Michael Livermore 0:11
Hi, this is Mike Livermore. And with me today is Karen McGlathery, a professor at the University of Virginia and the Department of Environmental Sciences, and the director of the university’s Resilience Institute. Karen’s research focuses on coastal ecosystems, their value, and the various threats they face. And in her role at the resilience Institute, she’s involved in a number of interdisciplinary projects that relate to human environment interactions. Karen, thanks for chatting with me today.
Karen McGlathery 0:42
Thank you very much for having me.
Michael Livermore 0:45
So just to get us started, what got you interested in coasts was, were you were you a kid that played on the coasts all the time? Or how did you how did you find your way that to this to this area?
Karen McGlathery 0:56
I was a kid who played on the coast and grew up on the coasts. Probably the most formative thing for me was I had a grandfather who was in the British Navy. And he emigrated to the, to the US, lived in Boston, and he bought a small cottage on an island in New England, and I used to visit him as a kid. And when the nor’easters hit, instead of going inside and hunkering down in front of a wood stove, he would tell me to put on my slicker. And we’d go down to the beach and watch the waves and going sideways in the sand hitting at our legs. And somehow I just found that super exhilarating. And I guess it just got into my DNA.
Michael Livermore 1:37
Wow, that’s fantastic. And were you interested in like it were you kind of collecting shells and playing in the in the sea grasses? Which would you still do, I guess, from time to time, is what kind of was that nature interaction and the biological world and ecosystems right there? Or was it more kind of playing in the waves and just having a good time outside?
Karen McGlathery 1:57
I think it was a little bit of both. I mean, I, of course, I’d love to play in the waves, like any kid, but I was really a product of the environmental movement, where I really cared a lot about nature and the impact that we’re having on the environment. So I really, I really sort of entered into it from both this sort of great love and appreciation for nature, but also this awareness of how things that we were doing, were really having a bad impact.
Michael Livermore 2:20
Yeah. And then and you chose science as your route into into that into that world, as opposed to, you know, I have students who come to law school for for similar motivations. So what what was the origin of that particular choice?
Karen McGlathery 2:40
Well, I started out actually, well, I went to course I got a science degree in college in it was more in sort of environmental science, human science interaction. So it was really an interdisciplinary degree. And then I worked in a nonprofit for five years before going back to grad school. I think at that time, in those five years, I realized I really wanted to understand more about the science, I felt like if we had a better understanding, we could make better decisions. So it was not, you know, a straight route, it was a little bit more of a circuitous route to get to a PhD in science.
Michael Livermore 3:16
And And these days, I think it take a you spent a fair amount of your time in your role as director of the of the resilience Institute, which itself is pretty interdisciplinary. So maybe that takes you back to those roots.
Karen McGlathery 3:29
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s really my heart of hearts is to bring people together with different perspectives to try to address and find solutions to a problem. And so I really, it’s, I feel, I feel comfortable outside of my comfort zone, if that makes sense. I really like working with people with different ways of thinking about things and trying to try to patch that together and come out with a greater awareness.
Michael Livermore 3:56
So so at the Resilience Institute, I mean, one question is just maybe you could tell us a little bit about the work of the Resilience Institute, what kind of things do you do? I mean, what I mean, one way to get started with this is just like, what is what is the concept of resilience? It’s a word. You know, I sometimes wonder if it’s, it kind of has gotten a lot of gain quickly gained currency in, in environmental circles. And I always wondered whether it was just, you know, repackaging sustainability because sustainability got a bad name, got a bad rap, or it can became politicized in some way, or whether there’s kind of a different core concept there. So presumably, at the Resilience Institute, you guys have thought about some of these questions. So So yeah, maybe we you know, what is resilience and as a concept and how does it relate to the to the work of the Institute and what y’all do there?
Karen McGlathery 4:50
Yeah, I think the way I look at resilience is it’s broader than just sort of bouncing back from some kind of event like a big storm or drought. And that’s, you know, many would think of it as just that, like you get hit by something, and then can you recover? How do you recover, but I think about it more from my perspective as a ecologist or environmental scientist is that there are things that you can do to anticipate change, anticipate a, you know, tipping point as it were. And, and so avoid the circumstance, that would cause a bigger disruption and the need to bounce back. So it’s both the sort of anticipatory part of it, and then adaptation, and, you know, actions that are made at that point as it is, how to recover when there’s some big event. So could be, you know, an example could be sea level rise, you know, that’s a slow process. But, but salt marsh could get to a point where it can’t keep pace with sea level rise anymore, and it drowns. Or, you know, a storm can dump a bunch of of sediment on top of a marsh, and that helps it, you know, grow in elevation. And so even though it might have a big impact, you know, it can recover rapidly. So, so there’s, you know, there’s, it’s a much broader concept in my view, than just simply bouncing back from an event. And, and it is, it is, like you say, it’s, it’s a, you know, it’s, it’s a word, it’s a word, like sustainability is a word. I think it captures, in my mind, it captures there’s a whole range of ways that we’re, you know, interacting with and dealing with the environment.
Michael Livermore 6:34
And, and then, so what is the what is the work of the institute? And, and kind of how does it relate to this to this concept of resilience in that, in that broader sense that you that you describe?
Karen McGlathery 6:47
Well, the main focus of the resilience institute is to bring together teams, interdisciplinary teams from across grounds at UVA, to think about and work on issues, primarily related to climate change. And so it’s really about people and the planet, not just one or the other, but both, and their, and their interactions. And so, in bringing these teams together, we are focused on solutions oriented research, you know, how do we do research, basic research that is actionable. And so we need people, we need engineers, we need basic environmental scientists, we need designers, we need economists, and we even need lawyers, and and business people, right, so if you’re gonna, you know, if you’re gonna, I can give you all the data you need, but unless you know how to act on those data, or unless a community knows how to act on how to act on those data’s and their data and their incentives, and understanding of the outcomes of different actions, you know, we can’t, we can’t actually move forward. So it’s really about that kind of solutions oriented research that’s interdisciplinary.
