385 Million Years of Evolution and Still Going Strong
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
We turned one of our side lawns into a garden this summer and included two trees in the design — one was a seven-gallon Parrotia. The root ball was not huge, but poor drainage in the…
Some Natural, Some Not so Natural
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
It was not an unusual spring morning in the South Cumbria region of England. Farmers in this area near the scenic Lake District tended their usual morning chores. Yet one farmer received a nasty surprise while checking his fields when the ground below his quad…
Bacteria Help Early Life on Its First Trip
Published in The EarthSphere Bog
Purple haze all in my brain
Lately, things just don’t seem the same
Acting funny, but I don’t know why
Excuse me while I kiss the sky
(Jimi Hendrix)
If we time-traveled back 1.8 billion years, the world would certainly not “seem the same”. The…
Climate Change Meets Federal Flood Insurance
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
Two decades ago, I bought a home in the suburbs of Houston, Texas, and was told I didn’t need flood insurance since my home was several feet above the 100-year flood line. I took out a policy anyway since paying several hundred dollars a year…
Setting the Stage for Our Biosphere 4.5 Billion Years Ago
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
The universe hummed along very nicely for nine billion years before events in a far corner of the Milky Way Galaxy conspired to create a moderate-sized planet in the orbit of a relatively new star. Thus far, it is the only planet in the universe…
Happy Frogs Tell an Encouraging Story
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
Individuals who care for their local environment are the foundation for real change, so happily croaking frogs tell an encouraging story for those concerned about their local ecology. A neighborhood walk on a pleasant spring or early summer evening is often accompanied by pockets of…
It’s Called Isostatic Rebound
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
Greenland and Antarctica shed record amounts of ice during the past several years, victims of a warming planet. On a single day in the summer of 2019, Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of ice. A 2020 study by scientists at Ohio State University (King et…
More Effective Than Planting Trees
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
Americans and Canadians planted about 2.2 billion trees in 2020. This progress in planting trees was countered by commercial timbering and natural disasters, with North American wildfires burning over 8.8 million acres of forest in 2020. Fortunately, the USA and Canada have seen slow net…
We Can’t Plant Our Way Out of Climate Change
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
Turkey planted 11 million trees in late 2019, but up to 90 percent of them were dead from lack of water three months later. They were planted at the wrong time of year. Planting trees is a flashy headline but growing forests is hard work…
Is Action on the Horizon?
Published in The EarthSphere Blog
Former US Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill coined the phrase “All Politics is Local.” Perhaps future action to mitigate the effects of climate change will rest on his insight. If local communities are not concerned about climate change, there will be no groundswell demanding…
