Ancient fossil footprints have been stolen from Death Valley National Park.
The park announced that scientists who visit the area to document the fossilized animal tracks discovered the theft recently and reported it to rangers.
The fossils formed 3 million to 5 million years ago after animals walked across what was once a muddy lakeshore in the park that sprawls across 3.4 million acres in California and Nevada.
Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds says it’s illegal to collect fossils, rocks or anything else in the park. “The purpose of National Parks is to conserve the landscape and everything it contains for the next generation,” he said in a public statement.
This follows several other incidents of vandalism and theft in the park. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports recent cases included a man whose tire tracks defaced the park’s famous dry lake — the unfortunately named Racetrack Playa — during a 10-mile joyride in August, and a woman who pleaded guilty to damaging government property in a graffiti-spraying spree in 2014.
A $1,000 reward is being offered by National Park Service investigators for information leading to an arrest and conviction of whoever took the fossils.
The Park Service said anyone with information about the stolen fossils can submit a tip by phone (1-888-653-009), text (1-202-379-4761) or email ([email protected]). Or visit www.nps.gov/isb and click “Submit a Tip.”
When satellites first began taking photos of our Earth it revolutionized the way we saw our atmosphere, providing images on a grand scale from above. Now the advent of personal tech, such as smart phones, is giving us a new perspective on the sky from below.
This increased use of technology is what prompted the World Meteorological Organization to add 11 new cloud classifications to their International Cloud Atlas, a globally recognized source for meteorologists. A far cry from simple white puffs, these 11 new cloud types roll, dip, and menace their way across the skies.
Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, believes that this democratized access to photographing and sharing images will help create a sense of interconnectivity and appreciation for how we treat our atmosphere.
These 11 additions are the first updates that the atlas has received in 30 years, and much of the change can be attributed to citizen scientists who can share and discuss clouds by uploading photos to the Atlas’s site.
The International Cloud Atlas was first created in 1896 and has been a resource of cloud types and photos that has helped train meteorologists for decades.
Dartmouth College and The Trust for Public Land entered into a land deal that promises to protect an old farm estate that offers birding and hiking opportunities just 3 miles from Hanover, New Hampshire’s Main Street.
Immediately after purchasing the 175-acre Hudson Farm from Dartmouth, the trust gave it away to the National Park Service so that it could be added to the Appalachian Trail.
It’s a prime location. All the neighbors use it for hiking and snowshoeing and skiing in the fields in the wintertime.
A mixture of forests, wetlands and open fields, the property includes a trail system that links areas of Hanover to the Appalachian Trail.
The preservation of those grassy fields is particularly good news for bobolinks, songbirds that are in decline in the state and have lost about 2 percent of their numbers for a 10-year period ending in 2013, according to New Hampshire’s Wildlife Management Plan, which cited habitat loss as one of the driving factors.
Dartmouth bought the property in 1963 and worked the land, according to a Dartmouth spokeswoman. “For years, the fields were hayed and the land was used by the College for research and teaching” subjects, including biology and terrestrial ecology.
Back in 2015, the world’s governments met in Paris and agreed to keep global warming below 2°C, to avoid the worst risks of a hotter planet. For context, the planet’s warmed ~1°C since the 19th century.
One problem with framing the goal this way, though, is that it’s maddeningly abstract. What does staying below 2°C entail? Papers on this topic usually drone on about a “carbon budget” — the total amount of CO2 humans can emit this century before we likely bust past 2°C — and then debate how to divvy up that budget among nations. There’s math involved. It’s eye-glazing, and hard to translate into actual policy. It’s also a long-term goal, easy for policymakers to shrug off.
So, not surprisingly, countries have thus far responded by putting forward a welter of vague pledges on curbing emissions that are hard to compare and definitely don’t add up to staying below 2°C. Everyone agrees more is needed, but there’s lots of uncertainty as to what “more” means. Few people grasp how radically — or how quickly — we’d have to revamp the global economy to meet the Paris climate goals.
Surely there’s a better, more concrete way to think about this. So, in a new paper for Science, a group of European researchers try to do just that — laying out in vivid detail what would have to happen in each of the next three decades if we want to stay well below 2°C. Fair warning: It’s unsettling.
This is it. The battle over the future of US climate policy kicked off in earnest today. In a sweeping new executive order, President Trump has ordered his Cabinet to start demolishing a wide array of Obama-era policies on global warming — including emissions rules for power plants, limits on methane leaks, a moratorium on federal coal leasing, and the use of the social cost of carbon to guide government actions.
