Earth Day

Give Earth A Chance, & Other EcoPosters

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A poster from 1970 by Milton Glaser. via Poster House

If you happen to be in New York City and enjoy graphic design related to conservation you might enjoy this:

Told Ya So: The Prescient Posters of the Environmental Movement

Graphic artists have been helping call attention to climate change for decades, and a new exhibition charts the evolution of their pleas.

Last year was the warmest in recorded history. The graphic artists of the environmental movement tried to warn us. Their posters aimed to scare people straight with pictures of ecological ruin, or glorified nature, clean air and water, sunshine and verdure. Some offered earworm-y slogans and haunting visuals. Whatever their approach — bright, witty, somber, blunt, even sexy — they sought an image, a phrase, that could change enough minds to literally save the world. Continue reading →

Not So Happy Earth Day

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Over the past three decades, the rate of ice loss from Greenland has increased sevenfold. Photograph by Kerem Yücel / AFP / Getty

On yet another Earth Day, whatever those two words mean together in tandem these days, a message from a reliable source:

It’s Earth Day—and the News Isn’t Good

New reports show that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than anticipated, and other disasters loom.

The Greenland ice sheet is, quite literally, a relic of the last ice age. It consists of snow that fell year after year, century after century, and never melted; at the very bottom, there are flakes that fell more than a hundred thousand years ago. Continue reading →

The Climate Crisis, Earth Day Edition

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Climate activists at a rally in Athens, Greece, in late 2018, hold up banners warning that time is running out on efforts to contain the earth’s warming to a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius. Photograph by Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP / Getty

Thanks to Bill McKibben for this Earth Day edition of his newsletter, The Climate Crisis, which we sample from regularly:

How 1.5 Degrees Became the Key to Climate Progress

The number has dramatically reorganized global thinking around the climate.

It’s Earth Day +51, as we near the end of President Biden’s first hundred days, and forty world leaders are scheduled to join him for a virtual summit on climate change. “For those of you who are excited about climate, we will have a lot more to say next week,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said last Thursday, which is a sweet way to think about it—better than “for those of you who are existentially depressed about climate.” Continue reading →

Mosquitoes Of The World, And Other Books For Earth Day

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Thanks to Matthew L. Miller for this series of book reviews in honor of Earth Day (including the book to the left, which may make you wonder who would be interested in such a topic):

I have a confession: I have never celebrated Earth Day. That may sound almost sacrilegious for a conservation writer to admit, I know. And perhaps it’s more accurate to say I don’t celebrate it in the usual way: going to a festival or concert with some “green” theme. It’s never really been my scene.

Instead, I’ll go for a walk, look for the local birds and wildflowers, hopefully write something about nature and certainly read about it. But that’s pretty much how I spend every day.

“Biodiversity” is one of those terms that gets said a lot on Earth Day. As a concept, I’m not sure it connects to many people. For me, the diversity of life on Earth is not only why I’m a conservationist, it’s one of the main motivators of my life. Continue reading →

Earth Day @ 50

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Rachel_Carson_Conducts_Marine_Biology_Research_with_Bob_Hines

( wikipedia/commons/4/48 )

CarsonDreamSeaThis week’s podcast rebroadcasts an episode we first heard a couple years ago, but Rachel Carson Dreams of the Sea is as good a tribute to Earth Day’s 50th anniversary as you will find:

Before she published “Silent Spring,” one of the most influential books of the last century, Rachel Carson was a young aspiring poet and then a graduate student in marine biology. Although she couldn’t swim and disliked boats, Carson fell in love with the ocean. Her early books—including “The Sea Around Us,” “The Edge of the Sea” and “Under the Sea Wind”—were like no other nature writing of their time, Jill Lepore says: Carson made you feel you were right there with her, gazing into the depths of a tide pool or lying in a cave lined with sea sponges. Lepore notes that Carson was wondering about a warming trend in the ocean as early as the 1940s, and was planning to explore it after the publication of “Silent Spring.” If she had not died early, of cancer, could Carson have brought climate change to national attention well before it was too late?

Excerpts from Carson’s work were read by Charlayne Woodard, and used with permission of Carson’s estate.

Model Mad, March

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A women’s march in Fairbanks, Alaska, last month. The movement inspired a group of scientists to organize their own demonstration in Washington. Robin Wood/Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, via Associated Press

We have not had a shortage of model mad stories, which may be the silver lining to the cloud, so thanks to the Science section of the New York Times for this contribution:

Listen to Evidence’: March for Science Plans Washington Rally on Earth Day

By NICHOLAS ST. FLEUR

Within a week of its creation, the March for Science campaign had attracted more than 1.3 million supporters across Facebook and Twitter, cementing itself as a voice for people who are concerned about the future of science under President Trump.

Now, hoping to transform that viral success into something approaching the significance of the women’s march last month, the campaign has scheduled its demonstration in Washington for Earth Day, April 22. Continue reading →

Red-tailed Hawk Chicks Hatch on Earth Day at Cornell University

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Photo by Cornell Lab of Ornithology

If you were up around 6AM this Earth Day you probably didn’t think to check the Cornell Lab Bird Cams, but if you had, you might have seen two hawk chicks hatch into their nest atop a light pole on one of Cornell’s athletic fields.

According to the Lab’s news release, the third chick (i.e. the egg in this picture) is due to hatch in the next 48 hours, so keep a close watch by following the link in the photo, and enjoy your Earth Day! As you check out the live feed, you’ll probably see the father hawk, Ezra (named for Cornell University’s co-founder Ezra Cornell), or the mother, Big Red (after Cornell’s sports teams) taking turns incubating the egg and chicks.

Be sure to refer to the Red-tailed Hawk cam frequently asked question page, and also check out the Great Blue Herons in Sapsucker Woods!