ReportWire

Tag: Environmental concerns

  • Oldest DNA reveals life in Greenland 2 million years ago

    Oldest DNA reveals life in Greenland 2 million years ago

    NEW YORK — Scientists discovered the oldest known DNA and used it to reveal what life was like 2 million years ago in the northern tip of Greenland. Today, it’s a barren Arctic desert, but back then it was a lush landscape of trees and vegetation with an array of animals, even the now extinct mastodon.

    “The study opens the door into a past that has basically been lost,” said lead author Kurt Kjær, a geologist and glacier expert at the University of Copenhagen.

    With animal fossils hard to come by, the researchers extracted environmental DNA, also known as eDNA, from soil samples. This is the genetic material that organisms shed into their surroundings — for example, through hair, waste, spit or decomposing carcasses.

    Studying really old DNA can be a challenge because the genetic material breaks down over time, leaving scientists with only tiny fragments.

    But with the latest technology, researchers were able to get genetic information out of the small, damaged bits of DNA, explained senior author Eske Willerslev, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge. In their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, they compared the DNA to that of different species, looking for matches.

    The samples came from a sediment deposit called the Kap København formation in Peary Land. Today, the area is a polar desert, Kjær said.

    But millions of years ago, this region was undergoing a period of intense climate change that sent temperatures up, Willerslev said. Sediment likely built up for tens of thousands of years at the site before the climate cooled and cemented the finds into permafrost.

    The cold environment would help preserve the delicate bits of DNA — until scientists came along and drilled the samples out, beginning in 2006.

    During the region’s warm period, when average temperatures were 20 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit (11 to 19 degrees Celsius) higher than today, the area was filled with an unusual array of plant and animal life, the researchers reported. The DNA fragments suggest a mix of Arctic plants, like birch trees and willow shrubs, with ones that usually prefer warmer climates, like firs and cedars.

    The DNA also showed traces of animals including geese, hares, reindeer and lemmings. Previously, a dung beetle and some hare remains had been the only signs of animal life at the site, Willerslev said.

    One big surprise was finding DNA from the mastodon, an extinct species that looks like a mix between an elephant and a mammoth, Kjær said.

    Many mastodon fossils have previously been found from temperate forests in North America. That’s an ocean away from Greenland, and much farther south, Willerslev said.

    “I wouldn’t have, in a million years, expected to find mastodons in northern Greenland,” said Love Dalen, a researcher in evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University who was not involved in the study.

    Because the sediment built up in the mouth of a fjord, researchers were also able to get clues about marine life from this time period. The DNA suggests horseshoe crabs and green algae lived in the area — meaning the nearby waters were likely much warmer back then, Kjær said.

    By pulling dozens of species out of just a few sediment samples, the study highlights some of eDNA’s advantages, said Benjamin Vernot, an ancient DNA researcher at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who was not involved in the study.

    “You really get a broader picture of the ecosystem at a particular time,” Vernot said. “You don’t have to go and find this piece of wood to study this plant, and this bone to study this mammoth.”

    Based on the data available, it’s hard to say for sure whether these species truly lived side by side, or if the DNA was mixed together from different parts of the landscape, said Laura Epp, an eDNA expert at Germany’s University of Konstanz who was not involved in the study.

    But Epp said this kind of DNA research is valuable to show “hidden diversity” in ancient landscapes.

    Willerslev believes that because these plants and animals survived during a time of dramatic climate change, their DNA could offer a “genetic roadmap” to help us adapt to current warming.

    Stockholm University’s Dalen expects ancient DNA research to keep pushing deeper into the past. He worked on the study that previously held the “oldest DNA” record, from a mammoth tooth around a million years old.

    “I wouldn’t be surprised if you can go at least one or perhaps a few million years further back, assuming you can find the right samples,” Dalen said.

    ———

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Could trawler cams help save world’s dwindling fish stocks?

    Could trawler cams help save world’s dwindling fish stocks?

    PORTLAND, Maine — For years, Mark Hager’s job as an observer aboard New England fishing boats made him a marked man, seen as a meddling cop on the ocean, counting and scrutinizing every cod, haddock and flounder to enforce rules and help set crucial quotas.

    On one particularly perilous voyage, he spent 12 days at sea and no crew member uttered even a single word to him.

    Now Hager is working to replace such federally-mandated observers with high-definition cameras affixed to fishing boat masts. From the safety of his office, Hager uses a laptop to watch hours of footage of crew members hauling the day’s catch aboard and measuring it with long sticks marked with thick black lines. And he’s able to zoom in on every fish to verify its size and species, noting whether it is kept or flung overboard in accordance with the law.

    “Once you’ve seen hundreds of thousands of pounds of these species it becomes second nature,” said Hager as he toggled from one fish to another.

    Hager’s Maine-based start-up, New England Maritime Monitoring, is one of a bevy of companies seeking to help commercial vessels comply with new U.S. mandates aimed at protecting dwindling fish stocks. It’s a brisk business as demand for sustainably caught seafood and around-the-clock monitoring has exploded from the Gulf of Alaska to the Straits of Florida.

    But taking the technology overseas, where the vast majority of seafood consumed in the U.S. is caught, is a steep challenge. Only a few countries can match the U.S.′ strict regulatory oversight. And China — the world’s biggest seafood supplier with an ignominious record of illegal fishing — appears unlikely to embrace the fishing equivalent of a police bodycam.

    The result, scientists fear, could be that well-intended initiatives to replenish fish stocks and reduce unintentional bycatch of threatened species like sharks and sea turtles could backfire: By adding to the regulatory burdens already faced by America’s skippers, more fishing could be transferred overseas and further out of view of conservationists and consumers.

    ———

    This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    ———

    “The challenge now is getting the political will,” said Jamie Gibbon, an environmental scientist at The Pew Charitable Trusts who is leading its efforts to promote electronic monitoring internationally. “We are getting close to the point where the technology is reliable enough that countries are going to have to show whether they are committed or not to transparency and responsible fisheries management.”

    To many advocates, electronic monitoring is something of a silver bullet.

    Since 1970, the world’s fish population has plummeted, to the point that today 35% of commercial stocks are overfished. Meanwhile, an estimated 11% of U.S. seafood imports come from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission.

    To sustainably manage what’s left, scientists need reliable data on the activities of the tens of thousands of fishing vessels that ply the oceans every day, the vast majority with little supervision.

    Traditional tools like captain’s logbooks and dockside inspections provide limited information. Meanwhile, independent observers — a linchpin in the fight against illegal fishing — are scarce: barely 2,000 globally. In the U.S., the number of trained people willing to take underpaid jobs involving long stretches at sea in an often-dangerous fishing industry has been unable to keep pace with ever-growing demand for bait-to-plate traceability.

    Even when observers are on deck, the data they collect is sometimes skewed.

    A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that when an observer was on deck New England skippers changed their behavior in subtle but important ways that degraded the quality of fisheries data, a phenomenon known as “observer bias.”

    “The fact is human observers are annoying,” Hager said. “Nobody wants them there, and when they aren’t being threatened or bribed, the data they provide is deeply flawed because it’s a proven fact that fishermen behave differently when they’re being watched.”

    Enter electronic monitoring. For as little as $10,000, vessels can be equipped with high-resolution cameras, sensors and other technology capable of providing a safe, reliable look at what was once a giant blind spot. Some setups allow the video to be transmitted by satellite or cellular data back to shore in real time — delivering the sort of transparency that was previously unthinkable.

    “This isn’t your grandfather’s fishery anymore,” said Captain Al Cottone, who recently had cameras installed on his 45-foot groundfish trawler, the Sabrina Maria. “If you’re going to sail, you just turn the cameras on and you go.”

    Despite such advantages, video monitoring has been slow to catch on since its debut in the late 1990s as a pilot program to stop crab overfishing off British Columbia. Only about 1,500 of the world’s 400,000 industrial fishing vessels have installed such monitoring systems. About 600 of those vessels are in the U.S., which has been driving innovation in the field.

    “We’re still in the infancy stages,” said Brett Alger, an official at NOAA charged with rolling out electronic monitoring in the U.S.

    The stakes are especially high in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean — home to the world’s largest tuna fishery. Observer coverage of the Pacific’s longline fleet, which numbers around 100,000 boats, is around 2% — well below the 20% minimum threshold scientists say they need to assess a fish stock’s health. Also, observer coverage has been suspended altogether in the vast region since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, even though the roughly 1 billion hooks placed in the water each year has barely ebbed.

    “Right now we’re flying blind,” said Mark Zimring, an environmental scientist for The Nature Conservancy focused on spreading video monitoring to large-scale fisheries around the world. “We don’t even have the basic science to get the rules of the game right.”

    The lack of internationally-accepted protocols and technical standards has slowed progress for video monitoring, as have the high costs associated with reviewing abundant amounts of footage on shore. Hager says some of those costs will fall as machine learning and artificial intelligence — technology his company is experimenting with — ease the burden on analysts who have to sit through hours of repetitive video.

    Market pressure may also spur faster adoption. Recently, Bangkok-based Thai Union, owner of the Red Lobster restaurants and Chicken of the Sea tuna brand, committed to having 100% “on-the-water” monitoring of its vast tuna supply chain by 2025. Most of that is to come from electronic monitoring.

    But by far the biggest obstacle to a faster rollout internationally is the lack of political will.

