There’s a joke you’ll hear while driving through Iowa in the late spring. When someone sniffs something pungent wafting up from the fields, they’ll turn to you with a grin on their face. Then comes the joke: Smells like money!
Heh, I used to say in response, but no more than that, for it’s not a very good joke. It’s just one of those things some Midwestern folks say out of habit, like aw damn it or just gonna sneak on by ya. But more and more, I’ve become uncomfortable entertaining the premise of the joke — that is, the tacit equation of hog manure with profit. So now: Smells like money! someone’ll say. Nah, I’ll respond, that’s just hog shit.
I’m not opposed to the smell of hog manure per se. After all, I grew up with that smell. When I was born, my family had been raising hogs in Washington County, Iowa for generations. They’d been farming corn for even longer, right on back to when the state government first decreed, illegally, that parcel of Meskwaki land open for white folks to claim as their own.
Generation after generation, right on down to me, came the wisdom derived from living intimately with animals.
From a very young age, I could sense where to stand among hogs to stay in their line of sight. I knew rudimentary veterinary medicine. I understood how to herd hogs back into the pen from the corn fields into which they would occasionally romp. I also learned — through ample practice — how to scoop hog shit from one spot to another. All of this taught me that although some folks think manure smells like money from afar, when it’s on your hands, it just smells like shit.
And so it went, until 2007, when the herd was sold off. At the time, my family explained to me that this was a good thing — one less responsibility, one less concern. But as I would later learn, the real reason was corn. The ethanol boom drove the price of corn skyward, raising all other costs except for the price of pork. It was no longer financially viable for a farm of my family’s size to use corn for hog feed. We did not have the herd size of other farmers, whose magnitude granted them a certain degree of protection.
My family was not the only ones to sell their hogs, though. Between 1992 and 2017, the number of farms raising pigs dwindled from 561 to 167. But this didn’t mean that there were fewer pigs in Washington County. Rather, during that same time, the pig population ballooned from 344,170 to 1,332,048 — 60 pigs for every human being in the county. Taken on average, that’s 8,000 pigs per farm, granting Washington County the third largest pig population of any county in the nation. The demographics of farm workers has also changed in the past three decades. Though actual statistics are difficult to gather, migrants, immigrants, and BIPOC workers make up an increasing share — if not majority — of actual Iowa farm labor.
There are other facts, too — ones that the state Pork Board isn’t as proud of. Iowans now experience the second highest rates of cancer in the nation, largely due to nitrates from manure runoff.
In 2018, 700 Iowa waterways were found to be polluted, largely owing to nitrates from manure runoff. Research has also directly linked the intensification of the livestock industry to increased reports of cyanobacteria content in drinking water near livestock operations. Humans and non-humans who live near CAFOs are more likely to experience a range of adverse health effects, too, including respiratory disease, hypertension, bacterial infection, and cognitive impairments — and in Iowa, these folks tend to be already marginalized. And what of all the money assumed in the hog shit smell? Into the hands of just a few individuals.
Rob Nixon calls this “slow violence” — the gradual accretion of ecological harm over time, which disproportionately impacts BIPOC, poor, and other historically marginalized communities. I’d also call it a quiet or hidden violence. Tucked back away from cities and interstates, the damage is hard to identify for those not actively living in it.
And this, now, includes me. I have been off the farm for more than ten years. That time has granted me a generative distance from the daily minutiae of living among the pigs. In that space between now and then, between me and the pigs, I have had time to reflect. I see that the systems and attitudes that drive the monstrous growth of the pork industry are those that drive the climate crisis: maximization, extraction, acceleration, consolidation, inequality, producerism, neoliberalism, capitalism, objectification of our nonhuman kin (and, for that matter, our human kin), and the pursuit of profit.
What to do? What to do in the face of pork propaganda? In the face of the state government’s blatant disregard for the living world? When Governor Kim Reynolds actively stymies local requests for already allocated federal funds to support greater environmental protections? When environmental scientists are gagged by politicians? When the MAGA movement has made meat a political issue — a key component of their concept of masculinity? Can we imagine, in the face of so much resistance, an Iowa without pigs?
I am still trying to find ways to respond to these questions. As an educator, I’ve been working to help students build their capacity to read critically, to learn to see what’s not immediately visible on the page, to look for the unpalatable ecological harm that writers cannot or will not depict. But identifying the harm is only one step in what I now know as a much larger endeavor: to empathize with those nonhumans and humans whom we’ve never met, to actively care for those whom we’ll never see, hear, or touch. The trick, as I see it, is to be able to imagine the smell of hog manure in the air but reject the compulsion to say it smells like money.
In my decade as an educator, I have been fortunate to work with young people who understand the precariousness of the moment we are in. Even the most privileged among them know that the climate crisis is not an abstraction. They know their futures hinge on our collective willingness to care — to dream beyond convention. These young people — their energy, their anger, their diligence, their concern, their care for one another — give me hope. Across generations and geographies, there are communities working together to reverse the slow violence status quo. How fortunate I am to have found myself among them.
Nick is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP29. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation, support our delegates, and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.
Nick Kleese is an Iowa farm kid turned literacy educator. Nick serves as the Associate Director of Community Engagement at the Center for Climate Literacy at the University of Minnesota, Managing Editor for Climate Literacy in Education, and Editor at Climate Lit. He is also Co-Founder of KidLitLab! He has taught middle school and high school English, undergraduate children’s literature courses, and outdoor immersion experiences for kindergarteners. His current research explores the role young people’s literature and media could play in advancing an interspecies democracy.
The post Out of Iowa appeared first on Climate Generation.
