Tropical Avian Visitors to New Jersey

Scarlet tanager

Each spring, birds known as “neotropical migrants” make incredible long-distance journeys to breed and raise young. Spending winters in Central, South America and the Caribbean and as far as the tip of South America.

Bird watchers are on thelookout in the spring for these birds as they head north to breed and are passing through New Jersey.

Spring in North America means plenty of emerging insects and places to nest. Longer days and seasonal abundance of food, means long-distance migrants can raise larger clutches of young than their tropical relatives who stay put.

Many species follow coasts or natural features like rivers and mountain ranges. Most birds that migrate to or through New Jersey follow the Atlantic Flyway, an avian superhighway that includes all of North America’s Atlantic coastline. Birds also navigate by using the position of the sun and stars, sensing the earth’s magnetic field, and noticing landmarks during the day.

Red knots fly from the tip of South America to the Canadian arctic, and are known for making a critical stopover along the Delaware Bay in New Jersey to fatten up on horseshoe crab eggs, which give them the energy to complete their journey.

New Jersey has many great locations where birds can either pause along their migration routes or stay for the summer to nest and raise young. According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, we have 361 species of neotropical migrating birds, including warblers and shorebirds. Over 130 species nest in New Jersey, and nearly 80 of those are songbirds such as wood warblers, a group of 36 species that includes yellow, black-and-white, cerulean, northern parula, prairie, pine and Cape May warblers. 

Another group of neotropical migrants are the brightly-colored tanagers and orioles, including the scarlet tanager and Baltimore oriole. And then there’s eastern North America’s smallest bird, the ruby-throated hummingbird, which winters in Central America and breeds throughout the eastern United States and southeastern Canada.

Among New Jersey’s many birding hotspots are Cape May Point State Park, the Sandy Hook unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Sourland Mountain Preserve, Stokes State Forest, High Point State Park, and Liberty State Park.

Ruby-throated hummingbird

SOURCE

The NJ Ocean Wind Project

 

New Jersey is especially vulnerable to climate change effects such as frequent flooding of residential areas because of its long, flat coastline and higher temperatures because of its intensely urban nature. Both of those conditions have occurred in the past weeks.

One thing that can help the state transition from fossil fuels that contribute to climate change, and protect the state, especially coastal areas, from the impact of extreme weather events is wind power. Not only will offshore wind help drive our goal to reach 100% renewable energy, but it will create thousands of green jobs.

The NJ Sierra Club reports that New Jersey is moving forward in its first utility-scale offshore wind farm. Ocean Wind, a project off the South Jersey shore, will power more than 500,000 homes, will create over 4,000 jobs over the project’s 25-year lifespan and generate $1.2 billion in economic growth.

Of course, not everyone loves wind farms. You can submit your comments pro or con about the project at regulations.gov/commenton/BOEM-2022-0021-0001

I mentioned this to a friend who commented "Who wants to look at those things when you're on the beach?" I had to tell him that offshore wind farms are located far enough from the coastline - at least 9 miles out and usually 15-20 miles out - that, if they are visible at all, the impact to the view will be minimal. The lights they’ll use at night will be visible to airplanes and boats but not to people on shore.  

One thing we want is for offshore wind farms to be installed in a way that is minimally impactful. Environmental impact statements are a crucial component.

The Bureau of Energy Management (BOEM) is holding virtual public hearings on the Ocean Wind Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) today, Wednesday July 20th and Tuesday, July 26th. Attendees can ask questions and provide oral testimony. Registration information can be found on the Ocean Wind 1 DEIS Virtual Public Hearings page on BOEM’s website, boem.gov.

Sierra NJ provides these facts about offshore to help you understand the issue and comment.

