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Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge: How the GOP could finally break the impasse.
The prospects for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration are better than they have been in years.
The Trump administration and congressional Republicans in recent weeks have renewed the fight over opening part of an enormous wildlife refuge in northern Alaska to oil and gas exploration.
The battle over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which pits Republicans in Washington and much of the political and business establishment in Alaska against congressional Democrats and environmental and conservation groups, has been going on for decades. With Republicans holding both houses of Congress and the presidency, the prospects for opening the refuge, at least to studies of its oil and gas potential, are better than they have been in years. And a budget resolution introduced late last month, and supported by Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, may help pave the way.
“There seems to be a decent opportunity to get this done,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, which promotes fossil fuels.
Here’s a look at what is happening and why, and what is at stake.
What is the refuge?
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge consists of about 19 million acres of pristine land in northeastern Alaska. Much of the acreage was first set aside in 1960 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower; the full refuge, which is about the size of South Carolina, was established through a congressional act in 1980. About 40 percent of the land, mostly in the Brooks Range, is designated as wilderness, to remain undeveloped with no human settlement.
The refuge, one of the largest in the United States, is the nesting place for several hundred species of migratory birds; home to wolves, polar bears, caribou and other mammals; and spawning grounds for Dolly Varden trout and other fish.
“I can say definitively that it is a national treasure,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska regional director of the Wilderness Society.
There is private land within the refuge, including the Inupiat village of Kaktovik, A Gwich’in community, Arctic Village, is just outside the refuge. Outdoor activities, including hunting, are allowed, but there are no roads or facilities except in Kaktovik.
Why might drilling for oil and gas be allowed there?
When Congress established the refuge in 1980, it deferred action on the issue of whether oil and gas exploration should be allowed in part of it: 1.5 million acres of coastal plain between the Brooks Range and the Beaufort Sea. This land came to be called the “1002 area,” after the part of the act that refers to it, and it was thought likely to contain a lot of oil because it was not far from Prudhoe Bay and other parts of the North Slope where large oil fields had been discovered beginning in the 1960s.
But the 1002 area is also a critical habitat for much of the refuge’s wildlife. Polar bears make dens there, and it is where most of the huge Porcupine caribou herd — 200,000 animals in all — come in spring and early summer to calve and forage for food.
The 1980 act allowed for studies to determine the potential for oil and gas development in the 1002 area. In 1984 and 1985, a consortium of oil companies undertook seismic studies, in which special trucks “thumped” the ground and the reflected sound waves provided details about rock formations and potential oil and gas reserves in them. A 1998 assessment by the United States Geological Survey that relied in part on those seismic studies estimated that the 1002 area contained 4 billion to 12 billion barrels of recoverable oil. (The North Slope currently produces about 180 million barrels a year.)
Republicans have long wanted to open the area to drilling, or at least to allow new seismic studies using improved technology to get a clearer picture of where the oil is. Environmental groups say that even studying the land in this way damages it — they say there are still signs of the 1980s seismic work on the landscape — and that the area is too important to wildlife and should remain protected.
Many political leaders and business interests in Alaska favor opening the refuge. Producing more oil and gas would add to state revenues, which have fallen in recent years as North Slope oil production has declined and prices have fallen. Native Alaskans in the region tend to be divided on the issue.
Unlike some other federal lands that can be opened to drilling by Interior Department actions, opening the refuge requires congressional action.
How might drilling be allowed there?
This year, Republicans opened the fight on two fronts. In a memo in August, Interior Department officials proposed changing a rule that had limited exploratory studies in the refuge to the mid-1980s. Under the proposed change, such studies could now be undertaken anytime.
Then, in the past few weeks, Republicans in the Senate introduced a budget resolution that would in effect tie opening the refuge to the budget. The resolution would require the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee — headed by Ms. Murkowski, long a drilling proponent — to come up with a plan to generate $1 billion in new revenues over 10 years. A budget resolution introduced in the House in July would require a House committee to come up with a similar plan.
A compromise House-Senate plan, which presumably would involve selling oil and gas leases in the refuge as the way to generate the revenue, would eventually be voted on as part of the budget process. Only simple majorities would be needed for passage. Republicans in the Senate, who hold 52 seats, would not need the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.
