Transcript

5.28.26 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radiowized Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader's
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Kelly Taylor. I'll have articles on the topics of science
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and nature.
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Speaker 2: But first a.
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Speaker 1: Reminder that radioi is a reading service intended for people
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who are blind or have other disabilities that make it
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difficult to read printed material. Starting with an article from
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Reuter's News Service dated May twenty third, Climate change threatens
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global plant species as habitats shrink. Some of the plants
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that make familiar landscapes recognizable may not survive by centuries end,
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as climate change becomes an increasingly important driver of species loss,
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according to scientists, reshaping and often shrinking suitable habitats that
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the plants need to survive. Researchers modeled future ranges for
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numerous species of vascular plants, a category that accounts for
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all almost all the world's plants those with water and
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nutrient carrying tissues. They looked at more than sixty seven
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thousand species, meaning about eighteen percent of the world's known
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vascular plants. They found that seven percent to sixteen percent
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could lose more than ninety percent of their range, placing
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them at high risk of extinction. Examples include Catalina ironwood
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or island ironwood, a rare endemic California tree, bluish spike
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moss from a plant lineage dating by more than four
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hundred million years and roughly one third of Eucalyptus species,
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one of Australia's most recognizable plant groups. The researchers came
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to their estimates after examining millions of records on plant
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locations as well as greenhouse gas emissions scenarios for twenty
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eighty one to twenty one hundred. A plant's habit is
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not simply a place on a map, but the full
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array of conditions that it needs temperature, rainfall, soil, land use,
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and landscape features such as such as shade quote. One
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way to picture this is to imagine plants trying to
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follow a moving climate envelope. As temperatures warm, many species
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can shift northward or uphill to stay cool enough, but
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temperature is only part of the story, says Juna Wong,
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a Yale University postdoctoral researcher, and Shall Lead Dong, a
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professor of environmental science and policy at the University of
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California Davis. Wong and Dong helped lead the study published
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in the journal science. In many places, the study indicated
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climate change is shrinking these combinations, leaving fewer areas where
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all the conditions that a species needs still exist together.
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Other for plants, movement or dispersal usually happens across generations
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via seeds or spores carried by wind, water, animals, or gravity.
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Yet when the researchers compared realistic movement with a scenario
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in which plants could reach any newly suitable habitat, extinction
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rates were very similar.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: If slow movement were the main problem, then allowing unlimited
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dispersals should dramatically reduce extinction risk. But that is not
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what we found. The researchers said that matters for conservation quote.
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If disposed dispersal limitation were the main driver, then strategies
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like assisted migration physically helping species move to a new
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area could.
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Speaker 2: Solve much of the problem.
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Speaker 1: But if climate change is reducing the amount of suitable
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habitat overall, then simply helping species move may not be enough.
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They added. The projected impacts vary by region. Cold adapted
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plants and the Arctic may lose habitat as extreme cold
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climates shrink. Dry regions, including parts of the Western United
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States and Mediterranean climate regions face risk from stronger drought,
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lower soil moisture, and more frequent wildfires in southern and
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eastern coastal Australia. Coastlines may limit poleward shifts. At the
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same time, local plant diversity could rise across about twenty
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eight percent of Earth's land surface as species move into
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newly suitable areas, including parts of the tropics and subtropics,
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where increased rainfall rather than temperature alone, could make additions
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suitable for additional species. The researchers described this as a
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global reshuffling, with some species disappearing from parts of their
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historical range while others move into new areas, but said
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local gameanes do not mean plants are doing better overall.
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These shifts could also create novel communities, combinations of plants
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that have not historically lived together but would begin encountering
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one another for the first time. How would these interactions
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play out, The researchers said they do not know. Plants
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underpin most terrestrial ecosystems. They store carbon, stabilize soils, support wildlife,
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and provide food, timber, medicines, and other materials. So changes
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in plant diversity can have cascading effects on nature and people.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: If climate change reduces vegetation cover, ecosystems may absorb less
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carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which can further intensify warming.
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That creates a feedback loop in which climate change arms
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plants and reduce plant cover, in turn worsens climate change.
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The researchers said, Ultimately, protecting plant diversity is not only
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about conserving nature for its own sake, It is also
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about maintaining the ecological systems that support human societies, they said.
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Now we have an article from RFI. G seven scientists
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sound alarm as Arctic ice loss HiT's fifty year low.
