| | | | | Welcome. This week, gas stoves and tule elk. But first, is wilderness a myth? | |  | | During a college class, a professor asked, "Does wilderness exist?" I thought it was a dumb question. I had been in it, just weeks earlier, backpacking through the lower reaches of the Appalachian Trail in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains. I grew up in wild places like this. In Florida, I stalked coastal mangrove forests with friends, paddling out to islands in the Indian River to explore its brackish backwaters. To a child, wilderness was everywhere the pavement ended. Yet the more I thought about the idea, the less sure I became. Wilderness, after all, wasn't merely the presence of nature. It was the absence of us. Or so I thought. I recall the shock when I realized that "untrammeled" nature — that is, a natural world "not restricted or hampered" by our presence, according to the Oxford English Dictionary — no longer existed, if it ever did. This old recognition came rushing back when I read The Washington Post's fantastic piece on Canada's Crawford Lake. Reporter Sarah Kaplan and photojournalist Bonnie Jo Mount traveled to a secluded lake, not far from Toronto, to learn how its unique chemistry has preserved a sedimentary record of humanity's time on Earth. Looking at mud cores from the lake bed, researchers see the pollen from Indigenous crops give way to ragweed and other weed species that flourished as European settlers cleared the forests. Then black specks of fly ash from burning coal and oil appear, alongside metals such as copper, lead and even plutonium from nuclear tests. By the 1980s, pollution controls began to reduce soot and acid rain, but one trend remains undiminished: rising temperatures from the 1880s onward. | |  | | Some geologists hope the lake will soon be declared the site marking the start of the Anthropocene, a name derived from the Greek roots meaning "human being" and "new." If so, the mid-20th century would be the official end of wilderness, at least as I once conceived it, the latest chapter in Earth's 4.6-billion-year timeline. It turns out humans have been a part of nature, co-creating wilderness, throughout much of our 300,000-year history. But only recently has our presence threatened to overwhelm the basic functioning of the biosphere across the globe. Understanding this, and our choice in the matter, helps to clarify our responsibility. | | | If you've bought "green" energy from your utility, you might be feeling pretty good about yourself. But you might want to take a closer look at what's actually powering your home, report The Post's Shannon Osaka and Hailey Haymond. What you're probably paying for are electricity credits. Here's how it works: | | | And while those credits may once have helped launch wind and solar farms, as clean power costs fall, they may have no clear benefit for the climate. | | | Texas is no stranger to searing heat, but the heat wave that arrived last week is becoming exceptional, writes the Capital Weather Gang's Dan Stillman. See the culprit pictured below: one of the strongest heat domes of all time. | | These large, sprawling zones of high pressure cause air to sink underneath them. The air warms as it sinks and the heat dome traps the hot air in place. According to WFLA-TV chief meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli, the one responsible for the Texas heat wave is "basically impossible" without climate change. | | | The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service proposed restoring protections of the Endangered Species Act stripped under the Trump administration, including one instructing agencies not to factor economic impact into decisions on establishing new protections. | |  | | Thanks for your kind comments on the recent column about how cool roofs can save money and lives. Your most common question was: Is a cool roof worse than a conventional roof in cold climates with high heating costs? The answer: Possibly. The benefits of cool roofs decline as you go north. By the time you reach Minneapolis, the benefits from reflecting the sun's energy are modest. In cold-weather cities, it's best to pile up the insulation — this keeps you warm in the winter and mitigates heat transfer from the roof in the summer. But you may still want to get a cool roof for another reason: To mitigate the urban heat island effect. Since cool roofs lower the ambient temperature of the air and buildings around them — a New York asphalt roof might exceed 190 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer — even some northern cities can benefit. And it's not just roofs. These coatings can be applied to everything from vehicles to concrete, say groups like the Smart Surfaces Coalition. | |  |  | | Fifty-eight miles north of San Francisco, you can hike to a place where the Pacific Ocean and Tomales Bay converge at Point Reyes National Seashore. All around are herds of tule elk, a species that once roamed vast grasslands in California. During the recent drought, a fence prevented a herd from finding water and more than a hundred elk are thought to have died. This week, the National Park Service cited climate change as a primary reason to remove the fence around the 2,900-acre elk reserve. Martha Ture, the founder of Mt. Tamalpais Photos, snapped this remarkable picture of three female tule elk and a bull calf. | | | Martha Ture/Mt. Tamalpais Photos | | Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Climate Coach in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. | | See you next Tuesday, Michael Coren, Climate Coach | | | | | | | | | |
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