The 3.5 million acres located north of Los Angeles and the Inland Empire received the distinction this week in an announcement from the Sentinel Landscape Partnership, a collaboration between the departments of Defense, Agriculture and Interior that was formed in 2013. The area includes multi-use public lands, farmlands, recreational lands and military training areas and lies in the desert between Ridgecrest and the Morongo Basin.

The new designation is a “force-multiplier” for Marine Air Ground Combat Center 29 Palms��and the other Mojave Desert military installations supporting conservation efforts in range resilience and sustainability, Marine officials said.

Other bases in the Mojave Desert include the National Training Center Fort Irwin, Edwards Air Force Base, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow.

“As an example, it amplifies the combat center’s commitment to the tortoise (repopulation), habitat restoration and other recovery efforts on and off the installation,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2�� Brandon Owen, a 29 Palms base spokesperson.

The tortoise population has declined 50% to 90% in the Mojave Desert due to a wide range of threats, including ravens, coyotes, habitation degradation, disease, being run over by vehicles and invasive plants.

A major component of the base’s program to restore the tortoise population is to have pregnant females brought in to nest in captivity so the babies hatch in a protected environment. This allows them to grow larger with predator-resistant shells before being released into the wilderness as juveniles. The base has released more than 100 babies into the wild in the last few years.

Base ecologists at 29 Palms said the tortoise program has resulted in a 96% survival rate of turtles inside the facility each year. In the wild, the survival rate is less than 50%, base officials said.

The tortoises are tagged and tracked over several years to monitor their growth, movements and survival rates. The research shows scientists which methods work best for raising baby tortoises, and this information benefits other installations, too, Marine officials said.

The new designation encourages the involved federal agencies to work more closely together and remove bureaucratic roadblocks, helping to bring together coalitions that include multiple nonprofits in the area and federal, state, county and local organizations who can now work together more easily in restoring habitat and ecosystem function by creating species corridors and improving soil health, and managing watersheds to build resilience to a warmer, more arid climate.

Some of the groups will include California State Parks, Death Valley National Park, Desert Tortoise Council, Joshua Tree National Park and the University of California Riverside.

In addition to better collaboration it also prevents development around military installations with the aim of protecting those areas, but not interfering with training. The federal designation lets local government agencies and nonprofits pay farmers to keep farms and wildlife habitats as thy presently are.

“The program provides DOD with the unique opportunity to expand and diversify our partnerships to enhance the resilience of military installations and the local communities that support them,” Brendan Owens, assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations, and environment, said in a statement. “This year, the department is excited to support the five newly designated landscapes in achieving their dual priorities of safeguarding national defense and enhancing installation and community resilience, particularly in the Pacific and Western regions.”

There are now 17 Sentinel Landscapes, the other newly designated areas are in Hawaii, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Utah.

Among the goals centered around the new designation in the desert are reducing vehicle strikes that kill threatened, endangered, or sensitive species and reclaiming and protecting 50,000 acres of priority habitats through restoration, officials said.

The groups will also work through community outreach to promote conservation through education, including preventing illegal off-highway vehicle use and illegal cannabis growth. There will also be efforts to work with growing cooperatives to develop climate-resilient seeds.

GALVESTON, Texas — Early estimates indicate up to 2,000 gallons of oil may have spilled into surrounding waters when a barge carrying fuel broke free from a tugboat and slammed into a bridge near Galveston, Texas, the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday.

The barge crashed into a pillar supporting the Pelican Island Causeway span on Wednesday. The impact caused the bridge to partially collapse and cut off the only road connecting Galveston to Pelican Island, the Coast Guard said.

Video shows splotches of oil had spilled from the barge into Galveston Bay. Jeff Davis of the Texas General Land Office said during a news conference Thursday that early cleanup efforts have not identified any impacted wildlife.

The barge has the capacity to hold 30,000 barrels, but was holding 23,000 barrels — approximately 966,000 gallons — when it struck the bridge, Rick Freed, the vice president of barge operator Martin Marine, said at the news conference. Freed said the only tank that was compromised in the crash was holding approximately 160,000 gallons, which is the “complete risk.”

“We’re pretty confident there was much less oil introduced to the water than we initially estimated,” Coast Guard Capt. Keith Donohue said.

“We’ve recovered over 605 gallons of oily water mixture from the environment, as well as an additional 5,640 gallons of oil product from the top of the barge that did not go into the water,” Donohue said.

The Coast Guard said earlier that it had deployed a boom, or barrier, to contain the spill, which forced the closure of about 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) of the waterway.

A tugboat lost control of the 321-foot barge “due to a break in the coupling” that had connected the two vessels, the Coast Guard said.

“Weather was not a factor, at all, during the coupling issue,” Freed said. When pressed for more details on how the two vessels became disconnected, he said: “It’s under investigation right now, and I really can’t disclose anything further until the investigation is through.”

