Ecosystems Collapse: The Consequences of Inaction

In 2014 kelp forests off the coast of California suffered a drastic decrease in spore production due to a prolonged Pacific heat-wave that depleted their environment of vital nutrients. Since then, heat waves have become more common and more intense, and in the summer of 2019 a heat-wave allowed a disease to proliferate that destroyed the region's population of sunflower sea stars. Purple sea urchins, the sea star’s main food source, felt a population boom of 60 times their initial size. The urchins wreaked havoc on the unbalanced ecosystem, consuming nearly 90% of the bull kelp along 200 miles of California coastline. Red abalone sea snails suffered mass starvation, as the kelp was their main food source, and numerous fish species who nursed their young in the kelp suddenly were unable to foster new generations of fish. Bald eagles and harbor seals had to find new food sources and California was forced to close down abalone fisheries, worth around $44 million a year. Many commercial fisheries will not recover.

Sunflower sea stars looking very much like a predator, here

The sea urchin boom leading to a catastrophic loss of kelp forests, here

Now, I’m not going to waste time trying to convince you that climate change is happening. If you do not believe it’s happening, it’s human-caused, and it's reversible then you’re just wrong. But what is often ignored is just how catastrophic small changes in our environment can be for the Earth’s biodiversity and complex human society. The crisis is a snowball cascading down a hill towards a cliff, the longer we wait to stop it the faster and larger it is, and eventually it will be impossible to stop its fall if it is not dealt with immediately.

The collapse of the ecosystem above is just one of the many human-caused environmental crises that have been happening ever since we learned to walk on two legs (see hunting mammoths to extinction in the Americas). In a country like the United States at this point in history, the collapse of a food source like abalone snails or the local fish populations are just a financial hit, but thousands of communities around the world depend on the ocean as a food source and will starve if anything like this happens there. Food scarcity leads to migration leads to conflict leads to food scarcity, it's a very well documented cycle.

But, as the little anticipating potential questions man in my head might ask, “Well the collapse of these fish populations are sad but they’re not gonna cause any large societies to collapse, right?”, and to that point I agree, but these are not isolated. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a UN organization, produced a report in 2019 predicting that if warming is not kept below 1.5 degrees C (above pre-industrial averages), that we can expect to see a mass die-off of up to a quarter of species in the next 20 years. This includes 40% of amphibians, 34% of conifers, 33% of reef corals, 25% of mammals, and 14% of birds. If the collapse of one starfish population can destroy an ecosystem, imagine the scale of destruction that can be cause by those kinds of numbers. We have been seeing this since 2016 with coral bleaching of the Great Barrier reef, and these ecological scientists warn that if warming is not kept below 1.5 degrees that 70-90% of coral species would become functionally extinct, and if not kept below 2 degrees over 99%. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that 25% of all fish depend on coral reefs for food, shelter, and breeding grounds. Over half a billion people depend on coral reefs for food, income, and protection (from storms), and they also provide vital environments for research into new medicines. And that isn’t even the worst of it.

Some of the most at-risk populations are the ones that help plants reproduce. Due to habitat loss, agro-chemical pollutants, invasive species, and climate change, pollinator populations are dropping rapidly. It's estimated in the UK that three times the pollinator species populations are decreasing rather than increasing, and bee populations are nearly extinct. In Germany, scientists revealed a stunning 76% decline in flying insect biomass over 27 years. And globally, an invertebrate abundance index has shown a 45% decline in the global population over the last 40 years. This decline has led to a rapid decline in bird populations, as they feed on the insects. Rhetorical question man strikes again, asking, “Why do I have to care about some stupid insects dying.” Well first off, dude, they're living creatures. But second off, insects and birds are an essential part of nearly every plant ecosystem on the planet. Pollinators help plants reproduce by spreading their DNA, and birds help plants reproduce by spreading their seeds as well as keeping harmful insect populations from destroying the crops (does a swarm of locusts ring a bell to anyone? anyone? (here I was considering putting a blend of bible and Bueller but I couldn't do it convincingly)?). If these populations are collapsing, plant species will be less able to reproduce and more susceptible to pests that destroy harvests across hundreds of miles.

But anticipating questions man is not done yet, oh no, and yet for some reason we still have to listen to what he has to say (much like many television pundits!). He says, “That didn’t answer my question! I don’t care about plant populations collapsing! Why should I care?” Are you serious man? Do you like to eat? I know I like to eat. If you do not care about plant populations then you are welcome to let yourself starve. Human cultivated agriculture is incredibly prone to environmental changes because of its lack of genetic diversity, that's just the way we’ve made crops so much more profitable and easy to mass produce. So any major environmental disturbances could lead to decreased crop yield and food insecurity. While we produce enough food right now for 10 billion people, it is not distributed equally among the people (much to my disgust and dismay) because farmers and governments don’t make money that way. Food insecurity (and water insecurity by extension) is the most dangerous effect of climate changes we will see in the near future. In fact, we have already seen it.

