The Weekly Anthropocene, March 20 2024
Redwoods in the UK, green corridors in Medellín, a coral reef in Canada, Omani oases, flexible printable solar cells, America's new Climate Corps, offshore wind farms, and ocean territories, and more!
United Kingdom
A fascinating new study found that the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) are absolutely thriving in the British Isles, with an estimated 500,000 or more of the two closely related mega-trees in the UK. They were first introduced in the 1800s as a cultivated tree, and have since been planted and spread widely. For comparison, there are less than 80,000 giant sequoias estimated to be remaining in their native California (although there are many strenuous efforts to protect them).
Another spectacular example of an immigrant species making good! Even if climate change is someday too much for these colossi of California, they now have a new homeland to ensure that they don’t perish from the earth. Great news!
“Giant sequoias are some of the most massive organisms on Earth and in their native range make up some of the most carbon dense forests in the world due to their great age. We found that UK redwoods are well adapted to the UK and able to capture a large amount of carbon dioxide.”
-Ross Holland, study coauthor
The British overseas territory of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands recently announced several massive new no-fishing zones covering 166,000 square kilometers (an area of ocean larger than New York State!), as well as banning only krill fishing in another 17,000 km². This will help provide safe havens for krill and other fishery target species to try to adapt to rapidly warming waters without having to deal with increased fishing pressure at the same time, which in turn helps krill-eating species from blue whales to chinstrap penguins.
This kind of thing doesn’t get much attention in the global info-sphere, but is a key step to give vulnerable Antarctic marine ecosystems a fighting chance in the Anthropocene!
Colombia
Medellín, the second largest city in Colombia, has planted 880,000 trees from 2016 to 2021, forming a kilometers-long network of 30 shaded “Green Corridors” to counter the urban heat island effect and improve climate resilience. The broader project also created many green roofs and vertical gardens, as seen at the city hall.
This mass planting has had wide-ranging benefits across a range of issues. PM 2.5 air pollution has fallen significantly, the rate of acute respiratory infections fell from 159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 people, cycling rates have increased by 34.6%, 30 butterfly species now inhabit the Green Corridors, and Medellín’s microclimate has cooled by 2°C thanks to the cooling effect of the trees’ evapotranspiration. This is the kind of smart, localized resilience work that will help make cities even more pleasant and livable despite the warming atmosphere of Anthropocene Earth! Great work.
Famed cat conservation NGO Panthera recently shared the story of Mariposa, an individual female jaguar who became instrumental in establishing a burgeoning population of her species in Colombia’s Hato la Aurora nature reserve. First seen in 2009, tracked and camera-recorded for thirteen years, and last spotted in 2022, she had an amazing eleven daughters during her known lifetime, and her oldest daughter Cayenita has now had eleven daughters of her own. (Mariposa also had sons, but male jaguars tend to disperse to new territory, so local researchers didn’t see them around). Big trends like the resurgence of many wild animals in the Anthropocene are built on individual life stories.
Oman
In the Hajar Mountains of Oman, a centuries-old method of irrigated oasis agriculture is newly relevant in a warming world. The region is arid with low rainfall, but has sustained a species-rich agroforestry system for centuries, watered by communally managed and maintained ancient aflaj channels linking mountain springs to manure-enriched terraced fields. These practices have cultivated extraordinary crop biodiversity and resulted in impressive yields: Omani mountain oases have produced higher alfalfa yields than California, and researchers recently found 10 new (to the West) varieties of wheat that are cultivated there, while over 200 non-crop wild plants also grow in these gardens.
This region of fast-developing Oman also seems to be adapting to the changing climate and economy rather well, with more drip-irrigated olive trees being grown, traditional agricultural practices increasingly selling their produce at a premium and becoming an attraction in the rapidly growing tourism industry, and a recent built pipeline bringing desalinated ocean water from the coast for domestic use.
“It’s the only place in the world that I know of where 1,500 years of irrigated agriculture … has not led to salinization.”
Professor Andreas Bürkert
Canada
It’s just been publicly announced that in 2021, researchers and the local Kitasoo Xai’xais and Heiltsuk First Nations used a remote-controlled submersible probe to discover a fascinating new coral reef in the waters off British Columbia. Made up of “thriving” corals spreading across 10 hectares, and known as both Lophelia Reef in English and q̓áuc̓íwísuxv in the local Wakashan languages, this is the northernmost coral reef ever discovered in the Pacific Ocean as well as the only known live coral reef in Canada’s Pacific waters. It may be the only place in the world where a coral reef ecosystem interacts with glass sponges, a common creature in colder waters—although it’s also possible that this is the first of many such reefs yet to be found! The Canadian government has already moved to ban all “bottom-contact” fisheries (i.e. trawling, stuff that scrapes the seabed) in the area, to protect the reef. Earth’s great oceans still contain many hidden wonders. Awesome!
