Written by Christian Ramp and originally published in The Conversation. This article highlights evidence linking reduction in reproduction of the humpback whale and climate change.
Climate change is having a serious impact on the world’s oceans in various ways, ranging from its devastating effects on tropical coral reefs to melting polar sea ice. But until now, it wasn’t known how these changes could be affecting whale populations.
Globally, humpback whales are increasing in numbers following the end of commercial whaling, but the populations in the northern hemisphere are not recovering to the same extent as those in the southern hemisphere. Our new research confirms that a North Atlantic population has shown a significant decline in the number of calves over the last 15 years.
The Gulf of St Lawrence in Quebec, Canada, has experienced major environmental changes as a result of warmer water and a dramatic reduction in sea ice. These changes have knock-on effects for the whole ecosystem where fluctuations at the bottom of the food web can result in decreases in the abundance of species higher up, including the prey of baleen whales such as schooling fish like herring and capelin.
Humpback whales need to feed intensively during the summer to build up the energy reserves to sustain them for the rest of the year while they fast. The Gulf of St Lawrence is an important summer feeding ground for humpback whales that migrate between the cold, productive waters of the North Atlantic and the warmer waters of their Caribbean breeding ground every year.
Disinformation is dangerous. We fight it with facts and expertise
Fewer mothers with calves have been sighted in the Gulf of St Lawrence over the last two decades, so we wanted to investigate if the major environmental changes recorded in the area could be affecting their breeding success.
We collected small biopsy samples of blubber from adult female humpback whales between 2004 and 2018 to measure reproductive hormones, and effectively carry out a pregnancy test. Colleagues at MICS were able to identify these females from their markings and follow the same individuals over several decades. So every year we knew if they returned to the Gulf of St Lawrence with a calf.
There are only a handful of other whale populations in the world that are studied in such detail. We are the first to combine this long-term information collected over 15 years about their calving rates with pregnancy rates to determine how many pregnancies were successful.
We found that humpback whale pregnancy rates were highly variable over the study period, but 39% of pregnancies were unsuccessful. Annual calving rates declined significantly from approximately 40% to 20% over the 15 years. Working with colleagues at DFO, we gathered information on the annual abundance of their prey as well as data on overall environmental productivity.
Our study confirmed that changes in these environmental data were linked to the decline in calving rates.
The probability of observing mother-calf pairs was related to favourable environmental conditions in the previous year, especially with the abundance of herring, one of their main prey. These results suggest that environmental changes in the Gulf of St Lawrence have resulted in declines in herring abundance, and this is negatively affecting the breeding success of the humpback whales.
We believe this decline could – at least in part – be the result of females being unable to build up the energy reserves needed to sustain pregnancy and meet the energetic demands of nourishing their young in years of poorer feeding availability.
Future of baleen whales
It was previously thought that baleen whales could show some resilience to climate change because of their ability to change their migratory patterns, or switch prey species, for example, if the location, timing or abundance of their main prey changed. However, our research shows that their ability to respond in these ways may not be enough to prevent their breeding success from being impacted by environmental change.
Continued monitoring of this humpback population in the Gulf of St Lawrence is required to assess how the observed decline in calving rates will affect population growth and viability.
A study led by researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia, predicted declines in baleen whale populations in the Southern Ocean as a consequence of reduced prey availability such as copedpods and krill, and increasing competition between whale species in response to diminishing food stocks caused by climate change.
Here, together with studies on North Atlantic right whales and Southern Resident killer whales we show that the effects of climate change and environmental variability could be already being felt in northern hemisphere whale populations.
It is possible that other, less-well studied whale populations are also experiencing declines in their breeding success. While it may not be possible to redress the balance in the short term, what we can do now is minimise other potential stressors on these species, particularly human disturbance, and help them to maximise their ability to reproduce successfully.
DGR are grateful to The Conversation and Christian Ramp for highlighting the facts surrounding these circumstances.
This article was originally published on January 13, 2021 in The Conversation, known for academic rigour. The authors fight disinformation with facts and expertise.
Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood.
The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now.
The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades.
The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own. Our paper was authored by 17 leading scientists, including those from Flinders University, Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Our message might not be popular, and indeed is frightening. But scientists must be candid and accurate if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face.
Getting to grips with the problem
First, we reviewed the extent to which experts grasp the scale of the threats to the biosphere and its lifeforms, including humanity. Alarmingly, the research shows future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than experts currently believe.
This is largely because academics tend to specialise in one discipline, which means they’re in many cases unfamiliar with the complex system in which planetary-scale problems — and their potential solutions — exist.
