‘Talking to politicians requires a different form of communication than the one we use at scientific conferences’. Interview with prof. John P. Smol

Lake sediments hold the answers to many questions about our planet's climate history. We talk to prof. John P. Smol of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, about what we can learn from them, how to communicate this information to the public, and how to develop an international research team.  Prof. John Smol visited the Department of Geomorphology and Quaternary Geology as part of the 'Visiting Professors' programme at UG

Marcel Jakubowski: - You've visited several lakes in northern Poland. What was the biggest difference between them and lakes in Canada and the USA that intrigued you the most? 

Prof. John P. Smol: - It was certainly a pleasure to visit several of Poland’s lakes. There were some similarities, but also major differences, between many of these lakes and those in Canada and the USA. One was that we are fortunate in Canada to have many thousands of lakes that are still relatively untouched or only moderately affected by human activities, like farming and other potential sources of pollution. Canada and Poland have similar population sizes, but Canada is much larger geographically, so population densities and local impacts are (on average) less. 

However, given my research focus, which is to reconstruct the long-term changes in lakes using lake sediments (i.e. paleolimnology) another big difference is that human impacts on lakes in Poland go back much further in time.  In Canada, with few exceptions, most significant human impacts have occurred only over the last 250 years or so.  In Poland, you can show human impacts going back much further.  So their histories are very different (and also very interesting for researchers like me!). 

- One of the biggest threats to our lakes here in Poland is widespread eutrophication. What should we do to counteract this process?

- Yes, eutrophication, or the over-fertilization of lakes with nutrients from agriculture run-off or other human activities, resulting in serious algal blooms, is a major issue in Poland and in fact is still the major water quality problem on the planet. It is a complicated issue, as the main way to fight eutrophication is to reduce the amount of nutrients coming into our lakes. Poland and other countries have generally done a good job of reducing what we call „point source pollution”, which is pollution (like nutrients) being released from a single point, like a sewage pipe (and now, in most cases, these point sources are diverted way from a lake or river, and instead to a sewage treatment plant).  This has helped most lakes.  But „diffuse sources” of nutrients, which includes run-off from farmers’ fields or from city streets, are much harder to control. Even here, though, we can make progress by, for example, modifying some farming practices. 

However, climate warming has made the situation even worse. As I showed in one of my lectures at the University of Gdańsk, my lab has been showing how even lakes with no recent increases or even declines in nutrients are reporting more and more algal blooms, including those from cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), which are especially serious. With warming, and less ice covers and the physical changes to a lake’s mixing patterns, lakes are even more prone to support algal blooms.  This is a complicated problem and hence will need complicated solutions, not least of which will be to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are releasing every day.

- As a paleolimnologist, you are a researcher of history. Which period are you most interested in and why?

- I think all periods of a lake’s history are interesting, but I am especially interested in the period of accelerated human impacts, which we often refer to as the „Anthropocene”. This is a complicated period in Earth history as we are dealing with mutiple environmental stressors. A major challenge is to disentangle the effects of these different stressors, as well as the effects of natural environmental changes. Knowing the long-term histories of lakes helps us answer these important questions. 

- Much of your research concerns the High Arctic, what are the main challenges for lakes in this region?

- To some extent, it depends on which lakes you are interested in the High Arctic, but the 2 main challenges are climate change and the long-range transport of pollutants.  

First is climate change.  It is now well established that Arctic regions are especially sensitive to the effects of climate warming. This has mainly to do with albedo or the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface.  If a region is covered with snow and ice, then it reflects a lot of the sun’s energy.  However, if you start melting the snow and ice, like we have been doing with climate warming, the surface is darker and so absorbs more heat, and so melts more ice and snow, and, well, you then have a positive feedback effect.

The second big threat is the long-range transport of pollutants, many of which were never used in the Arctic (e.g. insecticides like DDT, PCBs, etc.). It turns out that many of these so-called „Persistent Organic Pollutants” or POPs do not stay where they were first applied in more southern regions. With warming and the volatization of these pollutants, the chemicals „hop” from warm to cold areas, eventually reaching the cold Arctic. The Arctic then becomes a sink for these pollutants and ends up contaminating the food webs, which many Indigenous people rely on for their food.

- For three years you've been a president of the Academy of Science, Royal Society of Canada, an institution that, among other things, advises governments, NGOs and Canadians on matters of public interest. What would you say are the best ways to communicate the dangers of climate change to our government officials? 

- First, I think it is important to communicate the threats in plain language.  When communicating with politicians or the public-at-large, it is a different form of communication than we use when talking at scientific conferences or publications. We need to be accurate, none-the-less.

I find most people are more interested in how it affects them locally and immediately.  So I am spending less time now talking about polar bears but more time talking about how it affects local issues. And there is lots we can talk about, simply by looking at the news from the last few years (like forest fires, floods, and so forth).  

What is a bigger challenge is to explain the urgency of the climate issue.  Most politicians think on relatively short time windows. For example, in Canada, most political terms are about 4 years long.  It is sometimes hard to convince policy makers to take hard decisions that will help people only decades later - but we have to keep trying.

- For the past 20 years, you've been building and developing a research group called PEARL (short for Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Laboratory). What have been the biggest challenges in managing a large, successful, and active group of scientists from around the world? What advice would you give to someone in a similar position?

- There are definitely challenges, but also many rewards. The biggest challenge remains funding - the need to generate large sums of money to pay salaries and field and lab costs. Another challenge is time, as the larger your group, the more time you spend on trying to mentor students and other scientists, as well as keeping the lab running effectively.  

My biggest piece of advice is to be organized and realize that time is likely your biggest priority:  do not waste it!  To succeed, you need to: 1) Be organized; 2) Budget your time and choose your tasks carefully (you can’t do everything you want to do); and 3) Enjoy yourself and strive to maintain a friendly and cooperative research environment - if people around you are happy, they will help you succeed.