Tag Archives: natural

Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari

by Myrna Posted on September 5, 2016

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Sapiens

A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $16.99

Publish Date: February 10, 2015

Publisher: Harper

Seller: HarperCollins


New York Times Bestseller From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas. Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become? Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.

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Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari

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How Honeybees Buzz Out Pests

by AngieKerns Posted on August 17, 2016

Research has discovered that honeybees can reduce the activity of plant-eating caterpillars, even though honeybees dont harm them in any way. This is another great reason to promote bees and other pollinators in our farms and gardens. Not only do you get the pollination benefits, you may also be able to reduce insecticide use.

How Do Bees Protect Against Pests?

A University of Wurzburg study set up two tents that contained bell pepper and soy bean plants. One tent included a bee hive and the other tent was closed to bees.

They introduced beet armyworms into both tents. Armyworms eat much more than beet greens and are a serious pest of many vegetable and flower crops.

Honeybees themselves are not predatory and dont harm insects like armyworms. But parasitic wasps will prey on the caterpillars by either eating them or laying eggs in their body. The eggs will later hatch and the wasp larvae will eat the caterpillar from the inside out.

As young caterpillars, armyworms are voracious leaf eaters. Although, when a wasp flies over, their natural response is to stop moving and eating. They sometimes even drop off the plant for extra safety.

The study found that the armyworms in the tent with bees circulating amongst the flowers ate about two-thirds less leaves than those in the bee-free tent.

Researchers concluded that the beating of a bees wings most likely mimics the sound of a predatory wasp. This is probably what makes the caterpillars stop eating in order to avoid a perceived predator.

What This Could Mean for Reducing Pesticide Use

The United States applied 857 million pounds of pesticides in the year 2007, with 80 percent being used by the agriculture industry. Unfortunately, more recent statistics are not available, but its likely that current pesticide usage would be similar.

Out of that total, almost 100 million pounds were insecticides. Many insecticides can have far-reaching effects on human health and the health of ecosystems.

For instance, organophosphates are a type of insecticide that damages the nervous system of both mammals and insects. They have also been used as a nerve gas during wars, a practice which has been banned by the Geneva Convention due to their high toxicity.

Research has also shown that wide-spread use of the insecticides called neonicotinoids has contributed to collapsing bee populations globally.

Its clear we need to find better ways to control pests, particularly on agricultural crops. Promoting pollinating insects could be the perfect way to reduce insecticide use and costs, while also helping boost global bee populations.

How Can You Help Promote Pollinators?

You may already be using various methods to support pollinators in your yard. This will benefit your own garden as well as any surrounding farms. These are some of the key ways to help pollinators.

Plant wild spaces. Pollination isnt all about honeybees. Thousands of other species of insects and animals also help plants spread pollen, such as butterflies, bats, moths, flies and even some mammals. All these creatures need wild spaces to live in.

Any garden beds will help boost your local populations of beneficial insects and other pollinators. If you have enough space, you can designate a completely wild area where humans arent allowed.

Grow organically. Insecticides and other pesticides harm more than just the pests youre targeting. They can contaminate ground water, the food supply and the air. Its important to find non-toxic ways to control unwanted visitors in your yard.

Provide food and water. Most pollinating insects eat pollen, so including a wide variety of flowering plants is ideal. Herbs like oregano, thyme and lavender are always insect magnets. Many native plants like blanket flower, Echinacea and bee balm are also favorites. And dont rule out flowering shrubs, vines and trees like wild roses, honeysuckle or linden trees.

Pollinators also need a source of water. A sunken dish in the ground filled with water and pebbles for landing sites will do the job. Bird baths, ponds and larger water features are also great.

Almond orchard with imported bee hives

How Can This Be Applied to Agriculture?

Agricultural operations can incorporate similar strategies as your backyard on a much larger scale.

An excellent example is in the almond orchards in California. Currently, theres a situation where the local honeybee populations arent large enough to pollinate the hundreds of thousands of acres of commercial almond trees.

Every February when the almonds bloom, more than one million beehives need to be shipped into the orchards to help with pollination. Thats more than half of all honeybees farmed in the United States, and theyre trucked in from all corners of the country.

