ReportWire

Tag: Climate and environment

  • Judge upholds Hawaii’s new climate change tax on cruise passengers

    [ad_1]

    A federal judge’s ruling allows Hawaii’s new tourist tax, which includes a levy on cruise ship passengers, to take effect in 2026

    HONOLULU — A federal judge’s ruling has cleared the way for Hawaii to include cruise ship passengers in a new tourist tax to help cope with climate change, a levy set to go into effect at the start of 2026.

    U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake denied a request Tuesday that sought to stop officials from enforcing the new law on cruises.

    In the nation’s first such levy to help cope with a warming planet, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed legislation in May that raises tax revenue to deal with eroding shorelines, wildfires and other climate problems. Officials estimate the tax will generate nearly $100 million annually.

    The levy increases rates on hotel room and vacation rental stays but also imposes a new 11% tax on the gross fares paid by a cruise ship’s passengers, starting next year, prorated for the number of days the vessels are in Hawaii ports.

    Cruise Lines International Association challenged the tax in a lawsuit, along with a Honolulu company that provides supplies and provisions to cruise ships and tour businesses out of Kauai and the Big Island that rely on cruise ship passengers. Among their arguments is that the new law violates the Constitution by taxing cruise ships for the privilege of entering Hawaii ports.

    Plaintiff lawyers also argued that the tax would hurt tourism by making cruises more expensive. The lawsuit notes the law authorizes counties to collect an additional 3% surcharge, bringing the total to 14% of prorated fares.

    “Cruise tourism generates nearly $1 billion in total economic impact for Hawai‘i and supports thousands of local jobs, and we remain focused on ensuring that success continues on a lawful, sustainable foundation,” association spokesperson Jim McCarthy said in a statement.

    According to court records, plaintiffs will appeal.

    Hawaii will continue to defend the law, which requires cruise operators to pay their share of transient accommodation tax to address climate change threats to the state, state Attorney General Anne Lopez said in a statement.

    The U.S. government intervened in the case, calling the tax a “scheme to extort American citizens and businesses solely to benefit Hawaii” in conflict with federal law.

    Plaintiff and Department of Justice attorneys filed motions Wednesday seeking to maintain the status quo pending appeal. Otake denied the motions.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Neil Frank, former hurricane center chief who improved public outreach on storms, has died

    [ad_1]

    Neil Frank, a former head of the National Hurricane Center credited with increasing the country’s readiness for major storms, died Wednesday. He was 94.

    Frank led the hurricane center from 1974 to 1987, the longest-serving director in its history.

    “He gets tremendous credit for the being the first one to go out of his way and reach out and make the connection between the National Hurricane Center and the emergency managers,” said meteorologist Max Mayfield, who served as the hurricane center’s director from 2000-2007.

    “He taught me that it’s not all about the forecast,” Mayfield said. “A perfect forecast is no good if people don’t take immediate action.”

    Frank’s son, Ron Frank, said in a Facebook post that his father died at home a few days after going into hospice care.

    KHOU-TV in Houston, where Frank spent two decades as chief meteorologist after leaving the hurricane center, first reported his death. The station referred an Associated Press call for comment to CBS, whose spokeswoman declined comment but directed the AP to Ron Frank’s post.

    When Frank started at the National Hurricane Center, advances with weather satellites were helping forecasters to better predict the location and direction of a storm. Frank worked to make that information more accessible to residents in hurricane-vulnerable areas, said Mayfield. He also regularly appeared on television to give updates on storms and advice on staying safe.

    “He was so passionate and you could just feel his enthusiasm but also sense of warning — that he wanted people to take action,” Mayfield said. “He was very animated, spoke with his hands a lot. And if you’d play it on fast-forward, he’d look like a juggler sometimes.”

    Frank was skeptical that human actions, such as the burning of oil, gas and coal, cause climate change, Mayfield said. In a video posted to YouTube titled “Is Climate Change Real?” he instead attributed warming to the planet’s natural and cyclical weather patterns. Scientists today overwhelmingly agree that burning of fossil fuels is the primary driver of planet-warming emissions that are causing more frequent, costly and deadly extreme weather around the world.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump order halts offshore wind projects for at least 90 days

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has directed five large-scale wind projects under construction off the East Coast to suspend their activities for at least 90 days, according to letters from the Interior Department obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, which provide new details on the government’s move to pause the offshore ventures.

    During the pause, the Interior Department will coordinate with project developers “to determine whether the national security threats posed by this project can be adequately mitigated,” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said in a letter to project developers. The 90-day period can be extended if necessary, the ocean management agency said.

    The administration announced Monday it was suspending the offshore wind projects because of national security concerns. Its announcement did not indicate whether the pause was limited, nor did it reveal specifics about the national security concerns.

    It was the latest step by the Trump administration to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful. The move angered local officials who have supported the projects and posed a new threat to offshore wind development that has faced increasing pressures since Trump took office.

    The letter to the developers said the Defense Department completed a recent assessment regarding the national security implications of offshore wind projects and provided senior leadership at Interior with new classified information, “including the rapid evolution of relevant adversary technologies and the resulting direct impacts to national security from offshore wind projects.”

    The potential impacts are “heightened by the projects’ sensitive location on the East Coast and the potential to cause serious, immediate and irreparable harm to our great nation,” the letter said. The letter was signed by Matthew Giacona, the acting director of BOEM and a former lobbyist for the National Ocean Industries Association.

    Kirk Lippold, a national security expert and former Commander of the USS Cole, said concerns about wind turbines’ possible effects on radar systems “have been known for decades.”

    While Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said new classified information indicates turbines may pose a national security threat, “I want to know what’s changed?” Lippold said in an interview on Tuesday. “What threat vector has changed? Have the Chinese developed new weapons or techniques that we’re unaware of and can’t fight against?”

    “To my knowledge, nothing has changed in the threat environment that would drive us to stop any offshore wind programs,” he said.

    House Democrats, meanwhile, have called for an ethics investigation into Giacona’s actions since taking over at the agency that manages offshore waters. Giacona’s work may directly overlapped with his prior lobbying work for the ocean industries group, Democrats said.

    A spokesperson for Interior said Giacona “is a highly qualified and ethically sound employee who is working tirelessly on behalf of this administration to make real change for the American people.”

    Wind proponents slammed the administration’s move to suspend the projects, saying it was another blow in an ongoing attack by the Trump administration against clean energy.

    Democratic governors of four affected states — Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York — issued a joint statement Tuesday vowing to fight the action, which they said “lands like a lump of dirty coal for the holiday season for American workers, consumers and investors.”

    Pausing active leases, including for projects that are nearly completed, “defies logic, will hurt our bid for energy independence, will drive up costs for America’s ratepayers and will make us lose thousands of good-paying jobs,” the governors said. “It also threatens grid reliability that is needed to keep the lights on.”

    The statement was issued by Govs. Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Kathy Hochul of New York and Dan McKee of Rhode Island.

    Meanwhile, two Democratic senators said the lease suspensions mean that congressional efforts to approve bipartisan permitting reform are “dead in the water.”

    The House approved legislation last week aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects, seeking to meet growing demand for electricity. The bill would also limit judicial review as Congress seeks to enact the most significant change in decades to the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that requires federal agencies to consider a project’s possible environmental impacts before it is approved.

    Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said Monday that with House approval, “there was a deal to be had that would have taken politics out of permitting, made the process faster and more efficient, and streamlined grid infrastructure improvements nationwide.”

    But they said any deal would have to be administered by the Trump administration, whose “reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy” destroys the trust needed for true permitting reform.

    “There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law,” the senators said. Whitehouse is the top Democrat on the Senate environment panel, while Heinrich is the senior Democrat on the committee on energy and natural resources.

    ___

    McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Fast shipping is increasing emissions. Here’s why delivery has become more polluting

    [ad_1]

    It feels simple: You shop, find something you want and click to buy. It shows up today, overnight or tomorrow. We’ve gotten used to that speed. But that convenience comes with a climate cost.

    Multiple factors shape the environmental toll of a delivery. These include the distance from a fulfillment center, whether the shipment rides in a half-empty truck, how many trips a driver makes in the same area and the type of transportation used to move the package.

    When customers choose faster shipping and earlier delivery dates, the system shifts from optimized routing to whatever gets the package out fastest, and that means higher emissions, said Sreedevi Rajagopalan, a research scientist at MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics. For example, trucks may leave warehouses before they’re full and drivers might loop the same neighborhood multiple times a day, she said.

    “For the same demand, fast shipping definitely increases emissions 10 to 12%,” she said.

    To meet tight delivery windows, retailers may rely on air freight, which produces far more emissions than other options such as trains, making it the most carbon-intensive.

    “Given that companies want to be competitive in terms of speed, it comes at the cost of your efficiency,” Sreedevi said. “Vans are half full, and you make multiple rounds, multiple trips to the same location … your fuel consumption goes up, and you’re not able to consolidate.”

    One way companies like Amazon try to minimize that is by placing their supply chain closer to customers to reduce mileage and improve speed for the customer. Their goal is to make the journey fast and effective, but reduce its emissions at the same time.

    “By really leveraging our supply chain efficiencies that we have at scale, we’re able to both offer better speed and sustainability outcomes at the same time,” said Chris Atkins, director of Worldwide Operations Sustainability at Amazon.

    Getting items to customers’ doors from a fulfillment center — referred to as the “last mile” or “last kilometer” of shipping — is one of the hardest stages to make less polluting, Sreedevi said.

    Emissions rise even more when customers place multiple small orders throughout the week.

    “If I place an order this morning and then I place an order this evening and choose fast shipping, the company might have already processed my morning order and wouldn’t wait for my evening order to consolidate,” she said.

    And sending more half-full trucks out on the road means more trips overall.

