Colombia’s President Duque confident in cutting deforestation in half

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque speaks during an interview with Reuters in Bogota, Colombia October 16, 2020. Picture taken October 16, 2020. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

By Oliver Griffin, Reuters

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombian President Ivan Duque is confident his administration can cut the country’s deforestation rate in half by the end of his four-year term, though it will be impossible to stop it completely, he told Reuters.

Speaking in an interview for Reuters Events Responsible Business USA, Duque said deforestation in the Andean country has been slashed by almost 20% during his first two years in office.

According to the government, deforestation has fallen in part due to policies promoting sustainable use of natural resources, as well as paying thousands of rural and indigenous families to assist in conservation efforts.

“We have set the goal of reducing (deforestation) by 50% by the end of our administration,” Duque said.

“Obviously, I would like to say we have to bring it to zero, but we have to consider that there are activities that have produced so much damage,” he added, referring to the impact of drug trafficking, illegal logging, and other illicit enterprises.

Government plans to plant 180 million trees by August 2022 will offset some destruction, he added. Some 38 million trees have been planted so far this year, and Duque said he was confident of meeting the final target.

In 2018 and 2019 Colombia lost 356,053 hectares (around 880,000 acres), while the millions of new trees are expected to cover some 300,000 hectares (741,300 acres).

Duque said he would keep fighting illegal logging and mining, drug trafficking and unauthorized clearing of land for cattle rearing, which all contribute to environmental destruction.

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France, Germany impose restrictions as coronavirus resurges

By Antonia Noori Farzan, Rick Noack, Marisa Iati, Lateshia Beachum, Taylor Telford, Adam Taylor, Reis Thebault and Meryl Kornfield, The Washington Post

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France and Germany are returning to lockdown restrictions as intensive care beds fill and new coronavirus infections test the countries’ health-care systems.

France and Germany announce partial lockdowns (CNN)

In Germany, bars, restaurants and theaters will close for four weeks, while schools will stay open. Classes will also remain open in France, where President Emmanuel Macron is expected to release more information about a national shutdown Thursday.

Here are some significant developments:

  • The White House testing czar contradicted President Trump’s claim that a surge of new infections is merely an artifact of increased testing. “Cases are actually going up. And we know that, too, because hospitalizations are going up,” Adm. Brett Giroir told NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday.
  • Boeing announced plans Wednesday to cut an additional 7,000 jobs by the end of the year as it grapples with vanishing air travel demand and ongoing fallout from the 737 Max jet crisis.
  • After testing positive for the coronavirus, Los Angeles Dodgers player Justin Turner was seen mingling with teammates and pulling down his mask for photos to celebrate the team’s victory in Game 6 of the World Series.
  • Saturday’s Big Ten football game between Wisconsin and Nebraska was canceled after the Badgers reported 12 people in the football program tested positive, including six players and Head Coach Paul Chryst.
  • Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, praised Australians for their widespread mask-wearing and said it was “painful” for him that the issue has become politicized in the United States.
  • Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic as reckless, saying it has refused “to recognize the reality we’re living through.”
  • Watch: In a three-part documentary, The Washington Post explores a failed response to the coronavirus pandemic that has left 226,000 Americans dead, despite decades of preparation in Washington

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Hospitals in nearly every region report a flood of covid-19 patients

Hospitals in nearly every region report a flood of covid-19 patients

By the Washington Post

Hospitals in many regions of the country — the Upper Midwest, the Mountain West, the Southwest and the heart of Appalachia — are seeing record levels of patients suffering from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

More than 42,000 people were hospitalized nationally with the virus Monday, a figure that is steadily climbing toward the midsummer peak caused by massive outbreaks in the Sun Belt. In the places hit the hardest, this is nudging hospitals toward the nightmare scenario of rationing care.

The country is not there yet, but the recent rise in confirmed coronavirus infections — which set a single-day record Saturday of more than 83,000 — is an ominous leading indicator of an imminent surge of patients into hospitals. The pattern of this pandemic has been clear: Infections go up, hospitalization rates follow in a few weeks, and then deaths spike.

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California wildfire forces 90,000 to evacuate. Two firefighters critical

Electricity cut to thousands across the state so that equipment doesn’t spark more flames. Wind gusts up to 96 mph hamper firefighters, ground some air missions

Image: Silverado Fire in California

By David K. Li and Tim Stelloh, NBC News

A fast-moving, wind-whipped wildfire left two firefighters critically injured and forced more than 90,000 residents in Southern California to evacuate Monday, while huge swaths of the Golden State went without power in an effort to prevent more flames, officials said.

The firefighters, 26 and 31, were injured while battling the Silverado Fire, which had charred at least 7,200 acres in and around the community of Irvine, southeast of Los Angeles, Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy said.

The firefighters — two of about 500 trying to contain the out-of-control blaze — suffered second- and third-degree burns across 65 percent and 50 percent of their bodies, the authority said. Both were intubated.

