arthropods
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Insects are vanishing even in a pristine tropical forest, and an ecologist calls this "one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read.”
The climate-change fire alarm from Northern California.
The day of reckoning isn’t in the future. It is now.
Big deadly fires are nothing new to California, particularly during fire season when the Santa Ana or Diablo winds blow hot and dry, making tinder out of trees and bushes that have been baking all summer long.
But the firestorm now raging through Northern California isn’t the typical wildfire. For one thing, it’s not just one fire but close to two dozen. For another, these fires are not only threatening hard-to-reach rural or mountains area, but they also have torn through suburban neighborhoods. More than 3,500 homes, commercial buildings and other structures have been reduced to ash. The Tubbs fire jumped across the 101 Freeway in Santa Rosa, for heaven’s sake.
The flames moved so fast that they caught people unaware and unprepared to flee. As of Wednesday, when the wind picked up and shifted the flames toward more populated communities, the death toll stood at 21 people, with more than 500 still missing. By Thursday morning, fire officials believe, some of the individual fires may meet and merge into one mega-fire.
At this point the fires rank collectively as the deadliest blaze in California since the Oakland Hills fire in 1991, which claimed 25 lives. The fires are also unusually destructive; they have burned more structures than the Oakland Hills fire, the Cedar fire that raged through rural communities in San Diego County in 2003, or the Station fire that burned through the Angeles National Forest in 2009. When this is over, it may well be the state’s worst fire catastrophe in recorded history by any measure.
This is not just bad luck. Coming on the heels of other large-scale natural disasters — Houston inundated by a slow-moving tropical storm, swaths of Florida and the Caribbean ripped to shreds by a monster hurricane, much of Puerto Rico leveled by an equally powerful hurricane, a handful of Western states swept by massive fires that burned up millions of acres — one can’t help but see a disturbing pattern emerge. Those superstorms that scientists warned would result from climate change? They are here. The day of reckoning isn’t in the future. It is now.
We don’t yet know what started the fires in Northern California, but we have a good idea of what made them so destructive. Authorities blame a combination of factors: winds so strong they knocked down power lines, extremely dry conditions, and an abundant supply of combustible material from a years-long drought that killed millions of the state’s trees or left them vulnerable to insect infestations. Ironically, this year’s unusually rainy winter probably contributed to the problem by producing burnable new growth.
All of those factors are exacerbated by the warming world. Hotter summers yield more fuel for fires and stronger winds to fan the flames. And this summer was California’s hottest on record, a milestone dramatically illustrated when San Francisco hit 106 degrees on Sept. 1 during a statewide heat wave.
Similarly, scientists say climate change doesn’t cause hurricanes, but it can make them bigger and more destructive. Higher air temperatures mean more evaporation and heavier rains outside of drought zones, and warmer seas intensify the size and fury of the storms themselves. It’s a double whammy that has contributed to an unusually severe hurricane season this year.
Burning fossil fuels is not the only human activity that contributes to the destruction wrought by wildfires and hurricanes. So does the relentless march of humans to develop land in danger spots — a 500-year flood plain, an unstable hillside or a historical fire corridor. And in California, aggressive fire suppression has impeded the natural burn cycle in the state’s wooded areas so that there’s more fuel when the massive fires do take hold.
“These kinds of catastrophes have happened and they’ll continue to happen.” Gov. Jerry Brown observed at a news briefing Wednesday. “That’s the way it is with a warming climate, dry weather and reducing moisture.”
California is fortunate to have a governor who understands the perils of ignoring climate change and is aggressively pushing policies to mitigate its future harm. Unfortunately, that puts him at odds with a head-in-the-sand president who blithely disregards the obvious connection between the warming climate and the multiple federal disaster areas he’s been forced to declare in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and, now, California.
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19 Western species won’t receive federal protections.
The animals range from minuscule Nevada mollusks to dwindling Pacific walruses.
On Oct. 4, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that 25 animals were not warranted for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Nineteen of those species — ranging from a sooty-colored woodpecker that hunts beetles in burned forests, to tiny snails found only in a few isolated springs in the Great Basin desert — live in the West. In no case did the Service find the species’ numbers to be increasing at this time; still, the Service concluded that none were in danger of disappearing altogether in the future. Here are the Western species that didn’t make the cut:
14 different species of Nevada springsnail
A surprising diversity of these minuscule molluscs lives in freshwater springs scattered across the Great Basin desert of Nevada and Utah. But those tiny aquatic havens are challenged by the region’s growing aridity: As groundwater pumping increases, some springs will run dry, according to the Service’s assessment. For example, one of the three springs where a springsnail called the Corn Creek Pyrg dwells is likely to dry up in the coming years because of groundwater pumping. As the water goes, so will that population. But the species is not a candidate for listing, because two other populations will remain. Thirteen other springsnail species are also not candidates.
