Climate Change Is Disrupting The Birds And The Bees

BBC - Claire Asher

We all know that climate change will cause more extreme weather and rising seas. But it is also having an unexpected effect on sex.

Our changing climate seems set to disrupt just about everything. From rising sea levels to ocean acidification, the list of negative consequences from climate change is endless. But one area that often goes unmentioned in the climate change discussion is sex.
Over the last two decades, scientists have found that warmer temperatures are quietly spoiling the mood, making it harder for plants and animals to reproduce.
Here are five ways that climate change is ruining sex lives.

It’s a numbers game
While humans and many other animals determine sex genetically, many reptiles and some fish use the incubation temperature of the eggs to set the gender of their offspring. This means that changing global temperatures could alter the ratio of sexes produced, making it harder for these animals to find mates.
Eastern three-lined skink females can partially compensate for temperature increases by digging deeper nests and laying earlier in the season. Nevertheless, according to a study published in 2009, their nests still warmed by 1.5C over 10 years. This shifted the sex ratio towards females.
Not every species is as badly affected. Australian water dragon females have been shown to buffer temperature differences of 4C by nesting in sunnier or shadier locations. When it comes to climate change, behavioural flexibility is often a big advantage.

Warmer temperatures are quietly spoiling the mood, making it harder for plants and animals to reproduce

In the plant world, temperature can influence sex ratios in more subtle ways. For example, the tobacco root plant, which lives in alpine meadows in North America, has been producing ever more male plants over the last 40 years. This may be due to reduced water availability, since females require more water to develop. So far, the extra males have actually boosted seed production, but if the trend continues, the lack of females could eventually leave male tobacco roots feeling a little lonely.
Meanwhile, the majority of the world’s sea turtles use temperature to set the sex of their offspring. “Embryos are laid with no gender,” says Graeme Hays of Deakin University in Australia. “They can develop into males or females.”

As temperatures rise, green turtle populations may be heavily skewed in favour of females (Credit: Alamy)

Warmer eggs develop into females, cooler eggs into males. “Temperature during the middle third of incubation controls the sex,” says Hays, by switching on and off the genes that trigger development into either a male or a female.
The difference between male and female is just a couple of degrees. That means even slight changes in the climate could skew the sex ratio, making males harder to find. Incubation temperatures above 29C are predicted to produce increasingly female-biased clutches.
There is evidence that this shift is already underway. Over the last century, the sex ratios of green turtles, hawksbill turtles and leatherback turtles have become increasingly sex-biased. By 2030, the percentage of male green turtles produced has been predicted to drop to just 2.4%. “All else being equal, a warming climate will produce more female sea turtle hatchlings,” says Hays.

The difference between male and female is just a couple of degrees

But his research suggests that all things are not equal. High temperatures also increase mortality in sea turtle embryos, so female embryos are less likely to survive. Combine this with the fact that male sea turtles can mate more frequently, and with many females each season, and the impact on reproduction may not be as severe as first predicted.
Still, Hays warns that this is only true up to a point. Temperatures above 35C would produce such skewed sea turtle clutches and low hatching success that populations would struggle to survive. “There are many places where a 3C temperature rise would lead to extinction of sea turtle populations,” says Hays.
One solution for sea turtles and other reptiles with temperature-based sex determination is to breed at different times of year. This is called a “phenological shift”. “Earlier nesting may mean that sea turtles avoid incubation conditions that are too hot,” says Hays.

Timing is everything
Phenological shifts are common, because many animals use environmental cues like temperature and rainfall to time key events like migration, flowering and breeding. Climate change is changing the timing and strength of the seasons, and as these cues change, the annual ebb and flow of the natural world is being disrupted.
In fact, one of the first pieces of evidence for the effect of climate change on living things was the discovery that plants are flowering earlier and earlier each year. In 2002, a landmark study showed that 385 British plant species were flowering on average 4.5 days earlier than in the 1990s. The same story is playing out across the globe: a 2008 meta-analysis looked at 650 temperate plant species in Europe, Asia and North America, and found that spring flowering had advanced by 1.9 days per decade on average.
The biggest concern is that plants and their pollinators might respond differently to climate change, leading to a mismatch that could significantly affect plant reproduction. For instance, in Japan the flowering of the plant Corydalis ambigua has advanced faster than the emergence of its bumblebee pollinators, resulting in a mismatch that reduces seed production in years with an early spring. Such mismatches could have a major impact on certain crop plants.

Some predatory birds are hatching after their prey, meaning they have less to eat (Credit: Alamy)

Happily, a 2011 study found that most plants and pollinators are responding to climate change in a similar way, maintaining their synchrony despite large changes in temperature.
Autumnal events, such as fruiting and leaf dropping, have also been delayed. This means that plants are now flowering and growing for longer. That sounds like a good thing, and climate change is predicted to increase yield for some crops in some regions. But overall, the expectation is that climate change will make our crop plants less productive, by speeding the ageing process and reducing fertility.
It isn’t just plants that need to time reproduction carefully. Birds are also changing their annual calendars. Many are now breeding and laying eggs earlier in the year. For some species this may be a good thing, because hatching earlier means the chicks have longer to develop. For pied flycatchers, warmer springs mean larger clutches and more chicks surviving to fledge.
 For others, climate change may shorten the already narrow window of opportunity to breed.
Brunnich’s guillemots live in the Arctic Ocean, off the coast of Canada. They time their breeding based on summer ice cover, but ice cover is strongly affected by winter and spring temperatures, and has been retreating since the 1970s. Guillemots in the south of their range now breed earlier, but their chicks grow more slowly and are less likely to survive. In the longer term, warmer temperatures and reduced sea ice may extend the breeding season for birds in the north, but more southerly birds could see their breeding window close early.

