this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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Environment

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As climate change redistributes terrestrial ecosystems across the globe, the world's natural capital is expected to decrease, causing a 9% loss of ecosystem services by 2100. That's according to a study of natural capital published in the journal Nature led by scientists at the University of California, Davis, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

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[–] TropicalDingdong 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This my biggest concern and why I argue for preservation of forests beyond just carbon storage potential. We're actively degrading the lands ability to function with how we manage it and we're seeing the collapse of systems from preindustrial levels ability to capture offer these services. From what I've looked at, mostly impacts of fire and harvest, high intensity disturbances, serially, have degraded landscapes to between 10-50% of pre industrial capacity. Multiple disturbance is a principal mechanism, specifically 30 year harvest cycles associated with industrial timber operations. As well, catastrophic megafires like the biscuit fire result in a sterilization of the soil in the upper layers and a polymerizing of carbon compounds, resulting in hydrophobic surfaces that water doesn't penetrate into. The result is landscapes incapable of doing the basic ecological activities that we base our economiws around under an assumption they'll be available to us in the future.

It's not too great.