Cutting down forests for solar energy ‘misses the point’ of climate action (comment)

I once had a sweet, brown pit bull mix named Thembi who had impressive muscles and a great nose. Often during our walks I felt the leash tighten and knew she had sniffed out something tempting, most likely a squirrel or rabbit. She sniffed excitedly, muzzle to the ground, tracing her prey’s skittish path up and down and around a stretch of dirt road. I remember once seeing a rabbit run away just inches from Thembi’s face. The clever dog completely missed the animal she was tracking because she was so focused on its scent.

I share this story because I fear that’s what we’re doing to the climate: we’re so attached to changes in carbon emissions that we’re overlooking key aspects of climate stabilization – the extent to which ecosystems regulate the climate and the need to preserve and restore them. By doing so, we not only miss opportunities to minimize climate disruption. We also miss the plot.

Because our planet has evolved over billions of years, the main way we regulate temperature is through the water cycle. Water’s phase changes – from solid to liquid to gas and back – mean a huge transfer of heat. As plants pass, moisture moves upwards through the roots and is emitted as steam. This is a cooling mechanism, or a way to dissipate solar heat. You can think of it as plants “collecting” solar energy and releasing it as latent heat contained in water vapor. The reverse process – its meteorological mirror – is condensation, during which water vapor turns into a liquid and heat is released. Where the heat released, whether high in the atmosphere and sent into space, or lower down where it interacts with greenhouse gases, is regulated by ecosystem processes, such as the ability of a healthy forest to pump heat.

The point is that our Earth has developed a finely tuned temperature and humidity regulation system, driven by the life, flora, fauna and fungi that inhabit it and the interactions between them. In what many call the Anthropocene, we often think of nature as passive, a backdrop to the world created by humans. But as ecophilosopher Peter Donovan of the Soil Carbon Coalition says: “Nature doesn’t just sit there and look pretty. It does Work” Much of nature’s work is creating and maintaining the conditions in which nature – life – can thrive.

I recently attended a conference on: Increasing the complexity of nature to ensure climate stability at the Technical University of Munich. One of the main topics was new science on the impact of natural forests on the flow of moisture, and therefore heat, around the world. Think of the forest as a “verb” rather than a “noun.” One of the organizers, theoretical physicist Anastassia Makarieva of the St. Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics, said: “The biosphere is divided into natural ecosystems, which provide stability, and disturbed ecosystems, which cannot do so.”

In other words, our climate can only be as beneficial as the state of our ecosystems. This does not mean that CO2 concentrations are unimportant. Rather, atmospheric carbon can be viewed as a lever that is part of the overall climate regulation system. The second primary lever or variable is clouds, which can retain or reflect heat. Ecological processes triggered by fauna and flora – by life – largely determine the pattern of clouds and thus directly influence cooling and warming.

The good news is that nature has a tendency to heal itself and that even vast, damaged ecosystems can be restored – something I have seen time and time again in fifteen years of environmental reporting. The problem is that climate discussions do not take into account the viability of ecosystems. We’re too busy watching CO2 levels, driving along the jagged, rising line of the Keeling curve, just as Thembi pressed her muzzle to the ground while the rabbit fled.

Unfortunately, our land and seascapes are under constant threat from industry, development and, ironically, the deployment of renewable energy. I’m dealing with the latter in real time, as an 80-plus-acre industrial solar project in nearby Shaftsbury, Vermont, is about to go ahead despite community opposition.

See related: Discovery of wind farm project in Philippine reserve raises alarm

Somehow we are expected to believe that clearing acres of intact forest for solar panels is a good thing from a climate perspective. Across New England, hillsides and abandoned farms are turning to solar energy. Because climate change is seen as an energy problem that can be solved with solar panels, well-intentioned lawmakers have created incentives that, unfortunately, are best exploited by foreign investment firms like the one that has the ax over our trees.

That loss of forest means vulnerability to windstorms and floods (note: in the last 25 years we have had two floods in 500 years) and loss of pollinator and wildlife habitat seems irrelevant when the criteria begins and ends with carbon. This reminds me of what Makarieva said in Munich: “We all love biodiversity… as long as it doesn’t hinder decarbonization.”

One of the key drivers of warming is climate sensitivity: the amount of warming attributable to an increase in CO2 concentrations. Although models vary widely, we know that healthy ecosystems act as a buffer to warming and are therefore harmful lower climate sensitivity – less warming due to increased CO2 emissions. Two simple tools show how natural systems cool our surroundings: how nature works, not just looks pretty.

Czech botanist Jan Pokorny, co-author Water for climate renewal, uses a thermal imaging camera to show it in the landscape. On a summer day, he discovers that the surface of the tree is more than 30 degrees C cooler than the roof of the house. In his video Regenerating Life John Feldman uses an infrared thermometer to measure bare soil (133 degrees F) and grass (88 degrees F), which is a difference of 45 F (a difference of 25 C). Heat from roofs in the Czech Republic and exposed soil in the Hudson Valley will be re-radiated, adding to the heat held by greenhouse gases. These instruments show us where we can reduce heat, invariably by allying with nature.

When nature runs out, there will be “more warming for the same amount of CO2,” Makarieva says. “CO2 has a harder time warming the planet in the presence of healthy ecosystems such as natural forests. The price of losing a hectare of the original ecosystem is already rising.”

To truly tackle climate change, we must protect our natural landscapes and regenerate where we can. Otherwise we’re just like my dog, chasing ghost rabbits.

Judith D. Schwartz is an author who has written for numerous publications, including The American Prospect, The Guardian, Discover, Scientific American, and YaleE360. Her latest book, The Reindeer Chronicles, is a global earth repair journey with stops in Norway, Spain, Hawaii, New Mexico and beyond.

Listen to the author discuss the global ecological restoration movement on the Mongabay podcast, listen here:

Related interview with Anastassia Makarieva and Carlos Nobre discussing how forests regulate and moderate the climate:

Forest modeling is losing water to carbon: Q&A with Antonio Nobre and Anastassia Makarieva