By Li Cohen

Updated on: March 7, 2024 / 1:25 PM EST / CBS News

• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-panhandle-wildfires-thouands-cows-dead-total-wipeout-many-local-ranchers/

The Texas Panhandle wildfires are taking a significant toll on the region’s agricultural industry. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told CBS News on Thursday morning that preliminary numbers show more than 7,000 heads of cattle have died in the fires, and that he believes the final toll could end up including thousands more. 

The state has yet to get all the counts of lost cattle in the fires, he said, adding that the 7,000 death toll does not include cattle that will have to be euthanized due to their injuries. More than 1 million acres of land have burned up in the fires, including the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest wildfire in Texas history. 

“Their hooves are burned off, their utters are burnt beyond – they can’t nurse their babies,” he said. “We’ll actually end up having to put a lot of cattle down just because they won’t be able to make it, even though they survived.” 

There are a little over 11 million head of cattle across the state, Miller said. He estimates that the final loss of cattle in the Panhandle could approach 10,000. 

“I don’t think it’ll have an overall price effect over the whole market in the United States,” he said. “…Locally, it’s quite devastating.” 

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One rancher Miller spoke with lost 700 cows. Another young couple who “just started out” lost everything – 200 cows, he said. 

“And those cows, right now, are worth from $2,500 to $3,000 and there’s no insurance on those,” he said. “That’s just a total wipeout.” 

The loss also comes as a one-two punch for many farmers. Miller said that many of those who raise cattle also grow cotton and that they’ve missed those cotton crops for the last two years. In September, the Texas Farm Bureau reported that drought and high temperatures caused the diminished cotton crops. 

“The ground is toast,” Ricky Yantis, a farmer from Lamb County about 100 miles south of Amarillo, told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network, adding the heat seemed “more intense” last year and brought “hot winds.” 

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“The dryland cotton is blistered and burned,” he said. “A lot of the crop is turning brown and dying. I’ve never seen it get to this point.” 

Miller said that the cattle loss, on top of this, has left many financially stressed. 

Cattle that have survived the blazes relatively unscathed are still suffering, as are their owners, as the fires took out essential resources. Of the primary five fires that have burned over the past two weeks, four are in the Canadian River Basin, Miller said, a region that he says is mostly canyons and grazing land. Roughly 120 miles of powerlines have been burned down in the fires, and seven grain and seed dealers were “completely wiped out.” 

“That means no electricity, no water for the livestock,” he said, adding that his unofficial estimate is that 3,0000 to 4,000 miles of fencing has also been destroyed. One mile of fencing, he said, is about $10,000. 

Even the burned grass poses a problem, as the cattle industry heavily relies on healthy pastures. Miller said he believes it will take at least two years for grasses to return to where they were, and that, on top of everything else, means many ranchers will likely have to completely change their future plans, with some even getting rid of their surviving cattle. 

“For most of these people, that cattle that survived, they’re probably going to have to either find some other grazing somewhere in the state or another state, or probably sell out and wait ’til they get their ranch put back together before they can restock,” he said. 

Chance Bowers, operator of the X-Cross-X Ranch, told the Associated Press that across three leased ranches, his team has a little over 1,000 cows. He believes they’ll end up losing upwards of 250 of them. 

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“I’ve spent the last 15 years building this cow herd up,” he said. “And you can lose it overnight. We’ve been very blessed, very fortunate that we’re only gonna lose 200, you know?” 

Many of the impacted ranches are over 100 years old. 

“It’s very stressful. Let’s say you’re the sixth, seventh, eighth generation, you’re in charge of the family heritage. It becomes, at some point, you no longer own the land, the land owns you,” Miller said. “…All the family memorabilia is gone. All the heritage, all their memories are up – a lot of them only have the clothes on their back.”

The region is heavily relying on donations and assistance from farmers elsewhere, as well as help from local, state and federal governments. 

“The state of Texas has a very kind heart,” Miller said.