• Offshore wind has the capacity to produce 2 times the amount of electricity the US consumed in 2019, and 90% of 2050 projections if we electrified our buildings, transportation system and industry.
• It is estimated that the offshore wind industry in the US will create 83,000 jobs and deliver $25 billion in annual economic input by 2030.
• Climate change is the greatest existing threat to wildlife: 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction due to a rapidly changing environment.
• Switching from fossil fuels to wind and solar can reduce risks of asthma, heart disease, and other conditions that threaten lives and cause billions of dollars in healthcare costs. Nearly 1 in 4 children in Newark suffer from asthma, a preventable result of burning fossil fuels.
• Offshore wind will reduce greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions that worsen the impact of climate change. Tropical Storm Ida showed how devastating extreme weather events are for public health in New Jersey, with the number of victims who died during flooding now at 30.
• Fossil fuel production and combustion creates climate change that can directly affect human health, releasing pollutants that lead to early death, heart attacks, respiratory disorders, stroke, and exacerbation of asthma. 
• Overwhelmingly, to serve our power needs, power plants are located in communities of color – unfair ‘sacrifice zones’ that are the direct result of environmental racism and must be redressed. 
• States like New Jersey and Delaware have some of the worst air quality issues in the country. According to the American Lung Association, both states received poor air quality grades in 2019 and 2020, largely due to the factories, refineries and other industrial facilities in both states which release millions of pounds of chemicals into the air.  
• With offshore wind farms, Delaware, New Jersey, and other Mid-Atlantic states will no longer need to rely on fossil fuels for their power. Instead, they will transition to clean and renewable wind energy, drastically reducing state carbon emissions and cleaning the air in communities most affected by pollution.

What We Have Learned About the Environment During This Pandemic

I keep reading and hearing news stories of how the environment has improved during the pandemic. It's great to see that the water has cleared and fish have returned to the canals of Venice. But when things return to normal or even a "new normal," it will return to its polluted state and the fish will leave again. Air pollution has been reduced in many parts of the world, but the pollution is much the same in places, like Houston, where fossil fuels power electricity and industry.

I read that greenhouse gases have been reduced about 20%, which sounds great, but that still is not enough to turn the progression of climate change in the other direction. And, of course, once the economy returns to normal, that reduction will be erased more quickly than it appeared.

So what have we learned?

Generally, we have been reminded that the environment can often heal itself if we stop punishing it. But in order to make real change, we would need more than emergency pandemic conditions. 

Staying with air pollution, the pandemic caused some industries to shut down but it was the reduced use of cars, trucks and planes that made a difference. Obviously, that will not - can not - continue. What would need to happen to see improvement long term is a large move to alternative, non-polluting, sources of energy. We have known that for several decades but even a pandemic did not make us move significantly towards that goal.

I fear that the lessons presented have not been learned.

Mitigation, Adaptation and the Climate Discussion

Rebuilding dunes along the Jersey shore as an adaptation of sea-level rise

The Harvard archaeologist, Dr.Jason Ur, told NASA that “When we excavate the remains of past civilizations, we very rarely find any evidence that they as a whole society made any attempts to change in the face of a drying climate, a warming atmosphere or other changes… I view this inflexibility as the real reason for collapse.

he is talking about the ancient Mayan, Khmer, and Minoan empires along with others who had no way to understand or act in the face of a changing climate. We have options that they did not have - if we decide to act.

If you have heard the terms “mitigation” and “adaptation” used in a climate context you still might not know the difference between these two approaches. The climaterealityproject.org blog has a good post about the distinction.

Adaptation is addressing the effect rather than the cause of a problem. For example, seas are already rising around the world and certainly along our Atlantic coast. Scientists project that the cities and land currently home to as many as 110 million people could be underwater at high tide by 2050 if current emissions continue.

Building homes along the Jersey shore on pilings and putting in pumping stations to get rid of water on streets, as well as building or rebuilding sand dunes are all adaptations. They don't address the problem of rising sea levels.

Building sea walls, elevating infrastructure, or retreating from low-lying coastal areas altogether. In the U.S., for example, cities like Charleston, Houston, Miami, and San Francisco (to name a few) already have billion-dollar investments planned to protect their sea-bound populations.

Mitigation means addressing the root cause of the problem rather than dealing with its effects. In our example, mitigation would be human intervention to reduce the causes of sea-level rise, such as reducing sources of greenhouse gases”.

Replacing greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas with clean, renewable energies like solar, wind, and geothermal. With renewables becoming “the cheapest form of new electricity generation across two thirds of the world” in 2019 (compared to in just 1 percent of the world five years ago), this measure has quickly gone from a dream to an everyday reality.  

Obviously, adaptation is a short-term solution and mitigation is long-term. There aren't always things an individual can do to make significant mitigations. Most of those solutions need to be done by cities, states, and countries. Driving my hybrid car is a very small mitigation.

Both approaches are needed.

