Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Bird of the Day: Yellow-throated Longclaw
Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Frogs, Western Ghats & Science
Sathyabhama Das Biju (from left), James Hanken, Harvard’s Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, and Sonali Garg during a June 2023 field trip to study amphibians in the Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot in India. Photo by A.J. Joji
During our seven years living and working in the Western Ghats we came to appreciate frogs through the eyes of our family, those of our staff, as well as travelers and occasional scientific references (the man on the left in the photo to the left having shown up in our pages one of those times). Good to know that the science is being shared for good cause, thanks to Anne J. Manning in this article for the Harvard Gazette:
The Indian Purple Frog, first described by Sathyabhama Das Biju in 2003.
Indian herpetologists bring their life’s work to Harvard just as study shows a world increasingly hostile to the fate of amphibians
Having pulled themselves from the water 360 million years ago, amphibians are our ancient forebears, the first vertebrates to inhabit land.
After 136 years from its original description, Günther’s shrub frog was recently rediscovered in the wild. Credit: S.D. Biju and Sonali Garg
Now, this diverse group of animals faces existential threats from climate change, habitat destruction, and disease. Two Harvard-affiliated scientists from India are drawing on decades of study — and an enduring love for the natural world — to sound a call to action to protect amphibians, and in particular, frogs.
Sathyabhama Das Biju, the Hrdy Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and a professor at the University of Delhi, and his former student Sonali Garg, now a biodiversity postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, are co-authors of a sobering new study in Nature, featured on the journal’s print cover, that assesses the global status of amphibians. It is a follow-up to a 2004 study about amphibian declines.
Franky’s narrow-mouthed frog is among the threatened species. Credit: S.D. Biju and Sonali Garg
Biju and Garg are experts in frog biology who specialize in the discovery and description of new species. Through laborious fieldwork, they have documented more than 100 new frog species across India, Sri Lanka, and other parts of the subcontinent.
According to the Nature study, which evaluated more than 8,000 amphibian species worldwide, two out of every five amphibians are now threatened with extinction. Climate change is one of the main drivers. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Northern Parula
Male
Pedernales River Area, TX
Hurricane Otis & A Gut Punch
Acapulco shows signs of Hurricane Otis’s devastation on Wednesday.Photograph by Francisco Robles / AFP / Getty
While Acapulco got pummeled, a climate denier was elected to lead the majority party in the US House of Representatives, a different kind of gut punch. Thanks to Elizabeth Kolbert for this juxtaposition of facts:
Hurricane Otis and the World We Live in Now
The unexpected Category 5 storm is just the latest in a series of unprecedented climate disasters this year.
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Hurricane Otis crashed into the western coast of Mexico, just north of the resort city of Acapulco. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Limpkin
Trust, The Most Essential Technology
Eric Risberg/Associated Press
On occasion, Ezra Klein’s work overlaps with themes of interest to us in these pages. Today is one of those days:
The Chief Ideologist of the Silicon Valley Elite Has Some Strange Ideas
In July, Marc Andreessen — the godfather of the web browser, one of the founders of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and arguably the chief ideologist of the Silicon Valley elite — published a Substack piece that struck me as unusually revealing.
This was back when Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk were considering whether to settle their differences once and for all by beating on each other in a cage. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Brown-throated Wattle-eye
Yaoundé, Cameroon
Civil Disobedience & Civil Response
A sign made by William Rixon, who has been protesting L.L. Bean’s partnership with Citibank to offer the Bean Bucks credit card. Courtesy photo
Thanks to Bill McKibben for bringing this to our attention. And kudos to L.L. Bean’s CEO for having the decency to respond to this activist’s efforts to raise awareness of the company’s climate-unfriendly banking choice. Iconic companies messaging their environmental responsibilities need to be held to the same standard as the lousiest companies.
Climate demonstrator outside L.L. Bean gets surprise visit from CEO
Bill Rixon outside the L.L. Bean retail store earlier this month. He was joined by Molly Schen, a member of Third Act Maine. Luna Soley / The Times Record
Freeport resident and retired schoolteacher William Rixon has been demonstrating outside L.L. Bean since the beginning of September. This week, he got a response.
“PROTECT MOTHER EARTH,” William Rixon’s homemade climate banner reads. Assembled with drop cloth and PVC piping, it stands at 10 feet, dwarfing Rixon.
Since September, Rixon and a group of fellow retirees have been standing with signs outside L.L. Bean’s sprawling downtown Freeport campus as well as its corporate headquarters just down the road. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Painted Bunting
Comal County, TX
Really, Poland Spring?
Tristan Spinski
We all need drinking water. Those of us lucky enough to have good quality water from a public source can avoid bottled water, but still too many need or want what Poland Spring sells.
The New York Times deserves high praise for this series on water abuses, especially Hiroko Tabuchi‘s reporting on Poland Springs and its parent company’s practices:
Inside Poland Spring’s Hidden Attack on Water Rules It Didn’t Like
The BlueTriton bottling plant in Poland Spring, Maine, this month.
When Maine lawmakers tried to tighten regulations on large-scale access to water, the brand’s little-known parent company set out to rewrite the rules.
When Maine lawmakers tried to rein in large-scale access to the state’s freshwater this year, the effort initially gained momentum. The state had just emerged from drought, and many Mainers were sympathetic to protecting their snow-fed lakes and streams.
