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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26300\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Harbor-Seals-NOAA_Photo_Library-1024x512.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-26300\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Harbor-Seals-NOAA_Photo_Library-1024x512.jpg\" alt=\"Harbor seals can live up to 30 years and have long exposures to toxic chemicals in the bay. (Dr. Brandon Southall, NMFS/OPR/Wikimedia)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Harbor seals can live up to 30 years and have long exposures to toxic chemicals in the San Francisco Bay. (\u003ca title=\"Dr. Brandon Southall, Harbor Seal mother and pup, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anim0379_-_Flickr_-_NOAA_Photo_Library.jpg\" class=\"nofancybox\">Dr. Brandon Southall, NMFS/OPR/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a recent winter morning, 30 bird watchers and I took a walk along San Francisco Bay. We enjoyed viewing large flocks of dunlin working their way along the mudflats, their heads bobbing like little sewing machines as they probed for food alongside larger willets and other shorebirds. Serene flotillas of ruddy ducks paddled lazily while a few surf scooters, cormorants and American widgeons drove beneath the surface to catch small fish as the sun broke through the thick fog creating a faint rainbow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news that made me appreciate the morning even more was that the toxic load of flame retardants — in use since the 1970s — in San Francisco Bay waters, people and wildlife has been reduced over the last 10 years. In a \u003ca title=\"PDBEs in San Francisco Bay, SFEI Study\" href=\"http://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/713%20Report%20Full%20PBDEsummaryFINAL.pdf\">study published in December\u003c/a> in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology, scientists from the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) found that since the phase out of \u003ca title=\"Fact sheet: Flame Retandants in San Francisco Bay, SFEI\" href=\"http://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/2014_RMP%20logo%20Flame%20Ret%20factsheet%20FINAL%2012-23%20linked.pdf\">flame retardants (PBDEs)\u003c/a> in 2003, levels of the toxins have dropped dramatically. The study relayed that extremely high levels of PBDEs were detected in 2002 in harbor seal blubber, Forster’s tern eggs and sportfish (And a separate study also found alarming levels in tissue samples from women residing within the Bay Area.) These were the highest levels detected in wildlife worldwide and the highest levels ever reported in humans. The bay was a PBDE contamination “hot spot” and these PDBEs are no longer used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26299\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 288px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/1024px-Forsters_Terns_in_Alameda-288x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-26299\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/1024px-Forsters_Terns_in_Alameda-288x162.jpg\" alt=\"Forster's terns which nest on islands in the bay had some of the highest recorded concentrations of flame retardants in their eggs in any wildlife worldwide. (Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia)\" width=\"288\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Forster’s terns which nest on islands in the bay had some of the highest recorded concentrations of flame retardants in their eggs in any wildlife worldwide. (\u003ca title=\"Forster's terns in Alameda by Ingrid Taylar, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Forster%27s_Terns_in_Alameda.jpg\" class=\"nofancybox\">Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The contaminants originated in flame retardants added to foam products: couch foam, carpet, drapery backing and plastic products (such as electronics along with building insulation.) These products outgas, or breakdown, and the persistent PDBEs mingle with household dust which humans inadvertently ingest. The products also enter the ecosystem through runoff and recycling activities. Since the San Francisco Bay is the watershed for nearly half of the state, it’s no surprise these chemicals accumulated in the bay mud, waters and wildlife. You can find out more about the concerns of PBDE bioaccumulation and implications for humans and wildlife on the \u003ca title=\"Fact Sheet: Flame Retardants, Green Science Policy.org\" href=\"http://greensciencepolicy.org/topics/flame-retardants/%20\">fact sheet from Berkeley’s Green Science Policy\u003c/a> organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26298\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/1024px-Double-crested_cormorant-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-26298\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/1024px-Double-crested_cormorant-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"Double-crested cormorants toxic concentrations of flame retardants have been reduced by about 80% since PDBEs were phased out in 2003. (Sheep81/Wikimedia)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Double-crested cormorants toxic concentrations of flame retardants have been reduced by about 80% since PDBEs were phased out in 2003. (\u003ca title=\"Cormorant by Sheep81, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double-crested_cormorant.JPG\">Sheep81/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With the ban on these PDBEs, wildlife has shown significant improvement, according to the study. Forster’s terns, which nest on islands in the bay including \u003ca title=\"Brooks Island Regional Preserve, EBRPD\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/parks/brooks_island\">Brook’s Island\u003c/a>, eat small fish. The SFEI study showed that concentration of PBDEs in the terns has dropped 80% between 2002 and now. Double-crested cormorants that also nest around the bay have tested for similar declines in contamination. Sport fish contamination has declined about 50%. Mussels and mud contamination have also been reduced. Similar declines were shown for humans, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though this good news is worth celebrating, we need to remain vigilant. SFEI is currently testing for other contaminants in the ecosystem as manufacturers continue to use other potentially harmful chemicals for flame retardants. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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Serene flotillas of ruddy ducks paddled lazily while a few surf scooters, cormorants and American widgeons drove beneath the surface to catch small fish as the sun broke through the thick fog creating a faint rainbow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news that made me appreciate the morning even more was that the toxic load of flame retardants — in use since the 1970s — in San Francisco Bay waters, people and wildlife has been reduced over the last 10 years. In a \u003ca title=\"PDBEs in San Francisco Bay, SFEI Study\" href=\"http://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/713%20Report%20Full%20PBDEsummaryFINAL.pdf\">study published in December\u003c/a> in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology, scientists from the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) found that since the phase out of \u003ca title=\"Fact sheet: Flame Retandants in San Francisco Bay, SFEI\" href=\"http://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/2014_RMP%20logo%20Flame%20Ret%20factsheet%20FINAL%2012-23%20linked.pdf\">flame retardants (PBDEs)\u003c/a> in 2003, levels of the toxins have dropped dramatically. The study relayed that extremely high levels of PBDEs were detected in 2002 in harbor seal blubber, Forster’s tern eggs and sportfish (And a separate study also found alarming levels in tissue samples from women residing within the Bay Area.) These were the highest levels detected in wildlife worldwide and the highest levels ever reported in humans. 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(\u003ca title=\"Forster's terns in Alameda by Ingrid Taylar, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Forster%27s_Terns_in_Alameda.jpg\" class=\"nofancybox\">Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The contaminants originated in flame retardants added to foam products: couch foam, carpet, drapery backing and plastic products (such as electronics along with building insulation.) These products outgas, or breakdown, and the persistent PDBEs mingle with household dust which humans inadvertently ingest. The products also enter the ecosystem through runoff and recycling activities. Since the San Francisco Bay is the watershed for nearly half of the state, it’s no surprise these chemicals accumulated in the bay mud, waters and wildlife. You can find out more about the concerns of PBDE bioaccumulation and implications for humans and wildlife on the \u003ca title=\"Fact Sheet: Flame Retardants, Green Science Policy.org\" href=\"http://greensciencepolicy.org/topics/flame-retardants/%20\">fact sheet from Berkeley’s Green Science Policy\u003c/a> organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26298\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/1024px-Double-crested_cormorant-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-26298\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/1024px-Double-crested_cormorant-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"Double-crested cormorants toxic concentrations of flame retardants have been reduced by about 80% since PDBEs were phased out in 2003. (Sheep81/Wikimedia)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Double-crested cormorants toxic concentrations of flame retardants have been reduced by about 80% since PDBEs were phased out in 2003. (\u003ca title=\"Cormorant by Sheep81, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double-crested_cormorant.JPG\">Sheep81/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With the ban on these PDBEs, wildlife has shown significant improvement, according to the study. Forster’s terns, which nest on islands in the bay including \u003ca title=\"Brooks Island Regional Preserve, EBRPD\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/parks/brooks_island\">Brook’s Island\u003c/a>, eat small fish. The SFEI study showed that concentration of PBDEs in the terns has dropped 80% between 2002 and now. Double-crested cormorants that also nest around the bay have tested for similar declines in contamination. Sport fish contamination has declined about 50%. 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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26280\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 636px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/strawberries-e1421271793733.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26280 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/strawberries-e1421271793733.jpg\" alt=\"Chloropicrin was introduced to replace methyl bromide but has negative health effects on workers so the California Department of Pesticide Regulation has introduced tighter regulations. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)\" width=\"636\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chloropicrin was introduced to replace methyl bromide but has had negative health effects on workers and those who live near treated farms. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Scott Smith\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CALIFORNIA_PESTICIDE_REGULATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT\">Associated Press\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nCalifornia farmers now must abide by the nation’s strictest rules for a widely used pesticide in a change designed to protect farmworkers and people who live and work near agricultural fields but is likely to raise prices on produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The restrictions announced Wednesday target chloropicrin, a pesticide injected into the ground before planting crops such as strawberries, tomatoes and almond orchards. In recent years, the chemical has caused hundreds of people to suffer from irritated eyes, coughing fits and headaches, state officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulations surpass standards required by \u003ca href=\"http://www.epa.gov/\">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Leahy, director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/\">California Department of Pesticide Regulation\u003c/a>, said Tuesday that the higher standard is needed in California, the nation’s leading agricultural producer and most populated state, where farms are often next to people. Costs are sure to rise for farmers, who will pass it along to consumers, but Leahy said it is worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is burdensome,” Leahy said. “But if we’re going to use these tools, we’ve got to ensure that they’re used as safely as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“If we’re going to use these tools, we’ve got to ensure that they’re used as safely as possible.’\u003ccite>–Brian Leahy,\u003cbr>\nCalifornia Department of Pesticide Regulation Director\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Under the new regulation, farmers are limited to applying the pesticide on up to 40 acres in one day, a reduction of 75 percent. It also expands the distance between fields and human activity – in some cases to double the distance. Farmers who use upgraded tarps to cover their fields while applying the pesticide can follow less stringent regulations, said officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers use about 5 million pounds of the pesticide a year, most heavily in the Central Valley counties of San Joaquin and Fresno and along the coast in Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Ventura counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has been talking with growers for more than a year about the new standards and will immediately begin implementing them, with full compliance required by 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state documented 787 people as suffering from exposure to the pesticide drifting through the air between 2002 and 2011, according to the most recent records. In 2013, 19 people picking raspberries in Monterey County were sickened, and in 2012, 15 people in their homes and two firefighters near a Ventura County strawberry field reported irritated eyes, officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California farmers fear that tighter restrictions will increase the costs of their fruits and vegetables, potentially driving the market out of state or the country. Almond and grape growers use chloropicrin once every 20 to 30 years when they plant a new orchard or vineyard, but California’s strawberry growers, who use it each season, may be hit hardest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California produces 88 percent of the nation’s strawberry crop, supporting a $2.3 billion industry, said Carolyn O’Donnell, a spokeswoman for the California Strawberry Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will cost the state’s strawberry growers an estimated $20 million to buy upgraded tarps to cover their crops and comply with the standards, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Farmers and their families live near their farms and work in their fields and care deeply about protecting the safety of their workers, neighbors and communities,” O’Donnell said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26280\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 636px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/strawberries-e1421271793733.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26280 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/strawberries-e1421271793733.jpg\" alt=\"Chloropicrin was introduced to replace methyl bromide but has negative health effects on workers so the California Department of Pesticide Regulation has introduced tighter regulations. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)\" width=\"636\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chloropicrin was introduced to replace methyl bromide but has had negative health effects on workers and those who live near treated farms. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Scott Smith\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CALIFORNIA_PESTICIDE_REGULATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT\">Associated Press\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nCalifornia farmers now must abide by the nation’s strictest rules for a widely used pesticide in a change designed to protect farmworkers and people who live and work near agricultural fields but is likely to raise prices on produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The restrictions announced Wednesday target chloropicrin, a pesticide injected into the ground before planting crops such as strawberries, tomatoes and almond orchards. In recent years, the chemical has caused hundreds of people to suffer from irritated eyes, coughing fits and headaches, state officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulations surpass standards required by \u003ca href=\"http://www.epa.gov/\">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Leahy, director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/\">California Department of Pesticide Regulation\u003c/a>, said Tuesday that the higher standard is needed in California, the nation’s leading agricultural producer and most populated state, where farms are often next to people. Costs are sure to rise for farmers, who will pass it along to consumers, but Leahy said it is worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is burdensome,” Leahy said. “But if we’re going to use these tools, we’ve got to ensure that they’re used as safely as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“If we’re going to use these tools, we’ve got to ensure that they’re used as safely as possible.’