May Day Mayday!

“Mayday” is used around the world to radio distress calls. Londoner Frederick Mockford, came up with the word because “mayday" sounds like the French word m'aider, “help me”.

USA is the only country in the world that does not officially recognize workers by celebrating May Day on 1 May. This, despite the holiday commemorating the Haymarket Riot of 1886, in Chicago (Illinois, USA!).
Given the pandemic, no May Day 1st celebration this year would make sense. Yet, in Donald Trump’s upside-down world, he’s using the Defense Production Act to force meat-packing facilities to remain open...and expose workers to Covid-19. (Then again, he loves his hamberders! )
Moreover, he and his sidekick enabler Mitch McConnell “support limiting the liabilities of employers who order their employees back to work so that they can’t get sued if their employees get sick.”
Mayday for workers, indeed!

Still in upside-down world, pro-Trump group plans to hold car rallies to “drive for freedom” and protest against pandemic lockdown measures and stay-at-home orders.
Why? Because

"America cannot destroy the lives and dreams of the majority to protect a few. The cure cannot be more dangerous than the disease. We risk losing who we are as a nation by completely shutting down the country and the economy."

Today, “a few” consists of:
3,274,750 confirmed cases of Covid-19 around the world, 1,097,035 of which are in the US – the highest rate in the world.
Global deaths at 233,795 with US deaths at 63,905.

***

At 3:43am this morning I discovered a reactivated Internet.
I’m positively giddy! At last I can, again, spend hours online obsessing over the news!

News blues

Sea mammals…
…evidence of a drop in underwater noise pollution has led experts to predict the [pandemic] crisis may be good news for whales and other sea mammals.
David Barclay… examined sound power – a way of measuring “loudness” from two sites, one inland and one farther offshore…[and] found a significant drop in noise from both.

“Generally, we know underwater noise …has effects on marine mammals….There has been a consistent drop in noise since 1 January… up to 1 April.”…. Economic data…showed a drop of around 20% in exports and imports over the same period, he said.
… The reduction in ship traffic in the ocean, which Barclay compares to a “giant human experiment”, has had scientists racing to find out the effect on marine life.
“We are facing a moment of truth,” said Michelle Fournet, a marine acoustician at Cornell University, who studies humpback whales in south-east Alaska. “We have an opportunity to listen – and that opportunity to listen will not appear again in our lifetime.”

Birds…
Birds enjoy a quieter world, too. But the long-term for wildlife looks bleak.

Nikki Williams, head of campaigns at the Wildlife Trusts, said: “The current crisis means nature is losing out, because many organisations are having to scale back important work caring for special places, which they usually do with the vital help of thousands of volunteers.”
… valuable habitats … need continual management to ensure they do not turn back into scrub….{Nevertheless] “One noticeable phenomenon of late has been the daily chorus of birdsong…. [T]he current lack of noise might indeed be helping singing birds to be heard by potential mates and rivals, thus increasing their breeding success.
Mathew Frith, of the London Wildlife Trust, said: “Many of our birds, such as the robin, wren, chiffchaff, skylark and meadow pipit, nest on or close to the ground, and so are easily flushed by dogs. With parks so much quieter than usual, these species may do well this spring.”
The RSPB also notes that the lack of people visiting the seaside will help shore-nesting species such as little terns and ringed plovers, which are especially prone to being disturbed by holidaymakers.

Insects…
The biggest assessment of global insect abundances to date shows a worrying drop of almost 25% in the last 30 years, with accelerating declines in Europe that shocked scientists.

The analysis combined 166 long-term surveys from almost 1,700 sites and found that some species were bucking the overall downward trend. In particular, freshwater insects have been increasing by 11% each decade following action to clean up polluted rivers and lakes. However, this group represent only about 10% of insect species and do not pollinate crops.
Researchers said insects remained critically understudied in many regions, with little or no data from South America, south Asia and Africa. Rapid destruction of wild habitats in these places for farming and urbanisation is likely to be significantly reducing insect populations, they said.
Insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times, and are essential to the ecosystems humanity depends upon. They pollinate plants, are food for other creatures and recycle nature’s waste.
The previous largest assessment, based on 73 studies, led scientists to warn of “catastrophic consequences for the survival of mankind” if insect losses were not halted. Its estimated rate of decline was more than double that in the new study. Other experts estimate 50% of insects have been lost in the last 50 years.
The research, published in the journal Science, also examined how the rate of loss was changing over time. “Europe seems to be getting worse now – that is striking and shocking. But why that is, we don’t know,” said van Klink. In North America, the declines are flattening off, but at a low level.
…“we know from our results that the expansion of cities is bad for insects because every place used to be more natural habitat… This is happening in east Asia and Africa at a rapid rate. In South America, there is the destruction of the Amazon. There’s absolutely no question this is bad for insects and all the other animals there. But we just don’t have the data.”
Losses of insects are driven by habitat destruction, pesticides and light pollution. The impact of the climate crisis was not clear in the research, despite obvious local examples.
Van Klink…highlighted another study showing that rising carbon dioxide levels are reducing the nutrients in plants and significantly cutting grasshopper abundances on prairies in Kansas, US. ”That is absolutely shocking, because that could be happening all over the world.”
“We definitely have a lot of reason for concern, but I don’t think it’s too late…we can reverse these trends.”

