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A Legacy That Is Unmatched': Tributes Pour In For Longtime Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva

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Friday, March 14, 2025

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., speaks at Capitol in Washington, March 28, 2022. J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressPHOENIX (AP) — U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and a slew of members of Congress were among those paying tribute to Arizona Democratic U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva on Thursday after the announcement of his death at age 77.“Congressman Grijalva was not just my colleague, but my friend. As another Latino working in public service, I can say from experience that he served as a role model to many young people across the Grand Canyon State. He spent his life as a voice for equality. In Congress, I was proud to see firsthand his leadership as chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee as he stood up for Arizona’s water rights, natural beauty, and Tribes.” — U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, posted on X.“There are truly no words that can capture the deep gratitude I feel for his tireless efforts on behalf of the tribal communities across Arizona. He was a champion who answered the call of those who had often been overlooked and unheard. In a world where such calls can be easy to ignore, Rep. Grijalva was always there to lift those voices.” — Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren on X.“AZ lost a giant today. Congressman Raul Grijalva dedicated his life to fighting for the people of Arizona. From standing up for working families, Indigenous communities, and clean air and water — Raul leaves a legacy that is unmatched.” — Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, on X.“Representative Grijalva was a dedicated public servant who served his community and country for decades. He fought hard for fair immigration policies and to tackle the climate crisis our generation is facing. His passing leaves a huge void in Southern Arizona and beyond.” — Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat, in a statement.“The Congressman was always very kind to me — he had a great sense of humor. As a fellow animal lover, we often found ourselves working together on animal protection issues. To his daughters Adelita, Raquel, and Marisa, and his wife, Ramona, I send my deepest condolences.” — U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican from Arizona, on X.“I am heartbroken by the news of Congressman Raul Grijalva’s passing. For climate justice, economic justice, health justice — Raul fought fearlessly for change. We served a decade together on the Natural Resources Committee, and I will forever be grateful for his leadership and partnership.” — U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, on X.“I had the privilege of working alongside him on matters impacting Puerto Rico, and while we often approached issues from different perspectives, his passion for service and his respect for dialogue were undeniable.” — Jenniffer González, governor of Puerto Rico, on X.“Deeply saddened by the passing of my friend Raúl Grijalva. A true champion for Arizona, our environment, and working people. His leadership, kindness, and fight for justice will be deeply missed by many.” — U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, on X.“I’m devastated to hear of the passing of my colleague Raul Grijalva. He was a fighter for Arizonans and a champion for Indigenous communities and our planet. We will all miss him dearly. My thoughts are with his family, friends, loved ones, and constituents.” — U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat from Arizona, in a statement.“Whether he was speaking at a neighborhood event, marching for civil rights, speaking against the erosion of our democratic values or joking with us in the backyard, he led with his principles and courage.” — Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, a Democrat, in a statement. “I am devastated by the loss of Representative Raúl Grijalva and my heart is with his family and loved ones. To his last day, he remained a servant leader who put everyday people first while in office. I join every Arizonan in mourning his passing.” — Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, on X. “Congressman Grijalva was a kind man and a leader who listened. He received social justice advocates in his offices with open arms and treated us with the familiarity of a grandpa…commending us for our efforts, giving us advice and encouraging our advocacy. This is a sad day. We have lost an elder but gained an ancestor. May he rest in power.” — Chispa Arizona Executive Director Vianey Olivarría in a statement. “House members are saddened to hear of the passing of Congressman Raul Grijalva, who served his constituents faithfully in Congress for more than two decades. Our prayers are with Raul’s wife, Ramona, his three children, and the people of Arizona’s 7th district.” — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, on X. “His leadership was singular. He mentored generously and was an incredible friend. I will always be grateful for his lifelong courage and commitment.” — U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, on X.“One of Raúl’s favorite songs was ‘El Rey,’ and in particular the line that says ‘no hay que llegar primero, pero hay que saber llegar’ — “it’s not only about getting there first, but about how you get there.” I think this phrase perfectly describes his tenacity in everything he did.” — U.S. Rep. Jesús G. “Chuy” García, a Democrat from Illinois, on X.Go Ad-Free — And Protect The Free PressThe next four years will change America forever. But HuffPost won't back down when it comes to providing free and impartial journalism.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless newsroom. We hope you'll join us.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.Support HuffPostAlready contributed? Log in to hide these messages.“Grijalva’s legacy includes his critical work with the late Representative Donald McEachin to draft the groundbreaking Environmental Justice for All Act, an instrumental bill confronting the legacy of environmental racism that disproportionately impacts communities of color and low wealth. We are forever grateful for Representative Grijalva’s historic leadership.” — League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski in a statement.

Colleagues and friends of Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva praised his commitment to working families, the environment and his Arizona district.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., speaks at Capitol in Washington, March 28, 2022.

J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and a slew of members of Congress were among those paying tribute to Arizona Democratic U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva on Thursday after the announcement of his death at age 77.

“Congressman Grijalva was not just my colleague, but my friend. As another Latino working in public service, I can say from experience that he served as a role model to many young people across the Grand Canyon State. He spent his life as a voice for equality. In Congress, I was proud to see firsthand his leadership as chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee as he stood up for Arizona’s water rights, natural beauty, and Tribes.” — U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, posted on X.

“There are truly no words that can capture the deep gratitude I feel for his tireless efforts on behalf of the tribal communities across Arizona. He was a champion who answered the call of those who had often been overlooked and unheard. In a world where such calls can be easy to ignore, Rep. Grijalva was always there to lift those voices.” — Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren on X.

“AZ lost a giant today. Congressman Raul Grijalva dedicated his life to fighting for the people of Arizona. From standing up for working families, Indigenous communities, and clean air and water — Raul leaves a legacy that is unmatched.” — Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, on X.

“Representative Grijalva was a dedicated public servant who served his community and country for decades. He fought hard for fair immigration policies and to tackle the climate crisis our generation is facing. His passing leaves a huge void in Southern Arizona and beyond.” — Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat, in a statement.

“The Congressman was always very kind to me — he had a great sense of humor. As a fellow animal lover, we often found ourselves working together on animal protection issues. To his daughters Adelita, Raquel, and Marisa, and his wife, Ramona, I send my deepest condolences.” — U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican from Arizona, on X.

“I am heartbroken by the news of Congressman Raul Grijalva’s passing. For climate justice, economic justice, health justice — Raul fought fearlessly for change. We served a decade together on the Natural Resources Committee, and I will forever be grateful for his leadership and partnership.” — U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, on X.

“I had the privilege of working alongside him on matters impacting Puerto Rico, and while we often approached issues from different perspectives, his passion for service and his respect for dialogue were undeniable.” — Jenniffer González, governor of Puerto Rico, on X.

“Deeply saddened by the passing of my friend Raúl Grijalva. A true champion for Arizona, our environment, and working people. His leadership, kindness, and fight for justice will be deeply missed by many.” — U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, on X.

“I’m devastated to hear of the passing of my colleague Raul Grijalva. He was a fighter for Arizonans and a champion for Indigenous communities and our planet. We will all miss him dearly. My thoughts are with his family, friends, loved ones, and constituents.” — U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat from Arizona, in a statement.

“Whether he was speaking at a neighborhood event, marching for civil rights, speaking against the erosion of our democratic values or joking with us in the backyard, he led with his principles and courage.” — Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, a Democrat, in a statement.

“I am devastated by the loss of Representative Raúl Grijalva and my heart is with his family and loved ones. To his last day, he remained a servant leader who put everyday people first while in office. I join every Arizonan in mourning his passing.” — Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, on X.

“Congressman Grijalva was a kind man and a leader who listened. He received social justice advocates in his offices with open arms and treated us with the familiarity of a grandpa…commending us for our efforts, giving us advice and encouraging our advocacy. This is a sad day. We have lost an elder but gained an ancestor. May he rest in power.” — Chispa Arizona Executive Director Vianey Olivarría in a statement.

“House members are saddened to hear of the passing of Congressman Raul Grijalva, who served his constituents faithfully in Congress for more than two decades. Our prayers are with Raul’s wife, Ramona, his three children, and the people of Arizona’s 7th district.” — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, on X.

“His leadership was singular. He mentored generously and was an incredible friend. I will always be grateful for his lifelong courage and commitment.” — U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, on X.

“One of Raúl’s favorite songs was ‘El Rey,’ and in particular the line that says ‘no hay que llegar primero, pero hay que saber llegar’ — “it’s not only about getting there first, but about how you get there.” I think this phrase perfectly describes his tenacity in everything he did.” — U.S. Rep. Jesús G. “Chuy” García, a Democrat from Illinois, on X.

Go Ad-Free — And Protect The Free Press

The next four years will change America forever. But HuffPost won't back down when it comes to providing free and impartial journalism.

For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless newsroom. We hope you'll join us.

You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.

For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.

You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.

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Support HuffPost

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“Grijalva’s legacy includes his critical work with the late Representative Donald McEachin to draft the groundbreaking Environmental Justice for All Act, an instrumental bill confronting the legacy of environmental racism that disproportionately impacts communities of color and low wealth. We are forever grateful for Representative Grijalva’s historic leadership.” — League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski in a statement.

Read the full story here.
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Beloved eagle, a school mascot, electrocuted on power lines above Bay Area elementary school

A beloved eagle, a school mascot, was electrocuted on PG&E power lines near an elementary school in the Bay Area. Could anything have been done to prevent it? How often does this happen?

MILPITAS, Calif. — As scores of students swarmed out of their Milpitas elementary school on a recent afternoon, a lone bald eagle perched high above them in a redwood tree — only occasionally looking down on the after-school ruckus, training his eyes on the grassy hills along the western horizon.The week before, his mate was electrocuted on nearby power lines operated by PG&E.Kevin Slavin, principal of Curtner Elementary School, said the eagles in that nest are so well-known and beloved here that they were made the school’s mascots and the “whole ethos of the school has been tied around them” since they arrived in 2017. What exactly happened to send Hope the eagle off the pair’s nest in the dark of night and into the live wires on the night of Nov. 3 is not known (although there’s some scandalous speculation it involved a mysterious, “interloper” female). According to a spokesperson from PG&E, an outage occurred in the area at around 9 p.m. Line workers later discovered it was caused by the adult eagle.The death, sadly, is not atypical for large raptors, such as bald and golden eagles.According to a 2014 analysis of bird deaths across the U.S., electrocution on power lines is a significant cause of bird mortality. Every year, as many as 11.6 million birds are fried on the wires that juice our televisions, HVAC systems and blow driers, the authors estimated. The birds die when two body parts — a wing, foot or beak — come in contact with two wires, or when they touch a wire and ground source, sending a fatal current of electricity through the animal’s body.Because of their massive size, eagles and other raptors are at more risk. The wingspan of an adult bald eagle ranges from 5.5 to 8 feet across; it’s roughly the same for a golden eagle. An eagle couple in Milpitas, before the female was electrocuted when coming into contact with high-power electrical lines earlier this month. (Douglas Gillard) According to a report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Forensics Laboratory, which analyzed 417 electrocuted raptors from 13 species between 2000 and 2015, nearly 80 percent were bald or golden eagles.Krysta Rogers, senior environmental scientist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Investigations Laboratory, examined the dead eagle.She found small burns on Hope’s left foot pad and the back of her right leg. She also had singed feathers on both sides of her body, but especially on the right, where Rogers said the wing looked particularly damaged. She said most birds are electrocuted on utility poles, but Hope was electrocuted “mid-span,” where the wires dip between the poles. Melissa Subbotin, a spokesperson for PG&E, said the poles and wires near where the birds nested had been adapted with coverings and other safety features to make them safe for raptors. However, it appears the bird may have touched two wires mid-span. Subbotin said the utility company spaces lines at least 5 feet apart — a precaution it and other utility companies take to minimize raptor deaths. “Since 2002, PG&E has made about 42,990 existing power poles and towers bird-safe,” Subbotin said. The company has also retrofitted about 41,500 power poles in areas where bird have been injured or killed. In addition, she said, in 2024, the company replaced nearly 11,000 poles in designated “Raptor Concentration Zones” and built them to avian-safe construction guidelines.Doug Gillard, an amateur photographer and professor of anatomy and physiology at Life Chiropractic College West in Hayward, who has followed the Milpitas eagles for years, said while there is safety equipment near the school, it does not extend into the nearby neighborhood, where Hope was killed.Gillard said a photographer who lives in the neighborhood took a photo of the eagle hanging from the wires that Gillard has seen. The Times was unable to access the photo.Not far from the school is a marshy wetland, where ducks, geese and migrating birds come to rest and relax, a smorgasbord for a pair of eagles and their young. There are also fish in a nearby lake. Gillard said one of the nearby water bodies is stocked with trout, and that late fall is fishing season for the eagles. He said an army of photographers is currently hanging around the pond hoping to catch a snapshot of the father eagle catching a fish.Rogers said the bird was healthy. She had body fat, good muscle tone and two small feathers in her gut — presumably the remnants of a recent meal. She also had an enlarged ovary and visible oviduct — an avian fallopian tube — suggesting she was getting ready for breeding, which typically happens in January or February.Slavin, the principal, said that a day or two before the mother’s death, he saw the couple preparing their nest, and saw a young female show up. “It was a very tense situation among the eagles,” he said. Gillard, the photographer, said the “girlfriend” has black feathers on her head and in her tail, suggesting she isn’t quite five years old.Gillard and Slavin say they’ve heard from residents there may have been some altercation between the mom and the interloper that sent Hope off the nest and into the wires that night.The young female remains at the scene, and is not only being “tolerated” by the father, but occasionally accompanies him on his fishing trips, Gillard said. Eagles tend to mate for life, but if one dies, the other will look for a new mate, Gillard said. If the female eagle sticks around, it will be the dad’s third partner.Photographers can identify the father, who neighbors just call “Dad,” by the damaged flexor tendon on his right claw, which makes it appear as if he is “flipping the bird” when he flies by.

