The Earth; It's the only one we have
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 27 November 2023; doi:10.1038/s41558-023-01867-2
The authors incorporate terrestrial biosphere models with ecological optimality theory, remote sensing and global carbon budget estimates to constrain the historical effects of CO2 on photosynthesis. They show that CO2 fertilization likely increased global photosynthesis by 13.5% between 1981 and 2020.
Nature Climate Change…
Just over a year ago, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law. The culmination of years of work, the IRA invested nearly $ 20 billion in climate-friendly agriculture practices. As an organization that represents small and midsized-farmers across the nation, it is difficult to overstate the transformative potential of this funding to support all farmers in building vibrant and productive farms that can contribute to a climate-resilient future.
A year later, however, as Congress stares down the 2023 Farm Bill reauthorization, the future of this historic climate-focused funding is uncertain. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has been rolling out IRA’s fiscal year (FY) 2023 funding to farmers and ranchers across the country, some in Congress have begun to consider using the upcoming farm bill reauthorization as an opportunity to …
A state judge in Montana gave climate activists a decisive win on Monday when she ruled that the state’s support of fossil fuels violates their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.
District Court Judge Kathy Seeley struck down as unconstitutional a state policy barring consideration of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in fossil fuel permitting. Her ruling establishes legal protection against broad harms caused by climate change and enshrines a state right to a world free from those harms, creating a potential foundation for future lawsuits across the country.
“We are heard!” Kian Tanner, one of the 16 youth plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement. He grew up near the Flathead River and testified to watching wildfires come ever closer to his home each year. “Frankly the elation and joy in my heart is overwhelming …
The Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 on Sunday, a $ 433 billion climate, energy, health, and tax bill that will set the United States on course to reduce its cumulative emissions roughly 40 percent, compared to 2005 levels, by 2030. Fifty Democratic senators voted for the bill, including centrists Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, from Arizona. Republican senators unilaterally opposed the legislation. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said that the bill “makes the largest investment ever in combating the existential crisis of climate change.”
The Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, came out of left field. Democratic leadership had been gunning to pass a climate bill since President Joe Biden’s very first months in office last year. But they immediately ran into roadblocks that seemed insurmountable. …