Learning Path: The Circular Economy in Detail

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The Ellen Macarthur Foundation is sponsoring a free, self-paced class on the circular economy, which they describe thus:

“A circular economy is a systemic approach to economic development designed to benefit businesses, society, and the environment. In contrast to the “take-make-waste” linear model, a circular economy is regenerative by design and aims to gradually decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources. After defining what an economy actually is, this learning path explores the nuances of the concept of a circular economy with text, videos, and interactive and reflective exercises. It probes the difference between biological and technical materials, the different opportunities that exist to keep materials and products in use, and the history of the idea.”

Super interesting material and great user interface–they both make a compelling case and make it easy to engage with the content. By the time you complete the reading, videos, and exercises, the benefits of shifting from a linear to a circular economy will be clear as will how they apply to all of the work we do as naturalists.

This opportunity is approved for CE credit for FMN members.

Check back regularly for links to additional resources from which you can learn more and, maybe, will want to review for us here. This subject is amazingly rich. Please share your thoughts and resources in comments and we’ll add them to this repo.

Hope Jahren: The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where We Go From Here. Honestly, the entire book is quotable, but here are some take-aways from one early Sunday morning: “An effort tempered by humility will go much further than one armored with righteousness…. We [scientists] are watching and working, not just worrying. Climate science is part of science after all…. Having hope requires courage. It matters how we talk about this. Everything we do matters.” (Consider starting with Appendix 1: The Action You Take, and then go dig into the data in the rest of the book.) By the way, she reads the audio book herself, and she’s a kind teacher.

Joel Onorato: Stop Going Round in Circles About the Circular Economy; also see his awesome presentation to the Sierra Club as pdf or live (along with the materials of the other panelists). “Keeping materials in use means preserving the maximum value of each thing that has been produced for the longest time possible. Reuse it as long as you can (give it to another user or share it). Repair it if you can’t reuse it as is. Or, if it has too little value, then remanufacture it (turn it back into something with an as-new condition). At worst, break it down and recycle each material (or compost it) for another future use.”

Rare’s Inspiring Human Nature: Tim Ma, Chef and Garbage Picker. “Tim Ma embraces his garbage. The famed Washington, DC-area chef and restaurateur is notorious for turning food trash into dinner treasure—which he does both for environmental sustainability and his bottom-line. ‘I don’t know how I became DC’s food waste champion,’ he laughs. ‘But I love talking about it.’” Meet someone who walks his talk.

Jonathan Safran Foer: We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast. The term circular economy never appears in this book because it’s about particular decisions we make and “our all-too-human reluctance to sacrifice immediate comfort for the sake of the future. We have, he reveals, turned our planet into a farm for growing animal products, and the consequences are catastrophic. Only collective action will save our home. And it all starts with what we eat—and don’t eat—for breakfast.” Please don’t let that stop you from considering his case and drawing your own insights. He wields data as effectively as Hope Jahren, and he tells a story just as compelling.

Bringing Dragonflies to Your Yard

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Article by Plant NOVA Natives staff

For anyone who enjoys watching birds at a feeder, there is another pastime available that is just as entertaining but less well known: watching the dragonflies and damselflies patrolling your yard. There are over eighty species in Northern Virginia, a few of which are happy to frequent our gardens if we offer the right conditions. Some are hefty and like to land on walkways, making them hard to miss. Others, including most damselflies, are so wispy as to escape our notice if we aren’t paying attention.

Most dragonflies lay their eggs in fresh water ponds and streams, where they hatch and live as little aquatic predators for years before emerging as adults. We can provide a breeding area in our yards by installing a pond, which need not be large and can be a do-it-yourself project. Frogs and salamanders will make it their home as well, and the sound and sight of moving water transforms any garden into a place to sit and watch the whole carnival.

All these pond inhabitants require more than just water. Dead leaves and algae are the basis for a pond’s ecosystem, as the tiny organisms that use them for shelter and food are themselves eaten by larger ones. It is therefore important to treat a pond not as a chlorinated fountain but as a living thing, avoiding excess cleaning and protecting it from insecticides or other chemicals.

