For more than a dozen years, I put together a weekly compilation of the bulk of environmentally related diaries appearing at Daily Kos. Under various names, including Green Diary Rescue and Spotlight on Green News & Views, there were 667 such compilations, starting Dec. 4, 2006. Just before I retired from the paid staff here two years ago, I ended the series, having spotlighted more than 35,000 DK eco-diaries over the years. Now, with the environment and particularly the climate getting more media and popular attention, I’ve decided to restart the series.
When I wrote the initial edition, I included my rationale. It remains the same today:
I’ve long wished that environmental Diaries would get more face time at Daily Kos. Not that I think environment should trump all other issues, although global climate change (and all its offspring, like resource wars) surely must qualify as one of the top three major crises of this century. I would merely like to see Kossacks pay more attention to environmental matters than has been the case in the nearly four years I’ve been hanging around this site. So I’m going to do my part to give eco-Diaries a little extra boost every Monday by "rescuing" a couple of big handfuls of them.
As with Earth Matters, which has just returned after a summer hiatus, my inclusion of particular pieces does not necessarily indicate agreement with them. I include most eco-related posts, but one-paragraph diaries or those that are merely cut-and-paste without any commentary or analysis from the diarist are usually excluded. That also goes for posts that announce a protest, webinar, or other event that occur before the latest edition of the series appears.
CLIMATE CHAOS
‘These are not canaries in the coal mine, the canaries died a long time ago’ by Magnifico. By now, I’m guessing everyone reading this has had their own life impacted somehow by global warming. Whether it be from this summer’s sizzling heat dome, or mega-droughts, wildfires and smoke, and monster storms, or even seeing fewer backyard birds or insects, climate change feels more real, more personal now than ever. These disasters aren’t warnings anymore, rather they are described as the ‘new normal’. “These are not canaries in the coal mine,” Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies noted. “The canaries died a long time ago.” [...] Nowhere is safe. Climate change is an existential global challenge and we individuals cannot save the planet alone. We must change as a society and a culture. Together, we have to stop making it worse just so a few billionaires can have super-yachts, private jets, mansions, private islands, and their own personal space program.
Adaption to extreme heat will be easy peasy, suggests WP - provides tips for building tolerance by Pakalolo. The Washington Post published (not behind a paywall) a somewhat hopeful response to global heating by suggesting that training your body with small exposure to intense heat can build up a tolerance to the increasing heat crisis. [...] For myself, I won’t be training my body by immersing myself in sauna-like heat, and neither will you if you are elderly, have a child, are pregnant, are disabled, have medical conditions, or if you live in a city. Being young and healthy does not make anyone immune to rising temperatures. So no, we can’t adapt to these changes bearing down on us. How do we adapt once the food baskets fail simultaneously? Or the power goes out. Do we survive once the biosphere is decimated? Life in the Oceans will be without fish; already, corals are dying en masse. You get the idea. But the Washington Post piece did not once mention any inconvenient truths. The Twitter universe is rightly destroying the story.
Climate change hits hard in South America's winter, with temperatures over 100F in the Andeian by Pakalolo. The world climate is spiraling out of control. Iran shut down for two days this week, and Beijing recorded its most intense rainfall in over 140 years. Japan shattered heat records for the day. Sea ice in Antarctica remains at a record low. In the Southwest United States, a wave of dangerous heat has failed to break for weeks. But it is South America where meteorologists have shifted their focus: “Some places have even reached all-time maximums — surpassing summer temperatures, even though it is winter.” The temperatures are higher than in Europe, where they will experience record cold. The sea temperature in the ocean near Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia is almost 34 degrees above normal, primarily due to El Niño Costero in Peru, where heavy rainfall and flooding occur. There is an overpopulation of mosquitos which spread disease. Crops are damaged, as well as infrastructure.
The greatest obstacle to combatting climate change will be our own complacency by Dartagnan. As severe climatic and weather changes have started to assault parts of the U.S. where the residents’ prior experience was limited to gaping at televised images beamed from where they thankfully didn’t reside, several well-intended expressions of dismay and urgency have been surfacing. That alarm has been reflected both here on Daily Kos and in the U.S. media as a whole. One relatively consistent theme of these pieces has been to decry those who seem to have retreated into despair and even nihilism about what can or will be done to reverse what by all appearances is an existential crisis—one facing not only this country, but the entirety of the human race. That’s because the capitulation to “doomerism,” although understandable as a human response to the magnitude of the crisis, does nothing to change the status quo, let alone advance the ball toward positive action. But “doomerism”—a mostly passive acknowledgement of feelings of relative or complete paralysis in the face of a seemingly insurmountable, daunting challenge—is actually something worse than ineffective, because it provides sustenance to the greatest problem we face in addressing climate change.
