Pixabay
By Tara Lohan
Would you like to take a crack at solving climate change? Or at least creating a road map of how we could do it?
<p>That's possible now thanks to a new computer modeling tool called <a href="https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/" target="_blank">En-ROADS</a>.</p><p>Created by the nonprofit think tank <a href="https://www.climateinteractive.org/" target="_blank">Climate Interactive</a> and MIT's Sloan's Sustainability Initiative, the scientifically rigorous online tool lets you put your hand on the lever to figure out what mix of energy, economic and technological changes can get us to a livable future.</p><p>For example, what if we stop burning coal now and move to clean energy in the next 10 years? What if we curb deforestation? Or demand increased energy efficiency and the electrification of our vehicles? Put a tax on carbon? There are too many variables to wrap our heads around. That's where computer modeling comes in: It can help us visualize the possibilities.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/taralohan/" target="_blank">Tara Lohan</a> 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</em><em> and others. She is the editor of two books on the global water crisis.</em></p><p><em></em><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/climate-interactive/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em><em></em></p>
<p>"We use computers to keep track of all of the feedback loops and interconnections and tipping points that exist either in the atmospheric or biological or economic or political parts of the system," said Climate Interactive cofounder <a href="https://www.climateinteractive.org/about/staff/elizabeth-sawin/" target="_blank">Elizabeth Sawin</a>.</p><p>These kinds of high-level tools are usually reserved for scientists and other experts, but En-ROADS is available to everyone. Launched in 2019, it's already been used by government officials, business leaders and educators, and local activists in dozens of countries. It helps people visualize that climate solutions are in reach, says Sawin.</p><p>Climate Interactive's work extends beyond computer modeling. We talked to Sawin about the potential of En-ROADS to change communities and the organization's practice of "multisolving" — employing collaborative solutions that work for climate change, health, equity and well-being — and how improving the social safety net can also help address the climate crisis.</p>
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When you build a tool like En-ROADS, who are you hoping uses it?
<p>The tools that we build are used by quite a range of people, which is one of the exciting things about them.</p><p>Before En-ROADS we had a tool called C-ROADS, which was used in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. During the negotiations in Copenhagen it allowed people to add up what each country was offering to do in terms of emissions cuts and calculate what that would mean for the global temperature at the end of the century. That was of interest to the U.S. State Department under President Obama and negotiating parties from other countries.</p><p>As a young bunch of scientists, it was fairly thrilling to hand our results to a colleague who took them to [science advisor] John Holdren, who took them to the president.</p><p>Today we find En-ROADS having quite a lot of traction in the upper levels of companies and governments, but one thing we've learned over the years is that those high-level leaders really can't move further or faster than the civil society is ready to.</p><p>So we invest quite a lot in supporting teachers — university and high school — and advocates. We're in the middle of a second round of webinars training around 1,000 people to use En-ROADS so they can teach others.</p><p>These are people all around the world. One is interested in going to her members of Congress with her laptop and using the simulation to advocate for a better future for her kids.</p>What does En-ROADS do differently from other computer simulations?
<p>One thing we talk about is the democratization of this information. En-ROADS isn't breaking new scientific ground that other computer simulations of climate change don't do. In fact, often we're relying on that cutting-edge research of other groups.</p><p>But we have paid attention to making it run fast and making it freely available online, where most of these other tools aren't designed for those purposes. They're doing scientific research for other scientists. Top leaders can often get the input of those academics if they have a question or a scenario, but it's unlikely that a politically active mom who's trying to influence her member of Congress would have access to those kinds of tools. Whereas if she puts in the time to learn, she can use En-ROADS.</p><p>I think more and more, and especially in the last few years, we come across people who have the impression that [the climate crisis is] pretty much hopeless. "It's too late. We've left it too long." And En-ROADS, for those people, is motivating because it shows that the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement to keep temperature increase well below 2 degrees [Celsius] is still physically possible. There's a huge amount of social and political will needed to do it, but it's within reach.</p>Your organization is guided by a practice you call “multisolving.” What is that?
<p>In the early years of working with models like C-ROADS and En-ROADS, we were really focused on tons of greenhouse gases and how to limit those. And clearly that's the core of the problem. But what we found in Copenhagen was that, despite our group and a few others who were doing this analysis actually being heard, and being on the front page of top newspapers, it didn't lead to more ambitious pledges from countries.</p><p>There was a soul-searching moment for me and for Climate Interactive in realizing that just being good scientists within this narrow bound of counting tons of carbon isn't getting us onto the path we need to be on.</p><p>That got me interested in this question of what else would be different in a world that has gotten off of fossil fuels. This was around 2009-2010. I hired the best researcher I knew, and she went away and came back and handed me this report.</p><p>It said that the benefits of being off fossil fuels, when monetized — when you took all the lives saved, all the healthcare costs saved, all the jobs created — the savings were of the same order of magnitude as the cost.</p><p>I thought she had made a mistake. Because I had worked my whole career trying to convince people that it's going to be <em>hard</em>, it's going to be <em>expensive</em>, but we <em>need</em> to get off fossil fuels. And she was saying that if you just widened your scope and looked not just on the carbon side, but you looked at the lives and health and community well-being, we were going to reap all these benefits.</p><p>I felt like I had been spending my life on a problem that was framed in a way where we would never be able to solve it. But by expanding our view, the things we were missing — basically political will, political power and budgetary power — seemed like maybe they could be aligned.</p><p>After that, for a long time we talked about the "co-benefits," and that that was kind of the word at the time. And many people still use it. We ended up dissatisfied with that word because it sounds like climate change is the main benefit, and then there are these other nice co-benefits.</p><p>That's still putting CO2 at the center of the world.</p><p>To a parent who's been in the emergency room all night with a child with asthma, is protecting the climate 100 years from now the main benefit of closing the neighborhood coal-fired power plant? Or is ending asthma the main benefit and climate is a nice co-benefit?</p><p>So we made up the word "<a href="https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/multisolving/" target="_blank">multisolving</a>" to talk about how all these problems matter.</p>What does this look like in action?
<p>We learned that by and large our systems are not set up to allow people to take advantage of these synergies. And just to give you one example, if a country is going to go on a low-carbon transportation plan, those are going to be costs that are felt by the ministry of transportation. But the savings are largely going to be felt by the ministry of health. There'll be less hospitalization, fewer premature deaths, less cardiovascular and respiratory illness, less premature birth. But the way current governments are set up, no transportation minister is going to get much political appreciation or an incentive by saving money for the health ministry.</p><p>So for the last few years we've been working more and more on how to bring people together, to build the relationships that are needed to take advantage of these synergies because — until people can shift their systems around in a way where they can act together across these different silos and boundaries and jurisdictions — this will all just stay theoretical.</p><p>One place we have been doing this is in Atlanta with a group called Partnership for Southern Equity. We're creating a community network, the <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/justgrowth/just-growth-circle?authuser=0" target="_blank">Just Growth Circle</a>, that can be mobilized to have influence, decision-by-decision, on the kind of pattern of growth and development that will eventually change a whole city.</p>That kind of deep-relationship building isn’t something that can be done quickly. How do you balance that kind of work to establish these interconnections with the urgency of the climate crisis?
<p>Wendell Berry said, "To be patient in an emergency is a terrible trial." But we're in the kind of emergency that calls for patience. Time is very short and yet to make the kind of changes we need to make requires trust and relationships that can't be rushed and can only be cultivated. All you can do is create the conditions for them.</p><p>If you have urgency — if you need to bring things to scale, if you're looking for transformation and not incremental change — then actually this very slow and patient work of building trust and relationships is the way that you get to a very fast and transformative change.</p>Has anything shifted in your thinking in the last few months during this global pandemic?
<p>There's been a lot of talk about opportunities for transformation within the pandemic, especially about the need for low-carbon solutions. The other side is the social safety net. A lot of what we need to do to help people through the pandemic is also what the smart people behind the Green New Deal have said from the beginning needs to be part of the plan.</p><p>When they talked about universal healthcare, childcare, gender equity programs and the job training side of it, lots of people responded that they were way outside their lane. "What does this have to do with carbon?" But the pandemic is showing us that if you want a society to be able to pivot rapidly, you need a social safety net to support people.</p><p>If you want to pivot to green infrastructure, if you want low carbon infrastructure, you're changing a whole workforce in a generation. The social safety net is the lubrication that allows that to happen with less friction.</p><p>The social safety net we need to build to get through the pandemic could be built to also carry us through the transition to a climate-safe economy. It's not the technical side of this transition, but it is the taking care of each other through the transition. That may sound selfless, but it's also highly practical because the transition isn't going to happen if we can't move a whole society very quickly.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Demonstrators march down Pennsylvania Avenue near the Trump International Hotel during a protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd on June 3, 2020 in Washington, DC. Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images
By John R. Platt
This year has brought us some brutal lessons so far, chief among them the fact that systemic racism drives or amplifies nearly all our societal and environmental ills.
Now is the time to listen to the people affected most by those problems of environmental justice and racism — and the activists working to solve them.
