Environmental_Science

Did You Have Breakfast Today?

I usually don’t carry the title of an article I read into the title of my blog post, but this one was so right-on I had to use it. Did you have breakfast today? This is not a question of dietary management; it has to do with the health of our global populations.

The question brings a focus to whether in our warming climate our global food supply will be able to continue to provide the people of Earth with the food/calories they need in their daily lives. An article at the website “The Cool Down” (TCD) addresses this question and may be found at, New data uncovers dire situation about global food production: ‘Like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast’. The article discusses the findings of a recent study on issues of food production on our planet Earth where the global temperatures – and the global population – are both rising. As crop-lands fail under the pressure of global warming, food production will fall. It will be as the title states in part, “Like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast.”

I have written blog posts about the reality of global warming several times and have sent letters to recent presidents about whether we are planning for a climate that is not in-tune with our current world view. There is a high probability of disastrous events in our future if we do not make significant changes in how we address global warming. We need a plan for adaptations that will address regional changes in climate and the ability to successfully raise crops.

I believe we have a global food crisis brewing, and we need to act now to prepare for it. The signs of the crisis have been seen for several decades, but the ‘leaders’ of the world are slow to recognize it or to work to find global solutions. To help understand the root of global warming and the coming crisis, I have written several times about the Keeling Curve in past blog posts – as well as in letters to the White House. My past blogs that speak to the Keeling Curve can be read in; “CO2 – the Keeling Curve,” February 15, 2019; “Sweeping the Sky,” September 27, 2019; and “Open Letter to ‘Climate Change Activists’ who Disfigure Public Art,” September 7, 2024.

Briefly, the Keeling Curve is based on the work of Dr. Charles D. Keeling. In 1956 Dr. Keeling began a program to measure atmospheric gases, including Carbon Dioxide (CO2), at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. As these observations are plotted over time, they show an increasing level of CO2 with each passing year. The graph below, known as the Keeling Curve, shows this increase over time. Please note the rise following the Industrial Revolution and the dramatic increase following World War II. If you wonder about the saw-toothed edge of the curve, that is an indication of the rise in CO2 in the winter months when the leaves are off the trees and are not converting CO2 into Oxygen (O2). The downward slope of each “tooth” indicates the activity of the trees and other plants in the growing seasons of spring and summer as they remove CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into O2. The curve shows that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increases – goes every upward – with each passing year. The more CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere, the more global warming increases through a “greenhouse effect.”.

Using ice core data to establish the historical concentrations of atmospheric gases in the years and centuries before Keeling’s work, the curve can be extended back in time – in this instance back to before the Industrial Revolution.

These studies indicate without a doubt that the generation of CO2 gas – especially by burning coal to support and drive the industrial revolution – and its release into the atmosphere has had a terrific effect on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 as well as other gases such as methane have caused the atmosphere to block heat capture from the Sun from being able to be reflected out into space and escaping from the Earth’s atmosphere. This inability for heat to escape into space causes a continual heating of the planet.

The CO2 and other gases are known a “greenhouse gases,” because they create a “greenhouse Earth” affect. It is like living in a glass-walled and glass-roofed greenhouse in which the heat of the Sun is captured and cannot escape. The purpose of a greenhouse is to maintain a warm environment inside the greenhouse which allows plants to survive and grow when it is too cold for them outside. But our “greenhouse Earth” benefit growth of crops for our hungry and growing population.

Ocean warming is also driven by the increase of atmospheric CO2 which drives increasing global temperatures. As we all know as the temperature of water rises, so does the evaporation rate from the water’s surface. This increase in evaporation increases the amount of moisture in the atmosphere which in turn retains more heat/unstable air which aids the generation of more and larger storms over the ocean.

The effect of our warming oceans also brings a rise in sea level since as the ocean’s are heated, the water of the oceans expands. This causes a rise in the sea-level which is evident along ocean beaches and marshes as well as in coastal ports and coastal rivers.

The salt water of the oceans and bays not only rises vertically in elevation but it also pushes out horizontally from the shallow near-shore ocean basin and pushes its way into coastal regions, where the salt water mingles with and displaces the coastal ground water.

Where you see the ‘ghost forests” of dead trees behind the beach the intrusion of saltwater is often the cause. A brief article on the concern about ghost forests may be found at Ghost forests haunt Atlantic Coast | US Forest Service.

In addition to this intrusion, coastal water tables – and many other water tables throughout the United States – are being sucked down by deep wells for agriculture, industry, and homes, all of which extract the ancient fresh ground-water. As the water tables are being drawn down by these wells, the wells have to be forced deeper sucking out more and more of the ancient waters. In areas where the surface of the Earth is no longer well supported as the groundwater is drawn further and further down, the surface layers shrink in elevation as the surface relaxes and compresses. A recent article on what is happening in the cradle of agriculture and civilization in the south of Turkey indicates that without the support of groundwater massive sinks holes can erupt in the landscape, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/28/i-live-in-constant-fear-surge-in-giant-sinkholes-threatens-turkeys-farmers

There is also an opposite effect as the Earth slowly rebounds upwards. This has been happening since the last great ice age. When the vast ice sheets and miles thick glaciers melted away and their terrific weight was removed from the Earth’s surface, the elasticity of the Earth’s crust allows it to slowly rise as it readjusts to the missing weight.

All these interacting systems and events determine where and how fast the relationship of the water’s surface and the land (farms and people’s homes) are impacted by the rising sea-level that is brought on by global warming.

The general warming of Earth encourages spring to come earlier in some areas. There may be more rain – or less rain – in certain areas. This in turn changes the growing season of crops.

An example of the issues for a species in a time of climate change can be seen in the case of a lack of abundance of caterpillars for Pied Flycatchers in southern Britian during the bird’s nesting season. A brief article may be found at Hungry birds as climate change drives food ‘mismatch’ | ScienceDaily.