The Journal of Applied Ecology published a study pointing out that it may not be sustainable to rely solely on one species (honeybees) for pollination of almonds. Researchers found that orchards surrounded by areas of semi-natural vegetation were visited by more wild bee species and other pollinating insects. In addition, greater numbers of wild pollinators visited when organic agricultural practices were used.

Also, fruit set increased as the percentage of natural habitat surrounding the orchards increased.

If almond orchards incorporated larger wild spaces to promote pollinators and moved to more organic cultivation practices, it would help solve their shortage of bees as well potentially reducing damage due to leaf-eating pests.

Related
11 Foods We Would Lose Without Pollinators
Want to Pollinators to Visit Your Yard? Heres How to Attract Them
Sunflowers: Delicious in More Ways Than One

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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How Honeybees Buzz Out Pests

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How Oyster Farming is Cleaning Our Water

by pauletteguajardo Posted on August 10, 2016

American palates are becoming more and more refined these days, with trends like pescetarianism and the farm-to-table movement increasing the demand for locally raised fish and shellfish. Overfishing remains a huge problem and so do contaminated waterwaysbut there may be a simple, natural solution on the horizon: oysters.

Increased Demand for Local Shellfish

Oyster farming on the East Coast has doubled in the past six years, according to NPR, and its no mystery why. Americans who can afford to do so are becoming increasingly interested in where their food comes from. They want local, sustainable, organic, antibiotic-free food and this desire has made a big mark in both foodie culture and agriculture.

“As much food as possibly can go on my plate at the least amount of money I can spend used to be the way things were,” says Jimmy Parks, a chef and owner of the Butcher Station in Winchester, Virginia. “Now people are getting away from that, and they’re gravitating toward … cleaner sources.”

For some species, like salmon and tuna, this trend may be alarming. Fish farms are notoriously dirty and bad for the planet, with antibiotics, unnatural fish feed, overpopulation and huge amounts of waste putting a strain on oceanic and river ecosystems.

Oysters, however, are a different story.

Oysters as Natural Water Filters

For one thing, oyster farming has an extremely low carbon footprint. According to the environmental news blog Grist, oysters are one of the cleanest animal protein sources you can eat in terms of carbon emissions.

Additionally, oysters act as natural water purifiers. According to The Nature Conservancy, roughly 40 percent of U.S. waterways are currently considered too polluted for swimming or fishing. Oysters can help change that. Grist reports that a mature oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water every day. That means that just one acre of populated oyster territory can filter 140 million gallons of water per day.

The mighty bivalves are ocean filters, Grist reports. Oysters soak up nitrogen through their flesh, turning the nutrient into a benign gas. They absorb nitrogen into their shells, too, and can store it there for decades, or even centuries, long after the little creature inside its shell is dead. At their most plentiful, the Chesapeakes oysters were capable of filtering all 18 trillion tons of bay water in about a week, rendering it nearly crystal clear.

Gulnihal Ozbay, an oyster researcher at the University of Delaware, told NPR that oysters not meant for consumption could be added to polluted waterways to help purify them, hopefully making them more appropriate for swimming, drinkingand fishing down the road.

Rebuilding Ecosystems and Economies

Finally, oysters stand to improve the health of some very important ecosystems: those of local waterways and our own human economies.

“The coolest thing is within our cages we see these little shrimp-like creatures that actually eat the pseudofeces of the oysters, Tim Devine, a Maryland-based oyster farmer, tellsNPR. And then things like seahorses and crabs and other things eat those little guys, and then the food chain has begun.”

This helps create a reef-like ecosystem within the waterway, bolstering aquatic populations and filtering water to boot.

From a human population perspective, these mighty little mollusks also play a strong role in maintaining balanced local economies. For years, Chesapeake Bay fisherman survived on proceeds from oyster hunting and sales. When oyster populations collapsed due to overfishing, many oystermen considered making career changes.

I tell you, there was nothing left, fisherman Johnny Shockley told Grist. We knew every spot there was in this river that was a good oyster bottom, and they were all gone.”

Maryland only legalized aquaculture (oyster and clam farming) as recently as 2009. Since then, the economy around oysters and other shellfish has begun to recover, to the relief of many local fisherman and their families.

