rjzimmerman

[rjzimmerman]

Earth’s record hot streak might be a sign of a new climate era. (Washington Post)

The historic heat wave that besieged Mali and other parts of West Africa this month — which scientists say would have been “virtually impossible” in a world without human-caused climate change — is just the latest manifestation of a sudden and worrying surge in global temperatures. Fueled by decades of uncontrolled fossil fuel burning and an El Niño climate pattern that emerged last June, the planet this year breached a feared warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Nearly 19,000 weather stations have notched record high temperatures since January 1. Each of the last ten months has been the hottest of its kind.

The scale and intensity of this hot streak is extraordinary even considering the unprecedented amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, researchers say. Scientists are still struggling to explain how the planet could have exceeded previous temperature records by as much as half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) last fall.

What happens in the next few months, said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, could indicate whether Earth’s climate has undergone a fundamental shift — a quantum leap in warming that is confounding climate models and stoking ever more dangerous weather extremes.

But even if the world returns to a more predictable warming trajectory, it will only be a temporary reprieve from the conditions that humanity must soon confront, Schmidt said. “Global warming continues apace.”

As soon as the planet entered an El Niño climate pattern — a naturally occurring phenomenon associated with warming in the Pacific Ocean — scientists knew it would start breaking records. El Niños are associated with spikes in Earth’s overall temperature, and this one was unfolding on a planet that has already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels.

Yet this El Niño didn’t just break records; it obliterated them. Four consecutive days in July became the hottest days in history. The Northern Hemisphere saw its warmest summer — and then its warmest winter — known to science.

By the end of 2023, Earth’s average temperature was nearly 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the preindustrial average — and about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than climate modelers predicted it would be, even taking El Niño into account.

Researchers have spent the past several months investigating possible explanations for that 0.2 C discrepancy: a volcanic eruption that spewed heat-trapping water vapor into the atmosphere, changes in shipping fuel that affected the formation of clouds that block the sun. So far, those factors can only account for a small fraction of the anomaly, raising fears that scientists’ models may have failed to capture a longer-lasting change in the climate system.

#climate change #heat waves #hot weather

[rjzimmerman]

Wyoming’s wolf-elimination policy leads to torture and darkness. (Washington Post)

There aren't many additional facts I learn when I read the next article and then next one and then the next one about the torture and slaughter of a wolf in Wyoming. According to media, millions of Americans are now royally pissed off at any official of Wyoming for tolerating this sort of behavior. Toss in the natural hatred that many non-hunters have toward hunters, and the royal piss-offness gets worse. If you're from Wyoming, shame the people who are responsible for this crap.

The species on the right is not human. Or if it's proven it is human, then said thing needs to be severely and conspicuously punished.

The alleged torture and killing of an adolescent female wolf earlier this year in Wyoming has brought international outrage, a demand that the perpetrator be incarcerated and policies reformed to prevent any more cruelty to predators.

When it comes to wolves in Wyoming, where wildlife is plentiful and people are scarce, it’s open season, 24/7/365. No license is required in “predator zones,” which cover 85 percent of the state. In 2021, the Republican-led legislature passed a law calling for the extermination of 90 percent of the state’s gray wolves. The state also protects hunters’ identities, thanks to a 2012 law passed after the harassment of an Idaho wolf hunter whose name had been posted online.

It’s not hard to see how such standards for killing could lead someone like Cody Roberts, 42, to think it would be fun to mow down an adolescent female wolf with a 600-pound snowmobile, then drag her through a bar in Daniel, Wyo., and then pose for photos. This is what Roberts allegedly did on the night of Feb. 29. He taped the agonized wolf’s jaws shut, shocked her repeatedly with a shock collar, according to witnesses, and then dragged her outside where he shot her.

Well, maybe not so easy for decent people to see. I’ve been trying to un-see for several days so I could bring myself to write about this barbarism. Videos and photographs quickly circulated around town and online, showing Roberts kneeling and grinning as he held up the suffering animal and a celebratory beer. Outraged animal-welfare activists worldwide have spread the word about Roberts and the obscene fate of a grievously wounded animal.

