TICK TOCK THE CLIMATE CLOCK PART ELEVEN

Let’s take a look at the climate positives for a change this Sunday.

I’m a Bee-liever.  The three hives that are home to the 180,000 bees that live inside Notre Dame’s roof survived the fire and the bees are alive and well, according to the beekeeper who oversees them.  “Thank goodness the flames didn’t touch them,”the hives’ beekeeper said. “It’s a miracle.”  Indeed!

Money Talks.  Companies across virtually all sectors of the economy, including big oil, are lobbying Washington to put a price on CO2 emissions.   Why? Investor demands, legal pressure, falling prices for renewables, cleaner-burning natural gas, and public concern about climate change.  'Bout time!

2,300 Strikes and You're Out!  2,300 school strikes in more than 130 countries took place on Friday, making it the largest-ever environmental action demonstration. The students are taking it to the streets to demand more aggressive targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and the budgets and laws to back them.  These kids learn fast!

The Minds, They Are a Changin’.   Polls say that a convergence of two studies--the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a congressionally-mandated report by 13 federal agencies which concluded that lives and property are already at risk in the U.S. due to climate change--have shifted U.S. public opinion to support stronger climate policies.  Trump dismissed the reports.

Not Exactly Climate News, but Let’s Celebrate This Anyway!    The Capra girgentana with its characteristic horns twisted into a spiral is one of eight breeds of goats indigenous to Agrigento, Sicily, and it’s making a comeback.  The goat’s origins are murky, but it was probably introduced to Sicily by Greek colonists around 700 BC or by Arab invaders in the 8^th c. AD.  At one time, they numbered more than 30,000, but by the end of 2013 only 390 remained.  The archaeological superintendency at Agrigento keeps a herd across from the Tempio della Concordia and is doing its best to educate visitors as to their precarious status.  (The goats, not the visitors.  Well, actually, maybe the visitors, too.)

And One More Feel-Good Nature Story.  Forty years ago, plans were made in the Netherlands to reclaim and transform a four-meter-deep coastal lake into a suburb of Amsterdam.  But mounting costs and political wrangling stalled the underway project, leaving behind a huge, turbid, silted basin.  Then an NGO got the bright idea to use postal service lottery funds to jump-start the development.  The silt was dredged and piled into islands, creating dunes and a marshland for wildlife.  The developers plan to construct four holiday homes, plus facilities for site managers, naturalists, and volunteers. The settlement will exclusively use solar panels for heating and electricity.  The marshlands of the archipelago, left open to the water, have already seen an explosion of wildlife, including birds like these spooning spoonbills, some migrating from as far away as North Africa.

About That Dress… According to Time:

When Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene was commissioned by TIME to create a portrait of the climate activist Greta Thunberg, she knew that she wanted to portray the teenager in a different light to how the world has seen her before.  In the photograph, Thunberg wears a green dress that the photographer chanced upon in an outlet store in Copenhagen during a stop on her train journey to Stockholm.  The outfit is a departure from what the teenager usually wears, favoring more practical clothing like hoodies, jeans and tracksuits.  For van Meene, the color has a deeper meaning, especially against the backdrop of a concrete archway in Stockholm’s Old Town of Gamla Stan.  “The green for me symbolizes life,” she says. “And the darkness of the corridor is what we will end up in if we don’t pay attention to what Greta is telling us.”

Keep it real!  Friday and every day.

Marilyn