Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first-ever federal regulations to curb methane emissions from oil and gas producers. The proposed rule aims to cut methane emissions from the energy industry, the single largest emitter of methane in the United States, by 40 to 45 percent from 2012 levels within the next decade.
Methane is a greenhouse gas 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a 20 year period, and is often leaked during oil and gas extraction, degrading air quality while driving climate change. Methane is also vented by some operations.
Tuesday’s proposed action focuses on new hydraulically fracked oil and gas wells. It would “require methane and VOC [volatile organic compound] reductions from hydraulically fractured oil wells, some of which can contain a large amount of gas along with oil, and would complement the agency’s 2012 standards addressing emissions from this industry,” according to an EPA factsheet.
However, according to a new study released today, natural gas gathering and processing plants leak much more methane than producers have reported, and even more than the Environmental Protection Agency has estimated.
Researchers at Colorado State University found that U.S. gathering and processing facilities — where natural gas from nearby wells is consolidated for distribution through pipelines — leak 2,421,000 metric tons of methane each year. The facilities emit 100 billion cubic feet of natural gas every year, roughly eight times the amount previously estimated by the EPA.
Gathering facilities “could be responsible for something like 30 percent of emissions for all natural gas production,” the study’s lead researcher, Anthony Marchese, said.
America’s cultural divide over guns has gone into the woods. As growing numbers of hikers and backpackers flood national forests and backcountry trails searching for solitude, they are increasingly clashing with recreational target shooters, out for the weekend to plug rounds into trees, targets and mountainsides.
Hiking groups and conservationists say that policies that broadly allow shooting and a scarcity of enforcement officers have turned many national forests and millions of Western acres run by the Bureau of Land Management into free-fire zones. People complain about finding shot-up couches and cars deep in forests, or of being pinned down by gunfire where a hiking or biking trail crosses a makeshift target range.
It is a fight playing out from the pine forests of North Carolina to the Pacific Northwest to the Lake Mountains in central Utah, where hillsides with thousands of images of prehistoric rock art have become a popular shooting spot. Officials in the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina issued an emergency halt to target shooting after receiving hundreds of complaints. In New Mexico, homeowners upset by the crackle of gunfire are fighting a proposal to renew the permit for a gun range that has long operated on national forest land.
The federal agencies that manage national forests and open lands have tallied a growing number of shooting violations in the backcountry in recent years. The Forest Service recorded 1,712 shooting incidents across the country last year, up about 10 percent from a decade ago. More than a thousand of those reports ended with a warning or citation, but in some, Forest Service officers did not find the shooters or evidence of a violation after investigating a complaint.
There is an effort afoot to use the US Pacific Northwest as conveyor belt for fossil fuels, carrying them from mines and wells in the interior to the coast, to be shipped overseas.
Atop a region known for natural beauty, sustainability, quality of life, tourism, and advanced-technology jobs, fossil fuel industries propose to lay a skein of heavy new rail lines, pipelines, and export terminals. Millions of tons of coal and millions of gallons of tar sands oil would flow through one of America’s most beautiful places, amidst one of its most environmentally concerned populations, destined to become millions of tons of new carbon emissions, putting climate safety further out of reach.
But just as the coal rush sparked resistance, so has the rush to make the PNW a major hub for carbon energy export. Environmentalists have made common cause with local community and tribal groups to fight the proposals on all fronts: in city council meetings, in courts, in legislatures, and in the media.
This new movement is called “the thin green line,” and given how fast it’s had to scramble, the power and number of its enemies, and its chronic lack of resources, it has been remarkably successful so far.
On a scorcher of an August afternoon, a crowd gathered on a bridge over the deep-green waters of the Animas River on the north end of Durango, Colorado. A passerby might have thought they were watching a sporting event, perhaps a kayak race or a flotilla of inebriated, scantily clad inner tubers. Yet the river that afternoon was eerily empty of rowers, paddlers or floaters — unheard of on a day like this — and the mood among the onlookers was sombre. One mingling in the crowd heard certain words repeated: sad, tragic, angry, toxic.
