Patuxent Research Refuge – Squirrels

/

The little surprise during our walk in the woods at the South Tract of Patuxent Research Refuge was the interaction of a pair of squirrels in a beech tree….probably about 10 feet above the ground and not too upset by my being within my camera’s zoom range. I was glad I had it set on continuous shooting although I could have also taken a video (somehow I don’t remember my camera will do that!). The squirrels seemed small and I wondered if they were litter mates…perhaps not that long out of the nest. They would probably be the last litter for the season since we are already have nights in the 40s and 50s.They stayed near the knot in the tree…and then, when one disappeared suddenly, I realized that there was a cavity there…large enough for both!

They could peek out one at a time.

I wondered if a woodpecker had enlarged the cavity…whether the squirrels will nest there during the winter rather than building a sloppy leave and twigs nest higher in the tree…if there was a woodpecker that would come to roust them from their hole. It’s fun to think about particular places in the forest…and a hole in a tree is certainly a place to build a story around.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 9, 2021

/

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Earth is dimming due to climate change – Decades of measurements of earthshine indicate that the Earth is becoming less reflective with warmer oceans (and fewer bright clouds).

Kilauea Resumes Eruptions At Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park – Exciting times on the big island…

In UK, Interest in EVs Spikes Amid Fuel Shortages – There have been stories about Ford and GM strategy recently too….lots of indicators that many people will be buying EVs sooner rather than later if enough are produced.

NASA lander records the largest ‘Marsquakes’ ever detected – The lander has been on the surface since 2018!

Dental care: The best, worst and unproven tools to care for your teeth – Hmm….I wonder how much this research will change what dentists advise?

Baby Poo Has Ten Times More Microplastics Than Adult Feces – A scary result…and no ideas on how to reduce exposure (and we don’t know exactly what harms it might cause)….just more research needed. Very frustrating.

Coastal Northeastern US is a global warming hotspot; 2 degrees Celsius of summer warming has already occurred – From Maine to Delaware…the area is warming faster because of climate change linked alterations in the ocean and atmospheric conditions of the North Atlantic.

2021 Nature Conservancy Photo Contest Winners Highlight Global Wildlife and Nature – Beautiful…and thought provoking. My favorite was the artsy one at the end…a high key image.

Paradigm shift in treatment of type 2 diabetes to focus on weight loss – There are probably other chronic ‘diseases’ that have become more prevalent over the past few decades that could be improved with weight loss….but it is hard to lose weight…and keep it off. It requires permanent lifestyle changes.

A Leisurely Trip to Kansas – Another post that includes pictures of a rough green snake. I’ve been on the lookout for them since my son-in-law sent a photo he took with his phone!

Patuxent Research Refuge – Misc.

/

Of course, there are other things besides waterlilies, milkweeds and goldenrod to see this time of year at the South Tract of Patuxent Research Refuge. I did some experimental photography with some grass seed heads and asters…liked the results.

The cattails are exploding with fluff. If it doesn’t float away fast enough it becomes matted around the stalk.

Many plants are going to seed in the meadow.

2021 09 IMG_9162 (5).jpg

In the forest there are hits of color…just a few leaves at this point. Green still dominates.

There was an old jumble of trunks…some upright and others leaning over…with shelf fungus in profusion.

There is a bird blind around a collection of feeders but I wasn’t quiet enough to walk up to it without all the birds taking flight. I managed to notice finches on the feeders and mourning doves below.

2021 09 IMG_9162 (11).jpg

Sometimes something appears that I don’t expect – like this fire hydrant in the meadow. It isn’t that far from the visitor center but far enough that I would have thought one closer would be more useful and it was surrounded by wild vegetation – a little surprise. It was rusted enough that I wondered if it was still functional.

2021 09 IMG_9170 (9).jpg

Overall – every time I got to the refuge, I notice something that I haven’t seen before!

Near the Little Patuxent River

/

On a recent morning – I headed out to the stream that flows under Broken Land Parkway from Lake Elkhorn just before it joins the Little Patuxent River for a volunteer gig – guiding a stream survey done by high school students. Near the bridge that crosses the stream on the Patuxent Branch Trail, there was muddy trail (poison ivy on each side…glad I had on long pants and high boots) to allow access down to stream. We set up our gear around three tables. There was not much dry area to set them up but the water was shallow. A partner and I guided 10 students to collect and ID macroinvertebrates from one of the tables while other volunteers did the same at two others. We had about 45 minutes….and then we got another group of 10 to do it again.

