The 10 Best Books On Climate Change, According to Climate Activists
A pair of trees grow out of a book that rests on scorched earth to depict climate change. vencavolrab / Getty Images
A record number of Americans are concerned about climate change, a recent study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication found. If you're among them, you may be interested in learning more about the climate crisis and what you can do about it. Luckily, you don't have to comb through scientific papers in order to educate yourself (unless you'd like to): More and more books on climate change and climate action are published every year, ranging from grimly realistic takes on the severity of the crisis to optimistic visions of social and technological solutions. To find out which ones are worth a read, Teen Vogue reached out to 11 climate activists for their recommendations. Here are the books they said were most informative and inspiring.
1. Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History by Ted Steinberg
"Down to Earth is a history of North America from an environmental perspective. It's an easy read, and very interesting. One chapter explains how we used to know where our food came from, but eventually we pushed agriculture out to the sidelines of our cities, causing many other problems. Down to Earth made me realize that this country was founded on exploitation and that everything we do has an impact." —Natalie Blackwelder, commissioner of sustainability, Santa Barbara City College
2. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken
"Drawdown is a handbook for how to stop and then reverse climate change. It lists dozens of actions to not just avoid putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but to draw carbon dioxide down out of the atmosphere. When you combine 'family planning' and 'educating girls' from the top 10 actions list, they draw down more CO2 from the atmosphere than anything else on the list. Feminism literally saves humanity from climate catastrophe." —Cassian Lodge, LGBTQ+ and environmental activist, U.K.
"When I felt overwhelmed at the big challenge of stopping climate change, this book broke things down to something manageable. It's like a playbook of climate solutions. I was fascinated to learn about marine permaculture, which is one of the proposed solutions. It's a method of growing seaweed on floating platforms that not only removes carbon from the atmosphere, but can also restore life to the oceans and provide an economic boon to coastal communities. I've since learned a lot about it, and I even helped lead a fundraiser that will help build some platforms off the coast of Tasmania." —Mark Abersold, software developer and Citizens' Climate Lobby member; moderator for Reddit's Climate Offensive forum
3. Frontlines: Stories of Global Environmental Justice by Nick Meynen
"Nick Meynen's storytelling is personal, powerful, and inspiring. Every unpacked frontline is one cutting edge of an economic system and political ideology that is destroying life on earth. Revealing our ecosystems to be under a sustained attack, Meynen finds causes for hope in unconventional places. He reminds us that it is up to each and every one of us to play our role in the fight to achieve the radical changes necessary to save the planet." —Paola Hernández Olivan, food project and policy officer, Health Care Without Harm, Brussels
4. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg
"No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference contains the speeches made by the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg — in climate rallies across Europe, to audiences at the U.N., the World Economic Forum, and the British Parliament. Greta inspires me because she says it like it is. She doesn't wrap the truth up in pretty paper to make it easier to take. Among millions of activists, Greta has one of the most powerful voices because she occupies the moral and ethical high ground of someone from the next generation whose life is being destroyed." —Christine Essex, coordinator, Extinction Rebellion Newbury
Favorite quote: And we will never stop fighting, we will never stop fighting for this planet, and for ourselves, our futures, and for the futures of our children and our grandchildren.
5. The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change by Danny Chivers
"This is the clearest and most succinct book I have ever read about the nature of climate change, the forces that are blocking action on it, and the forces that have arisen to confront it. I teach classes on this subject, and this book works year after year to bring everyone up to speed on the problem and potential actions we can take. It's funny, readable, engaging, and powerful." —John Foran, professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Favorite passage: This is going to be the most amazing, inspiring, and unifying social movement that the world has ever seen. It's going to be difficult, and frustrating at times, but it's also going to massively enrich the lives of everyone who's a part of it. This includes you.… [You can] be part of the most exciting and important social uprising of our lifetimes.
