Bicknell’s Thrush Conservation
A Conservation Action Plan for Bicknell’s Thrush has just been published, setting a course of conservation and research for the next five years for the little brown songbird with the speckled breast and swirling song.
The plan is to increase the Thrush’s global population by 25% over the next 50 years. The current population is 126,000 or fewer birds, which seems like a large population for a threatened species but apparently a small one for songbirds, suggests the International Bicknell’s Thrush Conservation Group.
The bird’s population has decreased by 15% in its breeding grounds in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in recent years. Atmospheric pollution, climate change and loss or degradation of its forest habitats threatens it along its route and in its winter home in the Caribbean Greater Antilles.
The Conservation Action Plan’s focus is on partnering with timber companies and managers of public lands to preserve the Bicknell Thrush’s habitat, and conducting scientific research to monitor and predict the impacts on climate change on that habitat. These actions will also benefit other migratory birds and animals living in the Bicknell’s Thrush’s range.
cc IBTCG
The Plan is on IBTCG’s website.
If you happen to see a Bicknell’s Thrush, add it to eBird, an online checklist program that is one of the largest and fastest growing biodiversity data resources around.
The IBTCG’s fourth annual meeting, together with the Black-capped Petrel Working Group, will be held in Santo Domingo, DR on November 2-4, 2010. The meeting will focus on increasing the participation in conservation planning of Caribbean and North American partners for these two species and for all birds that migrate between the Caribbean and North America.
Tags: Bicknell's Thrush, bird, Black-capped petrel, Climate Change, Conservation, deforestation, eBird, migratory, plan, research
Eco-Summer Fun
With children spending more time around home in the summer, it can become a challenge to keep them entertained. Since so many kids like computers, how about helping them to learn about our planet and its wildlife while they have fun?
The most complete online kid friendly information that I’ve found recently belongs to Earth Day Canada. Their EcoKids website has a few online games, and I learned that it’s harder than it looks to catch fish in the wildlife Fishing Frenzy game! Kids (or adults!) can create your own comic strip in Animal Antics, starring Xalibu the Pawer.
The games and info come in 8 different categories, including Wildlife, Climate Change, Water, First Nations, and others.
If getting your environmentally friendly kids to clean their room is a battle, check out the Waste section “I Don’t Want To Clean My Room” that includes a cartoon about recycling what kids find in their room. The final page is a simple game.
In the Have Your Say section, EcoKids ask children “How are you going to enjoy nature this summer?” The answers include getting outside and enjoying the sunshine, and I agree. It’s healthy for kids to get outside, and they learn so much about our world when they explore your garden or nearby park.
Tags: children, Climate Change, computers, Earth Day Canada, EcoKids, summer, Wildlife
Museum Climate Exhibits
Recently, several museums have introduced new exhibits raising awareness about current environmental and social issues. On June 25, The Field Museum of Chicago introduced a Climate Change exhibit (Open till November 28, 2010). Meanwhile, the Tree Museum has opened in Switzerland and is home for 2,000 trees of different species.
According to Museum Publicity, Chicago’s Field Museum’s new Climate Change exhibit showcases global climate change, likely the most urgent scientific and social issue of our century. The exhibit explains the science of climate change while also examining the social issues that will arise with future generations if the problem is not solved. The exhibit demonstrates that there is not just one solution – a necessary effort must be put in by individuals, communities, and governments.
The Field Museum’s exhibit on Climate Change was organized by the American Museum of Natural History along with The Field Museum and several others, reports the Chicago Tribune. The exhibit demonstrates how the warming climate has begun to melt polar ice, raise sea levels and alter weather patterns by warming the ocean and creating brutal storms while also changing ecosystems. Through interactive stations, dioramas and videos, the exhibit provides evidence that over the last 300 years human activity has altered the natural world.
The Climate Change exhibit is sponsored by HSBC-North America, Exelon Corporation, Motorola Foundation, Whole Foods Market and Jones Lang LaSalle. For every visitor to the Climate Change exhibition, Exelon Corporation will donate $1 to the exhibition up to a total of $200,000.
Also interesting, the Tree Museum recently opened in Switzerland, Inhabitat informs us. The collection of 2,000 trees showcased at the museum has been accumulated over 17 years. The trees have all been saved and now represent a museum of their own. Both the Tree Museum and sustainability-built headquarters are situated on 2.5 acres of a 14th Century monastery grounds. (Photo is of the Louvre).
