or not preparing more food than they'll need for a given meal said Craig Hanson director of the People & Ecosystems Program at WRI.
Vertical farming Given the scarcity of new agricultural land to grow food some have proposed taking farming into the sky:
Dickson Despommier an ecologist and professor at Columbia University said that food grown in skyscrapers would have many advantages.
Food produced in vertical farms would not be in danger of being lost due to extreme weather events
which don't provide suitable habitat for most animals) threatening the future existence of orangutans said Lee Hannah a senior fellow in climate change biology at Conservation International a global group devoted to saving endangered animals
and about 1000 are being killed each year primarily from habitat destruction according to the Orangutan Project an environmental group
or threatened mostly due to the clearing of the island's forests according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) a global environmental organization that's 91 percent of all lemur species for
According to the American environmental group Wildaid consumption of the soup is down 50 to 70 percent in the last two years.
The document details the health and environmental benefits derived from a diet supplemented by insects a diet also known as entomophagy.
Not only does this eliminate the environmental hazards associated with pesticide sprays it also gives the local people an extra source of nutrition and income from the sale of grasshoppers.
because they thrive in a temperate climate. The nutritional value of mealworms is hard to beat:
The United nations Environment Program estimates that 150 to 200 species go extinct every day which is about 10 to 100 times the background or natural rate of extinction.
if one goes extinct leading to a less productive ecosystem which ultimately provides fewer benefits for humans. 2. Preserve the rainforests Rainforests are vital reservoirs of plants animals and microbes.
and perform all kinds of vital roles in their environments from eating fecal matter to pollinating flowers.
and those that provide other important ecological benefits. Examples of areas that need your special attention include Madagascar
but is threatened by deforestation and development. A single recent expedition found more than 300 species that are likely new to science including aâ deep-sea shark that can inflate itselfwhen frightened.
and limit climate change Humans are a gassy bunch burning fossil fuels and increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide methane
Many climate scientists have estimated that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must be limited to 350 parts per million (ppm) to avoid the worst effects of a human-altered climate such as warmer temperatures more frequent heat waves
and droughts sea level rise and even more extinction of animals that can't quickly adapt to climate change.
and harness the sun or the wind or heat from the Earth. The worst effects of warming can be seen in the Arctic and Antarctic due to a phenomenon calledâ polar amplification.
and penguinswhich are sensitive to environmental changes. And that's not to mention the fact these areas store enough frozen water that
And even if these areas don't completely melt they could still cause significant sea-level rise. 5. Curb water pollution Humans are really shooting themselves in the foot with this one.
of which die according to the Pew Environment group. The hunting of sharks has increased also dramatically primarily due to increased demand for shark fin soup in China a substance that has shown repeatedly beenâ to be high in toxins.
Ocean ecosystems depend upon these predators to keep the web of life balanced. 7. Consume less This one is pretty simple:
Space psychologists study how astronauts cope with the conditions of spaceflight and the weightless environment in space.
But over time it has entered also the realm of high-tech intellectual property big business and environmental and social justice concerns.
Gepts said noting that such costs came in the form of ecological damage and the exploitation of farm laborers.
but with the least amount of impact on the world's ecosystems Gepts said. 4. What's the reality behind fears of genetically modified food?
Genetic engineering or transplanting a foreign gene directly into a crop's genome has sparked fears of health and environmental havoc.
I like to call sort of a biological defense system Lydell Newby the Mall of America's senior manager of environmental services told local news station KARE 11.
Ladybug populations throughout North america have been changing rapidly for reasons that may include climate change and land-use patterns.
Because snow is usually blocking doors there was an opening in the roof through which people entered
strong winds along the Gulf of suez pushing back the water or a tsunami.<<a href=http://journals. ametsoc. org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0477%281992%29073%3c0305%3aatoeft%3e2. 0. CO%3b2>According to his paper published in the Bulletin
of the American Meteorological Society</a>the wind explanation is the most likely of the two.</
s findings suggesting that a strong wind may very well explain the temporarily receding shoreline<a href=http://www. npr. org/templates/story/story. php?
a rare combination of optimal water and atmospheric conditions for development of a unique localized freezing phenomenon"
rain or shine.</</p><p>The toilet seat may seem like the most germ-ridden item in the home
Unusual patterns in the lava also point to eruptions under over and alongside glaciers which could help scientists pinpoint the size of Alaska's mountain glaciers during past climate swings.
