monarch
Good news everyone! According to the World Wildlife Federation, the monarch butterfly population has increased by 64% (17 March 2026). Their winter habitat was also less "degraded" (by logging, fire or drought) between 2024-5 than the year previous. Only 6.3 acres acres were degraded in the "Core Zone" of the Monarch Butterfly preserve in Mexico. This positive messaging must have been massaged by a public relations agency which feared losing donations to a cycle of bad news followed by worse news.
Framed another way: only 6.3 acres were degraded last year, less than the year previous (that's good). Thirty years ago, the population wintered in a 45 acre patch of forest in Mexico (that's context, buried in the WWF reports). Last year 14% of the traditional monarch butterfly wintering forest was degraded (that's bad).
Humans impact the monarch population at many points in large scale ways--deforestation, climate change and man-made drought. Corporations that profit from industrial waste are the ones who are killing the butterflies. But we are the ones who buy their stuff. The corporations are the same people (corporations are people too) who tell their consumers to turn down the thermostat, buy recycled plastic and ration gasoline. Corporations tweet as people while their board members fly private jets to uncharted islands profit from the shock doctrine.
One part of the Black Seed ideology is re-calibrating from quarterly or seasonal time scales into climatalogical trends or geologic epochs. A Black Seed realist will tell you to enjoy the monarch's ephemeral transit because they are already extinct. Such a delicate creature cannot exist in two different places both claimed by humans. Not as decades of cascading global warming thresholds begin to whip with tension and crackle with portent. Not only will children be suffering by their grandparents. Also, the incremental result of every daily choice today is destined to affect another critical habitat somewhere in the world in some forty years.
It's a perversion of the theoretical butterfly flapping its wings to power a hurricane a hemisphere away. So, I burn a bit of coal in at the Weston Generating Station to charge my Soundcore Boom 2 by Anker 80W Oudtdoor Bluetooth Speaker--I'm really into music and the outdoors. The result of that action, other than hearing The Boss' voice through a deep punchy subwoofer from Schofield to Merrill, is an increase in my carbon footprint. That footprint eventually stomps the monarch butterfly to extinction.
It will come for every species on earth as long as the commodifying nature is the only way to power the economy. Enjoy the regal flight but know that this king's reign--like all creatures on Earth--is temporary.
Framed another way: only 6.3 acres were degraded last year, less than the year previous (that's good). Thirty years ago, the population wintered in a 45 acre patch of forest in Mexico (that's context, buried in the WWF reports). Last year 14% of the traditional monarch butterfly wintering forest was degraded (that's bad).
Humans impact the monarch population at many points in large scale ways--deforestation, climate change and man-made drought. Corporations that profit from industrial waste are the ones who are killing the butterflies. But we are the ones who buy their stuff. The corporations are the same people (corporations are people too) who tell their consumers to turn down the thermostat, buy recycled plastic and ration gasoline. Corporations tweet as people while their board members fly private jets to uncharted islands profit from the shock doctrine.
One part of the Black Seed ideology is re-calibrating from quarterly or seasonal time scales into climatalogical trends or geologic epochs. A Black Seed realist will tell you to enjoy the monarch's ephemeral transit because they are already extinct. Such a delicate creature cannot exist in two different places both claimed by humans. Not as decades of cascading global warming thresholds begin to whip with tension and crackle with portent. Not only will children be suffering by their grandparents. Also, the incremental result of every daily choice today is destined to affect another critical habitat somewhere in the world in some forty years.
It's a perversion of the theoretical butterfly flapping its wings to power a hurricane a hemisphere away. So, I burn a bit of coal in at the Weston Generating Station to charge my Soundcore Boom 2 by Anker 80W Oudtdoor Bluetooth Speaker--I'm really into music and the outdoors. The result of that action, other than hearing The Boss' voice through a deep punchy subwoofer from Schofield to Merrill, is an increase in my carbon footprint. That footprint eventually stomps the monarch butterfly to extinction.
It will come for every species on earth as long as the commodifying nature is the only way to power the economy. Enjoy the regal flight but know that this king's reign--like all creatures on Earth--is temporary.