It seems like a lot of folks have a bone to pick with Rep. Joe Manchin [D-WV] who has just this week single-handedly “torpedoed” the Build Back Better bill. The BBB could have been the “the most significant climate legislation in US history,” Megan Mahajan, the manager of energy policy design at the think tank Energy Innovation, told PopSci in October. The plan would put billions of money into developing low-carbon energy technologies and building a national network for electric vehicles.
When this bill dies, so do the chances for the country to reach its lofty and aggressive climate change goals. “There’s still a yawning gap between where we are today and where we need to be to hit President Biden’s climate targets,” Jesse Jenkins, an energy systems engineer at Princeton University who has led an effort to model the effects of the bill on US-wide emissions, told the New York Times. “Without either this bill or a climate bill that’s similar in scope, it’s really hard to see how those goals will be met.”
Unsurprisingly, left-leaning members of the Democratic party and the president himself have voiced frustration with Manchin’s choice. But a more surprising group is speaking out against Manchin’s decision, too—coal miners, including some he represents.
The BBB, along with all of its proposed clean energy benefits, provides a significant boost to coal workers by extending fees paid by coal companies to fund treatments and benefits of workers suffering pneumoconiosis, or Black Lung, which affects thousands of miners across the country. According to the statement, without BBB, that fee will be chopped in half and put the burden of healthcare payments back on individuals and taxpayers. Further, the bill provides tax incentives for companies to build new business on coalfields to employ out-of-work miners.
Additionally, the BBB provides language that would help workers unionize. “This language is critical to any long-term ability to restore the right to organize in America in the face of ramped-up union-busting by employers,” Cecil Roberts, the union’s president, said in a statement. “But now there is no path forward for millions of workers to exercise their rights at work.”
UMWA already released a plan for the energy transition earlier this year stating that “change is coming, whether we seek it or not.” The coal industry saw employment losses of around 50 percent between 2011 and 2020, which will likely continue as the country moves toward a cleaner energy mix. Proposals that include supporting miners and their families by incentivizing alternative jobs in coal country are crucial in protecting these already vulnerable communities.
“We’re likely to lose coal jobs whether or not this bill passes,” Phil Smith, the chief lobbyist for UMWA, told the Washington Post. “If that’s the case, let’s figure out a way to provide as many jobs as possible for those who are going to lose.”
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This story originally featured on Nexus Media News, a nonprofit climate change news service.
On a sweltering morning in July of 2021, thousands of dead fish washed onto the northeastern shores of Pokegama Lake, 60 miles north of Minneapolis.
Deb Vermeersch, an official with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, was called in to investigate.
When she arrived, she saw a quarter-mile stretch of sand covered with the rotting carcass of walleye and Northern pike, which thrive in deep, cool waters, as well as crappies, sunfish and suckers—all warm water dwellers. “They were already pretty decomposed because of the warm water,” Vermeersch recalls.
Because so many different types of fish had died, Vermeersch and her colleagues knew it wasn’t a species-specific parasite, a common cause of fish kills. They zeroed in on the culprit: dangerously low oxygen levels.
Oxygen is disappearing in freshwater lakes at a rate nine times that of oceans due to a combination of pollution and warming waters, according to a study published in Natureearlier this year. Lakes like Pokegama are warming earlier in the spring and staying warm into autumn, fueling algae blooms, which thrive in warm waters, and threaten native fish.
Minnesota, with its 14,380 lakes and temperatures that have risen faster than the national average, is a unique laboratory for studying how climate change is affecting temperate-zone lakes around the world. The state sits at the intersection of four biomes––two distinct prairie ecosystems and two ecologically different forest systems. This means scientists here are able to study how lakes in different ecosystems fare on a warming planet, and look for ways to stave off the worst effects of climate change.
“If you start losing oxygen, you start losing species.“
“What’s going on at the surface is that warmer water holds less oxygen than cool water,” says Lesley Knoll, a University of Minnesota limnologist and one of the authors of the Nature report. She says that longer, hotter summers are interfering with two key processes that have historically kept lakes’ oxygen levels in check: mixing and stratification. In temperate climates, water at the surface of lakes mixes with deep waters in the spring and the fall, when both layers are similar in temperature. As the surface water warms during the summer, the water forms distinct layers based on temperature––cool water at the bottom, warm at the top. This is known as stratification. In the fall, when the surface waters cool again, the water mixes for a second time, replenishing oxygen in deeper waters. But as climate change makes surface water warmer, and keeps it warmer for longer, that mixing doesn’t happen when it should.
“As you have that stronger stratification, the water in the deep part of the lake is cut off from the oxygen at the top part of the lake. If you start losing oxygen, you start losing species,” says Kevin Rose, a biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and a coauthor of the Nature study.
Knoll, Rose and a team of 43 other researchers studied 400 temperate lakes from around the world. They found that, on average, surface waters warmed by 7 degrees Fahrenheit and have lost roughly 5 percent of oxygen since 1980; deep waters, which haven’t warmed much, have still lost an average of almost 20 percent of their oxygen. (Thanks to the state’s long-held lake monitoring programs, almost a quarter the lakes in the study were in Minnesota.)
