The Environment Thread

[Lisnaholic]

Yes, I have seen nature in England in places like New Forest and Dartmoor, but calling it wild would be a stretch and it's never far from something developed.

I actually find it somewhat astonishing. Norway is so rocky and mountainy, it's lacking in areas suitable for agriculture. There's not a lot of flat land and the soil layer is often thin. It might not be particularly nutritious, depending on where you are. A lot of Norway doesn't feel particularly human friendly or inviting.

The British isles seem to be Norway's opposite. No huge, jagged mountains. Most of England as well as much of Wales and southern Scotland is made of raised seabed rich with nutrients of the biota from ages gone.

It seems so lush, green and easy, like it wants people to live on it.

^ You clearly know what you're talking about! I didn't realize that even lowland Norway had poor soil quality, so yeah, the UK has been blessed in that regard. Still, we don't come close to providing all the food the population needs: the govt figure is an alarming 46% of food is imported.

That's a very informative and worrying post, @Lisnaholic. Thank you so much for sharing.

^ Thanks for the kind remark, Guybrush.
Back in 2017, when I opened an Environment thread on MB, there were still a couple of hold-out voices suggesting that global warming wasn't happening, but now, with seven more years of accumulating evidence, I don't think anyone is in doubt anymore. Ultimately, that's bad news.
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Thanks for checking the Agricultural Land link, guys
I made the same mistakes as you, Psy-Fi, putting the USA at the top because of all those images of prairie farming in my head (Wizard of Oz, Days of Heaven, etc). It took Marie to remind me that I had overlooked those Rocky Mountains - so vast compared to the homely scale of Britain. In fact, when my students ask about England, I usually compare the countryside to The Shire in Lord of the Rings, even though that does miss out rather a lot of modern, urban Britain.

[DJChameleon]

Anyone that is heavily invested in oil still thinks that global warming isn't happening.

[Psy-Fi]

Landmark EU nature restoration plan gets the green light despite months of protests by farmers

[Psy-Fi]

Sharks off Brazil coast test positive for cocaine

[Lisnaholic]

^ Sad, funny, alarming ? Although that report mentions a hundred-fold increase in cocaine levels, it rather annoyingly neglects to say what the levels are: neither the original level nor the hundred-fold increase level are mentioned. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to know how those sharks stack up against the effects of snorting a line of coke. 
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Global warming continues to produce changes that were hard to predict, or hard to imagine, although this story was envisioned in that Steely Dan lyric, "California tumbles in to the sea...":

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/07/climate/rancho-palos-verdes-landslide-rainfall/index.html

What strikes me unfair is that California is so often in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. Exceptional droughts cause wildfires, exceptional rain cause floods. And how about these consecutive paragraphs from the article, explaining some reasons why the ground is shifting at a truly remarkable rate:-

 

...as can adding too much water to the ground, Griggs said. In Southern California, "people wanted to pretend they lived in the tropics," he said, "and planted a lot of landscaping that required lots of watering."

Deforestation is another factor. Tree and plant roots hold the soil together and ripping them out can destabilize the ground, the University of Hull's Petley said.

The at-a-glance take away seems to be the condradictory advice: don't pull up trees, but don't plant any either. Of course the real advice is as it so often is: the existing environment is in a complex and delicate balance, and any changes need to be really fine-tuned.

[Psy-Fi]

The Hidden Engineering of Landfills

[Lisnaholic]

I really enjoyed that down-in-the-details explanation of a process I only vaguely understood. Thanks.
I feel like I'm now ready to re-watch that Erin Brockovitch movie, this time paying attention to all the small details about testing for pollution, etc.

As for that landslide story out of California, I see this morning that some residents are saying "Hell no, we won't go!" That may demonstrate a foolish courage - after all, you can't fight against a big landslip; parts of Rancho Palos Verdes are moving at 10 inches per week, and that is so fast that it's pointless to try patching things up and carrying on; the safest policy is to stand back and wait for it to settle.

Here is a landslip that I enjoyed clambered over while on holiday as a child. It made an interesting bit of topography to explore, but as is often the case when comparing the UK to the US, this is both smaller and older: the original fall of land was in 1839. Check out the people on the beach to get a sense of scale, and the vegetation which shows what will Rancho Palos Verdes may look like in 150 years time:-



To my surprise, though, this area of coastline has seen more recent movement, in 2008. The clear message: there are some areas in the world where any piece of land arrogant enough to call itself a cliff will have its day of reckoning, and puny peeps can't do much about it:-


 

[Psy-Fi]

Pope denounces slaying of Honduran environmental defender

[Psy-Fi]

Morning Glory Pool Used To Be Brilliant Blue Until Tourists Ruined It

Morning Glory Pool near Old Faithful was once one of the most beautiful thermal pools in Yellowstone National Park. It was a brilliant clear blue, but lost its color after decades of tourists throwing stuff in it.

[Psy-Fi]

Wildfire was caused by man trying to cremate his dog, affidavit says

[Psy-Fi]

Officials expect Florida's coastline to change amid Hurricane Milton

[Lisnaholic]

Morning Glory Pool Used To Be Brilliant Blue Until Tourists Ruined It

Well, that's a depressing reflection on tourism

...and here's an article about ongoing damage to the world's water cycle:-

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/16/climate/global-water-cycle-off-balance-food-production/index.html

Along with a lot of bad news ( and a shockingly high water consumption per person per day), I found this paragraph particularly dispiriting:-

The report's authors say world governments must recognize the water cycle as a "common good" and address it collectively. Countries are dependent on each other, not only through lakes and rivers that span borders, but also because of water in the atmosphere, which can travel huge distances — meaning decisions made in one country can disrupt rainfall in another.

I imagine we all share the same reaction: "Yeah, that's never going to happen."

[Psy-Fi]

World falling "miles short' of emissions goals to curb climate change, U.N. says, sounding the alarm

[Guybrush]

World falling "miles short' of emissions goals to curb climate change, U.N. says, sounding the alarm

It is sad, this world we're setting up for our children.

There's never been a more critical time than now. We need action. Too bad climate change doesn't seem to engage people more politically, like in the upcoming US election.

[Psy-Fi]

It is sad, this world we're setting up for our children.

There's never been a more critical time than now. We need action. Too bad climate change doesn't seem to engage people more politically, like in the upcoming US election.

I think the climate change issue needs a new figurehead.

Greta Thunberg just ain't cuttin' it.