Stuff outdoorsy people need to know about

This week, there’s major developments across three worlds I care about deeply: bears, birds and environmental protection. It’s my goal with these news roundups to keep you up-to-date on everything an outdoorsy person needs to know about, along with the analysis your need to understand how all these things are often interconnected, and an indication of where our world is headed.

COP 30 Truth

The theme for the 30th annual United Nations climate change conference taking place in Brazil right now? Truth.

And some hard truths coming out of it: 2025 is on track to becoming the hottest year on record, the 1.5 degrees celsius warming target set in 2015 will be officially surpassed by the end of this decade (last year was already 1.55 degrees above pre-industrial, but the math they use for these things is dumb), fossil fuel consumption that was set to peak by 2030 will now continue to grow until at least 2050, there’s not enough money in the disaster relief fund to even begin to help poor countries, and the United States didn’t even bother to show up.

“We have miserably failed to accomplish the objective of this convention, which is the stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” stated Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s climate envoy. “Additional promises mean nothing if you didn’t achieve or fulfill your previous promises.”

Following COP 28, I interviewed then-climate czar John Kerry about the landmark agreement he negotiated for all 200 nations participating to begin decreasing emissions. And I asked the obvious hard question: Was this non-binding agreement real? “Look son, this is a big fucking deal,” he responded. Just think about how different things might look at the summit this year if America had been able to follow through on that.

Bears Kill 13 In Japan

So far this year, over 200 people have been injured by bears and 13 people have been killed in northern Japan. The nation’s average number for fatal bear attacks is three per-year.

Why is this happening? Apparently it’s a bad year for the bears’ usual food sources, and the depopulation of Japan’s rural areas has blurred the line between bear and human habitat.

In response, Japan is mobilizing its self-defense force to cull bears, and upping compensation for bear hunters.

This all seems like a shame. As Meateater points out, Japan is the home of one of the most capable bear-fighting dogs in the world: the Akita. Large guardian breeds like that have demonstrated near-100 percent success rates at preventing human-bear conflict in other parts of the world. Finding a way to incentivize individual or communal dog ownership in bear-prone areas could keep both humans and bears safe.

Bear safety is also a hot topic here in Montana right now, where the grizzly bear is expanding into more and more of its historic range. Towns along the Rocky Mountain front, which haven’t seen bears in decades, are now having to re-learn how to manage them. There’s actually a talk tonight about lessons that can be learned from Italy, where brown bears have also been expanding their range in recent years. I plan to tune in, and you should too. Details here.

No More Marijuana In National Parks

A federal attorney is announcing his plan to “rigorously” prosecute minor marijuana offenses in national parks, following a recent rollback of more lenient policy around the devil’s lettuce at Trump’s Department of Justice.

“The detrimental effects of drugs on our society are undeniable, and I am committed to using every prosecutorial tool available to hold offenders accountable,” stated Wyoming U.S. Attorney Darin Smith. That guy must be real fun at parties.

Apparently reefer addicts have been visiting beautiful outdoor places owned by the American public in order to shoot up ganja. Unconfirmed thoughts invented in my mind suggest there could be high correlation between doobie passing and fluffy cow petting, which to be fair sounds like just the kind of urgent problem we should be devoting vast taxpayer resources to, in order to incarcerate these menaces to society in for-profit prisons.

Senate Stewardship Caucus Off To A Rip Roaring Start

In a totally believable sign of bi-partisan commitment to protecting our nation’s unique system of public lands, some Senators took a break from trying to sell off those lands a couple weeks ago to announce a new “Stewardship Caucus.”

One of their first acts? A full-throated endorsement of Trump’s nominee to run the Bureau of Land Management, privatization-enthusiast Steve Pearce.

“Steve is a great pick,” says Montana Senator Steve Daines, one of the initial members of the Stewardship Caucus.

“Divesting the federal government of its vast land holdings could pay down the deficit and reduce spending,” reads a letter co-written by Pearce in 2012. “The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land, or 1/3 of the entire landmass of our country. Over 90% of this land is located in the western states and most of it we do not even need.”

Look for the Stewardship Caucus to come with with exciting new ways to spin this, and otherwise greenwash its members voting records in the run up to next year’s mid-terms. It looks like they’ll be helped in that effort by none other than Benji Backer, the minor league grifter behind Nature is Non-Partisan.

FEMA Chief Resigns

Back in May, I wrote a piece explaining how the administration’s efforts to destroy FEMA were leaving disaster victims reliant on GoFundMe.

