Center for Biological Diversity
“The conversation can’t be avoided any longer,” said Amy Harwood, coordinator of the 7 Billion and Counting campaign. “There’s never been a more pivotal time to talk about the devastating effects of the population crisis on plants and animals around the world.”
As part of the 7 Billion and Counting campaign, the CBD is giving away 100,000 of its popular Endangered Species Condoms. It also launched a huge video ad in New York City’s Times Square, inspired activists around the country to host events highlighting this critical issue and unveiled a new interactive map that offers information on endangered species in every county in the U.S.
The CBD also just released a report on the top 10 U.S. species facing extinction from pressures directly related to overpopulation. Species like the Florida panther and Mississippi gopher frog are rapidly losing habitat as the human population expands, while others are seeing their habitat dangerously altered and are facing demise from consumption demand.
The CBD is the only environmental group with a full-time campaign highlighting the connection between runaway human population growth and the ongoing extinction crisis. The world’s population has doubled since 1968 and the United Nation predicts it will hit 10 billion by century’s end. Meanwhile, dozens of species go extinct every day.
“As the human population grows and the rich countries consume resources at voracious rates, we are crowding out, poisoning and eating all other species into extinction,” said Harwood. “If it isn’t stopped, we’ll find ourselves on a very lonely planet devoid of any sense of the wild world this place once was.”
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Hundreds of Canadian children took part in a massive protest march against climate change in Toronto, Canada, on May 24, 2019. Creative Touch Imaging Ltd. / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Heather Houser
Compost. Fly less. Reduce your meat consumption. Say no to plastic. These imperatives are familiar ones in the repertoire of individual actions to reduce a person's environmental impact. Don't have kids, or maybe just one. This climate action appears less frequently in that repertoire, but it's gaining currency as climate catastrophes mount. One study has shown that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from having one fewer child in the United States is 20 times higher—yes 2000% greater—than the impact of lifestyle changes like those listed above.
<p>Yet opponents are quick to accuse child-free for climate advocates of racism and nativism because their aims can resemble those of forced population control. In early 2019, U.S. Rep. <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/431440-ocasio-cortez-in-face-of-climate-change-its-legitimate-to-ask-if-ok" target="_blank">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> set off a news avalanche for deeming it "legitimate" to ask whether it's "OK to still have children" given the dire predictions for planetary climate change. As a lightning rod for conservatives, AOC got outsized attention for an idea that's been circulating for decades, even centuries: making an ecologically minded choice to forgo reproduction.</p><p>Choice. That word introduces two knotty issues surrounding proposals to go child-free—or child-fewer—for climate. First, choice smuggles in the keyword in anti-abortion versus abortion-rights battles over reproductive liberties in the U.S. Second, it suggests that large-scale social and environmental changes rest on individuals or families acting alone. Limiting one's sights to individual choice passes over the structures within which those choices occur and the histories of gender and racial injustice that shape them—structures and histories that effectively prevent actual choice. The solution, then, lies in viewing reproductive justice through a framework that prioritizes bodily self-determination. </p>
The Stickiness of Population
<p>Only five years ago, there was minimal coverage of the child-free for climate movement. AOC is just one of many reasons it's lighting up now. New scientific analyses, scholarly debates, and social media conversations have shined a light on reproduction and climate. The influential <a href="https://www.drawdown.org/" target="_blank">Project Drawdown</a> framework for climate mitigation includes a list of solutions ranked by their potential impact, two of which—educating girls and providing access to family planning—they project will have <a href="https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions" target="_blank">a greater combined impact</a> on reducing greenhouse gas emissions than almost all other climate solutions because of their effect on fertility rates.</p><p>In January 2020, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806" target="_blank">11,000 scientists signed onto a study that warned</a> about the unfolding climate emergency. The authors prescribe steps in six sectors that can prevent irreversible planetary collapse, including that "the world population must be stabilized—and, ideally, gradually reduced—within a framework that ensures social integrity." The framework they propose includes universal access to family planning as well as education and equity for young women. (Other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1410465111" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scientific takes</a> on population-based climate actions are more skeptical about their immediate impact given the scale of fertility reductions needed to balance out longer lifespans.)</p><p>Even before 2020, a new movement was afoot to address climate by forgoing reproduction. Blythe Pepino, a British musician in her 30s, formed BirthStrike in 2018 to build a community of people—typically women-identified—who have opted not to reproduce in response to the ecological and social crises that climate change is creating. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests this summer, the group recognized the need to acknowledge the oppression that colors conversations about reproduction as it relates to climate and so reformed itself into a support group for those grieving parenthood. Their new stated goal is to channel that loss into action on climate justice.</p><p>Organizations such as <a href="https://conceivablefuture.