Another Sort of Magic Mushroom
Decomposers help compose a new script for climate change
I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first? Whether as clickbait or for shock value, it seems the trend has been to emphasize the bad news about climate change. But that trend shows signs of reversing.
First, some good news:
In just the past four years, the World Agroforestry Center in Kunming, China has discovered around 50 species of mushrooms that can digest plastic. The research comes on the heels of two previous discoveries.
A mushroom called Aspergillus tubingensis was discovered 2017 in Pakistan that is capable of colonizing polyester polyurethane (packaging foam).
In 2011, Yale students on a class research trip were the first to discover a rare mushroom called Pestalotiopsis microspora in the Amazon rainforest, kickstarting research and discovery of additional varieties of mycelium that might do the same.
Reframing the bad ‘news’:
Did these mushrooms evolve as an environmental response to the nine billion tons of plastic humans have produced since the 1950s? Some varieties can live solely by decomposing plastics. Organisms that can digest a food source that wasn’t available less than a century ago are noteworthy.
Mother Nature is deep into creating solutions, and humans are just beginning to notice.
Researching this piece, the lead-in for stories on the topic of plastic-consuming mushrooms were mostly dire statistics. I learned from one article that scientists warn by 2050 there may be more plastic in the ocean than fish. There are 150 million tons of plastic in the oceans. Just 9% of it has been recycled and12% incinerated. The remaining 79% has accumulated in landfills.
I need not go on.
So much of the climate change field (for example the 2020 documentary by David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet) places an unbalanced emphasis on problems over solutions.
The statistics aren’t new, and the verdict has been in for a while. At all of my previous jobs in journalism (from reporter from photojournalist to Editor), I was never allowed to write a story that led with old news. Today’s headlines are the solutions. Still, many documentaries and articles seem to be trying to sway the jury through fear.
Reversing the trend
Emphasizing solutions does more than offer hope. Solution-oriented thinking fundamentally changes the debate and the way we perceive the situation. Emphasizing solutions is like giving hope athe home-field advantage.
“Kiss the Ground,” a documentary narrated by Woody Harrelson, focuses on regenerating Earth’s soils, which is being shown to rapidly stabilize Earth’s climate, restore lost ecosystems and create abundant food supplies.
From the movie’s website:
“This movie is positioned to catalyze a movement to accomplish the impossible — to solve humanity’s greatest challenge, to balance the climate, and secure our species’ future.”
That’s a step in the right direction, though using language like “accomplish the impossible” is still holding us back. While the Earth’s climate is in a precarious situation, it’s time to focus on positive trends that have been developing. Solutions are piling up, and mushrooms and soil health are just the tip of the iceberg.
Here are some other solutions:
1) Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming
2) The Great Ocean Cleanup
3) Fridays for Future
4) Solar Panels as thin as paper
5) The Climate Reality Project
6) The Solarpunk Movement
Each of these topics will be covered in their own future article, so be sure to follow Tom Tortorich on Medium as well as Vocal.media.
Tom Tortorich is a Public Speaker on Reversing Climate Change, and has trained with Project Drawdown: 100 Ways to Reverse Global Warming.
Tom also hosts the Stories from the Future podcast, and is an author in the genre of optimistic speculative fiction known as Positive Futurism.
Positive Futurism emphasizes a sustainable future and cooperative, inclusive culture. It is known as Solarpunk in science fiction.
