The Guardian

• ‘A slap in the face’: small farmers say Trump is turning his back on them

  The president wooed farmers in his campaign, but now the USDA is yanking funding, citing ‘DEI’ and wasteful spending

  It’s just an eighth of an acre, but for Lawrencia Rogers, the plot where she grows broccolini, lettuce and beans on land once tilled by poorhouse residents in eastern Iowa is the closest she has come to living her dream.

  Iowa is one of the most agriculturally productive states in the country, but getting into farming is not easy, particularly for people like Rogers who have no family connections to the business. It’s nonetheless been a lifelong passion for the 33-year-old Iowan: at age six, she planted a rosebush that’s still alive today, and managed to grow cantaloupe on a strip of dirt and chain-link fence next to the driveway of her grandmother’s house.

  Continue reading...

• Drones are detecting more sharks at US beaches, but do they make the public safer?

  Increase in sightings may not reflect increase in sharks with little evidence that threat to swimmers has risen

  Experts say that despite recent increased investment in drones to monitor for sharks in states like New York, the machines have limited usefulness as a public safety tool and there does not appear to be evidence that the threat to swimmers from sharks has increased.

  There have, however, been more reports of sharks around local beaches.

  Continue reading...

• ‘Death sentence’: Trump administration to open habitats of endangered species to logging and mining

  Habitat destruction strongest driver of species loss, with legislation keeping 99% of listed species from going extinct

  The Trump administration repealed a crucial part of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Friday, finalizing a new rule that will open habitats of imperiled wildlife to development, logging, mining and other uses.

  For the last 50 years, the landmark environmental law included a broader understanding of the word “harm”, which ensured that not just the plants and animals themselves were protected but also the places that are critical to their survival. The inclusion of habitat in the “harm” definition was upheld by the supreme court in 1995, which ruled in support of old-growth forest protections relied on by endangered spotted owls.

  Continue reading...

• Trump taps climate skeptic to run US government’s flagship climate report

  Matthew Wielicki frequently criticizes established climate science online, including in videos from rightwing PragerU

  The Trump administration has tapped a former geochemist who has railed against “climate alarmism” and calls himself an “Earth science professor-in-exile” to oversee the federal government’s flagship report about climate impacts on the US.

  Matthew Wielicki, who lacks formal training in climate science, will now lead the nation’s Global Change Research Program, which federal officials have gutted during Trump’s second term.

  Continue reading...

• Pacific gray whales facing ‘catastrophic’ die-off as climate crisis hits food supply

  Trump administration urged to relist a species in ‘very, very serious trouble’ under Endangered Species Act

  Climate change is driving a gray whale “catastrophic mortality event” in the Pacific Ocean as melting sea ice depletes food sources and the animals starve, environmental groups warn.

  Meanwhile, a range of other issues, like ship strikes, oil spills, microplastic pollution, algal blooms and Russian harvesting are also probably contributing to the die-off that has nearly halved the whales’ estimated population. It fell from 20,000 in 2019 to fewer than 13,000 this year, and the deaths appear to be accelerating.

  Continue reading...