GoGreenNation News

Portland Timbers, Portland Thorns to host charity match

The clubs will host the "Green is Gold" mixed-team scrimmage on June 26 that will raise funds and awareness for The Nature Conservancy and Keep Oregon Green.

The Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns will host a charity match to benefit environmental nonprofits.The “Green is Gold” mixed-teams match at Providence Park will raise funds and awareness for nonprofits The Nature Conservancy and Keep Oregon Green.The June 26 event is free to the public, with fans encouraged to make a donation to the benefitting organizations.“One of the proudest moments of my time here was the ‘PTFC for Peace’ fundraiser we put on for Ukraine in 2022,” Timbers owner Merritt Paulson said in a statement. “Players and fans asked that we do it again and I am so pleased we were able to make it happen with the partnership with the Thorns organization.”The “PTFC for Peace” charity fundraiser attracted nearly 17,000 fans and raised more than $600,000 for UNICEF relief efforts in Ukraine.Kickoff for the “Green is Gold” match is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Milk Can’t Catch a Break

The bird-flu panic has gotten out of control.

Milk is defined by its percentages: nonfat, 2 percent, whole. Now there is a different kind of milk percentage to keep in mind. Last week, the FDA reported that 20 percent of milk it had sampled from retailers across the country contained fragments of bird flu, raising concerns that the virus, which is spreading among animals, might be on its way to sickening humans too. The agency reassured the public that milk is still safe to drink because the pasteurization process inactivates the bird-flu virus. Still, the mere association with bird flu has left some people uneasy and led others to avoid milk altogether.That is, if they weren’t already avoiding it. Milk can’t seem to catch a break: For more than 70 years, consumption of the white liquid has steadily declined. It is no longer a staple of balanced breakfasts and bedtime routines, and milk alternatives offer the same creaminess in a latte or an iced coffee as the original stuff does. Milk was once seen as so integral to health that Americans viewed it as “almost sacred,” but much of that mythos is gone, Melanie Dupuis, an environmental-studies professor at Pace University and the author of Nature’s Perfect Food, a history of milk, told me. In 2022, the last time the Department of Agriculture measured average milk consumption, it had reached an all-time low of 15 gallons per person.If concerns around bird flu persist, milk’s relevance may continue to slide. Even the slightest bit of consumer apprehension could cause already struggling dairy farms to shut down. “An additional contributing factor really doesn’t bode well,” Leonard Polzin, a dairy expert at the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Division of Extension, told me. For the rest of us, there is now yet another reason to avoid milk—and even less left to the belief that milk is special.The risks of bird flu in milk can be simplified to this: Thank god for pasteurization. Straight from the udder, in its raw form, milk is “a substance that’s very much open to contamination if not managed well,” Dupuis said. Milk is like a petri dish of microorganisms, and before pasteurization became the norm, milk regularly caused deadly diseases such as tuberculosis, scarlet fever, and typhoid fever. The pasteurization process, which involves blasting milk with high temperatures then rapidly cooling it, is “intended to kill just about anything a cow could have,” Meghan Schaeffer, an epidemiologist and bird-flu expert who now works at the analytics firm SAS, told me.That includes the bird flu. On Wednesday, the FDA reported new results from ongoing studies reaffirming that the bird-flu fragments it found in milk and other dairy products aren’t active, meaning they can’t spread disease. The agency confirmed this using a gold-standard test that involved injecting samples into chicken eggs to see if any active virus would grow. None was detected afterward. “That process really saves us,” Schaeffer said.There is never a good time to drink unpasteurized milk, but now is an especially bad one. A number of states have legalized the sale of raw milk in recent years, part of a right-wing embrace of the beverage. Raw milk from sick cows contains bird-flu virus in high concentrations, and the FDA has warned against drinking it. There are no reports of people getting bird flu from drinking unpasteurized milk, but “it is possible” to become infected from it, Schaeffer said. Already, this has been shown in animals: This week, researchers reported that cats who drank raw milk from sick cows got bird flu and died within days.But much about bird flu and milk is unknown because the virus has never been found in cattle before now. That one in five milk samples tested by the FDA had remnants of bird flu doesn’t mean one in five cows tested positive; milk sold in stores is pooled from many different animals. Rather, it suggests that many cows may be infected beyond those currently accounted for. It may also mean that asymptomatic cows, which are not being tested, shed virus in their milk. (Milk from symptomatic cows, which can be yellow and viscous, is routinely discarded.) Although it isn’t clear how the virus is circulating among cows, a leading explanation is that it’s transmitted via contact with surfaces that have touched raw milk, including milking equipment, vehicles, and other animals.Bird flu is widespread among poultry, but it isn’t clear how long it will keep circulating among cattle. The USDA is doing only limited testing of cows, and has not shared all of its data publicly, making the full extent of the outbreak impossible to know. Even if milk is still safe to drink, the thought of bird-flu fragments swimming around in it is unappetizing for a country that has already turned away from milk.Just how much milk Americans used to drink can be hard to grasp. Consumption peaked in 1945 at 45 gallons a person annually, enough to overfill a standard-size bathtub. Americans believed that “more milk makes us healthier,” and drank accordingly, DuPuis said. Government marketing pushed milk as a necessary, perfect food that could solve virtually all nutrition problems, especially in children; milk-derived healthiness eventually became associated with strength, affluence, and patriotism. Holes in the health narrative have since appeared: Consuming too much milk and other dairy products is now considered unhealthy because of the fat content. And long-standing myths about milk, such as that its calcium is required for strengthening bones and growing taller, have largely been debunked.Today drinking milk can get you “milk-shamed” by people who think that it’s disgusting. It’s particularly unpopular with younger people, who are grossed out by the milk served in schools. Where dairy once reigned supreme, milk alternatives made of oats, almonds, soy, peas, and countless other things have found a foothold. The FDA even lets plant-based milk call itself “milk,” as I wrote last year.Less demand for milk would have consequences. “I suspect the dairy industry is on the edge of their seat,” DuPuis said. Outbreaks are expected to take a financial toll on farmers, who will not only sell less milk but also have to care for sick animals, and the costs may be passed on to consumers. In rural areas that once thrived on milk production, such as upstate New York, abandoned small farms are now overgrown with trees, said DuPuis. “Are we going to end up with fewer farms and more trees because of this latest problem? I can imagine so,” she said.The myth of milk has been eroded from many fronts: nutrition research, shifting societal norms, and an abundance of new beverages. With bird flu, it has never seemed less like the magic health elixir it was once thought to be. But the turn against milk might have gone too far. Pasteurization was invented in the 19th century, yet it works to kill modern-day pathogens. Dairy has a great track record when it comes to safety, Polzin said. And it is still a decently healthy choice, with some significant advantages over plant-based alternatives, such as having more vitamins and minerals, less sugar, and more protein. Even during the bird-flu outbreak, milk may still have some magic to it.