    That’s most dramatic on the high seas, the traditionally lawless waters that compromise nearly half the planet. There, the task of managing the public’s resources is left to inter-governmental organizations where decisions are taken based on consensus, so that objections from any single country are tantamount to a veto.

    Of the 13 regional fisheries management organizations in the world, only six require on-board monitoring — observers or cameras — to enforce rules on gear usage, unintentional catches and quotas, according to a 2019 study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which advises nations on economic policy.

    Among the worst offenders is China. Despite boasting the world’s largest fishing fleet, with at least 3,000 industrial-sized vessels operating internationally, and tens of thousands closer to home, China has fewer than 100 observers. Electronic monitoring consists of just a few pilot programs.

    Unlike in the U.S., where on-water monitoring is used to prepare stock assessments that drive policy, fisheries management in China is more primitive and enforcement of the rules spotty at best.

    Last year, China deployed just two scientists to monitor a few hundred vessels that spent months fishing for squid near the Galapagos Islands. At the same time, it has blocked a widely backed proposal at the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization to boost observer requirements

    “If they want to do something they definitely can,” said Yong Chen, a fisheries scientist whose lab at Stony Brook University in New York hosts regular exchanges with China. “It’s just a question of priorities.”

    Hazards faced by observers are highest outside U.S. waters, where electronic monitoring is used the least. Sixteen observers have died around the world since 2010, according to the U.S.-based Association for Professional Observers.

    Many of the deaths involve observers from impoverished South Pacific islands working for low pay and with little training and support — even when placed on American-flagged vessels that are subject to federal safety regulations. Such working conditions expose observers to bribery and threats by unscrupulous captains who themselves are under pressure to make every voyage count.

    “It’s in our best interest to have really professional data collection, a safe environment and lots of support from the (U.S.) government,” said Teresa Turk, a former observer who was part of a team of outside experts that in 2017 carried out a comprehensive safety review for NOAA in the aftermath of several observer fatalities.

    Back in the U.S., those who make their living from commercial fishing still view cameras warily as something of a double-edged sword.

    Just ask Scott Taylor.

    His Day Boat Seafood in 2011 became one of the first longline companies in the world to carry an ecolabel from the Marine Stewardship Council — the industry’s gold standard. As part of that sustainability drive, the Fort Pierce, Florida, company blazed a trail for video monitoring that spread throughout the U.S.’ Atlantic tuna fleet.

    “I really believed in it. I thought it was a game changer,” he said.

    But his enthusiasm turned when NOAA used the videos to bring civil charges against him last year for what he says was an accidental case of illegal fishing.

    The bust stems from trips made by four tuna boats managed by Day Boat to a tiny fishing hole bound on all sides by the Bahamas’ exclusive economic zone and a U.S. conservation area off limits to commercial fishing. Evidence reviewed by the AP show that Taylor’s boats were fishing legally inside U.S. waters when they dropped their hooks. But hours later some of the gear, carried by hard-to-predict underwater eddies, drifted a few miles over an invisible line into Bahamian waters.

    Geolocated video footage was essential to proving the government’s case, showing how the boats pulled up 48 fish — swordfish, tuna and mahi mahi — while retrieving their gear in Bahamian waters.

    As a result, NOAA levied a whopping $300,000 fine that almost bankrupted Taylor’s business and has had a chilling effect up and down the East Coast’s tuna fleet.

    When electronic monitoring was getting started a decade ago, it appealed to fishermen who thought that the more reliable data might help the government reopen coastal areas closed to commercial fishing since the 1980s, when the fleet was five times larger. Articles on NOAA’s website promised the technology would be used to monitor tuna stocks with greater precision, not play Big Brother.

    “They had everyone snowballed,” said Martin Scanlon, a New York-based skipper who heads the Blue Water Fishermen’s Association, which represents the fleet of around 90 longline vessels. “Never once did they mention it would be used as a compliance tool.”

    Meanwhile, for Taylor, his two-year fight with the federal government has cost him dearly. He’s had to lay off workers, lease out boats and can no longer afford the licensing fee for the ecolabel he worked so hard to get. Most painful of all, he’s abandoned his dream of one day passing the fishing business on to his children.

    “The technology today is incredibly effective,” Taylor said. “But until foreign competitors are held to the same high standards, the only impact from all this invasiveness will be to put the American commercial fishermen out of business.”

    ———

    AP Writer Caleb Jones in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Fu Ting in Washington contributed to this report.

    ———

    Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org. Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

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  • Could trawler cams help save world’s dwindling fish stocks?

    Could trawler cams help save world’s dwindling fish stocks?

    PORTLAND, Maine — For years, Mark Hager’s job as an observer aboard New England fishing boats made him a marked man, seen as a meddling cop on the ocean, counting and scrutinizing every cod, haddock and flounder to help set crucial quotas.

    On one particularly perilous voyage, he was met on the dock at 4 a.m. by a hostile captain cleaning his AK-47 assault rifle. And for the next 12 days at sea, no crew member even uttered a single word to him.

    Now Hager is working to replace such federally-mandated observers with high-definition cameras affixed to fishing boat masts. From the safety of his office, Hager uses a laptop to watch hours of footage of crew members hauling the day’s catch aboard and measuring it with long sticks marked with thick black lines. And he’s able to zoom in on every fish to verify its size and species, noting whether it is kept or flung overboard in accordance with the law.

    “Once you’ve seen hundreds of thousands of pounds of these species it becomes second nature,” said Hager as he toggled from one fish to another.

    Hager’s Maine-based start-up, New England Maritime Monitoring, is one of a bevy of companies seeking to help commercial vessels comply with new U.S. mandates aimed at protecting dwindling fish stocks. It’s a brisk business as demand for sustainably caught seafood and around-the-clock monitoring has exploded from the Gulf of Alaska to the Straits of Florida.

    But taking the technology overseas, where the vast majority of seafood consumed in the U.S. is caught, is a steep challenge. Only a few countries can match the U.S.′ strict regulatory oversight. And China — the world’s biggest seafood supplier with an ignominious record of illegal fishing — appears unlikely to embrace the fishing equivalent of a police bodycam.

    The result, scientists fear, could be that well-intended initiatives to replenish fish stocks and reduce bycatch of threatened species like sharks and sea turtles could backfire: By adding to the regulatory burdens already faced by America’s skippers, more fishing could be transferred overseas and further out of view of conservationists and consumers.

    ———

    This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    ———

    “The challenge now is getting the political will,” said Jamie Gibbon, an environmental scientist at The Pew Charitable Trusts who is leading its efforts to promote electronic monitoring internationally. “We are getting close to the point where the technology is reliable enough that countries are going to have to show whether they are committed or not to transparency and responsible fisheries management.”

    To many advocates, electronic monitoring is something of a silver bullet.

    Since 1970, the world’s fish population has plummeted, to the point that today 35% of commercial stocks are overfished. Meanwhile, an estimated 11% of U.S. seafood imports come from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission.

    To sustainably manage what’s left, scientists need reliable data on the activities of the tens of thousands of fishing vessels that ply the oceans every day, the vast majority with little supervision.

    Traditional tools like captain’s logbooks and dockside inspections provide limited information. Meanwhile, independent observers — a linchpin in the fight against illegal fishing — are scarce: barely 2,000 globally. In the U.S., the number of trained people willing to take underpaid jobs involving long stretches at sea in an often-dangerous fishing industry has been unable to keep pace with ever-growing demand for bait-to-plate traceability.

    Even when observers are on deck, the data they collect is sometimes skewed.

    A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that when an observer was on deck New England skippers changed their behavior in subtle but important ways that degraded the quality of fisheries data, a phenomenon known as “observer bias.”

    “The fact is human observers are annoying,” Hager said. “Nobody wants them there, and when they aren’t being threatened or bribed, the data they provide is deeply flawed because it’s a proven fact that fishermen behave differently when they’re being watched.”

    Enter electronic monitoring. For as little as $10,000, vessels can be equipped with high-resolution cameras, sensors and other technology capable of providing a safe, reliable look at what was once a giant blind spot. Some setups allow the video to be transmitted by satellite or cellular data back to shore in real time — delivering the sort of transparency that was previously unthinkable.

    “This isn’t your grandfather’s fishery anymore,” said Captain Al Cottone, who recently had cameras installed on his 45-foot groundfish trawler, the Sabrina Maria. “If you’re going to sail, you just turn the cameras on and you go.”

    Despite such advantages, video monitoring has been slow to catch on since its debut in the late 1990s as a pilot program to stop crab overfishing off British Columbia. Only about 1,500 of the world’s 400,000 industrial fishing vessels have installed such monitoring systems. About 600 of those vessels are in the U.S., which has been driving innovation in the field.

    “We’re still in the infancy stages,” said Brett Alger, an official at NOAA charged with rolling out electronic monitoring in the U.S.

    The stakes are especially high in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean — home to the world’s largest tuna fishery. Observer coverage of the Pacific’s longline fleet, which numbers around 100,000 boats, is around 2% — well below the 20% minimum threshold scientists say they need to assess a fish stock’s health. Also, observer coverage has been suspended altogether in the vast region since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, even though the roughly 1 billion hooks placed in the water each year has barely ebbed.

    “Right now we’re flying blind,” said Mark Zimring, an environmental scientist for The Nature Conservancy focused on spreading video monitoring to large-scale fisheries around the world. “We don’t even have the basic science to get the rules of the game right.”

