Spotlight on green news & views: Sea level rise a big friggin' expense on the coast; asbestos
newsdepo.com
This is the 562nd edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the June 16 Spotlight. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it. OUSpotlight on green news & views: Sea level rise a big friggin' expense on the coast; asbestos
This is the 562nd edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the June 16 Spotlight. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it. OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES RonK writes—The Daily Bucket: A Tree for all Seasons and its Phenology from Solstice to Solstice: “I have a favorite tree. It is a Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea). The scarlet designationcomes from its bright fall red foliage that will be apparent when we get to October. The Scarlet Oak is native to East and Central US. It is a beautifully shaped tree and is often used as a featured ornamental in landscaping as it is here in a city park situated along Bellingham Bay.I have enjoyed this tree for a long time and have photographed it off and on as time presented and as I watched the sun move across the bay and the islands. The sun traverses the bay arcing through the year to one solstice and then back again. As the sun changes its position across the seasons the tree changes its persona as the sun journeys round the bay. This is a tree for all seasons with the bay, the San Juan Islands, the Lummi Peninsula and sunsets as its backdrop. The park is Marine Park, one that I have photographed in previous posts over the years. However, I have never given this magnificent tree the due that it deserves until now.” Here is a view of the Scarlet Oak decked out in its finery and perched by the Bay with Lummi directly behind and Orcas Island in background to the right. Xaxnar writes—«The Ornithologist the Internet Called a Murderer»: “The New York Times has the story of an ornithologist who found the first-ever seen male of an elusive species of bird. What happened next is not what Dr. Christopher Filardi expected. Only three females had ever been observed. They are found in an area of Guadalcanal that is under threat of logging and other development. When he caught a glimpse of a male he was thrilled. Kirk Wallace Johnson explains what happened next. Days later, when the team captured a male in a mist net, Dr. Filardi gasped. ‘One of the most poorly known birds in the world was there, in front of me, like a creature of myth come to life,’ he wrote in a dispatch to the museum. [...] It wasn’t until the public realized that Dr. Filardi had ‘collected’ the bird — killing it for the museum’s research collection — that the adulation turned to venom. What Filardi did is normal scientific practice. Rarely-seen does not mean rare. Filardi estimates the island population is 4,000 birds — a good size for an island habitat. He was not collecting a trophy. By collecting the kingfisher, he was obtaining information that is necessary to understand the bird: how it compares to related species, its genome, as a standard for further work, and so on. This is how science documents species to provide a base of knowledge about them.” Read more