A bit of good news: urban forests enough for migrating birds

With all the bad news from the Gulf of Mexico, yours truly wants a break from disaster, and was relieved to come across this item, from researchers at Ohio State. 

Even tiny patches of woods in urban areas seem to provide
adequate food and protection for some species of migrating birds as they
fly between wintering and breeding grounds, new research has found.

The story in press release-based story in PhysOrg goes on to detail the study, explaining how two researchers attached radio transmitters to a "secretive" relative of the robin called the Swainson's Thrush, and discovered that although the forest-loving birds preferred the woods, they could make do with small patches of woodland in and around Columbus Ohio. 

"These findings suggest that remnant forests within urban areas have
conservation value for Swainson's Thrushes and, potentially, other
migrant landbirds," [Professor Paul] Rodewald said.

"Obviously, larger forest patches are better, but even smaller ones
are worth saving."

Amen, say the birds…here's a picture of an antennae emerging from from a tiny radio transmitter fitted to a Swainson's thrush, taken (naturally) by the researchers. 

Evensmallpat
 

Oil spill disaster will help energy bill in Senate — right?

Although it has yet to fully emerge into the light of day, chances of passage of a Senate bill on energy and cimate, authored by Democrats John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, with the assistance of lone Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and the White House, should in theory be improved. 

But as Tom Toles points out today, nothing of the sort seems to be happening: 

Energybillwinds
Lindsey Graham, the only Republican in the Senate seemingly likely to vote for a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, insists that the bill is about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and that yes, climate change is a concern. 

For this moderate position he has been exposed to fierce and even frightening opposition from his party and from "tea partiers" to the right of the Republican party, who are numerous in his conservative home state of South Carolina. 

When President Obama allowed Senate Democrats to move consideration of an immigration reform bill ahead of energy and climate a week ago, Graham lost his temper, and lashed out at Democrats. David Roberts, an editor at the environmental site Grist, reluctantly agrees with Graham that Obama has allowed political considerations to trump climate and energy concerns. 

Roberts concludes:

It would have taken an extraordinary act of leadership for Obama to champion climate in the face of these political headwinds. He would have been gambling his administration and Democratic majorities with no clear expectation of success. I think the problem is of sufficient magnitude and urgency that such leadership is demanded of him, morally and politically. Obama doesn't. Graham wasn't wrong to notice.

For better or probably worse, the oil spill raises big questions, which experienced journalist Nomi Morris will discuss this upcoming Monday at Theater 150, starting at 7:00. Nomi always gives a good talk, but best of all is the discussion to follow, giving those interested in the issue in our community a chance to hear their thoughts debated. I'll be there this Monday; join us! 

Love and extinction

An amazing true story, via poet Kimiko Hahn and Daily Poetry. Hahn's new book, Toxic Flora, was inspired by science stories in The New York Times. 

Xenicus Longipes

The four known species of bush wren in New Zealand
are, by now, endangered or extinct.
Possessing trifling tails and wings, none fly far—
instead they hop and dart
in whatever undergrowth scrapes the landscape.
Those on Cook Strait's margin of rock
entirely lost the capacity for flight
and in 1894 were destroyed not by farmers,
hunters, pet traders, rats, disease,
natural disaster or want of food—
but by Tibbles, the lighthouse keeper's cat.
Oh, what we think we need to survive kills others:
I have consuming need for my beloved, he knows—
and I hope he is not sorry.

I like the surprise at the end — adds a new twist to the sadness of the true story, doesn't it?  Gives the often-desperate nature of human love a new dimension. 

Here's a picture of the late, lamented avian mice of the poem…
Wrensb1

Gulf oil spill may be last straw for climate bill

In an ironic twist, the Obama administration's attempt to win moderate support for a climate/energy bill by allowing drilling for oil in Federal waters off the Gulf and East coasts may end up dooming its chances, now that the Gulf Coast is facing what may be the worst oil spill in American history. 

That's according to a story in today's Huffington Post: 

The images of last week's explosion and the growing, uncontrolled
spill in the Gulf of Mexico made the bill's road to approval much more
difficult. The accident, which threatens wildlife and fishing grounds
along the Gulf Coast, will likely force many wavering lawmakers to
reconsider whether they support expanded drilling.

"I think that's dead on arrival," U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat
from Florida, told CNN on Friday.

A similar analysis can be found on Andy Revkin's Dot Earth blog, anchored to a quote from sociologist Robert Brulle:

When you look at well blowouts, they can become the biggest spills of
all time. They can run on for months. The biggest one in the Gulf was
the  Ixtoc I in
1979. This spill ran from June 1979 to March 1980 (9 months) and
released 140 million gallons of oil. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez
(only!) released 10.8 million gallons.

This could have an enormous political impact. That type of spill
size will eventually reach recreational areas, and places where the
press can easily document the adverse impacts of the spill. Unlike
global climate change, oil spills make for good graphic, and visual
coverage, the causal sequence is self evident, and denial is impossible.
Think of week after week of oil spill coverage on the nightly news.  

"Denial is impossible." Interesting choice of words. 

For more on the slick, here's an interview with the great science writer Lee Hotz, now with the WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/media/swf/VideoPlayerMain.swf

I believe in the future: Charles Bowden

Orion magazine recently named Some of the Dead are Still Breathing, by Charles Bowden, its enviro book of the year. 

The commendation's mention of the risks Bowden ventured motivated me to pick it up. Haven't gotten far, but I'm impressed by its almost recklessly free style. Here's a memorable passage from early on: 

My beliefs are dull and dismissed out of hand.

I believe that resources are limited and that no existing or imagined energy system can sidestep this fact. 

