Weekly Science Roundup: 10/26/2018

In Pakistan, an ambitious effort to plant 10 billion trees takes root The Washington Post, 10/14/2018

Painted wolves, struggling to survive, find a new food: baboons National Geographic, 10/17/2018

The Complex and Frustrating Reality of Recycling Plastic TRUTHOUT, 10/17/2018

Teen scientists went looking for meteorites in the Great Lakes. They found another type of alien. The Washington Post, 10/18/2018

El Niño Looks 'Imminent'—Here's What That Means For You Gizmodo, 10/19/2018

60,000 tons of dangerous radioactive waste sits on Great Lakes shores Detroit Free Press, 10/19/2018

Climate change prompts a rethink of Everglades management Science, 10/19/2018

Dozens of whooping cranes to New Orleans; pioneering Maryland lab ends breeding program The New Orleans Advocate, 10/19/2018

Ticks Are Killing an Alarming Number of Moose Thanks to Climate Change Gizmodo, 10/19/2018  

A running list of action on plastic pollution National Geographic, 10/19/2018

United States Drops 21 Spots in Global Life Expectancy Rankings Smithsonian Magazine, 10/19/2018

Yellowstone geyser's eruption tosses up decades of human trash, some 'historic' The Washington Post, 10/20/2018

Tougher emissions rules helped cut US air pollution deaths in half Engadget, 10/20/2018

Meet The Mascot Of Our Broken World: The Plastic Pumpkin Huffington Post, 10/20/2018

Everything You Want to Know About Boyan Slat and the Ocean Cleanup Project The Inertia, 10/20/2018

Tasmanian salmon should be off the menu for now, says conservation group The Guardian, 10/20/2018

A 14-year-long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico verges on becoming one of the worst in U.S. history The Washington post, 10/21/2018

Plastic straws and cotton buds could be banned within a year [in England] The Guardian, 10/21/2018

Using Markets to Manage Climate Change? The Wall Street Journal, 10/21/2018

Photosynthesis is one-third of the answer to mitigating climate change The Hill, 10/21/2018

Look after the soil, save the Earth: farming in Australia's unrelenting climate The Guardian, 10/21/2018

Boyan Slat's Ocean Cleanup Won't Turn a Profit, but We Should Still Do It The Inertia, 10/21/2018

Bottle it up: the car park that lets drivers pay in plastic The Guardian, 10/21/2018

Listen: Antarctic ice shelf's 'hum' warns of climate change NZ Herald, 10/21/2018

Researchers just found a bizarre 'headless chicken monster' swimming deep in the Antarctic Ocean USA Today, 10/22/2018

Where your plastic waste really ends up: British household rubbish is found stacked high at illegal dump sites in Malaysia for 'recycling' Daily Mail UK, 10/22/2018

Rising temperatures and human activity are increasing storm runoff and flash floods Phys.org, 10/22/2018

Are the days of recycling with a clear conscience over? The Guardian, 10/22/2018

Microplastics Are Turning Up Everywhere, Even In Human Excrement NPR, 10/22/2018

This Weirdly Geometric Iceberg Is Freaking Us Out Gizmodo, 10/22/2018

How Recycled Plastic Bottles Are Building Homes Great Big Story on Youtube, 10/22/2018

Trump's Biggest Attempts to Roll Back Environmental Regulations Remain at the Starting Gate Slate, 10/22/2018

In 'Historic Moment' for Climate Action, Wales Pledges to Leave Its Remaining Coal in the Ground Common Dreams, 10/22/2018

Trump thinks scientists are split on climate change. So do most Americans The Guardian, 10/22/2018

Artificial Clouds in Shipping Containers May Be the Solution to the World's Water Crisis Motherboard, 10/22/2018

From Virginia to Alaska, communities are sinking into rising seas The Hill, 10/22/2018

Fracking wastewater accumulation found in freshwater mussels' shells Phys.org, 10/22/2018

Greens challenge Trump's rollback of coal ash standards The Hill, 10/22/2018

Global Warming Still On Track For 4°C Despite Strong Carbon Prices, According To Schroders Clean Technica, 10/22/2018

Cities are planning for climate change all wrong The Washington Post, 10/22/2018

Cheers! Solar farm cider powers up Treehugger, 10/23/2018

This incredible animation shows what 80,000 tons of garbage in the ocean looks like Insider, 10/23/2018

A cruise ship spills thousands of liters of waste in the Great Barrier Reef, harming coral already in troubled water CNN, 10/23/2018

Trudeau Imposes Carbon Tax, With Rebates, on Four Provinces Bloomberg, 10/23/2018

