LOOK, WE GET it—bees are fantastic. As more people keep piling into cities over the coming decades, we’ll need more of these insects to pollinate urban green spaces, which provide fresh produce and the biomass that can cool a metropolis. But while deploying as many flowering species as possible to attract bees, cities risk sidelining an underappreciated champion of pollination: the humble moth.
Undersized, damaged, aging culverts can limit access to important stream habitat for fish and other aquatic organisms. They can also seriously affect transportation if a culvert fails or negatively impacts the road above. Replacing a culvert with a larger, more suitable structure like a bridge is a win-win for fish, water quality, transportation, and the economy. At Peterson Creek, a tributary to the Miami River in Tillamook County, Oregon, upgrading the undersized, perched culvert improved access to 6.2 miles of upstream habitat for ESA listed coho salmon, as well as Chinook, chum, steelhead, cutthroat and lampreys.
In the face of the impending climate catastrophe, there has been a growing clamour to repopulate the trillions of trees our planet has lost over the centuries.
Humans’ dependency on concrete has a long history, but concrete carbon emissions from its production it in the 21st has negative impacts on the Earth.
It’s an ancient technology. Roman engineers routinely ground up burnt limestone and volcanic ash around the 2nd or 3rd century BCE to make caementum. Caementum is a powder that would start to harden as soon as it was mixed with water. Fast forward 2,000 years and humanity’s thirst for concrete has exploded, particularly over the last century.
Modern concrete is a 19th-century innovation known as Portland cement. It’s made in energy-intensive kilns that generate more than half a ton of carbon dioxide for every ton of product.
In 2021, concrete carbon emissions accounted for 8 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. While there’s no silver bullet for reducing the environmental impact of creating concrete, research and development is underway to find new approaches that could make a significant difference.
Sources: BBC News, Ars Technica
PEOPLE HAVE LONG stoked an urban-versus-rural rivalry, with vastly different cultures and surroundings. But a burgeoning movement—with accompanying field of science—is eroding this divide, bringing more of the country into the city. It’s called rurbanization, and it promises to provide more locally grown food, beautify the built environment, and even reduce temperatures during heat waves.
Wolves have returned to Belgium; reintroducing species can sometimes be a challenge, as this news report from the BBC documents.
From The Economist: As carbon emissions change the chemistry of the seas, ocean acidification threatens marine life and human livelihoods. How worried should you be about climate change’s so-called “evil twin”?
Trees lost to drought and wildfires are not returning. Climate change is taking a toll on the world’s forests – and radically changing the environment before our eyes.
Almost 50 years ago, fried chicken tycoon David Bamberger used his fortune to purchase 5,500 acres of overgrazed land in the Texas Hill Country. Planting grasses to soak in rains and fill hillside aquifers, Bamberger devoted the rest of his life to restoring the degraded landscape. Today, the land has been restored to its original habitat and boasts enormous biodiversity. Bamberger’s model of land stewardship is now being replicated across the region and he is considered to be a visionary in land management and water conservation.
Walker Swamp had been artificially drained and farmed for 150 years, but it is now welcoming new life once more, after a huge restoration project.
Its revival is one “message of hope” amid so much grim environmental news, ecologists tell the BBC.