<p>Here's a good place to start: We've gathered 16 essential recent books on environmental racism and related topics from leading journalists and experts. Two of these are hot off the presses and scheduled to hit shelves this month, while the rest were pulled from <a href="https://therevelator.org/tag/revelator-reads/" target="_blank">previous "Revelator Reads" installments</a>. All provide vital insight into the problems that plague people and the planet, while also offering solutions for a more just future.</p><p>Since we're still in the middle of a pandemic — another problem made worse by racial injustice — it obviously remains challenging to visit local bookstores and libraries, so these links all go to publishers' sites, where you can order hard copies or e-books. You can also find enough information to order any of these books from local stores, which may offer delivery or curbside pickup.</p><p>This list is hardly exhaustive and pulls mostly from books published over the past two years, and it weighs a bit heavily on Indigenous authors and protests like Standing Rock. So please feel free to <a href="mailto:tips@therevelator.org" target="_blank">recommend</a> any insightful books we missed.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.newsociety.com/Books/E/Engage-Connect-Protect" target="_blank"><em>Engage, Connect, Protect: Empowering Diverse Youth as Environmental Leaders</em></a> by Angelou Ezeilo</strong></p><p>The founder of the Greening Youth Foundation provides a critique of the too-white environmental movement and a toolkit for engaging younger participants from African American, Latinx and Native American communities.</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.beacon.org/As-Long-as-Grass-Grows-P1445.aspx" target="_blank">As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock</a><em> </em><strong>by Dina Gilio-Whitaker </strong></strong></p><p>The history of Indigenous resistance may offer all of us the strength we need to keep fighting, from the coauthor of <em>"All the Real Indians Died Off" and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans</em>.</p><p><a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jamie-margolin/youth-to-power/9780738246666/" target="_blank"><em><strong></strong></em></a><a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jamie-margolin/youth-to-power/9780738246666/" target="_blank"><strong><em>Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It</em></strong></a> <strong>by Jamie Margolin</strong> <u><strong><u><span></span></u></strong></u></p><p><u><strong><u><span></span></u></strong></u>An essential book by one of the country's most engaging youth activists. Margolin, a queer Latinx, cofounded Zero Hour and helped energize 2018's record-breaking Youth Climate March. Now she shares her experience and expertise — along with that of other young activists — and offers advice on everything from organizing peaceful protests to protecting your mental health in a time of crisis. Greta Thunberg provides the foreword.</p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300743/environmental-justice-in-a-moment-of-danger" target="_blank">Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger</a> </strong></em><strong>by Julie Sze</strong><strong></strong></p><p>As we've seen many times over the years, activists standing up for environmental justice often face violent reprisal. This academic book examines the what Sze calls the "historical and cultural forces and resistance to violence, death, and destruction of lives and bodies" to reveal guideposts for future (and hopefully safer) action.</p><p><strong><a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300232158/climate-change-streets" target="_blank">Climate Change From the Streets</a><em> </em>by Michael Méndez</strong></p><p>Méndez argues that the climate crisis is also a crisis for public health, especially in lower-income communities of color, and that both problems can only be solved by addressing issues of environmental justice. His book — subtitled "How Conflict and Collaboration Strengthen the Environmental Justice Movement" — taps into Méndez's own research into California communities and grassroots activism to show how the problems that plague us can also bring us together — but only if we invite everyone to the table.</p><p><em><strong><a href="http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000009800" target="_blank">Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial</a> </strong></em><strong>edited by Sarah D. Wald, David J. Vázquez, Priscilla Solis Ybarra and Sarah Jaquette Ray</strong><span></span></p><p>More than a dozen top minds come together to examine thoughts and cultural processes otherwise ignored by the environmental movement.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.littlebrownspark.com/titles/harriet-a-washington/a-terrible-thing-to-waste/9780316509428/" target="_blank"><em>A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind</em></a> by Harriet A. Washington</strong><br></p><p><span></span>This book will open your eyes, make you angry, and then point you toward solutions for ending the plague of pollution-related health problems in marginalized communities of color.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.sevenstories.com/authors/65-aric-mcbay" target="_blank">Full Spectrum Resistance</a><em> </em><strong>by Aric McBay</strong></strong></p><p>This two-volume series provides a powerful primer for activism on social-justice and environmental issues, using examples from more than 50 resistance movements around the world. The first book discusses how to build movements, while the second examines strategies for change.</p><p><strong><a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/indigenous-environmental-justice" target="_blank"><em>Indigenous Environmental Justice</em></a> edited by Karen Jarratt-Snider and Marianne O. Nielsen</strong></p><p>When pollution harms your physical, financial and spiritual health, it's more than an injustice. But that's what happens time and time again in Indian Country. This book addresses situations ranging from Standing Rock to uranium mining on Navajo and Hopi lands through lenses of colonization, sovereignty and — perhaps most importantly — victory.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/poisoned-water-9781547602322/" target="_blank"><em>Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation</em></a> by Candy J. Cooper with Marc Aronson</strong></p><p>We've already seen several bestselling and powerful books address the Flint water crisis, but this is the first one specifically written for young-adult readers. When you consider that kids were among the worst affected by the Flint tragedy, that makes this a story they need to read and understand — so they can grow up and help prevent it from happening to anyone else.</p><p><strong><span></span><a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/unearthing-justice" target="_blank"><em>Unearthing Justice: How to Protect Your Community From the Mining Industry</em></a></strong><strong> by Joan Kuyek</strong></p><p>Covering everything from how to stop a new mining project to figuring out how to clean up an abandoned mine, this important book offers activists a primer for taking on all manner of extractive industries that can harm human health and the environment.</p><p><strong><a href="https://ecwpress.com/products/whose-water-is-it" target="_blank"><em>Whose Water Is It, Anyway? Taking Water Protection Into Public Hands</em></a> by Maude Barlow</strong></p><p>One of the world's most notable water-justice activists provides a step-by-step guide to help communities keep themselves from going dry due to the actions of irresponsible companies and governments.</p>
<p><u><strong><a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/standing-with-standing-rock" target="_blank"><em>Standing With Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement</em></a> </strong></u><strong>edited by Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon</strong></p><p><u><strong></strong></u><em>An essential volume to understand the history and significance of the famous resistance action, combining everything from essays and interviews to poems and photography.</em></p><p><strong><span></span><a href="https://us.orcabook.com/One-Earth-P12339.aspx" target="_blank">One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet</a><em> </em><strong>by Anuradha Rao</strong></strong></p><p>This book for pre-teen readers delivers 20 short biographies of activists around the world who are working to save everything from trees to dolphins to people. In the process, it hopes to inspire the next generation of activists — especially those who might not have seen themselves represented in the still all-too-white environmental movement.</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.soulfirefarm.org/media/farming-while-black/" target="_blank">Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land</a><em> </em>by Leah Penniman</strong></p><p>A how-to guide for ending racism and injustice in our country's food system, both on farms themselves and in nutrition-starved African American communities. Bonus: The same techniques improve the soil, treat livestock humanely, preserve rare plant varieties and provide benefits for the climate.</p><p><strong><span></span><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622853/who-killed-berta-caceres-by-nina-lakhani/" target="_blank"><em>Who Killed Berta Cáceres? Dams, Death Squads and an Indigenous Defender's Battle for the Planet</em></a> by Nina Lakhani</strong></p><p>Honduran indigenous leader and activist Berta Cáceres won the prestigious Goldman Prize in 2015 — one year before she was murdered for her work trying to stop a hydroelectric dam from destroying a sacred river. This powerful book tells the story of her life and death, a tragedy echoed in the murders and assaults committed against hundreds of environmental defenders every year.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/john/" target="_blank">John R. Platt</a> </em><em>is the editor of <em>The Revelator</em>. An award-winning environmental journalist, his work has appeared in <em>Scientific American</em>, <em>Audubon</em>, <em>Motherboard</em>, and numerous other magazines and publications. His "Extinction Countdown" column has run continuously since 2004 and has covered news and science related to more than 1,000 endangered species. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. John lives on the outskirts of Portland, Ore., where he finds himself surrounded by animals and cartoonists.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-justice-books-june-2020/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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KESSR
By John R. Platt
It takes a lot of effort and more than a little bit of luck for researchers like André Raine to get to the remote mountaintops of Kauai, where they're working to save endangered Hawaiian seabirds from extinction.
<p>First you need a helicopter capable of reaching sites more than 4,600 feet above sea level.</p>
<p>Then you need exactly the right weather to fly — and the hope that conditions don't shift, as they frequently do.</p><p>"The weather's not that great," said Raine, the project coordinator for the <a href="https://kauaiseabirdproject.org/" target="_blank">Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project</a>. "We keep going and hanging out at the helipad, waiting and watching. And then it looks like it's going to be okay but it gets fogged in, or you get up there and then you get stuck. The joys of working in a remote, inaccessible area."</p><p>The seabirds — including Newell's shearwaters (<em>Puffinus newelli</em>) and Hawaiian petrels (<em>Pterodroma sandwichensis</em>) — obviously have a much easier time getting up the tops of these mountains.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyMjUxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDI0MDYzOX0.Xckl7lehoaKqVpDcl2Iauq_7FsUd3dhhJCqlQ_00T7w/img.jpg?width=980" id="3eff9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a188467cc0cf6aaf6e732ff033bf58be" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Raine holding a Hawaiian petrel chick. Courtesy Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project
<p>So, unfortunately, do several species of invasive predators — including feral cats, black rats and feral pigs — that have put these ground-nesting birds, and so many other native Hawaiian species, on the fast track toward extinction.</p><p>"People are always really surprised by this," Raine said, "but it doesn't matter how remote the area, or how apparently inhospitable it is to predators like cats. You're going to find cats and rats and pigs in these areas. There wasn't a single site that we work in that doesn't have all these predators, busy eating the birds."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyMjUxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMDA1OTUzNX0._y8WyIKu-gqIxghf0MAe4M2Jct0kKO_8dRVZeFTkP5s/img.jpg?width=980" id="9566a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a6b43d8eb34efa6830b67e9c9b760acb" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
An endangered chick in the mouth of a feral cat. Courtesy Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project
<p>Like many island endemics, Hawaii's bird species grew up without mammalian predators, so they're ill-adapted to the teeth and claws that arrived with human society. The cats descended from housecats, while pigs escape from agricultural sites and rats descended from stowaways on ships.</p><p>That's why the Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project has spent the past nine years constructing fences and establishing other predator controls — work that is proving essential in giving these native birds a chance.</p><p>The first step in controlling predators is quantifying the threat.</p><p>According to a paper Raine and his colleagues published earlier this year in <a href="https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jwmg.21824" target="_blank">The Journal of Wildlife Management</a>, introduced predators killed at least 309 endangered seabirds at six monitored breeding colonies between 2011 and 2017. That's quite a blow for each of these endangered species.</p><p>"Newell's shearwaters and Hawaiian petrels have suffered catastrophic declines over the last few decades," Raine said. "Any chick that's lost in the population is one that we can't afford to lose."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyMjUxMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5NDI3MDk0NH0.kk1-E1nlKP2IFN61iQEr0Iqt4hFjwDOrL_ObdunphAc/img.jpg?width=980" id="c9cde" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="67a9f67f9d9b15b91d0c4fb08f3a4018" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Hawaiian petrel. © Ken Chamberlain, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC). Via iNaturalist.
