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DIY Solar: Considering the Cost Savings
To begin with, let's talk dollars and cents.
According to Energy Sage, the average gross cost of DIY solar system installation is $16,680. In other words, that's what you'll pay for your actual solar components, before taking into account rebates and other tax incentives.
By contrast, the average cost of having your installation done by one of the top solar companies can exceed $20,000 — and that's after tax credit incentives and rebates.
In other words, choosing DIY solar panels can definitely be less expensive. But why is this, exactly? When you go with a professional installation company, a big chunk of your overall cost is going to the design of your new solar power system, as well as labor costs. By eliminating those two expenses, you can shave several thousand dollars off the total price tag.
The flip side is that professional installers are generally able to buy solar panels, solar inverters and the best solar batteries from wholesale distributors, which means they can access a wider range of products and get them for lower prices than what's available to the general public.
In thinking about the cost of solar panels, it's also important to factor in the longevity of your system. After all, $16,680 is still a steep investment, so how much value can you expect in the long run? In general, a residential renewable energy system built with the best solar panels should last anywhere from 25 to 35 years. Average that out to 30 years, and the cost of installation can be annualized to around $556.
Pros and Cons of DIY Solar Panel Installation
Beyond price, there are a number of DIY solar energy pros and cons to consider before attempting to create your own solar panel system.
Advantages of DIY Solar Panels
Here are a few of the major benefits of DIY solar:
- DIY system design: Another main reason to consider DIY solar panels is that you have total control over the design of your system. So, if you're an amateur solar enthusiast, electrician or DIYer and have a very specific vision for how you want your solar array to be assembled, going the do-it-yourself route can give you free rein to do as you please.
- Cost savings: The most obvious advantage of DIY solar panels is the cost savings they offer. If you go for a DIY project, you'll be racking up the savings — both on your electric bill and solar system installation. By eliminating the need for design and labor expenses, you can potentially save a decent chunk of change on your residential solar energy system.
- Easing into solar: DIY solar panels can also be a really smart option for those who are looking to start small, with a more modest home solar project. For example, maybe you're not looking to go completely off-grid just yet, but want to try out a couple of panels to see how much they offset your energy costs. The DIY route can be very cost-effective, especially if you have low energy needs.
These are all notable perks to the DIY solar route, but there are also some drawbacks worth noting.
Disadvantages of DIY Solar Panels
While there are notable perks to the DIY solar approach, there are also some drawbacks worth noting:
- Product availability: One of the primary disadvantages of DIY solar panels is that you're much more limited in the range of products available to you. As mentioned, professional installers have direct access to the most efficient solar panels from leading distributors. As a consumer, your selections are going to be significantly more limited. In other words, there may be top-of-the-line solar panels that you can only get if you go through a professional installer.
- Potential safety hazards: DIY solar installation can be dangerous. To do it right, you need to be pretty knowledgeable about electrical systems and how solar panels work. Without that know-how, you run the risk of loose connections and other wiring problems. These issues can be real fire hazards, jeopardizing the safety of yourself, your home and your family.
- Efficiency issues: Professional solar installers have the knowledge needed to design a solar system that helps you achieve your energy goals. An installer can recommend the exact types of solar panels, roof mounts, inverters and battery banks you need, as well as the proper placement of those components. Without their expertise, you may wind up with a solar system that isn't as optimized or as efficient as it could be.
- Legality: In some municipalities, DIY solar panels may actually be illegal. You should always check with your local zoning board to ensure that you're even permitted to do a DIY solar installation, especially if you're planning a completely off-grid system.
- Navigating savings opportunities: Professional installers can help you claim all of the rebates and tax incentives you're eligible for. Identifying and securing these opportunities on your own can sometimes be a bit of a hassle.
The bottom line: Installing your own residential solar system can yield some notable advantages, including cost savings, but that doesn't always mean it's the wisest option. Due to the safety hazards, limited product options and lack of real solar expertise, many homeowners will conclude that DIY solar system installation just isn't worth it.
Get a Free Quote for Professional Solar Installation
Curious to see how much you'd save by opting for DIY solar panels vs. a professional installation? Fill out the 30-second form below to get a free, no-obligation quote from a top installer near you. By going solar, you could save up to $2,500 per year on utility bills and get a tax rebate all while reducing your carbon footprint.