Oysters are small creatures, but they sure can make a big impact, and its tiny steps that could add up to big changes for our oceans and waterways.

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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How Oyster Farming is Cleaning Our Water

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Bernie Sanders lays out what Democrats should do next

by MohamedMullings Posted on June 23, 2016

Feelin’ the bern

Bernie Sanders lays out what Democrats should do next

By on Jun 23, 2016Share

The race for the Democratic nomination may be more or less over for Bernie Sanders. The natural question is: What does he do next? The Vermont senator insists that’s the wrong question, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post. Instead, it’s about “what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want.”

Those 12 million, according to Sanders, want to see his major platform points — a just economy, overturning Citizens United, criminal justice reform, and action on climate change — come to fruition. He writes on climate change:

If present trends continue, scientists tell us the planet will be 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by the end of the century — which means more droughts, floods, extreme weather disturbances, rising sea levels and acidification of the oceans. This is a planetary crisis of extraordinary magnitude.

What do we want? We want the United States to lead the world in pushing our energy system away from fossil fuel and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy. We want a tax on carbon, the end of fracking and massive investment in wind, solar, geothermal and other sustainable technologies.

Sanders’ supporters last week pushed the Democratic National Committee to embrace many of these points in its party platform, including calls for a nationwide fracking ban and a carbon tax. While Sanders and Clinton mostly agree on the science and dangers of climate change, his rival never endorsed either of these proposals.

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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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Your Favorite Artisanal Food Brand Is Probably Owned by a Huge Company

by ChandaEager6519 Posted on May 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Big Food is in a pickle. Its core business—packaged, pre-cooked fare—remains profitable, but sales are shrinking. Consumer distrust is mounting. One response has been to maintain profits by slashing expenses. Conagra, the behemoth behind such one-time powerhouses as Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti and Pam spray oil, recently announced it would cut $300 million in annual costs and lay off 1,500 workers.

Another time-tested strategy is to snap up smaller, independent companies operating in niches of the industry that are actually growing, like organics, for example. That means that what started as your favorite local organic food brand—Naked Juice, Dagoba chocolate, LaraBar—now belongs to a much larger, much less local company.

Last week alone, three much-loved small players succumbed to the appetites of larger players:

• Spam king Hormel gobbles up an organic peanut butter player. It might seem bizarre that Hormel—the topic of Ted Genoways’ excellent 2011 exposé on working conditions on the slaughterhouse floor—would drop $286 million on nut-snack company Justin’s, which started as a stand in the Boulder Farmers Market in 2004. But Hormel has been diversifying away from canned pork for a while. It spent $700 million to take on supermarket peanut butter titan Jiffy in 2013. By broadening its portfolio to include Justin’s—probably most famous for its organic peanut butter cups—Hormel is adding rapid sales growth. Hormel had already displayed its taste for the sweeter growth prospects and profit margins offered by organic and “natural” foods when it spent $775 to buy niche meat player Applegate a year ago.

• A very European-like midsize cheese-maker gets snapped up by a European giant. Switzerland-based Emmi is a globe-spanning cheese titan with $3.3 billion in annual sales. Its offerings now include those of Cowgirl Creamery, which sells about $20 million per year of cheeses from cows raised on the lush rolling hills of Northern California’s Marin County. For US cheese lovers like me, the thought of Cowgirl falling into the maw of a large company is like seeing your favorite local coffeehouse get bought by Starbucks. Although, to be fair, Emmi isn’t exactly Kraft—it sells some pretty high-quality cheeses in the United States, like gruyere. And as the San Francisco Chronicle notes, Emmi has already demonstrated its fondness for Northern California cheese—it bought Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery last year and Cypress Grove Chevre in 2010. Another European behemoth, Heineken, also bought a bit of Northern California chic when it gulped up a 50 percent stake in craft-beer maker Lagunitas last year.

