Climate

Extinction is a Mistake

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Imagine a universe like ours, except devoid of life. Space, stars, planets, air, ocean and rock. Imagine our Earth, with waves on the beach, wind blown sand, lava, floating ice cap, canyons and waterfalls, spinning each day, heating or cooling each month, year after year, for eons. Structurally, very similar, but empty, without any living things, anywhere.

Nobody would explore it. None would appreciate its beauty, and no one could try to divine its purpose. Without any living creatures to inhabit it, and without us, such a world would be meaningless, neither studied, understood nor experienced. Without life, there is no knowledge.

Without knowledge, there is no life. Every living thing contains within it a recipe, the ingredients and the drive to cheat death. The recipe is our genetic code, passed down from our ancestors. Every living cell in our bodies carries this knowledge, which includes hidden traits and alternate characteristics for future generations, a master cookbook of the adaptations our successful ancestors employed to live, including our survival instinct. All living things carry such ancestral knowledge. Life began when some tiny process replicated itself in a repeatable way—an accident, a trick or a miracle. Life began when the knowledge of that trick was passed on to create the next generation. Life is that knowledge, plus every other trick that worked to keep life going for generations, in all forms, through billions of years of evolution.

Some such knowledge may be useless, dangerous or doomed to fail. In nature, failed ways of life die out, and such mistakes are forgotten. But species that have survived many times longer than mere humanity, have proven their success far longer than we have proven ours. Their lineage is noble, deserving of a place among earth’s great tapestry of living creatures. Our more recent genealogy is dubious, as we have used our supposed ‘superiority’ to create both weapons and pollution that could extinguish most life on earth, including ourselves. In our arrogance, we dismiss all wild species for not having adapted to us, when in truth we should adapt ourselves to sharing this earth with them. The mistake is ours, not theirs.

Life is knowledge. Many living things have learned to communicate, to call for help, to warn, locate and comfort each other. The tactics learned by observation, communication and mimicry become living knowledge of ways to outwit death, shared in community and thus kept alive for the next generation. Our species created written records as yet another path, besides our genetic code and our learned behavior. Some trivial knowledge may offer only a scant promise to enhance some future life with a minor convenience or comfort, while other knowledge may redesign human civilization, if we have the wisdom to discern it. We pursue knowledge to survive, to improve life and to pass it on. Because knowledge is life.

So extinction is the permanent loss of the secrets of life, both the code and the living behaviors. Most species have carried that knowledge for millions of years, long before humans evolved. We have learned from many species, observing how they act, adopting their tactics, and we have used tens of thousands of species to make medicines. We neither know the present value nor can estimate the future value of this accumulated knowledge.

Prematurely and unnaturally extinguishing masses of species, is far worse than simply killing. We do not know which species’ removal will affect other species’ survival in the indirectly connected, mutually evolved web of life. Extinction is the permanent end of life, and the erasure of all the accumulated knowledge used to create, to sustain both that life and the other species that depend on it, and to evolve further into some unrealized beautiful future. It is the silencing of tongues we do not understand, before we could learn what they were trying to tell us. And it is permanent. Forever. Never to be seen or heard again, despite eons of outwitting death. Extinction is the loss of what was, what is and what could have been. Artificial extinction is the ultimate betrayal of life.

By recklessly causing extinctions, we are like barbarians burning down the only ancient library of a lost civilization, full of wonderful ideas, miraculous cures, and priceless books, before we learn to read. E. O. Wilson, Harvard professor of evolutionary biology, once said, “destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”

The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, is being cut down for logging and ranching. We are literally destroying rainforest for hamburgers. Besides the direct extinction of species, we are tipping this critical ecosystem towards desertification, releasing more carbon, raising temperatures, increasing fires, and changing our global climate. There is no wisdom in this course of action, no moral justification, no long-term net economic gain, no rational reason to give up so much for so little gain, no scientific approval, and no appreciation of the beauty of so many forms of life lost forever. And apparently, there is insufficient concern among people today to stop making this colossal mistake.

Whale Blubber & Vineyard Wind

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Butler Flats Light (above) has marked the entrance to New Bedford Harbor in Massachusetts since 1898. It was a clever bit of engineering by a marine architect using a caisson or box to pump out the water for construction, and every day it’s used for navigation by the famed scallop fleet, ferries, the occasional tall ship, and many other boats passing through the hurricane barrier. When the light was built, New Bedford still dominated the whaling industry, sending ships on long voyages to harpoon whales, melt their blubber into oil and return to fuel America.