    “Imagine you’re not only sending a half-full truck, you’re also bringing back that truck empty. … Emissions are going to go up,” Sreedevi said.

    Consumers can lower emissions if they’re willing to wait even a tiny bit, and they’ll save money at the same time, said Christopher Faires, assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at Georgia Southern University.

    Delaying delivery by one to two days can result in a 36% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, and three to four days pushes that reduction to 56%, so opting for standard or delayed shipping instead of next-day or two-day shipping helps, according to Sreedevi.

    Amazon’s Atkins said changes to their network are cutting emissions linked to fast delivery. The company has expanded the use of electric delivery vans and shifted more packages to rail and to delivering by foot or bicycle in dense cities.

    “Aviation is very carbon-intensive relative to ground shipping,” said Atkins. “One of the other things that Amazon and other logistics companies are looking at doing is: How do we mode-shift to less carbon intensive forms of transportation?”

    Amazon says providing shipping options that encourage customers to consolidate orders have also helped. Data for the first nine months of 2025 shows that when customers chose a single delivery day for all items, it reduced more than 300 million delivery stops and avoided 100,000 tons (90,718 metric tons) of carbon emissions, according to Atkins.

    People are more likely to delay or consolidate orders once they understand the environmental impact of fast shipping, according to Sreedevi, who co-authored a 2024 study of delivery customers in Mexico.

    “A significant number of consumers decided to wait for longer delivery or delayed their shipping when we showed them the environmental impact information in the form of trees,” said Sreedevi. “So it’s important that they are educated.”

    While fast shipping isn’t likely to go away, experts say its climate impacts can be meaningfully reduced through small behavior shifts, both from shoppers and companies. Bundling orders, skipping the overnight option and choosing a single weekly delivery can all make a difference.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump’s return brought stiff headwinds for clean energy. So why are advocates optimistic in 2026?

    [ad_1]

    There were some highs amid a lot of lows in a roller coaster year for clean energy as President Donald Trump worked to boost polluting fuels while blocking wind and solar, according to dozens of energy developers, experts and politicians.

    Surveyed by The Associated Press, many described 2025 as turbulent and challenging for clean energy, though there was progress as projects connected to the electric grid. They said clean energy must continue to grow to meet skyrocketing demand for electricity to power data centers and to lower Americans’ utility bills.

    Solar builder and operator Jorge Vargas said it has been “a very tough year for clean energy” as Trump often made headlines criticizing renewable energy and Republicans muscled a tax and spending cut bill through Congress in July that dramatically rolled back tax breaks for clean energy.

    “There was a cooldown effect this year,” said Vargas, cofounder and CEO of Aspen Power. “Having said that, we are a resilient industry.”

    Plug Power president Jose Luis Crespo said the developments — both policy recalibration and technological progress — will shape clean energy’s trajectory for years to come.

    Much of clean energy’s fate in 2025 was driven by booster Joe Biden’s exit from the White House.

    The year began with ample federal subsidies for clean energy technologies, a growing number of U.S.-based companies making parts and materials for projects and a lot of demand from states and corporations, said Tom Harper, partner at global consultant Baringa.

    It ends with subsidies stripped back, a weakened supply chain, higher costs from tariffs and some customers questioning their commitment to clean energy, Harper said. He described the year as “paradigm shifting.”

    Trump called wind and solar power “the scam of the century” and vowed not to approve new projects. The federal government canceled grants for hundreds of projects.

    The Republicans’ tax bill reversed or steeply curtailed clean energy programs established through the Democrats’ flagship climate and health care bill in 2022. Wayne Winegarden, at the Pacific Research Institute think tank, said the time has come for alternative energy to demonstrate viability without subsidies. ( Fossil fuels also receive subsidies.)

    Many energy executives said this was the most consequential policy shift. The bill reshaped the economics of clean energy projects, drove a rush to start construction before incentives expire and forced developers to reassess their strategies for acquiring parts and materials, Lennart Hinrichs said. He leads the expansion of TWAICE in the Americas, providing analytics software for battery energy storage systems.

    Companies can’t make billion-dollar investments with so much policy uncertainty, said American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet.

    Consequently, greenhouse gas emissions will fall at a much lower rate than previously projected in the U.S., said Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability at Duke University.

    Solar and storage accounted for 85% of the new power added to the grid in the first nine months of the Trump administration, according to Wood Mackenzie research.

    That’s because the economics remain strong, demand is high and the technologies can be deployed quickly, said Mike Hall, CEO of Anza Renewables.

    Solar energy company Sol Systems said it had a record year as it brought its largest utility-scale project online and grew its business. The energy storage systems company CMBlu Energy said storage clearly stands out as a winner this year too, moving from optional to essential.

    “Trump’s effort to manipulate government regulation to harm clean energy just isn’t enough to offset the natural advantages that clean energy has,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said. “The direction is still all good.”

    The Solar Energy Industries Association said that no matter the policies in Washington, solar and storage will grow as the backbone of the nation’s energy future.

    Democrats and Republicans have supported investing to keep nuclear reactors online, restart previously closed reactors and deploy new, advanced reactor designs. Nuclear power is a carbon-free source of electricity, though not typically labeled as green energy like other renewables.

    “Who had ‘restart Three Mile Island’ on their 2025 Bingo card?” questioned Baringa partner David Shepheard. The Pennsylvania plant was the site of the nation’s worst commercial nuclear power accident, in 1979. The Energy Department is loaning $1 billion to help finance a restart.

    Everyone loves nuclear, said Darrin Kayser, executive vice president at Edelman. It helps that the technology for small, modular reactors is starting to come to fruition, Kayser added.

    Benton Arnett, a senior director at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said that as the need for clean, reliable power intensifies, “we will look back on the actions being taken now as laying the foundation.”

    The Trump administration also supports geothermal energy, and the tax bill largely preserved geothermal tax credits. The Geothermal Rising association said technologies continue to mature and produce, making 2025 a breakthrough year.

    Momentum for offshore wind in the United States came to a grinding halt just as the industry was starting to gain traction, said Joey Lange, a senior managing director at Trio, a global sustainability and energy advisory company.

    The Trump administration stopped construction on major offshore wind farms, revoked wind energy permits and paused permitting, canceled plans to use large areas of federal waters for new offshore wind development and stopped federal funding for offshore wind projects.

    That has decimated the projects, developers and tech innovators, and no one in wind is raising or spending capital, said Eric Fischgrund, founder and CEO at FischTank PR. Still, Fischgrund said he remains optimistic because the world is transitioning to cleaner energy.

    An energy strategy with a diverse mix of sources is the only way forward as demand grows from data centers and other sources, and as people demand affordable, reliable electricity, said former Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. Landrieu, now with Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, said promoting or punishing specific energy technologies on ideological grounds is unsustainable.

    Experts expect solar and battery storage to continue growing in 2026 to add a lot of power to the grid quickly and cheaply. The market will continue to ensure that most new electricity is renewable, said Amanda Levin, policy analysis director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    Hillary Bright, executive director of Turn Forward, thinks offshore wind will still play an important role too. It is both ready and needed to help address the demand for electricity in the new year, which will become increasingly clear “to all audiences,” she said. Turn Forward advocates for offshore wind.

    That skyrocketing demand “is shaking up the political calculus that drove the administration’s early policy decisions around renewables,” she said.

    BlueWave CEO Sean Finnerty thinks that states, feeling the pressure to deliver affordable, reliable electricity, will increasingly drive clean energy momentum in 2026 by streamlining permitting and the process of connecting to the grid, and by reducing costs for things like permits and fees.

    Ed Gunn, Lunar Energy’s vice president for revenue, said the industry has weathered tough years before.

    “The fundamentals are unchanged,” Gunn said, “there is massive value in clean energy.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Some animals have evolved extreme ways to sleep in precarious environments

    [ad_1]

    Every animal with a brain needs sleep — and even a few without a brain do, too. Humans sleep, birds sleep, whales sleep and even jellyfish sleep.

    Sleep is universal “even though it’s actually very risky,” said Paul-Antoine Libourel, a researcher at the Neuroscience Research Center of Lyon in France.

    When animals nod off, they’re most vulnerable to sneaky predators. But despite the risks, the need for sleep is so strong that no creature can skip it altogether, even when it’s highly inconvenient.

    Animals that navigate extreme conditions and environments have evolved to sleep in extreme ways — for example, stealing seconds at a time during around-the-clock parenting, getting winks on the wing during long migrations and even dozing while swimming.

    For a long time, scientists could only make educated guesses about when wild animals were sleeping, observing when they lay still and closed their eyes. But in recent years, tiny trackers and helmets that measure brain waves — miniaturized versions of equipment in human sleep labs — have allowed researchers to glimpse for the first time the varied and sometimes spectacular ways that wild animals snooze.

    “We’re finding that sleep is really flexible in response to ecological demands,” said Niels Rattenborg, an animal sleep research specialist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence in Germany.

    Call it the emerging science of “extreme sleep.”

    Take chinstrap penguins in Antarctica that Libourel studies.

    These penguins mate for life and share parenting duties — with one bird babysitting the egg or tiny gray fluffy chick to keep it warm and safe while the other swims off to fish for a family meal. Then they switch roles — keeping up this nonstop labor for weeks.

    Penguin parents face a common challenge: getting enough sleep while keeping a close eye on their newborns.

    They survive by taking thousands of catnaps a day — each averaging just 4 seconds long.

    These short “microsleeps,” as Korea Polar Research Institute biologist Won Young Lee calls them, appear to be enough to allow penguin parents to carry out their caregiving duties for weeks within their crowded, noisy colonies.

    When a clumsy neighbor passes by or predatory seabirds are near, the penguin parent blinks to alert attention and soon dozes off again, its chin nodding against its chest, like a drowsy driver.

