The scientists were right, be they government, university or private. The tale was told decades ago.

What astounds me is that even when faced with the facts as they present themselves the politics continue to be out of step with reality. Never did I expect propaganda about climate to be this toxic to human life. How ridiculous is it going to get?

I hate to say it, but, that brown water is all the topsoil washed away from the flooding now headed downriver. It not only causes a drop in production by the farms, it also causes problems downriver with sediment build-up that can add to the problems of flooding. This is a disaster of monumental dynamics.

I guess I am disillusioned by my country and the powers that be. It is a sorry state of affairs in the USA in many ways and this is only one.

October 8, 2019
By Jonathan Erdman

Floodwater recedes from around grain silos on March 23, 2019 near Nemaha, Nebraska.

Ten weather disasters (click here) have caused at least $1 billion in damage in the United States so far in 2019, according to a just-released government report.

Among the billion-dollar weather disasters in the first nine months of the year were a pair of landfalling tropical cyclones, according to NOAA's findings. Severe weather, drought and river flooding also made the list.

In records going back to 1980, the U.S. has endured a total of 254 billion-dollar weather disasters inflicting a combined $1.7 trillion (USD 2019) in damage.

Out of those 254 events, 65 have occurred in the last five years. That's more than twice as many per year as the annual average since 1980. Inflation doesn't explain the increase, because the figures are inflation-adjusted....

Japan hit by biggest typhoon in decades - October 12, 2019 (click here for news story below - thank you)

October 19, 2019

By Samuel Lovett

By dawn’s break, after a night of lashing rain and violent winds, the full scale of destruction was laid bare. For Koriyama, an industrial hub in Fukushima Prefecture, the flooding had been extensive.

In the east of the city, whole neighbourhoods were left submerged. All that could be seen, as rescuers began their recovery efforts last weekend, were the rooftops – islands of grey and iron-brown beneath a subdued sky.

Typhoon Hagibis, one of the strongest storms to hit in decades, has left its mark on Japan. Five lives were lost in Koriyama. In the Suimoncho neighbourhood, a compact network of worn, wooden homes that sits on the city’s river banks, one of their own was among that count....

How fracking is taking its toll on Argentina's indigenous people (click here for news article below - thank you)

We have seen it before in Ecuador. The abuses by the petroleum industry, the illnesses of the people and the birth defects of the infants. This is nothing new. It is all too familiar.

14 October 2019

By Uki Goni

...Fracking accidents happen regularly in Vaca Muerta (Dead Cow in Spanish), one of the world’s largest shale oil and gas reservoirs. In 2018 alone, there were an estimated 934 incidents at 95 wells.

There have been leaks from drilling sites, and claims from local people of water pollution and increased ill health affecting them and their livestock.

For Argentina’s leaders there is a bigger picture. They believe the shale reservoir can rescue the country from its ongoing economic crises.

“This province will transform us into a world power,” the president, Mauricio Macri, said on Tuesday to a crowd of 3,000 people in Neuquén, referring to the nearly 2,000 fracking wells that have been drilled there since the discovery of the deposits was announced in 2011.

Twenty companies own a total of 36 concessions in Vaca Muerta, covering a combined area of about 8,500 sq km (3,300 sq miles).

The Argentine oil company YPF leads the pack with 23 areas, of which 16 are operational, in partnership with the US firm Chevron....

...But Campo Maripe claims the problem is not seepage from below, but from above. “They drilled about 400 wells contaminating everything. They dug pits next to the wells where they dumped the waste without any treatment and threw limestone on it to cover it up. We lost our best land.”

Albino, Mabel and other family members say they have suffered a multitude of health problems since the fracking began.

“One of our sisters and her husband died of cancer in 2017,” says Mabel. “The fracking has affected our bones, which become decalcified. I had to have a titanium spine implant; another sister also needs one. Albino had an operation on his arm because of bone loss.”

Both siblings claim doctors have privately told them the cause is contamination from the wells. “They are scared to talk,” says Mabel. She says one worried doctor asked her: “Are you recording me?”

“Last year, the grandson of another sister was born with his intestines outside his body. They had to operate [on] him to put them in,” says Mabel....

This is the Post Oak tree twig with plenty of acrons ready to mature into the food of squirrels and other forest creatures.

For the most part, the Post Oak is a hardy tree with few diseases affecting it. It is sometimes bothered by Chestnut blight or oak wilt.

There is one insect in particular that causes damage to the twigs and branches, namely the "Twig Pruner."