As spring comes earlier under the influence of climate change/global warming “leaves and caterpillars emerge earlier.” However, the Pied Flycatcher is a migratory bird and does not arrive to their nesting and breeding sites until the new spring is well underway. This is a “mis-match” between the emergence of the caterpillars which are a main source of food for the hatchlings. The change disrupts the pattern of mating and raising of new broods of young flycatchers. In order to continue their current cycle (is it millennia old?) the flycatchers will need to evolve and change their migratory and breeding patterns and return to their breeding area sooner in order to be able to find the large quantities of caterpillars they need to feed their young. The article quotes Dr. Karl Evans of the University of Sheffield; “Our work suggests that as springs warm [earlier] in the future less food is likely to be available for the chicks of insectivorous woodland birds unless evolution changes their timing of breeding.”

At the beginning of this blog post I mentioned an article on crop production which is the impetus of this post. This “The Cool Down” article addressed a recent study on the ability to cultivate six different grain crops raised in many locations around the world. The article also takes into account the adaptations to deter the impacts of global warming which are being used by farmers around the world.

The study was prepared by The Climate Impact Lab at the University of Chicago and published in Nature in June 2025. It is ‘open-access’ article and may be found online at, Impacts of climate change on global agriculture accounting for adaptation | Nature.

The study presents a picture of what could happen to the world’s ability to produce adequate agriculture to feed the 10 billion people (an increase of 2 billion from today) expected to live on Earth by the turn of the century. An interesting article on world population growth by the Pew Research Center can be found at 5 facts about how the world’s population is expected to change by 2100 | Pew Research Center.

Back to the question at the beginning of this blog post; Did you have breakfast today? This can be extended to a question of ability. Were you able to find breakfast today?

As the Earth continues to warm, just as there is an impact on the food for the Pied Flycatcher, there will be an impact on the ability of humanity to feed itself. Throughout the rest of this century the impact of global warming will cause growing-regions for the six studied food staples to move further and further toward the poles.

The study indicates that by the year 2100 the current fertile growing-regions in the middle of North America will likely have lost nearly 30 to 40% of their ability to produce crops. These growing areas will no longer be able to support the bountiful harvest they do today. The areas which will gain a stronger ability for wheat will migrate further north into the Tibetan Plateau, Northeast China, Mongolia, and Scandinavia – as well as the southern tip of South America.. The map of wheat production presented with the study provides a good example.

The study not only considers the factor of climate change but it also includes factors related to adaptation by farmers and their states and nations to maintain sufficient crop yield under global warming. But this is not equal across the Earth. Richer countries and populations can afford the research and development for ways to maintain – or even improve – crop yield.

But there is a bit of the flip-side as well. The breadbasket of North America has been fertile with sufficient water and a good growing season – so the states and countries and the framers have not been forced to seek or implement adaptations for climate change. The study presented in the Nature article presents a case where lack of preparation for adaptations lead to significant crop failure by the end of this century.

Finding and implementing adaptations to climate change will depend on the position of the government of those countries and whether they understand the coming change. If the presented prediction holds true, the breadbasket of North America will no longer produce the bumper crops that feed the world. High production areas will have shifted to other countries.

Yes, it is like the grasshopper and the ants. Sometimes the ants take pity on the grasshopper – and sometimes they do not.

I am not asking you to believe that the global warming road on which we find ourselves is human caused (I believe it is) – but I am asking you to understand that since the industrial revolution Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels have been increasing. CO2 and other “greenhouse gases’ are trapping heat that would otherwise have been reflected off the earth and into space, and so the Earth – our home – where we get all our food – is warming and is changing our ability to grow crops as we have for thousands of years. This warming is happening right now and will continue to increase. We must ask ourselves what does this ongoing and increasing change do to the food supply for all the world’s people?

Then we must act.

UPDATE II – Neoliner Origin

This picture from a webcam at the Baltimore, Maryland harbor shows Neoliner Origin being welcomed and led into port by the seagulls. The seagulls are shown in the yellow circles. Others have disappeared behind the ship.

This article is an UPDATE to two previous articless having to do with using wind power on modern ocean-going cargo ships. The first article was posted on October 1, 2018 (Cylindrical Sails) and a First UPDATE to that article was posted September 18, 2020 (UPDate – Sails from Sweden).

The discussion in this Second UPDate article celebrates the arrival of a wind powered “Roll On – Roll Off” (Ro-Ro) vessel that arrived in the Port of Baltimore on 30 October 2025.

In line with the concept of an UPDate, a future discussion of the cylindrical sail concept may be found on The Maritime Page that may be found at https://maritimepage.com/rotor-sails-on-ships/. As discussed in that article the concept of cylindrical and rotating sails has been around since 1920. The concept continues to be studied and numerous ships have been fitted with cylindrical sails in the past two decades.

Regarding the sails being developed by Swedish company Wallenius Marine and Danish company KNUD E. HANSEN in the First UPDATE, they are reinforcing their position in sustainable shipping with the development of the Sleipner RoRo. The Sleipner RoRo may be fitted with “wing sails,” which are rigid aerodynamic sails.

This Second UPDate could have been written as a stand-alone article on the maiden transatlantic voyage of the Neoliner Origin, but I feel it is an UPDate to the original article regarding the concept of wind power for ocean-going cargo vessels.

The Neoliner Origin is a 5,300-ton sailing roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) cargo ship especially fitted for carrying cars. It was commissioned by Neoliner, a French company and was designed by the French naval architecture firm, MAURIC. It is a medium-sized ocean going vessel, and is discussed by M. Jean Zannotini, the CEO of Neoliner in an interview which may be found at https://youtu.be/dUdaBnJ58jI . The interview also contains a description of the vessel and its purpose in combating global-warming which is driving climate change. The design of the Neoliner Origin reduces the emissions of it transatlantic voyage by 80% to 90% from a typical voyage for delivery of cars and machinery. Ocean shipping moves the vast majority of goods manufactured from the country of origin to markets around the world. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) ocean shipping is responsible for 3% of the global greenhouse gas emissions.

Neoliner Origin’s propulsion is provided by two sets of sails mounted on two 90-meter (295 feet) masts. There is 3,000 square meters (more than 32,000 square feet) of total sail area. The ship’s speed under sail is 16 knots (more than 18 miles per hour). A ‘knot’ is the nautical term (nautical mile per hour) for the speed of a vessel. A knot is approximately equivalent to 1.2 miles per hour. It is noted that ocean cargo ships have an average speed of 18-20 knots.