Deciding Whether DIY Solar Panels Are Right for You
So after weighing the pros and cons of DIY solar, what are the next steps? One thing to keep in mind is that many solar installers offer no-obligation estimates. Even if you're leaning toward a DIY solar system, there's no harm in considering your options and learning a bit more about the solar installation process.
And if you do decide to go with DIY solar panels, one important step is to check local zoning ordinances to be certain you can legally install your own system. From there, start researching different solar panels, batteries and inverters, while also ensuring you have the right baseline knowledge regarding electrical work.
1. Deadly Numbers
Heatwaves may seem to lack the drama of other weather events with named storms and categorized wind speeds, but they're actually the most deadly severe weather event.
Last week's heat dome that locked the Pacific Northwest in a sweltering vice is an apt reminder. The prolonged stretch of record-high temperatures in British Columbia is estimated to have claimed around 300 lives. Another 76 deaths were reported in Washington and Oregon.
Across the world, things have been heating up — with deadly results. Between 1998 and 2017, heatwaves killed 166,000 people, the World Health Organization reports. That includes 70,000 who perished in Europe's 2003 heatwave.
2. Yep, Climate Change
Not surprisingly, climate change is making things worse. An increase in global temperatures has resulted in a rise in the frequency of heatwaves. In the years to come, climate change is expected to also make heatwaves more severe and longer lasting.
As people pump up the air conditioning and stay indoors, that also puts increased pressure on the electrical grid. New research found that these extreme weather events are triggering more failures of critical infrastructure.
Power failures, for example, have jumped 60% since 2015. The combination of excessive heat and blackouts in major U.S. cities would have calamitous results. In Detroit, the researchers found in their modeling, that could mean 450,000 exposed to dangerous temperatures and a whopping 1.7 million in air conditioning-reliant Phoenix.
3. The Dangers of Humidity
The most recent deadly heatwave hit the arid West, increasing concerns about wildfires.
An aerial image of the McKay Creek fire in British Columbia acquired by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 on June 30, 2021 during the region's record-breaking heatwave. NASA
Our bodies sweat to help keep us cool. But when the relative humidity is too high that moisture from our skin can't evaporate as well and we don't cool down. Scientists have identified the related wet bulb temperature of 95° F as the upper limit of what we can tolerate when conditions are both hot and extremely humid.
By midcentury, models predict, climate change will make wet bulb temperatures near 95° F a reality. But new research shows that areas in South Asia, the coastal Middle East and the coastal southwest of North America are already hitting that critical point.
4. Inequity Makes It Hotter
Not all people will face the same risks — even if they live in the same cities. Neighborhoods that lack tree canopy and green space, and have more road surfaces and large buildings, could be as much as 20° F hotter.
A 2020 study of 108 cities published in the journal Climate found that areas with higher temperatures are almost always the same neighborhoods that have experienced historic racist housing policies such as "redlining."
"This study reveals that historical housing policies may, in fact, be directly responsible for disproportionate exposure to current heat events," the researchers wrote. Another recent study in Nature Communications found that people of color have a higher risk than whites of high heat exposure in all but six of the largest 175 cities in the United States.
5. Wildlife at Risk
People aren't the only ones feeling the heat. The Pacific Northwest's recent heatwave also threatens cold-water-loving salmon. The Columbia and Snake rivers this year are seeing temperatures within two degrees of the "slaughter zone" that killed 250,000 sockeye in 2015, The Seattle Times reported.
When water temps rise above 62, #salmon are "more vulnerable to disease, and as temperatures climb higher, they wil… https://t.co/idBET1J1Vy— NWF - Idaho (@NWF - Idaho)1624993175.0
The heatwave hit at the peak of the sockeye run, and also when spring and summer chinook and steelhead are migrating. Some fish are being pulled out of the river and trucked to hatcheries for spawning.
"We are crossing the line to temperatures that can be disastrous for fish," Michele DeHart, manager of the Fish Passage Center, told The Seattle Times. "I would say the outlook is pretty grim."
6. Vicious Circle
The hotter it gets, the more fortunate people who have air conditioning crank up the dial and the longer they'll need to leave it running. In a fossil-fuel driven world, that means even more emissions that will continue heating the planet.
Already 10% of global electrical use is from people trying to stay cool with air conditioning and electric fans, according to the International Energy Agency. Expect that number to climb as temperatures get hotter and more people become able to afford A/C.
The International Energy Agency reports that over the next 30 years, air conditioning may be one of the top drivers of electricity demand. "Without action to address energy efficiency, energy demand for space cooling will more than triple by 2050 — consuming as much electricity as all of China and India today," the agency reports.
