Scrub Dinosaurs

I was almost eaten by a dinosaur at work this afternoon. I was lucky to get home alive. And no, dinosaurs are not a typical threat in my average work day as sampling wetland vegetation in central Florida. Normally, at it’s worst it’s knee-high muck, hot sun, and several indistinguishable species of sedges. But today, I stumbled into another world. After crashing through the scrubby palmettos that surround the ponds I work in, on the way to plot 167, I suddenly left the florida scrub and entered a scene from Jurassic Park.

Already ankle deep in a dark pond, looking around at the unfamiliar landscape I was instantly unnerved. Tall pines shaded the swamp to dusky-dark in the mid afternoon, and fallen and rotting limbs covered by the thick grass clumps created a unseen maze that threaten to trip my every step. The temp dropped 15 degrees and the air was perfectly still, as if nothing living had been there in a very long time. Well, except for the spiders, who were more numerous then I have ever seen- giant orb-weaver webs filled almost every open space at approximately head height. Smaller spiders had stretched nets between every fern.

And the swamp was full of ferns. Ferns dominated areas are always disconcerting, the primitive plant immediately creates a sense of other-worldliness. Suddenly, you’re back in time, before the evolution of flowers and mammals…so that crash in the brush behind you must be ancient as well. Turn quick, but you can’t quite catch a glimpse of the velociraptor that you sense has been watching you. Into the fern-swamp, add plenty of bloodroot, a thick, 3 foot tall plant with its end of season black leaves and stems, and flowers heads that can look like a nest of little black spiders. It looks burnt, charred unnaturally in the middle of a swamp.

Every step and stumbled I took shook up eerie clouds of fern spores, and sent the little spiders scrambling. My heart began to race, adrenaline pumping as I tripped over hidden limbs, knowing that I’d be unable to run if the raptors decided to attack. My hands shook, trying to adjust my GPS and find the plot I needed to survey so that I could get the hell out of there.

Half an hour later, still amazed that the raptors hadn’t jumped out from behind the thick red bay trees, I struggled back out into the palmetto scrub and hot sunshine that I normally work in. Without thinking, back in my natural environment, my body began to relax and I began to realize the absurdity of being scared of a small dark swamp. I’m a biologist for crying out loud, my daily life is mud and bugs and plants. Although not usually dinosaurs. My brain knows it was ridiculous to be in the early stages of a fight or flight response to long extinct predators, but my body couldn’t deny the reality of its fear.

Why does something as simple as a change of scenery, a new set of surroundings, have the power to so thoroughly unnerve us? Sometimes it’s beautiful, the awe-inspiring view when you finally break above the tree line on a long hike as see snow-covered peaks spreading out to the horizon. But it’s disconcerting too, stepping out of your tent for a late night pee into a moonlight, shadowy forest, when we’re used to the electric hum of urban life.

It has a lot to do with the plants. I’m not just saying that because I’m a plant ecologist. When you've grown up surrounded by oaks and maples, a dense tropical forest is subconsciously scary. So are the oaks and maples, if you've just arrived from a lifetime with southwestern cactus or mountain aspen. We all notice the vegetation we live our daily lives in- the territory we know. And, like the animals we still are underneath, I think we subconsciously know that safety and success lie in our awareness of our surrounding. Shaded by unknown trees, with unsure footing, and suddenly, you know you’re out of your element. Whether or not you’re about to slide down a notch or two on the food chain is more of a question of imagination, but the anxiety is there. Thrill too, when you survive, back in the sunshine again.

I know you don’t entirely believe me, I didn’t believe me either, except that the way I felt was unmistakable. I don’t know when I’ll be back at plot 167, and I don’t know what will be lurking in the trees, but I know that stepping into that swamp, my heart will race again. I’ll bring my camera for the dinosaurs too.

The first carbon-neutral state?

They aren't your typical liberal environmentalists. No one has ever accused the Pope of being a tree-hugger. And yet, the Vatican announced this week that they are poised to become the world's first carbon neutral state. A Hungarian organization has donated 37 acres of a reforestation effort in a long degraded region of forest to the Catholic church, a gesture intented to compensate for the Vatican's electricity and transportation.

Cardinal Paul Poupard told the New York Times that "As the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, recently stated, the international community needs to respect and encourage a ‘green culture'. The Book of Genesis tells us of a beginning in which God placed man as guardian over the earth to make it fruitful."

