Why I'm an environmental scientist, and why you should be too

Preamble

I presented this as the closing address for the 2015 New Brunswick Envirothon competition, held at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. The Envirothon is a competition for highschool students that gives them a taste of what it would be like to be an environmental scientist - they learn some field skills, write plans and reports, and present their research to the group. Several of their teachers asked me to share it online. I'm not much for making videos, so here's a copy of the transcipt. Enjoy!

Why I'm an environmental scientist, and why you should be too!

I’m an environmental scientist – more specifically, I’m a PhD student, nearing the end of a 5 year project on conserving plants in New Brunswick forests. I’m here today because I thought you might like to know a little bit about what being an environmental scientist means, and why I’ve chosen this career, because I suspect that most of you are thinking about making the same choice.

Since my first field job in 2002, I’ve seen and done more than I’d ever hoped. 

I've met the sunrise over hundreds of lakes across northern Canada – with the air so crisp and clean you don't need coffee to stay awake; with loons falling into mournful grace notes to compliment the howling wolves in the distance, while both are accompanied by the hundreds of soloist songbirds that rise and fall in the great symphony of sound that is the boreal spring.  

I've traced the trails of elk, moose, deer, lynx, coyote, bear, wolf, mountain lion, caribou and bison through field and forest, heathland and parkland with eyes searching for movement, seeing animals in every shadow and stump, and ears perked to the smallest rustle in the leaves – a robin, a squirrel, a gentle breeze.  Then found the object of my attention to be staring at me – sometimes only a few steps away - whilst I was unaware.  

I've flown in helicopters, float planes, and jet planes, driven everything with four wheels (and some with only two), paddled or motored across lakes and rivers, and worn out countless boot soles while travelling thousands of miles.  I've known the backroads of Alberta, BC and New Brunswick as few do, learned how to navigate wildlands with compass and wit, and to find my destination with little more than the sun and the moss on the trees.  

I've climbed giant trees over 100 feet tall, fire towers almost 200 feet, and mountains over 9000 feet.  I've walked on glaciers, and swam through their waters.  

I've eaten the sweetest fruits of the forest after stumbling upon them in a clearing (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, saskatoons and currants), sipped on tea made from Pyrola and Rhododendron, fried up wild mushrooms and trout over an open fire, chewed the bitter roots of wild sarsaparilla, and been surprised by the tangy zest of wood sorrel. 

And I've learned the names and traits of thousands of plants and animals – trees, grasses, mosses, lichens, mammals, birds, beetles, and fish – I've probably forgotten more at this point than most have ever learned. I’ve seen the microscopic jungle that exists within the tiny green mosses that grow on rotting logs. 

That’s the National Geographic version of being an Environmental Scientist – I’ve done it all.  But being an environmental scientist isn't all a great big adventure.  

For every hour I spend in the field, I spend at least eight in the office or lab – writing, crunching numbers, desperately trying to meet the next funding deadline so I can buy groceries and pay tuition. It's often monotonous, usually difficult, and always stressful. And even in the field, it's often far from a free ride.

I've been enveloped by swarms of biting bugs so thick I gasped for air, torn and bloodied by rose and devil's club thorns so that my raincoats were useless, whipped by wind, rain and hail in violent storms only to learn that a tornado passed by within a few hundred meters, shredded my legs on lake ice, been made sodden and hypothermic, frustrated and sick, and humbled in every sense of the word. 

I've hauled backpacks with 50-100 pounds of equipment and samples for miles through the woods, had cold hot-dogs and granola for supper because I was too tired to cook, then slept on the hard ground in a cold and damp tent. 

I've had chainsaws kick back, engines fail, and data loggers disappear from their posts, along with any hope of ever knowing what happened. 

I've wrecked trucks, flipped ATVs, and hit animals on dimly lit roads – sparrows, hares, a kestrel, a deer.

I've lost friends because we were both so sick and tired that we forgot how to be civil to each other, and never spoke again. I've lost friends and colleagues permanently to truck and plane crashes, to drowning, and to avalanches. 

I've left my wife for weeks at a time, when all she wants is to spend a few days together.

And for the past 15 years, I've been frustrated by watching my friends and colleagues maligned and laid off while our politicians ignore almost all the advice that environmental scientists like me have to offer.  Maybe this is the way it's always been, I've really only paid attention for the last 15 years or so. 

So why do I do it?  Why should you do it? 

