Planet Week: Keystone XL pipeline canceled
Welcome to Planet Week, where we highlight the last week of environmental news and what it means for our Planet.
Welcome to Planet Week, where we highlight the last week of environmental news and what it means for our Planet.
Last week, Biden eyed the Gulf of Mexico for offshore wind, temperatures in the Middle East topped 125 degrees, and the Justice Department recovered millions of dollars from the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack.
In case you missed it, here’s what else happened around the Planet:
Sunday, June 6
Great apes set to lose 90% of homelands
By 2050, great apes could lose as much as 94% of their current habitat in Africa, a new study finds. This could spell disaster for the genus, which includes gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos.
As the human population grows, climate change increases, and wild areas are destroyed for minerals, apes are left with few places to go. To make matters worse, great apes are already endangered and slow to migrate. Slowing this trend will take an international effort.
“There must be global responsibility for stopping the decline of great apes,” Hjalmar Kühl, from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, told The Guardian. “All nations benefiting from these resources have a responsibility to ensure a better future for great apes, their habitats and the people living there.”
Monday, June 7
The battle over Line 3
The Keystone Pipeline may be canceled (more on that below), but there’s another battle brewing over the $3 billion Line 3 project in Minnesota. Enbridge Energy is upgrading its 1,000-plus mile Line 3 pipeline, which carries crude oil from Canada’s Alberta province to the Midwest, where the oil is refined.
But Indigenous groups and environmentalists — including Jane Fonda and Bill McKibben — have been thwarting its plans, reports the Star Tribune. On Monday, hundreds of protestors gathered in Minnesota to block the pipeline, which is already 60% complete, by shackling themselves to equipment and getting arrested by the dozens.
Meanwhile, despite a relatively progressive environmental stance so far, President Biden has been silent on the issue. And some of the efforts to clear the protestors — like using a helicopter to sand-blast crowds — are making matters worse. The Associated Press has a helpful explainer.
CO2 levels hit record high… again
Despite a pandemic-induced lockdown, global CO2 levels clocked in at 419 parts per million in May, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. That’s not just the highest ever recorded — it’s the highest in more than 4 million years.
Even though CO2 emissions dropped 7% last year, greenhouse gases can stay in the atmosphere for decades. So as long as we keep burning fossil fuels of any kind, global levels will continue to tick up.
“We still have a long way to go to halt the rise, as each year more CO2 piles up in the atmosphere,” said Scripps geochemist Ralph Keeling in a statement. “We ultimately need cuts that are much larger and sustained longer than the COVID-related shutdowns of 2020.” NPR has more.
Tuesday, June 8
Introducing our newest ocean
Now for some cool news way south of the border. To mark World Oceans Day, National Geographic officially recognized the Southern Ocean as the Planet’s fifth ocean.
Unlike other oceans, the Southern Ocean is not defined by land boundaries, but rather its current, which causes water to flow clockwise around Antarctica. This causes the Southern Ocean to be colder and less salty than northern oceans.
National Geographic isn’t necessarily breaking ground (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recognized the Southern Ocean in 1999), but the move will lead to more legitimacy for the Southern Ocean, as well as new maps — a big deal for an organization that has been making maps for over a century.
Wednesday, June 9
Keystone XL pipeline canceled
After more than a decade of political debate, the highly controversial Keystone XL Pipeline is officially dead. The decision by TC Energy, the Canadian company behind the project, comes just months after Biden revoked a critical cross-border permit, CNN reports.
On one side of the aisle, Democrats and environmentalists rejoiced at the announcement, citing climate risks, pipeline safety, and protection of Indigenous lands. Republicans, however, began bashing the President as “beholden to extreme environmentalists.” Either way, the pipeline’s death puts fresh eyes on other pipelines across the country.
“When this fight began, people thought Big Oil couldn’t be beat,” Bill McKibben, who led sit-ins against Keystone XL in 2011 at the White House, told The Washington Post. “But when enough people rise up we’re stronger even than the richest fossil fuel companies.”
Thursday, June 10
All eyes on the G7 Summit
Over the weekend, leaders from G7 (Group of Seven) countries — Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. — met in England to discuss global issues like COVID-19, international security, and, you guessed it, climate change.
At the G7 Summit, leaders launched the Build Back Better World Partnership to provide green infrastructure plans to low- and middle-income countries, as well as compete with China’s growing global influence.
Also of note, on Monday, a study published by Oxfam and SwissRe found that without climate action, G7 economies could lose up to 8.5% in GDP a year by 2050, reports Deutsche Welle.
Friday, June 11
Climate change and biodiversity must be tackled together
Believe it or not, climate action isn’t always a win for biodiversity. And according to a new report, world leaders need to start making sure it is. Or else.
The report, the result of a first-of-its-kind collaboration between two major international scientific groups, argues that climate change and biodiversity are so intertwined that solving one without addressing the other is next to impossible. But with COP26 coming this fall, we have ample opportunity to fix our approach. Grist has the full story.
Bonus
The price of a good photo
We often don’t see or hear the lengths wildlife photographers go to get the perfect shot. Fortunately, a group of readers of The Guardian sent in behind-the-scenes stories of their best bird photos, and it’s worth a read.
“The kea is native to New Zealand and is the world’s only alpine parrot,” Daniel Ward, a PhD student, wrote. “This bird, like all of the keas I’ve met, was incredibly inquisitive and walked right up to me and tried to take a big bite out of my shoe. Luckily it didn’t make it through and I am pleased to be able to say that I still have all 10 toes.”
Have a great week,
Brandon and Sam