Prescribed burning helps store forest carbon in big, fire-resistant trees

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By Kara Manke, UC Berkeley News. 

Excerpt: After more than a century of fire suppression in California’s forests, mounting evidence shows that frequent fire — through practices like prescribed fire or Indigenous cultural burning — can improve forest health, increase biodiversity and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. ...A new long-term study shows that, while prescribed burning may release carbon dioxide in the short term, the repeated use of controlled fire may boost a forest’s productivity, or carbon sequestration capacity, in the long term.... 

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2024 was the hottest year on record, breaching a critical climate goal and capping 10 years of unprecedented heat

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By Laura Paddison , CNN.  Excerpt: It’s official: 2024 was the hottest year on record, breaking the  previous record  set in 2023 and pushing the world over a critical climate threshold, according to new data from Europe’s climate monitoring agency Copernicus [ https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-first-year-exceed-15degc-above-pre-industrial-level ]. Last year was 1.6 degrees hotter than the period before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels, Copernicus found. It makes 2024 the first calendar year to breach  the 1.5-degree limit  countries agreed to avoid under the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Scientists are much more concerned about breaches over decades, rather than single years — as above that threshold humans and ecosystems may struggle to adapt — but 2024’s   record   “does mean we’re getting dangerously close,” said Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London....  Full article at https://www.cnn.c...
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Warmer, more crowded cities bring out the rats

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