The Last Lions of India

Disease has struck the rare Asiatic lions of Gujarat, and other new threats have put their recovery in jeopardy. What will it take to save them?

When most people think of lions, they probably think of Africa. But another, lesser-known subspecies of lion actually lives in India, where they represent a major conservation victory — for now, at least.

Asiatic lions are a distant cousin of the much bigger African lions that diverged from the African continent over 100,000 years ago. They once roamed throughout the Middle East, including Mesopotamia, Syria, Iran, Palestine, Arabia and Balochistan, along with much of Northern India to the Bay of Bengal. Sadly hunting caused the lion’s numbers and territory to shrink, until they were only found on the Indian subcontinent. After that, trigger-happy British colonialists and Indian maharajahs shot practically all of India’s lions except for a handful in the Gir deciduous forests in Junagarh, a district in Gujarat in western India.

By the beginning of 20th century only an estimated 20 Asiatic lions remained in the wild. Their fate would have been sealed forever if not for the timely act of the nawab of Junagarh who offered immediate sanctuary — from a king to the king of the jungle — and the lions finally found a safe haven. The nawab was succeeded by his son, an even bigger animal lover, who in 1922 totally banned hunting of lions in Gir and declared the region as a protected area.

Over the next 100 years, as colonial rule gave way to an independent democratic country, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries started sprouting across India especially to save the national animal — the tiger. Gir became a government-protected reserve and, as the last bastion of Asiatic lions, has continued to play a vital role in the conservation of the species.

New Troubles

The last census of the cats’ population in 2015 showed 356 Asiatic lions living in the Gir National park and another 167 in the unprotected forest and revenue areas of Gujarat state.

The lions owe their survival and recovery to the assiduous efforts of India’s Forest Department, the state and central governments, and the local communities who have revered the lions as the true king of their last abode. It came as no surprise when, in 2015, the Asiatic lions became the first big carnivores to be downgraded from “critically endangered” to “endangered” on the IUCN Red List of threatened species. They’re a rare conservation victory any nation would be proud of.

But is it all good news for Asiatic lions? Perhaps it seems that way when you look at their rising numbers, but it appears less so when you look at the bigger picture of a shrinking habitat. With more than 500 lions in the 8,494-square-mile park (22,000 sq. km), many experts feel there’s just not enough room for their population to continue to grow. Meanwhile, keeping them all in one place also leaves the lions vulnerable to the ravages of a future natural or man-made disaster like fire or floods, which could spell doom for the whole species.

In fact one of those disasters may have now arrived, as at least 23 Asiatic lions have died in the past few months. About half of the deaths have been linked to an outbreak of canine distemper virus, an infectious disease that has also threatened other wild cat populations. In response, the Gujarat State Forest and Animal Husbandry departments have started a program to vaccinate local cattle and dogs, from which the disease probably spread to lions, but it’s as-yet unknown how many lions remain at risk.

The People Problem

Meanwhile, there’s another threat: With millions of tourists flocking to see the animals each year, the villagers living on the fringes of the forest have found a new way to earn quick bucks by showing off “their state’s pride” to passing tourists.

In May this year seven people were arrested in Gujarat for planning an illegal lion show, where a somewhat tamed lioness was lured out of the forest with live chicken bait. The viral video — and many other such episodes of locals abusing wild lions through staged hunts and wild chases that surfaced one after the other — burst the bubble for the custodians of the forest, who had until then believed they were doing everything right to protect the lions.

The Gujarat state government immediately took stern steps. New rules include a ban on taking videos of the wild lions, which will now amount to hunting. Any individuals shooting a lion with a camera could get seven years of imprisonment and will be booked under section 9 of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972.

Other initiatives suggested are radio collaring each of the wild cats to track them constantly and the enrollment of local guardians into a troop called SinhMitras (Friends of the Lion) who, accompanied by dogs, would roam the forests to keep a watch not on the lions but the tourists and ensure no one uses any illegal means to get a glimpse of the lions. The state is also intent on adding two additional safari parks and turning them into protected areas to reduce the tourism pressure on the current safaris.

The Missing Step

However, a step the Gujarat government is reluctant to take is to give away its pride — or at least to share the responsibility of conservation by extending the lion’s territory to a neighboring state and thereby improving the lions’ chances of survival in the face of unexpected disasters like the current disease outbreak.

Five years ago the Supreme Court of India, the nation’s highest judicial body, issued an order to move some lions from Gir national park to Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, but to this date no lion has been moved.

Gujarat claims that the translocation will happen only after 33 studies have been conducted in Madhya Pradesh under the IUCN guidelines. The Madhya Pradesh government, on the other hand, says it is ready for the lions, having expanded the size of the Kuno protected area from 133 square miles (344 square km) to 270 square miles (700 sq. km). They have also spent Rs. 90 crore (U.S. $13 million) for relocation of 24 villages in the core area, development of prey base and other infrastructure needs. Ravi Chellam, a member of an expert committee formed by the Environment Ministry, believes it is the complete unwillingness of the governments — both central and the states — to deal with the complexity and the urgency of the problem that is delaying the shift of the lions.

What is worrying is Gujarat’s unflinching belief that it is the only state in India capable of protecting the cats; this could turn catastrophic. A recent study showed that of the 184 deaths recorded of lions in 2016 and 2017, 32 were due to unnatural causes like falling into open wells, being hit by trains or vehicles, electrocution and poisoning. The presence of six highways, a railway line and about 18,000 open wells only increase the danger of continued accidents. “At the moment, all our eggs are in one basket and that is a huge risk,” warned Chellam.

Even the recent canine distemper outbreak has not swayed the government’s position. This month Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani emphatically stated that the lions were “completely safe in the forest” and “will not be relocated.”

The lions of Gujarat are admittedly doing relatively well overall despite the current threats, but Asiatic lions are still endangered and need a contingency plan that ensures they can roar beyond the boundaries of their lone territory. While at one time the resolute action of a nawab saved the lions by closing the boundaries of the state, what would do greater good today is to open dialogues, share expertise, encourage development of more secure habitats through translocations and give the kings of the jungle a chance to spread their kingdoms.

The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

New Green Strategy: Change the Electorate, Not the Election

It turns out that many people who care about the environment never vote. One organization is working to change that.

How little do elected officials care about climate change? Look no further than a recent U.S. Senate hearing about the biggest threats facing the country, where lawmakers asked a single question about global warming during the entire three-hour event.

Sadly, this hearing occurred just days after the world’s leading scientific body on climate change warned that the world has a mere dozen years to avoid catastrophic impacts.

Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, getting elected officials in the United States to commit to genuine solutions has been slow going, to say the least.

Nathaniel Stinnett has some idea of why and what to do about it.

Stinnett worked for years as a consultant and advisor on political campaigns and for advocacy nonprofits. A few years ago he noticed that polls showed that climate change and environmental issues were usually last among priorities for likely voters.

But that’s not because Americans don’t care about those issues, he says. Polls of American adults show that tens of millions do care deeply about those issues. They’re just not good voters compared to people who vote on issues like immigration, which is the top priority among voters in this year’s midterm election.

So in 2015 Stinnett launched the Environmental Voter Project with the goals of identifying environmental advocates who don’t vote and then turning them out for any and all elections.

The group calculated that close to 16 million environmentalists didn’t vote in the 2014 midterms, and around 10 million didn’t vote in 2016’s presidential election.

