⭑ A federal judge blocked a road through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The fight’s not over but this is something.
⭑ A wildlife overpass in Washington near Snoqualmie Pass has recorded its 10,000th safe crossing.
🦌 🦝 🫎 🐺 🐇 🦌
⭑ Last month Victoria, Australia began vaccinating thousands of little penguins against the deadly H5 bird flu.
🐧 🐧 🐧 🐧 🐧 🐧
⭑ Roanoke, Virginia’s City Public Schools are building the state’s first solar-plus-storage systems to keep emergency shelters going during extreme weather and save money.
Roanoke City Public Schools district has been installing solar panels to lower electricity bills, minimize its carbon footprint, and teach students about clean tech.
As climate change intensifies, communities around the country are looking for ways to better prepare for extreme weather, from ice storms to heat waves. In Roanoke, Virginia, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, that starts with the schools. (source)
⭑ Indigenous girls aged 10–17 have won legal rights for a culturally significant Cherokee waterway.- On Jan. 8, 2026, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the inherent legal rights of the Longperson (Ganvhidv Asgaya), an interconnected waterway system whose headwaters rise in the Great Smoky Mountains and end in the sea.
- The resolution was brought forward by the NAIWA Daughters, a group of Indigenous girls aged 10 to 17, making it the first all-female-led rights-of-nature effort in the U.S., and only the second such youth-led resolution passed by a Tribal nation.
- The effort followed 18 months of grassroots organizing and built on the foundations of the rights-of-nature movement, which holds that ecosystems and natural entities should have legal standing to exist and flourish.
- The Longperson resolution grants the waterway five inherent rights and has already spurred related action, including a separate tribal resolution to raise funds for removing the Ela Dam. (source)
⭑ Whaling is barbaric. Of course it is! Harpooned whales can take up to two hours to die. How would YOU like to experience that?!
Amongst other qualities, these big brained creatures have advanced communications systems, complex social structures, emotional intelligence (undoubtedly exceeding your average frat brother, Republican, evangelical, and and/or rich asshole), they learn from each other (e.g. Orcas dismantling yachts — GO ORCAS!). I am by far NOT the first person to suggest that IF/when aliens come to Earth, the first creatures they'll approach sure as fuck won’t be humans – it’ll def be the whales. They’re far more civilized.
Some potentially good whale news:
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| Drew Sheneman |
Iceland’s government will submit a bill to parliament in February 2027 introducing a permanent ban on commercial whaling, a move that would leave Norway and Japan as the only countries in the world still hunting whales commercially. (source)
The government holds a majority in parliament so this permanent ban is expected to pass.
🐳 🐋 🐳 🐋 🐳 🐋 🐳 🐋
⭑ A big, new solar panel recycling facility is coming to Texas, of all places — the state isn’t exactly known for being on the right side of any issue since I don’t know when. I'm surprised.
“Solar panels contain the exact critical materials the US supply chain desperately needs, but until now, no American company has been able to recover their full resources at such scale or efficiency,” said Adam Saghei, founder and CEO of We Recycle Solar. “Through our advanced process, we are achieving true, comprehensive material recovery entirely on US soil, and retaining these critical materials – and the value currently being lost to Asian processing – within our domestic supply chain.” (source)
Honestly, no one (rather, precious few of us) would have ever expected environmental innovation to come out of a state that doesn't value human life let alone the planet's.
So then, everything's not all doom and gloom this morning. Huh ... interesting.
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