Phoenix, one of the hottest and fastest-warming cities in the US, could be hit by “a [Hurricane] Katrina of extreme heat” with temperatures peaking in the 120s and lingering for two weeks. In a heat wave like this, the power grid would succumb to brownouts and blackouts and many elderly would die in their homes. (Complete story here.)
Southern California could see a wildfire that burns a total of 1.5 million acres. Smoke from the blazes could carry at least 100 miles west into Los Angeles and 100 miles south to San Diego, leading to hazardous air quality throughout the region and thousands of hospitalizations. Well over 100,000 structures would likely be destroyed and hundreds could die the flames. “The damage would likely be massive, potentially…
Lewis & Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said in a Facebook post on Friday that an injured hiker was rescued southeast of Lincoln.
Sheriff Dutton said the Dispatch Center received a call at 1:40 pm from Daniel Barrett Cogbill, a 34-year old man from Great Falls.
Cogbill said he was on the side of a cliff bow hunting when he fell and heard his right lower leg snap.
Lewis & Clark County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue, Lincoln Ambulance, and Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the area of the Granite Butte Lookout.
Emergency crews found his vehicle just south of the lookout at 2:57 p.m., and after comparing the coordinates of the 911 call to where his vehicle was, they found him over an embankment about 50 yards…
ALBANY – Hunting season for black bear and Canada geese have begun in New York.
State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos said black bear hunting seasons opened beginning Sept. 7.
In southeastern New York, the early bear season runs from Sept. 7 to Sept. 22 in Wildlife Management Units 3A, 3C, 3H, 3J, 3K, 3M, 3P, 3R, 4P, and 4R. The early bowhunting season for bears will open in all of the Southern Zone Oct. 1, followed by the regular firearms season beginning Nov. 16.
In northern New York, the early bear season runs from Sept. 14 to Oct. 18 in Wildlife Management Units 5A, 5C, 5F, 5G, 5H, 5J, 6C, 6F, 6H, and 6J. Bowhunting season for bears also begins on Sept. 14, in the other Northern Zone units (WMUs 6A, 6G, 6K, and 6N). Muzzleloader season then opens in all…
A Washington state sheriff will use hunters with hounds to track down cougars that cause problems in his county.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
A Central Washington sheriff has sworn in hound handlers to pursue cougars and black bears, saying he expects his office to be quicker and more aggressive in responding to dangerous animals than the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer said he’s heard increasing concerns from ranchers and others about predators.
Since the sheriff took charge of chasing predators last last month, a cougar seen in a field with cattle was chased and euthanized, a livestock-protection measure Songer said he doubts Fish and Wildlife would have taken.
“We don’t have to wait for a killing,” he said. “I feel very strongly that prevention is better than waiting for something to happen.”
Botswana government to sell rights to shoot 158 elephants
Country has courted controversy by lifting hunting ban in May
is reintroducing elephant hunts and is likely to sell licenses to kill the animals at a discount to its neighbors. That could further inflame the controversy that’s threatening a $2 billion tourism industry after a five-year ban on hunting was lifted.
The government will auction licenses to hunting operators for the right to shoot an elephant but is yet to decide on the minimum price it will set, said Kitso Mokaila, the country’s environment minister. Botswana will allow the killing of 158 elephants in trophy hunts this year.
An additional administrative fee of 20,000 pula ($1,834) for each of 72 elephant hunting licenses designated for foreigners has already been agreed on, according to government documents seen by Bloomberg. In neighboring Zimbabwe, the right to shoot an elephant costs at least $21,000.
Conservationists worldwide have opposed the plan, warning that tourists may go elsewhere.
“It’s a very reasonable price,” said Dries van Coller, president of the Professional Hunters Association in South Africa. “They would rather proceed with caution, and see how it goes.”
President Mokgweetsi Masisi put elephants at the center of the Botswana’s politics ahead of October elections, breaking ranks with his predecessor Ian Khama, who imposed the hunting ban and garnered international praise for Botswana’s wildlife policies.
