All issues can be found at: https://geocraic.com/

World

All Hominims Made Tools

A World Map With No National Borders and 1,642 Animals. (from Eric, thanks Eric!)

COP 28

Ok, something good came out of COP 28. Maybe. Ridiculously it’s being held in Dubai in an obvious act of greenwashing. But we are getting more pledges. Can’t have enough pledges we can ignore later. This time it is pledges to reduce methane. That would be a good thing if it ever happens. In addition Biden and the EPA have new regulations. Those words are mostly good but nowhere did I see what they will do with the methane. Is it being sequestered somehow? So if we’re not burning it at the well with flares, what are we doing with it? Well, at least we have satellites now that let us monitor methane leaks in high precision and then hold everyone’s feet to the fire.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan, in a written statement, called the new final rule an “historic action to reduce climate pollution, protecting people and the planet.”

Climate Trace
Independent greenhouse gas emissions tracking. You can view on a map and download data. I see this as a great start. Improvements can be made and I hope they will be but the detail it is attempting is super useful. And the independence is super important. Rock on!

  • Landing site: https://climatetrace.org/
  • The map. Which is very interesting: https://climatetrace.org/explore
  • An interesting Twitter thread on how organizations like this build and model their data. And how they can be more or less accurate based on whether the conditions on the ground match the training data for their model. Always good to keep this in mind: https://x.com/robbie_andrew/status/1732717710990070270?s=20
    • Other examples: I do not see any accounting for wildfires.
    • Dairies in California’s Central valley seem to be accounted for but not other farming operations. EPA estimates crop cultivation and animal husbandry contribute 10% of total US emissions.

Global tipping points

Solar Canoes in the Amazon
What could be more Geographic than our transportation networks and modes of travel. Here in the West, it’s our bloody roads. But, in the Amazon, it’s the rivers. Now there’s a movement to get to the next phase with solar-powered river travel.

WILDLABS.NET A Global conservation technology community in 120 countries discussing topics such as biologging, camera traps, machine learning, sensors, etc… Very interesting site and mission.

Map Happenings
I like knowledgeable and opinionated newsletters. I think Map Happenings is a good one. You might like it too.

Marine Protected Areas
30 by 30 includes 30% of the Ocean. How are we doing on it? I’ll dig into some metrics for a future issue.

Machine Learning and Geography
ML and Geography has been happening for a while. But it is definitely accelerating with the advances in AI, the availability of open source ML tools and models. We’re going to see a lot of interesting work coming out of this area.

China

Hong Kong

(From Eric. Thanks Eric!) The changing urban-scape of Hong Kong under tighter control from the mainland. Sadly, I’ve never been. We were supposed to go, a week for work, a week exploring, but then SARS hit and the whole thing was canceled. But, the world avoided a pandemic that time.

  • https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/world/asia/hong-kong-neon-signs.html

Europe

Ireland

Irish Historic Towns Atlas. A new online Digital Atlas of Cork/Corcaigh launches.

US

The Big Sort continues.

Need more Fire Scarecrow! (from Jim. Thanks Jim!) The change in fire regime in the Great Plains is not really a good thing. Much more carbon sequestration from the grasslands than from a landscape with encroached woody vegetation.

US West

Department of Interior A lot of us are deeply interested in the US West. We live here, because we love it. Much of the West is under US government agency management. So, I was impressed by a discussion organized by the Washington Post with Tracy Stone-Manning, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management. I like the direction the Department of Interior is going. A much better direction for the BLM and the aggregation of divisions in the USGS was also a great thing. We should move the USFS into the Department of Interior. We need to get it out of Ag and revise it’s funding structure. Right now any recreation dollars to the USFS (camp ground fees, hiking permits, etc…) go to the general fund and not to the forest that receives it. Only dollars for trees, plus congressional line items, go into each forest budgets. Which sets the wrong priorities.

  • The conversation. (Not sure it will be available after the event): https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2023/12/04/conserving-land-water-wildlife-amidst-growing-climate-threats/
  • Modernizing oil and gas licensing. Some of those have not been updated in over a hundred years (mining). But, real change requires new laws.
  • Currently implementing the leasing act passed in 1920. Jesus.
  • The “Public Lands Rule” will bring the conservation mission to equal footing with the other uses the BLM manages (mineral, grazing, etc…)
  • 80 million people came to public lands last year. Only 250 law enforcement officers for millions of acres being managed.

Yellowstone geothermal features - how did they get their names?

California Water rights
(from Jim. Thanks Jim!) US water rights laws are ancient and unworkable for a modern world with a changing climate. I remember describing the US West water rights laws to an Argentinian when we were discussing vineyard water in Mendoza. He was utterly shocked. There’s only one way to fix it I think. Pay the existing holders some amount and then take it in emminent domain. Revise all the rights and laws so that it is a commonly shared asset, then dole it out on a priority basis. And as we know, and one of Eric’s favorite topics, growing alfalfa to ship overseas is not a priority. We need to manage ground water as rigorously as surface water. Get rid of “Use it or lose it”. Will it happen? Not a chance. -NYT Article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/14/climate/california-water-crisis-drought.html?unlocked_article_code=1.F00.Vd9x.weXtUIO6sVYI&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Mexico

Cradle of Mayan civilization?

  • This is usually a good show by Nat. Geo. and Albert Lin is a good host. But this particular episode is very interesting because they potentially find one of the earliest Mayan cities.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/shows/lost-cities-revealed-with-albert-lin/episode-guide/season-01/episode-01-cradle-of-the-maya/vdka35062754

South America

Ghosts on the Glacier (also from Eric. Thanks Eric!)