Melting Arctic ice, threatened forests and the growing toll of extreme weather
Forests, extreme weather and the realities of a warming world
By Rachel Feltman, Andrea Gawrylewski, Fonda Mwangi & Alex Sugiura
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. You’re listening to our weekly science news roundup.
We spotted lots of important climate-related stories last week, so we’re going to hunker down and focus on the environment today—with the exception of a couple of very fun stories we’ll save for the end of the show, as a treat.
First up, we’ve got some troubling news about forests. Last Tuesday the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed a plan to kill something called the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This Clinton-era rule pretty much does what it says on the tin: it took tens of millions of acres of national forests and grasslands that did not yet have roads on them and deemed that they would remain roadless. In the decades leading up to the Roadless Rule’s introduction, the logging industry had been encroaching on these wooded areas with access roads. Roadless areas ensure that swaths of these national forests are preserved, protecting animal habitats and allowing for recreational activities like hiking.
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The USDA described the policy in last week’s press release as a “one-size-fits-all restriction” that has “frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to wildfire risk reduction work.” It’s worth noting, however, that the Roadless Rule has always allowed roadbuilding and tree cutting when needed to reduce wildfire risk or otherwise support human health and safety. And experts have pointed out that, with most wildfires stemming from human activity, road construction and industrial incursions will likely make wildfires worse, not better.
The proposed rule will go through a 30-day public comment period before it can be finalized. You can submit a comment by going to Regulations.gov.
Speaking of humans traveling through places that used to be none of our business, last week China launched a summer cargo shipping route that will skirt the northern coast of Russia—a route that would be impossible without climate change. Here to tell us more is Scientific American’s chief newsletter editor Andrea Gawrylewski.
Thanks so much for coming on to talk to us about this.
Andrea Gawrylewski: Thank you so much for having me
Feltman: So this shipping route couldn’t exist, now it does. Let’s start with who’s actually doing the shipping?
Gawrylewski: Yeah. Earlier this month, a Chinese shipping company launched a new shipping route over the Arctic Ocean as kind of an expressway to get to Europe. This route will run along the northern coast of Russia to Europe, so through the North Sea. And experts expect that this shipping route will become a lot more traveled in the summer months because of the lack of ice at the Arctic.
Feltman: Yeah, so this was like actually not a passable route. How much melt had to happen to make this possible?
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