While we humans like to see ourselves apart from the rest of the life on Earth, we also exist in ecosystems and our ecosystems are similarly susceptible to collapse. In the years leading up to the Syrian Civil War, Syria suffered one of the worst droughts in its history. As the Washington Institute puts it, “Before Syria produced war refugees, it produced climate refugees.” 85% of the livestock in Easter Syria was killed, while the size of harvests decreased by 21% in irrigated areas and 79% in rain-dependent areas. 800 thousand Syrian’s livelihoods were destroyed and tens of thousands fled the region, beginning the Syrian refugee crisis. The water scarcity combined with these huge populations of restless and homeless Syrians directly contributed to the Syrian Arab Spring revolt and Syrian civil war, which led to widespread suffering and the rise of ISIS. Water scarcity destabilized a region by turning a stable 40 year dictatorship into a divided mass of different states, militias, and terrorist organizations like ISIS in constant conflict in 3 years. The Syrian refugee crisis sent waves throughout the “west”, leading to reactionary right-wing groups taking power in many states across the continent through fear-mongering about refugees (and I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that they are mostly Arab). A UN report from December of 2014 states, "In Honduras and Guatemala, up to 75 per cent of maize and bean crop has been lost and thousands of cattle had died. In the coming months, food insecurity is expected to get worse as families deplete their food stocks." In the years since we have seen the worst Central American migratory crisis in American history (which created a large hysteria around Hispanic migrants and their dehumanization, which led to the rise of Donald Trump, so what I'm saying is President Trump is because of climate change).

A Syrian greenhouse heavily dependent on water for irrigation, here

A 2018 report from UNESCO highlights that at present, nearly 3.6 billion people are in areas that are potentially water scarce at least one month of the year each year. During a severe drought in Cape Town, South Africa in 2018, the city came within days of the city completely running out of water, even with extensive water rationing initiatives. This drought would be considered a “once in 300 years” event, but due to warming its likelihood has now increased 3-fold, and at 2 degrees C of warming it will have increased nearly 10-fold (1 in 33 years). The writing is on the wall, heat waves will cause droughts will cause water and food insecurity will cause migration will cause conflict will cause more food and water insecurity, and the heat-waves are only getting worse.

But oh look, it's anticipating questions woman! She’s taken some biology classes and she has a legitimate question! She says, “But I was taught that life is nearly infinitely adaptable and life will find a way to exist in the face of almost any environmental change, so why are you saying that won't happen?” You’re absolutely right! Life will adapt to this, life has survived five mass extinction events, it will do it again. But that does not mean that the life currently alive will remain alive. Billions of humans will die, along with an extremely large portion of the world's existing species. Human society is more fragile than we like to believe. While I do take comfort in life adaptability should we fail, I also like humans and the societies we have on this planet and do not want us to have to retreat underground as the surface becomes uninhabitable.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even brought up the dangers posed by rising sea levels and increased bouts of severe weather, nor the direct effects of increased temperature on plants ability to photosynthesize (which rapidly breaks down above 35 degrees C, or 95 degrees F), nor the dangers of ocean acidification, nor future soil degradation, nor even denitrification and plastic pollution (you can read about most of these here). The world is about to see the worst ecological crash that humans have ever experienced regardless of actions taken immediately. Billions will be displaced, this is inevitable, we must prepare for this by creating a safe place for these refugees to settle. 1.5 degrees of warming is practically inevitable at this point, as the world's leaders still preach the need for a “transitionary fuel” like natural gas, or that there are other more pressing issues to deal with, or that it's happening but it's not man-made, or it's happening but there’s nothing we can do about it, or simply that it's a Chinese hoax. Agreements like the Paris Accord might have been effective in 2000 but in 2016 it was way too little and way too late. The fight is now to keep warming under 2 degrees, or even just to prevent a total runaway greenhouse effect.

Depiction of the increases in severe weather over previous 4 decades, here

Depiction of the rates in which we could mitigate greenhouse gasses to remain below 1.5 degrees C, here

Depiction of tipping points that create a runaway greenhouse effect, here

So humanity has its very last chance to prevent a planetary environmental collapse that hasn’t been seen since the dinosaurs, and we will be just as likely to go extinct as they were (whatever a potential future equivalent of dinosaurs surviving and evolving into birds is for future humans, I'm totally here for it). The collapse will not magically stop once it reaches 5 degrees, it will progress to 8, 10, 15, and suddenly the Earth is uninhabitable (to humans) in less than 200 years (if you feel like wallowing in existential dread read this book). But there's still a chance. Not a single world leader is currently up to the task of mitigating this. We need to upend every existing power structure and dismantle the fossil fuel industry, major agribusiness, and the banks that keep them funded. Fossil fuels are some of the biggest welfare recipients in this country, their lobby’s have funded politicians that provided extensive government subsidies to keep this dying industry alive. We are addicted to fossil fuels. I am not going to ask you to drive an electric car or to go vegan or to bring reusable bags to the supermarket, all of those things are fantastic ways to decrease your individual carbon footprint but they will not fix the climate. This rhetoric is actively spread by the fossil fuel industry to deflect the blame onto individuals, best exemplified by the below tweet from British Petroleum (BP). We cannot let those be the only changes we make as a society. We cannot allow the institutions that are most responsible for intentionally ignoring this impending crisis to exist, if the problem is to be addressed they must be terminated. 

BP unveiling its carbon footprint calculator on Twitter, here

In 1978 a scientist working for Exxon Mobil named James Black wrote an internal briefing paper called "The Greenhouse Effect" (huh, wonder where I've heard that before). In the summary of the presentation, he writes “Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.” Notes from a 1980 meeting of (then) fossil fuel giants like Exxon, Mobil (at the time 2 different companies), Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco, Sohio and Standard Oil of California and Gulf Oil (the last two eventually merging into Chevron) shows that these companies knew the dangers of carbon emissions and that they were responsible. And yet they said nothing.

In the early 90s, anthropogenic (human-caused) Climate Change became a more mainstream idea (from politicians like Al Gore), as as such straight up silence was not protecting fossil fuel companies future profits anymore, so they had to change up their strategy. For example, fossil fuel companies funded the creation of "non-profits" like the Heartland institute, including $736,000 from Exxon Mobil from 1998-2006 and a whopping $5,875,500 from Donors Capital Fund (which is in turn funded by the fossil fuel billionaires the Koch brothers, as well as other billionaires like the DeVos') from 2014-2016. The institute has explicitly lobbied for "'providing [K-12 school] curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain - two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science'" and "'sponsor the NIPCC [Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change] to undermine the official United Nation's IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] reports' including paying 'a team of writers $388,000 in 2011 to work on a series of editions of Climate Change Reconsidered'". In another story of brothers with catchy names who are fossil billionaires, the Wilkes Brothers (weird how that keeps happening)! They made their billions off of fracked gas and fund PragerU, a right-wing YouTube channel claiming to be a university that intentionally spreads misinformation to advocate a hyper-conservative agenda. Of course, they vehemently denies climate change. They spent millions on advertisements that guide people towards climate denial (among other things). They also helped fund the creation of the Daily Wire (of Ben Shapiro fame).

But it's not just straight up denial from conservatives. Democrats and Republican both are bought by oil money, and the only way to make real change is to tear down this established pattern of denial and delay. Both of Montclair's democratic representatives have been payed off. Donald Payne Jr. (NJ-10) receives $5k from the fossil fuel company Phillips 66 every election cycle, a company that owns (among other things) a quarter of the Dakota Access pipeline, the controversial pipeline at the center of the Standing Rock protests (Payne is a bit of a lame duck from my perspective, not a very present legislator). Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11) has received since her 2018 campaign tens of thousands of dollars from law firms with extensive fossil fuel investments (including one that backed a foreign oil company against a Latin American government), fossil fuel investing megabanks like Goldman Sachs and Chase, and fossil fuel companies like PBF Energy, who owns refinery's across the country that have been reported to process oil from the Amazon River Basin. She also took money from BP (the opensecrets page for her 2018 campaign disappeared, and the page that does have them only shows the top 20). All this has culminated in a tremendously weak environmental policy. Sherrill uses the progressive environmental rhetoric to piggyback off the popularity of environmental reform movements. She stresses the need to make the US more energy self-sufficient and a transition to a "clean" economy, which is democrat-speak for natural gas is less emitting than coal and oil so its "clean". She has vocally supported offshore wind in NJ but has never wrote any legislation for it, though she wrote a piece of legislation nicknamed the "Mitigate Methane Now Act" that provides federal subsidies to natural gas pipeline companies. She has refrained from meeting with local climate organizations and deflected their questions about campaign finance, claiming "My vote is not for sale". For a better case study of this, lets talk about this years democratic primary for Texas'  28th district. 

The primary race was between Henry Cuellar (incumbent) and Jessica Cisneros, Cuellar being dubbed "Trumps favorite democrat" by Cisneros. Over his last 5 elections, fossil fuel companies have been his number one contributors by industry, with his campaign receiving nearly $720k (and his individual top contributor those years being GEOgroup, a private prison company), and a whopping $172k just this election cycle, which is far from over. He votes with Trump 70% of the time in congress and has received funding and an A rating from the NRA. Jessica Cisneros ran on a progressive platform across the board, centering a strong Green New Deal and even being endorsed by multiple national climate activism organizations. On election day she received more votes than Cuellar, but lost the election due to mail-in ballots cast weeks before. Nancy Pelosi, democratic Speaker of the House, endorsed Cuellar, saying "I'm very, very proud of Henry's work in congress, and I'm proud to support him-", and personally campaigned for him in Texas 10 days before the primary.

If you care at all about this earth then you must demonstrate, do not support corporate democrats that are bought by fossil fuels (trust me, it's more of them than you think). Find alternative candidates in your representatives districts and make sure they support a strong Green New Deal (in NJ-10, which is Montclair south of Watchung Ave, a progressive named John Flora is running against Donald Payne; a Newark native named Larry Hamm is running against Cory Booker as well and he is a much better candidate). Support local organizations (like the Montclair Sunrise Hub perhaps, find us on insta @sunrisemontclair) and force our government to listen. Joe Biden, while undeniably better than Trump, still supports fracked gas as a transitionary fuel, and if he does not appropriately strengthen his environmental platform he will likely miss out on many environmentalist votes (among other issues and other voters). We must pressure our officials to make the necessary changes.