Still, by lifting the hunting ban earlier this year, Botswana has brought itself in line with its neighbors. The number of hunting licenses are below the 400 cap it set itself, and compares with 500 licenses in Zimbabwe and 90 in Namibia. In South Africa, foreign hunters generated 1.95 billion rand ($133 million) in 2017.
Less than 50 elephants are shot in South Africa annually and Zambia has allocated 37 licenses for this year.
The all-in cost of an elephant hunt typically involves several hundred dollars a day for the professional hunters who accompany the tourists, as well as accommodation and taxidermy fees. Hunts can last 10 to 18 days on average. Most trophy hunters in southern Africa come from the U.S.
“We want to start off cautiously and steadily to see if all that we want under the guidelines can be done properly,” Mokaila said. The sales will start soon, he added.
Tourism, mainly in the form of photographic safaris around the country’s Okavango and Chobe reasons, accounts for a fifth of Botswana’s economy.
An international drug smuggling ring was busted in Australia — with the help of an angry seal.
The seal prevented the getaway of two foreign nationals from a small island off the Geraldton coast, according to reports.
“They woke it up and it jumped up with its big chest out and bellowed at them,” Damien Healy, Geraldton Volunteer Marine Rescue Service vice commander, told ABC radio, according to the BBC.
“The guys basically had the choice of going through the seal or getting arrested and they ended up choosing getting arrested.”
The two foreigners were on a yacht that they ran aground on Sept. 2 before they attempted to flee in a dinghy, officials said. They were caught the next day after the seal interceded.
Cops seized one ton of illicit drugs after their arrests.
Two other foreign nationals and an Australian appeared in court in connection with the seizure on Thursday.
“We have disrupted a big international drug syndicate here,” Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) speaks during the third Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
“You are a vegan since 2014, and that’s obviously a personal choice,” moderator Jorge Ramos said to Sen. Cory Booker during the Democratic debate. “Should people follow your diet?”
It was a question that seemed to come out of nowhere. Booker looked surprised by it, which makes sense — when’s the last time you remember veganism getting airtime in a presidential debate? But he quickly recovered and gave his answer: No.
Then, very briefly, he talked about the factory farming system that supplies most of the meat we eat, a system that subjects animals to such cruel conditions that there are laws to keep the mistreatment hidden from public view. In the US, a small number of corporations controls most of our meat production and squeezes out small farms.
“One of the reasons that I have a bill to put a moratorium on this kind of corporate consolidation is because this factory farming is destroying and hurting our environment, and you see independent family farmers being pushed out of business because of the kind of incentives we are giving that don’t line up with our values,” Booker said. “That’s what I’m calling for.”
And that was it. “But I want to switch,” he continued, and turned the discussion to US war veterans, making the inarguable point that they deserve better care.
It’s understandable that Booker didn’t dwell too long on the veganism question; perhaps he didn’t want to risk alienating voters by coming off as preachy. Telling everyone that they should give up all animal products would probably not have played well, especially since the debate took place in Texas, which raises more cattle than any other state in the country.
But Booker missed a golden opportunity to talk about his animal welfare plan. If you haven’t heard about it, you’re not alone — the plan appears on Booker’s website, but he hasn’t really been hyping it.
By contrast, last month Julián Castro rolled out his own plan for animal welfare — which is much more comprehensive than Booker’s — and he savvily framed it asa way of sticking it to President Trump. “This groundbreaking plan will undo Donald Trump’s damage,” Castro said. His Protecting Animals and Wildlife plan would strengthen the Endangered Species Act, which Trump has weakened. And it would stop Americans from importing animal trophies that result from big-game hunting — something Donald Trump Jr. is known to love.
It’s good policy as well as smart politics. Americans are increasingly concerned with animal welfare. The incredibly rapid embrace of plant-based meat products like Impossible Burgers and Beyond Meat is, in part, attributable to a growing sense that we can and should be inflicting far less suffering on animals.
A 2015 Gallup poll found that 62 percent of Americans said animals deserve some legal protections. Another 32 percent — nearly one-third — expressed an even stronger pro-animal stance, saying they believe animals should get the same rights as people. In 2008, only 25 percent voiced that view.