<p>The researchers took on the sad task of collecting the dead and examining the wound patterns to determine which type of predator made the kill.</p><p>Rats, it turned out, killed the most — more than 50% of mortalities — usually from entering the birds' rocky burrows and eating eggs and chicks. That dramatically slows recovery efforts, but the research shows that adult birds who've lost their chicks returned to the same burrows the following year to try again.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8dd9a93a40e27d91a7d4be3e64989e97"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QqxzWxyzQhc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Pigs kill fewer birds — about 10% of all tracked mortalities — but they were the most destructive, digging up and taking out entire nests. "It's literally like someone's taken a hand grenade and stuffed it down the burrow and blown it up," Raine said. "They just eat whatever's inside."</p><p>Cats were responsible for another 35% of known deaths, and Raine says the research shows those mortalities were the worst for the long-term health of the bird species. Cats target breeding birds, taking out not just the current generation but any hope of successive generations. The seabirds are very faithful to both their burrow sites and their mates, so if a cat takes out one parent the other might not breed again for several years, if at all. (Without predation, the researchers say an amazing 98.6% percent of breeding pairs matched up again and bred each year of the study.)</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4fc7193649ed712ac1e3c32f773b9299"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FS8meaFqnIQ?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>And while cats in general are the most destructive, some individual cats are downright scary.</p><p>"Every now and then, you get a sort of super cat, which is really good at finding burrows and killing the birds," he said.</p><p>In one incident recounted in the paper, the seabird recovery team found images of a cat taken by nine out of 30 remote cameras on the same day. Each camera was trained at a different seabird burrow — which provided ready meals for the feral feline.</p><p>"It just shows that all you need is for a cat to get into an area for a very short period," Raine said. "When the birds are sitting in a hole in the ground, they're entirely vulnerable to predation. The cat can very easily wipe out a huge number of birds."</p><p>Raine describes another incident as "quite horrific to watch." It took place at a remote site the team can only visit about once a month during breeding season, "because it's expensive and hard to get to," he said. They arrived one day to review the site's automatic cameras and the images revealed "this one cat just wreaking havoc across the site. It goes in and kills an adult Newell's shearwater, and they next thing you know it's emerging from the same burrow with four kittens. So it uses that burrow to raise the kittens, and then we get it on camera at another burrow with the kittens, basically training them how to kill more shearwaters."</p><p>That's a tough thing to see — especially when these researchers have followed the comings and goings at these burrows for years.</p><p>"You start to really empathize with these birds, because you're watching them on the burrow cameras and you're seeing all these amazing behaviors," Raine said. "And we're tracking them as well. We're seeing that they make these incredible journeys to feed their chicks. Hawaiian petrels go towards the coast of Alaska, 11-14,000 kilometers on a feeding voyage, and then you go to the site and you find this bird that's just been shredded by an introduced predator and the chicks left to starve to death. It's quite hard to deal with."</p><p>But as difficult and dangerous as these predators can be, the research also shows that the situation is far from hopeless.</p>
Fence Me In
<p>Over the past decade, the Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project and its many organizational partners have concentrated on establishing predator controls at six of their seven regularly monitored seabird breeding sites.</p><p>Again, this isn't easy to accomplish in these remote, rarely visited locations. Materials must be flown in, ungulate-proof fences built, other traps set, and pig-hunting expeditions organized. All of it must be accomplished and maintained in precarious territory full of wet vegetation, narrow ridgelines and steep canyon walls.</p><p>To make things even more difficult, the human visitors must leave the habitat as undisturbed as possible.</p><p>"If you start making trails in these areas, then you're basically just opening them up to the hordes of predators that are out there," Raine says.</p><p>But the hard work pays off.</p><p>According to the paper, fences and other controls not only keep the invasive predators out, they give the birds the opportunity to thrive.</p><p>The research team used seven years data from the six sites, from before and after predator controls were established, and projected striking results for the future of the two seabird species.</p><p>The first model looked at what would happen to each site without predator controls. It was a disaster — mostly due to cats. "We ran that for 50 years, and we found that all of the colonies dwindle toward extinction."</p><p>The paper, in what Raine acknowledges as gallows humor, calls this the <em>CATastrophe</em> model.</p><p>The second modeling approach incorporated data from successful breeding that took place after more extensive predator controls (fences and traps) were put in place. "We found that the populations increased over those 50 years," Raine said. Under the model, which was based on 2017 population growth rates at sites with predator controls, most sites would see a 50-60% increase over the 50-year projection, while one site more than doubled.</p><p>"It really does show that if you remove the predators, the birds will begin to recover."</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ac52cff84afea378f9a779341a21e9c7"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FGzpq0g0KnA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>This isn't the be all and end all. Hawaiian seabirds face a laundry list of additional threats, including climate change, collisions with power lines, reduced fish populations at sea, and invasive plants that change forest compositions. The models don't address those threats, which also require mitigation.</p><p>There's also another introduced predator: barn owls. Hawaii introduced barn owls in the 1960s to control rats, but — as we've seen in so many other similar examples — they quickly became a new problem. Owls only killed 12 seabirds during the study, but Raine says these newest invaders pose an increasing threat that's proven harder to control. You can build fences to protect birds, after all, but you can't prevent other birds from flying over those protections.</p><p>But this research does prove that current management techniques to protect Hawaiian seabirds from their most pressing threats — cats, rats and pigs — really do work, and that they can be applied to more locations, even by private landowners who have birds on their properties. "Although we've got seven managed sites, there are other sites on the island where the birds are still hanging on, and there's no reason to expect that these techniques wouldn't be effective at other colonies."</p><p>That's important, because some of those additional sites are on the edge.</p><p>"We're finding that these other sites are just going silent," Raine said. "With no management on them, the birds just flit away." The paper recommends predator-proof fences at all sites, as well as dedicated year-round funding for both seabird monitoring efforts and predator-control operations designed to specifically target the composition of animals at each location. The authors also suggest additional port biosecurity to prevent more invasive species from arriving, and possibly the targeted use of landscape-level toxicants to remove rats and cats.</p><p>In addition, Raine says, these techniques can be applied to other species and other island locations where invasive predators threaten ground-nesting birds.</p><p>Perhaps most importantly, the research helps show these conservationists — whose work has continued as "essential" during the pandemic — that their efforts to fight extinction in these challenging, hard-to-reach habitats are paying off.</p><p>"I remember one of our sites in particular — in fact the one I was trying to get into today — the first time I went there I found within a five-foot area a burrow that had been predated by a cat, a dead chick that had been pulled out by a rat, and a burrow that had been destroyed by a pig," Raine recounted. "Now you can go a month without even seeing predators at some of these sites because of the great work that the controllers' crews are doing."</p><p>And this raises one more issue: this work isn't just about birds. It may help heal Hawaii — the extinction capital of the world — in the process.</p><p>"I think it's really important that people understand the critical importance of seabirds as the architects of the island itself," Raine said. "They bring all those ocean nutrients up into the mountains, and their partly responsible for the watersheds that we all rely on. It's a whole ecosystem that needs to be addressed."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/hawaii-predator-catastrophe/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
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An aerial view of Miami, Florida. Ann Baekken / CC BY 2.0
By Tara Lohan
With its white-sand beaches and glittery high-rises, Miami is still a vacation hotspot. But lapping at those shores is another reality. The city is also a "possible future Atlantis, and a metonymic stand-in for how the rest of the developed world might fail — or succeed — in the climate-changed future," wrote Miami journalist Mario Alejandro Ariza in his forthcoming book, Disposable City: Miami's Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe.
<p>This may not be news to some. The city's plight has been the subject of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/miami-how-rising-sea-levels-endanger-south-florida-200956/" target="_blank">investigative reporting</a> and even viral news stories after an <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/11/supermoon-tide-miami-sea-level-octopus-garage/#:~:text=The%20recent%20supermoon%20created%20difficult,along%20the%20South%20Florida%20coast." target="_blank">octopus showed up in a parking garage</a> following an especially high tide.</p>
<p>But Ariza takes a much deeper, more personal dive into the slowly unfolding disaster. Along the way he finds that the central question is whether South Florida — home to 6.5 million people — can <em>equitably</em> withstand what's coming. To do so it will need to reckon with its past sins. "Miami is a damn beautiful city, and it rests on a sodden foundation of merciless racial and environmental exploitation," he wrote.</p><p>The first step is figuring out how much sea-level rise there may be and when it's coming — but even that isn't easy, and there's no one definitive number. The regional climate change compact predicts two to six feet of sea-level rise by the end of the century; a NASA scientist has said eight to 10 feet.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNjkxNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzg4Mzk1NH0.7OV9mAqMYmMFtuXovCirxAic2DnEvGjzKu03NdxZMMY/img.jpg?width=980" id="c0b56" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f92297ec36700237885d6b9112edfd96" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>One thing is certain, though: 20 percent of Miami-Dade County sits less than two feet above the sea. And by some estimates, the water could get that high in just 40 years.</p><p>The time to determine what future Miami may have is now.</p><p>After detailing that grim if uncertain reality, Ariza takes a detailed journey through South Florida's vulnerabilities, what actions the region is taking, and those it isn't. The first-person narrative follows Ariza through smelly, flooded city streets; a rigorous paddle to assess the risks to local infrastructure by kayak; and a day traipsing through thick swamps with two veterans to capture invasive Burmese pythons slithering amok.</p><p>This drives home a few points: South Florida's environmental problems aren't limited to sea-level rise — although the rising water could make much of it worse.</p><p>The draining of swamps, altering of water courses and brazen development have taken a mighty ecological toll. The Everglades are dying, and restoration efforts are painfully slow. The Miami River is choked by nutrient pollution — from leaking septic systems and fertilizer runoff — that's killing seagrasses, a keystone species of shallow marine ecosystems, and an important buffer against storms.</p><p>Environmental collapse is just part of the problem, though. There's also economic distress.</p>
<p>"If you expect to survive into the middle of the 21st century, you might just get to watch Miami die," Ariza wrote. "But not before the changing climate stretches the city's already yawning gap between rich and poor past its breaking point."</p><p>Miami-Dade is a majority-minority county with half its residents foreign-born. It also has an enormous wealth gap, with 6 in 10 residents spending more than one-third of their income on housing. And most of those who are struggling to make ends meet are black and Hispanic service-sector workers, Ariza explains.</p><p>It's precisely those communities with the fewest resources that will be hardest hit by stronger storms, hotter temperatures and rising tides. These inequities "are as dangerous as the city's low-lying topography and porous geology," he wrote.</p><p>Already a kind of climate gentrification is underway.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNjkxOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTM2NjQ2N30.prNLB71aP9lmgef6N0nfm4tb6CV-SuwU26pAc0w3FXE/img.jpg?width=980" id="50ce2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="84b419fd9ff9294df51b00f3551c89cc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/miami-climate-ariza/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p><a href="https://therevelator.org/" target="_blank"></a>Flooding in Miami's Brickell neighborhood in 2017. Phillip Pessar / CC BY 2.0
<p>Ariza explains how decades of racist policies and real-estate practices have pushed communities of color away from the beach and the newly emerging suburbs. They ended up sandwiched in between, in an area of high ground that now looks enticing to developers.</p><p>This new pressure is increasing gentrification in communities already barely surviving. It's liable to get worse, too, Ariza explains. Between $15-$23 billion worth of property may be underwater in 30 years. The market has yet to broadly reflect that, but developers are building on borrowed time, even as the lower-income communities are already feeling the pinch.</p><p>"Everything we know about climate change indicates that it pulls at society's loose ends," said Ariza. These cracks in vulnerability could become chasms if the right policies aren't enacted as the city works to mitigate and adapt.</p><p>By the end of <em>Disposable City, </em>it's likely readers won't be wildly optimistic about Miami's chances. But they will be armed with a deeper view of what's at stake and the complexities of trying to solve an environmental and social challenge of this magnitude. Even if the city itself does everything right, it still needs the state of Florida to embrace climate reality and the rest of the world to meet science-based targets for greenhouse gas reductions. Efforts are underway, including a <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article243276326.html" target="_blank">newly released draft plan</a> from the Army Corps of Engineers to spend $4.6 billion on sea walls and other projects to protect businesses and homes from storm surges. But much more will be needed.</p><p>In Miami these next decades will be fight or flight. Or a combination of both. And he muses on what that would look like. And feel like. Ariza himself is an immigrant, having come to Miami from the Dominican Republic as a kid. He already carries the grief of having left a homeland — a feeling that half the city's population also knows intimately.</p><p>"Now we have to face the fact that climate change may well force us to scatter again," he wrote.</p><p>The end of the book turns from this hard reality to a future vision as Ariza shifts to a fictional envisioning. No spoilers, but it's safe to say Miami in 2100 will be a changed place. And that's at least one thing we know for sure about this warming world — it is a changing one.</p><p>Ariza's deep dive into Miami is an intricate look at <em>his</em> vulnerable city, but it's likely to get readers thinking about their own. What will your hometown look like in 80 years? What do you want it to look like? What will you do to make that hope a reality?</p>From Your Site Articles
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New EU Biodiversity Strategy Can Reduce Risk of Future Pandemics — If It Fully Addresses Wildlife Trade
14 June
Animals
A lion photographed at Kruger National Park on April 16, 2017 in South Africa. Frédéric Soltan / Corbis / Getty Images
By Arnaud Goessens
As the planet faces the multiple impacts of COVID-19 on human health, well-being and economies, it's time for governments across the globe to show leadership and take the necessary steps to help prevent future major pandemics.
