Tyler Granger is a climate change activist in Iowa. -promoted by Laura Belin

Between the presidential election, the special U.S. Senate elections in Georgia, the Capitol insurrection, the second impeachment of President Donald Trump, and Joe Biden’s inauguration, political happenings have overshadowed many other newsworthy events. Several climate change stories received little media attention but are worth noting.

Tyler Granger: Impaired waterways and the ongoing drought are a 1-2 punch that could create incredible hardships for Iowans in 2021. -promoted by Laura Belin

The coronavirus and the economic fallout from the pandemic has made 2020 one the hardest years for Iowans. Unfortunately, two environmental catastrophes are on the horizon for 2021.

Nearly 60 percent of Iowa’s bodies of water are impaired, according to a report the Iowa Department of Natural Resources released this week. The trend is concerning, since Iowa has lax laws on scientific measurements regarding water quality as well as an inadequate, all-voluntary strategy to reduce toxic nutrients in our lakes, rivers, and reservoirs.

Tyler Granger is a field representative with the National Wildlife Federation in Iowa. -promoted by Laura Belin

One interesting fact about Iowa: we were first to develop the electric car, more than a century ago. William Morrison of Des Moines invented the first electric car in the United States in 1890. That vehicle was a six-passenger carriage capable of reaching speeds of 14 mph.

The electric vehicle is older than U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, and Iowa’s electric vehicles would do a lot better if Grassley hadn’t abandoned Iowa’s renewable energy economy. Once a champion of renewable energy, Grassley is now the adversary to almost all renewable resources.

Tyler Granger is a field representative with the National Wildlife Federation in Iowa. -promoted by Laura Belin

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst recently tweeted support for China “increasing their purchases of corn and soybeans from the U.S.” Normally Ernst refers to that country as “Communist China” on her Twitter feed, but when it comes to agriculture, she drops the red scare tactics.

Tyler Granger compares the recent work of U.S. Representative Cindy Axne and Senator Chuck Grassley. -promoted by Laura Belin

America’s clean energy economy has been hit extremely hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. An estimated 620,000 U.S. clean energy workers lost their jobs from March 2020 to May 2020, and clean energy employment has fallen by 18 percent over that same time period.

Allies of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley affectionately call him the father of Iowa wind energy. That may have been true a decade ago, but Grassley has been an absentee father in 2020 when it comes to renewable energy.

Tyler Granger: Amateur fireworks displays cause many problems, from airborne toxins to worsening respiratory illnesses like COVID-19. -promoted by Laura Belin

A new annual tradition is taking shape for Des Moines metro residents after the Fourth of July. For the last three years, air quality alerts have been issued due to excessive use of amateur fireworks.

Iowa legalized the sale and purchase of fireworks in 2017. Since then, pet owners across the state–especially owners of hunting dogs–have frequently been upset this time of year. Hunting dogs that are trained to work with gunshots will display anxiety over fireworks will show signs of distress as the Fourth of July approaches.

Tyler Granger is an Iowa field representative of the National Wildlife Federation. -promoted by Laura Belin

The Trump administration has a terrible track record of refusing to listen to scientists and rolling back industrial pollution regulations–at least 95 rollbacks through the end of 2019. Caitlin McCoy, a fellow in the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School, described the “one-two punch” often employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): “First a delay rule to buy some time, and then a final substantive rule” that undermines protections for human health or natural resources.

Floyd Gardener of the Progressive Minds of Iowa and Tyler Granger of the National Wildlife Federation co-authored this commentary. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowa experienced enormous natural disasters in 2019, and climate change accelerated the devastation. 

The National Wildlife Federation released an interactive national climate disaster report in November, which illustrated that Iowa’s historic floods and extreme heat were attributable to climate change. The report also predicted continued disastrous weather conditions as the effects of climate change continue to build.

Tyler Granger works for the National Wildlife Federation in Iowa. -promoted by Laura Belin

Being in Iowa, it won’t take long to hear U.S. Senator Joni Ernst talk about the importance of trade.

While Ernst has made good points about the United States Mexico Canada Agreement and ongoing talks with China, the junior senator’s actions on another trade-related issue are a different story. She has dismissed and disregarded the Paris Climate Agreement and all its trade potential.

Tyler Granger works for the Iowa Wildlife Federation. -promoted by Laura Belin

2019 has been a disappointing year for environmental protections, from the Trump administration allowing drilling in the Arctic Circle to Congress failing to renew the Endangered Species Act.

This year’s Iowa Climate Strike was a march of hope, and we hope a majority of Iowans can unite in support of environmental protection. In climate strikes across Iowa and all over the world, people marched in solitary with scientists who have gone from sounding alarm bells to screaming from the roof tops that our climate cannot sustain the amount of pollution we are putting into the atmosphere.

Action alert from Tyler Granger of the National Wildlife Federation. -promoted by Laura Belin

Despite flooding that devastated the state of Iowa this Spring, our junior U.S. Senator Joni Ernst continues to ignore the climate crisis and to support President Donald Trump’s toxic agenda, which is harming Iowa’s health and economy.

At a recent town hall in Denison, Ernst heard from a Manning constituent, Peter Leo, about the need to act on the climate crisis. Instead of finding common ground, Ernst made the concern a laughing matter and suggested that combating climate change would “crater our economy.”