Michael Livermore 7:58
It’s really great. I’ve really fun important important stuff. It’s a little abstract. So maybe we could we could drill down into a particular project to give a sense of how this works. So obviously, your your work is on coasts. And I take it that the Resilience Institute has done some work that is kind of related to coasts and in their relationship to climate change.
Karen McGlathery 8:21
Yeah, so one good example is a project that we’ve just gotten a big grant from the National Science Foundation, where we are looking on the coast at the effects of sea level rise and storms, on water on flooding, and also water sustainability. So you know, as sea levels rise, and storms impact the coasts, you’re getting water infiltrating into groundwater. So that’s affecting drinking water that’s affecting water for agriculture, like sea water, like salt water, right, getting in and, and in in a way contaminating the freshwater that we use. At the same time, we’re getting coastal storms, bringing flood, you know, flooding, neighborhoods, flooding roads, flooding, farm fields, reducing people’s access to, you know, the source of the other resources that they need. And so we have a team from engineering and environmental science, we’re looking at the groundwater and the flooding. And what is a certain level sea level rise or storm? How’s that going to impact the whole eastern shore of the Virginia part of the eastern shore of Virginia? We have a, you know, big focus of the project is to think about environmental equity. So climate equity who’s getting impacted most where’s it’s happening, where is it happening? And and what are those impacts? And we also have folks from the biocomplexity Institute, thinking about social network analysis, how do people interact, you know how do institutions and some people interact, you know, what are the decision points? What are the leverage points? So we’re building all this, these different layers. And this, you know, both basic science and community engaged research into a into a Atlas. So we call it the climate equity Atlas. So we, we will be able to understand both what the impacts are now. But we will be able to model what they’ll look like in the future with different climate scenarios and different kinds of decision points. So the idea is that you can help people make informed decisions, you can help people understand what the consequences are of certain decisions or actions in the face of this uncertain climate change. So the goal is to really make these decisions, promote equity, in terms of climate impacts, it’s a big project, it’s, we’re just launching it in a couple days, it’s a lot of different people to bring together, I’m definitely in my you know, we’re all outside of our comfort zone, trying to find out, you know, what those points of intersection are, but at the same time, it’s really exciting.
Michael Livermore 11:11
Yeah, it sounds like a fascinating project. So just to kind of get a handle on some of the, the meat on of how that project will go forward. So the so there, some data already exists, so presumably, this isn’t a mapping exercise where you need to go out and, and do measurements of groundwater tables and that kind of thing. Or maybe there is some element of that of just getting a sense of the physical environment, you know, relevant variables in the physical environment to construct models of, you know, kind of what would happen under different sea level rise scenarios, is that part of the project, or is that you already kind of have that data in hand. And it’s more of a modeling exercise, and then kind of overlaying the socio political information onto the kind of physical information that you that you have.
Karen McGlathery 12:03
That’s exactly right, the way you described it, there are a lot of data available. So it’s a lot about modeling the physical side of things, and then overlaying the social political layers, the data, and then doing, you know, doing a modeling, you know, to understand the people part of it, you know, modeling decisions, modeling behaviors based on information and interviews and interactions with people in the community. The cool thing about this project is that we have two people in the community who are now on our leadership team. So they’re helping us define how we approach the problem and exactly what the questions are. So that’s, you know, that’s an exciting part of it as well.
Michael Livermore 12:56
Yeah, that’s neat. So the so the in the community, are these scientists that happen to live in the community? Are these are politicians or they are part of community organizations?
Karen McGlathery 13:06
Yes, they are a part of their are part of community organizations. And there are people who are leaders in their community, not necessarily politicians. So one is, is a faith leader, and the other works at a community organization with young people.
Michael Livermore 13:21
That’s super, super interesting. How did you how did you find these folks and get them willing to, to be part of this and it’s good, it presumably is going to take some of their time and energy and will require them to get out of their comfort zone a little bit. So sounds that sounds like a bit of a recruiting challenge?
Karen McGlathery 13:37
Yeah, well, it was interesting, there was one person, that person who’s a faith leader who had brought a group of people together to think about young people and the future of the Eastern Shore. So those communities have a lot of challenges in terms of resources and jobs. And so thinking about how do we how do we make this a better place to keep our young people here who want to stay here? And, you know, they weren’t thinking about climate challenges in the beginning, but our site director from our UVA Coastal Resource Center, went to the meeting and connected with these people and thought, this person really is a leader in the community. So let’s see about involving them in the in, in our, you know, our conversation, and then she she identified another person, and then we had a session where we brought up a lot of people that they recommended and talked about the project and some are interested and some are not. So it is kind of a it’s about identifying who local leaders are, who care enough to want to engage in this and you know, there will be Yeah, there may there be ways that we can compensate them so that it’s not just, you know, the volunteering, it’s not just volunteering it is a big job as you say. But it’s so important because if we really want people to own, you know this, when we leave after the end of the project, those people need to be involved in in developing it. And that’s, you know that that’s a really exciting part of the project to think.
Michael Livermore 15:15
Yeah, it sounds sounds really, really fun. And a lot of people talk about kind of citizen science and engaging with the community, but the rubber hits the road when you put them on the the management team, and they get to make decisions and, you know, criticize what you’re up to.
Karen McGlathery 15:29
Yeah. And the equity center at UVA has been really critical in that aspect of the project. I mean, they really understand the process, you know, better than a scientist who’s used to working in the lab and the field and then giving information to people. This is very, very different from that. And so we really have, it’s a really valuable partnership and the project.