It’s hoped that the more people vote, the more action will finally be taken by the politicians who get elected. “More facts or fancy arguments are not going to convince politicians to lead on climate change,” he says. “All they care about is getting enough votes, so that’s all we care about.”

In just a few years of effort, the results are already encouraging.

The Strategy

Most other voting-oriented initiatives follow two typical strategies. Some groups focus on registering people who have never voted. Others, including nearly everyone running a political campaign or advocating for an issue, focus on turning out likely voters who align with their candidate or cause.

That means that very few organizations (if any) end up talking to people who are registered but simply don’t show up on Election Day. There’s a reason for that: “If I’m trying to elect you governor of California, I’m not going to spend your money talking to people I know aren’t going to vote,” says Stinnett. “That’s how I get fired.”

And that’s where the Environmental Voter Project’s mission differs. They don’t endorse candidates or lobby for issues. They aren’t trying to win any elections. They don’t even try to convince people to care more about climate change and the environment.

Instead they find people who already believe in the cause but don’t currently vote.

“And instead of changing their minds, we change their behavior and turn them into more consistent voters,” he says. “We don’t focus on elections. We focus on changing the electorate.”

In other words, the Environmental Voter Project plays the long game.

That’s because politicians are only interested in issues that are important to voters, not nonvoters. “Nothing motivates a politician more than winning or losing an election,” says Stinnett. “If you get more environmentalists to vote, you’re going to get more politicians leading on environmental issues. Our goal is to have real environmental leadership not just at the federal level, but also at the state and local level.”

The organization uses extensive polling and publicly available data to build predictive models that can identify people who are likely to say that climate change and environmental issues are one of their top two priorities. Then they check that list against voting records to find their targets.

After that staff and 1,800 volunteers use a combination of contact methods including calling, texting, door-to-door canvassing, direct mail and digital advertising.

It’s hard work, and while some people may be frustrated by the sheer number of people who care about the environment but don’t vote, Stinnett sees a tremendous opportunity.

“We live in a world where it’s increasingly hard to get people to change their minds, especially when we’re talking about climate change and other environmental issues,” he says. “But if we’re talking about finding people who are already with us and slightly tweaking their actions, it’s a little bit easier.”

The Results

The Environmental Voter Project tested out its methods for the first two years in Massachusetts before expanding last year to Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

How effective have their efforts been? The group reported that by using mail and digital advertising, it was able to increase turnout between 2.8 and 4.5 percent. In-person canvassing bumps up turnout by 4.9 to 6.9 percent.

And because the group was focusing on every single election, big or small, there were some people who got contacted for four elections in a single year. “By then end of the fourth election there were people that were voting at a 12.1 percent higher rate than our control group,” Stinnett says.

The reason that number is so high, they believe, is that others took notice of their results. It only takes two months after you vote for your name to show up on voter records, so after nonvoters start turning out for elections, other campaigns begin to identify them as likely voters.

“It was like the cavalry would come in and we were sending this signal to the marketplace that these people were now voters,” says Stinnett. “And then all these well-funded campaigns were coming in and turning out these people at no cost to us.”

The Lessons

And here’s the unexpected thing about EVP’s strategy and success: Even though it’s targeting environmentalists, its messaging rarely ever mentions the environment. Instead it plays on people’s desires to fit in with their peers.

This kind of social-norms messaging is used a lot these days. There are apps that motivate you to work out by comparing your run to your friend’s or get you to save electricity by telling you how much energy your neighbor uses.

The Environmental Voter Project employs similar tactics to turn out voters.

For example, a target might receive a mailing letting her know how many people in her building voted in the last election. “Sometimes we remind them that whether they vote or not is public record, sometimes we’ll even send them copies of their voter records and tell them we’ll follow up after the election,” says Stinnett.

The Project also uses voter pledges, which he says work surprisingly well in convincing people to keep their promise and vote. “Most people want to be known as honest promise keepers,” he says. And that relates to another concept they employ: expressive choice theory.

Instead of rationally trying to convince someone of the importance of their vote (which would be rational choice theory), EVP focuses on changing the person’s behavior to take advantage of how they want to express themselves or how they want to view themselves, Stinnett explains.

While that all may sound a bit pushy, Stinnett doesn’t care. “It isn’t like the climate crisis is a small thing,” he says. “If getting a little aggressive with social-pressure techniques can dramatically increase the number of environmentalists that vote, you better believe we’re going to do it.”

Right now people in the United States are fixated on November 6 and what the midterm election may bring, but Stinnett and his colleagues are already shifting their focus to the mayoral elections of spring 2019.

Every election, he believes, is an opportunity to change behavior and eventually policy.

“The climate crisis is not some disease for which we have no cure,” he says. “All we’re missing is political leadership. We already have all the policy solutions. We just don’t have people willing to enact them.”

Stinnett believes that voting, which takes the average American just 14 minutes, is one of the most significant actions you can take to save the planet.

“Simply by becoming a voter on public voter records you become a part of the (unfortunately very small) group of Americans who drive policy,” Stinnett says. And while some people who care about the environment have made lifestyle changes to tread more lightly on the planet, they still haven’t shown up to vote en masse.

“But once we start doing that, it’s amazing how quickly things can change,” he says.

Previously in The Revelator:

The Environment Is on the November Ballot — Here’s Where and What’s at Stake

The Trump Administration’s ‘Dishonest’ Attack on Fuel-economy Standards

A former EPA engineer calls it “the most spectacular regulatory flip-flop in history.” Other experts say the resulting emissions increase would bode ill for the planet.

The Trump administration’s plan to freeze fuel-economy standards is “the most spectacular regulatory flip-flop in history,” says a retired EPA engineer who helped to develop the standards under the Obama administration.

“These standards weren’t going to be the ultimate solution for solving the climate problem, but they were a very, very important first step,” says Jeff Alson, who retired this past April after a 40-year career at the EPA. “That’s why this delay is so risky to us.”

The Obama-era fuel-economy rules for cars and trucks — which former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announced the Trump administration would “revise” this past April — would have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 540 million metric tons and oil consumption by 1.2 billion barrels.

The previous rules were developed over a period of seven years by the EPA and the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Passed in 2010 and 2012, the standards required automakers to continuously increase their vehicles’ fuel efficiency and decrease their emissions through the year 2025. Alson says the effort — which involved “hundreds of meetings” — resulted in a plan to effectively double fuel efficiency over that time period while allowing automakers to incrementally improve their technology.

Since 2012 the rules have saved drivers “tens of billions of dollars on fuel and cut hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions,” according to a recent Union of Concerned Scientists blog post by retired General Motors engineer Greg Kempf.

The Trump plan, however, would put that savings on hold and flatline further fuel-economy improvements for six years. If passed, it would result in a 500,000 barrel-a-day increase of oil consumption in the United States, according to S&P Global Markets. The rules, according to the August 24 announcement in the Federal Register, are actually designed to increase fossil-fuel consumption, saying the country has increased oil production enough to reduce “the urgency of the U.S. to conserve energy.”

By contrast, the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the world must, among other actions, rapidly switch to electric vehicles powered by renewable energy if it hopes to avoid a climate-change catastrophe.

A Change in Plans

Although the automotive industry publicly supported the old standards, experts say they also advocated for slowing them down, as evidenced by a letter a trade group called the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers sent to President Trump shortly after his inauguration.

“The industry is more concerned with their quarterly profits than long-term greenhouse gas emissions,” says John M. DeCicco, research professor at the University of Michigan Energy Institute. “The Obama-era standards would have been a move in the right direction for the climate, but now we’re regressing.”