The masts can be lowered/tilted (with sails furled as pictured in video) to less than half their height to enable the ship to pass under bridges as it enters and leaves ports. While in port the ship uses a diesel-electric hybrid propulsion system for maneuvering. This same diesel-electric hybrid system may be used if the sails are damaged during crossings. This was the case on the Neoliner Origin’s maiden voyage to North America and Baltimore as a storm at sea damaged the aft sails.

The following websites were visited and were utilized in the development of this article.

The picture used in this article may be found at https://youtu.be/7emUPVzVBTE; it is a screen-shot at approximately 1:15 minutes into the video. The video was taken/provided by StreamTimeLIVE.

WHALE FALLEN

My Posting:

I enjoy writing my posts for Stone Fig which most often relate to the time I have spent outside in the woods and hiking mountain trails and desert paths. Some posts are based on an article I have read – usually with some additional research. For those articles I always give a citation of sorts and if possible a weblink if anyone wants to read further.

For this post, Whale Fallen, I have decided to copy the text of a New York Times article. I do this because I think it is a wonderful article, and of course I give the New York Times and its writers credit for their work.

If the New York Times or any of its staff are offended, I apologize and hope they will forgive me. I do not gain any monetary value from using their work – but I do gain positive value in knowing I am sharing a moving article about life in the oceans with my readers. The article is well-written and concerns a gray whale calf, one of the gentle giants of the great deep.

Many of the comments to the article deal with how sad some readers felt at the death of the grey whale calf. They wrote of its loneliness as it searched for its mother. They wrote of the likely frantic search by its mother when she became separated from her calf. Other commentors spoke to “the circle of life.” I believe “Joe” of Tucson, Arizona captured all of the comments in saying, “You were not really alone little giant- we are all connected and I hope you found some sense of peace and love in your final surrendering to nature and we will join you soon.”

I hope my readers enjoy reading the article as much as I did. It is not just the water we see when we look at the ocean; it is the myriad lives and stories that are taking place within the Ocean Home.

The New York Times Article:
Article copied from The New York Times/Science (online)
Published April 30, 2025Updated May 1, 2025, 2:05 p.m. ET
Under Science/Trilobites: Unearthing fascinating morsels of science.
Text by Sruthi Gurudev
Photographs by Jules Jacobs
(I have modified one of the photographs as my lead-in to my posting.)

A Diver Visited a Fallen Whale. When He Returned, It Was Gone.

A sunken calf’s disappearance created a mystery in murky waters near San Diego.
How does an 18-foot-long, 2,000-pound carcass just disappear?
That question has puzzled some divers and photographers who regularly plunge into the waters off San Diego.

It started earlier this year when Doug Bonhaus took advantage of some calm weather to scuba dive in Scripps Canyon. As he descended, a hulking mass took shape below him.

There, at an exceptionally shallow 115 feet, lay the body of a baby gray whale.

Whale falls are usually not seen by human divers. Typically, they are discovered by remotely operated vehicles at depths exceeding 3,000 feet.

Local marine biologists had a guess as to the gray whale calf’s origins. An animal that matched what was found on the seafloor had been spotted swimming near La Jolla Shores, desperately searching for its mother. During its final hours, it was seen approaching boats, as though asking for help that wasn’t coming.

Because it was the first time in memory that a fall was so accessible to people, other divers quickly made their way to the site. Among them was Jules Jacobs, an underwater photojournalist who has written for The New York Times about his explorations.

At that point in late January, the carcass’s resting place was a trough in the canyon that required pinpoint precision to reach. So Mr. Jacobs steeled himself for a dangerous and mentally taxing dive.

Navigating the crepuscular gloom with a team of five other divers, the dive lights suddenly illuminated what he was looking for: the mottled-skinned, emaciated calf. The calf’s eyes had already succumbed to the elements; it seemed locked into an expression of sorrow.

“It’s humbling to dive a whale fall where the tail alone is as big as your body,” Mr. Jacobs said.

Mr. Jacobs planned additional dives to observe the animal. On his second visit a week later, a chunk of the animal’s tail was missing, likely the work of scavenger sharks like the seven gill or the mako.

After a surge of spring storms, Mr. Jacobs descended into freezing blackness for the third time in late February. Gripping his camera gear so tightly his knuckles turned white, he waited for the decaying animal to appear.

What he found was only the barren seabed.

The calf was gone.

Gray whales, which can grow to around 45 feet in adulthood, have a migration that is the one of the longest of any mammal. It starts in the balmy seas of Baja California and extends to feeding grounds in the high latitudes of the Arctic Oceans. The calf and its missing mother were most likely headed north before they were separated. During this phase of the journey, they would have been at their most vulnerable, with the mother not having eaten for six months.

Gray whale populations follow a boom-and-bust cycle, with numbers crashing and then recovering, and sometimes up to a quarter of the population lost in a few years.

For about six years, however, the population has failed to rebound as it did during previous die-offs. Scientists attribute this decline to climate change, which accelerates Arctic warming and disrupts the gray whale’s prey. Ship strikes and entanglements in fishing lines aggravate losses to starvation.

“We’re unlikely to return to a world that can support 25,000 gray whales anytime soon,” said Joshua Stewart, an assistant professor at the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute. Dr. Stewart expects to see many more whales dying on the West Coast.

Still, in the normal course of events, the death of a whale does not always signify an end. Instead, it catalyzes new beginnings.

A riot of life blooms from a whale carcass, even a calf’s. The flesh nourishes scavengers, the bones are colonized by microbes and worms and the curved vertebrae form new highways for a rapidly developing reef.

“A whale fall is a real bonanza and may provide as much food as normally reaches the sediment beneath it in 200 years,” said Craig Smith, professor emeritus of oceanography at the University of Hawaii. “Ironically, we know more about whale-fall communities in the deep sea than in shallow water.”

A whale decays in three ecologically distinct stages. First come the scavengers — sharks, crabs, hagfish — which tear into the soft tissue. Then, along come the worms in “huge, writhing masses in the organic-rich ooze surrounding the carcass,” Dr. Smith said. This can last seven years in what scientists call the enrichment-opportunist stage.

Finally, bacteria deep within the bones produce hydrogen sulfide, fueling the chemosynthetic bacteria on the surface of the bones and those living symbiotically inside animal hosts. This stage can last decades, with more than 200 marine species thriving on a single whale fall.

