Trees are "social creatures" that communicate with each other in cooperative ways that hold lessons for humans, too, ecologist Suzanne Simard says.  Trees are linked to neighboring trees by an underground network of fungi that resembles the neural networks in the brain, she explains. In one study, Simard watched as a Douglas fir that had been injured by insects appeared to send chemical warning signals to a ponderosa pine growing nearby. The pine tree then produced defense enzymes to protect against the insect.  "This was a breakthrough," Simard says. The trees were sharing "information that actually is important to the health of the whole forest." - NPR 

Big Oil has a filthy legacy in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. One prominent environmentalist said: “They are moving out and leaving all the mess behind.”

​Every time we buy gasoline for our cars, every time we purchase something made of plastic, we are a little bit responsible for this.  Everything is connected to everything else. - NYTimes

Pollution in the rivers has led to reduced numbers of fish, and the ones that are caught are smaller and sometimes contaminated with oil, according to the fisherwomen.  ->

Oceanside’s annual harbor dredging and the occasional regional sand replenishment projects are not enough to save the city’s eroding beaches, a new study shows.  A proposal to build rock groins on the beach appears to be the best way to stop or at least slow the steady erosion that has been chewing away the city’s coastline since the 1940s, according to the study prepared for Oceanside by the Long Beach-based consulting firm GHD.  “Sand from this (harbor dredging) program does little to really benefit the city beaches,”  -San Diego Union

If some politicians are to be believed, taking sweeping action to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement would be calamitous for jobs in the energy sector. But a study suggests that honouring the global climate target would, in fact, increase net jobs by about 8 million by 2050. The study – in which researchers created a global dataset of the footprint of energy jobs in 50 countries including major fossil fuel-producing economies – found that currently an estimated 18 million people work in the energy industries, which is likely to increase to 26 million if climate targets are met. - Guardian

Years of recreational shooting left hazardous levels of lead in the soil of a parcel of land in the White Tank Mountains, and the site west of Phoenix will remain closed for three more years for cleanup.  The area was shuttered to recreational shooting after a pregnant woman was killed by a stray bullet more than three years ago.  The multimillion-dollar remediation effort comes as Buckeye aims to lease the land from the federal Bureau of Land Management for a park. It's an area that public safety officials previously describe as "a mess" because of the number of people shooting at all hours, in all directions. - AZ Central

The Skagit River runs about 150 miles through what is now British Columbia into northwest Washington, from the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound. Along the way, three major hydroelectric dams owned by the city of Seattle — Ross Dam, Diablo Dam and the Gorge Dam — block the river’s flow. Now, as part of a once-every-few-decades federal relicensing process, the ecological alterations caused by those dams are being re-examined by scientists and regulators. The license renewal is exposing other changes, too, including how Indigenous nations are increasingly asserting their sovereignty and rights. Looked at from one angle, this regulatory process is simply a bureaucratic hoop Seattle must jump through to keep using the Skagit River to generate power. From another, however, it’s a chance to reconsider the value of the river itself. The relicensing process has triggered many different conversations on the Skagit’s future; this is one of a pair of stories that focus on a few of them. - HCN

The United States relies on a complex mix of energy sources to fuel the country’s various end-sectors’ energy consumption. While this energy mix is still dominated by fossil fuels, there are signs of a steady shift to renewable energy over the past decade. This radial Sankey diagram using data from the EIA (Energy Information Administration) breaks down U.S. energy consumption in 2020, showing us how much each sector relies on various energy sources. - Visual Capitalist

Portions of the Amazon rainforest are now emitting more carbon dioxide than they absorb — a troubling sign for the fight against climate change, a new study suggests.  Deforestation and an accelerating warming trend have contributed to change in the carbon balance, which is most severe in the southeastern region of the Amazon, where there are both rising temperatures and reduced rainfall in the dry season. The most affected regions have warmed by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit during the dry season in the last 40 years, comparable to the changes seen in the rapidly-warming Arctic. - NYTimes

Last summer’s relentless, 100-degree heat and compounding drought killed a record 520 people in Arizona — twice the total deaths reported nationally from hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, severe storms and floods, and a significant increase from the past decade, when heat-related deaths in Arizona never went above 283. With this summer already dangerously hot, researchers are sounding the alarm about a heat-vulnerable community that has been historically disregarded because of where they live: substandard, aged mobile homes.- Washington Post 