It seems more and more Americans are coming to see animals as part of our moral circle, the boundary we draw around those we consider worthy of ethical consideration. Castro, aware of that trend, is leveraging it to the advantage of animals — and his candidacy.
Booker should’ve done the same. After all, he has a strong record on animal welfare issues. As his own website says:
Cory has led his colleagues in the Senate in blocking appropriations riders that sought to undermine the Endangered Species Act and delist vulnerable species such as Grey Wolves and Grizzly Bears, and he has introduced legislation that would require federal facilities to comply with the minimum standards of care in the Animal Welfare Act.
When Cory helped write a major update to our federal chemical safety law, Cory worked for over a year to include new limits on animal testing in the bill — and it is estimated that these protections will save hundreds of thousands of animals from needless suffering. Cory has also introduced a bill to extend federal prohibitions on animal fighting to the U.S. territories and got it passed into law in the final 2018 farm bill, saving thousands of animals every year from suffering and dying.
Plus, Booker’s animal welfare plan contains some worthy ideas, any one of which it would have been great to mention. Here are a few notable examples from his website:
Make extreme acts of animal cruelty a federal crime and establish an animal cruelty crimes enforcement unit within the Department of Justice
Create millions of new acres of wildlife habitat, restoring and protecting ecosystems that will provide a lifeline for species facing the threat of extinction
Immediately end all animal testing for cosmetics and develop scientifically reliable alternative methods in order to end all animal testing by 2025
Booker could’ve helped bring mainstream attention to these ideas by devoting even a minute or two to them during the debate. Had he leaned into the moderator’s question, he also could’ve presented himself as a leader on an issue that’s increasingly attracting American voters’ concern. Unfortunately, he shied away from the moment.
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 16, attends a protest outside the White House on Friday. She launched the Friday school strikes last year, and since then, her notoriety has steadily grown. She is known for speaking in clear and powerful terms about why people — particularly young people — must pay attention to Earth’s climate.
Mhari Shaw/NPR
Greta Thunberg led a protest at the White House on Friday. But she wasn’t looking to go inside — “I don’t want to meet with people who don’t accept the science,” she says.
The young Swedish activist joined a large crowd of protesters who had gathered outside, calling for immediate action to help the environment and reverse an alarming warming trend in average global temperatures.
She says her message for President Trump is the same thing she tells other politicians: Listen to science, and take responsibility.
Thunberg, 16, arrived in the U.S. last week after sailing across the Atlantic to avoid the carbon emissions from jet travel. She plans to spend nearly a week in Washington, D.C. — but she doesn’t plan to meet with anyone from the Trump administration during that time.
“I haven’t been invited to do that yet. And honestly I don’t want to do that,” Thunberg tells NPR’s Ailsa Chang. If people in the White House who reject climate change want to change their minds, she says, they should rely on scientists and professionals to do that.
But Thunberg also believes the U.S. has an “incredibly important” role to play in fighting climate change.
“You are such a big country,” she says. “In Sweden, when we demand politicians to do something, they say, ‘It doesn’t matter what we do — because just look at the U.S.’
“I think you have an enormous responsibility” to lead climate efforts, she adds. “You have a moral responsibility to do that.”
Thunberg is known for promoting school strikes among students concerned by climate change. On Aug. 20, 2018, she skipped school to protest by herself outside Sweden’s parliament.
Her notoriety has grown steadily, thanks to the clear terms in which she speaks about why people — particularly young people — must pay attention to Earth’s climate. She gave a TED Talk about the issue last November; one month later, she made a powerfulspeech at a U.N. climate change conference in Poland.
Greta Thunberg has now inspired student protests in dozens of countries — and in the U.S., she plans to lead protests ahead of the U.N. Climate Action Summit next week in New York City.
Mhari Shaw/NPR
“You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden, you leave to us children,” Thunberg, who was then 15, told the grownups at the conference, in a video that’s been watched millions of times online.
