Photograph by: Enric Sala, National Geographic
December 17, 2020
Yesterday President-elect Joe Biden announced key nominations and appointments of his climate team:
Congresswoman Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior
Governor Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy
Michael Regan, EPA Administrator
Brenda Mallory, Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality
Administrator Gina McCarthy, National Climate Advisor
Ali Zaidi, Deputy National Climate Advisor
A team that AP described as “dealmakers and fighters.”
December 8, 2020
President-elect Joe Biden wants to conserve 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030. It's part of a global push to avoid the worst effects of climate change and the decline of the natural world.
October 23, 2020
On October 7, California Governor Gavin Newsom took the bold step of committing the state to a goal of protecting 30 percent of California’s land and coastal waters by 2030.
The move makes a lot of sense for California. It is a global biodiversity hotspot because of its unique plant diversity, and harbors rich and productive marine ecosystems. But this bounty is threatened by the confluence of the climate crisis, overexploitation and development. Its latest manifestation has been the apocalyptic fires that have burned more than four million acres.
California has very old trees, including the giant sequoias that are over 3,000 years old. There’s been a lot of fires in those 3,000 years, but the ancient forests survived, because fire was part of the ecology of the system. But the forests could not survive the human assault. Logging these natural treasures started a chain of events that led to the present fires, exacerbated by the heat waves caused by global warming.
The solution to the current crisis is protecting the wild, and restoring and rewilding degraded lands and coasts, in partnership with Indigenous Peoples. A commitment to 30 percent by 2030 — ‘30x30’ — is a great way to start.
October 22, 2020
A US senator has introduced a proposal to conserve 30% of the country’s lands and seas in the next 10 years, amid a surge of similar proposals.
The initiative, brought by the New Mexico senator Tom Udall last week, is called the “30 by 30” plan. In the US, 12% of land area is protected, according to Udall, mostly in Alaska and the west. If passed, the resolution would align the United States with international goals to protect and preserve nearly a third of the world’s land and water by 2030.
“The United States faces a conservation and climate crisis, with nature in a steep decline and greenhouse gas emissions not declining at the rate scientists say is needed,” according to the proposal. “Nature, like the climate, is nearing a tipping point.”
