Check out this photo from July. It is one of a half dozen photos from a dozen observations between mid July and August in one of our habitats in Vermont.
Looks for all the world like our Orchard Mason bee Osmia lignares, one of our 352 native species that emerges as an adult in early spring and is a terrific pollinator of apples and other early spring flowers. By the time the apple blossoms fall her work is done. Her babies are growing through larval stages and will be tucked away as adults by mid summer. So what is she doing working this cavity nest in the heat if summer? Watching her I spoke the words aloud- 'I don't know what you are.'
The answer is Osmia texana, the clue is the pinkish- purple pollen. That's from thistle.
She has no common name because she is uncommon. In fact the last time she was seen in this region was 1979. Jimmy Carter was President. There were 4 billion people on Earth, and the Village People were being sued nby the YMCA.
This one of four species we have identified in our habitats in numbers where they haven't been seen for decades.
One third of the way into the UN's Decade of Restoration, where is the policy? Where is the acreage? Hell, where is the word? Once in the MURRDI document, and your piece kindly mentions pollinators. Nowhere else.
Always enjoy your pieces. Thanks for including pollinators.
We have a strategy for creating resilience, not just protecting it.
Also, finally we have a solar field in Maine.
That pipeline photo could make you puke but to me it looks like a 100 ft wide contiguous corridor of opportunity.
Thank you for this well-researched and considered survey of some of the issues facing renewable energy siting. I am a NEPA attorney, and much of my work has involved helping nonprofit organizations fight poorly planned and poorly located resource-extraction projects. My work overlaps with renewables in a number of ways, from power line placement to wind energy and solar energy impacts on threatened and endangered species. I appreciate your presentation of the NIMBY nuances, which can be oversimplified and misrepresented in the press when traditional green groups come out against certain renewable energy projects. After all, power production, even using renewables, is never fully green: habitats are destroyed at the site of source material removal and at the end placement site, fossil fuels are deployed in manufacture, transportation, and build-out, and toxic externalities exist at all stages of production. In addition, all is for naught if renewable capacity does not replace fossil fuel capacity but is instead additive, as we see in certain circumstances. I think we must ask ourselves if destroying an ecosystem with a renewable power plant is really that much better that destroying that same ecosystem with an oilfield, just because the result is, presumably, a bit less fossil fuel used overall. It's the old "do the ends justify the means" dilemma. Maybe for some, the answer is yes. There are certainly thorny issues here!
Super valuable essay, Jason. This whole series on NIMBY phenomena has been revelatory to me at least. As a philosopher cum mathematician, I immediately start thinking about Mereology, parts and wholes/regions and subregions/network connectivity,
tiling and so forth- trying to see if any insights from those are applicable.. my takeaway is that this type of cross-disciplinary thinking is already being done by better minds than mine in the effort to save this burning planet. Will it be enough? Hope so.
On an unrelated note: what are your various subscription levels? I see only two currently.
IMG_3654.jpg
Check out this photo from July. It is one of a half dozen photos from a dozen observations between mid July and August in one of our habitats in Vermont.
Looks for all the world like our Orchard Mason bee Osmia lignares, one of our 352 native species that emerges as an adult in early spring and is a terrific pollinator of apples and other early spring flowers. By the time the apple blossoms fall her work is done. Her babies are growing through larval stages and will be tucked away as adults by mid summer. So what is she doing working this cavity nest in the heat if summer? Watching her I spoke the words aloud- 'I don't know what you are.'
The answer is Osmia texana, the clue is the pinkish- purple pollen. That's from thistle.
She has no common name because she is uncommon. In fact the last time she was seen in this region was 1979. Jimmy Carter was President. There were 4 billion people on Earth, and the Village People were being sued nby the YMCA.
This one of four species we have identified in our habitats in numbers where they haven't been seen for decades.
One third of the way into the UN's Decade of Restoration, where is the policy? Where is the acreage? Hell, where is the word? Once in the MURRDI document, and your piece kindly mentions pollinators. Nowhere else.
Always enjoy your pieces. Thanks for including pollinators.
We have a strategy for creating resilience, not just protecting it.
Also, finally we have a solar field in Maine.
That pipeline photo could make you puke but to me it looks like a 100 ft wide contiguous corridor of opportunity.
Thank you for this well-researched and considered survey of some of the issues facing renewable energy siting. I am a NEPA attorney, and much of my work has involved helping nonprofit organizations fight poorly planned and poorly located resource-extraction projects. My work overlaps with renewables in a number of ways, from power line placement to wind energy and solar energy impacts on threatened and endangered species. I appreciate your presentation of the NIMBY nuances, which can be oversimplified and misrepresented in the press when traditional green groups come out against certain renewable energy projects. After all, power production, even using renewables, is never fully green: habitats are destroyed at the site of source material removal and at the end placement site, fossil fuels are deployed in manufacture, transportation, and build-out, and toxic externalities exist at all stages of production. In addition, all is for naught if renewable capacity does not replace fossil fuel capacity but is instead additive, as we see in certain circumstances. I think we must ask ourselves if destroying an ecosystem with a renewable power plant is really that much better that destroying that same ecosystem with an oilfield, just because the result is, presumably, a bit less fossil fuel used overall. It's the old "do the ends justify the means" dilemma. Maybe for some, the answer is yes. There are certainly thorny issues here!
Super valuable essay, Jason. This whole series on NIMBY phenomena has been revelatory to me at least. As a philosopher cum mathematician, I immediately start thinking about Mereology, parts and wholes/regions and subregions/network connectivity,
tiling and so forth- trying to see if any insights from those are applicable.. my takeaway is that this type of cross-disciplinary thinking is already being done by better minds than mine in the effort to save this burning planet. Will it be enough? Hope so.
On an unrelated note: what are your various subscription levels? I see only two currently.