Making flying cleaner

New guidelines attempt to make the aviation cleaner by relying on corn-based ethanol, but experts divided on the fuel’s environmental benefits.

Flying is just about the most polluting thing many of us do.According to Google Flights, a nonstop flight from New York to San Francisco produces, on average, more carbon dioxide per economy class passenger than a person living in Cameroon does in a year, as my colleague Hiroko Tabuchi wrote recently.This week the Biden administration announced new moves to make aviation cleaner, proposing guidelines for how fuel producers can qualify for tax credits as part of a program to increase production of more sustainable jet fuel, my colleagues Max Bearak and Dionne Searcey wrote.Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.

SANParks give update on Table Mountain fires

South African National Parks (SANParks) has issued an update on the fires that have raged since lightning strikes took place last Saturday. The post SANParks give update on Table Mountain fires appeared first on SAPeople - Worldwide South African News.

South African National Parks (SANParks) on Thursday issued an update on the fires that have raged since freak lightning strikes took place last Saturday. In a statement SANParks confirmed that the Skeleton Gorge fire in Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) is largely contained. The fire burnt approximately 283 hectares of veld. Light rain and mist over the past few days have helped contain the fire’s spread on the Back Table, but isolated hot spots, smoldering stumps, as well as falling trees and rockfalls, remain a concern. Following an assessment conducted by TMNP’s conservation and fire management teams, hiking trails along Constantia Nek and Newlands, as well as trails along the Back Table between Camps Bay, Hout Bay, and Orangekloof, have been reopened. However, Skeleton Gorge and the contour path between Fernwood and Cecilia Forest remains closed. REMAIN VIGILANT Berg-like wind conditions are currently being experienced in the northern sections of the park. As a result, hikers have been asked to remain vigilant and move to safe areas if they see or smell smoke while hiking as the priority remains the safety of residents, hikers, and firefighters. SANParks has 40 firefighters from NCC Environmental Services, Volunteer Wildfire Services, and Working on Fire who are actively engaged in various areas along the fireline throughout the day, concluding mop-up operations. In case of emergencies or sightings of new fires, the public has been urged to contact 086 110 6417 or the Newlands Dispatch at 021 689 7438. We will keep readers updated regarding any changes. The post SANParks give update on Table Mountain fires appeared first on SAPeople - Worldwide South African News.