They were here not to cheer anyone on, but to mourn, gathered to watch a catastrophe unfold in slow motion. Soon, the waters below would become milky green, then a Gatorade yellow, before finally settling into a thick and cloudy orangish hue — some compared it to mustard, others Tang. Whatever you called it, it was clearly not right.
The mustard-Tang plume was the result of approximately three million gallons of wastewater and sludge that had poured from the dormant Gold King mine into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas, some 60 miles upstream on the previous morning. The water had backed up in the mine behind a sort of dam formed when the mine portal’s ceiling had collapsed sometime earlier. Workers from the Environmental Protection Agency were hoping to install a pipe to drain the water so that they could eventually plug the mine, keeping the contaminated water inside it and out of the streams. Instead, they ended up accidentally breaching the dam, releasing the water.
This will help you understand the big picture:
The National Park Service is almost a century old and that means a gift is in store for citizens.
The National Park Service is celebrating its 99th birthday on August 25, 2015 with free admission, not including amenity or activity fees, to its 408 sites nationwide.
In preparation for the centennial celebration next year, the National Park Service also partnered with the National Park Foundation to help citizens nationwide Find Your Park. Visitors are encouraged to share their park experiences across social media with #FindYourPark.
“These national treasures belong to all of us, and we want everyone – especially the next generation of park visitors, supporters and advocates – to discover and connect with their national parks,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis.
The National Park Service was created in 1916 when President Woodrow Wilson signed it into legislation.
A new research study by U.S. Forest Service scientists finds that changes in rainfall patterns in the southern Appalachians due to climate change could reduce growth in six hardwood tree species common to the region. The findings have implications for forest managers in the Southeast, where climate variability (more extreme events or changes in precipitation distribution) could cause major shifts in forest composition and structure.
The study, recently published online in the journal Global Change Biology, evaluated climate-driven patterns of growth for six dominant hardwood tree species in the southern Appalachians in relation to their topographic positions on slopes or in coves.
One group of trees – maple, poplar, and birch – are diffuse-porous, meaning they form many vessels of similar size throughout the xylem (the water conducting tissue of the tree), and tightly regulate water loss during the day by closing their stomata, the tiny holes in leaves that release water into the air. The three species of oaks in the second group form large vessels in a distinct ring in the xylem (ring-porous), and control water loss through stomata less tightly.
The researchers sampled 465 trees to evaluate tree ring growth in relation to 70 years of on-site climatic data. They found that diffuse-porous species (maple, poplar, birch) growing on dry sites were the most sensitive to climate, while the ring-porous species (oak) were the least sensitive.
Kivalina is a tiny, remote Alaskan village that sits on a barrier island some 83 miles above the Arctic circle, and the most recent estimates show the village—home to 400 people—will be entirely underwater by 2025. This is far from news for the island’s Iñupiat inhabitants; the village voted in favor of relocating way back in 1992. But as climate change thins the ice surrounding the island and causes erosion of Kivalina’s shores, questions remain as to where the village will relocate to, and how that move will be paid for.
Climate change is occurring at a notably faster pace in the Arctic, with the region warming at a rate twice the global average. That means the residents of Kivalina have been able to notice trends far earlier than in many other areas. Some 15 years ago they noticed their ice no longer freezes “8 to 10 feet thick, way out in the ocean,” as one community elder described, but rather sits thin—preventing whaling—and melts faster, which abruptly shortens the hunting seasons on which the villagers rely.
Furthermore, the thinner ice leaves the narrow island’s coastline more vulnerable to erosion. Simply put, Kivalina’s community knows they can no longer stay in their own home, as their ways of life, as well as land, disappear. But Kivalina is the first such case (and certainly not the last) in the United States, and the government simply isn’t equipped to address the situation. “A disaster declaration releases funding aimed at helping a community rebuild or relocate within the place the disaster occurred. But there are no policies in place to relocate an entire community, like Kivalina, prior to an actual disaster.”
One hundred years ago, only about a dozen national parks existed, all of them in the Far West. The departments of Agriculture, Interior and War each claimed some responsibility over them, but in truth, no one was in charge, and the parks suffered as a result.