Believe it or not, it’s not for the beautiful sunrises, birdsong, love of encyclopaedic knowledge, or sense of adventure, though these things certainly help.  I do it because my community (indeed, the entire world) needs scientific skills and ethical input.  

The world needs scientifically literate people.  Science is about finding the truth about how the world works.  Fundamentally, it's about predicting the future – if we know all the consequences of our actions, we can always make the correct decisions, right?  

But environmental science is about more than just helping you to become scientifically literate. It's about helping you to connect with the place you live in a visceral way a way that that few people experience these days. In the words of Aldo Leopold, you develop a "land ethic".  

When you know the names, the colours, the tastes and sounds – the very essence of the ecosystems around you, you begin to think about them in a very different way. You appreciate them a little more – you care about what happens to them, and you get curious about why things are happening. From knowledge of nature comes connection to nature, which leads to better knowledge. And fundamentally, when we are connected to it, we understand its intrinsic value in a way that can’t be factored into the cost-benefit analyses of industry. 

Financial analysts don’t consider that the 125+ species of liverwort in the province are part of the most ancient lineage of plants on earth, that they elegantly function as an inside-out vascular plant, or that they have vastly complicated systems of genetic exchange that we are only just beginning to understand. They can't be harvested, bought, sold, or traded. My training as a scientist tells me that they perform a few minor ecosystem services – production of Oxygen and sequestering of CO2, helping to initiate soil formation on rocks, providing a damp place for nitrogen-fixing bacteria to live, etc.  But they don’t do anything that a dozen other plants can’t also do.  Ultimately, my estimation as a scientist is that little would happen if we were to lose a few species. But my land ethic tells me that they deserve to exist as part of the landscape because they are part of the rich biological heritage to which we belong, and upon which we rely.

Sure, we can rely on forests for timber, employment, and many other great things, but as an environmental scientist, you need to see the forest for more than just the trees – you need a land ethic. And when you've developed such a land ethic, you will find yourself at a third reason for doing the sort of things that I've done: because you must. 

Watch Dr. Wingari Maathai's hummingbird story (2 minute video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMW6YWjMxw

The fact that you are reading this now tells me that you care, that you are capable, and that you have courage. With those three traits, you can't possibly sit on the sidelines while the planet is going down the tubes – if you tried to do so, you would end up a bitter and cynical person. 

For all that I've seen and done, my contributions to science have been small. I've helped caribou biologists figure out the best way to apply caribou range reclamation techniques, I've helped forest companies figure out how to improve the plant biodiversity in their spruce plantations, and I've helped collect information on what species are rare and possibly ofconservation concern. But I've planted MANY seeds in other ways.  I sing in a choir, coach and play rugby, participate in two community gardens, and help to run a student environmental group, where we've had some great impacts on campus. I approached it like the hummingbird – always moving, always working, despite often feeling insignificant and overwhelmed. I certainly haven’t come close to solving the litany of environmental problems we face, but I’ve done the best I can. And, perhaps more importantly, because I’ve stayed involved in the community in so many ways, I’ve had many people watching me behave like the hummingbird.   

The hummingbird doesn’t waste time judging other’s poor behaviour, or lecturing friends about why they should help – but when the others ask, he/she takes a moment to explain before continuing the work. The best leaders lead by example. When others see that in you, it makes them curious – it makes them ask why – and that’s your chance to help them make the same connections. 

You have already begun learning science and developing a land ethic – that’s what this competition was about. And it’s in this spirit that I’m offering you a gift of milkweed seeds. For those of you that don’t know, milkweed is a scraggly looking, pink-flowered weed of fields, pastures and roadsides. Environmental scientists tell us that our emphasis on weed-free crops in recent years has reduced milkweed plants across the continent, which has also contributed to a 90% decline in populations of the monarch butterfly, an amazing insect that migrates between Mexico to the Northern US and Canada – an amazing insect that has no dollar value. And I’m asking you now to be a hummingbird for milkweed and monarchs. 

I’m sure you’re tired after a busy couple of days. But instead of going home and watching TV tonight, get together with your teammates, and plant some seeds. Find a spot where they won’t be cut down or trampled, poke them into the earth, and add some water. Watch them grow, let them mature and flower, and when the next generation of seeds is ready, do it all over again. The Monarchs might come back, or they might not, but the hummingbird never stops while the fire is still burning.