NEW YORK — Amazon said Monday it will invest 1 billion euros ($972.1 million) to add thousands of more electric vans, long-haul trucks and cargo bikes to its delivery network in Europe.
The investment would grow the number of electric delivery vans the company has in Europe from roughly 3,000 to 10,000 by 2025, the Seattle-based retail giant said in an announcement on its website.
With the investment, Amazon is also hoping to purchase more than 1,500 electric trucks, up from five in the United Kingdom. To accommodate those vehicles, the company said it will build hundreds of fast chargers across its European facilities that can charge the vehicles in roughly two hours.
“Our transportation network is one of the most challenging areas of our business to decarbonize, and to achieve net-zero carbon will require a substantial and sustained investment,” Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO, said in a statement, referring to the company’s pledge to be net carbon by 2040. Despite the pledge, the company said its carbon emissions grew by 18% last year, driven by the surge in online shopping during the coronavirus pandemic.
Amazon has launched 25 “micro-mobility hubs,” or more centrally located delivery stations in dense European cities, that allow the company to try out different delivery methods, such as bike and foot deliveries. On Monday, it said it expects to double those hubs by 2025, which will allow the company to take more delivery vans off the road.
The retailer has already ordered 100,000 electric vans from Rivian Automotive, which issued a recall last week for almost all its vehicles in order to tighten a loose fastener. In a recent securities filing, Rivian said it planned to deliver the vehicles to Amazon by 2025. Amazon has said it plans to roll out those vehicles to more than 100 cities by 2030.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The NFL and NFL Players Association agreed to modify the league’s concussion protocol following a joint investigation into the league’s procedures after Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered an injury against the Buffalo Bills last month.
The league and players’ union said in a joint statement Saturday that the Dolphins followed the league’s protocol after the injury, but the outcome of the Tagovailoa case “was not what was intended when the Protocol was drafted.” As a result, language addressing abnormality of balance/stability was added to the league’s protocol list of symptoms that would keep a player from returning to action.
In the first half of the Sept. 25 game against Buffalo, Tagovailoa took a hit from Bills linebacker Matt Milano, which caused him to slam to the ground. He appeared disoriented afterward and stumbled as he tried to get to his feet.
Tagovailoa was immediately taken to the locker room and taken through the NFL’s concussion protocol, after which he was cleared of any head injury. He started the third quarter, drawing criticism from viewers about why he was allowed to return to the game.
The NFL and NFLPA said they reviewed video and jointly interviewed members of the Dolphins’ medical staff, the head athletic trainer, the Booth ATC Spotter, the Unaffiliated Neurotrauma Consultant and Tagovailoa.
They found that Tagovailoa did not show any signs or symptoms of a concussion during his locker room exam, during the rest of the game, or throughout the following week. But immediately after he took the hit from Milano, gross motor instability was present.
After the game, Tagovailoa and Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said the quarterback had suffered a back injury earlier in the game on a quarterback sneak.
The review said Tagovailoa told the medical staff that he aggravated his back injury on the play in question and that his back injury caused him to stumble. It also said the medical staff determined that the gross motor instability was not due to a concussion.
In their statement Saturday, the NFL and players’ union said there was not examination of the QB’s back during the concussion examination, but that they “instead relied on the earlier examination conducted by other members of the medical staff.” The conclusion then was that the back injury was the cause of Tagovailoa’s instability.
As a result of the joint investigation, the league and union agreed to change the league’s concussion protocol to include the term “ataxia.” In the statement, they defined ataxia as “abnormality of balance/stability, motor coordination or dysfunctional speech caused by a neurological issue.”
Ataxia replaced the term “gross motor instability” and has been added to the list of symptoms that would prohibit a player from returning to the game. The others are confusion, amnesia and loss of consciousness.
“The Protocol exists to establish a high standard of concussion care for each player,” the league and union’s statement said, “whereby every medical professional engages in a meaningful and rigorous examination of the player-patent. To that end, the parties remain committed to continuing to evaluate our Protocol to ensure it reflects the intended conservative approach to evaluating player-patients for potential head injuries.”
On Oct. 1, the union fired the Unaffiliated Neurotrauma Consultant who handled Tagovailoa’s situation during the game.
Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president overseeing health and safety, said in a virtual news conference Saturday that he believes this is the first time a UNC has been fired, and that the NFL did not support the decision to fire him.
Less than a week after the injury, Tagovailoa started against the Cincinnati Bengals in a Thursday night game. He suffered a concussion in the first half after taking a hard sack, and displayed the fencing response after the scary hit. He was stretchered off the field and immediately taken to the hospital. He remains in the concussion protocol and will miss Sunday’s game against the Jets.
Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s Chief Medical Officer, said that under the league’s amended protocol, Tagovailoa would have been diagnosed with a concussion on Sept. 25 under the ataxia term, thus making him ineligible to come back into that game.
Sills said there’s no exact timetable for return for a player diagnosed with a concussion, but it would be “extremely unlikely” for a player diagnosed with ataxia to be able to play on Thursday night. The median time out with a concussion is nine days, he added.
Sills also alluded to how difficult it is to definitively diagnose concussions. He mentioned that blood and saliva tests could help make concussion examinations more accurate.
Commissioner Roger Goodell said at a fan forum in London Saturday that the NFL will make a “change or two” to its concussion protocol.
McDaniel, asked repeatedly in the days following the incident about the decision to allow Tagovailoa to return, emphasized his confidence in the team’s handling of the situation.
“This is a player-friendly organization that I make it very clear from the onset,” McDaniel said last week, “that my job as a coach is here for the players. I take that very serious, and no one else in the building strays from that.”
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LONDON — The NFL is prepared “to make a change or two” to its concussion protocol, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at a fan forum in London on Saturday as the league faces questions about how the Miami Dolphins handled quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s recent injuries.
Responding to a fan’s question about concussions and “recent incidents,” Goodell outlined the league’s “intensive focus” on the issue over the past 15 years and said its medical protocols have served as templates for other sports.
“Our job really is to continue to modify those as medical experts or other experiences tell you this is something you can do differently,’” he said.
The commissioner took questions only from fans in London ahead of Sunday’s game between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. He wasn’t made available to the media Saturday. The league did not elaborate on what the potential protocol changes are or when they could come into effect.
Earlier this week, the NFL Players Association fired the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant who evaluated Tagovailoa after he stumbled off the field against Buffalo on Sept. 25 following a hit. The quarterback was evaluated for a concussion, but he quickly returned to the game and the Dolphins said a back injury had caused his wobbly gait.
The quarterback subsequently suffered a concussion four days later at Cincinnati and is out indefinitely.