    The naps add up. Each penguin sleeps for a total of 11 hours per day, as scientists found by measuring the brain activity of 14 adults over 11 days on Antarctica’s King George Island.

    To remain mostly alert, yet also sneak in sufficient winks, the penguins have evolved an enviable ability to function on extremely fractured sleep — at least during the breeding season.

    Researchers can now see when either hemisphere of the brain — or both at once — are asleep.

    Poets, sailors and birdwatchers have long wondered whether birds that fly for months at a time actually get any winks on the wing.

    In some cases, the answer is yes — as scientists discovered when they attached devices that measure brain-wave activity to the heads of large seabirds nesting in the Galapagos Islands called great frigatebirds.

    While flying, frigatebirds can sleep with one half of the brain at a time. The other half remains semialert so that one eye is still watching for obstacles in their flight path.

    This allows the birds to soar for weeks at a time, without touching land or water, which would damage their delicate, non-water repellent feathers.

    Frigatebirds can’t do tricky maneuvers — flapping, foraging or diving — with just one half of their brain. When they dive for prey, they must be fully awake. But in flight, they have evolved to sleep when gliding and circling upward on massive drafts of warm rising air that keep them aloft with minimal effort.

    Back at the nest in trees or bushes, frigatebirds change up their nap routine — they are more likely to sleep with their whole brain at once and for much longer bouts. This suggests their in-flight sleeping is a specific adaptation for extended flying, Rattenborg said.

    A few other animals have similar sleeping hacks. Dolphins can sleep with one half of the brain at a time while swimming. Some other birds, including swifts and albatrosses, can sleep in flight, scientists say.

    Frigatebirds can fly 255 miles (410 kilometers) a day for more than 40 days, before touching land, other researchers found — a feat that wouldn’t be possible without being able to sleep on the wing.

    On land, life is easy for a 5,000-pound (2,268-kilogram) northern elephant seal. But at sea, sleep is dangerous — sharks and killer whales that prey on seals are lurking.

    These seals go on extended foraging trips, for up to eight months, repeatedly diving to depths of several hundred feet (meters) to catch fish, squid, rays and other sea snacks.

    Each deep dive may last around 30 minutes. And for around a third of that time, the seals may be asleep, as research led by Jessica Kendall-Bar of Scripps Institution of Oceanography revealed.

    Kendall-Bar’s team devised a neoprene headcap similar to a swimming cap with equipment to detect motion and seal brain activity during dives, and retrieved the caps with logged data when seals returned to beaches in Northern California.

    The 13 female seals studied tended to sleep during the deepest portions of their dives, when they were below the depths that predators usually patrol.

    That sleep consisted of both slow-wave sleep and REM sleep. During REM, or rapid eye movement sleep, the seals were temporarily paralyzed — just like humans during this deep-sleep stage — and their dive motion changed. Instead of a controlled downward glide motion, they sometimes turned upside down and spun in what the researchers called a “sleep spiral” during REM sleep.

    In the span of 24 hours, the seals at sea slept for around two hours total. (Back on the beach, they averaged around 10 hours.)

    Scientists are still learning about all the reasons we sleep — and just how much we really need.

    It’s unlikely that any tired human can try these extreme animal sleep hacks. But learning more about how varied napping may be in the wild shows the flexibility of some species. Nature has evolved to make shut-eye possible in even the most precarious situations.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Colorado River water negotiators appear no closer to long-term agreement

    [ad_1]

    LAS VEGAS — The seven states that rely on the Colorado River to supply farms and cities across the U.S. West appear no closer to reaching a consensus on a long-term plan for sharing the dwindling resource.

    The river’s future was the center of discussions this week at the annual Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas, where water leaders from California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming gathered alongside federal and tribal officials.

    It comes after the states blew past a November deadline for a new plan to deal with drought and water shortages after 2026, when current guidelines expire. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has set a new deadline of Feb. 14.

    Nevada’s lead negotiator said it is unlikely the states will reach agreement that quickly.

    “As we sit here mid-December with a looming February deadline, I don’t see any clear path to a long-term deal, but I do see a path to the possibility of a shorter-term deal to keep us out of court,” John Entsminger of the Southern Nevada Water Authority told The Associated Press.

    More than 40 million people across seven states, Mexico and Native American tribes depend on the water from the river. Farmers in California and Arizona use it to grow the nation’s winter vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and carrots. It provides water and electricity to millions of homes and businesses across the basin.

    But longstanding drought, chronic overuse and increasing temperatures have forced a reckoning on the river’s future. Existing water conservation agreements that determine who must use less in times of shortage expire in 2026. After two years of negotiating, states still haven’t reached a deal for what comes next.

    The federal government continues to refrain from coming up with its own solution — preferring the seven basin states reach consensus themselves. If they don’t, a federally imposed plan could leave parties unhappy and result in costly, lengthy litigation.

    Not only is this water fight between the upper and lower basins, individual municipalities, tribal nations and water agencies have their own stakes in this battle. California, which has the largest share of Colorado River water, has over 200 water agencies alone, each with their own customers.

    “It’s a rabbit hole you can dive down in, and it is incredibly complex,” said Noah Garrison, a water researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

    During a Thursday panel of state negotiators, none appeared willing to bend on their demands. Each highlighted what their state has done to conserve water, from turf-removal projects to canal lining in order to reduce seepage, and they explained why their state can’t take on more. Instead, they said, others should bear the burden.

    Entsminger, of Nevada, said he could see a short-term deal lasting five years that sets new rules around water releases and storage at Lakes Powell and Mead — two key reservoirs.

    Lower Basin states pitched a reduction of 1.5 million acre-feet per year to cover a structural deficit that occurs when water evaporates or is absorbed into the ground as it flows downstream. An acre-foot is enough water to supply two to three households a year.

    But they want to see a similar contribution from the Upper Basin. The Upper Basin states, however, don’t think they should have to make additional cuts because they already don’t use their full share of the water and are legally obligated to send a certain amount of water downstream.

    “Our water users feel that pain,” said Estevan López, New Mexico’s representative for the Upper Colorado River Commission.

    Upper Basin states want less water released from Lake Powell to Lake Mead.

    But Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said he hasn’t seen anything on the table from the Upper Basin that would compel him to ask Arizona lawmakers to approve those demands.

    Within the coming weeks, the Bureau of Reclamation will release a range of possible proposals, but it will not identify a specific set of operating guidelines the federal government would prefer.

    Scott Cameron, the bureau’s acting commissioner, implored the states to find compromise.

    “Cooperation is better than litigation,” he said during the conference. “The only certainty around litigation in the Colorado River basin is a bunch of water lawyers are going to be able to put their children and grandchildren through graduate school. There are much better ways to spend several hundred million dollars.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Catch the Ursid meteor shower as it peaks just before Christmas

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — The last major meteor shower of the year, known as the Ursids, peaks soon, bringing glowing streaks to nighttime and early morning skies. Compared to other meteor showers, it’s more subdued, but experts say it’s still worth a glimpse.

    Meteor showers happen when space rocks hit Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds and burn up, gaining fiery tails — the end of a “shooting star.” Random meteors are visible from Earth on any given clear night, but more predictable meteor showers happen yearly when Earth passes through streams of cosmic leftovers from comets or asteroids.

    The Ursids peak Sunday night into Monday morning and will be visible until Dec. 26 from the Northern Hemisphere. Skygazers usually see five to 10 meteors per hour during the height and there’s a possibility for outbursts of up to 25 meteors per hour, according to the American Meteor Society.

    How active a shower will appear from Earth depends on the amount of debris and the moon’s brightness, which can blot out glowing meteors. The Ursids feature less space debris than other showers like the Geminids, but the narrow crescent moon won’t be much of an obstacle when they peak.

    No special equipment is needed to view a meteor shower. To see the Ursids, which hail from a comet called 8P/Tuttle, bundle up and get away from city lights.

    “The darker your sky, the better the shower is going to be,” said astronomer Peter Brown with Western University in Canada.

    The meteors can be seen over the whole sky, but all the streaks will seem to come from a central point near a constellation for which the shower is named. In this case, that’s the constellation Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Dipper.

    Once it gets dark, avoid bright lights from cellphones, which will make it harder for your eyes to adjust.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • As reefs vanish, assisted coral fertilization offers hope in the Dominican Republic

    [ad_1]

    BAYAHIBE, Dominican Republic — Oxygen tank strapped to his back, Michael del Rosario moves his fins delicately as he glides along an underwater nursery just off the Dominican Republic coast, proudly showing off the “coral babies” growing on metal structures that look like large spiders. The conservationist enthusiastically points a finger to trace around the largest corals, just starting to reveal their vibrant colors.

    Del Rosario helped plant these tiny animals in the nursery after they were conceived in an assisted reproduction laboratory run by the marine conservation organization Fundemar. In a process something like in vitro fertilization, coral egg and sperm are joined to form a new individual.

    It’s a technique that’s gaining momentum in the Caribbean to counter the drastic loss of corals due to climate change, which is killing them by heating up oceans and making it more difficult for those that survive to reproduce naturally.

    “We live on an island. We depend entirely on coral reefs, and seeing them all disappear is really depressing,” del Rosario said once back on the surface, his words flowing like bubbles underwater. “But seeing our coral babies growing, alive, in the sea gives us hope, which is what we were losing.”

    The state of corals around the Dominican Republic, as in the rest of the world, is not encouraging. Fundemar’s latest monitoring last year found that 70% of the Dominican Republic’s reefs have less than 5% coral coverage. Healthy colonies are so far apart that the probability of one coral’s eggs meeting another’s sperm during the spawning season is decreasing.

    “That’s why assisted reproduction programs are so important now, because what used to be normal in coral reefs is probably no longer possible for many species,” biologist Andreina Valdez, operations manager at Fundemar, said at the organization’s new marine research center. “So that’s where we come in to help a little bit.”

