May is National Bike Month.  And when it comes to the environment, human health, and even having fun, what can beat biking?

Riding a bike instead of driving a car lessens our dependence on climate-disrupting dirty oil and saves gas money.   Biking is an excellent way to get in shape and stay that way.  And who hasn’t loved pedaling along, enjoying the scent of flowers and the cooling touch of a breeze?

If you haven’t gotten on your bike in awhile, May is the perfect time to get started, not too hot and not too cold.

Cycling groups, local governments, climate change groups, and many others are organizing a variety of events all over the country to celebrate National Bike Month and to get people into biking.  To find events planned for your community, you can check the website of the League of American Bicyclists, National Bike Month’s sponsoring organization.  http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bikemonth/events.php

Some of the planned events include Bike to Work Days, Bike to School Days, bike safety and bike maintenance workshops, community bike rides, and other bike-related activities for kids and adults in many communities.

If nothing is planned in your community, you could always organize a bike ride with family or friends.  And be sure to get the kids involved.  Kids are born to ride a bike, but some may need a little coaxing to get out there.  Including them in a group ride may be especially fun for them.

And what if your bike is out of shape from neglect?  This month is a good time to take it to the bike shop for a tune-up, so you can get started.

Despite the many benefits biking offers, some communities are not at all bike-friendly.  Crowded roads, high-speed traffic, and a lack of bike lanes or even decent sized shoulders in some areas understandably make people afraid to venture out on a bike.  If your community’s infrastructure makes biking difficult, I urge you to click on the link below and join the Sierra Club’s Mobile Action Network.  You can follow the Sierra Club’s instructions for urging your state’s governor and your U.S. senators and representative to work with state and federal transportation officials to develop more options for a safer community with more biking options.

https://secure.sierraclub.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=8703

Happy biking!–April Moore

But as it turned out, I didn’t spot a single one in the wet woods that morning.

The mosses, however, more than made up for any absence of reptiles.  After the night’s rain, the brilliant green of the mosses was startling.  “Look at me!” the plump green mounds almost shouted.   Shaped into necklaces around the base of tree trunks and forming fat green lines above  long-decomposed logs, these luscious green patches were as bright emerald as any mosses I’d ever seen.

Emerald.  I pondered the word.  Used to describe the most brilliant of greens, emerald is also a gemstone.  But no stone, even an emerald, I thought, could match the green of verdant mosses after a rain, when they are bursting with water and clorophyl.  Instead of using  a stone’s name to describe the greenest green, maybe ‘mossy’ would be a more apt term.  But then, I guess ‘mossy’ connotes a texture more than a color.  Oh well.

While all the mosses I looked at that damp morning were a mossy–or brilliant–green,  many patches contained two or three different kinds of moss, all blended seamlessly together.

Once back at the house, I decided to pick up a lovely little book about mosses, Gathering Moss:  A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  As I browsed through its pages and reread passages I had underlined several years ago, I appreciated once again how beautifully the author’s scientific knowledge combines with her sense of wonder at the amazing little plants.

I am reminded that mosses are the most primitive of land plants.  They lack flowers, fruits, roots, and seeds.  Each of the more than 22,000 moss species in the world “is a variation on a theme, a unique creation designed for success in tiny niches in virtually every ecosystem.”    The first plants to live on land, mosses have been around for 350 million years.

I especially love this passage from Kimmerer’s book:

“Like a jealous lover, the moss has ways to heighten the attachments of water to itself and invites it to linger, just a little longer.  Every element of a moss is designed for its affinity for water.  From the shape of the moss clump to the spacing of leaves along a branch, down to the microscopic surface of the smallest leaf; all have been shaped by the evolutionary imperative to hold water.  Moss plants almost never occur singly, but in colonies packed as dense as an August cornfield.  The nearness of others with shoots and leaves intertwined creates a porous network of leaf and space which holds water like a sponge.  The more tightly packed the shoots, the greater the water-holding capacity.  A dense turf of a drought-tolerant moss may exceed 300 stems per square inch.  Separated from the rest of a clump, an individual moss shoot dries immediately.”–April Moore

Perhaps you have been following the alarming reports over the last few years of massive die-offs of honeybees. Beekeepers and others in the U.S. and many other countries report steep declines in honeybee populations.  In some parts of the U.S, honeybee populations have fallen by as much as 70% in just a few years.