Humans...
The vast illegal wildlife trade and humanity’s excessive intrusion into nature is to blame for the coronavirus pandemic, according to a leading US scientist who says, “this is not nature’s revenge, we did it to ourselves”.

Scientists are discovering two to four new viruses are created every year as a result of human infringement on the natural world, and any one of those could turn into a pandemic, according to Thomas Lovejoy, who coined the term “biological diversity” in 1980 and is often referred to as the godfather of biodiversity.
“This pandemic is the consequence of our persistent and excessive intrusion in nature and the vast illegal wildlife trade, and in particular, the wildlife markets, the wet markets, of south Asia and bush meat markets of Africa… It’s pretty obvious, it was just a matter of time before something like this was going to happen,” said Lovejoy, a senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation and professor of environment science at George Mason University.
His comments were made to mark the release of a report by the Center for American Progress arguing that the US should step up efforts to combat the wildlife trade to help confront pandemics.
Wet markets are traditional markets selling live animals (farmed and wild) as well as fresh fruit, vegetables and fish, often in unhygienic conditions. They are found all over Africa and Asia, providing sustenance for hundreds of millions of people. The wet market in Wuhan believed to be the source of Covid-19 contained a number of wild animals, including foxes, rats, squirrels, wolf pups and salamanders.
Lovejoy said separating wild animals from farmed animals in markets would significantly lower the risk of disease transmission. This is because there would be fewer new species for viruses to latch on to. “[Domesticated animals] can acquire these viruses, but if that’s all there was in the market, it would really lower the probability of a leak from a wild animal to a domesticated animal.”
“The name of the game is reducing certain amounts of activity so the probability of that kind of leap becomes small enough that it’s inconsequential. The big difficulty is that if you just shut them down – which in many ways would be the ideal thing – they will be topped up with black markets, and that’s even harder to deal with because it’s clandestine.”
The pandemic will cost the global economy $1trillion this year, according to the World Economic Forum, with vulnerable communities impacted the most, and nearly half of all jobs in Africa could be lost.
Lovejoy said, “This is not nature’s revenge, we did it to ourselves. The solution is to have a much more respectful approach to nature, which includes dealing with climate change and all the rest.”

Air…

Leonardo Setti and his team at the University of Bologna in Italy have detected coronavirus in particles of air pollution. They’re investigating “if the virus could be carried more widely by air pollution…. Two other research groups have suggested air pollution particles could help coronavirus travel further in the air.

Setti’s team suggests higher levels of particle pollution could explain higher rates of infection in parts of northern Italy before a lockdown was imposed. …The region is one of the most polluted in Europe.

…Previous studies have shown that air pollution particles do harbour microbes and that pollution is likely to have carried the viruses causing bird flu, measles and foot-and-mouth disease over considerable distances.

The potential role of air pollution particles is linked to the broader question of how the coronavirus is transmitted. Large virus-laden droplets from infected people’s coughs and sneezes fall to the ground within a metre or two. But much smaller droplets, less than 5 microns in diameter, can remain in the air for minutes to hours and travel further.

Experts are not sure whether these tiny airborne droplets can cause coronavirus infections, though they know the 2003 Sars coronavirus was spread in the air and that the new virus can remain viable for hours in tiny droplets.

But researchers say the importance of potential airborne transmission, and the possible boosting role of pollution particles, mean it must not be ruled out without evidence.

Prof Jonathan Reid at Bristol University in the UK is researching airborne transmission of coronavirus. “It is perhaps not surprising that while suspended in air, the small droplets could combine with background urban particles and be carried around.”

He said the virus had been detected in tiny droplets collected indoors in China.

Setti said tiny droplets between 0.1 and 1 micron may travel further when coalesced with pollution particles up to 10 microns than on their own. This is because the combined particle is larger and less dense than the droplet and can remain buoyed by the air for longer. … The pollution particle is like a micro-airplane and the passengers are the droplets.”

All agree “scientific research might take two or three years to confirm such findings.”

Reverse these numbers…

Atmospheric CO2 weekly readings from Mauna Loa, Hawaii (part per million) on
25 April 2020: 415.88 ppm
This time last year: 413.71 ppm
10 years ago: 393.25 ppm
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
Source: NOAA-ESRL

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Meet Ron Finley, my new hero, aka LA’s “gangsta gardener”.
“The garden seduces me,” he say. “I’ll get out there at 9am and next thing I know it’s 7pm … gardening takes your mind off things. Everybody should have a garden to cultivate.”

[F]or Finley, gardening isn’t about producing the perfect floral pom-pom, it’s about growing people. Planting is his unusual form of protest, and having a garden stuffed full of beautiful plants and vegetables is a byproduct of that.
To many, this will seem a surprising way to rebel, but Finley lives in what he calls a “food prison”. South Central Los Angeles is a predominantly black and Latino neighbourhood known for liquor stores, vacant lots, drive-throughs and drive-bys. Due to its favourable climate this should be the market garden of America but home-grown produce is an alien concept to many.

Like Finley, I’ve found gardening a joy any time and during lockdown it's a joyful lifesaver. Even mowing the lawn - which I did again today. Happy to report it's getting easier.
Lockdown hasn’t been the challenge I’d expected because of the garden. Days zip by even when Internet access doesn’t distract.
As I’ve stated many times, I’m paying more attention to details previously taken for granted. 

The pandemic is a mixed blessing, but it is also a blessing….

Read Week 1  | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4  |  Week 5

See photos Spying on Garden Creatures 

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