CLEAN COAL IS FAKE

Ukraine’s coal miners dig deep to power a nation at war

By VASILISA STEPANENKO

yesterday

Miners ride on a conveyor in the tunnel at the coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023. 

DNIPROPETROVSK OBLAST, Ukraine (AP) — Deep underground in southeastern Ukraine, miners work around the clock extracting coal to power the country’s war effort and to provide civilians with light and heat.

Coal is central to meeting Ukraine’s energy needs following the Russia’s military’s 6-month campaign to destroy power stations and other infrastructure, the chief engineer of a mining company in Dnipropetrovsk province said.

A miner puts on his work clothes before going down to the pit-face at the coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023.

Elevators carry the company’s workers underground to the depths of the mine. From there, they operate heavy machinery that digs out the coal and moves the precious resource above ground. It is hard work, the miners said, but essential to keep the country going.

“Today, the country’s energy independence is more than a priority,” said Oleksandr, the chief engineer, who, like all the coal miners interviewed, spoke on the condition of giving only his first name for security reasons.

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear, thermal and other power stations continue to disrupt electricity service as the war grinds on for a second year.

Negotiations to demilitarize the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which the Kremlin’s forces captured last year at the start of the full-scale invasion, are at an impasse. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy opposes any proposal that would legitimize Russian control of the plant, which is Europe’s largest nuclear energy facility.

A miner stands in the tunnel at the coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023.

At full capacity, the plant can produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity. The Ukrainian operators of the plant shut down the last reactor in September, saying it was too risky to run while Russia bombarded nearby areas.

Shelling has damaged the plant numerous times, raising fears of a possible nuclear meltdown. Russian missiles have also threatened the power lines needed to operate vital cooling equipment at Zaporizhzhia and Ukraine’s other nuclear plants.

Before the war, the Ukrainian government planned to reduce the country’s reliance on coal-fired power stations, which contribute to global warming, and to increase nuclear energy and natural gas production. But when Russian attacks damaged thermal plants in the middle of winter, it was coal that helped keep Ukrainian homes warm, Oleksandr said.

A miner drills for coal during at the coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023. 

The work of the coal miners cannot fully compensate for the loss of energy from nuclear power plants, but every megawatt they had a role in generating reduced gaps.

“We come and work with optimism, trying not to think about what is going on outside the mine,” a miner named Serhii said. “We work with a smile and forget about it. And when we leave, then another life begins (for us), of survival and everything else.”

Miners head down for work at the pit-face at a coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023. 

While many miners from the area joined the armed forces when Russian troops invaded and are now fighting at the front in eastern Ukraine, nearly 150 displaced workers from other coal-producing regions in the east joined the team in Dnipropetrovsk.

A man named Yurii left the embattled Donetsk province town of Vuhledar, where he worked as a coal miner for 20 years. “The war, of course, radically changed my life,” he said. “It is now impossible to live there and the mine where I used to work.”

Miners walk out of the pit-face at the coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023. 

“Life begins from scratch,” he said.

British military analysts reported Saturday that they think Russia’s campaign to degrade Ukraine’s energy grid over the winter through intense missile and drone strikes “highly likely failed,” and that the invaded country’s energy situation would improve as temperatures rise.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said that while the strikes have continued since October, large-scale attacks causing significant infrastructure damage are becoming rare. Ukraine’s network operators also managed to source replacement transformers and other “critical” components to keep electricity flowing, the ministry said.

A miner repairs drilling machine at the coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023. 

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Samya Kallab contributed to this story from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

A miner stands in the tunnel at the coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A miner leaves his lantern after his duty at the coal mine in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Friday, April 7, 2023.

 AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

NM Governor reins in tax relief proposal, boosts state spending

By MORGAN LEE

yesterday

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham attends a news conference highlighting newly signed legislation to bolster the state's health care workforce and make medical care more accessible in Santa Fe, N.M., Friday, April 7, 2023. Gov. Lujan Grisham used her veto authority to scale back a tax relief package based on concerns it could undermine future spending on social programs while signing the annual spending plan in state history. 

(AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The governor of New Mexico scaled back a tax relief package on Friday based on concerns it could undermine future spending on public education, heath care and law enforcement while signing into law $500 individual tax rebates and the largest proposed spending plan in state history.

Vetoed items within the tax relief package included reduced tax rates on personal income, sales and business transactions as well as proposed credits toward the purchase of electric vehicles and related charging equipment.

