Ecological

ECOLOGICAL EZINE FALL 2021

A World on Pause

How the pandemic has indirectly affected the natural world

Forest-Fueled Fires

The Current Issue with modern wildfires And what is being tried to fix them

*Designed by Clara Theuerkorn

Letter From The Editors Life is in and around us, it is the essence of our existence, which is why we should protect it. Even today, the consquences of our actions are starting to show themselves, and they are only getting worse as time goes on. The only way we can fight this change that is coming for the worse, we have to educate ourselves, which is something that we at Eco-Logical decided we wanted to be a part of. We will be covering topics ranging from water problems to fire problems, and showing people what is really going on with nature.

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Table of Contents

6 Seven Things You Can Do to Fight Climate Change

12 Lone-Star Fires Through the Years

A World on Pause

10 Forest Fueled Fires

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A World on Pause How the pandemic has indirectly affected the natural world

By Isabelle DiCarlo A virus has spread throughout the entire world. As the man-made factories and buildings shut down, the highways empty of vehicles, and the planes leave the skies behind, the planet experiences a drop–a decrease in pollution, in human activity, because everything except the bustling hospitals is put on pause.

While humans refrain from leaving their homes and retreat six feet apart from one another, plants and animals continue to thrive. As the birds keep singing and the trees keep reaching for the sun, one can wonder if this pandemic could be considered a good thing–certainly not good for the humans, but for the nature that we’ve trampled on and polluted for hundreds of years.

The pandemic has changed millions of lives. Beginning in the first half of 2020, many people started to quarantine inside their homes to avoid the deadly sickness. Many schools shut down, and adults weren’t able to go to work in person. People started to use apps like Zoom to interact with each other. They stopped travelling, and doing everyday things like going out to eat. The world also noticed a shift in the environment, perhaps because of humans’ extended time away from nature.

Jim Walker is the Director of 6 | Ecological - Fall 2021

Photograph by Nenad Stojkovic

Sustainability at the University of Texas at Austin. His job consists of searching for ways to decrease our footprint on the environment. It often involves looking at a specific human activity, like water or energy use. During the pandemic, he’s been able to make some observations about the effects of less

human activity.

“Suddenly everybody had to work from home, or suddenly they weren’t driving as much. They weren’t going and occupying an office building, so we saw a whole lot of decreases in things like air pollution,” said Walker. Aside from the drop in

activity and waste output, Walker mostly thinks the pandemic served as a wake-up call. “I think that’s one of the things that’s interesting–even though there may be less energy use overall, the focus on climate change really only increased during the pandemic,” he said.

Wendy Knight is someone who was already focused on climate change. She is the Chief Executive Officer at Sea Turtle Inc., a nonprofit organization located in South Padre island that is working to rescue endangered ocean life, particularly sea turtles. A lot of the work done there involves being in person to do actual rescuing and help with the rehabilitation process. When the pandemic hit, they couldn’t just stop and stay at home. Knight said, “Turtles still came to the beach to nest. They still laid eggs. [...] We still had to watch them hatch. All of those things continued to happen. And then, of course, our hospital was still open just like any medical facility or veterinary clinic.”

The organization did happen to take in less patients during the pandemic. Knight said that the large majority of turtles that they take in are first spotted by everyday people who see them and then call Sea Turtle Inc., so the drop in patients could either be because there are less people out to spot the turtles, or because there are less people out to harm them.

Those aren’t the only two reasons they have patients, though. “We are right now seeing animals that have injuries that occurred because of human intervention 30 years ago. I mean, we have prescription bottles from the seventies showing up on beaches, washing ashore. There is such a long tail and a long-range impact on those things that it’s a little difficult to say specifically whether the pandemic itself would have any impact,” said Knight.

There are other aspects of the organization, however, that were

heavily affected by quarantine. At Sea Turtle Inc.’s actual building, visitors can read about what happened to the patients, attend informative presentations, learn about what the organization does in general, and make donations towards the cause.

Knight said that that aspect of the organization was shut down for about two months during the start of the pandemic.