Behind the light are two wind turbines, which provide electricity today without extinguishing any species. Despite the preposterous claims of fossil fuel industry funded politicians, there is no such thing as ‘windmill cancer’ and bird strikes are rare. But folks who live near the turbines complain that they cast shadows, are noisy or are ugly, so new wind turbines are now built far offshore, south of Martha’s Vineyard. The current project is known as Vineyard Wind, with 62 turbines each generating 13 megawatts when complete. Currently, there’s a pause after a blade broke, requiring inspections and clean up. Massachusetts recently committed to roughly quadrupling wind projects in the area.

The turbine assembly is based in New Bedford, with final installation of the towers at sea. Interestingly, to protect whales from construction noise, they create a circular curtain of bubbles rising up from around the foundation on the seabed. They got the idea from whales, who create a circular curtain of bubbles underneath schools of fish to herd them together into a bite sized meal. Thousands of locals work on the project, in a boon to the economy, and the first project will provide relatively cheap, green energy to 400,000 homes. I’ve observed the gimbaled tower segments and long blades being transported out to sea by huge construction ships on the same routes once used by whaling ships.

Progress is beautiful, especially when it helps save so many different species on earth from extinction. Back in the day, whalers would have argued that smelly whale oil was ‘indispensable’ and ‘higher quality’ than alternative fuels, and they resisted progress. Today, that seems absurd, although now the fossil fuel industry lies routinely to protect its profits. Ironically, during the Civil War, the US government helped launch the fossil fuel industry by buying their new fuel and taxing alternatives to save the Union. Now we need the government to help us transition quickly to green energy to save life on Earth and leave the smelly old fuels unburned.

Hospicio Cabañas

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Originally designed to be a hospital, like Les Invalides in Paris, and named after the bishop, today the World Heritage Site in the historic heart of Guadalajara is a museum, with modern art outside and exceptional murals by Orozco inside. The central masterpiece on the ceiling of the rotunda is ‘The Man of Fire’, a modern version of the myth of Prometheus (in photo on right). I had seen Orozco’s earlier version in the Pomona dining hall in California, considered “the greatest painting in America” by Jackson Pollack. Orozco lost his left hand making fireworks at 21, and he was fascinated by the story of a man who risked his life and suffered to expand human knowledge and civilization, only to be punished by the Gods. He felt the myth was an allegory for artists, explorers and reformers who were punished by conservatives for their efforts to bring enlightened change to the people. Every alcove and wall tells a story of both progress and betrayal, of historic accomplishments and dark consequences.

Prometheus stole fire from the Gods, but today we struggle with the consequences of burning carbon. Fossil fuels helped us achieve great things, but there are always consequences. Struck by the inescapable conclusions of the art here, we see that conflict over ‘progress’ often results in suffering, especially among the poor. Murals require us to step back, to try to see the bigger picture. We can build hospitals, and we can also destroy whole cultures. We can choose sustainable fuels, or we can let powerful men perpetuate destructive fuels. We may believe ourselves invincible and deserving of the powers of the Gods, but our actions come with destructive consequences that we must try to see, understand and prevent. We must give up fossil fuels, or our world will burn.

Rocky Mountain Region National Heritage Areas

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There are five NHAs in the Rocky Mountain Region: three in Colorado, one in North Dakota and one in Utah. I’ve visited all of them (plus the Great Basin that extends into Utah), and I encourage you to visit too. As befits the region, they are areas of great natural beauty, but each differs distinctly.

Cache La Poudre (Buried Gunpowder) River National Heritage Area follows the river through Fort Collins, a fair sized city north of Denver. The headwaters of the river begin in Rocky Mountain National Park, outside the NHA, and the beautiful upper portion is a popular rafting Wild & Scenic River run by the Forest Service. I love the naturally-flowing sections of the river, which are remarkable, even in a state known for whitewater rafting. The NHA includes historic water works, irrigation canals, a bridge for sugar beet effluent, picnic areas, lakes & reservoirs, bluffs, wildlife areas and a whitewater practice area. The cooperative water district is considered a model for preserving early water rights, although it diverts water through tunnels that would otherwise flow west or north to drier states. Water policies need to be decided nationally, even if it means changing water rights established over 100 years ago. While I’m impressed with how industrious people have been making money with the river, the Climate Crisis is affecting the snow-pack, causing wildfires, and threatening species that depend on the river. So, I believe there’s still much work to be done.

