By Jessica Kutz for The 19th.
Broadcast version by Alex Gonzalez for Arizona News Connection, reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Hazel Chandler was at home taking care of her son when she began flipping through a document that detailed how burning fossil fuels would soon jeopardize the planet.

She can't quite remember who gave her the report - this was in 1969 - but the moment stands out to her vividly: After reading a list of extreme climate events that would materialize in the coming decades, she looked down at the baby she was nursing, filled with dread.

"'Oh my God, I've got to do something,'" she remembered thinking.

It was one of several such moments throughout Chandler's life that propelled her into activist spaces - against the Vietnam War, for civil rights and women's rights, and in support of other environmental causes.

She participated in letter-writing campaigns and helped gather others to write to legislators about vital pieces of environmental legislation including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, passed in 1970 and 1972, respectively. At the child care center she worked at, she helped plan celebrations around the first Earth Day in 1970.

Now at 78, after working in child care and health care for most of her life, she's more engaged than ever. In 2015, she began volunteering with Elder Climate Action, which focuses on activating older people to fight for the environment. She then took a job as a consultant for the Union for Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization.

More recently, her activism has revolved around her role as the Arizona field coordinator of Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group. Chandler helps rally volunteers to take action on climate and environmental justice issues, recruiting residents to testify and meet with lawmakers.

Her motivation now is the same as it was decades ago.

"When I look my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, my children, in the eye, I have to be able to say, 'I did everything I could to protect you,'" Chandler said. "I have to be able to tell them that I've done everything possible within my ability to help move us forward."

Chandler is part of a largely unrecognized contingent of the climate movement in the United States: the climate grannies.

The most prominent example perhaps, is the actor Jane Fonda. The octogenarian grandmother has been arrested during climate protests a number of times and has her own PAC that funds the campaigns of "climate champions" in local and state elections.

Climate grannies come equipped with decades of activism experience and aim to pressure the government and corporations to curb fossil fuel emissions. As a result they, alongside women of every age group, are turning out in bigger numbers, both at protests and the polls. All of the climate grandmothers The 19th interviewed for this piece noted one unifying theme: concern for their grandchildren's futures.

According to research conducted by Dana R. Fisher, director for the Center of Environment, Community and Equity at American University, while the mainstream environmental movement has typically been dominated by men, women make up 61 percent of climate activists today. The average age of climate activists was 52 with 24 percent being 69 and older.

Part of the gender shift, she says, can be traced back to the mass demonstrations and protests that flourished in response to former President Donald Trump.

"Starting with the Women's March and the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump ... women are more engaged and women are more likely to be leaders," Fisher said.

"Which is nice, because especially in the environmental arena it has historically been quite the dude fest."

A similar trend holds true at the ballot box, according to data collected by the Environmental Voter Project, a nonpartisan organization focused on turning out climate voters in elections.

A report released by the Environmental Voter Project in December that looked at the patterns of registered voters in 18 different states found that after the Gen Z vote, people 65 and older represent the next largest climate voter group, with older women far exceeding older men in their propensity to list climate as their No. 1 reason for voting. The organization defines climate voters as those who are most likely to list climate change, the environment, or clean air and water as their top political priority.

"Grandmothers are now at the vanguard of today's climate movement," said Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project.

"Older people are three times as likely to list climate as a top priority than middle-aged people. On top of that, women in all age groups are more likely to care about climate than men," he said. "So you put those two things together ... and you can safely say that grandma is much more likely to be a climate voter than your middle-aged man."

In Arizona, where Chandler lives, older climate voters make up 231,000 registered voters in the state. The presidential election in the crucial swing state was decided by just 11,000 votes, Stinnett noted.

"Older climate voters can really throw their weight around in Arizona if they organize and if they make sure that everybody goes to the polls," he said.

In some cases, their identities as grandmothers have become an organizing force.

In California, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations formed in 2016, after older women from the Bay Area traveled to be in solidarity with Indigenous grandmothers protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

"When they came back, they decided to form an organization that would continue to mobilize women on behalf of the climate justice movement," said Nancy Hollander, a member of the group.

1000 Grandmothers - in this case, the term encompasses all older women, not just the literal grandmothers - is rooted at the intersection of social justice and the climate crisis, supporting people of color and Indigenous-led causes in the Bay Area. The organization is divided into various working groups, each with a different focus: elections, bank divestments from fossil fuels, legislative work, nonviolent direct actions, among others.

