every autumn, tens of millions of monarch butterflies travel to their ancestral winter roosts in mexico’s mountain fir forests, coating the trunks of the trees in the orange of their wings, and causing the branches to droop under their collective weight.
surfing winds from southern canada and the northern united states, and taking directional cues from the sun and magnetic poles, they travel 4,500 kilometres over two months to reach their hibernation grounds – a feat that still remains a bit of a mystery, but which has been going on for millions of years.
interestingly, the autumn migration south is accomplished in one generation, which lives for about seven months, while the spring migration north is done over three generations, each living about six weeks.
last year’s migration, however, was the lowest on record, as excessive herbicide usage has reduced the supply of the milkweed plant which the monarch larvae rely on to feed, and which makes the monarch caterpillars toxic to predators. but the plant is now being destroyed from heavy use of roundup ready pesticides used in soy and corn crop production.
further complicating matters for the monarch is climate change, as drought along their migratory route has exacerbated milkweed decline, and colder spring temperatures has meant the temperature-sensitive cold-blooded butterflies are unable to begin their journey north.
and once they reach their hibernation sites in mexico, the butterflies, which rely on a thick forest canopy for protection from the cold and rain, encounter deteriorating forests from illegal logging.
experts, however, are hopeful that this year’s migration will double or triple, thanks in large part to the conservation efforts of the mexican government. nevertheless, this increase would still put monarch numbers at one tenth of their record high of one billion.
Nepal is fighting to save the snow leopard (x) | follow @the-future-now
Snow leopards are a really important species to conserve in-situ, because they’re very sensitive animals who don’t reproduce nearly as well in captive conservation scenarios as most other large cats.
if you have any space to garden, whether it’s an actual garden or just some pots on a balcony, please do consider this source for some beautiful summer flowers that will also make bees very happy.
canada is currently considering banning imidacloprid, which is apparently “one of the most widely used bee-killing pesticides in the world”. this seems pretty huge, so if you’ve got two seconds, add your name to the list! as of posting this link, they need just over 8,000 more signatures by february 21!
a SWAMP is a wetland whose vegetation consists of trees or other woody plants
a MARSH is a wetland with other forms of vegetation
ALL wetland is highly desirable property and holy ground
Take a fucking sip babes, of this tea; not the wetlands.
slurp
Tumblr: actual factual if obscure information presented in an oddly aggressive way as if the reader should already know this, and then the thread dissolves into dadaist nonsense.
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
‘But surely you have records of volcanic activity doing tremendous damage to human settlements.’
‘Yep. Pompeii is legendary. Entire cities went. Towns buried under lava, peoples’ brains boiled in the first rush of heat, loads more killed by falling pumice.’
‘ah, good, they learned their lesson and didn’t build there again.’
‘…well…’
‘Are you seriously telling me this volcano is legendary for killing several urban conurbations and you built on top of it AGAIN?’
‘In our defence it hasn’t actually done it since.’
‘What about earthquake-prone areas? Tell me you’re at least vaguely sensible about those.’
‘Oh yeah. After the first major earthquake that flattens a city, we build them better.’
“So you’re saying that the air in these areas can kill you. Physically, not chemically. It just moves… how did you phrase it? ‘Stupid fast’?”
“Yeah, pretty much. It can pick up livestock, dismantle structures- it’s bad news.”
“That seems frustrating, to have such wide swathes of otherwise habitable land rendered unlivable.”
“What’re you talking about, unlivable? Nothing a storm cellar can’t fix.”
“A… storm cellar. A room dug slightly below ground level.”
“With a door, yep.”
“Your atmosphere can without warning violently pick you up and fling you- and your buildings- and your response was to dig holes?”
“…we put up sirens, too.”
“To warn the other humans to get into their holes. Very prudent.”
“TO WARN OTHER HUMANS TO GET IN THEIR HOLES…”
As someone whose family is predominantly in the south this makes me so happy. I wonder what aliens would think about mobile homes in tornado alley? That sounds like a fun conversation.
This might seem fun for some people, but for us it’s not.
You see, Palawan is known for its non-commercialized islands and untouched beaches. There are only a few resorts in there, and the government limits tourism population there. Here are some pictures of our beautiful islands:
Nickelodeon, however, wants to capitalize the island of Coron, Palawan. They’re going to build a resort and theme park there. They claim that they want to “spread environmental awareness” but they’re really not. Building this resort will disrupt the marine ecosystem; thus destroying the environment there. Also, Palawan is our last ecological frontier in the Philippines. If they’re going to continue to do this, more and more big companies will cash-in to commercialize Palawan- and I really do not want that to happen.
I know petitions won’t do much, but at least we can prove a point that Palawan should not be disrupted. Please sign this petition, so that it will not only show that us Filipinxs don’t want this, but people from different countries as well. Please spread it around as well, so that people from different countries can be aware of what Nickelodeon is doing.
Ang aming kalikasan ay hindi dapat sirain. Maraming salamat po.
Gotta spread this myself. I’m Filipina and the conservation of home is incredibly important to me. Pollution is already a huge issue throughout the country’s cities. Many islands including Palawan are home to not just beautiful nature but some of the last of our untouched, uncolonized heritage.
wtf
NO. PLEASE NO. I LEGIT CRIED WHEN I READ THE NEWS ARTICLE. The article is in a legit news network. It’s not fake. MY CHEST HURTS AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY. The developers say it won’t hurt the environment but artificial structures are artificial structures. PLEASE. PLEASE. NO.
I CAN ONLY HOPE THE PETITION IS GOING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I SIGNED IT SO FAST.
EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT FILIPINO, PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST. PLEASE.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD AND SIGN THE PETITION!!
It’s one of the only good things we have left in our country. I’m hoping and praying signing this petition this will really help us out. So many things are already destroying the Philippines, and we’ve got pollution everywhere. I can’t have this happen to one of the few good things we have. Please, sign this. Please. I don’t want anyone to do terrible things to my country anymore. Our environment here has been through pretty rough years and I don’t know how much more it could handle.Please. Please sign the petition.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE FILIPINO TO SHARE THIS. I DON’T WANT TO SEE THE ENVIRONMENT AROUND ME GET DESTROYED LITTLE BY LITTLE. IT’S ALREADY STARTED A LONG TIME AGO, PLEASE HELP US STOP IT.
Steel Phoenix Studios 