What we *don't* do is decide it's too difficult to fill the gap left by wolves, and let forests die.
The exact same applies with megafauna.
06.03.2026 20:00
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What we *don't* do is decide it's too difficult to fill the gap left by wolves, and let forests die.
The exact same applies with megafauna.
Imagine wolves were globally extinct, and as a result their prey such as deer were reproducing like crazy and destroying native forests. How would we fill the gap?
That's actually the situation in Ireland and the UK. Culling has a big role to play, and looking at other predator species like lynx.
It's not a question of reintroducing megafauna like st elephants (how even could we, when they're extinct?).
It's a question of understanding the fact that their absence leaves huge gaps in the ecosystem, and working out how best to fill those gaps with the options available to us.
I'm not suggesting this is an open secret within the climate science community, but it's remarkable how little impact this sort of research is generating. Because if the rate of warming really has *doubled* then you can kiss goodbye to 2°C. www.carbonbrief.org/pace-of-glob...
Birds disappearing as Trump approves new pesticide tsunami
Billions fewer birds flying through North American skies than decades ago and their population is shrinking ever faster, mostly due to intensive agriculture and warming temperatures, a new study found
apnews.com/article/bird...
Just as in Europe and other continents, the human-driven extinction of megafauna like elephants had hugely negative impacts on American ecosystems.
If we want to make them function healthily once more, that factor mustn't be overlooked.
share.google/1nMLsNANDBq1...
The RTB still can’t compel landlords to lower rent if investigators spot illegal hikes. Changes to make it possible were to be included in a new law, when first announced. But they were dropped.
Costa Rica has shown it *IS* possible to bring back nature on a mass scale, as @thinkorswim.bsky.social outlines in this great piece.
Meanwhile in Ireland all we get is, at best, incremental change and fudging.
Why is Irish nature always just an afterthought?
www.irishtimes.com/environment/...
The tree pictured (Q. petraea) is a teenager, and is retaining dead leaves high up.
Nobody really knows for sure why some tree species like this rainforest oak retain dead leaves over the winter, a phenomenon called marcescence.
Could be to discourage browsing animals from eating the bare twigs, including extinct megafauna like elephants, given that it extends high up.
Trump’s Iran War Is Right Out of Putin’s Playbook
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmvR...
Yes and it flies in the face of the forestry industry that claims that trees stop drawing down carbon beyond 40 years… because they only measure the “board feet” of a tree. Instead old growth trees are like giant pumps delivering carbohydrates to their fungal partners.
I’ve spent years, decades, obsessing over the Bush Administration’s Iraq WMD lies, writing about them, debunking them.
I can think of no lie about Iraq WMDs told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al that comes even close to the enormity and absurdity of this lie from Donald Trump.
Let's hope that Trump's war of aggression achieves what he/his fossil fuel lobby doesn't want but is needed to save life on Earth: a much faster switch to renewables, and not just in the UK.
"The stories being told about Muslims and immigrants today are the same stories that were being told about Jews a century ago."
"Learn [from the past] or repeat it: that is, and has always been, our choice."
Fish concentration camps are as bad as chicken concentration camps.
Horrendous conditions where animals are forced to live in their own shit.
No wonder extremely infectious diseases spread so easily when humans practice concentration camp farming.
Viktigt att skydda gammal skog.
The war on Iraq was, in theory, to eliminate (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, bring democracy, and guarantee global security.
But in reality it did the exact opposite. Now we're being sold the very same lies all over again.
#Iran
share.google/KtIkFDhGCUNY...
No, though I have seen an image of an orchid growing as an epiphyte in Leitrim.
I doubt you’re finding this under a monoculture forest plantation.
Globally, mycorrhizal fungal communities move roughly a billion tons of carbon per year into Earth's soils, above all in old-growth forests.
Wild, natural ecosystems are the bedrock of a healthy planet. It's time we started recognising and acting on that.
share.google/afcBcyPH7lVc...
Totally.
However, people do need to 'interfere' to reverse *human* impacts, such as controlling alien invasive species, reintroducing artificially absent native species, etc.
Otherwise, yes: just let nature get on with it!
This is 100% correct.
However, people do need to 'interfere' to reverse *human* impacts, such as controlling alien invasive species, reintroducing artificially absent native species, etc.
Otherwise, yes: just let nature get on with it!
I didn't know most orchids were epiphytic, so checked and it's absolutely true: around 70% of 18-20k orchid species around the world grow as epiphytes.
Amazing!
I didn't know most orchids were epiphytic, so googled it and you're right: around 70% of 18-20k orchid species grow as epiphytes.
Thanks for the info!
An ancient aspen tree is growing moss at the stem.
Fallen trees are covered with moss on the forest floor.
Old-growth boreal forests have so much more life in them compared to monoculture plantations. Ancient trees decay for ages on the forest floor, providing habitat for plants and animals. Vitality everywhere you look.
(Epiphytes do *not* include plants that grow on trees but are rooted in the ground, ie climbers like ivy or honeysuckle.)
Epiphytes are plants that grow on trees, and their abundance anywhere in the world indicates rainforest.
This epiphytic wood sorrel in my own place, an Irish Atlantic rainforest, is just coming into flower.
Yes, thanks!