Climate Point: A battle over glamping, drilling in Alaska, and vanishing Hawaiian beaches

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and environment news from around the Golden State and the country. In Palm Springs, Calif., I’m Mark Olalde.

President Trump finally conceded after a mob of his supporters overran the U.S. Capitol. Georgia continued its blue shift, electing two Democratic senators and handing control over Congress' upper branch to the Democratic Party by a razor-thin margin. The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge was opened for oil drilling in a lease sale that saw a pitiful turnout. COVID-19 continued surging to unfathomable heights.

And we're one week into 2021.

But let's pick up this week in beautiful eastern Arizona, where, only five days before President-elect Joe Biden is set to take office, the Trump administration will hand over nearly 2,500 acres in Tonto National Forest to global mining giant Rio Tinto in a land swap. To call it controversial would be an understatement, as the San Carlos Apache Tribe has fought vehemently for years to protect a nearby site it says is sacred. Arizona Public Radio has the story.

Here's some other important reporting...

MUST-READ STORIES

Going to war for glamping. Sedona, Ariz., is a starkly gorgeous part of the country, its red rocks rising like monoliths not too far north of Phoenix. Due to its serenity, this area is now the center of a fiery debate: to glamp or not to glamp. A glamping — glamorous camping — company is at the center of the debate over whether it's appropriate to place Airstreams, fire pits and other amenities in a fire-prone area, even if they refused to comment for this Arizona Republic article. That's not all that has locals concerned. The Hopi Tribe has a sacred site half a mile away, and there are concerns that glampers will trample it.

Oil issues bubble up. I could fill an entire newsletter with oil and gas shenanigans, but, instead, I'll quickly run through some highlights for you here. Starting out east, The Post Star reports that New York's Department of Environmental Conservation has found more than 2,000 orphaned oil and gas wells to date, and it's planning to invest $400,000 in "custom drone and imaging equipment" to find more that are lurking throughout the state. Moving to the Midwest, Downtown, a magazine, reports that Michigan's 60,000 wells are spewing methane even as many are no longer producing, but cleaning them up presents an opportunity to put roughnecks back to work. And, heading out west, the Casper Star Tribune reports that several tribal nations are protesting a decision by the Trump administration to allow the drilling of 5,000 new wells. The tribes worry the drilling could "compromise air and water quality, violate existing treaty rights and destroy cultural resources."

The future of transport. The transportation sector is arguably the largest contributor of climate-warming gases in the country, so its switch low-emission vehicles would have an immediately positive impact. But to make that switch, we need infrastructure to service those vehicles, just as we have gas stations on seemingly every corner. Midwest Energy News reports on how the federally funded Michigan-to-Montana Alternative Fuel Corridor is demonstrating how that might be achieved. Following I-94, the project accelerated the deployment of charging or fueling stations for battery-electric, compressed natural gas and propane-powered vehicles.

POLITICAL CLIMATE

Drilling the refuge. After a federal judge this week denied a request to halt an impending lease sale, Trump was finally set to accomplish one of his long-held goals: selling off chunks of the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to be drilled for oil. But, then, the sale flopped. "Alaska’s state-owned economic development corporation was the only bidder on nine of the tracts offered for lease in the northernmost swath of the refuge ... Half of the offered leases drew no bids at all," Alaska Public Media reports.

Senate shift. The Peach State will be represented in the Senate by Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, two Democrats. And with those Georgians come massive environmental implications. In his time as the majority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been efficient at blocking legislation that could address climate change, but now the chamber will be evenly split with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris set to become the deciding vote, should votes come to that. Science Magazine writes that the Senate shakeup would impact the environment by making it easier to confirm Biden's nominees (at EPA and Energy, for example), handing the keys to committee leadership posts to several climate-friendly Democrats and leading to environmental legislation actually passing, especially alongside a blue House.

Shady science. Back in the nation's capital, The Washington Post reports that the EPA finalized its so-called "secret science" rule, which has detractors concerned that Trump officials are trying to make it harder to use science in governmental decisions. The rule will "limit what research it can use to craft public health protections, a move opponents argue is aimed at crippling the agency’s ability to more aggressively regulate the nation’s air and water." The EPA said it will bring greater transparency to decision-making.

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH WATER

Down by the river. These days, roughly 40 million people rely on the Colorado River. Suffice to say, as the river goes, so does much of the West. That's what makes Ian James' latest dispatch for the Arizona Republic so disturbing. In this very deep dive, he examines our relationship with the river, why its future flow is being threatened by climate change and how it could fare in the face of fire, drought and declining snowpack.

The water level's rising. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser and ProPublica partnered for this must-read series on Hawaii's disappearing beaches. In it, they find that sea walls, while protecting individual houses from rising oceans, are causing the sped-up erosion of the state's beaches, which are — legally speaking — a public good. Even though officials said they'd stop permitting these walls, they're letting residents and developers exploit loopholes to continue the practice on properties that have at times been lucratively flipped.

Saline solution. For The Desert Sun, I'm out with one more look at the Salton Sea, California's enigmatic largest lake that is a sump for agricultural runoff, a public health disaster and a once-cherished vacation destination all wrapped into one. As the state and feds fail to fix the problem of toxic dust emanating from the shrinking body of water's exposed lakebed, some nearby homeowners are taking it upon themselves to try to save their way of life.

AND ANOTHER THING

The battery of things. Desert Sun alumnus Sammy Roth is out with an interesting look in the Los Angeles Times at the future of energy in California, which experienced rolling blackouts in August. Dispersed batteries are being looked at as a way to store energy off the traditional grid. This would allow the use of renewables (like solar) at times when generation is low but demand is high (like when the sun goes down but it's still hot enough for AC). The idea still has kinks to work out, but as Roth writes, "as California works to build a future without fossil fuels, electricity generation isn’t just getting cleaner — it’s getting smaller and nimbler."

Scientists agree that to maintain a livable planet, we need to reduce the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration back to 350 ppm. We’re above that and rising dangerously. Here are the latest numbers:

That’s all for now. Don’t forget to follow along on Twitter at @MarkOlalde. You can also reach me at molalde@gannett.com. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here. And, if you’d like to receive a daily round-up of California news (also for free!), you can sign up for USA Today’s In California newsletter here. Mask up! Cheers.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A fight over glamping, drilling in Alaska, and vanishing Hawaiian beaches