Changing environmental cues might also influence how animals court members of the opposite sex

More serious problems may be in store for birds that cannot keep up with the changing climate. The relative timing of hatching in relation to the abundance of food is key to successfully raising young. In the Netherlands, peak caterpillar abundance occurred nine days earlier in 1995 than in 1973, but great tits did not lay their eggs any earlier. This could mean that the chicks get less food than they otherwise could, worsening their chances of survival.
Even birds of prey are being affected by mismatches. Eurasian sparrowhawks have found that prey species like common blackbirds and house sparrows are breeding earlier, and the sparrowhawks have only partially kept pace. In the 1970s, the sparrowhawks’ prey were most common when chicks were around two weeks old, but by 1997 it was happening when they were just six days old. At this age, the chicks are too young to make use of this abundance, and may suffer from food shortages later in development.

Bending the rules of attraction
Changing environmental cues might also influence how animals court members of the opposite sex.
The decorations, displays, dances and songs that animals use to attract a mate are all heavily dependent on the environmental conditions the animal lives in. That is why they became attractive in the first place, says Carlos Botero of Washington University in Saint Louis.

Many birds, like flycatchers, are hatching earlier to make the most of abundant food (Credit: Alamy)

“For example, female birds often find bright colours attractive, and the building blocks that males use to produce these colours are often obtained from their diet,” says Botero. “When a female sees a brightly-coloured male, she is indirectly seeing a potential mate that is clearly capable of finding enough food to not just maintain himself but to have extra to spare on looks.”
Across the animal kingdom, lavish looks and elaborate displays act as honest signals of the quality of a mate, helping females to choose the right parent to give their offspring the best genetic start in life.
But environmental changes can break the link between appearance and quality. A study published in January 2017 found that warming spring temperatures had changed the course of evolution for collared flycatchers. Previously, males with the largest white head patches attracted more females, but during the 34-year study a 1.5 °C rise in average spring temperatures completely reversed this pattern.
Males with large head patches, which previously had the highest survival rates, had the lowest survival rates at warmer temperatures. Their head patch no longer meant anything in terms of quality. As a result, males with smaller patches now enjoy their pick of the ladies.

Warmer climates seem to have a tendency to make animals less faithful

Climate change seems to be levelling the playing field among grey seals. Between 1996 and 2004, lower rainfall forced females to venture out of their normal foraging areas, giving subordinate males the opportunity to mate. The proportion of males in the colony that bred increased by 61% in wetter years. This in turn has increased the population’s genetic diversity, which could help the seals cope with climate change.
For other species, changes in the timing of events have left room for exaggerated sexual appearance.Male barn swallows have grown ever longer tail feathers since the 1970s, as a result of arriving early at their breeding grounds. Females have not changed the timing of their migration, so males now have extra time to look their best before the females arrive. This seems like good news for the males, but it may make it harder for females to distinguish between mates of different quality, again altering the course of evolution.
These studies offer tantalising glimpses into how climate change is putting the sexual lives of animals into disarray. However, the long-term consequences of these shifts are difficult to predict and are likely to be highly species-specific.

A mate for life?
Warmer climates seem to have a tendency to make animals less faithful. In a 2012 study, Botero studied monogamy in 122 species of bird. He found that “in places where environments change more frequently and unexpectedly, apparently monogamous females tend to hedge their bets by mating with more than one partner on the side”.
These “extra-pair relationships” become increasingly frequent as annual climatic cycles become more variable. Female birds “are also more likely to terminate bonds with partners that are no longer yielding the benefits they expected”, says Botero. He argues that these “divorces” and “affairs” may become more common as the climate becomes less predictable.

Rising temperatures may make alpine species like marmots more prone to infidelity (Credit: Alamy)

Increasing infidelity may also be on the cards for mammals like alpine marmots. A 2016 study led by Aurélie Cohas of Claude Bernard University Lyon found that, between 1992 and 2013, the frequency of extra-pair litters increased as spring arrived earlier and winter snowfall increased. This effect was largely due to improved survival as alpine temperatures rose. “The number of pups, as well as their survival, is highly linked to the climatic conditions they endure during hibernation,” says Cohas.
Pups that survive the winter will tend to stick around and help the family raise the next litter. In turn, “females are more likely to produce extra-pair litters when there are more subordinates in their family” to help, says Cohas. “We could likely expect species living in alpine, snowy and cold habitats to be more unfaithful in the future.”

Climate change may shorten migration distances, and could actually lead to an increase in monogamy and bi-parental care in some migratory birds

Why does this happen? “Climate influences mating systems in mammals by constraining the resources available, constraining movement, and changing the costs involved for animals to meet sexual partners,” says Cohas. “Any change in climate that will relax these constraints will likely influence their mating system.”
In migratory shorebirds, there is a link between the distance of migration and whether both parents help care for the young. This “bi-parental care” is usually restricted to short-distance migrants, because birds that migrate long distances cannot rely on both parents to make the long journey, so females tend to raise the offspring alone. Climate change may shorten migration distances, and could actually lead to an increase in monogamy and bi-parental care in some migratory birds.
Similarly, among shorebirds called plovers, males have been shown to invest more effort in helping to raise young chicks as the climate warms and becomes more unpredictable. This flexible behaviour may help these birds buffer some of the harsher effects of climate change on chick survival.