Surging oil prices and output in southeastern New Mexico have produced a financial windfall for government. In a state with high rates of poverty and low workforce participation, officials estimate a $3.6 billion annual surplus over current spending obligations for the coming fiscal year.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham expressed “grave concerns about the sustainability” of tax changes proposed by the Democratic-led Legislature.

The Democratic governor endorsed one-time rebates, refundable credits of up to $600 per child, a tax break for health care providers and new incentives for the film industry estimated at $90 million a year, but vetoed an array of tax cuts and credits to safeguard state finances.

“Tax cuts will impact our ability to fund important services and programs that our citizens depend on, such as education, health care, public safety, and infrastructure,” the governor warned in a written message to legislators about her line-item changes to the tax bill sponsored by Democratic Rep. Derrick Lente, of Sandia Pueblo.

The state would forgo about $247 million annually by 2027 under the tax bill after the governor’s changes. Without changes, tax relief would have soon exceeded $1 billion annually.

At the same time, Lujan Grisham signed into law with few exceptions a $9.6 billion annual spending plan from the Legislature that shores up rural health care networks while underwriting tuition-free college, no-pay day care and new business incentives. The plan represented a roughly 14% spending increase for the fiscal year that runs from July 2023 through June 2024.

The approved budget includes 5% average salary increases for state employees and public education workers. Lawmakers also approved $1 billion in direct spending on infrastructure projects, vetoing just a handful of construction items.

The governor highlighted new state spending initiatives aimed at providing healthy, no-pay meals to all students of public schools after federal funding was scaled back, as well as an expansion of public funding for professional and vocational training.

She also noted a $146 million permanent annual allocation toward tuition-free college, and an $80 million reserve to support newly constructed hospitals in rural areas.

Environmental advocacy groups including the Sierra Club criticized the governor’s veto of tax credits designed to rein in climate change and reduce fossil fuel consumption. Lujan Grisham vetoed consumer tax credits toward the purchase of heat pumps that can lower home energy consumption and rejected a credit of up to $4,000 toward the purchase of an electric vehicle. She also struck down incentives for large-scale geothermal production of electricity.

“Climate tax credits would have amounted to a drop in the bucket of New Mexico’s budget,” the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter said in a statement.

Other vetoes on Friday included a bill to create a civil rights division at the attorney general’s office in efforts to safeguard the rights of children in state custody amid allegations of inadequate care and protection. The governor rejected a proposal to reduce and modify high school graduation requirements, saying it would have weakened education standards.

A bill to increase salaries for state justices and judges, by pegging them to pay to rates for federal judges, was vetoed. The governor said judges got a 17% pay raise last year and that she would rather consider the addition of more judges to alleviate backlogged cases that delay justice.

In all, 34 bills were vetoed explicitly or by ignoring them as a signing deadline passed on Friday.

Other bills signed on Friday seek to bolster the state’s health care workforce and make medical care more accessible, including changes to medical malpractice regulations aimed at easing financial pressures on independent clinics.

Individual tax rebates of $500 are scheduled for delivery in June. Rebates of $1,000 will go to married couples, single heads of family households, as well as widows and widowers.

Small towns reclaim abandoned ski areas as nonprofits

By BRITTANY PETERSON

yesterday

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Race Lessar watches Landen Ozzello go off a jump they built at Parker-Fitzgerald Cuchara Mountain Park on Sunday, March 19, 2023, near Cuchara, Colo. Race Lessar's dad used to race here and named his son for what brought him joy.

 (AP Photo/Brittany Peterson)

LA VETA, Colorado (AP) — It’s been the longest wait, their whole lives, in fact. But Race Lessar and Landen Ozzello are finally right where they want to be, on a snowy slope close to home, molding snow into a ski jump.

Their local ski mountain just reopened.

“I’m happy that it’s open for at least one year,” Lessar said. It opened as a nonprofit, and that may be the key. “I didn’t know that there was a hope,” he said.

His ties to the mountain are so close, he’s practically named after it. His dad used to race here and named his son for what brought him joy. Chad Lessar first skied on hand-me-down gear, later worked summers at a nearby ranch to earn money for more nimble racing equipment.

“We’ve never been very rich,” Chad said of Huerfano, one of the poorest counties in the state. “Its nice to see a little area open up on the cheap,” he said. The ski runs here are short, but the fact it’s affordable just might be enough to keep it up and running.

Under the gaze of the imposing Spanish Peaks in southern Colorado, the 50-acre Parker-Fitzgerald Cuchara Mountain Park is the story of so many American ski areas, only the community was determined to change the script.

