As the climate changes our increasing reliance on a few major crops will jeopardise food security. The recent IPCC (2014) report predicts that without adaptation temperature increases of above about 1o C from preindustrial levels will negatively affect yields on the major crops in both tropical and temperate regions for the rest of the century.
In other words climate change will reduce both the yield and the nutritional content of the world s major crops leaving many hungry and malnourished.
So what should we do for agriculture in hotter drier climates? A good start would be to explore the many hundreds of underutilised crops that have survived yielded
Without urgent serious and comparative research on crops that can yield in hotter volatile climates of the future the global food system will increasingly depend on only a few crops.
#Mysterious Energy Ribbon at Solar system's Edge a'Cosmic Roadmap'A strange ribbon of energy and particles at the edge of the solar system first spotted by a NASA spacecraft appears to serve as a sort of roadmap in the sky for the interstellar
The study also sheds light into the sun's environment protects the solar system from high-energy cosmic rays.
and scientists know little about what that environment is like. Travelling through the transition zone The sun's sphere of influence in the solar system is known as the heliosphere.
A new landmark study in the journal Science found that the U s. Environmental protection agency's (EPA) inventory of greenhouse gases is undercounting total U s. methane emissions by roughly 50 percent.
It causes 86 times as much global warming over a 20-year period as carbon dioxide the single largest contributor to climate change.
According to our analysis at Energy Innovation the methane missing from the EPA's inventory in terms of the contribution to global warming over a 20-year time period would be equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of 252 coal power plants.
At the same time that the scientific community is finding evidence that methane is being undercounted the newly released draft version of the U s. EPA's national greenhouse-gas emission inventory presents data showing that methane emissions from natural gas
whereas the EPA inventory involves many assumptions and depends upon accurate self-reporting of voluntary emission reduction efforts by the extraction companies.
The EPA greenhouse gas inventory uses data from bottom up studies to develop emission factors for different components of the entire natural gas system from production (extraction from the ground) to processing transmission and distribution.
A limitation of the bottom-up studies upon which the EPA inventory relies is a requirement that researchers obtain access to natural-gas operations.
The EPA should take a more active role in generating the comprehensive data needed to improve the inventory's estimate of methane emissions.
The draft inventory states that the EPA will continue to refine the emission estimates to reflect the most robust information available.
The EPA should quickly embrace new monitoring technologies to improve the accuracy of government emissions monitoring
and limit methane's contribution to climate change. The authors'most recent Op-Ed was States Take National Lead in Regulating Fracking.
along with the Nez Perce Nation state and federal courts intervened last year to stop the use of the U s. Route 12-Lolo Pass route until additional environmental analyses could take place.
and consideration of how key environmental resources tribal concerns and important recreational activities might be impacted u ntil we have clear understanding of these potential impacts
But on the behest of business owners the Nez Perce and regionally environmental organizations U s. Chief District Judge Winmill ruled that the Forest Service acted unlawfully by not managing for the potential impacts to federal resources caused by these shipments
and further halted shipments until a robust environmental and socioeconomic analysis of the impacts was conducted.
These are extremely dangerous roads where snowstorms and icy weather can turn nasty at the drop of a hat.
This is no place for megaloads of truckloads of oil-processing equipment to travel in the first place. It is yet another example of why we need to reign in the climate-threatening operations of the tar sands industry not shipments of oil equipment through our nation's environmental treasures.
The Time for Wind and Solar energy is Now (Op-Ed) It's time we stopped jeopardizing our precious nation's natural resources for the sake of tar-sands industry profits and invested instead in clean energy and our children's future.
That is something everyone who cares about the wild and scenic river areas of the world should eagerly embrace.
and hawks which regularly swoop down from the skies and snatch even large monkeys that dangle
According to data from 2004 livestock contributed more to the greenhouse effect than oil and gas operations.
After about 400 million years of expansion following the Big bang the universe was cool enough for gravity to begin coalescing clouds of hydrogen into stars igniting nuclear fusion for the first time The birth of the first stars marked a turning point in the life of the universe from that point forward the universe
This changed for the first time about 11500 years ago as Earth's climate became warmer and milder.
and videos as well as chart the geographic coordinates of deforestation or degradation occurring within threatened areas said Gabriel Ribenboim a researcher who's leading the project for FAS.
and climate of protected areas and this information is combined with Street view imagery videos photos and 3d buildings to provide a comprehensive picture of the region he added.
and compare the social economical and environmental improvements and land-use changes through Street view imagery said Victor Salviati coordinator of special projects at FAS.
and cloud technology to help monitor African forests said Lilian Pintea JGI's vice president of conservation science.
and stores the data in Google Cloud Pintea told Livescience. Then through Google earth Engine and Google maps Engine the institute's researchers can visualize the multiple layers of data to model the suitability of chimpanzee habitat
and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry captured images of 12 tigers in Sumatra in an area that was set for deforestation.
Concerned about the potential destruction of this tiger habitat WWF used Google earth to illustrate the effects of deforestation on the Bukit Tigapuluh region a critical tiger habitat.
Through this effort the organizations hope to illustrate how deforestation in Sumatra fueled by demand for products like palm oil
In addition the Google mapping project has helped WWF build public support to stop irresponsible logging companies that contribute to Sumatra's deforestation said Craig Kirkpatrick WWF's managing director for Borneo and Sumatra.
Although the long time between satellite images makes it difficult to actively search for threats to tigers he said Google technology has been helpful in illustrating the pace of deforestation in the region and its effects on tiger and elephant habitat.
For instance Defenders of Wildlife is utilizing Google maps API to help demonstrate the impacts of the BP Deepwater horizon oil spill
And the United nations'environmental voice the U n. Environment Programme is using Google technology to explore the Earth's changing landscape
and visualize the effects of climate change and other environmental impacts. Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.
Statistical analyses then provided estimates of the contribution of genes and the environment to these preferences.
and the remainder to environmental factors like what parents choose to feed their children and foods available in the home.
and salty and sugary snacks liking for which is determined more by the environment and only around 30%by genetic factors.
%On the other hand the environment played a larger part in liking for the other food groups: snacks (60%)carbohydrates (57%)and dairy foods (54%.
%The findings support the assertions of health professionals that the home environment exerts a strong influence on children s liking of the high-calorie foods implicated in excessive weight gain.
although genes play a part in their children s food preferences there are scientifically tested strategies to help them to create a healthy home environment and happy mealtimes even with fussy eaters.
In the Early Cretaceous the environment would have been semiarid bordering a large desert on the supercontinent of Gondwana Gallina said.
and damaged by erosion. But the paleontologists could find no other bones to excavate so they began the process of digging out the skeletal fragments.
Though scientists don't know for sure why they disappeared warming weather and overhunting by humans may have doomed the shaggy beasts.
We just never thought that RNA could be the signal with the environment Westwood said adding that this type of communication between plants may be more common than we think.
The Assembly Standing committee on Environmental Conservation will hold a public hearing Thursday at 11 a m. EST at the Assembly Hearing Room in Lower Manhattan to discuss the laws in place to curb the illegal sale of ivory
In 2012 the New york state Department of Environmental Conservation together with the U s. Fish and Wildlife Service seized more than $2 million worth of ivory in New york city.
We are extremely grateful that the New york state Assembly Standing committee on Environmental Conservation under the leadership of Chairman Sweeney is taking the illegal ivory trade in New york so seriously.
Environmental groups applauded the move including the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) which estimates that 35000 elephants were killed by poachers in Africa last year a rate equivalent to 96 elephants killed each day.
and grow until it scrapes the sky. Instead of slowing down as the centuries add up old trees speed up their growth according to a study published today (Jan 15) in the journal Nature.
and a forest ecologist with the U s. Geological Survey (USGS) in Three Rivers Calif. The results of the survey of 403 tree species around the world suggest that trees never suffer the ill effects of old age.
Instead only disease insects fire or accidents such as lightning will kill a tree Stephenson said.
They ve enjoyed no less than 5 million years of an extremely stable cold-water environment
Furthermore while many species On earth#arnacles butterflies birds#re shifting their habitats poleward in search of cooler climates where are the Antarctic animals supposed to go?
A team of environmental physiologists led by Anne Todgham is spending several seasons at Mcmurdo conducting experiments on two Antarctic species#he dragonfish
and the emerald rock cod#o determine what their fate might be and by extension the fate of the larger polar ecosystem.