\u003ccite>–Brian Leahy,\u003cbr>\nCalifornia Department of Pesticide Regulation Director\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Under the new regulation, farmers are limited to applying the pesticide on up to 40 acres in one day, a reduction of 75 percent. It also expands the distance between fields and human activity – in some cases to double the distance. Farmers who use upgraded tarps to cover their fields while applying the pesticide can follow less stringent regulations, said officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers use about 5 million pounds of the pesticide a year, most heavily in the Central Valley counties of San Joaquin and Fresno and along the coast in Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Ventura counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has been talking with growers for more than a year about the new standards and will immediately begin implementing them, with full compliance required by 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state documented 787 people as suffering from exposure to the pesticide drifting through the air between 2002 and 2011, according to the most recent records. In 2013, 19 people picking raspberries in Monterey County were sickened, and in 2012, 15 people in their homes and two firefighters near a Ventura County strawberry field reported irritated eyes, officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California farmers fear that tighter restrictions will increase the costs of their fruits and vegetables, potentially driving the market out of state or the country. Almond and grape growers use chloropicrin once every 20 to 30 years when they plant a new orchard or vineyard, but California’s strawberry growers, who use it each season, may be hit hardest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California produces 88 percent of the nation’s strawberry crop, supporting a $2.3 billion industry, said Carolyn O’Donnell, a spokeswoman for the California Strawberry Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It will cost the state’s strawberry growers an estimated $20 million to buy upgraded tarps to cover their crops and comply with the standards, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Farmers and their families live near their farms and work in their fields and care deeply about protecting the safety of their workers, neighbors and communities,” O’Donnell said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26256\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Bobby_Magill_Methane.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26256 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Bobby_Magill_Methane.jpg\" alt=\"Flaring at oil and gas well sites releases methane into the atmosphere. (Faces of Fracking/flickr)\" width=\"720\" height=\"481\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flaring at oil and gas well sites releases methane into the atmosphere. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/128012869@N08/15389783456/in/photolist-prWEs5-pyGcRM-ownkYj-oLQp19-7JxAwo-pQTwmP-oNS7dV-2AcN4t-oLQmgw-eLAmAc-pyJwvu-pR8Cte-pyD1MF-oUkc6V-8H7RPV-pF1Gu9-qmDJdT-pXm674-p1yC6o-e5tWge-pXtZs9-e5tWNH-e5tWzP-e5tWuR-e5zz7L-e5zzTd-e5tWka-q5h6jQ-t3i9a-qmDJaX-6Y7JxV-qnJNVB-q6c4hh-q6br55-e5tWSa-e5zzF3-e5tWnH-e5tWbn-e5tWE4-e5zyYQ-e5zyWN-e5zA31-e5tWHn-e5zz1L-e5zzJw-e5zziw-pRcPGL-oUh6tQ-eLAmqV-abvpUX\">Faces of Fracking\u003c/a>/flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Bobby Magill\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n \u003cbr>\nThe White House said Wednesday it wants to slash methane emissions from the crude oil and natural gas industry in the U.S. by up to 45 percent below 2012 levels as part of the Obama administration’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/obama-administration-plans-sweeping-climate-measures-16152\">Climate Action Plan\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement follows \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/fracking-methane-emissions-catastrophe-17439\">years of scientific studies\u003c/a> showing that oil and gas operations in the U.S. are leaking a large \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scientists-call-for-more-fracking-data-transparency-16816\">but unquantified\u003c/a> amount of methane, helping to fuel global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has enabled the U.S. to be the world’s leading crude oil and natural gas producer, and the EPA expects that methane emissions from the oil and gas industry could rise more than 25 percent by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To prevent that from happening, the EPA will be proposing rules later this year that aim to slash oil and gas methane emissions 40 to 45 percent compared to 2012 emissions by 2025. The proposed rule, which is expected to be unveiled this summer and finalized in 2016, will regulate emissions exclusively from new crude oil and natural gas wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Methane is up to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/huge-methane-leaks-add-doubt-on-natural-gas-as-a-bridge-fuel-17309\">35 times as potent\u003c/a> at trapping heat as carbon dioxide over a period of about a century, and the oil and gas sector is a major source of those emissions in the U.S. (Carbon dioxide is much more prevalent in the atmosphere and is still the major greenhouse gas.) About 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 was methane, about 30 percent of which came from the oil and gas industry, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates. (Much of the rest comes from livestock, particularly cattle.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The methane rule comes after the EPA announced in December that it is planning to require energy companies to report more \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/epa-methane-emissions-fracking-18511\">greenhouse gas emissions\u003c/a>, including methane, from fracking operations, natural gas compressor stations and pipelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA is also considering requiring the use of remote sensing technology to measure methane emissions from oil and gas operations as a way to get a better count of the methane leaking from fracking, pipelines and other oil and gas-related machinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are significant, highly cost-effective opportunities for reducing methane emissions from this sector,” Dan Utech, Obama’s climate and energy advisor, told the Associated Press. “We’re confident we can do this in a cost-effective way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26256\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Bobby_Magill_Methane.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26256 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Bobby_Magill_Methane.jpg\" alt=\"Flaring at oil and gas well sites releases methane into the atmosphere. (Faces of Fracking/flickr)\" width=\"720\" height=\"481\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flaring at oil and gas well sites releases methane into the atmosphere. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/128012869@N08/15389783456/in/photolist-prWEs5-pyGcRM-ownkYj-oLQp19-7JxAwo-pQTwmP-oNS7dV-2AcN4t-oLQmgw-eLAmAc-pyJwvu-pR8Cte-pyD1MF-oUkc6V-8H7RPV-pF1Gu9-qmDJdT-pXm674-p1yC6o-e5tWge-pXtZs9-e5tWNH-e5tWzP-e5tWuR-e5zz7L-e5zzTd-e5tWka-q5h6jQ-t3i9a-qmDJaX-6Y7JxV-qnJNVB-q6c4hh-q6br55-e5tWSa-e5zzF3-e5tWnH-e5tWbn-e5tWE4-e5zyYQ-e5zyWN-e5zA31-e5tWHn-e5zz1L-e5zzJw-e5zziw-pRcPGL-oUh6tQ-eLAmqV-abvpUX\">Faces of Fracking\u003c/a>/flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Bobby Magill\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n \u003cbr>\nThe White House said Wednesday it wants to slash methane emissions from the crude oil and natural gas industry in the U.S. by up to 45 percent below 2012 levels as part of the Obama administration’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/obama-administration-plans-sweeping-climate-measures-16152\">Climate Action Plan\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement follows \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/fracking-methane-emissions-catastrophe-17439\">years of scientific studies\u003c/a> showing that oil and gas operations in the U.S. are leaking a large \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scientists-call-for-more-fracking-data-transparency-16816\">but unquantified\u003c/a> amount of methane, helping to fuel global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has enabled the U.S. to be the world’s leading crude oil and natural gas producer, and the EPA expects that methane emissions from the oil and gas industry could rise more than 25 percent by 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To prevent that from happening, the EPA will be proposing rules later this year that aim to slash oil and gas methane emissions 40 to 45 percent compared to 2012 emissions by 2025. The proposed rule, which is expected to be unveiled this summer and finalized in 2016, will regulate emissions exclusively from new crude oil and natural gas wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Methane is up to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/huge-methane-leaks-add-doubt-on-natural-gas-as-a-bridge-fuel-17309\">35 times as potent\u003c/a> at trapping heat as carbon dioxide over a period of about a century, and the oil and gas sector is a major source of those emissions in the U.S. (Carbon dioxide is much more prevalent in the atmosphere and is still the major greenhouse gas.) About 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 was methane, about 30 percent of which came from the oil and gas industry, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates. (Much of the rest comes from livestock, particularly cattle.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The methane rule comes after the EPA announced in December that it is planning to require energy companies to report more \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/epa-methane-emissions-fracking-18511\">greenhouse gas emissions\u003c/a>, including methane, from fracking operations, natural gas compressor stations and pipelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA is also considering requiring the use of remote sensing technology to measure methane emissions from oil and gas operations as a way to get a better count of the methane leaking from fracking, pipelines and other oil and gas-related machinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are significant, highly cost-effective opportunities for reducing methane emissions from this sector,” Dan Utech, Obama’s climate and energy advisor, told the Associated Press. “We’re confident we can do this in a cost-effective way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"headTitle": "Tiny Parasite Threatens Native Plants | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2015/01/20150112science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26127\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Plant-mold-feature_image1-e1420852016889-1024x576.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26127 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Plant-mold-feature_image1-e1420852016889-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Plant mold feature_image1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor Wolfgang Schweigkofler holds up a culture of \u003cem>Phytophthora tentaculata\u003c/em> at Dominican University in Marin County. Experts there have spent years studying ways to fight Sudden Oak Death and are now turning their attention to \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em>. (Daniel Potter/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty years ago, scores of trees began visibly dying off around the Bay Area, in what turned out to be the advent of \u003ca href=\"http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/PRamorumChronology_12.10.14.pdf\">Sudden Oak Death\u003c/a>. The cause was a microscopic parasite, \u003cem>Phytophthora ramorum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Phytophthora \u003c/em>comes from Greek and means “plant destroyer.” (It’s pronounced fie-TOF-thur-uh.) Of its many relatives, perhaps the best known is \u003cem>Phytophthora infestans\u003c/em>, noted for causing the \u003ca href=\"http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/294137/Irish-Potato-Famine\">Irish Potato Famine\u003c/a>. Though sometimes classified among fungi, they’re actually part of a distinct group known as “water molds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/manuals/emergency/downloads/nprg-genericphytophthoras.pdf\">An ominous federal\u003c/a> report five years ago warned of another \u003cem>Phytophthora \u003c/em>species that had not arrived yet in North America. If it were to appear, the report said it “would likely cause severe economic impacts to the nursery trade, as well as environmental impacts on native species.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in the fall of 2012, it showed up at a nursery in Monterey County. “We were like, what the heck is this?” says state plant pathologist \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK4-NMsDbm8\">Suzanne Latham\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She identified it through DNA testing as \u003cem>Phytophthora tentaculata\u003c/em>. All the plants in the nursery were destroyed, Latham says, “and we thought we had an isolated detection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, about a year ago, \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em> showed up again, this time outside the confines of a nursery.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We were like, what the heck is this?’\u003ccite>— Suzanne Latham,\u003cbr>\nSenior Plant Pathologist\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Insidious, Microscopic Hitchhiker\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a remote part of Alameda County, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfwater.org/\">San Francisco Public Utilities Commission\u003c/a> is restoring native species across a vast, grassy terrain. It’s a mitigation project for several water systems the PUC is overhauling. At roughly an area of one hundred football fields, the massive project involved hauling in many thousands of plants that are native to California, at a cost of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plants included a shrub called toyon and a subshrub called sticky monkey flower. Both turned out to be hosts of \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em>, which, unbeknownst to workers, was quietly hitchhiking into the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a soil-born pathogen, \u003cem>tentaculata \u003c/em>attacks and rots plant roots. Infected plants look “water-stressed,” meaning the parasite can masquerade as effects of the drought. It can spread by drifting in water, or with help from people: in contaminated potting soil, perhaps, or in dirt on workers’ boots or tools, or in the treads of truck tires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That invasive species have the potential to sabotage restoration efforts was not news to the PUC. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRe4nX6fSo\">Greg Lyman\u003c/a>, a habitat mitigation engineer, says the agency had taken pains to keep pests and pathogens out of the site, with a zero-tolerance approach to potential contamination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers who rolled up with dirty equipment had to turn around and go power-wash it before they were allowed onsite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26142\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Toyon-P.1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26142\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Toyon-P.1.jpg\" alt=\"A shrub infected with Phytophthora cactorum, which rots plant roots, leading to symptoms like yellowing leaves, stunting and necrosis. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\" width=\"400\" height=\"283\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A shrub infected with \u003cem>Phytophthora cactorum\u003c/em>, which rots plant roots, leading to symptoms like yellowing leaves, stunting and necrosis. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The zero-tolerance policy meant inspections for nurseries, and throwing out batches of seeds that had even a fraction of a percent of extraneous weeds. To keep pests from creeping into the site, a contractor sterilized the logs used in landscaping inside a huge metal oven, heated with propane to more than 180 degrees. Baking a single batch of about five logs, Lyman says, typically required a full 24 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite these many precautions, \u003cem>tentaculata \u003c/em>and several other varieties of \u003cem>Phytophthora\u003c/em> have now turned up at the site. How many kinds of plants these pathogens might eat and how much damage they might do is uncertain, but for Lyman, the nightmare scenario would be this: “We’ve introduced a pathogen into the watershed that could decimate a whole ecosystem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Before It Can Run Wild\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Invasive species, once they’ve found a toehold in a new environment, can be difficult – if not impossible – to fully eradicate. The best time to try, experts say, is before they’ve had a chance to get established.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were more than eight thousand outplantings of sticky monkey flower and toyon at the site in Alameda County. While not all of them were necessarily infected with \u003cem>tentaculata\u003c/em>, every one of them had to go. Workers lopped each one off at ground level, with the roots still buried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ripping them out would actually increase the risk of spread,” Lyman explains, “because as you pull them out you would leave some roots behind or you would accidentally spray roots and pathogens outside of controlled areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the hope is to kill the mold where it lays, using a process called “solarization.” This entails putting sheets of plastic over the ground to trap the sun’s heat in the soil, warming it to 120 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, several inches down into the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26146\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 383px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Phytophthora-tentaculata-213x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26146\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Phytophthora-tentaculata-213x162.jpg\" alt=\"Photomicrograph of Phytophthora tentaculata, showing the filaments that grow through plant tissues, secrete toxins and enzymes and absorb nutrients. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\" width=\"383\" height=\"291\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em> filaments grow through plant tissues, secrete toxins and enzymes and absorb nutrients. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lyman says so far dealing with the infection has cost some $700,000, and while he acknowledges trying to halt the pathogen’s spread is a tall order, he insists “it’s not a lost cause. With education, and with changes in the practice, we can make a difference. We will make a difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nursery Shakeup\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tentaculata \u003c/em>has also shown up at nurseries in Monterey, Santa Cruz, Placer and Butte counties, elevating concerns in the industry over the potential spread of tiny invaders. While Watershed Nursery in Richmond has kept it out, “everybody’s a little paranoid now,” says owner Diana Benner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last year, Benner and her co-owner, Laura Hanson, have added safeguards, like a spongy sort of doormat soaked in disinfectant, so people passing in and out of the chain-link gate won’t track in potential pathogens on the soles of their shoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve replaced wooden potting tables with surfaces that are easier to disinfect. They now sterilize the many pots they reuse. They’re even working on a way to sterilize potting soil, rigging together a pair of metal trashcans with a smoker underneath for heat. A big part of the success or failure of these methods, Benner says, is vigilance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can have all these things set up, and if your staff is not thinking about it constantly, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “So the biggest thing about it has been habits – habits, habits, habits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benner also notes the nursery grows plants for restoration projects from seed, which is not believed to be a vector for passing along \u003cem>Phytophthora\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plant pathologist Ted Swiecki says the danger of spreading exotic pathogens is familiar in places like Australia, where the species \u003cem>Phytophthora cinnamomi\u003c/em> is widespread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have huge education campaigns, they’ve been doing various types of treatments in different areas, they have quarantines, all kinds of sanitation stations, all kinds of efforts,” Swiecki says. “We don’t want to end up where they are. In a way, we’re in a version of that with Sudden Oak Death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, while the microbe that causes Sudden Oak Death can infect many plants and kills only a handful of them, \u003cem>P. cinnamomi\u003c/em> has “a host list of a couple thousand-plus species, which we could add to every day, because most of its hosts aren’t known. And it will kill most of those.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With other exotic varieties of Phytophthora turning up around the Bay Area, Swiecki is urging action: he believes there’s still a chance for native plant nurseries and the restoration projects they supply to take heed, before things get worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time we get a new Phytophthora species out there with limited information like \u003cem>tentaculata\u003c/em>,” Swiecki says, “we don’t really know what it’s going to affect and how wide its host range is going to be. And when we have a combination of species out there, we really have a set of wild cards.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A microscopic pathogen got into the roots of some native plants at a restoration project in Alameda County, despite massive efforts to prevent it. Now officials are hoping to stop this microbe before it spreads.",
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"description": "A microscopic pathogen got into the roots of some native plants at a restoration project in Alameda County, despite massive efforts to prevent it. Now officials are hoping to stop this microbe before it spreads.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26127\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Plant-mold-feature_image1-e1420852016889-1024x576.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26127 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Plant-mold-feature_image1-e1420852016889-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Plant mold feature_image1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor Wolfgang Schweigkofler holds up a culture of \u003cem>Phytophthora tentaculata\u003c/em> at Dominican University in Marin County. Experts there have spent years studying ways to fight Sudden Oak Death and are now turning their attention to \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em>. (Daniel Potter/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty years ago, scores of trees began visibly dying off around the Bay Area, in what turned out to be the advent of \u003ca href=\"http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/PRamorumChronology_12.10.14.pdf\">Sudden Oak Death\u003c/a>. The cause was a microscopic parasite, \u003cem>Phytophthora ramorum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Phytophthora \u003c/em>comes from Greek and means “plant destroyer.” (It’s pronounced fie-TOF-thur-uh.) Of its many relatives, perhaps the best known is \u003cem>Phytophthora infestans\u003c/em>, noted for causing the \u003ca href=\"http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/294137/Irish-Potato-Famine\">Irish Potato Famine\u003c/a>. Though sometimes classified among fungi, they’re actually part of a distinct group known as “water molds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/manuals/emergency/downloads/nprg-genericphytophthoras.pdf\">An ominous federal\u003c/a> report five years ago warned of another \u003cem>Phytophthora \u003c/em>species that had not arrived yet in North America. If it were to appear, the report said it “would likely cause severe economic impacts to the nursery trade, as well as environmental impacts on native species.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in the fall of 2012, it showed up at a nursery in Monterey County. “We were like, what the heck is this?” says state plant pathologist \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK4-NMsDbm8\">Suzanne Latham\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She identified it through DNA testing as \u003cem>Phytophthora tentaculata\u003c/em>. All the plants in the nursery were destroyed, Latham says, “and we thought we had an isolated detection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, about a year ago, \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em> showed up again, this time outside the confines of a nursery.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We were like, what the heck is this?’\u003ccite>— Suzanne Latham,\u003cbr>\nSenior Plant Pathologist\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Insidious, Microscopic Hitchhiker\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a remote part of Alameda County, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfwater.org/\">San Francisco Public Utilities Commission\u003c/a> is restoring native species across a vast, grassy terrain. It’s a mitigation project for several water systems the PUC is overhauling. At roughly an area of one hundred football fields, the massive project involved hauling in many thousands of plants that are native to California, at a cost of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plants included a shrub called toyon and a subshrub called sticky monkey flower. Both turned out to be hosts of \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em>, which, unbeknownst to workers, was quietly hitchhiking into the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a soil-born pathogen, \u003cem>tentaculata \u003c/em>attacks and rots plant roots. Infected plants look “water-stressed,” meaning the parasite can masquerade as effects of the drought. It can spread by drifting in water, or with help from people: in contaminated potting soil, perhaps, or in dirt on workers’ boots or tools, or in the treads of truck tires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That invasive species have the potential to sabotage restoration efforts was not news to the PUC. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRe4nX6fSo\">Greg Lyman\u003c/a>, a habitat mitigation engineer, says the agency had taken pains to keep pests and pathogens out of the site, with a zero-tolerance approach to potential contamination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers who rolled up with dirty equipment had to turn around and go power-wash it before they were allowed onsite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26142\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Toyon-P.1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26142\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Toyon-P.1.jpg\" alt=\"A shrub infected with Phytophthora cactorum, which rots plant roots, leading to symptoms like yellowing leaves, stunting and necrosis. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\" width=\"400\" height=\"283\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A shrub infected with \u003cem>Phytophthora cactorum\u003c/em>, which rots plant roots, leading to symptoms like yellowing leaves, stunting and necrosis. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The zero-tolerance policy meant inspections for nurseries, and throwing out batches of seeds that had even a fraction of a percent of extraneous weeds. To keep pests from creeping into the site, a contractor sterilized the logs used in landscaping inside a huge metal oven, heated with propane to more than 180 degrees. Baking a single batch of about five logs, Lyman says, typically required a full 24 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite these many precautions, \u003cem>tentaculata \u003c/em>and several other varieties of \u003cem>Phytophthora\u003c/em> have now turned up at the site. How many kinds of plants these pathogens might eat and how much damage they might do is uncertain, but for Lyman, the nightmare scenario would be this: “We’ve introduced a pathogen into the watershed that could decimate a whole ecosystem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Before It Can Run Wild\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Invasive species, once they’ve found a toehold in a new environment, can be difficult – if not impossible – to fully eradicate. The best time to try, experts say, is before they’ve had a chance to get established.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were more than eight thousand outplantings of sticky monkey flower and toyon at the site in Alameda County. While not all of them were necessarily infected with \u003cem>tentaculata\u003c/em>, every one of them had to go. Workers lopped each one off at ground level, with the roots still buried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ripping them out would actually increase the risk of spread,” Lyman explains, “because as you pull them out you would leave some roots behind or you would accidentally spray roots and pathogens outside of controlled areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the hope is to kill the mold where it lays, using a process called “solarization.” This entails putting sheets of plastic over the ground to trap the sun’s heat in the soil, warming it to 120 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, several inches down into the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26146\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 383px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Phytophthora-tentaculata-213x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26146\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Phytophthora-tentaculata-213x162.jpg\" alt=\"Photomicrograph of Phytophthora tentaculata, showing the filaments that grow through plant tissues, secrete toxins and enzymes and absorb nutrients. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\" width=\"383\" height=\"291\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em> filaments grow through plant tissues, secrete toxins and enzymes and absorb nutrients. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lyman says so far dealing with the infection has cost some $700,000, and while he acknowledges trying to halt the pathogen’s spread is a tall order, he insists “it’s not a lost cause. With education, and with changes in the practice, we can make a difference. We will make a difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nursery Shakeup\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tentaculata \u003c/em>has also shown up at nurseries in Monterey, Santa Cruz, Placer and Butte counties, elevating concerns in the industry over the potential spread of tiny invaders. While Watershed Nursery in Richmond has kept it out, “everybody’s a little paranoid now,” says owner Diana Benner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last year, Benner and her co-owner, Laura Hanson, have added safeguards, like a spongy sort of doormat soaked in disinfectant, so people passing in and out of the chain-link gate won’t track in potential pathogens on the soles of their shoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve replaced wooden potting tables with surfaces that are easier to disinfect. They now sterilize the many pots they reuse. They’re even working on a way to sterilize potting soil, rigging together a pair of metal trashcans with a smoker underneath for heat. A big part of the success or failure of these methods, Benner says, is vigilance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can have all these things set up, and if your staff is not thinking about it constantly, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “So the biggest thing about it has been habits – habits, habits, habits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benner also notes the nursery grows plants for restoration projects from seed, which is not believed to be a vector for passing along \u003cem>Phytophthora\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plant pathologist Ted Swiecki says the danger of spreading exotic pathogens is familiar in places like Australia, where the species \u003cem>Phytophthora cinnamomi\u003c/em> is widespread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have huge education campaigns, they’ve been doing various types of treatments in different areas, they have quarantines, all kinds of sanitation stations, all kinds of efforts,” Swiecki says. “We don’t want to end up where they are. In a way, we’re in a version of that with Sudden Oak Death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, while the microbe that causes Sudden Oak Death can infect many plants and kills only a handful of them, \u003cem>P. cinnamomi\u003c/em> has “a host list of a couple thousand-plus species, which we could add to every day, because most of its hosts aren’t known. And it will kill most of those.