If you have rainwater coming into your basement, you will need to bail out the water and possibly seal a crack in the foundation. That's adaptation. You can't stop the rain, but if the problem stems from water pooling up outside your home, then mitigation might mean changing gutters and downspouts to move water away from the foundation, sloping your soil away from the foundation and installing drains.

As the article states:

The truth is, we’ve reached a point where no single one of these paths will get us to a truly just and livable future.
As the IPCC made clear in a recent report: “Many adaptation and mitigation options can help address climate change, but no single option is sufficient by itself. Effective implementation depends on policies and cooperation at all scales and can be enhanced through integrated responses that link mitigation and adaptation.”

Increase in Whales Off NJ May Not Be A Good Thing

A Rutgers researcher says climate change and cleaner waters are causing a "Dramatic Increase in Whales in NJ/NYC but this is also raising safety concerns.

The number of humpback whale sightings in New York City and northern New Jersey has increased by 500% raising the risk of dangerous interactions between the huge marine mammals and humans.

Cleaner waters off our coast is one reason and that is certainly a good thing. But the warming of the ocean due to climate change is not a good thing.

The increase in sightings near one of the world’s busiest ports is a safety concern for both whales and humans, especially with a new wave of migration headed close to shores this fall, said Danielle Brown, a doctoral student in ecology and evolution in Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biology Sciences and the lead humpback whale researcher and naturalist for Gotham Whale, a New York-based nonprofit that studies and advocates for whales. Many of the sightings have occurred less than two miles from the shore. Brown said there’s a growing risk of dangerous interactions between the whales, the majority of which are juveniles, and humans in New York and New Jersey harbors. A whale is considered of juvenile age from the moment the calf is weaned to when it reaches sexual maturity, which can be anywhere between 6 and 13 years old.

Another attraction to our waters is a growing population of Atlantic menhaden, which are a major food source for the whales. Warmer ocean temperatures are also causing fish populations to move northward.

Humpback adults can reach 60 feet in length and weigh more than 40 tons, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Geographic Society. They are found in every ocean in the world near coastlines, feeding on krill, plankton, and small fish.

Size of a humpback in relation to a human

Typically they will migrate annually from summer feeding grounds near the poles to warmer winter breeding waters. Humpback whale migration begins in the fall,

The increase in whale sightings has also created an unlikely new business venture. Many fishing boats have started whale watching cruises along New Jersey and New York City harbors. While an economic boost to many fishermen, it also raises concerns about boats getting too close.

Fishermen should take extra precautions to protect themselves and the whales. “If you’re on a boat, try to move parallel to them and never cut them off from the direction they are moving, and never chase them,” she said. “The National Marine Fisheries Service recommends a distance of at least 100 feet, and only one boat should be that close at a time, so as not to crowd the whale. If the whales appear to be feeding, give them extra space. Humpback whales are becoming more consistent in our waters, so boaters need to prepare themselves for encountering them more often. If the guidelines are followed, we can all co-exist safely.”

Climate Lobby Day

Climate Lobby Day is a day of action to tell legislators to fight climate change and support green energy. This New Jersey event is part of the Empower NJ-No Fossil Fuel Projects campaign calling for Gov. Murphy to place a moratorium on all fossil-fuel infrastructure projects in the state.

Empower NJ-No Fossil Fuel Projects is a coalition of over 70 environmental, citizen, faith, and progressive groups. Some of the groups involved in this campaign are, NJ Sierra Club, Green Faith, Food & Water Watch, Indivisibles, Environment NJ, Blue Wave, People Over Pipelines, Clean Water Action, UU Faith Action NJ, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Citizen Action and more.

New Jersey is being impacted by climate change. We are being overrun by fossil-fuel infrastructure projects that will deepen climate impacts. If 8 proposed pipelines and 5 power plants are all built, they will increase our CO2 and GHG by 32% and block Governor Murphy’s 100% renewable energy goals.

We will be asking legislators to urge Gov. Murphy to put a moratorium on all fossil fuel projects in the state. We will also be urging legislators to support bills that will move New Jersey more quickly to 100% renewable energy, expand EV use and reduce greenhouse gases to combat climate change. These bills and others can help create more green jobs and build a green economy.

Who: Empower NJ, including the New Jersey Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch, Clean Water Action, Delaware Riverkeeper Network and other groups.

What: Lobbying legislators to support key bills promoting green energy, and urging them to support a moratorium on fossil-fuel projects.

