NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Tennessee residents will be allowed to hunt without a license for one day only this weekend.
Their targets? Squirrels.
Free Hunting Day, Aug. 27, is an event the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) holds annually on the opening day of squirrel season in hopes of increasing the interest in hunting.
“Squirrel hunting is one of Tennessee’s oldest and favorite traditions,” a TWRA media release says. “The day serves as an excellent opportunity for people to experience the enjoyment of the sport.”
On Free Hunting Day, state resident hunters are exempt from hunting licenses and Wildlife Management Area (WMA) permit requirements. However, hunter education requirements still apply. Anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 1969 is required to have successfully completed a hunter education course.
Six months to the day since the start of the Russian invasion, here is what to expect for the next six months
Dignitaries and members of the public attend an independence day ceremony in Lviv, Ukraine.Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Wed 24 Aug 2022 09.03 EDT
1. The war will probably run on for a year at least but is essentially deadlocked and its intensity is lessening
Six months of war may have gone by, but neitherUkrainenor Russia are ready to stop fighting, despite the losses they have sustained. Ukraine wants its occupied territories back, and Russia wants to keep inflicting pain not just on its opponent but, by proxy, the west also. The Kremlin believes winter will play to its advantage.
There have been no negotiations between the two sides since evidence emerged of the massacres at Bucha, Irpin and elsewhere…
ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) – More than 700 wild black vultures were recently found deceased at Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary in Locust Grove, according to Sen. Emanuel Jones.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture believes that the birds are victims of H5N1 avian influenza. GDA officials have been at the sanctuary throughout the weekend. Georgia Department of Agriculture Policy Director Bo Warren said the agency was working with other state, federal and local agencies to “assess the situation.”
Many ostriches, emu, parrots, etc. are expected to be humanely euthanized in the near future as a result of the outbreak, according to the senator’s press release. However, this has not been confirmed with Noah’s Ark or the Department of Agriculture at this time.
According to a notice posted on the sanctuary’s Facebook page, they will be closed Aug. 23…
On the current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions, nearly all marine species will be at high or critical risk of extinction in less than 80 years, according to a studypublished Monday by Nature Climate Change.
The study, which was conducted by an international team of researchers, looked at the effects of rising air and water temperatures due to the burning of fossil fuels on the marine animals, plants, protozoans and bacteria found in the upper 100 meters of the world’s oceans. In that depth, the study noted, “climate-driven temperature changes are the most severe.”
If the world was to continue on its current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, “almost 90% of ~25,000 species are at high or critical risk of extinction,” the study concluded.
Mitigating the effects of climate change “reduces the risk…
TOOELE COUNTY, Utah — A Utah woman was hunting Saturday when a mountain lion came out of nowhere and briefly attacked her. She caught the tense interaction afterward on camera.
Laurien Elsholz was near Rush Valley in Tooele County when this happened. She wrote in aFacebook postthat she smelled something dead, then heard a crashing noise before she felt the big cat grab her leg.
FULL VIDEO BELOW: Utah woman comes face-to-face with mountain lion
California has a well-established reputation as a national and global climate leader, but despite its remarkable successes in cutting emissions between 2006 and 2016, it has recently begun showing signs of having lost its way.
California is increasingly falling behind on its emissions reduction targets, and its existing policies have now been deemed insufficient to hit its 2030 target of reducing carbon emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, according to new modeling from the climate policy think tank Energy Innovation.
“Compared to historical trends, California will need to more than triple the pace of emissions reductions to hit its 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030,” the Energy Innovation report states.
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The report is disappointing news, representing a weakening of the climate action that began with California’s passage of AB 32 in 2006. Otherwise known as the Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32 was a landmark program in the struggle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Up until 2006, the United States was the largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions in the world, and California was the second highest state in terms of total greenhouse gas emissions.
Under AB 32, California was required to reduce statewide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. It also required that California greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The California Air Resources Board, established in 1967, became the agency responsible for the implementation of the law.
California met its goal to reach 1990 emissions levels by 2020 four years ahead of schedule. In 2016, lawmakers passed SB 32 as a follow up to AB 32. SB 32 requires the California Air Resources Board to ensure the state’s greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to 40 percent below the 1990 levels by 2030.
Surprisingly enough, however, California’s emission reduction efforts appeared to lose momentum after SB 32 was signed into law.
Unsurprisingly enough, an environmental group gave California a near failing grade on the climate crisis in 2021. This was the first time that California Environmental Voters, or EnviroVoters, gave a “D” mark to the state since the group began issuing its annual scorecard in 1973.
What explains California’s woeful progress on climate solutions?
For one, California hasn’t enacted any transformative climate bills over the past 4 years. Perhaps there is a connection between California’s recent inaction on the climate crisis and the fact that fossil fuel companies “spent four times as much as environmental advocacy groups and almost six times as much as clean energy firms on lobbying efforts in California between 2018 and 2021,” according to Capital & Main.California lawmakers are failing to advance bills that include deep decarbonization initiatives.
Indeed, California lawmakers are failing to advance bills that include deep decarbonization initiatives. When a new bill AB 1395, a net-zero bill co-authored by Assembly Members Al Muratsuchi and Cristina Garcia, was introduced on the last day of last year’s legislative session, it was resoundingly defeated. It would have codified in law the state’s pledge to achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible and by no later than 2045. It was opposed by the oil and gas sector, the agricultural industry and business groups.
California’s clean-air regulators are also relying on programs and strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are of questionable nature, according to experts. The California Air Resources Board released in May a proposal called a scoping plan that ignores the need for immediate action and leans heavily on carbon dioxide removal technologies to reach the 2045 carbon neutrality target. “The plan does California a disservice,” said one state advisor, while more than 70 environmental justice groups called the proposal “a setback for the state and the world.”
