State Rep. Kelly Chambers holds one of the newly minted specialty license plates that support Washington’s wine and tourism industries.
State Rep. Kelly Chambers is the prime sponsor of legislation creating the placards that cost $40 apiece and feature a scenic landscape of Washington wine country.
Proceeds from the initial sales of each plate and their $30 renewal fee will go into state coffers to promote the tourism industry statewide, including “small mom-and-pop shops, local restaurants, hospitality businesses, and retail businesses, many of which sell Washington wines,” Chambers said.
Nearly 4,000 Washingtonians signed a petition calling for the new specialty license plates, according to Chambers, who represents the 25th Legislative District in Pierce County.
Last August, the U.S. Senate passed the country’s most significant climate bill to date. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will incentivize unprecedented shifts toward renewable energy, electric vehicles, and curbing methane emissions from fossil fuel production.
For farmers and the broader food system, experts say the climate bill doesn’t go nearly as far but will still have far-reaching implications. Action to curb emissions from any sector will benefit farmers struggling to grow food as weather extremes and disasters increase, and the legislation directly earmarks about $40 billion for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs—many of which incentivize climate-friendly practices such as reducing tillage and the planting of cover crops—renewable energy infrastructure on farms and in rural communities, and climate-smart forestry.
“The influx of money is unquestionably a big deal for sustainable agriculture and climate resilience,” said Michael Lavender, interim policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)..
In addition to NSAC, farm groups including the National Farmers Union, the National Young Farmers Coalition, and food advocacy organizations including the Union of Concern Scientists mobilized their members to push for the bill’s passage. The American Farm Bureau Federation, which represents the agricultural industry and has historically fought against climate policy, largely stayed quiet on the bill. In a statement from AFBF President Zippy Duvall told Civil Eats the organization supports “voluntary, market-driven programs that help the environment” but had “serious concerns” about tax increases in the bill. The IRA includes a 15 percent minimum tax rate that will apply to the 200 largest corporations in the country, which often exploit loopholes to pay a lower tax rate than working families.
The historic investment in climate action comes on the heels of the latest reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which declared a “code red for humanity,” and emphasized that countries around the world were not moving fast enough to address the problem. Experts estimate the IRA could cut emissions about 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, which still falls short of the administration’s 50 percent goal but puts it within reach if other measures are taken.
Critics have also said it fails to focus on issues that could truly affect emissions from agriculture and the food system, such as reducing food waste, helping shift diets, and preventing big agricultural emissions, especially methane from cattle and nitrous oxide from fertilizers and manure. Some climate experts have concluded that food systems solutions like those will be critical to meeting global targets.
To determine the best and cheapest local food scenes, WalletHub compared more than 180 of the largest U.S. cities on metrics ranging from affordability and accessibility of high-quality restaurants to per capita food festivals, craft breweries and wineries. Seattle ranked seventh, behind (in order) Portland, Ore., Florida’s Orlando and Miami, San Francisco, and Austin, Texas. Rounding out the 10 best are Tampa, Fla., Las Vegas, and San Diego.
Three-quarters of people over age 50 in the United States say the rising cost of groceries has affected them somewhat or a lot, and nearly a third say they’re eating less healthily because of increased food costs, according to new poll findings.
But food cost inflation has hit certain groups of older adults harder, the poll suggests – especially individuals who rate their physical or mental health as fair or poor, and those in lower-income households or with fewer years of formal education.
The new findings come from a national poll conducted in late July by the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging, based at the university’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
“For our most vulnerable older adults, the huge increase we’ve seen in food costs could make a bad situation worse,” said Dr. Preeti Malani, director of the poll and a physician at Michigan Medicine, the university’s academic medical center. “These new findings suggest a need for better support of the food needs of adults over 50.”
AARP is among supporters of the National Poll on Healthy Aging.
More than a third of people age 50 to 80 say the rising cost of groceries has impacted them a lot. Overall, the percentages saying this were higher among those who rate their physical health as fair or poor (46 percent), those who rate their mental health as fair or poor (58 percent), those with household incomes under $30,000 (56 percent), and those who have a high school education or less (48 percent).
The pinch of inflation is having a direct impact on what food older adults are buying. Thirty-six percent of those 50 to 64 said their diet is less healthy because of rising costs, compared with 24 percent of those 65 to 80.