Michael Livermore 15:52
Yeah. I could imagine that it’s yes. Which is very, very different from the typical publish. I mean, even communicating, I think, is often outside of the standard scientists toolkit, you publish, and then you’re on to the next project, I assume is the is the standard operating procedure. Yeah.
Karen McGlathery 16:11
Well, we’re getting better, we’re getting much better communicating to the general public, but it certainly is something that students really want training in, which I think is super important.
Michael Livermore 16:22
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So So you know, just kind of sticking with this project, you mentioned kind of informing decision making helping people kind of, it’s not it’s not pure, purely abstract or academic. I mean, this is research that’s intended to really inform decisions. Part of this may be about mitigation, climate mitigation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or carbon sequestration, or those kinds of decisions. But of course, as you know, there’s relatively limited scope for, you know, the coastal Virginia to affect, you know, the atmospheric concentration of co2. So presumably, most of what we’re talking about for decision points are, are the kind of adaptation, either taking proactive steps to reduce some of the effects of sea level rise, or whatever climate impacts that we’re talking about, you know, maybe managed retreat or, you know, other types of responses, kind of accepting that some changes are going to happen, and then minimizing their effects on human wellbeing in one way or the other. So, you know, I know this early days for the project, but what are the kinds of decisions that are that are relevant for the communities that you’re kind of focused on?
Karen McGlathery 17:45
Yeah, I think that’s a really good question. I think there is…managed retreat is certainly that’s a, you know, that’s a that’s a word that’s difficult for people to say, because it’s a really challenging, really challenging concept, especially in places where people have lived for, like the eastern shore for many, many generations. So right now, I think the conversation is, although that’s you know, that’s certainly there. The probably the bigger conversation is about adaptation, from everything from where is coastal flooding most likely to happen during storms? So our modeling tells us, it will tell us that what areas are most impacted it, it gives us some information about where we could do restoration to increase the sort of buffer zone between the ocean and the land. So marshes, Western reefs, seagrass meadows, you know, they all help reduce coastal flooding, in the case of marshes, but also reduce the sort of damaging energy of waves from storms, both seagrass and, and Western reefs do that. So, you know, we’re, you know, we’re working with local communities to think about how we could do that kind of restoration to to reduce impacts. But another part of it is, is thinking about where the flooding has happened, say, in farmlands, you know, where our agriculture is a big part of the livelihood of that area. And so, where are what areas are getting flooded? Is it the edges of fields? Is it whole fields? Can those can there be some kind of buffer that can prevent that, you know, where is the groundwater the most salty, and then how might that impact irrigation? There’s a interesting thing that we’re learning is just also about the zoning is you know, is it with with zoning, and this is not my area of expertise, but if there’s certain parcel sizes that are allowed, you know, can individual homeowners retreat, you know, if they can only buy a parcel that’s much larger than what they currently have or afford. So it’s not just about the science, it’s also about some of the, you know, some of the policies that affect. So these are all kinds of, you know, these are the kinds of things we learned from the community, I guess I would say, right, I mean, these are the kinds of things that we hear, impact their ability to, to adapt to the climate stresses.
Michael Livermore 20:37
Yeah, that’s a really interesting dynamic of kind of the modeling exercise and say, Oh, well, you know, all you need to do is move 800 feet west? And they say, Well, yeah, but that’s basically puts me in the middle of two parcels. And, you know, that’s not kind of economically feasible and that kind of things. It’s, it’s, it’s a nice exchange of information in both directions.
Karen McGlathery 21:00
Right, right. And there are, you know, The Nature Conservancy is very involved on the Eastern Shore, they own a lot of property, you know, they can, they also are a player on this in terms of what areas they should prioritize in terms of conservation, that, that provide those buffers, to their own land that communities might migrate to, like the oyster, the village of oyster, which is where the UVA is Coastal Research Center is, is a very, very tiny village. It’s an it’s a non incorporated town. And, you know, they’re doing a resilience planning exercise now to think about, what would it take if we wanted just like your example, if we wanted to move, you know, a half a mile inland? What would that, you know, it’s a little bit higher ground, how much time would that bias and, and what would that involve, and in that case, the Nature Conservancy is part of the conversation, because I believe they own the land, the high ground. And so so it involves lots of different stakeholders thinking about this issue.
Michael Livermore 22:06
And that, and that raises a really interesting set of kind of, as you mentioned, equity issues, and maybe we could explore those a little bit. So I mean, there’s a very clear trade off. I mean, when the Nature Conservancy purchases land, you know, the generally speaking, my understanding of the goal is to provide that space first for species and for ecosystems and the like. And, you know, that’s all kind of hunky dory, when there’s enough land. But as the sea starts to encroach, you could see a real conflict there between the needs of people who are kind of in the community and who are directly in the, in the, in the path of, of in, you know, sea level rise versus land that’s been set aside for conservation purposes. And it really, I can imagine puts a lot of pressure could put a lot of pressure on those conservation values.
Karen McGlathery 23:05
Yeah, I think that’s right, I think the high ground is that’s owned on the Eastern Shore, that’s is, is probably has lower conservation value right now than the coastal habitats like the marshes, and the oyster reefs. And so a lot of attention is on that and how to keep those ecosystems healthy and doing what they are supposed to do, in terms of protecting coastal communities or, or restoring them. You know, a lot of the high ground is agriculture right now. And forest. And high ground is a relative term, you know, it’s about I think it’s about 14 meters, you know, so not very high above sea level.
Michael Livermore 23:58
Right, but but likely to be around for a while, unlikely to be submerged anytime soon.
