Now, a new study that we conducted with a team of colleagues suggests that dogs might have a deeper and more biologically complex effect on humans than scientists previously believed. And this complexity may have profound implications for human health.
How stress works
The human response to stress is a finely tuned and coordinated set of various physiological pathways. Previous studies of the effects of dogs on human stress focused on just one pathway at a time. For our study, we zoomed out a bit and measured multiple biological indicators of the body’s state, or biomarkers, from both of the body’s major stress pathways. This allowed us to get a more complete picture of how a dog’s presence affects stress in the human body.
When a person experiences a stressful event, the SAM axis acts quickly, triggering a “fight or flight” response that includes a surge of adrenaline, leading to a burst of energy that helps us meet threats. This response can be measured through an enzyme called alpha-amylase.
At the same time, but a little more slowly, the HPA axis activates the adrenal glands to produce the hormone cortisol. This can help a person meet threats that might last for hours or even days. If everything goes well, when the danger ends, both axes settle down, and the body goes back to its calm state.
While stress can be an uncomfortable feeling, it has been important to human survival. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to respond effectively to acute stress events like an animal attack. In such instances, over-responding could be as ineffective as under-responding. Staying in an optimal stress response zone maximized humans’ chances of survival.
Imagine that you own a small, 20-acre farm in California’s Central Valley. You and your family have cultivated this land for decades, but drought, increasing costs and decreasing water availability are making each year more difficult.
Now imagine that a solar-electricity developer approaches you and presents three options:
You can lease the developer 10 acres of otherwise productive cropland, on which the developer will build an array of solar panels and sell electricity to the local power company.
You can select 1 or 2 acres of your land on which to build and operate your own solar array, using some electricity for your farm and selling the rest to the utility.
Or you can keep going as you have been, hoping your farm can somehow survive.
Thousands of farmers across the country, including in the Central Valley, are choosing one of the first two options. A 2022 survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that roughly 117,000 U.S. farm operations have some type of solar device. Our own work has identified over 6,500 solar arrays currently located on U.S. farmland.
Our study of nearly 1,000 solar arrays built on 10,000 acres of the Central Valley over the past two decades found that solar power and farming are complementing each other in farmers’ business operations. As a result, farmers are making and saving more money while using less water – helping them keep their land and livelihood.
A hotter, drier and more built-up future
Perhaps nowhere in the U.S. is farmland more valuable or more productive than California’s Central Valley. The region grows a vast array of crops, including nearly all of the nation’s production of almonds, olives and sweet rice. Using less than 1% of all farmland in the country, the Central Valley supplies a quarter of the nation’s food, including 40% of its fruits, nuts and other fresh foods.
The food, fuel and fiber that these farms produce are a bedrock of the nation’s economy, food system and way of life.
But decades of intense cultivation, urban development and climate change are squeezing farmers. Water is limited, and getting more so: A state law passed in 2014 requires farmers to further reduce their water usage by the mid-2040s.
The trade-offs of installing solar on agricultural land
When the solar arrays we studied were installed, California state solar energy policy and incentives gave farm landowners new ways to diversify their income by either leasing their land for solar arrays or building their own.
There was an obvious trade-off: Turning land used for crops to land used for solar usually means losing agricultural production. We estimated that over the 25-year life of the solar arrays, this land would have produced enough food to feed 86,000 people a year, assuming they eat 2,000 calories a day.
There was an obvious benefit, too, of clean energy: These arrays produced enough renewable electricity to power 470,000 U.S. households every year.
But the result we were hoping to identify and measure was the economic effect of shifting that land from agricultural farming to solar farming. We found that farmers who installed solar were dramatically better off than those who did not.
They were better off in two ways, the first being financially. All the farmers, whether they owned their own arrays or leased their land to others, saved money on seeds, fertilizer and other costs associated with growing and harvesting crops. They also earned money from leasing the land, offsetting farm energy bills, and selling their excess electricity.
Farmers who owned their own arrays had to pay for the panels, equipment and installation, and maintenance. But even after covering those costs, their savings and earnings added up to US$50,000 per acre of profits every year, 25 times the amount they would have earned by planting that acre.
Farmers who leased their land made much less money but still avoided costs for irrigation water and operations on that part of their farm, gaining $1,100 per acre per year – with no up-front costs.
The farmers also conserved water, which in turn supported compliance with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act water use reduction requirements. Most of the solar arrays were installed on land that had previously been irrigated. We calculated that turning off irrigation on this land saved enough water every year to supply about 27 million people with drinking water or irrigate 7,500 acres of orchards. Following solar array installation, some farmers also fallowed surrounding land, perhaps enabled by the new stable income stream, which further reduced water use.
Irrigation is key to cropland productivity in California’s Central Valley. Covering some land with solar panels eliminates the need for irrigation of that area, saving water for other uses elsewhere.Citizen of the Planet/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Changes to food and energy production
Farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere are now cultivating both food and energy. This shift can offer long-term security for farmland owners, particularly for those who install and run their own arrays.
Recent estimates suggest that converting between 1.1% and 2.4% of the country’s farmland to solar arrays would, along with other clean energy sources, generate enough electricity to eliminate the nation’s need for fossil fuel power plants.
Though many crops are part of a global market that can adjust to changes in supply, losing this farmland could affect the availability of some crops. Fortunately, farmers and landowners are finding new ways to protect farmland and food security while supporting clean energy.
