This is Climate to Action, a CSUSM student podcast.
We amplify voices, explore solutions to the climate
crisis, and confront climate injustice for all
living beings. Here at C2A, we are committed
to providing a variety of perspectives for addressing
the climate crisis in every episode. Stay tuned
for the end of the episode where we provide simple
ways you can take action yourself. First, we'd
like to acknowledge that our recording studio
is on the traditional territory of the Luceño
-Payacuichum people. CSUSM and its surrounding
areas are still home to six federally recognized
bands of the La Jolla, Paula, Palma, Pechanga,
Rincon, and Ceboba Luceño -Payacuichum people.
This land is also a shared space among the Cupeño,
Kumeyaay, and Epay peoples. For today's episode,
we are thrilled to introduce a very special guest,
CSUSM's own Dr. Elizabeth Ritter. Dr. Ritter
has done a lot of fieldwork, especially in the
Mediterranean Basin. She also teaches classes
on campus from intro to geography to parks and
protected areas. Dr. Ritter, welcome to the show.
Could you start by telling our listeners a little
bit about your background, your research, and
how you became interested in your field of study?
Yeah, so I did not come to studying what I do
directly. I, as an undergraduate, was majoring
in biology, and I was wildlife biology and conservation
biology focused. So I had the opportunity through
my courses to spend a lot of time outdoors, to
learn a lot about landscapes, the vegetation,
the animals, and we had a lot of very practical
hands -on sort of learning. And then I went to
work for a while. So I worked in environmental
consulting that I ended up hating. Sorry, everyone.
It just wasn't for me, but my colleagues were
really, they loved their jobs. So it wasn't for
me. And I decided that I needed to find a new
job or go back to grad school, figure out my
life a little bit. And when I was digging around
through grad school programs, I mean, I was still
very interested in ecology sort of things, but
I didn't really want to go into a master's degree
in ecology. So what drew me to geography is that
they were doing all these really interesting
things and using really cool technologies to
study landscape change, to look at how, you know,
the questions. Sorry that you have to hear from
me all the time. Like, why is this thing here?
Like, what are the conditions that led to this
sort of thing? um looking for patterns and trying
to understand like the evolution of the landscape
or the things on it um better so that's how I
got into geography specifically and I still really
thought um I was a bit naive when I went to to
grad school um I still thought I was going to
work with small mammals like that was still my
thing um but it I mean it's very hard to do of
course because there's lots of permitting there's
all which makes total sense. So I was a little
lost for a while, even after starting grad school.
But my academic advisor, she and colleagues had
been working in the Mediterranean for a long
time. And so she just suggested like, you're
already doing some of this like GIS stuff, some
of this stuff with remote sensing. What if you
just came and looked at our site in Cyprus? Maybe
something will like... spark for you. And so
I applied for a whole bunch of scholarships and
I got told a lot, but thankfully I got told yes
enough that I could pay for my airfare and transportation.
And then while we were on site, since it was
archaeology field school, like they housed us
and did all that kind of thing. So while I was
there, like just seeing what they were working
on and looking at this landscape and trying to
envision it when the people of the past were
there. It did. I was like, how can I use the
skills that I have, the knowledge I have already
about vegetation and about GIS and remote sensing
to try to piece parts of this back together?
Right. Because it's always an incomplete bit
of knowledge. And how can I contribute to the
I don't know how we understand the world of the
past in that way. And so it was it was a bit
of a secured, secured, circular route. Awesome.
That's really interesting. And I know that there's
a lot of really cool like technology that's used
in GIS. I know when I was in your class, we did
Esri and that, you know, it's a love for me personally.
It's a love hate relationship, but I know it's
a really, really cool way to track like geographical
geographical locations and stuff like that. I
don't think you're alone in that. Most people
have kind of a love hate relationship. There's
funny memes out there about it. Yeah. Cause it's
like one, one like piece of like almost, it's
almost like coding, like one thing wrong and
just the whole thing like explodes. It feels
like, but it's really cool once it comes together.
