Regrow Qld 19 October 2022 Issue 36 Vol 3
Flood preparation, Bird counting, Good News, Monarch Butterfly recovery, and Greg discovers he's an Apocaloptimist.
Editorial
Anna Hitchcock
My friends,
with the town of Echuca about to go under, and many towns in NSW and Victoria facing a flooding disaster, it seems appropriate to talk about the weather.
We are looking at a third La Nina year in a row here on the Eastern Seaboard, and the catchments are full. Every dam, lake, river and pond is full to the brim, and while this is great for ecology, it’s not so wonderful for flood mitigation.
Here in Central Queensland, we can expect to see roads wash away, especially the stretch between Gladstone and Rockhampton where whoever is in charge of the never-ending roadworks doesn’t seem to have considered the possibility of rainfall.
Every 5mm of rain on a full catchment means blocked highways, supply disruptions and dangerous conditions, especially at night.
We try to keep a very positive focus here - we believe that forewarned is forearmed, so here’s a list of positive things to do to help keep you and your family safe this summer.
Now’s the time to check that you have enough canned food to last for a couple of weeks, and make sure it can be eaten cold from the tin if necessary. You’ll get tired of beans and spaghetti, but you won’t need a food drop. Don’t forget your pets!
Check your water containers - I keep a 20L container in the bathroom, and replace the water every couple of months. It’s drinking water for a cyclone or flood emergency.
I know fuel is expensive right now, but fill up a tin anyway. It will give you some peace of mind this summer. My car, even if it can’t go anywhere, will be able to charge phones and other devices, like a big generator.
If you have a generator, now’s the time to give it a service and check that it runs. You don’t want to be doing that in the dark and rain.
And on a final positive note, now is also the time to plant trees, because the extra rainfall will help them get established in record time.
Happy gardening!
Anna
Project Update:
This week we have had volunteers out and about contributing to the Great Australian Bird Count, which now has more than a million sightings submitted.
The feedback from our bird counters was that they could hear more birds than they could see, and knowing a bird’s calls is an important way to identify the species in your area.
Birds in Backyards has a website with 40 of the most common bird calls you are likely to hear - and they’re downloadable!
I spent far too much time this morning listening to bird calls, it’s a lot of fun.
https://www.birdsinbackyards.net/birds/featured/Top-40-Bird-Songs
Good News:
Thanks to futurecrunch.com for our Good News this week. Got some to share? e-mail gladconscouncil@gmail.com.
Less Work, More Results:
The world's biggest trial of a four day work week, involving 70 firms giving 3,300 employees full pay for 80% of their normal hours, just reached its halfway point. 46% of firms say overall productivity has actually improved, and more than eight in ten say it's working so well they're going to keep on going once the trial ends. Gizmodo
Regenerating old coal mines
If you're looking for a definition of 'regenerative' how about this? As America’s coal industry recedes, it's leaving behind barren, acidified sites across Appalachia. Chestnut seedlings however, thrive in those soils, and conservationists are now planting tens of thousands of them on former mines across the region. NYT
Kemp’s ridley sea turtle hatchlings return to the Chandeleur Islands in Louisiana
Poaching is less of a threat to sea turtles than it used to be, with a new analysis showing illegal poaching has dropped sharply around the world in the last decade. The numbers are reflected in anecdotal reports from conservationists too. In Lousiana, for example, hatchlings have been spotted on the uninhabited Chandeleur Islands for the first time in over 75 years. PBS
Distribution of Kemp's ridley sea turtle: red dot = primary nesting beach; green= adult male range;[14] dark blue = adult female range;[14] mid-blue = juvenile and subadult range; arrows = Gulf Stream; light blue = accidentals and vagrants (95% juveniles and subadults), black dots = verified records[15][16]
What We’re Watching:
Good News: because of a variety of conservation measures, Monarch Butterflies are starting to recover in the USA.
Note that they are an introduced species in Australia.
Butterfly Profile:
Thanks to the Queensland Museum - Garden Butterflies and Wikipedia
Euploea core, the common crow,[2][3] is a common butterfly found in South Asia[2] to Australia. In India it is also sometimes referred to as the common Indian crow,[3] and in Australia as the Australian crow.[3] It belongs to the crows and tigers subfamily Danainae (tribe Danaini).[3]
E. core is a glossy-black, medium-sized 85–95 mm (3.3–3.7 in) butterfly with rows of white spots on the margins of its wings. E. core is a slow, steady flier. Due to its unpalatability it is usually observed gliding through the air with a minimum of effort. As caterpillars, this species sequesters toxins from its food plant which are passed on from larva to pupa to the adult. While feeding, it is a very bold butterfly, taking a long time at each bunch of flowers. It can also be found mud-puddling with others of its species and often in mixed groups. The males of this species visit plants like Crotalaria and Heliotropium to replenish pheromone stocks which are used to attract a female during courtship.
