This is the 613th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the August 31 edition. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES
Mokurai writes—Renewable Friday: Rachel Maddow's New Book, Blowout: “The richest, the most corrupt, the most destructive industry on Earth is oil and gas, even without talking about Global Warming. Coal tries, but they don't play in the same league of international disasters. National Treasure Rachel Maddow's new book is Blowout: Corrupted democracy, rogue state Russia, and the richest, most destructive industry on Earth. Says it all right there, really. But you want to know who, how, when, how much, and what to do about it, don't you? Well, there is far more here than I can tell you about, so I will focus mainly on emissions and renewables. We have a rich and varied cast of characters. [...] Rachel wants you to understand the facts clearly and dispassionately. And then she wants you to be outraged. [...] In a focused outrage, with a sense of humor, where we understand who is doing what to whom, and we discuss ways and means, and we then all go and execute the plan to toss out all of the rascals from government at all levels and fix things. So many things. But there are plenty of us to take on each of the pieces. Do what you are best at, or are best-placed to do. And give thanks that we are all in this together, and we all have each others' backs.”
PalmFrond writes—The boat on gradual change has sailed: “We do not have until 2050 to reduce CO2 emissions to zero. We do not have until 2030 to reduce CO2 emissions by 50%. That is, if we could wave a magic wand in 2050 and poof! all emissions are zeroed, we’d be screwed. That is because all the emissions between now and then would have already been put into the system and we are so close that that alone is enough to push us over the tipping points. Worse, climate researcher Kevin Anderson and his colleague Alice Bows have pointed out that these targets are arbitrary. They were chosen for political expediency in getting the IPCC reports approved. The real situation is more dire than that, because of all the cumulative effects and their feedback loops, not all of which are completely understood. They warn that focusing too much on these far off targets will distract us from the need to start cutting, massively, now. And as the IPCC report on what a 1.5C increase means says: Avoiding overshoot and reliance on future large-scale deployment of CO2 removal can only be achieved if global CO2 emissions start to decline well before 2030.”
CRITTERS AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS
PHScott writes—The Daily Bucket: Wasteland Beauties: “A year ago those of us in the middle of the Florida Panhandle were waiting for Hurricane Michael. It was expected to be a Cat 1 or 2 but built up quickly and hit Mexico Beach as a Cat 5. Everything but the newest of homes built to latest code were gone; all vegetation blown away. Inland for miles thru the pineland savannas and hardwood forests the trees were snapped off or toppled over. Marianna, closer to Georgia than the Gulf, was hit hard. You can see acres of planted pines lined up in rows and all broken off at 15-20 feet. In the ravines, the big hardwoods lay like pick-up-sticks. Supplies and debris from reconstruction piles up everywhere. Land gets cleared to accomodate and ends up as wasteland … a bleak, unattractive, and unused or neglected urban or industrial area; an unused area of land that has become barren or overgrown. Well guess what? Some native plants love barren and disturbed soil.”
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket- surprise visitors: “October 2, 2019, Pacific Northwest. September was a very wet month in the Pacific Northwest this year, more than twice as much precipitation as normal so I’d been getting a little slack with my birdbaths, including the one outside the kitchen window. The other day I noted it was pretty scuzzy though with fir needles and junk. Cleaned and refilled it and not five minutes later I had some surprise visitors. Crossbills! We haven’t seen any crossbills since summer when a couple of families were regular visitors at the seed feeder. Once the fledglings were well-grown they were all off. Red Crossbills are considered residents but they come and go depending on what conifer cones are productive at the moment. In the past I’ve seen them intermittently between May and August. This is the first time I’ve seen them in the fall. They have not been visiting the seed feeder since early August. Clearly they are in the neighborhood though and noticed the clean water for bathing.”