Once dragonflies become adults, they spend their time catching large numbers of mosquitoes and other insects and looking for opportunities to mate. The males will find a perch near the water and guard against rivals, waiting for a female to approach. If you are lucky, you may see a female ovipositing, bouncing up and down as she dips the tip of her abdomen into the water to lay her eggs.

Even without a pond, your yard is likely to be visited by dragonflies if it is providing other natural habitat, because that is where there will be a balance of prey and predatory insects. Besides avoiding chemicals, the key to building that kind of habitat is to plant a lot of native species, because most plant-eating insects can only eat the plants with which they evolved. There are hundreds of species of garden-worthy native plants available, including a couple dozen species of native pond plants.

Here is a three minute video about the ups and downs of owning a fancy ornamental pond. The gardener who made that video has since learned that disruptions to the pond critters can be minimized by only cleaning the pond once a year in mid winter, and by leaving most of the algae and leaves in place. Information about native pond plants and how to care for a pond as habitat can be found on the pond page of the Plant NOVA Natives website. It is very fun to learn to recognize the various species. A great resource for that is Bob Blakney’s book Northern Virginia Dragonflies and Damselflies.

Virginia is for Wildlife Photography Lovers

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Article and photos (c) by Barbara J. Saffir; Feature photo from dcr.viginia.gov

No need to zip off to Zimbabwe or cruise to Costa Rica to photograph cool critters, bodacious birds, and blindingly beautiful flowers. Just go on safari at a Virginia State Park.

Sunflower-yellow prothonotary warblers adorn the trees and the trails at Mason Neck State Park, practically in the shadow of the nation’s capital. Acrobatic dolphins frolic along the Atlantic Ocean beaches at pristine False Cape State Park. And perhaps Virginia’s most unique fantasyland of nature and wildlife can be captured at mountainous Grayson Highlands State Park, where fuzzy black bears forage in the forests and wild ponies pose by purple rhododendrons and orange flame azaleas along the legendary Appalachian Trail.

Virginia is one of the most diverse states in the entire country as far as flora and fauna go. And with 39 state parks — and counting, as more continue to open — all 8.6 million Virginians are roughly an hour away from one or more of Virginia’s award-winning parks.

Treasures await casual to advanced photographers year-round, though the critter parade and the backdrops change with the seasons. For example, winter is the best time to capture bald eagles nesting along the Potomac River at Mason Neck, Westmoreland, and Caledon state parks.

And with no leaves to block the views, it’s easier to catch mama eagle carting a carp in her razor-like talons to feed her famished eaglets. At Sky Meadows State Park in winter, no leaves mean a clear shot of a fox squirrel or a red-headed woodpecker.

In January along the muddiest of creeks, Virginia’s earliest wildflower blooms: curvy cranberry-and-yellow skunk cabbage, which harkens to a Georgia O’Keefe painting. Spring and summer literally paint a rainbow in all Virginia State Parks. Fields of bluebells glow at Shenandoah River State Park. Pink and yellow orchids burst into bloom at others.

Tawny chipmunks perch in mulberry trees and stuff their cheeks with squishy purple berries. Iridescent blue-green ebony jewelwing damselflies sun themselves on rocks and reeds. Red-orange scarlet tanagers fly home with juicy, green caterpillars dangling from their beaks to feed their babies. Violet coral fungus pops out of the musty brown muck.

Fall brings hawks with red shoulders, red tails, or red eyes by the droves to Kiptopeke State Park. And all over the Commonwealth, autumn brings orange, russet, red, and yellow leaves — and orange, russet, red, and yellow birds migrating through that tangled tapestry.

And sure, it doesn’t hurt to own an expensive DSLR camera with a long telephoto lens but a cell phone or pocket camera can capture many memories. One of my mentors started shooting with a $27 camera. Since she only photographed close-ups and never printed photos, it performed perfectly for online posts.

I still carry a point-and-shoot even when I’m lugging around a heavy camera and lens. Sometimes I use it to capture one of my favorite late-summer stars: itsy bitsy green treefrogs with sticky toes and gold eyelids at Leesylvania State Park. At Leesylvania and other state parks, gangly great blue herons sometimes venture so close that a long lens is almost worthless. And it’s especially good to snag close-ups of beauty-queen bugs like handsome meadow katydids with baby blue eyes and red, orange, green, yellow, and turquoise bodies.