Cause then you feel really accomplished. I remember
I was like, yes, I like actually. Yeah. And it
can be, it's, it's a tool. It's not the only
tool. to helping us like understand these things
and at least start asking questions about them.
Right. It can be a starting point. It doesn't
have to be. The end all be all. Yeah, absolutely.
You spoke a little bit about how you kind of
started in the Mediterranean basin with your
academic advisors. Can you talk a little bit
more about it and the climate issues or like
the geographical location and everything that
surrounds it? Yeah. So we look at human environment
interactions. Of the past, so about 4 ,500 years
ago to 3 ,000 -ish years ago. So the eastern
end of the Mediterranean, this is kind of the
early Bronze Age. It's still the Copper Age if
you're on the western end of the Mediterranean.
But we're trying to understand through archaeological
excavation the things that we can link. So things
are left behind. And how can we relate those
to the climate or environment of the time, essentially?
and learn more about that um and then what systems
do people put in place to address any environmental
or climatic sort of changes right um my dissertation
was quite a bit different it looked at modern
things um so we did a whole bunch of just observational
vegetation study essentially driving all over
the island of cyprus um and just making notes.
So very, very old school way of studying vegetation
and then going through some historical, recent
but historical sort of accounts of vegetation
as well to fill out places we couldn't go or
that had changed quite a bit. And what I was
doing then was using these projections of future
climate changes that there's several. groups
that put them out. So there's one in England.
There's a large group in Japan. The U .S. has
their own groups that put out these global kind
of climate models. And part of what they do is
project to the future. So under different scenarios,
what do we anticipate the future temperature
precipitation might look like? So I was using
their projections to see what the impacts on
vegetation might be. And so we had, I don't even
remember now, several dozen species that we were
really wondering, will this allow this particular
species to kind of expand its geographic range
or will it cause it to shrink in some way? And
if, what are those kind of like, what does that
look like? What are those patterns again look
like? And there are some things that are unique
to cypress. So there's endemic species and other
species of special concern that we didn't look
at them specifically. They just happened to be
in our observations. And, you know, how are they
going to respond? Assuming that the model, you
know, the future scenarios are correct or potential
scenarios are likely. And so some of the things
were really kind of. surprising because we also
looked at some agricultural things because cypress
is olives are very important um almonds are very
important pomegranate fig culturally and economically
right um pistachio there's a few others um they
don't do pistachio production but like we do
here in california there's several kinds of pistachio
that have other kind of cultural uses or historical
uses and so like For almonds, like almonds are
happy. So as long as there's water, they can
be provided water under future scenarios. They're
like, we'll go wherever you want us, right? Some
of the oak that are there are kind of like our
scrub oak. They can, again, go lots of places
and be perfectly happy under multiple kind of
situations of climate. But some things that are
already kind of restricted to high elevation,
there's several pines, there's several oaks.
that are unique, they, of course, very much shrink.
And it's not that we were surprised so much about
those things, because that's kind of what a bunch
of other studies were saying about how vegetation
is going to shift under climate. More so looking
at it from the perspective of what information
can I provide, should anybody ever look at my
dissertation, that might help them maybe look
at climate refugia. Or how do they want to maintain
populations? So for them to implement policy,
I wasn't in policy, or for them to implement
different conservation strategies themselves
that align with other kind of management goals.
And so I don't know if anybody's flown with any
of that, to be honest. I hope some of it has
been a takeaway that they can work from. And
then from there, my colleagues and I have continued
to work together. So I still work with, which
is a little bit unusual for a lot of people.
