Editor’s note: “That repair should be the main goal of the environmental movement. Unlike the Neverland of the Tilters’ solutions, we have the technology for prairie and forest restoration, and we know how to use it. And the grasses will be happy to do most of the work for us.” “To actively repair the planet requires understanding the damage. The necessary repair—the return of forests, prairies, and wetlands—could happen over a reasonable fifty to one hundred years if we were to voluntarily reduce our numbers.” Deep Green Resistance
The Eurasian beaver, once a common sight across Europe, had disappeared almost entirely by the end of the 16th century thanks to hunting and river modification for agriculture and engineering.
But beavers are making a comeback across the UK and several other countries. They have already been released into the wild in Scotland and within enclosed river sections in England. Now expanding the wild release of beavers across England is on the cards.
Ecosystem recovery, increased biodiversity, flood protection and improved water quality are some of the upsides of having beavers around. But reintroducing wild animals to the landscape is always going to involve trial and error, and it’s vital to understand the possible consequences – both good and bad.
The beaver is a gifted environmental engineer, able to create its own ecological niche – matching itself perfectly to its environment – by building dams. These dams are made from materials the beaver can carry or float – typically wood, stones and mud, but also fence posts, crops from nearby fields, satellite dishes and old kids’ toys.
The dam creates a peaceful, watery home for beaver families to sleep, eat and avoid predators. And the effects of dam building ripple outwards, with the potential to transform entire ecosystems.
Our review of beaver impacts considers evidence from across Europe and North America, where wild beaver populations have been expanding since around the 1950s.
Our review of beaver impacts considers evidence from across Europe and North America, where wild beaver populations have been expanding since around the 1950s.
Water
There is clear evidence that beaver dams increase water storage in river landscapes through creating more ponds and wetlands, as well as raising groundwater levels. This could help rivers – and their inhabitants – handle ever more common weather extremes like floods and droughts.
If you observe beaver dams in the wild, water often comes very close to the top of their dams, suggesting they might not be much help in a flood. Nonetheless, some studies are finding that beaver dams can reduce flood peaks, likely because they divert water onto floodplains and slow downstream flow. However, we don’t know whether beaver dams reliably reduce floods of different sizes, and it would be unwise to assume they’re always capable of protecting downstream structures.
The good news is that it seems all the extra water dams store could help supplement rivers during dry periods and act as critical refuges for fish, amphibians, insects and birds during droughts.
Pollution
Beaver dams increase the time it takes for things carried by rivers to move downstream. In some cases, this can help slow the spread of pollutants like nitrates and phosphates, commonly used in fertilisers, which can harm fish and damage water quality.
Beavers’ impact on phosphates is unclear, with just as many studies finding phosphorus concentrations increasing downstream of beaver dams as those finding a decrease or no change. But beavers seem especially skilled at removing nitrate: a welcome skill, since high concentrations of nitrates in drinking water could endanger infant health.
Recovering diversity
All that water storage means beavers create a wonderful mosaic of still-, slow- and fast-moving watery habitats. In particular, they increase the biodiversity of river valleys, for example helping macro-invertebrates like worms and snails – key to healthy food chains – to thrive.
But nuance is key here. Evidence of beaver dam impacts on fish populations and river valley vegetation, for example, is very mixed. Because they are such great agents of disturbance, beavers promote plants that germinate quickly, like woody shrubs and grasses.
While this can reduce forest cover and help some invasive plants, given time it can also help create valleys with a far richer mosaic of plant life. So although beaver presence is likely to bring benefits, more research is needed to get clearer on precisely how beavers change ecosystems.
Net zero carbon
Beavers are great at trapping carbon by storing organic matter like plant detritus in slow-flowing ponds. However, this also means beaver ponds can be sources of greenhouse gases, like CO₂ and methane, that contribute to the greenhouse effect. This led one author to wonder “whether the beaver is aware the greenhouse effect will reduce demand for fur coats”.
Can beavers still be helpful in achieving net zero carbon? The short-term answer is probably yes, since more carbon seems to be trapped than released by beaver activities.
However, long-term outcomes are less clear, since the amount of carbon that beavers keep in the ground depends on how willing they are to hang around in a river valley – and how willing we are to let them. A clearer understanding of where beavers fit within the carbon cycle of river systems is needed if we are to make best use of their carbon capture skills.
Management
Beavers are reentering landscapes under human dominance, the same thing that originally drove them from vast swathes of European river systems.
In the UK, this means they’ll lack natural predators and may be in competition with cows and sheep for food: possibly resulting in unsteady wild population trajectories.
Although good data on long-term beaver activity is available from Sweden, Norway and Switzerland, our different climate and landscapes mean it’s hard to make a straightforward comparison.
Beavers’ use in rewilding can be incredibly cost-effective, as dam construction and the biodiversity benefits that flow from it is done largely for free. But we need to be tolerant of uncertainty in where and when they choose to do their work.
Working with wild animals – who probably don’t share our priorities – is always an unpredictable process. The expansion of beavers into the wild has a bright future so long as we can manage expectations of people who own and use beaver-inhabited land.
One morning in 2009, I sat on a creaky bus winding its way up a mountainside in central Costa Rica, light-headed from diesel fumes as I clutched my many suitcases. They contained thousands of test tubes and sample vials, a toothbrush, a waterproof notebook and two changes of clothes.
I was on my way to La Selva Biological Station, where I was to spend several months studying the wet, lowland rainforest’s response to increasingly common droughts. On either side of the narrow highway, trees bled into the mist like watercolours into paper, giving the impression of an infinite primeval forest bathed in cloud.