That makes the need for high-efficiency cooling extremely vital. Not to mention more widespread use of renewable energy and, of course, drastically curbing climate emissions.
Reposted with permission from The Revelator.
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Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass while driving around the region is lined with dead or dying trees.
As an ecologist studying wetland response to sea level rise, I know this flooding is evidence that climate change is altering landscapes along the Atlantic coast. It's emblematic of environmental changes that also threaten wildlife, ecosystems, and local farms and forestry businesses.
Like all living organisms, trees die. But what is happening here is not normal. Large patches of trees are dying simultaneously, and saplings aren't growing to take their place. And it's not just a local issue: Seawater is raising salt levels in coastal woodlands along the entire Atlantic Coastal Plain, from Maine to Florida. Huge swaths of contiguous forest are dying. They're now known in the scientific community as "ghost forests."
Deer photographed by a remote camera in a climate change-altered forest in North Carolina. Emily Ury / CC BY-ND
The Insidious Role of Salt
Sea level rise driven by climate change is making wetlands wetter in many parts of the world. It's also making them saltier.
In 2016 I began working in a forested North Carolina wetland to study the effect of salt on its plants and soils. Every couple of months, I suit up in heavy rubber waders and a mesh shirt for protection from biting insects, and haul over 100 pounds of salt and other equipment out along the flooded trail to my research site. We are salting an area about the size of a tennis court, seeking to mimic the effects of sea level rise.
After two years of effort, the salt didn't seem to be affecting the plants or soil processes that we were monitoring. I realized that instead of waiting around for our experimental salt to slowly kill these trees, the question I needed to answer was how many trees had already died, and how much more wetland area was vulnerable. To find answers, I had to go to sites where the trees were already dead.
Rising seas are inundating North Carolina's coast, and saltwater is seeping into wetland soils. Salts move through groundwater during phases when freshwater is depleted, such as during droughts. Saltwater also moves through canals and ditches, penetrating inland with help from wind and high tides. Dead trees with pale trunks, devoid of leaves and limbs, are a telltale sign of high salt levels in the soil. A 2019 report called them "wooden tombstones."
As the trees die, more salt-tolerant shrubs and grasses move in to take their place. In a newly published study that I coauthored with Emily Bernhardt and Justin Wright at Duke University and Xi Yang at the University of Virginia, we show that in North Carolina this shift has been dramatic.
The state's coastal region has suffered a rapid and widespread loss of forest, with cascading impacts on wildlife, including the endangered red wolf and red-cockaded woodpecker. Wetland forests sequester and store large quantities of carbon, so forest die-offs also contribute to further climate change.
Researcher Emily Ury measuring soil salinity in a ghost forest. Emily Bernhardt / CC BY-ND
Assessing Ghost Forests From Space
To understand where and how quickly these forests are changing, I needed a bird's-eye perspective. This perspective comes from satellites like NASA's Earth Observing System, which are important sources of scientific and environmental data.
Since 1972, Landsat satellites, jointly operated by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, have captured continuous images of Earth's land surface that reveal both natural and human-induced change. We used Landsat images to quantify changes in coastal vegetation since 1984 and referenced high-resolution Google Earth images to spot ghost forests. Computer analysis helped identify similar patches of dead trees across the entire landscape.
A 2016 Landsat8 image of the Albemarle Pamlico Peninsula in coastal North Carolina. USGS
Google Earth image of a healthy forest on the right and a ghost forest with many dead trees on the left. Emily Ury
The results were shocking. We found that more than 10% of forested wetland within the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge was lost over the past 35 years. This is federally protected land, with no other human activity that could be killing off the forest.
Rapid sea level rise seems to be outpacing the ability of these forests to adapt to wetter, saltier conditions. Extreme weather events, fueled by climate change, are causing further damage from heavy storms, more frequent hurricanes and drought.
We found that the largest annual loss of forest cover within our study area occurred in 2012, following a period of extreme drought, forest fires and storm surges from Hurricane Irene in August 2011. This triple whammy seemed to have been a tipping point that caused mass tree die-offs across the region.
Habitat maps we created for the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge showing the change over time and the prevalence of ghost forests. Ury et al, 2021., CC BY-ND
Should Scientists Fight the Transition or Assist It?
