It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Credit: Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT
Palmira, Colombia, July 21, 2026. A recent study published in Agricultural Systems provides new evidence on the role of social relationships in knowledge sharing among farmers and proposes a new way of understanding how the responsible scaling of climate-smart agricultural innovations begins.
As the climate becomes increasingly variable and extreme events more frequent, accelerating the use of innovations that can strengthen agricultural resilience has become a priority for agrifood systems. Science has made progress in developing solutions with the potential to help farmers address these challenges. However, ensuring that knowledge about these innovations reaches more farmers and is understood, adapted, and scaled remains one of the major challenges in research for development.
Addressing this challenge requires understanding not only which innovations work, but also how knowledge about them begins to circulate among farmers. The study Trust, support, and knowledge sharing: The role of social capital in responsible scaling of climate-smart agriculture, published in Agricultural Systems, provides new evidence that this process depends not only on the technical characteristics of an innovation, but also on relationships of trust, mutual support, and knowledge sharing among farmers.
To examine this question, researchers from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, the University of Copenhagen, and the Gates Foundation analyzed data from 514 smallholder farmers participating in Climate-Smart Villages—known in Spanish as Territorios Sostenibles Adaptados al Clima (TeSAC)—in Guatemala and Honduras. The aim was to understand how different dimensions of social capital influence knowledge sharing about climate-smart agriculture and what this process means for the responsible scaling of innovations.
Beyond sharing information, one of the study's main contributions is a new way of examining how agricultural innovations begin to spread. The findings suggest that innovations do not begin to diffuse solely because of their technical characteristics. They also depend on social relationships that enable knowledge to circulate among farmers, allowing new practices to be understood, discussed, and adapted to different contexts.
The success of an innovation is traditionally assessed once it has already been adopted by large numbers of people. This study, by contrast, focuses attention on a much earlier stage: when farmers begin to share experiences, discuss new practices, address questions, and learn from one another.
The study proposes that knowledge sharing can be understood as an observable sign of the early stages of responsible scaling. Examining how knowledge circulates among farmers can provide a better understanding of how the processes that may later support broader adoption and expansion of innovations begin to take shape.
From this perspective, knowledge sharing is not limited to the transmission of technical information. It is a social process through which experiences are shared, discussed, and adapted to different production realities. Understanding these dynamics makes it possible to analyze how knowledge about innovations begins to circulate before adoption becomes visible at scale.
"Our study shows that the success of scaling does not depend solely on the technical characteristics of an innovation. It also requires understanding the social dynamics that enable knowledge to circulate among farmers. Trust, close relationships between people, and mutual support create conditions that foster knowledge sharing, a process that can be observed as a signal of the early stages of responsible scaling." Dr. Deissy Martínez-Barón, Researcher in Scaling for Impact and Climate Action, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.
What does the research reveal?
Trust among farmers plays a fundamental role in enabling knowledge sharing about climate-smart agricultural practices. When farmers trust other members of their community, they are more likely to share experiences, discuss new practices, and learn from one another.
Close relationships among farmers strengthen learning networks, making it easier for knowledge and experience to circulate within communities. These connections create an enabling environment in which knowledge about innovations can be shared, discussed, and adapted to different contexts.
One of the study's most important findings concerns the role of mutual support. The researchers found that it becomes particularly important in communities where levels of trust remain low. Under these circumstances, guidance, collaboration, and the exchange of experiences help sustain the flow of knowledge among farmers.
By contrast, the study found that trust in organizations had less influence than trust built among farmers themselves, highlighting the importance of relationships developed within communities in promoting knowledge sharing.
Finally, the researchers identified a positive association between the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices and knowledge sharing, reinforcing the close relationship between the two processes.
What does this mean for farmers and decision-makers?
In practice, these findings help explain how knowledge begins to circulate among farmers. For example, a farmer may observe a neighbor implementing a new practice to cope with drought, discuss the results, adapt the practice to the conditions on their own farm, and later share that experience with other community members. Although the study does not examine individual cases such as this one, it provides evidence that knowledge about innovations begins to circulate among farmers and is an important component of the processes that may support their subsequent expansion.
