Our Changing World--Threats but Also Opportunities

The world is changing.

The second half of the 20th century was warmer than the first half. The 21st century is setting new heat records.

In the arctic, ice is retreating and polar bears are starving. Alaska has record high temperatures. Alaska and Siberia have melting permafrost and forest fires. Looking up the Sami of Norway and Sweden, the information is all about warm winters creating problems for their reindeer herds, ones their grandfathers cannot provide advice about, because they've never seen it so warm.

Switzerland's Aletsch Glacier in 2019;
It has lost more than 1,300 m. (1421 yards) of length and 200 m thickess since
the 1970s  link

Botanical Travel: Where the Weeds Are Strange

lantana (Lantana camara)

Growing on the roadsides and vacant lots in Costa Rica, we saw lantana (Lantana camara, vervain family, Verbenaceae). In Hawaii it was Kahili ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum, ginger family Zingiberaceae)

Kahili ginger

Here is Kahili ginger, the dark green leaves, filling the forest understory in Hawaii

All the dark green leaves are Kahili ginger

Wow! Aren't those pretty! But weird weeds to a Coloradan.