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Conceivable Future</a>, however, continue to keep reproduction at the fore. Led by climate activists Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli, Conceivable Future is raising awareness about how the climate crisis affects "<a href="https://conceivablefuture.org/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">intimate choices</a>" like reproduction. The Conceivable Future and now-defunct BirthStrike campaigns share ideological terrain with "<a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/479349760/should-we-be-having-kids-in-the-age-of-climate-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">population engineers</a>," a group of bioethicists who <a href="https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract201642430" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">forward policies for</a> limiting the size of the global population through positive incentives like family planning classes and negative ones such as taxes on wealthy procreators. </p><p>In proposing specific policies rather than individual action, population engineers acknowledge the structures within which reproductive choices occur, everything from media influence to the tax code. Even with this shift to the structural, however, the racist, sexist, colonialist, and nativist legacies of the population question within environmentalism still plague child-free for climate. As do the historical and social injustices that constrain so-called choices.</p>Racism and Xenophobia in Environmentalism
<p>This summer and fall, the climate crisis and its correlated catastrophes—<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/heat-wave-western-united-states/" target="_blank">extreme heat</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/14/a-third-of-bangladesh-underwater-after-heavy-rains-floods/" target="_blank">flooding</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/wildfires" target="_blank">wildfires</a>—are intensifying alongside Black Lives Matter uprisings and the <a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2020/06/09/coronavirus-public-health-social-justice/" target="_blank">coronavirus health disparities</a> among Black, Indigenous, and Latinx populations. This confluence has brought overdue attention to racism in environmentalism, as evidenced by the Audubon Society's recent <a href="http://audubon.org/magazine/fall-2020/revealing-past-create-future" target="_blank">reckoning</a> with racial injustices in its past and present, including <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/the-myth-john-james-audubon" target="_blank">publicizing</a> that its famed founder was a White supremacist and a slaveholder. The intersections of <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/09/23/election-black-voters-climate/" target="_blank">climate justice and racial justice</a> have also come to the fore through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/climate/heat-minority-school-performance.html" target="_blank">studies of how Black communities are greatly harmed by hotter temperatures</a> and through the popular <a href="https://www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com/" target="_blank">intersectional environmentalist</a> platform created by Leah Thomas, a young Black activist and "<a href="https://www.greengirlleah.com/about-1" target="_blank">eco-communicator</a>." To these reckonings we need to add the racism and xenophobia that have long characterized environmentally motivated population controls.</p><p>The New York Times recently exposed these sins in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html/" target="_blank">a profile of Cordelia Scaife May</a>, showing how this heir to the Mellon fortune converted a love of birding into a network of anti-immigration, pro-population-control organizations that still influence politics today. In the 1960s May linked threatened birdlife to the rapidly expanding human population. May wasn't wrong to see and worry over this link: A host of human activities—from <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/popular-pesticides-linked-drops-bird-population-180951971/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic agriculture and industry</a> to <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050157" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sprawling settlements</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555949789/light-pollution-can-impact-noctural-bird-migration" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">light</a> and <a href="https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/birds-live-near-human-noise-sing-louder-shorter-songs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">noise pollution</a>—decimate avian habitats and habits. May's anti-immigration approach, however, indicates how readily environmentalism can mutate into racist and xenophobic actions.</p><p>The Times investigators show that "protecting natural habitats and helping women prevent unplanned pregnancies merged over time into a single goal of preserving the environment by discouraging offspring altogether." Taken on its own, this goal resonates with Conceivable Future's and population engineers' aims. To be clear, this does not mean that today's child-free climate advocates are racist nativists. However, it does indicate how readily the affiliation arises because of the ugly history of forced population control.</p>Contemporary Examples
