Free Range Free Chat

🎶Monday, Monday. Can’t trust that day. . . . 🎶 (On Monday morning you gave me no warning of what was to be!)

Unless it’s Monday’s Free Chat on NV, Free Range, the anything-goes-within-or-without-reason, so let us know what’s happening with you or what thoughts you have about what’s happening on the planet. Or Space. Or the center of the earth, the oceans, and the volcanoes that happen when the two combine.

Because here at Free Range, we have a soft spot for all things environmental, hence today’s forest focus as we enter 2022 with plans to plant trees and more trees, trees to replace habitats and oxygen, trees to provide shelter and food, and most of all, trees to heal what’s sick in our indoor basement dwelling pandemic afflicted souls.

As the Amazon fires continue to burn, Rachel Nuwer asks: how dependent are we on the survival of forests? (BBC)

America has pivoted from forest enemy to forest advocate.

Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest reached its highest level in more than 15 years. And the consequence of losing all of those trees became clearer than ever: A study published in July found that parts of the Amazon now emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb, contributing to rapid global warming.

In January of this year, Biden announced that the US would aim for “30 by 30” — a goal of conserving at least 30 percent of the nation’s land and water by 2030, which dozens of other countries have committed to. 

“We’ve never seen a president make that kind of big conservation promise right off the top,” Weiss said.

A northern spotted owl in Muir Woods National Monument north of San Francisco, California.
 Robert Alexander/Getty Images

We’re still discovering what lives in the world’s forests It may seem like we’ve explored every corner of the Earth, from the tops of the tallest trees to the underground web of fungi that connects them. But there’s still a near-endless opportunity for discovery if you know where to look, said E.O. Wilson, a renowned biologist. Scientists have only described a small fraction of the world’s 9 or so million species, he pointed out

Crooked Forest in Poland

It may seem like we’ve explored every corner of the Earth, from the tops of the tallest trees to the underground web of fungi that connects them. But there’s still a near-endless opportunity for discovery if you know where to look, said Wilson, who passed away just last month. Scientists have only described a small fraction of the world’s 9 or so million species, he pointed out. 

Misty foggy mountain landscape with fir forest
Government officials inspect a deforested area in the northern Brazilian Amazon on September 22, 2022 Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images
Forest in Indonesia is burned on March 3, 2018, to make way for an oil palm plantation.
 AFP via Getty Images

Tell us what’s going on in your neck of the woods, or your neck of the cornfield, or your neck of the neighborhood, or your kitchen. . . . .you know, I’m not sure where I was going with that run on situation, but regardless of my sleepy disorganized thinking on a Monday, we’d love to hear what’s going on with you in your daily world and your big picture world. . . . So watcha got, News Viewers?

Source: Vox

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