Where: New Jersey Statehouse Annex, 137 West State St., Trenton, NJ 08608, meet by the cafeteria whenever you arrive.

When: Monday, June 10, 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.

RSVP: https://forms.gle/By89fdCuP9ZpoifLA

Directions to the Statehouse Garage: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/legislativepub/directions.asp

Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/404853236772969/

Empower NJ Website: http://empowernewjersey.com/

One Million Species Moving to Extinction

A United Nations-backed report released this month has gotten a lot of media attention for its findings. The headline "The One Million Species Moving to Extinction" is not hyperbole and that number catches the eye of even those people who might not normally read or listen to a report on endangered species.

Here, I write about things threatened and endangered and, thankfully, less often about species that go extinct, but the report suggests that I could write a lot about extinctions on the global scale.

Up to one million plant and animal species face extinction, many within decades, because of human activities, says the report, said to be the most comprehensive one yet on the state of global ecosystems.

About 75% of the planet’s land and 66% of its ocean areas have been “significantly altered” by people, driven in large part by the production of food, according to the IPBES report, which will be released in full later this year. Crop and livestock operations currently co-opt more than 33% of Earth’s land surface and 75% of its freshwater resources.

Without drastic action to conserve habitats, the rate of species extinctions—already tens to hundreds of times higher than the average across the last ten million years—will only increase, according to a United Nations-backed panel, the International Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

I was surprised that they found that agriculture is one of the biggest threats to Earth’s ecosystems, especially in ecosystems that people depend on for food, clean water and a stable climate. The loss of species and habitats is as much a danger to life on Earth as climate change.

Nearly 150 authors from 50 nations worked for three years to compile the report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services — a panel with 132 member nations, including the United States. Representatives of each member nation signed off on the findings.

Without “transformative changes” to the world’s economic, social and political systems to address this crisis, the IPBES panel projects that major biodiversity losses will continue to 2050 and beyond.

Besides agriculture, other serious threats to nature are the exploitation of plants and animals through harvesting, logging, hunting and fishing, climate change, pollution and the spread of invasive species.

The report also find inextricable links between biodiversity loss and climate change.

A 2 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels (which the world could breach in the next few decades unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced) would mean an estimated 5% of the planet’s species would be threatened with extinction by. Earth could lose 16% of its species if the average global temperature exceeds 4.3 °C. These losses would undermine global efforts to reduce poverty and hunger and promote more sustainable development.

The report is not without hope. The biodiversity crisis could be reversed with proactive environmental policies, the sustainable production of food and other resources and a concerted effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

SOURCES
scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-driving-one-million-species-to-extinction/

washingtonpost.com...one-million-species-face-extinction-un-panel-says-humans-will-suffer-result/

Crossroads NJ Report Calls for Steps to Combat Climate Change

“Facing serious impending dangers from climate change, New Jersey needs, more than ever, to restore protecting its environment to the prominent role necessary for a healthy, secure future,” a new report from The Fund for New Jersey says.

The report, “Climate Change Adds Urgency to Restoring Environmental Protection,” is the third
in the seven-part Crossroads NJ series aimed at informing public debate in this pivotal election
year. It was produced by The Fund for New Jersey, which since 1970 has focused its
philanthropy on improving the quality of life in the Garden State by supporting good policy
decision-making. The other Crossroads NJ reports cover the state’s fiscal crisis, jobs and the
economy, criminal justice, education, housing and land use, and transportation.

The full text of the reports, as they are released, and other information about Crossroads NJ is
available at www.fundfornj.org/crossroadsnj

Calling for “a sustained, well-coordinated effort to prevent climate change from being disastrous
for New Jersey,” the report notes, “Our economic and physical health depend on devoting the
leadership, financial resources, and attention to scientific realities needed to execute common-
sense policies.” It calls for action in four areas:

1. Energy policy, including more reliance on wind, solar, and other renewable sources
2. Water supply and quality, necessary for our health and well-being
3. State and regional planning, to safeguard natural resources and communities threatened climate change
4. Environmental justice, so people do not suffer disproportionately from pollution and environmental problems because of where they live.

“The aim of Crossroads NJ is to present evidence-based policy recommendations, generated and vetted by experts, that The Fund for New Jersey Trustees feel are sound and workable,” said Board Chair, retired Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz. 

