Climate Point: Tribes are ready for an ancient river to be restored
El Niño, hurricane season's end and ancient rivers were among the interesting and important climate and environment headlines over the past week.
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and environmental stories across the nation. I'm Dinah Voyles Pulver, one of the national reporters on Paste BN's climate and environment team, coming at you from balmy Florida, where a flurry of sweaters and boots appeared this week in response to overnight lows in the '50s.
For thousands of years, the Klamath River flowed through a massive basin that threads from high desert in eastern Oregon through the Cascade Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, its resources central to the cultural and spiritual heritage of the region's Indigenous Peoples.
Sometimes referred to as the "upside down river" for the path it takes to the sea, the Klamath is also called the "Everglades of the West" for its storied biodiversity. Concern and controversy have swirled around the river, its people, its water and its salmon for decades. A major reclamation is underway to remove dams in the lower river and try to restore the region's once abundant salmon, but drought and climate change loom large.
The Arizona Republic this week published a sweeping look at river restoration and what it could mean for the region by Debra Utacia Krol, who writes about Indigenous communities in Arizona and the Intermountain West, with support from the Catena Foundation. For some, the dam removal is only the beginning of the Klamath's recovery from 150 years of damage to land and waters, Krol writes.
“We need a healthy ecology to be a healthy people,” said former Klamath Tribes Chairman Don Gentry.
Rivers and the traditional knowledge of the nation's Indigenous peoples were also topics covered by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. That includes a piece on how the knowledge of the region's Tribes could be critical to safeguarding resources and cleaning up land, air and water as the climate changes and another on how such an approach could change people's relationship to food and help the land.
Two stories in the Journal Sentinel explored issues along the mighty Mississippi River.
"One of the world’s great rivers, it hosts an abundance of wildlife habitat, provides drinking water for almost 20 million people and carries more than 500 million tons of freight per year, including 60% of all grain exports from the U.S.," according to a story by Madeline Heim, a Report for America corps reporter.
Heim also talked with commercial fishers along the Mississippi, where commercial fishing has declined for decades.
Bring on El Niño winter and say goodbye to hurricane season
With Thanksgiving turkeys in our rear view mirrors, attention is turning toward winter weather and the holiday movies with their endless mugs of hot chocolate, glowing fires and glistening snow. Will it snow? How much will it snow? Reporters around the network tackled these topics, with a look at how El Niño could put the skids on dreams of a White Christmas while lake effect snow, perhaps being fueled by the warming climate, piles up in the Great Lakes.
Meanwhile, the Atlantic hurricane season ended Thursday, with the fourth most named storms in modern history, despite the presence of an El Niño. Hurricane Idalia was the only U.S. landfalling hurricane in 2023. The season produced the most named storms of any El Niño-influenced year in the modern record, said Matthew Rosencrans, lead hurricane forecaster at the Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service.
In Southern California, the effects of Hurricane Hilary have lingered in the Coachella Valley. Officials said it's likely mud flows and lingering dirt deposits after Hilary's flooding rains are contributing to heavier than normal air pollution.
Climate change, renewable energy and offshore wind turbines
On a dire note, officials noted the planet's increasing trend toward encounters with dangerous temperature thresholds that scientists have warned must be avoided to avert catastrophic consequences. And another story explained why the continued burning of fossil fuels adds to the dangers.
In Detroit, reporter Keith Matheny looked at how clean energy legislation promises to set up battles over local land use as some local governments reject renewable energy projects.
In Rhode Island, companies announced the installation of their first turbine in an offshore wind farm and approval of an even larger project in the wings. Elsewhere, federal regulators approved construction and operation of two wind facilities spanning roughly 125 square miles of Atlantic Ocean offshore of New York.
Read on for more, including an update on Florida manatees and a rare fossil discovery in California. Some of these stories may require a subscription. Sign up and get access to all eNewspapers in the Paste BN Network. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox for free once a week, sign up here.