Yet Roberts was fined just $250 for illegal possession of “live, warm-blooded wildlife,” which — Hail, Mary — is against the law. I’m glad something is.

Nowhere near satisfied, animal-welfare groups are offering a $20,000 reward for anyone providing additional evidence to police and prosecutors that leads to Roberts spending at least one year in prison. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Center for a Humane Economy, also has given the poor wolf a name — Theia, for the Greek goddess of light, sight and prophecy — so that she will be remembered as a noble creature whose sacrifice will drive a movement toward more humane policies.

#Wyoming #wolves

[rjzimmerman]

Has the U.S. really conserved a third of its waters? Here’s the math. (Washington Post)

Almost everyone loves the ocean. But not everyone agrees on what it means to protect it.

The United States is conserving approximately one-third of the country’s ocean areas, according to an early analysis released Friday by the Biden administration — suggesting the president is meeting a key environmental goal laid out at the beginning of his term.

But others say that’s not the case.

Some of those areas still allow for commercial fishing, advocates say, and fall short of protections needed to save marine ecosystems facing dire threats.

“It’s padding the numbers,” said Brad Sewell, oceans director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The disagreement comes as the White House on Friday outlined how much progress the country has made in achieving President Biden’s ambitious goal of conserving at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality said its preliminary count — outlined in a newly released atlas — shows that approximately “one-third of U.S. marine areas are currently conserved.”

“We are making bold progress to conserve our ocean,” Rick Spinrad, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a statement.

Yet precisely what areas on the map should count as protected has been a subject of considerable debate.

The White House said a majority of that ocean expanse — 26 percent of U.S. waters — is officially designated as “marine protected areas,” where human activity is typically restricted to protect wildlife.

But that one-third tally also includes parts of the ocean where only a type of fishing called bottom trawling is banned to protect coral and other bottom-dwelling creatures from nets that scrape the seafloor. Other types of commercial fishing in those areas, which include swaths of ocean off New England and the Mid-Atlantic, are still allowed.

#ocean conservation #marine protected areas

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

As an independent candidate for the White House, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claims he would be the “best environment president in American history,” drawing on his past as a crusading lawyer who went after polluters in New York.

But dozens of Mr. Kennedy’s former colleagues at the Natural Resources Defense Council are calling on him to withdraw from the race, in full-page advertisements sponsored by the group’s political arm that are expected to appear in newspapers in six swing states on Sunday.

Separately, a dozen other national environmental organizations have issued an open letter calling Mr. Kennedy “ a “dangerous conspiracy theorist and a science denier” who promotes “toxic beliefs” on vaccines and on climate change.

People involved in both efforts maintain that Mr. Kennedy cannot win the presidency but could siphon votes away from President Biden and help elect former President Donald J. Trump, who has called climate change a hoax and promised to unravel environmental laws and policies.

“A vote for RFK Jr. is a vote to destroy that progress and put Trump back in the White House,” says the newspaper ad that will run in Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Signatories include John Hamilton Adams, who co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council and hired Mr. Kennedy in the 1980s, as well as past presidents and the group’s current president. They implore Mr. Kennedy to “Honor our planet, drop out.”

Mr. Kennedy was a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council for about 28 years, stepping down in 2014.

Former colleagues in environmental circles were unvarnished in their assessments of Mr. Kennedy.

“The Bobby I knew is gone,” said Dan Reicher, a senior energy researcher at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for Environment. Mr. Reicher worked with Mr. Kennedy at N.R.D.C. and said he had a decades-long personal friendship with Mr. Kennedy, including paddling rivers together in the United States and Chile.

Gina McCarthy was the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama and then became president of N.R.D.C. during the Trump administration, only to return to national service as Mr. Biden’s climate adviser until last year.

“If folks remember him as an environmentalist, he is no more,” she said about Mr. Kennedy. “He’s against science, he’s against vaccines, he talks jibber jabber on climate. I don’t know what he stands for.”

