Great ape expectations

Primate pioneer Jane Goodall regales Houston with chimp tales and a plea tothink first

Dr. Jane Goodall has lived a remarkable life of research and responsibility,which she shared with a rapt audience to the rafters at the Wortham TheaterCenter on Wednesday evening.
Photo courtesy of Jane Goodall Institute
Longtime friends Jane Goodall and Houston Zoo director Rick Barongi posetogether during her visit to the African Forest chimpanzee exhibit.

When you hear the words "epitome of hope," "role model" and "hero" strung together in rapid succession, the names of only a few select individuals could feasibly follow.

Luckily, one such Goliath of admirable achievement was on hand Wednesday night at the Wortham Theater Center, thanks to The Progressive Forum — the one, the only, the Dr. Jane Goodall, the famed pioneer of chimpanzee research at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, and a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

Although Goodall took the podium half an hour later than expected, this modern day fairy godmother — replete with cape and a tinkling accented voice — wasted no time promptly acknowledging those in the balcony with "the distance call of the chimpanzees," which Goodall referred to as "the most evocative greeting."

She saved the "the close-up greeting between two chimps" for Houston Zoo director Rick Barongi, Goodall's friend of almost 20 years, who introduced her. "We're just greeting, not mating, right?" Barongi retorted.

Of course, it's no surprise to anyone that Goodall would be so fluent in chimpanzeespeak. Starting at the ripe age of 26, she officially began her lifelong commitment to studying and understanding the cheeky primate.

But the obsession actually percolated much earlier than that. "I found Tarzan of the Apes at age 10, and that was it — I was in love," she said. "Then he married that other stupid, wimpy Jane, and I knew I'd be a better mate."

Over half a century later — 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of Jane Goodall research — Goodall admits that she discovered much more in the forests of Gombe Stream in what is now Tanzania than a lust for a beefcake in a tattered tunic. "I was at Gombe because I was fascinated by animal behavior," Goodall recalled. "It's amazing how like us chimps are ... or how we're like them, it doesn't matter."

With the breakthrough fueled by David Greybeard, the first chimpanzee ever observed using objects as tools, Goodall came to understand, "Traits we thought were exclusive to humans weren't."

Chimpanzees showed affection, exhibited "dark sides" of their personalities, demonstrated altruism and experienced supportive, familial relationships — all as a result of having and feeling emotions, just like humans. "When we do things, we mean them. They do, too."

In recent years, Goodall has since left the research field in favor of directing her energies to advocacy. "Chimpanzees lead the way — they're like ambassadors, showing us how arrogant we've been," Goodall said. "I began to learn more about what we were doing to the beautiful planet than I wanted to learn."

But Goodall has never been one to sit idly by with knowledge bubbling beneath her. "I wanted to encourage people to spend a little time each day thinking about the consequences of the choices they make."

The Jane Goodall Institute, founded in 1977, not only continues her Gombe research, but establishes innovative, community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, like Roots & Shoots. "How did we come to dominate the planet? It was our brains. So how come we're destroying it?" Goodall posited. "We compromised the future of our youth, but it's not true there's nothing we can do about it."

With convictions so solid and inspiration so profound, it's hard to believe Goodall hailed from humble, poverty-stricken origins. When her mates went off to university, she stayed behind, waiting tables and applying to secretary school, as there was no money to continue her education past secondary school. "My mother always nurtured my scientific curiosity of animals," Goodall remembered. "She always said that if you really want something, you work hard and eventually, you'll find a way."

And indeed, Goodall found her way. A fateful invitation to visit Kenya at age 23 turned into a pivotal opportunity to meet and work with celebrated paleoanthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey. Her work with Leakey eventually landed her in the Ph.D. program at Cambridge — only the eighth person ever to be admitted without a college degree.

"They told me to stop dreaming about that 'Africa nonsense,' " she said. "But life is an effort to fly a little higher, and reach a goal that's a little beyond our reach."

If you ask us, Jane Goodall's done a lot more than flying in her incredible lifetime — she's been soaring full speed ahead.

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Winter weather warning

Arctic air will bring hard freeze to Houston this weekend

Photo by Uliana Sova on Unsplash

This weekend could bring ice to Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond.

With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the nation’s northern tier, a new storm is set to emerge this weekend that could coat roads, trees and power lines with devastating ice across a wide expanse of the South, including Texas.

The storm arriving late this week and into the weekend is shaping up to be a “widespread potentially catastrophic event from Texas to the Carolinas,” said Ryan Maue, a former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“I don’t know how people are going to deal with it,” he said.

Forecasters on Tuesday, January 20 warned that the ice could weigh down trees and power lines, triggering widespread outages.

“If you get a half of an inch of ice — or heaven forbid an inch of ice — that could be catastrophic,” said Keith Avery, CEO of the Newberry Electric Cooperative in South Carolina.

The National Weather Service warned of "great swaths of heavy snow, sleet, and treacherous freezing rain” starting Friday in much of the nation’s midsection and then shifting toward the East Coast through Sunday.

Temperatures will be slow to warm in many areas, meaning ice that forms on roads and sidewalks might stick around, forecasters say.

The exact timing of the approaching storm — and where it is headed — remained uncertain on Tuesday. Forecasters say it can be challenging to predict precisely which areas could see rain and which ones could be punished with ice.

Meteorologists at WFAA say it's too early for an exact forecast across Dallas-Fort Worth. But it's good to start being weather aware.

Here’s what to know:

Cold air clashing with rain to fuel a 'major winter storm’
An extremely cold arctic air mass is set to dive south from Canada, setting up a clash with the cold temperatures and rain that will be streaming eastward across the southern U.S.

“This is extreme, even for this being the peak of winter,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Jackson said of the cold temperatures.

When the cold air meets the rain, the likely result will be “a major winter storm with very impactful weather, with all the moisture coming up from the Gulf and encountering all this particularly cold air that’s spilling in,” Jackson said.

Texas could be a harbinger for other parts of the South
Some of the storm’s earliest impacts could be in Texas on Friday, as the arctic air mass slides south through much of the state, National Weather Service forecaster Sam Shamburger said in a briefing on the storm.

“At the same time, we’re expecting rain to move into much of the state,” Shamburger said.

Low temperatures could fall into the 20s or even the teens in parts of Texas by Saturday, with the potential for a wintery mix of weather in the northern part of the state.

Forecasters cautioned that significant uncertainty remains, particularly over how much ice or snow could fall across north and central Texas.

“It’s going to be a very difficult forecast,” Shamburger said.

An atmospheric river could set up across the Southern U.S.
An atmospheric river of moisture could be in place by the weekend, pulling precipitation across Texas and other states along the Gulf Coast and continuing across Georgia and the Carolinas, forecasters said.

“Global models are painting a concerning picture of what this weekend could look like, with an increasingly strong signal for ice storm potential across North Georgia and portions of central Georgia,” according to the National Weather Service's Atlanta office.

Highway and air travel could be tangled by the storm
Travel is a major concern, as Southern states have less equipment to remove snow and ice from roads, and extremely cold temperatures expected after the storm could prevent ice from melting for several days.

The storm is also expected to impact many of the nation’s major hub airports, including those in Dallas-Fort Worth; Atlanta; Memphis, Tennessee; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Polar air from Canada to keep northern states in a deep freeze
Unusually cold temperatures are already in place across much of the northern tier of the U.S., but the blast of arctic air expected later this week is “will be the coldest yet,” Jackson said.

“There’s a large sprawling vortex of low pressure centered over Hudson Bay,” Jackson said of the sea in northern Canada that’s connected to the Arctic Ocean. “And this is dominating the weather over all of North America.”

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