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Climate change will also make us more stupid

31 08 2021

Most people are at least vaguely aware that climate change isn’t good for us.

Let’s consider the obvious direct health effects, like heat exhaustion and stroke, dehydration, increased inhalation of particulate matter from bushfires and other pollutant sources, greater expression of allergies, higher incidence of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, greater injury rates, and higher probability of disease transmission from flooding events (see review here).

Let’s not forget the rising incidence of mental illness either.

Then there are the climatic events that increase the probability of dying violently like in a bushfire or a flood, getting caned in a major storm by debris, personal injury from storm surges exacerbated by rising sea levels, or dying slowly due to undernutrition from crop failures.

Some of the more indirect, yet just-as-insidious repercussions are those climate-driven events that worsen all of the above, such as increasing poverty, rising violent interactions (both individual-level and full-on warfare), loss of healthcare capability (less infrastructure, fewer doctors), and increased likelihood of becoming a refugee.

Watts *et al*. 2015 *The Lancet* 386:1861-1914

So, when someone says increased warming at the pace we’re witnessing now isn’t a problem, tell them they’re full of shit.

But wait! There’s more!

Yes, climate change will also make us more stupid. Perhaps one of the lesser-appreciated byproducts of an increasingly warmer world driven by rising greenhouse-gas concentrations is the direct effects of carbon dioxide on a variety of physiological functions.

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Tags: Carbon dioxide, climate change, CO2, cognitive capacity, death, disease, health, human health
Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, carbon, climate change, coasts, disease, education, Endarkenment, extremism, famine, flood, food, health, human overpopulation, poverty, societies

Influential conservation papers of 2020

19 12 2020

Following my late-December tradition, I present — in no particular order — a retrospective list of the ‘top’ 20 influential papers of 2020 as assessed by experts in Faculty Opinions (formerly known as F1000). See previous years’ lists here: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.

Life in fluctuating environments — “… it tackles a fundamental problem of bio-ecology (how living beings cope with the fluctuations of the environment) with a narrative that does not make use of the cumbersome formulas and complicated graphs that so often decorate articles of this kind. Instead, the narrative and the illustrations are user-friendly and easy to understand, while being highly informative.“

Forest carbon sink neutralized by pervasive growth-lifespan trade-offs — “… deals with a key process in the global carbon cycle: whether climate change (CC) is enhancing the natural sink capacity of ecosystems or not.“

Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy — “… explores different scenarios about the consequences of habitat conversion on terrestrial biodiversity.“

Rebuilding marine life — “The logic is: leave nature alone, and it will come back. Not necessarily as it was before, but it will come back.“

Towards a taxonomically unbiased European Union biodiversity strategy for 2030 — “… states that the emperor has no clothes, providing an estimate of the money dedicated to biodiversity conservation (a lot of money) and then stating that the bulk of biodiversity remains unstudied and unprotected, while efforts are biased towards just a few “popular” species.“

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Tags: agriculture, ammonium, bioecology, carbon cycle, Climate, climate disruption, CO2, diversification, environmental variation., European Union, farming, food, food security, Forest, genetic rescue, Global warming, governance, MPA, nitrate, outbreeding, Soil, soil biodiversity, synchrony, topoclimates, weather, weathering
Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, biodiversity, birds, cattle, climate change, conservation, conservation biology, deforestation, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, exploitation, extinction, fisheries, habitat loss, marine, marine protected area, protected area, research, science, sustainability

Influential conservation ecology papers of 2019

24 12 2019

As I’ve done for the last six years, I am publishing a retrospective list of the ‘top’ 20 influential papers of 2019 as assessed by experts in F1000 Prime (in no particular order). See previous years’ lists here: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.

Decline of the North American avifauna — … the first comprehensive assessment of population change in the North American avifauna.

Scientists’ warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change — … [highlights] the crucial role of microbial transformations in determining set points for sea temperature, pH and ocean productivity … [identifies] microbial activity as the “life support system of the biosphere”.

(Note: Lots of people hated this one, basically because it appears to be severely flawed; nonetheless, it received several recommendations on F1000): The global tree restoration potential — … illustrates the substantial potential of capturing some of the excess carbon dioxide present in the earth’s atmosphere by planting trees.

Managing the middle: a shift in conservation priorities based on the global human modification gradient — … probably the best global assessment of spatial extent of human modification of natural terrestrial environments published to date.

Five decades of northern land carbon uptake revealed by the interhemispheric CO₂ gradient — … [concludes] that northern hemisphere [sic] vegetation and soil account for the majority of the terrestrial carbon sink, rather than tropical forests (not trying to display too many sour grapes here, but we’ve already reported this for the boreal forest, and they didn’t even bother to cite us — sad panda)

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Tags: agriculture, biodiversity, birds, carbon, carbon uptake, climate change, climate emergency, CO2, conservation, declines, drought, extinction, Fish, fisheries, forests, insects, marine ecology, microorganisms, pesticides, range edges, trees, urban biodiversity, wilderness
Categories : agriculture, anthropocene, biodiversity, biogeography, biowealth, birds, carbon, climate change, climate shift, community ecology, connectivity, conservation, conservation biology, conservation ecology, decline, deforestation, demography, ecology, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, environmental science, exploitation, extinction, extinction debt, fish, fisheries, function, habitat loss, harvest, marine, planning, pollution, protected area

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss XXXV

8 03 2016

Another six biodiversity cartoons for you this week (see here for why I provide six each time). See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

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