<p>And this history is hardly past. For example, race and class conflicts erupted around a population platform within the Sierra Club only 15 years ago. In 2004, a faction of club members took a page from May and argued that more people living in the U.S. meant more encroachment on less developed land and water. As with May's effort, this anti-immigration push amounted to "the greening of hate," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League, who entered the dispute when they found White supremacists lobbying for anti-immigration Sierra Club board candidates. A 2010 <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20100630/greenwash-nativists-environmentalism-and-hypocrisy-hate" target="_blank">SPLC report</a> firms up the connection between environmentalist intentions and racist agendas by explaining why White nationalist John Tanton infiltrated the club: "Using an organization perceived by the public as part of the liberal left would insulate nativists from charges of racism—charges that … would likely otherwise stick."</p><p>Charges of racism ultimately did stick to Tanton and his anti-immigration, pro-population-control allies. And they continue to stick in analyses of the child-free for climate movement today. Earlier this year, climate journalist Meehan Crist <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n05/meehan-crist/is-it-ok-to-have-a-child" target="_blank">took up</a> AOC's question of whether it's OK to have a child. In arriving at an answer (for her, yes), she affiliates child-free positions with "anti-feminist, racist and anti-human" values and with bad science. "Darker visions" proceed from this analysis, she writes, visions of those who believe "racial purity will save the planet. Closed borders. . . . Ecofascist death squads." The dark visions Crist spins from the child-free for climate question underscore how readily calls for reproductive limits touch the third rails of modern environmentalism: racism, eugenics, xenophobia, even death-dealing.</p><p>We get even closer to these third rails when we consider that the question of whether to reproduce is, for some people, no choice at all. Modern efforts to limit fertility, which ramped up after World War II, have targeted poor women in the Global South, and Black, Indigenous, and people of color in the U.S. using coercion and force. BIPOC reproductive justice advocates such as Loretta Ross have condemned dichotomous pro-abortion-rights versus anti-abortion politics for producing "<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Radical_Reproductive_Justice/hN-4DgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=loretta%20ross%20radical%20reproductive&pg=PT8&printsec=frontcover&bsq=anemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">anemic political analyses</a>" that ignore the reality of forced sterilizations in prisons and the appallingly high maternal mortality rate for Black women in the U.S. These are all forms of what medical historian and ethicist Harriet Washington calls "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8WCS1Rs8K8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">medical apartheid</a>."</p><p>This oppression <a href="https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilization-and-eugenics-programs-in-the-united-states/" target="_blank">has been used</a> "as a means of controlling 'undesirable' populations—immigrants, people of color, poor people, unmarried mothers, the disabled, the mentally ill." Recent events confirm this isn't a historical anomaly. In September, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexico-asks-us-to-clarify-alleged-hysterectomies-on-migrant-women-in-ice-custody/" target="_blank">accusations</a> of nonconsensual hysterectomies and other procedures in an ICE detention center reestablished that, when it comes to women's health, "choice" comes with the privileges of race, class, and citizenship status.</p><p>Reproductive justice advocates offer a way through the rocky shoals of weighing whether to have children amid a climate crisis. The reproductive justice framework prioritizes bodily self-determination for people of all races, genders, classes, and sexualities, and it recognizes that, just as poverty and racism can impinge on that self-determination, so too can environmental degradation. As <a href="https://www.sistersong.net/" target="_blank">SisterSong</a>, a "women of color reproductive justice collective" based in Atlanta, puts it, reproductive justice is "the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities." Because the climate crisis threatens the safety and sustainability of communities, it also threatens the right to bodily autonomy. Within this framework, reproduction is not about choice but about the systems that can make reproductive outcomes no choice at all.</p><p>When we debate climate actions, we often focus on feasibility, economics, and political and popular support. But grim histories also travel with climate proposals: histories of environmentalist racism and of reproductive violence against poor, BIPOC, and other marginalized people in the U.S. and abroad. This shouldn't squelch conversations about child-free for climate. We should take it seriously, but if it is to go from being an expression of individualist privilege to part of a wider debate, we must wrestle with the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Economization_of_Life/MX3WDgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=murphy%20economization%20life&pg=PT125&printsec=frontcover&bsq=grammar" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">observation</a> by science studies scholar Michelle Murphy that "race is the grammar and ghost of population." Only through nuanced attention to the histories, values, and associations attaching to climate actions can we hope to sustain dialogue about which ones—whether they be child-free or the Green New Deal—are just and efficacious in these critical times, while keeping reproduction and family part of the climate conversation.</p>
<p><em>Heather Houser writes on the environment, contemporary culture, and science and technology. She's an associate professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin, and her most recent book is Infowhelm: Environmental Art and Literature in an Age of Data (Columbia University Press, 2020).</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/10/26/have-kids-climate-change/" target="_blank">Yes! Magazine</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- 7 Billion People Crowding Out Imperiled Animals and Plants ... ›
- David Attenborough: 'Population Growth Must Come to an End ... ›
- For Many Reporters Covering Climate, Population Remains the ... ›
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For the first time on record, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing by late October. Euronews / YouTube
By Sharon Guynup
At this time of year, in Russia's far north Laptev Sea, the sun hovers near the horizon during the day, generating little warmth, as the region heads towards months of polar night. By late September or early October, the sea's shallow waters should be a vast, frozen expanse.
