Environmental News

There y'all go again...making me think...

World's largest 15 libraries, combined, hold about 800 million books. I estimate that represents about 0.5 petagrams of sequestered carbon. Sequestered until the books decay or burn, and it is library business to prevent that for as long as possible.

Whether that represents 20% or 2% of total paper on earth, I could not say. Perhaps it's even outside that range. But this effect of books, slowing tree's return to CO2, acts on 2.5 to 25 petagrams of carbon. About.

This can be compared with total annual 'CO2 to tree' conversion which is about 10 petagrams. Or, total annual fossil fuel burn, also about 10 petagrams. Surely I must have mentioned that tidbit here before

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Someone else can address the matter of annual CO2 of the internet, and how many 'book equivalents' it stores. But it stores information at the cost of CO2 release. Opposite of books in that way.

 

This thing strikes me as cute:

This 'SlothBot' Could Change Conservation Forever | Biomimicry

But it may not be the best way to collect (all the mentioned) information from tree canopies. A large number of (non-moving) solar-powered sensors, with bluetooth or other wireless network, could do the same, or better, per cost. But those would not be cute.

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One new activity in agriculture is fixed dedicated soil sensors, networked with bluetooth, to inform farmer when to make interventions (irrigation, fertilizer, kill spray ( ), harvest). This is called big data and sometimes combined with UAV imaging from above, or more remote remote sensing. Same sort of thing I guess.

 

Sleepy Kunming has a rare moment of newsworthiness:

China tries to keep elephant herd out of city of 7 million | CTV News

 

There are very few ways for this to end well for the elephants.

 

One bear gone urban gets a tranquilizer dart, gets trucked back to 'the woods', and media happy video seals the deal.

In this case, a gang of about 15 elephants made a 500-km wander far off the reservation. They include a newborn born en route and therefore also a mother you don't want to mess with. Assuming you like how your bones are currently arranged.

The sensible time to respond was back about when they were 50 km out and might have accepted a course reversal. Fireworks, bang on pots and pans, or other displays.

There may be similarities to other loss of control incidents in this very same country. Local management dude 1 detects an event that could make him look bad to higher-level dude 2, and so sits on it. Time passes and higher-level dudes 2 and 3 also sit on it while elephants keep moving. Finally it becomes Provincial-level dude 4's problem, who has no means to trank and transport this elephant gang back home. Would require heavy-lift helicopters and large-animal veterinarians that PLD4 does not have.

So now, we are all media-dialed-in and waiting for this elephant gang to cause some major harm to innocent bystanders (probably on west side of Dianchi Lake), followed by elephants put down by large guns. Then the bodies go (we'll never know where) and the story is 'sadly we had no choice'.

Maybe I make too much of comparing this problem to others here where local dudes are not empowered and fear going 'upstairs'. But one may detect vertical difficulties in command and control structures hereabouts.

Good luck to this elephant gang gone badly off course. Gonna need it.

 

They are fully protected species. A term I shall not attempt to define .

This has become a matter of lively local discussion. It seems not feasible to instantaneously create a local park to contain them, but that's pretty much what it would take to achieve a happy outcome.

 

Agave genus is pretty cool. For some it mostly means tequila, but they have interesting moth or bat pollination, and a 'boom' flowering cycle.

One agave gene piped into tobacco made it better in several ways:

Single gene boosts climate resilience, yield and carbon capture in crops

Tobacco has been a genetic engineering target for years, related to attempts to de-nicotinify it. But in the case there are likely to be other plants that can be fitted with this agave gene.

 

Not a fan:

 

Both potatoes and tomatoes outgrew their perception as 'not food' in interesting ways

History’s Greatest Potato Promoter Relied on Science and Stunts - Gastro Obscura
Robert Gibbon Johnson

Along with tobacco and chili, they are both in a very interesting plant family Solanaceae.