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Our Response to Climate Change Is Missing Something Big, Scientists Say
Our Response to Climate Change Is Missing Something Big, Scientists Say
By Catrin Einhorn, 6/10/21, New York Times Some environmental solutions are win-win, helping to rein in global warming & protecting biodiversity, too. But others address one crisis at the expense of the other. Growing trees on grasslands, for example, can destroy the plant & animal life of a rich ecosystem, even if the new trees ultimately suck up carbon. What to do? ============= Unless the world stops treating climate change & biodiversity collapse as separate issues, neither problem can be addressed effectively, acc. to a report issued Thurs by researchers from two leading int'l scientific panels. €śThese two topics are more deeply intertwined than originally thought,€ť said Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chairman of the scientific steering committee that produced the report. They are also inextricably tied to human well being. But global policies usually target one or the other, leading to unintended consequences. €śIf you look at just one single angle, you miss a lot of things,€ť said Yunne-Jai Shin, a marine biologist with the French National Research Inst. for Sustainable Development & a co-author of the report. €śEvery action counts.€ť How we got here =============== For years, one set of scientists & policymakers has studied & tried to tackle the climate crisis, warning the world of the dangers from greenhouse gases that have been building up in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The lead culprit: burning fossil fuels. Another group has studied & tried to tackle the biodiversity crisis, raising alarms about extinctions & ecosystem collapse. The lead culprits: habitat loss because of agriculture, &, at sea, overfishing. The two groups have operated largely in their own silos. But their subjects are connected by something elemental, literally: carbon itself. The same element that makes up heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane & soot is also a fundamental building block of the natural world. It helps form the very tissue of plants & animals on earth. Its stored in forests, wetlands, grasslands & on the ocean floor. In fact, land & water ecosystems are already stashing away half of human-generated emissions. Another connection between climate & biodiversity: People have created emergencies on both fronts by using the planets resources in unsustainable ways. For the last couple of decades, the climate crisis has largely overshadowed the biodiversity crisis, perhaps because its threat seemed more dire. But the balance may be shifting. Scientists warn that declines in biodiversity can lead to ecosystem collapse, threatening humanitys food & water supply. €śClimate change of 4-5 degrees is just such an existential threat to people, its hard to imagine,€ť said Paul Leadley, one of the authors & an ecologist at Paris-Saclay Univ. And, he continued, €śif we lose a really large fraction of species on earth, thats an existential threat.€ť Whats not working =================== Businesses & countries have increasingly looked to nature as a way to offset their emissions, for example, by planting trees to absorb carbon. But the science is clear: Nature cant store enough carbon to let us keep on spewing greenhouse gases at our current rates. €śA clear first priority is emissions reductions, emissions reductions & emissions reductions,€ť Dr. Pörtner said. Just last month, the worlds leading energy agency declared that if the world wants to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, nations would need to stop approving new coal, oil & gas projects immediately. To make matters worse, some measures being used or proposed to address climate change could devastate biodiversity. €śSome people are out there selling this message that if we cover the whole planet with trees, that will solve the climate problem,€ť Dr. Leadley said. €śThats a mistaken message on many levels.€ť In Brazil, parts of the Cerrado, a biodiverse savanna that stores large amounts of carbon, have been planted with monocultures of eucalyptus & pine in an attempt to meet a global reforestation goal. The result, researchers have written separately, is an €śimpending ecological disaster€ť because they destroy the native ecosystem & the livelihoods of local communities, including Indigenous people. Europe once hoped to lead the world in biofuels until realizing they led to deforestation & increased food prices. Another kind of bioenergy, wood pellets, is currently booming in the southeastern US, despite concerns about pollution & biodiversity loss. Climate interventions tend to hurt biodiversity more than the other way round, & some trade-offs must occur, the authors wrote. Solar farms, for example, eat up wildlife habitat, a particular concern for places with threatened species. But, critically, they generate clean energy. The report highlights ways to mitigate the damage to biodiversity, for example by grazing livestock around them, improving carbon soil stocks & avoiding intact habitat. Pollinator gardens on solar farms can help nurture insects & birds. While wind farms can hurt migrating birds, the authors note that modern turbines cause much less damage. The solutions -============ By protecting & restoring nature, the report said, we can safeguard biodiversity, help limit warming, improve human well being & even find protection from the consequences of climate change, like intensified flooding & storms. In the Casamance region of Senegal, for example, local communities restored mangroves & adopted sustainable fishing measures, improving their catch, bringing back dolphins & 20 species of fish, storing carbon & protecting their coastline, said Pamela McElwee, an enviro anthropologist at Rutgers who was one of the authors. €śMangroves are a really special type of ecosystem,€ť she said, €śin that they do it all for humans.€ť While mangroves are themselves vulnerable to climate change, Dr. McElwee said they appear less threatened than once thought, because restoration efforts are working. In the Hindu Kush mtns of S Asia, a project has conserved an area about the size of Belgium, restoring high-altitude forests & rangelands & protecting threatened snow leopards & musk deer, the report says, while keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. The 1.3 million people who live there, straddling Nepal, India & the Tibet Region of China, have seen enhanced household incomes thru tourism & sustainable farming. Urban areas, too, can do their part with native trees, green spaces & coastal ecosystems, the researchers said. The report was the first collaboration between the Intergovt Panel on Climate Change & the Intergovt Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services. John P. Holdren, an enviro scientist at Harvard & a former White House science adviser who was not involved in the report, called it €śa must-read for our time.€ť https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/c...te-change.html |
Our Response to Climate Change Is Missing Something Big,Scientists Say
