This story originally appeared on High Country News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Last summer, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observed dust blowing 85 miles from its source, Lake Abert and Summer Lake, two dried-up saline lakes in southern Oregon. This has happened before: Saline lakebeds are some of the West’s most significant sources of dust. California’s Owens Lake is the nation’s largest source of PM10, the tiny pollutants found in dust and smoke, while plumes blowing off the 800 square miles of the Great Salt Lake’s exposed bed have caused toxin-filled dust storms in Salt Lake City.

Saline lakes are rapidly losing water to climate change and agricultural and urban uses, becoming some of the West’s most threatened ecosystems. Now, new legislation is offering some support. On December 27, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Saline Lake Ecosystems in the Great Basin States Program Act, which allocates $25 million in funding for research and monitoring at saline lakes across the Great Basin. While this funding is an important step, it cannot give the lakes what they really need: more water.

The Interior West is full of salt lakes, created when snowmelt pools in the valley bottoms of the Basin and Range region. The valleys have no outflow, so the water remains until it evaporates, leaving behind the particles that were suspended in it. These accumulate over time, giving the lakes a high salinity.

“It creates a unique system that supports brine shrimp and alkali flies that can feed incredible populations of migratory birds,” said Ryan Houston, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association, which seeks to conserve Oregon’s high desert, including Summer Lake and Lake Abert.

Yet this balance of runoff, salts, and evaporation also makes saline lakes highly sensitive to climate change. Decreasing snowpack and increasing evaporation due to higher temperatures means that there is less water in the lakes and a higher concentration of salt. That stresses shrimp and flies, which have adapted over time to specific salinities, and it also exposes dry lakebeds, creating dangerous dust storms.

Decades of diversions for agricultural and municipal use have also taken the lakes’ water. California’s Owens Lake, for instance, has been almost completely dry for nearly a century since its water was diverted to Los Angeles. A report released this month by Utah scientists and conservation organizations warned that the combination of water diversions and climate change has put the Great Salt Lake on track to disappear within five years. 

Many see poor air quality as the main reason to save the lakes. But the dust is a sign that the entire ecosystem is withering. Saline lakes are key stops on the Pacific Flyway, the bird migration route that extends from Alaska to Patagonia, Chile. “That we’re worried about dust says to me that we’ve already gone past the point of Lake Abert being lost as part of the Pacific Flyway, its most important ecological value,” said Houston. Over 80 species of birds either inhabit or migrate through Lake Abert, and 338 species depend on the Great Salt Lake.

The European Union It is tired of talking about climate changes; it now wants to do something. The world’s second-largest economy is attempting to become the first climate neutral continent by 2050 while slashing its emissions 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. To reach these milestones, the bloc’s executive arm, the European Commission, unveiled the Green Deal in 2019—a proposal to radically redesign Europe’s energy, food, and transport systems. “This is Europe’s man on the moon moment,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. 

Importantly, the Green Deal remains a suggestion and not a final plan. Some member states have to convince others that they will pay the costs. Large portions of the Green deal are still not in law. The Commission has said the plan will require around €1 trillion ($1.05 trillion) in sustainable investments. Even targets already agreed upon aren’t binding. Thierry Breton (EU official) suggested that a previously agreed law to end fossil fuel car use by 2035 might be delayed if the targets are not met. 

The Green Deal is still in the midst of years-long political struggles. The plan offers a glimpse into how an economy could be restructured in a way that is more conducive to a world concerned about climate change. This is the vision of a greener, new Europe if it succeeds.

Sea Power

The Green Deal plans to accelerate investment in renewables, especially offshore wind, tidal energy, and other power sources that would take advantage of the bloc’s 68,000-km coastline. Green Deal does not just focus on renewables. The Green Deal also includes hydrogen, which is expected to replace natural gas.

Electric Avenue

Imagine a future where highways are lined with electric charging points, cycle lanes criss-cross cities, and it’s easier to travel by high-speed rail. That’s the Green Deal vision for transport’s zero-emission future. But the proposal doesn’t spell the end for other forms of transport. The plan calls for ships and planes to be powered by sustainable fuels. 

