A Flat Tire and a Dead Battery - redux
8/31/23 – The climate and biodiversity crises are inseparable, and can only be solved together
Hello everyone:
I’m in a canoe or island campsite somewhere in Muscongus Bay, so am reposting this writing from a year ago. It’s been edited and updated. I’ll be back next week with something new.
As always, please remember to scroll past the end of the post to read this week’s curated Anthropocene news.
Now on to this week’s writing:
I’m picking up where I left off in my essay Waves and the Fabric of Life, making the point that the global climate and biodiversity crises are inextricable from each other, and must be dealt with together.
This simple but incredibly important idea – that we need to stop erasing plant and animal communities at the same time we decarbonize civilization – has haunted me for some time. I think it’s one of the reasons I finally started writing this Field Guide. Watching nature diminish by the day and knowing the planet is also warming dangerously is bad enough; watching policy-makers focus (sort of) on the warming but not on the loss of species and ecosystems is even worse.
The title of this week’s writing comes from Brian O’Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature (CFN), in an October 2021 New York Times article on the 15th U.N. Biodiversity Conference. The Campaign for Nature has at the heart of its mission a recognition that our heating of the Earth’s atmosphere (and oceans) is inseparable from all the other ways we’re rapidly erasing plants and animals. Here’s part of what O’Donnell said to the Times:
When you have two concurrent existential crises, you don’t get to pick only one to focus on – you must address both no matter how challenging… This is the equivalent of having a flat tire and a dead battery in your car at the same time. You’re still stuck if you only fix one.
The Times article opens with the observation that the Biodiversity Conference (“The Most Important Global Meeting You’ve Probably Never Heard Of,” as they called it) was occurring in the same month as the massive COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, but receiving little of its fanfare. It’s clear that many scientists understand the biodiversity crisis is just as important as the climate crisis but know that it isn’t getting the attention it deserves.
There’s so much activist effort to wake up the global community to the realities of climate change that the “rapid collapse of species and systems that collectively sustain life on earth” isn’t getting equal time in public discussion or equal attention in government policy. I’m not suggesting we work less hard at the climate conundrum; I’m saying that both are necessary:
“If the global community continues to see it as a side event, and they continue thinking that climate change is now the thing to really listen to, by the time they wake up on biodiversity it might be too late,” said Francis Ogwal, one of the leaders of the working group charged with shaping an agreement among nations.
What is biodiversity? At heart, biodiversity is a fundamental measure of health within natural communities. The kinds of diversity that constitute biodiversity are a) diversity of ecosystems (a full variety of healthy habitats), b) diversity of species (a healthy array of the species that make up each ecosystem), and c) diversity of genetics (provided by a healthy population within each species). The more diverse these interwoven natural systems are, the more resilient they are to disturbances, whether fire, flood, or human interference.
But as we’ve erased or decimated habitats and reduced the number and populations of species, especially keystone species, the ecological fabric has torn and frayed until many of the landscapes we or our ancestors knew intimately for millennia became unrecognizable. “Lose too many players in an ecosystem,” as the Times notes, “and it will stop working.”
We have somehow forgotten that we rely entirely on local and global living communities for our very existence. It’s a measure of how bizarre our modern world has become that such a basic fact of life is little known or rarely discussed. As 20th century British naturalist Gerald Durrell put it,
You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that you have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is not only vital for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself -- a point that seems to escape many people.
A Times article from July of 2022 discusses the latest report from Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (you can read the draft summary for policymakers here), which reminded us that half of humanity relies daily on wild plants and animals for our survival:
Billions of people worldwide rely on some 50,000 wild species for food, energy, medicine and income, according to a sweeping new scientific report that concluded humans must make dramatic changes… to address an accelerating biodiversity crisis.
This is the same group, by the way, that warned us in a landmark 2019 report that at this early stage of the Anthropocene nearly a million species are at risk of extinction.
As I’ve written from the beginning of this Field Guide, while climate change is an existential threat to the current array of life on Earth, it is only one symptom of the Anthropocene. It is arguably the greatest single threat to life in the litany of planetary changes we’re making (though a good case can be made for the size of our population and its multiple impacts) but there’s really no rational way to isolate climate change from our broader habit of ecological disruption. As massive as the greenhouse gas problem is, we have to see it and approach it through the larger lens of protecting life on Earth.
As a quick thought experiment, imagine that all of a sudden – poof! – we flicked a switch to stop burning fossil fuels and flicked another to suck the excess CO2 and methane out of the atmosphere. While we’d lose the terrifying multiplier effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the already increased rate of extinctions, that increased extinction rate would still be there. Why? Because 1) deforestation and other habitat loss are also a major driver of global warming, and 2) all of the other reasons for accelerated extinctions would still be there: industrial agriculture, chemical and plastic and nutrient pollution, ocean acidification and deoxygenation, deforestation, desertification, invasive species we’ve introduced around the world, and much more.
As just one example, North American grassland birds have lost over 50% of their breeding population in the last fifty years because of habitat loss and pesticide use. Keeping global warming below 1.5°C will help the remaining birds, but it won’t slow the loss from the main causes.
The reverse is also true. If poof!, we suddenly all engaged in a civilizational-scale project to rewild the majority of the globe’s habitats – which we really, really should do – and resuscitated tens of thousands of species living on the edge of extinction, but did so while still pumping out a supervolcano’s worth of CO2 every year, much of that rewilding would be for nothing. We cannot successfully revitalize the familiar and beloved wetlands, forests, and coastal waters that surround us without also turning down the heat on the kettle.
