Borneo Fires Impacting those Least Responsible
God I hate this.
KETAPANG (West Kalimantan): An adult male orangutan believed to have been overcome by prolonged haze exposure was rescued after being found unconscious at an oil palm plantation in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan, highlighting the growing toll of forest and peatland fires on wildlife.
The orangutan, named Sampurna, was discovered by villagers in Desa Laman Satong, Matan Hilir Utara, on Sunday (Aug 30) before a joint rescue team from Indonesia’s Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) and the Foundation for International Animal Rescue Indonesia (YIARI) responded to the scene.
BKSDA in a joint statement said Sampurna is believed to have left his forest habitat after fires swept through the surrounding area, with thick smoke blanketing the region for several days.
“Early that morning, we received information from the community about an orangutan near the plantation. We immediately went to the site and found it in a weakened condition,” said BKSDA Ketapang Conservation Section officer Sarbandi.
Veterinarians from YIARI sedated the orangutan before administering oxygen and intravenous fluids after it showed signs of respiratory distress. Initial examinations found no evidence of burns or external injuries.
YIARI veterinarian Dr Komara said smoke from forest and peatland fires can have severe consequences for orangutans, particularly when exposure is prolonged.
“Smoke contains particles and substances that can enter the respiratory tract and impair lung function. Heavy exposure over several days can cause breathing difficulties and oxygen deprivation,” he said.
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What Bird Songs in Solar Fields can Teach Us
Blackbirds singing in the light of day, as well as the dead of night.
New vocabulary – Conservoltaics.
A row of panels throws a long stripe of shade across the ground at midmorning.
Underneath it the vegetation is knee high and messy, grasses and flowering plants tangled together, nothing in rows.
Nobody mows it and nobody sprays it.
Fifty feet away, past the fence, the corn runs to the horizon in clean parallel lines.
Birds that will not nest in the corn are nesting on this side of the wire, some of them on the steel itself.
So what does the fence line actually change for a bird?
The answer is not the panels. It is what was planted under them.
A solar site seeded with native grasses and forbs and then left alone gives a ground nesting bird everything a crop field withholds.
Cover that stands from spring through fall, so a nest built in May is still hidden in July.
Insects in numbers a sprayed monoculture cannot match, which is what the chicks eat.
Perches at every height, because the racking is a lattice of horizontal steel.
Weather Channel Analysis of Nepal
Some new information here, better satellite resolution of glacial collapse site, which scientists seem to have zeroed in on specifically.
The Weekend Wonk: Daniel Swain’s Walk-Through of Nepal’s Apocalypse
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA conducts regular “Office Hours” YouTube sessions where he discusses current climate issues and answers questions.
Last night I followed his discussion of this week’s Nepal Glacier disaster, and recorded some of the more striking and informative passages.
First one, above, contains some of the most triggering footage you may have already seen, with Swain’s admonition that, while difficult to watch, it is worthwhile as a reminder of the scale of forces the natural world can bring.
Second clip, Swain puts this week’s events into a more historical perspective, comparing similar disasters in other locations and times.
Below, Swain discusses astounding footage of a gigantic boulder being pushed along in the torrent. The forces involved are immense and irresistible.
Music Break: Dolly Parton’s Climate Anthem – World on Fire
Anti Science, Anti Vax Hysteria Pays for Trump’s Influencer Base
On Monday Donald Trump issued an executive order that, if implemented, would substantially reduce the number of vaccines American children receive and, in practice, how many of them are vaccinated at all. While it’s not clear whether Trump’s order has any legal force, it will reinforce public skepticism of and hostility to vaccines, which has led to declining vaccination rates. This decline has in turn led to a surge in infectious diseases that had previously been virtually eradicated, notably measles. As the chart below shows, cumulative cases in the first 30 weeks of this year already exceeded the total for last year, which itself was the worst measles year since 1991:
Meteorologist Breakdown of Nepal Collapse
Brad Panovich is the Chief Meteorologist for WCNC, the NBC affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina, and adjunct Professor at University of North Carolina Charlotte.
Scott Galloway Discovers Renewables
One of podcasting’s Uber Bros, Scott Galloway, whose work I actually like a lot, seems to find it surprising that renewable energy economics are compelling.
Description:
Hannah Ritchie and Scott Galloway on the economics that flipped clean energy from luxury to no-brainer — solar and battery prices down 90%, red states adopting wind on pure economics, the Iran energy shock accelerating the transition, and why the US is stuck at 10% EV adoption while China and Europe race past 50%.