At First Landing State Park, nabbing a shot of pelicans promenading above a sandy Chesapeake Bay beach at sunset does not lend itself to a pricy, “fancy-schmancy” camera. But if I’m photographing black bears when they’re gorging on blueberries in June, I prefer a 600 mm lens — and to take the photograph from inside my nice safe car!

Stalking wildlife with a camera is the same as a hunter stalking prey. The most successful safaris require patience, knowledge of the critters and their habitats, silence — and luck. Even when I’m hiking, I stop every few minutes to listen for the sounds of life.

If I glimpse a bird or beast I really crave, my patience grows to equal my desire to capture the subjects and share their beauty, in part so others also fall in love with them and work to protect them. And I always try to photograph ethically as the National Audubon Society teaches: never harm a critter or disturb its ability to thrive.

The best time to capture wildlife is typically near dawn or dusk. But I’ve grabbed some of my most memorable shots when other photographers were sitting on their sofas. Like tree swallows and other birds puffing up their feathers to cope with 95-degree heat at noon. And pint-sized southern flying squirrels — “fairy diddles” — with bulging eyes that only venture out at night. And a red fox and an otter fishing together like BFFs on a snowy riverbank on a blustery 20-degree day.

Every time of day — and every time of the year — is great for nature and wildlife photography. You never know what treasures you’ll discover.

This article originally appeared in the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation blog and has been reprinted with permission.

Green Jobs Report: Community-Based Solutions for a Diverse Green Jobs Sector, Recording and Report

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The short- and long-term projections for the renewable energy sector are growth.

Renewable energy is expected to continue to increase in popularity and usage as utilities and regulators look to it as a viable option for replacing retiring capacity and customers choose it to save money and address the climate crisis. This interest is aligned with a recent poll that found 81% of Blacks, 73% of Latinos and 71% of white respondents think “clean” energy jobs can help people in their communities.

So how do we prepare the U.S. workforce for growth in the renewable energy sector? And ensure the process is just and equitable?

Members of the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum – Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Green Door Initiatives, WE ACT for Environmental Justice – along with GRID Alternatives answer these questions via their contributions to the “Green Jobs Report: Creating a Green Workforce, Community-Based Solutions for a Diverse Green Jobs Sector.”

This report outlines imperatives for bringing underrepresented groups into climate change work and the clean energy economy, and offers policy and best practice prescriptions for closing diversity gaps in the renewable energy industry and was released via webinar on December 9. Here is the recording.

Fairfax County Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP) News

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Monthly CECAP Update: November 2020

Throughout November, the Fairfax County Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP) team of staff and consultants have been working to prepare for the initial meetings of the CECAP Working Group sector-specific subgroups, taking place in early December. Per the CECAP Process Update shared in late October, the planning model has shifted from an approach based on the involvement of nine district level Focus Groups and one Task Force to an approach involving a single Working Group. The Working Group is composed of members of the former Focus Groups and Task Force, with a few new faces in the mix.

To advance discussion of emission reduction strategies and to allow all Working Group members the opportunity to actively participate and be heard, the Working Group has been split into two sector-specific subgroups. The first group, the Energy Subgroup, will focus on issues of energy efficiency, renewables, energy generation, and supply. The second group, the Transportation/Development Subgroup, will focus on transportation issues, land use, waste, and water. This group will have a more diverse portfolio. To read the full November CECAP update, please click here.

CECAP Working Group December Meetings Announced

All members of the public are invited to attend and observe the initial meetings of the two, new sector-specific CECAP Working Group subgroups, taking place December 1st and 2nd, 2020. These meetings will focus on emission reduction strategies that may help the Fairfax County community meet CECAP goals in the long-term. The meetings will take place online via WebEx. Meeting access information is available at the links below.

Join the December 1 CECAP Energy Subgroup meeting

Join the December 2 CECAP Transportation/Development Subgroup meeting

Public Feedback Summaries Now Online

The results of the public feedback provided between August 27 and September 13, 2020 via an online survey, three virtual public meetings, and via email to the public CECAP mailbox are now summarized and available online. A narrative summary of the survey results provides a question-by-question rundown of the responses given, and an overview of the public comments provides a window into the thoughts and concerns of the community. The findings of the public engagement process will be reviewed by county staff at the December 1 and December 2 CECAP subgroup meetings (see above).

