White River Lake, TX
Bird of the Day: Mountain Bluebirds
White River Lake, TX
Marbles Coming Home
The Parthenon (“Elgin”) Marbles are displayed in the British Museum, London. Credit: Txllxt TxllxT via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
This politician, like any, wants to repatriate heritage taken away. We have no insight into his motives, but even if it were just for the bragging rights that is fine. We do not so much care who resolves it, so much as that it happens:
The Secret Meetings on the Parthenon Marbles Exposed by the FT
The Financial Times (FT) reported on Friday the secret meetings on the Parthenon Marbles between Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and George Osborne, chair of the British Museum. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: White-rumped Shrike
Samburu Nature Reserve, Kenya
Renewable Energy & Winged Creatures
PHOTOGRAPH: YUKIKO YAMAMOTO/GETTY IMAGES
We knew that the intersection between renewable energy and birds can be problematic, so we thank Emma Foehringer Merchant for this look at one initiative to address it:
Wanted: Dead Birds and Bats, Felled by Renewables
Scientists say collecting, studying, and storing the carcasses from wind and solar facilities can unlock new insights.
“This is one of the least smelly carcasses,” said Todd Katzner, peering over his lab manager’s shoulder as she sliced a bit of flesh from a dead pigeon lying on a steel lab table. The specimens that arrive at this facility in Boise, Idaho, are often long dead, and the bodies smell, he said, like “nothing that you can easily describe, other than yuck.” Continue reading
Bird of the Day: White Stork
Austria
Coffee Capsules Reconsidered
‘It hurts to know that we create so much waste.’ Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images/NASA
We have been clearly on one side of this, but now thanks to Cecilia Nowell and the Guardian we acknowledge a possible reason to reconsider:
Are coffee pods really eco-friendly? The truth behind the surprising findings
Coffee capsules notoriously produce waste – but some experts maintain that reducing how much coffee you use, even with a pod, can decrease emissions
If you drink one of the 2bn cups of coffee consumed each day worldwide, you may have seen headlines last month celebrating the coffee pod, a single-serving container – typically made of plastic or aluminum – that can be inserted into a machine to brew a cup of coffee. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Crested Bobwhite
Orotina, Costa Rica
War With The Newts & Anticipation
John Rieder, an emeritus professor of English at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, shares the following, excerpted from the book Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival From Speculative Fiction:
On Karel Čapek’s Prophetic Science Fiction Novel ‘War With the Newts’
The Czech writer’s darkly humorous novel, published in 1936, anticipated our current reality with eerie accuracy.
Karel Čapek’s “War with the Newts,” published in 1936, one of the greatest pieces of science fiction of the 20th century, is a prophetic work. When I say prophetic, I mean it has the gift of seeing the present for what it is — and not only seeing it but also telling the rest of us what we have been looking at. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Isabelline Wheatear
Vijayapura, Karnataka
All That Breathes, A Film & A Feeling
With a film review titled It’s easy to focus on what’s bad — ‘All That Breathes’ celebrates the good it would be difficult to resist reading, but spoilers can be annoying; not here:
In Anne Lamott’s book on writing, she tells a great story about facing tasks that seem overwhelming. Her 10-year-old brother was doing a big school project on birds, and as the deadline loomed, he became paralyzed by how much he still had to do. His father put his arm around him and gave him a piece of advice, “Bird by bird, buddy,” he told him. “Just take it bird by bird.”
This useful life lesson takes literal form in All That Breathes, a wonderful new documentary that arrives on HBO and HBO Max garlanded with international awards. Directed by Shaunak Sen — and ravishingly shot by Ben Bernhard — this inspiring film takes us inside the lives of two ordinary seeming Muslim brothers in Delhi who are actually extraordinary in their dedication to doing good in a city teetering on the edge of apocalypse.
