"You Bet Your Garden" Radio Show Spreading Misinformation About Invasive Species

Does misinformation behave like invasive species, spreading into people's minds, eluding normal checks and balances and resisting attempts to root it out? If so, the otherwise entertaining NPR radio program "You Bet Your Garden" is proving to be a primary means of distribution. Surprisingly, its website contains some of the most misleading and needlessly accusatory writings about invasive species to be found. The author and show host, Mike McGrath, is known for his big opinions about gardening--opinions that in this case prove to be wrong in a big way. As can be seen in the critique of two of his postings below, he uses now-familiar techniques to attack those of us who are concerned about the impact invasive species are having on forests, fields, and people's yards. The two postings critiqued here are particularly irresponsible given the apparent size of McGrath's audience.

A closer look at his postings shows that he may have "drunk the Kool-Aid" at some point, because two posts express a mainstream concern about the invasiveness demonstrated by plants like morning glory and Japanese honeysuckle, while two other posts, perhaps more recent, are riddled with conspicuous omissions and misinformation that then lead to reckless accusations.

Because this false narrative about nature is showing up in otherwise respectable outlets like NPR and the New York Times (critiques here and here), it's important to thoroughly dismantle the assertions being made.

Here is the most egregious post on McGrath's website, beginning with a listener's question. Indented paragraphs are quotes from his two posts, interspersed with my critiques. The headings in bold are a means of categorizing the tactics used.

Lesser celandine—for some, a Bitter Buttercup!

Q. We are in the process of restoring a Lehigh River bank with native plants. But the over 2000 beautiful spring natives we've put in are being choked by a thick blanket of lesser celandine that flourishes during the peak bloom of such natives as Dutchman's Breeches, Virginia Bluebells, Trillium and Trout Lilies. It was recommended that we use Roundup in February before the natives come up. I understand that the glyphosate in the Roundup is not severely evil. However the size of our area would require a major grant to purchase the amount we'd need. Pulling is tricky as the celandine produces little tubers along their roots that can stay behind. What are your thoughts on this? Literally hundreds of acres are affected.

---Ilse in Bethlehem

A. When tested by University of Pittsburgh researcher Dr. Rick Relyea, the active ingredient in the herbicide 'Roundup' (glyphosate) was found to be relatively innocuous to the amphibians he studies. But in real life the active ingredient is never used alone, and when Dr. Relyea usedactual Roundup purchased at retail, it wiped out massive numbers of frogs, toads and other amphibians. The surfactants and other so-called 'inert' ingredients in such chemical herbicides appear to be far from inert—or innocuous. (And they are considered trade secrets by the EPA and therefore do not legally need to be disclosed.) 

Important information withheld: In the paragraph quoted above, McGrath should know, and say, that there are wetland-safe formulations of glyphosate, with Rodeo being the best-known example. He also fails to point out that, since Monsanto's patent expired years ago, glyphosate has long been available from other companies, so there's no need to support Monsanto.

"Luckily, Round-Up is not approved for use near water, and I doubt anyone would invite Federal prosecution by writing you that big grant check." 

Threats based on misinformation: In the sentence above, McGrath actually adopts a bullying tone. He's suggesting that the woman seeking to save her watershed from a vast invasion of lesser celandine, and anyone who funded her work, could be prosecuted. He can only come to this false conclusion by remaining strangely unaware of wetland safe formulations of glyphosate.

"And hundreds of acres?! Removal of such a large number of plants along a river bank in any manner would lead to severe environmental devastation. And for what? To be able to risk replacing a plant that produces pretty yellow buttercup-like flowers and does a magnificent job of preventing erosion with different plants that thrived in a different era and may no longer have what it takes to compete in a world that's been dramatically changed by the presence of humans? 

Drinking the ideological Kool-Aid: In the paragraph above, McGrath takes some truth and warps it with propaganda. Lesser celandine is indeed pretty. Any effort to eliminate it over hundreds of acres would be disruptive and almost certain to fail. The hydrology of river valleys has in some cases been altered, favoring invasive species more tolerant of destabilized hydrology. But if you've read other defenses of invasive plants, you'll notice the similarities: An invasive plant's good qualities (beauty, erosion control--the latter may be questionable, because lesser celandine's leaves disappear in early summer, leaving the ground exposed to wind and rain) are offered as somehow compensating completely for the ecological disruption it causes. The interest in bringing back native species is characterized as sentimental, and the natives themselves are presumed too weak to make it in today's world.

By opposing action against invasive lesser celandine, McGrath echoes the logic of those opposed to taking action on climate change. Here is a recasting of his paragraph in terms of climate change, using the same sentence structure and logic: Any attempt to remove fossil fuels from our lives will devastate the economy. And for what? To deny Canada a warmer climate and force us to continue enduring cold winters, while denying us all the comforts and freedom fossil fuels make possible?

