Planet Under Attack

It's Earth Day 2018.

And our planet, our only home, is in big trouble. The United States, once a leader in environmental issues, now is the leader in rolling back environmental protections. The current administration has canceled a variety of measures designed to protect our water and air. Here is a list of some of the anti-science, anti-environment, anti-animal actions taken or proposed by the current administration.

• The so-called Environmental Protection Agency has started efforts to roll back tougher emissions standards for cars. The administration also is proposing cuts to clean energy and climate programs, as well as eliminating the agency climate change research program. It also has plans to loosen regulations regarding toxic air pollution. 
• FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) has removed the phrase 'climate change' from its strategic plan. 
• The administration seeks to axe several NASA earth science missions, while it calls for increases in fossil fuel programs. The president continues to advocate for "beautiful, clean coal." 
• Seventy five percent of the National Parks Advisory Board has resigned in protest. Government web sites have been systematically altered to remove mention of climate change. The Interior Department has declared that accidental bird deaths are legal. 
• Two new national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, both in Utah, are being dramatically downsized. 
• The Department of Interior has proposed auctioning off oil and gas leases for 77 million acres of federal waters within the Gulf of Mexico—the largest lease auction of its kind ever announced.
• The EPA is set to withdraw the Clean Power Plan, the lynchpin of the Obama Administration's effort to combat climate change.
• The administration has suspended a study of health risks to residents who live near mountaintop removal coal mine sites in the Appalachian Mountains. 
• The EPA has drastically slowed enforcement of environmental protection laws.
• The Interior Department has relaxed certain aspects of protections for the endangered greater sage grouse.
• The administration canceled a rule that would have helped prevent endangered whales and sea turtles from becoming entangled in fishing nets off the U.S. West Coast. 
• The US pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord signed by 194 other nations.
• The EPA dismissed several of its key science advisors.
• The president signed an executive order that aims to increase offshore oil drilling.
• Congress has passed legislation that would permit aerial hunting of bears, as well as shooting of denning mother bears and cubs and mother wolves and pups in Alaska

To read a comprehensive list of anti-environmental actions taken by the current administration, go to https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/how-trump-is-changing-science-environment/ Educate yourself, then get involved in efforts to save our planet. Become an activist. Register to vote, and then VOTE in elections at all levels of government. Let your elected officials know that you do not approve of this administration's anti-environment plans and actions. 

Find out what you can do on a personal level to protect the environment. After learning that the average person uses and discards some 300 plastic toothbrushes in their lifetime, I am switching to biodegradable, environmentally friendly bamboo toothbrushes, which cost less than standard plastic toothbrushes. If you must use a drinking straw, opt for a paper, not plastic, straw. Or buy your own reusable straw. Take reusable shopping bags with you, keep them in your car, and use them rather than plastic bags for your groceries and other purchases.

I know these are small steps, but if enough people take small steps, they can create big changes.

Sleeping With Lions

I have just returned from a wonderful two-week photo safari in Tanzania.

Here are some impressions from my time in Tanzania. It was a time of both dead silence and many sounds. When there were no animals about, the night was totally silent. Other nights were busy with the sounds of the larger wildlife. Some days my eyes were overwhelmed by the vast numbers of animals (wildebeests and zebras), while others challenged us to find the very elusive leopard.

At night, as I lay in my tent (a large, nice tent with indoor plumbing and electric lights), I listened to the grunting of hippos ashore to feed. I heard the plaintive cries of hyenas, and the roaring of lions. If we ventured out of our tents after dark, we had to be escorted by a spear-wielding Maasai warrior. This was a good precaution, as early one morning a male lion was walking around the tent of one person in our group! Unlike at home, when birds aren't heard chirping and singing until dawn, birds in Tanzania started their morning serenades long before sunrise.

A muddy spotted hyena

The sounds of hundreds of thousands of wildebeests and the shrill cries of tens of thousands of plains zebras filled our days as they milled around waiting for one of their number to start moving as part of their annual migration.

We enjoyed bowls of creamy hot soups made of pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber and other vegetables. We all looked forward to finding out which soup would be part of dinner each night. Fresh bread made from scratch complemented the soups. I loved the sweet, juicy pineapple and delicious slices of mango. Everything was fresh and made from scratch.

The warm smiles and cries of 'jambo' (hello) from lodge staff greeted us throughout the day. Every person I encountered, from the resident chef to our Maasai escorts at night, was friendly and helpful. Our guides/drivers, Angelbert and Tom, took such good care of us. They both have an uncanny ability to spot even the smallest sunbathing lizard on a rock, a colorful small bird on a tree branch, and a camouflaged leopard walking through tall grasses. I started calling Tom 'Gentleman Tom' because he was always there to lend a hand. When I slipped on a very muddy step while exiting our Land Cruiser and twisted my leg, it was Tom who came to my rescue. 

