A firetruck drives along California highway 96 as the McKinney fire burns in Klamath national forest, California, on Saturday.Photograph: Noah Berger/AP
Guardianstaffandagencies
Sun 31 Jul 2022 11.47 EDT
Wildfires inCaliforniaand Montana exploded in size amid windy, hot conditions, forcing evacuation orders as they quickly encroached on neighborhoods.
In California’s Klamath national forest, the fast-moving McKinney fire, which started Friday, went from charring just over 1 sq mile (1 sq km) to scorching as much as 62 sq miles (160 sqkm) by Saturday in a largely rural area near the Oregon state line, according to fire officials.
The fire burned down at least a dozen residences and wildlife was seen fleeing the area to avoid the flames. At least 2,000 people were told to evacuate.
This photo provided by Clark Williams-Derry, shows a well leaking methane on May 10, 2022, in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Bakersfield, Calif. After 21 idle wells, including this one, were found to be leaking methane — some of them explosive levels of it — in May and June, the California Air Resources Board told The Associated Press that it’s not tallying leaks from idle wells. (Clark Williams-Derry via AP)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
California claims to know how much climate-warming gas is going into the air from within its borders. It’s the law: California limits climate pollution and each year the limits get stricter.
The state has also been a major oil and gas producer for more than a century, and authorities are well aware some 35,000 old, inactive oil and gas wells perforate the landscape.
st. JOHN’S, NL – An annual initiative to rescue missing baby puffins on Newfoundland was temporarily put on hold after hundreds of dead seabirds washed up on beaches around the island.
Suzanne Dooley, conservation director for a local chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said the organization’s decision to suspend its puffin and petrel patrols this year was, in some ways, an easy one. He said it was difficult in another way.
Dooley said it was easy because the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu was making its way through the state’s wild seabird populations and suspending the program would protect volunteers.
But the patrol is difficult because it means so much to the residents of NL’s Witless Bay, which sits across from a ecological reserve that’s home to more than 260,000 pairs of orange-billed birds. she said.
When the major UN conference on the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was originally scheduled to take place in 2020, there were already many issues to discuss.
The conference, postponed due to the pandemic, will finally start on Monday. Russia’s war in Ukraine has revived the horrors of a nuclear confrontation and heightened the urgency to strengthen the 50-year-old treaty.
“It’s a very difficult moment,” said Beatrice Finn, Nobel Peace Prize winner and executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
read more:
How would Russia’s chain of command work in the event of a nuclear weapon launch?
An aggression with ominous references to Russia’s nuclear weapons would be “very important to the treaty and would put a lot of pressure on it,” she said. It will shape future nuclear policy.”
Ajuvenile humpback whale died this week after struggling for several days in the shallow water off Wellfleet, Massachusetts, the International Fund for Animal Welfare announced.
The 24-foot, the 7,900-pound whale was first reported in the area Tuesday evening and the IFAW said the mammal died overnight. The body was removed Friday with the use of a crane and the IFAW said a necropsy will be conducted Saturday to determine the whale’s cause of death.
Humpback whales are an endangered species.According to NOAA,the species is rebounding but faces continued threats from entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes, vessel-based harassment, and underwater noise.
HELENA – State officials report that Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) has been confirmed in a Flathead County backyard poultry flock.
The Montana Department of Livestock (MDOL) reports this is the tenth flock in Montana with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) that is linked to a 2022 wave of HPAI infections in the US traced to seasonal migrations of wild birds.
Nationally, nearly 400 poultry flocks have been diagnosed with HPAI, according to MDOL.
“With over two months since our last case of HPAI in the state, we had hoped that avian influenza was behind us,” said Montana state veterinarian Marty Zaluski. “Unfortunately, the risk seems to persist, and poultry owners should continue to practice enhanced biosecurity measures.”
A professional outdoorsman in Utah is facing felony criminal charges for allegedly helping Donald Trump Jr. shoot a bear illegally during a guided hunting expedition. Wade Lemon of Wade Lemon Hunting hosted Trump for the outing in May 2018. According to the Utah Department of Natural Resources, Lemon illegally baited the bear for Trump with “a pile of grain, oil, and pastries.” Trump is not listed as a defendant in the case, and is believed to not have known that the integrity of his hunt was compromised. Of the hunter, Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings actually said he was “a victim and now a possible witness in a fraudulent scheme.” The Salt Lake Tribune reportsthat Trump was in Utah for the hunt to support Hunter Nation, an organization that promotes hunting and gun rights; the organization later formed a PAC that spent nearly $100,000 in anti-Democrat advertisements during Donald Trump’s 2020 election. If found guilty, Lemon—whose hunting outfit has been investigated at least eight times for criminal conduct—could face five years in prison. He told the Tribune that he was surprised by the allegations. “As far as I knew everything was above board,” he said.
It is with great relief that as of July 27th, 2022, I have ceased my employment and cut all ties with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (USA).
Since 1977, when I founded Sea Shepherd nearly a half century ago, I have dedicated my entire life to the aggressive and determined preservation and protection of biodiversity of marine life and our ocean.
Over the last few years, I have been slowly marginalized from the organization that I created in the USA. I was removed from the Board of Directors, my advice ignored, my close associates terminated and directors that supported me were removed. I was reduced to being a paid figurehead, denied the freedom to organize campaigns and the freedom to express the strong opinions that I have held for decades, opinions and campaigns that have shaped what Sea Shepherd has become and continues to be outside the borders of the United States.
As I said in the documentary movie Watson, my role is to rock the boat, to make waves, to provoke people to think about the damage we are collectively inflicting upon diversity and interdependence of life in the ocean.
The current Board seeks to turn our vessels away from confronting illegal poachers that prey on endangered species and instead seeks to turn our fleet into non-controversial research vessels. Research has always been a part of Sea Shepherd efforts, but it has not and should not be our priority. What we have provided is a unique function: a fearless leadership to intervene against poachers on the high seas, to document and to stop illegal acts that would otherwise go unnoticed and unchallenged. Sea Shepherd has always, and must always go where others fear to go, to say the things that must be said and to tackle the obstacles fearlessly and with great resolve.
The new direction that the present Board of Sea Shepherd USA has decided upon is not a path that I can in good conscience support nor participate in. I have not changed my objectives or resolve, and I refuse to change and adopt an approach that diminishes the incredible movement that we have created over the last four and a half decades, a movement that continues to grow outside the borders of the United States.
I remain a director of Sea Shepherd Global, and I remain a supporter of Global ships, officers, and crew. Together with all other national Sea Shepherd entities, with the exception of the USA, I will continue to support our campaigns around the world utilizing our unique philosophy of aggressive non-violence and cooperation with governments and NGOs.
We are Sea Shepherd. We are direct action motivated by imagination, persistence, and courage.
My future lies with the people from around the world who have made and continue to make Sea Shepherd the most influential, passionate, and effective marine conservation movement on this planet.
Captain Paul Watson
Founder – Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Canada (1977)
Founder – Sea Shepherd Conservation Society USA (1981)
Joe Manchin hails…
