When I spoke to evolutionary and behavioural biologist Professor Camille Parmesan in Plymouth in the dog days of the northern summer of 2018, I was under no illusion of the severity of our climate change situation. Talking to her further crystallised some of my own anxieties. But although she conveys a sobering message, Camille’s optimistic personality also lets in the light. And there have been some positive changes in the American political system that could start reining in some of the more retrograde national policy swerves on climate change that Camille refers to. Read on if you are in need of some nuggets of hope, in amongst the dark scatterings of despair.
Professor Camille Parmesan Photo source: Plymouth University website
Camille Parmesan is a Professor and National Marine Aquarium Chair in Oceans and Public Health at Plymouth University, and Adjunct Professor, Geological Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, USA. She has recently joined the SETE/CNRS Ecology Centre in Moulis, France, as part of President Macron’s Make Our Planet Great Again programme. Camille is renowned for her work on the biological impacts of climate change in natural systems. Focusing on butterfly species, she has documented continental-scale shifts in their ranges across both North America and Europe and linked these to regional climate change.
I first met her at the ‘Our Common Future under Climate Change’ conference in Paris in 2015, where her keynote address covered her award-winning research of global meta-analyses (studies of studies) of how a wide range of species are responding to climate change. I was impressed – and stunned – by the magnitude of this work. Ranked the second most highly cited author in the field of climate change from 1999-2009 (Thomson Reuters “Essential Science Indicators”), her meta-analyses cover climate change impacts from microbes to plants to large vertebrates in terrestrial, freshwater and marine systems. And what they reveal is that animals and plants are affected – and are on the move – everywhere.
PU: What is it that concerns you the most about the unfolding climate crisis?
CP: Ironically, because I’m a conservation biologist, people assume I’m going to say that it’s the mass extinction of species. To be honest, that’s not it. I do think we’re leading to a sixth mass extinction, caused by habitat destruction and now climate change on top of it … if we’re going to put a nail in a coffin, that’s done it. But honestly, I’m an optimistic person and an evolutionary biologist, so I know the Earth will recover. In millions of years, but I know the Earth will recover. And some wonderful new species will evolve.
But, we are really ruining our society. Humans might survive, but I don’t want to be living in that time. We’ve developed an amazing society where art is flourishing. We have problems, but we’ve been gradually solving them, standards of living have been going up throughout the world. So to slam that all with human-made climate change is to me … how stupid can we be?
That is what depresses me most, the downfall of human civilisation. I’m not saying I think it’s inevitable, because if you look at the numbers, we can just about turn it around, if everyone gets their act together, and we implement drastic measures. But instead I see people in massive denial, and adopting massively short-term outlook. Even those who know climate change is real – like CEOs of corporations who only care about the three-year profit margin. They don’t seem to understand that is leading us to this inevitable doom. And I hear people saying, “oh, my part in it is so small”. No, you can’t take that attitude.
I’m very depressed about the election of Trump, who is a climate denier, because I thought Americans were getting there, gradually the numbers who accepted climate change and thought it was a problem were increasing, and then boom! We’re back to the 1950s.
PU: I was at COP 22 in Marrakech, in November 2016 when he was elected.
CP: That must have been interesting (laughs).
PU: The next day, people were crying on the bus, there was a terrible atmosphere of depression. I think that was the Tuesday? Or Wednesday. But by the end of the week, people were trying to find ways to say no, this won’t de-rail everything. The mood was low, though.
CP: He’s trying his best. He’s put a climate denier at the head of every agency that deals with climate change, so he’s systematically de-railing efforts. He’s messing with the system in a much more fundamental way than a lot of people thought he could. Because the thing is, Congress could stop a lot of what he’s doing. But they’re not.
PU: I have been shocked by how much he’s able to do.
CP: He’s getting appointees in who should not be getting in, you know, racist climate deniers – why are these appointments going through, why are they being approved?
PU: Why do you think Congress isn’t stopping him?
