Thursday, January 09, 2025

US states struggle to curb food waste despite policies

Without stronger measures, federal reduction targets remain out of reach

University of California - Davis

The United States generates more food waste than all but two countries. To address this, the federal government set a goal to cut food waste in half by 2030 compared to 2016 levels, to about 164 pounds per person annually. But a new study published in Nature Food and led by University of California, Davis, reveals that current state policies are falling short. Since 2016, per capita food waste has increased instead of decreasing.

“We’re just five years away from 2030 so it’s quite alarming how little progress we have made,” said first author Sarah Kakadellis, a postdoctoral researcher with the UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology. “More comprehensive policies need to be implemented as soon as possible.”

The study examined how state policies align with the federal targets. States determine what policies to implement. Researchers found that state policies emphasize food waste recycling methods like composting and anerobic digestion, rather than prevention and rescue strategies, such as donating to food banks or repurposing food for animal feed. In 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency excluded recycling from its definition of food waste to reflect environmental and ethical dimensions.

“We have a huge portion of the American population that is suffering from food insecurity yet we waste more than a third of the food we produce,” said Kakadellis. “Instead of recycling our excess food, we should be redirecting as much as we can to populations that need it.”

Recycling or composting food also has environmental downsides. While they keep food out of landfills, food production still consumes significant resources.

“When we waste food, we’re wasting all the resources it takes to grow that food, including energy, water and fertilizer. Meanwhile, wasted food represents 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions,” said principal investigator Edward Spang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology and director of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at UC Davis.

Evaluating policy impact

Researchers assessed states’ potential to reduce food waste through four policy areas: prevention (date labeling), rescue (liability protection and tax incentives), repurposing (animal feed), and recycling (organic waste bans and waste recycling laws). They found that recycling policies offered the largest diversion potential. But even when including recycling, many states still fell short of the target. Only California, Vermont and Arizona were projected to achieve the goal of reducing waste to 164 pounds per person.

Under the revised EPA definition that excludes recycling, states could divert as little as 11 pounds to as high as 30 pounds per person. Washington could divert close to a third of its current food waste, followed closely by California at 26%.

Americans would still generate an average of 328 pounds of food waste per person annually, double the federal target. Despite ranking last for its diversion potential, Arkansas was the only state that came closest to reaching the federal goal of generating 164 pounds of food waste per person by 2030. Kakadellis said it’s important to consider current food waste generation when looking at diversion potential.

Arizona, for example, has the highest potential to divert food waste under existing state policies. It’s also one of the highest generators of food waste. On the other end of the spectrum, Arkansas generates significantly less waste than other states and is close to the national goal, which makes it difficult to make further cuts.

Beyond policy

Kakadellis suggested that the pandemic may have also played a role in the increase in food waste. Food waste declined early in the pandemic when more people were planning and cooking at home and there were fewer catered events. Now, people may be falling back into their old habits.

“When state policies focus on recycling, it’s very easy to think we’re addressing the food waste problem,” said Kakadellis. “Recycling food waste is important but not the only solution, nor should it be the first.”

She said policies should instead focus on food waste prevention and rescue.

Other authors of the study include Selina Mao and Asch Harwood of ReFED.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service and USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Journal

Nature Food

DOI

10.1038/s43016-024-01092-w

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

State-level policies alone are insufficient to meet the federal food waste reduction goal in the United States

Article Publication Date

9-Jan-2025

COI Statement

The authors declare the following competing interests: S.M. and A.H. were both employees at ReFED while engaged in the research project, although ReFED did not fund, direct, or influence the decision to publish the research project. S.K. and E.S.S. declare no competing interests.