This approach has been tried before, once during the Clinton administration — when it was vetoed by the president — and in 2005, when opposition from moderate Republicans scuttled the idea.
Senate Democrats immediately announced opposition to the budget move this time, but to block it they would need at least a few Republicans to join them.
The Interior Department’s proposed change to allow new seismic studies would have to go through a public comment period and would likely be challenged in court by environmental groups.
What would the impact be?
There is no certainty that oil companies would rush to study or further explore the potential for oil and gas production in the refuge, especially with oil prices, currently about $50 a barrel, far lower than they were earlier this decade. Shell pulled out of plans to drill for oil in Arctic waters off Alaska two years ago, citing high costs and other factors.
Mr. Pyle said there were many issues, including oil prices and production costs, that companies would have to consider before deciding to proceed in the refuge. But, he said, “the economics work better on land than offshore.”
If the refuge were opened, the first step would be to conduct new seismic studies, likely using technology that produces three-dimensional images of underground formations. Then, exploratory wells would be drilled; if they proved successful, production wells would follow. How long the process would take would depend on many factors, but one estimate is that oil could be flowing within five years.
Proponents of drilling in the refuge sometimes cite a proposal offered by Republicans more than a decade ago to limit the footprint of oil and gas wells and any related activities to 2,000 acres, just a tiny fraction of the refuge’s 19 million acres. They note that technologies like directional drilling, which allows multiple wells to be drilled outward from one platform, would reduce the overall impact.
But environmental groups say that the 2,000-acre footprint is misleading. Even if the wellheads cover relatively little area, roads, pipelines, facilities for workers and other structures could have a much bigger environmental impact. Among other things, they say, the infrastructure and activity could disturb caribou and lead them to abandon their usual calving sites for less suitable locations outside the 1002 area.
“There is a large and growing segment of the public that really understands there are some places we protect,” said Sarah Greenberger, vice president for conservation at the National Audubon Society. “And there’s a continued sense that this is one of those places.”
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Climate change threat to rich and poor alike.
It is critical to remember that the long-term reduction of emissions is THE most important risk reduction tactic we have, and we must deliver on that ambition.
OCTOBER 13 — From Miami and Puerto Rico to Barbuda and Havana, the devastation of this year’s hurricane season across Latin America and the Caribbean serves as a reminder that the impacts of climate change know no borders.
In recent weeks, Category 5 hurricanes have brought normal life to a standstill for millions in the Caribbean and on the American mainland. Harvey, Irma and Maria have been particularly damaging.
The 3.4 million inhabitants of Puerto Rico have been scrambling for basic necessities including food and water, the island of Barbuda has been rendered uninhabitable, and dozens of people are missing or dead on the Unesco world heritage island of Dominica.
The impact is not confined to this region. The record floods across Bangladesh, India and Nepal have made life miserable for some 40 million people.
More than 1,200 people have died and many people have lost their homes, crops have been destroyed, and many workplaces have been inundated.
Meanwhile, in Africa, over the last 18 months 20 countries have declared drought emergencies, with major displacement taking place across the Horn region.
For those countries that are least developed the impact of disasters can be severe, stripping away livelihoods and progress on health and education; for developed and middle-income countries the economic losses from infrastructure alone can be massive; for both, these events reiterate the need to act on a changing climate that threatens only more frequent and more severe disasters.
A (shocking) sign of things to come?
The effects of a warmer climate on these recent weather events, both their severity and their frequency, has been revelatory for many, even the overwhelming majority that accept the science is settled on human-caused global warming.
While the silent catastrophe of 4.2 million people dying prematurely each year from ambient pollution, mostly related to the use of fossil fuels, gets relatively little media attention, the effect of heat-trapping greenhouse gases on extreme weather events is coming into sharper focus.
It could not be otherwise when the impacts of these weather events are so profound. During the last two years over 40 million people, mainly in countries which contribute least to global warming, were forced either permanently or temporarily from their homes by disasters.