Videos of caravans of donated goods, including large farming equipment, have been circulating, as have stories of communities jumping in to help. One woman told CBS News she was offering free nebulizer treatments to animals who had inhaled wildfire smoke, even taking in a baby goat whose mother had died in the flames. 

Even beyond the tangible recovery, Miller is concerned for farmers’ and ranchers’ mental health. 

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“The highest rates of suicide in the nation are our veterans and our farmers,” he said. 

One study in 2020 found that the suicide rate for those in agriculture was 43.7 deaths per 100,000 people, which Pennsylvania State University says is “significantly higher than that of the overall population and the sixth highest rate among occupational groups.” 

Miller said his office offers mental health support specifically for those in the industry, known as the AgriStress Helpline. It’s similar to the national suicide hotline, he said, but those who answer are specifically trained to help farmers and ranchers. It can be reached at 833-897-2474. 

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 • 18h • 4 min read

• Geoengineers are planning to test massive underwater curtains that could slow catastrophic glacial melting.
• The Thwaites, a.k.a. “doomsday glacier,” has lost over 1,000 billion tons of ice since 2000.
• If the Thwaites collapsed entirely, global sea levels would ultimately rise by about 10 feet.

1 / 23

Wildfires are getting worse. Check out the pitch deck that landed climate startup Vibrant Planet $15 million from backers like Microsoft to use AI to manage the risk.©Vibrant Planet

• Climate startup Vibrant Planet wants to help landowners manage wildfire risk.
• The startup has raised $15 million from Ecosystem Integrity Fund, with participation from Microsoft.
• Check out the 22-slide pitch deck it used to raise the Series A.

A California-based startup using artificial intelligence and machine learning for land management and climate-risk analysis has raised $15 million in Series A funding.

Vibrant Planet, which was founded in 2020, offers a data platform to help landowners figure out how to restore ecosystems and manage against the risk of wildfires.

Wildfires have long devastated communities around the world but increasing global temperatures have added fuel to the flame. Record heat in Europe stoked blazes; Canada experienced its worst wildfire season on record while Chile suffered its second. Lahaina, Maui was also engulfed in flames this summer. 

Along with rising temperatures, poor land planning and risk mitigation strategies are also to blame for raging wildfires, according to Vibrant Planet CEO Allison Wolff. Controlled or “good” fire could be one of the answers, she said. Controlled fire is a planned conflagration that can, for example, reduce dead leaves and limbs and prevent a wildfire from raging out of control.

Vibrant Planet maps forests in 3D, using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data and satellite data to generate recommendations based on priority, economical and ecological return, and risk-mitigation potential. Its management suggestions could include controlled fire, rewilding, or forest thinning, which also aids wildfire protection. 

“In about 53% of land on Earth, ecosystems are fire adapted,” added Wolff. “That means that’s how they cycle carbon, how they cycled nutrients, it’s how they regenerate. In a lot of coniferous forests worldwide, they only regenerate, they only reseed, when a fire rolls through and unlocks the seed from the pine cone – they’re totally adapted for fire.”

The issue today is that many historic forests were cut down for roads and buildings, while the use of fire for management fell out of favour. The result is trees that have grown back close together, often dominated by different species that are less fire adapted, Wolff said.

“So you get a bunch of fuel build-up. Lots of brush, down branches, and baby trees that would have been killed off because the forest sort of keeps the right number of trees per acre,” she said. 

As well as being fuel for wildfires, tightly packed trees fight for resources like water and sunlight and can become unhealthy and less disease-tolerant, she added. This is compounded by the stresses nature faces by climate change and rising temperatures. That’s why her company suggests, where appropriate, mechanically thinning trees and applying controlled fire as a solution. It is “pulling trees out to save forests,” she said. 

Wolff, formerly marketing head at Netflix and sustainability advisor to eBay and Google, cofounded the startup with spatial ecologist Scott Conway, Netflix’s former chief product officer Neil Hunt, and ex-Lyft and Meta data lead Guy Bayes. 

They are targeting everyone from private landowners, utilities, and indigenous tribes to NGOs, fire districts, and local and national governments as customers. 