But this infant whale and its carcass had vanished. Had something or someone made off with it, preventing that life-sustaining whale fall from continuing?

Gregory Rouse, a marine biology professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, believes the explanation is less mysterious. During whale falls, he said, decomposition in the body cavity generates gas, which can cause the carcass to rise again after initially sinking, and float before eventually settling on the bottom.

Strong winds and pulsing currents likely swept the body deeper into the canyon, which descends as far as 1,600 feet down.

“This animal would’ve grown into a titan, but its life was snuffed out in infancy,” Mr. Jacobs said.

But where it lies quietly in the darkness, new life may proliferate and prosper.

The link at which the New Tork Time article may be found is: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/science/whale-carcass-san-diego.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20250501&instance_id=153663&nl=the-morning®i_id=107935160&segment_id=197084&user_id=29ef4a3aa4e70bb456fa536f5bec4e19 . Here you will see the heading for the article and find an opportunity to subscribe to the New York Times.

Open Letter to “Climate Change Activists” who Disfigure Public Art

What you are doing is not “action;” it is destruction! Why have you decided to be a destructionist – as well as a thief of other people’s hard earned time?

I hope it’s not because you want your picture in the news. That’s too bad, because no one watches the news except for old fogies like me.

I will tell you why you are flopping around looking for something to destroy. It’s because you are scared to the depths of your being that we (humanity) are screwing the world up. We are poisoning the air. We are poisoning the oceans. We are ruining climate patterns and the flow of the oceans. We have made the world unlivable for some species – and maybe even ourselves.

Lesson One. The way to win a revolution is to bring more people over to your side.

If your basic thought is that there is no art on a dead planet, why then would you destroy art? Your current actions tells everyone that you are giving up – that our Planet is already dead. Destruction has become your goal.

Well, I say you are wrong. Our planet is not dead. Our Planet is definitely in serious trouble – and we are the only species that can stop it.

Your process should not be to destroy things of social value. Stop that nonsense. Do not destroy art. Do not steal the joy people get from humanity’s art. That makes no sense.

Your path should be one that calls people to action. It should be a path that informs them. It should be a path that encourages people to do what they can to stop the destruction of our Planet which is happening all around us.

Do not delude yourself that just because people are mad at you that you are having the right effect.

Lesson Two. Making people mad at you will not make them join your revolution.

Most likely the people who enjoy going to museums and seeing great art – and sometimes not so great art – (but it’s still art) – those people are probably more on your side (i.e., to save our Planet) than the people who do not/could not care about going to see the art. In other words, you are attacking the very people that you want to have on your side and working with you.

You are alienating them. You are an embarrassment to them, and they are not going to join you.

Put your energy into helping all people – art lovers – art admirers – artists – people who have heard of the art piece – people who have not heard of the art piece – people who don’t feel they have time for art – help all of them to understand what they can do to reduce their personal negative impact on our Planet.

Stop tearing down, and start building up.

Pull back from the edge of anarchy – develop a positive action plan – and help everyone understand what they can do.

I would bet that you will have a better effect on changing minds that way rather than by your telling people that what they care about (or don’t care about) can be ruined (even if it is temporarily). You only look like dolts.

DBD = Don’t Be a Dolt

Your fear makes you blindly lash out. What is the difference between you (who steals from someone the enjoyment of viewing a work of art), and a person who takes a can of spray paint to a national park? There is none. To hell with your platitudes and ‘reasons’ of why you did it. The results are the same. You are stealing from someone the joy of being in the presence of something beautiful.

I totally get you want to protect the national beauty of our Planet and its ability to support life. I spent my entire professional career doing that.

How do you do it? One person at a time. You have to explain it to them.

I bet that when your image flashes on TV with the damage you have done to someone else’s day – no one is watching. They got up to get a drink of water. Your actions are just like a television advertisement for children’s cereal – I don’t need to watch it.

So what are you to do with your feelings, with your anger – with your fear?

Do something beneficial with your time. Start communicating with people. Tell them about the Keeling Curve and what it shows. Stand outside the art gallery and give them a card with information that will actually inform them of what is happening – or what they can do in their own lives to help defend our Planet. Your action will inform them and help them get involved.

· You – and they – can change how they live – can change how they treat their neighborhood as well as their Planet.

· You – and they – can write an article about a company that is working to make a change to help save our Planet.

· You – and they – can write a letter to a politician.

· You – and they – can support the companies and politicians that are trying to make a difference in our culture of destruction.

The change will happen one person at a time. It will happen at a national level only when the governments (read as ‘politicians’) are pushed to make a change – or we change the politicians.

And I will say that for the vast majority of people, all you are doing right now is just pissing them off.

Stop making people mad – and make them glad that they can make a difference.

HELP THEM UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY CAN DO.

Stop destroying our national treasures – and stop stealing our joy. Think of helping rather than getting your picture on TV.

Stop wasting your time plotting destruction – and start building.

AI Image produced using Meta AI by the author specifically for this article.

Return for the Swifts

Two years ago (Fire Swifts, 3 July 2020) I wrote about enjoying the flight of Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica) while I sat on my back patio. In summer mornings and evenings I could see a flight of ten to twenty Swifts gliding above my house and over the close-at-hand stand of trees as they sought and caught flying insects that lived in the trees, under the leaves, on the branches and trunks. The Swifts also gobbled up the mosquitoes that liked to breed in the ponds along the stream beneath the trees.

But now the Swifts are mostly gone. Sometimes when I am working in my yard I might hear twittering in he sky. I look up and might see three to five Swifts overhead.

Have I noticed a change in the number of insects I have to swat or other troublesome flying insects? Not so much, but maybe there are more gnats this year than in others.

Where did the Swifts go? I have no idea. But I hope they found a place to their liking and have not just become part of the 5 billion songbirds that we lost since 1970. That comes to a false number average of 60 million birds lost in each of those years. If we were to think of birds as people that is Nine Times the population of the United States lost each year. Now it sounds like a big number.

There are numerous factors that are leading to a decline in the number of songbirds in the United States. These factors include: tall buildings – birds crash into them during their migrations; feral cats – put out of the house at night kill millions of song birds each year; diseases – some of which are suspected of becoming more prevalent due to the warming climate; and habitat destruction – when our towns and cities and suburbs are changed to accommodate our expanding population.

