Bloomberg (July 25)
“The world’s oceans experienced a staggering amount of warming in 2023, as vast marine heat waves affected 96% of their surface, breaking records for intensity, longevity and scale…. That could mark a turning point in the way the oceans behave, potentially signaling a tipping point after which average sea temperatures will be reset higher and some ecosystems may not recover.”
Tags: 2023, 96, Ecosystems, Intensity, Longevity, Marine heat waves, Oceans, Records, Scale, Sea temperatures, Staggering, Surface, Tipping point, Warming, World
Washington Post (June 13)
“The cause of the environment is losing the public debate. Whether the goal is to reduce air pollution, keep pesticides and nitrogen out of waterways, enforce water conservation” or avoiding catastrophic climate change, “the agenda to preserve the globe’s natural ecosystems has been set on its heels.”
Tags: Air pollution, Catastrophic, Climate change, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Losing, Nitrogen, Pesticides, Public debate, Waterways
Washington Post (April 7)
Numerous conflicts are “pitting the environment against, well, the environment. Solar plants and wind farms, transmission lines and carbon-capture projects face opposition from conservationists and other environmental groups asking courts to stop new infrastructure from encroaching on wetlands, forests and other ecosystems.” Trade-offs like these “generally lean against developers,” but they were “written in an era before those developers included promoters of the green power that humanity needs to stave off climate change.” Things need fixing. We should not “let environmentalism sabotage green energy.”
Tags: Carbon capture, Climate change, Conservationists, Ecosystems, Environmentalism, Forests, Green power, Opposition, Solar, Trade-offs, Transmission lines, Wetlands, Wind
The Economist (August 3)
“Still a livelihood for 1.5bn people, forests maintain local and regional ecosystems and, for the other 6.2bn, provide a—fragile and creaking—buffer against climate change. Now droughts, wildfires and other human-induced changes are compounding the damage from chainsaws. In the tropics, which contain half of the world’s forest biomass, tree-cover loss has accelerated by two-thirds since 2015; if it were a country, the shrinkage would make the tropical rainforest the world’s third-biggest carbon-dioxide emitter, after China and America.”
Tags: Buffer, Chainsaws, China, Climate change, CO2, Damage, Droughts, Ecosystems, Forests, Livelihood, Tropical rainforest, U.S., Wildfires
Bloomberg (September 22)
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s “preliminary recommendation is to let commercial fishing resume in the Pacific Remote Islands and in the nearby Rose Atoll Marine National Monument. Yet commercial tuna fishing is precisely what put these ecosystems under pressure. To thrive, the creatures need to be undisturbed, and this protection has to extend far enough to allow them to roam…. The Trump administration is wrong to be contemplating this backward step.”
Tags: Commercial fishing, Ecosystems, Pacific Remote Islands, Recommendation, Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, Trump, Tuna, Undisturbed, Wrong, Zinke
