Butterflies and Earth Changes

This is the third large butterfly like this that I have seen, (or at least noticed) this season. I’m not sure what kind it is but it is pretty big butterfly. I think that usually these kinds of butterflies like the bramble bushes, milkweeds and cattails but I'm not sure specifically what this one likes.

Most of that has been recently removed on the bike paths by the city workers. It has been largely mowed down now on all the walking paths that I usually walk on.

Bramble bushes do become what most consider a ‘noxious weed’ around here and form a thick hedge if left to their own. They are hard to control and most people remove this type of vegetation from their yards. I have blackberries in my backyard but I spend a lot of time keeping them trimmed so they don’t spread to the neighbors.

Some of these butterflies like tomato plants and other cultivated crops. I don’t know if that is the case for this type.

The first two butterflies like this that I saw this season may have been hit by my car – there was no way to slow down fast enough. I don’t think that they made it but I hope they did. They were flying along close to each other.

I really like the colors in the wings and tail of this butterfly. I like to think of things I can do that would be of help for it to survive.

As I recall there were many more butterflies and insects around when I was growing up. Sometimes you could not even see out of the car windows if you did not clean them each time you filled up with gas.

Earth Changes

So much is happening now that it is no wonder that there are less butterflies and insects around here to see. The earth is changing.

This summer could get very hot and disrupt the harvest. (It is not my personal garden harvest that I’m most concerned about, lol)

The oceans are producing less oxygen for a variety of reasons while the carbon dioxide level continues to rise. Fresh water is melting off Greenland glaciers and disrupting the North Atlantic ocean currents. The flow rate of this overturning ocean current has been reduced by a very large amount, (something like three times the rate of the water flowing in all the earths rivers?).

I’ve heard that strange things are happening to the jet stream winds because there is less difference in temperature between the equator and poles. This is changing the storm patterns and causes flooding in some areas and droughts in others.

There has been increases in volcanic activity and quakes. This could be in part from changes in the global average temperature. Water weighs a lot and when it melts from glaciers it redistributes the weight into other areas causing the sea level to rise and the plates the continents ride on to move around more (some land areas get less of a load on them from the melting of the glacier ice). Estimates of how much water has melted from Greenland and Antarctica are enormous. Increasing seismic activity could also be caused from really big hurricanes because they move large amount of ocean water around as they travel over the ocean.

The ozone layer appears to be thinning in patches now and letting in increasing amounts of UVB light which is hazardous to plant and animal life. I’ve head that increasing amounts of chlorofluorocarbons were detected being released into the atmosphere recently. These chemicals were banned years ago because of the danger to the ozone layer, see more info on: ozone hole forming chemicals. The increasing UVB light could be harming the oceans phytoplankton which produce large amounts of the oxygen that we need to breathe.

Deforestation, reduced ocean biomass, etc., etc. the list could go on and on.

I’m not sure what all these changes will do but it does give me an uneasy feeling. I’ve been trying to learn all I can about it but it is hard to get all the facts straight, please forgive me if any of this information in not fully accurate.

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Thanks for reading! I always value your support and comments. The pictures were taken by me with my Galaxy S9+.