The Trump administration’s freeze may appeal to corporate supporters, but they are not popular with the public. Alson testified at a public meeting about the plan last month and says “five or six of the 150 people attending supported some kind of rollback, some kind of weakening of the standards, but everybody else didn’t.”

More broadly, a recent survey by the Consumer Federation of America found that the public, regardless of political affiliation, overwhelmingly approves of both current fuel-economy standards and the previous plan to improve them.

That’s no surprise, says DeCicco. “Such support has been consistently strong since the 1970s,” he says. “Consumers instinctively know that stronger vehicle standards have been good for them in many ways.”

Good for the Planet and the Bottom Line

“Making cars more fuel efficient not only reduces the carbon they emit but it reduces the amount of gasoline you got to buy,” says Alson. “Every mile per gallon higher you have in your car, that’s more money in your pocket.” In fact, he says, fuel-economy standards typically save the average car owner twice money as much as they spend on the cost of fuel-efficient technology.

“I’d call it a free-lunch regulation,” he says. “Economists don’t like the concept of free lunch, but if these standards force new technological innovation and automakers bring it to market, consumers are actually going to save more on gasoline in the long run than they’re spending on the technology.”

Interestingly, Alson says the Trump administration’s move is actually proving unpopular with automakers themselves. “The automakers are nervous right now,” he says. “They wanted a little bit of relief, a little bit of flexibility, but they had no idea that the libertarian ideologues within this administration were going to go for an eight-year rollback. This has actually surprised the automakers and Ford came to the hearing I attended and said were opposed to this rollback, and Honda has also said that publicly.”

That’s in part because the industry always has a multiyear plan for developing and implementing new technologies. “They make decisions today about the billions of dollars they’re going to be spending on new technology over the next five or 10 years,” he says. The Trump administration’s announcement has thrown a monkey wrench into those carefully established plans.

Unfortunately, those plans actually involve selling more trucks and SUVs instead of lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles, which are less profitable. DeCicco points out that recent emission gains from sales of electric vehicles have been “more than offset” by the increased sales in small trucks and SUVs. He says while consumers do recognize the need for fuel-efficiency standards, “they want bigger cars, and that’s what the companies are offering.”

Still, the tide toward electric vehicles continues to slowly rise around the world, and activist Bill McKibben says that puts the Trump administration effectively “alone” in wanting the new standards. “Even the auto industry realizes they don’t really want to go back to the bad old days, and most Americans perceive, if dimly, that their next car or the one after that is going to be electric,” he says. “At the very least they understand that we’re handing the future of a key industry to the Chinese and the German manufacturers with Trump’s idiocy.”

So what happens next? Alson has a prediction: If the Trump administration successfully freezes standards, even for a short time, “there’re going to be lawsuits, no question,” he says.

That eventuality seems especially likely given the circumstances behind the freeze. The EPA itself did not participate in the efforts to roll back the regulations, the details for which instead came from the Department of Transportation. Alson says he and other experts from the EPA were not even allowed to consult on the changes.

“For 18 months, they refused to have a single technical working meeting, and from a process standpoint that’s just indefensible,” he says. “The taxpayers were paying people like me to use my expertise, and the Department of Transportation — which doesn’t even have a lab that can test for fuel economy or greenhouse gas emissions — said ‘we are doing it our own way.’ That’s the most dishonest technical analysis I’ve seen in my 40 years. They basically cooked the books.”

And in the process, experts warn, they might be helping to cook the planet.

The EPA plans to finalize its new rules by March 2019. No further public hearings on the matter are planned, and the public comment period ends October 26.

Four Exciting Dam-removal Projects to Watch

From California to Maryland, dams are being removed to help fish, improve safety and boost recreation.

For much of the 20th century humans got really good at dam building. Dams — embraced for their flood protection, water storage and electricity generation — drove industry, built cities and helped turn deserts into farms. The United States alone has now amassed more than 90,000 dams, half of which are 25 feet tall or greater.

Decades ago, dams were a sure sign of “progress.” But that’s changing.

Today the American public is more discerning of dams’ benefits and more aware of their long-term consequences. In the past 30 years, 1,275 dams have been torn down, according to the nonprofit American Rivers, which works on dam-removal and river-restoration projects.

Why remove dams? Some are simply old and unsafe – the average age of U.S. dams is 56 years. It would cost American taxpayers almost $45 billion to repair our aging, high-hazard dams, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. In some cases it’s simply cheaper to remove them.

Other dams have simply outlived their usefulness or been judged to be doing more harm than good. Dams have been shown to fragment habitat, decimate fisheries and alter ecosystems.

Depending on the size and scope of the project, dam removal may not be an easy or quick fix. Getting stakeholders onboard, raising the funds and performing the necessary scientific and engineering studies can take years before actual removal efforts can begin.

And some projects are controversial and may never get the green light. For decades stakeholders have debated whether to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Lower Snake River in eastern Washington. The dams provide about four percent of the region’s electricity, but also block endangered salmon from reaching critical habitat. The fish are a key food source for the Northwest’s beleaguered orcas.

The debate over the Snake River dams is ongoing, but with each new dam removal researchers are learning important lessons to help guide the next project. One of the most important lessons gleaned so far is that rivers bounce back quickly. Recent research has shown that “changes in the river below the dam removal happen faster than were generally expected and the river returned to a normal state more rapidly than expected,” says Ian Miller, an oceanography instructor at Peninsula College and a coastal hazards specialist.

Miller has worked on studies both before and after the removal of two dams on Washington’s Elwha River, which is the largest dam-removal project thus far. But more projects, including a big one, may soon be grabbing headlines.

Here are four that we’re watching closely that show the diversity of dam-removal projects across the country.

Klamath

The most anticipated upcoming dam-removal project in the United States will be on the Klamath River in California and Oregon. It’s the first time four dams will be removed simultaneously, making it an even bigger endeavor than those on the Elwha.

“We’ve never seen a dam-removal and river-restoration project at this scale,” says Amy Souers Kober, communications director for American Rivers.

The hydroelectric dams — three in California and one in Oregon — range in height from 33 feet to 173 feet.

Local tribes may be among the most enthused for the dams’ removal. Their communities depend on salmon as an economic and cultural resource, but fish populations began to crash after the first dam on the Klamath River was constructed 100 years ago.

Klamath protest — A 2006 protest by Klamath Basin Tribes and allies. Photo: Patrick McCully (CC BY 2.0)

While the removal of the dams won’t make the Klamath River entirely dam-free (there will be two more upstream dams remaining), it will open up 400 miles of stream habitat for salmon and other fish. It’s also expected to help improve water quality, including reducing threats from toxic algae that have flourished in the warm water of the reservoirs.

The project is hailed for the huge coalition for stakeholders that have become collaborators. “This has been decades in the making, with so many people involved, from the tribes, to commercial fishermen, to conservationists and many others,” says Kober. “Dam removals are most successful when there are a lot of people at the table and it’s a truly collaborative effort.”

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and an independent board of consultants are now reviewing the plan for the Lower Klamath Project, a 2,300-page analysis of the dam removal and restoration effort. And the project is also working on receiving its last permitting requirements. If all proceeds on track, the site preparation will begin in 2020 and dam removal in 2021.

Patapsco

On September 11, as the Southeast readied itself for approaching Hurricane Florence, a blast of explosives breached the Bloede Dam on the Patapsco River in Maryland. Crews have been working to remove the rest of the structure and restoration efforts are expected to continue into next year.

