News Reporter: Climate Coach: Four nature apps to rule them all

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Climate Coach
Down-to-earth advice for life on our changing planet.

(Illustration by Emily Sabens/The Washington Post; iStock)

By Michael J. Coren

Welcome. This week, honeybee rebound and the news according to Chevron. But first, four nature ID apps to rule them all, one of last year's columns as I work on a special project for 2024. Now's a great time to download these as the birds and bees reemerge.

People may have never been as divorced from nature as they are today. Humans across much of the industrialized world have become an indoor species: About 90 percent of our time is spent inside.

But what technology has torn asunder, perhaps it can begin to mend. Thanks to artificial intelligence trained on millions of observations, anyone with a smartphone can snap a picture or record a sound to identify tens of thousands of species, from field bluebells to native bees.

For people who don't know the difference between a robin and a magpie, this new generation of naturalist apps is the Rosetta Stone to the natural world.

Reestablishing relationships with your outdoor neighbors might not only transform your commute, it might change your life.

There are more than a dozen apps online promising to help you identify the natural world, many of them paid. Don't bother.

Four apps, designed and managed by scientists with world-class data, meet all your ID needs free of charge. And every observation will advance scientific understanding of the natural world.

The easiest to use is Seek. The app, an offshoot of iNaturalist, a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, lets you shoot live video. The app identifies the taxonomy of plants instantly as you shoot. If it can't figure out the species, it will give you its best guess.

Then there's iNaturalist and Pl@ntNet. In seconds, they typically return a ranked list of potential candidates with rich descriptions of each. The identification of the most common species is a slam dunk. For rarer ones, it's easy to compare your observation against those of others in the database. The apps' real superpower is the community around them: Millions of citizen scientists who can vet and confirm your observations.

Finally, there's Merlin Bird ID, a project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The app uses a phone's sensitive microphone to identify bird vocalizations in the sonic landscape around you, even painting a visual representation analogous to a musical score. Merlin has changed how I hear the world. I can now tune in to birdsong operas that had never entered my consciousness.

Ultimately, the apps' greatest breakthrough may not be technological at all. It may be raising our awareness.

We are nearly blind to entire categories of living creatures. While these plants and animals are our neighbors, we scarcely acknowledge their existence, let alone their right to exist.

By naming my wild neighbors, I've found my perception of them went from grainy and unclear to powerful and familiar.

This could reverse one of the great losses of the past century: our severed connection to the unique, wild character of where we live.

Write me with your questions at climatecoach@washpost.com. I read all your emails.

Click here to read the column

Learning Curve

Two decades of relentless colony collapse coverage belies what appears to be some good news: America's honeybee population has rocketed to an all-time high, reports Andrew Van Dam, our indefatigable Department of Data columnist.

What is going on? You can read the fascinating tale of tax breaks, Texas and domesticated honeybees here.

But one big takeaway comes from Mace Vaughan, who leads pollinator and agricultural biodiversity at Xerces, an insect-conservation outfit.

"We've got really well-meaning people who are keeping honeybees because, 'Oh, I've got to save the bees.' That's not the way you save the bees!" Vaughan said. "The way you support both honeybees and beekeepers — and the way you save native pollinators — is to go out there and create beautiful flower-rich habitat on your farm or your garden."

You can read my column on tidy backyards here.

The Second Degree

Last week, I wrote about how to fight back against HOAs blocking solar panels and native lawns.

Sally Mills wrote that sometimes the damage is already done. Her HOA in San Diego told residents to cut back any trees "higher than your roof," issuing violation letters to anyone who didn't.

"Immediately residents removed mature trees or severely trimmed others," she wrote. Although Mills pushed back, and the rule was no longer enforced after a series a letters and council meetings, it was too late. "Many trees were cut down."

But Maria said there's another route in her HOA. "Perseverance, patience and being polite gets me a lot further than being rude and pushy," she wrote. "Over the years I've gotten a completely new fence, new front landscaping and a cracked slab of cement on the walkway to my front door replaced at no cost. … Being polite instead of rude makes it more pleasant for all parties involved."

Tricia O'Connor wrote that the language we use to describe the dangers of climate change often doesn't live up to the reality. But she heard one phrase recently that did: The Earth as having a fever.

"Humans feel bad even when our temp is up just a couple tenths of a degree," she wrote. "This seemed pretty effective and something everyone could understand."

Do you have your own favorite analogy? Write me at climatecoach@washpost.com

On the Climate Front

From The Post:

The U.S. approved $20 billion to help poor communities go green.

Don't go by the price tag. Calculate your clothes' price per wear.

Even Disney's beloved Autopia ride is giving up on gas-powered cars.

Want an elephant? Botswana's president says his country has too many — 130,000 to be precise.

From elsewhere:

'Simply mind-boggling': world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe, says the Guardian.

The New York Times reports advanced chemical recycling for plastics is struggling to deliver on its promise.

Chevron owns this city's news site. Many stories aren't told, says Floodlight.

The Wall Street Journal chronicles the reckoning at Tesla, the world's most valuable car company.

Devra Kitterman is a beekeeper, amateur entomologist and horticulturist who has been protecting pollinators and helping others pick the right plants in their yards for years.

"In North America, there are over 4,500 types of native bees," mostly ground nesters, she writes. "All species are under threat, mostly from lawn chemicals, farm chemicals, and loss of habitat."

The Baltimore resident now dedicates her time to helping people reverse the trend. One tip: "Plant the verge (the space between the sidewalk and the street)," she writes. "Provide habitat, guests show up."

Here's Kitterman's garden at work.

Send me photos of your sidewalk wildlife at climatecoach@washpost.com. I'll include them in future newsletters.