 Climate Change
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Palm Trees, Coming to a Northern City Near You
A new study published in Scientific Reports discovered that palm trees could make their way northward to one day call Washington, D.C. home. While the city is known for its cherry blossoms, climate change is expanding the latitudinal range where the warm weather-loving trees can propagate and grow.
As Earther noted, "a palm tree’s latitudinal limit is determined by the average temperature of a region’s coldest month. If that average is above 2 degrees Celsius, or 36 degrees Fahrenheit, the palm may be able to successfully propagate in the wild." D.C.'s average January temperature is 34 degrees F which is just a little too cold for palm trees but according to Tammo Reichgelt, one of the authors of the study, we can "expect range expansion in the coming decades as average winter temperatures warm up.” Once this happens, palm seedlings will be able to survive northern winters and the trees will be able to thrive in their new homes.
Alternatively, some tropical regions where palm trees currently thrive may see their average temperatures rise too high for palm trees to withstand.
Why This Matters: "As climate change warms the planet, countless plants and animals are migrating into new habitats made more suitable for their survival. Palm trees are no different." In addition to moving north, climate change is also forcing some species of American trees to move east due to changing rain patterns across our country. More research will help scientists discover how these flora shifts will affect entire ecosystems. Stay tuned.
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 Forests
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International Day of Forests 2018
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UN Urges More Urban Forests
Yesterday was International Forests Day and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations urged investment in urban green spaces that can help cities become more sustainable, resilient, healthy, and equitable places to live as our planet warms. “How we manage forests will determine how we meet this demand,” said Manoel Sobral Filho, Director of the UN Forum on Forests Secretariat (UNFFS)
Urban forests perform many vital functions that help cities such as storing carbon, removing air pollutants, growing food, preventing stormwater runoff, reducing flooding, restoring degraded soils and preventing drought. Forests are home to over 80 percent of biodiversity on land, and urban forests and city parks can provide important habitat for migratory birds and other fauna and flora. Not to mention they make people happier!
Why This Matters: Currently, more than half the world's population lives in cities, and by 2050 this figure is projected to near 70 percent. Although cities occupy only three percent of the Earth's surface, they consume 78 percent of energy and emit 60 percent of carbon dioxide, making measures to mitigate these impacts very important. Globally, there are many urban forestry projects but take a look at these in Mexico City, Beijing, Madrid, and Los Angeles to see how cities are heeding the UN's advice.
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 People
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A Forest Service firefighter works to extinguish a blaze in California’s Klamath National Forest.
Photo: Kari Greer/U.S. Department of Agriculture
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Firefighting Funds Saved
Increased funds to deal with the growing problem of devastating forest fires, like those that struck California last year, was one of the critical issues hanging in the balance in the Congressional negotiations over the "omnibus" $1.3 trillion federal spending bill. But late yesterday, it appeared that Congress reached a compromise to create an emergency pot of money for the U.S. Forest Service to use when it exceeds its fire-suppression budget, so federal agencies no longer have to dip into money set aside for other activities such as fire prevention. E & E News reported last evening that Congress would stock the fund with more than $2 billion a year, which will increase modestly over a 10-year period.
In order to reach an agreement, Members of Congress also eased environmental restrictions on forest thinning in limited situations. Timber companies will also go through a less rigorous approval process for repairing and rebuilding access roads in some areas of national forests. The agreement also included language to limit the effect of a Court of Appeals' 2015 ruling that required the Forest Service to consult more closely with the Fish and Wildlife Service on forest projects that might affect endangered species. However, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wasn't able to secure provisions allowing the harvest of her state's old-growth timber and expanding timber companies' access to roadless areas in national forests.
Why This Matters: Both the Obama and Trump Administrations had been fighting to get Congress to fund firefighting in a more sustainable way -- so that there would be no doubt that the federal government would do everything needed during fire emergencies. But some of the exceptions Congress apparently created to environmental laws and policies that have protected forests from overharvesting may create dangerous precedents for further weakening of these important laws, such as the Endangered Species Act. Still, it is good to see that Members of Congress were able to strike a balance that will protect the public from the increasing threat of forest fires. Given the lack of snowpack in the Rockies this year, it is likely this fund will be used soon and often.