I still work with my academic advisor and we
have a really nice interdisciplinary team. And
so she's a paleobotanist. So studying the vegetation
of the past. I work with a zooarchaeologist who
studies animal bones. Of the past, an archaeologist
and a geologist or geomorphologist. So she studies
landscapes. So I didn't work. We've kind of cobbled
together this really kind of dynamic group. But
we all bring kind of a unique perspective to
what we're trying to sort out about how humans
and the environment work together. yeah or in
opposition right yeah definitely there's definitely
a together and opposition we definitely see that
very commonly now unfortunately one thing that
kind of stood out when you were speaking about
your work is how you track like species and their
patterns of where they're going to go and that
kind of makes me think of like what i'm studying
right now is mosquitoes and like infectious diseases
and how they're with climate change the weather
patterns are changing do you see things like
that with the species in the mediterranean basin
do you see them like kind of shifting like for
example in cyprus do you see them like shifting
to a new area and if so how could that like affect
i guess the surrounding species because of course
an ecosystem is a very interconnected web so
do you see that like happening and like what
do you predict might happen if it does i mean
i don't unfortunately i haven't followed um how
they're tracking that in cyprus we haven't like
repeated the vegetation observations or anything
like that to know like what's it look like right
x number of years later um to see if any of that's
panned out yet but we know globally there are
examples of this where vegetation is moving up
slope it's moving further north um even the in
the united states the usda has revised its plant
zones to reflect where for gardening purposes
and vegetable growing purposes um optimal or
climate conditions under which to grow different
things. So it's a well -known condition, but
it's very species dependent. So some things have
kind of a wider range of characteristics that
permit them to basically thrive under a bigger
variety of climatic conditions. Like cockroaches.
Like cockroaches. And other things are far more
restrictive. And so it's hard to... What we know
from the past is that there are novel ecosystems,
assemblages of species, essentially, that existed
that no longer exist today because the climate
shifted in particular ways. We either have relatives
or closely related things left or we have, you
know, new kind of conglomerations of maybe things
that used to not associate with one another.
Right. And so we expect to see novel kind of
ecosystems and these alliances form in the future.
With plants, it's a little hard because a lot
of them don't respond quickly, especially when
we're talking about trees and long lived organisms.
Right. Their generations extend kind of beyond
the current pace of climate change. So things
that can reproduce quickly and or relocate quickly,
you know, we may see them kind of like adjust
first. We were talking in class this week already
about how we've been observing phenology changes.
So the patterns of like when things leaf out,
migration patterns. And some things that we've
been like, oh, like this migratory bird. Sorry,
I don't have an example right off the top of
my head. It's okay. We would anticipate that
it would start to migrate sooner because spring
is coming sooner, but they haven't. Right. We
are starting to see like misalignments of when
things like maybe bloom or there's phytoplankton,
like when they first start to really like reproduce.
and timing of the organisms that eat them. There
are cyclical things that we know that happen,
right, or random events, but they're shifting.
The random events and the cyclical things are
becoming the more regular instead of it being
kind of a rare occurrence. And so, yeah, pollinators
are off migrating when the things they pollinate
are blooming. So we do have some examples of
those things. You'll have to fact check me, but
I think one of them is with saguaro cacti blooms
and there's a moth that pollinates them and they're
a little bit out of sync. Currently coming out
of sync. Yeah. And that's hard too for like plants
to flourish because they, you know, rely so heavily
on pollinators and the pollinator like cycle.
But kind of to switch gears here, you talked
a little bit about like continental U .S. issues
with like the USDA. And I know you've taught
a class on national parks and protected areas
because I took it with you. And lately there's
been a lot of political debate around funding
for national parks. What do cuts like that mean
for conservation, climate resilience, or even
like with the plants, like how will the species
respond, anything like that? staffing cuts that
we've seen this year um directly influence we
we usually tend to think about things like um
will there be anybody at the visitor center can
they still lead tours the trash and pick up the
trail maintenance right the construction crews
uh fire suppression um yeah so we we usually
think of those things first which are very very
important but along with those people who were
fired or laid off we've lost um you know some
of the veg management people we've lost the scientists
we've lost the funding to do the monitoring that's
required under different um rules and regulations
so some of it is is like we may not know about
some things for a while um if the data collection
has kind of stopped or nobody's even there to
analyze the data kind of thing The one thing
that I was recently reading about, I think it
was in the Tahoe Basin. They had massive staff
cuts. The Tahoe Forest, so it's not a national
park, but it's under the USDA, the Forest Service.