Ski resorts boomed in the 70s and 80s, emerging even in areas that didn’t have the climate or workers to sustain them long-term. First-time ski resort owners took on debt and quickly filed for bankruptcy after a bad snow season. Ownerships transferred numerous times before resorts calcified into ghost towns.

But some communities are now finding a niche, offering an alternative to endless lift lines and soaring ticket prices. They’re reopening, several as nonprofits, offering a mom-and-pop experience at a far lower cost than corporate-owned resorts.

“It’s not necessarily about drawing overnight or out-of-town guests, but about bringing positive economic impact and a source of physical and mental wellness for the community,” said Adrienne Isaac, marketing director for the National Ski Areas Association.

A DELAYED REOPENING

Cuchara shuttered in 2000 after years of mismanagement, unpredictable snow and bankruptcies. It was dead for 16 years, when a group of stubborn locals with fond memories of the mountain came together. When the last owner put it up for sale, the Cuchara Foundation gave the county a down payment and helped raise the remaining funds.

Going into this season, the work of readying was in full swing. Volunteers kept holding fundraisers. There were donation jars. Inheriting snowmaking equipment and lifts may sound good, said Ken Clayton, a board member at Panadero Ski Corporation, a sister nonprofit that runs operations. But both required expensive repairs, and then the refurbished chairlift didn’t even pass inspection. On top of that, it was a warm, dry winter. As the season wore on, the volunteers began to lose hope. “It just wasn’t going to happen because we didn’t have the snow,” Clayton said.

Finally, when cold air and snowstorms arrived in late winter, Cuchara’s maintenance director had an idea. They welded old school bus seats to a car-hauling trailer and hitched it to a snowcat, a tractor with snow treads, then put out the word they would be towing people up the mountain. “We’re trying to give the community something because they’ve supported us for so long,” Clayton said

And the community showed up.

GROWING ACCESS

There’s no guidebook for how to reopen an abandoned ski area, especially as a nonprofit, so some community groups are making common cause, and learning from each other.

Will Pirkey had heard of a nonprofit ski area six hundred miles north in Wyoming, and sought them out as soon as he joined the volunteer board. The Antelope Butte Foundation had been running a nonprofit ski area in northern Wyoming since 2018 after a closure that lasted 15 years. With a limited, mostly volunteer staff, it opens Friday through Monday. Keeping skiing affordable, especially for children, is key to its mission.

For $320, a child can receive a season pass to the Wyoming mountain, rentals, and four lessons. The foundation covers families who can’t afford the cost. They also host classes for area schools that introduce kids to cross country and downhill skiing.

Greybull Middle School Principal Cadance Wipplinger used to chaperone students to ski areas when she taught in a Montana town with a robust outdoor industry. But her students now mainly come from mining, railroad, and farming families with fewer resources.

“A high percentage of our kids would not be getting the opportunity if we weren’t taking them,” Wipplinger said. “It opens up their world a little bit.”

A FUTURE WITH SHORTER, WEIRDER WINTERS

If fond memories and volunteer spirit are essential to reopening an abandoned ski area as a nonprofit, so is snow, and its consistency dictates whether it can endure.

The Antelope Butte Foundation studied 30 years of snow patterns before committing to reopen, board president Ryan White said, but knew it would face ever-shorter winters. As greenhouse gas emissions warm the atmosphere, winter is growing shorter and there are also more dramatic swings, for example last year’s snow drought in the Sierra Nevada followed by this year’s record snowfall.

This season, Antelope Butte was buried in powder, said former Executive Director Rebecca Arcarese, but she knows other years won’t be as abundant. Snowmaking could extend the season, but it’s a tough decision for a mountain that doesn’t have the personnel to open seven days a week.

“Does it give us two, three more weeks, or just two or three more days? And does that make sense to make that capital investment?” Arcarese asked.

In southeast Vermont, irregular snow has long plagued standalone Mount Ascutney. A local nonprofit reopened Ascutney after five years of closure. A few seasons ago, a storm dumped several feet of snow on the slopes, but a week later, rain washed it away.

“If you spend one hundred thousand dollars on making snow, your heart gets broken when it’s washed down the mountain,” said Steve Crihfield, a board member of Ascutney Outdoors, the nonprofit that owns and manages the mountain.

So ski areas are dealing with climate risk by offering year-round activities from archery to concerts and weddings. But in a quiet town like La Veta, with limited outdoor winter activities and a population of fewer than 1000, there is just no substitute yet for snow sports.

