The Daily - Consider the Burying Beetle. (Or Else.)

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

The current level of biodiversity loss is extraordinary in human history: The global rate of species extinction is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. At the end of 2022, countries around the world came together in Montreal for an agreement akin to the Paris climate accord to tackle the biodiversity crisis. Here’s more on the effort and how it seeks to confront the problem.Guest: Catrin Einhorn, who reports on biodiversity and climate for The New York Times.Background reading: Last year, roughly 190 nations, aiming to halt a dangerous decline in biodiversity, agreed to preserve 30 percent of the planet’s land and seas. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the story behind the ambitious new global agreement to protect the planet that you probably haven't heard of. My colleague, Katrin Einhorn, explains. It's Friday, January 6th. Katrin, as 2022 came to a close, something really big happened in your corner of the world that I think escaped the attention of the rest of us. Even though it's not really just my corner.

It's not your corner of the world. I mean, it's all, it's nature. It's all corners of the world. Something quite historic, actually. So tell us about this thing. So listeners are probably familiar with the Paris Agreement, this big global agreement to limit climate change. Right. The world locking hands, dozens of countries and saying we are going to do something about carbon emissions. Right. So

similarly, countries of the world came together just now in December in Montreal and said, we're going to tackle this big other crisis, biodiversity loss. In an agreement of the same scale. Arguably similar. Lots of people there really talked about it as a Paris moment for biodiversity. Biodiversity loss is this crisis that has been really overshadowed by climate change, and people are really trying to wake the world up. So tell us about this biodiversity crisis that merited such a historic global accord. And I guess on a more basic level,

tell us about the very meaning of biodiversity. Like what is biodiversity? Right. And why did the world decide to get together and address it? Well, biodiversity is the variety of life on the planet, right? So that includes species and also ecosystems. And the biodiversity loss that's happening right now around the world is unprecedented in human history. Of course, there have been extinction events in the past that are worse, but like, you know, the last one of those was 65 million years ago with the dinosaurs. Right.

So in terms of how long we've been around on the planet, this is worse than it's ever been. The global rate of species extinction is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. Say that one more time. The global rate of species extinction. Right now. Is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years. Wow. So this is a uniquely bad moment for extinction and biodiversity loss. Since humans have been around.

And, you know, you can think of ecosystems as like a Jenga tower. And in fact, at the global biodiversity talks in Montreal, there was a sculpture of a Jenga tower. To make this point, you can take out pieces and for a while it remains standing. But scientists don't really understand which combination of blocks that get removed from that tower are going to totally destabilize it and make it collapse. What we do know is that the more we remove, the more unstable the tower becomes. Give us some real-world examples of this to kind of grapple with. I think we're all really familiar with endangered animals, right? So like we grew up learning about tigers and pandas. And like, P.S., those species are doing really well. Tigers and pandas, conservation actually works when you do it and you give it the resources it needs. But if you look at biodiversity writ large, species are going in the opposite direction, right? They're plummeting. Insects have been called the little things that run the world, right? They're at the base of the food chain. They're supporting everything above them. And insects are in real trouble. Take the American burying beetle, for example. Have you heard of it?

I have not. And what these beetles do is they search out dead birds and mammals of a certain size. Can't be too big, can't be too small. Rodents, squirrels, passenger pigeons when they were around. And a male and a female work together to bury this dead animal in the ground. They then make these secretions. They wrap it in all these secretions. And then the female lays the eggs on or near the dead animal.

And when the eggs hatch, they feed on the dead animal. But the important thing that they do for, like, us is that all that dead animal stuff makes the soil really rich, right? So they're actually improving the soil. animal stuff, makes the soil really rich, right? So they're actually improving the soil. So these beetles aren't just amazing in their secretions and wrappings and earth fertilizing. They're doing something quite important for the soil and therefore for you and I. Exactly, right. And these beetles used to be widespread across the eastern half of the United States. And they basically just collapsed throughout the last hundred years or so.

So what's the next example to think about? The classic example is pollinators. By which we mean? Bees and butterflies and bats. So 75% of the world's crops benefit from animal pollination. I do think it's important to say that like a lot of our cereal crops, so like wheat and corn and rice, those are wind pollinated. So it's not like they pollinate everything. But like they pollinate one out of three bites that every American eats, according to the USDA.