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Go Behind the Scenes at an Iconic Irish Library as Staff Move 700,000 Historical Treasures Into Storage

Trinity College Dublin’s Old Library will close for restoration and construction in 2027. What does that mean for the medieval manuscripts and books housed there?

Go Behind the Scenes at an Iconic Irish Library as Staff Move 700,000 Historical Treasures Into Storage Trinity College Dublin’s Old Library will close for restoration and construction in 2027. What does that mean for the medieval manuscripts and books housed there? A bust of Plato in the Long Room at Trinity College Dublin Yvonne Gordon In the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin, a 433-year-old university in Ireland’s capital, rows of alcoves with dark oak bookcases line the central Long Room, whose Corinthian pillars stretch past the upper galleries to meet the carved timber ribs of the arched wooden ceiling. When I visited the library in late spring, the muted morning light from a tall window illuminated the books in one of the bays. A slender wooden ladder was suspended from a rail above the shelves, ready to reach the highest levels, where the spines of old leather books were lined up, their gold-tooled letters catching the light. Standing there, I felt as if this scene had remained undisturbed for hundreds of years. In reality, however, major changes are on the horizon for this beloved cultural institution—Ireland’s largest library. The Old Library is currently undergoing an ambitious redevelopment project that will combine medieval traditions with new technology and move hundreds of thousands of books at a cost of more than $100 million. In addition to protecting the early 18th-century building, the project will ensure the preservation of precious old texts and manuscripts, plus the valuable knowledge they contain, for future generations. View of the Long Room in Trinity's Old Library Ste Murray / Trinity College Dublin Trinity staff escalated their efforts to properly safeguard the library and its priceless collections in the aftermath of a 2019 fire that devastated Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral. The Old Library Redevelopment Project kicked off in 2022 and will begin its restoration and construction phase in 2027, with work estimated to be completed in 2030, according to the library’s chief manuscript conservator, John Gillis. The project will address pollution and dust accumulation on the books and introduce building improvements like air purification, environmental controls and fire protection. So, while the shelves in the Old Library are normally full (stacked side by side, the books would stretch more than 6.5 miles), on the day I visited, most of them stood empty. Nearly 200,000 books have been moved out thus far, leaving just eight bays where tomes have been left in place to give visitors—up to one million annually—an idea of what the shelves look like when full. The curved ribs of the Long Room’s ceiling almost form the inverse of the raised stitching on the spines of the old books. Gillis has worked in conservation at Trinity for more than 40 years. He believes that the vast majority of surviving manuscripts from early medieval Ireland (a period spanning roughly the fifth through ninth centuries) have passed through his hands. John Gillis, chief manuscript conservator at Trinity's library Yvonne Gordon “The collection includes many incunabula—that is, books printed before 1500,” Gillis says. While the library’s history stretches back to when Trinity College was established in Dublin in 1592, the collection boasts manuscripts and books much older than that. (The Old Library building itself was constructed between 1712 and 1732.) The library’s holdings include 30,000 books, pamphlets and maps acquired from a prominent Dutch family in 1802; the largest collection of children’s books in Ireland; and the first book printed in the Irish language, which dates to 1571. Other highlights range from Ireland’s only copy of William Shakespeare’s First Folio to national treasures like the Book of Kells, a stunning medieval manuscript. How the Old Library Redevelopment Project is transforming the Long Room Gillis’ work immerses him in the minutiae of lettering used in 400-year-old texts and the hairline cracks of vellum pages in early Irish manuscripts. But he has also been tasked with overseeing a huge project: the decanting, or temporary removal, of the Old Library’s entire collection of 700,000 objects, which will be moved into storage while the building is being refurbished. Old Library Redevelopment Project: Conserving the Old Library for future generations Despite the empty bookcases, visitors streaming through the Long Room can still admire artifacts like the Brian Boru harp, an instrument thought to date to the late Middle Ages that served as the model for the coat of arms of Ireland and the Guinness trademark. Temporary exhibitions are on view, too: for example, displays on Trinity alumni such as Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett, Gulliver’s Travels author Jonathan Swift and Dracula author Bram Stoker. Beyond the magnificent visual experience of standing in the Long Room, a visit here subtly hits the senses. The temperature is cooler than in adjacent rooms, and that familiar old book smell (caused by the chemical decomposition of paper and bookbindings) is readily apparent. The light is gentle; the acoustics are of hushed conversations and footfall. Will the space still feel—and smell—the same after the conservation project? “That’s a good question,” says Gillis. “Who knows?” Looking at the barren book bays, the conservator describes a remarkable phenomenon that occurred when the shelves were first emptied. “The whole building reacted to all of that weight being removed, as if stretching,” he recalls. “You had movement of floors, creaking, nails coming up out of floorboards.” Staff have observed changes to sound and light, too: Without the books acting as a buffer, the room is more echoey, with extra light pouring through the shelves. Bay B Timelapse - Old Library Decant Gillis says the temperature in the Long Room is always colder than outside. “This is a great old building for looking after itself,” he explains. “Although you get fluctuations in this building, nothing is ever too extreme.” The lack of worm infestations and mold growth show that the structure’s environmental conditions were in relatively good shape. But the building was leaky, and dust and dirt left behind by visitors, Dublin’s historic oil-burning lamps, and even vehicle exhaust took their toll. There’s less pollution nowadays, but it does still get in, especially when the library’s windows are opened in the summer. A new climate control system will address these issues. How conservators are safeguarding the Old Library’s collections It has taken a team of some 75 people around two years to remove the majority of the books from the Long Room’s shelves. This is the first time in nearly 300 years that they’ve been barren. “Nobody living has ever seen these shelves empty,” Gillis says. Wearing gloves, protective jackets and dust masks, staff carefully removed and cleaned each volume. They measured the books, added a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag for cataloging and security purposes, and then either sent the texts on for conservation if damaged or to storage in a special climate-controlled, off-site facility if still in good condition. Gillis has worked in conservation for more than 40 years. Yvonne Gordon Removing all of the books from a single bay took up to one month each time. Exactly how daunting was this task, especially getting the books down from high shelves? According to Gillis, having the big, heavy books on the lower shelves helped. “You don’t want to be up a ladder trying to take off a big folio,” he says. The last eight bays will be emptied just before the library building closes in 2027, and all 200,000 books will be returned when the refurbishment is complete. Because the volumes are so old, every step of the delicate task has prioritized conservation. Each book has been gently vacuumed. “The suction level was reduced so it wasn’t too aggressive,” says Gillis. Even the dust—many of the books had not left the library for hundreds of years—was the subject of a scholarly study. The main findings were that the dust was made of organic material such as hair fibers and dead skin cells from visitors and staff. The books are stored off-site in special fireproof and waterproof archival boxes. Despite the fact that approximately 30,000 boxes are stacked in the warehouse, every tome remains available for research during the redevelopment project. That’s where the RFID tags and barcodes come in: When a book is requested, the library locates the relevant box and makes the text available to the researcher in a reading room. Conserving the Book of Kells and other medieval manuscripts The library’s most prized object, the Book of Kells, is currently housed below the Long Room in the Treasury, though it will be moved to the refurbished Printing House when conservation work begins in 2027. This manuscript, which contains the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament, dates to around 800, when it was likely illustrated by monks in an Irish monastery on the island of Iona in Scotland. The Book of Kells’ ornate decorations of Christian crosses and Celtic art have won it worldwide admiration. Need to know: Why is the Book of Kells so significant? According to Trinity College Dublin, the more than 1,200-year-old Book of Kells is distinct from other illuminated manuscripts “due to the sheer complexity and beauty of its ornamentation.” Featuring more adornments than other surviving manuscripts, the text has been described as the “work of angels.” The manuscript was gifted to Trinity College by Henry Jones, the bishop of Meath, in 1661. It’s displayed in a glass case in a darkened room whose light, humidity and temperature are carefully monitored to ensure the volume’s preservation. The specific pages on display are rotated every 8 to 12 weeks, and photography is not allowed. As well as overseeing the Book of Kells’ care, Gillis’ department looks after the storage and conservation of the library’s early printed books and special collections. While most of the Old Library’s contents have been moved to the off-site warehouse during the redevelopment, these “oldest and most valuable” holdings, as Trinity’s website describes them, are being kept on campus in a new storage space in the Ussher Library. Even in storage, the manuscripts need to be kept under specific conditions. Most were written on animal skins that are sensitive to humidity and temperature. All of the storage spaces are low-oxygen, which helps with preservation. Repairing and conserving damaged manuscripts is a big part of Gillis’ job. He also works to prevent damage to some of the collection’s earliest items. To date, Gillis has led the conservation of an 8th-century, pocket-size collection of gospels; a 7th-century Bible that is believed to be the earliest surviving Irish codex; and the 12th-century Book of Leinster, one of the earliest known Irish-language manuscripts. Illustrations from the Book of Kells Public domain via Wikimedia Commons When I visited the conservation lab earlier this year, Gillis was working on the Book of Leinster’s codicology—essentially, looking at the volume’s physical features to determine how it was put together and what it says about the era it was created in. The manuscript came to Trinity in the 18th century as a pile of gatherings in folders in a box, without a cover or binding. “Nobody has ever seen it as a single, complete volume,” Gillis says. “There remains the question: Was it bound ever?” Like the Book of Kells and most other early medieval Irish manuscripts, the Book of Leinster was written on vellum, or calf skin. To repair and stabilize the manuscript, Gillis is grafting new calf skins ordered from a specialist supplier onto the pages. Vellum can be challenging to work with, as aging and humidity cause tiny cracks and tears. While the lab is full of modern scientific equipment like conditioning chambers, humidifiers, fume hoods and freezers, sometimes traditional methods work best. To repair the Book of Leinster, conservators are using materials derived from casein, a protein found in milk, and isinglass, a collagen obtained from sturgeon fish, as an adhesive. Pages from the 12th-century Book of Leinster Yvonne Gordon “As we develop our conservation methods and approaches, they are typically based on the medieval practice, because they understood the quality of materials,” says Gillis. “It’s important that we remember the craft, that we are using skills, methods and materials that were developed in medieval times and are still relevant.” Trinity’s conservation work makes use of the latest scientific developments, too. A tool that is yielding new information about the manuscripts is DNA analysis, which can reveal the age, sex and species of animal that vellum and parchment are made from and, most importantly, where the skins came from. Medieval books transferred hands so often, it can be hard to trace their place of origin. While the DNA testing technique is still in early stages, Gillis says that it can “answer a lot of questions we have.” Already, the team has found that male calves weren’t the only members of their species whose skin was turned into vellum, as was previously thought. Female calves were slaughtered for this purpose, too. Digitization and the significance of the redevelopment project In addition to conserving the Old Library’s holdings, the ongoing project opens up new ways of experiencing them. After seeing the Book of Kells, visitors can enjoy an immersive digital experience that shows what’s in the library’s collections and tells the manuscript’s background story in an engaging way. Trinity staff are also digitizing many of the library’s collections, making them freely available online to audiences outside of academia. “This process of digitization enables us to democratize that access to anyone, anywhere globally who has an internet connection,” says Laura Shanahan, head of research collections at the Trinity library. Gillis hopes the project will inspire other preservation efforts in Ireland and overseas. For Trinity, the focus is on making the library’s collections broadly accessible while also protecting and caring for them so they survive long into the future. View of the immersive Book of Kells Experience Trinity College Dublin “The importance of preserving this material is to ensure that content is accessible for future generations of researchers who are looking back in time in 100, 200 or 300 years’ time to understand the evolution of our society, the cyclical nature of the issues that recur in history and the documentary heritage around everything from personal identity to how the world has evolved,” Shanahan says. Pádraig Ó Macháin, an expert on Irish manuscripts at University College Cork who is not involved in the conservation project, says: All libraries are sanctuaries for the written and the printed word, and hubs for the dissemination of knowledge. Libraries like Trinity’s, through their collections of incunabula and of medieval manuscripts, preserve unique records of the progress of learning through the centuries. They go to the very heart of civilization and articulate the curriculum vitae of the human race. Ó Macháin, who specializes in the study of Ireland’s handwritten heritage, adds, “Because libraries have a duty of care for future generations, it is vital that their capacity for preservation and transmission is periodically renewed or overhauled in a thorough and structured way, such as is taking place in Trinity at present.” A 2016 photo of shelves in the Long Room David Madison / Getty Images Get the latest History stories in your inbox.