There is a path out of this mess, if we’re willing to choose it. Climate Reboots by mikeymikey. There is a path out of this mess, if we’re willing to choose it (…and we can be!) Climate Reboots . Note: I have not gone into detail about methods for implementing ‘reboots’, as I have extensively covered these in my January 2022 diary that first introduced this proposal and it is not the my main thrust here. If we’re going to have a fighting chance at taking the climate tiger by the tail, what we need more than anything at this juncture is a way to get CO2 emissions down to safe levels ASAP. Incremental change is simply not managing to do this fast enough. In fact, all outward signs indicate that we are still moving in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, there is a safe, tested and effective way to accomplish this in the time we still have. I call these ‘climate reboots’. In the comments to a recent environmental post, someone suggested this as a way to save ourselves from ourselves: “All of it. Shut. It. Down.” In January of 2022, I published a diary on DK essentially calling for us to do exactly that.
Go Say Something Nice To A Climate Person (Because You Know Trolls Are Being Mean) by ClimateDenierRoundup. Hi friends. If you're reading this, you're probably (hopefully) also reading a bunch of other climate publications. Do us a favor and go say something nice to them, please? Not us, we're fine. (Thanks, though!) But maybe if you have a few bucks, go subscribe to your local newspaper if you haven't, then sign up for HEATED, and stick around to read the latest on Chris Gloninger, the Iowa meteorologist essentially hounded out of his job by deniers and bosses pressuring him to talk less about the changed climate in which all weather now takes shape.But then something different happened after he announced he was quitting: "he received 262 emails" Atkin reported, "from viewers expressing positive feedback for his work." Not from diehard bleeding-heart liberal activists but from "the average person at home who wanted to learn."
Climate Brief: Evidence suggests upcoming human fertility decline potential 0 (by 2045) by Angmar. Falling sperm counts 'threaten human survival', expert warns | US news. Epidemiologist Shanna Swan says low counts and changes to sexual development could endanger. The world is on track to be completely infertile by 2045, according to her projections. An environmental medicine professor is sounding the alarm on humanity's rapidly declining fertility rates — and she says chemicals in plastics are largely to blame. Humans Are Rapidly Losing the Ability to Procreate, Scientist Warns. Following current projections, sperm counts of the median man are set to reach zero in 2045, Swan and co-author Stacey Colino, a health and science journalist, write in the book. That means half of all men would have zero viable sperm and the rest would have very close to zero.
Overnight News Digest: Changes in our climate are happening now and they are dramatic by maggiejean. A Desperate Push to Save Florida’s Coral: Get It Out of the Sea.When Bailey Thomasson first spotted the coral, she felt a jolt of relief. She was diving for samples off the Florida Keys, and the thicket of elkhorn coral below looked brown, not the stark white that would indicate bleaching from the record-breaking sea temperatures in the area. But as she swam closer, she realized the situation was far worse than she’d considered possible. “The coral didn’t even have a chance to bleach, it just died,” said Ms. Thomasson, who works for the Coral Restoration Foundation, a nonprofit group based in the Keys. The brown color was not healthy coral but dead tissue sloughing off the skeleton, almost as if it had melted. “It just felt like, ‘Oh my God, we’re in the apocalypse,’” she said. “What’s happening?”
Overnight News Digest: Countless Joshua trees incinerated, Florida’s coral bleaching from heat by Magnifico. Los Angeles Times: A light rain fell on the Mojave National Preserve, where firefighters continued their nearly weeklong battle Wednesday against an unusual desert wildfire that has incinerated countless Joshua trees and threatens to forever alter California’s high desert landscape. Crews were aided by the arrival of monsoonal moisture, which brought some rain and humidity that helped slow the spread of the 82,000-acre York fire, which was about 30% contained Wednesday. But in many ways, the damage has already been done. The fire is the largest to burn through the eastern Mojave in recorded history, surpassing the 71,000-acre Hackberry complex fire of 2005 and searing through a delicate ecosystem already strained by invasive species and the burning of fossil fuels. “The reality is that Joshua trees are already in a state of decline because of global warming and increasing frequency of drought,” said James Cornett, an ecologist who specializes in the species. “And then on top of that, you throw on a fire like the York fire, and these trees are not likely to recover in our lifetime.”
John Kerry: Boring Politician, Or Radical Leftist And International Climate Boogeyman? by ClimateDenierRoundup. You may have noticed that it’s hard these days to have a conversation on climate in Congress without repeated mentions of China. Specifically, something along the lines of, China isn’t doing anything, so why should we? Well, beyond that being false (China leads the world in clean energy production, with higher solar capacity than the rest of the world combined, even as they expand coal), more importantly, it’s part of the larger Sinophobic scapegoating trend used to justify a lack of climate action by the United States. This came to a head recently during a July 13 hearing with special climate envoy John Kerry that was nominally described as a “budget overview” by the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight & Accountability. The hearing ran the gamut of the denier playbook. Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) and Mike Waltz (R-FL) pushed a classic example of the climate hypocrisy accusation, asking why everyday Americans should care about climate action when Kerry’s family once owned a private jet. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) chose to go for a more direct ad hominem attack, accusing Kerry (and all scientists who agree that climate change is human-caused) of “grifting.”