#robert f kennedy jr

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

An estimated 20 million people in southern Africa are facing what the United Nations calls “acute hunger” as one of the worst droughts in more than four decades shrivels crops, decimates livestock and, after years of rising food prices brought on by pandemic and war, spikes the price of corn, the region’s staple crop.

Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have all declared national emergencies.

It is a bitter foretaste of what a warming climate is projected to bring to a region that’s likely to be acutely affected by climate change, though scientists said on Thursday that the current drought is more driven by the natural weather cycle known as El Niño than by global warming.

Its effects are all the more punishing because in the past few years the region had been hit by cyclones, unusually heavy rains and a widening outbreak of cholera.

The rains this year began late and were lower than average. In February, when crops need it most, parts of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique and Botswana received a fifth of the typical rainfall.

#Africa #drought #hunger

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

Climate promises are hard to keep. Scotland is the latest, perhaps most surprising example.

Scotland, an early industrial power and coal-burning behemoth, was also an early adopter of an ambitious and legally binding government target to slow down climate change. It had promised to pare back its emissions of planet-heating greenhouse gases by 75 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.

This week, its Net Zero minister, Màiri McAllan, said that goal was now “out of reach.” She said Scotland, which operates semi-autonomously from Britain, would scrap its annual targets for cutting emissions and instead review targets every five years.

That is a sharp contrast to the bullishness of the Scottish government in 2021, when diplomats from around the world gathered in Glasgow for international United Nations climate talks. At that time, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called Scotland’s climate targets “not just amongst the most ambitious anywhere in the world — they are also amongst the toughest.”

The reversal shows how difficult it can be for governments to follow through on ambitious promises to slash emissions, despite the growing urgency to act as climate change rapidly warms the world and fuels extreme weather.

Emissions have already sharply fallen in Scotland. In 2021 they were 49 percent lower than they were in 1990. The problem is, that’s not fast enough to be on track with the government’s targets.

#Scotland #climate change #climate goals

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Less than a year ago, CubicPV, which manufactures components for solar panels, announced that it had secured more than $100 million in financing to build a $1.4 billion factory in the United States. The company planned to produce silicon wafers, a critical part of the technology that allows solar panels to turn sunlight into electrical energy.

The Massachusetts-based company called the investment a “direct result of the long-term industrial policy contained within the Inflation Reduction Act,” the 2022 law that directed billions of dollars to develop America’s domestic clean energy sectors. CubicPV was considering locations in Texas, where it would employ about 1,000 workers.

But a surge of cheap solar panels from China upended that project. In February, CubicPV canceled its plans to build the factory over concerns it would no longer be financially viable thanks to a flood of Chinese exports. As CubicPV was gearing up to make wafers in the United States, prices of those components were dropping by 70 percent.

The setback underscores the concerns rippling across the U.S. solar industry and within the Biden administration about whether President Biden’s industrial policy agenda can succeed. Top administration officials have begun warning that efforts to finance a domestic clean energy industry are being undermined by a surge of cheaper Chinese exports that are driving down prices and putting the United States at a competitive disadvantage.

The fate of the CubicPV factory is the type of outcome that Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has warned is likely if China does not stop dumping heavily subsidized green energy products into global markets at rock bottom prices. She took that message to China last week, warning that its industrial strategy was warping supply chains and threatening American workers.

China appeared to dismiss those concerns. Following Ms. Yellen’s meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, his office said, “The development of China’s new energy industry will make an important contribution to the worldwide green and low-carbon transition.”

Chinese overcapacity has been a central topic this week at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Ahead of talks with Chinese officials at the Treasury Department on Tuesday, Ms. Yellen said that China was not operating on a “level playing field” and warned that by producing more green energy products than the world can absorb, it was putting American firms and workers at risk.

#solar panels #solar power #Chinese imports

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

The Biden administration is designating two “forever chemicals,” man-made compounds that are linked to serious health risks, as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, shifting responsibility for their cleanup to polluters from taxpayers.

