Equilibrium/Sustainability — Climate change’s next victim: Pizza sauce

Increasingly hot and dry climate conditions are withering Californian tomato crops on their vines — a crisis that could leave pizza and pasta without a key ingredient: Tomato sauce.  

“Warming winters are allowing pests and diseases to nose farther and farther north into new tomato territory,” a National Geographic report found.  

Last year’s tomato season encountered such significant heat that by the end of the season, growers across California delivered about 10 percent less than their expected tomato crop, according to National Geographic.  

While such amounts might not sound huge at a first glance, California is responsible for 90 percent of the country’s canning tomatoes, which are the second most valuable produce item that the state exports, the magazine reported.  

“Even a 10 percent production drop left canners— who provide the tomatoes that become our pizza sauce, pasta sauce, and ketchup —in a tight spot,” the report said. “So this year, amidst an ongoing drought, everyone is hoping for a tomato-shaped success.” 

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

Today we’ll look at OPEC’s decision to increase oil releases and Ford’s latest investment in electric vehicle manufacturing. Then we’ll turn to a call from Texas Democrats to unionize offshore wind jobs.  

OPEC+ agrees to boost oil output  

OPEC+ nations announced on Thursday that they will be increasing oil output by about 50 percent for the next two months, our colleague Zack Budryk reported for The Hill. 

This is a significant shift from previous indications that the cartel would stand by a 400,000 barrel release, with ministers coming to an agreement to increase output in July and August to 648,000 barrels a day. 

OPEC+ includes oil-producing countries like Russia, which are aligned with OPEC but not official members.  

Changing courses: The Biden administration previously appealed to Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the bloc, to produce more oil amid a global energy crunch, but it was without success, Budryk reported.  

White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said in a statement Thursday that the U.S. “welcomes” the OPEC+ announcement, noting that the arrangement “brings forward the monthly production increase that was previously planned to take place in September.”  

The group will now be adding an increase that was supposed to occur in September to the July and August output totals, Barron’s reported.  

Why the shift? Some analysts say that the newfound willingness of OPEC+ to shift gears could be a sign of a diplomatic breakthrough, leading to a stronger cooperation from countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as sanctions on Russia decrease the country’s oil output, according to The New York Times.  

Earlier this week, EU leaders agreed to ban 90 percent of Russian oil by the end of the year, while allowing a temporary exemption for imports delivered by pipeline — which was crucial to landlocked Hungary, The Associated Press reported.  

A political strategy: “It is more important to see this in terms of the political signal it sends than the actual number of barrels it adds,” Bill Farren-Price, of the research firm Enverus, told the Times.  

This willingness, he explained, suggests that Saudi Arabia “may be more prepared to boost supply” as sanctions continue to hamper Russian production.  

But it may be too little, too late: The boost in supply may not be enough to reduce oil prices, according to a Barron’s analysis.  

“That is probably because the boost to output isn’t enough to make up for a drop in production from Russia stemming from international sanctions targeting its oil exports,” Barron’s reported. 

Ford to hire thousands in bid to win EV ‘price war’ 

Ford will add several thousand new union jobs at electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plants across Michigan, Missouri and Ohio, the company announced on Thursday. 

This development is part of a national build-out of electric vehicle infrastructure that could help reduce car prices — while causing more strain on the country’s nascent national charging network. 

More Lightnings from Michigan: Ford will spend $2 billion and hire 2,000 new workers in Michigan to bring production levels of its sold-out F-150 Lightning electric trucks up to 150,000 models per year, the company announced. 

New EV from Ohio: The company, based in Dearborn, Mich., is also spending $1.5 billion and hiring 1,800 workers in Ohio to turn out a new, yet-to-be-announced EV for commercial and governmental fleets, the company announced. 

Declaring war: The price of EVs will fall below $25,000 in coming years, Ford CEO Jim Farley told the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on Wednesday, according to ABC. 

“Our industry is definitely heading to a huge price war,” Farley said. 

Why prices will fall: Farley noted that price cuts would largely come from new, cheaper battery chemistries that use less nickel and cobalt, as well as the “radical simplification” of both models and supply chains, according to ABC. 

Leading the pack: Volkswagen’s ID Life concept car will retail for $24,000, according to clean energy reporting site Electrek. 

Buick follows suit: In nearby Detroit, Buick — a subsidiary of General Motors specializing in big, comfortable luxury cars — announced on Wednesday that it would be all-electric by 2030, Forbes reported. 