    The lack of internationally-accepted protocols and technical standards has slowed progress for video monitoring, as have the high costs associated with reviewing abundant amounts of footage on shore. Hager says some of those costs will fall as machine learning and artificial intelligence — technology his company is experimenting with — ease the burden on analysts who have to sit through hours of repetitive video.

    Market pressure may also spur faster adoption. Recently, Bangkok-based Thai Union, owner of the Red Lobster restaurants and Chicken of the Sea tuna brand, committed to having 100% “on-the-water” monitoring of its vast tuna supply chain by 2025. Most of that is to come from electronic monitoring.

    But by far the biggest obstacle to a faster rollout internationally is the lack of political will.

    That’s most dramatic on the high seas, the traditionally lawless waters that compromise nearly half the planet. There, the task of managing the public’s resources is left to inter-governmental organizations where decisions are taken based on consensus, so that objections from any single country are tantamount to a veto.

    Of the 13 regional fisheries management organizations in the world, only six require on-board monitoring — observers or cameras — to enforce rules on gear usage, bycatch and quotas, according to a 2019 study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which advises nations on economic policy.

    Among the worst offenders is China. Despite boasting the world’s largest fishing fleet, with at least 3,000 industrial-sized vessels operating internationally, and tens of thousands closer to home, China has fewer than 100 observers. Electronic monitoring consists of just a few pilot programs.

    Unlike in the U.S., where on-water monitoring is used to prepare stock assessments that drive policy, fisheries management in China is more primitive and enforcement of the rules spotty at best.

    Last year, China deployed just two scientists to monitor a few hundred vessels that spent months fishing for squid near the Galapagos Islands. At the same time, it has blocked a widely backed proposal at the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization to boost observer requirements

    “If they want to do something they definitely can,” said Yong Chen, a fisheries scientist whose lab at Stony Brook University in New York hosts regular exchanges with China. “It’s just a question of priorities.”

    Hazards faced by observers are highest outside U.S. waters, where electronic monitoring is used the least. Sixteen observers have died around the world since 2010, according to the U.S.-based Association for Professional Observers.

    Many of the deaths involve observers from impoverished South Pacific islands working for low pay and with little training and support — even when placed on American-flagged vessels that are subject to federal safety regulations. Such working conditions expose observers to bribery and threats by unscrupulous captains who themselves are under pressure to make every voyage count.

    “It’s in our best interest to have really professional data collection, a safe environment and lots of support from the (U.S.) government,” said Teresa Turk, a former observer who was part of a team of outside experts that in 2017 carried out a comprehensive safety review for NOAA in the aftermath of several observer fatalities.

    Back in the U.S., those who make their living from commercial fishing still view cameras warily as something of a double-edged sword.

    Just ask Scott Taylor.

    His Day Boat Seafood in 2011 became one of the first longline companies in the world to carry an ecolabel from the Marine Stewardship Council — the industry’s gold standard. As part of that sustainability drive, the Fort Pierce, Florida, company blazed a trail for video monitoring that spread throughout the U.S.’ Atlantic tuna fleet.

    “I really believed in it. I thought it was a game changer,” he said.

    But his enthusiasm turned when NOAA used the videos to bring civil charges against him last year for what he says was an accidental case of illegal fishing.

    The bust stems from trips made by four tuna boats managed by Day Boat to a tiny fishing hole bound on all sides by the Bahamas’ exclusive economic zone and a U.S. conservation area off limits to commercial fishing. Evidence reviewed by the AP show that Taylor’s boats were fishing legally inside U.S. waters when they dropped their hooks. But hours later some of the gear, carried by hard-to-predict underwater eddies, drifted a few miles over an invisible line into Bahamian waters.

    Geolocated video footage was essential to proving the government’s case, showing how the boats pulled up 48 fish — swordfish, tuna and mahi mahi — while retrieving their gear in Bahamian waters.

    As a result, NOAA levied a whopping $300,000 fine that almost bankrupted Taylor’s business and has had a chilling effect up and down the East Coast’s tuna fleet.

    When electronic monitoring was getting started a decade ago, it appealed to fishermen who thought that the more reliable data might help the government reopen coastal areas closed to commercial fishing since the 1980s, when the fleet was five times larger. Articles on NOAA’s website promised the technology would be used to monitor tuna stocks with greater precision, not play Big Brother.

    “They had everyone snowballed,” said Martin Scanlon, a New York-based skipper who heads the Blue Water Fishermen’s Association, which represents the fleet of around 90 longline vessels. “Never once did they mention it would be used as a compliance tool.”

    Meanwhile, for Taylor, his two-year fight with the federal government has cost him dearly. He’s had to lay off workers, lease out boats and can no longer afford the licensing fee for the ecolabel he worked so hard to get. Most painful of all, he’s abandoned his dream of one day passing the fishing business on to his children.

    “The technology today is incredibly effective,” Taylor said. “But until foreign competitors are held to the same high standards, the only impact from all this invasiveness will be to put the American commercial fishermen out of business.”

    ———

    AP Writer Caleb Jones in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Fu Ting in Washington contributed to this report.

    ———

    Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org. Follow Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman

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  • Swiss climate activists lament election of oil lobbyist

    Swiss climate activists lament election of oil lobbyist

    BERLIN — Swiss environmentalists criticized the election Wednesday of a top car- and oil-industry lobbyist to the new government, calling it a “disaster for climate policy.”

    Lawmakers picked Albert Roesti of the nationalist Swiss People’s Party as one of two new members of the Cabinet, or Federal Council.

    The election was necessary following the retirement of two long-serving members in the seven-seat government, which traditionally includes politicians from all the country’s major parties.

    Roesti was until recently the president of Switzerland’s fuel importer association Swissoil. He remains the president of Auto Schweiz, the association of car importers in Switzerland. As part of his lobby work, Roesti successfully campaigned against a bill designed to reduce the Alpine nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

    “In the middle of the climate crisis the Swiss Parliament has elected the top car and oil lobbyist to the Federal Council,” the group Climate Strike said in a statement. “This is a disaster not just for Switzerland, but our entire generation.”

    It called on other members of the government not to let Roesti head the Ministry for Environment, Energy and Transport. That post became vacant with the retirement of Simonetta Sommaruga, one of two departing ministers.

    Also elected to the council Wednesday was Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, a member of the left-leaning Social Democrats.

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  • 1,700 dead seals found on Russia’s Caspian coast

    1,700 dead seals found on Russia’s Caspian coast

    MOSCOW — About 1,700 seals have been found dead on the Caspian Sea coast in southern Russia, officials said Sunday.

    The authorities in the Russian province of Dagestan said that it’s still unclear what caused the animals’ deaths, but they likely died of natural reasons.

    Regional officials initially said Saturday that 700 dead seals were found on the coast, but on Sunday Zaur Gapizov, head of the Caspian Environmental Protection Center, said according to the state RIA Novosti news agency that after a broader inspection of the coast the number of dead animals was 1,700.

    Gapizov said the seals likely died a couple of weeks ago. He added that there was no sign that they were killed by poachers.

    Experts of the Federal Fisheries Agency and prosecutors inspected the coastline and collected data for laboratory research, which didn’t immediately spot any pollutants.

    Several previous incidents of mass deaths of seals were attributed to natural causes.

    The data about the number of seals in the Caspian varies widely. The fisheries agency has said the overall number of Caspian seals is 270,000-300,000, while Gapizov’s center put the number at 70,000.

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  • Prince William, like his father, prioritizes the environment

    Prince William, like his father, prioritizes the environment

    BOSTON — Prince William capped a three-day visit to Boston by meeting with President Joe Biden to share his vision for safeguarding the environment before attending a gala event Friday evening where he sounded an optimistic tone about solving the world’s environmental problems through “hope, optimism and urgency.”

    The Prince of Wales paid homage to the late President John F. Kennedy, saying his Earthshot Prize was inspired by Kennedy’s audacious moonshot speech in 1962 that mobilized the nation to put astronauts on the moon. That same sense of urgency and scale is needed now to protect the environment, William said.

    “In the same way the space effort six decades ago created jobs, boosted economies and provided hope, so too can the solutions borne of tonight’s Earthshot Prize winners,” William said.

    The second annual Earthshot Prize offered 1 million pounds ($1.2 million) in prize money to each of the winners in five separate categories: nature protection, clean air, ocean revival, waste elimination and climate change. The winners and all 15 finalists will receive help in expanding their projects to meet global demand.

    The winners, announced at Boston’s MGM Music Hall, were:

    — A female-founded startup that’s providing cleaner-burning biomass stoves in Africa

    — A United Kingdom company making biodegradable packaging from seaweed

    — A “greenhouse-in-a-box” concept created to increase yields on small farms in India

    — A technique for transforming atmospheric carbon into rock in Oman in the Middle East

    — A woman-led effort to create a new generation of indigenous rangers in Australia.

    Providing the star power for the glitzy show were Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding and Chloe x Halle live in Boston, and Billie Eilish performing remotely. The event also featured videos narrated by naturalist David Attenborough and actor Cate Blanchett. Prizes were presented by actor Rami Malek, comedian Catherine O’Hara, and actor and activist Shailene Woodley.

    The entertainers were eager to help.

    “It’s the greatest crisis of our lifetime, and I appreciate what Prince William is doing,” Malek said before heading into the venue. “And in the next 10 years I think the impact will be staggering. And we can really effect change in the greatest way with these innovators who are being awarded this evening.”