"Nature doesn't favor natives—or so called 'invaders'. Nature simply provides a canvas, and the rules of Darwin decide the winners. It's not the same river as when those other plants first flourished; human activity has changed everything about it and the area around it. The best I can suggest is that you establish a nearby area that you can protect with deep edging in which to show off your natives. Any attempts to remove that much celandine will be expensive, time-consuming, immensely destructive to the environment, and run a high risk of failure." 

Denial of co-evolution and ecology: Native plants are characterized, in the paragraph above, like some political ideologies characterize the poor, essentially as losers unfit for today's world, and therefore not deserving of any assistance. He willfully ignores the reason natives are important, and why the nonnative lesser celandine has such a competitive advantage. Through thousands of years of association with native plants, the native wildlife--insects, deer, etc.--have learned to eat them, not only their fruits but importantly their foliage as well. In this way, the solar energy collected by plants can move up the foodchain, supporting a thriving, diverse ecological community. An introduced plant like lesser celandine, poisonous as it turns out, may have had predators where it originally evolved, but has left those behind, and is left uneaten by the local wildlife. In its new environs, it therefore has an enormous competitive advantage. As it displaces native species, there's less and less food for the local wildlife. That's a big problem that McGrath, who is a gardener, not an ecologist, chooses to ignore.

"BUT you might be able to get it out of some small areas to help establish that refuge without causing too much damage. There is a new class of alternative broadleaf herbicide that uses Iron as its active ingredient—and it's specifically labeled for use on this plant (although the label just calls it "creeping buttercup", they clearly mean lesser celandine). Just go slowly, and try and keep it away from that priceless waterway as much as possible, as all herbicides must contain some type of surfactant or they won't work. 

Luckily, the surfactants and other inactive ingredients in natural products like this are designed to be gentle on the environment. And iron isn't a hormonal disruptor, like Roundup and many of the other chemical herbicides.  

And smothering the plants with wood ashes is an ancient tactic I found suggested in the lesser celandine article at a wonderful "Modern Herbal" website, www.botanical.com. This might be another nice experiment for a small area. But please don't mess with any right near the river; lesser celandine is virtually invulnerable in wet areas, and the erosion you'd cause trying to get it out would be immense. "

Skewed advice: Somehow, in the paragraphs above, McGrath assumes that all surfactants in chemical herbicides are bad, while those in "natural products"--he links to a product he happens to sell--can be okay. McGrath, having sworn off using manufactured herbicides like glyphosate, must then characterize all chemicals as bad, and recommend products that range from the untested to the highly dubious. Ideological purity in organic gardening and farming is commendable, but shouldn't be imposed on land managers dealing with hundreds of acres of nature preserves with little or no budget. In a condescending way, he assumes people trying to restore native habitats have unlimited time to apply untested and almost certainly less effective products. Like medicine, herbicides have differing toxicities, and can be used in an intelligent and carefully prescribed manner. Their abuse and overuse in industrial farming is as terrifying to nature preserve managers as anyone else, because it hastens the evolution of resistant weeds and makes farms less hospitable to species like monarch butterflies.

Note, too, that McGrath describes the waterway as "priceless", while not even mentioning the value of the terrestrial ecology that has been altered by the invasion of lesser celandine.


The post continues with a response to another listener's question about lesser celandine:

Q. We have a two-fold invasion of lesser celandine; in my planting beds and throughout our new lawn. There's so much in the lawn that we can't spot spray to get rid of it—it would kill the lawn, too. Thanks for any advice!

---Jen in Southeastern PA

Little help for besieged homeowners: In this second question, above, yet another homeowner has lost control over her lawn and garden, due to an invasion by lesser celandine. Many people have told me of the distress this causes them. In response, McGrath offers time-consuming and likely ineffective remedies, described below.

"First, test the lawn's soil; if the pH is low, add wood ashes to raise it to neutral and go heavy on the ashes overtop of the lesser celandine. By all means, try an iron-based herbicide as well. 
And then care for the lawn correctly! Your location—in the mid-Atlantic/Northern part of the country—strongly suggests that, unless its zoysia, your lawn is composed of cool-season grasses. So for you, 'correct' means: never cut it below three inches, never cut it during a dry heat wave, and feed it only in the Spring and Fall. 
And, as lesser celandine craves moisture, make sure you don't overwater the lawn. If we don't get rain, waterdeeply, but only once a week. If you see you're making headway, aerate the turf this fall to improve the drainage. (But if your lawn is always wet, you'll have to install drain tiles to fix the problem and start over to keep the celandine out. This weed beats grass any day in a sopping wet environment.) 
Dig it out of the flower beds relentlessly. Be persistent, get the below-ground tubers, and be sure to get it out earlyin the season—before it drops little seed-like things that also grow new plants, just like the underground tubers. (To quote the Modern Herbal website: "In the early summer, when the leaves and stems are dying down, grains drop to the ground, each capable of producing a new plant." ) 
Then cover any bare ground in the flower beds well with shredded leaves or other non-wood mulch and install deep edging to keep the celandine out. And again, don't overwater!"