For governments, development organizations, and innovation programs, these findings provide evidence of the need to place social dynamics at the center of innovation-scaling processes, as this supports local ownership and, in turn, sustained results and impact over time. The findings also support the responsible scaling approach by showing that understanding how knowledge circulates among farmers can contribute to the design of innovation strategies that are more inclusive, context-sensitive, and better able to anticipate and manage potential unintended consequences that may arise as innovations are scaled up.
In a context where agrifood systems need to accelerate the adoption of solutions to climate change, this research highlights that the impact of an innovation depends not only on its technical quality, but also on people's ability to share knowledge, learn from one another, and build relationships of trust that enable knowledge to circulate.
Understanding these processes creates new opportunities to design more effective and inclusive innovation and scaling strategies that are adapted to local realities.
The findings show that trust among farmers is a key factor in increasing the likelihood of knowledge sharing about climate-smart agricultural practices.
A Yale-led research team has proposed a less expensive — and more environmentally friendly — method for removing certain “forever chemicals” from millions of acres of farmland in the United States and around the world.
The new process, which is based on data from agricultural sites in Maine. They say it has the potential to address two connected environmental challenges: remediating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that have contaminated agricultural land for decades and scaling up the use of enhanced weathering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Just as important, the new approach allows previously contaminated cropland to once again be used for an agricultural purpose — unlike current remediation methods.
“There is an obvious need for new tools to help farmers affected by ‘forever chemicals’ contamination,” said Noah Planavsky, a professor of Earth and planetary science in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the son and brother of farmers. He is also a faculty member of the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture and principal investigator for a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which describes the new method.
“We outline a path that allows farmers to continue to work their land while restoring soil health,” Planavsky said.
The research was supported by Yale Planetary Solutions (YPS), a campus-wide initiative that helps advance novel and impactful projects tackling environmental challenges, and Yale Ventures, the university’s hub for innovation and entrepreneurship.
PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are a class of toxic, man-made chemicals that have been used for decades in hundreds of products, from dental floss and lipstick to frying pans and pizza boxes. PFAS are ubiquitous in the United States, having made their way into groundwater and soil, and then eventually croplands. Only in recent years have scientists begun to understand the full scope of PFAS contamination not just nationally but worldwide.
“Though this study is U.S.-focused, based on the available data, PFAS are a challenge globally,” said Jake Thompson, an associate researcher in the Planavsky Lab and first author of the study. He is a postdoctoral researcher in Yale’s Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences.
“This issue — the contamination of agricultural land with PFAS — disproportionately hurts small farmers and organic farmers, who used fertilizers with PFAS before the full extent of the problem was known,”Thompson said.
How did contamination of “forever chemicals” become so widespread? For years, individuals and factories would flush PFAS into their local sewer system, as part of wastewater. Because forever chemicals don’t decay, they made their way into sewage sludge, which was marketed to farmers as a natural fertilizer.
That cycle continued for decades, until scientists and public health officials began raising concerns. PFAS, which accumulate in the body over time, have been linked to certain cancers, fertility problems, and immune response issues. The state of Maine, where forever chemicals were found in milk from a dairy farm in 2016, banned the application of sewage sludge on agricultural land in 2022. (Perfluorooctanoic acid [PFOA], the most widely studied PFAS, was classified as a human carcinogen in 2023, according to the National Institutes of Health.)
Thompson estimated that 1.2 million hectares (2.96 million acres) of U.S. cropland may be significantly impacted by PFAS.
Meanwhile, current remediation options for farmland have been limited — and expensive.
Farmers can excavate the contaminated soil, for instance, or use machines to essentially burn the soil. The cost for such remediation is $800,000 to $1.6 million per hectare, meaning the bill for removing PFAS from American farmland would run to $8 trillion.
The Yale-led remediation model requires only a fraction of that cost. It is based on two of the most well-known PFAS — perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS).
The system’s first step involves spreading a thin layer of crushed, alkaline rock to the area. This raises the soil’s pH level, which, in turn, accelerates the removal of PFOS from the soil via plants growing there.
The next step is to create “biochar” — a specialized form of charcoal — from the harvested plants, which destroys both PFOS and PFOA chemicals. This is done by heating the plants with either a large, stationary machine or a smaller, mobile unit.
