Tag: environment

Monarch butterfly population moves closer to extinction

But the count this year is dismal. At iconic monarch wintering sites in the city of Pacific Grove, volunteers didn’t see a single butterfly this winter. Other well-known locations, such as Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove and Natural Bridges State Park, only hosted a few hundred butterflies, researchers said.

“These sites normally host thousands of butterflies, and their absence this year was heartbreaking for volunteers and visitors flocking to these locales hoping to catch a glimpse of the awe-inspiring clusters of monarch butterflies,” said Sarina Jepsen, director of endangered species at the Xerces Society.

Scientists say the butterflies are at critically low levels in western states because of destruction to their milkweed habitat along their migratory route as housing expands into their territory and use of pesticides and herbicides increases.

Researchers also have noted the effect of climate change. Along with farming, climate change is one of the main drivers of the monarch’s threatened extinction, disrupting an annual 3,000-mile (4,828-kilometer) migration synched to springtime and the blossoming of wildflowers. Massive wildfires throughout the U.S. West last year may have influenced their breeding and migration, researchers said.

A 2017 study by Washington State University researchers predicted that if the monarch population dropped below 30,000, the species would likely go extinct in the next few decades if nothing is done to save them.

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More than 1.5 billion masks believed to have entered oceans in 2020

For months, we’ve seen face masks in places they shouldn’t be: storm drains, streets, beaches, and parks.

Now, we’re learning just how many could be flooding our oceans.

“Once plastic enters the marine environment, it’s very difficult to move,” said Dr. Teale Phelps Bondaroff, director of research for OceansAsia.

The marine conservation group has been tracking the number of face masks washing up on a remote island south of Hong Kong since the pandemic started.

“About six weeks after COVID hit Hong Kong, so late February, we began finding masks, and lots of masks,” said Bondaroff. “What’s remarkable is we weren’t finding face masks before COVID.”

Masks are made with polypropylene, which Bondaroff describes as thin fibers of plastic.

“The fact that we are starting to find masks that are breaking up indicates that this is a real problem, that microplastics are being produced by masks,” he said.

These tiny pieces of plastic can remain in the ocean for hundreds of years, threatening fish and even polluting the air.

“The question that we couldn’t answer was how many are entering our oceans? We just didn’t know,” said Dr. Bondaroff.

OceansAsia launched a study to find the answer and recently shared its findings.

Of the estimated 52 billion masks manufactured globally in 2020, it’s believed 1.56 billion will enter our oceans this year, resulting in an additional 4,680 to 6,240 metric tonnes of marine plastic pollution

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AOC is selling a $65 Green New Deal hoodie made from petroleum products

Socialist AOC has opened up an online shop full of super expensive merch. But one of the best items is a Green New Deal hoodie made out of some not so green materials.

Yeah, the sweatshirt is 20% polyester and polyester is indeed a synthetic fiber derived from petroleum. Seems to me like this new deal is about a different kind of green.

(money. I’m talking about money.)

You also just have to appreciate the shameless capitalism of this self-avowed socialist. It’s beautiful!

Listen, I don’t have any issue with someone capitalizing on their notoriety to make a buck. This is America. More power to you. But when you spend your days criticizing the evils of capitalism, it seems more than a little tone-deaf to open up your own online merch store to hawk t-shirts and hoodies.

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Climate Catastrophism and a Sensible Environmentalism

A tragic dissonance has emerged in most popular climate arguments: a childlike refusal of accepting the lesser of two evils, of trading off one goal for another. The more ardently you push climate policies, it seems, the more strongly you hold romantic and unrealistic beliefs about how we can repent for our environmentalist sins. In impossibly short times, it is believed, we can effortlessly transition to 100% renewable energy; overhaul society completely, but at no cost whatsoever; and our restrictive climate policies will even boost our economies and create jobs! 

You must presume that the world is a pretty sinister place if greedy capitalists, supposedly in it for the money, are all leaving these “obvious” opportunities on the table. 

Never mind that renewables ‒ or more aptly called “unreliables” ‒ can’t power a modern civilization, that their intermittency problem is light years behind where its proponents assume it to be, that they’re not energy-dense enough to provide us with the energy and electricity we want. Without the amazing help of fossil fuels we couldn’t do half the things we’re currently doing ‒ living, eating, flourishing, helping, traveling (well…), producing. 

None of that matters; we need to fix the climate, activists say, and quell CO2 emissions urgently. But while we’re at it we must also ensure equal gender representation on corporate boards, and shut down tax havens, and confiscate the rich’s productive assets. And naturally, end racial inequality, and most certainly regulate who may use a public bathroom carrying this or that gendered sign on it. 

A cynic, perhaps reaching for a tin foil hat or the closest religious text to understand how this could possibly make sense, would conclude that catastrophists are not really addressing the problem they say they are. Alternatively, climate change can’t be that bad if the same Green New Deal bill that saves humanity is littered with minimum wage laws and paid maternity leave and a range of other social policies that just happen to align with what the hard-left has long wanted.

But we don’t have to be cynics to derive this conclusion: its proponents freely and openly say so. The British organization ‘Extinction Rebellion,’ whose infamous promoters chain themselves to trains and block London roads for media attention (or sling fake blood at buildings), happily confess that they do things that feel right rather than what would have material impact for their cause. 

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