That's a fascinating statistic. And what is happening to our pollinators? They're doing really badly. You know, one study showed that the relative abundance of five bumblebee species has declined by 96%. A huge fall. Yeah. And so one thing that farmers have done is they've replaced these wild pollinators, say bumblebees, for example, with domesticated bees, honeybees. I don't know if listeners know, but like honeybees aren't native to the United States. They're domesticated. They're trucked around from crop to crop. Right. And farmers pay for beekeepers to bring these honeybees to pollinate almonds and apples.

Kind of like paid consultants to the crop. Not consultants. They're actually like... Like contract workers. Yeah. But even honeybees, these domesticated bees, are collapsing. And beekeepers are reporting really large losses and something that they're really struggling with. large losses, and something that they're really struggling with.

So what exactly is causing all this loss of biodiversity across the world? What is behind all these species being in this much trouble? The big intergovernmental scientific panel on biodiversity loss, sort of the leading global authority, has ranked the causes, the drivers in order. Would you like to guess? Would I like to guess? I would. What's the top cause for biodiversity loss? Number one in the world. I mean, just based on my news judgments, I'd have to guess it would be climate change. Nope. No? Okay. Human destruction?

Yeah. Consumption? Change in land and sea use is the way they put it. But yeah, I mean, it's basically humans taking over ecosystems for our own purposes, right? Agriculture, towns and communities, mining. We take over land and we take over the sea, right? That's the first cause. Do you want to guess on number two?

I don't want to guess anymore now. take over the sea, right? That's the first cause. Do you want to guess on number two? I don't want to guess anymore now. They call it direct exploitation of organisms, which is like hunting and fishing and us actually killing these animals for our own use, animals and plants, right? Number three is climate change. Interesting. And that, in the coming decades, is predicted to be the number one. Like, if climate change goes unchecked, it will emerge as the major, major driving factor, right? It's already a factor, and it's only going to get worse.

Well, let's focus for a moment on number three, because I think one and two are somewhat intuitive. Humans either move into a place and make it hard for a species to exist, or they hunt it, make it endangered. When it comes to climate change, how exactly does the relationship work? Is climate change a kind of cause and effect relationship? It can be. They're so interlinked.

Biodiversity loss and climate change are so interlinked. So take coral reefs, for example. When waters become too hot, the corals expel the algae that they need to survive and the corals will bleach and eventually die, right? So animals and plants have certain temperatures and climactic conditions that they've evolved over tens or hundreds of thousands of millions of years to live in. And if those change, then we'll see how that goes for them, right? Scientists are racing to try and understand how this is all going to play out. Of course, all of these things build on each other, unfortunately. So, for example, for animals to adapt to climate change, they need to be able to move to new places,

like move up in altitude or move toward the poles where it's going to be colder, right? However, because of all that land destruction that we talked about before, like they can't get around, they're hemmed in, and climate change is going to wreak a much worse toll. Right. So in terms of these two big crises that we now face, I wonder if there's an easy way to answer this. But which is the bigger, more urgent problem?

Climate change, which we've come to think of as the greatest challenge of our time. Climate change, which we've come to think of as the greatest challenge of our time, or this loss of biodiversity, which is now getting more attention akin to climate change. Some scientists are increasingly arguing that they're sort of comparable existential threats. I put this question to Catherine Hayhoe, who's this prominent climate scientist, and she had a really interesting answer. scientist, and she had a really interesting answer. She said, climate change presents a nearer-term threat to the future of human civilization. The biodiversity crisis presents a longer-term threat to the viability of the human species. Okay, translate that for us. Basically, like, in a shorter term, climate change is a huge threat to order in the world, and governments being able to function with all the chaos that climate change could wreak. But she's saying that the biodiversity crisis,

it's a longer-term thing, but she actually is saying that it presents a greater threat to the viability of the human species. In other words, our continued existence. So one, climate threatens how we organize ourselves. The other, biodiversity threatens our very future, our very existence. Because we can't live without it.

We can't live without nature. And with that framing in mind, it seems like over time, the loss of biodiversity is potentially a greater threat to us than climate change. Especially given that we're starting to address climate change, right? So like the curve that we're on with climate change is improving.

Biodiversity loss is not being addressed in the same way. And that is why in Montreal last month, all these countries came together, nearly every country in the world, to make this new global agreement. We'll be right back. So tell us more about this global biodiversity agreement that was just reached by all these countries and how it is supposed to confront the problem. So it's 23 targets. There's a really splashy one, kind of the most well-known one, is called 30 by 30. And countries basically agreed to protect 30% of land and 30% of oceans by 2030.

That is a sexy number. That's really historic. It's conservation at a scale that has never been attempted before. Right. So how does that work in practice and what might it look like protecting 30% of the world's land and water? So country by country, countries will identify places that they want to protect. And that can mean a variety of things, right? But what it basically is going to mean is they're going to restrict certain activities that are going to damage biodiversity. So they could restrict, say, logging. They could restrict fishing. They could restrict agriculture. And that doesn't mean that people can't do anything on those lands, but they should be used in a very sustainable way.

Let's get a little specific. What does this agreement imagine would be an example of a piece of land or a portion of the sea that would become protected? of a piece of land or a portion of the sea that would become protected? A national park is like the obvious example, right? So a national park can count. And already there's 17% of the land already is, across the planet, is considered to be protected. That's interesting.

Yeah. So a national park is an example. However, there's other examples like the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, right, which is a territory of 2 million hectares in Guatemala. And local communities have managed that area for like 30 years. So there's sustainable logging, other sustainable use. It's not like a park where people get kicked out and they can't live there. That is not the idea of 30 by 30 specifically. Rather, it's about protecting land in ways that people can use it sustainably.

Right. So there's a practicality to this, which is like, it's not restrictions on sort of the most damaging activities, fishing, right? So that it could be used in a more sustainable way, exactly. What is the role of the United States in this agreement? We're not in it. We're not in it? No. Why not? We're one of two, like, UN countries that aren't in it. The other one is the Vatican,

like the Holy See. Right. Why isn't the aren't in it. The other one is the Vatican, like the Holy See. Right. Why isn't the United States in it? There's just not the support among Republicans in the Senate is the short answer. But the U.S. did send its biodiversity envoy to Montreal. She was there negotiating. And the Biden administration has, you know, when he first took office, he did an executive order, which is called America the Beautiful, which is essentially an American 30 by 30. So certainly if the U.S. was a full member, was a member of this treaty, it would be able to play a much more influential role in places like Montreal when the stuff is being negotiated. But they sort of did the best they could. So the U.S. is saying that we're with you even if we're not signatories of this. That's

right. And they're, you know, they're kicking in money. And so they definitely are players in this. And money is the issue. It was the most divisive issue in Montreal. I mean, for a minute there, it looked like it might derail everything. And why is money so important? Well, this stuff costs a lot. First of all, some estimates are like $700 billion a year to do all these things that have to be done, you know, reforming these industries. Like, it's a lot. And then on top of that, there's this dynamic which is like, you see the same thing with climate change.

And it's this idea that sort of wealthier countries were able to use their natural resources in order to get where they are today. But now that countries in the global south want to do the same thing, wealthy countries are saying, oh, no, no, you can't. For the good of us all, we have to leave the fossil fuels in the ground and we have to leave our biodiversity intact. And when you add colonialism on top of that, right, like these countries literally in some cases exploited the resources of other countries. And now they're saying you can't exploit your own resources. Right. You have to preserve them. You have to preserve them for all of us. Countries are like, okay, then pay us.

Right? Got it. So an element of this agreement is that countries that are less industrialized are looking to more industrialized countries like the U.S. and saying, we need you to subsidize us not using our natural resources in a way that might preserve biodiversity. I mean, that's like underlying it. I don't think it's really spoken about more like we need help to do these things. But the undercurrent is like that. So like this Nigerian biologist that I met there named Joseph Onoja, he said they came around and plundered our resources to develop themselves. And he's like, I'm a conservation biologist that I met there named Joseph Monoja, he said they came around and plundered our resources to develop themselves. And he's like, I'm a conservation biologist. I want us to preserve

nature. But he's like, you know, it makes us really mad when then we're told that we can't do the very thing that you did to our country. So as we learned when it came to the global climate accords. Countries like to make pledges, and then they never deliver. For example, the U.S. somewhat notoriously has not contributed its part towards the cost of the global climate accord. So is there any reason to think that we are going to be contributing a lot of money

towards this global biodiversity accord? Some of the money is already, it's like tied up in USAID and things, and that is there. I mean, the bigger question is, is this agreement going to work at all? Are these targets going to be met at all? I mean, they're so ambitious. Sorry, sorry. No, let's go there. Sorry, sorry.

No, let's go there. I mean, the inevitable question when we're talking about a follow-up to a global climate accord is, didn't we see that movie already? And we realize that we're better at promising things than delivering it. The whole world. That's really the question. Previous attempts at this kind of thing have failed miserably. And these targets are super ambitious i mean it would require like reforming agriculture and forestry and fishing in major ways because they really do tackle these causes of biodiversity loss but to change that is like transformational change and and we're trying to do that in eight

years right seven it's 2023 and you really, it's not legally binding. So really what's in it for countries is that they're just going to be sort of named and shamed if they're not keeping to their targets. Got it. So let's talk about what happens if these lofty goals don't get met. What does it look like? These goals are so lofty, they're actually like setting out to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, right? That seems impossible, just given reality. But the goals are set high like that because, you know, the idea is to get countries as close as they can,

right? And so there's obviously many different ways that it turns out and how people are sort of bending the curve on biodiversity loss is the answer to that question, right? There's not one, it's not like there's two outcomes, a succeed and a fail. There's a potential middle ground. All kinds of middle grounds, right? Well, let's talk about what happens if perhaps we don't fail and we don't massively succeed, but we're in this middle ground when it comes to biodiversity. we're in this middle ground when it comes to biodiversity, it feels like that then means we have to do something similar to what we do when it comes to climate change, which is we have to adapt. We have to live in a world where both climate change and biodiversity loss are a fact

of life. So I want to turn to the question of what adaptation looks like when it comes to biodiversity. Are there good examples of that happening or potential future examples of that happening? Well, we talked about the honeybees earlier, right? The contract honeybee workers, right? Exactly. And, you know, another thing that we've done just in terms of like how to survive with this growing population that we have is the intensification of agriculture, which is driving biodiversity loss, has also sustained us, right? So it's this sort of difficult double-edged sword. We're able to produce more food with less biodiversity than because we do things like we pull nitrogen from the air with fossil fuels to put it on fields, right? And we've done this

engineering of seeds and crops to make them have these incredible yields, right? But in doing all that homogenization, it's a huge risk because, God forbid, some disease comes along or there are climatic conditions that change and you need something more drought resistant. This invaluable genetic diversity is like our safety net. And so even as we intensify things, we're like fraying our safety net that we have, God forbid, something goes wrong. I want to make sure I understand that because it's important and fascinating. You're saying in a world where we have a lot of biodiversity, we have a lot of sources of food and therefore a lower risk that any one thing can wipe it all out. But in responding to less biodiversity,

we have come up with solutions like genetically engineered grain that lots of us rely on that could more easily be wiped out. So in some ways, we're at greater risk in a world with less biodiversity. Yeah, it's the world that we're creating in order to sustain 8 billion people on the planet living with the consumption levels that we live at, but it's a huge risk. We can innovate our way out of all these problems until we can't. Right. And human adaptation, as creative as it may be, you're really saying, is always going to be inadequate. To some degree. B, you're really saying, is always going to be inadequate. To some degree.

There's another question here. We've spent a lot of this conversation, and in general, when biodiversity loss is discussed, it's about provision of food and water for people, and even just the joy that people get out of nature. But there's like... We make it about us. We make it about us, exactly. You know, there are millions of species on this planet. And at the core of this, kind of at the heart

of this whole debate about biodiversity loss is how much of the planet are we really entitled to? Well, Katrin, thank you very much. Thank you so much. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. No member elect having received the majority of the votes cast, a speaker has not been elected. In a third day of humiliating defeats, Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy lost his 11th effort to become speaker, despite making major concessions to his biggest skeptics.

I believe the 20 members that have nominated an alternate candidate have expressed their concerns with leadership, and many of those concerns have been addressed and accepted by Leader McCarthy and this conference. By Thursday morning, McCarthy had promised his right-wing critics a series of compromises that would significantly weaken his power as Speaker, including a rule that would allow a single lawmaker to force a vote to remove McCarthy from the job. But even that proved insufficient. McCarthy still fell as many as 18 votes short of what he needed, leaving the House without a leader or the ability to function.

Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until noon tomorrow. And on Thursday afternoon, South Carolina's Supreme Court ruled that the state's constitution protects the right to an abortion, a ruling that overturns the state's law banning abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. overturns the state's law banning abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. The ruling is a major victory for abortion rights in the American South, where the end of Roe v. Wade has severely restricted access to the procedure. Today's episode was produced by Michael Simon-Johnson,

Nina Feldman, Mary Wilson, and Rob Zipko. It was edited by Lexi Diao and MJ Davis-Lynn, contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wunderli. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.