Consistent with The Fund’s status as a philanthropic foundation, The Fund for New Jersey does not support candidates or political parties.

North American Bird Species Threatened By Climate Change

The shift north of species     image credit: National Audubon Society via npr.org

I heard David Yarnold, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society, on NPR talk about a new seven-year study the organization has done that warns that the migratory routes and habitats of more than half of the birds in North America are now or soon will be threatened by climate change.

I still hear arguments against climate change forecasts that are sometimes labeled as "alarmist" but Yarnold says that "... there are forecasts that are far more extreme than this report. If anything, this report is conservative. At every step of the way, we took great care to not overstate data or conclusions. Nothing would make us happier than to be wrong about the fate of many of these birds."

The study, "314 Species on the Brink," look at the entire continent, but you can look close up at New Jersey.  The bald eagle, a species that in New Jersey has finally been brought "back from the brink" of being extirpated and endangered, could see its current range decrease by nearly 75 percent in the next 65 years.

One NJ species is the American kestrel.

Photo: Nathan Rupert/Flickr Creative Common via audubon.org

"This colorful little falcon is in serious trouble in some parts of the continent. Yet populations are stable or increasing elsewhere. With the American Kestrel and so many other geographically widespread species, it is essential to engage management and conservation on a region-by-region basis. The Audubon model forecasts overall winter gains and summer losses for the species, but the bigger story is substantial northward movement of suitable climate space at both times of year. The decline of nesting American Kestrels in the northeastern U.S., well along already, seems likely to proceed, perhaps to the point of regional extirpation in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states."

The common loon, an iconic bird in Minnesota and Maine, may no longer be able to breed in the lower 48 states as soon as 2080, according to the report.

Oriole photo credit: Universal Images Group /Getty Images via npr.org

The story highlighted Baltimore orioles, a species that is so beloved in Maryland that their major league baseball team bears its name. These orioles are migrating birds and by 2080, there may not be any orioles left in Maryland because they could be forced to nest well north of the state.

In talking about the pace at which this change is happening, Yarnold says:

The report looked at North American birds. It's not likely that birds are going to migrate from Central and South America to replace them. But, remember, what we're talking about are changes at a pace and a scale that we've never seen before. These are the kinds of changes to habitat that have taken tens of thousands of years in the past. And what worries me is that these are the kinds of changes that my 9-month-old grandson could see in his lifetime.

Listen to the NPR interview

Climate and Chickadees

Black-capped Chickadee

There are a growing number of hybrid cars on New Jersey roads. Hybrids are more commonly known as biological offspring resulting from the interbreeding between two animals or plants of different species.

You might have purchased some hybrid plants at your garden center for planting. Hybrids are deliberately bred to take the best qualities of different species.

But sometimes this breeding occurs "naturally" and perhaps not with good results. Researchers have been studying "hybrid" chickadees. They are the offspring of northern black-capped chickadees and their southern relatives, Carolina chickadees. These two species began to mate in places where their separate ranges now overlap.

You may have learned that if you collected and planted seeds from your hybrid plants that they are infertile. The hybrid chickadees are also infertile and can't reproduce.

They are found only in a long, narrow strip of territory stretching from Kansas to New Jersey.

I first learned about this zone and the hybrid birds in a post by Michele S. Byers, Executive Director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.


The "hybrid zone" is a shifting line and the researchers have discovered it is a fairly accurate way of measuring the progression of global temperature changes.

The has moved north at a rate of about seven miles over the last 10 years. This matches the warming trend in winter temperatures.

In New Jersey, the hybrid zone crosses from Trenton to the Raritan Bay - the southern edge of the Piedmont region.

Carolina chickadee

It always seems to be controversial to bring up climate change, but it may be facilitating the northward movement of this zone. We know that looking at the minimum winter temperature in an area is a way to accurately predict the location of the hybrid zone, and minimum winter temperatures have gone up over the past decade.

Hybrid chickadees can be hard to distinguish by sight, so blood samples are used. The hybrid songs are a mix of the distinctive songs of the parent species.

The hybrid chickadee can eat a wide variety of foods. If one food source disappears, they find another. But about 75% of animals and plants have little or no ability to move as the climate warms.

