As a flock of about 2,000 sheep graze between rows of solar panels, grazier Tony Inder wonders what all the fuss is about. “I’m not going to suggest it’s everyone’s cup of tea,” he says. “But as far as sheep grazing goes, solar is really good.”

Inder is talking about concerns over the encroachment of prime agricultural land by ever-expanding solar and windfarms, a well-trodden talking point for the loudest opponents to Australia’s energy transition.

But on Inder’s New South Wales property, a solar farm has increased wool production. It is a symbiotic relationship that the director of the National Renewables in Agriculture Conference, Karin Stark, wants to see replicated across as many solar farms as possible as Australia’s energy grid transitions away from fossil fuels.

“It’s all about farm diversification,” Stark says. “At the moment a lot of us farmers are reliant on when it’s going to rain, having solar and wind provides this secondary income.”

By keeping the grass trimmed, which can otherwise pose a fire risk during dry summer months, sheep save the developer the cost of slashing it themselves.

In exchange, the panels provide shelter for the sheep, encourage healthier pasture growth under the shade of the panels and create “drip lines” from condensation rolling off the face of the panels.

“We had strips of green grass right through the drought,” Dubbo sheep grazier Tom Warren says. Warren has seen a 15 percent rise in wool production due to a solar farm installed on his property more than seven years ago.

Despite these success stories, a 2023 Agrivoltaic Resource Centre report authored by Stark found that solar grazing is under utilised in Australia because developers, despite saying they intend to host livestock, make few planning adjustments to ensure that happens.

“The result is that many solar farms are poorly suited for sheep,” Stark says. “Developers need to be talking to landholders earlier than they currently are.”

Prof Bernadette McCabe, the director of the Centre for Agricultural Engineering at the University of Southern Queensland, says farming and solar are “two very different activities” and there’s “minimal research and demonstrated success” of running them in combination.

The expectation to retain farming land for primary production is driving greater interest in the coexistence of agriculture and renewable energy but McCabe says “misaligned incentives” between the developers and farmers must be better managed.

It’s these conflicting goals that are giving anti-renewable voices “fodder to attack the renewable energy industry,” according to former New South Wales solar developer Ben Wynn.

He says energy developers often “talk up the possibility” of coexisting with livestock production but don’t have “genuine desire to do so”.

Wynn is now part of a community group opposing a large solar farm proposed south of Tamworth because it lies on productive cropping country.

“We need this transition to speed up, but if we take up highly arable black soils we are giving oxygen to the naysayers,” he says.

Wynn also led the construction of a prototype solar farm outside Tamworth, raised high off the ground with steel posts to stay out of reach of a cattle herd below.

“Cattle are massive, they will rub and scratch themselves up against anything,” Wynn says.

The project was a success but Wynn says it is too expensive to be feasible on a large scale because the installation costs are three-to-four fold the cost of regular low-lying solar panels.

The integration of sheep and solar is “highly feasible,” McCabe says, because they can graze under ordinary height panels. But she says it is “still early days” to know if it will become economically viable for cattle.

Dr Nicholas Aberle, the energy generation and storage policy director at the Clean Energy Council, says solar developers should explore dual land use options but warns it be may not be suitable for every project. He adds that “the abundance of land in Australia means it isn’t always necessary.”

According to an analysis by the Clean Energy Council, less than 0.027 percent of land used for agriculture production would be needed to power the east coast states with solar projects – far less than the one-third of all prime agricultural land that the rightwing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs has claimed will be “taken over” by renewables. That argument, which has been heavily refuted by experts, has been taken up by the National party, whose leader, David Littleproud, said regional Australia had reached saturation point with renewable energy developments.

Queensland grazier and the chair of the Future Farmers Network, Caitlin McConnel, has sold electricity to the grid from a dozen custom-built solar arrays on her farm’s cattle pastures for more than a decade.

“Trial and error” and years of modifications have made them structurally sound around cattle and financially viable in the long-term, she says.

“As far as I know, we are the only farm to do solar with cattle,” McConnel says. “It’s good land, so why would we just lock it up just for solar panels?”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Farmers who graze sheep under solar panels say it improves productivity. So why don’t we do it more? on Jun 15, 2024.

Washington State’s Makah Tribe has been granted a federal waiver to resume its hunting traditions off the state’s coastline, allowing the Tribe to take as many as 25 Eastern North Pacific gray whales from United States waters over the course of a decade.

The waiver from the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA)’s take prohibitions allows limited ceremonial and subsistence hunting of the whales in accordance with International Whaling Commission quotas and the Treaty of Neah Bay of 1855, a press release from NOAA Fisheries said.