“...We still had our rehab. We still had surgeries. We still had patients. We just did not allow the public to engage with us on the campus the way we normally do.”

do something,” said Knight. She said that quarantine had them wondering how to bring people into the building without them actually standing within its walls. “How can we give them that same connection?” she wondered.

Their solution was to create a stronger media platform. “I think that you’ll see some shift in the way that we handle marketing, and media, and our virtual programming, and stuff like that that really was sparked by the challenge of the pandemic,” she said.

Knight also said that there were other new methods they used during the pandemic, aside from just new means of education. “...We have had to learn how to manage the rehabilitation process in a more collaborative, virtual way; where we might have used to have veterinarians come in and engage with us on more complex cases, those things are now happening by Zoom,” she said.

The building mostly serves as a means of education, which is a third of Sea Turtle Inc.’s mission.

When it shut down, it caused some problems. “Sea Turtle Inc. has been in existence for forty four years, and a big portion of the connection, the fibers that engaged people, really honed and centralized around standing in this brick and mortar building, because we have always believed if you come here and you see it, you will be moved to

Sea Turtle Inc.’s building on South Padre Island. Photo credit: Sea Turtle Inc.

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Even though Sea Turtle Inc. is back open to the public, Knight said she sees the pandemic as a kind of growth period.

“This is our opportunity to expand. We want to get back everybody we had before, and we want to keep all the new people we got during the pandemic.”

The beach at South Padre Island.

“This is a growth period where we’re really able to focus on combining those two strategies to make something a lot more robust and deeper than it was before.”

Environmental organizations aren’t the only ones trying to do their part for the environment. People everywhere are thinking about their environmental footprint and how they can reduce the amount of waste being dumped into the landfills. One of the industries that ends up using a lot of plastic is the food industry. A lot of the time, packaging, especially that of take-out food, usually ends up in the oceans or scattered across our continents. Single-use plastics such as straws, Styrofoam cups, or plastic containers can take years to degrade, and even then, the small pieces can still be harmful. Because of this, many businesses have started to use more biodegradable resources in their packaging. During a pandemic, 8 | Ecological - Fall 2021

Photograph by M.P.N.texan

however, those things can be hard to come by.

“We buy biodegradable cups and straws and packages; to go items, you know? But right now, things are a little different because it’s hard to get those items because of COVID, or distribution, or there’s lack of employees for production now. So now you start to see the results that [recyclable packaging] is harder to get and the prices are doubling,” said Miguel Kaiser, one of the owners of T-Loc’s, a food truck in Austin, Texas.

“Right now, the only containers available are [made out of] Styrofoam, so we bought it and until things open back up or get in the flow of things, we’ll continue to buy [it],” he said about the past week.

However, it’s not like they aren’t trying. Zulma Nataren, the other owner of the food truck, mentioned that at the beginning of the pandemic they had to wait hours or go to

multiple locations to even find any packaging, just because people were buying so much of it. She said a lot of people didn’t know what it was like, trying to get materials and then trying to open on time, and how stressful it could all be.

“Austin is a great community of doing the right thing, you know, and being progressive, [...] so like I said, we went from Styrofoam to recycled material to be part of the community and have a positive reflection of our business. And then the virus came in,” said Kaiser. He said the pandemic certainly made it harder to use biodegradable materials, especially since people were only getting take-out.

“[It was all] to-go orders, so we used a whole lot of that material for packaged goods,” he said. “It was very jammed. But you know, you get through it.”

Photograph by Steven Feather

Kaiser and Nataren did, however, agree there were some positive changes that came with quarantine. “I think the pandemic is a good thing that people worldwide, you know, started doing things cleaner and healthier for safety for each other,” said Kaiser. “...

Now people are practicing safe things; sanitizing, bleaching and everything else, [that] should have been done prior to the pandemic.” They also said one of the few positive effects was that they got busier. “And then of course, we had to keep up with the protocol, you know, shields, masks. I was wearing gloves, things like that. You know, we’re all part of the community, so we’re going to demonstrate that we respect what’s going on,” said Kaiser.

