Latest news with #environmentalgroups
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Packaging changes under net zero plan push wine prices higher
Wine prices in the UK are set to climb by an average of 9p per bottle as the glass industry begins passing on costs linked to new net zero rules, according to a recent analysis. The increase comes as glass manufacturers adapt to environmental levies designed to cut carbon emissions from bottle production. Under government initiatives aimed at achieving net zero emissions, glass makers are required to invest in technologies that reduce their carbon footprint. These measures include switching to low-carbon energy sources and implementing carbon capture systems. Industry experts say the extra costs of producing lower-emission glass are now being transferred to customers, with wine importers among the first to feel the impact. The added expense is already filtering through to the retail market, where wine buyers will see small but noticeable price increases on shelves. Industry bodies warn that while the 9p per bottle hike may seem modest, it comes on top of other cost pressures facing the drinks sector, such as rising shipping fees and currency fluctuations. Some suppliers argue that the cumulative effect could dampen consumer demand, particularly for lower-priced wines that compete on tight margins. Despite the price rise, environmental groups and government officials maintain that reforms to glass production are crucial for meeting the UK's legally binding net zero targets. Glass packaging remains one of the largest sources of carbon emissions in the drinks industry. By pushing manufacturers towards greener processes, policymakers hope to significantly reduce the climate impact of everyday products like wine bottles. However, analysts suggest that if energy costs remain volatile, further increases in packaging-related prices could follow. "Packaging changes under net zero plan push wine prices higher" was originally created and published by Packaging Gateway, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
CTV News
a day ago
- Science
- CTV News
Medicine Hat turns to copper leafy spurge flea beetles to combat invasive plant problem
The City of Medicine Hat is turning to a natural solution—about 2,000 copper leafy spurge flea beetles—to tackle invasive plants at Police Point Park.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
This national monument is ‘part of the true history of the USA'. Will it survive Trump 2.0?
It's easy to get lost in the Sáttítla Highlands in remote north-eastern California. There are miles of rolling lava fields, untouched forest and obsidian mountains. At night, the darkness and silence stretch on indefinitely. This is one of America's newest national monuments. It's also one of the most threatened. In January, the Pit River Tribe celebrated a victory decades in the making when Joe Biden granted federal protection to nearly 230,000 acres of forested lands with the creation of the Sáttítla Highlands national monument. 'The awe-inspiring geological wonders collectively described here as the Sáttítla Highlands have framed the homelands of Indigenous communities and cultures for millennia,' the proclamation reads, recognizing the area as 'profoundly sacred'. Related: Biden designates two new national monuments after advocacy from tribes The tribe, along with environmental groups, had fought for years to safeguard the land from industrial energy development. The area just north of Mount Shasta, popular for recreation and some of the darkest nighttime skies in the US, is the site of the tribe's creation story and regularly used for ceremonies. 'This is a healing place for our people. It's really tied to our traditional health,' said Brandy McDaniels, a member of the Pit River Tribe. 'We've spent a lifetime trying to defend this area.' The designation ensures no future energy development and mineral extraction can occur on the land while keeping it available for public recreation. But then in March, Donald Trump said he would undo Biden's action and roll back protections for Sáttítla and Chuckwalla national monument, which he argued 'lock up vast amounts of land from economic development and energy production'. Although legal experts say there is no clear mechanism for a president to rescind monument protections – only to shrink them – the justice department argued in a recent memo that it is in fact within Trump's authority to 'alter a prior declaration', suggesting the administration will move forward with efforts to remove national monument designations for hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness. Now, as the tribe tries to move forward after years of pushing with limited resources, pro bono attorneys and 'scraping up every cent' to get to court hearings and protests, another battle could be on the horizon. Located five hours north-east of the California state capitol in a sparsely populated region, Sáttítla is far off the beaten path. 'You're not trying to get somewhere else if you're going there. It's very dark, it's very quiet, there's no cellphone reception,' said Nick Joslin, the policy and advocacy director with the Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center, an area environmental advocacy group. 'It's very easy to get lost.' The monument's 224,676 acres include portions of the Modoc, Shasta-Trinity and Klamath national forests, are home to endangered and rare flora and fauna, massive underground volcanic aquifers that supply water to millions of people and store as much water as 200 of California's largest surface reservoirs combined. Due to heavy snow, it's largely only accessible by car for a few months of the year. The landscape, with its islands of old-growth pine forests, snow covered mountainsides and scattered lakes, is stunning and otherworldly. It is filled with unique geological features such as ice caves, lava tubes and lava flows, Joslin said. Then there is the half-million-year-old dormant volcano, roughly 10 times the size of Mount St Helens, within the monument. Locals routinely camp, hike the hundreds of miles of trails or take boats out on Medicine Lake. 'It's a place that's known for its high quality of silence that you can't experience in any other place, and also its night skies,' McDaniels said. 'Depending on where you're at, people describe it as it's almost like you're in another world, like you're on another planet.' There are markers of human disruption. Checkerboard swaths of forest where trees have been clear cut, and large stretches of land with second-growth trees that look like toothpicks from the air. For Indigenous people, this area is sacred as the place of the creation narrative of the Pit River Tribe. The tribe holds important ceremonies there and collects staple foods such as berries from manzanita and currant plants, sugar pine seeds, and plants used in medicinal capacities. 