Natural Resources

"The destruction of seagrass could derail progress in reining in planet-warming emissions and cost billions in environmental damage."

"JOHANNESBURG - Alongside forests, soil and wetlands, another powerful natural carbon absorber critical to tackling climate change lies hidden beneath the ocean surface: seagrass.

The loss of these underwater meadows, also known as blue carbon, could hobble efforts to tackle climate change, both financially and environmentally, a new study has found.

So what exactly is this marine vegetation, and what else did the research find?

"China’s plans to build a massive hydro project in Tibet have sparked fears about the environmental impacts on the world’s longest and deepest canyon. It has also alarmed neighboring India, which fears that China could hold back or even weaponize river water it depends on."

"The Trump administration is set to reverse a sweeping conservation rule for public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the latest in a series of actions to reverse Biden-era environmental protections. Announced without much public fanfare in early April, the sudden reversal of the rule, which sought to put conservation on an equal playing field with industrial activities, is a blow to conservation efforts, said environmental groups."

"For more than 50 years, the Endangered Species Act has helped scores of species — from whooping cranes to red wolves to California condors — claw their way back from the edge of extinction. Its success has made it supremely popular with the American public — far more popular, for instance, than Congress. But now, like all those species it helps protect, the law itself is in grave peril. The Trump administration, Congress, and their allies have launched a barrage of legislation, litigation and regulatory maneuvers in recent months that together could tear the teeth out of our most powerful wildlife conservation statute."

"Indigenous peoples are navigating the slow collapse of winter roads — and an even slower pace of help."

"US regulators are poised to approve a pesticide made with a controversial class of toxic chemicals, stoking concerns of new risks for farms across the country."

"Enlarging the dam would deliver more Sacramento River water to Central Valley farmers but a tribe could lose sacred sites and endangered salmon could lose habitat in wet years."

"President Donald Trump promised to unleash an energy renaissance that would lock in U.S. dominance over oil and gas. But that is not how things are working out for America’s drillers, fracking firms and equipment suppliers, including the company founded by Trump’s own energy secretary."

"The Interior Department said it would fast-track the permitting process for a uranium mine in Utah as part of President Trump’s plan to shorten environmental reviews and speed the construction of certain types of energy projects." "An environmental review of the project, known as Velvet-Wood, would normally take roughly a year. The government says it will complete the process in two weeks."

"Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) bought stock in a dozen mining, oil and gas giants two months before ramming an industry-friendly budget bill through his committee."