    Before the event, William met privately for 30 minutes with Biden after the two shook hands and spoke briefly in the cold near the water outside of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library and Museum. As William walked down the steps in his suit, Biden, wearing in a black winter coat, shouted: “Where’s your topcoat?”

    William also met Caroline Kennedy, the ambassador to Australia and the late president’s daughter. William toured the museum with Kennedy and told her that her father was “the man who inspired our mission.”

    William and his wife, Kate, earlier attended a welcome Wednesday at City Hall and then a Boston Celtics game before the royal couple spent much of Thursday hearing about the threats of climate change and solutions in the works.

    William became heir apparent less than three months ago with the death of his grandmother, the queen, but he already has been crowned Britain’s chief environmentalist. That was apparent during the Boston visit, which earned praise for drawing attention to pollution and climate change and the need to scale up solutions.

    “I just appreciate that they are using platform and publicity to bring attention to meaningful climate work,” said Joe Christo, managing director of Stone Living Lab, which researches nature-based approaches to climate adaptation and was among those who met the royal couple at Boston Harbor on Thursday.

    “I do know his dad is a big environmentalist,” he said. “He seems to be doing a great job continuing that legacy.”

    William is following in the footsteps of his environmentally minded grandfather Prince Philip — the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II — and more recently his father and Elizabeth’s successor, King Charles III.

    William’s father, in his former capacity as prince, was for decades one of Britain’s most prominent environmental voices — blasting the ills of pollution. Last year, he stood before world leaders at a U.N. climate conference in Scotland and suggested the threats posed by climate change and biodiversity loss were no different than those posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

    Now that he is king, Charles is expected to be more careful with his words and must stay out of politics and government policy, in accordance with the traditions of Britain’s constitutional monarchy. This year, he did not attend the U.N. climate conference, which was held in Egypt.

    The caution presents an opportunity for William to step into that role as the royal family’s environmental advocate and speak more forcefully about the issues once associated with his father.

    There is no better example than the Earthshot Prize.

    “It’s a huge deal to Prince William,” Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty Magazine. “He knows he can attract attention from the most important people. That really is the core of the Boston trip.”

    William and Kate got a firsthand look at some recent innovations at a green technology startup incubator called Greentown Labs, in Somerville. Among them were solar-powered autonomous boats and low-carbon cement.

    “Climate change is a global problem, so it’s so important to have global leaders talking about the importance of taking action,” said Lara Cottingham, vice president of strategy policy and climate impact for Greentown Labs.

    The couple’s first trip to the U.S. since 2014 is part of the royal family’s efforts to change its international image. After Elizabeth’s death, Charles has made clear that his will be a slimmed-down monarchy, with less pomp and ceremony than its predecessors. William and Kate arrived in Boston on a commercial British Airways flight.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report in Boston.

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  • Utility recommends natural gas plant despite objections

    Utility recommends natural gas plant despite objections

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The nation’s largest public utility on Friday recommended replacing an aging coal burning power plant with natural gas, ignoring calls for the Tennessee Valley Authority to speed its transition to renewable energy.

    TVA announced the completion of its environmental impact statement for replacing the Cumberland Fossil Plant near Cumberland City, Tennessee. The federally owned utility considered replacing the two coal-fired turbines there with solar panels but instead recommended a combined-cycle natural gas plant.

    Solar and battery storage would be more costly, requiring transmission upgrades that could take a decade to complete, according to a news release from TVA. The decision still needs the approval of TVA President and CEO Jeff Lyash, who has previously spoken in favor of natural gas.

    “Our focus is on ensuring that we provide affordable, reliable, resilient, and clean energy for generations to come,” Lyash said in the news release.

    TVA’s plan would idle one unit of the coal plant by the end of 2026 and the second by the end of 2028. The utility says a natural gas plant there could be built and operational by 2026, with construction beginning as early as summer 2023.

    The announcement drew backlash from groups that include the Center for Biological Diversity.

    “TVA’s plan to build a new gas plant and pipeline in the midst of climate catastrophe is reckless,” Gaby Sarri-Tobar, with the group’s energy justice program, said in a statement. “This is a slap in the face to the 10 million customers who rely on TVA and makes a mockery of the Biden administration’s clean energy pledges.”

    President Joe Biden has said he wants a carbon-pollution-free energy sector by 2035. TVA has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2035, compared with 2005 levels.

    Scientists, meanwhile, have warned that failing to meet Biden’s 2035 target will only lead to more intense and more frequent extreme weather events, as well as droughts, floods and wildfires. Teams of meteorologists across the world have predicted there is nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit a global warming temperature threshold international agreements are trying to prevent within the next five years.

    The TVA board of directors last year delegated any decision on Cumberland’s replacement to Lyash. He has said TVA will not be able to meet the 100% reduction goal without technological advances in energy storage, carbon capture and small modular nuclear reactors. The utility has its own aspirational goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

    Those opposing the construction of a new gas plant have pointed out it will likely be around for decades, long past the 2035 decarbonization goal. They have also criticized TVA for not considering options that could decrease the demand for new electricity like improved energy efficiency and demand response — which helps customers change their usage patterns to flatten peak demand periods.

    U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has emerged in legislative hearings as a key critic of TVA. He said the utility should not be moving forward on the Cumberland decision while Biden’s nominees for its board await Senate confirmation. Their installation would create a new board majority.

    “The Tennessee Valley Authority is showing yet again that it is willing to lock its customers into expensive and volatile fossil fuel generation, rather than take this opportunity to adopt reliable renewable energy,” Markey said in a statement Friday. “As the largest public power company in the country, the TVA has a responsibility to be a leader, not a laggard, in delivering clean, affordable power to its customers.”

    Meanwhile, a permit application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is still pending for a 32-mile (51-kilometer) natural gas pipeline branch to link to the proposed new Cumberland plant. Kinder Morgan Inc. said one of its subsidiaries filed the application in July. Pending regulatory approval, construction would begin in August 2024, with an expected September 2025 for the pipeline to be in service, the company said.

    TVA provides electricity to 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of the surrounding states of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

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  • Coal-fired plant imploded in New Jersey for battery array

    Coal-fired plant imploded in New Jersey for battery array

    LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A former coal-fired power plant in New Jersey was imploded Friday, and its owners announced plans for a new $1 billion venture on the site, where batteries will be deployed to store power from clean energy sources including wind and solar.

    The move came as New Jersey moves aggressively to adopt clean energy, including its push to be the East Coast leader in offshore wind energy.

    Starwood Energy demolished the former Logan Generating Plant, with the head of New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities pushing a ceremonial button; the actual explosives used in bringing the structure down were triggered by a licensed demolition contractor.

    Logan is one of two former coal-fired power plants that the company decided in March to shutter and tear down under an agreement with the state and a local utility. The other is the former Chambers Cogeneration Plant in Carneys Point, which has yet to be dismantled.

    They were the last two coal-fired power plants operating in the state until they closed three months ago, and both will host battery storage projects, said Himanshu Saxena, CEO of Starwood, a Greenwich, Connecticut, private equity investment firm specializing in energy infrastructure projects.

    “This is the end of coal in this state,” Saxena said.

    The closures are part of the latest wave of coal-burning units to be retired as states try to fight climate change by requiring more carbon-free sources of electricity.

    “Wind doesn’t always blow; solar doesn’t always shine,” he said. “We need systems where you can store the energy. You have to build battery storage products.”

    The plant, on the banks of the Delaware River in the Philadelphia suburbs of southern New Jersey, began operating in 1994.

    Shortly before 11 a.m. Friday, an emergency siren sounded, indicating the imminent detonation of explosives placed strategically at the base of the plant’s smokestack and in a larger nearby building.

    A series of loud blasts rang out, and concussive waves of pressure radiated from the site as the structures began to crumble into a heap of smoke and dust.

    Saxena said he has a long history with power generation and environmental concerns.

    “I worked at a coal plant in India; there were no scrubbers,” he said, referring to emissions-control equipment. “You went in with a white shirt and came out with a black shirt.”

    Environmental and public interest groups including the Sierra Club pushed Atlantic City Electric to end an agreement that locked rate-payers into what the Sierra Club termed above-market electricity rates, and to end the operation of the two plants.

    “More utilities need to recognize the changing landscape and that they have a responsibility to reduce carbon pollution,” said Ramon Cruz, national president of the Sierra Club, adding he hopes the deal will be a model for other states and companies.

    Atlantic City Electric estimates that termination of the agreement will save ratepayers $30 million through 2024.

    ———

    Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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  • Coal-fired plant imploded in New Jersey for battery array

    Coal-fired plant imploded in New Jersey for battery array

    LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A former coal-fired power plant in New Jersey was imploded Friday, and its owners announced plans for a new $1 billion venture on the site, where batteries will be deployed to store power from clean energy sources including wind and solar.

    The move came as New Jersey moves aggressively to adopt clean energy, including its push to be the East Coast leader in offshore wind energy.

    Starwood Energy demolished the former Logan Generating Plant, with the head of New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities pushing a ceremonial button; the actual explosives used in bringing the structure down were triggered by a licensed demolition contractor.

    Logan is one of two former coal-fired power plants that the company decided in March to shutter and tear down under an agreement with the state and a local utility. The other is the former Chambers Cogeneration Plant in Carneys Point, which has yet to be dismantled.

    They were the last two coal-fired power plants operating in the state until they closed three months ago, and both will host battery storage projects, said Himanshu Saxena, CEO of Starwood, a Greenwich, Connecticut, private equity investment firm specializing in energy infrastructure projects.