Bridging oceans: A US-Japan approach to flood risk and climate resilience

FAU, collaborators secure NSF-JST grant for advanced flood risk modeling

Florida Atlantic University

Collaborative Approach to Flood Risk and Climate Resilience — image:
An innovative project brings together a team of scientists from Florida Atlantic University and Lehigh University, along with a team from Japan that includes researchers from Kyoto University, University of Tokyo and Kumamoto University.
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Credit: Alex Dolce, Florida Atlantic University

An innovative project jointly funded by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) brings together a team of scientists from Florida Atlantic University and Lehigh University, along with a team from Japan that includes researchers from Kyoto University, University of Tokyo and Kumamoto University.

The project, titled “NSF-JST: An Inclusive Human-Centered Risk Management Modeling Framework for Flood Resilience,” is supported by a three-year, $1 million award split evenly between the U.S. and Japanese teams, with the U.S. team receiving $499,271. The project is designed to create a modeling system that considers the natural conditions of the study area, people’s perceptions and experiences related to floods, and factors such as governmental policies on buyouts and insurance. Most importantly, the research explicitly considers the differential impacts of floods on vulnerable groups, including low-income, minority, disabled and elderly individuals.

“Modern flood risk is shaped by a combination of natural processes and human activities,” said Alka Sapat, Ph.D., co-principal investigator, and professor and director of the FAU School of Public Administration within the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. “On the natural side, factors like how rainfall turns into streamflow, soil saturation, and the behavior of watersheds play a critical role. On the human side, it involves decisions about how infrastructure is designed, how communities are organized, and how properties are protected or exposed. To truly understand and address flood risk, we must adopt a multifaceted approach. This means examining risks at specific spatial scales – looking closely at the unique characteristics of particular regions – recognizing that vulnerabilities and impacts vary within those areas, and assessing the broader, long-term consequences of floods on society, including economic, social and environmental effects.”

The project is structured around three research tasks. The first focuses on establishing a comprehensive U.S.-Japan flood risk data inventory, concentrating on existing and missing data related to marginalized groups. The work serves as a foundation for future collaborative flood research between the two countries.

The second research task involves the development of a two-way coupled, multi-scale, agent-based flood risk catastrophe model that considers both marginalized and non-marginalized groups. This international collaboration ensures the incorporation of diverse cultural and societal factors from Japan and the U.S.

The third research task centers on analyzing flood risks and resilience by jointly creating weather-related and socioeconomic scenarios with an inter-country project advisory board. This project forms a meaningful trans-Pacific partnership for the next generation of flood modeling and advances the four priority areas of the Sendai Framework: understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance; investing in disaster risk resilience; and enhancing disaster preparedness.

Researchers will use the developed model to quantitatively evaluate the impact of flood insurance policies, buyout policies, population dynamics, and degrees of urbanization on marginalized groups. They also will host a workshop in Japan as the main channel for disseminating their results. This framework will include a “human adaptation module” that utilizes an agent-based modeling approach to interact with other modules through structural, behavioral, and policy adaptations on an annual basis.

“International collaboration is essential to ensure that the human adaptation module is versatile enough to account for the cultural and societal differences between Japan and the United States,” said Michael Horswell, Ph.D., dean of FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. “Through the involvement of an inter-country project advisory board, which will assess scenarios involving disaster risk and socioeconomic shifts, researchers aim to identify both the contrasts and commonalities in how future flood risks might impact and shape recovery efforts in the two nations. Crucially, this partnership will yield policy insights that go beyond the capabilities of teams working independently in each country.”

Educationally, the project will provide interdisciplinary training and networking opportunities for postdoctoral scientists and graduate students in both countries. The collaborative interactions among research teams and the project advisory board will serve as a blueprint for industry-government-academia collaborations in the field of flood modeling. In terms of outreach, this project directly addresses topics of great societal importance to the public sector, namely social vulnerability, and environmental resilience, while it also expands the analytical models used by the private sector.

Y.C. Ethan Yang, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science at Lehigh University, is the principal investigator of the project; and David Casagrande, Ph.D., an associate professor of anthropology at Lehigh University, is co-principal investigator.