Australia
As solar continues its exponential growth worldwide, there’s lots more amazing technological advancement on the horizon! Researchers at Australian research agency CSIRO have created unprecedentedly efficient flexible solar cells. They can be printed with a roll-to-roll technique similar to newspaper printing, forming a lightweight, flexible surface embossed with a perovskite-based energy-generating “ink,” and have already been tested in space on a private Australian satellite. And they’re relatively cheap to make already, and will likely become much cheaper with economies of scale!
The potential for deployment here is astonishing. Imagine just wallpapering buildings and roofs and walls with solar panels, or rapidly unfurling a bunch of these in a remote or disaster-stricken area. Once we have cheap mass-produced rolls of flexible lightweight solar cells, almost any physical surface could be upgraded to generate electricity in less than a day. The Solar Age is just beginning!
Uzbekistan
The first phases of the Samarkand and Jizzakh solar farms in Uzbekistan, built by Emirati renewables titan Masdar, have been connected to the grid. When complete, they will have a capacity of 511 MW. Solar is rapidly accelerating in Uzbekistan, which is hoping to deploy 8 GW (8,000 MW) of solar capacity by 2030, up from 3.5 MW in 2020 and 252.5 MW in 2022. Seemingly everywhere you look these days, the renewables revolution keeps revving up!
United States
The White House just announced that they will be launching an online platform to apply for President Biden’s American Climate Corps in April 2024! 20,000 young people are expected to be hired in the first year, with most available positions (in fields from clean energy installations to ecosystem restoration to wildfire preparedness) not set to require prior experience. A spectacular opportunity!
The Biden Administration finalized a $2.26 billion loan to build processing facilities for the under-construction Thacker Pass lithium mine project in Nevada, securing the largest known lithium deposit in North America for America’s emerging domestic battery manufacturing supply chain. President Biden continues to drive forward an epic American green manufacturing boom!
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management finalized its Wind Energy Area in the Gulf of Maine, and calculated that this area would be able to support 32 GW (32,000 MW) of offshore wind power. Notably, the new Wind Energy Area excludes tribal fishing grounds, critical North Atlantic right whale habitat, and Maine’s core lobster fishing zones.
And the 130-megawatt South Fork Wind offshore wind farm in the waters around Long Island, is now 100% online, with all 12 turbines delivering power to the New York State grid. Several other projects, like Vineyard Wind off Massachusetts, have some of their turbines online but are not 100% complete yet, and many more are set to start construction soon. (Check out and bookmark this regularly updated summary article). The American offshore wind sector continues to wise!
“We’re thrilled to celebrate the completion of the South Fork project, which will deliver 130 megawatts of wind energy to Long Island. That’s enough to power more than 70,000 homes and businesses! Today is further proof that America’s clean energy transition is not a dream for a distant future – it’s happening right here and now.”
-U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland
Bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) appear to be thriving off the coast of Alabama despite rapidly warming waters.
In 2022, a GPS-collared female cougar named F66 walked 1,000 miles from central Utah to the eastern slope of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain, crossing four major interstate highways along the way. One of the longest eastward treks ever recorded for the species, National Geographic described it as one of several examples of “reverse feline manifest destiny.”
On December 19, 2023, the United States registered its largest territorial expansion since the 1867 Alaska Purchase. It didn’t get much attention because it consisted of more ocean becoming U.S. territorial waters under international law thanks to the results of a 20-year Expanded Continental Shelf mapping program, but it’s still a really big deal! The United States expanded by 1 million square kilometers (that’s slightly more than two Californias!) and barely anyone noticed.
Given the warming Arctic and the increasing technological viability of deep-sea mining (with some low environmental impact techniques already being developed), this oceanic expansion could become much more relevant in the near future!
Somehow this issue of the Weekly was lost in my inbox. I just finished reading it and I have to say it is one of my favorites! Northern Pacific Coral reefs, Biden's numerous ecological initiatives, offshore developments, urban green corridors and that gi-normous continental shelf acquisition! Great reading - even if s little late!
I love your coverage of marine protected areas and Continental shelf expansions! The awesome work being done in the oceans does not get nearly enough coverage. I search everywhere to stay up to date, but somehow you continuously find things I miss even though you report on such a wide variety of things. Thank you! ❤️