I stopped at a cafe recently and bought a muffin on my way to work. Pulling into the parking lot at work, I left my car and spent the day with my usual chores. When I opened my car at the end of the day, the interior was covered with thousands of tiny Argentine ants. On the seat, in the doorway, on the door, everywhere. I quickly found the reason for the insect hullabaloo: three or four crumbs from my morning muffin lying on the driver’s seat.

Somehow an ant or ants had climbed from the parking lot pavement up a tire or two, snooped about in the vehicle until finding the crumbs, then communicating to other ants that tasty morsels were inside the Prius.

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If you live in one of the places of Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, or the Americas where Argentine ants have spread, you know this familiar story. These little insects are food-finding experts, invading campgrounds, office buildings, schools, and homes to feast on just about any type of food that isn’t completely sealed away.

Argentine ants first came to California in 1907 and have established themselves in about one third of the state, mostly in counties along the coast. Their earliest landing in the U.S. may have been in New Orleans in the late 1800s. They have been around so long and are so common most folks don’t think of them as nonnative or even invasive.

As its name implies, the Argentine ant is native to Argentina. More specifically, its native range is the basins of the Parana and Uruguay rivers that run through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. This insect has been nicknamed the “Gheghis Khan of the ant world,” as it has spread so widely, with little getting in its way. Animals that prey on insects and ants tend not to eat them. Unlike other ants that form colonies that may compete with each other, Argentine ants have formed super colonies of billions, spanning thousands and thousands of square miles. They form these massive colonies wherever they have invaded; the largest one we know of reaches across Italy, France, and Spain.

Having multiple queens per nest and multiple nests to a colony furthers their resilience. Their scientific name is Linepithema humile. Linepithema refers to the tendency of the species in this genus to make long trails, or lines, linking nests or where they find or “farm” food, and humile simply means small.1

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If Argentine ants have invaded where you live, one thing you may notice is there are fewer, sometimes zero, other ant species. Argentine ants are very aggressive at pushing out other ants. I’ve worked on the little island at the nature center for about ten years, and I’ve not seen any other types of ants besides the invasive Argentine.

The success of this invasive is due in part to its adaptability. When Argentine ants first invade, they become relentless predators of native insects, mostly native ants. Once they have eliminated the competition, they switch from being protein-rich carnivores to subsisting mostly on carbohydrates, feeding on honeydew nectar from aphids and scales. The parasites’ nectar is basically digested plant sap.2

As the ants feed on the nectar from the aphids and scales, they promote the spread of the parasites to other leaves and branches, and even to other plants. It’s a curious phenomenon. I’ve seen the ants spread parasites on the plants I garden. Sometimes they only affect a few branches and won’t spread to other portions of the tree or shrub; this happens often with lemonade berry trees. I’ve also seen ants spreading both scales and aphids on native Baccharis plants—coyote bush and the broom plant—and they sometimes take over the entire plant.

In the video below you can see Argentine ants racing up and down a Baccharis. The dark spots on the branch are scales. Note the dead and dying foliage.

Scientists have documented this ant/parasite relationship that saps plants of their strength and possibly promotes the spread of plant disease. From my personal experience, Baccharis invaded by Argentine ants will lose color, their leaves going from green to yellowish. I’ve seen a few Baccharis plants die from ant invasions.

Native ants forage blossoms and will also feed on seeds; as such they perform ecological functions of pollination and seed dispersal. Unlike native ants, Argentine ants do not serve as seed dispersers. This means the plants lose one method of reproduction wherever the ants invade. When I watch bees and butterflies pollinate plants at the nature center, there are almost always Argentine ants crawling on and around the blooms, not native ants. Studies indicate bees are less likely to visit flowers that have Argentine ants crawling on them. At least one study in Southern California found the same thing happens with hummingbirds; they avoid blossoms that have these ants.

It is not only other ant species that suffer when Argentine ants invade, they also affect populations of spiders and beetles. Moreover, there is a cascading effect on other animals where these ants invade. For example, here in Southern California, the coastal horned lizard feeds on large ants. Where the smaller Argentine ant has invaded and wiped out the larger insects, the lizards lose their food source. This is a major factor in the decline of this California species.

Just on personal observation, the ants may be worsening. They now occupy every square inch of my greenhouse, with lots of them wandering about where they hadn’t before, such as on bookcases and places where I keep my tools.

I also see more plants afflicted with the ants and the parasites they spread. I would say that about a third of the Baccharis on our grounds show signs of being invaded by the ants and their parasitic friends. And in years past, I don't remember seeing any plants die from infestations as they do now. Our weather is warmer and more humid than it used to be. It’s possible this has something to do with it.

Their aggressiveness and ability to form super colonies make the Argentine ant almost impossible to eradicate on large landforms. But there is some hope for islands, where humans can perform comprehensive eradication projects. One of those is ongoing on Santa Cruz Island, off the coast of California. The ants have spread on the island since first being introduced there in 1980. The Nature Conservancy and National Park Service are using chemical methods to kill the ants.

How about you? Do you live where Argentine ants have invaded? How much of a pest are they? Do they affect the ecology where you live? Please share by clicking the “Leave a comment” button below.

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Over the last month, I’ve been lucky enough to hike Cuyamaca Peak a couple of times. At 6,500 feet, it is the second highest mountain in San Diego County. The summit offers astounding views, from the Pacific Ocean to the eastern extant of the Colorado Desert. Here is the view, facing west and panning from north to south.

The mountain is part of the Peninsular Range that stretches from Baja California, Mexico, to Los Angeles. Cuyamaca Peak itself is in the southernmost region of the Cleveland National Forest and is part of the 26,000 acres of the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.

This region burned in the 2003 Cedar Fire, with 98 percent of the pine forest consumed. The fire transformed the forest lands into moonscapes, blackened earth with stands of dead, charred trees and stumps.

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Regeneration

Within weeks of the Cedar Fire, shrubbery sprouts appeared. My wife and I hiked through some of these areas, the ground covered with knee-high greenery. When we returned about a year or so later, the shrubs had grown to about eight or nine feet, almost a complete monoculture of Palmer lilac (Ceanothus palmeri). Pines were returning, too—a few here, a few there.

Reforestation project begins

In 2007, the California State Parks department began a reforestation project. The project’s plans included planting pines on 2,530 formerly forested acres, with the expectation that the conifers growing in these patches will spread their seeds to adjacent areas and reestablish the forest as it was before. As of 2013, 1,200 acres had been planted with 350,000 conifer seedlings.

Monies for the project came from carbon offset financing. Carbon offsets are bought by individuals or companies from organizations that plant trees or perform other activities that are thought to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. These environmental “Get Out of Jail Free” cards enable companies to portray themselves as “green” or let them avoid costly anti-pollution measures.

One of the big companies attempting to offset its carbon output with this reforestation project is Disney. They even made a video touting their efforts in Cuyamaca.

Hmmm… it doesn’t add up

First, if storing carbon is your goal, the naturally occurring chaparral that grew up among the forest’s ashes has been recognized for at least 20 years as an important sequester of carbon. Second, if turning the park back into acres and acres of forest is your goal, scientists found pines were already sprouting among the shrubbery within five years of the fire, mostly Coulter pines, with patches of Jeffrey pines. And there may have been more pines than the researchers found. In their published paper the researchers note, “[T]he lack of observed regeneration in dense shrub cover may have been the result of our failure to detect it due to impaired visibility.”

The trees were coming back to the park, even without conservation crews planting seedlings. But you wouldn’t know that from the marketing material coming from the carbon credits folks. The way they discuss the reforestation project, they would have you believe the trees would not come back without their efforts.

To further back up their rationale for the planting, the fire was depicted as an aberration, something that would not have occurred without human meddling. In this case, the meddling is previous fire suppression, which allowed for excessive growth of trees and greater buildup of dead branches on the forest floor. The increased “fuel” led to more intense flames that completely consumed the forest.

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(Back in 2003, the forests were also suffering from years and years of punishing drought. I remember driving through the area in the early 2000s and thinking that it was possibly the last time I would see the forest as it was and that a big fire would come through soon. The drought, which was associated with climate change, isn’t brought up much when discussing this fire.)

History negates the rational of correcting an aberration. The Santiago Canyon Fire turned much of Southern California to ashes in 1889, including Cuyamaca Peak and the surrounding area. Back then, after the fire, chaparral replaced the forest, and natural forest succession led to the chaparral plant community being naturally replaced by the pines. That’s why most of the trees burned in the Cedar Fire dated back to the 1890s.

Also, the planting process, getting those conifer saplings in the ground, is more than just digging a few holes and plopping in the young trees. In this project, the reforestation crews use large masticators to mow down the chaparral, disturbing the soil and giving opportunities for nonnative grasses and annuals to invade.

Follow the science, not the money

I can’t predict how this reforestation project will turn out. For all I know, it will recreate in 150 years or so, a forest that very much resembles the one that had been in the Cuyamaca State Park in 2002. Our great-great-grandchildren may enjoy the pines as we once did decades before.

But my best guess is that the project is misguided, driven not by science, but by big money. If a proper reforestation effort were to commence, there would have been more reliance on an understanding of history, science, and field observation. If anything, the reforestation project certainly jumped the gun. And if you’re getting carbon credits for planting trees, and the trees are coming back anyway, the credits are worthless.

Research conducted after the fire found that the percentage of invasives increased from three to 40 percent in the area. Reforestation monies and efforts would be better spent fighting these invasives. Whatever the natural landscape, chaparral or forest, it will store more carbon than the grasses. Invasives also greatly disrupt natural ecosystems, sometimes fully excluding them.

There are a lot of folks, smart, well-educated ecologists and conservationists who support the reforestation of Cuyamaca. What do you think? Is reforestation a good idea? A fools errand? Will it disrupt natural succession? Please leave your thoughts by clicking the “Leave a comment” button.

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Additional photos from hikes on Cuyamaca Peak:

Blogging for BCI has been a real joy. Here are just seven fascinating things I’ve learned about bats.

1. Scientists know almost nothing about bats’ evolution.

If Darwin had studied bats, we may not have his theory of evolution. That’s because in the fossil record bats appear suddenly during the early Eocene in the northern stretches of the supercontinent Pangaea, almost as if they were plopped upon the earth by a bat creator. All the evolutionary links are missing. There is no equivalent of Homo Erectus or other human evolutionary links. It’s almost like some evolutionary magic trick. For hundreds of millions of years there is no evidence of bats, no evidence of their ancestors; then poof! Suddenly there are bats!

