Stewards of Planet Earth

The entire west coast of North America is very hot and very dry, and there are a truly staggering number of wildfires as a result.  Still, it is ironic that you can see a news video like the one embedded in this Seattle Times article, "Burning Rain Forest Raises Concern About Future" - which begins with a shot of a huge old tree, smoke pouring out of a gigantic hole at the base.  Obviously, the process of interior rot began long before this season's unprecedented drought and heat wave, and yet none of the firefighters interviewed seem to have any inkling that the forest has been dying for some years - not even the firefighter who says, a couple of minutes into the film, that the trees are rotted on the inside!

It would appear that nowadays people think it is normal for trees to be rotten.  Perhaps we will soon get used to regular reports of fires raging out of control, and people dying in heat waves.

Following is the transcript for the 6th Dispatch from the Endocene, which aired on Extinction Radio on Sunday, July 5 (embedded below, starting at 6:54 in):

Hello Mike, and welcome, listeners, to the Sixth Dispatch from the Endocene.

No sooner had I finished my last Dispatch, when immediately a new paper was released - which proclaimed that hey, there really IS a Sixth Mass Extinction underway or, at least, the beginning of one.  This publication ignited countless sensational headlines, even in mainstream media, and other silly version at Motherboard/Vice - “We Are 100%, For Sure, in the Middle of a Major Extinction Event”!

Probably anybody who is savvy enough to be part of the Extinction Radio audience is already aware of this research and its explosive impact in the past two weeks, but for convenience there will be links to some of the news articles and author interviews at the website, as for the other studies that will be part of today’s episode.

The unusual hoopla may have come as a surprise to those biologists and ecologists who have been shouting from the mountaintops for years, even the authors, including Paul Ehrlich and Anthony Barnosky - that human overpopulation is outstripping the earth’s ability to provide resources and absorb pollution.  The primary warning  - that humans are destroying essential habitat for other species, and hunting them to oblivion - goes back to ecologists like Aldo Leopold starting in the 1920’s, and even to Thomas Malthus over two centuries ago.

Just last fall, a study in Conservation Biology, titled “Estimating the Normal Background Rate of Species Extinction" found that the natural, prehistoric rate of extinction had been overestimated.  A summary of the research in PhyOrg stated that the prior estimate had “…skewed the current rate, making it appear to be only 100 times faster during human times. With the new data, the researchers hypothesize not only that current extinction rates are 1,000 times higher than natural background rates of extinction but that future rates are likely to be 10,000 times higher.”

Nevertheless this newest assessment, titled “Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction” subjected the data to rigorous analysis.  In an effort to end criticism of biological alarmism, the authors used very cautious calculations to compare the prehistoric rate of extinctions for vertebrates with the current rate and found that, using the most extremely conservative parameters, it is now at least 100 times higher.  

There is doubt it is far worse than that, if only because there are so many insects and other invertebrates and plants for which there is little data or that haven’t even been discovered and named - tiny populations that inhabit such a rare specialized niche we will never even know they existed before they go extinct.

Inevitably, even as the import of their research is obviously dire, the last line of the abstract includes the obligatory hopeful statement - that it’s not too late to reverse the trend, as long as we hurry up.  In the discussion section, the authors even made the preposterous assertion that “Avoiding a true sixth mass extinction will require rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species, and to alleviate pressures on their populations - notably habitat loss, over-exploitation for economic gain and climate change.”  

I had to laugh at the absurdity of qualifying “mass extinction” with the word “true”.  “True” as opposed to, what, a “phony” mass extinction?  A “pretend” mass extinction?  A “fantasy, only in your nightmares” mass extinction?

Despite that cowardly disclaimer, the attention given their conclusions would seem to indicate their results hit a nerve within a rising crescendo of growing anxiety.  Recently we have seen a slow collective awakening to overshoot and collapse that is reflected in contemporary literature, movies, and news about massive dieoffs that are becoming more difficult to avoid completely, because they are affecting a huge number of species, almost everywhere you care to look.

This causes me to wonder how long it will before the climate and environmental activist communities are forced to stop blaming public ignorance and corporate manipulation of the media.  What or who will they blame for the conspicuous lack of action, when it eventually becomes clear that people DO know humans are causing mass extinctions, as well as creating climate chaos - but we simply aren’t willing to give up the conveniences and luxuries of modern civilization…no matter how badly our own offspring will fare in the aftermath?  

Most people I come across don’t even bother with active denial, they simply ignore the warnings - because they understand at a visceral level, perhaps even better than scientists and green activists, that to "do something" about those problems would require a huge personal sacrifice, and nobody is willing to do that (not even the scientists and the activists).  Nobody wants to give up lights, planes, iphones, electronic toys, reproducing, cars, and strawberries in winter. As for the billions of people that can’t access those options yet, they aspire to have them.

And it is worth repeating that the sixth mass extinction is not being driven, at least not yet, by climate change.

Here is how one academic posed the issue in an article published in TheConversation.com in 2013:

“What would happen to the world if, with the snap of our fingers, we shifted all our energy supplies to renewable sources overnight? You might be surprised at the answer: not much, at least for biodiversity and ecosystems.”

“Certainly, it might solve the climate problem, but I have canvassed this question in a number of different places, and the answers usually converge on this: we would still wreck Earth’s ecosystems. And what’s more, we’d still wreck them on a timescale similar to the trajectory that we’re on already.”

“The reason is that climate change is A problem, not THE problem. At the moment much of the focus is on climate and there’s no doubt this is a problem that requires emergency action now to see if we can avoid the worst of the tipping points. But there are many “showstoppers”, any and all of which can bring humanity and biodiversity to a sticky end.”

“Without biodiversity in all its forms, which creates the complex web of interrelated systems that hold the biosphere in homeostasis, things that we take for granted such as temperature, the level of oxygen in the atmosphere or the even concentration of salt in the sea, will no longer support the life we know.”

“Something other than climate change is driving the current mass extinction. The impacts of climate change, though potentially catastrophic, are in the main yet to come – albeit sooner than we have previously expected.”

“The current trajectory of biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse is being driven by cutting down forests, over-fishing, chemical pollution, soil degradation and erosion, habitat destruction, desertification and so on. These activities are all a function of the vast amount of energy we have at our disposal. We have too much and, as we use it, we damage ecosystems.”