There is clear consensus: Rising temperatures are increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, leading to more intense rainfall and flooding in some places, and drought in others. Some areas experience both, as was the case this year in California, where record floods followed years of intense drought.
TOPEX/Poseidon, the first satellite to precisely measure rising sea levels, was launched two weeks before Hurricane Andrew made landfall in Florida 25 years ago.
Those measurements have observed a global increase of 3.4 millimeters per year since then; that’s a total of 85 millimeters over 25 years, or 3.34 inches.
Rising and warming seas are contributing to the intensity of tropical storms worldwide. We will continue to live with the abnormal and often unforeseen consequences of existing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, for many, many years to come.
In 2009, Swiss Re published a case study focused on Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties, which envisaged a moderate sea level rise scenario for the 2030s which matches what has already taken place today.
If a storm on the scale of Andrew had hit this wealthy corner of the US today, the economic damage would range from US$100 billion (RM422 billion) to US$300 billion. Now the estimates suggest that the economic losses from Harvey, Irma and Maria could surpass those numbers.
Reduce disaster risk now, tackle climate change in the long-term
Miami is working hard on expanding its flood protection programme; US$400 million is earmarked to finance sea pumps, improved roads and seawalls.
Yet, this level of expenditure is beyond the reach of most low and middle-income countries that stand to lose large chunks of their GDP every time they are hit by floods and storms.
While the Paris Agreement has set the world on a long-term path towards a low-carbon future, it is a windy path that reflects pragmatism and realities in each individual country.
Thus, while carbon emissions are expected to drop as countries meet their self-declared targets, the impacts of climate change may be felt for some time, leaving the world with little choice but to invest, simultaneously, in efforts to adapt to climate change and reduce disaster risk.
The benefits of doing so makes economic sense when compared to the cost of rebuilding.
This will require international cooperation on a previously unprecedented scale as we tackle the critical task of making the planet a more resilient place to the lagging effects of greenhouse gas emissions that we will experience for years to come.
Restoring the ecological balance between emissions and the natural absorptive capacity of the planet is the long-term goal.
It is critical to remember that the long-term reduction of emissions is THE most important risk reduction tactic we have, and we must deliver on that ambition.
The November UN Climate Conference in Bonn presided over by the small island of Fiji, provides an opportunity to not only accelerate emission reductions but to also boost the serious work of ensuring that the management of climate risk is integrated into disaster risk management as a whole.
Poverty, rapid urbanisation, poor land use, ecosystems decline and other risk factors will amplify the impacts of climate change. Today on International Day for Disaster Reduction, we call for them to be addressed in a holistic way.
* Achim Steiner is administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, Patricia Espinosa is executive secretary of UN Climate Change and Robert Glasser is UN Secretary-General’s special representative for Disaster Risk Reduction and head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
Read more at https://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/climate-change-threat-to-rich-and-poor-alike-achim-steiner-patricia-espinos#FQE86Xieyd3yh6o5.99
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Mandalay to build 3,000 Arizona homes with solar and Sonnen batteries.
German battery maker Sonnen GmbH on Thursday said it would partner with home builder Mandalay Homes to outfit 3,000 new Arizona homes with batteries to store the excess energy generated by their rooftop solar installations.
(Reuters) - German battery maker Sonnen GmbH on Thursday said it would partner with home builder Mandalay Homes to outfit 3,000 new Arizona homes with batteries to store the excess energy generated by their rooftop solar installations.
Mandalay plans to build the homes in Prescott, Arizona with the batteries, which can cost between $10,000 and $20,000. The cost would be part of the home’s sale price and wrapped into the mortgage.
The companies want utilities to pay the homeowners to use the stored power in the 3,000 batteries, which would create a virtual power plant with 8 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power about 5,000 average homes for a day.
Even if utilities do not buy the power, homeowners would save money by not having to buy as much or any power from the grid, said Sonnen Senior Vice President Blake Richetta.
For now however, the project is moving forward without buy-in from utilities. Sonnen’s U.S. arm and Mandalay have been in talks with Pinnacle West Capital Corp’s Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project for a few months, they said.