Researchers estimate that remediation using this new model costs $1,460 per hectare. Since the process would be repeated each year for up to 20 years, the total cost would be just over $29,000 per hectare — which includes compensation for the farmer’s lost income during treatment.
The system also has the added benefit of removing carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas and main contributor to climate change — via enhanced weathering of the crushed rock applied to the soil and biochar generated from biomass. At a national scale, the system could remove 10.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, the researchers estimate.
“This is a real pathway to actually give farmers in this situation some agency over their land and leave the soil in better condition than it was before,” Thompson said.
The research project recently received a Yale Planetary Solutions Impact Accelerator (PSIA) grant. The grants, recently introduced by Yale Planetary Solutions and Yale Ventures, provide mentorship and commercialization guidance to transformative projects that aim to address the root causes of environmental challenges.
The research is also supported by the Schmidt Family Foundation and the UK-based Natural Environment Research Council.
Co-authors of the study are Tim Jesper Suhrhoff, Chloe Kent, and Ella Milliken of Yale, Millie Dobson and Rachel James of the University of Southampton in the UK, Yoshiki Kanzaki and Christopher Reinhard of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Lucinda Bryce of Brown University.
Integrated thermal and phytoremediation of agricultural soils impacted by PFAS
Article Publication Date
21-Jul-2026
Saturday, July 18, 2026
Mount Sinai study links early-life exposure to PFAS ("forever chemicals") with childhood intestinal inflammation
First-of-its-kind study finds prenatal and early-life exposure is associated with higher levels of a biomarker of intestinal inflammation measured years later in childhood
The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine
NEW YORK, NY (July 16, 2026) — Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found that exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly known as "forever chemicals," during pregnancy and early life is associated with increased intestinal inflammation during childhood.
The study is the first to demonstrate that prenatal and early-life PFAS exposure is consistently associated with elevated levels of fecal calprotectin—a biomarker of intestinal inflammation commonly used to monitor IBD—across three birth cohorts in the United States and Mexico.
Researchers measured PFAS concentrations in maternal blood collected during pregnancy, umbilical cord blood, and newborn dried blood spots before following children for up to 11 years. Across all three birth cohorts, higher PFAS mixture levels were associated with higher fecal calprotectin levels later in childhood.
"While genetics play an important role in inflammatory bowel disease, they do not fully explain why the disease develops," said Manasi Agrawal, MD, MS, corresponding author of the study and Assistant Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology), and Environmental Medicine and Public Health, at the Icahn School of Medicine. "Our findings suggest that prenatal and early-life PFAS exposure may contribute to intestinal inflammation during an important stage of development. Understanding these environmental influences may ultimately help us identify opportunities to reduce future disease risk before symptoms develop."
PFAS are a large family of synthetic chemicals used in products including nonstick cookware, food packaging, stain-resistant fabrics, and firefighting foams. Because these chemicals do not readily break down, they persist in the environment and can accumulate in the human body over time, leading to widespread human exposure.
Using advanced untargeted chemical analysis, the investigators detected PFAS across all early-life biological samples. They found that both legacy PFAS compounds and newer replacement PFAS were associated with intestinal inflammation, suggesting that a broad range of these chemicals may influence children's gut health.
"By studying PFAS as mixtures rather than individual chemicals, we were able to better reflect how people are exposed in everyday life," said Vishal Midya, PhD, MStat, first author of the study and Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine. "The consistency of our findings across multiple biological samples and three independent birth cohorts strengthens the evidence that early-life PFAS exposure may have lasting effects on intestinal health."
The researchers emphasize that elevated fecal calprotectin does not mean a child will develop IBD. Rather, it is a sensitive biomarker of intestinal inflammation that has been associated with an increased future risk of IBD. Because the study was observational, it cannot determine whether PFAS directly cause intestinal inflammation or IBD.
The research team plans to continue following participants to determine whether children with higher early-life PFAS exposure and intestinal inflammation are more likely to develop inflammatory bowel disease later in life. The findings also underscore the importance of public health strategies aimed at reducing PFAS exposure during pregnancy and early childhood.
The study included collaborators from the University of Iowa College of Public Health; the National Institute of Public Health in Cuernavaca, Mexico; Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal; Sheba Medical Center in Israel; and Aalborg University in Denmark.