While I always find it painful when any of our fellow species is threatened, this rapid loss of honeybees could have a dire impact on all of us humans.  Honeybees pollinate so many food crops that scientists say about one in three mouthfuls we humans eat is made possible by honeybee pollination.

After several years of study, many scientists believe the main reason for what they call ‘colony collapse disorder’ is a pesticide called clothianidin.  Used on corn and other agricultural crops, clothianidin is part of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which have been in use since the mid-1990s—the same time mass bee disappearances began occurring.

Scientists believe that honeybees are ingesting clothianidin on their daily pollination rounds.  Like other neonicotinoids, clothianidin blocks specific neural pathways in insects’ central nervous system, thus impairing communication, homing and foraging abilities, and also interfering with insects’ flight and their ability to  discriminate by smell.

Clothianidin has been banned in Italy, France, and Germany.  But in the U.S., clothianidin has been used widely for well over a decade, even though it was never officially licensed by the EPA. While the EPA is required by law to license only pesticides that meet standards for protection of human and environmental health, pesticide law allows EPA to waive those requirements and to allow the use of a new pesticide on a ‘conditional’ basis when health and safety data are lacking.  Even though the pesticide manufacturer is required to submit valid safety to the EPA by the end of the conditional use period, clothianidin’s manufacturer Bayer, has never done so.  EPA has failed to follow its own rules, failing to protect human and environmental safety.

The future of honeybees and our own future are inextricably linked.  Please strengthen the public call for a halt to the use of neonicotinoids like clothianidin.   Please help stop honeybees’ decline and restore their populations.  You can help by doing the following:

• Contact the Bayer Corporation, and insist that they stop marketing clothianidin because it is a serious threat to our ability to continue to grow the foods we depend on.   https://secure.bayer.com/bayer/contact.aspx?lang=en
  
• Call EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at 202-564-4700.  Urge the agency to suspend the registration of clothianidin to stop the rapid and steep decline of U.S. honeybee populations, essential to the continued pollination of necessary food crops.
• Learn more about honeybees and the threats they face by checking out the Beyond Pesticides website, http://www.beyondpesticides.org/   April Moore

I considered posting Al Gore’s 2012 Earth Day remarks which pay tribute to one of my heroes, Rachel Carson.  But while important, his remarks did not convey a feeling of celebration.

I also considered a series of photos with the message that in just a generation we humans have done more harm to our planet than all previous generations combined.  This message, while also important, felt too heavy for the one day of the year set aside to celebrate Planet Earth.

I even considered writing about a painful experience I had this morning.  A robin flew into our window.  During the hour or more that the bird remained almost motionless before flying away, I thought about how all of us humans, even those of us who truly love birds, are living in ways that make their lives very difficult.

Then I read a Biblical verse sent to me by my friend Patsy.  Job 12:8.  “Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.”

Yes!  This short verse reminds me that by speaking to the earth–when I acknowledge my deep connection with it–nature offers me valuable lessons.  It shows me that calmness, peace, a deep feeling of rightness, come from opening my heart and mind to nature.  The earth is an always available source of strength and healing.

So, despite the horrific damage being done to our gorgeous planet every day, on Earth Day I will focus on ’speaking’ to the earth, to opening myself to its healing lessons.

I invite you to play this short video, to take a few minutes to revel in the beauty of this planet we are lucky enough to call home.–April Moore

watch?v=dwF5XomHvcg

Several insect discoveries of the past few years are especially exciting because of where these ‘new’ insects have been discovered–New York City!  Yes, four ‘new’ bee species, previously unknown to science, have been living right alongside human beings in one of the most urban areas on the planet.

All four of the ‘new’ species are sweat bees, small bees named for their attraction to human sweat.  And of the four, the one getting the most attention has been nicknamed the Gotham Bee.  That’s right–Gotham, as in New York City.

The Gotham Bee, or Lasioglossum gotham if you want to get scientific about it, was first noticed in 2009 in the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx and in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden by John Ascher, a bee researcher at the American Museum of Natural History.  Ascher was conducting a citywide bee biology survey in New York City’s parks and forested areas.