I took some pictures before and after the students arrived. The steam has a lot of vegetation on the banks but the stream has been eroded  - with some trees toppling over from being undercut by rapidly moving water. It is in an area where there is a lot of impervious surface. When it rains – the water rushes down to the stream where it carries away anything in the eroded channel; there is no connection to a flood plain that to slow down the water. It doesn’t take long for it to run off further downstream because we are in the Pediment rather than the Coastal Plain (i.e. there is always an incline for the water to follow).

The water quality was ‘very poor’ based on the types of macroinvertebrates that we found…however – we found quite a few of the types we found. The stream is not dead. Life holds on tight in this suburban stream.

Red Bellied Woodpecker

/

There is a male red bellied woodpecker frequenting our bird feeder. He assertive and noisy…and very picky about the kind of seed he wants. The mix in the feeder right now does not have as many peanuts as our previous mix – which, in the past, has been the favorite of these larger woodpeckers. The bird seems to do its most effective probing with its head upside down (the bird is heavy enough that it partially shuts the seed openings of squirrel proof feeder).

The bright red swipe on the top of the bird’s head makes ID easy. The most zoomed images show how the texture changes closer to the bill (maybe shorter red feathers there?). These birds use the back part of their body to help hold their weight while they hug the feeder like a tree!

Our birdfeeder cam has broken so these images are all taken with a camera and shot through the window of my upstairs office. I have the camera set to take multiple images if I continue to hold down the shutter button.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 2, 2021

/

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The oil-field ‘fugitive’ that can slip into the water supply – The methane leaks into ground water are yet another reason fossil fuel is problematic. The industry evidently can’t or won’t clean up…making moving away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible even more urgent – although climate change should be enough for the world to be doing that already.

Top 25 birds of the week: Brown Birds – Not all birds are colorful! Watching small brown birds can be just as much fun though.

Ancient Human Presence Revealed At White Sands National Park - Researchers Push Back Date Of Human Arrival In North America Thousands Of Years – Fossilized footprints in the gypsum sand playa deposits…dated to the Late Pleistocene.

Mexico’s Ancient Inhabitants Moved Land and Bent Rivers to Build Teotihuacán – Still more being learned from an archaeological site that has been studied for many decades. LiDAR is one of new technologies that is yields a lot of new information.

Poorly circulated room air raises potential exposure to contaminants by up to six times – COVID has prompted more detailed research on this topic…and the discoveries should be used to improve building ventilation systems to help control other air-borne diseases.

Why colorful food is good for you – I like the colors and flavors….it’s an added benefit that they are also healthy choices!

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch Into Orbit in December – Finally!

River research reveals scale of macroplastic pollution – A plastic bottle takes a long time to break down….450 years and requires UV light. With so many bottles getting into rivers around the world, it is important to understand how they travel…how they begin to breakdown. They are going to be around for a very long time and, right now, more are still entering the rivers.

Research shows more people living in floodplains – From NASA. Tragedies that are getting worse as population increases and climate change causes flood risk changes.

Making Beetles Pee Can Protect Your Garden – Maybe this is also a pathway to an effective way to control insects like aphids without pesticides!

Zooming – September 2021

/

The joys of a camera with optical zoom (rather than a phone with just digital zoom) --- I see more detail through the camera than I can see with my eyes! There were several times I was out and about looking for opportunities for high key and pushing the limits of the optics. Several of those experiments were successful enough to be included in this month’s collection.

Enjoy the slideshow for the September zoomed images!

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2021

/

Celebrating the waning of summer…the beginning of fall –

Brookside Gardens field trip. Spending a few hours at Brookside always results in at least one mini-celebrations. This month there were three: hummingbirds – bees – and roses.

New low weight for the year. With a whole month at home, I managed to control my diet….and achieved a low weight for the year --- 3 times (lower each time). I’m celebrating the achievement and working to continue the trend!

Easy flu shot. I celebrated how easy getting the flu shot was…no waiting, the pharmacy already having all my information.  And now I’m as protected as I can be for my next road trip.