    “This is the end of coal in this state,” Saxena said.

    The closures are part of the latest wave of coal-burning units to be retired as states try to fight climate change by requiring more carbon-free sources of electricity.

    “Wind doesn’t always blow; solar doesn’t always shine,” he said. “We need systems where you can store the energy. You have to build battery storage products.”

    The plant, on the banks of the Delaware River in the Philadelphia suburbs of southern New Jersey, began operating in 1994.

    Shortly before 11 a.m. Friday, an emergency siren sounded, indicating the imminent detonation of explosives placed strategically at the base of the plant’s smokestack and in a larger nearby building.

    A series of loud blasts rang out, and concussive waves of pressure radiated from the site as the structures began to crumble into a heap of smoke and dust.

    Saxena said he has a long history with power generation and environmental concerns.

    “I worked at a coal plant in India; there were no scrubbers,” he said, referring to emissions-control equipment. “You went in with a white shirt and came out with a black shirt.”

    Environmental and public interest groups including the Sierra Club pushed Atlantic City Electric to end an agreement that locked rate-payers into what the Sierra Club termed above-market electricity rates, and to end the operation of the two plants.

    “More utilities need to recognize the changing landscape and that they have a responsibility to reduce carbon pollution,” said Ramon Cruz, national president of the Sierra Club, adding he hopes the deal will be a model for other states and companies.

    Atlantic City Electric estimates that termination of the agreement will save ratepayers $30 million through 2024.

    ———

    Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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  • French President visits New Orleans, Louisiana

    French President visits New Orleans, Louisiana

    BATON ROUGE, La. — French President Emmanuel Macron will head to Louisiana on Friday to celebrate longstanding cultural ties and to discuss energy policy.

    Macron’s office said he will meet with political leaders and is scheduled to see the historic French Quarter, the heart of the city. The Advocate reported that the visit will be the first by a French president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing traveled to Lafayette and New Orleans in 1976. The only other French president to visit Louisiana was Charles de Gaulle in 1960.

    Macron is planning to go to Jackson Square in New Orleans, where he will be welcomed by Mayor LaToya Cantrell. He will then head to the Historic New Orleans Collection to discuss climate change impacts with Gov. John Bel Edwards. Macron is also scheduled to meet with energy company representatives.

    Edwards, a Democrat, has been outspoken about the perils of climate change, in a state where tens of thousands of jobs are tied to the oil and gas industry. This makes the stop to New Orleans “very emblematic” of climate-related efforts, French officials stressed.

    In addition, Macron and Edwards will sign a memorandum of understanding “to further expand and enhance the strong cultural connections between France and Louisiana in the areas of the economy, clean energy and the environment,” according to the governor’s office.

    During Macron’s visit to Washington on Thursday, he and President Joe Biden released a joint statement expressing “their deep concern regarding the growing impact of climate change and nature loss” and said they “intend to continue to galvanize domestic and global action to address it.”

    In New Orleans, Macron is expected to announce plans to expand programming to support French language education in U.S.

    “We want the French language to be a language for all and therefore give a fresh image of the French in the United States,” Macron said Wednesday in a speech to the French community in Washington D.C.

    New Orleans is where the Louisiana Purchase was finalized, transferring Louisiana from France to the United States in 1803. The state’s most populous city is also home to the French Quarter, the more than 300-year-old historic heart of New Orleans. First settled in the 1700s, ravaged by fire twice, it is 13 blocks long and roughly six blocks wide. It is best known as a tourist spot and commercial district where reimagined French Market, fine restaurants, antique shops and art galleries coexist alongside T-shirt shops, strip joints and bars blasting live music by cover bands.

    The visit will be the first by a French president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing traveled to Lafayette and New Orleans in 1976, The Advocate reported. The only other French president to visit Louisiana was Charles de Gaulle in 1960.

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  • Q&A: Jacob Harold creates philanthropist ‘toolbox,’ guide

    Q&A: Jacob Harold creates philanthropist ‘toolbox,’ guide

    Jacob Harold believes philanthropy needs more “strategic promiscuity” – battling the world’s problems using a variety of approaches.

    It’s an idea that mirrors his wide-ranging career. Harold was president and CEO of GuideStar before it merged with Foundation Center to form the even larger nonprofit information source Candid, which he co-founded. He worked with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to make its giving more effective and with The Bridgespan Group, he helped philanthropists and foundations donate more intentionally. As a strategist for Greenpeace USA and Rainforest Action Network, he deployed those donations.

    “We can’t afford as a field and as a species to leave great ideas on the table right now,” Harold said. “If that great idea is born in some small organization, we have to figure out what is its pathway into government policy. What is its pathway into the marketplace? We can’t predict that, but we can equip people to have a better chance of getting there.”

    To boost those chances, Harold wrote “The Toolbox: Strategies for Crafting Social Impact,” which hit bookshelves Thursday. “The Toolbox” offers nine strategies, or tools, philanthropists can use on a problem – from storytelling to behavioral economics to community organizing.

    “I hope people who have only one lens — all they have is a hammer, so the whole world looks like a nail – read this and just sort of pause and see that there’s other stuff out there,” Harold said. “And I want people feeling discouraged and hopeless in this strange moment to be reminded of the abundance of options and the abundance of learning and resources that are out there.”

    Harold, 45, recently spoke with The Associated Press about his new book and how he hopes it helps nonprofits reach more donors. The interview was edited for clarity and length.

    Q: Why did you want to write this book?

    A: It goes back to my time at the Hewlett Foundation a decade ago where I’m sitting there in the fancy office of a $10 billion dollar foundation and the smartest social entrepreneurs in the world are coming to us pitching big ideas. Then, for lunch, we’ll have a great philosopher or a brilliant psychologist come in and give a talk. Or we’ll go across the street to Stanford and hang out at the design school. We were just so privileged to see all these different ways of thinking about social change. And I realized no one else had that level of privilege. So the first point of the book is “Let’s just share that abundance of ways of thinking about social good.” Over the centuries, people have put so much thought and time into figuring out how to do it and we’ve actually learned a lot.

    Q: You said that’s your hopeful reason. What’s the less hopeful reason?

    A: Part of me was kind of angry because so many people are so convinced that their one approach was the only way to succeed. So many of the failures we’ve seen in the social sector over the last 20 years come from people so obsessed with a particular framework that they don’t acknowledge the complexity of the world.

    Q: How do you want readers to use this book?

    A: I think most everyone is going to come to this with one of these tools as a framework that they’re already using. Maybe they come from the business world and use a market mindset. Or they come from journalism and they bring a storytelling mindset. I hope first they would see some affirmation in what they already have, but then seed their mind with these other ways of thinking… I would also expect that someone will read this book and say, “Seven of these tools make sense to me and two of them made no sense at all.” That is OK. It’s not that everyone has to master every way of thinking. It’s just that we have to recognize that the world’s too complicated for any one way to be enough.

    Q: Why is it important for this book to come out now?

    A: Right now, so many of us feel emotionally overwhelmed. There’s a lot of anxiety. We need to act in the face of all these challenges, but we also need to have confidence that we actually can succeed.

    Q: To what extent can philanthropy get things done when compared to governments, especially in a global issue like climate change?

    A: That’s one thing that I struggled with in this book that the classic reader of this book would be a nonprofit manager or a foundation staffer. But there are lots of people in the business world and in government working full time to make a better world. And they need tools too. The people in government trying to figure out the right policies to address climate change need to have frameworks in their minds as well. And we actually need every sector applying every lesson to address a question like climate change. Climate change, to me, is the perfect example of a problem that can’t be solved with a single solution.

    —————

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • In new role as G-20 chair, India set to focus on climate

    In new role as G-20 chair, India set to focus on climate

    BENGALURU, India — India officially takes up its role as chair of the Group of 20 leading economies for the coming year Thursday and it’s putting climate at the top of the group’s priorities.

    Programs to encourage sustainable living and money for countries to transition to clean energy and deal with the effects of a warming world are some of the key areas that India will focus on during its presidency, experts say. Some say India will also use its new position to boost its climate credentials and act as a bridge between the interests of industrialized nations and developing ones.

    The country has made considerable moves toward its climate goals in recent years but is currently one of the world’s top emitters of planet-warming gases.

    The G-20, made up of the world’s largest economies, has a rolling presidency with a different member state in charge of the group’s agenda and priorities each year. Experts believe India will use the “big stage” of the G-20 presidency to drive forward its climate and development plans.

    The country “will focus heavily on responding to the current and future challenges posed by climate change,” said Samir Saran, president of the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. The ORF will be anchoring the T-20 — a group of think tanks from the 20 member countries whose participants meet alongside the G-20.

    Saran said that India will work to ensure that money is flowing from rich industrialized nations to emerging economies to help them combat global warming, such as a promise of $100 billion a year for clean energy and adapting to climate change for poorer nations that has not yet been fulfilled and a recent pledge to vulnerable countries that there will be a fund for the loss and damage caused by extreme weather.

    He added that India will also use the presidency to push its flagship “Mission Life” program that encourages more sustainable lifestyles in the country, which is set to soon become most populous in the world.

    When outgoing chair Indonesia symbolically handed the presidency to India in Bali last month by passing the gavel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the opportunity to promote the program, saying it could make “a big contribution” by turning sustainable living into “a mass movement.”

