Scientists Find Organic Farms Have Higher Quality Fruit, Better Soil, Lower Environmental Impact
Side-by-side comparisons of organic and conventional strawberry farms and their fruit found the organic farms produced more flavorful and nutritious berries while leaving the soil healthier and more genetically diverse.
“Our findings have global implications and advance what we know about the sustainability benefits of organic farming systems,” said John Reganold, Washington State University Regents professor of soil science and lead author of a paper published today in the peer-reviewed online journal, PLoS ONE. “We also show you can have high quality, healthy produce without resorting to an arsenal of pesticides.”
The study is among the most comprehensive of its kind, analyzing 31 chemical and biological soil properties, soil DNA, and the taste, nutrition and quality of three strawberry varieties on more than two dozen commercial fields—13 conventional and 13 organic.
“There is no paper in the literature that comprehensively and quantitatively compares so many indices of both food and soil quality at multiple sampling times on so many commercial farms,” said Reganold. Previous Reganold studies of “sustainability indicators” on farms in the Pacific Northwest, California, British Columbia, Australia, and New Zealand have appeared in the journals Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)
Fuel-Efficiency Needs Cars Wired With More Smarts, Less Vroom
John DeCicco
A University of Michigan researcher says it’s possible to triple fuel economy in gasoline-powered cars by 2035, but it’ll mean getting our automotive kicks from smart electronic technology and other forms of virtual performance rather than horsepower.
As federal regulators are poised to propose the next round of fuel economy mandates, John DeCicco, a senior lecturer at the School of Natural Resources and Environment and faculty fellow with the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, says the most cost-effective answer is steady progress in advanced combustion engines and hybrid drive—but stopping short of plugging in and requiring super batteries or gaseous fuels.
He finds that the solution is in our garages if Americans shift gears in terms of priorities. What DeCicco calls a “revolution by evolution” avoids politically trendy breakthrough technologies that will remain too expensive for most consumers.
“If we really prioritize efficiency, we can get just as far with less sticker shock,” he said. “Evolutionary change can be of profound consequence for cutting oil use and greenhouse gas emissions, and do so with manageable costs and minimal risks for automakers.”
DeCicco has completed a study for The Energy Foundation examining how far fuel economy can be taken if it becomes a top priority in product planning. See the study here. (more…)
Resource-Savvy Communities Generate Healthy, Sustainable Changes
Local elementary schools are using "grow labs" and "learning gardens" to help students learn about growing vegetables and experience the taste of fresh vegetables. (Credit: MU Extension)
As the nation becomes more aware of health issues related to nutrition and lifestyle choices, communities are struggling to find ways to make healthy living easier. The University of Missouri is helping communities turn healthy ideas into sustainable changes through the Healthy Lifestyle Initiative. The initiative, underway at 13 sites in 12 Missouri counties, is aimed at changing environments to increase the availability of affordable, locally produced foods and access to safe physical activities.
The Healthy Lifestyle Initiative (HLI) began by partnering MU Extension specialists with community leaders in four Missouri counties. The MU Extension specialists provided assistance in the areas of agriculture, nutrition and physical activity, and business, community and youth development. Each team recruited a variety of stakeholders, including families, students, agricultural producers and healthcare providers, to develop and implement community plans focused on policy and environmental changes to support healthy lifestyles.
“The goal of HLI is to turn goals and ideas into action by identifying the resources and expertise already in place within communities,” said Ann Cohen, HLI co-director and associate state nutrition specialist in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences. “Initiative leaders work alongside community members, bringing together local resources and university expertise to create sustainable change. The models being developed can be replicated by other communities to combat sedentary lifestyles and related diseases, and foster positive changes and lifelong health.” (more…)
International Penguin Conference in Boston
Penguins over past decade have soared in global popularity, yet many of their populations have crashed during the same time. This week in Boston, penguin biologists from around the world will gather for their quadrennial meeting, and one of the hot topics will be the possible effects of climate change on declining penguin populations.
All penguin species are found only south of the equator, and over the twenty year history of International Penguin Conferences, all of them had been held in the Southern Hemisphere, until now. From August 29 until September 5, the New England Aquarium of Boston will be creating its own colony of the world’s leading penguin researchers, biologists and policy makers. More than 180 penguin enthusiasts from Australia, Asia Africa, Europe and the Americas will present ongoing research, identify current and emerging conservation issues and create action plans.
Of the eighteen penguin species, twelve are classified internationally as threatened or endangered, and many are facing extinction. Global climate change, competition for food from commercial fishing, habitat loss from coastal development and oil spills sre among the myriad of threats that imperil these beloved birds. (more…)
Dramatic Climate Change is Unpredictable
This is a schematic picture of the climate represented by the red ball. The climate can be located in two different states, the two valleys on each side of a hill. In the first scenario the climate is like a seesaw. If the outside influences increase or, for example, increased CO2 makes the weight heavier on the other side, the seesaw will tip forcing the climate over into the other state. The climate change would be predictable. In the second scenario, the hill is fixed and a series of small chaotic kicks from wind and weather could cause it to roll over into the other state. This climate change is unpredictable. Mathematically speaking, the first scenario is a "bifurcation" and the second scenario "noise-induced transition". (Credit: Peter Ditlevsen)
The fear that global temperature can change very quickly and cause dramatic climate changes that may have a disastrous impact on many countries and populations is great around the world. But what causes climate change and is it possible to predict future climate change? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen shows that it may be due to an accumulation of different chaotic influences and as a result would be difficult to predict. The results have just been published in Geophysical Research Letters.
For millions of years the Earth’s climate has alternated between about 100,000 years of ice age and approximately 10-15,000 years of a warm climate like we have today. The climate change is controlled by the Earth’s orbit in space, that is to say the Earth’s tilt and distance from the sun. But there are also other climatic shifts in the Earth’s history and what caused those?
Dramatic climate change of the past
By analysing the ice cores that are drilled through the more than three kilometer thick ice sheet in Greenland, scientists can obtain information about the temperature and climate going back around 140,000 years. (more…)
Review Finds UN Climate Body Needs Fundamental Reform
Harold T. Shapiro, president emeritus and professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. (Photo courtesy of Princeton University)
The process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to produce its periodic assessment reports has been successful overall, but IPCC needs to fundamentally reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures to handle ever larger and increasingly complex climate assessments as well as the more intense public scrutiny coming from a world grappling with how best to respond to climate change, says a new report from the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an Amsterdam-based organization of the world’s science academies.
“Operating under the public microscope the way IPCC does requires strong leadership, the continued and enthusiastic participation of distinguished scientists, an ability to adapt, and a commitment to openness if the value of these assessments to society is to be maintained,” said Harold T. Shapiro, president emeritus and professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University in the United States and chair of the committee that wrote the report. Roseanne Diab, executive officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa and professor emeritus of environmental sciences and honorary senior research associate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, served as vice chair of the committee, which included experts from several countries and a variety of disciplines.
The IPCC was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme to inform policy decisions through periodic assessments of what is known about the physical scientific aspects of climate change, its global and regional impacts, and options for adaptation and mitigation. Representatives of 194 participating governments make up the Panel, which sets the scope of the assessments, elects the Bureau that oversees them, and approves the Summaries for Policymakers that accompany the massive assessment reports themselves, which are prepared by thousands of scientists who volunteer for three Working Groups. (more…)
North Korea Opens Its Doors to Agroforestry
ICRAF scientists and project team assess the species performance along the contour line. (Photo by Jianchu Xu, East-Asia Coordinator for the World Agroforestry Centre)
In a country where good news is scarce, a pioneering agroforestry project in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is restoring heavily degraded landscapes and providing much-needed food for communities living on the sloping lands.
Jianchu Xu, East-Asia Coordinator for the World Agroforestry Centre, which has been providing technical expertise and training for the project since 2008, said agroforestry - in this case the growing of trees on sloping land - is uniquely suited to DPR Korea for addressing food security and protecting the environment.
“What we have managed to achieve so far has had a dramatic impact on people’s lives and the local environment,” Jianchu explains.
“Previously malnourished communities are now producing their own trees and growing chestnut, walnut, peaches, pears and other fruits and berries as well as medicinal bushes,” Jianchu explains. “They have more food and vitamins and are earning income through trading”. (more…)
Scientists Projected an Increase in Intensity and Frequency of Extreme Weather Events
As reported on the website of the World Meteorological Organization: Several diverse extreme weather events are occurring concurrently around the world, giving rise to an unprecedented loss of human life and property. They include the record heatwave and wildfires in the Russian Federation, monsoonal flooding in Pakistan, rain-induced landslides in China, and calving of a large iceberg from the Greenland ice sheet. These should be added to the extensive list of extreme weather-related events, such as droughts and fires in Australia and a record number of high-temperature days in the eastern United States of America, as well as other events that occurred earlier in the year.