Speaking of having enough oxygen to support the life we know, you will find a link to new research that traces a serious depletion in the concentration of oxygen due to a variety of human activities, including producing fertilisers essential to feed the billions of people already on earth.

One prominent scientist not associated with that Sixth Mass Extinction study we began with, but who has been in the forefront of extinction warnings over a very long and distinguished career, is Professor Eric Pianka of the University of Texas at Austin.  He is one of the world’s experts on herpetology and an evolutionary ecologist, soon to be conferred the well-deserved title of Eminent Ecologist, by the Ecological Society of America, next month.  He has had a fascinating career, doing extensive field work in the Great Victoria desert of Australia and the Kalahari in Africa.

Some of you might recall a sordid episode in 2006 when Dr. Pianka’s acceptance speech upon receiving the “Distinguished Texas Scientist of the Year” award, was twisted out of all recognition and distorted to imply he favored a global Ebola epidemic, to cull the human race.  If you missed it, the outlines of the controversy are actually a good introduction to his perspective, so a link about that, plus others to his writing will also be found on the Extinction Radio website.

Being familiar with some of Dr. Pianka’s essays as well as his endorsement of Reg Morrison, author of Spirit in the Gene, I emailed him seeking a less sugar-coated scientific assessment of the prospects for biodiversity - given the general unwillingness of people to rein in their consumption.  Specifically, I asked him what he thought the odds were the human species will make it to, say, 2050 - and he replied:

“We blew right past our chance to ease into a sustainable existence decades ago in the mid-1980s and we are well into the anthropocene sixth extinction.”

“Collapse is now inevitable but it’s impossible to predict exactly when this will happen.  It will differ in different places, depending on populations and resources, especially water.”

In another message, Dr. Pianka later added the following:

“For me, the disparity between what we are, and what we could have been, is the greatest tragedy.”

and he reflected, further:

“For the first and only time in the long history of life on Earth, a product of natural selection has understood the process by which we became to be what we are: we actually learned to understand our hard-wired instincts and fathom our subconscious mind but we have failed to find the willpower to overcome those instincts.

We also learned a lot about matter and energy, and even managed to date our cosmos.

As a scientist, I treasure human knowledge.  We got SO close, but then we blew it.

Some think that intelligence inevitably destroys itself.

We humans could have been God-like stewards of planet Earth.”

If you check out only one link I encourage you watch the youtube video where Dr. Pianka discusses and then reads James Dickey’s poem, “For the Last Wolverine”.  It is a presentation filled with both love and grief that encompasses all the pathos implied in our battered world.  The poem is even more heartbreaking for having been written in 1966.

The poets seem to have known for longer than science what we have lost.  Another is Robinson Jeffers, author of The Purse Seine, written in 1937.  Robinson Jeffers lived in Carmel, California and witnessed the over harvesting of the once fabulously vast schools of sardines off the shore of Monterey.  The image of the fish trapped in the net was not unlike humanity trapped in crowded cities, divorced from nature, and he ended that poem with the lines,

“…There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that

cultures decay, and life’s end is death.”

To see Dr. Pianka’s evident sadness at our failure to be stewards of the Earth brought to mind the original Wizard of Oz book, where all residents and visitors in the Emerald City were required to wear green glasses - because it wasn’t really emerald.  Most people live their lives wearing the equivalent of tinted lenses, blinded to reality by believing in dreams and spirits, souls and immortality, irrational hope and denial.

Once that layer of wishful fantasy is removed, it is common to experience profound despair and regret, and then, to attempt to find meaning amidst the spectacular and insane festering waste we have rendered our only precious, splendid home, Earth.  Often the first reaction is an intense desire to do something about the impending catastrophes…and then finally, after a period of time, to realize there is nothing to be done.  Often people are desperate to believe that there could have been better outcome, and so they blame capitalism or agriculture.

From an article in the Washington Post about how we have exceeded boundaries beyond which the ecosystem can cope, I found this observation - “Humanity may have run into trouble with planetary boundaries even in prehistoric times, said Richard Alley, a Penn State geoscientist…The invention of agriculture may have been a response to food scarcity as hunting and gathering cultures spread around, and filled up, the planet, he said. “It’s pretty clear we were lowering the carrying capacity for hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago,” Alley said."

Jared Diamond wrote in a paper some time ago (1987!) called “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”:

“As population densities of hunter-gatherers slowly rose at the end of the ice ages, bands had to choose between feeding more mouths by taking the first steps toward agriculture, or else finding ways to limit growth…Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.”

It's been about 15,000 years since we hunted the megafauna to extinction.  We turned to agriculture, nearly simultaneously and independently all around the world, because of a continual process of overpopulation and migration, until eventually we filled even the most marginally habitable places and then overpopulated them as well.  In order to survive, people started to grow food and domesticate livestock.  We can no more divest ourselves of that proclivity than we can shed mysticism and the use of tools, language, symbols and expressions of art.

The people who began agriculture no more knew (or cared) that it would ultimately devastate ecosystems than the hunter/gatherers knew (or cared) that they would eat dozens upon dozens of slow-moving tortoises, flightless birds, and large herbivores to the point of extirpation.  Similarly, most people now are still blissfully unaware that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, and that humans are causing it.

What did Jesus say?

"...forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Personally I find a lot of comfort in the philosopher Camus.  Life is absurd; it has no intrinsic meaning; so make your own.

I should add - dance, dance, dance, and sing.  Kiss the sky.  Hug your loved ones.  Bear witness to the fleeting beauty that still lingers on our blistered planet.  Spare some time to admire the trees, being choked and poisoned by atmospheric toxins.

