See firing the calls on this to come down and it up in the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history to that time $6000000000.00 of damage much of downtown Calgary is such that other smaller towns and cities around their Canmore High River a few others were severely impacted but when we look at a citizen sickly 3 events of this magnitude are typically expected to occur in every century so he darkie or returned period the one in 35 years not that high so we should have been prepared for and we should have had an early warning system to give substantial warning that this event was coming in fact in Cam or the forecast that the rivers would be flooding came after the evacuations are started so a lot of my listeners don't live near the mountains and why would they care about what happens with mountain water. Well this is just one example but you know Calgary is 100 kilometers east of the mountains and yet still affected by mobs such rivers that drain the mountains supply water to over half of humanity around the world Asia you know the Ganges the interest of the yellow the Yangtze the Mekong all drained out of the Hindu Kush in Malaysia and to that tightrope region similarly and the United States to Colorado famously because it reached the Columbia all drained out of the mountains and if you go to Europe the Rhine the role and then the others coming out of the mountains even further we Australia the Murray Darling has some important headwaters a nice story so there are just proportion involved of the stream flow generated I want regions and this is also where climate change impacts are seen most profoundly we get some enhanced climate warming while ovations we're losing the snow and ice up there so we call that so and ice together the cryo sphere and that we're losing it rapidly as temperatures warm. Up and of course these are the headwaters of our rivers so all this change is occurring upstream from where much of us most of the human population lives and where we produce our food is downstream of these mountain regions so what happens there affects everyone on the planet. The viability of our cities our ability to generate electricity to hydro power our ability to grow food to rig a should you can even argue that the earliest human civilization has Tigers to figure salaries for we are all based upon vanishing water from mountains. So you just co-chair the high mountain summit that the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva why have a summit. There then focus on climate change in the polar regions we hear lots about Greenland and Antarctica the ice sheets melting and these are very very serious problems causing sea level rises we hear less about what's occurring in the high mountains for instance the wealth of knowledge in glaciers is contributing to sea level rise we can expect as much as a 3rd of a meter a sea level rise from melting glaciers and the mountain glaciers are melting right now we've already lost hundreds of thousands of these around the world I mean any pictures not to range hundreds to thousands So what's going on as as we speak and it's also something that is manageable because we manage the water supplies coming from the mountains so there are things that we can do but there are solutions that we can fight some of the problems with the sources and have that painted a very important focal point for the u.n. To focus its efforts and it's still difficult to see what will happen I mean on one hand large parts of the earth will get drier but the atmosphere overall will get wetter and then we have extreme precipitation events popping up whether it falls as rain or snow it's hard to see how you can predict any one thing about what's going to happen in the high mountains Well one thing is our many of our weather models were designed to say provide a good forecast for a level places think counselors United States or other areas that are fairly simple toboggan and these models don't do very well in the mountains one saying in the world Canadian Rockies if you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes changes rapidly but also changes over short distances and so we need high resolution atmospheric models in order to predict the weather but also to look at changes to climate change that might occur over the. Use of time and this is one of the things that the I'm on some of those calling for is that we have to develop these models so we have some better predictability of what is occurring and will be occurring in the mountains Well there is some new dam construction and the 3 Gorges Dam in China is fairly recent There's others on the go in Asia but in general most of the world's big utter dams were built in the 1900 why does it matter when the dams were built Yes the climate and the ideological regime when those dams were built has changed substantially already and will be changing further over the next few decades so in the 20th century the high office had old most of the precipitation generally snowfall and they would start up over the winter and spring would come and start with belts and that the downs would store that water to make hydro electricity the measures demand for it or to store it until such time as farmers needed the water for irrigation and often that wasn't very was not a very long time so they might store the water in a pool and they from runoff and they use it for irrigation aged in July but without the snowfall with knowledge and rainfall which is what we're seeing more and more of that the precipitation might be coming in January have to be stored in till June or July so now we're looking at 6 months of storage I would sit down for design for and also when you get a heavy precipitation event under a cooler climate that we used to have a company because of snowfall and we call it good scheme when we have that heavy precipitation it's going fog of war because it's a complete disaster. So they have the temps and structures that we've built may not be able to withstand those exchanges that is not motor involved in the growing phenomenon