They lost people who were working on... Oh, there
was some kind of algal bloom and they had been
working with deploying these mats that basically
block the sunlight. And they're having really
good results. But now there's nobody to do those
things. Oh, no. That's so sad. It is a little
sad. You know, they can't hire students coming
fresh out of college right now or having a harder
time hiring students for temporary or internship
or summer positions. Yeah. So that makes it,
I don't know the right words. It basically affects
the management into the future as well because
we have people who are missing out on those training
opportunities and those experiential opportunities
that are really formative in helping launch those.
kind of management conservation sorts of careers
yeah so i didn't say anything about climate but
um it's okay it's okay i mean we already know
that there's impacts to our our parks um we know
that visitors are adjusting like their visiting
hours because it's hotter or whatever reasons
um so the usda again they they put out a report
not too long ago i didn't write down the date
But they're changing the timing of their trips.
They're changing the activities they participate
in. They're changing how they even experience
these open spaces, parks, the forests, all these
kinds of things. So we're seeing that more people
are starting to also come when the parks expect
to be kind of quiet. So they're shifting into
the off season or the shoulder seasons when parks
aren't staffed as well. Yeah. Interesting. So
lengthening kind of the park seasons. There's
more heat related illness issues, which increase
cost of parks for. Of course, we have to provide
medical services rightfully. When we have extreme
or more regular, no longer extreme events like
flooding, drought. Again, it shuts down parks.
It affects the infrastructure. changes the visitation
patterns um i talk about visitation because those
are the numbers that are easy to measure like
at a park entrance they're counting you right
you have to pay a fee you have to like check
in somehow um the national forests and like the
um other public lands in the u .s like the bureau
of land management most of them are kind of like
they don't have like a fee gate so it's harder
to estimate their numbers and the impacts on
the visitation but the tahoe forest for We know,
even though they don't collect fees in the same
way. With these cuts, they are small. Like this
is a small region. They have more visitation
than Yosemite. Wow. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And so
their staffing cuts affects like all their ways
that they can help visitors when these events
may be happening or not happening or respond
to fire, respond to bark beetle outbreaks, respond
to all this sort of stuff. Yeah. So it has long
term kind of impacts to the ecosystems. Right.
And that's what's crazy is that the funding doesn't
even a lot of people think, oh, it's just kind
of this like surface. But you kind of spoke on
how it not only impacts like, of course, jobs
and job security, but it impacts our research
on parks, impacts our research on with the species,
with plant and animal. It impacts human health
almost in a way because they're, you know, people
are going at different times. And if they're
not staffed with medical professional. or the
amount of medical professionals that they may
need, then that can be an impact on human health.
And so that's crazy that just what people think
are just like some cuts here and there is actually,
it almost seems detrimental to the park's like
health and well -being. Yeah. And the proposed
budget that currently has the government kind
of shut down. Right. Yeah. One part of it is
so. The parks represent very little of our national
sort of budget. Just because I wanted to be accurate
here, less than one -fifteenth of one percent.
Oh, my gosh. Our entire federal budget goes to
the National Park Service specifically. But there
is approximately $15 of economic activity generated
for every single dollar we invest in them. Oh,
my God. So the return on the dollar is huge.
Yeah. Huge investment. They were already experiencing
kind of staffing issues. They've had hiring freezes
over the years. So they've been understaffed
kind of for a while and underfunded. So since
2010, they've had a 20 percent reduction in staffing
and then 24 percent on top of that just in January.
Oh, my God. But the proposals on the table right
now for the budget, like this is pretty severe.
So even though it's tiny, it has a big effect
on what the parks can and can't do. The administration's
budget for 2026 is proposing cutting about $1
billion. So $900 million in reduction to park
operations, which is a 31 % cut. Kind of the
biggest one we've seen. Part of the proposal
is saying we should transfer some of these parks
back to states or two states in the first place.
They've never had necessarily controlled them
in the first place. Right. States also have limited
budgets, staff and capability to take proper
care of such. I'm not saying the government always
take proper care of the land, but the states
may have even more limited capacity to do so.
