This book came to my attention through an episode of Ezra Klein‘s podcast:
Cows Are Just an Environmental Disaster
The environmental data scientist Hannah Ritchie argues that climate technology is increasingly catching up to the world’s enormous need for clean energy and with a few changes, a more sustainable future is in sight.
Adule Female
Christmas Mountains Oasis, Brewster County, TX
Today completes a trifecta of shared articles about trees, and Sam Knight gets extra thanks for the link with a part of food heritage our family is especially fond of (which led to finding the video above):
Illustration by Nicholas Konrad / The New Yorker
The English Apple Is Disappearing
As the country loses its local cultivars, an orchard owner and a group of biologists are working to record and map every variety of apple tree they can find in the West of England.
In June, 1899, Sabine Baring-Gould, an English rector, collector of folk songs, and author of a truly prodigious quantity of prose, was putting the finishing touches on “A Book of the West,” a two-volume study of Devon and Cornwall. Baring-Gould, who had fifteen children and kept a tame bat, wrote more than a thousand literary works, including some thirty novels, a biography of Napoleon, and an influential study of werewolves. Continue reading
Adult Male
Christmas Mountains Oasis, Brewster County, TX
Forest restoration workers planted native Amazonian seedlings on degraded pastureland in Mãe do Rio, Brazil.
We do not know how many trees are needed but hope that the answer to the question below is yes:
Can Forests Be More Profitable Than Beef?
Cattle ranches have ruled the Amazon for decades. Now, new companies are selling something else: the ability of trees to lock away planet-warming carbon.
The residents of Maracaçumé, an impoverished town on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, are mystified by the company that recently bought the biggest ranch in the region. How can it possibly make money by planting trees, which executives say they’ll never cut down, on pastureland where cattle have been grazing for decades? Continue reading
Guatemala
Baobab trees in Madagascar.
Photograph: Dave Carr/Getty Images
Ancient oak trees in Glastonbury, Somerset. Photograph: Eddie Linssen/Alamy
I acknowledge my enthusiasm for the idea that there is something going on between trees. I always want to hear more about it. Those who know me well joke that I am anti-woo-woo; but this one topic betrays a soft spot for the as-yet not fully explained. So I am thankful to Daniel Immerwahr for reminding me of the boundaries of what we know (so far):
A bristlecone pine tree, one of the oldest living organisms on Earth. Photograph: Piriya Photography/Getty Images
Mother trees and socialist forests: is the ‘wood-wide web’ a fantasy?
In the past 10 years the idea that trees communicate with and look after each other has gained widespread currency. But have these claims outstripped the evidence?
There are a lot of humans. Teeming is perhaps an unkind word, but when 8 billion people cram themselves on to a planet that, three centuries before, held less than a tenth of that number, it seems apt. Eight billion hot-breathed individuals, downloading apps and piling into buses and shoving their plasticky waste into bins – it is a stupefying and occasionally sickening thought. Continue reading
Bolivia
Sarah Kliff
We had an experience with honeybees in our home in Costa Rica that echoes the one related below. We did get someone to help us extract the colony from under our roof and re-situate it as you can see in this photo. We were fortunate to find that man who did the extraction, but my takeaway was not that honeybees do not need saving. Read on:
Honeybees Invaded My House, and No One Would Help
Responding to fears of a “honeybee collapse,” 30 states have passed laws to protect the pollinators. But when they invaded my house, I learned that the honeybees didn’t need saving.
I noticed the first bee one afternoon as my dog gleefully chased it around the house. When the pest settled on a window by the stairwell, I swatted it with a cookbook and cleaned up the mess. Continue reading
Leander Khil Photography
Guatemala
Scientists still have a lot to figure out, but the idea of sourcing critical minerals from seaweed is too tantalizing not to look into. Photo by Upix Photography/Alamy Stock Photo
Plenty of links to articles about the importance of various types of seaweed in our pages, but in Hakai Magazine the environmental journalist Moira Donovan asks and provides a cogent answer to the most basic question:
What the Heck Is Seaweed Mining?
Preliminary research suggests seaweed can trap and store valuable minerals. Is this the beginning of a new type of mining?
Seaweed is versatile; it provides habitat for marine life, shelters coastlines, and absorbs carbon dioxide. Continue reading
NW Austin, TX
Take five minutes to celebrate Andrea’s activism and its accomplishments:
Andrea Vidaurre
Andrea Vidaurre’s grassroots leadership persuaded the California Air Resources Board to adopt, in the spring of 2023, two historic transportation regulations that significantly limit trucking and rail emissions. The new regulations—the In-Use Locomotive Rule and the California Advanced Clean Fleets Rule—include the nation’s first emission rule for trains and a path to 100% zero emissions for freight truck sales by 2036. The groundbreaking regulations—a product of Andrea’s policy work and community organizing—will substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles.
Megisti Lavra, Greece
Illustration by Giacomo Bagnara
A Tamarind Tree’s Sweet and Sour Inheritance
My ancestor was gifted a huge orchard just outside Delhi. The fruits it produced were the taste of my childhood.
Gifts from ancestors take the darndest forms. Mine included a tamarind tree, the tallest and most magnificent in our yard. My grandfather’s grandfather—a tall, corpulent Indian, prone to indulging in fine wines, fine poetry, and fine art—lived in Delhi and worked for the British. This was 1857, a time when Indians were gearing up to fight the British. The conflict that ensued would later be called India’s First War of Independence. The British would call it the Indian Mutiny. Continue reading
Granger Lake San Gabriel Unit, Williamson County, TX
In our extended family there are several cases of diabetes that have made me interested in sugar and its alternatives. Stevia came to my attention while working in Paraguay, when honey was my primary interest, because stevia is native to that place. Stevia is a taste of place product as much as any other we have come to share in our current work.
But neither stevia nor have any other so-called sugar alternatives have featured in our work. Still, this article by Yasmin Tayag in The Atlantic fits perfectly as a theme in our pages:
Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic
A New Sweetener Has Joined the Ranks of Aspartame and Stevia
Unfortunately, it’s still nothing like real sugar.
A few months ago, my doctor uttered a phrase I’d long dreaded: Your blood sugar is too high. With my family history of diabetes, and occasional powerful cravings for chocolate, I knew this was coming and what it would mean: To satisfy my sweet fix, I’d have to turn to sugar substitutes. Ughhhh. Continue reading
Walvis Bay, Namibia
The outer edge of the Nartë lagoon in Vlorë, Albania. YURIY BRYKAYLO / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
I have worked in some of Albania’s most important coastal and inland bird habitats, though not this one. My time working there is not my only reason for caring about this particular location. Read on–thanks as always to Fred Pearce–to understand why it matters so much. No offense intended to Jared Kushner, but this is not one of his better ideas. The destruction is not worth whatever it is he is hoping to accomplish:
Jared Kushner Has Big Plans for Delta of Europe’s Last Wild River
Albania’s Vjosë River is known as Europe’s last wild river, and its pristine delta is a haven for migratory birds. As plans for luxury developments there — spearheaded by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — move ahead, conservationists are sounding the alarm.
It is the jewel of the Adriatic. Its shimmering waters feed a rare colony of Dalmatian pelicans, the world’s largest freshwater birds, sustain the endangered Albanian water frog, and host loggerhead turtles on its encircling dunes. Continue reading
Pecan Springs Karst Preserve, Williamson County, TX
Organikos 