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Climate

‘I kept smelling a horrible nasty smell’: the risks of England’s old dumping grounds

For some, the smell brings on nausea and headaches. Others fear ‘forever chemicals’ seeping into the waterUK and Europe’s hidden landfills at risk of leaking toxic waste into water supplies“I just kept smelling this horrible, nasty smell … like animal excrement, and I was wondering what it was,” says Jess Brown, from Fleetwood, Lancashire.Brown’s mother suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and she believes the smells make it worse. She also worries for her eight-year-old daughter, whose asthma worsens when the odour seeps indoors. Continue reading...

“I just kept smelling this horrible, nasty smell … like animal excrement, and I was wondering what it was,” says Jess Brown, from Fleetwood, Lancashire.Brown’s mother suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and she believes the smells make it worse. She also worries for her eight-year-old daughter, whose asthma worsens when the odour seeps indoors.The stench was traced to the Jameson Road landfill, reopened by Transwaste Recycling & Aggregates Limited in late 2023, after the previous owners Suez stopped accepting waste in 2017. The Environment Agency says that reopening long‑inactive landfills can release gases including hydrogen sulphide, which produces a “rotten egg” odour.Determined to act, Brown launched a Facebook group that quickly drew more than 4,000 members reporting headaches, nausea, and breathing problems.Thousands of odour complaints followed, prompting an enforcement order in April 2024 to curb hydrogen sulphide emissions, which have been linked to health problems including respiratory and eye irritation, as well as neurological and cardiovascular effects.Jess Brown and her mother Janice. Jess believes the smell from Jameson Road landfill exacerbates her mother’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Photograph: Jess BrownAfter partial compliance, Transwaste resumed tipping at the site, which sits in an erosion and flood zone on the banks of the protected River Wyre. This prompted a second enforcement order six weeks after the first.In March this year, the company’s licence was suspended until new gas extraction infrastructure was installed. This took place in April, and topsoil is still being added to the site to reduce emissions. The Environment Agency says pollutant levels generally remain within health limits, though odours continue to cause discomfort.Barbara Kneale, a retired doctor who lives near the site, said: “Fleetwood is classed as a deprived area and has twice the national average of chronic respiratory diseases … people with diseases, like asthma or chronic obstructive airways have exacerbations of their symptoms. Kids haven’t been able to play out.”Nor is air quality the only concern. The Guardian and Watershed Investigations found waste legally dumped at Jameson Road landfill by AGC Chemicals until 2014 contained the potentially carcinogenic “forever chemical” perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which has since been banned. The site also borders a former ICI landfill, which is thought to have received PFOA waste for decades.Retired doctor and Fleetwood resident Barbara Kneale outside Jameson Road landfill. Photograph: Barbara KnealeSampling of water next to both landfills carried out by Watershed suggested the sites are leaching forever chemicals, more properly known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), into the Wyre.David Megson of Manchester Metropolitan University said: “These PFAS results are a cause for concern, with concentrations of PFOA 5-10 times above environmental quality standards. This would indicate that those landfill sites do contain PFAS, and that [they] are leaking out.“The landfills are situated right next to the coast, so with increasing sea levels there is concern that the situation could get worse.”Someone familiar with ICI’s chlorine-producing Hillhouse site on the edge of Fleetwood in the 1970s, who preferred to remain anonymous, said: “Effluent from different parts of Hillhouse was disposed of in the ICI landfill. It was massive.“It was a system of open, shallow lagoons. One was a lake of acid. Parts of the waste was liquid sludge and some white solids went in there … There was no lining in the landfill.”Though a multi-agency probe into AGC Chemicals found PFOA in nearby soil and warned against eating local produce, the landfill itself remains excluded from investigation. The Environment Agency says it will act only if there is evidence not only that contaminants are present in hazardous amounts but also that they could likely spread harmfully.Jameson Road landfill is expected to operate until 2027. Photograph: Leana HoseaHowever, the community wants the site shut as soon as possible, even if it risks a repeat of the situation at Walleys Quarry landfill in Staffordshire. Here, the operator went bust and sidestepped costs after a closure order, leaving the Environment Agency responsible for managing the site.“I think it will be the same situation even if it closes when it’s meant to,” Brown says, referring to the end of Transwaste’s lease in 2027. “It’ll be left to the Environment Agency or the taxpayer [to foot the bill for long-term management].“It’ll probably be an issue for years to come, but it’s better to close it now than add more and more damage to what’s already going to happen.”skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionAccording to Transwaste, the older hazardous landfill is closed and capped with an impermeable layer of clay, meaning gas and leachate (liquid that has percolated through the waste) is fully contained, and the only run-off would be uncontaminated rainwater.It said: “To claim that there have been odours for 18 months is not correct. We acknowledge that there have been occasional odours which have coincided with essential engineering works on site.“The ongoing Environment Agency air quality monitoring survey concluded that emissions were largely insignificant and air quality is well within WHO [World Health Organisation] and UK regulatory safety standards.”In reference to the sampling that found PFOA, Transwaste said the tests were carried out in a spot regularly covered by the River Wyre, which is known to already have high levels of PFOA contamination as a legacy of the chemicals industry, “so a PFOA reading is not unexpected”.It added: “To put this into context, the test result showed 560 nanograms per litre (ng/l), whereas the River Wyre, when tested in 2021, had levels of PFAS/PFOA measured at 12,100 ng/l, with fish in the river containing 11,000 ng/l.”Transwaste said that the area had been used as settlement lagoons for the chemicals industry since the 1940s, before being used for landfill, and so “again, PFAS/PFOA readings would not be unexpected in the vicinity”.NPL Group, which manages the former ICI landfill, declined to comment.Wyre Borough Council said: “There are no plans to renew the lease held by Transwaste Recycling and Aggregates Ltd beyond its current lifespan, which is due to end in March 2027. Transwaste is legally obligated to remediate the site as part of its planning consent.”Paul Jackson lives next to a former landfill site in Cheshire. Photograph: suppliedElsewhere, there are concerns that older landfills predating pollution laws may also contaminate groundwater, rivers and even drinking water.At the former Commonside landfill in Cheshire last year, levels of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), which have been linked to immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine harm, were found to be 1,000 times above UK norms. PCBs have polluted the area’s streams since the 1970s and, despite a fine being issued to the site’s owner in 1994, no cleanup followed. The council is now reassessing the site.“It’s a sham,” says local farmer Paul Jackson, who lives next door to the Commonside landfill, which closed in the 1970s. “There’s three quarters of a million tonnes of chemicals, rubble and waste, and 50 different chemicals that’ve been tipped in there.” He added that sludge regularly comes off the tip, causing him to worry it could pollute the drinking water.United Utilities, which manages water supply in the north-west, said water quality has remained good. It added: “Since being made aware of concerns about PCBs [in the area], we have conducted enhanced testing, these were also clear. We will continue to carry out these additional tests.”

Animals
Chemicals
Waste

A Foot-Tall Elephant? 'Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age' on Apple TV Reveals Surprising Creatures

Apple TV has launched “Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age,” a five-part series that brings the Pleistocene era to life with stunning visuals