<p><br/></p>
<p>But not this year. For the first time since records have been kept, open water still laps this coastline in late October though <a href="https://weawow.com/c9189393/tomorrow" target="_blank">snow</a> is already falling there.</p><p>"In one sense, it's shocking, but on the other hand, it's not surprising," said <a href="https://nsidc.org/research/bios/meier.html" target="_blank">Walt Meier</a>, a research scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder's <a href="https://nsidc.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Snow and Ice Data Center</a> (NSIDC). Over the past 40 years, unprecedented climate change-driven events such as this have become the new normal in the Arctic — which is heating up <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/why-the-arctic-is-warming-so-fast/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">far faster</a> than the rest of the planet.</p>
<p>While weather patterns at the top of the world vary, the overall changes are dramatic and occurring so rapidly that the region may be entering a "new Arctic" climate regime, <a href="https://www.ecoshock.org/2020/09/the-arctic-has-entered-a-new-climate-state.html" target="_blank">says Laura Landrum</a>, an oceanographer with Colorado's <a href="https://ncar.ucar.edu/" target="_blank">National Center for Atmospheric Research</a> (NCAR). The Arctic <a href="https://www.nature.com/nclimate/" target="_blank">is transitioning</a> from a mostly frozen state into an entirely new climate — and impacting the entire planet, she said.</p><p>Meier calls the Arctic the "bellweather of climate change" because it's a place where a small bump in temperature has real impact: a change from -.5°C to .5°C (31°F to 33°F) is the difference between ice skating and swimming, he said, while a couple of degrees warmer in Florida may not even be noticed.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDcyMzIzMH0.EaEzABAC2Xq96dXQJ91WnuuPQfSE1o8ig7Vo-HZHCek/img.jpg?width=980" id="87d48" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c0f95377ec752e87a80832136af0f46a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Comparison of autumn sea ice formation for the first half of October 2012 (the record year for Arctic sea ice extent loss) and in 2020 (second place for sea ice extent loss). The satellite record goes back to 1979. @Icy_Samuel, data provided by NSIDC
<h3><strong>An Extreme Year in a Region Known for Extremes</strong></h3><p>It's been quite a year in Siberia — on land, and off the Arctic coast. The first six months were extraordinarily warm and the sea ice began melting early. By May, fires burned in permafrost zones that are usually frozen year-round. In June, temperatures hit a record-breaking 38°C (100°F), and by September, blazes <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02568-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">incinerated</a> about 14 million hectares (54,000 square miles) of tundra — an area the size of Greece.</p><p>A combination of changing climate and quirky weather are now preventing this fall's freeze-up. Siberian sea temperatures are higher than usual because of this year's extreme climate events. The heat wave warmed the many rivers that feed into the Arctic Ocean and also triggered an early melt-out. Without ice and snow that acts like a mirror — reflecting the sun's heat back into the atmosphere — the dark ocean absorbed extra warmth over the summer. Much of the remaining ice disintegrated. Then in September, unusually strong, warm winds blew in from the south, pushing any newly formed ice out to sea.</p><p>In the past, a shift in the winds wouldn't have mattered much. Back in the 1980s, <a href="https://news.uaf.edu/expertsguide/igor-polyakov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Igor Polyakov</a>, a climate scientist at the University of Alaska, remembers being part of expeditions that landed small seaplanes on sea ice to study the Siberian Arctic. He described the Laptev Sea as a solid, glaring white landscape punctuated by pastel-tinged ice: rose-colored, light blue and green. Since the regions' deeply cut gulfs and bays are located in shallow continental shelf waters, they mostly stayed frozen.</p><p>But by summer 2002, sea ice was less stable, and today, ice breakers can travel the region through open water. "The changes are dramatic," he said. "It happened in front of our eyes. Now, in the summer, there's no ice at all for thousands of kilometers, sometimes as far north as the 85th parallel." That's five degrees from the North Pole.</p><p>In the 1980s, about 80% of the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas were frozen in thick, "old ice" that mostly survived the summer melt, said <a href="https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/scientist/dr-james-e-overland" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">James Overland</a>, an oceanographer with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who has studied the Arctic for decades. "Now much of that has to refreeze each winter. We did not expect to see this so soon."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTI4NTQ3Nn0.h7gfBVBOiWHjc1F6veGxzZh7NIP2Aec0YsVgoyuF26Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="f9eed" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76639f8f14b9d48d7496132d68b324ce" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Arctic sea ice extent on Oct. 25, 2020 was at a record low 5.613 million square kilometers for this date, surpassing the record set in 2019 of 6.174 million square kilometers. ChArctic NSIDC
<h3><strong>A Dangerous Cycle</strong></h3><p>Across the Arctic, ice is now thawing earlier, freezing later, thinning and — in many places — disappearing altogether.</p><p>Thinner ice is less resilient. Picture ice cubes in a glass. Thick chunks last longer and melt slower than ice chips and slivers. All disintegrate faster in warmer liquid. This is a huge problem in the Arctic, where vast stretches of open blue water absorb the sun's heat during summer, when the sun never really sets. Those warm waters flow beneath the ice to melt it from below.</p><p>This year, the overall health of the sea ice was bleak: the end-of-summer minimum was tracking at the second-lowest amount of sea ice in 42 years, Landrum said. Measurements by NASA and the NSIDC found it was about 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles) lower than the average from 1981 to 2000. NASA satellite data shows an overall downward trend in Arctic ice is averaging 12.9% a year.