As global sea levels continue to rise, coastal woodlands from the Gulf of Mexico to the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere around the world could also suffer major losses from saltwater intrusion. Many people in the conservation community are rethinking land management approaches and exploring more adaptive strategies, such as facilitating forests' inevitable transition into salt marshes or other coastal landscapes.
For example, in North Carolina the Nature Conservancy is carrying out some adaptive management approaches, such as creating "living shorelines" made from plants, sand and rock to provide natural buffering from storm surges.
A more radical approach would be to introduce marsh plants that are salt-tolerant in threatened zones. This strategy is controversial because it goes against the desire to try to preserve ecosystems exactly as they are.
But if forests are dying anyway, having a salt marsh is a far better outcome than allowing a wetland to be reduced to open water. While open water isn't inherently bad, it does not provide the many ecological benefits that a salt marsh affords. Proactive management may prolong the lifespan of coastal wetlands, enabling them to continue storing carbon, providing habitat, enhancing water quality and protecting productive farm and forest land in coastal regions.
Emily Ury is a Ph.D. candidate in Duke University's Program in Ecology.
Disclosure statement: Emily Ury received funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the North Carolina Sea Grant. Additional support for this project came from the National Science Foundation.
Reposted with permission from The Conversation.
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Looking out over the vast, rolling landscape, I wondered how such a stunning, incomparable ecosystem can be taken for granted.
I'd accompanied National University of Colombia agricultural scientist Jairo Cuervo, that day, to Sumapaz — about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Bogotá — to better understand the impacts of an expanding agricultural frontier on rich páramo soils.
Sumapaz is the world's largest páramo — a type of high-altitude moorland ecosystem found in the South and Central American neotropics that functions as a sort of sponge, efficiently absorbing and storing rainwater and moisture into its vegetation and rich soils. The water is then released slowly and steadily, which is particularly important in dry seasons. Sumapaz and the nearby Chingaza páramo, for example, provide most of the water for the entire Bogotá savanna.
Páramos, experts say, may also serve as a sort of buffer against climate-change-induced recession of tropical mountain glaciers and extended droughts — if we can protect them.
Cuervo pointed to a potato farm and some grazing cows in the distance, where they'd taken over from the native vegetation. "Despite the páramo providing us with water to live, they are largely forgotten, neglected and at terrible risk," he says.
Agriculture is just one of many interconnected pressures threatening these unique ecosystems and the people and wildlife who depend on them.
High Risk in the High Andes
In an exquisitely diverse country, no ecosystem is as unique and directly integrated into the health and well-being of Colombian society as the High Andean páramo.
Some of Colombia and Ecuador's major rivers also rise in the páramos, and large cities such as Bogotá, Medellin and Cali in Colombia and Quito in Ecuador are almost completely dependent on them for their water supplies. Tens of millions of people in the region rely on the páramo ecosystem for drinking water and a range of agricultural and industrial activities — an estimated 70% to 80% of the Colombian populace.
Coconucos Páramo. Cauca, Colombia. D.H. Rasolt
These "water towers," as they're commonly known, are also one of the world's most rapidly evolving ecosystems.
"Páramos are a hotspot within a global hotspot, as they're located mostly within the threatened tropical Andes," says Santiago Madriñan, a botanist from the Universidad de los Andes and an expert on páramos.
In an influential 2013 study, Madriñan and his team made the claim that páramos are the planet's coolest and fastest evolving biodiversity hotspots, a conclusion established through genetic analysis of páramo plant species and comparison to other rapidly evolving biodiversity hotspots, such as the Mediterranean Basin, the Hawaiian Archipelago and the California Floristic Region. Some analogous processes being uncovered in parts of the Tibetan Plateau may give the páramos competition to this "hotspot of all hotspots" claim, but even so the páramos are undoubtedly special.
"The páramo, like the famed Galápagos Islands, are like a laboratory for studying the process of evolution," Madriñan says. "We can learn how these species adapted to changing climatic conditions over a relatively short period of geological time. The páramo only came into existence within the last 2 to 3 million years, at which time uplift of the Northern Andes mountains rose above the tree line."
For extended periods, especially during past glacial periods, páramo ecosystems remained more connected and evolved more uniformly at lower altitudes within mountain valleys due to a lower tree line. Since then, they've shrunk dramatically, while their evolutionary potential has practically exploded.