Sangre de Cristo—Blood of Christ, referring to color of the mountains at sunset—National Heritage Area includes Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve (above) and many forests and wildlife areas in southern Colorado. The area figures often in the novels of Louis L’Amour, loved by my grandfather, and there are still stark stretches of remote beauty along the Old Spanish Trails below and among the towering mountains. This NHA borders the Northern Rio Grande NHA in New Mexico, and the headwaters of that river begin here. Some of the oldest settlements and churches in Colorado were built here by Spanish-speaking settlers, following the Rio Grande up from Santa Fe, as I did, enjoying the scenery.

I drove through South Park National Heritage Area looking for a scenic route from Florissant Fossil Beds to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and there are half a dozen scenic historic auto tours here, amidst many wildlife refuges, historic ranches, canyons and old mining outfits. I spent my time gawking at the peaks, vistas and fall colors, without taking photos. Colorado has that kind of indescribably rugged beauty that makes you want to change your life, sell your belongings and move into the mountains, although I admit I haven’t spent winter there.

The Northern Plains National Heritage Area in North Dakota is also ruggedly beautiful. I remember driving great distances to see Knife River Indian Villages NHS before it closed, and I stayed at several state parks to charge. Maybe half a dozen state parks are in the NHA, and they have good facilities, are uncrowded, and are in beautiful spots, often near lakes or rivers. Several of the state parks are stops on the Lewis & Clark NHT. The Native American tribes who assisted them on their journey were later described and painted by European artists and authors, fulfilling great curiosity across the Atlantic and inspiring many Europeans to immigrate to the New World. As with other NHAs, there is a unique sense of place, fleeting historic moments and cultural details that enrich the land with atmosphere, and of course, great natural beauty. But you have to drive, stop, pay attention, keep your eyes open, read, try to understand and make connections, or the whole country just appears to be empty space that you fly over, recklessly burning carbon.

The Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area includes Bryce, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Cedar Breaks and Zion. But besides those geologic wonders, the idea is to encourage more travel on routes 89, 12 and 24. There’s a Scandinavian community around Ephraim in the pretty Sevier Valley on 89. There’s Grand Staircase-Escalante, Goblin Valley, outlaw hideouts, ghost towns, old theaters, and more. I’ve traveled through the NHA in every season taking different routes, and I don’t remember any ugly or boring scenery. Utah is an extremely beautiful state. I occasionally wish it were easier to get something stronger to drink, get a table at a decent restaurant for dinner, or find out more about the Native Americans who used to live there, but it’s unquestionably easy on the eyes.

Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve

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Be cool for the butterflies on Earth Day!

Butterflies are free. Monarchs may arrive at their winter home late, be choosy about where to land, and may leave early. At around 10,000 feet, the dormant volcanic peaks are covered in trees and flowers, with the specific temperatures the Monarchs need. Despite the distance and dangers, the fragile butterflies still manage to fly from Canada to Mexico every year in an extraordinary migration, one of the coolest natural events on earth.

Everyone loves the monarchs, and between the states of Mexico and Michoacán the reserve is both a UNESCO Biosphere and a World Heritage Site. During the November to March season, crowds of locals take bus day trips to see them fly, cluster, feed, mate and fly again. Since the flighty monarchs are unpredictable, day trips can visit their chosen forest at the best times. Overseas visitors often stay for a few days in lovely spots—like Cerro Pelón B&B run by a family of original butterfly rangers—to enjoy the picturesque villages and relaxing environment while recovering from high altitude hiking, as I did.

Humans can impact these glorious butterflies in many ways, both positively and negatively, and we need to be much smarter about making small changes that can help: reduce pesticides, grow butterfly friendly plants and drive slower when butterflies are present. But also, we need to make big, global changes to reduce our carbon emissions, so that this species can survive.

Which brings me to an Earth Day question. Is it worth flying and driving here to see the butterflies, knowing that your carbon pollution will contribute to their extinction? Better to drive an electric car.