“This little bee has been quietly living in the city, pollinating flowers in people’s gardens for years,” says Jason Gibbs, co-author with Ascher of an article about the discovery in the journal Zootaxa.  Because the Gotham Bee looks so similar to other sweat bees, no one realized it was a distinct species.

But now we have new techniques for identifying species.  DNA bar coding and digital imaging enable scientists to distinguish new species from others they resemble closely.

As it turns out, New York City seems to be a great place for bees.  More than 200 bee species live in and around the city, performing their vital function of pollinating flowers all over the city.  This rich biodiversity, Ascher explains, is the result of the city’s large number of parks and the presence of such ecologically rich areas as Jamaica Bay.

One reason the discovery has brought pleasure to so many is that the existence of ‘new’ bee species, even in a well-studied urban area, suggests that there are many other animals yet to be discovered.–April Moore

In the first cam, you can watch a red-tailed hawk incubating three eggs in her nest.  The nest sits atop an 80 foot-tall light pole on a Cornell University athletic field.  The eggs are expected to hatch around April 13.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=2422

In the second cam, you’ll see a great blue heron sitting on her four eggs in a nest high above a pond in a woods near the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York.  Her eggs are expected to hatch at the end of the month.  I especially enjoy looking at the heron because I’ve never seen this long-legged bird with folded legs, sitting on a nest.  I have only seen great blue herons stalking fish in a stream, perched in a tree, or in flight, but never before on a nest.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=2433

In addition to the chance to check in periodically–and even to plan a ‘visit’ when the eggs are hatching–these links also provide informative text about these two bird species and their habits.  Enjoy.–April Moore

In this short video, my husband Andy Schmookler, Democratic candidate for Congress, speaks strongly and eloquently on the subject.  I hope you’ll click this link Andy Schmookler on global warming and take a look.

The video was made by Chris Graham of the Augusta (VA) Free Press.–April Moore

In honor of the arrival of spring, I am posting this video that shows, thanks to time-elapsed photography, dozens of different flowers bursting into their full glory.  And the musical accompaniment underscores the wonder of it all.

I thank my friend Judy for sending me this video.  Just click on the link below, and enjoy.–April Moore

http://player.vimeo.com/video/27920977?title=0&%3bbyline=0&%3bportrait=0href=

I am excited about something new my husband and I are trying this spring.

Andy and I have decided to join our local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.  I think it’s going to be a win-win-win situation.  For a reasonable fee, paid in advance, we will enjoy the fresh taste and improved nutrition of the food we receive each week..  All of the food will be locally grown, organic, and just harvested. 

Local farmers will benefit because the CSA provides them a guaranteed market for their products.

And the earth will benefit as well.  Most CSA food is grown organically, lessening the pesticide burden placed on farmland.  And investing in a CSA means a reduction in fossil fuel used to transport food across the country.  Currently, most food sold in grocery stores travels an average of 1,500-2,500 miles to reach consumers.  When fossil fuel use is cut, air pollution and climate-changing emissions are reduced as well.

It was Barbara Kingsolver’s book, ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE, that inspired me to join our local CSA program.  Kingsolver writes in depth about her family’s year-long experiment in eating only food that they grew on their southwest Virginia farm or that they purchased from farmers in their local area.  Far from 12 months of deprivation, their experimental year was instead a time of savoring food that was flavorful and nutritious, having been grown organically and consumed soon after harvest.  (The family also canned extensively, allowing them to continue eating their home-grown food during the winter months.)

I admire Kingsolver and others who grow much of their own food.  But since it’s highly unlikely that I will ever advance beyond a few tomato plants on the deck and some sprouts on the kitchen counter, CSA seems like the next best thing.

As I look forward to our first box of fresh, local food, I am thinking about dishes I might prepare.  Here, Kingsolver has inspired me in yet another way.  I plan to break myself of my eco-unfriendly way of cooking.  Typically, I have chosen recipes from a cookbook and then bought the ingredients at the grocery store.  But now I  plan to base my recipe choices on what we receive in our weekly CSA allotment–on what’s in season–rather than on cookbook recipes that may call for ingredients that are neither local nor in season.  I am imagining that our CSA membership will enable us to spend less at chain grocery stores.

Our first box of fresh, local produce should be available the first week of April.  I’m looking forward to it!

