Ethics violations—involving the illegal acceptance of Saudi Arabian gifts ostensibly made from endangered species but later revealed to be cheap fakes—seem like the Trumpiest story ever. All that’s missing is a bone saw, a koi pond’s worth of meat sweats, and a Fiat-sized heap of pulverized Adderall. While norm-breaking and questionable ethical decisions were basically the...
There are multiple species of Sargassum, a type of macroalgae common in the tropical Atlantic. For centuries blooms of the harmful seaweed have floated in the open low nitrogen waters of the North Atlantic. Sargassum could not reproduce in the northern waters of the Atlantic in large amounts as it needs...
He’s got a new book, so a conservative Niall Ferguson appeared on TV this morning whitewashing the Trump administration’s competence, or lack thereof, as if the fault lies with more systemic faults, despite the deliberate Trump sabotage of Obama-era pandemic planning. Catastrophes of politics, in pricey Ted-like talks. As if there no...
I was listening to an Apple representative explain this: Apple and partners launch first-ever $200 million Restore Fund to accelerate natural solutions to climate change Investment builds on the company’s forestry and responsible packaging innovations to deliver new financial and climate returns. The partnership aims to unlock the potential of...
The Florida Piney Point phosphate plant in Manatee county has been releasing 202 million gallons of wastewater into Tampa Bay since the risk of collapse of the holding reservoir became international news due to a risk of major collapse with flood walls of over twenty feet predicted to inundate local communities and...
In the choice between wolf predation and human predation wolf culling seems more about sport than the economic threat to herds. Subsidizing trapping and killing with wolf bounties doesn’t begin to address the real ecological harms from other populations like feral pigs. “Should Montana Allow New Methods of Killing Wolves to...
The sparse number of actual carbon capture and sequestration projects plus weak carbon markets amplify the problems of the climate crisis yet to be revisited, post-Trump. Two heartland examples in North Dakota and Texas show how there are several interlocking problems addressing the climate crisis that must be included in future environmental policy. More specifically...
Scientists have successfully cloned an endangered black-footed ferret from the genes of an animal named Willa that had died over thirty years ago. After Willa died, her remains were frozen and sent from Wyoming to San Diego Zoo Global that maintains a bank of frozen tissues for over 1,100 endangered and...
Native to the Amazon river basin, the Arapaima is likely the earth's largest freshwater predatory fish at 10 feet and 400 pounds, where they have lived for over five million years. In south-central Florida, far from Amazonia, one individual washed up dead on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River on Florida's west...
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that...
“In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.” ~ Aristotle It is a fact that the biggest threat to our species is not climate change, though it will likely end much of what we experience today, but rather our war on bio-diversity. Bio-diversity is under attack from...
“Pena que a cavalaria brasileira não tenha sido tão eficiente quanto a americana, que exterminou os índios” “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn’t been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians.” Jair Bolsanaro via Correio Braziliense newspaper Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsanaro, may face charges for crimes against...
By January Bethany Lake in NW Oregon, just west of Portland, gathers storm waters from hundreds of acres of avoided wetlands. Effluent also drains from the thousands of manicured yards and miles of streets in the surrounding suburban areas. The Lake and its tributaries discharges to Rock Creek, which slithers down...
Florida’s iconic and beloved manatees are not immune to the cruelty of Trumpists. In the Homosassa River North of Tampa, a manatee was found with injuries to its back. The word Trump was etched into the slow-moving sea cow. The Center For Biological Diversity has offered a reward leading to the...
This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx Reproduction and accumulation Capital is “self-valorising value”. But for capital to continue to generate new value and create surplus-value, this surplus-value must itself by reinvested back into production – that is, surplus-value must be...
The neoliberals’ “free market” is not going to sequester enough carbon to save the environment. Even Warren Buffett isn’t willing to take a bet on surviving an impending climate crisis catastrophe, because “the rents are too high”. Existential threats have a critical reality, about which ruthless criticism is entailed. Even...
The Ermineskin and Whitefish Lake First Nations, along with ranchers, have filed two lawsuits against Alberta’s government after the province rescinded protections for the eastern slopes of the rocky mountains. Alberta’s decision will no longer require any coal mining to be done underground, and that prohibited mountain top coal mining. As a...
Edward Abbey memorialized environmental resistance to mindless development in his tome The Monkey Wrench Gang. It essentially endorsed sabotage to thwart degrading of the natural world, for instance, putting sugar in the gas tanks of bulldozers that are about to plow under a nice area. However, advances in surveillance make...
Donald Trump has been plotting to screw our climate and kill off the diversity of life for four years. This isn’t hyperbole; he has devasted critical habitat and created scars over 400 miles long through National Parks, private and public lands along the US and Mexican borders with his racist wall. By changing...
“When this campaign began, we said ‘not one acre.’ We meant it.” Patrick Donnelly, Center for Biological Diversity In early July of 2020, GOP Utah Congressional Representative Rob Bishop introduced an amendment to turn over 50 percent of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge's southern half. The House Armed Services Committee shortly passed the...
“When this campaign began, we said ‘not one acre.’ We meant it.” Patrick Donnelly, Center for Biological Diversity In early July of 2020, GOP Utah Congressional Representative Rob Bishop introduced an amendment to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to turn over 50 percent of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge's southern half to...
In 2019 John Kerry was awarded and accepted the Arctic Circle Prize in a speech to an assembly of climate scientists and other Arctic stakeholders in Reykjavik, Iceland. In his dramatic speech, Kerry, who has been nominated by President-Elect Joe Biden, to be the first ‘Climate Tsar’ in a cabinet-level position, declared a world...
The Greater Glider, one of many marsupials that evolved in Australia, is three species and not one as had been previously thought. The findings from a new study mean that the population of each species is smaller than thought. The species is not a new mammal discovery by humans; we've known about...
This story supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx This covers chapters 14, 15, 16. Chapter 14 will provide further evidence of alienation in the division of labor and manufacturing in the capitalist reorganization of labor. Chapter 15 describes more closely the production process and...
Apparently, with four days left, time has run out for the 2016-style October Surprise. Only a major terror attack(s) could make a shift in what looks to be a trending Biden victory. There’s plenty of spookery in how Giuliani and Bannon developed the pre-impeachment attempts to sway the 2020 election. Lots...
Larry Kudlow continues the underlying theme of Trumpian nihilism and its trickle-down contagion of pixie dust and pseudoscience. Trump continues to see his numbers decline as his campaign put him on a superspreader rally schedule, attempting to repeat his 2016 victory of 155,000 votes in swing states while trailing 3 million...
Candida Auris is an emerging fungal disease that COVID 19 is threatening to force with additional infections because it is common in hospital settings. It is difficult to control the fungus as it primarily infects anything in hospitals, bedding, rails, and including patients' ears and open wounds. Patients that are on...
The highest free-standing mountain on earth is on fire—Mount Kilimanjaro (elevation 19,341above sea level) located in Tanzania. Africa's tallest peak consists of three dormant volcanic cones – Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira. Wildfires have been increasing in number and intensity across the entire planet. This fire is especially cruel as wildlife may not flee in...
“Oyez! The Summer Session of Frog Court is called to order, Judge Jeramiah Bullfrog presiding,” honked the Bailiff, who was a Canadian goose. In strode two robed judges, who were six foot tall bullfrogs, trying to walk on two legs, but instead hopping from foot to foot. The third bullfrog...
The Trump campaign goes virtual and now may attempt a national address to get more free media even after spreading the Trump virus at a fundraiser Thursday. Contact tracing may go back to the Amy Coney Barrett SCOTUS nominee announcement as the super-spreader event, even as Hope Hicks specifically has been identified....
Another day of stupidity from IMPOTUS*, but he has promised to go into exile and flee prosecution. x The President suggests his opponent will receive an injection of performance enhancing drugs “in the ass” before the debates pic.twitter.com/sXOGjrFltp — Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) September 19, 2020 x tRUmp has descended into...
Feral pigs are the crying-wolf excuse for some firearm owners, as though the average hunter needed a modern sporting rifle (semi-auto long gun with large capacity magazine) to defend their home and children against predator species. Then there’s Kenosha’s 17 year-old killer and his AR-15 pattern rifle with 30-round magazine. The...