More Kool-Aid, and an ugly accusation: Relevant to the paragraph quoted below, part of the ideological Kool-Aid that McGrath has drunk and is now sharing is that action against invasive species is futile. We see similarly pessimistic assumptions driving the resistance to action on climate change. He mentions dismissively a "hit list", which refers to lists of invasive species that homeowners should beware of. These are imperfect lists, but they are helpful to any homeowner wishing not to contribute to the ecological problems caused by invasive species.

Saving the worst for last, McGrath accuses the ecologically-minded people who developed invasive species lists of being in cahoots with corporate giant Monsanto. The land managers I know use herbicide in very small, targeted amounts--a little dab on the cut stump of an invasive shrub, here and there. People looking for someone or some thing to demonize typically imagine a big, pervasive enemy, wanton spraying from giant machines. McGrath's accusation, unsubstantiated of course, is both comic and offensive.

And please dear listeners and readers, don't go around trying to wipe this plant out everywhere you see it because it's on some hit list. It's not going to go away—and that 'hit list' may well have been instigated by Monsanto or some other herbicide producer. Lesser celandine stabilizes wetland areas brilliantly, and the buttercup-like flowers are breathtaking in the Spring, inspiring literary tributes by the likes of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, D. H. Lawrence, and—most famously, the poet Wordsworth who wrote: 

"Pansies, Lilies, Kingcups, Daisies; Let them live upon their praises;…There's a flower that shall be mine, 'Tis the little Celandine."

People first, nature second: McGrath ends with quotes about how Wordsworth and others enjoy the aesthetics of lesser celandine. Again, this puts human interests ahead of nature's ecological functions.


In another post, "Another way to look at invasive plants", McGrath's response offers more examples of the strategies people use to dismiss the damage done by invasive species, and to demonize those who take the threat seriously. Here are some excerpts:

"Bottom line: No chemical herbicide is even remotely safe for people and the environment, and the current and unfortunate tendency to spray first and ask questions later (if ever) must be changed if we want to seriously lower the cancer rate and reverse our degradation of the environment."

Zero tolerance, in the name of tolerance: In the paragraph above, he shows zero tolerance for chemical herbicides, lumping them together as all being too toxic to use. Ironically, this zero tolerance is juxtaposed with, and used in the service of, a supposedly open-minded view of invasive species, which he thinks are wrongly maligned. The satirist Tom Lehrer has a famous line that captures this irony of people committing the very sort of prejudice they feign to oppose: "I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings, and I hate people like that."

A few good qualities supposedly compensate for any invasive properties: In the paragraph below, his woods "is full of" multiflora rose because the wildlife can't, or won't, eat it. Therefore, the sun's energy captured by plantlife, which to a large extent now consists of multiflora rose, isn't moving up the foodchain, and the local web of life suffers. It's nice that his wife likes the flowers, the rosehips may provide some food for wildlife, the shrub provides cover and erosion control--all good. But native plant species, meaning those that have evolved with the wildlife over thousands of years, provide all of these benefits plus foliage vital to the wildlife. And thick walls of thorny multiflora rose have transformed our nature preserves into daunting, menacing places for anyone wishing to experience nature.

"Multiflora rose is, like many now-unwanted plants, a deliberate import that was heavily promoted for agricultural use as a 'living fence' and erosion controller. My woods are full of it, and this season it bloomed like mad, making me a liar for saying so often that the flowers are unattractive because they looked sensational. And they so heavily scented the air with a wonderful fragrance that my wife asked me what smelled so good. "A bad plant", I told her. "Really?" she responded, "we need more of those." Multiflora rose provides essential cover for birds and other wildlife, and copious food for wildlife and people via its super-nutritious rose hips (an excellent natural source of vitamin C). It is unsurpassed at erosion control."

Confusion of unintentional consequence with natural processes: One of the hardest things for people to grasp is that, even though we aren't intentionally changing the earth's climate, it is in fact our collective fault. Similarly, in the paragraph below, a meadow is said to be controlled by "Darwin and Mother Nature". In reality, that field is tremendously influenced by human impacts. Periodic fire was once a natural part of the landscape, but now excluded. We removed all the predators of deer, so their numbers have exploded, and their preference for browsing on native species has given nonnative species, which we have introduced to the continent in numbers far greater than could ever be termed natural, a competitive advantage. Past farming obliterated the native seedbank that once would have favored native species. To compensate for all the historic human-caused transformations that continue to affect the meadow, what is needed now is intentional action--the very sort that McGrath would describe as "unnatural". 

