Paul A. SmithMilwaukee Journal SentinelView Comments0:001:01ADhttps://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.480.1_en.html#goog_1493724281https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/outdoors/2021/09/18/ojibwe-tribes-ask-reduction-wisconsin-wolf-hunting-quota/8379025002/
Ojibwe tribes have exercised their court-affirmed right and claimed 50% of the gray wolf harvest quota in the Ceded Territory for the fall 2021 Wisconsinhunting and trapping season, according to the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.
Further, the Ojibwecalled on state officials to reduce the remaining quota by 99 wolves to account for the overkill that occurred during the February season, said GLIFWC communications director Charlie Rasmussen.
image captionChina is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases
China will be urged at the UN next week to speed up the timetable for curbing its planet-heating carbon emissions.
It will be nudged by the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who’s experiencing climate pressure himself from activists blocking motorways.
But is the UK, with its world-leading emissions targets, the right target for demonstrators?
China produces 28% of global emissions and the UK just 1%. So shouldn’t they be picketing the Chinese embassy instead of the M25 motorway?
On the face of it, that seems a reasonable question. And some veteran activists would indeed support a well-judged China protest – we’ll come to that later.
Biden made the remarks during a virtual meeting of the Major Economies Forum (FILE)Washington:
US President Joe Biden urged world leaders on Friday to join the United States and European Union in a pledge to cut methane emissions, hoping to build momentum before an international summit on climate change begins next month.
Biden made the remarks during a virtual meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF), a follow-up to an Earth Day meeting he hosted in April to unveil new US greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and press other countries to do more to curb theirs.
The United Kingdom heeded the call, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledging to be among the first signatories of the Global Methane Pledge to reduce emissions of the harmful gas.
Argentina, Indonesia, Italy and Mexico also joined the alliance, while Ghana and Iraq signaled interest in joining, according to a White House summary of the meeting, which noted those countries represent six of the top 15 methane emitters globally.
Tackling climate change is one of Biden’s top domestic and international priorities, and the UN COP26 climate conference in Glasgow from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 is seen as a critical moment for the world to commit to doing more to halt rising temperatures.
The United Nations said on Thursday the pace of climate change had not been slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the world was losing its battle to cut emissions enough to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Scientists say this is the bare minimum to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.
Biden asked other nations on Friday to join a pact agreed by the United States and the EU to aim to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% below 2020 levels by 2030.
“This will not only rapidly reduce the rate of global warming, but … it will also produce a very valuable side benefit like improving public health and agricultural output,” Biden told the leaders.
“We believe the collective goal is both ambitious but realistic, and we urge you to join us in announcing this pledge at COP26,” Biden said.
Globally, methane emissions are responsible for around 30% of warming since the pre-industrial era, according to the United Nations. A recent report by U.N. climate scientists said that cutting methane emissions is the fastest way to slow down global warming.
After pledging the UK’s commitment to the goal, Johnson urged other nations to make good use of the lead-up to the next climate summit.
“Over the next 1,000 hours between now and everyone coming to COP26, we must do the work that will allow us to come to Glasgow bearing the ambitious NDCs – Nationally Determined Contributions -and rock-solid commitments on coal, cars and trees,” Johnson said, pointing to the importance of securing funds to spur compliance by poorer nations.
“We must get serious about filling the $100 billion pot that the developing world needs in order to do its bit.”
Leaders from Argentina, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, Britain and the European Union took part in the MEF, along with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the White House said.
Biden also asked Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry to chair a ministerial session immediately following with China, Germany, India and Russia, according to a White House readout of the meeting.
Biden said he wanted to use the MEF to complement other climate change forums and his team, including Kerry, is working to push countries to set ambitious targets for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions.
“Whatever commitments we make at COP26, we must all resolve together in Glasgow to continue strengthening our ambition and our actions … to keep us … below 1.5 degrees and keep that within reach,” Biden said.
Leaders and activists warned of potentially disastrous consequences.
“Under current policies, we’ll reach almost 3 degrees of global warming by the end of the century,” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said, according to remarks released by his office. “The consequences of such an increase in global temperatures would be catastrophic.”PromotedListen to the latest songs, only on JioSaavn.comhttps://www.jiosaavn.com/embed/playlist/85481065
Biden announced in April a new target to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions 50%-52% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. Biden has been emphasizing climate change repeatedly in recent weeks in the wake of damage from devastating floods and wildfires across the United States.
