A new report that brings together recent research on how climate change is affecting plants, animals, and habitats in the United States confirms what we already suspected: the changes are happening faster than previously thought, with more compelling evidence of impacts piling up.

The new report Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services was produced as a technical input into the 2013 National Climate Assessment (NCA).  My NWF colleague Bruce Stein and I served on the steering committee and helped author several chapters of the report.

More Evidence of How Climate Change Is Affecting Nature

The report focuses on new research contributions from the last 5 or so years, and there have been many. Among the major findings of the report:

• Climate change is causing many species to shift their ranges and distributions faster than previously thought.  Terrestrial species are moving up in elevation 2 to 3 times faster than initial estimates;
• There is increased evidence of species population declines and localized extinctions that can be directly attributed to climate change.  Species living at high altitudes and latitudes are especially vulnerable to climate change;
• Changes in precipitation and extreme weather events can increase transport of nutrients and pollutants downstream.  Drinking water quality is very likely to be strained as higher rainfall and river discharge lead to more nitrogen in waters and greater risk of waterborne disease outbreak;
• Ecosystem services provided by coastal habitats are especially vulnerable to sea level rise and more severe storms. The Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts are the most vulnerable to the loss of coastal protection services provided by wetlands and coral reefs.  Coastal communities on the Pacific coast are also vulnerable;
• Changes in winter can have big and surprising effects on ecosystems and their services, including impacting agricultural and forest production.

Climate Change Adaptation Gaining More Prominence

This report devotes a chapter to climate change adaptation, an area where there has also been significant progress made in the last five years. NWF’s contributions to advancing the conceptual framework and practice of adaptation are particularly featured.

With ecosystems facing the effects of climate change more rapidly than previously anticipated, the key findings of the adaptation chapter stress that our expectations of what can be accomplished with adaptation efforts and current conservation strategies will also need to be revisited:

• Adaptation can range from efforts to retain status quo conditions to actively managing system transitions; however, even the most aggressive adaptation strategies may be unable to prevent irreversible losses of biodiversity or serious degradation of ecosystems and their services.
• Static protected areas will not be sufficient to conserve biodiversity in a changing climate, requiring an emphasis on landscape-scale conservation, connectivity among protected habitats, and sustaining ecological functioning of working lands and waters.

Thus, the ongoing efforts of federal and state agencies to plan for and integrate climate change research into resource management and actions—many of which are cataloged in the report—are essential for safeguarding the future of wildlife. But, we will also need aggressive action to curb carbon pollution to avoid reaching the limits of what adaptation strategies can accomplish.

Next Stop: Public Review of Draft NCA Report

This technical input is already being considered by the authors of the next National Climate Assessment report, which will include a chapter on ecosystems, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. In addition, the chapters focused on individual regions of the nation will address the impacts on their ecosystems.

We will get our first look at the draft report this coming December when it will be released for a 3-month public comment period. The draft will undergo expert peer review, and the NCA is also seeking broad stakeholder review. They define stakeholders as “individuals and organizations whose activities, decisions, and policies are sensitive to or affected by climate.” In other words, everybody is a stakeholder.   So, mark your calendars to set aside some time to provide your comments to the NCA when the draft is available this winter.

Just in time for National Wildlife Week, National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools USA program has officially launched a new Biodiversity pathway to help schools explore their own grounds and communities and introduce their students to relationships within and across ecosystems as part of their study of the environment at large.

The pathway offers teachers and the students the tools to assess and improve biodiversity—the variety of life and its manifold relationships in small- and large-scale ecosystems–around them as an engaging complement to classroom science instruction.

Savannah Country Day School (Laura Hickey)

Hands-on biodiversity learning doesn’t only provide a greater appreciation for life’s diversity—like many environmental literacy themes, it can broaden science education too.

A 2005 study (PDF) in Temple, TX, schools found science achievement of students who participated in a hands-on gardening program was higher than for standard science classes. A 2010 study in the International Journal of Science Education found that most students who become interested in science do so during middle school or earlier and attribute their interest to some education-related science experience, so programs like Schoolyard Habitats—and the new Biodiversity pathway–are especially vital in building a solid baseline.

Why Should We Care about Biodiversity?

