Nature's Voice Spring 2022

SPRING 2022

’ NATURE SVOICE For the 3 million Members and online activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council

IN THIS ISSUE

New offshore drilling would further imperil Alaska’s endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales.

Members Demand “No New Leasing!”

NRDC Defends Climate Action at Supreme Court Canada’s Forest Crisis: The High Price of Squeezable Charmin New Hope Fuels Battle to Save Bristol Bay

NRDC works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends.

Victory

BUZZY WIN FOR JERSEY BEES New Jersey has taken the lead in curbing the use of a class of toxic pesticides that have been linked to the alarming disappearance of bees and other pollinators. Thanks to the advocacy of NRDC and our local partners, the state has banned nearly all outdoor uses of "neonic" pesticides in nonagricultural settings, such as lawns and golf courses. The ban is the strongest measure in the United States to date to rein in the use of chemicals that pose dangerous risks to pollinators, ecosystems, and likely human health.

Victory

ATTACK ON TONGASS REVERSED The Trump administration’s reckless bid to open more than half of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to clearcut logging and other destructive development has been halted. The U.S. Forest Service under President Biden has begun the process of restoring “roadless” protections for more than nine million acres of the forest. The reversal comes after NRDC, alongside Native Alaskans and other local allies, filed suit to stop the Trump-era attack and thousands of NRDC Members rallied in support of the planet’s largest remaining temperate rainforest.

Victory

DRILLING PHASEOUT IN LA Following years of advocacy by NRDC and our partners, Los Angeles County became the first in the nation to start the process of phasing out existing oil drilling on its unincorporated land, which includes the country’s largest urban oil field.

The victory marks a sea change in a region long plagued by fossil fuel pollution. Nearly 600,000 county residents live within a quarter mile of active drilling, which spews toxic chemicals and particulates and has been linked to serious health conditions like asthma and heart disease.

C OV E R A RT I C L E

MEMBERS DEMAND "NO NEW LEASING!"

I

n a resounding show of support for deci­sively­ shifting the United States away from climate-­ wrecking fossil fuels, hundreds of thousands of NRDC Members and online activists have called on the Biden administration to commit to no new federal lease sales for offshore oil and gas drilling. That includes calling on the administration to scrap plans to sell off more than a million acres of Alaska’s coastline around Cook Inlet, where an oil spill could have a devastating impact on Indigenous communities and the area’s unique wildlife, including critically endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales.

Even as the Biden administration has put forth the boldest climate agenda of any U.S. presidency and taken urgent steps to reverse the climate denial of the previous administration, it continues to struggle to break free from the fossil fuel industry when it comes to offshore drilling. Indeed, in the wake of a federal court ruling last year, the Interior Department chose to offer up 80 million acres in the

Gulf of Mexico for drilling, a move that was recently blocked by a different federal court. “Leasing large chunks of our ocean for drilling is fundamentally at odds with what we know we must do to avert a climate catastrophe, which is to turbocharge the transition toward 100 percent clean energy,” says NRDC President Manish Bapna.

The fight to stop the fossil fuel indus­try from laying claim to more of our coastal waters is among the numerous fronts in NRDC’s all-out campaign to win bold climate action in 2022. Hundreds of NRDC experts are on the ground—locally, nationally, and internationally—as part of our Climate Action Plan, a comprehensive blueprint of real-world solutions aimed at delivering steep pollution cuts while advancing equity and creating millions of high-quality clean-energy jobs. At this critical moment, “it’s all hands on deck,” says Bapna. “It’s so important that

our Members continue to make their voices heard and help us show that there is overwhelming public support for keeping our country’s cli­­mate promises and breaking free from fossil fuels.”

New offshore drilling would further imperil Alaska’s endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales.

S P E C I A L R E P O RT

NRDC Defends Climate Action at Supreme Court The environmental campaigns and victories featured in Nature’s Voice are all made possible through your generous support.