    Though many people may think corals are plants, they are animals. They spawn once a year, a few days after the full moon and at dusk, when they release millions of eggs and sperm in a spectacle that turns the sea around them into a kind of Milky Way. Fundemar monitors spawning periods, collects eggs and sperm, performs assisted fertilization in the laboratory, and cares for the larvae until they are strong enough to be taken to the reef.

    In the laboratory, Ariel Álvarez examines one of the star-shaped pieces on which the corals are growing through a microscope. They’re so tiny they can hardly be seen with the naked eye. Álvarez switches off the lights, turns on an ultraviolet light, and the coral’s rounded, fractal shapes appear through a camera on the microscope projected onto a screen.

    One research center room holds dozens of fish tanks, each with hundreds of tiny corals awaiting return to the reef. Del Rosario said the lab produces more than 2.5 million coral embryos per year. Only 1% will survive in the ocean, yet that figure is better than the rate with natural fertilization on these degraded reefs now, he said.

    In the past, Fundemar and other conservation organizations focused on asexual reproduction. That meant cutting a small piece of healthy coral and transplanting it to another location so that a new one would grow. The method can produce corals faster than assisted fertilization.

    The problem, Andreina Valdez said, is that it clones the same individual, meaning all those coral share the same disease vulnerabilities. In contrast, assisted sexual reproduction creates genetically different individuals, reducing the chance that a single illness could strike them all down.

    Australia pioneered assisted coral fertilization. It’s expanding in the Caribbean, with leading projects at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Carmabi Foundation in Curaçao, and it’s being adopted in Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica, Valdez said.

    “You can’t conserve something if you don’t have it. So (these programs) are helping to expand the population that’s out there,” said Mark Eakin, corresponding secretary for the International Coral Reef Society and retired chief of the Coral Reef Watch program of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    But the world must still tackle “the 800-pound gorilla of climate change,” Eakin said, or a lot of the restoration work “is just going to be wiped out.”

    Burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal produces greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, driving up temperatures both on Earth’s surface and in its seas. Oceans are warming at twice the rate of 20 years ago, according to UNESCO’s most recent State of the Ocean Report last year.

    And that’s devastating for corals. Rising heat causes them to feel sick and expel the algae that live in their tissue and provide them both their striking colors and their food. The process is known as bleaching because it exposes the coral’s white skeleton. The corals may survive, but they are weakened and vulnerable to disease and death if temperatures don’t drop.

    Half the world’s reefs have been lost since 1950, according to research by the University of British Columbia published in the journal One Earth.

    For countries such as the Dominican Republic, in the so-called “hurricane corridor,” preserving reefs is particularly important. Coral skeletons help absorb wave energy, creating a natural barrier against stronger waves.

    “What do we sell in the Dominican Republic? Beaches,” del Rosario said. “If we don’t have corals, we lose coastal protection, we lose the sand on our beaches, and we lose tourism.”

    Corals also are home to more than 25% of marine life, making them crucial for the millions of people around the world who make a living from fishing.

    Alido Luis Báez knows this well.

    It’s not yet dawn in Bayahibe when he climbs into a boat to fish with his father, who at 65 still goes to sea every week. The engine roars as they travel mile after mile until the coastline fades into the horizon. To catch tuna, dorado, or marlin, Luis Báez sails up to 50 miles offshore.

    “We didn’t have to go so far before,” he said. “But because of overfishing, habitat loss, and climate change, now you have to go a little further every day.”

    Things were very different when his father, also named Alido Luis, started fishing in the 1970s. Back then, they went out in a sailboat, and the coral reefs were so healthy they found plenty of fish close to the coast.

    “I used to be a diver, and I caught a lot of lobster and queen conch,” he said in a voice weakened by the passage of time. “In a short time, I would catch 50 or 60 pounds of fish. But now, to catch two or three fish, they spend the whole day out there.”

    Del Rosario said there’s still time to halt the decline of the reefs.

    “More needs to be done, of course … but we are investing a lot of effort and time to preserve what we love so much,” he said. “And we trust and believe that many people around the world are doing the same.”

    ___

    Follow Teresa de Miguel on X at @tdemigueles

    ___

    Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Farmers and politics threaten to put EU’s free-trade deal with South America on ice

    [ad_1]

    BRUSSELS — France is throwing up a last-minute obstacle to a massive trans-Atlantic trade deal between the 27-country European Union and the five South American nations of the Mercosur bloc that’s taken a quarter-century to negotiate.

    Angry European farmers fearing new competition from the EU-Mercosur pact are marching on Brussels, and European negotiators who thought they would finally wrap up the deal this year are facing a tough week.

    The deal between the EU and the five Mercosur countries — Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia — would progressively remove duties on almost all goods traded between the two blocs over the next 15 years. Provided it is ratified by both blocs, the accord would cover a market of 780 million people and a quarter of the globe’s gross domestic product.

    Negotiators agreed on the EU-Mercosur deal a year ago, but it now must be approved by all 27 EU countries, as well as the European Parliament.

    Both the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa are scheduled to sign the deal in Brazil on Dec. 20 — if aggrieved farmers marching on Brussels and vocal opposition from key EU nations don’t derail their plans.

    In the run-up to what many expected to be the final stretch, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Sunday that the current EU-Mercosur deal was “unacceptable,” and that conditions for a vote of EU heads of state and government on Thursday “have not been met.” He requested a delay, which would push the vote to 2026 or beyond.

    While commending recent measures taken by the European Commission to both protect farmers and increase inspections of agricultural imports for food safety violations like pesticides banned in the EU, Lecornu said that France has not been fully placated.

    “It is clear in this context that the conditions are not in place for any vote by the EU Council on authorizing the signing of the agreement,” he said.

    Poland, Austria, the Netherlands and France are concerned that Mercosur exporters could undercut EU products made with stronger labor and sanitary regulations like pesticide restrictions, said Alicia Gracia-Herrero, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel Institute. France has failed to get Mercosur to agree to “mirror” those regulations.

    She said that the deal reflects limits on the EU’s geopolitical strength, political unity and capability.

    “If we cannot get this done even with (U.S. President Donald) Trump’s pressure, what can you expect from the EU?” she said. “I hope France cannot fully torpedo this because the EU cannot afford a further delay in Mercosur if it wants to be credible with other ongoing trade deals, such as Indonesia and, even more so, India.”

    In the wake of Trump’s tariff blitzkrieg earlier this year, when Washington imposed levies of 15% on most imports from the EU, the bloc has sought bilateral trade deals to help weather with aggressive trade tactics from both the U.S. and China, its historical top trading partners.

    European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said that Brussels would push to have the Mercosur deal signed by the end of the year because it puts the EU’s geopolitical credibility on the line.

    “We’re talking about bringing together two of the world’s biggest trading blocs. And in so doing, in a time of rising geopolitical uncertainty, we create a platform based on trust, based on rules, where we can work with Mercosur on the big challenges at global level of our time. We’re talking climate, economic security, reform of the global rules-based order, and so on,” he said.

    From Spanish ham and Italian wine to Dutch dairy and Greek olives, agriculture is central to the European Union’s budget, economy, culture and politics. The EU exported 235.4 billion euros ($272 billion) worth of agricultural goods in 2024.

    Many farmers loathe the Mercosur deal, but its proponents in Brussels say it would save businesses some $4.26 billion in duties each year, streamline sales, and remove tariffs on products like French wine, Argentinian soybeans, Brazilian rare earth minerals, and German pharmaceuticals.

    Its critics in France, the Netherlands and other countries with big dairy and beef industries say the pact would subject local farmers to unfair competition and cause environmental damage.

    Such opposition has prompted Brussels to propose new protections for the EU’s agricultural sector.

    Last year, the European Commission vowed to slash red tape for farmers and more equitably distribute annual agricultural subsidies of 50 billion euros ($58 billion) across bloc.

    In October, the commission set up new mechanisms allowing farmers to trigger investigations if the prices of imports from Mercosur are at least 10% lower than the prices of the same or competing EU products. Serious violators could get their preferential tariffs temporarily withdrawn.

    In December, the commission proposed to ratchet up border inspections to check if imported agricultural goods were produced with pesticides banned in the EU.

    But those moves have not soothed French fears nor the anxieties of farmers.

    Agricultural unions are once again planning demonstrations in Brussels as leaders and diplomats meet for the European Council on Thursday.

    Disgruntled farmers used tractors to paralyze many European capitals as part of a campaign lionized by the far right in the run-up to their successful showing in EU-wide elections in 2024. ——— Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet contributed from Paris.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Hunger and makeshift shelters persist in north Caribbean nearly 2 months after Hurricane Melissa

    [ad_1]

    PETIT GOÂVE, Haiti (AP) — Amizia Renotte sat on a broken piece of concrete and pointed to a large pile of dirt where her house once stood before the outer bands of Hurricane Melissa crumpled it as the storm lashed Haiti’s southern region.

    The Atlantic hurricane season may be over, but thousands of people like Renotte in this Carribean country and beyond are still looking for food and struggling to rebuild their lives nearly two months after the Category 5 storm pummeled the northern Caribbean region as one of the strongest Atlantic storms in recorded history.

    “We ran. We had nothing to save,” Renotte said as she recalled waking up in the middle of the night surrounded by floodwaters.

    Melissa killed at least 43 people across Haiti, many of them in Petit-Goâve, where residents are still digging out from under the storm that unleased deadly flooding.

    Huge piles of dirt and mud now smother this southern coastal town, which once bustled with farmers and street vendors.

    The groan of heavy machinery fills the air as crews slowly clear debris scattered by La Digue River, which swept away children, cars and homes in late October.

    “People lost everything,” resident Clermont Wood Mandy said. “They lost their homes. They lost their children.”

