First day of spring is determined by the movement of the sun's rays to the northern hemisphere.

In 2021, the spring equinox occurs on Saturday, March 20. This event marks the astronomical first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

While people see the longer days as part of the first day of spring, other species are more about their instincts and temperature change. Due to the climate crisis the flyways are busy at different times of the year now, with migration shifting because of the warmer climate sooner.

September 25, 2020

By Brooke Bateman

The last few decades (click here) have seen an advancing onset of spring as temperatures have warmed due to climate change. Early spring may seem like something to revel in, but for natural ecosystems it can wreak havoc. Given the rapid pace of climate change, long established relationships can unravel, leading to mismatches in species phenology- the timing of seasonal and cyclic component of a species life. This phenomena can be seen with bird migration; millions of birds  are migrating earlier as temperatures have warmed. Some species like the Black-throated Blue Warbler are migrating nearly a week earlier than they did 50 years ago. However, not all species are able to adapt as rapidly as others, subsequently leaving them a step behind during the integral breeding time. This can be as simple as birds like the Broad-tailed Hummingbird missing out on a key food resource needed for breeding, or as bizarre as birds turning into zombie-like killers to defend limited resources....

October 10, 2018

By Doyle Rice

Currently, the Violet-Green Swallow (click here) is one of the most threatened species due to the climate because they are a desert species and the climate is making their habitat far warmer than normal. This temperature increase is stressing most desert species.

About two-thirds of America's birds (click here) will be threatened with extinction if global warming rises by 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, according to a report released Thursday from the National Audubon Society, a bird-focused conservation group.

“A lot of people paid attention to last month’s report that North America has lost nearly a third of its birds," said David Yarnold, CEO and president of Audubon. "This new data pivots forward and imagines an even more frightening future. It's a bird emergency."

About 389 out of 604 species are at risk of extinction from climate change. A few of the imperiled species include state birds such as Minnesota's common loon, New Jersey's goldfinch and California's quail.

To prepare the report – "Survival by Degrees: Bird Species on the Brink" – Audubon scientists studied 604 North American bird species using 140 million bird records, including observational data from bird lovers and field biologists across the U.S., Canada and Mexico....

One of the profound reasons the Endangered and Threatened Species classification started was to monitor Earth's life support. If other species were failing it would indicate a concern for the human condition. It is proving to be true. The Polar Bear is threatened and the lower 48 are now experiencing year-round upheavals in weather due to the climate crisis.

President Joe Biden fell three times going up the stairs to Air Force 1.

Those are steep stairs and there are many of them. I can imagine an old injury can bother an older American at an inopportune time. 

There are other ways on that jet. President Biden should feel free to use them. 

FDR didn’t worry about going up stairs and looking young and tough. He was respected for his age and wisdom.

America loves President Biden and if he needs to end the matcho act on the stairs to his jet, I imagine most Americans will feel good about it.

Georgia has the death penalty.

It bothers me there was a confession before Long had a lawyer assigned to his case. I think the judge has to be very cautious. Long needs psychiatric evaluation. It has to be determined that he understood what he was doing when he killed and understood the brevity of his actions at the time and when he confessed.

I do not believe in the death penalty. I think it makes a very poor statement about the country. 

This case is heinous for the sheer numbers of people killed. It is also a sensitive group of people that lost their lives. They were women and an American minority. There is every reason to believe the prosecution will seek the death penalty.

What bothers me most about this case and the case of Dylan Roof is the young age they decided they had a mission more important than life itself. I doubt when they killed they thought they would be caught.

The problem in the USA, including many other young men that killed including Kyle Rittenhouse, is that these young men could have been indoctrinated to kill. I realize that may not be the case with Long.

The problem as I see it, is the predatory methods of organized hate groups. Families are losing their sons to a derelict subculture that has been allowed to exist for far too long in the USA. There are more young men in their later teens and early twenties ready to kill for a purpose outside the USA definition of it’s society. 

We are struggling to erase racism in the USA because of unnecessary deaths of citizens at the hand of those that do not believe minorities should be a part of the USA. Let me make this clear, there is a subculture in the USA that turns our young men into killers. At a young age, these boys learn hate outside the influence of their families and grow to carry out killing for strange reasons. Hating skin color is a very strange and foreign reason to commit murder in the USA.

Long is 21 years old. He is joined by a growing number of young men, unafraid of the power of a gun, and killing without a second thought. These young men are removed from appreciating humanity and the beauty and value of life itself.

The USA has a problem with dispassionate killing in some young men. Dylan Roof sat among his victims before he killed dispassionately and simply walked away from his acts. Long sat in his car for an hour before he dispassionately walked out of the spa where he too killed and simply drove away to kill again. What are they meditating before they kill and who taught them that skill?

I am not surprised Robert Aaron Long is an evangelical looking to rid life of sexual imagery. Rather than growing into an adult body with a healthy outlook on life, they develop a necrosis about sex. It is ridiculous. 

We live in a society that offers young people guidance in sex education classes and where birth control is considered a normal method of balancing normal human sexuality with the joys of parenthood.

The evangelicals need to get over themselves.

Having sexual neurosis is not exclusive of racism. Both can exist.

How many American young men and women were using birth control by the age of 17, even if just a condom? Raise your hands. Wow, look at that half the country knows where it’s at.