Macro photography. Celebrating images capture with my phone, a clip on lens and a clicker!

Melons. The season for melons was winding down but we celebrated 2 tasty cantaloupes from the Farmers Market in September.

Early morning in the grocery store. I enjoy grocery shopping….and celebrate that I have the store almost to myself…a low risk return to ‘normal.’

Volunteering. Returning to volunteer gigs – doing outdoor programs with students.. it’s another celebration of going back to a pre-pandemic ‘normal’ that isn’t quite the same but just as satisfying.

Beautiful weather. Sunny days…cooler…a little breeze – this is the time of year that it gets easier to celebrate a day outdoors.

Ferns under the deck. I celebrated that there were more of them than I expected this year!

French fries. I have been dieting so carefully….it was a celebration to have French fries (and cut back enough on other foods that day to not make it a “weight gain” day)!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 25, 2021

/

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Top 25 birds of the week: September 2021 – Such a variety of birds in the world!

The Love Stories of Sleepy Lizards – An Australian lizard…they are monogamous and have a surprising threat display. They have been studied for over 40 years.

Searching for the Fisher Kings – The Calusa of south Florida…a capital on a man-made island made of shell. Surviving the Spanish but not the British.

New Coal Plants Dwindle Amid Wave of Cancelled Projects – Good! We need to be ramping up generation of electricity with renewables….and dramatically reducing the methane released by the oil and gas industry in their extraction processes…and then begin to reduce our need for oil and gas in areas that can be electrified (like transportation and heating/cooling).

Explore Life Under the Microscope with the Winners of the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Contest – Photomicrography frequently creates art from reality that it too small for our eyes to see without the magnification and specialized equipment.

August 2021 global climate summary – From NOAA. Two global maps (temperature and precipitation). Where I live, August was hotter and slightly wetter than the average (averages from 1981-2010 for temperature…from 1979-2020 for precipitation).

People synchronize heart rates while listening to stories – Thinking about the brain as part of physical body….looking at the brain-body connection more broadly.

Study Links Transportation Noise to High Rates of Dementia and Alzheimer's – From Denmark.

Indigenous Resilience Center Launched at the University of Arizona – My daughter did her graduate work at University of Arizona; I’m glad they are launching the center to find and implement culturally appropriate solutions to the challenges of climate change.

The chemistry of dahlia flower colors – Also explains why there are no blue dahlias.

Designs of Kyoto: a collection of design for silk and cotton textiles

/

The two volumes of Designs of Kyoto: a collection of designs for silk and cotton textiles (volume 1 and volume 2) were published in 1906 and are available on Internet Archive. I’ve selected 2 sample images from both volumes.

I enjoyed the books – lots of nature themes and ideas for Zentangle patterns. Some of them looked very abstract – geometric – hits of realism. There is a modern quality to many even though they are more than 100 years old. Maybe nature images are timeless as long as the animal/plant depicted still exists in our world.

Silk and cotton are luxuries now – the inexpensive fabrics are synthetic creating a lot of ‘fast fashion’ with interesting fabric patterns….like these.

High Key at Conowingo

/

On Sunday morning we left our house about 7:30 AM to drive to Conowingo – about a 1.5 hour drive from where we live. Below the dam is our favorite place to see bald eagles. This is not the best time of year, but it was a sunny fall morning – a good time for a short daytrip.  

There were some black vultures on top of a car parked near the entrance gate at Conowingo Fisherman’s Park. I had heard about it happening but hadn’t see it before. There didn’t seem to be many photographers along the fence however there were cormorants and gulls over and on the water. There were more cars than usual but apparently the owners were mostly there for fishing. We saw several with very large catfish (looked like the invasive flathead catfish). The spillways on the far side of the dam were active…but it didn’t seem like there was much water churn on our side of the river.

