Prelude to flight

News blues

As cases, hospitalizations and deaths steadily dropped this week, pre-pandemic life in America has largely resumed. 

New coronavirus cases across the United States have tumbled to rates not seen in more than 11 months, sparking optimism that vaccination campaigns are stemming both severe COVID-19 cases and the spread of the virus….
As the seven-day average for new cases dropped below 30,000 per day this week, Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pointed out cases have not been this low since June 18, 2020. The average number of deaths over the last seven days also dropped to 552 — a rate not seen since July last year. It’s a dramatic drop since the pandemic hit a devastating crescendo in January.

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Tracking Covid-19:

• Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide 
• South African experts to follow for up-to-date and accurate Covid information… 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Biden’s Climate Chops Face A Big Test On Old-Growth Forests.  Which is it going to be, Joe?

The Biden administration is pushing an aggressive environmental agenda, pledging to both slash greenhouse gas emissions at least in half and to conserve 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. Those commitments include broad language about the need to “invest in forest protection and forest management” and to “fight climate change with the natural solutions that our forests, agricultural lands, and the ocean provide.”
But President Joe Biden and his team have said little, if anything, about old-growth forests — typically defined as those at least 150 years old and largely undisturbed by human activity. These forests sequester massive amounts of carbon in trees and soil, and scientists say protecting the few that remain intact will prove key to meeting climate and biodiversity targets. That includes the 2,000 acres its own Forest Service is primed to move forward on after issuing its final record of decision in January.
Retired forestry professors Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington and Norm Johnson of Oregon State University helped write the forestry plan that made this area available for potential harvest. Adopted in 1994, the plan sought to curb the decline of northern spotted owls due to clearcutting of old-growth forests while continuing to allow for commercial timber production.
More than two decades later, Franklin and Johnson are speaking out against this and other plans to cut down mature forests, citing the climate and extinction crises. Our scientific understanding of such ecosystems, including their ability to store huge amounts of planet-warming carbon pollution, has improved immensely since then, the two wrote in a recent opinion article. 

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The Franklin Project: Join the movement  (0.33 mins)
Visit The Franklin Project website >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Vervet monkeys. They’re considered anything from admirable to a pestilence in KNZ. The troop that co-occupies the landscape around here is both admirable and a pestilence, depending on what they get up to on any one day.
Overall though, even as I ensure the doors are locked against monkeys entering the house and causing havoc, I appreciate their presence. It is, after all, their land – and continent – as much as humans’.
Vervets range throughout much of Southern and East Africa - from Ethiopia, Somalia and extreme southern South Sudan, to South Africa.
Turns out, the US state of Florida, too.
For about 70 years, a colony of about 40 vervets has lived along Dania Beach in urban south Florida. Until recently, no one was quite sure where they came from.

Researchers at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) say they have traced the colony’s origins to the Dania Chimpanzee Farm. The South Florida SunSentinel reported recently that there’d been a monkey escape from the farm in 1948. Most, but not all, the monkeys were recaptured. The rest disappeared into a mangrove swamp, where their descendants live today.
The FAU researchers traced the monkeys’ genetics and concluded they were brought to Florida from Africa. The monkeys were sold mainly for medical and military research.

Go, monkeys, go! >>  

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Big week coming up. Lots to do leading up to driving to small, local airport to take a 45-minute domestic flight to Oliver Tambo then to Paris then to San Francisco. 

After 1.5 unplanned, unexpected years here and a pandemic, this time next week - I “should” be back in California. And eagerly accepting the first of two Pfizer vaccinations the day after I arrive!

What a concept!

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I'm escaping not a moment too soon. Nights are getting colder with longer hours of darkness here…
Feb 26: sunrise 5:47am; sunset 6:33pm.
March 2: sunrise 5:50am; sunset 6:29pm.
March 16: sunrise 5:59am; sunset 6:13pm.
April 1: sunrise 6:09am; sunset 5:54pm.
April 15: sunrise 6:18am; sunset 5:39pm.
May 1: sunrise 6:27am; sunset 5:24pm.
May 15: sunrise 6:35am; sunset 5:15pm.
May 23: sunrise 6:41am; sunset 5:10pm.