wilderness issues lecture series
Climate Change: The Resiliency of Wildlands is Key, Ecologist Says
By Kyle Lehman, 3-19-08
Ecologist Tom DeLuca, during his lecture Tuesday night at the University of Montana, made the case for an adaptive approach to wildlands management in order to help the West’s ecosystems adjust to a changing climate.
“We have expressed a flawed response to environmental damage,” he said.
DeLuca, a Senior Forest Ecologist with the Wilderness Society and former UM professor speaking as part of the Wilderness Issues Lecture Series, acknowledged that there may be no way to avoid climate change, but the region’s forests and wildlands have evolved under changing climates and possess a measure of resilience to variations.
“One thing that is constant in nature is change...resistance to change may prove to be a catastrophic failure,” he said.
To effectively allow for natural adaptation to climate change, DeLuca stressed that size matters: a substantial core habitat must be present for the migration of species across landscapes and to buffer zones with human development. DeLuca said that the majority of the protected areas in the United States would be ineffective in providing the crucial elements of an adaptive ecosystem.
“Our wilderness areas in the lower 48 states are like islands, and that makes them susceptible to climate change,” he said.
DeLuca said that large-scale land conservation is required, and efforts must extend beyond traditional government management to involve society as a whole. He pointed to conservation easements and land trusts as examples of management of private lands by citizens. These efforts are vital building blocks that help form the large areas of protected habitat necessary for species to adapt to climate change while also storing carbon and clean water, he said.
DeLuca cited the Blackfoot Challenge in Montana’s Blackfoot Valley, a community collaboration involving the timber industry, environmental groups and community members to preserve land they all have a vested interest in protecting. DeLuca said that engaging different groups in the process of conservation is essential to fostering an improved environmental awareness across the West.
“Our vision is that these communities will have a restoration of the land ethic,” he said.
DeLuca explained that one way to do this is through community monitoring activities that document changes in an area’s ecosystem over time. These studies would reduce the cost of government monitoring and provide crucial information to management agencies so that their policies can more easily adjust.
“We have to be adaptive and flexible in our management of ecosystems,” he said.
DeLuca said that an adaptive approach ensures the highest possible survival of species and avoids a wholesale collapse of habitat, and that the immediacy of the issue means the success or failure of future Western ecosystems rests largely in the hands of its citizens who cannot afford to wait for outside assistance.
“The efforts being conducted by our government are laughable,” he said.
DeLuca reinforced the importance of reducing the use of carbon rather than offsetting it and urged his audience to work toward cooperation between groups in rejuvenating the region’s forests and wildlands.
“We live here because we love the place, and we can play a major roll in the restoration of these degraded landscapes,” he said.
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Comments
By the way, illic est haud scientific consentio. However, there was back when Galileo was a skeptic. He paid a price for his dissension from the consensus.
What's old is new again: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/deja-vu-all-over-again-climate-worries-today-also-happened-in-the-20s-and-30s/#comments
Having spent a good part of the past year researching community-based conservation, I can say that they play a crucial role in land conservation where the FS has no jurisdiction. For example, a large percentage of the valley bottoms and riverfronts in the US are owned by private citizens. The FS can't do anything on these lands even if they want to. Citizen groups are an integral part of conservation, maintaining wildlife corridors and stream access for animals and preserving unique ecosystems that exist outside of FS land. Without them, we face subdivisions, poor farming practices, and more.
Still, conservation requires a holistic approach that deserves action on all possible fronts. The FS, BLM, and NPS could do a far better job with the protection and management of lands. I don't think it's a problem that can be solved from the "bottom up." Regulations need to be put in place in all levels of our society which protect biodiversity and resources for the future of humankind.
The saddest part of this is that the US is only a small part of the landmass pie and a larger part of the problem. One example is ethanol. By encouraging ethanol use, we end up outsourcing to countries like Brazil which clearcut the rainforest to keep up with America's demand. The scope of what must be done to halt the destruction of the environment gets broader every day.
We're gonna need those "corridors" soon enough, because as genius environmentalists sue to stop the Forest Service from doing its job, the animals are going to need some way to move from the latest torched wasteland to the next -- that is, if it hasn't already been immolated.
I really have to wonder what damage DeLuca did during his tenure as an "educator."
"The mission of the USDA Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations."
Perhaps they should highlight the word "productivity." And yes, that means meeting the nation's need for timber.
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Morning Edition, March 19, 2008
Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.
In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.
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Perhaps they should highlight the word "productivity." And yes, that means meeting the nation's need for timber.</quote>
Oddly I see nothing mentioned about timber in the mission statement.
And in regards to the ocean article: it is a fascinating study, but I highly encourage you all to re-read it. The article clearly states that these results mean little to long-term trends of warming oceans.
If you want evidence of a warming ocean, just look at the huge losses of coral reefs in recent years. Here's a photo before and after:
http://www.stormcenter.com/media/envirocast/archive/060912/060912_07.jpg
I'm going out of town for awhile, but please continue the conversation without me. I'll look forward to reading your thoughts.
have a good first-day-of-spring~
Also, I didn't even read, in detail, the following link but it appears to be one of many, many others that claim there is very much a connection between global warming and reef loss. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213152600.htm
Ocean acidification is directly linked to increases in CO2. Check out this link for a quick heads up:
http://courses.ma.org/sciences/dowen/StudentWork/Global_Warming/Ocean_Acid2.html
And elfman was right. 3000 robots probably are correct for this particular study, but they haven't been studying climate trends for decades. It's just a snapshot of the larger picture.
See y'all later.
Happy Easter!
I do not understand why you seem to consistently place SO much weight on anything and everything that contradicts the notion of global warming yet you seem to summarily dismiss anything or anyone who asserts otherwise. Are you just a contrarian? I understand you are upset that the scientific community has not yet reached 100% consensus on global warming but that does not, per se, mean the majority is wrong. I hereby acknowledge that it is entirely possible (though I do not believe very probable) that the great majority of scientists are wrong about whether man is causing global warming. Can you acknowledge that man very well MAY be causing a significant portion of the warming we are irrefutably seeing or do you wholly dismiss anything of the sort based on any and every little report you can find in support of your position?
On a separate point, Dr. Tom DeLuca was a professor and advisor of mine during my 4 years in the School of Forestry (now College of Forestry and Conservation). I never found him to be anything but scientifically-oriented. If he had a "green" bias then, I certainly couldn't detect it in any of my interactions with him. I'd like to make a similarly informed comment about Dr. Steve Running, but the classes I had with him were 95% taught by a Teacher's Assistant - we maybe saw Running a handful of times all semester. At least DeLuca cared enough about educating his students to show up to class!