Just Stop Oil & Alternative Approaches

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A photo of two protesters sitting in front of Stonehenge, which has orange spray paint on it

Just Stop Oil via AP

On this platform dedicated to environmental and conservation topics, purposeful stone alteration has appeared in our pages exactly once before. Environmental vandalism, likewise. I appreciate this essay by Tyler Austin Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, about a recent act of environmental vandalism:

Maybe Don’t Spray-Paint Stonehenge

Climate protests should be pro-humanity.

They run toward Stonehenge in white shirts. just stop oil is emblazoned on the front, marking them as emissaries of a British climate-activism group. The pair—one of them young, the other older—carry twin orange canisters that emit a cloud of what looks like colored smoke (we later learn it’s dyed corn flour). Continue reading →

The Downside Of Mainstreaming The Recycling Arrows

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Rapapawn / Grist

Thanks as always to Grist for offering analysis that nudges us to keep our interest in recycling in the realm of the real:

How the recycling symbol lost its meaning

Corporations sold Americans on the chasing arrows — while stripping the logo of its worth.

It’s Earth Day 1990, and Meryl Streep walks into a bar. She’s distraught about the state of the environment. “It’s crazy what we’re doing. It’s very, very, very bad,” she says in ABC’s prime-time Earth Day special, letting out heavy sighs and listing jumbled statistics about deforestation and the hole in the ozone layer. Continue reading →

Bullish On Solar

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image: la boca

The Economist makes a compelling case for us all to be more bullish on solar–not that we needed much convincing:

The exponential growth of solar power will change the world

An energy-rich future is within reach

It is 70 years since at&t’s Bell Labs unveiled a new technology for turning sunlight into power. The phone company hoped it could replace the batteries that run equipment in out-of-the-way places. It also realised that powering devices with light alone showed how science could make the future seem wonderful; hence a press event at which sunshine kept a toy Ferris wheel spinning round and round. Continue reading →

Saving Birds With Mosquitoes

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A small red bird on a branch with yellow flowers

The scarlet honeycreeper, or ‘i’iwi, has a 90% chance of dying if bitten by an infected mosquito. Thirty-three species of the bird are already extinct. Photograph: Photo Resource Hawaii/Alamy

We had not heard of such risk to birds before, but this may be the rare case of mosquitoes potentially serving a good purpose:

Millions of mosquitoes released in Hawaii to save rare birds from extinction

Conservationists hope insects carrying ‘birth control’ bacteria can save honeycreeper being wiped out by malaria

Millions of mosquitoes are being released from helicopters in Hawaii in a last-ditch attempt to save rare birds slipping into extinction. Continue reading →

Greenhouse Reflective Effects

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Greenhouse roofs reflect sunlight in Kunming, China. FABIO NODARI / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Fred Pearce, in Yale e360, offers reason to further consider the greenhouse:

Could the Global Boom in Greenhouses Help Cool the Planet?

As agricultural greenhouses proliferate, researchers are finding that their reflective roofs are having a cooling effect. Some experts see this as an unintended experiment with lessons for cooling cities, but others point to the environmental damage that greenhouses can cause.

The world is awash with greenhouses growing fresh vegetables year-round for health-conscious urbanites. There are so many of them that in places their plastic and glass roofs are reflecting sufficient solar radiation to cool local temperatures — even as surrounding areas warm due to climate change. Continue reading →

Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Gardens

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Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano describe their arboretum as “an aesthetically arranged experiment station to test interesting and useful plants” — like honeyberry, a honeysuckle relative with blue fruit that ripens very early. Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Gardens

Hortus is an inspiration. Our thanks, as always, to Margaret Roach for sharing on the broad and diverse topic of gardens and gardening:

Ms. Levy and Mr. Serrano are visual artists who moved to Stone Ridge, N.Y., 25 years ago. Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Gardens, their 21-acre undertaking, began as a backyard garden. Mia Allen

How One Couple Turned Their Backyard Into an Arboretum

Their passion for fruit you’ve never heard of started small. Now they have a botanical garden that’s open to the public.