On Thursday, the barge remained beside the bridge, weighed in place by debris including rail lines that fell onto it after the crash.

The bridge, which provides the only road access between Galveston and Pelican Island, remained closed to incoming traffic, but vehicles leaving Pelican Island and pedestrians in both directions were able to cross.

Texas A&M University at Galveston, which has a campus on Pelican Island, urged staff and faculty to leave and said it was closing the campus, although essential personnel would remain.

“Given the rapidly changing conditions and uncertainty regarding the outage of the Pelican Island Bridge, the Galveston Campus administration will be relocating all Texas A&M Pelican Island residents,” through at least Sunday, it said in a statement late Wednesday.

Fewer than 200 people related to the school were on the island when the barge hit the bridge. Spokesperson Shantelle Patterson-Swanson said the university would provide transportation and cover the housing costs of those who choose to leave, but underlined that the school has not issued a mandatory evacuation.

Aside from the environmental impact of the oil spill, the region is unlikely to see large economic disruption as a result of the accident, said Maria Burns, a maritime transportation expert at the University of Houston.

The affected area is miles from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, which sees frequent barge traffic, and the Houston Ship Channel, a large shipping channel for ocean-going vessels.

The accident came weeks after a cargo ship crashed into a support column of the Francis Key Bridge in Baltimore on March 26, killing six construction workers.

Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas.

The station’s arrival comes just a year after California air regulators approved first-in-the-nation rules to ban the sale of new diesel big rig trucks statewide by 2036, the latest step in the slow but steady phase-out of fossil fuels in the Golden State. The rule will affect 1.8 million trucks in California — everything from 18-wheeled semis to delivery vans, garbage trucks and so-called drayage trucks that move shipping containers at ports like Oakland’s.

While most of the attention on transitioning the commercial fleets to clean technology has focused on electric vehicles, some say that hydrogen fuel offers many benefits that big rigs powered by heavy electric batteries cannot.

Mary Nichols, the former chair of the California Air Resources Board, said hydrogen-fueled trucks can carry more cargo and heavier loads.

“Overall the efficiency is good and you don’t have to keeping charging all the time,” said Nichols.��“It’s been a policy for a long time to try and support this type of change.”

There are fewer than 2,000 zero emission medium and heavy-duty vehicles on the road in California, according to the California Energy Commission. Of those, 1,369 are school and city buses, 306 are trucks and 268 are delivery trucks.

One nagging problem in the move to cleaner trucks is the lack of refueling stations that enable fleets to travel long distances. A typical EV big rig has a 200-300 mile range. A rig powered by a hydrogen fuel cell can more than double that range before refueling.

Some help may be on the way. California is on track to build the nation’s largest clean hydrogen hub by 2030. The $12 billion project will include pipelines, trucks and buses, fueling stations and liquefaction facilities, according to the University of California, a project partner.

The new ecosystem is expected to reduce up to 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions a year and create 220,000 green jobs, UC officials said. Federal, state and industry money is earmarked for the project, which is expected to generate $2.95 billion a year in economic value, including healthcare savings from reduced pollution, officials said.

Truckers in the Bay Area, however, won’t have to wait until the state builds its hydrogen network.

FirstElement Fuel station, just three miles from the Port of Oakland, will initially deploy 30 Hyundai hydrogen-powered trucks operated by Global Expedited Transportation Freight, an Atlanta-based corporation that will hire the truck drivers. The station will eventually have the capacity to fuel up to 200 hydrogen trucks and roughly 400 cars a day.

The $53 million project was funded with grants from the California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission.

“The reason this project is so important for the public is the number one source of air pollution that kills people is trucks,” said Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan. “Cleaning up the emissions from the trucks is one of the most important things in terms of human health impact, it is the cause of asthma, cancer and even premature birth in these disproportionately impacted communities.”

West Oakland residents who live near the Port of Oakland and the I-880 freeway are exposed to air concentrations of diesel pollution that are almost three times higher than average background levels in the Bay Area, and 71% of that comes from truck traffic, according to a health risk assessment by the air board.

And while trucks represent just 7% of vehicles on California roads, they emit 80% of the diesel soot and 70% of nitrogen oxides, a key component of smog from vehicles.

“Aside from the climate benefits, the greatest impact will be to the local communities by reducing the harmful diesel emissions from trucking in their neighborhoods,” said Shane Stephens, co-founder and chief development officer of True Zero, a FirstElement Fuel brand.

Stephens said his company has a commitment from Nikola to provide more hydrogen trucks, and that other companies, such as Toyota, and Honda are developing hydrogen fuel cell products as well.

He said the number of trucks using the station will be modest for the first year but should increase as more fleets transition to hydrogen fuel. Stephens added that a hydrogen fueling station in Kettleman City, along Interstate 5 on the way to Los Angeles, is already in the works.