The misleading information in one of America’s most popular podcasts

Andrew Huberman, a neurobiology professor and host of the Huberman Lab podcast, attending INBOUND 2023 in Boston, Mass. | Photo by Chance Yeh/Getty Images for HubSpot The Huberman Lab has credentials and millions of fans, but it sometimes oversteps medical fact. Sometimes, misleading information is easy to spot, traveling in the same conspiracy-theory-slicked grooves it has for decades. The same ideas that undermined belief in the safety of Covid-19 vaccines have been around for more than a century, adapting the same message to suit new media formats, new epidemics, and new influential endorsements. In a way, George Bernard Shaw’s outspoken opposition to the smallpox vaccine in the first half of the 20th century is not unlike that of, say, Aaron Rodgers’s misleading statements about the Covid-19 vaccines. Such misleading information is relatively easy to see. But spotting other kinds of misleading information is more like identifying planets in other star systems. It’s difficult to find such a planet by just taking a direct image; the radiation from the star the planet orbits can obscure it. Instead, you might look for the shadow in front of the star or the “wobble” of a star caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet. You find it by looking around it. Over time, with this kind of misleading information, you learn to spot the wobble, the tells that something might not be right. This is what happened for me when I began to listen to Huberman Lab last fall. Huberman Lab is one of the most popular podcasts in the country, led by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. His most ardent fans — and there are millions — tend to be fitness enthusiasts, self-optimizers, and crossover listeners who heard about his podcast from other influencers in the Joe Rogan Extended Universe. Huberman looms large in the minds of his biggest fans. If you’re outside of that circle, perhaps you heard of his work after a New York magazine profile earlier this year detailed his personal conduct. The podcast’s premise is simple: presenting science-based overviews and conversations on a broad range of topics, from longevity to mental health to nutrition. A fawning profile in Time magazine last summer credited Huberman with getting America to care about science again. More than anything, though, the episodes I listened to conveyed a promise: If you want to optimize your body and mind, science has the answers, and all we need to do is listen. It’s a riveting promise, one that Huberman is not alone in making. Silicon Valley, in particular, is filled with wellness guides and well-funded laboratories seeking the secret to living the best and longest life. There are other well-credentialed promises of cures and solutions circulating, especially on podcasts, a format that seems to lend itself to this slippage between the reputable and the freewheeling. Huberman’s rise to popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic should have been a win for information: Huberman, an associate professor of neurobiology at Stanford with an active lab, it seemed, was a respected researcher in his field of visual neuroscience, and he filled his multi-hour podcast episodes with citations and caution. Popular science communication isn’t always the best science communication. The implicit pact that Huberman’s podcast makes with its audience — that it will, if you listen and follow, help you optimize your life — has turned the podcast into a powerful force that shapes how his audience of millions understands science. But listeners of Huberman Lab may be, at times, hearing what some call an illusion. When good communication goes bad In late March, New York magazine reported that Huberman’s Stanford laboratory “barely exists” and that, according to multiple women who dated him during his rise to fame, Huberman had manipulated and lied to his partners (Huberman’s spokesperson denied both of these allegations to the magazine, which shares a corporate owner with Vox). The profile was one tell — obscuring aspects of his personal and professional lives. But even before it came out, the same subject experts on the topics Huberman covered had been questioning some of the science of the podcast itself. This liminality, or in-betweenness, of Huberman Lab is key to its success. When speaking about vaccines, Huberman is no Alex Jones or Aaron Rodgers. He’s a real scientist who cites real studies. He approaches topics that might end up drawing scrutiny with a great deal of caution. For example, Huberman never tells his audience to avoid the flu vaccine. All he’s saying is that he doesn’t take it himself. And yet, the subtext is there. “Now, personally, I don’t typically get the flu shot. And the reason for that is that I don’t tend to go into environments where I am particularly susceptible to getting the flu,” Huberman said in an episode earlier this year on avoiding and treating the cold and flu. He went on: “When you take the flu shot, you’re really hedging a bet. You’re hedging a bet against the fact that you will be or not be exposed to that particular strain of flu virus that’s most abundant that season, or strains of flu virus that are most abundant that season, and that the flu shot that you’re taking is directed at those particular strains.” Make the choice that’s right for you, Huberman says. Talk to your doctor. “He’s a good communicator, right? That’s why he’s a