    Hunger persists

    Petit-Goâve held a mass funeral in mid-November to say its goodbyes to loved ones, but hunger and frustration remain.

    On a recent morning, people crowded around a small convenience store stocked with pasta, butter, rice and other basic items produced locally after receiving cash donations.

    In line to buy something was 37-year-old Joceline Antoine, who lost five relatives in the storm.

    “My house is destroyed,” she said.

    Lola Castro, a regional director with the U.N.’s World Food Program, or WFP, who recently traveled to Petit-Goâve, said in a phone interview Friday that Melissa has deepened Haiti’s crises.

    “Around 5.3 million people don’t have enough to eat every day in Haiti,” she said. “That’s a huge challenge.”

    Castro noted that Petit-Goâve was an agricultural community that depended heavily on crops, including plantain, corn and beans.

    “They have lost their income. They have lost their means of living,” she said.

    ‘No community will be forgotten’

    Jamaica also is struggling to recover from Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall in the western part of the neighboring island in late October, causing an estimated $8.8 billion in damage.

    The storm killed at least 45 people, and 13 others remain missing, with an additional 32 deaths under investigation, according to Alvin Gayle, director-general of Jamaica’s emergency management office.

    Authorities have reported 30 confirmed cases of leptospirosis — an infection transmitted from animals — and another 84 unconfirmed ones, with 12 related deaths. There were also two cases of tetanus, one of them fatal.

    “These figures underscore the scale of the human impact and the seriousness with which the ministries, departments and agencies of government continue to approach the recovery effort,” Gayle said.

    More than 100 shelters remain open in seven of Jamaica’s parishes, housing more than 1,000 people.

    Meanwhile, some 160 schools remain closed.

    “No community will be forgotten,” Gayle said.

    Jamaica recently announced that it obtained a $150 million loan to help restore electricity as quickly as possible, with officials saying they expect power to fully be restored by the end of January.

    Jamaica also has obtained a $6.7 billion package for reconstruction efforts over three years from the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean; the Caribbean Development Bank; the Inter-American Development Bank Group; the International Monetary Fund; and the World Bank Group.

    Call for funding

    In Cuba, hundreds of people remain in makeshift shelters nearly two months after the hurricane made landfall in the eastern region of the island hours after it hit Jamaica.

    No storm-related deaths were reported in Cuba, where authorities evacuated more than 700,000 people from coastal areas.

    Nearly a month after the storm, the U.N. said that about 53,000 people in Cuba had been unable to return to their homes, including 7,500 living in official shelters.

    Castro, of the WFP, said that Hurricane Melissa affected 6 million people overall in the Caribbean, including 1.2 million in Haiti.

    Around 1.3 million people in the region now need food, security or other type of support, with WFP so far helping 725,000 of them, Castro said.

    She said she hopes that number will grow, noting that the agency’s $83 million appeal is only 50% funded.

    ___

    Dánica Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump administration delays decision on federal protections for monarch butterflies

    [ad_1]

    MADISON, Wis. — President Donald Trump’s administration has delayed a decision on whether to extend federal protections to monarch butterflies indefinitely despite years of warnings from conservationists that populations are shrinking.

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced during the waning days of then-President Joe Biden’s term in December 2024 that the agency planned to add the beloved backyard pollinator to the threatened species list by the end of 2025, calling the insect “iconic” and “cherished across North America.”

    But the Trump administration quietly listed the effort as a “long-term action” in a September report on the status of federal regulatory initiatives from the Office of Management and Budget. The designation does not mean the administration has blocked the fish and wildlife service from making the decision, only that it will not come within the year that began in September.

    “The administration remains committed to a regulatory approach that is transparent, predictable and grounded in sound science,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an email to The Associated Press on Friday. “Any listing must follow the (Endangered Species Act’s) statutory requirement that determinations be based on the best scientific and commercial data available. At the same time, the administration continues to emphasize voluntary, locally driven conservation as a proven tool for supporting species and reducing the need for additional federal regulation.”

    No one at the agency immediately returned follow-up emails inquiring about the specific rationale for the delay. The first Trump administration named the monarch a candidate for listing in December 2020. His second administration has made oil and gas production a centerpiece and has been working to strip away environmental regulations that impede development.

    His administration moved in November to roll back blanket protections for threatened animals and plants, requiring government agencies to instead craft species-specific rules, a potentially lengthy process. Other proposals call for bypassing species protections for logging in national forests and on public lands.

    The Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation groups started pushing for federal protections for the butterfly in 2014, petitioning the fish and wildlife service to list the insect. The center sued in 2022 to force the agency to make a listing decision.

    Tierra Curry, the center’s endangered species co-director, said Friday that she’s not surprised the Trump administration has delayed the decision. She said it can take more than a decade to get a species listed. For example, she said, the Miami Blue Butterfly was finally listed as endangered in 2012 after waiting on the candidate list since 1984. The Dakota Skipper butterfly became a candidate in 1984 but was not listed as threatened until 2014, she added.

    The long-term action designation doesn’t mean the end for monarch protections but it does place them in “bureaucratic limbo,” she said.

    “It’s absolutely disappointing because monarchs need all the help they can get,” Curry said.

    Monarchs are found across North America. Known for their distinctive orange-and-black wings, they’re a symbol of sunny summer days.

    But environmentalists have warned that monarch populations are shrinking due to climate change and rural development. Fish and wildlife service experts said when they announced in December 2024 that they planned to list the butterfly that monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains face a 57% to 74% probability of extinction by 2080. Monarchs west of the Rockies have a 95% chance of becoming extinct by then.

    The monarch listing proposal would generally prohibit people from killing or transporting the butterfly. People and farmers could continue to remove milkweed, a key food source for monarch caterpillars, from their gardens, backyards and fields but would be barred from making changes that would make the land permanently unusable for the species.

    People could continue to transport fewer than 250 monarchs and could continue to use them for educational purposes.

    The proposal also would designate as critical habitat 4,395 acres (1,779 hectares) in seven coastal California counties where monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains migrate for winter. The designation would prohibit federal agencies from destroying or modifying that habitat. The designation doesn’t prohibit all development, but landowners who need a federal license or permit for a project would have to work with the wildlife service to mitigate damage.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • New England’s shrimp fishery to shut down for long haul

    [ad_1]

    Regulators voted Thursday to extend a shutdown preventing New England fishermen from catching shrimp, a historic industry that has recently fallen victim to warming oceans.

    New England fishermen, especially those from Maine, used to catch millions of pounds of the small pink Gulf of Maine northern shrimp, Pandalus borealis, the only locally harvested shrimp in the winter.

    This page requires Javascript.

    Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.

    kAmqFE E96 3FD:?6DD 92D 366? F?56C 2 7:D9:?8 >@C2E@C:F> D:?46 a_`c] #:D:?8 E6>A6C2EFC6D 92G6 4C62E65 2? :?9@DA:E23=6 6?G:C@?>6?E 7@C E96 D9C:>A[ 2?5 E96:C A@AF=2E:@? 😀 E@@ =@H E@ 7:D9 DFDE2:?23=J[ D4:6?E:DED 92G6 D2:5]k^Am

    kAmp? 2C> @7 E96 C68F=2E@CJ pE=2?E:4 $E2E6D |2C:?6 u:D96C:6D r@>>:DD:@? G@E65 %9FCD52J E@ D9FE 5@H? E96 k2 9C67lQ9EEADi^^2A?6HD]4@>^2CE:4=6^>2:?6D9C:>A4=:>2E6492?867:D9:?8D627@@522524bde6b2aeb5a437257ece32b`7c`Qm7:D96CJk^2m 7@C 2E =62DE 2?@E96C E9C66 J62CD] p3F?52?46 @7 E96 D9C:>A C6>2:?65 “A@@C” E9:D J62C 56DA:E6 D=:89E=J :>AC@G65 6?G:C@?>6?E2= 4@?5:E:@?D[ E96 pE=2?E:4 $E2E6D D2:5 😕 5@4F>6?ED]k^Am

    kAm%96 564:D:@? 42>6 27E6C D9C:>A 92CG6DE6CD H6C6 k2 9C67lQ9EEADi^^2A?6HD]4@>^2CE:4=6^D9C:>A4=:>2E6492?86@462?D7:D9:?84c5cg32_7b5c747cf55`56bf6f7a5h76Qm2==@H65k^2m E@ 42E49 2 D>2== ?F>36C @7 D9C:>A 2D A2CE @7 2? :?5FDECJ7F?565 D2>A=:?8 2?5 52E2 4@==64E:@? AC@8C2>] %96 7:D96C>6?[ H9@ 32EE=65 D@>6 C@F89 H62E96C[ 42F89E @?=J f_ D9C:>A E@E2=:?8 =6DD E92? b A@F?5D]k^Am

    kAmw@H6G6C[ “6G6? H:E9 E96 325 H62E96C[ 6I46AE:@?2==J =@H 42E49 =6G6=D @3D6CG65 E9C@F89@FE E96 AC@8C2> C6:?7@C46 4@?46C?D 23@FE E96 G:23:=:EJ @7 E96 ?@CE96C? D9C:>A DE@4< 😕 E96 vF=7 @7 |2:?6[” E96 5@4F>6?ED DE2E6]k^Am

    kAm|2E6C:2= 7C@> !2EC:4< (9:EE=6 @7 %96 pDD@4:2E65 !C6DD H2D FD65 😕 E9:D C6A@CE]k^Am

    kAmp>@?8 :ED F?:BF6 492C24E6C:DE:4D[ E96 vF=7 @7 |2:?6 ?@CE96C? D9C:>A — 5:776C6?E=J ?2>65[ 3FE 2 56=:424J 2D H6== 😕 x46=2?5 2?5 $42?5:?2G:2 — 😀 D6BF6?E:2==J 96C>2A9C@5:E:4] xE 368:?D =:76 2D 2 >2=6 2?5 @?=J 27E6C E96 286 @7 23@FE b `^a J62CD 5@6D :E 364@>6 2 76>2=6[ H96? :E AC@5F46D 688D 2?5 >@G6D :?D9@C6[ 2?5 E96C6 :E 😀 E96 E2C86E @7 92CG6DE6CD[ D@>6 @7 H9@> FD6 EC2H=D 2?5 D@>6 EC2AD[ H9:=6 2 76H FD6 3@E9]k^Am

