Let’s get personal, shall we? I’ve been here a while now, and as I’m feeling quite comfortable at Mastodon, I’d like to share a bit more about myself beyond my passion for the climate and the environment.
To begin with, I’m a male, he/him, hetero, strongly supporting LGBTQ rights. I’m a baby boomer, born at 312 PPM 🌏, a United Statesian, although I lived in Europe (mostly Hungary) for several years, and traveled extensively for work before retiring in 2012. I’ve never been good at sustaining long-term romantic relationships, and I’ve finally settled into comfortable singlehood.
I like to say I’m made of contrasts.
For example, I’m rather funny and quite personable, but I don’t enjoy small talk and I hate parties. I currently live in the Bible Belt, but I’m an outspoken atheist. While I can easily fit into most social situations, I don’t feel comfortable around large groups and prefer being alone most of the time. I live near two huge military bases, but I detest the USA’s militaristic, troop-worshiping culture. I’m almost always cheerful, which masks my deeply felt existential nihilism. I’m a neat freak, but also rather lazy, preferring fun over work.
I’ll finish up with some hashtags to add flavor...
A #GrayWolf killed in a January #coyote hunt in #Michigan's southern Lower Peninsula; #DNR investigating how it got there.
The harvest was potentially the 1st time a gray wolf has been identified in the Lower Peninsula since the species was wiped out driven to [#extinction] from the state in the early 20th century, MI Dept of #NaturalResources said.
The #Michigan#hunter who harvested the #wolf reported harvesting "a large animal," the #DNR said in a Tues press release. Genetic tests confirmed the animal was a #GrayWolf.
The hunter was participating in a legal #CoyoteHunt & was accompanied by a guide. He said he believed the animal to be a large #coyote. The wolf weighed 84 lbs [that’d be a huge coyote], while Eastern coyotes typically weigh 25-40 lbs, the DNR said.
"It's possible it naturally got there, but it's also obviously possible it had some help getting there," said Brian Roell, a large carnivore specialist for the #DNR. "Those are things we want to understand better. We want to know when it was actually harvested, where it was harvested…."
#US Senator #TammyBaldwin has introduced a new bill called the "Northern Great Lakes Wolf Recovery Act," which aims to expand the definition of #Minnesota 's #wolf population to include wolves in Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This proposed expansion would result in #Wisconsin 's #GrayWolves losing their #EndangeredSpecies status.
The Gulf of Mexico is home to Rice's whales, one of the world's most endangered whale species. Fewer than 50 of these magnificent mammals remain — yet they have no federally protected critical #habitat.
A revealing article on the headwinds facing the transition to #sustainable#green-energy.
From the article:
#Wind and #solar stocks are declining due to higher costs of raw materials and slow supply response.
#EV chargers and copper mining, critical for the energy transition, face demand uncertainties and reluctance in investment, and
Despite government subsidies, #renewable energy sectors struggle with high costs and interest rates, indicating a slower and more expensive transition than anticipated.
This is the problem with entrusting matters of such dire importance to #capitalism -- especially in an age of resource scarcity. As I say in my pinned toot:
Capitalism is little more than an ideological hangover produced from a time long past when low hanging fruit was everywhere for the taking and people thought it would never disappear.
That quote has deeper context than most suspect. I penned it years ago shortly out of law school after taking a Wildlife Law class from the, now deceased, Professor Dale Goble. He literally wrote the book on the #EndangeredSpecies Act. There he introduced me to the reason species have, historically, been driven to #extinction -- new technology + capitalist opportunism:
Gun powder killed the mega-predators. Whales? Spear gun. Passenger pigeon? Net guns. I could go on. But then we invented the petroleum economy, and in the opportunistic race for economic growth the decline has quickened by means of the collateral damage caused by #habitat degradation. Which, brings me to my point ---
The ideology that is capitalism was built around gluts. It cannot exist without low hanging fruit to fuel the #consumption#orgy necessary to get past the bottleneck of widespread consumer adoption. We are seeing the problem in stark outline today. Without #monopoly in the resource extraction sector, generating the necessary momentum to survive the capitalist "valley of death" is nearly impossible.
I conclude, there must first be an ideological transition away from the hangover that is capitalism, if we ever want to transition sustainable green-energy. The fruit is gone, folks. If we ever want it back, capitalism won’t take us there #ClimateCrisis#climate#environment#ecosocialism#economy#SteadyStateEconomy
The Book of Vanishing Species is a stunning homage to the planet's most mysterious, bizarre and wondrous creatures and plants. Their stories are captivating, from the eyeless and tiny dragonlike olm to the hawksbill turtle, whose gender will be determined by the temperature of the sand it is born in. These species may have survived for hundreds of thousands of years by cleverly adapting to their environments, but their future remains far from certain.
“Where have all the right whales gone?” Phys.org asks. Marine researchers are attempting to answer this question by mapping the density of the endangered North Atlantic right whale. The goal is to prevent the whales’ exposure to commercial fishing and often-deadly vessel strikes. Read about the researchers’ efforts to save “the dwindling number of right whales from preventable injury and fatality.” https://flip.it/VdFF4o #Science#Whales#Animals#EndangeredSpecies
The Vancouver Island marmot is endemic to Vancouver Island. It is listed as an endangered species: there is about 300 marmots in the mountains.
They are coming out of hibernation this month. If you see a Vancouver Island marmot while hiking here, please report your sightings to the Vancouver Island Marmot Recovery Foundation.
Morning all. It’s #WorldCurlewDay today. Please spread the love for these terrific endangered birds. Born in a Pennine village next to the moors, the distinctive curlew cry is an evocative sound of my childhood. If you’re out for a walk on the moors keep your dog on a lead. Curlews may be nesting. xx
"Fire management in Victoria amounts to de facto native logging industry, conservationists say. On Thursday conservationists and the Victorian National Parks Association expressed shock after discovering a dead greater glider in an area where trees had been felled by FFMV."
"Logging in Victoria’s native forests ended at the beginning of this year but Prof David Lindenmayer, a forest ecologist at Australian National University, said: “There’s a de facto logging industry now emerging under the guise of fire suppression.“To me, when you cut down big trees and put them on a truck and take them to a sawmill … that is logging.”"
"Whether for fuel breaks, salvage logging, or private land logging, native forest logging hasn’t stopped in Victoria. It will continue for many years, and the logs cut from these operations will be sold commercially."
Today is World Turtle Day. I was commissioned by Turtle Survival Alliance, to revisit my ‘Turtles, all the way down’ print again, with a variety of wonderful but sadly endangered turtle species of special focus, in 2 prints: 1 for turtles from around the world, and 1 for North American species. Turtle Survival Alliance works to prevent extinctions of these amazing and varied animals worldwide, 🧵 #linocut#printmaking#WorldTurtleDay#turtle#sciArt#conservation#endangeredSpecies#biodiversity
For #WhoopingCraneDay :
N.C. Wyeth (American, 1882-1945)
The Dance of the Whooping Cranes, 1939
oil on panel, 30 x 22¼ in. (76.2 x 56.5 cm);
printed as a plate in the illustrated edition of The Yearling (1939) #BirdsInArt#EndangeredSpecies