6. The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
"By the author of The Windup Girl, The Water Knife is a fictional portrayal of the effects of climate change on the western United States. It includes scenes of trying to get by in Phoenix when it's basically a desert. It's a powerful, well-written story that emphasizes the impacts of climate-induced social collapse on women." —D. Kempton, Climate Reality Canada, Drawdown Newmarket-Aurora
7. As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, From Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
"This book covers the 500-year history of Native American resistance to colonialism and ecocide. It contextualized my environmental work as part of a struggle that has been taking place in the Americas since European contact, and it made me feel more connected to the larger Native American environmental movement as a cohesive whole both over time and across cultures and places. For Native people, this book is a reminder of how connected and similar our environmental justice struggles have been. This is especially important because the climate crisis requires cooperation across cultures and locations in an unprecedented way." —Shaylon Stolk, Indigenous (Scottish/Wayúu) renewable energy scientist and organizer with Extinction Rebellion justice; based in occupied Duwamish land (Seattl
8. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells
"This book offers specific, science-based predictions about the effects of unchecked global warming. It scared me silly, and it inspired me to reflect and act." —Gregg Long, high school English teacher, Illinois
Favorite quote: It is worse, much worse, than you think.
9. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein
"This Changes Everything makes the case that the climate crisis is a consequence of capitalism, but it is a crisis that offers an opportunity to organize a new political system. It convinced me that we won't invent or grow our way out of this problem, but that it can be solved by political organizing. It's sobering and empowering, which is a difficult tightrope to walk." —Evan, Climate Justice committee coordinator, Democratic Socialists of America, Los Angeles chapter
Favorite passage: And that is what is behind the abrupt rise in climate change denial among hard-core conservatives: They have come to understand that as soon as they admit that climate change is real, they will lose the central ideological battle of our time — whether we need to plan and manage our societies to reflect our goals and values, or whether that task can be left to the magic of the market.
10. This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook by Extinction Rebellion
"This Is Not a Drill is a handbook on nonviolent civil disobedience for the challenges of the 21st century. Only a mass social movement will save us. This book provides the tools for that." —George, youth climate activist, U.K.
Favorite passage: We may or may not escape a breakdown. But we can escape the toxicity of the mindset that has brought us here. And in doing so we can recover a humanity that is capable of real resilience.
This story originally appeared in Teen Vogue and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
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Cottongrass blows in the wind at the edge of Etivlik Lake, Alaska. Western Arctic National Parklands / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 2.0
By Tara Lohan
Warming temperatures on land and in the water are already forcing many species to seek out more hospitable environments. Atlantic mackerel are swimming farther north; mountain-dwelling pikas are moving upslope; some migratory birds are altering the timing of their flights.
Numerous studies have tracked these shifting ranges, looked at the importance of wildlife corridors to protect these migrations, and identified climate refugia where some species may find a safer climatic haven.
"There's a huge amount of scientific literature about where species will have to move as the climate warms," says U.C. Berkeley biogeographer Matthew Kling. "But there hasn't been much work in terms of actually thinking about how they're going to get there — at least not when it comes to wind-dispersed plants."
Kling and David Ackerly, professor and dean of the College of Natural Resources at U.C. Berkeley, have taken a stab at filling this knowledge gap. Their recent study, published in Nature Climate Change, looks at the vulnerability of wind-dispersed species to climate change.
It's an important field of research, because while a fish can more easily swim toward colder waters, a tree may find its wind-blown seeds landing in places and conditions where they're not adapted to grow.
Kling is careful to point out that the researchers weren't asking how climate change was going to change wind; other research suggests there likely won't be big shifts in global wind patterns.
Instead the study involved exploring those wind patterns — including direction, speed and variability — across the globe. The wind data was then integrated with data on climate variation to build models trying to predict vulnerability patterns showing where wind may either help or hinder biodiversity from responding to climate change.
One of the study's findings was that wind-dispersed or wind-pollinated trees in the tropics and on the windward sides of mountain ranges are more likely to be vulnerable, since the wind isn't likely to move those dispersers in the right direction for a climate-friendly environment.
The researchers also looked specifically at lodgepole pines, a species that's both wind-dispersed and wind-pollinated.
They found that populations of lodgepole pines that already grow along the warmer and drier edges of the species' current range could very well be under threat due to rising temperatures and related climate alterations.
"As temperature increases, we need to think about how the genes that are evolved to tolerate drought and heat are going to get to the portions of the species' range that are going to be getting drier and hotter," says Kling. "So that's what we were able to take a stab at predicting and estimating with these wind models — which populations are mostly likely to receive those beneficial genes in the future."
That's important, he says, because wind-dispersed species like pines, willows and poplars are often keystone species whole ecosystems depend upon — especially in temperate and boreal forests.
And there are even more plants that rely on pollen dispersal by wind.
"That's going to be important for moving genes from the warmer parts of a species' range to the cooler parts of the species' range," he says. "This is not just about species' ranges shifting, but also genetic changes within species."
Kling says this line of research is just beginning, and much more needs to be done to test these models in the field. But there could be important conservation-related benefits to that work.
"All these species and genes need to migrate long distances and we can be thinking more about habitat connectivity and the vulnerability of these systems," he says.
The more we learn, the more we may be able to do to help species adapt.
"The idea is that there will be some landscapes where the wind is likely to help these systems naturally adapt to climate change without much intervention, and other places where land managers might really need to intervene," he says. "That could involve using assisted migration or assisted gene flow to actually get in there, moving seeds or planting trees to help them keep up with rapid climate change."
Tara Lohan is deputy editor of The Revelator and has worked for more than a decade as a digital editor and environmental journalist focused on the intersections of energy, water and climate. Her work has been published by The Nation, American Prospect, High Country News, Grist, Pacific Standard and others. She is the editor of two books on the global water crisis. http://twitter.com/TaraLohan
Reposted with permission from The Revelator.
An illustration depicts the extinct woolly rhino. Heinrich Harder / Wikimedia Commons
The last Ice Age eliminated some giant mammals, like the woolly rhino. Conventional thinking initially attributed their extinction to hunting. While overhunting may have contributed, a new study pinpointed a different reason for the woolly rhinos' extinction: climate change.
The last of the woolly rhinos went extinct in Siberia nearly 14,000 years ago, just when the Earth's climate began changing from its frozen conditions to something warmer, wetter and less favorable to the large land mammal. DNA tests conducted by scientists on 14 well-preserved rhinos point to rapid warming as the culprit, CNN reported.
"Humans are well known to alter their environment and so the assumption is that if it was a large animal it would have been useful to people as food and that must have caused its demise," says Edana Lord, a graduate student at the Center for Paleogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden, and co-first author of the paper, Smithsonian Magazine reported. "But our findings highlight the role of rapid climate change in the woolly rhino's extinction."
The study, published in Current Biology, notes that the rhino population stayed fairly consistent for tens of thousands of years until 18,500 years ago. That means that people and rhinos lived together in Northern Siberia for roughly 13,000 years before rhinos went extinct, Science News reported.
The findings are an ominous harbinger for large species during the current climate crisis. As EcoWatch reported, nearly 1,000 species are expected to go extinct within the next 100 years due to their inability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. Tigers, eagles and rhinos are especially vulnerable.
The difference between now and the phenomenon 14,000 years ago is that human activity is directly responsible for the current climate crisis.
To figure out the cause of the woolly rhinos' extinction, scientists examined DNA from different rhinos across Siberia. The tissue, bone and hair samples allowed them to deduce the population size and diversity for tens of thousands of years prior to extinction, CNN reported.
Researchers spent years exploring the Siberian permafrost to find enough samples. Then they had to look for pristine genetic material, Smithsonian Magazine reported.
It turns out the wooly rhinos actually thrived as they lived alongside humans.
"It was initially thought that humans appeared in northeastern Siberia fourteen or fifteen thousand years ago, around when the woolly rhinoceros went extinct. But recently, there have been several discoveries of much older human occupation sites, the most famous of which is around thirty thousand years old," senior author Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the Center for Paleogenetics, said in a press release.
"This paper shows that woolly rhino coexisted with people for millennia without any significant impact on their population," Grant Zazula, a paleontologist for Canada's Yukon territory and Simon Fraser University who was not involved in the research, told Smithsonian Magazine. "Then all of a sudden the climate changed and they went extinct."
