Winter Break

2/9/23 – Some Anthropocene news while I catch up on things

ice flowers formed during the recent cold snap

Hello everyone:

I’ve been a bit under the weather these past few days. Not ill, really, but fighting a bug and feeling tired in the wee hours when I do most of my research and writing. As a result, I’m only halfway through this week’s work.

This is my 95^th week writing the Field Guide, and the first that I’ve come up short on the writing. So let’s call it a winter break, and you’ll have your usual essay/newsletter next week.

Speaking of winter breaks, until mid-January winter here in midcoast Maine was warm and almost snowless. For a few weeks, though, we’ve had a taste of normal cold and snow, plus a quick visit from severe Arctic air that broke records and burst pipes. Both phenomena – the too-warm winter and the jet stream turbulence that pushed polar air southward – are likely related to the larger shifts at play in a warmer world.

Those shifts are all around us, vast and invisible, obvious and perplexing, tiny and terrible, and are woven through with the grief and determination and even joy we experience as we prepare to meet and solve the challenges ahead as life on Earth is transformed by our actions. This woven complexity is what the Field Guide works to address, one thread at a time, each week.

Tomorrow’s high temperature is forecast to be 50°F for my little Maine town. With that in mind, I think it’s worth honoring even a brief visit from an old-fashioned winter, so this week’s photos are some I’ve taken recently. Enjoy.

With no further ado, then, take a curated stroll through winter woods as well as some of this week’s Anthropocene news.

a very quiet pitch pine woodland

Dark-eyed Junco tracks

In Anthropocene news:

Let me start by (re)introducing you to two wonderful and relevant newsletters: 1) The Weekly Anthropocene from Sam Matey, which this week has an excellent selection of good news on the wildlife and energy fronts, and 2) the climate and sustainability science newsletter from the folks at Anthropocene magazine. Here are two interesting technical developments reported by Anthropocene: The grass used for soccer fields has much to teach its cousins corn and sorghum about growing in depleted soils, and a groundbreaking process powered by the sun converts plastic and CO2 into fuel.

And of course, you should always read Bill McKibben. The latest issue of his newsletter, The Crucial Years, talks mostly of the upcoming major protest of the big banks which are still funding fossil fuel projects. That protest is on the palindromic date of 3/21/23. Check out what Third Act (an activist group led by folks over 60) and Stop the Money Pipeline are up to, and plan to get involved. Keep scrolling through McKibben’s newsletter to see his own curated list of important climate news.

From the Times, want to keep birds from dying against your windows? A new study has demonstrated the necessity of placing the stickers or other warnings on the outside of the glass. Detailed solutions to prevent bird strikes can be found at All About Birds.

Also from the Times, take a good look at the most comprehensive map of at-risk U.S. biodiversity. There’s also a version of the map that includes an overlay of all the country’s conserved and protected areas. They are just green drops in the bucket. We have much, much more to do to significantly lower the risk of extinctions.  

From the wise folks at the amazing literary/environmental magazine Orion, their list of most anticipated books of 2023.

From Undark, the false and dangerous “solution” of bioplastics. And here is a similar story in Hakai.

From CNET, a discussion of “dark extinction,” the reality of species disappearing from the world we’ve changed, but without us knowing about it. Too much of our (underfunded) work to prevent extinctions largely focuses on the charismatic species people recognize – elephants, whales, bats – but far too often we don’t even know what’s at risk or what’s gone already. As complex ecosystems diminish, their unseen plants and insects and microbes can be lost forever.

From the BBC Future Planet series, the necessary shift to communal heat pump networks for heating and cooling neighborhoods or apartment buildings, rather than setting up a heat pump in each residence.

From E&E News, the biggest climate-related legislative battle in Congress will be over the farm bill. The U.S. agriculture sector is far behind other sectors (energy, transportation, etc.) in working to curb emissions.

Thanks for sticking with me.

a note from Heather I found while walking home