DAILY QUICK READ - JUNE 23, 2016

Ready to Burn

Sixty-six million torches in California’s forests.  It’s only June and California is a tinderbox.   The worst is yet to come.

The number of trees in California’s Sierra Nevada forests killed by drought, a bark beetle epidemic and warmer temperatures has dramatically increased since last year, raising fears that they will fuel catastrophic wildfires and endanger people’s lives, officials said on Wednesday.

Since 2010, an estimated 66 million trees have died in a six-county region of the central and southern Sierra hardest hit by the epidemic, the US Forest Service said.

California is in the fifth year of a historic drought, which officials say has deprived trees of water, making them more vulnerable to attack from beetles.

Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club California, said the die-off from drought should signal to policymakers the urgency of curbing pollution that contributes to climate change.

“This is a warning to all of us,” she said. “We need to cut our air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions more. We’re on the right path, but we need to accelerate our effort.”

Dogs - What Do With Do Without Them?

Bighorn sheep and mountain goats that tend to congregate on Logan Pass.  In Glacier National Park, bighorn sheep and mountain goats have become accustom to human contact and they are literally creating traffic jams on winding mountain pass roads. 

…congestion at Logan Pass filled him with anxiety. Tourists and wildlife don’t mix, and a recent mountain goat study conducted at Logan Pass showed that the goats are becoming habituated to people.

They’re spending more time further from the cliffs and in human company, Biel said, because humans provide a couple of benefits. First, large groups of people tend to ward off predators. Second, humans emit a lot of salt, through urine and sweat, which attracts the goats.

Having a dog there could convince them it’s not as safe as they thought, though Gracie’s job will be driving them off and stopping, not chasing them. This puts pressure on the wildlife without overly stressing them, Biel said.

Electrical Energy

Who do  has a better idea about the future?  Tesla or Exxon?

Big news today! Tesla Motors issued a public statement announcing “it’s now time to complete the picture” — in other words, the company famous for making the fastest electric cars the world has ever seen wants to buy the country’s biggest private solar energy provider, SolarCity. If the deal goes through, Tesla Motors will secure a sustainable energy behemoth comprised of electric cars (Tesla Motors), energy storage (Powerwall) and energy generation (SolarCity).

“We would be able to expand our addressable market further than either company could do separately. Because of the shared ideals of the companies and our customers, those who are interested in buying Tesla vehicles or Powerwalls are naturally interested in going solar, and the reverse is true as well. When brought together by the high foot traffic that is drawn to Tesla’s stores, everyone should benefit,” the statement reads.

Legal/Illegal – Dead is Dead

Pretending that legal ivory trade will reduce poaching is a huge mistake.

“We find that a singular legal ivory sale corresponds with an abrupt, significant, permanent, robust, and geographically widespread increase in the production of illegal ivory through elephant poaching, with a corresponding 2009 increase in seizure of raw ivory contraband leaving African countries.  The sudden 2008 increase in poaching does not correspond with any abrupt and systemic change in China’s or Japan’s affluence of influence in elephant range states, as measured by numerous covariates.”

‘Using trade to conserve wild species is a really complicated’

The report states, “findings demonstrate that partial legalization of a banned good can increase illegal production of the good because the existence of white markets may influence the nature of black markets.  Our findings are likely to extend to markets structurally similar to ivory markets, such as those for products from other slow-growing, slow-breeding, or low-population density species like rhinoceroses and tigers.” (©Solomon Hsiang and Nitin Sekar).

George Wittemyer, a Colorado State University associate professor of fish, wildlife and conservation biology said in an interview with Princeton University,  “Using trade to conserve wild species is a really complicated social issue and it’s hard to predict if it will be successful or not. The fact that you’re dealing with the persistence of a species means that if you make a mistake, and your assumptions are wrong, the cost can be extinction or large-scale extirpation. That to me is really important to consider and a paramount concern.”

"No Bill, No Break"

American democracy.  May be hope, yet.