"The ensuing warmer epochs such as our present Holocene disconnected and isolated páramo complexes, creating 'sky islands' with very high species diversification and endemism," explains Madriñan. "Most of the more than 3,000 plant species so-far discovered are highly specialized to the extreme conditions of the páramo." These conditions include powerful ultraviolet radiation, drastic day-night temperature swings and abrupt changes in weather.
And páramos are not only rich in plant life. They contain hundreds of endemic and threatened bird, reptile, amphibian, insect and mammal species, including the majestic Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) and spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus).
Rising Temperatures Threaten Páramos
While páramos serve as a buffer against climate change and water scarcity, they're threatened by rapidly rising temperatures themselves — as are the plants and animals that live there.
The high altitude, isolation and specialization of many species limits their so-called "adaptive capacity" and ability to migrate upwards.
"There is no time or space to adapt to present trends of rising temperatures for many of the páramo plant species, including the Espeletias," says Madriñon, who co-authored a recent study that showed Espeletias' vulnerability to climate change. "They will be pushed out of existence."
Rising temperatures in the páramo are also bringing some unwelcome guests.
"With climate change, insects often migrate upwards much faster than other species," says Thomas Walschburger, a conservation biologist and science coordinator for TNC-Colombia. "There are some species arriving in the páramo ecosystem, such as beetles, caterpillars and other potential pests, that can have an unwanted impact, including on the frailejones. It's unknown if the frailejones will have the time and ability to adapt to their presence."
Climate change may also bring increased risk of fires within the páramos. Research has shown that fires in the páramo are mostly of human origin, sparked to clear vegetation and create open grassland. The higher temperatures and potentially drier conditions under climate change will make these fires both easier to start and harder to control. In February 2020 a massive fire burned at least 11 square miles (30 square km) in Sumapaz. The flames were bad enough to mobilize Colombia's Disaster Risk Management Agency and cause air-pollution alerts in nearby Bogotá.
This isn't just a local or regional problem. The waterlogged páramo soils are rich in organic matter and extremely dense in carbon, on the range of 0.2 – 1.4 tons per hectare, depending on depth. Scientists say the loss of the páramos' carbon storage capacity will likely lead to a net-release of carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to global climate change.
Encroaching Mining and Agriculture
Other threats continue to chip away at páramo ecosystems.
Legal loopholes are at the center of ongoing conflicts regarding hundreds of mining concessions granted within and around the páramos in Colombia. The ecosystems are supposed to be protected by law from such extractive activities, but that has done little to deter the ambitions of shortsighted corporations looking to exploit their mineral wealth.
Nowhere has this battle been more contentious than Minesa's massive gold-mining concession within and around the Santurbán páramo, in Colombia's Santander department.
Lagunas Negras, Santurbán páramo circa 12,000 feet (3,800 meters). Santander, Colombia. D.H. Rasolt
In a 2018 letter for Science, Madriñan and 13 other highly regarded researchers from around the world emphasized that the protection of biodiverse páramos and Andean forests has been largely neglected in Colombia. They wrote:
"We urge environmental authorities to take the necessary action to stop the Santurbán [Minesa] goldmining project and instead promote the active preservation and restoration of the páramos and Andean forests, particularly in this biologically important area of the country."
Today the decades-long struggle over Santurbán continues, thanks to strong local and national resistance fortified by researchers who enforce the socioecological importance of páramos.
Meanwhile the rapidly expanding high-Andean agricultural frontier, particularly for cow pastures and potato farming, poses perhaps the most tangible and immediate threat to páramos. Cow grazing requires large swaths of grassland and ruins páramo soil quality, while potato farmers drain bogs and often intensively deploy agrochemicals.
Cows grazing in the subpáramo, 10,000 feet (3,100 meters), in Cauca, Colombia. D.H. Rasolt
"With cattle, their weight compacts this naturally sponge-like soil, so if cattle grazing becomes even more extensive in the páramos, it could lead to the loss of the páramos' vital function of efficient water absorption and slow release," explained Jairo Cuervo while we were in the Sumapaz páramo. "There would also be increased runoff, soil erosion and flood risk, accompanied by decreased water quality that is exacerbated by agrochemical use for expanding potato cultivations in the páramos and subpáramos."
The Challenge of Delimiting and Protecting the Páramo
The success of conservation efforts and attempts to limit the expansion of mining and agriculture into páramos will depend greatly on one critical element: maps.
But delimiting individual páramos and the entire global area of páramo, which exist at altitudes between the tree line and the snow line, is no easy task.
