BYSharon Zhang, TruthoutPUBLISHEDSeptember 20, 2021SHAREShare via FacebookShare via TwitterShare via Email

READING LISTPOLITICS & ELECTIONSMcConnell, Manchin, Sinema and Pharma Dems Are Preparing to Torpedo EverythingREPRODUCTIVE RIGHTSJustice Department Fights Back Against Texas Anti-Abortion LawPRISONS & POLICINGBipartisan Reforms Often Expand Prisons and Police. We Need Abolition Instead.ENVIRONMENT & HEALTHBiden Administration Shuns IPCC Report in Argument to Expand Offshore DrillingENVIRONMENT & HEALTHPfizer Says Vaccine Is Safe for Kids Aged 5 to 11, Will Submit to FDA This MonthECONOMY & LABORYIMBY Movement Is Not the Answer to Housing Crisis, Grassroots Activists Say

As the Biden administration pushes forward with plans to expand offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, officials have argued that alarming research presented in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report isn’t sufficient to pause or reassess drilling plans.

As first reported by The Daily Poster, the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) wrote in a recent document that the IPCC report “does not present sufficient cause” for the agency to take a second look at the administration’s plan to continue issuing leases for drilling.

The Bureau instead opens the door to future fossil fuel development projects. “The report, as well as additional analysis of climate change, may be a significant consideration in the Department’s decisions regarding oil and gas leasing programs in the future,” officials wrote.

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Climate advocates were frustrated with the agency’s callous regard toward the IPCC report and the decision to march ahead with the leasing.“The honeymoon’s over,” between climate groups and the Biden administration, Friends of the Earth deputy legal director Hallie Templeton told The Daily Poster. “It’s now September, they’ve been in office for eight months. It’s time for them to show that they have priorities and are meaningfully going to move in the right direction.”

In the BOEM’s document, the administration argues that officials must comply with a court order that requires them to lease about 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for fossil fuel projects.The court order was a product of a lawsuit by states that are led by fossil fuel-funded Republicans; earlier this year, they sued the administration over an order that would have blocked the sale.

Climate advocates argue that the Biden administration has the power to decide whether or not to hold land sales for drilling. Earthjustice, on behalf of Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club, Healthy Gulf and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit at the end of August arguing that given the urgency of the climate crisis, the lease sale cannot go forward.

“This lease sale is deeply disappointing. The Biden administration has folded to the oil industry based on its campaign of disinformation and political pressure, ignoring the worsening climate emergency we face,” said Brettny Hardy, an Earthjustice attorney. “Our planet cannot handle more stress from oil and gas production and yet the Biden administration is plowing ahead with a lease sale that will have impacts for decades into the future.”

Since Hurricane Ida slammed Louisiana and swept through the country to New York, causing floods and devastation along the way, President Biden has been touring areas hard-hit by the climate crisis. Climate researchers say that Ida was fueled largely by the climate crisis and rapidly rising water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy, and the threat is here,” Biden said while on tour earlier this month. “We can stop it from getting worse.”

Climate advocates say that Biden has thus far been all talk on climate, without the policy proposals or pressure on Congress to show for it. As one of his first actions in office, Biden signed an order to stop oil and gas leasing on federal lands — a move that was lauded by climate advocates.

But since then, Biden has become softer on the chief architects of the climate crisis. “[Biden] can use his powers to stop supercharging the climate crisis with drilling, fracking, and disastrous projects like Line 3, or he can just keep repeating talking points, approving fossil fuel development, and listening to Joe Manchin, which makes him nothing more than a disaster tourist,” Kassie Siegel, Climate Law Institute director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Rolling Stone.

Just affirming the reality of the climate crisis isn’t enough, say climate advocates, who liken major policies that sideline the crisis to climate denial. In negotiations for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Biden allowed conservative Democrats and Republicans to carve climate provisions out of the bill nearly entirely; and he has done little to try to whip people like Senator Manchin into shape on major roadblocks to climate action like the filibuster.

The IPCC report, released last month, warned of increasingly dire consequences if the world continues on its current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. Other global energy bodies have warned that the world must stop pursuing new fossil fuel projects if we are to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

Scientists are trying to figure out why many of the birds are being found as ‘little more than skin and bone’gazettelive

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An “unprecedented” number of seabirds are being found dead or hungry on Teesside’s beaches, as well as across the remainder of the north east coastline.

Over recent weeks, there’s been a rise in residents reporting carcasses along the beach at Seaton Carew and at Hartlepool ‘s Headland.

Scientists are busy trying to figure out why these marine birds, such as guillemots, appear to be dying from starvation at an “unheard” of rate.

Go here for more Hartlepool news and updates from Hartlepool Live

Jacky Watson, the Wilder Coast officer at the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust, has received a “rise in local reports of dead seabirds over the last month.”

She added: “We’ve seen a lot of people posting on Facebook or getting in touch with us directly with reports of dead guillemots and other birds, and this pattern is mirrored across the North East.”

The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) has ruled out bird flu but is investigating other possible causes such as poisoning from algal blooms.

CEH ecologist Dr Francis Daunt said: “We are seeing unprecedented numbers of guillemots dying for the time of year, over a huge area of the Eastern UK coast from Norfolk to Orkney.NerdWalletThe Best Way To Wipe Out Up To $10,000 Of DebtNerdWallet NMLS ID# 1617539Want your dream home? Start with a dream mortgageby TaboolaSponsored Links

“We are also seeing very unusual behaviour. Birds have been seen feeding very close to beaches in amongst swimmers, when normally they steer clear of people, and have been observed up to 20 miles up rivers, which is unheard of for this marine bird.

“These are signs that the birds are getting desperate in their search for food. The dead birds are little more than skin and bone with many half their usual weight, which is catastrophically low. So it appears that the birds are dying from starvation.”