On a late Sunday afternoon in March, energy pulses at the Mountain Merman Brewing Company — one of the few bars in town. Pints sling across the counter to construction workers wearing ski pants, while windburned teenagers — Lessar and his pals — nosh chicken barbecue pizza and play Battleship.

The shift is so busy, co-owner Jen Lind is having to help behind the bar. She hardly recognizes the energy in her brewery compared to its typically mellow pace at the end of a weekend.

“I think that comes right off the mountain,” Lind said. “People are excited to be out and about and having stuff to do.”

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Federal order reached after Mississippi pipeline rupture

SATARTIA, Miss. (AP) — Transportation regulators entered into a federal order with a carbon dioxide pipeline company three years after its pipeline ruptured in a lower Mississippi Delta town, prompting the evacuation of hundreds and sending dozens of people to the hospital.

Over 40 people received hospital treatment, and more than 300 were evacuated on Feb. 22, 2020, after Denbury Gulf Coast Pipelines’ 24-inch (61-centimeter) Delta Pipeline ruptured in Satartia, Mississippi. It released over 31,000 barrels of CO2. Residents who were sent to the hospital had symptoms of C02 poisoning and oxygen deprivation, according to a news release published by Pipeline Safety Trust, an advocacy group.

The Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced Thursday that it had entered into the order with Denbury, a Texas-based company.

The order will require the company to meet compliance requirements, such as communicating with all first responders who would be responsible for responding to a pipeline incident. Denbury has already paid a $2.8 million penalty, the release said.

“We hope that the consequences Denbury faces as a result of its failure to protect the public prevents devastating incidents like this one from occurring in the future,” said Kenneth Clarkson, communications director for Pipeline Safety Trust.

Denbury has the largest pipeline network in the U.S., with over 1,300 miles (2,092 kilometers) of carbon dioxide pipelines, according to its website. The company did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

As tiger count grows, India’s Indigenous demand land rights

Tigers are visible at the Ranthambore National Park in Sawai Madhopur, India 

 India will celebrate 50 years of tiger conservation on April 9, 2023, with Modi set to announce tiger population numbers at an event in Mysuru in Karnataka. 

(AP Photo/Satyajeet Singh Rathore, File)

BENGALURU, India (AP) — It was a celebratory atmosphere for officials gathered just hours away from several of India’s major tiger reserves in the southern city of Mysuru, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Sunday to much applause that the country’s tiger population has steadily grown to over 3,000 since its flagship conservation program began 50 years ago after concerns that numbers of the big cats were dwindling.

“India is a country where protecting nature is part of our culture,” Modi proclaimed. “This is why we have many unique achievements in wildlife conservation.”

Modi also launched the International Big Cats Alliance that he said will focus on the protection and conservation of seven big cat species, namely, the tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, puma, jaguar and cheetah.

Protesters, meanwhile, are telling their own stories Sunday of how they have been displaced by wildlife conservation projects over the last half-century, with dozens demonstrating about an hour away from the announcement.

Project Tiger began in 1973 after a census of the big cats found India’s tigers were fast going extinct through habitat loss, unregulated sport hunting, increased poaching and retaliatory killing by people. It’s believed the tiger population was around 1,800 at the time, but experts widely consider that an overestimate due to imprecise counting methods in India until 2006. Laws attempted to address the decline, but the conservation model centered around creating protected reserves where ecosystems can function undisturbed by people.

Several Indigenous groups say the conservation strategies, deeply influenced by American environmentalism, meant uprooting numerous communities that had lived in the forests for millennia.

Members of several Indigenous or Adivasi groups — as Indigenous people are known in the country — set up the Nagarahole Adivasi Forest Rights Establishment Committee to protest evictions from their ancestral lands and seek a voice in how the forests are managed.

“Nagarahole was one of the first forests to be brought under Project Tiger and our parents and grandparents were probably among the first to be forced out of the forests in the name of conservation,” said J. A. Shivu, 27, who belongs to the Jenu Kuruba tribe. “We have lost all rights to visit our lands, temples or even collect honey from the forests. How can we continue living like this?”

Jenu, which means honey in the southern Indian Kannada language, is the tribe’s primary source of livelihood as they collect it from beehives in the forests to sell.

The fewer than 40,000 Jenu Kuruba people are one of the 75 tribal groups that the Indian government classifies as particularly vulnerable. Adivasi communities like the Jenu Kurubas are among the poorest in India.

Some experts say conservation policies that attempted to protect a pristine wilderness were influenced by prejudices against local communities.

