MOTHER EARTH NEWS February/March 2022

Folks in the traditional labor force are generally considered an expense to the businesses they work for, from the accounting perspective — neat, tidy, black and white, easily spreadsheet-able. And even though many CEOs say their company’s labor force is its greatest asset, the daily management and financial machinery have a difficult time accounting for the value of that intangible entity. Looking at my own decades in the traditional labor force, I conclude that I could not have ever afforded to buy my lifestyle with cash, but the combination of judicious cash investment, in addition to thousands of hours of my own labor, allowed me to work toward the goals of financial independence and a life that I don’t need a routine vacation from. Yes, I agree, I am lucky.…

Leslie Wharton, spokesperson for Elders Climate Action (ECA), is in the midst of organizing a growing number of “old hands” into a nationwide network of people who, instead of just talking, are getting together and taking action. “If I were 12 to 20 [years old] right now and looking at our chaotic future, I would be terrified and angry,” Wharton says. “A year or so ago, some of the youth groups started referring to our generation as the ‘boomers,’ in a bad sense: ‘You boomers, you’re the ones who really caused all these problems.’ That sort of thing. So, we decided we would call ourselves the Boomer Brigade. We are here, as a brigade of boomers, to deal with climate change.” ECA’s parent organization, Elders Action Network (EAN), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.…

In March 2021, new research was published in Science magazine showing that butterfly populations in the western United States have declined, on average, 1.6 percent every year for the past 40 years. The study drew from data collected by professional and citizen scientists. The causes for the butterflies’ decline are many, but researchers were able to single out warmer fall months, which suggests that global climate change is largely responsible. The study builds on findings from around the world showing declining butterfly populations. Recent research in Illinois has confirmed similar trends of decline across all species of butterfly, but some species have been hit harder than others. The eastern monarch has declined 80 percent in the past 40 years. Meanwhile, the western monarch has declined by a staggering 99 percent. In…

In British Columbia, Canada, wildfires are more frequent, pine beetles are more numerous, and loggers are breaching agreed-upon limits. The forests of British Columbia have been strained to the point that they’re now a net carbon emitter rather than a carbon sink. The result is a negative feedback loop: Climate change increases threats to the forest, and the diminishing forest increases inputs on climate change. Natasha Kuperman wants to break the loop. Kuperman, a former real estate developer and architect, recently launched Seed the North, with the mission of reseeding forests using self-flying drones. The advantage of drones over good old-fashioned gunny sacks full of saplings is that drones can more easily reach the hinterlands of rugged northern Canada. They can also get into recently burned forests, which are too dangerous…

Motivated by calls to transition the United State’s grid to cleaner sources, the Biden administration announced in March that it intends to build approximately 2,500 new offshore wind turbines (OWTs). But OWTs are not ecologically benign, so deciding where they go can be difficult. In particular, some researchers are concerned about their impact on whales. Enter a new tool created by The Nature Conservancy. The Conservancy’s Marine Mapping Tool is an interactive map with layers of data on marine life to help decision-makers site OWTs wisely. However, when using the tool, it’s difficult to find a stretch of coastal waters that isn’t flagged as habitat for a threatened species, and nearly impossible to find a spot with no life at all. Data can’t smooth out every conflict, but, as spatial ecologist…

“When you’re 9 years old, a playhouse made of recycled lumber can become a castle, fort, or anything else you can imagine.” EDITORS’ PICK Garden Bed Creativity We recently decided to build raised garden beds. We didn’t know what we should use to raise the beds, so we came up with the idea of using plastic window wells that we purchased at a local building supply store. We put ¾-inch green-treated plywood on top of the window wells, and then we drilled ½-inch holes through the plywood for drainage. We placed our planters on top of the plywood, and then we added ¾ inch of stones inside the planters and filled the whole thing with dirt. We’re looking forward to spring, when we won’t have to bend down to do our gardening! Thank you,…