The research was supported by the International Organization for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
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About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with approximately 48,000 employees working across seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 600 research and clinical labs, a school of nursing, and leading schools of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care from conception through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes more than 9,000 primary and specialty care physicians and 10 free-standing joint-venture centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals,” “Best in State Hospitals,” “World’s Best Hospitals,” and “Best Specialty Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report's® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2025-2026.
Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have developed two new processes: Using hydrodynamic cavitation and cold atmospheric plasma combined with gas dispersion, they are looking to break down per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), industrial chemicals that are extremely resistant to chemical degradation. To support this effort, experts from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) ran analyses that confirmed the degradation of PFAS and the release of fluoride. Once they reach market maturity, these processes could be used in industry, significantly reducing the release of PFAS into bodies of water (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-57490-6; DOI: 10.1016/j.ceja.2026.101046).
While some PFAS are suspected of altering genetic material and increasing the risk of cancer, the biological effects of many others remain unknown. This group of substances comprises more than 10,000 short- and long-chain industrial chemicals which owe their exceptional chemical resistance to their highly stable carbon-fluorine bonds. PFAS enter rivers and oceans via wastewater and are spreading worldwide. High concentrations of PFAS have also recently been detected in the Elbe River – a potential health hazard to plants, animals and humans alike.
In the context of the “National Water Strategy” to secure Germany’s drinking water supply and protect its bodies of water, researchers at HZDR are investigating how to reduce the burden on water bodies and specifically, how to systematically break down these “forever chemicals”. In a preliminary study, launched in 2022, a research team led by postdoctoral researcher Dr. Ysabel Huaccallo-Aguilar used a process known as hydrodynamic cavitation to degrade PFAS.
Cavitation breaks down stable bonds
“In hydrodynamic cavitation, we pass PFAS-enriched water through a constriction, generating small vapor bubbles,” explains Dr. Sebastian Reinecke, head of the Department of Water and Environmental Technologies at HZDR. Since long-chain PFAS are surface-active, they attach to the bubbles. “When the bubbles burst under the rising ambient pressure in the water downstream of the constriction, the PFAS that are attached to the bubbles are exposed to local temperature spikes of several thousand degrees Celsius,” Reinecke explains. At the same time, cavitation produces highly reactive hydroxyl radicals that react non-specifically with nearby substances. “Our hypothesis is that they attack the intermediate products, significantly boosting PFAS degradation.”
Ysabel Huaccallo-Aguilar and her colleagues were able to demonstrate that the process did break down PFAS in tap water while mineralizing organically bound fluorine. The longer the duration of the treatment, the higher the continuous increase in fluoride concentration in the solution. For their experiments, the researchers used perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), a particularly persistent and well-studied compound from the PFAS group. By the end of the experiment, they were able to break down approximately 37 percent of the dissolved PFOS molecules at a stable degradation rate. “We are now conducting follow-up experiments to increase the degradation rate,” Reinecke explains. “Our goal is to improve the process to a degradation rate of more than 80 percent of the PFAS in the solution and mineralizing more than 50 percent of the fluorine that is bound in the chemicals – that means, breaking down the carbon-fluorine bonds that are typical of PFAS.”
Efficient PFAS degradation with highly reactive plasma species
In another series of experiments, environmental engineer Dr. Amit Kumar used cold atmospheric plasma in combination with gas dispersion to degrade PFAS. The advantage of this process is that it operates under ambient conditions and requires neither catalysts nor additional chemicals. In his PhD research, Kumar had already investigated ways of degrading micropollutants using the reactive chemical species that are generated in the plasma. He now applied his findings to this experiment. “We generated plasma at the water surface while simultaneously introducing gas into the PFAS-contaminated water,” says Sebastian Reinecke, explaining the experimental setup. “The PFAS attach to the surface of the gas bubbles. As they rise, the water is constantly circulated. This brings the PFAS to the surface, where they are broken down in the plasma.”
This method made it possible to almost completely degrade both long- and short-chain PFAS. About 35 percent of the fluorine atoms bound in these “forever chemicals” were released as fluoride salts. “While this method has significantly faster reaction kinetics than cavitation, it also consumes far more energy per volume unit,” Reinecke notes. “In addition, the process generates numerous transformation products that we have not yet been able to investigate in detail – for instance, gaseous compounds that form during the reaction.” The researchers are currently conducting further test series to find out whether the process produces any substances that may pose a health hazard, and if so, how to avoid it.
