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18 February 2002
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On Biodiversity, Climate change and Sustainability (2)By Jeff Harvey1Ferdinand2, I will write a longer reply in due course - glad to see that my hardy rebuttal letter of the sycophantic editorial in the Economist defending Lomborg was just published in that periodical; the Lomborg defenders are sinking rapidly, as more and more environmental scientists undermine his nonsense. First, re: The Netherlands. Aha! The first sign that you are writing strictly from the Lomborg/Simon point of view in regarding ecosystems strictly as directly utilitarian/economic assets. I was waiting for you to suggest this at some point, and I am not disappointed; your comment that "Although I don't see any relevance of wetlands for our existence as species" exemplifies this. Scientists like Dave Schindler and Steve Carpenter would literally tear this statment apart, as it is of course totally and utterly incorrect. Wetlands perform a number of critically important life-support functions, because they (i) detoxify and decompose terrestrial wastes, through filtration; (ii) help to mitigate floods and droughts, (iii) contain as much as 12% of the planet's endemic biodiversity, and (iv) serve as exceedingly important "refuelling" stops for migratory waterfowl and other birds. The loss of wetlands in North America between 1780 and 1980 approached 53%; in Europe, more than 60% of wetlands have been lost. But the thrust of your argument still views ecosystems solely in the human perspective and primarily utilitarian; try and find an environmental scientist who shares these kinds of views, and you'll have a lot of proiblems, because their aren't very many at all. Your understanding of biosphere II is also completely incorrect. Biosphere II was an unmitigated disaster, and clearly showed how humanity cannot replicate the exceedingly complex machinery which characterizes our global ecological life support systems. Within weeks of its inception, oxygen levels decreased to about 14%, whereas CO 2 and NO 2 spiked erratically to the point where it impaired the brain functions of its inhabitants; all of the pollinators became extinct, as did most of the vertebrates, while the freshwater systems were overgrown with algal mats, and cockroaches and crazy ants ran amok. The designers of biosphere II were so desperate to salvage something from the project that they consulted Dr. Shaheed Naeem, one of the world's leading scientists on the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, for his opinion. Naeem was succinct: burn the whole thing down and let nature start from scratch. In this way, he argues that we can learn something about the complex properties of self-organizing systems, because our attempt to replicate the intricate workings of our life-support systems is at such an infant stage that we might learn more from letting nature assemble an ecosystem from its inception, rather than feebly attempting to recreate something which far exceeds our current level of understanding (a point also made recently by John Lawton). What annoys me about the likes of Lomborg3, and reiterated by yourself, is that statements made by non-environmental scientists claim that the planet can sustain itself with only a fraction of the extant species present. This is a dangerous statement, because until we know better which species drive ecosystem processes and which are allegedly superfluous, we exterminate any species at our peril. Which are the most important components? We don't know. How much can the system be reduced in size through an elimination of its diversity, and still function effectively? We don't know. And on and on. Furthermore, as Simon Levin makes clear in "Fragile Dominion" we should not assume that apparently "redundant" species do not have a function. In many systems, they buffer the stability of ecosystem processes as alternative drivers when the most important species are locally extirpated. Thus, functional redundancy reinforces the resilience of a system from the effects of rapid change, and their consequent loss may push systems closer to a theoretical edge. And to reiterate what I said (quoting Levin) in an earlier message: ecosystem services do not exist by virtue of supporting humanity, we exist because these systems permit us to do so. This is such an important distinction, but one which seems to be lost on contrarians. You are correct in assuming that the planet has experienced significant changes before in its turbulent evolutionary history. But in the past the planet was not supporting 6+ billion people, a species which co-opts something like 40% of net primary production, and 50% of freshwater flows. No species had so effectively simplified natural lansscapes through the combined effects of paving, plouging, mining, dredging, drilling, damming, dousing in synthetic organic chemicals, clear-cutting, slashing-and-burning, homogenising biodiversity by moving species freely about, and by altering the chemical composition of the atmosphere and soil; there is nothing to suggest that humanity is exempt from the laws governing the existence of all life forms. Yes, our time for extinction will come, but why hasten its arrival? Anyway, the one brief point that I would like to make here is this: that don't you think that all of the counter points you