"Ah, but Darwin and Mother Nature are in control that meadow. As Peter Del Tredici, Senior Research Scientist at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University explains in his excellent new book, "Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast", your unwanted plants are succeeding there naturally. (And perhaps because you are unnaturally mowing the meadow in the fall, which probably favors the 'bad' plants immensely.) It is possible to remove and replace such plants, notes Del Tredici, but not without tremendous environmental destruction and endless intensive care for the replacement plants. You can't just spray the "weeds" and have wanted plants suddenly thrive; the reworked area would have to tended like a garden. (But it would require much more work than a regular garden.)"

Confusion of intentional action with "dominating Nature": McGrath and other apologists for invasive plant species are essentially offering us excuses for inaction--a tremendously appealing option, given our hectic lives. But the people asking him for help are feeling besieged by invasive species, and want to act. He offers them instead a skewed, rigid ideology and dubious advice that leads to a sense of futility. Past human impacts are downplayed, excused, or repackaged as "natural", useful tools for intervention, such as herbicides, receive blanket condemnation, and any intentional action to undo past ecological trauma is attacked, e.g. in the paragraph below, as an attempt to "dominate Nature". 

"The plants that are there now are stabilizing the soil, managing storm water, protecting the creek and watershed, and providing food and shelter for wildlife. Before you remove those plants, take a careful, objective look at the plants you propose installing in their place. If they won't do a better job, you'd just be trying to dominate Nature, not manage it."

The accusation of emotional bias: One last thing to point out. The word "objective" in the quote above implies that people who are concerned about invasive species are somehow blinded by bias and emotion. Similar accusations have been made by others critiqued on this website. McGrath, at least, doesn't confuse nonnative (origin) with invasive (behavior), and though he makes reckless and unfounded accusations, as far as I know he hasn't flung the word "xenophobic" around. This detailed critique shows, however, that McGrath has lost whatever objectivity he may once have had to speak about ecological matters.
For more on glyphosate from the perspective of land managers, here's an informative post:http://wildones.org/download/roundupmyth/roundupmyth.html

Going Negative On Natives--The Latest Example in the NYTimes

The New York Times is one of the bedrocks of news, which makes it hard to understand why its opinion page would show a weakness for ill-informed attacks on native plants and their proponents. The latest is by Verlyn Klinkenborg, a point-by-point rebuttal of which can be found further down in this post, but his is just one in a series.

First in my memory is George Ball, president of Burpee Seed Company and former president of the American Horticultural Society, who despite these distinguished labels launched an error-filled broadside (Border War, 3/19/06) against people who promote the planting of native flora. In his words, people who promote natives are xenophobic, narrowminded, the horticultural equivalent of radical fundamentalists, utopian, elitist snobs, anti-exotic partisans, and (last but not least) dangerous to a free society.

Then there was Sean Wilsey, (High Line, Low Aims, 7/9/08) who spoke disparagingly of the proposal to plant a ribbon of native species on Manhattan's High Line. Apparently lacking any botanical or ecological knowledge that might have heightened his appreciation of the plan, he made it sound like the High Line would be little more than a linear patch of weedy sumac--a species he may have confused with the ubiquitous non-native Tree of Heaven. Time, and the spectacular congregation of native plants that now thrive on the very popular elevated walkway, have proven him wrong.

(Update, 11.29.13: Another which I forgot to mention when writing this piece appeared on April 3, 2011. In “Mother Nature’s Melting Pot,” Hugh Raffles, an immigrant who had just received citizenship, characterizes native plant advocates as nativists with the same core fear of aliens as the Tea Party. After cherry picking a few beneficial aspects of some introduced species, he calls for an "inclusive" approach, which presumably would include disease pathogens and agricultural pests. As with Klinkenborg's piece, he mentions eucalyptus, climate change, claims that most efforts to control invasives are futile, believes the term "native" to be arbitrary, characterizes any "mythic time of past purity" as an artificial construct, and implies that the rapid introduction of new species from other continents is a natural phenomenon and nothing new. Letters rebutting Mr. Raffles' logic can be found here.)

The latest installment of this attack on native plant advocacy, as mentioned, arrived this past week (Hey, You Calling Me an Invasive Species?, 9/7/13), written by a member of the Times' editorial board, Verlyn Klinkenborg. Avoiding George Ball's name-calling and Sean Wilsey's dismissive tone, his thesis is that the distinction between native and nonnative species is now an arbitrary one, given the passage of centuries and the ever-expanding influence of humans on the natural world.