</p><p>This year's average global temperature will be among the warmest on record, researchers say. Current models predict the Arctic will be ice-free in summertime by 2040 – 2050. Overland thinks this so-called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82e8XF-5Lo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Blue Ocean Event</a> (BOE) might come even sooner.</p><p>Many factors are colliding that could speed massive melt. New feedback loops continue to emerge, compounding and accelerating changes. For example, early climate models didn't factor in methane — a potent greenhouse gas — that's pouring into the atmosphere from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/arctic-permafrost-moving-toward-crisis-abrupt-thaw-a-growing-risk-studies/" target="_blank">melting permafrost</a>. The tundra is now thought to be emitting 300-600 million tons of carbon yearly, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator" target="_blank">equivalent of driving</a> between 65 and 129 million cars for a year.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYyMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjc2MjQyMX0.aAfm5qED_d_pgl29XwQcKL8lVcGi_yuDTmpsdxSlTFY/img.jpg?width=980" id="ce7d7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="35b889b0841d11eb150720ea638a0a90" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The Arctic appears to be changing into an entirely new climate state due to rapid warming. The extent of sea ice in the late summer, when it reaches its minimum each year, has already entered a statistically different climate, with surface air temperatures and the number of days with rain instead of snow also beginning to transition. Simmi Sinha, ©UCAR
<p>Likewise, thick ice that withstood high winds and storms decades ago, now is thin and can be severely damaged by such storms — amplifying one-off extreme weather events. Then there's "<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-atlantification-is-making-the-arctic-ocean-saltier-and-warmer" target="_blank">Atlantification</a>," the increasing intrusion of salty, temperate Atlantic Ocean waters into chillier Arctic seas.</p><p>The changes in the Laptev Sea, long known as an Arctic "ice factory," add another concerning factor. In the past, sea ice created there typically moved with wind and ocean currents, traveling over the North Pole towards Greenland. Depending on changing conditions, that ice then spent years trapped in a slowly spinning gyre in the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arctic-archipelago" target="_blank">Beaufort Sea</a>; ended up off the Greenland coast; or piled up on the north shore of <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arctic-archipelago" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Canadian Archipelago</a>, building ice ridges that towered 3 to 9 meters (12 to 30 feet) high — multi-year ice that resisted melting.</p><p>That system no longer works as before, with the Laptev Sea now turning to blue water every summer, the "ice factory" largely shut down, and <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/multiyear.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">multi-year Arctic sea ice</a> at a record low — and still dropping.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYzMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzY3NTYxNX0.Zuh1spCYvxt252oBj4dLJE7nbQR4xz1yCB5sJlWoK1k/img.jpg?width=980" id="4a421" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d0b74b890c99f5a70fc03f874e627e58" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A polar bear prowls the Arctic shoreline. VisualHunt.com
<h3><strong>An Interconnected Planet</strong></h3><p>The <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/polar-bear-population-decline-a-wake-up-call-for-climate-change-action" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">polar bear</a> has become the poster child for climate change impacts on wildlife. But Ursus maritimus isn't the only victim; <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/beyond-polar-bears-arctic-animals-share-in-vulnerable-climate-future/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cascading affects</a> throughout the Arctic food chain are impacting everything from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0905-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">plankton</a> to <a href="https://climate.org/archive/topics/ecosystems/seals-battle-climatechange.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">seals</a>, globally <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00179/full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">important fisheries</a> species like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-arctic/climate-change-hitting-top-u-s-fishery-in-the-arctic-noaa-idUSKBN1YE2F2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pollock</a>, on up to <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/cetaceans/threats/climate_change/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">whales</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/dress-like-a-polar-bear-learning-to-love-muskoxen-at-15-below-zero/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">musk ox</a> and other cold climate mammals.</p><p>In Siberia, <a href="http://climate.org/archive/topics/climate-change/reindeer-climate-change.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reindeer</a> are starving in wintertime. "<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/weather-whiplash-record-heat-snow-colorado-wyoming-typhoons/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Weather whiplash</a>" is bringing rain, in what should be the frigid dead of polar night. The falling rain freezes atop the snowpack, forming a layer of thick ice that makes it impossible for reindeer to dig down to grass and plants below; many now die of hunger. These once-rare Arctic warm spells are now commonplace.</p><p><a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/arctic-thaws-indigenous-alaskans-demand-voice-climate-change-research" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indigenous people</a> are <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/environment/indigenous_impacts.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">also suffering</a>. Without proper ice platforms, it's growing harder for them to hunt for the walrus and whales that sustain them. Coastlines are eroding as sediments held together by permafrost become unglued. And rising seas are inundating coastal villages.