The ethics of saving dwindling ecosystems
... plus curiosities from Costa Rica, the American Southwest, and more.
Welcome back to another edition of The Detour. Here’s what’s on deck: Re-wilding a national park with the help of wolves 🐺; radical eco-communes ☀️, and the Japanese term for the beauty of empty space 🕊️.
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Now onto what’s happened in the world in the last week or so:
16,400 — The distance in feet that the beloved American pilot Amelia Earhart’s plane is suspected to be buried beneath sea level, according to the private exploration company Deep Sea Vision. At the end of January, a team of explorers, among them a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, announced they had detected the suspected remains near Howland Island, roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia. But is it actually Earhart’s long-lost plane, which went missing along with Earhart in 1937? Some researchers are skeptical, but the folks at Deep Sea Vision still plan to launch a mission to excavate the wreckage later this year.
15 — The number of years it has been since the celebrated folk singer Tracy Chapman has released an album. On Sunday, the singer performed her 1988 single “Fast Car” with country star Luke Combs at the Grammys. The five-minute performance became the standout moment of the night. Since her reemergence, “Fast Car” has shot back up to #1 on the iTunes Top Songs chart. Do yourself a favor and listen to this timeless banger by an absolute legend.
25% — The amount of ice cover that has been lost since 1973 in the Great Lakes region of the United States. We get into the knock-on effects of this in today’s Cover Story. But here’s a quick take on why this matters: Unreliable ice in the world’s largest freshwater system spells trouble for surrounding ecosystems and cultural heritage that rely on seasonal ice. You can get nerdy with it via this fairly comprehensive NOAA-supported report.
1,500 — The number of prisoners the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas agreed to release following a cease-fire plan it proposed to the Israeli government this week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the cease fire proposal this week, promising that Israel will continue its war on Gaza until "absolute victory."
18,000 — The approximate number of brand-new species discovered yearly by scientists. These little guys are my personal fave: Below, say hi to Muusoctopus, aka the Dorado Octopus. These Neopet-like cephalopods live in seamounts in Costa Rica, and were discovered by scientists aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s R/V Falkor. They discovered at least three additional deep-sea octopus species near the home of this little fella in an expedition they’ve deemed the “OctoOdyssey.” (Someone please give us a buddy comedy about the team’s creature-finding escapades!)
Meanwhile, over 44,000 other species worldwide are at risk of extinction, many of them due to climate change.
Now onto the main course: In the mid-2010s, wildlife in Isle Royale National Park in Michigan reached a degree of desperation. Dwindling ice cover on Lake Superior forced the island into complete isolation, reducing biodiversity and triggering local moose and wolf populations to become dangerously imbalanced. To restore the island's biodiversity, scientists decided to step in. In 2018, the Wolf Reintroduction Plan was founded, and in 2019, 19 new wolves were introduced to the island by the National Parks Service.
The impact was immense. But was it ethical?
The wolves, spread across four different litters and introduced slowly to varying corners of the island, brought a new gene pool to the struggling ecosystem, which are now rebalancing populations of other local species like moose. Yet some environmentalists are at odds as to whether or not humans should intervene to rebalance ecosystems at all.
What do you think? Dive into journalist S. Nicole Lane’s piece here.
In a new article publishing next week on Frame, Taipei-based journalist Hope Ngo will take readers into a supremely hidden history of kidnapping gangs targeting a corner of the Chinese diaspora based in the country featured in this quiz. Stay tuned.
Off-grid. Eco-friendly. And possibly future-proof. Welcome to the Earthship boom: It’s a burgeoning trend in architecture that uses local and recycled materials to make self-sufficient, fully-autonomous homes and buildings. Beyond the characteristic earth-packed tires, aluminum cans, and glass bottles that often adorn these abodes, Earthships have no consistent construction method. And yet, they are growing in popularity as the death knell of climate change signals an increasing need to reconsider our use of dwindling resources. A humble subdivision of Taos, New Mexico, just west of the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, is the unofficial capital of this unconventional style. The 600-acre community called Greater World (already home to more than 100 full-time residents) is building 100 new homes that will be ready to occupy in 20 years. They look a little like Hobbit holes to me, and I’m here for it.
On Friday, February 9 — The funeral of former Chilean President Sebastián Piñera will be held in Chile’s Hall of Honor in the South American country’s capital, Santiago. The late right-wing leader reportedly died in a helicopter crash on Tuesday night. The news comes as devastating wildfires continue to tear through central Chile since last week, leaving at least 112 dead and over 1,600 displaced.
On Saturday, February 10 — Lunar New Year begins worldwide. The holiday, celebrated worldwide, marks the beginning of the lunisolar calendar year plus the arrival of spring. All hail the year of the dragon.
On Tuesday, February 13 — A special U.S. House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party will hold an event in Boston to discuss China’s economic competitiveness concerning biotech. Some members of Congress are wary of Chinese genomics companies encroaching on national security, Axios reports.
It can often feel like our days are breathless, with one task, message, and meeting after another, leading to a feeling of constant rushing. Amid this race are the empty moments that we often miss, skip, or gloss over: Observing the clouds out of a train window, finishing a crossword puzzle over a cup of coffee, taking a slow walk in the park. There is a concept for these precious breaks — yohaku no bi. The Japanese term loosely translates to “the beauty of empty space.”
In Japanese culture, yohaku no bi is often applied to the art of flower arrangement, painting, and rock garden design. It holds that the space around the flowers, between the trees in a painting, and the rocks in the garden, make the filled-in space come to life.
The attention psychologist Gloria Mark explains the concept on an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast: “There’s a very well known Japanese garden in Kyoto which has the most beautiful rocks that are very carefully positioned, and what is as important as the rocks themselves is the space around the rocks because that space creates a kind of dynamism that makes these rocks more beautiful.”
In our busy, late-capitalist lives, it’s easy to rush through our days and forget the empty spaces and pauses in between. Yohaku no bi reminds us that without them, life starts to lose its color.
— Ben
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Until next week,
Kelly at Frame