Transformative pieces of legislation on the side of climate justice are also being ditched in a state with a reputation for progressive politics. Just recently, the California Justice40 Act (AB 2419) introduced by Assembly Member Isaac Bryan, which would have ensured the equitable implementation of infrastructure investments, was killed in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill aimed to achieve environmental justice by investing at least 40 percent of federal climate and infrastructure funding on projects that provide “direct benefits” to low-income, indigenous, and rural communities and communities of color. The California Green New Deal Coalition and many other environmental organizations had expressed strong support for AB 2419.
This was a critical piece of legislation that would have benefitted directly the communities facing the greatest environmental burdens. Infrastructure policies in the U.S. have historically promoted and exacerbated racial and economic inequality. During the New Deal, for instance, the Federal Housing Authority provided low-interest mortgages to white families but refused to issue mortgages in African American neighborhoods. Communities of color were designated as “risky areas.” The 1956 Interstate Highway Act intentionally displaced hundreds of thousands of low-income families and communities of color. A landmark 1987 report, entitled “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States,” revealed that race was the most significant indicator for the location of toxic waste sites.The only obstacles in California to a decarbonized future are politicians stuck in “piecemeal approach” mode and the influence of corporate lobbying on climate policies.
A study released by the Gender Equity Policy Institute found that, if enacted, AB 2419 “would powerfully advance gender and racial equality in California.” The report estimated that six in ten residents of the state could benefit from infrastructure investments targeted to low-income and disadvantaged communities. The bill would benefit women of color since they are more likely to live in polluted or low-income areas. Indeed, in the San Francisco Bay area, 1.3 million women of color would benefit from AB 2419’s targeted investments, and in southern California 3.2 million women of color who live in heavily polluted communities would benefit, the report said.
But to no avail. The bill was obviously too “radical” even for the Democratic members in the Senate’s Appropriations Committee.
California is proof that simply being a liberal state is not a sufficient enough factor to secure progress in the fight against the climate crisis. Money talks. Powerful interest groups can easily hijack the policy agenda. The role of bureaucrats also cannot be overlooked when it comes to issues of critical importance for the common good. The California Air Resources Board’s view on carbon removal technology represents in reality a form of continued investment in the fossil fuel industry.
The irony is that California has at its disposal a comprehensive climate stabilization program that includes climate justice and economic growth, courtesy of a group of progressive economists at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Robert Pollin and some of his coworkers produced last year a commissioned program that demonstrates that California can achieve its official greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets by 2030 and reach zero emissions by 2045. They also showed that the program can serve as a powerful new engine of job creation and ensure a just transition for the state’s fossil fuel workers and communities.
The project was embraced by the union movement in California. Some 20 unions across the state endorsed the program, including a couple representing thousands of oil workers, so it cannot be said that there are no sustainable transition projects available to California or that such projects lack the approval of labor unions. The only obstacles in California to a decarbonized future are politicians stuck in “piecemeal approach” mode and the influence of corporate lobbying on climate policies.
C.J. Polychroniou is a political scientist/political economist, author, and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. Currently, his main research interests are in U.S. politics and the political economy of the United States, European economic integration, globalization, climate change and environmental economics, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published scores of books and over 1,000 articles which have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into a multitude of different languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. His latest books are Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change (2017); Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors, 2020); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2021); and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (2021).
There are three factors that could lead to inflation which include demand-pull inflation, cost-push inflation and built-in inflation.
The raging inflation Americans have felt through the first half of the year already has consumers bracing for pricier meals this holiday season. But analysts are warning that the bird flu outbreak in the U.S. could mean an added dose of sticker shock when people buy their Thanksgiving turkeys.
Walter Kunisch, senior commodities strategist at Hilltop Securities Commodities, told FOX Business the American consumer should be prepared.
A platter of carved Thanksgiving turkey. (Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“Looking ahead to the Thanksgiving holiday, we believe that the impacts from the latest outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the U.S., combined with skyrocketing production costs, have led to a declining domestic turkey flock, lower meat supplies and higher prices,” Kunisch said.
The analyst points to sharply higher regional corn, soybean meal and diesel prices that have forced commercial production costs to surge and says the increasing cost of grains is contributing to the 5% decline in reported live weighs from 2021 and to lower domestic supplies.
Turkeys inside a barn at Out Post Farm in Holliston, Mass., Nov. 11, 2021. (Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images / Getty Images)
For perspective, Hilltop estimates that commercial turkey production costs in Minnesota, the largest turkey-producing state, have risen 18% from 2021, and it expects those costs to be passed on to the consumer.
Kunisch says the number of turkeys lost to HPAI is difficult to gauge, and the estimates have varied, but he points to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s estimate of a 2.5% year-on-year decline in the domestic flock from 2021 as “highly credible.”
A rack of turkeys (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post / Getty Images)
“Year-to-date, 2022 turkey production is the lowest in 10 years and is running 5% below 2012 levels,” Kunisch said. “The USDA’s most recent data show an alarming low level of turkeys in cold storage. With 2022 turkey production estimated at -4.3% from 2021, 2022 whole 8- to 16-pound wholesale hen prices are estimated to be 23% higher than 2021.
“With the spike in turkey prices, we believe that a decline in consumption during the holidays can occur.”
A group of scientists last week announced a plan toresurrect the Tasmanian tiger, a coyote-like marsupial that has been extinct for nearly a century, using state-of-the-art gene editing technology.
The goal, researchers say, is to eventually reintroduce the creature back into the Australian wilderness, where it roamed as an apex predator before being hunted into extinction in the early 20th century. To achieve this, scientists plan to splice genetic material from old Tasmanian tigers with the DNA of its closest living relative — a mouse-sized marsupial called a dunnat — to create a new animal nearly identical to its…
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