They make frequent appearances alongside other climate activist groups at protests in front of banks like Wells Fargo, which finances oil and gas infrastructure, as well as participating in the annual Anti-Chevron day, protesting at the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, California.

For Hollander, 85, the work has been energizing, a continuation of the political activism she was a part of throughout her life. It's also helped her mentally cope with the multiple crises the world is currently experiencing.

"It facilitates a sense of agency and of me being in concert with my values and my ideals. It also puts me in touch with other people, other human beings, who are motivated by similar desires and commitments," she said.

Many of the activists emphasized how important that sense of community is, especially when the work can lead one into a sense of despair over all that has been lost. Action, they agree, is an antidote, a way to cope with that feeling and show their care. Much of their work centers on protecting the younger generation - from the threats of the climate crisis, but also in activist spaces.

"There are women in the nonviolent direct action part of the organization who really do feel that elder women - it's their time to stand up and be counted and to get arrested," Hollander said. "They consider it a historical responsibility and put themselves out there to protect the more vulnerable."

But 1000 Grandmothers credits another grandmother activist, Pennie Opal Plant, for helping train their members in nonviolent direct action and for inspiring them to take the lead of Indigenous women in the fight.

Plant, 66 - an enrolled member of the Yaqui of Southern California tribe, and of undocumented Choctaw and Cherokee ancestry - has started various organizations over the years, including Idle No More SF Bay, which she co-founded with a group of Indigenous grandmothers in 2013, first in solidarity with a group formed by First Nations women in Canada to defend treaty rights and to protect the environment from exploitation.

In 2016, Plant gathered with others in front of Wells Fargo Corporate offices in San Francisco, blocking the road in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline, when she realized the advantages she had as an older woman in the fight.

As a police liaison - or a person who aims to defuse tension with law enforcement - she went to speak to an officer who was trying to interrupt the action. When she saw him maneuvering his car over a sidewalk, she stood in front of it, her gray hair flowing. "I opened my arms really wide and was like, are you going to run over a grandmother?"

A new idea was born: The Society of Fearless Grandmothers. Once an in-person training - it now mostly exists online as a Facebook page - it helped teach other grandmothers how to protect the youth at protests.

For Plant, the role of grandmothers in the fight to protect the planet is about a simple Indigenous principle: ensuring the future for the next seven generations.

"What we're seeing is a shift starting with Indigenous women, that is lifting up the good things that mothers have to share, the good things that women that love children can share, that will help bring back balance in the world," Plant said.

The coordination between the two groups is one instance of intersectional work happening in the climate activism space. Though younger climate activists tend to be part of a more diverse movement, Fisher notes the movement is still predominantly White.

"People of color are mobilizing, but in many cases, they're not mobilizing and engaging in activism that is specifically focused on climate," Fisher said. "They may be engaging in work that is more climate justice, frontline community focused or against systemic racism, but it's framed really differently than in most of the groups that are doing this kind of climate work ... so there's still a very big gulf there that needs to be crossed."

Some of the older generation of activists see working on issues surrounding the climate as a way to try and correct some of their generation's historical wrongs.

Kathleen Sullivan, an organizer with Third Act - a national organization started by environmentalist Bill McKibben - said that's part of what has motivated her to become a climate activist in her later years.

"I couldn't live with myself if I didn't because I've been gifted with so much in life, and those gifts have come at a huge price," she said, reflecting on how resource extraction, slavery, genocide, have built this country and led to the climate crisis. "And, when you wake up to that, first you weep and and then you say, 'Oh my God, there's a whole other way to live a life, another way to understand how to be on this planet.'"

Sullivan is one of approximately 70,000 people over the age of 60 who've joined Third Act, a group specifically formed to engage people 60 and older to mobilize for climate action across the country.

"This is an act of moral responsibility. It's an act of care. And It's an act of reciprocity to the way in which we are cared for by the planet," Sullivan said. "It's an act of interconnection to your peers, because there can be great joy and great sense of solidarity with other people around this."


Jessica Kutz wrote this article for Inside Climate News.


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New Mexico farmers finding it more difficult to grow historic crops are taking up conservation techniques to meet the challenge.