20210919_085324.jpg

I had just started surveying the abutment, rocks and island with my bridge camera mounted on a monopod, when the battery connection problem that I had experienced previously began. I had to take the camera off the monopod and remove the foot to open the battery compartment and try to increase the thickness of the paper wedge I had been using to hold the battery more firmly on the contacts. I put everything back together and it still didn’t work consistently. I was able to see an adult bald eagle on the abutment and a great blue heron on a spit of rocks and gulls flying over the water --- but the camera would not work for long enough to get a good picture. So – I gave up and pulled out my small Point and Shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS). I was very disappointed in what I could do with less zoom than the bridge camera. So --- I opted to try some high key pictures. My first subject was large sycamore with branches that hang over the water. The color variation in the leaves was more visible with the background mostly bright white although I did one with the water partially visible.

My favorite is the one below with the foliage in the lower right corner. I can image this in a presentation with some words in the upper left!

2021 09 IMG_5244 (6).jpg

Next --- I chose to photograph the electrical towers. I was not aware of the blue (vignetting) in the upper corners until I looked at it on the monitor at home….but I like the little bit of color!

2021 09 IMG_5244 (4).jpg

One of the towers on the island in the river contained a surprise that I didn’t see until it was on the larger screen: a bald eagle standing on a nest! It is not a good eagle shot…the bird is facing away and blurry….too far away for the Point and Shoot to get a crisp image. But it shows how the eagles use of the manmade structures!

Overall – I was pleased with the morning…even though it was quite different than I’d planned!

Annual Flu Vaccine

/

It’s that time of year again – time to get the annual flu vaccine. This year it was very easy for me; I went to my grocery store pharmacy just as I did last year… right after they opened. There was no line, and their system already had all my information. I filled out a form on a clip board, provided an electronic signature, and got the shot.

20210915_101148.jpg

I refrained from buying myself a treat like a piece of cake or a soft drink -went to the nearby thrift store instead. I found 2 pairs of ‘like new’ leggings that are easy additions to my fall wardrobe!

I am still planning another road trip to Texas in October so getting the flu shot in September means it will be fully effective by then. I am hopeful that the high rate of infection and hospitalization along my route will be reduced by then – and that hospitals will not be as overwhelmed as they are right now…just in case some accident occurs along the way.  

On the same day I got the flu shot – we had a very hazy day in Maryland and it was attributed to the California wildfires. Signs of climate change are everywhere. For me – getting the flu shot is an action to avoid a health issue at a time when the pandemic and climate change are straining the resources of our country to deal with those disasters – making it even more challenging to take the strategic actions to reduce and mitigate the climate change going forward.

Rough Green Snake

/

My son-in-law saw (and photographed) a rough green snake while he was hiking at Ritter Springs State Park near Springfield, Missouri. What a wonderful color! His picture prompted me to do a search to identify it…learn more about the snake.

Avery Resized_20210908_152014.jpeg.jpg

The highpoints of what I found: They are exploited by the pet trade – and people that want to keep them as pets (I’d rather they stay in the wild!). The snake eats insects and other small invertebrates - spends most of its time in trees, often near water. Not venomous. Their range evidently extends into the area where I live in Maryland, but I’ve never seen one. I’m going to start looking for them. It would be quite a thrill to see them in the wild.

Not long after I received the picture, there was a blog post from DFW Urban Wildlife that included some pictures of a rough green snake in Texas! It contained some other critters that are hard to spot in the wild. I am going to look more closely for them…hone my observation skill. It’s probably true that there is almost always more to see out in nature than we notice!

Macros – September 2021

/

My smartphone, a clip on macro lens, and Bluetooth shutter control were the gear I used for the macro photos feathered in this month’s post. They are all from a short walk in Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant from the parking area and into the Honors Garden. The set up works very much like the bridge camera (with lens, diffuser, manual focus) in that I must get close to the subject and move the phone to get the focus perfect. It has the advantage of being a lot more compact than the other set up!

The rain from the night before had left everything with a sheen or droplets of water. Often the wet increased the richness of the colors…and the shine. The thin clouds provided good, diffuse light – a good day for smartphone macro photography. The cedar was on my way to honors garden.

20210909_090222.jpg

The seed pods on the magnolia were not flat enough to be an easy shot! The depth of field is very narrow with magnification.

I experimented with different perspectives of cone flowers

And asters. In the last picture, the depth of field gave me the blurring around the edges than I wanted.

20210909_113756.jpg

The birds nest fungus was in a mulched area near the parking lot. Some of the cups seem to hold water!