Klinkenborg's opinion piece was prompted by recent public protests against a plan to thin out a dense forest of non-native eucalyptus trees growing on Mount Sutro in San Francisco. The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) owns the property, which the local fire department has said is in urgent need of thinning in order to protect nearby buildings from the highly combustible eucalyptus. Reducing the dense shade will improve the health of the trees while providing some light for native vegetation to grow beneath them. Sounds benign, yet locals who walk in the forest are calling the proponents of the plan "plant facists" who want to impose the tyranny of nativism on a woods that is perfect just the way it is.

Joining the chorus of protest, Nathan Winograd, an animal rights advocate who blogs on the Huffington Post wrote a post about the Mount Sutro tree-thinning plan entitled "Biological Xenophobia: The Environmental Movement's War on Nature". Adopting the strident tone of George Ball, he has nothing but contempt for the concept of native plants, preferring that "every life that appears on this Earth is welcomed and respected." Apparently, he's never grown any plant he valued enough to save from the weeds.

The most informative report, as opposed to opinion, on the San Francisco controversy that I could find is here. The university describes the plan this way: "Under the guidance of an outside licensed arborist, UCSF will remove approximately 1,250 trees, each less than 6 inches in diameter, while also thinning shrubs and mowing non-woody perennial plants in the 100-foot buffer zone. All told, the work will encompass approximately 15.6 acres of the 61-acre Reserve."

Here is a point by point rebuttal of Mr. Klinkenborg's opinion piece:

"Since the 1880s, there have been blue gum eucalyptus trees growing on San Francisco’s Mount Sutro, which lies just south of Golden Gate Park. Recently, the University of California, San Francisco, which owns most of Mount Sutro, has been trying to thin the dense eucalyptus forest. The reason is fire control — eucalyptus trees are “fire intensive,” shedding a lot of debris and burning with unusual volatility. But the effort to cull the Mount Sutro forest has been met with strident protest by residents who want to see the eucalyptus left untouched."

Mr. Klinkenborg only mentions fire once in the oped, but fire hazard is a big deal in the California landscape, and the planting of Eucalyptus trees close to structures has doomed many a building when the trees' high flammability causes them to explode. The link he offers, another opinion piece in a distinguished scientific journal, Science, actually offers compelling reasons to alter the forest. There's the current fire hazard to reduce, and the opportunity to improve habitat for the resident great horned owls by re-establishing some native flora. 

By the standard of the California Native Plant Society, eucalyptus, which were brought from Australia, are officially nonnative trees because they were introduced after the first European contact with the New World. But the trees on Mount Sutro have been there within the memory of every living San Franciscan, and to the generations who have grown up within view of them, it seems almost perverse to insist that they are aliens.

No science here, just an anthropocentric view that wishes the rest of nature to conform to the human sense of time.

To keep a clear distinction between native and nonnative species requires nearly geologic memory. 

No, one hundred and thirty years, or even three or four hundred, is not even close to a geologic scale.

But humans, like most species, don’t live in the past, where the distinction originates. In the present, the difference is largely immaterial. 

This isn't true. Though wildlife don't literally live in the past, their tastebuds do. Herbivores tend to be extremely conservative in their food preferences. Whether it be deer or the larvae of moths and butterflies, they continue to reject exotic species introduced hundreds of years ago. They still prefer to eat the native species, which gives exotics a competitive advantage, which makes native plants rare, which then limits wildlife's food options. 

Native or nonnative, California’s eucalyptus trees, like the starlings of Central Park, have come to seem original just because they predate us.

Again, he imposes an anthropocentric view on nature.

Of course, the vast majority of nonnative species have not been intentionally introduced, as the Mount Sutro eucalyptus were, but have been distributed accidentally, unnoticed baggage in the wanderings of our species.

Whether a species is introduced intentionally or unintentionally has no bearing on the potential harm the species can do, just as the impact of human-caused global warming will bear no relation to whether we have intended to change the climate or not. 

Some species — invasive ones like kudzu, Japanese knotweed, rabbits and rats — find almost unlimited room for expansion in their new environs, often overwhelming native species. But not all introduced species are invasive, and pose a threat only when they outcompete native species.

Excellent! It's so important to make the distinction between invasive and non-invasive species. 

It’s important to remember that the distinction between native and nonnative depends on an imaginary snapshot of this continent taken just before European contact. 

Not so imaginary, really. Though American Indians transformed the landscape, spreading some plant species along trade routes, favoring some species through cultivation or burning, or denuding the landscape, e.g. around Teotihuacan to heat the plaster for their pyramids, the massive influx of species from other continents did not begin until Western colonization. It's well known which species are or were part of a particular plant community. The bur oak savannas of the midwest, which had disappeared due to the invasion of buckthorn and other exotics, were pieced back together through research and restoration, and now flourish once again. Whole books describe in detail the various plant communities of a given region, such as this one detailing the plant communities of North Carolina. 

               That distinction is becoming even harder to make as climate change alters the natural world.

A new study from the University of Exeter and Oxford University finds that plant pests and diseases have been migrating northward and southward an average of two miles a year since 1960. This suggests that the plants on which they prey have been moving at similar rates. In places like the Adirondacks, for instance, you can follow the boundary between southern and northern tree species as it shifts northward, year by year. As plants and their pests adjust their range, under the influence of global warming, what becomes of the distinction between native and nonnative? 

Plants and animals have been shifting their regional boundaries throughout the last four hundred thousand years, as glaciers advanced and receded. Human-caused climate change is happening much more rapidly, which is one reason why it is proving so destructive, but most plant species have broad geographic ranges. Climate change doesn't mean that plant communities developed over millenia suddenly have no integrity. 

To any individual species, it doesn’t matter whether it’s native or not. The only thing that matters is whether its habitat is suitable.

 Again, because herbivore food preferences tend to remain unchanged hundreds of years after the introduction of exotic species, suitable habitat tends to equate with native plant species. 

And this is where we come in.
For the most part, we don’t have an immediate impact on the species that surround us. But we do have an immediate impact on their habitat, which determines whether they survive or, in some cases, shift their ground.
Nearly every habitat on this planet has been affected by humans, no matter how remote it is. In the past decade, for instance, the habitats of grizzly bears high in the Rocky Mountains — places most of us never get a chance to visit — have been significantly altered by global warming. As the climate warms, the mountain pine beetle has managed to winter over and destroy vast tracts of whitebark pine trees, which produce pine nuts that bears eat.

When I visited a hillside in Smokey Mountain National Park where hemlock had been wiped out by the exotic wooly adelgid, growing beneath the dead trunks was a riot of native wildflowers and brambles, representing a plant community that deep shade had suppressed. The devastation of whitebark pine trees in the Rockies is tragic, and the loss of that important species may have broad ramifications over time for that ecosystem, but that doesn't mean that native landscapes suddenly lose all meaning and relevance because one species drops out.

CONSIDERED in this light, the natural world as a whole begins to look like Central Park — an ecosystem where human influence is all pervasive. Parts of the park seem almost wild, but every creature in Central Park, native or not, has adapted to a world that is closely bounded by human activity. It is nature bordered by high-rises, intersected by paths and roadways, basking under artificial light at night.

In late August, a group of scientists and students from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College spent the day cataloging all the nondomesticated life forms living in the park. It will take a while to compile and compare the data, but even the anecdotal reports from that single day show how diverse and surprising the park’s ecosystem can be. It isn’t all squirrels and pigeons. The group reported sightings of several unexpected species — a diamondback terrapin in Turtle Pond, a Wilson’s warbler in the North Woods, a bullhead catfish in the Harlem Meer. And though it might seem like a stretch to talk about ecosystems in Central Park, that is exactly what the group found — a healthy mix of species, overlapping generations within many species, and a sense of balance, especially within the aquatic zones.

Actually, a lot of work has been done to restore native species and habitat in Central Park, and it's the only sizable green space for miles for wildlife like birds and insects to gravitate to, so it's not surprising it would exhibit some diversity.

Nature in Central Park can’t be neatly divided into native of nonnative species, and neither can it be on Mount Sutro. The eucalyptus trees that grow there may be naturalized rather than native, but try telling that to all the other creatures that live in those woods or the people who hike there.

 This would be more convincing if it actually described what diversity resides on Mount Sutro. In Princeton, we had a woods that was densely planted in the 1960s with white pine and spruce--species whose native range lies farther north. The woods had considerable charm and a nice mood to it, but it was an ecological desert, with little more than garlic mustard growing in the deep shade and thick mulch of the evergreens, and reportedly an owl or two making use of the dense canopy for protection. (Mount Sutro, from what descriptions I could find, looks to be similarly slim on diversity, dominated by the eucalyptus, with an understory of English ivy and poison ivy, and a stifling and highly flammable thick mulch of eucalyptus litter.) 

Their trunks weak from age and crowding, most of the pines and spruce in the planted woods in Princeton fell during several ice and wind storms, leaving an impenetrable mess that will become a fire trap as the debris dries out. Ash trees, the only seedlings that the too-numerous deer didn't eat, are now taking over, and before long, the introduced Emerald Ash Borer will arrive to kill all the ash.  

A similar fate could await the planted woods on Mount Sutro, in the form of a cataclysmic fire. That, though far more destructive than what the university is trying to do, would not be as controversial, because it would occur due to inaction rather than action. I'm well aware of the capacity for good intentions to go awry, but sometimes inaction can be the most destructive action of all.

And when it comes to the distinction between native and nonnative, we always leave one species out: call us what you will — native, naturalized, alien or invasive.