It was an incredible time when the Earth was going through immense systemic changes and was filled with often nightmarish creatures — carnivorous kangaroos, 14-foot-tall bears and armadillos bigger than cars. Sid the sloth's eyes would bulge even more.A hyper-realistic picture of life during that Pleistocene era emerges with Apple TV's five-part, computer-driven “Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age,” which takes place millions of years after the dinosaurs’ extinction.“Nobody’s made a natural history representation of these creatures behaving and interacting in the way that we have in this series,” says Mike Gunton, co-executive producer and senior executive at the storied BBC Natural History Unit. This is the third chapter in the “Prehistoric Planet” series, blending cinematic storytelling with photorealistic visual effects and the latest scientific knowledge to give viewers a treat: Nostrils flare, fur is rustled by howling winds and eyelashes twitch. “Within one second of turning the show on, I do not want people to think, ‘Oh, it’s a CGI show.’ I want them to think, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s that animal? Where did they film that?'” Gunton says.The filmmaking style mimics the visual vocabulary of documentary nature shows like “Planet Earth” or “Blue Planet” but conjures up animals dead for millions of years with the latest digital innovations. “Even five years ago, we couldn’t have done it,” says Gunton. “Even in the time we’ve been making it, the acceleration of the power of the visual effects has been absolutely noticeable.”The series is narrated by Golden Globe- and Olivier Award-winner Tom Hiddleston, with an original score by Hans Zimmer, Anže Rozman and Kara Talve from Bleeding Fingers Music.Jon Favreau is co-executive producer and came at the series after directing the live-action/CGI “The Jungle Book” in 2016 with Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o and Scarlett Johansson, and 2019's “The Lion King,” with a voice cast including Donald Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor. “I was very struck by the photorealism we were able to achieve in both of those projects and this seemed like a really good application for using realism in both animation and environmental design and render to create the illusion that you’re actually looking at something real and to apply it to dinosaurs and ice age megafauna,” he says.Gunton, who has produced such nature shows as “Hidden Kingdoms” and “The Green Planet,” turned to the topic of the ice age more than three years ago after wrapping up two dino-filled previous chapters and quickly learned he had a lot to learn. “I was thinking, ‘Well, this is all going to be ice and woolly mammoths and mastodons and saber-tooth tigers,” he says. What he found out was there wasn’t just one ice age but a series of eight, and while as much as a quarter of Earth’s landmass was covered by ice, the rest was becoming arid and desert, changing animals' evolution.There were Diprotodons, rhino-sized relatives of wombats and the largest marsupials of all time. There were giant short-faced kangaroos and 14-foot-tall bears. One of the cutest creatures is a dwarf Stegodon, which resembled a 3-foot elephant. The filmmakers added its baby, standing just 12 inches, and we meet him playing with a butterfly. “A swishing trunk and tail means a Stegodon wants to play,” says Hiddleston. But the little guy gets into trouble when a gang of 6-foot giant storks come hunting. Mom, thankfully, comes to the rescue. “In a world where birds can eat elephants, you should never stray too far from Mother,” Hiddleston concludes.“These animals feel alive,” says Gunton. “That comes from spending 35, nearly 40 years filming animals, watching animals, knowing how they react to each other and also knowing how to photograph these kind of behaviors.”While the look of the series is cutting edge, Favreau points out that it was crafted with artists and traditional technological techniques, not AI, and that helps it connect.“At the end of the day, to be working side by side with artists, animators, filmmakers — there is something that creates a very specific and personal and emotional connection with tremendous specificity, which is still something that eludes the other technologies.”During the ice age, sea levels dropped, creating land bridges and connecting North and South America to create a kind of animal superhighway, with creatures going in both directions and encountering new rivals and food.The filmmakers leaned on the visual effects company Framestore and consulted over 50 ice age specialists to create the series, often using puppets to get the shots right before removing them and adding the visual effects. Fossil records are better than with dinosaurs because many of the ice age creatures were captured in the permafrost.“We see that the species that were most able to adapt still survive to this day, and there are many that didn’t,” says Favreau. “We’re capturing a moment here where there was transition in relatively short amount of time. Even though it would be thousands of years, it’s still a blink of an eye in the history of our planet.”“Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age,” tells little vignettes for each animal, showing how they hunt or mate, travel and play. Gunton says he's not interested in making an endless loop of predators chasing prey. He'd rather show how a pregnant woolly mammoth lost in a blizzard can be protected by her herd.“I think that audiences are more engaged in complexity of relationships and what animals do and how they behave with each other,'' he said. “The voyeuristic kill doesn’t interest me particularly, and I don’t think it interests most of the audience.”Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

Animals
Extinction
Food

AI Is Coming for Your Toddler’s Bedtime Story

I began this morning, as I do every morning, by reading my daughter a book. Today it was Arthur Dorros’ Abuela, illustrated by Elisa Kleven. Abuela is a sweet story about a girl who imagines that she and her grandmother leap into the sky and soar around New York City. Dorros does an elegant job […]

