Agriculture

"One night in 2021, a farmer Steve Kenkel has known since childhood gave him a call. The farmer had news: there was going to be a CO2 pipeline coming through his property in Shelby County, Iowa."

"California researchers say the world may be just one genetic tweak away from human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus — a worrisome mutation that could open the door to widespread human infections and possibly even a pandemic, according to some experts."

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last week finalized a recovery plan for Canada lynx, a species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and proposed new critical habitat designations to increase federal protections for the winter-adept felines in some areas. "

"California water managers have announced their preliminary forecast of supplies that will be available next year from the State Water Project, telling 29 public agencies to plan for as little as 5% of requested allotments."

"Monarch populations have plummeted due to habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change. Eastern monarch populations that migrate between Canada and overwintering sites in Mexico are estimated to have declined by more than 80 percent since the 1990s."

"Supplementing the diets of grazing beef cows with seaweed in pellet form could cut their methane emissions by almost 40 percent, a new study has found."

"Restoring the world's degraded land and holding back its deserts will require at least $2.6 trillion in investment by the end of the decade, the U.N. executive overseeing global talks on the issue told Reuters, quantifying the cost for the first time."

"The long and winding regulatory road for a pesticide known to be harmful to developing babies took another turn on Monday as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it was planning to only partially ban the insecticide chlorpyrifos in farming."

"Exactly where Brooke Rollins stands on agricultural policy is unclear, but her positions on fossil fuels and climate change are explicit."

"The Chesapeake Bay’s oxygen-starved “dead zone,” a closely watched indicator of the estuary’s health, started early this summer with worse than normal conditions before dramatically improving by early August, scientists recently reported."