Natural Environment Blog

In Australia, University of Queensland’s Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg has hit back at claims that his view on climate change’s impact on coral reefs is pessimistic.

A couple of days ago, two of his colleagues downplayed his comments that sea temperatures are likely to rise 2C over the next three decades, which would undoubtedly kill the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Today, Professor Hoegh-Guldberg posted a reply on his blog entitled “Great Barrier Reef could adapt to climate change, scientists say” – Facts, fallacies and fanciful thinking.

Hoegh-Guldberg begins by saying,

I must say I’m a little amazed that Andrew Baird has come out with such poorly supported statements.  In fact, his opinions seem to depend almost entirely on his personal opinion!  The argument that corals are able to magically “adapt” over one or two decades to climate change has come up many times over the years – always, with a complete dearth of evidence to support it.

After contacting Andrew Baird to see if he might know something Hoegh-Guldberg didn’t, Baird sent through a recently published article by Jeff Maynard and himself. 

Hoegh-Guldberg clearly wasn’t impressed with the article, or its lack of evidence to support its conclusions. In response to the Maynard et al (2008) suggestion that coral reefs will be able to evolve and adapt with climate change, Hoegh-Guldberg commented, 

Perhaps it is time for Baird and Maynard to propose a mechanism (with solid evidence) for how physiological traits such as thermal tolerance are able to evolve fast enough to keep rate with oceans that are warming and acidifying at rates which dwarf even the most rapid changes over the last several million years.

After dissecting the article piece by piece, Hoegh-Guldberg, acknowledes that coral reefs could potentially adapt to gradual climate change, but emphasizes that current global warming is occuring much faster than any other period in the last 420,000 years. He finishes with the following:

Overall, while the interest of Andrew Baird and his colleague Jeff Maynard are to be encouraged, one hopes that such loose and unsupported perspectives on such an important issue will be better thought out next time.  No one doubts that evolution occurs on organisms like corals, and hence it adaptation if given time will occur, I think it is important that we realise how unusual the current situation is. 

He continues,

I together with 16 other leading scientific experts recently calculated the rates of change over the past 420,000 years and found that the current rates of changes in temperature and important aspects such as the carbonate ion concentration rose much as three orders of magnitude higher than even the most rapid rates of climate change over this period.  Given the huge changes that did occur over this period in response to ice age and other global transitions, I think we need to be extremely careful in jumping to the conclusion that:

[to quote Andrew Baird] “adaptive qualities of coral reefs would mitigate the effects of climate change.”

Full text at Climate Shifts

Colorful fish at Rapture Reef, French Frigate Shoals of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

According to the Australian newspaper, several scientists have downplayed the significance that global warming will have on our coral reefs.

Specifically, they respond to a recent comment by University of Queensland’s Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, that sea temperatures are likely to rise 2C over the next three decades, which would undoubtedly kill the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, also of the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS), has spent the past 15 years warning us about the impact of climate change on the coral reefs.   

But Dr Andrew Baird principal research fellow at CoECRS says that this is a pessimistic view, and that there are serious knowledge gaps about the impact that rising sea temperatures would have on coral. 

Baird believes that coral has the ability to adapt to climate change.

“I believe coral has an underappreciated capacity to evolve. It’s one of the biological laws that, wherever you look, organisms have adapted to radical changes.” he said.

However, Dr Baird did acknowledge that we need to do something about the impact of climate change on coral reefs.

“There will be sweeping changes in the relative abundance of species,” he said. “There’ll be changes in what species occur where.

“But wholesale destruction of reefs? I think that’s overly pessimistic.” he added.

Russell Reichelt, chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority shared Dr Baird’s sentiment.

“I think that he’s right,” he said. “The reef is more adaptable and research is coming out now to show adaptation is possible for the reef.”

Dr Reichelt, a marine scientist, believes that the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef is water quality. In particular, he refers to the coastal regions where sediment and fertilizer is draining into the ocean and therefore threatening the future of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef.

“If a reef’s going to survive bleaching, you don’t want to kill it with a dirty river,” he said.

Coral can Cross-Breed

Baird and Reichelt aren’t the only ones who believe that coral could adapt to climate change.