This Is The Deadly Ocean Plastic Pollution You Never Hear About Huffington Post 10/24/2018

Kahoolawe's shorelines aren't as pristine as you might think Hawaii News Now, 10/24/2018

Climate Change Is Already Damaging American Democracy The Atlantic, 10/24/2018

Some of the countries leading on climate change might surprise you The Guardian, 10/24/2018

How Things Got So Bad for the Great Barrier Reef Popular Mechanics, 10/25/2018

Polluted Air Sends Up to 33 Million People to the ER Each Year EcoWatch, 10/25/2018

Walmart And Unilever's Push To Halt Deforestation May Signal Change For Business Forbes, 10/25/2018

Dolphins are simplifying their calls to make themselves heard over noisy humans Quartz, 10/25/2018

The Race To Save The Antarctic's Penguins, Whales And Seals Huffington Post, 10/25/2018

Trump is wrong – millions of Americans breathe badly polluted air NewScientist, 10/25/2018

'Disaster Waiting to Happen' as Trump Quietly Approves Massive Oil Drilling Project in Arctic Waters Off Alaska Coast Common Dreams, 10/25/2018

With Congress and Trump on sidelines, climate change battle moves to courts NBC News, 10/26/2018

Canada passed a carbon tax that will give most Canadians more money The Guardian, 10/26/2018

Personal Decisions to Combat Climate Change

A few weeks ago, the IPCC report on climate change was released. And there were a slew of articles about the personal decisions an individual can make to combat climate change. 

CNN says the 5 things you can do about climate change are make small changes at home (LED bulbs, turning off the lights, changing thermostats to be more eco-friendly, use less water), recycle at the office, use public transportation, get informed, and get involved. 

Sure, you definitely SHOULD use energy efficient appliances/bulbs, turn off the lights and water when not in use, and all of that. I definitely agree that everyone should do the list of things that CNN has laid out. 

In the same vein, Forbes recommends that you should campaign/protest/lobby/vote, change your commute to be more eco-friendly (hybrid cars, public transit, carpool, biking), build better and utilize green infrastructure, use less energy and invest in solar, use the 5 Rs (refuse, reduce, repair, reuse, recycle), and eat less meat and focus on locally sourced food. 

I also agree with these. 

However, all of those things are only drops in the bucket. They are helpful, yes, and you SHOULD do them. 

But there's bigger picture steps that you can take, as an individual. 

1. VOTE VOTE VOTE. You can check to see how much money various industries give to politicians and use that information to vote wisely. For example, Ted Cruz (R-TX) received the most oil & gas money in 2018. https://www.opensecrets.org/
2. VOTE VOTE VOTE 2.0. Vote for politicians who are environmentally minded. Who are pro-green new deal. Who have the environment's best interests at the forefront, not those who are pawns for polluting industries. 
3. You can invest your money with Swell Investing which uses UN Sustainable Development Goals to pick the mixture of companies for various impact areas - like climate action, clean water, etc. You can make a change by voting with your dollars. Put your money where your brain is, so to speak.
4. Buy from companies with sustainable practices, or to not support companies you disagree with. The movement is called voting with your wallet, and you have many options to learn more about that. Boycotts can be effective to make companies change their ways. I also talked more about this with clothing in a previous post. 
5. Donate money to organizations doing the good work. Non-profits like The Nature Conservany, The Ocean Conservancy, Sea Legacy, and the like are all doing their part. 
6. Rethink your daily actions. Consider the impact of your habits. For example, if I buy a single use bottle of soft drink every day, I'm generating 7 pieces of plastic that are recyclable but avoidable. I could use aluminum cans instead. Or buy a 2-liter larger bottle and drink from a reusable cup everyday. I could eliminate the soft drinks all together and opt for water, tea, etc in reusable cups. The same idea could work for the daily coffee on the go (use a reusable cup), lunches, etc. Just rethink your habit and find creative ingenious solutions to be more eco-friendly!
7. VOTE!

If everyone makes the small changes AND votes wisely

https://www.opensecrets.org/ - database for campaign financing 

https://www.buycott.com/ - vote with your wallet

https://grabyourwallet.org/ - database of companies in support of Trump or NRA

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is. Vote With Your Dollars Huffington Post, 2/19/2017

Every Purchase You Make Is A Chance To Vote With Your Wallet Fast Company, 4/5/2017

5 things you can do about climate change CNN, 6/2/2017

IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC 10/8/2018

Five things we have learned from the IPCC report BBC, 10/8/2018

It's getting harder for Big Cola to not take responsibility for its plastic pollution Quartz, 10/10/2018

What Urbanites Can Do To Slow Down Climate Change Forbes, 10/18/2018

Weekly Science Roundup: 10/19/2018

UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It's Actually Worse Than That. NY Magazine, 

10/10/2018

Letting nature take its course: Wolves in Yellowstone National Park Phys.org, 10/16/2018

What Happens When Humans Fall In Love With An Invasive Species FiveThirtyEight, 10/16/2018

Trump's Climate Denial Isn't Just a War on Our Coastlines. It's a War on Our Brains. NY Magazine, 10/17/2018

Trump blames wildfires on California forest policy and threatens to withhold funds from state LA Times, 10/17/2018

Great Lakes Pipeline Dispute Highlights a Broader Energy Dilemma EcoWatch, 10/17/2018

Carbon taxes are finally poised to become a reality The Hill, 10/17/2018

What happens to fish and other sea creatures underwater during a hurricane Business Insider, 10/17/2018

TRUMP: THERE ARE VERY FINE "SCIENTISTS ON BOTH SIDES" OF DEBATE OVER LOOMING ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS Vanity Fair, 10/17/2018

Everglades: climate change threatens years of work to reverse manmade damage The Guardian, 10/17/2018

Arctic greening thaws permafrost, boosts runoff Phys.org, 10/17/2018

Global warming breakthrough? New satellite will offer CLUES as UK and France team up Express UK, 10/17/2018

Photo of Ocean Cleanup at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Will Give You Hope One Green Planet, 10/17/2018

EPA quietly puts controversial 'secret science' plan on hold — for now Think Progress, 10/17/2018

We can still dodge the worst of fossil fuel-driven climate change The Hill, 10/17/2018

Microplastics found in 90 percent of table salt National Geographic, 10/17/2018

Canada ban on asbestos takes effect but mining residues are exempt CBC, 10/17/2018

Wind Farms Cause More Environmental Impact Than Previously Thought SciTech Daily, 10/17/2018

Israel's SodaStream sucks up ocean plastic in Honduras cleanup World Israel News, 10/17/2018

Sebastopol is first to embrace countywide zero-waste campaign Press Democrat, 10/17/2018

Researchers use ultrasound to learn more about Ningaloo's pregnant green sea turtles ABC Australia, 10/17/2018

EPA Boasts Of Reduced Greenhouse Gases, Even As Trump Questions Climate Science NPR, 10/18/2018

The Ocean Cleanup Has Reached the Great Pacific Garbage Patch The Inertia, 10/18/2018

Plague marching west: researchers study bats to stop their demise The Guardian, 10/18/2018

Extreme Botany: The Precarious Science of Endangered Rare Plants Yale Environment 360, 10/18/2018

The science behind halting Yellowstone grizzly hunt The Hill, 10/18/2018

What Urbanites Can Do To Slow Down Climate Change Forbes, 10/18/2018

Revealed: US moves to keep endangered species discussions secret The Guardian, 10/18/2018

Pesticide could be killing Massachusetts' endangered bumblebees, study finds MassLive, 10/18/2018

Deadly Flooding in Texas Causes Dramatic Bridge Collapse EcoWatch, 10/18/2018

UK failing to protect its porpoises and must create more conservation zones, European court rules The Independent UK, 10/18/2018

Shifting to a renewable energy-friendly policy framework is a win-win The Hill, 10/18/2018

Russian town besieged by polar bears forced off melting Arctic ice The Telegraph, 10/18/2018

'Untouched' Pacific island forests could be destroyed within 20 years due to unsustainable logging The Independent UK, 10/18/2018

Two Hurricanes, Two Reactions: How Advanced Warning Can Make Some Storms More Dangerous Forbes, 10/18/2018

A new leaf: the hardy trees reforesting the Amazon The Guardian, 10/18/2018

Science Talk: Dive into Singapore's marine environment to protect it Straits Times, 10/18/2018

Philippines plastic pollution: why so much waste ends up in oceans South China Morning Post, 10/18/2018

Jurassic-era piranha is world's earliest flesh-eating fish BBC, 10/19/2018

Garbage Soil Helps Trees Grow in the Desert NY Magazine, 10/19/2018

Plastic recycling firms accused of abusing market BBC, 10/19/2018

LATEST SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS AT WETEX Gulf News, 10/19/2018

Call for new green innovations to tackle climate change Gov UK, 10/19/2018

Cypress Logging in Louisiana

I have spent many many hours deep in the swamps of Louisiana. Most of the swamps I've seen have been modified by humans in one or more ways - cypress logging, building levees, digging canals, adding water control structures, and impounding and/or draining. There's virtually no remaining intact swamp. 