You can help NRDC defend the environment by making a special contribution.

NRDC.ORG/GIVE

The fight to rein in climate-busting pollution from the nation’s power plants has landed before the Supreme Court, where NRDC and our partners are squaring off against the coal industry and its allies. The pro-polluter coalition is seeking to restore the Trump administration’s do-nothing standards for power plant emissions, which could have allowed coal plants even to increase their pollution. A lower court, siding with NRDC and other cli­ mate champions, struck down the Trump standards in January 2021. If the industry and its allies succeed at the Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency­ won’t be able to issue new standards that actually reduce dangerous climate pollution from power plants and help meet the Biden administration’s climate protection goals. “It’s a last-gasp effort by the coal industry to avoid taking responsibility for its staggering 1.6 billion tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions,” says David Doniger,

senior director of NRDC’s Climate and Clean Energy Program. “They want to take us back to the 1970s— when American cities were choking in soot, and before we faced the existential threat of climate change.”

BELUGA WHALE © DAVID MERRON PHOTOGRAPHY/GETTY IMAGES

G O O D N EWS

CA M PA I G N U P DAT E

CANADA'S FOREST CRISIS: THE HIGH PRICE OF SQUEEZABLE CHARMIN

F

“It’s hard to imagine a sadder fate for some of the world’s last unlogged forests than to become a roll of Charmin.”

MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Looking to switch to more forest-friendly tissue products? Check out NRDC ’s handy guide to the sustainability of toilet paper, facial tissue, and paper towels: nrdc.org/tissue

Clockwise from top left: The boreal is the largest remaining intact forest on the planet and stores nearly twice as much carbon as the Amazon; Canada lynx are among the boreal’s iconic wildlife; Canada permits clearcutting of more than a million acres of forest each year; youth from the Cree Nation of Waswanipi explore their ancestral territory in Quebec’s forested Broadback Valley.

American songbirds. They join year-round residents that include Canada lynx, moose, pine marten, and the iconic—yet rapidly disappearing—boreal wood­land caribou.

Communities such as the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi have been fighting for years to defend their natural heritage from unsustainable logging and other destructive industries, but it has taken longer for much of the rest of the world to realize that we all have a stake in the boreal’s survival.

This majestic forest stores nearly twice as much carbon per acre as the Amazon, making it an irreplaceable ally in the fight against climate change.

Yet Canada is sacri­ficing this climate-critical wilderness at an appalling rate, allowing more than a

million acres each year to be clearcut—and a substantial amount of this harvested wood tragically ends up in our nation’s “tree-to-toilet pipeline.”

“It’s hard to imagine a sadder fate for some of the world’s last unlogged forests than to become a roll of Charmin,” says Shelley Vinyard, boreal corporate campaign manager at NRDC. P&G is the largest U.S. purchaser of boreal tissue pulp from Canada, and despite the com­pany’s claims to the contrary, much of the pulp it uses to make its toilet paper, facial tissue, and paper towels­is anything but sustainable, as a recent NRDC report attests. The bombshell analysis assessed the seven largest pulp producers in Canada— including key suppliers for P&G—on impor­tant

social and environmental criteria: up­­holding Indigenous rights, protecting pri­mary (i.e., never-­ logged) forests, safe­guarding the habi­tat of threatened species, and com­mitting to wood sourced from more sus­tainably managed for­ests. Shock­ ingly, six of the seven pulp pro­ducers failed on almost all the criteria.

“These companies are broadly failing to implement even baseline environmental and social standards,” says Lewis. “But time and again in their public-facing communications, they greenwash their poor behavior and hide their harmful activities behind false claims of sustainability—claims that P&G and other big corporate buyers of pulp echo in their own PR.” P&G could leverage its enormous clout to disrupt the boreal-destroying status quo and truly [Continued on next page.]

