'The Past Matters', & there is such a thing as 'too late' – Dr. John Smol on Climate Change

Jeff Green | Feb 03, 2021

The 350 Kingston, ‘Turning the Tide on Climate’ Speaker Series, presented a Zoom talk by Queen's Professor, Dr. John Smol, on Monday Night (February 1).

Dr. Smol is a paleo-limnologist. He studies the sediment at the bottom of lakes, to learn about the past. He is the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change at Queen’s University. He founded and co-directs the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL), where students and other scientists study long-term global impacts of climatic change, acidification, eutrophication, contaminant transport, and other environmental stressors.

“As for climate, no one can deny something strange is happening, but some people say it always changes. And we don't have very much direct evidence of the past to settle that question,” he said. The best direct record we have is of temperature, because of Dr.'s Farenheit and Celsius, but that record only goes back to 1700,” he told those who were gathered virtually in front of their devices, across the region.

He said that while radiocarbon dating can provide information going back thousands of years, it does not work for the last 100 or 150 years.

He briefly explained how the sediment record provides information about the more recent past.

“The overall idea is very straightforward. Lakes simply fill with mud. All day long, from outside the lake, and from within the lake. It is like a history book, slowly layered down at the bottom of the lake. Most lakes have 4 metres of sediment, collecting their history going back 12,000 years to when they were created by the last Ice Age. The Last few hundred years is collected in the top 50 centimetres. We section the sediment, removing a 1/4 centimetre at a time, and analyze the contents. In that mud, is a library of information, contaminants like mercury, lead, and cadmium; insecticides, and pollen grains. Everything living in a lake is leaving some sort of fossil, and we can reconstruct what was there. We do that all the time.”

The information that has been gathered from the sediment record in lakes in the Far North, on the Canadian Shield and elsewhere, demonstrates that climate change is an issue that overwhelms all other environmental problems”.

Dr. Smol has been conducting studies in the Far North ever since he was a PHD student. He has studied a series of lakes and ponds over that time. As ice cover has decreased over that time, the lakes and ponds have begun to disappear.

“Some have shrunk, some that were year round ponds, have become seasonal ponds, and some are gone altogether,” he said.

His studies, and others, came to the conclusion that the arctic climate was stable for thousands of years, and has changed “tremendously” since the late 1800's, a pace that has picked up speed in the last few decades and has accelerated at a tremendous pace, over the last ten years, now that so much ice has melted.

As an example of how the heating accelerates when ice melts, he said it is like a white car and dark car, in a parking lot, on a hot day.

“The dark car will be hotter because it absorbs heat. The white car will be cooler because some of the heat bounces off of it.” When snow cover melts and becomes bare ground, it is like a white car being painted black.

He said that he has seen these changes happen during his lifetime as he has done his studies in the far north,

“I have seen this happen in my lifetime, The salt levels in those lakes increase every year, and the habitat changes. Wetlands are gone. The North is at the front end of climate change and the changes have been tremendous. But, what happens in the North doesn't stay in the North.”

One of the impacts of climate change, that PEARL is studying in the lakes the Canadian Shield Lakes, where sediment research has been ongoing, (including Lake Opinicon where the Queen's University Biological Station is located), are the proliferation of Blue Green Algae blooms.

“Algae Blooms, of which the Blue-Green variety are the most dramatic, have always been associated with high levels of phosphorus. But, we have seen in recent years that lakes where the phosphorus levels have been brought under control, are starting to develop algae blooms again, as ice cover diminishes in winter and water temperatures rise. Lake of the Woods is an example. They did a good job decreasing phosphorus, and it worked for a while, but they are seeing algae blooms again. Lakes with very low levels of phosphorus are able to avoid blooms, but even moderate levels are now dealing with these blooms.

“The Rideau Lakes, in particular, have been hit by algae blooms.”

On a political note, Dr. Smol pointed to the work of James Powell from MIT, who is a researcher with close ties to the Republican Party in the United States.

He looked at all of the peer-reviewed scientific studies that support the thesis that human behaviour is causing climate change and those that don't support that thesis. The ratio is over 99% to under 1% (1767 studies to 1 study).

“Yet, in a poll, 30% of Canadians said they did not believe climate change is caused by human behaviour. How do we address that,” he said.

He also quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, who was talking about civil rights at the time, but whose words can be easily applied to the situation humanity is now facing, as regards climate change,

“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”

After the talk, Dr. Smol took questions from the Zoom chat.

He was asked about how individuals can take action, he said that lifestyle is a factor, including how people spend money. He also said that making votes count is a key element.

“If we tell politicians that climate policy is what drives our vote, they will have to respond.”

Just like he has found in his studies, where a complicated set of inter-relationships are always at play, the climate change response needs to be comprehensive.

One of the questions he answered was about the impact of electric cars.

“Electric cars are great, and they are coming. Major manufacturers are saying they will produce only electric cars within 10 or 15 years, but where is the electricity coming from? If it is coming from coal fired plants, we won't accomplish anything, but if it is coming from renewable energy we will.”