Companies are backing out of controversial plans to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to a number of animal species.
A company called Regenerate Alaska, which leased more than 23,000 acres in the refuge’s coastal plain at an auction held by the Trump administration last year, has since asked to have the lease rescinded, according to an Interior Department spokesperson.
The spokesperson said Thursday that the Bureau of Land Management last month rescinded and canceled the lease, and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue refunded the company’s bonus bid and first year rentals.
A Chevron spokesperson also confirmed Thursday that earlier this year the company pulled out of a lease on land owned by an Alaska Native corporation inside the refuge.
Leasing at the refuge is controversial because it is home to grizzly bears, polar bears, gray wolves and more than 200 species of birds. It also contains land considered sacred by the Gwich’in people.
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One co-author said ‘future generations will look at pictures of hummingbirds … like us looking at pictures of dinosaurs’ if conservation action was not taken. Photograph: Jose Carlos Fajardo/AP
Almost half the planet’s land surface needs extra conservation protection if the biodiversity crisis is to be halted, a major new study has found.
At least 64.7 million sq km (25 million sq miles) needs “conservation attention” but overlaps with areas where 1.8 billion people live – about a quarter of the world’s population – raising critical human rights challenges for conservationists, communities and governments.
Much of the land area is already covered by some level of protection – such as a national park – or is ecologically intact, but the research finds 12.4 million sq km will need to be added as protected areas.
Later this year, countries are expected to agree to new targets to protect 30% of land and ocean under the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by 2030.
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Dr James Allan, who led the new research at the University of Amsterdam, says the study shows the urgency of the biodiversity crisis, as well as the opportunity to act.
“If we act now, we can save these areas. But if we wait, and just talk, then the losses will continue. There is pressure now on governments at the next CBD meeting to move from talk to action.”
A previous target under the UN biodiversity convention to protect 17% of land areas and 10% of coastal and marine areas had been “inadequate for halting biodiversity declines and averting the crisis”, the authors of the new research argue.
For the study, published in the journal Science, 19 scientists from institutions in the UK, US, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands mapped all the places on Earth that have some protection, or are close to being wilderness areas. They then looked at the extinction risk for species and their geographical distribution.
“This paper shows that you can align big visions of conserving land with people in a way that’s sensitive to human rights,” Allan said.
In 2019, a UN-backed report said about 1m species were at risk of extinction in the coming decades, as biodiversity was being lost at an unprecedented and alarming rate.
The new analysis found that 44% of the world’s land surface needed increased protection – whether through measures such as improving wildfire management, development planning or increasing the size of formally protected national parks.
About 70% of that area was relatively unaltered by humans, but those places were quickly disappearing and needed urgent protection, the research found. Even so-called wilderness areas were at risk, the authors said, from threats such as invasive weeds, fire and climate change.
As much as 1.3 million sq km of land currently intact could be converted to intensive human use by 2030. This problem was most profound in Africa, with the lowest risks in Oceania and North America.
Prof Brendan Wintle, a conservation ecologist at the University of Melbourne and a co-author of the research, said: “The key here is not to focus on the 44% of land area, but to recognise that we need good conservation outcomes across very large proportions of the land surface to conserve biodiversity.
“That might be biodiversity-positive agriculture or carbon sequestration … everything needs to be on the table.
“We should remember, for example, that more than 85% of the planet’s wetlands have been lost since 1700. We have more than a million species at risk of extinction and we’re seeing extinction rates that are at their highest since the loss of the dinosaurs. Yet we’re still seeing drivers of biodiversity loss, like land clearing, continue.”
Most of the 1.8 billion people living in the areas that need better protection were in emerging and developing economies which, the authors said, “raises critical questions regarding how conservation strategies can be scaled up without compromising social justice goals”.
Dr April Reside, an ecologist at the University of Queensland and another co-author, said the area that needed attention might seem vast, but it was important to remember that “before humans came along and drastically modified the Earth’s surface, all of the planet was available for biodiversity”.
“But this is not to say that people cannot be in those places and, indeed, in Australia for example, [Indigenous people] have managed landscapes for at least 40,000 years.
“This is about making sure that while humans are now in the landscape, there’s attention to biodiversity as well.”
Prof Hugh Possingham, another co-author, also at the University of Queensland, said the research was an attempt to build a comprehensive picture “from first principles” of what was currently being protected, and where species were falling through gaps.
