homeowners

How To Support Pollinators | Earth Wise

August 4, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Pollinators of all sorts have been in decline for a while. This is especially true of bees, bats, and monarch butterflies. Without pollinators, fruits, vegetables, and other plants cannot provide their contributions to our food supply. According to experts, about 30% of the food that ends up on our tables gets there because of pollinators.

Bees are the most efficient pollinators, but plenty of other insects do their share as well. Butterflies and months, flies, beetles, and wasps all are good pollinators. In addition to insects, birds and bats can also be pollinators.

Entomologists at Texas A&M University have offered some science-based advice for homeowners who want to keep pollinators around and thriving during the summer months.

Pollinators need flowers that bloom at different times of the year. So, home gardens should overlap blooms. Native and drought-tolerant species are good additions to a garden or landscape.

Colorful gardens attract more pollinators because different pollinators are attracted to different colors. Bumblebees like blues and purples; other bees are attracted to yellows and whites. Butterflies like bright colors like oranges and pinks.

Plant flowers with different shapes and sizes because pollinators flower preferences come in all shapes and sizes.

Provide shelter for pollinators. Houses for bees and other pollinators are available for purchase. Or people can make their own using plastic tubes.

And probably most importantly, go easy on pesticides. If it is really necessary to apply pesticides, do it in the evening when most pollinators have called it a day.

Having a colorful garden with lots of variety is a fine addition to one’s home. Beyond that, it is a valuable contribution to helping preserve essential pollinators.

**********

Web Links

Top Five Tips For Supporting Pollinators This Summer

Photo, posted August 14, 2017, courtesy of USFWS Midwest Region via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Electric Cars And Apartments | Earth Wise

July 10, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The transition to electric cars is underway. People are increasingly buying them, carmakers are switching over to making them, and governments are providing incentives as well as legislating the changeover. More and more consumers want to lower their carbon footprints and stop burning fossil fuels. But one very large group of consumers faces an uphill battle in switching to electric cars: people who rent their dwellings.

About one third of our country lives in rented apartments or houses. These nearly 110 million Americans are more likely to be in the bottom half of income and net worth and are more likely to be people of color. These people are less likely to have the spare cash to make upgrades to their property such as car chargers and may not be able to get permission from their landlords to do it anyway.

Renters face what is known as the “split-incentive problem” or the “landlord-tenant problem.” Three-quarters of tenants in the US pay their own utility bills, so they have a strong incentive to conserve electricity, water, and gas. Their landlords, on the other hand, have little incentive to upgrade appliances and systems to be more environmentally responsible. Studies have shown that on average renters use 3% more energy than homeowners for this reason.

There are some landlords who are being proactive and installing facilities for charging cars on their properties. This will undoubtedly become an increasingly sought-after feature for renters. But in the meantime, millions of them have a more difficult time driving electric cars. They can charge at public chargers or perhaps at work. But at the moment, homeowners are three times more likely than renters to own an electric car.

**********

Web Links

The coming battle between Americans who want to go electric and their landlords

Photo, posted July 22, 2022, courtesy of Chris Yarzab via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Changing Climate Is Changing Insurance

October 21, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As the climate changes, wildfires get bigger and more destructive and hurricanes and powerful storms are more frequent and damaging. In places where these things are occurring, it is getting harder and more expensive for many homeowners to get insurance. The affordability of home insurance in the face of climate change has become a huge issue in many states.

In California, the number of homeowners who got non-renewal notices from their insurance companies rose by 6% between 2017 and 2018. In areas directly affected by wildfires between 2015 and 2017, that number jumped by 10%. Similar things have happened in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, where hurricanes and flooding have caused extensive damage. Because of this, many homeowners have been forced to turn to bare-bone plans such as the California Fair Access to Insurance Plan, which can cost two or three times as much as normal insurance policies.

According to a 2019 survey of insurance companies, more than half of insurance regulators said that climate change was likely to have a high impact or an extremely high impact on the availability of insurance coverage and the assumptions used for underwriting. In the past, governments have been able to mandate coverage in certain areas or even provide coverage themselves in some cases. As the occurrence of climate-related damage becomes increasingly frequent, homeowners have to face up to a grim reality.

The challenges of dealing with wildfires, floods, powerful storms, and the like are significant enough for people who live in high-risk areas. Increasingly, home insurance in these places is becoming much more expensive, harder to find, and is worth less.

**********

Web Links

As Climate Impacts Worsen, Homeowners Struggle to Find Affordable Insurance

Photo, posted September 1, 2020, courtesy of The National Guard via Flickr.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dangerous Cities For Migrating Birds

May 14, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Billions of birds migrate north in the spring and south in the fall. The majority of them fly at night. But as they pass over large cities, the birds can become disoriented by bright artificial light – so-called light pollution, causing them to crash into buildings or windows.

Researchers estimate that 600 million birds die from building collisions in the United States every year. Now, a new paper from researchers at Cornell University reveals which metropolitan areas are most dangerous for birds and why.

The researchers ranked cities where, as a result of geography and exposure to light pollution, birds are at the greatest risk of becoming attracted to and disoriented by lights and crashing into buildings. They combined light pollution levels with bird density data in order to make their calculations. Their paper was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Chicago, Houston, and Dallas finished as the three most dangerous cities for migrating birds. While migration routes vary depending on the season, these three cities still topped all others during both the spring and fall migrations due to their size and geographic positioning in the heart of North America’s most trafficked aerial corridors.

Audubon’s Lights Out program is one of several national efforts encouraging cities to reduce light pollution, particularly on heavy migration nights, in order to reduce bird mortality.

But homeowners need to do their part as well since an estimated quarter-million birds die from collisions with residential houses every year. The suggestion to cities and homeowners alike is the same: If you don’t need the lights, turn them off.

**********

Web Links

Chicago tops list of most dangerous cities for migrating birds

Photo, posted May 18, 2017, courtesy of Pedro Szekely via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.