I’d even go so far as to say that soil is as important a resource for humanity as water is. It’s that crucial really to our food production and just general ecosystem health as well. All plants really, most plants really rely on soil, and a healthy soil.

Cody Sanford: Welcome to the Livable Future Podcast. I am Cody Sanford, joined by my co-host Kaydee Barker.

This podcast is now being made from multiple locations, including the Peak District of England, named for the ‘Pecsaetan’ or ‘Peaklanders’ that inhabited this area thousands of years ago, and Colorado, USA, the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne peoples. We would like to acknowledge and honor these people and their contributions, with particular recognition for the hardships faced and the resilience of Indigenous American people and their continuing stewardship of the land.

Kaydee Barker: We are continuing our Mountain Life Series with an episode that focuses on another famous high mountain region – the Alps, which stretch across seven European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, and Switzerland. In this episode, soil ecologist Dr. Arthur Broadbent tells us about how climate change is impacting the Alps through shifts in snow and plant communities, the importance of soil, and what we can all do to help protect fragile mountain ecosystems.

Arthur is a research fellow at the University of Stirling, Scotland, UK. He has over 10 years of experience doing field research in mountain ecosystems, ranging from cloud forest to alpine grasslands. His research explores how soil microbes and plants respond to climate change, and what this means for biodiversity and ecosystem functions. He included in his bio for the podcast that as a dad of two toddlers, his current hobbies include changing nappies, cleaning food off the floor, and pulling silly faces.

Cody: Awe Arthur sounds like a great Dad and like the perfect soil ecologist for this episode in our mountain series. In his interview, he explains mountain and soil ecology, and the nitrogen cycle in such an interesting and easy-to-understand format that it’s memorable for me and I think will be for the listeners as well. I also really appreciate his views on the everyday effects that people have on their environment and what people can do to improve their societal impacts. Kaydee, what was your favorite discussion from the interview?

Kaydee: Well, as a fellow soil ecologist, I feel like I have to say nerding out about how cool and important soil is was my favorite. As Arthur will explain, soil is truly connected to everything, so important for food production and carbon storage, and if soil was considered a biome like boreal forests or tropical forests or savannahs for instance, it would probably be the biome with the most species on earth. I hope y’all listening will come away from today’s episode with a new appreciation for soil, which is NOT just dirt.

Cody: I would like to thank Arthur for coming on the podcast. As always, I would like to remind our listeners to subscribe to hear more discussions on environmental science, climate action, conservation, policy, and much more. Remember to stay tuned to the end, as Kaydee and I continue the discussion on how our personal choices have cumulative impacts on the environment.

Kaydee: So let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Arthur, your research, especially your more recent research, is looking at the ecosystem processes now and how climate change is affecting us, especially with the timing of snow melt. Can you explain a bit about what you’ve seen so far and why do we care about timing of snow melt? Why does that matter?

Arthur Broadbent: Okay, so that’s a really good question. So one thing to know about the Alps and about mountain regions more generally is that they really are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change, because it’s happening pretty much twice as fast in the mountains as it is elsewhere. You guys talked about this in a previous episode, about this elevation dependent warming. And there’s all these different mechanisms, for example, snow melting away, which reduces albedo and that increases temperature, and these other processes which are leading to this rapid climate change in mountain ecosystems. And part of that is a big change in snow cover. And so the timing of snow melt, so I guess in a lot of alpine ecosystems, you have snow cover across most of the winter, and then it melts sometime in spring, and then you have snow-free summers.

This moment of snow melt, when that snow pack melts away, is just this incredible transition in the ecosystem, especially below ground in the soil. So you have completely different microbial communities in the winter. Also working away, you know, doing their thing. The soil still functions and nutrients are still being processed and cycled, and it’s a really important time for a breakdown of organic matter, especially all the stuff in autumn, all the plants that are dying. And that all happens over winter because under the snow, it’s actually zero degrees pretty consistently, which is quite surprising perhaps. And so it’s really well insulated. I mean, it’s like an insulating blanket on the soil. So those winter processes are actually very important. And because what happens is you get this, what we found is there’s this buildup of ammonium in the soil and ammonium is quite an important plant nutrient. And then when snow melts, that becomes available to plants. And also you get this lysing of microbial cells. So all this water percolates into the soil, causes this increase in osmotic pressure, and all these microbial cells, bacteria, fungi – they all burst because you suddenly have this big influx of water, and they just can’t deal with it. And that causes this big flush of nutrients that have been in those cells.