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Even though they have been around for about 50 to 52 million years, in that amount of time, there seems to be very little evolution. The earliest bat fossils reveal creatures who very much resemble present-day bats, with fully functioning wings and the same anatomical traits as modern bats.

2. Bats are related to whales.

OK all the evolutionary links are missing, but because of shared evolutionary traits, scientists are able to group bats into the subclass of placental mammals; that is, mammals whose birth process includes placentas, just like cows, cats, humans, and (wait for it) whales.

Both bats and whales share a common ancestor as demonstrated by their placental birth, and both have the ability to echolocate; i.e., “see” their surroundings by emitting sounds and listening to those sounds reflected back to them. However, both animals evolved echolocation methods through different evolutionary mechanisms.

3. Bats fly at night because of birds.

By the time bats came along, birds had been around for at least 100 million years, and the birds had monopolized the skies during daytime. To avoid competition with insect-eating birds, such as swifts and swallows, bats evolved to fly after the sun went down.

4. There are LOTS of bat species.

Few, if any, creatures have taken to the night sky as bats have done. And when they did so, they were able to take advantage of numerous food sources. Some bats evolved to eat insects, others evolved to eat fruit or nectar from flowers. Bats explored new habitats, too. C’mon, who else lives in a cave?

Because these evolutionary opportunities opened up, bats diverged in what scientists describe as an evolutionary “big bang” unique among mammals. Bats evolved into over 1,400 separate species, comprising 20 percent of all mammal species.

5. A few bats eat fish.

Most bats eat insects; some subsist on fruit or nectar; and a few species are vampire bats, drinking blood from hosts. In addition, there are at least two species of bats that fish. In the Sea of Cortez, the fish-eating myotis (Myotis vivesi) flies low and slow, combing the surface of the water with their large feet to catch fish and other aquatic prey.

The greater bulldog bat (Noctilio leporinus) lives throughout the Caribbean, as well as Mexico and Central and South America. This bat will circle above the surface of a body of water, using echolocation to detect the ripples made by fish below. These bats will also rake across water’s surface facing their feet forward, grabbing fish in their paths.

6. Some bats migrate like birds and other animals.

People usually assume bats live in caves and that’s pretty much it. But a lot of bats roost in trees or other outdoor places. In the United States we usually don’t notice these bats as they are well camouflaged.

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Many of these tree-dwelling bats move between summer and winter habitats. They will migrate as much for food availability as to keep warm. Because they are small-bodied, bats lose heat more readily than larger animals, so living in a cold environment is extra taxing. Hoary bats and Mexican free-tailed bats migrate between the U.S. and Mexico according to the seasons.

7. A lot of bats hibernate.

Many bats that don’t migrate will hibernate for a portion of the year. Like other animals, some bats go into hibernation during cold spells and long periods when food is scarce. Typically, during hibernation, a bat’s heart rate drops from around 200 to 300 beats per minute to only ten beats per minute. Breathing rates also drop greatly as well. Additionally, bats can allow their body temperature to fall, in some cases to just above freezing, which slows their metabolism. All this metabolic slowing can reduce the animal’s energy output by 98 percent.

Hibernation usually lasts weeks or months. Bats can also enter a short term hibernation, sometimes lasting just hours, called torpor. Torpor is also brought on by environmental factors such as temperature and food availability.

Do you have a little known fact about bats? Have a recent observation of bats? Please share by clicking the “Leave a comment” button below.

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On Wednesday of this week, a glacial lake about 100 miles north of Vancouver, BC, burst, releasing what is expected to be approximately 1.2 million cubic meters of water and sediment downstream.

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Glacial lakes usually form at the terminal ends of glaciers. They may also form on, in, or under them. The bursting of this glacial lake, in this case one formed by the Place Glacier, has become an annual event. The lake burst in 2024 and again in 2025. About two dozen homes downstream of the glacier were evacuated last week when signs that a bursting would recur. Place Glacier has burst historically, but glaciologists say the new frequency of bursting is associated with global warming.

Pakistan

Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), as described above, are becoming more common and are increasingly tied to global heating. Pakistan has over 13,000 glaciers within its borders and faces a growing challenge from this climate-induced problem. At the end of June, the Pakistani government warned of flash floods as pre-monsoon rains and increased temperatures cause glacial melt. Such melting increases the number of glacial lakes—at last count, Pakistan had more than 2,700—as well as the likelihood of GLOFs.

In 2022, a GLOF destroyed roads and homes in Hassanabad, a city in the Hunza Valley of Pakistan. The Guardian published this video of the flood waters ripping apart the historic Hassanabad Bridge.

Pakistan is not alone. Researchers at Newcastle University have completed a comprehensive survey of glaciers in Bhutan. Their study concluded that “more than 11,000 people, more than 2,500 buildings, more than 250 kilometers (155 miles) of road, approximately 20 km² of farmland and more than 400 bridges are located in areas that could be within the flood zone following a GLOF event.”

The glaciers of Pakistan and adjacent regions are further affected by another by-product of the area’s growing industrialism: black carbon, commonly known as soot. Generated from diesel fuel, brick kilns, the burning of biomass and industrial emissions, soot is a major accelerant of glacier melt. Snow and ice reflect sunlight, but black carbon traps heat from the sun, which expedites melting.

Europe

The heat that is currently baking Europe is also melting glaciers. A glacier on France’s Mont Blanc has melted in this summer’s heat, exposing more rock and releasing more meltwater downstream. In Switzerland, from 2003 to 2022, approximately 75 square miles of glaciers have been lost. And this year’s snow cover was at a record low.

The roof of the world

Global warming skeptics and fossil fuel promoters have pointed to a number glaciers around the world that buck the trend of melting by remaining stable or even lengthening. Those exceptions are becoming fewer.

In Central Asia, in an area of mountain ranges—the Pamirs, the Himalayas, the Tibetan Plateau, the Hindu Kush—collectively referred to as “the roof of the world,” glaciers have remained relatively stable. But earlier this year, researchers recorded an unprecedented loss of ice in the Pamir Mountains, one of the highest mountain ranges in the world that spans Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China.

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Since the 1970s, glaciers in this region have remained relatively stable, but scientists are now noting great amounts of ice loss of the two-mile long Kangxiwa Glacier in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Recent monitoring indicates the glacier lost the equivalent of five feet of water over its entire surface in 2025.

Scientists involved in the monitoring say the melting is consistent with predictions of human-caused climate change. They caution, however, that no one knows how or if the melting will continue. Also, glacial measurements of Kangxiwa Glacier have been ongoing only since 2011, so there is no certitude that the melting recorded in 2025 was extreme in any historical context.

The bottom of the world

This year, scientists have been watching with alarm the Thwaites Glacier, sometimes called “the Doomsday Glacier.” Currently about the size of Great Britain—and spreading across 75 miles of the Antarctic coast, the widest glacier on earth—Thwaites has been melting for some time. To date, the water it has released to the oceans constitutes four percent of all global sea-level rise. The glacier flows out onto the ocean, forming an ice shelf. This ice shelf is now breaking up.

Since the 1980s, warmer ocean water has been dissolving the ice shelf’s underside, leading to the shelf’s retreat. From the early 1990s to the present, scientists estimate the shelf has retreated more than 12 miles.

The breakup of the ice shelf will not cause the oceans to rise. The shelf is like an ice cube floating in a glass of ice water. But the shelf has also served as something of a stopper on the glacier, slowing its advance. Without the shelf, the glacier will flow more freely to the ocean. It is this ice melting from Thwaites into the ocean that is predicted raise global sea levels.

A collapse of the glacier—a likelihood that had scientists actually preparing an obituary for it months ago—could set off a domino effect, destabilizing the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, causing the world’s oceans to rise more than ten feet, and flooding large portions of coastal cities such as Miami. Half of the island where I work would be inundated. Scientists who have monitored the glacier speak about the collapse of the ice shelf not in terms of if but when.

Pine Island Glacier has been the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica and the source of 13 percent of the continent’s ice loss. Recently, researchers from King’s College London and the British Antarctic Survey determined that human greenhouse gas emissions increased this glacier’s retreat by as much as 20 percent since the 1940s. Since the early 1990s, the flow of this glacier’s ice has accelerated, now racing at more than 30 feet per day. The average ice speed of glaciers is usually around one foot per day.

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The scientific team determined the Pine Island Glacier’s retreat started in the 1940s and was probably caused by natural variability. However, the warming of Antarctic Ocean waters since the 1960s, caused by our greenhouse gases, has exacerbated the glacier’s decline.

One Antarctic glacier is now melting scary fast, literally right before our eyes. Hektoria Glacier on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, shrank 18 miles in just 18 months, with five miles lost in just two months. Hektoria Glacier is now shrinking ten times faster than any other observed glacier.

Disappearing habitats

It may seem hard to imagine, but these rivers of ice support living creatures, mostly midges and beetles adapted to extreme cold. As glaciers melt, these living organisms lose habitat. A research team recently assessed a number of studies, 124 in all, that looked into the animals that inhabit terrestrial and freshwater glacial habitats.

The information from the studies enabled the team to create a global map of 482 glacier-dwelling animals, half of which are glacial specialists, animals found only in or on glaciers.

Using assessments of future glacial melt, the researchers predict 18 glacial-specialist species could lose 90 percent of their habitat by the end of this century; five will lose their habitats entirely, especially those living in the rapidly melting European Alps. Local extinctions of these creatures are likely.

Glaciers are melting too much, but sometimes melting is a good thing.

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From California to Maine, the story is the same. People have bought homes in neighborhoods far away from factories and industry. Now, as industrialists and venture capital are buying up farmland close to the burbs to construct huge data centers, folks feel their homes and neighborhoods are being overrun by these cyber behemoths.

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Barrington Hills, a suburb 30 miles northwest of Chicago, provides a perfect example of the experience of local townsfolk and data centers. Residents who live in this largely affluent area recently uncovered documents revealing plans for a 300 megawatt data center to be constructed on nearby farmland. In a story on the development for the local online newspaper, the Barrington Hills Observer, South Barrington resident Dr. Laura Holmes summed up how the locals feel, saying of the proposed data center, “It is incredibly close. The people here have some idea that they’re closing us in.”

One of the biggest complaints from townsfolk, one echoed across the country, is the lack of transparency as corporations plan and municipalities green light construction. Another Barrington Hills resident, Amanda Pollard had this to say: “We feel like we’ve been totally ignored. The public hearings we’ve had are like political theater. It’s just a formality. They’ve already made up their mind.”