The common crow is the most common representative of its genus, Euploea. Like the tigers (genus Danaus), the crows are inedible and thus mimicked by other Indian butterflies (see Batesian mimicry). In addition, the Indian species of the genus Euploea show another kind of mimicry, Müllerian mimicry. Accordingly, this species has been studied in greater detail than other members of its genus in India.
Opinion
Greg Bray
Things Will be Just Fine… Probably
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Apocalypse
Folks, apparently I’m an Apocaloptimist: someone who sees the coming environmental apocalypse but believes everything will work out juuuust fine in the end.
For those lucky enough to survive it.
Basically, I’m bracing for the worst but hoping for the best.
Anyway, last week, to get an idea of how things are going on your planet, I decided to watch the news every night to do a little stocktake.
By Thursday, the Doctor had to prescribe some tablets which mostly stopped the screaming.
Just kidding!
Nobody can see a doctor that quickly outside of Brisbane.
But I did develop a sad, little, sigh as the seemingly never-ending bad news plopped out of the pipe.
So, strap yourself in for a quick recap:
Some environ-Mental, climate over-re-activists tossed a can of soup at a classic Van Gogh painting.
Like a good-hearted, but imbecilic, mate who decides the best way to treat your termite problem is to burn your house the ground, they have got to be doing more harm than good for ‘the cause’?
BTW: why couldn’t they have souped Blue Poles? Honestly, it might actually improve the thing.
The Ukraine war goes on, because Vlad Cretin Putin, who is (barely) in charge of a colossal 11% of the world’s total land mass (for comparison, China is 6% and Oz, 5%), wants to go shirtless horsey riding over a teeny bit more blood-soaked dirt.
And, thanks to ‘Land Grab’ Vlad, innocent civilians continue getting shelled, while Europeans will have to choose between ‘Eating or Heating’ during the coming northern winter.
Never ones to miss out on choking the Golden Goose, the Saudi’s decided to cut oil supply, pushing fuel costs into the stratosphere, much like one of Kim ‘Little Rocket Man’ Jung-on’s North Korean missiles.
Kimmy’s BFF, and Mobster of the Year for Life, ex-President Trump, continues to avoid jail while the current President, Joe Cool, ramps up fracking and decriminalising marijuana. Gas and Grass man!
The new British King struggled to move some pens on his desk, while downtrodden Iraqi women were being abused, beaten, raped or killed for protesting about being abused, beaten, raped or killed.
Large scale animal extinctions in the past 50 years have wiped out nearly 70% of animal life on earth.
The move from coal to renewables drags on at a glacial pace while glaciers melt in the climate furnace faster than predicted.
Here in Oz, parts of the country not underwater are facing food shortages.
The Federal Government is on track to give billionaires and super profiteering corporations more tax-free cash while battling Aussies are being price gouged, rent squeezed, or interest rated out of their homes.
Albo mate, if you’re reading this, you may want to look up the origin, and consequences, of the phrase: “Let them eat cake.”
And the Covid epidemic is officially over! Apparently, we can now ignore it, just like the early birdmen ignored gravity…
Meanwhile, here in Gladstone, I stare out of my kitchen window as ships, chock full of coal and gas, chug out of the harbour, while frantically washing the last pips out of my empty jam jar before recycling it.
Which means I’ve stared the full catastrophe right in the eye, then responded by doing the little things which will count long-term.
Because at the end of the day, in spite of all the climate gloom, tinpot dictators, foolish financial decisions, lying, scheming, cheating, greed and other almost overwhelming bad news, we live in a pretty amazing time of medical miracles, technological marvels and inspirational innovation.
I genuinely believe humanity has, or will find, the ways and means to re-invent a brighter, cleaner, fairer, greener world.
Yet, if things do go completely mango shaped in the not-too-distant future, when the survivors stagger out of the dust and rubble, they’ll have a handy supply of sparkling clean jam jars to kickstart their new civilisation!
Greg
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