July 11, 2008
By Howard Russell

...The twig pruner (click here) cuts through the twig from the inside, but leaves the bark intact. For a short time the injured branch remains on the tree, but eventually succumbs to the wind, breaks off and falls from the tree. A small oval shaped hole in the end of the branch is a tell-tale sign of the twig pruner. Look closely for this hole because the larva usually packs the opening with a frass plug to keep out predators and other unwanted guests. Twig diameters at the point of the cut usually range from about three-eighths to three-quarters of an inch. Common host trees are reported to include oak, hickory, pecan, walnut, basswood, redbud and hackberry.

Reports of the life cycle of the twig pruner vary somewhat. As we understand it, the females lay eggs in small twigs near the ends of live branches in late spring. The larva eats the inside of the twig, then bores into the center of the branch and tunnels downward. When nearly fully grown, the larva severs the twig or branch by tunneling in circles from the center outward to the bark. Pruned twigs or branches soon break and fall. The larva continues to feed in the severed twig until it pupates. Winter is passed in the severed branch....

Octobrer 17, 2019
By Jennifer Gray and Gianluca Mezzofiore

Winds as strong as those of a tropical storm (click here) pummeled New England on Thursday, as a storm known as a bomb cyclone knocked out power and promised to disrupt travel in the region through the end of the workweek.

The storm "parked over southern New England with the pressure equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane" for much of Thursday, CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen said.

Thousands of customers from New York to Maine were still without electricity as of Thursday night, according to PowerOutages.us. And more than 100 flights have been canceled Thursday at Boston Logan International Airport, while more than 230 have been canceled at New York's John F. Kennedy & LaGuardia airports, FlightAware.com reports; more delays and cancellations are expected through late Friday.

Wind gusts of up to 50 mph punished New England for much of Thursday, while New York City, Boston, and Portland, Maine, felt winds of at least 39 mph -- the low end of tropical-storm force -- with stronger gusts.

Provincetown, on Massachusetts' Cape Cod, has already been lashed with winds of 90 mph. Boston Logan recorded gusts of 70 mph overnight into Thursday, and gusts atop Mount Washington in New Hampshire were clocked at 125 mph....

These are mature post oak acorns. Each acorn is 1/2 to 1 inch long, elliptical in shape; 1/3 to 1/2 enclosed by a deep cup, green turning brown with maturity in its first year. There is no stem, the acorn is on the twig.

October 4, 2012
By Ken Moore

It is hard for us not to see time (click here) through the lens of our species; humans have life spans measured in decades, at most about a century. Most other organisms with which we form close relationships have life spans shorter than we do. We have pets that live a decade or two. We plant a garden, which dies in the fall and is replanted in the spring. Perhaps we have a psychological vanity that we are nearly immortal, presiding godlike over our dependent animals and plants, watching their beginnings and ends.

However, we live our lives around organisms that live much longer than we do, that may be almost unchanged from the time of our birth to the time of our death, that stolidly oversaw events that we might consider impossibly long ago (a band of Native Americans moving along a trading path, the American Revolution, the founding of the University of North Carolina, the marriage of our great-great-great grandparents, the Civil War) and may see the 24th century. Most trees have life spans of centuries, often many centuries, and while in the eastern Piedmont we lack the “Methusaleh trees” (bald-cypresses, redwoods, sequoias, bristlecone pines) with lifespans of millenia, we still live among trees that far outlast us....

...Instead, consider our post oaks (Quercus stellata) common trees of the high, dry, granite monadnock of Chapel Hill. Sometimes called “iron oak,” this species is a survivor, tolerant of drought and fire and nutrient starvation. It grows slowly, often adding less than 1/16 of an inch of diameter in a year, especially when growing on a dry granite hilltop in acidic soils. Growing as little as half an inch a decade and six inches a century, post oaks develop wood that is hard and tough, the heaviest wood in North America....

October 11, 2019

By Jean Lotus

Baseball-size hailstones destroyed car windows in June 2018 near Colorado Springs.

Denver -- As hail season ends (click here)  in the "hail alley" states east of the Rocky Mountains, weather scientists say these destructive storms appear to be increasing, causing greater property and crop damage and injuring more people and animals.

In 2019, extra-large hailstones measuring 3 inches or more in circumference fell during storms in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas this spring and summer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported. A total of 176 episodes of severe hail were reported in those states, plus South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

In August, a severe storm with baseball-size hail and 70-mph winds killed between 11,000 and 13,000 waterfowl at a Montana marshland in Yellowstone County. Dead and injured pelicans, cormorants, geese and ducks were scattered around the Big Lake Wildlife Management Area north of Billings, according to state park officials.

"We walked up and saw dead birds strewn across the shoreline and injured birds with broken wings," said Justin Paugh, wildlife biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks....

