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I share this story because I fear this is what we’re doing with climate: we’re so tethered to the changes in carbon that we’re overlooking key aspects of climate stabilization—the extent to which ecosystems regulate climate, and the imperative to preserve and restore them. In doing so, we’re not only missing opportunities to minimize climate disruption. We’re also missing the plot.
The point is: our Earth has developed an exquisitely fine-tuned system for regulating temperature and moisture that is driven by the life that dwells here, the flora, fauna and fungi, and the interactions among them. At this time, what many term the Anthropocene, we often think of nature as passive, a backdrop to the world humans create. But as eco-philosopher Peter Donovan of the Soil Carbon Coalition says, “Nature doesn’t just sit there and look pretty. It does.
Somehow, we’re expected to believe that clear-cutting acres of intact forest for solar panels is a good thing, climate-wise. All over New England, hillsides and abandoned farms are being stripped for solar. Becausehas been framed as an energy problem that can be solved with solar panels, well-meaning legislators have crafted incentives that, alas, are best exploited by out-of-state investment firms like the one holding an axe over our trees.
When nature is depleted, there’s “more warming with the same amount of CO2,” says Makarieva. “It’s more difficult for CO2 to warm the planet in the presence of healthy ecosystems such as natural forests. The price of losing a hectare of primary ecosystem is already getting higher.”