Inside the Void

Nature abhors a media vacuum.

Traditional news media outlets appear ready to abandon environmental reporting. As I explained in an earlier post, despite 2012 being the hottest year on record in the United States, news media coverage of global warming decreased. That post also mentioned the decision by The New York Times to drop its division for environmental reporting.

Different new media have moved in to fill the void. One of those groups, InsideClimate News, provides reporting on energy issues and climate change.

News sources like InsideClimate News have more importance than ever because the media vacuum on environmental issues would be deafening without them.

More with Less

I suspect it's hard to find many journalists in kitchens: They apparently have an aversion to heat.

Within the last ten days, a series a disturbing reports have surfaced around environmental issues. First, as The New York Times reports, 2012 was the hottest year on record in the United States. Then, came the news that on a global scale, 2012 was one of the 10 hottest years ever. Together, these pieces of news suggest things are getting pretty warm in here. 

Now, we're learning how media are responding to the warming of the planet. Huffington Post explains that despite the hot temperatures, coverage of global warming declined in 2012. Also, we learn from Al Gore that The New York Times is disbanding its division that reports on environmental issues.

I find it astonishing and discouraging that news media are growing increasingly silent on the environment as massive environmental changes reshape this planet so alarmingly.

Nose News is Good News

There are good stories, and there are great stories. Yesterday, The New York Times published an article I can't help but love.

The story tells of Tucker, a dog whose nose is being used to help research and protect orcas off the coast of Washington state. Amazingly, Tucker can smell orca scat in the water. This allows researchers to find the scat and use it to evaluate the whales' health.

That's pretty cool, but the story gets even better because before he landed his scent-tracking job, Tucker was a stray in Seattle. He was adopted by Conservation Canines, an organization that gets unwanted dogs with good noses and employs them in wildlife research.

I love everything about this story and just had to share it.

For more information about Conservation Canines, click here.

Bird Brains

For a while, people have known that certain types of birds, especially crows and parrots, are pretty smart. As The New York Times reports, we now know that pigeons can learn abstract rules about numbers.

Just a few weeks ago, I blogged that calling someone a rat could no longer be an insult. Now, it appears birdbrain is also out as a slam.

I think the new things we find out about animals and their capacity for intelligence and feeling reveal how our own knowledge is a work in progress.

He Who Has Stalled

The climate conference in Durban, South Africa, has not been going very well, and the United States may be a big reason why. In the last week, the message has circulated through the conference that the US is seeking to delay action until 2020.

Well, as The New York Times reports, the US delegation got an infusion of fresh blood today, when Abigail Borah, an American representative of the International Youth Climate Movement, interrupted a speech by the US special envoy at the conference, saying the envoy had forfeited his right to speak because the US delegation seemed to be delaying action. Before she was escorted out by police (of course), she called on the delegates to act now on global warming and earned an ovation for her efforts.

This may be the most positive action undertaken by an American at the climate talks in years.

Thanks, Abigail.

Still Haunting

I remember watching a video about marsupials when I was a kid, and one of the most memorable pieces of it was about an extinct animal called the thylacine.

The portion about the thylacine included black-and-white footage of the last thylacine. Something about those images and the story of the animal's extinction struck me. Now, I wonder if the effect was like seeing a ghost (the lingering image of something no longer here in physical form).

Well, two days ago, I read an article in The New York Times about a researcher who had gone to Australia to see rock art of the thylacine. The article has some great stuff about our relationship with nature, and it triggered the memory of that video I watched as a kid (it even has a video with some of that footage of the last thylacine). The effect was much the same as it was when I was younger.