In the headlines

When business, environmental reporting are one

Sometimes the headlines just keep on giving. Traveling over the Thanksgiving holidays meant I missed my newspaper, so all the Arkansas news had to be retrieved online. I got a morning email outlining what the newspaper offered one day and its subject line conflated headlines of two stories into what looked like the Mona Lisa of headlines: “Scientists’ dicamba input unheeded; insanity defense pursued.”

I was astonished. Then I realized the semicolon meant the two were unrelated, dashing hope that ignoring the advice of scientists was finally considered an insane act.

That Nov. 21 article on the herbicide dicamba was a report about EPA scientists’ recommendations of how much buffer is needed to lessen chemical drift damage to other crops. The scientists advised 443 feet of buffer, which higher-ups then reduced to 57 feet. That amounts to “nothing,” said Steve Smith, the agriculture director of an Indiana-based tomato processor. Politics and money-as-usual are suspected as the influencing push on this decision. The Bayer-Monsanto chemical giant is, yet again, looming heavily over EPA’s ability to function as an independent arbiter of environmental effects and human health. Thousands of complaints and millions of damaged acres of crops from the drifting herbicide are being ignored, definitely introducing some insanity into the lives of a lot of people.

No wonder my mind at first moved right past that semicolon. The whole comment made perfect sense.

The old, worn and unnecessary tug-of-war between economics and the environment rages on in just about every issue concerning safely living on this planet. The dominating power of big money has historically told environmentalists to sit down and shut up. Money’s mantra is that regulations for clean water, air and soil will jeopardize jobs, trade and economic growth. And historically, this economic intimidation has worked politically and socially. The rationalization that just a little more pollution traded for more and more of whatever industry makes money on has delivered us to our current doorstep.

As climate change slaps our collective minds into environmental reality, the military services are studying the global ramifications these changes have on national security. Population displacement caused by shrinking coastlines and crop failures, frequent severe weather events, wildfires and agricultural challenges from changing climate all affect military planning. The military also spends billions trying to clean up their toxic chemicals and explosives waste sites across the country, according to a ProPublica article titled, “Suppressed study: EPA underestimated dangers of widespread chemicals.” Economically speaking, these issues are all big-ticket losers for taxpayers.

Ignoring the cost of manufacturing something that becomes hazardous waste with the exponentially growing expense of cleaning it up is a type of false economy. Even worse is the false economy of human health subsidizing the profits of private enterprise, when victims pay and polluters don’t.

Articles in this newspaper’s business section are gradually acknowledging the role environmental conditions play in business’ bottom line. The Nov. 13 section carried four. One article was about the “fragile equation” between OPEC and shale oil production in the U.S. Also mentioned in all this oil market dealing was that the United Arab Emirates will begin fracking, “to gain access to otherwise unreachable natural gas reserves.” Although nothing about the environment was included, eventually the consequences on climate change from more fossil fuel extraction will have to be factored into the true costs of carbon pollution on real, not subsidized, fuel values.

That same day, another article, “New Mexico weighs use of oil wastewater,” reported that in 2017 nearly 38 billion gallons of produced water resulted from oil and gas operations in a state averaging less than 15 inches of rain annually. Even more problematic is how little attention has been paid to that water’s toxicity and its broad effects as industry and EPA search for how to use it in other applications.

In addition was this headline, which also raises the specter of climate change: “Study: Warming harms shellfish—Scientists say environment aids predators, ruins habitats.” This report stated that scientists’ findings “came down squarely on the side of a warming ocean environment and a changing climate, and not excessive harvest by fishermen.”

And, although most people are vaguely aware of the extremely serious environmental nuances of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an update on Vietnam entering that trade pact also appeared in the business section.

Summing up stories so we’ll read them in less than 10-word headlines is an art form of sorts. Will environmental issues within economic context continue to be coincidental or become concurrent with business reporting? I do hope that simultaneous examination of both is not an insane proposition.