The community would be the first of its kind in the United States, the companies said, and comes as utilities have been studying the potential benefits of integrating battery storage along distribution grids and decreasing reliance on centralized fossil fuel plants. Sonnen has several such communities in Germany, but the idea is still a novelty in the United States.
Batteries are viewed as especially key in large solar energy markets like Arizona that generate more power than they need during the sunniest times of the day.
Sonnen has about 1,000 home batteries deployed in the United States currently, and aims to get to at least 20,000 by 2020, in part through more deals with homebuilders.
Arizona Public Service would not comment on talks with Sonnen and Mandalay, but said batteries “can provide benefit to both our customers and the grid.”
Salt River Project spokeswoman Kathleen Mascarenas said “no agreements are in the works.”
Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
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Anders Lejczak
Paris plans to banish all but electric cars by 2030.
Paris authorities plan to banish all petrol- and diesel-fueled cars from the world’s most visited city by 2030, Paris City Hall said on Thursday.
PARIS (Reuters) - Paris authorities plan to banish all petrol- and diesel-fueled cars from the world’s most visited city by 2030, Paris City Hall said on Thursday.
The move marks an acceleration in plans to wean the country off gas-guzzlers and switch to electric vehicles in a city often obliged to impose temporary bans due to surges in particle pollution in the air.
Paris City Hall said in a statement France had already set a target date of 2040 for an end to cars dependent on fossil fuels and that this required speedier phase-outs in large cities.
“This is about planning for the long term with a strategy that will reduce greenhouse gases,” said Christophe Najdovski, an official responsible for transport policy at the office of Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
“Transport is one of the main greenhouse gas producers...so we are planning an exit from combustion engine vehicles, or fossil-energy vehicles, by 2030,” he told France Info radio.
The French capital, which will host the Olympic Games in the summer of 2024 and was host city for the latest worldwide pact on policies to tame global warming, had already been eyeing an end to diesel cars in the city by the time of the Olympics.
Paris City Hall, already under attack over the establishment of no-car zones, car-free days and fines for drivers who enter the city in cars that are more than 20 years old, said it was not using the word “ban” but rather introducing a feasible deadline by which combustion-engine cars would be phased out.
There are about 32 million household cars in France, where the population is about 66 million, according to 2016 data from the Argus, an automobile industry publication.
Many Parisians do not own cars, relying on extensive public transport systems and, increasingly, fast-burgeoning networks offering bikes, scooters and low-pollution hybrid engine cars for shot-term rental.
The ban on petrol-fueled, or gasoline-engine vehicles as they are known in the United States, marks a radical escalation of anti-pollution policy.
Many other cities in the world are considering similar moves and China, the world’s biggest polluter after the United States, recently announced that it would soon be seeking to get rid of combustion-engine cars too.
Reporting By Brian Love, Editing by Sarah White and Angus MacSwan
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US lawmakers propose making it easier to meet auto fuel rules.
A bipartisan pair of Michigan lawmakers introduced a bill to make it easier for automakers to comply with federal fuel efficiency requirements, as the Trump administration considers softening standards that require nearly doubling the fuel economy of the U.S. new vehicle fleet by 2025.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan pair of Michigan lawmakers introduced a bill to make it easier for automakers to comply with federal fuel efficiency requirements, as the Trump administration considers softening standards that require nearly doubling the fuel economy of the U.S. new vehicle fleet by 2025.
The proposal, introduced late on Wednesday, would extend the life of fuel economy credits that would currently expire after five years, lift a cap on transferring credits between car and truck fleets and award automakers credits for emissions reductions not measured by existing test procedures.
The measure proposed by Representatives Fred Upton, a Republican, and Debbie Dingell, a Democrat, would also grant an industry wish by requiring that the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reconcile their respective fuel economy standards so the industry can comply with just one set of rules.
The proposal comes on the heels of a bipartisan measure to create a single federal standard for self-driving cars, also backed by the industry, that is on track to passage.
The Union of Concerned Scientists said the harmonization legislation and a similar bill introduced in the Senate would allow manufacturers to make vehicles that are on average 3 miles a gallon less efficient in 2021.