The new rule announced on Friday empowers the government to force the many companies that manufacture or use perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as PFOA, and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, known as PFOS, to monitor any releases into the environment and be responsible for cleaning them up. Those companies could face billions of dollars in liabilities.

The pair of compounds are part of a larger family of chemical substances known collectively as PFAS.

The compounds, found in everything from dental floss to firefighting foams to children’s toys, are called forever chemicals because they degrade very slowly and can accumulate in the body and the environment. Exposure to PFAS has been associated with metabolic disorders, decreased fertility in women, developmental delays in children and increased risk of some prostate, kidney and testicular cancers, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The chemicals are so ubiquitous that they can be detected in the blood of almost every person in the United States. One recent government study discovered PFAS chemicals in nearly half of the nation’s tap water. In 2022, the E.P.A. found the chemicals could cause harm at levels “much lower than previously understood” and that almost no level of exposure was safe.

The announcement follows an extraordinary move last week from the E.P.A. mandating that water utilities reduce the PFAS in drinking water to near-zero levels. The agency has also proposed to designate seven additional PFAS chemicals as hazardous waste.

#PFAS #forever chemicals #perfluorooctanoic acid #PFOA #also known as PFOA #and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid #PFOS

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Op-Ed from the New York Times:

At first glance, Xi Jinping seems to have lost the plot.

China’s president appears to be smothering the entrepreneurial dynamism that allowed his country to crawl out of poverty and become the factory of the world. He has brushed aside Deng Xiaoping’s maxim “To get rich is glorious” in favor of centralized planning and Communist-sounding slogans like “ecological civilization” and “new, quality productive forces,” which have prompted predictions of the end of China’s economic miracle.

But Mr. Xi is, in fact, making a decades-long bet that China can dominate the global transition to green energy, with his one-party state acting as the driving force in a way that free markets cannot or will not. His ultimate goal is not just to address one of humanity’s most urgent problems — climate change — but also to position China as the global savior in the process.

It has already begun. In recent years, the transition away from fossil fuels has become Mr. Xi’s mantra and the common thread in China’s industrial policies. It’s yielding results: China is now the world’s leading manufacturer of climate-friendly technologies, such as solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles. Last year the energy transition was China’s single biggest driver of overall investment and economic growth, making it the first large economy to achieve that.

This raises an important question for the United States and all of humanity: Is Mr. Xi right? Is a state-directed system like China’s better positioned to solve a generational crisis like climate change, or is a decentralized market approach — i.e., the American way — the answer?

How this plays out could have serious implications for American power and influence.

Look at what happened in the early 20th century, when fascism posed a global threat. America entered the fight late, but with its industrial power — the arsenal of democracy — it emerged on top. Whoever unlocks the door inherits the kingdom, and the United States set about building a new architecture of trade and international relations. The era of American dominance began.

Climate change is, similarly, a global problem, one that threatens our species and the world’s biodiversity. Where do Brazil, Pakistan, Indonesia and other large developing nations that are already grappling with the effects of climate change find their solutions? It will be in technologies that offer an affordable path to decarbonization, and so far, it’s China that is providing most of the solar panels, electric cars and more. China’s exports, increasingly led by green technology, are booming, and much of the growth involves exports to developing countries.

From the American neoliberal economic viewpoint, a state-led push like this might seem illegitimate or even unfair. The state, with its subsidies and political directives, is making decisions that are better left to the markets, the thinking goes.

But China’s leaders have their own calculations, which prioritize stability decades from now over shareholder returns today. Chinese history is littered with dynasties that fell because of famines, floods or failures to adapt to new realities. The Chinese Communist Party’s centrally planned system values constant struggle for its own sake, and today’s struggle is against climate change. China received a frightening reminder of this in 2022, when vast areas of the country baked for weeks under a record heat wave that dried up rivers, withered crops and was blamed for several heatstroke deaths.

#China #climate change #renewable energy

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Each year, school buses around the U.S. carry students more than 4 billion cumulative miles. However, the majority of them are powered by diesel-fueled engines that pre-date the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions standards. 