So you have a really important nutrient flush for the plants, and these alpine plants, they start to grow around snow melt, around this time, and those nutrients are really important for their annual nutrient budgets and their growth.

And there’s also a lot of nitrification happening, so that ammonia that’s produced under the soil that gets nitrified into nitrate and nitrite. And nitrate is a really important plant nutrient, but it’s also really labile. That means it can just get washed away in the soil really easily. And that can be problematic as well, because alpine ecosystems are often nitrogen limited. So nitrogen is really important in these ecosystems, because there isn’t much of it, basically. And so if that gets washed away or gets lost through denitrification, which is a process where that nitrate is emitted as a gas from the soil and actually often a greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, that can be very problematic.

And all of this stuff is happening during snow melt. It’s this incredible moment of transition. And if it happens earlier in the year, which is what’s happening because of climate change, the snow is melting much earlier, all these processes are also happening earlier in the year. And the question is, will the plants be able to keep up with that? And will they still be able to start their growth earlier in the year? Or will there be a mismatch between the start of plant growth and the availability of all these nutrients that could lead to a loss of nitrogen from the system, which would then have impacts on the plants themselves and eventually impacts on the carbon cycling in these ecosystems. So snow cover and snow melt are just two really important parts of the ecosystem, really, and really vulnerable to climate change.

Kaydee: So you just mentioned that you can have a mismatch with the plants. What kind of mismatches are you talking about? That the microbes won’t be dying at the right time or does it cause a decoupling with other processes that are meant to be happening around the same time as well?

Arthur: Yeah, so basically I guess the availability of these nutrients, which increases during snowmelt, that’s a time when the plants can really access a lot of nutrients which they then use basically for a large proportion of their growth in that year. And if they then because of daylight differences, because obviously there’s less daylight if it happens earlier in the winter or in the spring, maybe they won’t be growing as well. Or also temperature differences, if the temperature isn’t quite right, then the plants might not be growing at that time in the year, leading to this mismatch between the availability of these nutrients and plant growth. And so it could stunt plant growth for the rest of the year, potentially. And that could be particularly bad in alpine ecosystems, which are already quite nitrogen limited, so there isn’t that much nitrogen available anyway, or other nutrients. So that can be a problem then.

Kaydee: So the plants won’t be able to photosynthesize with that nitrogen that’s been put into the system, and the nitrogen will get washed out before they’re able to actually use it.

Arthur: Exactly.

Kaydee: Cool, thanks for going into that. That’s really interesting. When I learned about functional mismatches in ecosystems, I learned mostly from the context of pollinators with plants and that being a mismatch in the timing, which we didn’t talk about here, but just this idea that essentially a plant needs a few things to grow and if those aren’t all lined up, then it just won’t grow as well.

Arthur: Exactly. Yes, exactly that. And that is one of the key issues here. Absolutely. Similar to the pollinator mismatch as well and the flowering. All these processes and there’s more general point really of like, you know, ecosystems are relying on so many interactions between species occurring at particular time points in the year and changing phenology because of climate change is going to have a huge impact if we start to see these mismatches between all these different processes. So yeah, it’s a really important area to research, I think.

Kaydee: I agree, a little biased, but yeah. You bring up the exact point of why as much as people would love us to tell them, here’s what you need to do about climate change, do this, don’t do this. It’s really not that simple. There are so many interactions happening all the time and any action you take will impact some of those interactions and not others. It’s just not that black and white.