<p>The emergence of COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases, which spread from wildlife to humans, shows that our relationship with the environment must now be rethought. We have no other choice but to protect nature and put an end to biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and climate change. There's no secret about it. Our health depends on the health of the planet — a fact supported by innumerable <a href="https://c532f75abb9c1c021b8c-e46e473f8aadb72cf2a8ea564b4e6a76.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/2020/05/22/8zqrkmzuna_Links_between_ecological_integrity_and_EIDs_originating_from_wildlife.pdf" target="_blank">scientific studies</a>.</p>
<p>With this in mind, many of us in the conservation community are now waiting for the European Union to deliver on its promised <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en" target="_blank">Green Deal</a>.</p><p>When discussing the EU COVID-19 recovery recently, European Commission Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans made a welcome statement and declared that the Green Deal is not a luxury but something that's essential for Europe's future. Done right, this plan for a sustainable economy can send a strong message to its citizens and to the world: We're all in this together, and we <em>will</em> protect nature and people.</p><p>As part of the Green Deal, the EU has started developing or reviewing major initiatives, including the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/actions-being-taken-eu/eu-biodiversity-strategy-2030_en" target="_blank">EU Biodiversity Strategy</a>. The new version of the Strategy, published May 20, sets the EU's biodiversity conservation objectives for the next 10 years. It also guides the EU's engagement within international agreements to which it is a party, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.</p>
<div id="7d7cd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dbac853665b8646ea1fcb91f38bb13a8"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1266685787141222402" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Nature restoration is a central element of our recovery plan from the coronavirus pandemic.
The #EUBiodiversity st… https://t.co/Z4sjx7eWWb</div> — European Commission 🇪🇺 #UnitedAgainstCoronavirus (@European Commission 🇪🇺 #UnitedAgainstCoronavirus)<a href="https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/statuses/1266685787141222402">1590836400.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The implementation of this strategy could represent new hope. If the actions it outlines are fully implemented and financed, it will be a critical tool to ensure the reduction of direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss at a global scale, including the EU's global ecological footprint, and to address the drivers of ecosystem degradation and deforestation.</p><p>This is important, because the EU — like any major government or region — has a critical role to play, not only within its own borders but around the globe.</p><p>While it is, of course, essential that the EU protect native biodiversity within its 27 member states, the majority of global biodiversity lies in the tropics, where thousands of species are deeply affected by EU policies. So it's vital that the EU addresses the biodiversity beyond its borders through a global dimension.</p>
Trade, Biodiversity and Diseases
<p>The strategy, as published, does a great job acknowledging that efforts to address wildlife trade and consumption will help prevent and build up resilience to possible future diseases and pandemics.</p><p>But it doesn't go far enough. The EU must also assist the global community in ending the commercial trade and sale in markets of wildlife for human consumption — particularly birds and mammals — as a key outcome to prevent future zoonotic outbreaks.</p><p>Although much of the wildlife sold in these markets is legal, the illegal trade in wild animals continues to harm both wildlife and local communities. It can also produce the conditions for disastrous and deadly pandemics. The <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/environment/cites/trafficking_en.htm" target="_blank">EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking</a> — first published in 2016 and due to expire this year — will therefore be a critical instrument for reducing that threat. The Biodiversity Strategy calls for the revision of the wildlife trafficking plan in 2021.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM5MTUzMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjU0ODQyN30.HTuK9gjS5mRSa0K4JJwOy_akXZXrsT1wBIavUYO5bmE/img.jpg?width=980" id="06cdb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0f612c21221c12500d8305384e021d37" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/european-union-biodiversity-strategy/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646172264#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>Southern white rhino, a frequently trafficked species, in Uganda. Rod Waddington / CC BY-SA 2.0
<p>This commitment is welcome and will provide an opportunity for the EU and its Member States to step up their efforts to combat wildlife trafficking and finally treat it as serious crime. Hopefully it will include a commitment to deploying a similar level of resources and penalties as currently devoted to crimes like drug trafficking. Without such deterrents in place, the EU — like any government or region — won't be able to put an end to wildlife trafficking.</p><p>The EU is also now determining its long-term budget — the Multiannual Financial Framework — and will soon set spending targets for the next seven years. The MFF and the next EU development-aid budget (the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument) are critical in outlining the EU's top priorities.</p><p>Those priorities must include high, ambitious spending targets for climate, environment and biodiversity. Without proper financing mechanisms, the EU won't be able to implement <em>any</em> strategies or actions to preserve our environment and health. While the Biodiversity Strategy states that the EU's ready to increase its support to developing countries for biodiversity after this year, no detailed financial pledge has yet been made. The EU has missed an opportunity to make a much-needed commitment in this regard, but it's not too late to establish one.</p><p>The EU has all the cards in its hands to make the right decisions — not only to significantly reduce the risk of future major pandemics but to build a new paradigm in which we can live in harmony with nature. It published a well-thought-out strategy that provides the foundation for ambitious actions to tackle the biodiversity crisis; now it needs to put its money where its mouth is.</p><p>The EU and its member states have established bold and immediate measures to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on human health, wellbeing and security. Now it must do the same to tackle the biodiversity crisis — whose impacts on our society are likely to be far worse than those of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>The EU has a unique opportunity to show leadership, to be a game-changer, and to be on the right side of history a model that other governments and regions across the globe can emulate. Let's hope it doesn't let us down.</p>Related Articles Around the Web
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Nationwide states struggle to recruit, hire and train game wardens. Jason Erickson / Getty Images
By Jodi Helmer
In Georgia there are just 213 game wardens to enforce state fish and wildlife laws, investigate violations, assist with conservation efforts and collect data on wildlife and ecological changes across 16,000 miles of rivers and 37 million acres of public and private lands. Statewide 46 counties have no designated game warden at all. The shortage could lead to wildlife crimes going undetected.