Recent studies carried out by CoECRS have found that at least one species of coral can cross-breed and create a hybrid species, suggesting that coral may in fact be able to adapt to climate change.  

Ocean Acidification

Rising sea temperatures isn’t the only threat to our coral reef systems. Ocean acidification has been recently cited as a major threat.

At least three recent studies - one of which professor Hoegh-Guldberg was involved in - have concluded that rising CO2 emissions is a major threat to coral reefs around the world. This is because increased CO2 leads to increased ocean acidification - which in turn, destroys coral reefs.

WWF, the global conservation organization, has just released the 2008 version of their Living Planet Report (as I was anticipating), and things are not looking good for planet Earth - or those of us who reside here.

The report, prduced in conjunction with  the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Global Footprint Network (GFN), is released every two years and is recognized as probably the most authoritative report on the state of the world’s ecosystems. It could be viewed as biennial bank statement for natural resources. 

According to the report, our global footprint now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 per cent. This has increased from 25% in the 2006 report.

Furthermore, our global footprint is expected to keep increasing unless we do something about it. The report says that if our demands on the planet continue at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we will need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles.

WWF International Director-General James Leape said “Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing - and increasingly overdrawing - on the ecological capital of other parts of the world,”

“If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles” he continued.

World Economical Crisis vs World Ecological Crisis

The 2008 report draws comparisons between the world economic crisis and the “world ecological crisis”.

It says:

The recent downturn in the global economy is a stark reminder of the consequences of living beyond our means. But the current  financial recession pales in comparison to the looming ecological credit crunch.

Whether we live on the edge of the forest or in the heart of the city, our livelihoods and indeed our lives depend on the services provided by the Earth’s natural systems.

The report continues to say that we are consuming the resources that underpin those services much too fast – faster than they can be replenished.

Just as reckless spending is causing recession, so reckless consumption is depleting the world’s natural capital to a point where we are endangering our future prosperity.

ZSL co-editor Jonathan Loh said “We are acting ecologically in the same way as financial institutions have been behaving economically - seeking immediate gratification without due regard for the consequences,”

“The consequences of a global ecological crisis are even graver than the current economic meltdown.”

The report also says that in the past 35 years, Earth’s wildlife populations have declined by a third”

5 Countries with the Highest Footprints

The five countries with the highest footprints per person were:

• United Arab Emirates
• the United States of America
• Kuwait
• Denmark
• Australia 

5 Countries with the Lowest Footprints

These countries were found to have the lowest footprints per person:

• Bangladesh
• Congo
• Haiti
• Afghanistan
• Malawi

Reckless Lifestyles at the Expense of Others

The report says that more than three quarters of the world’s population live in nations that have outstripped their country’s biocapacity. It says:

Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing (and increasingly overdrawing) upon the ecological capital of other parts of the world.

Water Footprints

For the first time the Living Planet Report also includes new measures of global, national and individual water footprints.

It finds that globally, each person consumes about 1.24 million liters of water per year.

But the actual figures vary significantly between countries. The nation with the highest water consumption per capita was United States, with 2.48 million liters of water consumed per year (about the size of an Olympic swimming pool). The nation with the lowest water consumption was Yemen, with 619,000 liters per person. 

The Good News…

Despite the apparent gloom and doom, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

WWF believes that it’s not too late for us to do something about the looming “ecological credit crunch”. 

In order to tackle climate change, the WWF refers to its own “WWF Climate Solutions Model” which outlines a model for achieving reductions in carbon emissions of 60 to 80 per cent by 2050.

The report offers some more advice for dealing with the issue:

Success requires that we manage resources on nature’s terms and at nature’s scale. This means that decisions in each sector, such as agriculture or fisheries, must be taken with an eye to broader ecological consequences. It also means that we must find ways to manage across our own boundaries – across property lines and political borders – to take care of the ecosystem as a whole

Download the Report

The report should be available on the Living Planet Report section of the WWF website very soon.

Alternatively, you can download the report here [PDF File 4.35 MB].

German scientists have estimated that sea levels around the world will rise a meter (100cm) by the end of the century.

That is much higher than previous estimates by IPCC’s Climate Change 2007 report which had projected a rise of between 18cm to 59cm depending on the temperature change.