Some unsolicited advice for the Teflon Donald by Meteor Blades. Beyond whether you wind up behind bars or in some joke of a prison, Donald, what I most want is for you to disappear. Just vanish from all the media and internet coverage and from our daily, if not hourly, attention. We have a global crisis underway that requires more aggressive political, economic, and environmental action than we have so far seen if there is to be any hope of curtailing some of the worst impacts of climate change and the destruction of biodiversity. You are a distraction from that, Donald. As well as a ton of other issues that need serious attention. So I dream of multiple convictions before the election.
Destroying the Only Known Planet to Support Life... is There a Plan B? (Update x 6) by JekyllnHyde. Where have the four distinctive seasons gone? Here in Washington, DC, they were once as predictable as a crook and liar like Donald Trump getting indicted on one criminal charge after another. The lines keeps getting blurred between watching autumn leaves change colors to marvel at winter’s gentle falling snow to feeling the relief of cool spring breezes morphing into summer’s sweltering heat. When does one season end and the other begins? We humans crave a heavy dose of predictability and stability in our lives. Too often, we never find those elusive and fragile sources of comfort. For those of you who are familiar with or have lived in DC know that the city and surrounding areas have experienced a major change in its climate since the 1990s and 2000s. We regularly used to get more than few snowstorms during which the snow totalled 8” or more. No more. This past winter, we received a minor dusting of snow only once and one which wasn’t much more than 1/2” in total. And during the spring months in April and May, it was actually fairly cold. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Air Quality Index (AQI) was consistently bad in June and July due to Canadian wildfires which made life unbearable for more than a few people, particularly the very young and very old.
Ultimate Guide to Politically Effective Climate Communications by intrados. The strategy of climate apocalypse has lost its effectiveness and it’s time for something new. If we want rapid and massive change then we have to start organizing effectively and build a large, winning political coalition. This post is a guide for how to start doing just that. [...] A successful and large enough coalition will be bipartisan. It will include people who work in the energy industry. It will include people who risk their lives stopping new gas pipelines. It will include people who fly, drive old pickup trucks, and use gas powered leaf blowers. It will include people who are a little skeptical of climate scientists and people who hate Al Gore. It will include people with grass lawns and plastic lawns. It will include all political stripes. It will include people of all races, genders, religions, abilities, and sexual orientations. With an inspiring and consistent message we can bring all of these people into the climate action tent. Not everyone of course.
Fox denies record global heat is due to global warming - the anatomy of a bad argument by TheCriticalMind. Some people think that NASA is lying about the moon landings. I suspect there is an overlap between those conspiracy theorists and Flat Earth proponents. And no doubt among those ranks are many climate change deniers. Luckily for them, Fox News is ready with some sophistry to bolster their science denial. Last week, the cable channel, already in a nearly $1 billion hole for election denial, gave space to Justin Haskins to present his case against global warming. He does not do well. Haskins underpins his specious argument with data that, for the sake of argument, I will accept as fact. But facts are tricky things. They are like bricks. Stacked correctly, with an eye to gravity, they can be put one on the other, cemented together, and formed into a solid structure. Or the same bricks can be tossed into a random pile, benefitting no one. Haskins does the latter.
Climate Change: Open Letter to President Joe Biden "Use What Caused the Crisis to Alleviate it" by psychusa. During WWII we were able to commit the tremendous industrial resources necessary to defeat international fascism. Those industrial and scientific resources can be turned around and used to address and weaken global warming. As they actually stimulated the economy during WWII ending the great depression, they can do the same today, only saving lives rather than losing them and destroying the planet. It was possible then because the attack on Pearl Harbor helped galvanize almost universal support for the war effort. Currently, our government lacks the unity to take a similar approach and the much needed larger commitment to combat global warming. Admittedly, there is no such national consensus today, either on saving democracy and the Republic or fighting global warming. That consensus must somehow be built. You’ve shown your ability to accomplish what was thought to be impossible. Industry and development must be refocused before they cover the earth in concrete and destroy what’s left of the natural world.
Global Drying: Climate Catastrophe isn't happening "in the future". It has already begun by LaughingPlanet. Today's NY Times' banner headline atop its front page (gifted link available to all) focuses on the extreme water shortages in what was once called Mesopotamia, "the fertile crescent." The issues have become so dire, that massive climate refugee populations are already moving. And as the story's author, Alissa J. Rubin, writes, "those who remain are suffering a slow death." Next door in Iran, a province of two million people could run out of water by mid-September, Iranian lawmakers said, leaving few options beyond mass exodus. We have seen how the media, politicians, and other Pollyannas have phrased the climate crisis as a "someday" event that will affect "our children" "in the future" and so on. We now know this was always a feint; the climate catastrophe began years ago, and it's only going to get worse, and fast.
Climate Change Breeds War in Africa by Alan Singer. According to the United Nations, average temperature in the Sahel is projected to rise between 3.5°F (2.0°C) and 8°F (4.3°C) over the next 50 years and future dry and wet periods are expected to become more extreme. Coastal communities will battle rising seas that salinate their water supply. Yields of major crops are projected to decline. About one in five people will be impacted by severe heat and mortality from heat waves is expected to increase by four-fold. Meanwhile, countries in the Sahel region have among the smallest carbon footprints per capita in the world which means they have the least responsibility for climate change. Americans produces 150 times as much carbon dioxide per person as people in Burkina Faso. We already suffer from record heat and extreme weather in the United States. It is frightening if what is taking place in the Sahel region of Africa is the future of the planet and humanity.
