Friday Finds, XII
Vanishing: More Than 1 in 4 Birds Has Disappeared in the Last 50 Years (The Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds)
The study quantifies for the first time the total decline in bird populations in the continental U.S. and Canada, a loss of 2.9 billion breeding adult birds—with devastating losses among birds in every biome. Rosenberg, who leads joint research initiatives by the Cornell Lab and American Bird Conservancy, says these study results transcend the world of birds.
“These bird losses are a strong signal that our human-altered landscapes are losing their ability to support birdlife,” he said. “And that is an indicator of a coming collapse of the overall environment.”
And
Not all the news out of this analysis is dire. Some groups of birds are doing well, and for good reason—governments and societies have invested in saving them.
What's more human than causing a devastating mess everywhere and having to clean it up afterwards?
The Christian Right Is Helping Drive Liberals Away From Religion (FiveThirtyEight)
...[P]rominent political scientists have concluded that politics is a driving factor behind the rise of the religiously unaffiliated.
I have one of many untested and pattern-matched hypotheses that the more irreligious we become, the more we'll look to non-religious institutions like government for moral leadership.
Yes, I'm irreligious and, yes, I believe in more government action. But I'm not happy about my hypothesis. That's where I'd find agreement with a conservative. But if we don't want that to happen, then people need to find the type of community, moral guidance, and leadership that used to belong to religious institutions in other places. And religious institutions, by and large, have immensely failed in providing that in recent decades. Conservative religious communities are doomed to accelerate this “fall” by digging in their heels, both theology and politically. It is my opinion that, if they haven't already, they will fatally cut themselves and bleed out.
How to Buy Clothes That Are Built to Last (NY Times)
...[T]he concept of “slow fashion” has emerged over the past decade as a kind of counterbalance to fast fashion. The idea: slow down the rapid pace of clothing consumption and instead buy fewer more durable items.
OK two questions in response to this “guide”:
- What are some good, reasonably-priced, slow fashion brands?
- Why not promote used clothes (thrift, consignment, etc) shopping?