I don't want to read too much into this, but Mr. Klinkenborg seems to be suggesting here that because we are a species that invaded the American continent, we therefore cannot be judging other invasive species. With such logic, our compromised position brings into question our capacity to understand nature and act upon what we know. 

The attempt to blur the distinction between native and non-native depends on a highly simplified view of nature and evolution. It ignores the deep interconnections species develop while co-evolving over thousands of years.  It sees no symbiotic relationship between soil fungi and plant roots, between an insect and its obligate host plant, between a particular species of ant and the plant that depends upon it to disperse its seeds. Some species, like humans, are highly adaptable to new circumstances. Others are not. Embracing non-native landscapes may give people the comforting illusion of being open-minded, but it closes the door on those more conservative, less adaptable species. 

Related Writings by Verlyn Klinkenborg

It's long been my observation that environmental issues get marginalized on the opinion pages of the news media, likely because columnists and editors tend to lack training in the life sciences. If environmental issues come up, they tend to be treated in isolation rather than seen in the broader context of economics and political concerns. On the New York Times editorial board, Mr. Klinkenborg appears to represent the sum total of biological expertise. His doctoral degree from Princeton University is in english literature. I'm all for self-education, and hopefully he took some biology-related courses along the way. 

Some of his writings for National Geographic appear to contradict his opinion piece dismissing the relevance of native habitats. For instance, an essay on the Endangered Species Act states that people

"discovered, too late, how finely attuned to its home in the cordgrass the dusky seaside sparrow really was. That last bottled sparrow is what a species looks like when its habitat has vanished for good."

In an essay on the tallgrass prairie, rather than downplaying the importance of native plant communities, he seeks a deeper understanding of them:

"The hard part here in the Flint Hills—and in any of the few remaining patches of native prairie—is learning to see the tallgrass ecosystem for itself. It is a study in the power of modesty."

Rather than giving simplified plantings like the eucalyptus on Mount Sutro equal status with native plant communities, he states:

"In most of America, agriculture has meant replacing the incredible complexity of a natural ecosystem with the incredible simplicity of a single crop growing on bare ground."

That incredibly complex prairie ecosystem, however, is threatened by an invasive non-native plant called Sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata). Rather than showing concern about the impact of that invasion, Mr. Klinkenborg worries about the human intervention to counter the invasion:

"There is also a worrying trend toward ground and aerial spraying to control a highly invasive weed called sericea lespedeza, introduced decades ago to curb erosion around mines and provide forage and cover for wildlife around reservoirs."

Now, I happen to know Sericea lespedeza well. I've seen how it moves in and eventually replaces a richly diverse native meadow with a monoculture. Though originally touted as a good wildlife food, both its seeds and foliage provide little nourishment. Its roots release toxins that discourage other plant species. If you're looking for an example of intolerance, of a refusal to "play well with others", Sericea lespedeza is Exhibit A. When it invades new territory, land managers have a choice--either let the noxious weed continue to degrade native habitat, or attempt to limit the weed's destructive impact by intervening, often with selective herbicides.

The objections of Klinkenborg and others to intervention are in part a failure to make distinctions. They want to blur the distinction between native and non-native species. The toxicity of herbicides varies according to type and method of application, but its easier for protesters to demonize them all. Nathan Winograd, in his broadside against native plant advocates, wishes to obliterate all distinctions and treasure every living thing equally. More broadly in national discourse, we see a trend towards accepting all opinions as worthy, whether they are founded on fact or fancy.

Saying that we don't need to make these distinctions, nor intervene to restore native plant communities, sounds less to me like open mindedness than a convenient way of letting ourselves off the hook.

Rationalizing Extinction--an Oped by Alexander Pyron

I know. A lot of you have been feeling guilty about how we humans are causing the 6th great extinction event in earth's history. 40% of all species on earth are predicted to slip quietly into history. But we're good people! For the most part. How could this happen? Well, no use wringing your hands, you hand wringers, you. Because, voila!, extinction turns out to be good, after all, according to R. Alexander Pyron, an associate professor at George Washington University who is trying his hand at opinion writing. Why change our destructive behavior when we can change our ethical standards instead? Demonizing the human race is so last century. Time to rationalize! Time to get anthropocentric about the Anthropocene.

A colleague had sent me the link. The headline (written by the newspaper's editors) sounded like a troll from an online comment section. "We don’t need to save endangered species. Extinction is part of evolution: The only creatures we should go out of our way to protect are Homo sapiens."

"Cool!", I exclaimed, looking at the headline on my phone while standing in the parking lot of a nature preserve, getting ready to lead a nature walk on a Sunday afternoon. I shared the provocative title with others who had gathered. We reveled in relief as all that species-guilt we'd been feeling for as long as we could remember drained away, melting into the pavement beneath our feet.