Drought, water scarcity, and extreme weather events combine to require growers to adopt new methods and modern tools.

John Idowu, extension agronomist specialist at New Mexico State University, shows farmers how to improve soil health and help control wind erosion. For long term success, he said they need to focus on sustainable, regenerative practices.

"How can I optimize my system and make it more resilient to climate change, to weather changes?" Idowu explained. "Once we have all those things worked out, farmers will tend to stay in business for longer."

Earlier this year, a NOAA satellite captured an image of winds lifting vast amounts of dust and dirt from New Mexico's dry farmlands. Some forecasters compared it to images last seen in the 1930s Dust Bowl.

Plowing agricultural fields annually was a common practice until the Dust Bowl period but in recent decades no-till or low-till farming operations have gained traction.

Bonnie Hopkins Byers, program director for the San Juan County Extension Service, encouraged New Mexico farmers to get a soil analysis and consider adopting the less aggressive approach. She said it could mean they do not need to till every year.

"One of the biggest problems is that people do something because that's the way they've always done it, or because it's the way their parents have done it, or their grandparents," Hopkins Byers acknowledged. "My philosophy has always been if you're going to till something over, till something in."

Intense dust storms known as "haboobs" were originally thought to be confined to Africa's Sudan but are becoming more common in other arid regions such as the Southwest.

Idowu stressed it makes the adoption of regenerative practices more urgent, as topsoil on New Mexico farmland disappears due to drought, land use changes and wind, which he noted has been particularly strong this year.

"The wind has been a major force, especially in the spring, so many days where you couldn't do anything outside because of the wind," Idowu observed. "You have a lot of dust and that means a lot of erosion and that is exactly what you don't like when it comes to crop production."

The New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group formed to help farmers improve their land and livelihoods.


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By Carolyn Beans for Lancaster Farming.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Keystone State News Connection reporting for the Lancaster Farming-MIT Climate Change Engagement Program-Public News Service Collaboration

At Mountain View Holsteins in Bethel, Pennsylvania, owner Jeremy Martin is always working to make his dairy more efficient.

Currently, he has his sights set on a manure solid-liquid separator. He'd like to use the solid portion of his manure as bedding for his 140 cows and the liquid as fertilizer.

But the project is pricey - he expects the equipment alone will run around $100,000. So Martin hopes to defray the cost through grant funding for dairy projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Removing much of the solids from manure reduces the feed for the methane-producing microbes that thrive in the anaerobic conditions of liquid manure.

The approach is just one of many dairy practices now considered "climate-smart" because they could cut production of climate-warming gases.

For Martin, a manure separator wouldn't be possible without a grant.

"Once it's in place and going, I think some of these practices will pay for themselves, but the upfront cost is more than I can justify," he says. "If there's money out there to pay that upfront cost to get started, it makes sense to me to do it."

Across Pennsylvania, dairy farmers are learning more about climate-smart practices and funding opportunities, and weighing whether these changes are really sustainable for their businesses as well as the environment.

The Latest Buzzword

USDA has defined climate-smart agriculture as an approach that reduces or removes greenhouse gas emissions, builds resilience to the changing climate, and sustainably increases incomes and agricultural productivity.

"Before climate-smart was a thing, we called it conservation. We called it stewardship," says Jackie Klippenstein, a senior vice president at Dairy Farmers of America.

Indeed, long before the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations coined the term "climate-smart agriculture" in 2010, Pennsylvania dairy farmers had adopted many of the practices that now fall under the label.

For dairy, climate-smart practices largely include strategies that reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, manure or fields. Tried and true conservation practices like cover cropping and reduced tillage count.

So do newer practices like using the feed additive Bovaer to reduce methane production in a cow's rumen, or precision nitrogen management to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fields.

Paying for Climate-Smart

"Margins are very tight on the dairy farm," says Jayne Sebright, the executive director of the Center for Dairy Excellence, a public-private partnership to strengthen Pennsylvania's dairy industry. "Some of these (climate-smart practices) are good for the climate, but they don't make good economic sense until they're subsidized."

In 2022, the center joined a Penn State-run program called "Climate-smart Agriculture that is profitable, Regenerative, Actionable and Trustworthy" to provide dairy farmers with funds for switching to climate-smart practices.