    The impact of lifestyle “has not received as much attention in the global discourse as it should,” said RR Rashmi, a distinguished fellow at The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi. He added that the issue “may get some prominence” at the G-20 which would be a success for the Indian government, but critics say the focus on lifestyle changes must be backed by policy to have credibility.

    India has been beefing up its climate credentials, with its recent domestic targets to transition to renewable energy more ambitious than the goals it submitted to the U.N. as part of the Paris Agreement, which requires countries to show how they plan to limit warming to temperature targets set in 2015.

    Analysts say nations’ climate ambitions and actions — including India’s — are not in line with temperature targets.

    Many of India’s big industrialists are investing heavily in renewable energy domestically as well as globally, but the Indian government is also preparing to invest in coal-based power plants at the cost of $33 billion over the next four years.

    At the U.N. climate conference last month, India — currently the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases — proposed a phaseout of all fossil fuels and repeatedly emphasized the need to revamp global climate finance. The country says it cannot reach its climate goals and reduce carbon dioxide emissions without significantly more finance from richer nations, a claim which those countries dispute.

    Navroz Dubash, author of several U.N. climate reports and professor at the Centre for Policy Research, said that a key question for many countries is how “emerging economies address development needs and do it in a low carbon pathway” with several in the global south, like India, pointing to a need for outside investment.

    As the chair of the G-20, India is a good position “to say what it will take for us to develop in ways that don’t lock up the remaining carbon budget,” Dubash added, referring to the amount of carbon dioxide the world can emit while still containing global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels.

    “Developing countries are making a convincing case that green industrial policies are actually quite dependent on having public money to throw at the problems,” said Dubash. Some experts say more than $2 trillion is needed each year by 2030 to help developing countries cut emissions and deal with the effects of a warming climate, with $1 trillion from domestic sources and the rest coming from external sources such as developed countries or multilateral development banks.

    “This public money can also be a way of getting in private money, which is what the U.S. has done in its Inflation Reduction Act,” Dubash added. The U.S.’s flagship climate package that passed earlier this year includes incentives for building out clean energy infrastructure.

    The G-20 will also be looking closely at alternative means to getting climate finance, experts say. The group could potentially take a leaf out of the Bridgetown initiative proposed by the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, which involves unlocking large sums of money from multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to help countries adapt to climate change and transition to cleaner energy.

    ORF’s Saran said that as G-20 chair India can help move forward the conversation on the initiative. Developing countries are often charged higher rates of interest when borrowing from global financial institutions. Rejigging global finance to make renewable energy more affordable in the developing world is key to curbing climate change, Saran said.

    The idea has recently gained traction amongst developed nations, with France’s Macron recently vocalizing his support.

    “A large share of emissions will come from the developing world in the future,” Saran said. “If we make it easier for them to shift to clean energy, then these emissions can be avoided.”

    ———

    Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

    ———

    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.

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  • Panama confronts illegal trafficking of animals

    Panama confronts illegal trafficking of animals

    ANCON, Panama — In a tropical forest beside the Panama Canal, two black-handed spider monkeys swing about their wire enclosure, balanced by their long tails. They arrived at this government rehabilitation center after environmental authorities seized them from people who had been keeping them as pets.

    In the coming months, biologists and veterinarians will shift them to a diet mirroring what they would eat in the wild, help them re-learn skills to survive in the jungle and wean them from human contact.

    Panamanian authorities are trying to raise awareness about the dangers — to humans and wildlife — of keeping wild animals in their homes. This month, Panama hosted the World Wildlife Conference, where participants voted to tighten restrictions on the international trade in animals and plants.

    Black-handed spider monkeys are listed in the most endangered category of international species, and Panama’s Ministry of Environment say they are in “critical danger.” Trade in the monkeys is permitted only in exceptional circumstances.

    “People don’t understand they can’t buy a wild animal from someone who doesn’t have authorization to sell it,” said Felipe Cruz, the Environment Ministry’s adviser on environmental crimes. “The environment can’t take any more. We’re at a critical point.”

    From January through September, Panama’s Attorney General’s Office had recorded 19 cases of wild species trafficking and 14 cases of extraction of species that were protected or in danger of extinction. Shirley Binder, an adviser to the Environment Ministry, said the real extent of the problem could be greater.

    “The country is big, there could be cases that we don’t have,” Binder said. “We have formed strategic alliances with security sectors that now are conscious of the environmental issue, … but we also need the support of citizens generally so that when they see these cases they report them.”

    Earlier this year, the government introduced a catalog with photographs and technical details to assist in the identification of the most commonly trafficked species. The plan was to distribute it to security, border and customs authorities nationwide.

    Panamanian law strictly limits the possession of wildlife. The Environment Ministry issues permits to zoos, breeding centers or for the raising and consumption of some sources of protein such as deer and iguana, but not for endangered species.

    Biologist Samuel Sucre operates one of those businesses, Natural Tanks, which has government permits allowing him to collect amphibians and reptiles from the wild and breed them for sale.

    Sucre said the government closed down some “ghost farming” operations.

    “These farms were claiming they were breeding the frogs, but in reality they were just field collecting them and then claiming that these were bred (on) their farm,” Sucre said.

    “The problem with the illegal trade in countries like mine, developing countries, people don’t understand the value of that resource,” Sucre said. The people who want to sell animals go to residents of rural areas who have very little income and offer payment per frog.

    He advocates instead for finding sustainable ways to commercialize some species so people can learn the value of the natural resources and make a living.

    Spider monkeys are among the most popular wild pets, said Erick Núñez, the Environment Ministry’s chief of national biodiversity. “They’re usually friendly with people … however, when they reach the age of sexual maturity, when they become jealous, they can become aggressive and attack people,” he said. “That is the natural behavior of the species when it is stressed.”

    Primates can adapt relatively well to living in with humans, making their rehabilitation especially challenging, he said.

    The new government rehabilitation center, which was built on land adjacent to former U.S. military facilities, began receiving animals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Animals cycle in and out, but it holds up to 50 animals and there are plans to expand.

    Primates like the spider monkeys are among the most frequent arrivals, but the center also receives cat species such as ocelots and jaguarundi, and birds including toucans and owls.

    The two spider monkeys that arrived separately this year have long rehabilitations ahead. “They are animals that are very used to human presence,” said Núñez. “Here we only come once a day to bring food. The contact with us is very scarce.”

    For now, they feed them fruit such as papaya and mango, but biologists also collect fruit from the jungle. As they get closer to being released, their diet will shift away from fruits they would not find in the wild, where they would also eat some leaves and even eggs from birds’ nests. Biologists will hide their food in the enclosure “to awaken that wild, natural instinct,” Núñez said.

    They will only be reintroduced to the wild after thorough evaluation by the center’s biologists and specialists from nongovernmental organizations. The monkeys will need to show that they can find their food and recognize other members of their species.

    Núñez said people still see monkeys as making good pets, an attitude he said is “unjust and inappropriate.”

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  • EXPLAINER: What hazards are posed by Hawaii’s Mauna Loa?

    EXPLAINER: What hazards are posed by Hawaii’s Mauna Loa?

    HONOLULU — Lava is shooting 100 feet to 200 feet (30 to 60 meters) into the air as Hawaii‘s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, erupts for the first time in nearly 40 years.

    For now, lava is not threatening any homes or communities and no evacuation orders have been issued. Lava could eventually reach neighborhoods as it flows downhill though it could take a week or more for molten rock to reach populated areas.

    Mauna Loa is spewing sulfur dioxide and other volcanic gases. They form volcanic smog, or vog, when they mix with vapor, oxygen and dust in sunlight. As a result, state health officials are urging people to cut back on outdoor exercise and other activities that cause heavy breathing.

    Mauna Loa last erupted in 1984. It’s smaller, more active neighbor, Kilauea volcano, has been erupting continuously for more than a year since September 2021.

    WHERE IS MAUNA LOA?

    Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that together make up the Big Island of Hawaii, which is the southernmost island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It’s not the tallest (that title goes to Mauna Kea) but it’s the largest and makes up about half of the island’s land mass.

    It sits immediately north of Kilauea volcano, which is well-known for a 2018 eruption that destroyed 700 homes and sent rivers of lava spreading across farms and into the ocean.

    Mauna Loa last erupted 38 years ago. The current eruption is its 34th since written history began in 1843.

    The Big Island is mostly rural and hosts cattle ranches and coffee farms but it is also home to a few small cities, including the county seat of Hilo which has a population of 45,000.

    It’s about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Hawaii’s most populous island, Oahu, where the state capital Honolulu and beach resort Waikiki are both located.

    Mauna Loa’s volume is estimated at least 18,000 square miles (75,000 square kilometers), making it the world’s largest volcano when measured from the ocean floor to its summit.

    WHERE IS MAUNA LOA ERUPTING FROM?

    The eruption began Sunday night at its summit after a series of large earthquakes. It then spread to vents that formed in a rift zone where the mountain is splitting apart and it’s easier for magma to emerge.

    These vents are on the mountain’s northeast side and lava emerging there could head toward Hilo which is on the east side of the island.

    Ken Hon, scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said he doesn’t expect additional vents to form on the volcano’s southwest rift zone during this eruption. That means communities to the west would be spared lava flows this time.

    Mauna Loa’s also erupted from the northeast in 1984. That time, lava headed toward Hilo but stopped a few miles short of the city.

    Historically, each Mauna Loa eruption has lasted a few weeks. Hon expects the current eruption to follow this pattern.

