The Trump administration on Monday moved to relax environmental rules governing the extraction of oil, gas and coal from public lands across the country. The Interior Department issued a pair of proposed rules that would reduce costs and weaken requirements for fossil fuel companies that operate on federal lands. The first rule would drastically lower…
As spiking ocean temperatures are devastating reefs around the world, a handful of scientists have found a reason for cautious optimism. They’ve used artificial intelligence to detect sheltered pockets where cool currents, reduced exposure to sunlight and locations outside cyclone paths mean corals are more likely to survive. The study, presented at the Our Ocean…
Water in the Colorado River is dwindling to levels that haven’t been seen in decades, and the seven states whose residents and farmers depend on the river can’t agree on a fair way to divide up what’s left. Negotiations are going nowhere despite more than six months of ongoing talks, plus cajoling by the Trump…
The critically endangered Tapanuli orangutans found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are a step closer to extinction, scientists found, after landslides last year that were fueled by climate change. More than 50 of the rare animals were estimated to have died in the landslides, out of a population of around 800. The findings, published…
We humans are capable of enormous devastation, but every now and then, we’re able to agree to stop the worst of our transgressions. We no longer regularly scour the oceans for the great whales only to boil them down for margarine and pet food. We’ve stopped killing wild birds en masse to make hats out…
San Diego could sell some of its rights to Colorado River water to Arizona and Nevada under a deal struck Wednesday that could help parched inland states fill a widening gap between water supply and demand. The San Diego County Water Authority now has a water surplus thanks to a desalination plant the utility opened…
President Trump on Friday rescinded two decades-old executive orders that restricted off-road vehicles on public lands, in a move that could lift prohibitions on their use in most national parks. The first executive order, signed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972, established strict criteria for the use of off-road vehicles on federal lands, in…
Trackers that ping satellites every time a whale surfaces for air. Thermal cameras that can detect the animals day and night. Acoustic devices that monitor their calls. These and other emerging technologies could help protect the world’s last surviving North Atlantic right whales from collisions with vessels, a leading threat to their survival. And the…
If deforestation and global warming continue unchecked, the Amazon rainforest could begin a gradual transition to a degraded, grassland-like ecosystem in just a few decades, according to new research published on Wednesday. The study, published in the journal Nature, provides new insight into when the forest might start to slip over a so-called tipping point…
The Trump administration has directed national recreation areas, seashores, wildlife refuges and other public lands to immediately lift dozens of restrictions on hunting and trapping, internal Interior Department documents show. The order, which takes effect on Monday, applies to some 76 federal lands that allow hunting but have rules to protect habitats or people. Curecanti…
