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Nature loss linked to farming intensity
Debunking Malcolm Roberts: the case against a climate science denier
The One Nation senator dismisses the conventional scientific view of climate change. Here are the holes in his most commonly deployed arguments
The election of Malcolm Roberts as a One Nation senator has put Australia’s media in a difficult spot.
In his first speech to Parliament on Tuesday, Roberts made many false claims about climate change. He said that climate change was a “scam” and implied that it was some sort of conspiracy between all the major international research agencies. “ ... there is no data proving human use of hydro-carbon fuels affects climate,” he said.
Continue reading...Nasa scans Great Barrier Reef to find answers to coral's poor health
Impetus for the new survey came from analysis that could not find clear link between reef health and human impacts
Scientists working on a Nasa-led project are scanning large swathes of the Great Barrier Reef as part of the biggest assessment of the world’s coral reefs ever undertaken.
Continue reading...Coalition says it will seek more cuts to clean energy programs
People are 'blind' to plants, and that's bad news for conservation
Sometimes plants are obvious, but often they slip under the radar Wildflower image from www.shutterstock.comTurn away from your computer screen for a moment and try to remember what you saw in the image below.
All images from www.shutterstock.com
The image has an equal number of plants and animals, but chances are that you remembered more animals than plants. This bias in memory is part of a phenomenon known as “plant blindness”. Research shows that people are also generally more interested in animals than plants, and find it harder to detect images of plants compared with images of animals.
Plant blindness is more than an interesting quirk of human perception. It impacts on our efforts to care for and understand plant species. Figures from the United States show that while most federal endangered species (57%) are plants, less than 4% of money spent on threatened species is used to protect plants. Botanical education has been declared under threat in the UK.
In a recent essay, Mung Balding and I argue that overcoming plant blindness requires more than plant education. Instead we need to help people connect with plants emotionally.
Why does it happen?We aren’t sure why plant blindness occurs. One theory suggests that because plants generally grow close together, do not move and often blend together visually, they often go unnoticed when animals are present.
Another possibility is that we learn plant blindness. For example, biology textbooks give much less space to plants compared with animals, potentially leaving schoolchildren with the impression that plants don’t matter.
But we also know many societies have strong bonds with plants. Among some Aboriginal Australian, Native North American and Maori communities, plants are understood to be different from humans but also to share a common ancestry that brings kinship relationships of mutual responsibility.
Overall, research suggests that while plant blindness is common, it is not inevitable. Here are three strategies that we believe could make a difference.
Identify with plantsPlants can seem very different from humans. Research has shown that animal conservation support is biased towards species that are most like humans.
Unlike humans and many other animals, plants don’t have faces, don’t usually move locations and don’t seem to have feelings. One way to start valuing plants is to notice ways that we actually are alike.
Science can help us see how plants have similarities with humans. Plants are alive, have sex, communicate and take up food. Some young plants share the root system of their parent plant – a “protective” behaviour that many human parents will recognise.
Rituals are another way of identifying with plants. For example, for people living on the island of Nusa Penida near Bali, the coconut palm is an important plant. Early in a child’s life, the father will plant a tree for the child. The tree’s development and life span then parallels the child’s and in ceremonies it is clothed and presented with food.
Coconut palms are an important part of ritual on some Indonesian islands.
Coconut palm image from www.shutterstock.com
Empathy with plants
Actively imagining the experiences of plants and animals is another way people can connect with plants. In a psychological experiment, participants were shown images of either a dead bird on a beach, covered in oil, or a group of trees that had been cut down.
Half the participants were told to view the image objectively, while the rest were asked to imagine how the bird or tree felt. The researchers found that people who actively empathised with the bird or tree not only expressed greater concern but also donated more money to protecting the species.
Art, imagination and ritual can all help people to imaginatively empathise with plants. So too can tending plants, as one experiences the joys and sorrows of plant life and death.
Make plants humanA third – and more controversial – way to connect with plants is through anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism means attributing human characteristics to plants, like describing a drooping plant as sad, or a sunflower as turning its face toward the sun.
Facing the sun: these sunflowers look very happy.
Sunflower image from www.shutterstock.com
Anthropomorphism of animals is common in entertainment and conservation campaigns but rarely used for plants. Some writers consider anthropomorphism to be unhelpful: it can misdirect thinking about plants, or sentimentalise plants in ways that belittle them. But experiments show that making or reading anthropomorphic pictures and stories can also help people to empathise with nature and want to act to protect nature.