Everyone knew this was coming: Trump has said repeatedly that he wants to repeal US climate regulations and unshackle the fossil fuel industry. But this order is only a first step. Trump’s administration will now spend years trying to rewrite rules and fend off legal challenges from environmentalists. And it’s not clear they’ll always prevail: Some of President Obama’s climate policies may prove harder to uproot than thought.
Trump’s order, meanwhile, won’t say anything about whether he wants the US to stay in or withdraw from the Paris climate deal, the key international treaty on global warming. Although Trump vowed to pull out of the accord during the campaign, some of his advisers, like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have reportedly warned that he’d face immense diplomatic backlash if he did so. A White House official said that’s “still under discussion.”
The order also won’t challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s fundamental authority to regulate greenhouse gases via the so-called “endangerment finding,” a power that Obama used to craft climate policy after early attempts to pass legislation failed. That’s important: If the EPA’s regulatory authority survives the Trump era, then a future president could use it to write new rules to curb US emissions. That’s what happens when climate policy is crafted through the executive branch, as it currently is in the United States — things can change drastically with a new president.
So, with that said, here are the key components of Trump’s new climate and energy order…
Trump’s upcoming executive order meant to boost fossil fuel jobs may end up harming an even bigger job creator — renewable energy.
Nationally, clean energy jobs outnumber fossil fuel jobs by more than 2.5 to 1, according to a new Sierra Club analysis of Department of Energy jobs data. And when it comes to coal and gas — two sectors President Donald Trump has promised to bolster through his upcoming executive order on energy regulation — clean energy jobs outnumber jobs dealing with those two fossil fuels by 5 to 1.
“Right now, clean energy jobs already overwhelm dirty fuels in nearly every state across America, and that growth is only going to continue as clean energy keeps getting more affordable and accessible by the day,” Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said in a statement. “These facts make it clear that Donald Trump is attacking clean energy jobs purely in order to boost the profits of fossil fuel billionaires.”
According to the Sierra Club’s analysis, nearly every state in the country has more jobs in clean energy than fossil fuels — just nine states have more jobs in fossil fuels than in clean energy. Some of largest discrepancies between clean energy jobs and fossil fuel jobs were in states like Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, where jobs in renewable energy “vastly exceeded jobs in the fossil fuel industry,” according to Sierra Club’s analysis. Many of these places also happen to be states that helped Trump win the presidential election in November.
The Cradle of Forestry in America historic site will begin the 2017 season on April 8 with a living history event, “Old Time Plowing and Folkways.”
David and Diane Burnette from Haywood County will demonstrate how their Percheron draft horses work the land the old way. Weather permitting, they will plow the Cradle’s vegetable garden along the Biltmore Campus Trail and teach a skill that was once familiar to many.
The Cradle of Forestry’s living history volunteers will demonstrate their crafts among the historic buildings, including wood working, candle making, chair caning, blacksmithing and crafting corn husk dolls.
The Cradle of Forestry will be open daily, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., from April 8 – November 5. At various times during the season, living history volunteers will demonstrate wood carving, fiber arts, blacksmithing, traditional music and making corn husk dolls. The Giving Tree Gift Shop at the Cradle offers many of their creations as well as forest related books, maps, gifts and snacks. The Café at the Cradle will serve lunch from 11 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. daily.
A full schedule of events is planned in 2017 including Migratory Bird Day April 29, the Songcatchers Music Series Sunday afternoons in July, and Forest Festival Day October 7. Visit www.cradleofforestry.com for a full event schedule, details and updates on interpretive programs and exhibits.
The Cradle of Forestry in America is proud to be part of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. Thorough out the season it offers many opportunities to explore the five themes of Blue Ridge Heritage- craft, music, natural, agricultural, and Cherokee heritage.
Admission to the Cradle of Forestry is $5.00 for adults and free for youth under 16 years of age. America the Beautiful passes, Golden Age Passports and Every Kid in a Park passes are honored. The Cradle of Forestry in America Interpretive Association provides reduced adult admission of $2.00 on Tuesdays.
Admission includes the new film, First in Forestry- Carl Alwin Schenck and The Biltmore Forest School, hands-on exhibits and scavenger hunts. It also includes historic cabins, antique equipment and forest scenery on three paved trails, the Adventure Zone designed to reach children with autism and engage young families, and guided trail tours and living history demonstrations when available.
The Cradle of Forestry is located on Hwy. 276 in the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, six miles north of Looking Glass Falls and four miles south of the Blue Ridge Parkway. For more information call 828-877-3130 or go to www.cradleofforestry.com.