CARAT was launched with a $25 million USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant, but the future of the Pennsylvania project is in doubt. In April, USDA canceled the partnership program, suggesting that recipients reapply to a new USDA initiative called Advancing Markets for Producers.

Over 60 dairy farmers across Pennsylvania, including Martin, had already applied and been accepted into the first phase of CARAT. This initial phase was intended to help farmers identify the best climate-smart practices for their operations. In the second phase, farmers would have applied for funding to implement those practices. One farmer was already paid for his project before the USDA canceled the partnership program.

"There are fewer funding sources for climate-smart projects than in the last administration. However, private organizations and other entities are funding climate-smart projects," Sebright says. "Depending on what the practice is, (climate-smart) could also be conservation projects. It could be water quality projects."

Sebright suggests that dairy farmers also look for support through state-level funding, such as Pennsylvania's Resource Enhancement and Protection program, which offers tax credits for implementing practices that benefit farms and protect water quality.

Pennsylvania dairy farmers can also contact their county conservation districts to ask about funding opportunities for climate-smart projects, says Amy Welker, a project manager and grant writer for Pennsylvania-based Jones Harvesting, which operates Maystone Dairy in Newville and Molly Pitcher Milk in Shippensburg.

In the next year, Jones Harvesting plans to install a methane digester and solid-liquid separator at a site near Maystone Dairy. The digester is funded with an Agricultural Innovation Grant from the state and an Environmental Quality Incentives Program grant from USDA, along with private funds.

There's money out there for farmers who implement climate-smart practices, says Welker. But "you can't just look at one source."

Long-Term Payoffs

Ultimately, for climate-smart projects to make economic sense, they must continue paying for themselves long after the initial investment. One major goal of the USDA's Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program was to develop markets where farmers adopting these practices could earn a premium.

Some dairy farmers might see that return in the carbon market. National checkoff organization Dairy Management Inc. and its partners have pledged to shrink the industry's net greenhouse gas production to zero by 2050. There are growing opportunities for companies working toward that goal in the dairy supply chain to pay farmers for their contributions.

Early last year, Texas dairy farmer Jasper DeVos became the first to earn credits through the livestock carbon insetting marketplace. DeVos earned carbon credits by reducing methane emissions with a feed protocol that included the feed additive Rumensin. Dairy Farmers of America then purchased those credits through Athian, a carbon marketplace for the livestock industry.

Increased Efficiency

Even without direct monetary payoff, many farmers who adopt climate-smart practices reap rewards in improved efficiency and productivity.

"When you look at climate-smart, you also have to look at what's farm smart," Sebright says. She suggests that farmers choose practices that benefit their farms, not just the climate.

A farmer might decide to put a cover and flare system on a manure pit, not only because it reduces methane emissions but also because it keeps rainwater out of the pit and reduces the number of times each year the pit must be emptied.

Andy Bollinger of Meadow Spring Farm in Lancaster County has been running a manure separator since 2009. The liquid fertilizes his fields, and a portion of the solids becomes bedding for his cows.

He estimates the system saves him at least $20,000 a year in bedding costs.

"We put a fresh coating of it onto the stalls that our cows lay in every day and scrape the old stuff out," says Bollinger, who is also the vice president of the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania. "It seems to work quite well, and it saves us from buying other bedding products."

No-till farming is also a cost saver because it reduces field passes with equipment, says James Thiele of Thiele Dairy Farm in Cabot, which has been 100% no-till for at least six years. The practice saves him money on fuel and herbicides.

"You're saving your environment, and you're also saving green," he says.

But Thiele questions whether some other climate-smart practices like methane digesters would be practical for his farm, which has 75 to 80 cows.

"I don't know if it'd be worth it for somebody as small as I am," he says.

"I think over the next few years, we'll rapidly see (climate-smart) tools become more available, and we'll see more organizations like DFA talking to our small to mid-sized farmers to make sure they understand they've got a place in this, they can benefit from it, and the practices and tools are affordable to them as well," Klippenstein says.

Weighing Climate-Smart

Many dairy farmers wonder whether some of the practices championed as climate-smart will really support their businesses.

Donny Bartch of Merrimart Farms in Loysville has adopted environmental practices from cover cropping to a manure management plan.