Arthur: Absolutely, and that’s a big problem too. So I guess that’s the other part of this, is that in the winter you’ve got this nice insulating blanket of snow on the soil, allowing these microbes to do their thing at about zero degrees. Which is great, but when the snow is gone, and this is the same in Arctic ecosystems and alpine ecosystems, because say you have a really warm week or two in February, for example, which is happening now, these sort of extreme events, and suddenly the snow melts away, you get what are called freeze-thaw cycles during the day and night. So in the day, the soil thaws out, and plants might actually start growing and waking up, if you like, from their winter hibernation, you know, because they’re not really doing much under the snow. And they essentially they’re experiencing what they think is spring, and so they start growing. And then at night time, it still reaches absolutely subzero temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius. I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit, but it’s damn cold. And basically it can just kill off the plants or seriously damage them. And so that’s a major problem, these freeze-thaw cycles. And if that happens over the course of one or two weeks, just these really intense changes in temperature, that can be really damaging for the plants out of that. It can also be really bad for the soil microbes, because they can’t handle this either. This sort of constant freezing and thawing will basically, again, cause all the cells to lyse, or break open and die, basically. So a lot of the nutrients become available, and they can then get washed out again. So it’s these events that can also lead to loss of nitrogen, other nutrients, changes in carbon cycling as well, emissions of greenhouse gases from the soil… It’s just, you know, these sort of extreme events that the ecosystem isn’t used to. And loss of snow cover in the winter is one of them.

Kaydee: That was a really good description. You highlighted how basically these systems, they have to be really hardy. They don’t have a lot of nitrogen or nutrients, they have this extreme temperature range and the snow can act as a buffer or an insulator.

Arthur: Absolutely. And yeah, they’re just such fragile ecosystems there as well because plants grow so slowly, you know, there’s not really a very long growing season, so these sort of events that happen and can be quite damaging, and take a very long time to recover from that.

And I know people doing work in the Arctic showing entire hillsides just browning. So there’s this phenomenon that people often refer to called arctic greening, which is the idea that the Arctic’s getting greener because the shrubs and other plants are expanding and growing with warmer temperatures and less snow and these things. But then there’s this other phenomenon called arctic browning, where this loss of snow in the winter and all these really intense freeze-thaw events are damaging the plants so much that entire hillside has just turned brown and the plants have either died or been really heavily damaged and take a very long time to recover from that in these really slow growing nitrogen limited ecosystems. So that’s the other thing about alpine and mountain ecosystems, they’re quite fragile really and very vulnerable to climate change.

Kaydee: So you also just mentioned about shrubs moving up into the Arctic. And your work also looks at shrubs moving into the alpine ecosystem, right?

Arthur: Absolutely. And these are very similar processes that are happening, this sort of shrub line advance, basically, a bit like tree line advance as well. So I guess in mountain ecosystems, you have this differentiation as you go upslope between different plants that survive at different elevations. Lower down you have forests, and then eventually the trees can’t quite survive at certain higher elevations, and then shrubs start to dominate, and as you go beyond that, you get into grasslands, and then you go even higher and you end up at the summits where there’s mainly lichens and mosses and these kind of species. So there’s this real sort of, you know, elevational differentiation of vegetation. And what’s happening is all these bands, they’re like bands of vegetation really, are shifting up the mountain as it warms. But obviously the ones at the top have got nowhere to go. But it’s not just the ones at the top that are going to be lost, because also you might start losing specialist plants, which, for example, maybe can’t advance as quickly at the slope as ones from lower down can, and you have these novel interactions between species. And there was a really interesting paper, a guy called Jake Alexander does a lot of work on this, and they found that the plants that come from lower elevations tend to be more competitive compared to those at the higher elevations. So it could lead to this out-competing of these rarer plants that survive at these higher elevations. So you have all of this, it’s just another big mix up of species really. 

And what we’re really interested in is this shrub expansion, these shrub line advances, because the shrubs are just really interesting plants really in terms of their mycorrhizal associations. Because basically a lot of, well most plants, will associate with a fungus or multiple fungi, and this is obviously something that you’re researching, so you can correct me. But basically all these plants have an association with these fungi. And that’s super important for their growth and nutrient acquisition from the soil. But that can also change as they advance into different areas and they bring these fungi with them. Or do they? Or do they associate with other fungi that are there? And these plant-soil interactions lead to these other sort of knock-on effects on nutrient cycling, carbon cycling especially, and emissions of carbon from the ecosystem, depending on what these fungi are doing basically, which associate with these shrubs. And different types of fungi associate with different types of shrubs basically. A bit like trees as well, a similar sort of thing. 

Kaydee: And the big shift is happening not only in the plant community, but also in the soil community. Everything shifts up.

Arthur: Exactly. And that’s a really big area of research is are the plants then bringing these soil organisms with them or do they associate with novel soil organisms, because they can sometimes associate with other fungi, for example. So what’s happening below ground as we see these shifts of vegetation going up, that’s something that we’re really interested in as well, what are the below ground consequences of these shifts in plant species up the mountain. So, kind of interesting in that sense to see these interactions as well between plants and soil. How it’s very difficult to disentangle the two, they’re just so interconnected. And so I’m really, I think that’s one of my main focuses is these interactions between plants and soil.

Kaydee: Cool, yeah that’s really interesting. Definitely you can’t really talk about one without the other, can you?

Arthur: Exactly. I really, yeah, I don’t think so. If you want to be very, if you want to be realistic, you know, in the end, plants grow in soil and there’s, you know, if you have soil without plants, it pretty quickly erodes and eventually disappears. And you can’t have plants without soil, unless they grow in the canopy or something, I guess, or in the ocean. But the vast majority of terrestrial plants are going to be growing in the soil. Including all of our food. I mean, this is the other thing about soil.

It’s just so important for food production, and I remember that one of the great phrases about soil: “A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.” And as an American, I guess you might know who said that, Franklin Roosevelt, sort of prompted by the whole dust bowl thing in the US and how terrible that was. And I think that’s something that we’ve kind of, we’ve got very complacent really when it comes to soil and people don’t really think about it enough, but it’s really under threat and all the microbes and there’s just such diversity in soil.

I think soon, well, I’ve seen sort of preliminary data and stuff from some colleagues and it seems like we’re soon going to show that there is actually more diversity in the soil than anywhere else on earth. Like the vast majority of species on earth actually live in the soil because it’s such a complex resource, and it’s just so important for biodiversity and food production. And I just think it’s really under-appreciated.

Although I think that’s changing. Like the EU are bringing out lots of initiatives about soil and research into soil, soil security, and these things. I think it’s really growing in people’s minds as a really important resource and that must be protected.

Kaydee: That’s wild it could be more biodiverse even than the ocean.

Arthur: Yep, yep. If you think about it, I guess the soil is just way more complex habitat and way more variation than the ocean, which is relatively uniform, really. And if you think about where life is in the ocean, it just tends to be really in the shallower areas, coral reefs and stuff, and where the concentrations of species are. And a lot of it is basically a blue desert. As they said in Blue Planet 2, when you’re out in the open ocean, it’s almost a desert really, in terms of how much life there is, not much. Whereas as soil is just teeming with life. Obviously a lot of it is microscopic, but still. It’s just such an incredible habitat.

Kaydee: Yeah, that’s a really good point about kind of the desert. I think there was an interesting quote, I think a while back, that we know more about space within the Milky Way at least, than we know about our own ocean. And I think actually that’s also true, than we know about our own soil, which we literally are interacting with all the time.

Arthur: Absolutely. And most people understandably just think, you know, that’s just dirt. You know, why is that important? But when you realize that, you know, if you think about what you had for breakfast, I imagine most of that stuff was either grown in soil or produced by animals which rely on plants that are grown in soil. And, you know, just everything we eat, unless it’s seafood, really is dependent on the soil. I’d even go so far as to say that soil is as important a resource for humanity as water is. It’s that crucial really to our food production and just general ecosystem health as well. All plants really, most plants really rely on soil, and a healthy soil.

Kaydee: Absolutely, even the ones that are like canopy plants rely on a plant that relies on soil.

Arthur: Absolutely, everything comes back to the soil in the end.

So this is another key fact about soil, why it’s so incredibly important, is that there’s more carbon stored in the soil than there is in the atmosphere and vegetation combined. So all the plant species on earth and all the CO2 in the atmosphere, all that carbon isn’t as much as what we have in the soil. Because if you think about it, in the soil there are thousands of generations of plants which have died and a lot of that organic matter has then become stabilized in the soil. So it’s not just the ones that are living there now, it’s all their ancestors. All of that is in the soil, all that carbon. It’s so rich. And so even if you have small changes in that carbon being broken down, that could lead to a big increase in CO2 in the air as it’s being respired, these soil organisms are breaking down this organic matter in the soil. That can speed up with climate change. And it’s what we call climate feedbacks. I think another really important thing to realize about the soil is this massive potential to store carbon and release carbon.

Kaydee: That’s a really good point that it’s kind of a double-edged sword that I guess, like anything, it can either be a sink or a source and it can emit more carbon into the atmosphere or it can store some of it and help us with our insane amount of emissions.

Arthur: Exactly, that’s exactly right. Yeah and that’s a really big area of policy interest as well I think – whether we can increase the amount of carbon stored in soil. For example, by our management practices of how we manage the soil. And that’s why it’s so important really to recognize that soil is vulnerable and that we need to protect it and we need to take care of it.

Kaydee: Do you think there is a way that we can take better care of the soil in our alpine systems? What can we do?

Arthur: So one thing I guess is, unfortunately, even though I love it, ski resorts aren’t really great for the soil, because they cause a lot of disturbance. And if you go to these sort of, you know, especially the large ones and you look at the hillsides in summer, I mean, they’re pretty sort of bare and barren and damaged. So this sort of development can be very damaging, which is a shame because skiing is great, but there you go. So maybe there are ways to do it in a more sustainable manner, potentially, I don’t know.

And then we could also change the way we farm in the mountains, less intensive farming, potentially, at lower elevations, for example, so that we don’t pollute the soil with too much nitrogen, which again, as I said, too much nitrogen also isn’t a good thing. So there are a lot of things we can do really, the way we manage these ecosystems, but a lot of that will depend on policy and economics as well. And there obviously has to be a big dialogue really between people who want to manage it for the environment and people who want to manage it for the economy. I think that’s a big conflict in alpine ecosystems, really, alpine regions.

Kaydee: That’s also something I’ve always had a bit of a conflict with. I think I’ve probably said in this podcast before, but people, and David Attenborough is a good example of making people care anyways, but people often don’t care unless they go to a place. They have a hard time connecting to why they should care about the mountains. But once they go to the mountains to go skiing or hiking, then they have that connection. But in doing so, they can also contribute to the degradation of the ecosystem.

So I guess we try to walk that fine line of access to the mountains for our cultural and spiritual wellness and caring about the mountains. But at the same time, we need to somehow conserve them and better protect them.

Arthur: It’s very difficult really, because it’s getting into areas of sort of limiting access and then that can feed into, you know, economic realities. For example, if you were to just have fewer ski resorts, it would be more expensive to go skiing. It would become even more exclusive than it already is. Also with hiking, if you were to limit the amount of visitors to a region, then probably prices are gonna increase, because it becomes more desirable and there’s sort of demand and supply situation. So it’s very difficult really. I don’t really know how you do it without limiting access essentially.

I guess it’s also about management. We have a thing in the UK called Leave No Trace, and that’s, I think, maybe in the US as well. The idea is when you go hiking somewhere, you leave no trace. I mean, if people can just adhere to that. And it is a mindset as well, isn’t it? If people who are going are just behaving in a more sustainable manner, recycling better, all these things, then you can have more people visiting without having too many detrimental impacts. But it’s when you just go and plow through an entire hillside and stick up ski resorts just to make money. I think that’s dangerous.

So I think, as you say, there are ways of doing it. It’s difficult to find that balance, but I think there is a way of letting people access the mountains and have that fantastic experience while still protecting the ecosystems that are there. Because in the end, if those ecosystems are gone and degraded, then people aren’t going to go anymore. So it’s also economically important to maintain them.

Kaydee: That’s an excellent point. Yeah, I do think that awareness makes a difference as well. Things like the leave no trace and stay the trail movements, and also just people educating each other about taking care of the mountains, staying on the trail, not stepping on things that take a long time to grow. All of that should help.

Arthur: Yes, exactly.

Kaydee: So relatedly, what do you think generally, whether people are going to the mountains or not, what should people know about what’s happening in them? and what could they potentially do to be a part of solutions rather than problems?

Arthur: Okay. So I guess one of the most important things that we’ve already gone over is how quickly climate change is affecting mountains, how rapidly they’re changing. But also, the other thing to be aware of in mountain ecosystems, is that it’s not just climate change, there are other factors as well. For example, a lot of nutrient use, fertilizer use in agricultural systems around the mountains, which can lead to pollution by nitrogen. As I said, they’re really nitrogen-limited environments, so they’re adapted to this low nitrogen availability. So you add loads of nitrogen, it’s going to cause a big imbalance. So that’s one thing that’s happening. In terms of climate change, there are so many different ways in which it’s affecting the mountains, like changes in snow cover, increasing temperatures, increasing droughts, so reduction in precipitation. All of these things are interacting in the mountains. And so I guess it’s not just one aspect, but about all of these things and how we can balance these different factors of how we are changing the mountains. Try to reduce our impacts in multiple ways.

What the public could do. I guess the thing about these global change impacts is that they’re just global in nature. So even if you don’t live in the mountains or you don’t visit or whatever, you can still have an impact in terms of reducing the rate of climate change affecting us all really. Just by doing a little bit here, a little bit there.

So one thing that I’ve done, I’m eating less meat. So growing up, my family had meat every night. It was a big deal. And vegetarians are there to get sneered at, even though I had lots of cousins and friends and stuff who were veggies. So I grew up in this sort of, carnivorous environment, but now I eat way less meat. I only eat it like once a week, maybe. Just when I go out, really. At home, we’re vegetarian. And to be honest, I feel much healthier, and that won’t be the same for everyone, but for me personally, I know it’s a really big increase in my health going vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian. So, and that’s just a really easy way of having a really positive impact, and quite simple.
Other things are more difficult perhaps like reducing your travel and things or using more sustainable travel. Although also it’s possible, cycling for example. All of these things, just little differences add up to make a big difference.

And then the final thing really is that the differences also need to come from the top, from governments. But the difficulty is getting governments to actually agree because it has to be a sort of intergovernmental approach. But all you can do is really put pressure on your own MP or congressman or whatever it is, to make these changes and make the environment a priority. If that’s what you’re concerned about, it’s gotta become a priority. Because that’s a problem in the UK, you know people care about the environment when you ask them, it’s not really gonna be their priority. Their priority is gonna be economics, especially obviously in the current situation, it’s not looking great here at the moment. So it’s difficult then to make the case for the environment and for reducing emissions because it’s a big transition and it’s expensive.

But it’s important to remain hopeful. And I think you talked a bit about tipping points in previous episodes. And obviously these climatic tipping points are absolutely terrifying. I mean, as a climate change scientist, tipping points are the thing that keep me up at night, because if we start hitting these tipping points, we could hit one after the other. And then it doesn’t matter what we do anymore, it’s too late then, the game’s over. If the permafrost melts to the extent where all this methane is released, then the Antarctic ice cap melts and we can’t stop it anymore. It really is a runaway train. So that needs to be avoided.

But there’s a different type of tipping point in society. We can have these societal tipping points and there’s really great research by a guy called Tim Lenton, who was one of my undergrad lecturers. And he’s found that if we can hit these societal tipping points, one of which is reducing the cost of batteries and increasing the efficiency of batteries. If we can hit a tipping point where they get so low cost and so efficient that it makes more sense to use renewable energy and store it in batteries than burning fossil fuels, if it’s cheaper and it’s better, then people will just stop using fossil fuels. It’s no longer economically feasible then. And it could happen rapidly within a few years or even, well, yeah, a few years probably, once we reach that point. So it’s really important. And obviously, there are other problems like lithium is incredibly important for batteries, and you know that China is a massive producer of batteries and they’re now mining this lithium in a lot of developing nations, and that is a big issue. So there’s always going to be these issues of extraction of different resources. But if we can get to the point where batteries are really efficient and cheap, we’re talking big batteries now, then that can have a major impact on our emissions.

So there is still hope, sometimes technological solutions, but also societal solutions really, and changes in people’s mindset. And I think if you think, like we were talking about how perspective is so important. If you think 20 years ago, 30 years ago, vegetarianism was ridiculous to a lot of people. Now, veganism is quite normal in many places, and you can get vegan food in pretty much any restaurant in the UK. And that, even 10 years ago, that’s unthinkable. So change is happening and it’s really is happening pretty quickly really, even though it might not feel like it. So I think there is a lot of hope and all we can do is, you know, keep going in that direction really and trying to take people with us is the important thing. And that’s difficult, but I think… I’m positive about it, I’m happy. As long as we get it done before we hit those other tipping points, we’re all good. But yeah, we need to act.

Kaydee: Thank you for sharing that positive viewpoint because it is true that tipping points, they’re so scary. But they really also can be a good force for change. A good example you highlighted about how, how often people ask me, well, does it really matter what I do as a person when there’s all this stuff going on and global governments spending so much on emissions and billionaires flying around in a private jet? Does what I do actually matter? And I think that what all of us do matters. And part of it is because of that social snowballing and tipping points. Each step, each little step you can take just to eat meat one day less a week, or maybe take the bus or your bike one day a week rather than driving. And when you’ve made that change, maybe you see you can reduce more, or maybe other people will go like, oh, that’s working for you and be inspired. So we can have hope.

Arthur: Yeah, absolutely. And it is difficult because it’s a fair point. There are these things that are out of our control completely. But as you say, if small things do make a difference, if there’s enough of them, small things that everyone does. And as you say, it’s also a mindset. Maybe eventually it will become unacceptable for people to fly in private jets. Maybe in 20, 30 years, that will just be unacceptable. It’s possible, you know, it’ll be socially unacceptable for that to happen. You know, it’s partly, we do have some control, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.

Kaydee: Yeah. That’s a really good point that there’s government control on a country, but there’s also social, where just sometimes collectively we say some behavior is just not okay.

Arthur: Exactly. I mean, you know, talking of billionaires taking private jets, our prime minister was absolutely terrible for just taking private jets and private helicopters when he could just take the train. And unfortunately, that seems to still be acceptable. Which I don’t think it is, but that’s strange, because in the past, that even 10 years ago, that wasn’t happening as much really. But yeah, the point is we do have some control. We can get rid of politicians that we don’t like, in the end, if we vote. I think that’s the other important thing. Just vote. Yeah. That’s really important. Yeah. Just vote. That’s one thing you can do. Vote. Just do it.

Kaydee: Thank you again Arthur for coming on the podcast and covering a great range of topics about mountain ecosystems! Now as we get into our closing discussion as hosts, I’d actually like to continue from where Arthur left off with how people’s individual choices lead to tipping points for our society as a whole. I found that a wonderfully encouraging thought. And as Arthur pointed out, there are a lot of choices that we can make as individuals that will add up to a difference together.

I found in my own life that there’s also a bit of a tipping point or kind of snowball effect where even just for myself, making one choice made the next choice easier. So I think I started with cycling to work a few times, and I realized that wow that was easy and I enjoy cycling, and so I started doing it more until I was only cycling or using public transport for the majority of all my transport needs. And I decided to try adding my coffee grounds into compost, then found it’s actually so easy to just put all of my food waste into one bin instead of another. And then it was easier to make changes to my diet, and water use, and other things in my life as at each step I realized yes, ok, I can do this.

Cody: I can relate to the snowball effect of building these sustainable habits that you described Kaydee. For environmental and health reasons I eat a plant-based diet. Now, after 9 years, I mostly eat a vegan diet, but what I found in my experience in climate conscience eating, is it largely depends on the accessibility of these resources in the community you live in. Once I moved to an area that had access to healthy, affordable plant-based food and public transportation infrastructure, and effective bike lanes it became much easier to live a lifestyle that was considered by environmentalists as sustainable. A viable sustainable lifestyle relies on community-level infrastructure and resources. Accessibility was the primary factor for me in being able to eat a sustainable diet, use public transportation, and being able to bike to work. I think it’s neat to see the discussion on sustainable solutions shift to focus on community-level resources and infrastructure because building this will result in the access needed for people to implement sustainable solutions in their everyday life.

Kaydee: You make a great point about accessibility to different resources and that’s why it’s important that we support each other with the decisions that we can make in our lives – and that will be a little different depending on your own situation and community. So we mentioned commuting and dietary choices, which are pretty context dependent and we are both privileged to be able to choose, but what people can do is just to be mindful about what you use in your life and maybe reduce where you can. For example, turning off lights when you aren’t in a room, only charging your devices to full and then unplugging, and unplugging or switching off appliances when they aren’t in use. Considering where your products and their packaging come from and how they are disposed of.

Or another huge impact is water use. Water use is also context dependent – some places are very water poor while others are very water rich, and some people have to go and get water from outside their homes, and others have easy access to clean water. We’ll probably talk more about water in particular in the future, but it is another thing to be mindful of. When I realized how overstretched our water supply is in Colorado and the American West, I began reducing my water use. Some ways to do this include taking fewer showers, using either an efficient dishwasher machine or small tub of water rather than running water to wash your dishes, only running full cycles of laundry, and if you can stomach it – flushing the toilet less. Our listeners may live in a water rich or water poor area, I’ve now lived in both. But mountain regions, as Arthur mentioned, are often limited in their water. So if you go into mountain areas recreationally, it’s helpful to be mindful while you are there of how much water you use and whether you need to use so much.

Cody: This part of the discussion on recreation is a takeaway for me because there is a balance that needs to happen between allowing people access and protecting these fragile places. In an earlier episode, we had a discussion on how when people are in a natural ecosystem, they are more ready to understand and care for the environmental challenges. I mean personally for me, I become so much more connected to an ecosystem when I’ve spent time there. So the question comes into play how do we prevent the human’s love of nature from destroying it?
I mean in Colorado, we have a growing problem of trails and recreation areas that are overused and mistreated by visitors. The overcrowded parks have considerable consequences for the surrounding wilderness. Colorado State University research found these areas can negatively affect the survival, reproduction, and abundance of wildlife. Trampling of native vegetation, increasing soil erosion and compaction, introducing invasive species, and contaminating water are other negative impacts of human activities on the environment. Plus, visitors often attract wildlife with food teaching them to rely on people for subsistence. And to state the obvious, human building on these lands is displacing wildlife from their natural habitats.

Kaydee: Yeah it’s been huge in Colorado. The difference between when I was growing up, or even ten years ago to now is gigantic. Which is why I’ve struggled, like we’ve talked about, with that balance of people needing to experience nature and people destroying the nature, loving it to death. I think that’s why I’ve become a supporter of initiatives to minimize impact. A lot of small choices can make a big difference for all of those negative impacts that you just mentioned. By staying on established trails, you can keep native vegetation intact and not contribute to either compacting or eroding soil. Washing your boots and other gear before taking it into nature will reduce the likelihood of carrying stowaway seeds that could become invasive species. Also not feeding wildlife in nature keeps them from changing their behaviors and habitat, which gives them a better chance at survival. And packing back out everything that you bring in is of course important as pollution has a lot of impacts on the ecosystem and the wildlife in it. Sorry, but this includes packing out or burying deep your poo. Finally, simply leaving things alone makes a difference. If you get a chance, check out the Leave No Trace principles, which go into these actions more. They apply to the mountains, but also to all natural areas.

Cody: To be honest, this is my favorite end discussion we’ve done so far because I think it’s easy for people to view themselves as stewards of the land when they are in nature, but I believe everybody needs to take this point of view regardless because the effects of climate change is a global issue which already has consequences for the daily lives of millions of people. I think increasing community-level resources and infrastructure like public transportation and food availability that reduce your carbon and water footprint are essential to provide people the ability to incorporate sustainable climate-friendly solutions in their everyday lives. 

On that note, thank you so much for listening to the Livable Future Podcast. Remember to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and you can find more episode resources in the show notes descriptions, and follow us on social media!