The new research was carried out by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects, and Jochem Marotzke, Director of The Ocean in the Earth System at the Planck Institute for Meteorology.

Schnellnhuber said the new findings employed data unavailable to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its report. 

The IPCC report, also known as the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report, had provided scenarios for temperature changes ranging between 0.3 degrees and 6.4 degrees Celcius.

Schnellnhuber said it is “just barely possible” that world governments will be able to limit the rise in average global temperatures to just 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, if they all strictly adhere to severe limits in carbon dioxide emissions.

The researchers also said that IPCC’s report had been based on data up to 2005, but since then ice loss in the Arctic had doubled or even tripled.

Schnellnhuber’s and Marotzke’s findings are based on studies of melting Himalaya glaciers and the shrinking Greenland ice cap.

Air Polution Is Not Helping

According to Schnellnhuber, 20 percent of the loss of ice sheet on Greenland could be linked to new Chinese coal-fired power stations. Soot particles settle on the ice, preventing the ice from reflecting as much sunlight back into space. The result is that the ice absorbs sunlight rays, raising the temperature of the ice and causing it to melt.

Schnellnhuber said ”Air pollution plays a massive role in the accelerating pace of climate change”.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), global warming is occuring much faster than previously thought.

The findings have been released in a new report, entitled Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner. 

This report has found that the Climate Change 2007 report - released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - underestimated the speed of climate change. The 2007 report consolidated research from nearly 4,000 scientists from more than 150 nations.

WWF says that, since the Climate Change 2007 report, the science of climate change has moved on. 

IPCC Vice Chair, Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele supports the report. He said ”It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it’s vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious,”

Key Findings

Here are some key findings from the report:

• The Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice up to 30 years ahead of IPCC predictions. It is now predicted that the summer sea ice could completely disappear between 2013 and 2040 - something that hasn’t occurred in more than a million years.
• Global sea level rise is expected to reach more than double the IPCC’s maximum estimate of 0.59m by the end of the century, putting vast coastal areas at risk.
• Natural carbon sinks - the areas that help to absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere - are losing their ability to soak up growing levels of emissions faster than expected.
• Rising temperatures have already led to a major reduction in global yields of wheat, maize and barley, resulting in losses of 40 million tonnes of grain per year.
• Marine ecosystems in the North and Baltic Sea are being exposed to the warmest temperatures measured since records began.
• The number and intensity of extreme cyclones over the British Isles and the North Sea are projected to increase, leading to increased wind speeds and storm-related losses over Western and Central Europe.

A Call to the European Union

WWF are looking to the European Union for more action. 

Dr. Tina Tin, Climate Scientist and author of the report says “If the European Union wants to be seen as leader at UN talks in Copenhagen next year, and to help secure a strong global deal to tackle climate change after 2012, then it must stop shirking its responsibilities and commit to real emissions cuts within Europe”.

In particular, the report calls on the European Union to:

• Immediately adopt an emission reduction target of at least 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 – to be delivered within the boundaries of the EU; and
• Commit – on top of its own reduction target – to provide additional substantial support and funding for investment in socially and environmentally robust adaptation and mitigation activities in developing countries.

Dr. Tina Tin continues, “Climate change is a major challenge to the future of mankind and the environment, and this sobering overview highlights just how critical it is that EU Environment Ministers discussing the EU legislations against climate change today commit to a strong climate and energy package, in order to ensure a low carbon future”.

If everyone on Earth consumed its resources at the rate Americans do, we would need the regenerative capacity of three planets just to keep up with the demand. 

That’s what the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) say in their Greenprint document that they have handed to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. 

The Greenprint - entitled Leading the World Toward a Safer and Sustainable Future: Greenprint For A New Administration - is a roadmap document that outlines how the next administration should deal with environmental issues. 

The greenprint, which was made publicly available on Wednesday, emphasizes the importance of looking after our natural environment: 

Half the world still lives on less than $2 per day and does so only by subsisting on natural resources provided by the environment—an environment already stressed by unsustainable development, climate change and pollution.

