GENEVA (AP) — Nearly all the world’s countries kicked off a U.N.-backed meeting Monday aimed at preventing the loss of biodiversity — seen as critical to avoiding the extinction of many vulnerable species, the emergence of pathogens like the coronavirus, and the damage to both lives and livelihoods of people around the world, Indigenous peoples in particular.
The two-week meeting of over 190 countries on the Convention on Biological Diversity, after a two-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be the last gathering of its kind before a major conference in the coming months in Kunming, China, that will try to adopt an international agreement on protecting biodiversity.
“We have this one goal, which is to bend the curve on biodiversity loss and really to build that shared future to live in harmony with nature in the long term,” the convention’s executive secretary, Elizabeth Maruma…
Since 2016, more than 50,000 structures in California have been destroyed by wildfire. During fire season in the West, when the sky is dim with smoke and the sun’s an eerie red, you might find yourself breathing in tiny carbonized particles of what used to be someone’s front-porch swing.
These fires are only going to get worse as the climate warms. Unless we want to keep risking lives and inhaling incinerated dreams, something has to change.
The California Department of Insurance last monthreleasednew regulations that require insurance companies to reward homeowners who take steps to protect their home from wildfire, such as clearing brush and trees from the immediate vicinity of their home or putting on a fire-resistant roof. The policy is being widely…
Live chickens are transported in crates on a semi trailer truck into the Pilgrim’s poultry processing plant in Enterprise, Alabama, U.S., November 30, 2021. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer/File Photo
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March 14 (Reuters) – About 4 million commercially raised U.S. chickens and turkeys have been killed since February due to outbreaks of a highly lethal type of bird flu, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows. read more
Flocks are culled after the disease is detected to prevent it from spreading, and importing countries including Mexico, China and Korea have imposed state-specific import restrictions in response.Report ad
The bird flu outbreak is the worst since 2015, when nearly 50 million birds, mostly turkeys and egg-laying chickens in the U.S. Midwest, were killed. It comes at a time when food prices are skyrocketing due to labor shortages, supply-chain problems and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a key wheat and corn exporter. Widespread outbreaks of bird flu in poultry could reduce demand for crops used for feed.
Below are outbreaks in commercial flocks reported by the USDA:
IOWA: The USDA said on March 11 that a flock of 915,925 egg-laying chickens in Iowa, the top U.S. egg-producing state, was infected with highly pathogenic bird flu. read more A flock of 49,816 turkeys in the state was also culled after the disease was detected. Iowa was at the center of the biggest-ever U.S. outbreak of avian flu in 2015. read moreReport ad
MARYLAND: A flock of 150,000 broiler chickens, which are raised for meat, and a flock of 496,272 egg-laying chickens were culled after birds tested positive for avian flu.
SOUTH DAKOTA: A flock of 47,330 birds of mixed species was infected.
MISSOURI: The USDA has confirmed outbreaks in two turkey flocks and one broiler-chicken flock in Missouri, for a total of about 426,295 birds affected. read more
DELAWARE: Bird flu hit a commercial poultry farm with 1.1 million birds in February, significantly expanding the number of birds impacted in the United States. Another farm with 265,000 pullets, or young chickens, was infected in March. read more
KENTUCKY: A flock of about 231,398 chickens owned by Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) in Kentucky tested positive. read more Testing also confirmed highly lethal bird flu in a 53,286-bird commercial turkey flock. read more
INDIANA: Indiana had outbreaks on six turkey farms, with about 171,733 birds affected, the USDA said.
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Reporting by Tom Polansek, Christopher Walljasper and Caroline Stauffer in Chicago Editing by Matthew Lewis
A strong “heatwave” is developing in the Polar circle, with surface temperatures up to 30 degrees above the long-term average. Strong pressure systems are driving a large air mass transport event, bringing warmer than normal temperatures into the Polar regions.
Strong pressure systems in the sub-polar regions are creating a “wind tunnel” from the North Atlantic into the Polar Circle. Now, a strong movement of air is underway, creating unusual weather conditions both in and out of the Polar regions.
As you will also see, one of the factors that even allows such strong anomalies is also the Gulf Stream and the entire Atlantic Ocean circulation (AMOC).