</p><p>Worse, rapidly escalating climate change in the Far North is being exported to the rest of the world: The Earth's biomes are interconnected. "You can't alter one system without affecting others," explained <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/geography/mark-serreze-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mark Serreze</a>, a research scientist for the NSIDC. "What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic, and the changes are unfolding faster than our ability to keep up with them." Serreze, in his 2018 book framing the problem, dubbed the north polar region as, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Arctic-Melting-Essentials/dp/0691173990" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Brave New Arctic</a>."</p><p>Serreze notes that the Arctic covers a massive area; it's the size of the lower 48 U.S. states combined. <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/melting-arctic-sea-ice-may-be-altering-winds-weather-at-equator-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amplified Arctic warming alters global weather</a>, and impacts the rest of the planet, changing weather, ocean patterns and the jet stream.</p><p>Intense storms, droughts and heat waves — once every 100- or 500-year extreme weather events — are now occurring regularly around the globe, with devastating impacts on people, economies, and ecosystems. This year alone, for example, saw massive record wildfires in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/25/california-wildfires-winds-power-cuts/" target="_blank">California</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/3-largest-wildfires-colorado-history-have-occurred-2020-n1244525" target="_blank">Colorado</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/photos-show-scale-of-massive-fires-tearing-through-siberian-forests/" target="_blank">Siberia</a>, and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/list/amazon-fire-beat/" target="_blank">Brazil</a>, and no one yet knows how this autumn's delayed Arctic re-freeze might impact the planet's upcoming weather.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNjYzNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1ODQ2Njg5Nn0.4Wo1cYXxGqf_k1sKhmmP0BR7L2vz25xSw7oV40K8QX8/img.jpg?width=980" id="f964c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4ccb27ee442373429ccf6f0ec973031e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A fire burning through northern forest in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, in July 2020. Greenpeace International
<p><a href="https://nsidc.org/research/bios/stroeve.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Julienne Stroeve</a>, who specializes in sea ice research at NSIDC, adds another potential serious impact to the list: threats to our food supply. "What's predicted to happen in <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstb.2005.1744" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">agricultural sectors</a> is not good news ... We're going to be living on a very different planet if we keep adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere," she said. "We're conducting this blind experiment, and we don't yet know the real implications.</p><p>Stroeve is desperate to inform people of the urgency: "How do you sell climate change to be as much of an emergency as COVID-19? Except that it will kill a lot more people."</p><p>She believes we can rally. If we can produce a COVID-19 vaccine in record time, and heal the ozone layer through the <a href="https://www.state.gov/key-topics-office-of-environmental-quality-and-transboundary-issues/the-montreal-protocol-on-substances-that-deplete-the-ozone-layer/" target="_blank">Montreal Protocol,</a> Stroeve thinks "we have the ability to change the course of this train."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/brave-new-arctic-sea-ice-has-yet-to-form-off-of-siberia-worrying-scientists/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Fossil remains indicate these birds had a wingspan of over 20 feet. Brian Choo, CC BY-NC-SA
By Peter A. Kloess
Picture Antarctica today and what comes to mind? Large ice floes bobbing in the Southern Ocean? Maybe a remote outpost populated with scientists from around the world? Or perhaps colonies of penguins puttering amid vast open tracts of snow?
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<p>Fossils from Seymour Island, just off the Antarctic Peninsula, are painting a very different picture of what Antarctica looked like 40 to 50 million years ago – a time when the ecosystem was lusher and more diverse. Fossils of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61973-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">frogs</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03115518.2011.565214" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">plants</a> such as ferns and conifers indicate Seymour Island was much warmer and less icy, while fossil remains from <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8268" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">marsupials and distant relatives of armadillos and anteaters</a> hint at the previous connections between Antarctica and other continents in the Southern Hemisphere.</p><p>There were also birds. Penguins were present then, as they are now, but fossil relatives of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.13679/j.advps.2019.0014" target="_blank">ducks, falcons and albatrosses</a> have also been found in Antarctica. My <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5CGShQUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" target="_blank">colleagues</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XlyfD9QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao" target="_blank">I</a> have recently published an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75248-6" target="_blank">article</a> revealing new information about the fossil group that would have dwarfed all the other birds on Seymour Island: the pelagornithids, or "bony-toothed" birds.</p>
Giants of the Sky