They’re not only thinking about the community in regard to safety or health. “People pay attention. People, they look at you and they pay attention like, what plates you use or if you all use boxes. [...] Using the proper recycling products in packaged goods– there’s good people out there [who] take notice and they appreciate it and they continue to come,” said Kaiser.

“And we feel good doing it,” added Nataren. “All those little things make a difference.” Though biodegradable materials do cost extra, Kaiser and Nataren buy them anyway. “We pay more and we’re going to have to make a little extra charge and other people are fine with it.”

Overall, they can agree that from a business standpoint, the pandemic had a positive effect. However, if one thinks

about the low supply of biodegradable materials, they think it had more of a harmful effect. “Pandemic was a good thing because it [was] a wakeup call [for] people being you know, being responsible, health conscious, and being safe…but does that result in [being environmentally] safe? I don’t know,” closed off Kaiser.

Walker thinks when it comes to the environment, the pandemic had more of an effect on how people interacted with each other to fight climate change than it did on climate change itself.

relation to the environment. And we needed to do better at that before the pandemic. And we still need to do better with that,” Walker said.

Many saw the Covid-19 pandemic as a period of growth, or a wakeup call alerting people to the issues of the environment. Hopefully, with the pandemic starting to fizzle out a little, we can put even more focus on the environment–keeping the good effects we saw during quarantine, like the decrease in carbon emissions, whilst changing the bad things, like

“Using less energy, using water more wisely, making better food choices, [as well as] how we handle materials and recycling and the circular economy–all those needs, all that work existed before the pandemic.

the increases in packaging plastics or home energy use. Once the pandemic comes to a close, when people start re-emerging onto the streets and cars fill the highways again, maybe we can make changes so those once-normal activities, like driving places, can be less harmful towards this earth; after all, it’s supported us for centuries, and we wouldn’t want to give up on it now.

“[We’re going to] have to learn how to trust each other again and get back to work on the environment.”

We knew we had to do it and it takes global coordination to do any of that stuff well and better.” he said. The pandemic, however, has added to the initial difficulty of coming to an agreement about climate change.

Walker also said the best thing we can do at this point is to just use less. People usually buy a lot more than they need, and one of the best things they can do is to refrain from obtaining new things, as well as focus on decreasing the overall amount of trash and waste. “[It] reduces to being more thoughtful about our actions in

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Seven Things You Can Do to Fight Climate Change You may not think you can make a difference but you can!

By Isabelle DiCarlo Clothing production makes up for 3% of the world’s carbon emmissions. Buy long-lasting clothes from reliable brands to help reduce climate change.

Planes run on fossil fuels, and are responsible for 3.5% of global warming.

Avoiding flying as often as possible is a good way to help decrease carbon emissions.

The meat and dairy industry both contribute a lot to climate change. Changing your diet to cut down on your meat or dairy consumption can decrease your meals’ environmental footprint by around 40%.

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Sources: Imperial College of London; BBC; Our World in Data

Car use makes up one-fourth of an individual’s yearly carbon footprint.

Using more sustainable methods of transportation, or using an electric car instead can reduce your carbon footprint by 25%.

Single-use plastics and other forms of waste have lasting effects on our Earth. Don’t buy more than you need of something, and consider buying longer-lasting items or reusing items you already own.

Some changes can only be made by people in power, but if you speak up, then you can help to accelerate these changes. Make your voice heard!

SAVE THE PLANET

Using renewable energy is a great alternative to contributing to climate change. You can install solar panels on your home to help decrease your carbon footrprint and help our Earth.

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Forest Fueled Fires

The Current Issue with modern wildfires And what is being tried to fix them

By Kian Mitchell

A

storm approaches, one of orange flame and extreme heat, eating everything in its path with an endless hunger.

Everything it leaves behind is a charred, lifeless pit that could never once again be identified as developed land. People all around are screaming and scurrying in their cars to retreat out of the soon-to-be homes touched by fire, but what they didn’t know was that they were the cause of the deadly wildfire.

Making fire was revolutionary for the time of early humans, as it was used for light, warmth, and as a burning tool.

