September's wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington add up to the worst fire season on record — over 5 million acres burned, thousands of buildings destroyed and two dozen people killed, the New York Times reports.
Why it matters: "This season is part of a long-term trend toward more frequent, more devastating fires in the West that shows no sign of slowing down." Lagging forest management practices and climate change — which causes hotter, drier conditions — have contributed to the unprecedented fire season.
The Trump administration on Friday announced in a revised environmental impact study that it will permit expanded logging and development in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
Why it matters: The forest covers approximately 25,000 square miles and has been largely protected since the Clinton administration, per NPR. The final rule makes 168,000 acres of old growth in the forest available for timbering, in addition to 20,000 acres of young growth.
Gasoline-powered carsmay be going the way of the woolly mammoth, even if it will take decades to replace them and seems hard to fathom today.
The big picture: Internal combustion engines (ICEs) have powered automobiles for more than 100 years. But the shift to electric vehicles, slow to materialize at first, is now accelerating due to tightening government policies, falling costs and a societal reckoning about climate change.
Recurrent, a new Seattle-based startup, aims to answer the most commonly asked question by people considering a used electric vehicle: "How much battery life is left?"
Why it matters: You can get a decent idea of how long a traditional used car will last by knowing how many miles are on the odometer. But longevity in an electric vehicle is harder to predict and depends on many factors, including how and where the vehicle was driven and the battery's charging history.
If Democrats win the Senate and White House, ending the filibuster would lower the huge hurdles before climate legislation. But there could be other knock-on effects.
The intrigue: Big climate legislation would hardly be a guarantee, given resistance among Democrats from fossil fuel-producing states, according to a wide-ranging election look-ahead note from ClearView Energy Partners.
Why it matters: Risk in the industry is nothing new. But these are especially turbulent and uncertain times. The industry's market clout has waned, the future of demand is kind of a mystery, and future U.S. policy is too, just to name three.