Introduction to Statistics Virtual Program (Presented live December 3rd)

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Presented and recorded by Clifton Institute

This talk is intended for community/citizen scientists who help collect data but may not have the knowledge they need to analyze it, for nature journalers who record numbers in their journals but aren’t sure what to do with them, and anyone else who is curious about how scientists use data to understand the world. Managing Director Eleanor Harris, Ph.D., will give a brief introduction to the statistical methods biologists and other scientists use to analyze data. Eleanor will use interesting examples relevant to the ecology of northern Virginia throughout the talk. No mathematics beyond high-school level will be required. By the end of the talk you’ll understand what a p-value is and what it means when they say the phrase “statistically significant” on the news. And she hopes you’ll be inspired to try analyzing some data of your own.

Here is the recording of the talk.

Befriending the butterflies all winter

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Article and Mourning Cloak Butterfly photo by Plant NOVA Natives

Where do butterflies go in the winter? If you are picturing the adults hibernating like bears, that’s actually not that far from the truth for a few of them, including Mourning Cloak butterflies. This handsome creature reappears very early in the spring because it overwinters as an adult in crevices of bark or in leaf litter. Most butterflies and moths overwinter as eggs, larvae or pupae, starting off in the tree tops and riding the leaves down in the autumn. Once they land in our yards, what happens next is up to us. To support butterflies, planting the native plants that are their food source is only half the job. The other half is to create the conditions that allow the butterflies and other beings to complete their life cycles.

Many of us were raised to think that dead leaves should be ejected from our yards as quickly as possible. The concern was that they would smother the grass. Green grass all winter was seen as a sign of a healthy landscape. It turns out that we had that exactly backwards, because the natural color of winter in the Mid-Atlantic is golden brown with a sprinkling of dark green evergreens, not the light green of turf grasses that were imported from Europe. But for those who want a green lawn, dead leaves add valuable organic matter to the soil, making fertilizer unnecessary. It is surprising how quickly dead leaves shrivel up and disappear if there aren’t too many of them. If they are piled too thickly on the grass, they can be spread under shrubs or trees where the shade makes lawn a poor choice anyway, or added to a flower bed, or consolidated in a pile to turn into compost. They can also be left in place on the lawn by mowing them over with the lawn mower, although of course shredding the leaves may also mean shredding the butterflies.

Another landscaping misconception that has been turned on its head is the idea that garden beds need to be “cleaned up” for the winter by cutting the plants down to the ground and removing the stalks. If instead the native plants are left standing over the winter and the leaves left underneath, the garden will provide a source of seeds for the birds and shelter for a myriad of other little critters including native bees and fireflies. What formerly might have been a dead landscape made up of empty mulch beds is transformed into a scene of life and growth, even if most of it is not immediately apparent to the human eye.

In some ways, caring for a landscape that supports life means working less, not more, with less work needed for tidying. Admittedly, humans have devised ways to save even more labor (and labor costs) by turning yards into barren landscapes where every weed is suppressed by chemicals or by thick expanses of toxic mulch that have been sprayed with herbicides, barely a step removed from asphalt in terms of ecological value. Fortunately, as a species we are coming to see that welcoming life into our yards benefits us as well as our fellow beings. For some basic tips on how to achieve these benefits, see the management plan page of the Plant NOVA Natives website.

A New Take on “Curb Appeal”

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Article by Margaret Fisher, Photo by Plant NOVA Natives

A strip of lawn is the default landscaping choice for the area right next to a street. But is that the only option? Not necessarily, as gardeners are discovering. In many situations, boring lawn can be replaced with pizzazz.

Lawn has its advantages and disadvantages next to a road. It can be walked on, and short plants help preserve important sight lines. However, turf grass (which is from Europe) does nothing to support the local ecosystem which depends on native plants, and compacted lawn does a mediocre job at absorbing stormwater runoff.