And thanks for listening to this Dispatch From the Endocene.

http://news.yahoo.com/most-endangered-marine-mammal-could-gone-three-years-215131220.html

 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253.full  extinction paper by Gerardo Ceballos, Paul Ehrlich, Anthony Barnosky, and others.

http://motherboard.vice.com/en_au/read/we-are-100-for-sure-in-the-middle-of-a-major-extinction-event

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/19/humans-creating-sixth-great-extinction-of-animal-species-say-scientists

The Real News video interview with Gerardo Ceballos

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14099

Aldo Leopold and Malthus

http://www.newhistorian.com/aldo-leopold-american-environmentalist-revisited/3597/

2014 study by Jurriaan M. de Vos in Conservation Biology, "Estimating the Normal Background Rate of Species Extinction."

http://phys.org/news/2014-09-species-extinct-faster-pre-human.html#jCp

https://theconversation.com/our-sustainability-crisis-didnt-start-and-doesnt-stop-at-climate-change-17471

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/O2_Diving_Towards_Danger_Point.php oxygen depletion

Links for Dr. Pianka:

http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/HumanNature.html

His rendering of the poem “For the Last Wolverine”, probably the most important link in this post https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t62vT5ALEug

His video “Domino Effects” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmwzeRlCIAE

http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/Thoc/VanishingBook.html - The Vanishing Book of Life

Dr. Pianka’s explanation of the speech:  http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/Controversy.html

Reg Morrison - Spirit in the Gene:  http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/Thoc/enigma_code.pdf

Source for Richard Alley quote:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-human-activity-has-pushed-earth-beyond-four-of-nine-planetary-boundaries/2015/01/15/f52b61b6-9b5e-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

Jared Diamond on Humanity’s Worst Mistake: http://www.sigervanbrabant.be/docs/Diamond.PDF

One Weedy Species

Following is the transcript for my Fifth Dispatch from the Endocene.  The Extinction Radio Link is embedded at the end, where my segment begins at 1:29 minutes in.   The next installment airs Sunday, July 5.  Thanks to all the producers and contributers for a truly unique show!

Greetings listeners, and welcome to the fifth Dispatch from the Endocene.  I want to thank Extinction Radio for hosting another episode on their website, where they will be posting links for further reading on the topics in this segment.

Last week I said I expected to be talking about the ghastly moose situation, but since then a couple of other things seem more dire unless, of course, you are a moose.  Still, I’ll save them for another time.  One thing is certain - there is no lack of material when the subject is the spectacular ongoing crash of biodiversity on planet Earth.  That is, for anyone who is the least interested, and unfortunately, most people aren’t.  If you are still listening, you are in a very tiny exclusive cohort.

After a four-year review, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has confirmed this week that the Eastern Cougar, also knows as a puma, or panther, is officially extinct.  This is felicitous, because it lightens up the load on the burgeoning endangered species list.  It has been eighty years since the last known specimen was killed in New England, so what took them so long to declare it extinct?  And what does that have to do with calculating the number of species that are going extinct today - and how massive is the 6th mass extinction, really?

I want to illuminate these inquiries with a study from 2007 titled:  Are we in the midst of the sixth mass extinction? A view from the world of amphibians.  Frogs, salamanders and caecilians (Sicilians) are considered to be the most at risk compared to any other taxon, which makes the scientists sad, because most of those amphibian species already managed to survive four mass extinctions and thus, are called “sentinels of environmental health.”  In other words, if the amphibians can’t make it through humanity’s influence of pollution, habitat destruction and epidemic fungal disease from global warming having survived this far, it doesn’t bode well for all the other, more recently evolved, life forms.  The paper informs us that, quote:

“The rate of extinction of amphibians is truly startling. A recent study estimates that current rates of extinction are 211 times the background extinction rate for amphibians, and rates would be as high as 25,000–45,000 times greater if all of the currently threatened species go extinct….”

“What Is the Principal Cause of the Present Extinction Spasm?” the scientists wonder, and then write

“Human activities are associated directly or indirectly with nearly every aspect of the current extinction spasm. The sheer magnitude of the human population has profound implications because of the demands placed on the environment. Population growth, which has increased so dramatically since industrialization, is connected to nearly every aspect of the current extinction event. Amphibians may be taken as a case study for terrestrial organisms. They have been severely impacted by habitat modification and destruction, which frequently has been accompanied by use of fertilizers and pesticides. In addition, many other pollutants that have negative effects on amphibians are byproducts of human activities. Humans have been direct or indirect agents for the introduction of exotic organisms.”

“Furthermore, with the expansion of human populations into new habitats, new infectious diseases have emerged that have real or potential consequences, not only for humans, but also for many other taxa, such as the case of Bd and amphibians. Perhaps the most profound impact is the human role in climate change, the effects of which may have been relatively small so far, but which will shortly be dramatic (e.g., in the sea). Research building on the Global Amphibian Assessment database showed that many factors are contributing to the global extinctions and declines of amphibians in addition to disease. Extrinsic forces, such as global warming and increased climatic variability, are increasing the susceptibility of high-risk species (those with small geographic ranges, low fecundity, and specialized habitats).

“Multiple factors acting synergistically are contributing to the loss of amphibians. But we can be sure that behind all of these activities is one weedy species, Homo sapiens, which has unwittingly achieved the ability to directly affect its own fate and that of most of the other species on this planet. It is an intelligent species that potentially has the capability of exercising necessary controls on the direction, speed, and intensity of factors related to the extinction crisis. Education and changes of political direction take time that we do not have, and political leadership to date has been ineffective largely because of so many competing, short-term demands. A primary message from the amphibians, other organisms, and environments, such as the oceans, is that little time remains to stave off mass extinctions, if it is possible at all.”

Notice the emphasis on the oceans, in a paper written almost ten years ago - and voila here we are with news of massive die-offs in the Pacific grabbing the headlines, such as an article from the Seattle Times declaring “Toxic algae bloom might be largest ever”.  That story quoted a scientist who said, quote, “The fact that we’re seeing multiple toxins at the same time, we’re seeing high levels of domoic acid, and we’re seeing a coastwide bloom — those are indications that this is unprecedented.” unquote.  So the fish and shellfish are being poisoned, and so are animals that eat fish like sea lions and birds.  The coast has been closed for harvesting clams, geoduck, scallops, mussels, oysters and others.  The article mentions nutrient availability, much of which is from sewage, agricultural fertilizer run-off, and nitrogen deposition from burning fuel.

However, another insidious influence wasn’t mentioned, even though it was made famous in research published back in 2001 by Jeremy Jackson and numerous co-authors.

