I NI never imagined that planting a backyard garden would send me into a philosophical downward spiral. It was an act that made me question the principles upon which so much of my personality was based. And yet, here I am.
For years, my backyard has been an eroded wasteland born of laziness and neglect that the Dust Bowl would blush at the sight of. So I figured I could take it upon myself to replant it with native, endogenous plants, since they adapt to the local climate and contribute to local biodiversity—basic layman’s knowledge that can be found on Reddit.
That was until I came across a website detailing how the climate could change depending on emissions trends. Little did I know that I was about to enter Wonderland and learn just how deep the rabbit hole is.
This site, “What will the climate feel like in 60 years?”, spoiled me. It describes what the climate in American cities will feel like in 2080 if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at current rates. San Diego, my hometown, will resemble Los Angeles. And LA itself? We’ll look a lot like the spring breaker paradise of Cabo San Lucas. Oh no.
I have spent my entire life passionate about native plants. As an aspiring landscape architect, it’s a natural inclination; or so I explain to concerned friends and relatives. In researching Southern California’s plant life and its ecological communities, I have come to the ethical conclusion that truly sustainable landscapes must reflect the plant communities that live in close proximity to the planting area. None of these “native California” rushes – it’s a caricature of a set of ecological communities so vast that they have as much specificity as “Italian food.”
But climate change, as it often does, complicates any preconceived notions about the truth of what plant choices would be appropriate for a particular place. Change blurs the very definition of home.
Generally, climate zones are beginning to move away from the equator due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, that means they’re moving north. Plants that have adapted to a particular climate over millions of years will be ill-equipped to handle the new climate. Lacking the ability to lift their skirts and disappear, specialized plants will likely go extinct in the decades that follow.
This news is particularly disturbing to me, as I tend to be a stubborn purist in most of my creative endeavors. I even mocked USC for choosing simple plants for its landscaping. My native aster.
Scientists worldwide have begun to notice this phenomenon as many animal species move into ecosystems they have never inhabited before. Grizzly bears move north, make tender love to polar bears and give birth to pizzlies. Coral reefs migrate from the Caribbean to Galveston, Texas, and parrotfish swim to the Mediterranean. Others are exotic refugees, like the famous parrots of Southern California. While this migration of fauna itself raises many questions—a “will they or won’t they” about the potential ecological destruction these climate migrants are causing—the unfortunate fact is that many plants do not have this ability to relocate.
Plants have the best chance of survival when their seeds travel on a migratory species. But plants don’t have that chance if native animals have already migrated. Whether we like it or not, we humans are responsible for cleaning up the mess we’ve made. And the situation is different in every city.
In the case of Los Angeles, Cabo’s climate is no gift. Sure, the pictures of sun-tanned spring break addicts you sent are absolutely repulsive—I’m bashing that colloquialism—but it won’t stay pretty for long. Instead of our current year-round bliss and a humid rainy season, late summer in 2080 will bring muggy, oppressive 90 degrees Fahrenheit and 2.5 inches of rain, while midday temperatures will be over 75 degrees year-round. Sure, winter will be drier, but temperatures will still drive people indoors. Adding to this bad news is that LA’s urban heat island effect will push temperatures up another 1-7 degrees Celsius beyond the forecast. Hope you like 84 degrees in December. Cabo, California doesn’t look so great now, does it?
For native plants, the news is even worse. LA’s native plants have adapted to dry summers and wet winters, and for many, summer water is a death sentence. The final verdict of climate change for our native plants and the species they support is the death penalty.
One might be tempted to look at this catastrophe and ignore the impending cataclysm. This is certainly not a new thought. The likely result of this laissez-faire approach to environmental protection is that California plants that are well adapted to a wide range of climates, such as Baccharis salicifolia or even the California poppy that has spread here, will stay in LA, while climate migrants and invasive species will occupy the abundant remaining space.
The latter category of species will decimate biodiversity and ecosystems.According to The Guardian 20-30% increase the total amount of invasive species would be enough to cause global ecological collapse. Many invasive species affecting California, such as ryegrass, are known to cause fires that wipe out competition and turn once-lush prairies into smoldering ash just waiting to be overrun. Thus, ryegrass has consumed California’s once-native grasslands. The fires themselves are expected to get worse with or without additional help from invasive species, meaning their spread can only mean further disaster.
Unless large-scale forest fires and the loss of entire ecosystems prove to be a positive, the best thing we can do is actually address the gap left by the plants that cannot cope.
Another option is to simply surrender and plant species thatin general native to the Area and the state. In my experience, this is what most landscapers do anyway. The assumption is that species that become extinct in the wild will survive, at least in urban areas. Therefore, the pitcher sage from the Santa Monica Mountains is planted next to the Catalina currant. This gives the landscaper the opportunity to decide which plants to protect and preserve.
What’s particularly annoying is that the justification I’ve heard for these plantings is that the changing climate is making true native plants obsolete. Many native plants are planted under the guise of environmental awareness, but are carried out on whim and fancy. For reasons I don’t fully understand, the plants that amateur gardeners end up choosing are the ones that are most advertised.
If this were not the case, these gardeners would be planting plants native to Baja California Sur. But that would require research, and that is the real crux of the argument.
Of course, each approach has its drawbacks. Neglecting native species and allowing them to become locally extinct would mean the extinction of many local species that are far too specialized to move with the climate. Los Angeles has two critically endangered butterflies, the El Segundo Blue and the Palos Verdes Blue. Both are named after the neighborhood to which their range is restricted, and are restricted to one and two host plants, respectively.
These beautiful butterflies, the size of a thumbnail, would disappear because landscaping focuses on climate compatibility rather than ecological value. The truth is, we can only save as much as we try. There are ongoing campaigns to boost the populations of these two butterflies by restoring their habitat, but if we have to endure Cabo’s climate in 2080, their host plants could die out. And so could they.
As a last resort, one could introduce genetically modified native plants that are better adapted to the changing climate, but the effects of this unprecedented type of ecological intervention are completely unexplored. Given the results of the solutions mentioned above, I cannot imagine them being positive.
The only viable solution to the landscaping dilemma is to get to the root of the problem: Stop the hell emitting greenhouse gases. I shouldn’t have to decide whether it’s worth studying the plants that are native to this area because they’ll be extinct by the end of the century. I shouldn’t have to shift my efforts from creating something beautiful to something that won’t burn. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether I’ll be able to enjoy a nice day outside in my golden years.
It is not enough to compensate for the climate catastrophe with some harebrained plan to alleviate the problem. As long as the climate changes, we will lose something. Maybe it will be our homes in the largest fire ever recorded, maybe it will be the smell of sage on a dewy June morning, maybe it will be the idea of a lazy August afternoon, or maybe it will be the species that make a day outside a little more pleasant. If we do nothing, we will not recover from the scar we are inflicting on the Earth.
There’s a little button on this website that says, “What if we reduced emissions?” When I click on it, I see that the climate forecast for 2080 is shifted from Los Angeles to Monterey Park. Maybe all is not lost.
I’ve decided to plant native plants in my yard as if I had collected the seeds right from the canyon down the road. Landscaping with other plants doesn’t take into account the biodiversity, ecological or cultural aspects of landscaping with true native plants. And it’s a promise that we will find a way to protect the environment and hold ourselves accountable.
It’s a promise of optimism. It’s an uphill battle to protect threatened ecosystems and even harder to replicate those ecosystems in landscaping projects. But then again, optimism has never been easy to find. All we need are the seeds of hope.