Goodell, without citing Tagovailoa by name, said there’s “more chatter now” about concussions.
“We understand some of that chatter, but the reality is the protocols are really important. We follow that strictly. We see no indication that that didn’t happen in this case. There’s an ongoing investigation, ” he said. “We’re really focused on doing that. But we’re also prepared to make a change or two in the protocols because we think we can actually add another element that would make it even safer.”
On Friday, the NFL Players Association urged the league to implement changes in time to protect players in this weekend’s games. In its own statement, the NFL said it was working on updates to the protocol but did not commit to implementing them before Sunday’s games.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end Cameron Brate’ was also injured last Sunday when he collided with a teammate near the end of the first half against the Kansas City Chiefs and was initially allowed to re-enter the game. He then sat out the second half with a concussion.
NFL players “are getting the most extraordinary care and better than they ever have in the history of the NFL, but they deserve that, and that’s our obligation, and that’s what we need to do,” Goodell said.
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Europe is facing a tough winter, as inflation and energy prices continue to rise. The continent also faces tough decisions following its scorching hot summer
Unlike the U.S., European countries don’t rely on air conditioning to cope with high temperatures. Fewer than 10% of households in Europe owned air conditioners as of 2016, according to the International Energy Agency.
“If we were looking at the beginning of this summer, it was fairly quiet. We were getting typically 20 inquiries a day maybe for people interested in air conditioning,” said Richard Salmon, director of The Air Conditioning Co., which is based in central London.
“I’ve been here for 15 years and I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Salmon said.
As countries around the globe rapidly adopt ways to cool their homes and businesses, it becomes more important to install cooling technology that doesn’t contribute to higher temperatures in the future via carbon emissions.
“It is clear that if no effective mitigation strategies will be put in place on a global scale to cut emissions then this kind of summer and these kinds of events will become the new norm,” said Andrea Toreti, senior climate researcher at the European Commission, the executive body of the EU.
Watch the video to learn more about why large parts of Europe don’t have air conditioning, how ACs contribute to climate change, and new kinds of efficient cooling technologies that can mitigate carbon emissions.
IRVINE, Calif. — Electric truck and SUV maker Rivian Automotive said Friday it is recalling almost all the vehicles it has delivered to customers in order to tighten a loose fastener that could potentially affect drivers’ ability to steer.
The company, which was founded in 2009, said it is recalling about 13,000 vehicles because a fastener connecting the vehicles’ front upper-control arm and steering knuckle may not be torqued enough.
There have been seven reports potentially related to the issue, but no injuries have been reported, Rivian said.
“If you experience excessive noise, vibration or harshness from the front suspension, or a change in steering performance or feel, you should call immediately,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe wrote in a letter to vehicle owners.
The company based in Irvine, California, said the fix would only take a few minutes, and it expects to have finished the repairs on all of them in about 30 days, with customer collaboration.
Rivian is aiming to take advantage of a growing appetite among consumers and investors for electric vehicles. It is among a long line of companies, both new and old, trying to peel away market share from Tesla.
It went public last year, and its market value quickly soared past that of Ford and General Motors to become the second-most valuable U.S. automaker behind Tesla. But that is no longer the case: The company’s stock is down 67% so far this year.
Last month, Rivian said it was partnering with Mercedes-Benz to build a factory in Europe that will produce electric vans for both companies.
IRVINE, Calif. — Electric truck and SUV maker Rivian Automotive said Friday it is recalling almost all the vehicles it has delivered to customers in order to tighten a loose fastener that could potentially affect drivers’ ability to steer.
The company, which was founded in 2009, said it is recalling about 13,000 vehicles because a fastener connecting the vehicles’ front upper-control arm and steering knuckle may not be torqued enough.
There have been seven reports potentially related to the issue, but no injuries have been reported, Rivian said.
“If you experience excessive noise, vibration or harshness from the front suspension, or a change in steering performance or feel, you should call immediately,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe wrote in a letter to vehicle owners.
The company based in Irvine, California, said the fix would only take a few minutes, and it expects to have finished the repairs on all of them in about 30 days, with customer collaboration.
Rivian is aiming to take advantage of a growing appetite among consumers and investors for electric vehicles. It is among a long line of companies, both new and old, trying to peel away market share from Tesla.
It went public last year, and its market value quickly soared past that of Ford and General Motors to become the second-most valuable U.S. automaker behind Tesla. But that is no longer the case: The company’s stock is down 67% so far this year.
Last month, Rivian said it was partnering with Mercedes-Benz to build a factory in Europe that will produce electric vans for both companies.
TUCSON, Ariz. — A former University of Arizona graduate student arrested in the fatal shooting of a hydrology professor was being held without bond Friday after a judge ruled there was enough evidence to try him on charges of first degree murder and aggravated assault.
An interim complaint in the case released Friday says Thomas Meixner, who headed the school’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, was shot four times on Wednesday afternoon. The shooting happened inside the Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department. Meixner was pronounced dead at a hospital.
According to the complaint, a second person, whose name was blacked out, was treated at the scene after being struck by a bullet fragment.
The complaint signed by a judge late Thursday at Pima County Justice Court said there was reasonable cause to proceed in the case against 46-year-old Murad Dervish. In Arizona, charges are not filed until a preliminary hearing takes place, and there was no word on when that would happen.
The Pima County Public Defender’s Office confirmed it received the case but has not yet assigned an attorney who can speak on Dervish’s behalf.
Campus police said a female called 911 around 2 p.m. Wednesday asking for police to escort a former student from the Harshbarger Building. Officers were on their way when they received reports that a man had shot someone then fled.
Campus alerts instructed people to avoid the area, which was under lockdown. Classes, activities and other campus events were canceled for the rest of the day.
State troopers arrested Dervish a few hours later about 120 miles (190 kilometers) northwest of the Tucson campus.
The complaint said officials found a 9mm handgun in the vehicle, along with ammunition consistent with the 11 casings found at the shooting scene.
The relationship between Dervish and Meixner remains unclear, but the interim complaint said a flyer with a photograph of Dervish, a former graduate student, had been circulated to university staff in February with instructions to call 911 if he ever entered the building. It also said he was “expelled” and “barred from being on University of Arizona property.”
“Dervish has been the subject of several reports of harassment and threats to staff members working at Harshbarger,” the complaint said.
Meixner was an expert on desert water issues. Faculty and former students described as a kind and brilliant colleague.
“This incident is a deep shock to our community, and it is a tragedy,” University President Robert Robbins said in a statement late Wednesday.