The Tree Museum headquarters forms a backdrop that showcases the trees. The building’s sustainable features include efficient insulation, a green roof, a geothermal heating and cooling system and sustainably-sourced local wood. The trees are positioned against sandstone walls and contain 22 different varieties that range from English yew to Pinus sylvestris.
Together these museums demonstrate what museums can do to help inform people and solve major environmental and social issues. Whether working alone or as part of a community, we all have a role to play in solving climate change and related issues. Educational, informative and interactive, these museums have made a positive step forward.
A note to anyone heading for London’s Grant Museum of Zoology – According to Culture24, the museum will be closing for 6 months as of Wednesday June 30, 2010 and will reopen in January 2011.
Tags: Chicago, Climate Change, Exelon, exhibit, Field Museum, Grant Museum, London, museum, sustainability, Switzerland, Tree Museum
Wild Weather Solutions
Weather and humanitarian efforts are becoming more and more linked. The UN and its aid partners have appealed for $1.9 billion for this year for Sudan, Africa, which makes it the world’s largest humanitarian operation. Along with tribal and political violence, people are threatened by food insecurity and rising malnutrition caused by poor rains and crop failures, along with higher food prices (due to lack of supply, likely).
In Asia, an estimated EUR 2,000,000 (US $2.7 million) is needed to relieve a humanitarian disaster in Mongolia, where the winter of 2009-2010 was exceptionally cold. In fact, a natural disaster called a “Dzud” occurred, in which continuous heavy snowfall with extreme cold follows dry summers, causing a lack of grazing pastures and massive loss of livestock.
Meanwhile, South America is home to Guatemala. In the last few days the World Bank announced that it will offer an emergency loan of $85 million, and the United States will donate $112,000, as humanitarian aid to aid Guatemala following tropical storm Agatha. It rained so much that a giant sinkhole occurred in Guatemala City – surreal photos online. Around 11,000 buildings were damaged and 109 people died.
These stories from around our world all center around wild weather, a sign of climate change. We need to do more than just talk about climate change. Agreements such as the recent Canadian Forestry Agreement that Caitlin wrote about this week (see below), that helps stop climate change while saving endangered species are a good step. We need agreements like that all around the world. Greenpeace recently publicized that Nestle has agreed to get palm oil, which is in so many of our products, from only sustainable sources rather than sources that destroy huge amounts of rainforest. Yea!
Individually, we can help out through ways such as telecommuting and doing our work from home one or two days a week so we keep our vehicles off the road, reducing emissions. And conserving water by using gray water for our gardens and doing our laundry only when we have a full load, and not multiple times a day as some recent research suggested is all too common. See the California water bond article that Susie wrote below.
Working together, with everyone including businesses helping in some way, we can solve the problems of our planet Earth. Stories such as last Sunday’s article (see below) about the San Diego Zoo’s 10 Reasons for Hope show us that we can achieve amazing feats. We need to do this – as Vancouver’s Canadian Memorial Church’s sign read last year, There is No Planet B.
Tags: 10 Reasons for Hope, Agatha, Canadian Forestry Agreement, Canadian Memorial Church, Climate Change, crop failures, Dzud, Greenpeace, Guatemala, Humanitarian, Mongolia, Nestle, palm oil, San Diego Zoo, Sudan, telecommuting, UN, wild weather, World Bank
Happy Earth Day
Happy Earth Day, 2010, Everyone!
Let’s celebrate our fabulous home planet today, as well as pledge that we will help make a positive difference in the next year. Read the last paragraph in my blog entry below (”Earth Days”) if you want some inspiration!
If you’d like to send your friends an Earth Day e-card, check out World Wildlife Fund US which has a small but nice selection on their website.
It is rather poignant to celebrate our planet on the same day as reading Newsweek’s 100 Places to Remember Before They Disappear. It’s an inventory of some of our world’s most beautiful places and a reminder that if we let climate change continue we will lose these places.
As Stewart Brand says in Earth Days, we all have a unique opportunity to make a contribution that will last for eons after we’ve passed on. And if we all do something, then we will be able to save the 5,966 endangered species, feed the one billion people who are hungry, and stop storms and weather problems from destroying lives and areas on our planet.
What are you going to do for the Earth this year?
