The Natural Patriot

We hear frequently in the news these days that earth is in the midst of a mass extinction. To many people this is difficult to believe, thanks in part to the vigorous efforts at obfuscation by the likes of Bjorn Lomborg and conservative think-tank hitmen on their days off from distributing climate change misinformation.

The evidence for ongoing mass extinction is admittedly indirect (like the uncontroversial evidence that the world was round prior to 1969, when astronauts documented it photographically). But the evidence of the first wave of extinctions caused by humans is better documented from fossil data.

A new paper by Anthony Barnosky in PNAS reexamines this fossil data, in the light of some basic principles of ecology, and comes to some sobering conclusions about our place in the world, and who we will be capable of sharing it with in the future. Basically, he starts from the well-established premise that the biomass of all life on earth is ultimately limited by incoming solar energy, and then examines how that energy has been divvied up among the larger animals during the last few hundred thousand years.

Toward the end of the last ice age, between say 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, humans got restless and spread out over the wide world, along with rapid increases in hunting efficiency and other environmental impacts caused by deliberate fire setting. At around the same time, on every continent except Africa (where, not coincidentally, wild animals had evolved alongside humans for millions of years and presumably developed a healthy wariness), most of the world’s large vertebrates disappeared within a few thousand years. This general picture has been known for some time. The new twist is that the collective biomass of all these lost giants was essentially replaced with an equivalent biomass of people (see lower graph). In other words, we co-opted the share of the earth’s resources that formerly supported those creatures and basically substituted ourselves — and our domesticated livestock — for most other large animals in earth’s ecosystems.

But then our ingenuity allowed us to escape — temporarily — the limitations of incoming solar energy. Beginning with the industrial revolution, appropriation of fossil fuels began to subsidize exponential human population growth that has now reached far above what the earth can support once fossil fuels run out. As this energy supply dwindles, the human population will likely commandeer resources currently used by the remaining smaller animals, with sobering consequences for biodiversity.

The punch line from the paper is that the rise of Homo sapiens starting in the late Pleistocene initiated a sudden and irreversible “regime shift” in the planetary ecosystem, that is a shift between two quite different ecosystem states, from one that supported a diverse array of large , relatively specialized animals (elephants and their relatives; grazing ungulates such as horses, camels, and their kin; big predatory cats and wolves; giant ground sloths, etc.) to one in which virtually the entire upper end of the global ecosystem’s biomass spectrum is made up by a single, hyper-generalized species: us.

A few interesting factoids:

1) Many of the huge mammal species of the Pleistocene weathered (literally) hundreds of thousands of years of climate change before going down the tube suddenly between 40,000 (in Australia) and about 10,000 years ago (in North America). During that long span of time, global climate and vegetation see-sawed several times between balmy and very cool conditions. This suggests that climate change alone could not have been responsible for the mass extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene. Suspiciously, the extinctions on each continent occurred very shortly, usually within a few thousand years, after Homo sapiens arrived on each continent. Yet these humans were sparsely populated by today’s standards and only had stone tools and fire. Makes you think.

2) Some megafauna, including mastodons, survived into the Holocene (i.e., modern, post-ice-age times) on isolated islands without humans until surprisingly recently. For example, on Wrangel Island in the Siberian Arctic, dwarf mammoth fossils have been dated as recently as 4000 years ago. That may sound like a long time ago, but consider this: The oldest pyramids in Egypt are dated at ~2600 BC, that is, 4600 years ago. In other words, ice age mammoths were still walking the earth by the time the great classical civilizations began to flourish.

Although the role of humans in megafaunal extinctions is already widely known in general outline, the approach from ecological energetics used in this paper highlights the fundamental physical constraints we face in attempting to conserve some semblance of wild nature. There is only so much to go around. Energetic considerations suggest it will be very difficult to maintain populations of other large vertebrates as long as we are using the lion’s share (so to speak) of the planet’s available energy. All of which reemphasizes the necessity to rethink Western society’s quasi-religious, ultimately destructive, cult of economic growth.

