Natural Resources

"Billions have been spent to protect the beachfront. But inch by inch, water is winning the war."

"Conservationists are accusing federal land managers of illegally withholding information about environmental assessments used to justify plans to create fuel breaks to slow wildfires by clearing forests and shrubs across six western states with little if any public oversight."

"Soil acts as a carbon sink in the global carbon cycle because it locks away decomposed organic matter. But deforestation, various agricultural practices, and a changing climate are releasing it back into the atmosphere and oceans as carbon dioxide, resulting in an imbalance in global carbon budgets."

"There’s a forgotten history that should serve as a warning — wildfire isn’t unique to the West. Now the warming climate is increasing the risk of major wildfires across America. And more people are moving to fire-prone areas without realizing the danger."

"Drought is shrinking one of the country’s largest reservoirs, revealing a hidden Eden."

"For thousands of years, the gray whales of the eastern Pacific have undertaken one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal — starting in the cold waters of the Arctic, then down past the densely populated coasts and beaches of California before finally finding refuge in the warm, shallow estuaries of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. ... Starting in December 2018, this magnificent migration took a fatal turn."

"A Houston-based energy company is asking a federal bankruptcy court for permission to walk away from its aging infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. Fieldwood Energy is attempting to shift responsibility for removing 1,715 wells, 276 platforms and 281 pipelines to oil and gas companies that previously held leases for the same area, according to court documents."

"Globally, numerous infectious diseases are being transmitted between wildlife, livestock and humans at escalating rates, including outbreaks of COVID-19, Ebola, dengue, HIV and others, as the threat of new emergent zoonotic diseases grows ever greater. The cost is huge in lives lost and ruined economies. The driver: human activities, particularly intrusion into wild landscapes and eating and trading wild animals."

"Human-driven planetary warming threatens to collapse a system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that regulate and impact weather across the globe, a new scientific study has found."

"Once the headquarters of Jean Lafitte and later the site of a U.S. military fort, West Grand Terre island now hosts a fleet of modern excavators and sand-pumping pipelines rather than smuggled treasure or cannon. The $102 million restoration of West Grand Terre, adjacent to Grand Isle, marks a milestone in Louisiana’s effort to fortify its first line of defense against hurricanes."