    kAm%9:D F?FDF2= 3:@=@8:42= DFCG:G2= DEC2E68J 4C62E6D 4C:E:42= ?665 7@C 2 7:D96CJ E92E 2G@:5D E2<:?8 E96 D>2==6C >2=6D 😕 @C56C E@ 6?DFC6 2 4C:E:42= >2DD @7 76>2=6D 2?5 E96 DFCG:G2= @7 E96 7:D96CJ]k^Am

    kAmpD :E 😀 7@C >@DE DA64:6D[ 4@>A=:42E:?8 >2EE6CD 😀 E96 D6?D:E:G:EJ @7 E96 D9C:>A E@ H2E6C E6>A6C2EFC6] %96 D9C:>A AC676C 4@=5 E6>A6C2EFC6D[ J6E E96 vF=7 @7 |2:?6 😀 k2 9C67lQ9EEADi^^2A?6HD]4@>^2CE:4=6^D4:6?466?G:C@?>6?E>2:?6A@CE=2?5@462?Daf6_`a3c3`72fg_52h`geg`hgdaa___4QmH2C>:?8 72DE6C E92? >@DEk^2m @7 E96 H@C=5’D @462?D] $4:6?E:DED D2J H2C>:?8 H2E6CD 92G6 2=D@ >@G65 ?6H AC652E@CD :?E@ E96 8F=7]k^Am

    kAmvF=7 @7 |2:?6 D9C:>A H6C6 2 H:?E6C 56=:424J[ 6DA64:2==J 2E r9C:DE>2D[ H96? E96 7:D96CJ H2D 24E:G6[ 2?5 7:D96C>6? D@>6E:>6D 42F89E >@C6 E92? `_ >:==:@? A@F?5D @7 E96> 😕 2 J62C] %96 D>2== A:?< D9C:>A H6C6 2 D>2== A2CE @7 E96 4@F?ECJ’D =2C86 H:=542F89E k2 9C67lQ9EEADi^^2A?6HD]4@>^9F3^D9C:>AQmD9C:>Ak^2m :?5FDECJ[ H9:49 42E496D D@>6 @7 E96 >@DE G2=F23=6 D627@@5 😕 E96 H@C=5]k^Am

    kAm|2:?6’D 42E49 @7 D9C:>A 4C2E6C65 😕 a_`b[ H96? 7:D96C>6? 42F89E =6DD E92? e__[___ A@F?5D @7 E96 4CFDE2462?D 27E6C 92F=:?8 >@C6 E92? 6:89E E:>6D E92E E96 AC6G:@FD J62C] u:D9:?8 8C@FAD 92G6 D@>6E:>6D =@33:65 7@C E96 D9C:>A:?8 :?5FDECJ E@ 36 C6@A6?65 @? 2 D>2==6C D42=6 32D:D[ 3FE >@DE 7@C>6C |2:?6 D9C:>A6CD 92G6 >@G65 @? E@ @E96C DA64:6D]k^Am

    kAm|2:?6 3@2ED 244@F?E65 7@C 23@FE h_T @7 E96 42E49[ H:E9 }6H w2>AD9:C6 2?5 |2DD249FD6EED 3@2ED 42E49:?8 E96 C6DE[ 2?5 >F49 @7 E96 |2DD249FD6EED D9C:>A:?8 7=66E 32D65 @FE @7 v=@F46DE6C]k^Am

    kAm%96 D9C:>A 7=66E 😕 a_`a :?4=F565 aad 3@2ED 7C@> |2:?6[ 2?5 b` 4@>3:?65 7C@> |2DD249FD6EED 2?5 }6H w2>AD9:C6]k^Am

    kAmqJ a_`f[ @?=J 6:89E EC2H=6CD 7C@> |2:?6[ @?6 7C@> }6H w2>AD9:C6 2?5 y@6 yFC6<[ 2 v=@F46DE6C32D65 8C@F?57:D96C>2? 2?5 E96 42AE2:? @7 E96 ca7@@E u’ |JDE:BF6 {25J[ H6C6 7:D9:?8 7@C E96 D9C:>A — 2D C6D62C49 7@C DE2E6 2?5 C68:@?2= C68F=2E@CD]k^Am

    kAm%96 7:D96CJ H2D 67764E:G6=J D9FE 5@H? 😕 a_`b[ 2?5 92D 366? 4=@D65 D:?46]k^Am

    kAm|2E6C:2= 7C@> !2EC:4< (9:EE=6 @7 %96 pDD@4:2E65 !C6DD H2D FD65 😕 E9:D C6A@CE]k^Am

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

    [ad_2]

    Staff and Wire Reports

    Source link

  • Lawsuit challenges the approval of an exploratory drilling program in Alaska

    [ad_1]

    JUNEAU, Alaska — Conservation groups and an Iñupiat-aligned group sued Thursday to overturn the recent approval of an exploratory drilling program in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, saying it was improperly analyzed by the federal government and could harm caribou and important habitat areas.

    The U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved a one-year program proposed by ConocoPhillips Alaska last month that included seismic surveys aimed at helping identify oil and gas reserves and plans to drill four exploration wells. Activities would occur near existing ConocoPhillips Alaska developments, including the large Willow oil project, the lawsuit states.

    The complaint, filed by Earthjustice on behalf of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, the Center for Biological Diversity and The Wilderness Society, says the process around the company’s application and its subsequent approval lacked transparency and was rushed. A final decision was issued days after a limited public comment period ended, it says.

    The Bureau of Land Management “has pushed this project through without proper analysis or process and without considering the significant flaws in the measures it relies on to justify its approval of the exploration program,” the lawsuit states.

    It names as defendants the Bureau of Land Management and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior, along with top officials including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

    Interior Department spokesperson Alyse Sharpe said the department does not comment on pending litigation.

    Dennis Nuss, a spokesperson for ConocoPhillips Alaska, said in an email that the company is confident in the “robustness” of its plan and permits and looks forward to completing its work within the limited winter exploration season.

    There has been longstanding debate over how much of the petroleum reserve — which covers an area roughly the size of Indiana — should be open for development. President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to roll back limits on drilling and protections enacted during the Biden administration, and a law passed this year calls for the first lease sales in the reserve since 2019.

    The push has been cheered by the state’s Republican congressional delegation and governor, but it raised concerns among environmentalists who caution against the continued embrace of new oil production in the face of climate change. The reserve is home to Teshekpuk Lake, the largest lake in Alaska’s arctic region and third-largest in the state.

    Nauri Simmonds, executive director of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, said the proposed exploration program is “not only an assault on caribou and tundra — it is another chapter in the enfoldment of our people into systems designed to fracture us from within.”

    “Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic stands against this approval because our future depends on protecting our homelands, our unity, and our right to live free from the harms of industrial expansion,” Simmonds said in a statement.

    The group describes itself online as “an organization of Iñupiat Peoples and community members that believe in a balanced Earth for future generations.”

    There are differing views among Alaska Natives, however, over further oil development in places like the petroleum reserve. A group representing many North Slope leaders, Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, has supported efforts to drill there.

    The lawsuit says work under the proposed program could begin “any day” and last until April or May.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Hiker mired in quicksand in Utah’s Arches National Park is rescued unharmed

    [ad_1]

    Getting trapped in quicksand is a corny peril of old movies and TV shows, but it really did happen to one unfortunate hiker in Utah’s Arches National Park.

    The park famous for dozens of natural, sandstone arches gets over 1 million visitors a year, and accidents ranging from falls to heat stroke are common.

    Quicksand? Not really — but it has happened at least a couple of times now.

    “The wet sand just kind of flows back in. It’s kind of a never-ending battle,” said John Marshall, who helped a woman stuck in quicksand over a decade ago and coordinated the latest rescue.

    On Sunday, an experienced hiker, whose identity wasn’t released, was traversing a small canyon on the second day of a 20-mile (32-kilometer) backpacking trip when he sank up to his thigh, according to Marshall.

    Unable to free himself, the hiker activated an emergency satellite beacon. His message got forwarded to Grand County emergency responders and Marshall got the call at 7:15 a.m..

    “I was just rolling out of bed,” Marshall said. “I’m scratching my head, going, ‘Did I hear that right? Did they say quicksand?’”

    He put his boots on and rendezvoused with a team that set out with all-terrain vehicles, a ladder, traction boards, backboards and a drone. Soon, Marshall had a bird’s-eye view of the situation.

    Through the drone camera he saw a park ranger who’d tossed the man a shovel. But the quicksand flowed back as soon as the backpacker shoveled it away, Marshall said.

    Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel.


    Follow on

    The Grand County Search and Rescue team positioned the ladder and boards near the backpacker and slowly worked his leg loose. By then he’d been standing in near-freezing muck, in temperatures in the 20s (minus 6 to minus 1 Celsius), for a couple of hours.

    Rescuers warmed him up until he could stand, then walk. He then hiked out on his own, even carrying his backpack, Marshall said.

    Quicksand is dangerous but it’s a myth total submersion is the main risk, said Marshall.

    “In quicksand you’re extremely buoyant,” he said. “Most people won’t sink past their waist in quicksand.”

    Marshall is more or less a quicksand expert.

    In 2014, he was a medic who helped a 78-year-old woman after she was stuck for over 13 hours in the same canyon just 2 miles (3 kilometers) from where Sunday’s rescue took place.