The scenic ridgeline and south facing slopes of Little White Oak Mountain, slated as the site for a 687-unit residential development north of the Town of Columbus, NC known as the Foster Creek Preserve in the mid-2000s, will now be permanently protected thanks to the cooperative action of local organizations. Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy (CMLC), working closely with the Pacolet Area Conservancy (PAC), purchased the 1,068-acre property in December 2016 to conserve its dramatic views, rare species, wildlife habitats, and opportunities for outdoor recreation.
A major gift from private donors and a $1.86 million loan from the Conservation Trust for North Carolina enabled Hendersonville-based CMLC to close on the purchase with the sellers, American Land Fund of Philadelphia. The conservation organizations are now pursuing a strategy to fundraise and convey sections of the property to collaborating agencies in order to be made whole on the purchase.
Over coming years CMLC and PAC hope to transfer portions of the property to the capable management of state and local partner organizations including the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, the Polk County Recreation Department, and the Housing Assistance Corporation, a nonprofit Hendersonville-based developer of affordable housing.
The Tryon-based Pacolet Area Conservancy has targeted the tract as a conservation priority for over a decade and at one point worked with the previous owner on a plan to protect the high-elevation part of the property with a conservation easement. Although the easement never came to fruition, PAC maintained periodic contact with the owners and, working with CMLC, approached the American Land Fund (ALF) once again in 2015. The dialogue initiated then led ultimately to the offer by ALF to sell for a price below market value if the transaction could be completed by the end of 2016.
Plans call for the majority of the tract – up to 600 acres — to be added to the adjoining Green River Game Lands. The 14,000-acre game land located in and around the Green River Gorge in southeast Henderson and western Polk counties is managed by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and is primarily used by anglers, hunters and hikers. Though the game land has expanded many times since its creation in 1950, this addition will be the first since 2008 and will provide a point of public access from Houston Road.
The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously on Thursday to enact regulations that will curb the amount of methane the oil and gas industry can leak and vent during production and storage.
The new rule — years in the making — requires oil and gas companies to monitor infrastructure and repair leaks. It is a massive step forward for California’s air quality programs, advocates say, and it is the strictest in the nation.
The Air Resources Board expects the new rule will reduce methane leaks by 45 percent over the next nine years.
The oil and gas industry contributes about a third of the United States’ overall methane emissions. Not only is methane a powerful greenhouse gas, trapping heat 86 times more effectively than carbon dioxide over a 20-year span, but leaking and flaring natural gas also adds benzene (a carcinogen) and NOx compounds (which create ground-level ozone) into the air we breathe.
Still, the environmental dangers of leaking methane haven’t stopped Congress or Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from taking steps this year to reduce accountability from the oil and gas industry. In February, the House passed a Congressional Review Act to rescind a Bureau of Land Management rule that required oil and gas operators on public lands to limit their methane leaks and flaring.
A Wilderness Society report finds that in a little over a century of statehood, New Mexico has liquidated about 30 percent of the land originally granted to it—nearly 4 million acres—and sold it to cattle ranchers, oil and gas companies, railroads and other development interests.
The report underscores again why we should be skeptical of politicians’ guarantees that the land takeover movement won’t ultimately serve to enrich special interests at the expense of ordinary Americans.
The findings arrive at a felicitous moment. In the last few months, a fringe-led campaign to seize national public lands has moved from isolated state legislatures—including New Mexico’s-to the halls of Congress. Early in 2017, New Mexicans rallied in opposition to a House bill-later withdrawn-that would have sold off millions of acres of land in the state and nine others (the parcels were to be “disposed of,” in the parlance of that legislation).
Anti-public lands lawmakers have frequently tried to quell fears about the “land takeover” enterprise by claiming that, once seized, public lands will not be sold off. Like a similar report about Idaho’s state lands, released in May 2016, these data suggest New Mexicans should be wary of such promises.
At least nine cougar sightings have been confirmed. Tennesee Wildlife Resources Agency said they will be monitoring the natural expansion of the cougar. All of the confirmed sightings listed are in Middle or West Tennessee. There are several possible reports in East Tennessee, but none confirmed by the TWRA.
Zoo Knoxville Director of Animal Care Phil Colclough said it could be several years before more cougars are in the area.
“Obviously they are coming this way there’s a few scattered records here and there and I think they will be here at some point, coming down from the north. We obviously have a lot of deer in this area so the prey is here for them to have,” said Colclough.
According to TWRA the cougar is native to Tennessee, but was extirpated because of hunting and habitat loss.
Colclough said the return of the cougars might be good for the environment.
“They could control the deer population. It would be huge, think about all the car accidents and the problems deer cause because of their over population,” said Colclough.