As I gazed out of the window at the imposing scenery, I wondered how I could ever hope to understand a landscape so complex. I knew that thousands of researchers across the world were grappling with the same questions, trying to understand the fate of tropical forests in a rapidly changing world.
Bonnie Waring conducting research at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, 2011.
Author provided
Our society asks so much of these fragile ecosystems, which control freshwater availability for millions of people and are home to two thirds of the planet’s terrestrial biodiversity. And increasingly, we have placed a new demand on these forests – to save us from human-caused climate change.
Plants absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere, transforming it into leaves, wood and roots. This everyday miracle has spurred hopes that plants – particularly fast growing tropical trees – can act as a natural brake on climate change, capturing much of the CO₂ emitted by fossil fuel burning. Across the world, governments, companies and conservation charities have pledged to conserve or plant massive numbers of trees.
But the fact is that there aren’t enough trees to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be. I recently conducted a review of the available scientific literature to assess how much carbon forests could feasibly absorb. If we absolutely maximised the amount of vegetation all land on Earth could hold, we’d sequester enough carbon to offset about ten years of greenhouse gas emissions at current rates. After that, there could be no further increase in carbon capture.
Yet the fate of our species is inextricably linked to the survival of forests and the biodiversity they contain. By rushing to plant millions of trees for carbon capture, could we be inadvertently damaging the very forest properties that make them so vital to our wellbeing? To answer this question, we need to consider not only how plants absorb CO₂, but also how they provide the sturdy green foundations for ecosystems on land.
How plants fight climate change
Plants convert CO₂ gas into simple sugars in a process known as photosynthesis. These sugars are then used to build the plants’ living bodies. If the captured carbon ends up in wood, it can be locked away from the atmosphere for many decades. As plants die, their tissues undergo decay and are incorporated into the soil.
While this process naturally releases CO₂ through the respiration (or breathing) of microbes that break down dead organisms, some fraction of plant carbon can remain underground for decades or even centuries. Together, land plants and soils hold about 2,500 gigatonnes of carbon – about three times more than is held in the atmosphere.
Because plants (especially trees) are such excellent natural storehouses for carbon, it makes sense that increasing the abundance of plants across the world could draw down atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.
Plants need four basic ingredients to grow: light, CO₂, water and nutrients (like nitrogen and phosphorus, the same elements present in plant fertiliser). Thousands of scientists across the world study how plant growth varies in relation to these four ingredients, in order to predict how vegetation will respond to climate change.
This is a surprisingly challenging task, given that humans are simultaneously modifying so many aspects of the natural environment by heating the globe, altering rainfall patterns, chopping large tracts of forest into tiny fragments and introducing alien species where they don’t belong. There are also over 350,000 species of flowering plants on land and each one responds to environmental challenges in unique ways.
Due to the complicated ways in which humans are altering the planet, there is a lot of scientific debate about the precise quantity of carbon that plants can absorb from the atmosphere. But researchers are in unanimous agreement that land ecosystems have a finite capacity to take up carbon.
If we ensure trees have enough water to drink, forests will grow tall and lush, creating shady canopies that starve smaller trees of light. If we increase the concentration of CO₂ in the air, plants will eagerly absorb it – until they can no longer extract enough fertiliser from the soil to meet their needs. Just like a baker making a cake, plants require CO₂, nitrogen and phosphorus in particular ratios, following a specific recipe for life.
In recognition of these fundamental constraints, scientists estimate that the earth’s land ecosystems can hold enough additional vegetation to absorb between 40 and 100 gigatonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. Once this additional growth is achieved (a process which will take a number of decades), there is no capacity for additional carbon storage on land.
But our society is currently pouring CO₂ into the atmosphere at a rate of ten gigatonnes of carbon a year. Natural processes will struggle to keep pace with the deluge of greenhouse gases generated by the global economy. For example, I calculated that a single passenger on a round trip flight from Melbourne to New York City will emit roughly twice as much carbon (1600 kg C) as is contained in an oak tree half a meter in diameter (750 kg C).
Peril and promise
Despite all these well recognised physical constraints on plant growth, there is a proliferating number of large scale efforts to increase vegetation cover to mitigate the climate emergency – a so called “nature-based” climate solution. The vastmajority of these efforts focus on protecting or expanding forests, as trees contain many times more biomass than shrubs or grasses and therefore represent greater carbon capture potential.
Yet fundamental misunderstandings about carbon capture by land ecosystems can have devastating consequences, resulting in losses of biodiversity and an increase in CO₂ concentrations. This seems like a paradox – how can planting trees negatively impact the environment?
The answer lies in the subtle complexities of carbon capture in natural ecosystems. To avoid environmental damage, we must refrain from establishing forests where they naturally don’t belong, avoid “perverse incentives” to cut down existing forest in order to plant new trees, and consider how seedlings planted today might fare over the next several decades.
Before undertaking any expansion of forest habitat, we must ensure that trees are planted in the right place because not all ecosystems on land can or should support trees. Planting trees in ecosystems that are normally dominated by other types of vegetation often fails to result in long term carbon sequestration.
One particularly illustrative example comes from Scottish peatlands – vast swathes of land where the low-lying vegetation (mostly mosses and grasses) grows in constantly soggy, moist ground. Because decomposition is very slow in the acidic and waterlogged soils, dead plants accumulate over very long periods of time, creating peat. It’s not just the vegetation that is preserved: peat bogs also mummify so-called “bog bodies” – the nearly intact remains of men and women who died millennia ago. In fact, UK peatlands contain 20 times more carbon than found in the nation’s forests.
