Hacker News with Generative AI: Environmental Issues

Bees have died this year. "the worst bee loss in recorded history," (cbsnews.com)
The U.S. beekeeping industry is in crisis over the shocking and unexplained deaths of hundreds of millions of bees over the last eight months.
Trump's 'climate' purge deleted a new extreme weather risk tool. We recreated it (theguardian.com)
The Guardian has recreated a searchable climate future risk tool developed by Fema but then deleted
UK tyres meant for recycling sent to furnaces in India (bbc.co.uk)
Millions of tyres being sent from the UK to India for recycling are actually being "cooked" in makeshift furnaces causing serious health problems and huge environmental damage, the BBC has discovered.
We got rid of acid rain. Now something scarier is falling from the sky (vox.com)
In the 1970s, acid rain was one of the most serious environmental threats in North America and Europe.
Court Imposes over $1.6B in Penalties on a Toyota Subsidiary for Emissions Fraud (justice.gov)
Today, U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Goldsmith for the Eastern District of Michigan accepted Hino Motors, Ltd.’s guilty plea to a one-count criminal information charging it with having engaged in a multi-year criminal conspiracy to defraud both the U.S. government and American consumers and illicitly smuggle goods into the country.
'Don't call it zombie deer disease': infections spread across the US and globe (theguardian.com)
The contagious, fatal illness in deer, elk and moose must be taken seriously, say experts as it takes hold in the US and reaches other countries. While it has not infected humans yet, the risk is growing
Art the Whale (ejournals.sierracollege.edu)
A body floats up on the beach. It is discovered, identified, and found to have eight aliases. The body is dismembered, crudely jammed into dirty barrels, roughly tossed into the back of a truck, and buried in the dead of night by the light of automobile headlamps. Neighbors hear strange noises, and smell even stranger odors. Vats of unidentified liquid boil ominously at the site. Multinational corporations and government officials are involved. Eleven months pass. The body is exhumed and reassembled.
Amazon forest felled to build road for COP30 (bbc.co.uk)
A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.
Trump withdraws new pipeline rules based on CO2 leaks in Mississippi, Louisiana (veritenews.org)
Nearly five years after a pipeline spewed poison gas across a Mississippi town, federal regulators appeared ready in recent weeks to institute new safety rules aimed at preventing similar accidents across the U.S.’s fast-growing network of carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines.
First analysis finds America's butterflies disappearing at "catastrophic" rate (apnews.com)
America’s butterflies are disappearing because of insecticides, climate change and habitat loss, with the number of the winged beauties down 22% since 2000, a new study finds.
Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from 36 fossil fuel firms, study shows (theguardian.com)
Half of the world’s climate-heating carbon emissions come from the fossil fuels produced by just 36 companies, analysis has revealed.
PFAS in fertilisers blamed for killing livestock in Texas and wreaking havoc (chemistryworld.com)
The mystery of why farmers had started falling ill in Johnson County, Texas and what killed the fish in their ponds and livestock on their ranches may have been solved.
Federal Firings Threaten Great Lakes' $5B Fishery (insideclimatenews.org)
Sweeping layoffs of federal employees have struck the program responsible for controlling the invasive sea lamprey that threatens fish across the Great Lakes, the earth’s largest freshwater ecosystem.
Environmental Protection Agency Will Lose 65 Percent of Staff, Trump Says (nytimes.com)
During his cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Trump casually mentioned that Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, intended to fire 65 percent of employees, an incision so deep that officials said it would hobble the E.P.A.
These park rangers oversaw Florida's only manatee refuge. Then they were fired (tampabay.com)
The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce are impacting the only national refuge created specifically for threatened manatees.
Brazilian city in Amazon declares emergency after sinkholes appear (theguardian.com)
Authorities in a city in the Brazilian Amazon have declared a state of emergency after huge sinkholes opened up, threatening hundreds of homes.
'Triangle of death': will Italy tackle mafia's toxic waste dumping? (theguardian.com)
Cancer rates have soared in Casalnuovo di Napoli, Italy, where burying or burning of waste has poisoned water and land
'Honestly terrifying': Yosemite National Park is in chaos (sfgate.com)
Yosemite National Park is in trouble. Hamstrung by President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze, hundreds of rescinded job offers and the threat of coming layoffs, the park is poised to enter its busiest months of the year severely short-staffed.
Worst avian flu crisis ever recorded spreads across Antarctica (elpais.com)
The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, which has caused the death of hundreds of millions of birds in the last five years around the world, is spreading across Antarctica, a pristine paradise for wildlife.
Man who lost $800M Bitcoin in landfill wants to buy the garbage dump (cnn.com)
After Trump killed a report on nature, researchers push ahead with release (arstechnica.com)
The first-ever National Nature Assessment—which was based on significant public feedback and strove to reveal how nature loss influences climate change and impacts humanity—may still see the light of day after the Trump administration abruptly ended the ambitious project.
Man who lost Bitcoin fortune in Welsh tip explores purchase of entire landfill (theguardian.com)
A computer expert who has battled for a decade to recover a £600m bitcoin fortune he believes is buried in a council dump in south Wales is considering buying the site so he can hunt for the missing fortune.
Exxon is quietly planning a new $8.6B plastics plant in Texas (grist.org)
Diane Wilson had heard rumors for months that Exxon might be coming to Point Comfort, Texas, which sits on the Gulf Coast south of Galveston. She recalls whispers about the global behemoth hiring local electricians and negotiating railroad access. Two days before Christmas, the first confirmation quietly arrived: an application for tax subsidies to build an $8.6 billion plastics manufacturing plant.
Giant Solar Farm in Mojave Desert Could Close Just a Decade After Opening (ibtimes.com)
A California utility wants to end its agreement to buy power from a giant solar farm in the Mojave Desert because it found cheaper alternative clean energy sources, a move that will sound the death knell to what was once the world's largest solar plant, according to reports.
65% of all ski resorts in the US have closed since 1960s (2022) (mdpi.com)
More than half of the ski resorts in North America have closed since the early building booms—many facing a warming climate and pressures to find water to make artificial snow.
Infrastructure neglect and poverty lead to parasites in the Mississippi Delta (theguardian.com)
New research suggests parasitic infections in US south are far more widespread than previously acknowledged
Real-time, river sections downstream of sewage discharges from storm overflows (sewagemap.co.uk)
Astronomers seek global ban on space advertising (spacenews.com)
WASHINGTON — Astronomers are calling on nations to ban advertising in space that can be seen from the ground, calling it the latest threat to the dark and quiet sky.
Big oil pushed to kill bill that would have made them pay for wildfire disasters (theguardian.com)
In the year preceding the devastating Los Angeles county wildfires, big oil fiercely lobbied to kill a “polluter pay” bill that moved through the California senate and would have forced major fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of climate disasters.
What is the pink fire retardant used to control the L.A. fires? (nbcnews.com)
As the wildfires in Southern California continue to burn, streaks of bright pink fire retardant have become a familiar sight.