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Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy said the incident was under investigation. He said that powerful winds had kept aircraft from dropping retardant and water on the blaze, making ground crew firefighters like the two who were injured critical to extinguishing the flames.

“This is a tough fire, where we’re experiencing very high winds, very low humidities,” he said. “Our firefighters are some of the bravest, if not the bravest in the world.”

More than 90,000 people in 22,000 homes in the city of Irvine, about an hour south of Los Angeles, were under a mandatory evacuation order, fire officials said.

More than 5,000 homes in the nearby cities of Yorba Linda, Hidden Hills and Chino Hills were also told to flee after another blaze, the Blue Ridge fire, broke out Monday, Fennessy said.

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Snow, cold not enough to end Colorado wildfires

By Jim Hooley, Fox 31

BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — Incident commanders for the East Troublesome Fire believe the cold and snow is not enough to put an end to the massive blaze.Latest Updates: East Troublesome Fire holds at 192,000+ acres, 20% containment 

In a morning briefing on Facebook, fire officials said the winter weather is ‘not a season ending event’.

The total acreage is now at 192,560 and the fire is 20% contained as of Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday, firefighters will patrol and secure the fire lines and try to button up the southern edge of the fire.

The Grand County Sheriff’s Office says it is still working toward re-entry for people evacuated in the Grand Lake area.

Monday, people living on the east of Highway 34 were allowed to return.

The Grand County Sheriff had a warning for people who have been traveling to the Grand Lake area and going around roadblocks to access the fire zone. 

“This is not safe and it is putting firefighters in danger,” shared the sheriff on Tuesday.

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Despite pandemic, EPR-style legislation drawing state-level interest

Retrieved from Alabama Extension.

Editor’s note: This roundup story overlooks a recycling-content bill in New Jersey that is attracting a lot of attention from recyclers, product manufacturers and environmentalists. Sponsored by Senate Environment and Energy Chairman Bob Smith, S-2515 was recently sent back to the legislative drawing board for no fewer than 28 amendments. The revised version (not yet publicly available) is expected to more closely model California’s recycled content law. Sponsor Smith says the bill will be handled in committee in December.

By E.A. Crunden, Waste Dive
  • Momentum behind extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws for packaging is growing in multiple states, per comments at this year’s virtual Northeast Recycling Coalition conference. Officials and EPR proponents from Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island all spoke to increasing interest. 
  • Several cited Maine’s bill (LD 2104), in limbo due to the pandemic, as a policy blueprint. Massachusetts and New York have considered bills recently, while Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) Environmental Analyst Tom Metzner said his state is busy seeking buy-in from municipalities.
  • Motivating factors include pandemic-induced budget cuts facing local governments, with state attention driving more business engagement. “The industry is coming around” on EPR, said Metzner, adding “I think the states are getting weary of this manufacturer position that ‘no it doesn’t really work,’ or ‘let’s keep talking.'”

Viewpoints around EPR legislation are evolving during an unprecedented year that has upended many state legislative sessions. Actual progress on bills has been limited — in addition to Maine’s stalled effort, California did not pass its legislation for the second year in a row. But the waste industry has increasingly discussed EPR as a possibility it may have to contend with based on state trends.

“In some regions, recycling costs have eclipsed disposal costs,” said Josh Kelly, materials management section chief for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, adding “EPR programs are shifting that dynamic of who pays.”

Vermont, Washington and Oregon are among states that have recently considered EPR, although in past years such legislation has failed to gain traction in states like Connecticut and Rhode Island due to a lack of producer involvement and other stumbling blocks. DEEP’s Metzner said his state remains “very interested” in packaging EPR and sees municipalities as a good potential ally. 

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NJDEP begins process to draft environmental justice regulations

Keeping Kosher – The Problem No One Talks About | Golden Pomegranates

By Paul M. Hauge in Gibbons Environmental and Green Issues Blog

As we reported, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy recently signed the nation’s first environmental justice law, which seeks to address the unfair distribution of the environmental and public health impacts of polluting activities by imposing additional requirements on parties seeking to site, expand, or renew permits for various types of facilities in “overburdened communities,” which are defined in the statute in terms of economic and demographic criteria.

The statute requires the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to promulgate regulations to implement its requirements. NJDEP began the public process of developing those regulations on October 22 when Olivia Glenn, Deputy Commissioner for Environmental Justice and Equity, and Sean Moriarty, Chief Advisor for Regulatory Affairs, hosted an online public information session in which they sought the public’s input on how the regulations should address numerous definitional and procedural issues. (The statute will not take effect until NJDEP promulgates its regulations.)

Companies seeking to obtain or renew certain NJDEP permits for new or expanded facilities that fall within the statute’s scope and are located in overburdened communities must prepare an “environmental justice impact statement” and provide for expanded public hearings on their project. In addition to applying the requirements of other applicable statutes and regulations, NJDEP must then determine if the proposed new or expanded facility will cause a disproportionate impact on the community. If NJDEP makes such a finding, it must deny the…

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