We saw many beautiful birds, an amazing sunrise and sunset,

and so many wildebeests and zebras on their annual migration that the horizon was blackened by their presence. We watched in awe as a mother lion carried her four cubs to a new, hidden location. She picked each one up by the back of the neck and moved it, and then she went back to get the others one at a time. The next morning we laughed as she repeatedly tried to corral her wandering offspring. She would get three of them back into the brush, but as she went after the last one, the other three would emerge to follow her. One little one (we assume it was the same cub) kept wandering off in the opposite direction. Finally she got them all tucked away and settled down to nurse.

Spending 90 minutes with two cheetah brothers as they walked slowly across the grassy plains, taking time for a quick roll in the damp grass, was a real treat, as was photographing them as they seemed to pose in a tree. The day before, a different cheetah chased -- and barely missed -- a gazelle that was on the dinner menu. Unfortunately, slipping on a muddy step while exiting the vehicle and twisting my leg prevented me from standing up on the seat to watch the chase.

Of course, not everything we saw was pleasant to contemplate. We saw a baby zebra with a hind leg it couldn't use. We saw several baby wildebeests that had been separated from their mothers in part of the massive herd. One was running back and forth desperately trying to find her in the huge herd. Another stood alone a good distance from the herd. Lone animals, particularly the young ones, stand no chance of escaping hungry lions, leopards and hyenas. One of our guides noted that only half of all wildebeests born in a given season (most are born within the same month) survive to their first birthday. 

We spent several minutes watching dozens of vultures of various kinds, along with marabou storks, battle with hyenas over the carcass of a wildebeest. The birds won the battle, with the hyenas leaving for a bit, and then returning at a respectable distance. Vultures are not attractive birds by any measure, but the marabou stork gets the prize for ugliest animal in Africa.

Toward the end of the trip, so much rain fell that some of the roads were washed away. We even spotted a catfish on a flooded road!  Our planned visit to a pool that usually was occupied by dozens of hippos was shortened dramatically due to the rains, which had turned the pool into a raging torrent of water, sending the hippos to calmer waters. We even spotted a large catfish on a road that had flooded with overflow from a river some 100 meters away.

Despite all my visits to Africa, the thrill of seeing magnificent elephants, mischievous baboons and vervet monkeys, birds of vibrant colors, graceful giraffes and a variety of antelope and gazelles always calls me back for more. Each day, each sunrise, each sighting is unique.

I haven't uploaded or edited most of my images from this trip yet, but more will be shared soon.

Let's Move Beyond A Disposable Society

I am tired of living in a disposable society!

Our planet is drowning in throw-away items, from plastic water bottles to old tires and non-repairable appliances. I am old enough to remember a time when if something broke, it got repaired. These days, items appear to be built to have a brief, finite lifespan, and it's usually less expensive to buy a new item than to get one repaired, if someone to do the repairs can even be found.

Our landfills are filling up, and the oceans are awash in plastic. Marine animals such as sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, eat them, and die. My upscale neighborhood is littered on a daily basis with discarded aluminum beer and soft drink cans, plastic water and sports drink bottles, and small plastic wine and whiskey bottles. I am appalled every time I visit a local grocery store (with my reusable bags in hand) to see people leaving the store with shopping carts filled with 15 to 20 plastic bags of groceries. 

Worse still is the attitude held by so many people who treat their animal companions as disposable. People decide to move to an apartment or rental house that doesn't allow pets, or it doesn't allow pit bulls. I'm not talking about people forced to give up their animals when they move into a nursing home, or people who no longer can care for themselves or their animals. I'm talking about people treating their animals as disposable, replaceable commodities. Particularly galling are those who surrender an old dog or cat that has been part of the family for 10 or 15 years. And let's not forget those who dump an animal because they are going on vacation and can't be bothered with boarding the animal while they are away. 

I reuse plastic bags that once held a loaf of bread or some fresh vegetables. They get a second chance to be useful as poop bags when I walk my dogs. On the rare occasion I get a plastic grocery bag (when I don't have enough reusable bags with me), I either recycle the bag on a future trip to the grocery store, or I use it to line a small trash can in one of the bathrooms in my house. 

According to the Earth Policy Institute, more than 1 trillion plastic bags are used every year. The United States is light years behind other countries when it comes to plastic bags. England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Denmark either ban or charge for bags.  More than 15 African countries have either banned plastic bags or charge a tax on them, the most recent being Kenya. A few US states and cities, including Seattle and San Francisco, either ban or tax plastic bags. California bans plastic bags and charges for paper bags.

It seems that grocery store employees are programmed to put everything into a bag (plastic, of course, because paper bags are no longer an option). I have had baggers start to put a bag of apples into a grocery bag. When I buy a sealed bag of popcorn, I always tell the bagger not to put it into another bag. Even a single, small item would be put into a bag if I didn't object. 

I have several reusable bags that I keep in my car so they're always handy when I shop. Each cost about $1 to buy, but they have paid for themselves many times over because most grocery stores offer a 5 cent credit each time a bag is used. I wash them in the kitchen sink to keep them sanitary. 

The abuse heaped on our planet by our supposedly advanced species saddens me greatly. We have only one known habitable planet. It would behoove us to take better care of it.