<p>"The more officers we have in the field, the more contact those officers have with the public, the more violations we'll find," says Major Mike England, a game warden with the Law Enforcement Division of the <a href="https://gadnr.org/" target="_blank">Georgia Department of Natural Resources</a>. "The locals in the counties without game wardens are very vocal about it; it's like living in a town with no police department."</p><p>Georgia is not an anomaly. Nationwide states struggle to recruit, hire and train game wardens. These law-enforcement officers — also known as conservation officers, forest rangers, gamekeepers or wildlife troopers — are on the frontlines of conservation, but significant staffing shortages, especially in rural communities, put wildlife and the environment at risk.</p><p>It's not just an issue in the United States. A 2018 United Nations <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/publication/state-knowledge-crimes-have-serious-impacts-environment" target="_blank">report</a> noted a worldwide increase in environmental crimes and cited a "lack of capacity in the enforcement chain" as one of the major gaps in ability to respond.</p><p>And the current COVID-19 pandemic could exacerbate the problem.</p>
The Environment Pays the Price
<p>Environmental crimes like poaching, overfishing and illegal dumping threaten healthy ecosystems, and without adequate patrols can lead to declining wildlife populations, disease spread, increases in invasive species, erosion and contaminated waterways.</p><p>"People who want to cheat resources know which [ranger] stations are vacant and know that the odds of seeing a warden in the field are rare because regular patrols aren't happening," explains Larry Bonde, chairman of the <a href="https://dnr.wi.gov/about/wcc/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Conservation Congress</a>, a group of elected delegates who advise the state department of natural resources. "It's not just fish and game violations; if no one is visiting sensitive sites…there are a lot of things that get overlooked that could be spotted by [a game warden] patrolling the area."</p><p>In California, for example, game wardens with the Department of Fish and Wildlife are often the first to spot illegal cannabis cultivation sites — called trespass grows — where growers raze paths through national forests to access secluded sites, divert significant amounts of water to irrigate cannabis plants, and apply massive amounts of pesticides to keep wildlife from gnawing on the crops. Too few game wardens in the field could lead to massive environmental degradation before trespass grows are spotted.</p><p>Even when issues are spotted, Rick Langley, wildlife program manager for the <a href="https://www.azgfd.com/" target="_blank">Arizona Game and Fish Department</a> and president of the <a href="https://www.naweoa.org/" target="_blank">North American Wildlife Enforcement Officers Association</a>, believes that having too few game wardens in the field could have a negative impact on investigations and enforcement.</p><p>"[Game wardens] work really hard to fill in the gaps to protect natural resources," he says. "In areas with less officer presence or where officers are spread thin to cover vacant districts, it has the potential to leave investigations incomplete or not responded to or followed up on as thoroughly as they would have been if you had one officer assigned to the area."</p><p>Bonde agrees, adding, "If the station is vacant and there's a complaint, it won't be ignored, but it certainly isn't going to get the amount of attention it would if it had been a full-time posted station."</p><p>But filling vacant stations isn't always easy.</p><p>Several factors, including shrinking conservation budgets, declining numbers of qualified applicants, long hours, low wages and rural locations have all contributed to the dearth of game wardens working in the field.</p><p>Those who want to pursue careers in the field often fail to make it past initial screenings. In 2019 the Georgia Department of Natural Resources hired just 10 game wardens from a pool of 350 applicants. England notes that most of the applicants failed their physical fitness exam or polygraph test, removing them from consideration. The <a href="https://dnr.wi.gov/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources</a> graduated a class of 12 game wardens from a pool of more than 400 applicants.</p><p>"There has been a longstanding concern about the number of vacancies," notes Bonde. "[With too few officers in the field] it's not even possible for proper enforcement to occur."</p>
COVID Challenges
<p>These existing challenges are poised to get worse. The COVID-19 global health pandemic has triggered major budget cuts, further threatening funding for environmental conservation and could result in additional cuts to conservation districts that are already cash-strapped and understaffed.</p><p>"For agencies that receive funding [through state taxes and revenues], the repercussions from reduced tourism and businesses closing could have a very serious effect," says Langley. "We're hearing rumors about budget cuts and, in many areas, budget is one of the main reasons these positions go unfilled."</p><p>In 2019 the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources had 21 open positions across its 155 patrol areas; the number decreased (from 27 vacancies in 2019) but the state is facing a <a href="https://mn.gov/mmb-stat/budget/may-interim-budget-projection-slides.pdf" target="_blank">projected $2.42 billion budget deficit</a> as a result of the pandemic, which could threaten funding for the department.</p><p>In Montana the wardens working for Fish, Wildlife & Parks wrote 2,194 citations in 2018 compared to 4,027 a decade earlier. Game wardens suspect that there are not fewer wildlife crimes, just fewer officers to catch perpetrators. That number could drop again. The state, anticipating "significant revenue shortfalls" due to the pandemic, led legislators to request reducing state spending; the department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks could feel the sting.</p><p>To complicate matters, stay-at-home orders have led people to spend more time outdoors, hiking in national forests and boating and fishing on lakes. States like Vermont, North Dakota, Minnesota and New York have reported significant increases in the number of fishing licenses being issued, which means more anglers to monitor and too few game wardens to ensure no one is violating catch limits.</p>Targeting Solutions
<p>The seriousness of the issue has led some states to implement strategies to increase the number of game wardens in the field and provide additional support to keep them in their roles.</p><p>In fiscal year 2018-2019, the Minnesota legislature allocated an additional $2.8 million to help the Department of Natural Resources recruit, hire and train additional game wardens to help fill 28 vacant positions. The Arizona Fish and Game Department, which has 16 vacancies across its 80 conservation districts, ramped up recruitment efforts too, adding three classes to the law enforcement academy in 2020 (up from just one in previous years). It also hired an advisor to educate students graduating from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona about conservation careers.</p><p>Most departments also have ranger "tip lines" where the public can report violations. In addition to the hotlines, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources also installed 400 cameras across the state to help catch wildlife violations.</p><p>"Instead of a game warden sitting out at night for eight hours to watch for hunters spotlighting deer [an illegal practice that involves using a flashlight or headlights to locate wildlife while hunting after hours], we use cameras," England explains. "If we have problems with people dumping trash, sneaking in certain areas and fishing after hours or illegal hunting, we can hide one of these cameras and it sends the game warden a picture or a video of what's going on."</p><p>While Bonde supports the use of high-tech tools and hotlines to report potential conservation violations to help protect wildlife and the environment, he believes additional funding to get more game wardens in the field is essential, adding, "Without proper enforcement, there will always be people who cheat our natural resources."</p>
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Meadow Lake wind farm in Indiana. Anthony / CC BY-ND 2.0
By Tara Lohan
The first official tallies are in: Coronavirus-related shutdowns helped slash daily global emissions of carbon dioxide by 14 percent in April. But the drop won't last, and experts estimate that annual emissions of the greenhouse gas are likely to fall only about 7 percent this year.
<p>After that, unless we make substantial changes to global economies, it will be back to business as usual — and a path that leads directly to runaway climate change. If we want to reverse course, say the world's leading scientists, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/08/world-has-only-years-get-climate-change-under-control-un-scientists-say/" target="_blank">we have about a decade</a> to right the ship.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/stokes-clean-energy/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
<p>That's because we've squandered a lot of time. "The 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s were lost decades for preventing global climate disaster," political scientist <a href="https://www.leahstokes.com/" target="_blank">Leah Stokes</a> writes in her new book <em><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/short-circuiting-policy-9780190074265?cc=us&lang=en" target="_blank">Short Circuiting Policy</a></em><em>, </em>which looks at the history of clean energy policy in the U.S.</p><p>But we don't all bear equal responsibility for the tragic delay.</p><p>"Some actors in society have more power than others to shape how our economy is fueled," writes Stokes, an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "We are not all equally to blame."</p><p><em>Short Circuiting</em> <em>Policy</em> focuses on the role of one particularly bad actor: electric utilities. Their history of obstructing a clean-energy transition in the U.S. has been largely overlooked, with most of the finger-pointing aimed at fossil fuel companies (and for good reason).</p><p>We spoke with Stokes about this history of delay and denial from the utility industry, how to accelerate the speed and scale of clean-energy growth, and whether we can get past the polarizing rhetoric and politics around clean energy.</p>
What lessons can we learn from your research to guide us right now, in what seems like a really critical time in the fight to halt climate change?
<p>What a lot of people don't understand is that to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we actually have to reduce emissions by around 7-8 percent <em>every single year</em> from now until 2030, which is what the emissions drop is likely to be this year because of the COVID-19 crisis.</p><p>So think about what it took to reduce emissions by that much and think about how we have to do that <em>every single year</em>.</p><p>It doesn't mean that it's going to be some big sacrifice, but it does mean that we need government policy, particularly at the federal level, because state policy can only go so far. We've been living off state policy for more than three decades now and we need our federal government to act.</p>Where are we now, in terms of our progress on renewable energy and how far we need to go?
<p>A lot of people think renewable energy is growing "so fast" and it's "so amazing." But first of all, during the coronavirus pandemic, the renewable energy industry is actually doing very poorly. It's losing a lot of jobs. And secondly, we were not moving fast enough even before the coronavirus crisis, because renewable energy in the<em> best </em>year grew by only 1.3 percent.</p><p>Right now we're at around 36-37 percent clean energy. That includes nuclear, hydropower and new renewables like wind, solar and geothermal. But hydropower and nuclear aren't growing. Nuclear supplies about 20 percent of the grid and hydro about 5 percent depending on the year. And then the rest is renewable. So we're at about 10 percent renewables, and in the best year, we're only adding 1 percent to that.</p><p>Generally, we need to be moving about eight times faster than we've been moving in our best years. (To visualize this idea, I came up with the <a href="https://grist.org/fix/how-quickly-do-we-need-to-ramp-up-renewables-look-to-the-narwhal/" target="_blank">narwhal curve</a>.)</p>How do we overcome these fundamental issues of speed and scale?
<p>We need actual government policy that supports it. We have never had a clean electricity standard or renewable portfolio standard at the federal level. That's the main law that I write all about at the state level. Where those policies are in place, a lot of progress has been made — places like California and even, to a limited extent, Texas.</p><p>We need our federal government to be focusing on this crisis. Even the really small, piecemeal clean-energy policies we have at the federal level are going away. In December Congress didn't extend the investment tax credit and the production tax credit, just like they didn't extend or improve the electric vehicle tax credit.</p><p>And now during the COVID-19 crisis, a lot of the money going toward the energy sector in the CARES Act is going toward propping up <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-15/-stealth-bailout-shovels-millions-of-dollars-to-oil-companies" target="_blank">dying fossil fuel companies</a> and not toward supporting the renewable energy industry.</p><p>So we are moving in the wrong direction.</p>Clean energy hasn’t always been such a partisan issue. Why did it become so polarizing?
<p>What I argue in my book, with evidence, is that electric utilities and fossil fuel companies have been intentionally driving polarization. And they've done this in part by running challengers in primary elections against Republicans who don't agree with them.</p><p>Basically, fossil fuel companies and electric utilities are telling Republicans that you can't hold office and support climate action. That has really shifted the incentives within the party in a very short time period.</p><p>It's not like the Democrats have moved so far left on climate. The Democrats have stayed in pretty much the same place and the Republicans have moved to the right. And I argue that that's because of electric utilities and fossil fuel companies trying to delay action.</p>And their reason for doing that is simply about their bottom line and keeping their share of the market?
<p>Exactly. You have to remember that delay and denial on climate change is a profitable enterprise for fossil fuel companies and electric utilities. The longer we wait to act on the crisis, the more money they can make because they can extract more fossil fuels from their reserves <em>and</em> they can pay more of their debt at their coal plants and natural gas plants. So delay and denial is a money-making business for fossil fuel companies and electric utilities.</p>There’s been a lot of research, reporting and even legal action in recent years about the role of fossil fuel companies in discrediting climate science. From reading your book, it seems that electric utilities are just as guilty. Is that right?
