Lyle Lewis

The mission to keep the borderlands wild In the rugged terrain where Mexico and the United States meet, a border wall is just the latest obstacle fragmenting habitats and disrupting migration paths. Here’s how a cadre of conservationists is trying to get animals moving.

The Sky Islands still show green arteries from above.
Much of the wildlife connectivity is already severed.
Conservation, at this stage, means keeping the remaining threads open for as long as possible.

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Very true.

Maybe yours didn’t, but my TV is a time-traveling psychopathic killer—responsible for the extinction of both birds. I live in fear every time I turn it on.

North American birds are dying off faster. It signals a human crisis, too. The accelerating decline of birds is a bellwether of far deeper biodiversity crisis — one that threatens not only beloved species but the humans who live alongside them.

This headline would have been accurate at almost any point in the last few centuries.
Bird decline didn’t begin with modern monitoring. It began with habitat destruction and commercial exploitation.
What’s new isn’t the loss.
It’s that we can finally measure it.

People simply don’t understand the physics, hydrology, or ecology behind livestock grazing effects. This is just as true of people who majored in rangeland management in college. It was probably academics that coined the phrase — rangeland improvements —-all ecosystem destroyers.

Simplifying an oversimplification.

Double down

Judge orders changes to Columbia and Snake river dam operations to help 'disappearing' salmon A federal judge in Oregon has ordered narrow changes to hydropower dam operations on the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific Northwest to help salmon. U.S.

Across Republican and Democratic administrations alike, federal courts have often done more to enforce ESA protections than the agencies responsible for them.
Conservation by litigation is a symptom of structural failure.

You’re embarrassing yourself.

Alfalfa... is a low-value water-guzzling crop. So why does this rampant water usage persist?...legislative measures dating back to the 1860s essentially allow for a first-come, first-served approach to water rights. Established dairy farmers and ranchers have free rein to use vast amounts of water.

New report reveals alarming reason why the western US is running out of water: 'It is a stupid system' Vox revealed that agriculture is the top offender with livestock, in particular, dominating the issue of water usage in the Colorado River.

Livestock doesn’t just consume water through feed crops. It also alters dryland watersheds, reducing infiltration, increasing runoff, and weakening the system’s ability to store snowmelt.

You can’t stabilize a river while destabilizing the land that feeds it.

It scales……unfortunately….as you know too well.

Great guess. 🫤

These data center developers asked Trump for an exemption from pollution rules Though the companies weren't granted exemptions, their requests illustrate the data center industry's desperate quest for energy.

AI supremacy.
Diesel generators.
Clean Air Act exemptions.

The future is here….and it still smells like combustion.

Turns out “innovation” mostly means finding faster ways to ignore limits.

Your translation is very spot on.

It would be an improvement if he was operated by an invertebrate.

Hope you don’t live near a cliff.

We don’t want to know what makes us uncomfortable.

We often don’t know enough to know what we should be measuring.

That wraps it up……and puts a bow on it.

It’$ a my$tery.

Cautionary tales are what’s for breakfast.

He’s doing a lot more than tearing society apart. Unfortunately, he was elected by the majority of people in America.

Wildlife policy has entered a strange phase where killing is marketed as education, profit is framed as stewardship, and eradication is sold as management.

Wolves are a complex part of functioning ecosystems being turned into a revenue stream.

This isn’t conservation. It’s commodification.

It’s unfixable…..unfortunately.

Hi Amy,
I missed you. I hope you are doing well!

Study shows how rocket launches pollute the atmosphere Is the global atmospheric commons destined to be an industrial waste dumping ground?

Another example of human activity expanding faster than our ability to understand its consequences.

It transcends government and corporations. Any large institution adapts to these constraints.