OceanDiver writes—The Daily Bucket - flock of hoodies: “Hoodies, aka Hooded Mergansers, are back in the bay after raising families in freshwater ponds over the summer. I started seeing a few in mid September and now there’s a little flock of ten hanging out in my local bay. All hens and youngsters, no adult males. I took some photos of them in late September on a calm sunny day. They cruise back and forth over shallow water, sometimes diving to fish for gunnels and other small bottomfish. Other times grooming. Or tussling or conversing. Probably other things going on too I’m not able to perceive.”
bwren writes—Backyard Science - Bird count day, and a butterfly: “October 7, 2019. Seattle. Today was bird count day. Every week I count birds at three locations along the southwest shoreline of Seattle’s Lake Washington. I’ve done this for close to 20 years now. There was wind today, with Alder and Cottonwood branches falling all around me at the first stop. The birds were hiding, though I could recognize a number of them from their calls - American Robins, Black-capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Bewick’s Wren. There were no Cormorants perched on the lakeside piers, though I expect to see one or two this time of year. [...] The first Crows showed up at my third stop, just two of them. There were a dozen Mallards, too, but no Gadwalls, which is a change from this year’s summer Gadwall:Mallard ratio where Gadwalls outnumbered Mallards 10:1. I have no explanation for this, nor can I explain why there were so few Mallards on any of my summer counts this year or why so many more Gadwalls nested in this place than in previous summers.”
giddy thing writes—Dawn Chorus: Leave the Fall Leaves for Birds & Bugs: “By the autumn equinox, my standards for tending the vegetable garden and yard go to seed faster than the sunflowers. The waning of warm weather, the angle of the sun, the first frosts — they all trigger some ancient and kindred human response to reflect and conserve energy for the cold, dark months ahead. This seasonal transition gives me license to be a guilt-free and lazy fall gardener, happy with the knowledge that leaving my yard “messy” provides a welcoming, food-rich haven for wintering birds. For those willing to overcome their fastidious tendencies (or dismiss the neighbor’s dirty looks), one of the most valuable things you can do to provide food and cover for overwintering birds, pollinators, and other invertebrates is to skip the fall chores of raking, pruning, mowing, and blowing. Organizations including Audubon Society, American Bird Conservancy, and Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offer great tips for creating bird- and bug-friendly yards during fall and winter months with the overarching theme: ‘messy habitat = good habitat’.”
CaptBLI writes—The Daily Bucket - Southern Hognose Snake: “I am lucky enough to have this beautiful female living under my house. She is 30 inches long and 3/4 inch diameter. One can tell she is a female (rather than pick her up and check her nether regions) by the thickening at the end of her tail. Males usually have longer thinner (almost nail shaped) tails. I have included a short video on the spectacular defense tactics of this wonderful creature. [...] These are a passive, non-poisonous snake that eat small insects, toads and tiny rodents. There are many subspecies in Mississippi that mimic poisonous snakes. My snake variety, is often mistaken for a Cottonmouth. The common term here is ‘lowland hognose.’ Another is mislabeled as a Copperhead and known as an ‘upland hognose’.”
6412093 writes—The Daily Bucket--Surburban Serengeti: “The Serengeti National Park in Tanzania is especially known for its mammoth annual migrations of 1.5 million wildebeests and 250,000 zebras. It’s on my bucket list. But until I make it to Africa, I can still watch the flocking of the native birds visiting my backyard in suburban Portland, Oregon. They aren’t actually migrating, but they are gathering in large numbers, as Autumn progresses. Today, a hummingbird, a heron, a jay, and flickers, juncoes, and robins all visited my backyard. As pictured above, a Great Blue Heron has visited my backyard ponds almost every day over the last two weeks. Probably she finally got the kids all kicked out of the nest and she can spend some time by herself. While I have four-foot-high heron visitors, I also have inch-high hummingbirds; usually the first bird to arrive in the morning. These Anna’s hummingbirds are here most of the year.”