<p>Yes, far less attention has been paid to electric utilities, which play a really critical role. They preside over legacy investments into coal and natural gas, and some of them continue to propose building new natural gas.</p><p>They were just as involved in promoting climate denial in the 1980s and 90s as fossil fuel companies, as I document in my book. And some of them, like Southern Company, have continued to promote climate denial to basically the present day.</p><p>But that's not the only dark part of their history.</p><p>Electric utilities promoted energy systems that are pretty wasteful. They built these centralized fossil fuel power plants rather than having co-generation plants that were onsite at industrial locations where manufacturing is happening, and where you need both steam heat — which is a waste product from electricity — and the electricity itself. That actually created a lot of waste in the system and we burned a lot more fossil fuels than if we had a decentralized system.</p><p><span></span>The other thing they've done in the more modern period is really resisted the energy transition. They've resisted renewable portfolio standards and net metering laws that allow for more clean energy to come onto the grid. They've tried to roll them back. They've been successful in some cases, and they've blocked new laws from passing when targets were met.</p>You wrote that, “Partisan polarization on climate is not inevitable — support could shift back to the bipartisanship we saw before 2008.” What would it take to actually make that happen?
<p>Well, on the one hand, you need to get the Democratic Party to care more about climate change and to really understand the stakes. And if you want to do that, I think the work of the <a href="https://www.justicedemocrats.com/" target="_blank">Justice Democrats</a> is important. They have primary-challenged incumbent Democrats who don't care enough about climate change. That is how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected. She was a primary challenger and she has really championed climate action in the Green New Deal.</p><p>The other thing is that the public supports climate action. Democrats do in huge numbers. Independents do. And to some extent Republicans do, particularly young Republicans.</p><p>So communicating the extent of public concern on these issues is really important because, as I've shown in other research, politicians don't know how much public concern there is on climate change. They dramatically underestimate support for climate action.</p><p>I think the media has a really important role to play because it's very rare that a climate event, like a disaster that is caused by climate change, is actually linked to climate change in media reporting.</p><p>But people might live through a wildfire or a hurricane or a heat wave, but nobody's going to tell them through the media that this is climate change. So we really need our reporters to be doing a better job linking people's lived experiences to climate change.</p>With economic stimulus efforts ramping up because of the COVD-19 pandemic, are we in danger of missing a chance to help boost a clean energy economy?
<p>I think so many people understand that stimulus spending is an opportunity to rebuild our economy in a way that creates good-paying jobs in the clean-energy sector that protects Americans' health.</p><p>We know that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200427-how-air-pollution-exacerbates-covid-19" target="_blank">breathing dirty air</a> makes people more likely to die from COVID-19. So this is a big opportunity to create an economy that's more just for all Americans.</p><p>But unfortunately, we really are not pivoting toward creating a clean economy, which is what we need to be doing. This is an opportunity to really focus on the climate crisis because we have delayed for more than 30 years. There is not another decade to waste.</p>From Your Site Articles
- Both Conservatives and Liberals Want a Green Energy Future, but ... ›
- 40 Million Health Workers Endorse Green Recovery - EcoWatch ›
- Trump Admin Sits on $43 Billion Intended for Clean Energy Loans ... ›
- The U.S. Could Get to 90 Percent Clean Power by 2035 - EcoWatch ›
- The U.S. Could Get to 90 Percent Clean Power by 2035 - EcoWatch ›
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Working From Home During the Pandemic Has Environmental Benefits — But We Can Do Even Better
24 May
Insights + Opinion
Junjira Konsang / Pixabay
By Matt Casale
For many Americans across the country, staying home to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) means adapting to long-term telework for the first time. We're doing a lot more video conferencing and working out all the kinks that come along with it.
<p>While this particular situation is not ideal for many — for example, I'm currently writing this with an infant in a baby carrier on my chest and our almost-three-year-old belting "Let It Go" in the background — in many ways we're playing out a real-time experiment on whether telecommuting is possible on a large scale.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDc5NTEzOH0.UPtJT4Pjinn-wiHkF4vbFGF_2M2R3DrqPh_VGN_mPxQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="61bc2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4aeee8da3400abc67c12130a6bbe03ae" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The author (above) wrote this while working from home, baby in tow. Emily Anderson (author's wife/home office mate)
<p>The coronavirus will pass, but it's looking more and more like remote work will stick around. This time has demonstrated that, despite the ups and downs many of us have experienced, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likely-continue-long-after-the-pandemic/" target="_blank">telework works</a> for way more of us than we knew.</p><p>Even before this we knew that there were several benefits for both employers and employees to sidestepping the office. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrealoubier/2017/07/20/benefits-of-telecommuting-for-the-future-of-work/#3f278e0916c6" target="_blank">Studies have shown</a> that it can lead to increased productivity, higher morale and lower employee turnover. It can also reduce real estate and office operation costs for employers.</p><p>We may now also be seeing some larger societal benefits that make the case for taking telework even further. Our current situation has provided a window into how a reduction in driving, buoyed, in part, by a greater adoption of telework, could relieve some of the stress on our overburdened transportation system and help heal at least a portion of the environmental damage it causes.</p><p>Today, roads that would normally clogged at all hours of the day are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-empty-airports-trains-roads-during-coronavirus" target="_blank">virtually empty</a>, even during rush hour. And the reduced car travel leads to fewer crashes and less air pollution, which harms human health and contributes to global warming. Air that's usually cloudy with smog has cleared. Los Angeles, which has notoriously pollution-choked skies, could recently boast having the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/los-angeles-pollution-clean-air-coronavirus-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">cleanest air in the world</a>. And this year, experts predict, the transportation transformation will contribute to the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coronavirus-set-to-cause-largest-ever-annual-fall-in-co2-emissions" target="_blank">largest-ever annual decline in global carbon emissions</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODAzNTcyNX0.2WzQzdHTSN6ob08B_hb9WcYdlBeUtg53i1RoYGIO1Do/img.jpg?width=980" id="44ac4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ea0ed6763606e660a909d62f41f9d54f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Virtually empty Los Angeles streets on May 7. Chris Yarzab / CC BY 2.0
<p>Clearly not every job can be done from home, and it's not just commuting for work that has come to a halt during coronavirus lockdowns. In 2017 only around <a href="https://nhts.ornl.gov/assets/2017_nhts_summary_travel_trends.pdf" target="_blank">28 percent</a> of total miles driven were work-related. Even if telework continues or expands on a much larger scale, non-work-related car trips — shopping, recreation, visits to doctors and the like — can be expected to go back to normal.</p><p>Still, telework's potential for taking cars off the road can clearly have an impact on global warming emissions and air pollution. Just how much of an impact could telework have? As it turns out, the answer is a significant one — and with a few important steps, the benefits can be even greater and more sustainable.</p>How Much of the Workforce Could Reasonably and Permanently Transition to Telework?
<p>According to the U.S. Census Bureau, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/13/people-who-work-from-home-earn-more-than-those-who-commuteheres-why.html" target="_blank">5.2 percent of U.S. workers</a> — around 8 million people — worked from home in 2017. But that's still just a fraction of potential teleworkers. Earlier this month researchers at the University of Chicago found that <a href="https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_White-Paper_Dingel_Neiman_3.2020.pdf" target="_blank">37 percent of U.S. jobs can plausibly be performed at home</a>. The U.S. workforce reached <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV" target="_blank">164.5 million</a> in February 2020, before the pandemic, meaning approximately 61 million of those workers could plausibly telework permanently once the economy starts up again.</p><p>Of course, the full economic consequences of this public health crisis are still unknown. It's possible that coronavirus-related job losses will impact the overall number of those employed for some time. But for these purposes, this assumption of 53 million new remote workers will be useful to illustrate the potential impacts of telework.</p>How Much Driving Would Full-Capacity Telework Avoid?
