A related but separate issue with a
similar effect was a report I heard in a discussion rising from the recent
decision of the Ontario government that all teachers in training should pass a
maths test. One commentator I heard,
talking in general about the problem of lack of student results but referring
more particularly to American rather than Canadian experience, said that it was
fruitless to blame teachers for the shortfall of public education when this
could be addressed only by an all-out attack on poverty. It was poverty, he
said, in which whole communities were trapped, that carried with it the
inevitable concomitant disadvantages of a lack of parental attention, a lack of
adequate places conducive for study away from the classroom, a lack of
equipment needed for learning, and a general lack of stability among the
student body because of the inadequacy of family life among hard-pressed
impoverished people: the problems of public education, said this expert
educator, could be addressed only if
poverty was attacked as a priority. Given that, he said, teachers would be able
to do the jobs they were eager to do but were prevented from doing by the
overweening influence of the poverty among their students.
In other words in both cases the
education of under-funded and impoverished students, and the decline of animal
populations whose habitat is being stripped ruthlessly, the problems could be
addressed only if apparently unconnected problems, lack of economic opportunity
poverty, poor education, or the clear-cutting of forests, the advance of global
warming, the ubiquity of pollution, only if these factors could be brought
under control first.
Both these examples seem to argue
that our governance is suffering from not being planned either with a sufficiently
compelling overview, or from a time scale that is inadequate to the provision of
solutions that are coming more clearly into focus every day as essential to our
future.
A lot of this stuff is really scary:
I came across an item on TV yesterday which showed that in Alaska, the trees
have begun to lean over. Why is this? Because the permanently frozen ground in
which these trees are rooted has, because of global warming, begun to melt,
destroying the stable footing of the ground cover.
When I say this is scary, consider
these facts, from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre of the United States: “right
now, the Earth's atmosphere contains about 850 gigatons of carbon. (A gigaton
is one billion tons—about the weight of one hundred thousand school buses). We
estimate that there are about 1,400 gigatons of carbon frozen in permafrost. So
the carbon frozen in permafrost is greater than the amount of carbon that is
already in the atmosphere today.”
Of course
it is unlikely that all of that carbon permanently frozen into the northern
ground will decay and end up in the atmosphere: but we do know that the Arctic
is warming at a faster rate than the more moderate climates, and that this
permafrost has already started to melt in many places. “The trick is to find
out how much of the frozen carbon is going to decay, how fast, and where,”
remarks the Data centre’s web site.
It’s
not as if the figures of carbon concentration in the atmosphere are in any way
reassuring, even if all of the permafrost carbon is not transformed into
methane gas on melting. The latest figures show that global annual mean
CO2concentration has increased by more than 45% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, from 280 ppm during
the 10,000 years up to the mid-18th century to 410 ppm as of mid-2018. The present concentration is the highest in
the last 800,000 and possibly even the last 20 million years. The
increase has been caused by human activities,
particularly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
This increase of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases in Earth's
atmosphere has produced the current episode of global warming.
About 30–40% of the CO2 released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves
into oceans, rivers and lakes, which has produced ocean acidification. (I am indebted to
Wikipedia for these figures.)
In the
149 years between 1751 and 1900, about 12 gigabyte tonnes of carbon were released as CO2 to the atmosphere
from burning of fossil fuels; in the 112 years between 1901 and 2013, the
comparative figure has been 380 gigabyte tonnes. This is enough to scare anybody,
since in spite of our minimal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the
rate appears to be ever-increasing. Imagine throwing the melting of the permafrost
into his mix: it is enough to make one despair of any solution that can
possibly stop global warming from having drastic effects on the lives of the
increasingly crowded nations on this earth.
Put
into this perspective the rapid decline of the numbers of wildlife species in Canada
might seem like a more or less insignificant factor. But on closer inspection, the
figures are alarming. The WWF study monitored 903 wildlife species between 1970
and 2014, of which almost half are in decline, their average being declines of 83 per cent
during the study years.
MAMMALS: Canada is home to approximately 200
mammal species, including blue whales longer than two school buses and tiny
pygmy shrews no heavier than a nickel. Monitored mammal populations shrank by
43 per cent, on average, between 1970 and 2014. Some terrestrial mammals, such
as bats and woodland and barren-ground caribou, show an even more precipitous
drop. Several Canadian whale species have seen populations bounce back since
the baseline year of 1970, thanks in part to the 1972 global and federal ban on
commercial whaling. Yet studies have shown that the already Endangered southern
resident orcas (killer whales) in British Columbia have declined since 1995,
and in the east North Atlantic right whales and the St. Lawrence beluga whales
remain Endangered.