• A great Sonoma County niche winery gets swallowed by a California-based titan. Full disclosure: I can’t afford to drink them very often, but I love the lean, light, pretty wines of Sonoma County’s Copain, which makes about 20,000 cases per year. I don’t love the big, high-alcohol ones favored by Kendall Family Wines, which are cranked out at the rate of 5.6 million cases annually, from wineries that span the globe from California to Chile to South Africa. So I won’t be toasting this deal (the price of which has not been disclosed.) But I do hope it signals a shift away from the “jammy fruit bomb” style that has dominated the wine world for decades, a stubborn trend ably skewered by Jonathan Nossiter’s excellent 2014 documentary Mondovino.

In all three of these deals, the charismatic founder(s) of the smaller company has vowed to maintain full control of the brand’s quality and vision as it moves forward under the shadow of a conglomerate. Here’s hoping they do.

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Your Favorite Artisanal Food Brand Is Probably Owned by a Huge Company

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How to Make Your Garden Wildlife-Friendly

by DeliaFQDSrufv Posted on May 9, 2016

The National Wildlife Federation designated the month of May as Garden for Wildlife Month. Urban expansion in many parts of the world continues to destroy valuable wildlife habitat. You can help turn this around by encouraging more wildlife in your area. There are many simple ways you can make your backyard more wildlife-friendly.

Water Features

Clean water is vital for the survival of all living creatures. Some of your local wildlife will need water simply for drinking and bathing. Whereas, animals like frogs and amphibians, and certain insects, need water for reproduction and a place to live.

You can start small. You might be surprised how many wild visitors a simple birdbath or shallow container of water will bring to your garden. You can also add a larger water feature, like a fountain or artificial pond.

Make use of any natural water features you already have on your property, such as a creek or wetland. If the area has been damaged for any reason, take the time to restore it to its natural state. Build up the banks if needed. Plant reeds, sedges or water plants along the waters edge to provide shelter and living spaces. These will also help naturally filter the water and keep it clean.

Food Sources

You can purposely put out food for animals, such as bird seeds or liquid hummingbird feeders. Planting wildlife-friendly plants is a good hands-off choice.

When youre considering what to plant in your wildlife garden, think of what it can provide animals. Does it make fruit like nuts and berries or plentiful flowers and seeds? Are the leaves and stems eatable to foraging animals? Try to avoid plants with thorns or toxic foliage and ones that are sterile and dont produce fruit.

Some great low-maintenance fruiting plants are raspberries, hazelnuts, wild currants, crabapples, hawthorn or Oregon grape. Many common wildflowers will provide abundant amounts of pollen, nectar and seeds. Try cornflowers, poppies, asters, blanket flowers, geraniums, cosmos, Shasta daisies or herbs like oregano, thyme and sage.

Another option is to include areas of natural grass or shrubs if you have the space. These are great for foraging animals like deer, geese or rabbits.

Shelter

Wild animals benefit from areas where they can hide from predators, make a nest or other home, as well as take cover from poor weather. Shelter can take many forms.

Plants and natural areas provide excellent spaces for wildlife to live. Try to include shrubs and trees where you can in order to provide height in your garden. The larger a plant is, the more shelter it can naturally provide.

Leave fallen leaves and branches on the ground when possible. These will allow spaces for a variety of species to move into. For instance, native bees and other beneficial insects often make homes and overwinter in fallen plant debris. Even undisturbed piles of rocks or logs can offer excellent shelter for many animals like snakes, rodents and insects.

You can also build your own garden shelters. Birdhouses, bat houses, bee boxes or an outdoor dog house are good starting projects. Its helpful to preserve any old rock walls or other human-made structures that may or may not still be in use. Insects and other small creatures can use the cracks and holes as habitat.

Go Organic

Chemicals used in the landscape will often do a lot more harm than you intend. For instance, many weed and feed products for lawns contain the herbicide 2,4-D. Studies have found that dogs whose owners use lawn products containing 2,4-D are twice as likely to develop canine malignant lymphoma.

Use compost and other organic products to provide nutrients and replace synthetic fertilizers. Find organic ways to target weeds and insect pests individually, rather than applying broad-range chemical pesticides. For example, you can purchase ladybug larvae at many garden centers to deal with an aphid infestation. The rest of your wildlife population will thank you.

Habitat

Consider creating some wild, human-free areas in your yard. Plants native to your area would be especially well-adapted for this use. A wild area could be left on its own with very little irrigation or maintenance, which can help more sensitive species establish themselves without human interference.

