ICYMI: Rio Grande Dries Up, Manchin’s Climate Deal, Return of El Jefe & Cats Are Invasive Aliens
A weekly roundup for busy people
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Illustration by Peter Arkle
The Rio Grande dries up as far north as Albuquerque, New Mexico, further endangering the already endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow.
Thousands of cattle killed by a June heat wave in Kansas are buried in landfills.
In response to its historic drought, Las Vegas officials limit the size of new residential swimming pools.
The Biden administration inaugurates Heat.gov, a website that tracks information on extreme heat. On August 3, it shows that 124 million Americans are experiencing extreme heat.
Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer agree to a wide-ranging climate bill that would, if passed in its present form, provide $369 billion in funding for climate initiatives over the next 10 years. The agreement of Senator Kyrsten Sinema seems to seal the deal.
The federal Office of Climate Change and Health Equity has yet to be funded at all.
ExxonMobil and Chevron report record profits in the second quarter of 2022—$115 billion and $65 billion, respectively.
The carbon emissions from celebrities’ private jets alone are, on average, 480 times that of an average person.
July in France was the hottest on record, threatening supplies of Dijon mustard. In Berlin, the heat caused leftover munitions from World War II to explode, sparking a forest fire. Nuclear reactors in France and Germany are curtailed because the river water they depend on for cooling is too hot. Temperature records in the UK are also broken by large margins. Spain’s first named heat wave, Zoe, sends temperatures in Seville past 110°F. Italy’s Po River region dries up, imperiling its famous arborio rice.
El Jefe, the famous jaguar who roamed Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains from 2011 to 2015, turns up in Sonora, Mexico.
Loggerhead sea turtles make more than 3,960 nests on Georgia beaches, a record high number.
Because of higher sand temperatures, nearly every sea turtle born on Florida’s beaches is female.
Warming waters off Alaska result in tiny runs of chinook and chum salmon in western Alaska but a record number of sockeye in Bristol Bay.
Two of California’s three wolf packs produced pups this year.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists the migratory monarch butterfly as an endangered species.
A reassessment of its tiger-counting methods leads the IUCN to conclude that there are 3,726 to 5,578 wild tigers in the world—up to 40 percent more than previously thought.
Russia further reduces the amount of methane gas flowing to Europe to 20 percent of the Nordstream 1 Pipeline’s capacity.
Germany sets three consecutive monthly records for solar power output.
A nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia could result in a “Nuclear Little Ice Age,” a catastrophic global cooling that could last for millennia.
The National Park Service declares Hyperion, a 380-foot coast redwood in Redwood National Park and the world’s tallest tree, to be off-limits after bushwhacking visitors damage the tree and its surrounding area. Future scofflaw visitors risk a $5,000 fine and jail time.
An Oregon man is charged with setting two wildfires after witnesses apprehend him and tie him to a tree. A Utah man is arrested for starting a fire after he attempted to burn a spider with a lighter.
Land Life, a Dutch carbon-offset firm that once boasted it would reforest the earth using the power of the blockchain, accidentally sets off a 35,000-acre forest fire in Spain.
On July 22, 145 climbers summit K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. Before this July, it had only been climbed by 500 people.
Poland declares cats an “invasive alien species.”