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With other exotic varieties of Phytophthora turning up around the Bay Area, Swiecki is urging action: he believes there’s still a chance for native plant nurseries and the restoration projects they supply to take heed, before things get worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time we get a new Phytophthora species out there with limited information like \u003cem>tentaculata\u003c/em>,” Swiecki says, “we don’t really know what it’s going to affect and how wide its host range is going to be. And when we have a combination of species out there, we really have a set of wild cards.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "New Soil Erosion Study May Help Sustainable Farming Practices",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26068\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/potomacflood.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/potomacflood.jpg\" alt=\"Muddy floodwater\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26068\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After Hurricane Isabel in 2003, Great Falls on the Potomac River was overwhelmed by muddy floodwater carrying soil washed from historic upland farms. Precise measurement of soil erosion over large areas is a crucial part of learning sustainable farming practices, but is notoriously hard to do given the variability of nature. (Paul Bierman, University of Vermont)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A study of rivers in the southeastern United States shows that as American cotton and tobacco farmers occupied once-forested lands, they wasted those fertile soils by causing them to wash away 100 times faster than the natural rate of erosion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The paper, \u003ca href=\"http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2015/01/07/G36272.1.abstract\">published online yesterday by the journal \u003ci>Geology\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, describes a new method that lets us learn the rate of soil erosion in “the forest primeval,” during the thousands of years before European farmers arrived. Having a single consistent laboratory test for this geological yardstick can help make agriculture sustainable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a region’s rate of natural erosion is known, farm agencies can teach farmers ways to tame erosion until it matches the primeval rate. That will almost automatically ensure that the area’s soil remains permanently fertile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study, by two geologists at the University of Vermont and a colleague at Lawrence Livermore Lab, looked at ten river watersheds in the Appalachian Mountains ranging from Virginia to Alabama. These went through a typical historical pattern—the forest was cleared by loggers beginning in the 1700s and then the land was farmed for cotton and tobacco. Traditional farming practices, which included tilling the fields each year with animal-drawn plows, led to rapid erosion and wore out the soil within a few generations. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This history is well known, but measuring that erosion isn’t easy. Regulators often use a formula based on the volume of sediment carried by a river. That method assumes the river system is in a steady state, with eroding dirt in the headwater area balancing the sediment passing out the river’s mouth. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But careful surveys have shown that most of the eroded sediment from these old farmlands is still sitting upstream on the valley floors, where it has smothered existing bottomland soils, or trapped behind hundreds of old dams that once drove watermills. Another complication is that a large amount of sediment transportation, perhaps even most of it, happens in rare big floods rather than ordinary river flows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found a way around the problem of relying on sediment volumes. They zeroed in on the sand-size quartz grains in that river-mouth sediment and directly measured their exposure ages—the time the minerals had been within a few meters of the ground surface—using the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium-10\">beryllium-10\u003c/a> technique. (\u003csup>10\u003c/sup>Be forms from oxygen in the quartz by exposure to cosmic rays.) By treating the sand as a sample of the whole watershed, the scientists could estimate the average age of the soil when it originally washed out of the hillsides. From the average exposure age, they could then determine the primeval erosion rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beryllium-10 evidence told the authors that natural erosion in pre-colonial days was an almost imperceptible 8 millimeters per thousand years. During the several decades around 1900, at the climax of cotton/tobacco farming, erosion was 100 times faster at around 950 mm/ky. That is, two generations of farming caused thousands of years worth of erosion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/soilerosiongraph.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/soilerosiongraph.png\" alt=\"Soil erosion in 10 Appalachian watersheds\" width=\"600\" height=\"299\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26069\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erosion rates in ten Appalachian river basins. Notice the logarithmic scale on the left, with each level being 10 times greater than the one below it. The black bars are the primeval rates determined by the beryllium-10 data. The tall gray bars are measured erosion rates of the hillslope soils from an earlier study. The bars in the middle are erosion rates according to the volume of sediment being carried today by the rivers—a method that is clearly very inaccurate. Figure 3 of Reusser et al., \u003ci>Geology\u003c/i>, doi:10.1130/G36272.1 (Geol. Soc. America)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The historian Will Durant was fond of telling audiences that “civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.” He typically was referring to natural catastrophes, but his successors have shown that loss of good soil is another change, happening without anyone noticing, that seems to limit the life span of human civilizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting in the late 1900s, agricultural practices have changed to reduce soil erosion. The best techniques can lower erosion to natural levels and even build up the soil, according to geologist David Montgomery, the author of \u003ci>Dirt: Erosion of Civilizations\u003c/i>. “The good news is that there are examples of societies (which I talk about in the book) that did indeed build fertile soil far faster than nature,” he said. “The bad news is that the types of agricultural practices that would lead to that result are presently called alternative agriculture,” such as no-till practices and organic farming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Montgomery’s open-access paper in \u003ci>GSA Today\u003c/i>, “\u003ca href=\"http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/17/10/pdf/i1052-5173-17-10-4.pdf\">Is agriculture eroding civilization’s foundation?\u003c/a>” is essential reading on this topic.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26068\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/potomacflood.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/potomacflood.jpg\" alt=\"Muddy floodwater\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26068\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After Hurricane Isabel in 2003, Great Falls on the Potomac River was overwhelmed by muddy floodwater carrying soil washed from historic upland farms. Precise measurement of soil erosion over large areas is a crucial part of learning sustainable farming practices, but is notoriously hard to do given the variability of nature. (Paul Bierman, University of Vermont)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A study of rivers in the southeastern United States shows that as American cotton and tobacco farmers occupied once-forested lands, they wasted those fertile soils by causing them to wash away 100 times faster than the natural rate of erosion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The paper, \u003ca href=\"http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2015/01/07/G36272.1.abstract\">published online yesterday by the journal \u003ci>Geology\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, describes a new method that lets us learn the rate of soil erosion in “the forest primeval,” during the thousands of years before European farmers arrived. Having a single consistent laboratory test for this geological yardstick can help make agriculture sustainable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a region’s rate of natural erosion is known, farm agencies can teach farmers ways to tame erosion until it matches the primeval rate. That will almost automatically ensure that the area’s soil remains permanently fertile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study, by two geologists at the University of Vermont and a colleague at Lawrence Livermore Lab, looked at ten river watersheds in the Appalachian Mountains ranging from Virginia to Alabama. These went through a typical historical pattern—the forest was cleared by loggers beginning in the 1700s and then the land was farmed for cotton and tobacco. Traditional farming practices, which included tilling the fields each year with animal-drawn plows, led to rapid erosion and wore out the soil within a few generations. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This history is well known, but measuring that erosion isn’t easy. Regulators often use a formula based on the volume of sediment carried by a river. That method assumes the river system is in a steady state, with eroding dirt in the headwater area balancing the sediment passing out the river’s mouth. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But careful surveys have shown that most of the eroded sediment from these old farmlands is still sitting upstream on the valley floors, where it has smothered existing bottomland soils, or trapped behind hundreds of old dams that once drove watermills. Another complication is that a large amount of sediment transportation, perhaps even most of it, happens in rare big floods rather than ordinary river flows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found a way around the problem of relying on sediment volumes. They zeroed in on the sand-size quartz grains in that river-mouth sediment and directly measured their exposure ages—the time the minerals had been within a few meters of the ground surface—using the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium-10\">beryllium-10\u003c/a> technique. (\u003csup>10\u003c/sup>Be forms from oxygen in the quartz by exposure to cosmic rays.) By treating the sand as a sample of the whole watershed, the scientists could estimate the average age of the soil when it originally washed out of the hillsides. From the average exposure age, they could then determine the primeval erosion rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beryllium-10 evidence told the authors that natural erosion in pre-colonial days was an almost imperceptible 8 millimeters per thousand years. During the several decades around 1900, at the climax of cotton/tobacco farming, erosion was 100 times faster at around 950 mm/ky. That is, two generations of farming caused thousands of years worth of erosion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/soilerosiongraph.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/soilerosiongraph.png\" alt=\"Soil erosion in 10 Appalachian watersheds\" width=\"600\" height=\"299\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26069\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erosion rates in ten Appalachian river basins. Notice the logarithmic scale on the left, with each level being 10 times greater than the one below it. The black bars are the primeval rates determined by the beryllium-10 data. The tall gray bars are measured erosion rates of the hillslope soils from an earlier study. The bars in the middle are erosion rates according to the volume of sediment being carried today by the rivers—a method that is clearly very inaccurate. Figure 3 of Reusser et al., \u003ci>Geology\u003c/i>, doi:10.1130/G36272.1 (Geol. Soc. America)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The historian Will Durant was fond of telling audiences that “civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.” He typically was referring to natural catastrophes, but his successors have shown that loss of good soil is another change, happening without anyone noticing, that seems to limit the life span of human civilizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting in the late 1900s, agricultural practices have changed to reduce soil erosion. The best techniques can lower erosion to natural levels and even build up the soil, according to geologist David Montgomery, the author of \u003ci>Dirt: Erosion of Civilizations\u003c/i>. “The good news is that there are examples of societies (which I talk about in the book) that did indeed build fertile soil far faster than nature,” he said. “The bad news is that the types of agricultural practices that would lead to that result are presently called alternative agriculture,” such as no-till practices and organic farming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Montgomery’s open-access paper in \u003ci>GSA Today\u003c/i>, “\u003ca href=\"http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/17/10/pdf/i1052-5173-17-10-4.pdf\">Is agriculture eroding civilization’s foundation?\u003c/a>” is essential reading on this topic.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "2014: California's Warmest Year on Record",
"headTitle": "2014: California’s Warmest Year on Record | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26019\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/RS1213_P1000565-lpr.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26019\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/RS1213_P1000565-lpr.jpg\" alt=\"2014 set temperature records throughout much of the West. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 set temperature records throughout much of the West. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Federal climate scientists confirmed today that 2014 stands as \u003ca title=\"NOAA - summary - CA\" href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/climatological-rankings/index.php?periods%5B%5D=ytd¶meter=tavg&state=4&div=0&month=12&year=2014#ranks-form\">California’s warmest year\u003c/a> on record. The state’s average temperature for the year clocked in at 61.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 4.1 degrees higher than the 20th century average. Last year’s average bested the previous record, set in 1934, by nearly two degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca title=\"NOAA - 2014 summary\" href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/national/2014/12\">annual review\u003c/a> from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says last year was warm throughout much of the West:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“The West was warmer than average for much of 2014. Nine states had a top 10 warm year. Alaska, Arizona, California, and Nevada each had their warmest year on record. Most locations from the Rockies to the East Coast were cooler than average, with the exception of New England and Florida.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Consistent temperature records date back to 1894.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The warmer-than-usual weather had a wide array of effects on California. First and foremost, it \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/10/14/high-temps-intensified-california-drought/\">made an already withering drought even worse\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Indeed, temperature is one of the driving factors of drought,” says Jeff Mount, co-founder of the Center for Watershed Sciences at U.C. Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount says two-thirds of California’s precipitation is routinely lost to evaporation or transpiration, the water taken up by plants. When temperatures rise, evapo-transpiration rates rise, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just the process of evaporation alone out of the soils and then the associated transpiration that comes out of plants with the warmer temperatures, the increased length of the growing season — all of these are producing moisture deficits in the soil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exactly how much worse the drought was made by record warmth is harder to pin down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, a study by scientists at NOAA and Columbia University concluded that climate change was not a major cause of California’s current drought. It \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/12/08/californias-drought-is-it-global-warming/\">drew immediate fire\u003c/a> from other scientists for not taking record-high temperatures into account. The authors said they were looking at causal factors, not intensifying forces, but would be interested in doing additional analysis on the influence of temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/185091766″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount says most striking have been the warm overnight lows, which stretched out the growing season and shriveled the Sierra snowpack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you get those warm temps at night, where its not freezing at night anymore, you start melting your snow very, very quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Likewise, warm weather can keep the snowpack from building up in the first place. December’s persistent storms brought water content of Sierra snows to \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/12/30/warm-temps-mean-less-snow-for-the-sierra/\">just about half\u003c/a> of the average for this time of year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down below, last year’s persistently high temperatures made the notoriously bad air quality even worse in places like the San Joaquin Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“2014 was one of our busiest years,” says A.M. Aminian, an allergist and respiratory specialist in Fresno, and chair of the Fresno-Madera Medical Society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This year we saw more people with asthma, respiratory problems, stuffy nose, and itching eyes, and also respiratory infections,” Aminian recalled. “We have been seeing more air pollution, the air was warmer, and it was very dry. That caused more particulate matter, dust in the air. Whenever there is heat and a lot of sunshine, the smog levels go up. This was one of the years we had more air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Higher temperatures also \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/parched-california-wildlife-suffers-in-drought/\">exacerbated conditions for wildlife\u003c/a> already suffering from the drought. Low flows in rivers and streams heated up that much more, presenting a challenge especially to anadromous fish, like salmon and steelhead, for which water temperatures much above 60 can be fatal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this compounding of drought conditions might seem hard to square with another statistic in NOAA’s review: that California had a near-average precipitation year in 2014, coming in just slightly drier than normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the nearly non-stop rain throughout December, the NOAA report concluded that “drought conditions improved across parts of Northern California” but, “Despite above-average precipitation in California, only modest drought improvements occurred due to long-term precipitation deficits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Central Valley Bureau Chief, \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/radio/about/staff/sasha-khokha.jsp\">Sasha Khokha\u003c/a>, contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26019\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/RS1213_P1000565-lpr.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26019\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/RS1213_P1000565-lpr.jpg\" alt=\"2014 set temperature records throughout much of the West. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 set temperature records throughout much of the West. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Federal climate scientists confirmed today that 2014 stands as \u003ca title=\"NOAA - summary - CA\" href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/climatological-rankings/index.php?periods%5B%5D=ytd¶meter=tavg&state=4&div=0&month=12&year=2014#ranks-form\">California’s warmest year\u003c/a> on record. The state’s average temperature for the year clocked in at 61.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 4.1 degrees higher than the 20th century average. Last year’s average bested the previous record, set in 1934, by nearly two degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca title=\"NOAA - 2014 summary\" href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/national/2014/12\">annual review\u003c/a> from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says last year was warm throughout much of the West:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“The West was warmer than average for much of 2014. Nine states had a top 10 warm year. Alaska, Arizona, California, and Nevada each had their warmest year on record. Most locations from the Rockies to the East Coast were cooler than average, with the exception of New England and Florida.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Consistent temperature records date back to 1894.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The warmer-than-usual weather had a wide array of effects on California. First and foremost, it \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/10/14/high-temps-intensified-california-drought/\">made an already withering drought even worse\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Indeed, temperature is one of the driving factors of drought,” says Jeff Mount, co-founder of the Center for Watershed Sciences at U.C. Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount says two-thirds of California’s precipitation is routinely lost to evaporation or transpiration, the water taken up by plants. When temperatures rise, evapo-transpiration rates rise, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just the process of evaporation alone out of the soils and then the associated transpiration that comes out of plants with the warmer temperatures, the increased length of the growing season — all of these are producing moisture deficits in the soil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exactly how much worse the drought was made by record warmth is harder to pin down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, a study by scientists at NOAA and Columbia University concluded that climate change was not a major cause of California’s current drought. It \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/12/08/californias-drought-is-it-global-warming/\">drew immediate fire\u003c/a> from other scientists for not taking record-high temperatures into account. The authors said they were looking at causal factors, not intensifying forces, but would be interested in doing additional analysis on the influence of temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='”100%”' height='”166″'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/185091766″&visual=true&”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false”'\n title='”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/185091766″'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mount says most striking have been the warm overnight lows, which stretched out the growing season and shriveled the Sierra snowpack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you get those warm temps at night, where its not freezing at night anymore, you start melting your snow very, very quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Likewise, warm weather can keep the snowpack from building up in the first place. December’s persistent storms brought water content of Sierra snows to \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/12/30/warm-temps-mean-less-snow-for-the-sierra/\">just about half\u003c/a> of the average for this time of year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down below, last year’s persistently high temperatures made the notoriously bad air quality even worse in places like the San Joaquin Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“2014 was one of our busiest years,” says A.M. Aminian, an allergist and respiratory specialist in Fresno, and chair of the Fresno-Madera Medical Society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This year we saw more people with asthma, respiratory problems, stuffy nose, and itching eyes, and also respiratory infections,” Aminian recalled. “We have been seeing more air pollution, the air was warmer, and it was very dry. That caused more particulate matter, dust in the air. Whenever there is heat and a lot of sunshine, the smog levels go up. This was one of the years we had more air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Higher temperatures also \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/parched-california-wildlife-suffers-in-drought/\">exacerbated conditions for wildlife\u003c/a> already suffering from the drought. Low flows in rivers and streams heated up that much more, presenting a challenge especially to anadromous fish, like salmon and steelhead, for which water temperatures much above 60 can be fatal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this compounding of drought conditions might seem hard to square with another statistic in NOAA’s review: that California had a near-average precipitation year in 2014, coming in just slightly drier than normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the nearly non-stop rain throughout December, the NOAA report concluded that “drought conditions improved across parts of Northern California” but, “Despite above-average precipitation in California, only modest drought improvements occurred due to long-term precipitation deficits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Central Valley Bureau Chief, \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/radio/about/staff/sasha-khokha.jsp\">Sasha Khokha\u003c/a>, contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Hot, Unfriendly Skies Could Alter Flights",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25978\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/plane-e1420656752266.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25978\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/plane-e1420656752266.jpg\" alt=\"(wingsnstuff/Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(wingsnstuff/Flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Brian Kahn\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know those tube socks your grandmother air mails you on your birthday every year? Well, they could become another casualty of global warming. Or at least arrive a few days late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot weather is likely to increase the number of days with weight restrictions on cargo planes and even airliners, delaying gifts, air travel and slicing into airlines’ bottom lines according to research presented at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Temperature is a big factor in airplane performance and also one of our most confident (future) climate projections,” \u003ca href=\"http://ethancoffel.com/\">Ethan Coffel\u003c/a>, a Ph.D. candidate at \u003ca href=\"http://www.columbia.edu/\">Columbia University\u003c/a> and lead author of \u003ca href=\"http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/WCAS-D-14-00026.1?af=R&\">the new findings\u003c/a>, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffel took a flyer on the research because of his aviation hobby and an interest in unearthing what he called the “hidden cost of climate change” found in the everyday things we take for granted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous research has looked at how transatlantic flights could encounter more turbulence in a warming world. Outside of that study, the impacts of climate change on air travel have been left largely unexplored. But it’s a topic ripe for exploration, in part because it could affect so many people.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘Temperature is a big factor in airplane performance and also one of our most confident (future) climate projections.’\u003ccite>— Ethan Coffel,Columbia University Scientist\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.iata.org/Pages/default.aspx\">International Air Transport Association\u003c/a>, 3.1 billion people took to the skies in 2013. And that doesn’t even count the business side of things. UPS, for example, ships an average of 2.3 million packages a day by air in the U.S. alone (turns out you aren’t the only one getting tube socks from granny).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot weather generally means the air is thinner, giving wings less of a lift. The easiest and safest way to work around that on a given day is taking a load off the plane; namely packages or people. Coffel said there’s already a noticeable trend in the number of weight-restricted days at airports in Denver, New York’s LaGuardia, Washington, D.C.’s Reagan, and to a lesser degree, Phoenix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those four airports form the core of Coffel’s study, which projected daytime highs from May-September — the time of year when the effects of warmer weather on air travel could be most pronounced — through 2070. Coffel also looked at takeoff restrictions for the the Boeing 737-800, one of the most common aircraft used in medium-range flights. According to the latest climate models, daytime highs could be up to 6°F higher at the four airports by 2070 if carbon emissions continue to rise at high levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rising temperatures translate to a large increase in the number of days when airplanes would have to reduce their weight by 15,000 lbs. — generally about 30 percent of their payload or 79 passengers — in order to take off at each of the airports, save for Phoenix. The percentage of weight-restricted days could rise by as much as 200 percent compared to today. Reagan could see nearly 80 days with major weight restrictions, the most of the four airports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffel said those airports have already seen an increase in weight restrictions since 1980, the year data goes back to, lending further credibility to future increases as temperatures rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are ways around this mile-high conundrum but none are ideal. Airports could extend runways, giving planes more room to get up to higher speeds and successful liftoffs. That would be a challenge in urban locations with limited room like LaGuardia and Reagan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another option would be to push flight schedules around so that more leave in the evening or early morning when temperatures are generally cooler. Planes could also be designed to accelerate faster on current runways or be built with larger wings to create more lift, though that might reduce fuel efficiency when flying at high altitudes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of their efficacy, all these solutions come with costs and would take many years to implement. Coffel said that although his study only looks at four airports, the findings apply to airports around the world and could have major implications for airlines and and tube sock senders alike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25978\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/plane-e1420656752266.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25978\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/plane-e1420656752266.jpg\" alt=\"(wingsnstuff/Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(wingsnstuff/Flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Brian Kahn\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know those tube socks your grandmother air mails you on your birthday every year? Well, they could become another casualty of global warming. Or at least arrive a few days late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot weather is likely to increase the number of days with weight restrictions on cargo planes and even airliners, delaying gifts, air travel and slicing into airlines’ bottom lines according to research presented at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Temperature is a big factor in airplane performance and also one of our most confident (future) climate projections,” \u003ca href=\"http://ethancoffel.com/\">Ethan Coffel\u003c/a>, a Ph.D. candidate at \u003ca href=\"http://www.columbia.edu/\">Columbia University\u003c/a> and lead author of \u003ca href=\"http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/WCAS-D-14-00026.1?af=R&\">the new findings\u003c/a>, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffel took a flyer on the research because of his aviation hobby and an interest in unearthing what he called the “hidden cost of climate change” found in the everyday things we take for granted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous research has looked at how transatlantic flights could encounter more turbulence in a warming world. Outside of that study, the impacts of climate change on air travel have been left largely unexplored. But it’s a topic ripe for exploration, in part because it could affect so many people.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘Temperature is a big factor in airplane performance and also one of our most confident (future) climate projections.’