The heat-wave slump
Finally, climate change might even impact on our own sex lives.
A 2015 working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research found a correlation between hot temperatures and low birth rates in the USA. A single hot day when temperatures went over 26C reduced birth rates nine months later by 0.4%, equating to over 1,100 births. It isn’t clear whether this was due to a reduction in the frequency of sex – after all, sometimes it is too hot to do anything – or due to reduced fertility at high temperatures.
The authors offer a possible solution to this problem: air conditioning. But air conditioning needs power to run, and if that power comes from burning fossil fuels we would end up warming the climate even more.
A 2016 study in Japan found a correlation between extreme temperatures, whether hot or cold, and increasingly sex-biased miscarriages, producing a female-biased sex ratio in new-borns. Since climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of extreme weather events, in theory it could affect human fertility too.

Links

• Adorable alpine animal acclimates behavior to a changing climate
• Climate change could put rare bat species at greater risk
• Climate change drawing new species into Cornish waters
• Study: Animal Feces Linked To Climate Change
• Climate change moving wildlife habitats
• Climate change is increasing the mortality rate of African wild dog pups
• Alien species invasions and global warming a ‘deadly duo’, warn scientists
• Earth’s sixth mass extinction is already underway, scientists have warned
• Global Warming and Climate Change Facts
• Predicting Shifts in the Range of Invasive Insect Species in the Face of Climate Change
• Protected areas offer refuge from invasive species spreading under climate change
• Your Pet's Meaty Food Is a Big Contributor to Climate Change, Too
• ‘Sixth extinction’ of wildlife faster than feared – scientists
• What City Ants Can Teach Us About Species Evolution And Climate Change
• Climate change threatening rare bat species: study

A Running List Of How Trump Is Changing The Environment

National Geographic -  M. Greshko | L. Parker| B. Clark Howard

The Trump administration has promised vast changes to U.S. science and environmental policy—and we're tracking them here as they happen.

Mounds of unsold coal stand above ground at ERP Compliant Fuels' Federal No. 2 mine near Fairview, W.Va., April 11, 2016. With Donald Trump's win in the race for the White House, scores of regulations that have reshaped the contours of corporate America over the last eight years suddenly seemed vulnerable. PHOTOGRAPH BY LUKE SHARRETT, THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

 The Trump administration's tumultuous first months have brought a flurry of changes—both realised and anticipated—to U.S. environmental policy. Many of the actions roll back Obama-era policies that aimed to curb climate change and limit environmental pollution, while others threaten to limit federal funding for science and the environment.
The stakes are enormous. The Trump administration takes power amid the first days of meaningful international action against climate change, an issue on which political polarisation still runs deep. And for the first time in years, Republicans have control of the White House and both houses of Congress—giving them an opportunity to remake the nation's environmental laws in their image.
It's a lot to keep track of, so National Geographic will be maintaining an abbreviated timeline of the Trump administration's environmental actions and policy changes, as well as reactions to them. We will update this article periodically as news develops.

Interior Department Relaxes Aspects Of Sage Grouse Protection - August 7, 2017
The Department of the Interior has released the results of a 60-day review of the Obama administration's conservation plan to protect the greater sage grouse. The review, ordered in June by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, was intended to determine if that plan interferes with Trump administration efforts to increase energy production on federal lands.
In light of the newly published review, Secretary Zinke recommends reprioritising oil development within the broader 2015 plan, among other changes. Environmental groups have rebuked the overhaul, arguing that changes to the 2015 plan could dilute protections for the species.
"Today, the administration's review opens the door to significant changes to the sage-grouse plans, which could undercut the sound science used to develop those plans and jeopardise what we know the bird needs to live and thrive," said Eric Holst, the associate vice president of working lands for the Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement. "By reopening the federal plans, we risk undermining and undoing one of the greatest collaborative conservation efforts in our nation's history."
The Obama plan was drawn up as an alternative to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to list the sage grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The approach, which involved a five-year negotiation between 1,100 ranchers, environmental groups, and state and federal agencies, was hailed as an unprecedented collaboration that had reduced the threat to sage grouse habitat while avoiding a more stringent regulatory intervention that might hinder economic development. Fish and Wildlife declined to list the sage grouse after the collaborative conservation plan was unveiled in 2015.
The sage grouse habitat spans 173 million acres in 11 western states, including the Dakotas, and three Canadian provinces. Before the West was settled, the sage grouse once roamed over 290 million acres. In launching the 60-day review, Zinke said: "While the federal government has a responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to responsibly manage wildlife, destroying local communities and levying onerous regulations on the public lands that they rely on is no way to be a good neighbour." Rewriting the Obama plan could extend beyond President Trump's term, when public comment periods, new proposals and legal challenges are taken into account.

EPA Drops Delay Of Obama-Era Ozone Standards - August 2, 2017
In an about-face spurred by a 16-state lawsuit, the Trump administration EPA has dropped its decision to delay Obama-era regulations on ozone. The potent lung irritant forms when strong sunlight irradiates emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other sources.
In October 2015, the Obama administration tightened the ozone national standard from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion, citing ozone's toll on public health. The Obama administration estimated that the reduction would yield $2.9 to $5.9 billion worth of health benefits in 2025, outweighing its estimated annual cost of $1.4 billion.
Few were entirely thrilled with the 2015 regulations. Environmental and public-health groups criticised the regulation as not stringent enough, citing evidence that ozone still poses a public health threat at 70 parts per billion, the upper end of the ozone standards recommended by scientists advising the EPA. Meanwhile, industry groups and their allies in Congress criticised the rule for the costs it would inflict.
In June, the EPA announced its intent to delay the implementation of the rule from October 1, 2017, to October 1, 2018, citing lingering questions and the regulation's complexities. In response, 16 Democratic state attorneys general and the District of Columbia petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the one-year delay.
In its reversal the next day, the EPA cited its "commitment to working with the states."

