Post by @urlyman@mastodon.social

Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social 57 min. ago

#climateDiary

https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/117087020443649377

2 media files

Looking up overhead, Jack Crockford captured a photo of a low-flying swift dwarfed by a vast jet airliner flying above it in a cloudless blue sky.

Both are flying in the same direction with wings aligned with each other. The swift is in focus, the aeroplane is defocused beyond the focal depth of field. The plane’s fuselage envelopes most of the outline of the swift.

Jack’s photo was taken in Bushy Park, London and is entitled ‘The Art of Flying’. It is highly commended for the 15 to 17 year age group in the BBC’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026. — Looking up overhead, Jack Crockford captured a photo of a low-flying swift dwarfed by a vast jet airliner flying above it in a cloudless blue sky. Both are flying in the same direction with wings aligned with each other. The swift is in focus, the aeroplane is defocused beyond the focal depth of field. The plane’s fuselage envelopes most of the outline of the swift. Jack’s photo was taken in Bushy Park, London and is entitled ‘The Art of Flying’. It is highly commended for the 15 to 17 year age group in the BBC’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026.

An infographic conveys the decline in European common birds from 1980 to 2022. The PECBMS study tracked 168 species across 30 countries over 43 years. The observed average decline for all species was 19%. For forest birds it was 8%. For farmland birds, the decline was 61%. These declines are plotted on a chart.

Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social 2 wk. ago

…170 years after Eunice Newton-Foote published her insights…

“On Thursday, 23 July [2026], Flightradar24 tracked 153,359 commercial flights—the most we have ever tracked in one day.”

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/inside-flightradar24/july-2026-a-record-setting-month-for-flight-tracking/

This is FUCKING STUPID.

Here is what was going on in the same month https://www.mappr.co/europe-wildfires-map/

An extract: “A wildfire near Los Gallardos in Almería, southern Spain, has killed at least 14 people after a woman died in hospital on 27 July … the deadliest Spanish wildfire in about 20 years”

#climatediary

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Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social 51 min. ago

…Going places swiftly at the expense of swifts will get us nowhere.

“Common birds play a crucial role in food webs and ecosystem services, such as seed dispersal and pollination. Their disappearance threatens crop yields, forest regeneration, insect control, and therefore the very resilience of our landscapes.”

https://eeb.princeton.edu/news/north-american-bird-declines-are-driven-reductions-common-species

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

North American bird declines are driven by reductions in common species

Declines in common birds, not rare ones, drive North America's biodiversity crisisBird abundance in the United States has decreased by 29% in the last fifty years. Similar patterns have been recorded for insects in Europe. A detailed analysis of over 38,000 Breeding Bird Survey routes in the US shows that losses of once-abundant bird species have f

Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social 44 min. ago

…The thing about putting 2 trillion tonnes of climate heating gases into the air – and 18 million people flying every day being an integral part of that – is that there won’t be anywhere safe to fly to

Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social 36 min. ago

…The average commercial flight distance is about 1,000 km.

Globally, something like 18 million people fly every day.

So what we’re doing is a bit like moving the entire population of the Netherlands or Ecuador or Guatemala by 600 miles *every day*.

Which is a kind of madness. But not your flight, right?

Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social 20 min. ago

…Some number sources:

Average flight occupancy seems to be about 135: https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/116946809548817236

Some weeks ago I found a source that declared an average of 135,000 flights per day over the previous year. I can’t find that now. There are some suggestions that flying is increasing markedly: https://en.macromicro.me/series/7251/flight-tracking-commercial

But sticking with the 135k…

135 x 135,000 = 18,225,000 people per day

https://en.macromicro.me/series/7251/flight-tracking-commercial

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Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social 14 min. ago

…There are some 2026 sources saying there are only a bit more than 100k flights per day, which might mean we’re only moving the population of Benin every day.

And there are others suggesting that the new norm 😱 is closer to 150k flights per day, which is more like moving the population of Chile or Kazakhstan every day.

Personally, I think moving entire not especially small countries every day in an overshoot crisis is a very shit idea

The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉

@ApostateEnglishman@mastodon.world 29 min. ago

@urlyman I've flown all around the world so must take my share of the blame for emissions, but haven't taken a flight for several years.

There's so many other countries I'd like to visit, but I think my travels are done. Mere curiosity is not a good enough reason to board a plane.

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