Adeline Rochet is a programme manager for the Corporate Leaders Group Europe, a business coalition driving the transition to a sustainable, competitive, and resilient economy convened by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).
Europe’s economy depends on the natural world functioning as it should, but the effects of climate change risk undermining increasingly delicate ecosystems. Talks about the European Union’s next long-term budget miss this fact.
Climate-related losses in the EU have already reached €822 billion since 1980, with a quarter of that damage concentrated in just the past four years. Ecosystems are under increasing pressure: more than 80% of protected habitats are in poor condition, soils are degrading and water stress is rising across the continent.
The latest state of the climate report by the EU’s Earth monitoring service Copernicus confirms this worrying state of affairs: 95% of Europe experienced above-average temperatures in 2025.
Economic exposure to nature-related risk is also growing. Businesses, banks and insurers are beginning to reflect this in their risk assessments.
So, will the policymakers in charge of developing the European Union’s next big budget integrate this vision? We are in the midst of finding out.
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Every seven years, the EU must negotiate a new budget that will help fund priorities over a seven-year-long period. The current one, which runs out next year, is worth more than a trillion euros.
Talks about the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2028-2034 are now getting serious and the initial outline of this new budget shows it will focus on competitiveness, resilience and prosperity.
But, as the European Parliament adopted its negotiating position for the crunch budget talks and EU member states shape their approach ahead of a Council meeting on May 26, it is clear that the positioning of nature within this framework is strategically underestimated.
Why nature impacts economic growth
Back in 2022, France’s nuclear power output was severely affected when heatwaves drove up the temperature of the rivers used to cool atomic reactors, impacting other European countries too. This was particularly poor timing given the energy price crisis triggered earlier that year by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Low river levels caused by drought have also heavily impacted economic activity and growth in countries like Germany, due to the negative effect on inland trade, while degraded fields in the Netherlands combined with heavy rainfall have ruined potato harvests.
These examples show that we cannot detach the health of the European economy from the good functioning of nature.
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Nearly three-quarters of businesses in the eurozone rely directly on ecosystem services such as clean water, fertile soils and pollination. That dependency extends into the financial system, where around 75% of bank lending is exposed to companies dependent on these natural assets.
They entirely underpin supply chains and financial stability across the European economy. If load-bearing ecosystems collapse, businesses not only face disruption in their own operations, but they will also be exposed to failures from suppliers and customers.
This is not just a risk for individual companies, it is a threat for the whole system.
A budget that looks greener than it is
According to the latest proposals for the next MFF, a single 35% climate and environmental target will replace priorities that used to have distinct funding. As it stands, biodiversity has a 10% target, yet spending has struggled to reach even 8%, already showing how easily it is put to one side in practice.
In the new framework, biodiversity is absorbed into a broader category with no separate tracking or visibility. Dedicated instruments are folded into larger funding envelopes, and nature-based investments are placed in direct and distorted competition with industrial projects.
These are often faster to deploy and easier to measure, making them more attractive.
Headline figures reinforce some appearance of ambition, with €587–635 billion allocated to climate and environmental objectives. But since these are aggregated numbers, they do not show how much will reach ecosystem conservation or restoration.
Less visibility, weaker accountability
Biodiversity funding also remains structurally fragile, with around 80% concentrated in agriculture policy rather than supported by a diversified investment strategy.
This shift is structural: nature has been relegated from a defined priority to a mere discretionary allocation, and the governance model reinforces this dynamic.
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Greater reliance on National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) moves decision-making into national spending choices, where fiscal and domestic political pressure will likely mean long-term ecosystem investments struggle to compete with short-term economic demands.
The current MFF paints a worrying picture of structural triple risk for nature: reduced visibility, increased competition for funding and weaker accountability.
Nature is critical infrastructure
It is a point worth reiterating: investment in nature offers clear economic returns. Healthy ecosystems drive resilience by reducing exposure to climate damage and supporting local economic activity.
Public finance plays a decisive role in enabling these investments at scale, making budget design a question of risk management and capital allocation.
Nature-based solutions already perform essential economic functions. They regulate water systems, restore carbon sinks, provide a buffer against extreme weather events and support agricultural productivity.
These are characteristics of infrastructure. Energy systems, transport networks and digital capacity are treated as strategic investments because they underpin competitiveness.
Natural systems play the exact same role, so why does the current budget plan not reflect this?
The next EU budget will shape investment for the decade ahead. Its structure will determine how risks are managed and where capital flows. Nature cannot be erased in favour of competing short-term priorities.
In the upcoming negotiations, European leaders still have the option to treat nature as a structural objective and a core asset, supporting Europe’s resilience and long-term competitiveness. But they must act now, before it’s too late.
The post Nature cannot be ignored by Europe’s next big budget appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/05/25/nature-cannot-be-ignored-by-europes-next-big-budget/
Climate Change
In Florida, an Agricultural Town in Need of an Economic Boost Eyes Hyperscale Data Centers
Across the state’s heartland, communities such as Indiantown are weighing proposals for hyperscale data centers. The massive facilities would reshape Florida’s rural lands.
INDIANTOWN, Fla.—Carroll McAllister frets over the prospect of a hyperscale data center opening next to the grassy expanse where she grew up, in a shack her father built.
In Florida, an Agricultural Town in Need of an Economic Boost Eyes Hyperscale Data Centers
Anaerobic digester loans showed “significant delinquency rates,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, while environmental groups see the technology driving an expansion of large-scale animal farming operations.
The federal government’s pause on new loans for anaerobic digesters, the controversial method of converting animal manure from large-scale feeding operations into biogas, will now extend through the end of the year.
USDA Extends Pause on Loans for Controversial Digesters That Turn Manure Into Biogas
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