Spotlight on green news & views: 600th edition

That headline isn’t an exaggeration. This is the 600th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue and the Eco-Diary Rescue). That amounts to about 40,000 highlighted environmental diaries here at Daily Kos over the past 12 years. Here is the first one in December 2006. Here is the May 18, 2019, edition. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.

OUTSTANDING GREEN STORIES

The coiled neck foreshadows a strike. 

6412093 writes—The Daily Bucket--The Belly Flopping Heron: “For over a decade, Great Blue Herons have visited my backyard ponds in NW Oregon. They’ve eaten some of my goldfish, driven away all of the hated bullfrogs, and provided many viewing hours of their heart pounding beauty as they strut between the grapes and lavender. My house is in the middle of densely treed suburbs so the Heron must wend its way to my three backyard ponds. It’s tried different aerial routes, following dead end streets and dodging between 60 foot tall firs and redwoods. I’ve also seen it at a nearby lake, a half mile away. It often landed on my roof or my neighbor’s roof. The Heron would almost always approach the yard from this roof to the east. It would usually land, walk to the larger pond and stab a fish or several. In theory, this could still be the same Great Blue Heron that first visited 14 years ago. Their average lifespan is 15 years. But their markings are so uniform you cannot tell one from another. If four different Herons visited in one day, or 10 in the last 15 years, I could not tell the difference. The females are smaller but I’ve never seen two together to compare.”

libsanity writes—Climate moderation as an end goal is climate denial and rejection of science. We need strong action: “Climate moderation is climate denial, and we should demand strong climate policy as something crucial, not something we can compromise on. If you believe the projections of scientists as they warn us about the perils of different courses of action, half-measures on climate is a choice to let tens of millions of people die or be displaced. Scientists tell us what the effects of different courses of action would be: the results of inaction, of mild action, of moderate action, of comprehensive overwhelming action like a Green New Deal. The only way to believe that moderate action will not kill millions and displace hundreds of millions is to reject the science. Remember, Democratic proposals on climate change are ones that assume the ideal case, with Democratic executive power and the ability to pass legislation. There is no a middle ground that will somehow win bipartisan support and pass while a more ambitious proposal wouldn't— if Republicans do have some legislative power, they will not compromise on anything. We know this. We've seen this. A Republican compromise on climate would be doing nothing and only building ten more coal plants instead of twenty.”

from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2JEYnHu