Want to test this out for yourself? Try a thought experiment by watching this 1932 animation from Walt Disney. The dancing, courting and fighting trees are rather bewildering, but do you feel a twinge of anxiety when the trees are threatened by fire, or relief as the woodland recovers?
Feeling anxious?Plant conservationists view plants as having value in their own right, so it might seem odd to suggest that we promote plant conservation by thinking about the ways plants are like humans. The strategies we suggest draw on theory that proposes that people are more likely to act in the interests of nature if we think about nature as being part of us. Appreciating our connections with plants may be the best way to begin respecting their amazing differences.
This article was written with Mung Balding, a graduate of the University of Melbourne’s Master of Environment program.
Kathryn Williams works in the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne, which offers education in horticulture and ecosystem science and management.She receives funding through the Australian Research Council, the National Environmental Science Program, the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, however the research reported here was unfunded.
What does space sound like?
Could microwaves rid rail lines of leaves?
Hugh Boyd obituary
My friend Hugh Boyd, who has died aged 91, made a massive contribution to wetland and waterbird conservation at world level over six decades.
Hugh was recruited to Peter Scott’s groundbreaking team as the first research biologist at the Severn Wildfowl Trust (now the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust) at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, in 1949. Over the next 20 years, Hugh and the team exerted an immense influence encouraging younger ornithologists and developing “citizen science” networks of volunteer counters for annual monitoring of waterbird population sizes.
Continue reading...How trees use the Wood Wide Web.
August ties with July as hottest month on record
August continued the remarkable streak of record hot months in 2016, equalling July as the hottest month on record
In what has become a common refrain this year, last month ranked as the hottest August on record, according to NASA data released Monday. Not only that, but the month tied July as the hottest month the world has seen in the last 136 years.
August came in at 1.76˚F (0.98˚C) above the average from 1951-1980, 0.16C above August 2014, the previous record holder. The record keeps 2016 on track to be the hottest year in the books by a fair margin.
Continue reading...拯救非洲大象：“你能想象它们在这个地球上彻底灭绝吗？”
在非洲大陆盗猎活动愈发猖獗，各类保护行动已经在进行，但拯救这一陆地上最大动物的战役离胜利还很遥远。(翻译：子明/chinadialogue)
在肯尼亚北部的桑布鲁国家保护区，当炙热的阳光已经软化成轻柔的夜光时，我跟着大卫·达巴伦钻进一辆吉普车，去寻找大象。
Related: Why the Guardian is publishing its elephant reporting in Chinese
Continue reading...Campaigners criticise UK government’s response to air pollution warning
Formal response rejects measures urged by MPs to tackle dangerously high levels of air pollution in British cities
Campaigners have attacked the government for rejecting calls by MPs for greater action on air pollution, as severe pollution episodes were predicted for parts of the UK this week.
MPs warned in April that dangerously high pollution in British cities was a “public health emergency”, and told ministers to take further measures, including more clean air zones and a diesel scrappage scheme.
Continue reading...Gravitational pull 'has role in quakes'
Yacht sails through low-ice Arctic sea routes
Animal-free dairy products move a step closer to market
San Francisco startup says its products taste identical but tackle guilty conscience of consumers concerned about large environmental footprint
After lab-grown meat, get ready for animal-free cow’s milk. A San-Francisco startup believes it has found a solution for the guilty conscience of consumers who love eating dairy ice-cream, cheese and yoghurt, but oppose factory-style farming and its environmental footprint.
Through a combination of yeast, cow DNA and plant nutrients, Perfect Day claims to have created a product identical in taste and nutritional value to cow’s milk, but without any udders involved.
Electric cars could be charged at Shell service stations from 2017
Emails released under FoI suggest the company is in advanced preparations to introduce the chargers on its forecourts from next year
Electric car charging points could appear alongside petrol pumps at Shell’s UK service stations as soon as next year, the oil giant confirmed after emails between the company and government officials revealed discussions on introducing them.
The company also asked the government how serious it is about wireless charging roads which could top up an electric car without the need to plug in, as mooted by Conservative MP Oliver Letwin.
Continue reading...Brazil ratifies Paris agreement with pledge to sharply reduce emissions
Move by Latin America’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases is further boost to climate deal after ratification by US and China
The Brazilian government has ratified its participation in the Paris agreement on climate change, a significant step by Latin America’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases that could spur other countries to follow suit.
With a landmass larger than the continental US, Brazil emits about 2.5% of the world’s carbon dioxide and other polluting gases, according to United Nations data.
Continue reading...Tech Head: oyster-saving app, NAB's cardless credit and Facebook editorial policies
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