The land management platform includes real-time scenario planning. Its monitoring capabilities mean it always knows how much carbon and water is in a forest to determine its health, Wolff said. It is also using predictive analytics to suggest uses for the material that is cleared from a forest, for example turning biomass into biochar for carbon sequestration. Much of the fresh fund will be used to expand its predictive analytics and climate risk models. 

It also wants to help customers rewild and increase biodiversity: Vibrant Planet’s scientists are currently mapping where beavers live and what habitats might work for them in the future. 

The cash injection, which brings the company’s total raised to $34 million, comes from Ecosystem Integrity Fund. Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, Citi Ventures, Day One Ventures, SIG Climate, and Globivest also participated in the round. The startup has also secured grants from NASA and the USDA Smart Commodities Program. 

Check out the 22-slide redacted pitch deck below.See more

A couple feet of sea level rise may not sound like a lot. But if sea levels rose by 2 feet worldwide, the effects on coastal communities would be catastrophic.

Cities like New York, Miami, and New Orleans would experience devastating flooding. Across the globe, 97 million people would be in the path of rapidly encroaching waters, putting their homes, communities, and livelihoods at risk.

That’s what would happen if the Thwaites glacier, nicknamed the ‘doomsday glacier,’ collapsed. But it wouldn’t stop there.

Icebergs from the Ilulissat (Jakobshavn) Glacier melting in Disko Bay, Ilulissat, Greenland. Paul Souders/Getty Images© Paul Souders/Getty Images

Right now, this massive Antarctic ice shelf blocks warming sea waters from reaching other glaciers. If the Thwaites collapsed, it would trigger a cascade of melting that could raise sea levels another 10 feet.

Already, the melting Thwaites contributes to 4% of global sea level rise. Since 2000, the Thwaites has lost over 1,000 billion tons of ice. But it’s far from the only glacier in trouble, and we’re running out of time to save them.

That’s why geoengineers are innovating technologies that could slow glacial melting.

The latest strategy is curtains. That’s right — underwater curtains. John Moore, a glaciologist and geoengineering researcher at the University of Lapland, wants to install gigantic 62-mile-long underwater curtains to prevent warm seawater from reaching and melting glaciers.

But he needs $50 billion to make it happen.

Drawing the curtains on glacial melting

One of the main drivers of glacial melting is the flow of warm, salty sea water deep within the ocean. These warm currents lap against the sides of the Thwaites, for example, melting away the thick ice that keeps the shelf’s edge from collapsing.

As oceans warm due to climate change, these intruding currents will increasingly erode the Thwaites, driving it closer to total collapse.

Moore and his colleagues are trying to figure out if they could anchor curtains on the Amundsen seafloor to slow the melting.

In theory, these curtains would block the flow of warm currents to the Thwaites to halt melting and give its ice shelf time to re-thicken.

This diagram shows how a seabed anchored curtain could block the deep warm water currents from reaching glaciers. Arctic Centre / University of Lapland© Arctic Centre / University of Lapland

This isn’t the first time Moore has suggested this blocking solution. His curtain idea is based on a similar solution he proposed back in 2018, which would block warm water using a massive wall.

But curtains are a much safer option, according to Moore.

They’re just as effective at blocking warm currents, but much easier to remove if necessary, he explained.

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For instance, if the curtains took an unexpected toll on the local environment, they could be taken out and redesigned.

“Any intervention should be something that you can revert if you have second thoughts,” Moore said.

While Moore and his colleagues are still decades away from implementing this technology to save the Thwaites, they are in the middle of testing prototypes on a smaller scale.

A $50 billion idea

Moore’s colleagues at the University of Cambridge are already in the very early stages of developing and testing a prototype, and they could progress to the next stage as early as summer 2025, according to Moore.

Right now, researchers at the University of Cambridge are testing a 3-foot-long version of this technology inside tanks. Once they’ve proven its functionality, they’ll move on to testing it in the River Cam, either by installing it at the bottom of the river or by pulling it behind a boat, Moore said.