A widely cited statistic for the global páramo area estimates them at 13,500 square miles (35,000 square km), and within this estimate, more than half of the páramo area (7,300 square miles, or 19,000 square km) is within Colombia's delimited páramo complexes. But that may leave a lot of these ecosystems unrecognized and unprotected.
"The most current accepted area of páramo in Colombia is around 3 million hectares [11,500 square miles]," said Brigitte Baptiste, a Colombian biologist and the former director of the Humboldt Institute, the entity responsible for delimiting Colombia's páramos.
The remaining páramo is found in parts of Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Costa Rica.
What holds back efforts to draw more conclusive lines around the páramos? "I think the top challenges for the delimitation are not technical but social," says Baptiste. "There are different ways of dealing with physical and biological issues by local people as well as by institutions and at other scales. Therefore it's quite difficult to get an agreement about where to draw the line, and to get a science policy process in place which allows us to negotiate this definition."
Regardless of the challenges, it is critical that the páramos' limits be properly defined if they're to be conserved. "The effects of páramo delimitation are clear: no mining, no agriculture, within the accepted legal area of páramo," says Baptiste.
The Need for Socio-Ecological Balance
There are clearly conflicting interests among farming communities living within or around the páramo, mining companies looking to exploit the region, researchers enthralled by the unique ecosystem, and the multitude downstream who depend on páramos for water.
It wasn't always this out of balance between humans and the páramo.
Indigenous peoples such as the Muisca lived in harmony with and worshipped the páramo for thousands of years, before their lands were stolen and cultures destroyed. Today some resilient Indigenous peoples remain and continue to protect the vital sacred páramo.
"The páramo is the originator of life and connects us to our ancestors. It should never be mined, burned, grazed or cultivated, as many shortsighted people do today," Nasa leader Maria Pito told me in November 2019 from within the Pisxnu Páramo in Cauca, Colombia.
Pisxnu Páramo. Cauca, Colombia. D.H. Rasolt
Science is just starting to catch up with holistic traditional knowledge by providing data-driven socio-ecological reasons for protecting these ecosystems. For example, integrated modeling of the páramos' complex and still largely unknown hydrological processes by the Stockholm Environmental Institute in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru has uncovered some important trends. It's a difficult task, as researcher Cristo Pérez explained to me: "To properly model the páramos' hydrology, one must account for the dynamic interplay between large amounts of groundwater, surface water, precipitation and the many rivers born in the páramos."
But that complex hydrology is already suffering, and the problems are expected to get worse. In a 2016 SEI study of Peru's Quiroz-Chipillico watershed, the authors concluded: "As expected, the model showed that rising temperatures and reduced precipitation would affect water availability. But land use change — specifically, the conversion of páramo to new uses and degradation of the páramo — had an even greater effect." These projections further enforce that water availability will decrease not just for local communities and biodiversity, but for millions of people and ecosystems downstream.
The Time for Coordinated Action
The experts I spoke with all agreed that the interconnected pressures of climate change and human land use pose an existential threat to the páramos. Climate change will both directly affect specialized páramo species and will make the clearing of their vegetation by fire more common and efficient. As fires clear more land, cow pastures and potato cultivations will reach progressively higher altitudes within the páramos unless there are stronger efforts to limit their expansion. This, in turn, will further degrade soils and affect species' ability to adapt and migrate.
Then there's the question of water. Some research suggests that upward-migrating Andean forests may help to fill part of the dynamic hydrological function left by the disappearing páramos, but not if those lands are simply cleared for human activities.
"Maybe some of the water regulation can be made by High Andean forest, but we don't know for sure as there would be changes to the structure and composition of water-retaining páramo soils," says Walschburger. "Regardless, the impacts on biodiversity will be terrible if the páramo disappears."
My own time in the páramos working with Indigenous peoples and a diverse spectrum of researchers has often given me the opportunity to venture alone to absorb the tranquility, complexity and breathtaking biodiversity of this neglected high-altitude paradise. These experiences have instilled in me that the páramos are an irreplaceable ecosystem in need of the highest levels of local, regional and global protection.
Whether they're a vital source of water for tens of millions of people, megadiverse "sky islands" that can serve as a laboratory for the study of endemic species and evolutionary biology, buffers against climate change, or a sacred and awe-inspiring source of biocultural heritage, their loss would be an irreparable tragedy for both the region and the planet.
Reposted with permission from The Revelator.
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