star,” Tim Caulfield, a professor of health law and science policy at the University of Alberta, told me in late 2023. Huberman often does a “very good job” talking about the science behind a topic he’s exploring in an episode, Caulfield added, but “in the end, the overall takeaway, I think, is less supported by the science than the impression you’re given listening to the episode.” Instead of recommending a flu shot, Huberman introduces his listeners to a series of other ideas. Andrea Love, a microbiologist, immunologist, and science communicator herself, wrote a four-part newsletter series addressing Huberman’s claims in greater detail. She says he promoted possibly using a sauna to improve immune function, citing a study that had just 20 participants and did not directly measure immune function. She says he promoted the potential use of unproven supplements, including those sold by AG1, a company that partners with Huberman and sponsors his podcast. Huberman and his spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Love’s characterization of this episode. For Love, it was easy to see Huberman Lab as sleight of hand even before the New York magazine story was published. The ingredients were there: Huberman is a magnetic personality capable of capturing attention with implied promises of the secrets to longevity, a perfect body, a perfect mind, even perfect sleep — much of which he says can be achieved with the help of the supplements that he himself advertises. Love was part of a cohort of scientists and public health communicators who raised concerns about Huberman’s wildly popular podcast over several months. When Huberman had Robert Lustig on as a guest, those concerns grew louder. Lustig is a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), but he’s perhaps best known for arguing that sugar, particularly fructose, is a “toxin.” Love, who said that Lustig’s claims about the uniquely causal relationship between fructose and childhood obesity remain unproven, listened to the conversation between the two scientists. (Disclosure: I recently accepted a contract for non-editorial freelance work at UCSF Health.) “I was floored with how many different types of misinformation he was able to shove into a single episode,” Love said earlier this year, after listening to the majority of Huberman’s 3-hour interview with Lustig. Like many of Huberman’s lengthy episodes, this one racked up millions of views on YouTube alone. In 2023, Huberman Lab was the eighth most listened to podcast on Apple Podcasts, and the third most popular on Spotify. As she listened, she took notes, marking moments where she felt the podcast omitted important facts, misinterpreted the progression of disease, or provided confusing information to listeners. At one point, Lustig cited a study that he said “showed” ultra-processed foods inhibit bone growth — one that, according to Huberman’s exchange with Lustig, used human subjects in Israel to test its claims. Love tracked down the 2021 paper easily. “This was in vivo - IN RODENTS,” she wrote in her notes. In her view, the podcast was “outright LYING to listeners.” A spokesperson for Andrew Huberman responded to a request for comment by noting that the podcast team “review studies mentioned on the podcast by guests, however the conclusions drawn by guests are their own and our guests are the foremost experts in their fields.” The show links to referenced studies in the show notes for each episode. Misleading information can be hard to see Nailing down Huberman’s beliefs is, likewise, tricky, straddling the line between endorsement and implication. In October, Huberman commented on an Instagram post by his friend Joe Rogan promoting an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the presidential candidate who was once a respected environmental lawyer but is now perhaps best known for promoting conspiracy theories about vaccines, including those for Covid-19. “I’m eager to listen to this and to learn more about Robert’s stance on a number of issues. Whenever I run into him at the gym, he is extremely gracious and asks lots of questions about science and, by my observation, trains hard too!” Huberman’s verified Instagram account posted. When I told Caulfield about this post, he described it as “infuriating.” Huberman and his spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on his post about Kennedy. “Any kind of legitimization and normalization of that rhetoric, especially by someone who professes to be informed by science and has the credentials of a renowned institution behind him should be ashamed of doing that,” he said. Huberman’s relationship to the information in his podcast can be viewed through a series of glancing blows; through the subtext of deciding not to take the flu vaccine himself and telling that to his audience; through serious questions about how he handles himself in romantic relationships; and through the selection of his guests, the framing of his episodes, and his friends. Although Huberman has not directly responded to the New York magazine piece after its publication, his friends in the podcasting world, along with several more right-leaning media personalities, have called it a hit piece, and dismissed criticism of Huberman as either sloppy or mean-spirited. “Andrew should be celebrated. Period,” wrote Lex Fridman, a computer scientist and podcaster who has long been one of Huberman’s friends. And it appears his podcast viewers are still tuning in.