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Arctic summer sea ice has shrunk by half since the
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nineteen seventies, and scientists advising the G seven leaders warn
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that the consequences may be felt far beyond the polar region.
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Scientists advising G seven leaders warned that the consequences will
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be felt far beyond the polar region. Ahead of this
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year's G seven summit in France, the national science academies
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of the seven member countries convened to draw up recommendations
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on the most pressing global issues. The Arctic tapped the
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agenda alongside large constellations of satellites and brain health, with
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joint statements issued on all three subjects. Speaking to RFI,
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Laurent Bopp, a member of the French Academy of Sciences
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and coordinator of the study group on the Arctic, said
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the immediate and sustained reduction of greenhouse gas emissions was the.
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Speaker 2: Group's top priority.
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Speaker 1: The loss of sea ice, the melting of greenland ice,
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the thawing of permafrost and the modification of ocean circulation
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within the Arctic as consequences on the global climate system.
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Speaker 2: He said.
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Speaker 1: Other recommendations include limiting polluting activities in and around the Arctic,
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expanding long term data collection, and ensuring that findings are open,
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transparent and shared with all countries. The group also called
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for advancing evidence based adaptation, deepening research on systemic and
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high impact risks, and engaging indigenous and local knowledge in
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governance and leadership. The Arctic may be the world's smallest ocean,
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accounting for just one percent of global ocean volume, but
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its role in regulating the climate is outsized. Scientists worn
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of several self reinforcing feedback loops already underway as sea
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ice retreats, the Arctic ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide, accelerating
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acidification and threatening the marine organisms that have adapted to
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stable conditions built up over thousands of years. The open
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ocean surface also absorbs far more solar radiation than the
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reflective ice it replaces, amplifying warming across the region.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: When the sea ice is removed and replaced with the
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ocean surface, it will absorb much more solar radiation, thus
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amplifying the warming in the Arctic, Bop said. At the
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same time, thawing permafrost is triggering a parallel feedback loop
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quote a lot of organic matter and that soil would
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be composed to produce CO two and methane, which are
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important greenhouse gases, leading to amplification of global warming.
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Speaker 2: He said.
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Speaker 1: All coastal communities are and would be affected by the
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melting of greenland ice. Bop added, pointing to the long
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term implications for global sea levels. Physical oceanographer Camille Leak
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of the ifreme R Institute in Breast says the consequences
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extend to atmospheric and oceanic circulation worldwide.
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Speaker 2: The melting of.
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Speaker 1: Arctic ice modifies the properties of the ocean itself, she explains,
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with currents then propagating those changes to lower latitudes. Changes
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in Arctic sea ice conditions are expected to affect the AMC,
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that's the Atlantic Marinonial overturning circulation, one of the key
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regulators of climate and weather in Western Europe. We expect
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more severe extreme events like cold waves that have been
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documented in North America and Europe. We think they are
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related to the disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic,
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she said. French President Emmanuel Macron met with the Science
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Group on May nineteenth at the Elisia Palace commending their
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joint declaration. The g seventh summit itself takes place from
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fifteen to seventeen June.
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Speaker 2: In Avion, leban.
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Speaker 1: Now we'll turn to a vox website for their article
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dated May twenty third, and the headline is climate change's
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worst case scenario is officially canceled. You've probably never heard
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of the term RCP eight point five, the highest emission
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scenario used by climate scientists to project the planet's future.
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But if you've read about climate change, you've seen the
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numbers and the nightmarish outcomes produced four degrees celsius of
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warming by twenty one hundred, sometimes five degrees ce, sea
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level rising multiple feet, parts of the planet too hot
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for humans. Those numbers shaped a decade and a half
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of climate journalism, including a lot of my own when
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I covered climate change at Time magazine.
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Speaker 2: And by the way, the author of this is Brian Walsh.
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Speaker 1: I didn't always know and didn't always communicate that the
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scenario behind the most apocalyptic attention getting findings was largely
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an attempt to imagine how bad things could get, not
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a true forecast.
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Speaker 2: But I wasn't alone.
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Speaker 1: RCP eight point five was a frequent background presence in
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climate journalism. Last month, though the scientists who built that
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scenario formally retired it in a paper published in Geoscientific
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Model Development Debt left Van Vuren in more than forty
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co authors eliminated URCP eight point five from the scenarios
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that will feed into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes
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seventh Assessment Report, which is due in twenty twenty nine.