To the right - Patterns of hail-hit areas are now being captured with drone footage, as in this image taken near Wellington, Colo.

The leaves of the Post Oak are unique. They are 3-1/4 to 6 inches wide. The leaves are obovate in shape with 5 to 7 deep, broad and rounded lobes.

The two middle lobes are the largest with a short pointed base lobe with a rounded tip. The base lobe may be thicker than the others. 

It is shiny, dark green, slightly rough with scattered hairs above. The underside of the leaf is grey-green with tiny star-shaped hairs. See right.

The leaves turn brown in the fall/autumn.

October 20, 2016
By Karol Holloway

Texas seeing widespread, sudden death of post oak trees (click here)

The yellow leaves of some post oak trees are not a sign of autumn. Instead, lamentably, they signal the tree's pending death.

Post oaks throughout the state, including North Texas, are sickening and dying, victims of erratic weather, arborists say.

The Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension Service started getting phone calls in the spring from concerned homeowners and arborists saying post oaks were "suddenly" dying, says Kevin Ong, director of the Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab, operated by AgriLife

"When you get a whole bunch of folks asking the same question, and they are frmo all over Texas --- even the panhandle --- you know that something widespread is up,: he says....

The human rights abuses are mounting in Brazil.

October 14, 2019
By Chris Dalby

A damning report (click here) stating that federal agents systematically tortured prisoners in Brazil’s northern state of Pará have found little attention from President Jair Bolsonaro, who dismissed questions about the scandal as nonsense.

In early October, federal prosecutors in Pará issued a report, stating that members of a security task force, intended to stop violence within prisons, had been torturing prisoners in vicious ways, including “beatings with brooms, daily attacks with rubber bullets and pepper spray, impalement of the anus, and the piercing of feet with nails, among other atrocities,” reported El País.

When asked to comment on the report on October 8, Bolsonaro told journalists to stop “asking bullshit.”...

October 8, 2019
By Colin Brineman

A recent report (click here) on Venezuela by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a grim portrayal of a country in a severe crisis. Yet, given the extensive media coverage given to this report, it is important to contextualize what is going on in Venezuela in light of the situation in other countries in the region.

Comparing the rates of violent abuses of state security agents in Venezuela with those of state actors like Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, or Mexico, it becomes clear that Venezuela is far from being an outlier, but rather part of a disturbing pattern of abusive, tough-on-crime, “mano dura” (“iron fist”) security policies in Latin America.

What is an outlier, however, is the disproportionate media attention directed at Venezuela’s human rights situation, in comparison to other Latin American nations.

Another outlier is the US approach to Venezuela, which is clearly driven by the political aims of President Donald Trump — not by any particular concern for human rights. To get a sense of Trump’s double standard when it comes to human rights, one need look no further than how his administration treats Venezuela’s neighbor, Brazil....

Venezuela must be removed from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Maduro is an illegitimate government.

October 17, 2019
By Michael R. Pompeo

...Its membership includes authoritarian governments (click here) with unambiguous and abhorrent human rights records, such as China, Cuba, and Venezuela.  These are among the reasons why the United States withdrew from the Human Rights Council in 2018 (cilck here).

The United States strongly supports multilateral organizations that sincerely and effectively work to protect human rights.  The election to the Human Rights Council of Maduro’s representative is a farce that further undermines the Council’s already frail credibility.  We desire to work with our allies and partners in support of Venezuelan interim President Guaidó’s efforts to restore human rights and democracy in Venezuela, a critical objective that reflects the United States’ commitment to human rights and freedom.....

October 17, 2019
By Rachelle Krygier

Caracas - The government of President Nicolás Maduro (click here) won a seat Thursday on the U.N. Human Rights Council, a controversial victory for a regime accused of using intimidation, torture and murder to cling to power.

The Maduro government, no longer recognized as legitimate by the United States and around 50 other countries, had sought a return to the 47-member panel to counter an image of international isolation — and thwart investigations into its own alleged abuses.

Venezuela and regional rival Brazil beat out Costa Rica for the two Latin American seats up for election. Costa Rica had declared its candidacy only this month in an effort to deny Venezuela a three-year term, but the support of China, Russia, Cuba and other allies gave the socialist state the win.

“We celebrate, once again, the Bolivarian diplomacy of peace at the U.N.,” Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said after the vote. “This victory is historic, since we faced a ferocious campaign.”...

October 18, 2019
By Jorge L. Ortiz

A firefighter (click here) gives water to a tropical bird rescued from a wildfire in the Santa Cruz Province of Bolivia, August 22, 2019.

The proliferation of fires in the Amazon rainforest (click here) drew international attention in August, especially when French President Emmanuel Macron called for urgent action.

