Trees of Life's Future

Wednesday's news out of the UN climate summit in Poland was grim: the results of research by the Global Carbon Project, projecting the fall or rise of global annual carbon emissions.  For 2018 they expect the largest rise in three years, resulting in a record high.

Major US media including the NY Times ("Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accelerate 'Like a Speeding Freight Train' in 2018"(, the Washington Post,("We Are in  Deep Trouble")  and CNN had stories on the report that, if not as prominent as its importance merits, were at least somewhere near the front.  They each emphasize different aspects of the report, especially the causes.  The Guardian story which seems to have the broad outlines, begins:

"Global carbon emissions will jump to a record high in 2018, according to a report, dashing hopes a plateau of recent years would be maintained. It means emissions are heading in the opposite direction to the deep cuts urgently needed, say scientists, to fight climate change.

The rise is due to the growing number of cars on the roads and a renaissance of coal use and means the world remains on the track to catastrophic global warming. However, the report’s authors said the emissions trend can still be turned around by 2020, if cuts are made in transport, industry and farming emissions."

Also launched at the UN summit, the World Resources Institute reported on the conflict between the food needs of the rising human population and the planetary need to cut emissions.  A number of major efforts are required, including one that Paul Hawkens Project Drawdown figured out was very big: cutting down on the one-third of all food that is wasted.

But the need for more food without clearing more land for agriculture will require a major dietary change in the US and other western countries.  Namely, a drastic reduction of beef.

Amazon deforested cattle "ranch" 

For at least forty years it's been known that a leading cause of deforestation, especially in the Amazon, has been cutting down trees to make growing and grazing land, so that the hamburger empires could expand.  We're reaching a hard limit, the report says: if we insist on so much beef, all the forests in the world will be cut down.  Or to quote the Guardian's subhead: Current food habits will lead to destruction of all forests and catastrophic climate change by 2050, report finds.

That trees are key to drawing down CO2 is not new.  Hawkens' project named protecting tropical forests in the top five most effective strategies.  Recent research confirms that rainforest regrowth also contributes.  Meanwhile, rainforests and forests in general host a huge percentage of land species, probably more than half of all plant and animal species on the planet.

But in general, the role of plants--and specifically trees--in regulating the global environment has been stubbornly overlooked.  The familiar and seemingly inert vegetation isn't very sexy to a society hypnotized by shiny new technologies. Lots of economic vested interests don't want forests to be looked at or valued: including agribusiness, energy extraction industries (including logging but also fracking and oil), real estate speculators and builders, and fast food nations requiring clear-cutting forests so beef cattle can waddle on their short walk to becoming hamburger.

But according to this article which originated in Quanta, the problem also exists within climate crisis science, dominated by atmospheric scientists who pay little attention to trees:

"Atmospheric scientists—and everyone else—could be excused for thinking of a stoically standing tree or a gently undulating wheat field as doing little more than passively accepting sunlight, wind, and rain. But plants are actually powerful change agents on the planet’s surface. They pump water from the ground through their tissues to the air, and they move carbon in the opposite direction, from air to tissue to ground. All the while, leaves split water, harvest and manipulate solar energy, and stitch together hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon to produce sugars and starches—the sources of virtually all food for Earth’s life."

What new research shows (and old research at least suggested) is that forests can affect weather and climate even at a distance.  According to one scientist quoted:

“None of the atmospheric scientists are thinking about” how plants could influence rainfall, Swann said, though hints have appeared in the scientific literature for decades. And, she added, “it blows the ecology community’s mind … that the plants over here could actually influence the plants over there.”

But a large portion of Earth's food is possible because of forest-driven rainfall.  Scientists are beginning to suggest that in the most important rainforests, it's the forest that came first, and then the rains.

Understanding the life of the forest can also aid in preventing or minimizing the huge wildfires that occur more frequently and more intensely thanks to global heating and its effects.  The state of California is making some headway in dealing with forests and fires, despite the fact that upwards of 60% of the state's forests are under federal control.  And those who live in fire zones can also do more.  But these efforts are only beginning, and must be based on a thorough understanding of forests themselves.