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Based on falling clean energy costs, climate policy, and recent
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emission trends, the highest emissions pathway had become, in their words, implausible.
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I can understand if your eyes began glazing over as
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soon as you read seventh Assessment Report. But this shift
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represents real progress and hope. It means that the apocalyptic
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climate change future that we've been describing for fifteen years
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is officially.
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Speaker 2: No longer on the table.
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Speaker 1: Instead, a merely bad climate future about two point eight
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degrees C by twenty one hundred is now the central
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scientific estimate. Given how hopeless our climate future has appeared
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at times, that really does qualify as good news. Climate
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models can't tell you the future on their own, because
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how much the planet will warm depends in large part
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on what humans do. So scientists built scenarios, structured guesses
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about how the next century might unfold under different assumptions
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about energy use, growth, and climate policy. For such Four
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such scenarios were introduced in twenty eleven as the standard
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set for the IPCC, the international body of scientists that
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periodically take stock of global climate research and translates it
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into reports for governments worldwide. Three of the four were
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called mitigation pathways, futures where the world worked to reduce
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greenhouse gas emissions. One, the infamous and now obsolete RCP
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eight point five, was the no Policy baseline, a future
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with continued fossil fuel expansion, coal use roughly five times
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higher by twenty one hundred, and a global population pushing
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pushing twelve billion. Think of it like Dickens's Ghost of
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Christmas future, a vision of just how bad things could
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get if we did nothing to change our ways, And
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just like any dystopia, our CP eight point five guaranteed attention.
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Between twenty eleven and twenty twenty, more than two thousand
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climate impact studies used urcpaight point five as their default future.
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Almost every dramatic projection of crop failure, mass displacement, killing heat,
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and coastline retreat that any general reader ever encountered in
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climate change coverage depended on it. All of those projections
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were plausible enough under the numbers set by our CP
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eight point five, but by the mid twenty tens, researchers, journalists,
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and even official government reports were routinely calling the scenario
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business as usual, a phrase that transformed a stress test
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into something that sounded like a forecast.
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Speaker 2: It wasn't and it was never meant to be.
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Speaker 1: Somewhere along the way, though, that distinction got lost. The
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world that urcpaight point five assumed will never arrive. Global
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coal use isn't on a path to quintuple. Consumption has
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largely plateaued after decades of growth. Instead of the global
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population ballooning to twelve billion people, the UN's current median
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forecast projects about ten point two billion by twenty one hundred,
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with other reputable forecasts putting the number even lower. At
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the same time, the clean energy transition moved faster than
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almost anyone in twenty eleven anticipated. The cost of solar
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power has fallen by about eighty five percent since the
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RCPs were published, and annual global investment in the energy
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transition is now over two trillion dollars. Actual global emissions
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have tracked far more closely to what you'd expect from
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a world trying to reduce them than from one doing
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nothing at all. By twenty twenty six, Climate Action Tracker
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estimated that current policies put the world on course for
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about two point six degrees of warming by twenty one hundred,
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still serious, but a long way from four or five.
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Was RCP eight point five ever realistic. One camp of experts,
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led by climate scientist Zeke Housefather and energy modeler Glenn Peters,
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argues that OURCP eight point five was plausible in twenty eleven,
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but was taken off the table by genuine policy and
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Technology Progress. The other camp, led by Roger Pielke, argues
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that the rate of global decarbonization has been roughly.
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Speaker 2: Linear for decades. That would mean we didn't actively avoid
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URCP eight point five. It was just never realistic to
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begin with.
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Speaker 1: Both camps agree on what counts, though RCPAI point five
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should be gone, and the planet is still on track
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to warm between two point five and three degrees celsius
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by twenty one hundred. Rcpaight point five was as much
17:10
a climate journalism story as it was a climate science one.
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In twenty seventeen, the writer David Wallace Wells published The
17:18
Uninhabitable Earth in New York Magazine. It was probably the
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most widely read piece of climate journalism of the last decade,
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and it was built almost entirely on RCP eight point
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five projections. Wallace Wells revised his view in twenty twenty two.