Stephen Mather set out to change all that. An energetic businessman with what reporters called “an incandescent enthusiasm” and a special genius for promotion, Mather had already made a small fortune by portraying California’s Death Valley as an exotic location in advertising his company’s 20 Mule Team Borax brand laundry cleaner to American housewives.
In 1915, he called attention to something closer to his heart. He embarked on a campaign to convince Congress that the national parks needed both protection and promotion from a single agency of the federal government.
Mather, an admirer of John Muir, who had called national parks “places to play in and pray in,” knew from personal experience that time spent in nature could provide inspiration and solace to a person’s spirit and restore a person’s health — mental as well as physical. But now, he added two more arguments to advance his case.
On the one hand, he said, parks were “an economic asset of incalculable value.” They generated millions of tourism dollars that benefited the nation as a whole, and especially the states and communities where they were located. They were also, in his words, “vast schoolrooms of Americanism,” by which he meant that people who enjoyed their national parks would have greater pride in the nation that created them.
Two weeks after passing a law that completely re-envisions the country’s energy system, France is already making moves to bolster its wind potential by inviting companies to submit proposals for floating wind farms off both its northern and southern coasts.
France’s environmental agency ADEME posted a tender document calling for proposals for wind farms comprised of between three to six turbines, with the capacity for at least five megawatts per turbine, at three sites in the Mediterranean and one site in the Bay of Biscay, off the southern coast of Brittany.
The call is part of a push by the French government to encourage the transition of France’s energy system from one that relies heavily on nuclear to one that produces at least a third of its energy through renewable technology. Monetary investments from the French government will come from the “Investments for the Future” program launched in 2010.
Projects will be selected not only on their technical merit and financial feasibility, but also the extent to which they would contribute to the growth of a floating offshore wind industry in France. The tender will be open for submissions through April 4, 2016.
The sign at the trailhead stated: “Beware of mountain lions.” Next to it another sign was posted that warned about the dangers of and correct behavior in a bear encounter.
You are entering the Continental Divide Trail, one of America’s longest and most challenging trails.Here on the Continental Divide Trail, mountain lions, bears, wolves-and even the occasional wolverine-are as welcome along the trail as hikers. Maintaining a healthy environment for hikers to pass through requires supporting diverse wildlife populations.
It requires supporting the entire ecosystem-not just a niche-at the largest scale possible. “We’re interested in the integrity of the whole landscape,” said Teresa Martinez, director of the Continental Divide Trail Coalition. “The trail experience is about being in wild spaces, and for that we need to protect both the landscape and the wildlife within it by connecting protected areas.” Martinez’s nonprofit organization is the lead national nonprofit partner that works with the US Forest Service to manage, maintain, and protect the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). Increasingly, the CDT and other trails are seen not just as recreational ventures but as conservation tools that may connect disparate habitats.
Connections are crucial to successful conservation. Worldwide, according to the global database statistics of the World Conservation Monitoring Center, only 5 per cent of protected areas are larger than 35,000 acres. That may be large enough to sustain the interactions of, say, a small seasonal population of monarch butterflies and their milkweed food source, but is hardly enough area to protect the migrating monarch phenomenon, or even enough habitat for a single female grizzly bear. And in the model of protected areas in the U.S., where hard boundaries are drawn between “nature” and “urban” areas, such animals are in danger whenever they stray from the boundary lines.
Unbearably hot. Dry. Lifeless. Those are a few terms that the word “desert” all too often conjures up. While deserts are loved by many wilderness enthusiasts, it’s far too easy for the general public to overlook these areas when thinking about wilderness. No doubt, deserts can be hot and dry, but look a little closer and the life within them is amazingly diverse.
Deserts are defined not by temperature, but by their precipitation-less than ten inches precipitation per year. American deserts range from the Sonoran Desert, the only wild place where the famous saguaro cactus grows; the extreme Mojave Desert, which neighbors several major cities; the Chihuahuan Desert on the New Mexico-Mexico border; and the cooler and moister Great Basin Desert, known as one of the best places to view starry night skies.
Known for their delicate ecosystems, deserts are abundant with wildflowers and succulent plants. Some are home to giant saguaros while others give rise to plains of Joshua trees. They thrive with creatures big and small from tarantulas to desert tortoises to bighorn sheep.