Along with releasing climate-warming emissions, these diesel engines produce toxic gases such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, which can cause an array of health problems; research shows that diesel school buses exacerbate childhood asthma and drive increased reports of pneumonia and bronchitis.

But momentum is building around a federal initiative to clean up schools’ gas-guzzling bus fleets by replacing them with cleaner electric convoys. Today, I am taking you to school to explore this green bus revolution. 

In 2022, the Biden administration announced the first investments from the EPA’s “Clean School Bus Program,” which was launched to help speed up the electric transition in schools. As of January 2024, the EPA has provided around $1.84 billion to fund 5,103 “clean” school buses—96 percent of them electric—and charging infrastructure at 642 school districts in states, territories and tribal lands, according to a recent report. 

Powered by large batteries, electric school buses do not produce any tailpipe emissions. In fact, the EPA says switching even just half of U.S. school buses from diesel to electric could avoid 2.1 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. A large-scale transition to electric vehicles in general would also have widespread benefits for pediatric lung health by reducing asthma attacks and cases of bronchitis, according to a report from the American Lung Association published in February. 

The problem? Electric school buses cost around $400,000 each, roughly three to four times as much as diesel-powered buses. That doesn’t factor in the additional tens of thousands of dollars required to build out infrastructure such as electric charging stations. For many school districts, shouldering the cost for this transition alone is impossible, which is why the EPA’s grants and rebates are coming into play. 

Though upfront costs are steep, pilot programs show that long-term maintenance costs for electric school buses can be around 44 percent cheaper than diesel buses, and charging is significantly less expensive than traditional fuel. 

#electric school buses

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement:

As part of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to create good-paying jobs and address legacy pollution harming communities across the nation, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement announced today more than $124.8 million in fiscal year 2024 abandoned mine land (AML) reclamation fee-based grants available to states and Tribes for AML reclamation efforts that continue to protect the health and safety of Americans and restore the environment.

OSMRE, through its AML Reclamation Program, addresses the hazards and environmental degradation posed by legacy coal mine sites, eliminating dangerous conditions and pollution caused by past coal mining. AML fee-based grants are funded in part by a fee collected on all coal produced in the United States. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law reauthorized and extended the AML fee through September 30, 2034, ensuring AML fee-based grants to states and Tribes through 2035.

In fiscal year 2024, 24 coal-producing states and two Tribal AML reclamation programs are eligible to receive AML fee-based grants according to a congressionally mandated formula based on their past and current coal production. The total amount available for fiscal year 2024 AML fee-based grants was reduced by the mandated sequestration amount of 5.7%, resulting in the $124.8 million allocated towards AML fee-based grant distribution.

OSMRE has distributed approximately $8.5 billion in AML fee-based grants to states and Tribes to address the physical hazards posed by lands and waters mined and abandoned or left inadequately restored before 1977, when the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 was enacted.

#abandoned coal mines

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Department of the Interior:

The Department of the Interior today announced the expansion of four existing national wildlife refuges, which will allow for the voluntary conservation of up to 1.13 million acres of wildlife habitat in New Mexico, North Carolina and Texas.

Investing in and expanding the National Wildlife Refuge System, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, furthers the Biden-Harris administration’s work to support community-driven efforts to conserve and restore the nation’s lands and waters through the America the Beautiful initiative. Under Secretary Haaland’s leadership, the Department has also established four new Refuges that will help conserve important fish and wildlife habitat, support working lands, and expand opportunities for outdoor recreation. 

The new expansion areas include: 

Roanoke River National Wildlife Refuge (NC) may now conserve up to 287,000 acres of floodplain habitat along a 137-mile stretch of the Roanoke River from Weldon to the Albemarle Sound, to support rare and at-risk species like the Atlantic sturgeon, cerulean and Swainson's warbers, bald eagles and migratory waterfowl. The refuge was established in 1991 to protect the forests in the Roanoke River floodplain, considered to be the largest intact, and least disturbed, bottomland forest ecosystem remaining in the mid-Atlantic region. 