Besides these common sentiments, other characteristics typify data center protests:

The protesters are overwhelmingly white and middle class or even wealthy

Protests over local environmental concerns are almost always limited to the poorer communities that they affect, whether it be impoverished white folks in southern West Virginia trying to stop the latest mountaintop removal mine or the residents of a largely Hispanic community like San Diego’s Barrio Logan protesting the high level of industrial pollution in their neighborhood.

Clicking around on the internet and examining the demographics of the communities that protest data centers, I’ve noticed that these communities lean toward the melanin-deficient end of the skin color spectrum. There are places like Louisville, Kentucky, where overall income levels are slightly lower, but average or above average in areas where data center protests are happening. I’m uncertain what this means for the success of their campaigns.

The protests cross the red and blue divide

Opposition to data centers goes beyond the political divide. The left-of-center MediaJustice opposes data centers in general and has published a game plan of resistance to them, concentrating their efforts in the South. Moveon.org, a traditionally center-left advocacy group, is organizing opposition to a data center planned to take over farmland south of Dubuque, Iowa.

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Humans First, an organization that identifies as populist and aligned with Donald Trump and MAGA, is leading a nationwide, and identifiably conservative, protest of data centers on July 18th. Humans First is led by Amy Kremer, a conservative activist who first rose to some prominence with the conservative Tea Party during the Obama administration. She was later involved in planning the January 6th gathering preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol and attempted coup.

Kremer has made some outlandish partisan statements, such as wondering if President Obama loves America. She was also part of the election-denying campaign called Stop the Steal. Another leader of Humans First was indicted for election interference in Georgia in 2020.

I don’t know if Humans First will be successful in getting more centrists and left-leaning folks to join their cause. Going forward, will we have separate conservative and liberal protests of data centers? Or will this common cause bridge the political divide? Do you have thoughts on this? Please share by clicking the “Leave a comment” button below.

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Despite promotion of data centers by the right-wing propaganda machine, such as Fox News, conservatives and folks on the far right are still registering their opposition to the centers. Maybe the conservative policy machine hasn’t done enough to win the minds of its followers on this topic. Or maybe the messaging began too late.

The protests are about more than data centers

People don’t want these behemoths ripping up acres and acres of land, polluting their neighborhoods with light and noise, sucking up tens of thousands of gallons of water, and burning through thousands and thousands of gigawatts. But the protests are also about people’s unease with artificial intelligence.

Many fear AI as a job killer and career wrecker. Once again, think of the demographics of the protesters: wealthy or at least middle class. These folks are engineers and other professional workers who AI is most poised to replace.

And these are the people who send their sons and daughters to college to get degrees in architecture, engineering, and other high tech fields. They have invested heavily in their children’s education to enable them to enjoy high-paying careers, only to have that investment go through the equivalent of a 1929 stock market crash.

The reaction to AI this year, across college campuses, has been derisive and hostile. Commencement speakers have been routinely booed when they bring up the topic of artificial intelligence. As Jacob Pagel, a graduating political science major from Tennessee State University told Sanja Mansoor of The Guardian this past May “We’ve been pushed our entire lives to get our diplomas. Then you pulled the rug out from underneath us, and said: ‘Oh, you know those four years you spent learning how to do very specific things, you don’t need to do it any more. We can get a computer to do it for two-thirds the price.’”

How about you? Has artificial intelligence affected your job? Your career or that of your children? Are data centers going up in your state? In your neighborhood? Have you joined a protest? Would the political affiliation of protest organizers, whether left, center, or right, influence your decision to join a protest? Are you concerned about AI?

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And just this last week I was surprised to find that not only are climate driven storms and droughts affecting crop production, but climate change is actually affecting the very crops themselves. It turns out increased temperatures, higher levels of atmospheric CO2, and other consequences of global heating are draining nutrition from our food. Our beans, potatoes, and turnips now have fewer vitamins and essential nutrients, such as iron and potassium, because we have made our world warmer with our factories and tailpipes.

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These are the conclusions of a newly published paper. Researchers from Qatar University performed a meta-analysis of previously published papers, primarily from 2005 through 2025, that looked into the question of how the nutrition of crops is affected by climate change. The Qatari scientists took all the individual findings—how global heating affected individual crops such as corn or potatoes for example—and brought them together to give bigger picture of climate change and agriculture. They published their findings May 31st in the journal Agriculture.

How climate change changes nutrition

Rising temperatures speed up plant respiration, which speeds up the loss of carbon, and which in kind accelerates the loss of nutrients. Higher temperatures also shorten seasonal and plant life stages, such as flowering and grain development; this gives plants less time to accumulate nutrients. Higher temperatures make transporter proteins less effective at moving nutrients such as iron, zinc, and magnesium within plants.

Plants reduce the amount of water they pull up from the ground during droughts, which are increasing and worsening because of global heating. As they are pulling up less water from the ground, plants subsequently reduce the nutrients they pull up from the soil. Drought also reduces root growth, limiting a plant’s ability to pull nutrients from the soil. It’s not only drought but another consequence of global warming, increased precipitation, that can also reduce the nutritional quality of crops, as heavy rainfall leeches nutrients from soils. And roots stressed by too much water lose the ability to accumulate soil nutrients.

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Nowadays, try to think of walking into any restaurant or store that does not have air conditioning. Here, in San Diego, where the summers are cool, I’ve known folks to turn on the AC once the thermometer hits 70. I was recently in a conference room in which most folks were wearing sweaters, and the person leading the meeting turned the air conditioning way up. We even air condition the outdoors. How often have you seen a business with its doors open while the AC is pumping away? From the torrid deserts and sweltering South to the most northern ends of New England we turn on the AC. In 2020, nearly 90 percent of U.S. homes had air conditioning.

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This is yet another difference between Europe and the U.S. While we’re at 90 percent AC, that figure for Europe has stayed around 20 percent, with some countries having a very low rate of cooling the inside air. Percentages for the UK and Germany are as low as five percent and three percent, respectively.

Europeans have traditionally viewed air conditioning as an excess, something Americans, with their big SUVs, big houses, and big everything indulge themselves in.

That difference is now becoming less different. More and more Europeans are putting in window units or installing whole-house air conditioning. While part of the reason is simply advertising and the influence of U.S. culture, the biggest reason is climate change. Global warming is now bringing heat waves in the nineties or even triple digits to England, France, Germany, and the rest of Europe.

Last year, a heat wave hit Scandinavia that prompted health alerts in Finland and Sweden. In the United Kingdom, 2025 was its hottest year on record and last month, the UK recorded its hottest day in May, with London temperatures exceeding 90 degrees on the 25th. The thermometer hit 95 at Kew Gardens in southwest London.

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Another heat wave hit Europe at the end of May. Temperature records were broken, with the heat soaring to over 86 degrees throughout France. The heat was likely a major contributing factor in deaths at sporting events. The temperatures hit the upper eighties in Italy as well.

Air conditioning comes to some European countries

Germans have always eschewed air conditioning. That’s changing. In a span of four years, from 2020 to 2024, German production of air conditioning surged by 75 percent, from 181,000 units to approximately 317,000 units. Imports of air conditioners rose by 50 percent as well. The pandemic may have played a part in this development. People stuck at home may have thought passing the time a little cooler may have made it more bearable. But if it were simply because of COVID, that trend would not be continuing, as it has been.

It’s the same in the UK. As London, Belfast, even Edinburgh now swelter for parts of the summer, more and more people in Britain and Northern Ireland are getting air conditioning. The number of houses with air conditioning has doubled, from two million to four, in the past three years. Demographers and others who follow trends like this say more than just heat is boosting sales of AC units. They say more people are working from home.

Other European countries say “not so much”

Italy actually restricts the use of air conditioning as well as heating. With some exceptions, cooling and heating in public buildings are allowed only during the hottest and coldest times of year, and then only during certain times of day. Further, air conditioning can be set no lower than 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Similar wintertime restrictions keep the heat from being set higher than 70.

The energy intensity of air conditioning has the Swiss viewing it as incompatible with their country’s climate goals. And while Switzerland has no outright bans on air conditioning, folks there sometimes have a few hurdles to pass before installing a unit. In Geneva, possibly the strictest canton, people may have to show a legitimate need, such as a medical condition, before being allowed to install AC.

And the Swiss are on to something. Even though renewables are advancing everywhere, we still use a lot of fossil fuels for our electricity. With Europe and the rest of the world cooling more of their houses, businesses, and schools, by 2050 the emissions from all of our air conditioning could contribute another tenth of a degree of warming. That may not sound like much, but small increases in the overall planetary temperature have great ramifications.

Thoughts? Are there better ways of staying cool besides AC? Have you sweltered through Europe in summer? Please leave a comment by clicking the “Leave a comment” button below.

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Previous Green Dispatches about air conditioning and staying cool:

First, to be sure we’re on the same page, let’s talk about what an invasive species is and is not. Let’s get our terms straight about what is meant by an invasive species and how that differs from a nonnative species.

When I teach interns, volunteers, and students about invasive and nonnative species, I tell them that we are going to dig into our Plato and Schopenhauer and study philosophy, because these questions and definitions have less to do with how you measure or quantify something and more to do with how you think about it.

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A nonnative species is any living organism that is found outside its historic range. These do not necessarily cause harm to their new environments. In San Diego, where I live, an example of a harmless nonnative species is the Moreton Bay fig tree. Native to Australia, these trees have been planted here for more than 100 years. Huge, old ones grow in our Balboa Park. These trees are from elsewhere, but they don’t spread into other areas and cause no environmental or ecological problems. Moreton Bay fig trees are a nonnative species in Southern California. They are not invasive.

How far away is far away?

That’s pretty straightforward. Moreton Bay fig trees are native to another continent on the other side of the world. But how far away does a species have to travel to be considered nonnative? Lots of folks in Southern California plant Saint Catherine’s lace, a buckwheat native to the Channel Islands, which are 20 to 50 miles off the coast of California. These buckwheat plants wouldn’t be here unless people planted them, but they naturally occur on islands just over the horizon. Not naturally here, but naturally occurring only 50 miles away. Native? Nonnative?

At the zoo where I work are Tecate cypress, endangered trees that naturally occur on Otay Mountain, ten miles away. They do not naturally occur along the coast, where the zoo is found. So are they native or nonnative to the zoo’s landscaping? They wouldn’t be growing at the zoo if we hadn’t planted them, but from the zoo I can see the mountain they grow on. That’s how close naturally occurring groves are. Native? Nonnative?