As the planet burns, these House Republicans are throwing fuel on the fire by xaxnar. In the middle of the hottest July on record, Republicans are not just denying there is a problem — they are actively working to make it worse. Hunter has a post up quoting Republicans blowing off the reports of record heat. Aldous J. Pennyfarthing unloads on the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint on how they plan to roll back all action to deal with climate change. David Sirota’s newsletter The Lever has a writeup of how House Republicans are inserting poison pills into critical budget legislation to deliberately block action on climate. (There’s also an audio version at the link below.) Amid Heat Wave, GOP Adds Climate Denial To Spending Bills. House Republicans are helping their fossil fuel donors with legislative fine print that would block climate action. Sirota, reporting along with Matthew Cunningham-Cook, has done a dive into pending budget legislation and uncovered at least a dozen provisions inserted into 4 spending bills that will block climate action. The report names names, spells out the details—and who is providing the money that keeps these Congress critters on the payroll.
How Capitalist Industrialization led to Global Warming and why it Opposes Addressing it by psychusa. Too many Americans know little about market directed capitalism and how it has shaped the world and led to this moment where civilization faces mass destruction trigger by violent climatic changes. And most world leaders remain silent about the crisis we face. At a time when the world should be uniting around a master plan to combat the crisis, we instead faces the possibility of nuclear war over Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine. Putin may be demented enough to try something along those lines. No one really knows how far gone he might be, or what his internal ability he has to do so is. Logic says he’s losing big and bluffing, but logic may not be in charge. Wounded animals are always more dangerous.
CRITTERS & THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Dawn Chorus: The Curse of the White Wolf by lineatus. I first visited White Wolf in 2014 with Yosemite Outdoor Adventures and loved it right away. It’s about halfway between Crane Flat and Tuolumne Meadows along Tioga Pass Road, at around 8,000’ elevation. The camp sites are fairly small and there aren’t a lot of trees (so not much shade). But it’s bordered by the Middle Fork of the Tuolumne River on one side (just a couple miles from the headwaters) and a really nice meadow complex on the other side. There are great birds — several high Sierra specialties! — to be found in the surrounding woods and meadows (including White-headed Woodpeckers, one of my favorites). You can understand why I went back the following year. And why I was disappointed when it closed for a few years following that for repairs and upgrades to the campground and a small lodge there. [...] Finally it reopened and I signed up for a class right away. Except there was a lot of snow that winter, and the campground and meadow had flooded and there was still water over the campground road. The class went on, but we stayed at Tuolumne Meadows.
Butterflies inspire materials that stay cool in sunlight despite their deep, vibrant colors by skralyx.
The Daily Bucket - No Wednesday woes for me by CaptBLI. I gathered my gear and headed down to the water’s edge. Almost immediately, a Double-crested Cormorant landed on a snag and began to dry it’s wings. I learned that they will shake and bob their wings to get every drop off. [36-second video].
The Daily Bucket. Staggering Saturday stunners? Nah, just boring ol' birds again by funningforest. So I did something completely different for myself today; I went out in the evening. Because you never know. Besides a slew of mosquito bites (I plumb forgot to put on repellent) I came home with a nice walk and a few photos. Regular denizens, but hey, there was always the possibility for something out of the ordinary.
The Daily Bucket - No Wednesday woes for me by CaptBLI. I gathered my gear and headed down to the water’s edge. Almost immediately, a Double-crested Cormorant landed on a snag and began to dry it’s wings. I learned that they will shake and bob their wings to get every drop off. [36-second video].
Dawn Chorus: The Traveling Birder in the Bering Strait by IaniusX. Show of hands…how many of you have heard of the Pribilof Islands? My guess is those of you who have must be birders. Hardcore birding listers visit “The Pribs” in order to see Asian birds who have been blown off course. For me, the main goal was to see Red-legged Kittiwake, one of the last two remaining gulls of the world that I hadn’t seen. Of course, Asian vagrants were icing on the cake. The Pribilof Islands are located about 300 miles off the southwest coast of Alaska. They consist of four small islands: St.Paul, St. George, Otter, and Walrus. The first two have resident populations and the others are uninhabited. As might be expected so far north, there are no trees, just tundra covered with grasses, sedges, and small flowering plants, although at this time of year, it’s mostly brown. One of the most conspicuous plants is a form of wild celery known locally as puchki.
RENEWABLES & NUCLEAR
Renewable Tuesday: Let's Get Real by Mokurai. Are we headed to the #ClimateEmergency that has been trending on X/Twitter, or a Brave New World without greenhouse gas pollution? The answer is Yes, both. We are not going to kill the planet or ourselves, but we are going to kill something—a lot of something—along the way. Still, we are going to get to 100% renewable energy, 100% electric vehicles, perhaps a trillion more trees, and much, much more. And the end of the fossil fuel industry, one way or another.