The paper described how historical overfishing predated any of our more recent attacks on ocean life, after he realized that at the time Columbus arrived in America, there were millions upon millions of green turtles in the Caribbean.  This study was a reminder of what a pristine ecosystem looks like, and its a far cry from what we have today.  It places the primary reason marine ecosystems collapse on overfishing, back to pre-historical eras in some areas, which set the stage for algae blooms such as are now unprecedented on the west coast.  I recommend reading the entire paper, especially to understand what happened in the Chesapeake Bay, which is an epic tragedy, but here’s an excerpt from the beginning:

“Few modern ecological studies take into account the former natural abundances of large marine vertebrates. There are dozens of places in the Caribbean named after large sea turtles whose adult populations now number in the tens of thousands rather than the tens of millions of a few centuries ago. Whales, manatees, dugongs, sea cows, monk seals, crocodiles, codfish, jewfish, swordfish, sharks, and rays are other large marine vertebrates that are now functionally or entirely extinct in most coastal ecosystems. Place names for oysters, pearls, and conches conjure up other ecological ghosts of marine invertebrates that were once so abundant as to pose hazards to navigation, but are witnessed now only by massive garbage heaps of empty shells.”

“Such ghosts represent a far more profound problem for ecological understanding and management than currently realized. Evidence from retrospective records strongly suggests that major structural and functional changes due to overfishing occurred worldwide in coastal marine ecosystems over many centuries. Severe overfishing drives species to ecological extinction because overfished populations no longer interact significantly with other species in the community. Overfishing and ecological extinction predate and precondition modern ecological investigations and the collapse of marine ecosystems in recent times, raising the possibility that many more marine ecosystems may be vulnerable to collapse in the near future.”

Let’s take one example from the paper that describes the knock-off effects of human hunting.

“Northern Pacific kelp forests presumably flourished before human settlement because predation by sea otters on sea urchins prevented the urchins from overgrazing kelp. Aboriginal Aleuts greatly diminished sea otters beginning around 2500 yr B.P., with a concomitant increase in the size of sea urchins. Fur traders subsequently hunted otters to the brink of extinction in the 1800s with the attendant collapse of kelp forests grazed away by sea urchins released from sea otter predation. Legal protection of sea otters in the 20th century partially reversed this scenario. However, kelp forests are again being depleted in areas of Alaska because of increased predation on sea otters by killer whales. The whales shifted their diet to sea otters from seals and sea lions, which are in drastic decline.”

After tracing numerous examples of ocean ecosystems around the world, the paper concludes:

“In summary, historical documentation of the long-term effects of fishing provides a heretofore-missing perspective for successful management and restoration of coastal marine ecosystems. Previous attempts have failed because they have focused only on the most recent symptoms of the problem rather than on their deep historical causes. Contrary to romantic notions of the oceans as the “last frontier” and of the supposedly superior ecological wisdom of non-Western and precolonial societies, our analysis demonstrates that overfishing fundamentally altered coastal marine ecosystems during each of the cultural periods we examined. Changes in ecosystem structure and function occurred as early as the late aboriginal and early colonial stages, although these pale in comparison with subsequent events. Human impacts are also accelerating in their magnitude, rates of change, and in the diversity of processes responsible for changes over time. Early changes increased the sensitivity of coastal marine ecosystems to subsequent disturbance and thus preconditioned the collapse we are witnessing.” end quote

Looked at this way, the sixth mass extinction began long ago, as weedy humans, like an invasive plant, migrated out of the habitat where they evolved in Africa, and rarely found resistance to slow our frenzied growth.  Our collective blindness to the consequences of exponential will be our undoing.  Hey, even the Pope, in his Encyclical, has said, “Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain.”

There’s not much to add other than to repeat Pogo’s trenchant observation as he surveyed a cartoon landscape for the first Earth Day in 1971, a vision the Pope now refers to as “an immense pile of filth”, which was that “We have met the enemy, and he is us”.

Thanks so much for listening to another Dispatch from the Endocene.  I’ll be back next week with another, maybe.

cougar extinct:  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/17/eastern-cougar-extinct-no-longer-needs-protection-says-us-conservation-agency

Seattle:  

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/toxic-algae-bloom-might-be-largest-ever/

Are we in the midst of the sixth mass extinction? A view from the world of amphibians

http://www.pnas.org/lens/pnas/105/Supplement_1/11466#content/citation_reference_32

Jackson paper:  http://www.werc.usgs.gov/ProductDetails.aspx?ID=2570

videos from the Colloquia - In the Light of Evolution II:  Biodiversity and Extinction

http://www.nasonline.org/programs/sackler-colloquia/completed_colloquia/in-the-light-of-evolution-II-biodiversity-and-extinction.html?referrer=http://www.pnas.org/content/105/Supplement_1/11466.abstract

Down to One

Squabbling Over The Scraps

I dashed up to the Cape to see the parents for a weekend - my dad is a pyromaniac.

 We grilled sugarsnap peas and asparagus from the local farmstand, and lobsters.

Back home, the roses began blooming.

We have had plenty of rain, which seems to leave them spotted.  Sometimes they wilt before they fully bloom.

And I have been busy with Airbnb guests, making breakfasts of omelets or French toast or this one, with lemony crepes.

At the end of this post you can listen to the most recent episode of Extinction Radio, with many excellent reports and interviews.  My fourth Dispatch From the Endocene begins at 1 hour, 35 minutes in.  Following is the transcript:

Welcome to the fourth Dispatch from the Endocene and thank you for tuning in, and thanks to the producers of Extinction Radio.  This episode could be titled, Squabbling Over the Scraps.  The blame game continues.

When people are tempted to point to simple explanations for complex phenomena like societal collapse and species extinction, scientists - and especially those of an ecological bent - often advise exercising caution in assigning causation.  Generally speaking it's never exclusively one trigger, rather there are multiple influences that interact and accelerate the process - although some may be more critical than others.  Like the loss of dozens of species of megafauna, it might primarily be due to hunting, but in some cases, that could have been exacerbated by a change in climate or the spread of a disease, or an invasive species (other than ours), culminating in a wicked converging synergy.

For humanity’s prospects, that is not a reassuring thought at all, because right now there is a confluence of massive, intractable dilemmas that will soon, in my opinion, explode into what I call the great convulsion - with all the sudden, uncontrollable violence implied in that word, convulsion.

We have crucial resources dwindling, climate change, way too many people, over 400 nuclear power plants that will never be decommissioned, all sorts of truly noxious pollution - and throw into that mix the very well known and highly predictable human behavioral response to scarcity and famine - such as war, mayhem, fascism, cannibalism, demagoguery and so forth - and the future doesn't look promising.