[Original source: Barnosky, A.D. 2008. Megafauna biomass tradeoff as a driver of Quaternary and future extinctions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 105, Supplement 1:11543-11548.]

“Imagine — in four months we could have an administration in Washington that believes in science.”

That was our former Governor, who brought both parties together to save Virginia from the disastrous policies of previous Governor Jim Gilmore; the favorite to take Virginia’s second US Senate seat into the Democratic column this November. That was Mark Warner, keynote speaker tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

Imagine. After eight years of an administration that has not only ignored science, it has shown open contempt and hostility for the role of evidence in policy decisions on a wide range of issues from stem cell research to critical environmental issues to birth control. After eight years of an administration, and its lapdog Republican Congress, that has almost literally declared war on science. An administration whose pathetic stance on so many of the weighty issues of our day have made possible the surreal spectacle of men who aspire to be President of the United States stating on national TV, with straight faces, that they believe every word of the Bible is literally true.

Imagine. Elected national leaders, sitting in the White House, that understand — as the surging European Union and China clearly do — the central importance of science to navigating the tumultuous future of this country and the world.

David Gergen, commenting on CNN after Gov. Warner’s address, noted that it was the first time he could remember a convention keynote speaker talking about how science and technology were the key to the future, the key to jobs and the economy. Rather than merely irritants to faith-based initiatives. What a breath of fresh air. “It was not a barn-burner speech”, says Gergen, but isn’t it refreshing to hear — on the floor of the Democratic National Convention — a keynote speaker actually spending time on the necessity of science? Imagine.

Now, to be fair, John McCain has been talking about the seriousness of climate change for some years, almost a lone voice in the GOP until quite recently. I salute him for that. But in his new incarnation as presidential candidate, his handlers appear to have successfully steered him back to “staying the course” of energy policy written by Dick Cheney’s industry buddies in the smoke-filled room early on: “Drill here! Drill now!” As Nancy Pelosi said to protesters chanting this nonsense the other day, “Can we drill your brains?” Let’s hope that Senator McCain, when he returns to his life as a Senator in January, also returns to his senses on energy policy.

And keep an eye out for Mark Warner as we approach 2016, after Obama’s second term . . .

Alright, all you people who have been fondly recalling your idyllic childhoods lying in old fields, catching lightning bugs, plunging into the swimming hole, and chucking rotten apples at each other in the old orchard, and lamenting that kids nowadays don’t understand all that (”Not like when I was a lad, b’God!”):

Uncle Sam wants you!

. . . to get American kids off their softening butts and push them affectionately but firmly into the bright light of day. And, with your permission, he is willing to give them a little boost in that direction, not only to get back in the swing of playing outside, though that is surely part of it, but equally importantly to understand what is going on out there. Since most kids today don’t have the leisure nor the inclination to learn the rudiments of ecology informally through daily experience, they need a pointer in that direction. And they are surely going to need that ecological literacy as they reach voting age and face some of the most momentous decisions about the future of planet earth yet. As Rep. Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) put it, “The next generation is the one that’s going to make or break us as a planet.”

Here’s where you get the chance to put your money where your mouth has been. Your elected representatives are about to make some concrete decisions that will determine whether kids get that chance. Specifically, the House of Representatives is preparing to vote in September on the “No Child Left Indoors Act” (see here for a summary, and here for the full text of the bill) — and they need to hear from you very soon. Here’s the dope, courtesy of the ever vigilant Ecological Society of America:

“On June 18th, the House Committee on Education and Labor passed the No Child Left Indoor Act (NCLI) by a 37-8 bipartisan vote. The legislation would support local and statewide efforts to enhance environmental education by:

Establishing a grant program to help the field of environmental education become more effective and widely practiced.

Providing capacity building grants to educational agencies in states with peer-reviewed environmental literacy plans, and providing states with funding to develop these plans.

Broadening the already successful Environmental Education and Training Program to provide teachers with enhanced professional development and training in environmental education, which they can then integrate into the curriculum.