The most important things to keep in mind are: (1) these politicians and political machines work against action only if we allow them to, if people are more politically conscious and demonstrate that they will not tolerate inaction those officials will have to adapt or be voted out; (2) that you can influence elections even if you cannot vote via electoral organizations (join the Montclair Sunrise hub please!); (3) that while it is important for individuals to reduce their carbon footprints, it is incredibly damaging to paint that as the solution or the only thing that people can do; (4) and finally, that pessimism never got us anywhere, if we are to prevent a mass extinction that includes humans (because we are already in the midst of one) we have to believe and act like it is. Do what you can, be that talking to your families, posting on social media, reducing meat consumption or even going vegan, and organizing to make legislative changes. It's easier than you think.

Bad to the Bone? (And Brain?)

There has been an ongoing debate among anthropologists whether human beings are inherently violent. Is violence in our nature or do the conditions in which we live groom us to become violent? Arguing for the nature side is 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes who was the first to speculate that the "natural condition of mankind" was one of violence and conflict. Arguing on the side of nurture is 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau who argued that it was civilization, not nature, that shaped the human proneness to violence. Both sound viable and perhaps both are. Let's dive in, shall we?

Primates first appeared about 55 million years ago. The world was a cruel, uncivilized, dangerous place and one had to mind oneself if they had any hopes of surviving. Mammals, such as primates, were territorial yet social animals; they lived with who they were familiar with and were not fond of outsiders. Outsiders meant less resources and sometimes less mates. To fend off outsiders, sharp canines would have to be bared (grrrr). By doing so, they were able to establish their dominance and keep competition for both resources and mates low. Reasoning with the outsider to leave and pose no threat to the community already there was not an option; but violence would surely do the trick. And so it came to be that ancient primates were some of the only mammals with a high rate of death among them (1.8%). Similarly, when the first prehistoric humans appeared about 7 million years ago, the rate of death among them due to lethal violence was 2%. This should not come as a surprise as humans ultimately evolved from primates which tend to come from a particularly violent mammalian clade.

Cladogram with darker lines representing the more violent species and the red triangle within Hominoidea representing humans. 

One of the many interesting things that both humans and primates have in common is the MAOA gene (aka warrior gene). Monoamine oxidase A is an enzyme whose purpose is breaking down certain neurotransmitters involved in aggression, emotion, and cognition. A mutant variant of this gene (which produces little or no functional MAOA enzyme) may result in the individual expressing enhanced aggression. Scientists speculate that the gene emerged 25 million years ago, some 30 million years after the first primates emerged. And as it is found in both humans and primates, we can only conclude that it was likely a genetic adaptation that primates acquired and that was favored by natural selection as it was passed down all the way to the first humans some 18 million years later.

So, it's evident that we have genes in our DNA which can result in brutal and violent behavior. Violence was quite inevitable for the ancient primates as it was used for protection and what not. We, on the other hand, live in a modern society with sophisticated institutions and laws. Using lethal violence to solve mindless spats or otherwise is more often than not not used in our day and age. Yet it occasionally does come up. Are those that express it outliers in our society or are they simply showing us what human beings are made of (dum du da daaaaa!)?

 MAOA Gene in Riverdale?! 

Still, it is possible that Hobbes was incorrect and that we aren't an inherently violent species, after all. Even though lethal violence may be part of our evolutionary history, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is engraved in our DNA. Prehistoric people were known to have been violent as several excavation sites have revealed such as the one in Kenya known as Nataruk. This site depicts a massacre in which at least 27 people (men, women, and children) were brutally murdered. It's unlikely that the aggressors attacked for kicks and giggles but it is likely that they attacked those who they viewed as competitors for resources and living space. Thus, it may not have been a genetic component leading the aggressors to act this way but environmental pressures on survival.

The environment in which you grow up in can also affect the way you behave as an adult. Results from research conducted by NIJ (National Institute of Justice) revealed that "childhood abuse increased the risk of adulthood crime by promoting antisocial behavior during childhood and adolescence..." The environmental conditions that one lives in throughout ones life have a significant and in many cases detrimental effect on the way their brain functions. For example, through the use of MRI technology, doctors were able to identify changes in the brains of adults who had been victims of abuse or neglect in their childhood. The research depicted that adults who had been exposed to such strenuous conditions in their childhood had significant changes in certain brain regions (hippocampus, corpus callosum, cerebellum, and more) that deal with important functions such as balancing emotions and impulses. Furthermore, studies have shown that individuals who were abused or subjected to stressful conditions in their childhood and who have the mutant variant of the MAOA gene (double whammy) are more likely manipulate, exploit, violate the rights of others, and commit violent, criminal acts.