Karen McGlathery 24:03
That’s right. Yeah.
Michael Livermore 24:05
Well, that’s, well, that’s promising, at least in that one instance. So that’s, you know, maybe that’s part of what you can, with the value added here is to identify the areas where the conservation value is greatest, and that, you know, maybe can ease some of the tension between between the community and some of the folks who are kind of most interested in, in ecosystem conservation.
Karen McGlathery 24:31
Yeah, many, you know, some of these communities are, you know, they’re, they’re water based economies. So, you know, they need to keep their, they need to keep their fish, you know, clam shacks, houses and all and all that they need to keep intact in their, you know, their boat launches, because there’s a lot of growing aquaculture in the region. There’s clams, there’s for clam aquaculture. There’s lots of commercial fisheries. So, you know, understanding how how these coastal habitats can protect those communities is also a really important part, you know, what we do at UVA and with our partners and how we can help Nature Conservancy and other townships to, you know, do the best they can to keep those those ecosystems intact, and from crossing over a tipping point where they might be lost.
Michael Livermore 25:25
Where that ecosystems be lost. And then presumably, that that means the economic base of the community ends up going away.
Karen McGlathery 25:32
Yeah, I mean, that’s what happened 70 80 years ago, when we lost the seagrass in those regions, because of, you know, doubleheader of, of disease and a major storm and the economy that was based on Scott Fischer at the time just completely collapsed. And so, you know, we’re now seeing a resurgence of, of those water based economies on the shore.
Michael Livermore 25:55
Yeah, the Chesapeake is, you know, in many ways, a success story in environmental restoration, obviously, not all the way there. But there’s been a huge amount of effort in the last several decades to restore the, the bay and and it’s really generated substantial really, kind of salient and, and, and real returns that people can get their, you know, actually get their teeth into if we’re talking about oysters or scallops. And that I think that demonstrates the power of policy to actually generate environmental benefits that are tangible for folks.
Karen McGlathery 26:38
Yeah, and I think we’re, we work on the Eastern Shore, so in those coastal shallow coastal lagoons on the other side of the peninsula, so not in the Chesapeake Bay, there, you know, that area is very pristine. And so in part because of this legacy, you know, 50 year legacy of conservation. So, you know, the success stories are much greater there, than they are in the Chesapeake Bay, which is much more heavily impacted.
Michael Livermore 27:03
So, one of the, you know, areas that you were just you just kind of mentioned that you’ve done a lot of work on over the years are is a question of studying seagrasses and their role in in ecosystems. And a recent project that you’ve engaged in deals, kind of with the question of using sea sea grasses are similar ecosystems as a way of kind of climate mitigation, that we could actually sink co2 into these into these ecosystems, or use expansion of these ecosystems as a way of sucking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and sequestering them. This is a big topic of conversation, you know, very broadly within the climate change community, because we’ve done such a terrible job of reducing emissions. And so everyone recognizes everyone sensible recognizes that we’re going to need to pull a lot of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, if we’re going to stay within you know, the kind of the parameters of that the international community has said around 1.5 or two degrees Celsius, putting aside whether that’s plausible, as a political and economic reality, that’s still remains the goal that many people are aiming at and some form of reverse emissions are going to be nice. Everyone recognizes that that’s going to be necessary. So you know, what’s the latest and greatest in this area of, of, I guess this is blue carbon sinks. Right, as opposed to forests or other kind of more well established potential areas for carbon sequestration?
Karen McGlathery 28:43
Yeah, I think so blue carbon sinks so by that we mean coastal ecosystems like seagrass meadows, salt marshes, and mangroves and tropical regions, I would say, our understanding of how those ecosystems sequester carbon has lagged behind what we’ve know about forests, but we’ve are we’re really rocketing forward with that, I would say, in in these blue carbon ecosystems, a lot of the carbon is stored in the soils. Except for mangrove, obviously, there’s a lot of carbon in the in the tree matter, but and that soil builds up over time. And so that carbon gets buried and can can potentially stay out of circulation for easily decades to centuries if those habitats aren’t somehow degraded or destroyed. And so it’s based on that that we started thinking from. These could be really important systems just like a forest and sequestering carbon. And they are I mean, they, they probably they sequester probably 10 times more carbon in their soil than forests, but overall on a per acre basis. There’s so much woody material, you know, so much wood in a forest that they know that they will trump seagrass meadows or marshes. They haven’t, you know, they’re not included their sequestration is currently not included in global carbon models. So, you know, that just shows kind of that there’s, we’re becoming more aware of of, of the role that they play. I would say that, it’s it’s a little bit controversial, I guess I would say, just like any kind of carbon offset market and and the reason is that the amount that can be sequestered by nature, not the amount that already is, I mean, good to step back a second and say like 40%, of the greenhouse gas emissions, you know, that 40% of greenhouse gas emissions are, are in stock, you know, in the in forests, and an ocean so, so those nature’s really good at kind of keeping the climate where it is, it would be a whole lot worse if we didn’t have that carbon sink. But that being said, when we think about negative emissions, we’re only thinking about new carbon removal. So we’re only thinking about carbon removal from, say, seagrass restoration, or Mangrove or salt marsh restoration.
Michael Livermore 31:16
From the baseline. So we take and take the current world as the baseline.
