The Life Slant - Page 11

1/4lb Slugs Protect Whopper Redwoods

*Exploring the tallest forests is exhilarating. The treetops are 38 storeys, or, more than 380 feet away. The air is rich with oxygen. This must be heaven on earth!

Ambling slowly through these ancient living cathedrals is like peering back 100 million years through the looking glass of time. The dinosaurs have come and gone but not these colossal members of this exceptional race of trees.

A spring flush brings new redwood needles to exhale oxygen. Image credit: Reese Halter

In order to reach higher into the sky than any of the other 80,000 kinds of trees, these lofty monarchs need a helping hand to both get a start and survive for thousands of years. Keep Reading

Psychopathic Danish Dolphin-Killers

*The cruel, violent rampage against the dolphins began early this year on New Year’s Day.

Those who willingly inflict torture and excruciating pain against our brethren, the cetaceans, are criminal planet-killers. Image credit: SeaShepherd.org.uk

The dolphins intend Man no harm. Yet, each year, the bloodthirsty crazed Faroese stain the coves and shorelines of their far North Atlantic islands with our brethren’s mammalian blood.

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Planet-Killing Republicans Deny Extinction

*About a decade ago, I began sounding the alarm on “The War Against Nature.” For those animal activists and guardians on the frontline, the bloodbath is gut-wrenching.

Dr. Reese Halter on radio.abc.net.au

On May 6, 2019, after having examined 15,000 scientific and governmental sources for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services, 145 experts from 50 countries concluded that one in every four species, or, one million forms of life, face extinction.

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Arctic Sea Ice, Key To Life

*Last weekend, an Arctic heatwave caused the mercury to spike to 87 degrees (31C) in northwest Russia. Rapid sea ice loss in April set an all-time record, 479,000 square miles below the long-term average. The supremely adapted Arctic food chain is unraveling in real time, right now. Starvation is highly evident. Keep Reading

Vote To Save The Planet, Australia

*Nature is declining globally at an unprecedented rate. The Man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction is accelerating as quickly as10,000 times the previous five others. Record numbers of Australia’s wildlife species face imminent extinction.

Gen Zs and millennials in the Extinction Rebellion movement are demanding that governments protect the planet. Image credit: ausrebellion.earth

On Monday, 450 scientists and diplomats with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services predicted that one million forms of life are facing extinction. Keep Reading

Senseless Destruction of Zambian Hippos

*The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists hippopotami as red, or, threatened. Their existence is in peril because of destruction of habitat and loathsome poachers.

Why has the Zambian government auctioned off 2,000 healthy masterpiece hippos to trophy hunters for $3.3M?

The scourge of planet Earth, psychopathic poachers.Image credit: ThingLink 

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Banking on Fossil Fuels: $1.9T Play

*Nature is in crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, our only home is under utter siege by a handful of powerful, greedy, deranged men.

fossil fuel crisis
Vast areas of missing sea ice are starving many species of Arctic wildlife to death including the monarchs, the polar bears. Image credit: Kerstin Langenberger

Accelerating fossil fuel heat has baked the Arctic. That pole is the warmest it has been in at least 10,000 years. In 2018, fossil fuels infused the equivalent heat into the oceans of detonating 100 million Hiroshima-style bombs. As a result, the Gray whales of northern California are starving to death. Keep Reading

Clever Orcas Command Respect

*Orcas are the most widespread of the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises). These beauties are the pinnacle of mammalian evolution, and so worthy of our admiration and protection.

orcas attacking great white
The Salish Sea orcas live in three pods named J, K, and L.
Image credit: Tatiana Ivkovich, Shutterstock

With brains more than twice as heavy and as complex as that of humans, orcas are feared predators. It’s not just other cetaceans that must constantly watch their backs for sudden ambushes by pods of the intelligent ones. Orcas give great white sharks a lot of grief and occasionally much pain. Keep Reading

More Dead Dolphins Strewn Across Europe

*Almost 1,200 dolphins are dead from the shoreline of France’s Atlantic to Greece’s Aegean. The culprit is unmistakably that of Man’s insatiable greed and heinous lust for the destruction of Nature.