On 11/06/2021 10:55, David P wrote:
Our Response to Climate Change Is Missing Something Big, Scientists Say By Catrin Einhorn, 6/10/21, New York Times Some environmental solutions are win-win, helping to rein in global warming & protecting biodiversity, too. But others address one crisis at the expense of the other. Growing trees on grasslands, for example, can destroy the plant & animal life of a rich ecosystem, even if the new trees ultimately suck up carbon. What to do? ============= Unless the world stops treating climate change & biodiversity collapse as separate issues, neither problem can be addressed effectively, acc. to a report issued Thurs by researchers from two leading int'l scientific panels. €śThese two topics are more deeply intertwined than originally thought,€ť said Hans-Otto Pörtner, co-chairman of the scientific steering committee that produced the report. They are also inextricably tied to human well being. But global policies usually target one or the other, leading to unintended consequences. €śIf you look at just one single angle, you miss a lot of things,€ť said Yunne-Jai Shin, a marine biologist with the French National Research Inst. for Sustainable Development & a co-author of the report. €śEvery action counts.€ť How we got here =============== For years, one set of scientists & policymakers has studied & tried to tackle the climate crisis, warning the world of the dangers from greenhouse gases that have been building up in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The lead culprit: burning fossil fuels. Another group has studied & tried to tackle the biodiversity crisis, raising alarms about extinctions & ecosystem collapse. The lead culprits: habitat loss because of agriculture, &, at sea, overfishing. The two groups have operated largely in their own silos. But their subjects are connected by something elemental, literally: carbon itself. The same element that makes up heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane & soot is also a fundamental building block of the natural world. It helps form the very tissue of plants & animals on earth. Its stored in forests, wetlands, grasslands & on the ocean floor. In fact, land & water ecosystems are already stashing away half of human-generated emissions. Another connection between climate & biodiversity: People have created emergencies on both fronts by using the planets resources in unsustainable ways. For the last couple of decades, the climate crisis has largely overshadowed the biodiversity crisis, perhaps because its threat seemed more dire. But the balance may be shifting. Scientists warn that declines in biodiversity can lead to ecosystem collapse, threatening humanitys food & water supply. €śClimate change of 4-5 degrees is just such an existential threat to people, its hard to imagine,€ť said Paul Leadley, one of the authors & an ecologist at Paris-Saclay Univ. And, he continued, €śif we lose a really large fraction of species on earth, thats an existential threat.€ť Whats not working =================== Businesses & countries have increasingly looked to nature as a way to offset their emissions, for example, by planting trees to absorb carbon. But the science is clear: Nature cant store enough carbon to let us keep on spewing greenhouse gases at our current rates. €śA clear first priority is emissions reductions, emissions reductions & emissions reductions,€ť Dr. Pörtner said. Just last month, the worlds leading energy agency declared that if the world wants to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, nations would need to stop approving new coal, oil & gas projects immediately. To make matters worse, some measures being used or proposed to address climate change could devastate biodiversity. €śSome people are out there selling this message that if we cover the whole planet with trees, that will solve the climate problem,€ť Dr. Leadley said. €śThats a mistaken message on many levels.€ť In Brazil, parts of the Cerrado, a biodiverse savanna that stores large amounts of carbon, have been planted with monocultures of eucalyptus & pine in an attempt to meet a global reforestation goal. The result, researchers have written separately, is an €śimpending ecological disaster€ť because they destroy the native ecosystem & the livelihoods of local communities, including Indigenous people. Europe once hoped to lead the world in biofuels until realizing they led to deforestation & increased food prices. Another kind of bioenergy, wood pellets, is currently booming in the southeastern US, despite concerns about pollution & biodiversity loss. Climate interventions tend to hurt biodiversity more than the other way round, & some trade-offs must occur, the authors wrote. Solar farms, for example, eat up wildlife habitat, a particular concern for places with threatened species. But, critically, they generate clean energy. The report highlights ways to mitigate the damage to biodiversity, for example by grazing livestock around them, improving carbon soil stocks & avoiding intact habitat. Pollinator gardens on solar farms can help nurture insects & birds. While wind farms can hurt migrating birds, the authors note that modern turbines cause much less damage. The solutions -============ By protecting & restoring nature, the report said, we can safeguard biodiversity, help limit warming, improve human well being & even find protection from the consequences of climate change, like intensified flooding & storms. In the Casamance region of Senegal, for example, local communities restored mangroves & adopted sustainable fishing measures, improving their catch, bringing back dolphins & 20 species of fish, storing carbon & protecting their coastline, said Pamela McElwee, an enviro anthropologist at Rutgers who was one of the authors. €śMangroves are a really special type of ecosystem,€ť she said, €śin that they do it all for humans.€ť While mangroves are themselves vulnerable to climate change, Dr. McElwee said they appear less threatened than once thought, because restoration efforts are working. In the Hindu Kush mtns of S Asia, a project has conserved an area about the size of Belgium, restoring high-altitude forests & rangelands & protecting threatened snow leopards & musk deer, the report says, while keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. The 1.3 million people who live there, straddling Nepal, India & the Tibet Region of China, have seen enhanced household incomes thru tourism & sustainable farming. Urban areas, too, can do their part with native trees, green spaces & coastal ecosystems, the researchers said. The report was the first collaboration between the Intergovt Panel on Climate Change & the Intergovt Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services. John P. Holdren, an enviro scientist at Harvard & a former White House science adviser who was not involved in the report, called it €śa must-read for our time.€ť https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/c...te-change.html https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/SvYAA...8rZ/s-l300.jpg -- Max Demian |
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