I began this morning, as I do every morning, by reading my daughter a book. Today it was Arthur Dorros’ Abuela, illustrated by Elisa Kleven. Abuela is a sweet story about a girl who imagines that she and her grandmother leap into the sky and soar around New York City. Dorros does an elegant job weaving Spanish words and phrases throughout the text, often allowing readers to glean their meaning rather than translating them directly. When Rosalba, the bilingual granddaughter, discovers she can fly, she calls to her grandmother, “Ven, Abuela. Come, Abuela.” Her Spanish-speaking grandmother replies simply, “Sí, quiero volar.” Their language use reflects who they are—a move that plenty of authors who write for adults fail to make. Abuela was one of my favorite books growing up, and it’s one of my 2-year-old’s favorites now. (And yes, we’re reading my worn old copy.) She loves the idea of a flying grandma; she loves learning bits of what she calls Fanish; she loves the bit when Rosalba and Abuela hitch a ride on an airplane, though she worries it might be too loud. Most of all, though, she loves Kleven’s warm yet antic illustrations, which capture urban life in nearly pointillist detail. Every page gives her myriad things to look for and gives us myriad things to discuss. (Where are the dogs? What does Rosalba’s tío sell in his store? Why is it scary when airplanes are loud?) I’ve probably read Abuela 200 times since we swiped it from my parents over the summer, and no two readings have been the same. I don’t start all my days with books as rich as Abuela, though. Sometimes, my daughter chooses the books I wish she wouldn’t: ones that have wandered into our house as gifts, or in a big stack someone was giving away, and that I have yet to purge. These books have garish, unappealing computer-rendered art. Some of them have nursery rhymes as text, and the rest have inane rhymes that don’t quite add up to a story. One or two are Jewish holiday-oriented, and a couple more are tourist souvenirs. Not a single one of these books has a named author or illustrator. None of their publishers, all of which are quite small, responded to my requests for interviews, but I strongly suspect that these books were written and generated by AI—and that I’m not supposed to guess. The maybe-AI book that has lasted the longest in our house is a badly illustrated Old MacDonald Has a Farm. Its animals are inconsistently pixelated around the edges; the pink circles on its farmer’s cheeks vary significantly in size from page to page, and his hands appear to have second thumbs instead of pinkies. All of these irregularities are signs of AI, according to the writer and illustrator Karen Ferreira, who runs an author coaching program called Children’s Book Mastery. On her program’s site, she warns that because AI cannot create a series of images using the same figures, it generates characters that are—even if only subtly—dissimilar from page to page. Noting this in our Old MacDonald, I checked to see whether it was copyrighted, because the US copyright office has ruled out copyright for images created by machine learning. Where other board books have copyright symbols and information—often the illustration and text copyright holders are different—this one reads only, “All rights reserved.” It’s unclear what these “rights” refer to, given that there is no named holder; it’s possible that the publisher is gesturing at the design, but equally possible that the statement is a decoy with no legal meaning. What makes a good children’s book, and how much does it matter if a children’s book is good? I have many objections to maybe-AI books like this one. They’re ugly, whereas all our other children’s books are whimsical, beautiful, or both. They aren’t playful or sly or surprising. Their prose has no rhythm, in contrast to, let’s say, Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance! and Dinosaur Dance!, which have beats that inspire toddlers to leap up and perform. (The author-illustrator Mo Willems has said children’s books are “meant to be played, not just to be read.”) They don’t give my daughter much to notice or me much to riff on, which means she gets sick of them quickly. If she chooses one, she’s often done with it in under a minute. It gives me a vague sting of guilt to donate such uninspiring books, but I still do, since the only other option is the landfill. I imagine they’ll end up there anyway. But I should admit that I also dislike the books that trigger my AI radar—that uncanny-valley tingle you get when something just seems inhuman—out of bias. I am a writer and translator, a person whose livelihood is entirely centered and dependent on living in a society that values human creativity, and just the thought of a children’s book generated by AI upsets me. Some months ago, I decided I wanted to know whether my bias was right. After all, there are legions of bad children’s books written and illustrated (or stock photo–collaged) by humans. Are those books meaningfully and demonstrably different from AI ones? If they are, how big a threat is AI to quality children’s publishing, and does it also threaten children’s learning? In a sense, my questions—not all of which are answerable—boil down to this: What makes a good children’s book, and how much does it matter if a children’s book is good? I’m not the only one worried about this. My brother- and sister-in-law, proud Minnesotans, recently sent us a book called Count On Minnesota—state merch, precisely the sort of thing that’s set my AI alarms ringing in the past—whose publisher, Gibbs Smith, includes a warning on the back beside the copyright notice: “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies and systems.” Count On Minnesota is nearly wordless and has no named author, but the names of its artist and designer, Nicole LaRue and Brynn Evans, sit directly below the AI statement, reminding readers who will be harmed if Count On Minnesota gets scraped to train large vision models despite its copyright language. In this sense, children’s literature is akin to the many, many other fields that generative AI threatens. There’s a danger that machines will take authors’ and illustrators’ jobs, and the data sets on which they were trained have already taken tremendous amounts of intellectual property. Larry Law, executive director of the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association, told me that his organization’s member stores are against AI-created books—and, as a matter of policy, refuse to stock anything they suspect or know was generated by a large language or vision model—because “as an association, we value artists and authors and publishers and fundamentally believe that AI steals from artists.” Still, Law and many of GLIBA’s members are comfortable using AI to streamline workflow. So are many publishers. Both corporate publishing houses and some reputable independent ones are at least beginning to use AI to create the marketing bibles called tip sheets and other internal sales documents. According to industry sources I spoke to on background, some corporate publishers are also testing large language and vision models’ capacities to create children’s books, but their attempts aren’t reaching the market. The illustrations aren’t good enough yet, and it’s still easier to have a human produce text than to make a person coach and edit a large language model. “Kids are weird! They’re joyfully weird, and if you spend time with them and are able to get that weirdness and that playfulness out of them, you can really understand why a moralizing book really comes across as gross.” Other publishers, meanwhile, are shying away. Dan Brewster, owner of Prologue Bookshop in Columbus, Ohio—a shop with an explicit anti-AI policy—told me, “The publisher partners we work with every day have not done anything to make me suspect them” of generating text or illustrations with AI; many, he added, have told him, “‘You’re never going to see that from us.’” (Whether that’s true, of course, remains to be seen.) In contrast, Brewster has grown more cautious in his acquisitions of self-published books and those released by very small independent presses. He sees these as higher AI risks, as does Timothy Otte, a co-owner and buyer at Minneapolis’ Wild Rumpus, a beloved 33-year-old children’s bookstore. Its legacy and reach, he says, means they “get both traditionally published authors and self-published authors reaching out asking you to stock their book. That was true before AI was in the picture. Now, some of those authors that are reaching out, it is clear that what they’re pitching to me was at least partly, if not entirely, generated by AI.” Otte always says no, both on the grounds Law described and because the books are no good. The art often has not just inconsistencies, but errors: Rendering models aren’t great at getting the right number of toes on a paw. The text can be equally full of mistakes, as children’s librarian Sondra Eklund writes in a horrified blog post about acquiring a book about rabbits from children’s publisher Bold Kids, only to discover that she’d bought an AI book so carelessly produced that it informs readers that rabbits “can even make their own clothes…and can help you out with gardening.” (Reviews of Bold Kids’ hundreds of books on Amazon suggest that its rabbit book isn’t the only one with such issues. Bold Kids did not respond to repeated efforts to reach them for comment.) The text of more edited AI books, meanwhile, tends to condescend to young readers. Otte often sees books whose authors have “decided that there is a moral that they want to give to children, and they have asked a large language model to spit out a picture book that shows a kid coming up against some sort of problem and being given a