MAOA Variant + Childhood maltreatment study data 

On the nurture side of the argument, all I've been talking about is how aggression and abuse in early childhood can lead people in the wrong direction as adults. But what about poverty? Greg Acs, VP at the Income and Benefits Policy Center of the Urban Institute explains that the reason certain groups  are more prone to live in a state of poverty due to "historical, economic, social, and personal factors." These factors fuel the discrimination these groups must live with, the same discrimination that limits their work and advancement opportunities. Stress, such as the one people living in poverty experience, can have similar effects on a person's developing brain like abuse. Research has found that when a person lives in poverty, their brain's limbic system (which processes emotions and triggers emotional responses) constantly sends "fear and stress messages to the prefrontal cortex, which overloads its ability to solve problems, set goals, and complete tasks in the most efficient ways." This overworking of the limbic system and the overloading of the prefrontal cortex may be what is leading those living in poverty to act in irrational ways and commit unlawful acts. And while this can happen to anyone no matter their social class, those living in poverty live in a state of constant stress and pressure, have it much worse than the majority of the population. 

So what are your opinions? Does nurture have an effect on nature or does nature get the only say? Does the lethal violence expressed in our evolutionary history define us? Are we all inherently violent and simply choose to suppress those feelings because to express them would be looked incredulously upon? Or are the conditions in which we live the determining factors on who and how we turn out to be? Or, is it a mixture of the two (which I think it is lol)?

Fighting Water Pollution, Against the Odds

The South River is a wide, lazy river nearly no one could place on a map. However, sometimes the most insignificant places are the most personal. My family and I, from my grandparents to my cousin's three-year-old kid, all grew up swimming in that river, which winds behind my grandparents' house in Virginia. We use it to water the gardens and to fill the water tanks for the chickens. My aunt has recently talked about building a pump up from the river to the house, although it might not be a great idea anymore.

The South River in winter

                                                           

Family chickens drinking water from the South River

Recently, South River became more significant after the town's DuPont factory was mandated to pay forty-two million dollars in reparations for dumping mercury waste into the river since the 1930s. This settlement is one of the largest environmental settlements in the history of Virginia. While the mercury poisoning data was released in the 1970s along with a strong warning to not consume fish from the river, the settlement was not reached until 2017, nearly fifty years later. Despite the amount of time it took to reach a settlement, this example of company accountability is a prime example of what needs to be done to help prevent water pollution. 

DuPont Spandex Plant over South River

https://digital.hagley.org/1972341_1133#modal-close

During the industrial revolution, many factories were built near rivers in order to power machines and provide transportation. However, these bodies of water were also used for sanitation, or to dump waste, which became increasingly chemical as production advanced. This water pollution directly affects people's lives and livelihoods, as seen again and again in tales of chemical poisonings, clusters of cancer in small towns, and sudden, unexplained deaths of livestock. This has happened in Dry Run Creek in Washington, West Virginia, to a cattle farmer whose livestock started dying off due to the DuPont chemical C8, which binds to plasma proteins and causes mutations during pregnancy. It has happened to Arbuckle Creek in Minden, West Virginia, where the estimated chance of developing cancer is over 80% due to exposure to PCB chemicals in a local mine. Shockingly, despite this percentage, the Environmental Protection Agency turned down resident's chances for relocation in October of 2019. In these cases, it is common for the companies or even the EPA to blame residents for the problems in their communities, e.g., the cattle were dying due to incorrect diets, the residents of Minden were affected because of their diets.

Water pollution gets everywhere--it goes into the soil around the rivers, it poisons fish, and it poisons crops, all of which make their way back to people. For the health of the people, it is necessary to hold corporations accountable, as what happened to the DuPont factory over the South River. The problem is that it is often a small, family farmer vs. a multi-million dollar corporation which has withstood myriads of lawsuits over the years. It is also necessary to employ more environmental regulations on business, not relax them, which has happened in recent years. Employing regulations and lawsuits to make sure that companies know they will be checked is essential to protecting the health of the people. Holding these companies accountable can proactively prevent pollution, and makes sure everyone has a South River which is safe to swim in. 

                                                           

Family dogs swimming in South River

Positive Change in Population Control

I am sure all of you have had that experience of wandering the neighborhood, or driving down the street, and you spot a cat. It was most likely alone, minding its own business, looking for its next meal, or just simply strolling through the town it calls its home. Have you imagined that cat yet? Now, let me ask you a question about your experience: did you notice if its ear was tipped? 

If you're someone who's never looked for a cat with a tipped ear, you're not alone! It's not something most people think about when they first see a cat, but the reason for that is because people don't know the meaning behind it. I myself never looked for that noticeable mark until the summer of 2018. This was when I started volunteering for CPAW NJ. CPAW NJ is a nonprofit organization based in Montclair. The organization's sole purpose is Trap Neuter Vaccinate and Release, or TNVR (more about this later), in the cat communities in our area. 

CPAW NJ logo from http://cpawnj.org/

Karen Shinevar, the president of this charity, gave me the opportunity to help socialize a couple kittens and adult cats that they had rescued from the street. In this adventure, I was able to interact with cats who changed my opinion of feral cats and their impact on our community. Karen was honest to me in revealing that their plan was no longer to try to get cats adopted, but rather facilitate TNVR anywhere they could spread it. 