Still, not everyone believes hydrogen is the answer to replacing dirty diesel fuels.

David Cebon, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Cambridge in England who studies hydrogen-powered long haul freight transport with The Hydrogen Science Coalition, said hydrogen-powered trucks are more expensive to buy and three times more costly to run.

For example, a diesel truck costs an average of $70,000 to $200,000 while electric semi trucks can sell for $365,000 to $435,000 before incentives, according to TEC equipment, although Tesla has been advertising $180,000 for its 500-mile electric semi, according to the .

Meanwhile, U.S.-based zero-emission automaker Nikola Motors — which also manufacturers EV trucks, is currently selling its new hydrogen trucks for about $350,000 after incentives, according to .

and and electric trucks report going about 200-300 miles on a single charge, while Tesla reports that its new electric big rig can travel up to 500 miles on a single charge, according to the company.

Cebon’s coalition maintains that given the large amount of energy needed to produce, transport and store, hydrogen it is a very inefficient energy carrier.

It’s likely that the future of clean trucking will include both options and already there are examples of both methods being used.

A new or large food trucks just opened in Gilroy. Shell continues to run three hydrogen stations in California for industry and heavy-duty vehicles, according to a report by Autoblog. That report also said Shell will continue allotting $1 billion annually toward heavy duty hydrogen as well as atmospheric carbon capture and storage. Shell did not return emails or calls seeking comment.

West Oakland climate activist Margaret Gordon, a founding member of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, said she has been advocating for a fuel change for trucks that use the Port of Oakland for the last 17 years.

“This is the first time that a collection of various institutions, regulatory agencies and community activists came together to help impact the community,” she said.

SACRAMENTO — California could require all new gas stoves sold in the state to carry a label warning users about pollutants they can release that have been linked to respiratory illnesses.

The state Assembly approved a proposal Monday that would require the label on gas stoves or ranges made or sold online after 2024, or sold in a store after 2025. The bill now heads to the state Senate.

Proponents of the legislation say it is a necessary step to help address childhood asthma and other respiratory problems. Opponents say the legislation is unnecessary and that the state should focus on promoting better ventilation in buildings to improve air quality.

RELATED: Southern California bakeries, smokehouses may be first in U.S. required to use electric ovens

“Despite the growing body of evidence about the health risks of gas stoves, most of this isn’t common knowledge,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Democrat representing part of Santa Cruz County. “This bill will help the purchaser make more informed decisions about gas stoves and oven appliances.”

The bill passed largely along party lines and with no debate.

The label would warn users that breathing in large concentrations of chemicals, such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and benzene, could “exacerbate preexisting respiratory illnesses and increase the risk of developing leukemia and asthma, especially in children.” It would also state that ventilation can lower the risk of exposure to these chemicals.

RELATED: Heat pumps: New rebates help more Southern Californians make the switch

Gas stoves have been at the center of hot political debates in recent years over climate policy, childhood health and consumer choice. In 2019, Berkeley, California, became the first city in the country to adopt a ban on natural gas in new homes and buildings, but courts blocked that law upon a challenge from the California Restaurant Association. The city recently halted enforcement of its policy after a federal court refused to hear an appeal.

The latest California proposal was inspired by a similar bill in Illinois that has not passed, said Jenn Engstrom, state director of the California Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit advocacy group.

RELATED: California’s move to induction stoves comes with advantages you might not know about

Outside of California, New York state passed a law banning natural gas stoves and furnaces in most new buildings starting in 2026. Last year, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would have banned the use of federal money to regulate gas stoves as a hazardous product. The bill has not been approved by the Senate.

California voters already approved a law in the 1980s requiring warning labels on gas stoves and other products if they expose people to significant amounts of chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects and reproductive harm. The label required under this year’s proposal would go further by mentioning respiratory illnesses.

RELATED: No ban of gas stoves planned, head of US safety agency says

About 40% of U.S. households cook using gas as a heat source, according to The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, which opposes the California bill.

“Adding yet another label to gas cooking products does not address the overall concern of indoor air quality while cooking,” spokesperson Jill Notini said in an email. “All forms of cooking, regardless of heat source, generate air pollutants, especially at high temperatures.”

People can improve ventilation while cooking by using a range hood and by making sure the range hood vents to the outdoors, according to the California Air Resources Board. People whose kitchens do not have a range hood should use a fan or open windows while cooking, the agency says.

There is growing evidence that chemicals released by gas stoves can worsen symptoms for people with respiratory problems, such as asthma, said Dr. Lisa Patel, a pediatrician and executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health. There is also concern that they could contribute to childhood asthma cases. She compared what has become a culture war over gas stoves to fights in the past to regulate seatbelts and tobacco products.

“We’re going through another moment where something that feels like an institution in our homes, suddenly we’re being told that it’s bad for our health,” Patel said. “It’s not because it wasn’t bad for our health all along. It was just that we didn’t have the data before. We have the data now.”

Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse ɫ����̳ Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

, a lung specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, sits in an exam room across from Joel Rubinstein, who has asthma. Rubinstein, a retired psychiatrist, is about to get a checkup and hear a surprising pitch — for the planet, as well as his health.

Divo explains that boot-shaped inhalers, which represent����of the U.S. market for asthma medication, save lives but also contribute to climate change. Each puff from an inhaler releases a hydrofluorocarbon gas that is����as the most commonly known greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.

“That absolutely never occurred to me,” said Rubinstein. “Especially, I mean, these are little, teeny things.”

So Divo has begun offering a more eco-friendly option to some patients with asthma and other lung diseases: a plastic, gray cylinder about the size and shape of a hockey puck that contains powdered medicine. Patients suck the powder into their lungs — no puff of gas required and no greenhouse gas emissions.

“You have the same medications, two different delivery systems,” Divo said.

Patients in the United States are prescribed roughly����of what doctors call metered-dose inhalers each year, according to the most recently available data published in 2020. The cumulative amount of gas released is the equivalent of driving half a million gas-powered cars for a year. So, the benefits of moving to dry powder inhalers from gas inhalers could add up.

Hydrofluorocarbon gas contributes to climate change, which is creating more wildfire smoke, other types of air pollution, and longer allergy seasons. These conditions can make breathing more difficult — especially for people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD — and increase the use of inhalers.

Divo is one of a small but growing number of U.S. physicians determined to reverse what they see as an unhealthy cycle.

“There is only one planet and one human race,” Divo said. “We are creating our own problems and we need to do something.”

So Divo is working with patients like Rubinstein who may be willing to switch to dry powder inhalers. Rubinstein said no to the idea at first because the powder inhaler would have been more expensive. Then his insurer increased the copay on the metered-dose inhaler so Rubinstein decided to try the dry powder.

“For me, price is a big thing,” said Rubinstein, who has tracked health care and pharmaceutical spending in his professional roles for years. Inhaling the medicine using more of his own lung power was an adjustment. “The powder is a very strange thing, to blow powder into your mouth and lungs.”

But for Rubinstein, the new inhaler works and his asthma is under control. A recent study found that some patients in the����who use dry powder inhalers have better asthma control while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In Sweden, where the vast majority of��,����are lower��.

Rubinstein is one of a small number of U.S. patients who have made the transition. Divo said that, for a variety of reasons, only about a quarter of his patients even consider switching. Dry powder inhalers are often more expensive than gas propellant inhalers. For some, dry powder isn’t a good option because not all asthma or COPD sufferers can get their medications in this form. And dry powder inhalers aren’t recommended for young children or elderly patients with diminished lung strength.

Also, some patients using dry powder inhalers worry that without the noise from the spray, they may not be receiving the proper dose. Other patients don’t like the taste powder inhalers can leave in their mouths.

Divo said his priority is making sure patients have an inhaler they are comfortable using and that they can afford. But, when appropriate, he’ll keep offering the dry powder option.

Advocacy groups for asthma and COPD patients support more conversations about the connection between inhalers and climate change.

“The climate crisis makes these individuals have a higher risk of exacerbation and worsening disease,” said��, chief medical officer of the��. “We don’t want medications to contribute to that.”

Rizzo said there is work being done to make metered-dose inhalers more climate-friendly. The United States and many other countries are��, which are also used in refrigerators and air conditioners. It’s part of the global attempt to avoid the worst possible impacts of climate change. But inhaler manufacturers are����from those requirements and can continue to use the gases while they explore new options.

���dz�������have pledged to produce canisters with����and to submit them for regulatory review by next year. It’s not clear when these inhalers might be available in pharmacies. Separately, the FDA is spending about $6 million on a����of developing inhalers with a smaller carbon footprint.

Rizzo and other lung specialists worry these changes will translate into higher prices. That’s what happened in the early to mid-2000s when ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)����of inhalers. Manufacturers changed the gas in metered-dose inhalers and the cost to patients��. Today, many of those re-engineered inhalers remain expensive.

William Feldman, a pulmonologist and health policy researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said these dramatic price increases occur because manufacturers register updated inhalers as new products, even though they deliver medications already on the market. The manufacturers are then awarded patents, which prevent the production of competing generic medications for decades. The Federal Trade Commission says it is��.

After the CFC ban, “manufacturers����from the inhalers,” Feldman said of the re-engineered inhalers.

When inhaler costs went up, physicians say, patients cut back on puffs and suffered more asthma attacks.��, medical director for climate and sustainability at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is worried that’s about to happen again.

“While these new propellants are potentially a real positive development, there’s also a significant risk that we’re going to see patients and payers face significant cost hikes,” Furie said.