    The woman’s book club got worried when she missed their meeting. They went looking for her and found her car at a trailhead. It was June — warmer than Sunday but not sweltering in the canyon’s shade — and the woman made a full recovery after regaining use of her legs.

    “Both had very happy endings,” Marshall said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: Trump said weaker gas mileage rules will mean cheaper cars. Experts say don’t bet on it

    [ad_1]

    DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump this week announced plans to weaken rules for how far automakers’ new vehicles need to travel on a gallon of gasoline, set under former President Joe Biden.

    The Trump administration said the rules, known formally as Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards, are why new vehicles are too expensive, and that cutting them will drive down costs and make driving safer for Americans.

    The new standards would drop the industry fleetwide average for light-duty vehicles to roughly 34.5 mpg (55.5 kpg) in the 2031 model year, down from the goal of about 50.4 mpg (81.1 kpg) that year under the Biden-era rule.

    Here are the facts.

    Affordability

    TRUMP: EV-friendly policies “forced automakers to build cars using expensive technologies that drove up costs, drove up prices and made the car much worse.”

    THE FACTS: It’s true that gas mileage standards have played a role in rising vehicle prices in recent years, but experts say plenty of other factors have contributed, and some much more.

    Pandemic-era inventory shortages, supply chain challenges, tariffs and other trade dynamics, and even automakers’ growing investments in their businesses have also sent prices soaring. Average prices have also skewed higher as automakers have leaned into the costly big pickups and SUVs that many American consumers love.

    President Donald Trump speaks during an event on fuel economy standards in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

    The average transaction price of a new vehicle hit $49,105 in October, according to car shopping guide Edmunds.

    A Consumer Reports analysis of vehicles for model years 2003 to 2021 — a period in which average fuel economy improved 30% — found no significant increase in inflation-adjusted vehicle prices caused by the requirements. At the same time, it found an average of $7,000 in lifetime fuel savings per vehicle for 2021 model year vehicles compared with 2003. That analysis, done primarily before the coronavirus pandemic, attributed much of the average sticker price increase to the shift toward bigger and more expensive vehicles.

    Cutting the fuel economy standards is unlikely to provide any fast relief on sticker prices, said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ head of insights. And while looser standards may eventually mean lower car prices, their lower efficiency means that those savings could be eaten up by higher fuel costs, she said.

    Ending the gas car?

    TRUMP: Biden’s policies were “a quest to end the gasoline-powered car.”

    THE FACTS: The Biden administration did enact several policies to increase electric vehicle adoption, including setting a target for half of new vehicle sales in the U.S. to be electric by 2030.

    The Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act included tax incentives that gave car buyers up to $7,500 off the price of an EV and dedicated billions of dollars to nationwide charging — funding that Trump tried to stop. The Biden administration increased fuel economy requirements and set stricter tailpipe emissions limits.

    While those moves sought to help build the EV market, there was no requirement that automakers sell EVs or consumers buy them. And gasoline cars still make up the vast majority of the U.S. market.

    EV charging

    TRUMP: “We had to have an electric car within a very short period of time, even though there was no way of charging them.”

    THE FACTS: While many potential EV buyers still worry about charging them, the availability of public charging has significantly improved in recent years.

    Biden-era funding and private investment have increased charging across the nation. There are now more than 232,000 individual Level 2 and fast charging ports in the U.S. As of this year, enough fast charging ports have been installed to average one for every mile (1.6 kilometers) of National Highway System roads in the U.S., according to an AP analysis of data from the Department of Energy.

    However, those fast charging stations aren’t evenly dispersed. Many are concentrated in the far West and the Northeast, where sales of EVs are highest.

    Experts note that most EV charging can be done at home.

    Safety

    TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: The reduced requirements will make drivers “safer on the roads because of all the great new technology we have that save lives.”

    THE FACTS: Newer vehicles — gas and electric — are full of advanced safety features, including automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping, collision warnings and more.

    Duffy suggested that consumers will be more likely to buy new vehicles if they are more affordable — meaning fewer old cars on the streets without the safety technology. This assumes vehicle prices will actually go down with eased requirements, which experts say might not be the case. Besides, high tech adds to a vehicle’s cost.

    “If Americans purchased more new vehicles equipped with the latest safety technologies, we would expect overall on-road safety to improve,” Edmunds’ Caldwell said. “However, it’s unclear whether easing fuel-economy standards will meaningfully increase new-vehicle sales.”

    The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an independent automotive research nonprofit, also says electric or hybrid vehicles are as safe as or safer than gasoline-powered cars.

    Another part of safety is public health. Efficiency requirements put into place to address the 1970s oil crisis were also a way to reduce pollution that is harmful to humans and the environment.

    “This rollback would move the auto industry backwards, keeping polluting cars on our roads for years to come and threatening the health of millions of Americans,” said Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign. “This dangerous proposal adds to the long list of ways the Trump administration is dismantling our clean air and public health protections.”

    ___

    Associated Press data journalist M.K. Wildeman contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.

    ___

    Follow Alexa St. John on X: @alexa_stjohn and reach her at [email protected]. Read more of AP’s climate coverage.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Brown grass cost a famed golf course a big tournament and highlighted Hawaii water problems

    [ad_1]

    HONOLULU (AP) — High up on the slopes of the west Maui mountains, the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort provides golfers with expansive ocean views. The course is so renowned that The Sentry, a $20 million signature event for the PGA Tour, had been held there nearly every year for more than a quarter-century.

    “You have to see it to believe it,” said Ann Miller, a former longtime Honolulu newspaper golf writer. “You’re looking at other islands, you’re looking at whales. … Every view is beautiful.”

    Its world-class status also depends on keeping the course green.

    But with water woes in west Maui — facing drought and still reeling from a deadly 2023 wildfire that ravaged the historic town of Lahaina — keeping the course green enough for The Sentry became difficult.

    Ultimately, as the Plantation’s fairways and greens grew brown, the PGA Tour canceled the season opener, a blow that cost what officials estimate to be $50 million economic impact on the area.

    A two-month closure and some rain helped get the course in suitable condition to reopen 17 holes earlier this month to everyday golfers who pay upwards of $469 to play a round. The 18th hole is set to reopen Monday, but the debate is far from over about the source of the water used to keep the course green and what its future looks like amid climate change.

    Questions about Hawaii’s golf future

    There’s concern that other high-profile tournaments will also bow out, taking with them economic benefits, such as money for charities, Miller said.

    “It could literally change the face of it,” she said, “and it could change the popularity, obviously, too.”

    The company that owns the courses, along with Kapalua homeowners and Hua Momona Farms, filed a lawsuit in August alleging Maui Land & Pineapple, which operates the century-old system of ditches that provides irrigation water to Kapalua and its residents, has not kept up repairs, affecting the amount of water getting down from the mountain.

    MLP has countersued and the two sides have exchanged accusations since then.

    As the water-delivery dispute plays out in court, Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental legal group, is calling attention to a separate issue involving the use of drinking water for golf course irrigation, particularly irksome to residents contending with water restrictions amid drought, including Native Hawaiians who consider water a sacred resource.

    “Potable ground drinking water needs to be used for potable use,” Lauren Palakiko, a west Maui taro farmer, told the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management at a recent meeting. “I can’t stress enough that it should never be pumped, injuring our aquifer for the sake of golf grass or vacant mansion swimming pools.”

    ‘This is water that we can drink’

    Kapalua’s Plantation and Bay courses, owned by TY Management Corp., have historically been irrigated with surface water delivered under an agreement with Maui Land & Pineapple, but since at least the summer have been using millions of gallons of potable groundwater, according to Earthjustice attorneys who point to correspondence from commission Chairperson Dawn Chang to MLP and Hawaii Water Service they say confirms it.

    Chang said her letter didn’t authorize anything, but merely acknowledged an “oral representation” that using groundwater is an an “existing use” at times when there’s not enough surface water. She is asking for supporting documentation from MLP and Hawaii Water Service to confirm that interpretation.

    In emails to The Associated Press, MLP said it did not believe groundwater could be used for golf course irrigation and Hawaii Water Service said it didn’t communicate to the commission that using groundwater to irrigate the courses was an existing use.

    MLP’s two wells that service the course provide potable water.

    “This is water that we can drink. It’s an even more precious resource within the sacred resource of wai,” Dru Hara, an Earthjustice attorney said, using the Hawaiian word for water.

    Recycled water solutions

    TY, owned by Japanese billionaire and apparel brand Uniqlo’s founder Tadashi Yanai, doesn’t have control over what kind of water is in the reservoir they draw upon for irrigation, TY General Manager Kenji Yui said in a statement. They’re also researching ways to bring recycled water to Kapalua for irrigation.

    Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a former commissioner, said he’s troubled by Earthjustice’s allegations that proper procedures weren’t followed.

    The wrangling over water for golf shows that courses in Hawaii need to change their relationship with water, Beamer said: “I think there needs to be a time very soon that all golf courses are utilizing at a minimum recycled water.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Eel populations are falling, and new protections were defeated. Japan and the US opposed them

    [ad_1]

    SCARBOROUGH, Maine — Eels are the stuff of nightmares — slimy, snakelike creatures that lay millions of eggs before dying so their offspring can return home to rivers and streams. They’ve existed since the time of the dinosaurs, and some species are more poorly understood than those ancient animals.

    Yet they’re also valuable seafood fish that are declining all over the world, leading to a new push for restrictions on trade to help stave off extinction.

    Freshwater eels are critically important for the worldwide sushi industry, and some species have declined by more than 90% since the 1980s. The eels have succumbed to a combination of river dams, hydroelectric turbines, pollution, habitat loss, climate change, illegal poaching and overfishing, according to scientists. Some environmental organizations have called for consumers to boycott eel at sushi restaurants.