20210909_091438 clip.jpg

Even grass seeds take on a different perspective in a zoomed image.

…And these are the best of the rest (note the insect hiding inside a flower)!

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 18, 2021

/

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Young female black bears in Asheville, North Carolina, are big, have cubs early – More research needed…it’s still not known what is causing them to be so much bigger and mature early…or if the population is increasing or not. It is clear that there are quite a few bears and lots of opportunity for interactions between people and bears – many not healthy for the bears.

The alarming risks of mixing common drugs – It is a problem that is acute in most elderly patients with good medical care. Their various doctors have gradually built up the medications…and the regime to take them all appropriately becomes daunting. Hopefully it will become best practice to constantly review and minimize drugs that are prescribed.

Work Of First African American Painter With International Reputation Explored – Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)

Hummingbirds can smell their way out of danger – I was thinking a lot about hummingbirds this past week after my success photographing one at Brookside Gardens.

Praying Mantis – I see these more frequently in the fall…but not every fall. There are so many mantis egg cases, there should be plenty to see; I need to improve my observation skills.

How much energy do we need to achieve a decent life for all? – The most important take away from this study: “energy for eradicating poverty does not pose a threat for mitigating climate change.” That is good news

The lost generation of ancient trees – The ancients are dying….and there are not enough trees old enough to replace them. There are various ways being tried to veteranize younger trees so they can play the role of ancient trees in ecosystems.

Fall Armyworms are Attacking Lawns and Crops on an ‘Unprecedented’ Scale – Hmmm…maybe this is a prompt to reduce or eliminate the grassy portion of the yard.

Mammoth Cave National Park: The World's Longest Cave Is Longer Than Before - 8 more miles mapped bringing the total to 420 miles!

Hand pollination of crops is of major importance – I was surprised that hand pollination is already used for important crops like apple, palm oil and cocoa.

Brookside Gardens in September 2021 -Insects

/

While I was watching for hummingbirds at Brookside Gardens, there was ample time to photograph the antics of bumblebees in the same flowerbed. They were all over the blue/purple plants.

Further back – there was a bush that was attractive to tiger swallowtails. I haven’t seen as many of them as I usually do this year, so I was pleased to photograph a female (with blue on the lower part of the wing) and a male with battered wings.

I also photographed two skippers – one in the same area as the bees and butterflies, the other in the rose garden. They look like they are the same species male and female (looking at the difference in the end of abdomen).

All the insect pictures are using the zoom on the camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) rather than trying to use a macro lens. The insects are too far into the beds to get close enough for macro work…and I like having more depth of field and blurring of the background. The second image of the skipper (on the rose bud and new leaves) is my favorite insect image of the morning!)

Brookside Gardens in September 2021 – Hummingbird

/

We visited Brookside Gardens last week – getting there about 9 AM when the temperature was still very pleasant. Our goal was to see some hummingbirds in the fragrance garden. We chose a weekday to avoid the crowd of photographers with the same objective in mind; the plan worked, and we were the only ones in the area the hummingbirds frequent. This is the toward end of the season for hummingbirds and the females are the ones still around…the males are already further south. We saw and heard the little birds almost immediately.

I was using my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) in Program mode…mounted on a monopod. That gear works well for me because it is maneuverable and has a lot of magnification adjustable with a fingertip. The camera also has a burst mode that worked well during this attempt. It helped that it was a sunny day – plenty of light on the birds!

Even though I saw hummingbirds frequently – in the trees, in the air, quickly flitting over the flowers – I only managed one good series of images. It was feeding near the middle of the bed with flowers attractive to hummingbirds. I’ve selected the 12 best pictures from the bursts of images I took for the slideshow below.

Note how compact the body of the bird is with the feet not visible at all. The muscles it takes to move the wings so rapidly to maneuver into position relative to flowers must be in excellent condition – and require a lot of energy. The bird looked nicely rounded; hopefully this bodes well for a successful migration south for the winter.

More about out visit to the gardens over the next few days about the insects and plants we saw…

Wasp with One Wing

/

On a recent walk around my yard looking for insects – I spotted a wasp on an allium in the chaos garden. I took a few pictures with my point and shot camera (zooming).