The group estimated that would result in additional U.S. oil consumption of 350 million barrels of oil, costing drivers $34 billion and an additional 155 million metric
tons of greenhouse gases.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing General Motors Co, Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) and others, praised the bill for “recognizing the consumer benefits that can come from better alignment of government programs.” The group noted there were significant differences between how the EPA and NHTSA award and allow use of credits.
Last week, automakers told U.S. regulators they should revise fuel efficiency mandates because the standards do not reflect how cheap gas prices are affecting consumer demand. Automakers want changes in the 2021-2025 requirements that would make it easier for them to comply with fuel economy standards.
Former President Barack Obama’s administration finalized rules in 2012 to double the fleetwide average fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, but the EPA revised the target to 51.4 mpg based on rising truck sales. The Obama administration said the rules would save motorists $1.7 trillion in fuel costs but cost the auto industry about $200 billion over 13 years
Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Peter Cooney
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For Algeria's struggling herders, "drought stops everything."
Less rain and higher temperatures means herders in Algeria are increasingly struggling to make ends meet.
By Yasmin Bendaas
CHEMORA, Algeria, Oct 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Squinting under a relentless sun, Houssin Ghodbane watches his son tend a flock of 120 of their sheep. Heads bowed, the sheep slowly search for sparse vegetation poking through the parched, crunchy soil.
Fifty-year-old Ghodbane, his tanned face etched with deep lines, has been herding sheep for 20 years, having inherited the job and land from his father. But in this dry region, worsening cycles of drought are posing new challenges to an old profession.
According to a report Algeria developed as part of its contribution to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change action, average annual rainfall in the country has fallen by more than 30 percent in recent decades.
The country is also facing higher temperatures. Summer heat has soared in Batna province, in northeast Algeria, climbing from a maximum temperature of about 100 degrees Fahrenheit in 1990 to more than 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius) in 2017.
For Ghodbane, that means his land now lacks enough fodder for his flock in drier seasons so he must purchase extra feed, at added expense.
In addition to selling his sheep for meat, he used to earn profits by selling animals to other herders expanding their flocks.
Those sales have stopped, as worsening heat and drought make herding less viable – and Ghodbane has had to limit the size of his own flock due to the increasing costs of caring for them.
"Drought stops everything," he said.
The solution to his falling income is simple. "Rain. That's it," he said.
LESS WATER, MORE HEAT
Algeria is not a big emitter of climate-changing gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. But warming driven by emissions from around the world is having big impacts here, including more extreme weather conditions.
"You don't have to be a source of emissions to be affected," noted Adel Hanna, a climate modeling expert at the Institute for the Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "That's why we call it a global effect."
Hanna, who is from Egypt, said that the two biggest climate worries for North Africa – water scarcity and higher temperatures – are feeding off each other, with limited rainfall rapidly evaporating from the soil in higher temperatures.
"The net effect is the loss of water resources," Hanna said – something that affects all forms of agriculture, including grazing for livestock.
For Ghodbane, drought has meant that he needs to water the wheat and barley he also grows using an irrigation system – something that takes time and money. He said he is becoming more heavily dependent on well water as rainfall disappears.
Around the region, herders are searching for water by digging new and deeper wells to reach aquifers. Some share water with neighboring landowners by taking turns using a common well.
"But by no means will this replace the need for better policy or support from government, and actually the global community, in addressing issues related to climate change," Hanna said.
Algeria's government has tried to help herders, including by providing limited subsidies to offset some of their increasing costs for water and feed. But for small-scale herders in Algeria's eastern Aurès mountains, such help may not be enough to offset quickening environmental change.
"NOTHING ELSE"
Ghodbane, who was born on the land he now farms, says the seasons are changing, with longer summers interfering with the spring and fall rains that are crucial to strong harvests and herding years.
Despite the changing climate, however, he remains committed to his work.
"This is the future of our region," he said. "There is nothing else in farming country."
His son, Abdel Hak, disagrees.
He started helping his father herd sheep during the summers between school sessions when he was 10 years old. After graduating from high school, he followed in his father's footsteps and has worked on the farm full time for the past five years, herding animals from six in the morning to eight in the evening.
