Towheeblog

Our species has been pretty hard on Mother Earth. As I say in my climate change talk about birds, “You break it, you own it.” We have truly and sadly broken our climate on this tiny spinning rock.

The NRDC is trying to get all the old protections put back in place to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty.

In Mexico the Military Macaw is suffering population declines, except in one preserve. You can click here for go-fund-me campaign to help conservationists protect this gorgeous fellow earthling.

There’s plenty to hate about climate change but there is one short-term advantage. Mysteries are being revealed…as the ice melts.

Speaking of ice melting–Alaska’s economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuels that are rushing toward destruction of much life on the planet. At the same time it’s one of the places (like Greenland) that’s going through the most severe alterations…right now.

And in the U.S. the cost of flood insurance could increase sharply. The current subsidized insurance system does not cover costs now, and certainly isn’t geared for rising sea levels and worsening storm damage. Private corporations would never be willing to take part in what is a loser’s game of climate roulette. Basically those of us living well above the water line are now subsidizing the folks who stubbornly insist on being at the beach or along the river, or dwelling in those very vulnerable cities from Norfolk to New Orleans, Miami to Manhattan. How many times should we fund rebuilding at sea level after the next hurricane? How will we fund moving all those endangered naval bases? Oil refineries? Airports from SFO to LaGuardia? Just as covid is likely to greatly alter the commercial real estate market–perhaps we’ll see big office blocks become condos…we should expect low-lying residential real estate to soon become financially ruinous–take much of Florida…please. Maybe we will see a return to coastal marshes, with homes at least fifty feet above sea level?

Down in the Lone Star Republic with its stand-alone electricity grid, the outlook is for a very loooooong effort to recover.

Then there are the tsunami-vulnerable places out here along the Pacific Coast, this a game of tectonic roulette. You can click here for a series of maps showing places most likely to get dunked when a tsunami hits Oregon’s coastline.

Finally, human sperm counts are falling. There are many ways to spin this one. Nature’s revenge on our species. Did this happen to allosaurus? Suicide. Good news for Planet Earth. Technology over-powering any hope of self-preservation. Profit now, future later. Goods news for elephants and whales and lady-bugs. What will Earth look like with only a few hundred thousand lumbering hominids? Need to pay subsidy for every child born–they do this in some European nations already. You can’t have economic growth when the population is dropping rapidly–so will there be a major cloning business promoted? How can you maintain a modern nation-state without lots of young men and women for the military? This is a topic with unlimited sci-fi potential.

Here is link to website with interview of author who just published her book on the falling sperm count. Crisis or deliverance?

Here’s is movie over fifteen years old that looked at Earth where no babies are being born. “Children of Men.” Then there is the Handmaiden’s Tale…