The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
How climate change is already impacting Scottish life, farming and biodiversity.
As a ‘code red’ climate warning is sounded by the UN ahead of Cop26 in Glasgow, Michael Alexander finds out how climate change is already impacting on Scottish biodiversity, farming and infrastructure
It was the landmark report that brought home what we already knew – that human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways and that global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control. The latest report from scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published on August 9, warned that the deadly heatwaves, gargantuan hurricanes and other weather extremes that are already happening worldwide will only become more severe.
Described by UN Secretary-General António Guterres as a “code red for humanity”,
many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, the report warned, and some of the changes already set in motion – such as continued sea level rise – will take just as long to reverse.
However, the report said strong and sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases would limit climate change.
In November, the UN Cop26 conference in Glasgow will try to wring much more ambitious climate action out of the nations of the world, and the money to go with it.
But with the report warning that climate change is already with us, what impact is it already having on Scotland, and how much worse might it get?
From tinder dry hillsides, to flash floods and less predictable seasons for plants and animals, Perth-based Royal Scottish Geographical Society chief executive Mike Robinson says the signals of change are all pointing in the same direction – an increasingly warm and volatile climate.
Take August 2020. When torrential rain and highly-localised thunderstorms battered parts of central and eastern Scotland, it led to unprecedented levels of chaos rarely seen on such a scale.
Tragedy struck when a ScotRail service from Aberdeen to Glasgow hit a landslide south of Stonehaven, killing three people.
Dozens were rescued after a landslide at Pettycur Bay Holiday Park in Fife, while staff at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy discovered their vehicles under water when the site car park flooded.
In all, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service received more than 1,000 emergency calls in one night due to the severe weather amid multiple flooding, power outages and schools closing on the day they were due to return after lockdown.
The Fife village of Freuchie has been no stranger to flooding over the years, with flood mitigation measures installed at Freuchie Mills to combat previous problems.
However, when several houses were badly
flooded again during last August’s downpour – prompting more expensive remedial action – residents said the intensity and longevity of both the rain and lightning was like nothing ever seen before.
“Even though we had been told it had flooded before, we were told it was a one-ina-century chance,” says one former resident, whose house and garden was devastated by one-metre deep floodwaters when drains and a culvert overflowed and the street “filled up like a fish bowl”.
“But these intense rain events definitely seem to be getting more frequent. I think climate change will increasingly play a huge role and more people will find themselves dealing with the impact of flooding, wherever they live. There needs to be more scrutiny of where houses are built.”
Amateur Fife weather enthusiast Graham Smith, 45, of Lochgelly, says “abnormal is the new normal” when it comes to our weather.
The cyber security engineer, who runs his FifeWeather website and Twitter account as a hobby, says it’s “quite alarming” to see weather records broken year-on-year worldwide.
The latest analysis of the UK climate, State of the UK Climate 2020 published in The Royal Meteorological Society’s International Journal of Climatology, show that all of the top-10 warmest years for the UK in records back to 1884 have occurred since 2002. As well as increased temperatures, the UK has been, on average, 6% wetter over the last 30 years.
However, Graham is no longer surprised by the trends.
“While my 15 years of weather station records don’t constitute “climatic records”, there’s no denying that our weather is generally becoming more erratic, with extremes occurring with greater regularity and ferocity,” he says.
“Without significant global action being taken to reduce or, moreover, halt greenhouse gas and other emissions that contribute to the warming of our atmosphere and oceans, I only foresee more extreme and potentially life-threatening weather events to come.”
Debbie Bassett, climate change co-ordinator and Cop26 co-ordinator for Scotland’s nature agency NatureScot, says climate change is already having a “measureable impact” on Scotland’s biodiversity and the interrelationship between species.
For example, ptarmigan are running out of space as warming temperatures push them higher up our mountains, some insects and mosses are struggling, while changes to the timing of crane fly larvae hatching is impacting on the ability of the iconic capercaillie to feed their chicks. Puffin colonies are also under threat as warmer seas reduce their sandeel food source, while increased flooding from heavy storms has seen more eggs and chicks destroyed.
Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to disentangle the effects of climate change from other pressures like pollution or land intensification.
“It can be difficult to work out which is driving the change,” says Debbie, a self proclaimed optimist who admits that the IPCC report “knocked the wind” out of her.
“One of the things we do know is that as climate change gets worse, it also makes the impact of the other pressures even worse. It’s kind of like a double whammy on nature and people.
“In terms of species across Scotland, we know there’s about a 24% decline in their amount. It’s not that we’ve lost species, but for each individual type it’s going down.”
Debbie says that while global floods and wildfires are “big and obvious”, the changes in nature are more subtle and slow and often go unnoticed until a longer time period has passed.
As a child she remembers her dad having to stop the car to clear the windscreen because it was covered in insects. Yet today that’s unheard of because insects have declined.
“We are concerned that young people today have a lower baseline. They think today’s landscape is what nature is, yet it’s not and it shouldn’t be like this,” she adds.
In the run-up to Cop26, NatureScot is trying to promote “making space for nature” whether that be on your windowsill, in the park or at work.
With much of the human race now “disconnected” from nature despite having evolved as part of the same system for thousands of years, ways have to be found to “use and help nature to help us instead of pushing it to the side lines in the corner of a field”.
However, while Scotland has “really ambitious” targets to have net-zero carbon emission by 2045, and to be 75% of the way there by 2030, there has to be a meaningful global approach which underlines why Cop26 is so “monumentally important”.
“It’s estimated that about a third of climate change targets are going to be met by nature,” says Debbie, “and the only way nature can do that is if we look after it better than we are now. The more diverse nature is, the more robust it is, and the more it is able to cope with shocks like climate change.”
Farmers are often in the spotlight when it comes to discussions around climate change and greenhouse gas emissions from livestock. However, many farmers are also at the sharp end when it comes to the impact of extreme weather.
As stakeholders representing agriculture and the environment, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and NFU Scotland have agreed that a sustainable agricultural sector and a thriving natural environment can be mutually supportive of one another.
Through Champions for Change – a collaborative project to demonstrate that there are real champions within the industry that want to see a powerful change of direction – there’s an acknowledgement that policies for agriculture, the rural economy, and climate change and the environment have conflicted in the past.
Hugh Ironside, of SAC Consulting, is a Cupar-based senior agricultural consultant advising farmers and land users in Fife.
He says fluctuations in very wet and very dry conditions mean that farmers are having to enhance their irrigation capabilities while at the same time improve often longneglected arterial drainage.
In productive areas like Fife, with highvalue crops, this means “quite considerable money” is having to be spent.
Also impacting, however, is the banning of various plant protection products. This means there’s a “greatly-diminished armoury” to combat beasties like slugs, flea beetles and leatherjackets.
“Farmers are working out their carbon footprints and trying to get their heads around carbon dioxide equivalents per tonne of grain produced,” says Hugh.
“That’s partly government-policy driven, but everyone’s realising this is the way things are going and everyone’s going to have to understand that. In Fife, one of the big things is the utilisation of nitrogen fertilisers.
We’ve got to remember that the world wouldn’t be able to feed six billion people if it wasn’t for nitrogen fertiliser, but it is one of the contributors to the carbon footprint of crops. So we’ve got to be re-examining how we’re using it and perhaps more accurately using it.”
Professor Rob Duck, emeritus professor of environmental geoscience at Dundee University, says the debate about climate changed hasn’t really changed in the 10 years since he wrote a book called This Shrinking Land: Climate Change and Britain’s Coasts.
He finds it “incredible” how slow people have been to react to the climate crisis after decades of awareness raising, including features in The Courier.
However, its impact is already being felt locally. Since 1900, sea levels in the Tay
– depending on location – have gone up somewhere between 3cm and 6cm, in spite of post-Ice Age isostatic recovery. Models predict at least a 25cm rise in sea levels in the Tay Estuary by the end of this century, and it’s on that basis that new flood defences have been built at Broughty Ferry and on Dundee’s Riverside.
“Those defences are absolutely great,” he says, “but they are only temporary really. They are only going to last 20-30 years until things get potentially worse, unless we are able to curb emissions and somehow reduce the acceleration of sea-level rise.
“The thing I always like to emphasise is we are seeing a greater frequency of extreme events now – rainfall, flooding, landslides, forest fires – all these things. But I don’t think the magnitude of them is changing at all. They are just happening more often.”
Prof Duck said melting ice caps-glaciers and “thermal expansion” of water as it heats up were both responsible for rising sea levels. He said this was all due to global temperatures rising since the industrial revolution and the start of the massive use of fossil fuels like coal.
With climate change already happening and likely to get worse, he said the world had to “adapt”.
In some parts of the country this might include giving up some areas to the sea or, in the case of the Tay, giving up some former flood-plains back to nature through “managed realignment”.
“The implications are that with areas vulnerable to flooding and sea-level rise, you can’t just go on building higher and higher defences and higher walls – you’ve got to look at relocating settlements to more secure sites inland,” he says.
“You’ve also got to think about old defences being knocked down and make space for water in areas that are perhaps just used for agriculture at the moment. Say parts of the inner Tay, inner Forth – those sorts of areas allowing more space for water where it won’t cause any disruption to infrastructure.
“The key word is we’ve got to ‘adapt’ to it, because on an island like Britain there’s going to be winners and losers from climate change, particularly on the coast.”
WE ARE SEEING A GREATER FREQUENCY OF EXTREME EVENTS NOW – RAINFALL, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES, FOREST FIRES...THEY ARE JUST HAPPENING MORE OFTEN
Q Where in the world are you happiest?
A With my extended family.
Q Favourite part of Scotland to explore? A I never get bored of finding new places in Scotland.
Q What would you have done if you hadn’t followed your current career path?
A Something to do with cake.
Q Who inspires you? A My mother.
Q Your house is on fire, what one item do you save?
A The pets. Things don’t matter.
Q Theme song for your life?
A Try Everything by Shakira.
Q Last meal on earth? A A tub of Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream all to myself.
Q Dream post-Covid dinner guests?
A I just dream of being out to dinner at all. Wanna come? Q First thing you’d do if you won £1 million?
A Buy the field where I walk my dog and donate it to the community before someone builds on it. Q If you could rule for a day, what would be the first thing you would do?
A I’d get up early and have a fair crack at sorting out the deep inequalities in our society.
Q Tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know?
A I’m pretty good at table tennis.
Q Favourite holiday destination? A Scotland – which is lucky.
Q What was the last book you read?
A Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann.
Q If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A Him indoors makes a truly excellent stir fry with all the food groups.
Q What makes you happy?
A My beautiful son and
my daft dog.
Q What makes you sad? A What we are doing to this wonderful planet and its inhabitants.
Q Do you believe in love at first sight?
A Yes.
Q Have you ever had a paranormal encounter? A No – but I think my cat sees ghosts.
Q What was the first album you ever bought? A Voulez-Vous by ABBA.
Q If you could go back to any point in history, what would it be?
A The Weimar Republic in Germany – but with all the art and no Nazis.
Q What is the best advice you have ever received, and who did it come from?
A This too must pass – from my very wise mum.
Q What do you do to unwind?
A Walk the dog or hang with good friends – sometimes both at once.
Q Happiest memory? A Many times walking with my family on Cullen beach as the sun set.
Q And most embarrassing?
A Oh so many mishaps – but they make good stories.
Q Biggest regret? A Every path I took led me to where I am now and I wouldn’t give up what I have for the world.
Q What or who are you proudest of?
A My boy.
Q Who do you admire most?
A All parents with neuro-diverse children. It’s a hard road and they are heroes, one and all.
Q And who do you detest?
A Self-serving politicians.
Q If you could turn back the clock, what one thing would you change?
A I’m going to leave that question to someone much smarter than me to ponder. Q Who would you like to thank?
A My support network – I hope they know who they are and how much I am grateful to them.
Q What advice would you give to your younger self?
A What you learn now, however hard, will stand you in good stead later on.
Q How have your priorities changed as you have got older?
A I go home to my family instead of going out on the randan – most days...
Q What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do?
A Be a parent.
Q Hardest thing you’ve had to give up during the pandemic?
A I’m not going to complain. There were many, many people having a much harder time.
Q Could you save someone’s life if they were dying in the street? A I’m afraid I’d be a bit useless, but I’d keep the heid and delegate.
Q What’s your motto? A One day, this will make a good story...
Q Write your own epitaph?
A I hope I made you smile.
Q What keeps you awake at night?
A Everything. I’m an insomniac.
Q Where would you rather be right now? A I’m actually pretty comfy, thank you.
Nutshell Theatre presents Allotment at St Andrews Botanic Gardens, 2pm and 4pm, tomorrow. byretheatre.com