Often in the blogosphere you hear doomers or potential doomers wonder, how soon will collapse and chaos affect the developed world?  When, it already has.  We had Katrina, then Sandy, now a permanent drought in the western United States, meanwhile the ocean is close to empty of fish.  The world has millions of refugees, more than ever before in history - victims of water and food shortages, and of extreme weather, and military conflict.  Compared to historical levels we are way past peak oil and peak seafood.  Climate change has passed irreversible tipping points in amplifying feedbacks.  Hello, collapse is here.

Where I live in New Jersey, over the past few years I have been disturbed to note an increasing number of cowbirds.  Cowbirds are originally from the plains of the midwest, and are considered an invasive species in the East, having expanded their territory thanks to - surprise! - deforestation.  They have shiny iridescent black bodies and brownish-purply heads, and make a peculiar and distinctive, sort of liquid burbling sound ending in a screach.  Their reproductive strategy is diabolical and really exceeds polite boundaries of mere resource competition.

They lay their eggs in the nests of other songbirds, over 30 per season.  Cowbird babies hatch earlier and they are larger than the offspring of the nesting mothers.  They commandeer all the food she delivers and as they grow, they crowd out her own hatchlings.  The cowbird mother monitors her eggs and if the nesting mother rejects one, the cowbird can retaliate by ransacking the nest, in what is known as ‘Mafia behavior”.  This threat keeps the songbirds in line, and renders human attempts to remediate the imbalance counterproductive if not futile.  This spring I have watched mother finches leading their cowbird fledgelings, already larger in size than they are, to my feeder, apparently unaware that their own babies are dead and that they are teaching grotesquely large imposters to find food.

So it occurred to me that, if this keeps up, eventually cowbirds will be their own undoing, because after they wipe out all the other birds they be unable to raise their own brood - they don’t know how to build a nest or how to sit on it to keep their eggs warm.  And right after I had that thought, it also occurred to me just why I hate cowbirds so much.

It’s because, they are parasitic, just like us.

In the news I wanted to focus on three recent reports about endangered species, the first is about large herbivores, the next birds in Europe; and lastly, one about plants in New England.  Links to sources will be on the Extinction Radio website.

A number of organizations collaborated to produce a report, titled the European Red List of Birds.  The origins of the joint effort began in 2012, when more than 100 ornithologists and stakeholders from 40 countries met in the Czech Republic.  I’m going to refrain from calculating the extent of their collective emissions of CO2 and other pollutants to travel to the conference.  I’m sure they mean well.

According to their research the top threats to birds in Europe are ‘Biological resource use’, and ‘agriculture and aquaculture’ followed by ‘climate change and severe weather’, ‘pollution’, ‘invasive and other problematic species, genes and diseases’ and ‘natural system modifications’.

Margaret Atwood wrote the introduction, and she concluded - Quote

Perhaps it is time to rewrite John Donne’s famous sermon: No bird is an island, entire of itself; every bird is a piece of nature, a part of the ecosystem; if a single species be extinguished, mankind is the less, as well as if a whole family were, as well as any manner of thy friends were; any bird species’ death diminishes me, because I am involved in the natural world. And therefore never send to know for whom the Red List is compiled; it is compiled for thee. First the birds, then us. Unless we pay attention, we’ll be on the Red List next. Take note.

End Quote.

Sadly, that unabashed anthropocentrism characterized the entire page, where she lists the reasons to be concerned about birds being pushed to and then over the edge of extinction.  Here they are, in order of importance - One. obvious economic value - such as pest control for lumber, for orchards and agriculture; Two. hidden economic value such as replanting forests by distributing nuts and seeds, the better to soak up our CO2 emissions; and Three.  The psychological and emotional value to humans.  She claims that birds are symbols of hope and without them, depression and hopelessness would be costly.

She might be right about all that - 

As Emily Dickenson famously wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers."

But still,

I am at a loss to know whether this crass monetary assessment of the value of avian life was made out of desperation, to convince people that birds matter to human wellbeing before they all disappear - or perhaps it is cynical but accurate, with its underlying assumption that humans couldn’t care less about preserving a wild species absent some specific economic value to humans.  It’s the same tactic taken lately by Jeremy Jackson in his ocean apocalypse lecture series.  He seems to have given up on people caring about the beauty and magic of coral reefs or fish being massacred by pollution and overfishing, so he now concentrates on the financial and food losses from sea level rise and acidification.

Getting back to the major threat to birds, I wondered, what exactly is “Biological resource use”?  Appallingly, the report states that within ‘biological resource use’, ‘hunting and collecting of terrestrial birds’ represents the largest threat, affecting a total of 42 threatened species. This threat category relates mainly to illegal killing of birds, especially in the case of protected species, such as birds of prey that suffer from persecution.”  

So it is humans directly killing birds that, like the American Passenger Pigeon gone over 100 years ago now, that is the largest reason species are threatened with extinction.   Keep that in mind as we turn to

endangered large herbivores.

Following is an abbreviated version of the Science Daily summary of a study that was published in the online Journal of Science magazine.  An international team of wildlife ecologists conducted a comprehensive analysis of data on the world's largest herbivores, and they warn that many populations of animals such as rhinoceroses, zebras, camels, elephants and tapirs are diminishing or threatened with extinction in grasslands, savannas, deserts and forests.

The lead author said “I expected that habitat change would be the main factor causing the endangerment of large herbivores.  But surprisingly, the results show that the two main factors in herbivore declines are hunting by humans and habitat change. They are twin threats."

The highest numbers of threatened large herbivores live in developing countries, especially Southeast Asia, India and Africa. Only one endangered large herbivore lives in Europe (the European bison), and none are in North America, which, the authors add, has "already lost most of its large mammals through prehistoric hunting and habitat changes.”

I can’t resist adding that by that measure, the LEAST sustainable people in the world were the first prehistoric immigrants to North America, where most of the large animals were extirpated shortly after the arrival of humans over 10,000 years ago.   On other continents many went extinct and many are currently endangered - but at least a few of them were able to persist through the millennia.

The authors note that 25 of the largest wild herbivores now occupy an average of only 19 percent of their historical ranges. Competition from livestock production, which has tripled globally since 1980, has reduced herbivore access to land, forage and water and raised disease transmission risks.