I believe the main reason that I do not see my Chimney Swifts wheeling overhead in the early morning and at twilight is because of habitat destruction.

Was there some forest that was cut down in my neighborhood? No; the last large tract of timbered grazing area in my town was destroyed and filled with houses in the 1990s. Swifts might live in hollowed out trees that happened to stand in an old forest.

Audubon tells a story of when we was cataloguing and painting the birds of North America of finding a tall, hollowed out sycamore tree in Kentucky. He stepped inside and found it filled with Chimney Swifts which had made nests on the interior walls of their “chimney”.

My Swifts had no such palatial home as I believe they nested in an old brick chimney of a boiler/heater for a small hotel on the highway near my house. When the motel was torn down to make way for a gas station and store, the chimney was torn down. This was the same time that my Swifts disappeared. I have made the assumption that the Swifts nested in the old chimney.

Is there a way to bring the Swifts back to the area of my neighborhood?

I think there is.

A quick search of the internet (searching “Swift Tower”) turns up initiatives by individuals, groups and communities to maintain a healthy and helpful population of the insect-eating Swifts. The individuals and groups do not build free standing brick chimneys. They build stand alone “Swift Towers”. Several State Audubon societies have articles on building Swift Towers on both private and public lands. There are links on these pages to other organizations as well, including designs for the towers. As one article states, if you are asked what you are building, just tell them it’s a bird house.

And what of my small population of Swifts. I will approach the company that is building the gas station, and tell them the story of my neighborhood Swifts. And I will ask them if they would build a Swift Tower to replace the old chimney.

And for my City I plan to attend a council meeting and ask that they consider requesting that any companies that are tearing down old establishments that have chimneys to replace that chimney with a Swift Tower.

I think the twittering I hear in the mornings and evenings is worth that little bit of effort.

Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania (ASWP) is supporting Chimney Swift protection through a variety of approaches. We have installed nearly 150 Chimney Swift towers to provide breeding habitats for these birds. Audubon’s Chimney Swift Tower Program | Audubon Society of Western PA (aswp.org)

John James Audubon’s experience in visiting a large dead sycamore tree filled with the nests of Chimney Swifts is provided at American Swift | John James Audubon’s Birds of America. He estimated their number to be 9,000.

To read more information about the decline of our songbird population see the 2019 study as published in Science magazine. It may be found at – Nearly 3 Billion Birds Gone | Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Where Have the Songbirds Gone? | NASA Applied Sciences

Fighting Climate Change

“Give me a fast ship, because I intend to go into harm’s way.” John Paul Jones

In this decade, the nations of the world must come together to protect our Earth from the effects of our industries of the last several hundred years.

Our vessel must be worthy, if it is not, we will not succeed.

The 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be the starting point of these Stone Fig Climate Change postings. The IPCC is a body of the United Nations tasked to assess the science related to climate change. Created in 1988, the objective of the IPCC is to provide all levels of government with scientific information that can be utilized in developing climate policy.

Its website may be found at IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC not only provides information to the nations of the world but to each of us as well. It is appropriate that we should understand the reports by the IPCC. Our nation and other nations will use this 2021 Report, and the reports that follow, to establish climate change policy and regulations.

To support our country, we the people, must have a basic understanding of the chemical and physical processes within our Earth’s climate. We should be able to understand and have a reasoned opinion on the actions developed to combat climate change. The basic principles and ideas of climate processes can be easily found, and refreshed through numerous sites on the internet.

When we read the reports and the proposed laws and regulations it is appropriate for us to use our personal skills of critical thinking to determine whether the proposed regulations are supported by the science. The regulations passed and the support we give to the enforcement of those regulations will determine whether we have a “worthy vessel” and whether or not we will, in the end, succeed.

I will focus my Climate Change postings on reading the documents published by the IPCC. I will start with the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) from the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Report. The SPM may be found at IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM_final.pdf.

The SPM begins with an assessment of “The Current State of the Climate”. In this assessment reference is made to “AR5” which is the IPCC 5^th Assessment Report (AR5). The SPM states that since AR5 was released in 2013 improvements have been made in recording the geologic records of ancient paleoclimate. These ancient records are reached by taking core samples of glaciers, tree rings, and sediments from the ocean floors. These core samples can provide us with climate records that reach back long before the early industrial age of the 1700s and 1800s. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) the study of Paleoclimate provides an essential perspective for assessing the potential impacts of future climate on “natural systems and the people who rely on them”. Scientists use the geologic evidence of past climate changes to understand the rates and patterns of Earth systems’ responses to a broad range of climate and landscape changes. When integrated into climate models these paleoclimate data provide a means to improve our understanding of the impacts of climate change.

When we review just the last 100 years, we can see the beginning of a significant increase in average global temperature. This is shown in Figure SPM.1 of the SPM. The graph is shown below.

In my view, after the Second World War (1945) the nations of the world, led by historically industrialized nations and nations with the resources to become industrialized nations, began a significant increase in activity These activities reinforced the change from farm-based/agrarian activities as primary human-activity to that of industrial-labor activities which had begun in the 1800s. To support these industrial-labor activities our collective power requirements for light, energy, transport, and transportation increased apace with this change.

This increase can be seen in the graph above.

It can be seen from the graph that in the last 50 years the average global surface temperature has increased at a average rate of 0.018 degrees Celsius (C) per year. This is an increase of 0.9 degrees C in 50 years. The upward angle of the graph will likely continue to rise if something is not done. What is “something”? It is action by each person, by every nation, to reduce the effect of human-activities that contribute to the increases in average global temperature.

To borrow a phrase from the movie Jaws, “We are going to need a bigger boat.”

We are in need of a revolution against our own past.

I am not saying the past was wrong or evil. Those activities built a standard of living for the people of the industrialized world who should now help raise the standard of living in the non-industrialized world.

We are on the threshold of a new age. We will step through; but what will we find?

If we do not address the rising global temperature and the changes to the climate it is causing, the poorer will suffer even more, and the rich will become poor and suffer as well. If we address the issues of climate change we can likely maintain a standard of living and can raise up those who do not yet have it.