Aransas and Big Boggy National Wildlife Refuges (TX) may now conserve up to 150,000 additional acres of habitat in the Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes ecoregion of Texas to support whooping crane, Eastern black rail, Attwater's prairie chicken, mottled duck and other wintering waterfowl. Established in 1937, Aransas NWR serves as a refuge and breeding ground and for migratory birds and other wildlife and is best known as the wintering home of the last wild flock of endangered whooping cranes. Establishing in 1983 and designated an Internationally Significant Shorebird Site by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, Big Boggy NWR is a stronghold for the threatened eastern black rail and provides seasonal and year-round habitat for large populations of waterfowl, wading birds, waterbirds, and shorebirds. 

Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge (NM and TX) may now conserve up to 700,000 acres of habitat in the Southern High Plains along the Texas-New Mexico border to support sandhill crane, pronghorn and lesser prairie chicken, as well as a full suite of other wildlife that rely on the grasslands, playa wetlands and saline lake habitats of the Central Grasslands. Established in 1935, the refuge is the oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas and is best known for hosting one of the largest concentrations of lesser sandhill cranes in North America.

The four final Land Protection Plans for these expansions were developed through public processes and informed by input from local landowners, Tribal leaders, state wildlife agencies, and other stakeholders. The Plans outline land protection priorities for these refuges that will inform the Service’s interest in acquiring parcels from landowners who are willing to sell property (fee-title) or property rights (conservation easements or cooperative agreements) through purchase or donation. 

#wildlife refuges

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the Associated Press (AP):

The Biden administration said Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres (5.3 million hectares) of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm.

The decision — part of a yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Democratic administration prepared to approve the contentious Willow oil project.

The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated President Joe Biden’s pledge to combat climate change. Friday’s decision also completes an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half the reserve to oil and gas leasing.

A group of Republican lawmakers, led by Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, jumped out ahead of Friday’s announcement about the new limitations in the National Petroleum-Reserve Alaska before it was publicly announced. Sullivan called it an “illegal” attack on the state’s economic lifeblood, and he predicted lawsuits.

The decision by the Interior Department doesn’t change the terms of existing leases in the reserve or affect currently authorized operations, including Willow.

The petroleum reserve, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is home to caribou and polar bears and provides habitat for millions of migrating birds. It was set aside around a century ago as an emergency oil source for the U.S. Navy, but since the 1970s it has been overseen by the Interior Department. There has been ongoing, longstanding debate over where oil and gas development should occur.

Most existing leases in the petroleum reserve are clustered in an area that’s considered to have high development potential, according to the Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Interior Department. The development potential in other parts of the reserve is lower, the agency said.

The rules announced Friday would place restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in areas designated as special for their wildlife, subsistence or other values and call for the agency to evaluate regularly whether to designate new special areas or bolster protections in those areas. The agency cited as a rationale the rapidly changing conditions in the Arctic due to climate change, including melting permafrost and changes in plant life and wildlife corridors.

#Alaska #oil and gas industry #National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

Last summer I took advantage of my break from teaching by enjoying long, daily walks around my neighborhood. I indulged my mind and body in the blueness, stillness, and leafiness that is North Carolina in June and July. It’s truly astounding how many leaves a willow oak can cram into one tiny piece of sky.

On my walks, the yard of one house stuck out. It was unlike any yard I’ve seen around my city or in any of the other cities in the United States, Canada, and Australia where I’ve lived. It is a forest yard. Nearly a dozen large trees are interspersed amid a dense stand of saplings and shrubs. That summer, leaf litter covered the ground. The top of the house was only visible if I craned my neck to see down the paved driveway, itself narrowing and crumbling as roots, lichens, and fungi worked their inexorable magic.

Depending on your perspective, the house with the forest yard could be seen either as an eyesore — and the scariest place to trick-or-treat — or, as in my case, the most splendid place imaginable.

At this point, I should probably mention that I’m an urban ecologist and that the forest yard makes my heart flutter at the possibility and hope of nature in cities.