An extensive and more sophisticated understanding of the importance of trees and forests to the planet, its climate and its ability to support life should make its way closer to the top of topics in conversations about the future.

Which also means that studying forests and the role of vegetation is a top future-oriented vocation for those making such decisions about their life's work today.

Climate Conference Opening Day

Two issues related to the climate crisis emerged today as the UN global climate conference opened in Poland.

AP coverage began:

KATOWICE, Poland (AP) — As leaders attending the U.N.’s annual climate summit heard fresh warnings about the dire consequences of leaving global warming unchecked, a new issue emerged Monday as a pressing concern: how to persuade millions of workers their industry can’t have a future if humanity is to have one.

Hosting the talks in the heart of its coal region of Silesia, Poland tried to set the tone for the two-week meeting by promoting the idea of a “just transition” for miners and other workers facing layoffs as countries adopt alternative energy sources.

“We are trying to save the world from annihilation, but we must do this in a way that those who live with us today in the world have the best possible living conditions,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said. “Otherwise they will say, ‘We don’t want such policy.’”

This issue only suggests the range of consequences that also must be addressed for successful attempts to lower and eliminate greenhouse gases pollution that cause global heating.

Some activists criticize the choice of  Poland for the conference because of the country's dependence on coal. Coal remains a major greenhouse gases pollutant, and coal-fired plants in many parts of the world (including planned new ones in China) remain a major threat.   Yet Silesia (which may be where my paternal great-grandfather came from, when he was brought to America to mine coal in the late 19th century) has great symbolic power in reminding the powerful that workers and poor people as well as the poorer countries of the world should not be left to bear the burden either of the climate crisis nor efforts to address it.

Coinciding with the start of the international conference is the annual 24 Hours of Reality, a global stream of information and advocacy on the climate crisis, associated with Al Gore.  In an interview with New York Magazine's David Wallace-Wells, Gore honed in on another issue, this time on the effects side of the climate crisis: public health.

Gore began by pointing out, that during the northern California wildfires: "For most of the week, the four most polluted cities in the world were Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Chico, worse than any cities in India."

The Bay Area experienced as much air pollution in a few days as the entire state experiences from automobiles for the year. This pollution came from the wildfires, which burned not only trees but houses and other structures, releasing toxic chemicals into the air.  A wide range of illnesses is now associated with air pollution, including obvious ones like asthma (a growing problem) but also unexpected ones like schizophrenia.

The public health issue--which extends to effects of floods, hurricanes, heatwaves and other disasters induced or exacerbated by global heating--is also more directly linked to greenhouse gases pollution, especially from burning coal.  Air pollution is now killing more than nine million people a year globally.

In Poland, the distinguished natural historian David Attenborough spoke on the opening day: "If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon."  He spoke as the official representative of the people of the Earth, and showed a montage of video messages made by ordinary people around the world.

"The world's people have spoken. Their message is clear. Time is running out," Attenborough said. "They want you, the decision-makers, to act now."

Climate Crisis to Climate Catastrophe

The latest UN climate summit opens today (Monday) in Poland for two weeks.  Since there is always a shinier object to catch media attention, it will require some effort to find reports on what's going on.  I'll try, and during those weeks also post on some related matters.

But there are already two differences this year, right at the start.  The first is the sense of urgency.  And related to that, more attention to the neglected half of the climate crisis.

The reasons for the sense of urgency are all in recent reports, including the US government's much-ignored assessment released on the Feast of Rabid Consumption, otherwise known as Black Friday weekend.  That case was made in the Guardian article Sunday entitled Portrait of a Planet on the Verge of Climate Catastrophe:

"But this year’s [UN summit] will be a grimmer affair – by far. As recent reports have made clear, the world may no longer be hovering at the edge of destruction but has probably staggered beyond a crucial point of no return. Climate catastrophe is now looking inevitable. We have simply left it too late to hold rising global temperatures to under 1.5C and so prevent a future of drowned coasts, ruined coral reefs, spreading deserts and melted glaciers."

