this is like an 1800s orientalist guy to say. The Easterners They Have Just Too Strange Customs Because Of Their Foreign Culture... We Cannot Hope To Understand Their Minds Or Communicate With Them

Why Insects Need Native Plants

Originally posted at my blog at https://rebeccalexa.com/why-insects-need-native-plants/

Earlier this year a study was released that explored the viability of alternative hosts for caterpillars for whom ash trees (Fraxinus spp.) are the primary food source. Ash trees are in severe danger of extinction in North America due to the introduction of the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), a tiny green beetle that is wreaking havoc as an invasive species both here and in Europe.

White ash (Fraxinus americanus)

The researchers chose three representative Lepidoptera species–Ceratomia undulosa, Sphinx kalmiae, and Sphinx chersis–and offered them lilac (Syringa vulgaris), weeping forsythia (Forsythia suspensa), and European privet (Ligustrum vulgare) as potential alternatives in the laboratory. They also placed several caterpillars on trees outdoors to see if setting had any effect.

The result?

you sit there and think “$1500 for a one bedroom is crazy” and then it dawns on you that there are studios going for $3000. or more. a month. regardless of location. large and small cities alike. And then your brain starts leaking out of your ears

you will be in an apartment that was $900 three years ago and now you’re paying over $1200. for the same space. the same space you live in, the same exact apartment complex, is now also being sold to people for over $1500. you cannot leave because everything else in the general area is around $1800. for what you have. or smaller.

Get in your local zoning boards ass crack about zoning laws. All the way up there. Make them suffer in terror of seeing your face in local meetings. Also give them a little carrot by pointing out how it no longer takes a shotgun to the municipalities tax base by blowing literal holes in the fucking geography of where people can build.

Liberia emitted 0.24 tons of CO2 per capita in 2019; UAE emitted 20.5 tons, or 85 times more than Liberia.

maybe its bc i live in a place where forestry is one of the dominant industries but like tree planting rly isnt good. like the majority of the time its done by forestry companies to “offset” what they’ve cut down, and they almost always just plant fir & spruce monocrops and then they prevent the rest of the forest from naturally regenerating by spraying glyphosate, because they want to kill off the hardwoods that grow back since softwoods are worth more to the pulp industry… anything a company does that is supposedly “green” never is.

They aren’t actually replanting the forest, they’re building lumber farms in the middle of it and trying to pass them off as the same thing to people who think a forest is just trees because they live in a world mediated by images and have never been in an actual forest long enough to be able to tell healthy diverse growth from a struggling monocrop.

Some naturalists I recall coined the term “ghost forest” to refer originally to “replanted” rainforests, in the same sense as “ghost town.” Planting a bunch of tree seeds, even if you did replant the right species, never brings back the same rich diversity of life or the healthy microbiome that took centuries to form.

And the average person doesn’t think about that at all, they don’t care that the layers of rotten leaves and insect colonies and mycelia are as much “the forest” as the presence of trees, companies are glad people don’t care about this, and as long as “replanting” is seen as a valid compromise, it means environmental regulations will continue to be lax and let them kill the majority of life in those habitats.

It’s the ecological equivalent of Weekend at Bernies. They made a corpse look alive enough that they aren’t being held accountable.

Oklahoma is working to determine how much water remains in its aquifers, information that state lawmakers could use to set limits on pumping. But Christopher Neel, the head of water rights for the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, said people might not necessarily welcome the government telling them that their land is running out of groundwater.

“If we start showing that kind of data, that kind of goes into your property values,” Mr. Neel said. “If we show an area may be depleted in, let’s say, two years, well, if someone tries to sell that property, they’re not going to be able to.” [...]

The National Association of Home Builders, asked about the wisdom of building houses where water is running out, said the industry was responding to the demands of homebuyers who want to live in those areas.

Susan Asmus, the association’s senior vice president for regulatory affairs, said builders follow the rules that local officials establish. She said it was up to governments to determine where and how it’s appropriate to build homes. The officials who approve those developments “obviously think they can manage the challenges,” Ms. Asmus said in a statement. [...]

Any effort to impose federal oversight would very likely face opposition from agricultural groups. The American Farm Bureau Federation, which represents farmers, said states were best suited to address groundwater problems. The federal government’s role should be to spend money on infrastructure projects and help farmers pay for new technology, according to Courtney Briggs, the federation’s senior director of government affairs.

Cemetery in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Flickr

Michel Tahar, A graveyard in Aynat, Hadhramaut region, Yemen

family

And making a page for your dog and commenting as the dog.

The Mr J double standard

i’m crying

Boonton Reservoir in Boonton, New Jersey.

this is for a part-time job as a barista

Inuit sculptures by Liss Stender

Traditional inuit male and female sculptures in Nuuk, Greenland