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Pollinator Pair
Richard Hurd

Pollinators on the decline in Indiana and the United States

Indiana and the nation as a whole are still seeing some loss in honeybees. The problem is so prevalent President Barack Obama issued a memorandum directing government agencies to take additional steps to protect and restore domestic populations of pollinators, including honey bees, butterflies, native bees, birds and bats…

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Solar And Pollinators Incoming
Fresh Energy

The Center for Pollinators in Energy

Bees, monarchs, and other critical pollinators are disappearing, and scientists agree that loss of habitat is a primary concern. Because the United States solar industry first took off in the desert Southwest, a standard practice for the land on solar sites is gravel and/or monocrop lawn grass.

That changed in 2016 when Fresh Energy, Audubon Minnesota, and the Minnesota Corn Growers worked with agricultural and business leaders to establish the nation’s first statewide standard for vegetation on solar sites…

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Smart Siting Solar
Engie Solar

‘A magical solution’: solar developers planting flowers that could help save butterflies and bees

For more than a century, Logansport’s electricity was generated using gritty black coal. Now, its latest generating facility will feature 80 acres of solar panels, and something far more attractive—flowers.

Solar projects with habitats such as these, called pollinator-friendly solar projects, have been launched in 20 states, according to the Center for Pollinators in Energy. At least three new pollinator-friendly solar projects have been announced in Indiana this year.

Habitat loss and exposure to chemicals such as pesticides have killed off large portions of bee, butterfly, fly, and beetle populations. Numbers of honeybees, one of the most widely tracked pollinator species because of their contributions to the food supply, are falling by as much as 30 percent each winter in the U.S. and in Indiana…

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Ag On A Rainy Day
USDA

New revenue option for ag producers to yield attractive returns

Oregon ranchers Dan and Suzy Probert grow cattle and healthy soil. And with the help of Farm Bill programs, they’re protecting the Lightning Creek Ranch from development as well as finding new revenue options like carbon trading markets…

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Ecologists
The Wall Street Journal

Preserving trees becomes big business, driven by emissions rules

Finite Carbon is North America’s leading developer and supplier of forest carbon offsets.

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American Prairie
JULIUS PASAY/CLIMATE TRUST

Carbon markets program puts more nonprofits on path to increase land conservation

The Land Trust Alliance is partnering with carbon offset project developers Finite Carbon and The Climate Trust. Finite Carbon is working with the Alliance to help land trusts that own forest lands participate in the voluntary carbon market. The Climate Trust will provide cash to help land trusts purchase no-till grassland conservation agreements from farmers and ranchers. This will make the lands eligible for the carbon market.

Not only does this mean additional land preservation, but it will help combat the effects of climate change…

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Camo Owl
Pixabay

Pyrodiversity promotes avian diversity over the decade following forest fire

In this 2016 paper, UCLA ornithologist Morgan Tingley concluded that “pyrodiversity increases biodiversity.” Between 2009 and 2014 he led bird surveys across 465,000 acres of burned conifer forest in California’s Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascade mountains. The data showed that in the decade following wildfire, areas that experienced different burn severities developed into unique habitats, each with its own bird community.

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Owl Friends
Danny Hofstadter

Recent ‘megafires’ imperil even fire-loving forest birds

Many birds, such as owls and woodpeckers, thrive in forest habitats created after fire. But the hotter, bigger, more destructive megafires out West might be too much even for them…

In a 2016 paper, UCLA ornithologist Morgan Tingley concluded that “pyrodiversity increases biodiversity.” Between 2009 and 2014 he led bird surveys across 465,000 acres of burned conifer forest in California’s Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascade mountains. The data showed that in the decade following wildfire, areas that experienced different burn severities developed into unique habitats, each with its own bird community.

But megafires like the King Fire have disrupted this historical cycle. Their relentless intensity often leaves less pyrodiversity. Instead they create larger areas of sheer destruction…

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Earth Diagram
ECMWF; © EUMETSAT

Europe is building a ‘digital twin’ of Earth to revolutionize climate forecasts

“It’s a really bold mission, I like it a lot,” says Ruby Leung, a climate scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. By rendering the planet’s atmosphere in boxes only 1 kilometer across, a scale many times finer than existing climate models, Destination Earth can base its forecasts on far more detailed real-time data than ever before…

The model will also incorporate real-time data charting atmospheric pollution, crop growth, forest fires, and other phenomena known to affect weather and climate, says Francisco Doblas-Reyes, an earth system scientist at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center…

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Jet Over Glacier
Brooke Medley/NASA

Two major Antarctic glaciers are tearing loose from their restraints, scientists say

“Two Antarctic glaciers that have long kept scientists awake at night are breaking free from the restraints that have hemmed them in, increasing the threat of large-scale sea-level rise.

Located along the coast of the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica, the enormous Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers already contribute around 5 percent of global sea-level rise. The survival of Thwaites has been deemed so critical that the United States and Britain have launched a targeted multimillion-dollar research mission to the glacier. The loss of the glacier could trigger the broader collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough ice to eventually raise seas by about 10 feet…”

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