Higher levels of omega-6 fatty acids could reduce the risk of bipolar disorder, new study finds

Researchers at the University of South Australia discovered a link between one omega-6 fatty acid and the disorder

A world-first study from the University of South Australia recently discovered a link between omega-6 fatty acids and bipolar disorder. Researchers found that higher levels of arachidonic acid, a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid obtained from foods like poultry, seafood and eggs, led to a lower risk of bipolar disorder. Conversely, lower levels of arachidonic acid led to a higher risk of bipolar disorder.     The study tested a total of 913 metabolites across 14,296 European patients using a mass spectrometry-based platform. Thirty-three metabolites were identified and associated with the risk of bipolar disorder. Most of them were lipids, including arachidonic acid and other complex lipids containing either an arachidonic or a linoleic fatty acid side chain, the study specified. The causal associations only concerned bipolar disorder, the study added, and didn’t account for other closely related psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia or depression. “There’s growing evidence to suggest that metabolites play a key role in bipolar and other psychiatric disorders,” said chief investigator Dr. David Stacey, per the university’s official website. “This is extremely encouraging, because if we can find factors that connect certain health conditions, we can identify ways to negate these through potential lifestyle or dietary interventions.” Arachidonic acid can be sourced “directly from meat and seafood products or [synthesized] from dietary linoleic acid (such as nuts, seeds, and oils),” he continued. The omega-6 fatty acid is also found in human milk, making it an essential nutrient for infant brain development. “In fact, in many countries, arachidonic acid is added to infant formula to ensure a child gets the best start to life,” Stacey said. “So, there is certainly potential to boost this through supplements for people at greater risk of bipolar disorder.” Researchers know that arachidonic acid plays a key role in early brain development. But the challenge, they said, is determining whether arachidonic acid supplementation for bipolar disorder should occur “perinatally, during early life, or even whether it would benefit those already diagnosed.”      Professor Elina Hyppönen, who co-authored the study, said both preclinical studies and randomized controlled trials are necessary in order to determine how beneficial supplementation would be. Want more great food writing and recipes? Subscribe to Salon Food's newsletter, The Bite. “We need further studies to rigorously assess the potential for arachidonic acid supplementation in bipolar disorder prevention and treatment, particularly in people who carry genetic risks,” Hyppönen said, adding that it’s important to determine “how, why and when” people respond to arachidonic acid supplementation in order to determine further solutions. Bipolar disorder is a serious mental illness associated with episodes of mood swings ranging from emotional highs (mania or hypomania) to lows (depression). The exact cause of bipolar disorder still remains unknown, although research suggests that a contribution of genetic and environmental factors may contribute to the illness. An estimated 2.8% of U.S. adults had bipolar disorder in the past year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Approximately 4.4% of U.S. adults experience bipolar disorder at some time in their lives. Read more about bipolar disorder:

Antarctica's Ozone Hole Is Persisting Later Into the Year, Raising Concerns for Wildlife

As a result of the longer-lasting hole, harmful ultraviolet radiation is reaching Earth during a time when young penguins and seals are more vulnerable, scientists say