<p>As their name suggests, these ancient birds had sharp, bony spikes protruding from sawlike jaws. Resembling teeth, these spikes would have helped them catch squid or fish. We also studied another remarkable feature of the pelagornithids – their imposing size.</p><p>The largest flying bird alive today is the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/group/albatrosses/" target="_blank">wandering albatross</a>, which has a wingspan that reaches 11 ½ feet. The Antarctic pelagornithids fossils we studied have a wingspan nearly double that – about 21 feet across. If you tipped a two-story building on its side, that's about 20 feet.</p><p>Across Earth's history, very few groups of vertebrates have achieved powered flight – and only two reached truly giant sizes: birds and a group of <a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/pterosaurs-flight-in-the-age-of-dinosaurs/what-is-a-pterosaur" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reptiles called pterosaurs</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNTM1MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MzU3NzQ4MX0.YS7_KnVR9sjypuvU4e42zccxgYW-_WgV6iVafkDsOMM/img.jpg?width=980" id="78970" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="95d21d5a82c7b1826385df45bc05cc65" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Full-size model of a Quetzalcoatlus on display at JuraPark in Baltow, Poland. Aneta Leszkiewicz / Wikimedia
<p>Pterosaurs ruled the skies during the Mesozoic Era (252 million to 66 million years ago), the same period that dinosaurs roamed the planet, and they reached hard-to-believe dimensions. <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/11/absurd-creature-of-the-week-quetz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Quetzalcoatlus</a> stood 16 feet tall and had a colossal 33-foot wingspan.</p>Birds Get Their Opportunity
<p>Birds originated while dinosaurs and pterosaurs were still roaming the planet. But when an <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-killing-asteroid-impact-chicxulub-crater-timeline-destruction-180973075/" target="_blank">asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago</a>, dinosaurs and pterosaurs both perished. Some <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/how-birds-survived-asteroid-impact-wiped-out-dinosaurs" target="_blank">select birds survived</a>, though. These survivors diversified into the thousands of bird species alive today. Pelagornithids evolved in the period right after dinosaur and pterosaur extinction, when competition for food was lessened.</p><p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1284" target="_blank">The earliest pelagornithid remains</a>, recovered from 62-million-year-old sediments in New Zealand, were about the size of modern gulls. The first giant pelagornithids, the ones in our study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75248-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">took flight over Antarctica about 10 million years later</a>, in a period called the Eocene Epoch (56 million to 33.9 million years ago). In addition to these specimens, fossilized remains from other pelagornithids have been found on every continent.</p><p>Pelagornithids lasted for about 60 million years before going extinct just before the Pleistocene Epoch (2.5 million to 11,700 years ago). No one knows exactly why, though, because few fossil records have been recovered from the period at the end of their reign. Some paleontologists cite <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2011.562268" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate change as a possible factor</a>.</p>Piecing it Together
<p>The fossils we studied are fragments of whole bones collected by paleontologists from the University of California at Riverside in the 1980s. In 2003, the specimens were transferred to Berkeley, where they now reside in the <a href="https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of California Museum of Paleontology</a>.</p><p>There isn't enough material from Antarctica to rebuild an entire skeleton, but by comparing the fossil fragments with similar elements from more complete individuals, we were able to assess their size.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyNTM2MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NDg2NTgzMn0.nouTygP-aON3I5a1RKEG9q1vB7_yJ30rTTd_Brc0CrA/img.jpg?width=980" id="cc47d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8ac77d6b9034f166e00fabac14d36f98" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
In life, the pelagornithid would have had numerous 'teeth,' making it a formidable predator. Peter Kloess, CC BY-NC-SA
<p>We estimate the pelagornithid's skull would have been about 2 feet long. A fragment of one bird's lower jaw preserves some of the "pseudoteeth" that would have each measured up to an inch tall. The spacing of those "teeth" and other measurements of the jaw show this fragment came from an individual as big as, if not bigger than, the largest known pelagornithids.</p><p>Further evidence of the size of these Antarctic birds comes from a second pelagornithid fossil, from a different location on Seymour Island. A section of a foot bone, called a tarsometatarsus, is the largest specimen known for the entire extinct group.<br></p><p>These pelagornithid fossil findings emphasize the importance of natural history collections. Successful field expeditions result in a wealth of material brought back to a museum or repository – but the time required to prepare, study and publish on fossils means these institutions typically <a href="https://theconversation.com/digitizing-the-vast-dark-data-in-museum-fossil-collections-102833" target="_blank">hold many more specimens than they can display</a>. Important discoveries can be made by collecting specimens on expeditions in remote locations, no doubt. But equally important discoveries can be made by simply processing the backlog of specimens already on hand.</p>
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<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-a-kloess-1164526" target="_blank">Peter A. Kloess</a> is a </em><em>Doctoral Candidate, Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley.</em>
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<em>Disclosure statement: </em><em><em>Peter A. Kloess does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em></em>
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<em><em></em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/giant-toothed-birds-flew-over-antarctica-40-million-to-50-million-years-ago-148772" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
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A baby orangutan displaced by palm oil plantation logging is seen at Nyaru Menteng Rehabilitation Center in Borneo, Indonesia on May 27, 2017. Jonathan Perugia / In Pictures / Getty Images
The world's largest financial institutions loaned more than $2.6 trillion in 2019 to sectors driving the climate crisis and wildlife destruction, according to a new report from advocacy organization portfolio.earth.