CLIMATE CHAOS
PalmFrond writes—IPCC TLDR: Oceans and the cryosphere: “On September 24, 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report that concentrates on the oceans and ice (the cryosphere). The Summary alone is 45 pages and the full report is available here. Both have extensive charts and graphs. This diary provides a summary of the summary. When they talk about “ecosystem services” they mean things that the ecosystem does for us, like providing food and oxygen. Emphasis added by me in places.”
Pakalolo writes—'Like ice cream sliding off a piece of cake,' Greenland ice cap melts in a new and disturbing way: “’We have never observed an ice sheet behaving this way before. It’s unprecedented in human scientific history.’ -—Kristin Poinar, Glaciologist, University of Buffalo. Greenland is, for the most part, a very moist environment (with the exception of northern Greenland which until recently had been a dry environment). The ice sheet works like a sponge absorbing the meltwater of Summer. Now the slushie has turned into a popsicle. Massive ice slabs have formed that prevents percolation into the slushy layers of snow known as firn. This process is worsening runoff into the sea (as well as a lack of reflectivity of solar heat back to space).”
Pakalolo writes—A new fast-moving lethal disease has spread from the Florida Reef to the corals of the Caribbean: “ ‘All the diseases I’ve studied in the past could be considered like the flu. They come every year, seasonally, and sometimes there are worse outbreaks. This thing is more like Ebola. It’s a killer, and we don’t know how to stop it.’ Marilyn Brandt, Research Associate Professor, University of the Virgin Islands. In 2014 a mysterious coral disease appeared on the Florida Reef, the fourth largest coral reef in the world. First discovered off the coast of Miami, the disease has spread the entire reef from Martin County to the north to the south past Key West. The cause of the disease is still unknown, but it has caused disaster throughout the Florida Reef and has now spread to many reefs in the Caribbean. The reefs in Saint Thomas and the VI have recently been infected along with reefs in Belize. Extremely lethal, the disease impacts the majority of reef-building corals, affecting twenty coral species.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—AOC’s Response to a Modest Proposal Shows How To Respond To Cult of Conspiracy Theorists: “A month ago, we talked about how deniers were clutching their pearls over an obviously satirical suggestion from a Swedish scientist that cannibalism is the next big climate solution. Last week, right-wing media launched a deliberate campaign of disinformation when a supposed climate activist disrupted a town hall Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was holding by calling for people to eat children. AOC, to her credit, treated the (pretending to be) emotionally distraught woman with compassion and in good faith, talking her down and later tweeting about the need to be empathetic with people potentially struggling with a mental health crisis. But of course, it wasn’t a real climate activist making a genuine call to embrace the Hansel and Gretal diet. The person was a member of LaRouchePAC, a ‘putting the cultin cult of personality’ sort of fringe conspiracy-theory embracing group who has been pulling similar stunts elsewhere for decades now. (Its work feeds into the dangerous existing conspiracy theory on the right that Democrats eat children.)”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—WSJ Admits It Won’t Take Climate Action Seriously Until Activists Get Violent: “Swaim actually, sort of, agrees with Greta, in so much as she calls out world leaders for failing to take action proportionate to the climate challenge. Swaim claims that the elites can avoid making personal sacrifices by arguing that such sacrifices are pointless because ‘real progress requires that developed and developing nations all agree to huge decreases in carbon emissions.’ But Swaim then somehow comes to the conclusion that meaningful global cooperation ‘will never happen,’ despite the fact that exactly that happened in 2015 when every nation in the world signed up for the Paris agreement. No nation, Swaim writes, ‘can be expected to cripple its economy on the dubious promise that other nations cripple theirs.’ Instead, climate action has been ‘reduced to making piecemeal demands for more regulatory powers’. [...] Swaim is all for Greta’s scolding of “the swarms of diplomatic elite” who haven’t made draconian policies a priority because, according to him, they “don’t think we’re headed for doomsday.” If they did, Swaim claims, they would ‘engage in terrible and revolutionary deeds for the salvation of humanity: intimidation, brutality, sabotage’.”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Climate Denial Is A Defense Mechanism Fed By Big Oil’s Disinformation Campaigns: “On Tuesday, The Conversation ran a great piece by Auckland University researcher David Hall, explaining why some people are still in denial about climate change. Dr. Hall points first to the psychology, the Freudian concept of denial as a way to repress unwelcome thoughts and feelings. ‘Climate change denial,’ he writes, ‘involves glimpsing the horrible reality, but defending oneself against it.’ When you think about all the time deniers spend online, reinforcing their forced belief that there’s nothing to worry about, this makes sense. If they simply didn’t accept the science, they’d likely just ignore it and move on with their lives. After all, there are better ways to spend one’s time than fighting the scientific establishment from their phones and blogs. But because deniers have to make a conscious effort to tell themselves it’s not true, it becomes an obsession, a daily habit of reinforcing their rejection of reality. In a way, it’s like a drug addiction, in that there is a cycle of negative feelings, the thrill of the hunt for fresh content, and then the rush of dopamine that comes from having one’s worldview reinforced. But that’s only half the story. The other half is the fossil fuel industry’s organized denial machine. As Dr. Hall writes, when a denier’s ‘motivated reasoning is on the hunt for excuses, there is an industry ready to supply them’.”
POPULATION, SUSTAINABILITY & EXTINCTION
Angmar writes—Population and human Infertility. Can we control population growth? From OceanDiver: ‘The effects of the overpopulation of humans, and our terraforming intentional or not, are so numerous and destructive it’s not a stretch by any means to call us an invasive species. From the PCBs accumulating in my local orcas to the extinction of salmon, more effects ad infinitum, we have changed both the physical world and biosphere profoundly. I have no doubt our overreach will be our doom as a species, and frankly that’s not such a bad thing for all the rest of life on earth IMO. We can consider ourselves lucky we happen to be alive during this short window, because how amazing and beautiful the natural world is. A book I’m reading right now, Winter World by Bernd Heinrich (the ravens guy), makes a point about humans I never thought about: humans evolved as a sub/tropical species and we haven’t been on earth long enough to change much. That would explain why we create bubbles of warmth to live in, technologically, and are most comfortable in temps in the 70s. Seems to me we have become so reliant on our bubbles we aren’t able to physiologically manage much variance from that narrow range, judging by the vast electricity used both to warm us and to cool us. Wildlife critters manage much bigger ranges of temp 24/7/365’.”
Michael Brune writes—Newsom to Endangered Species: Drop Dead: “When he vetoed a bill to protect California’s air, water, and workers from the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks, Governor Gavin Newsom described it as ‘a problem in search of a solution.’ If the governor can’t see the problem, maybe he needs to get the prescription checked on his Google glasses. The problem has been in the White House for almost three years, and he’s determined to dismantle California’s environmental and labor safeguards. The bill that Newsom so casually dismissed, S.B. 1, would have allowed California to maintain Obama-era standards for worker safety, wildlife protection, and clean air and water. In vetoing it, Newsom sided with his billionaire agribusiness donors—and Donald Trump—against ordinary Californians and endangered species. Trump has vowed to let agribusinesses pump more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta, leaving less for the 25 million California residents and endangered species that depend on it. His administration even helpfully hid a report that suggested his plan would threaten the existence of Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, and orcas.”
Glenn A. Albrecht writes—‘uggianaqtuq’: “People who still live close to the earth and its elements and begin to experience long-term or chronic change to their home environment and its climate respond in ways that reflect their intimacy with the earth. Indigenous cultures at the front line of climate change have already responded with new concepts in their language to describe the unwelcome disruptions to the patterns of life. The Inuit of the Arctic Circle, where temperatures are rising at twice the global average, have applied a word, ‘uggianaqtuq’ (pronounced OOG-gi-a-nak-took), which once was used to describe a friend who was acting strangely or in an unpredictable manner, to the way climate change is now impacting on their environment and culture. A whole traditional way of life tied to the patterns of a long-term relationship to a particular type of clime and landscape is threatened, with activities such as transport on melting ice impossible, traditional food sources disappearing, house foundations destabilised and whole landscapes transformed. For the Inuit and many other peoples of the Arctic, a fossil fuel–generated wave of change called global warming is invading the cryosphere and turning what was once reliable into uggianaqtug (Albrecht, 2008).”