The idea of carbon "offsets" is relatively new, but it is quickly catching on globally. There are many differing "offset" solutions, but the basic idea is that you can support activities that take as much carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as you put in, through heating your house, driving your car, and running your electronics. Some plans, like the Denali Green Tag project, invest your money in renewable energy production, like wind farms and geothermic heating projects. Other projects, like the restoration effort of which the newly christened "Vatican Climate Forest" is a part, plant trees and other natural vegetation. The plants use the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in their growth and photosynthesis, which is why growing, healthy forests are considered a carbon sink. The restored forest is predicted to absorb ten times the carbon dioxide as the current weedy vegettion growing on the land.

It sounds like a great idea. The restoration project will provide jobs. The Vatican doesn't have to feel the guilt of contributing to global warming. The restoration company will make a profit if more companies and/or governments follow the Vatican's lead and invest in these carbon offset programs. So, what's the downside? Well, the science isn't yet settled on the long-term carbon impacts of reforestation. Although this particular restoration project in Hungary's Bükk National Park seems environmentally sound, others are charged with being nothing more than a green-washing propaganda scheme.

Russ George, the CEO of Planktos, the company running the restoration project, has praised the Vatican's environmental leadership. “Not only is the Vatican steadily reducing its carbon footprint with energy efficiency and solar power, its choice of new mixed growth forests to offset the balance of its emissions shows a deep commitment to planetary stewardship as well. It eloquently makes the point that eco-restoration is a fitting climate change solution for a culture of life," George told the Catholic News Agency.

Msgr. Melchor Sánchez de Toca Alameda, an official at the Council for Culture at the Vatican, told the Catholic News Service that buying credits was like doing penance. “One can emit less CO2 by not using heating and not driving a car, or one can do penance by intervening to offset emissions, in this case by planting trees,” he said. (NYTIMES)

This might be an occasion when we all, religious persuasions aside, might want to consider the Catholic Church's example. No, people aren't going to donate parks to us like the Vatican Climate Forest, which is valued at $130,000 in CO2 credits on the European market. But, we all need to think about the global costs of our contribution to the carbon dioxide problem. It's an abstract concept, pollution that's hard to put a price on; so these offset programs are a good starting point to think about the costs of our personal choices. How much to offset your daily commute, if invested in wind power? How many trees would be needed to use the CO2 emitted from your last flight? Sure, many of the carbon offset programs are simply trying to assuage your guilt and take your money, but many are offering a valuable service: putting a price on pollution and letting us find solutions to the growing global warming problem. Good for the Catholic Church for being a leader.

New Home: Hot and Flat

I have moved to the opposite of Alaska. Literally, central Florida is a whole different ballgame. I'm not complaining though, even if I am sweating buckets. It's actually beautiful here, it sort of reminds me of Brazil, not the rainforests, obviously, but the tropical scrub/pasture ecosystems of central brazil look a lot like the scrub and pasture of central Florida. Hot, sunny blue skies on sandy soils and crazy scrub palmetos. Great lightning storms in the early evening too.

I'm working as an intern in the plant ecology lab of the Archbold Biological Station. It's a really interesting place actually, you can look at the website, www.archbold-station.org to see pictures of my new home and read about the work that people are doing here. I'm living in the women's dorm room, which is nice enough, AC thank goodness, and spending my mornings working on a restoration project for the lab, which mostly entails planting native plants in old pastures, and recording lots of info about them. Afternoons will eventually be for my own research, but since I don't have a topic yet, I'm doing a lot of reading trying to find some good ideas.

Everyone here seems really nice so far, there's about 6 other interns living here now, a few more soon to arrive, and also several research assistants and other staff who live on the station as well. So I'm making friends- people are interesting in food and running around outside- so we've got plenty in common. On my run yesterday I saw both an endangered tortoise and an armadillo, so that was pretty exciting. Especially considering that I didn't get very far because it's so darn hot. I saw a rainbow towards the end of my drive in, so I think it's a promising sign.

Drink to your Health?

Put down that Nalgene bottle, health and environmentally concious consumer! That's right, i'm talking to you; tree-hugging backpackers and fit-crazy athletes - it turns out that your hydration habit may not be as good for your health as you think.

Wait? What? Resuable water bottles can't be bad for us, they save tons of fossil fuels and space in the dump by replacing disposable plastic water bottles. They keep us hydrated, which we know is healthier than drinking sodas or sports drinks. It's even financially efficient, for those of us lucky enough to live in countries like the US where we've got safe, clean, free tapwater available.