Since then, the eyes of the world have shifted elsewhere as House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, Hurricane Dorian leveled large swaths of the Bahamas, a Brexit deal was left for dead and revived, and U.S. troops pulled out of northern Syria

A man works in a burning tract of Amazon jungle as it is being cleared by loggers and farmers in Iranduba, Amazonas state, Brazil, August 20, 2019.

Satellite photos of the Amazon from July 2019 showed an area the size of a soccer field was being cleared every minute, BBC News reported.

Meanwhile, the Amazon continued to burn.

The number of fires decreased by 35% in September, but experts say this is merely a slowdown in a crisis with global repercussions.

Indigenous people from the Mura tribe show a deforested area inside the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, Amazonas State, Brazil, on August 20, 2019.

There were still 19,925 fire outbreaks in September on the Brazilian part of the rainforest, which accounts for nearly 65% of the Amazon basin. Moreover, through the first nine months of the year, the number of fires soared by 41% compared to the same period in 2018, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reported....

The bark of the Post Oak is light grey, fissured into scaly ridges. The trunk can be short and crooked, or it can be long and straight depending on drainage, soil type and nutrition available.

Besides being a staple for the coastal forests of New York the Post Oak is among the oaks composing what is known to conservation biologists as "Oak Savannas." These precious ecosystems are becoming an endangered habitat and should be protected.

Below is a picture of an orchard oriole. This is not an exotic bird and if they are disappearing from view it is something to be worried about.

May 19, 2015

The orchard oriole is one of several species that could do better with the restoration of historical oak savanna, according to a new TWS member study published in The Journal of Wildlife Management.

...Oak savanna, (click here) characterized by small tree copses or individual trees surrounded by more open grasslands or low-growing bushes, used to cover a massive area of the country from Minnesota down to Texas. But these ecosystems were reduced almost completely due to agriculture and fire suppression strategies initiated by European settlers who moved into the region. Due to a lack of studies of this kind, not much is known about which birds may have favored these landscapes, but Holoubek said many species may have been lost as the areas disappeared.

Now, only small pockets of oak savanna remain in areas such as Kansas, parts of Oklahoma and Texas, which are often used today for cattle grazing.

Holoubek, now a wildlife biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and a member of The Wildlife Society and coauthor William Jensen from ESU, found that surprisingly little was known about this “extraordinarily rare ecosystem.”

By examining remnant oak savanna areas in southeastern Kansas, they developed a model to predict which species might return to restored savanna areas, and which species may be lost with more or less forest cover than what the norm had been....

Should we be boycotting GM?

CEO Mary Barra has come out with an outstanding line of automobiles. Do I dare compare her new direction as saber-rattling as the late Lee Iacocca? Some are downright revolutionary including the "Bolt" and the new truck tailgate, however, the policies of the past in regard to employees and their unions have become frayed. It is time the UAW take back the dignity of their union and put workers first, returning benefits lost due to prior poor management. It is time for GM to show the respect a skilled workforce deserves and sign a contract worth the dignity of GM and the UAW.

October 14, 2019

By Craig Cole

...Introduced back in 2016, (click here) the Bowtie brand's all-electric five-door is getting slightly longer legs. Battery capacity and range have both increased. The car's new 66-kilowatt-hour pack (up from 60 kWh) provides an EPA-estimated 259 miles of driving on a single charge. That's 21 more than before, a not-insignificant figure.

Engineers worked their magic, altering the ratios of various elements inside this liquid-cooled battery and lowering its internal resistance to produce a pack that's no larger or heavier than before, though still appreciably more energy-dense. This gives the Bolt an edge over the Leaf Plus, Nissan's extended-range EV offering, which maxes out at 226 miles. In comparison, the standard Leaf is even less impressive, with an advertised range of just 150....                            

Quercus stellata Wangenh

Soon, this is what the "Post Oak" will look like while walking through the forest. Wintertime creates different expertise in recognizing trees. Sometimes the best way to discern them is to examine their twigs.

Height of 30 to 70 feet, the diameter of the trunk 1 to 2 feet, is adapted to sandy, moist loamy soils of flood planes along streams, gravel and rocky ridges. 

The Post Oak is found among other forest species or often stands alone as a forest species. The wood is marketed as White Oak and used for railroad crossties, posts and construction timbers.

It ranges from coastal Massachusetts, to New York all the way to Florida. The tree is also found as far west as Northwest Texas to Southeast Iowa.

I think the tree has character.

It is Sunday Night

Forest Sounds | Woodland Ambience, Bird Song, Nearby Village | 3 Hours in length video

No lyrics, just the sound of the forest.