The heatwave in the European part of the Russian Federation is associated with a persistent pressure ridge that appeared in June 2010. Initially, it was associated with the Azores high, but later was reinforced by a strong inflow of warm air from the Middle East. More than 20 daily temperature records were broken including the absolute maximum temperature in Moscow. The high temperatures triggered massive forest and peat fires in the European part of the country. Some villages were burned completely, with smoke and smog adversely and greatly affecting the health and well-being of tens of millions of people. (more…)
Turning Up the Temperature in the High Arctic
Al Werner on his way to the day's research site in Svalbard, Norway
Al Werner is feeling the heat this summer. Typically, that wouldn’t be a problem to alleviate; a jump in the pool or a visit to the movie theatre would cool things down. But there weren’t pools or movie theatres in the Norwegian Arctic, where Werner just finished conducting research as part of the Svalbard Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). There were, however, glaciers–and, as the Mount Holyoke professor of geology found, they’re melting. Quickly.
“There is clear evidence of climate change here,” Werner said via email from Svalbard. “The Linne´ Glacier has been retreating since 1936 at an average rate of 20 meters per year. Since 2002, that rate has increased twofold, to nearly 40 meters per year. Now, we’re seeing the return of warm-water-loving mollusks. These results are consistent with other Arctic regions that likewise show accelerated warming in the past two decades.”
It’s an alarming trend that the REU is monitoring in the Norwegian High Arctic. The project’s ultimate goals are to monitor the area’s glacier/river/lake system, and to provide a better understanding of natural (pre-industrial) climate change there.
The Svalbard research is just one part of the much larger REU program, funded by the National Science Foundation, that aims to attract undergraduates to scientific fields by immersing them in field research experiences. In this way, Werner says, his REU project is mainly about educating and, hopefully, inspiring tomorrow’s climate change scientists. (more…)
Greening” Your Flat Screen TV
Electronic products pollute our environment with a number of heavy metals before, during and after they’re used. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 70% of heavy metals in landfill come from discarded electronics. With flat screen TVs getting bigger and cheaper every year, environmental costs continue to mount.
To counter this, a new Tel Aviv University solution applies a discovery in nano-technology, based on self-assembled peptide nanotubes, to “green” the optics and electronics industry. Researchers Nadav Amdursky and Prof. Gil Rosenman of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Electrical Engineering say their technology could make flat screen TV production green and can even make medical equipment — like subcutaneous ultrasound devices — more sensitive.
Inspired by a biomaterial involved in Alzheimer’s disease research discovered by Prof. Ehud Gazit of the university’s Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, the scientists developed a new nano-material, applying the scientific disciplines of both biology and physics. This biological material is the basis for their new, environmentally-friendly variety of light-emitting diodes (LED) used in both consumer and medical electronics.
Their new invention is more than a clean, green way to create light, the researchers say. It also generates a strong signal that can be used in other applications in the nano-world of motors, actuators and ultrasound. (more…)
Geo-Engineering and Sea-Level Rise Over the 21st Century
Scientific findings by international research group of scientists from England, China and Denmark just published suggest that sea level will likely be 30-70 centimetres higher by 2100 than at the start of the century even if all but the most aggressive geo-engineering schemes are undertaken to mitigate the effects of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions are stringently controlled.
“Rising sea levels caused by global warming are likely to affect around 150 million people living in low-lying coastal areas, including some of the world’s largest cities,” explained Dr Svetlana Jevrejeva of the National Oceanography Centre.
Most scientists agree that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions contribute greatly to global warming, and that these emissions need to be controlled if damaging future impacts such as sea-level rise are to be averted. But if we fail to do so, is there a ‘Plan B’?
Scientists have proposed ways of ‘geo-engineering’ the Earth system to tackle global warming, thereby reducing its impact on both the main contributors of sea level rise: thermal expansion of ocean water and melting of glaciers and ice sheets. Jevrejeva and her colleagues have modelled sea level over the 21st century under various geo-engineering schemes and carbon dioxide emission scenarios.