Renovation Wave

Europe is famous for its picturesque buildings; think Copenhagen’s multicolored waterfront or the iconic rooftops of Paris. However, the Commission has identified approximately 75% of these buildings as being energy inefficient. That’s why the Green Deal proposes a mass renovation of existing residential, commercial, and public buildings to ensure all existing buildings are zero emission by 2050.

Future Forests

Europe’s forests and woodlands are facing increasing threats from human activity, disease, and forest fires. But healthy forests are essential for carbon sequestration and storage. That’s why the Green Deal aims to improve both the quality and quantity of Europe’s forests, partly by planting 3 billion trees by the end of the decade.

From Farm to Fork

The EU’s Farm to Fork strategy aims to reduce the environmental footprint of the bloc’s food system by slashing pesticide use and cutting sales of antimicrobial medicines, such as antibiotics, for farmed animals by 50 percent. This strategy proposes to promote organic agriculture and increase bee population on farms.

Blue Economy

More than 4 million people work in Europe’s marine industries, and the Green Deal wants to reduce the environmental footprint across this “blue economy.” Alongside decarbonizing marine transport, that will mean finding ways to reduce microplastic pollution, reverse biodiversity loss, improve ship recycling, and incentivize fishers to collect litter and fishing gear lost at sea.

Science superpower

Much of the success of Europe’s Green Deal will rely on the green alternatives that can replace fossil fuels or solve industries’ problems with waste. That’s why the EU is channeling huge amounts into funding new ideas. So far, the €1 billion Green Deal research call has supported projects that aim to produce green hydrogen in Germany or predict forest fires in Spain.

The original publication of this article was in WIRED UK’s January/February 2023 issue.

This is the original story It was published on High Country News It is part of Climate Desk collaboration.

Many of the once clear streams and rivers found in Arctic Alaska have turned orange-colored and become more acidic. The landscape, which was once undeveloped, now appears as though an industrial mine is in existence for many decades. Scientists are eager to find out why.

Roman Dial is a Professor of Biology and Mathematics at Alaska Pacific University. He first saw the drastic changes in water quality while fieldwork in Brooks Range, 2020. A group of six students from his graduate program accompanied him for a month, but they couldn’t find enough water. “There’s so many streams that are not just stained, they’re so acidic that they curdle your powdered milk,” he said. In others, the water was clear, “but you couldn’t drink it because it had a really weird mineral taste and tang.”

Dial, who has spent the last 40 years exploring the Arctic, was gathering data on climate-change-driven changes in Alaska’s tree line for a project that also includes work from ecologists Patrick Sullivan, director of the Environment and Natural Resources Institute at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and Becky Hewitt, an environmental studies professor at Amherst College. They are now investigating the mysteries surrounding water-quality. “I feel like I’m a grad student all over again in a lab that I don’t know anything about, and I’m fascinated by it,” Dial said.

Most of the rusting waterways are located within some of Alaska’s most remote protected lands: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, the Kobuk Valley National Park, and the Selawik Wildlife Refuge.

It is strikingly visual. “It seems like something’s been broken open or something’s been exposed in a way that has never been exposed before,” Dial said. “All the hardrock geologists who look at these pictures, they’re like, ‘Oh, that looks like acid mine waste.’” But it’s not mine waste. The researchers believe the land caused the rusty appearance of streambanks, rocks, and other structures.

It is believed that the climate is warming, which is leading to permafrost degrading. This releases iron-rich sediments, which oxidize when they come in contact with water. Water may become more acidic due to the possible oxidation of minerals from the soil. Although the research team has begun to identify the causes, it is not yet clear what the implications are. “I think the pH issue”—the acidity of the water—“is truly alarming,” said Hewitt. Although pH is important for many chemical and biotic processes, it has no effect on intricate food webs found in rivers and streams. The research team doesn’t know what could happen to fish, stream bed bugs or plant communities.

The rusting of Alaska’s rivers will also likely have an impact on human communities. Rivers such as the Wulik and Kobuk have been found to be rusting. These rivers also provide drinking water for many Northwest Alaska Native communities. Sullivan stated that if the water quality continues to deteriorate it could affect species which are the primary source of food for Alaska Native residents living a subsistence lifestyle.