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The Tasmanian devil is among 200 endangered species and habitats that would lose their recovery plan under Coalition proposal.Photograph: Michal Čížek/AFP/Getty Images
The Morrison government has proposed scrapping recovery plans for almost 200 endangered species and habitats including the Tasmanian devil, the whale shark and the endangered glossy-black cockatoo populations on Kangaroo Island, one of the worst-affected areas in the 2019-20 bushfires.
Environment groups have decried the move as a backward step less than 12 months after a statutory review of Australia’s national environmental laws found successive governmentshad failedto protect the country’s unique wildlife.
Recovery plans are documents that set out actions needed to stop the extinction of species. Ministers are legally bound not to make decisions that are inconsistent with them.
Apart from the global catastrophe that killed off most of thedinosaurs, some experts think almost all the mass extinctions in Earth’s history were followed by a proliferation of microbes in rivers and lakes.
After the Permian extinction event 252 million years ago – the largest mass extinction event in Earth’s history – there appears to have been a burst in bacterial and algal blooms, lasting for hundreds of thousands of years.
According tothe geologic record in Australia, the damaging impacts ofclimate changeand climate-driven deforestation during the Permian extinction event most likely caused a toxic soup to sprout in the Sydney Basin, one of the oldest known freshwater ecosystems in the world.
That’s disconcerting, the authors say, as human activity is leading to a similar mass extinction event today.
Hunter Pepper, a 19-year-old council member who vowed to “fight to the end” against a mask mandate in Decatur, Alabama, revealed he’s been hospitalized with shallow breathing.Zoe RichardsBreaking News ReporterUpdatedSep. 16, 20216:07PM ETPublishedSep. 16, 20213:14PM ET
“I am still shallow in breathing but my oxygen remains okay for now,” Decatur City Councilman Hunter Pepper, 19, wrote on Facebook Thursday. He received a CT scan on Wednesday night that confirmed he has COVID pneumonia, “which is absolutely terrible,” he wrote.ADVERTISING
On Wednesday, Pepper—who’s repeatedly slammed mask mandates and refused to get vaccinated— said that he took two rapid tests and a PCR test for the coronavirus after he started to feel sick on Monday.
Nearly a century later, at age 101, she’s still doing it. The oldest lobster fisher in the state and possibly the oldest one in the world, Oliver still faithfully tends to her traps off Rockland, Maine, with her 78-year-old son Max.
Oliver started trapping lobsters at age 8, and these days she catches them using a boat that once belonged to her late husband and bears her own name, the “Virginia.” She said she has no intention to stop, but she is concerned about the health of Maine’s lobster population, which she said is subject to heavy fishing pressure…
V. Paul Reynolds writes that it’s tough to say how much honesty should be incentivized, but he wonders if Maine’s fish and wildlife commissioners have too much power to render judgments.BY V. PAUL REYNOLDSOUTDOORS COLUMNIST
In Michigan last fall, a guided elk hunter holding a cow tag accidentally shot a bull elk. Upon discovering the mistake, the hunter and his guide immediately notified a state conservation officer.
After a thorough investigation, it was concluded that, indeed, it was an “honest mistake.” The hunter did not have his rifle confiscated or go to jail, but he ultimately paid a $1,000 fine and had his hunting license revoked.
V. Paul Reynolds, Outdoors Columnist
The bull elk was confiscated by the state and the meat was donated to a worthy charity.
This incident begs the question: Did the punishment fit the…
‘In creating fields of identical wheat, we abandoned thousands of highly adapted and resilient varieties.’Photograph: uchar/Getty Images
It’s not just animals that are at risk of dying out, the world’s crops are in rapid decline. Here’s why it matters what is on your plateDanSaladinoFri 17 Sep 2021 07.00 EDT
In eastern Turkey, in a golden field overshadowed by grey mountains, I reached out and touched an endangered species. Its ancestors had evolved over millions of years and migrated here long ago. It had been indispensable to life in the villages across this plateau, but its time was running out. “Just a few fields left,” the farmer said. “Extinction will come easily.” This endangered species wasn’t a rare bird or an elusive wild animal, it was food, a type of wheat: a less familiar character in the extinction story now playing out around the world, but one we all need…