Synergies from combining plasma and cavitation
The researchers are currently working to scale up the process for larger volumes of contaminated water. Using multiple electrodes and a technical gas injector, they are gradually increasing the reaction volume from about 50 milliliters to five liters. The plan is to combine plasma technology with cavitation. “I believe we’ll achieve high degradation rates by combining the highly reactive species from the plasma with the effects of cavitation,” says Reinecke. If they succeed in merging the benefits of both methods into a single approach, they might create a whole new, efficient PFAS removal technology for contaminated water.
Publications: Amit Kumar, Ysabel Huaccallo-Aguilar, Holger Kryk, Uwe Hampel, Sebastian Felix Reinecke: Enhanced degradation and defluorination of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in tap water using gas-dispersed cold atmospheric plasma, in Scientific Reports, 2026 (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-57490-6).
Amit Kumar, Anett Georgi, Ysabel Huaccallo-Aguilar, Markus Meier, Holger Kryk, Sebastian Felix Reinecke, Uwe Hampel: Degradation and defluorination of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) forever chemical in water using hydrodynamic cavitation treatment, in Chemical Engineering Journal Advances, 2026 (DOI: 10.1016/j.ceja.2026.101046 ).
Funding: This research was funded by the Helmholtz Association’s Impulse and Networking Fund via the Clean Water Technology Lab (CLEWATEC), a Helmholtz Innovation Lab, under reference number HIL-A02. The projects “HyKaPro SAB-EFRE” and “Plasma4PFAS SAB-EFRE” are co-financed by the European Union and tax revenue as approved by the Saxon Parliament in its state budget.
Further information: Dr. Sebastian Reinecke | Head Department of Water and Environmental Technologies Institute of Fluid Dynamics at HZDR Phone: +49 351 260 2320 | Email: s.reinecke@hzdr.de
Susann Riedel | Project Manager Institute of Fluid Dynamics at HZDR Phone: +49 351 260 3766 | Email: s.riedel@hzdr.de
Media Contact: Simon Schmitt | Head Communications and Media Relations at HZDR Phone: +49 351 260-3400 | Email: s.schmitt@hzdr.de
The Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) performs – as an independent German research center – research in the fields of energy, health, and matter. We focus on answering the following questions:
How can energy and resources be utilized in an efficient, safe, and sustainable way?
How can malignant tumors be more precisely visualized, characterized, and more effectively treated?
How do matter and materials behave under the influence of strong fields and in smallest dimensions?
To help answer these research questions, HZDR operates large-scale facilities, which are also used by visiting researchers: the Ion Beam Center, the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the ELBE Center for High-Power Radiation Sources. HZDR is a member of the Helmholtz Association and has seven sites (Dresden, Freiberg, Görlitz, Grenoble, Leipzig, Rostock, Schenefeld near Hamburg) with almost 1,500 members of staff, of whom about 700 are scientists, including 200 Ph.D. candidates.
Enhanced degradation and defluorination of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in tap water using gas-dispersed cold atmospheric plasma
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
The US Kicks Off World’s Largest Naval War Games: RIMPAC, China, and the Cost of War
Rather than making the region safer, the pursuit of “deterrence” risks turning the Pacific into a battlefield while diverting resources away from the urgent challenges that communities are actually facing today. RIMPAC training exercises are shown in a still from Earth’s Greatest Enemy. (Image via Empire Files)
June 24 marked the start of the biennial Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, exercises, the world’s largest international naval war games. Led by the US, the military exercises bring together 31 countries and include more than 25,000 personnel, 40 surface ships, five submarines, and 140 aircraft. The event, which will run until July 31, marks the newest escalation of US preparations for war on China, further militarizing the Pacific and normalizing the prospect of conflict through increasingly large-scale exercises and an ever-expanding web of alliances and military bases.
At the same time, the US and partner nations kicked off the 10-day Valiant Shield 2026 exercises across Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Japan, and surrounding seas, submerging the entire Pacific into an intensive military operation zone.
