Friday, October 14, 2016

Loose Feathers #565

Dark-eyed Junco / Photo by Bill Thompson/USFWS
Birds and birding news
Science and nature blogging
Environment and biodiversity
  • This year had the ninth-warmest September across the Lower-48 states; the same area has not had a cooler-than-average September since 2005.
  • Even as US presidential debates have avoided the subject of climate change, the world permanently passed the 400ppm threshold for atmospheric carbon dioxide.
  • Expanding fracking is incompatible with reducing fossil fuel emissions, even if political leaders talk about it as a "bridge fuel."
  • Fracking threatens native wildflowers in Western Australia because of habitat disturbance and climate change.
  • A recent study found that jumping spiders can hear sounds such as predators or potential prey at a distance. 
  • Storms producing flooding like the NYC area saw during Hurricane Sandy could become more frequent as the climate warms and sea levels rise. 
  • Bees in the Arctic are understudied but could provide information on how climate change is affecting insect populations.
  • Indigenous communities have played a vital role in environmental activism.