However, fire is also nature’s tool that has been in use far before human life. These natural fires are vital to the growth of many habitats because they clear dead plants and debris to make room for new life, but as humans keep increasing greenhouse emissions, these fires become more uncontrollable and dangerous.

Wendy Baxter is a weather station manager for the University of California Natural Reserves, and she monitors California weather stations around Lake Tahoe and gathers information about the climate and weather in those areas. “One of the biggest issues is that when we displaced First 12 | Ecological - Fall 2021

Prescribed fire burning in the night. Photographed by Wade Powell

Nations people from their lands and started outlawing cultural burning, we started the practice of fire suppression, and we’ve been doing that for the last 100 years or so,” Wendy Baxter said about wildfire history. Fire suppression is the culture that we have developed, which is to put out any fires we see, and not to let them burn.

Wade Powell is a fire expert

in Bastrop, Texas, who works for a wildland fire program at State and Parks. His job is to treat the habitat in the Bastrop area so that it is less prone to burn at an uncontrolled rate. Powell explained the problem with the culture of fire suppression, which is, “Because naturally occurring fires on the landscape haven’t been allowed to burn freely and do what they would normally

do in the ecosystem, there is a huge accumulation of fuel on the landscape. And when I say fuel, I mean anything that could burn.”

Organic materials such as dead leaves or rotting wood contain carbon, and have dried out, allowing fire to easily burn and spread even faster when this organic matter burns. These fires are still trying to clear the natural area of dead vegetation and material there, but since there is so much of it, it is contributing to fuel the fire, which can make the fire more uncontrollable.

Even though there may be fuel for wildfires to take place, they still depend on ideal conditions such as the time of year and the temperatures. Powell said, “Normally, the typical yearly wildfire season would be winding down [around October] because [that] is historically the wetter month of the year.” It’s hard for

fire to burn during these wetter months when everything is cold and moist, so fire thrives during the spring and summer seasons when the temperatures start warming up, and the weather becomes drier.

However, as humans continue to use harmful gasses and materials, our atmosphere starts becoming affected, and all natural occurrences become harsher.

Climate change has been a topic that has been discussed for many years now, and even today we are starting to experience the effects of the warmer climate.“I think it [climate change] is the most critical issue that we’re facing right now, as a species. I think it’s an existential threat to us, and we should be viewing it as an emergency,” Wendy Baxter said.

Seasons are starting to get harsher and storms are getting worse as the climate continues to heat up.

Climate change really is the result

of modern human activity, such as the harmful products that humans release into the atmosphere. Fossil fuels and the use of pesticides and other chemicals are only some of the causes of the rapid increase of climate change. In the past few centuries, since the industrial revolution, our source of fuel changed from wood and organic matter to the new fuel source: coal. Coal and other fuels found in the ground are mostly made of carbon, and the carbon gets released back into the atmosphere when the fuels are burned. This extra carbon contributes to the amount of greenhouse gasses in the air, resulting in more heat being trapped in the Earth. The increase of climate change results in harsher temperatures, melting ice caps and glaciers, and a dramatic change in weather patterns. These changes happen so quickly that it is hard for nature to keep up, resulting in 13 | Ecological - Fall 2021

Prescribed fire burning during the day emitting a lot of smoke. Photographed by Wade Powell

the death of animal species and habitats.

Even fire is affected by the change in the climate. “The wildfire season is getting longer, and you may find it’s approaching near year round as a result of climate change,” said Powell regarding recent wildfire seasons. There has already been a dramatic increase in the number of wildfires humans see each year, but that number can keep increasing, and the severity of those fires could get worse. The hot and dry requirements are starting to be met in the fall and winter in some places, and this lets fires burn during times when they usually don’t. Even though climate change has shown us many consequences, we don’t know the full extent of what could happen.

Climate change is still such a tender and controversial topic, so research and actions taken to 14 | Ecological - Fall 2021

stop it are slow. Chris Schenk is the State Fire Program Leader for Texas Parks and Wildlife. The Fire Program inside of Texas Parks and Wildlife helps manage and monitor areas that are vulnerable to fire. As humans, our natural instinct is to make some topic simple enough for us to understand, but sometimes, that is not so simple. Schenk explained, “When we start talking about climate change, and wildfire, it’s been highly politicized, and it’s highly emotional... And I’ll tell you, climate change and fire, those are real relationships, but it’s not quite as simple as a lot of the political pundits make”. But one thing we can simplify is that we are the reason why the Earth is changing for the worse. Because as Schenk puts it, “The bigger cause of fires in Texas is people.”