The Indian government’s tribal affairs ministry has repeatedly said it is working on Adivasi rights. Only about 1% of the more than 100 million Adivasis in India have been granted any rights over forest lands despite a government forest rights law, passed in 2006, that aimed to “undo the historical injustice” for forest communities.

India’s tiger numbers, meanwhile, are thriving: the country’s 3,167 tigers account for more than 75% of the world’s wild tiger population.

Tigers have disappeared in Bali and Java and China’s tigers are likely extinct in the wild. The Sunda Island tiger, the other sub-species, is only found in Sumatra. India’s project to safeguard them has been praised as a success by many.

“Project Tiger hardly has a parallel in the world since a scheme of this scale and magnitude has not been so successful elsewhere,” said SP Yadav, a senior Indian government official in charge of Project Tiger.

But critics say the social costs of fortress conservation — where forest departments protect wildlife and prevent local communities from entering forest regions — is high.

Sharachchandra Lele, of the Bengaluru-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, said the conservation model is outdated.

“There are already several examples of forests used actively by local communities and tiger numbers have actually increased even while people have benefited in these regions,” he said.

Vidya Athreya, the director of Wildlife Conservation Society in India who has been studying the interactions between large cats and humans for the last two decades, agreed.

“Traditionally we always put wildlife over people,” Athreya said, adding that engaging with communities is the way forward for protecting wildlife in India.

Shivu, from the Jenu Kuruba tribe, also wants to go back to a life where Indigenous communities and tigers lived together.

“We consider them gods and us the custodians of these forests,” he said.

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Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi, India, contributed to this report.

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Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Wildfire threat grows as Florida drought gets steadily worse

By CURT ANDERSON

April 6, 2023

 A fast-moving wildfire looms over homes outside of Panama City, Fla., March 4, 2022. Florida state and federal officials said Thursday, April 6, 2023, that the threat of wildfires is growing in Florida over the coming weeks as more than half the state is experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions likely to persist until rainy season resumes around mid-May.

(Mike Fender/News Herald via AP, File)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The threat of wildfires is growing in Florida over the coming weeks as more than half the state is experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions likely to persist until rainy season resumes around mid-May, state and federal officials said Thursday.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center reported Thursday that 55% of Florida is in the severe to extreme drought category, with most of the rest of the state listed as “abnormally dry.” The driest conditions are in southwest Florida, the same region hammered by Hurricane Ian in September.

“When you look at a drought map of the state of Florida, you have very dry conditions all across the state,” said Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, whose agency includes the Florida Forest Service. “We’ve had numerous fires already.”

Indeed, since Jan. 1 more than 1,000 wildfires in Florida have burned over 33,000 acres (13,300 hectares), according to state statistics. No evacuations, injuries or major damage to structures have been reported from the fires so far, but that could quickly change as April temperatures heat up without the frequent rainstorms that occur in summer.

Rainfall totals so far this year are well below normal in most of Florida, agriculture department figures show. And as climate change overall raises temperatures around the world, in Florida for February alone 82% of counties were hotter than the typical levels in the 20th Century — affecting an estimated 19.5 million people.

Last year, more than 1,100 people were evacuated during huge wildfires in the Florida Panhandle, much of it the result of dead timber and forest debris left over from Hurricane Michael’s path of destruction in 2018. Officials estimated then that Michael, a Category 5 cyclone, left behind 72 million tons of fallen trees in the area around Panama City.

Two years before that, another 1,000 homes were evacuated and some destroyed by another series of fires in another part of the Panhandle.

Officials fear the southwest part of the state where Hurricane Ian’s 150 mph (241 kph) winds downed thousands of trees could also become a tinderbox. It’s also the only area in Florida in the “extreme” drought category, according to the weather service.

“The further south you go, the drier it is,” said Rick Dolan, chief of the state Forest Service. “Wildfire activity in the state is expected to increase.”

Although lightning strikes often cause wildfires, Simpson said arson and people losing control of backyard or farm fires are a bigger danger. The state Forest Service has about 1,200 employees, half of whom are certified to fight wildfires.

“Most people who start these fires, they’re unintentional,” he said. “This time of the year is when we’re more concerned.”

Methane big part of ‘alarming’ rise in planet-warming gases

By ISABELLA O'MALLEY

April 6, 2023

 A person picks through trash for reusable items as a fire rages at the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi, April 27, 2022. Rising methane levels in the atmosphere in 2022 again played a big part in an overall increase in the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, according to the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)

Methane in the atmosphere had its fourth-highest annual increase in 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported, part of an overall rise in planet-warming greenhouse gases that the agency called “alarming.”