"It teaches you patience and to be responsible," Abdel Hak said. But he wouldn't recommend the job. "It's very hard," he said.
Now in his early 20s, he would like to go back to school. He wants to be a pilot.
(Reporting by Yasmin Bendaas; editing by Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit https://news.trust.org/climate)
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Fall armyworm arrives in Africa on the heels of climate change.
A rapidly spreading invasive pest now threatens crops across the continent.
Tobias Okwara is a farmer in Kayoro Parish in southeastern Uganda. In the midst of a long drought that began in May 2016, he and his neighbors got together to discuss what to do. Food was becoming scarce, and they hoped to recover quickly once the rains started again. They decided they would pool their meagre resources and plant a large communal field of maize. By spring 2017, the rains had finally returned, and their maize was thriving.
Then the fall armyworm appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Larvae of the nondescript gray moths hatched and ate their way through the field of young corn.
Endemic to North and South America, the fall armyworm was first spotted in January 2016 in Nigeria. No one knows for certain how it arrived on the African continent, but since its initial appearance the pest has spread to more than 28 countries, including South Africa, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and most recently, Sudan and Mali. As it has spread, it has destroyed more than 740,000 acres of maize, the staple food for more than 200 million Africans.
The fall armyworm is closely related to the African armyworm, which is native to the continent. Both pests feed not just on corn, but also on other cereal crops like rice, sorghum, and wheat. Kenneth Wilson of Lancaster University has studied the African armyworm for 25 years and is now part of a working group with the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization that is examining how to deal with the newly arrived pest.
Wilson says that while the African armyworm has long been a problem, it typically attacks one area and then moves on to another, making it only a sporadic threat to crop production in any given location. Not so with the fall armyworm. Once it has eaten its way through the cereal crops in a particular area, it sticks around to see what else it can eat. “If you’re a smallholder farmer who plants a little bit of maize, some sorghum, some beans, some tomatoes,” Wilson says, “all of those crops are potentially at risk from the fall armyworm.” It’s been known to feed on at least 80 plant species. In Uganda, over 40 percent of the crops are infested.
Uganda, like much of the rest of Africa, is already reeling from the effects of climate change.
Erratic weather patterns and intensifying cycles of drought and rain have taken a heavy toll on subsistence farmers like Okwara, who have no alternate food supply when it rains too much or too little and crops fail. The fall armyworm comes at a time when farmers throughout rural Africa are grappling with rising food insecurity because of climatic changes.
Climate change may also be a factor in the fall armyworm’s rapid spread across the continent. Wilson says that while it’s too early to know for sure about the new pest, 50 plus years of data on the native African armyworm show that the population explodes after periods of drought. He thinks it’s possible that the intensifying droughts brought on by climate change may favor both varieties of armyworm.
In South America, where the fall armyworm has plagued crops for decades, farmers have used a combination of genetically modified crops and pesticides to keep it mostly in check. But this is an expensive and ecologically damaging approach that Wilson does not think is viable for the majority of farmers in Africa. For one thing, he says, “we know that resistance is developing already both to GM crops and pesticides.”
Wilson specializes in biological pesticides, which are developed from bacteria, baculoviruses, and fungi that naturally prey on pests. He has already identified a virus that kills the African armyworm, but to his frustration it doesn’t kill the fall armyworm. Wilson is currently testing a range of biopesticides to see if there are any commercially available products that could work as a short term alternative to the chemical pesticides that African governments are relying on to address infestations.
As for the long term? Wilson points to parts of Central America, where the fall armyworm hasn’t been as big of a problem. “Farmers there say that it’s because they’ve got good integrated pest management practices. They fertilize the soil with organic fertilizer, they painstakingly search their crops for eggs, they’ve got mixed vegetation, like flowering plants that help to foster natural enemies.”
Such an effort will take time and significant outside investment. Fortunately, Wilson thinks countries outside of Africa are taking the threat seriously. It’s only a matter of time, he says, before the fall armyworm makes its way to Yemen and southern Europe. “For Europe and Asia, there should be an element of self-interest. It’s a global problem. It’s going to be everywhere.”
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