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      How a Tiny Panel, Up for Election, Could Steer Arizona Away From Clean Power

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      The vote, in a sunny state with huge solar potential, reflects a growing nationwide fight over America’s energy transition.As Arizona voters go the polls, they have more control over their state’s power plants and climate policies than they might realize.This year three of the five seats are up for grabs on the Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates electric utilities. The commission has authority over how electricity is generated, among other things, and what customers pay.In recent years, it has taken steps toward rolling back a clean-energy mandate passed by a previous Republican-led board. It has also made it harder to build community solar in a state renowned for its sunniness, its critics say, and easier to build new fossil-fuel-burning power plants.These boards exist in states nationwide, and while most are appointed, similarly contentious races playing out in states like Louisiana and Montana, where they’re debating the future of coal power, which is particularly dirty, and what role natural gas, another fossil fuel, should have.“It’s a fourth branch of government that nobody knows about who’s in your pocket every day,” said Robert Burns, a Republican who served on Arizona’s commission for eight years.Starting two decades ago, the Republican-controlled commission had encouraged a transition to renewable energy based on simple economics: Renewables were getting cheaper than fossil fuels. It initially required utilities it regulates to become 15-percent renewable by 2025 and later, during Mr. Burns’s tenure, he sought to eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants by 2050.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Amid Climate Crisis, Svalbard Global Seed Vault Gets a Huge Deposit

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      A storage facility in Norway built to safeguard crop diversity recently received more than 30,000 samples as concerns grow about climate change and food insecurity.The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, in the far reaches of northern Norway, is meant to be humanity’s last resort. Imagine it as the world’s doomsday garden shed: a secure genetic capsule, kept safe in case some catastrophe — a meteor strike or climate disaster, perhaps — threatens the planet’s crops.The vault already had about 1.3 million seed samples from about 7,000 species, sent from all over the world. Last week, it received about 30,000 new ones.The number itself is notable: It’s one of the largest one-time additions since the vault opened in 2008. (There are often three deposits a year.)But perhaps more significant is the amount of so-called genebanks — organizations that store their own hoards of seeds in locations around the world — that participated in the latest donation, said Asmund Asdal, the Norwegian vault’s coordinator.“It is more important now that many new genebanks in developing parts of the world are depositing valuable and unique genetic material,” he wrote in an email. Some, he said, made their first contributions last week. Svalbard is not the only place where seeds are stored. But it is meant to be a vault, a mostly sealed storage place for use in case of emergency. Most of the work of seed saving, studying and sharing happens in the genebanks. Those banks are a bit like a computer’s filing system, in which documents are stored but easily accessible. Svalbard is the external hard drive from where files can be recovered if lost.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Environmental Claims Ignore Decades of Climate Science

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      The former president says he wants “clean air and clean water,” but he has rolled back environmental rules and dismissed the scientific consensus on climate change.In the final throes of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump is trying to cast himself as a protector of mother nature, even as he calls climate change a hoax.“I’m an environmentalist,” he said this month in Wisconsin. “I want clean air and clean water. Really clean water. Really clean air.”This past weekend, he falsely boasted about the quality of the environment when he was president.“We had the cleanest air for four years of any country by far,” he said on Saturday in Novi, Mich. “The cleanest water. That’s what I want. I want clean air, clean water, and jobs.”But as Trump talks of clean air and water, he regularly disputes basic facts underpinning contemporary climate science. His approach to the environment, which has been adopted across much of the Republican Party, would roll back regulations, expand oil and gas production and curtail the federal government’s regulatory powers.As Lisa Friedman reports today, the Environmental Protection Agency would be a particular focus of a new Trump administration, which would “tear down and rebuild” the structure of the agency, said Mandy Gunasekara, a leading candidate to run the agency if Trump is elected.These moves would come at a time when the consequences of man-made climate change are mounting. Last year was the hottest in recorded history by a wide margin. This year there have been 24 natural disasters that have inflicted at least $1 billion in damage in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      One-Third of World’s Trees Face Extinction Risk, Report at COP16 Says

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      They play an essential role in supporting life on Earth, but many species are in decline, researchers found.More than a third of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction, according to the first comprehensive assessment of trees by the world’s leading scientific authority on the status of species.The findings, announced on Monday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, are especially sobering given the amount of life that trees sustain. Countless species of other plants, animals and fungi rely on forest ecosystems. Trees are also fundamental to regulating water, nutrients and planet-warming carbon.“Trees are essential to support life on Earth through their vital role in ecosystems, and millions of people depend on them for their lives and livelihoods,” Grethel Aguilar, director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said in a statement.The tree assessment is considered comprehensive because it includes more than 80 percent of known tree species. In all, 38 percent were found to be at risk of extinction. More than a thousand experts from around the world contributed.Island biodiversity is particularly vulnerable, in part because those species often have small populations that exist nowhere else, and island trees accounted for the highest proportion of trees threatened with extinction. In Madagascar, for example, numerous species of rosewoods and ebonies are threatened. In Borneo, 99 species in the family of trees called Dipterocarpaceae are imperiled. In Cuba, fewer than 75 mature individuals of the red-flowered Harpalyce macrocarpa, known in Spanish as maiden’s blood, remain.Around the world, the biggest threats to trees are agriculture and logging, followed by urbanization, said Emily Beech, head of conservation prioritization at Botanic Gardens Conservation International, a nonprofit group that led the research now included in the Red List.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.N. Report on Climate Goals Says Countries Have Made No Progress