Warming lakes emit methane
Fish kills aren’t the only reason scientists are concerned about lakes losing oxygen. In extreme cases, when deep waters go completely void of oxygen, something else happens: Methane-emitting bacteria begin to thrive.
“As lakes warm, they will produce more methane and most of that has to do with stratification,” says James Cotner, a limnologist at the University of Minnesota.
Lakes normally emit carbon dioxide as a natural part of breaking down the trees, plants and animals that decay in them, but plants in and around fresh water also absorb it, making healthy lakes carbon sinks.
Lakes have historically emitted methane, too––about 10 to 20 percent of the world’s emissions––but the prospect of them releasing more of the greenhouse gas has Cotner and his colleagues alarmed. Methane is about 25 times more potent than CO2 when it comes to trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere.
Cotner is leading a team of researchers who are studying what conditions allow methane-emitting bacteria to prosper in lakes and how conservationists can respond.
“The key questions are understanding how much and when carbon dioxide and methane are emitted from lakes, and what are the key variables that can tell how much will be emitted. Certainly, oxygen is a big part of that, but stratification and warming also plays a role,” says Cotner.
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Pollution plays a big role
It’s not just longer, hotter summers that are causing lakes to lose their oxygen. Polluted agricultural runoff (pesticides and fertilizers) and logging have long plagued Minnesota’s lakes. It’s a problem that’s getting worse worldwide as climate change pushes agriculture further away from the equator and into new territory, says Heather Baird, an official with Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources.
In northern Minnesota, potatoes now grow where pine forests have thrived for years. Phosphorus, a common fertilizer, now runs off from the soil into the region’s lakes, Baird says. Though small amounts of phosphorus occur naturally in lake ecosystems, too much of it feeds harmful algae blooms.
Those blooms, which thrive in warm, nutrient-rich water, set off a chain of events that remove oxygen from deep lake waters.
“When phosphorus builds in lakes and creates algae blooms, those blooms eventually die. As they do, they sink. Deeper down, bacteria break down the algae, using up the remaining oxygen at those lower depths,” said Baird.
A quarter of Minnesota lakes now have phosphorus levels that are so high that the state advises against swimming, fishing or boating in them. Fueled by these nutrients, algae blooms take over, covering the lake in sometimes toxic residue that thrives in warm, nutrient-rich water, as was the case in Pokegama Lake earlier this year. The protists choke out aquatic life, especially fish that thrive in cold, deep waters. This is all exacerbated by warming air temperatures.
The 75 percent rule
Researchers and conservationists in Minnesota are now studying the best ways to protect temperate-climate lakes from the worst effects of climate change. They have found that preserving 75 percent of deep-water lakes’ watersheds appear to keep fish stocks healthy.
“Having a forested watershed helps keep better water quality by filtering out nutrients, which in turn can buffer against the impacts of climate change, to a point,” Knoll said. However, she added, as temperatures continue to rise, “that 75 percent may not be high enough anymore.”
Knoll and state conservationists are focusing their research and efforts on deep, cool lakes that have a better chance of staying oxygenated than warmer, shallower lakes, like Pokegama.
Vermeersch, the Minnesota fisheries supervisor, said it’s unclear what this will mean for the future of lakes like Pokegama. “Hopefully it’s not going to be a linear thing,” she said, adding that fish kills are “probably going to happen more often,” depending on a combination of factors. “When you get lakes like Pokegama that are shallow and already impaired, I think we are going to see more and more conditions like this.”
Correction (December 23, 2021): The story previously identified the wrong Pokegama Lake in Minnesota. The one that experienced the fish kill in July is 60 miles away from Minneapolis, not 140 miles away.
In the fall of 2018, Kyle Nossaman, an editor at Gear Junkie magazine, and his wife locked the door of their upscale apartment in Minneapolis and set off for a year of exploring America. They visited most of the lower forty-eight states and almost all the national parks. They rode mountain bikes and a motorcycle, camped and hiked, visited old friends and made new ones, all the while keeping up their jobs part-time, even saving money along the way. And they did all this without ever getting on a plane—because they were driving and living in their very own converted school bus.4
The COVID lockdown was an existential disaster for America’s retail sector—unless you happened to be selling mobile homes. Sales of Thor large camper vans surged after the pandemic lockdown ended, and Mercedes even released its iconic Camper (that sleeps four) in the US after years of popularity in Europe. The RV Industry Association reported a nearly 200 percent jump in sales from the same period of 2019.5 Trailer homes have emerged as a trendy, cost-effective, and sustainable alternative to traditional home ownership. Movements like #skooliebus on Instagram (featuring school buses retrofitted into mobile homes) and “tiny houses” on Pinterest point to the growing popularity of mobile and minimalist living.
