Hottest ocean temperatures in history recorded last year

NASA and NOAA’s year-end temperature data indicate that 2021 was 1.98°F (1.10°C) warmer than the beginning of the 20th century. Despite the global cooling effect of the ongoing La Niña, this year still ranked as the 6th hottest year on record according to NASA and NOAA. Ed Hawkins has added 2021 to the famous warming stripes—a visual representation of the human-caused rise in global temperatures since 1850.

EPA yesterday approved new seven-year registrations for two widely used weedkillers, adding "robust" label restrictions to protect endangered species. The environmental agency extended the registration of Enlist Duo, a combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D that farmers use to work around the resistance weeds have developed to one treatment or the other. The wildlife protections, which will be spelled out in label instructions, mark a first for the agency, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, which has pressed for more thorough reviews under the Endangered Species Act. EPA said the labels will "incorporate robust control measures to protect non-target plants and animals."

Advertisers pay for their ads to appear on the search engine when a user queries certain terms. The ads are appealing to businesses because they are very similar in appearance to search results: more than half of users in a 2020 survey reported they could not tell the difference between a paid-for listing and a normal Google result.

The Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA)—a power organization formed by the County of Humboldt and Northern Californian cities such as Trinidad and Eureka—has been working for years to prepare for that opportunity. In 2018, RCEA submitted an unsolicited application to the U.S. Department of the Interior in hopes of building wind energy in waters just west of Humboldt Bay. Most essential to the plan is a “heavy-lift terminal,” basically a huge dock that can support the weight and size of different wind turbine components, including blades longer than a football field and towers nearly as tall as the Washington Monument. Because California’s deep waters require floating offshore wind technologies, those gigantic structures will then get towed out to sea. Construction out in the ocean also requires a nearby operations port to support smaller vessels associated with projects, said Shane Phillips, a civil engineer who specializes in coastal planning at infrastructure consulting firm Moffatt & Nichol. If manufacturing comes to Humboldt—as the Harbor District hopes—the area would need a fabrication facility that can access the dock where turbines are assembled.

Its construction began before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Since then, it has leaked over 180,000 gallons of petroleum into the groundwater aquifer that provides drinking water for over 400,000 residents and visitors from Hālawa to Hawaiʻi Kai.Despite its longstanding threat to water systems, this decrepit facility has been in use until operations were “paused” in late November, after hundreds of military families reported rashes, headaches, nausea, vomiting – symptoms of petroleum poisoning.

State investigators have determined that a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power line was responsible for sparking last year’s massive Dixie fire, which torched more than 960,000 acres in five Northern California counties as it burned clear across the Sierra Nevada.According to a statement by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, investigators found that the fire “was caused by a tree contacting electrical distribution lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas & Electric located west of Cresta Dam.”The department’s investigative report was forwarded to the Butte County district attorney’s office, according to Tuesday’s statement.

Plastic production just keeps expanding, and now is becoming a driving cause of climate change.For decades, the industry has created the illusion that its problems are well under control, all while intensifying production and promotion. More plastics have been made over the past two decades than during the second half of the 20th century. Today, recycling is a flailing, failing system—and yet it is still touted as plastics’ panacea. No end-of-the-pipe fix can manage mass plastics’ volume, complex toxicity, or legacy of pollution, and the industry’s long-standing infractions against human health and rights.

To others, the facility was a curse. Feeding it meant reducing local forests that once teemed with deer and squirrels to plantations of wimpy saplings. And many in this mostly Black community, where median incomes barely hit $10,000 a year, say it has polluted the air with disease-causing gases called volatile organic compounds without delivering them promised new jobs.

Hundreds of acres are set to be blanketed with solar panels in the coming year, installed by locals, many of them former miners. The $231 million project, which recently cleared its last regulatory hurdle, may well be the biggest utility-scale coal to solar project in the country.It would be a desperately needed economic boost drenched in symbolism: Renewable energy generated from a shuttered mine in the heart of Appalachia.

“That’s the biggest spill we’ve ever had.”The spill began after a concrete pipe 48 inches in diameter in Carson, Calif., collapsed. The sewage leaked out of a manhole on 212th Street on Thursday evening and much of Friday, Mr. Langpap said.