This time of year green seems to be everywhere from the warmer weather that encourages spring blooms to St patrick's day to Earth Day.
When it takes over ecosystems this invader causes soils to surrender their carbon and release it as greenhouse gas.
and then for livestock feed and erosion control it has since overrun entire ecosystems destroying native long-needled pine forests woodlots and grasslands alike.
In addition to the damage it inflicts by overwhelming other plants kudzu has indirect effects as well. Most notably it carries the kudzu bug#.
This means kudzu s impact is not only native ecosystems but agricultural productivity as well. Kudzu s direct and indirect cost to the US economy is estimated to be in excess of US$500M annually.
Rising temperatures and lengthened growing seasons in the northernmost front of the kudzu s range are creating a welcoming environment for further invasion.
In a paper published in the journal New Phytologist plant ecologist Nishanth Tharayil and graduate student Mioko Tamura of Clemson University show that kudzu invasion results in an increase of carbon released from the soil organic matter into the atmosphere.
Instead the findings point to the fact that plant composition in different ecosystems could actually be managed to reinforce carbon retention in the soil
In the meantime though we are going to have to find a way to restrain the plant that ate the south before it loads our skies with more carbon.
And because we live deep in the backwoods of Dent County Missouri where the sky is very dark one has to hunt for good low horizons.
but to pray for clear skies. The latitude at the site was 37 5 degrees
and watched a beautiful sunset with only a few wispy clouds near the horizon to make me nervous.
But as the groggy fog of sleep lifted I knew I had to go. It was a chance of a lifetime;
Where I live deep in the backwoods the skies are very dark and all kinds of animals mountain lions bears and the like roam the darkness of our neighborhood.
I would be all alone when I set up my equipment at the eastern horizon site.
Shivering from the cold I scanned the sky with binoculars until BAM! There they were!
Indeed the skies provide wondrous sights a lot of planning and preparation will allow you to see them
Space. com is hosting a slideshow of Rogus'night sky images. Rogus'most recent Op-Ed was Celestial Showstopper:
Millipedes return nutrients to the ecosystem and keep dead leaves from piling up in the forest.
After long focusing on fuel economy and energy production environmentalists and scientists are now promoting a diet of more plants and less meat to slow climate change but why?
The scope of animal agriculture s impact on climate change has for decades been underestimated. The raising and slaughtering of farm animals is just one component.
The total process for bringing such vast quantities of meat egg and dairy products to our plates comes at a substantial cost to the environment.
As a result of animal agriculture's impact on climate change organizations like the Natural resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club support eating more plant-based meals.
though mistakenly think leads to a major environmental impact due to the reduced travel miles to transport the food).
and corporate policy work to be done to address global climate change it's heartening to see leaders
and avoid the negative environmental consequences linked to their production. With more people sharing our mutual responsibility to reduce carbon footprints by shifting to plant-based meals we have reason to be hopeful for our planet's future.
but the low rainfall and limited groundwater resources of the area made growing maize there risky.
A diverse panel of diplomats law enforcement officials research scientists and activists testified before the New york state Assembly Standing committee on Environmental Conservation to evaluate the effectiveness of existing laws
Scott Florence acting direct of the division of law enforcement at the New york state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Targeting the black market In 2012 the New york state Department of Environmental Conservation together with the U s. Fish
I'd say that's the tip of the iceberg Woody said of the pieces presented to the room.
John Fitzpatrick an investigative supervisor in the state's Department of Environmental Conservation said convictions against domestic ivory traders rarely result in prison sentences
#Massive Antarctic Glacier Uncontrollably Retreating, Study Suggests The glacier that contributes more to sea level rise than any other glacier on Antarctica has hit a tipping point of uncontrollable retreat
Pine Island Glacier accounts for about 20 percent of the total ice flow on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet an amalgam of glaciers that covers roughly 800000 square miles (2 million square kilometers)
Many researchers think that given the size of Pine Island Glacier its demise could have a domino effect on surrounding glaciers
Antarctic's Pine Island Glacier Cracks The glacier is not only massive but also one of the least stable of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet ice flows.