“We used 300 years of tide gauge measurements to reconstruct how sea level responded historically to changes in the amount of heat reaching the Earth from the Sun, the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions, and past human activities,” said Jevrejeva. “We then used this information to simulate sea level under geo-engineering schemes over the next 100 years.” (more…)
New Computer Model Advances Climate Change Research
Modeling climate’s complexity. This image, taken from a larger simulation of 20th century climate, depicts several aspects of Earth’s climate system. Sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations are shown by the two color scales. The figure also captures sea level pressure and low-level winds, including warmer air moving north on the eastern side of low-pressure regions and colder air moving south on the western side of the lows. Such simulations, produced by the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model, can also depict additional features of the climate system, such as precipitation. Companion software, recently released as the Community Earth System Model, will enable scientists to study the climate system in even greater complexity. (©UCAR)
Scientists can now study climate change in far more detail with powerful new computer software released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
The Community Earth System Model (CESM) will be one of the primary climate models used for the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The CESM is the latest in a series of NCAR-based global models developed over the last 30 years. The models are jointly supported by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR’s sponsor.
Scientists and engineers at NCAR, DOE laboratories, and several universities developed the CESM.
The new model’s advanced capabilities will help scientists shed light on some of the critical mysteries of global warming, including:
* What impact will warming temperatures have on the massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica?
* How will patterns in the ocean and atmosphere affect regional climate in coming decades?
* How will climate change influence the severity and frequency of tropical cyclones, including hurricanes?
* What are the effects of tiny airborne particles, known as aerosols, on clouds and temperatures?
The CESM is one of about a dozen climate models worldwide that can be used to simulate the many components of Earth’s climate system, including the oceans, atmosphere, sea ice, and land cover. The CESM and its predecessors are unique among these models in that they were developed by a broad community of scientists. The model is freely available to researchers worldwide. (more…)
Survey Shows Many Americans Still Clueless on How to Save Energy
People turn off lights in vain, ignoring real efficiencies.
Many Americans believe they can save energy with small behavior changes that actually achieve very little, and severely underestimate the major effects of switching to efficient, currently available technologies, says a new survey of Americans in 34 states. The study, which quizzed people on what they perceived as the most effective way to save energy, appears in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The largest group, nearly 20 percent, cited turning off lights as the best approach—an action that affects energy budgets relatively little. Very few cited buying decisions that experts say would cut U.S. energy consumption dramatically, such as more efficient cars (cited by only 2.8 percent), more efficient appliances (cited by 3.2 percent) or weatherizing homes (cited by 2.1 percent). Previous researchers have concluded that households could reduce their energy consumption some 30 percent by making such choices—all without waiting for new technologies, making big economic sacrifices or losing their sense of well-being.
Lead author Shahzeen Attari, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the university’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, said multiple factors probably are driving the misperceptions. “When people think of themselves, they may tend to think of what they can do that is cheap and easy at the moment,” she said. On a broader scale, she said, even after years of research, scientists, government, industry and environmental groups may have “failed to communicate” what they know about the potential of investments in technology; instead, they have funded recycling drives and encouraged actions like turning off lights. (more…)
Powering Australia with Waves
Coledale Beach south of Sydney, New South Wales
Wave energy is surging ahead as a viable source of renewable energy to generate electricity — with Australia’s southern margin identified by the World Energy Council as one of the world’s most promising sites for wave-energy generation.
One problem for wave-energy developers, however, is that previous estimates of wave-energy potential are based on information in deep ocean water, while “wave-energy generation systems are typically positioned near to shore,” says physical oceanographer Mark Hemer of Australia’s CSIRO Wealth for Oceans National research flagship.
In a paper in the AIP’s Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Hemer and colleague David Griffin provide new estimates of the wave-energy potential of Australia’s near-shore regions. They also calculate how much of Australia’s energy needs could be obtained from wave energy alone. Australia’s present-day electricity consumption is 130,000 gigawatt-hours/year. Hemer and Griffin show that if 10 percent of the near-shore wave energy available along Australia’s Southern coastline could be converted into electricity, half of the country’s present-day electricity consumption would be met. (more…)
Global Warming and Floods
The world is witnessing extreme climate change, natural disasters and massive devastation.
Global warming may be responsible for a variety of natural disasters wreaking havoc in numerous regions of the world.
Open Software Platform Helps to Save Energy
Using a mobile display, researchers program the system to start a washing machine at a certain time. (© Fraunhofer IWES)
Starting 2011, energy suppliers will be obligated to offer variable power prices. A new energy management software platform will enable customers in future to opt for flexible electricity rates, so that they can purchase power at times when it is available more cheaply. A further advantage is better utilization of the power grid.