In the pictures below of heroes of the American Revolution we see the spirit of the men and women who chose to fight to bring change to their way of government. Would they be ruled, or would they govern themselves?

We have to fight again, but this time against ourselves. We must use our individual critical skills to determine what actions each of us can take and should take. Then we must act!

The future does not belong to the timid.

We are all called. These pictures of John Paul Jones and Molly Pitcher (Mary Hays/McCauly) call to mind the fight that is ahead and the determination with which we must face it.

Their fight was for a new nation in a new world. Our fight is one to save the world for ourselves, for our descendants, and for all of life on the planet.

Picture “Captain John Paul Jones” 1938, by N.C.Wyeth

Figure SPM.1 copied from Summary for Policy Makers, 2021 United Nations Climate Change Report

Picture “Molly Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth ” 1912, by C. Y. Turner

Ride in Death Valley

I have alluded in several posts that I traveled for my work. I was an engineer in the federal government and served several agencies. My work usually involved environmental compliance and land/real estate management for those agencies. My work often took me to California and New Mexico. When I would go out to the west coast which was generally once a year, I would usually stay at least a week and sometimes two in order to meet with personnel from the several installations that I had cognizance or purview over.

My agenda for a two-week trip included visits and discussions with installations in San Diego, Los Angeles, a large installation in the California desert. This desert installation was close to Death Valley and as I had to drive up to Los Angeles for my next site visit, on the Saturday I was traveling I decided to drive up the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and see what there was to see. This route took me past Death Valley. I had never seen it, so I decided to make a stop and see it.

I started driving north on CA-395. This was all strange territory to me not only being from the east coast, but it was the rocks, the shapes, the plants, and the different birds that intrigued me. As I drove north, I came to a place called the Alabama Hills. The formations looked like giant stones had been dumped out onto the ground. The tumbled formations of rocks were intriguing. I found a place to park and climbed on the rocks while looking for the fish-filled brooks and pools that the signs implied were round there. The hills of stone looked like an old movie set, and were actually used in numerous westerns since the formations were so striking.

I left the Alabama Hills and continued north on CA-395. Soon I was in a dust storm as the wind was blowing in from the east across what I learned was Owen’s Dry Lake. At one time it had been a fresh water lake feed by the Owens River. The Owens River was used to support agriculture in the valley, and later it was diverted to supply Los Angeles with water. I stopped and looked out over the sandy flats that had once been covered in water. The alkali dust drove me back into my car.

The next road to the east, in the direction of the dry lake bed, had a sign that said to me, Turn here for Death Valley. Who had not heard of that tortuous place? We had played cowboys back in the east and roamed an imaginary Death Valley. From countless Saturday matinees we knew it as the driest and the hottest place the United States, if not the entire planet.

I followed the road to the east, not knowing what I might find. The road, CA-190, draped around the east side of the dry lake. I stopped on that far side and got out of my car to look at it again. I could see more now as the wind was blowing at my back. The dust was no longer blowing into my face as it had been at my first stop. I drove on toward Death Valley. And now, about every mile or so, I saw a car pulled to the opposite side of the road with a bicycle rack on top. As I saw more and more of these cars I realized there was probably a bike rally or a race going on.

On the south side of CA-109 I saw the crest of a volcanic dike or a collapsed volcanic lava tube now exposed and weathered. I stopped and walked along one. It looked like a great place for rattlesnakes and scorpions, so I kept a respectful distance. I set up my camera tripod and took several pictures to send to Geology professor including the self-portrait above. Then I packed my camera gear and continued on my way.

By the time I reached Father Crowley Point, I had seen a dozen cars with bike racks along the road. At the parking lot for Father Crowley Overlook there were several more parked. I stopped to ask what was going on.

I was told yes, there was a bike race. It was the famed and feared Whitney Classic. This race starts at Badwater Basin on the east side of Death Valley. The course crosses the Valley and then ascends on the road I was on to the top of the Darwin Plateau, and on past Owens Dry Lake. The race continues into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and then climbs to the Whitney Portals. The race is 136 miles long and includes an elevation rise 14,704 feet, nearly a 3-mile gain in elevation.

My plan to visit the floor of Death Valley was breaking down. I had to be in Los Angeles that night for a business meeting the following day. We would work the weekend when I got there. But I started my descent into Death Valley. As I went down I began to see the lead groups of bikers passing me as they went up the road. I realized that I would likely get stuck behind larger groups of racers who were following the leaders. If I got behind them, they would slow down or block my exit from the park. It could cost me hours of lost time. I found a wide spot in the road and turned around to go back to the top of the plateau.

The Wilson Classic is an endurance bike race. I was glad to have seen the edges of it. And I was glad to have glimpsed Death Valley from the height of Father Crowley Point. And I had gotten out and marveled at the lava dike which was only a part a small part of this tortuous and wonderous terrain. Perhaps on my next trip I will go up to the verdant forests of the Whitney Portals and listen to the babble of Lone Pine Creek.

Death Valley as seen from the area of he Father Crowley Overlook; photo by Daniel Perez posted to Google Earth.

Young Man/Old Man

The tree has stood here for generations. Its wrinkled features speak of Springs and hot Summers and Winter storms and Fall Hurricanes rolling out of the Sea.

Yet here it stands. Right where the mountain man had stopped over 300 years before, and leaning on his staff he paused to look out to the Sea beyond the valley – and he has stayed here – still thinking. His hand clutches the shaft of his staff. You can see his fingertips curling around from the back of the shaft as he rests his temple against his hand. His hair is blown upwards and back as he stares stonily out towards the distant Sea.

The years have washed soil and stones and leaves out of the hills above so that the man’s shoulders and torso and hips and legs are now buried deep below. Yet still he stands and looks outward and wonders. When he decides, will he rise up and tear his roots from deep within the earth and walk these hills again?

These are tales of the deep woods.

The young man pushed out by his tribe,

Walked toward the sound of the Sea.

He crossed mountain peak and fast glacial stream.

He forded broad rivers.

He climbed stones as if they were steps to the top of the ridge.

And from his new vantage point he could see the great Sea before him.

He leaned his head on his staff and he wept, because he had found Ocean, his mother.

What would he say to her when she saw him and rose up? Would she be in a fury? Would she rejoice that he had found his way back to her?