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 Oceans
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Photo: The Ocean Agency via AP and CBS News
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Seychelles and Force Blue Fighting To Keep Coral Alive
Seychelles, a set of remote and far-flung islands in the Indian Ocean, depend on healthy coral reefs for both storm protection and as a draw for tourists that come from all over the world to experience its crystal clear waters. But the islands have been hit hard by coral bleaching caused by warming seas -- in 1998 they lost up to 90 percent of their reefs and then again suffered a devastating bleaching event in 2016. Earlier this year the Seychelles government closed a debt-for-nature swap with large global financial institutions, allowing it to fund coral restoration projects across the country. Now local environmental groups are creating coral nurseries to grow new superstrong corals and transplant them right on top of the skeletons of the old ones.
In the U.S., our coral reefs are also suffering from the same stresses. But we too are working to keep our reefs healthy. ODP recently learned of one very special group, called Force Blue, that is made up of scientists and civilian divers who have enlisted the help of former Navy Seals to protect coral reefs here at home. These special operations veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress are using their combat skills and dive training to saving coral reefs. And the best part is that as these American heroes are healing and saving critically endangered marine ecosystems, they are also healing and saving themselves.
Why This Matters: A new study published in the journal Science last month projected that between bleaching and other threats to coral reefs such as fishing and pollution, coral reefs will reach the tipping point by the end of the century, at which point they would begin dying faster than they can recover. Through restoration projects like these, and the commitment of groups like Force Blue, there is hope that society will recover coral reefs so that we can enjoy them for the foreseeable future. Coral reef ecosystems need all the help they can get to avoid reaching that tipping point.
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The Force Blue project has been turned into a documentary film. Watch the trailer here.
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 Animals
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Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam
As High Country News reported, a District Court judge has now ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must reevaluate its 2015 decision not to consider Yellowstone bison for a threatened or endangered species listing. That means bison could still be granted protections under the Endangered Species Act. If that happens, federal agencies would be required to protect the bison and likely have to alter their culling practices. Currently, Yellowstone's bison herds are culled each year through slaughter and hunting to keep the animals from overgrazing the land, according to park rangers. Nearby ranchers also want the bison off their land so that they don't spread brucellosis to their cattle and compete for grazing land with their herds.
The lawsuit against FWS argued that the agency didn't properly take into account all available scientific literature when deciding on the endangered species listing of the Yellowstone bison. Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the agency to take a second look and wrote that it can't "simply can't pick and choose between contradictory scientific studies" including a Texas A&M study that found evidence of two genetically distinct herds of bison in Yellowstone.
Why This Matters: Yellowstone's current bison management plan sets the target herd size at 3,000 animals for the whole park. If the central and northern herds are genetically different enough for conservation purposes, then the target population of each of the herds should be set at 3,000 (doubling Yellowstone's bison population). The environmental groups that brought the lawsuit against FWS want a more rigorous review process for managing the bison and note that "This process could lead to better protections, and it doesn’t matter for us if it’s through an endangered species act designation or just better protections from the current managing agencies."
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 Sustainability
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McDonald's To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions - We're Lovin' It
The largest restaurant chain in the world, McDonald's, made a huge new commitment this week to reduce its global carbon footprint. McDonald’s announced it will partner with franchisees and suppliers to reduce by 2030 its greenhouse gas emissions by:
- Cutting 36% of total emissions from a 2015 base year; and
- Reducing by 31% its emissions intensity (per metric ton of food and packaging) across its supply chain from 2015 levels.
This combined target has been approved by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) -- the first restaurant to achieve this. How will it accomplish this? They intend to prioritize reduction actions on the largest segments of their carbon footprint -- beef production, restaurant energy usage and sourcing, and packaging and waste. These segments combined account for approximately 64% of McDonald’s global emissions. CEO Steve Easterbrook has also committed the company to reduce antibiotic use in chicken and cut artificial ingredients. And they will do it without doing harm to the bottom line. “We’re not expecting any substantial shift in business financials either at the corporate or restaurant level,” Easterbrook said.
Why This Matters: The carbon footprint of beef, including the emissions from growing feed for cows, along with cow belches, energy use, and deforestation of land for grazing is massive. McDonald’ is one of the world’s largest purchasers of beef. By committing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions at the rate that climate science says is necessary, is a big deal. If they accomplish it, McDonald’s will prevent 150 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from being released into the atmosphere by 2030. This is the equivalent of taking 32 million passenger cars off the road for an entire year, or planting 3.8 billion trees and growing them for 10 years. That is more than any other fast food restaurant chain has promised, and ranks it with Unilever, another food company that has similarly committed by 2030 to source100% of the energy used in its operations from renewables. We hope more global food companies will follow.
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McDonald's Explains its Carbon Reduction Commitment
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