Note from the Author
Hey there all you environmental enthusiasts!
You might have noticed that there was no new educational page halfway through the month. Turns out having a move and a vacation scheduled back-to-back weekends make for a pretty busy time! On top of that, moving out of an apartment comes with a bit of cleanup, so there went 3 of 4 weekends in August. I'm just glad there was enough time to put some thought into Human Nature for the month.
August also marks the end of my summer of prairie volunteering, though I'll still be helping out in some capacity collecting and cleaning seed from the area, which is always a bit of fun. It's interesting getting a chance to identify plants when they're past the point most people are familiar with seeing them. Definitely looking forward to getting back out there among the soon-to-be autumn grasses!
I also started reading through a book this month that helped inspire the Human Nature for August. If you like the post No Observers, Only Participants, you might consider giving The Anthropocene Reviewed a read. It's not directly about the environment, but is a reminder of being present and active in the world around us. Very much a value I hope comes out in the writing I do for Prismatic Planet as well.
In any case, I hope your August was a good one, and I'll check in again in September!
~ Jon
~ And, as always, don’t forget to keep wondering ~
New from Prismatic Planet!
Haikusday
Guardian of old
Dons its armor, time-hardened
Holds at blade's distance
Leveled with the ground
A glade of blades forms around
Forest of grassland
Coursing stream, a force
Of fervent change, adapting
Forest on wild banks
A forest in frame
All branches point center stage
Shocking turn of growth
Amid rocky slopes
Waters rush past fastened roots
Resilient tree
Educational Topics
No new educational pages this month thanks to a bunch of moving, but don’t let that stop you from learning! You can check out a bunch of our past material using this link right here!
Human Nature
No Observers, Only Participants
When I was a kid, I loved to think about how things work. I distinctly recall being at book fairs and being unequivocally drawn to books about systems. In a way, the kinds of things I learn and write about here would probably have made child me very proud. I'd ask for books about how weather works, why volcanoes erupt, what causes earthquakes, and how to measure rainfall and wind speed. I, for whatever reason, really wanted to know how the world functioned, and enjoyed trying to understand some of the most complex topics I could get my hands on.
What's interesting about that mindset for kid me, though, is that I'd often learn what I wanted to learn and get immediately interested in the next question I could think to ask myself. Which, honestly, isn't all that surprising thinking that I wanted to learn all this stuff as a kid. It's like wanting the new shiny toy, but what I wanted was new shiny knowledge. The result is that I built up a lot a shallow knowledge about how things worked, effectively making myself a bit of a walking encyclopedia. It was fun to demonstrate that to people, but I found that I was essentially learning a ton of stuff, but never really applying it to anything.
Little did I know, this was the beginning of a narrative for my life up until now. One that guided how I liked to learn things and shaped my view of the world. I'd say I'm at the end of my story, but I'm certain my thinking will continue to evolve as time goes on. It always does. But I wanted to share this trajectory with you. After all, I have a feeling my thinking is not unique, and you might see yourself at various points of this journey yourself.
So, let's dive in!
August Eco News
While climate change is a very real thing, it can be a nebulous topic. After all, the reason it's the biggest challenge humanity has faced is because of its interconnectedness with everything about the Earth. A recent study shows that US residents have a difficult time following along with some of the jargon used when experts discuss the topic, and suggest using more approachable language when conveying the topic to laypeople. The importance of effective science communication shines now more than ever!
Mapping Social Inequities of Urban Heat
Urban heat islands are a well-known, but less understood reality of the humanization of the modern world. These heat islands also tend to be exposed to the worst of the spectrum of health and safety risks in minority socioeconomic areas. This first-of-its-kind study is aiming to map out the heat islands around the New York City area with a focus on environmental justice, working together with local communities to both participate in the study and help in the dissemination of its results!
Cloudy Days = Zooplankton Migrations
The deep sea's "Biological Pump" is responsible for the cycling of carbon from the ocean surface to the ocean's depths. On a regular basis, small creatures from the ocean's twilight zone make a trek to the ocean surface to evade predators lurking below, but this study also finds the zooplankton make this trip far more frequently than anticipated. Turns out that on cloudy days, these tiny organisms will make mini-migrations to higher waters aiming to find their "light zone sweet spot" when the sun's rays don't reach as deep!
Biodiversity is on everyone's mind as humans continue to dominate the planet. This study, or rather recounting of previous studies, shows that biodiversity at the local level tells a more nuanced story that teetering extinctions. The world's species are moving in response to the change humanity introduces to the planet, adding another axis to understanding and accurately measuring biodiversity around the world.
The UN's International Panel on Climate Change released a summary of their 2021 report this month. The full report will be released in 2022, but this summary comes out in time for upcoming global discussions on addressing the climate crisis. The short of it is that the summary doesn't look particularly great, but the reasons it doesn't look great are what we've been surmising all along: humans are the driving factor behind our planet's rapidly changing climate and we need to act now to lock into as minimal an impact as we can. What the summary does show us are tracks we can take for our most hopeful future. You can check out the full summary document here:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf
Thank you for checking out the Prismatic Planet newsletter! For more environmental thoughts and stories, be sure to check out the Prismatic Planet website.
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~ And, as always, don’t forget to keep wondering ~