Before talking about the wrong and right ways to address the climate/biodiversity conundrum, I should back up for a moment and describe the three fundamental ways in which climate change and biodiversity loss are entwined:
The fossil fuels we burn are much more than the source of the greenhouse gases upending the atmosphere and oceans. They’re 1) the source of the plastics and other toxins now ubiquitous in habitats across the globe, 2) the source of the fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that have decimated bird, insect, and soil microbe populations on land and fish/invertebrate populations in waterways and in oceanic dead zones, and 3) the source, more generally, of what has been called the Great Acceleration, a cheerful-sounding name for the 20th century explosion in human impacts which many scientists believe should be identified as the start of the Anthropocene.
Climate change is rapidly worsening the prospects of plant and animal communities already suffering from the impacts of biodiversity loss. Think, for example, of heavily logged forests or overfished waters now also dealing with heat-induced changes that force species to move or die. Unnaturally prolonged fire seasons or intensified drought on land, and increasingly warmer, oxygen-deprived waters, diminish even the most biodiverse wetlands or coral reefs. Thanks to our supervolcanic CO2 production, the oceans haven’t been this acidic in 26,000 years or this warm for 100,000 years, which means an untold number of species will have trouble adapting.
Conversely, the destruction of ecosystems has made it much harder for the planet to cope with our excess production of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. We’ve erased about half of the Earth’s forests. A greener world absorbs more CO2. Every day that we further reduce plant communities on land (forests, peatlands, grasslands, etc.) and at sea (kelp and mangrove forests, salt marshes) is another day making the future less stable.
If you want to read more on the interconnectedness of the two crises, with lots of solution-based discussion, check out the U.N., the Climate Reality Project, the Good Food Institute, The Conversation, and the Guardian. The Guardian also provides excellent comprehensive biodiversity-focused coverage of the Anthropocene in their “Age of Extinction” section.
For the ultimate source, though, take a look at the 2021 report from the joint session of the IPBES (The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) which focused on the intersection of climate and biodiversity. This is the scientific epicenter of the shift in focus to a two-pronged approach to mending the Anthropocene.
So, yes, we have to tackle all of this at once. “It is clear that we cannot solve [the global biodiversity and climate crises] in isolation – we either solve both or we solve neither,” says Norway’s climate and environment minister.
The good news is that there are so many ways to move the needle on both at the same time that we can all get busy helping right now.
And that’s what I talk about in my follow-up to this essay, A Flat Tire and a Dead Battery, Part 2.
Thanks for sticking with me.
In other Anthropocene news:
From Audubon, the amazing story of Project Puffin here in midcoast Maine, now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Project Puffin, founded by Steve Kress, was a pioneering seabird colony restoration effort done at a time when no one thought it could be done. Nurtured by hand, puffins were reintroduced to Eastern Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay so they could imprint on the island and return after years at sea to nest naturally. The methods Kress and others pioneered have been used all over the world to restore threatened or extinct seabird colonies, and are now being used to shift vulnerable populations to higher ground as sea level rises. Highly recommend you read this story.
From Yale E360, you can watch the winner of their film contest, Vanishing Oasis, about the depletion of Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the consequences for the wildlife and humans across the entire region. Millions of birds, representing about 200 species, rely on the lake. Many of those birds are migrating to the lake from across the Americas. The main problem is that 68% of the water diverted from the lake is used to grow alfalfa and hay for livestock. That farming generates a mere 0.02% of the state’s GDP. Without that diversion, the lake would be 14 feet higher.
From HeatMap, an insider’s personal account of the last days of pushing through the Inflation Reduction Act past Joe Manchin and onto the desk of President Biden. It’s been one year since the passing of the IRA, and still not enough people know how astonishingly successful it has been and will continue to be in changing the energy and emissions landscape of the U.S.
From the Center for Biological Diversity, a petition to support the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act, which “would ban many of the most dangerous pesticides, introduce robust protections for farmworkers, and close loopholes that have allowed the pesticide industry to circumvent important safety reviews for decades.”
From Hakai and Grist, “The Straw that Hijacked the Plastics Pollution Movement,” a short article on how the obsession with banning plastic straws took energy out of the larger effort to regulate and ban single-use plastics.
From the AP, a comprehensive and well-illustrated article on efforts to save grassland bird species amid the severe decline of grasslands and prairies. Industrial agriculture and overgrazing have eliminated much of the habitat, but so too has the regrowth of trees and shrubs in what should be grasslands. Good grazing management and prescribed burns are proving essential to protect what’s left.
From the Guardian, the carbon offset market seems to be collapsing, which makes sense, given the fraudulent nature of their claim to protect forests and reduce emissions.
From the Nation, a dark, despairing but clear-eyed assessment of the fate of the world in a rapidly-changing climate: “We are Witnessing the First Stages of Civilization’s Collapse.” If you’re a fan of Jared Diamond’s Collapse, you’ll know exactly where the author of this article is coming from.
From Resilience, a long personal essay, “Farm Like an Ecosystem,” on enriching the land as you convert it to multifaceted, eco-friendly agriculture.
From the IMF (International Monetary Fund), an updated report on the trillions of dollars that governments around the world spend subsidizing fossil fuels. It is, as John Kerry has said, the definition of insanity, and we’re paying more per year now than ever before.
From Anthropocene, the potential for sequestering CO2 in vast quantities by scattering rock dust on farmland around the world. The process is essentially an acceleration of the natural planetary process of capturing CO2 via the slow erosion of mountains. How we actually grind up that much basalt and move it affordably across the globe isn’t answered here, but the idea is at least interesting.
There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
Thanks for the substance, for your diligence and hard work.