Replacing lawn with native plants is an increasingly popular choice. The results can add a lot of character to a property. Certain native plants are particularly suited to the harsh conditions found next to roads, which often include compaction, salt and reflected heat. Deeper roots soak up and purify water before it ends up in our streams.

There are a number of considerations to take into account before planting. Do you actually own the strip of land next to the street? Does your neighborhood or jurisdiction dictate which plants can be used, or their height? If people park next to the curb, where will the passengers step when getting out of the car? Are underground or overhead utilities in the way? Do you know how to design the plantings so they don’t flop over the walkways? Check out the Plant NOVA Natives page on streetside gardens for details and for examples of how several residents have handled these challenges. Their practical solutions have turned ecological dead zones into an asset for the birds and butterflies as well as for the humans who get to appreciate them.

Making Friends with the Hummingbirds

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Article by Margaret Fisher, Plant NOVA Natives

Fall is a great time to work on the guest list for next year’s garden party. Hummingbirds make some of the best guests of all, or to put it more accurately, we can make ourselves better guests of them by providing what they need around their homes, otherwise known as our yards. Our local Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are migratory, departing Virginia in September for Central America and returning to the place they were born in mid-April. It will not surprise anyone to know that what they need when they arrive back is not sugar water but an intact ecosystem that provides food and shelter for them and their offspring.

It is well known and indeed true that hummingbirds are attracted to bright colors, especially red, so for viewing opportunities, do plant Eastern Red Columbine and Coral Honeysuckle for spring blooms, Scarlet Beebalm for early summer and Cardinal Flower for late summer. It is fun to watch the hummingbirds make the rounds from plant to plant, timing it exactly to when the nectar has had a chance to re-accumulate. All of these plants co-evolved with hummingbirds and have the tubular-shaped red flowers that fit the bill – literally. Hummingbirds have incredible memories and know the location of individual flowers not only around their own homes but along the thousands of miles of their migration routes. They also recognize humans as individuals, learning to trust you and hovering in front of you when they are wondering when you are going to refill their feeder, if you have been in the habit of providing one.

Although we think of hummingbirds as nectar eaters, the great majority of their diet is made up of insects and spiders. We can provide them with insects by planting native plants. Because most insects can only eat the plants with which they evolved, a yard full of European and Asian plants such as turf grass and Japanese azaleas is largely an empty yard, devoid of food sources not only for hummingbirds but for songbirds in general. The red-flowering plants that were named above are all native to our area, as are hundreds of other garden-worthy plants which are increasingly being planted in our yards as Virginians start to recognize the beauty of our own flora as well as its value for the non-human residents of our properties.

The ideal time to plant is in the fall, which gives the plants a chance to become well established before facing the heat and droughts of summer. To help you plan, the Plant NOVA Natives website has a plant finder function in which you can search specifically for plants that attract hummingbirds. There are also lists of local garden centers that specialize in native plants as well as lists of conventional garden centers where Plant NOVA Natives volunteers are labeling the natives with red stickers. Just for fun, check out our silly one minute video of local hummingbirds and other critters interacting with native plants. And when your neighbors stop by to gawk at the sight of hummingbirds in your yard, you can give them this pamphlet so they can learn about planting natives in their yards to attract hummingbirds, too.

What Can You Do About Climate Change? Make It Personal (With Rare)

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According to Rare’s Center for Behavior and the Environment: “Two-thirds of Americans think that citizens should do more to address global warming. And yet, most of us don’t really know what to do. We recycle, carry our grocery bags. But turns out that’s not enough.

Rare recently conducted research to identify the individual behaviors people can adopt with the greatest potential for climate impact. And it turns out, there are 7 things that many Americans might find surprisingly within reach. If each of these changes were adopted by even 10% of Americans, it would reduce the gap to America’s emissions targets by over 75%.

While we still need larger changes from corporations and governments, it’s pretty empowering to know we do not have to wait. We can each find at least one way to start making positive changes now. When it comes to our environment, we are all in this together.”

Food for thought from Rare: Seven behaviors with the largest climate impact

Rare Conversations, with Robert Frank and Madhuri Karak: Can Peer Pressure Solve Climate Change (43 mins of sensible, inspiring exchange)

Robert Frank, in the New York Times: Behavioral Contagion Could Spread the Benefits of a Carbon Tax