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Endangered Plants And The Changing Climate | Earth Wise

August 31, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Plants are a critical resource because of the countless ways they support life on Earth. Plants release oxygen into the atmosphere, absorb carbon dioxide, and provide food and habitat for humans and wildlife.  Plants are also used to produce fibers, building materials, and medicines. 

Plants form the backbone of natural ecosystems, and absorb about 30% of all the carbon dioxide emitted by humans each year.  But plants are struggling to adapt in a human-dominated world.  Even though they are easier and cheaper to protect than animals, plants are often overlooked in conservation efforts.

Ironically, conservation efforts appear to be overlooking a key threat to endangered plants.  According to a new study led by researchers from Penn State University, all plants and lichens listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act are sensitive to climate change, but there are few plans in place to address that threat directly. 

The threat that climate change poses to endangered plants and lichens had not been thoroughly evaluated in more than a decade.  In the study, which was recently published in the journal PLOS Climate, the research team adapted existing assessment tools used to examine the threat of climate change for wild animals and applied them to 771 endangered plant species.  The researchers found that all endangered plant and lichen species are at least slightly threatened by climate change, and little is being done to protect the listed species from that threat.

The researchers hope their findings will be used to aid future conservation planning.  After all, plants can live without humans, but humans cannot live without plants.

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Climate change threatens 771 endangered plant and lichen species

Photo, posted June 12, 2014, courtesy of Mark Freeth via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Solar Panels On Canals | Earth Wise

August 25, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There has been growing interest in installing solar panels on top of reservoirs to make use of the available space to make electricity and reduce evaporation.  There has been far less interest in installing solar on canals and aqueducts.  But that is changing and a new project in California is part of that change.

A study by the University of California, Merced estimates that 63 billion gallons of water would be saved by covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals with solar panels.  All that installed solar would generate a significant amount of electricity.

The idea is going to be tested in the Turlock Irrigation District in Central California with Project Nexus, which is the installation of solar panels over 1.8 miles of canals that are between 20 and 110 feet wide.  The panels will sit between 5 and 15 feet off the ground.  UC Merced researchers will study impacts ranging from evaporation to water quality and use the results to make recommendations with respect to wider use of the technology.

California isn’t the first place to put solar on a canal.  India pioneered it on one of the largest irrigation projects in the world.  The Sardar Sarovar dam and canal project brings water to hundreds of thousands of villages in the dry, arid region of India’s Gujarat State.

Meanwhile, the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona received funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to install solar panels on their canals in an effort to save water and reduce stress on the struggling Colorado River.

The world of water infrastructure does not embrace change easily but covering canals with solar panels is an idea whose time may have come.

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Solar panels on water canals seem like a no-brainer. So why aren’t they widespread?

Photo, posted December 11, 2005, courtesy of Dave Parker via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Can All Plant Species Survive? | Earth Wise 

June 9, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many animal populations around the world are struggling and people are mostly to blame.  Species are declining because of all sorts of things including changes in land and sea use, pollution, invasive species, and climate change.

Like many animal species, plants are also struggling to adapt to a human-dominated world.  Plants provide the planet with food, oxygen, and energy, and are used to produce fibers, building materials, and medicines.  Even though plants are easier and cheaper to protect, they are often overlooked in conservation efforts. 

According to a paper recently published in the journal Trends in Plant Science, preventing all future land plant extinctions across the globe is possible with the right approaches.  The author of the paper, Richard Corlett of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in China, writes that “if zero extinction is potentially achievable for plants, a less ambitious target would be inexcusable.” 

According to the paper, one big barrier in plant conservation is the lack of trained specialists, especially in tropical areas where there is a backlog of unidentified species.  It’s likely that many “dark extinctions,” which is when species slip away without us knowing they existed, have already occurred.

Another roadblock in preventing plant extinctions is information access, which can be solved by building an online “metaherbarium.”  This collaborative database would link digitized records from herbarium specimens with photographs, status assessments, and recovery plans.

Finally, the creation of “microreserves” – which are tiny pieces of protected land designed to get around space constraints – would further contribute to effective conservation of targeted plant species. 

Zero plant extinctions should be the goal.   

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‘Zero plant extinction’ is possible, says plant ecologist

Photo, posted May 16, 2008, courtesy of Andrew Otto via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Endangered Language Species

January 14, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There are approximately 7,000 languages spoken in the world today but only about half of them are expected to survive this century.  There are many factors contributing to the decline in languages.  Perhaps the most significant is globalization, which pushes countries and individuals to shift to national or international languages for economic reasons.   Other factors include the lack of support for regional languages in educational systems and mass media, persecution of minority linguistic groups by governments, and disruption of communities during war and emigration.

Predicting which languages will survive and which won’t is difficult.  A potential tipping point for languages is the same one affecting the survival of species:  climate change.  Many small linguistic communities are located on islands and coastlines that are vulnerable to hurricanes and rising sea levels.  Other communities live in places where increases in temperatures and erratic rainfall threaten traditional farming and fishing economies.

These climate-related changes will force communities to relocate,creating climate change refugees. Dispersing these people will lead to the splintering of linguistic communities and the need for the use of other languages.  Such changes will place additional pressures on languages that are already struggling to survive.

There are endangered languages in many places around the world.  Some are exotic such as the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, which is home to dozens of distinct languages spoken by no more than a few thousand people. Others are much closer to home, such as in indigenous communities in Canada.

The rich tapestry of human language is just another of many things threatened by the changing climate.

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The Conversation: The impact of climate change on language loss

Photo, posted May 19, 2009, courtesy of Flickr. 

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Global Vertebrate Population Is Struggling

December 6, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/EW-12-06-18-The-Global-Vertebrate-Population.mp3

According to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund, the planet’s populations of vertebrates have dropped an average of 60% since 1970.

[Read more…] about The Global Vertebrate Population Is Struggling

Polar Bears Are Struggling To Find Food

March 9, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/EW-03-09-18-Polar-Bears-Struggling.mp3

Climate change continues to pose a major threat to polar bear survival.  Polar bears, whose native range largely lies within the Arctic Circle, depend on sea ice for nearly all of their life cycle functions.  And rising global temperatures are causing that sea ice to disappear. 

[Read more…] about Polar Bears Are Struggling To Find Food

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