Extending the full National Environmental Education Act authorization, including Environmental Education and Training, at $14 million through fiscal year 2009.”

Here are some points worth making, again courtesy of the ESA:

Regular education “in the field” gets kids outside, and thus contributes to healthy lifestyles through outdoor exercise and recreation.

Environmental education provides critical tools for a 21st Century workforce; students who understand complex environmental issues can make informed decisions in their own lives and find solutions for environmental challenges facing the nation. Business leaders also increasingly believe that an environmentally literate workforce is critical to their long-term success.

Hands-on environmental education is a solution to the growing trend of “nature deficit disorder”—children today spend half as much time outside as kids did just 20 years ago and, on average, spend over six hours every day plugged into electronic media.”

By all accounts most Congresspeople actually listen to their constituents, and it takes relatively little effort to reach them. Here is your chance to exercise democracy, and get a karmic boost therefrom. If you live in my neck o’ the woods, in Virginia’s 1st district, you can contact our Rep. Rob Wittman as follows (if you live elsewhere, you can find your Congressperson’s contact info here):

Rob Wittman’s Washington, D.C. Office:

1123 Longworth House Office Building,
District of Columbia 20515-4601
Phone: (202) 225-4261
Fax: (202) 225-4382

Yorktown Office:
4904-B George Washington Memorial Hwy.
Yorktown, Virginia 23692
Phone: (757) 874-6687
Fax: (757) 874-7164

Give your Congressman a ring! Let freedom ring!

[Editor’s note: Shortly before we left California in 1994 and headed east to settle on Timberneck Creek in Tidewater, Virginia, where we remain to this day, I happened across the writer Richard Brautigan. He was from California, evidently, at least that’s where his works take place. He is most famous as the author of the unique work “Trout Fishing in America“, which is difficult to describe or to categorize among the genres of fiction, poetry, memoir, and stream-of-consciousness journals of hallucinations. The cover of the book has a photo of him and his girlfriend hanging in Washington Square in San Francisco and — no, I am not making this up — the first chapter of the book is entitled “The cover for trout fishing in America”. It describes, you guessed it, the cover of the book. How could such a thing attain the status of a cult classic? How, indeed, can we be sure that it is a cult classic? For me, the key evidence came when I was listening to NPR one morning, around that same time when we were living in the Bay area, and I heard a story about a kid who, as soon as he turned 18, changed his name to “Trout fishing in America.” Legally and officially. There was something about him asking his Dad for the money for the legal fees as a gift when he graduated from high school. It is beyond my powers of imagination to picture what went through either his head or his father’s in this transaction, but it really happened. I heard it on NPR. Anyway, my point in bringing all this up is that Brautigan also wrote several books of poetry. The following is from the book “The Pill versus the Spring Hill Mine Disaster.” On the surface it would have to be considered pretty corny, but I have to admit that I’ve always found it quite touching. I’ve even been known to recite it to my wife (don’t tell anyone). It’s my favorite by Brautigan. Number eight in a series.]

Your Catfish Friend
Richard Brautigan

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge of my affection
and think, “It’s beautiful
here by this pond. I wish somebody loved me,”
I’d love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be at peace,
and ask yourself, “I wonder
if there are any catfish in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them.”

Carnivals, that is. The latest incarnations are now online. Blue at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Notes blog. And, on a related note, oceanophiles may also enjoy checking out Rick MacPherson’s links to various marine-themed blogs he likes here . . .

And the Green is at EverydayTrash. Lots to read and think about here. Bon voyage.

How time flies. The fresh new breezes of spring were beginning to blow — three whole months ago — when I painted the shed door green and started the herbaceous phase (as opposed to the woody phase, which has proceeded via occasional tree plantings over the last decade) of the TBRP. It has been a delight, usually, and an education always, following its evolution. I have been meaning to file a progress report for some time. For now I will focus on one component, the “butterfly patch”:

The experiment has proven to be a microcosm of the workings of ecosystems generally, revealing clear evidence of both bottom-up and top-down control. For the uninitiated, this is the geekish ecological jargon for control of the biological community’s health and composition by resources (such as water and light — nourishing plants at the bottom of the food chain) versus feeding by animals (influence cascading from the top of the food chain), respectively.