Since the historic Wilderness Act was passed in 1964, some 200 desert wilderness areas have been added to our National Wilderness Preservation System. These desert areas enjoy the highest level of land protection afforded by the federal government, meaning they are protected from road building, energy, off-roading and development of any kind.
Here are but a few that you may enjoy…
Historians may look to 2015 as the year when it really started hitting the fan. Some snapshots: In just the past few months, record-setting heat waves in Pakistan and India each killed more than 1,000 people. In Washington state’s Olympic National Park, the rainforest caught fire for the first time in living memory. London reached 98 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest July day ever recorded in the U.K.; The Guardian briefly had to pause its live blog of the heat wave because its computer servers overheated.
In California, suffering from its worst drought in a millennium, a 50-acre brush fire swelled seventyfold in a matter of hours, jumping across the I-15 freeway during rush-hour traffic. Then, a few days later, the region was pounded by intense, virtually unheard-of summer rains. Puerto Rico is under its strictest water rationing in history as a monster El Niño forms in the tropical Pacific Ocean, shifting weather patterns worldwide.
On July 20th, James Hansen, the former NASA climatologist who brought climate change to the public’s attention in the summer of 1988, issued a bombshell: He and a team of climate scientists had identified a newly important feedback mechanism off the coast of Antarctica that suggests mean sea levels could rise 10 times faster than previously predicted: 10 feet by 2065.
The authors included this chilling warning: If emissions aren’t cut, “We conclude that multi-meter sea-level rise would become practically unavoidable. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea-level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.”
Ginseng, the popular health supplement, grows naturally in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There’s only one problem- poachers. Poaching has become a major problem for the park. Savvy thieves are uprooting the valuable plant and selling the ginseng roots for a profit.
“They know what they’re looking for. They’re experienced in this type of thing,” said Brent Everitt, the Great Smoky Mountains Public Affairs Officer. “They go look for these plants, they dig it up, then they will hike out with sometimes a thousand roots.”
Wild ginseng is found in damp soil, which makes the Smoky Mountains a perfect spot. It is popular because it is sold in health stores across the country and has been said to have major health benefits. “They’ll grind it up and put it in different mixes, powders and pills, and trying to create remedies,” said Everitt.
Ginseng could become extinct from the park. They not only take the root, but the entire plant. Wild ginseng could cost as much as nine hundred dollars a pound, but it could cost the park even more. The loss of this plant could cause the wildlife and the habitat to suffer.
“The big thing about the Smokies, the reason people come here is because of the incredible biodiversity and when you take a piece of that biodiversity, it hurts the entire ecosystem,” said Everitt.
For the first time in its 110-year history, the Forest Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is spending more than 50 percent of its budget to suppress the nation’s wildfires. A new report released today by the Forest Service estimates that within a decade, the agency will spend more than two-thirds of its budget to battle ever-increasing fires, while mission-critical programs that can help prevent fires in the first place such as forest restoration and watershed and landscape management will continue to suffer. Meanwhile, the report notes, these catastrophic blazes are projected to burn twice as many acres by 2050.
As the costs of fighting wildfires grow each year with longer, hotter, more unpredictable fire seasons, the report details how the Forest Service has experienced significant shifts in staffing and resources. In effect, the Forest Service has nearly half a billion dollars less, in 2015 dollars, than it did in 1995 to handle non-fire related programs—the bulk of its programming. There has also been a 39 percent loss of non-fire personnel, from approximately 18,000 in 1998 to fewer than 11,000 in 2015, while the fire staff has more than doubled. Dedicated to its mission of protecting more than 190 million acres of federal forests and grasslands, as well as lives and personal property from the growing threats of catastrophic wildfire, the Forest Service in recent years has absorbed skyrocketing costs related to fire and relied increasingly on “fire transfer”—moving resources from non-fire accounts to cover firefighting costs.
“Climate change and other factors are causing the cost of fighting fires to rise every year,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, “but the way we fund our Forest Service hasn’t changed in generations. Meanwhile, everything else suffers, from the very restoration projects that have been proven to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires in the future, to watershed projects that protect drinking water for 1 in 5 Americans, to recreation projects that support thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity. The time has come for Congress to change the way it funds the Forest Service.”