of large cities actually running out of potable water we've seen more news stories about that in the past year to. Some of Cape Town's water was in fact highly populated areas for sure it wasn't really the high mountains. It's become an issue more in Asia where you have 1600000000 people living off the waters from the Himalayas the Hindu Kush and those areas and there are certainly communities in the Himalayas that are experiencing extreme drugs right now and will have to relocate so that's already happening to some of them in terms of the impact on the large cities so far the Moffitt said been sufficiently reliable to maintain them but there are problems coming in the Andes in very short order and they have the rivers the train the Hindu Kush Pixy the Indus River have already has problems and they become much more severe and they the issues of those 2 types of river basins is that they have glaciers which is great but the glaciers melt during the dry season and where there are other sources of Order to form so and the glaciers are shrinking rapidly so without the glaciers that crises and will be absolutely everything in terms of streams Always Right now there is enough waters to supply the cities and the irrigation in that area those areas. Once those glaciers are gone they're gone so I have seen several news stories even this fall of glaciers about to burst or floods coming out of the mountains in the Alps of Switzerland and Italy are you expecting more sort of news disasters coming because we don't know enough about melt water supplies and how to manage them Yes unfortunately yes as a gracious retreat they start to simply disintegrate and sometimes that can cause them to come up water for the lake and stand by the ice and then the ice continues to melt and the weight is really sweet quickly these are called Gloss glacial lake ochre slugs. And they they tend to kill a lot of people when they happen off sometimes up to thousands. Without warning and can be devastating just like I'm going to die 1st when I see him and they count but they are detectable using satellite remote sensing and as it is possible to develop early warning systems for these and such systems would save. Lives and when I look at a long list of groundbreaking studies you coauthored where very few people look before I suspect that may come partly from your roots in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan why discussion one need to know a lot about water. Well Scotchman is a long way from the Rockies had 7 to 800 kilometers from Saskatoon to the Rockies depending how you drive but it's a semi arid province actually receives very little precipitation itself and it's a food producing province with a crew lots of grain there was a ground water supplies are not very reliable and since catchment So people if they can use the rivers for their water supply and the rivers come from involves In fact the souses catchment river in the city of soft determine why live about 80 to 90 percent of it streams so come some of the Rocky Mountains So these are these rivers provide water to a parched land and that water is used for the city's use for partridge mines it's used for irrigation it's piped hundreds of kilometers away from the rivers in some cases and has for hydroelectric power so it's. Makes life on the Canadian prairies far better and more dynamic than it would have been without. Check out the radio. We're handing you on the words. This is radio talk I'm Alex Smith with us is a senior scientist hydrology expert Dr John Pomeroy from the University of says gosh when Canada and John you were part of a 10 year international effort to develop and share water information from river basins where nobody measures the water flows and I was thinking Well that must mean less developed countries maybe in Africa but then I'm thinking there must be vast amounts of water running around in northern Canada without being monitored where are these on gauge basins as you call them. Here you hit it on the head not in kind of that is very sparsely gauged many students Ok choose because of the remoteness of the rivers the lack of roads that it's very expensive to put assuming it's there when you have to maintain it's visiting by helicopters and like this so Canada shares the experience of having the last parts of this territory engage with countries that might be in the what Sure some called it a go it world or bust of the world and we've also at times when we've got to cut back the federal government local or provincial government levels we've lost ageing networks and it's often the most remote north that we lose so we have to develop techniques to estimate stream flow without a cage that's quite useful it's a very difficult thing to do but it's very rare useful thing to do and it's sort of technology that's also useful to countries that for various reasons have got been able to McCain or afford to continue their stream gaging networks and on top of that lack of basic data when it comes to water you also talk about unwillingness to publish or share information because of security concerns Can you talk to us about an example or 2 well there are unfortunately many around the world. World's nations have a very good record of sharing weather data primarily because of aviation but other reasons as well but Watergate is seen as proprietary and sometimes it's because of the hydro electric utility that its business depends on the stream so and so it may not want others to noticed this too much about this business there may be others concerns many river basins travel from one country to another and so there isn't always cooperation on sharing that data about what's coming downstream and physically what's being used upstream but without that information that basic information water we can't work out ways to share it equitably and fairly and we also need these for flood forecasting systems if it is moving downstream from one country to country towns to need to know that as soon as possible so there's many many reasons to share the data and there are