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5 Reasons to Go Green this St. Patrick’s Day

by KennithLardner Posted on March 17, 2017

More common than a Kiss Me, Im Irish shirt on St. Patricks Day, the color green is all around us. Whether its the leaves in the trees, in your beer, or the scarf of someone sitting across from you on public transit, its hard to go a day without seeing green.

Here are five reasons to embrace green, not only for St. Patricks Day, but all year.

Physiological benefits

It has been proven that time in nature can help relieve stress, minimize depression and increase ones overall health. By putting down your smartphone and heading out to connect with nature, you can expose yourself to some much-needed vitamin N (for nature).

Even just seeing the color green can have calming effects. Its also been shown that people with a green workspace or bedroom have fewer stomachaches than those without.

Carolinian forest (Photo by Simon Wilson)

It helps landscapes and species

In addition to its mental benefits, connecting with nature is a great way to increase your appreciation for the world around us. Surround yourself with green by planting a garden, caring for plants indoors, learning about the plants around you, going for a hike or simply strolling through a nearby forest or park.

By thinking green and doing your part for nature, youre helping to conserve species populations and the land they call home. Volunteering or donating to help conservation efforts across the country helps conserve landscapes for future generations.

Its good for you, and its tasty too

Eating green is a great way to do your part for the environment and Im not just talking about kale. Eating sustainable produce, meat and grains, especially locally harvested, can reduce your carbon footprint.

It can help you learn

Research has shown that green can help with learning comprehension. Next time youre reading new material, try laying a transparent sheet of green paper over the text. Green is said to help you absorb material more efficiently as well as increase reading speed.

It helps power plants and our planet

There once was a time where all plants on earth were comprised of grasses, ferns and horsetails green plants that used chlorophyll to capture sunlight and turn it into food and energy. All these ancient green plants had cellulose or wood in their cells. Eventually, stems gave rise to wood, to trunks. This gave rise to the first trees and to forests.

These oases of green became the lungs of our planet. They became our rain-makers, air-conditioners, water reservoirs, chemical recyclers and keepers of biodiversity. They also became major sinks of carbon dioxide. By literally growing green, these plants formed the infrastructure for life as we know it today.

So this St. Patrick’s Day, forget the green-colored drinks and try going green in a new way.

This post was written by Raechel Bonomo, editorial coordinator at the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC),and originally appeared on NCCs blog,Land Lines.

Post photo credit: Clovers (Photo by wiseGEEK)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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5 Reasons to Go Green this St. Patrick’s Day

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Obama is making another move to block offshore drilling.

by ColumbuHEFO Posted on January 9, 2017

In the piece, which appeared in Science on Monday, the president outlines four reasons that “the trend toward clean energy is irreversible”:

1. Economic growth and cutting carbon emissions go hand in hand. Any economic strategy that doesn’t take climate change into account will result in fewer jobs and less economic growth in the long term.

2. Businesses know that reducing emissions can boost bottom lines and make shareholders happy. And efficiency boosts employment too: About 2.2 million Americans now have jobs related to energy efficiency, compared to about 1.1 million with fossil fuel jobs.

3. The market is already moving toward cleaner electricity. Natural gas is replacing coal, and renewable energy costs are falling dramatically — trends that will continue (even with a coal-loving president).

4. There’s global momentum for climate action. In 2015 in Paris, nearly 200 nations agreed to bring down carbon emissions.

“Despite the policy uncertainty that we face, I remain convinced that no country is better suited to confront the climate challenge and reap the economic benefits of a low-carbon future than the United States and that continued participation in the Paris process will yield great benefit for the American people, as well as the international community,” Obama concludes — optimistically.

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Obama is making another move to block offshore drilling.

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We’ll Never See These Animals Again

by HalleyCtg939072 Posted on December 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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If 2016 was a rough year for the animal kingdom, 2017 could be worse. Most scientists agree that we are experiencing a sixth mass extinction, but unlike the previous five that extended over hundreds of millions of years and occurred because of cataclysmic natural disasters, humans are responsible for this one.

Climate change, agricultural expansion, wildlife crime, pollution, and disease have created a shocking acceleration in the disappearance of species. The World Wildlife Fund recently predicted that more than two-thirds of the vertebrate population—mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles—would be lost over the next three years if extinctions continue at the current rate. A 2015 study that appeared in the journal Science Advances suggests that the rate of vertebrate extinction has increased nearly 100 times. Paul Ehrlich, a professor of population studies at Stanford University and a co-author of the study, notes half the life forms that people know about are already extinct. Another study, published in the journal Current Biology, observes that some species are likely becoming extinct before scientists have a chance to discover and classify them. Researchers looking at Brazil’s bird populations found some already so threatened when they were discovered, they went extinct almost immediately. “That we have these examples,” the authors write, “may be by good luck: we will surely have missed many others.”