While penguins have feathers that shield their skin from radiation, their eyes remain unprotected. Increased ultraviolet radiation exposure could also have harmful effects for Antarctic organisms like seals, krill and plankton, per a new paper. Wolfgang Kaehler / LightRocket via Getty Images A hole in the ozone layer that appears annually over Antarctica is persisting later into each year, and biologists say this puts wildlife at risk. The gap allows more ultraviolet B radiation onto the planet, which threatens animals with eye damage and other health impacts, per a paper published last week in the journal Global Change Biology. Each year, the ozone hole typically peaks in size between September and October, when ice coverage reflects much of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays away. But in the last four years, the hole has remained into the Southern Hemisphere’s summer in December, in part due to climate change-fueled bush fires in Australia and natural volcanic eruptions. As a result, more radiation from the sun is reaching Earth’s surface at a time when snow and ice is melting, leaving more plants and animals exposed. “Whilst ozone is recovering, we’ve seen these four years of ozone holes that have been large but also have [stayed open] into December, which is the thing that’s most concerning for us as biologists,” Sharon Robinson, first author of the study and a climate change biologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, tells the Sydney Morning Herald’s Bianca Hall. “Because that’s when most of the life comes to life in Antarctica each summer. In the winter, everything’s under snow and ice.” The ozone layer is a thin blanket in the stratosphere made of molecules with three oxygen atoms. It absorbs harmful UVB light from the sun, which can cause cancer and eye damage in humans, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Scientists realized in the 1970s that this protective sheen was wearing away as a result of human activity. The ozone “hole” isn’t a total absence of ozone—it’s a spot in the layer where concentrations of the protective gas have dropped below a certain historical level. In 1987, countries around the world adopted the Montreal Protocol, agreeing to phase out the use of chemicals harmful to the ozone layer, including chlorofluorocarbons, used in aerosol sprays, firefighting foams, refrigerants and other materials. This agreement was highly effective—the ozone hole reached its peak size in 2006 and has been shrinking since then. Now, scientists think the ozone layer could fully recover by the middle of the century. “When I tell people I work on the ozone hole, they go: ‘Oh, isn’t that better now?” Robinson tells BBC News’ Victoria Gill. But the fact that the hole is lasting longer provides “a wake-up call,” Jim Haywood, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Exeter in England who did not contribute to the findings, tells the publication. “Society cannot be complacent about our achievements in tackling it.” A diagram showing how organisms are affected by lower levels of ozone in the summer, when the sun is higher in the sky and less ice exists to reflect radiation away. Robinson et al., Global Change Biology, 2024 While the ozone layer is recovering, events on Earth—both human-caused and natural—are still delaying that process. Australian bushfires in 2019 and 2020, which scorched as much as 70,000 square miles of land and impacted nearly three billion animals, released particles called aerosols into the air that can damage the ozone layer. “With climate change, one of the things we’re seeing is more frequent bushfires,” Robinson says to the Sydney Morning Herald. “We’ll always have bushfires, but we’re having more of them because it’s drier and warmer and the weather conditions are more extreme.” The massive Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption in Tonga in 2022 also spewed aerosols. Even rocket launches and geoengineering projects using aerosols have the potential to further delay the ozone’s recovery, per the paper. These events have likely contributed to the ozone hole over Antarctica staying open later into the year, the scientists write. Sea ice extent drops by about 25 percent between early October and early December—and since ozone depletion has recently continued into this period of reduced ice coverage, animals are being left more vulnerable, per the paper. Penguins and seals are protected from sunburn because of their feathers and fur, but their eyes have no such shield. However, few studies have examined the impacts of ultraviolet radiation exposure on animals—and the ones that do probe this issue have usually been conducted in zoos, the study authors write in the Conversation. “More UV radiation in early summer could be particularly damaging to young animals, such as penguin chicks and seal pups who hatch or are born in late spring,” they write in the Conversation. Increased radiation exposure can inhibit the photosynthesis of plankton, per the paper. Antarctic krill, which feed on plankton, might dive deeper into the water to escape the harmful rays, and studies have also found increased death rates in krill larvae after ultraviolet radiation exposure. These organisms form the basis of the Antarctic food chain, and impacts to them could in turn affect seabirds, seals, penguins and whales, per BBC News. Additionally, more sea ice is melting in the Antarctic due to global warming, making the ozone hole more harmful, the study authors note. “The biggest thing we can do to help Antarctica is to act on climate change—reduce carbon emissions as quickly as possible so we have fewer bushfires and don’t put additional pressure on ozone layer recovery,” Robinson tells BBC News. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Court upholds EPA pollution plan for Pennsylvania coal plants

The state Department of Environmental Protection said it is reviewing the ruling.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said it is reviewing the ruling.

Why no one won this year’s water wars

California's wet winter exposed enduring conflicts between fish and farms.