The trailer home is the ultimate symbol of the new American mobility. Twenty-five percent of mobile homes are owned by millennials, and the more they and Gen-Z reach home-buying age, the more mobile home sales go up.6 In other words, youth are consciously choosing not to buy houses (that they can’t afford anyway), snapping up motor homes instead. Having witnessed the financial crisis demolish their parents’ house value, they can hardly be blamed for having more faith in mobility than property. Are we witnessing the reinvention of the American dream for the quantum age?
Photo: Scribner
Mobile homes are part of American lore, but a surprising feature of America’s present and future. An older generation of RV dwellers already roams the country seeking part-time jobs that offer cash and food, often exploited like migrant laborers, as Jessica Bruder documents in her book Nomadland, whose film adaptation won the Oscar for best picture in 2021. Trailer home communities have a sense of identity and security that now also draws in young people. Gloria Steinem’s memoir My Life onthe Road fondly recalls the pride of an all-female trailer park in Arizona hat had streets named after Gertrude Stein and Eleanor Roosevelt. For women or the LGBTQ community, trailer parks provide the vibe of a gated residential community but without the price tag. With ever fewer school age children in America, there are plenty of school buses available for purchase—though their engines should ideally be switched from diesel to electric.
“Mobile real estate” is becoming an asset class unto itself, a wise investment for a world where flooding could sweep away your home, giant hailstones could smash through its roof, or a sinkhole could emerge at the end of your driveway. You’re better off if your home is a giant car. Sealander’s trailer has an onboard motor that turns it into a boat, perfect for navigating flooded areas. Especially if you don’t know where your next job will be, a mobile home means you can move to it on short notice. Moving is the ultimate expression of reinvention, and perhaps the most effective as well.
America’s youth should stop chaining themselves to homes they neither need nor can afford—and which aren’t located where they need to be. Instead, we should be designing and building for an age of perpetual mobility. The real estate industry continues to pour concrete into McMansions, and even claims there is a nationwide housing shortfall of 2.5 million homes. But does their crystal ball tell them where people will want to live five years from now? Do they know where the jobs will be? Are they sure they’re building in climate-resilient areas?
There is a reason why these homes are made to be disaster-resistant: One might have to move again.
The great demographic deflation means an inevitable crash in real estate prices, and competition from prefab homes will bring those down even further. Freddie Mac (which provides liquidity to the housing market) has launched a slew of programs to encourage first-time home buyers to invest in far cheaper prefab homes—even if it leaves municipalities and banks sitting on trillions of dollars of stranded housing. No wonder then that an investor such as Warren Buffett has quietly become one of the largest owners of “pre-fabulous” home manufacturers such as Clayton Homes. Even in cheaper states, a manufactured home costs less than half the cost of a two-bedroom apartment, and renting a prefab as little as one-third as much.
The best part of the prefab housing revolution? They can be delivered on the back of a truck—and moved as well. The era of 3D-printed micro housing is at hand. Amazon sells do-it-yourself homemaking kits that cost as little as $20,000 and can be solar-powered or connected to local energy grids. Mighty Buildings’ 3D-printed “casitas” or “granny flats” can be deposited in backyards to cater to the millions of aging lowincome renters or youth on tight budgets. Companies such as Boxabl and Ten Fold make homes that expand to triple their container size in minutes. Millions of discarded shipping containers themselves are easily retrofitted into (mobile) homes. One Estonian startup builds trailer-delivered prefab units that can be homes, offices, shops, storage units, cafes, community areas, or serve many other purposes. All that is required is a flat space for them to be set down on.
Which countries will make the land available, subsidize the cost, and enable or even require public service delivery to 3D home encampments? The Netherlands and France have become leaders in this progressive social policy, while Swedish furniture maker IKEA and construction company Skanska have teamed up to launch BoKlok (Live Smart), a firm that has built more than ten thousand homes in Scandinavia already. In their UK pilot, new occupants pay BoKlok whatever they can afford. Rather than cluttering homes with IKEA stuff, you can just buy your entire home from IKEA.
Movable homes are rolling off assembly lines through an entirely new production process that combines 3D printing, recycled materials, and robotic efficiency. For overpopulated countries in precarious geographies, SoftBank-funded Katerra does turnkey home design and construction for entire towns on short notice, while Icon has already 3D-printed entire villages in Mexico and sturdy units for those living in tents around Austin. But there is a reason why these homes are made to be disaster-resistant: One might have to move again. Self-sufficient, solar-powered container homes can be wheeled to adjust to rising tides, with portable loos that use microbes rather than water to turn human waste into odorless fertilizer. (These are even being deployed on Mount Everest.) This makes great sense for a world of seasonal migrations in which climate change and natural disasters as much as professional preference dictate where we live. For those choosing wheeled residences as a lifestyle choice, architects are designing stylish micro homes with woodstoves; solar power; rooftop water collection; compost toilets; separate kitchen, bedroom, and living areas; and large windows. Their owners can Instagram every new vista.