Since January, more than 1,100 dolphins, most with their fins cut off, have washed ashore onto France’s Atlantic coastline.

dead dolphins
The unprecedented demand for low-cost fish is driving the dolphins to extinction. Image credit: Associated Press

They drowned in the Bay of Biscay as bycatch within fishery nets. 90 percent of these beauties were amputees with broken jaws caused by being trapped in nets, struggling unsuccessfully for life. Subsidized trawlers relentlessly overfishing for hake and sea bass are quickly wiping the dolphins off the French map.

Extinction means forever.

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Polluted Oceans, Dead Dolphins

*Around the globe, the dolphins are showing scientists that the planet has become unlivable. Dolphin deaths are piling up.

The economics of extinction is quickly driving bluefin tunas off the planet. Individual fish sell for $3.1M.  Image credit: CNN

Globally, 44,000 floating slaughterhouses are marauding the oceans 24/7/365. Measuring a total of 13 million miles, with a couple of billion legal and illegal hooks, they are wiping, tunas, sharks, rays, sea turtles, cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), sea birds and so many other masterpieces off the planet at an unprecedented rate. Keep Reading

College Cash Calamity

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*As the French say: “Those that profit from crime are guilty of it.” Your parents slid $50k to a university official and got you in to the college of your dreams. Some of the parents had people doctor their children’s SAT tests so that the higher score would smooth their way to getting into an elite college.  One of the “internet sensation” applicants spoke of the excitement of “game days” and “parties” and, for some strange reason, never mentioned long hours in the library researching hypnotic age regression, poring over financial reports to find the best company for which to write a paper, or going to the math lab for help with calculus.

Ah, college, all of the great memories; not having money, driving and older car hoping it doesn’t break down, lack of sleep, staying up late for tests the next day, the pressure of exam week, and all for the reward of letters and emails of rejection. They’re glad you got that degree, not that it means anything to them, mind you. Well worth it. Keep Reading

A Billion Painted Ladies Dancing Across Southern California

*This week, Nature’s pageantry afforded Angelenos and others a rare and glorious spectacle. A cool wet winter has unleashed a super floral bloom and along with this magnificence came the throngs of painted lady butterflies.

California’s state flower is a gorgeous poppy Image credit: Reese Halter

From San Diego to Camarillo, these splendid butterflies danced across the sky. An estimated billion painted ladies brought smiles to millions of people, helping to officially usher the kaleidoscope of spring colors. Keep Reading

Trump Throws Wolves Under Bus

*This week, the Department of the Interior, led by acting secretary David Bernhardt, announced plans to delist wolves from the Endangered Species Act across America. A small exception of 114 critically endangered Mexican wolves of Arizona and New Mexico could be spared.

Alpha male (712) of the Canyon pack in the Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park. Image credit: Jim Peaco/National Park Service

In the early 1970s, masterpiece grey wolves were hunted to near extinction, a horrifying non-stop bloodbath. Keep Reading

Secrets of Bees and Flowers

*People and honeybees share many similarities including some of the same genes and brain neurons. It’s one of the many reasons why I am awed by these masterpiece creatures.

For my entire professional life, I have followed Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum’s dictum: “In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught.”

honeybees
Honeybees can add, subtract and count. Image credit: Nat Geo

The more we discover about the incomparable honeybees, the more respect they rightfully garner. Keep Reading

The Peaceful Rebellion

*Millennials and Generation Zs are terrified. The accelerating combustion of fossil fuels, the Man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction and the annual 250 billion metric tons of Man-made long-lasting poisons have compromised all life.

save the earth
Greta Thunberg addresses the largest ever climate demonstration in Finland. Image credit: Common Dreams

The youth of the planet are not sitting back quietly. They are forming peaceful movements. For example, Greta Thunberg, a teenaged Swede, began striking against school to bring attention to the climate crisis. Her actions have spawned a global outcry. Hundreds of thousands of school children from around the globe are striking for the climate. Keep Reading

Death, Starving Animals, Soaring Bank Profits

*While the U.S. banks celebrate a record windfall from the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion tax cuts, our planetary life support systems are blinking code red emergency. The accelerating Man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction is smashing head on into the Man-made climate crisis.

