Forests

"A federal judge has denied a request by coal companies owned by the family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice to dismiss a lawsuit over selenium violations at a southern West Virginia coal mine."

"Destruction of tropical forests worldwide increased last year, led again by Brazil, which was responsible for more than a third of the total, and where deforestation of the Amazon through clear-cutting appears to be on the rise under the pro-development policies of the country’s president."

"The Trump administration is proposing to fast track logging on public lands, introducing two proposals Thursday that would limit the environmental review of new projects."

"The coronavirus scuttled plans and forced officials to ask people to get out of the woods. Of the thousands who hoped to hike the trail this year, only a few hundred remain."

"The public is broadly opposed to the Trump administration’s plan to open most of the world’s largest remaining coastal temperate rainforest to logging and road-building, according to an internal U.S. Forest Service report."

"Spring wildfires across Siberia have Russian authorities on alert for a potentially devastating summer season of blazes after an unusually warm and dry winter in one of the world’s climate-change hot spots."

"Personal protective equipment may not be sufficient to protect firefighters battling wildfires from Covid-19 because unavoidable smoke inhalation may increase their disease risk, researchers say."

"When a wildfire explodes out of control and threatens property and lives, thousands of firefighters and support crews rush to the scene from around the country and even the world. Almost overnight a small city sprouts up, with firefighters camped in dense rows of tents in fields and eating in crowded mess halls."

"All day it had been sunny. Then it grew dark as the winds began to whip. Daniel Felder stepped out into the road to watch the acrid smoke billow toward him. Ash started raining from the sky like light snow drifting in twilight."

"The scientists who study how diseases emerge in a changing environment knew this moment was coming. Climate change is making outbreaks of disease more common and more dangerous."