Though carbon dioxide typically gets more attention for its role in climate change, scientists are particularly concerned about methane because it traps much more heat — about 87 times more than carbon dioxide on a 20-year timescale.

Methane, a gas emitted from sources including landfills, oil and natural gas systems and livestock, has increased particularly quickly since 2020. Scientists say it shows no sign of slowing despite urgent calls from scientists and policymakers who say time is running out to meet warming limits in the Paris Agreement and avoid the most destructive impacts of climate change.

“The observations collected by NOAA scientists in 2022 show that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at an alarming pace and will persist in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a statement accompanying the report. “The time is now to address greenhouse gas pollution and to lower human-caused emissions as we continue to build toward a climate-ready nation.”

Methane rose by 14 parts per billion to 1,911.9 ppb in 2022. It rose slightly faster in 2020 (15.20 ppb) and 2021 (17.75 ppb).

Methane gas leaks from wells and natural gas lines and wafts from manure ponds, decomposing landfills, and directly from livestock.

“Ruminant animal herds like goats, sheep, and cows in particular are one of the largest human-driven sources of methane,” said Stephen Porder, a professor of ecology and assistant provost for sustainability at Brown University.

Scientists continue to discover that methane emissions from both the fossil fuels industry and the environment are largely underestimated.

“We are confident that over half of the methane emissions are coming from human activities like oil and gas extraction, agriculture, waste management, and landfills,” said Benjamin Poulter, NASA research scientist.

The exact amounts of methane that have come from human activity versus natural environments over the past few years is not currently known, but scientists say that humans have little control over ecosystems that start emitting more methane due to warming.

“If this rapid rise is wetlands and natural systems responding to climate change, then that’s very frightening because we can’t do much to stop it,” said Drew Shindell, Duke University professor and former climate scientist at NASA. “If methane leaks from the fossil fuels sector, then we can make regulations. But we can’t make regulations on what swamps do.”

Scientists are also investigating how the stubborn three-year La Nina pattern could have influenced methane emissions due to higher levels of rainfall in tropical wetlands.

Shindell said methane emissions caused by humans account for about 26% of the warming caused by human activities.

Porder said transitioning away from fossil fuels and reducing the number of ruminant animals being raised are “sure-fire ways to reduce methane in the atmosphere and limit warming.”

The International Energy Agency estimates that 70% of 2022’s methane emissions could be reduced with existing technology.

The NOAA report also said carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide saw significant growth in 2022.

Carbon dioxide levels rose to to 417.06 ppm in 2022 and is now 50% higher than pre-industrial levels. Nitrous oxide, which NOAA stated is the third-most significant greenhouse gas emitted by humans, rose to 335.7 ppb, largely due to fertilizers and manure from the expanding agriculture sector.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Study says warming may push more hurricanes toward US coasts

By SETH BORENSTEIN

April 7, 2023

 The bridge leading from Fort Myers to Pine Island, Fla., is seen heavily damaged in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian on Pine Island, Fla., Oct. 1, 2022. Changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States' east and Gulf coasts, especially in Florida, a new study said.

 (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States’ east and Gulf coasts, especially in Florida, a new study said.

While other studies have projected how human-caused climate change will probably alter the frequency, strength and moisture of tropical storms, the study in Friday’s journal Science Advances focuses on the crucial aspect of where hurricanes are going.

It’s all about projected changes in steering currents, said study lead author Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory climate scientist.

“Along every coast they’re kind of pushing the storms closer to the U.S.,” Balaguru said. The steering currents move from south to north along the Gulf of Mexico; on the East Coast, the normal west-to-east steering is lessened considerably and can be more east-to-west, he said.

Overall, in a worst-case warming scenario, the number of times a storm hits parts of the U.S. coast in general will probably increase by one-third by the end of the century, the study said, based on sophisticated climate and hurricane simulations, including a system researchers developed.

The central and southern Florida Peninsula, which juts out in the Atlantic, is projected to get even more of an increase in hurricanes hitting the coast, the study said.

Climate scientists disagree on how useful it is to focus on the worst-case scenario as the new study does because many calculations show the world has slowed its increase in carbon pollution. Balaguru said because his study looks more at steering changes than strength, the levels of warming aren’t as big a factor.

