The State of the Planet: Science, Scenarios, COP27
COP27 is coming right up. What, then, is the state of the planet as diplomats, stakeholders and citizens the world over turn their attention to Egypt and the latest conversation around the current and future earth? Not only is COP27 in the run-up, but climate science is running, too. It’s a sprint to save what we can, and science offers us a window to past, present, and future, a window we hope will help us better understand, as well as give us a fighting chance.
The most imperative thing, of course, is that we must stop burning fossil fuels. With the reality that emissions continue to rise, the race for a livable future means we must stop all fossil fuel infrastructure and cap every well. This truth is hard enough, but harder still is the realization that the hour is late. Already the evidence of climate change is visible around the globe. Says scientist and professor Jamie Trammell, the evidence is right in front of us in “these examples almost daily of really, really, big storm events that simply wouldn't be possible without a warmer climate.”
Prof. Jamie Trammell is the Environmental, Sustainability, and Policy Chair at Southern Oregon University (scroll down for bio). He came to the Climate Cafe Multifaith to talk truth about where we are when it comes to those storms and our warmer climate. Trammell specializes in scenario planning. He takes the best science and works to model possible outcomes in any given landscape. He has worked in the US and internationally and shared with us what the research is showing in terms of what we can expect, as well as ways forward.
In the above video presentation, Prof. Jamie Trammell shares the ‘state of the planet,’ explaining what we can expect right now, what the future might look like, and how we can improve future possibilities.
It is long established fact that burning fossil fuels adds carbon to the atmosphere and that extra carbon interferes with the earth’s natural climate regulation systems. As the research continues, part of what scientists have been able to establish is what is called ‘attribution.’ When there is a freak or super storm, a question can arise, ‘what is this storm attributed too,’ in other words, what caused it? When the climate was stable, storms could still be strong, or weather systems could come and go, such as El Nino. But now, scientists have been able to show that these new and devastating events are directly attributable to fossil fuel driven climate change.
Prof. Trammell draws clear attribution to climate change for events such as the recent storm—the tail end of a typhoon all the way to the Bering Sea—that pummeled western Alaska. Likewise, Prof. Trammell attributes the cause of climate change to the heat dome that roasted the Pacific Northwest with unprecedented heat in 2021. Though the news reported the heat dome as a ‘freak’ event, it is worse than that. This event simply would not have been possible without climate change. These events are not so much ‘freak’ events but events brought to us by the new fossil-fueled climate.
Says Prof. Trammell, “what we saw in the Pacific Northwest of North America last year,” without climate change was “simply not possible.” He explains it this way, “you can imagine these flood events, these fire events where we say, ‘oh, gosh, that's a one and 100.’ Now, [an event like that is] five times more likely to occur. We're taking it from the scale of once in a lifetime to many, many times in a lifetime. And that's really challenging.”
“[There are] these examples almost daily of really, really big storm events that simply wouldn't be possible with a warmer climate.”
—Jamie Trammell
Photos: Flood by Chris Gallagher; Fire by Mike Newbry; Hurricane by NASA.
The new frequency that we can expect—not just of worsened storms and droughts but of 100 year storms that now come every 15 or 20 years—means disasters compound. It is exhausting to dig out and rebuild or move once in a lifetime after a Category 4 or 5 hurricane hits. Having to contend with disaster-level hurricanes and typhoons (or droughts and fires) every 20 years will test communities, and likely exhaust people and resources. That type of repeated and sustained change will likely lead to what scientists are now calling ‘socio-economic tipping points.’
Prof. Trammell explains, “People are really good about picking up after really big disasters and rebuilding. The question is, how many can you withstand before you fundamentally shift and change something?” The idea of ‘tipping points’ has been used to refer to big ecological events, such as the catastrophic loss of ice, or rapidly melting permafrost. But ‘tipping points’ are now relevant to what might ‘tip over’ human communities as well. Says Prof. Trammell, “We're just now starting to look at tipping points in terms of societies because we're seeing so many more extreme events. We're seeing people's will to to respond and adapt erode as we continue to be exposed to these really big things. We're looking more and more at the socio economic tipping points as well as the climate tipping points.”
Socio-economic tipping points are already being tested, such as in places like Honduras and El Salvador where heat and drought have forced migration, or where climate disruption and/or an increasing scarcity of resources might spark internal civic strife and even civil wars.
“We have this opportunity to think about what could we do to actually enhance nature and enhance nature's ability to help us in this fight.”
—Jamie Trammell
Photo by Tim Umphreys, cropped.
There is no sugar-coating the truth that we are in a really challenging spot. Yet it is also true that every day there are reasons to take action and take hope. Prof. Trammell identifies three clear places where hope is very much with us. First, we can evaluate potential changes that may occur in different landscapes—such as in our own communities—and work through different scenarios in order to take proactive steps for conservation. Second, we can dig in to what Prof. Trammell refers to as ‘nature positive solutions.’ And third, we can insist our elected leaders pass sound legislation with policies that will help.
First, scenario planning. Prof. Trammell specializes in landscapes, he is in fact what is called a ‘landscape ecologist.’ His work means he is all about climate change as there is no landscape that will not have ecological impacts due to climate change. Scenario planning is two kinds of assessment. First, assessing what changes will occur because of climate change. Second, working with the community to figure out what the priorities are for mitigation and adaptation. Prof. Trammell has done this work in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Canada, Australia, California and more, and this work allows planners to get to work, and communities to save everything they can.