CANDIDATES, STATE AND DC ECO-RELATED POLITICS
Lincoln green writes—After tilting at Scottish windmills and losing, Trump refuses to pay legal bills: “Severin Carrell reported yesterday in the Guardian that the Trump Organization is refusing to accept a legal bill of tens of thousands of pounds for the Scottish government’s court costs when it defended against Trump’s lawsuit over the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, an eleven-turbine windfarm in Aberdeen Bay, Scotland. Trump had called the windfarm ‘’monstrous’’, claiming that it would ruin the view from his golf resort at Menie; the wind farm is about three miles away from the clubhouse and 2.4 miles from the course’s southern boundary. Trump took his case to the courts and eventually lost in the UK supreme court in 2015, which awarded court costs to the Scottish government. Trump’s firm has refused to accept the bill for the costs, so the dispute over the legal bills is now before a court-appointed adjudicator. [...] Meanwhile, despite Trump’s assertion that the windfarm would never be built, all of the planned wind turbines were installed — including two 8.8 MW Vestas V164 models that are the most powerful wind turbines deployed anywhere in the world — and the windfarm was officially inaugurated in September 2018.”
ENERGY
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Nuclear Industry Status Report Debunks Nuclear As A Climate Solution: “The recently released 2019 World Nuclear Industry Status Report is a very lengthy examination of the industry--admittedly written by those opposed to it. The nuclear industry itself wasn’t thrilled with the report and contested some of the details. But ultimately, there’s no skewing the economic realities the report lays out. The report covers a lot of ground, but we’ll skip to the climate change chapter. Really, it all boils down to figure 51, which compares the cost of generating nuclear power with the average wholesale power price of wind and solar.Since 2012, wind power purchase agreements have been cheaper than keeping a nuclear plant running. And as of mid-2017, utility-scale solar has become cheaper than nuclear. This means that over the past decade, the cost of solar has dropped 88%, the cost of wind power has dropped 69%, and the cost of nuclear has risen by 23%, based on Lazard’s levelized cost of energy analysis. In other words, building new wind and solar is cheaper than keeping existing nuclear plants running!”
ClimateDenierRoundup writes—Guardian’s New Polluter Series Shows Big Oil’s Responsibility For The Great Extermination: “Just 20 companies have produced 35 percent of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere since 1965. That’s the bedrock of The Polluters, a new series from the Guardian that explores Big Oil’s responsibility for the climate crisis. With at least nine different pieces published yesterday, there’s a lot to get through. A good starting place is this story by Matthew Taylor and Jonathan Watts that uses Richard Heede’s work at the Climate Accountability Institute to identify the biggest emitters, and their respective responsibility for how much carbon dioxide and methane are in the atmosphere. There’s also a video version for the visual learners out there. For a closer look at the top offenders, check out Fiona Harvey’s explainer on the state-owned oil companies that make up 12 of the 20 biggest culprits, or the simple profiles on all 20 companies. Then consider taking a quick look at the timeline, which lays out how the industry was made aware of the risks of its products at various points through the mid 20th century, paired with a graph showing the rapid increase in emissions.”
ceebee7 writes—Bay Area and N. California Residents: Looking for accurate power outage data? “Highlighted below is the heading and message arrived at by clicking the this link: projects.sfchronicle.com/… I exited the site, then from Safari’s open page, entered that IRL, and it worked. There is a place below the below quote that lets you enter your address, and it comes back with an ‘affected’ or “not affected” message, and then the map appears with purple regions shown as areas that will potentially be without power starting midnight tonight, through who knows when. Bay Area Outage Map: ‘PG&E confirmed Tuesday afternoon that it will preemptively shut off power to nearly 800,000 customers across 34 counties in California after midnight Wednesday morning. The map of potential outages now includes Marin County. Enter your address to see if your house falls inside one of PG&E's shut-off zones’.”