What if the organisms move on their own?

Organisms change their ranges all the time, expanding into new areas and abandoning old ones. Birders in particular will note and document bird species moving or expanding ranges. If they naturally move on their own accord, a perfectly natural thing to do, are they native to their new lands or waters?

But what of organisms moving into new territory because of human activity? The Texas armadillo has been extending its range northward for generations, due mostly to human activity. And the Baltimore oriole and other birds are shifting their ranges because of human-induced climate change. These creatures have moved into new territory because of us humans. They probably would have kept their old addresses if it wasn’t for us. Are they native or nonnative in their new landscapes?

Invasive species

Invasive species are nonnatives that are harmful. When I talk to folks here in San Diego, one example of an invasive species I like to give is mosquitos. When I moved here, decades ago, mosquitos were virtually unknown, and I was glad to be free of the pests I grew up with in Appalachia. Now, getting bit by a mosquito in Sa Diego is a common occurrence. As with much of the rest of the world, we have been invaded by Aedes, tropical mosquito species that can spread diseases. These certainly fit the criteria for invasive: from somewhere else and harmful.

Ecologically, invasive species harm native species. They can do this in a lot of ways. They can outcompete native species for food, disrupt reproductive cycles, or push out native organisms from their territory. They can spread disease, like mosquitos. They can reduce the numbers of native species by just eating them up.

That’s pretty easy to understand. We get back into the realm of Aristotle and Kirkegaard when we distinguish nonnative and invasive sometimes. Invasives vary as to the amount and type of harm they can cause, as well as how humans view those harms. Invasive species that attack food crops are taken quite seriously by farmers, as well as local, state, and federal governments. No matter the extent of the harm, a lot of resources are spent to eradicate or control for agricultural invasive species. In these cases, few people shy away from calling these pests invasive.

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There are nonnative species that are slightly problematic. Introduced to much of the rest of the world from Europe, the house sparrow may be a good example of such an invasive species. They are disruptive, as they take over nesting cavities used by native birds. House sparrows avoid grasslands and woodlands, however, preferring urban and suburban environments. This behavior limits the harm this species poses to native birds. They are harmful, but only so much.

There are people, and I know a good number of them, who say there are no invasive species or that folks like me make too much of the harm they cause, that we make mountains out of invasive molehills. Well, I disagree and hope I can introduce and clarify several concerns about invasive species as this series continues. If you have questions or comments, please hit the “Leave a comment” button below. I’m eager to hear from you.

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Petrini was concerned about the advance of fast food to Italy and all that it represents, not only quickness and convenience over quality but what that quickness does to our spirits. It’s more than the difference between a Big Mac and fries versus a plate of ravioli; it’s what happens to us when we don’t take time with family or friends to sit and savor both the tastes and the company.

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Three years after the pasta protest, Petrini founded the Slow Food Movement, which not only countered fast food but also the entire quickened pace of modern life.

The idea of slow—for food, for living—developed into the idea of slow travel or slow tourism. As with slow food, slow travel had its beginnings in Italy. And in the same vein, slow travel emphasizes connection, spending time to get to know a location and maybe getting to know the people who live there.

Nat King Cole sings of Route 66 when the prototype of the interstate highway was still kinda sorta slow travel.

Sebastian Modak, writing in Condé Nast Traveler reports that many tourists have soured on jetting from place to place to tick off bucket list items one after another. He writes, “Slow travel can be best understood as a collective reaction to our post-industrial obsession with convenience, where time, and using as little of it as possible, is the biggest priority in getting from point A to point B.”

If you’re interested in a slow approach to traveling, there are companies packaging slow tourist itineraries. One of the oldest is Cittaslow, which was established in 1999, in Tuscany (where else?). According to their website, their packages “respect the environment and local culture.” When reviewing their packages, the first thing I noted was the destinations are off the beaten path: not one mention of Rome, Naples, or Venice, but smaller places.

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In emphasizing the experience of travel over the get-there-as-quickly-as-possible mindset that dominates our idea of the modern vacation, a lot of slow travel advocates sing the praises of rail. Having traveled via Amtrak a number of times, I agree that taking the train can be a wonderful experience. From my home in San Diego, I’ve ridden the rails to Los Angels on business as well as pleasure trips. The Amtrak central hub in L.A., Union Station, is worthy of a trip in and of itself. Completed in 1939, the structure is a cathedral of travel that blends aspects of Spanish mission with art deco. You can spend the better part of an hour taking in the huge ornate windows and other architectural splendors.

My wife and I have also taken the train on short getaways to San Juan Capistrano to visit the renowned mission. Our biggest trips have been on the Coast Starlight to Seattle. This is old style luxurious train travel. We spent hours in the large-windowed observation car watching miles and miles of California coastline and Cascade Mountains go by. It was also a pleasure to watch fields and farms pass by as we enjoyed our meals in the dining car. We played cards and other games in the club car and were graciously and hilariously entertained by the employees.

That being said, every time we rode the Starlight Express, the train has run behind schedule. And I hear that this problem is endemic to many Amtrak routes.

Train travel also get high marks for being climate friendly. Taking the train has about half the carbon footprint of driving a hybrid, one fifth the footprint of driving a regular car, and 1/7th the carbon output of taking a flight.

One interesting take on slow travel is ’s advocacy of slow cycling. Since the pandemic, more and more folks are riding e-bikes, which can go faster than just peddling, and some electric bikes can go way fast. He emphasizes that the 20 mph capability of most e-bikes makes them incompatible with bike lanes shared by unpowered cyclists.

Other types of slow travel

I’m all for visiting overlooked destinations. Part of the reason I started my other Substack, Two Old Guys, Two Bikes, and A Lot of Electrons was to emphasize the enjoyment of short morning or day trips close to home.

One of the more environmental ways to “travel” is by staying put with a staycation, staying at home and enjoying things close to where you live.

You could consider staycations as slow travel. Being authentic and getting to know the locals? Hey, you’re already authentic, and with a staycation you already know the locals. There are no hassles of travel, getting to the airport, checking baggage, or going through security. And staying put has a very low carbon footprint.

Also, I think you can visit major tourist destinations and still have a slow travel experience. San Francisco, Paris, London all are big cities and major tourist destinations. They might be filled with fast food restaurants, but these metropolises are not by default inauthentic. There are still local restaurants and interesting neighborhoods to hang out in. One of my last visits to San Francisco included a stop at a Polish restaurant, with cabbage rolls, sausage, and, well… authenticity.

I’m not suggesting folks avoid slow tourism packages, but I think you can create your own slow travel experience. That experience can be pretty much what you, yourself, want to make it: big cities, smaller destinations, cycling, train travel, you name it.

Have you ever purposefully traveled slowly? Have you ever opted for the train instead of flying? Do you think slow travel is part of a sustainable lifestyle? Please share your experiences by clicking the “Leave a comment button below.

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Firebreaks

I wrote about wildfire and firebreaks back in March, in the meantime, there have been some new studies on the topics. Firebreaks, or fuel breaks, are gaps in forest, chaparral, or other wildlands that serve as barriers to spreading wildfires. The Forest Service creates firebreaks by clearing a wide path through trees and vegetation. Lacking anything to burn, fires will often stop at these breaks. I say often, because it also happens that winds can sometimes fan flames across the breaks. In 2003, during a San Diego wildfire, Santa Ana winds blew embers across ten lanes of highway to ignite fires. No firebreak will stop a fire in such conditions.

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Firebreaks are also used as passageways for firefighting equipment during fires. Some of the most crude fuel breaks I’ve seen, usually ones created long ago, are those in which the Forest Service simply bulldozed a swath of land through the forest and hoped for the best.

Firebreaks and invasives

Firebreaks help in fighting wildfire, but they are created and maintained at a cost. Walk along just about any firebreak anywhere, and you’ll see invasive species. Invasive plant species rely on disturbance, and firebreaks by definition disturb the natural landscape. In the western United States, cheatgrass (Brooms tectorum) and other nonnative grasses are among the most prevalent invaders. Around where I live, nonnative grasses and European mustard (Brassica nigra) most often invade firebreaks.

While firebreaks can stop or impede wildfire, by allowing the advancement of nonnative grasses and other annuals, they can, in an environmental Catch22, actually increase wildfire risk. Invasive grasses and other exotic annuals grow and bloom in spring, dying and drying out for the rest of the year. The dried-up remains become ready tinder for the smallest spark.

In a further feedback loop, nonnative grasses burn easily, increasing fire frequency. Fires can then burn so often that native shrubs and trees lack the time to grow to maturity and reproduce. More grass invades in a cycle called “type conversion,” until the landscape is transformed to nearly 100 percent exotic annual grasses.

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Why e-bikes rule

Folks have wanted good electric bikes for years and years. But it’s only since 2020 that they have really taken off in the U.S. Long ago, during a gas crunch, as I recall—this time during the mid- to late-eighties—people hit the streets with mopeds. These hybrids impressed me as not quite enough of anything. They lacked the lightness and agility of a bicycle, without the power of a motorcycle. Yet they required the maintenance of a motorbike: oil changes and stops at the gas station. They were noisy, too. Though a lot of folks advocated for them (“Just try one!” “They’re really big in Europe!”), their popularity followed other phenomena like Nehru jackets, quadrophonic sound systems, Betamax, and laser disks.

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E-bikes don’t have the maintenance requirements of internal combustion. They won’t spill oil or gasoline, so you can park them at your apartment, just as you do with a regular “acoustic” bike.

Cycling, even with the added motor and battery of an e-bike is one of the best transportation options for the environment. The resources, the steel, aluminum, rubber, and other material needed to manufacture a bicycle is only a fraction of the tons needed for a car. After a bicycle is assembled, pedaling it down the street or bike lane is almost carbon neutral. Factoring everything together, manufacturing and pedaling a bike, the carbon footprint of cycling comes to about 1.2 ounces of CO2 per mile.

That’s about ten percent of the carbon produced by driving.1 That’s lower than the CO2 you produce when you ride a bus. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s even lower than walking. E-bikes have twice the carbon footprint of an acoustic bike because they need to be recharged, but even so, that is far lower than driving.

Why I like my electric bike

My electric bike has enhanced my mobility. I’m reluctant to drive short distances for trivial things, like shopping for small items, picking up library books, or stopping at local cafes and restaurants. It doesn’t seem worth the effort of getting in the car and spewing exhaust, not to mention finding parking. I now run twice the number of these small errands with the new bike.