    IS MAUNA LOA EXPLODING LIKE MOUNT ST. HELENS?

    Mauna Loa is not exploding like Washington state’s Mount St. Helens did in 1980, killing 57 people. That eruption sent ash soaring over 80,000 feet (24,384 meters) and raining down as far as 250 miles (400 kilometers) away.

    The magma in Mount St. Helens tends to be stickier and traps more gas, making it much more likely to explode when it rises. It’s of a variety called composite volcanoes, which form concave cones.

    Mauna Loa’s magma tends to be hotter, drier and more fluid. That allows the magma’s gas to escape and lava to flow down the side the volcano the way it is starting to do now. Mauna Loa is a shield volcano, named because the long, broad flanks built by repeated lava flows give it the appearance of a warrior’s shield.

    In 1989, Alaska’s Redoubt Volcano, another composite volcano, belched an 8-mile cloud of ash that clogged all four engines of a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines jet. The plane fell 13,000 feet before all engines restarted and the plane landed without injury to the 245 people aboard.

    Mauna Loa released some ash this time but on a vastly smaller scale than these examples from composite volcanoes.

    WHAT HAZARDS ARE POSED BY MAUNA LOA’S ERUPTION?

    -Lava: Molten rock could cover houses, farms or neighborhoods, depending on where it flows. But lava from the northeast rift zone will likely take at least a week to reach populated areas allowing people time to evacuate if needed.

    -Volcanic gas: Mauna Loa is releasing volcanic gases, mostly sulfur dioxide. The gases are present in their highest concentrations in the immediate area around the summit crater or vents. But they also combine with other particles to form vog, which can spread across the Big Island and even waft over to the state’s other islands.

    Vog can give healthy people burning eyes, headaches and sore throats. It can send those with asthma or other respiratory problems to the hospital.

    -Glass particles: When hot lava erupts from a fissure and rapidly cools, it forms glass particles named “Pele’s hair” and “Pele’s tears” after the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes.

    The particles tend not to travel far from volcanic vents — maybe only a few hundred yards or a mile and won’t threaten many people, said Aaron Pietruszka, an associate specialist at the University of Hawaii’s Department of Earth Sciences.

    “It just literally looks like hair strands. And that’s where the fluid lava is stretched by the wind to make long, thin strands,” said Pietruszka.

    The glass bits — as short as a few millimeters or as long as a few inches — can be sharp.

    “You wouldn’t want to be digging your hands in it because you could get a cut,” Pietruszka said.

    An N95 or KF94 mask would protect against these glass particles but not against volcanic gas, said Dr. Libby Char, the director of the state Department of Health.

    “Pele’s hair” specimens from Kilauea volcano’s eruption are visible at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

    HOW SIGNIFICANT ARE MAUNA LOA’S GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS?

    Mauna Loa released about 15,000 tons of carbon dioxide per day during its 1984 eruption, according to USGS data.

    That’s equivalent to the annual emissions from 2,400 sport utility vehicles.

    Scientists say all of Earth’s volcanoes combined emit less than one percent of the carbon dioxide that humans produce each year.

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  • Drying California lake to get $250M in drought funding

    Drying California lake to get $250M in drought funding

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The federal government said Monday it will spend $250 million over four years on environmental cleanup and restoration work around a drying Southern California lake that’s fed by the depleted Colorado River.

    The future of the Salton Sea, and who is financially responsible for it, has been a key issue in discussions over how to stave off a crisis in the Colorado River. The lake was formed in 1905 when the river overflowed, creating a resort destination that slowly morphed into an environmental disaster as water levels receded, exposing residents to harmful dust and reducing wildlife habitat.

    The lake is largely fed by runoff from farms in California’s Imperial Valley, who use Colorado River water to grow many of the nation’s winter vegetables as well as feed crops like alfalfa. As the farmers reduce their water use, less flows into the lake. California said it would only reduce its reliance on the over-tapped river if the federal government put up money to mitigate the effects of less water flowing into the sea.

    “It’s kind of a linchpin for the action we need to see on the Colorado River,” said Wade Crowfoot, California’s natural resources secretary. “Finally we are all in agreement that we can’t leave the Salton Sea on the cutting room floor, we can’t take these conservation actions — these extraordinary measures — at the expense of these residents.”

    The deal announced Monday needs approval from the Imperial Irrigation District, the largest user of Colorado River water. The water entity’s board will take it up on Tuesday.

    Both the district’s general manager and board member JB Hamby applauded the deal Monday.

    “The collaboration happening at the Salton Sea between water agencies and state, federal, and tribal governments is a blueprint for effective cooperation that the Colorado River Basin sorely needs,” Hamby said in a statement.

    The $250 million will come out of the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which set aside $4 billion to stave off the worst effects of drought across the U.S. West.

    Most of the money is contingent on the Imperial Irrigation District and Coachella Valley Water District making good on their commitments to reduce their own use of river water. Both submitted proposals to cut back their usage for payment as part of a new federal program.

    The quarter-billion dollars will largely go to bolster and speed up existing state projects designed to lower the negative environmental impact of the drying lake bed. The state has committed nearly $583 million to projects at the sea, including dust suppression and habitat restoration. One project underway aims to create wetlands and ponds that will limit dust from blowing into the air while creating safe spaces for fish and birds, according to the state.

    The deal comes as the U.S. Interior Department and the seven states that rely on the river — California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming — scramble to stave off the worst impacts of the ongoing drought and historic overuse of the river. Lakes Powell and Mead, the key reservoirs that store river water and provide hydropower across the West, are only about a quarter full.

    After months of failed negotiations over a deal to drastically cut water use, the federal government in October said it would pay farmers and cities to cut back through activities like leaving fields unplanted or lining canals to prevent water from seeping into the ground. Proposals were due earlier this month. Meanwhile, the Interior Department has taken steps to unilaterally revise guidelines that govern when water shortages are declared, a move that could force states to further cut back.

    The Salton Sea, meanwhile, became its own political flashpoint in October when Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, then up for reelection, urged the federal government to withhold any environmental cleanup money unless California agreed to give up more water. That prompted criticism he was using communities who already suffer from poor air quality as a bargaining chip.

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  • Australia argues against ‘endangered’ Barrier Reef status

    Australia argues against ‘endangered’ Barrier Reef status

    CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s environment minister said Tuesday her government will lobby against UNESCO adding the Great Barrier Reef to a list of endangered World Heritage sites.

    Officials from the U.N. cultural agency and the International Union for Conservation of Nature released a report on Monday warning that without “ambitious, rapid and sustained” climate action, the world’s largest coral reef is in peril.

    The report, which recommended shifting the Great Barrier Reef to endangered status, followed a 10-day mission in March to the famed reef system off Australia’s northeast coast that was added to the World Heritage list in 1981.

    Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the report was a reflection on Australia’s previous conservative government, which was voted out of office in May elections after nine years in power.

    She said the new center-left Labor Party government has already addressed several of the report’s concerns, including action on climate change.

    “We’ll very clearly make the point to UNESCO that there is no need to single the Great Barrier Reef out in this way” with an endangered listing, Plibersek told reporters.

    “The reason that UNESCO in the past has singled out a place as at risk is because they wanted to see greater government investment or greater government action and, since the change of government, both of those things have happened,” she added.

    The new government has legislated to commit Australia to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 43% below the 2005 level by 2030.

    The previous government only committed to a reduction of 26% to 28% by the end of the decade.

    Plibersek said her government has also committed 1.2 billion Australian dollars ($798 million) to caring for the reef and has canceled the previous government’s plans to build two major dams in Queensland state that would have affected the reef’s water quality.

    “If the Great Barrier Reef is in danger, then every coral reef in the world is in danger,” Plibersek said. “If this World Heritage site is in danger, then most World Heritage sites around the world are in danger from climate change.”

    The report said Australia’s federal government and Queensland authorities should adopt more ambitious emission reduction targets in line with international efforts to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.

    The minor Greens party, which wants Australia to slash its emissions by 75% by the end of the decade, called for the government to do more to fight climate change in light of the report.

    Jodie Rummer, a marine biologist at James Cook University in Townville who has worked on the reef for more than a decade, supported calls for Australia to aim for a 75% emissions reduction.

    “We are taking action, but that action needs to be much more rapid and much more urgent,” Rummer told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

    “We cannot claim to be doing all we can for the reef at this point. We aren’t. We need to be sending that message to the rest of the world that we are doing everything that we possibly can for the reef and that means we need to take urgent action on emissions immediately,” she added.

    Feedback from Australian officials, both at the federal and state level, will be reviewed before Paris-based UNESCO makes any official proposal to the World Heritage committee.

    In July last year, the previous Australian government garnered enough international support to defer an attempt by UNESCO to downgrade the reef’s status to “in danger” because of damage caused by climate change.

    The Great Barrier Reef accounts for around 10% of the world’s coral reef ecosystems. The network of more than 2,500 reefs covers 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles).

    Australian government scientists reported in May that more than 90% of Great Barrier Reef coral surveyed in the latest year was bleached, in the fourth such mass event in seven years.

    Bleaching is caused by global warming, but this is the reef’s first bleaching event during a La Niña weather pattern, which is associated with cooler Pacific Ocean temperatures, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority said in its annual report.

    Bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020 damaged two-thirds of the coral.

    Coral bleaches as a response to heat stress and scientists hope most of the coral will recover from the latest event.