It's giving us this serendipitous window on the history of climate in Southeast Alaska for the last 1 million years said Susan Karl a research geologist with the USGS in Anchorage and the project's leader.
Image Gallery: Alaska's New Volcanoes Volcano forensics The project kicked off in 2009 as part of an interdisciplinary effort to better understand volcanism in Southeast Alaska Karl said.
And what really captured the geologist's attention were signs that the little volcano squeezed out lava that oozed next to glaciers.
Volcanoes and climate change While the volcanoes in Canada and Alaska have erupted for more than 10 million years emerging data suggests that the last 3 million years of glaciers growing
and retreating in Alaska and British columbia also prompted many small volcanoes to erupt because the changing ice mass flexed the Earth.
The molten rock also has preserved impressions of bygone glaciers. Many of the lava flows touched ice leaving a distinctive cooling pattern in the chilled rock.
and Edwards hope to better understand how much land mountain glaciers covered during past glaciations. About one-third of global sea level rise could come from melting mountain glaciers
but estimating their past size is difficult because growing glaciers plow through evidence of their predecessors.
Risk of eruptions Despite its great size the overall risk from eruptions in the Alaska portion of the volcanic province is said low Karl.
Karl notes that an earthquake on the Fairweather Fault a major offshore strike-slip fault presents a greater risk than a volcanic eruption.
That's a much smaller number than anyone anticipated study lead author Hans ter Steege a tropical forest ecologist at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden Netherlands said in a statement.
and people who think those trees were dominant long before modern humans ever arrived in The americas study co-author Nigel Pitman an ecologist
We can better predict the effect of deforestation and protection on populations of trees ter Steege told Livescience's Ouramazingplanet.
But after pushing out native ant species in local ecosystems across the country the little conquerers may have met finally their match.
The Asian needle ant is moving into forests and urban environments at the same time. And because it is active at cooler temperatures it could move into a very broad range of territory Spicer Rice said.
but their spread could have negative consequences for local ecosystems especially if they push out native ant populations that play a crucial role in dispersing plant seeds.
Op-Ed Steve Schwartzman director of tropical forests policy for the Environmental Defense Fundâ contributed this article to Livescience's Expert Voices:
Richard Muller a physicist at Berkeley and a founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project used to be a skeptic on climate change.
His analysis of climate data changed his mind; today he like the overwhelming majority of scientists believes that climate change is caused real
and by people. But also like most scientists Muller's evidence comes primarily from the statistical analysis of large numbers of temperature observations over many years not from direct observations of nature.
what the myriad plants and animals of the forest are doing at different times of the year and to the weather.
and climate change in Cuiabã¡the capital of the Brazilian state of Mato grosso. People would clear their gardens then the rains would come.
We can see that this has changed. What Ntã'ni is seeing is dramatic. And he's not alone.
and the beginning of the rains needed for crops to grow This is part of the indigenous groups'oral traditions handed down over hundreds of generations.
If the rise of the Pleiades has indicated the start of the rains for thousands of years
and now is no longer a reliable signal this is itself probably a sign of climate change.
This too confirms what Western science suggests are some of the first effects of climate change in the Amazon.
The sort of data-driven climate models that scientists like Muller work with predict that such land on the border between forest
and grassland is highly vulnerable to climate change. Drought and the wildfires that come with it could turn the forests of the Kisã djã into savanna.
and the other peoples of the Xingu Park live on an island of forest in a sea of deforestation.
The Instituto Socioambiental one of Environmental Defense Fund's partners in Brazil is helping the Xingu indigenous groups learn how to control
and deforestation far beyond their territories are behind climate change. Deforestation: Facts Causes & Effects For Ntã'ni and his people climate change is now part of the fabric of their daily lives.
They see the changes and know more are coming. Their hope is that people in the developed world will come to share the Kisã djã's sense of urgency in dealing with the root causes of this global threat including deforestation.
As Ntã'ni says: Bad things can happen to people who cut down lots of forest and they may not even know it.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher o
or get washed into the river during periods of rainfall. Food for the river Previously it was believed that much of this plant matter floated down the Amazon river to the ocean where it ultimately became buried in the seafloor.
The carbon cycle While these findings have important implications for global carbon models they also shed light on the ecology of the Amazon as well as other river ecosystems.
Many people have noticed that the environment where food or drink is consumed can affect its taste
In the new study participants taste-tested whisky in three different environments reporting that it tasted different in each.
Scientists more often have explored how the environment influences the taste of wine. But wine is notoriously finicky it changes from year to year
To rule out the possibility that the context of the experiment was leading to the results the group pretested a small group in a lab environment finding that sights
The environment was harder to control in the larger public experiment. The researchers worried that participants might knowingly try to confound the results by rating the whisky's taste as opposite from the characteristics of each room.
The findings detailed today (Oct 8) in the journal Flavour illustrate the importance of the surroundings on the taste and flavor of food or drink.
and climate but the American style of dressing is predominantly casual. Denim sneakers and cowboy hats and boots are some items of clothing that are associated closely with Americans.
#Ancient Arctic Algae Record Climate Change in'Tree Rings'Bright pink algae that light up the Arctic seafloor like Las vegas neon are also guides to hundreds of years of climate history
From the medieval chill called the Little Ice age to the onset of global warming in the 1800s the coralline algae show how Arctic sea ice has responded to climate swings for the past 650 years.
Deep Sea Algae Contain Climate Change Clues Collecting more algae crusts could help fill a gap between climate records from sediment and ice cores
and environmental problems swept over much of the Middle east felling cities in Turkey and the Levant and contributing to problems that would see the break up of Egypt.
About 10 million years ago during a time period known as the Miocene epoch the east African climate became dryer
. and in the Neolithic period between 3986 and 2918 B c. The cool dry environment provided perfect preservation conditions for the delicate DNA housed within the bones.
Climate fluctuations may have played also a role Haak said. Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterâ and Google+.
#Ancient Forest Thaws From Melting Glacial Tomb An ancient forest has thawed from under a melting glacier in Alaska
Stumps and logs have been popping out from under southern Alaska's Mendenhall Glacier a 36.8-square-mile (95.3 square kilometers) river of ice flowing into a lake near Juneau for nearly the past 50 years.
when the glacier was said advancing Connor basing the date on radiocarbon ages of the newly revealed wood.
As glaciers advance Connor explained they often emit summer meltwater streams that spew aprons of gravel beyond the glacier's edge.
Shrinking Alaska Glacier Spied from Space A gravel layer about 4 to 5 feet (1. 2 to 1. 5 meters) high appears to have encased the trees before the glacier ultimately advanced enough to plow over them snapping off limbs and preserving
Taku Glacier located south of Juneau is currently triggering this same process as it advances over a modern forest of cottonwood trees offering the researchers a chance to observe the process in real time Connor said.
Unlike the growing Taku Glacier which accumulates snow at a high elevation and thus is situated well to grow the lower-elevation Mendenhall Glacier has retreated by an average rate of about 170 feet (52 m) per year since 2005.
This year's summer retreat has not yet been calculated but the team expects it to be relatively high due to unusually warm summer temperatures Connor said.
Anchorage the state's most populated city relies entirely on the retreating Eklutna Glacier for its drinking water.
The team plans to return to the Mendenhall Glacier to dig through sediment in search of pine needles associated with the trees along with other vegetation.
Today the fossil trees are at an elevation of 170 meters (550 feet) above sea level and the climate flips between wet and dry seasons
That s where similar environmental factors lead to traits that are unrelated similar in species. Think rheas (South america) ostriches (Africa) and emus (Australia.