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A large patch of leaked oil and the vessel MV Wakashio near Blue Bay Marine Park off the coast of southeast Mauritius on Aug. 6, 2020. AFP via Getty Images
The environmental disaster that Mauritius is facing is starting to appear as its pristine waters turn black, its fish wash up dead, and its sea birds are unable to take flight, as they are limp under the weight of the fuel covering them. For all the damage to the centuries-old coral that surrounds the tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean, scientists are realizing that the damage could have been much worse and there are broad lessons for the shipping industry, according to Al Jazeera.
<p>As <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/oil-spill-disaster-mauritius-2646957267.html" target="_self">EcoWatch</a> reported earlier this week, a French ship was working with Mauritian authorities and a team from Japan to remove the remaining fuel in the ship's tanks before it broke in two and spilled thousands of tons of fuel into the water. Fortunately, that operation was successful and all but a minimal amount of fuel has been removed from the sinking ship, according to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53750151" target="_blank">BBC</a>. That means a spill that's more than twice as damaging has been avoided. Furthermore, nobody died in the accident. The worst has been avoided as Mauritius waits for the ship to break in two.</p>
<p>Al Jazeera noted that the ship also had no cargo so it was not a fully loaded tanker, which would have caused much more damage. This accident has spilled the equivalent of about 7,000 barrels of oil, a tiny fraction of the nearly 3.2 million barrels spilled by the Deepwater Horizon accident.</p><p>While that is a spot of good news, the environmental impact of what has been spilled is just coming into focus. The waters of Blue Bay Marine Park, a habitat for rare <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life">marine life</a> and a wetlands designated as a site of international importance by an international convention on wetlands, have been devastated, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritius-environment/massive-poisonous-shock-scientists-fear-lasting-impact-from-mauritius-oil-spill-idUSKCN2592Z6" target="_blank">Reuters</a>.</p><p>"This oil spill occurred in one of, if not the most, sensitive areas in Mauritius," oceanographer and environmental engineer Vassen Kauppaymuthoo told Reuters by telephone from the island, where he was surveying the disaster. "We are talking of decades to recover from this damage, and some of it may never recover."</p>
<p>The Ursa Space Systems tweeted satellite imagery from a Finnish satellite that showed the extent of the oil slick earlier this week. "Our team estimates the size of the slick is nearly 10x larger than on Aug 6," the tweet reads.</p>
<div id="65aac" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3dd7ff1eb0d98450b7551743230e7b74"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1293587048344047621" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Ursa's analysis using @iceyefi imagery reveals a rapid expansion of the oil slick leaking from bulk carrier MV Waka… https://t.co/oyEFWaPku6</div> — Ursa Space Systems (@Ursa Space Systems)<a href="https://twitter.com/UrsaSpace/statuses/1293587048344047621">1597250160.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"Thousands of species around the pristine lagoons are at risk of drowning in a sea of pollution, with dire consequences for Mauritius's economy, food security and health," said Happy Khambule, Greenpeace Africa's senior climate and energy campaign manager, as Al Jazeera reported.</p><p>Additionally, there are reports of people breathing oil vapor, according to the BBC.</p>
<p>Reuters noted that the area around Mauritius will feel a slow, insidious impact, as the corals and fish become the first to die off. That means the remaining corals will be increasingly vulnerable to marine heat waves, which are becoming more frequent and more extreme as the climate crisis unfolds.</p><p>"If things continue to go the way they are the future prospects for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs">coral reefs</a> look very, very bleak indeed," said Alex Rogers, a visiting professor at Oxford University, to Reuters. Blue Bay Marine Park is home to 38 unique species of coral.</p><p>The oil will also seep into the sediment around the roots of mangrove trees and could choke out mollusks, crabs and fish eggs, said Callum Roberts, a professor of marine conservation at the University of Exeter in Britain, who spoke to Reuters.</p><p>"It's very hard to remove once it's sunk into the sediment," Roberts said. "Trees can become sick and die."</p><p>Additionally, the sea grasses around the island will be at risk and the fate of the critically <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species">endangered</a> Pink Pigeon is in jeopardy. The sea grasses play a vital role in protecting the coastline from waves, according to Reuters.</p>
<p>This spill is also a warning shot for the increasingly treacherous waters around the Arctic, which is seeing an increase in ice melt. That means the waters are becoming more navigable, but sea ice that has broken off from ice shelves threaten the increased tanker traffic, according to the Clean Arctic Alliance (CAA), as Al Jazeera reported.</p><p>"The spill in Mauritius demonstrates the limitations of response operations to cope with heavy fuel oil spills even in relatively favorable conditions," said Dave Walsh of the CAA to Al Jazeera.</p><p>"It underlines the need for the shipping industry to move away from powering vessels with fuels which pollute the air when they are burned and the ocean when there is an accident."</p><p>Ships carrying heavy fuel are already banned from Antarctica's waters, but no ban exists in the Arctic.</p><p>"What has happened in Mauritius is not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of unacceptable behavior by an industry that routinely puts commercial considerations ahead of safety and the environment," said Walsh to Al Jazeera. "Put simply, the shipping industry must find a way towards an exit from the age of dirty fossil fuel-powered shipping."</p>
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A quality engineer examines new solar panels in a factory. alvarez / Getty Images
Transitioning to renewable energy can help reduce global warming, and Jennie Stephens of Northeastern University says it can also drive social change.