FISH: with nearly 1,050 species, Canada’s fish
species are the most diverse of our vertebrate groups and exports of fish and
seafood products were worth $6.6 billion in 2016. Study shows that fish
populations have
dropped 20 per cent on average between 1970 and
2014, a figure mostly attributable to Atlantic marine. Less is known about
Canada’s180 species of freshwater fishes because of a lack of monitoring and
information about their populations.
BIRDS: Overall, bird populations
in Canada increased on average by seven per cent between 1970 and 2014. But
some separate bird groups show widely differing trends. For instance,
populations of grassland birds in Canada plunged on average by 69 per cent
since 1970. Populations of aerial insectivores, such as swifts and swallows,
fell on average by more than 51 per cent since 1970. Shorebird populations declined on average by
43 per cent since 1970.
REPTILES: Only a small number of
reptile and amphibian species thrive in Canada’s cold climate. Amphibian and
reptile populations declined by 34 per cent on average between 1970 and 2014.
While there’s a comparatively high degree of variation in this trend over time
(the range is 40 to minus 69 per cent), the decline in this group of species is
well documented both in Canada, and around the world. In Canada, 42 per cent of
amphibians and 77 per cent of reptile species were assessed as at risk as of
2014.
As for solutions, the study recommends collective
action. “It is clear we need
to do more to protect species at risk, and to halt the decline of other
wildlife before they land on the at-risk list in the first place. From a
preventative standpoint, we need to maintain sustainable populations, so we
aren’t forced to resort to less effective, reactive and resource intensive
recovery strategies. This is a challenge we must all embrace. We need actions
from all corners of society – from communities, industry, government, all of
us, collectively. As a nation, to increase our chances of solving this problem
together, we need to: Collect and share data on ecosystem health and species
habitat. Our analysis identified a shortfall in wildlife monitoring for certain
ecosystems and regions. As a result, we lack sufficient data to answer key
questions about the status of wildlife and to track and evaluate trends over
time.”
My Log 657 October 30 2018
Chronicles
from the Tenth Decade: 93
Wildlife
populations, failing schools, both argue the need for a wider overview, and
longer term planning
Two
items of news that have come to my notice recently seem to bear striking
similarities. One is the report of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada’s first
ever thorough survey of living animal species and the threats they are under to
their very survival. It is not as if we are setting out to exterminate other
species deliberately, but the effect is the same because of things we are
doing, such as three categories that are named in the WWF report, habitat loss
(probably the most important), climate change, and pollution.
A related but separate issue with a
similar effect was a report I heard in a discussion rising from the recent
decision of the Ontario government that all teachers in training should pass a
maths test. One commentator I heard,
talking in general about the problem of lack of student results but referring
more particularly to American rather than Canadian experience, said that it was
fruitless to blame teachers for the shortfall of public education when this
could be addressed only by an all-out attack on poverty. It was poverty, he
said, in which whole communities were trapped, that carried with it the
inevitable concomitant disadvantages of a lack of parental attention, a lack of
adequate places conducive for study away from the classroom, a lack of
equipment needed for learning, and a general lack of stability among the
student body because of the inadequacy of family life among hard-pressed
impoverished people: the problems of public education, said this expert
educator, could be addressed only if
poverty was attacked as a priority. Given that, he said, teachers would be able
to do the jobs they were eager to do but were prevented from doing by the
overweening influence of the poverty among their students.
In other words in both cases the
education of under-funded and impoverished students, and the decline of animal
populations whose habitat is being stripped ruthlessly, the problems could be
addressed only if apparently unconnected problems, lack of economic opportunity
poverty, poor education, or the clear-cutting of forests, the advance of global
warming, the ubiquity of pollution, only if these factors could be brought
under control first.
Both these examples seem to argue
that our governance is suffering from not being planned either with a sufficiently
compelling overview, or from a time scale that is inadequate to the provision of
solutions that are coming more clearly into focus every day as essential to our
future.
A lot of this stuff is really scary:
I came across an item on TV yesterday which showed that in Alaska, the trees
have begun to lean over. Why is this? Because the permanently frozen ground in
which these trees are rooted has, because of global warming, begun to melt,
destroying the stable footing of the ground cover.
When I say this is scary, consider
these facts, from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre of the United States: “right
now, the Earth's atmosphere contains about 850 gigatons of carbon. (A gigaton
is one billion tons—about the weight of one hundred thousand school buses). We
estimate that there are about 1,400 gigatons of carbon frozen in permafrost. So
the carbon frozen in permafrost is greater than the amount of carbon that is
already in the atmosphere today.”
Of course
it is unlikely that all of that carbon permanently frozen into the northern
ground will decay and end up in the atmosphere: but we do know that the Arctic
is warming at a faster rate than the more moderate climates, and that this
permafrost has already started to melt in many places. “The trick is to find
out how much of the frozen carbon is going to decay, how fast, and where,”
remarks the Data centre’s web site.
It’s
not as if the figures of carbon concentration in the atmosphere are in any way
reassuring, even if all of the permafrost carbon is not transformed into
methane gas on melting. The latest figures show that global annual mean
CO2concentration has increased by more than 45% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, from 280 ppm during
the 10,000 years up to the mid-18th century to 410 ppm as of mid-2018. The present concentration is the highest in
the last 800,000 and possibly even the last 20 million years. The
increase has been caused by human activities,
particularly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
This increase of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases in Earth's
atmosphere has produced the current episode of global warming.
About 30–40% of the CO2 released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves
into oceans, rivers and lakes, which has produced ocean acidification. (I am indebted to
Wikipedia for these figures.)
In the
149 years between 1751 and 1900, about 12 gigabyte tonnes of carbon were released as CO2 to the atmosphere
from burning of fossil fuels; in the 112 years between 1901 and 2013, the
comparative figure has been 380 gigabyte tonnes. This is enough to scare anybody,
since in spite of our minimal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the
rate appears to be ever-increasing. Imagine throwing the melting of the permafrost
into his mix: it is enough to make one despair of any solution that can
possibly stop global warming from having drastic effects on the lives of the
increasingly crowded nations on this earth.
Put
into this perspective the rapid decline of the numbers of wildlife species in Canada
might seem like a more or less insignificant factor. But on closer inspection, the
figures are alarming. The WWF study monitored 903 wildlife species between 1970
and 2014, of which almost half are in decline, their average being declines of 83 per cent
during the study years.
MAMMALS: Canada is home to approximately 200
mammal species, including blue whales longer than two school buses and tiny
pygmy shrews no heavier than a nickel. Monitored mammal populations shrank by
43 per cent, on average, between 1970 and 2014. Some terrestrial mammals, such
as bats and woodland and barren-ground caribou, show an even more precipitous
drop. Several Canadian whale species have seen populations bounce back since
the baseline year of 1970, thanks in part to the 1972 global and federal ban on
commercial whaling. Yet studies have shown that the already Endangered southern
resident orcas (killer whales) in British Columbia have declined since 1995,
and in the east North Atlantic right whales and the St. Lawrence beluga whales
remain Endangered.
FISH: with nearly 1,050 species, Canada’s fish
species are the most diverse of our vertebrate groups and exports of fish and
seafood products were worth $6.6 billion in 2016. Study shows that fish
populations have
dropped 20 per cent on average between 1970 and
2014, a figure mostly attributable to Atlantic marine. Less is known about
Canada’s180 species of freshwater fishes because of a lack of monitoring and
information about their populations.
BIRDS: Overall, bird populations
in Canada increased on average by seven per cent between 1970 and 2014. But
some separate bird groups show widely differing trends. For instance,
populations of grassland birds in Canada plunged on average by 69 per cent
since 1970. Populations of aerial insectivores, such as swifts and swallows,
fell on average by more than 51 per cent since 1970. Shorebird populations declined on average by
43 per cent since 1970.
REPTILES: Only a small number of
reptile and amphibian species thrive in Canada’s cold climate. Amphibian and
reptile populations declined by 34 per cent on average between 1970 and 2014.
While there’s a comparatively high degree of variation in this trend over time
(the range is 40 to minus 69 per cent), the decline in this group of species is
well documented both in Canada, and around the world. In Canada, 42 per cent of
amphibians and 77 per cent of reptile species were assessed as at risk as of
2014.
As for solutions, the study recommends collective
action. “It is clear we need
to do more to protect species at risk, and to halt the decline of other
wildlife before they land on the at-risk list in the first place. From a
preventative standpoint, we need to maintain sustainable populations, so we
aren’t forced to resort to less effective, reactive and resource intensive
recovery strategies. This is a challenge we must all embrace. We need actions
from all corners of society – from communities, industry, government, all of
us, collectively. As a nation, to increase our chances of solving this problem
together, we need to: Collect and share data on ecosystem health and species
habitat. Our analysis identified a shortfall in wildlife monitoring for certain
ecosystems and regions. As a result, we lack sufficient data to answer key
questions about the status of wildlife and to track and evaluate trends over
time.”
