Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities


** New report warns climate change accelerating in California
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Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Twin Lakes, Sierra Nevada, California (2015), Don Graham/Flickr ([link removed])

A new report ([link removed]) from a state agency in California warns that climate change is speeding up ([link removed]) in the state. The report ([link removed]) found that annual average air temperatures in California have increased by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895 and that warming has occurred at a faster rate since the 1980s. It also found that 8 of the 10 warmest years on record occurred between 2012 and 2022, and temperatures at night have increased almost three times more than temperatures during the day.

Since the last report was issued in 2018, weather extremes have intensified and become more erratic, state officials said ([link removed]) , and human health indicators such as heat-related illness, valley fever, and wildfire smoke have gotten worse.

“What we find in this report is a continuation and acceleration of the trends we’ve been tracking in earlier editions,” Amy Gilson, a deputy director with the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, s ([link removed]) aid ([link removed]) . “It’s not just heat, not just water, but that they cascade and compound through the ecosystem, causing the impacts that we’re seeing.”

Among those impacts is the destruction of almost a third ([link removed]) of the southern Sierra Nevada's forests. The area extending from Lake Tahoe to the Sequoia National Forest has experienced persistent drought and increased temperatures over the past decade, which has left pines more vulnerable to wildfires and bark beetle infestations, according to a new study of Forest Service data ([link removed]) . Around 30 percent of conifer forests in the southern Sierra Nevada succumbed to these threats between 2011 to 2020. Over the same period, 85 percent of the region’s dense mature forests either died or were substantially thinned, according to the study.


** Getting the facts straight on forest management
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Speaking of trees... This week on the Center for Western Priorities' podcast, The Landscape, Aaron and Kate ([link removed]) talk to forest scientists ([link removed]) Megan Cattau and Nayani Ilangakoon to find out what's going on in the world of wildfire risk reduction and forest recovery. Specifically, they ask about the U.S. Forest Service’s plan to plant a billion trees over the next decade, as well as how climate change is affecting forest recovery after wildfires.
Quick hits


** Why are nonprofits cleaning up the oil and gas industry’s mess?
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Floodlight ([link removed])


** Drought, fire, and insects destroyed nearly a third of southern Sierra Nevada forest in past decade
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Yale Environment 360 ([link removed]) | Los Angeles Times ([link removed])


** Opinion: We're losing our sagebrush sea to the oil and gas industry
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Nevada Independent ([link removed])


** How Tucson, Arizona is facing up to a megadrought
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BBC ([link removed])


** Groups sue to stop wolf hunting season in Montana
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Missoula Current ([link removed]) | Montana Public Radio ([link removed])


** Opinion: The future of large landscape conservation begins with Indigenous communities
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High Country News ([link removed])


** Major nuclear expansion is being explored in the Mountain West
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Wyoming Public Radio ([link removed])


** Countries want to plant their way out of climate change, but there isn’t enough land to do so
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Inside Climate News ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” It’s a very exciting time. When I look across the service, we currently have over 80 different agreements where we’re doing some type of co-management, co-stewardship, or partnership with tribes. This gets them back on the landscape where they have that reciprocating relationship between the flora and the fauna that they’ve managed as horticulturalists since time immemorial.”
—National Park Service Director Chuck Sams, High Country News ([link removed])
Picture this


** @Interior ([link removed])
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Happy Native American Heritage Month! At Interior, we’re working to revitalize Indigenous connections and celebrate the traditions, languages and stories of Native communities every day to ensure their rich histories and contributions continue to thrive with each generation.

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