Share the post "The Supreme Court Stripped our Biggest Tool to Combat Climate Change. What Now?"
On June 30, the Supreme Court sided with coal companies and their allies, limiting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from setting the kind of highly-effective standards we need to combat climate change. While floods, wildfires and habitat destruction are some impacts of climate change that we are already seeing, the biggest impact will be on agricultural systems, undermining food security and nutrition worldwide. More frequent and more severe heat waves, droughts, and floods are already exposing millions of people to acute food and water insecurity.
If you’re like me, you may be feeling despair. This decision is a pat on the back to polluters and an attack on our right to clean air, clean water, a stable climate, and healthy food for every community. But there are ways to turn our anger and our anxiety into direct action and demand that our states invest in a resilient local food system that supports family farms and regenerative agriculture.
This is why Waterkeepers Chesapeake established our Fair Farms campaign in 2015 and is a leading partner in the Mid-Atlantic Clean Agricultural Coalition. I’m writing to ask you for a special donation to support our work during this time of unprecedented attack on our land, air, food, and water. Now is the time to ensure state protections for our farming communities and our collective food future by:
- Funding for farmers who adopt climate-smart regenerative practices
- Building infrastructure for local food systems
- Redirecting incentives from industrial corporations to small and mid-size farms
- Protecting Heirs property for black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) farmers
- Investing in urban farming grant programs
- Providing tax incentives to farmers who donate to food banks
These policies will advance us towards our goal to build vibrant local food systems that give all people access to sufficient, safe, culturally appropriate and nutritious food. While at the same time, providing livable incomes for farmers, diversifying crops, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon. That is why it is critical that you make an investment in our work to protect our Chesapeake communities.
We cannot let this truly awful decision by a few judges with a radical worldview keep us down. Instead, we can choose hope and build our vision for a new food system that protects our farmers, communities, food, water and justice. Please make an urgent gift today!