“We’re losing many species now,” he said. “This work is part of what we have to do to get the extinction rate back down to background levels. If we lose a million species by the end of the century then there’s no backing out of that.
“Future generations will be looking at pictures of hummingbirds and albatross – things that are in your back garden or in a national park – and to them they’ll be like us looking at pictures of dinosaurs. Something like 50,000 generations of people will have to deal with that.”
Hormel Foods Corp. said the bird flu outbreak will cause “large supply gaps” for the Jennie-O turkey brand this year.
“Our Jennie-O Turkey Store team is facing an uncertain period ahead,” Hormel CEO Jim Snee said. “Similar to what we experienced in 2015, (avian influenza) is expected to have a meaningful impact on poultry supplies over the coming months.”
The bird flu didn’t ding Jennie-O sales in the company’s second quarter earnings reported Thursday. The turkey brand’s sales for the quarter were up 16% year over year and reached $407 million.
But the quarter ended in April before the effects were felt in the worst outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza since 2015. The outbreak this spring has claimed the lives of 38 million birds in 35 states this year, including several million in Minnesota, which leads the nation in turkey production.
Minnesota has seen 2.9 million birds, mostly turkeys, killed by the virus or depopulated to prevent its spread. But just 180,000 were reported in May.
“We’ve started some re-population,” Snee said. “Assuming we don’t have any more outbreaks from this event, or we don’t see a recurrence in the fall, we expect to have more traditional volumes available” in time for Thanksgiving.
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Hormel’s stock price fell more than 5% on Thursday, closing at $45.76, its lowest point this year.
The food company, based in Austin, Minn., reported a $261 million profit for its second fiscal quarter, which ran February through April, marking a 14% jump over a year ago. Hormel tallied earnings per share of 48 cents, beating analyst predictions.
Sales reached $3.1 billion in the quarter, up 19% over the year before, or 10% excluding acquisitions. Growth was driven by the Planters, Skippy, Wholly Guacamole, Spam and Columbus brands and higher demand from restaurants and schools.
Hormel’s refrigerated foods segment saw sales rise 13%, to $1.6 billion. Shelf-stable grocery sales rose 39% to $873 million, largely due to the Planters acquisition that closed last summer; sales growth excluding the snack brand was 7%.
International sales were hit by export challenges, dropping 1.4% to $171 million, though China’s COVID-19 lockdown boosted Hormel’s in-country sales as residents stocked their pantries to stay at home.
Losses at Tiger Global Managementreached 52% this year, prompting the firm to cut management fees and create separate accounts for the illiquid wagers of customers who want to redeem. Hema Parmar reports on “Bloomberg Markets: The Close.”
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Hormel has raised its prices to help offset the higher cost of doing business. The company said it expects to implement more price increases this summer.
Prices have gone up for Spam due to increased costs for protein and packaging, and Wholly Guacamole has passed on higher avocado prices, Snee said. Skippy peanut butter has been “least impacted” by cost pressures, he said.
“We are very, very thoughtful about the managing of our pricing and our promotions to ensure the long-term health of our business,” Snee said. “We always take the long-term view.”
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Some parts of the planet expected to become too hot for humans to live in
Laura McQuillan · CBC News · Posted: May 28, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: May 28
A construction worker uses a misting fan to cool down at a work site in Vancouver in June 2021. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Unbearably hot temperatures are already testing the limits of human survival, and will continue to rise, challenging our bodies’ ability to cope and making parts of the world increasingly uninhabitable.
Scientists say urgent steps are needed for humans to adapt to extreme heat, including rethinking the way we live, work and blast the AC.
“Extreme heat is going to get more problematic going forward, period,” said Professor Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
India and Pakistan recently saw temperatures soar to 50 C, killing at least 90 people and devastating agricultural harvests. South Asia, along with Africa, Australia and U.S. Gulf States, now face potentially fatal combinations of heat and humidity — conditions that scientists hadn’t anticipated until later this century.
Boys cool off under a pipe of flowing water on a hot summer day in New Delhi, India, on May 17. India and Pakistan recently experienced a heat wave with temperatures topping 50 C. (Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters)
Canada is also feeling the effects of extreme heat: in British Columbia last summer, 595 people died from the heat. The village of Lytton, B.C., set a new Canadian heat record (49.6 C) on June 29, before it was razed by a wildfire the next day. The same “heat dome” left the ground parched, contributing to catastrophic flooding in B.C. months later.