Starving Animals
10 days after the rainfall some cows are still stranded in three feet of water. Image credit: Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Accelerating fossil fuel emissions, along with the annual 250 billion metric tons of Man-made pernicious endocrine-disrupting chemicals, are laying waste to our brethren, the animals, around the globe. Keep Reading

Fossil Fuel Ocean Heat, Pacific Kelp Collapsed

*Accelerating fossil fuel combustion has caused atmospheric and oceanic oxygen levels to plummet. Why is Man knowingly asphyxiating Mankinds only home?

Many of the luxuriant kelp forests surrounding all continents have collapsed. It’s a catastrophe for kelp-dwelling marine life. No home. No animals.

fossil fuel combustion
A 2011 marine heatwave cooked a 600-mile stretch of Western Australia’s kelp forests. Image credit: Dr Hamish Malcolm

Welcome to the insane Man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction occurring as fast as 10,000 times the previous five others as it collides with the Man-made climate in crisis from burning subsidized fossil fuels. Hideous biological annihilation.

93 percent of all fossil fuel heat has been stored in the oceans. The oceans drive Earth’s climate. The oceans heat is in lockstep with accelerating fossil fuel emissions. Every year in the last decade was among the 10 warmest ever measured in the oceans. In fact, 2018 was the hottest global ocean temperature ever recorded.

Everything in Nature is interconnected and interdependent. Keep Reading

Perennial Peace

Peace sign on hedge

*Dona nobis pacem.  Grant us peace.  Sounds like church, or Christmas.  Not everyday words, but nice.  Like Namaste, Shalom and Aloha, Peace is at once a greeting and a good-bye, a well wish for you and a hope for all, a concept and a reality.  Peace is something to strive for and enjoy along the way; to both dream of and experience.

Peace doesn’t get much press these days except during the holidays.  That’s when illuminated doves and signs spelling out PEACE and old-school Peace Signs come out of hiding along with Jesus and the manger and Santa, as if they all were members of a high school debate team that still gets together once a year.

The lights and decorations are beautiful and remind us that it is a special season and most of us do slow down a bit; try to be a little more patient and understanding and peaceful.  By New Year’s Day the lights are gone and the debate team is again confined to the box and peace goes back into hibernation with the others, both in physical space and (perhaps?) in our hearts.  But, Peace is not a Christmastime thing! Keep Reading

Western Monarchs 99.4% Vanished

*A couple weeks ago, a majestic western monarch butterfly fluttered by me en route to feed upon the nectar of pretty purple lantana flowers. It whispered, “Don’t forget to tell the world of our plight, too!”

The iconic monarchs are mysterious pollinators, which intrigue children and adults alike.

Monarch Butterflies
Monarch butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is below 86 degrees. They will bask in the sun or shiver their wings to warm up. Image credit: Texas A&M
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Veterans Healthcare – Shutdown Slowdown

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*We can all agree that House Speaker Pelosi and President Trump have important jobs and face a variety of pressures. Politics, legislative agendas, and federal agency oversight, are all subjects of intense disagreement during this new era of divided government. In spite of these, both the speaker and the president, have a duty to the American people.

Veterans can and should be a focal point of inspiration, which allow for an easing of tensions in these spaces. These are the men and women who have served our country should be a lasting example of why domestic political gridlock should not stall or delay entrepreneurial  pursuits, which serve to better our veterans’ quality of life.

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