environment
grrlscientist | December 14, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
clock | December 13, 2008A recent survey of Asian elephants in European zoos showed that their lifespan is much, much shorter than for elephants in the wild. Ed and Brian go into details of this survey.
The survey does not look at African elephants, nor at North American zoos - in both cases I feel that the picture looks much better, if nothing else because North American zoos tend to be newer, not located in the middle of a big city, and thus more spacious.
In the comments on Ed's post, I said: "Many elephants in zoos are kept in enclosures that are too small for them. This is why more and more zoos are shutting…
clock | December 12, 2008In yesterday's New York Times:
Scientists have understood ocean acidification for a long time. But what they are learning now is how quickly it is increasing, in step with increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. New studies show that if carbon dioxide emissions continue at current rates, shells and corals could begin to dissolve -- especially in the southern oceans -- within 30 years. Observations from many places, including the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, suggest that ocean acidification is proceeding much faster than anyone had thought.
clock | December 12, 2008Starting this month, a new PBS documentary-three years in the making-will change the way Americans see life on Earth. Scientists the world over now agree that Earth is experiencing runaway mass extinction of life across virtually all ecosystems.
The bottom line? Life on Earth is dying off, fast. The good news? People everywhere are waking up and doing something about it.
Far from being just another nature film with awe-inspiring aerials (although it sports some), HOTSPOTS takes American television audiences to the front lines of some of the most far-flung places on Earth. Viewers are given a…
jstemwedel | December 11, 2008Back at the end of November, Martin wrote a post on the ethics of overpopulation, in which he offered these assertions:
It is unethical for anyone to produce more than two children. (Adoption of orphans, on the other hand, is highly commendable.)
It is unethical to limit the availability of contraceptives, abortion, surgical sterilisation and adoption.
It is unethical to use public money to support infertility treatments. Let those unfortunate enough to need such treatment pay their own way or adopt. And let's put the money into subsidising contraceptives, abortion, surgical sterilisation…
grrlscientist | December 7, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
clock | December 5, 2008
More:
Millions of birds could die from oilsands development: report
Report Finds Millions of Birds will be Lost from Tar Sands Development
awild | December 3, 2008
Linepithema flavescens, last seen in 1934
Linepithema flavescens, a small yellow ant from Haiti, is one of the species I re-described as part of my Ph.D. dissertation. All we know about this ant, apart from the brief notes on the specimen labels, is the external appearance of a few workers. Queens and males haven't been collected. No one has studied its ecology or behavior. The few existing museum specimens- gathered from two different field sites- may be too valuable to attempt DNA extraction.
A 1934 collection is the last time anyone has ever seen L. flavescens. As the natural…
j7uy5 | December 3, 2008Orion Magazine has a neat article on the first
greenwashing campaigns in the USA. Remember the crying
Indian? It's all explained
href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3642">here.
Although beautifully written, it is kind of sickening. How we
all were misled. Screwed everything up.
revere | December 2, 2008Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, but not this year. At least in a lot of places. Because for reasons no one seems to understand many places in North America are reporting no acorns at all. I'm not talking reduced numbers of acorns or few acorns. I'm talking about zero acorns:
The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.
Then calls started coming in…
grrlscientist | November 30, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
clock | November 23, 2008Macedonians plant six million trees in single day:
Thousands of Macedonians took to the hills and forests on Wednesday to plant six million trees in a single day as part of a mass reforestation drive in the Balkan country.
The main aim of the campaign was to replant Macedonia's forests after extensive wild fires over the past two summers, and organizers trumpeted the scheme's environmental benefits at a time of global warming.
"Our goal is to make Macedonia "greener" and make people more aware of the needs of this planet," said Macedonian opera singer Boris Trajanov, who initiated the project…
grrlscientist | November 23, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
revere | November 21, 2008The trouble with National Parks for a city boy like me is too much wilderness. I am only able to stand up on asphalt. So it is comforting to find out the Bush administration is looking out for folks like me, should by some quirk of fate we find ourselves outdoors in a National Park with no Starbucks within blocks. Soon we'll be able to see the soul satisfying outline of a huge coal fired power plant, an oil refinery or some other familiar polluter to make us feel at home. It's just too bad that the EPA's own administrators can't get onboard:
The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing…
revere | November 21, 2008John Dingell (D-MI), longtime Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has done some good things in his time, but overall he's been a net minus. When Henry Waxman (D-CA) toppled him from his perch today my feeling was an uncharitable, Good Riddance. The vote in the Democratic Party caucus was close but not very close: 137 - 122. Dingell has not been representing the people of his District as much as he has been representing the US Automakers. He he got the sobriquet Dirty Air Dingell the old fashioned way: he earned it:
The Energy and Commerce panel is one of the most important House…
clock | November 20, 2008Politicians persuaded to save Canada boreal forest:
Politicians actually listened when experts told them to protect Canada's boreal forest, a potent weapon against global warming, and the plan for this vast green area could work on some of the world's other vital places, scientists told Reuters.
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Jeremy Kerr, a biogeographer at the University of Ottawa, said he and other scientists were surprised and delighted that Canadian politicians have been persuaded by science.
More info...
grrlscientist | November 16, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
revere | November 15, 2008You probably never heard of the EPA Appeals Board, but they have just handed down a ruling that will affect scores of power plants using coal. Affect them how? Not clear at the moment:
The uncertainty resulted when an Environmental Protection Agency appeals panel on Thursday rejected a federal permit for a Utah plant, leaving the issue for the Obama administration to resolve.
The panel said the EPA's Denver office failed to adequately support its decision to issue a permit for the Bonanza plant without requiring controls on carbon dioxide, the leading pollutant linked to global warming.
The…
clock | November 13, 2008There is a nice article in this month's National Geographic about Light Pollution. Unlike most popular articles on the topic which focus on the visibility of stars - an aesthetic problem - this article focuses on the effect of continuous light on animals and humans:
We've lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet, a process being studied by researchers such as Travis Longcore and Catherine…