<p>In 2019 Americans drove a total <a href="https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10315" target="_blank">3.23 trillion miles</a>, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The DoE doesn't break that down by reasons driving, but we know that in 2017 there were <a href="https://nhts.ornl.gov/assets/2017_nhts_summary_travel_trends.pdf" target="_blank">683 billion total commute miles</a> driven. Reducing the commuting workforce by about 32 percent (37 percent of total workers who could telecommute minus the 5.2 percent of them who already do) would theoretically decrease commuting totals by about 219 billion miles.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDE5NzkwNn0.NsQ8r0Opjbst4FFYG9IGfKIkekxBMPGG8viKKCB9Afc/img.jpg?width=980" id="f3198" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bbf1191abdd0b796a70fbb2a36b827e2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A traffic jam on January 17. Raphael Labaca Castro / CC BY-SA 2.0
<p>Of course telecommuting won't let us avoid logging <em>all</em> of those miles, since people may occasionally still need to travel to an office for meetings and may need to make new trips they wouldn't otherwise have taken (you can't stop at the grocery store on the way home from work when you work at home). Various studies have found that telecommuting actually reduces driving somewhere between <a href="https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/sb375/policies/telecommuting/telecommuting_brief120313.pdf" target="_blank">60 and 90</a> percent of commute vehicle miles traveled (VMT). We'll split the difference and calculate that telework reduces commute miles by about 75%, meaning the new teleworkers could avoid around 164 billion miles driven.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODE3NzE2NH0.x6snYt1idN9K7pPfL-rp11ITuPasCu09GYlTXCmZqH0/img.jpg?width=980" id="7175e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2862401e39968c61d3a00f932157acd" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center
<p>Still, that much of a transformation may not work for everyone, as people will still need to do face-to-face work — and, let's be honest, the other thing the lockdowns have taught us is to appreciate the value of regular social contact. That said, even if most people worked from home two to three days a week and the actual VMT reduction were closer to 2 or 3 percent, the difference would still be significant — especially considering that VMT has been <a href="https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10315" target="_blank">steadily rising</a> since the 1970s, except for a few years during economic downturns. Even if just a quarter of American workers started working from home one day a week, total vehicle miles traveled would fall by <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063006473" target="_blank">1</a> percent — not a huge amount, but enough to make a difference on a grander scale.</p>Impact on Global Warming Emissions
<p>The cars and trucks we drive every day are major sources of air pollution and global warming emissions. Transportation as a whole accounts for <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks" target="_blank">28</a> percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., more than any other source. Light-duty vehicles and medium- and heavy-duty trucks are responsible for<a href="https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions" target="_blank"> 82</a> percent of the transportation sector's emissions.</p><p>The average American car or SUV emits <a href="https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle" target="_blank">404 grams</a> of carbon dioxide (CO2) per mile traveled. So reducing commuting by 164 billion miles would avoid 66 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually. These are significant emissions reductions, but they'd only make a small dent in total transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, which reached nearly <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks" target="_blank">1.9 billion metric tons</a> in 2018.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY4OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTEzMDQ2N30.kNeCqEqhHQcOV8p2HMENkbOtLoShEGEsXOycpTdlxco/img.jpg?width=980" id="e7f7b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ce9e7ab7f9c21489e7487b820813367e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>Nevertheless, it would help us move in the right direction. And while it only represents a small percentage of total emissions, it would still be the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator" target="_blank">equivalent</a> of more eliminating emissions from than 7 million homes' total energy use for one year, or the same as shutting down more than 16 coal-fired power plants.</p>
Impact on Health-harming Air Pollution
<p>People across America regularly breathe polluted air, which increases their risk of attacks and other adverse health impacts, and even premature death. In fact, in 2018 <a href="https://uspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/EnvironmentAmerica_TroubleintheAir_scrn.pdf" target="_blank">108 million Americans</a> lived in areas that experienced more than 100 days of degraded air quality. Our cars and trucks are a major source of this pollution, which includes ozone, particulate matter and other smog-forming emissions.</p><p>There's a reason the air has cleared over many of our major cities during the coronavirus lockdowns. When you remove cars from the road, you also remove smog. The lockdowns have resulted in an extreme reduction of VMT — between <a href="https://frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/america-pause-vehicle-travel-during-covid-19-and-what-comes-next" target="_blank">68 and 72</a> percent across the country (and in some places closer to 90 percent). Assuming that telework has contributed something close to its peak potential reduction of 7 percent, it seems likely that it has played at least a supporting role in helping to clear our skies.</p>Additional Emissions Reductions From Reduced Traffic
<p>The average American commuter wastes <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/us/traffic-commute-gridlock-transportation-study-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">54 hours</a> a year stuck in traffic. That's lost time with friends and families, lost productivity at work, wasted money, tons of unnecessary stress, and a lot more pollution from idling cars.</p><p>Traffic patterns are complicated because traffic is <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/12/4-steps-to-tackling-traffic-congestion/" target="_blank">non-linear</a>, meaning there isn't a one-to-one ratio of percentage of cars removed to percentage of traffic alleviated. As such, just a <a href="https://www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2017/the-access-almanac-traffic-congestion-is-counter-intuitive-and-fixable/" target="_blank">few extra cars</a> on or off the road can have an outsize impact on traffic. Reducing commute VMT by up to 7 percent would have a huge impact on rush hour traffic (when bottlenecks are at their worst and most of that driving occurs). A greater adoption of telework could give people back some of those 54 hours so they can spend it doing the things that matter to them. And slow moving or stop and go traffic results in <a href="https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-2009/traffic-congestion-greenhouse-gases/" target="_blank">greater emissions</a> than free-flowing traffic. So freeing up the roads and alleviating traffic for the remaining will result in even greater emissions reductions.</p>What Needs to Happen for Telework to Live Up to Its Potential?
<p>It's clear that telework can have significant societal benefits, including less global warming pollution and cleaner skies. But significant benefits are only possible if everyone whose job could plausibly be done from home has that opportunity.</p><p>To reach that goal, several barriers must be overcome:</p><p><em>Technology: </em>We've all had technical mix-ups when using Zoom or Google Hangouts or one of the other conferencing platforms. But the real technological barrier is access to broadband. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/#who-has-home-broadband" target="_blank">Roughly three-quarters</a> of American adults have broadband internet service at home, but the rate of access is much lower in rural parts of the country, according to a report by Pew Research Center. Those locations often don't have broadband infrastructure and even <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/06/telecommuting-will-likely-continue-long-after-the-pandemic/" target="_blank">14</a> percent of households in urban areas lack access, usually because they are not able to afford it. States should make funding available to develop broadband capacity in underserved areas.</p><p><em>Employer policies and managerial reluctance</em>: Coronavirus lockdowns across the country have forced employers and managers to adapt to large-scale telework quickly on an emergency basis, meaning these barriers are less likely relevant now than before. But general employer and manager <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683455.pdf" target="_blank">reluctance</a> to embrace working from home has slowed this transition. Cities and states can encourage employer acceptance of telework by providing <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2019/07/25/gov-baker-proposes-telecommuting-tax-break-for-companies" target="_blank">tax benefits</a> or other incentives for greater adoption.</p><p><em>Car-centered transportation policies: </em>Our current transportation policies often incentivize driving or parking. From commuter and parking benefits to decades of outsized spending on <a href="https://uspirg.org/reports/usp/highway-boondoggles-5" target="_blank">highway infrastructure</a>, we tip the scales toward getting behind an automobile's wheel. In other words, our transportation policies are meant to move cars rather than incentivize things, such as telework, that would take cars off the road.</p><p>We need to rethink this approach and shift toward better "<a href="https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/plan4ops/trans_demand.htm" target="_blank">Transportation Demand Management</a>." This requires the implementation of a set of strategies aimed at maximizing traveler choices. Those strategies should include greater employer and employee incentives for telework, as well as policies designed to facilitate more walking, biking, ridesharing, vanpooling and public transportation use.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzY5MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzUwNTM5OX0.9ePNI--qrX2Z32AA7sgDeU5lwKBZtReALXYY8Y9b_Sc/img.jpg?width=980" id="a9e3d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d41b19fddabdda0afee848bbc5b6c005" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/telework-environmental-benefits/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>Bikeshare in Milan, October 2019. Guilhem Vellut / CC BY 2.0
<p>That's important, because the potential gains we'd see from telework would only be sustained if that shift were paired with other policies to ensure those commuter miles aren't just replaced with other trips. We usually talk about this in relation to widening or building new highways, but when you open up highway capacity, it usually fills quickly. This is what the wonks call "<a href="https://uspirg.org/reports/usp/highway-boondoggles-5" target="_blank">induced demand</a>." People who otherwise would have driven at a different time of day, taken a different route, taken public transportation or would have avoided traffic on the highway some other way, come back to the road. The same could happen here if additional measures aren't taken.</p><p>It's likely that, even after the coronavirus lockdowns are over, telework is going to become more and more common in the American workforce. As it does, the environmental benefits will be significant. In a time when climate change presents an existential threat to life as we know it and millions of people across the world are subjected to unhealthy levels of air pollution, we need to be taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to solving these problems. Telework can clearly be a significant part of the long-term solution — especially if we take further steps to maximize its potential.</p>From Your Site Articles
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A young monk seal underwater in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. NOAA / PIFSC / HMSRP
By Tara Lohan
The Sargasso Sea, an area of the Atlantic Ocean between the Caribbean and Bermuda, has bedeviled sailors for centuries. Its namesake — sargassum, a type of free-floating seaweed — and notoriously calm winds have "trapped" countless mariners, including the crew of Christopher Columbus's Santa Maria.
<p>For the past 500 years, most of the stories that have come from the Sargasso have been about stranded ships and sunken vessels. But in recent years scientists have rewritten the sea's narrative. It's not a life-stealing sea, but a life-giving one. The seaweed alone helps support 100 species of invertebrates, 280 species of fish and 23 species of birds.</p><p>That's one of the reasons why a team of scientists from 13 universities and institutions included the Sargasso Sea as one of 10 biodiversity hotspots in the high seas — areas of the ocean outside of national boundaries — that their research indicates should be considered for designation as marine protected areas.</p><p>Their <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X19309194#!" target="_blank">recommendations</a>, published earlier this year in the journal <em>Marine Policy</em>, took more than a little bit of work to develop.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/ocean-biodiversity-mpa/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzEwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTkwNzAyM30.Np_V-1lN3jiRrejo8GI3dZ0C7rzIbgCQr2vaV-U3-Xk/img.jpg?width=980" id="ef11e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a71193b1578c9a9b1b6edd21ccdbd716" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Results from the global data-driven conservation planning analysis showing priority areas to be considered for protection (green) in marine areas beyond national jurisdiction. Visalli et al
Quantifying the Great Unknown
