NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

I just returned from a terrific symposium on “Climate Change and Adaptive Conservation” in San Diego that was sponsored by the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project. Some of the talks were downright chilling. But probably not chilling enough to combat global warming.

I wish I had good news to bring back from this conference. Unfortunately, it’s just the opposite. I learned the situation is worse than what has been predicted recently by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international body of scientists who specialize in climatology.

Ellie Cohen, president and chief executive of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, led off the conference with her keynote talk on “California, Conservation and Climate Change.” She said the most recent U.S. data, from 2005-07, shows the planet is heating faster than predicted.

“Climate change is accelerating,” she said. “There will be no ice in summer in the Arctic in the next three to five years.”

Glacial and polar ice is melting faster than scientists thought would happen. More than 160 sub-glacial lakes have been discovered in the Antarctic recently. The glaciers have been melting from below. What this means is that many of the computer models used to forecast changing climate have been off. Way off. Rises in temperature and sea level that had been predicted for a hundred years from now are likely to happen within the next 20-30 years. Yikes.

California can expect an increase in sea level by three feet in the next couple of decades, Cohen said, and a 20-foot rise by the end of this century. What does this mean for Huntington Beach, a coastal city with eight miles of beach and essentially no sea walls? Shouldn’t the city be planning for this scenario right now to protect lives, homes and property?

The biggest increase in carbon dioxide that has been seen in the past million years has happened in the past 17 years. Cohen said we can expect those rare, 100-year floods to happen every 10 years now, with more frequent levee failures. We also will see more intense summer heat, more drought and even more destructive wildfires.

Our water supply will also be affected. Old predictions were that we would lose 70-90% of the Sierra snow pack by 2075. That timetable will need to be moved way up, leaving society less time to adapt and find new strategies for supplying water for drinking and growing food.

But this conference didn’t address the issue of homes going under water or our water supply. The primary focus was on how to modify our thinking about restoration and ecology to preserve as much species diversity as possible in the face of a rapidly changing climate.

Cohen gave numerous examples of changes that are already being seen as wildlife attempts to adapt to this sea of change. Two-thirds of migratory bird species have changed their spring arrival dates in response to an earlier spring.

Crissal thrashers and phainopeplas, two fairly rare bird species that live in our local deserts, failed to breed at all during the drought year of 2006. These birds were already declining in number. A few years of no breeding success could wipe them out.

Pikas, or rock rabbits, are cute hamster-like critters that live on high altitude rocky slopes. When I went mountain climbing in the Colorado Rockies during my youth, I enjoyed seeing these adorable animals busily harvesting grasses and wildflowers. They made hay to tide themselves through the snowy winter months. Vic and I usually see pikas on his summer field trips to the Eastern Sierras. But we didn’t see any last summer.

Pikas are dying off as mountain slopes warm. Cohen said pikas used to live at elevations of 7,800 feet and above, but with climate change, they are now only at 9,000 feet and above. They are running out of mountain, and 95% of them are gone already. Pikas have already become functionally extinct.

Pikas are only one of many species that face doom. With the temperature rise we are already committed to based on the amount of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, we may lose 20-30% of the species on Earth.

If we don’t curb carbon dioxide emissions immediately — and we’re obviously not going to do that because there are no viable alternatives to fossil fuels at this time — then 40-70% of the world’s species will be gone by the end of this century.

No more polar bears, no more tigers, no more elephants, no more California least terns, no more clapper rails, no more a lot of things.

We can no longer do business as usual. We need different strategies to deal with this rapid climate change, because it is coming even sooner than expected.

Cohen said we will need to kick the carbon habit, replacing fossil fuels with eco-friendly renewable energy. And we need to make conservation a priority. Somehow, we need to build a bigger, better ark, and fast if we hope to preserve as much genetic diversity as possible. Time is running out.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].