"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Peter Houser of Living with Birddogs visited China earlier this month and caught a glimpse of the future:

[N]early all of the enviroment that I saw was horribly damaged. During the entire time in country I saw only a handful of songbirds, a few magpies, no rodents, no hawks. Certainly no game birds. Anything that looks green is under mono-species cultivation. Most of the country is covered by a cloud of smog from the coal-burning electric plants. 5,000 years of human occupation have left a mark on the land and the animals that will not disappear until the next ice age. So, get out your checkbook and send some money to your favorite environmental advocate group. This trip really brought home to me how much we stand to lose if we do not learn to live in a balanced relationship with our environment.

Peter is just one of a number of fine hook-and-bullet bloggers to sound an alarm. Check out Chad Love here and here and here [and, heck, just nab Chad's RSS feed. He's good].

And don't miss Hal Herring's great editorial in Field & Stream, and Bob Marshall's special report, here.

Maybe you saw the April 15 NY Times article: G.O.P. Push in States to Deregulate Environment. [Alternate link via Google.] Quote:

In the past month, the nation’s focus has been on the budget battle in Washington, where Republicans in Congress aligned with the Tea Party have fought hard for rollbacks to the Environmental Protection Agency, clean air and water regulations, renewable energy and other conservation programs.

But similar efforts to make historically large cuts to environmental programs are also in play at the state level as legislatures and governors take aim at conservation and regulations they see as too burdensome to business interests.

If we hope to save our country from the big oil billionaires business interests that control so many of our politicians, we better get busy. Don't wait until the next Ice Age. Get busy now.

That fresh hell in the photo at the top of this post? Not China. It's Canada. And it kills me to think of it, but that toxic landscape used to be a boreal forest. Did I mention that Canada is the #1 supplier of oil to the US? Countless wildfowl die in those tailing ponds. The air, the rivers and the people — the men, women and children — who live nearby are being poisoned. But we mustn't burden the business interests! Oh, no, mustn't do that.

See also:
Boreal Songbird Initiative
Contact Elected Officials Seriously: they are public servants. They work for us.
iLoveMountains.org Because mountaintop removal mining is in a horror category of its own.

The Mountain

Terje Sorgjerd, who created last month's awesome video of the Northern Lights, has done it again: another great video, this one filmed on 12,000+ ft stratovolcano Pico del Teide in the Canary Islands. Terje writes:

This was filmed between 4th and 11th April 2011. I had the pleasure of visiting El Teide.
Spain´s highest mountain @(3715m) is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.

The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains I know El Teide.

Read more here. Oh, and play the vid on full screen — it's beautiful.



H/T: the most excellent Starts With A Bang, who knows a thing or two about the night sky.

This most inconsolable of sorrows

Bounce at the cabin, looking for the bobcat. August 2009.

She's gone. My good girl, best, dearest, friendliest, happiest, smartest, kindest. She had the biggest and most joyful personality. All heart. All good.

Found out last fall that she would not, in fact, live forever, but I kept hoping. It's impossible that she's gone. Dear, brave, noble to the end.

Went to the shelter later, looked at the run where I first saw her 13 years ago. Everyone who knew her, loved her.

I can't believe she's gone.

I hope to heaven Julie Zickefoose can forgive me for repeating this, since it comes from a post honoring the memory of a human loved one, but I'll say it anyway: "Death is undone by love." I love you, Bounce.

Seismology quote o' the day

The San Andreas Fault runs through Cajon Pass [lower left to upper right] in Southern California. See Lost Lake in the middle of the photo? Good place to bird — I saw a Purple Martin there last year. Photo by cocoi_m on Flickr.

A most excellent comment from geologist [specializing in tectonics] and science blogger Chris Rowan, on Twitter:

Anyone using the word 'overdue' automatically forfeits their right to be taken seriously.

Chris tells it: How to (and how not to) talk about earthquake hazards in the media. USGS seismologist Susan Hough, A+! Newsweek and "journalist" Simon Winchester, F- and dunce caps all around.

H/T: Ed Yong on Twitter.

Nature, you so scary

"Vladimir! Put the !@$*!! camera down and get this thing off me!"

This lucky shot of an unlucky videographer [I've messed with the quality - follow link to the original] was taken by Vladimir Zaikin of Kazakhstan, and is posted on his photography blog here, in a post with other shots of raptors and their handlers. Mr. Z has some impressive landscape photos as well [and some NSFW shots elsewhere in the blog, FYI]. The photo above did some viral rounds a year or so ago, but never, as far as I can tell, with any kind of attribution. Thank you, TinEye and Google Language Tools.

Related: "What is the first law of the foot?"

Fear not, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane

A couple videos of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and what you can do to help:




Reclaimed land and liquefaction: Californians will feel a chill.

This is one of the most hair-raising videos I think I've ever seen. The sight of the roofs moving in the smoke and dust...



MESSENGER:
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.

MACBETH:
Well, say, sir.

MESSENGER:
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The Wood began to move.

*************

PCMag.com has an excellent round up of "many options for online donations, as well as sites that will help you keep tabs on the rescue effort." I recommend California's own International Medical Corps: "The group said it will focus its efforts on earthquake and tsunami affected communities that have not yet been reached. To donate, text MED to 80888."

Our hearts are with Japan.

ETA: Satellite before/after shots at the NY Times here.

Quote of the week

From Language Log:

I am sure I have said this before, but here I am saying it again, for the Guardian's editors to hear: you just cannot exaggerate the stupidity of the brigade of morons who carry on the "things they don't have words for" trope. (I should add that I hope it's stupidity. It may be worse than that: mere bullshit, written by sophisticated people who know they haven't looked for the relevant facts but couldn't care less.

Here, for good measure, is Language Log's 'No word for X' archive. Awesomesauce.

H/T, again: the most excellent and essential Ed "No one puts baby in a cohort!" Yong. I am so stealing for a tag line his "Nature! Hell yeah!" aside.