\u003ccite>— Ethan Coffel,Columbia University Scientist\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.iata.org/Pages/default.aspx\">International Air Transport Association\u003c/a>, 3.1 billion people took to the skies in 2013. And that doesn’t even count the business side of things. UPS, for example, ships an average of 2.3 million packages a day by air in the U.S. alone (turns out you aren’t the only one getting tube socks from granny).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot weather generally means the air is thinner, giving wings less of a lift. The easiest and safest way to work around that on a given day is taking a load off the plane; namely packages or people. Coffel said there’s already a noticeable trend in the number of weight-restricted days at airports in Denver, New York’s LaGuardia, Washington, D.C.’s Reagan, and to a lesser degree, Phoenix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those four airports form the core of Coffel’s study, which projected daytime highs from May-September — the time of year when the effects of warmer weather on air travel could be most pronounced — through 2070. Coffel also looked at takeoff restrictions for the the Boeing 737-800, one of the most common aircraft used in medium-range flights. According to the latest climate models, daytime highs could be up to 6°F higher at the four airports by 2070 if carbon emissions continue to rise at high levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rising temperatures translate to a large increase in the number of days when airplanes would have to reduce their weight by 15,000 lbs. — generally about 30 percent of their payload or 79 passengers — in order to take off at each of the airports, save for Phoenix. The percentage of weight-restricted days could rise by as much as 200 percent compared to today. Reagan could see nearly 80 days with major weight restrictions, the most of the four airports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coffel said those airports have already seen an increase in weight restrictions since 1980, the year data goes back to, lending further credibility to future increases as temperatures rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are ways around this mile-high conundrum but none are ideal. Airports could extend runways, giving planes more room to get up to higher speeds and successful liftoffs. That would be a challenge in urban locations with limited room like LaGuardia and Reagan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another option would be to push flight schedules around so that more leave in the evening or early morning when temperatures are generally cooler. Planes could also be designed to accelerate faster on current runways or be built with larger wings to create more lift, though that might reduce fuel efficiency when flying at high altitudes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of their efficacy, all these solutions come with costs and would take many years to implement. Coffel said that although his study only looks at four airports, the findings apply to airports around the world and could have major implications for airlines and and tube sock senders alike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> \u003cem>is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]California sea otters (\u003cem>Enhydra lutris\u003c/em>) — the frolicking mascots of the coast who draw visitors to aquariums in droves and who float among the kelp beds just beyond the surf line — have the densest fur of any mammal on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With up to a million hairs per inch, the super-soft coats were once such a lure for hunters that they nearly led to the otters’ demise in the early 1900s. But now, the federally protected species is free to use its luxurious fur for one key purpose: to keep warm in the often chilly Pacific Ocean, particularly during winter months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They live in cold water, and it’s too cold for them,” says Heather Liwanag, a biologist who studied otter fur as part of her Ph.D. research at \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucsc.edu/\">U.C. Santa Cruz\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘If an otter were to use blubber to stay warm the amount of blubber it would need would be bigger than the otter.’\u003ccite>— Heather Liwanag,\u003cbr>\nAdelphi University Biologist \u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Everywhere in the otter’s geographic range, she says, is outside their “thermal neutral zone.” This zone is the range of temperatures in which a mammal can live without expending energy to maintain its internal body temperature. So how do they do it? The same way you or I would—with a nice warm blanket. But theirs is a blanket of air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re using fur for insulation, but it’s not really the fur that’s insulating them,” says Liwanag, now an assistant professor of biology at \u003ca href=\"http://www.adelphi.edu/\">Adelphi University\u003c/a> in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The true insulating power comes from a layer of air the fur keeps trapped next to their skin. Otter fur has two special properties that make it especially good at creating an insulating layer of air: It’s dense, and it’s spiky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25925\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Sea-otter-guard-hair.jpeg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25925\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Sea-otter-guard-hair.jpeg\" alt=\"Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UCB)\" width=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scanning electron microscope image of a sea otter guard hair. The barbed scales allow sea otter fur to form a nearly waterproof layer to protect the otter from the frigid ocean (Heather Liwanag/Adelphi University)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25924\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Human-Hair-SEM.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25924\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Human-Hair-SEM.jpg\" alt=\"Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UC Berkeley)\" width=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UC Berkeley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Otters fur is about 1,000 times more dense than human hair. But it wouldn’t do them any good if it were smooth and perfectly combed. Otters want their hair as tangled as possible, so that the air bubbles they blow into their pelts can’t get out. This is where the spiky aspect comes in handy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Otter pelts feel smooth and soft to us, but if you look at otter hair with a microscope you can see that it’s covered in tiny, geometric barbs. The barbs help the hair mat together so tightly that the fur near the otter’s body is almost completely dry. And keeping the animals dry is key to keeping them warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some disadvantages to the otter’s heating system. Because it relies on the trapped air, otters can’t dive too deep because high pressure forces the bubbles out. Also, the air makes them so buoyant they have to work hard to swim down. They sometimes even need to grab a rock or piece of kelp to help stay submerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/imageslider/deeplook-otter-slider.html\" width=\"360px\" height=\"300px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003csmall>\u003cem>Oil disrupts the sea otter fur’s ability to trap insulating air.The oiled section\u003cbr>\nshows bright red where the otter’s body heat is exposed. (California Department\u003cbr>\nof Fish and Wildlife)\u003c/em>\u003c/small>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their unique use of air bubbles to stay insulated and warm is what makes oil spills so dangerous to otters. Oil can mat down otter fur and keep it from holding air. Without the insulation the otter is left unprotected from the frigid ocean water. It doesn’t take long for oiled otters to succumb to hypothermia and drown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many other marine mammals, including whales and sea lions, stay warm a different way — with layers of blubber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liwanag, in her thesis research that was published in 2012, compared the insulating powers of fur and blubber under different conditions. She wanted to learn more about how different species of mammals adapted to the marine environment to stay warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Going in to this thesis, I fully expected blubber to be the better insulator,” she says, “because we see it arise multiple times, across different lineages.” But that wasn’t the case, and it turned out that fur—or really, air—is warmer, at least at shallow depths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If an otter were to use blubber to stay warm,” Liwanag says, “the amount of blubber it would need would be bigger than the otter.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California sea otters (\u003cem>Enhydra lutris\u003c/em>) — the frolicking mascots of the coast who draw visitors to aquariums in droves and who float among the kelp beds just beyond the surf line — have the densest fur of any mammal on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With up to a million hairs per inch, the super-soft coats were once such a lure for hunters that they nearly led to the otters’ demise in the early 1900s. But now, the federally protected species is free to use its luxurious fur for one key purpose: to keep warm in the often chilly Pacific Ocean, particularly during winter months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They live in cold water, and it’s too cold for them,” says Heather Liwanag, a biologist who studied otter fur as part of her Ph.D. research at \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucsc.edu/\">U.C. Santa Cruz\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘If an otter were to use blubber to stay warm the amount of blubber it would need would be bigger than the otter.’\u003ccite>— Heather Liwanag,\u003cbr>\nAdelphi University Biologist \u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Everywhere in the otter’s geographic range, she says, is outside their “thermal neutral zone.” This zone is the range of temperatures in which a mammal can live without expending energy to maintain its internal body temperature. So how do they do it? The same way you or I would—with a nice warm blanket. But theirs is a blanket of air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re using fur for insulation, but it’s not really the fur that’s insulating them,” says Liwanag, now an assistant professor of biology at \u003ca href=\"http://www.adelphi.edu/\">Adelphi University\u003c/a> in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The true insulating power comes from a layer of air the fur keeps trapped next to their skin. Otter fur has two special properties that make it especially good at creating an insulating layer of air: It’s dense, and it’s spiky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25925\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Sea-otter-guard-hair.jpeg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25925\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Sea-otter-guard-hair.jpeg\" alt=\"Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UCB)\" width=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scanning electron microscope image of a sea otter guard hair. The barbed scales allow sea otter fur to form a nearly waterproof layer to protect the otter from the frigid ocean (Heather Liwanag/Adelphi University)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25924\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Human-Hair-SEM.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25924\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Human-Hair-SEM.jpg\" alt=\"Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UC Berkeley)\" width=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UC Berkeley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Otters fur is about 1,000 times more dense than human hair. But it wouldn’t do them any good if it were smooth and perfectly combed. Otters want their hair as tangled as possible, so that the air bubbles they blow into their pelts can’t get out. This is where the spiky aspect comes in handy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Otter pelts feel smooth and soft to us, but if you look at otter hair with a microscope you can see that it’s covered in tiny, geometric barbs. The barbs help the hair mat together so tightly that the fur near the otter’s body is almost completely dry. And keeping the animals dry is key to keeping them warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some disadvantages to the otter’s heating system. Because it relies on the trapped air, otters can’t dive too deep because high pressure forces the bubbles out. Also, the air makes them so buoyant they have to work hard to swim down. They sometimes even need to grab a rock or piece of kelp to help stay submerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/imageslider/deeplook-otter-slider.html\" width=\"360px\" height=\"300px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003csmall>\u003cem>Oil disrupts the sea otter fur’s ability to trap insulating air.The oiled section\u003cbr>\nshows bright red where the otter’s body heat is exposed. (California Department\u003cbr>\nof Fish and Wildlife)\u003c/em>\u003c/small>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their unique use of air bubbles to stay insulated and warm is what makes oil spills so dangerous to otters. Oil can mat down otter fur and keep it from holding air. Without the insulation the otter is left unprotected from the frigid ocean water. It doesn’t take long for oiled otters to succumb to hypothermia and drown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many other marine mammals, including whales and sea lions, stay warm a different way — with layers of blubber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liwanag, in her thesis research that was published in 2012, compared the insulating powers of fur and blubber under different conditions. She wanted to learn more about how different species of mammals adapted to the marine environment to stay warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Going in to this thesis, I fully expected blubber to be the better insulator,” she says, “because we see it arise multiple times, across different lineages.” But that wasn’t the case, and it turned out that fur—or really, air—is warmer, at least at shallow depths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If an otter were to use blubber to stay warm,” Liwanag says, “the amount of blubber it would need would be bigger than the otter.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25865\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 860px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/RS13894_IMG_2969-Edit-qut-e1420492587204-1024x576.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-25865\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/RS13894_IMG_2969-Edit-qut-e1420492587204-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"During his inaugural address, Gov. Jerry Brown set new goals for California's renewable energy standards that are the most ambitious in the country. (Andrew Nixon/Capital Public Radio)\" width=\"860\" height=\"484\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Jerry Brown spoke to a joint session of the Legislature in Sacramento during his inaugural address on Monday.\u003cbr>(Andrew Nixon/Capital Public Radio)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During his fourth\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/01/05/an-annotated-guide-to-jerry-browns-state-of-the-state-address\"> inaugural address\u003c/a> in Sacramento Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown focused heavily on energy efficiency, calling for further cuts in consumption as a way to combat global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Taking significant amounts of carbon out of our economy without harming its vibrancy,” Brown said, “is exactly the sort of challenge at which California excels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘This is exciting, it is bold and it is absolutely necessary.’\u003ccite>— Gov. Jerry Brown\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The governor recommended three items including increasing renewable energy production, decreasing petroleum use and making buildings and heating fuels more efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is exciting,” Brown said, “it is bold and it is absolutely necessary if we are to have any chance of stopping potentially catastrophic changes to our climate system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s landmark greenhouse gas emissions bills mandated that 33 percent of the state’s energy must come from renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower by 2020. During his speech, Brown upped that goal to 50 percent by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.ca.gov/renewables/tracking_progress/documents/renewable.pdf\">about 20 percent \u003c/a>of California’s energy comes from renewables, and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.ca.gov/renewables/tracking_progress/documents/renewable.pdf\">latest report\u003c/a> from the California Energy Commission says that number should reach 25 percent by 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is already 40 percent more energy-efficient than the rest of the nation, thanks to the work that, interestingly, Governor\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Brown started when he was governor the first time,” said \u003ca href=\"http://seventhgenerationadvisors.