Scientists have cautioned against making sweeping overall estimates, rather than talking about risks for specific populations. As Duke University professor of Conservation Ecology, Stuart Pimm, observed, even though animal populations are “declining precipitously,” pinpointing exactly how many animals will be gone and the timeframe for their extinction doesn’t capture the complexity of the problem. “It’s bird populations in Europe, it’s fish in the Pacific,” Pimm says. “You can’t add those together and come up with a number that makes any sense.”

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has tried to show the scope of the problem in its Red List, a comprehensive roster of threatened species. Here are some of the highlights, including three species that went extinct last year and others to watch out for in 2017:

The Bramble Car melomys: This small Australian rodent that resembled an ordinary mouse was confirmed as extinct in 2016. It is the first known mammal to go extinct as a result of human-caused climate change. Its habitat on an island in the Great Barrier reef was assaulted by the rise of sea levels, coastal erosion, and flooding—all driven by climate change.

Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog: In 2016, the appropriately named Toughie died in the Atlanta Botanical Garden. He was at least twelve years old, though his exact age is unknown. Toughie and another Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog were collected from Panama in 2005 for research on chytrid fungus, a deadly fungus that has been ravaging amphibian populations in the region. Amphibians, like Toughie, have the highest rate of endangerment, with a third of known species being at risk of extinction. Toughie became the face of the amphibian extinction crisis as visitors to his enclosure knew they were looking at the last of his kind.

Dolphins and porpoises: There has been a lot of alarming news about the ocean recently: A UN report found that ocean acidification is up around 26 percent, and more than half of the sharks and rays in the Mediterranean are at risk of extinction. But, in 2016, with a population of only three, the Irrawaddy dolphin in Laos was declared “functionally extinct.” The announcement came after a World Wildlife Fund survey of Cambodia and Laos determined there were not enough mating pairs for the species to survive. Resembling Flipper—except with a bulbous face instead of a bottle nose—this sea faring mammal’s extinction is blamed on gill nets, a type of netting used by commercial fishermen that trap fish by their gills. Dolphins are caught in the nets and drown.

Vaquita, or “Little cow” in Spanish, is the smallest species of porpoise, and the remaining few live in the Gulf of California. Vaquita are so rare that some people who live on the Gulf don’t believe they exist, according to a recent Vaquita documentary. In May, a Conservation Biology acoustics survey found that there are only 60 left. Now, some have dropped the estimate to fewer than 50. Like the Irrawaddy dolphin, they are victims of gill net fishing.

African Grey Parrot: In December 2016, the International Union of Concerned Naturalists revealed that 11 percent of newly discovered bird species were already threatened and changed the status of others, such as the African Grey Parrot, from “vulnerable” to “endangered.” Highly intelligent and capable of mimicking human speech, the African Grey Parrot’s population has shrunk by as much as 99 percent in some places because of habitat loss and trapping. Perhaps the most famous member of this species was Alex, the subject of intelligence studies at Harvard and Brandeis universities who, when he died in 2007, knew more than 100 English words.

Giraffes: Bad news for the planet’s tallest land creature was announced before the end of 2016: Giraffe populations are plunging in what scientists call a “silent extinction” due to poaching and habitat loss. (The extinction is “silent” because we had largely failed to notice their plummeting population.) Previously, the IUCN’s Red List had given them a “least concern” rating. News that their populations have dropped by as much as 40 percent since 1985 has caused their status to be changed to vulnerable.

Jaguars and most large cats: The protection of all big cats will be important in the coming years, as populations continue to plummet. The African lion population, for example, has dropped 90 percent. At the end of December, a study from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that the fastest land animal on earth, the cheetah, now only has a worldwide population of about 7,000. That’s down from its population of about 100,000 a century ago. The study attributed the drop to habitat loss: Cheetahs have lost 91 percent of their range.

Large cats are also endangered in our own backyard. “El Jefe,” who was named by Arizona school children, is the only known wild jaguar in the United States, but it is an elusive animal whose exact whereabouts are often unknown. In February, the Center for Biological Diversity released a video of the enormous cat slinking through the mountainside in the Santa Rita mountains outside of Tuscon. Randy Serraglio, a biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity who tracks El Jefe, suggests the animal has likely migrated to Mexico in search of mates. Once there, it faces other dangers from ranchers, who kill jaguars for sport or out of concern for their livestock, Mexican newspapers reported. Back in the US, a Canadian mining company might threaten El Jefe’s habitat by developing a massive open pit copper mine through its territory in Arizona. On top of all that, should Donald Trump actually make good on his proposed border wall, jaguar migratory patterns would be disrupted.