Meixner earned a doctorate in hydrology and water resources from the university in 1999 and joined the faculty in 2005 before becoming the department head in 2019.
Twenty years ago this month, a disgruntled University of Arizona nursing student shot and killed three nursing professors before taking his own life.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The most powerful teams in NASCAR warned Friday that the venerable stock car racing series has a “broken” economic model that is unfair and has little to no chance of long-term stability, a stunning announcement that added to a growing list of woes.
The Cup Series is heading into the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course playoff elimination race Sunday with three full-time drivers sidelined with injuries suffered in NASCAR’s new car and no clear answer as to how to fix the safety concerns.
With just five races left in the championship chase, it got much worse as teams went public with their year-long fight with NASCAR over equitable revenue distribution.
“The economic model is really broken for the teams,” said Curtis Polk, who as Michael Jordan’s longtime business manager now holds an ownership stake in both the Charlotte Hornets and the two-car 23XI Racing team Jordan and Denny Hamlin field in NASCAR.
“We’ve gotten to the point where teams realize the sustainability in the sport is not very long term,” Polk said. “This is not a fair system.”
The Race Team Alliance was formed in 2014 to give teams a unified voice in negotiations with the sanctioning body. A four-member subcommittee outlined their concerns at a Charlotte hotel, with Polk joined by Jeff Gordon, the four-time NASCAR champion and vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, RFK Racing President Steve Newmark, and Dave Alpern, the president of Joe Gibbs Racing.
Hendrick and Gibbs have won six of last seven Cup Series championships dating to 2015, but Gordon said the four-car Hendrick lineup, the most powerful in the industry, has not had a profitable season in years. It will again lose money this season despite NASCAR’s cost-cutting Next Gen car.
“I have a lot of fears that sustainability is going to be a real challenge,” Gordon said.
NASCAR issued a statement acknowledging “the challenges currently facing race teams.
“A key focus moving forward is an extension to the charter agreement, one that will further increase revenue and help lower team expenses,” NASCAR said. “Collectively, the goal is a strong, healthy sport, and we will accomplish that together.”
Led by Polk, whose role with the Hornets brings familiarity with the NBA’s franchise model, the RTA in June presented NASCAR with a seven-point plan on a new revenue sharing model. The proposal “sat there for months and we told NASCAR we’d like a counteroffer,” Polk said.
He did not disclose the seven points other than noting that team sustainability and longevity were priorities. The committee said they are open to all ideas, including a spending cap like that in Formula One.
“We are amenable to whatever gets us to a conceptual new structure,” Newmark said.
NASCAR’s counteroffer offered “a minimal increase in revenue and emphasis on cost-cutting,” Polk said.
The team alliance was unanimous in that the only place left to cut costs is layoffs.
“We’ve already had substantial cuts. We are doing more with less than we ever have in 30 years,” Alpern said.
The battle over costs has simmered for years. In 2016, NASCAR adopted a charter system for 36 cars that is as close to a franchise model as possible in a sport that was founded by and independently owned by the France family. The charters at least gave the teams something of value to hold — or sell — and protect their investment in the sport.
The team business model is still heavily dependant on sponsorship, which the teams must individually secure. Newmark said sponsorship covers between 60% to 80% of the budgets for all 16 chartered organizations.
Because sponsorship is so vital, teams are desperate for financial relief elsewhere and have asked NASCAR for “distribution from the league to cover our baseline costs,” Newmark said.
The current charter agreement expires at the end of the 2024 season, the same time that NASCAR’s current television deals expire.
Although TV money is split between NASCAR, teams and the tracks, the committee found that the value of the teams is just 7% while the tracks and NASCAR have 93% of the value. Polk noted that in Formula One, all revenue is split 50-50 between the teams and series ownership.
Mars Inc., which first entered NASCAR in 1990, late last year decided this season would be its last and JGR spent the last nine months trying to find a new sponsor to keep Kyle Busch, the only winner of multiple championships at the Cup level. Busch has since signed with Richard Childress Racing and will leave JGR after 15 seasons as Toyota’s winningest NASCAR driver.
“We have become full-time fundraisers,” Alpern said. “Instead of working on our business, we’re raising money just to exist.”
Polk said the teams will honor the charter agreements through 2024. But in negotiating a new charter agreement, the teams are demanding more.
“NASCAR is a money-printing machine,” Polk said. “But the teams and the drivers are the ones putting on the show.”
NASCAR is now under fire from nearly every angle as drivers remain angry over some recent penalties and the stiffness of the new Next Gen car blamed for causing unprecedented injuries. What should have been routine crashes into the wall have sidelined both Alex Bowman and Kurt Busch with concussions, and Cody Shane Ware opted out of Sunday’s race because of a broken foot.
NASCAR has tested potential adjustments for the car and will present the findings to drivers Saturday morning ahead of practice at Charlotte.
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BERLIN — Germany wants the question of loss and damage due to global warming to be discussed at this year’s United Nations climate talks, Germany’s foreign minister said Friday.
Vulnerable countries have long demanded that big polluters be held accountable for the effects that their greenhouse gas emissions are having around the world, including the tangible destruction caused by extreme weather and sea level rise resulting from rising global temperatures.
But rich nations that account for the majority of planet-warming emissions since the start of the industrial era have largely opposed efforts to formally debate the ‘loss and damage’ issue for fear they might have to pay climate reparations.
Last year’s U.N. climate talks in Glasgow failed to reach agreement on establishing a special fund for loss and damage.
Speaking after a meeting with her counterpart from Pakistan, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the recent devastating floods in the South Asian nation had shown “what dramatic consequences the climate crisis is having in all regions.”
“As one of the hardest-hit countries worldwide, Pakistan is paying a high price for global CO2 emissions,” Baerbock, a member of the environmentalist Greens party, told reporters in Berlin.
“That’s why Germany will work toward a fair sharing of the costs at the COP27 in Egypt, putting the question of climate adaptation, but in particular also the question of loss and damage, on the agenda,” she said, referring to the U.N. climate talks next month in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Germany is also giving Pakistan a further 10 million euros in flood aid, taking its total commitment to 60 million euros, Baerbock said.
Pakistan’s foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, said the “biblical floods” had affected 33 million people and at one point a third of the country was under water. Many roads, hospitals and farms were destroyed.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Friday that Pakistan was “on the verge of a public health disaster” due to the risk of diseases such as cholera, malaria and dengue fever, while malnutrition also was spiking.
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BUENOS AIRES, Oct 07 (IPS) – Since November 2020, the threats, intimidation and pressure I have experienced due to my work in defence of human rights and nature are similar to those suffered by dozens of leaders living in the region. I have lived through the assassinations of three friends and environmental leaders.”