moral solution.” In his experience, that isn’t what children want or how they learn. “Kids are weird!” Otte says. “They’re joyfully weird, and if you spend time with them and are able to get that weirdness and that playfulness out of them, you can really understand why a moralizing book really comes across as gross. The number of times I’ve seen kids make a stank face at a book that’s telling them how to be!” AI could be no menace at all to picture-book classics, but it could make high-quality contemporary board books go extinct. But is a lazy, moralizing AI book any worse than a lazy, moralizing one written by a person? When I put this question to Otte, the only distinction he could come up with was the “ancillary ethical concerns of water usage and the environmental impact that a large language model currently has.” Other book buyers, though, pointed out that while AI can imitate a particular writer or designer’s style or mash multiple perspectives together, it cannot have a point of view of its own. Plenty of big publishers create picture books and board books—which are simple, sturdy texts printed on cardstock heavy enough to be gnawed on by a teething 8-month-old—in-house, using stock photos and releasing them without an author’s name. Very rarely is the result much good, and yet each publisher does have its own visual signature. If you’re a millennial, you can likely close your eyes and summon the museum-text layout of the pages in a DK Eyewitness book. It’s idiosyncratic even if it’s not particularly special. To deny our children even that is to assume, in a sense, that they have no point of view: that they can’t tell one book from another and wouldn’t care if they could. Frankly, though, I’m less concerned with the gap between bad AI and bad human than I am with the yawning chasm between bad AI and good human, since bad children’s books by humans are the ones more likely to become rarer or cease existing. If rendering models get good enough that corporate publishers stop asking humans to slap together, let’s say, stock-photo books about ducks, those books could, in theory, vanish. That doesn’t mean Robert McCloskey’s canonical, beautiful Make Way for Ducklings will go out of print. But it’s much less expensive to publish a book that was written years ago than it is to pay an author and illustrator for something new. It’s also less expensive to print a picture book like Make Way for Ducklings than a board book, with its heavier paper and nontoxic (again: gnawing baby) inks. AI could be no menace at all to picture-book classics, but it could make high-quality contemporary board books go extinct. Only instinct and imagination can tell you what Sandra Boynton means when she writes in ‘Dinosaur Dance!’ that “Iguanodon goes dibbidy DAH.” It doesn’t help that everyone from parents to publishers is susceptible to undervaluing board books. It’s very difficult to argue that the quality of a picture book doesn’t matter, since they are the ones that most children use to learn to read. But it’s easy to dismiss board books, which are intended for children not only too young to read, but too young to even follow a story. Can’t we just show a baby anything? According to Dr. John Hutton, a pediatrician and former children’s bookstore owner who researches the impact reading at home has on toddlers’ brain function and development, we shouldn’t. In fact, we should avoid reading our kids anything that bores us. Beginning in utero, one of the greatest benefits of shared reading is bonding, and unsurprisingly, Hutton has found that the more engaged parents are in the book they’ve chosen, the greater its impact on that front. But reading to babies is also important, he explained, because the more words a child hears, the greater their receptive and expressive vocabularies (that is, the words they know and can say) will be. This, starting around age 1, lets parents and children discuss the books they’re reading, a process that Hutton told me “builds social cognition and later dovetails with empathy.” It does this by training children’s brains to connect language to emotion—and to do so through imagination. Hutton presented this as vital neurological work. “Nothing in the brain comes for free,” he told me, “and unless you practice empathy skills—connecting, getting along, feeling what others are feeling—you’re not going to have as well-developed neural infrastructure to be able to do that.” It’s also a social equalizer. Research has shown that reading aloud exposes children whose parents have lower income levels or educational backgrounds to more words and kinds of syntax than they might otherwise hear—and, Hutton notes, this isn’t a question of proper syntax. Rather, what matters here is creativity. Some of the best board books out there bend or even invent language—only instinct and imagination can tell you what Boynton means when she writes in Dinosaur Dance! that “Iguanodon goes dibbidy DAH”—and this teaches their little listeners how to do the same. Of course, not all good board books’ strength is linguistic. Ideally, Hutton says, a book’s text and illustrations should “recruit both the language and visual parts of your brain to work together to understand what’s going on.” From ages 6 months to 18 months, my daughter was enamored with books from Camilla Reid and Ingela Arrhenius’ Peekaboo series, which have minimal text, cheery yet sophisticated illustrations, and a pop-up or slider on each page. My daughter loved it when I read Peekaboo Pumpkin to her, but she also loved learning to manipulate it herself. It was visually and tactilely appealing enough to become not just a book, but a toy—and it was sturdy enough to do so. She’s got plenty of other books with pop-ups, but Peekaboo Pumpkin and Peekaboo Lion are the only ones she hasn’t more or less destroyed. Reid and Arrhenius publish with Nosy Crow, a London-based independent press. I reached out to ask if the company was concerned about AI threatening its business and got an emphatic no from its preschool publishing director and senior art director, Tor England and Zoë Gregory. England immediately highlighted the physical durability of Nosy Crow’s books. “We believe in a book as an object people want to own,” she said, rather than one meant to be disposable. They invest in them accordingly: England and Gregory visit Arrhenius in Sweden to discuss new ideas and often spend two or three years working on a book. Neither fears that AI could compete with the quality of such painstaking work, which, for the most part, is entirely analog. Some of Nosy Crow’s books do make sounds, though—something I generally hate, but I make an exception for the shockingly realistic toddler giggle in What’s That Noise? Meow! Gregory told me that while working on that book, she couldn’t find a laugh she liked in the sound libraries Nosy Crow normally uses, so she went home, set her iPhone to record, and tickled her daughter. A good board book could become one more educational advantage that accrues disproportionately to the elite. But somebody shopping on Amazon won’t hear that giggle. Nor can an online shopper identify a shoddily printed book, which may well be cheaper than Nosy Crow’s but will certainly withstand less tugging and chewing before it falls apart. A risk that Otte and the other buyers I spoke to identified—and while it serves booksellers’ interests to say this, it is also an entirely reasonable projection—is that while independent bookstores and well-curated libraries will continue to stock high-quality books like Nosy Crow’s, Amazon, which is both the largest book retailer and the largest self-publishing service in the nation, will grow ever fuller of AI dreck. If corporate publishers turn to AI to write and illustrate their board books, this strikes me as very likely to occur. It would mean that parents with the time and resources to browse in person would be likely to provide significantly higher-quality books to their pre-reading-age children than parents searching for “train book for toddlers” online. A good board book could become one more educational advantage that accrues disproportionately to the elite. In Empire of AI, journalist Karen Hao writes that technology revolutions “promise to deliver progress [but have a] tendency instead to reverse it for people out of power, especially the most vulnerable.” She argues that this is “perhaps truer than ever for the moment we now find ourselves in with artificial intelligence.” The key word here is perhaps. As of now, AI children’s books are on the fringes of publishing. Large publishers can choose to keep them that way. Doing so would be a statement of conviction that the quality and humanity of children’s books matter, no matter how young the child in question is. When I asked Hutton, the pediatrician, what worried him most about AI books, he mentioned the example of “lazy writing” they set, which he fears might disincentivize both hard work and creativity. He also pointed to an often-cited MIT study showing that writing with ChatGPT dampened creativity and less fully activated the brain—that is, it’s bad for the authors, not just the readers. Then he said, “You know, there are things we can do versus things we should do as a society, and that’s where we struggle, I think.” On this front, I hope to see no more struggle. We should not give our children, whose brains are vulnerable and malleable, books created by computers. We shouldn’t give them books created carelessly. That’s up to parents and teachers, yes—but it’s also up to authors, illustrators, designers, and publishers. Gregory told me that “there’s a lot of love and warmth and heart” that goes into the books she works on. Rejecting AI is a first step toward a landscape of children’s publishing where that’s always true.