Water trucks filling up at a Poland Spring facility in Lincoln, Maine.
Then a Wall Street-backed giant called BlueTriton stepped in.
BlueTriton isn’t a household name, but its products are. Americans today buy more bottled water than any other packaged drink, and BlueTriton owns many of the nation’s biggest brands, including Poland Spring, which is named after a natural spring in Maine that ran dry decades ago.
Maine’s bill threatened BlueTriton’s access to the groundwater it bottles and sells. The legislation had already gotten a majority vote on the committee and was headed toward the full Legislature, when a lobbyist for BlueTriton proposed an amendment that would gut the entire bill. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Hildebrandt’s Starling
Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Pop-up Lake At Badwater Basin Salt Flats, Death Valley
Visitors gather at the sprawling temporary lake in the Badwater Basin salt flats of Death Valley national park, California. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
We had been wondering what the place might look like after Burning Man brought the rare weather to our attention:
Death Valley visitors delight in rare ephemeral lakes left behind by storm
Shimmering bodies of water have appeared in the sand dunes of the recently reopened national park after a summer deluge
After months of closure, visitors to Death Valley national park are being greeted by stunning new features, including lakes left behind by a ferocious summer deluge. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Fischers Sparrow-Lark
Maasai Mara National Reserve
US Supreme Court’s Extreme Tilt
Relentless and Loper Bright have been brought before the Supreme Court with the same all-but-explicit goal: to make it more difficult for the federal government to protect the public. Photograph by Jemal Countess / UPI /Shutterstock
Courts with politically appointed jurists can tilt to an extreme, as we see now at the highest level in the USA’s judicial system. Even as the environment needs more protection, the infrastructure for providing it is being dismantled (thanks as always to Elizabeth Kolbert):
The Supreme Court Looks Set to Deliver Another Blow to the Environment
Two upcoming cases take aim at the government’s power to regulate.
Last week, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that’s nominally about herring. Arguments will be heard this winter, in tandem with a case that the Court had agreed to hear earlier, that one also ostensibly about herring. In both cases, though, the Justices have much bigger fish to fry: what’s really at issue is the fate of federal regulation. The stakes are enormously high, and, given the Court’s predilections, the outcome seems likely to undermine still further the government’s ability to function. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Gray Vireo
Live Oak Road, Crockett County, TX
Pricing Flights Realistically
United Airlines wants to zero out its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but without using conventional carbon offsets. Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
If airlines can quantify what it would cost to become carbon neutral within a relevant timeframe, it implies that we know by how much they are currently fudging their investment model. If it is going to require an investment of X number of dollars over Y number of years to achieve carbon neutrality then they should invest, and price their flights accordingly. Then we will all know the real cost of flying, including the environmental cost. Thanks to Umair Irfan (long time since we last saw his work) and to Vox for this:
Emirates demonstrated a Boeing 777 flight fueled with SAF earlier this year. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images
Airlines say they’ve found a route to climate-friendly flying
Cleaner, faster, cheaper — the aviation industry’s plan to decarbonize air travel, explained.
If you’ve caught an ad for an airline lately on TV, a podcast, or the entertainment display on your flight, you’ve probably heard the company brag about what it wants to do about climate change.
Major airlines like American, Delta, Southwest, and United have all set targets of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. They’re using a suite of tactics including buying more fuel-efficient aircraft, electrifying their ground vehicles, and increasing the efficiency of their operations. They’re also testing the winds on battery- and hydrogen-powered planes, as well as some radically different aircraft designs. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Malabar Grey Hornbill
Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala
Preferred Pet Practices
Pet owners can reduce the carbon footprint of their furry loved ones without affecting their health, experts say. Photograph: Getty Images
Pets have featured in exactly one prior post in our pages. Now, thanks to Dwayne Grant and the Guardian, we see there is a topic related to pets quite relevant to our interests:
Throw a dog a bean: how to reduce the carbon footprint of your pets
Thinking about what your dog or cat eats and the products you buy for them can lessen the impact they have on the planet
Did you hear the one about the luxury aviation CEO who claims pets cause as much carbon pollution as private jets? Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Shelley’s Francolin
Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Rishi Doubles Down On Awful
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announcing last month that the U.K. will delay the phaseout of gasoline and diesel cars. JUSTIN TALLIS / POOL VIA AP
When leadership is most needed, the special relationship between the UK and the USA should count for something, but so far no sign of the USA pressing back on the UK’s awful reversal on their already tepid recent leadership on climate. We knew that leadershsip was lacking in the UK. The Orwell-worthy podium messaging in the photo to the left says all you need to know about efforts to obfuscate, but read Fred Pearce‘s account in Yale e360 anyway:
Demonstrators in Edinburgh protest the government’s recent approval of drilling in the Rosebank North Sea oil field. PRESS ASSOCIATION VIA AP IMAGES
Why Is Britain Retreating from Global Leadership on Climate Action?
While Britain has long been a leader in cutting emissions, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is now implementing a stunning reversal of climate-friendly policies, with new plans to “max out” oil production. Business leaders have joined environmentalists in condemning the moves.
In 1988, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher became the first world leader to take a stand on fighting climate change. Continue reading
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