I really like how easy it is to use, the various views on the data (incl. geofenced projects and places), the fact you can export it all back out again, the volunteer and "AI" assist on IDing stuff etc.

But I guess the main other pro for me was that, in the UK at least, most of the data I've put into iNaturalist that's made Research Grade has also been imported into iRecord and NBNAtlas which wouldn't happen the other way round, so 3 for the price of 1. See https://nbn.org.uk/inaturalistuk/inaturalistuk-and-its-place...

I know there's various grumblings about observation quality from iRecord users relating to iNaturalist records, but I'm assuming this is people just not following the published guidance???

Similar experience, lots of flashing and beeping which is just distracting whilst also being wrong often enough to be really annoying (this is a known problem with speed limits).

Exceeding the speed limit, needing to change gear and by far the worst, active lane assist which pushes you back into your lane if you cross the white line without indicating (I only found this out afterwards as the hire place didn't mention it or leave a manual) and something which can happen frequently if you're driving down narrow country roads where indicating wouldn't have seemed appropriate and may just confuse others.

I spoke to one of the mechanics at my local garage who said you can't permanently turn these features off as they turn back on when you start the car.

I wonder if anyone has who's had an accident caused by being distracted by all these alarms has successfully sued?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain

[2] https://www.shroomer.com/mycoremediation-plastic-eating-mush...

And I've just seen that you CAN get The Guardian Weekly digital subscription here, free if you've got a print subscription? Though obviously I'm wondering why the Guardian don't advertise this?

https://theguardianweekly.pressreader.com/

Unfortunately it doesn't appear to have a digital option?

Not an expert on this by any means, but I always found this short series [1] quite fascinating on how cyanobacteria over a period of 200-300 million years coverted the planet from being methane based to being oxygen based, created the ozone layer and paved the way for photosynthesis, oxygen and life as we know it. I can't remember if I'm being too optimistic when I'm recalling bacteria doing something similar for the mass extinctions?

See also [2]

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09xj73n

[2] https://asm.org/Articles/2022/February/The-Great-Oxidation-E...

The impact on downstream water is almost entirely positive, the leaky dams they build filter sediment and excess nutrients (often from fertiliser run off).

They also smooth out peak water flow to help alleviate downstream flooding. Obviously this comes at the cost of flooding areas behind their dams, but this can also be positive, because in the increasingly dry summers, the ponds they create help keep the land upstream cooler and wetter.

The beaver site in Ealing, London was mostly funded because it was a cheaper solution to help with downstream flooding than equivalent hard infrastructure and a significant cost of that project was the fence to keep them in.

Even fish which need to navigate upstream, can leap these dams because they have co-evolved with the beaver, and also beavers are vegetarian so don't predate the fish.

Obviously the main problem, is because in the UK we wiped them out, we've not co-evolved with them, hence the problems of them flooding land that would regularly have flooded, but we have decided to use for other purposes.

I highly recommend anyone who's interested in ecosystems go visit an established beaver site, the mosaic of habitats they create can support large amounts of biodiversity.

I'm curious about some of the seemingly slightly oddball signs of late stage civilisation collapse and I'd not seen this one mentioned before?

[1] See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Qu...

I found this one of New Zealand, which has particularly unique habitats, trying to remove rats (and others) to save 200 bird species to be particularly mind blowing [1].

Having just done a Rewilding course, my position has shifted a bit and I'm now in two minds about both the NZ experiment and ones like you mention. Much as yours and the other comments say lazy people spreading accidently, or historically, more deliberately non-native species at face value seems really destructive.

But as the Rewilding course pointed out, weeds generally thrive in areas of bare earth and similar niches where ecosystems are degraded and often then are outcompeted as part of succession, but during that time can often provide great food sources for say pollinators (e.g. ragwort).

I'm going to make a bit of an uncomfortable leap here and say, does a similar argument apply to invasives? Nature is nothing if not both resourceful and determined and it also (for better or worse) created us. I've yet to see many compelling reasons as for why that happended (from a design perspective), but it has to be said we're nothing if not the ultimate (so far) extension to that, hopping around the planet spreading species everywhere.

Is this, ironically, how nature "addresses" climate change by having the same actors that helped create it, also be the best actors to mitigate it. If climate change is going to cause such massive disruption to ecosystems, is the human quick spreading of invasives much better at bringing species to places they might now thrive and build future resilience than the slower method non-human forces can manage?

I have to say I don't feel comfortable saying that and I'm not an ecologist, but maybe, bringing this back to the main topic, that's part of a wider Rewilding discussion?

[1] - https://www.science.org/content/article/new-zealand-s-mind-b...

Alastair Driver (Director of Rewilding Britain) in the same talk summarises it as "The large scale restoration of ecosystems to the point where nature is allowed to take care of itself" though there's obviously many other definitions and perspectives.

I think part of the charm of the term, is the ability to apply it in many contexts, e.g. Rewilding people which would be harder if we narrowed the scope to say just natural habitats and landscapes.

This would also allow me to drag in one of my favourite short pieces on Rewilding - Thinking Like a Mountain by Aldo Leopold. "The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolfs job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea." [2]

[1] - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-is-rewilding-with... original source (which didn't work for me) https://www.buzzsprout.com/2156617/episodes/13299588

[2] - https://ia600707.us.archive.org/6/items/ThinkingLikeAMountai...

One of my favourite pieces of nature writing as it succinctly cuts through what seems to be the modern disease of problem creation masquerading as problem solving so elequoently and hard hitting. Obviously because we so often seem to fail at taking the long term and/or ecological and/or interconnected system view.

whilst reading Aldo Leopold famous short piece from A Sand County Almanac, Thinking Like a Mountain:

https://ia600707.us.archive.org/6/items/ThinkingLikeAMountai...

But then I'm old enough, pre internet, to also remember the days when people used to send each other mixtapes or you'd go round someone's house with a small selection of vinyl you'd play to each other.

And then there was the more recent (pre lockdown) era of going to see live bands and discovering new bands via the bands that were supporting or via conversations with other people at those gigs, who if you saw them enough times became your mates etc.

Nowadays I can spin up a program to generate a playlist of everyone playing the Great Escape or Glastonbury (assuming they haven't boycotted spotify) and listen to all of them before I even get there and because of the number of acts, given slightly different tastes, unless I make an effort I might not even see my mates....

"that the project will plough ahead with building a seven-platform station at Curzon Street, despite just three being required for the reduced HS2 line."

Unfortunately inews doesn't seem to quote the original NAO report, just linking to a list of NAO news items on inews :(?

[1] https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/hs2-waste-new-birmingham-s...

[EDIT] So the ft does actually link to the report [2] from this page [3] saying "The watchdog said scrapping the northern leg of the flagship high speed rail link would take three years and cost up to £100mn, and that some platforms would still be built even though they would never be used."

[2] https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hs2-update...

[3] https://www.ft.com/content/ecde4265-0269-4169-ac0e-179938667...

From my limited personal experience and having attended various psychedelic talks and integration workshops etc., set, setting and (post) support are all really key to help turn what can be a potentially life changing/affirming/challenging event into a beneficial one.

Emissions from burning the fuel had been ignored but will now need to be taken into account.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/2...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY