“Air Shepherd” : Drones Protecting Elephants and Rhinos

Good news about drones?!

I recently heard the end of an interview on the BBC with a speaker for the Lindbergh Foundation’s “Air Shepherd” program.  See link to their website below.

Scared of drones? Me too. But in this case you have drones performing a vital service in the campaign to protect African elephants and rhinos from poachers and other threats.

Apparently, the drones are so quiet they can perform reconnaissance at heights as low as 400 feet without poachers hearing them. Mostly done at night with infrared cameras of course, but that’s when many poachers are active anyway.

http://airshepherd.org/

– Mark

Hope for Afghanistan? Maybe.

See the following thoughtful essay on Afghanistan from Joel Vowell, a veteran of three tours in the infantry in Afghanistan. I believe his rank is lieutenant colonel, maybe full colonel by now. He speaks of “rational optimism.” He makes a credible case for staying the course.

Most of you readers are wary of “military solutions” and attempts at regime change in the Middle East, for good reason. Nevertheless, what Vowell speaks of sounds deeper than a mere military engagement.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/09/07/rationally-optimistic-on-afghanistan/?utm_campaign=Brookings+Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=33974175

– Mark

Reasons to Cheer for Natural Gas

First off, since fracking has gotten an often deservedly bad rap for environmental damage, the case for natural gas must address fracking. Yes, fracking is bad in many places where it’s been done—places of high environmental and geological sensitivity. Fracking needs stricter and more vigilant regulation, and harsher penalties for malfeasance. In particular, the injection of waste fluids into underground wells. But we need natural gas for electricity generation as a bridge to a renewable energy future—not to mention its already widespread use for heating, where it is more efficient than electricity (and you have to think what generates your electricity), far cleaner than oil, and still farther cleaner than coal.

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Carbon Debt from Biomass Burning

Burning “biomass”—trees, grasses, and other plant matter—to generate electricity has been considered a “clean” technology in some quarters. Currently, European countries do not count carbon dioxide emitted from biomass burning as part of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is curious, given that burning biomass does emit carbon dioxide, as well as a small amount of methane.  How renewable is biomass burning? Does it leave a “carbon debt” of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

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Phaethon’s Fall

The following is my brief adaptation of a much longer piece, a translation of a poem in Ovid’s Metamorphoses by the poet and classicist Ted Hughes. Hughes’s book, Tales from Ovid, is a treasure, BUT since you’re unlikely ever to open it, I’ve taken the liberty of bringing to you, with a debt to Hughes, an allegory that may be even more relevant to our time than it was to Ovid’s. Thus. . .

Phaethon’s Fall

Phaethon importuned his father, Helios, charioteer of the Sun,
To give him the reins of the light-giving chariot
To drive across the sky for a day.
Helios, bound by an ill-considered oath,
With grim reluctance had to yield to the request.

The sky-horses, sensing weakness,
Careened wildly, and, unleashed,
Plunged downward,
Scorching the earth, boiling the seas.

Earth, in agony, cried out
To all-powerful Zeus, who
Struck down rash Phaethon with a thunderbolt.

Phaethon, consumed by flame,
Lived not long enough to regret his error.