How sea otters help the environment; eco-friendly Valentine gifts; a biodegradable lobster trap; your gas stove is polluting; Everest’s melting ice
| | Tuesday, February 8, 2022 | | | | |
| In today’s newsletter, we examine eco-friendly Valentine gifts, how sea otters help the environment, a biodegradable lobster trap, Everest's melting ice, and ... your gas stove is polluting, even when you're not using it. | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPHS BY LUJÁN AGUSTI | |
By Robert Kunzig, Executive Editor, Environment
We could eliminate global aviation, both passenger and freight, and never fly anywhere again. Or we could protect the world’s peatlands, a huge and much abused store of carbon, and thereby make an even bigger impact on climate change. Which seems the more promising option?
For World Wetlands Day last week, my colleague Sarah Gibbens wrote an appreciation of peatlands, which are one kind of wetland—the kind where dead and undecomposed plant matter has accumulated for millennia to create a thick, dark, carbon-rich soil. Check out the lovely photos from National Geographic Explorer Luján Agusti of one of the world’s most remote peatlands, in Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Argentina (pictured above).
We’ve come a long way since the days when the only good wetland was a drained one, but not far enough, which is why wetlands still need a day when we remember them. An additional third of them have been lost, Gibbens writes, in the half-century since a global treaty was adopted to protect them.
Peatlands cover only 3 percent of the Earth’s land area, but they pack a powerful carbon punch. The amount of carbon they’ve soaked up since the last Ice Age has been estimated at 600 gigatons—around two-thirds the amount in the atmosphere. And they are still soaking it up in many places. The world’s largest intact peatland was only recently discovered in the Congo rainforest. (Below left, peat from an Argentine bog; at right, freshly scooped peat.) | | | |
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But increasingly, the carbon is leaking out too, as we drain peat bogs and mine them for use as planting soil; or plant crops in them directly, such as oil palms, or as climate-driven wildfires tear through the forests above them. Carbon emissions from peatlands amount to nearly 2 gigatons a year, according to one estimate, or 5 percent of total human emissions—nearly twice the contribution from global aviation.
To reduce such emissions, there is now a movement to restore peatlands by blocking drainage canals and rewetting the bogs. Indonesia, the largest palm oil producer, is investing more than $3 billion in the effort, which is good—but it also illustrates how much can be gained by not destroying peatlands in the first place. (Below, scientist Julio Escobar looks at a road being built through Argentine peatlands without approvals or environmental studies.)
“You should try to keep what you have,” ecologist Jack Riely of the International Peatlands Society tells Gibbens. “It is always costly to bring it back.”
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There are a lot of things like that in the battle against climate change—things we could do to fight climate change that we should want to do anyway. As we convert to clean energy, we reduce air pollution as well as carbon emissions, making our children healthier. As our vehicles go electric the roar of traffic will begin to quiet. And as we protect the forests, prairies, and peatlands of the world, the benefits to wildlife—as well as to climate—will be incalculable.
I know, there are plenty of steep costs too associated with transitioning off oil, gas, and coal, plenty of climate damage that is already baked in at this point, and plenty of ways our lives will have to change to adapt to it. But there are enough win-wins in the fight, it makes you wish we could just get going on those faster.
We could still argue later about cheeseburgers and flying on planes.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE, NGM STAFF | | | Sweet gestures for the planet: This Valentine’s Day, skip the shiny metallic balloons and traditional paper greeting cards. We’re not trying to ruin date night; they’re terrible for the environment. You can show some love for your sweetheart—and the planet—with more eco-friendly gestures, Christina Nunez writes. | | | |
THREE TIPS
1. Skip the floral foam: That’s the crumbly plastic from many bouquets that often ends up in waterways.
2. Check that chocolate: Before buying sweets, look for a seal from a group like the Rainforest Alliance to make sure the cocoa wasn’t harvested by mistreated, underpaid labor or by razing tropical forests.
3. Seeds of love? Plantable seeds might be a longer-lasting gift than a use-it-and-toss-it greeting card. See other ideas here.
What ideas do you have? Read this, and email us with your thoughts. | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY DIRK COLLINS | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE MARTINEZ | | Nature for all: How do you involve more people in ecology? Biologist and Nat Geo Explorer Danielle Lee (pictured above) is building understanding for a city’s environment and neglected green spaces—as well as inspiring young Black people to follow in her scientific path. In the latest episode of our weekly Overheard podcast, Lee leads host Eli Chen on a hike through Wilderness Park in St. Louis, with this cautionary note: “I’m a solo hiker … and I’m a meanderer, so I have no idea where I’m going.” It’s a wonderful journey.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHARD COLLETT | | A tradition, revived? On the southeastern English coast, a desire for anti-plastic and non-polluting fishing gear has inspired small-scale fishermen to switch to a naturally biodegradable lobster trap. The “new” alternative happens to be a centuries-old “withy pot”—woven from foraged willow branches and shaped like a giant inkwell. New weaving classes are underway to grow the critically endangered craft. “I see this as heritage that needs to be kept alive,” Sue Morgan, one of England’s few such weavers, tells Nat Geo. (Pictured above, weaver Nigel Legge at work.)
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We hope you liked today’s Planet Possible newsletter. This was edited and curated by Monica Williams, Heather Kim, and David Beard. Have an idea or a link for us? Write david.beard@natgeo.com. Have a good week ahead! | | | |
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