The dam — the first submerged hydroelectric plant in the country — was built in 1907 and is located in a state park and owned by Maryland Department of Natural Resources. For the past decade concerns have mounted over public safety, obstructed fish passage and other aquatic habitat impacts from the dam, prompting a plan to remove it.

The removal of the dam is “going to restore alewife and herring and other fish that are really vital to the food web and the Chesapeake Bay,” says Kober. Researchers expect to study the results of this ecosystem restoration for years to come.

There’s another reason to watch this project: The dam’s removal also involves some interesting science and technology. Researchers have employed high-tech drones to help them understand how much of the 2.6 million cubic feet of sediment from behind the dam will make its way downstream and at what speed. With the sensitive ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay just 8 miles downstream, sediment inflow is a big concern.

“Just the idea the we can fly drones over this extended reach with some degree of regularity means that we can see evidence of sediment movement from the pictures alone,” explains Matthew Baker, a professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who is helping to lead this effort. “We can track the movement just by taking low-altitude aerial photos and we can try to model that within a computer and estimate the amount of sediment and the rate of movement.”

This kind of research lowers the cost of monitoring, says Baker, and can help future dam-removal work, too. “I think it’s going to be employed regularly,” he says.

Middle Fork Nooksack

About 20 miles east of Bellingham, Wash., a dam removal on the Middle Fork Nooksack River is the “next biggest important restoration project in Puget Sound,” says Kober.

The diversion dam, built in 1962, was constructed to funnel water to the city of Bellingham to augment its primary water supply source in Lake Whatcom – but at the expense of fish, which cannot pass over or through the dam.

nooksack river birds — Bald eagles and other birds on the Nooksack River. Photo: Mick Thompson (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Since the early 2000s the city, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Lummi Nation and Nooksack Indian Tribe have worked on a plan to remove the dam in order to restore about 16 miles of spawning and rearing habitat for three fish listed on the Endangered Species Act: spring Chinook salmon, steelhead and bull trout.

The primary purpose of the dam removal “is recovery of threatened species,” says April McEwen, a river restoration project manager at American Rivers. “The goal of the project is to provide critical habitat upstream for those salmon species to be able to spawn.” It’s also hoped that more salmon will reach the ocean and help the same endangered orcas affected by the Snake River dams. The whales depend on the fish for food and are at their lowest population in 34 years.

But a critical part of the dam-removal project is continued water supply for the city.

Currently the dam creates a “consistent and reliable municipal water flow,” says Stephen Day, project engineer at Bellingham Public Works. The current project design has identified a new diversion about 1,000 feet upstream where water can be withdrawn with similar reliability but without the need for a dam.

The design phase of the project is currently being finalized, and McEwen says they hope to have all the permits by March 2019 and the dam removed later the same year. But first, the project still needs to secure some needed state funds.

The dam removal is “a really big deal” for the entire Puget Sound ecosystem, says McEwen. “Salmon are keystone species. If their numbers are down, we all suffer, including humans and especially orca whales.”

Grand

A project that has been in the works for a decade could put the “rapids” back in Grand Rapids. More than a hundred years ago, the construction of five small dams along a two-mile stretch of the Grand River in the Michigan city drowned the natural rapids to facilitate transporting floating logs to furniture factories along the banks.

Those factories long ago closed, and the aging dams are now more of a safety hazard than a benefit for the city.

Grand river dam — A Grand dam. Photo: Matthew Sutherland (CC BY 2.0)

The idea of removing the dams came as part of a larger effort initiated in 2008 to green the city. “Early on the main focus was recreation, looking at ways to bring back rapids for kayaking,” says Matt Chapman, director and project coordinator of the nonprofit Grand Rapids Whitewater, which has been leading the river-restoration effort. “But as the project has evolved and as we’ve learned and studied the river, we’ve realized there are so many other benefits to a project like this.”

“The more we found out about the river, the more we realized how impaired it is biologically,” says Wendy Ogilvie, director of environmental programs at the Grand Valley Metropolitan Council. “We hope through the revitalization there will be some recreational opportunities, but a lot is fish passage and a better habitat for native species.”

The dams set to be removed may be small — the largest is about 10 feet tall — but the project isn’t simple. For one thing, the presence of the Sixth Street dam, the tallest, has blocked the further invasion of parasitic sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), which have spread from the Atlantic Ocean throughout the Great Lakes over the past two centuries. The project is working to create a new structure that will prevent the lamprey from migrating further upstream and preying on native fish after dam removal.

Project managers discovered that the federally listed endangered snuffbox mussel (Epioblasma triquetra) also makes its home in this stretch of river. The project hopes to carefully remove and relocate the mussels to suitable habitat during the construction process, which is expected to take about five years. The mussels may be returned after construction and restoration. The dam removal is also expected to help state-listed threatened lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) return to their original spawning grounds upstream and benefit smaller fish like logperch, which have been blocked by the dam and are vital for mussels.

The river-restoration process is also spurring a greater revitalization effort along the riverfront to provide more accessible green public space and economic opportunities.

“It’s not just restoring the river, but also how the community gets to the river from the neighborhoods,” says Chapman.

He says they hope to have all the necessary permits in hand to begin working on habitat improvements in the lower part of the river next summer, including finalizing a plan for the mussels’ relocation. It will likely be another three or four years before the sea lamprey barrier is complete and the Sixth Street dam will be removed following that.

Much work has been done over the years to clean up the river and curb pollution, says Ogilvie. The next step is helping to restore the ecology and recreational opportunities. “The best part about the project is having people value the river and think of it as a resource,” she says. “If we could see sturgeon coming back up the river…that would be pretty amazing, too.”

Previously in The Revelator:

The Elwha’s Living Laboratory: Lessons From the World’s Largest Dam-removal Project

Teens Rise Up for Action on Climate

We asked one of the teenage organizers of the recent Zero Hour Youth Climate March what they’ve learned and how others can follow in their footsteps.

Let’s be honest: Sometimes the youths of this country put everyone else to shame.

On a rainy day this past July, hundreds of teenagers took to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to demand action on climate change. The Youth Climate March, organized by the teen-led activist group Zero Hour, set out to urge our elected officials to enact science-based policies to confront climate change and related issues.

That was just the warmup, though. Last month Zero Hour went global, pairing with 350.org for Rise for Climate, a series of worldwide events with tens of thousands of protestors at convening at Capitol Hill and legislatures on six continents.

What have the Zero Hour organizers learned from their first events, and what do they hope to accomplish? For answers, we turned to high-school junior and Zero Hour press director Ellery Grimm, who spent this past summer organizing the logistics of the Youth Climate March.

How do you feel now that the first Zero Hour march and the big Rise for Climate events are behind you? Exhausted? Energized?

I think I can speak for everyone by saying that we are still extremely exhausted. It takes a lot of energy to build a movement like that, especially recruiting people. I am feeling a mix of the two. I’m excited for what’s coming next, I’m energized and ready to make decisions about our next campaign, but I’m exhausted because it’s so much work.

It’s not just a job. I have school, I have a social life. I have chores and responsibilities at home. It’s Zero Hour and then it’s everything else that I’m responsible for in my daily life. This isn’t just a job for me, this is everything.

What’s your biggest takeaway from these first events? Are politicians or the heads of corporations listening?

You can never really tell when politicians are listening because it’s their job to pretend like they’re listening. It’s their job to make you think that they’re considering everything that you tell them, that everything that you say is important to them. I hope that they have at least heard what we are saying. I know that after the lobby day at least their staff knows who we are, and saw our faces and heard our voices.