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4:terry-tamminen&catid=2&Itemid=4\">Terry Tamminen\u003c/a>, former Secretary of California’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.calepa.ca.gov/\">Environmental Protection Agency\u003c/a>. “I think with the very rapid expansion of wind, solar and storage — which makes it possible to store intermittent resources like wind and solar — that it will be relatively easy to get there by his 2030 deadline.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the suggestions Brown offered to meet his aggressive goals: distributed power, expanded rooftop solar, micro-grids, an energy imbalance market, battery storage, and millions of electric and low-carbon vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He acknowledged the goals would be costly but are necessary since current measures alone “are not enough\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge is to build for the future, not steal from it,” Brown said, “to live within our means and to keep California ever golden and creative.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25865\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 860px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/RS13894_IMG_2969-Edit-qut-e1420492587204-1024x576.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-25865\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/RS13894_IMG_2969-Edit-qut-e1420492587204-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"During his inaugural address, Gov. Jerry Brown set new goals for California's renewable energy standards that are the most ambitious in the country. (Andrew Nixon/Capital Public Radio)\" width=\"860\" height=\"484\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Jerry Brown spoke to a joint session of the Legislature in Sacramento during his inaugural address on Monday.\u003cbr>(Andrew Nixon/Capital Public Radio)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During his fourth\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/01/05/an-annotated-guide-to-jerry-browns-state-of-the-state-address\"> inaugural address\u003c/a> in Sacramento Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown focused heavily on energy efficiency, calling for further cuts in consumption as a way to combat global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Taking significant amounts of carbon out of our economy without harming its vibrancy,” Brown said, “is exactly the sort of challenge at which California excels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘This is exciting, it is bold and it is absolutely necessary.’\u003ccite>— Gov. Jerry Brown\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The governor recommended three items including increasing renewable energy production, decreasing petroleum use and making buildings and heating fuels more efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is exciting,” Brown said, “it is bold and it is absolutely necessary if we are to have any chance of stopping potentially catastrophic changes to our climate system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s landmark greenhouse gas emissions bills mandated that 33 percent of the state’s energy must come from renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower by 2020. During his speech, Brown upped that goal to 50 percent by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.ca.gov/renewables/tracking_progress/documents/renewable.pdf\">about 20 percent \u003c/a>of California’s energy comes from renewables, and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.ca.gov/renewables/tracking_progress/documents/renewable.pdf\">latest report\u003c/a> from the California Energy Commission says that number should reach 25 percent by 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is already 40 percent more energy-efficient than the rest of the nation, thanks to the work that, interestingly, Governor\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Brown started when he was governor the first time,” said \u003ca href=\"http://seventhgenerationadvisors.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4:terry-tamminen&catid=2&Itemid=4\">Terry Tamminen\u003c/a>, former Secretary of California’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.calepa.ca.gov/\">Environmental Protection Agency\u003c/a>. “I think with the very rapid expansion of wind, solar and storage — which makes it possible to store intermittent resources like wind and solar — that it will be relatively easy to get there by his 2030 deadline.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the suggestions Brown offered to meet his aggressive goals: distributed power, expanded rooftop solar, micro-grids, an energy imbalance market, battery storage, and millions of electric and low-carbon vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He acknowledged the goals would be costly but are necessary since current measures alone “are not enough\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge is to build for the future, not steal from it,” Brown said, “to live within our means and to keep California ever golden and creative.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Creation of Huge National Monument Rests With White House",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/12/20150105science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25774\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Berryessa-Snow-Mountain_feature-image-e1420068956267.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25774 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Berryessa-Snow-Mountain_feature-image-e1420068956267.jpg\" alt=\"Berryessa Snow Mountain_feature image\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hikers traverse Snow Mountain during a summer trip led by the conservation group Tuleyome. (Charlotte Orr/Tuleyome)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It could become California’s largest national monument — or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The future of about 350,000 acres of federal lands north of the Bay Area likely now rests in the hands of President Obama and his Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"Tuleyome - Berryessa\" href=\"http://berryessasnowmountain.org/\">Proponents of special protections\u003c/a> for the huge, biologically diverse tract of land have changed their strategy. For years they’ve been pushing Congress to create a national conservation area that includes a \u003ca title=\"Berryessa NCA map\" href=\"http://berryessasnowmountain.org/pdf/NCAMap%2003.05.2013.pdf\">mishmash of federal lands\u003c/a> stretching from Lake Berryessa, 100 miles north to Snow Mountain in the Mendocino National Forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as bills from Democrats Mike Thompson and Barbara Boxer have languished in the House and Senate, respectively, the call has gone out for President Obama to use his executive power and designate the lands instead as a national monument. That status would create similar protections from development. It could also become the largest national monument in California, rivaling the \u003ca title=\"KPCC - San Gabriel NM\" href=\"http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/10/23/47606/usfs-releases-detailed-map-of-san-gabriel-national/\">newly created San Gabriel Mountains National Monument\u003c/a> in area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For guidance on the matter, Obama will look to Jewell, who was in the region lately attending town meetings and even slogging across creeks to get a sense of the landscape and the \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/another-try-for-californias-second-national-conservation-area/\">range of opinions\u003c/a> surrounding its future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26112\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 289px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/NCAMap-01-08-2015-693x1024.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26112\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/NCAMap-01-08-2015-693x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"289\" height=\"427\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click to enlarge. (David Pierce/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’m not prepared to make a recommendation,” Jewell told me following a recent public meeting in Napa. “I’ve just been absorbing the information here.” Jewell admits that there’s “a lot of complexity here — different landowners, a man-made lake, there’s a lot of factors that need to be taken into account.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “man-made lake” to which she refers is Berryessa, created in the 1950s with the construction of Monticello Dam, near the town of Winters. Local opponents to the designation say the lake, while picturesque, doesn’t merit special protections. They fear that national monument status would curtail activities like hunting and motorized watercraft on the lake. Thompson has repeatedly assured them that it would not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, the specific restrictions put in place for national monuments and conservation areas depend on how the management plan is eventually written by federal land managers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thompson said by his own count of comment cards at the Napa town meeting, sentiment was running about 80/20 in favor of a national monument or national conservation area. The state of California (via its Natural Resources Agency) has joined area legislators and conservationists in calling on the president to use his pen to put protections in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jewell says her preference is still to protect the area by legislation, but “in a number of instances the president has used his executive authority because Congress has failed to act, not because they have disagreed, they just have failed to act, and that is the case here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t care how we get it done,” added Thompson in a separate interview, “just so we protect it.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25774\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Berryessa-Snow-Mountain_feature-image-e1420068956267.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25774 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Berryessa-Snow-Mountain_feature-image-e1420068956267.jpg\" alt=\"Berryessa Snow Mountain_feature image\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hikers traverse Snow Mountain during a summer trip led by the conservation group Tuleyome. (Charlotte Orr/Tuleyome)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It could become California’s largest national monument — or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The future of about 350,000 acres of federal lands north of the Bay Area likely now rests in the hands of President Obama and his Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"Tuleyome - Berryessa\" href=\"http://berryessasnowmountain.org/\">Proponents of special protections\u003c/a> for the huge, biologically diverse tract of land have changed their strategy. For years they’ve been pushing Congress to create a national conservation area that includes a \u003ca title=\"Berryessa NCA map\" href=\"http://berryessasnowmountain.org/pdf/NCAMap%2003.05.2013.pdf\">mishmash of federal lands\u003c/a> stretching from Lake Berryessa, 100 miles north to Snow Mountain in the Mendocino National Forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as bills from Democrats Mike Thompson and Barbara Boxer have languished in the House and Senate, respectively, the call has gone out for President Obama to use his executive power and designate the lands instead as a national monument. That status would create similar protections from development. It could also become the largest national monument in California, rivaling the \u003ca title=\"KPCC - San Gabriel NM\" href=\"http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/10/23/47606/usfs-releases-detailed-map-of-san-gabriel-national/\">newly created San Gabriel Mountains National Monument\u003c/a> in area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For guidance on the matter, Obama will look to Jewell, who was in the region lately attending town meetings and even slogging across creeks to get a sense of the landscape and the \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/another-try-for-californias-second-national-conservation-area/\">range of opinions\u003c/a> surrounding its future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26112\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 289px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/NCAMap-01-08-2015-693x1024.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26112\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/NCAMap-01-08-2015-693x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"289\" height=\"427\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click to enlarge. (David Pierce/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I’m not prepared to make a recommendation,” Jewell told me following a recent public meeting in Napa. “I’ve just been absorbing the information here.” Jewell admits that there’s “a lot of complexity here — different landowners, a man-made lake, there’s a lot of factors that need to be taken into account.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “man-made lake” to which she refers is Berryessa, created in the 1950s with the construction of Monticello Dam, near the town of Winters. Local opponents to the designation say the lake, while picturesque, doesn’t merit special protections. They fear that national monument status would curtail activities like hunting and motorized watercraft on the lake. Thompson has repeatedly assured them that it would not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, the specific restrictions put in place for national monuments and conservation areas depend on how the management plan is eventually written by federal land managers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thompson said by his own count of comment cards at the Napa town meeting, sentiment was running about 80/20 in favor of a national monument or national conservation area. The state of California (via its Natural Resources Agency) has joined area legislators and conservationists in calling on the president to use his pen to put protections in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jewell says her preference is still to protect the area by legislation, but “in a number of instances the president has used his executive authority because Congress has failed to act, not because they have disagreed, they just have failed to act, and that is the case here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t care how we get it done,” added Thompson in a separate interview, “just so we protect it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Interior Secretary: Local Fracking Bans Are 'Wrong Way To Go'",