The collaborative research initiative between the two prominent organizations – NSF-JST – enables researchers from both countries to work together by submitting joint proposals for research projects. These projects typically focus on shared scientific priorities, such as disaster resilience, human-centered data analysis, and other innovative fields. By combining resources and expertise, the NSF-JST collaboration promotes international scientific cooperation, advances research in critical areas, and fosters strong ties between the two countries’ research communities.

- FAU -

About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.

Floods, droughts, then fires: Hydroclimate whiplash is speeding up globally

New research links intensifying wet and dry swings to the atmosphere’s sponge-like ability to drop and absorb water

University of California - Los Angeles

Key takeaways

Hydroclimate whiplash – rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather – has already increased globally due to climate change, with further large increases expected as warming continues, according to a team of researchers led by UCLA’s Daniel Swain.

The “expanding atmospheric sponge,” or the atmosphere’s ability to evaporate, absorb and release 7% more water for every degree Celsius the planet warms, is a key driver of the whiplash.

Co-management of extreme rainfall or extreme droughts, rather than approaching each in isolation, is necessary to find interventions and solutions, researchers said.

Los Angeles is burning, and accelerating hydroclimate whiplash is the key climate connection.

After years of severe drought, dozens of atmospheric rivers deluged California with record-breaking precipitation in the winter of 2022-23, burying mountain towns in snow, flooding valleys with rain and snow melt, and setting off hundreds of landslides.

Following a second extremely wet winter in southern parts of the state, resulting in abundant grass and brush, 2024 brought a record-hot summer and now a record-dry start to the 2025 rainy season, along with tinder-dry vegetation that has since burned in a series of damaging wildfires.

This is just the most recent example of the kind of “hydroclimate whiplash” – rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather – that is increasing worldwide, according to a paper published today in Nature Reviews.

“The evidence shows that hydroclimate whiplash has already increased due to global warming, and further warming will bring about even larger increases,” said lead author Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. “This whiplash sequence in California has increased fire risk twofold: first, by greatly increasing the growth of flammable grass and brush in the months leading up to fire season, and then by drying it out to exceptionally high levels with the extreme dryness and warmth that followed.”

Global weather records show hydroclimate whiplash has swelled globally by 31% to 66% since the mid-20th century, the international team of climate researchers found – even more than climate models suggest should have happened. Climate change means the rate of increase is speeding up. The same potentially conservative climate models project that the whiplash will more than double if global temperatures rise 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The world is already poised to blast past the Paris Agreement’s targeted limit of 1.5 C. The researchers synthesized hundreds of previous scientific papers for the review, layering their own analysis on top.

Anthropogenic climate change is the culprit behind the accelerating whiplash, and a key driver is the “expanding atmospheric sponge” – the growing ability of the atmosphere to evaporate, absorb and release 7% more water for every degree Celsius the planet warms, researchers said.

“The problem is that the sponge grows exponentially, like compound interest in a bank,” Swain said. “The rate of expansion increases with each fraction of a degree of warming.”

The global consequences of hydroclimate whiplash include not only floods and droughts, but the heightened danger of whipsawing between the two, including the bloom-and-burn cycle of overwatered then overdried brush, and landslides on oversaturated hillsides where recent fires removed plants with roots to knit the soil and slurp up rainfall. Every fraction of a degree of warming speeds the growing destructive power of the transitions, Swain said.

Many previous studies of climate whiplash have only considered the precipitation side of the equation, and not the growing evaporative demand. The thirstier atmosphere pulls more water out of plants and soil, exacerbating drought conditions beyond simple lack of rainfall.

“The expanding atmospheric sponge effect may offer a unifying explanation for some of the most visible, visceral impacts of climate change that recently seem to have accelerated,” Swain said. “The planet is warming at an essentially linear pace, but in the last 5 or 10 years there has been much discussion around accelerating climate impacts. This increase in hydroclimate whiplash, via the exponentially expanding atmospheric sponge, offers a potentially compelling explanation.”

