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WVPE is your gateway to green and sustainable resources in Michiana. Sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is accomplished by finding a balance between businesses, the environment, and our society (people, planet, and profit).State, National and International resources on sustainability include:The Environmental Protection AgencyThe Natural StepSustainability Dictionary45 Sustainability Resources You Need to Know Explore ways to support sustainability in the Michiana area through the Green Links Directory.Sept. 17, 2019 from 2-3:30pm"Global Warming: A Hot Topic"Sept. 17, 19, 24, and 26All sessions are from 2-3:30pmGreencroft Goshen Community Center in the Jennings Auditorium1820 Greencroft Blvd.Goshen, IN 46526The event will look at possible solutions and suffering as well as consequences beyond warmer weather. The event will examine what other civilizations have or haven’t done when faced with environmental problems. Plus there will be an exploration of the biggest unknown in the climate system: What will the humans do? Paul Meyer Reimer teaches physics, math and climate change at Goshen College. The events are presented by the Lifelong Learning Institute. The Institute can be reached at: (574) 536-8244lifelonglearning@live.comhttp://life-learn.org/

Birds in the Amazon have been shrinking. Here's why scientists think it's happening

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

In recent years, scientists found something strange was happening among sensitive bird species in the Brazilian Amazon. Not only were the birds declining in number, but their bodies were shrinking in size.

VITEK JIRINEC: But then we found that size is not only shrinking for those sensitive species. It was declining for everyone.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

That is Vitek Jirinec of Louisiana State University. He and his colleagues have now found that over the past four decades, 77 different species of Amazonian birds have been getting slightly smaller on average. Philip Stouffer was Jirinec's advisor at Louisiana State.

PHILIP STOUFFER: The thing that is the most striking about this to me is that this is in the middle of the most intact tropical rainforest in the world.

CHANG: Now, if you're wondering why that is, well, the short answer may be climate change. Over the 40-year study period, the rainforest has gotten warmer.

KELLY: That's right. And a smaller bird would shed heat more efficiently. It has more surface area in relation to its volume. Now, here's an example that might be a little easier to relate to.

BRIAN WEEKS: You could imagine lots of little ice cubes in a glass of water, as opposed to one big ice cube, and the little ice cubes melt faster because smaller things have larger surface area-to-volume ratios, so they exchange heat more quickly.

CHANG: Brian Weeks of the University of Michigan didn't work on this particular study, but he did study the size of more than 50 species of migratory birds in North America a few years back. And he found the same thing. Nearly all of them were shrinking decade by decade.

KELLY: The two studies reinforce the idea that birds all over the planet, migratory or not, may be changing shape due to a warming climate. Weeks says these sorts of changes should concern all of us.

WEEKS: All around the world, people depend on natural systems. Intact natural systems provide more economic benefits to humanity than the entirety of the world's GDP, so they matter to you whether or not you know it.

CHANG: Vitek Jirinec of Louisiana State says the timing of his paper's publication could not be more fitting.

JIRINEC: Our study comes out on the same day as the conclusion of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. So those results really underscored the pervasive consequences of our actions for the planet.

CHANG: The study is out today in the journal Science Advances. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Christopher Intagliata is an editor at All Things Considered, where he writes news and edits interviews with politicians, musicians, restaurant owners, scientists and many of the other voices heard on the air.