Rhinos: These massive mammals have long been hunted for their horns, which are erroneously believed to have healing properties. The western black rhino is already extinct and there are only three northern white rhino left. There is still a small population of Javan Rhinos in Indonesia, but two other subspecies, one in Vietnam, have also gone extinct. In 2016, numbers showed that the previous year was the worst year ever for rhino poaching. Given the trends, scientists predict that the entire wild rhino population will go extinct between 2021 and 2031. Many of the horns already on the market are fake, and some companies are trying to deal with the crisis by flooding the rhino horn market with 3-D prints of rhino horns, under the dubious assumption that this will make poaching less lucrative. However, some conservationists argue that it could actually make things worse by removing the stigma about using the horn and making it harder for law enforcement officers to track poachers.

Yellow-faced honeybee: Seven species of Hawaii’s yellow-faced bees made it onto the endangered species list last year, but more than a quarter of the bee population in the US is also in trouble. This has potentially devastating consequences for the planet’s food supply: Bees are responsible for pollinating more than a third of the world’s food.

The African elephant: The Endangered Species Coalition reports that the population of the largest land animal in the world—once 10 million strong—has fallen to about 400,000. The Great Elephant Census, a pan-African census that collects data using small planes, reports that the Savannah elephants have lost nearly a third of their population in the last seven years. The population drop is attributed to ivory poaching and loss of habitat. If poaching continues at its current rate, there will be no African elephants in 20 years.

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We’ll Never See These Animals Again

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My Book Is Better Than the Tarzan Movie

by BoydHowerton Posted on July 24, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story, which contains spoilers, first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Some time ago, I wrote a book about one of the great crimes of the last 150 years: the conquest and exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium. When King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa was published, I thought I had found all the major characters in that brutal patch of history. But a few weeks ago I realized that I had left one out: Tarzan.

Let me explain. Although a documentary based on my book did appear, I often imagined what Hollywood might do with such a story. It would, of course, have featured the avaricious King Leopold, who imposed a slave labor system on his colony to extract its vast wealth in ivory and wild rubber, with millions dying in the process. And it would surely have included the remarkable array of heroic figures who resisted or exposed his misdeeds.

Among them were African rebel leaders like Chief Mulume Niama, who fought to the death trying to preserve the independence of his Sanga people; an Irishman, Roger Casement, whose exposure to the Congo made him realize that his own country was an exploited colony and who was later hanged by the British; two black Americans who courageously managed to get information to the outside world; and the Nigerian-born Hezekiah Andrew Shanu, a small businessman who secretly leaked documents to a British journalist and was hounded to death for doing so. Into the middle of this horror show, traveling up the Congo River as a steamboat officer in training, came a young seaman profoundly shocked by what he saw. When he finally got his impressions onto the page, he would produce the most widely read short novel in English, Heart of Darkness.

How could all of this not make a great film?

I found myself thinking about how to structure it and which actors might play what roles. Perhaps the filmmakers would offer me a bit part. At the very least, they would seek my advice. And so I pictured myself on location with the cast, a voice for good politics and historical accuracy, correcting a detail here, adding another there, making sure the film didn’t stint in evoking the full brutality of that era. The movie, I was certain, would make viewers in multiplexes across the world realize at last that colonialism in Africa deserved to be ranked with Nazism and Soviet communism as one of the great totalitarian systems of modern times.

In case you hadn’t noticed, that film has yet to be made. And so imagine my surprise, when, a few weeks ago, in a theater in a giant mall, I encountered two characters I had written about in King Leopold’s Ghost. And who was onscreen with them? A veteran of nearly a century of movies—silent and talking, in black and white as well as color, animated as well as live action (not to speak of TV shows and video games): Tarzan.

The Legend of Tarzan, an attempt to jumpstart that ancient, creaking franchise for the 21st century, has made the most modest of bows to changing times by inserting a little more politics and history than dozens of the ape man’s previous adventures (see trailers) found necessary. It starts by informing us that, at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, the European powers began dividing up the colonial spoils of Africa, and that King Leopold II now holds the Congo as his privately owned colony.

Tarzan, however, is no longer in the jungle where he was born and where, after his parents’ early deaths, he was raised by apes. Instead, married to Jane, he has taken over his ancestral title, Lord Greystoke, and has occupied his palatial manor in England. (Somewhere along the line he evidently took a crash course that brought him from “Me Tarzan, you Jane” to the manners and speech of a proper earl.)

But you won’t be surprised to learn that Africa needs him badly. There’s a diamond scandal, a slave labor system, and other skullduggery afoot in Leopold’s Congo. A bold, sassy black American, George Washington Williams, persuades him to head back to the continent to investigate, and comes along as his sidekick. The villain of the story, Leopold’s top dog in the Congo, scheming to steal those African diamonds, is Belgian Captain Léon Rom, who promptly kidnaps Tarzan and Jane. And from there the plot only thickens, even if it never deepens. Gorillas and crocodiles, cliff-leaping, heroic rescues, battles with man and beast abound, and in the movie’s grand finale, Tarzan uses his friends, the lions, to mobilize thousands of wildebeest to storm out of the jungle and wreak havoc on the colony’s capital, Boma.

