Why is Queensland flooding? Koalas may be your best hope

Why is Queensland flooding? Climate models couldn’t predict it. Climate scientists are saying that the water cycle is intensifying twice as fast as models suggest. Many of us who observe nature aren’t that surprised. Wildlife, and its role in ecosystem-building and maintaining a habitable world, barely registers in the public psyche. Yet it is supremely important.

If you live somewhere that’s flooding regularly and you want it to stop, then your only hope, is to invest in wildlife conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More. You could begin by saving koalas!

Why are koalas vital and what has this to do with the Queensland floods?

Threatened with extinction Koalas can no longer play a crucial role in the ecology of Australia’s landscape. But two hundred and fifty years ago koalas dominated almost the entire eastern seaboard. Back then they would have had a huge impact on forests and grassland, alongside other megafaunaThe largest animals that represent the top of the trophic pyramid. These are the final building blocks in ecosystem structures for maximum entropy production. Megafauna can be measured at any spatial scale. The largest animal that ever lived on Earth is the Blue Whale. In a grassland, spiders could be considered megafauna The term is generally reserved for animals larger More like kangaroos and people.

Abundant and diverse animal life is the sole mechanism for building complex natural systems. By creating soil, koalas (along with people and other animals), made a habitable environment for themselves. It was an environment that soaked up moisture. Europeans settled in Australia at a time when the land was already blanketed in a thick, friable soil layer.

Where do Queensland’s floods come from?

This year is almost the perfect storm of conditions for eastern Australia. La Niña brings more wet weather to the coast. Climate change has warmed the atmosphere and this means it can carry more moisture. The final bit, which you may not know about, is the effect of soil moisture.

Judith Schwartz talks about this in her book The Reindeer Chronicles. Dust repels moisture. For over two hundred years we have been stripping soil of nutrientsEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More and killing the animals that would have restored it. South American rainforests can exist only because forest soil is replaced by large animals faster than it disappears. The same goes for all landscapes, anywhere on the planet. This is also why we can’t buy ourselves out of this mess by planting trees – we need wildlife rich habitatsWhat is habitat for animals and people? Habitat, hence the word "habitable" describes the natural surroundings in which any animal (or human) lives, that houses basic needs, such as food and shelter. Vegetation, for example, is habitat for animals. On its own, habitat is not necessarily stable or sustainable, which is why it differs from an ecosystem. Habitat in disrepair More and we’re allowing corporates to simultaneously destroy those with bulldozers.

Heavy rainfall occurs when moisture is unable to soak into the land. It builds up in the atmosphere and when it’s blown over hillsides it condenses into storms. Before all this climate chaos(Of energy and ecosystems). Ecosystems are thermodynamically driven. Disorder occurs when energy dissipates and becomes more chaotic. For example, the release of hot air into the atmosphere results in that energy is freer to disperse (maximum entropy). The opposite is true when energy is locked into biological processes, when it is stored inside molecules (minimum entropy). Stability in ecosystems occurs More we built dams to contain moisture and feed our cities. Now, we’ve reached a point where infrastructure engineers can no longer be relied upon.

The wholesale destruction of wildlife is almost singly responsible for why you won’t be able to get your house insured in future, or your farms can no longer afford to grow your food. To rebuild we need ecosystem engineers. We need animals.

What is climate change?

Climate change isn’t one thing. The consequence of energy lost from where it’s useful (in ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More) to where it’s of no use, we call climate change. When it’s of no use, it becomes floods, atmospheric CO₂ and ocean acidification. Climate change is the final symptom of ecosystem collapse. Wildlife is the only mechanism to rebuild ecosystems, so conservation is our only hope.

When we deforest habitat we aren’t just removing trees, we are removing animal life. It is this impact from animals that adds up to an extraordinary, invisible and largely unnoticed consequence for humanity.

It’s not insignificant. Elsewhere in this blog I’ve written about the role of marine vertebrates in Australia’s bushfires. It was migratory Blue Whales and a supporting cast from tuna to sharks, seabirds and lantern fish, that contributed up to a third of all ocean mixing in the Banda Sea in 2019. This lowered planetary temperatures but caused the fires that wiped out entire communities in eastern Australia. The impact of the animals was enormous. If we were to let Blue Whales go extinct, we would get worse floods too!

Only wildlife can fix Queensland flooding

Humans have literally no capacity to fix this problem by themselves. For reasons explained eloquently by Elizabeth Kolbert in Under a White Sky, we can’t solve problems caused by people, by using the same approaches that caused the problems in the first place.

If you’re asking ‘why Queensland is flooding?’ you should ask if wildlife conservation offers more hope. Animals, collectively, can resolve these crises quite quickly if we allow them to. And this is because only animals can build ecosystems.

The point of ecosystems is to become so complex, that the processes housed within, can act like valves. These are able to withstand most natural variation in the outside world. It’s how Earth regulates the flow of energy and dampens extremes. The signs are the biodiversity could alleviate the intensity of climate events by a third or even a half. This also buys us time to get our carbon use under control.

Remember, you evolved as one of the animals that regulates energy, and builds ecosystems. You can’t exist without ecosystems, which means you can’t exist without other animals. Your connection to ecosystems and other animals is as vital to humanity’s survival as your head is to your body.