So we Nalgene addicts thought we were doing something right. Sure, it's a status symbol too, why else does everyone have a water bottle that looks exactly the same, give or take a few faded stickers from cool foriegn countries or hip bands. But, undoubtedly, our intentions were in the right place. So, now it just hurts to find out that our nalgene habit may be seriously hurting our reproductive health.

Bisphenol A is a chemical compund that is used in plastics, like food containers and water bottles. It's been shown to interefere with cellular signalling pathways important to ferility and reproduction, according to materials from Alaska Community Action on Toxics. The potential negative impacts of the popular chemical additives has generated big news, even starring in an article in Vanity Fair last month about protecting one's fertility from the complex, chemical environment we've created for ourselves.

Currently being studied by government funded research, Bisphenol A remains in many of our day to day plastics. Reports indicate that it volitalizes when heated, so that hot water and microwaving can mobilize the chemical into our food and water more rapidly.

Right now, for many of those nalgene carrying young women, fertility is the farthest thing from our minds, except of course for temporary "anti-fertility." But, it's dangerous to believe that our reproductive health isn't something we need to worry about until we are ready to reproduce. 12% of all US reproductive aged couples report problems concieving or carrying a pregancy to term, and it could very well be linked to the unprecended and unstudied chemical exposures in our day to day lives.

So, what's a thristy, environmental, health concious young woman supposed to do now? Luckily, plenty of marketing has caught on to the Bisphenol A contraversy, and there's a fresh new line of aluminum and other non-plastic water bottles hitting the market that are chemical-plastic free. And, as the newest thing, they might end up hip too. Now is your chance to be on the cutting edge in water-bottle technology! So, while one more sip from that old nalgene certainly won't kill you, when you manage to lose this one or just feel ready for a change: make the small switch to a re-usable bottle that might make a big step toward protecting your health.

Campfire in Kongiganak

So, I've decided to use the blog for several purposes, I guess. Primarily, as a place to practice and publish my writing, but also to occasionally keep family and friends up to date on my adventures and whatnot. If you're just here for the science, skip these ones.


I spent last week in a little village of about 350 people on the central-western coast of Alaska named Kongiganak. I was there to help out the campfire program, which is a sort of "fly-in" summer camp program that takes a few counselors and several boxes of supplies to remote villages to teach swimming, water safety and do fun camp stuff. It was a really cool community, everyone was really warm and friendly, and the kids were really sweet. Everyone's first language was Yupik, but the school-aged kids and the adults all spoke english as well. However, talking to the village elders and the young children was basically just a lot of smiling and hardly any verbal understanding.

Unfortunately, I brought bad weather with me from Anchorage, so we didn't get to do much swimming (which was a bummer, that was really why I went) but we did hike on the tundra (wet and squishy- flat like Kansas and full of ponds) and pick the tiny blueberries that covered the ground. We made lots of friendship bracelets, played tag and basketball, and had 75 kids, ages 5-17 at our "camp-in" which we held in the school gym. That's 3 of us against 75 of them. Eeek! But they were pretty good, I managed the s'more making station. Didn't get much sleep, but that's the way it goes I guess.

I had the oppurtunity to listen in on a community meeting with a fish and wildlife officer, which was unfortunately held because someone shot a cow moose and two calves before the season opened, and an anonymous community member called the FWS. Anyways, the town exploded in outrage, defending their subsistence rights and community solidarity, and it was a really interesting dialogue to listen to, even though lots of it was in Yupik.

So, it was a pretty interesting week, really warm people and fun kids, and I learned a lot about how parts of the US can feel like foriegn travel. Especially in the tiny little old planes on the muddy, flooding gravel runways. So it was a good little adventure- something I'm considering as a full time occupation for next summer prehaps.....

A cause in need of a better name....

Activists of every breed know that intrinsic value of having the right terminology. It’s hard to argue against being “Pro-life” or fight for support of female genital mutilation, but when you discuss being “anti-abortion” or the cultural value of circumcision traditions, it changes the shape of the debate. The power to set the tone for the debate is in the terminology. From this word-power perspective, the global movement to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas pollution that is increasing the earth’s insulation and raising temperature is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

They started with “global warming” but that became political incorrect when many people refused to believe the evidence. Now, the evidence has been accepted as “Unequivocal” by the IPCC, and we’re all using the politically correct “Climate Change.” Although it was chosen to emphasize that greenhouse gases will do more damage to the planet than just kick up the thermostat a few degrees, climate change lacks the oomph of a true activist expression.
Worse, as skeptics and a few remaining oil executives will be quick to point out, the climate is always changing, climate change is nothing new or concerning. The frustrating part is that they are right. Climate changes are normal, but we’ve still got a serious problem on our hands with carbon dioxide and its friends. So perhaps we need to find a new word to rally behind, and to do that we need to think about what it about our changing climate we really want to talk about.
Climate is controlled by many factors, on many levels.