What’s more, positive change can be impeded by governments rejecting or ignoring scientific advice, and ignorance of human behaviour by both technical experts and policymakers.
More broadly, the human optimism bias – thinking bad things are more likely to befall others than yourself – means many people underestimate the environmental crisis.
Numbers don’t lie
Our research also reviewed the current state of the global environment. While the problems are too numerous to cover in full here, they include:
a halving of vegetation biomass since the agricultural revolution around 11,000 years ago. Overall, humans have altered almost two-thirds of Earth’s land surface
about 1,300 documentedspecies extinctions over the past 500 years, with many more unrecorded. More broadly, population sizes of animal species have declined by more than two-thirds over the last 50 years, suggesting more extinctions are imminent
about one million plant and animal species globally threatened with extinction. The combined mass of wild mammals today is less than one-quarter the mass before humans started colonising the planet. Insects are also disappearing rapidly in many regions
85% of the global wetland area lost in 300 years, and more than 65% of the oceans compromised to some extent by humans
a halving of live coral cover on reefs in less than 200 years and a decrease in seagrass extent by 10% per decade over the last century. About 40% of kelp forests have declined in abundance, and the number of large predatory fishes is fewer than 30% of that a century ago.
Major environmental-change categories expressed as a percentage relative to intact baseline. Red indicates percentage of category damaged, lost or otherwise affected; blue indicates percentage intact, remaining or unaffected. Frontiers in Conservation Science
A bad situation only getting worse
The human population has reached 7.8 billion – double what it was in 1970 – and is set to reach about 10 billion by 2050. More people equals more food insecurity, soil degradation, plastic pollution and biodiversity loss.
High population densities make pandemics more likely. They also drive overcrowding, unemployment, housing shortages and deteriorating infrastructure, and can spark conflicts leading to insurrections, terrorism, and war. Essentially, humans have created an ecological Ponzi scheme. Consumption, as a percentage of Earth’s capacity to regenerate itself, has grown from 73% in 1960 to more than 170% today.
High-consuming countries like Australia, Canada and the US use multiple units of fossil-fuel energy to produce one energy unit of food. Energy consumption will therefore increase in the near future, especially as the global middle class grows.
Then there’s climate change.
Humanity has already exceeded global warming of 1°C this century, and will almost assuredly exceed 1.5 °C between 2030 and 2052. Even if all nations party to the Paris Agreement ratify their commitments, warming would still reach between 2.6°C and 3.1°C by 2100.
The danger of political impotence
Our paper found global policymaking falls far short of addressing these existential threats. Securing Earth’s future requires prudent, long-term decisions. However this is impeded by short-term interests, and an economic system that concentrates wealth among a few individuals.
Right-wing populist leaders with anti-environment agendas are on the rise, and in many countries, environmental protest groups have been labelled “terrorists”. Environmentalism has become weaponised as a political ideology, rather than properly viewed as a universal mode of self-preservation.
Financed disinformation campaigns, such as those against climate action and forest protection, protect short-term profits and claim meaningful environmental action is too costly – while ignoring the broader cost of not acting. By and large, it appears unlikely business investments will shift at sufficient scale to avoid environmental catastrophe.
Changing course
Fundamental change is required to avoid this ghastly future. Specifically, we and many others suggest:
revealing the true cost of products and activities by forcing those who damage the environment to pay for its restoration, such as through carbon pricing
rapidly eliminating fossil fuels
regulating markets by curtailing monopolisation and limiting undue corporate influence on policy
reigning in corporate lobbying of political representatives
educating and empowering women across the globe, including giving them control over family planning.
The true cost of environmental damage should be borne by those responsible.Shutterstock
Don’t look away
Many organisations and individuals are devoted to achieving these aims. However their messages have not sufficiently penetrated the policy, economic, political and academic realms to make much difference.
Failing to acknowledge the magnitude of problems facing humanity is not just naïve, it’s dangerous. And science has a big role to play here.
Scientists must not sugarcoat the overwhelming challenges ahead. Instead, they should tell it like it is. Anything else is at best misleading, and at worst potentially lethal for the human enterprise.
Authors
Corey J. A. Bradshaw Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University
Daniel T. Blumstein Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles
Paul Ehrlich President, Center for Conservation Biology, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University
Over 90% of the excess heat due to global warming is absorbed by the oceans.