If you’d like to give CSA a try, you can learn more about it at this website: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
–April Moore

After posting the piece, I sent it to Michael Schnitzler, the man behind the herculean campaign to raise the money needed to buy much of the remaining rainforest and to donate it to Costa Rica’s national park system for protection from logging.

Mr. Schnitzler sent me a reply that seemed worthy of sharing here.  So, with his permission, I am posting it below.  And for those who missed the original piece, I have pasted it below Mr. Schnitzler’s comments.–April Moore

Hello April,

It took my breath away ! The natural world around us at Costa Rica’s Esquinas Rainforest Lodge was so healthy, so intact!   From the smallest plants to the tallest trees, all the leaves shone a vibrant, vivid green.

Simply sitting in front of our cabin and looking for a minute or two yielded one thrill after another:  a brilliant red and black Cherrie’s tanager flitting about;  a green heron standing stock still in the pond waiting for lunch to appear;  a foot-long lizard first pushing rapidly along, then stopping, utterly  motionless;  an army of leaf-cutter ants marching along their trail, each holding aloft a piece of green leaf.

All this and so much more.  The big, colorful toucan using its gargantuan beak to pluck fruits from high in a tree and then tossing them down the hatch.  Other giant birds I’d never heard of–much less observed–thriving in their natural habitat:  a small group of crested guans moving languidly in a treetop;  and a great curassow, with its ornate black crest,  ambling about.

And the water, flowing past the lodge in a clear stream, was so pure that no treatment at all was needed before it was piped into the lodge and cabins for drinking.

I felt moved by the vibrant health of my surroundings.  I couldn’t remember ever being in a place where the earth felt so clean and alive, so completely undamaged!

The contrast between this verdant Costa Rican rainforest and so much of the rest of the planet made me very sad.  Even though I normally spend a great deal of time enjoying nature, nearly every place I have been, including my beloved forest around our house, has been degraded to some extent.

But there is a bright side to this stark contrast.

The reason the Esquinas Rainforest is so beautifully intact is not that humans have simply left it alone.  Not at all.

In the late 1980s, it appeared that this area would succumb to logging, as had most of the rest of the lowland tropical  forest on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast.  Then an Austrian musician, Michael Schnitzler, who had visited Costa Rica and fallen in love with its remaining rainforest, decided to act to protect it.  He founded an organization called Rainforest of the Austrians, and set about to raise money to purchase parcels of Esquinas rainforest to protect it and its biodiversity.

Rainforest of the Austrians raised millions of dollars, including donations from children at 250 schools in Austria.  The Austrian government also jumped in to help, making protection of Costa Rica’s last remaining rainforest a focus of its Third World aid program.  Other environmental protection organizations like the Nature Conservancy and the Rainforest Alliance also joined the effort.

Over the last 20 years, funds raised from many sources have been used to purchase–and protect–10,000 acres of rainforest land.  The land has been donated to the Costa Rican National Park Service for inclusion in Costa Rica’s Piedras Blancas National Park.  And efforts are underway to expand the protected acreage.  Former farms that border the national park have recently been purchased and are being reforested with native tree species.  And plans are underway to create biological corridors between isolated patches of rainforest outside the national park.

At Esquinas, conservation is combined with climate protection, as each planted tree absorbs 750 kilograms of carbon dioxide during its lifetime.

Rainforest of the Austrians and its partner organizations have worked hard to ensure that the people of La Gamba, the small town near the Esquinas Rainforest, benefit from rainforest conservation efforts.   The Esquinas Rainforest Lodge has become the area’s main employer of local people, and Schnitzler created the La Gamba Fund to support public welfare projects to improve the quality of life in the village.  The Fund has invested $200,000 in projects proposed by local residents, such as secondary school education for young people, renovation of the town school and community hall, and the restoration of a potable water system for 70 houses.

Not only are such efforts on behalf of local people the right thing to do, but these efforts have made conservation efforts more effective.  After all, when people benefit economically and in other ways from protecting the rainforest, they are far more likely to support conservation over the short-term jobs created by forest destruction.  The people of La Gamba are invested in rainforest conservation.

I salute Michael Schnitzler, Rainforest of the Austrians, and the Austrian government for their dedication to protecting such an important geographic area, its biodiversity, and the well-being of local people.  I can think of no better way to invest money and time.–April Moore

a male Cherrie’s tanager