World needs better doomsayers
Today’s NYT article on the Amazon’s worst drought in recorded history contains a disturbing comparison. Scientist David Nepstad compares the Amazon to a canary in a coal mine. This means that, if the world keeps getting warmer, the Amazon basin and other tropical wet forests will be the first ecosystems to collapse.
I talked to a biologist in La Selva, Costa Rica, this spring who told the same story. He and his wife measure the growth of trees in La Selva, then plot this against the nighttime temperature of the forest. Over the past 20 years, the night temperature has gone up — and the growth has gone down. The biologist explained to me that this can lead to a feedback loop — world gets hotter, trees grow slower, trees make less oxygen (which counteracts greenhouse gases), world gets hotter still. It was a convincing argument, but I’d never heard it north of the equator, so I asked what the guy’s response would be to those who don’t believe global warming is a problem.
He looked at me quizzically.
“I live in the rainforest,” he said, “there’s nobody like that here.”
Like a lot of scientists, he wasn’t much of a politician. But biology has been thoroughly politicized now, so those with the expertise had better start talking — and talking well. We need scientists who can speak persuasively to on-the-fence folks in middle America, not just preach to the blue-state choir.