Donald Trump Is Dangerous
OK. That’s not a man
bites dog headline is it? The Republican
Party’s assault on science has culminated in Trump’s studied ignorance of the
real world. Now Scientific American is calling him out on that ignorance.
…one of the two major
party candidates for the highest office in the land has repeatedly and
resoundingly demonstrated a disregard, if not outright contempt, for science.
Donald Trump also has shown an authoritarian tendency to base policy arguments
on questionable assertions of fact and a cult of personality.
…the major Republican
candidate for president has tweeted that global warming is a Chinese plot,
threatens to dismantle a climate agreement 20 years in the making and to
eliminate an agency that enforces clean air and water regulations, and speaks
passionately about a link between vaccines and autism that was utterly
discredited years ago, we can only hope that there is nowhere to go but up.
We encourage the
nation's political leaders to demonstrate a respect for scientific truths in
word and deed. And we urge the people who vote to hold them to that standard.
Third Pole Is Melting
One billion people may lose the source of the water within 50 years. But, Everest may become a much easier climb
in shorts and t-shirts.
The Himalayan
Mountains and Tibetan Plateau, dubbed the "Third Pole" for having the
largest ice mass on Earth after the polar regions, are rapidly losing their
glaciers. Eighteen percent of China's glaciers have vanished in the past 50
years according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Air pollution and rising
air temperatures are combining to increase glacial melt, threatening water
supplies for one billion people.
Most of the 5,500
glaciers in the Himalaya-Hindu-Kush region—home of Mount Everest—may vanish by
the end of this century. The long history of climbing through the Khumbu
Icefall and up the Lhotse Face may become a rock scramble instead.
Hummingbirds Are Simply Amazing
A 3,000 mile migration for some, extinction for many.
Habitat destruction is the leading cause. That’s something we could fix.
Imagine a Rufous Hummingbird traveling more than
3,000 miles on his annual spring migration from Mexico to British Columbia.
Armed with a prodigious mental map of every place he's ever found food, the
tiny bird heads to a familiar spot in California where he remembers a field
full of flowers. He arrives only to find a big-box store and a giant parking
lot. No flowers, no nectar. But the hummingbird has no time to waste; he spends
the majority of his waking life gathering food to survive. So he flies on.
The Americas are home
to 365 species of hummingbirds. Of these, the International Union for
Conservation of Nature lists 28 species, or roughly 8 percent, as endangered or
critically endangered. For most of these declining hummingbirds, loss of
habitat is the leading threat to their survival.
11 Places to See
Before it’s too late.
Even, always optimistic travel publicans are facing the reality of global warming. These are good places to
go, however, as you won’t run into any Republicans at any of them, otherwise they
might have to admit that climate change is real.
Get your reservations.
Climate Change Isn’t The Only Problem
Human behavior is a larger threat today than climate change.
We might not be able to fix climate change tomorrow, but there are
things we can do to protect wildlife right now.
Climate change is
dangerous, and it’s happening now. It threatens wildlife and the ecosystems
they live in. It will make life harder for billions of people, with the
greatest harm hitting the world’s poorest people. It may make some parts of the
world uninhabitable for humans, and will almost certainly drive many species to
extinction.
But there are a
half-dozen other environmental threats that are even worse.
That’s according to a study published this month in Nature,
generally considered the world’s most respected scientific journal. According
to the study, which lists ten kinds of human-caused environmental damage and
ranks them according to the number of wildlife species they now threaten,
climate change comes in at just seventh place behind things like logging,
farming, and urban development.
National Parks At 100
A collection of posters created to promote tourism to the
national parks is part of the creative legacy of the New Deal developed by
Franklin D Roosevelt. Between 1938 and 1941, the Works Progress Administration
and its Federal Arts Project designed a series of artworks promoting, and inspired
by, the landscapes and wildlife of the parks. The collection is housed in the
Library of Congress.
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