The Real Connection Between Climate Change and Wildlife
Climate change is a minor factor in wildlife decline. But the loss of wild plants and ecosystems causes both wildlife decline and climate chaos
In this post:
What is the REAL problem with fossil fuels, contrary to what we are told?
What do we see in wildlife trends? How important is wildlife decline? And how does it compare in importance to climate change?
What are the connections between wildlife decline and climate change?
Would it make a difference if we electrified all vehicles and heavy equipment?
What is anthropogenic mass, and why is it more important and momentous than carbon emissions?
Upcoming free webinars to explore these issues with a live audience.
This post contains my best thoughts as to what is always missing from the conversation around climate change: That climate change is not causing wildlife decline nearly so much as habitat loss (the loss of plants and ecosystems) is causing both wildlife decline and climate chaos.
In this description of an upcoming course (Wildlife & Climate), I lay out the issues of massive importance that are never discussed:
According to this report from the World Wildlife Fund, we have lost 73% of wildlife (vertebrates) in the last 50 years. The conventional wisdom is that climate change is causing this loss, but this idea has almost no scientific support, according to this article by conservation biologists and published in Conservation Letters, a journal of the Society for Conservation Biology: An inconvenient misconception: Climate change is not the principal driver of biodiversity loss
The article holds that conservation biologists do not list climate change as a frequent cause of wildlife extinctions. Instead, they list habitat loss (e.g., deforestation), pollution (including pesticides) and overexploitation (overhunting and overfishing) as major causes of wildlife extinctions.
So, saving our wildlife requires that we deal with the real causes and not be swept up in a false narrative about how climate change, per se, is the culprit.
Besides, forests, wetlands and grasslands serve as habitat AND climate regulators. So we have a powerful rationale for protecting--and creating--habitat in our farms, our forests, our landscapes and even our deserts.
According to Canadian scientist Vaclav Smil, we have eliminated 50% of the earth’s biomass in the last 5,000 years. If we could reverse this trend, we could regain some of the habitat and climate regulating capacity that we have lost.
Combine this with the idea that anthropogenic mass, the total quantity of human made things, now equals the biomass of the world, and is set to double and redouble in this century. We are literally crowding out nature. If we don’t stop, it will not matter how much we reduce emissions.
We can live with nature. We can be a keystone species, creating habitat for other species. But we need to understand what’s going on and not be deceived by those who want us to ignore nature or make token changes, changes that are profitable for business but not people or the planet. We need real change, without which we will never address climate change.
This course explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change in a way that actually works and can be implemented wherever we live, work and play.
End of course description.
Fossil fuels
How do fossil fuels fit into this scenario? We are constantly told that it's the fossil fuel companies that are the problem. Oh, and also meat. Yea. That's it. But meat, well raised, can be part of the solution, which is a whole other conversation, but it points to yet another prevalent myth in the climate world, courtesy of the world’s most famous media outlets.
What’s the goal?
Backing up for just a minute, what’s the goal? We want a livable planet, a planet that is habitable to all species, not just ours.
Okay, so how do fossil fuels fit into that?
The story of carbon
We are told that fossil fuels are problematic because of carbon emissions. It’s a familiar story. In the beginning, everything was fine. But then humans started burning fossil fuels, which generated too much carbon dioxide, which resulted in global warming. And if the global warming continues, we will experience out of control warming, which will cause flooding, drought, wildfires and heat waves.
And what’s more, all of this “climate chaos” will cause wars, famine and mass migration.
All of this because of CO2. If we fix the CO2 problem, then we will be able to focus on matters that are less urgent and more quaint, like wildlife extinction, or problems with habitat loss.
Is wildlife conservation quaint?
Hold on … we just observed that wildlife has declined 73% in 50 years. In a span of only 50 years, wildlife is 27% of what it was before.
If that trend continues, what happens in another 50 years? In another 50 years, wildlife will be 27% of 27% of what it is now. 27% of 27% is 7%.
That’s a 93% decline in 100 years! What happens in another 100 years? You are flirting with zero wildlife. Zero wildlife, in less time that our young country (the USA) has existed!
What is really urgent?
How is this not at least as urgent as climate change? And yet, you never hear about it in the popular media or even the scientific media.
“But, Hart, climate change is causing this decline! So we have to address climate change first!”
Not according to the study cited above. This study is authored by conservation biologists, the people most qualified to speak about wildlife trends.
Are fossil fuels problematic because of emissions?
Ok, back to an earlier question: How are fossil fuels really problematic? Is it because of emissions? Or is it because of what we do with them?
I assert that fossil fuels are problematic not primarily because of emissions, but because of what we do with them, including deforestation, road-building, agrochemicals and endless war. Also overfishing and overhunting, which are actual causes of wildlife decline.
Here is a short video of fossil fueled heavy equipment cutting down a tree. Would it matter if this machine were powered by an electric battery and charged with solar panels? No, because the result would be the same. The trees would continue to be cut down, at a breathtaking rate, with very little human labor, which is to say, this is not about “jobs.” It is about timber industry profits.