Some of the largest inhaler manufacturers, including GSK, are����for allegedly inflating prices in the United States. Sydney Dodson-Nease told NPR and KFF Health ɫ����̳ that the company has a strong record for keeping medicines accessible to patients but that it’s too early to comment on the price of the more environmentally sensitive inhalers the company is developing.

Developing affordable, effective, and climate-friendly inhalers will be important for hospitals as well as patients. The����that hospitals looking to shrink their carbon footprint reduce inhaler emissions. Some hospital administrators see switching inhalers as low-hanging fruit on the list of climate-change improvements a hospital might make.

���ܳ���, medical director of environmental stewardship at Providence, a hospital network in Oregon, said, “It’s not as easy as swapping inhalers.”

Chesebro said that even among metered-dose inhalers, the climate impact varies. So pharmacists should suggest the inhalers with the fewest greenhouse gas emissions. Insurers should also adjust reimbursements to favor climate-friendly alternatives, he said, and regulators could consider emissions when reviewing hospital performance.

, a family physician in Toronto, said clinicians can make a big difference with inhaler emissions by starting with the question: Does the patient in front of me really need one?

Green, who works on a project to make inhalers��, said that����a third of adults diagnosed with asthma may not have the disease.

“So that’s an easy place to start,” Green said. “Make sure the patient prescribed an inhaler is actually benefiting from it.”

Green said educating patients has a measurable effect. In her experience, patients are moved to learn that emissions from the approximately 200 puffs in one inhaler are������in a gas-powered car. ���dz�������say switching to dry powder inhalers may be as beneficial for the climate as a patient��.

One of the hospitals in Green’s health care network,��, found that talking to patients about inhalers led to a significant decrease in the use of metered-dose devices. Over six months, the hospital went from 70% of patients using the puffers, to 30%.

Green said patients who switched to dry powder inhalers have largely stuck with them and appreciate using a device that is less likely to exacerbate environmental conditions that inflame asthma.

____

This article is from a partnership that includes��,, and��.

(is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of��— the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

___

©2024 Kaiser Health ɫ����̳. Visit����Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Turn on your toaster, bulldoze a Joshua tree. Flip a light switch, feed an endangered tortoise to a badger.

Solar power, widely seen as humanity’s best hope for avoiding catastrophic climate change, can carry a heavy environmental cost, depending on where panels and transmission lines are built.

Some of that infrastructure — providing electricity to millions of Californians — is going into places it should not, says San Jose State University environmental studies professor and sustainable energy expert, Dustin Mulvaney. Killing plants and animals, of course, is not a goal for solar developers, but the collateral damage has sparked bitter debate over where panels and lines belong.

California has done a good job of protecting its public lands while facilitating solar development, Mulvaney says. But many residents are powering their homes with electricity from Nevada, where pristine natural areas are taking an increasingly hard hit, and from private, California projects in important animal and plant habitats, he says.

Several “aggregators” — community-based alternatives to utility giants that are often marketed as “clean” — have contracts for power from a Southern California project that would see 4,000 Joshua trees leveled, he says. Other projects feeding aggregators bring significant loss of wildlife habitat.

Mulvaney believes sacrificing nature for solar is unnecessary. California could meet its electricity needs by putting solar panels on just a tenth of its contaminated sites, old mines, unusable former farmlands, parking lots and other disturbed areas, he says. “We need to be building out our electricity transmission infrastructure toward those sites,” Mulvaney says. The more solar close to major urban areas, the better, he adds. Every home and Amazon warehouse presents another rooftop-solar opportunity, he says.

This news organization sat down with Mulvaney recently to discuss solar power. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Describe the controversy over where to put solar generation facilities?A: Most big solar farms are not controversial. They get controversial when they go onto landscapes that are of significance, either ecological significance or cultural significance — sometimes there are important cultural resources for tribes.

Q: Do we have need for both rooftop solar and utility-scale solar?A: We should have more rooftop, but we’re going to need more utility scale based on the way our grid is built.

Q: Why do we have solar developments and proposals for pristine areas, when already-altered land is available?A: Transmission lines are why we see projects where they are. Back in the ’60s we built transmission lines to connect to coal-fired power plants in the western United States. As those coal-fired power plants are turning off, those transmission lines suddenly have power availability. The (planned new) Greenlink transmission line which is going to connect Las Vegas and Reno goes through a Native American site and through a bunch of sensitive ecosystems. And we’re already seeing applications for solar farms along that transmission corridor. That’s going to be power that goes to California, probably. Nevada has fewer protections for its public lands.

Q: What roles do the big utilities like PG&E and Southern California Edison play in where solar farms go up?A: The community choice aggregators are playing a bigger role than the utilities in determining these development patterns now. The community choice aggregators are doing much of the (power) purchasing. For the Yellow Pine solar farm on the Nevada border (to produce electricity for Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Central Coast Community Energy), lots of desert tortoises had to be removed from that site. Forty-something of those tortoises were eaten by badgers right away.