SACRAMENTO, California — California is having a really good water year. But all the rain and snow is doing almost nothing to lubricate the state’s perpetual conflicts between fish and farms.Neither farmers, cities nor environmentalists feel like they’re getting enough water from the State Water Project and the federally run Central Valley Project, a semi-coordinated labyrinth of reservoirs, canals and pumping stations that together irrigates nearly 4 million acres.Farmers and cities are arguing that the storms mean they should get more than the 40 percent of their contractual deliveries that they’ve been promised so far (they get about 63 percent on average). They’d have more of an argument if endangered fish weren’t also getting massacred at the pumps: The water projects have already exceeded their take limit for the season for steelhead trout, meaning they’re violating the Endangered Species Act.Everyone is frustrated with Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden’s administrations, which operate the systems, as well as with themselves:“That water is not recoverable,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, which represents the 27 water agencies that get supplies from the State Water Project, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “We should all be in timeout right now.”With so many cooks in the kitchen, there’s a variety of culprits. Westlands Water District, which gets its water from the CVP, is blaming the Biden administration, which runs the project through the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service.Westlands General Manager Allison Febbo said she thinks the high steelhead losses could have been due to the fish returning in above-average numbers, rather than to pumping decisions. She’s calling for a hearing in the Republican-led House into how the CVP applied the Endangered Species Act this year.“We are frustrated,” she said in an interview. “The actions being taken have real world consequences in our district, and we don’t see those actions particularly substantiated.”Jon Rosenfield, science director of the environmental group San Francisco Baykeeper, is pointing at Newsom’s Department of Water Resources, which he argues loosened protections for fish during the last drought.“This is a direct result of the Newsom administration waiving its water quality rules, which it already acknowledges are inadequate, for three years in a row,” he said. He also said the state ran its pumps too early, when there were a lot of fish present.Newsom administration officials are penitent and vowing to change, but are also making the argument for more investment.DWR Director Karla Nemeth called the low allocations “unusual” and traced them in part to more real-time efforts by the state to protect endangered fish after a severe die-off roughly two decades ago prompted lawsuits.She outlined a series of “fixes,” including increasing genetic testing of fish to better figure out which ones absolutely need to be protected and building the Delta Conveyance Project, a controversial tunnel to reroute deliveries underneath the overplumbed Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.“This year was kind of a poster child for infrastructure that’s not really up to the challenge of the next century, and more work that needs to be done,” she said in an interview.(Reclamation didn’t respond to a request for comment, while NMFS said “We limit impacts on threatened and endangered species based on all of the best available science to protect them and provide opportunities for their recovery.”)The fight will continue playing out in several venues: State and federal agencies are currently renegotiating the underlying fish-science documents that guide management decisions, which are still governed by Trump-era rules.And last week, they kicked off the monthlong process to plan summer releases from Lake Shasta, the largest reservoir in the state, which will crystallize the conflict as well as anything: Water managers will try to find a balance between releasing water for farms when they need it in the summer and maintaining cool-enough water reserves to send down rivers to protect endangered salmon eggs in the fall.On one point, everyone agrees: California’s water system is broken, whether it’s a wet, a dry or average year.“I don’t think that we are well-positioned for the type of adaptive management and real-time response that’s going to be needed in order to maximize our resources for the environment and for people and farms,” Pierre said. “This year really highlighted that.”Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO’s California Climate newsletter.

New ideas shed light on addressing climate issues

Environmental scientist Hannah Ritchie discusses how technological advances could lead to a more sustainable future in the face of climate challenges.Ezra Klein reports for The New York Times.In short:Clean energy technology is making strides, providing a hopeful outlook for sustainable development.The environmental impact of livestock farming highlights the importance of finding solutions for food production that align with sustainability goals.The politics of implementing large-scale climate initiatives remain complex and challenging, but progress in technology is opening doors to potential solutions.Key quote:"These are tractable problems. They’re not easy problems. They’re really, really difficult to tackle, but they’re tractable."— Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World in Data.Why this matters: Innovations in clean energy and agriculture will play a significant role in shaping a sustainable future, but the road ahead will require cooperation, determination, and effective policy. Read more: The global food system is failing small-scale farmers — here’s how to fix it.

Environmental scientist Hannah Ritchie discusses how technological advances could lead to a more sustainable future in the face of climate challenges.Ezra Klein reports for The New York Times.In short:Clean energy technology is making strides, providing a hopeful outlook for sustainable development.The environmental impact of livestock farming highlights the importance of finding solutions for food production that align with sustainability goals.The politics of implementing large-scale climate initiatives remain complex and challenging, but progress in technology is opening doors to potential solutions.Key quote:"These are tractable problems. They’re not easy problems. They’re really, really difficult to tackle, but they’re tractable."— Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World in Data.Why this matters: Innovations in clean energy and agriculture will play a significant role in shaping a sustainable future, but the road ahead will require cooperation, determination, and effective policy. Read more: The global food system is failing small-scale farmers — here’s how to fix it.