The report also says this about global consumption:

Global consumption of natural resources currently exceeds the planet’s regenerative capacity by nearly 25 percent and is expected to increase threefold by the middle of the century as our numbers and demands grow

The document covers four key areas that the future president should address:

• Climate change
• Conservation of natural resources
• Food security
• Freshwater availability

Here’s a quick run down on what the greenprint recommends in those areas.

Climate Change

The WWF greenprint recommends that the next administration:

• play a constructive role in international negotiations on a new climate treaty
• curb deforestation (which accounts for nearly 20 percent of global annual greenhouse gas emissions)
• propose domestic legislation to establish a cap and trade program for greenhouse gases
• develop a preparedness strategy for confronting the impacts of climate change

Conservation of Natural Resources

The document recommends:

• to restructure America’s Cold War-era foreign assistance programs to better integrate conservation and sustainability into the framework
• renewed investment in natural assets
• a stronger engagement with China (WWF point out that China is developing at a rate that is stressing the world’s natural resource capacity)

Food Security

On food security, the greenprint recommends:

• development of performance-based standards for biofuels to ensure fuel supplies don’t diminish food supplies
• an overhaul of management policies to restore the health of the world’s declining fisheries (WWF also point out that this is a primary source of protein for more than 1 billion of the world’s poor).  

Freshwater Availability

The greenprint recommends that the government:

• make freshwater availability a strategic priority for the U.S. 
• lay the scientific and policy groundwork for global water security.

The Full Greenprint Document

You can read the full Greenprint document here (PDF document).

A 6 degree increase in average temperature could force one species of kangaroo to extinction.

Global warming could seriously diminish kangaroo populations over the next 20 years, according to researchers from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.  

The result of the study has been published in the December issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. 

The researchers, Euan G. Ritchie and Elizabeth E. Bolitho, estimate that a 2 percent increase in temperature could shrink kangaroos’ ranges by 48 percent. A 6 degree increase in temperature could shrink ranges by 96 percent. 

These projected temperature ranges are not unheard of either. Climate models indicate that a temperature increase of between 0.4 and 2 degrees is likely to occur in northern Australia by the year 2030, and anincrease of between 2 and 6 degrees is expected by 2070.

Extinction

Global warming could force one species of kangaroo to extinction.

The antilopine wallaroo, a kangaroo species that resides in wet tropical climates, may become extinct if temperatures increase by 6 degrees.

It all depends on how the animal can adapt. Such a temperature increase would produce an environment that is seriously lacking in water. Even an increase in 2 degrees could shrink its geographic range by 89 percent.

The Main Cause - Less Water

The decrease in available water is what would cause the most harm. It’s likely that the kangaroos themselves could cope with higher temperatures - as long as their habitat didn’t change. Unfortunately, increased temperatures would lead to less available water, and less water would lead to a much different (and drier) environment to live in.

The kangaroos would be forced to adapt or move. Unfortunately, even if they could move to another environment, it’s unlikely that the vegetation and topography that they’re used to, would shift at the same rate.

The authors of the study write, “If dry seasons are to become hotter and rainfall events more unpredictable, habitats may become depleted of available pasture for grazing and waterholes may dry up, this may result in starvation and failed reproduction… or possible death due to dehydration for those species that are less mobile”.

According to this article by The Australian newspaper, research has found that global warming is directly responsible for declining seabird populations.

The research, compiled by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, was carried out in the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. The research was then used for a report called Seabirds and Shorebirds in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area in a Changing Climate, which was commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Queensland Environment Protection Agency.

The reseach found that warmer water near the surface of the ocean, forces fish and plankton away from the surface of the water. This causes the seabirds and their young to go hungry, as it is more difficult to find prey. This in turn, means the seabirds are less likely to breed.

According to the report, the warmer water is being caused by more frequent and intense El Nino events.

In some areas, seabird populations have declined by up to 96 percent.

Also, the report found that, around Heron Island in 2003, a 1 degree increase in temperature reduced shearwaters’ feeding frequency from once every two nights, to once every five.

Another report, produced in December last year, identifies 31 bird species in Australia that are at “high risk of extinction”. 