Karen McGlathery 31:20
Exactly, from that baseline. And, you know, our estimates are for the blue carbon is probably one or one two 3% of the current greenhouse gas emissions. So it’s not a lot, but it’s not, you know, I would say it’s, it’s not the silver bullet, it’s not going to solve climate change by restoring coastal ecosystems. At the same time, they definitely are sequestering carbon, they’re definitely taking carbon out of out of, you know, out of the atmosphere. And they’re all sorts of and, and they’re doing it now, you know, if you restore a seagrass meadow, it happens right away, we don’t have to wait 30 years to develop new technologies. So it’s kind of an immediate response. And there are all sorts of, you know, co benefits to restoring these habitats like improving water quality, and improving biodiversity. So, you know, we, as blue carbon, scientists think it’s a no brainer, you know, that we should be restoring these habitats, they are taking carbon out of the atmosphere, they are storing it is happening now. And we get all sorts of other, you know, advantages for doing that. The challenge is, is that, as I mentioned, it’s not a lot, you know, it’s not 50% of the greenhouse gas emissions we need to remove. And there are challenges in like, you know, you have to verify that those carbon, that carbon is being taken out of the atmosphere, you actually have to, you know, take the do the long term data, like we’re doing here on the Eastern Shore, to have to show that it’s going to be there for a long enough time that it matters. So it’s not a year, it’s decades, right. So this idea of permanence is the other thing. And it’s only as I said, it’s only new, you know, something that wouldn’t otherwise happen. We’re doing new restoration. So the what I mentioned that there’s a controversy, there’s such a interest right now in blue carbon, and nature based climate mitigation, that there are projects out there that aren’t verified, you know, that aren’t that are that don’t have that aren’t actually showing that they’re taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for a significant period of time. Yet you can buy those carbon credits, they’re not verified, but you can actually buy them, they’re being sold by entities. And that’s kind of, you know, could be an easy out to avoid reducing emissions, which is ultimately what we have to do. So that’s where that’s where I think we really need to be true, you know, to be to really mitigate climate change, we have to really be sure that we’re removing the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Michael Livermore 34:13
Right? Yeah. So this is in the lingo of the of the field. For at this is a problem of additionality, or at least in part, a problem with additionality. You mentioned the permanence as well. So the idea here being you know, let’s, let’s say I’m, you know, I’m someone who likes to fly on airplanes a lot. And I think to myself, you know, maybe I should reduce my, my consumption of greenhouse gases in that way. I shouldn’t fly around so much. And then some, somebody comes along and says, Hey, don’t worry about it. You can actually you can fly, but what you should do instead of not flying, because you get a lot of benefit out of flying. You get to see your family, you can enjoy recreational opportunities you can take advantage of, you know, business or work, you know needs. So instead of not flying, what you should do is pay us to engage in some coastal restoration. And then we’ll soak the equivalent amount of co2 out of the atmosphere that you’re releasing through flying, and maybe even a little bit more. And that’s a fairly attractive proposition. Or maybe for businesses, you know, businesses want to say that they’re carbon neutral. A lot of businesses have made pledges of moving towards carbon neutrality. And so same same idea, rather than actually reducing their energy consumption, or however they’re producing carbon, what they say is, you know, we’re paying for these for this coastal restoration or other offset programs that, you know, act to soak up whatever co2 we’re putting into the atmosphere through our activities. And I think the issue that you mentioned here is that that’s all fine and good, if what’s actually happening is there is a coastal restoration project that removes a certain amount of co2 from the atmosphere that would not have happened otherwise. But for the the offset credit that it’s receiving, and it’s just very, and you know, it actually sequesters the carbon for, you know, an indefinite period of time. And that’s just a very hard thing to, to establish and verify.
Karen McGlathery 36:17
Yeah, I mean, it can be done. I mean, there’s a methodology, there are third parties like Farah that are doing that. I mean, we’re in the process right now of registering our project on the eastern shore, and with Farah so that people can buy offset credits, and that’s based, in part because we have, you know, 20 years of science that has told us, this is exactly how much carbon that the seagrass matters are taking out of the atmosphere. The problem is, as you mentioned, is that that there, there aren’t the same numbers in other places, or really yet enough data to to be confident I guess that you know, the carbon that you’re selling is actually being being sequestered. So I think that it’s I think the enthusiasm has sort of gone beyond the capacity to deliver right now. I guess that’s what I would say, not that it will not that it won’t deliver, and not that we shouldn’t do this restoration. And we, you know, I, I’m, I think we totally should do it. It’s more we should be we should we should really do it. We should be, you know, we should make sure it’s real. Because otherwise isn’t going to isn’t doing anything for the climate. You know, if it’s not real, and then that’s what you know, that’s not a good thing.
Michael Livermore 37:38
Yeah. So just to get to talk through the the additionality question with respect to this particular project that you’re describing, I think, pretty interesting. I think so so the idea here is that you since you’re getting certified is, is this a certification that’s like backward looking at, at what kind of carbon has already been sequestered to the project, or this is like a carbon credit for sequestration that’s forward looking for, you know, kind of efforts that are going to happen in the future?
Karen McGlathery 38:13
Yeah, that’s a really good point, we through the methodology, we can only claim as additional the last the previous five years. So even though the restoration has gone on for 20 years, we can only claim, you know, a part of that in the last five years. And so it’s that and then moving forward. So that’s the additionality part of it.
Michael Livermore 38:36
Right. And then, and what do you think like, if the if this possibility of getting a carbon offset had not existed? Would you would the project not have gone forward then?
Karen McGlathery 38:50
No, I mean, it was we, you know, we started this project 20 years ago, before we were thinking about carbon offset, and, you know, we, well, we measure carbon cycling, that’s a really important, you know, ecological function. And so, lo and behold, we had a lot of data that could be used, when, you know, as we started having this conversation about carbon offsets, so some of that was a little bit of serendipity. So you projects now, you know, there’s, there’s a methodology out there that says you have to measure these things and you have to know you know, how much carbon is in the soil, you have to know how much the soil is accreting or adding over time. You have to know how much seagrass biomass is, you know, plant materials there, and how the meadow is expanding over time. And based on those you can and you can begin to make a calculation of the the carbon offset value.
