Nitrogen

I was 11 years old in 1997 when Geoffrey West shot and killed my mother, Margaret Parrish Berry, while robbing the Attalla gas station where she worked. Mr. West was sentenced to death. His execution date is set for tonight, September 25. He is due to be killed by nitrogen gas. But I do not want the state of Alabama to kill him. That won’t bring my mother back; it will only add to the pain I have lived with since the night she was shot. I believe there is a better way.My mother was the person I loved most in the world. Her absence, and the senseless way she died, has cast a long shadow over my life. Even so, the weeks since I learned that Governor Ivey set an execution date for Mr. West have been some of the most unsettling I can recall. My dearest wish is to meet with Mr. West.

Something is happening across the world right now, something that deserves more attention than it's getting. First, to the Netherlands, where farmers have been protesting, blockading roads with their tractors and staging enormous rallies. The demonstrations have been going on and off since 2019, when the Dutch legislature proposed a crackdown on nitrogen emissions. Nitrogen is heavily emitted by livestock and fertilizer, which means the regulations are hitting Dutch agriculture especially hard. But it wasn't until July that the protests garnered international attention. The Dutch government announced plans in compliance with a court order to cut nitrogen emissions by 50 percent.