After describing the latest reports and current situation, as well as the likely effects, the article concludes:

"It will be bad for humans, but catastrophic for Earth’s other inhabitants... Scientists warned more than 30 years ago that such a future lay ahead, but nothing was done to stave it off. Only dramatic measures are now left to those seeking to save our burning planet..."

infographic by the smallman.com  Click to enlarge

Though it's been several years that we've known that the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere will continue to warp climate for the next decade or so, and nobody knows yet if we've crossed the ultimate point of no return to runaway climate cataclysm, the latest (and usually conservative) UN report demonstrates that the world is almost certainly going to cross the 1.5C line, which is widely believed to be the limit before major climate catastrophes are in the cards.  And  major means more than we're seeing now.

The international goal of keeping global temps below the 2.0C line is also in danger.  The US report imagines rise of 3C, the consequences of which are unimaginable.

In terms of global response, there is a mixed bag of good and bad news.  To the good,  clean energy (which doesn't spew greenhouse gases, as well as other toxics) is growing and getting cheaper than most would have predicted, while fossil fuels, still vastly larger energy suppliers, are on the wane.  In the US, while carbon tax proposals didn't fare well in the 2018 elections, several other states are considering them.

But the situation is so dire now that incremental good is not going to offset the continuing bad news about glaciers melting, the oceans heating, sea level rising and so on.  So another Guardian article includes this quote:

“We are clearly the last generation that can change the course of climate change, but we are also the first generation with its consequences,” said Kristalina Georgieva, the CEO of the World Bank."

And that's the other change, the other difference.  Unless the world quickly cuts greenhouse gases emissions to nearly none, the future will continue to get worse and worse, until it will never get better, for thousands of years at least.  Changing course has been the priority, and is now more urgent than ever.

But there's the second half of that statement--we are the first generation that has to deal with climate induced disasters, which so far include wild fires, drought, flooding, intense storms, killer heat, lost crops, climate refugees and warfare, and probably more.  The world is waking up to the need to anticipate and respond to predictable and likely threats and changes, such as sea level rise.

In bureaucracy-speak, those two sets of tasks are called adaptation and mitigation.  Frankly I can never remember which is which, because the words don't make sense.  I call them addressing the causes, and the effects of the climate crisis.

So this year the World Bank takes the lead in making the inevitable swing towards dealing with the effects, that everyone can see. The Guardian: "The bank announced on Monday that its record $100bn (£78bn) of climate funding from 2021-2025 would for the first time be split equally between projects to cut emissions and those protecting people from the floods, storms and droughts that global warming is making worse. In recent years, just 5% of global funding has gone on protection..."

Why so little towards protection previously?  Besides taking awhile to recognize the scope of the problem, there was likely also a reluctance to divide attention from the need to cut back emissions, the need to deal with the causes.  Some feared that a phenomenon that already seemed too complex would lose even more people with this additional set of tasks.  It's hard enough to get people to concentrate on one huge goal; two might be too much.

There's the additional fear--and it might be coming--that efforts to address effects will become so central that efforts to address causes will slow or stop.  This could happen particularly if those who refuse to recognize the climate crisis suddenly switched strategy and say something like, "well, we don't know why the climate is going crazy so we can't do anything about that.  But we do see what it's doing, and we must deal with that."

This suggests that an already narrow window for effective change in limiting global heating is even narrower, not only because we probably have little time to limit future catastrophe, but because we will be too busy dealing with the effects in the here and now, and we will need all the attention and resources we can muster to do so.

But the need to keep addressing the causes won't end.  Now is the time to insist on both, which is another reason I employ this vocabulary: cause and effect are automatically linked forever.  They aren't two different things; they are logically and actually bound together in an easily understandable way.  Though it took a long time, we eventually dealt with both causes and effects of automobile accidents and lung cancer, to name two prominent problems of recent decades.  It just makes sense.

It will be interesting therefore to see if current advocates of climate crisis action stop resisting the discussion of dealing with effects, and take control of both aspects of addressing the climate crisis, without losing efforts to address either one.  This has slowly been happening.  These meetings in Poland may suggest whether a common strategy can be achieved.