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"Restoring global forests where they occur naturally could potentially capture an additional 226 gigatons of planet-warming carbon, equivalent to about a third of the amount that humans have released since the beginning of the Industrial Era, according to a new study published on Monday in the journal Nature."
"California’s ancient sequoias — some of which have stood more than 1,000 years — are facing an existential threat from increasingly intense wildfires linked to climate change. But federal efforts to thin forests to reduce fire risks are drawing pushback from conservation groups."
"Interstate fishing regulators are limiting the harvest of a primordial species of invertebrate to try to help rebuild its population and aid a threatened species of bird."
"A financial crisis has enveloped Enviva, the Maryland-based company that’s been harvesting large swaths of forest in the Southeast United States to make wood pellets for electricity production in the United Kingdom and Europe." "The company’s stock price plunged as its new interim CEO announced financial losses. Environmentalists had long questioned a business model they said was based on greenwashing."
"After decades of unrestricted pumping in the rain-starved northwestern corner of the Mojave Desert, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin Authority has the distinction of managing one of the most critically overdrawn aquifers in California."
"Exxon Mobil said on Monday that it planned to set up a facility in Arkansas to produce lithium, a critical raw material for electric vehicles, which pose one of the biggest challenges to the company’s oil business."
"On a bright day this fall, tractors crisscrossed Gayle Goschie’s farm about an hour outside Portland, Oregon. Goschie is in the beer business — a fourth-generation hops farmer. Fall is the off-season, when the trellises are bare, but recently, her farming team has been adding winter barley, a relatively newer crop in the world of beer, to their rotation, preparing barley seeds by the bucketful."
"Faced with criticism about their presence at negotiations, leaders of such [oil] companies argue they are part of the transition to renewable energies, an argument that negotiators like U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry have cautiously endorsed. But an Associated Press review of how much these companies invest in green energies, along with the priorities laid out in their annual reports, cast doubts on genuine commitments to transition."
"Tens of millions of people — and millions of acres of farmland — rely on the Colorado River’s water. But as its supply shrinks, these farmers get more water from the river than entire states."
"At fundraisers, Trump has been wooing oil billionaires with a variety of pitches, including false claims about electric cars".
"Earlier this summer, oil billionaire Harold Hamm called for Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race. He made contributions to the presidential campaigns of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and questioned publicly whether Trump could beat President Biden in the 2024 election.
"Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon dropped by 22.3% in the 12 months through July, government data showed on Thursday, as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made good on a pledge to rein in the destruction that happened under his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro."
"Australia and Pacific Island state Tuvalu on Friday signed a security and climate change treaty designed to counter China's growing influence in the Pacific and address the low-lying island nation's concerns about rising seas induced by climate change."
"As the world's nations enter another round of talks this week on creating a first-ever treaty to contain plastic pollution, officials are bracing for tough negotiations over whether to limit the amount of plastic being produced or just to focus on the management of waste."
"As oil and gas companies struggle to dispose of their wastewater in the Permian Basin, the city of Midland is challenging applications for disposal wells near one of its drinking water sources."
"Firefighting foam contaminated groundwater beneath O’Hare and Midway airports with PFAS chemicals, military investigators have found. It’s unclear how far it has spread."
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