Suggestions for human success
Crazy French Ranch
The Wonder and the Challenge…
My Funeral March
As it currently sounds…
More From South Texas
From Corpus Christi north along the bays, construction is proceeding at a fevered pace, driven largely by the Saudi Arabian Government, Exxon Mobil, and other large corporations. Much of the shoreline looks like this.
But some stretches are preserved, as at Sunset Lake just south of Portland, TX. Here you can find all sorts of treasures.
And as you drive north through the cattle (and oil) country, the wildflowers are unbelievable.
More on the ?Insect Apocalypse
As a follow up to my earlier report on the butterflies and diurnal moths of the Pikes Peak Region, I took the advice of Steve Taylor and prepared a graphic of all 255 dates on which I counted butterflies, and on which the time, temperature, and other conditions were favorable to flight. This shows the “noise” encountered in this sort of work, as well as the extraordinary summers of 2012-2014. If there is a trend, it might show up as a decline after 2015, when levels are about as they were early in the study. Note that most of the points from 2015 on fall below the mean score of 72.5/h. However, the overall slope is very slightly up (+0.032x). I can’t wait to continue observations this summer.
If I restrict the data to just the 145 dates that are from Bear Creek Canyon, there is a very slightly different trend, this time downward (–0.12x), from about 91 to 74 over the 35 years. Maybe this is the apocalypse! More later!
New Moths for 2018
The following moths, discovered by several workers in the region, are new to my database of species in the Pikes Peak Region. Thanks to Eric Eaton, Aaron Driscoll, Zach Vogel, and Van Truan for posting photos of some of these. The ones without initials are from my collection, mainly from the bioblitz at Corral Bluffs in September. At that site, on one night, I took ten species new to the region.
Thirty-six new species found in the area. Keep going, guys. This is fun.
Time to Hit the Streets
On the Congressionally Mandated US Climate Report, 23 November 2018
There is a disturbing parallel between the blindness of Congress to the facts about Vietnam in the 1970’s and the facts about climate change today. After Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, which detailed the “saturation bombing” of Cambodia and Laos without the knowledge of our Senators and Representatives, there remained in the public mind the delusion that we could somehow win the war in Vietnam and save all of Southeast Asia from the greedy clutches of Communism. The “domino effect,” as Senators called it. We went on to elect Richard Nixon, who had a “secret plan” to win the war, and we continued in a tragic, losing effort for three more years until the fall of Saigon in 1975.
During those three years, an enormous groundswell of public protest brought hundreds of thousands of citizens, mostly young people, into the streets, chanting, screaming, and demanding an end to the hopeless cause that was the Vietnam War. Priests threw blood on Selective Service files. Buddhist monks set themselves on fire. Protestors blocked highways to stop military convoys. Young people mailed their draft cards back to their Selective Service offices. Statisticians tell us that what finally created a majority was that by 1973, about 75% of the country had direct or indirect connections with fallen soldiers in Vietnam.
The protests worked. Congressmen desperately railed against the persistent harassment to shore up their income streams from the military-industrial lobbies, but eventually realized that they couldn’t get the votes regardless of the money spent, and they finally knuckled under and supported the vast majority of the populace. Rather than a “domino effect,” the Soviet Union eventually fell, and we can visit Laos and Vietnam any time we want. The U.S. lost the war, but won the peace.
Yesterday the congressionally mandated U. S. Climate Change Report was issued, and I felt the same outrage that I felt in 1972, when Nixon won the election and promised further bloodshed in a losing cause. The jury is in, the facts on the ground are clear, the effects are already seen in many places worldwide, and there are clear alternatives to our current lifestyles that could be helpful. All that is missing today is the enormous groundswell of commitment to the solution by the young people of America.
This should be the start of the protests. We can sit by and allow our deeply compromised President to blunder along, denying the obvious effects of climate change, or we can hit the streets, call Congressional representatives, and demand a serious, coordinated effort to identify and support alternative energy sources and less wasteful lifestyles. The current administration’s ignorance and defiance of scientific information will ensure that the U.S. will bring up the tail in the world’s effort to address climate change. But sensible action now can blunt the worst effects of this mess. It’s time to demand the attention of Congress. Time to shout, chant, and get on the phone.
One last thought. When I call my Senator (Cory Gardner) I rarely leave a message. I call and call and call until I get an aide. Then I make a calm, sensible case and possibly change the thinking of one small potato at a time. We didn’t have to convince the generals in Vietnam. We just had to help the average GI to see reality.