That acceleration, and the anticipated increase in boom-and-bust water cycles, has important implications for water management.

“We can’t look at just extreme rainfall or extreme droughts alone, because we have to safely manage these increasingly enormous influxes of water, while also preparing for progressively drier interludes,” Swain said. “That's why ‘co-management’ is an important paradigm. It leads you to more holistic conclusions about which interventions and solutions are most appropriate, compared to considering drought and flood risk in isolation.”

In many regions, traditional management designs include shunting flood waters to flow quickly into the ocean, or slower solutions like allowing rain to percolate into the water table. However, taken alone, each option leaves cities vulnerable to the other side of climate whiplash, the researchers noted.

“Hydroclimate in California is reliably unreliable,” said co-author John Abatzoglou, a UC Merced climate scientist. “However, swings like we saw a couple years ago, going from one of the driest three-year periods in a century to the once-in-a-lifetime spring 2023 snowpack, both tested our water-infrastructure systems and furthered conversations about floodwater management to ensure future water security in an increasingly variable hydroclimate.”

Hydroclimate whiplash is projected to increase most across northern Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, northern Eurasia, the tropical Pacific and the tropical Atlantic, but most other regions will also feel the shift.

“Increasing hydroclimate whiplash may turn out to be one of the more universal global changes on a warming Earth,” Swain said.

In California this week, although winds are fanning the extreme fires, it’s the whiplash-driven lack of rain that suspended Southern California in fire season.

“There's not really much evidence that climate change has increased or decreased the magnitude or likelihood of the wind events themselves in Southern California,” Swain said. “But climate change is increasing the overlap between extremely dry vegetation conditions later in the season and the occurrence of these wind events. This, ultimately, is the key climate change connection to Southern California wildfires.”

Under a high warming scenario, California will see an increase in both the wettest and driest years and seasons by later this century.

“The less warming there is, the less of an increase in hydroclimate whiplash we're going to see,” Swain said. “So anything that would reduce the amount of warming from climate change will directly slow or reduce the increase in whiplash. Yet we are currently still on a path to experience between 2 degrees and 3 degrees Celsius of global warming this century — so substantial further increases in whiplash are likely in our future, and we really need to be accounting for this in risk assessments and adaptation activities.”

The research was supported with funding from The Nature Conservancy of California and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Science educator calls for climate change to be taught more in US schools

Taylor & Francis Group

Given that today’s children will inherit the consequences of climate change, schools are instrumental in mobilizing a global response to the climate crisis, a science educator argues.

Climate literacy advocate Kelley T. Lê argues that climate change is the defining issue of our time, and in her new book, Teaching Climate Change for Grades 6–12: Activating Science Teachers to Take on the Climate Crisis Through NGSS, Lê provides teachers, administrators, and global leaders with practical tools to empower students as climate leaders in their communities.

With over 15 years of experience in science education, Lê draws on her work as a teacher, instructional coach, and educational leader. Her advocacy for climate literacy has earned national recognition, including the Friends of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education.

A Blueprint for Transformation

The climate crisis is no longer a future concern but is occurring in real-time. However, on average, schools dedicate only one to two hours per year to climate-specific education. Many young people are ill-equipped to understand or respond to this critical issue, according to Lê, who suggests schools are the perfect place to fix this issue by empowering students to become informed decision-makers and change agents.

In Teaching Climate Change for Grades 6–12, Lê, Executive Director of the Grades of Green Nonprofit and former inaugural Executive Director of the UC-CSU Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Projects, advocates for action. Using practical tools to teach climate science, this timely resource equips educators with the tools to teach climate change and foster students’ hope and resilience.

The book includes custom guides that help teachers address the complexity of climate change while tying the concept to urgent social and environmental justice issues. By linking lessons to climate events and culturally relevant teaching, Teaching Climate Change for Grades 6–12 transforms science education into a tool for empowerment.

