At DC Climate Week, one event had a curious host: Protein PACT, a public relations initiative for livestock industry trade groups. Read more in our newsletter: https://buff.ly/CvCbLhz (fb)

In North Carolina, the EPA is in the process of negotiating with the state’s environmental agency over a complaint concerning the permitting of hog farms. These farms are highly concentrated in a region known as the Black Belt, which the complaint describes as “the crescent-shaped swath of dark, fertile soils stretching from Virginia to Mississippi where large numbers of African Americans were enslaved on plantations before the Civil War.” This region is becoming less and less livable as longtime residents become overcrowded by the more than 2,000 industrial hog operations, which produce 10 billion gallons of waste per year, according to research published at the Yale School of the Environment. Unfortunately, as EPA civil rights work has stalled, complaints like this have been left in limbo. Learn more: https://buff.ly/SEMwuBe (fb)