At a moment of intensifying climate disasters and growing economic insecurity, the message from Washington is clear: There is always more money for war. RIMPAC comes as Congress is attempting to approve a staggering $1.5 trillion war budget, even as communities across the world are facing deadly heatwaves, floods, and other climate-fueled disasters.
This past week, while US military vessels practiced war off their coasts, super typhoon Bavi pummeled Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Coming only a week into the typical typhoon season, this is already the second major typhoon to hit the islands. Many locals were still without power from the last super typhoon Sinlaku, which killed 17 people and caused over $1.5 billion in damages.
Rather than protecting local communities, militarization leaves them more vulnerable. All the while, massive military spending diverts resources away from urgent needs such as climate relief.
Climate scientist Kristina Dahl remarked, “In both of these cases we can see the fingerprint of climate change on the storms and that has really devastating consequences for the people who are repeatedly in their paths.”
These overlapping crises reveal a profound imbalance in priorities. As Pacific communities contend with increasingly severe climate disasters, the United States continues to invest staggering sums in military expansion and war preparations. The irony is especially stark given that the US military is the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and one of the largest institutional greenhouse gas emitters, while decades of US military activity have caused lasting environmental and human harm across Pacific Island communities.
Instead of pouring resources into preventing climate change and protecting people on the frontlines of the climate crisis, the US continues to pump money into its bloated war budget. In the Pacific, military expansion is justified by the increasing push toward war on China. The 2026 National Defense Strategy committed to “deterring China in the Indo-Pacific through strength” by “erect(ing) a strong denial defense along the First Island Chain” so that “Joint Force always has the ability to conduct devastating strikes and operations against targets.”
The US conception of “deterrence” is both illogical and hypocritical in nature. In the name of “protecting” the Pacific from a future imaginary threat, the United States is harming the very communities it claims to defend through military buildup, environmental degradation, and the transformation of islands into staging grounds for war. The narrative of an imminent Chinese takeover of the Pacific is often treated as a foregone conclusion despite there being no evidence that China seeks to invade or occupy Pacific nations. Rather than making the region safer, the pursuit of “deterrence” risks turning the Pacific into a battlefield while diverting resources away from the urgent challenges that communities are actually facing today.
A recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies found that the US military’s economic benefits to Hawaiʻi have been significantly overstated and that local communities bear enormous hidden costs from its presence. The report estimates that military demand for housing drove Oʻahu rents up by 7.1% in 2024 alone, costing non-military renters an additional $234.8 million. It also found that cleaning up PFAS contamination at just three military installations could cost at least $493 million, with broader health and environmental damages potentially reaching into the billions. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has leased more than 46,000 acres of Hawaiian land for just $1 leases, despite the land’s estimated fair market value reaching as high as $133.7 billion. Far from protecting Pacific communities, the US military buildup has contributed to housing insecurity, environmental contamination, and the dispossession of Indigenous lands.
Similarly, US militarization of Guam has severely impacted local communities. The US military controls roughly 27% of the island’s land, while decades of military activity have left behind contaminated groundwater, hazardous waste, and damaged ecosystems. PFAS“ forever chemicals” linked to military firefighting foam have been detected in Guam’s drinking water wells, threatening the island’s primary freshwater source. Military expansion has also endangered coral reefs, sensitive coastal habitats, and wildlife.
These events, which are just a few of many examples of the environmental and human costs of militarization, reveal the deep hypocrisy of the US strategy of “peace through strength.” Rather than protecting local communities, militarization leaves them more vulnerable. All the while, massive military spending diverts resources away from urgent needs such as climate relief.
The proposed $1.5 trillion war budget will only deepen these harmful priorities, while large-scale military exercises like RIMPAC intensify US-China tensions, heighten the risk of dangerous encounters at sea, and increase the possibility of pulling the Pacific into a devastating war.
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Megan Russell Megan Russell is CODEPINK's China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator. She graduated from the London School of Economics with a Master’s Degree in Conflict Studies. Prior to that, she attended NYU where she studied Conflict, Culture, and International Law. Megan spent one year studying in Shanghai, and over eight years studying Chinese Mandarin. Her research focuses on the intersection between US-China affairs, peacebuilding, and international development. Full Bio >