Óscar Sampayo has actively opposed oil and mining developments in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia, documenting their impact on the local community and environment. He has been threatened on several occasions by paramilitary groups involved in drug trafficking, such as the Águilas Negras, or Black Eagles.
After Brazil, Colombia is the country with the second highest number of murders of environmental leaders in the last decade, according to the latest report by British human rights NGO Global Witness. Since 2012, a total of 1,733 activists have been killed worldwide, with 68% of cases occurring in Latin America.
The figures underestimate the true scale of the violence, the authors of the “Decade of Defiance” report add. Many cases go unreported as they occur in conflict zones or in places where there are restrictions on press freedom and civil society, and inadequate independent monitoring of attacks.
In addition, few perpetrators of killings are brought to justice because governments fail to adequately investigate the crimes. Authorities, the report says, either ignore or actively obstruct investigations into killings, often “due to the collusion between corporate and state interests”.
“All over the world, Indigenous peoples and environmental defenders risk their lives for the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. Activists and communities play a crucial role as a first line of defence against ecological collapse,” said Mike Davis, Global Witness’ CEO.
A decade of killings
Since Global Witness began reporting on environmental defenders ten years ago, Brazil has had the highest number of killings. Around a third of the 342 activists killed in the country since 2012 were indigenous or Afro-descendant, and more than 85% of the killings took place in the Brazilian Amazon.
Source: Global Witness
The Amazon has become the main arena for violence and impunity against defenders, the report’s authors say. Since President Jair Bolsonaro came to power in 2018, deforestation and illegal mining have been encouraged, while the budgets of forest protection agencies have been cut.
Earlier this year, the murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and a local indigenous expert, Bruno Pereira, drew global attention to conditions in parts of the Amazon. Phillips and Pereira had travelled to the Javari Valley, an area known to be a hotbed of illegal activities.
“For protesting against these environmental crimes and harms to our health, we have been subjected to death threats, legal harassment and smear campaigns,” says Eliete Paraguassu, a Quilombola woman from the state of Bahia. “We will continue to fight the systematic environmental racism enacted toward Quilombos and the indigenous communities of Brazil.”
In Colombia, the signing of the peace agreement with armed groups is now more than five years old, but its implementation has not been adequate, Global Witness states. This has maintained land disputes and violence towards the most vulnerable groups, such as small- and medium-scale farmers and indigenous peoples.
Such was the case of Sandra Liliana Peña, a leader of an indigenous community in the department of Cauca, one of the bloodiest areas of the country. She had spoken out against the growth of illegal crops and subsequently suffered threats. In 2021, she was shot dead by four armed men.
Mexico has also become one of the most dangerous countries for environmental defenders, with 154 murders recorded in the last decade, most of which took place between 2017 and 2021. Forced disappearances are now commonplace, carried out by organised criminal groups and corrupt government officials, the report reads.
Indigenous territories in Mexico are said to be particularly vulnerable to large-scale extractive projects led by national and foreign companies, and supported by the government. Concerns have been expressed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights over the lack of consultation with communities, and over attacks on those who oppose such projects.
Global Witness highlights a case from September 2021, when authorities discovered six sets of human remains near community land belonging to Yaqui peoples, in the south of the state of Sonora. The remains were thought to belong to some of a group of ten men who had disappeared the previous July. After multiple disappearances, the community targeted companies interested in Yaqui land. While officials blamed drug cartels, some community members reportedly suspect government and corporate involvement.
The way forward
Global Witness declares that the situation for environmental defenders around the world has worsened rather than improved in recent years. The growing climate and biodiversity crises, as well as the expansion of authoritarian governments, have given rise to an increase in killings since 2018.
In 2021, the year analysed by the recent report, 200 environmental defenders were killed – or four per week. Mexico was the country with the highest number of murders (54), followed by Colombia (33) and Brazil (26). Nearly 80% of the killings in Brazil, Peru and Venezuela were in the Amazon.
Despite the grim statistics and the increase in the number of deaths in recent years, researchers highlight some progress. In Honduras, a former energy executive was sentenced in June this year to 22 years in prison for ordering and planning the murder of activist Berta Cáceres in 2016.
Also highlighted as cause for encouragement is the Escazú Agreement, which entered into force in 2021. It is the first treaty on environment and human rights for Latin America and has among its objectives to prevent and investigate attacks on environmental defenders. Twelve Latin American countries have now ratified the agreement, including Mexico, though others such as Colombia and Brazil have yet to do so.
Global Witness calls on governments to ensure the safety of environmental defenders by creating new laws where they do not exist and enforcing existing ones. At the same time, companies must identify and mitigate any harm from their operations on defenders and ensure corporate accountability at all levels of action.
“Each and every death of a defender is a sign that our economic system is broken,” Global Witness affirms. “Fuelled by the pursuit of profit and power, there is a war over nature and the frontlines are the Earth’s remaining biodiverse regions.”
Cattle are important for economic growth and in supporting livelihoods across Africa. Livestock farmers in Nkayi, Zimbabwe, tending to their cattle. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)
Inter Press Service
Bulawayo, Oct 07 (IPS) – Meat, milk, and eggs are bad for you, and livestock is bad for the environment.
Growing negative narratives about cattle’s contribution to climate change are shrinking the growth of the strategic livestock sector on which the livelihoods of more than 1.3 billion people in the world depend.
In Africa, livestock farming is life, providing food, nutrition, jobs, draught power, income generation, and a source of cultural significance. But the benefits of keeping cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs are lost when it comes to the impact of livestock on the environment are mentioned.
As a result, livestock farmers are suffering from the low investment in the livestock sector, which has the potential to drive economic growth, address poverty and achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Researchers, farmers, and entrepreneurs, lamenting the negative perception about livestock in contributing to climate change, are calling for a balanced discussion to highlight livestock production, not as a problem but as a solution in tackling climate change, especially in developing countries.
Ian Wright, Deputy Director at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, admits that livestock production is today topical for its negative impact on the environment, an area where it can provide a solution. There are suggestions that milk, meat, and eggs are becoming foods to avoid, yet livestock is one of the fastest-growing economic sectors in Africa, he said.
“Livestock and livestock systems are very different in different regions of the world, and the cultural significance and economic importance varies but the contribution of livestock to food and nutrition security in Africa is absolutely critical,” Wright told IPS in an interview. He added that the majority of people in Africa tend not to eat adequate sources of protein and micronutrients, in contrast to the situation in the Global North, where people will benefit from eating less meat and animal-sourced foods.