By chance, I'd been analyzing a book with a similar message, "Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction, " by Chris D. Thomas. The book may well have emboldened Pyron to write his opinion piece, and given the Washington Post a rationale for publishing it. Both the book and the oped seduce uninformed readers by upsetting the applecart of mainstream thinking, and by letting the reader off the hook. Remember Dr. Strangelove and "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb?" Doctors Thomas and Pyron are doing something similar with the Anthropocene, but with no sense of satire.

Much of their thinking is rooted in books published some years ago--by Marris, Pearce, Orion and others--that vilified habitat restoration and invasion biologists and portrayed invasive species as a blessing in disguise. I thought that line of thinking had long since died of its own strained logic, but Thomas's book appeared this summer, presenting the old arguments in an even more nihilistic form.

If nothing else, Pyron's essay is useful for pointing out some recurrent habits of this genre, which seeks to undermine our trust in mainstream scientific thought. Below are some typical techniques, with quotes from his opinion piece:

Portray the “Other” as emotional, sentimental, and self-serving. In this case, the "Other" is mainstream biological and environmental thinking about habitat restoration and extinction.

• “Yet we are obsessed with reviving the status quo ante.”
• “And if biodiversity is the goal of extinction fearmongers, ...“

Claim that working to restore nature, or otherwise expend conscious effort to reduce humanity's negative impacts, is a waste of time and money.

• “But the impulse to conserve for conservation’s sake has taken on an unthinking, unsupported, unnecessary urgency.”
• “Conserving a species … serves to discharge our own guilt, but little else.”
• “whatever effort we make to maintain the current climate will eventually be overrun by the inexorable forces of space and geology.”

Declare the conservationist Other’s words to be meaningless, either by erasing distinctions or mocking the Other’s words with quotation marks.

• "There is no such thing as an 'endangered species,' except for all species."
• “We are a part of the biosphere just like every other creature, and our actions are just as volitional, their consequences just as natural.”
• “alien species will disrupt formerly 'pristine' native ecosystems.”

Manage guilt or purge it altogether.

• “extinction does not carry moral significance, even when we have caused it.”
• “Humans should feel less shame about molding their environment to suit their survival needs.”
• "Conservation is needed for ourselves and only ourselves."

Play tricks with time frame. Sure, we're doing harm to nature, but all will be fine a million years from now. Can you imagine such reasoning being used for any other problem we face?

• "Our concern, in other words, should not be protecting the animal kingdom, which will be just fine. Within a few million years..."
• “If this means fewer dazzling species, fewer unspoiled forests, less untamed wilderness, so be it. They will return in time."

Cherry pick evidence. Oftentimes, one positive trait is used to supposedly compensate for all the negative traits of invasive species. The positive trait might be a pretty flower, or nitrogen-fixing ability, or erosion control.

• “ Studies have shown that when humans introduce invasive plant species, native diversity sometimes suffers, but productivity — the cycling of nutrients through the ecosystem — frequently increases. Invasives can bring other benefits, too: Plants such as the Phragmites reed have been shown to perform better at reducing coastal erosion and storing carbon than native vegetation in some areas, like the Chesapeake.”

Most writings in this genre use extinction as the only measure of damage to native species, but Pyron's oped is even more heartless, claiming that extinction is all part of the game, neither good nor bad.

• “Invasion and extinction are the regenerative and rejuvenating mechanisms of evolution, the engines of biodiversity.”
• "The only reason we should conserve biodiversity is for ourselves, to create a stable future for human beings."

Make biodiversity purely a numbers game; minimize or ignore the evolution of complex interactions between species

• "South Florida, where about 140 new reptile species accidentally introduced by the wildlife trade are now breeding successfully? No extinctions of native species have been recorded, and, at least anecdotally, most natives are still thriving. The ones that are endangered, such as gopher tortoises and indigo snakes, are threatened mostly by habitat destruction. Even if all the native reptiles in the Everglades, about 50, went extinct, the region would still be gaining 90 new species — a biodiversity bounty."

Present evolution as winners and losers

• “Extinction is the engine of evolution, the mechanism by which natural selection prunes the poorly adapted and allows the hardiest to flourish. “

Overall, Pyron's writing has an "abandon ship" quality. Ayn Rand's "In Defense of Selfishness" comes to mind. Libertarianism, as described at lp.org, envisions "a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others." This sort of thinking leaves us helpless to prevent collectively created crises. Opposition to collective action to slow or prevent climate change then necessitates a way to rationalize the tragic consequences. Pyron's political views are unknown, but he essentially extends the libertarian view of the individual to the species as a whole. Hope is invested not in proactive avoidance of disaster, but in the endgame: "we will find a way to adapt." And if that fails, then come back in a million years. Everything's sure to be fine then.

Update: Alexander Pyron later wrote an apology on facebook.