For a broad analysis, we can consider climate as being driven by three categories of factors, also known in climatologist lingo as “forcings”. The first category would be external forcings. This includes variations in the Earth’s orbit known as Milankovitch cycles. The planet’s tilt, the curvature of the orbit, and the earth’s wobble on its axis vary on cycles of 23, 41, and about 100 thousand years, and these patterns give rise to the well documented approximately 100,000 year ice age cycles. Other forcings in this category would include variations in incoming solar energy.

The second category of forcings can be considered natural internal forcings. Varying from annual to decadal influences, processes like the El Nino Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation fall into this category. Changes in sea surface temperature and circulation interacts with the atmosphere circulation patterns to change winds, temperatures, and precipitation. Some of these mechanisms, like the ENSO are well understood by scientists, and other undoubtedly have yet to be concretely described.

The third category of climate influences would be anthropogenic internal forcing. This category includes all kinds of factors like deforestation and the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion. Other human forces include aerosol and sulfide pollutions, smog pollutants which actually have a net cooling effect as the pollution clouds reflect solar energy away in a process recently dubbed “global dimming.” Which is not to say that more smog is our solution to our global warming problem, but to demonstrate that our climate is a complicated concept.

Which makes it all the more concerning that human activity is having such a huge impact on the global climate, altering the system before we’ve even completely figured it out. We’ve got a problem because the third category of forcings is rapidly exceeding the natural variation of the natural factors, and we’re driving ourselves into uncharted territory. The climate is most definitely changing, in ways that we need to be concerned about. But saying that we need to fight “anthropogenic greenhouse gas driven global climate change” is a rather uninspiring mouthful. We’re facing more that just temperature increases and changes, we’re facing a complex network of global climate disruptions that will feed off one another in ways scientists are just beginning to predict. We all know we need to act sooner rather than later or too late if we want to preserve the world that has taken such good care of us so far. I don’t know what the battle cry should be, but the sooner we find it, the better.

Green-eyed monsters

These days everybody is going “green.” I even feel clichéd discussing the growing desire for a green label. Suddenly, in the wake of a global warming crisis, it’s hip to be environmentally conscious. Which is great; I mean obviously there are better reasons to be environmentally conscious than the cool factor, but, we’ll take everything we can get, right?

Except that somehow the green of environmentalism is starting to take on the same shade as the green of money and consumerism. There’s all these great “green” products we can feel good about buying; high-fashion made from organic cotton, imported organic tropical fruit, pesticide free cosmetics, and even a hybrid Lexus. Great right? Not really, because the biggest problem at the root of our looming environmental crises isn’t what we consume, but how much. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that we can buy our way out of global warming. An article in the New York Times yesterday discussed the growing commercialization of the “green” movement, and how it’s dividing the environmentalist community.

We assuage our guilt buying these products; many are good for the environment and many are green in marketing only. Imported organics are one of the biggest evils actually; the amount of fossil fuel energy that goes into transporting your organic strawberries to Anchorage in February is a huge contributor to global warming. So is buying organic natural tomatoes at the grocery store in Virginia in July, when you could get them at your local farmers market. Those little decisions matter WAY more than investing in expensive organic clothing. Don’t drive to the gym to run on a treadmill, even if it’s a fancy, new-age solar powered gym. Run outside around the neighborhood.

Remember the three R’s of elementary school? Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. That’s what we need to bring back in style. Buy less stuff. Use less energy. Take care of the stuff you do buy. We unfortunately live in a disposable culture, and it’s coming back to haunt us. Smaller houses, efficient cars, re-usable shopping bags, drying laundry on the clothes-
line, biking to work, and turning off the electronics you’re not using. Really, we could all do these things without becoming martyrs, abandoning the grid and the man and decent rules of hygiene. I still buy stuff, obviously, but i try not to trust a "green" label to fix everything. Being environmentally conscious is important, but it doesn’t require more money or even much more time. It just requires more common sense.