Environmental News

led's have come a long way in emulating regular light bulbs

 

i'm always amazed when i get outside artificial lighting. doesn't happen often enough, we've become scared of the dark

 

I don't know how much is instinctive, vs cultural, vs religious, etc. But a great many people are needlessly afraid, at least here in modern North America. Africa, where humans are not the top of the natural food chain, is likely a different story. Since modern humans all descend from Africa, maybe that is the source of instinctive fears.

It seems that our mammalian ancestors survived predation from dinosaurs by moving about at night. That may explain why mammals generally dropped to just simple 2-color vision, from the enhanced 4-color vision (4 color receptors, with oil drop color filters added to each receptor to enhance the color discrimination) still retained by birds and reptiles. Primates eventually re-added a third color, but with much less R-G discrimination than was previously lost, and without any oil drop filters.

This excessive fear of darkness leads to seriously wasteful over-lighting.

 

no question. a lot of it simply because we can. i remember the oil crisis in the 70's, commercial buildings were asked (told?) to shut off the lights at night. didn't take long for that to end.
and, i remember a few claims that living fluorescent on 24/7 used less electricity

 

​

Imagine a world without Monarch butterflies and their spectacular migration. It may be here sooner than you think.

The Monarch butterflies that migrate from states west of the Rocky Mountains to spend the winter on the coast of California are on the brink of extinction. It’s hard to believe that there were once an estimated 4.5 million Monarchs that spent their winters on the west coast. Now only 28,249 of these western Monarchs remain. Scientists predict the western Monarch migration is at imminent risk of collapsing in the next few years without serious intervention on our part.

The eastern population of Monarchs isn’t doing much better. The number of Monarch butterflies in this population that migrates from the eastern half of the US to Mexico and back has fallen by more than 80% over the past 20 years. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there is nearly a 60 % chance that this spectacular multigenerational migration could completely collapse within the next 20 years.

The large-scale use of herbicides that destroy milkweed (the Monarch caterpillar’s one and only host plant and food source) plays a huge part in the decrease in the number Monarch butterflies of the western population. Glyphosate-based herbicides like Monsanto’s Roundup have wreaked havoc on milkweed, contributing to a 21% decrease in the U.S. between 1995 and 2013. 165 million acres of milkweed have been lost to pesticide-intensive agriculture and development. We can’t save Monarchs without making an investment to restore the milkweed they need to survive.

The increase in funding we’re requesting to save Monarchs would cover the cost of restoring one million acres of milkweed and pollinator habitat per year to help Monarchs survive threats ranging from habitat loss to pesticides to severe weather events that are going to become more and more common with the advent of climate change.


Together, we can do this.

 

A good read from The New Yorker on an interesting paleontology find in the Dakotas.

This guy thinks he found fossils from animals that died in the Chcixulub meteor hit. Like, the actual catastrophe that ended most life on earth and reset the clock.

Pretty cool stuff.

 

someday, they'll be digging up the bones of extinct monarch's (not in egypt)

 

rick pitino? rex ryan? urban myer? vince lombardi? ara parseghian? lou holtz?

 

Red Auerbach? John Wooden? Bill belicheck?

 

gonna have to wait on bill, he's just getting started.

 

If he’s just getting started?

I bet his AARP checks have started.

But maybe he’ll channel his inner Connie Mack.

 

tarp, medicare, s.s., whatever. he's marv levy without the four Super Bowl losses

 

If you watch the AAF, you’ll see Steve Spurrier roaming the sidelines.

But based on how he moves, he should’ve never agreed to be on the field.

Definitely took its toll.

 

If the Trump administration has its way, one of the very last wild, undisturbed places on our planet will soon be overrun with oil rigs, scarred by pipelines, and contaminated by waste sites and toxic spills. The fate of the Arctic Refuge is on the line.

Graceful tundra swans. Adorable polar bear cubs. Enormous bowhead whales that breach entirely out of the water.

Home to all of these animals and more, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its coastal waters are our nation's greatest wildlife sanctuary — but if we sit back as Trump and his oil-hungry Interior Department open it up to drilling, some of the Arctic's most imperiled creatures may be harmed or even killed within the year.

These incredible creatures are depending on you:

​

Due to melting sea ice, polar bears are increasingly moving onshore to den and give birth. Seismic testing in the Refuge would threaten their most important onshore habitat in the country.

The tundra swan is one of 200 species of migratory birds that rely on this ecologically rich landscape. Don't allow oil slicks to kill off imperiled swans.

​

The endangered bowhead whale only lives in Arctic waters. Once nearly hunted to extinction, they're only now slowly increasing in population.​

​

Tens of thousands of caribou from the Porcupine River herd make the perilous journey to the coastal plain of the Refuge each summer to give birth. The herd's survival depends on this land.

​

The Arctic Refuge's coastal plain is not only critically important for wildlife — it is also essential to the survival of the Gwich'in people, who have lived in the region for millennia. In their language, they call this area The Sacred Place Where Life Begins.

PRIUSchat, drilling in this pristine area would devastate an entire ecosystem — wildlife, communities, and pristine wilderness. It would destroy one of our country's last untouched natural wonders.

 

let's hope they don't have their way! we need a priuschat pac!