NOAA Cancels Rule To Protect Whales From Fishing Nets - June 13, 2017
The Trump Administration this week cancelled a rule that would have helped prevent endangered whales and sea turtles from becoming entangled in fishing nets off the U.S. West Coast. Proposed in 2015, the rule would have closed the swordfish gill net fishery for up to two years if any two individual endangered whales or sea turtles were killed or seriously hurt within a two-year period. The same penalties would have applied if any combination of four bottlenose dolphins or short-finned pilot whales were injured or killed within a two-year period.
This week, however, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries division announced that the rule is no longer necessary because other protections have reduced the number of marine mammals entangled in gill nets. "What changed is that our more detailed analysis demonstrated to us that the hard caps would likely impose significant additional cost on the fleet without much additional conservation benefit," says Michael Milstein, a NOAA fisheries spokesman.
Entanglements were common in the 1990s. But only two gray whales have been killed or seriously injured since 2012, according to NOAA. The short-beaked dolphin is the most frequently entangled marine mammal, and the number of annual entanglements of this species has declined from 200 killed in the early 1990s to fewer than 10 injured or killed in 2015.
New net design has helped reduce casualties, NOAA says. But environmentalists say that a more likely explanation for the reduced entanglements is the significant drop in the number of fishermen working the waters. The swordfish fleet has declined by almost 90 percent since the 1990s—from 141 boats in 1990 to just 20 boats in 2016. Leatherback turtles, humpback whales, and sperm whales are still being killed in gill nets, a spokeswoman for the Center for Biological Diversity told the Los Angeles Times.

Interior Suggests Shrinking Bears Ears - June 12, 2017
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended that Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah's red rock country be shrunk by President Trump. Zinke declined to say at a press conference how much Bears Ears' boundaries should be downsized. But he suggested the rich cache of ancient tribal artefacts inside the monument—one of the largest collections in the nation—could be protected in a much smaller area surrounding the Bears Ears twin butte formation and another section to the north of what is now a 1.3-million-acre expanse.
The boundary details will be forwarded to Trump later this summer, Zinke said, along with his review of 26 other national monuments. Zinke says legislation will also be proposed so that Congress determines how areas inside national monuments are managed. Bears Ears, for example, also contains wilderness areas inside its boundaries.
The president had asked Zinke in April to review large monuments as part of an effort to increase development on federal lands. Bears Ears is one of two controversial Utah national monuments that drew the ire of Utah lawmakers, who asked Trump to consider rescinding or shrinking them. Bears Ears, created by President Barack Obama last December after several years of negotiations with state and tribal leaders, was singled out by Trump as a "massive federal land grab." The other is Grand Staircase Escalante, created by President Clinton in 1996, with little public involvement.
Zinke said the Utah delegation and state lawmakers, including Gov. Gary Herbert, support his recommendations. But supporters of Bears Ears existing boundaries expressed disappointment as well as doubts that Trump's efforts to shrink Bears Ears would survive a court challenge. Randi Spivak, spokeswoman for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Arizona, said the recommendation to downsize Bears Ears contradicts the intentions of the Antiquities Act, which enables presidents to set aside federal land for protection and signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. "It's time for Zinke to stop pretending he's a Teddy Roosevelt kind of guy," Spivak said.

Interior To Review Greater Sage Grouse Protection - June 8, 2017
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Wednesday ordered a review of an Obama administration conservation plan to protect the greater sage grouse to determine if that plan interferes with Trump administration efforts to increase energy production on federal lands. The Obama plan was drawn up as an alternative to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to list the sage grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The approach, which involved a five-year negotiation between 1,100 ranchers, environmental groups, and state and federal agencies, was hailed as an unprecedented collaboration that had reduced the threat to sage grouse habitat while avoiding a more stringent regulatory intervention that might hinder economic development. Fish and Wildlife declined to list the sage grouse after the collaborative conservation plan was unveiled in 2015.
The sage grouse habitat spans 173 million acres in 11 western states, including the Dakotas, and three Canadian provinces. Before the West was settled, the sage grouse once roamed over 290 million acres. In launching the 60-day review, Zinke said: "While the federal government has a responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to responsibly manage wildlife, destroying local communities and levying onerous regulations on the public lands that they rely on is no way to be a good neighbour." Rewriting the Obama plan could extend beyond President Trump's term, when public comment periods, new proposals and legal challenges are taken into account.

U.S. Pulls Out Of Paris Climate Agreement - June 1, 2017
President Trump said that he will pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, steering away from a group of 194 other countries that have promised to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The news came just days after he attended the G7 Summit in Italy, where the six other member countries—Germany, Italy, Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom—reaffirmed their commitment to the 2015 climate pact.
As part of the accord, the U.S. had agreed to cut its emissions between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. In abandoning that promise, the U.S. effectively cedes leadership on the issue to other countries, including the world's top emitter, China. Chinese President Xi Jinping has stood by the agreement in the face of a wavering U.S., calling it a "hard-won achievement" that should be honoured. Still, plummeting prices for wind and solar energy and corporations' support of clean energy are among the reasons why climate progress will likely continue.