FOREST © GORDON PUSNIK/SHUTTERSTOCK; LYNX © JIM ZUCKERMAN/GETTY IMAGES; TREE STUMP © TJ WATT/ANCIENT FOREST ALLIANCE; WASWANIPI CREE YOUTH © NICOLAS MAINVILLE/GREENPEACE

rom the cartoon Charmin bears frolicking in their woodland home to the slick corporate website that avows a commitment “to keeping forests as forests for generations to come,” it might seem reasonable for buyers of the world’s best-selling brand of toilet paper to assume they’re making a responsible choice. After all, consumers searching for more information about the environmental impact of the household staple are led to a web page that promises nothing less than “the best sustainable and eco-friendly toilet paper” and warmly declares, “Charmin® Loves Trees.” The only problem: These claims are all “built on a foundation of myths,” as Courtenay Lewis puts it, no more real than those cuddly cartoon bears.

Lewis is part of the team at NRDC whose indepth investigations and analyses are exposing the dismal truth behind the rosy claims of corporate giants like Procter & Gamble (P&G), maker of Charmin and other leading tissue brands such as Bounty and Puffs. These single-use throwaway products are made almost entirely from 100 percent virgin forest fiber. That means that, far from loving trees, P&G is a driving force behind forest destruction, and that devastation is particularly alarming in one of the last great forests on earth, Canada’s boreal.

The boreal is the largest remaining in­­tact forest on the planet. Its stands of tow­er­ing spruce and fir trees interspersed with aspen and birch, its verdant wetlands and lush peat bogs, and its extraordinary array of wildlife hold tremendous cultural and spiritual importance to the more than 600 Indigenous communities that have long called the for­est home. Each spring, up to three billion birds migrate there to breed, from whooping cranes to Arctic terns, along with a majority of North

[Continued from previous page.]

TAKE ACTION

nrdc.org/saveboreal

Alaska’s spectacular Bristol Bay wilderness may soon receive permanent protection from large-scale mining.

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that by the end of May it will propose what measures are needed to safeguard the Bristol Bay water­shed and its legendary runs of wild sal­mon from the threat of destruction from mega-­mines like the Pebble­Mine, the massive open-pit copper and gold mine that in­­ dustry has been trying to force on the region for nearly 20 years despite overwhelming opposition from Indigenous groups. Their fight has generated enormous public support, includ­ing from hundreds of thousands

Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Win for Chaco Canyon Sets Stage for More The Biden administration has proposed a withdrawal of federal lands from new oil and gas leasing for 20 years within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a major shift that could herald a new direction for the Greater Chaco region in New Mexico.

The awe-inspiring landscape and UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to thousands of archaeological sites representing more than 10,000 years of human cultural history and is at the center of a larger area that is of immense spiritual significance to Indigenous communities. For years frontline community leaders

and environmental advocates have resisted fossil fuel exploitation in the region, where a drilling boom has left local residents grappling with air and water pollution and a range of serious health impacts. NRDC continues to fight alongside them for more comprehensive and permanent protections.

“For too long, polluters have had their way with this sacred region,” says Alison Kelly, a senior attorney with NRDC’s Nature Pro­gram. “We cannot afford to sacrifice regions like Greater Chaco to the fossil fuel industry if we hope to avoid the worst effects of climate change.”

EPA Green-Lights Bold Clean Car Standards The future of clean transportation is revving up.

The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized its strongest-ever vehicle emissions standards, which will curb planet-warming pollution and save consumers money at the pump. All in, the rules will cut carbon emissions by more than three billion metric tons by 2050, equivalent to two years’ worth of emissions from all on-road vehicles in the United States. The initial proposal released last August wasn’t nearly as strong, but NRDC and our allies came together to push the agency to be bolder and to revise the rules in line

with available technologies and in response to the urgency of the climate crisis. The EPA expects the tightened rules, which cover model years 2023 through 2026, to continue to encourage manufacturers to go electric, predicting that 17 percent of new autos sold will be zero-emission by 2026. “Transportation remains the largest polluting sector, but it doesn’t have to be,” says Luke Tonachel, director of NRDC’s Clean Vehicles and Fuels Group. “We have the solutions to revolutionize how we get around—and this victory is a strong step toward that future.”