The other day I was talking to Senator Heinrich at a League of Conservation Voters event. He said that he knew us, that he’d heard of us. That meant the world to me and Jamie [Margolin, the founder of Zero Hour]. I don’t have words for it. I looked him in the eye and I knew that he had genuinely heard of us and that this wasn’t just a tactic. I was so grateful that we had recognized by someone with so much influence in our government.

Zero Hour advocates for common-sense climate legislation. What does that look like to you?

The term “common sense” is tough. Not everyone knows what you’re talking about. In the case of common-sense climate legislation, however, it really is what just about anyone might think it is. All we want is what makes sense. All we want is effective change. All we want for the people of this world is protection and safety. That’s all anyone wants. That’s what makes it common sense, because everyone at least wants a good life for themselves.

Where you do see the most opportunity for progress now? Do you see any barriers to success?

I see the most opportunity in direct action. I see the most opportunity in encouraging food sovereignty in underprivileged neighborhoods. I see the most opportunity in educating upper middle-class white people that don’t see the issue in climate change, that don’t believe in it.

That education is the most important. People living in poverty know that they’re living next to landfills, they know that they’re living next to water that is disgusting, that is filled with oil and feces and trash. They know that, they’re aware that there is something wrong with their community and something wrong on this Earth. The people that don’t see that every day — the people that don’t interact with people that see that every day — educating them is the most important. Those people need to know what’s happening, need to feel it. They can’t just intellectually recognize that carbon levels are rising and the ice caps are melting. They have to feel the harm that it’s causing to the people that live on islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They have to feel the pain of the people that are the most susceptible to climate change. They have to understand the plight of the frontline communities or our efforts will get nowhere.

What lesson would you share for other teens or youths who want to follow in all of your footsteps?

One message that I’d like to share with other youth, especially those that aren’t active yet, is that there’s no penalty for reaching out. There’s no penalty for saying: “I want to get involved.” Talk to your friends and organize an event, anything that involves something that you’re passionate about. There is no negative outcome.

Going to a protest and posting a picture of yourself is not change. It’s empowering that you’re part of a movement, but consider what that movement is doing. Consider what more you could be doing. You could be donating — if you don’t have that money you could be collecting money to donate. Ask yourself what time you can spare for people that can’t spare the time. Those people that live on the streets, those people that live paycheck to paycheck — they make time to survive. You should make time to make sure that they can survive as well. Is there a local community shelter that you could volunteer at? Could you start making packets with healthy but non-perishable foods for people that can’t buy meals?

There’s so much that you can do when you just take a moment and look around. See the things that are wrong, see the things that you don’t agree with in this world. You can change those things, I guarantee it.

Previously in The Revelator:

Plastic Pollution Is a Problem — These Kids Are Working for a Solution

Kids Taking on Government: The New Normal?

Florida’s Chance to Protect Threatened Sharks

These easy policy changes can save protected species from being killed by cruel fishing practices without infringing on the rights of anglers.

Florida is known for beautiful beaches and amazing fishing, but these two things don’t always mix. Photos showing anglers roughly, cruelly, disrespectfully and improperly handling threatened sharks on beaches and piers have recently gone viral on social media. Anglers drag sharks completely out of the water, where they can’t breathe and suffer bleeding abrasions from the rough terrain. They’re left to flop around until they are near death, making them calm enough that anglers feel comfortable approaching them to pose for photos. Dead sharks often wash up on the beach the next day — something that anglers may never see.

Recreational fishing is increasingly recognized as a conservation threat, and indeed more large sharks in the United States are killed by recreational anglers than by commercial fisheries. The problem is especially acute for species such as hammerhead sharks in Florida, whose populations have declined so much that they are protected entirely from commercial fishing in state waters. While most Florida anglers follow the rules and are conservation-minded, some common land-based shark-fishing practices like those described above raise concerns and require a policy solution.

As a marine conservation biologist who studied this problem while I was earning my Ph.D. at the University of Miami, I was thrilled to see that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, at their meeting this past April, finally decided to take action and develop proposals to solve this problem.

But what should those solutions look like? To be as effective as possible at protecting threatened species without significantly infringing on the rights of rule-following anglers, here are some changes to land-based shark fishing regulations that the commission should implement — some of which anglers could begin to implement today in order to protect the sharks that they purport to love.

1. Revise and clarify the legal definitions of “landed” and “released” under the Florida code.

Currently a fish is considered landed if it is brought completely out of the water, which is illegal for protected species (they must be released “free, immediately, alive, and unharmed,” and it’s illegal to delay release of a protected species to measure it or pose for a photo). However, irreparable gill damage can occur in many species after just a few minutes of air exposure. Therefore, protected species need to be left in deep enough water that their gills remain submerged.

2. Limit fight times for hammerhead sharks.

Hammerhead sharks are valued by anglers for their energetic fights, but stress physiology research has shown that after about 40 minutes of fight time, a hammerhead is likely so stressed that it won’t survive release. Land-based anglers commonly fight hammerheads for much, much longer than that, resulting in dead hammerheads washing up on Florida beaches. Anglers should be required to cut the line as quickly as possibly as close as possible to the shark, and definitely cut the line once a particularly length of time has elapsed. While dragging a long length of fishing line behind it is not great for a hammerhead shark, fighting an angler for several extra hours so the hook can be removed completely is much worse.

3. Remove categories for protected species from Florida fishing tournaments.

It’s illegal to delay the release of a protected species to measure it or pose for a photo, but many Florida fishing tournaments have award categories for protected shark species — and in order to be eligible for an award, anglers must measure their catch and/or pose for a photo. There should be no tournament categories allowed for protected species.

4. Require specific gear.

Certain types of higher-performance fishing rods can result in lessened fight times, which reduce stress for the shark. Circle hooks reduce the chance of foul-hooking or gut-hooking. These should be required for fishing for large sharks.

5. Create a shark-fishing license.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has proposed creating a specific shark-fishing license that would allow them to more easily track the scale of the recreational shark fishery. While I support that goal, it’s important for the commission to stress that having this license does not mean that anglers are free to ignore other regulations.

These changes to regulations would protect threatened sharks, and they’d do so without infringing on anyone’s rights to fish responsibly. They are endorsed by professional organizations including the American Elasmobranch Society and the Society for Conservation Biology (North America section and Marine section).

I’m no anti-fishing extremist — indeed, my postdoctoral research focuses on sustainable shark fisheries management in North America. However, I am against the needless stress placed on protected shark species by unnecessary and cruel fishing practices used by some elements of Florida’s land-based fishing community.

I call on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to do the right thing and implement these policy changes.

Copies of Dr. Shiffman’s research paper on land-based shark fishing are available upon request at WhySharksMatter@Gmail.com.

The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

North Carolina’s CAFO Conundrum: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Manure Lagoons?

Experts warn that we’ll keep having dangerous floods of feces unless state and the federal governments change the way big producers do business — and unless consumers start eating less meat.

When Hurricane Florence descended on North Carolina last month, it left a devastating flood of farm-animal feces in its wake.

The waste leaked from manure “lagoons” located on massive livestock farms called “confined animal feeding operations,” often known as CAFOs. Dozens of these manure lagoons — pits of pig waste mixed with water and slowly broken down by anaerobic bacteria — were breached or compromised during the storm, sending millions of gallons of effluent into nearby tributaries and rivers.

