Don’t get me wrong: there is a general scientific consensus that climate change is happening. But there’s no consensus on the rate or extent of global warming.
Viewing entries in
The Environment
If you want to save water for dry years, it’s groundwater.
- Dr. Jay Lund, director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences
These considerations wouldn’t matter so much is there were no costs to actions/policies based on worst case scenarios. If all actions and their effects were equal, then go with the worst case! Nothing to lose and everything to gain!
Between increasing adoption of sustainable practices (e.g., cover crops, conservation tillage), precision farming and ever more resilient crops, agricultural productivity in the US and other developed counties is likely to maintain its upward trajectory.
So, per the IPCC, there is medium confidence in a 0 to -2% median yield impact per decade this century for the major crops (wheat, rice, and corn). There is high confidence the effect on crop production will be consistently negative in the low altitudes, while "climate change may have positive or negative effects in northern latitudes".
Why are large farms increasing? Partly because families are better able to handle the logistical and financial challenges of running big operations, thanks to labor-saving innovations that favor scale economies.
16. Expand captive breeding programs to improve genetic diversity of endangered species and develop genetically viable populations for eventual habitat return...
Poor farmers often lack the resources to maintain or improve the productivity of their land. As the soil becomes depleted, they will move operations if they can – leaving a used-up landscape behind...
One out of five plant species are threatened with extinction. Almost a quarter of mammal species are endangered. The situation is just as bad or worse for reptiles (21% endangered), amphibians (30%), fish (21%), insects (22%) and mollusks (41%). Birds are doing slightly better (“just” 12% endangered). Habitat loss is the main culprit.
We cannot escape risk, because we cannot stop change. So what was a safe bet before becomes a risky bet, because the variables keep shifting.
Rewilding is typically conceived as an act of restoration: bringing back species (or their proxies) that used to inhabit an ecosystem. Like cheetahs and mammoths (well, elephants) in North America. It’s ok, because they used to be here.
Protecting biological communities in specific locales is a worthy goal. Saving endangered species and creating robust habitats for them to thrive is another worthy goal. These goals are not always in perfect harmony.
The Copenhagen Consensus Center does research on the costs and benefits of various policy approaches to global problems and provides information on which policy targets will do the most social good relative to their costs – acknowledging that factors other than cost/benefit ratios are also important.
Acknowledging that ecosystems are in constant flux doesn’t mean all change is good. But it does change our conception of what’s at stake. It’s not about preserving a biological moment in a specific locale. It’s about saving species.
When the parts of a system are constantly changing, at what point do you say that the system is no longer itself? That may be easy to answer when the system is a living organism, which is either alive or dead. But ecosystems aren’t single organisms, so the either/or approach doesn’t really apply.
“We’ve forever altered the Earth, and so now we cannot abandon it to a random fate. It is our duty to manage it.” - Emma Marris; Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World
I've been thinking about ocean acidification, the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans due to global warming. What to do? Last post considered the possibility of adding iron in the ocean to stimulate phytoplankton, which consume CO2 and ultimately reduce acidification. In theory. Risky. All sorts of unknown unknowns. Likely unintended consequences.
Oceans are my biggest worry. Covering 70% of the earth’s surface, oceans absorb a huge amount of CO2. A few chemical processes later and we have ocean acidification, scourge of coral reefs and who knows what else. We’re not sure what else, but such quick change will surely challenge the capacity of sea life to adapt. Evolution’s not used to working on such short time scales.
Growth in global GDP increases energy consumption in the near term but reduces GHG emissions over the longer term. Economic growth promotes urbanization, education of women, delay of childbearing, lower fertility rates, improved agricultural productivity, and technological innovation. ...
Global population growth is not slowing down fast enough.