In the past 40 years its melting rate has accelerated due to relatively warm ocean currents that have seeped underneath its base
As it slips into the ocean the glacier's ice shelf#the part that floats on water
and extends beyond the glacier's base#disintegrates through a natural process called calving exposing yet more of the glacier to warm waters.
Last year an iceberg larger than the city of Chicago broke off into the surrounding Amundsen Sea.'
'We have passed the tipping point'Many researchers have tried to predict the future behavior of this important glacier using mathematical models
Precipitation wind patterns atmospheric temperatures oceanic currents and the shape of bedrock underneath the glacier are only some of the numerous factors that control glacial growth and retreat.
while still limited provide the best estimates yet of the future behavior of Pine Island Glacier they say.
The team has found that the glacier's grounding line the point where glacier and its ice shelf meet is about to retreat over an oceanic trench that would increase the amount of water that seeps underneath
and melts the glacier. Their models suggest that this would cause the glacier to uncontrollably retreat about 25 miles (40 kilometers) over the next several decades potentially raising global sea levels by more than 0. 4 inches (1 centimeter.
Retreat may slow once the glacier passes the trench the researchers report but it will not likely regain stability
or enter a positive-growth phase. Whatever it will do we are engaged already in a big change study co-author Gael Durand told Livescience.
Uncertainties remain Eric Steig a glacial geologist at the University of Washington who also studies Pine Island Glacier
but was involved not in this study thinks the study provides the best models yet of this particular glacier's dynamics.
Last month Steig and colleagues published a paper in the journal Science reporting that Pine Island Glacier's retreat slowed significantly in 2012 due to oceanographic changes related to La Niã a
. While this seems to have been an anomalous event Steig says that the 40 years of data gathered on the glacier may not be enough to make accurate predictions about its future behavior and about
and eventually along the coast of Antarctica originates as far away as the equatorial tropics and has a significant impact on the behavior of the glacier.
Future work will need to take these distant global factors into account in predicting the behavior of the glacier.
Still despite these shortcomings Durand is convinced the glacier has little chance of regaining stability. We showed that it will need a very large decrease of the melting condition below the ice shelf
and that the oceanographic conditions would need to be much colder than it was started before it its retreat to maintain stability Durand said.
The study findings were detailed earlier this month in the journal Nature Climate Change. Follow Laura Poppick on Twitter.
The findings may help explain goats'ability to adapt to a variety of environments. In the study the researchers trained a group of goats to retrieve food from a box by pulling a lever
The findings may help researchers understand why goats adapt easily to extreme environments. Wild goats live all over the world from the hot and dry Galapagos islands to the cold and wet islands off the west coast of Scotland Mcelligott said.
They seem to be really good at colonizing these environments and doing really well in them Mcelligott told Live Science.
But in most cases these schemes are not delivering the intended benefits as my research in the Journal of Environmental Management shows.
In Madagascar Rio tinto did not take into account the fact that the potential deforestation its offsetting project aimed to avoid was inflicted partly by the company itself through road-building arrival of migrant workers and other factors.
Biodiversity offsetting should not just be about protecting ecosystems. The approach should also be fair to local communities not least
because the plants couldn't adapt to post-impact climate swings researchers report today (Sept. 16) in the journal PLOS Biology.
Blonder an ecologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson wanted to know why the deciduous angiosperms outcompeted their evergreen cousins during the cold dark years after the impact (called an impact winter.
Based on their analysis the researchers said the properties of the plant leaves likely helped them withstand the bleak climate.
The impact winter pushed ecosystems toward plants with faster growing strategies Blonder told Live Science in an email interview.
In 1931 American chemist Arthur Fox accidentally released a cloud of phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) powder into his laboratory.
Some of this cloud went into Fox s mouth and that of one of his colleagues.
and increasing the general inflammatory environment. Looking over the past 50 years of the war on smoking the report authors warned that the disease risks from smoking by women have risen sharply
and adding fresh water-two of the most vulnerable resources on the planet-as well as overuse of fertilisers herbicides and pesticides that damage the wider environment.
