The invasive species problem

Although climate change has gotten the lion's share of the attention when dealing with environmental problems (and with good reason), there are other issues that shouldn't be ignored either. I'm reminded of this by a report that garter snakes (Red-sided, judging from the picture that accompanies the article) are now established and breeding in Newfoundland. Odds are, this won't be the end of the world, of course. Garter snakes are no threat to humans, and the smaller ones prey mostly on things like slugs, most of which breed fairly fast. However, larger ones do eat rodents, and this is a very double-edged thing. On the one hand, they might bring down the numbers of the House Mouse, an invasive species whose drawbacks are obvious. On the other hand, there's apparently a distinct subspecies of the Meadow Vole that is endemic to the island and has no evolutionary reason to fear long slithery critters. If I were the type to lay bets on this sort of thing, I'd bet that the voles will survive and the introduction of garter snakes will not lead to disaster... but nonetheless, this sort of thing is best avoided, because sometimes it becomes a major problem. If the "Asian carp" (actually two different species, the Bighead Carp and the Silver Carp) become established in the Great Lakes, they could devastate the entire ecosystem... unless perhaps another invasive species messes things up for them. Unfortunately, if that happens the mussels will probably also mess things up for the native fish of the ecosystem.

This leads to another point. Quite often, an invasive species has no serious enemies in its adopted home, and when it breeds out of control, like the Gypsy Moth has in North America, the temptation is to introduce another species to control it (swallow the spider to catch the fly and all that). In many cases this is the best option available; the preferred approach for invasive insects is to introduce some parasitic wasp or fly that is fairly specific to the pest you want to control. And indeed, a good many parasitic wasps and flies attack only one or a handful of species. It was most unfortunate that the folks who tackled the Gypsy Moth problem selected a parasite that wasn't host-specific - the tachinid fly Compsilura concinnata, which happily attacks and kills the larvae of various giant silkworm moths such as the Cecropia and Luna. A bit of research should have told them that this could happen; it attacks a lot of species in its native Eurasia too.

What is the moral of this story? It's a lot better to prevent the problem in the first place than to try to fix it after the fact. And if you think dealing with invasive species is a hard problem, imagine how complex geo-engineering is likely to be...

Bjørn Lomborg changes stance on climate change

Better late than never:

Self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" Bjørn Lomborg's call for a $100bn a year global fund for research into climate change solutions was today given a cautious welcome by some leading green groups and thinktanks, but was dismissed by others as politically naive.

A Greenpeace spokesperson welcomed the conversion but said it had come two decades too late for Lomborg to be taken seriously. "At least it confirms the happy maxim that nobody's wrong all the time, apart from Melanie Phillips at the Daily Mail," the spokesperson added.

"It appears that the self-styled sceptical environmentalist is beginning to become less sceptical as he enters middle-age," said Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Mike Childs, adding that Lomborg's volte face would come as a "blow to some in the climate sceptics community".

The controversial Danish statistician, who has never denied man's role in global warming but who has provided an intellectual cover for hard-line climate sceptics, has previously argued that countering climate change should be a low priority for governments. But in his new book Smart Solutions to Climate Change he argues that it should now be addressed "as a priority".

From the Guardian. It suggests that Lomborg has more intellectual honesty than many of us would have given him credit for. Good for him. Childs does raise one issue, though:

"But he is still dangerously attracted to pursuing the cheapest, more risky geo-engineering solutions, is putting too much faith in future technologies and R&D, and is not giving enough support to the urgent need to reduce current emissions through rapid deployment of existing solutions and behavioural changes."

On one level, I agree with Childs' suspicion of geo-engineering; on the other hand, I think that at this stage we'd be foolish not to investigate it. It's better to be working on reducing emissions, of course (especially since many geo-engineering approaches do little or nothing to actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and thus do not solve the ocean acidification problem). Nonetheless, there's a good chance we'll need it the way things are going with everything else, so we'd better be working on that too.

The glaciers and the damage done

No doubt you're aware of the reports that the glaciers on the Himalayas are not melting quite as fast as one scientist predicted. (They're still melting, mind you). Gwynne Dyer tackles the issue head-on here:

People who know science and scientists will be disappointed both by the behaviour of Phil Jones and by the glacier incident, but they will not be surprised. This sort of thing happens from time to time, because we are dealing with human beings. But it does not (as the denial brigade insists) discredit the whole enterprise in which they are engaged.

Not all the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035, but a lot of the ones at lower altitudes will -- including some of the ones that keep the great rivers of Asia full in the summertime. That is important, because when they are gone, people start to starve. And we have all met people who are clever in theory but stupid in practice, like Foolish Phil.

The weight of the evidence rests overwhelmingly on the side of those who argue that climate change is real and dangerous. Some 97 per cent of scientists active in the relevant fields are convinced of it; all but a couple of the world's 200 governments have been persuaded of it; public opinion accepts it almost everywhere except in parts of the "Anglosphere." The United States, and to a lesser extent Australia, Britain and Canada, are the last bastions of denial.

Nothing too shocking here. The thing is, though, the "Anglosphere" has an inordinate amount of influence in the world. This "scandal", which is really about the details of climate change as opposed to the fundamentals, has the potential to seriously limit actions to deal with the problem:

U.S. President Barack Obama will do what he can, but his chance of getting even a very modest bill on emissions cuts through the Senate this year has just dwindled to near zero. The American public, worried about its jobs and its health care, doesn't want to hear about it -- and if it does hear, it doesn't believe.

If the United States is out of the game, then China is out, too. Without the participation of the world's two biggest polluters, jointly accounting for almost half of the human race's CO2 emissions, there's not much point in trying for another Kyoto-style deal, even a much better one. If you have any money lying around, put it on geo-engineering techniques for keeping the heat down. We're going to need them.

I have to say I'm not too keen on geo-engineering. Then again, I'm not too keen on the idea of taking drugs that interfere with cell division either, but if I had cancer I'd take them in a heartbeat. The stupid thing is, it shouldn't be necessary, but it almost certainly will be. Let's just hope that it works.