B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

A few months ago, a friend who has followed my writing and recent travel documentary work said, “You travel differently than anyone I know. You should teach a class.” That comment stayed with me. It made me think about what I actually do when I arrive somewhere new. I listen with the eyes of an […]

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When people imagine the front line of antibiotic resistance, they may see a hospital where antibiotics are overprescribed, or a feed lot where cattle are pumped full of these drugs. They probably won’t picture a cornfield. But a new study suggests that crop fields may be an important battleground for fighting antibiotic resistance. And the way we farm will decide who wins.

The new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that high-intensity farming, typical of the U.S. Corn Belt, produced soil microbiomes that were more likely to transmit antibiotic-resistant pathogens to humans, compared to lower-intensity farming methods. In other words, modern farming may contribute to drug-resistant infections, which kill up to 4.7 million people per year, worldwide.

To find out how farming methods affect this risk, researchers compared the soil microbiomes from four widely used farming schemes: high-intensity corn cropping with heavy tilling, synthetic fertilizers, and non-antibiotic biocides to combat pathogenic fungi; two medium-intensity cropping schemes, with reduced biocides and tilling, and use of cow manure to reduce or eliminate synthetic fertilizers; and low-intensity grazing rotated with no-till cover crops, with only intermittent biocides, manure, or synthetic fertilizers.

The team analyzed the microbiomes of soils from these farming schemes, as well as the manure used in the medium-intensity fields. Using metagenomics, they quantified the abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), mobile genetic elements (MGEs) capable of transferring these resistance genes from one species of bacteria to another, and known human pathogens capable of receiving those resistance genes.

 

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It was hardly surprising that the manures used to fertilize crops contained plentiful ARGs and MGEs. But once those manures were spread on fields, most of the bacteria harboring them failed to take hold—out-competed by the diverse microbiomes present in the medium-intensity fields. As a result, ARGs and MGEs were actually less abundant in these medium-intensity soils, compared to soils from high-intensity fields that received no manure at all.

The team estimated the relative risk that a pathogen could acquire an ARG and infect humans. They found the risk of transmission significantly higher for high-intensity compared to medium-intensity fields.

They attribute these results to two factors in the high-intensity fields: lower bacterial diversity, less likely to out-compete bacteria with ARGs, and environmental stress due to synthetic fertilizers, biocides frequently containing copper or other heavy metals, and tilling—potentially favoring bacteria with ARGs and MGEs.

Intensive farming is already known to have plenty of costs—such as high greenhouse emissions from synthetic fertilizers and runoff that pollutes rivers, coastal waters, and lakes. But these new findings suggest that it also has another, unrecognized cost: facilitating the spread of drug-resistant pathogens that could harm humans.

Conversely, the authors write, “soil and crop management practices could be strategically leveraged to limit the onward spread of drug-resistant pathogens.”

Nickodem, et al. “Soil management practices shape the abundance, diversity, and spread of antimicrobial resistance.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2026.

Image: Based on TopMicrobialStock/iStock.com. ©Anthropocene Magazine

In Eswatini, Warren, a gardener and conservationist, is nurturing an indigenous garden that shows how local knowledge and care can help communities adapt to a changing climate.

Wendell supported the writers, scholars, farmers, and activists who shared his interest in the fate of good farms, strong communities, and healthy ecosystems, helping us become more than we ever could have without his wisdom and support.

Where’s the urgency in climate discussions? Scholars Theresa Leisgang and Gerriet Schwen examined why climate warnings fail to spur change and how they might better motivate us to act in the face of collapse.

• Intercity buses are back: Since Flix acquired Greyhound five years ago, the company has upgraded its fleet, improved on-time performance and added 37 new lines. Cities are also investing in bus terminals after many shut down. That’s more important than ever in an age of high gas prices and the demise of discount airlines. (Smart Cities Dive)
• Stephanie Nakleh gives you all the ammunition you need to argue about induced demand on the internet. (We Can Have Nice Things)
• Even People picked up on the ridiculous “DEI bike lanes” story.
• Public transportation is one of the few places where people from different backgrounds still mix. (Northeastern Global News)
• Chill out, Bellevue residents, Sound Transit’s Crosslake light rail connection didn’t bring in criminals. (Seattle Times)
• Homeless individuals in Seattle make up 27% of the people killed by drivers, even though they’re just 1.2% of the population. What is the city doing to address that discrepancy? (KIRO)
• Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s bus redesign is threatened by a looming budget deficit in 2028, unless the Pennsylvania government comes up with a long-term funding solution (Public Source). In Philadelphia, SEPTA is facing similar uncertainty despite better-than-expected revenue (Inquirer).
• Los Angeles, which promised a car-free 2028 Summer Olympics, is reserving 369 miles of roadway specifically for athletes, coaches and officials. (CBS)
• Two L.A. cemeteries spent $500,000 to lobby California lawmakers in Sacramento to halt an L.A. bike lane project. (L.A. Times)
• Charlotte sales tax growth is flat, endangering future transit projects. (WFAE)
• The Houston Metro is proposing as-yet-unspecified service hour cuts to deal with a budget shortfall. (Chronicle)
• Denver’s Regional Transportation District launched a new strategic initiative called Building a Better RTD. (Mass Transit)
• Lexington, Kentucky started fining drivers who park in bike lanes. (Herald-Leader)
• New Delhi built a world-class subway system larger than New York City’s for less than the cost of one NYC subway line. (NY Times)
• The Chinese city of Chongqing opened a farmers market next to a subway station. (China Daily)