According to TWRA cougars, once they establish a home range can be up to 150 miles. They can travel up to 600 miles or more to find that home range.
It is also illegal to hunt and kill cougars. The TWRA on their website states, “Tennessee law protects all animals for which no hunting season is proclaimed, the cougar is protected in Tennessee. It is illegal to kill a cougar in Tennessee except in the case of imminent threat of life and injury. Also, if a landowner is experiencing property damage made by wildlife, that landowner has the right to protect his/her property.”
Will political expediency doom one of the Lone Star State’s most beautiful natural wonders?
In West Texas, high in the Chinati Mountains — yes, there are mountains in Texas — it is hard to imagine a giant wall smack dab in the middle of this fantastic view. But there it is, in the thick of rugged desert beauty few Americans trek out to see: a gigantic, imaginary line, primed, if our enthusiastic president gets his wish, for a “big, beautiful wall.”
It’s one thing to contemplate an all-inclusive border wall in the abstract, as many Americans far from the border do; it’s quite another to actually go where the rubber will hit the road. And for more than 1,000 miles of the U.S.–Mexican border, that road turns out to be a river.
Here things get goofy: Where will the river portion of the wall go? On the Texan side of the Rio Grande, effectively blocking off river access and views? Down the middle of the river, just to be fair? Right through a hidden gem of a national park, which borders two massive Mexican conservation tracts and boasts daunting natural boundaries on either side?
The answer to that last question, at least according to a recent Department of Homeland Security report, is yes. Big Bend National Park, a Texas treasure and one of the most remote national parks in the continental U.S., hosts about 118 miles of the Rio Grande — and, therefore, 118 miles of the Mexican border.
It’s not easy to get to Big Bend, and to get out, visitors must pass through Border Patrol checkpoints on north–south roads. The DHS report, which prices the wall at $21.6 billion, slates Big Bend for the second phase of its construction.
This global celebration of forests provides a platform to raise awareness of the importance of all types of woodlands and trees, and celebrate the ways in which they sustain and protect us. This year we highlight the importance of wood energy in improving people’s lives, powering sustainable development and mitigating climate change.
Wood is a major renewable energy source – Wood provides the world with more energy than solar, hydroelectric or wind power, accounting for roughly 45 percent of current global renewable energy supply (27 percent of total primary energy supply in Africa, 13 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean and 5 percent in Asia and Oceania).
Wood energy powers economic development – Almost 900 million people, mostly in developing countries, are engaged in the wood-energy sector on a part- or full-time basis. Modernizing the wood energy sector can help revitalize rural economies and stimulate enterprise development – greater investment in wood energy production and advanced wood fuels can provide revenue to finance better forest management, more growing forests and more jobs.
Wood and trees contribute to optimal urban living and lower energy bills – Strategically placed trees in urban areas can cool the air by between 2 to 8 degrees C.
Wood energy mitigates climate change and fosters sustainable development – Globally, forests hold an energy content approximately 10 times that of the world’s annual primary energy consumption. They thus have significant potential as renewable resources to meet global energy demand. Forests provide clean air, water and energy. Sustainably managed forests can provide renewable and carbon neutral energy for a greener future.
Forests for energy, now and in a future global green economy – Greater investment in technological innovation and in sustainably managed forests is the key to increasing forests’ role as a major source of renewable energy. In this way, we invest in our sustainable future, in meeting several Sustainable Development Goals and in growing a green economy. Increased areas of sustainably household and community woodlots and the use of clean and efficient wood stoves can give millions more people in developing countries access to cheap, reliable and renewable energy.
Immense herds of up to 30 million bison once thundered across the plains of North America. Like their American brethren, overhunted Canadian plains bison came dangerously close to extinction in the late 1800s. In an effort to reverse the damage, Parks Canada on February 1, 2017 successfully restored 16 healthy bison—transporting them the 280 miles from Elk Island National Park, 30 miles east of Edmonton, Alberta, to their original, rightful home on the eastern slopes of Banff National Park.
This is the first step in a five-year pilot project to reintroduce the animals to the Banff wilderness. For 16 months, this initial little herd—consisting of six two- to three-year-old bulls and 10 two- to three-year-old pregnant heifers—will be kept in an enclosed pasture in Banff’s Panther Valley. A team at Parks Canada expect that, after having twice calved, they will release the herd into a larger, 1,200-square-kilometre (463-square-mile) zone in summer 2018. There, they will be free to interact with other native species and to forage for food. The idea is “to anchor these initial animals to this new landscape, so they adopt it as their new home and range.”