Biodiversity is extremely important to people and to the health of our natural ecosystems. Here are just some of the reasons, from our online Biodiversity pathway resources:

• Biodiversity allows us to live healthy and happy lives. It provides us with a wide array of foods, fibers and other materials and it supports the economy.
• Without a diversity of pollinators, plants, and soils, we would have little variety in our diets.
• Most medical discoveries to cure diseases and lengthen life spans were made because of research into plant and animal biology and genetics. Every time a species goes extinct or genetic diversity is lost, we lose an opportunity to find out if it could have provided a new vaccine or drug.
• Biodiversity is an important part of the ecological services that make life livable on Earth. They include everything from cleaning water and absorbing chemicals, which wetlands do, to providing oxygen for us to breathe—one of the many things that plants do for people.
• Biodiversity allows ecosystems to adjust to disturbances such as extreme fires and floods. In a forest with 20 species of reptiles, if one becomes extinct the others will likely adapt to fill the role left vacant. But if the forest had only one reptile species, there can be no adaptation.
• Genetic diversity prevents diseases and helps species adjust to changes in their environment.
• Diversity enriches our lives simply by existing. There are few things as beautiful, wonderful and inspiring as the diversity of life on Earth.

To find out how to become an Eco-School, visit our website. Learn more about Biodiversity, including extinction threats facing many species here. You can also read an article from National Wildlife Magazine about homegrown biodiversity through gardening or use the Biodiversity Audit (PDF) to help assess the biodiversity of the area surrounding your school.

Learn more about how you can celebrate EXTRA-ordinary species in your community and across the country during this year’s National Wildlife Week, March 19-25 >>

Watch Asian carp spread across the country.  Then, see how invasive mussels traveled to California.

In less than 30 seconds, one map traces the spread of Asian carp from a pond in Arkansas in 1975 to 23 states and counting today. In less than 20 seconds a second map shows how Zebra and quagga mussels spread from ballast water dumped in Lake Erie in 1986 to all the Great Lakes, two Canadian provinces and33 states in the U.S.   

Asian carp, zebra and quagga mussels are all filter feeders. They strip the ecosystem of food that many fish depend on to survive. Zebra and quagga mussels are causing the population of many fish in the Great Lakes to plummet. Add the voracious Asian carp to the mix, and most native fish in the Great Lakes could starve. 

Take action to advance the Stop Asian Carp Act!

These maps enable us to visualize just how quicky invasive species can move once they get loose.  A flimsy elecric barrier is all that stands between jumping, jumbo-sized Asian carp and the Great Lakes.  But it’s not just the Great Lakes that are in jeapardy.  Zebra and quagga mussels spread from the Great Lakes to infest most of the U.S.

It is imperative that we reestablish the separation between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Basins so that destructive invasive species like Asian carp, zebra and quagga mussels do not spread between them, engangering wildlife and degrading habitat forever.

“We have written this summary because human health is generally not part of the discussions about biodiversity loss, by policy-makers or the general public, and because most people, as a result, do not understand the full magnitude of the biodiversity crisis and do not develop a sense of urgency about addressing it.  We believe that once people really grasp what is at stake for their health and their lives, and for the health and lives of their children, they will do everything in their power to protect the living world.”

Logo for the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity

The future of life on Earth is on the negotiating table in Nagoya, Japan as delegates from more than 190 countries grapple with carrying out the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Created at the Earth Summit in 1992, the Convention has set aggressive targets for cutting the rate of species extinctions and slowing habitat loss worldwide. Unfortunately, these 2010 targets not only have been missed, but the pace of biodiversity loss is getting worse. It is against this discouraging backdrop—as well as attempts in Nagoya to establish a new set of targets for 2020—that we must ask the question, “how much of a difference do our conservation efforts really make?”

A newly published global analysis, on which I am a co-author, demonstrates conclusively that the news would be even worse if not for conservation efforts already underway. “The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World’s Vertebrates,” published today online by the prestigious journal Science, considers the fate of more than 25,000 species of mammals, birds, and amphibians worldwide. Assessing the conservation status of each of these species has been a gargantuan task, carried out by a veritable army of more than 3,000 scientists around the globe.

Although the term “big science” usually is applied to such endeavors as atom smashers and sequencing the human genome, the global scientific collaboration that underpins the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species qualifies to be included in that category. Reflecting the vastness of this effort, this newly published paper includes more than 150 co-authors.

Based on our latest assessments of the condition of the world’s vertebrates—that is, animals with backbones—nearly one-fifth are classified as threatened, ranging from 13% of birds to 41% of amphibians.

Understanding the current conservation status of these species tells only part of the story, though.  To determine whether things are getting better or worse we must also have a way of detecting changes over time. Over the past few years my colleagues in the IUCN Red List Program have developed a means for analyzing trends in these species assessments — referred to as the Red List Index — to understand how well or poorly these species are doing.  We found that from 1980 to 2008 an average of 52 species each year moved one Red List category closer to extinction.