“Education is the Hidden Superpower in the Fight Against Climate Change”

Lê believes education is the key to tackling the climate crisis: “Teachers have a unique opportunity to inspire and empower students to take meaningful action against climate change. This isn’t just about teaching science—it’s about equipping the next generation with the tools they need to build a sustainable and just future. Education has the power to catalyze change, and that work begins in our classrooms.”

The book comes at a critical time as climate literacy becomes an increasingly urgent global priority. Recent surveys show that while 90% of high school students believe climate change is happening, many lack the knowledge to explain its causes and consequences. Teachers are the bridge, bringing awareness and action and providing students with the skills to confront these challenges head-on.

Strategies to Empower Students in Addressing the Climate Crisis

NGSS Alignment: This book inspires teachers to incorporate real-world climate phenomena into their lessons, aligning with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) while captivating students in enriching and impactful learning experiences.
Equity and Justice Focus: It highlights the disproportionate impact of climate change on marginalized communities, encouraging teachers to address these issues through culturally responsive practices.
Student Agency: By linking classroom lessons to actionable solutions, the book empowers students to become advocates for change in their communities.

DOI

10.4324/9781003478584

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Dr. Helen Fisher, and Dr. Judith Allen donate historic archives to the Kinsey Institute

The acquisitions expand Institute’s extensive library holding 2,000 years of history and globally significant records

Kinsey Institute

The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University has acquired remarkable archives from three pioneering figures in the study of human sexuality, relationships, and wellbeing: the legendary sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, renowned anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, and respected feminist historian Dr. Judith Allen. These invaluable collections represent decades of groundbreaking research, education, and cultural contributions that will advance future scholarship and research.

“For almost 80 years, the Kinsey Institute has stood for the right to ask questions about human sexuality, questions that these materials will help answer for generations to come,” said Dr. Justin Garcia, Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute. “Each of these scholars has left an indelible mark on their fields and, thanks to their generosity and commitment to open learning, their work will continue to inspire and inform.”

Together, these collections exemplify the diverse and multidisciplinary nature of the Kinsey Institute’s extensive archival collection, which spans 2,000 years of history and includes some of the world’s most significant records relating to sexuality. They join records that include the papers of researchers such as Dr. Alfred Kinsey and Masters & Johnson; artworks such as those by Matisse, Robert Mapplethorpe, George Platt Lynes, and Cynthia Plaster Caster; and an extensive film and video collection spanning from 1915 through to today.

The Kinsey Institute holdings are a destination collection for researchers around the world, welcoming more than 350 scholars to study the collections in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2024 and processing more than 7,000 archival requests. The materials will be safely housed in Indiana University’s state-of-the-art library facility and will be available after a period of careful processing and cataloging to ensure their preservation and accessibility. The Kinsey Institute is looking forward to opening these new collections for study once processing is complete and providing unparalleled opportunities for interdisciplinary research, education, and public engagement.

The Kinsey Institute would like to thank the families of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Dr. Helen Fisher, and Dr. Judith Allen for their support and trust in our stewardship of these significant collections, as well as their commitment to making them accessible for scholarship. Speaking in the final public appearance before her death, Dr. Ruth shared that the most important thing is that others can learn from her materials.

To learn more about the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections visit kinseyinstitute.org/collections/

To help the Kinsey Institute maintain its valued research library and collections and make them available for the continued education of scholars around the world, consider a donation to our collection fund kinseyinstitute.org/support/

About the Kinsey Institute

For almost 80 years, the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University has been a global leader in research on human sexuality, relationships, and wellbeing. The Kinsey Institute provides an unbiased, apolitical, and multidisciplinary approach, serving as a trusted source for evidence-based information. The Kinsey Institute's research programs are led by internationally renowned experts across disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, public health, anthropology, history, and gender studies. The Kinsey Institute also houses the world’s largest library of materials on human sexuality and offers a dynamic range of art exhibitions, public lectures, and educational programs. Visit kinseyinstitute.org to learn more and follow on LinkedIn.