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Though there has been relatively little coverage of this year's
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retirement of urcpaight point five, and researchers need to catch up,
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Pilky estimated that as late as early twenty twenty six,
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thirty New RCP eight point five studies were coming out
17:52
each day on average, generating more grist for the climate
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ultra doom narrative. We'll see whether the last month's announce
18:00
finally puts it to rest. But even if we've averted doom,
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there is a lot of work to do to secure
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a safer future. The new medium climate pathway, the one
18:10
that reflects current policies, estimates two point eight degrees of
18:14
warming on average by twenty one hundred, with the likely
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range running from two point one to three point seven.
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That would still mean drastic declines in coral reefs and
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accelerated species extinction, worsening water scarcity, and further sea level rise.
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Speaker 2: And while we've taken the.
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Speaker 1: Worst of the worst case scenarios off the table, we've
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run out of time to keep warming below one and
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a half degree C and two degrees c, the upper
18:41
limit that the twenty fifteen Paris Accords sought to prevent.
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Speaker 2: And as with anything to do with.
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Speaker 1: Climate change, the scientific shift was quickly politicized. The day
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before house Father and his co authors publish their analysis
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of our CP eight point five's retirement, President Donald Trump
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posted on Truths v. Social Good riddance and describe the
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change as proof that climate change was wrong, wrong, wrong.
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Not surprisingly, Trump is the one who is wrong here,
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as Carbon Brief explained in detail, but his mistake shows
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how easy it is to take the wrong lesson. From
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the end of our cpaight point five, we shouldn't.
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Speaker 2: Fall for it.
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Speaker 1: The entire point of climate scenarios like rcpaight point five
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was that there was no one certain future for climate change,
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only multiple possible futures. Whether or not ourcpaight point five
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was ever possible the enormous advances in clean energy over
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the past fifteen years or what made its retirement certain.
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Now we have new futures before us, waiting for what
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we do next.
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Speaker 2: Now we turn to USA.
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Speaker 1: Today, native Florida rodent could go extinct thanks to Burmese python.
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Dated May twenty second, Burmese pythons, a prolific and invasive
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species of snake, could help cause the extinction of an
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endangered rodent native to Florida ever since the landfall of
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Hurricane Irma in twenty seventeen, which likely acted as a
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python dispersal event. According to a recent paper, the populations
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of endangered Key Largo wood rats and Key Largo cotton
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mice have remained unstable.
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Speaker 2: SHAWNA.
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Speaker 1: Sayers, lead author of the work, told USA Today that
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if unchecked, Burmese pythons could eradicate the Key Largo wood
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rat in particular, which can only be found in the
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tropical hammocks of Key Largo.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: Rodents have this boom and bust where they'll have super
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high populations, then come right back down and that'll just
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carry on over time, said sears Now, a wading bird
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specialist at National Audubon Society. But we've seen this long
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term decline since the two thousands, and they weren't really
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able to bounce back after impacts Murricane Irma because the
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negative impacts of the Burmese pythons. Burmese pythons could contribute
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to the extinction of the Key Largo wood rat, seyar said,
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which was originally placed on the endangered species list in
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nineteen eighty three. The main threat to the Key Largo
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wood rat is habitat loss and fragmentation. According to Florida
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Fish and Wildlife, they can only be found in the
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tropical hammocks of Key Largo, and this limited range makes
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them especially vulnerable to storms and fires and sea level
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rise could inundate their habitat. Sayr said that different species
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benefit from the nests that wood rats build and could
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be negatively affected by their extinction. Additionally, Key Largo wood
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rats have distinct microbial communities inside their nests, which include
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high relative abundances of bacteria from antimicrobial producing groups. There's
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novel bacteria that could be used for further medical.
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Speaker 2: Research, Seyar said.
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Speaker 1: According to Sayers, data for the paper was collected from
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Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Dagny Johnson State Park
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by a series of four sampling efforts beginning in twenty seventeen,
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the latter of which was fieldwork that Sayers helped conduct.
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Speaker 2: Research found that although the Key Largo cotton.
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Speaker 1: Mouse is still endangered, their population is not as big
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of a concern given they have a higher reproductive rate
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in population, which can help lessen the impacts of the
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predation on them.
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Speaker 2: According to Sayers, the key Logo wood rats.
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Speaker 1: On the other hand, are not doing well and are
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definitely at a risk of extinction. If the python population
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remains unchecked well, then we'll turn to a related article
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on somewhat the same subject from Popular science Ready to
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hunt some enormous snakes, The Florida Python Challenge returns. Florida's
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war against the Burmese python is still going strong, but
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you can do your part to battle one of the
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state's most destructive invasive species. Earlier this week, Everglades National
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Park announced it is once again teaming up with local
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organizations for this year's Florida Python Challenge. The task is
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straightforward enough. From July tenth to the nineteenth, participants are
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encouraged to trap and humanly dispatch as many snakes as possible.