Scenario planning is a field also that is coming into its own, and Prof. Trammell sees this work as essential and hopeful. He explains, “we're coming up with some really good metrics, ways to understand what the future climate might bring us.” Prof. Trammell sees that the more communities can understand what is at stake, the more they can be involved in making choices and taking important next steps. He asks, “How do we get to that desired outcome?—across a whole suite of different scenarios, a whole suite of different stressors, a whole suite of different pressures, socially and environmentally. How do we get to that desired outcome? So that we're ready. We're available, we're resilient.”
“How do we adapt and what do we want to adapt into. And, how do we make sure that that is equitable, because there's going to be a lot of changes, and a lot of challenges to our status quo.”
—Jamie Trammell
Photo by Elaine Casap.
Scenario planning allows also for a community to engage solutions on purpose, making those solutions as nature positive as possible. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, the creation, this earth, has a perfect and natural balance already in its climate system. We as humans need to start by ceasing to burn fossil fuels, and work on getting back to the carbon basics. Says Prof. Trammell, “the carbon cycle is amazing. It's been working so well for so long. And if we really think strategically about getting back to, and, allowing nature to do what nature does best, then we're in really good shape.”
The phrase ‘nature positive’ has a ring to it. Many have heard already the phrase ‘nature based’ which means solving problems of pollution and environmental degradation with solutions nature itself produces. Such as encouraging ladybugs to control the aphids in your garden, or protecting oysters so they can filter polluted seas. The idea of ‘nature positive’ goes a step further, with a goal implementing systems that go above and beyond, restoring, rebuilding, and improving degraded landscapes for a net-positive result for nature.
Nature positive thinking not only leads to restorative outcomes, but can be a way to reframe the ‘net zero’ conversation. To say ‘net zero’ is to simply look to minimizing or neutralizing harm. What if instead, we looked to enriching the good things, not just neutralizing the bad. Says Prof. Trammell, too often our messaging is that “we want to get to a net zero carbon emissions goal.” Instead, “nature positive actually says, ‘that's not quite enough.’ … let's not think of net zero. Let's think of net positive. Let's think of the end is not just ‘do no harm,’ the end is we've enhanced, we've actually brought new opportunities, we've restored, we've regenerated places.”
“Most of environmental science is just documenting the bad and the stuff that we haven't done right, and that's important. But equally important is to identify, ‘Okay, well, what's next? Do we continue to this or do we look for opportunities to improve.’”
—Jamie Trammell
Photo by Zoe Schaeffer.
Nature positive solutions aren’t just for local farms and small towns surrounded by forests or plains. The quality of life in our urban environments could be vastly improved to gain a net-positive urban environment, too. Prof. Trammell explains, '“over the last 20 years now we have this huge body of literature that says ‘yes, urban environments can be these really rich places for biodiversity and for community gardens.” Even cities can be nature positive, “we can choose how we juxtapose our buildings and asphalt and where we choose to put these parks and what we choose to plant in those parks, to actually benefit the ecosystem that surrounds us.”
Part of ensuring that these changes can be made is passing good laws, making good policies and providing helpful resources. And, along these lines, there is some hope in the government and policy sector, as well. The Inflation Reduction Act brought a slew of policy reforms which, if properly implemented, could be a game-changer. Prof. Trammell drew our attention also one of President Biden’s Executive Orders, one which he instituted within days of stepping into office, titled ‘Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.’
This Executive Order was lauded as crucial and critical toward addressing the climate crisis, perhaps especially for what is called the 30 by 30 measure, a goal to protect 30% of US land and 30% of US Ocean by 2030. What makes this so important is that this type of conservation will allow nature to do what it does best, stabilizing its own processes by its own processes, more perfectly than we could ever artificially do it or impose it.
In the above video, Prof. Jamie Trammell speaks to what it is that gives him hope.
Ultimately, it all comes back to the simple and important question of how we live together, and how we live together on this good planet. We need to focus on the basics we have been called to address for millennia. Those basics include, How do we address equity? How do we ‘do no harm’? The mandate and blueprint for the challenges we face, even challenges as great as climate change, ultimately rests back on the simplest implementation of our most basic values. And there is indeed hope in that.
For more articles, also news and information, see the Faiths4Future blog page.
E. Jamie Trammell is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Environmental Science and Policy program at Southern Oregon University. His primary interest is ‘scenario planning and modeling’ in order to better understand how various environmental drivers combine to determine the future condition of land and water systems. His work means he is continually working to bring different information sets together, translating climate science into social and economic frameworks, with a big picture view (landscapes and seascapes) and a goal of facilitating visualization and communication between people and research. He has worked in a variety of environmental contexts from the deserts of the American southwest to the Northern Rivers of New South Wales in Australia, throughout Alaska and into the Canadian boreal, and in the agricultural landscapes of the Magic Valley, Idaho and the Rogue River basin in Oregon. He is also a United Methodist.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. She organizes the Climate Cafe Multifaith as a co-leader of Faiths4Future. Find her in real life in Southern Oregon, working as Steward of Climate with the nonprofit Circle Faith Future.