However the scale of the interaction and the extent to which hunter-gatherers took ideas from their neighbors remains hotly debated.
which all terrestrial ecosystems today depend including the existence of humanity. Flowering plants or angiosperms became the dominant plants about 90 million years ago
However back in the middle Triassic both areas were located in the subtropics and the region that is now Switzerland was much drier than the Barents sea region suggesting the flowering plants spanned a broad range of environments.
The fossil record of flowering plants is continuous dating back 140 million years. Until now the fossil record of flowering plants suggested they dominated the planet rather quickly after their earliest appearance.
and redirect rainwater from the region's brief and torrential winter downpours to the hillside farming terraces north of the city.
and climate Cloke said. The Nabataeans differentiated watersheds and the zones of use for water:
#Another 1930s Dust bowl Drought Possible This Century (Op-Ed) Marlene Cimons of Climate Nexus contributed this article to Livescience's Expert Voices:
Droughts are a normal part of the climate cycle that we should expect and plan for
Climate change will put some more double loops into that roller-coaster ride.''''Places with a wet season and a dry season generally will become wetter in the wet season
To be sure the 2012 drought was due in part to natural climate variability in this case the La Niã a event that began in fall 2010.
La Niã a conditions change weather patterns over the Pacific ocean and North america steering storms north of where they usually occur depriving the already-arid Southwest of much-needed rainfall.
but it was said unusually hot Jonathan Overpeck co-director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona.
''The natural cycle of La Niã a is occurring against a background of a climate that is warming.
What produces drought isn't just the absence of rainfall''he said. Warmer soils evaporate moisture into the atmosphere more rapidly.
Even in regions that get more rainfall in the summer drought actually worsens because any increase in rainfall is offset by these evaporative losses.''
''Globally more intense and longer droughts have occurred over wider areas since the 1970s particularly in the tropics and subtropics.
Increased drying due to higher temperatures and decreased precipitation have contributed to these changes with the latter the dominant factor''said Kevin Trenberth distinguished senior scientist in the climate-analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
For the United states the Southwest will take the brunt of a future warming climate in terms of drought experts say.
Warming in the Southwest is larger than just about anywhere else in the United states outside of Alaska''Overpeck said.
That would be a devastating climate emergency.''''However changes in soil conservation and land-use practices as well as crop and livestock management that minimize soil erosion could prevent the damaging dust storms that characterized the 1930s Dust bowl years.
But the prospect of such a drought remains a disturbing possibility. Michael Wehner a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory conducted a study that used the Palmer Drought Severity Index to project future drought conditions in the United states. The Palmer index is one of several
''Read Cimons'most recent Op-Ed Deadly Heat waves Intensify as Summers Sizzle (Op-Ed) and additional contributions on her profile page.
The researchers who will begin their mission in November aim to focus on shrinking glaciers in the Amundsen Sea region such as the Pine Island Glacier the longest and fastest-changing glacier on the ice sheet.
We used to think that the volume of water flowing from Antarctica's melting glaciers
and icebergs into the ocean was equal to the amount of water falling as snow onto the ice sheet
and science program manager for the Natural Environment Research Council's istar program which is leading the new Antarctica mission.
Stunning Photos of Antarctic Ice But Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are losing ice at a faster rate than they are being replenished Smith said in a statement.
and seismic technologies to map the area beneath the Pine Island Glacier and assess the state of the glacier bed to determine how subsurface conditions affect the flow and thickness of the ice.
For areas of the ice sheet that are inaccessible from the ground the scientists will rely on satellite remote sensing technology.
These observations will help scientists determine how ocean currents transport heat beneath the ice shelf and how climate change will affect this part of Antarctica.
Four autonomous radar instruments capable of taking measurements year-round will also monitor the gradual shifts in the thickness of the ice shelf the part of the glacier that floats on the ocean
in order to understand the rate at which this thickness changes over time the researchers said. Warming waters and melting ice During the Antarctic winter when the sun sets in the South pole in March
The upcoming mission to Antarctica will help improve a wide variety of computer models that are used to forecast future climate
#Antarctica Glacier's Retreat'Unprecedented'Like a plug in a leaky dam little Pine Island Glacier holds back part of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet
In recent decades Pine Island Glacier's rapid retreat raised fears that the glacier could collapse freeing the ice sheet it buffers to flow even more rapidly into the southern seas.
whether the hasty retreat is a recent change caused by climate change or a more long-term phenomenon.
Pine Island Glacier's small ice shelf a platform of ice floating on the ocean's surface acts as a plug holding the rest of the ice stream in place on land.
As warm ocean currents melt the ice shelf from below inland glaciers flow down to the coast and feed the thinning ice shelf.
Changes to Antarctic wind currents driven by global warming have pushed relatively warmer ocean waters beneath the ice shelves.
In the past 20 years Pine Island Glacier's grounding line the location where the glacier leaves bedrock
The glacier itself has thinned at a rate of 5 feet (1. 5 meters) a year
Pine Island Glacier only stretches 45 miles (40 km) across where it meets the ocean
To determine why Pine Island Glacier and its nearby cousin Thwaites Glacier are changing so rapidly The british Antarctic Survey looked to the past.
They studied sediments from Pine Island Bay where the ice shelves stick tongues into the ocean.
Researchers found no evidence the glaciers had advanced in the past 10000 years. Some say the fast grounding-line retreat will stop in a few years others in a few decades.
and may lead to the complete collapse of the Pine Island Glacier drainage system Hillenbrand said.
As Pine Island Glacier retreats it drops huge icebergs. In 2011 NASA's Operation Icebridge discovered a giant crack crossing the ice shelf.
The fissure about 20 to 25 km inland from the edge of the ice shelf could birth an iceberg the size of New york city.
which glaciers flow to the sea. The last calving event (the sudden release of ice) let loose in an iceberg that measured 26 by 11 miles (42 km by 17 km) in 2001.
The Pine Island Glacier seems to generate big bergs on a decade-long cycle scientist say.
Photo Album: Antarctica Iceberg Maker The british team now plans to investigate what's driving the thinning of the glaciers in Pine Island Bay.
We're pretty sure the most important driver is warm ocean water but this is still an open question Hillenbrand said.
Now that we have this retreat history we can study the past dynamic behavior of these glaciers
It's a classic attempt to block federal agencies from taking any action to protect the environment
and possibly challenge regulations or policies affecting agricultural producers that the U s. Environmental protection agency (EPA) might consider.
and any other future EPA policies on agriculture producers but also requires the USDA to convene a panel to review the EPA's proposed actions as well as any comments from farm interests that the USDA solicits.
The provisions were prompted by the EPA's inadvertent disclosure of the private information of thousands of farmers in response to a request from three environmental groups about confined animal feeding operations (CAFOS.
and the EPA moved quickly to try to rectify the error asking the groups in question to destroy the documents
Nevertheless imposing a gag order on the EPA banning the disclosure of even basic information about huge livestock operations is an over-reaction.
The kind of economic biases we see in different species including humans might really have a biological basis in terms of these species being prepared for different environments Rosati said.
Higher temperatures will lessen snow cover according to the study which is detailed in the March 31 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change.
Substitute the snowy surface with the darker surface of a coniferous tree and the darker surface stores more heat said study co-author Pieter Beck a vegetative ecologist at the Woods Hole Research center in Massachusetts It's going to exacerbate warming.
Warming Arctic The Arctic climate affects the world: Changes in sea ice affect ocean circulation which in turn affects atmospheric circulation that then impacts the globe said Bruce Forbes a geographer at the Arctic Center at the University of Lapland in Finland who was involved not in the study.
To find out exactly how much greening Arctic warming would bring the team used a model that projected how temperature changes would affect snow cover vegetation and the increased evaporation and transpiration from plants in the Arctic.
Most of the greening was driven by the loss of reflectivity or albedo from snow cover.
With less snow to reflect heat back into the atmosphere and more dark trees the Earth gets warmer just like a dark car gets hotter in a warm parking lot than a light car does told Beck Livescience.
what will be happening at lower latitudes Forbes told Livescience That could worsen extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy in the future.
The snowstorms in Washington D c. and New york and the flooding and the freezing on the River Thames the extreme weather will continue to be extreme
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