ICYMI: Cheeto-Loving Javelina, Smudge-Stick Plague & Ban on Gas-Powered Cars in California?

A weekly roundup for busy people

By Paul Rauber

Illustrations by Peter Arkle

April 15, 2022

Trying to get at a bag of Cheetos, an Arizona javelina locks itself in a Subaru station wagon.

If all the parties to the Glasgow Climate Pact keep their net-zero pledges, peak global warming can be kept below the 2°C mark. Staying below 1.5° would take much steeper emission declines this decade. 

In an effort to reduce the soaring price of gasoline, President Joe Biden signs an emergency waiver allowing the sale of high-ethanol gasoline this summer. Many environmentalists are skeptical.

On March 29, for the first time, wind eclipses both coal and nuclear to become the second-largest source of electricity generation in the US. 

A preprint study suggests that the ivory-billed woodpecker may not be extinct yet. 

Flooding kills more than 340 people in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.

New studies show that ocean warming doubles the chances for extreme Atlantic hurricane seasons.

Chile enters its 13th year of drought and will begin rationing water to the capital city of Santiago, population 6 million.  

Georgia tries to eradicate invasive South American tegu lizards before they become endemic. Tegus can grow up to four feet in length and weigh 10 pounds.  

Mushrooms and fungi send each other electrical signals that resemble words.  

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission agrees to let the Mountain Valley Pipeline tunnel under 183 streams and wetlands in Virginia and West Virginia.  

Poachers are wiping out Southern California’s white sage to make New Age smudge sticks

California air-quality regulators propose banning sales of new internal-combustion cars by 2035.