I believe that the increase in human numbers inhales ever more resources.

I believe no energy system will deliver the punch of our declining fossil fuels at the same price. 

I believe that no energy system will solve our problems since the problems come from within us and not from our turbines. 

I believe in red wine. And the scent of women. And the nuzzle of all dogs of all ages. 

I believe political systems create no resources but devour them at varying rates. 

I believe the politics or right and left matter no at all to the bird on the wing or the trees dying on the hillsides. 

I believe in the future because the future is here and I am a part of it. 

I believe. Not wonder. Not doubt. Not know. I believe. 

I believe in the dead city. I believe in the nest. 

I also believe in the late quartets of Beethoven and Gershwin's "Summertime."

Oh, my God, do I believe. 

Exciting trend in newspaper travel writing

The continuing devastation of newspapers (the Ventura County Star, for whom I write, is undergoing another reorganization) has had countless bad effects, but a few good ones. 

Travel writing, which so often used to be focused on expensive resorts, hotels, and must-see tourist attractions, has found a new style — based on literature and characters. 

I linked to an example from the exemplary New York Times, a couple of years, ago, in which a writer followed in the footsteps of Mary Oliver, out to a favorite pond of hers on Cape Cod. 

Now in the Los Angeles Times, book review editor David Ulin follows in the footsteps of Holden Caulfield in New York, giving us a picture both of the young searcher, excited to be in the city, but on edge too. It's this psychological desperation, Ulin reveals, that brings the city alive: 

New York can be the most exciting place on the planet, and it can also be the most forlorn. To walk it, to experience it at street level, is to see it in all its complex contradictions, from the Lunts and Rockefeller Center to the Grand Central Station waiting room. This is especially true if you are from here, this tension between exhilaration and loneliness. 

In a single piece, Ulin makes a reader want to re-experience the book, and the city too. That's good travel writing. 

Which character, which author will be next? It's been a long time since newspaper travel writing felt so fresh. 

Here's a picture from the story, a crucial scene for Caulfield, at a diorama at the Museum of Natural History. Wish I could say that the presentation on the web looked as good as it did in the paper. 

Holdencaulfieldsnewyork
 


The heroism of the unemployed (well, almost)

According to the Federal Reserve, it's not true that benefits for the unemployed leads to more unemployment. In the words of the government economists:

Our analyses suggest that extended UI benefits account for about 0.4
percentage point of the nearly 6 percentage point increase in the
national unemployment rate over the past few years. It is not
surprising that the disincentive effects of UI [unemployment insurance] would loom small in the
midst of the most severe labor market downturn since the Great
Depression.

No surprise there. The surprise (at least for the underemployed yours truly) is that the Murdoch-ized Wall Street Journal digs out the details of the unemployment numbers. Not only does the business-oriented paper focus on the pain, it explicitly says the unemployment is not the fault of the jobless. 

The paper notes the economic crisis of the last few years has generated
an “unprecedented” level of unemployment duration. Those unemployed for
more than six months hit 4.3% in March, “well above” the previous high
of 2.6% in 1983. The economists note that the current situation is all
the more striking because the unemployment rate peak was quite a bit
higher in that downturn, relative to what’s been seen in this episode.

In other words, back in l983, the jobless rate was higher, but the jobs came back faster. But maybe the paper is kind to the jobless, because the underemployed are propping up the economy. Though I must admit, it takes a Ted Rall to see the heroism in my plight:

Unemploymentbyrall
  

Climate bill in trouble — should enviros care?

According to TPM, the lone Republican Senator actively supporting a climate change/energy bill, Lindsey Graham, pulled his support for the bill because the Democrats have decided to go ahead with immigration reform first. 

Graham, who has unquestionably put his status as a conservative at risk, sounds genuinely angry in a letter obtained by the website : 

Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is
nothing more than a cynical political ploy. I know from my own personal
experience the tremendous amounts of time, energy, and effort that must
be devoted to this issue to make even limited progress.

[cut]

Some of the major provisions we embraced in 2007 — such as creation
of a Virtual Fence using cameras, motion detectors and other
technological devices to protect our borders — have been scrapped for
the time. Other issues we found agreement on at the time, such as a
temporary guest worker program, have unraveled over the past three
years.

[cut]

Expecting these major issues to be addressed in three weeks — which
appears to be their current plan based upon media reports — is
ridiculous. It also demonstrates the raw political calculations at work
here.

But should enviros support a bill that, as Bill McKibben said in a column earlier this week, will trade away the duty and obligation of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2 emissions? 

In the Washington Post on Earth Day, McKibben wrote: 

The bill's emission reductions are weakened by offsets and loopholes —
and to win support for even those concessions, it offers the fossil-fuel
industries a glittering collection of door prizes. President Obama
himself has already offered the first of these bent-knee offerings: a return to the full-on offshore drilling that was one of
the targets of the first Earth Day. Now a new generation will have a
chance to experience its own Santa Barbara oil spill, with its iconic
oil-soaked birds.

Worse, the bill might specifically remove the strongest tool the
environmentalists won in the wake of Earth Day 1: the Environmental Protection Agency's right
to use the Clean Air Act to bring the fossil fuel industries to heel.
Enforcement may be preempted under the new law. Even the right of states
to pioneer new legislation, such as California's landmark global
warming bill, apparently could disappear with the new legislation.

So when the media and the president hail it as a "landmark," understand
the shifting ground it actually defines: The environmental idea is too
weak right now to win passage of a tough bill to deal with our greatest
problem.

Or, as Toles put it in his uniquely succinct way: 
Climatedeal