With Jane watching admiringly, Tarzan and Williams then sink the steamboat on which the evil Rom is trying to spirit the diamonds away, while thousands of Africans lining the hills wave their spears and cheer their white savior. Tarzan and Jane soon have a baby, and seem destined to live happily ever after—at least until The Legend of Tarzan II comes along.

Both Williams and Rom were, in fact, perfectly real people and, although I wasn’t the first to notice them, it’s clear enough where Hollywood’s scriptwriters found them. There’s even a photo of Alexander Skarsgård, the muscular Swede who plays Tarzan, with a copy of King Leopold’s Ghost in hand. Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Williams with considerable brio, has told the press that director David Yates sent him the book in preparation for his role.

A version of Batman in Africa was not quite the film I previewed so many times in my fantasies. Yet I have to admit that, despite the context, it was strangely satisfying to see those two historical figures brought more or less to life onscreen, even if to prop up the vine swinger created by novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs and played most famously by Johnny Weissmuller.

Williams, in particular, was a remarkable man. An American Civil War veteran, lawyer, journalist, historian, Baptist minister, and the first black member of the Ohio state legislature, he went to Africa expecting to find, in the benevolent colony that King Leopold II advertised to the world, a place where his fellow black Americans could get the skilled jobs denied them at home. Instead he discovered what he called “the Siberia of the African Continent”—a hellhole of racism, land theft, and a spreading slave labor system enforced by the whip, gun, and chains.

From the Congo, he wrote an extraordinary “open letter” to Leopold, published in European and American newspapers and quoted briefly at the end of the movie. It was the first comprehensive exposé of a colony that would soon become the subject of a worldwide human rights campaign. Sadly, he died of tuberculosis on his way home from Africa before he could write the Congo book for which he had gathered so much material. As New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis observed, “Williams deserves a grand cinematic adventure of his own.”

By contrast, in real life as in the film (where he is played with panache by Christoph Waltz), Léon Rom was a consummate villain. An officer in the private army Leopold used to control the territory, Rom is elevated onscreen to a position vastly more important than any he ever held. Nonetheless, he was an appropriate choice to represent that ruthless regime. A British explorer once observed the severed heads of 21 Africans placed as a border around the garden of Rom’s house. He also kept a gallows permanently erected in front of the nearby headquarters from which he directed the post of Stanley Falls. Rom appears to have crossed paths briefly with Joseph Conrad and to have been one of the models for Mr. Kurtz, the head-collecting central figure of Heart of Darkness.

The Legend of Tarzan is essentially a superhero movie, Spiderman in Africa—even if you know that the footage of African landscapes was blended by computer with actors on a sound stage in England. Skarsgård (or his double or his electronic avatar) swoops through the jungle on hanging vines in classic Tarzan style. Also classic, alas, is the making of yet another movie about Africa whose hero and heroine are white. No Africans speak more than a few lines and, when they do, it’s usually to voice praise or friendship for Tarzan or Jane. From The African Queen to Out of Africa, that’s nothing new for Hollywood.

Nonetheless, there are, at odd moments, a few authentic touches of the real Congo: the railway cars of elephant tusks bound for the coast and shipment to Europe (the first great natural resource to be plundered); Leopold’s private army, the much-hated Force Publique; and African slave laborers in chains—Tarzan frees them, of course.

While some small details are reasonably accurate, from the design of a steamboat to the fact that white Congo officials like Rom indeed did favor white suits, you won’t be shocked to learn that the film takes liberties with history. Of course, all novels and films do that, but The Legend of Tarzan does so in a curious way: It brings Leopold’s rapacious regime to a spectacular halt in 1890, the year in which it’s set—thank you, Tarzan! That, however, was the moment when the worst of the horror the king had unleashed was just getting underway.

It was in 1890 that workers started constructing a railroad around the long stretch of rapids near the Congo River’s mouth; Joseph Conrad sailed to Africa on the ship that carried the first batch of rails and ties. Eight years later, that vast construction project, now finished, would accelerate the transport of soldiers, arms, disassembled steamboats, and other supplies that would turn much of the inland territory’s population into slave laborers. Leopold was by then hungry for another natural resource: rubber. Millions of Congolese would die to satisfy his lust for wealth.

Here’s the good news: I think I’m finally getting the hang of Hollywood-style filmmaking. Tarzan’s remarkable foresight in vanquishing the Belgian evildoers before the worst of Leopold’s reign of terror opens the door for his future films, which I’ve started to plan—and this time, on the film set, I expect one of those canvas-backed chairs with my name on it. Naturally, our hero wouldn’t stop historical catastrophes before they begin—there’s no drama in that—but always in their early stages.