The most dramatic of those on a large scale in my opinion is the widespread cypress logging that took place across the coastal swamps of Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf coast. 

People have been logging baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) in Louisiana swamps since the 1700s, but it wasn't until the 1890s that people had the machines to log with any efficiency. Cypress lumber is valuable because it's rot resistant, strong, with a tight grain. It does make for beautiful boards. It also makes beautiful trees. 

Around that time, people developed the pull-boat, which was basically the downfall of cypress stands that were present in those days. The pull-boat allowed trees to be logged much more quickly than before. Intense logging occurred with that mechanical invention, and most virgin (never logged) cypress were logged from 1890-1925. By the 1930s, most cypress mills were going out of business and logging was dwindling... because nothing of worth was left to cut down. Any big trees left standing at that point were hollow and therefore useless to the logger, or otherwise damaged.

To log cypress, workers would visit the sites in the winter, when water levels were lower, and girdle the trees. Girdling is when the bark around the tree is removed, which will ultimately kill the tree [source]. Then, in the spring during high water, loggers would come back, cut the tree down, and then be able to float or pull the logs out of the swamp. To cut the trees down, loggers created notches in the trees that they inserted boards into - called springboards - that they could stand on while cutting the tree down [source].

Loggers effectively clearcut cypress trees from large tracts of land in south Louisiana. I've read descriptions of Manchac, LA (between the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain) that described huge cypress trees as far as the eye can see. Now, there are patches of cypress trees in that area but not nearly what used to be. The marsh is beautiful, but if you look carefully you can tell that something traumatic happened. There are still some sparse standing trees, with marsh underneath and around, but many standing cypress stumps and small canals criss-crossing the remaining marsh. 

There's many remnants of the effects of cypress logging still visible today. Here's a few:

While you can't see the pattern from the ground, the area is dissected with pull-boat canals. You can see all the straight, unnatural lines that run to one central point. Those are pull-boat canals where the logs were pulled out of the swamp. This is but one example of many that are visible on current aerial photography available to the public.

On the ground in Pearl River, I found an old stump that was girdled. This tree was cut down ~100 years ago, yet this stump still remains. This further proves the point that cypress wood is very very long lasting. Photo by me.

On the Tickfaw River, an old stump that has springboard notches visible. The notches are where loggers inserted the ends of boards (called springboards because they bounced) into the tree to stand on while they cut the tree down. It's hard to picture 100 years ago at this site, before it was logged, or picturing loggers work to cut this tree down. Photo by me. 

In Hope Canal, the remains of a former logging railroad can be seen. The railroad was built in the 1890s, and used to move logs out of the swamp. It wasn't until the 1930s that the actual canal was dug to divert water to Lake Maurepas. Photo by me.

In Manchac, you can see cypress dot the horizon. It's surely not the dense stands it once was. Photo by me.

These are only a few examples of the remnant hints of the cypress logging that took place. I see these scars all the time and they remind me of what used to be, but will never be again (probably). 

The hydrology of coastal Louisiana was relatively unaltered by humans in the early 20th century, so forests that were harvested had the opportunity to regrow. Baldcypress seeds need saturated soils but not flooded soils to germinate. Swamps are naturally seasonally flooded, with a portion of the year not flooded which allows seeds to germinate into seedlings. Once seedlings are established they can tolerate the natural flooding regime. 

But by the end of the 1930s, the hydrology was dramatically shifted and shifting. 

Since then, we've contained the Mississippi River in a prison of levees, and built a few diversion projects to semi-mimic natural floodwater dispersion into wetlands, cut off natural bayous that were river distributaries, extensively dug canals for flood relief, created two flood relief spillways, built interstates/roads over/through the swamps, and dug many many oil and gas exploration canals. I could write pages on all the changes that have happened in the last 100 years so I'll save that for a follow up post. 

The point is that the coast is not even remotely the same. 

Cypress that regenerated 100 years ago would not be able to do the same in 2018. The hydrology is massively different and seedlings to not seasonally get the non-flooded conditions necessary for adequate growth. Additionally wetlands (swamps included) provide valuable ecosystem services which cannot be easily replicated by humans, nor should they be when the original system is right in front of you. 

In the current situation, cypress swamps are semi-stable in my experience. Reconnecting the hydrology would be incredibly beneficial, planting older more tolerant seedlings in marshes is helpful, killing any and all nutria that eat the young trees would be amazing, and those are just the first 3 things I can think of. 