Farms are much more than the land they occupy and the goods they produce. Farms are run by people with families, whose well-being depends on essential and variable resources such as water, fertilizer, fuel, electricity and crop sales. Farmers often borrow money during the planting season in hopes of making enough at harvest time to pay off the debt and keep a little profit.
Installing solar on their land can give farmers a diversified income, help them save water, and reduce the risk of bad years. That can make solar an asset to farming, not a threat to the food supply.
I'm often overwhelmed by the news these days. I take action, but I feel increasingly distressed. I came across this piece by Rabbi Irwin Keller. It's framed in terms of Jewish prayer but could easily be adapted to other traditions or none. I hope it's helpful to you.
Ultimately, the goal of this protective ritual frame is to come away from reading the news not incapacitated by dread and despair, but instead feeling moved, strong, loving, and resolute.
Before reading the news
Elohai neshamah shenatata bi tehorah hi.
My God, the soul you have placed in me is pure and vulnerable. I am afraid that looking at today’s news will be painful. Encircle me in a robe of light so that I can witness the wounds of the world without being wounded myself. Let me learn what I need to know in order to be of my greatest use, without being overwhelmed by despair. I feel your protective light now as I open myself to the world’s suffering and the world’s joys.
After reading the news
Ribono shel Olam, I am Yours, and all that is in this world is Yours. Today I have read stories and seen images, but my knowledge is incomplete. I don’t know how it all connects. But I know I am connected to everyone; I take joy in their joy; I suffer with their suffering. If there is no role for me to play today then let my learning leave me wiser and better prepared. If there is a role for me to play, let clarity rise up in me to see it, even if that role is a humble one. Uma’aseh yadeynu konenehu. Lift up the work of my hands, in anything they might do for peace, for justice, for the wholeness of our planet, or for the betterment of my community. Just as you turned the curse of Balaam into a blessing, so may all my actions accrue to the good.
[Add here a prayer for the healing of a specific suffering you read about.]
Barukh Atah Adonai, shomea tefilah. Blessed are You who receives my prayer.
Closing Action
The words above may be followed by a simple act: putting money in a tzedakah box, posting an encouragement to peacemakers on line, sitting with breath, walking, moving, cooking, journaling, collaging. This doesn’t need to be a major project, but a clearly defined moment of integration.
In the past,
my convention reports have included highlights of panels and other events, both
those I participated in and those I attended as an audience member. This report
will be different, for reasons that will soon become obvious.
Baycon is my
local speculative fiction convention (“speculative” encompasses science
fiction, fantasy, and horror), with programming that also includes fannish
pursuits, science, history, diversity, and other areas of interest, author
readings, and Regency dancing, crafts like knitting chain mail, and so forth. I’ve
been attending on a more-or-less regular basis since the mid-1990s. It’s not
only a fun convention but a chance to meet up with friends whom I don’t often
see.
This convention,
however, was different. For the past few years, Baycon programming has invited
potential panelists to write up topics and list folks they’d like to include,
then the entire proposal is either accepted or passed on (aka, rejected). This
means more work for anyone wanting to be on a panel since you need to not only write
a bang-up description but figure out who you know that would be at Baycon and
have juicy things to say. Hence, much less work for the programming committee.
Also, more predictable panels by restricting the pool of panelists. I’m not a
fan of the system, as you can tell. I’ve loved being assigned panels with folks
I don’t know who then turn out to have fascinating and often unexpected
things to say. I’ve also made some great writing friends that way.
It is an
understatement to say that this year, the process did not go smoothly. I was
invited, I submitted two panels with panelists, and I waited. I queried and was
told to be patient. Somehow, perhaps because I checked last year’s email
verifying that my proposals had been accepted, I arrived under the impression
that all was well and expecting to receive my schedule. Nope, no such schedule
existed. The poor volunteers at ProgOps (Programming Operations)! I asked if I
could be added to an existing panel. At this point, the head of programming
arrived and, after many apologies for the shortcomings of their software and
assurances that I was by far not the only author in my situation (hotel room booked,
reporting for schedule, etc.), offered to add one of my panels for the
following evening: Science Fiction as the Literature of Resistance, at
9:30 pm Saturday. Okay. They’ll try to contact the other panelists to make sure
they know it’s been added. Since I was planning on seeing most of them, I could
do this myself. In addition, they’d added genre luminary Larry Niven to the
panel. Oh, my. Talk about name recognition.
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, by Judi Dench and Brendan O'Hea; narrated by Barbara Flynn and Brendan O'Hea, with additional commentary by Judi Dench (Macmillan Audio)
This is a series of conversations between Judi Dench and her colleague, Brendan O'Hea, narrated by O'Hea and Barbara Flynn. Flynn does a marvelous job capturing the vocal qualities, cadence, and humor of Dench. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook.
Dench's long acting career began in 1957 with the Old Vic Company and later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Although most Americans know her work through film roles, she returned to the stage again and again. Over the decades, she acted almost every major female role in Shakespeare's plays. The book is structured around each of these plays, some well-known, others more obscure. Listening to her observations about each character, I was struck again and again by the depth of her emotional intelligence and keen insight. For example, the way she describes Lady Macbeth illuminated the personality and decisions of Macbeth himself in ways I'd never considered. Her observations about the structure of the plays and acting craft, such as the critical importance of what character's don't say, apply to prose narrative as well. It's wonderful to me how different forms of storytelling share the same principles.