He leaned on his staff, for a year, and another, and another ten and then a hundred and then more.

He stands there still wondering how he will be greeted when he reaches the rolling wave and the murmur of shale rolling in the retreating wave.

What will he say that he has accomplished? Who will he say that he has helped? Has he made his path a better place? Has the world benefited from his life?

He leaps up and leaves his body behind, still, standing, staring.

His spirit goes out and back along his path to correct what he has damaged.

When he sees a tired person sitting next to the road, the wind blows down and refreshes the weary. The rain falls upon the parched . The sun shines on the lonely.

The young man in the wind and rain and sunshine is rebuilding his story.

And he will smile.

One day he will return to this tree and shake loose the binding roots and finish his walk to the Sea and be greeted with joy.

This is one of the trees that I remember. There are many others. These are the trees I see while I am in the woods. They speak to me as the warm spring rains patter down on their budding branches. When the Summer storm whips the limbs and branches, they howl with strength. When the Winter winds bring snow and ice that crackles on the branches when the sun returns and when I cross the snowy field to visit them, they moan and creak like an old gate on rusted hinges.. The trees are always with me, they are everywhere. They are of many ages, and they always welcome me to the deep forest and woods by the lane.

Some have forgotten how to leaf and bud and leaf, but still stand as a home for birds and squirrels and the members of the fourth kingdom, the fungus that returns the tree to the soil. Some have fallen in the wind. Some have fallen to the ax. But they all live on in my memory and in the memory of all who visited them and touched their bark, or played in their shade, or picked up their Fall leaf form the ground. Or watched a bird fly among its branches.

They are our friends. Each has its story. You must listen to hear it being told.

Look out for the Pendulum

NASA photograph of Apollo 16 Astronaut next to Plum Crater on the lunar surface. The “Moon Buggy” is in the background.

I am not making this up – well, mostly not.

On the surface of a distant moon, a lone space traveler steps away from his companions and approaches the edge of a large pit. It appears nearly round with no crater wall. He approaches the edge carefully. Then suddenly the lip slides-out beneath him, and he rolls down the side tumbling towards the apex of the cone shaped pit. All he can call out in his soft Texas drawl is, “reminds me of a doodlebug hole”.

I exaggerate, no astronaut fell into a pit, nor was one paralyzed and devoured by an extraterrestrial Antlion. But a similar discussion took place on 24 April 1972 during the third “extra vehicular activity” (EVA) by the crew of Apollo 16 while exploring the surface of our moon in their “Moon Buggy”.

The discussion of the doodlebug took place 240,000 miles from the closest doodlebug as Astronaut Charles Duke described a part of his childhood in the southern United States to the folks at Mission Control.

When I grew up in rural North Carolina, doodling Antlions, also known as doodlebugs, was part of what we did. We did not have a TV. We played outside and ran to the river and splashed and played in it and ran back. On our way up and down that dusty lane, we might see that dimple in the sandy ground of an Antlion’s nest. We generally called them doodlebugs, and we sought to bring them out of their hiding at the bottom of their conical pit. We would disturb the side of the pit gently with a bit of pine straw to see if we could bring the tiny beast out from his hiding place at the bottom of his trap.

These tiny larvae are ferocious looking with jaws nearly half as long as their body, with sharp fangs for grabbing and devouring their prey.

My attention was recently turned to Antlions by an article in Science News which described a study of the Antlion behavior of “throwing sand” upwards from the bottom of its pit. The Antlion of the southern United States is the larval form of Glenurus spp of the family Myrmeleontidea. This family designation is explained by Barb Ogg on the website of the Nebraska Extension Service at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “The Antlion family, Myrmeleontidae, literally means Antlion family (myrme = ant) + (leon = lion) + (idae = family). Antlions belong to the insect order Neuroptera, most of which are predators.” The designation “spp” means plural or multiple species. A picture of an Antlion is shown below.

The authors of the Antlion paper studied the Antlion behavior of throwing sand. It was determined that this action is useful in maintaining the correct geometry of the trap the Antlion digs as well as aiding the Antlion in capture of its prey.

The Antlions trap or “pit” is dug in sandy soil by the tiny beast by using its broad body as a bulldozer and working the sand in ever decreasing diameter circles as it moves backwards until the pit is dug. The pit is an inverted cone. The Antlion buries itself at the center of its pit and waits for its dinner to walk in.

Antlion behavior has been observed by countless generations of children who live in areas with sandy soil and also by the adults that the children grew into. After digging its pit the Antlion will lie in wait for its dinner. When a small insect like an ant enters the pit, the sand on the slope of the pit will often give way and slide, with the insect, down to where the Antlion may capture it. However, not just any angle for the slope of the pit will suffice. The trap needs to be constructed so the sides are inclined downwards at an unstable angle. This angle is technically discussed as the “angle of repose” of the soil. A slope less than the angle of repose is flatter and stable and will not shift except under significant pressure. However, a slope greater than the angle of repose is unstable. This means that as a tiny insect like an ant tries to crawl out of the pit, the unstable sand will slip and slide towards the bottom of the pit.

When the Antlion notices the vibration of the ant’s footsteps and the vibration of the falling sand, the Antlion will begin to fling the sand from the bottom of the pit up onto the sides of the downward slope. As described in the study, this produces two results. The prey becomes confused due the torrent of sand falling on it and will be more likely to tumble into the center of the pit. Second, the sand being flung by the Antlion by flipping its head like a shovel, removes the sand that has fallen into the pit and throws it onto the sides of the pit to maintain an unstable configuration of the slope. By these actions as the Antlion’s dinner is tumbling downward, the trap is being set for another insect.

According to the article by Barb Ogg, as well as other articles, these tiny insects do not bite humans nor do they damage plants, so they may be left alone.

I have heard that Antlions respond to singing or chanting a ditty such as “Doodlebug, doodlebug, come out and play”. As fun as this might be there is no proof of its efficacy. However the vibrations of our voice may dislodge sand on the unstable sides of the pit causing the Antlion to investigate the event.