Report says offshore wind alone could provide 25% of a tripled U.S. supply of electricity by 2050 by Meteor Blades. There’s a new report from the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley: “2035 And Beyond—The Report: Abundant, Affordable Offshore Wind Can Accelerate Our Clean Electricity Future.” Gridlab and Energy Innovation worked with the research team. The study says that in a “High Ambition” scenario, an American-based offshore wind industry supply chain could provide 390,000 jobs by 2050 and add 750 gigawatts of generation capacity. That is 25% of the tripling from current capacity that the DOE thinks is necessary for full U.S. electrification. But getting there, the researchers state, will take robust policy support and vast amounts of capital investment. There are also other obstacles to overcome, including supply chain hurdles and other solvable but time-consuming difficulties in scaling up domestic offshore wind manufacturing, an area in which the U.S. is basically starting from scratch.
New Energy Paradigm Thinking by Joelado. Let’s focus on energy in forms where we can see it more clearly for what it is. Bear with me as I try to break the stereotype concepts of energy we have in our head without using physics. Movement is energy that can be converted into other forms of energy. A good example of this is the movement of water through a water mill. The movement of the water spins the mills wheel that turns a shaft that spins the grinding stone to make flour. In a hydroelectric dam that energy is used to spin a generator to produce electric energy. In much the same way the movement of your hand in a shake-up flashlight accumulates electrons in a battery and then the electrons/electricity move from the battery through the light circuit and are converted into light energy. Movement = energy, energy = electricity, electricity = light.
FOSSIL FUELS & EMISSIONS
Who is a dangerous radical? by PalmFrond. By announcing hundreds of new oil and gas licences, the [UK] prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has become a “dangerous radical” pursuing “moral and economic madness”. That is not the judgment of Just Stop Oil, or any other environmental campaign group, but the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres. [...] Sunak is not alone in doing this, btw. Sunak’s justification is that increased oil production is a necessary part of Britain’s meeting its goal of reducing emissions…. I wonder if he realizes how stupid that sounds and if he really believes it. Sunak’s wife is a billionaire and her family is involved in the fossil fuel industry.
Big Oil pumps $13 million into killing climate bills in California in first half of 2023 by Dan Bacher. The outrageous lobbying spending by Big Oil and Big Gas to influence the Legislature, regulators and Governor’s Office in California appears to be only getting worse, according to the latest lobbying disclosures with the California Secretary of State. Lobbying disclosures from Quarter 2 of 2023 analyzed by three climate and environmental justice groups reveal that oil companies and trade associations spent more than $3 million lobbying and a grand total of $4,085,639.57 in just three months to shape policymaking efforts in its favor in California. “This brings the total mid-year spending by Big Oil to influence energy and climate policy in California to more than $13.4 million, a total that puts them on track to exceed their 2022 expenditure of $18 million,” according to a joint press statement by the Climate Center, VISIÓN and Physicians for Social Responsibility. The latest disclosures follow the $9.4 million that Big Oil spent to influence the California Legislature, Governor’s Office and agencies in the first quarter of 2023. Chevron came in first with over $4.9 million spent in the first quarter, while the WSPA finished second with over $2.3 million and Aera Energy finished third with nearly $628,000.
TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
Mein Edles Ross (My Noble Steed) by KLWhite. [After a heart attack and because of earlier spinal injuries, running is out of the question, and regular bicycles, too. But then the author discovered electric bikes] I needed some help to be mobile. Sure, we have a completely built out bus service here in Bremerhaven [Germany] and they run every ten minutes. But there is just more freedom to heading out when you want to- I didn’t want to give that freedom up. It dawned on me that I would likely get the most benefit if I managed to buy an electric bicycle. Shooo-eee! Those things are expensive! Ebay was kind to me, I don’t make a huge amount of money, but with a little bit of waiting and some saving, I eventually purchased a used bicycle of electric persuasion. I no longer own a car.The bicycle? It’s been a gift sent by the Gods for me, I can truly tell you that. My noble steed is now my primary means of transport. I’m enjoying it, a thing I would not have believed even a few months ago.
AGRICULTURE, FOOD & GARDENS
The Daily Bucket: Ridgefield NWR - It's all in the details by BrownsBay. I spent about three hours wandering through a portion of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. My goal was to walk at a slower pace and carefully observe and absorb the web of life that makes this place special. The Refuge is a quiet corner of western Washington state; a place composed of wetlands, small lakes, ponds, and waterways. The Refuge lies in the southwestern portion of Washington state next to the Columbia River where the river’s reach having flowed west for many miles through the Gorge, turns north before bending west again to discharge to the Pacific Ocean. For physiographic perspective, the Refuge is west of the Cascade Range, i.e., the Pacific side of the Cascades, the wet side. [...] As a preface, this Bucket is very photo heavy with lots of details, covering everything from earth to birds, the big to small, the common to the overlooked. It’s everything I could jam in over a three hour walk. The season is midsummer: July 25, 2023. It’s dry. No appreciable rain has fallen for several weeks, which is not terribly unusual for this part of the country at this time of year. But this has been an unusually dry summer, so far.
