This report from The Cleanest Line provides a summary of new paper issued by the National Parks Conservation Association regarding climate change and its effects on species habitats and migration. I won't rehash the details of the report or the paper itself. There's a link to the 50-page report on The Cleanest Line's page.
What I want to highlight is the realization inherent in this report that combating the effects of a changing climate requires comprehensive solutions and collective action. Compartmentalized thinking and segmented action cannot adequately address phenomena that are geographically and philosophically widespread. Finding solutions to the issues raised in the paper will require cooperation among state and federal authorities and private landowners that surround the parks in question.
On a broader thought, in addressing any problem, social or scientific, we can attempt to address the problem by targeting and neutralizing specific symptoms of the problem, but that won't eliminate the problem altogether. For example, improving automobile fuel efficiency and utilizing alternative, "clean" means of energy production are certainly laudable goals in combating carbon emissions. But neither of these solutions address the root cause of increasing emissions - rising consumption. A comprehensive medicine that allays symptoms and attacks the source of the illness will be much more effective in the long-term search for a cure.
Those thoughts really turns me back to The Everyday Conservationist post I made earlier today. Implementing a comprehensive and cooperative solution begins with each of us and the choices we make each day. Confronting these decisions and discussing them with friends and family is a great start to finding solutions that will be effective now and in the future.
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