Tags: 100 Places to Remember, Climate Change, Earth Day, Earth Day ecard, Earth Days, Newsweek, WWF US
Happy Earth Hour
Saturday, March 27th, at 8:30 pm, join 3,100 cities across 121 countries and territories and turn out your lights. You will be joining them to send a strong message that more needs to be done to fight climate change.
World Wildlife Fund seems to be leading the way in offering climate friendly tips and tools for Earth Hour. WWF Canada is offering e-cards that you can use to remind your friends about Earth Hour. Some Canadian events can be found on the participating cities website.
Meanwhile, WWF-US has a web page that you can sign up on to help support your state in changing to a climate friendly color. You can watch a video that shows climate change and some of our world’s landmarks turning off their lights for Earth Hour. They also have a countdown clock.
The mothership, so to speak, is Earth Hour’s own website with links about every participating country.
This being the Friday File, it wouldn’t seem right to leave out an Earth Hour game (even though if you’re a regular reader of the Friday File you may have seen this little guy before!). Check it out at the game website.
Enjoy, and join in the worldwide Earth Hour fun!
Tags: Climate Change, Earth Hour, Earth Hour Game, ecards, WWF, WWF Canada, WWF US
State of the Birds
Nearly a third of the United States’ 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and several leading conservation organizations.
The organizations recently released a report (The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change) showing that climate changes will increasingly disrupt bird species in all habitats. The report, as with many like it, was the outcome of inter-organization collaboration – which in science and in conservation is so often one key to success.
Hundreds of species of birds, already in trouble from habitat loss, invasive species and other environmental concerns, now are finding their habitat and food supply threatened. Oceanic and Hawaiian birds are likely to suffer the most. Migratory birds are also likely to be negatively impacted. Can you imagine driving or bussing home from work tomorrow and finding your street has been significantly flooded or destroyed?
Just as Rachel Carson forecast in her classic book Silent Spring, birds are excellent indicators of the health of our environment, and right now they are giving us an alarming message about the health of our planet.
The report goes beyond the problem and offers a few solutions. One key, as usual, is that organizations and individuals can positively influence this situation by working together. When lands are managed in such a way that it’s good for the wildlife, including birds, it can help ease the pressures that climate change is causing. One example of this is establishing incentives to preserve forests and wetlands, which both reduces carbon emissions and provides good habitat for animals.
Also, the U.S. Department of the Interior is planning to open eight regional Climate Science Centers that will help scientists learn more about the effects and implications of global warming. Land, natural, and cultural resource managers will examine impacts and design adaptation strategies, and deliver public education. The first Climate Science Center is being established in Anchorage, linked to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
To access the report on line and for more information visit www.stateofthebirds.org.
Tags: Climate Change, Climate Science Center, Conservation, Hawaiian birds, migratory birds, Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, State of the Birds, US Department of the Interior, US Fish and Wildlife
American Attitudes towards Climate Change
George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication has five recent and interesting reports about climate change attitudes that can be downloaded when you visit their website. They’re well worth a good look.
The reports include a January 2010 update to their Global Warming’s Six Americas research. Their press release suggests that Americans can be grouped into one of six groups depending on their attitudes towards climate change. Overall, the results show a shift among Americans from being convinced that global warming is happening and is caused by humans and is a real threat (10% from its previous 18%), to more people (16%) believing global warming is not happening and is likely a hoax.
The report suggests that part of the cause responsible for this decrease is the current economic conditions and the recent attacks on climate science. While people focus more on keeping their job or dealing with job loss, they share something in common with people in developing countries who just want to feed their family. As humanitarian and conservation workers reveal, when people get desperate enough they will carry packages across the Pakistani/Afghanistan border for dinner money, or clear the forests of animals for African bushmeat. It’s tough to care about the long term consequences of climate change when you’re worried about paying your rent or feeding your family. But it’s still important.
Some people still care about their world, even when they’re facing personal challenges. They decide to be game wardens rather than bushmeat hunters. If only we could bottle that and pass it around!
The Center’s reports also have interesting information about the people who occupy the middle ground. The “Cautious” believe global warming is a problem but not urgent and are unsure if it is human caused, has risen to 27% from 19% in 2008.
The “Disengaged” who don’t know much about global warming and may not even think about it, has decreased to 6% from 12% in 2008. The “Doubtful” who aren’t sure if global warming is happening, but believe that if it is it’s natural and not a threat, is now 13% from 11% in 2008.