But in the late 20th century, some Scottish bogs were drained for tree planting. Drying the soils allowed tree seedlings to establish, but also caused the decay of the peat to speed up. Ecologist Nina Friggens and her colleagues at the University of Exeter estimated that the decomposition of drying peat released more carbon than the growing trees could absorb. Clearly, peatlands can best safeguard the climate when they are left to their own devices.
The same is true of grasslands and savannahs, where fires are a natural part of the landscape and often burn trees that are planted where they don’t belong. This principle also applies to Arctic tundras, where the native vegetation is covered by snow throughout the winter, reflecting light and heat back to space. Planting tall, dark-leaved trees in these areas can increase absorption of heat energy, and lead to local warming.
But even planting trees in forest habitats can lead to negative environmental outcomes. From the perspective of both carbon sequestration and biodiversity, all forests are not equal – naturally established forests contain more species of plants and animals than plantation forests. They often hold more carbon, too. But policies aimed at promoting tree planting can unintentionally incentivise deforestation of well established natural habitats.
A recent high-profile example concerns the Mexican government’s Sembrando Vida programme, which provides direct payments to landowners for planting trees. The problem? Many rural landowners cut down well established older forest to plant seedlings. This decision, while quite sensible from an economic point of view, has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of hectares of mature forest.
This example demonstrates the risks of a narrow focus on trees as carbon absorption machines. Many well meaning organisations seek to plant the trees which grow the fastest, as this theoretically means a higher rate of CO₂ “drawdown” from the atmosphere.
Yet from a climate perspective, what matters is not how quickly a tree can grow, but how much carbon it contains at maturity, and how long that carbon resides in the ecosystem. As a forest ages, it reaches what ecologists call a “steady state” – this is when the amount of carbon absorbed by the trees each year is perfectly balanced by the CO₂ released through the breathing of the plants themselves and the trillions of decomposer microbes underground.
This phenomenon has led to an erroneous perception that old forests are not useful for climate mitigation because they are no longer growing rapidly and sequestering additional CO₂. The misguided “solution” to the issue is to prioritise tree planting ahead of the conservation of already established forests. This is analogous to draining a bathtub so that the tap can be turned on full blast: the flow of water from the tap is greater than it was before – but the total capacity of the bath hasn’t changed. Mature forests are like bathtubs full of carbon. They are making an important contribution to the large, but finite, quantity of carbon that can be locked away on land, and there is little to be gained by disturbing them.
What about situations where fast growing forests are cut down every few decades and replanted, with the extracted wood used for other climate-fighting purposes? While harvested wood can be a very good carbon store if it ends up in long lived products (like houses or other buildings), surprisingly little timber is used in this way.
Similarly, burning wood as a source of biofuel may have a positive climate impact if this reduces total consumption of fossil fuels. But forests managed as biofuel plantations provide little in the way of protection for biodiversity and some research questions the benefits of biofuels for the climate in the first place.
Fertilise a whole forest
Scientific estimates of carbon capture in land ecosystems depend on how those systems respond to the mounting challenges they will face in the coming decades. All forests on Earth – even the most pristine – are vulnerable to warming, changes in rainfall, increasingly severe wildfires and pollutants that drift through the Earth’s atmospheric currents.
Some of these pollutants, however, contain lots of nitrogen (plant fertiliser) which could potentially give the global forest a growth boost. By producing massive quantities of agricultural chemicals and burning fossil fuels, humans have massively increased the amount of “reactive” nitrogen available for plant use. Some of this nitrogen is dissolved in rainwater and reaches the forest floor, where it can stimulate tree growth in some areas.
As a young researcher fresh out of graduate school, I wondered whether a type of under-studied ecosystem, known as seasonally dry tropical forest, might be particularly responsive to this effect. There was only one way to find out: I would need to fertilise a whole forest.
Working with my postdoctoral adviser, the ecologist Jennifer Powers, and expert botanist Daniel Pérez Avilez, I outlined an area of the forest about as big as two football fields and divided it into 16 plots, which were randomly assigned to different fertiliser treatments. For the next three years (2015-2017) the plots became among the most intensively studied forest fragments on Earth. We measured the growth of each individual tree trunk with specialised, hand-built instruments called dendrometers.
Dendrometer devices wrapped around tree trunks to measure growth.
Author provided
We used baskets to catch the dead leaves that fell from the trees and installed mesh bags in the ground to track the growth of roots, which were painstakingly washed free of soil and weighed. The most challenging aspect of the experiment was the application of the fertilisers themselves, which took place three times a year. Wearing raincoats and goggles to protect our skin against the caustic chemicals, we hauled back-mounted sprayers into the dense forest, ensuring the chemicals were evenly applied to the forest floor while we sweated under our rubber coats.
Unfortunately, our gear didn’t provide any protection against angry wasps, whose nests were often concealed in overhanging branches. But, our efforts were worth it. After three years, we could calculate all the leaves, wood and roots produced in each plot and assess carbon captured over the study period. We found that most trees in the forest didn’t benefit from the fertilisers – instead, growth was strongly tied to the amount of rainfall in a given year.
One of the baskets for catching dead leaves.
Author provided
This suggests that nitrogen pollution won’t boost tree growth in these forests as long as droughts continue to intensify. To make the same prediction for other forest types (wetter or drier, younger or older, warmer or cooler) such studies will need to be repeated, adding to the library of knowledge developed through similar experiments over the decades. Yet researchers are in a race against time. Experiments like this are slow, painstaking, sometimes backbreaking work and humans are changing the face of the planet faster than the scientific community can respond.
Humans need healthy forests
Supporting natural ecosystems is an important tool in the arsenal of strategies we will need to combat climate change. But land ecosystems will never be able to absorb the quantity of carbon released by fossil fuel burning. Rather than be lulled into false complacency by tree planting schemes, we need to cut off emissions at their source and search for additional strategies to remove the carbon that has already accumulated in the atmosphere.
Does this mean that current campaigns to protect and expand forest are a poor idea? Emphatically not. The protection and expansion of natural habitat, particularly forests, is absolutely vital to ensure the health of our planet. Forests in temperate and tropical zones contain eight out of every ten species on land, yet they are under increasing threat. Nearly half of our planet’s habitable land is devoted to agriculture, and forest clearing for cropland or pasture is continuing apace.
Meanwhile, the atmospheric mayhem caused by climate change is intensifying wildfires, worsening droughts and systematically heating the planet, posing an escalating threat to forests and the wildlife they support. What does that mean for our species? Again and again, researchers have demonstrated strong links between biodiversity and so-called “ecosystem services” – the multitude of benefits the natural world provides to humanity.
Carbon capture is just one ecosystem service in an incalculably long list. Biodiverse ecosystems provide a dizzying array of pharmaceutically active compounds that inspire the creation of new drugs. They provide food security in ways both direct (think of the millions of people whose main source of protein is wild fish) and indirect (for example, a large fraction of crops are pollinated by wild animals).
Natural ecosystems and the millions of species that inhabit them still inspire technological developments that revolutionise human society. For example, take the polymerase chain reaction (“PCR”) that allows crime labs to catch criminals and your local pharmacy to provide a COVID test. PCR is only possible because of a special protein synthesised by a humble bacteria that lives in hot springs.
As an ecologist, I worry that a simplistic perspective on the role of forests in climate mitigation will inadvertently lead to their decline. Many tree planting efforts focus on the number of saplings planted or their initial rate of growth – both of which are poor indicators of the forest’s ultimate carbon storage capacity and even poorer metric of biodiversity. More importantly, viewing natural ecosystems as “climate solutions” gives the misleading impression that forests can function like an infinitely absorbent mop to clean up the ever increasing flood of human caused CO₂ emissions.
Luckily, many big organisations dedicated to forest expansion are incorporating ecosystem health and biodiversity into their metrics of success. A little over a year ago, I visited an enormous reforestation experiment on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, operated by Plant-for-the-Planet – one of the world’s largest tree planting organisations. After realising the challenges inherent in large scale ecosystem restoration, Plant-for-the-Planet has initiated a series of experiments to understand how different interventions early in a forest’s development might improve tree survival.
But that is not all. Led by Director of Science Leland Werden, researchers at the site will study how these same practices can jump-start the recovery of native biodiversity by providing the ideal environment for seeds to germinate and grow as the forest develops. These experiments will also help land managers decide when and where planting trees benefits the ecosystem and where forest regeneration can occur naturally.
Viewing forests as reservoirs for biodiversity, rather than simply storehouses of carbon, complicates decision making and may require shifts in policy. I am all too aware of these challenges. I have spent my entire adult life studying and thinking about the carbon cycle and I too sometimes can’t see the forest for the trees. One morning several years ago, I was sitting on the rainforest floor in Costa Rica measuring CO₂ emissions from the soil – a relatively time intensive and solitary process.
As I waited for the measurement to finish, I spotted a strawberry poison dart frog – a tiny, jewel-bright animal the size of my thumb – hopping up the trunk of a nearby tree. Intrigued, I watched her progress towards a small pool of water held in the leaves of a spiky plant, in which a few tadpoles idly swam. Once the frog reached this miniature aquarium, the tiny tadpoles (her children, as it turned out) vibrated excitedly, while their mother deposited unfertilised eggs for them to eat. As I later learned, frogs of this species (Oophaga pumilio) take very diligent care of their offspring and the mother’s long journey would be repeated every day until the tadpoles developed into frogs.
It occurred to me, as I packed up my equipment to return to the lab, that thousands of such small dramas were playing out around me in parallel. Forests are so much more than just carbon stores. They are the unknowably complex green webs that bind together the fates of millions of known species, with millions more still waiting to be discovered. To survive and thrive in a future of dramatic global change, we will have to respect that tangled web and our place in it.
Editor’s note: Of course this proposal has to be framed with the usual politicians blabla and pledges about “prosperous agriculture”, “affordable, reliable clean energy” and “revitalizing the economy”, which are all bright green lies. Apart from that, any dam that will really physically be removed is a step into the right direction and an absolutely necessary measure to save the last remaining wild salmon.
This article first appeared on Truthout and was produced in partnership with Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute
Featured image: chinook and orca – NOAA Fisheries
By Amy Souers Kober
It’s hard to put into words what wild salmon mean to the Pacific Northwest. They are the heartbeat of the region’s rivers, and the annual return of salmon from the Pacific Ocean helps sustain a web of life in the Columbia River Basin that includes more than 130 species, from eagles to black bears to orcas. These incredible fish have been a cornerstone of Indigenous cultures for thousands of years.
“Our story, and that of the salmon, is one of perseverance and resilience and thriving,” said Dr. Sammy Matsaw, a Shoshone-Bannock tribal member, veteran and co-founder of the nonprofit River Newe. “We’re still here and we’re still strong. This is about who we are and who we want to be.”
Migrations are common among many species, but the journey that the salmon make is one of the most amazing. Salmon hatch from eggs laid in the gravel of clear, cold mountain streams. After hatching, the young salmon ride swift river currents downstream to the ocean. Their bodies undergo amazing physiological changes as they transition from living in freshwater to saltwater. And then they eventually go back to freshwater: After a couple of years in the ocean, the adult salmon find their way back to the same spawning beds in the same rivers where they were born.
Idaho salmon make one of the world’s most epic migrations, swimming 900 miles and climbing over a mile in elevation from the Pacific Ocean up the Columbia and Snake Rivers to mountain streams where they spawn and die, beginning the circle of life again.
But salmon runs in the Columbia and Snake Rivers are in trouble, in large part because of the damage to their natural habitat by hydropower dams.
‘Inexcusable’
The Snake River was historically the biggest salmon producer in the Columbia Basin, with an estimated “2 million to 6 million fish… [returning to] the Snake River and its tributaries” each year, according to Russ Thurow, a fisheries research scientist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Boise, Idaho, who was quoted in the Idaho Mountain Express. But “[b]y 1995, only 1,200 wild Chinook reached the Snake River basin,” said Thurow.
According to scientists, the steep decline in the wild Snake River salmon population can be attributed to the construction of the four lower Snake River dams in eastern Washington, built “between 1955 and 1975 to turn the inland town of Lewiston, Idaho, into a seaport.” These four federally owned and operated dams have caused a precipitous decline in wild salmon and steelhead trout in the Snake River Basin, driving some populations to extinction and landing the rest on the endangered species list. “Sockeye salmon from the Snake River system are probably the most endangered salmon,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey. “Coho salmon in the lower Columbia River may already be extinct.”
As Chinook salmon grow ever more scarce, they are pulling another Northwest icon—Southern Resident orcas—toward extinction. This population of orcas migrates back and forth between Puget Sound, the Salish Sea and the Washington and Oregon coasts. One of the main factors for the Southern Resident orcas being critically endangered is the lack of food, with Chinook salmon making up “more than 80 percent of their diet.” In the U.S., the Columbia-Snake River watershed is the most important source of salmon for orcas. The four lower Snake River dams not only interrupt the free-flowing water but also kill “millions of Chinook juveniles” as the salmon attempt to make their way to the ocean.
One orca mother, Tahlequah, made national news in 2018 when she carried the body of her dead calf for 17 days. The region mourned with her. The heartbreak galvanized people across the Northwest to demand solutions.
Over the past 20 years, the federal government and Northwest taxpayers have made massive investments in salmon recovery in the Columbia-Snake River Basin, totaling more than $17 billion. These actions, including modifications to dam operations, have been necessary to reverse the impacts of historic habitat loss, overharvest, and the damage caused by hydropower projects, but have not been sufficient to recover salmon and steelhead to healthy, harvestable and sustainable numbers.
In the short documentary film The Greatest Migration by Save Our Wild Salmon, Ed Bowles, who has run the fish division of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for the past two decades, said, “Historically, the Columbia River was the biggest salmon producer in the world… We are now struggling at around 1 percent of their historical potential. That is inexcusable for a system that is so iconic, a species that is so iconic, a system that is so magnificent.”
‘We Choose Salmon’
For decades, Northwest tribes have been spearheading salmon recovery solutions in the Columbia-Snake River Basin and regionwide. The Nimíipuu, or Nez Percé, Tribe adopted its first resolution advocating for the removal of the four lower Snake River dams in 1999. Removing these dams would restore 140 miles of the lower Snake River and improve access to more than 5,000 miles of pristine habitat in places like Idaho’s Salmon and Clearwater River systems.
In a 2020 statement, Shannon F. Wheeler, then chairman of the Nez Percé Tribal Executive Committee, said, “We view restoring the lower Snake River as urgent and overdue. To us, the lower Snake River is a living being, and, as stewards, we are compelled to speak the truth on behalf of this life force and the impacts these concrete barriers on the lower Snake have on salmon, steelhead, and lamprey, on a diverse ecosystem, on our Treaty-reserved way of life, and on our people.”
Today, tribal leaders are raising their voices again. In May 2021, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians—a group representing 57 Northwest tribal governments—passed a resolution calling for the breaching of the lower Snake dams. The resolution calls on Congress and the Biden administration to “seize the once-in-a-lifetime congressional opportunity to invest in salmon and river restoration in the Pacific Northwest, charting a stronger, better future for the Northwest, and bringing long-ignored tribal justice to our peoples and homelands.”
“Restoring the lower Snake River will allow salmon, steelhead and lamprey to flourish in the rivers and streams of the Snake Basin,” said Kat Brigham, chair of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) Board of Trustees in a February 8 press release. “This has long been a priority because these are the CTUIR’s ancestral traditional use areas, such as the Grande Ronde, Imnaha, Lostine, Minam, Tucannon and Wallowa Rivers and their tributaries.”
“We have reached a tipping point where we must choose between our Treaty-protected salmon and the federal dams, and we choose salmon,” Yakama Nation Tribal Council Chairman Delano Saluskin, was quoted saying in a press release.
‘America’s Most Endangered River’
My organization, American Rivers, named the Snake River “America’s Most Endangered River for 2021” because of the urgent need for action to save the salmon—and the opportunity to come up with a bold, comprehensive solution. In February, Congressman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) proposed a $33.5 billion package of infrastructure investments, including removing the lower Snake dams, to recover salmon runs and boost clean energy, agriculture and transportation across the region.
Showing his personal compassion toward the cause of salmon recovery, Simpson described salmon as “the most incredible creatures, I think, that God has created,” according to a 2019 article.
Meanwhile, a presentation titled, “The Northwest in Transition: Salmon, Dams and Energy,” on Simpson’s website states, “The question I am asking the Northwest delegation, governors, tribes and stakeholders is ‘do we want to roll up our sleeves and come together to find a solution to save our salmon, protect our stakeholders and reset our energy system for the next 50 plus years on our terms?’ Passing on this opportunity will mean we are letting the chips fall where they may for some judge, future administration or future [C]ongress to decide our fate on their terms. They will be picking winners and losers, not creating solutions.”
Since Simpson released his proposal, other members of the Northwest congressional delegation have joined the conversation. In May, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) spoke in favor of a comprehensive solution, saying, “People in the Pacific Northwest [need to] engage with one another.”
“Let’s dive in and do it rather than pretend that somehow this is going to go away. … That’s just not going to cut it,” he said.
Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington) and Washington Governor Jay Inslee also released a statement in favor of a collaborative, comprehensive solution for salmon and the region.
No matter which proposal ultimately gains traction, American Rivers and other salmon advocates believe that we need meaningful immediate action and funding to remove the lower Snake dams and replace their benefits. Prioritizing the following five goals is essential to long-term solutions for salmon recovery and improving the present Northwest infrastructure:
1. Healthy rivers, abundant salmon: Restoration of the lower Snake River, along with the funding and implementation of habitat restoration and fish protection projects, will provide the most favorable river conditions possible for salmon, steelhead and other native fish species.
2. Honoring promises to tribes: Restoring abundant, harvestable salmon will honor the promises made to Northwest tribes by upholding their right to access fish and will benefit tribes from the inland Northwest to the coast.
3. Prosperous agriculture: Infrastructure upgrades will ensure irrigation from a free-flowing lower Snake River continues to support the farms that currently rely on surface diversions and wells for their orchards, vineyards and other high-value crops. Investments in the transportation system will allow farmers, who currently ship their grain to market using river barges, to transport their products via rail.
4. Affordable, reliable clean energy: The energy currently produced by the four lower Snake River dams can be replaced by a clean energy portfolio that includes solar, wind, energy efficiency and storage. Diversifying energy sources will improve the electric system’s reliability. Funding for energy storage, grid resiliency and optimization would allow the Northwest to maintain its legacy of clean and affordable energy.
5. Revitalizing the economy: Infrastructure investments in energy and transportation would mean more family-wage jobs, the impact of which ripples out in communities throughout the region. A restored lower Snake River would strengthen local economies by creating new opportunities for outdoor recreation, which will help support local businesses, including outfitters, lodging and restaurants.
A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity
Time is of the essence. Climate change is warming Northwest rivers, creating deadly conditions for endangered salmon. Meanwhile, the salmon runs continue to decline. Northwest tribes have called for a major salmon summit this summer to underscore the urgency of these issues.
It is time for bold action from Northwest leaders. The region’s congressional delegation has a strong history of crafting innovative, bipartisan solutions to challenging water and river issues. And we’ve seen powerful, collaborative dam removal efforts come together on other rivers across the country, from Maine’s Penobscot to Oregon and California’s Klamath. Now, with President Biden considering a national infrastructure package, the government has an opportunity to secure significant regional investment—and advance the biggest river restoration effort the world has ever seen. A well-crafted solution on a swift timeline would benefit the nation as a whole by restoring salmon runs, bolstering clean energy and strengthening the economy of one of the most dynamic regions in the country.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“The salmon are a life source that we all depend on. Just as we are united with each other, we are also united with the salmon,” said Samuel Penney, Nez Perce chairman. “We are all salmon people.”
Amy Souers Kober is the vice president of communications for American Rivers.
The living planet and nonhumans both have the right to exist. Human flourishing depends on healthy ecology. To save the planet, humans must live within the limits of the natural world; therefore, drastic lifestyle transformations need to occur at social, cultural, economic, political, and personal levels.
LIFESTYLISTS
Humans depend on nature, and technology probably won’t solve environmental issues, but political engagement is either impossible or unnecessary. The best we can do is practice self-reliance, small-scale living, and other personal solutions. Withdrawal will change the world.
BRIGHT GREENS
Environmental problems exist and are serious, but green technology and design, along with ethical consumerism, will allow a modern, high-energy lifestyle to continue indefinitely. The bright greens’ attitude amounts to: “It’s less about nature, and more about us.”
WISE USE / ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGERS
Ecological issues exist, but most problems are minor and can be solved through proper management. Natural resources should be protected primarily to enable their continued extraction and human well-being.
CORNUCOPIANS
The earth is made up of resources that are essentially infinite. Ecological problems are secondary. Technology and the economic system—whether free-market capitalism or socialism—will solve all ecological problems.
TECHNOCRATS / TRANSHUMANISTS
Humans should transcend biology by investing heavily in technology and developing synthetic meats and other foods. We can also avoid the possibility of human extinction by leaving planet Earth behind, and we should ultimately move towards cybernetic enhancement and uploading human consciousness into machines in order to defeat death.
In her “Letter to Greta Thunberg” series, Katie Singer explains the real ecological impacts of so many modern technologies on which the hope for a bright green (tech) future is based on.
Even when reality is harsh, I prefer it. I’d rather engineers say that my water could be off for three hours than tell me that replacing the valve will take one hour. I prefer knowing whether or not tomatoes come from genetically modified seed. If dyeing denim wreaks ecological hazards, I’d rather not keep ignorant.
The illusion that we’re doing good when we’re actually causing harm is not constructive. With reality, discovering true solutions becomes possible.
As extreme weather events (caused, at least in part, by fossil fuels’ greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions) challenge electrical infrastructures, we need due diligent evaluations that help us adapt to increasingly unpredictable situations—and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ecological damage. I have a hard time imagining a future without electricity, refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, phones and vehicles. I also know that producing and disposing of manufactured goods ravages the Earth.
Internationally, governments are investing in solar photovoltaics (PVs) because they promise less ecological impacts than other fuel sources. First, I vote for reviewing aspects of solar systems that tend to be overlooked.
Coal-fired power plants commonly provide electricity to smelt silicon for solar panels. Photo credit: Petr Štefek
Hazards of Solar Photovoltaic Power 1. Manufacturing silicon wafers for solar panels depends on fossil fuels, nuclear and/or hydro power. Neither solar nor wind energy can power a smelter, because interrupted delivery of electricity can cause explosions at the factory. Solar PV panels’ silicon wafers are “one of the most highly refined artifacts ever created.”[1] Manufacturing silicon wafers starts with mining quartz; pure carbon (i.e. petroleum coke [an oil byproduct] or charcoal from burning trees without oxygen); and harvesting hard, dense wood, then transporting these substances, often internationally, to a smelter that is kept at 3000F (1648C) for years at a time. Typically, smelters are powered by electricity generated by a combination of coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydro power. The first step in refining the quartz produces metallurgical grade silicon. Manufacturing solar-grade silicon (with only one impurity per million) requires several other energy-intensive, greenhouse gas (GHG) and toxic waste-emitting steps. [2] [3] [4]
2. Manufacturing silicon wafers generates toxic emissions In 2016, New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation issued Globe Metallurgical Inc. a permit to release, per year: up to 250 tons of carbon monoxide, 10 tons of formaldehyde, 10 tons of hydrogen chloride, 10 tons of lead, 75,000 tons of oxides of nitrogen, 75,000 tons of particulates, 10 tons of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 40 tons of sulfur dioxide and up to 7 tons of sulfuric acid mist. To clarify, this is the permittable amount of toxins allowed annually for one metallurgical-grade silicon smelter in New York State. [5] Hazardous emissions generated by silicon manufacturing in China (the world’s leading manufacturer of solar PVs) likely has significantly less regulatory limits.
3. PV panels’ coating is toxic PV panels are coated with fluorinated polymers, a kind of Teflon. Teflon films for PV modules contain polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and fluorinated ethylene (FEP). When these chemicals get into drinking water, farming water, food packaging and other common materials, people become exposed. About 97% of Americans have per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs) in their blood. These chemicals do not break down in the environment or in the human body, and they can accumulate over time. [6] [7] While the long-term health effects of exposure to PFAs are unknown, studies submitted to the EPA by DuPont (which manufactures them) from 2006 to 2013 show that they caused tumors and reproductive problems in lab animals. Perfluorinated chemicals also increase risk of testicular and kidney cancers, ulcerative colitis (Crohn’s disease), thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension (pre-eclampsia) and elevated cholesterol. How much PTFEs are used in solar panels? How much leaks during routine operation—and when hailstorms (for example) break a panels’ glass? How much PTFE leaks from panels discarded in landfills? How little PFA is needed to impact health?
4. Manufacturing solar panels generates toxic waste. In California, between 2007 and the first half of 2011, seventeen of the state’s 44 solar-cell manufacturing facilities produced 46.5 million pounds of sludge (semi-solid waste) and contaminated water. California’s hazardous waste facilities received about 97 percent of this waste; more than 1.4 million pounds were transported to facilities in nine other states, adding to solar cells’ carbon footprint. [8]
5. Solar PV panels can disrupt aquatic insects’ reproduction. At least 300 species of aquatic insects (i.e. mayflies, caddis flies, beetles and stoneflies) typically lay their eggs on the surface of water. Birds, frogs and fish rely on these aquatic insects for food. Aquatic insects can mistake solar panels’ shiny dark surfaces for water. When they mate on panels, the insects become vulnerable to predators. When they lay their eggs on the panels’ surface, their efforts to reproduce fail. Covering panels with stripes of white tape or similar markings significantly reduces insect attraction to panels. Such markings can reduce panels’ energy collection by about 1.8 percent. Researchers also recommend not installing solar panels near bodies of water or in the desert, where water is scarce. [9]
Solar PV users may be unaware of their system’s ecological impacts. Photo credit: Vivint Solar from Pexels
6. Unless solar PV users have battery backup (unless they’re off-grid), utilities are obliged to provide them with on-demand power at night and on cloudy days. Most of a utility’s expenses are dedicated not to fuel, but to maintaining infrastructure—substations, power lines, transformers, meters and professional engineers who monitor voltage control and who constantly balance supply of and demand for power. [10] Excess power reserves will increase the frequency of alternating current. When the current’s frequency speeds up, a motor’s timing can be thrown off. Manufacturing systems and household electronics can have shortened life or fail catastrophically. Inadequate reserves of power can result in outages.
The utility’s generator provides a kind of buffer to its power supply and its demands. Rooftop solar systems do not have a buffer.
In California, where grid-dependent rooftop solar has proliferated, utilities sometimes pay nearby states to take their excess power in order to prevent speeding up of their systems’ frequency. [11]
Rooftop solar (and wind turbine) systems have not reduced fossil-fuel-powered utilities. In France, from 2002-2019, while electricity consumption remained stable, a strong increase in solar and wind powered energy (over 100 GW) did not reduce the capacity of power plants fueled by coal, gas, nuclear and hydro. [12]
Comparing GHG emissions generated by different fuel sources shows that solar PV is better than gas and coal, but much worse than nuclear and wind power. A solar PV system’s use of batteries increases total emissions dramatically. Compared to nuclear or fossil fuel plants, PV has little “energy return on energy Invested.” [13]
7. Going off-grid requires batteries, which are toxic. Lead-acid batteries are the least expensive option; they also have a short life and lower depth of discharge (capacity) than other options. Lead is a potent neurotoxin that causes irreparable harm to children’s brains. Internationally, because of discarded lead-acid batteries, one in three children have dangerous lead levels in their blood. [14] Lithium-ion batteries have a longer lifespan and capacity compared to lead acid batteries. However, lithium processing takes water from farmers and poisons waterways. [15] Lithium-ion batteries are expensive and toxic when discarded. Saltwater batteries do not contain heavy metals and can be recycled easily. However, they are relatively untested and not currently manufactured.
