a strong statement about the kind of human-centered, interdisciplinary work needed to tackle this issue.”Walley is faculty lead of LCFL, working in collaboration with a group of 19 faculty colleagues and researchers. The LCFL began to coalesce in 2022 when MIT faculty and affiliates already working with communities dealing with climate change issues organized a symposium, inviting urban farmers, place-based environmental groups, and others to MIT. Since then, the lab has consolidated the efforts of faculty and affiliates representing disciplines from across the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) and the Institute.Amah Edoh, a cultural anthropologist and managing director of LCFL, says the lab’s collaboration with community organizations and development of experiential learning classes aims to bridge the gap that can exist between the classroom and the real world.“Sometimes we can find ourselves in a bubble where we’re only in conversation with other people from within academia or our own field of practice. There can be a disconnect between what students are learning somewhat abstractly and the ‘real world’ experience of the issues” Edoh says. “By taking up topics from the multidimensional approach that experiential learning makes possible, students learn to take complexity as a given, which can help to foster more critical thinking in them, and inform their future practice in profound ways.”Edoh points out that the effects of climate change play out in a huge array of areas: health, food security, livelihoods, housing, and governance structures, to name a few.“The Living Climate Futures Lab supports MIT researchers in developing the long-term collaborations with community partners that are essential to adequately identifying and responding to the challenges that climate change creates in everyday life,” she says.Manduhai Buyandelger, professor of anthropology and one of the participants in LCFL, developed the class 21A.S01 (Anthro-Engineering: Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale), which has in turn sparked related classes. The goal is “to merge technological innovation with people-centered environments.” Working closely with residents of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Buyandelger and collaborator Mike Short, the Class of 1941 Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, helped develop a molten salt heat bank as a reusable energy source.“My work with Mike Short on energy and alternative heating in Mongolia helps to cultivate a new generation of creative and socially minded engineers who prioritize people in thinking about technical solutions,” Buyandelger says, adding, “In our course, we collaborate on creating interdisciplinary methods where we fuse anthropological methods with engineering innovations so that we can expand and deepen our approach to mitigate climate change.”Iselle Barrios ’25, says 21A.S01 was her first anthropology course. She traveled to Mongolia and was able to experience firsthand all the ways in which the air pollution and heating problem was much larger and more complicated than it seemed from MIT’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus.“It was my first exposure to anthropological and STS critiques of science and engineering, as well as international development,” says Barrios, a chemical engineering major. “It fundamentally reshaped the way I see the role of technology and engineers in the broader social context in which they operate. It really helped me learn to think about problems in a more holistic and people-centered way.”LCFL participant Alvin Harvey, a postdoc in the MIT Media Lab’s Space Enabled Research Group and a citizen of the Navajo Nation, works to incorporate traditional knowledge in engineering and science to “support global stewardship of earth and space ecologies.”"I envision the Living Climate Futures Lab as a collaborative space that can be an igniter and sustainer of relationships, especially between MIT and those whose have generational and cultural ties to land and space that is being impacted by climate change,” Harvey says. “I think everyone in our lab understands that protecting our climate future is a collective journey."Kate Brown, the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in History of Science, is also a participant in LCFL. Her current interest is urban food sovereignty movements, in which working-class city dwellers used waste to create “the most productive agriculture in recorded human history,” Brown says. While pursuing that work, Brown has developed relationships and worked with urban farmers in Mansfield, Ohio, as well as in Washington and Amsterdam.Brown and Susan Solomon, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Chemistry, teach a class called STS.055 (Living Dangerously: Environmental Programs from 1900 to Today) that presents the environmental problems and solutions of the 20th century, and how some “solutions” created more problems over time. Brown also plans to teach a class on the history of global food production once she gets access to a small plot of land on campus for a lab site.“The Living Climate Futures Lab gives us the structure and flexibility to work with communities that are struggling to find solutions to the problems being created by the climate crisis,” says Brown.Earlier this year, the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) selected the Living Climate Futures Lab as its inaugural Faculty-Driven Initiative (FDI), which comes with a $500,000 seed grant.MIT Provost Anantha Chandrakasan, co-chair of MITHIC, says the LCFL exemplifies how we can confront the climate crisis by working in true partnership with the communities most affected.“By combining scientific insight with cultural understanding and lived experience, this initiative brings a deeper dimension to MIT’s climate efforts — one grounded in collaboration, empathy, and real-world impact,” says Chandrakasan.Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of SHASS and co-chair of MITHIC, says the LCFL is precisely the type of interdisciplinary collaboration the FDI program was designed to support."By bringing together expertise from across MIT, I am confident the Living Climate Futures Lab will make significant contributions in the Institute’s effort to address the climate crisis," says Rayo.Walley said the seed grant will support a second symposium in 2026 to be co-designed with community groups, a suite of experiential learning classes, workshops, a speaker series, and other programming. Throughout this development phase, the lab will solicit donor support to build it into an ongoing MIT initiative and a leader in the response to climate change.

Climate
Agriculture
Crisis

Suggested Viewing

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

The Day She Stole The Sun

In 2019, after years of severe drought, Australia endured an unprecedented bushfire crisis. The fires spanned almost the entire length of the country… and one small village on the New South Wales South Coast was hit by the full force of its destruction. The village became a national symbol for resilience and unbreakable Australian spirit. Told by the people who were there, this is not a story about tragedy, it’s a story about community. This is the story of Cobargo.

Forests
Climate
Crisis

Capturing The Fire

When Louise Coghill saw the first plume of smoke begin to rise behind her parents property, she could never have predicted that in less than four hours, it would become a wall of flames, swallowing everything in its path. A photographer by trade, Louise has travelled the world documenting everything from the nomadic wanderers of Mongolia, to base life at Mount Everest. Capturing the extraordinary comes naturally to Louise, so when her family home in the semi-rural Western Australian town of Gidgegannup became engulfed in flames, her first instinct wasn’t to take shelter, it was to pick up her camera.

Conservation
Climate
Nature

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

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

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