<p>For some perspective, portfolio.earth notes that $2.6 trillion is more than the entire GDP of Canada. The paper, Bankrolling Extinction, found that the world's largest banks funded an acceleration toward mass extinction in 2019 without trying to limit their impact on ecosystems, <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-biodiversity-banks/bank-loans-scrutinized-for-harm-to-wildlife-as-well-as-climate-idUKKBN27D001" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported.</p><p>The top 10 banks implicated are Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Mizuho Financial, Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, HSBC, SMBC Group and Barclays, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/28/banks-lent-1-9tn-linked-to-ecosystem-and-wildlife-destruction-in-2019-report-aoe?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR2EberDUKgkfo7DFK19vxuZL3kBj8tzeIcnsBXG6ZjzxFOXUTQjOG07Jys" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>The authors of the report note that not only do the banks lack an internal system to limit, monitor or measure the impact of their loans on biodiversity, but the current financial system rules protect the banks from any consequences.</p>
<p>To determine how much money adversely affected the natural world, the researchers matched the loans and underwriting services from 50 large investment banks to areas the United Nations has identified as driving biodiversity loss, The Guardian reported. The most threatening sectors are food and agriculture, forestry, mining, fossil fuels, infrastructure, tourism, transportation and logistics.</p><p>For example, Bankrolling Extinction stressed the outsized role that industrial agriculture plays in biodiversity loss, especially when tropical forests in the Amazon and Asia are cleared to make way for cattle ranches and commodity crops.</p><p>Some banks have responded to pressure from investors and limited investments in Arctic drilling, coal and new oil exploration, The Guardian reported. </p>
<p>"Banks are starting to realize that if they invest in sectors that cause climate change, that will hurt their returns," Liz Gallagher, director of portfolio.earth, told Reuters. "Banks need to understand that the same holds true for destroying biodiversity."</p><p>However, The Guardian reported that an analysis by Rainforest Action Network found that the world's leading banks had not aligned their investments with the goals of the 2016 Paris climate agreement.</p><p>"This report from portfolio.earth confirms what our research also shows, that banks globally still need to step up their game and develop an approach to protect biodiversity," Peter van der Werf, senior engagement specialist at Netherlands-based asset manager Robeco, told Reuters.<br></p>
<p>If banks changed their lending patterns, that money could prevent mass extinction and tackle the climate crisis.</p><p>"Imagine a world in which projects can only raise capital when they have demonstrated that they will contribute meaningfully and positively to restoring the planet's bounty and a safe climate for all? That's the future this report envisions and builds toward," Professor Kai Chan of the Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia told The Guardian.</p>
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A K-State weed specialist researches the impact of dicamba drift on non-resistant soybeans in 2018. K-State Research and Extension / YouTube
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the use of products containing the weedkiller dicamba for use on cotton and soybeans Tuesday. The EPA announcement means that two products that contain the herbicide found to cause cancer can be registered for five years. It also extended the use of a third product that also has dicamba in it, according to The Hill.
<p>The EPA said that two canceled dicamba herbicides — XtendiMax and Engenia — will now have a five-year registration. The same five-year extension was granted to the herbicide Tavium. The EPA argued that it provides relief to farmers who were unsure how they would treat their dicamba-resistant cotton and soybean crops.</p><p>"With today's decision, farmers now have the certainty they need to make plans for their 2021 growing season," said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-2020-dicamba-registration-decision" target="_blank">statement</a>. "After reviewing substantial amounts of new information, conducting scientific assessments based on the best available science, and carefully considering input from stakeholders we have reached a resolution that is good for our farmers and our environment."</p>
<p>The new rules around the three products are meant to address the concerns of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down a 2018 registration of dicamba products, stating that the EPA "substantially understated" some of the risks associated with the chemical's use, as The Hill reported.</p><p>Also, a study earlier this year published in the <em><a href="https://academic.oup.com/ije/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ije/dyaa066/5827818?redirectedFrom=fulltext" target="_blank">International Journal of Epidemiology</a></em> found that the chemical was linked to increased rates of liver and bile duct <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/cancer" target="_self">cancer</a>.</p><p>The EPA's new rules seek to mitigate the risk by increasing the required downwind buffer from 110 feet to 240 feet, and up to 310 feet in areas where endangered species are located. States can still impose their own restrictions on the herbicide, but they will have to work with the EPA and file the appropriate requests, according to the EPA's statement.</p>
<p>Lobbying groups for<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/big-ag" target="_self"> big agriculture</a> and industry insiders welcomed the decision.</p><p>"The economic damage that would result from not being able to use dicamba herbicides would be tremendous," said Ken Fountain, National Cotton Council chairman, as <a href="https://www.agweb.com/article/dicamba-approved-over-top-use-2021-and-beyond" target="_blank">Ag Web</a> reported. "We greatly appreciate EPA's timely issuance of a new five-year label for the critical crop protection product for cotton farmers."</p><p>Environmentalists and consumer advocacy organizations were predictably appalled by the decision that seems to be an end-run around the court's decision.</p>
<p>"Rather than evaluating the significant costs of dicamba drift as the 9th Circuit told them the law required, EPA rushed re-approval as a political prop just before the election, sentencing farmers and the environment to another five years of unacceptable damage," said George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, according to Ag Web. "Center for Food Safety will most certainly challenge these unlawful approvals."</p><p>Other critics noted the damage already caused by dicamba use.</p><p>"Given EPA-approved versions of dicamba have already damaged millions of U.S. acres of crops and natural areas there's no reason to trust that the agency got it right this time," said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement, as The Hill reported.</p><p>"At this point, the EPA has shown such callous indifference to the damage dicamba has caused to farmers and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> alike, and has been so desperate to appease the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides">pesticide</a> industry, it has zero credibility when it comes to pesticide safety," Donley added.</p>
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