While I’ve always made some of these trips on my acoustic bike, particularly for round trips under ten miles, the electric bike has opened up more possibilities. Although it’s only a little over three miles away, going to Balboa Park, the large park in the city of San Diego, has always been difficult. Cyclists in my neighborhood face steep climbs coming and going. With the electric bike, I now make this trip frequently. The motor gets me up the steep hills easily. It’s the same with trips to other destinations—Old Town, Mission Valley, Mission Trails Regional Park—some of these offer more than one or two great climbs. They are now among my regular biking destinations.

One might think that adding a motor to help you cycle would make you lazy. But I’m getting more exercise with the e-bike because I just ride more now, more than I did with my regular bike. Subsequently, my overall health has improved. Some aches that I’ve had for decades aren’t as bad as they were a year ago. About four years ago, my blood sugar had risen to the prediabetic stage. A recent lab results indicated that my levels had lowered. I’ve also changed my diet, but I’m certain one reason for my better numbers is riding my new electric bicycle.

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Additionally, cycling requires alertness. Cyclists are always checking the roadway for broken glass or other obstacles, remaining cognizant of traffic, changing gears, maintaining balance, all while pedaling down the road. I know there is no way to measure this, but I’m certain that spending several hours a week in a more aware mental state on the bike has sharpened me up a bit. My memory seems better. I even remember people’s names at parties a lot better now.

As gas prices skyrocket, I’m also saving a little money with my bike. Besides gas money, I’m spending less on parking. All in all, I’ve probably saved about $300 over the last year. I would save a lot more—factoring in maintenance, car washes, insurance and other costs—if I completely replaced my car with my bike, but I’m not ready to do that. A recent study from Clean Cities Campaign and Solve The School Run found a family could save around $4,000 a year by replacing a second car with an electric cargo bike combined with increased use of public transportation.

New laws

As more people ride electric bicycles, the number of crashes has increased. Although most of these crashes are caused by cars and trucks striking cyclists, states and municipalities are addressing this safety concern by passing laws regulating e-bikes. In San Diego, the laws governing powered bicycles are pretty much the same as those that have governed bicycles for decades: stop at stop signs, obey other signs, and observe traffic signals.

While I’m in agreement with some age restrictions—for example, keeping young children off e-bikes, or speed limits on bike paths—some states are going over the top with electric bike legislation. Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, and West Virginia now require licensing and registration for e-bikes. New Jersey goes even further, requiring insurance. As most of these crashes are caused by drivers, I think city councils and state legislatures might better spend their efforts by making safer streets and cracking down on bad automobile driving.

Get an e-bike!

If you’re in reasonable health and live in an area where you can cycle safely, I highly encourage you to consider getting and riding an electric bike. Get the bike that’s right for you. If you have kids or plan to do lots of shopping with your bike, a cargo e-bike might be your best choice. Short commutes? A lower-powered, lighter commuter bike, one light enough to carry upstairs or lift onto a bus bike rack, would be a good choice. The Guardian just published a gear guide (it looks suspiciously like advertorial, but it still may be helpful) that could be a good starting point to pick up accessories you might need, such as a bike lock and rack.

One more bit of advice: pedal, pedal, pedal! Hey, you’re on a bike. It has two pedals. Use them. While the motor is helpful, you may as well get some exercise while you’re cycling. And every bit that you pedal saves electricity and saves your battery. My e-bike is estimated to get up to 70 miles per charge. I’ve been able to get well over 100 miles on a single charge simply because I pedal most of the time.

Please share your experiences with your bike, electric or acoustic. Do you ride a lot? Commute to work? Are you thinking of getting an e-bike? Just click the “Leave a comment” button and contribute to the conversation.

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Previous Green Dispatches on cycling and electric bikes:

We went one night to try the super-affordable, super-fast food. I don’t remember anything about what I ate that night. What I do remember were the bright yellow arches, the glowing neon that emanated from the shiny new building, and the tall poles with their big lights beaming down on the parking lot. My parents and other families were probably happy they could feed themselves and their kids for a couple bucks. What I remember most from that night is that McDonald’s was ILLUMINATED!

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McDonald’s no longer features glowing arches, but as much as humans like fast food, we like to light things up at night. And just like that McDonald’s on that long-ago Atlanta night, we light things up a lot. We light our suburban streets and front porches. We illuminate freeways and parking lots. All these lights help us get around after dark, and we feel safer when we turn on the lights. But these photons can spill over into the surrounding countryside and hillsides. This unwanted light is called light pollution.

Light pollution history

The first mention of light pollution I found was in a search of The New York Times historical database: an article on astronomers struggling with the increasing lights of Tucson in the early seventies.1 With advances in air conditioning enabling residents to live through the extreme heat of southern Arizona summers, the population of Tucson had mushroomed from 30,000 to 300,000. Federal housing policies also encouraged ownership of single-family homes, leading to urban sprawl. The bright lights of the big city were spreading to the countryside, in this case the Sonoran Desert.

The resulting bright lights made research difficult for the astronomers at several nearby observatories, including the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory and the Smithsonian’s Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, 47 miles south of Tucson in the Santa Rita mountains.

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Light pollution is often overlooked. Unlike other forms of pollution, it’s only around half the time, from dusk till dawn. And it’s not considered pollution by most folks. We’re attracted to the bright lights of our cities. For years and years after the astronomers in southern Arizona first complained of the bright lights of Tucson, light pollution was thought to affect only astronomers and star gazers.

More recent research has revealed that light pollution has broader ramifications, affecting animals and ecosystems.

What we now know

Even some of the darkest skies are being encroached by light pollution. Chili’s Atacama Desert has been prized by astronomers for its almost crystal-clear night sky and lack of clouds, averaging more than 300 clear nights per year. Astronomers there just fought—and won—a battle to keep an energy firm from developing a green-power project, yet concerns persist that they are fighting a losing battle.

The astronomers are aware that the forces of greater populations and commerce are not on their side. Nighttime is getting brighter the world over. Though researchers recently found that certain light pollution policies have brought about some dimming, notably in Europe, daily satellite data has shown that light pollution has worsened by 16 percent worldwide in the last eight years. Most of the lighting increased in Africa and Asia. The United States remains the brightest country; we have by far the highest total luminosity in the world, with China, India, Canada, and Brazil following. This study was published in the journal Nature in April.

One of the factors spreading lights into rural areas and the countryside is the proliferation of data centers. The National Wildlife Federation lists light pollution as one of the banes of the spread of data centers. Of the many complaints of Meta’s Stanton Springs data center in Georgia is the bright lights that illuminate the nearby forests and neighborhoods.

It’s more than astronomy

Plants

The effects of night lights on plants have been known to botanists for a long time. Back in 1936, scientists found that plants growing around night lights experienced changes in their physiology, affecting leaf development and the timing of when these plants dropped their leaves in fall.

Photosynthesis is a complex process, which plants complete in two phases, a daytime, sunlit phase, and a nighttime, dark phase. A study published in February of this year found that night light affects the dark phase of photosynthesis. With this part of the cycle disrupted, plants have a difficult time synthesizing the sugars on which they depend (and all other life depends on as well).

Insects

Just about anybody over the age of fifty will tell you that there were a lot more insects around a generation or so ago. Culprits in the decline include increased urbanization and the use of pesticides. Our night lights also play a part.

Fireflies use their bioluminescence to find their mates; nighttime lighting can confuse them. Mayflies can be confused by street lighting, which makes asphalt appear to be bodies of water. The befuddled flies lay their eggs on roads instead of in streams or lakes, which is extremely detrimental to these insects that live and breed for a single day.

In 2021, scientists found that street lighting diminished the number of moths and caterpillars compared to unlit places (47% reduction in hedgerows and 33% reduction in grass margins). Night lights also disrupted feeding behaviors of nocturnal caterpillars. LEDs are a climate change solution, as they save a lot energy, but this study found that streetlights using LEDs affect insects more than conventional sodium lamps.

Mammals

Lights have been found to disrupt circadian rhythms, alter predators’ foraging, and movements. Nocturnal mammals will avoid illuminated areas. This can keep them away from underpasses created for them to pass beneath freeways or cross other areas. The researchers involved in this study found, however, that badgers and other animals quickly resumed using underpasses after lighting was reduced or removed.

Lights can delay the emergence of bats from their roosts at dusk, when the insects they feed on are most abundant. Many species of bats avoid illuminated areas, as they expose the bats to predators. Some bats never leave their roosts because nighttime lighting can fool them into thinking it’s daytime all the time. In such cases, the bats may remain roosted and die of starvation.

Birds

Large cities with their lights are known to disrupt the migration of birds. To stay cool and save energy, many birds migrate at night. Normally guided by moonlight and starlight, stable markers in the night sky, bright, artificial lights can confuse birds. In New York City alone, an estimated quarter million migratory birds get confused, crash into buildings and windows, and die every year. The spread of lights through our highways and suburbs further complicates bird migration.

Good news

There are some hopeful developments for keeping the nighttime dark. Some municipalities are working at dimming their lights. Louisville, Kentucky, is taking noteworthy strides to help migratory birds and otherwise keep the night a little darker. The city’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, is spearheading a policy initiative to reduce unnecessary lighting, from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., during peak bird migration months, April and May in the spring, and September and October in the fall, as well as promoting a voluntary Lights Out Pledge for citizens and businesses.

The same team of scientists who found the world was getting 16 percent brighter found encouraging news as well. Due to municipal policies, such as installing streetlights that glow with a reddish hue, Europe now has dimmer nights. France in particular has seen a drop of 33 percent in nighttime illumination.

Are you aware of light pollution? Is your municipality doing anything to reduce nighttime lighting? Are you reducing the lights around your home? Please share your thoughts by clicking the “Leave a comment” button.

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The 99-year old film depicts a futuristic world dominated by machines and factories. Yet instead of bettering the lives of all, human society has split, with a well-off bourgeoisie society living lives of pleasure above ground and a subterranean society of workers doomed to dreary conformist drudgery.

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Lang was not alone in his critique of the modern world. Every Dickens novel is set against the industrial excesses of 19th century London. Sinclair Lewis’ The Jungle revealed the brutality of industrial slaughterhouses to such a degree it prompted federal reforms. Other critics can be added to this list, from Henry Miller to Kafka to Kurt Vonnegut and Dr. Seuss.

Critiques of industrialism include songs such as Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi.

While watching the movie, I couldn’t help thinking of the discussions we are having about AI and data centers.