Meanwhile, herbivore hunting occurs for two major purposes, the authors note: meat consumption and the global trade in animal parts.  An estimated 1 billion humans subsist on wild meat, they wrote.

To me that is astonishing, and very frightening, given how rapidly depleted the populations of animals are, and how rapidly that segment of the human population is growing.

The market for medicinal uses, they wrote, can be very strong for some body parts, such as rhino horn.  Horn sells for more by weight than gold, diamonds or cocaine. Africa's western black rhinoceros was declared extinct in 2011.

In that study the authors coin a new term, “the empty landscape" - referring to a terrestrial habitat without large animals.  A depauperate world is horribly tragic to contemplate.  But the trend is likely to be even worse than that, according to the last study I will review, called “State of the Plants”.  According to The New England Wildflower Society, which sponsored the research, so many species of plants have been identified as endangered that they are considered to be canaries in the coal mine, the harbinger of losses to come. 

Despite the calm technical language in the report it would be hard to exaggerate how terrible the contents are, because the species considered at risk are just the beginning, and ultimately the potential for plant extinctions is much greater than those identified so far.

Their report notes that 22 percent of all native plant species in New England are now either extinct, rare, or in a state of decline.  Some have been trampled by incautious hikers, others drowned by man-made dams, still others, strangled by invasive vines.

The report also found that 31 percent of all the region’s plants are not native to New England, while 10 percent of those, or 111 species, are considered invasive.

96 species of native flora have disappeared from New England, though they live elsewhere, and three native plants are now extinct.

I can personally attest that in the countryside where I have lived for 30 years, the brilliantly colorful swathes of wildflowers which adorned the meadows and woodlands and roadsides in a gorgeous abundant parade through spring, summer and fall have all but disappeared.

The loss of plants and the rise of invasive species is part of a worldwide phenomenon. The report cites a global survey by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature that found more than half of 19,000 species examined are considered at risk, noting that nearly 13 million acres of land a year are being developed around the world.

Similar to the paradox I mentioned earlier, of ornithologists flying in airplanes to save birds, I found two particularly bitter passages in this report on plants.

First, hikers who no doubt consider themselves nature lovers are directly killing nature.  Well, that is already obvious from the ridiculous popularity of the oxymoronic “ecotourism” fad - but specifically, the report names the problem of Trampling.  It says, quote “A popular destination for recreationists, alpine and subalpine habitats are threatened by trampling on many peaks and ridgelines. Short growing seasons do not allow delicate alpine plants sufficient time to grow following such disturbance; thus, denuded footpaths can take decades to recover.”

And I might add that is, of course, if they recover at all.

Second, typically, there is barely passing reference to the particular focus of my blog, Wit’s End, which is mostly about the toxicity of air pollution to vegetation and especially trees.  The sole passage reads: “Increasing aerial transport of ozone, plus nitrogen deposition, may exacerbate the stress of climate change. Many alpine plant species are already at the limits of their physiological tolerances and are strongly nutrient-limited in these environments. Changes in nitrogen input may result in altered allocation between roots and shoots and disrupted mutualisms with mycorrhizae, on which many alpine species are heavily dependent.  Acidic precipitation has also been a significant driver of conifer mortality, as it leaches calcium from needles and makes them more susceptible to desiccation.”

They could have added that the “altered allocation between roots and shoots” actually means that root systems shrink, leading to a greater likelihood of landslides especially in these times of excessive rainfall saturation..and they could have added that acidic precipitation on leaves and needles means they are more vulnerable to attacks from insects, disease and fungus, all global epidemics…AND, they could have added that dying vegetation leads to more ferocious wildfires…but, they didn’t.

Lastly, since dams are implicated in plant extinctions, I would like to recommend the movie DamNation, it’s well worth watching.   Before I saw that film, I never appreciated how destructive dams are for very broad distances around river ecosystems - and of course the valleys they flood - or how many of the world’s waterways have been sliced into dead pieces.  There are more than 800,000 dams worldwide, some 40,000 of them are over 49 ft high.  And yet hydropower is often presented as a benign source of so-called clean energy.  There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Thanks for listening to Dispatch from the Endocene.  I hope you think it’s as much fun as I do!  Please tune in next week when I’ll talk about what is known, and what still remains elusive, about the mysterious and terrifying dieoff of moose, and of bees.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150501151606.htm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3110096/Kingfishers-face-wiped-Species-37-including-puffins-curlew-list-British-birds-risk-extinction.html

http://www.birdlife.org/sites/default/files/attachments/RedList%20-%20BirdLife%20publication%20WEB.pdf

http://www.newenglandwild.org/conserve/state-of-the-plants-technical-report.pdf

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/damnation/89928979

Scorched Earth

Salton Sea, California

All following images are from the book:  Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot (OVER)
because climate is only one symptom of the Endocene

This week I had a discussion via email with Guy McPherson about tropospheric ozone, how it directly harms trees, and why that exacerbates climate change in a reinforcing loop.  After I provided him the substantiation he requested, this led to inclusion on his epic list of amplifying feedbacks.   The damage to forests from ozone is now listed as Number Four under the heading, Climate-Change Summary and Update, a link that is prominently posted at his website, Nature Bats Last.  This is quite an honor for Wit's End, so I am very grateful he took the time to consider the evidence.

Number Four on his list reads:

4. Ozone, a powerful greenhouse gas, also contributes to mortality of trees (Global Change Biology, November 2011). Tree mortality reduces uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide and instead accelerates the contribution of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Forest dieback resulting from atmospheric ozone is the primary topic addressed by Gail Zawacki at Wit’s End.

I looked on this exchange as a great opportunity for me to boil down the hundreds of scientific papers and articles I have read to just a few of the most persuasive, and so I'm going to post them below.

Initially Guy had asked me if I could describe exactly how trees dying from ozone increases global warming; and how warming increases ozone.

I reponded as follows:

Ozone is a potent greenhouse gas in itself.

Ozone is causing massive forest dieback.

Trees are a primary mechanism of CO2 removal - their loss will increase the concentration in the       atmosphere, accelerating warming.

More warming leads to more ozone.

Methane is also an ozone precursor, particularly of the persistent background concentration that is so damaging to vegetation, and more warming leads to more methane release.

