Climate change linked to heat and drought

Human-related climate change led to the extreme heat in Australia last summer:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/science/earth/human-related-climate-change-led-to-extreme-heat-scientists-say.html?_r=0

And Stamford University has linked the California drought to climate change:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/september/drought-climate-change-092914.html 

Didymo algae

BBC article about how Didymo algae is taking over the world's rivers:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140922-green-snot-takes-over-worlds-rivers

More @ Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didymosphenia_geminata

WWF: Global wildlife populations down by 50% since 1970

Tigers have gone from 100,000 a century ago to just 3,000

This begs the question: will there be any wildlife left for future generations?

(Reuters) - The world populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles fell overall by 52 percent between 1970 and 2010, far faster than previously thought, the World Wildlife Fund says.

The conservation group's Living Planet Report, published every two years, said humankind's demands were now 50 percent more than nature can bear, with trees being felled, groundwater pumped and carbon dioxide emitted faster than Earth can recover.

"This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live," Ken Norris, Director of Science at the Zoological Society of London, said in a statement.

http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-global-wildlife-population-down-by-half/2466935.html

Leonardo DiCaprio at Tuesday's UN Climate Change Summit

Well done concerned citizen, Leonardo DiCaprio! My favorite line in his speech: "For the economy itself will die if our ecosystems collapse..." So true.

More @ The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2014/sep/23/leonardo-dicaprio-un-climate-change-summit-speech-video

New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/business/economy/the-hidden-benefits-of-mitigating-climate-change.html?_r=0 

Last Hours

Last Hours is the first in a series of short films that explore the perils of climate change and solutions to avert climate disaster. http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/

Eve of Scottish Independence vote

From the Economist 12th July 2014: Britain does not feel like a nation on the verge of cracking up. Many have clutched patriotic flags and wept this summer—but most of them were fans of the England football team, distressed by its rapid exit from the World Cup, not activists demonstrating for and against the break-up of their country. Yet a 307-year-old union, which once ruled a third of humanity and still serves as a role-model to many, could be on the verge of dissolution, because the people of Scotland will vote on independence in a referendum on September 18th.

Opinion polls suggest the Scots will decide against leaving, but it is the nationalists who have fire in their bellies, and Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), is a strong finisher. Even a narrow victory for the status quo would be the biggest blow to the United Kingdom since 1922, when the Irish Free State was born. The campaign has been a bad-tempered one, marked by growing Scottish anger at English complacency and indifference while English resentment of Scottish whingeing and freeloading has risen: only a strong vote for the union will bury this issue.

If the Scots vote to leave, they should of course be allowed to, with Britain’s blessing. A desire for self-determination is a strong basis for a claim to nationhood, and there is no reason to think that an independent Scotland would be a disaster, any more than an independent Ireland has been.
But The Economist, itself a product of the Caledonian liberalism of Adam Smith and David Hume, hopes the Scots will decide to stay. That is partly because we believe that a break-up would benefit nobody: on most measures the certain costs for people on both sides of the border far outweigh the uncertain gains. But it is also because much would be lost. Despite the occasional appearance of muddle, there is a point to the union, and one about which liberals should feel passionate.

Strong arguments are needed to justify a step as big as breaking up a nation. Scottish nationalists argue that an independent Scotland would be more prosperous and more democratic. On economics, the nationalists say that Scots will be £1,000 a year better-off per head if they go it alone. That number, however, is based on implausible assumptions about the oil price, Scotland’s debt burden, demography and productivity. The British government’s estimate that Scots would be £1,400 a year better off per head if they stay in is based on more realistic assumptions. Scotland’s population is older and sicker than the British average, and productivity 11% lower than that of the rest of Britain. As a result, the state spends around £1,200 more per head on Scots than on the average Briton. Depending on what happens to the oil price, North Sea oil could more or less cover those costs in the short term, but the oil is running out.

It is, of course, possible that independence would cure Scotland’s entitlement culture and revive its entrepreneurial side. If either of its two dominant parties—the SNP and Labour—were disciples of Adam Smith that would be plausible. But their statist philosophies are more likely to drive Edinburgh’s fund managers, Aberdeen’s oil-services engineers and other talented Scots south. Independence would also impose one-off costs: a new Scottish state would have to set up an army, a welfare system, a currency and much else.

The argument that an independent Scotland would be more democratic is a stronger one, for Scotland and England have grown apart. Two generations ago, there were nearly as many Conservative MPs as Labour ones in Scotland, but the Scots have not forgiven the Tories for the impact of Thatcherism on their heavily industrial economy. Nationalist protesters recently donned panda outfits to remind David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister, that there are more pandas in Edinburgh zoo (two) than there are Tory MPs in Scotland (one). Encouraged by devolution under Tony Blair and cash from Westminster, Scottish social policies have diverged from English ones. University education is free for Scottish students, but not English or Welsh ones; the state pays for a higher proportion of old people’s care in Scotland than it does in England and Wales; Scotland has not followed England in freeing schools from bureaucratic constraints.

Yet healthy democracies are flexible enough to deal with regional differences, of which there are plenty within the rest of Britain. The north-east of England and Wales, which both vote Labour, also rail against the Westminster government, just as the Tory stockbroker belt does when Labour is in power. Some of the southern impositions that nationalists object to, such as a “bedroom tax” designed to nudge subsidised tenants out of unnecessarily large houses, are relatively trivial. Others, like Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax, are historical.

