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Women engaged in agri-food systems in Africa and Asia, including in India, face the highest climate risks such as droughts, floods or shortened crop-growing season, a new hotspot map developed by an international team of researchers has identified. It ranked 87 countries based on the level of climate change threat faced by women working in agricultural sectors. The study covered nations in Latin America, Asia and Africa. India stood 12th on the risk index developed by researchers from six institutes. These included the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Gender Platform, International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya, International Rice Research Institute, Alliance of Biodiversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Ireland, International Rice Research Institute, India, International Food Policy Research Institute, United States, Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa, Kenya and the Worl...

For three generations, Fanny Brewer’s family has been ranching the same land in South Dakota’s Ziebach County. Encompassing part of the 1.4-million-acre Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, where she grew up, the county is among the poorest areas in the United States. But for Brewer, her husband, and their four kids, it represents prosperity. The Brewers run cattle and grow some alfalfa across 12,000 acres of grassland that’s a combination of owned land, leased tribal land, and federal trust land. This complicated arrangement isn’t unusual for Indigenous producers, who experience unique hurdles such as financial lending discrimination, limited land ownership opportunities, additional governance requirements, and disproportionately high poverty rates as a result of colonialism. “Some Native families never develop that generational wealth, whereas our non-Native neighbor...

Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Carmen G. Cantor concluded a weeklong trip to the Pacific, where she met with regional leaders and U.S. government interagency partners to highlight the Department of the Interior’s commitment to the insular areas and Freely Associated States (FAS).   In Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, Assistant Secretary Cantor and staff from the Department’s Office of Insular Affairs (OIA) hosted interagency partners and U.S. Embassies Chiefs of Mission at the biannual Federal Working Group on the FAS. The meeting facilitated the exchange of best practices, addressed program delivery challenges and discussed pooling federal resources for crucial projects. Over 35 federal program personnel from 20 agencies attended. Traveling to Guam, Assistant Secretary Cantor met with Lieutenant Governor Josh Tenorio, engaged local leaders, and conducted site visits to key projects receiving funding from OIA. These visits i...

On December 10th we witnessed President Javier Milei’s inauguration in Buenos Aires. Considered by many a controversial, far-right libertarian, Argentina’s new head of state is thought of as a wild card for many. At the same have also seen a return of the “conventional” right into his cabinet. So, what can we expect for Argentina’s energy sector? The South American country has a wide range of natural resources at its disposal; relating to energy it has a strong potential for shale oil and gas, hydroelectric generation, biomass, and battery metals—notably lithium. With such endowments, it is not only important for global commodity markets; it has a strategic role to play in the energy transition. President Milei’s win in the second round meant, for most financial markets, good news. While the peso fell against the dollar, in New York Argentine stocks and bonds shot up on news of his victory. In particular, investo...

FARGO — Students say a pledge from North Dakota State University to allow them to complete their studies in a discontinued program is falling far short of expectations. In addition, they and faculty question cuts to the science program to begin with, saying the move is shortsighted and goes against the standards of a land grant institution. Shelby Tooz, 20, of Moorhead, declared geology her major just days before talk emerged of the program being in danger, and she spent the following weeks and months in limbo. “I felt very kind of betrayed by a university that I grew up liking. Now when I think of NDSU I just think… They’ll take what you like and rub it in the dirt,” Tooz said. She’s since transferred to a geology program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. NDSU President David Cook and then-interim Provost David Bertolini warned of likely budget cuts last fall, and in January of this year outlined st...

In devasting cases dotting the globe in recent years, climate warming has led to an increase in the number and severity of destructive wildfires. Climate change projections indicate that environmental and economic damage from wildfires will spread and escalate in the years ahead. While studies have analyzed impacts on land, new research from the University of California San Diego and other institutions indicates that aquatic ecosystems are also undergoing rapid changes as a result of wildfires. Led by School of Biological Sciences Professor Jonathan Shurin’s laboratory, the researchers compared how aquatic systems change with the input of burnt plant matter, including effects on food webs. Their results are featured in two research studies published in the journal Global Change Biology. Among the findings emerging from the research, scientists show that fire chemically transforms plant debris and changes the role of aquatic ecosystems as key pla...

In November of 2020, a freak wave came out of the blue, lifting a lonesome buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58 feet). The four-story wall of water was finally confirmed in February 2022 as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded at the time. Such an exceptional event is thought to occur only once every 1,300 years. And unless the buoy had been taken for a ride, we might never have known it even happened. For centuries, rogue waves were considered nothing but nautical folklore. It wasn’t until 1995 that myth became fact. On the first day of the new year, a nearly 26-meter-high wave (85 feet) suddenly struck an oil-drilling platform roughly 160 kilometers (100 miles) off the coast of Norway. At the time, the so-called Draupner wave defied all previous models scientists had put together. Since then, dozens more rogue waves have been recorded (some even in lakes), and while the one that surfaced near Ucluele...