Asked when she became so passionate about climate change, Thunberg says it started before she was 10 years old, during a school lesson that, as she recalls, made the entire class very sad.
“We saw these horrifying pictures of plastic in the oceans and floodings and so on, and everyone was very moved by that. But then it just seemed like everyone went back to normal,” Thunberg says. “And I couldn’t go back to normal because those pictures were stuck in my head. And I couldn’t just go on knowing that this was happening around the world.”
She began researching the issue, reading about climate science and asking questions. Her sense of activism grew gradually — and at a time when she says she was dealing with depression. At the time, Thunberg was 11.
“How I got back from that depression was by telling myself I can do so much good with my life instead of just being depressed,” she says.
She became an activist, attending marches and talking to people inside the environmental movement. When the pace seemed too slow, she hit on the idea of a school strike, and a new movement was born. But Thunberg is quick to note that much work remains to be done.
Greta Thunberg says she wants people to use the power of their votes to elect leaders who will work to reduce carbon emissions and slow global warming.
Mhari Shaw/NPR
“Even though this movement has become huge and there have been millions of children and young people who have been school striking for the climate,” Thunberg says, “the emission curve is still not reducing … and of course that is all that matters.”
In the past, Thunberg also has spoken about being diagnosed with Asperger syndrome — and how that has helped her.
“My diagnosis helps me helps me see things a bit more clearly sometimes,” she says. “When everyone else seems to just compromise and have this double moral that’s, ‘Yeah. That’s very important, but also I can’t do that right now and I’m too lazy and so on.’
“But I can’t really do that.”
Thunberg continues, “I want to walk the talk, and to practice as I preach. So that is what I’m trying to do. Because if I am focused on something and if I know something and if I decide to do something, then I go all in. And it seems like others are not doing that right now. So yeah, it has definitely helped me.”
Thunberg has now been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the U.S., she plans to lead protests ahead of next week’s U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York City. Her arrival in Washington helped kick off that plan.
“Protect our future!” young demonstrators chanted as they marched across the grass north of the White House. One girl held a sign reading, “Make Earth Cool Again.”
The only things that seemed to slow Thunberg were the many admirers and journalists that thronged around her on the sidewalks around the White House. The crowd was repeatedly asked to move back, and the diminutive Thunberg was able to inch along, pausing occasionally to acknowledge a question or comment from passers-by.
“Thank you, Greta!” several onlookers shouted. Another yelled out, “We’re all here for you — and the climate!”
After the protesters marched around the White House to the lower portion of the Ellipse, Thunberg delivered a short speech, speaking through a megaphone to tell the crowd she’s grateful for their support and proud of them for coming to the march.
“This is very overwhelming,” Thunberg said, noting the large turnout.
.@NYCSchools will be sharing guidance with parents, educators and students on how students will be able to participate in next Friday’s events in the next few days. #ClimateStrikehttps://twitter.com/nycmayor/status/1172186264075984896 …
“Never give up,” she told the protesters, adding, “See you next week, on Sept. 20.”
The international protest that’s planned for next Friday will likely be large. New York City’s public school system recently announced that it will excuse the absences of any students who participate in the climate strike.
“Students will need parental consent,” the school system said, adding, “Younger students can only leave school with a parent.”
And if students elsewhere need an excused-absence note, Amnesty International Secretary General Kumi Naidoo has written a letter to more than 30,000 schools, urging them to allow their students to join the climate strikes.
Thunberg says that along with boosting people’s awareness of the dangers of climate change, she wants them to use their voting power to elect leaders who will work to reduce carbon emissions and slow global warming.
When asked what her parents think of her activism and the demands on her time, Thunberg says, “Of course they are concerned that I am doing all this and and that I am not going to school.”
The young activist adds, “I think they also see that I am happier now than I was before, because I’m doing something meaningful.”
She’s taking a gap year away from school to focus on her burgeoning youth movement.
Noting her parents’ concerns about living a very public life and being out of school, Thunberg says, “I think they support me in at least some way. They know that what I am doing is morally right.”
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Exposing the Big Game 