The collapse of the condominium building in Surfside, Florida, may force what some say is a long overdue conversation about the hard realities of climate change that will transform one of the nation’s most vulnerable regions.  To be sure, no evidence has emerged so far to connect climate change to the middle-of-the-night collapse of the Champlain Towers on June 24, which buried residents in the rubble. Sea level has risen eight inches in South Florida since 1981, when the 12-story condo was built—not enough to be responsible for its collapse, says Hal Wanless, a University of Miami geologist and South Florida’s preeminent voice on sea-level rise.  The investigation so far is more focused on a confluence of events including delays by the homeowners association in carrying out recommended repairs and an environmental danger that’s been known for more than a century: the corrosive effects of salt water on coastal construction. - National Geographic

In 2017 around 1.05 million deaths were avoidable by eliminating fossil fuel combustion, according to a study published in the science journal Nature Communications. The largest number of these deaths occurred in world’s two most populous countries - China and India. Air pollution caused due to combustion of coal alone contributed to half of these deaths. Residential, industry and energy sectors were other dominant global sources of fossil fuel emissions. The study indicates that replacing traditional energy sources will have substantial health benefits. - Forbes / Nature

Last year was hot. NASA declared that it tied 2016 for the hottest year on record, and the Met Office of the United Kingdom said it was the final year in the warmest 10-year period ever recorded. Temperatures were particularly high in Siberia, with some areas experiencing monthly averages more than 10°C above the 1981–2010 average. Overall, Siberia had the warmest January to June since records began; on 20 June, the town of Verkhoyansk, Russia, hit 38°C, the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic Circle.  Scientists showed that the prolonged heat in Siberia would have been almost impossible without human-induced climate change. Global warming made the heat wave at least 600 times more likely than in 1900, they found. - EOS

We want our cheap oil but we don't want the consequences, so we often put refineries in places where people without influence life and then tout all the jobs that are created.  Once again, a fossil fuel-related company walks away with the profits, leaves a mess for the taxpayer to clean up, and then whines about regulations, this time in the USVI.  - Washington Post

OU PROBABLY KNOW by now that when you wash a load of synthetic clothes, like yoga pants or moisture-wicking sweatshirts, tiny bits of them tear loose and flush out to a wastewater treatment facility, which then pumps them out to sea. A single load of laundry releases perhaps millions of these microfibers (technically a subspecies of microplastics, defined as bits smaller than 5 millimeters). So it’s no wonder that scientists are finding the particles everywhere they look, from the deepest seas to what’s no longer a pristine Arctic.  And now it turns out that your clothes are polluting the planet with microplastic before they’re even clothes.- Wired

Much of the American West , from parched Northern California through Arizona and New Mexico, is drying out at a record pace.
The onset of this severe drought was far quicker than previous ones — the result of a meager Sierra Nevada snowpack and early seasonal heat that evaporated the runoff needed to fill the reservoirs and rivers. “It’s difficult to point to one occurrence and say, ‘Hah, this is climate change,’’’ said John Yarbrough, the assistant deputy director for the State Water Project with the California Department of Water Resources.  But this year, the second consecutive that the nation’s most populous state will be in drought, has been different from previous ones. Yarbrough said that only 20 percent of the expected runoff from an already well-below average snowpack arrived in reservoirs. The rest evaporated during the unseasonably warm spring. - Washington Post


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Managers of some Arizona golf courses are fighting a plan that would cut water use at a time when the state is being forced to confront shrinking water supplies.  A group representing golf courses has been pushing back against a proposal by state officials that would reduce overall water use on courses, instead offering a plan that would entail less conservation.  Opposition to the state’s proposal for golf courses has emerged over the past several months, aired in sometimes-tense virtual meetings where representatives of courses have said they understand the need to conserve but are concerned the proposed reductions in water allotments would damage their businesses. - AZ Central

President Biden has a rare opportunity to act on climate with maximum political capital from the 2020 election, bipartisan support for a clean energy recovery from the COVID-induced economic crisis, and the imperative of meeting his announced goal of halving the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The upside of acting now is massive - $1.5 trillion in investment across every corner of the country.  Biden campaigned on a 100% clean electricity by 2035 pledge, included this target in his American Jobs Plan, and outlined the job-creation benefits of clean energy in his annual message to Congress in April. Biden can seize this opportunity by working with Congress to pass a clean electricity standard (CES) targeting 80% clean electricity by 2030, which new research shows is possible without increasing customer costs thanks to plummeting wind, solar, and battery costs. - Forbes

On Feb. 22, 2021, Lake Powell was 127.24 feet below 'Full Pool' or, by content, about 38% full. Based on water level elevations, these measurements do not account for years of sediment (clay, silt, and sand) accumulation—the millions of metric tons on the bottom. Geologist James L. Powell said, "The Colorado delivers enough sediment to Lake Powell to fill 1,400 ship cargo containers each day." In other words, Lake Powell is shrinking toward the middle from top and bottom. The lake is down over 30 feet from one year ago, and estimates suggest it could drop another 50 feet by 2026. - Lake Powell Chronicle