Q: Could we meet our electricity needs without big solar farms?A: There’s nothing theoretically prohibiting rooftop solar and batteries from powering a community. Do you have enough sun? We get those back to back to back to back cyclones in the winter. Sometimes the cloud cover’s all the way across the Central Valley. Do you have enough batteries? The battery storage probably makes that prohibitively expensive at this stage. It would require rethinking how we move power around.

Q: What do we stand to lose by putting big solar farms in the wilderness?A: All sorts of species, old-growth barrel cactus, desert tortoise, kit fox. The desert tortoise just last week was up-listed by the California Department of Fish and Game to be endangered. That species has lost 90% of its population since 1980. Bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope are impacted by solar farms because their habitat gets fragmented by them. Their populations get more isolated, they have inbreeding.

Q: Could we meet all our needs without putting solar on undisturbed wilderness?A: There’s a great study. You can and it would only increase the cost of power by 3%, based on their estimates.

Q: Where are some places where you could put reasonable amounts of solar generation to help avoid bringing power in from the desert or Nevada?A: On the western side of the Central Valley a lot of those soils are contaminated with selenium. That would be an area where you could have less impact. That’s where you could put pretty big utility scale projects that would be really close to the Bay Area, and above the��bottleneck��— California has a (power line capacity) bottleneck for the power, around Los Banos. We have to build more renewables above the bottleneck in northern California to help the Bay Area.

Q: What about Southern California?A: You have a lot of renewables in Southern California already. Southern California just needs more rooftop solar on their warehouses and things like that.

Name: Dustin MulvaneyOccupation: environmental studies professor at San Jose State UniversityEducation: PhD in environmental studies, UC Santa Cruz; master’s in environmental policy studies and bachelor’s in chemical engineering, New Jersey Institute of TechnologyBorn and raised: New JerseyCity of residence: Santa CruzAge: 48Family: married, two children

Five things to know about Dustin Mulvaney:

1. Likes to walk his dog Wilder
2. Proposed to his wife on a bike ride in Wilder Ranch State Park
3. Likes to observe sea otters
4. Studied insect ecology during his PhD
5. Favorite day-off activity is mountain biking

CANOAS, Brazil — Hundreds of volunteers have set up a makeshift dog shelter in an abandoned, roofless warehouse in the city of Canoas, one of the hardest hit by floods in southern Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.

They treat and feed sick, hungry or injured dogs, hoping to reunite them with their owners, and they were working at full speed Friday morning as renewed heavy rains are forecast in the region over the weekend.

Authorities say more than 110 people have died, almost 150 are missing, and more than 300,000 people have been displaced by the floods. There is no official tally for the number of animals that have died or are made homeless. Local media estimated the number to be in the thousands.

The makeshift shelter, about the size of a soccer field, has taken in hundreds of canines from inundated areas since Sunday. Every hour between 20 and 30 dogs arrive, many injured after having been run over or nearly drowned. The shelter sends some to veterinary hospitals, but others that are in need of medical attention are too frail to be transported. Dog food is scattered throughout the facility, and dogs are chained at distances from one another to prevent fighting.

Hairdresser Gabriel Cardoso da Silva is one of the main organizers. He came from the neighboring city of Gravatai, which wasn’t hit by the heavy rains, to help rescue people.

“When we were about to leave, we heard the barking. I and my wife felt so moved, we just cried; we have two dogs,” said Silva, 28.

Many more were drawn to the movement following a social media campaign, he added.

“Sunday we had 10 volunteers, now we have 200. We have tons of food. Our community chose to embrace this, but days ago we felt so alone.”

Whenever a dog is reunited with family, the hairdresser shouts “One less!” so other volunteers can stop and applaud throughout the shelter.

Cardoso’s call often mixes with loud barks of small, jittery dogs, fights between distraught animals that manage to get close and frantic movement by desperate families trying to locate their lost pets.

Éder Luis da Silva Camargo, a garbage collector in Canoas, found two of his six dogs at the center after searching for two days. Hunter and Preta were separated from him on Tuesday, as they boarded different boats during a rescue operation.

“They were so scared then, they ran to the side and we couldn’t run after them. Now, thank God, we found them here,” Camargo said.

He and his wife Jenifer Gabriela, 21, want to find their four dogs that are still missing: Bob, Meg, Polaca and Ravena.

“This is the third place we came to look for them. This is great, but we still want to find the others,” Gabriela said.

Animal protection groups and volunteers have shared images of difficult rescues and heartwarming scenes of pets reuniting with their owners on social media. One video that went viral showed a man crying inside a boat, hugging his four dogs after rescuers went back to his home to save them. The images have spurred Brazilians to send donations and brought veterinarians to the region.

Gustavo Ungerer, a jiu-jitsu teacher who lives in Rio de Janeiro and treats stray animals during his spare time, will join a group of veterinarians heading south in just over a week.