Walter Einenkel writes—Here's why California is experiencing massive power outages and why that should concern us all: “PG&E owns California’s power grid. They have a monopoly. Historically, PG&E has shown itself to value profits over safety. They were rightfully found liable for the 2010 San Bruno, California, pipeline explosion that cost billions to both California and PG&E. The problem was they cut corners on inspections. Since that time, the energy company has promised it was taking safety more seriously. But in recent years, preventable wildfires have erupted throughout California, and every time PG&E’s avarice seems to have been the root cause. In the last two years, PG&E has settled lawsuits for billions of dollars, been convicted of numerous fire-related felonies, and entered bankruptcy because they were unwilling to spend the money required to update and maintain their energy infrastructure. To be clear: sending enormous swaths of California into a blackout doesn’t entirely diminish the chances for wildfires. People must rely on real fire—candles and fireplaces, when faced with a blackout. What PG&E is doing in California right now is limiting their liability if a wildfire breaks out.”
Renewables, Green New Deal, Efficiency, Energy Storage & Conservation
eeff writes—AOC takes the Green New Deal to the C40 Global Climate Summit: “
WILDERNESS, FORESTS, PARKS & OTHER PUBLIC LANDS
Mark Sumner writes—America's National Parks could be one week away from handing campgrounds over to private companies: “A reminder—if the hundreds of thousands of people now fleeing for their lives in Syria had not already made it clear—that even as he slides toward the gulf of impeachment, Donald Trump is still doing his best to destroy everything good on his way down. That includes continuing his efforts to gift every square inch of public land to someone who dropped seven figures or more into one of his slush funds. And as Yahoo News reports, that includes an ongoing scheme to turn the National Park system, also known as ‘America’s best idea,’ into a series of greasy theme parks. On September 24, the Department of the Interior’s skull-achingly named “Subcommittee on Recreation Enhancement” (SORE) produced the latest missive in its plan to flood parks with the requisite number of four-wheelers, roller coasters, and pancake pantries. This particular plan would call for selling off the 130 campgrounds operated by the Park Service to private companies who would provide more ‘services.’ In the form of four-wheelers, pancakes, etc. And they have a great approach. They intend to start with the parks that are most pristine, most unspoiled most like the genuine preserves of natural beauty they were created to be.”
SDIanaS writes—We can help put out the Amazon rainforest fires. Boycott Burger King: “Fires are still raging in the Amazon, but the media seem to have returned to business as usual. This is very possibly the most important issue on earth. We must not look away until the fires have been extinguished. We can fight the fires by boycotting Burger King, which uses more rainforest beef than any other fast-food company www.theguardian.com/… and is now owned by a corporation in Brazil. Its promises to stop using rainforest beef by 2030 are meaningless because the target date is so far away. www.dw.com/... A petition to Burger King already exists on Action Network, and we should sign it. actionnetwork.org/… We should also join the boycott if one is underway at present (can someone provide a link?), and/or organize a boycott through Daily Kos, which can accomplish more than a petition. A boycott stopped Burger King from buying rainforest beef in the ‘80s and can do so again. nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/…”
Walter Einenkel writes—New acting director of Trump's Bureau of Land Management has history of climate denial and racism: “In July, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt appointed William Perry Pendley to the position of acting director of the Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Pendley’s views on public lands were already known. Shortly after he was named acting director, The Washington Post reported on Pendley’s anti-federal land history of saying things like, ‘The Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold.’ Grrrreeeaaaaat! A new report from CNN adds to Pendley’s long and illustrious history of being a climate denier, an Islamophobe, and a crazy anti-immigrant racist. According to CNN, Pendley spoke at a Heritage Foundation function in 1992, where he said ‘Despite the total absence of credible scientific evidence, the media is convinced and is attempting to convince us that we have global warming, an Ozone hole and acid rain and that it is all man's fault.’ Which means that at the very least, Mr. Pendley was a frightening and dangerous idiot in 1992.”
