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And it’s time to throw in the towel on paper towels.
Dear Reader,
Late October saw the beginning of a migration that might never have happened, had the yellow ants had their way. The red crabs of Christmas Island marched (errr, skittled?) their way from rainforest to coast — a veritable sea of crimson, delighting residents and tourists and conservationists. At one point, the red crab population on this Australian island near Indonesia was down by two thirds, a casualty of invading yellow ants. The ants, which are highly territorial, spray formic acid on any crabs that come near, dehydrating and eventually killing them.
But conservationists introduced another nonnative insect to solve the problem: an army of Malaysian microwasps that feed on the ants, giving the crabs a chance to rebuild into numbers that are now estimated to have reached 180 million. A merry Christmas Island indeed.
More Feel-Good Friday news from Ember, which tells us that, while we already know solar power is rapidly moving our world into a clean energy future, storage of that energy is the real game-changer. Reporter Daan Walter puts it this way: “We are in the midst of an electricity storage boom, with deployment nearly doubling every year. In 2024, developers deployed over 160 gigawatt-hours of new battery storage, which is nearly as much in one year as in all recorded history.”
Brightly,
Dot
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