Fix Our Forests Act
The Trump administration, with plenty of support from Congress, wants to pass the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA). The Fix Our Forests Act is only marginally worse than a similar act passed in the Biden administration, which is another conversation, point being that these problems are more basic than which political party is in office or which demagogue has temporarily enthralled the public.
What are we doing with fossil fuels?
We need to look at what we are doing with fossil fuels, and not just the emissions themselves. We are treated to a fantasy that says as soon as we convert all of our cars, trucks and heavy equipment to electric, then we will have reduced emissions and everything will be ok.
Beg to differ. Very little will have changed when we convert vehicles and logging equipment to electric, if that is even possible, which is doubtful.
This is why some of us are saying that we need to power down. We need to use less energy, irrespective of how that energy is generated, whether through fossil fuels or “renewable” sources, which are not as renewable as we are led to believe, but that’s another conversation.
What ELSE are we doing with fossil fuels?
What we are doing with fossil fuels is making things we don’t need. We need some of these things, but not all of them or even most of them. We could be quite happy with only a fraction of the things we have.
We are being sold these things without much real choice. We are being sold these things by an industrial machine that we did not create and cannot easily change or eliminate, but it is imperative that we try, which we must do collectively and democratically, as discussed below.
Anthropogenic Mass
Click on this link and scroll through it. Anthropomass.org. This website tells the story of how anthropogenic mass--the total weight of all human-made things--now equals global biomass, the total weight of all living things. That figure is set to double and redouble in this century, because it’s growing at 2-3% per year, along with the economy. A 2.5% growth rate results in a doubling of the mass every 30 years or so.
Crowding out nature
We are crowding out nature, quite literally, as mentioned above. This bears repeating, because it is so little understood and so rarely discussed. But if we don’t place limitations on anthropogenic mass, it will not matter what else we do. The living world will have nowhere to go, and will necessarily die, if gradually, but it will die.
An example from your living room
Imagine the couch in your living room were to become ten couches, and then ten more. Suddenly you would no longer have a living room but a dying room, because there’s no place for you to live. You would be forced out.
Hopefully, you would have a place to go. But nature has nowhere to go, because of the unending (infinite) growth of anthropogenic mass on a finite planet. Look around you and you see the relentless expansion of anthropogenic mass, in the form of roads, buildings, biofuels (e.g., corn ethanol) and the weapons of war.
Where is the solution?
The solution does not lie solely in the direction of individual consumer choices. We must act collectively and reclaim something resembling democracy.
Let’s face it. “We The People” are not in charge. Blame the other political party all you want. But both political parties are owned by the Masters of the Universe. The Important People.
The Important People don’t control your every move or determine every decision in your daily life. But they get to decide how the big systems operate, and you have to go with the flow.
And the Important People don’t care about people or the planet, only themselves. After all, they are human. They are humans whom we have granted superhuman powers, more power than the wildest dreaming kings of yesteryear. They are the new royalty, with the power of life and death. And democracy is just a bedtime story.
That’s why it’s really important to examine the stories we are told, and then decide which ones to believe.
We don’t want to get 10-30 years down the road only to find that we have been believing, trusting and following all the wrong people.
*****
If you liked this content, you may be interested in the following free webinars:
Wildlife Decline & Climate Change
Date: Monday, July 21 at 12:00-1:30 PM
Ask the average environmentalist, “What is the greatest threat to wildlife?” They will reply, “Climate change, of course!” And they will be wrong.
Wildlife populations are seriously threatened, but not by climate change. To address wildlife decline, we need to understand the real threats and not be misled by platitudes.
We will examine a pair of articles that argue persuasively that we are being led down the wrong path and that some of the dubious “solutions” to climate change actually harm wildlife.
We will hear from conservation biologists who tell us the following: That climate change, at present, is not the most serious threat to wildlife populations; that habitat loss, pollution and agriculture are more direct, immediate and serious threats than climate change; and that conservation biologists are exaggerating the threat posed by climate change, and thereby moving away from “evidence-based science.”
RSVP:
Wildlife & Climate Change. Monday, July 21 at 12:00-1:30 PM - Google Forms
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-FmZPZ0UiafYYFaOBr0TSNtjPm5oXFLC1SJnYu9ocvA/edit
Wildlife & Wildfire. When is wildfire good for wildlife?
Date: Wednesday, July 23 at 7:00-8:30
Did you know? Many wildlife species depend on the regular occurrence of high intensity wildfire. Government policy seeks to suppress high-intensity wildfire. But these aims alter historical wildfire regimes, at the expense of birds, mammals, butterflies, bees and beetles.
The spotted owl, the black backed woodpecker and the melanophila beetle are only three of many species that depend on wildfires. And yet the timber industry and our government agencies promote wildfire suppression and prescribed burns, on the pretense that these strategies are good for wildlife.
RSVP:
Wildlife & Wildfires. Wednesday, July 23 at 7:00-8:30 PM
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12Whno4QX2zhbbt5rJXcTQGOyG0_nhxq-Bm9dWOS9Llc/edit
I hope to see you via Zoom.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Kindest Regards,
Hart
PS, for an updated list of these offerings, you can always click on Free Webinars.