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Welcome to Talking Climate with Katherine Haeho. Each episode, we explore how climate change is affecting the people, places, and things we love, and what we can do to make a difference. From science to solutions and stories that inspire, you're in the right place for real talk about real change. This week I am delighted to hand the newspaper over to Merritt Turetsky. Merritt, aka the Queen of Pete, is an ecologist, professor, mom of three daughters, and author of a new book called Bogland, The Hidden World of Earth's Most Extraordinary Ecosystems, that I can't wait to read. I also think its UK cover is so beautiful it should be turned into a puzzle. For three decades, Merritt has explored the hidden worlds of peatlands, permafrost, fire, and carbon, working across the Canadian and Arctic North to understand how these extraordinary systems shape our changing planet. A passionate science communicator, Merritt believes bogs are wild, beautiful, creative places that hold stories, biodiversity, and clues to our future. Through her science, writing, and enthusiastic advocacy for all things Pete, she is building a global community of bog champions. Take it away, Merritt. Good news. For a long time we saw wet as bad, but many are beginning to imagine a different and much more positive relationship with wetland. Take polluticulture, the practice of farming with water instead of fighting it. Rather than draining peatlands, polluticulture keeps the peat wet and the carbon it contains in the ground, while helping local communities make a living from what grows there. In Germany, projects are exploring crops including cattails for insulation, reeds for fiberboard, and sphagnum moss for a variety of uses. In the UK, large-scale projects are testing crops, farming techniques, and new markets for wetter agricultural landscapes. And in Indonesia, communities have developed livelihoods around plants such as sago that provides food and puran that's used for mats, baskets, and furniture. I find this hopeful because it marks a profound shift in how we think about peatlands, not as a problem that needs to be engineered away, but as landscapes whose ecological functions, including storing carbon, can become part of the livelihood they provide. In some ways, this is not a new idea. One of the discoveries I made while writing Bogland was that people have used peatlands for thousands of years for grazing livestock, gathering plants, preserving food, and as places of ritual significance. Our ancestors lived with their wetness, sometimes depended upon it, and sometimes treated it as sacred. Peatlands were working landscapes and cultural landscapes at the same time. In this sense, polluticulture asks us to look forward by looking back, remembering that there have always been ways of living with wetlands. If we can embrace boglands rather than turning our back on them, we will discover that wetness is not an obstacle to human flourishing, but rather part of what makes these landscapes valuable in the first place. A recent story about a peatland in North Carolina caught my attention. Roughly the size of Manhattan, New York, this ecosystem in the inner banks was drained decades ago for agriculture, and as a result, it now releases around 130,000 tons of CO2 each year. This is like burning 392,000 pounds of coal every single day of the year. This points to a larger danger. When peatlands lose their water, they can stop storing carbon and at the same time can become much more vulnerable to fire. This summer drought fueled a severe fire season in Indonesia. There and elsewhere, dried peat soils can smolder underground, sometimes for months, releasing carbon accumulated over many centuries. In June, two unusually early wildfires burned in Greenland's tundra. Fires are still rare there, but scientists are concerned that warmer, drier conditions are making these landscapes more flammable. Even a relatively small fire can reach carbon that has been stored for a very long time. What connects these stories is water. Peatlands store carbon because waterlogged conditions slow the decay of carbon-rich organic material and help keep fire at bay. Drain a peatland for agriculture, dry it during drought, or in the far north, warm and disturb previously frozen ground or permafrost that helps hold water in place, and some of that protection disappears. A peatland can spend thousands of years building its carbon store. Once that store is exposed to oxygen and fire, the ancient carbon can be lost very quickly. Increasingly, the fate of that carbon is tied to how well we protect the water that keeps it there. What you can do. For me, that has meant seeing peatlands not as empty, soggy landscapes, but as living ecosystems that store carbon, hold water, support biodiversity, and preserve stories of past worlds. This week, I invite you to become a bog champion. Chances are there's a wetland near where you live. Visit it, learn its plants and wildlife, and share what makes it special. Ask your local garden store to stop selling peat-based compost and soil products, and support organizations working to conserve and restore peatlands. These actions may seem small, but action for climate and nature often begins with caring about a place enough to speak up for it. We can't protect what we don't notice. I offer many more ways to become a bog champion, from changing everyday gardening practices to supporting peatland conservation efforts in my new book, Bogland. And if you need inspiration for your next adventure, the book includes a bog bucket list of extraordinary peatlands around the world that are worth visiting and worth protecting. Thank you, Merritt, for helping us see these extraordinary places with fresh eyes. I love your reminder that action begins with noticing and caring. I look at bogs differently thanks to what I've learned from Merritt. While I've already been privileged to spend time in many wetlands, from North Carolina's great dismal swamp to the beaver pond wetlands of my native Ontario, visiting an Arctic bog with Merit is now on my bucket list. For more, follow Merritt on Blue Sky, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn. To see the beauty of bogs through her eyes, explore her photography and videography portfolio. Thanks for listening to Talking Climate, narrated by Ann Cloud. Post-production and mix by John Crowley at Loudmouth Studio. For more resources, links, and actions you can take, check out the full newsletter at www.talkingclimate.ca. Until next time, keep talking climate.