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENING
Attack Gardener writes—The Daily Bucket - The Grand Garden Renovation Finale! “One thing that kept me minimally sane [during a summer of personal grieving] was escaping to my garden and working on our renovation project whenever I had two free minutes. My previous documentation of these adventures are here: The Grand Garden Renovation Begins. The Grand Garden Renovation (Semi) Completed. [...] A lot of my garden experiments didn’t work this year. Some because they didn’t get the care and maintenance they needed to thrive and some because they were silly ideas to begin with. I couldn’t care less — my sanity was salvaged that one little extra bit. The rest was saved through the support of a fine husband, wonderful in-laws and good friends at work. I’m sure I won’t miss the bits of sanity that were lost too much. ;) Next year, I can get started earlier with beds that are already in place. I might even plant the spinach and peas and lettuce that it was too late to plant this year. I want to dedicate an entire bed to cut flowers and less to large tomatoes we just don’t eat. Maybe even figure out what the heck happened to my carrots.”
mahdalgal writes—
Saturday Morning Garden Blog Vol: 15:41 Saturday, October 12, 2019 The Autumn Potted Plant Migration: “Autumn arrived in Dallas, TX, last Monday after what seemed like an endless five months of 95
o+ summer and four months without rain. Temperature swings of 45
o+ confused the h*ll out of three varieties of potted tropical plants: epiphyllum Hookeri, epiphyllum oxypetalum (night blooming cereus) and plumeria. My very strong SIL usually helps me get the large, heavy pots of tropical plants moved into the house before temps fall to 40
o. He was unavailable on Thursday afternoon (high temp 91
o), so of course the temp fell to 42
o Friday morning after we experienced a gully-washer from a cold front afternoon/evening/overnight thunderstorm. This morning’s low was 41. The tropicals had to fend for themselves this time. The next 10 days have predicted 80
o+ daytime temps with lows in the 60s. Go figure; it’s Texas.”
MISCELLANY
hay seed writes—Reconstructing Mangrove Forests with video link: ”Many efforts to reestablish mangroves fail. Turns out you can’t just stab a seedling in the mud and expect it to make it. From what I have learned a big problem is the first storm to come along washes the seedlings out, so once these forests are gone they are very hard to reestablish. One simple solution is to create ridges by digging channels in tidewater areas and planting the piles of soil created by the digging. Mangrove forests have natural channels from the tide water moving in and out so this method can create a very natural looking planting. One risk with this system is a storm hitting, and wiping the whole thing out before the area is stabilized. These very important ecosystems are in decline. Some places are recognising the value of these forests as storm buffers and making attempts to repair the damage done. these forests are vital to our coast. they are filters, buffers, nurseries, and powerful carbon sinks.”
Austin Bailey writes—5 Things: Corporate Palm Oil, 2000 Year Old Trees, UAW and EVs, Batteries, Fracking Failure: “Walking around California’s giant sequoias is a humbling experience. The trees are majestic and from their massive bases to the crown that is sometimes lost in the morning mist, these trees inspire awe. The Save the Redwoods group has a deal to buy the largest privately owned sequoia grove which will allow these ancient giants to be preserved and protected. But a couple hundred years of human encroachment on to the sequoias’ habitat, combined with the climate crisis, increasingly intense wildfires, and drought have threatened the species’ future. The last of the world’s most massive trees now live on just 73 groves scattered across the Sierras. Most lie within protected nation al parks such as Sequoia national park, where visitors flock from around the world to marvel at General Sherman, the world’s most massive tree. But not all sequoias are protected within the parks system. Now, in an ambitious bid to secure a future for them, a conservation group has struck an unusual deal to acquire the last, largest privately owned sequoia grove.”