Have conservation efforts made any measurable difference in slowing these rates?

This is a difficult question to measure directly, since oftentimes conservation actions are necessary just to maintain a species at its current condition, rather than recover it sufficiently for it to move to a less threatened Red List category.

The short answer is “yes, conservation efforts have helped and it could have been much worse.” Of 928 species that shifted in Red List threat categories, 68 (or 7%) showed an improvement in condition, with all but four of these directly due to conservation actions. By comparing the observed changes in the Red List Index with the trends expected without these conservation-dependent improvements, we can then conservatively measure the effect that conservation efforts have on slowing the global decline in these species groups.

Poison Dart Frog Sitting on a Leaf (Credit: Flickr/MoleSon)

The  bottom line is that conservation actions can and do have a demonstrable effect on slowing the rate of global biodiversity loss—basically making a bad situation less bad.

Unfortunately, there is still a huge mismatch between what is needed and what is available for biodiversity conservation, both in terms of the scale of actions and investments, and where these actions  are taking place.

As delegates to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya attempt to conclude their work, they can take heart that although the indicators of biodiversity health are still moving in the wrong direction, conservation actions and investments can and do make a real and measurable difference. To meet the scale of the challenge, and have a hope of making good on whatever new 2020 targets for reducing biodiversity decline are adopted, the nation’s of the world will need to dramatically ramp up our levels of investment and actions.

One of the issues with getting new, clean technology into developing countries has been the worry that giving this equipment away often leads to misuse. During a panel discussion titled, "The Development Agenda for Clean Energy and Transfer of Technologies," I asked what could be done to fund projects that provide these technologies at a minimum cost, which will ideally help these nations reach their environmental and energy goals. The answers I received indicated that creating a market for a particular machine or technology seems to help: one panelist explained that all of the costs his organization had paid out initially were eventually recovered, such that the project became profitable after a few years. He emphasized the need to enter in to an existing market or create a market for a particular good or service that will allow an individual or business owner to earn at least a little money on their investment.

As an example, another panelist offered an example where PV solar panels were installed in a village and villagers were trained about the maintenance and use of the system. To recover the cost of installing the panels, villagers were charged $3/month for electricity, a portion of which went to the people maintaining the system, helping to sustain the project over the long term.

I stuck around the U.S. Center for the next panel discussion, "Mitigating Climate Change: Capturing Carbon Underground, in Soil and in Plants." I find the idea of carbon sequestration to be potentially harmful (excuse to keep using coal and fossil fuels), or at least ineffective, but know little about the different means of capturing and storing CO₂. I figured that perhaps it was time to learn something new! The session was actually hosted by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), including representatives from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

First, one woman explained the process and effectiveness of using ecosystem restoration to store carbon in plant life and in the soil. This is called biological or terrestrial carbon sequestration. It's actually really fascinating, can help to increase wildlife habitat and it works! (Read more about how it works here.) One thing I didn't know: Wetlands may actually have more potential to sequester carbon dioxide than typical forests.

When the woman from USGS presented the geological carbon sequestration concept, explaining that some oil and gas companies have used injection wells to pump liquid CO₂ down into oil wells in order to aid with oil extraction, I was not impressed. Oil companies use energy to capture, transport and pump this CO₂ (which in most cases today comes from natural deposits, not the atmosphere) to the oil wells, so that they can pump more oil and emit more GHGs. How will this possibly help us move toward carbon neutrality? Of course, other locations are being considered for storing the liquid carbon dioxide, but it is up to the USGS to determine whether formations like saltwater aquifers are safe and will actually store the CO₂ permanently. I asked her if there have been any studies done to evaluate the overall effect that this technology would have on the level of GHGs in the atmosphere. She said that at this time the amount of energy needed to sequester the carbon outweighs the atmospheric CO₂ reduction that could theoretically be achieved. Determining whether or not this is a worthwhile technology for emissions reductions is up to the Department of Energy, she said, but the USGS is working to determine if and where the carbon could safely and successfully be stored if geological carbon sequestration is pursued into the future.

That evening, I decided to participate in the China+US Youth Workshop, "Our Shared Future", on the University of Copenhagen campus. I was curious to see how strategies and action differed in these two giants, especially as negotiations between U.S. and Chinese governments are seen as the critical factor in the outcome of this conference.