Texas wants union jobs for offshore wind installers

Workers who build offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico should benefit from union wages and protections, a coalition of Texas Democratic and labor leaders declared on Thursday. 

Without stronger labor protections guaranteed by the federal government, Texan workers will miss out on most benefits of the coming wind boom and face dangerous working conditions, they wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. 

Spreading the wealth: “Texans deserve to benefit from the good-paying union jobs and local investments that wind energy can create,” Rep. Joaquin Castro said in an accompanying statement.  

He called on Biden to “ensure that the workers who drive our clean energy revolution are the first to see the profits.” 

Large scale: Wind development in the Gulf of Mexico has the potential to supply more than twice the energy needs of all five state that border it, according to Nola.com. 

That includes Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. 

Getting specific: Castro joined seven other members of the state Democratic delegation — including Reps. Sylvia Garcia and Sheila Jackson Lee —  as well as leaders from the Sierra Club, AFL-CIO and Laborers’ International Union of North America in submitting the letter. 

They called for a guaranteed role for union jobs, more money for coastal communities and a greater demand for U.S.-built ships. 

Jobs for union workers: For the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management — a subsidiary of Interior that will sign all Gulf Coast lease agreements with potential wind producers — to guarantee that all development will be done with union labor.  

Justice for communities: They also want to see benefits from the projects funneled back into coastal Gulf communities most affected by climate change.  

Jones Act enforcement: Finally, they want all ships working on construction to have to comply with the Jones Act of 1920, which would require them to be built and registered in the U.S. 

That would mean a boost for a U.S. shipbuilding industry — much of which is based in the Gulf — at the potential cost of slower wind development. 

Equilibrium has reached out to the Department of the Interior for comment.

Traffic noise may be harming student performance 

Noise emitted by traffic adjacent to urban elementary schools may be impairing the cognitive development of the students learning inside, a new study has found.  

The study, published on Thursday in PLoS Medicine, determined that the progression of working memory, complex working memory and attention over the course of a year was slower in students who attended Barcelona schools that suffered from outdoor noise.  

• The authors defined working memory as “the system that allows us to hold information in the mind and manipulate it over a short period of time.”  
• Complex working memory, by contrast is used to “continuously and effectively process information stored in the working memory,” the researchers stated. 

A vulnerable window: “Our study supports the hypothesis that childhood is a vulnerable period during which external stimuli such as noise can affect the rapid process of cognitive development that takes place before adolescence,” co-author Jordi Sunyer, of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said in a statement.  

Tracking cognitive tests, and noise: During a 12-month period from 2012 to 2013, Sunyer and his colleagues said they observed 2,680 children between 7 and 10 years old at 38 schools in Barcelona.  

The children completed four cognitive tests during that time, which not only assessed memory and attention, but also explored their evolution over time.  

The authors also took noise measurements in front of all 38 participating schools, as well as at their playgrounds and inside classrooms.  

Short-term and complex memory impacts: A 5-decibel increase in outdoor noise resulted in working memory development that was 11.4 percent slower than average and complex working memory development that was 23.5 percent slower than average, the authors found.  

Attention was also poorer: Exposure to the same 5-decibel rise in outdoor noise levels also led to attention capacity development that was 4.8 percent slower than average, according to the study.  

To read about the differences the authors found between outdoor and indoor noise exposure, as well as their calls for future research angles, please click here to read the full story. 

Thursday Threats 

Climate change melts the winter homes of wolverines, sea-level rise could release “toxic soup” in San Francisco, green replaces white in the Alps.

Rising temperatures endanger snow-dwelling wolverines 

• As climate change weakens the Rocky Mountain snowpack, it’s taking a toll on wolverines, who like to build their spring dens in places with a constant snowpack, Utah’s Deseret News reported.  

Climate change could unleash ‘toxic soup’ at San Francisco port 

• Rising sea levels, which could seep into groundwater in low-lying areas, could transform once-buried chemicals at San Francisco’s Hunters Point Shipyard into what environmentalists describe as “a toxic soup” of contaminants, according to the San Francisco Examiner.  

Climate change turning Alpine snows green 

• A green wave of vegetation has crept above the tree line in nearly 80 percent of the European Alps, a dramatic sign of how quickly climate change is melting the region’s famed glaciers, according to a new study published in Science.

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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