They will bring food and medical supplies, assist cats and dogs that have found shelter and seek out those still fending for themselves, said Ungerer, 41. One veterinarian is specialized in larger animals, such as oxen and horses.

Stray animals “don’t know how to ask for help. They get scared and run away or attack when people approach to help,” he said by phone. “Sometimes it might be necessary to climb a house, or enter into the river.”

The plight of lost animals in southern Brazil became national news this week after a television news helicopter spotted a horse nicknamed Caramelo stranded on a rooftop in Canoas, not far from the shelter.

About 24 hours afterward, as people clamored for his rescue, authorities in Rio Grande do Sul successfully removed Caramelo on Thursday, providing a dose of hope to a beleaguered region.

Carla Sassi, chairwoman of Grad, a Brazilian nonprofit that rescues animals after disasters, said she met with state government officials in Canoas to discuss emergency measures to rescue lost pets, but that nothing came of it.

So far, according to volunteers in some areas, only business leaders and local residents have acted to save pets in flooded areas.

Rio Grande do Sul’s housing secretariat says state agents have rescued about 10,000 animals since last week, while those in municipalities and volunteers have saved thousands more.

AP writer Eléonore Hughes contributed from Rio de Janeiro.

As many as 800 activists gathered outside Tesla’s Friday to protest its expansion plans, and some of them clashed with police as they attempted to break into the plant.

“There are currently 800 activists on the Tesla Gigafactory site as part of the Disrupt Tesla Action Days,” Disrupt, a coalition of self-declared anti-capitalist groups that organized the protest, said in a on its website.

According to Reuters, some of the protesters attempted to storm the factory. At least one protester was detained, Reuters reported.

Ole Becker, a Disrupt spokesperson, told CNN: “It was a good day for activists. We saw a lot of police violence unfortunately,” he added. “I saw a lot of injured people… I have seen things today which I haven’t seen for many years.”

Neither Tesla () nor police in the German state of Brandenburg, where the plant is located, have responded to a CNN request for comment.

But Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote in a post Friday: “Protesters did not manage to break through the fence line. There are still two intact fence lines all around (the factory).”

Disrupt argues that Musk’s plans to more than double the production capacity��of Tesla’s only factory in Europe would damage the local environment.

The group says the expansion would require clearing swathes of the surrounding forest and would further strain local water supply. It has planned four days of protests, which started Wednesday.

Tesla shut the factory Friday to all employees in anticipation of crowds gathering outside in protest against the planned expansion.

A stoppage of the plant’s production lines this Friday was announced back in January, CNN affiliate RTL����earlier this week, quoting a Tesla spokesperson. But with the protests “in mind,” the electric vehicle maker has decided that all other workers at the factory should also stay at home, RTL said.

In early March, Tesla was also forced to close the plant, that time , after a high-voltage electricity pylon delivering power to the factory was set on fire. A group of far-left activists claimed responsibility for the arson attack.

Police in Brandenburg said Wednesday that they had prepared for “extensive” operations, noting that they would be supported by federal police and several other state police forces.

“Disruptive protests as well as criminal acts typical of this kind of gathering cannot be ruled out,” they said in a statement. “Consequently, the police are prepared for both a peaceful and non-peaceful outcome. If crimes are committed, the police will intervene resolutely.”

But many of the park’s most iconic images — timeless, internationally famous shots of Half Dome, Tunnel View, Mirror Lake and other wonders that strikingly depict America’s natural heritage —�� were made by Bay Area native Ansel Adams.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Postal Service will issue featuring some of Adams’ most renowned photographs, including images of Yosemite Valley, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other majestic western landscapes, from the Grand Tetons to Monument Valley, Arizona.

The first such tribute to Adams’ work by the Postal Service, the stamps will be released at a first-day issue ceremony in Yosemite National Park, only a few feet from the Ansel Adams Gallery, where Adams, who died in Monterey in 1984, worked for decades redefining nature photography.

“It’s an incredible honor for Ansel,” said Matthew Adams, his grandson, on Thursday. “It shows that his popularity continues 40 years after he passed. His work resonates across time. He would be excited and honored.”

Adams timeless black-and-white photographs are celebrated for their sharp focus, high contrast and complex dark room craftsmanship. Many of them he took with large format cameras on a tripod mounted to a platform he built on the roof of his 1940s-era Woody station wagon.

The Postal Service is printing 20 million of the stamps, said David Coleman, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Washington D.C.

More than 400 stamp collectors, photographers, and other fans of Adams’ work are planning to attend the ceremony at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Yosemite Valley to unveil the stamps. Anyone who pays admission to enter the park is allowed to attend.

“There’s a huge buzz around the park,” said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. “We’re super-excited. Ansel Adams is synonymous with Yosemite. He pioneered a lot of his techniques with the big box cameras here in Yosemite in the 1930s and 1940s.”

