Biodiversity Scientist: Hopes For Slowing Down Climate Change

In delivering the 13th annual Wege Foundation Lecture April 24, the renowned conservation biologist Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy addressed the pressing threat of global climate change. But in outlining the proof that this danger is real, Dr. Lovejoy also offered some hope for slowing down and even reversing the environmental damage. Dr. Lovejoy, who first alerted the world to the danger of losing tropical rainforests in the 1980s, holds the Biodiversity Chair at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. Lovejoy is also credited with being the first scientist to use the word “biodiversity.”

The danger of greenhouse gases to the Earth is not a new discovery. Dr. Lovejoy noted that a Swedish chemist named Svante Arrhenius first wrote about damage from excessive CO2 in 1896. A century later the destruction caused by greenhouse gases has already affected the climate. Lakes freeze later, the glaciers are melting, and the Arctic ice sheet is projected to be gone by 2030 or sooner.

The increased number and intensity of wildfires, like the one in California in May this year, result from longer, hotter, and drier summers. Cloud forests are losing their life-sustaining moisture as clouds go higher; temperature sensitive coral reefs are bleaching out from warmer, more acidic ocean water. As many as 20-30% of all species will be driven to extinction by the warming planet, those living and highest and lowest altitudes the most endangered.

Dr. Lovejoy explained the scientific measure of how much carbon dioxide is too much is measured in parts per million. The safe level is 350 ppm, but already the Earth’s atmosphere registers 450 ppm. Yet this specialist in biodiversity sees a way to use Earth’s own plants and animals to help reduce the CO2 in the air.

Since all animals and plants are made of carbon, restoring their ecosystems one by one will help return carbon to the earth. Restoring grazing lands, reforesting lumbered land, and healthy farming techniques can help pull carbon out of the atmosphere.

High on Dr. Lovejoy’s list for reducing greenhouse gases is reducing our dependence on coal for power. He called coal the least efficient of all fossil fuels. He also made it clear that “clean coal” is an oxymoron. There is not such thing now. So far sequestering underground the carbon produced by burning coal has not happened, though that technology is under serious consideration.

Unlike many environmentalists who shudder at the word “nuclear” as a power supplier, Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy thinks that it will have to be part of the energy mix if we are to reduce the carbon dioxide now being expelled from burning coal and gasoline.

(Above Photo - Peter Wege took this picture of how biodiversity works in his own back yard! The greenhouse gases this healthy tree absorbs do not go into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.)

Return to the list of news articles...