Drought Talks Dry Up

Democratic members of Congress urged the administration to assure that climate funds were paid out. The Hill reports that in a memo which became public, the White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, said the administration has awarded 98 percent of the funds it could legally spend and that President Biden directed his administration to obligate as much money as possible by the end of his term.

In addition to spending funds, the administration was issuing new regulations, including taking steps to ban cancer-causing chemicals commonly used in dry cleaning processes that can get into water and soils, and blocking new mining in the Pecos Watershed in New Mexico.  

On Friday, December 13, it was reported that the Environmental Protection Agency would permit California to establish stronger emission rules for cars and SUVs with the goal of banning new gasoline-powered car sales by 2035. Eleven other states follow California’s restrictions, which together comprise about 40 percent of U.S. vehicle sales. It is likely that the incoming administration will attempt to stop the move but could face significant legal hurdles in doing so.

In other actions, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened species, which begins a lengthy comment period. The Department of the Interior said that more than $65 million will be invested to continue funding Indian water rights claims through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, supporting major projects in the West to secure reliable supplies for Tribes. On Thursday, December 12, the EPA said that it had selected 105 applicants to receive about $1.6 billion in grants to disburse aid to marginalized neighborhoods affected by pollution.

Representatives of nearly 200 countries were unable to agree on solutions at biennial talks organized by the UN to create requirements to combat desertification and droughts, particularly in Africa where people are impacted most. A report released last week from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) concludes that the drying out and degradation of Earth is an existential crisis that might affect five billion people by 2100 and could force many to leave their homes and livelihoods. It said that farming was especially at risk.

The parties at the conference did say that any new agreement they make should be legally binding, however, Jex Weigelt of TMG, a sustainability think tank, told CBS News that he fears these drought talks suffered the same fate as climate and biodiversity COPs earlier this year.

Nothing also happened toward reaching an agreement among the seven states in the West that depend on the Colorado River, on how to reduce water use as the area faces increasing aridification.

At the annual Colorado River conference in Las Vegas, there were disagreements between two main groups, those states in the lower basin, California, Nevada, and Arizona, and those in the upper basin, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. The groups appeared to disagree even about whether representatives of the states would meet. The Los Angeles Times reported that Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s lead negotiator said she had expected them all to get together, but that did not occur. However, J.B. Hamby, California's Colorado River commissioner, said after the conference that the lower basin states had not denied any request to meet, and he blamed the upper basin states for stubbornly resisting participation in cutbacks to Colorado River water use.

Meanwhile, the Colorado River Basin continues to dry. Its water is over allocated, and the average flow has declined around 20 percent since 2000, with half of that caused by the burning of fossil fuels, according to scientists at UCLA.

However, according to a new study led by the University of Cambridge, some trees can make urban areas hotter—because of what happens at night. During the day, trees cool cities by blocking the sun’s rays, transpiring water during photosynthesis, and changing airflow with their leaves. At night, their canopies can trap urban heat at the ground level.

The authors analyzed 182 studies covering 17 climates in 110 global cities or regions published between 2010 and 2023, to produce the first comprehensive global assessment of urban tree cooling.

The researchers say that the type of tree, the city’s climate, as well as its urban structure can influence how much a tree can cool an area, both night and day. They found that cities with open layouts and a variety of deciduous and evergreen species of different heights were cooler, especially in temperate and tropical climates. In dense, arid cities like Cairo or Dubai, drought-resistant evergreen trees were most effective. The researchers developed an interactive map to help planners make decisions based on data from cities with similar climates and urban design. The study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Meanwhile, in another study also led by Cambridge researchers and published in the journal Nature Geoscience, they found that planting trees in the Arctic could make global warming worse. Climate change is making it possible to plant trees in northern latitudes, but that doesn’t mean we should. They say that soils in the Arctic tundra store more carbon than all vegetation on Earth and that planting trees there would soak up more solar radiation than white snow, which is already helping to cool the planet by reflecting heat back into space.

Both studies highlight the good intentions of tree planting schemes but that putting the wrong tree in the wrong place could backfire.

When moths are deciding where to lay their eggs, the moms naturally want to choose a plant that’s healthy with leaves that can provide food for their caterpillars, so would they steer away from a tomato plant crying in despair?

To find out, the team put female moths called Egyptian cotton leafworms (Spodoptera littoralis) in an arena with two healthy, well-hydrated tomato plants on opposite sides of a room. They played recorded clicking sounds beside one of the plants, and the insects made a beeline to the plant that sat in silence. While indicative that sound played a role in insect’s decision making, the team says other cues could be at work such as scent, so studies in the real world are needed.

But enough about the moths. Didn’t it occur to anyone that the tomato plant was the hero here? It cried, leaf me alone...and it worked.

The research preprint was published at bioRxiv.