Faced with rising electricity and heating costs, more and more consumers are opting to save energy, and now the government is beginning to help them. As from 2011, energy suppliers will be required to offer electricity at variable rates under the German Energy Act (EnWG § 40,3). The idea behind the new law is simple: variable rates should encourage people to make a conscious effort to control their consumption. This is where the new open software platform will come into its own in future, helping electricity consumers to handle the new fl exible rates and make their energy consumption more intelligent.
The OGEMA (Open Gateway Energy Management Alliance) Framework was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technologies IWES in Kassel. It is a freely available Java-based, opensource platform for energy management that links both consumers and producers of energy to the control centers of the grid operators and power suppliers. Via a display, customers will be able to monitor a variable electricity price and wait for times when rates are lower in order to start their dishwashers for instance. (more…)
U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Capture, Regionally
A new report, Agriculture’s Role in Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Capture, commissioned by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, examines the evidence for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sequestration in America’s major agroecosystems.
The report summarizes current knowledge of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) emissions and capture across six regions—Northeast, Southeast, Corn Belt, Northern Great Plains, Southern Great Plains, and Pacific—as influenced by cropping system, tillage, and soil management. The report also outlines conservation agricultural systems and practices including: no-till, reduced tillage, cover crops, leguminous green manures, and nutrient-use efficiency—that, when adopted, will result in increased capture and reduced emissions of these GHGs. Additionally, critical knowledge gaps for research are identified. The full report can be viewed online at: https://www.agronomy.org/files/science-policy/ghg-report-august-2010.pdf.
American Society of Agronomy President Fran Pierce said, “This timely report identifies critical knowledge gaps that must be addressed to provide America’s farmers with the management strategies and tools needed to increase carbon sequestration and reduce GHG emissions. Pierce added that, “Adoption of conservation agricultural systems, in addition to reducing emissions of GHGs, also enhances the productivity of our nation’s agroecosystems, thereby ensuring future domestic and global food and energy security.” (more…)
Climate Models Indicate Future Holds Stronger, Longer Heat Waves for Mid-Latitudes
Orange County, Indiana
Heat waves are a growing concern and current climate models indicate they will increase in duration and intensity especially in the mid-latitudes of which Indiana and the Midwest is a part,” says climate researcher and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Professor Daniel Johnson.
“Heat waves are known to kill hundreds of people in the United States every year and are the leading cause of weather-related fatalities; usually outstripping the combined effects of hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning and flash floods. ”
“One of the most likely disasters to strike the Central Indiana region is an extreme heat event of considerable duration and strength, the researcher says.
Johnson, a geography professor in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, and colleagues of the Indiana University Institute for Research and Social Issues, are currently conducting two studies on the impact of heat waves on vulnerable populations within urbanized areas. The goal is to develop vulnerability models designed to assist emergency personnel in their response and mitigation to heat wave incidents. (more…)
Charcoal Takes Some Heat Off Global Warming
Biochar technology can help us bring down carbon dioxide to 350 ppm.
As much as 12 percent of the world’s human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from plants and other organic materials. That’s more than what could be offset if the same plants and materials were burned to generate energy, concludes a study published today in the journal Nature Communications.
“These calculations show that biochar can play a significant role in the solution for the planet’s climate change challenge,” said study co-author Jim Amonette, a soil chemist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Biochar offers one of the few ways we can create power while decreasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. And it improves food production in the world’s poorest regions by increasing soil fertility. It’s an amazing tool.”
The study is the most thorough and comprehensive analysis to date on the global potential of biochar. The carbon-packed substance was first suggested as a way to counteract climate change in 1993. Scientists and policymakers have given it increasing attention in the past few years. The study was conducted by Dominic Woolf and Alayne Street-Perrott of Swansea University in Wales, U.K., Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Stephen Joseph of the University of New South Wales, Australia, and Amonette. (more…)
Higher Temperatures to Slow Asian Rice Production
By Rex Graham
Rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10–20 percent in several rice-growing locations.
Production of rice—the world’s most important crop for ensuring food security and addressing poverty—will be thwarted as temperatures increase in rice-growing areas with continued climate change, according to a new study by an international team of scientists.
The research team found evidence that the net impact of projected temperature increases will be to slow the growth of rice production in Asia. Rising temperatures during the past 25 years have already cut the yield growth rate by 10–20 percent in several locations.
Published in the online early edition the week of Aug. 9, 2010 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences —a peer-reviewed, scientific journal from the United States—the report analyzed six years of data from 227 irrigated rice farms in six major rice-growing countries in Asia, which produces more than 90 percent of the world’s rice.