"headTitle": "Interior Secretary: Local Fracking Bans Are ‘Wrong Way To Go’ | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25788\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Fracking-feature-e1420074728976-1024x576.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25788 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Fracking-feature-e1420074728976-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Fracking feature\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pumpjacks draw crude oil from wells on Signal Hill in Long Beach. (David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>President Obama’s chief custodian of federal lands says local and regional bans on fracking are taking regulation of oil and gas recovery in the wrong direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say that is the wrong way to go,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told KQED in an exclusive interview. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for industry to figure out what the rules are if different counties have different rules.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, two California counties added themselves to a growing list of \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/05/new-california-county-fracking-bans-likely-to-face-challenges/\">local bans on hydraulic fracturing\u003c/a>. Voters approved measures in San Benito and Mendocino Counties by wide margins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of fears out there in the general public and that manifests itself with local laws or regional laws,” Jewell said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca title=\"Nat Geo - post\" href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/12/141218-fracking-ban-new-york-states-oil-gas-drilling-energy-news/\">recent move by New York\u003c/a> to extend a statewide ban does not sit especially well with Jewell, who, as a former petroleum engineer, has hands-on experience with fracking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a lot of misinformation about fracking,” Jewell said. “I think that localized efforts or statewide efforts in many cases don’t understand the science behind it and I think there needs to be more science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘I think that localized efforts or statewide efforts in many cases don’t understand the science.’\u003ccite>— Sally Jewell,\u003cbr>\nU.S. Secretary of the Interior\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“These are very troubling comments,” said Kassie Siegel, who directs the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In essence Secretary Jewell seems to be saying that communities around the country, the governor and public health commissioner of New York, and the over 600,000 people who wrote to the Interior Department urging her to adopt a ban on fracking, don’t understand the science and are just acting out of an irrational fear of fracking,” Siegel said. “It’s insulting, and quite simply wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siegel said “numerous studies” have established the health dangers posed by common oilfield chemicals, and noted that “the oil and gas fields on federal land under her jurisdiction are among the biggest sources of methane and ozone pollution in the United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jewell said she’s counting on government scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies to “really help us understand what is happening on the landscapes with hydraulic fracturing and also deep water injections, induced seismicity, those kinds of things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oil and gas companies use fracking, or \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - Fracking\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/fracking-california/\">hydraulic fracturing\u003c/a> methods to get at reserves that were previously too costly to pursue. Chemical slurries forced into underground rock fissures at high pressure create channels for crude oil and natural gas to flow to surface wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we need is sound science that is driving our decision-making,” Jewell said, “and as a regulator that is exactly what we’re relying on as we are looking at releasing our own fracking regulations, which are out for public comment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a public meeting in Napa in December, Jewell told KQED that the public is speaking. “They are concerned about this and they want to make sure any kind of oil and gas activity is done safely and responsibly in terms of their water supply and in terms of their communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And where does that responsibility lie?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is an industry responsibility,” Jewell said. “I’ve made it very clear to industry that it’s not my job to defend their practices; it’s their job to both ensure their practices are safe and then communicate with communities that their practices are safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is not surprising that with state and federal officials in denial,” Siegel said, “Californians are taking action at the local level to protect themselves from all the perils of oil and gas drilling, and this is a trend that will continue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Certainly there are more local measures in the works. The Los Angeles city attorney is drafting a moratorium for consideration by the city council, and officials in Monterey County are also considering placing a fracking ban on the ballot in 2015.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25788\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Fracking-feature-e1420074728976-1024x576.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25788 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Fracking-feature-e1420074728976-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Fracking feature\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pumpjacks draw crude oil from wells on Signal Hill in Long Beach. (David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>President Obama’s chief custodian of federal lands says local and regional bans on fracking are taking regulation of oil and gas recovery in the wrong direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say that is the wrong way to go,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told KQED in an exclusive interview. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for industry to figure out what the rules are if different counties have different rules.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, two California counties added themselves to a growing list of \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/05/new-california-county-fracking-bans-likely-to-face-challenges/\">local bans on hydraulic fracturing\u003c/a>. Voters approved measures in San Benito and Mendocino Counties by wide margins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of fears out there in the general public and that manifests itself with local laws or regional laws,” Jewell said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca title=\"Nat Geo - post\" href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/12/141218-fracking-ban-new-york-states-oil-gas-drilling-energy-news/\">recent move by New York\u003c/a> to extend a statewide ban does not sit especially well with Jewell, who, as a former petroleum engineer, has hands-on experience with fracking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a lot of misinformation about fracking,” Jewell said. “I think that localized efforts or statewide efforts in many cases don’t understand the science behind it and I think there needs to be more science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘I think that localized efforts or statewide efforts in many cases don’t understand the science.’\u003ccite>— Sally Jewell,\u003cbr>\nU.S. Secretary of the Interior\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“These are very troubling comments,” said Kassie Siegel, who directs the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In essence Secretary Jewell seems to be saying that communities around the country, the governor and public health commissioner of New York, and the over 600,000 people who wrote to the Interior Department urging her to adopt a ban on fracking, don’t understand the science and are just acting out of an irrational fear of fracking,” Siegel said. “It’s insulting, and quite simply wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siegel said “numerous studies” have established the health dangers posed by common oilfield chemicals, and noted that “the oil and gas fields on federal land under her jurisdiction are among the biggest sources of methane and ozone pollution in the United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jewell said she’s counting on government scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies to “really help us understand what is happening on the landscapes with hydraulic fracturing and also deep water injections, induced seismicity, those kinds of things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oil and gas companies use fracking, or \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - Fracking\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/fracking-california/\">hydraulic fracturing\u003c/a> methods to get at reserves that were previously too costly to pursue. Chemical slurries forced into underground rock fissures at high pressure create channels for crude oil and natural gas to flow to surface wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we need is sound science that is driving our decision-making,” Jewell said, “and as a regulator that is exactly what we’re relying on as we are looking at releasing our own fracking regulations, which are out for public comment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a public meeting in Napa in December, Jewell told KQED that the public is speaking. “They are concerned about this and they want to make sure any kind of oil and gas activity is done safely and responsibly in terms of their water supply and in terms of their communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And where does that responsibility lie?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is an industry responsibility,” Jewell said. “I’ve made it very clear to industry that it’s not my job to defend their practices; it’s their job to both ensure their practices are safe and then communicate with communities that their practices are safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is not surprising that with state and federal officials in denial,” Siegel said, “Californians are taking action at the local level to protect themselves from all the perils of oil and gas drilling, and this is a trend that will continue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Certainly there are more local measures in the works. The Los Angeles city attorney is drafting a moratorium for consideration by the city council, and officials in Monterey County are also considering placing a fracking ban on the ballot in 2015.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Warm Temps Mean Less Snow for the Sierra",
"headTitle": "Warm Temps Mean Less Snow for the Sierra | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25729\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Sierra-Nevada-snowpack-e1419916145918.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25729 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Sierra-Nevada-snowpack-e1419916145918.jpg\" alt=\"Sierra Nevada snowpack\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 2011, lower elevations in the Sierra Nevada sported a healthy snow cover. (Comrogues/flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 1:30 p.m. Tuesday (Dec. 30): \u003c/strong>Today, officials announced this winter’s first manual snow survey, which shows snowpack in the Sierra is 50 percent of what is average for this time of year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>December’s storms boosted water levels in state reservoirs, but unusually warm temperatures meant rain instead of snow for parts of the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still have a long ways to go,” says Roger Bales, Director of \u003ca href=\"http://snri.ucmerced.edu/\">U.C. Merced’s Sierra Nevada Research Institute\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need three to four more good storms in order for the snowpack to get up to average or above average levels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25715\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 264px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/field-station-682x1024.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-25715\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/field-station-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"A solar-powered tower managed by Roger Bales and his research team measures trees' water uptake in the Sierra Nevada. (Roger Wynan)\" width=\"264\" height=\"397\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A solar-powered tower managed by Roger Bales and his research team measures trees’ water uptake in the Sierra Nevada. (Roger Wynan)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State water officials have estimated that California would need more than 150 percent of “normal” winter precipitation to substantially reverse the drought, now in its fourth year. Snow in the Sierra Nevada provides about a third of the water that the state relies on for drinking, business and agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instruments that measure water content of the snowpack show that statewide, it’s at 51 percent of normal for late December. Most of the snow accumulates in January through March before it all starts to melt in April, says Bales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Historically the Sierra snowpack comes in four to six big storms each year and so far we’ve really only had one big storm this year,” he explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bales says those storms need to be cold so they produce snow instead of rain. This year will almost certainly go down as California’s warmest on record, making it harder for snow to stick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Two things happen when you have warmer, drier weather after the first snowfall,” says Bales. “First, some of it melts and second, some of that water gets used for growing plants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bales and his research group use ground-based measurement systems and satellite data to study water cycles in the Sierra Nevada’s forests, meadows and streams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, more of his weather stations are surrounded by water instead of snow, meaning the team must rely on fewer data points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the climate warms and snow is only at higher elevations, there’s more uncertainty, which will become more common as the climate changes.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25729\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Sierra-Nevada-snowpack-e1419916145918.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25729 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Sierra-Nevada-snowpack-e1419916145918.jpg\" alt=\"Sierra Nevada snowpack\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 2011, lower elevations in the Sierra Nevada sported a healthy snow cover. (Comrogues/flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 1:30 p.m. Tuesday (Dec. 30): \u003c/strong>Today, officials announced this winter’s first manual snow survey, which shows snowpack in the Sierra is 50 percent of what is average for this time of year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>December’s storms boosted water levels in state reservoirs, but unusually warm temperatures meant rain instead of snow for parts of the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still have a long ways to go,” says Roger Bales, Director of \u003ca href=\"http://snri.ucmerced.edu/\">U.C. Merced’s Sierra Nevada Research Institute\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need three to four more good storms in order for the snowpack to get up to average or above average levels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25715\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 264px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/field-station-682x1024.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-25715\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/field-station-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"A solar-powered tower managed by Roger Bales and his research team measures trees' water uptake in the Sierra Nevada. (Roger Wynan)\" width=\"264\" height=\"397\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A solar-powered tower managed by Roger Bales and his research team measures trees’ water uptake in the Sierra Nevada. (Roger Wynan)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State water officials have estimated that California would need more than 150 percent of “normal” winter precipitation to substantially reverse the drought, now in its fourth year. Snow in the Sierra Nevada provides about a third of the water that the state relies on for drinking, business and agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instruments that measure water content of the snowpack show that statewide, it’s at 51 percent of normal for late December. Most of the snow accumulates in January through March before it all starts to melt in April, says Bales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Historically the Sierra snowpack comes in four to six big storms each year and so far we’ve really only had one big storm this year,” he explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bales says those storms need to be cold so they produce snow instead of rain. This year will almost certainly go down as California’s warmest on record, making it harder for snow to stick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Two things happen when you have warmer, drier weather after the first snowfall,” says Bales. “First, some of it melts and second, some of that water gets used for growing plants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bales and his research group use ground-based measurement systems and satellite data to study water cycles in the Sierra Nevada’s forests, meadows and streams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, more of his weather stations are surrounded by water instead of snow, meaning the team must rely on fewer data points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As the climate warms and snow is only at higher elevations, there’s more uncertainty, which will become more common as the climate changes.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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