Why are data centers proliferating now?

In the U.S., just over 150 gigawatts of new data center power are currently in the plans nationally, with Virginia, Texas, and Pennsylvania among the top states for data center development.

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In the past, the number of data centers and their electricity consumption had remained pretty stable. More and more people have been doing more and more things with computers and the internet, everything from buying dental floss to getting directions to sporting events. This increased use had been, until now, offset by gains in efficiency.

AI has supercharged our use of data and data centers. In the U.S., the power demand of data centers is projected to increase by about ten percent per year through 2030.

Data centers already use gigawatt upon gigawatt of electricity, with a typical data center using as much electricity as 100,000 American homes. The data centers currently being constructed in the U.S. and other parts of the world are projected to use 20 times as much electricity as those in operation now.

Even still, people don’t want them

If you want to find common ground among liberals, MAGA, and folks in between, mention data centers. People don’t want them. A Marquette poll published on Wednesday found that an overwhelming majority of folks, 69 percent, said the costs of data centers outweighed the benefits.

Opposition was voiced by 76 percent of Democrats, and 73 percent of independents. Even 62 percent of those identifying as GOP voiced opposition to the centers. And further bad news for the folks promoting AI and data centers: all those percentages had increased since a similar January poll.

Despite the promise of jobs and economic growth, people living in communities where data centers are planned or being built are voicing their concerns and downright opposition to their construction. Worries over water consumption and electricity use are usually the reasons folks say they don’t want data centers in their communities.

Municipalities in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida have said the it’s time to step on the data center brake. This week, Oklahoma City passed a moratorium on new data centers, enacting a temporary suspension on new zoning and development applications for them within city limits. There is even a call for a national ban on further data center construction.

The resistance to data centers is growing despite industry friendly coverage in the press that deemphasizes the environmental costs of the data giants.

Data centers: hot hot hot

Recent research indicates data centers may generate so much heat that they can raise the temperature of the surrounding environment. Temperatures around newly constructed data centers increased on average 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the months after commencing operations. The researchers also found this warming could be detected as far as six miles away from the data centers. In a few alarming instances data centers raised temperatures by more than 45 degrees! That can translate into warm summer temperatures even during cold winter days. The research team calls these local, warmed microclimate zones “data heat islands.”

To conduct their research, the scientists used surface temperature data gathered by satellite over the last 20 years. To ensure that temperatures were not affected by other human-caused factors, the team focused their study on data centers located away from cities or other densely populated areas. Cornell University sponsored this research.

With the proliferation of the centers combined with their extraordinary heat output, the researchers estimate that 340 million people worldwide may already be affected by the heat generated by these data centers.

Can all that heat be put to use?

This next report is out of Scandinavia, where they have good schools and comprehensive healthcare. Last month, in Espoo, Finland’s second largest city, a Nordic data center company, atNorth, started using waste heat from its FIN02 data center to warm a nearby retail operation. According to Kesko, the company that owns the retail outlet, the heat transfer is expected to reduce emissions by about 200 tons of CO2 annually. Similar projects are underway in Denmark, Iceland, and Canada.

Microsoft has also chosen Finland to spearhead a data center warming community project. Microsoft’s two new data centers will provide approximately 40 percent of the heat for the cities of Espoo and Kirkkonummi. It’s estimated that, annually, about 75 percent of the data centers' waste heat will be used for heating.

Their emissions aren’t going away, and they may get worse

I have previously written about the increased emissions that data centers are responsible for and the expectations for those emissions to increase. The Center For Biological Diversity predicts that by 2035, U.S. data centers will annually emit more than 350 million metric tons of CO2. This is approximately equal to the entire amount of emissions from Italy in 2023.

On Wednesday of this week, the featured story in Wired, the magazine that focuses on technology’s effects on society, looked at 11 data center projects in the U.S., which are being built to support large AI companies such as Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and xAI. Together, these 11 centers have the potential to emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases per year. That is more than some countries emit annually.

What do you think of data centers? Are they worth the costs? Or are there too many downsides? Can their environmental effects be offset through the use of renewables and channeling their excess heat to warm schools, businesses, and homes?

Previous Green Dispatches on AI and data centers:

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Aiyana used to manage the animal care department at the Living Coast Discovery Center, where I work as a horticulturist. Aiyana is a terrific person. It’s impossible to be in a bad mood when she’s around.

Her presentation concentrated on rail populations, where they have increased in number, where they have decreased, and why.

I attended Aiyana’s presentation, and one thing that I learned: the rails can have as many as four clutches in a mating season. Because rail chicks are precocious, feeding themselves from the day they are hatched, a rail couple doesn’t need to spend time raising and feeding their young. As soon as the chicks hatch, mom and dad are off to make another nest. As far as mom and dad are concerned, it’s clutch after clutch after clutch!

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The rails live in coastal marshes along the coast of California, from the San Francisco Bay south through Baja, Mexico. They are also found in similar habitats in the Sea of Cortez. Among the findings of Aiyana’s research, the larger the marshland the greater the population of rails. It seems this would be true on a common sense basis, but that’s not always the case with all animals. Some creatures freak out if given too much space. Further, her research showed that, more important than acreage of land, the quality of the habitat—the prevalence of flora on which the rails depend, such as pickleweed and cordgrass—is more important for supporting a large rail population.

Separated populations will often increase or decrease simultaneously. This is possibly due to the different population responding to similar conditions, such as drought. Aiyana found separate populations of rails, up and down the coast of California, increase or decrease independent of one another; populations in the south may increase while those in the north may decrease. There is one caveat to this finding: there are marshes around northern San Diego County and southern Orange County, that seem to increase and decrease at the same time.

There is more from Aiyana’s research, and I hope to present it here. In the meantime, I thought we could revisit a post about the rail from July of 2022.

The endangered Ridgway’s rail

The sky is a slate gray and there is a chill in the air, despite the calendar showing that it is well into June. I am driving into work, passing over the single-lane roadway that traverses the estuary and connects the island where I work with the mainland, when a bird about the size of a chicken and the color of a ripe peach rushes across the roadway. A moment later, another one of these birds follows, scurrying on his long, marsh-wading legs.

It’s a good thing that I was minding the 15 mph speed limit and avoided hitting these birds. They are Ridgway’s rails, and since 1970 they have been federally listed as Endangered.

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The Ridgway’s rail had been considered a subspecies (Rallus longirostris levipes) of the clapper rail, which is found along the coasts of the eastern U.S., the Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean islands. As a subspecies, they had been called the light-footed clapper rail, but since around 2014, when they were designated as a separate species, the bird is now called the Ridgway’s rail, with a new scientific name, too (Rallus obsoletes). They look a lot like clapper rails, and like clapper rails they make a distinctive kek, kek, kek call when they are mating or otherwise excited.

As they are shy and secretive, it is rare to see one, let alone two. I used to be a fairly active birder and visited the Tijuana estuary where there are a good number of rails, and it took several years of birding at that spot before I saw one in the marsh.

Ridgway’s rails live in coastal salt marshes and lagoons, making their nests in tall, dense stands of cordgrass or occasionally in dense pickleweed. On rare occasions, they have also been found in freshwater reeds. Tall grass allows the birds to hide, as they pull leaves and stems over their nests. Tall grasses also allow the nests to ride up and down on their stems, enabling the nests to float at high tide. The birds eat invertebrates, mussels and such, although they will eat a variety of other foods when their main foods are unavailable.1

One thing I tell folks about the Ridgway’s rail is that they were once quite common. As far back as 1889 in San Francisco, there were reports of sportsmen returning from hunts with as many as 200 rails. In five years time, however, by 1894, it was noted that the rails were becoming scarce. Despite this decline, nothing was done to protect the bird until the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1913 ended the hunting of the rail. Hunting still continued, albeit in a more restrictive and clandestine manner. By then, though, the crack of a shotgun was no longer the primary threat to this species. The encroachment of civilization posed a more serious threat.2

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By 1927 almost the entire northern section of San Francisco Bay, which had been habitat for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of rails, was bereft of the bird. Not one could be found. Dozens of other areas that had been known to be home to the bird had been turned into roads, farms, factories, and towns. The area that had been open, coastal wetlands was now known as the town of Hayward, which “throb[bed] with human life and activity.”3 Industrialization and urbanization plagued the coast of California farther south as well. Los Angeles and San Diego were on their way to becoming the second and eighth largest cities in the United States, respectively, and both urbanized their coastlines. It is uncertain exactly how much of southern California’s wetlands have been lost, but estimates vary from 75 to 95 percent.4 If all of our cars and shopping malls weren’t enough, the rails also fall victim to two introduced predators, the red fox and our domestic house cats.5

Ridgway’s rails are sedentary and not prone to move from marsh to marsh. Even over several years, a rail will not move her nesting site more than 400 yards from her first nest. In one study, 55 rails were observed over a three-year period. At the end of the observation, no rail had moved its nesting site more than 70 yards from where it was first sited.6

Below is a video of Ridgway rail chicks I was lucky enough to capture on a recent visit to the Tijuana Estuary.

Because they tend not to move around and because we have paved over so much of their habitat, rails in one marsh tend to stay in that marsh. These isolated populations will thus have little or no breeding with birds from outside their marsh, leading to what is known as genetic bottlenecking. Genetic bottlenecking is the equivalent of people marrying their cousins. Around 20 years ago, research indicated that rails were starting to suffer from this bottlenecking.7

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In 1998, the Living Coast Discovery Center (then known as the Chula Vista Nature Center), the zoo where I work, in partnership with SeaWorld San Diego, started a captive breeding program for the Ridgway’s rail.8 Rails from different marshes are brought into a breeding facility just west of the Discovery Center. Once chicks are old enough, they are released to the wild. Dozens and dozens of rails have been bred this way

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The breeding program can take some credit for the success of the rail. In 1980 an annual census of the Ridgway’s rail was initiated and sponsored by the California Department of Fish and Game.9 Based on these census records, the population of Ridgway’s rails has gone from a low of 163 nesting pairs in 1989 to a high of 646 nesting pairs in 2016. If this trend continues, the population of the rail may soon reach the target of 800 nesting pairs believed to be the level at which the bird can be self-sustaining.10

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The world is turning more and more to renewables for its electricity. In 2024, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that by the end of this decade, half of the world’s energy needs will be generated from renewable sources.

