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Last opportunity for G7 to deliver on fossil fuel promises before updating climate plans
(www.commondreams.org)
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A community for the discussion of the environment, climate change, ecology, sustainability, nature, and pictures of cute wild animals.
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Case-building caddisfly larva (Limnephilus flavicornis) | Flickr
Amazing, these underwater insect images are great. Is it taken in some fast running stream? Just wondering about the water clarity.
Well these species lives in still waters where they can find shells of aquatic snails as the construction material for their protective shelters. I found this species in a small forest pond. In a fast moving streams you can find many other types which you can find in my Caddishfly larvae set.
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Yeah it's embarrassing that our ponds/lakes aren't anywhere near this clear. I don't think we have any caddishflies or their larvae. This is a really good photo depicting it's foraging capabilities.
Yes, Caddishflies are indicators of water quality and unfortunately not many ponds or streams are in sufficient condition.
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Before I go to bed... A mob of emus at Boolcoomatta. Crazy teenagers.
https://subium.com/profile/sandyhorne.bsky.social/post/3ktzii5py5k22
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Black bears can hibernate in hollows up in trees. A blog post by a professional photographer with loads of photos.
(hexbear.net)
Black Bears in Anchorage - Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham
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The fantastic thing about heading out into nature, whether it's your backyard (caterpillars, goose/coyote) or Anchorage's backyard, is that there is always something to learn, always something unique to see, and something to heal you. I had no idea black bears would hibernate in hollows up in trees. I thought they were always in the ground. I also didn't expect any bears to be awake yet. There's at least three feet of snow on the ground.
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Pel's fishing owl (Scotopelia peli) is a large species of owl in the family Strigidae, found in Africa. It lives near rivers and lakes, and feeds nocturnally on fish and frogs snatched from the surface of lakes and rivers. The species prefers slow-moving rivers with large, overhanging trees to roost in and forage from. It nests in hollows and the forks of large trees. Though as many as two eggs are laid, often only one chick is raised.
[...]
Pel's fishing owl is one of the largest owl species in the world. Among the world's owls, it ranks as the fifth-heaviest on average, the seventh-longest in length and measured wing chord, and fourth-longest in mean wingspan, although not all large species have had measured wingspans.
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eBird checklists make for good entertainment sometimes - flamingo reported in NY with the detail "chased by an asshole in a dinghy a few times"
https://subium.com/profile/jarome.bsky.social/post/3ktuwlt7f7o27
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Narco activity takes heavy toll on Colombia’s protected forests, satellite data show
(news.mongabay.com)
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Behold, fishfly season is upon us
It's June, which can only mean one thing for those living near Lake St. Clair — fishflies, and lots of them. Shudder.
This photo of a fishfly-infested ATM was posted on Facebook by This Detroit Life, where it has earned nearly 3,000 shares as of Friday. A Reddit user caught the photo and posted it in the r/Detroit forum with the caption, "I see the ATM is closed today. I'm good."
The good news is the invasion will be over soon. Fishflies, more commonly known as mayflies, have a short lifespan. After living most of their lives underwater as "nymphs", they float above the surface, molt, and live just a day or two to mate before dying. What a life.
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The photo is from a different site.
Old Car City Alaska Style - Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham
From the 1950s through the 1970s, cars were just dumped here. The state of Alaska blames this on the era of federal ownership. The Electric Company bought the land in the 1980s, and since then, better surveillance and more people around seem to have stopped the dumping.
The speculation is that this secluded spot simply had easy road access for dumping cars. Some were deserted by their legitimate owners (demolition derbies used to take place nearby), others were stolen and ditched after a joyride, and still, others were set afire when they got stuck. To this day, abandoned cars sit along roadways throughout Alaska. It seems commonplace to just leave your broken-down car where it stopped and figure out a new transportation plan later.
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Smallest Bee Species – Perdita Minima Bee
World's Smallest, Largest, and Weirdest Bee Species - The Best Bees Company
Photo caption: "The Perdita Minima Bee next to a quarter for size."
