The Great Southern Exodus

“Imagine your lawn crawling north away from your house at a speed of about five and a half feet per year.”

It’s a powerful image Dr. Lawrence Smith uses to describe the impact of climate change in his recent book, The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future, which has garnered him media attention.

After a bit of searching, I found numerous credible sources citing scientific papers that back up his startling prediction. It falls in line with research findings that have been years in the making. I might add that to understand the full impact of Smith’s analogy, you’d also have to imagine that your south-facing backyard is shrinking, drying up, and losing lustre. 

But we’re not just talking about your lawn and backyard vegetable patch. Smith paints a picture of a very real and extensively documented phenomenon that will have wide-ranging effects. As global temperatures rise, plants and animals will be pushed north and up in to higher altitudes.

Animals and plants are sensitive to changes in temperature, with several studies showing that some have adapted to regional warming by shifting their range to the north. Global-scale models predict a continuous northerly shift in both plant and animal distributions. 

But keep in mind that even if species have the flexibility to adapt and keep up with a changing climate, physical barriers such as mountains and human settlements could stand in the way. Other factors like food availability and soil types could also prevent a range shift.

Animals and plants that are already under considerable stress are least likely to make the move north, a point that is highlighted in an assessment by the European Environmental Agency.

In a recent interview with Bob MacDonald, host of CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks, Dr. Smith updated his original analogy to something a bit more dramatic in scale. 

“It's five and a half feet per day," Dr. Smith told host Bob McDonald. "And this number refers not to the spread of agriculture, but to the mass migration of biological life that is already happening on our planet and has been for several decades. On average the world's plants and animals have been moving northward to higher latitude at a rate of about six kilometres per decade."

Springtime Flowers

Jim Dubois, one of our online supporters, recently sent us a beautiful array of spingtime flowers that can be found along the Quinsam river in British Columbia. Thanks for sharing Jim. If you like Jim's work make sure to visit his website at http://www.theineleganteagle.com/.

Pink Fawn Lily

Swamp Lantern (also known as skunk cabbage)

Salmonberry

Lady's Smock

Yellow Wood Violet

Biofuel Crops Raise Invasion Concerns

Concern over invasive biofuel crops has caused the IUCN to look deeper into the potential risks associated with their introduction and impacts on local livelihoods and the environment. Nadine McCormick, IUCN Energy Network Coordinator puts it this way: “Current biofuel production is based on established food crops, and while this raises other sustainability concerns, the risk of invasion is not large. However, this risk will increase exponentially as new plants – that grow fast with many seeds in pretty much any land – are cultivated for more advanced biofuels.”

Not all biofuel crops are invasive, but this new report does push for more precautionary actions to avoid any detrimental impacts on the environment and livelihoods. The invasive nature, which is not inherent, of a biofuel crop depends on the environment in which it is grown as well as the method by which it is grown.

Geoffrey Howard, IUCN Global Invasive Species Coordinator, states that “biological invasions from the introduced species themselves, as well as from the production processes, are real risks to biodiversity and livelihoods,” and goes on to say “the risks can be reduced by following the guidelines we’ve set out.”

The guidelines, a product of cooperation between the IUCN and the Roundtable on Sustainable Energy (RSE), include step-by-step recommendations for reducing the risk of biological invasions by biofuel crops.

The report can be found here:

http://www.iucn.org/?4716

I remember working on an environmental impact assessment project in 2007 for a Jatropha (a biofuel crop) plantation project in southern Egypt; beautiful Luxor and Aswan! We had not listed biological invasions as one of our concerns due to the project’s location – in the middle of nowhere without any signs of life. It would be great to go back and see what has become of this project.