Jack and Turner photographed by me :)
both have been luckily adopted 

 All the cats I met while working this program were absolutely delightful. I worked with Jack and Turner, two siblings who both sustained injuries to their eyes pictured above, and with Oreo, he was abused when he was younger due to him being the only black kitten to come out of his mom's litter. Since then, Oreo has been rescued by Karen and is still looking for a home (if you are please send an email here)! I'm sure all of you want to keep hearing about my adventures with the cats I worked with, but I want to highlight the true purrrpose of CPAW NJ. After all, it wasn't the experiences with the kittens that I value most from CPAW. 

Picture of Oreo photographed by Alina (another volunteer)

Overpopulation can easily occur in cat communities due to the sexual behavior of female cats.  Cats reach sexual maturity at around 4 months old, so they have kittens much faster than a lot of animals. Cats, like rabbits, have heat cycles which occur every 12-22 days causing a release of hormones and a change in behavior that attracts new mates. In their period of heat, which can last from 2 days to 2 weeks, many male cats will mate with the female causing a large mix of genes. Once the cat gives birth, they can be fertilized again in as little as 2 days. This means that the cat population can get out of hand quickly. This cycle can also have effects on the mother because she can over exert herself when having litters so often. Cats can give birth to new litters 5 and a half times a year. This quick birth rate is all supposed to give cats a higher chance to pass on their genes, thus having high fitness. Currently, there are 500,000 cats on the streets of NYC, imagine in the entire US! Of course, governments have taken measures to try to regulate this cat population.

Cat population statistics brought to us by the CPAW NJ Facebook page

Traditionally, it is common for governments to utilize the option of trap and kill to handle their overpopulation of community cats. Trap and kill is when the government orders their animal control officers to lower the population of cats through the mass murdering of the population. However, this has shown to be ineffective due to the scientific phenomenon known as the vacuum effect. The vacuum effect is a description of what happens when a large piece of a population is removed: in some time, the population will bounce back because the resources in the community are now available. Immigration occurs as more animals try to take advantage of open shelters and plentiful food. Some people may be then drawn to the idea of adoption for these cats, however, this solution is also problematic. 

Yes, we always love to see a rescue mission that involves finding an animal a home. But sometimes, that is not always possible. There are strays on the street who would do much better in a home, these cats are usually banged up and ill prepared for defending themselves on the streets. Feral cats, however, have been raised in the wild. They are usually unfit for adoption because they have not been socialized. Cats need proper socialization with humans as kittens in order to become pets. If a cat is not properly socialized at the beginning of its life, it is likely that cat can never be a house pet. Without socialization, a feral cat will become stressed around humans and display aggressive behavior like hissing, spitting, and running away. Cats like Jack and Turner were lucky to be socialized as kittens because they can be adopted. However, if a cat shows any sign of being feral, they are usually euthanized in shelters for being wild. Statistics show that over 70% of cats are euthanized in shelters. 

This image shows a pyramid of actions to best reduce the cat population
https://www.communitycatspodcast.com/introducing-the-community-cat-pyramid/

This is why Karen started to spread the message of TNVR. This practice provides a humane way to handle outdoor cats while also fixing the communities' overpopulation issue. Instead of killing the cats caught by animal control officers, the goal is for cats to be neutered/spayed, vaccinated, allowed to heal, and then released back to where they were found. There are many benefits of TNVR for the cats's health and human life. For one, studies have shown that TNVR instead of trap and kill improves morale and happiness in animal control employees. The amount of euthanasias in shelters decreases significantly after a TNVR practice goes into effect. Not only that, but community cats play an important role in our environment's ecosystem. They fill in a specific niche that we should all be grateful for: small animal control. They hunt rats and mice so that the rodents cannot enter our houses. If not for community cats, our town could end up like Chicago did when it had a 3 month wait list for community cats due to a lack of rodent control. In that same matter, TNVR also prevents overconsumption of small birds and other wildlife by keeping a limited number of predators. TNVR also promotes cheap spay and neutering for pet owners. This means that humans can have easily accessible surgery that benefits the lives of their pets. In Montclair, CPAW NJ runs a monthly spay/neuter van in their campaign called Beat the Heat.

 As for the cats, the vaccinations allow the cats to become resistant to rabies, which also benefits us. The trap, neuter, and release practice allows for behavioral changes like reduced territorial fighting. The cats live a safer life with less injuries and resistance to diseases that would normally spread quickly in communities. When the cars are sterilized, they usually stop their sexual behavior. This prevents vocalized mating, a common behavior that many people are irritated by. In addition, cats can no longer have kittens in the cold outdoors where most of them usually die. To ensure they don't mistakenly attempt a second sterilization on the same cat, TNVR organizations tip one ear of the cats who have already been neutered. This is why it is important to look for that tip! Not only does TNVR result in a cheaper and practical solution to overpopulation, it also has countless studies that support that TNVR is beneficial for all parties. 

community cat inside a trap about to be checked up. The cover allows
for the cat to calm down. Photo from the CPAWNJ facebook.