The River Cam, where University of Cambridge researchers plan to test their Sea Curtains prototype. Premier Photo/Shutterstock© Premier Photo/Shutterstock

The idea is to gradually scale up the prototypes until evidence suggests the technology is stable enough to install in the Antarctic, Moore explained.

If all goes well, they could be testing a set of 33-foot-long curtain prototypes in a Norwegian fjord in about two years.

“We want to know, what could possibly go wrong? And if there’s no solution for it, then in the end you just have to give up,” Moore said. “But there’s also a lot of incentive to try and make it work.”

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With scaling comes an increased need for funding. This year’s experiments will cost around $10,000. But to get to the point where Moore and his colleagues could confidently implement this technology, they’ll need about $10 million.

And they would need another $50 billion to actually install curtains in the Amundsen Sea.

“It sounds like a hell of a lot,” Moore said. “But compare the risk-risk: the cost of sea level protection around the world, just coastal defenses, is expected to be about $50 billion per year per meter of sea level rise.”

This map shows the amount of area in and around New York City that would become submerged if sea levels rose three feet (in red). Climate Central / Google Earth Engine© Climate Central / Google Earth Engine

While some coastal cities, like New York, have the budget to adapt to rising seas, others won’t even come close.

“One of the great driving forces for us is this social justice point — that it’s a much more equitable way of dealing with sea level rise than just saying, ‘We should be spending this money on adaptation,'” Moore said.

A race against time

Data shows that the Thwaites glacier, and others like it, are melting at unprecedented rates due to climate change. But the question of when they could collapse remains up for debate among glaciologists.

“We really don’t know if [the Thwaites] could collapse tomorrow, or 10 years from now, or 50 years from now,” said Moore. Adding, “We need to collect better data.”

Satellite imagery shows the extent of damage to the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers, and the tearing apart of their shear zones. Lhermitte et al/PNAS© Lhermitte et al/PNAS

But collecting better data will take time that these glaciers might not have.

Proponents of glacial geoengineering, like Moore, believe that the time for intervention is now. Other experts disagree, arguing that cutting carbon emissions is the only viable way to slow glacial melting.

While reducing emissions is essential for mitigating the effects of climate change, Moore isn’t confident that we’ll cut back drastically or quickly enough to save the Thwaites. Once it reaches a tipping point, “Then the glacier doesn’t really care anymore about what humans want to do about their emissions,” he said.

“At that point, that’s when you need these other tools in the box.”

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Concern is growing about the avian flu now spreading to marine mammals and a new study says that it increases the potential risk to humans.

The danger to humans is low right now, but as long as the avian flu is spreading to other animals, there’s a risk it could spread to people, which is why scientists say close surveillance and research is needed.

Dying elephant seals on the coast of western Argentina are linked to H5N1, the virus known as avian influenza.

It has been circulating in birds for decades. Last year’s sky-high egg prices were due to a 2022 outbreak that affected 58 million chickens in the United States alone.

Researchers say there have been cases where the virus spreads from infected birds to mammals. Now, researchers fear it may be moving from one mammal to another.

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“I think it’s quite likely,” Dr. Chris Walzer, with the Wildlife Conservation Society, said.

Now, there’s a push to do better tracking of viruses in animals – to protect humans.

“This avian influenza outbreak has been one of the largest threats to wildlife globally,” Walzer said. “We just can’t wait for it to hit human populations. We need to be working upstream to look at what’s happening in these wildlife populations.”

The risk remains low, but experts say the virus is changing quickly.

“We need to be on it, to see if the virus acquiring new traits that could create a problem for us humans,” Walzer said.

In Argentina, experts estimate last year 18,000 seals died and most of them pups. More than 95% of the seals born in Argentina in 2023 did not survive.

“Someone described it as apocalyptic,” Valeria Falabella, scientist, said. “This kind of mortality is completely new for us.”

Now, scientists everywhere are being urged to watch for signs the avian flu is spreading.

The CDC says people who work closely with birds may be at higher risk of getting avian flu and should take precautions.

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