Michael Livermore 39:50
Right. It’s really interesting that because, again, the I find the additionality problem to be really intractable really, really difficult, I think there are, maybe there are some ways to try to think through it, but it is, it is super tough. So the example I use for my students is, you know, you take a farmer who’s thinking of changing, you know, some practice, you know, moving to no till or some other, you know, agricultural practice that is going to increase the carbon content of the soil from the current baseline, right, so the baseline is x, and we’re going to, in a verifiable, permanent way, the farmers new practice is going to increase the amount of carbon sequestered in the soil, let’s just say, and, but the farmer is going to do this anyway, the farmer’s got her own reasons to do this, based on productivity or desire to save money from fertilizer, whatever the reasons are. And so the farmer says, Okay, I’m going to do this, and the farmer’s friend says, Oh, well, if you’re gonna do that, you can go ahead and apply for this carbon offset, that’s going to, you know, and you just make some money, as well. And that’s great. And, you know, it’s great to make money to make money. And so the farmer does exactly what she was planning on doing anyway. And in the process, you know, goes out and gets this carbon offset that in a sense, is valid, because it is a permanent reduction, and it’s to change from the status quo baseline and whatever else, but because she was planning on going forward with the project anyway, in a sense, it doesn’t kind of free up a unit of carbon, that could otherwise you know, be emitted. Because from the kind of business as usual baseline, you know, if the carbon offset mechanism hadn’t existed, the person would have done the same thing.
Karen McGlathery 41:52
Right. That’s challenging, like I can see that, you know, in our, in our case, in, you know, underwater with the seagrass meadows, we, you know, we know the baseline well because we studied this, this area, 10 for 10 years prior to starting the restoration, so we know exactly how much carbon would be there, if not for the seagrass meadow. So that, again, that sort of that was fortuitous, that’s, that was great that we had those data to be able to do that. The challenge is, once you have meadows that are producing seeds that might already, you know, would might just regenerate on their own. And then you do seeding in particular areas, how do you separate those two, you know, in a open water flowing system, like coastal bay or coastal lagoon, and, you know, the best we can do in these methodologists, we create rules, and we’re pretty conservative. I guess that’s one thing to point out. We don’t, you know, we are we being those of us who wrote the methodology, but all those also those, like Farah, who validate them are quite conservative, and how those carbon how that carbon accounting works. But the bigger I think, to me, I think that’s a really an important issue. But there’s also a really important issue of permanence, you know, and in oceans that are warming, you know, we’re seeing heat waves happening more frequently than they did a couple decades ago, in our seagrass meadow, we lost a whole portion of it in 2015 because of a big heatwave, and we lost about 20% of the carbon, we could have lost more, but we lost about 20%. And the methodologies are not yet don’t yet formally recognize those future risks. They they assess risks, and that buffer pool of what you have to set aside as based on historical risk, not future risk. And so that, you know, in a, in a changing climate where sea levels rising, and as we’re oceans are getting hotter, how do we best assess that risk, so that we can really know how permanent these this carbon is?
Michael Livermore 44:06
Yeah. I mean, that seems like a very substantial risk. One of the one of the things that keeps me up at night when I think about climate change is these, you know, if we’re building I mean, actually, in a way, a less resilient system through our policies. So, you know, if we could imagine, where we say, Look, you know, we could emit X amount of emissions without negative emissions if we just don’t take negative emissions into account. So all this kind of sequestration stuff. And then we say, well, that’s gonna be really expensive and disruptive. Let’s try to admit x plus something, right? X plus k, where k is going to be the amount of negative emissions and the negative emissions are going to be in the form of let’s say, forests and coastal ecosystems. And that’s fine. You know, it’s we’re gonna sequester all this carbon you know, we’re gonna sequester k, we’d have to worry about it. But as you were saying, it turns out that you know, we’re not accounting for the the ability of these ecosystems to keep this carbon sequestered in light of the reality of climate change. So what we end up doing is, in effect, exacerbating the feedback, the positive feedback loop of climate change, where, you know, we actually put ourselves in the position that from up kind of whatever baseline we were at, because we’ve sequestered more carbon this way, when the world warms, we’re going to be releasing more than we otherwise would have, essentially.
Karen McGlathery 45:43
Yeah. Yeah, I think it keeps me up at night, too. I mean, I, I, you know, I’ve devoted a big part of my career to this coastal carbon sequestration, you know, I have a good sense of what the scale of it is, what the risks are, I think it’s really important. I think these coastal systems are incredibly important to preserve and restore. But I worry, you know, that they are in nature bases are some over promising so that industries can, you know, it’s a disincentive to reduce emissions, and that that’s the part that keeps me awake, like, it’s gonna, it’s okay, it’s worth doing. But it’s, it’s a few percent, it’s not, and even if we’re off by, you know, an order of, I don’t know, it could be 5%, it’s not going to be 100% or 50%. And so there’s no, there’s no replacement for reducing emissions. And I just worry that the conversation is sort of moving too much to restoring nature in a way that can’t be delivered. And then I worry that, that there are the sort of non verified programs that happen and, and then that’s also an easy out. So from my perspective, just like being realistic about what, what, how much carbon, the seagrass meadows and marshes and mangroves can actually take out of circulation and for how long and making sure that they’re real.
Michael Livermore 47:19
Right. I mean, it sounds like, in a way, it’s, you know, I see, I feel like I can see a tension within the community of people who cares about these ecosystems. On the one hand, you know, it’s possible that this idea of blue carbon and carbon sequestration is a way to finance some sort of much needed restoration that we actually want for many, many reasons, right? That for ecosystems, reasons for adaptation reasons for climate change in terms of storm buffers, and the like, just because they’re wonderful places that we want to preserve for their own sake. And, and so I can understand the attraction for people in this area. And same thing with forest, I know that there’s a lot of a lot of enthusiasm in some quarters, for the idea that we could use, you know, this idea of offsets and greenhouse and greenhouse gas sequestration is a way to fund the preservation of forested land that would otherwise otherwise be at risk. But you run into exactly the problem that you described, which is, you know, if it’s if the climate benefits are, in fact, illusory, then you know, then the restoration, and especially if, if we’re not actually getting all that much restoration than we would anyway, for other reasons, then it’s a bit of a shell game and the, you know, it’s it’s important to call attention, at least to that risk, or if that reality happens to make sure that people know about it.
Karen McGlathery 48:58
Yeah. I would agree with that. I think that I think it’s very real, that it provides financial support, you know, carbon offset credits can provide financial support for restoration and conservation. That’s important, really important for many reasons, including climate mitigation. So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t discount that. I think that’s, that’s really important. I think, for me that tension is is the just what we said that, okay, we can restore these ecosystems and we get all those benefits, including some carbon sequestration, but we’re, we’re not having that hard conversation about how are we actually reducing substantially reducing co2 emissions? So kind of like a it’s like a delay tactic, and that, that worries me. And so, you know, for me being realistic about what those carbon offset benefits are is really important.
Michael Livermore 49:57
Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, it comes down to we just we Want to account for it in an accurate way? And and that’s that’s just the way it is right? Yeah, no, it would be bad if you don’t get if you do.
Karen McGlathery 50:08
And let’s, let’s do it because it’s easy. Now it’s easy it, it happens. Now, we don’t have to wait to develop technology, but it’s only one very small part of a bigger process we have to have.
Michael Livermore 50:22
So you know, one of the things I think is interesting, too is that is the conversation about CO benefits more generally in the in the context of climate change in the context of ecosystem recovery and investment in restoration. You know, I guess one of the things that is interesting about this to me, or strikes me as interesting. So the idea being here that when you reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for example, from coal fired power plants, there are co benefits in terms of reducing particulate matter emissions, which then saves people’s lives. Or when you restore a coastal ecosystem, you’re sequestering some greenhouse gases or some carbon out of the atmosphere. But you’re also you know, promoting ecosystem health, and that can that can have economic value in terms of a fishery. So there are these kind of co benefits that work in tandem together. So one, one question, this is kind of related to this. Are there any, like co costs or, you know, costs that ride along with, say, for example, coastal recovery? I mean, if it’s only just a good thing it seems crazy that we don’t do it now, presumably, the main cost, is that just that it’s expensive, that there’s labor and capital that is being invested in coastal recovery, that could be invested elsewhere, is there, you know, is there anything else though, is there is it just extremely expensive is, you know, what is the what is the holdup, if if you know that this is a kind of such a good idea and generate so many broad benefits?
Karen McGlathery 52:04
So there aren’t a lot of co costs, it’s not that expensive. To restore these coastal ecosystems, for example, with the seagrass meadows. It’s done by citizens, mostly citizen science–scientists through the Nature Conservancy, Institute, Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences at William and Mary and the Nature Conservancy, working with they they have a lot of citizen science volunteers collect the seeds hold the seeds over the summer so they’re not eaten by crabs and other things, and then literally just broadcast them off the boat. So it’s not labor intensive, not very expensive, very expensive. I mean, it’s labor intensive, but not very expensive. You know, there’s, people are thinking about ways to mechanize it. I’m not, I’m not sure that’s worth investing in, to be honest. But that, you know, they’re certainly interested in, in doing that, to try to do it at a larger scale. The, I think the reason it hasn’t taken off is that there aren’t a lot of these ecosystems is coastal estuaries and bays have been degraded in the last 20 30 years because of pollution, you know, runoff from land from agriculture and cities. And, and, you know, we have had a lot of legislation so they’re now recovering. So in a way, it’s kind of a moment because we can, we can restore systems that were formerly degraded, that are recovering, so that’s a good thing. But you know, so I think that there is a real moment now to rebuild nature, but not every place is going to be as successful as Virginia’s Eastern Shore because, you know, many places have other things, other stressors, like nutrient production, or temperature or, you know, fishing practices or things like that.
Michael Livermore 53:55
Got it. So in some ways, there’s a hierarchy here of costs where on the the low hanging fruit so to speak, all you need to do is get the seeds and throw them in the water. And that’s pretty cheap. And where the water quality is good and there’s just been in for whatever reason, the seagrass has been degraded, perhaps due to a past practice. Presumably the seagrass will recover with enough time but but we can speed up that process and it’s speeding up the process, we can sequester carbon that wouldn’t have otherwise been sequestered.
Karen McGlathery 54:28
Yeah, that’s fair enough. I mean, the seagrasses didn’t return to the Virginia coastal base for 70 years because it just took that long for seeds to get there on the you know, a tail of a bird or a boat anchor. And, and, and so, once we discovered that small aerate path of seagrass and did the genetics were like okay, now we can actually, we can do this on a bigger scale. We meaning our partners at William and Mary and the Nature Conservancy, but I think, yeah, I think the other thing that that’s important to think about is in many regions, especially in the tropics, in Asia, and in Africa, if you think about mangroves, a lot of mangroves were destroyed, for example, to create fish ponds or shrimp ponds, as a source of livelihood, if if those are going to, you know, those shrimp ponds don’t last forever, but when they have to, if we want to restore mangroves in those areas, there needs to be another source of livelihood for those people. And so, you know, the social cultural context of this kind of restoration is, is challenging in many areas, and there are a lot of important considerations beyond just the natural part of the system.
Michael Livermore 55:45
Right. So you know, just to kind of stick with that, that that hierarchy of costs you have, on the one hand, just it’s a matter of throwing seeds into the water, then there is, you know, that’s the least costly, and then you could say, you know, we could have more stringent control of nutrient runoff, which is going to be more costly, or you could have more a change in fishing practices, or we could, you know, take land that’s currently devoted to some form of aquaculture and then take that out of that particular use and replace it with, with with some kind of restoration project. So so there’s, there’s some low hanging fruit, but it sounds like it gets, if we’re going to really be talking about doing this on a on a broad scale, it gets costlier and costlier from a kind of socio economic perspective. And so, so it’s not surprising in some ways that at least for me, in a way, it’s surprising that we haven’t taken advantage of the low hanging fruit but but in terms of doing this kind of restoration at scale, the reality is that, you know, it’s not a cheap, easy, free alternative to reducing emissions, it comes with its own set of difficulties and costs.
Karen McGlathery 57:00
Yeah, and I am, and I would say that those costs are if we’re, if, if those costs involve cleaning up the water, that does have all sorts of other benefits as well, you know, so and many in many places of the world that’s already happening, but it takes, you know, take some time for these systems to recover and be habitable, you know, by seagrasses, for the seagrasses that are the seeds that are thrown out to actually germinate in those sea grasses to survive and flourish. So in many ways, we are lucky on the Eastern Shore, you know, in our coastal base, because the water, it is such a pristine, almost pristine habitat with very good water quality. As I mentioned, it’s like coaxing nature long and then let nature do its work. So there are other areas for sure where that’s happening. And there are areas where, you know, I don’t know dams are being removed, and marshes are being restored. And those are all really good things. If if carbon sequestration can be one of the reasons to do that, then I think it’s a good reason. Sure. Yeah. I think it’s good, you know, good rationale for doing it.
Michael Livermore 58:11
Right. Yeah, of course, just just to be clear, I’m a cold hearted lawyer, but I know you want to just to just to, you know, that that, that an activity, like cleaning up the water has cost doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. That just means that, you know, we need to be able to justify those costs in terms of their benefits. And and we need to be able to explain to the people who are going to bear those costs, why it’s worthwhile for them to do so. But that’s often the case in when we’re talking about environmental protection.
Karen McGlathery 58:40
Yeah, and you did mention one thing, that’s an interesting potential tension is in as aquaculture expands in some areas, culture and seagrass restoration may or may not be able to be in the same place at the same time. And so how do you navigate that, that dynamic?
Michael Livermore 59:05
Right, that’s just another it’s just another tension. And again, something that you can imagine getting worse in the case of climate change in certain respects, because there’s going to be greater stressors, stressors. And, you know, if we’re worried about, you know, the productivity of the oceans or the productivity of coastal ecosystems, that might actually mean that, you know, there will be more pressure to devote more land to aquaculture, which would, you know, which which creates, you know, more difficult trade offs when we’re talking about a limited amount of land and multiple uses that we want to put it to, right. Yeah. Well, that’s a depressing note. Let me let me let’s, let’s change the subject quickly before I let you go. So So you know, one question I’m just curious about is, you know, at the resilience as now that you’re the director of the Resilience Institute which you’ve been doing for several years now. And, and you have, you know, a number of big grants that you’re that you’re running And, you know, folks that you supervise and like, that sounds like a lot of administrative responsibility and desk job kind of work, do you still get to put on a wetsuit occasionally and get out and, and get into coastal ecosystems, you know, physically and interact with the environment?
Karen McGlathery 1:00:13
I do. I do, of course, not as much as I’d like to, but I do, I still have new students and postdocs, postdoc, and I get out mostly during the summer, we do sort of big, what we call synoptic sampling of the seagrass meadows, where we pretty much measure everything there is to measure and that is a big team effort, which is which I’ve led for 20 years now, and super fun. And so I’m able to get out and do that. And it is, it is definitely rejuvenating, I would, you know, I would say I’m a real optimist at heart, I feel like, you know, both with the work that we’re doing on the eastern shore, the seagrass, but also with the work through the Resilience Institute, I you know, I definitely feel like we are doing things and can do things that matter. And so, you know, even though it gets frustrating, I feel like we yeah, so getting out of the field is getting out in the water. And my wetsuit, as long as I’m not barbed by a stingray is, is definitely gets me gets my juices flowing.
Michael Livermore 1:01:17
Right. Yeah, and I think that, you know, with climate change, I try to reiterate that, as much as possible is that it’s important to keep your eyes on the big picture. But it’s also important to keep your eyes on the small picture, because the big picture is just outside of the scale of a human life. And you know, it’s just very difficult to get your head around. Whereas if you, you know, if you focus on particular projects that have real impacts, then you can stay motivated, and that’s of the utmost importance.
Karen McGlathery 1:01:42
Yeah. And that’s what makes me excited about working on the seagrass. You know, when I came here, 25 years ago, there were no seagrass in these coastal bays. And, you know, over that time, there’s been, I don’t know, about 500 acres that have been seeded and they’re now almost 10,000 acres of thriving seagrass meadows. So we as I said, we helped nature along. And, and, you know, all good things are happening, we’ve got greater diversity, water clarity is better, water quality is better. We’ve got carbon that’s stored in those soils. So it’s, you know, there are things that we can do that that matter, as you say, keep your eyes on the on the big challenge, but figure out ways to chip away at it.
Michael Livermore 1:02:24
Well, that is definitely a reason for optimism. Thanks, Karen, so much for chatting with me today. It’s been a it’s been a fun conversation.
Karen McGlathery 1:02:30
Thanks very much, Michael. I appreciate the conversation.
Free Range Podcast 