For example, she says that locally owned businesses can lead the local clean energy economy and create new jobs in underserved communities.
"We really need to think about … connecting climate and energy with other issues that people wake up every day really worried about," she says, "whether it be jobs, housing, transportation, health and well-being."
To maximize that potential, she says the energy sector must have more women and people of color in positions of influence. Research shows that leadership in the solar industry, for example, is currently dominated by white men.
"I think that a more inclusive, diverse leadership is essential to be able to effectively make these connections," Stephens says. "Diversity is not just about who people are and their identity, but the ideas and the priorities and the approaches and the lens that they bring to the world."
So she says by elevating diverse voices, organizations can better connect the climate benefits of clean energy with social and economic transformation.
Reposted with permission from Yale Climate Connections.
The frozen meat section at a supermarket in Hong Kong, China, in February. Chukrut Budrul / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Imported frozen food in three Chinese cities has tested positive for the new coronavirus, but public health experts say you still shouldn't worry too much about catching the virus from food or packaging.
<p>In the last four days, the virus turned up on Brazilian chicken wings in Shenzhen, packaging for Ecuadorian shrimp in Wuhu and imported seafood packaging in Yantai, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/coronavirus-found-frozen-food-packaging-chinese-cities-n1236574" target="_blank">NBC News reported</a>.</p><p>"All the citizens should be cautious in buying imported frozen meat products and aquatic products in recent days," the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission said Thursday when it announced its findings about the chicken wings.</p>
<p>However, the commission traced and tested everyone who had come in contact with the chicken, and no one tested positively for COVID-19. And the World Health Organization (WHO) has advised people not to worry about catching the virus from their food.</p><p>"People should not fear food, or food packaging or processing or delivery of food," WHO head of emergencies programme Mike Ryan said in a briefing, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-idUSKCN2592D5" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>. "There is no evidence that food or the food chain is participating in transmission of this virus. And people should feel comfortable and safe."</p><p>Yale disease ecologist Brandon Ogbunu agreed. He pointed out that the packaging tests only detect virus genetic material, or RNA.</p><p>"This is just detecting the signature that the virus has been there at some point," he told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/health/coronavirus-frozen-food.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>To prove the virus on the packaging was still infectious, researchers would have to prove it could reproduce itself in a lab.</p><p>It is also unlikely the virus would survive the freezing and thawing process in tact.</p><p>"Yes, we should continue to wash our hands and be mindful of surfaces where a lot of individuals are,"Ogbunu said. "But it's close proximity to others that can really facilitate transmission."</p><p>This echoes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines about the virus and food.</p><p>"Coronaviruses, like the one that causes COVID-19, are thought to spread mostly person-to-person through respiratory droplets when someone coughs, sneezes, or talks," the CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/food-and-COVID-19.html" target="_blank">wrote July 25</a>. "It is possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object, including food or food packaging, that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes. However, this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads."</p><p>Still, New Zealand is now investigating whether frozen food packages could be the cause of a new outbreak in the country that broke a more than 100 day streak of no new cases, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/new-zealand-covid-outbreak-could-have-come-frozen-food-packaging-1525023" target="_blank">Newsweek reported</a>.</p>
<div id="59cb2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9f354b20c92eca6efa3745f783d5dd37"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1293940145905958915" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">China reported several cases of frozen food packaging contaminated with the novel coronavirus this week, while New… https://t.co/EaGmGjEpBW</div> — Reuters (@Reuters)<a href="https://twitter.com/Reuters/statuses/1293940145905958915">1597334345.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>One of the cases was connected to a worker who handled imports at a frozen food storage plant.</p><p>"We're not ruling anything out," Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand's Director-General of Health, said during a press conference Wednesday. "We do know from studies overseas that actually, the virus can survive in some refrigerated environments for quite some time."</p>
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This image of the Santa Monica Mountains in California shows how a north-facing slope (left) can be covered in white-blooming hoaryleaf ceanothus (Ceanothus crassifolius), while the south-facing slope (right) is much less sparsely covered in a completely different plant. Noah Elhardt / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 2.5
If weather is your mood, climate is your personality. That's an analogy some scientists use to help explain the difference between two words people often get mixed up.