The Daily Bucket. Open Thread. I'm too Foxy for my shirt by funningforest. It’s very fortunate for me; since August 26, 2021, I have had five separate occasions to photograph Gray Fox, Urocyon cinereoargenteus (and say that five times fast, heh heh heh). They really are marvelous little creatures. Lots to read about them here.
Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol 19.31 - My Garden has 99 Problems, but Tomatoes Ain't One by CWalter. I have over 100 tomato plants in my backyard garden, over 86 varieties; if you count Sully varieties, I am growing around 95 varieties, currently. I nerd out over tomatoes, admittedly. It's been a stellar tomato year. Since seeding in March, I have lost around six tomato plants. Three of those were Sully plants, which had diseases I've never seen before in my garden, so it wasn't a gardener error. Sometimes seeds come with disease, it happens. Since transplant in early May, the only plants I've had to pull were the three Sully's. I do have some bacterial speck, but it won’t overtake the garden until the last few weeks. It's been three months since plant out and my tomato plants are still going strong. In a drought, with windstorms and hungry critters. I know my hot stuff when it comes to tomatoes. Mother Nature is trying to turn my yard into Arrakis.
EXTREME WEATHER
We already name hurricanes, so let's name heat waves ... after oil companies by Aldous J. Pennyfarthing. While President Joe Biden’s green-energy infrastructure initiatives have been a step in the right direction, progressives had to fight tooth and nail to get them passed—and, hey, it would have been nice to start addressing the problem nearly 50 years ago when Exxon first became aware of its seriousness. And if one meteorologist has his way, Exxon will get the credit it deserves for gradually turning our planet into an unlivable hellscape with very little fresh water and nearly unlimited plastic bottles to put it in. Is it time for someone to give each major heat wave a name like what’s been done with hurricanes and viral epidemics? Well, a meteorologist named Guy Walton has offered to be that guy. The 30-year veteran of The Weather Channel has come up with a heat wave-naming convention that may end up, ahem, fueling an interesting response. He’s been naming the major U.S. heat waves of 2023 after big petroleum companies, calling the first two Heat Wave Amoco and Heat Wave BP. And in July, the U.S. has been getting its fill of what Walton has dubbed Heat Wave Chevron. Walton refined this whole petroleum company-naming convention in April 2023, when he wrote [about it] on his Guy on Climate blog.
North Atlantic Temperature at Record High of 77ºF & Record Heat in Tropical Storm Region by FishOutofWater. An extraordinary amount of heat has built up in the north Atlantic from the equator to 60ºN taking the average sea surface temperature of that whole region to a new record high of 25C or 77ºF. Multiple factors have been involved in this shocking build up in heat, and scientists are working to understand how they have interacted to cause such rapid heating of such a vast region, but underlying all of the factors is the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused by the burning of fossil fuel. It’s not just protected locations in Florida bay that have seen temperatures exceeding 100ºF that have seen record warmth. Extreme high sea surface temperature anomalies extend from offshore of Portugal to the Labrador sea.
It’s the hottest month ever recorded, but all Republicans can do is blow hot air by Hunter. The Republican Party is not, of course, merely committed to mocking climate change even as scientists now tell us we're stewing in it. The party is committed to making climate change worse, on purpose. It's part of the same fascist twitch that has the party reflexively opposing anything any non-Republican has to say to them, whether it be pandemic disease specialists, climate researchers, or scientists who warn them not to drink pool cleaner for funsies. That's why these same House and Senate Republicans have already drafted plans to reverse every bit of the Biden administration's energy modernization and resilience programs as soon as the next Republican president takes office. It's not that they don't care either way. They want to do actively destructive things because doing destructive things is literally all that Republicanism stands for. Well, that and crimes, apparently.
Iran shuts the country down for two days over heat crisis; internal mass migration by Pakalolo. It is not just North America suffering from suffocating heat waves. It is happening everywhere. The heatwave situation in Iran is so grim that the government has declared Wednesday and Thursday government holidays due to the "unprecedented heat." The government's Ministry of Health has ordered hospitals nationwide to be highly alert. In southern Iran, a temperature reading of 123 F was recorded. Even higher temperatures are likely this week. Drought and heat have taken a toll over recent years, and the country of 88 million is experiencing power outages and grid failure due to the energy-intensive air conditioning use necessary to keep people alive.
NOAA. NWS .gov launches new Heat.gov webpage by Joyful575. Weather.gov has a new sister site, National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS), specifically to address issues around excessive heat and health at www.heat.gov. On first glance it looks useful, not only addressing how many are under a heat advisory but with detailed map information to delineate where. The map can be used to follow current temperature although I am finding the circled colors hard to use except for a generalized insight as to heat load in specific areas. That may just be me. Climate outlook function doesn’t seem to be operating yet, but the last 2 menu options give extreme heat days and days above 90 degrees predicted for the year 2050. There is a link to CDC Heat & Health Tracker providing some public health guidance for local communities to prepare for extreme heat. The site also provides a Climate explorer link so you can educate yourself about climate change predictions.