Everybody knows about bottom-up control, particularly if you live in a place where you get the sort of beastly hot summers, with associated dry spells, that we do here. The may apples couldn’t hack it (despite growing wild in the woods not far away from here — go figure), nor the little native orchid I planted. Alas.

Then, a few weeks after getting the plants in the ground, after carefully nurturing my little charges and watching them grow, pulling the grasses and red maple seedlings threatening to choke them, coming out every day like a proud papa to encourage them and check their progress, one day I walked out into the fresh morning air to find a scene of devastation — thriving plants reduced to shorn stems, leaves gone, broken stems hanging forlornly. Top-down control, slinking in stealthily in the dead of night. I’m guessing groundhogs (or whistle pigs as we like to call them), which are quite common around here, and we see them regularly snuffling around in the yard. I used to think they were cute.

It was a rude awakening. But what’s to be done? It’s supposed to be natural. And, happily, closer inspection revealed that several of the plants were untouched, where others had been more or less devoured. So I decided to let the critters participate in the project, eat what they want, and to allow the natural succession to take its course, with those plants that are defended in some way allowed to prosper. The blue aster I’d bought at the native plant sale got hammered repeatedly, and never bloomed (although now, in early August, it’s looking like the forlorn stems have rallied yet again and may just flower for the first time if they can escape the villains’ attention for another week). On the other hand, the black-eyed Susans, of at least three varieties, have fared very well, as have several attractive little wildflowers that came up from the packs of (mostly, as I discovered to my annoyance after planting them, non-native) wildflower seeds the NASA people were giving away at Earthfest.

The Joe-Pye weed I got from the native plant sale also got stripped and its prospects looked grim. But it came back with a vengeance and is now thriving, with big clusters of dusty rose-colored flowers. The wild quinine (that’s the one with white flowers on right side of the photo above left) has also pulled through and proved its mettle, flowering abundantly.

These latter two plants especially have proven to be an amazing draw for a wide variety of insects. And that is the really cool thing about this little project — what an unexpectedly rich font of biophilia it’s blossomed into, if you’ll pardon the pun. This tiny patch of wildflowers, maybe a square yard, is astonishingly rich in life. Almost every day we see insects we’ve never before noticed on the property (partly, no doubt, because I am paying a lot more attention to them). The plot is swarming with small, native bees of at least four species, one with a metallic green body (see photo at right, from here). Beautiful little ermine moths sucking at the tiny flowers. Big zebra swallowtails, tiger swallowtails, one of the dark swallowtails, and several other butterlies and skippers fluttering about the flowers. In the last few days we’ve had several buckeyes (a species I’ve just now identified — see photo below by Bill D) fluttering around the Joe-Pye weed all day, right outside the window. A juvenile preying mantis guarding the same station faithfully day by day. Even our resident hummingbirds have sampled the butterfly bush a few times. This is way better than going to the zoo. It sure beats the same old crap on television, it’s probably as good for your karma as meditation, it’s free, and it’s interactive!

The cool thing is: almost anyone could do this. The plot literally takes up a square yard — though now that the experiment has proven successful I am keen on extending it, making this the first step in the gradual conversion of our relatively sterile suburban lawn to low-maintenance, environmentally friendly, biodiverse, wild and woolly pseudo-prairie. Anyway, all you need is a bit of dirt, some native plants, and literally a few minutes a day. I installed a 50-gallon rainbarrel under our downspout and have not used the hose for gardening ecological engineering since.

Finally, based on the admittedly minimal sample size of one, I can also report that the patch has caught the attention of local kids (OK, kid singular). He has developed a tolerance for my stopping to crouch down and see what’s going on in the patch every time we walk by. He even joins in occasionally (”Look Dad - one of those green bees!”). Then, of course, it’s back to the baseball statistics . . .