All Article Topics

Climate Change & Conservation eNews

Home > Climate News

Beaver Eyes Closed
Pixabay

Using remote sensing to assess the impact of beaver damming on riparian evapotranspiration in an arid landscape

Beaver pools allow sediments and waterborne pollutants such as nitrogen and heavy metals to filter downward, preventing their transport downstream. A 2015 study from the University of Rhode Island found that beaver ponds can help remove up to 45 percent of nitrogen from streams. Researchers in Maryland are now enlisting beavers to reduce pollutants entering the Chesapeake Bay.

The research indicates that riparian areas with beaver damming in arid landscapes are better able to maintain vegetation productivity than areas without beaver damming during both short and extended periods of drought…

Read More »
River Rocks
Judy Anderson

Connecticut Physical Climate Science Assessment Report

Beyond the coastline, rising heat levels will greatly disrupt farming, Yohe said. Droughts have become more prominent along the East Coast, which affect Connecticut crops. Warming will also decrease water availability during the summer due to increased evaporation from soils and transpiration from plants, according to a 2019 Connecticut Climate Assessment. Potential water deficits during summer droughts are projected to become more severe throughout the century, the report says.

Read More »
Person at the shore
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Fading winters, hotter summers make the northeast America’s fastest warming region

Beyond the coastline, rising heat levels will greatly disrupt farming, Yohe said. Droughts have become more prominent along the East Coast, which affect Connecticut crops. Warming will also decrease water availability during the summer due to increased evaporation from soils and transpiration from plants, according to a 2019 Connecticut Climate Assessment. Potential water deficits during summer droughts are projected to become more severe throughout the century, the report says.

Connecticut is one of the fastest warming states, in the fastest warming region, in the contiguous United States. An analysis last year by The Washington Post found that neighboring Rhode Island was the first state among the lower 48 whose average annual temperature had warmed more than 2 degrees Celsius since 1895. New Jersey was second, the Post found, followed by Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts…

[The] summer climate in Connecticut by the end of the century will be the same as it is in present-day South Carolina. Temperatures in Hartford would exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 28 days a year…

Read More »
Ponderosa Pine From Below
Pixabay

Wildfires and climate change push low-elevation forests across a critical climate threshold for tree regeneration

“At dry sites across our study region, seasonal to annual climate conditions over the past 20 years have crossed these thresholds, such that conditions have become increasingly unsuitable for regeneration. High fire severity and low seed availability further reduced the probability of postfire regeneration.

Together, our results demonstrate that climate change combined with high severity fire is leading to increasingly fewer opportunities for seedlings to establish after wildfires and may lead to ecosystem transitions in low-elevation ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir forests across the western United States…”

Read More »
Soil In Hands
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Natural climate solutions could cancel out a fifth of U.S. emissions, study finds

Conserving and restoring American forest, farm and natural lands could cut a substantial chunk of the country’s emissions, helping meet greenhouse gas reduction goals without relying on undeveloped technologies, a new report finds.

A team of 38 researchers spent more than two years looking at “natural climate solutions”—a range of strategies that includes planting trees in cities, preventing the conversion of natural grassland to farmland and shifting to fertilizers that produce less greenhouse gas emissions…

Read More »
Kale Under Solar
Hyperion Systems, LLC

Smart Solar Siting partnership project for New England

American Farmland Trust’s Smart Solar Siting Partnership Project for New England started as a two-year effort to build an influential, ongoing, multi-stakeholder coalition supporting recommendations that advance smart solar siting policies and programs in New England states. This is a joint effort to accelerate the expansion of renewable solar energy facilities while maintaining New England’s most productive, resilient farmland and forest land and strengthening its regional food systems.

Check out their program and resources. Your land trust and community may be able to model a similar approach.

Read More »
Picking Produce
The Conservation Foundation

Green Earth Harvest

The Conservation Foundation’s Green Earth Harvest program is devoted to healthy soil, healthy vegetables, healthy people, and healthy communities.  Our Green Earth Harvest farm crew works tirelessly to sustainably farm the agricultural land at our McDonald Farm headquarters in Naperville and produce healthy organic vegetables for the community…

Read More »
Land Conservancy
The Conservation Foundation

Four ways land conservation mitigates the impact of climate change

This land trust is working to conserve land using a number of different strategies. They own farmland, wildlife habitat, and hold conservation easements. They run educational programs and own a farm (offering food to the community). Their reach is wide—and they are adapting and responding to calls for greater impact and the need to slow down climate change.

Check out this blog post as an example of how you could help your community see the importance of land conservation as part of the solution…

Read More »
Goat Peeking Out Of Barn
Judy Anderson

Strategies for Mitigating Climate Change with Natural and Working Lands – A Policy Analysis and Playbook

“Wisconsin’s more than 33 million acres of forests, farms, and conservation lands cover more than 92% of our state. They play a critical role in absorbing and offsetting carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions that are the primary cause of climate change.

Together, these “Natural and Working Lands” are a highly productive resource, contributing farm and forest products to our economy, providing recreation opportunities and a high quality of life, and quietly but effectively offsetting CO2 emissions.”

Read More »
Rainbow Over Cows
Richard Cates

New report: “Strategies for Mitigating Climate Change with Natural and Working Lands”

Wisconsin’s more than 33 million acres of forests, farms, and conservation lands cover over 92% of the state. They play a critical role in absorbing and offsetting carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions that are the primary cause of climate change. Together, these “Natural and Working Lands” are a highly productive resource, contributing farm and forest products to [the] economy, providing recreation opportunities and a high quality of life, and quietly but effectively offsetting CO2 emissions.

Natural and Working Lands make a significant contribution to cleaner air and reduced warming, with large benefits for soil, water, and people. By managing [the] Natural and Working Lands effectively, Wisconsin could offset an additional 16 million tons of CO2 each year—equal to 20% of our annual net greenhouse gas (GG) emissions.

See the full report “Strategies for Mitigating Climate Change with Natural and Working Lands” here.

Read More »