Kathy Hickey, 70, carefully climbs across a ruined trailer as she picks her way through debris to where she and her husband Bruce had a winter home, a trailer originally purchased by Kathy's mother in 1979, on San Carlos Island in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., Oct. 5, 2022, one week after the passage of Hurricane Ian. 

(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

The study projects changes in air currents traced to warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of South America. Climate change is warming different parts of the world at different rates, and models show the eastern Pacific area warming more quickly, Balaguru said.

That extra warming sets things in motion through Rossby waves, according to the study — atmospheric waves that move west to east and are connected to changes in temperature or pressure, like the jet stream or polar vortex events.

“I like to explain it to my students like a rock being dropped in a smooth pond,” said University of Albany atmospheric scientist Kristen Corbosiero, who wasn’t part of the study. “The heating is the rock and Rossby waves are the waves radiating away from the heating which disturbs the atmosphere’s balance.”

The wave ripples trigger a counterclockwise circulation in the Gulf of Mexico, which bring winds blowing from east to west in the eastern Atlantic and south to north in the Gulf of Mexico, Corbosiero and Balaguru said.

It also reduces wind shear — which is the difference in speed and direction of winds at high and low altitudes — the study said. Wind shear often decapitates hurricanes and makes it harder for nascent storms to develop.

Less wind shear means stronger storms, Balaguru said.

Overall, the steering current and wind shear changes increase the risk to the United States, Corbosiero said in an email.

Corbosiero and two other outside scientists said the study makes sense, but has limits and is missing some factors.

It doesn’t factor in where storms are born, which is important, and the study assumes a global trend toward more El Nino events, said Jhordanne Jones, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Purdue University’s Climate Extreme Weather Lab. Most climate simulations project more El Ninos, which is a natural warming of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide and dampens Atlantic hurricane activity. But recent observations “suggest a more La Nina- like state,” she said.
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California seeks federal help for salmon fishers facing ban

By JULIE WATSON and LISA BAUMANN

April 7, 2023

Bob Maharry sits inside his fishing boat docked at Pier 45 in San Francisco, March 20, 2023. A federal regulatory group has voted to officially close king salmon fishing season along much of the West Coast after near-record low numbers of the fish, also known as Chinook, returned to California's rivers in 2022.

 (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, File)

SAN DIEGO (AP) — California officials want federal disaster aid for the state’s salmon fishing industry, they said Friday following the closure of recreational and commercial king salmon fishing seasons along much of the West Coast due to near-record low numbers of the iconic fish returning to their spawning grounds.

Dealing a blow to the salmon fishing industry, the Pacific Fishery Management Council unanimously approved the closure Thursday for fall-run chinook fishing from Cape Falcon in northern Oregon to the California-Mexico border. Limited recreational salmon fishing will be allowed off southern Oregon in the fall.

Much of the salmon caught off Oregon originate in California’s Klamath and Sacramento rivers. After hatching in freshwater, they spend an average of three years maturing in the Pacific, where many are snagged by commercial fishermen, before migrating back to their spawning grounds, where conditions are more ideal to give birth. After laying eggs, they die.

“The forecasts for chinook returning to California rivers this year are near record lows,” Council Chair Marc Gorelnik said after the vote in a news release. “The poor conditions in the freshwater environment that contributed to these low forecasted returns are unfortunately not something that the Council can or has authority to control.”

Biologists say the chinook population has declined dramatically after years of drought. Many in the fishing industry say a rollback of federal protections for endangered salmon under the Trump administration allowed more water to be diverted from the Sacramento River Basin to agriculture, causing even more harm.

“The fact is that just too many salmon eggs and juvenile salmon died in the rivers in 2020 as a direct result of politically driven, short-sighted water management policies, under the prior federal administration, to ‘maximize’ irrigation river water deliveries during a major drought,” said Glen Spain, acting executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “Unfortunately, this purely politically driven mistake will cost our fishing-dependent coastal communities dearly.”

California fishing industry representatives and elected leaders said federal aid must be released quickly and efforts need to be ramped up to restore salmon habitat in California rivers with better water management, and the removal of dams and other barriers.

“We have to make sure that the policies and practices and the rest are not such that they are defying the evolutionary progress of salmon,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi said Friday, speaking in San Francisco in the rain, surrounded by fishers who spoke of their concerns about making ends meet during the closure.

The Democratic congresswoman, whose district includes the San Francisco Bay area, pledged to push for the Biden administration to act quickly on the state’s request to declare the situation a fishery resource disaster, the first step toward a disaster assistance bill that must be approved by Congress.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo seeking the declaration, the California governor’s office stated that the projected loss of the 2023 season is over $45 million — and that does not include the full impact to coastal communities and inland salmon fisheries.