"I want to protect the environment. I want to keep my nutrients here on the farm and be sustainable for another five generations," Bartch says. "But we have to make sure that we're making the right decisions to keep the business going. And to do some of these (climate-smart) practices, the only way they pencil out is to have those subsidies."

There is also frustration with a system that rewards climate-smart improvements made today without acknowledging the contributions of farmers who were climate-smart before anyone put a name on it.

"You come around and want to start rewarding people for doing these things. You really need to start with the ones that have been doing it for a long time, but that's really not what happens," says Jim Harbach of Schrack Farms in Loganton, whose farm has been no-till for 50 years.

Climate-smart grant money and carbon credits are typically awarded for the implementation of new practices.

"It's just the unfortunate way that all of the policies and regulations were written," Sebright says. "What I would say is, if you do a climate-smart plan, maybe there are practices or things you can do to enhance or support or take what you're doing a step further."

Scientific Measurements on Real Farms

Some dairy farmers also want to know more about how climate-smart practices will affect their farms before jumping in.

Steve Paxton remembers participating in a government program to improve timber over 50 years ago on his family dairy, Irishtown Acres in Grove City. His family members were paid to climb up into their white pines and saw off many of the bottom branches.

The goal was to create a cleaner log. Instead, more sunlight shown through, which caused grape vines to climb up and topple the trees.

"The bottom line is, there was research done, it looked good, but it hadn't had enough time to follow through and see just really what the end results would be," Paxton says.

When Paxton sees estimates of how some practices might reduce greenhouse gases emitted from cows, he wonders how much of that research has been tested on actual dairies.

"I think some of it now is just kind of a textbook estimate of what's happening," he says.

More meaningful data is needed to show how climate-smart practices reduce greenhouse gases on individual dairies, Sebright says.

As part of the CARAT program, Penn State researchers planned to place greenhouse gas sensors on a dozen dairies and test how much greenhouse gas production falls as farmers experiment with different practices. The researchers intended to then use that data to build models that predict how those practices may affect emissions on other farms. They will still measure emissions this spring on one farm that is experimenting with a new approach for spreading manure in fields of feed crops.

"The real goal of (CARAT) is to have research that says, if you put a cover and flare (manure storage system) on a 500-cow dairy, this is how greenhouse gas emissions will change," Sebright says. "Or if you use Bovaer on a 90-cow herd, here's how this will affect greenhouse gas emissions."

Martin of Mountain View Holsteins has his own personal beliefs about where a dairy farmer's responsibilities to the planet begin and end. But from a business perspective, he feels compelled to adopt climate-smart practices because he expects the industry will eventually require them.

"Climate concerns are coming whether I'd like it or not," he says. "So my thought is, I might as well get started on it while there's funding to do it."


Carolyn Beans wrote this article for Lancaster Farming.


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Oregon's new state budget cuts funding for programs intended to protect residents from extreme weather and make renewable energy more accessible.

Climate justice advocates said it is a major setback after years of progressive climate policies.

Ben Brint, senior climate program director for the Oregon Environmental Council, is disappointed to lose funding for the Community Renewable Energy Grant Program, which supports a variety of projects tailored to communities, including microgrids and solar storage.

"We felt legislators didn't fund climate resilience programs while fires are raging, people's houses are burning down and the state has already experienced record heat waves in June," Brint pointed out. "Legislators don't see we are in an actual climate emergency and chose inaction."

Brint said the grant program aimed to help low-income, rural and communities of color, those most impacted by climate disasters. Lawmakers attributed the cuts to budget shortfalls and uncertainty over federal funding.

Joel Iboa, executive director of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, said the Community Resilience Hub program, which creates networks as well as physical places to protect people from extreme cold, heat and smoke also lost funding this session. He argued the hubs are effective because communities design them to meet their unique needs.

"Whether it be a place to plug in your phone or a place to go get diapers or get an air conditioner or whatever your community may need," Iboa outlined. "Depending on what's going on."

A heat pump program for rental housing, aimed at making energy-efficient heating and cooling more affordable, was also cut this session.

Brint added he realizes legislators have to make tough decisions about how to fund health care and housing but emphasized climate change is connected to those issues.

"When we're talking about heat pumps or the C-REP program, we're talking about people's health and livelihoods and saving lives in the face of climate fueled disaster," Brint stressed.

Brint added since climate change is not going away, the movement to push for climate resilience will not either.


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