<p>The high seas make up two-thirds of the ocean, much of which is remote. Scientists are still learning about the diversity and complexity of life there.</p><p>"We're discovering new species in the high seas all the time," said Morgan Visalli, lead author of <em>Marine Policy</em> study and a project scientist with U.C. Santa Barbara's <a href="https://boi.ucsb.edu/" target="_blank">Benioff Ocean Initiative</a>.</p><p>But at the same time, her colleague and study coauthor Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff Ocean Initiative, said there's also a lot we <em>do</em> know that can help guide conservation.</p><p>They began their study by reaching out to networks of colleagues across the world to help gather data.</p><p>"I was really impressed by how much we actually know — how much data we have for what is out there, biologically speaking," he said. "And also what people are doing in that space. We can't fall back on the excuse of not knowing enough."</p><p>The researchers ended up analyzing 22 billion data points — a huge data-processing challenge — to identify areas of the high seas that could warrant protection.</p><p>That included looking at indicators such as seafloor habitat, ocean productivity, diversity and richness of species, and extinction risks. They also identified certain physical features — like seamounts and hydrothermal vents — where changes in elevation and temperature help foster biodiversity.</p><p>Their results identified <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2020/03/a-path-to-creating-the-first-generation-of-high-seas-protected-areas" target="_blank">priority regions</a> in nearly all the major ocean basins, with the largest areas in the South Pacific Ocean. Key areas also included the Sargasso Sea, as well as the Costa Rica thermal dome in the Pacific Ocean; the South Tasman Sea; the Emperor Seamount Chain northwest of the Hawaiian Islands; the Mascarene Plateau in the Indian Ocean; and the Walvis Ridge, an undersea mountain range off southwestern Africa.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzEwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDI4NDYwN30.QFfMyJCTEjL8D37O12PIkoBxHP_Pb9DNEnRV6eiEiKo/img.jpg?width=980" id="9c6dd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7261fcecfef2fae3263eb06f1e3f8b1c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
UCSB analysis; Marineregions.org; Natural Earth. © 2020 The Pew Charitable Trusts
<p>Their model avoided areas of high fishing activity in order to avoid what the study calls "real or perceived negative socioeconomic impacts" of setting aside conservation areas. It also took into consideration how climate change could alter biodiversity by selecting areas critical today and ones likely to be important in the future as well.</p>The Need for Protection
<p>The research comes at a critical time for the future of the ocean — and the high seas, specifically.</p><p>A new United Nations treaty to protect and conserve biodiversity in the high seas is<a href="https://therevelator.org/high-seas-treaty/" target="_blank"> currently being negotiated</a>, and a focus of those talks is how to create a framework for establishing marine protected areas outside of national waters. This could help ensure that unique ecosystems like the Sargasso Sea and others identified in the <em>Marine Policy</em> study aren't overexploited.</p><p>The current law that governs the high seas, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, was finalized in 1982. But since then, our collective impact is starting to reveal gaps in governance.</p><p>Marine shipping traffic is up 1,600 percent and plastic pollution has increased 100-fold. At least one-third of fish stocks are being overharvested, and many migratory fish species, such as tuna, have declined more than 60 percent. Technological advances have led to more prospecting in the ocean's depths for minerals and other genetic resources, as well as more destructive practices, like trawling along the ocean floor. Climate change, which is warming waters and increasing acidification, poses even more risks to ocean life.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzMxMzEwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzE3NTg0MX0.Hg5Z-qf8B0rThFdYtITYNyBUPqsoWm8f-xxVHKV0MhY/img.jpg?width=980" id="2c686" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="60a28fa3ad6adf7e3397251af13e1ccf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Coral bleaching in the Gulf of Thailand. Petchrung Sukpong / CC BY-SA 2.0
<p>This has all taken a toll.</p><p>A <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/" target="_blank">landmark report</a> last year from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found massive declines in biodiversity globally — including in the ocean, with one-third of all reef-forming corals and marine mammals threatened with extinction.</p><p>A recent study in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2146-7" target="_blank" style="">Nature</a>, published just a few days after the <em>Marine Policy</em> study, suggests that we've come to a critical crossroads.</p><p>"We are at a point at which we can choose between a legacy of a resilient and vibrant ocean or an irreversibly disrupted ocean, for the generations to follow," wrote the researchers, led by Carlos Duarte, a professor of marine science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.</p><p>They posited that with enough resources and global will, we can see a "substantial recovery of the abundance, structure and function of marine life" by 2050. But to do that, we need to scale up efforts to protect vulnerable species and habitats, reduce pollution and — most critically — curb climate change.</p><p>That's why Visalli and McCauley believe efforts like the emerging high seas treaty are important.</p><p>So far fully implemented marine protected areas span just 5 percent of the ocean. And the vast majority of these reserves are in national waters, which are only one-third of the ocean. But a high seas treaty would help create a framework to more easily set aside conservation-rich areas in a much greater expanse.</p><p>"Even though there is industry out there and it has been increasing over the past several decades," said Visalli, "there is still a lot of wilderness in the high seas, and we are at this moment where we have an opportunity to protect these wild places before industry continues to expand even further."</p><p>To truly protect and restore ocean health, scientists have been calling for a bare minimum of 30 percent of the ocean to be protected. More protected areas in the high seas are important for meeting that goal. But just as crucial as how much space, is also <em>where</em> that space is.</p>The Need for Protected Spaces
<p>The major driver for changing and threatening biodiversity in the long term is climate change, said McCauley, which makes protecting these spaces vital in the short term.</p><p>"We are already seeing the first manifestation of these threats and we need to think about climate change and always manage the oceans — from fishing regulations to ocean parks — with that in mind," he said. "Climate change is changing where biodiversity will be in the high seas, and we can use data to plan for that."</p><p>Duarte and authors of the <em>Nature</em> study wrote that "Climate change is the critical backdrop against which all future rebuilding efforts will play out." But well-managed marine protected areas, they said, can help ecosystems be better equipped to handle threats from climate change, like warming temperatures and changing ocean chemistry.</p><p>Getting there won't be cheap. A global network of marine protected areas that conserves 20–30 percent of the ocean could cost $5–19 billion a year, the researchers write in <em>Nature</em>.</p><p>But supporting local economies, feeding communities, and fostering biodiversity don't have to be mutually exclusive. The money spent on conservation will be more than returned in economic gains from the new jobs, revenue from ecotourism, restored fisheries, and protections for coastal areas, their research found.</p><p>But establishing the policy and international agreements, like the high seas treaty, to set plans in motion will require a lot of compromise, said McCauley.</p><p>"We need that space to have an ocean economy and we need that space to have biodiversity," he said. "Can we find a sweet spot?"</p>From Your Site Articles
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By Dipika Kadaba
The emergence of multiple pandemics in the animal agriculture industry over the past few decades, coupled with COVID-19's suspected origins in wildlife meat markets, has prompted renewed calls from experts to transform the global food system to prevent diseases harmful to humans.
<p>Industrial agriculture puts humans in contact with scores of animals in cramped conditions, which is ideal for disease transfer.</p>
<p>But that's only one of the health dangers it causes. Antibiotics are used ubiquitously in all kinds of large-scale agriculture, causing antibiotic resistance and environmental toxicity that studies show <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC122845/" target="_blank">we're not prepared to combat</a>.</p>
<p>Watch our new video to learn more about issues arising from antibiotic use in agriculture.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5363447ee3ad107f98d95612dcc37888"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G8Q07BHRUwc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/dipikakadaba/" target="_blank">Dipika Kadaba</a> is an ecologist who uses data visualization and design to communicate environmental issues in her role as The Revelator's visual storyteller. Her interdisciplinary work originates in her background in environmental health research as a veterinarian, a graduate degree in conservation science, and a lifetime spent creating webcomics and animations for fun.</em></p><p><em><em>Reposted with permission from <em><a href="https://therevelator.org/antibiotics-agriculture-environment/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></em><em></em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The entrance for Liberty State Park on April 12, 2020 in Jersey City, NJ, is blocked after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy issued an order to close all State Parks. Ira L. Black / Corbis / Getty Images
By Stephen Lezak
Across the United States, local authorities have sealed off public parks and open spaces, blaming visitors who failed to maintain social distance.
<p>What started with closed urban playgrounds spread like a contagion in its own right. In California the city of Santa Cruz <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/10/when-surfing-gets-banned-surfers-get-salty/" target="_blank">banned</a> surfing. In Colorado San Juan County issued an <a href="https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/atoms/files/SheriffLetter03-21_20_Signed.publisher.pdf" target="_blank">order</a> threatening to tow vehicles belonging to backcountry skiers. "Socially distant" gradually became synonymous with "indoors."</p><p>It was only a few weeks ago that <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/article/How-to-stay-active-outdoors-during-15138081.php" target="_blank">going for a hike</a> was seen as a reasonable way to shelter in place. Then the sun came.</p><p>Beachgoers and picnickers turned out <em>en masse</em>, making headlines from San Francisco to London. Mayors and governors scolded the public on live television as they announced new restrictions.</p>
<p>A common refrain on social media lamenting the park closures has been, "Why can't we have nice things?" But blaming ourselves for crowded parks misses the underlying issue: In many parts of the country, there simply isn't enough public space to go around.</p><p>This problem is most pronounced in urban areas. An <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/08/21/parks-make-great-places-but-not-enough-americans-can-reach-them/" target="_blank">analysis</a> of the country's 100 largest cities found that only half of residents live within a half-mile of a park. Access is especially <a href="http://culturesofenergy.com/racial-and-socioeconomic-disparities-in-access-to-urban-greenspace/" target="_blank">limited</a> for communities of color and low-income groups, where neighborhoods lack public spaces to exercise, relax, gather, or simply breathe clean air.</p><p>This lack of city parks puts further pressure on nearby rural areas. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (near San Francisco) and the Blue Ridge Parkway (near Washington, D.C.) had <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/annual-visitation-highlights.htm" target="_blank">15 million visitors</a> apiece last year — more than triple the number at Yellowstone or Yosemite.</p><p>In the past decade, the National Park Service has seen a 15% <a href="https://irma.nps.gov/STATS/Reports/National" target="_blank">increase</a> in visits. But in that same decade, funding grew by less than .5% in real terms, leaving the agency unable to build new trailheads, expand parking lots or address a $12 billion repair <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/projects/restore-americas-parks/legislation" target="_blank">backlog</a>.</p>
<p>When recreation sites become overwhelmed, access becomes self-limiting. In much of the country, finding a parking spot at a trailhead is a summer adventure in its own right. We've overcrowded and underfunded ourselves into this situation.</p><p>This problem has a straightforward solution. Safeguarding access to public spaces requires protecting more land and improving infrastructure in existing parks. Doing so has the double-effect of creating more space for nature while distributing the impact of visitors. These should be easy wins to support an outdoor recreation economy <a href="https://www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/outdoor-recreation" target="_blank">valued</a> at $500 billion by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.</p><p>There are any number of ways Congress could address this issue. A simple first step: Mandate that taxes on oil and gas drilling allocated to the <a href="https://therevelator.org/lose-best-conservation-program/" target="_blank">Land and Water Conservation Fund</a> are not diverted to other projects or left unappropriated. According to Congress' in-house researchers, <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33531.pdf" target="_blank">less than half</a> of the $41 billion raised by the fund was spent to support public lands and recreation.</p>
<p>This lack of support is hardly accidental. "The Founding Fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold," <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/federal-government-should-sell-western-land-follow-constitution/" target="_blank">wrote</a> William Perry Pendley in 2016. He is now the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, overseeing a huge swath of federal public land.</p><p>Some officials are pushing a narrative in which landscapes are made whole through private development instead of public stewardship. Now, in the midst of a national emergency, we find ourselves unable to keep public spaces open at the time when we need them most — proof that this vision is gaining literal ground. With too little space to go around, staying home is the only way to stay safe.</p><p>The pandemic didn't create this crisis. But in the confines of our homes, we should ask whether we've taken our parks for granted. Our stewardship of public spaces must be continually reaffirmed, so that we can all go out in search of social distance — and perhaps even solitude.</p>
<p><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/stephenlezak/" target="_blank"><em>Stephen Lezak </em></a><em>is a geographer based at the University of Cambridge. </em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/covid-public-spaces/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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