Finding Relief from Alaska’s Changing Climate in the Sonoran Desert

If life can flourish here, I find myself thinking, then there must be hope for us during the climate upheaval only beginning to unfold.

I am down on my bare knees on warm gravelly ground, marveling at a busy stream of ants lugging scraps of leaves into a hole. I just read on my phone, which I am still holding, that these Sonoran ants harvest the leaves to grow edible fungus deep within their caverns. That means they are farming, which blows my mind. And it adds to my enjoyment of this late autumn hike in Saguaro National Park, outside Tucson, Arizona. Unexpectedly, the park’s abundant life is lifting my recent funk over watching the impacts of climate change spread across my home state of Alaska.

The diversity of life at Saguaro National Park surprises and delights me. Photo by informedmindstravel / Flickr.

I am in Tucson for work, with an extra day scheduled to visit the saguaros. At the park, I hike the loneliest trail I can find, a 5-mile trek up and over a mountain pass on switchbacks etched into dry soil. The calls of cactus wrens, flickers, and others I can’t identify accompany me, while ravens wheel above rugged peaks and lizards flit among ancient boulders. At one point, a faint grunt in the distance alerts me to six mule deer hoofing up a steep draw. Later, the playful yipping of coyotes erupts from somewhere below, among saguaros set aglow by the setting sun.

I revel in the plant life, too, pausing to enjoy ocotillo, paloverde, mesquite, and even the crusty cryptobiotic soil, woven together by bacteria and fungi. Nearly everything reflects some kind of munching or pecking, from deer, birds, or those industrious ants, whose neatly opposed traffic lanes between home and food source resemble living freeways.

The diversity of life surprises and delights, making this desert jaunt fun. But then it hits me: Lately, I have not felt this way in Alaska. In that same moment, I also realize that for once I am not dwelling on climate change.

I’ll be the first to admit I think about climate change too much. Every morning that my eyes open on my familiar Alaskan landscape, I see the pace of change. I see how much the things I love are melting, thawing, eroding, or simply dying.

Examples abound. Our glaciers are famously withering, a monumental landscape-level change that is also fueling the tragedy of global sea level rise. Our sea ice is steadily declining, contributing to warming across our immense state and an ever-shrinking snow season. There’s a lot of climate-related dying, too, of yellow cedars, sea stars, whales, and the salmon that suffered heart attacks in the absurdly hot waters of the Kuskokwim River two summers ago. Various bird die-offs have also plagued our coasts in recent years and are increasingly attributed to warming oceans. At my home along the southern coast, all this can be especially evident in autumn, as we wait for snows that arrive later each year.

Each change disrupts human activities, on recreational, cultural and nutritional levels. The economic toll grows, too, with coastal villages declaring disasters as vanishing sea ice triggers devastating erosion. At our local ski area, jobs that used to start in November now begin a month later.

Amid the change, it’s easy to sink into apocalyptic thinking. Indeed, a 2018 state health report warned Alaskans that climate change can spark “solastalgia,”a mix of depression, anxiety, and feelings of loss stemming from unwanted environmental change.

So am I a solastalgiac? Is that even a thing?

​Cactus wren at Saguaro National Park. The Sonoran Desert inspired hope even before my boots hit the trail. Photo by Skip Russell.

Round-tailed ground squirrels. Photo courtesy of Saguaro National Park.

A Gila woodpecker on a saguaro feeding its baby. Photo courtesy of Saguaro National Park.

If it is, I might want to spend more time in the Sonoran Desert. That’s what I think while walking out of the desert that evening, with bright stars shining above silhouetted saguaros. This spare landscape, of all places, has provided a curative to my Alaskan malaise. If life can flourish here, I find myself thinking, then there must be hope for us during the climate upheaval only beginning to unfold.

Climbing into my rental car, I realize the Sonoran Desert inspired hope even before my boots hit the trail. That morning I asked a visitor center ranger about climate impacts at the park. I was curious, but also wanted to hear how federal representatives answer questions on climate. For too long, agencies discouraged rangers from discussing climate change, to avoid ruffling visitors who reject the science.

