The Last Wetland: What Did We Lose? How We Are Now, and What Have We Learned About It? A Conversation with Leila Proulx
“Before the last wetlands disappear I wanted to know about this world we are losing,” Proulx writes. “What was a world of fens, bogs and swamps and what meaning did these peatlands have, not only for humans but for all other life on Earth?”
In a conversation with Morning Edition’s Leila Fadel, Proulx explained the role that wetlands have in preserving the environment and storing the carbon emissions that accelerate climate change.
Proulx says that the book is not a call to action. It’s more of a lesson about observation. She wants people to understand the world they live in and how to care for it.
It started after I found that I couldn’t concentrate on writing fiction which is what I am usually writing. I was too concerned with what was happening to the natural world, and I felt I knew very little about wetlands. Writing about something is how I learn about it. So I began reading and taking notes and scribbling, asking questions and after a while, I had something that looked like an essay and I sent it to my agent — not particularly expecting it to be published, but I thought it might have a place somewhere. She said that it could be a book.
The peatlands have never been regarded as something that’s a necessary part of life, but as an obstruction, something that’s in the way. Agriculture is the ideal. For most people, it wasn’t a measure of any kind of utility to talk about a peat-producing wetland as helpful. So it was really a change of attitude more than anything else that I stumbled on. It’s really hard to read about this sort of thing because people insist on thinking of the natural world only in terms of utility to humanity. We are rulers of the natural world and don’t see ourselves as part of this system.
Carbon dioxide and methane gas are substances that can be found in swamps and fens. And the more we rip them up, the more carbon dioxide and methane comes floating into the atmosphere and the faster the Earth will be warming. But that doesn’t occur to us, to consider that a real problem, except for ecologists and those deeply concerned about the climate crisis.
That is, to know what the difference is between fen, bog and swamp. To be able to see a swamp and think, “This is a swamp, it’s full of trees.” Or, this is a bog, full of quaking sphagnum moss.” It’s more didactic than a call to arms. That’s just not my thing.
Climate Justice and the Global Oil and Gas System: Methane, CO2 and the Energy Cost of a Common-sense Approach to Climate Change
The Environmental Defense Fund, a US non-profit advocacy group, provides scientific guidance on climate-related work and is carried out by a climate scientist with the group. The author has their own views in this commentary. CNN has more opinion.
The findings suggest that cutting methane emissions, and cutting CO2 will help preserve summer sea ice through the century. This is a critical climate milestone that can help prevent an increase in global warming.
The first goal is the global oil and gas system. In the US alone, oil and gas operators waste around 16 million metric tons of methane every year through leaks and flaring. Flaring is the process of burning away gas rather than letting it escape directly into the atmosphere, but research has shown that many flares malfunction or are extinguished and are therefore a significant source of methane emissions. We can call out the emissions with the help of MethaneSAT.
The International Energy Agency says that existing technologies can help eliminate 75% of emissions from the oil and gas sector. At today’s elevated energy prices, nearly all these solutions can be implemented at no net cost.
The opportunity has been made possible by transformational technology, which gives us a new era of evidence-based accountability and transparency, which we need to face down the climate challenge.
Methane as a natural source of methane in the human realm: Why Is Siberia so hot and wet?
Methane is a major source of methane in the human realm. As a wetlands, decaying food waste releases gas. Cow burps because they act like a fermentation vat in which microbes expel methane from the stomach.
The researchers also knew that Siberia suffered unprecedented heat in 2020, potentially thawing permafrost, and that northern wetlands had been exceptionally hot and wet. “If you have a warmer temperature in the northern hemisphere, then you will get more methane produced by the microbes in wetlands,” says Shushi Peng, an atmospheric scientist at Peking University in Beijing and the paper’s lead author. “If you get a wetter climate, then the wetlands will expand.” A natural methane factory is what you grow.