CP: I don’t know. There has not been this much protest around the country since the Vietnam war. And that’s given me optimism. Thank heavens people are protesting, and keeping the energy up. But Congress is letting him get away with murder. What are they thinking? All I can think is they are so happy the Republicans are in power, in the House and the Senate and the Presidency, and that’s all they care about. So they don’t care about the American people, they don’t care about the country,
PU: And they don’t care about the future of their children?
CP: No, no. So I’m so disappointed. They’re not doing what they were hired to do, they’re not doing what they swore an oath to do, which is ‘country first’. So, although I work on biology, my fear, my dread, is about the fall of human civilisation.
PU: And do you have any hopes, at this stage?
CP: (Laughs) Well I lost hope, a few years back, and went to COP 15 in Copenhagen, and was really re-energised. Oh, that was fabulous, you know you’re in the White Tent and everyone’s over 50, and you go out of the White Tent and everyone’s under 25, and they’re pissed off. And they’re energised, and that’s what gave me hope. It’s like, okay, you guys, you’ve got to get in the White Tent, you’ve got to become the leaders. Don’t just be the protesters, become a Member of Parliament, get involved in the system.
So that re-energised me. I had been thinking of going back to my butterflies, and evolutionary biology, the basic research of my PhD. And I said, no, if these guys have the energy, I’ll stay in, I’ll keep doing the things I’m doing, which quite frankly is not what I’m most interested in. The meta-analyses I thought were necessary, to help them get the numbers they need to push the policy forward, but scientifically it isn’t what I find fun.
[I do not share Camille’s positive take on COP 15 – this report provides some background to my perspective.]
I still give a lot of talks in the States, to graduate and undergraduate students, and I try to tell them they can’t just go and protest, they have to take action and get into Congress themselves.
PU: And is seems that some of that is happening in the States, some interesting things about very young people running for office now.
CP: Very young people are running, a lot of women are running, a lot more than traditionally.
PU: And scientists.
CP: So we’ll see what happens in the mid-term election … so yes, things keep happening to give me hope. And Macron came forward when Trump pulled out of the Paris accord
PU: Oh yes, so you’ll be going to France, as part of President Macron’s ‘Make Our Planet Great Again’ initiative, with 18 other US scientists, I think.
CP: That whole thing was very energising. And when we met him for the awards ceremony in December, he was wonderful and welcoming. I just received a permanent position with CNRS, which normally with my level of French they wouldn’t have given, but they felt they needed to support what Macron is doing. A of things are happening, leaders as well as scientists are trying to support the process moving forward. So I think there is cause for hope, and I’m basically an optimistic and happy person. I’m not a depressive, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. So if there is a little hope, I like to believe in it.
PU: I’m not optimistic, but I’m hopeful.
CP: Yes, I think that’s a good way to put it. But I do still tell my nieces and nephews, and actually I’ve been telling them this for 10 years, go visit a living coral reef while you can.
PU: (my blood goes cold, I give a deep sigh) That’s a terrible thought.
CP: Unfortunately, a lot of them are probably Trump supporters. I say to them, look, you need to do this for your own experience, don’t live your whole life never having seen this. If you wait, it won’t be there. And they freak out. And I say, look, I’m serious, this is not in front of a TV camera, this is just you and me, and I want you to see this.
The soundtrack to this was me gasping and exclaiming – Camille’s calm words, uttered in her low and pleasant voice, somehow drive home the message more than a strident vocal delivery would.
PU: That’s actually very effective, I would think, because that’s a frightening reality check.
CP: I was surprised at how much it did affect them. I said, look, you think that I’m making this up? Seriously? Are you buying this bullshit that we do it for funding? (laughs) You know I’ve hardly ever been funded, it’s mostly off my salary. And I feel like they are buying into it, until I say, no, you – me, we’re just talking one-on-one, go and do this, visit a coral reef. And I don’t even know where the good reefs are left anymore, is there anything in the Caribbean? I don’t know. I mean, I want to go see one again. (laughs)
PU: I don’t know, but St Helena, the island, is fantastic. My partner and I went there on the last voyage of the RMS St Helena – now decommissioned, but you can fly there. And he went diving and said the reefs were exquisite and abundant. So go to St Helena.
CP: That’s so nice to hear.