Black-backed woodpecker
These dusky-backed birds blend in against the burned trees where they often forage. Because they have only three toes on each foot, they are not the most agile climbers, but their modified feet — and heads — make them excellent at clinging to burned trees and excavating beetle larvae. Though their range extends across the boreal forests of the northern U.S. and southern Canada, black-backed woodpeckers are rare. While petitioners for listing argued that the woodpeckers in the Pacific Northwest and in the Badlands of South Dakota were unique enough to warrant separate protections — and might even be two new subspecies, based on genetic research — the Service disagreed.
Boreal Toad
Living in shallow, slow-moving water in high elevation forests and meadows in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, boreal toads are dwindling mainly because of chytrid fungus, an infection that's wiped out amphibians across the planet. It’s unknown how many boreal toads are left. Toads with chytridiomycosis stop absorbing electrolytes through their skin; eventually, their hearts stop. The Service believes that the toads will develop adequate resistance to the chytrid fungus over the next 50 years to survive this global epidemic, and that climate change will not further decimate the toads’ remaining populations in the meantime.
Fisher
Close relatives of otters, minks and weasels, fishers are among the only predators capable of taking down porcupines. These tough little solitary creatures live in complex, mature forests, where they den in naturally occurring cavities in downed timber and old snags. Fur trappers decimated fisher populations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The northern Rocky Mountain population, ranging from northern Idaho to southwestern Montana, has been found to be genetically distinct from other fisher populations, but it’s unknown how many count among its numbers. The species was rejected for listing because the Service found that trapping — which continues legally in Montana and incidentally in Idaho — does not pose a significant threat to the animals.
Great Sand Dunes Tiger Beetle
This half-inch, brown and white beetle, with an iridescent green and brown head and giant chomping mandibles, is adapted to life on the sand. It’s covered in white hairs that protect it from abrasion, and it burrows into the sand to get out of the heat and cold. It’s unknown how many of these shiny arthropods, which live only in southern Colorado’s Great Sand Dune formation, exist, or how connected to one another their sub-populations are. According to the Service, neither gas and oil leases held by private corporations on tiger beetle habitat, nor future predictions of a hotter and drier climate, nor ongoing trampling by sand dune tourists, elk, or ranched bison pose enough danger to the endemic beetle for its existence to be in jeopardy.
Pacific Walrus
One of the largest fin-footed mammals in the world, the Pacific walrus lives in the shallow continental shelf waters of the Bering and Chukchi seas, where it depends on patches of frozen pack ice to reach offshore breeding and feeding areas. It’s unknown how many Pacific walruses remain. Their migration patterns are intertwined with sea ice patterns: In the winter, they spend time on Bering Sea ice. As that ice melts, females and juveniles migrate north to feeding areas in the Chuchki sea, where sea ice historically has remained year-round. The Service agreed in 2011 that the Pacific walrus was sliding toward extinction and declared its listing under the ESA “warranted but precluded.” Yes, the walrus was going extinct and should be protected by listing, the agency decided, but other listings were more pressing. Now, nearly seven years later, the Service has backtracked. While acknowledging that sea ice loss from climate change is the biggest threat to the pinniped’s survival, the Service concluded that the magnitude of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on marine ecosystems — including sea ice loss, prey reduction, and walrus responses — can’t accurately be predicted beyond 2060. The Service further found that Pacific walruses will be able to adapt to using terrestrial habitat, rather than ice, for breeding and feeding.
Maya L. Kapoor is an associate editor with High Country News. Follow her at @Kapoor_ML
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TEDxSydney
Following the family tradition, Chris Darwin is leading the fight to protect animals from extinction.
Great, great grandson of Charles Darwin says we must change our diet to prevent more wildlife dying off.
Following the family tradition, Chris Darwin is leading the fight to protect animals from extinction
Great, great grandson of Charles Darwin says we must change our diet to prevent more wildlife dying off
Jane Dalton @IndyVoices Sunday 8 October 2017 00:00 BST
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The Independent Online
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“Chip is much more popular than me everywhere we go,” Chris Darwin says, jovially co-operating by posing for photos with the toy bald eagle he carries on his shoulder. “I nicked him from my children’s bedroom and he gets lots of attention.”
To meet Mr Darwin, laidback, cheerful and ultra-friendly, you would never guess he tried to commit suicide 26 years ago. He’s perfectly open about it, as much as he is passionate about his new work that sprang from the famous surname.
Mr Darwin’s great, great grandfather, Charles, may have developed the theory of the origin of species but today his descendant has picked up the evolutionary science baton to defend mass extinctions of species.
“We all have crucibles,” he says of the dark period when, aged 30, he tried to end his life by cycling over a cliff (he was saved by a random tree branch). “Critical moments when something normally bad happens that changes the rest of your life, and mine was this suicide event. Slowly I came to the concept that I needed purpose in life.”
Darwin the younger looked at all the world’s big problems – starvation, polluted water, disease – and settled on the crisis of mass extinctions as one he felt he wanted to help tackle. “So in 1991 I set off down that road.”
Bird man: Chris Darwin is making it his mission to halt wildlife decline (Jane Dalton)
When asked to what extent he was influenced by his legendary ancestor’s work in identifying the origins of man, he bursts into a roar of laughter. “It was entirely independent,” he insists in a voice heavy with irony.
Chris Darwin, 56, had come to London from his home in Australia for a groundbreaking conference attempting to tackle the growing crisis of the world’s rapidly diminishing wildlife, and one of the key causes of that loss – worldwide demand for meat.
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More than 50 of the best minds in the fields of ecology, agriculture, public health, biology, oceanography, eco-investment and food retailing joined forces over two days to brainstorm ideas on how to stem the rapid shrinkage of the natural world caused by damaging agricultural practices.
The Extinction and Livestock Conference, with at least 500 delegates, was the world’s first ever conference examining how modern meat production affects life on Earth, and, put simply, it was designed to find ways to revolutionise the world’s food and farming systems to prevent mass species extinctions.
“We have to stop this,” says Mr Darwin, and he recalls how his great, great grandfather regretted on his death not having done more for other animals – a sentiment that shaped his decision to turn around his “self-indulgent, selfish” life, which involved working in advertising, and do something for the planet.
Wildlife under attack
The fact that the food on our plates is a major cause of shocking declines in wildlife – ranging from elephants and jaguar to barn owls, water vole and bumble bees – may come as a surprise to many. But for the experts gathered for the conference the link was clear. What was less easy to see was how to force practical global change.
Nobody can be in any doubt about the alarming rate at which animals, reptiles and birds are becoming extinct. The journal Science says we are wiping out species at 1,000 times their natural rate.
In the past 40 years alone half the world’s wildlife species have been lost, with conservation giant the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) predicting Earth is on course to lose two-thirds of its species within the next three years.
Marco Lambertini, director-general of WWF International, could not have put it more starkly: “Lose biodiversity, and the natural world – including the life-support systems as we know them – will collapse.”
Changing our spots: if we don't change our diets then animals, such as jaguar, face extinction (AFP/Getty)
The depth of the crisis was underlined earlier this year when scientists announced we were already living through an era of the world’s sixth mass extinction – caused by human activity. What was happening was so urgent, they warned, it should be termed not “mass extinction” but “biological annihilation”.
The researchers revealed, in the journal Nature, their findings that tens of thousands of species – including a quarter of all mammals and 13 per cent of birds – are now threatened with extinction. The researchers, who studied 27,600 species, said: “Dwindling population sizes and range-shrinkages amount to a massive anthropogenic erosion of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services essential to civilisation.”
And it’s not just land mammals that are disappearing. Last year a study in the journal Science suggested sharks, whales and sea turtles were dying in disproportionately greater numbers than smaller animals – the reverse of earlier extinctions.
The link with food
Climate change and hunting are usually blamed for declines in the natural world but at Extinction Conference 17, WWF revealed fresh research showing 60 per cent of global biodiversity loss is down to meat-based diets.
Its report, Appetite for Destruction, laid bare how the vast scale of cereals and soya grown specifically to feed animals farmed for meat is soaking up great tracts of land, taking huge quantities of fresh water and eliminating wild species.
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What’s more, the study says, the world is consuming more animal protein than it needs: the average UK consumption of protein is between 64g and 88g, compared with guidelines of 45g-55g. Poultry such as chicken and duck are the biggest users of crop feed worldwide, with pigs second.
One study found that 60 per cent of EU cereal production (and 67 per cent in the US) is used as animal feed – yet for every 100 calories fed to animals as crops, we receive on average just 17-30 calories in the form of meat and milk.
It's a jungle out there: deforestation for food production is a massive problem (AFP/Getty)
According to the charity Compassion in World Farming (CiWF), the destructive practices were set in train after the Second World War, when intensive farming techniques spread from the US to Europe. Vast landscapes were replaced by “monoculture” – a single crop – in fields liberally treated with pesticides and fertilisers. They killed the insects, bees and butterflies at the bottom of the food chain and wiped away bird habitats, while active deforestation for food production is leaving ever smaller landscapes for mammals, from jaguar and elephants to polar bears and rhinos.
