Whales’ Future, Our Future

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Whale stories have been in our pages on a regular basis over the last ten years not only because of their charisma. Because of how long they have been on the planet, their future should matter to mankind. The biggest of the species hiding in plain sight is increasingly spotted in ancestral waters, which seems like good news, but read on:

Blue whales returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after 40-year absence

Some experts fear climate crisis is leading creatures back to area where they were hunted almost to extinction

The creatures may have returned to Galicia out of a form of homesickness, or ancestral memory. Photograph: Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute

Blue whales, the world’s largest mammals, are returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after an absence of more than 40 years.

The first one was spotted off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain in 2017 by Bruno Díaz, a marine biologist who is head of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in O Grove, Galicia. Continue reading →

Books About Below The Deepest Most Of Us Will Ever Go

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Chloe Niclas

Thanks to Robert Moor for these reviews:

The Wonders That Live at the Very Bottom of the Sea

Two new books, Edith Widder’s “Below the Edge of Darkness” and Helen Scales’s “The Brilliant Abyss,” explore the darkest reaches and all that glows there.

In the deep sea, it is always night and it is always snowing. A shower of so-called marine snow — made up of pale flecks of dead flesh, plants, sand, soot, dust and excreta — sifts down from the world above. When it strikes the seafloor, or when it is disturbed, it will sometimes light up, a phenomenon known, wonderfully, as “snow shine.” Vampire squids, umbrella-shaped beings with skin the color of persimmons, float around collecting this luminous substance into tiny snowballs, which they calmly eat. They are not alone in this habit. Most deep-sea creatures eat snow, or they eat the snow eaters.

Until fairly recently, it was widely believed that the deep seas were mostly devoid of life. For centuries, fishermen hauled in deep-sea trawling nets filled with slime, not knowing that these were carcasses. Some animals, adapted to the pressure of the deep, are so delicate that in lighter waters a mere wave of your hand could reduce them to shreds. The myth of the dead deep sea, known as the Abyssus Theory, was disproved by a series of dredging and trawling expeditions in the 19th century, including a German scientific expedition in 1898 that pulled up the first known vampire squid. But the misconception nevertheless lingered. In 1977, a geologist piloting a submersible near the mouth of a hydrothermal vent, and finding it swarming with creatures, asked the research crew up above, “Isn’t the deep ocean supposed to be like a desert?” Continue reading →

Costa Rica’s Insects In The Limelight

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Green Orchid Bee, Euglossa dilemma. Pablo Piedra

Some of our favorite topics–Costa Rica & insects & photography–are covered in this interview:

A Longtime Military Photographer Has A New Passion Project: Bugs

Digger Wasp, Sphecidae
Pablo Piedra

Field Cricket, Gryllus assimilis
Pablo Piedra

Pablo Piedra is a military photographer turned insect fanatic. After retiring in 2019 from 22 years with the military, he moved to Costa Rica with his family. Here he started doing macro photography of the country’s native bugs as a way of staying creative during COVID-19. His wife Daniela helps him look for insects and his son Jaden loves the final results.

How did you transition from being a military photographer to an insect photographer?

After my retirement in 2018, I began working as the Multimedia Director for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) in Arlington, VA. In 2019, my family moved to Costa Rica and I became a freelance multimedia content creator. Continue reading →

Sublime Icelandic Lava

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The Fagradalsfjall eruption, on April 9th. Einat Lev, a volcanologist, says most active volcanoes are so dangerous or remote that they preclude casual visits. She said of Fagradalsfjall, “We’ll never get this kind of access anywhere, in any other place.” Photograph by Brian Emfinger

Our attention to Iceland started in 2013 and by late 2014 it might have seemed like an obsession. For good reason, whenever we see news about Iceland we pay attention and share here. And so it goes again:

Chasing the Lava Flow in Iceland

At a volcanic eruption, the sublime experience of watching land submerge land.

By mid-March, the people of Grindavík, a commercial fishing town at the western end of Iceland’s southern coast, were exhausted. For the previous three weeks, a strong seismic swarm had produced thousands of earthquakes per day, ranging from gentle tremors to tectonic disruptions powerful enough to jolt a person awake at night. Svanur Snorrason, a journalist who lives near the town’s harbor, told me that locals were “pretty much going insane” from sleep deprivation. “Earthquakes, or bad and very dangerous weather, we are used to it,” he said. “I don’t think people were afraid, but they were very tired.” Continue reading →

Greece Names Names

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A firefighter battles to extinguish a blaze in the village of Markati, near Athens, last week. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

One of our favorite places in the world, a country that had little to do with creating the climate crisis, is suffering disproportionately from it:

Greece plans to name heatwaves in the same way as storms

Personalising the ‘silent killer’ hot spells could raise awareness in time to avert loss of life and property, say scientists

A firefighting helicopter makes a water drop as a wildfire burns in the village of Vilia, Greece, on Wednesday. Photograph: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters

Spurred on by this summer’s record temperatures, Greek scientists have begun discussing the need to name and rank heatwaves, better known for their invisibility, before rampant wildfires made the realities of the climate crisis increasingly stark.