<p>In other words, weather exists in the short term. It's the state of the atmosphere in a specific area during a limited period (think minutes, hours, days or weeks). Climate, meanwhile, describes <em>long-term</em> average weather trends.</p><p>And if you're interested in the latter, you'd better know geography: Our global climate is made up of smaller <a href="https://scied.ucar.edu/shortcontent/climate" target="_blank">regional climates</a>. Break those down and you'll find local variations at just about every conceivable scale.</p><p>That brings us to microclimates, an amazing subject with broad applications for farming, conservation, wildlife management and <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/cities-withstand-global-warming.htm" target="_blank">city planning</a>.</p>
Size Matters
<p>Climates are a bit like woven tapestries. The big picture is important, no question. But so are all the seemingly minor details found inside the larger whole.</p><p><a href="https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/tommaso-jucker" target="_blank">Tommaso Jucker</a> is an environmental scientist at the University of Bristol. In an email, Jucker says he'd define the term microclimate as "the suite of climatic conditions (temperature, rainfall, humidity, solar radiation) measured in localized areas, typically near the ground and at spatial scales that are directly relevant to ecological processes."</p><p>We'll talk about that last bit in a minute. But first, there's another criteria to discuss. According to some researchers, a microclimate — by definition — must differ from the larger area that surrounds it.</p><p><a href="https://www.cfc.umt.edu/research/paleoecologylab/publications/Davis_et_al_2019_Ecography.pdf" target="_blank">Forests</a> provide us with some great examples. "The climate near the ground in a tropical rainforest is dramatically different from the climate in the canopy 50 meters [164 feet] above," says University of Montana ecologist <a href="https://www.cfc.umt.edu/personnel/details.php?ID=1110" target="_blank">Solomon Dobrowski</a> in an email. "This vertical gradient among other factors allows for the staggering biodiversity we see in the tropics."</p><p>Likewise, scientists observed that a 2015 partial <a href="https://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/bees-stopped-buzzing-during-2017-solar-eclipse.htm" target="_blank">solar eclipse</a> caused the air temperature of an Eastern European meadow to <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.2802" target="_blank">change more dramatically</a> than it did in a nearby forest. That's because trees provide not only shade, but their leaves also reflect solar radiation. At the same time, forests tend to reduce wind speeds.</p><p>All those factors add up. A 2019 review of 98 wooded places — spread out across five continents — found that forests are 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) <a href="https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/posts/47363-forests-protect-animals-and-plants-against-warming" target="_blank">cooler on average</a> than the areas outside them.</p><p>Now if you hate the cold, don't worry; there's a cozy exception to the rule. According to that same study, forests are usually 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) warmer than the external environment during the wintertime. Pretty cool.</p>A Bug's Life
<p>When does a microclimate stop being, well, micro? In other words, is there a maximum size we should be aware of when discussing them?</p><p>Depends on who you ask. "In terms of horizontal scale, some have defined 'microclimate' as anything that is less than 100 meters [328 feet] in range," Jucker says. "I'm personally less prescriptive about this."</p><p>Instead, he says the "scale at which we want to measure [a particular] microclimate" ought to be "dictated" by the questions we're trying to answer.</p><p>"If I want to know how temperature affects the photosynthesis of a leaf, I should be measuring temperature at centimeter scale," Jucker explains. "If I want to know if and how temperature affects the habitat preference of a large, mobile mammal, it's probably more relevant to capture temperature variation across [tens to hundreds] of meters."</p><p>For instance, solitary plants have the power to generate itty-bitty microclimates. Just ask <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/geography/peter-blanken-0" target="_blank">Peter Blanken</a>, a geography professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the co-author of the 2016 book, "<a href="https://amzn.to/2XN6FT8" target="_blank">Microclimate and Local Climate</a>."