“'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind.” William Shakespeare The evil of science deniers recently has been beyond the pale. Not content with killing the planet over climate change, and sowing doubt over vaccines the far-right conspiracy theorists have a new target to haunt the world with the crazy,...
Sometimes I really wonder if we deserve to survive as a species. CNN is reporting that this guy walked into a Walmart store in Springfield, MA, walked up to random shoppes and gave them a hug, then told them “Just giving you a Covid hug. You now have Covid.” Man...
Making an orange juice and rice wine trap for murder hornets doesn’t encourage thinking about the oncoming possibility that Washington State may also be a bellwether for Trump’s swing state strength. We all may be drinking more rice wine soon. Pray for Mantises. With murder hornets growing up to two inches...
This was as low down as a species could go. Notice I did not say human. Donald Trump said as a diversion of course, but was faith shaming and worse than that, doing exactly what God said not to do. “Judge not lest ye be judged”. Matthew 7:1-3 He is all...
Human consumption and climate change have sent humanity on a steep, dangerous, and deadly spiral spin toward a “catastrophic collapse” warn researchers. The dire warning is published in the scientific journal Nature Scientific Reports. Physicists Mauro Bologna and Gerardo Aquino layout in their research that there will be a ninety percent chance...
Trump’s incompetence is not simply inaction, it has a theory for his brand of failure, namely “’executive underreach’ as a species of leadership failure that’s as destructive as executive overreach”. Much like sandbagging and the repeated absence of actual policy formulations, Mango Mussolini’s fascism is fiat(s) in a failed state. Underreach is...
I am so happy to walk into the back yard and have fledgling birds whirring about, clumsily. New life! I put extra food on the ground for the dummies. Some birds I know. Some I don’t. Colors are vague. Here’s a couple I don’t know. One seems to interact with...
I’m just an old race horse out to pasture, pawing the ground when the race track bugle sounds. I still read the local public notices about developments, reflecting back on 40 years of environmental challenges, wishing someone was doing some more challenging. And then something happened. I am terrible at this...
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that...
“We have to be aware that climate change and biodiversity loss are stress factors for ecosystems, for humans, for animals, and for the microbiome. Our research shows that if the different axes of the disease pyramid are destabilized, new infectious diseases can be expected, including for humans.” Dirk Schmeller, Université de...
The oceans are really what tells you how fast the Earth is warming. Using the oceans, we see a continued, uninterrupted, and accelerating warming rate of planet Earth. This is dire news.” Professor John Abraham, University of St Thomas, MN There are many complicating factors in our efforts to combat the...
The oceans are really what tells you how fast the Earth is warming. Using the oceans, we see a continued, uninterrupted, and accelerating warming rate of planet Earth. This is dire news.” Professor John Abraham, University of St Thomas, MN There are many complicating factors in our efforts to combat the...
Trump’s going to have to do more than “lobstering” proclamations to save Susan Collins. Actually, Trump’s tariff war with China has damaged the Maine fisheries. x How to lobster pic.twitter.com/PZTlomCi5T— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) June 9, 2020 x The BDN Editorial BoardJune 8, 2020: “Trump didn’t save Maine’s fishing industryâ€Âhttps://t.co/Nzch8M4FbX https://t.co/AkYih5FHEP —...
A lot’s been going on in the news but here’s something you might’ve missed: The Senate is expected to debate into next week bipartisan legislation that would allow massive spending on the nation’s public lands and help two GOP senators boost their moderate credentials in tight reelection races. Senators voted...
I reached for the grimy tumbler. It was empty. Not even any ice. I reached for the whiskey bottle. It was empty too. This was the night the bottle let me down, and a savagely bright dawn poured through the dirty windows in my Private Investigator’s office. I stared at...
This fucking guy: Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) is under fire for what is being regarded as juvenile rhetoric while the Senate is in gridlock over a stimulus package. In a tweet on Sunday night, Cornyn sniped at Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — who explained why Senate Democrats voted...
I loved these two videos. I have a cat and not a dog but no matter the species, sometimes one just has to get things in hand. Enjoy for this Sunday. Good Lord, I needed this break from reality. It’s like…ENOUGH !!!!! Sit down and behave and don’t push those...