The truth is that climate change is the mastermind behind

the increasing severity of natural disasters such as wildfires, and if we don’t address it soon, the situation will be out of our hands. But we aren’t just going to be able to focus on one solution to make an impact.

Chris Schenk explained, “You wouldn’t try to fix something with just one tool in the toolbox, we’ve got to use every tool possible to try to get our ecosystems back in their

“The bigger cause of fires in Texas is people.”

- Chris Schenk

rightful condition.” Thankfully, there are already many groups and organizations that are finding ways to fight the effects of climate change.

Texas Parks and Wildlife

already has a program being run that treats land around Texas. This program helps clean and protect lands against fire. One of the ways they treat land is by applying prescribed fire. “There’s wildfire, and then there’s prescribed fire.

Both of those are part of wildland fire, one is actually considered more beneficial, usually being prescribed fire, and one is considered detrimental, which is wildfire,” Schenk says about the two types of fires. Prescribed fires are controlled fires that are set alight and are actively contained in a certain area. These fires are used to clear the area of debris so that if an actual, unplanned fire comes through, it won’t spiral out of control. Prescribed fires are usually administered in the colder, wetter

seasons so that it has less chance of getting out of control because as mentioned earlier, wildfire seasons are during the warmer, drier months. But Texas Wildlife also manages wildfires that may occur.

“The other side is that we’re charged with managing wildfires on our public lands… sometimes our management of wildfire is to actually just go put it out… but other times, under proper conditions, we may manage a wildfire,” Schenk says about wildfire management. Texas Parks and Wildlife is trying to clear these areas so that they are not so prone to huge wildfires, and the way they are doing this is fighting fire with fire.

We may not all be part of an organization that fights climate

Starting a prescribed fire. Photographed by Wade Powell

We live on a very beautiful, special planet, and if we’re not careful, we might not be able to live on it anymore, and I’m not going to Mars, I can tell you that.

- Wendy Baxter

change, but we can all make our own individual decisions like recycling when we can, not leaving a light on the whole day, and using renewable energy sources for our homes. Each individual decision we make helps that much more against climate change, and if we start seeing everyone start to make their own decisions, we can influence each other in our neighborhoods or even across the world. “We live on a very beautiful special planet,” Baxter says “And if we’re not careful, we might not be able to live on it anymore, and I’m not going to Mars, I can tell you that.” This is the issue of our lifetime, and it can affect how our land burns, our oceans warm, and our rain falls. We have to be thoughtful because we have to take the right steps to start making a path towards a cleaner, happier planet. Because if we all set our eyes into the space above our heads, we’ll never see what is below, under our feet.

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Lone-star fires through the years Map of texas acres burned due to fires.

2000 - 2020

By Kian Mithell

50,000 Acres Amarillo

25,000 Acres 20,000 Acres

Lubbock Fort Worth

Midland

Austin Houston

Bastrop County Complex Fire 16 | Ecological - Fall 2021

Wildfires in Texas are growing increasingly common, and more land in Texas is becoming a vitctim to fire. In the last twenty years, Texas has taken a beating from global warming, from the stronger storms, colder winters, warmer summers, and now an increasing number of wildfires. Most Texas wildfires burn in northwest Texas in cities such as Amarillo and Midland.

The Bastrop Country Complex Fire is the most destructive fire in Texas history because it destroyed many homes and public areas. The Bastrop County Complex Fire started as three seperate fires in September 4, 2011 that merged together in the Bastrop County. Four people died to this fire, and it destroyed nearly 35,000 acres of land, including 1,673 homes. The fire was under control about a month later on October 10, 2011. The damage estimate is about $325 million 17 | Ecological - Fall 2021

*Designed by Clara Theuerkorn