I added an excerpt from the abstract of a meta-analysis from 2007, which was cited by the EPA in their (failed) attempt to tighten ozone regulations in order to protect forests, and pointed out that like so much else in the realm of climate research, the effects predicted to happen by "2100" are actually already happening, much faster and are much worse than anyone officially anticipates. 

"Modern day concentrations of ground level ozone pollution are decreasing the growth of trees in the northern and temperate mid-latitudes, as shown in a paper publishing today in Global Change Biology. Tree growth, measured in biomass, is already 7% less than the late 1800s, and this is set to increase to a 17% reduction by the end of the century."

"The study is the first statistical summary of individual experimental measurements of how ozone will damage the productivity of trees, including data from 263 peer-reviewed scientific publications...But more importantly, it has the potential to leave more carbon dioxide, ranked as the first strongest greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere by decreasing carbon assimilation in trees...'"

'This research quantifies the mean response of trees to ozone pollution measured in terms of total tree biomass, and all component parts such as leaf, root and shoot, lost due to ozone pollution,' said Dr. Victoria Wittig, lead author of the study. 'Looking at how ozone pollution affects trees is important because of the indirect impact on carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere which will further enhance global warming, in addition to ozone's already potent direct impact.'"

Guy next asked for links to peer-reviewed journal publications, and the EPA findings, in support of my statements so I sent him the following, slightly edited list:

1.  Link to Wittig's paper quoted above.

Other peer reviewed journal articles:

2.  Global Change Biology:  "Tree mortality in the eastern and central United States: patterns and drivers"

From the abstract:  "We investigated 13 covariates in four categories: climate, air pollutants, topography, and stand characteristics. Overall, we found that tree mortality was most sensitive to stand characteristics and air pollutants."

3.  Science Direct:  "Tropospheric Ozone:  A continuing threat to global forests?  From the abstract:

"Ozone (O₃) has a critical role in tropospheric chemistry. It absorbs radiation in the infrared and ultraviolet regions and is very reactive and biologically toxic at appropriate levels of exposure. At the earth's surface, O₃ is subject to long-range transport and is the most pervasive air pollutant affecting the world's forests today. The existence of O₃ has been known since 1840 and smog-induced foliar injury on plants was first identified in the 1950s. Levels were ∼10–15 ppb during the second half of the 1800s, compared with 30–40 ppb measured as the global background today. By 2100, fully 50% (17 million km²) of world forests are predicted to be exposed to O₃ at concentrations >60 ppb. Ozone induces a variety of symptoms and pattern of injury that are dependant upon species, genotype, leaf position on the plant, leaf age, exposure dynamics, and meteorological factors or growth conditions. It is absolutely essential to have knowledge on species sensitivities, O₃ profiles and toxicity concentrations for the species under investigation before diagnosis can be confirmed. Ozone is generally detrimental to tree growth and ecosystem productivity, often through induced changes in patterns of carbon allocation or pre-disposition to insects and disease."

4.  Excerpt from "Global Alert", a book by Dr. Jack Fishmann, student and then colleague of Paul Crutzen, and Susan Solomon (you can see his lecture Dec. 2013 "Are We Creating a Toxic Atmosphere?" at the Max Plank Institute here):

"The earth is an enclosed system, with a wonderful proclivity to cleanse itself, but it is being taxed to the limit by the sheer number of humans and their waste products in the form of gases and manufactured chemicals. This is not speculation; it is already happening. These are the signs: In the autumn of 1988 the NYTimes published a story about the Jamaican palm trees in the southeastern United States being decimated by a disease known as yellowleaf fungus. The species may disappear from America by the turn of the century. Although the cause of the disease is a known fungus, the underlying cause is the increased ozone levels in the air, which, by placing the trees under stress, pave the way for the attacking fungus…Forest in parts of Germany are suffering from “early autumn” syndrome: they lose their leaves by late August and early September. The cause? Increased ozone levels in the air…During the sumer of 1988 American farmers lost between $1 billion and $2 billion in crops. The drought was a factor, but a sizable fraction of the losses from lower crop yields can be attributed to increased ozone in the atmosphere."

p. 18  "Increased ozone levels are destroying our forests, diminishing our crops, and adding to the global warming trend."

Posted with more transcribed excerpts here.

5.  From published research by Andrew Bytnerowicz re: the San Bernardino Mountains

"In the 1970s, when the first reliable measurements of O3 started, peak concentrations could reach 600 ppb (National Academy of Sciences, 1977), and national and state air pollution standards were exceeded during most of the photochemical smog season (http://www.arb.ca.gov/ html/brochure/history/htm). During that time it was also determined that the mysterious ‘‘X’’ disease killing thousands of sensitive ponderosa (Pinus ponderosa) and Jeffrey (Pinus jeffreyi) pines in the SBM in the 1950s was caused by high O3 concentrations in combination with frequent drought stress and severe bark beetle attacks (Miller et al., 1963; Taylor, 1999).This was the first worldwide evidence of a large-scale decline of coniferous forests caused by ambient O3 (Mackenzie and El-Ashry, 1989)."

"In the early 2000s, a widespread dieback of trees in the SBM started to take place due to prolonged drought, over-stocking of forests caused by long-term fire suppression, air pollution, and bark beetle infestation that eventually resulted in a death of 4.6 million trees (Christensen et al., 2007). Such enormous amounts of dead biomass caused a very serious risk to the remaining forests and to the local population. The 2003 fires in the SBM (Keeley et al., 2004) showed that a very high probability of catastrophic fires exists in southern California mountainous forests." 

 

6.  Regarding EPA, research by the USFS indicates that human health standards ("primary") are not enough to protect vegetation, so that stricter, "secondary" regulations should be implemented.

  

"The EPA has concluded that the primary NAAQS based on an hourly average concentration and used to protect human health is inadequate to protect sensitive ecosystems, and has proposed a new secondary standard that is targeted to protect non-urban and non-crop natural vegetation and ecosystems. The EPA has specifically indicated that a strengthened primary standard for ozone will not adequately protect sensitive tree species in higher elevation Western ecosystems where little O3 data are available."