Animals
Business
Education

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Culture

The Connection Between Bats and Coronavirus: Wildlife is not to blame

What exactly is the connection between bats and coronavirus? And how has sheltering-in-place disrupted field research in California and beyond? State and local governments have set restrictions on bat research and rescue in an effort to curtail the spread of the coronavirus. Dr. Winifred Frick, chief scientist of Bat Conservation International, describes how the new restrictions have affected conservation efforts.

Animals
Science
Health

Wings of Hope

“Wings of Hope,” is a film chronicling the re-discovery of a population of wild Harpy Eagles in the Maya Mountains of southern Belize. It details the history of the Belize Foundation and Research and Environmental Education (BFREE) and UNC Wilmington initiative born from this discovery – the Integrated Community-based Harpy Eagle and Avian Conservation Program. Created by Emmy-award winning filmmakers, Richard and Carol Foster of Wildlife Film Productions, this 20-minute documentary is rich with breath-taking footage of adult and juvenile Harpy eagles and other wildlife and vistas found in the pristine tropical forests of the Bladen Nature Reserve. Over the seven year duration of the project, the Fosters followed local people involved as they transition from trainees to conservationists and as their lives are changed through their efforts to save this rare bird and its diminishing habitat.

Animals
Nature
Conservation

When Worlds Collide: A Formosan Black Bear's Deadly Dance with Civilization

This is the true story of one Formosan black bear’s encounter with civilization. A fateful encounter with a wild boar trap in mid-autumn 2019 first brought this bear to national attention. However, after months of recuperation and subsequent release back into the wild, it lingered worryingly near settled areas, damaging orchards and even ransacking a mountain cabin in search of food. Re-released in a remote forested area, the bear set out an incredible journey across arduous terrain in the direction of home. This is the moving story of “711” … also known as “568” – a wild Formosan black bear from Taichung’s Mt. Daxue area. The bear died on the 25th day of its long journey home in May 2022 in the Mt. Wujie region of Nantou County. News of the death was a devastating blow to the hundreds involved in 711/568’s rescue, recovery, and tracking efforts. It also offered a difficult lesson for us all about the work yet ahead for wildlife conservation. This film examines Formosan black bear conservation from multiple perspectives, including those involved in this bear’s rescue and care, living in areas affected by 711/568, and working in the many public and private organizations dedicated to the cause of wildlife conservation. We hope the story told here helps further raise public understanding and concern for wildlife conservation in Taiwan.

Conservation
Inspirational
Animals

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