So the good news here at Dad Jokes Central is that we are way, way cooler than we thought.
Guess what was the second-most-streamed TV series in America in 2023? That’s right, the adventures of the precocious she-dog “Bluey” and her irrepressible, misleadingly attentive dad, Bandit. Forty-three-point-nine billion minutes worth, America. That’s right, “b” for billion.
Good on you, mates. We haven’t had our brains turned so thoroughly to Vegemite since we binged on those other Aussie pop culture imports, Crocodile Dundee and The Wiggles. Fun fact or oversharing, you decide: I’ve seen both “The Wiggles” and “Bluey” live on stage, different children, 15 years apart, long story.
I’d like to tell you that America’s all-consuming worries about climate change and thirst for information about solutions put a nature show up in the billions of streaming minutes, too. But I’d be lying. Only John’s specialty shows up on the 2023 Nielsen list, in the form of “Grey’s Anatomy” at 38.6 billion minutes, imparting to America the invaluable health care knowledge of just how many hospital personnel are smokin’ hot.
Turns out climate change is not a top 10 show. No worries. We can name Bluey’s tantrum-throwing cousin, can you? Pretty sure about 43.8 billion of those minutes happened in our household. We’ll enjoy it while it lasts. “Friends” is right around the corner, and just down the list, at No. 8.
Reporter
TEMP CHECK
CLIMATE
A bird by any other name would be worth a retweet
80
Number of North American birds named after people now under review
Some of Colorado’s greatest mountain peaks have gone through an identity crisis in the name of human dignity and fairness. Goodbye Mount Evans, hello Mount Blue Sky.
Now it’s Colorado’s famous bluebird days that might get the renaming treatment.
Dozens of birds frequenting Colorado from prairie to peak are on schedule for new titles in 2024, as part of the American Ornithological Society’s effort to align the names closer to science and further from the foibles of humans who first identified them.
Parts of the avian renaming movement took off in order to rid bird science of the perceived taint from names like James Audubon, the renowned artist and naturalist with a shearwater and oriole to his name. He also had slaveholding and white supremacy to his name, according to University of Cincinnati biologist Lucinda Lawson.
As the movement grew to change birds named for slaveholders, Confederate generals and now-troubled characters once hailed as heroes, a broader scientific purpose emerged, Lawson said. Why not get all human names out of the bird business, since honorifics “don’t really tell us anything,” Lawson said.
“Blue jay” is evocative and accurate, she noted. Swainson’s hawk? Not so much.
One such contradiction some Colorado birders have seen out in the wild is the Inca dove. The scaly-feathered seed picker is a common ground bird in the Southwest. But it wasn’t discovered in the historic Inca civilization footprint in South America, Lawson said — it’s more accurately the Aztec dove, a native of what is now Mexico.
“It’s not only insensitive, perhaps, but also wrong,” Lawson said. The switch to the more scientifically sound Aztec name is on the society’s action list.
The thick-billed longspur, another frequenter of Colorado ground-feeding sites, was formerly McCown’s longspur. John McCown was a sharp-eyed naturalist, naturally — and also a Confederate general.
Renaming took on greater urgency after the notorious 2020 “Central Park birding incident,” Lawson noted. A Black birder looking for finds in NYC asked a white dog-walker to leash her pet; the woman called 911 and said she was being threatened by an African-American man. The birder’s many defenders set out to make the science and the hobby more inclusive and welcoming.
There’s some controversy involved, some pushback from folks complaining about “cancel culture,” Lawson said. But those people may not realize scientists are used to changing and updating the names of things as part of their commitment to accuracy.
“So I’m excited,” Lawson said. She does think there will be checks and balances on the process. Yes, the public tried to name a British research ship Boaty McBoatface, but others will make sure “we don’t get too crazy,” she said.
“You know, you can come up with really beautiful and informative names. They don’t have to be boring.”
Read more about the expansion of the renaming movement in the natural world in an upcoming edition of ColoradoSun.com.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
Brutal bake-off for shortgrass prairies
What remains of the stunning shortgrass prairie of eastern Colorado is at even more risk of die-off than previously thought, threatened by extreme drought.
The same fate awaits most of the world’s pastures and scrublands, but the impact could be worse in Colorado because shortgrass prairies exist in drier environments. That’s according to a newly published research paper that for the first time has modeled the impact of extreme droughts on different grass and shrublands across the globe. The paper appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Sciences.
The study, involving 173 researchers, was led by Colorado State University professor Melinda Smith, a biologist and big fan of Colorado’s high plains prairies. Her co-author is Kate Wilkins, the Denver Zoo’s regional conservation director for Colorado.
Deep droughts in the past have only occurred every 100 years or so. That rarity has made them difficult to study. So the researchers, using historic records, found old sites on six continents that had experienced an extreme one-year drought.
Fresh Water News, partnering with The Colorado Sun for the most in-depth water coverage in Colorado, sat down with Smith to get her perspective on what this research means for Colorado and the other places included in the study. We also heard why she’s surprisingly optimistic about what could be considered alarming findings.
Click on over to ColoradoSun.com later this week to find Jerd Smith’s story, and links to a rising tide of water news coverage from every drainage in the state.
Fresh Water News
MORE CLIMATE NEWS
HEALTH
Colorado hospitals’ profit plunge
Colorado hospitals saw a significant dip in profits in 2022, according to a new report, confirming what scattered financial filings have previously hinted at.
Hospitals in the Denver metro area saw a little more than $600 million in pre-tax profits for 2022, or a 4.4% profit margin as a percentage of total revenue. That’s down from a record $2.3 billion in profits the prior year — a 17.4% margin — and nearly $1.4 billion in 2020.
Major hospitals outside the Denver metro area collectively lost money in 2022 — posting a roughly $17 million shortfall, or a minus 0.2% margin. In 2022, those same hospitals saw nearly $1.4 billion in profits, a 19% margin.
The figures come from a new report by Minnesota-based health care analyst Allan Baumgarten, who has been producing reports on Colorado’s hospital and insurance industries since 1994. His numbers come from Medicare costs reports, financial documents that hospitals and insurers are required to file with the federal government. The report tracks financial performance for just hospitals — it doesn’t include clinics and doctors’ offices that may also be part of a hospital system.
While hospitals undeniably struggled financially in 2022, Baumgarten said it’s important to take a longer view.
“There was a major drop-off for the hospitals in 2022, but the year before they set new records for their profitability,” he said. “So looking at it over a multi-year period, I would still say that Colorado hospitals are very strongly profitable.”
Among Denver-area hospitals:
You can read more of this story in the coming days on ColoradoSun.com.
John Ingold | Reporter
MORE HEALTH NEWS
CHART OF THE WEEK
With California opening the largest combination solar farm and battery storage site, see story linked below, it’s a good time to check in on where America will be getting its electricity from in the near future.
This chart from the Solar Energy Industry Association shows solar coming to dominate new electric utility construction, beating out wind as the alternative energy of choice. Battery arrays could work with wind power, of course, but the rapid development of better batteries is getting paired with solar more often in new projects. In case you were wondering, new project announcements show zero coal additions in the past few years. What’s “other”? Hey, let’s save something for a future chart.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
HEAT MAP
CLIMATE
HEALTH
Thanks for joining us today and every week for a wide-ranging foray into climate and health news. Gonna make this short because we haven’t even started “Suits.”
Be well, stay well, aspire to well. In no particular order.
— Michael & John
Corrections & Clarifications
Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.