Directly from EPA Secondary Ozone NAAQS Evaluation:

"Exposure to ozone has been associated with a wide array of vegetation and ecosystem effects in the published literature (U.S. EPA, 2006). These effects include those that damage or impair the intended use of the plant or ecosystem. Such effects are considered adverse to the public welfare and can include reduced growth and/or biomass production in sensitive plant species, including forest trees, reduced crop yields, visible foliar injury, reduced plant vigor (e.g., increased susceptibility to harsh weather, disease, insect pest infestation, and competition), species composition shift, and changes in ecosystems and associated ecosystem services.

"Specifically, plants may become more sensitive to other air pollutants, or more susceptible to disease, pest infestation, harsh weather (e.g., drought, frost) and other environmental stresses, which can all produce a loss in plant vigor in ozone-sensitive species that over time may lead to premature plant death. Furthermore, there is evidence that ozone can interfere with the formation of mycorrhiza, essential symbiotic fungi associated with the roots of most terrestrial plants, by reducing the amount of carbon available for transfer from the host to the symbiont (U.S. EPA, 2006)."

"Ozone impacts at the community and ecosystem level vary widely depending upon numerous factors, including concentration and temporal variation of tropospheric ozone, species composition, soil properties and climatic factors (U.S. EPA, 2006). In most instances, responses to chronic or recurrent exposure in forested ecosystems are subtle and not observable for many years. These injuries can cause stand-level forest decline in sensitive ecosystems (U.S. EPA, 2006, McBride et al., 1985; Miller et al., 1982)."

EPA Welfare Risk and Exposure Assessment for Ozone Second External Review Draft Executive Summary:

RISK TO VEGETATION AND ECOSYSTEMS - In this welfare REA, we quantified the impact of O3 exposure on two categories of ecological effects: (1) relative biomass loss for trees and crops, and (2) visible foliar injury...cosystem services most directly affected by biomass loss include: (1) provision of food and fiber (provisioning), (2) carbon storage (regulating), (3) pollution removal (regulating), and (4) habitat provision for wildlife, particularly habitat for threatened or endangered wildlife 

note:  In this welfare REA, we do not quantify insect damage resulting from O3 exposure. In the next Section, Risk to Ecosystem Services, we briefly discuss the ecosystem services associated with insect damage on tree stands and timber production, including the overlap of areas with higher W126 concentrations and risk of bark beetle infestation. 

EPA:  Integrated Science Assessment of Ozone and Related Photochemical Oxidants (Final Report)

Chapter Nine refers to ozone's impact on ecosytems (as opposed to human health)

(citation to Wittig, the first excerpt I sent, is on p. 9-186)

As to how ozone killing trees is an amplifying feedback effect to climate:

1.  More trees means lower temperatures because when moisture evaporates from leaves it cools the air.  Loss of trees leads to higher temperatures.

"Air Pollution Removal and Temperature Reduction by Gainesville's Urban Forest" publication from the University of Florida:

2.  Higher temps also cause leaves to close stomata, meaning they take up significantly less pollution, leaving more in the air, creating more heat (and damage to people and plants):

"It's not just the heat, it's the ozone:  Hidden heat wave dangers exposed" - title of an article in ScienceDaily about a paper called:  "Scorched Earth: how will changes in the strength of the vegetation sink to ozone deposition affect human health and ecosystems?"

Vegetation plays a crucial role in reducing air pollution, but new research by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York shows that they may not protect us when we need it most: during extreme heat, when ozone formation from traffic fumes, industrial processes and other sources is at its worst.

The reason, explained lead author Dr Lisa Emberson, is that during heat waves -- when the ground is especially dry -- plants become stressed and shut their stomata (small pores on their leaves) to conserve water. This natural protective mechanism makes them more resilient to extreme heat and high ozone levels, but it also stops them from absorbing ozone and other pollutants.

"...we know that pollutants such as ozone and its precursors can carried around the globe," she says.

The research can also inform public-health responses, Dr Emberson says. For example, people may mistakenly believe that as long as they get out of the city, they are not at risk from poor air quality, so it is important to raise their awareness."

3.  Higher temperatures from climate change lead to even more ozone formation:

From the report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, titled "Rising Temperatures, Worsening Ozone Pollution"

"Given the strong dependence of ozone formation on temperature, a changing climate can make ozone pollution worse. As temperatures increase in a warmer world, days that are conducive to ozone formation are likely to be more frequent...

...What this means is that climate change is likely to complicate the challenge of reducing ozone pollution. Although emissions of ozone-forming pollutants are currently declining, temperature increases associated with climate change are likely to work against this trend. As a result, even to maintain today’s ozone levels may require a greater reduction in precursor emissions. Also, there could be a positive-feedback effect; because increasing temperatures would correspond to greater electricity demand for air conditioning during hot summer months, emissions of ozone-forming pollutants from fossil-fuel power plants would probably increase further."

I didn't add this one, but it's worth mentioning that scientists who have been studying the death of plant species for over a decade in China now believe that the nitrogen emissions in smog - the precursors to ozone - are threatening to "massacre" the world's forests.  An article about their study said the following:

Thick smog could kill off most southern China's natural forests within decades and threatens trees around the world unless nations take action, say scientists.

A 13-year study by Chinese scientists has revealed strong evidence to show the danger is being caused by nitrogen emissions in the atmosphere.

"It is a silent massacre," said Dr Lu Xiankai, associate researcher at Chinese Academy of Sciences' South China Botanical Garden in Guangzhou and a lead scientist of the project.

At one observation point in Dinghu Mountain, Zhaoqing , more than a dozen plant species growing below an old tree had died off until only one or two were left, and the tree could be next to go if the "nitrogen fallout" from smog continued, Lu said.

"Immediate measures must be taken to reduce air pollution, especially nitrogen emissions," Lu said.

"If the situation remains as it is, most forests in southern China will be destroyed within decades. But the impact is not limited in China. The problem will have a ripple effect around the world."

The study, published in this month's Environmental Science and Technologyjournal, run by the American Chemical Society, said the scientists took more than a decade to find solid evidence that smog is killing off trees.

Nitrogen is one of the most important causes for the formation of smog. Many human activities, such as industrial production and vehicle exhaust emissions, pump large quantities of nitrogen into the atmosphere.

Episode 10 of Extinction Radio with my weekly Dispatch from the Endocene is now available for listening!  Thanks to all the hardworking doomers who put the show together.