You might guess that all birds could easily adapt by flying to new places, but that's not the case. Rather than being "generalists", like the chickadee, many birds, butterflies and moths are "specialists," adapted over millennia to depend on specific food sources. If the food sources decline as the climate changes, populations of these species will diminish or disappear.

Changes in our climate is happening too fast for most species to adapt. Habitats also have to adapt but some sensitive habitat have plants that cannot adapt and so will simply collapse and disappear.

The hybrid chickadees may be like the "canary in a coalmine"providing an indicator and a warning of changes in the environment.

Climate and Hardiness Zones in NJ

planting early lettuce

Hardiness Zones, Gardening Zones, Growing Zones and Plant Zones refer to defined geographic regions that can support specific plants, flowers and trees.

The zones define a minimum range of temperatures that a plant or tree can survive safely in that zone.

The most common are the Hardiness Zones defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In 2012 the USDA released an updated New Jersey hardiness zone map covering the period of 1981-2010. Believe what you will about climate change, but the trees are blooming earlier the past few decades.

warm weather planting - tomatoes

New Jersey's plant hardiness zone was changed in 2011 based on the warmer winters.

In 2012, trees started blooming around March 5. In 2010, after a warm spell at the end of March, the trees bloomed by April 1st.

For my part of NJ, we are in Zone 6B. The average first frost is between October 11 - 20 and the average last frost is April 11 - 20.

Warmer Planet and More Jersey Snow

In the end, climate change will mean the planet will be warmer - but on these cold December NJ days, it's worth noting that right now we will probably be getting more cold, wet and snowy weather.

According to the Weather Underground, last winter a natural climate pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) was at the most extreme negative side since record keeping began in 1865.

The high pressure replacing low pressure over the Arctic had only been this extreme for 4 winters in the past 160 years—1969, 1963, 1936, and 1881.

The NAO is one of oldest known climate oscillations. Seafaring Scandinavians described the pattern several centuries ago. Negative NAO winters tend to bring cold winters to Europe and the U.S. East Coast, but leads to very warm conditions in the Arctic, since all the cold air spilling out of the Arctic gets replaced by warm air flowing poleward.

Other factors include the El Niño/La Niña cycle and natural oscillations in stratospheric winds.

350 Challenge from Brighter Planet

Endangered New Jersey joined the 350 Challenge. After they hit their goal of 350 participating bloggers in under a month, they decided to keep the 350 Challenge open indefinitely. Now over 3,900 bloggers are participating.

To join in, post the badge to your own site, let them know, and they will offset 350 pounds of carbon in your name. That's like flicking off 100 lightbulbs for a day. Or going two full weeks without your car!

By displaying their badge on our blog, we help offset 122,500 lbs of CO2 - that's like turning off 38,000 light bulbs for a day.

Brighter Planet develops innovative tools to help manage and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon future.

Check out their

"Personal footprint tools"

• a free web application lets users track their climate impact with the world's most rigorous personal carbon footprint calculator, and manage and share their actions to reduce that impact. 
• green credit and debit cards, that help build renewable energy projects with every purchase
• community wind turbines, cow power installations, and other clean energy projects funded through carbon offsets.

"Crowd-powered philanthropy"

• social giving via wowcrowd (in private beta), lets businesses, campaigns, foundations, and other organizations engage their members by allowing them to propose, discuss, and vote on ideas to receive project funding. This service grew out of the viral success of the Project Fund, Brighter Planet's own community-powered monthly grant program for grassroots climate projects.

Brighter Planet recently was named Small Business of the Year by Treehugger and received the Social Innovation Award for "most strategic philanthropy" from Justmeans and Financial Times.

Will Climate Change Guide Environmental Decisions?

A piece in The New York Times last week ("Obama Budget Retools FWS for Warming World") written by Patrick Reis and Allison Winter of Greenwire, says that despite a backlog of endangered species issues and a host of current lawsuits, the Fish and Wildlife Service plans to have climate change as a theme for the agency's $1.65 billion discretionary budget plan for fiscal 2011.

"The budget does reflect a switch in our priorities," said Chris Nolin, head of the service's budget division. "Our primary focus is reorienting the agency so we can address climate change. We need to start looking at climate change in everything we do. That was really the focus of this budget."

Part of this would include the acquisition of land that would become corridors for wildlife moving as temperatures rise and habitat changes.

Ironically, there are also environmentalists who are concerned that this may cause the agency to lose ground on endangered species protection.