So. That doesn't sound like it's going to work
out so great. They are also saying, in addition
to that, $73 million in construction funding.
So that's like maintenance projects. Right. As
well as like future sort of needs. $77 million
cut to recreation and preservation and $197 million
to historic preservation. Oh, my gosh. That's
crazy. The house is like slightly better, mildly
better. Only $176 million they're looking to
cut. So 6 % of the overall budget. But they're
also saying $37 million cut to construction.
Getting rid of the EPA budget by 23%, which again
is critical to the science programs that go on
in the parks. Right. The research, clean water,
clean air, clean all these things. So that's
not great. And less protection for national monuments,
which are designated under all this is designated
under the Antiquities Act. So if we have less
protection for those areas, that again puts them
back on the slate for being open to development,
different kinds of development. Right. The Senate
has a more balanced approach. They're at least
not saying we should cut things, but they're
not giving the parks any more money. It's a flat.
It's just a flat. Yep. So they can at least do
what they're currently doing. But they have some
really important sort of add -ons, I guess. So
requirements. They want the administration to
hire and retain staff to perform its mission.
They want the administration to give Congress
notice of any reorganization efforts that could
cause a reduction in park staffing. They want
to basically block any attempt to deauthorize,
sell off or transfer units out of the park system.
They want to get rid of efforts to divert money
from land and water conservation fund. And they
want to require notification to Congress of any
future efforts to cancel park service leases.
And finally, they're saying that they need to
double down on and force the timely delivery
of grant funds for tribal and other community
driven efforts that help protect and interpret
these historic resources. So there's kind of
three proposals out there right now. Right. None
of it's moving anywhere right now. Yeah. Yeah.
Everything's just kind of at like it's at a standstill
right now. It's. crazy where we're at. Well,
Dr. Ritter, thank you so much for taking the
time to speak and educate us today. Now that
we're nearing the end of our podcast, we'd like
to introduce you to our tradition of offering
our listeners a chance to implement something
into their own lives that helps combat climate
change in some small way. In other words, it's
our Climate to Action podcast call to action.
Dr. Ritter, throughout your work, you've emphasized
the importance of collaboration and justice.
What is one thing our listeners can do to contribute
to climate action in their own lives today? So
I know I was asked for something fun, but because
of where our current political environment is,
I think it's really important that people continue
to train yourselves to interpret data. To analyze
and interpret data, to critically evaluate sources
of information and even like critically evaluate
the text that you read around data because we
just look at it and we go, oh, numbers, that
must be right. Right. So and the reason I emphasize
this is your climate action is because it's really.
sometimes easy for us to like look at a chart
or a graph and again take it at face value um
and not that they're using made up numbers or
anything like this it's that data can be cherry
picked and misrepresented and then the narrative
around them is very convincing yeah so being
able to critically evaluate that that narrative
and come to your own conclusions Right. Use the
skills you're developing to come to your own
conclusions about that and formulate your own
opinions that are based, that are data driven.
Right. That's my call to action. I love that.
That's really interesting. So basically just
look at data and being able to interpret it and
analyze it in your own words and kind of being
able to use that as your driving factor into
going out. I really like that. It's really, really
good. Well, thank you so much for sharing your
insights with us today. I feel that your insight
on these pressing environmental topics have greatly
expanded my views and hopefully our listeners'
views as well and truly opened the minds and
opened our eyes to a wide variety of topics from
the Mediterranean basin and geographical locations
to our national parks and what's happening on
the political side of climate. It's been incredible
hearing about the work you're doing, and we encourage
everyone listening to check out the resources
Dr. Ritter mentioned and take action in their
own lives. Want to hear more from Climate to
Action, a CSUSM student podcast? Be sure to check
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learning, keep acting, and keep pushing for change.
Until next time, this is Climate to Action signing
off. Climate to Action is recorded at Inspiration
Studios on the CSUSM campus. Our podcast is funded
in part by a generous donation from the Rosemary
Kramer Raitt Foundation.