Pause the Plastics!
Both the U.S. Congress and international negotiators have been working through some details of how to implement a reduction in plastics use and production over the last couple of weeks.
The goal of the International Negotiating Committee is to produce a legally binding global agreement to limit plastic pollution. The goal of the bill being introduced in the U.S. Congress, (the Protecting Communities from Plastics Act), is to restrict the use and the production of single-use plastics in America. The U.S. proposal is to (at least) reduce single-use plastics by 25% below 2024 levels by 2032, and to pause, and then restrict, new petrochemical plants, especially near residences and communities.
I believe this is the first legislation in the US aimed at addressing plastics, and this is a great start. It’s not nearly enough of course, and I am curious as to the long-ish timeline for reducing single-use plastics, given that we already have a lot of alternatives (and many groups are voluntarily switching already), but I am glad that action is occurring. It’s a big deal, and will also contribute significantly to reductions in greenhouse gases over time. Here are a handful of companies that are already working to reduce single-use plastics, but there are plenty more (small and large), who are also planning or implementing plastic waste reduction.
The Sapsuckers Return.
The only fully-migratory woodpeckers in North America, yellow-bellied sapsuckers have returned to their winter homes. They are certainly back among our maples in East Tennessee and leaving their customary row of ‘sapwells’ - little holes all in a row - on the trees.
Here is their range according to All About Birds:
I love the whole exchange of species in each season. We lose the indigo buntings, the cuckoos, our only reliable hummingbird in the East (ruby-throated), the tanagers, and the whip-poor-wills…but we gain the purple finches, the juncos, the sapsuckers, the winter wrens, and the white-throated sparrows.
Somehow it’s a comforting sign that all is working as it should in the realm of the wild things.
OMG The O.E.D.
Lots of important things happening in the world, but this is not one of them: The Oxford English Dictionary has made the very democratic decision to make ‘Goblin Mode’ its word of the year.
For those of you not up on your hip, social media-worthy slang, goblin mode means behavior which is “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations”.
Have you just polished off all your roommate’s cookies? Is there a takeout container on the coffee table from last Thursday? Are you wearing the same t-shirt you’ve been wearing for 11 days straight? You, my friend, have gone ‘goblin mode’.
Obviously this is my new life goal.
Ancient Ecosystem on Greenland
A really amazing new study has been able to analyze DNA from some sediment in northern Greenland and has documented a whole new type of ecosystem. Firstly the study is remarkable because it has been trying to extract and interpret the DNA for 16 years! Hardly any studies are supported when it takes that long and endures that many failures. But persistence paid off in this case.
And the findings are remarkable too. First of all the DNA is two millions years old. By far the oldest DNA that has been analyzed to date. And secondly, the analysis reveals a combination of species that wasn’t assumed could co-exist - mastodons further north than was previously thought, hares, larch trees (now only found in the far north), and cedar (like you would find today in British Columbia). It seems like a mix of cold and warm plants and animals, but co-existing at the same time.
This might help us shed some new light on how ecosystems adapt to warmer temperatures. But at the very least, it’s a big breakthrough in what we can analyze and learn from ancient DNA. Too cool.
Don’t you just wish you could fly a time traveling drone through that landscape and see what was there in Earth’s past chapters?
Hope you all have a great weekend (but go easy on the holiday cookies…there’s still a long way to go), and I’ll see you next week!
I want to see a time traveling drone! Do they have that on Amazon? :)