I experienced this first-hand during an earlier career. I was a ranger at a visitor center near a shrinking Alaskan glacier and, later, a speaker aboard tour boats visiting Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. Even amid sweeping change I was warned away from talking about fossil fuel impacts on the climate. And that was before the Trump administration, which famously directed federal agencies to scrub climate information from their websites. At the Saguaro visitor center, I am curious if front-line public education was also being muted.

But I’m pleased by the ranger’s response. He’s an older gentleman, perhaps retired from an earlier career, and he does not flinch at my question. Instead, he gives two descriptive examples.

“One thing to think about,” he says, “is how increasing heat and drought here in the Southwest affect surface water.”

He explains that streams, springs, and other sometimes ephemeral water sources are declining from changing rain patterns, less mountain snow, and more evaporation tied to hotter weather. The rising heat, which set over 60 high-temperature records in Tucson in the 2020 summer alone, degrades plant and wildlife habitat, worsens wildfire danger, and threatens groundwater needed by farmers and communities.

“Another example,” he says, “is related to climate change but not solely caused by it.”

He then deftly explains that African buffelgrass, a non-native grass introduced a century ago as cattle browse, burns more frequently than native vegetation, especially in today’s hotter conditions. By inviting flame onto the landscape, it threatens saguaros and other local species not adapted to fire. Ecologists believe last summer’s Bighorn Fire north of Tucson, which dramatically torched an estimated 2,000 saguaros, was fueled in part by buffelgrass.

I am encouraged park visitors can experience this frank dialogue in an era when only a little more than half of Americans accept the human role in climate science and most school students do not receive consistent climate education. This disconnect from basic science reflects a corrosive polarization in our culture and decades of investment in climate disinformation by fossil fuel interests. But our public lands remain a powerfully unifying space for Americans, and it’s good to find their representatives offering legitimate climate information.

I’m even further buoyed when the ranger tells me that docents at the nearby Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum wear buttons reading, “Ask Me about Climate Change.” When I later call the museum, which provides nature education for visitors, local schools, and others, a supervisor tells me the buttons were a staff idea.

“Some of our docents made them after attending an education conference,” she tells me. “They wanted to put visitors at ease about raising the topic.”

She also shares online resources staff use for teaching the public about climate change, including Climate Interpreter, which held onto its federal funding through the Trump administration. Surfing the websites at my hotel that evening, I find a galaxy of resources for educators interested in climate change. They include a library of student-oriented videos from the Alliance for Climate Education and Yale University’s Climate Communication Program, which examines audiences, attitudes, messaging, and other fundamentals. Together, they represent grassroots professional work to improve climate literacy, especially among the young people now inheriting our climate emergency.

In the morning I’ll head back to uncertain times in Alaska, which has had another eerily late start to winter. But I’ll carry some reassurance from the Sonoran Desert. The landscape has shown that life endures extremes through resiliency and adaptation, and I have met frontline educators committed to providing straight talk on climate.

Get the Journal in your inbox.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

You Make Our Work Possible

You Make Our Work Possible

We don’t have a paywall because, as a nonprofit publication, our mission is to inform, educate and inspire action to protect our living world. Which is why we rely on readers like you for support. If you believe in the work we do, please consider making a tax-deductible year-end donation to our Green Journalism Fund.

Donate
Get the Journal in your inbox.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

The Latest

The Shocking Truth About Sloths

As their forests disappear, sloths are climbing on dangerous power lines. Veterinarians and rescue centers are developing new techniques to help.

Madeline Bodin

Australian Gas Project Threatens Aboriginal Heritage

Activists worry a Scarborough gas field project could destroy petroglyphs while hurting climate goals.

Campbell Young

Bats of the Midnight Sun

Active in daylight during the Arctic summer and hibernating during the long winter nights, Alaska’s little brown bats are a unique population. Can their niche lives help them avoid white-nose syndrome?

Words Trina Moyles Images Michael Code

Land and Love in Melbourne

An Australian referendum to provide a political voice for First Peoples may have failed, but the push will continue.

Alda Balthrop-Lewis

A Canadian Corporation is Poisoning My Argentinian Community

We, the people of Jáchal, are fighting for the right to safe and clean water.

Saúl Zeballos

Climate Comedy Works. Here’s Why.

We all need some refreshing levity nowadays – especially during this politically heavy year.

Maxwell Boykoff Beth Osnes