Nor does Britain’s political set-up deprive the Scots of power. The last two British prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, were born north of the border. Scotland has a disproportionately large number of MPs at Westminster. Edinburgh already has an independent legal system and its parliament has power over a wide range of policy areas, including health, education and housing. Its leaders have not exercised their right to vary income tax: that hardly suggests a Scottish administration straining at a leash held tight by Westminster.

A democratic, peaceful, well-governed nation state is a blessing which should not be casually thrown away. That is a strong negative case against change. But there is also a positive argument, to which the campaign against Scottish independence has struggled to give voice: the idea of union.
The United Kingdom embodies the belief that people with distinct histories and identities can live together, and that their diversity makes their culture, their economy and their polity stronger. Tellingly, most members of ethnic minorities describe themselves as British rather than English or Scottish; they instinctively recognise the capacious, liberal identity—one which rests not on narrow nationalism, but on an enlightened concept of nationhood—that the union offers. In a world plagued by ethnic hatred, cultural prejudice and religious violence, that venerable idea should count for more than the real but fleeting disappointments and sense of alienation that the Scots have experienced in recent decades.

If this ideal were undermined by Britain’s dissolution, and the country’s voice itself were weakened, the amour propre of Britons would not be the only victim. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a big noise in the IMF, the G7 and the European Union, Britain can make itself heard in support of values such as human rights, democracy, freedom of speech, the rule of law and clean government that are threatened by the rise of states and ideologies that do not share them. If Scotland were to push off, neither it nor residual Britain would have as much influence as they do today, and the world would be the poorer for it.

Although this newspaper believes that, for all these reasons, the union is worth preserving, we also think it needs changing. As a political expression of liberal values and attitudes, it would be more credible if it were not so centralised. The devolution of powers to Scotland has been a mild extortion racket; and elsewhere the flow has gone to Westminster rather than away from it. But if diverse peoples are to be bound together, they must be given plenty of slack. So instead of trying to buy Scottish votes with more cash, Mr Cameron should devolve far more power to all Britain’s cities and regions.

States cannot easily split their way to happiness, and working out how to accommodate differences can improve them. It makes them more tolerant, pluralist and open, and teaches central governments how to relinquish power. When nations cannot bear to hold together, they must of course separate. But Britain has not reached that point. Scottish nationalists like to say, cheerfully, that their nation is capable of standing on its own. It certainly is. That doesn’t mean it should.

Dr. Jane Goodall

My heroine -- Dr. Jane Goodall. http://www.janegoodall.org/jane

Waxwings

Spotted several migrating waxwings yesterday but it was a cloudy and grey day! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waxwing

From Billions to None - Passenger Pigeons

A documentary movie about species extinction and a bird of transcendent beauty - the Passenger Pigeon. On Sept. 1, 1914, the last known passenger pigeon in existence, Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo. For decades, billions of passenger pigeons filled the sky. The documentary, “From Billions to None: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction,” follows naturalist and author Joel Greenberg on a journey to discover how and why this species went extinct, and how this story is more relevant than ever today.

http://www.billionstonone.com/

Bored Panda

Photo @ http://www.boredpanda.com/

Cool website: http://www.boredpanda.com/

One-third of American birds are endangered

“Half of the birds of North America are at risk of extinction,” says Audubon’s chief scientist. That estimate is based on the 314 bird species, out of 588 studied, that could lose most of the area they currently occupy, because of a warming planet. Nearly 200 of these threatened species may find hospitable conditions elsewhere, but for 126 species there will be nowhere else to go, Audubon estimates in a report released yesterday. Shifts in climate could affect the range of grasslands, forests, and other bird habitats.

http://climate.audubon.org/
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29116412

American Goldfinch in Boblink Meadow

We went for a walk in Bobolink Meadow this afternoon and saw an American Goldfinch.  
http://birds.audubon.org/birds/american-goldfinch 

Unfortunately there were also clouds of mosquitoes...

Photo: Jane Masterson

Harvest Moon and Last Supermoon of Summer

Tonight is the Harvest Moon and the last Supermoon of Summer. I cycled over to Promontory Point and took these two photos.  The Harvest Moon is the full moon that falls closest to the fall equinox. It got the name "Harvest moon" because it gives off a little extra light just as farmers are harvesting their crops.

Photos: Marge Ishmael

Northern Cardinal and Great Egret

Spotted two birds on our afternoon walk at Jackson Park. Northern Cardinal 8-9" (20-23 cm). Male, bright red with crest, black face, stout red bill. [Female buff-brown tinged with red on crest, wings, and tail.] Rich voiced: "what-cheer, cheer, cheer; purty-purty-purty-purty or sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet". Also a metallic chip.  

Photos: Marge Ishmael

Second bird was a Great Egret: found near water, salt or fresh, and feed in wetlands, streams, ponds, tidal flats, and other areas. They snare prey by walking slowly or standing still for long periods, waiting for an animal to come within range of their long necks and blade-like bills. The deathblow is delivered with a quick thrust of the sharp bill, and the prey is swallowed whole. Fish are a dietary staple, but great egrets use similar techniques to eat amphibians, reptiles, mice, and other small animals.

Tree Frog - Indiana

I found this tree frog clinging to my chair leg last weekend.  As the name implies, these frogs are typically found in trees or other high-growing vegetation. They do not normally descend to the ground, except to mate and spawn though some build foam nests on leaves and rarely leave the trees at all as adults. Many tree frogs can change their color for better camouflage.

Photo: Marge Ishmael