The take home message is that even though the hydrology is all messed up, the ecosystem is not properly functioning, and there are many environmental and political hurdles - love the swamp. The swamp is beautiful, it's wonderful, it's home to many beautiful species, and it's iconic. It is not to be feared, drained, destroyed, or logged. 

Additional Information:

1800s-era sunken logs are now treasure; here are the men who find them LA Times, 7/13/2014

Video of Louisiana Cypress Logging, 1920s YouTube user foresthistory, 2/3/2009

Battle Brews over Louisiana's Cypress Trees NPR, 5/26/2005

Sinker cypress: treasures of a lost landscape Christopher Aubrey Hurst, LSU thesis, 2005. 

>> start at page 29 for a history of cypress in Louisiana

Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 Wikipedia, accessed 10/16/2018

Flood Control Act of 1928 Wikipedia, accessed 10/16/2018

Caernarvon, Louisiana Wikipedia, accessed 10/16/2018

History of Levees FEMA, accessed 10/16/2018

Weekly Science Roundup: 10/12/2018

The world has just over a decade to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say The Washington Post, 10/7/2018

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum NASA, accessed 10/12/2018

U.N. report about global warming warns of "life-or-death situation" CBS News, 10/7/2018

Wind power makes the ground warmer even as it cools the planet Ars Technica, 10/7/2018

King tides are back, flooding South Florida streets Sun Sentinel, 10/7/2018

HOW MUSHROOMS MIGHT SAVE THE BEES Newsweek, 10/7/2018

Something's broken inside Earth? Scientists explore why millennia-old process has stalled RT, 10/7/2018

Plastic pollution: Bottle washed up after decades BBC, 10/8/2018

Letter to the editor: Err on the side of the environment Peninsula Clarion, 10/8/2018

Richmond-area Virginians who mix trash and recyclables get 'oops' notice WTOP Virginia, 10/8/2018

Yellowstone volcano eruption: Can NASA stop the supervolcano from erupting? Express UK, 10/8/2018

Climate change in the Rift Valley may have helped spark human evolution, researchers find Daily Mail UK, 10/8/2018

White House announces plan to expand ethanol use linked to increased pollution The Hill, 10/8/2018

What climate change is actually expected to do The Washington Post, 10/8/2018

Huge Iceberg Poised to Break Off Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Live Science, 10/9/2018

Global warming: How you can help the environment right now CBS News, 10/9/2018

In Changing Climate, Endangered Right Whales Find New Feeding Grounds NPR, 10/9/2018

As states near deal on Colorado River shortage, California looks at water cuts of as much as 8% LA Times, 10/10/2018

How will 9 billion or 10 billion people eat without destroying the environment? The Washington Post, 10/10/2018

Beach clean-up study shows global scope of plastic pollution National Geographic, 10/10/2018

It's getting harder for Big Cola to not take responsibility for its plastic pollution Quartz, 10/10/2018

Market forces put America's recycling industry in the dumps AP News, 10/10/2018

EPA removes 22 cleaned-up sites from Superfund list The Hill, 10/10/2018

We label fridges to show their environmental impact – why not food? The Guardian, 10/10/2018

'Alarming' level of microplastics found in a major U.S. river National Geographic, 10/10/2018

Trump administration waives 28 environmental and health protections to build border wall in Texas Think Progress, 10/10/2018

'Flexitarian' diets key to feeding people in a warming world BBC, 10/11/2018

China coal city vows 'no-coal zones' in bid to curb pollution Reuters, 10/11/2018

New wind farm to help Royal Caribbean offset its CO2 emissions SeaTrade, 10/11/2018

Senate confirms climate skeptic to head DOJ environment office The Hill, 10/11/2018

Things in the middle of the Arctic are getting really strange Mashable, 10/11/2018

With Thick Ice Gone, Arctic Sea Ice Changes More Slowly NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 10/11/2018

Few countries are meeting the Paris climate goals. Here are the ones that are. Washington Post, 10/11/2018

Prince William: 'It Is Heartbreaking' to Think Wildlife Could Be Extinct When My Kids Grow Up People, 10/11/2018

America's Oil And Gas Boom Is Creating A New Global Fossil Fuel Era Newsy, 10/11/2018

10 Ways to Celebrate the First-ever International E-waste Day Waste360, 10/11/2018

Manatee's barrier islands spared Hurricane Michael's wrath Herald Tribune, 10/11/2018

Mondelez Joins P&G, Colgate-Palmolive to Make Packaging Recyclable Industry Week, 10/11/2018

Fracking to restart in UK after last-minute legal bid fails The Guardian, 10/12/2018

'We need some fire': climate change activists issue call to arms for voters The Guardian, 10/12/2018