SPRING BEGINS
Looking first at the global temperature anomalies for March so far, we can see a large area of warmer than normal temperatures over the western Polar regions. As the warmer air moves into…
EVANSVILLE, Ind.— As the population of the formerly endangered bald eagle has grown nationwide,a new threat to its survival is emerging.
Once threatened by agricultural pesticide use and hunting, bald eagles are now seeing an increase in deaths from lead poisoning.
“It’s one of the most ironic parts of the conservation movement,” said Laura Edmunds, clinical director at theIndiana Raptor Centerin Nashville. “The only reason it hasn’t had more attention until now is that there are more eagles now.”
The effects of lead toxicity might have stayed undetected if conservationists hadn’t been so successful at restoring eagles’ numbers, she said.
How do bald eagles get lead poisoning?
The source? Wildlife experts believe it’s lead ammunition used by hunters — bullet fragments and shotgun pellets left in wounded animals that then fall prey to or are scavenged by…
In the surreal world of Russian state television, Russia is about to prevail in its war against Ukraine, which is being presented as a battle against the United States and NATO. According to top Kremlin propagandists, it’s only a matter of time before the West admits its defeat and pays reparations to Moscow or risks a devastating nuclear strike
Pundits who dared tocriticizeRussia’s invasion of Ukraine have not been seen on state-controlled television ever since they spoke out last week. Even though their timid disagreement pales in comparison to the bravery of Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at Channel One, who has beendetainedafterinterruptinglive programming with an anti-warsign. Meanwhile, state TV broadcasts are filled…
He threatened any country that interfered in his invasion of Ukraine with “consequences greater than any you have faced in history.” He placed his nuclear forces on high alert and held exercises with them. And then he proclaimed that Western sanctions amounted to a “declaration of war” against Russia.
The fate of humanity suddenly seems to be in the unsteady hands of an isolated, frustrated, and potentially unhinged Vladimir Putin. And people are understandablypanickedaboutthatprospect. “The fact that there’s a very short path from, say, Putin feeling humiliated to the end of life as we know it,” the sociologist Kieran Healywrote, “is literally insane.”
The possibility of the war in Ukraine spilling over into a NATO member nation got perilously closer on Sunday when a barrage of Russian missiles hit a Ukrainian military base just miles from the border with Poland. Russia has warned the US that military aid shipments to Ukraine would be considered “legitimate targets” for the Russian armed forces.
President Biden has told Vladimir Putin that the US has a “sacred obligation” to meet its Article 5 commitments,which states that an attack on one is an attack on all.But he has reiterated that the US will not get involved in the hostilities inside Ukraine, with his administration dismissing the idea of a no-fly zone.
Faced with the choice between playing a constructive role in helping to resolve the Ukraine crisis, or helping supportRussia’s brutal attack on that country, China seems committed to a course that could plunge the world intoa new Cold War.
On Monday, US officials led by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met in Romewith a Chinese delegationled by his counterpart, Yang Jiechi. While a central topic of the seven hour-long discussion wasUkraine, the meeting covered a wide range of topics including North Korea, Taiwan, and on-going efforts to manage strategic risks confronting the two nations.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that a possibility of nuclear conflict exists in the midst of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Guterres briefed journalists on the Ukraine situation Monday, where he described multilateral efforts to reach a diplomatic end for Russia’s attack on the country. During this presser, Guterres spoke to therecurringquestionsabout howVladimir Putin’smilitary steps against Ukraine could lead to the breakout of nuclear war.
“Raising the alert level of Russian nuclear forces is a bone-chilling development,” Guterres said. “The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility.”
Guterres also called for the safeguarding of nuclear facilities, which comes amid rising public concerns when the Chernobyl nuclear plant recently got cut off from the Ukrainian national power grid.Power was restoredto the Chernobyl facility on Sunday…
![](https://img.img-taboola.com/taboola/image/fetch/f_jpg%2Cq_auto%2Ch_225%2Cw_300%2Cc_fill%2Cg_faces:auto%2Ce_sharpen/http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.taboola.com%2Flibtrc%2Fstatic%2Fthumbnails%2Fc8d78c8fc53b079daefd83df756a4767.jpg "This "Smart" Security Device Is Taking United States By Storm")