At that event, which will feature remarks by Yosemite Superintendent Cicely Muldoon, Matthew Adams, and Daniel Tangherlini, a member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, first-day covers of the stamps will be sold, with a postmark from the Yosemite Valley post office.

“People come from all over the world and ask where did Ansel Adams take this photo, or that photo?” Gediman said. “His work epitomizes the spirit of the park in a way the way no other photographer has ever done. In a lot of people’s opinion, Ansel Adams is the preeminent photographer for national parks.

“This is a really fitting and well deserved tribute to his life and legacy.”

Adams had a remarkable life.

Born in 1902 in the Fillmore District of San Francisco, he broke his nose when he fell down during the 1906 earthquake as a 4-year-old child. It remained crooked his whole life. As a boy, he spent time exploring Baker Beach and other wild areas around the city. He visited Lick Observatory near San Jose with his father to study the planets and stars.

He became an accomplished piano player.

When he was 14, he visited Yosemite for the first time with his family. His parents gave him a Kodak Brownie No. 1 box camera, which inspired him to photograph the waterfalls and scenery of the park. He returned the next year with a tripod and more cameras. He began to learn darkroom techniques, joined photo clubs and read photography magazines.

A lover of nature, Adams joined the Sierra Club and worked at LeConte Memorial Lodge in the park from 1920 to 1923. His first photographs were published in 1921 when he was 17, and his prints began selling in the park at Best’s Studio, the business of landscape painter Harry Best, whose daughter, Virginia, Adams eventually married, and whose studio later became the Ansel Adams Gallery.

He began traveling to parks around the West. He published his first book, Taos Pueblo, in 1930; then put up an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution the following year featuring his photographs of the Sierra Nevada, and a year later, opened a photo gallery business in San Francisco in 1933.

He was first elected to the Sierra Club’s board of directors in 1934 and served on its board for 37 years. During that time his photographs helped conservation groups push Congress to establish new national parks, including Kings Canyon. He donated photographs as part of the campaign to advocate for voters to pass Proposition 20 in 1972, which created the California Coastal Commission.

Adams helped establish the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Today his work hangs in many of America premier fine arts museums, and original prints have sold for hundreds of thousand of dollars.

He moved to the Carmel Highlands near Big Sur in the mid-1960s, taught photography workshops at Yosemite, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by in 1980 by President Carter.

Another U.S. postage stamp in 2002 featured an Adams image, “Sand Dunes at Sunrise,” that he made in Death Valley National Park in 1948. It was part of the “Masters of American Photography” issuance featuring 20 different photographers from Dorthea Lange to Edward Weston.

“Stamps are miniature pieces of art,” Coleman said. “And these Ansel Adams stamps are pieces of art. How much more Americana can you get than Ansel Adams?”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated. The effects were expected to last through the weekend and possibly into next week.

The storm’s severity is currently categorized as G4, the second strongest. During a call with reporters Friday, Shawn Dahl of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center said that the agency can’t rule out a “low-end” G5 event.

NOAA has alerted operators of power plants and spacecraft in orbit to take precautions.

Even when the storm is over, signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers could be scrambled or lost, according to NOAA —�� but there are so many navigation satellites that any outages should not last long.

Increased radiation also could threaten some of NASA’s science satellites. Extremely sensitive instruments will be turned off, if necessary, to avoid damage, said Antti Pulkkinen, director of the space agency’s heliophysics science division. NASA said the storm posed no serious threat to the seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

“As far as the worst situation expected here at Earth, that’s tough to say and I wouldn’t want to speculate on that,” Dahl said. “However, ‘severe’ level is pretty extraordinary, it’s a very rare event to happen.”

An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003 took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.

NOAA said the sun produced strong solar flares beginning Wednesday, resulting in capable of disrupting satellites in orbit and power grids here on Earth. Each eruption — known as a coronal mass ejection — can contain billions of tons of solar plasma.

NOAA said the flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that’s 124,000 miles across — 16 times the diameter of Earth.

People who’ve saved their solar eclipse glasses will be able to see that sunspot without magnification, in the sun’s lower right quadrant.

The storm could produce aurora borealis — northern lights — as far south in the U.S. as Alabama and Northern California, according to NOAA.

Experts stressed it would not be the dramatic curtains of color normally associated with the northern lights, but more like splashes of greenish hues.

“That’s really the gift from space weather — the aurora,” said Rob Steenburgh, a scientist with the Space Weather Prediction Center. He and his colleagues said the best aurora views may come from phone cameras, which are better at capturing light than the naked eye.

Snap a picture of the sky and “there might be actually a nice little treat there for you,” said Mike Bettwy, operations chief for the prediction center.

The most intense solar storm in recorded history, in 1859, prompted auroras in central America and possibly even Hawaii. “We are not anticipating that” but it could come close, Dahl said.