AN EVENING WITH DR. ROBERT MICHAEL PYLE, Butterfly Man

Dearest Earthlings,

We have on our Core Group at Living Earth, a wonderful woman named Cheryl Charles. Cheryl moved to Vermont maybe 8 years ago, from a very exciting life in New Mexico. She knows EVERYONE. Sometimes her friends come to visit, and she asks them to come to our meetings on Fridays at the church. For example, Larry Littlebear, a Pueblo elder, addressed a packed house several years ago. Amazing. We had Cheryl’s friend Rolland Smith, former Evening News anchor in New York. Twice. Rolland was having lunch at the Putney Diner when he ran into his friend Arnie Gunderson, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Gundersen ,the nuclear engineer with 44 years experience who turned whistleblower and was instrumental in shutting down US nuclear plants. Rolland brought Arnie and his wife along to LEAG. What a night! We learned all about Fukushima and more.

Another of Cheryl’s friends, Dr. Robert Michael Pyle, is going to speak at the Westminster West Church next, sponsored by the Nature Center at Grafton, and others, including Living Earth Action Group!  See below. Cheryl says he is a very engaging  speaker, accustomed to speaking in front of hundreds of people. We are honored to have him coming to our little community! So DON’T MISS THIS ONE!  Sunday, July 21, 7-8:30pm. Please register below or at the Nature Museum website. https://www.nature-museum.org/upcoming-events-full/robertpyle

Pollinators, Plants, and People:

An Evening with Dr. Robert Michael Pyle

• Sunday, July 21, 2024

• 7:00 PM  8:30 PM

• Westminster West Church 44 Church Street, Westminster West, VT United States(map)

• Google Calendar  ICS

Pre-registration requested.  By donation, free option included.

Co-Sponsored by  The Vermont Biodiversity Alliance, the Living Earth Action Group, and Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center

Join us for an evening with acclaimed author, teacher, poet and naturalist, Dr. Robert Michael Pyle. Dr. Pyle is the author of the Audubon Society Field Guide to Butterflies, founder of the Xerces Society, and one of North America’s leading voices for conservation and connection with nature.

Learn about the intricate web of plant-insect-bird coevolution and how our human story is also deeply interrelated and interdependent. Supporting insect life through stewardship of even the smallest plot of land is a crucial act that benefits the entire ecology and food web of a region. In this presentation, Dr. Pyle will share personal stories and insights from a life dedicated to research and effective activism.

Register here (optional, all welcome at the door)

https://tnm.regfox.com/pollinators-plants-and-people

Cheryl writes:

Here is a link to the trailer for the feature film, The Dark Divide, about naturalist Dr. Robert Michael Pyle, who will be speaking at the West West Church on July 21 at 7pm:  The Dark Divide - Official Trailer (David Cross, Debra Messing) (youtube.com) The film is engaging and inspiring, and based on his true story. My only caveat: Bob Pyle is not the goofy inexperienced outdoorsman the film portrays. He is, however, as inquisitive and caring as the film conveys.

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A Garden Tour Thank You!

It was so nice for me to see a number of our readers of this newsletter at the Sanctuary Garden last weekend, part of the Westminster Cares Garden Tour.  A number of folks told me how much they enjoy the newsletter. I am humbled and honored, and definitely encouraged.

And now for some world-view changing articles!

The first one sent by our friend Marilyn Chiarello, seen on the VHSC listserv. It shows scientific evidence for microbial activity deep within Earth, many miles below the surface. By Ferris Jabr.

Ferris Jabr is a contributing writer at the magazine and the author of “Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life,” from which this article is adapted.Please read!

 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/magazine/earth-geomicrobiology-microbes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k0.PO4F.ib-0jxVNRK-Y&smid=url-share

An excerpt from the article:

 Life does not merely reside on the planet; it is an extension of the planet. Life emerged from, is made of and returns to Earth. Earth is not simply a terrestrial planet with a bit of life on its surface; it’s a planet that came to life. Earth is a rock that broiled, gushed and bloomed: the flowering callus of a half-sealed Vesuvius suspended in a bubble of breath. Earth is a stone that eats starlight and radiates song, whirling through the inscrutable emptiness of space — pulsing, breathing, evolving — and just as vulnerable to death as we are.