It’s happening in exotic locations – such as Indonesia, where the palm oil industry wrecks habitats and leads to elephants, porcupine and wild pigs being poisoned – and closer to home, where decades of use of nitrogen and other chemicals on farms has led to dire warnings about Britain’s soil having fewer than 100 harvests left.
But worldwide, the overwhelming problem, experts say, is the highly inefficient use of land to grow soya and cereals that are then fed to chickens, pigs and cattle slaughtered for meat.
According to The Economist, although livestock provides just 17 per cent of global calories consumed, it requires twice that proportion of the Earth’s fresh water, feed and farmland because of the crops required. And this makes it the greatest user of land in the world.
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Philip Lymbery, chief executive of CiWF, which organised the conference, set out the causal links between modern intensive farming practices and the destruction of the natural world in his book Dead Zone, which explains how intensive rearing of animals in Britain and abroad to produce meat cheaply involves destroying forests half the size of the UK for farmland each year.
In South America, rainforests have been replaced by swathes of soya crops to feed cattle, pigs and chickens. Some 13 million hectares there – about the size of Greece – are used for soya imported by the EU, nearly all for industrial feed, according to WWF.
The system is so inefficient, says Lymbery, that “worldwide, if grain-fed animals were restored to pasture and the cereals and soya went to people instead, there would be enough for an extra four billion people”. Feeding animals on crops that are fit for humans is “the biggest single area of food waste on the planet”.
Sting in the tail: use of pesticides in fields is one of the factors leading to a decline in bees (CiWF)
“Many people claim factory farming is the answer to feeding a burgeoning population but this couldn’t be further from the truth,” he says.
Intensively grazed landscapes, with fertilisers and pesticides and the demise of stubble, have led to steep declines in barn owls and other farmland birds and small mammals, while chemical run-off from fields is seen as a key cause of bee decline.
CiWF is not the only voice linking extinctions with our diets. The UN has stated that “intensive livestock production is probably the largest sector-specific source of water pollution”. The Soil Association says the UK’s food system accounts for 30 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions, largely because of industrialised processes.
And WWF has warned: “We could witness a two-thirds decline in the half-century from 1970 to 2020, unless we act now to reform our food and energy systems and meet global commitments on addressing climate change, protecting biodiversity and supporting sustainable development.”
Solutions
Seven years ago, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity drew up a strategic plan, signed by 196 countries, of detailed targets for 2020 to slow wildlife decline. Since then scientists have repeatedly warned not just that the targets would be missed but also that biodiversity loss was worsening. The lack of action was one factor behind the Extinction Conference.
Lymbery said it should be the start of a “global conversation” on transforming food and farming worldwide, and called for a fresh UN convention. “To safeguard the future, we need some kind of global agreement to replace factory farming with a regenerative food system. But that’s not all. We all have the power, three times a day, to save wildlife and end an awful lot of farm animal cruelty.”
Mucking in: We have it in our power to prevent factory farming – by changing our behaviour (AFP/Getty)
Duncan Williamson, of WWF, proposed feeding farm animals on specially cultivated insects and algae, to dramatically reduce deforestation and water use needed as animal feed.
Food producers, meanwhile, showcased a new vegan burger that “sizzles and bleeds like meat”, endorsed by Joanna Lumley, the star of Absolutely Fabulous.
Less meat
Time and again, the solutions by conference experts led to a need to end industrial animal farming – which meant animal campaigners were suddenly no longer the only ones urging people to scale back drastically the amount of chicken, pork, beef, salmon, dairy and eggs consumed.
Chris Darwin, who spent six weeks on a container ship travelling to Britain to avoid flying, said: “Verifiable evidence indicates meat consumption globally will double in the next 35 years, and if that occurs so much forest will have to be cut down around the world that we’re going to cause a mass extinction of species within the next hundred years. And we cannot let that happen.”
He explained passionately how a typical diet uses “two-and-a-half planets” in terms of resources but cutting out wasteful animal produce uses “a quarter of the planet”.
Cut it out: Rainforests are being chopped down and replaced by soya crops (AFP/Getty Images)
He is using modern technology that would have astounded his great, great grandfather to fight back against the seemingly relentless decline of the natural world – in the form of an iPhone app helping people to switch to a more plant-based diet.
By tapping in what they eat, people can receive feedback over time on how many animals, carbon emissions and how much land and water they have saved, as well as days of lifespan added, and their placing on a leaderboard.
“What is the single silver bullet to solve this problem?” he says. “We need behavioural change to solve this problem – and that is to eat less meat.”
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