For example, I just published a book about the Spanish Civil War, another perfect place and time for Tarzan to work his wonders. In the fall of 1936, he could swing his way through the plane and acacia trees of Madrid’s grand boulevards to mobilize the animals in that city’s zoo and deal a stunning defeat to Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s attacking Nationalist troops. Sent fleeing at that early moment, Franco’s soldiers would, of course, lose the war, leaving the Spanish Republic triumphant and the Generalissimo’s long, grim dictatorship excised from history.

In World War II, soon after Hitler and Stalin had divided Eastern Europe between them, Tarzan could have a twofer if he stormed down from the Carpathian mountains in late 1939, leading a vast pack of that region’s legendary wolves. He could deal smashing blows to both armies, and then, just as he freed slaves in the Congo, throw open the gates of concentration camps in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. And why stop there? If, after all this, the Japanese still had the temerity to attack Pearl Harbor, Tarzan could surely mobilize the dolphins, sharks, and whales of the Pacific Ocean to cripple the Japanese fleet as easily as he sunk Léon Rom’s steamboat in a Congo harbor.

In Vietnam—if Tarzan made it there before the defoliant Agent Orange denuded its jungles—there would be vines aplenty to swing from and water buffalo he could enlist to help rout the foreign armies, first French, then American, before they got a foothold in the country.

Some more recent wartime interventions might, however, be problematic. In whose favor, for example, should he intervene in Iraq in 2003? Saddam Hussein or the invading troops of George W. Bush? Far better to unleash him on targets closer to home: Wall Street bankers, hedge-fund managers, select Supreme Court justices, a certain New York real-estate mogul. And how about global warming? Around the world, coal-fired power plants, fracking rigs, and tar sands mining pits await destruction by Tarzan and his thundering herd of elephants.

If The Legend of Tarzan turns out to have the usual set of sequels, take note, David Yates: Since you obviously took some characters and events from my book for the first installment, I’m expecting you to come to me for more ideas. All I ask in return is that Tarzan teach me to swing from the nearest vines in any studio of your choice, and let me pick the next battle to win.

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My Book Is Better Than the Tarzan Movie

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Sea creatures are being drowned out by noise pollution, but for once we’re listening

by HaiHeckel2 Posted on June 7, 2016

Sea creatures are being drowned out by noise pollution, but for once we’re listening

By on Jun 7, 2016Share

It’s always been noisy under the sea. Coral reefs crackle with life, dolphins whistle, and sperm whales click so loudly they’ll bust your eardrums. But that boisterous marine chorus is being drowned out by noise pollution from — you guessed it — us.

A growing body of research suggests that noise from commercial ships, seismic surveys, and industrial work like oil drilling interferes with the behavior of marine animals, who rely on sound to communicate and navigate. While scientists admit that the effects of noise pollution are still not fully understood, this fact is certain: The ocean is 10 times noisier today than it was 50 years ago. And as if the beleaguered beasts haven’t dealt with enough — plastics, pollution, overfishing — warming seas, apparently, are better conductors of sound.

Thankfully, a team of researchers is listening. Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a draft for a strategy that will research and mitigate the effect of noise on marine life. Comments from the public are accepted until July 1 — so brainstorm away.

The Ocean Noise Strategy Roadmap  is a “high-level guide, rather than a prescriptive listing of program-level actions,” according to its website. To that end, some of its immediate goals include reviewing effects of noise pollution on habitats and populations; recommending noise management practices; and encouraging quieter technologies like, well, quieter ships. It also emphasizes cooperation between the various NOAA offices and external groups such as conservation groups and industry associations.

The roadmap is one of the first steps in an ambitious 10-year plan to make the undersea world sound less like Lollapalooza. (The first step, called CetSound, mapped man-made underwater noise in the ocean, as well as populations of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, and debuted in 2012.)

The next critical step will be action. “The key, of course, is implementation,” writes Michael Jasny, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Marine Mammal Protection Project, on his blog. “What is needed, plainly and soon, is a concrete implementation plan and a budget to achieve it.”

There’s nothing sadder than an unheard whale — just ask Vince Chase.

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Sea creatures are being drowned out by noise pollution, but for once we’re listening

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Is Man-Made Noise Messing Up the Oceans?

by KatrinaSandover Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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We may imagine the bottom of the deep blue sea as a peaceful, quiet place—certainly compared with the blaring horns and chit-chattering radios of rush-hour traffic. But the ocean is filled with the sounds of undulating waves, marine animals calling out to one another, and, increasingly, the ceaseless din of human commercial activity. Over the past 60 years, our contribution to the undersea cacophony has doubled every decade, and much of that noise is generated close to the shore. Roughly 40 percent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers—or 62 miles—of the coast.