A preventative measure, the move would enable policymakers and affected populations to be more prepared for what are being described by experts as “silent killers.” Continue reading →

Greeley’s Conundrum

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Thanks to Matthew Daly and PBS Newshour (USA) for this story:

Booming Colorado town asks, ‘Where will water come from?’

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — “Go West, young man,” Horace Greeley famously urged.

The problem for the northern Colorado town that bears the 19th-century newspaper editor’s name: Too many people have heeded his advice.

By the tens of thousands newcomers have been streaming into Greeley — so much so that the city and surrounding Weld County grew by more than 30% from 2010 to 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, making it one of the fastest-growing regions in the country.

And it’s not just Greeley. Continue reading →

Sri Lanka Energy Progress

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A solar installation in Sri Lanka. DOMINIC SANSONI / WORLD BANK VIA FLICKR

Thanks to Yale e360 for this news from our old neighborhood:

Sri Lanka Pledges No New Coal, Makes Push Into Rooftop Solar

In its latest climate plan, Sri Lanka is ruling out new coal power and aiming to reach 70 percent clean electricity by 2030, an important milestone on its way to reaching its goal of a carbon-neutral electricity generation system by 2050, Climate Home News reported. Continue reading →

The Unalloyed Joy Of Given Plants

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Being a gardener has an odd way of attracting the kindness of strangers. Illustration by Daniel Salmieri

Charlotte Mendelson addresses a topic that we can relate to as we repopulate a one-time farm, primarily with coffee but plenty of other goodies as well, most of them gifted to us:

Give Me All Your Cuttings

Free stuff is the zenith of the gardener’s life, the soil tender’s greatest thrill.

I may tell myself that I chat up my neighbors out of a post-quarantine craving for connection. I can pretend that I haul myself outside for a swift ten thousand steps because I’ve finally learned the value of tending myself, body and spirit. But the truth is that I have one motivation for every social interaction, city walk, or strenuous cycle ride: free stuff. Continue reading →

Bioluminescent Distractions

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A deep-sea shrimp spews bioluminescent chemicals at its predator, a viperfish. EDITH WIDDER

Nothing like bioluminescence to take your mind off of other things for a while. Thanks to Yale e360 for this:

A Scientist Reveals the Bioluminescent Magic of the Deep-Sea World

In an interview with Yale Environment 360, marine biologist Edith Widder talks about her pioneering research into the world of bioluminescent organisms in the deep oceans and warns of the dangers, from trawling to oil drilling, that imperil this hidden realm.

Atolla vanhoeffeni, a bioluminescent deep-sea jellyfish. EDITH WIDDER

Until recently, the depths of the world’s oceans remained almost entirely unexplored. But advances in submersible technology are increasingly giving scientists a window into this little-known universe. One of the leaders in this exploration is marine biologist Edith Widder, who has extensively studied bioluminescent, or light-producing, organisms that use this trait to communicate, defend themselves, and hunt in darkness. Among other things, Widder has worked with engineers to develop highly sensitive deep-sea light meters and special cameras, like the remotely operated Eye-in-the-Sea, which allow for real-time monitoring of the seafloor. Continue reading →

Any Second Thoughts, Deniers & Doubters?

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Efforts to minimize the concern about climate change have been concerted for decades, particularly by corporations and ideologues. At the same time there have been plenty of people who have taken the crisis seriously, and have worked tirelessly to get the rest of us on board. Deniers, doubters, those who sow doubt, and anyone else who wants to claim they know better than the scientists, here is one more comment on the recent report (even if few of us will read that report in its entirety):

The U.N.’s Terrifying Climate Report

Scientists predict hotter heat waves and worse flooding in the decades ahead, but the catastrophe is evident everywhere this summer.

A forest fire next to a flood

Illustration by João Fazenda

In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization teamed up with the United Nations Environment Programme to form a body with an even more cumbersome title, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or, as it quickly became known, the I.P.C.C. The I.P.C.C.’s structure was every bit as ungainly as its name. Any report that the group issued had to be approved not just by the researchers who collaborated on it but also by the governments of the member countries, which today number a hundred and ninety-five. The process seemed guaranteed to produce gridlock, and, by many accounts, that was the point of it. (One of the architects of the I.P.C.C. was the Reagan Administration.) Continue reading →