Methane, the principal component of natural gas, is viewed by environmental extremists as one of the greatest dangers to planet Earth. The anti-carbon-dioxide crowd has long targeted humans and cows. Today, even biodiversity-enhancing beavers are also labeled as illegal immigrant planet killers.
According to Desirée Plata, Director of the MIT Methane Network, “If methane emissions from natural gas are on the high end of current estimates, natural gas may be no improvement over coal at all,” even though the switch from coal to natural gas is typically credited for lowering U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
The fear of carbon dioxide – vital to plant growth and thus to human life – stems from the curious desire to stop all future changes to the Earth’s climate. A worldwide campaign demands that “Net Zero by 2050” be (as Al Gore says) “the central organizing principle of civilization.”
Humans have for millennia used coal, and now oil and natural gas, for heating and cooking – and for many other purposes (including transportation). But fossil fuels are the chief villain to those clamoring for an all-electric society, reliant primarily on wind turbines and solar arrays, that cannot provide fuel and electricity equitably for eight billion people.
The anti-carbon crowd’s newest villain is Castor canadensis, otherwise known as the North American beaver. This methane producer, we are told, must be stopped from destroying Alaska. And, we are told, “beavers are on the move in northern Canada, too.” Imagine if Russia began reintroducing European beavers (Castor fiber) to Siberia! [Oops! They are.]
What is the beavers’ crime? The ecofreaks tell us they are causing MORE climate change simply by building dams in areas formerly too bleak for occupation.
As chronicled in a study from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, beavers are taking advantage of shorter winters in the Arctic to move north. Over the past 40 years, beavers have built dams that created 11,000 new ponds. These ponds cause releases of methane, as flooded vegetation rots and spreading water thaws the surrounding permafrost.
The study’s principals admit they have no idea of the long-term impacts of this beaver “invasion” but agree it must be stopped to save the planet. Without drastic action (not including a revival of trapping), lead author Ken Tape says, “this entire area, the north slope of Alaska, will be colonized by beavers by 2100.”
To accomplish this mammoth task – the removal of beavers from the Arctic – there will have to be a massive campaign to denigrate an animal long cherished in story and song.
In C.S. Lewis’s classic tale, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver rescue and advise the four children who have unwittingly entered Narnia and face death from the evil witch. Their very arrival brings about a warming of the Narnian permafrost. Even here, beavers partnered with humans to “warm” the planet.
Other beavers, too, can now be seen as villains. That old cavity fighter, Bucky Beaver, who for years did battle with D. K. Germ as a shill for Ipana toothpaste, has long been retired, and even Beaver Cleaver reruns are rarely seen today. But there is a new evil Buc-ee Beaver selling gasoline at stations with dozens of pumps each.
[Leave It to Beaver has been accused (or, rather, touted) as a “medieval morality play” and a response to Communism’s disdain for the nuclear family. The writers, says author Michael De Sapio, delivered a message that “family is a refuge from the corruption of the world.” And as David Brooks tells us, the very concept of the nuclear family “was a mistake” that must not, and cannot, be repeated. Bad Beaver!]
But hold on a minute. Even these Arctic researchers admit that the “humble beaver” is a highly skilled “environmental engineer” who, in the face of increasing wildfires and droughts, is an ally in the “fight against climate change.”
As environmental science professor Emily Fairfax explains, “They build these dams, which slow the water down, they dig canals that spread the water out, and ultimately they just give it time to sink into the earth like a big old sponge.”
In the United Kingdom, beavers were hunted to near-extinction 400 years ago for their fur, meat, and castoreum but have been reintroduced in recent years. Robin McKie, science editor at The Guardian, reports that “few animals could beat the beaver as a restorer of blighted landscapes.” Matt Holden of the Devon Wildlife Trust says, “In the UK, we have lost more than 75 percent of our wetlands, and beavers can bring some of that back – by building dams.”
McKie says the humble rodents’ ecological prowess means they have a “crucial role to play in helping the nation revitalize its biodiversity and find solutions to the impacts of climate change.” University of Exeter professor Richard Brazier adds, “Beavers can play a major role in restoring landscapes, cleaning up polluted waterways and helping the fortunes of other threatened species.”
To Brazier, there’s just one problem. The UK’s Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) “has been sitting on an agreed scheme to introduce [beavers] across England and seems to be refusing to take action.”
Worse, says Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, “Unfortunately, the environment secretary [Thérèse Coffey] … even seems to be considering a potentially disastrous removal of beavers’ protected status, a further sign that this government is weak on environmental issues.” [The anti-beaver Coffey was replaced in November.]
In the northern climates of Russia, Alaska, and Canada, growing seasons are getting longer, increasing plant (and tree) productivity and providing new planting opportunities. Beavers play a role in extending growing seasons. The Trudeau government, however, warns that “related changes in pest species, fire regimes, droughts, and other climate extremes may limit the extent to which these gains are realized.”
Even the World Economic Forum says that “Beavers are showing that their impacts can offer added levels of ecosystem resilience to a changing climate that we would be wise to embrace.” The WEF also says that natural disturbance caused by beavers can create floodplain woodlands that are wilder and wetter, allowing greater biodiversity – and can even improve water quality.
So what if their activities cause minor releases of methane gas from permafrost? [Were beavers responsible for melting the glaciers that once covered much of North America? Would Earth be better off with those lands still covered in ice? Or is “climate change” only bad today?]
Perhaps we should just trust that beavers broadening biodiversity in Alaska and other northern climes are, in fact, doing “the Lord’s work.” Maybe we should continue to celebrate the beaver as the environmental superstar the WEF even applauds – and not as “climate destroyers,” as some want to brand them.
Maybe the world would be a better place if we would all just brush our teeth along with Bucky, gas up at Buc-ee’s (which today even has EV charging stations at some locations), and find some old reruns of “Leave It to Beaver” or even curl up with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver to defeat the wicked witch and put an end to endless winter with no Christmas.