Marilyn adds: This paragraph made me think of the Living Earth Action Group:

"As I studied the interdependence of Earth and life, I continually returned to an ancient and controversial idea: that Earth itself is alive. It was not until the late 20th century that the idea of a living planet found one of its most popular and enduring expressions in Western science, the Gaia hypothesis. Conceived by the British scientist and inventor James Lovelock in the 1960s and later developed with the American biologist Lynn Margulis, the Gaia hypothesis proposes that all the animate and inanimate elements of Earth are “parts and partners of a vast being who in her entirety has the power to maintain our planet as a fit and comfortable habitat for life.”

Marilyn Chiarello (s/h)

Founding Director

Edible Brattleboro

802.254.9121

516.298.9119 (cell)

https://ediblebrattleboro.org

https://www.facebook.com/EdibleB

“Grow food everywhere for everyone.”

Support Our Work | Project Regeneration

Band of wild Przewalski/Takhi Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) bachelor stallions at, Hustai National Park, Tuv Province, Mongolia.

Two hundred years after the last wild horse disappeared from the Central Asian steppe, this month, an intrepid group of them galloped off a trailer to reclaim their ancestral habitat in Kazakhstan. The endangered Przewalski’s horse is the only remaining wild species on Earth– that is, not descended from domesticated horses. The seven horses, four mares from Berlin and a stallion and two other mares from Prague were carried by Czech Army aircraft to Golden Steppe, an area of open grasslands. This region is where horses were first domesticatedabout 5,500 years ago. Once abundant across Europe and Asia, Przewalski’s horses went extinct in the wild due to human activities, including hunting them for meat and development, which fragmented their population. The goal is to reintroduce forty horses to the region after breeding them at zoos in Munich and Prague. Filip Mašek, a spokesperson for Prague Zoo, noted that repopulating the horses would increase biodiversity, as their presence helps to fertilize and rehydrate the steppe. “This is the beginning of a whole new chapter in the story of the last wild horse on the planet,” he observed. And when complex interactions among factors such as light, nutrients, and vegetation are in balance, optimal grazing intensity can sequester carbon in soil.

EU Climate Action Win

Hugo Paquin & Scott Hannan

Degraded landscape in the south of Poland.

The Nature Restoration Law, a long-debated piece of European legislation, was narrowly passed last week in a significant victory for environmentalists. The law’s overarching goal is to restore at least twenty percent of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all of its degraded ecosystems by 2050. According to the European Environment Agency, 81% of Europe's natural habitats and 63% of its species are considered to be in poor health. The regulation contains specific targets, which include improving and re-establishing biodiverse habitats on a large scale, reversing the decline of pollinator populations, preventing any net loss of green urban space and tree cover, improving the share of agricultural ecosystems with high-diversity landscape features, and restoring drained peatlands and marine habitats. The law was opposed by farmer groups and the center-right European People’s Party, who argued it would diminish livelihoods, push up prices for consumers, and disrupt existing supply chains. In the end, the proposal became law after a massive public mobilization, including a petition with over a million signatures and repeated calls from 6000+ scientists, 100+ businesses, youth organizations, and civil society members. It passed on the vote of Austrian climate minister Leonore Gewessler, who stated: “My conscience tells me unmistakably that when the healthy and happy life of future generations is at stake, courageous decisions are needed.” 

As Bugs Bunny used to say, "That’s all, folks!“  🥕

We hope to see you on Sunday, July 21, for Dr. Robert Michael Pyle!

with love,

Caitlin Adair

for Living Earth Action Group, meeting weekly since 2017

livingearthaction.net. (please visit our website and make a donation!!!)