It wasn’t the first time, and it’s not a small problem. North Carolina’s CAFOs hold nearly 10 million pigs, who defecate an estimated 10 billion gallons of manure every year. For years experts have warned that the waste lagoons collecting and treating all of this manure, many of which are located in flood-prone areas, are prone to leakage — just as we saw during Florence and 2016’s Hurricane Matthew.

Even living near these sites under “normal” weather conditions has been linked to a long list of dangerous health effects, including a lowered life expectancy, according to a study published just days before Hurricane Florence.

Addressing this situation — especially in the face of increasingly powerful storms driven by climate change — won’t be easy.

“The problem needs action on various levels,” says Karen Perry Stillerman, a senior analyst with the food and environment program of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “North Carolina and other states must do more to regulate the size of CAFOs and waste lagoons and the hazards they pose to people nearby.”

Some other states are starting to take action on this. Missouri recently passed a health ordinance to regulate emissions from CAFOs, and some Iowa residents are suing to better enforce or tighten rules that govern harmful air pollution from nearby hog CAFOs.

But can states or state citizens do enough on their own? North Carolina acknowledged problems with the current lagoon and “sprayfield” system more than two decades ago, but the awful conditions persist, says Will Hendrick, a staff attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance. The state does require many producers use newer technologies to eliminate their waste, which Hendrick says “have been proven effective,” but big producers like the ones whose lagoons flooded have long been exempt from those rules. He says it’s time to “take the long-overdue step of requiring giant companies like Smithfield Foods to invest in superior waste management to manage the waste generated by the hogs it owns, which constitute more than three-quarters of those produced in North Carolina.”

That might require action above the state level. “The federal government must help by disincentivizing this model of livestock production,” says Perry Stillerman. “The five-year federal farm bill should offer more technical and financial support for farmers to raise animals in safe, sustainable ways, and it shouldn’t subsidize CAFO waste storage and disposal.” A recent blog post by Perry Stillerman points out that CAFO operators received $113 million in the 2017 fiscal year for “funding improvements to waste storage facilities and subsidizing manure transfer costs” — an amount that could actually go up if the current version of the farm bill passes. The bill would also eliminate a program that provides incentives for sustainable livestock practices.

The federal government, meanwhile, is partnering with North Carolina in another way. Since the year 2000 the state has offered payments to pork producers located in floodplains to shift to other types of agriculture, or to purchase conservation easements. The most recent round of buyouts, conducted in partnership with the USDA, cost taxpayers $18.7 million. So far 42 producers, including 34 that probably would have flooded this past month, have participated in the program, and applications are currently open for the next buyouts.

That’s not the only solution on the table. Perry Stillerman adds that consumers also have a role in ending this problem by changing what’s on their dinner tables. “CAFOs happen because there’s a demand for large quantities of inexpensive meat,” she says. “Eating less meat, and spending your dollars on sustainably raised meat, will help farmers move away from CAFOs and the problems they cause.”

If we don’t take action individually and as a country, Perry Stillerman says, CAFOs will remain at risk of devastating events like these, most notably in the floodplains of southeastern North Carolina — “and especially in a future that science tells us will bring more intense, more destructive hurricanes and other large rain events that cause flooding.”

North Carolina appears to have escaped a replay of this problem following last week’s Tropical Storm Michael, although that storm did cause severe flooding throughout the state. What the next storms will bring, and which CAFO manure lagoons might be affected, remains to be seen.

Previously in The Revelator:

Wasted Water: The Crappiest Places in America — Literally

The Environment Is on the November Ballot — Here’s Where and What’s at Stake

A handful of statewide ballot initiatives will test whether states can effectively counter environmental rollbacks coming from the federal government.

Environmental issues such as polluted drinking water in Michigan and harmful algal blooms in Florida could influence which candidates voters will support in this November’s midterm election, says Holly Burke, communications coordinator of the League of Conservation Voters.

“Water issues really resonate with voters in states where clean water has been a dramatic problem,” says Burke.

These issues may affect certain political candidates, but in some states ballot measures will be a more direct way for residents to weigh in on environmental issues. For those hoping that statewide initiatives will help to combat environmental rollbacks at the federal level by the Trump administration, this election will be a crucial test.

The statewide ballot initiative with the greatest environmental significance will be decided by voters in Washington state, which could signal a shift in climate change strategy.

Two other western states will take on clean energy standards, and water issues will appear on the ballots in three states, including a confusing measure in Florida that pairs offshore drilling with an unrelated measure on vaping.

“We’re seeing a lot of support for states to take the lead in the light of federal attacks on clean energy and climate,” says Bill Holland, state policy director for the League of Conservation Voters.

A Fee on Polluters

The biggest test will be nearly 3,000 miles from Washington, D.C., in Washington state. If voters approve Initiative 1631, Washington could significantly move the needle on climate action by being the first state to enact a fee on carbon emissions.

Carbon pricing bills have been proposed by a number of state legislatures, including Washington’s, but none have yet to pass in the United States. Now Washington voters will decide for themselves on the issue and if Initiative 1631 wins, it could trigger efforts in other states.

“We’re super excited and see it as a potential model nationwide,” says Holland.

The measure would put a fee of $15 per metric ton on carbon emissions, beginning in 2020. This fee would increase $2 every year until the state hits its 2035 greenhouse gas reduction goals and is on track to meet its 2050 goals.

There’s a lot at stake, not just for Washington, but the whole country.

“If it passes, Washington will take its place as a part of a growing West Coast climate vanguard, alongside California and Oregon, representing close to 20 percent of the U.S. economy,” wrote David Roberts at Vox. “If it fails, it will not only be a crushing blow to an already battered state climate community, but it will cast doubt on the larger states-will-save-us narrative, which is just about the only narrative U.S. climate hawks have left.”

Just two years ago Washington voters rejected a similar measure, Initiative 732, which would have created a carbon tax. The measures, however, aren’t identical. A carbon tax would have directed revenue generated by the program to the state’s general fund. This year’s Initiative 1631 instead uses a fee, which directs the money to specific purposes.

Money raised by Initiative 1631 would be divvied up, with 70 percent directed toward supporting clean air and clean energy investments; 25 percent invested in clean water and healthy forests; and the remaining 5 percent targeted for helping communities deal with the impacts of climate change.

The initiative was put the ballot by a coalition of community, environment, labor and climate-justice groups.

The opposition, led by Western States Petroleum Association, has raised $21 million to defeat the measure, but Holland says he still likes the initiative’s chances of success. “Climate change is on the ballot and we think there is broad public support for holding polluters accountable,” he says.

Clean Water

Montana and Alaska voters will weigh in on water protections, but of two very different sorts.

In Montana Initiative 186 seeks to protect the state’s waters from pollution from new hardrock mines. It would give the state’s Department of Environment Quality the ability to deny permits for a new mine if the project’s plan doesn’t prove that it will prevent water pollution “without the need for perpetual treatment.”

The biggest financial supporter of the initiative is the fish-friendly nonprofit Trout Unlimited. Anglers have good reason for hoping to keep the state’s rivers clean and its fish populations healthy. The measure is opposed by mining interests led by the Montana Mining Association, which is concerned it would result in job losses and other economic damages.

The state is still dealing with the toxic legacy of earlier hardrock mines that have resulted in one of the country’s largest Superfund sites. And mining issues are still front and center. Montana’s Smith River was highlighted earlier in the year by the nonprofit American Rivers in its annual survey of the country’s “most endangered rivers” due to a proposed copper mine currently vying for permits.