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The pythons must then be deposited at one of the
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competition's designated check stations within twenty four hours, at which
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point they're measured and added to the hunter's overall tally.
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At the end of the ten days, prizes are awarded
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to the participants who caught the most snakes and whoever
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bagged the longest serpents.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: Protecting Everglades National Park, one of the world most globally
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significant ecosystems, requires ongoing partnerships in community stewardship, says Everglades
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National Park Superintendent Pedro Ramos.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: By engaging the public in science based invasive species management
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where able to raise awareness and strengthen support for conservation
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across South Florida. Burmese pythons are native to Southeast Asia,
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but arrived in the US during the nineteen seventies via
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the pet trade. After realizing the average adult python easily
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reaches thirteen feet long, many unprepared owners in Florida eventually
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released their sizeable mistakes into the wild. These first generations
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of snakes weren't the only perfectly suited for the states.
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Weren't only perfectly suited for the state's subtropical conditions. They
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faced zero competition from native predators and quickly rose to
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the top of the food chain. Florida's burmese python population
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has skyrocketed since then, in the process decimating local wildlife
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and ecosystems.
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Speaker 2: It's difficult to put an.
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Speaker 1: Exact number on them, but researchers previously estimated anywhere between
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one hundred thousand and three hundred thousand snakes slithering through
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the Everglades and surrounding regions. Plenty of ongoing projects and
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experimental solutions are in the works, but one of the
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easiest ways to call pythons remained simply going out and
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nabbing them. The first Florida Python Challenge took place in
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twenty thirteen and again in twenty sixteen, before becoming an
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annual competition in twenty twenty. Last year, nine hundred and
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thirty four participants from across the US and Canada participated,
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netting a record two hundred ninety four pythons in South Florida.
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A ten thousand dollars first place prize for the most
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pythons collected went to the competitor who slew sixty snakes
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in ten days. The longest snake recorded was estimated by
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someone in the novice was I'm sorry, not estimated, but
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eliminated by someone in the novice category. Although whoever takes
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down a fifteen foot eleven inch python probably wouldn't count
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as an amateur to most people, the Florida Python On
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Challenge isn't a free for all. The event implements strict rules,
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and any aspiring snake sleuths must pass an online safety
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course before heading out to pre designated hunting grounds. No
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firearms or trained hunting animals either. Instead, challenge organizers recommend
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either air guns or pithing techniques such as quickly impaling
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the snakes through the head. For those of you who
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think you have what it takes to help curb a
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serious problem in an essential ecosystem, you've got at least
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a few weeks to start honing your skills. And now
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one more article focusing on the Everglades. The BBC Wildlife
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has an article that's headline Florida Everglades and It's threatening
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native crocodile. A carnivore moved into the Everglades and It's
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threatening native crocodiles and alligators. Florida's native crocodiles and alligators
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could be at risk from the spectacled caneman, which now
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calls the place their home. For as long as the
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non native caymans live there, it presents an existential threat
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to the integrity and restoration of the entire Everglades ecosystem.
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More than sixty species of non native reptiles and amphibians
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live in the state of Florida. The spectacled cayman, which
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has a spectacle like ridge between its eyes and can
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grow up to two and a half meters long, as
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one of them. The species, which is native to Central
27:28
and South America, was introduced to the United States over
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sixty years ago via the pet trade. When owners of
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the exotic species can no longer care for them, they
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release the reptiles into the everglades where they bred and
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became established. Quote spectacle caymans have the potential to impact
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South Florida's ecosystems by competing with native crocodilians as well
27:50
as other predators. Caymans are opportunistic carnivores. They will eat
27:56
just about any animal they can, including insects, fish, reptiles, birds,
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and mammals. By consuming prey that native crocodilians could eat,
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they make the reptiles lives more difficult. They don't distinguish
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between native and non native or rare in common pre species. Now,
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as they take chunks out of the local food web,
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they risk causing it to collapse. Well that's all for
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today's Diary of Science and Nature. Reader was Kelly Taylor.
28:24
Stay tuned now for further programming on RADIOI