Feltmate is one of the authors of a recent report warning of a “potentially lethal future” for Canadians in terms of heat, especially those living in B.C.’s southern interior, along the U.S. border in the Prairies and in southern Ontario and Quebec.
“We’re going to see extreme heat events that will make what we saw in British Columbia last year during the heat dome look relatively mild,” Feltmate said.
When you’re exposed to prolonged heat, you may feel sluggish because your organs are working harder to keep you cool — and alive.
Your heart beats harder to push blood to your skin, where it can cool down. Sweating is also essential for cooling your body, but it gets harder as humidity increases.
In extreme cases of heat stroke, your body essentially begins to cook, breaking down cells and causing organ damage.
A man rollerblades in Toronto amid a heat warning for the Greater Toronto Area and much of southern Ontario on August 22, 2021. People are generally advised to avoid strenuous activities outdoors during extreme heat. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
“It is very much like cooking an egg,” said Professor Stephen Cheung, an expert in environmental stress on human physiology at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.
“The reason it goes from a liquid to solid white mass is because the proteins have changed … If your body just continues heating up and isn’t able to control its temperature, eventually your proteins are going to be doing the same thing in your cells.”
Sitting in the shade and drinking water isn’t enough when you’re already suffering heat stroke. “It is critical to cool [an overheating person] down as rapidly as possible, ideally by immersing them in as cold water as possible,” Cheung said.
Being too hot at bedtime also makes it hard for us to sleep, which can lead to poor decision-making and injuries, and have a detrimental impact on people’s mental health, says Michael Brauer, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s school of population and public health.
A woman carries a pedestal fan during hot and humid weather in Karachi, Pakistan, on May 11. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)
“Nighttime temperatures matter a lot. It’s really trying to get your bedroom cool enough, get your body cool enough that you can sleep.”
Beating the heat
For anyone assuming they can train their body to handle rising heat, Cheung — who helped Canadian athletes prepare for the heat and humidity at last year’s Tokyo Olympics — says it is possible to a degree. Our bodies’ core temperatures can adjust to higher heat over a period of about two weeks of gradual, continued exposure.
But “in terms of global warming, it is a Band-Aid solution.”
“The biggest advantage, in a sense, that humans have over other animals is our behaviour — that we can develop things like housing, air conditioning, better clothing, et cetera,” said Cheung. “But that comes at a cost, whether it’s keeping us indoors, whether it’s increasing power use from air conditioning.”
Many people are unable to stay inside and keep cool, including those whose jobs involve physical exertion outdoors, such as farmers and people in manual labour.
There are concerns for outdoor workers, including farm workers, as temperatures continue to rise. In this photo, workers from Mexico and Guatemala pick strawberries at a farm in Pont Rouge, Que., on Aug. 24, 2021. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)
In future, Feltmate says, the workday will have to shift so those workers can avoid the hottest part of the day — for instance, by starting work at 5.30 a.m. and finishing by 1 p.m.
Cities themselves need to be cooled, and that involves designing and retrofitting buildings with heat in mind, planting more trees and painting rooftops white to reflect light instead of absorbing it, says Feltmate.
He also says it’s critical that residential buildings have a backup power supply to ensure air conditioning and fans keep working if there’s a heat-induced blackout.
A lack of urgency
As straightforward as those measures may sound, Feltmate says Canadian cities and governments aren’t moving nearly fast enough, despite warnings of the potential for devastating loss of life from extreme heat.
“What’s missing in the equation, more than anything, is a lack of a sense of appreciation for the need to act with urgency to put adaptation measures in place.”
A man jogs with his dog during dense early morning fog in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Feb. 13, 2021. Scientists warn that the UAE and other Persian Gulf states will eventually become too hot for humans to be outdoors. (Kamran Jebreili/The Associated Press)
Adapting also means coming up with a plan for when places actually become too hot for human liveability, as is expected to be the case in parts of the Persian Gulf, South Asia, Central America and West Africa before the end of the century.
“There are true thresholds our bodies can take even when you’re acclimated, and the Gulf region is starting to exceed those thresholds more regularly,” said Cascade Tuholske, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network, whose research focuses on exposure to deadly urban heat.
Poorer countries where people rely on subsistence farming could see mass migration to cities, which themselves are ill-equipped to cope with increasing heat.
This is why global solutions to climate change are so important, Tuholske said.
“I do really question the liveability of many of the most populated places on the planet due to extreme heat without adaptation. The future really depends on the present and how much we mitigate heat now.”
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