We can ‘meat’ in the middle
“The global discussions around livestock tend to be dominated by voices from the Global North, so it is important we ensure that perspectives on the role of livestock from the Global South, including Africa, are heard at the top table of global events like the Conference of Parties (COP 27) to articulate the positives about the role of livestock which no doubt has its challenges,” Wright said.
“The livestock sector must address these shortcomings as there are opportunities to make livestock part of the resilience and adaptation efforts; for example, climate variability makes cropping too risky, but livestock can still be raised producing food from land that cannot produce crops.”
Better livestock management and improved feed regime can help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock, while sustainable rangeland management promotes the fixing of carbon in the soil.
Livestock production contributes to about 40 percent of the global value of agricultural output while supporting the livelihoods, food, and nutrition security of billions of people around the world, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
A growing population and rapid urbanization are also driving an appetite for animal-sourced foods from eggs, milk, beef, and pork, which are also some of the best and often affordable sources of protein. Livestock provides energy-dense and micronutrient-rich foods, which are important for pregnant women and particularly babies in the first 1 000 days of life.
Scientists are clear about livestock’s huge hoof print. Assessments by the FAO show that total emissions from global livestock represent 14.5 percent of all human-induced GHG emissions. Cattle, in particular, are responsible for the most emissions, at about 65 percent of the livestock sector’s emissions, largely of dangerous methane gas. As a result, there is a growing movement to stop eating meat and instead tuck it into plant-based diets to promote health and save the environment.
However, Africa is one of the regions in the world where malnutrition is rising. More people are going hungry, and even more, have no access to nutritious food. Livestock is a solution.
The World Bank notes that Africa is losing between 3 and 16 percent of its GDP annually because of childhood stunting, and animal-sourced foods can contribute to reducing that problem, says Adegbola Adesogen, Director of the Food Systems Institute and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems at the University of Florida.
“We should prioritize livestock-sourced foods in nutrition and increase access to these foods across Africa because there is low consumption of animal-sourced foods in Africa, Adesogen urged. “For example, the consumption of meat in Nigeria is about less than five percent of what is consumed in Argentina, yet the animal-sourced foods contain a plethora of vital macro and micro nutrients which are vital for children of Africa for their growth and health yet most of the interventions address malnutrition in Africa neglect animal-sourced foods.”
Investing in livestock
The livestock sector attracts little investment compared to other agriculture sectors but contributes up to 40 percent of the agriculture GDP in Africa. Of the $129 billion Official Development Assistance in 2020, only 4,3 of that was funneled into agriculture, and livestock received just 1.3 percent, Wright noted.
Smallholder farmer, Emma Naluyima from Uganda, who has integrated crop growing and livestock in growing a thriving farm enterprise on an acre of land, says supportive policies are critical in promoting the development of the livestock and the livelihoods of livestock farmers.
Naluyima, speaking during a panel discussion at a session hosted by the ILRI during the 2022 Alliance for a Green Revolution Forum in Rwanda, highlighted that livestock is productive and profitable when farmers are supported to do it correctly. Naluyima’s one-acre integrated farm, based on the recycling of farm resources to provide natural fertilizers and pesticides as well as biogas, generates $100,000 in income annually.
While many countries in Africa have failed to allocate at least 10 percent of their public expenditure on agriculture in line with the Malabo Declaration on Agriculture commitments, the livestock sector was barely getting more than 3 percent of the agriculture budget, yet it has the potential to transform the continent’s food systems.
Wright says livestock can solve multiple food system challenges in Africa as it is a significant contributor to the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. For a continent that continues to bear the double burden of food and nutritional insecurity, livestock-sourced foods can reduce malnutrition for the most vulnerable communities, he said.
“The livestock sector must address these shortcomings as there are opportunities to make livestock part of the resilience and adaptation efforts; for example, climate variability makes cropping too risky, but livestock can still be raised producing food from land that cannot produce crops,” said Wright.
ILRI has worked with various governments to develop Livestock Investment Master Plans, which have enabled governments and the private sector to get the best value from the sector, which battles to show a return on investment. For example, through a developed Livestock Investment Master plan, the government of Ethiopia was able to leverage $500 million from private sector investment in the livestock value chain.
“With the right policies and a balanced narrative about the livestock sector, livestock can attract investment and boost economic growth in Africa,” said Wright.
A view of the new Caucaia landfill, near Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará in northeastern Brazil, which receives about 5,000 tons of garbage a day. It already produces biogas, but will do so on a larger scale in a few years. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS
by Mario Osava (fortaleza, brazil)
Inter Press Service
FORTALEZA, Brazil, Oct 07 (IPS) – Garbage that has accumulated since 1991 in the two landfills in the municipality of Caucaia has become a biomethane deposit that supplies industrial and commercial companies, thermoelectric plants and homes in Ceará, a state in northeastern Brazil.
The GNR Fortaleza plant extracts biogas from 700 wells installed in the landfills and refines it to obtain what it calls renewable natural gas – which gives the company its name – as opposed to fossil natural gas.
The plant, with a total area of 73 hectares, is located between two open-air landfills that resemble small plateaus in Caucaia, a municipality about 15 kilometers from the state capital Fortaleza, whose outskirts it forms part of, and produces about 100,000 cubic meters of biogas per day.
In addition to the climate benefit of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, biomethane today costs 30 percent less than its fossil equivalent, said Thales Motta, director of GNR Fortaleza as representative of Ecometano, a Rio de Janeiro-based company specializing in the use of biomass gases.
“It is a good business” because its price is adjusted according to national inflation and is not subject to exchange rate fluctuations and international hydrocarbon prices, as is the case with fossil gas, he told IPS.
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Ecometano partnered with Marquise Ambiental, a company that manages landfills locally and in other parts of Brazil, to create the GNR in Caucaia.
Another decisive collaboration came from the state-owned Ceará Gas Company (Cegás), which agreed to incorporate biomethane into its natural gas distribution network, right from the start, in 2018, when the new fuel cost 30 percent more than fossil natural gas and faced misgivings about its quality and stability of supply, Motta said.
The agreement allows for the direct injection of biomethane into the Cegás grid and a share of around 15 percent of the consumption of the distributor’s 24,000 customers.
Industry is the main consumer, accounting for 46.26 percent of the total, followed by thermal power plants and motor vehicles. Residential consumption amounts to just 0.73 percent. Cegás prioritizes large consumers.
Ecometano is a pioneer in the production of biomethane from waste. It started in 2014 with a smaller plant, with a capacity for 14,000 cubic meters per day, GNR Dos Arcos, located in São Pedro da Aldeia, a coastal city of 108,000 people 140 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro.