This is what happens if you stay put, and keep digging holes: An effort that begins innocently enough — planting a garden at home — may grow on you. And it could morph into an arboretum. Continue reading →

Old Growth, Reviewed

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A color photograph of a dense stand of aspen trees with blue sky showing beyond the canopy

Aspen (Pando), Utah III 2023 (Courtesy of Steidl Publishers / Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Writing for The Atlantic, Clint Smith introduces us to this amazing book:

THE MAGIC OF OLD-GROWTH FORESTS

Photographing some of the oldest—and largest—living organisms on the planet

When i was a boy, I loved climbing the old oak trees in New Orleans City Park. I would hang from their branches and fling my legs into the air with unfettered delight. I would scoot my way up the trees’ twisting limbs until I was a dozen feet off the ground and could see the park with new eyes. These were the same trees my mother climbed as a young girl, and the same ones my own children climb when we travel back to my hometown to visit. Live oaks can live for centuries, and the memories made among them can span generations. Continue reading →

Glass Eels & Industry

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A lot of Mainers want badly to win the elver lottery. This year, more than forty-five hundred people applied for sixteen available licenses. “It’s an industry, not a fucking cult,” a fisherman said. Illustration by Agnes Jonas

Salty language comes with the territory in this story; we thank Paige Williams as always for her excellent reporting at the intersection of natural history and current environmental affairs:

Inside the Slimy, Smelly, Secretive World of Glass-Eel Fishing

Each spring, hundreds of millions of baby eels swarm the waterways of coastal Maine. Soaring global demand incited an era of jackpot payouts and international poaching.

The Sargasso Sea, a warm, calm expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean, is bordered not by land but by four strong currents—a gyre. Vast mats of prickly brown seaweed float so thickly on the windless surface that Christopher Columbus worried about his ships getting stuck. Continue reading →

Care & Sacrifice & Cruise Ships

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Two huge cruise ships in a large sound with tree-clad mountains in the background

Cruise ships at Alaska’s capital, Juneau, which has a population of 32,000 but had 1.67m cruise ship visitors last year – a 23% rise on the previous record. Photograph: Stephen Dorey/Alamy

We salute you for the care you have chosen to demonstrate, and the sacrifice, Juneau:

Alaska limits cruise ship passengers in capital city after 1.6m visitors last year

Juneau agrees deal with industry body to curtail visits but critics say it does not go far enough to protect quality of life

Cruise ship moored to a pier in a large sound with tree-clad mountains in the background

The Gastineau Channel near Juneau. Some critics of the cruise industry have proposed ‘ship-free Saturdays’ to cut down on the number of ships stopping there. Photograph: Alexandre Rosa/Alamy

Alaska’s capital city is to limit the numbers of cruise ship passengers arriving at the port amid concerns over tourism’s growing impact, but a leading critic of the industry has said further measures to protect Alaskans’ quality of life are needed.

Located on the Gastineau Channel in southern Alaska, Juneau has a population of 32,000 and last year received a record 1.65 million cruise ship passengers – a 23% increase from the previous high. Continue reading →

Greenland’s Ice Sheet & Our Future

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photo of curving white edge of glacier with several calved icebergs and dark blue sea

The edge of the Thwaites Glacier, 2023 (Nicolas Bayou)

Ross Andersen, writing for this focused issue of Atlantic, is worth reading for more than just the adventure he encountered reporting it:

A WILD PLAN TO AVERT CATASTROPHIC SEA-LEVEL RISE

The collapse of Antarctica’s ice sheets would be disastrous. A group of scientists has an idea to save them.

The edge of Greenland’s ice sheet looked like a big lick of sludgy white frosting spilling over a rise of billion-year-old brown rock. Inside the Twin Otter’s cabin, there were five of us: two pilots, a scientist, an engineer, and me. Farther north, we would have needed another seat for a rifle-armed guard. Here, we were told to just look around for polar-bear tracks on our descent. Continue reading →