We must not idly let climate change wreak its damage

Gardening for Climate Change

As more birds alter their ranges to cope with a warming climate, you can take steps in your yard to help the animals survive 

Changing climate already is affecting bird distribution in much of the country. The National Audubon Society’s 2009 Birds and Climate Change report found that, based on data from the yearly Christmas Bird Count, more than 70 percent of backyard bird species have shifted their ranges north during the past four decades. The average range shift is about 35 miles, but the change is not uniform. During cold months, some species are now observed more than 100 miles north of their former winter ranges, including backyard regulars such as the American goldfinch, pine siskin, boreal chickadee and pygmy nuthatch.

Planting an "Ecological Insurance Policy" 

Experts can’t predict with certainty which plants will thrive in our yards in the future or which birds will be there to benefit from what we plant. But we can take steps to prepare our land for future changes. “You can be ‘climate ready’ for whatever shows up,” says Tom Gardali, a California biologist who leads riparian restoration projects for Point Blue Conservation Science. Gardali already has made changes to the way his teams conduct their stream bank restoration work. “We’re choosing a mix of species based on what the climate might do rather than what it is right now,” he says. “We’re intentionally planting for climate change.”

NWF Priority: Helping Wildlife Cope with Climate Change 

Now in its 41st year, NWF’s Certified Wildlife Habitat^® program provides all of the information you need about native plants and natural gardening techniques to provide birds and other wildlife with safe havens around your property in the face of global warming. To learn more and find out how you can certify your yard, see the insert in the middle of this issue or visit www.nwf.org/nwfgarden.

Scientists are also working to restore the damage climate change is inflicting on the coral reefs.

A section of healthy coral on the Great Barrier Reef, and an area where the coral has died. Credit Left, Jodie Rummer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; right, XL Catlin Seaview Survey, via Associated Press        

The Great Barrier Coral Reef is dying as climate change heats up the oceans. But all is not lost.

ON THE GREAT BARRIER REEF, off Australia — After a plunge beneath the crystal-clear water to inspect a coral reef, Neal Cantin pulled off his mask and shook his head.
“All dead,” he said.

Yet even as he and his dive team of international scientists lamented the devastation that human recklessness has inflicted on the world’s greatest system of reefs, they also found cause for hope. 

As they spent days working through a stretch of ocean off the Australian state of Queensland, Dr. Cantin and his colleagues surfaced with sample after sample of living coral that had somehow dodged a recent die-off: hardy survivors, clinging to life in a graveyard.

There finding survivors and their plan is to grow them in the lab and replant them.  They may be able to replace the reef with an evolved version that can tolerate the hot oceans. 

“We’re trying to find the super corals, the ones that survived the worst heat stress of their lives,” said Dr. Cantin, a researcher with the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville.