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Quote of the Week
"As
the Mayor of Pittsburgh, I can assure you that we will follow the
guidelines of the Paris agreement for our people, our economy &
future." --Bill Peduto, responding
to Donald Trump's statement that in withdrawing the country from the
Paris Climate Accord, he was representing the interests of "Pittsburgh,
not Paris"
The Art of Conservation
Winners
of the 2017 Art of Conservation, our annual high school art contest,
have been announced. Two first prizes were awarded, both to sculptures:
David Sweitzer's intricate origami pairing, and Grace Kenney's inspired
"Attire," a castoff tire overlaid with a weaving of recycled fibers.
Click either image above to see full size, and check out the rest of the art here!
Conservation Calendar
The Future of Bats
Tuesday, June 20, 6:30 pm, Edgartown.
A
free presentation at the Edgartown Library on bats and their behavior,
White Nose Syndrome, and the status of our bat populations and what you
can do to help them. Luanne Johnson and Liz Baldwin of BiodiversityWorks
will share their research on the Vineyard's population of Northern
Long-eared bats, now threatened with extinction. For more info, call
(508) 627-4221.
Workshop: Raising Chickens for Eggs or Meat
Saturday, June 24, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, Tisbury.
Island
Grown Initiative hosts two workshops to help anyone learn how to raise
their own chickens. Egg-laying hens are the focus from 10 to noon, and a
second session on meat chickens runs from 12:30 to 2. The workshops are
free, but registration is required: call (508) 687-9062 or email. At the Farm Hub/Thimble Farm, for more info see website.
Book Talk: David Foster,
A Meeting of Land and Sea
Saturday, June 24, 7:00 pm, West Tisbury.
Tweed Roosevelt leads a discussion with David Foster about his work and new book, A Meeting of Land and Sea: Nature and the Future of Martha’s Vineyard. Free, at the West Tisbury Library, for more info call (508) 693-3366.
Climate Impacts on Agriculture and Coastal Infrastructure
Thursday, June 29, 7:00 - 9:00 pm, West Tisbury.
Eric Walberg of Manomet Science Center
gives a presentation on likely changes to weather patterns and extremes
that have serious implications for our farming community, as well as how
rising seas and increased coastal storms pose risks to the built
coastal environment. At the Ag Hall, free, see press release for more info.
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Local News
VCS Annual Meeting Next Week!
Featuring "Naked DNA in My Water"
Please
join us Tuesday, June 27 at the West Tisbury Library for the Annual
Meeting of the VCS Board & Membership. The meeting starts at 5:00 pm
with refreshments on the lawn to the right of the main entrance, then we will move inside for the business portion at about 5:45.
This
year's meeting will feature a very special treat, a presentation
by Jesse Ausubel, Director of Rockefeller University’s Program for the
Human Environment (and long-time VCS science advisor), on the potential
for environmental DNA (aka eDNA, or "naked DNA") to radically transform
the way we understand the wildlife in our water. Read on to learn more!

Have you ever wondered who else has
been swimming in your favorite body of water? Thanks to a new sampling
technique, the collection and analysis of environmental DNA, we can now
narrow that question down to species -- without having to take a single
fish out of the water.
Environmental DNA (eDNA), also known as loose, extracellular, or naked
DNA, results from the break-up of cells. It is continually cast off, yet
doesn't persist long before breaking down, so the recent presence of
many aquatic organisms can be reliably detected by looking for these DNA
fragments. Monitoring eDNA could supplement -- or even someday
supplant -- traditional sampling methods, many of which can be
time-consuming, expensive, and destructive to the very wildlife we seek
to better understand.
To learn more, see this piece in Smithsonian Magazine.
Better yet, join us next week for Jesse Ausubel's presentation at the
VCS annual meeting (details above) and see the results from samples
taken this year from Look's Pond and Tisbury Great Pond!
Thanks to Jesse Ausubel for contributing content for this story
Global Issues Call for Global Perspective

Photo by Chesca Quinlan-Potter, MV Regional High School, for the 2017 Art of Conservation
"While
we share our environmental problems with all the people of the world,
our industrial might, which has made us the leader among nations in
terms of material well-being, also gives us the responsibility of
dealing with environmental problems first among the nations. We can be
proud that our solutions and our performance will become the measure for
others climbing the ladder of aspirations and difficulties; we can set
our sights on a standard that will lift their expectations of what man
can do."
In
1972, President Richard Nixon made his historic visit to China, an
acknowledgement that in the modern world, all nations — even rivals and
adversaries — are economically interconnected. That year he also wrote
the passage above, noting that environmental problems are also shared
across borders, placing environmental stewardship among the ideals that
the United States should seek to promote through leadership on the
global stage.
Earlier
this month, 45 years after Nixon argued that the environment was
something we had a duty to take responsibility for, President Donald
Trump, in withdrawing from the Paris climate accord characterized the
agreement as more than anything else, a bad deal for America:
“This
agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries
gaining a financial advantage over the United States. The rest of the
world applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement. They went wild. They
were so happy.”
If
we take his argument at face value, it raises the question of which of
these presidents’ starkly contrasting views of the world, and America’s
role in it, is more appropriate for the leader of the most powerful
country on earth.
In
Mr. Trump’s zero-sum world, when someone wins, someone else loses. If
the Paris agreement is good for the rest of the planet, it is by
definition bad for the United States. That is why “they went wild” — not
because of the potential to mitigate the worst impacts of climate
change, but because “they” got one over on the USA.
Read the rest of our commentary at the Vineyard Gazette,
where the ideological spectrum of quotes from famous Americans is
better rounded out with the addition of a ten-year-old anarchist.
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