“This final rule represents a major milestone in the process to return ceremonial and subsistence hunting of Eastern North Pacific gray whales to the Makah Tribe,” said Janet Coit, NOAA Fisheries assistant administrator, in the press release. “The measures adopted today honor the Makah Tribe’s treaty rights and their cultural whaling tradition that dates back well over 1,000 years, and is fundamental to their identity and heritage.”

Before a hunt, the Tribe and NOAA Fisheries are required to enter into an agreement under the Whaling Convention Act, and a permit must be obtained by the Tribe. The final rule includes harvest limits, time and area restrictions, low population thresholds, restrictions on how the gray whale parts may be used and monitoring and reporting requirements.

The Tribe will be limited to two to three Eastern North Pacific gray whales taken annually from U.S. waters. NOAA Fisheries will continue to impose adaptive management strategies to protect endangered Western North Pacific gray whales, as well as the Pacific Coast Feeding Group of Eastern North Pacific gray whales.

“Under this final rule, there will be no change to the number of Eastern North Pacific gray whales that can be hunted under a quota first established by the IWC in 1997. The IWC quota is shared between the Makah Tribe and the Chukotkan Natives in Russia. This action will allow the Makah Tribe to use the quota which has in past years been transferred to Russia,” the press release said.

The Eastern North Pacific gray whale Unusual Mortality Event was closed by NOAA Fisheries earlier this year. It included the stranding of 690 gray whales between December 17, 2018, and November 9, 2023. Peak strandings occurred between December 2018 and December 2020.

The most recent estimate of the gray whale population — based on southbound counts during the winter of 2023 to 2024 — is that there are roughly 17,400 to 21,300 individuals.

In 1994, the Eastern North Pacific gray whale was delisted from the Endangered Species Act, reported Reuters.

The Makah Tribe requested a limited waiver of MMPA’s moratorium on taking Eastern North Pacific gray whales from NOAA Fisheries on February 14, 2005, the press release said.

Timothy Greene, Sr. — Makah Tribal council chairperson — said the amount of time it took to secure the waiver was unjust, but the Tribe was happy about the decision, Reuters reported.

“Whaling remains central to the identity, culture, subsistence, and spirituality of the Makah people, and we regard the Gray Whale as sacred,” Greene said in a statement, as reported by Reuters. “In the time since our last successful hunt in 1999, we have lost many elders who held the knowledge of our whaling customs, and another entire generation of Makahs has grown up without the ability to exercise our Treaty right.”

According to archaeological evidence, the Makah hunted whales for food in cedar canoes from time immemorial, stopping only after the population was decimated by commercial whaling in the early 20th century, The Guardian reported.

“We’ve never lost sight of the importance of whales and whale hunting,” Janine Ledford, Makah Cultural and Research Center’s executive director, told KNKX public radio, as reported by The Guardian. “You know, we weren’t hunting for roughly 80 years, but that didn’t mean that our community – that our tribe, you know – forgot how important whales are to us.”

The post Washington State’s Makah Tribe Receives Federal Waiver to Hunt Gray Whales appeared first on EcoWatch.

Global heating is predicted to lower the period of sea ice extent on Canada’s Hudson Bay, shortening the hunting season for its roughly 1,700 resident polar bears, reported Springer.

According to a new study, if global temperatures increase to more than 2.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the length of most of Hudson Bay’s ice-free period could be longer than the polar bears normally fast, threatening their survival.

May is normally an ice-covered month for Hudson Bay, but, according to NASA’s National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), this year was the lowest sea ice extent for the month since satellite records began in 1979.

“It’s a very unusual situation,” said Andrew Derocher, a polar bear biologist with the University of Alberta, as Reuters reported. “There are fewer bears in eastern Hudson Bay, but there is much less known about where they come from.”

Hudson Bay and the surrounding area is home to three of the 19 remaining polar bear populations in the world.

Unlike the Arctic, Hudson Bay completely thaws during the summer months, leading polar bears to fast while they await the return of the ice, which they need to hunt their main prey: seals.

“Hudson Bay has warmed over 1°C in the last 30 years. Coincident with this warming, seasonal patterns have shifted, with the spring sea ice melting earlier and the fall freeze-up occurring later, leading to a month longer of ice-free conditions. This extended ice-free period presents a significant challenge for polar bears, as it restricts their hunting opportunities for seals and their ability to accumulate the necessary body weight for successful reproduction,” the authors wrote in the study.

The study, “Ice-free period too long for Southern and Western Hudson Bay polar bear populations if global warming exceeds 1.6 to 2.6 °C,” was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Since 1987, half the population of polar bears in Western Hudson Bay has disappeared, reported Reuters. The research team looked at warming predictions from 20 climate models and found that this part of the bay would no longer be suitable habitat for the bears at approximately 2.2 degrees Celsius of planetary warming.

