Watch 1PM Weekly News - January 15, 2024
This week's episode is our first for 2024 and we welcome a new host, Anton Krieger. He covers wildlife killing contests banned in New York to the first offshore wind farm in Massachusetts. Here's to a bringing in a new year and creating a better future for our planet!
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Wildlife Killing Contests Banned in New York
New York has become the 10th state to ban wildlife killing contests. The legislation was supported by leading animal protection organizations that include the Animal Legal Defense Fund, conservation groups and thousands of New Yorkers. The contests have traditionally been used to reduce wildlife populations that conflicts with farm animals, but scientific studies show that they are less effective than non-lethal methods that emphasize coexistence with native wildlife. Animals that are now protected from wildlife killing contests in New York include coyotes, foxes, bobcats, squirrels, raccoons, crows and other animal species.
Why Honeybees Are Making Less Honey
The honey industry has been experiencing increasingly low yields from honeybee colonies the past ten years. As of 2023, each colony is yielding approximately a half pound less of honey per colony. Scientists are pointing to environmental degradation that is caused by a number of factors that include pesticides, habitat loss, disease and the climate crisis. Honeybees need nectar, pollen and water that is collected from the surrounding environment, but the amount of flowers growing in different regions has significantly diminished. Scientists warn that lack of pollinating plants could cause the rapid decline of ecosystems that impact food yields unless the problem is urgently addressed.
2024 Climate Conference to be Held in Major Oil Country
For the second year in a row, the annual climate summit known as COP or Conference for the Peoples will be hosted by a petrostate, or country whose economy is heavily reliant on the extraction and export of oil and natural gas. UN officials confirmed last week that Mukhtar Babayev, a former executive for the State Oil Company in Azerbaijan was confirmed as the President of COP29 to take place this coming November. In response, climate advocates are calling for a radical overhaul of the COP system, which allows just one of the 195 member countries who signed the Paris Agreement to single-handedly block decisions. In this case Russia vowed to block any European Union country from hosting as retaliation to the bloc’s support of Ukraine in its war with Russia. Azerbaijan has been the only nomination to gain Russia’s approval.
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/05/cop29-will-be-led-by-mukhtar-babayev-azerbaijan-ecology-minister-who-is-oil-industry-veteran,
- https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09012024/todays-climate-activists-process-overhaul-oil-industry-veteran-cop29/,
Palm Oil Companies Fined Millions for Destroying Forests
Indonesia and Malaysia are responsible for 85% of the world’s palm oil production. In 2020, Indonesia issued laws regarding the legality of palm oil plantations being operated in forested areas. Deforestation is often facilitated for creating palm oil plantations by setting fires to clear the land, which in turn impact air quality, animal and plant species and habitats. Companies who have broken the laws have been fined by the Indonesian government for $310 million dollars so far, but this is just the start. Of the 42 million acres of oil palm plantations that have been discovered to be in areas designated as forests, only about 15% or 4 million acres have been identified so far.
EPA Investing in Making Yellow School Buses Green
Last week the Biden administration announced nearly $1 billion in funding for school districts to replace diesel buses with electric buses. The money comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, and is managed by the EPA in the form of grants that allow 280 school districts serving more than 7 million students nationwide to purchase 2,700 clean buses. The EPA’s internal watchdog has found that charging the buses is the biggest challenge given how much energy they suck from the electric grid. Utility companies that were interviewed say delays have resulted largely from a shortage of high-voltage transformers that need additional power lines, which could take up to 2 years to implement.
First Offshore Wind Farm in Massachusetts
New England just launched its first large offshore wind farm off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. At a time when wind developers are struggling with high interest rates, supply chain delays and pushback from local communities, the Vineyard Wind project aims to install a total of 62 turbines with 800 megawatts of capacity by the end of the year. In the last year, offshore wind farm contracts have been canceled in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York, all due to rising interest rates and inflation that affected profitability.