“We found that as the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop,” said Jarrod Welch, lead author of the report and graduate student of economics at the University of California, San Diego. (more…)
Planted and Unplanted Man-Made Wetlands are Similar at Year 15, And Function as Effective Carbon Sinks
A 15-year experiment in an outdoor “laboratory” on Ohio State University’s campus shows that naturally colonizing wetlands can offer just as many, if not more, ecological services as will wetlands planted by humans.
Researchers at Ohio State have been comparing the behavior of two experimental marshes on the campus, one that was planted in 1994 with wetland vegetation and another that was left to colonize plant and animal life on its own. The 2 ½-acre marshes are part of the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, a 30-acre complex that functions as a “living laboratory” in ecological science.
After year 15, the two wetlands contained nearly the same number of plant species, and their rates of retaining phosphorus and nitrates – nutrients that can become potential water contaminants – were almost identical. Both wetlands also hold carbon in their soil, with this carbon sink function increasing steadily over the years.
Plant productivity and greenhouse gas emissions were two ways in which the wetlands differed at this stage in their lives: The naturally developing wetland produced more plant biomass and emits more of the greenhouse gas methane, the latter because it contains more decayed organic material from the higher biomass production. Bacteria that produce methane during that decaying process cause wetlands to release the gas into the atmosphere. (more…)
The Worst Impact of Climate Change May Be How Humanity Reacts To It
One fifth of the world's remaining tropical forests lie within 50km of human populations that could be inundated if sea levels rise by 1m. These forests would make attractive sources of fuel-wood, building materials, food and other key resources.
The way that humanity reacts to climate change may do more damage to many areas of the planet than climate change itself unless we plan properly, an important new study published in Conservation Letters by Conservation International’s Will Turner and a group of other leading scientists has concluded.
The paper Climate change: helping nature survive the human response, looks at efforts to both reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and potential action that could be taken by people to adapt to a changed climate and assesses the potential impact that these could have on global ecosystems.
In particular it notes that one fifth of the world’s remaining tropical forests lie within 50km of human populations that could be inundated if sea levels rise by 1m. These forests would make attractive sources of fuel-wood, building materials, food and other key resources and would be likely to attract a population forced to migrate by rising sea levels. About half of all Alliance for Zero Extinction sites – which contain the last surviving members of certain species – are also in these zones.
Dr Turner said: “There are numerous studies looking at the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, but very little time has been taken to consider what our responses to climate change might do to the planet.” (more…)
Second Hottest July on Record as El Nino Fade Continues
Average temperatures for the globe, as well as the northern and southern hemispheres, went up in July despite the continued cooling of the El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event and the apparent transition to a La Nina Pacific Ocean cooling event.
“If you look at how much sea surface temperatures are falling, no one would have predicted this,” Christy said.
July 2010 was the second hottest July globally and in the Northern Hemisphere; third hottest in the Southern Hemisphere; and fourth hottest in the tropics.
Compared to seasonal norms, July 2010 was also the 17th warmest of all of the months since the satellite temperature dataset began in December 1978. (more…)
Coastal Creatures May Have Reduced Ability to Fight Off Infections in Acidified Oceans
Photo of blue crab being monitored for metabolism using a respirometer, courtesy of Louis and Karen Burnett.
Human impact is causing lower oxygen and higher carbon dioxide levels in coastal water bodies. Increased levels of carbon dioxide cause the water to become more acidic, having dramatic effects on the lifestyles of the wildlife that call these regions home. The problems are expected to worsen if steps aren’t taken to reduce greenhouse emissions and minimize nutrient-rich run-off from developed areas along our coastlines.
The ocean is filled with a soup of bacteria and viruses. The animals living in these environments are constantly under assault by pathogens and need to be able to mount an immune response to protect themselves from infection, especially if they have an injury or wound that is openly exposed to the water.
Louis Burnett, professor of biology and director of the Grice Marine Laboratory of the College of Charleston, and Karen Burnett, research associate professor at Grice Marine Laboratory of the College of Charleston, study the effects of low oxygen and high carbon dioxide on organisms’ immune systems. They have found that organisms in these conditions can’t fight off infections as well as animals living in oxygen rich, low carbon dioxide environments.
Decreased Ability to Fight Infection
The researchers examined fish, oysters, crabs and shrimp, and showed that all these animals have a decreased ability to fight off infection of Vibrio bacteria when subjected to low oxygen, high carbon dioxide conditions. It takes about half as much bacteria to administer a lethal dose to a creature in a low oxygen, high carbon dioxide environment. (more…)
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