A new study in the journal Nature finds that all the racket from our ships and construction activities penetrates deep beneath the surface, not merely messing with the communications of undersea mammals but changing the very nature of life at the bottom. The researchers found that bottom-dwellers such as small clams and lobsters, which are crucial to the underwater ecosystem, alter their behavior when exposed to man-made noise. To put it simply, they don’t move around as much.

Here’s why it matters: These creatures are responsible for churning up sediment when they burrow into the seabed, thus increasing oxygen levels and distributing nutrients. Their waning activity, the study’s authors say, may impact seabed productivity, sediment biodiversity, and even fisheries production. “There has been much discussion over the last decade of the extent to which whales, dolphins and fish stocks, might be disturbed by the sounds from shipping, wind farms, and their construction,” co-author Tim Leighton, an expert in underwater acoustics at the University of Southampton in England, noted in a statement accompanying the paper. “However, one set of ocean denizens has until now been ignored…These are the bottom feeders, such as crabs, shellfish and invertebrates similar to the ones in our study, which are crucial to healthy and commercially successful oceans because they form the bottom of the food chain.”

And these kinds of creatures, unlike fish and dolphins, can’t simply relocate to escape the noise. To maintain healthy oceans, we humans might simply have to keep it down.

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Is Man-Made Noise Messing Up the Oceans?

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These Bats Look Exactly Like Teddy Bears and Cute Little Piggies

by RudolphMott Posted on October 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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Despite the fact that Dr. Merlin Tuttle, 74, has saved millions of bats around the world through his research and advocacy, and has taken hundreds of thousands of pictures of bats (sometimes shampooing them beforehand), he won’t judge you if you are afraid of them.

He won’t even get mad if you’ve tried to hurt one. In his more than fifty-year-long career, Tuttle has encountered just about every sort of reaction one could have toward a bat, and witnessed every horrible thing you could do to one. His reaction? To try to be understanding and then calmly list, as he did with me below, all the ways bats are amazing critters who will, in fact, make your life better.

Since he first discovered bats as a teenager in a cave close to his house in Tennessee, he has devoted his life to them, founding Bat Conservation International, the world’s leading bat advocacy group (which he has since left to found Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation); publishing more than 50 research articles on bats; and lending his work to several National Geographic features. Last week, he a released a charming memoir: The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World’s Most Misunderstood Mammals. In it he recounts his amazing adventures saving the stigmatized species from moonshiners in Tennessee caves, poachers in Thailand, politicians in Austin, Texas, and on and on.

He recently talked to Mother Jones about what makes bats so important, how he started photographing them, and why he is optimistic for their future despite the continuing threats facing the species.

On why people fear bats: It’s human nature and animal nature that we fear most what we understand least, and bats, because they are active at night, dart around unpredictably, it’s easy to fear them. But the more we learn about them the easier it is to like them. And most people are just amazed when they find out that there is this incredible variety and that they have highly sophisticated social systems, similar to those of primates and dolphins, and then they find out how valuable they are and probably most importantly learn that the bats just don’t go around attacking people and looking for trouble—even a sick bat is extremely unlikely to ever attack anyone. We all love our dogs and yet dogs are vastly more dangerous in terms of human mortality than bats are. Bats have one of the finest records of living safely with people of any animal in our planet.

In 55 years of studying bats on every continent where they exist, dealing with hundreds of species, sometimes surrounded by thousands, even millions at a time in caves, I’ve never once been attacked by a bat, I’ve never seen an aggressive bats, and I’ve never contracted any disease from a bat.

On why bats are valuable to humans: Bats contribute billions of dollars annually in protecting farmers against crops pests, reducing the need for pesticides that already threaten nearly every aspect of our lives. If you go to a tropical fruit market you’ll find that some 70 percent of the fruit on sale are pollinated or seed dispersed by bats. The whole tequila liquor industry is based on agave that is highly dependent on bats for pollination. Many of our most valued timber trees are dependent on bats for pollination or seed dispersal. If you go to the East African savannas, the famous baobab tree is highly dependent on bats for pollination. You go to Southeast Asia and the durian is so dependent on bats for pollination that you can’t even grow it in an orchard without bats to pollinate the flowers. And take the banana: all commercial bananas come form wild ancestors that continue to rely heavily on bats for pollination.

On the change in attitude towards bats since he started studying them decades ago: When I began devoting my life fulltime to bats back in 1982, just about everybody knew that bats were just ugly, dirty, rabid vermin that were dangerous, and now that is improved rather dramatically. At that time the most frequent call zoos got about bats was ‘Oh my god, I saw a bat in my yard last night, I’ve got children, what can I do,’ thinking that the bat was going to attack their children. And yet today those same institutions report that they are much more likely to get a call asking how to put up a bat house and attract bats to the yard. In fact, since the three decades since I introduced the idea of bat houses to North America there are now hundreds of thousands of bats living in people’s bat houses.