Trump Budget Proposes Steep Cuts For The Environment - May 23, 2017
President Trump's 2018 budget, sent to Congress Tuesday, calls for massive cuts in scientific research and in a slew of environmental programs that protect air and water. The proposed budget, titled "A New Foundation for American Greatness," slashes the Environmental Protection Agency's budget by 31 percent – a steeper cut than any other agency. Those cuts could translate into a $2.7 billion spending reduction and the loss of 3,200 jobs, according to an analysis by the World Resources Institute. The proposed budget eliminates major programs to restore the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and Puget Sound. It ends the EPA's lead-risk reduction and radon detection programs and cuts funding for the Superfund cleanup program.
The budget proposal does, however, retain funding for grants and financing to states and cities for drinking water and wastewater programs. S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, told the Washington Post that he "was amazed" that the final EPA budget is nearly identical to the preliminary budget released in March, despite strong opposition at the time from many members of Congress. In addition, the Interior Department would undergo a 12 percent funding cut, and the Energy Department a six percent cut.

Obama Methane Rule Remains Law Of Land - May 10, 2017
In a surprise 51-49 defeat, the U.S. Senate rejects a measure that would have repealed Obama-era regulations on methane emissions. That regulation, which the House of Representatives voted to rescind on February 3, limits the venting and flaring of natural gas from oil and gas facilities on U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands. The Obama administration had argued that the practices wasted tens of billions of cubic feet of natural gas annually—and also posed a climate threat. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with 25 times the warming capacity of carbon dioxide.

EPA Dismisses Science Advisors - May 5, 2017
The EPA dismisses several members of the Board of Scientific Counselors, an 18-member advisory board that reviews the research of EPA scientists. Some of the dismissed scientists had been assured that their three-year terms on the board would be renewed. In a May 7 story by the New York Times, critics assailed the move, casting it as a gift to business interests at the expense of science. An EPA spokesperson said the decision allowed the agency to consider a more diverse pool of applicants, including industry representatives, for the board.
In addition, the Washington Post reported on May 8 that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has started reviewing more than 200 advisory boards and other entities associated with the Interior Department.

EPA Scrubs Climate Change Website - April 28, 2017
The EPA announces that it is reviewing its web content related to climate change. An immediate casualty of the review: the agency's longtime website devoted to explaining climate change. (The new page, which says it's being updated "to reflect EPA's priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt," prominently links to an archived version of the page.) On May 2, 2017, the EPA also purged the Spanish-language version of its climate change web page.

Order Aims To Expand Offshore Drilling - April 28, 2017
President Trump signs an executive order that orders a review of Obama-era bans on offshore oil and gas drilling in parts of the Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans. The Obama policies under review include a five-year oil leasing roadmap that excluded Alaska's Beaufort and Chukchi Seas and a December 2016 attempt to permanently ban drilling on wide swaths of Arctic and Atlantic waters. NPR reports that the order also halts the designation or expansion of National Marine Sanctuaries, unless the move includes an Interior Department estimate of the area's "energy or mineral resource potential." Conservation groups immediately announce their intent to defend Obama's December 2016 effort in court.

Trump Inner Circle Discusses Paris Agreement - April 27, 2017
Key Trump advisers and Cabinet officials meet to discuss whether the U.S. should stay in the Paris Agreement, according to an April 27 Bloomberg Politics report. The global climate pact was absent from Trump's March 28 executive order on climate, and debate over whether the U.S. should leave the agreement has divided the White House. Bloomberg Politics and Politico report that Trump is expected to make a final decision on the global climate pact by late May.

Trump Orders Review Of National Monuments - April 26, 2017
In a sweeping executive order with few precedents, Trump instructs Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review as many as 40 national monuments created since 1996 to determine if any of Trump's three predecessors exceeded their authority when protecting large tracts of already-public land under the Antiquities Act of 1906. The review targets monuments that are at least 100,000 acres in size and reaches back to Utah's 1.7-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which President Bill Clinton created in 1996 in the face of intense opposition. (Read more about the executive order's potential repercussions.)

Scientists March On Washington - April 22, 2017
On a drizzly Earth Day, thousands of scientists and science enthusiasts march through Washington, D.C., to the U.S. Capitol, voicing support for science's role in society. The sign-toting crowds—many wearing lab coats and crocheted hats resembling brains—also protest the Trump administration's environmental and science policies. Satellite events of the March for Science held around the world, more than 600 in all, draw tens of thousands more attendees.

Interior Department Scrubs Climate Change Website - April 29, 2017
An Interior Department official updates the department's climate change website, deleting much of its content in the process, Motherboard reports. The page now carries a sole mention of "climate change"—and does not explain what the phenomenon is, how it affects the U.S., and what the department is doing about it. (The Interior Department has eight regional Climate Science Centers, which work under the direction of the U.S. Geological Survey "to help resource managers cope with a changing climate," according to the archived web page.)

Pruitt Calls For Exiting Paris Agreement - April 14, 2017
In an interview on "Fox & Friends," EPA administrator Scott Pruitt says that he's personally opposed to the Paris Agreement, the international pact to fight climate change negotiated in 2015. While Pruitt calls the pact "a bad deal for America," the Trump administration has remained noncommittal on withdrawing from the agreement, reports the Washington Post.