</p><p>"A single stalk of corn can create its own microclimate through the shading and changes in soil properties in the immediate vicinity of the stalk," Blanken says via email. "For a field of corn, the microclimate created would be much larger, extending over the entire field," Blanken says via email.</p><p>Many organisms eke out a living in some of the dinkiest microclimates you can imagine.</p><p>Take <a href="https://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/aphid-babies-born-pregnant.htm" target="_blank">aphids</a>, spider mites and leaf miner insects. All those critters are <a href="https://jeb.biologists.org/content/222/9/jeb192773" target="_blank">dwarfed by the plant leaves</a> they feed on. And every leaf comes with its own microclimate. Observations show that aphids seek out cooler leaves while those other invertebrates prefer warmed ones.</p><p>Because none of these animals can generate their own body heat, leaf microclimates have a critical effect on their well-being.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU1NjU0OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MTU5OTQwMH0.SGmwg2ouzf81AX_WYyfXn3047hBA9cya1jquQESQbUE/img.jpg?width=980" id="ef484" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d035a985cf7cf7eba49a6d229b977d7f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The urban heat island effect is a good example of how microclimates work. NOAA
Microclimates on a Grand Scale
<p>It's no secret that our planet is going through some rough times at the macro level. The global temperature is <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/" target="_blank">climbing</a>; nine out of the <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news/2019-was-2nd-hottest-year-on-record-for-earth-say-noaa-nasa" target="_blank">10 hottest years on record</a> have occurred since 2005. And by one recent estimate, roughly 1 million species around the world are <a href="https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2020-02/ipbes_global_assessment_report_summary_for_policymakers_en.pdf" target="_blank">facing extinction</a> due to human activities.</p><p>"One of the big questions that ecologists and environmental scientists are trying to answer right now is how will individual species and whole ecosystems respond to rapid climate change and habitat loss," says Jucker. "...To me, [microclimates are] a key component of this research — if we don't measure and understand climate at the appropriate scale, then predicting how things will change in the future becomes a lot harder."</p><p>Developers have long understood the impact small-scale climates have on our daily lives. <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/urban-heat-island.htm#pt0" target="_blank">Urban heat islands</a> are cities that have higher temperatures than neighboring rural areas.</p><p>Plants release vapors that can moderate local climates. But in cities, natural greenery is often scarce. To make matters worse, plenty of our roads and buildings have a bad habit of absorbing or re-emitting heat from the sun. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Microclimate_and_Local_Climate/LHUZDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=urban%20heat%20island" target="_blank">Vehicle emissions</a> don't exactly help the situation.</p><p>Still, it's not like Boston or Beijing are thermal monoliths. Sometimes, the documented temperatures <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/can-we-turn-down-the-temperature-on-urban-heat-islands" target="_blank">within a single city</a> vary by 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (8.3 to 11.1 degrees Celsius).</p><p>That's where metro parks and city trees come in. They have nice cooling effects on nearby neighborhoods. "Several cities around the world have developed programs to increase urban green spaces," says Blanken. "Tree planting programs and green roof programs, have been shown to lower surface temperatures, decrease air pollution and decrease surface water runoff (urban flash-flooding) in urban areas."</p>
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Flames from the Lake Fire burn on a hillside near a fire truck and other vehicles on Aug. 12, 2020 in Lake Hughes, California. Mario Tama / Getty Images
An "explosive" wildfire ignited in Los Angeles county Wednesday, growing to 10,000 acres in a little less than three hours.
