Dangers From Afar

New York state law is explicit when it comes to regulating environmental concerns with in the Blue line. Logging, mining, tourism, all the major industries within the park, on public and private land, are held to a specific standard deemed acceptable for a wilderness area. Wildlife are protected, except for certain periods of the year, and mountains are kept whole, impeding the topless hills found in southern sections of the Appalachians, but once outside the Blue Line, the law is more flexible and accommodates toxic behavior unseen within the park. The sulfuric and nitric acids which can level forests when sufficiently concentrated in rain, are products of the factories west and south, and the Adirondacks are the unknowing bystander injured in their wake. The acidic precipitation can travel hundreds of miles thought the same systems that make Adirondack weather so treacherous, before settling on the vulnerable forests and lakes of the northeast. Thus, external forces are again dictating the fait of the park. Like legal decisions emanating from downstate, pollution from the Midwest is testing the durability of the wilderness, leaving the park’s inhabitants at the mercy of others. And like with legal decisions, nature’s ability to cope with the changes is variable. Lakes formed on top of limestone form a natural chemical defense against the acidic precipitation. Calcium carbonate, the main component of limestone dissolves into the water and forms a natural buffer against the acid, but lakes of granite floor lack such a defense. In granite lakes and streams, we can see the full effect of acid precipitation on the flora, fauna and overall health of the ecosystem.

Global warming

Like Phoebe, global warming freaks me out as well.  It is very scary to think about how current carbon dioxide levels are higher now than they have been in the last 700,000 years, and that this is going to cause the earth to warm another five degrees in the next century, causing drastic changes to the earth as a whole.  I cringe when I imagine normally cold places like the Adirondacks having completely different climates in one hundred years.

 In this week’s reading, I was very interested by the paragraph on the IPCC website that explained how global warming will affect the health of people living in developing countries.

“Throughout the 21st century, climate change is expected to lead to increases in ill-health in many regions and especially in developing countries with low income, as compared to a baseline without climate change (high confidence). Examples include greater likelihood of injury, disease, and death due to more intense heat waves and fires (very high confidence); increased likelihood of under-nutrition resulting from diminished food production in poor regions (high confidence); risks from lost work capacity and reduced labor productivity in vulnerable populations; and increased risks from food- and water-borne diseases (very high confidence) and vector-borne diseases (medium confidence).” (IPCC, 19-20)

In the past when I’ve learned about global warming I’ve always learned about the snow caps melting or the large amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels, but I haven’t learned about how global warming will contribute to fires, heat waves, and under-nutrition that will directly impact the human population in developing countries.  Reading about this just makes me think about how unfair it is that wealthy nations are slowly but surely destroying the planet, while poorer nations, who have nothing to do with augmenting the temperature of the climate, will directly suffer the consequences first.

Bye to Boreals, Bye to the Spruce Grouse

This past week I researched how climate change will effect winter recreation in the Adirondacks. While perusing through Adirondack Explorer articles I came across another issue associated with the decline of snowfall due to global warming. In Jenkins’ Climate Change in the Adirondacks: The Path to Sustainability he states that a high-emission carbon dioxide scenario with an overall climate increase of 10 degrees would eliminate all potential for 10 weeks of uninterrupted snow. This essentially eradicates all boreal animals’ habitat, which requires continuous snow cover for at least 10 weeks. A boreal community’s summer averages to 64 degrees, whereas an Adirondack summer averages to 67 degrees. However, there are small communities in the Adirondacks that reach lower temperatures and can be classified as “boreal islands.”
          According to Jenkins, there are 23 boreal bird species tied exclusively to these lowland environments that are in danger from climate change. Jenkins states more definitively, “At least three boreal birds that were formerly common and widespread in the Adirondacks have decreased sharply in the last 20 years, and are now increasingly rare and hard to find” (Jenkins 63). The continuation of the development of the Adirondacks further restricts boreal habitat.
          The spruce grouse, found mostly in boggy, black spruce wetlands, is in a sharp decline, with only 75 to 100 remaining in New York State. They must stay in lowland regions because spruce grouse forage in the branches of trees. In the highlands, rime ice on branches and increased wind makes it difficult for spruce grouse to forage for spruce needles.  The DEC plans to reintroduce the spruce grouse into already established regions and populations in the Adirondacks. Without this intervention, the DEC says that the spruce grouse could disappear by 2020. The DEC hopes to establish a more stable population of about 500 spruce grouse in the Adirondacks. But even with the reintroduction of more spruce grouse, will the climate change too much for them to be successful?
Related reads:
http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2012/02/the-disappearing-adirondack-spruce-grouse.htmlhttp://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2013/04/dec-plans-to-introduce-spruce-grouse.html

McKibben’s Article: Underwhelming?

Global warming freaks me out.

I say this with the full knowledge that my pro-environmental sentiments are driven—at least in large part—by my own selfish/self-preservation instincts. I’ve harbored a fear of rising sea levels, increased vector-borne disease, and skin cancer pandemics since early high school, when I took a history elective titled “Foreign Policy Debate.” We spent the entire semester researching foreign policy, as it pertained to global warming and tactics to alleviate its repercussions.

Ever since then, I’ve considered myself more familiar than average with the topic of global warming and how disastrous it could be and already is.

I think it was because of this—because of my prior anxiety around the topic of global warming—that I found McKibben’s article underwhelming.

I consider myself a fan of McKibben, but I thought he just didn’t do justice to such a severe topic. He spent a lot of time talking about the danger global warming poses to the Adirondack tourist & vacation business. But those businesses can adapt, he suggested, and they seem to be already working toward that end. Likewise, McKibben discussed a major change to the Adirondacks species demographic (especially with regard to trees). He lamented the potentially tragic loss of the turning leaves, which are most flamboyant on the trees that are most threatened by climate change.

Ultimately, McKibben’s concluding point was as follows:

“Who wants to pay more for gas [an example of a politically unpopular method to reduce carbon emissions]? But then, who wants to stare at a hillside of brown in September? If the scientists are right, that may be the choice we’re right now making” (56).

Even if McKibben was going for a poetic finale, I found that this final point really did not do the subject justice. Ultimately, the repercussions of climate change are far more than aesthetic. Climate change could mean far more economic hardship than those attributed to vacation businesses, and far more destruction to the land than a simple shuffle of local species and post-disturbance-esque species succession.

I also understand that McKibben’s article is specific to the Adirondacks – his intent was not to warn us about the loss of coastal cities and nations, and his intent was not to tell us about the massive fatalities that could potentially results from widespread disease. He even admitted that these outcomes are, as yet, impossible to accurately predict. So, all in all, I can’t be too bitter about his local focus, and obsession with the stunning Adirondack foliage (which I share).

However, the Adirondacks aren’t a bubble; the land and its inhabitants will suffer along with the rest of the world as we grabble with “bigger issues” than a brown hillside, so perhaps his article could have benefitted from making more mention of those bigger national and international issues.

Leopold's Land Ethic

               I’d not heard of Aldo Leopold when Janelle brought his name up in class. We only discussed his ideals briefly, but I was intrigued by his ‘land ethic,’ which seemed more all-encompassing and less anthropocentric than many of the perspectives we’d examined thus far. I did some research and what I found only increased my respect and fascination for the man. Leopold (pictured below) is known most for his conservation efforts and for his book A Sand County Almanac, though he played many roles throughout his lifetime (including that of hunter). 

              His central idea was that which we discussed in class, a land ethic that expanded the definition of ‘community’ to include soil, water, animals, and plants. With that expansion, the role of man changes, becoming an organism whose role is no more or less valid than that of the other organisms that inhabit his environment. The success of the whole is then determined by the cooperation and/or competition of its parts. Leopold firmly believed this, yet did not strip man of his agency. Rather, through the lens of his land ethic, Leopold pushed for a form of wildlife management that sought to promote a healthy and diverse biotic community rather than exploit the environment for man’s gain.

At first, I had trouble reconciling these two roles that Leopold specifies for us, that of a “cog in the ecological mechanism” and that of an informed steward of the land. Thinking more about it however, I think that Leopold is simply asking us to be self-aware in our interactions with the land around us. He writes, “A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of the land.” Leopold believed, and evidence has shown, that the success of the biotic community benefits its individuals. As part of that community, we should seek to follow Leopold's example. 

Are We All Dr. Seuss Characters?

Out of all of the scary claims and statistics in the readings for this week, the one that stood out to me the most was this one quote: “the kids of 2100 will simply think that the Adirondacks is just the way it is supposed to be, because they have known nothing else” (Mckibben, 57).  As upsetting as this statement is about our future, it makes me wonder how true this is for me.  I have grown up in a world where short winters are expected and rain on Christmas is normal.  I remember one year there was a big snowstorm on Valentines Day that gifted us two snow days.  It was the biggest storm of my life, but what was so memorable about this storm was my mother’s insistence that this kind of storm had characterized all of her winters as a child.  They are becoming increasingly rare.  What else do I not think to question because it is “normal” to me?  The autumn colors may be duller, but duller is relative.  They are the brightest I can ever remember them.  The composition of the flora and fauna may be different than it was 150 years ago due to logging and development, but the Adirondacks are just as quaint and wild as I can remember.  This makes me think of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.  Because the reader sees the whole transformation it is shocking that anyone would ever exploit the environment in the way the Once-ler does.  Maybe if we had this kind of outside perspective that spanned all of time we too would be jolted by the shock of what we have done to our planet, but as long as we are simply remain characters stuck in the pages of a Dr. Seuss book, we cannot truly understand what we have lost in the past. 

The Importance of Being Biodiverse

Last class we talked a lot about human impact on biodiversity and we sort of came to the conclusion that biodiversity is a good thing because it offers a myriad of ways to support humans. Species richness can provide medicinal benefits for humans, recreation (ie. hunting and fishing), food, cloth material, aesthetic appeal, domestication (for farming, pets, and houseplants), and more. Not to mention, preserving biodiversity can stave off guilty feelings that accompany human implication in species extinction. But at the top of a mountain, where none of these species were being actively used by humans, what was the big deal if some plants got trampled? According to the laws (I guess technically theories) of evolution, if foot-trails damage species diversity or change the composition of the soil, natural selection would (over a long, long, long time) give way to modified species of what is there now that could withstand impoundment by high traffic hikers or could survive the changing composition of the soil.

This was something I struggled with in my high school environmental science class; I would be able to answer any question with "this is bad because it results in the loss of biodiversity," but when asked why the loss of biodiversity was bad, I was lost for words.

So, I did some thinking.

There are a lot of benefits to biodiversity, like boosting ecosystem productivity (which, of course, is related back to anthropocentric things like farming) and providing economic, biological, and social services and resources. But the most important one, I think, are its implications for the gene pool. Biodiversity essentially means that many, many species are sharing a environment and when many species share an environment, it means that there is incredible genetic variation within that environment. And with genetic variation comes the incredible effect of a buffer system. So when the ecosystem is disrupted by, say, a large-scale parasite, representatives of only a few species will be really negatively affected. And should that parasite achieve almost total-wiping-out of a species, it is more likely that some organisms will be spared because of some genetic abnormality. If that parasite remains a constant threat to the environment, then the surviving organisms can essentially produce a new subspecies that is resistant to the threats of that parasite. Granted, this would take an exceptionally long period of time, but that's how natural selection works. And if every member of a single population (meaning one species in one area) had the exact same genetic material, then they would all be susceptible to any major ecological disruption. After all, evolution only works when there's genetic material to work with. So the presence of genetic variation (due to a diverse community) is what allows an ecosystem to survive widespread damage--biodiversity is a good thing because it enables communities to survive the planet's natural cycles.

Ultimately, stomping on rare alpine species doesn't directly matter to humans--we're not using those organisms for anything--but it does have an incredible effect on the ecosystem at large. When we kill the things under our feet, we reduce the biodiversity of the land and therefore the genetic variability. And once we do that, we make the communities that live there much more susceptible to being wiped out--whether that's by anthropomorphic or natural causes. When those populations are gone, the ecosystem's capacity to perform important ecological services, like water drainage, air purification, nutrient cycling, etc., is severely undermined. This is still an extremely human-centered understanding since we are definitely included in the organisms who benefit from those ecological services (and we appreciate the beauty that biodiverse landscapes provide), but it's hard to think of it any other way--if I don't relate these abstract ecological concepts back to humans, then they don't seem anchored or relevant, but of course that's just the way I've been taught to think. At any rate, it seems obvious to me that preserving species diversity is an incredibly important thing, if only because it seems unfair that humans are allowed to dictate which species survive or at least have a better chance of surviving.

--
Articles I recommend:
http://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-point-in-pres/