The report, entitled The State of Australia’s Birds 2007 - Birds in a Changing Climate, says that a 2 to 5 percent rise in temperatures will lead to the extinction of many species. The urgency of the situation is highlighted when you consider that experts are forecasting that temperatures will rise to those levels within the next 60 years or so.  

The birds at most risk are those around the savannas and rainforests of northern Australia, where the climate is much warmer.

Prince Charles has today launched the official website for his Rainforest Project. As I mentioned earlier, today is World Environment Day, so it’s a perfect day for launching a website aimed at saving the rainforests.

The main aim of the project, which launched on October 25 last year, is to make the rainforests “more valuable alive than dead”. Today, in many developing countries, rainforests are worth more dead than alive. This is mainly due to demand from developed countries for beef, palm oil, and soya.

When launching the Rainforest Project at a WWF dinner in October last year, Prince Charles said that rainforest destruction is responsible for around 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, second only to the energy sector. Further to this, both the Stern review and the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report believe tackling deforestation may be one of the quickest and most cost effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the short term.

Prince Charles also said the following about the deforestation issue:

It seems to me that the central issue in this whole debate is how we put a true value on standing rainforests to the world community – we simply have to find ways of putting a price on them which makes them more valuable alive than dead.

Elaborating on this, Prince Charles says the project’s objective is:

To find innovative ways of paying the countries that are the custodians of the tropical rainforests an appropriate price for the eco-system services they provide and so out-compete the drivers of deforestation.

In today’s money driven society, this makes a lot of sense. After all, if countries are paid more for their eco-systems services than they are for the drivers of deforestation, then they will no longer allow their own rainforests to be destroyed. Furthermore, not only will they see value in keeping their existing rainforests, they will also see value in increasing the size of their rainforests - after all, more rainforest means more money.

How Will The Project Achieve Its Objective?

The project is engaging with rainforest nations, governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations to find the solutions to deforestation.

The project is also backed by 13 major global companies: Shell, Rio Tinto Zinc, McDonald’s, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Sun Media, Sky, Deutsche Bank, Man Group, KPMG, Barclays Bank, Finsbury and the European Climate Exchange.

Furthermore, the project is being advised by experts including: Lord Stern; Steve Howard, Chief Executive of the Climate Group; Kevin Conrad, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations; Andrew Mitchell of the Global Canopy Programme; Kristalina Georgieva, Vice President of the World Bank; Reijo Kempinnen, head of the European Commission Representation in the UK; and Barry Gardiner MP.

How You Can Help

You can pledge your support on the Prince’s Rainforest Project website.

Video of Prince Charles Introducing the Rainforest Project

Here’s a video of Prince Charles introducing the Rainforest Project, as well as explaining why he feels this is such an important cause.

Last night, the Australian government released its federal budget, which included increased spending for environmental issues.

Included in the budget, is:

• $200 million will be allocated to protecting the Great Barrier Reef
• $180 million will be allocated to new protected areas
• $150 million to be allocated to Indigenous conservation
• $500 million will be allocated to a fund for development and deployment of clean coal technologies
• $300 million to be used for a “green loan” scheme. Under the scheme, households will be able to borrow up to $10,000 to make their homes more green. This could include installing solar panels, rainwater tanks, greywater recycling, insulation, solar hot water heaters and energy-smart lighting. The loan will only be available to low to middle income households - those who earn less than $100,000 per year. The benefit of this loan is that it’s available at a low interest rate - a maximum of 2 percent of the annual gross income.

• Money will be spent on increasing the market penetration of renewable energy. Currently in Australia, only 8 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources. The government aims to increase that to 20 percent.
• $3 billion to be allocated to water buybacks.
• In total, $12.9 billion will be allocated to “Water for the Future Plan” over the next 10 years in order to improve Australia’s water supplies.

The response to the budget? Mixed. Although more money is being spent on environmental issues, many green groups believe too much is being allocated to the wrong areas, and that not enough is being done about climate change.

Here are some responses from various environmental groups:

• WWF-Australia’s response - Generally happy with the budget, but more action is required.
• Greenpeace’s response to the budget - Disappointed with the lack of measures to attack climate change. Renewable solutions have been sidelined whilst dirty coal is bankrolled.
• The Greens Party’s response - Budget utterly fails climate and oil challenge.