3. Rural Communities

While the interests of rural communities are usually assumed to be identical to those of larger commercial farmers, most rural people are not attached to the farm economy. In rural areas, construction provides about as many jobs as farming, with about twice the total earnings.

Moreover, most rural residents are supportive of heightened environmental protections, even those opposed by farmers. Since virtually all of the climate-friendly practices recommended in this book will also reduce air and water pollution, rural residents’ demonstrated concern for clean air and water makes it likely that they will be supportive of policies designed to encourage these practices. A national survey conducted in 2019 found that rural voters were more likely to be concerned about environmental and conservation issues that concerned farmland than urban and suburban voters.⁷⁶ Rural voters said clean water was their highest environmental priority among the seven listed options and only 26% of the respondents opposed government regulations to ensure clean water.⁷⁷ A majority of rural respondents (52%) also agreed with the statement that environmental protection should be prioritized, “even at the risk of curbing economic growth,” in comparison to a small minority (28%) who agreed that economic growth should be prioritized, “even if the environment suffers to some extent.”⁷⁸ A follow-up survey of rural voters in the upper Midwest found that rural voters in the region were much more likely to prioritize “ensuring clean water” and “ensuring clean air” than “conserving farmland/range lands.”⁷⁹ Sixty-eight

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percent of voters said that “ensuring clean air” was very important to them personally.⁸⁰

Recent state-level surveys have also found that rural voters’ main agricultural priority is the regulation of pollution from farms.

Rural people who live near industrial livestock facilities have strong reasons to oppose them. CAFOs depress property values,⁸⁵ and various studies link living near a CAFO with respiratory problems, MRSA, hypertension, and other health problems. Local residents and activist groups often oppose CAFOs because of their foul odors, pollution, and public health risks. These demonstrations rarely make the national news, but they are significant events in the places where they happen. In 2018, more than 150 people turned out to oppose a CAFO in Mercer County, Ohio, home to about 40,000 people; a demonstration of the same relative size in New York City would have had 70,000 people. In 2020, a group called KnowCAFOs in Polk County, Wisconsin, fought off an ordinance that would have allowed new CAFOs in the county.⁸⁶

So concerned are industry leaders about nuisance cases against animal production facilities that they have successfully urged many state legislators

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to enact laws limiting such cases.⁸⁷ When the cases are allowed to proceed, the facts make clear that many rural residents would strongly support policies to limit pollution.

It is well-established—almost to the point of judicial notice—that environmental harms are visited disproportionately upon the dispossessed—here on minority populations and poor communities. But whether a home borders a golf course or a dirt road, it is a castle for those who reside in it. It is where children play and grow, friends sit and visit, and a life is built. Many plaintiffs in this suit have tended their hearths for generations—one family for almost 100 years. They are exactly whom the venerable tort of nuisance ought to protect. Murphy-Brown’s interference with their quiet enjoyment of their properties was unreasonable. It was willful, and it was wanton. The record fully supports the jury’s finding that punitive damages were warranted.⁹⁰

Local rural groups have led similar fights against pesticides. A 2019 literature review found that people who live closer to agricultural land have higher levels of pesticide exposure.⁹¹ Both acute and chronic exposure to pesticides is associated with cancer, depression, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, respiratory diseases, and other chronic ailments.⁹² In 2012, a coalition of environmental, farmworker, and local California groups filed suit in response to the approval of methyl iodide, one of the most toxic pesticides used in

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agriculture. In response, the manufacturer pulled the pesticide from the U.S. market and it was eventually banned.

There are broad swaths of the rural population, far more numerous than farmers, who see the need for stronger environmental protections and would support policies to accelerate adoption of climate-friendly practices. Policymakers must include them fully as stakeholders.