Nearly 50 years ago, two young organizations were both getting their start. 

In 1978, Sammy Hammons and his mentor, Tommy Brown, founded B&H Toolworks in Richmond with a vision of building a world-class manufacturing company in Kentucky. At nearly the same time, Mountain Association, founded in 1976, was beginning its work to expand economic opportunity across Appalachia by investing in local businesses and local leaders.  

B&H Tool Works has grown from a small startup into a sophisticated manufacturer serving industries ranging from automotive and aerospace to defense and transportation. 

Tommy was a respected metal worker and machinist educator at Eastern Kentucky University, and had first met Sammy as a student. With Sammy’s interest in tooling and machining, the two men began to partner, taking on repair work and small jobs that came their way.  

“It was a hobby shop. Something we loved to do,” Sammy said of the early days. 

The business grew quickly. In its first year, B&H generated about $30,000 in revenue. By year two, sales had climbed to $100,000, and the company had opportunities that suggested it could reach $750,000 the following year. The challenge was financing that growth. 

At the time, Mountain Association, then known as MACED, was also just getting started in community economic development. We were founded with a primary purpose to work alongside entrepreneurs to help strengthen businesses from the inside out. However, after a few years, staff realized entrepreneurs like Sammy and Tommy weren’t able to access financing from traditional lenders.  

Launching our loan fund in 1981, B&H became one of the organization’s earliest loan clients and one of our longest lasting success stories, but the growth was not without challenges. 

More than a Loan 

As MACED and B&H began to work together on the business’s projections, MACED staff found that while demand was strong, management systems needed improvement. B&H’s accounting indicated a small profit, but a deeper analysis revealed it was actually operating at a loss. Instead of shying away from the risk, MACED worked with B&H’s leadership to develop a plan for growth, improve management practices, and invest in needed equipment. 

Based on that plan, MACED provided $100,000 in financing, as well as hands-on business support. Within just three months, B&H grew from 12 employees to 21 and became profitable. 

Sammy and Tommy were then able to purchase land and build a 1,200-square-foot facility. Demand continued to grow, helped in part by opportunities connected to Toyota’s arrival in Kentucky. Then came a major setback. A lawsuit involving the original property owner dragged on for three years, making traditional lenders hesitant to provide financing just as the company needed working capital most. 

“We were growing with no cash flow,” Sammy recalled. 

Looking for help, he again contacted MACED.  

“They sent Ed McCormick out here. He audited us, and we hit it off great.” 

Over the years, McCormick became a trusted advisor. MACED helped B&H modernize its accounting and management systems, purchase equipment, and eventually expand into Rockcastle County. 

“We got all the creditors all lined up, but we didn’t have enough to put down,” Sammy said of the expansion. 

They worked with our Lending Team on a creative arrangement of a preferred stock investment that provided the capital needed to open that second facility. Later, B&H was able to buy out that investment, creating what Sammy describes as “a win for everybody.” 

The People Behind the Numbers 

For Sammy, yes, the equipment, square footage, and sales figures over the last five decades matter, but his greatest success is 110+ employees. 

“What I’m most proud of is providing good quality jobs. We probably spend over $5 million a year in payroll. And we have workers who’ve been here three to four decades, and many who have happily retired.”  

During a recent tour of B&H, Sammy walked us through the now 120,000-square foot Richmond facility, stopping every few minutes to introduce his staff. At nearly every workstation, there was a story worth telling—some employees had spent more than 30 or 40 years with the company and were approaching retirement. A newer hire was only on his third day of work. Then there was a young employee whose father and grandfather had both had careers at B&H. Now he is building a career there himself after graduating from technical college. 

As Sammy introduced each person, he knew their histories and their families. He spoke to the role each has played in building the company that generates millions in sales each year, feeding automotive and other industrial clients like Toyota in Georgetown and Link-Belt with essential metal parts. 

For those of us who work in community economic development, getting to see Sammy with his employees and, to think of how we helped get this started all those years ago, was a great reminder of why this work matters. 

“The field of economic development often equates success with how many jobs are created and saved. Those numbers are important, but they aren’t the whole picture of how meaningful investments can be,” said Leslie Ferguson-Oles, Mountain Association’s Chief Advancement Officer. “Every person Sammy introduced us to as we walked represented a story, a family, and a career.”  

As Mountain Association celebrates its 50th anniversary, B&H Tool Works’ growth from a small startup into a sophisticated manufacturer, now serving industries ranging from automotive and aerospace to defense and transportation, stands as a powerful example of what can happen when we invest in Kentuckians.  

To learn more about our 50 years of history, please visit here.

The post Forging a Future: How B&H Tool Works and Mountain Association Grew Together over 50 Years  appeared first on Mountain Association.

This week on Talking Headways, we’re joined by Joshua Schank to talk about his book, “New Tricks for Old Bureaucracies: Improving Policy Outcomes in the Public Sector.” In a broad-ranging discussion about urban dysfunction, Schank talks about the inner workings of LA Metro, the benefits of openness and transparency, and, of course, the importance of strategic planning.

Of course, no one gets away easy; we also share frustrations about meetings, transit board structures, and agency fiefdoms.

You know the drill. On Talking Headways you can:

• Read an excerpt of our exhilarating conversation below.
• You can read the entire text (with some transcription typos) here.
• Our you could do the right thing and put on some headphones and click “play” in the player below:

Here’s the edited portion:

Jeff Wood: What was it like when you got to LA Metro? I read the section about the “Board staff,” and I wanted to throw the book at the wall! But I also then thought, “You’re in LA, why don’t we make a ‘Parks and Rec’-type TV show about this group of folks who control, but don’t control, but do control, but don’t control the whole process of creating policy and moving things through the line at LA Metro?”

Joshua Schank: Yeah, it was quite the shock — “Board staff” definitely being one of the examples of a thing that was a big shock to me.

I’d obviously had worked around public agencies my whole life. I started my career at MTA in New York. I knew something about how agencies functioned, but I didn’t quite understand how bad it could be. I imagined in my naive mind that most people working in the agency shared the goals that I had. Like, basic things, like improving public transportation or reducing the number of trips by car — you know, the types of things that you would assume if you’re working at Metro, you care about.

But there’s a whole swath of people working in and around Metro, or any public agency, who just don’t care about those things because that’s not why they got into it.

The person running HR is unlikely to be passionate about transportation. The person running procurement is unlikely to be passionate about transportation. And then the Board staff are the most egregious example, because the Board staff is essentially political people who are now put in a position of dealing with transportation experts at this big agency.

So for those who don’t know, the “Board staff” is essentially support staff for the elected officials who run Metro, who sit on LA Metro’s board. They’re the equivalent of congressional staff (and I was a congressional staffer one time). I understand how that works. The difference is that as a congressional staffer, you get to make really important decisions behind the scenes that lead to legislative change, right, and you help inform your boss about how to vote on those decisions, what amendments to put in, et cetera.

In this case, the people are in the job themselves because the electeds have another job. The elected’s job isn’t to be on the board of Metro. The elected’s job is to be the county supervisor, be the mayor of Los Angeles, be whatever that role is, which also includes sitting on the Metro board. So that you wind up with these staff who have an outsized role and outsized influence, and that’s one thing that makes it unusual.

The second thing is that because of the Brown Act, the Board staff can serve as a proxy sometimes for responding to Metro board items, because the Brown Act says that if you’re going to have all the board together in a discussion, that you have to have it be a public meeting.

You can’t do that behind closed doors, except under a special set of circumstances. So Board staff briefings at Metro were created so that the Board staff could hear Metro items before they go to the board, and give the likely reaction of Metro board members behind closed doors. And those Board staff briefings are where a lot of policy gets made and people hear and discuss what’s going to happen. You essentially have staffers who are 25 or 30 years old, or maybe they’ve been there 40 years, but they’re political people who are reacting to transportation experts who have come up with answers to solutions.

So it becomes a very challenging situation that when I got there, I almost couldn’t believe it was happening.