Bristol Bay's abundant salmon sustain all the region's Indigenous communities as well as a thriving wild ecosystem.

of NRDC Members who have rallied to their cause.

Bristol Bay’s flourishing salmon runs are the linchpin of a $2.2 billion sustainable fishery that supports 15,000 jobs and all of the region’s Indigenous com­ munities. The salmon also support a thriving wild ecosystem that includes a magnificent array of wildlife, from orcas and grizzlies to lynx and eagles. Yet in dis­ regard of EPA’s determination in 2014 that large-scale mining would pose potentially “catastrophic” risks to the Bristol Bay watershed, the Trump administration sought to remove protections—and was challenged in court by NRDC and our partners. Says NRDC Western Director Joel Reynolds, “It’s time for the EPA to put the final nail in the coffin of the Pebble Mine and any project like it—once and for all.”

CHACO CULTURE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK © JOHN FOWLER; BRISTOL BAY © JASON CHING

fulfill its professed commit­ments to responsible forest stewardship, but it remains stubbornly attached to business as usual. So far the company has refused to pledge to eliminate intact forest degradation from its supply chain, in spite of an overwhelming number of voting shareholders— 67 percent—who passed a historic resolution in 2020 calling on the company to do just that. “This was the first-ever forest-related shareholder resolution to pass in the history of any corporation,” says Vinyard. “It was a resounding call for P&G to own up to its environmental im­­pact. Yet instead of taking action, the company’s leadership has failed its share­holders and consumers by continuing to flush the boreal.”

NRDC’s boreal team is ratcheting up the pressure on P&G by raising public awareness about the company’s outsize role in the destruction of Canada’s boreal and rallying consumers to demand that P&G stop greenwashing and instead commit to meaningful change. (Make your own voice heard— see Take Action, below.) In the meantime, for those unwilling to wait for P&G to get on board and eager to do their part today to disrupt the tree-to-toilet pipeline, we have good news: When it comes to finding toilet paper, facial tissue, and paper towels that are more sustainable, there are a bounty of choices. NRDC’s “Issue With Tissue” scorecard is a buyer’s guide to the sustainability of household tissue products, and the most recently updated version contains more products than ever before.

(See box, previous page.) Of the 95 products sur­ veyed, nearly half received a grade of B or higher, with products made from post­consumer recycled content receiving the highest grades because of their reduced forest impact. (This writer’s household switched to the A-plus-rated toilet paper made by the cheekily named Who Gives a Crap? two years ago, and we’ve never gone back. ) Says Vinyard: “Really, anyone who buys toilet paper or other tissue products can make a difference.”

New Hope Fuels the Battle to Save Bristol Bay

“A sense of hope and tre­men­ dous opportunity.” Those are the words that come to mind for Arohi Sharma, a pol­icy analyst for water and agri­­culture at NRDC, talking about her team’s most recent project, which included in­­ter­viewing more than 100 farmers and ranchers across the coun­try. These folks all prac­ tice some form of regenerative agri­cul­ture, a hip-sounding term for a philosophy of farm­ing in harmony with nature that actually dates back thousands of years in Indigenous com­mu­ nities. Yet faced with the urgent need to transform agriculture— which accounts for more than 50 percent of land use in the United States—into an ally in the fight against such crises as climate change and biodiversity loss, there could be no better time to pro­mote this age-old philos­ophy than the present.

To that end, Sharma and her team recently debuted “Regenerative Agriculture 101,” an online guide that dis­tills the lessons learned from those 100plus interviews and offers what amounts to an inspiring crash course for anyone who wants to prac­tice or support a more holistic approach to farming, from farmers and ranchers to policy­makers and even back­ yard gardeners.