With all these benefits for TNVR, it's crazy that it hasn't been implemented widely. Sadly, the true issue that prevents TNVR from spreading is the lack of knowledge. Many officials in government often say that spay/neutering will not solve the problem. This is why CPAW NJ tries to spread this awareness in communities. It solves the long term problem of overpopulation while giving cats the best chance of surviving in the outdoors. TNVR organizations also face additional challenges. Traps require food for the cat to eat as bait. Without it, no cat would enter the trap and no neutering would happen. Karen told me recently that many towns will tell her they believe in TNVR, but will not legalize feeding feral cats. Notably, another issue is that many governments mandate TNR registration. People who run TNVR efforts are forced to share their personal information. The government also considers the cats that are recovering in the operator's care as the operator's personal property. This in turn makes them violate maximum cat allowance ordinances.  

tipped ear cat from CPAW NJ website.

If you have been particularly inspired to help with this message, please check out the CPAW NJ get involved page! The people here are kind, considerate, and willing to teach you. CPAW not only handles spay/neuter and TNR, they also handle surrender prevention by providing behavior advice, cat care for beginners, and even lost cat aid. CPAW NJ has taught me how important a cat can be to our human-made ecosystem. That, and gave me the important job of teaching about the tipped ear. 

Team City Bird vs. Team Country Bird

For those who have encountered the combatant pigeons of New York City, it likely comes as no surprise when I say that birds that live in the city have different behavioral patterns. The environmental conditions in the city are so drastically different than those of rural areas, that they place a selective pressure upon the birds, causing them to biologically adapt over time. In some ways, the pressures caused by city life can improve populations of birds, and in other ways, they are put at a disadvantage.

Birds in the city are forced to face several environmental differences that affect how they must behave to survive. There is a heightened amount of stimulus as well as population density in cities. At any given moment, there is noise, traffic, bright lights, and many people and different types of animals fighting for space and resources. In order to survive and reproduce, city birds tend to be forced to adopt a more aggressive demeanor and be willing to fight and assert themselves when necessary.

When observed, urban birds show off their aggressive sides in response to trouble. Much of this comes from biological evolution over time, but in addition to the foundation that evolutionary tendencies provides, the frequency of exposure to situations like these makes the birds better equipped for conflict going forward. Birds in the city also show raised aggression during mating as a result of the density of competition.

Additionally, it was found that city birds may even have a greater immune system and higher intelligence than country birds. I would hypothesize that their immune system would be better as birds are exposed to a much less clean environment, exposed to pollutants and food scraps, and therefore would naturally build antibodies to different pathogens more quickly. They could also have become genetically predisposed to have a better immune response over generations (read more about inherited immunity here).

One downside of life in the city for birds is the potential of more stress, which can shorten the length of their telomeres. Telomeres, which are like caps on chromosomes, shorten over time, and their shortening can decrease one's lifespan. With exposure to a great amount of stressors, city birds may face more wear and tear than country birds.

It is up to you whether you find that city birds or country birds are superior. Frankly, there is no true purpose in determining which type of the amazing creatures reigns supreme. City birds seem to mirror their human city-mates, having to endure great stress, but resultantly becoming more aggressive and well-equipped in the face of conflict. Country birds are not as likely to have these traits, but they also face much less external stress. The choice is up to you; Team City Bird or Team Country Bird?

The Monster in Your Garden

Most people have seen it. It surrounds brooks, rivers, streams, and houses. It will take over your land, one square inch at a time, preventing organisms from surviving. Once it comes, it almost never leaves. This demon is your worst nightmare. It will prevent you from selling your house, it will destroy your land, it is Japanese Knotweed also known as Fallopia japonica.

Japanese knotweed is native to East Asia in Japan, China, and Korea. This plant grows rapidly and spreads quickly as well with up to 2 meters in one season. Its underground root system can even stretch for 7 meters! 

Japanese knotweed roots

It frequently grows in ecosystems where temperatures are relatively moderate, rather than extremely hot or cold. Commonly found on roadsides, waste places, and near small bodies of water, it forms thick, dense colonies that crowd out any other plant species. Today, it is considered one of the top worst invasive species in the world. Its success is thanks to its tolerance of a very wide range of soil types, pH, and salinity.

Japanese knotweed is listed by the World Conservation Union as one of the world’s most invasive species. It was first introduced to Britain by the Victorians in the 100s as an ornamental garden plant, but now England spends over 2.8 billion dollars a year attempting to fight it annually. It increased the construction of the 2012 Olympic Stadium by over 70 million dollars! Japanese knotweed has invaded countries such as New England, Australia, and Tasmania. So far, the monster has been found in 39 out of 50 states in the US and 6 Canadian provinces. Japanese knotweed was subsequently introduced to the U.S. for use in ornamental hedges and for erosion control. The Japanese knotweed spreads is entirely through the deliberate or accidental movement of rhizome fragments or cut stems. It has an extraordinary ability to spread vegetatively, a process by which new organisms arise without production of seeds or spores, from crown, stem and rhizome (underground root).

Montclair is one of the sad towns that has been attacked by the monster. Japanese knotweed is located in our very own High School Amphitheater!! Montclair's own STEM department and a professor from MSU worked together to measure rates of photosynthesis, transpiration, and how the Japanese knotweed affected fresh water levels.

Toney's Brook in the amphitheater. The knotweed gets cut back every year for graduation but of course it grows back.

