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29/11/2021

Curious Kids: how do mountains form?
This is an article from Curious Kids, a series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky! You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.

How do mountains get made? - Astrid, age 6, Marrickville

Hello Astrid. You may not believe this but when I was about your age my teacher (Mr Rouve) explained to the class how mountains get made.

He took a sheet of paper and put it flat on the table. Then, he put the tips of his right and left hands’ fingers on each side of the flat sheet and slowly moved his hands toward each other. Try to do it and you will see that the middle part of the paper will lift off the table to form a nice fold.
My teacher explained that mountains form in a similar way, when flat layers of rocks are pushed toward each other they move upward forming tall mountains.
My teacher was really excited by a discovery made by geologists at that time, when I was a kid. These geologists had figured out that the surface of the Earth was, like a giant jigsaw puzzle, made of pieces. Those pieces, called “tectonic plates”, move and bump into each other.

This bumping creates earthquakes, which slowly push the ground surface upward to make mountains. It happens so slowly that, in fact, you are getting taller faster than mountains do, except mountains keep growing and growing and growing for many millions of years until they are so heavy they can no longer grow taller, only wider.
In fact, Australia and New Zealand are sitting on two different “tectonic plates” that move towards each other at the speed of a few centimetres per year. Where they bump into each other, the ground gets lifted to form the stunning New Zealand Alps, the top of which stands close to 4,000 metres. Can you imagine about 4,000 people as tall as you, standing straight up on each other shoulders? That’s how tall these mountains are.
Mountains also form when the Earth’s crust is pushed upward from underneath. At the same time the New Zealand Alps started to form, a large hot bubble of rocks raising from deep in the Earth, like a giant air balloon, was pushing upward the surface of the eastern part of Africa forming a 4,000 metre high plateau. This plateau split to form what is known as the East African Rift, a valley twice as long as the New Zealands Alps.

There are many mountains at the surface of the Earth. Some we can see, some we can’t because they are under the sea. If you could take a submarine and dive under the sea, for instance in the ocean in between Australia and Antarctica, you could visit a long mountain where the Australian and Antarctica tectonic plates move away from each other.

Thank you again for your fantastic question.

29/11/2021

Losing some species may matter more than losing others
Canada risks losing its polar bears in the North. And many runs of Chinook salmon on the Southern West Coast. And the black ash tree, currently widespread from Manitoba to Newfoundland.

In late November 2018, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) affirmed that all these wildlife species are at risk of disappearing from Canada. But if they were to go, what would we really lose?

This question is brought into relief when we consider that COSEWIC also reported that 14 other Canadian wildlife species — including a prairie lizard, a turtle, several freshwater fish and a handful of flowering plants — are also at some level of risk of being lost.

The media, however, seemed most keen to hear about salmon and polar bear. As members of COSEWIC, we would have loved to talk more about a (usually) coldwater-loving small fish called a lake chub that has taken up residence in popular hot springs in northern British Columbia. A hot tub chub! Or a species of wasp that hunts down the buried larvae of beetles that attack fruit trees in southern B.C. A hunter-killer wasp! And in our interests and wishes lies a veritable Russian doll of considerations of the value of Nature.
Hot tub chubs, intrinsic value and beauty
The inner, core doll is perhaps also the hardest to grasp. This is “intrinsic value:” the idea that species have some fundamental right to exist. While this value is undeniably important to many people, it’s hard to have a satisfying philosophical discussion about it in the face of the many threats that are bearing down on threatened species and places.

We know that the more one learns about a species, the more valuable it seems to become: biodiversity has been said to have transformative value and that could generate other values.

And so, a well-crafted story about the hot tub chub, at risk from bathers and their suntan lotion, might have worked as a lead story. But we did not go that route.

Aesthetic values also play an important role in how we relate to nature. The aesthetics of nature are a major driver of ecotourism, which has been valued at more than $600 billion per year in direct spending. But we don’t go to hot springs to see fish, and we don’t go to British Columbia’s wine region to search for hunter-killer wasps. Polar bears are certainly attractive, but they have developed two more values that seemed more important to us.

29/11/2021

National parks are beautiful, but austerity and inequality prevent many from enjoying them
Spending time in nature is good for you. A person’s access to parks and green, open spaces is important for their health, as research from the NHS and the OPENSpace research group at Edinburgh and Heriot Watt universities shows. Spending time in parks lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and asthma, helps address obesity and mitigates mental health issues.

National parks are often considered the best places to escape to and enjoy the benefits of immersion in nature. Occupying whole landscapes in picturesque rural areas, they provide space for hiking, bird watching and mountain biking. Due to their size, they also perform critical environmental functions by providing a home to biodiversity and storing atmospheric carbon in vegetation.

But approximately 50% of the UK’s poorest people live over 15 miles from a national park and most people require transport to get to them. For the most disadvantaged people in Britain, who predominantly live in urban areas, these places can seem largely inaccessible.

Within low income communities, opportunities to explore national parks are hindered by inadequate transport options compared to communities of higher socioeconomic standing. The most affluent 20% of wards in the UK also have five times the amount of green space than the most deprived 10%. Promoting the value of these green spaces for health and well-being is therefore disingenuous without acknowledging that access isn’t equal.
Local parks, meanwhile, are embedded within neighbourhoods and could ensure that immersion in nature isn’t just a luxury for the rich to enjoy. Typically starting at about two hectares in size and located within a ten-minute walk of residential areas, local parks provide everyday spaces where people can connect with nature.
These are the places where kids play football and ride their bikes and where there is the opportunity for daily contact between people, nature and their communities, all of which is essential for social cohesion.

If people can’t use national parks, perhaps local parks can provide the health and social well-being benefits within the community.

29/11/2021

29/11/2021