Further north, Alaska’s Measure 1 would set up stricter permitting regulations and new requirements for projects that could impact aquatic habitat for salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish, which migrate between rivers and the ocean.

“It enhances the public process and public participation in decisions around large-scale development that would impact salmon habitat, which is a core part of Alaska’s identity,” says Holland. The fish have not just environmental, but economic and cultural importance in the state.

Groups like the Alaska Center, Wild Salmon Center and Alaska Conservation Foundation are supporting the measure. It’s opposed by numerous oil drilling and mining companies, including BP Exploration Inc. Alaska, ConocoPhillips and Hecla Mining Company.

Drilling off Florida

One of the most confounding ballot initiatives will appear before Florida voters.

When voters get to Amendment 9 on this year’s ballot, they will decide whether to ban offshore oil and gas drilling in state waters. At the same time, they will vote on whether to allow vaping (the use of “vapor-generating electronic devices”) in indoor workplaces.

This odd confluence stems from the state’s strange initiative process. Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission only convenes every 20 years to decide which constitutional amendments to place on the ballot. In some cases they are grouped together.

The dual measure makes for odd bedfellows (and potentially voter confusion). A yes vote means a voter is in favor of banning both offshore drilling and indoor vaping. A no vote would be in support of drilling and vaping. If you’re in favor of one, but not the other, you’re out of luck.

Supporters of the measure are largely environmental groups opposed to drilling, while opponents are a mix of petroleum companies and the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association.

Vaping aside, offshore drilling is gearing up to be a key issue. The Trump administration has worked to reverse offshore drilling moratoriums and safety regulations issued by Obama administration, and has sought to open most of the country’s waters to drilling.

Clean Energy Standards

Washington won’t be the only state voting on issues related to energy and climate.

Nevada’s Question 6 and Arizona’s Proposition 127 are both measures that would increase the state’s renewable portfolio standards, which is the minimum amount of electric power that utilities need to get from renewable sources. Both would bump the standards to 50 percent by 2030.

Nevada’s current renewable portfolio standard is 25 percent by 2025, but the state is already almost there. In 2016 it had 21.6 percent of electricity generation coming from geothermal, solar, wind, biomass and hydroelectric power sources. Of that mix of renewables, 44 percent came from geothermal. But solar could be huge for the state. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Nevada has the “nation’s best solar power potential.”

Question 6 could force Nevada to realize some of that potential. If it passes, the renewable portfolio standard would gradually step up each year to 50 percent by 2030.

Last year the Nevada legislature passed a bill (Assembly Bill 206) that would have upped the renewable portfolio standard to 40 percent by 2030, but it was vetoed by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval.

In Arizona the current renewable portfolio standard is a more modest 15 percent by 2025. In 2016 renewables provided 12 percent of net generation in the state, about half of which came from hydroelectric power at Glen Canyon and Hoover dams on the Colorado River. Solar made up only 5 percent.

“Arizonans are going to actually vote on having the ability to tap a resource that they have an abundance of, which is the sun,” says Art Terrazas, who leads Vote Solar Action Fund’s efforts in Arizona.

The state is second only to Nevada in solar potential.

Both ballot initiatives are being bankrolled by billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action. The group has raised $2 million for the effort in Nevada, where opposition has been slim. However, in Arizona, NextGen has raised $8 million and its opposition, Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, which owns the state’s largest utility, has raised $11 million.

“There has been a history of utilities in the state wanting to maintain the status quo,” says Terrazas.

Among other western states, California and Hawaii currently lead clean energy efforts. Both have committed to get 100 percent of electricity generation from renewables by 2045. Oregon’s standard is 50 percent by 2040 for larger utilities, and Washington’s is 15 percent by 2020. Neither Utah nor Idaho has renewable portfolio standards.

Solar energy is an issue that draws big public support and is beginning to bridge the divide between red and blue voters, says Holland.

“Voters over and over are seeing that clean energy is increasingly cheaper than sources of energy like coal and want to make sure that their states aren’t left behind,” he says.

Want to Fight Climate Denial? Tell a Story

Scientists looking to communicate the truth about climate should explore the power of narrative and images.

Sometimes a polar bear is a living symbol of climate change.

Other times an image of a dying polar bear is basically raw meat for the people who want to deny the truth about global warming and demonize the scientists who are researching and communicating these important issues.

That’s what happened last year when National Geographic published a video and article showing an emaciated, starving polar bear and suggested that it was, essentially, the future face of climate change. It was a great illustration, and the bear was certainly starving, but in truth this specific animal was probably not a victim of climate change and may have been suffering from an injury or infection.

Climate deniers recognized that and jumped at the opportunity to denounce the National Geographic article, the photographers and the science of climate change.

“Climate-change deniers seized on that point to say, ‘see these climate activists and scientists can’t be trusted and by the way, here’s a picture of a perfectly healthy bear and polar bears are doing just fine,’ ” recounts science journalist and PLOS Biology editor Liza Gross. “They seize on these little fudges to say ‘climate change isn’t happening.’ ”

As the photographers realized they’d lost control of their well-intentioned narrative, Gross seized upon an opportunity to understand what had gone wrong — and to help others do better in the face of similar denial. She commissioned a collection of papers for the journal to discuss not only the truth about how Arctic marine mammals like polar bears are faring under climate change, but how scientists can more effectively use images and other tools to communicate the reality of global warming.

“I thought it would be interesting to explore how these emotive images can trigger exactly the opposite reaction their creators had in mind,” Gross explains. “I thought about how to touch on the issues that using images and storytelling raises in the context where powerful interests are abusing science — in this case, to block efforts to change the course of a disaster that promises to irreparably change life as we know it, wiping out god knows how many species and years of evolution in the process.”

The resulting papers, collectively titled “Confronting Climate Change in the Age of Denial,” were published this week. In addition to Gross, who provides an editorial, authors include Arctic mammal experts Sue Moore and Randall Reeves, psychologists Stephan Lewandowsky and Lorraine Whitmarsh, and science communication experts Michael Dahlstrom and Dietram Scheufele.

Dahstrom’s and Scheufele’s paper contains some interesting advice: It isn’t always effective, they write, to just communicate the facts about climate change. It’s often better to focus on a narrative that people can relate to, often by providing stories about how the scientific information was collected. This, they say, can help ensure that science communicators’ messages resonate more than the “facts” put out by the climate-denial industry. “Unless the scientific community also focuses on these long-term narratives to help build understanding of the process of scientific knowledge production, the facts or conclusions it puts forth might increasingly be seen on equal footing with arguments and judgments offered by other societal stakeholders,” the authors write. The paper provides several examples of resonant storytelling, along with a few potential pitfalls to avoid.

Lewandowsky and Whitmarsh, meanwhile, focus on the power of images, like the polar bear photo, to both teach and mislead. They write: “In connection with climate change, many pictures can be highly misleading, for example, when a snowball is used to ridicule the notion of global warming or when a picture of a dead crop is supposed to alert people to climate change.” They also offer several tips on how to pick the best images to help viewers care about the issues.

Gross says she hopes scientists and communicators reading the collection will come to a better understanding about the effectiveness of the narratives and photos they share. “I’d like to see people think carefully about the power of words and images to tap into emotions that reinforce what people already believe — regardless of the evidence,” she says. “I hope people think about how analogies or images can propagate false narratives by tapping into people’s pre-existing beliefs. A good example is the way news stories about vaccination still use photos of screaming, terrified children, which feeds directly into the fears of vaccine-hesitant parents and anti-vaccination campaigns.”