EPA Announces "Back-To-Basics" Agenda - April 13, 2017
With Pennsylvania's Harvey coal mine as his backdrop, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announces a "back-to-basics" agenda for the environmental agency, which he describes as "protecting the environment by engaging with state, local, and tribal partners to create sensible regulations that enhance economic growth." The agenda includes reviews of the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rule, two key Obama-era environmental regulations, as well as promises to clear the backlog of new chemicals awaiting EPA approval. (Read the whole agenda here.)

Climate Change Staffers Reassigned - April 7, 2017
News outlets report that several staff members at EPA's headquarters who specialised in climate change adaptation have been reassigned. However, an EPA official interviewed by The Hill emphasises that the agency's regional offices "have always taken the lead on adaptation and will continue to do so." An EPA official interviewed by National Geographic says that the staff—four employees in all—will continue at the agency's Office of Policy, bringing their knowledge to a broader set of issues.

Trump Donates To National Parks - April 3, 2017
The White House announces that President Trump has donated the first quarter of his salary ($78,333.32) to the National Park Service. The gift will reportedly chip away at the $100 to $230 million in deferred maintenance backlogs that the nation's battlefields currently bear. (The National Park Service's total deferred maintenance backlog is valued at $12 billion.) Trump's 2018 budget blueprint calls for a $1.5-billion cut to the U.S. Department of the Interior, to which the National Park Service and its $3.4-billion budget belong. Among other things, the 12-percent cut would eliminate funding for unspecified National Heritage Areas—lived-in, cohesive landscapes deemed by Congress to be nationally important. Several National Heritage Areas contain preserved battlefields.

Scientific Integrity Office Reviewing Pruitt - March 31, 2017
In response to inquiries from the Sierra Club, the EPA's Office of Inspector General refers Scott Pruitt's March 9 CNBC interview to the agency's scientific integrity office for review. In that interview, Pruitt had downplayed carbon emissions' central role in driving Earth's changing climate—a position at odds with scientific consensus. EPA spokespeople defend Pruitt, claiming that the administrator is within his right to have a differing opinion. As of April 6, 2017, the Office of Inspector General said that the review had no specified timeframe.

EPA Scientist Retires With A Bang - March 31, 2017
Environmental scientist Michael Cox retires from the EPA after more than 25 years with the agency, penning a scorching farewell letter to agency administrator Scott Pruitt. The letter, which garners significant media coverage, lambasts the Trump administration for "working to dismantle EPA and its staff as quickly as possible."

Pesticide Avoids Total Ban - March 29, 2017
Against the advice of the EPA's chemical safety experts, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt rejects a decade-old petition asking that the EPA ban all use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos. In 2000, the EPA banned its use in most household settings, but the pesticide is still used on some 40,000 farms, which EPA scientists recommended stop. Research suggests that chlorpyrifos may be associated with brain damage in children and farm workers, even at low exposures—though Dow Chemical, chlorpyrifos' manufacturer, argues that it is safe when properly used. The U.S. Department of Agriculture welcomes Pruitt's decision as helpful for U.S. farmers.

Climate Actions Undone - March 28, 2017
President Trump signs an executive order that seeks to dismantle much of the work on climate change enacted by the Obama administration. The order takes steps to downplay the future costs of carbon emissions, walks back tracking of the federal government's carbon emissions, rescinds a 2016 moratorium on coal leases on federal lands, and strikes down Obama-era executive orders and memoranda aimed at helping the country prepare for climate change's worst impacts, including threats to national security.
Most notably, the executive order begins the process of rescinding the EPA's Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era regulation designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants. (Read more about the order—and how China may take up global leadership on climate change.)

Dakota Access Pipeline Prepared For Use - March 27, 2017
Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline, notifies a federal court that it has pumped oil into the pipeline laid underneath North Dakota's Lake Oahe. The pipeline, which aims to connect North Dakota's shale oil fields with pipeline networks in Illinois, runs near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and through land promised under the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie but later taken away. The pipeline sparked protests over its potential to contaminate water and damage a sacred tribal site—a movement that grew into the largest Native American protest in recent history.

Keystone XL Pipeline Approved - March 24, 2017
The Trump administration's State Department grants a permit for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The 1,200-mile pipeline would connect Alberta's oil sands to refineries in Texas. President Obama had rejected the project in late 2015, amid concerns that the pipeline's economic benefits were hype—and fears that the pipeline would exacerbate future carbon emissions. In 2014, the U.S. State Department found that the project would increase emissions but no more than other transport methods.

U.S. Bumblebee Officially Listed As Endangered - March 21, 2017
The rusty patched bumblebee (Bombus affinis) officially becomes listed as an endangered species, the first bumblebee and eighth U.S. bee species to receive federal protection. Originally, its listing was to be finalised on February 10—but a January 20 executive order delayed it by over a month, as the Trump administration reviewed Obama-era regulations that hadn't yet taken effect. (Read more about the bumblebee listing.)

Flint Funding Continued - March 17, 2017
The EPA issues a news release saying that the agency has awarded $100 million to Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality. The money—provided in a law signed by President Obama in December 2016—will fund drinking water infrastructure upgrades in Flint, Michigan, where drinking water remains contaminated with lead.

Fuel Efficiency Standards Reconsidered - March 15, 2017
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao announce that the EPA will reconsider the Obama-era emissions requirements for vehicles with model years between 2022 and 2025. The move may presage a rollback of Obama's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, regulations that aim to improve cars' fuel economy. On January 12, 2017, the Obama EPA attempted to lock in its CAFE standards, which require light-duty vehicles to have average fuel efficiencies of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The Trump administration and automakers have argued that this goal is unachievable.