Much of that electricity is coming from and will come from wind turbines, with an ever-growing percentage of wind energy coming from offshore facilities. The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), in its 2025 Global Offshore Wind Report, stated there were 83 gigawatts of energy produced by offshore wind installations worldwide, supporting the power needs of 73 million households. And the potential for even more wind-generated power is growing. Currently, offshore wind facilities capable of generating 48 gigawatts of power are under construction.

It’s obviously easier to build windmills on dry land, but with no trees, mountains, or other obstacles, open waters can have higher winds than most terrestrial sites. According to the U.S. Energy Department, the generating potential of offshore wind turbines is about three times that of land-based turbines. Another reason for building windmills offshore: people can complain about wind facilities obstructing views or otherwise despoiling landscapes; if the windmills are off in the distance on the sea’s horizon, most folks don’t mind so much.

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The Danes were the first to generate power using offshore windmills, creating the world’s first installation in 1991. One of the most developed countries for offshore wind is the UK, which produces 16 gigawatts of power from its offshore windmills, with further construction predicted to provide 10.4 additional gigawatts. Other countries pursuing large-scale offshore wind facilities are Australia, Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, Poland, South Korea, and Vietnam. The first power from what will be the largest offshore wind facility in the U.S. started flowing at the end of May. The 2.6 gigawatt Dominion Energy Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind facility, 28 miles off Virginia Beach, is about 70 percent complete.

There is a fair amount of research on the environmental effects of wind generation on land, particularly regarding windmills killing bats and birds. However, we do not fully understand the environmental ramifications of building wind generation off our coasts. It may be easy to assume windmills at sea would pose little threat to bats and birds, but these creatures can fly far from shore and traverse open waters during migration. We need to understand these hazards when developing and operating offshore wind generation sites. Unfortunately, funding for these kind of studies is jeopardized by the Trump administration.

The Trump administration does not want offshore wind

The GWEC pointed out the U.S. is a peculiar outlier in offshore wind development. Indeed, while poking around on the internet, I found that we are seriously lagging, as the Trump administration slashes funding, curtails research, and closes departments involved in renewable energy and sustainability. Trump and his cronies are dismantling and discouraging offshore wind development despite current data suggesting more than 4,000 gigawatts could be harvested off the coasts of the continental United States and Great Lakes.

In a move that seems perverse, in August, the Trump administration halted

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On Tuesday of this week, the Endangered Species Committee did what we all assumed it would do: end Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for 20 species living in the Gulf of Mexico. Knowing the workings of this administration, we could have guessed that ending ESA protections was a foregone conclusion. (For background on the Committee’s intended purpose and current malfeasance, see last week’s Green Dispatch.)

But there is reason for hope. A coalition of environmental groups has already filed a lawsuit to invalidate the Committee’s actions.

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The lawsuit claims the rationale for waiving ESA protections—this administration’s assertion that there is a conflict between extraction activities and protecting endangered species—is a fiction. The plaintiffs point out that extraction in the gulf is at record levels, even with ESA protections in place. The lawsuit states further, “the Committee’s sweeping Exemption is arbitrary and capricious and contrary to and in excess of authority under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and its implementing regulations.”

The lawsuit alleges the exemption from the ESA is based entirely on an arbitrary National Security Finding from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In the Finding, Hegseth claimed that some future ruling based on the ESA could possibly halt oil and gas production in the gulf. Additionally, the lawsuit says Hegseth’s claim of a “threat” to national security is unspecified and unrealized. Basically, the plaintiffs are saying Hegseth is making stuff up.

The coalition comprises the Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club, Healthy Gulf, and the Turtle Island Restoration Network. In filing the lawsuit, Healthy Gulf Executive Director Martha Collins had this to say: “The Extinction Committee’s vote to absolve oil and gas companies from adhering to the Endangered Species Act is an unprecedented act that will have disastrous consequences for the Gulf. Communities want greater protections for Gulf species, and this is a clear attempt by the Trump administration to silence those voices.”

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This is heartening news. And while we’re on the topic, I just want to say how much I appreciate all the support folks showed last week when I wrote about the impending meeting of the Committee. Many of you shared the post, and many of you wrote letters. The Committee ignored what we had to say, but our efforts were not in vain. In writing to Doug Burgum and others on the Endangered Species Committee, we formed a corpus of documentation. When judges make their decisions, they take this kind of documentation seriously.

There is further reason for hope. The courts have been reining in Trump and his administration left and right. A federal judge found the building of Trump’s ballroom to be illegal and blocked its construction. Citing First Amendment rights, another judge found Trump’s Executive Order defunding of PBS and NPR to be “unlawful and unenforceable.”

And important to the environment, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center For Biological Diversity, on Tuesday, a court overturned four key provisions from Trump’s previous administration (and retained by the Biden administration) that weakened the Endangered Species Act.

These rulings bode well for our efforts to protect the creatures living in the Gulf of Mexico. The meeting of “the God Squad” was blatantly illegal, and I have a great deal of confidence that our judicial system will reverse the decision of the gas and oil industry sycophants in the Trump administration.

The press

In last week’s post, I was highly critical of the limited press coverage of this issue. There was little news of the Endangered Species Committee when its convening was announced last month. On Tuesday, however, the meeting and its results were all over the internet. It seems as though every major news publication had a story on the meeting.

Maybe this is the way news is published today. But it is inadequate. To be properly informed, for folks to have a chance to have some input on a topic, to write comment letters and contact their representatives, we need to know of these meetings and conferences beforehand. There should have been a lot more coverage. This lawsuit seeking to reverse the Committee’s decision is also receiving very little press coverage.

I searched through Fox News on Wednesday, and found no mention of the meeting or its results. I was a little surprised. I would have expected the mouthpiece of MAGA to publish a piece on the meeting, but casting the news as a victory for Trump and taking a credulous stance on Hegseth and his erroneous Finding. But by being quiet on the activities of this Committee, Fox is keeping their viewers uninformed, which they need to do to maintain support for Trump and this administration. The network has a history of bad practices, and social scientists have found Fox viewers to be misinformed and given to hyper-partisanship

Keep going!

I know these are trying times. Trump and his administration are wielding axes to over 100 years of American conservation and environmentalism and doing the same to 250 years of our striving for a more democratic and more perfect union. But we can be encouraged by these recent court decisions. And there is hope for our country. This week, philosopher and fascism expert Jason Stanley wrote on the effectiveness of the No Kings marches. Professor of history and political commentator Heather Cox Richardson often shares glimmers of hope as she comments on and critiques the current administration.

We must keep marching, keep writing letters, and keep making comments, and we will win. Our country will win. Endangered species will continue to have a fighting chance.

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Previous Green Dispatches about endangered species:

According to a NOAA webpage, 20 species in the Gulf of Mexico are listed as Threatened or Endangered. Among the listed are the green sea turtle, five species of coral, sperm whales, and the Rice’s whale.

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Of particular concern to conservationists is the plight of the Rice’s whale, a baleen whale that makes its home in the Gulf of Mexico and nowhere else. A 2016 survey counted fewer than 100 individuals of this species; more recent surveys put the whale’s numbers at around 50.

According to NOAA, this leviathan that can reach a length of 41 feet and weigh as much as 60,000 pounds is threatened by vessel strikes, oil spills and other pollutants, including lingering effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and ingestion of and entanglement in marine debris and fishing gear. They are also plagued by noise from vessels and energy exploration, as well as the effects of climate change.

Under the auspices of NOAA, a “vessel slowdown zone” to protect Rice’s whales from vessel strikes and noise pollution has been proposed, along with a year-round 10-knot vessel speed restriction in waters from 300 to 1,200 feet deep along northwestern Florida. Vessel transits would also be prohibited in the slowdown zone at night, when Rice’s whales swim more frequently near the surface.

A meeting of this Endangered Species Committee—or as it is sometimes called “the God Squad” or Extinction Committee—could ensure that the above recommendations never see the light of day.

The committee was created by an act of Congress and added to the Endangered Species Act soon after the hallmark environmental legislation was enacted in 19731 Before the formation of the committee, only Congress could permit the extinction of a species previously protected by the ESA.

Congress established the committee to have six members: The Agriculture Secretary, Interior Secretary, Army Secretary, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, and the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Previous administrations have been reluctant to use the committee. The last time it was convened was in 1991. But Donald Trump fully activated the committee on the first day of reentering office in 2025. Section Six of his Declaring a National Energy Emergency Executive Order states:

In acting as Chairman of the Endangered Species Act Committee, the Secretary of the Interior shall convene the Endangered Species Act Committee not less than quarterly, unless otherwise required by law, to review and consider any lawful applications submitted by an agency, the Governor of a State, or any applicant for a permit or license who submits for exemption from obligations imposed by Section 7 of the ESA. (bold mine)

Yes, that’s right, a rarely used committee, one empowered to kill off species, is required to convene quarterly under the Trump administration. By law, this committee is supposed to meet only under rare and pressing circumstances. It can meet only within 90 days of the completion of a Biological Opinion, a scientific document determining if a federal action is likely to jeopardize the existence of a listed species. The opinion needs to reach the conclusion that there are no reasonable alternatives for saving a species.

The Interior Secretary must also determine that, by requesting a convening of the committee, applicants seeking a waiver of the ESA have acted in good faith and completed required assessments. None of these conditions has been met for this committee meeting. Additionally, the meeting is supposed to be open to the public, but the Trump administrations is bypassing this requirement by planning on live streaming the meeting.

The Center For Biological Diversity is offering a portal to help folks send comments to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. I highly encourage you to voice your opposition to their efforts. Click that link and send a message. Use the template letter as just that, a template. Original letters have a lot more weight than repeated form letters. The Center also filed a lawsuit to stop the committee meeting.

The press

I mostly concentrate on new science in conservation or climate change, but it’s also my intention that The Green Dispatch should inform in cases where the regular press is not following a story. It’s true that the New York Times published an article on the 16th of this month on the topic. But I’ve not seen it in other major newspapers, such as USA Today, Washington Post, or even prominent regional papers, in particular the gulf states for which there may be ramifications of the action, Houston Chronicle, Tampa Bay Times.

The story is absent from TV and radio. It’s not on NPR, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, etc. My searches used Duck Duck Go and Proquest. Yesterday, as I was finishing up this story, I found it in the Washington Examiner and Bloomberg.

Admittedly, there are big stories competing for pixels and screen time. Donald Trump is making war on Iran, Israel continues its war on its neighbors, Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, and there are the Epstein Files. Even still, this meeting could mean the extinction of several gulf species, with further deleterious effects on the environment of the gulf and its coasts and estuaries.