The NASA transmission of the EVA (extra vehicular activity) may be found at https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/a16a1690707.mp3. At time 0:58 Astronaut Clark refers to the structure on the moon’s surface as a “doodlebug hole”. It starts out rather loud and you may want to turn it down. In the discussion, the depression is referred to as an endogenic crater. An endogenic crater is a pit formed by processes beneath the soil surface like a gas bubble moving outwards and erupting through the upper soil layer, or perhaps like a sinkhole. It is not an impact crater.

The transcription of the .mp3, plus other transmissions not recorded in the transmission, may be found at Return to the LM (nasa.gov) starting at the entry for 169:07:53 and going through 169:08:25. The transcription of the conversation contains more information of what was said than the .mp3 recording. Perhaps it was on a separate channel.

The Science News article may be found at https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/how-voracious-antlions-engineer-deadly-sand-traps. To read the article may require a subscription or permission.

The referenced study of Antlion behavior may be found at Sand throwing in a pit-building Antlion larva from a soil mechanical perspective | bioRxiv .

The article by Barb Ogg on he University of Nebraska-Lincoln may be found at Antlions: Amazingly Adapted Predators | Nebraska Extension: Community Environment | Nebraska (unl.edu) .

A video of an Antlion digging his pit may be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AT0J8cBS-U. Watch carefully. You can see the tiny creature throwing sand onto the sides of its pit.

This article’s Title refers to the tale by Edgar Allan Poe, which is a tale of another conundrum.

Birds Range of the Home

In 2017 I was conducting bird surveys as a volunteer at the Manassas Battlefield National Park. I was helping to catalogue the presence of two species, The Northern Bob White Quail and the Henslow’s Sparrow. The Park Wildlife Management personnel and I were interested in seeking out the birds in selected areas of the Park

I would go out to the Bob White areas in the early morning hours so I could be there in time for sunrise. I usually went out earlier than necessary, and I walked well-known paths to be at the listening point while it was still dark. I would pack-out a folding chair and a thermos of coffee. When I got the listening point, I would sit and watch the stars in their motion across the night sky and see them fade as night turned into Dawn. At Dawn I opened my coffee thermos, and poured a cup, and toasted the new day.

The survey was conducted in the Spring and we would listen for the daybreak calls of the coveys of quail we hope to hear. There were twenty of these sites scattered around the Park. The Park personnel and I divided the sites up so we could cover all of them during scope of the annual survey.

The sky might be clear when I went out in the early morning before dawn, but on the ground it was dark. If I had not had several decades of experience in walking the Park, I might have gotten turned around. I wrote about my experience in an article titled Frosty Morning and published on this site on 15 November 2018.

The Park personnel and I would often talk about the birds of the Park and how we thought that they would be affected by climate change, especially as the average temperatures warmed in the more northern parts of the species’ range.

In order to develop a better understanding of the potential impact of climate change on bird species, I searched for related articles. A good one I found regarding bird species and changes in their range due to climate changes, was based on surveys of numerous species in Finland between 1974 and 2010.

The results are basically that yes, the ranges do change due to changes in climate. The ranges of the various bird species change with an expansion at the northern/top/cold edge. But the southern edge is not moving northward/poleward. Part of this is that a species would have to lose their niche, basically become extinct, in the southern regions in order to say that they are no longer using the southern/warm edge.

I had initially thought of a bird’s range as a box that would move north as the climate warmed. However, that does not appear to be the case. As it turns out the box stretches and gets bigger as the range extends to the North. The range expands northward with the increasing temperature and the birds take advantage of more range.

Climate change may affect a bird species physiologically in that its old range may become too hot or too wet for the bird species to thrive. They have to change or move. But these conditions, even if they do not directly affect the birds, may cause a portion of the bird’s range to become unusable at the level of the current population if a food source dies out due to the change in the overall climate, or if the food source moves out to a more acceptable range, or if the food source becomes unavailable at a time that it is need for the bird’s reproduction and life cycle. An example of this latter was published in Science New in 2006.

The first article I read about the impact of climate change on bird species was a 2006 article in Science News concerning the timing of the arrival of the European Pied Flycatcher in their nesting area. The article pointed out that the birds migrate based on the length of daylight in their wintering area in Africa. But the appearance of the caterpillars, the major food source at their nesting area for feeding their chicks, was based on temperature. With the northern temperatures warming earlier, by the time the birds arrived, the caterpillars had reached the next stage in their life cycle and are no longer available for the birds and their nesting brood. The numbers of the Flycatchers in some of their historic breeding areas had fallen by 90%. The study found “a correlation between declining Flycatcher numbers and the timing of the peak food for their chicks.”

I recently ran across a journal article concerning birds of China and the effect of climate change on their range. The article pointed out that the extension of a bird’s range may meet an obstacle that it cannot pass through. This might be a range of high mountains or an open ocean. The birds at that point have reached the limit of their range. The birds may well have to make a change in their diet or risk being unable to maintain the new range that they have colonized. For the birds to succeed in the new region they must find fruiting plants or insect or other food stuff available in an abundance on which the species colonizing the area can survive. This is especially hard if the new range is populated by a species that already relies on a limited supply of that food. The picture at the top of this article is a version of some of the charts from the article showing potential movement of species.

What about the Quail and Henslow’s Sparrow at Manassas? Will they have to move? So much of a bird’s ability to use a region is predicated on their ability to find suitable habitat. Destruction of habitat will force out a population. However, as the climate grows hotter and more humid over the next several decades these bird’s ranges may expand, but it is different for each species. The southern edge of the Quail’s range is well below us, extending into Mexico. I do not believe we will see a change in the population of Quail due to climate change. However, for Henslow’s Sparrow, here in the Mid-Atlantic region, we are between the breeding (northern) and the non-breeding (southern) range. We may lose our small, but for me dynamic, local population. There may be issues for the Henslow’s Sparrows in the southern reaches of their breeding range where we are located. as it becomes hotter and wetter. Only time will tell.

Article regarding study in Finland, The breeding ranges of Central European and Arctic bird species move poleward. may be found at: http://europepmc.org/article/PMC/3447813

Science News article (only available to subscribers to Science News) on European Pied Flycatcher may be found at: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/no-early-birds-migrators-cant-catch-advancing-caterpillars.

Article regarding range shift of Chinese birds under the potential of climate change: (PDF) Shifts in bird ranges and conservation priorities in China under climate change (researchgate.net)