Heat content change in the upper 2000 meters of the global ocean. (Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, January 2021)
Even with the Covid-19-related small dip in global carbon emissions due to limited travel and other activities, the ocean temperatures continued a trend of breaking records in 2020. A new study by 20 scientists from 13 institutes around the world, reported the highest ocean temperatures since 1955 from surface level to a depth of 2,000 meters.The study was published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences on January 13. It concluded with a plea to the policymakers and others to consider the lasting damage warmer oceans that can be caused as they attempt to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“Over 90% of the excess heat due to global warming is absorbed by the oceans, so ocean warming is a direct indicator of global warming — the warming we have measured paints a picture of long-term global warming,” said Dr. Cheng Lijing, lead author of the study and associate professor with the International Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
“However, due to the ocean’s delayed response to global warming, the trends of ocean change will persist at least for several decades, so societies need to adapt to the now unavoidable consequences of our unabated warming. But there is still time to take action and reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases.”
Using a method developed by IAP, the researchers calculated the ocean temperatures and salinity of the oceans down to 2,000 meters with data taking from all available observations from various measurement devices from the World Ocean Database. They found that in 2020 the upper 2,000 meters of the world’s oceans absorbed 20 more Zettajoules than in 2019. By comparison, all human activities use about one-half of a zettajoule each year.
“Why is the ocean not boiling? Because the ocean is vast. We can imagine how much energy the ocean can absorb and contain, and, when it’s released slowly, how big the impact is.”
The researchers reported other effects, such as ocean salinity pattern amplification and more stratification due to the upper layer warming quicker than the deeper sections. Both changes could cause harm to ocean ecosystems.
“The fresh gets fresher; the salty gets saltier. The ocean takes a large amount of global warming heat, buffering global warming. However, the associated ocean changes also pose a severe risk to human and nature systems.”
Cheng noted the 2020 wildfires that ravaged Australia, parts of the Amazon region, and the west coast of the United States.
“Warmer oceans and a warmer atmosphere also promote more intense rainfalls in all storms, especially hurricanes, increasing the risk of flooding. Extreme fires like those witnessed in 2020 will become even more common in the future. Warmer oceans also make storms more powerful, particularly typhoons and hurricanes.”
The researchers will continue to monitor the ocean temperatures and the impacts of warming on other oceanic characteristics, such as salinity and stratification.
“As more countries pledge to achieve ‘carbon neutrality’ or ‘zero carbon’ in the coming decades, special attention should be paid to the ocean. Any activities or agreements to address global warming must be coupled with the understanding that the ocean has already absorbed an immense amount of heat and will continue to absorb excess energy in the Earth’s system until atmospheric carbon levels are significantly lowered.”
For many years, Deep Green Resistance has argued that it’s not “too late” to stop global warming, because scientific predictions for the future never assume that emissions may fall to zero. Now, science has backed up our assertion.
The following is excerpted from a longer article by Bob Berwyn, published on Inside Climate News, and re-posted here with permission from the author.
This is, in our estimation, the most important climate change story of the decade.
Recent research shows that stopping greenhouse gas emissions will break the vicious cycle of warming temperatures, melting ice, wildfires and rising sea levels faster than expected just a few years ago.
“It is our best understanding that, if we bring down CO2 to net zero, the warming will level off. The climate will stabilize within a decade or two,” he said. “There will be very little to no additional warming. Our best estimate is zero.”
The widespread idea that decades, or even centuries, of additional warming are already baked into the system, as suggested by previous IPCC reports, were based on an
“unfortunate misunderstanding of experiments done with climate models that never assumed zero emissions.”
Another recent article, this one in Columbia Journalism Review, quotes climate scientist Michael Mann discussing this new science:
Scientists used to “treat carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as if it was a simple control knob that you turn up” and temperatures climb accordingly, “but in the real world we now know that’s not what happens,” Mann said. Instead, if humans “stop emitting carbon right now … the oceans start to take up carbon more rapidly.” The actual lag effect between halting CO2 emissions and halting temperature rise, then, is not 25 to 30 years but, per Mann, “more like three to five years.”
All of this reflects a critical understanding. Climate change is a symptom. It is not the root problem. A doctor who treats only symptoms of an illness, without addressing the underlying root cause, can never expect to cure the disease.
The same is true of global warming. The root cause of global warming is the contradiction between civilization and the natural world. More simply, our relationship with nature is broken. This root cause must be addressed if we wish to solve the ecological crisis. This research shows what we have long known to be true: global warming should not be our focus. Rather, we should focus on halting the destruction of the natural world. If we do this successfully, the climate will heal.
As with disease, addressing the root cause is the way to fundamentally resolve an illness.
“For years, land and environmental defenders have been the first line of defence against climate breakdown. Yet despite clearer evidence than ever of the crucial role they play, far too many businesses, financiers and governments fail to safeguard their vital and peaceful work.” Globalwitness.org
Colombia, is a country with amazingly diverse ecosystems.
There are also a huge diversity of cultures. In 2019, Colombia was the worst country to be an environmental activist. There was hope this would improve in 2020 but sadly this was not the case. Worse still, Colombia started on new year’s day in 2021 with the murder of young people who were who fought with the guerrilla organization The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and had demobilized to return with their family after the peace agreement was signed in June 2016. FARC signed a ceasefire accord with the President of Colombia. A year later, FARC handed over its weapons to the United Nations. At this point it ceased to be an active, armed group.
The first day of this year started with the execution of a former member of the FARC, Yolanda Mazo aged only 22 and Reina her 17 year old sister. They were murdered in the early morning Friday, January 1st 2021. Yolanda is one of hundreds of activists who have been killed since the signing of the Accords between the Colombian state and the FARC. In addition to the deaths of two young women two union leaders have also been murdered.
Environmental activist found dead.
Most recently, Gonzalo Cardona, the first environmental activist and forest ranger who worked in the protection of the paramo ecosystem was murdered. These ecosystems are regions considered to be “evolutionary hot spots“. The ranger worked to protect this area and several endangered species of birds. He stood for the conservation of the habitat of the yellow eared parrot “loro orejiamarillo” and for the preservation of the natural world from the mining the deforestation and the industrial agriculture.
The systemic and systematic violence on the land and towards the Colombian people is brutal. It is the consequence of the capitalist system, of greed and profit over the health of the natural world and the humans and non-humans that inhabit it. The dominant, violent system depends upon inequality, poverty and repression of social movements to remain in power and when the profit or the power is threatened, they remove the threat.
Who is responsible?
The Colombian government, the military forces, the paramilitary groups and other armed groups are responsible for these deaths, for these murders. All this violence has its roots in land control, exploitation of natural resources and silencing of social movements. The Colombian government, in collusion with national and multinational corporate interests, continue to profit from the destruction of the natural world. They gain political benefits through mining contracts, fracking developments and widespread industrial agriculture. Those in power ensure the elites own the land, reducing the power of the poeple to defend land.
The Colombian government and those who benefits on the land exploitation, continue to attack and discredit social and environmental movements and when they feel threatened people die.
I have been asked to write a letter to someones grandchildren for the solstice. I think this fitting since i have no children. Sometimes i think of the movement as my children and is certainly a consideration when devoting to this path. 7 generations.
To all the grandchildren i have this message for you. As some of you know the world is in dire condition. Many of you have been born into a world where your existence and quality of life is questionable. Despite this please try to rise to the occasion and meet the challenges of your generation head on with dignity and determination. Defend your communities and the natural world. Challenge yourself to learn your roots. It helps to know where your coming from to know where your going. Try to get back to your roots before industrial civilization. Form sustainable habits. Find ways to give back to the earth who truly is our mother and source of your true power. Benefit and restore her whenever possible. Stick up for people. Stick up for all the creatures of the world the swimmers, the four legged, those crawlers and those who fly. Extinction is a major issue you will face in your lifetime. It will be difficult. Do it anyway. More people are coming to join you because there is no turning away from this truth. You will face climate catastrophe. Over 200 species go extinct each day. In the Anishinaabe wolf story it explains that what happens to the wolf will also happen to human kind. Remember not to be so worried about what people think of you that it prevents you from making a stand. On difficult days try to remember the animals and forests you fought for. Your causes. Put some water or tobacco on the ground from time to time.
If there was any wisdom i wanted to leave the youth was that we set out to prove wolves are sacred to the tribes of Turtle Island and they are. Wolves like humans in their ancient forms are what science calls a keystone species. This means they benefit the natural world around them. Its a compass telling you where to go, where to return to. How to find your way home.
Regularly study martial arts. One of the most useful things you can do for this world. Keep your self capable, and fortified. Do this for the planet so you can respond in defense of her, do this for your community, your family, lastly do this for yourself. This way you can protect. Solve problems as they arise. Build your mind and your spirit by building your body. Do this so your as a responsibility to pull your own weight. Be your own security. This is especially important for women so you don’t have to run to a man or the system for help, you can handle it right there on the spot. This is a huge and overlooked solution to many of the problems we face today.
At times it will seem difficult to work with other people and the people will be divided. Seek unity and collaboration where you can and hold it in high regard. The wolf teaches us to work together. That we are strong together. Community. This is the same for humans. Individuality is a lie. Contribute to the lives and well being of others. Seek to deeply understand the meaning of family in life. Be present for them. This is a very important time to be alive. Embrace it.