<p>The so-called Lake Fire, which prompted evacuations and road closures, is remarkable for spreading so fast so early in the fire season without strong winds to drive it.</p><p>"It's pretty explosive fire behavior," Angeles National Forest Fire Chief Robert Garcia told <a href="https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/08/12/lake-hughes-fire-angeles-national-forest-lacofd/" target="_blank">CBS Los Angeles</a>. "It's typically what we see a little bit later in the season and often driven by wind. The fuel, moisture conditions and the fire at this particular location with the slope, it really created the recipe for rapid fire growth."</p>
<div id="ce282" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a315d353ac8959f1b506f12e2da87657"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1293722589903196160" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">|Update| The #LakeFire has grown to 10,000 acres and is 0% contained. https://t.co/gNuygunYX4</div> — Angeles_NF (@Angeles_NF)<a href="https://twitter.com/Angeles_NF/statuses/1293722589903196160">1597282476.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The fire ignited around 3:40 p.m. Wednesday and is still zero percent contained, according to the most recent information from the U.S. Forest Service's <a href="https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6953/" target="_blank">InciWeb</a>. It is burning about 65 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the Angeles National Forest, between Lake Hughes and Lake Castaic, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/12/lake-fire-california-lake-hughes-angeles-national-forest/3362336001/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories" target="_blank">USA TODAY reported</a>.</p><p>Evacuations were ordered for the entire Lake Hughes area Wednesday night. All told, residents of around 100 homes and buildings were told to flee.</p><p>Evacuees were directed to the Highland High School, but, because of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> pandemic, will have to remain in their cars, CBS LA reported.</p>
<p>In addition to its early start and rapid spread, the fire is notable because it is burning vegetation that hasn't been set ablaze since 1968.</p><p>"Portions of the forest [haven't] had a significant amount of fire in a very long time, 1968, for a large portion of that area, it hasn't burned since then," Garcia told <a href="https://abc7.com/lake-hughes-fire-brush-angeles-national-forest/6367793/" target="_blank">ABC 7</a>.</p>
<div id="c113f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c9f4391470f188b6e2856b1fc401fcda"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1293753451302674434" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">I have never seen anything like this. The #LakeFire is moving fast toward Lake Hughes. It created a fire tornado on… https://t.co/7DZeWe2rVS</div> — Veronica Miracle (@Veronica Miracle)<a href="https://twitter.com/ABC7Veronica/statuses/1293753451302674434">1597289834.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>There have been no reports of injuries and no official tally of structural damage, according to <a href="https://abc7.com/lake-hughes-fire-brush-angeles-national-forest/6367793/" target="_blank">ABC 7</a>. However, the fire was seen burning several homes.</p><p>Reporter Veronica Miracle tweeted that she had spoken to a man who had fled his home as a wall of flames approached.</p><p>"He thinks his house is gone," she said.</p>
<div id="a8aeb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9bd40093f0715b15feaf61119c36b8d8"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1293737541003128833" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Just spoke to a man who lives up the street from this road block. He says when he left his home there was a wall of… https://t.co/cW3pLDSWLm</div> — Veronica Miracle (@Veronica Miracle)<a href="https://twitter.com/ABC7Veronica/statuses/1293737541003128833">1597286040.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Television footage early Thursday showed buildings burned to the ground, <a href="https://apnews.com/beb7f003386f89e5be10cb8b5ff97fd5" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported</a>, but it was not clear if they were homes or not. Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief David Richardson said Wednesday night the flames might have burned some outbuildings.</p><p>More than 500 firefighters are combating the blaze, according to InciWeb. The area is expected to record temperatures in the 90s this afternoon.</p><p>Smoke from the fire could be seen from as far as Venice Beach Wednesday.</p>
<div id="0b41c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="db8e055853e93a3f057d22319303ee90"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1293691210557566976" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#LakeFire view from Venice Beach provided by @LACoLifeguards.
#LACoFD https://t.co/84jv0gSoVU</div> — L.A. County Fire Department (@L.A. County Fire Department)<a href="https://twitter.com/LACoFDPIO/statuses/1293691210557566976">1597274994.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> is making <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/california" target="_self">California</a>'s wildfires <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-wildfires-2636008989.html" target="_self">larger and more extreme</a> as high temperatures dry out vegetation, making it more likely to burn.</p>
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