In Caucaia, a municipality of 370,000 people near the coast of Ceará, the new landfill, in operation since 2019, receives 5,000 tons of garbage daily from Greater Fortaleza and its 4.2 million inhabitants.
The old landfill, which opened in 1991 and is now closed, is still the main source of biogas. But production is in continuous decline, unlike the new one, which is growing with the daily influx of garbage brought in by hundreds of trucks.
GNR Fortaleza’s experience has encouraged the dissemination of similar plants in metropolitan regions and large cities, due to the profitability of the business and because reducing methane emissions is key to mitigating the climate crisis.
Methane is at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the gas with the highest emissions, in terms of global warming. The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on climate change, held in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021, set a goal of cutting methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030.
‘If we lose the Amazon, if you take the Amazon out of the equation … global temperature could rise by 0.25 degrees.’
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is on the rise.
New data shows the number of square kilometres cleared in the first half of 2022 reached a record six-year high. With studies indicating that more than 75 percent of the Amazon has been losing resilience since the early 2000s, is the world’s largest rainforest at a tipping point?
Alicia Guzmán, deputy director of the Amazon programme at Stand.earth and one of the lead researchers on the report, Amazonia Against the Clock, and Tasso Azevedo, technical coordinator for Observatório do Clima and former director general of the Brazilian Forest Service, join Marc Lamont Hill to discuss the global risk of continued deforestation in the Amazon.
TUCSON, Ariz. — The University of Arizona has released the name of a professor who authorities said was fatally shot on campus by a former graduate student.
University President Robert Robbins identified the victim late Wednesday as Thomas Meixner, who had headed the school’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences.
“This incident is a deep shock to our community, and it is a tragedy,” Robbins said in a statement. “I have no words that can undo it, but I grieve with you for the loss, and I am pained especially for Tom’s family members, colleagues and students.”
Police said Meixner was shot Wednesday afternoon inside the Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department.
Meixner was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A few hours after the shooting, state troopers stopped a former graduate student, 46-year-old Murad Dervish, in a van about 120 miles (193 kilometers) northwest of the Tucson campus, university Police Chief Paula Balafas said during a news conference.
Dervish was being held at the Pima County jail awaiting his initial court appearance. It wasn’t immediately clear what charges he might be face or whether he has a lawyer yet who could speak on his behalf.
According to campus police, a female called 911 at around 2 p.m. Wednesday asking for police to escort a former student out of the Harshbarger Building. Balafas said someone recognized Dervish “and knew that he was not allowed inside the building,” although Balafas didn’t explain why.
Officers were on their way to the building when they received reports that a man shot and wounded someone before fleeing, Balafas said.
The building is near the university bookstore and student union, and campus alerts instructed people to avoid the area, which was under lockdown.
Classes, activities and other campus events were canceled for the rest of the day. Classes resumed on Thursday, but Balafas said the building where the shooting happened might remain closed.
When asked how well Dervish and Meixner knew one another, Balafas said she didn’t know.
Meixner earned a doctorate in hydrology and water resources from the university in 1999 and joined the faculty in 2005 before becoming the department head in 2019. He was considered an expert on desert water issues.
Various faculty members and former students took to social media to praise Meixner as a kind and brilliant colleague.
Karletta Chief, director of the university’s Indigenous Resilience Center, said she met Meixner when she was a graduate student in 2001 and he was new to the faculty. While she was not one of his students, her research in hydrology led to frequent collaborations. The last time she saw Meixner, who was a big supporter of Native American and indigenous communities researching water issues, was a week ago at a seminar his department co-sponsored.
Chief said she emailed Meixner and several others in the hydrology department after the shooting, and that she was devastated to learn he was the one who had been shot.
“It’s just unimaginable that anybody would have any direct anger toward him. He was completely the opposite of that. He was just so kind and positive and always wanting to help,” said Chief, who noted that Meixner never mentioned to her if there had been any trouble with a current or former student.
Meixner was also generous outside of campus, Chief said. He once gave money for a marathon that she ran to benefit the Lymphoma Society.
“He shared that he was thankful for me doing this run and he was a cancer survivor,” she said.
It was 20 years ago this month that a disgruntled University of Arizona nursing student shot and killed three nursing professors before taking his own life.
Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, says it will stop backing new oil and gas fields beginning next April
BERLIN — Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, said Thursday that it will stop backing new oil and gas fields beginning next April.
The company said it will also no longer invest in or insure new oil pipelines and power plants that weren’t already under construction by Dec. 31, 2022.
Munich Re said the moves were part of its effort to reduce the harmful impact its business has on the environment. The burning of oil and gas is one of the main sources of greenhouses gases fueling climate change.
Munich Re provides so-called reinsurance contracts that help other insurers spread risks. It also invests the insurance premiums it receives from customers and third-party assets, making it a major institutional investor.
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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.
Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study.
Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species and led to water restrictions in Europe. It struck places already plagued by drying in the U.S., like the West, but also places where drought is more rare, like the Northeast. China also just had its driest summer in 60 years, leaving its famous Yangtze river half its normal width.
Researchers from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists from around the world who study the link between extreme weather and climate change, say this type of drought would only happen once every 400 years across the Northern Hemisphere if not for human-caused climate change. Now they expect these conditions to repeat every 20 years, given how much the climate has warmed.
Ecological disasters like the widespread drought and then massive flooding in Pakistan, are the “fingerprints of climate change,” Maarten van Aalst, a climate scientist at Columbia University and study co-author, said.
“The impacts are very clear to people and are hitting hard,” he said, “not just in poor countries, like the flooding Pakistan …. but also in some of the richest parts of the world, like western central Europe.”
To figure out the influence of climate change on drying in the Northern Hemisphere, scientists analyzed weather data, computer simulations and soil moisture throughout the regions, excluding tropical areas. They found that climate change made dry soil conditions much more likely over the last several months.
This analysis was done using the warming the climate has already experienced so far, 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit), but climate scientists have warned the climate will get warmer, and the authors of the study accounted for that.
With an additional 0.8 degrees C degrees warming, this type of drought will happen once every 10 years in western Central Europe and every year throughout the Northern Hemisphere, said Dominik Schumacher, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland.
“We’re seeing these compounding and cascading effect across sectors and across regions,” van Aalst said. “One way to reduce those impacts (is) to reduce emissions.”
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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
PORTLAND, Maine — Wildlife agencies in the U.S. are finding elevated levels of a class of toxic chemicals in game animals such as deer — and that’s prompting health advisories in some places where hunting and fishing are ways of life and key pieces of the economy.