REGULATIONS & PROTECTION
Polluters use old playbook to fight new EPA clean air regs—but we can push back by Matilda Briggs. The fossil fuel industry has been fighting back—no surprise—against regulations proposed by the EPA this year to make power generation cleaner and more efficient. The industry’s efforts have inspired a great article from DeSmog (used to be the DeSmog Blog), which tracks misinformation opposing climate action. DeSmog finds that the industry and its allies have used the same half-truths and dubious logic over and over to argue against clean air and water laws. [...] DeSmog traces the struggle over the next several decades between industry/allies and the public leaders promoting environmental progress, including JFK, Abraham Ribicoff, Maurine Neuberger and Edmund Muskie. [...] The steps in this playbook are rich in BS—and the polluters are drawing on all of them to fight the new regs. The comment section for the regulations features quite a number of polluters and allies as sources. So I encourage each reader, if you can, to offer a comment to the EPA supporting the regulation. I’ve already done my own (below).
ACTION
State governments need to step up for climate action now by Erin Tulley. This summer we are reeling from the devastating impacts of the climate crisis. We are coping with floods, record heat, wildfires, rising ocean temperatures, and tornadoes. And as long as the climate crisis remains unchecked, these devastating weather events will not just continue, they will increase in frequency. State governments are in unique positions to ramp up the fight against global warming and demonstrate their commitment despite federal policy gridlock and rollbacks. Even with congressional climate legislation making headway, the federal government faces major uphill battles around regulation. There is much more to be done, and not much hope in the public interest. States can and must step it up—we need every and all climate action possible! Sign the petition: State governments can do even more to curb climate change.
[Note: The following posts are weekly letters that accompanied a climate strike that went on for four years in front of San Francisco City Hall, beginning early March 2019. For more context, see this story.]
Climate Strike -- It's An Emergency!! (week 40) by birches. The biosphere is losing its ability to support life. The ocean is dying, the water is rising and acidifying, the corals are bleaching, plastic fills every nook and cranny, the planet is heating, weather is worsening, the ice is melting, methane is belching out of the permafrost, the human population is still growing, ecosystems are being fragmented and destroyed, the number of species and of individuals in those species is decreasing (except for humans), the atmosphere is filling with greenhouse gases, and the ruling oligarchs are conspiring to make all of the above worse in pursuit of profits. By this point, I’m assuming none of the above points requires footnotes and links, but if any of them do, let me know and I’ll supply them to you. This information is distressingly easy to find. The biosphere dying is due to human accumulation of great wealth. We have more billionaires than ever, and they all perfectly meet the definition of robber barons. We have the largest income disparity since the Great Depression. We’ve seen the wealth of the very wealthy grow exponentially in recent years.6 How does this connect to the crises facing us?
Climate Strike -- The Scope of the Plastic Problem (week 41) by birches. In plastic pollution, size determines effects. Macroplastic pollution is visible, from cigarette butts to plastic bags to ghost nets. This size plastic is both relatively easy to quantify and likely to destroy species and ecosystems. Microplastics are produced deliberately (plastic beads in cosmetics) or as the result of mechanical, chemical, and photodegradation of larger plastics (including clothing). These plastics can be found in the ocean, in freshwater ecosystems, in the soil, in the air, in our food and water, and in living organisms (including us). They bind and accumulate toxins. Nanoplastic pollution is small in size but possessing enormous surface area, making the likelihood of bound toxins higher than for microplastics. Nanoplastics cross the blood-brain barrier, and move through cell membranes via endocytosis. This size plastic no longer acts like particles but like a chemical agent, and can affect physiology, cellular structure, and organism behavior.
Climate Strike -- Resilience and Self-Sufficiency (week 42) by birches. We plan for big earthquakes because we know they’re coming. Climate chaos is already here and will get worse; mass extinction is already happening and will get worse. We must act now because both of these things endanger San Francisco more than the next big earthquake.So this week’s topic is RESILIENCY AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY. Our possible paths are increasingly clear. Though scientific models’ predictions on the speed and extent of climate chaos and mass extinction have been consistently too conservative, but generally we’re seeing our options for the future break into three different regimes.
Climate Strike -- Recap (week 43) by birches. What’s the problem? At the planetary level, the problems are climate chaos and mass extinction. At the local level, these manifest as enormous amounts of pollution, rising water levels, endangered shorelines, dying ecosystems, decreased biodiversity, drought, an increase in negative health outcomes, an increase in invasive species, local extinctions, increased extreme heat events, more forest fire smoke events, endocrine disruption, shortened life expectancies, dying flora, weather whiplash, and more. So what does SF need to do?
• We have to decrease: flooding, rising water threats, and erosion as much as possible.
• We have to increase biodiversity in terms of numbers of species and absolute population numbers as much as possible as quickly as possible. How do we do this? By working on three timelines simultaneously: on projects that take up to 30 years to complete, on projects that take 10-15 years to complete, and on projects that take 1-2 years or less to complete.