In fall of 2015, the Prairie State – Illinois – will get a new herd of bison. Part of a broader restoration effort at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie that aims to return this special place to its original tallgrass prairie ecosystem, the bison reintroduction opens an exciting new chapter for Midewin and the country.
The webcam will feature the new bison herd as they roam near the corral and watering hole. A Crowdrise campaign will provide funding for the camera, installation and continued maintenance of the system.
The camera will be installed prior to the bison’s arrival and will be live by November 2015. Wildlife fans from across the world can watch the bison via the National Forest Foundation, U.S. Forest Service and EarthCam.
Just an hour from Chicago, Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie once housed part of the former Joliet Ammunition Plant. Today, it’s a large-scale work-in-progress as the Forest Service, the National Forest Foundation, and our many partners work to restore a native prairie ecosystem. The bison reintroduction project offers an opportunity to study how bison can aid in the restoration of tallgrass prairie and prairie bird habitat, and provides a unique opportunity for viewing these majestic creatures.
Learn more about how you can make a donation…
By John D. Sutter, CNN
I was wandering around the rolling plains of northwest Oklahoma looking for one person – one person – who believes in climate change science when I met the woman dressed all in yellow. A wide-brimmed, lemon-colored hat orbited her head. Her loafers were the color of butter. Everything in between was a jubilee of sunshine.
Could she be the one? Please, Lord, let her be the one.
I ask. She laughs.
It’s a sweet laugh. A knowing laugh. A yes-I-understand-everyone-out-here-thinks-climate-science-is-total-BS-but-I’m-the-one-who-gets-it laugh.
Then Yellow Hat speaks. “I think it’s a big fat lie.”
I could recount several interactions like that from my week in Woodward County, Oklahoma, one of the most climate-skeptical counties in the United States. Thirty percent of the 21,000 people in Woodward County are estimated (using a statistical model based in national surveys) to believe that climate change isn’t happening at all, according to the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. The county ties with six others for the highest rate of climate skepticism in the country.
America’s national parks have never been so popular: Last year saw the highest-ever level of daily visits and campers to Yellowstone, Joshua Tree, and the 57 other nature reserves. Yet the number of park rangers available to help travelers find the perfect trail, answer questions about area flora and fauna, and enforce rules to protect the environment (and other laws) is falling fast.
The amount of full-time and seasonal law enforcement rangers employed at the parks has gone down in recent years. The number of full-time rangers dropped 14 percent from 2005 to 2014, according to figures released this week from watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Seasonal rangers saw an even steeper decline of 27 percent between 2006 and 2014.
More visitors means more injuries and crime, and the rangers simply can’t keep up. Last year saw an uptick in search-and-rescue missions at 2,658—300 more than in 2013. Many of these are a matter of life or death. In 2012 and 2013, 148 and 143 visitors died, respectively, while 2014 had 164 deaths. Last year also saw more than its fair share of instances of assault, rape, theft, and even murder.
“The Park Service…is building a sizable public safety deficit,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, in a statement. “This myopic drive for more and more visitation threatens to outstrip the capacity of both the parks and their shrinking ranger corps.”
The Washington Post reports that Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has already organized a boycott of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, even before it’s released. Never mind the fact that Kentucky state officials expect to meet the plan’s requirements to cut pollution from power plants “with relatively little effort.”
In fact, the newspaper’s analysis reveals that most states won’t have trouble meeting the plan’s targets. So, if Sen. McConnell and others are not really standing up for their home states, what’s actually behind the opposition to the Clean Power Plan?
The motives vary, but most opponents of the Clean Power Plan seem united in their belief that solving climate change is either unnecessary or should be very low on the list of national priorities. Drivers of the opposition can be broken down into three familiar categories: money, partisanship and ideology.
The financial interests of the highest-polluting electric utilities are a key element of the opposition. While some forward-thinking companies are switching to cleaner energy, big players in the industry are refusing to adapt.
As with most things in Washington, partisanship is playing a very big role in the opposition to the Clean Power Plan. Because President Obama proposed it, it must be wrong.
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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