#GreaterSageGrouse is a remarkable species unlike any other. This iconic species is losing its #habitat. Since 1965, the population has declined by 80%.
The #sagebrush plains are the only place where the greater sage #grouse lives. Losing more habitat to drilling, mining or other human activity would threaten this #bird and its wondrous mating display.
The global rise in #cancer cases has led to an increased use of #CancerDrugs, which are vital for treating the disease. However, these drugs, particularly #cytostatics, are now emerging as a significant #environmental threat. Cytostatics, which slow or stop the growth of cancer cells, are not fully removed by #wastewater treatment plants & can enter aquatic #ecosystems, posing risks to #wildlife & potentially humans.
So…the “Slack will now train AI using your data” thing is not as much of a five alarm fire as I’d first assumed:
“We do not develop LLMs or other generative models using customer data.” ← GOOD.
“Data will not leak across workspaces.” ← Or so they say. They •are• training across workspaces, but sounds like recommender systems and not generative models, so…we’ll see. Seems fraught. Still, that public commitment does mean something — legal exposure, at least.
The bad news: platform owners don’t have a vision and are out of ideas for how to innovate their #ecosystems, all in the name of #efficiency.
To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum’s character from Jurassic Park: The most brilliant minds of #engineering are optimized to execute and have not bothered to consider whether they should.
The good news: “real” #innovation will happen from the experienced middle, not the top.
Researchers said the study is the 1st to look at [how] the…variety of #environmental problems can compound #disease risks. It combined hundreds of studies & thousands of observations of …— #humans & other mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, worms & arthropods — & all kinds of #pathogens, such as #viruses, #bacteria & #fungi.
The analysis reinforced…findings…: a hotter world of ravaged #ecosystems is one that is more hospitable to many #parasites, & less so to humans & other #life.
According to Escobedo, the Tejon relationship with bears was far from the fearful and adversarial one taken up by White settlers. He recounts oral histories of bear cubs being given as gifts to neighboring tribal leaders. Though most large animals would be hunted for sustenance, Escobedo said, his people did not eat grizzlies.
“We coexisted in peace together here,” he added. “As long as we respected their space and they respected our space, there was almost a symbiotic relationship there between the Indigenous people and the grizzly.” #Rewilding#Ecosystems#GiftArticle https://wapo.st/3UyKi1e
Poor Timing: Mountain regions are particularly sensitive to the impacts of the climate crisis. Warming leads to a shift in seasonal patterns in summer and winter and endangers the balance of the sensitive Alpine ecosystems. An international team of researchers led by Innsbruck ecologist Michael Bahn recently published a comprehensive study explaining these effects: https://www.uibk.ac.at/en/newsroom/2024/climate-crisis-threatens-alpine-ecosystems/
In the decades to come, the idea that animals have consciousness will become normal. The old, racist, command-and-control, hierarchical ideas will be confined to the bin of history 🗑️
#Internet#OpenWeb#Ecology#Environment#Ecosystems: "Rewilding the internet is not a nostalgia project for middle-aged nerds who miss IRC and Usenet. For many people across the generations today, platforms like Facebook or TikTok are the internet. They’ve long dwelled in walled gardens they think are the world. Concentrated digital power produces the same symptoms that command and control produces in biological ecosystems; acute distress punctuated by sudden collapses once tipping points are reached. Rewilding is a way to collectively see the counterintuitive truth; today’s internet isn’t too wild, even if it feels like that. It’s simply not wild enough.
It’s important to share that ecological rewilding is a work in progress. What do you rewild to? Humans have shaped and cultivated landscapes for tens of thousands of years, so what does “wild” even mean? Just as there’s no ecosystem on Earth untouched by human actions, there’s no “true” wildness to return habitats to. And what scale is needed for rewilding to succeed? It’s one thing to reintroduce wolves to the 3,472 square miles of Yellowstone, quite another to cordon off about 20 square miles of a reclaimed polder near Amsterdam. Large and diverse Yellowstone is likely complex enough to adapt to change, but the small Dutch reserve known as Oostvaardersplassen has struggled."
Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable
Estella Bergere Leopold (1927–2024), passionate environmentalist who traced changing ecosystems
The trailblazing palaeobotanist investigated how climate change affected Earth in the past — and firmly believed science should be used in its defence now. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00905-z
Two books I loved, part 1: Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku Onda, which is about four entrants in a classical piano competition in Tokyo, and the characters are all interesting and charming but best of all it just has wonderful writing about music -- like the title itself as a description of how a particular player makes a particular piece sound. It's beautiful, and unlike many books with multiple POVs, I loved all the protagonists equally and was never annoyed by a switch at the wrong time. Just beautiful stuff.
‘Ecocide in Gaza’: does scale of environmental destruction amount to a war crime? (www.theguardian.com)
Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable