Bird populations are crashing. City lights are a major culprit. But ‘Bird City Certified’ San Antonio isn’t dimming its downtown—it’s turning on the River Walk’s holiday lights two weeks early.
Tag: biodiversity
Honor All Life: Make Ecocide an International Crime
To stop the destruction of life on this planet, international criminal codes must expand beyond human-focused war crimes and genocide to include ecocide—recognizing non-human life has inherent value. Heather Alberro & Luigi Daniele A movement of activists and legal scholars is seeking to make “ecocide” an international crime within the […]
Growing Back Better: Planting for Pollinators
It’s been three months since Winter Storm Uri scorched South Texas, leaving stands of gray stalks where living trees once stood, collapsing walls of cacti and making puddles out of aloe. What better time to rethink what we are growing and why—particularly in this time of global biodiversity crisis.
PODCAST: San Antonio’s ‘War on Birds’ Keeps Expanding
Two years ago, the City of San Antonio launched a war on the birds of Elmendorf Lake. The target was the hundreds of cattle egrets who have been roosting at this Westside ecological gem for decades. By razing the island to the ground, and dismantling possibly hundreds of nests, the assault destroyed the nesting ground for many related migratory birds. Many young were killed.
To Help Stop the Age of Extinction, Give Nature a New Pronoun
For Indigenous scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer, Western grammatical norms of using “it” to refer to more-than-human relatives absolve settler cultures of moral responsibility for exploiting and dominating nature. Here’s what we can say instead, drawn from Kimmerer’s native Anishinaabe. Robin Wall Kimmerer Singing whales, talking trees, dancing bees, birds who […]
CULTIVATOR: News for January 24-January 30
What a time to start a weekly news wrap-up on the climate justice front. Stories of sweeping and rapid change have followed the incoming Biden Administration: reentering Paris and punking the KeystoneXL pipeline. On this front, a number of outlets have you covered. WaPo has (almost) all the executive-order action […]
‘Terrified’ Pennsylvania General Energy Company Seeks to Destroy Local Rights of Nature Law
‘PGE throwing another lawsuit at us to try to bring us to heel, when our community has overwhelmingly said “hell no” multiple times.’ Jessica Corbett/Common Dreams In a clear signal of how the fossil fuel industry feels about efforts to enact Rights of Nature protections that safeguard communities and the […]
Threats to Indigenous Rights Dangerous for World Climate
Though critical to forest protection and reversing the climate crisis, indigenous rights are under attack and losing the fight in Bolivia against agricultural interests. Iokiñe Rodríguez and Mirna Inturias Earth’s forests oxygenate the atmosphere and store vast quantities of planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2). But research suggests that the health of […]