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Glass Overfull

William Rees on Humanity’s Ecological Overshoot

There has been a boom, and soon there will be a bust, in global human population. And no advanced civilization will be able to reemerge because we will have used everything up. There will be no oil and gas and other supplies of that nature to maintain any civilization that might emerge from the ashes of this one.

Wild Animals

Swimming with whale sharks, hearing a mountain lion, refusing to eat a snake

Airborne

Seema Lakdawala on Viruses and How They Spread

Studies done with animals in labs don’t totally replicate the way humans get infected, which involves mucus, saliva, and other pathogens. We don’t know the full complexity of that interaction.

Bird’s-Eye View

Jennifer Ackerman on How Birds Adapt, Survive, and Think

Leviton: How do we evaluate their intelligence without viewing them as feathered versions of ourselves?

Ackerman: Anthropomorphism is a real sticking point in the field. I think that’s changing because a lot of behaviors in birds are in fact similar to human behaviors. But any scientist will tell you it’s not easy to probe the mind of another animal, especially when they have kinds of intelligence that differ from our own. We know how to measure things that we’re good at, like solving physical problems. Scientists may give a bird food in a container that it has to figure out how to open in order to eat. The scientists observe how long it takes the bird to solve the problem and whether it’s showing “behavioral flexibility.” In other words: Can it shift its strategies? Can it innovate when confronted with new challenges? That’s pretty easy for us to measure, but birds also have social intelligence, musical intelligence, and other kinds of intelligence that are harder to measure. For example, we’re still trying to figure out how birds know where they’re going. Humans don’t have the innate capacity to navigate using the earth’s magnetic fields and other information sources.

Overheard While Bird-Watching

Killdeer, Charadrius vociferus
Morning, pal. Chilly night, hope you fared OK. That fat old yellow sun ought to crest the ridge any minute. Or maybe not, given these rain clouds. I’m shooting to be an hour, two tops. Cool with you? My intention is to take it slow, avoid creating a ruckus. That said, I’m absolutely cranked on black coffee, like cranked cranked, a full French press plus a commuter mug in my jacket pocket. I’ll try not to be the most annoying guy you’ve ever met, but no promises.

Hive Mind

Lars Chittka on the Surprising Brainpower of Bees

Chittka: For me, understanding the minds of bees and other animals inspires a new respect for nature. Many conservation efforts—and there are a lot of people trying to rescue what’s left of the natural world—are motivated by the utility of these animals. This is especially the case with bees and insects. Many people are aware that bees are in trouble and that we ought to do something to help them, because they pollinate our crops. Many fruits and vegetables depend on bees’ pollination services: for example, melons, tomatoes, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, zucchini, pumpkins, cherries, cucumbers, squash, apples, and citrus fruits.

But that approach can’t work overall. If you’re really trying to protect nature, then it’s a complete package with many species, including annoying ones like wasps. So in addition to the utility argument, we must recognize that many of the animals around us are likely sentient—and thus quite possibly capable of experiencing the deterioration of their habitats. This creates a responsibility for us to do something about it.

Where the Wild Things Are

John Davis on the Urgency of Expanding North America’s Wilderness

Tonino: Where would we humans go if we returned half the continent to the wild creatures?

Davis: Well, much of Canada and the American West is already rather uninhabited by humans. In fact, I suspect more than half of the continent could become ecological reserves. I like the idea that, instead of wilderness islands within a matrix of human development, we reverse the pattern, and humans live densely clustered within a wild matrix. It’s not politically or economically feasible right now, but some such arrangement might be possible eventually.

Returning

Suzanne Kelly on Green Burial and the Embrace of Mortality

The fact is, “green” is the way we buried our dead over 150 years ago in the US. It’s the way many Indigenous peoples in North America have cared for their dead. This other, more recent, method is the anomaly.

A Seat at the Table

Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann on Indigenous Arctic Foodways in an Industrialized World

The terrible emotions I was filled with are the truth of what it means to be alive. When you live, something else dies. Even if you only eat plants, animals die for you to be able to eat. We do not talk about that often enough.

Under Fire

Thor Hanson on How Animals and Plants are Adapting to a Warming World

We’ve got changes playing out now with astounding rapidity. Biologists can see natural selection occurring over the course of a field season. . . . Studying these adaptations can help us identify the issues that are most important and the species that need the most help. This may not make us worry less, but it can help us worry smarter.