On how he got into bat photography: Back in 1978, because of my research on bats, National Geographic asked me to write a chapter in their new book Wild Animals of North America on bats. I worked real hard to write a chapter explaining to people that they didn’t have to be afraid of bats, that bats were actually quite valuable to have around. And then I went to Washington DC to meet with the editors and see the layout for my chapter in their book. All the pictures were just horrible! They were bats that were caught and tormented into snarling, and then photographed with their teeth bared.

I was rather shocked to find that after all my efforts to get people over their fear, they were going to put that kind of picture with my story. They agreed that that wasn’t a good thing and sent one of their staff photographers to go to the field for month with me to get some good picture of bats to go with the chapter. But bat photography is difficult, it’s definitely not easy. And in that month he just got three pictures that were really useful for the chapter, and by that time he realized there was as much involved with knowing bats as with knowing photography, and while he was with me I had hardly let him rest for a moment without asking him how and why he was doing what he was doing. So when he left he said look, you know what I know about photographing animals now, I’ve got some spare leftover film, let me leave it with you and why don’t you go out and buy yourself a little bit more equipment and see what you can contribute for the book. And I ended up being the second most used photographer in the book.

On the power of photographs to convince people of bats’ value: I began my photography strictly out defense of bats. It dawned on me that these pictures were incredibly powerful at changing people’s perception and so I got excited about photography. Without photography there would have been no real conservation progress in my opinion.

It’s so easy to change people’s minds about bats when you are armed with pictures. For kids that love dinosaurs, the dinosaurs all died out, there are bats still alive that are just as fascinatingly strange as any dinosaur, and yet if you like panda bears or something else that’s cute, there are bats that’ll run them stiff competition, too.

On other methods he used to convince people of bat’s benefit: I asked a Tennessee farmer one time for permission to go in his cave to study bats, and he said ‘Oh yeah, you’re very welcome, and just kill all you can while you’re there.’ He just assumed if i was a scientist i knew bats were bad and I would try to kill them. I came out and I said, ‘You know i really appreciate your letting me go in and look at your bats, I’m interested in learning exactly what all they are eating. You ever seen anything like these beetles?’ And he looks and goes, ‘Oh my god them suckas eat potato bugs?’ I said, ‘Well a colony the size of yours can probably ear 100 pounds in a night.’

I came back a month later to do some more research and he on his own decided each of his bats was worth 5 bucks and by George, anyone got near to doing anything bad to his bats was going to have a big problem with him.

That’s how it works, being able to listen to people no matter how crazy their fears are and trying to stand where they’re coming from, and then instead of getting upset when they tell you they’ve been killing them all their lives, just point out that we’ve all made mistakes in the past and that I’m not worried about what they’ve done in that past, but I assume that now that they understand bats, they’ll probably have a different attitude toward bats in the future.

On white-nose syndrome, the fungal disease that’s wiped out nearly 6 million bats in North America: There is no question that the fungus has had terrible consequences, particularly in the Northeast. We definitely need to help them rebuild. We probably never needed conservation action more than we do right now for bats. But the good side of this story is that because of this calamity, millions of people have learned about the value of bats, and learned to care about bats who didn’t know anything about them previously. Now, because of the spread of white-nose syndrome, I’m seeing programs starting up all over the country to monitor the status not just of a few endangered species in a few select locations, but to monitor bats in general and to track them as we do birds, and that’s a very, very important step in the right direction because white nose-syndrome is not the only thing we have to worry about. We can do a whole lot better at protecting bats in the future because of what we’ve learned through white-nose syndrome, and I’m optimistic in that regard.

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These Bats Look Exactly Like Teddy Bears and Cute Little Piggies

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You Need to Read This Former NFL Lineman’s Heartbreaking Message About Race and Bullying

by CoyFruehauf9 Posted on August 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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Jonathan Martin, the ex-professional football player known best for being at the center of a major NFL bullying investigation, retired earlier this summer. At the time, reports indicated that the 26-year-old Pittsburgh native was quitting due to a back injury that would have kept him off the field for the entire upcoming season. But many thought that the bullying scandal—according to an NFL investigation, some of his Miami Dolphins teammates constantly taunted him with jokes about his sexuality and race—had much more to do with it.

Martin posted a candid, raw note to Twitter on Wednesday, revealing that he’d attempted suicide on “multiple occasions” and writing that he hoped telling his side of the story might “help some other chubby, goofy, socially-isolated, sensitive kid getting bullied in America who feels like no one in the world cares about them.” Read more of his note below (the actual tweet is embedded at the bottom):

You move to Los Angeles at 10 & attend JTD, then Harvard Westlake, both environments that are completely new to you. You’re one of just a handful of minorities in elite private schools. You learn to tone down your size & blackness by becoming shy, introverted, friendly, so you won’t scare the little rich white kids or their parents. Neither black nor white people accept you because they don’t understand you. It takes away your self-confidence, your self-worth, your sanity.