Biospheres of the Southwest

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This is a photo of a photo of a Texas Horned Lizard in the arid Chihuahuan Desert scrubland, from a roadside plaque near Las Cruces, New Mexico. The actual habitat is within the White Sands Missile Range and is off limits to the public. This UNESCO recognized special biosphere, Jornada—meaning day’s journey without water—, is open to scientific researchers from USDA, USFWS and NMSU, with limited school trips to the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park in the southernmost corner. For many decades, the Department of Agriculture has been studying the climate here, gathering useful data about the fragile desert ecosystem. The Fish and Wildlife Service mostly focuses on the Bighorn Sheep and other species in the adjacent San Andres Mountains. New Mexico State University organizes research efforts and assists student scientists. 

While you can’t visit the Jornada biosphere or disturb the wildlife, these scientific research zones are extremely important for understanding global climate change and the ecosystems that support unique species. But the southwest region has two internationally recognized biospheres that you can visit: Big Bend and Big Thicket. Big Bend, like Jornada, is part of the Chihuahua Desert, and it also includes a biodiverse riverine ecosystem. Big Thicket is one of the most biodiverse places in the US, where the bayous, leafy forests, pine forests, plains and sand hills intersect and provide habitat for thousands of species. While these areas provide enjoyable excursions for Americans, they are also important beyond our borders. Scientists from all over the world actively support protecting and studying these areas to ensure the survival of species globally.

Teotihuacán

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Feathered and fire serpents adorn the steps of the Quetzalcóatl Pyramid. Some weathering has occurred in the past 17 centuries, but once the eye sockets held black obsidian volcanic glass, the flames were painted bright red and feathers adorned with green jade. The museum (show your gate ticket for admission) near the Sun Pyramid shows murals, artifacts and has a large model of the site, which helps add details to the huge structures outside. None of the three pyramids can be climbed now, but I still walked a couple miles round trip, including the Moon Pyramid near where I started. I arrived early at 9 am, just as the hot air balloons were descending after their dawn tours. It’s an awesome place, but it can get hot and crowded by midday. I recommend staying nearby the night before.

At its peak, Teotihuacán was the largest city in the Americas, 6th largest in the world. Roughly, the city began sometime around 200 BC and fell around 550 CE. Much of their wealth came from obsidian tools, weapons and art, mined from local volcanoes and expertly knapped. The pyramids and related buildings show an elaborate religious class, but few signs of military or monarchs. The pyramids are designed to make observations for the Mesoamerican calendar, so the priests likely derived their power by determining the seasons. Best guess is that their civilization’s collapse was internal, with signs of drought and starvation, before simultaneous fires burned out the elites. The priests essentially had one job—to monitor the climate—, and they failed. Human success, growth, unsustainable use of natural resources, crop failure, and collapse, is a common pattern in ancient civilizations, and we are likely on a similar path due to carbon pollution.

Biosphere 2

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From 1991 to 1993, eight people lived in this huge sealed greenhouse or giant terrarium in Arizona, growing their own food and attempting to live without outside intervention. Built at a cost of some $250 million, the complex includes the artificial ocean above, multiple tropical growing zones, industrial HVAC, and even a unique, massive ‘lung’ to equalize air pressure at different temperatures. Results were mixed, but there are important lessons to be learned.

Humans like to believe we can control our environment and that we have conquered nature. The truth is that we don’t completely understand nature, and when we try to control it, there are unintended consequences.

The most serious problem was a gradual reduction in oxygen, which threatened to kill the participants by around day 500 and required emergency intervention. Despite all the plants, overall, the system produced too much carbon dioxide. Also, the participants complained of constant hunger, unable to eat enough calories per day, which made it difficult to complete their extensive daily chores. Many plants and pollinators did not survive, but stowaways like cockroaches thrived. Still, they survived for two full years. Others later managed shorter stints, but bickering and mismanagement soon ended fully sealed living experiments.

From 1995 to 2003, Columbia University managed the site and completed groundbreaking research here scientifically proving up to 90% declines in oceanic coral due to artificially high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, the coral later died when the site went back on the market, although there are plans to try to reintroduce it. Today the site is run by Arizona State University, which offers both a general self-guided tour and specialized guided tours, in addition to hosting students and researchers. When fully funded, the semi-tropical desert forests are very well controlled and measured, enabling many scientific experiments on micro ecosystems to be carried out under laboratory conditions. Tracers can be added to water and carbon dioxide, so researchers can figure out exactly what plants are doing in different conditions. Unfortunately, the whole complex is extremely energy intensive, and it is run on diesel and natural gas, which both contribute carbon pollution to exacerbate the climate crisis.

Some believe that technology will allow us to adapt to the worst effects of climate change. The truth is that we need to spend our time, energy and money trying to protect Biosphere 1 (Earth) from carbon pollution. This massive, extremely expensive, carefully engineered and scientifically researched project could barely take care of eight people for two years. That’s neither an efficient nor effective use of resources, but it quickly illustrates how difficult it is to scale environmental technologies to the point that they are practical. How big of a terrarium would we need to feed eight billion people? Far better to take care of the Earth, while we still have hope.

Here are my visits to all parks in Arizona.

Forest Wildfires

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I know it’s winter, but we need to talk about wildfires. There is a common, simple-minded view—popular among those who deny climate change—that overzealous park employees unnaturally suppressed fires, causing wildfires today. End of story. Once we ‘catch up’ on the ‘fire deficit’ everything will be fine. This is bunk.

Last year Canada had a record-smashing year of wildfires, and the frequency of wildfires far exceeds what is normal, considering the naturally slow growth rate of trees in boreal forests. Most of these fires were in remote northern Canada, where historic fires were not even reported, let alone suppressed. The estimated number of fires was not too high, but many of the fires were mega fires, burning over seven times as many acres as the modern historic average. There is only one explanation for the scale of the wildfires last year, and it isn’t Smokey the Bear. The primary cause of increasingly severe forest fires is carbon pollution. 

The first humans to change natural fire ecology in North America were natives who for centuries used fires in the valley for agriculture and to attract game with new grass. The most destructive humans by far were loggers who clear cut whole forests. During the Great Depression, roads and campgrounds were developed in both old and regrown forests, bringing millions of visitors who parked their hot cars on dry grass, dropped their cigarettes on pine needles and left their campfires unattended, causing a dramatic increase in forest fires. Firefighters responded by putting out fires when they threatened nearby communities.

We changed forest fire ecology in complex ways over centuries, so the simple ‘fire suppression’ explanation is false. We don’t know exactly what the forest’s natural ecology was like before man started playing with fire here, but man’s brief experiments for a few decades last century—causing wildfires due to camping and suppressing some fires at the edges—all account for maybe 2% of the life of a Giant Sequoia. Yosemite park rangers tracked all fires within the park since the 1930’s, and for decades none of the fires were large enough to matter to the overall health of the forests until recently. Past fires were often 100 or maybe 1000 acres, but recent forest fires are 100,000 or 1,000,000 acres. Our hotter climate has changed everything. Now we need to change our perspective from our recent past to the consequences of our carbon pollution on the future. Extinction is not a mistake we can correct later. 

California has the most national parks with 28 park units, and about 12 of them have some type of large forest, often wilderness. I’ve been in all of those forest parks in the past year or so, and 9 now have huge swaths of dead trees from recent wildfires. 

Only Muir Woods, a small coastal redwood forest park along a creek surrounded by wealthy suburbs, has been spared. Pinnacles has had multiple wildfires in the past three years, but firefighters managed to contain them quickly. Even foggy Redwood park lost 11,000 acres in 2003 due to the Canoe Fire. 

This level of wildfire is not normal; it is out of control, and it is getting worse. Discussing past firefighting efforts and increasing the rate of manmade fires is not going to fix the problem. If we do not stop our carbon pollution, then 100 years of environmentalists’ efforts to save these forests for future generations will be wasted. 

No Time To Wait

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The warmest time of the day is from 3-5 pm, not noon when the sun peaks. The warmest week of the year is between mid July and mid August, not the summer solstice in June. Similarly, the peak year of manmade global warming will come years after we stop increasing carbon pollution. The delay in feeling the full effects means, if we wait until the climate gets intolerable before acting, then we will have to endure many years beyond that intolerable level before our actions take effect. 

We know we are abruptly shifting our climate out of the comfortable zone that enabled human evolution, and we don’t know how bad it will get. We only know that we must act long before the climate becomes intolerable, in order to avoid catastrophe. 

Some say we should wait for more evidence about global warming before acting, such as scientific proof showing the damage caused by carbon pollution. This is like refusing to stop smoking and start taking medicine, until after the disease kills you. Climate scientists have already diagnosed the problem and prescribed the solution, but too many of us are unwilling to face the truth, change our behavior and take our medicine.