California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity and 23,000 jobs annually in a normal season and contributes about $700 million to the economy and supports more than 10,000 jobs in Oregon, according to the Golden State Salmon Association.

“There’s a lot of fear and panic all up and down the coast with families trying to figure out how they’re going to pay the bills this year,” said John McManus, the group’s senior policy director.

Experts fear native California salmon are in a spiral toward extinction. Already, California’s spring-run chinook are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, while winter-run chinook are endangered along with the Central California Coast coho salmon, which has been off-limits to California commercial fishers since the 1990s.

Recreational fishing is expected to be allowed in Oregon only for coho salmon during the summer and for chinook after Sept. 1. Salmon season is expected to open as usual north of Cape Falcon, including in the Columbia River and off Washington’s coast.

There’s some hope that the unusually wet winter in California, which has mostly freed the state of drought, will bring relief. An unprecedented series of powerful storms has replenished most of California’s reservoirs, dumping record amounts of rain and snow and busting a severe three-year drought. But too much water running through the rivers could also kill eggs and young hatchlings.

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Baumann reported from Bellingham, Washington.

Ojibwe woman makes history as North Dakota poet laureate

By TRISHA AHMED

April 7, 2023

Denise Lajimodiere speaks at the Minnesota Children's Book Festival in Red Wing, Minn., on Sept. 18, 2021. Lajimodiere became North Dakota's first Native American state poet laureate in the state's history on Wednesday, April 5, 2023. (Chap Achen via AP)

North Dakota lawmakers have appointed an Ojibwe woman as the state’s poet laureate, making her the first Native American to hold this position in the state and increasing attention to her expertise on the troubled history of Native American boarding schools.

Denise Lajimodiere, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band in Belcourt, has written several award-winning books of poetry. She’s considered a national expert on the history of Native American boarding schools and wrote an academic book called “Stringing Rosaries” in 2019 on the atrocities experienced by boarding school survivors.

“I’m honored and humbled to represent my tribe. They are and always will be my inspiration,” Lajimodiere said in an interview, following a bipartisan confirmation of her two-year term as poet laureate on Wednesday.

Poet laureates represent the state in inaugural speeches, commencements, poetry readings and educational events, said Kim Konikow, executive director of the North Dakota Council on the Arts.

Lajimodiere, an educator who earned her doctorate degree from the University of North Dakota, said she plans to leverage her role as poet laureate to hold workshops with Native students around the state. She wants to develop a new book that focuses on them.

Lajimodiere’s appointment is impactful and inspirational because “representation counts at all levels,” said Nicole Donaghy, executive director of the advocacy group North Dakota Native Vote and a Hunkpapa Lakota from the Standing Rock Nation.

The more Native Americans can see themselves in positions of honor, the better it is for our communities, Donaghy said.

“I’ve grown up knowing how amazing she is,” said Rep. Jayme Davis, a Democrat of Rolette, who is from the same Turtle Mountain Band as Lajimodiere. “In my mind, there’s nobody more deserving.”

By spotlighting personal accounts of what boarding school survivors experienced, Lajimodiere’s book “Stringing Rosaries” sparked discussions on how to address injustices Native people have experienced, Davis said.

From the 18th century and continuing as late as the 1960s, networks of boarding schools institutionalized the legal kidnapping, abuse, and forced cultural assimilation of Indigenous children in North America. Much of Lajimodiere’s work grapples with trauma as it was felt by Native people in the region.

“Sap seeps down a fir tree’s trunk like bitter tears.... I brace against the tree and weep for the children, for the parents left behind, for my father who lived, for those who didn’t,” Lajimodiere wrote in a poem based on interviews with boarding school victims, published in her 2016 book “Bitter Tears.”

Davis, the legislator, said Lajimodiere’s writing informs ongoing work to grapple with the past like returning ancestral remains — including boarding school victims — and protecting tribal cultures going forward by codifying the federal Indian Child Welfare Act into state law.

The law, enacted in 1978, gives tribes power in foster care and adoption proceedings involving Native children. North Dakota and several other states have considered codifying it this year, as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge to the federal law.

The U.S. Department of the Interior released a report last year that identified more than 400 Native American boarding schools that sought to assimilate Native children into white society. The federal study found that more than 500 students died at the boarding schools, but officials expect that figure to grow exponentially as research continues.

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Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Trisha Ahmed on Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15.