The team also found that the southern portion of the bay would become unable to support its polar bear population at a temperature between 1.6 and 2.1 degrees Celsius of warming.

“The disappearance of the Southern Hudson Bay polar bears is imminent, with Western Hudson Bay not far behind,” said Dr. Julienne Stroeve, lead author of the study, a researcher with the University of Manitoba and a senior scientist at NSIDC, as Reuters reported. “If we go over the 2°C of warming, we can’t really hope that those bears will still stay there.”

The study is the first to take sea ice thickness into account, as it must be sufficient to support an adult bear.

The Hudson Bay region has experienced more than one degree of warming in the past three decades, leading to the lengthening of its ice-free period from roughly 120 to 150 days, reported Springer.

Polar bears are believed to have the ability to safely survive a period without ice lasting from 183 to 218 days.

“Limiting global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels may prevent the ice-free period from exceeding 183 days in both western and southern Hudson Bay, providing some optimism for adult polar bear survival. However, with longer ice-free periods already substantially impacting recruitment, extirpation for polar bears in this region may already be inevitable,” the authors of the study wrote.

The post Record Low Sea Ice in Hudson Bay Putting Polar Bears at Risk of Extinction appeared first on EcoWatch.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has reported 161 sightings of whales last month, representing seven different whale species. The sightings, recorded on May 25, took place off the northeastern U.S. Coasts, near Martha’s Vineyard and southeast of Nantucket. According to NOAA, the sightings included an unusually high number of whale species, particularly endangered whales.

The sightings don’t necessarily mean there were 161 individual whales, since some may have been counted multiple times, The Associated Press reported. But the recorded whale sightings were still a positive sign, especially considering the high numbers of endangered species observed.

The researchers observed 93 sei whales, which are considered endangered under the Endangered Species Act. As stated on the NOAA website, sei whales experienced major declines in the 19th and 20th centuries, when around 300,000 of these whales were hunted. This was one of the highest recorded concentrations of sei whales, The Associated Press reported.

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Teri Frady, chief of research communications for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center under NOAA, said that seeing so many whales in this area around this time of year is not unheard of, but the researchers did not expect to find such a large number in one area at once, especially with such a variety of species.

“It is not unusual that there are a lot of whales in the area this time of year. But since we do not survey every day, or in the same areas every time we fly, catching such a large aggregation with such a variety of species on one of our flights is the exception rather than the rule,” Frady explained, as reported by The Associated Press.

In addition to the sei whales, researchers noted three sightings of the North Atlantic right whale, another endangered species, humpback whales, fin whales, minke whales, sperm whales and the rare sightings of two orcas, which are not as common in this area. One orca was observed with a tuna in its mouth.

Gib Brogan, campaign director at Oceana, told The Associated Press that the area where the whales were observed is “increasingly important as year-round core habitat for North Atlantic right whales and other large whale species,” but that it remains a risky place for whales. Brogan noted the U.S. needs to finalize legal protections to minimize risks of vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements, two of the biggest threats to whales in the region.

The sightings in May follow the rare observations of a gray whale off the northeastern U.S. in March by the New England Aquarium. New England Aquarium researchers observed a gray whale, a species that has been considered extinct in the Atlantic Ocean for more than two centuries, off the New England coast in an aerial survey. The rare gray whale sighting may be attributed to the species’ adaptation to climate change, scientists said.

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A new report from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, has found that more fish were farmed worldwide in 2022 than harvested from the wild, an apparent first.

Last week, the FAO released its annual report on the state of aquaculture — which refers to the farming of both seafood and aquatic plants — and fisheries around the world. The organization found that global production from both aquaculture and fisheries reached a new high — 223.3 million metric tons of animals and plants — in 2022. Of that, 185.4 million metric tons were aquatic animals, and 37.8 million metric tons were algae. Aquaculture was responsible for 51 percent of aquatic animal production in 2022, or 94.4 metric tons. 

The milestone was in many ways an expected one, given the world’s insatiable appetite for seafood. Since 1961, consumption of seafood has grown at twice the annual rate of the global population, according to the FAO. Because production levels from fisheries are not expected to change significantly in the future, meeting the growing global demand for seafood almost certainly necessitates an increase in aquaculture. 

Though fishery production levels fluctuate from year to year, “it’s not like there’s new fisheries out there waiting to be discovered,” said Dave Martin, program director for Sustainable Fisheries Partnerships, an international organization that works to reduce the environmental impact of seafood supply chains. “So any growth in consumption of seafood is going to come from aquaculture.”