'The landscape of the area literally tells the history of our people. In that way, it is part of the true history of the United States of America,' McDaniels said. The tribe fought to protect the area for nearly three decades, she added, challenging geothermal development and large-scale logging. Because Sáttítla is a volcanic area, there was speculation that there might be enough heat to develop geothermal resources, and in the 1980s the federal government awarded leases on thousands of acres to private energy companies, said Deborah A Sivas, the director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford. The Environmental Law Clinic represented the tribe in a series of litigation challenging the extension of some leases and proposed projects, arguing the federal government had failed to consult the tribe, Sivas said. Industrial energy development would have required a dramatic transformation of the landscape to achieve and the tribe was opposed to such an intrusion on sacred land, and feared the hydraulic fracturing used to generate geothermal energy could pollute the aquifers. Ultimately there wasn't the resource potential initially thought, Sivas said. The final settlement with Calpine, the last remaining company with control over the land, was signed just two days after the monument declaration. While there has been broad community support for a monument, Joslin noted, some elected officials in the conservative region have been more tepid. Doug LaMalfa, a congressperson whose district includes Sáttítla, described Biden's action as 'executive overreach' and argued it would 'create unnecessary challenges for land management, particularly in wildfire prevention and maintaining usage for local residents'. But there has been no organized opposition against the monument. Presidents have the authority to give protected status to land with cultural, scientific or historic resources of national significance, and Biden and other presidents have typically used it for conservation and to support tribes. In the case of Sáttítla, the designation protects against industrial energy development, but does not prevent recreation, Sivas said, or bar the US Forest Service from doing wildfire management work. But Trump has taken a combative stance on national monuments as part of his pro-energy agenda, slashing the size of Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments during his first term (a move that was later reversed by Biden). Earlier this month, the Department of Justice issued a memorandum opinion arguing that Trump has the authority to not only shrink but entirely abolish national monuments created by his predecessor. But the legal argument for that position appears tenuous. Sivas said the Antiquities Act, the statute under which national monuments are designated, does not give the president the authority to do so. 'There's no language in there that suggests that he could de-designate or roll back what prior presidents have done,' Sivas said. She added that the recent argument made by the administration was not particularly persuasive. Given the lack of opposition to Sáttítla, the move seems designed to instead test the limits of the president's power, Sivas said. If the administration does proceed with a rollback, legal action will follow, she added, which she expects will make its way to the supreme court. 'We will be filing litigation if that happens. This is a kind of a canary in the coal mine.' McDaniels described the efforts to rollback protections as 'perplexing'. She pointed to the interior secretary Doug Burgum's address to the National Congress of American Indians in which he indicated he didn't believe the nation's 'most precious places', such as parks and monuments, should be targeted for development. But the tribe is focused on celebrating the monument, informing the public about the significance of these lands and ensuring it continues to serve as a healing place for the Indigenous people who have endured a long history of genocidal acts and injustices, McDaniels said. 'Truth and healing cannot begin if we're constantly fighting to protect our sacred lands,' McDaniels said. 'That's what we don't want for our kids, our grandkids and all future generations. Everybody deserves the right to experience the gifts that this land makes available for people.'
E&E News
4 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
California officials approve 6 highway projects after enviro-union spat
California transportation officials approved funding for six highway construction projects Thursday that have become a source of tension between labor unions and environmental groups. What happened: The California Transportation Commission signed off on over $600 million in funding for six highway expansion projects ranging from the Bay Area to Los Angeles County, following heated debate between union construction workers and clean transportation groups during public comments. Why it matters: Environmental groups have increasingly organized opposition against highway expansion projects over the last year, arguing that the construction is a waste of taxpayer money that won't solve congestion issues and that the state needs to more aggressively reduce emissions to meet its climate goals. Advertisement That opposition has drawn the ire of construction unions, which say they support building public transit and infrastructure for walking and biking, but that canceling highway projects would cost workers jobs.
CBS News
5 days ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Environmental groups sue to block opening of "Alligator Alcatraz" migrant camp in Florida Everglades
Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday to block the opening of a facility dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," a migrant detention center being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades. The lawsuit seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal law. There is also supposed to be a chance for public comment, according to the lawsuit filed in Miami federal court. The center, called "Alligator Alcatraz" by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, is set to begin processing people who entered the U.S. illegally as soon as next week, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday on "Fox and Friends." The state is plowing ahead with building a compound of heavy-duty tents, trailers and other temporary buildings at the Miami Dade County-owned airfield in the Big Cypress National Preserve, about 45 miles west of Downtown Miami. The lawsuit names several federal and state agencies as defendants.