#The progression of this debate into a war resembles past and present debates (let us think about John Snow
and the cholera epidemic in the 19th century the long-lasting denial of the harm of tobacco smoking in the 20th century global warming and climate change in the 21st century) when the translation of science into practice clashes with vested interests.
ecological fallacy unexplained confounding of the data and the use of crude mortality rates. The study probably will not satisfy those in need of hard science to prove population effects to support actions.
in order to identify characteristics that could be beneficial in their particular soil or climate conditions. Grow them crossbreed them pick the best then grow
State university Midnight Lightning zucchini from Vermont s High Mowing Organic Seeds and Sovereign carrots from the University of Wisconsin s Irwin Goldman.
The work in the Peru Trench used environmental RNA sequencing to guarantee that sequences observed were from environmental samples and not contaminants from human skin.
The use of modern DNA technologies and classification tools may allow development of bioactive compounds for medicine enhanced agricultural productivity environmental damage repair industrial applications such as biofuels
In the new study which was described in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine this month 22 hog workers swabbed the inside of their noses several times over the course of 14 days.
Liturgusa algorei is named after former vice president Al gore in honor of his environmental activism. Liturgusa krattorum gets its name from Martin
Now the Cannabis Genomic Research Initiative led by ecologist Nolan Kane of the University of Colorado at Boulder seeks to sample DNA from multiple cannabis species. Pot's future This genetic innovation has some cannabis users
Climate Change Sweeps Iowa Farms (Op-Ed) Daniel Glick is the cofounder of thestorygroup. org a Colorado-based multimedia journalism company.
He was also one of the editors of the National Climate Assessment and has written about climate change for many publications including National geographic and Newsweek.
Glick contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Corning Iowa isn't the first place that people think of as ground zero for climate-change impacts.
The gently rolling landscape in the southwest quadrant of this corn-fed state is punctuated by silver grain silos
and pretty much every type of weather that comes out of the sky will buffet their business.
But there's one thing he's intimately aware of every day and that's the weather.
climate changes that are beyond his experience and the experiences of his neighbors and fellow farmers.
and then all of a sudden the rain quit and we had one of the driest summers in 50-some years.
and was the wettest spring in history here in Iowa We've also had snow on May the second he said still shaking his head in disbelief at the strangeness of the event.
Gaesser obviously doesn't need a federal report to tell him that the climate is changing but the 2014 National Climate Assessment certainly backs up Gaesser's observations with some disturbing data.
The report released in May details a range of climate changes from around the United states. Extreme weather events are happening more frequently.
Rainfall is coming in torrents flooding towns and fields. Dry spells seem to come out of nowhere.
and the federal report concluded that climate disruptions to agriculture have increased in the past 40 years and are projected to increase over the next 25 years.
Until recently he was pretty skeptical that climate change had anything to do with it. Before the last three or four years I guess my vision of the world of climate change was about a few people trying to make money on the deal Gaesser said.
He figured people were just marketing high-efficiency this and low-carbon-emission that just to make a buck.
and installing $1000-an-acre underground drain tile to protect his soil from erosion when the heavy rainfall events hit the Great plains
and drop more moisture in an hour than used to fall in a day. Like a lot of people in agriculture Gaesser is used to changes from season to season and year to year.
or cold or too much rain or not enough rain all those kind of things are really causing us to make changes really fast
and take photos of trees during thunderstorms she remembered. An undergraduate interest in philosophy added another dimension to her interests.
One is obviously about the environment sustainability in a way that I hope doesn't hit people over the head.
A lot of these organisms live in very extreme environments all sorts of places where we think life shouldn't survive let alone thrive.
So back to the idea of the importance of the climate issues. We hear these things like carbon-dioxide levels are rising.
because it got warmer at the top of this mountainside there's something that's a very literal depiction of climate change happening right in front of you.
Other artists accomplish that with more straight work like Ed Burtynsky certainly his environmental landscape work
And then it has this third layer of ecology and nature reclaiming something over time that we as humans have torn apart in an instant.
When you look in the night sky if you have a telescope or you're some place that actually gets dark that all the stars that you see in the sky aren't necessarily all there.
NEA: Because it's taken so long for the light to get to Earth that the star has burned already out.
considering doing is to create a light installation about dead stars using accurate scientific information to map out the dead stars in the sky
me think of the concept of blue sky science where the immediate application of the work isn't clear
For me the Oldest Living things project is a perfect example of why it's good to be working in a cross-disciplinary environment.
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