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  • Sibling unease dogs Prince William’s ‘Earthshot’ US trip

    Sibling unease dogs Prince William’s ‘Earthshot’ US trip

    LONDON — Prince William and the Princess of Wales will be looking to focus attention on their Earthshot Prize for environmental innovators when they make their first visit to the U.S. in eight years this week, a trip likely to be dogged by tensions with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, who have criticized Britain’s royal family in the American media.

    William and his wife, Catherine, will travel to Boston on Wednesday for three days of public engagements before announcing the prize winners on Friday.

    Boston, birthplace of John F. Kennedy, was chosen to host the second annual prize ceremony because the late president’s 1962 “moonshot” speech — setting the challenge for Americans to reach the moon by the end of the decade — inspired the prince and his partners to set a similar goal for finding solutions to climate change and other environmental problems by 2030. The first Earthshot Prizes were awarded last year in London just before the U.K. hosted the COP26 climate conference.

    But as much as the royals try to focus on the prize, William is likely to face questions about Harry and Meghan, who have criticized the royal family for racism and insensitive treatment in interviews with Oprah Winfrey and other U.S. media. The Netflix series “The Crown” has also resurrected some of the more troubled times of the House of Windsor just as the royal family tries to show that it remains relevant in modern, multicultural Britain following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

    “You could say that the royal family, particularly as far as America is concerned, have had a bit of a bumpy ride of late,’’ said Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty Magazine. “They’ve come in for huge amounts of criticism on the back of ‘The Crown’ and also the Oprah Winfrey interview, which has not particularly reflected well on the House of Windsor, so I think it’s a good opportunity whilst they’re in the U.S. … to sort of redress the balance if at all possible.’’

    Whatever those efforts are, they will take place in and around Boston, where William and Kate will remain for their entire visit.

    The royal couple will keep the focus on environmental issues, meeting with local organizations responding to rising sea levels in Boston and visiting Greentown Labs in Somerville, Massachusetts, an incubator hub where local entrepreneurs are working on projects to combat climate change.

    But they will also address broader issues, using their star power to highlight the work of Roca Inc., which tries to improve the lives of young people by addressing issues such as racism, poverty and incarceration. They will also visit Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, a leader on research into the long-term impact of early childhood experiences.

    William and Kate will also meet with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and visit the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library and Museum with the late president’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy.

    “The Prince and Princess are looking forward to spending time in Boston, and to learning more about the issues that are affecting local people, as well as to celebrating the incredible climate solutions that will be spotlighted through the Earthshot Prize,” their Kensington Palace office said in a statement.

    Earthshot offers 1 million pounds ($1.2 million) in prize money to the winners of five separate categories: nature protection, clean air, ocean revival, waste elimination and climate change. The winners and all 15 finalists also receive help in expanding their projects to meet global demand.

    Among the finalists is a startup from Kenya that aims to provide cleaner-burning stoves to make cooking safer and reduce indoor air pollution. It was the brainwave of Charlot Magayi, who grew up in one of Nairobi’s largest slums and sold charcoal for fuel.

    When her daughter was severely burned by a charcoal-fired stove in 2012, she developed a stove that uses a safer fuel made from a combination of charcoal, wood and sugarcane. The stoves cut costs for users, reduce toxic emissions and lower the risk of burns, Magayi says.

    Other finalists include Fleather, a project in India that creates an alternative to leather out of floral waste; Hutan, an effort to protect orangutans in Malaysia; and SeaForester, which seeks to restore kelp forests that capture carbon and promote biodiversity.

    The winners will be announced Friday at Boston’s MGM Music Hall as part of a glitzy show headlined by Billie Eilish, Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding and Chloe x Halle. It will include video narrated by naturalist David Attenborough and actor Cate Blanchett.

    Prizes will be presented by actor Rami Malek, comedian Catherine O’Hara, and actor and activist Shailene Woodley. The show will be co-hosted by the BBC’s Clara Amfo and American actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim.

    The ceremony will be broadcast Sunday on the BBC in the U.K., PBS in the U.S. and Multichoice across Africa.

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  • Whole Foods decision to pull lobster divides enviros, pols

    Whole Foods decision to pull lobster divides enviros, pols

    PORTLAND, Maine — Environmental groups are once again at odds with politicians and fishermen in New England in the wake of a decision by high-end retail giant Whole Foods to stop selling Maine lobster.

    Whole Foods recently said that it will stop selling lobster from the Gulf of Maine at hundreds of its stores around the country. The company cited decisions by a pair of sustainability organizations to take away their endorsements of the U.S. lobster fishing industry.

    The organizations, Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch, both cited concerns about risks to rare North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear. Entanglement in gear is one of the biggest threats to the whales.

    The decision by Whole Foods was an “important action to protect the highly endangered” whale, said Virginia Carter, an associate with the Save America’s Wildlife Campaign at Environment America Research & Policy Center.

    “With fewer than 340 North Atlantic right whales in existence, the species is swimming toward extinction unless things turn around,” Carter said.

    Whole Foods said in a statement last week that it’s monitoring the situation and “committed to working with suppliers, fisheries, and environmental advocacy groups as it develops.”

    The company’s decision to stop selling lobster drew immediate criticism in Maine, which is home to the U.S.’s largest lobster fishing industry. The state’s Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and its four-member congressional delegation said in a statement that Marine Stewardship Council’s decision to suspend its certification of Gulf of Maine lobster came despite years of stewardship and protection of whales by Maine fishermen.

    “Despite this, the Marine Stewardship Council, with retailers following suit, wrongly and blindly decided to follow the recommendations of misguided environmental groups rather than science,” Mills and the delegation said.

    Whole Foods was not the first retailer to take lobster off the menu over sustainability concerns. HelloFresh, the meal kit company, was among numerous retailers to pledge to stop selling lobster in September after California-based Seafood Watch placed American and Canadian lobster fisheries on its “red list” of seafoods to avoid.

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  • Whole Foods decision to pull lobster divides enviros, pols

    Whole Foods decision to pull lobster divides enviros, pols

    PORTLAND, Maine — Environmental groups are once again at odds with politicians and fishermen in New England in the wake of a decision by high-end retail giant Whole Foods to stop selling Maine lobster.

    Whole Foods recently said that it will stop selling lobster from the Gulf of Maine at hundreds of its stores around the country. The company cited decisions by a pair of sustainability organizations to take away their endorsements of the U.S. lobster fishing industry.

    The organizations, Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch, both cited concerns about risks to rare North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear. Entanglement in gear is one of the biggest threats to the whales.

    The decision by Whole Foods was an “important action to protect the highly endangered” whale, said Virginia Carter, an associate with the Save America’s Wildlife Campaign at Environment America Research & Policy Center.

    “With fewer than 340 North Atlantic right whales in existence, the species is swimming toward extinction unless things turn around,” Carter said.

    Whole Foods said in a statement last week that it’s monitoring the situation and “committed to working with suppliers, fisheries, and environmental advocacy groups as it develops.”

    The company’s decision to stop selling lobster drew immediate criticism in Maine, which is home to the U.S.’s largest lobster fishing industry. The state’s Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and its four-member congressional delegation said in a statement that Marine Stewardship Council’s decision to suspend its certification of Gulf of Maine lobster came despite years of stewardship and protection of whales by Maine fishermen.

    “Despite this, the Marine Stewardship Council, with retailers following suit, wrongly and blindly decided to follow the recommendations of misguided environmental groups rather than science,” Mills and the delegation said.

    Whole Foods was not the first retailer to take lobster off the menu over sustainability concerns. HelloFresh, the meal kit company, was among numerous retailers to pledge to stop selling lobster in September after California-based Seafood Watch placed American and Canadian lobster fisheries on its “red list” of seafoods to avoid.

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  • US nuclear waste repository begins filling new disposal area

    US nuclear waste repository begins filling new disposal area

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Workers at the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository have started using a newly mined disposal area at the underground facility in southern New Mexico.

    Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant made the announcement this week, saying the first containers of waste to be entombed in the new area came from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee — one of the many labs and government sites across the country that package up waste and ship it to WIPP.

    Known as Panel 8, the new area consists of seven separate rooms for placing special boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements.

    Each room measures 33 feet (10 meters) wide, 16 feet (4.9 meters) high and runs the length of a football field minus the end zones.

    Carved out of an ancient salt formation about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) deep, the subterranean landfill located outside of Carlsbad received its first shipment in 1999. The idea is that the shifting salt will eventually entomb the radioactive waste left from decades of bomb-making and nuclear weapons research.

    In 2014, a fire and separate radiation release forced a nearly three-year closure of the repository and a costly overhaul of the policies and procedures that govern WIPP and the nation’s multibillion-dollar cleanup program for Cold War-era waste.

    Operations had to be reduced after the repository reopened because areas of the facility were contaminated and airflow needed for mining and disposal operations was limited. Now, a multimillion-dollar project is underway to install a new ventilation system, and state regulators are considering a permit change that some critics have said could lead to expanded operations.

    The state Environment Department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau issued a plan this month aimed at ensuring the public has opportunities to comment on modifications or permit renewal applications.

    Sean Dunagan, president and project manager of Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that manages the repository, said in a statement that operations already have become more efficient with the new panel.

    Creating a panel requires mining nearly 160,000 tons of salt, and it takes about 2 1/2 years to fill it with waste. For example, Panel 7 is filled with 20,056 containers, with most of them being 55-gallon (208-litre) drums.

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