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      An annual assessment by the world body tracks the gulf between what countries have vowed to do and what they’ve actually achieved.One year after world leaders made a landmark promise to move away from fossil fuels, countries have essentially made no progress in cutting emissions and tackling global warming, according to a United Nations report issued on Thursday.Global greenhouse gas emissions soared to a record 57 gigatons last year and are not on track to decline much, if at all, this decade, the report found. Collectively, nations have been so slow to curtail their use of oil, gas and coal that it now looks unlikely that countries will be able to limit global warming to the levels they agreed to under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.“Another year passed without action means we’re worse off,” said Anne Olhoff, a climate policy expert based in Denmark and a co-author of the assessment, known as the Emissions Gap Report.The report comes a month before diplomats from around the world are scheduled to meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, for annual United Nations climate talks, where countries will discuss how they might step up efforts to address global warming.Lately, those efforts have faced huge obstacles.Even though renewable energy sources like wind and solar are growing rapidly around the world, demand for electricity has been rising even faster, which means countries are still burning more fossil fuels each year. Geopolitical conflicts, from the U.S.-China rivalry to war in places like Ukraine and Gaza, have made international cooperation on climate change harder. And rich countries have failed to keep their financial promises to help poor countries shift away from oil, gas and coal.At last year’s climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, representatives from nearly every nation approved a pact that called for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” and accelerating climate action this decade. But the agreement was vague on how to do so and on which countries should do what, and so far there has been little follow-through.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Letters in Song Lyrics and Poetry

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      These are some of our favorites from among more than 800 submissions in response to our request for variations on traditional letters.Elections of Yore(to the tune of “Yesterday”)Yesterday, politics was just a game we’d playNow hostility is here to stayOh, I believe in yesterdaySuddenly, there’s an absence of civilityThere’s no common ground that I can seeOh, yesterday came suddenlyWhy we disagreeI don’t know, it’s hard to sayWe’re so far apartNow I long for yesterdayYesterday, bipartisan was just how we’d playNow consensus just has gone awayOh, I believe in yesterdayWhy things are so wrongI don’t know, I’m sad to sayAll my hope is goneMy heart longs for yesterdayYesterday, I looked forward to Election DayNow the discord takes my joy awayOh, I believe in yesterdayBill ArchibaldArlington, Va.Trump’s Campaign Love Song to AmericaWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Filmmaker Focuses on Climate and Democracy

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      In his next documentary, Michael P. Nash takes on A.I. and how it might be used to address environmental issues.The Athens Democracy Forum last week featured an array of speakers from countries worldwide: politicians, leaders of nonprofits, youths dedicated to promoting democracy. Michael P. Nash was the only filmmaker to speak.Mr. Nash, who resides in Nashville and Los Angeles, is behind more than a dozen documentaries and psychological thrillers. His most well-known work is “Climate Refugees,” a documentary that debuted at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and portrays the stories of people from 48 countries who were affected by climate change.Mr. Nash’s other notable films include “Fuel” (2017), which focuses on alternative energy, and “Saving the Roar” (2021), an inspirational sports documentary about Penn State University’s football culture.Mr. Nash is directing and producing “Chasing Truth,” a documentary examining whether artificial intelligence can solve environmental issues such as climate change and food security. The film is a collaboration with the actor Leonardo DiCaprio and his father, George DiCaprio, who are executive producers. It is expected to be released in 2026.George DiCaprio said he and his son got to know Mr. Nash more than a decade ago, at a screening of “Climate Refugees” at their home. “It was clear that we all shared a passion for addressing the world’s most pressing issues, and now, more than ever, that commitment has deepened,” he said in an email. After the forum, Mr. Nash was interviewed by email and phone about his interest in democracy advocacy; the connection between climate change and democracy; and what he had learned in Athens. The conversation has been edited and condensed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ruth Glacier in Alaska Hides America’s Deepest Gorge

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      As his bush plane circled the craggy peaks of the Alaska Range, the explorer Bradford Washburn peered down and had a burning thought.Coursing down the southern slopes of Denali and Mount Silverthrone were the accumulated snows of thousands of winters, compacted under their own weight into colossal rivers of ice that filled the valleys for miles in every direction. At one particular spot in the white wilderness, Washburn noticed from above, all this glacial mass was somehow squeezing through a granite-walled corridor just a mile wide.Washburn became convinced, he wrote, that beneath the ice lay a secret: The corridor was deep. Deeper, perhaps, than any other gorge on the continent, and maybe even the planet.That was 1937. Nearly 90 years later, a team of scientists set off into the windswept mountains to measure the glacier with snowmobiles and ice-penetrating radar. It wasn’t easy: The Great North does not surrender its mysteries readily. The researchers almost didn’t think they’d found anything of interest.The Ruth Glacier originates beneath the summit of Denali and flows through deep granite valleys.Now, thanks to some clever analysis, and a bit of luck, they have put forth the most conclusive evidence yet that Washburn was right — that the area could be the deepest gorge in North America.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More