Jeff Wood: I imagine that’s how it’s like at a number of agencies, and it’s all structure upon structure upon structure upon structure. I mean, you have the Brown Act, you have the requirements of the legislators, you have all this stuff that has to happen, but then it creates this convoluted way of communicating with each other, which then itself doesn’t make sense.

The structures make sense from trying to protect the public, right? But then when you put them all together and mash up, it’s a recipe that doesn’t taste good.

Joshua Schank: That’s right, and I think the fundamental issue is that elected officials serving directly on the board of a regional agency can be very problematic, and it’s problematic because they are primarily serving their constituents, and the agency is a second job.

In California, almost all the agencies are structured that way. You almost always have elected officials on the board, or sometimes in a couple of cases, they’re elected directly to the board, which I’ve heard is even worse. But if you’re an elected official serving on a board of a transit agency, everything that the transit agency does is going to be put through that hyper-political lens, and it’s gonna be much harder to have the regional perspective.

I would argue, based on my experience at Metro, that strong governance reforms are necessary in California if we’re going to have public transit agencies that are successful.

Researchers in Finland have developed a way to make leather-like fabrics from fungi at large scale using industrial equipment. This is a key advance towards vegan plastic-free leather alternatives for the mass market.

“Our process uses renewable feedstocks and mild conditions and does not involve livestock or chemically intensive processes,” says Géza Szilvay, and industrial biotechnologist and food scientist at VTT Finland, who published the research in the journal ACS Applied Bio Materials. “In this respect the process differentiates clearly from production of animal or synthetic leathers.”

Humans have for eons used animal hides to make clothing, utensils, and tools. Scientific advances have led to ethical synthetic leather. But those materials are made from fossil fuel-based plastics, so they create carbon emissions and linger in the environment for decades.

In the hunt for sustainable vegan leather alternatives, researchers and a few startups have recently looked at fungus. More specifically mycelium: the soft white mass of fibers that form the root-like underground structure of fungus.

Besides being free of animal cruelty, mycelium-based leather is sustainable. Mycelium grows in as little as two weeks requiring minimal water and energy, and it fully biodegrades at the end of its life. This has also prompted researchers to explore its use for sustainable building materials and electronics. Once harvested and processed into mats, mycelium looks and behaves much like leather. It is soft and supple, and has a surface that manufacturers can texturize and dye.

 

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But it it challenging to work with. It can be inconsistent in thickness and more fragile than hide. That’s because “most approaches grow mycelium directly as sheets, leveraging on a natural bottom-up biofabrication process,” Szilvay says.

He and colleagues took a different approach. They first grow the mycelium in a nutrient-rich liquid in a bioreactor to create a wet pulp. Then they wash the pulp and mix it with sorbitol and cellulose. Sorbitol makes the mass soft and less brittle, while the cellulose adds strength. Then they spread the flexible and durable fungal mass into thin sheets and dry them.

The team was able to make 1 meter of the material per minute using a roll-to-roll process. This approach offers greater flexibility in formulations so the properties of the fabric can be tuned, Szilvay says. “With certain formulations we achieved mechanical properties that are in the range reported for animal leather.” But the researchers still need more work to make materials with the same tear strength and abrasion resistance as animal leather.

“We believe the concept has the potential to become a viable alternative to non-renewable synthetic leathers,” he says. “More broadly, the paper shows how the range of biotechnology derived materials expands beyond chemical building blocks, bioplastics and proteins towards new kinds of materials.”

Source: Pauliina Ahokas et al. Production of Mycelium-Based Nonwoven Fabrics via Submerged Fermentation. ACS Applied Bio Materials, 2026.

In many ways, Central and Eastern Europe is not a newcomer to degrowth. It helped shape some of its foundational ideas.

Drawing on the insights of more than 1,000 groups worldwide, here is a compilation of stories, guides, webinars and an ongoing discussion course to help communities drive long-term change.

We embarked on a journey of transformation, traveling to many sacred sites across the interior of the North American continent.

