#5 Mending Scotland’s Mountains & Axing Aviation Emissions

Photo by Lukas Hartmann from Pexels

Morning Jo(k)e

“Why should I clean? Housework is futile. You make the bed, you do the dishes, and then six months later you have to start all over again.”

-Joan Rivers

Greening Pastures

In what I can only imagine was inspired by the beloved icon Eliza Thornberry, Rewilding Europe, a non-profit established in 2011, has set out with the goal of restoring parts of the continent to their former “wild” state. Currently, Rewilding Europe has projects in Romania, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Ukraine/ Moldova, Germany/ Poland, Sweden, and, most recently, Scotland. 

In order to ensure the local community is involved in each project, Rewilding Europe partners with a local organization. In Scotland, Rewilding Europe has partnered with the charity Trees for Life on their joint effort called the Affric Highlands Project. For over twenty-five years, Trees for Life has been focused on rewilding the Scottish Highlands, and the Affric Highlands Project is its most ambitious effort yet. 

To many, the Scottish Highlands evokes mental images of lush forests and bustling wildlife. However, in reality, much of the Highlands has been overgrazed by sheep and deer and over-modified by human involvement, according to Trees for Life. 

After years of planning, 2021 saw the beginning of these two organizations’ incredible thirty-year plan to reforest over half a million acres (200,000 hectares), repopulate the wildlife, and reconnect Scottish communities with the Highlands. In order to achieve these goals, they will be reconnecting pockets of habitat across the area, providing corridors for the wildlife to move within, and greatly expanding the area in which they are contained (essentially like transferring Shamu from a pond into Lake Superior). In order to reconnect the habitats, the organizations will be planting over two million trees, transforming the bare hills back into rich forests. 

In order to ensure these forests are not just immediately cleared again, the wild deer populations will be shrunk. Rather than looking like a reenactment of the first five minutes of Bambi, they will be culling deer using population modeling software purely to prevent overgrazing and felling. The modeling software used will also keep track of the population and ensure it does not dwindle. This is necessary because a low number of natural predators remain in the area due to a myriad of reasons including loss of habitat, hunting, etc. Therefore, without any predators to keep the deer populations in check, the deer have exponentially increased and have caused damaging levels of overgrazing.

Another important effort of this project will be rewetting peatlands. Peatlands (a type of wetland) have been drained and dried out for years in the Highlands, taking away important habitats and ecological services. One of those ecological services is absorbing carbon like a sponge. Through rewetting, the peatland will become a natural carbon “sink” wherein atmospheric carbon is captured and stored (interested in reading more about peatlands? Click HERE).

Beyond the ecosystem, this project is making great efforts to involve local communities. The organizations involved will be working with nearby communities to educate and inform them of best management practices they can use to support the rewilding efforts (think removing fencing). They will also be employing sustainable business models to encourage wildlife tourism and produce sustainably harvested products that they hope will boost the local economy. This is important in maintaining an interest in nature with communities and tourists alike while also keeping the integrity of the natural ecosystem, which can often be a difficult line to walk. 

The project also focuses on long-term engagement with local communities and travelers. One way this is being executed is through building the world’s first “rewilding center” which will be completed by 2023. The center is being built on a transformed hunting estate, and its goal will be to educate people about this project while employing fifteen people annually. 

With their holistic and sustainable approach, Rewilding Europe and Trees for Life are well on their way to restoring the grandeur of the Scottish Highlands. 

Budding Hope

Now that the world is returning to normal travel schedules, global jet fuel consumption is back on the rise, and that means emissions are skyrocketing once again. In 2019, global jet fuel consumption reached an all-time high of 95 billion gallons (~360 billion liters). With about 21.5lbs of CO2 emissions released per gallon of jet fuel burned, that translates to over 2 trillion pounds of CO2 emissions in 2019 alone, so it’s no wonder that the aviation industry produces about 2% of all global CO2 emissions.

With such high emissions, researchers have been scrambling to find fuel alternatives to cut the climate impact of the aviation industry. Fortunately, Dr. Dwivendi’s lab from the University of Georgia thinks they found a promising avenue. 

The lab’s recent study published in GCB-Bioenergy discusses an alternative “sustainable aviation fuel” that uses a mustard plant to cut jet fuel emissions between 61-68%. This fuel uses an oil derived from Ethiopian mustard (Brassica carinata), which can also be grown in the southern region of the U.S. The study notes that this could be a promising cash crop for farmers, particularly because the mustard plant is grown in the winter during the “off” season, so it doesn’t compete with food crops, thus avoiding food vs fuel issues. Further, Ethiopian mustard is an effective cover crop, which means it has benefits to both soil health and water quality.

The only hurdles Dr. Dwivendi foresees are in “secur[ing] feedstock supply and provid[ing] suitable economic incentives along the supply chain”. Also, there is an immediate bottleneck with a lack of infrastructure for processing the oil into fuel.

Fortunately, President Joe Biden proposed in September of 2021 a sustainable fuel tax credit as part of his effort to increase sustainable aviation fuels. His plan involves cutting aviation emissions 20% by 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2050 (net zero isn’t necessarily zero emissions, but often includes carbon offsets/sinks). With its minimum sixty-one percent decrease, this mustard-derived fuel far exceeds the tax credit’s 50% requirement.

I know what you’re thinking, “this has to be too good to be true”, and it is! But only kind of. Unfortunately, even with the proposed tax credit, the team calculated the price for producing the mustard-derived fuel to be at most $1.28/Liter ($3.82/gal), which is still far pricier than the current petroleum-based aviation fuel at $0.50/Liter ($1.49/gal). However, Dr. Dwivendi still hopes Biden’s aviation goals will support this crop’s production in the southern U.S.

The researchers’ future endeavors are focused on producing this mustard crop in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. Dr. Dwivendi believes Georgia is the biggest player since it is the largest consumer of aviation fuel in the country, hosts the busiest airport in the world, and is a prime candidate for growing Ethiopian mustard within the state. His lab is currently creating models of these states' economic and environmental possibilities.

Feeling Inspired?

Wow, don’t you feel so inspired that you want to do something to “make a difference”? Well, if so, you can start with something as simple as eating foods that are in season. Not only is food that’s in season fresher, riper, and has a better flavor, it also tends to be better for the environment. 

Why? Because that pear you got in the dead of winter probably didn’t come from a local farmer. Instead, it was probably picked before it was ripe and imported/ shipped to your grocery store, creating lots of fuel emissions along the way. 

A simple way to eat foods that are in season is to eat locally grown produce. Plus, that helps you support local farmers as well. Double win! 

Not sure what’s in season near you? Check this guide to find out.

Branch Out

If you’re interested in reading words that are outside this newsletter, I highly recommend the fantastic book Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the High Plains. This book, written by William Ashworth, tells the history of the Ogallala Aquifer in the Great Plains from its formation millions of years ago to predictions of how it will look in the future. It’s great for people who don’t know anything about aquifers/groundwater as well as people who do. I can’t recommend it enough. Plus, I bet it’d make a great gift for that person you can’t think of what to get them. Because who doesn’t like reading about the existential crisis of the U.S. running out of water?