It wasn’t flying around so I decided to try to some macro shots with my bridge camera. Normally I would have been leery about being that close to a wasp, but it seemed to just be moving around the cluster of flowers. It was good practice.

It wasn’t until I got inside and was looking at the pictures on a large screen that I realized that the wasp was missing a wing! There was no way it was ever going to fly again.

2021 09 x IMG_8563 clip.jpg

On the same walk – I saw a tiny leaf hopper on the nine bark bush. This is a clipped image…a lot more detail and pattern that I could see with my eye.

18 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

/

18 months into the pandemic and the US is experiencing high rates of delta variant infections. The number of new cases is higher than it was in September 2020 and the number of new deaths is a higher too although not as much as the new cases; the vaccines and early treatments are reducing the number of deaths somewhat. The most people in the hospital and dying are unvaccinated. More schools are opening this fall – mostly with mask mandates. There is a lot of concern for the children under 12 since there is not a vaccine approved for them yet.

On a personal level, I am glad I am fully vaccinated, and that the KF-94 masks protect me as well as others. The availability of higher quality masks is one of the differences from last year when I was still wearing cloth masks (2 of them) that were protection for others – not necessarily for myself. I wear my mask anytime I am not at home indoors (like the grocery store) and outdoors when I am near other people (like at the Farmers Market). We are not eating in restaurants…but getting takeout occasionally. I haven’t done another road trip in the past month.

20210907_150009.jpg

I am attending training for volunteer gigs coming the fall – ones that are primarily outdoors. Those will start in a few weeks if the local schools manage to avoid major COVID outbreaks that would force them to close. There are some places where it appears the delta variant has already peaked (like Springfield MO) but I’m glad I am not planning another road trip until mid-October when (maybe) the overall infection rate will be lower that it is right now on my route to and from Texas.

I wish I could see an clear end of the pandemic, but it may just be wave after wave of variants…some that the vaccine might not be effective against. I’m glad that masks are effective against respiratory spread in general and have grown accustomed to wearing one.

It is frustrating that COVID is still demanding so much of our attention at a time when we need to focus more on actions to address the larger rolling disasters of climate change.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 11, 2021

/

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Wind Energy Accounted for 42% of New US Power in 2020 – And solar was 38% of the new energy. And 8 east coast states have large offshore wind projects in the works in the years ahead. Hurray! It’s a good trend and it looks like the slope of the trend will keep increasing for wind and solar (decrease and go to 0 for new natural gas).

How people respond to wildfire smoke -  Another reason to slip on a mask.

Devastating Rain in Tennessee – A map of the change in soil moisture between August 20 and August 21. The floods on August 21 in Tennessee (area circled on the map) killed at least 22 people. I was surprised that there was an area of Illinois (to the north and a little west of the flash flood circle) where the soil moisture increased even more; perhaps that area floods frequently and the area is managed with flooding in mind.

New analysis reveals Vesuvius Victims’ diverse diets – From analysis of Herculaneum skeletons. Men got more of their protein from seafood. Women ate more meat grown on land, eggs and dairy products.

Eye provide peek at Alzheimer’s disease risk – Amyloid plaques can form in retinas of the eye. Does their presence there provide a visible biomarker for detecting Alzheimer’s risk?

Top 25 birds of the week: Wild Birds! – Bird photography…..challenging and beautiful subjects for our cameras.

Have you seen a weasel lately? – There is a suspicion that weasels are in the decline…but the data is circumstantial. These are not predators that have been widely studied. The post points to a role for citizen scientists!

Dispatches from a world aflame – Reviews of two books about the recent fires…and the relation to climate change.

Preemption of Green Cities in Red States – At a time when we need to get serious about addressing climate change – a drive by some states to keep local governments from taking any action. There is a cognitive dissonance between historically arguing for local control then usurping that control when the state government does not agree with it. I like local control but acknowledge that higher up the governance hierarchy could make sweeping changes easier. Perhaps some of these state governments will redeem themselves by quickly taking strong action toward climate change reduction and mitigation – soon. The top issue for me when I vote these days has become climate change!

Climate Change Is The Greatest Threat To Public Health, Top Medical Journals Warn – Another reason that actions to address climate change must be at the forefront of our thinking about the future. Medicine cannot make up for the injury we are making to ourselves and every living thing on the planet.