In 2022, Parks Canada will reevaluate the project and, if long-term bison restoration to the area is deemed feasible, develop a management plan from there. “If we didn’t think there was a good chance of this working I don’t think we ever would have started,” a spokesman says, acknowledging that if necessary for population control, Parks Canada may ultimately have to consider pulling animals out and allowing for hunting. In that case, he says priority would be given to local First Nations groups (as Canada’s indigenous peoples are known), and is careful to add, “But that’s not the emphasis—our intent isn’t to create a population for hunting opportunities.”
Once a key source of food, clothing, shelter, and religious symbolism, bison carry great spiritual and cultural meaning for the First Nations. With the 19th-century massacre of the bison herds came the end of an entire way of life. In fact, so significant is the bison to the North American and indigenous story that in recording the continent’s past, historians tend to differentiate between “bison” and “post-bison” eras.
Tompkins Conservation signed an agreement with Chile’s government to donate 1 million acres for new national parks in the largest private donation of its kind for the South American nation.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed the deal with Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, the widow of American conservationist Doug Tompkins, who built a legacy protecting threatened ecosystems in Argentina and Chile.
“This is a key step to treasuring this giant source of biodiversity and safe keep it in the public interest,” Bachelet said at a ceremony in southern Chile.
The agreement will provide land to create three new national parks, expand three existing national parks and unite some national forests into two national parks.
The proposal will eventually help create the “Route of Parks,” a network of 17 parks spanning more than 1,500 miles from Puerto Montt to Cape Horn. In all, the plan ultimately seeks to increase Chile’s national parkland by more than 10 million acres. Tompkins Conservation said the area that will be protected is three times the size of the United States’ Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks combined.
Today, the California condor is regarded as one of the rarest birds in the world. In Pleistocene times, condors ranged from Canada to Mexico, across the southern United States to Florida, and north on the east coast to New York. During that period, condors were a common resident of the Grand Canyon judging by bones, feathers and eggshells found in caves where they once nested. A dramatic range reduction occurred about 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the late Pleistocene extinction of large mammals such as mastodons, giant ground sloths, camels, and sabre tooth cats that condors fed on.
By the time Europeans arrived in western North America, condors had retreated to a stronghold along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to Baja California. The birds managed to maintain a strong population until shooting, egg collecting, poisoning by cyanide traps set for coyotes, power line collisions, general habitat degradation, and especially lead poisoning began to take a heavy toll. Lead poisoning from ingesting fragments of lead ammunition in the carcasses and gut piles they feed on remains the greatest threat to California condors today.
From the 1880s to 1924, there were scattered reports of condors in Arizona. But by the late 1930s, no condors remained outside of California and by 1982, the total population had dwindled to just 22 birds. Extinction loomed.
The California condor was placed on the federal endangered species list in 1967. Critical habitat was identified and mortality factors were studied. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began a captive breeding program in 1983.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis has asserted that climate change is real, and a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon’s assets everywhere, a position that appears at odds with the views of the president who appointed him and many in the administration in which he serves.
In unpublished written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing in January, Mattis said it was incumbent on the U.S. military to consider how changes like open-water routes in the thawing Arctic and drought in global trouble spots can pose challenges for troops and defense planners. He also stressed this is a real-time issue, not some distant what-if.
“Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today,” Mattis said in written answers to questions posed after the public hearing by Democratic members of the committee. “It is appropriate for the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning.”
Mattis has long espoused the position that the armed forces, for a host of reasons, need to cut dependence on fossil fuels and explore renewable energy where it makes sense. He had also, as commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command in 2010, signed off on the Joint Operating Environment, which lists climate change as one of the security threats the military expected to confront over the next 25 years.
The lawsuit, brought by a group of 21 children and young adults against the federal government, alleges that the United States government has violated the plaintiff’s constitutional right to a healthy environment. The lawsuit is based on the old legal doctrine of public trust, which holds that it is the government’s responsibility to preserve certain natural resources for public use. Under the public trust doctrine, the children’s attorneys argue, the government must protect the commonly held atmosphere — and is failing to do so by taking inadequate action to fight climate change.
The Trump administration, joined by fossil fuel companies, is stepping up its fight against a historic federal climate lawsuit, seeking an appeal of a November decision that allowed the case to move forward to trial. The Trump administration also argued that an earlier request — which asked the government to retain records of communication about climate change between the government and the fossil fuel industry — was overly burdensome.
“This request for appeal is an attempt to cover up the federal government’s long-running collusion with the fossil fuel industry,” Alex Loznak, a 20-year old plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “My generation cannot wait for the truth to be revealed. These documents must be uncovered with all deliberate speed, so that our trial can force federal action on climate change.”
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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