• Cities first started installing bollards after 9/11. Since then, they’ve been used to stop drivers from using their vehicles to ram into pedestrians on the sidewalk. The New York Times calls them a sign of the militarization of cities that have become just another part of urban life.
• Architecture and urban planning have a role to play in keeping people moving and healthy, rather than just telling everyone to get more exercise (Arch Daily). This has a lot to do with cars, because they take up much more space in limited public right-of-ways than people do (Princeton University Press). Plus, climate change won’t be solved by individual choices, but only by public policy and collective action, according to author Leah C. Stokes (MIT Press Reader).
• Philadelphia Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron has some practical tips for going car-free.
• More U.S. cities, including Seattle and St. Louis, are putting up gates at light rail stations to increase their farebox revenue. (Mass Transit)
• Richmond leaders want the state of Virginia to drop the legal limit for DUI from a 0.08 blood alcohol level to 0.05. Drinking was a factor in 37 percent of the city’s crashes. (Axios)
• The Minneapolis Blue Line is still short $224 million. (Minnesota Public Radio)
• U.S. DOT officials spent two days in Atlanta looking into transit agency MARTA’s safety and security. (AJC)
• Nashville is developing a tool to measure how new development affects traffic. (Fox 17)
• After a recent court ruling in its favor, Doug Ford’s Ontario government is already starting to rip out Toronto bike lanes. (CBC)
• A new report frames high-speed rail between Toronto and Quebec City as essential for Canada’s economic development. (The Whig)
• A German company invented a tire that’s made out of 43 percent recycled materials and allows electric vehicles to get more out of their batteries. (Auto Next)

The power of birdsong to lift the human spirit has long been appreciated.

In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, a suffering person is revived when “Haply I think on thee, and then my state,/Like to the lark at break of day arising/From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate ….”

Today, the effect is evident in apps designed to soothe people with birdsong, and in a growing body of research showing that when people hear recordings of birds singing they cope better with stress and feel more restored.

But what happens when we hear those birds amid the clamor of urban life? After all, most of us can’t easily get away to a peaceful forest far from the nearest road.

Even relatively quiet traffic sounds well below thresholds recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) take a toll, leaching away the bird-born calm, according to a new paper in the journal People and Nature.

Although we are creatures of the Anthropocene, apparently a part of our ancient brains that reacts to sounds didn’t get the memo.

“Traffic noise undoubtedly affects the psychological benefits of natural soundscapes. With urban planning now including more green spaces, it is important that steps are taken so that people enjoy such areas to their fullest,” said Eleanor Ratcliffe, a University of Surrey researcher who studies interactions between psychology and the environment.

Ratcliffe and colleagues at several United Kingdom universities conducted experiments to understand how urban noise affected the benefits of hearing birds singing. First, they conducted on online experiment in which more than 1,500 people listened to a series of 9 audio recordings. Each contained songs from three different species totaling five birds, many of them mixed with sounds of a city, such as traffic noise. The recordings varied by the loudness of the human sounds and the complexity and loudness of the bird recordings.

Afterwards, people answered questions about their responses, such as, “The variety of sounds in this recording make me feel ….”

 

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For a deeper dive in more controlled conditions, the researchers conducted similar experiments with 62 university students in a lab. There they also hooked the subjects up to a device that measured the variability in their heart rate from beat to beat. A more variable rate is associated with lower stress.

The results showed that traffic noises consistently eroded the benefits of the birds. Louder traffic, not surprisingly, had a bigger effect. But even traffic perceived at 43 decibels – roughly equivalent to a refrigerator’s hum or a quiet office – diminished the benefits. The rankings by the study participants were mirrored in their heart rate variability. When traffic mixed with the birds, the variability was lower.

There’s evidence that at least part of what’s going on is that the overall intensity of sounds can overload people. The negative effects of loud traffic were amplified when the nature sounds were also dialed up to greater intensity.

In some ways, it appears that humans prefer a sort of acoustic middle ground. When the natural sounds were at a mid-level of loudness and complexity, people generally reported feeling better than when natural sounds were high end or low end and mixed with city noise. Likewise, people perceived more bird diversity in that mid-range, even though the number and species of birds were the same in each recording.

The findings suggest that when organizations are designing urban refuges such as parks, they shouldn’t forget to shut their eyes and listen. Measures such as lower speed limits on nearby roads or thicker perimeter vegetation could help preserve the acoustic benefits of the sweet sounds of Shakespeare’s lark.

“It is important that people get to spend time in nature and are able to appreciate its benefits without being distracted by noise,” said Ratcliffe.

Uebel, et. al. “The influence of acoustic characteristics and anthropogenic noise on restorative perceptions of natural soundscapes.” People and Nature. Aug. 25, 2026.

Photo by Mateusz Walendzik/Pexels

How did humans go from living in small-scale communities where everyone knew each other to building a massive civilization filled with billions of strangers? Philosopher C. Thi Nguyen, author of "The Score," joins the odyssey to explore the strange relationship between games and large-scale society.

Marinette County could well become a model of sustainability. However, sprawling development may impede its progress as the next iteration of an economic threat to ecosystems.

In a world of AI and data centers and phones in our pockets that demand continual attention, Berry’s voice remains as important as ever.