The list of ills associated with

the dominant system of indus­ trial agriculture in the United States is depressingly long: soil erosion, water pol­lu­tion, dependence on toxic chemicals, and the loss of bio­diversity that includes the disastrous decline of pollinators like bees that are critical to our food supply. Moreover, about 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to agriculture. But by working with Mother Nature and en­­hancing soil quality through prac­tices such as planting cover crops, no-till farming, and rota­tional grazing, regenerative agriculture bucks the current destructive system in favor of one that embraces nature’s

interconnectedness and its capacity to heal. Healthier soils, for example, promote greater biodiversity, reduce toxic runoff, and sequester more carbon.

“For the farmers and ranch­ers we talked to, their no­­tion of ‘success’ goes be­­yond yield and farm size,” says NRDC’s Lara Bryant, deputy director of water and agriculture. “It includes things like joy and happiness, the number of families they feed, watching how the land regenerates and flourishes, and the relationships built with community members.”

For more information, visit nrdc.org/stories/regenerativeagriculture-101.

Forecast for Solar Power Boom: Sunny and Bright

By Nathanael Greene, Senior Renewable Energy Advocate

Clean power just keeps winning in the marketplace.

According to the federal Energy Information Administration, wind and solar power made up 62 percent of new electric generating capacity to come online in 2019, and 76 percent in 2020. The reason is clear: Across most of the country, wind and solar are simply less expensive than dirty fossil fuels. And costs for wind, solar, and battery technologies continue to fall.

Perhaps the biggest story in renew­ables of late is around solar. There are more utility-scale solar projects, and they're getting bigger. In 2021 more than 10,000 megawatts of utility-scale solar projects came online—triple the amount just five years before. We need to keep that momen­tum going! The Department of Energy looked at scenarios to decarbonize the U.S.

electric grid and found that, in just the next 10 years, we will have to go from deploying approx­imately 15,000 megawatts of solar per year, which is about what we expect to see here in 2022, to 72,000 megawatts per year.

As exciting as the boom in solar is, it’s also understandable that, as these projects grow in scale, they make some people nervous, particularly when the project is proposed for their backyard. Depending on the type of solar technology, a 420-megawatt solar farm could require as much as 4,200 acres of land, about five times the size of Central Park.

But here’s more good news: the Energy Department also found that the disturbed lands that are suitable for solar use—that is, lands denuded or contaminated by prior use, impacted by invasive species, or good for rooftop solar—are about eight times what is needed to decarbonize the whole economy. In other words, the amount of land that is technically suitable will allow us, if we’re smart, to integrate solar while minimizing the impacts on wildlife and our communities. It’s not going to happen on its own, but we can guide those changes to be sure this development is done right.

T O P R AT E D B Y C H A R I T Y N AV I G AT O R . O R G N AT U R A L R E S O U R C E S D E F E N S E C O U N C I L 40 WEST 20TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011 NRDC's Arohi Sharma, left, and Colorado farmer Abby Zlotnick

WWW.NRDC.ORG/NATURESVOICE NATURESVOICE@NRDC.ORG | 212.727.4500

HELP PROTECT FUTURE GENERATIONS

EDITOR IN CHIEF JASON BEST

Make a bequest to NRDC and help preserve our environment for generations to come. NRDC.ORG/FUTURE

MANAGING EDITOR LIZ LINKE WRITERS JASON BEST, COURTNEY LINDWALL DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP GINA TRUJILLO

Goldfinch

NATHANAEL GREENE © REBECCA GREENFIELD FOR NRDC; WILDFLOWERS © ALAN STARK; GOLDFINCH © TOM KOERNE/USFWS; SHARMA AND ZLOTNICK © JEREMY SWANSON FOR NRDC.

Regenerative Agriculture Reimagines Farming’s Future by Looking Back

N R D C VO I C E S