If the Perdita Minima bee is not the smallest bee in the world, it is definitely the smallest bee in North America. The U.S. Forest Service classifies this tiny bee as a solitary bee, meaning they are not as social as honey bees. A little less than two millimeters long, this bee species can be found in extremely small nests in the sandy soil found in the desert.
Don’t let its size fool you though. This petite bee is very capable of packing large loads of pollen on its hairy legs.
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I am a climate scientist, and it isn’t very often that I feel like I get to share good news with people. Luckily, every so often good things actually do happen. I have said on this site a few times before that climate science is relatively young as a field of study, and though things may feel bad at times, some of the best scientists in the world are working in the background to address our major climate issues.
Four years ago right here on Hexbear I was addressing some comrades’ concerns about climate in the long term. I told them that of course the situation we are in really is terrible, but there is one method in particular that has some real potential to majorly address our climate crisis: Silicate weathering. This method has been one of the primary methods of carbon cycle management throughout earth’s history, albeit over time periods of millions of years, and all we have to do is figure out how to apply it to human timescales. Just as I predicted, that is still indeed the most promising method of carbon sequestration, and it just took a giant leap towards viability, as outlined by the study I will be talking about with you today.
(My commentary from 4 years ago if you don’t feel like following the link)
On the, “What can be done?” side, luckily you have some of the smartest and most dedicated scientists in the world working on ways to sequester carbon, and the most promising method is accelerating the silicate weathering process which is the most effective tool to combat man made climate change.
For those who don’t want to read or don’t understand, I’ll briefly summarize why this method is important and the most likely candidate:
You may be thinking “oh let’s plant trees” which is good, sure, but consider that we are re-adding carbon which was not actively in the carbon cycle back into it. A mature forest is most times carbon neutral, as carbon output from decaying biological matter is roughly equal to carbon uptake (think about the following: how could forests continue to exist in the first place if they sucked out more carbon from the air than was added to it?)
Now think where we are getting our carbon that we add back to the atmosphere from. We pull it from underground deposits. The beauty of silicate weathering is that it incorporates carbon into rocks, and thus acts as a long term storage vessel when removing carbon from the atmosphere. The big problem though is that this process happens naturally over the course of tens of millions of years as a result of plate tectonics uplifting mountain ranges and these ranges getting weathered (as implied by the name “silicate weathering”).
So now geologists and climatologists are trying to figure out ways to massively accelerate that process, which has only become a remote possibility over the last 15 years.
How it works: 
What it means in less scientific terms:
Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) in farmland is a method to sequester atmospheric carbon on medium-long term timescales. This study measured this carbon sequestration process as a way of potentially increasing crop yields while simultaneously removing carbon from the atmosphere through the silicate weathering process. Testing this process demonstrated ann improved crop yield of 8%-18% in humid regions, plus improvements in overall soil quality. Soils with higher alkalinity sequestered the most carbon, especially in high precipitation scenarios. Expanding this study to all viable farmland across China has the potential to sequester .4gt of carbon yearly, or roughly 3% of China’s yearly CO2 emissions. Economically, utilizing this method is comparable to the cost of heavy soil modification already used for intensive agriculture. The use of ERW in nutrient poor/overly acidic soils provided a comparable effect to common agricultural practices of using lime and fertilizer to decrease acidity and raise nutrient levels. Additionally, the silicates needed to conduct this process are commonly found in waste products of advanced manufacturing and industrial processes, which could mitigate the carbon impact of manufacturing, industrial, and farming sectors while also lowering expenses in each.
Utilizing this method globally, we have the ability to improve the quality of our farmland while also removing carbon from the atmosphere at relatively fast rates, all things considered. Of course, we will still need to go carbon neutral in terms of energy production, but once that is achieved we have an actual method to remedy some of the harm we have already done to earth’s climate. Our long term climate solutions, should we use this method, are possible on a scale of decades-hundreds of years (and that’s with only our currently available technology!) as opposed to the thousands of years or longer we previously thought.
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