Climate Strike -- Insects (week 44) by birches. Insects pollinate ¾ of the world’s flowering plants and at least 35% of our crops1; human fate rides on the fate of insects. And for insects, it’s apocalypse now. That’s why this week’s letter is about INSECTS IN SF. What’s the problem? Insects are being poisoned, evicted, starved, and directly killed at mass extinction rates. Natural habitat is being destroyed for farming and for human sprawl. The intensive use of devastating pesticides is increasing. Industrial pollution and light pollution are disrupting mating and other biochemical cycles. Non-native species are displacing native insects and destroying ecosystems. And climate chaos is moving ecosystem ranges and directly causing mass destruction. Why is this a problem for SF? Humans depend on insects. Insects are at the base of the food web and do a huge amount of all nutrient recycling. But when was the last time you saw an insect downtown? SF is seriously out of balance and, by our actions, substantially contributing to the insect extinction crisis.
Climate Strike -- Bio Highways (week 45) by birches. Insects are facing mass die-off events worldwide.1 Insects are the base of the food web, but they aren’t the only group of species dying from this human-caused extinction event. How do we save our food web? A biosphere is only strong if it’s rich in diversity and deep in numbers. To save the food web we start by preserving and enriching SF’s biodiversity. We make space for life in SF now. That’s why this week’s letter is about BIO HIGHWAYS. What’s the problem? Insects aren’t the only group of species that needs to be able to move, to find food and mates, to migrate, to hide, to rest, to roam, or to have a home. What works for insects will work for other species as well.8 So this letter is focusing on the nuts and bolts of bio highways. What is a bio highway? A bio highway is a corridor, tunnel, bridge, trail, series of linked parks and greenways, crossing, ecoduct, underpass, overpass, corridor, or wildlife viaduct that provides habitat and safe passage through areas (usually cities or freeways) that humans have made uninhabitable and deadly.
MISCELLANY
Leprosy now a big thing in Florida. Leave it to Republicans to bring disease and terror to America by Vetwife. I just don’t know what to think. We have some serious problems in this state and people actually back DeSantis? He is running all over the country saying he wants America to be Florida. His ratings have slipped but this man does not know how to even laugh without looking like a bobble head and now this disease is in central Florida. Florida is contending with invasive species, spiking insurance rates, worrisome warming waters, political tensions, and now ... leprosy? That's according to the CDC, who on Monday issued a release spelling out how the infectious condition, also known as Hansen's disease, has taken hold in the Sunshine State, especially the central portion, reports the Hill. Per the release, Florida was one of the top states that contributed to the 159 new cases in the United States in 2020, with Central Florida being hit especially hard: That portion accounted for 81% of the cases in Florida that year, and nearly 20% of the cases nationally.
The Inoculation Project 8/6/2023: Library Books and Environmental Science by belinda ridgewood. The Inoculation Project is an ongoing, volunteer effort to crowdfund science, math, and literacy projects for public schools in low-income neighborhoods. Project: Exploring Our Environment. Resources: Help me give my students the equipment to study their environment and the impact of human activities. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Total: $916.13. Still Needed: $567.16 $522.16 Project description by Mr. Allen: Our Environmental Science students at WCLL are excited to learn about aspects of the environment they we unaware of. Using the materials listed in this project students will examine factors that affect water quality and soil quality. Using water samples collected from the nearby Milwaukee River students will identify chemicals that may be present in the water samples. They will use a sample of soil from a local park to examine pollutants that may be present in it. Students will track those chemicals to pollution sources such as vehicles, industries, or other sources.
If Your Lightbulbs Disappear This Week, Blame Biden… (If They Don't, You'll Know Who's Lying) by ClimateDenierRoundup. Even as the Republican Party inserts government restrictions between Americans and their own reproductive health, the professional complainer class has been hard at work lamenting Big Government's oppression of incandescent light bulbs. [...] Yes! Of course! States’ rights! What a perfect banner behind which small government conservatives can rally, as they fight for the right to buy energy wasting light bulbs, and deny abortion access. Whether the question is about slavery or light bulbs, the conservative answer is apparently the same. The invocation of "states’ rights" regarding the Civil War was always a lie. The fact that conservatives are trotting it out to defend light bulbs shows how deeply unserious the opposition to common sense regulations has become. Apparently states should fight the federal government over light bulbs!
The Coming Population Crisis Is Not What You Think by Trenz Pruca. According to the Washington University projections, 23 countries can expect their populations to halve by the end of the century, . Some you’d expect: Japan will shrink from 128 million in 2017 to 53 million, Italy, Spain and Portugal also are expected to lose half their populations. Others might surprise you: the number of Thais and South Koreans is forecast to halve too, and China will come very close to a halving – from a peak 1.4 billion to 732 million. [...] One would think this is a good thing, yes? Well, not so fast. Although the potential worldwide fall in fertility rates may appear beneficial in dealing with some of the effects of climate change and loss of biosphere diversity, consider that the study mentioned above also projects the number of under-five-years-olds falling by over 1/3, from 681 million in 2017 to 401 million in 2001, while the number of 80-year-olds are projected to increase from 141 million in 2017 to 866 million in 2001, a sixfold increase in the 80 and older population. According to the OECD, the over 80-year-old cohort is expected to double within the next 30 years.