Dr Daunt said the fact that the birds appeared to be starving “might suggest a lack of good quality fish in the sea” but the presence of many feeding flocks along the coasts suggested it was “caused by something else”.

They added: “We have tested 10 birds for avian flu, all of which came back negative, and we are now looking at the possibility of toxic poisoning from algal blooms.”

A worried resident, Geoff Lilley, reported he had seen “six new dead razor bills at least on Seaton Carew beach this morning, and 20 on a two mile stretch of beach over the last 5 days.

He explained: “I usually fine the odd one, especially after a storm, but this is unheard of. There’s something significantly wrong.

“I know this has been an issue all along the north sea coast from the north of Scotland down as far as the Humber.”

The Tees Valley Wildlife Trust said they will be “watching the situation closely”.

Jacky continued: “At first people were saying it was normal, because a big weather event can affect the amount of birds dying.

“However, researchers who have recovered the carcasses are saying it’s not a storm weather event.

“A lot of them are underweight and in a very bad way. We are worried and want to know what’s going.https://get-latest.convrse.media/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gazettelive.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fteesside-news%2Fsomething-significantly-wrong-unprecedented-number-21617127&cre=center&cip=24&view=web

“Is there something wrong in the food chain? Or is it something else?”

The CEH is now recording the number and location of all dead birds and will carry out post-mortem examinations on their bodies.https://cd9ce57483f69a3c275ec4cc00a70ef1.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html138212091369https://get-latest.convrse.media/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gazettelive.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fteesside-news%2Fsomething-significantly-wrong-unprecedented-number-21617127&cre=mr-bottom&cip=1&view=web&ignoreMetaDataCheck=true

The advice from the trust is to report the birds to Defra to help “build a more complete picture”, but not to touch them.

The number for the Defra helpline is 03459 33 55 77.

ByAlejandro ZúñigaSeptember 17, 2021 Share

A majority of lawmakers this week supported President Carlos Alvarado’s veto of a controversial project that would have authorized trawl fishing in Costa Rican waters.https://b00e325927eabe2bced8f881857b0b01.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

“A large majority of the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica supported the veto that I interposed on October 30, 2020 to the trawling law,” President Alvarado shared on social media.

The vote to override the veto failed with just 12 votes in favor to 31 against. Fourteen deputies abstained.

“I applaud the wisdom of the deputies,” Alvarado said. “Trawling is not sustainable and harms our artisanal fishermen, sport fishing and tourism. This decision is in favor of Costa Rica’s tradition of environmental protection.”

The law project, which had been passed in two debates by the same Legislative Assembly, was criticized by scientists, environmentalists and small-scale fishermen, among others, who feared the destruction of marine life.https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.480.1_en.html#goog_1329342492Volume 0% 

“Costa Rica represents for many a beacon of hope for peace, for the environment, for climate change, for health, for human rights and for democracy,” President Alvarado said when he vetoed the bill last year.https://b00e325927eabe2bced8f881857b0b01.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

“The analysis that we have done reveals that there does not exist enough scientific studies that support the sustainability of shrimp trawling. … Any decision that we make to take advantage of our natural resources must be based on science.”

The veto could have been overridden by a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislative Assembly.

Trawling “generates greater pressure on ecosystems and resources that are already overexploited,” a statement from the Environment Ministry said.

The legislation would have instructed the state-run Costa Rican Fisheries Institute to determine how using trawl nets for shrimp capture could be done without affecting the sustainability of the oceans.

But the fishing method was roundly condemned by environmentalists and academics, including the School of Biology and the Center for Research in Marine Sciences (Cimar), both at the University of Costa Rica.https://b00e325927eabe2bced8f881857b0b01.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

The latter institution warned in a study that trawling “is not selective” and captures other species in the net. They pointed out that the use of nets kills sea birds, sharks and turtles, among other species.

The practice also harms artisanal fishermen, Cimar noted; the Costa Rican Fisheries Federation (FECOP), a nonprofit that represents sport-fishing associations, called the bill’s approval in the Legislative Assembly “very disappointing.”

“The extensive and unrestricted environmental damage that the activity produces and its impact on other productive sectors of the country, on which thousands of people depend, is not justified,” Cimar said.

Evangelical deputy Melvin Núñez, from the opposition National Restoration Party, has defended trawling, arguing that it could generate some 3,000 jobs in coastal areas, which have the highest poverty rates in the country and have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.https://b00e325927eabe2bced8f881857b0b01.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

“To the coastal communities, I reaffirm our compromise to come out of this [unemployment] crisis,” President Alvarado said Friday.

Costa Rica’s constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice suspended the granting of licenses for trawling in 2013.

• AMANDA CALLAHAN
• UPDATED SEP 18, 2021 | POSTED ON SEP 18, 2021
•  https://www.westernmassnews.com/news/animal-rights-advocates-protest-outside-big-e/article_cec92bc8-18e5-11ec-ac05-db0ceb38ecae.html

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Western Mass Animal Rights Advocates is organized by Agawam resident Sheryl Becker.

WEST SPRINGFIELD, MA (WGGB/WSHM) — Now to West Springfield, where local animal rights advocates came together to protest the use of animals in entertainment at the Big E.

Western Mass Animal Rights Advocates is organized by Agawam resident Sheryl Becker, who said they are working to educate people about what they call the cruel and inhumane treatment of animals in fairs.

“The lifestyle of these animals is incredibly cruel. They’re living in trailers when they’re not at events, they’re not given the proper healthcare that they need, they’re not able to move and interact with each other, they’re kept in tiny cramped confined quarters some spend the majority of their whole lives. In all elements out here, some of them are from tropical climates,” Becker said.

Western Mass News reached out to the Big E, but we have not heard back in time for this newscast.