Authorities have detected the high levels of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in deer in several states, including Michigan and Maine, where legions of hunters seek to bag a buck every fall. Sometimes called “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment, PFAS are industrial compounds used in numerous products, such as nonstick cookware and clothing.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched an effort last year to limit pollution from the chemicals, which are linked to health problems including cancer and low birth weight.
But discovery of the chemicals in wild animals hunted for sport and food represents a new challenge that some states have started to confront by issuing “do not eat” advisories for deer and fish and expanding testing for PFAS in them.
“The fact there is an additional threat to the wildlife — the game that people are going out to hunt and fish — is a threat to those industries, and how people think about hunting and fishing,” said Jennifer Hill, associate director of the Great Lakes Regional Center for the National Wildlife Federation.
PFAS chemicals are an increasing focus of public health and environmental agencies, in part because they don’t degrade or do so slowly in the environment and can remain in a person’s bloodstream for life.
The chemicals get into the environment through production of consumer goods and waste. T hey also have been used in firefighting foam and in agriculture. PFAS-tainted sewage sludge has long been applied to fields as fertilizer and compost.
In Maine, where the chemicals were detected in well water at hundreds of times the federal health advisory level, legislators passed a law in 2021 requiring manufacturers to report their use of the chemicals and to phase them out by 2030. Environmental health advocates have said Maine’s law could be a model for other states, some working on their own PFAS legislation.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill in September that bans the chemicals from cosmetics sold in the state. And more than 20 states have proposed or adopted limits for PFAS in drinking water, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
More testing will likely find the chemicals are present in other game animals besides deer, such as wild turkeys and fish, said David Trahan, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, a hunting and outdoors advocacy group.
The discovery could have a negative impact on outdoor tourism in the short term, Trahan said. “If people are unwilling to hunt and fish, how are we going to manage those species?” he said. “You’re getting it in your water, you’re getting it in your food, you’re getting it in wild game.”
Maine was one of the first states to detect PFAS in deer. The state issued a “do not eat” advisory last year for deer harvested in the Fairfield area, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Portland, after several of the animals tested positive for elevated levels.
The state is now expanding the testing to more animals across a wider area, said Nate Webb, wildlife division director at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “Lab capacity has been challenging,” he said, “but I suspect there will be more facilities coming online to help ease that burden — in Maine and elsewhere in the country.”
Wisconsin has tested deer, ducks and geese for PFAS, and as a result issued a “do not eat” advisory for deer liver around Marinette, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) north of Green Bay. The state also asked fishermen to reduce consumption of Lake Superior’s popular rainbow smelt to one meal per month.
Some chemicals, including PFAS, can accumulate in the liver over time because the organ filters the chemicals from the blood, Wisconsin’s natural resources department told hunters. New Hampshire authorities have also issued an advisory to avoid consuming deer liver.
Michigan was the first state to assess PFAS in deer, said Tammy Newcomb, senior executive assistant director for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
The state issued its first “do not eat” advisory in 2018 for deer taken in and near Oscoda Township. Michigan has since issued an advisory against eating organs, such as liver and kidneys, from deer, fish or any other wild game anywhere in the state. It has also studied waterfowl throughout the state in areas of PFAS surface water contamination.
The state’s expanded testing also has proven beneficial because it helped authorities find out which areas don’t have a PFAS problem, Newcomb said.
“People like to throw up their arms and say we can’t do anything about it. I like to point to our results and say that’s not true,” Newcomb said. “Finding PFAS as a contaminant of concern has been the exception and not the rule.”
The chemical has also been found in shellfish that are collected recreationally and commercially. Scientists from the Florida International University Institute of Environment sampled more than 150 oysters from around the state and detected PFAS in every one, according to their study in August. Natalia Soares Quinete, an assistant professor in the institute’s chemistry and biochemistry department, described the chemicals as “a long-term poison” that jeopardizes human health.
Dr. Leo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine who has studied PFAS, said the best way to avoid negative health effects is reducing exposure. But, Trasande said that’s difficult to do because the chemicals are so commonplace and long-lasting in the environment.
“If you’re seeing it in humans, you’re likely going to see the effects in animals,” he said.
Wildlife authorities have tried to inform hunters of the presence of PFAS in deer with posted signs in hunting areas as well as advisories on social media and the internet. One such sign, in Michigan, told hunters that high amounts of PFAS “may be found in deer and could be harmful to your health.”
Kip Adams, chief conservation officer for the National Deer Association, said the discovery of PFAS in states like Maine and Michigan is very concerning to hunters.
“With the amount of venison my family eats, I can’t imagine not being able to do that,” Adams said. “To this point, everything we’ve done has been about sharing information and making sure people are aware of it.”
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Follow Patrick Whittle on Twitter: @pxwhittle
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
URBANA, Ill., October 5, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– Scientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of California, Santa Barbara and Dow developed a breakthrough process to transform the most widely produced plastic — polyethylene (PE) — into the second-most widely produced plastic, polypropylene (PP), which will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
The new study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society announces a series of coupled catalytic reactions that transform PE, which is #2 and #4 plastic that make up 29% of the world’s plastic consumption, into the building block propylene that is the key ingredient to produce PP, also known as #5 plastic that accounts for close to 25% of the world’s plastic consumption.
This study establishes a proof-of-concept for upcycling PE plastic with more than 95% selectivity into propylene. The researchers have built a reactor that creates a continuous flow of propylene that can be converted into PP easily using current technology — making this discovery scalable and rapidly implementable.
Why this matters: Preliminary analysis suggests that if just 20% of the world’s PE could be recovered and converted via this route, it could represent a potential savings of GHG emissions comparable to taking 3 million cars off the road.
“If we are to upcycle a significant fraction of the over 100 million tons of plastic waste we generate each year, we need solutions that are highly scalable,” Damien Guironnet, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, said. “Our team demonstrated the chemistry in a flow reactor we developed to produce propylene highly selectively and continuously. This is a key advance to address the immense volume of the problem that we are facing.”
FAIRMEAD, Calif. — As California’s drought deepens, Elaine Moore’s family is running out of an increasingly precious resource: water.
The Central Valley almond growers had two wells go dry this summer. Two of her adult children are now getting water from a new well the family drilled after the old one went dry last year. She’s even supplying water to a neighbor whose well dried up.
“It’s been so dry this last year. We didn’t get much rain. We didn’t get much snowpack,” Moore said, standing next to a dry well on her property in Chowchilla, California. “Everybody’s very careful with what water they’re using. In fact, my granddaughter is emptying the kids’ little pool to flush the toilets.”
