the ONLY GREEN list

  

                                                                  

"Climate change isn’t so much a failure of human nature as it is the predictable result of a small number of corporations putting their profits ahead of humanity’s future and the planet’s well-being."   Jason Mark, The Nation magazine 

                                                                Ecologist Opinion, July 26, 2020

                         15 Years of Climate Change in North Central America

 Just five years ago, cicadas were just an occasional visitor to southeastern South Dakota.  One would hear them in the distance, perhaps blocks away.  Not often.  Not for long.  Now our maple tree in the backyard has more cicada husks clinging to its bark than I ever saw as a boy at my grandfather’s house in southern Indiana.  They are sometimes so cacophonous that we must raise our voices to maintain a conversation on the back deck.  

 When we moved here at the turn of the century, this was hardcore Zone 4 territory.  Zone 5 rated plants simply would not survive year to year.  That has changed.  Milder winters and wetter summers have taken over as the norm. The phlox easily gets two blooms per summer and the roses are now threatening three.

 Hummingbirds are not in flocks, but we see one or two on a more regular basis.  Two summers ago, a pair of Carolina Chickadees set up shop in one of our wren houses and raised a brood.  The maps say they don’t get any closer to South Dakota than Illinois, but we’ve never seen any of our local Black-Capped Chickadees capable of getting into a wren house. 

 It's the bees that worry us.  Even as our local environment is becoming more temperate and forgiving, the overall number of bees is declining.  We have various sizes of bumblebees.  We have Mason bees.  We have lots of various small to tiny bees.  But we’ve not seen a honeybee in 5 years.  Not one.

 And, once again, we humans are directly responsible.  And continue to be so.  The Neonicotinoids in pesticides have long been known to be toxic to honeybees.  Yet those pesticides are still being used.

 Only a few years ago, you could wander out into a field of clover and it would be replete with honeybees.  All our lives it’s been this way.  No more.  At least not in South Dakota, USA.

 We’ve not seen a honeybee in 5 years.

                          TOGETHER IN A CLOSET                                                                 by the Ecologist

    Human overpopulation has become the bane of the planet.  It first hit 2 billion one hundred years ago.  Fifty years later... just fifty years ago... it had doubled again to 4 billion.  Since then it has almost doubled again.

   There are nearly 8 billion humans now on the planet... more people are alive right now than have ever existed in human history all told before now.  Is it any wonder why resources are dwindling?  Or why there is so much more pollution?

    We all have one thing in common, those of us who grace these pages.  We know, a priori, what’s happening.  And it’s really bad news for our grandchildren.  Sooner or later (we fervently hope), some one or some grouping will rise up and lead us all to where we want to go: to a zero impact on our world.  We are essentially all together inside a closet, and the only door leads to the vacuum of space. That single human with the cigar in the corner of our closet must never be allowed to light it again.

    The COP21 Conference in Paris raised some hopes, but very few of those pledges are being met, and they weren't enough to begin with.  The Great Buffoon withdrew the USA from its pledges, despite it being one of the two biggest polluters on Earth.  And most recently, COP25 ended pretty much in disaster.

    We must all stand up against this self-destructiveness.  It's becoming harder to not believe it's already too late.

    This is all we know how to do right now, but we’ve stepped up and are doing something.  Wishing the same for each of you.                                                                



"Since climate change and the global economy now affect us all, we have to develop a sense of oneness of humanity."       Dali Lama