But the rise of aquaculture underscores the need to transform seafood systems to minimize their impact on the planet. Both aquaculture and fisheries — sometimes referred to as capture fisheries, as they involve the capture of wild seafood — come with significant environmental and climate considerations. What’s more, the two systems often depend on each other, making it difficult to isolate their climate impacts. 

“There’s a lot of overlap between fisheries and aquaculture that the average consumer may not see,” said Dave Love, a research professor at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University. 

Studies have shown that the best diet for the planet is one free of animal protein. Still, seafood generally has much lower greenhouse gas emissions than other forms of protein from land-based animals. And given many people’s unwillingness or inability to go vegan, the FAO recommends transforming, adapting, and expanding sustainable seafood production to feed the world’s growing population and improve food security.

But “there’s a lot of ways to do aquaculture well, and there’s a lot of ways to do it poorly,” said Martin. Aquaculture can result in nitrogen and phosphorus being released into the natural environment, damaging aquatic ecosystems. Farmed fish can also spread disease to wild populations, or escape from their confines and breed with other species, resulting in genetic pollution that can disrupt the fitness of a wild population. Martin points to the diesel fuel used to power equipment on certain fish farms as a major source of aquaculture’s environmental impact. According to an analysis from the climate solutions nonprofit Project Drawdown, swapping out fossil fuel-based generators on fish farms for renewable-powered hybrids would prevent 500 million to 780 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2050. 

Other areas for improvement will vary depending on the specific species being farmed. In 2012, a U.N. study found that mangrove forests — a major carbon sink — have suffered greatly due to the development of shrimp and fish farming. Today, industry stakeholders have been exploring how new approaches and techniques from shrimp farmers can help restore mangroves. 

Meanwhile, wild fishing operations present their own environmental problems. For example, poorly managed fisheries can harvest fish more quickly than wild populations can breed, a phenomenon known as overfishing. Certain destructive wild fishing techniques also kill a lot of non-targeted species, known as bycatch, threatening marine biodiversity.

But the line between aquaculture and fish harvested from the wild isn’t as clear as it may seem. For example, pink salmon that are raised in hatcheries and then released into the wild to feed, mature, and ultimately be caught again are often marketed as “wild caught.” Lobsters, caught wild in Maine, are often fed bait by fisherman to help them put on weight. “It’s a wild fishery,” said Love — but the lobster fishermen’s practice of fattening up their catch shows how human intervention is present even in wild-caught operations. 

On the flipside, in a majority of aquaculture systems, farmers provide their fish with feed. That feed sometimes includes fish meal, says Love, a powder that comes from two sources: seafood processing waste (think: fish guts and tails) and wild-caught fish. 

All of this can result in a confusing landscape for climate- or environmentally-conscientious consumers who eat fish. But Love recommends a few ways in which consumers can navigate choice when shopping for seafood. Buying fresh fish locally helps shorten supply chains, which can lower the carbon impact of eating aquatic animals. “In our work, we’ve found that the big impact from transport is shipping fresh seafood internationally by air,” he said. Most farmed salmon, for example, sold in the U.S. is flown in. 

From both a climate and a nutritional standpoint, smaller fish and sea vegetables are also both good options. “Mussels, clams, oysters, seaweed — they’re all loaded with macronutrients and minerals in different ways” compared to fin fish, said Love. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The world is farming more seafood than it catches. Is that a good thing? on Jun 14, 2024.

Heat waves don’t just make you sweat — they can also mess with your brain. It’s been established that hot weather can result in lower scores on math tests and higher rates of aggression, ranging from mean-spirited behavior to violent crime. A small but growing body of research suggests it can also influence how people talk. 

Politicians tend to use shorter words in speeches when the temperature outside is 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter, according to a study published in the journal iScience on Thursday. The analysis looked at 7 million speeches across eight countries — the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark, Spain, and Germany — comparing them against the average temperature the day they were delivered. Cold days didn’t produce the same effect.

Understanding the consequences of heat on cognitive abilities is becoming particularly important as the climate warms, said Risto Conte Keivabu, a co-author of the study who researches climate change at the Max Planck Institute of Demographic Research in Germany. 

On days hotter than 81 degrees F, the simpler language politicians used was equivalent to losing half a month of education. That result is likely an underestimate, Conte Keivabu said, since the study tried to “disentangle the impact of heat from all the possible confounding factors in the most conservative way possible.” Looking at just the data from Germany, researchers found the effect was comparable to a four-month reduction in education, he said. The speeches were measured using Flesch-Kincaid readability tests, which assess how difficult a text is to understand based on the length of the words and sentences.

