Climate change
Yellowstone is losing its snow as the climate warms
By Bryan Shuman, professor of paleoclimatology and paleoecology at the University of Wyoming. When you picture Yellowstone National Park and its neighbor, Grand Teton, the snowcapped peaks and Old Faithful Geyser almost certainly come to mind. Climate change threatens all of these iconic scenes, and its impact reaches far beyond the parks’ borders. A new assessment of climate change in the two […]
One economic index shows Ohio lagging
By one measure of economic output, Ohio has roughly performed at the national average in recent years. But by another measure — intended to take into account factors outside the marketplace — it's not clear the Buckeye State is doing so well, a new report says.
What the Ottoman Empire can teach us about the consequences of climate change
By Andrea Duffy, Colorado State University In the late 16th century, hundreds of bandits on horseback stormed through the countryside of Ottoman Anatolia raiding villages, inciting violence and destabilizing the sultan’s grip on power Four hundred years later and a few hundred miles away in the former Ottoman territory of Syria, widespread protests escalated into […]
How a plan to boost Kansas-Nebraska tourism got wrapped up in fears of a 30×30 ‘land-grab’
It started as a research project. University of Nebraska landscape architecture professor Kim Wilson asked her students in 2016 to brainstorm a way to increase tourism in Red Cloud, Neb., the childhood home of renowned writer Willa Cather, just north of the Kansas border. The class found that more than 255 historic sites dot the […]
Biden’s ‘30 by 30’ conservation plan urges collaboration with private landowners
The Biden administration plans to broadly define conservation and encourage private landowners to adopt sustainable practices to meet a goal of protecting 30% of the land and water in the U.S. by 2030, according to a multi-agency report published Thursday. The recommendations are short of the most aggressive federal directives congressional Republicans feared would be central […]
VP Harris in Wisconsin visit touts administration’s $2T jobs plan
Vice President Kamala Harris visited Milwaukee Tuesday, where she promoted the president’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal and toured two university research centers. Harris highlighted the federal funding the Biden administration plan would allocate for research and development programs aimed at clean energy and climate change solutions, as well as $100 billion that would be spent […]
Haaland asks for federal funding for Interior to fight climate change, aid Native Americans
In her first congressional hearing as the leader of the Interior Department, Secretary Deb Haaland fielded questions from members of a U.S. House spending panel Tuesday on the major conservation and energy initiatives that President Joe Biden has outlined. She was noncommittal about some contentious and high-profile items of deep interest to Western states, like […]
Congressional panel splits on regulation of ‘orphaned’ oil and gas wells
Members of a U.S. House Natural Resources panel agreed Thursday on the need to clean up and cap abandoned oil and gas wells, but disagreed along party lines about the extent of the federal government’s role in well regulation. The Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee hearing was held to consider a bill introduced by Rep. Teresa Leger […]
White House aims sales pitch for infrastructure plan at the states
WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania’s 7,540 miles of highway roads in poor condition. Florida’s $100 billion in damages over the last decade from extreme weather events. The 1 in 4 Idahoans with no access to broadband internet, and 1 in 2 living in areas with too-few licensed child care centers. In the next phase of President Joe Biden’s sales pitch for his $2 […]
Biden’s budget aims to fight climate change, promote conservation, aid Native Americans
President Joe Biden’s first budget request laid out on Friday reflects the administration’s commitments to advancing conservation and combating climate change, proposing new money across federal agencies to address those issues. Like most domestic programs in Biden’s overall $1.5 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2022, the recommendations for increased spending on conservation and climate goals […]
While the GOP carps about Biden’s infrastructure plan, voters already are saying ‘Yes, please’
Here’s a quiz for the Republican politicians among you, check as many as apply. Do you support: Repairing and rebuilding America’s deteriorating network of roads and bridges, including the interstate highway system brought to life by GOP President Dwight D. Eisenhower? Ensuring that every American public student isn’t drinking water out of lead pipes and […]
Biden wants corporations to pay for his infrastructure plans, echoing a history of calls for companies to chip in when times are tough
By Stephanie Leiser, University of Michigan President Joe Biden just proposed a roughly $2 trillion infrastructure plan, which he ambitiously compared to the interstate highway system and the space race. He aims to pay for it solely by taxing companies more, including the first increase in the corporate tax rate since the 1960s. Biden said […]