Wild Things Is Back!
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(December 30, 2018) If you’re wondering about that headline, Alfred Hitchcock did a similar thing for his film The Birds. The marketing campaign included the line, “The Birds is coming.” In my case, I’m referring to the bi-annual conference called “Wild Things,” in particular, the 2019 Wild Things Conference. The Wild Things Community says it will be bigger than ever, with more than 100 presentations, 60 exhibits, performances, poster sessions and networking opportunities about protecting our area’s wild lands and wildlife.
It happens February 23 from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at a new venue–the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, 5555 N. River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018. If you haven’t been there before, there’s a map on this page, where you can also register for the event, and sign up for the track you want to follow. More on that in a moment. However, you should know that early bird registration ends on December 31, so you have exactly two days to save a little cash.
But back to the Wild Things conference itself. I can’t possibly list all of the great seminars about the wildlife of our area and the lands they live on–you need to check that out yourself. However, I can tell you that there are 12 different tracks that you can follow at the event:
Advocacy/Constituency Building/Communication
Arts/Culture/History
Backyards/Neighborhoods/Urban Environment
Birds/Bird Conservation
Ecological Land Management and Restoration
Ecological Monitoring/Research
Natural History of the Chicago Region
Sustainability/Climate Change
Tools for Educators
Volunteers/Stewardship/Community Engagement
Water and Aquatic Ecosystems
Youth Stewardship
I did a quick fly-by of the seminars, and here are some that I found intriguing:
Birds in the Garden: Tips for Creating and Enjoying a Bird Oasis
Urban Ecology on Chicago’s South Lakefront
Bumble Bee Biology, Identification, Decline, and Conservation
Keeping Crown Vetch, Teasel and Purple Loosestrife at Bay at a High-Quality Preserve / Callery Pear: The Invasive Trojan Horse
Environmental Protection Through Stand-up Comedy
Converting to Prairie with Everyone Watching
Wild Zones: Redesigning Chicago’s Landscape Ordinance
From Prairies to Rain Gardens: Climate Change Adaptation for Chicago Wilderness Grasslands
The Vanishing Native Shrub Layer
I Don’t See as Many Butterflies as I Used To. Is This Statement Really True?
And that’s just the tip of the nature iceberg, so to speak. Like I said, you have to investigate it yourself. The 2019 Keynote speaker will be Gary Nabhan, noted ecologist and author of many books including Enduring Seeds (1989), The Forgotten Pollinators (1996), and Food from the Radical Center (2018). Mr. Nabhan’s talk is entitled: Restoring Nature, Food and Justice
Peggy and I are pleased to have Robb Telfer, Adult Learning Programs Assistant at The Morton Arboretum, former Calumet Outreach Coordinator for The Field Museum, writer and performance artist back on the show today. He joined us almost two years ago, when the last Wild Things conference was held in Chicago. At that time, he did a presentation with Emily Graslie of The Brain Scoop fame, which is represented in the above photo. This year, he will be part of a presentation on February 23 called Empowering Youth, the Culturally Relevant Way!
Does recycling your Christmas Tree still matter?
Seriously. Does it? I’m not so sure. I’m not going to tell you not to do that, but c’mon, folks. Figuring out how to get your tree turned into mulch and not end up in the landfill is what we call low hanging ornaments…uh, fruit. Hey, if you can figure out how to schlep a tree into your home, you can certainly figure out how to schlep it to where it can be recycled! Or is that asking too much?
The good news is that, no matter how lazy and irresponsible the American public is, there are still organizations out there who are willing to drag folks kicking and screaming into doing the right thing. Hey, what a great name for that kind of business!
In fact Do the Right Thing! Recycling (DTRT). One of the people behind that organization is Adam Goldstein. He and I served together on the board of the Chicago Recycling Coalition for about a decade. He describes the mission of his DTRT.
We began fighting the up-hill battle to educate Chicago’s residents about the positive environmental impact of recycling in 2002. We attempt to improve upon the residents’ awareness of recycling, and ultimately the city’s recycling recovery rates (as it lags behind its suburban counterparts and other cities in the country), by providing customized recycling services to various sectors of our local community.
Our biggest program is our Christmas tree recycling program. We pick up your tree directly from your living room floor. We come equipped with reusable tarps and cords, and all we ask is that you remove all decorations from the trees including lights and tinsel. By mulching trees locally, among many other benefits, we avoid filling landfills located no less than 100 miles away in Illinois and Indiana.
Last year they saved almost 2,000 trees from the landfill. Since their inception, that number is around 20,000 trees! They note that they haven’t changed their prices in 15 years and those will still be available for orders placed through December 31. You can order a tree pickup right here, so do it now!
Many other municipalities in the Chicago area offer Xmas Tree pickup and you can find more in this Chicago Tribune article, which also reports on where you can recycle Christmas lights. I’m surprised that they don’t mention the good folks at SCARCE in DuPage County, who always accept holiday lights. If you’re not in the Chicago area, a good resource is Earth 911.
Wrapping up climate and weather news for 2018
No matter how you slice it, climate change grabbed a lot of headlines in 2018. Here are several organizations that have done year-end climate-related news stories.
A Year of Climate Change Evidence: Notes from a Science Reporter’s Journal (Inside Climate News)
Half a degree stole the climate spotlight in 2018 (Science News)
The Top Climate-Related Stories of 2018 (The Times of India via The Weather Channel)
2018 – The Year in Climate Change (New York Times)
For instance, in its story, Science News reports on 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on how the world might fare if global warming were limited to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 degrees.
That report, released in October, confirmed that half a degree can indeed make a world of difference (SN: 10/27/18, p. 7). A half degree less warming means less sea level rise, fewer species lost due to vanished habitats and fewer life-threatening heat, drought and precipitation extremes (SN: 6/9/18, p. 6).
Then they illustrate it with this amazing chart:
Pretty sobering stuff.
Today, Peggy and I will be discussing climate change, weather variability and other natural and human-caused phenomena with our own meteorologist Rick DiMaio, who will be spending the entire second hour with us. He has already sent us a number of stories about 2018 weather and climate that will be considered, including these.
December 26, 2017 -January 6, 2018 Impressive Cold Stretch
February 3-11, 2018: Nine Straight Days with Measurable Snow Highlighted by a Winter Storm – weather.gov
Summary of the Major River Flooding Experienced and the Rain Behind It – weather.gov
Remarkably Cold April 2018: Climate Summary
June 29-July 1, 2018: Observed Heat Numbers and Records
August 7, 2018: Heavy Rain Across Parts of the Western & Northern Chicago Metro – weather.gov
October 20, 2018: Strong Damaging Winds and Snow/Graupel Squalls – weather.gov
Do you remember all of those events? I do!
Meanwhile, HuffPost reports,
EPA Set To Run Out Of Money As Government Shutdown Drags On
What could possibly go wrong? We hope you join us for an interesting conversation this morning.