The collection was released the day after the United Nations’ latest report on climate change, which warned that the world needs to immediately transform its energy economy if there is any hope of avoiding very real disaster by mid-century. Given that context, the authors’ focus on the psychology of climate change may hold at least part of the key to motivating action.

“After all,” Gross says, “these are social issues, like so many other pressing issues of the day.”

Previously in The Revelator:

How Can We Improve Communication About Climate Change? We Have 5 Questions

What Would It Take to Save Southern Resident Killer Whales From Extinction?

A recent meeting by the Orca Recovery Task Force shows the massive political and economic lobbies that stand in the way of success.

As I write this on October 3, I’m listening to members of J pod of Southern Resident killer whales calling to one another off the west side of San Juan Island. The calls, heard over the Lime Kiln hydrophones, are clear and crisp and so familiar. They’re the signature J pod S-1 calls, including a variety of chirps, honks and sounds like squeaky doors. The thumping rumble of a freighter overwhelms the calls for a few minutes, but eventually sweet orca voices once again pierce the static. All too soon the whales move out of range.

They came in from the Pacific overnight, appearing in Haro Strait along San Juan Island. We fervently hope they’re finding the food they need and can eat — mainly Chinook salmon — but we know not many salmon are in the Salish Sea this year.

Over the past dozen or so years the three pods of these genetically and geographically isolated whales have gotten thinner and thinner. Some have weakened and died when the fish aren’t there in sufficient numbers. And we know that due to starvation and high levels of toxic chemicals like PCBs, 70 to 80 percent of their pregnancies in recent years have ended in miscarriages and early neonate mortality.

Now at only 74 family members, with no surviving offspring since 2015, the Southern Residents are on a precipice, tipping precariously into reproductive extinction. Some may survive for a few more decades, but viable new births will not match deaths, and soon all the survivors will be post-reproductive.

These orcas have been in the public eye more than ever lately. In early August a whale we call J35 or Tahlequah carried her deceased baby for 17 days in a tour of grief that was broadcast worldwide for weeks. This was followed immediately by the visible demise of J50/Scarlet, not yet four years old, once an acrobatic youngster who wasted into skin and bones before expiring and drifting to the bottom.

Although new to many people, the problems for these whales began many years ago. The warnings have been flashing red since the late 1990s, when 20 percent of this cohesive orca community died in just five years, at a rate tightly correlated with an extreme El Niño over the North Pacific that decimated already scarce Chinook populations. The sudden mortalities triggered the orcas’ “endangered” listing by federal and state agencies a few years later. This helped to fund field studies and confirm that Southern Residents depend on viable Chinook runs. Not much was ever actually done at state or federal levels to restore salmon runs, although local and regional habitat restoration projects have continued to repair countless rivers, shorelines and estuaries to help salmon survive.

One of the most anticipated measures came in March of this year, when Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee declared an executive order to marshal Washington’s resolve to help the orcas. The order created the Orca Recovery Task Force to focus on how to recover this dwindling orca clan. About four dozen people joined the task force, representing a range of diverse interests — commercial, governmental, tribal, scientific and environmental.

Many expected that task force to take an immediate role. As J35 grieved and J50 weakened and died before a world audience, Gov. Inslee was deluged with calls and letters about the urgent need and easy feasibility of breaching the four lower Snake River dams, which I and many other experts feel is the best and quickest way to provide the most Chinook for Southern Residents. In late August the governor sent a note asking his task force to consider dam removal, although only one member had ever mentioned dam breaching prior to that.

Public pressure continued to mount to breach the dams, and it was finally mentioned at a task force meeting on August 28.

But at the same time a complex web of pro-dam public-relations messaging arose to counter the public sentiment. The messages say there are plenty of salmon; that dam removal is unnecessary and uneconomical; and that it’s impossible any time soon anyway, as dam removal is blocked by unbending bureaucratic hurdles.

This wasn’t a new tactic. Even before this, Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers had taken this pro-dam messaging to the legislature. This past April she sponsored House Bill 3144, which would forbid even studying the four dams’ removal. The bill, dubbed by critics the “salmon extinction act,” is currently stalled in the Senate, but the message was reinforced when another representative held a hearing in Pasco, Wash., on September 8 that was dominated by testimony claiming economic benefits provided by the dams. Similar messages appeared in blogs and articles authored by the pro-dam lobby.

All this obfuscation, and luckily also some facts, came out most recently in a 2-hour webinar held by the task force on September 27 to address potentially undamming the lower Snake River. On the panel were representatives from a long list of government, environmental and energy organizations and agencies.

For the most part, the participants shared reasons not to remove the dams, often using scientifically questionable information. Among the highlights:

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Fish Passage Center all referred to a chart of 15 rivers important to Southern Resident killer whales, and claimed no single river is more important than any other.
NOAA raised concerns that salmon hatcheries might cease to operate if the dams were breached, which its representative said could affect Chinook recovery.
NOAA also claimed the survival rate of salmon that pass through the dams is high, although it acknowledged that the rate of juvenile salmon that are weakened by the experience and die soon after entering saltwater can’t be measured.
Northwest River Partners (a pro-dam PR firm) said hatcheries would certainly disappear if the dams were breached and that the benefits of the Columbia hydro system are awesome, although the webinar was only about four Snake River dams.
The Army Corps of Engineers emphatically stated that breaching or removal of the dams “will require Congressional authorization,” without mentioning that decommissioning a project does not require authorization.

There were also some, although fewer, comments in support of breaching the dams:

Save Our Wild Salmon confirmed that five federal court decisions have ruled that the previously chosen options to help the salmon have failed, that their survival is not improving, and that we could save salmon and the orcas if Gov. Inslee would come forward and urge the Army Corps to breach the dams. The group also argued that the rise in renewable energy makes the dams redundant, that irrigation could be easily retrofitted with more pumps, and that breaching would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits for the region.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife explained that the Snake River watershed has the most remaining natural habitat anywhere, and that the dams are less valuable and their benefits are more replaceable than the Columbia River dams.
The Fish Passage Center confirmed that adult salmon would increase substantially in orca habitat in the second year after breaching.
DamSense said it’s impossible for the Army Corps to require authorization to decommission projects, as shown by a 2016 letter stating it has the authority to breach. They added that the Bonneville Power Authority’s $16 billion debt and responsibility for 92 percent of maintenance expenses require it to breach the dams to save money and that total expenses to breach and mitigate any issues would come in at about $400 million and could be done with two bulldozers.

What comes next? The Orca Task Force is drafting its recommendations to Gov. Inslee, but the options to date seem to perpetuate some of the misleading points heard in the webinar, such as creating a stakeholders’ forum to discuss removal of the dams; asking the Army Corp to stop operating the dams and seek authority they don’t actually need to breach the dams; developing mitigations for stakeholders; and funding hatcheries. Another suggestion is for Gov. Inslee to issue an executive order in favor of Lower Snake River dam removal and replacement with carbon-free alternatives (a trend that’s already happening).

Regardless of how those draft recommendations shake out, the governor’s job now is to sort out the static by federal agencies and lobbyists to see the reliable information from mostly regional organizations, and choose the best path toward orca recovery and sustainability. The governor may find it awkward to act against the wishes and words of the Army Corps, BPA, NOAA and the formidable commercial and political lobbies to breach those dams, but all evidence continues to show that it must be done — and soon.

J, K and L pod orcas will likely flicker into the night if he doesn’t.

The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.