good examples but there are also 30 examples where we don't know very much but this is where satellites can come in and there are do satellites that will be up in here to one cold water which can measure the height of the river from space and then that's going to revolutionize things because we no longer be possible to not share the levels in a stream. John Palmer you've produced so much in your career I developed a short list of important topics that probably need half an hour each but let's try and touch on a couple and one that really interests me is snow contaminants what design about. Snow chemistry and you know we always think of snow coming down as white as cheerfully as a different style and nothing could be further than the truth snows a great scrubbers associates coming out pick up aerosols and other contaminants from the atmosphere and they can hold them over the winter and then also contaminate the pollution is deposited on the snow over the winter over the many months we might have some of the season and so slowly came in late so that way and then you get strange things going on several years ago I had the opportunity to study blizzards in the Scottish highlands and the low is so particles that develop an electrical charge that attracts aerosols to the particles that like an electrified scrub or air cleaner and so you at that time this is the 1980 s. Were developed great a black blowing snow storm with a p. H. a 2.6 It was a sickly burn your eyes just to still got in your eyes and that was scrubbing out air pollution that had come from Eastern Europe and blown over Scotland so you get very strange things occurring sometimes a lot of the acid rain problems that we had in northern Canada Scandinavia elsewhere several decades ago were really house it's. Was a source of these chemicals in the cell and that the rapid release of them and it's still a problem in the Canadian prairies who are very concerned about nitrogen and phosphorus off for water bodies because a they over fertilize the water we get talked to the algae blooms as a result and so we're trying to understand how they runoff from Stone melt at the better and then also how farmers can manage their fields to keep the fertilizers in place on the soils rather than at Lakes downstream Well let's talk a bit of both snow covered depletion has this become a problem for farmers since the sketch one can affect the wheat crop the candidates boards to help the hungry world has climate change over to snow cover. Oh it has around the world many parts of the Northern Hemisphere have already lost one to 2 months of snow covered since the late sixty's the 1st satellites measuring this were around $170.00 so so it's been noticed and Scotchmen there to be 3 weeks of snow covers the noticed so fall used to be one 3rd of the yearly precipitation is down to one 5th in many areas so we have a longer summer yet to let it up very much and it's much more difficult to get to that longer summer so this year we had a fairly low snow pack in an early though and then we had a crowd just a few millimeters of rain from late March until June until well into the chin and so the grains the seeds ever planted in the spring didn't germinate very slowly germination the lack of growth and it caused great problems for farmers this hell of a subsequent wet period extraordinary retreat so the crops finally grew but they grew months later in July because they didn't have that boost from the stoma water and then stayed wet and then it and then the snows came in September so the farmers weren't able to harvest the crop and it was the worst harvest in terms of getting the crop of since 1080 Scatcherd so not having that spring still miles at the right time just messes up level system to the summer and concrete terrible problems in terms of being able to produce food in this part of the world and I've talked with scientists who think that the changes in snow cover in the far north where it's going away earlier and coming later is exposing more dark earthen forest and then changing the reflection of energy to space and actually a factor in adding to global warming it's a feedback effect yes yes it's a it's a very strong one the there is a strong feedback between losing your snow cover and then air temperatures specially a very hard for air temperatures to remain. Much Well sir whilst also there are still still pack and still cover on the land once it's gone then the land heats up and the air heats up above it and then you have to be get an increase in temperature so that's that's an average everywhere have some cases where some parts of dropping you have increased plant exposure and the plants themselves are dark if you can be shrubs for instance and those heat up in the sun and accelerate the snow melt so there's some feedback so as you start to get shot over and shallower so covers and the exposed plants accelerate rate and you get a shorter snow season swell and that's happening practically everywhere another of your co-author papers that come i.o.i. This time published in $20000.00 it was telling of recent changes to the hydrological cycle of an Arctic basin at the tundra to get a transition look you're talking about a giant band of territory there curves almost right around the earth wherever there's land and yet we know practically nothing of voted what is your research showing Yeah that's that's an interesting area as this is all the far far north for close to 70 degrees north latitude 1st we look at the trend since 1960 where it began an area and we actually see the hydro and the slowing down a little bit it's becoming cloudier over time it's warming up but not really working out so far and so that surprised us a bit but then we started we used very high resolution quite of models to run the climate forward towards the end of the 21st century and we saw some surprises on sort of a slowing hydrological cycle we saw a rapidly accelerating hydrological cycle and this was because of a homo said doubling of the amount of precipitation and a lot of that occurring in winter