He has celebrated deserts all his life. Now he's sounding the alarm
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June 4, 2021, 5:00 AM·17 min read
Desert ecologist Jim Cornett measures a Death Valley Joshua tree at Lee Flats to see how climate change is affecting desert plant life. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
If you have any questions about how the plants and animals of Southern California’s deserts are faring as the Earth gets hotter and drier, Jim Cornett is a good bet to have the answers. Roadrunners, palm trees, snakes, Joshua trees — Cornett has studied them all and written more than 40 books.
But the 72-year-old ecologist, who fell in love with the desert as a schoolboy and is still on his honeymoon 60 years later, was stumped one day in April near the southern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.