Related:
10 Ways to Save the Bees
What to Plant, Weed and Prune in May
Gardening for Butterflies

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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How to Make Your Garden Wildlife-Friendly

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Oceans won’t have enough oxygen in as little as 15 years

by KarryRohr0004 Posted on April 29, 2016

Oceans won’t have enough oxygen in as little as 15 years

By on Apr 29, 2016Share

This story was originally published by Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

It should come as no surprise that human activity is causing the world’s oceans to warm, rise, and acidify.

But an equally troubling impact of climate change is that it is beginning to rob the oceans of oxygen.

While ocean deoxygenation is well established, a new study led by Matthew Long, an oceanographer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, finds that climate change-driven oxygen loss is already detectable in certain swaths of ocean and will likely be “widespread” by 2030 or 2040.

Ultimately, Long told The Huffington Post, oxygen-deprived oceans may have “significant impacts on marine ecosystems” and leave some areas of ocean all but uninhabitable for certain species.

While some ocean critters, like dolphins and whales, get their oxygen by surfacing, many, including fish and crabs, rely on oxygen that either enters the water from the atmosphere or is released by phytoplankton via photosynthesis.

But as the ocean surface warms, it absorbs less oxygen. And to make matters worse, oxygen in warmer water, which is less dense, has a tough time circulating to deeper waters.

For their study, published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Long and his team used simulations to predict ocean deoxygenation through 2100.

“Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it’s been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change,” Long said in a statement. “This new study tells us when we can expect the impact from climate change to overwhelm the natural variability.”

And we don’t have long.

Matthew Long/NCAR

By 2030 or 2040, according to the study, deoxygenation due to climate change will be detectable in large swaths of the Pacific Ocean, including the areas surrounding Hawaii and off the West Coast of the U.S. mainland. Other areas have more time. In the seas near the east coasts of Africa, Australia, and Southeast Asia, for example, deoxygenation caused by climate change still won’t be evident by 2100.

Long said the eventual suffocation may affect the ability of ocean ecosystems to sustain healthy fisheries. The concern among the scientific community, he said, is that “we’re conceivably pushing past tipping points” in being able to prevent the damage.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, shared these concerns, telling The Washington Post that the new study adds to the “list of insults we are inflicting on the ocean through our continued burning of fossil fuels.”

“Just a week after learning that 93 [percent] of the Great Barrier Reef has experienced bleaching in response to the unprecedented current warmth of the oceans, we have yet another reason to be gravely concerned about the health of our oceans, and yet another reason to prioritize the rapid decarbonization of our economy,” Mann said.

Unfortunately, this reason is unlikely to be the last.

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We just lost another critical climate satellite

by FloydHeady Posted on April 27, 2016

Pour one out

We just lost another critical climate satellite

By on Apr 26, 2016Share

One of climate change’s most important biographers — a 2,700-pound satellite orbiting 450 miles above the surface of the Earth — just recorded its last data point.

Earlier this month, the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that, after nine years and five months in orbit, the satellite known as F17 had stopped transmitting sea ice measurements. That’s not unusual — satellites in F17’s series, all named sequentially, are normally expected to last about five years, though some make it much longer. But F17’s failure could preempt the end of the series entirely. Walter Meier, a sea ice researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, called the satellite program “one of the longest, most iconic datasets” illustrating climate change, particularly in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Since 1978, the satellites, each equipped with a set of passive microwave sensors, have been recording conditions on Earth, day in and day out. By measuring the amount of radiation given off by the atomic composition and structure of different substances, like ice or seawater, microwave sensing is a useful tool for pilots and military officers tracking weather conditions. Over time, these measurements can also track cumulative changes in sea ice. As early as 1999, scientists saw that sea ice cover was decreasing more quickly than it had in previous decades — and they’ve been observing similar trends ever since.

Until now, there have always been three or four satellites in the series orbiting at a time, as part of one of the country’s oldest satellite programs, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Over time, as new satellites were launched and older models went dark, overlapping data have kept the 40-year sea-ice dataset consistent.