so it's falling as snow so here's the snow packs going up and then a very warm spring to get a lot of snow melt and so the peak stream so it was more than doubled in that region which. Is fairly problematic because the covert side of the highways the villages the infrastructure is all designed for shows that are much smaller than what we're predicting for later in the 21st century and the other thing that's happening is the permafrost is thawing in that region and has been and will continue to more rapidly and permafrost has to ground which doesn't saw on in a normal years it's crown that is often composed of a mixture of ice and sediment and if you dig into it it looks icy listened to the ice and when that song's you get a collapse of the landscape the trees toppled over if you're the town or building the building with some folk or highway will collapse and the where there are force will become open at that lab so it's it's quite destructive those that promote Frost songs this is exactly what's happening in northern Canada garden Russia many other areas the model also showed a substantial increase in the fall of permafrost and the increasing thickness of what's called the active layer this is a layer of soil above that permafrost which does tall every summer and that is one of the scary stories that I hear when talking to scientists is the whole permafrost situation the amount of carbon that's locked up in there that could be released the amount of methane that comes up under these tunnels or little lakes that form it's a worrying situation. Yes colleagues have measured to substantial mean 18 fluxes from falling from a frost and you know even back in the 1990 s. We had an experiment in the Arctic and we looked at the concentration of carbon dioxide in the winter so pack so we pull samples of the air out of the snow pack in the middle the winter and we were shocked that we were getting levels of one and a half to almost 2 times the atmospheric concentration of the snow and this meant the c o 2 had to be coming out of the frozen soil over the winter which meant that it was being released from the permafrost and that even happening when it was frozen perhaps a cracking as that we froze in the in the greater time but also meant that there was respiration by microorganisms carrying on even in the cold winter period so this hadn't been considered in the estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from Arctic soils and it's now much is now very well understood and it's it's really a serious problem for the world because those soils continue to warm the microbial Kitty continues to crease and the permafrost continues to fall and we're releasing carbon that was stored thousands of years ago to the atmosphere very very quickly John part of your life specialty is cold water hydrology What is that well that's a high quality regions that have some kind of a noticeable venture with a stone could be the ground freezes for some part of the winter it's an interesting hydrology to study because you know you need to study be normal summertime hydrology the evaporation stream so processes ground water runoff but then you also get to look at Stone Mountain frozen soils and snow all cracked and trees snow that goes around of the wind things like this so there's a lot of extra complexity to it and regarding the problem amount of water where you just attended the summit what can we do are there are key steps to be taken. Well yes there are the mountains are a great example of course region psychology but we one thing it calls to attention again that we have to sort of reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. And get the concentrations of those gases back down but we know it's going to take a while so in the meantime we have changing stream flows out of the mountains we may have to build our dams differently or operate them differently we may have to build different sorts of such defenses around communities downstream of options or in the mountains where we may have to make different decisions about where we generally hydroelectricity or grow food by irrigation from outside water supplies and the will be difficult decisions are in service here areas become valuable in some areas as our favorite spot so look at famous glaciers such as one can see at the back Lake Louise the Victoria glacier become invisible retiring as the retreat and saloons are they are the scenic rancher of our mountains and the ecosystems there as well as he is such a long water supplies from the University of Cisco Ashwin we've been speaking with Dr John Pomeroy Hughes really a founder of many water studies in Canada and around the world John as part of a group of international scientists warning both the impacts of climate change on the mountain water that keeps billions of humans alive you can find links to John's works and science in my weekly show blog at Eco shock daughter org John Pomeroy thank you for sharing your time with us well thank you so much and what a wonderful interview with Question Thank you I'm Alex Smith for radio shock. As world media shows is the great city of Venice going underwater I recommend you go back to our recent broadcast about Venice in rising seas with our Italian guest Luca miscarriage he said this would. Happen and why that program is available free on our website. Www dot org The c.e.o. Shock like electric shock dot org While you were there check out fire expert Greg Mullins with the true story of the current extreme fire danger for. More news before its news from radio show off. Your listening to radio for the world. I'm Alex Smith and our Web site equal shocked auto org. This is radio people with real Alex. When forests are logged or burned or carbon floods into the atmosphere as you might imagine but that is not the end of it the loss continues for decades as a significant factor in climate change in fact a new paper from a young Australian scientist says experts and planners underestimate the true costs of hacking into tropical rainforest by a stunning 626 percent that means the damage to the atmosphere is 6 times greater than previously thought the new paper in the prestigious journal Nature was published over 302019 we reached the lead author Dr Sean l. Maxwell at the University of Queensland in Australia but right now he's in Vienna Austria and Sean published important work while still an undergraduate holds a diploma in yoga education from India and speaks passably the Indonesian language of Bahasa from Vienna Sean Maxwell welcome to radio. Thanks very much Alex Scratch be talking with this most recent paper is not a night show but in saw its advances the nitrogen I know but it's just a general. Ok I suspect you're more than a scientist are you also a passionate conservation activist. Or spend so much time in the office it's hard to really believe in myself in a time an activist as well certainly in Spain you know the activities that have been known much in the straits that are happening around the world particular boy young folks and very inspired by that but certainly the majority more Tom I'm spending in your office trying to push for the summit and you bones to into public view with your 2016 article guns nets and bulldozers driving species loss you argued climate change isn't killing species we do most of it the old fashioned way is that correct. That's what the current numbers that the greatest number of species are in fact threaten boy and thing and I got a sting and also logging in just an abuse of natural resources generally an important carrier that study was that a lot of college assessments I would or truly capture the impact of climate change and that will have in the future so expect in the next few decades that China will become a more prevalent factor the poverty generally but certainly at the moment the next 10 to 20 years for station hunting still the biggest drivers got a vested Connie gladly I'm not going to large are you trying to sell tropical forests must be saved isn't as easy these days perhaps as you fatigue has said and but now your team shows intact forest loss is a critical factor for whether we win or lose the climate fight Sean talk to us about the old and the new vision of tropical forests visa vi climate sure you know I think the quote right there that you know the global community policymakers so I just have for a long time on now talked about the importance of forests generally tropical forests in particular not just the climate and that is that as an important issue but for other big factors as well such as natural disaster mitigation and if you know I prepare and things like lands logs and then flooding events in certain cases there also I would increase like limits around in full and you know in most importantly from an ecologist perspective is that one kind of a stronghold a lodgment spot of a city as well yet the spotlight messaging that's been happening for Long Tom still not quite saying and not funding in action towards conservation of tropical forests in particular from the carbon point of view we think that might be because conventionally which. Just only look at a nation the cabin and then a cabin emitted from the clear it's a forest and that is a switch from at a thought a forested area completely known forested area that is to the sky still a niger factor when we look at. Look at the nations quietly but increasingly there is yet more studies coming out which are that a good ice in a forest and are actually eyeing a big dollars well and that once you were farmers you Crites effectually New Forest edges in a new 4 stages of the conditions in Niger and different to what I would have before the clearance event happened as conditions are often drawing a rough and windy and the drawing in and the wind brings with it more tray mortality so that can be a source of emissions and I starting to get a bit of an idea of what that means in the whole scheme of things global aquatic report as well I want to be clear forester that you are a true doctor to other activities such as logging and more hunting and race around its far so logging is important because you obviously can't I can't let everything I can trace and in most cases by a trace rate the ground up will obey it and it's a mission associated with that thing element and scouting factors as well in that hunting often target the spaces that do a great job of spreading sage around the landscape and helping far to regenerate Once you have that regeneration factor and the ability to forests actually store carbon and sequester Cavaney goes down as well so I welcome the wall to describe a thing in my own striding the attention of your listeners just getting through it all but we know the factors are also important in the common story of our so I believe I just starting to get at our government and how we can better fund there potentially important elements. Now supposing I had $10000.00 in the bank I mean a man can dream and I'm getting interest on it now I take that $10000.00 out and I lose all of the casino it's not just that I lost the $10000.00 I've also lost all the interest I would have got on it for the next 10 or the rest of my life and that I think you put under the label of foregone carbon sequestration could you talk to us about what that means and why it matters. Well what what a fantastic analogy we had I wish we had thought about that that's a great way to describe what we think is a major advance that it's the people we've published recently provided So what you're talking about is essentially carbon farce could have sequester remind intact what we actually put a measure on that we say if the intact forest areas that we were looking at had I remind intact the it between the 202050 we know that I would have sequestered Ironically get kind of carbon and conventional ways of looking at the carbon impact of losing post I actually capture that very well at all if we can refer to that is a foregone removal or will go on ending if you like of carbon and what this study I mean look at us a small subset of forests quietly just intact forests the ones that very little human activity in saw them and awful living in touch forests that kind of don't interact brazenly so rightly really looking at 50000000 heck there's a forest it's 500000000 there's if there is intact forests or mining globally that we can apply these metrics that we can we can better capture account for their kind of an impact if we conserve them properly how do you find out. How much intact tropical forests there is there's quite a few different measures different ways of cutting it one measure is to look at ledges change brought back in time so people much more clever than clever the money generated maps of of how humans in China just land just to even back to leave 1500 projected that forward to essentially now and any areas that forested that were not a suitable for farces forested areas that haven't had not as full and pending and the maps of land use change on them so switched from the forest to a grinding area or a switch from a grazing area to a high cropping area or even a switch to an urban landscape we can track a thing straight on and essentially by a process of elimination any areas that were not changed in a forest that we can refer to limits probably forests over intact forest and other why and my more up to date Why is to just look at the mine and where using satellites where is the Niger human activities on earth things like roads and buildings and agriculture if we can brought all those things we can then again process of elimination look at where things are not and we can the we can refer to those will start to identify where the intact forests another little detail in your paper that really caught my eye was defun Asian and you talk about how a change in the animals in the forest can change the forest itself and even that has a carbon effect how does that work yeah it's a again this is an emerging emerging science really we know that it's forests become more accessible as as essentially as rights can be cut through forests and more likely to have hunting pressure and saw than and this is not sort of traditional subsistence hunting this is typically hunting with quite modern in. Strengths that we're looking at and hunting that could be used to generate products for knock it off for even for export and night that hunting pressure typically targets the Speccy so the animals laid out a hole in built in Southeast Asia or now the fence in Central Africa these animals that are really important for spreading Sade's of big cap and trade that psych up a lot of carbon that rely on these animals to to regenerate not to spread this aids and to actually ensure that the next generation of big trains is planted so once you lose lives animals that we now and we now we now getting audio just what that manes intended to make out and stored in a forest and its ability to sequester carbon in the future. In 2018 years that another paper was 7 co-authors conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events I kind of like your working title better I think I found it online global conservation priorities are ignorant to the extreme. So what's the scoop with extreme weather and conservation planning. Must apologize some tones when scientists which want to tell you that your it is possibly we lose touch with what makes sense yes but yes that study was just looking at. That it gets normal intended that magnitude or instance of the frequency gets you know you mentioned that things are quite drawing in your ear that would I guess that they you know that's historically the president but one of the areas that that is known to be jaw of the coming joy no. Less rifle in the rifle let less often sort of factors can can help us decide when an event a weather event that seeks train whether it's just. It's going to slow the vision from. Historical by slowing Yeah here in Canada we make some pretty big national parks and often trying to protect special animals or plant communities and then it gets hotter the fire rages over the protective barrier the water supplies go haywire we almost need moveable parks these days what can we do. Well that's a quote unquote. Quota for taking on a date and one that still generates what a lot not still that's main this type of back in 20 hand written by some folks at the University of Queensland that proposed removing protected areas that are not effective and replacing them with ones that could manage it better to more do more for the lot of a city that if that was met with quite a bit of criticism to start it being theoretically a quote defensible and an idea smart move so one of the pillars of protected areas I wanted that Diop eminent So I would weigh very reluctant I guess to to propose moving them all my kingdom anyway not permanent but in many cases just lucky sign we need to change them and they could benefit the actual objective of particularities which is actually to conserve the plants and animals on this they could benefit from more dynamic planning more adaptive planning I guess but getting the legislating that and making sure that that flexibility is not abused by Nijinsky something that we're still sort of grappling with as a scientific community and reading your new paper I got bushwhacked by the simple phrase all tropical forests outside protected areas are expected to be logged it's all going to be logged how far along are we with that. Yeah well that's that's the start and. Again it's not not not completely in agreement but I mean so on that's one of the better one of the not so and you can not go too far if I wanted to but but certainly we've got evidence that forced my sparse they've already managed and that will be loved again by the 2050. We're getting better at mapping logging into caring so it's quite difficult to map where it is using said a lot because it's harder to detect using satellites because often in the tropics late logging is not clear felling of a patch but just a painting of a large area and I just removal of the largest largest trees but why satellites are heading that why smart people around a lot of thing no use I said a lot images were not too far why from Beijing I wouldn't say this area was lost in the sea but then we'll get a better understanding of just the extent of logging in and out for the better I would instead of all eyes looking in certain areas where it's not going to affect or it's going to have less impact on lot of s.t. Distance making sure that it doesn't occur in that we all grow all the cob and dense forests that. Importance of thought of s.t. And climate. You are tuned to Radio because shark I'm Alex My guest is Dr John Maxwell of new University of Queensland we're talking about how disappearing tropical force can damage the climate for all of us and you write about the big contribution protecting intact tropical forests complain helping countries reach their commitments for the Paris climate agreement but what do you mean I mean do places like the Congo that is heavily forested we hope somehow need forest credits to meet their emission rights. I mean again study focused on dollars in tax systems so I well there's a lot of relatively. There is some funding for preventing deforestation especially in the tropical countries that are developing a lot of that money is targeted at the deforestation from t.n.i. Side which is just very very is in countries where for station rights were quite high in racing needs but all that's important to prevent it but there's almost no funding going to all of the countries all of the areas that are doing a really good job of looking out all great intact followers. What asked study does is just reveal just how important it varies. In the climate and just have much the countries and the people local people well who communities just important it is that they see people in countries continue to consider them the impact force in particular in and they more support to do not essentially funding more attention more of a social laws and says Well it's very tempting instead of conserving they think that forests are safe and one off or financial times to clear it and to give it for other uses So is there a working mechanism where polluting nations like Germany or China can gain climate credits by protecting intact tropical forests somewhere else yet it sure is yeah sure is I would visit existing find what code likely it was reducing emissions from deforestation and take reduction on it so it's a cold read. That the the acronym and that was already have gone on at that that commits Oh that reward and of all of the protection of intact forests it's just the the why in which people are accounting for that retention and that accounting for the cabinet call it benefits of that imitation of intact forests in the pic you know that's not quite accurate it's not really. Representative of how important it is and and therefore if it's that conserving tech forests and not rewarded as much as if it's that look at the deforestation funky there is that. Made it threaten large amounts of loss in the recent past so the citizens of already industrialized countries sitting comfortably at home looking at wildlife videos on You Tube Do they have any right to advise or demand force conservation action from tropical countries where millions of people are unemployed or live in poverty. Well I think certainly to Mandy's is the wrong wrong approach and is will be met with Ada if there is a paypal in tropical developing countries polite but could a quickly and quite rightly be met with with the strike should I think Ed mole productive and raise the mood and appropriate Why as to just support those nations side that by just sharing a message talking with Paypal about how they say is a continuum of farce quality and at the moment when just looking at those farce that are wrought of the edge of way humans are expanding their footprint to there is really really hard quality intact and in some places remote forests that Paypal in many cases are still living in and and actually one tiny place far city areas and cities recognizing that initially there is a continuum of quality and we thought we can for instance Mineta found fund farse conservation wise that might show we do still capture the best quality forests and ensure that any development that doesn't make a just doesn't sway brought through the center of the mice the Ha the nice Hawk quality I support forests that we have left supporting Nijinsky you know a that at the voting booth or 3 deny seems to groups can treat people in countries that are not tropical that are not that are there are developed can can support nations in that why rather than just demanding that these countries do what's good for the planet that being properly rewarded will recognize for that. Now as we speak Indonesia is transforming some of the last primitive rain forests into palm oil plantations or fiber for high fashion clothes like nylon Shawn Maxwell What is your assessment of the 50 to venter news is forests Wow Alex it's I don't want to be too negative here but every time we look at this we say in Asia as critically important bought of is the one advice broad diverse places on earth some of the most common dense forests on a but also a price when we've got population ha population density proposals to move whole capital cities to Holly farce a nice insight and I'm sure many of your listeners and listeners know that I was proposing to move the capital city from Jakarta to Cali Mt town for the all in the coming months on which at the moment it is one of the last times full array of things globally so whilst that provides to do that I recognise that the ne to have been a kind of friendly capital city and you know we should commend them for that whether it will actually be a car family and what that means will show find out but yeah it's very concerning and people made to Chinese their individual ideas beyond just advocating and supporting their countries Paypal that are at the front lawn for us conservation the actions that individual people do to hike really do make a difference reducing your consumption is critical and very important they have a dismiss that the importance of that and also other things brought they are and population changes well lost it's argue it is unethical to really force pay for that of course. Have a certain number of children or not at all that's on it to cool and it's something you never advocated for but. Recognizing that empowering women and giving women in developing nations a particular opportunity to have a good education and to be. Report any case to reduce the population growth rights which are drawing these pressures on for as quietly so it seems to me that you're not just a lone wolf in the way you operate you try to bring people together for some common cause whether it's landowners or government types or scientists Why is that important to your show. I don't think it's the only way forward and that is when we get into a thought to look just doing personal agendas or even agendas of research groups or government without recognizing without it integrating other views that other perspectives that we know from history that that is leads to. Crashes or even quality of life for him in certainly in terms of environmental conditions and also I did just the pitch right you saw goal of not learning from mistakes in the past you know we have some listeners on college radio stations and I think some of them are asking themselves Is there still time is it still worthwhile to go through academia and maybe study for your doctor while the world is heading into a climate emergency what are your thoughts on that or clearly understand that advice thoughts and you know the line 1st of all. To get certain short term just just lay down each other on groups of people that you know you can I discuss they thought the things in the out here big critic will but also I progress through issues but you should also know that there is change coming but 2050 hopefully we will have sort of that kind of Will consumption of Athens sustainable population growth if Niger fact is that a driving a lake logical damage around the world this big international agenda is that if it at that to do just that result as issues once we get there is things right the landscape and the space guy that are going to China and then that question will be instead of have to be passed retiring the last of the best Flora but you generally have to we actually regenerate the spaces that have been lost in the past or there is a crisis and that have been lost but it's still going to be lots of questions that need to be answered in the future very smart so I certainly still pursue it if you're passionate about it because it's got to be done is it your sense that there is subordinate now among Morris joins for climate action or is it still a tug of war between the jobs and coal crowd and the Greens. It's a tough one to gauge Well there is that division between the jobs and coal and the Green think probably it's decided that the jobs element is really under question bottom the majority of the strains now and there's just too many studies coming out showing that continuing to Sears down and having you call exporters and in a one dimensional economy generally a random exporting call the net result is it's going to be a lot of delivery 1st out this economy in the future we need to diversify jobs we need to diversify that Sinestro you well be left on the on site well call community and doing all I can put it to sort of prevent climate change the government in particular and people need to support conscious effort move more meaningful if it would strategies contribution to climate change and again within the divisions I think and spread it around the world young versus old so I. Well the younger generation recognize that what we've done to the comment in the past with this especially back then I want action on climate change and want to strike fear in particular the pie the role just like we have been in in past Niger events at the spot not having a cabinet contribution to certain things we've always wanted and taking great pride in doing more in is actually on pipe required of us and so we want to play a role we can play that role we develop which country and the world needs us to do that I will tell whether we do or not but it certainly has more support the support of many other minestrone Yeah we need you to help us by cutting back their coal production and exports it but the people of Australia need the rest of the world so that while frankly the parts of the country don't burn down every year as is currently happening and to get past the Dr perhaps in all sorts of problems that global climate change is going to bring back to Australia so as we wrap up here Sean how can people follow your work. Fusion wise we go to. A website called Green Zone it's dot com their contact details are on their get along to web sought and you can phone a contact contact cave in touch with the latest the diversity Queensland school of informants who saw it was what sought. A good resource to track and look at for opportunities study few if anyone out there would like to come in and do a bit of research in the lab would like to get a feel for what it's like we're always looking for. Students and it's a help with just personally as well you can contact me if I didn't show might be in the the on stage and its presentation interview all i can we put my knowledge us long thought it that helps I'll attack that right in my blog at Eco shock dot org We've been speaking with Dr Sean Bell Maxwell his latest publication just out at the end of October is degradation and foregone removals increase the carbon impact of intact forest lost by 626 percent Sean good to meet you and keep the scientific information coming we need Thanks so much I like speak for your attention it's and for the sake of branding it all as well thank you Joe I'm Alex Smith for radio eco shock. That's it for this week it's my honor Support for community radio station. Comes from listeners like you and businesses like propel recovery services recovery services of San Diego specializes in judgment enforcement and collection details are at San Diego judgment dot com and k n s j dog door.