I looked at aerial images for the area, and they revealed that the trees around that home, which haven’t been actively “managed,” are about 50 years old. Over that time the forest yard has accumulated a bewildering array of species and ecological interactions. Its tulip poplars, walnuts, cedars, redbuds, pines, and willow oaks have soaked up the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide and turned it into much-needed habitat for wildlife: butterflies, bees, and other insects; lizards, snakes, and turtles; frogs and toads; birds; and mammals. It’s home to a multitude of soil invertebrates and fungi that keep the business side of an ecosystem — aka decomposition — going. All the species that share this shady third-of-an-acre lot are intertwined in a complex tangle of relationships that keeps them fed and feeding on one another, interdependent to varying degrees for their life and livelihood.

And all of this exists amidst a matrix of roads, single-family and multiplex housing, commercial plazas, light industry, and high rises that make up a medium-sized city in the Southeast. The forest yard is a little island of nature in a nearly lifeless sea of concrete, asphalt and lawn.

But, to my inexhaustible surprise, that sea of concrete, asphalt, and lawn is not as empty as we tend to assume. Very far from it. Places of dense human habitation are also where many species reside, including some that are threatened. A recent analysis of the birds and plants that occur in 147 cities across the globe revealed that the sampled cities were home to 2,041 bird species — about one-fifth of Earth’s total avian diversity — and 14,240 plant species. These include 36 bird and 65 plant species threatened with global extinction.

To get a better idea of just how much of the urban biodiversity iceberg lies below the surface of our awareness, consider this: Last year participants in the City Nature Challenge made nearly 1.9 million observations in 480 cities, with the residents of the La Paz metropolitan area in Bolivia recording the high score of 5,320 species.

Add to this the estimate that we share our homes and yards with an average of 9,000 species of fungi and bacteria and you’ll begin to suspect, as I do, that cities are in fact incredibly biodiverse. And it’s not just the all-too-rare forest yard: Scientific evidence shows that the more people you find in a place, the more types of birds, mammals, and plants you’ll find there too.

So why don’t we see it that way? Why do we perceive our urban centers as unworthy and undeserving of our conservation efforts and attention?

#urban ecology #urban environments #urban wildlife

[rjzimmerman]

California condor. Wearing fashionable scarf.

#California condor

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

Two federal agencies have confirmed the cancellation of applications for permits proposed a decade ago to drill and frack eight new wells on federal public land in Los Padres National Forest. The announcement, made April 3, comes just weeks after California officials proposed a statewide ban on this extremely dangerous fossil fuel extraction technique.

Together, the two actions signal the end of the toxic era of fracking in the Sespe Oil Field. Fracking has occurred here for decades unbeknownst to the public, but when the polluting practice was uncovered through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests in 2012, a pause in fracking occurred amidst public opposition and an outpouring of scientific studies showing the dangers posed to human health and the environment.

The eight applications refocused the spotlight on the Sespe and the public health and environmental risks posed by fracking.

“This announcement closes the chapter on a toxic and dangerous legacy of fracking in the Sespe,” said Jeff Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch, one of the organizations that mobilized residents to oppose the fracking plan. “While fossil fuel extraction here continues to pose grave dangers to our public lands, communities and climate, today we celebrate this important step forward as we continue the transition to clean energy.”

“I’m relieved that these long-pending drilling and fracking applications have been cancelled, averting a major threat to condors and steelhead,” said Lisa Belenky, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Condors have suffered from oil wells and pipelines in this area in the past and steelhead critical habitat in Sespe Creek is downstream from the oil field, so this is a win for biodiversity. We can’t allow expansion of fracking and other oil and gas extraction on our public lands. Ending fossil fuel production is critical to reducing greenhouse gas pollution and supporting real climate solutions.”

Seneca Resources — a Texas-based oil company — filed the original drilling applications with the Bureau of Land Management in 2013, seeking permission to frack eight new wells in the Sespe Creek watershed along with the construction of nearly two miles of new pipelines, a 12,600-gallon tank, and other industrial facilities in this remote area upstream of the town of Fillmore. Carbon California, a Colorado-based company, eventually took over operation of the Sespe Oil Field.

