Stopping talking about the climate

How my fellow greenies sometimes drive me to distraction

When I start down one of my ever enlightening diatribes about the state of the environment, I find the conversation often veers into climate change. For example, when I’m trying to talk about why it is important to buy organic food, friends often start talking about the flights they haven’t been on this year or why people should reduce their food miles. While I get that these are important points, this convergence of all topics eco towards climate change frustrates me. For even though I am a climate scientist, I am mostly concerned about other environmental crises. But even well meaning people can’t seem to hear what I’m saying. So I’ll state it plainly.

It’s not the state of the climate which keeps me awake at night. Climate change is not the reason I write this newsletter. Climate change is not our biggest existential threat.

Back when I was young, and no one was taking climate change seriously, I did worry about climate change, a lot. But now that everyone knows what it is and corporations, banks, and governments are taking it seriously, I don’t feel that it is dire that we discuss the climate all the time. Don’t get me wrong. Unchecked climate change would deal vast destruction to the fabric of modern civilization and cause untold devastation to the natural world. As if to prove my point, let me mention an article in the Guardian that summarized the year 2020 had a record number of US climate change catastrophes. Each causing more than billion dollars of damage. The west coast experienced the worst wildfire season the US ever recorded, burning an area larger than the state of Maryland, with 5 of the 6 biggest ever fires recorded last year. The east coast was pummeled by 12 tropical storms, 7 of which caused more than a billion dollars damage. And the central states experienced a major drought and heat wave, as well as three major tornadoes.

So while that all sounds rather apocalyptic, you might wonder why I don’t want to talk about it exclusively. It’s simply because the message has been received, mostly. Humanity is finally trying to fix climate change. About stinking time. Sadly, there are still those who propagate falsehoods about climate science and some folk who still refuse to accept the science. But they are a dwindling minority. Big business knows that climate change is coming, insurance companies know, even oil companies are changing their business models to incorporate green energies.

And of course, we still need to work aggressively to stop carbon emissions but I’m cautiously optimistic that we will. I’ve been watching the growing acceptance of climate change as an existential threat for 40 years. And the perception of climate change has altered dramatically. What a huge relief. From full frontal denial to real action. Of course, I’m frustrated that we’ve had to experience such catastrophes when we knew decades ago that climate change was coming. We could have much more easily addressed climate change decades ago and developed green infrastructure then. Perhaps we could learn from our mistake?

Nowadays, a different set of issues keep me awake at night - the frightening depletion of the natural resources which make life possible. Fresh air and water, biodiversity, wilderness, soils and robust oceans are all under threat. My anxiety, in part, stems from the fact that hardly anyone is talking about these other crises, even though they are equally as chilling as climate change. Many of these ecological crises are intertwined with or exacerbate by climate change, but they are separate issues which need attention of their own and will be solved in ways that may require different approaches to the climate crisis.

Let’s start with the biodiversity crisis. Did you know that in studies in nature reserves, insect numbers are down by as much as 76%. We have only 24% the number of insects as were around in 1989, just 3 decades ago. And that’s in nature reserves. That is horrifying. Insects underpin our food chain and cycle nutrients as well as performing other services like pollination. In addition to that, the number of vertebrates on the planet has fallen by 58% since 1971. Only 42% remain. That’s heart breaking as well as worrisome. If trends continue this way, we’ve only another decade or so left of insects, and maybe 4 more decades of mammals. But silly me, without insects, all us vertebrates would be gone much sooner than 40 years hence.

Next let’s consider the status of fresh water. Almost half of fresh water already experiences significant alterations to its natural flow, destroying or severely disrupting ecosystems. If all the dams that are planned are built, this will racket up to 93% of our freshwater no longer flowing naturally. This causes disruption to fish migrations, the flow of nutrients and silt down stream, and so on and so forth. In addition to flow regime change, our freshwater is inundated with pollution, not least from over fertilizing and spraying of pesticides, much of which makes it into our rivers, streams, and lakes.

Then there is the remarkable lack of fresh air. Poor air quality is responsible for over 7 million premature deaths a year. Only 5% of us, humans, have air quality that meets the World Health Organization’s recommendations.

Oceans? No better there. 80% of commercial fish stocks are nearly all depleted and many are in danger of complete collapse. Coral reefs are dying around the globe. Oceanic acid levels are rising, disrupting natural cycles, while plastic is expected to outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050 if current trends continue.

Soils too are under attack with 67% of global farmland soil moderately to severely depleted. And our disruption of natural nutrient cycles of soil, including nitrogen and phosphorous, are so out of whack we have far surpassed that safe operating space. Indeed, there are estimates that if we continue with current farming practices, all our top soil will be gone in 60 years - we won’t be able to grow the vast majority of food crops.

“What’s left of wilderness?” I hear you cry. Only about 25% of the planet’s land surface is now considered wild. Of that non-wild land, at least 40% of it is given over to the production of meat. Indeed, at least 70%, and probably more like 90% of the deforestation in the Amazon is due to the raising of livestock.

That’s all pretty dire.

So I’m sure you can see why I get frustrated when I mention that I’m thinking about how to reduce meat consumption in my house to save all our natural resources, see The One Thing, and someone chimes in with “I reduced my climate impact by buying a bamboo toothbrush”. Well, yeah, I’m glad you are working on that, but did you hear me? I wasn’t talking about the climate. Climate is not the only eco-crisis. In fact, it’s just the tip of the melting iceberg.

Note: all of the above statistics, except where noted, are referenced in A Drop of Grace: Finding and Protecting Our Common Ground. also availabe as a paperback here.