Austin Bailey writes—5 Things: Not Your Land Anymore, Hot Summer, Plastic Health Care, Ban SUVs, Formula One: “2019’s summer yielded two of the three hottest months ever recorded and one was the second hottest month ever. Yet, when it snows in Washington this winter, a Republican senator and the president will claim that the snow is proof that global warming is a Chinese hoax. Just a predictable as the weather those Republicans. September 2019 was the hottest September on record, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service reported Friday. This makes it the fourth month in a row this year to be the hottest or near hottest of its kind. June 2019 was the hottest June on record, July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded and August was the second-hottest August, according to Copernicus data reported by The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang. ‘The recent series of record-breaking temperatures is an alarming reminder of the long-term warming trend that can be observed on a global level. With continued greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting impact on global temperatures, records will continue to be broken in the future,’ Jean-Noël Thépaut, director of Copernicus at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said in a statement reported by The Washington Post.”
Austin Bailey writes—5 Things: Power Off in Cali, Dogs Good for You, Microplastics, Greenest Cities, Rebellion: “San Francisco Bay water is brimming with microplastics. Recent analysis of water samples for the bay have higher concentrations than samples form other similar watershed studies. In part, the geography of the San Francisco Bay may impact the results, but the fact is we are filling our oceans with massive quantities of plastic waste and large amounts of it are unseen microparticles.”
Austin Bailey writes—5 Things: Unilever's Plastic, CH4 Fountains, CH4 > CO2, Astroturfing, Plague of Parrots: “Global warming is melting vast areas of permafrost in Russia and Canada. As the permafrost melts, methane gas is released. Methane (CH4) is a far more dangerous greenhouse gas than (CO2). Still, a methane fountain must be something to see. Scientists in Siberia have discovered an area of sea that is "boiling" with methane, with bubbles that can be scooped from the water with buckets. Researchers on an expedition to the East Siberian Sea said the "methane fountain" was unlike anything they had seen before, with concentrations of the gas in the region to be six to seven times higher than the global average. Locked within in the permafrost is organic material. When the ground thaws, this material starts to break down and, as it does, it releases methane—a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. With global temperatures increasing, scientists are concerned the warming will result in more permafrost thawing, causing more methane to be released, leading to even more warming. This is known as a positive feedback loop.”
Gary E Andrews writes—Tactics in a Strategy of Adaptive Response to Threatening Change: “Going from 1 billion Humans in 1850 to 2 billion in 1925, 3 billion just 37 years later (1962), 4b 14 years later (1976), 5b 10 yrs. later ('86) and to 7.7b in 2020, was significant in itself, exponential population increases of a species. But The Human Phenomenon's 'Industrial Revolution' was a whole other aspect. Homo Sapiens, 'Knowing Man', focused on the 'industry', and did NOT 'know' the byproducts of the burning to power the industry would trap heat in the atmosphere, the oceans, and trigger releases from decaying organic matter, in such quantities as to alter the entirety of planet Earth. 'Knowing Man' had become Homo Ignitius, 'Burning Man', burning anything that would burn, animal fat, animal dung, grass, wood, coal, oil, gases in inconceivable quantities. Cities became blackened with coal soot. Plants, insects, animals, fish, every living thing, had to enact tactics in a strategy of Adaptive Response to the 'change', not merely 'different', but Threatening Change, capital T, capital C. Burning Man had another Threatening Change in The Anthropocene, becoming Homo Plasticius, 'Plastic Man', spewing plastic into the closed system of planet Earth. Designed to last forever plastic was employed for the most temporary of purposes, getting product from seller to ultimate consumer, and then thrown 'away'. Knowing Man did NOT 'know' every piece of plastic ever made would still be out there, somewhere in the closed system of planet Earth decades later.”