The story is absent from TV and radio. It’s not on NPR, CNN, ABC, or MSNBC. This meeting should get a lot more press coverage from major news sources. Admittedly, there are big stories competing for pixels and screen time. Donald Trump is making war on Iran, Israel continues warring against its neighbors, Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, and there are the Epstein Files. Even still, this meeting could mean the extinction of several species in the Gulf of Mexico, with further deleterious effects on the environment of the gulf, its coasts, and its estuaries.

I learned about the committee’s meeting because I check the Center For Biological Diversity’s website almost daily. I also read about it in More Than Just Parks, a must-read Substack for environmentally conscious folks written by the Pattiz brothers.

Before you finish reading and click “like” at the end of this post, I want to encourage you again to write to Secretary Burgum. We have to let him and the rest of the committee know this meeting is not good and certainly not legal. If Burgum and the rest of the committee are able to blithely remove protections for species, then the Endangered Species Act will be toothless. People involved in big business as well as right-wing zealots have wanted to repeal the Endangered Species Act for decades. With this proposed meeting, and others like it to follow, these folks will get their wish. The ESA will remain on the books, remain part of federal law, and it will be as good as gone.

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All forests and wildlands burn at some time. Usually sparked by lighting, fire is a natural part of ecological cycles. Forests in the western part of the United States have historically experienced small ground fires as frequently as every seven years or so. When I was growing up in Appalachia, I had assumed that the forests there burned infrequently, but that was the result of Smokey Bear and his fire-prevention campaign. Recent research indicates that throughout the eastern portion of the United States, before modern fire suppression, there were more frequent fires that occurred every few years. Fires had been especially common and extended over large expanses of oak and pine forests, most notably in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In the last few months, there have been new publications highlighting recent discoveries about fire. Following are summaries and explanations of the science.

Do firebreaks bring more harm than good?

If you’ve hiked through forests or other wildlands, you’ve probably come across firebreaks: wide, cleared swaths that snake their way through trees or scrublands. These are intended to stop the advance of fires. Firefighting crews also use them for access to forest interiors to bring in firefighting equipment.

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They may seem benign, but firebreaks come at a cost. They fragment habitat, with some species reluctant or even refusing to venture across them. Recently, researchers in southern Spain found butterflies that would not fly across firebreaks.

Firebreaks give invasive species routes to colonize into wildlands. Hiking around Southern California, I’ve seen European thistle, invasive mustard, and other exotic species growing in firebreaks. And from the firebreaks, the invasive spread to other areas of the wildlands. In a Catch-22 scenario, invasive grasses and forbs have entered sagebrush habitat by way of firebreaks. These nonnatives are annuals that die and dry up during the summer months, thus increasing fire risk throughout the entire biome. In these cases, firebreaks actually increase fire risk.

When the wind picks up, firebreaks can be useless. In Southern California in 2003, when Santa Ana winds brought humidity down to single digits and gales reached over 50 miles an hour, the winds carried firebrands across ten lanes of the 15 freeway and started fires on the other side of the highway.

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I often run across a firebreak that was cut through a forest several years ago but hasn’t been maintained; vegetation has regrown all around, defeating its purpose. Recent research finds that fire breaks can be effective , but they must be strategically placed and well-maintained.

Roads bring fires

I recently wrote about the dubious practice of roadbuilding through wilderness. A paper published in January found that besides bringing humans, automobiles, and trash into forests, forest roads bring fire.

Using fire data records from 1992 through 2024, and examining all eight U.S. Forest Service regions across the contiguous 48 states, researchers with the Wilderness Society found roadless forests had the lowest incidence of fire, less than two fires per 1,000 hectares. Conversely, wildlands that had roads cut through them or were close to forest roads had nearly eight fires per 1,000 hectares. Essentially, the farther from a road, the less likely there was to be a fire. One caveat: the farther from roads, the bigger the fire.

Roads bring fire. Do The Doors bring fire, too?

Climate change taxes firefighters worldwide

Longer fire seasons in Chile and Argentina have led to massive blazes destroying forests and towns. In Southern California, the Palisades Fire spread over 24,000 acres and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in January 2025. So Cal locals will tell you wildfires had been unknown in this region in January. This story is repeated all over the world, from Pakistan to France to Southeast Asia. Climate change is extending wildfire seasons all over the world.

A new paper, published in Science Advances in February, points out that these extended fire seasons are taxing fire response. Traditionally, with wildfire season occurring at different times of the year in different parts of the world, states and countries could share firefighting resources. Argentines could help quell fires in California in October, and California could return the favor in January. This kind of coordination was used across continents. Climate change has now put that cooperation and coordination under intense strain. To find out more about this, check out articles in the New York Times, as well as Phys.org.

Have you worked as a firefighter? Have you ever had to evacuate your home due to a wildfire? What do you think of climate change further taxing our firefighting capabilities? Is there a solution? Please let us know what you think by clicking the “Leave a comment” button below.

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Previous Green Dispatches about wildfire:

News items and scientific papers on mangroves have caught my eye in the last few months.

First, what are mangroves?

Mangroves are trees, and just as there are different species of pines or oaks, there are different species of mangroves, around 70 of them. The term “mangrove” can refer to an individual tree or a forest of trees.

They grow in brackish waters of coastal lagoons, bays, deltas, and estuaries and are characterized by the ramifying arial roots that extend above the waterline. Mangroves like it where it is warm, the tropics and subtropics. The historic range of mangroves includes the East Indies and the northern shores of Australia. They grow along the coastal regions of Africa as well.

In the Western Hemisphere, their environments include the West Indies, Central America, and South America. In the United States, mangroves occur along the coasts of Florida and the Gulf states of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

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If you took all the mangroves and put them in one place, their collective area would be around 57,000 square miles, an area a little larger than the state of Louisiana. Although they constitute only five percent of the world’s forests, a lot of mammals, reptiles, and birds breed in mangroves. Each mangrove forest is usually dominated by one or two mangrove species; this led a lot of folks to conclude that mangrove forests were not biodiverse in other ways. But researchers found that they hold an immense number of insect species.

Mangroves in Florida

Just this week, in Broward County, in heavily populated southern Florida, The Broward County Commission nixed a proposal that would have allowed a property owner to build warehouses on and near a protected mangrove forest.

Building the warehouses would have required suspending local environmental laws that protect the mangroves east of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

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We have constant reminders of how we are heating the globe, with major news stories of global heating’s effects being major newspapers’ prominent stories almost daily. Two days ago, the Boston Herald ran a story of climate-related disruption to fishermen in Greenland. One of this morning’s headlines in The Guardian screamed “Humanity heating planet faster than ever before.”

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And yet there seems to be little or no public will to lower emissions. Climate change was not a major issue for voters in the 2024 election. Since entering office, Donald Trump, with a GOP-controlled Congress, has dismantled major climate legislation, all with little outcry from the American pubic.

Enter climate action, stage left

Actors, scientists, and improv performers believe that they can make a difference, that they can get people talking about climate change, and that theater and improv can get people motivated to cool our planet.

A study published last month in the Journal of Science Communication analyzed audience and performer responses to improvised shows themed around nature, climate change, and local action. Titled We Built This City on Rock and Coal, the shows were performed throughout communities in Ireland. The performers in the shows included veteran improvisers as well as climate scientists who were trained in improv.

Two veterans of science-related improve theater, Jessamyn Fairfield and Katy Schutte, developed We Built This City on Rock and Coal to gauge the effectiveness of improv theater to explore reactions to the climate crisis. They also wanted to see if theater can prompt audience and performers into climate action. Both Fairfield and Schutte had taken part in a science and art residency, which is focused on engagement with the climate crisis.

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Through survey questionnaires of both audience and performers, researchers found the show did not seem to increase the number of people worried about climate change or increase the worry of those that did worry about climate change. There was, however, an increase for both audience and performers, from 46 to 61 percent, who felt more confident talking to friends and family about climate change. After the full tour, the number of performers feeling confident in taking action on global heating more than doubled, rising from 40 to 89 percent.

The whole world is a stage, and that stage is getting warmer

Similarly hoping to inspire people to take action, Climate Change Theatre Action (CCTA) coincides their performances with the United Nations’ COP meetings. Every two years, this worldwide festival commissions 50 professional playwrights from all over the world to write extremely short (five-minute) plays about some aspect of the climate crisis.

Unifying the festival, all the plays are based on a single prompt for each two-year cycle. Last year’s prompt was “The Time is Now.”

Once the five-minute plays are completed and compiled, CCTA then encourages community organizers to present events using the material created by the playwrights. CCTA goes on to explain, “To emphasize the “Action” part of Climate Change Theatre Action, organizers are also urged to think about an action—educational, social, political, or civic—that can be incorporated into their event. It may involve the scientific community, other departments within a university, or local environmental organizations. Examples of actions from previous years include: presentations by scientists, donations to hurricane relief efforts and food banks, conversations with social justice and environmental organizations, writing letters to legislators, and sharing tools for sustainability at the local level.”

Children’s theater

Using theater to communicate ideas about the climate crisis and other environmental issues motivated Anika Larsen to write The Pocket Park Kids, a play that depicts young people debating and strategizing on how best to save a beloved park from destruction, all with the help of a friendly parakeet.

Larsen, who was nominated for a Tony for her role in “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” sees theater as being a particularly useful medium to help children, and even adults, to deal with tough topics without dwelling in despair. In July of last year, she told Caroline Preston at the Hechinger Report, “Artists have always been at the forefront of every movement because we’re able to talk about things in ways that are uplifting and activating and inspiring, as opposed to demoralizing and begetting feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.” Of climate change, she added, “None of us really want to hear about it. It feels too overwhelming, it feels too scary.”

Would you see a play about climate change?

The current thinking is that showing people charts of increasing CO2, higher and higher temperatures, and coastal flooding does not inspire people to take action. This approach to climate information and education is often derided as a “doom and gloom,” with some even saying it leads to inaction, as folks conclude any action they take will be for naught. Is it better to give people a venue where they can learn while they laugh or have an emotional response? Is it better to give them a story instead of facts and figures?

Do you think theater a good way to motivate people? Science is complicated and difficult to explain sometimes. And its self-correcting nature makes it an easy target to sow confusion, as has been pointed out by Naomi Oreskes in Merchants of Doubt. Can theater overcome these obstacles? What other art forms would you suggest for conveying the importance of climate change and motivating people to action? Movies? Music? Television?

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Previous Green Dispatches on the arts and the environment: