By now you've likely seen Audubon's bombshell report released on October 10th,
Survival by Degrees. It direly forecasts that, depending on the average global temperature increase over the next several decades, up to 389 North American birds are at increased risk of extinction due to temperature rise. The report investigates the effects that 1.5°, 2.0°, or 3.0° of global warming will likely have on 604 individual species of North American birds, providing forecast maps of each species' changing summer and winter ranges. The final report has been submitted to
Conservation Science and Practice, but Audubon has already released pre-print versions of
the climate-change analysis and
the climate threats analysis. Audubon's roll-out of the information includes
state-level maps indicating which species are most at risk depending on different warming scenarios. It's scary data.
Locally, we've already heard backlash—even among the birding community—with some calling Audubon's report "confusing" and "based on predictions totally unsupported by data." However,
Survival by Degrees is actually based on widely accepted scientific forecasting models developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To generate the results, Audubon used inputs from over seventy different data sources, including eBird reports, U.S. Geological Surveys, North American Breeding Bird Surveys, NOAA historical reports, Global Biodiversity Information Facility data, guild-based/ habitat-based analysis of bird species with tailored summer/winter modeling with specific variables, and Audubon's own recent tracking of the increase/decrease of key species—nuthatches and bluebirds—since 2014 and careful analysis of whether such citizen science data reflects the predictions made in Audubon's original
2014 Birds and Climate Change report. Overall, this new report is ridiculously thorough, and its results should raise sharp concern. We repeat: it's scary data.
But
Survival by Degrees also provides some hope, in that it attempts to predict where birds will likely move, what habitat and predators they may find when they get there, and what areas we can begin working to protect now since every indication says such areas will be critical for bird populations in the future. We've long known that bird conservation efforts need hemispheric scope to succeed, but we've also known that acting locally is sometimes our best, if not only, option. Audubon intends this report to help shore up conservation areas that will be important to birds
in the near future. Knowing where the birds will be and taking actions to preserve those areas may help birds adapt to whatever is coming; doing so could be the lifesaver for a species. Our current administration is so concerned about such forward-thinking science that it
changed the laws for future endangered species considerations to bar inclusion of critical habitat requirements if the habitat destruction is a consequence of climate change, making it much more difficult to preserve the unoccupied habitat to which wildlife is expected to migrate. This should concern us all.
Survival by Degrees also indicates that we're not helpless: while we fully expect some global temperature rise in the future, if we can limit that rise to lower levels then Audubon expects that most bird species will be able to adapt. We know how to limit global temperature rise and help birds:
become climate activists,
support expanding renewable energy,
work locally on climate, and
plant bird-friendly natives. You can make a difference. It takes both public interest and political will to make conservation happen. Your reading this shows the public interest; want the best political will backing your convictions? Then vote. Today.