8. Huge solar arrays require huge battery electric storage systems (BESS). A $150 million battery storage system can provide 100 MW for, at most, one hour and eighteen minutes. This cannot replace large-scale delivery of electricity. Then, since BESS lithium-ion batteries must be kept cool in summer and warm in winter, they need large heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) systems. (If the Li-ion battery overheats, the results are catastrophic.) Further, like other batteries, they lose their storage capacity over time and must be replaced—resulting in more extraction, energy and water use, and toxic waste. [16]
9. Solar PV systems cannot sufficiently power energy guzzlers like data centers, access networks, smelters, factories or electric vehicle [EV] charging stations. If French drivers shifted entirely to EVs, the country’s electricity demands would double. To produce this much electricity with low-carbon emissions, new nuclear plants would be the only option. [17] In 2007, Google boldly aimed to develop renewable energy that would generate electricity more cheaply than coal-fired plants can in order to “stave off catastrophic climate change.” Google shut down this initiative in 2011 when their engineers realized that “even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adaptation of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions…. Worldwide, there is no level of investment in renewables that could prevent global warming.” [18]
10. Solar arrays impact farming. When we cover land with solar arrays and wind turbines, we lose plants that can feed us and sequester carbon. [19]
11. Solar PV systems’ inverters “chop” current and cause “dirty” power, which can impact residents’ health. [20]
12. At the end of their usable life, PV panels are hazardous waste. The toxic chemicals in solar panels include cadmium telluride, copper indium selenide, cadmium gallium (di)selenide, copper indium gallium (di)selenide, hexafluoroethane, lead, and polyvinyl fluoride. Silicon tetrachloride, a byproduct of producing crystalline silicon, is also highly toxic. In 2016, The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimated that the world had 250,000 metric tons of solar panel waste that year; and by 2050, the amount could reach 78 million metric tons. The Electric Power Research Institute recommends not disposing of solar panels in regular landfills: if modules break, their toxic materials could leach into soil. [21] In short, solar panels do not biodegrade and are difficult to recycle.
To make solar cells more recyclable, Belgian researchers recommend replacing silver contacts with copper ones, reducing the silicon wafers’ (and panels’) thickness, and removing lead from the panels’ electrical connections. [22]
Aerial view of a solar farm. Photo credit: Dsink000
13. Solar farms warm the Earth’s atmosphere.
Only 15% of sunlight absorbed by solar panels becomes electricity; 85% returns to the environment as heat. Re-emitted heat from large-scale solar farms affects regional and global temperatures. Scientists’ modeling shows that covering 20% of the Sahara with solar farms (to power Europe) would raise local desert temperatures by 1.5°C (2.7°F). By covering 50% of the Sahara, the desert’s temperature would increase by 2.5°C (4.5°F). Global temperatures would increase as much as 0.39°C—with polar regions warming more than the tropics, increasing loss of Arctic Sea ice. [23] As governments create “green new deals,” how should they use this modeling?
Other areas need consideration here: dust and dirt that accumulate on panels decreases their efficiency; washing them uses water that might otherwise go to farming. Further, Saharan dust, transported by wind, provides vital nutrients to the Amazon’s plants and the Atlantic Ocean. Solar farms on the Sahara could have other global consequences. [24]
14. Solar PV users may believe that they generate “zero-emitting,” “clean” power without awareness of the GHGs, extractions, smelting, chemicals and cargo shipping involved in manufacturing such systems—or the impacts of their disposal. If our only hope is to live with much less human impact to ecosystems, then how could we decrease solar PVs’ impacts? Could we stop calling solar PV power systems “green” and “carbon-neutral?” If not, why not?
Katie Singer’s writing about nature and technology is available at www.OurWeb.tech/letters/. Her most recent book is An Electronic Silent Spring.
REFERENCES
1. Schwarzburger, Heiko, “The trouble with silicon,” PV Magazine, September 15, 2010.
3. Kato, Kazuhiko, et. al., “Energy Pay-back Time and Life-cycle CO2 Emission of Residential PV Power System with Silicon PV Module,” Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
4. Gibbs, Jeff and Michael Moore, “Planet of the Humans,” 2019 documentary about the ecological impacts and money behind “renewable” power systems, including solar, wind and biomass. www.planetofthehumans.com
7. Rich, Nathaniel, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” January 6, 2016. About attorney Robert Bilott’s twenty-year battle against DuPont for contaminating a West Virginia town with unregulated PFOAs. See also Todd Haynes film, “Dark Waters,” 2019.
9. Egri, Adam, Bruce A. Robertson, et al., “Reducing the Maladaptive Attractiveness of Solar Panels to Polarotactic Insects,” Conservation Biology, April, 2010.
10. “Exhibit E to Nevada Assembly Committee on Labor,” Submitted by Shawn M. Elicegui, May 20, 2025, on behalf of NV Energy.
15. Katwala, Amit, “The spiraling environmental cost of our lithium battery addiction,” 8.5.18; https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact. Choi, Hye-Bin, et al., “The impact of anthropogenic inputs on lithium content in river and tap water,” Nature Communications, 2019.