The recap there is that one of FEMA’s main roles, after evacuating continuance-of-government types in the event of nuclear war, is to spread the cost of natural disasters nationally. This acknowledges the fact that these disasters have major impacts on our economy and it behooves all of us to participate in funding recovery, so that impacted areas can get back to the business of paying taxes as soon as possible. But, some genius in the White House thinks that sticking it to poor people is more important than a functioning economy, and is trying to dismantle federal disaster aid.

That’s part of the reason why a bunch of kids died in a flood in Texas this summer. And apparently the guy who was running FEMA at the time still had enough shame to resign over that failure.

Will that change anything? It’ll probably just make our ability to respond to disasters even worse. But sense that whole climate change thing is just a liberal hoax anyways, that shouldn’t matter.

Screw You Birds

Finally addressing an issue plaguing all Americans, the Trump administration today announced a plan to kill off most remaining wild birds. No longer will our skies be filled with annoying honk of geese, or our mornings tormented by the call of songbirds as the proposal will strip Clean Water Act protections from wetlands, on which 96 percent of birds rely for habitat.

“I know that across the country, news of today’s proposal is going to be met with a lot of relief from farmers, ranchers, other landowners and governments,” stated EPA administrator Lee Zeldin.

Aside from eliminating those pesky avians, the move will also allow communities to again experience the freedom of being easily flooded following heavy rainfall, and restore liberty to communities who prefer drinking toxic water.

The move is the latest victory in the Republican war on birds. Other recent successes include drawing migratory waterfowl in open pits of oil, cleverly restricting power line spans to ensure they’re capable of murdering raptors, and even defunding the banding program that allows populations of our enemies in the sky to be tracked.

In a sign of patriotic commitment, Ducks Unlimited responded by shifting its mission from protecting waterfowl, to re-writing the legacy of Charlie Kirk. No, seriously.

Offshore Oil Rigs Everywhere

But wetlands only protect birds on land. If we’re to win this war, we need to make sure we’re killing sea birds too. And, as Deepwater Horizon so aptly demonstrated, the best way to do that is with offshore oil spills.

The administration is bravely defying the will of its own votes and moving forward with lease sales off the gulf coast of Florida and southern coast of California. And not only will it build oil rigs in sight of communities like Naples and Newport Beach, it’s also going to make sure those are built without the kinds of pesky environmental rules intended to prevent oil spills, arguing that its now illegal to apply the NEPA process to projects permitted by Congress.

The Trouble With Skipping NEPA

I’m going to write this part without sarcasm or humor. The purpose of the NEPA review process is not, as the fascists argue, to tie projects up in red tape, but rather to ensure good planning that involves input from all possible stakeholders to make those projects work for everyone involved. NEPA protects profits as much as it does the environment; it’s a true case of everyone winning.

So what happens when fascists try and skip the process? Well let’s look at the 19-mile road the DOI so urgently needs to build through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, for instance.

Rather than following the process laid out in NEPA, doing a proper Environmental Impact Assessment, holding a public comment period, and meeting with local communities, the administration instead rushed forward and permitted the project by decree. Now that’s the subject of three separate lawsuits, which will likely take years to resolve, delaying the project more than simply following NEPA would have.

Where NEPA would have taken a couple of years and kicked out a legally sound result that worked for everyone, the administration is now facing a very unknown situation in which it’s entirely possible they’ll get no road at all, while spending millions in court, on who knows what timeline. Good work guys.

But What Can We Do?

All of you want me to give you some nice sounding answer every time I write about any of the horrible stuff happening in the world right now. But the truth is, we’re in a pretty bad spot. Restoring agency to normal voters is a multifaceted project that’s going to take decades of hard work.

My buddy Len Necefer tackles one aspect of that in a really good op-ed around where the environmental world is failing, and how it can fix itself. You should go read that at this link.

What I’ve Been Up To

It’s been a busy couple months trying to figure out what my career is going to look like post-Outside. And while that’s going on, I’m also all wrapped up in hunting season, and I flew down to Durango to receive Outdoor Media Summit’s award for impact in reporting for this little newsletter project.

On top of all that, I’ve been navigating some political stuff as my run for Montana State Senate starts to kick off. Who would have thought politics would be part of politics?! I’m switching from district 31 to 32. If you’re a donor to my campaign and you haven’t yet responded to my email requesting permissions to shift your funds over, look for a follow up from me tomorrow.

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