    The loss of eels motivated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, to consider new restrictions to protect the wriggling fish. The members of CITES, an international treaty, met in Uzbekistan this week to determine if the new rules on trade are needed. Member nations voted against the new protections on Thursday.

    Conservation groups said the protections were long overdue, but not everyone was on board. Some fishing groups, seafood industry members and regulatory agencies in the U.S., China and Japan — all countries where eel is economically important — have spoken out against restricting the trade.

    The push for more restrictions is the work of “an international body dominated by volunteer scientists and unelected bureaucrats,” said Mitchell Feigenbaum, one of North America’s largest eel dealers and an advocate for the industry. But several conservation groups countered that the protections were needed.

    “This measure is vital to strengthen trade monitoring, aid fisheries management, and ensure the species’ long-term survival,” said Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy for Wildlife Conservation Society.

    The eels in question are the eels of the anguilla genus, which spend their lives in freshwater but migrate to the ocean to spawn. They are distinct from the familiar, grinning moray eels, which are popular in aquariums and are mostly marine fish, and the electric eels, which live in South America.

    Anguilla eels, especially baby eels called elvers, are valuable because they are used as seed stock by Asian aquaculture companies that raise them to maturity for use as food. Freshwater eel is known as unagi in Japan, and it’s a key ingredient in numerous sushi dishes. Eel is also culturally significant in Japan, where people have eaten the fish for thousands of years.

    The elvers have become more valuable in the U.S. over the last 15 years because of the steep decline of eels elsewhere in the world. While the population of American eels has fallen, the drop has not been as severe as Japanese and European eels. Attempts to list American eels under the Endangered Species Act in the U.S. have failed.

    Maine is the only U.S. state with a significant fishery for the elvers, and it is heavily regulated. Maine’s baby eels were worth more than $1,200 per pound at the docks in 2024, and they were worth more than $2,000 per pound the year before that.

    CITES, which is one of the world’s largest multinational wildlife agreements, extended protections to European eels in 2009. The organization considered adding more than a dozen more eel species, including the American and Japanese eels, to its list of protected species.

    Adding the eels to the list would mean exporters would need a permit to ship them. Before the permit could be granted, a scientific authority in the home country would have to determine that the export would not be detrimental to the species’ survival and that the eels weren’t taken illegally under national wildlife laws. That is significant because poaching of eels is a major threat, and rare species are often illegally passed off as more common ones, CITES documents state.

    Tightening trade rules “will encourage species-specific trade monitoring and controls and close loopholes that allow illegal trade to persist,” the documents state.

    Fishing groups are not the only organizations to resist expanding protections for eels, as regulatory groups in some countries have argued that national and regional laws are a better way to conserve eels.

    Japan and China have both told CITES that they don’t support listing the eels. And in the U.S., the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the American eel fishery, submitted testimony to CITES opposing the listing.

    The U.S.’s own management of eels is sufficient to protect the species, said Toni Kerns, fisheries policy director with the commission.

    “We don’t feel that the proposal provides enough information on how the black market would be curbed,” Kerns said. “We are very concerned about how it would potentially restrict trade in the United States.”

    A coalition of industry groups in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan also submitted a request that the protection be rejected, saying CITES’ assertion that international trade is causing eel populations to decline is “not supported by sufficient evidence.”

    The strong demand for eels is a reason to protect the trade with new rules, said Nastya Timoshyna, office director for Europe with TRAFFIC, a U.K.-based nonprofit that fights wildlife trafficking.

    Illegal shipping is not the only reason the eels are in decline, but working with industry to cut down illegal trade will give the fish a better chance at survival, Timoshyna said.

    Eels might not be universally beloved, but they’re important in part because they’re an indicator species that helps scientists understand the health of the ecosystem around them, Timoshyna said.

    “It’s not about banning it or stopping fishing practices,” Timoshyna said. “It’s about industry being responsible, and there is massive power in industry.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Kenyan court declares law banning seed sharing unconstitutional

    [ad_1]

    KISUMU, Kenya — A high court in Kenya on Thursday declared unconstitutional sections of a seed law that prevented farmers from sharing and selling indigenous seeds in what food campaigners have called a landmark win for food security.

    Farmers in Kenya could face up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 1 million Kenya shillings ($7,700) for sharing seeds through their community seed banks, according to a seed law signed in 2012.

    Justice Rhoda Rutto on Thursday said sections of the seed law that gave government officials powers to raid seed banks and seize seeds were also unconstitutional.

    The law was introduced as a measure to curb growing sale of counterfeit seeds that were causing loses in the agricultural sector and gave sole seed trading rights to licensed companies.

    The case had been filed by 15 smallholder farmers, who are members of community seed banks that have been in operation for years, preserving and sharing seeds among colleagues.

    A farmer, Samuel Wathome, who was among the 15, said the old farming practices had been vindicated.

    “My grandmother saved seeds, and today the court has said I can do the same for my grandchildren without fear of the police or of prison,” he said.

    Elizabeth Atieno, a food campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, called the win a “victory for our culture, our resilience, and our future.”

    “By validating indigenous seeds, the court has struck a blow against the corporate capture of our food system. We can finally say that in Kenya, feeding your community with climate-resilient, locally adapted seeds is no longer a crime,” she said.

    Food campaigners have in the past encouraged governments to work with farmers to preserve indigenous seeds as a way of ensuring food security by offering farmers more plant varieties.

    Indigenous seeds are believed to be drought resistant and adaptable to the climate conditions of their native areas, and hence often outperform hybrid seeds.

    Kenya has a national seed bank based near the capital Nairobi where indigenous seeds are stored in cold rooms, but farmers say community seed banks are equally important for variety and proximity to the farmer.

    The country has faced challenges in the seed sector where counterfeit seeds were sold to farmers, leading to losses amounting to millions of shillings in a country that relies on rain-fed agriculture.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ambitious plan to store CO2 beneath the North Sea set to start operations

    [ad_1]

    NORTH SEA, Denmark — Appearing first as a dot on the horizon, the remote Nini oil field on Europe’s rugged North Sea slowly comes into view from a helicopter.

    Used to extract fossil fuels, the field is now getting a second lease on life as a means of permanently storing planet-warming carbon dioxide beneath the seabed.

    In a process that almost reverses oil extraction, chemical giant INEOS plans to inject liquefied CO2 deep down into depleted oil reservoirs, 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) beneath the seabed.

    The Associated Press made a rare visit to the Siri platform, close to the unmanned Nini field, the final stage in INEOS’ carbon capture and storage efforts, named Greensand Future.

    When the project begins commercial operations next year, Greensand is expected to become the European Union’s first fully-operational offshore CO2 storage site.

    Environmentalists say carbon capture and storage, also known as CCS, has a role to play in dealing with climate change but should not be used as an excuse by industries to avoid cutting emissions.

    Mads Gade, chief executive of INEOS Energy Europe, says it will initially begin storing 400,000 tons (363,000 metric tons) of CO2 per year, scaling up to as much as 8 million tons (7.3 million metric tons) annually by 2030.

    “Denmark has the potential to actually store more than several hundred years of our own emissions,” says Gade. “We are able to create an industry where we can support Europe in actually storing a lot of the CO2 here.”

    Greensand has struck deals with Danish biogas facilities to bury their captured carbon emissions into the Nini field’s depleted reservoirs.

    A “CO2 terminal” that temporarily stores the liquefied gas is being built at the Port of Esbjerg, on the western coast of the Danish Jutland peninsula.

    A purpose-built carrier vessel, dubbed “Carbon Destroyer 1,” is under construction in the Netherlands.

    Proponents of carbon capture technology say it is a climate solution because it can remove the greenhouse gas that is the biggest driver of climate change and bury it deep underground.

    They note the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s top body of climate scientists, has said the technology is a tool in the fight against global warming.

    The EU has proposed developing at least 250 million tons (227 million metric tons) of CO2 storage per year by 2040, as part of plans to reach “net zero” emissions by 2050.

    Gade says carbon capture and storage is one of the best means of cutting emissions.

    “We don’t want to deindustrialize Europe,” he said. “We want to have actually a few instruments to decarbonize instead.”

    Experts at Denmark’s geological survey say Greensand sandstone rock is well-suited for storing the liquefied CO2. Almost a third of the rock volume is made up of tiny cavities, said Niels Schovsbo, senior researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

    “We found that there (are) no reactions between the reservoir and the injected CO2. And we find that the seal rock on top of that has sufficient capacity to withhold the pressure that is induced when we are storing CO2 in the subsurface,” added Schovsbo.

    “These two methods makes it a perfect site for storage right there.”

    But while there are many carbon capture facilities around the world, the technology is far from scale, sometimes uses fossil fuel energy in its operations and captures just a tiny fraction of worldwide emissions.

    The Greensand project aims to bury up to 8 million tons (7.3 million metric tons) of CO2 a year by 2030. The International Energy Agency says nearly 38 billion tons (34.5 billion metric tons) of CO2 were emitted globally last year.

    Environmental campaigners say CCS has been used as an excuse by industries to delay cutting emissions.

    “We could have CCS on those very few sectors where emissions are truly difficult or impossible to abate,” said Helene Hagel, head of climate and environmental policy at Greenpeace Denmark.

    “But when you have all sectors in society almost saying, we need to just catch the emissions and store them instead of reducing emissions — that is the problem.”

    While the chemical giant ramps up carbon storage efforts, it is also hoping to begin development at another previously unopened North Sea oil field.

    “The footprint we deliver from importing energy against producing domestic or regional oil and gas is a lot more important for the transition instead of importing with a higher footprint,” said Gade, defending the company’s plans.

    “We see a purpose in doing this for a period while we create a transition for Europe.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    [ad_2]

    Source link