How do you know if you have the monster in your garden? Well that’s what we are here for! Japanese knotweed has hollow stems with distinct raised nodes giving the plant the appearance of bamboo, despite the plants not being closely related. The stem reaches a height of 3-4 meters each year, however smaller plants are everywhere too. The leaves are a broad oval shape with a base that is 7-14 cm long and 5-12 cm wide. The flowers are small, cream/white in color and are produced in late summer/early fall.

One of the most common ways to get rid of the monster is to eat it. A favorite recipe is Japanese Knotweed bread. This recipe was brought to us by Herbalpedia. In order to create this fabulous recipe you will need:

Materials

2 cups unbleached flour
½ cup sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg
2 Tbsp salad oil
¾ cup orange juice
¾ cup chopped hazelnuts
1 cup sweetened Japanese Knotweed Purée

Process

Preheat oven to 350F. Sift dry ingredients together into a large bowl. Beat the egg white with the oil and orange juice. Add along with hazelnuts and purée to dry ingredients. Do not mix until all ingredients are added, and blend only enough to moisten. Do not over mix. Spoon gently into buttered 91/2-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan. Bake about 1 hour or until a straw or cake tester inserted in the center comes out dry. Cool by removing from pan and placing it on a rack. For muffins, spoon into buttered muffin tins and bake about 25 minutes.

By Brigie Coughlin and Samantha Chee

MHS' Contribution to Garbage Island: Part 2-Change is Possible!

Garbage and the enormity of it is piling up throughout the world, including the small park Montclair High School is located on. Adolescents blatantly throw their trash into Rand park, instead of the trash cans located throughout the area.

The immediate solution to help reduce the garbage amount would be to educate and inform the high school students, especially the incoming freshman, on the impact trash has on the environment and on the small scale, the beauty of Rand Park. By freely littering the high school campus, it not only reflects poorly of the students, but prevents any improvement of the park from happening. Local government believe that putting in money and time into Rand Park would be pointless and ineffective because of the continuous stream of trash being dumped into the park by the MHS students. And while this is partly true, perhaps the upkeep of the park would motivate and inspire others to stop littering.

Getting students involved in the maintenance of the park is a first easy step to help the "Garbage Island" of Montclair. With countless community service clubs, students could get service hours in exchange for time spent cleaning the park. For example, Key Club, a community service club where every member must have a minimum of 50 hours of volunteer work a year, that has over 100 members could easily transform Rand Park into the beautiful breath of nature it is meant to be. After school, students could congregate and comb the area for litter, help maintain the landscape, and oversee something with meaning. Additionally, Peer Leadership, a mentor group of seniors that help freshman orient into high school life, could inform incoming students about how the responsibility they have in keeping Rand Park clean and litter-free.

After digging into this problem we brainstormed alternative solutions; of course there’s always the possibility of the town providing additional trash and recycling cans, in hopes that the majority will actually use them. But the reality is to end any problem one must go to the source, if the student body and administration would support a movement to keep campus litter free with security guards doubling as waste monitors we could eliminate much of the litter. However, one of our biggest issues facing this epidemic is out of our control, using plastic- specifically styrofoam. Food trucks are part of the natural order at Montclair High, but with their continuous usage of non-environmentally friendly products to serve their products it’s not difficult to hypothesize where the majority or trash originates from. One way this town could rewrite that construct is introducing vendors to companies creating products targeting sustainability rather than saving money.

Then we stumbled up Eco Products: "a green company who happens to operate in disposables”, the company creates kitchenware, such as utensils, targeted as "sustainable disposable products"- oxymoron much? But the company's values and goals intend to follow through on their claim, calling worker "greengeeks" as well to aid promoting this go green philosophy. The company claims every product uses materials made from renewable resources and recycled content.

A few of Eco Products top used materials, provided by ecoproducts.com

You can check out their website here:

http://www.ecoproducts.com/index.php

Or find your nearest location to buy their biodegradable products here:

http://www.ecoproducts.com/where-to-buy

Biggest species extinction since dinosaurs

Right now more species are becoming extinct since the mass elimination of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. And it's all because of human activity.



The Earth naturally goes through environmental cycles and species extinctions, yet the rate at which that occurs is generally one to five species a year, where as right now around a dozen are becoming extinct everyday! If this continues to happen, we could be looking at around 30-50% of all species becoming extinct by the mid-century.

Humans account for 99% of all activity threatening animals on this Earth, from habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species, and global warming. And because of the complex nature of ecosystems, one individual species could be a keystone species, causing a snowball affect of destruction on an area. Keystone species are organisms that greatly affect and are depended on in an ecosystem, where if removed cause dramatic change.

Species diversity is crucial towards successful ecosystems, and while certain terrains such as coral reefs and rain forests need genetic and species diversity,  less inhabited lands such as tundras, grasslands, etc could be completely devastated if a handful of species becomes extinct.

As humans, we must realize that we do not own this Earth, we are merely one species out of the millions of others. This human supremacy must be taken down and the realization that if actions aren't taken to preserve the multitude of living things, there will be a time with no elephants, red wood trees, killer whales, or the diversity that makes up our amazing Earth.