PU: Even close to shore, I could see exquisite little fishes in places. And we swam with whale sharks, which was a magnificent experience.
CP: Wonderful. Every place I know, when I’ve gone back, the coral has been bleached. And I’ve done this too many times. This for me is really depressing.
PU: Bleached in a way that’s not going to recover?
CP: No, no. On Heron Island, when I first went there, the inshore was bleached. So I thought okay, because that’s very shallow, but as soon as you got to the outer reef, gorgeous. But last time the outer reef was bleached too. The same in the Caribbean. You know, I’d go to one place and it was great, and I’d go the next time and it was gone. Hawaii, same thing. I just can’t do this again.
Turtle swims over bleached coral, Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef Source: carbonbrief.org
PU: This is terrible.
CP: So one way, you know I hate to say it, but because I write about it all the time and I do all the analyses, I kind-of don’t want to see it. I don’t need to see this, I know it’s happening.
PU: It’s too depressing.
CP: When I go on vacation, I actually want to see a healthy ecosystem.
PU: Camille, tell me, how did you grow up?
CP: In Houston, Texas, in the city. My mother was a petroleum geologist, but she had a minor in Botany, and she took us camping all the time, up into the mountains and into the east Texas forest. She had all her little guidebooks and she’d tell us every flower and every bird, and all about the geology. She was a true naturalist, a conservationist, and a member of the Sierra Club. I was doing that from the time I could walk, literally, so it was ingrained. It was not something I had to learn.
PU: It’s fascinating: this is a very unscientific survey, but almost everyone I talk to who has a strong love of nature has had that kind of element in his or her childhood. Which makes you wonder about people growing up now so removed from nature. You can be in a city, but with enlightened parents who still make that connection for you, of course.
CP: Even if it’s just once a year. But I agree with you, when I meet urban people who never get out they don’t get it, at all. Which is another depressing thing. And of course most countries are getting more urban.
PU: And it’s the nature of the urbanisation. In a lot of the countries I work in, least developed countries in Africa, the cities are just hellish for their inhabitants. So it’s not like New York, where you have Central Park, London with all the green places ….
CP: Just concrete.
PU: Well, and collapsed services, and filth, and it’s really unpleasant for people living there.
CP: And if you’re living a life like that, you don’t care about anything but getting a better life. You just want clean water and sanitation. And I understand that.
PU: Well, you might want to care about those things though, but you’re just so far from having a decent urban environment in which at least some elements of nature are well integrated and relatively whole.
CP: Well that’s what I meant about in a lot of ways, I think up until fairly recently, things were gradually getting better. The standard of living was going up in many countries, not all, but many. The national parks were growing, and now they’re coming under the gun, because of pressure for food, and it’s just like, how did we tip around?
PU: And of course this is far from just a developing country issue. In the US, I’ve been shocked at how the national parks and refuges are under threat.
CP: Well, Trump took away the status of a lot of national monuments, to allow development. And he’s trying to do it with the national parks, and the head of the Department of Interior, who is head of national forests and national parks, is all set for resource extraction. He doesn’t believe in preserving anything for its own sake, he doesn’t understand keeping ecosystems healthy for societal benefits. He is a straight ‘lets extract the resources’. They are trying – Environmental Defense Fund is fighting tooth and nail as is every other conservation NGO. I don’t know the current status of it. I think they opened up ANWAR though, which is the Alaskan wilderness, I believe that’s already happened. He is trying tooth and nail to open up all of the protected areas.
PU: As you say, its just terrifying, this kind of ‘revolution’, no, a circular movement back to rapacious greed and incredible stupidity.
CP: It felt like it was getting better, people were getting more aware, smarter, …
PU: That we could think longer term now – a lot of the countries I work in would put Trump to shame, actually. They’ve got so little, and they’re not behaving like that. Take The Gambia for example, a tiny and poor country in West Africa that suffered under 22 years of dictatorship until early 2017. They have shown real leadership on climate change and we don’t really have to make the arguments anymore with the politicians, they are already taking action.
CP: (laughing like a drain) Unlike in the USA.
End of Part 1