You’ve been told you’re not “black enough” your entire life. It nearly destroys you, many times, not fitting in. Your talent & accomplishments on the field never seem to be able to overcome the demons that you carry with you from your middle school and high school experience. You’re always inadequate, always the “pussy,” the “weird kid who acts white.”

You overcompensate, create a persona separate from who you really are, use it as motivation to gain respect from playing a game. Make a fool of yourself at times. Anything in the quest to one day to feel “cool.” You see football as the only thing that you are good at, your only avenue to make the shy, depressed, weird kid from high school “cool.” To the outside world, many assume you to be somewhat egotistical, womanizing, over-the-top; a typical football player.

Years later, your time in the NFL is a wake up call. In all likelihood, anyone else in your shitty locker room situation probably wouldn’t take everything so personally, would’ve been able to brush it off and say “fuck it, you’re making millions. You’re starting as a rookie. You’re living your dream.” But you’re different. Have always been different. Have always been more sensitive.

You thought your same work ethic that had made you a two-time All-American, a 2nd Rd NFL draft pick, would earn you respect. After all, you have achieved what only a select few other first-year players achieved: starting all 16 games, barely missing a snap.

You are very wrong. You realize years later, reflecting on your experiences, that sometimes you need to take what you want, what you earned, from people who refuse to give it to you. You need to demand respect, and be willing to fight for it every day. The whitewashed, hermetically-sealed bubble you grew up in and were educated in did not provide any of those lessons.

You were raised in a good household. You know that you are a flawed person. Have done stupid, regrettable things. But you know right from wrong. And consider integrity to be incredibly important. The worst thing of all, in your mind, is being called a liar.

Your job leads you to attempt to kill yourself on multiple occasions. Your self-perceived social inadequacy dominates your every waking moment & thought. You’re petrified of going to work. You either sleep 12, 14, 16, hours a day when you can, or not at all. You drink too much, smoke weed constantly, have trouble focusing on doing your job, playing the sport that you grew up obsessed with.

But one day, you realize how absurd your current mindset is, that this shit doesn’t matter. People don’t matter. Money doesn’t matter. Fame and notoriety sure as hell don’t matter. Nothing matters besides your family, a few close friends, and your own personal happiness.

You play another year and a half and get badly injured. You want to keep playing, but having broken free of the addiction that football had been, you know inside that risking permanent debilitating injury isn’t worth it. So you retire.

You realize that your experiences have taught you that you need to leave the baggage behind. “Friends” who you played high school football with saying whatever to get their name in an article. Former coaches blowing up your phone trying to be your financial advisor. Your god father suddenly appearing your senior year of college out of thin air bearing gifts, trying to get tickets to your games & slyly asking your parents to manage your money.

You realize who truly has had your back. Who the people are who you need to embrace. And cherish every moment you have had with them. You let your demons go, knowing that, perhaps, sharing your story can help some other chubby, goofy, socially-isolated, sensitive kid getting bullied in America who feels like no one in the world cares about them.

And let them know that they aren’t alone.

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You Need to Read This Former NFL Lineman’s Heartbreaking Message About Race and Bullying

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Random Acts of Kindness by Animals – Stephanie LaLand

by Myrna Posted on April 22, 2015

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Random Acts of Kindness by Animals

Stephanie LaLand

Genre: Self-Improvement

Price: $0.99

Publish Date: July 15, 2008

Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser

Seller: Red Wheel/Weiser LLC


The French poet, Theophile Gautier once asked, &quot;Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes?&quot; And it&apos;s true – if you have ever loved an animal, you know that there is something special about them. Random Acts of Kindness by Animals proves it, through amazing and heartwarming true tales of animal compassion, devotion, and bravery. In the pages of this book readers will meet remarkable dogs and cats, as well as gorillas, dolphins, bears, seagulls, rats, birds, and one heroic pig! Even ants are caught practicing compassion, as they&apos;re observed pulling a thorn from an injured comrade. Included are wellpublicized stories, such as the gorilla that carried an injured child to safety, as well as the more obscure, like the German Shepherd that visited the grave of his deceased owner every day at the same hour. This sweet book also reflects human acts of kindness to animals. Edward Lear, author of The Owl and the Pussycat, built his new house as an exact replica of his old one to keep from traumatizing his beloved cat. Random Acts of Kindness by Animals proves that these are thinking creatures with real emotions – hardly news to animal lovers – and provides a window into the lives of some amazing critters!

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Random Acts of Kindness by Animals – Stephanie LaLand

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10 Things You Can Repair in Under 10 Minutes

by CandidaCapps Posted on January 24, 2015

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10 Things You Can Repair in Under 10 Minutes

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