Amid a megadrought plaguing the American West, more rural communities are losing access to groundwater as heavy pumping depletes underground aquifers that aren’t being replenished by rain and snow.
More than 1,200 wells have run dry this year statewide, a nearly 50% increase over the same period last year, according to the California Department of Water Resources. By contrast, fewer than 100 dry wells were reported annually in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The groundwater crisis is most severe in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s agricultural heartland, which exports fruits, vegetables and nuts around the world.
Shrinking groundwater supplies reflect the severity of California’s drought, which is now entering its fourth year. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than 94% of the state is in severe, extreme or exceptional drought.
California just experienced its three driest years on record, and state water officials said Monday they’re preparing for another dry year because the weather phenomenon known as La Nina is expected to occur for the third consecutive year.
Farmers are getting little surface water from the state’s depleted reservoirs, so they’re pumping more groundwater to irrigate their crops. That’s causing water tables to drop across California. State data shows that 64% of wells are at below-normal water levels.
Water shortages are already reducing the region’s agricultural production as farmers are forced to fallow fields and let orchards wither. An estimated 531,00 acres (215,000 hectares) of farmland went unplanted this year because of a lack of irrigation water, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As climate change brings hotter temperatures and more severe droughts, cities and states around the world are facing water shortages as lakes and rivers dry up. Many communities are pumping more groundwater and depleting aquifers at an alarming pace.
“This is a key challenge not just for California, but for communities across the West moving forward in adapting to climate change,” said Andrew Ayres, a water researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California.
Madera County, north of Fresno, has been hit particularly hard because it relies heavily on groundwater. The county has reported about 430 dry wells so far this year.
In recent years, the county has seen the rapid expansion of thirsty almond and pistachio orchards that are typically irrigated by agricultural wells that run deeper than domestic wells.
“The bigger straw is going to suck the water from right beneath the little straw,” said Madeline Harris, a policy manager with the advocacy group Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. She stood next to a municipal well that’s run dry in Fairmead, a town of 1,200 surrounded by nut orchards.
“Municipal wells like this one are being put at risk and are going dry because of the groundwater overdraft problems from agriculture,” Harris said. “There are families who don’t have access to running water right now because they have dry domestic wells.”
Residents with dry wells can get help from a state program that provides bottled water as well as storage tanks regularly filled by water delivery trucks. The state also provides money to replace dry wells, but there’s a long wait to get a new one.
Not everyone is getting assistance.
Thomas Chairez said his Fairmead property, which he rents to a family of eight, used to get water from his neighbor’s well. But when it went dry two years ago, his tenants lost access to running water.
Chairez is trying to get the county to provide a storage tank and water delivery service. For now, his tenants have to fill up 5-gallon (19-liter) buckets at a friend’s home and transport water by car each day. They use the water to cook and take showers. They have portable toilets in the backyard.
“They’re surviving,” Chairez said. “In Mexico, I used to do that. I used to carry two buckets myself from far away. So we got to survive somehow. This is an emergency.”
Well drillers are in high demand as water pumps stop working across the San Joaquin Valley.
Ethan Bowles and his colleagues were recently drilling a new well at a ranch house in the Madera Ranchos neighborhood, where many wells have gone dry this year.
“It’s been almost nonstop phone calls just due to the water table dropping constantly,” said Bowles, who works for Chowchilla-based Drew and Hefner Well Drilling. “Most residents have had their wells for many years and all of a sudden the water stops flowing.”
His company must now drill down 500 and 600 feet (152 to 183 meters) to get clients a steady supply of groundwater. That’s a couple hundred feet deeper than older wells.
“The wells just have to go deeper,” Bowles said. “You have to hit a different aquifer and get them a different part of that water table so they can actually have fresh water for their house.”
In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to slow a frenzy of well-drilling over the past few years. The temporary measure prohibits local agencies from issuing permits for new wells that could harm nearby wells or structures.
California’s groundwater troubles come as local agencies seek to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2014 to prevent groundwater overpumping during the last drought. The law requires regional agencies to manage their aquifers sustainably by 2042.
Water experts believe the law will lead to more sustainable groundwater supplies over the next two decades, but the road will be bumpy. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that about 500,000 acres (202,000 hectares) of agricultural land, about 10% of the current total, will have to come out of production over the next two decades.
“These communities are going to be impacted from drinking water supplies and loss of jobs,” said Isaya Kisekka, a groundwater expert at the University of California, Davis. “There’s a lot of migration of farmworkers as this land gets fallowed.”
Farmers and residents in the Valley are hoping for help from above. “Hopefully we get a lot of rain,” Chairez said. “There’s a big need: water. We need water, water, water.”
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Follow Terry Chea on Twitter: @terrychea
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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The past three years have been California’s driest on record, a streak unlikely to break this winter, state officials said Monday.
The official water year concluded Friday, marking an end to a period that saw both record rainfall in October and the driest January-to-March period in at least a century. Scientists say such weather whiplash is likely to become more common as the planet warms. It will take more than a few winter storms to help the state dig out of drought.
“This is our new climate reality, and we must adapt,” Karla Nemeth, director of the state Department of Water Resources, said in a statement.
Her comments came ahead of expected remarks Monday by state water officials about what to expect in the months ahead. The water year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, so that the rainiest winter months are recorded together.
Snow that falls in California’s mountains typically provides one-third of the state’s annual water supply, but last year snow levels were far below average by the end of the winter. The Colorado River, another major source of water for Southern California, is also beset by drought, threatening its ability to supply farmers and cities around the U.S. West.
Precipitation was 76% of average for the year that just ended, and the state’s reservoirs are at 69% of their historical levels, state officials said.
Most of the state is in severe or extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The worst conditions are throughout the Central Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland where many of the nation’s fruits, vegetables and nuts are grown.
Another dry year would mean little to no water deliveries from state supplies to farmers and cities in central and Southern California. State and local officials, meanwhile, continue to urge California’s 39 million residents to save water wherever possible by ripping out grass lawns or letting them go brown, taking shorter showers and generally being more conscious about water use.
There are signs that the state and its residents are better learning to deal with ongoing dry periods, said Jeff Mount, a senior fellow with the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California. With limited water supplies, farmers in the northern part of the state have fallowed rice fields, while major water agencies in the south have started to look for ways to expand water supply through recycling and other means.
Still, drought fatigue may be setting in. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom called on residents last year to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15%. The state still hasn’t met that target and water use went up in the spring compared to prior years. But use has started to tick down after state water officials put new restrictions on outdoor watering.
“We’re not fighting anymore about whether things are changing — we’re having reasonable fights about how to adapt to it,” Mount said.