Once we had all gotten to know each other, we broke up into small groups and began talking about our work to promote clean energy and address climate change in our native countries. It seemed that while many of the efforts in China were top-down and done in collaboration with the Chinese government, U.S. efforts were largely grassroots initiatives demanding action from political leaders, often against incredible opposition from certain industries and corporations.

We also began brainstorming ways in which we can work together, rather than in continual conflict with one another as our governments often do. Several valuable points were made, especially that cooperation between our countries will depend on increasing the mutual trust on both sides at all levels of society and government. In order to foster this trust, we entertained ideas ranging from setting up Facebook and Google groups so that we can all keep in touch and exchange information to organizing foreign exchange programs for sustainable development and social entrepreneurship in both of our countries. 

I met a female student named Yuki studying mechanical engineering (my major when I was studying at Georgia Tech) in China who expressed interest in learning more about U.S. green building technologies. This brought up another great point, which is that while our governments may refuse to share information about certain technologies with each other, we are free to exchange this information as individuals (at least to the point where we aren't violating any laws or patents). I got Yuki's contact information and am planning to send her articles and information describing some of our best sustainable building practices. Here are some photos from the event.

I'm way in the back to the right. Yuki is the girl with long hair and bangs near the front (center). Ben (bearded guy giving a thumbs up on the left) and Holly (girl with the scarf right next to him) both played a key role in organizing this event.

Friday, December 11 (Day 3)

The first session I attended this morning was called "Connecting Biodiversity, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation." I was reminded of important issues to keep in mind when considering the effects of and possible solutions to climate change: while most of us know that natural ecosystems and the life forms they support will be the first ones affected by a changing climate, it was still shocking to hear that
approximately 10% of species on earth will face extinction for every 1 degree Celsius in average global temperature increase. That's in addition to the species threatened by habitat loss and other non-climate related threats! I also learned that about 20% of human caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come directly from deforestation. So the question is, how do we stop and even reverse deforestation and other forms of land degradation to prevent this release of GHGs and actually increase the earth's capacity to store carbon dioxide in plants and soil? 

The United Nations' answer to this question is a program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD), intended to fund reforestation efforts and ecosystem conservation. Learn more about REDD here. At least one of the speakers at this session emphasized that projects funded through the REDD program must carefully evaluated regarding their ecological, cultural and social impacts. Some issues have arisen due to difficulties in monitoring and quantifying the actual impact of REDD projects that have been funded in the past. It seems that in order for REDD to successfully reduce the amount of GHGs in our atmosphere, there must be improved means of estimating and evaluating the effectiveness of projects funded to sequester carbon from the air.

One speaker also suggested that any successful REDD project must have co-benefits beyond just carbon intake. For example, such a project should also support native wildlife repopulation and provide a good livelihood for nearby populations.Immediately after this session, I went to a panel discussion by Indigenous people from Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia. They discussed their experiences with the REDD program and expressed some concerns about the limitations it has. From their perspective, there should be REDD mechanisms for communities to engage in ecological management as they have in the past. They pointed out that land owned by indigenous peoples is often better managed than land owned and managed by others. They were calling for implementation of the proposed REDD-plus program, which would provide support to those who maintain forests in addition to reforestation efforts.  

My last session of the day was "Alternative Energy Programmes for the Least Developed and Developing World" in the U.S. Center. According to a Kateri Callahan, President of the Alliance to Save Energy, $170 billion invested in energy efficiency through the year 2020 could result in a reduction of as much as 50% in global energy demand. ($170 billion may sound like a lot but, to give a bit of perspective, General Electric's 2008 revenue amounted to $183 billion. We spend more than $170 billion each year on our Navy and Marine Corps in the U.S.) The savings on energy bills alone would allow the investment to be recovered within a matter of years. 

There's more, but it's 6:45am in Copenhagen, so I will let this be for now. More tomorrow.

Susannah Locke at Popsci-com reports:

“Publishing in the journal Nature, a group of 29 scientists have established a comparative scale for rating the immediate threat posed by nine environmental hazards–everything from climate change to ocean acidification. And while our warming climate gets most of the attention, more immediate problems may be brewing in our intensifying lack of biodiversity and out-of-whack nitrogen cycle.

Of the nine ongoing hazards (climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, freshwater use, land use, biodiversity loss, aerosols in the atmosphere, and chemical pollution) the group pegged nitrogen runoff as our second-worst problem, and biodiversity as the first. There’s not enough data, the researchers say, to accurately plot chemical pollution or aerosol contamination on their scale, but as you can see, we’re already in what they’ve defined as the “danger zone” for three conditions–climate change being the third, in order from worst to still-pretty-terrible.”

See full article >>