The study found that adults over 57 years old were more sensitive to heat, based on the German data, with temperatures in the range of 70-75 degrees F linked with changes in their speech. Heat is especially dangerous for older adults, who have a harder time cooling down because of weaker blood circulation and deteriorating sweat glands.

Other studies support the idea that heat can tamper with our words — though more for the reason that it can worsen your mood. Hate speech tends to rise with the thermometer: The number of tweets in the U.S. using pejorative or discriminatory language jumped by up to 22 percent during extreme heat, according to a study from 2022. Researchers have observed a similar phenomenon on Chinese social media, with people using more negative language on very hot days.

Unlike social media posts, however, speeches are typically prepared in advance, which makes politicians’ shift to less complex language on hot days more surprising. The researchers posit that the psychological effects of heat could “influence a speaker to simplify speech or diverge from prepared remarks due to impaired cognitive function and comfort.”

So how is it that a heat wave outside can alter the quality of speech indoors? The study puts forward a few theories. Maybe even a short exposure to heat can cause problems, like waiting for a train during a commute or taking a break outside; or, conversely, uncomfortable temperatures outdoors might lead people to stay inside where the lack of fresh air could hinder their cognitive abilities. Another possibility is that people tend to sleep worse when they’re hot, which makes it harder to think straight the next day.

Using simpler language isn’t necessarily bad — in fact, it’s often easier to understand. But when someone uses less complex language over time, that can indicate cognitive decline, according to Conte Keivabu. “We don’t know if this leads towards outcomes when it comes to the decision-making of politicians or how effective they are in conveying their messages,” he said. Researchers have found that using more generic wording can be an early warning sign of dementia, a pattern detected in authors’ books and politicians’ speeches.

Heat isn’t the only environmental factor that might subtly be influencing us to say one thing instead of another. A study in 2019 found that exposure to air pollution similarly led to a reduction in the complexity of speeches by members of the Canadian parliament, the equivalent of losing nearly three months of education.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How hot weather can tamper with your words on Jun 14, 2024.

Poet Ben Ditmars wrote, “Like a tree, I have stood my ground, not fallen.” If…

The post Earth911 Inspiration: Like a Tree appeared first on Earth911.

In today’s evolving business landscape, the importance of high-quality data to support ESG goals cannot be overstated. With increasing regulatory pressures, such as CSRD and SEC, companies must ensure their ESG reporting is both transparent and accurate.

In a blow to the increasing legal precedent in favor of citizens suing their governments over the adverse impacts of climate change, a vote by Switzerland’s parliament has rejected the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)’s historic climate ruling in favor of a group of older Swiss women.

The women — KlimaSeniorinnen, a group of more than 2,000 women over age 64 — won a lawsuit in April claiming that their country’s inadequate response to the climate crisis, particularly heat waves, had put their health at risk.

“The declaration is a betrayal of us older women – and of all those who are suffering from the real consequences of global warming today and in the future,” said Rosmarie Wydler-Wälti, KlimaSeniorinnen co-president, as The Guardian reported.

The original ruling was hailed as a huge win since it means countries belonging to the Council of Europe — the continent’s foremost human rights organization — are now susceptible to legal challenges when they are slow to make the transition to more renewable economic systems.

Even so, on Wednesday members of the lower house of Swiss parliament voted 111 to 72 to disregard the verdict. They argued that Switzerland’s response to the climate crisis had been sufficient and accused the judges of “inadmissible and disproportionate judicial activism.”

“This is terrible from a rule-of-law perspective,” said Corina Heri, a University of Zürich legal researcher, as reported by The Guardian. “The term ‘slippery slope’ is overused, obviously, but it is a dangerous precedent to create.”

If the Swiss women feel their country is not adhering to the ruling, they can complain to a Council of Europe committee that meets four times annually to monitor ECHR ruling compliance, Reuters reported.

Raphael Mahaim, a lawyer for the KlimaSeniorinnen, told Reuters the group was considering filing a complaint.

It is also possible for Switzerland to be expelled or leave the Council of Europe of its own accord if it does not want to act in accordance with the council’s directives. In March of 2022, Russia was removed from the council following its invasion of Ukraine.

Legal experts said the more likely outcome would be for Switzerland to be pressured to accept the judgment.

Isabela Keuschnigg, a London School of Economics legal researcher, said Switzerland’s refusal to carry out the ruling could “set a concerning precedent, undermining the role of legal oversight in democratic governance,” reported Reuters.

Joana Setzer, a climate litigation expert with the London School of Economics, said compliance was encouraged by the monitoring system and countries leaving the council would be subjected to “significant political and social repercussions.”

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