Interestingly, the majority of respondents believe that developing sources of clean energy should be a priority for the US Government, and support more funding for related research. Perhaps we can solve the problems even if people don’t fully believe in them!
As well as the above report, the website also has information about how American attitudes don’t equal concerns about recycling or eating locally grown food. Then there are four other reports to read.
So check out the University’s Center for Climate Change Communication’s website and learn more about American attitudes and actions. It’s important reading.
Tags: Center for Climate Change, clean energy, Climate Change, George Mason, global warming, locally grown food, recycling, Six Americas
Energy Sustainability, Olympics-Style
Dancing on a sustainable power floor that lights up when dancers move on it, a film that connects the dots between Olympic athletes and powerful electrical energy, and an environmentally-friendly home – that’s BC Hydro’s Power Smart Village pavilion at the Olympics.
Hello from Vancouver, home to the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. BC Hydro is using their role as the Official Supplier of Electricity to the Games as a platform to promote a message of conservation, Simi Heer explained to me. Simi is BC Hydro’s Power Smart Media Representative.
BC Hydro provides electricity to 94% of British Columbians, and is the third-largest electric utility in Canada. Their Power Smart program has been delivering a sustainability message for years, encouraging British Columbians to consume less electricity.
It was fun to dance on the electricity-generating floor at Club Energy, and watch as the colored lights beneath the floor turned on and flashed with my dancing speed. The floor is also part of BC Hydro’s message of how we impact and are tied to energy. According to Simi, 1.1 million watts of electricity were generated the first two days from people dancing on the floor. She told me that the floor has generated around six kilowatt hours of electricity in just over a week, enough for six loads of laundry. That’s a lot of dancing. “The message we’re trying to show is that it’s hard to generate electricity, so we should be wise in how we use it,” Simi commented. Electricity doesn’t excite everyone, so the dance floor “makes it more interesting.”
Also at the Power Smart Village pavilion is a short film that draws parallels between athletes using their bodies efficiently and people using energy wisely. Sometimes people need to be trained in conservation messages, just like athletes require training to become skilled in their sport. Lack of knowledge can be a major stumbling block in getting people to live more sustainably.
Another onsite display is the Home of the Future, which is made of two recycled shipping containers. The outside is made of B.C. cedar board siding and pine beetle wood. Inside, a Smart Washer & Dryer and Smart Refrigerator monitor energy levels and do their most intensive work when the energy demand is low. Part of BC Hydro’s Olympics effort is to recruit British Columbians to become members of Power Smart, and reduce their energy consumption by 10%, reports Simi. It’s one step along the road to living sustainably.
Tags: 2010 Olympics, BC Hydro, Climate Change, Club Energy, Conservation, dance floor, generating electricity, Home of the Future, Power Smart, Power Smart Village, sustainability
Weather and Wildlife
Do you ever read a news item that makes you go “hhmmm”? Recently, several news items from the world of wildlife had that effect on me.
The first was from CNN online, about Kenyan wildlife officials rounding up and moving thousands of zebras and wildebeest from a northern park to Amboseli National Park to feed starving lions and hyenas. The lions and hyenas have started going after local livestock, because the drought that Kenya recently suffered from has killed many of their prey animals in the park. This also impacts tourism – Amboseli is one of Kenya’s top parks, and most tourists go there to see the animals.
Then, halfway around the world, another item that has been in the news caught my attention. Partly because it’s important, and partly because when combined with the above story all I could think at first was “hhmmm”.
As various news outlets have recently covered, animals and plants have been dying in Florida due to a bout of unusually cold weather. Animals such as the endangered manatee was featured for several nights on evening broadcasts as they huddled in springs trying to stay warm. The New York Times In Transit Blog mentions that thousands of “cold-stunned” sea turtles were rescued. Sadly, animals died from the cold, including manatees, sea turtles and crocodiles.
What struck me is that both of these stories exist due to drastic weather changes, and yet stories appeared around the same time in other media outlets announcing that the number of people who “believe” in climate change has gone down since Copenhagen. How can people not believe in climate change, or be concerned about what is happening in our world, when they learn stories like the above?
The other thing that struck me about the stories is what a strange world we’re living in now, and it’s likely to become even stranger.
What did the two news stories make you think? Other than simply, “hhmmm”?
Tags: Amboseli National Park, Climate Change, Conservation, Copenhagen, Endangered Species, Florida, Kenya, lions, Manatees, sea turtles, Wildlife, zebras