"We support climate change adaptation. We support renewable energy development. But none of that should be done at the expense of real protections for species," said Noah Greenwald, director of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity's endangered species program. "With the added threat of climate change, endangered species need even more protection."

A new agency program is called "landscape conservation cooperatives." The idea, which is being used in many other government agencies including Homeland Security, is an effort to both make the process more efficient and less expensive. Uniting federal agencies, states, nonprofits and universities to design strategic regional conservation plans sounds like a good idea. Get all the parties at the same table talking.


The plan is to launch eight cooperatives in 2010 (ultimately 21 landscape regions). The budget includes monies for climate change planning and science, landscape cooperatives and a significant deposit on land acquisition.

$106 million for land is a 12% increase after years of reduced funding in an attempt to create refuges for species being driven out of their native ranges by climate change.

Is climate change still a hot-button issue? Definitely.

Cold Weekend But A Warming World

It's a cold Jersey weekend, but the last decade could be the warmest ever recorded.

2009 was the fifth warmest year, and 2010 (boosted by El Nino) could be the warmest of them all. That's what comes from recent reports by the World Meterological Organization, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S., and the Met Office (the UK’s National Weather Service).

1. State of the Climate Global Analysis Annual 2009
2. 2000–2009, THE WARMEST DECADE (WMO)
3. Climate could warm to record levels in 2010 (Met)

NJ Weather and Climate Network

These past few weeks, with the weather being unusually cold and with early snow, I found myself turning more frequently to weather reports on the radio, TV and Internet. I also discovered a great weather resource for New Jersey online that is worth bookmarking. It is the NJ Weather and Climate Network at Rutgers University.

It has a variety of sophisticated reports for our state. You can see the hot spots and cold spots, wind, humidity, dewpoint and more in reports that come from stations across the state.

Check the map of stations for one near your home. I can look at reports from High Point, to Caldwell, at the Pequest Trout Hatchery and down at Cape May Harbor.

If you are a gardener, you can get the soil temperature in your area for planting. You may also want to check the precipitation map.

Even if you're not a weather bug, the site has lots of interesting  information. This would be a great site for teachers to use to teach students about using data for research.

Do you use Google Earth? You can mashup the sites data with their maps for some great local detail. (see bottom of home page)

And if seeing is believing for you, the site also has links to the locations of webcams throughout the state. (These web cams are not maintained by the NJWxnet and are not affiliated with the ONJSC or Rutgers University in any way.) Things look good even in the cold weather at Long Beach Island.

NJ Weather & Climate Network at Rutgers University
http://climate.rutgers.edu/njwxnet/

Climate Change for Blog Action Day

Today is Blog Action Day. It's an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

This year the topic of discussion is Climate Change, an issue that threatens us all. Small online journals, big online magazines and all the Endangered New Jersey-sized blogs out there in the middle are joining in.

Tamara Giltsoff wrote at PSFK in “Mitigating Climate Change is Hot on the Business Agenda. What About Adapting to it?” and asked "Why is there less focus on adapting to climate change versus mitigating it?" Wise businesses will plan for new futures and generate value from change. Where there is risk, there is also opportunity.

Schools should look at these issues because it affects their students’ lives. How should that new campus building be built? How are you using technology and energy?



Taking action beyond blogging is more important than posting on a blog today. There are 130 countries represented by Blog Action Day bloggers, but more than any other country, action taken by the United States to limit greenhouse gases and build a clean energy economy is needed to achieve a sustainable solution to our global climate crisis. Add your voice and call for bold action now.

In December, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a global response to climate change. As a world leader in greenhouse gas pollution as well as clean energy technology, the United States needs to take bold and urgent action by implementing comprehensive clean energy policies to curb emissions. Sign the petition at hopenhagen.org.

President Barack Obama has said that climate change is an urgent threat, and now is the time for him to lead the United States in confronting climate crisis. This is a chance for people around the world and in the United States to join together in telling President Obama that we want him to lead the United States in taking bold and significant action to reduce greenhouse gasses.

Click here to add your name and call on the U.S. to take action now.

Take a look at The Top 100 Effects of Climate Change. You can “Say Goodbye to Pinot Noir” and expect “More Bear Attacks” and “Malaria Spreading in South America” and probably “More Stray Kitties.” It's a site that might help you and your children think out of the climate box. Big consequences and smaller consequences.

How about Kids vs. Global Warming? It's an organization started by a 12 year student two years ago. Check out their projects.



Blog Action Day has partnered with Al Gore's group the Alliance for Climate Protection to start a global online action addressed to the one country whose actions will most influence the future of our climate: the United States. Learn about climate change in this Google Earth introductory tour narrated by Al Gore, the first in a series of Google Earth tours leading up to the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December. For more climate change tours, visit http://www.google.com/cop15

What Are The Walruses Telling Us?

Image: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Have you ever heard the expression "a canary in a coal mine"? Early coal mines did not have ventilation systems, so miners would bring a caged canary into new coal seams. Canaries are especially sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide, which made them ideal for detecting any dangerous gas build-ups. As long as the canary in a coal mine kept singing, the miners knew their air supply was safe.

Many species that are threatened or endangered act in the same way for us - signaling dangers in our environment before we can actually sense them ourselves.

This year, researchers flying along the Alaska coast discovered 100 to 200 walrus carcasses along the shoreline of Icy Cape, southwest of Barrow, according to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Thousands of walrus forming unusual congregations on Alaska’s North Slope seems to indicate that the relatively low autumn ice coverage within arctic water is another indicator of climate change.

While debate on climate change continues, during September, Arctic sea ice had receded to the third lowest extent on record.

Those walruses who have gathered along the northwest coast of Alaska saw the sea ice retreat beyond the continental shelf. When that occurs, it is over water too deep for the walruses to feed in and they are forced to feed from land rather than from the sea ice.

In September, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced a review of the walrus’ status, to determine whether it should be added to the list of threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. According to the FWS, the decision was based “in part, upon projected changes in sea ice habitats associated with climate change.”


MORE INFORMATION

Riddle of 200 dead walruses discovered on the Alaskan shore

What happens when sea ice melts

Polar Bears Lose Court Battle As They Lose Habitat

Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the administration will retain the Bush administration's controversial rule on polar bear protections that I have written about here earlier. The rule had only been finalized in December. Six months earlier, the polar bear was declared a threatened species due to the melting of its sea-ice habitat.

A number of Democratic lawmakers, environmentalists and scientists argued to revert the Bush rule which limits the use of the Endangered Species Act to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.

To add to the strangeness of the decision, Salazar said that "To see the polar bear's habitat melting and an iconic species threatened is an environmental tragedy of the modern age. This administration is fully committed to the protection and recovery of the polar bear."

The Interior Department will need to defend the rule in court and there is sure to be opposition from environmental groups that see this as more than just polar bear protection, but as a way to force the government to consider the effects of greenhouse gases and to better regulate emissions.

Environmental groups have also sued to change the polar bear's status from "threatened" to "endangered."

Part of the administration's reluctance to revert the rule seems to be that they are opposed to using the Endangered Species Act as a way to enact regulations concerning climate change which they see as a different issue.

Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska and groups such as the American Petroleum Institute has defended the Bush rule. Additionally, the state of Alaska and the Pacific Legal Foundation filed lawsuits to block protection of the bear and there are also suits pending against the Interior Department from groups that want hunters to be able to bring back polar bear trophies from Canada.

Bush Administration Endangered Species Rule Rolled Back

This week, the Obama administration rolled back a Bush-era rule excusing oil and gas companies in polar bear habitat from special reviews designed to ensure they are not harming the animals.

Polar bears were listed last year as threatened after federal biologists determined they were especially vulnerable because of their dependence on Arctic sea ice which is shrinking due to the rapidly warming climate.

The Alaska energy industry said the move could slow exploration and production activity in the state. Environmental groups applauded the decision as an important step protecting threatened species.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said they rescinded the Endangered Species Act regulation issued in December by the Bush administration, which eliminated the long-standing "Section 7 consultation" requirement for special scrutiny of any proposed activities that might harm a listed species.

Salazar said, "By rolling back this 11th hour regulation, we are ensuring that threatened and endangered species continue to receive the full protection of the law," Salazar said. Because science must serve as the foundation for decisions we make, federal agencies proposing to take actions that might affect threatened and endangered species will once again have to consult with biologists at the two departments."

The reversal means any oil and gas development in polar bear habitat must be cleared through consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In a related endangered species issue, a decision on another Bush administration rule limiting federal polar bear protections is due by May 10.