Science And Environment Budget Threatened - March 13, 2017
The White House releases its first preliminary budget under President Trump. Confirming weeks of speculation, the budget outlines deep cuts to U.S. science and environmental agencies—notably EPA and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—and a vast array of social programs, in an effort to increase defence spending by $54 billion. Congressional and public opposition to the budget crystallises almost immediately. (Read more about the budget cuts' potential effects on the environment.)

EPA Chief Downplays Climate - March 9, 2017
In a sharp break with scientific consensus, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt says in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that carbon dioxide's role in the Earth's changing climate remains unclear. U.S. and international scientists have repeatedly connected rising carbon emissions to the Earth's changing climate. A 2014 review by the National Academy of Sciences, the United States' preeminent scientific advisory body, observed that the Earth's warming since the 1970s "is mainly a result of the increased concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases."

'Science' Scrubbed - March 7, 2017
The New Republic reports that the EPA's Office of Science and Technology removed the word "science" from its mission statement, based on information provided by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. The updated language, which instead emphasises "economically and technologically achievable performance standards," marks the latest change to the EPA's website under Trump, as website updates downplay the Obama administration's previous climate initiatives.

Emissions Info Request Nixed - March 2, 2017
The EPA withdraws an Obama EPA request for more detailed information on oil and natural-gas facilities. That request, finalised by the Obama administration on November 10, 2016, had aimed to better track the industry's methane and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. (Oil and gas facilities are the country's largest industrial emitters of methane.) The Trump EPA had criticised the rule for its estimated $42-million cost on oil and gas industries.

Federal Lands Won't Be Unleaded - March 2, 2017
After riding to work on a horse, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spends his first day on the job rescinding an Obama-era prohibition of lead ammunition on federal lands and waters. The Obama Administration's Fish and Wildlife Service had issued the ban on January 19, 2017, the day before Trump's inauguration. The National Rifle Association and hunting groups laud Zinke's move as supportive of hunting's economic contribution, while conservation groups decry it, noting that lead ammunition can poison wildlife.

Water Protection May Dry Up - February 28, 2017
President Trump issues an executive order formally asking the EPA to review the "Waters of the United States" rule, an Obama-era rule meant to clarify which U.S. waters fall under federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction. The rule had extended federal protections to some headwaters of larger waterways, wetlands, and isolated lakes. (Read more about the controversy surrounding the rule.)

Scott Pruitt Confirmed As EPA Chief - February 17, 2017
The U.S. Senate confirms Scott Pruitt as the head of the U.S. EPA. In his prior role as Oklahoma's attorney general, Pruitt frequently sued the EPA over its regulations, notably leading a 27-state lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan. Emails released days after Pruitt's confirmation show that in his time as Oklahoma's attorney general, Pruitt's office maintained a cosy relationship with oil and gas companies.

Streams Reopened To Mining Waste - February 16, 2017
President Trump signs a joint resolution passed by Congress revoking the U.S. Department of the Interior's "Stream Protection Rule." That rule, finalised shortly before President Obama left office, placed stricter restrictions on dumping mining waste into surrounding waterways. Congressional Republicans characterised the rule as redundant and onerous. (Read "Why Trump Can't Make Coal Great Again.")

Fossil Fuel CEO Becomes Chief Diplomat - February 1, 2017
The U.S. Senate confirms ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Tillerson's extensive ties to fossil fuels—and difficult-to-pin-down stance on climate science—sparked fierce opposition to his nomination among environmentalists. Questions linger over what Tillerson and the Trump administration will do about U.S. involvement in the Paris Agreement, the international climate pact negotiated under the Obama administration.

March For Science Materialises - January 25, 2017
After news that the Trump administration had removed all references to climate change from the White House's website, online commenters begin calling for a "Scientists' March on Washington," styled after the record-breaking Women's March on January 21. Momentum quickly builds, resulting in plans for the March for Science, scheduled for April 22.

Pipelines Greenlit - January 24, 2017
President Trump issues several memoranda aiming to hasten permitting for the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines. Trump also calls for the U.S. Department of Commerce to come up with a plan ensuring that pipelines built across the United States are made with U.S. steel. However, later reports clarify that the memo does not apply to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Park Service #Resists - January 20, 2017
Trump is inaugurated president. Minutes later, the National Park Service posts a photo on Twitter comparing Trump's crowds with the much larger crowds at Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration. Trump's subsequent criticism of the National Park Service triggers an unofficial "resistance" movement of social media accounts that claim to be run by U.S. government officials. (Read more about the "science rebellion" blossoming under Trump.)

Scramble To Save Science Data - December 10, 2016
Fearing that the incoming Trump administration may attempt to delete or bury U.S. climate databases, meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus asks on Twitter for suggestions of important databases to back up. His query sparks a movement across academia to back up key databases, resulting in "data refuges" and the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative.

Trump Takes All - November 8, 2016
Real estate developer Donald Trump wins the 2016 U.S. presidential election. His upset victory comes after a months-long campaign that focused little on environmental issues, but did denounce the Obama administration's climate policies and champion the U.S. fossil fuels industry.

Links

• Donald Trump: Washington Formally Tells UN Of Paris Agreement Withdrawal
• World Leaders Move Forward on Climate Change, Without U.S.
• Climate Change Will Hit Trump Supporters Hardest
• Hawking Says Trump's Climate Stance Could Damage Earth
• How World Cities Moving Forward On Climate Change Leave The US President Behind
• How Scientists Reacted To The US Leaving The Paris Climate Agreement
• Trump Will Make The US Face Loss And Damage Claims
• It's Way Past Time To Speak Truth To Climate Arguments This Stupid
• Does Donald Trump Still Think Climate Change Is A Hoax? No One Can Say

Government Report Finds Drastic Impact Of Climate Change On U.S.

New York Times - Lisa Friedman

A draft report by government scientists concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. Credit Branden Camp/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration.

The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.

“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” a draft of the report states. A copy of it was obtained by The New York Times.

The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air. “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change,” they wrote.

The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it.

One government scientist who worked on the report, Katharine Hayhoe, a professor of political science at Texas Tech University, called the conclusions among “the most comprehensive climate science reports” to be published. Another scientist involved in the process, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, said he and others were concerned that it would be suppressed.

Read the Draft of the Climate Change Report

A draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public but was obtained by The New York Times, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now.

The White House and the Environmental Protection Agency did not immediately return calls or respond to emails requesting comment on Monday night.

The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would still feel at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.30 degrees Celsius) of warming over this century compared with today. The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be as much as 2 degrees Celsius.

A small difference in global temperatures can make a big difference in the climate: The difference between a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and one of 2 degrees Celsius, for example, could mean longer heat waves, more intense rainstorms and the faster disintegration of coral reefs.

Among the more significant of the study’s findings is that it is possible to attribute some extreme weather to climate change. The field known as “attribution science” has advanced rapidly in response to increasing risks from climate change.

The E.P.A. is one of 13 agencies that must approve the report by Aug. 18. The agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, has said he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.

“It’s a fraught situation,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geoscience and international affairs at Princeton University who was not involved in the study. “This is the first case in which an analysis of climate change of this scope has come up in the Trump administration, and scientists will be watching very carefully to see how they handle it.”

Scientists say they fear that the Trump administration could change or suppress the report. But those who challenge scientific data on human-caused climate change say they are equally worried that the draft report, as well as the larger National Climate Assessment, will be publicly released.

“The National Climate Assessment seems to be on autopilot because there’s no political that has taken control of it,” said Myron Ebell, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He was referring to a lack of political direction from the Trump administration.

The report says significant advances have been made linking human influence to individual extreme weather events since the last National Climate Assessment was produced in 2014. Still, it notes, crucial uncertainties remain.

It cites the European heat wave of 2003 and the record heat in Australia in 2013 as specific episodes where “relatively strong evidence” showed that a man-made factor contributed to the extreme weather.

In the United States, the authors write, the heat wave that broiled Texas in 2011 was more complicated. That year was Texas’ driest on record, and one study cited in the report said local weather variability and La Niña were the primary causes, with a “relatively small” warming contribution. Another study had concluded that climate change made extreme events 20 times more likely in Texas.

Based on those and other conflicting studies, the federal draft concludes that there was a medium likelihood that climate change played a role in the Texas heat wave. But it avoids assessing other individual weather events for their link to climate change. Generally, the report described linking recent major droughts in the United States to human activity as “complicated,” saying that while many droughts have been long and severe, they have not been unprecedented in the earth’s hydrologic natural variation.

Worldwide, the draft report finds it “extremely likely” that more than half of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 can be linked to human influence.

In the United States, the report concludes with “very high” confidence that the number and severity of cool nights have decreased since the 1960s, while the frequency and severity of warm days have increased. Extreme cold waves, it says, are less common since the 1980s, while extreme heat waves are more common.

How Americans Think About Climate Change, in Six Maps

The study examines every corner of the United States and finds that all of it was touched by climate change. The average annual temperature in the United States will continue to rise, the authors write, making recent record-setting years “relatively common” in the near future. It projects increases of 5.0 to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 to 4.8 degrees Celsius) by the late century, depending on the level of future emissions.

It says the average annual rainfall across the country has increased by about 4 percent since the beginning of the 20th century. Parts of the West, Southwest and Southeast are drying up, while the Southern Plains and the Midwest are getting wetter.

With a medium degree of confidence, the authors linked the contribution of human-caused warming to rising temperatures over the Western and Northern United States. It found no direct link in the Southeast.

Additionally, the government scientists wrote that surface, air and ground temperatures in Alaska and the Arctic are rising at a frighteningly fast rate — twice as fast as the global average.

“It is very likely that the accelerated rate of Arctic warming will have a significant consequence for the United States due to accelerating land and sea ice melting that is driving changes in the ocean including sea level rise threatening our coastal communities,” the report says.

Human activity, the report goes on to say, is a primary culprit.

The study does not make policy recommendations, but it notes that stabilizing the global mean temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius — what scientists have referred to as the guardrail beyond which changes become catastrophic — will require significant reductions in global levels of carbon dioxide.

Nearly 200 nations agreed as part of the Paris accords to limit or cut fossil fuel emissions. If countries make good on those promises, the federal report says, that will be a key step toward keeping global warming at manageable levels.

Mr. Trump announced this year that the United States would withdraw from the Paris agreement, saying the deal was bad for America.

Links

• On Environment and Energy, Trump Often Picks His Own Facts 
• How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science
• U.S. Climate Has Already Changed, Study Finds, Citing Heat and Floods
• U.S. to Join Climate Talks Despite Planned Withdrawal From Paris Accord