With F17 floating in unresponsive silence, the bulk of the responsibility has been placed on F18, launched in 2009, as the newest of the series still in working condition (a newer satellite, F19, was launched in 2014 but failed last February). It’s not ideal to rely on a 7-year-old satellite, says Meier, but at least it is possible to keep the dataset continuous — for now. If this one were to conk out, too (knock on wood), there are some other options, including a Japanese research satellite launched in 2011. But, Meier says, the sensors vary slightly, and the data simply won’t be as consistent.

“The real problem is that there’s nothing on the horizon,” said Meier. “There’s nothing funded, or planned right now.”

Arctic sea ice extent hit a new low in 2012, compared to the average minimum extent over the previous 30 years.

There is one other option — but it’s sitting in a storage room somewhere on Earth. This satellite, F20, was the last of its series to be built, and was tentatively planned to launch in 2018. That plan fell through last June, when the Senate Appropriations Committee revoked funding for the DMSP, even rescinding $50 million that had been specifically designated for launching F20. Without Congressional approval, F20 is grounded.

“It’s sitting there, ready to be launched,” said Meier. He pointed out that the data from the satellite series is also used to study snow cover on land, ocean currents, temperature change, drought detection, and many other natural cycles. “The benefit is beyond my own work on sea ice.”

That research, he said, has led to critical discoveries. One of the most important was the observation of record-low sea-ice cover in 2007 and in 2012, findings that Meier says went even further than those reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“All of sudden, it was like, ‘Whoa! The ice cover is not as resilient as we thought, and things are moving a lot faster than we expected,’” he said, worrying that if another satellite were to fail, these kinds of observations would be jeopardized. “It would be a real shame if this data gets interrupted.”

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Celebrating Bats on Bat Appreciation Day

by lilazepps099 Posted on April 16, 2016

Bats do a whole lot more than cruise the skies at night. They play an important role in balancing our ecosystem, eating harmful insects and acting as natural pest control. And although some people think bats are freaky looking, there are hundreds of reasons to love these flying mammals.

5 Fun Bat Facts For Bat Appreciation Day

1. Bats are the only flying mammals. Talk about bragging rights! These guys can cruise up to 60 miles per hour.

2. Bats use echolocation. Consider bats the dolphins of the sky. They use echolocation not for communication, but for finding food in the dark.

3. A quarter of all mammals are bats. There are over 1,000 bat species in the world, making up 1/4th of all mammals! However, over 50 percent of these species are declining, either already endangered or on their way.

4. Bats have only one baby per year. Similar to humans, bats typically only have one bat baby (called a pup) per year. Just like people, bats will occasionally have twins.

5. Bats often eat their body weightsdaily. Insect-eating bats can consume over 1,000 insects every night. That’s one efficient mosquito trap!

Unfortunately, many once-abundant bat species in the U.S. are now endangered, and all of them are threatened.

Why Are They at Risk?

Bats are at risk for two main reasons. The first is habitat loss, which unfortunately is no one’s fault but our own. As we continue to develop more and more forest land, bats are losing their homes.

The second reason we’re seeing fewer bats is due to a fatal and fast-spreading fungal disease called white-nose syndrome, which attacks bats during hibernation, invading their skin, causing dehydration and creating a need for the critters to leave their caves early in search of food and water. Caused by a fungus from Eurasia, the disease has killed at least 5.7 million bats since it arrived to North American in 2006. White-nose syndrome has been found in 26 U.S. states and 5 Canadian provinces.

How You Can Help

1. Don’t use pesticides. While you may be using poison to keep pests off your plants, insects are bats top food sources, so chemicals are easily transferred to our flying friends.

2. Stay out of caves. By accidentally entering a hibernation site, you can disturb a bat’s natural cycle and harm the overall population.

3. Fight for forest conservation. Habitat loss is a huge contributor to the decline in bat population. Do all you can to fight for our natural forest reserves to help promote safe spaces for bats to live.

4. Adopt a bat. Don’t worry, you don’t have to take it home. These virtual bat adoption kits range from 25 to 55 dollars, and your donation will go toward protecting bat habitats and educating the public on why these flying friends are so important.

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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Celebrating Bats on Bat Appreciation Day

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