The brothers are named Saud and Nadeem, the former friendly, the latter a little grumpy. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Blue-vented Hummingbird
Carara National Park, Costa Rica
Greta Thundberg Talking To David Wallace-Wells
David Wallace-Wells has published a conversation, Greta Thunberg: ‘The World Is Getting More Grim by the Day’, in advance of the publication of the book to the right:
There is genuinely no precedent in the modern history of geopolitics for the climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Four and a half years ago, she began “striking” outside of Swedish parliament — a single teenager with a single sign. She was 15. In just a few months, she had made her mark at the United Nations climate conference in Poland: “You are not mature enough to tell it like it is,” she told the assembled diplomats and negotiators, “even that burden you leave to us children.” Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Horned Guan
Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala
When Diplomatic Language Is Counter-Productive
Climate-change straight talk is crucially important as the occurrence of enormous, unnatural disasters coincides with a man-made flood of obfuscation. Photograph from Getty
We look for positive news on the environment without hiding the perils. Bill McKibben, as always, prefers straight talk in all such matters:
The U.N. Secretary-General’s Searing Message for the Fossil-Fuel Industry
Forget diplomatic language—it’s a moment for some home truths.
On Monday morning, at the United Nations, the Secretary-General delivered his annual report on priorities—a kind of State of the Planet address. If you’re struggling to remember the name of the current Secretary-General, it’s António Guterres, who came to the job after, among other things, serving as the Prime Minister of Portugal. We’re used to the idea that “diplomatic language” is filled with euphemisms—“a full and frank exchange of views,” and so on. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Long-tailed Silky-flycatcher
Savegre Lodge, Costa Rica
Post-Peak Meat
Hundreds of dairy farms across California have sold the rights to their manure to energy producers. Illustration: Ricardo Cavolo/The Guardian
We are always on the lookout for more reasons why reducing beef and dairy consumption makes sense:
Brown gold: the great American manure rush begins
The energy industry is turning waste from dairy farms into renewable natural gas – but will it actually reduce emissions?
Have we reached ‘peak meat’? Why one country is trying to limit its number of livestock
On an early August afternoon at Pinnacle Dairy, a farm located near the middle of California’s long Central Valley, 1,300 Jersey cows idle in the shade of open-air barns. Above them whir fans the size of satellites, circulating a breeze as the temperature pushes 100F (38C). Underfoot, a wet layer of feces emits a thick stench that hangs in the air. Just a tad unpleasant, the smell represents a potential goldmine. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Boat-billed Heron
Rio Tarcoles, Costa Rica
Reducing Cement’s Carbon Footprint, Improving Its Longevity
PHOTOGRAPH: GETTY IMAGES
Whether we want buildings to last longer or not, we now know that reducing the carbon footprint of the materials used is a consideration is important:
The Secret to Making Concrete That Lasts 1,000 Years
Scientists have uncovered the Roman recipe for self-repairing cement—which could massively reduce the carbon footprint of the material today.
ROME’S PANTHEON STANDS defiant 2,000 years after it was built, its marble floors sheltered under the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. For decades, researchers have probed samples from Roman concrete structures—tombs, breakwaters, aqueducts, and wharves—to find out why these ancient buildings endure when modern concrete may crumble after only a few decades. Continue reading
Bird of the Day: Hair-crested Drongo
Kenya’s Libraries Get The Attention They Deserve
The archives of the McMillan Memorial Library are being digitized. Kenyans are also being invited to bring items such as photographs or letters to create an archive anchored in collective memory. Patrick Meinhardt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Palace is a fine way to think about libraries, and Kenya has a movement to make this metaphor work:
Turning Nairobi’s Public Libraries Into ‘Palaces for the People’
A Kenyan nonprofit is restoring iconic public libraries, leaving behind a segregated past and turning them into inclusive spaces.
A project to preserve libraries such as this one is not a sprint or even a marathon, but a relay, said Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian novelist. Patrick Meinhardt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In 1931, the first library in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, opened its doors — to white patrons only. Continue reading
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