ADAPTATION

Dense human population is linked to longer urban coyote survival

Study finds access to nature isn’t key to animals’ success in the city

Ohio State University

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Tracking coyote movement in metropolitan areas shows the animals spend lots of time in natural settings, but a new study suggests the human element of city life has a bigger impact than the environment on urban coyote survival.

Researchers monitoring coyotes in Chicago found that habitat – areas with relatively high levels of vegetation cover and low levels of human infrastructure – did not influence coyote survival in positive or negative ways. Instead, areas densely populated with humans were associated with longer coyote lifespans.

“What we found was really interesting, in that the societal characteristics seem to play a much more important role in predicting coyote survival time than the environmental characteristics,” said Emily Zepeda, first author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University.

“And then we found this positive effect of human population density on survival time. Both of those things are unexpected because we usually associate human activity with detrimental effects on wildlife.”

The study was published recently in the journal Urban Ecosystems.

The data comes from the Urban Coyote Research Project, a long-term study of coyote ecology in the Chicago Metropolitan Area led by Stan Gehrt, a wildlife ecologist at Ohio State and senior author of the new paper.

Gehrt and colleagues estimate that 4,000 coyotes live in Chicago, one of the largest metropolitan areas in North America. Gehrt’s previous behavioral, genetics and biological studies offer hints at how coyotes have adjusted to life in the city. This new work sought to identify the diverse urban factors that help or hinder their ability to survive.

Tracking data on the movement of 214 coyotes living in the Chicago area between 2013 and 2021 was used for the study. The duration of each coyote’s tracking period served as a proxy of its survival time.

Potential factors the researchers predicted would affect urban coyote survival included a mix of societal and environmental characteristics: neighborhood median income, human density and demographics; and road density, parks and golf courses, and “disturbed” regions dominated by infrastructure and vacant land. These factors were analyzed alongside the coyote monitoring data in a statistical model to determine their relationships with survival time.

The results showed a positive relationship between survival rate and human population density – at low human densities, coyote survival was generally low. The data also revealed an interaction between neighborhood income and density: In areas with low human density, median income was not significantly associated with survival, likely due to the absence of humans. However, at moderate and high levels of human density, coyotes in lower-income areas were 1 1/2 times more likely to survive to age 2 than coyotes in high-income areas.

“We’ve hypothesized that population density may have a positive effect because it’s actually providing resources like human-related structures or food that allow coyotes to weather the harsh conditions of the winter, which is a major mortality factor for Chicago coyotes,” Zepeda said.

Plentiful resources might become problematic, she said, when the food and shelter, combined with more vegetation and less pollution in high-income areas, draws a crowd of coyotes – which leads to higher disease transmission and fighting over territory.

“There might be more individuals in those areas, but survival time may be shorter there,” she said. “You might die younger in an area where there are a lot of competitors.”

The findings build on growing evidence that societal processes that benefit and marginalize human populations trickle down to urban ecosystems – suggesting that the presence, or lack, of humans, and the conditions in which they live, has potential to override natural influences on urban wildlife.

And yet, it was surprising not to find a connection between natural habitats and longer survival, Zepeda said, because “anecdotally, we see really high densities of coyotes in nature preserves and urban parks. That’s often where you see coyotes in the city if you see them at all.”

Researchers can only speculate, but Zepeda said it could mean the habitat categories on city maps aren’t specific enough or that hunting and trapping is more common in natural settings. Or it could simply be a sign of how crafty coyotes are.

“It could speak to how adaptable they are that they might prefer natural habitat, but at least in terms of survival, they can do just as well in more urbanized areas,” she said.

This work was supported by Cook County Animal and Rabies Control, the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Andrew Sih of the University of California, Davis and Christopher Schell of the University of California, Berkeley were also co-authors.

Contact: Emily Zepeda, Zepeda.31@osu.edu

Written by Emily Caldwell, Caldwell.151@osu.edu; 614-292-8152