#fracking #oil and gas industry #California #condors

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Outside Online:

On February 29, Daniel, Wyoming resident Cody Roberts allegedly ran a juvenile wolf down with his snowmobile, taped its mouth shut, transported it to the town’s Green River Bar, posed for photos with the animal, then either beat or shot it to death, depending on which version of the report you read. State wildlife officials received a tip about the incident, and later fined Roberts $250 for a misdemeanor violation of Wyoming’s prohibition against possession of live wildlife. No other charges or penalties have been brought against him. As of April 10, however, the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office announced that they—along with the Sublette County Attorney’s office—are now investigating Roberts.

“The individual was cited for a misdemeanor violation of Wyoming Game and Fish Commission regulations, Chapter 10, Importation and Possession of Live Warm-Blooded Wildlife,” says the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in a statement addressing the incident. “The department’s investigation indicated there were no other statutory or regulatory violations.”

The 206-word statement itself acknowledges the controversy that’s raging around the incident, saying: “The department acknowledges the significant concern and dismay expressed by many people from around the state and nation.”

Why was Roberts able to torture a wolf to death with no serious consequences? The answer lies not only in Wyoming’s incredibly lax wildlife regulations, but also in the violence that permeates the relationship between the state and its most famous wild animal.

After being extirpated in 1926, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) reintroduced wolves to Wyoming in Yellowstone National Park in 1995. Wolves, the villains in many childhood stories, are a locus of fear for humans. But the animal also serves a vital role in its native ecosystem, where it helps keep ungulate populations healthy by slowing the spread of disease. And it does that at a net financial benefit to taxpayers, since tourists now flock to the state to view wolves. A study conducted in 2021 found that wolf-related tourism brings over $35 million annually to areas surrounding the park.

Speaking of taxes, before all the culture warring and fear mongering, it was the goal of the Republican Party to reduce tax burdens faced by the wealthy and corporations. The Republican Party’s policy positions are widely unpopular, so the GOP instead hoodwinks voters using fear and lies. The Republican-led Wyoming Statehouse passed a bill in 2021 calling to exterminate 90 percent of the state’s wolf population—a bill based on lies and misinformation. Pushing for policies based on fear instead of science has led to regulations around wolves that are unique among wildlife laws, mostly in their encouragement of cruelty.

When management of the species transferred from federal to state control in 2012, Wyoming’s political leaders established two distinct areas with differing population management goals. Areas adjacent to Yellowstone were set aside for trophy hunting, where wolf hunting is regulated. The rest of the state was designated a “predator zone” where wolves can be killed without regulation, reason, or justification. Wyoming also classifies coyotes, red fox, stray cats, jackrabbits, porcupines, raccoons and striped skunks as predators, and permits killing them throughout the state.

“You could pull a wolf apart with horses in 85 percent of the state,” explains Amaroq Weiss, Senior Wolf Advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. In the predator zone, there is no regulation governing how or when wolves can be killed. This stands in contrast to typical hunting regulations in any other state, where what are called “methods of take” are carefully defined to ensure animals are killed in ethical, humane ways, along with precise dates, to-the-minute guidelines on legal shooting hours, and generally universal bans on artificial light sources. The age and sex of animals it’s permissible to shoot are also written in law. But none of that is true in Wyoming’s predator zone when it comes to wolves. You don’t even need a hunting license or tag to kill one, just the opportunity.

Weiss cites “wolf whacking” as an example, and it’s how Roberts captured the wolf he would go on to torture and kill. The term describes using a snowmobile to run a wolf to the point of exhaustion. Once it slows or collapses, you kill the animal by running it over. As Roberts’ escapade demonstrates, sometimes that might take multiple impacts, and sometimes the animal is simply left to die a slow, painful death.

#wolves #Wyoming #Northern Rocky Mountains #Endangered Species Act #animal cruelty #hunting