make to our understanding of climate change were considered by the 2,000 scientists who contributed to the IPCC report? Don't you think that they evaluated the potential effects of aerosols, incoming solar radiation and cloud cover? This is what always alarms me with the climate skeptics, in which I explicitly refer to laymen like John Daly. Its as if they are imbued with the wisdom to understand the relative influences of many processes, and that they are highlighting what the IPCC missed. Lomborg did exactly the same thing in his book. I am sure that 2,000 of the world's leading climate scientists are delighted that merchant seamen like John Daly seem to know so much more than they do, but I have a nagging suspicion that all of the studies you cite to counter their conclusions were fully considered in drafting the IPCC chapters. I repeat: the IPCC report represents the most exhaustive evaluation of the peer-review process in scientific history. Furthermore, as a scientist in a separate field (ecology) I rely on the credibility of the IPCC and of the scientists who contributed to the report. There are a hnadful of climate skeptics around the world, including those who contributed to the final draft of the IPCC; but until a better means of evaluating the empirical data becomes available, I will support the conclusions of the IPCC. I appreciate that you seem to have a lot of spare time to check up assiduously FAO and climate data, something which in my current capacity I have not got the time to do. However, I stick to my assertion that the temperature trends that matter concerns those affecting the biosphere, the thin, shimmering layer brimming with life surrounding the Earth's surface. January was an exceptionally warm month throughout the Netherlands, with no frosts between January 4 and 31, and an article in the Volkskrant last week reported that many plants are now "budding" some two weeks earlier than they did in the 1980's, a remarkably rapid change. Moreover, since the mid-80's colleagues at Wageningen University have reported that thermophilic plants are beginning to dominate over nitrophilic plants, a development which clearly points to increased temperature. This is the subject of a grant proposal submitted by colleagues here in Heteren. Like many climate skeptics, you like to highlight the uncertainties while downplaying areas of which there is consensus. When a climate scientists like Jerry Mahlmann state that there are manyy "uncertainties", they are doing no more than telling the truth, but are importantly referring to the outcome of a process for which there is a broad scientific consensus. What the environmental skeptics unambiguously do is take the uncertainties over the outcome of a process - for example climate change or the loss of biodiversity - and apply it to the entire process itself. This has been a devious plan masterminded by the climate skeptics, who take the uncertainty over the predicted range of temperature increase as a consequence of anthropogenic-driven climate change and apply it to the entire process of climate change, no doubt to create doubt amongst the public and policymakers. The plan is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth and to manipulate science. With respect to FAO data, and why related data are suspect (data Lomborg -and you- rely heavily on to support your arguments), there are several related points. First, many of the FAO data are unreliable estimates provided by individual nations. Time and again we have seen nations literally lie about certain trends that are unfavourable to them, such as fish catches in China, whale catches by Russia, and forest losses in Indonesia and Malaysia. Lomborg recognizes this but relegates this important caveat to the endnotes). Second, the FAO has changed its accounting procedures a number of times, making an accurate time-series evaluation almost impossible. Third, with respect to forests, the FAO has consistently considered areas of highly damaged forest (e.g. from ground vegetation fires, high-grade logging practices) still to be forest, whereas biologists have shown that these may be incapable of supporting a range of multi-trophic interactions and/or higher trophic levels. The FAO even considers many clear cuts to be intact forest, provided they are "planned" for reforestation, but this characterizes only land use, not habitat. More later. Jeff Transcribed from a contribution to Ecological Economics 18 February 2002. Footnotes by ecoglobe: 1 Dr. Jeffrey A. Harvey is Senior Scientist at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Centre for Terrestrial Ecology, Boterhoeksestraat 48, NL-6666 Heteren, The Netherlands. Tel: (+31) (26) 4791 306 2 See ecological economics discussion records at csf.colorado.edu [Link opens in a new window.] 3 Lomborg is a Danish statistician who seems intent on providing proof that statistics lie. Of course that depends on the way statistics are being presented and here Mr. Lomborg is very skillful. The late Julian Simon was an economist who believed that the wolrd can survive on man-made capital only and support a human population up to 80 billion. ** This material is distributed for research and educational purposes only. ** email feedback to<welcome@ecoglobe.org.nz> - on-line feedback |
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18 February 2002
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