Climate Point: Endangered species roll-back, U.N. warns of food loss, wind energy grows
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate change, energy and the environment. I'm Janet Wilson, writing to you from Palm Springs, California, where a number of hardy plants and animals well-adapted to hot desert sands are near extinction due to human activity.
They and hundreds of species could face a tougher road coming back, thanks to a roll-back of protections in the landmark Endangered Species Act that was unfurled on Monday, as Doyle Rice reports for Paste BN. Monarch butterflies, wolverines and other species could die out, critics charge, and they vow to sue. But property rights groups praised the "common-sense" revisions.
Here are some other stories that may be of interest:
MUST READ STORIES
Chow down. Earth's food supplies are at increasing risk due to rapidly growing climate change, a new United Nations study finds, but if people change the way they eat, grow food and manage forests, it could help save the planet from a far warmer future, scientists said. That's the word from Associated Press' Seth Borenstein and Jamey Keaten.
Wide open. The seas around Alaska are now ice free, worried experts report, with a "vicious" cycle of warmer temperatures and dark ocean water driving faster melt. "I’m running out of adjectives to describe the scope of change we’re seeing," said Jeremy Mathis, a longtime Arctic researcher and director at the National Academies of Sciences. Mark Kaufman at Mashable fills us in.
POLITICAL CLIMATE
Put this in your pipe. EPA has proposed new rules that would hobble states' and tribes' powers to slow or stop controversial pipeline proposals. As Phil McKenna with Inside Climate News tell us, the proposed changes to the Clean Water Act, announced Friday, would cut the amount of time to review new projects to no more than one year. They also would limit states to considering only water quality and allow the federal government in some cases to override states' decisions to deny permits.
I quit. A veteran food scientist has quit the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in protest over Trump administration efforts to bury his study about how rice is losing nutrients because of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Lewis Ziska told POLITICO's Helena Bottemiller Evich he was alarmed when department officials questioned his findings — which raise serious concerns for 600 million people who depend on rice.
EPA taps ex-oil exec. Ken McQueen, a former oil and gas executive, has been appointed to head EPA's Region 6, including Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and 66 tribal nations, reports Noel Lyn Smith with the Farmington Daily Times. EPA chief Andrew Wheeler said his public service and natural resources acumen make him "an excellent choice." But the Sierra Club denounced the pick: "Putting an oil and gas executive like Ken McQueen in charge of our drinking water and the air our children breathe is a dangerous mistake."
ENERGY CLEAN AND DIRTY
Bigger is better. Wind energy is growing, literally, reports Benjamin Storrow with E & E News. American wind developers are installing increasingly large turbines, capable of generating twice as much power as their predecessors and opening up new areas of the country to wind development. That will help when federal production tax credits expire at year's end, with industry representatives predicting only a modest slowdown.
Pass the salt, please. Two companies want to tap a giant underground Utah salt dome for compressed air energy storage, an old but rarely used technology that can store large amounts of power. It would work like a giant battery, explains Sammy Roth with the Los Angeles Times, who says it could help that city transition completely to clean but fickle renewable energy.
Dummies. Frustrated California oil regulators say higher-ups created empty "dummy" files that allowed oil companies to skip lengthy safety and environmental reviews. I report for the Desert Sun.
AND ANOTHER THING
Wonder Down Under. To save tiny penguins, an Australian suburb was wiped off the map, writes Besha Rodeel for The New York Times. Since the 1920s, visitors have flocked to Phillips Island to see the world's smallest penguins waddle out of the surf to their burrows. But housing development sent their numbers plummeting. In 1985, the state government decided to buy every property on Summerland Peninsula and return the land to the penguins. The process was completed in 2010. Their numbers have come roaring back, and so has tourism.
Here are the latest carbon dioxide numbers. Scientists say to keep a livable planet, we need to cut the amount to 350 parts per million. We're well above that and rising.
That's all for this week. For more climate, energy and environment news, follow me on Twitter @janetwilson66 You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here