change

A New Method of Refrigeration | Earth Wise

February 10, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Salting roads before winter storms is a familiar sight in the Northeast. The purpose is to change the temperature at which ice can form on the road. The underlying concept has formed the basis of a new method of refrigeration that has been dubbed “ionocaloric cooling.”

It is described in a paper published in the journal Science by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The method takes advantage of how energy in the form of heat is either stored or released when a material changes phase – such as water changing from ice to liquid and vice versa. Melting absorbs heat from the surroundings while freezing releases heat. An ionocaloric refrigerator makes use of this phase and temperature change using an electrical current to add or remove ions provided from a chemical salt.

The potential is to make use of this refrigeration cycle instead of the vapor compression systems in present-day refrigerators, which make use of refrigerant gases that are greenhouse gases, many of which very powerful ones. The goal is to come up with a system that makes things cold, works efficiently, is safe, and doesn’t harm the environment.

There are a number of alternative refrigeration systems under development that make use of a variety of mechanisms including magnetism, pressure, physical stretching, and electric fields. Ionocaloric cooling uses ions to drive solid-to-liquid phase changes.

Apart from some very promising theoretical calculations of the system’s potential, the researchers have also demonstrated the technique experimentally. They have received a provisional patent for the technology and are continuing to work on prototypes to demonstrate its capabilities and amenability to scaling up.

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Berkeley Lab Scientists Develop a Cool New Method of Refrigeration

Photo, posted October 29, 2021, courtesy of Branden Frederick via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Coping With Climate Change | Earth Wise

October 11, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Extreme weather events including prolonged drought and heavy rainfall are becoming more common and more severe as global temperatures rise. As the climate continues to change in the coming decades, how will animals respond?

Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have examined how different mammals react to climate change. They analyzed data on population fluctuations from 157 mammal species around the world. They compared these fluctuations with weather and climate data from the same time period. The research team had 10 or more years of data for each species studied.

The researchers found that mammals that live for a long time and/or produce less offspring – like llamas, elephants, bears, and bison – are more climate resilient than small mammals with short lives — like mice, possums, lemmings, and rare marsupials.

For example, large, long-lived mammals can invest their energy into one offspring, or simply wait for better times if conditions become challenging. On the other hand, small, short-lived mammals like rodents have more extreme population changes in the short term. In the event of a prolonged drought, large portions of their food base may rapidly disappear, and they are left to starve because they have limited fat reserves.

However, the research team notes that the ability of a species to withstand climate change must not be the only factor when assessing a species’ vulnerability. In fact, in many cases, habitat destruction, poaching, pollution, and invasive species pose a larger threat to animal species than climate change.

While the study only examined 157 species, the findings enable researchers to also predict how animals they know less about will react to climate change.

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Which animals can best withstand climate change?

Photo, posted July 8, 2018, courtesy of Ray via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Reshaping Our Planet | Earth Wise

July 12, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Human activity – especially agriculture – has altered 70% of the land on our planet. According to a new report from the United Nations, damage to the Earth’s lands has put the planet on “crisis footing”.

Our health, our economy, and our well-being depend on land. The food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe all rely on status of the land to at least some extent.

According to the report, up to 40% of the planet’s land is already degraded, affecting half of the people alive today. At current rates, an additional area nearly the size of South America will be degraded by 2050.

Degradation of land occurs in various ways, including deforestation, desertification, and the loss of wetlands or grasslands. All of these things are caused by human activities. As forests, savannas, wetlands, and mangrove swamps are converted to agriculture or are lost to urban expansion, greenhouse gas emissions rapidly increase, adding to the effects of climate change. The climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and land degradation are integrally linked.

Much of the blame for degraded landscapes is on humanity’s ever-expanding need for food and the modern farming systems that produce it. The global food system is responsible for 80% of the world’s deforestation, 70% of freshwater use, and is the greatest driver of land-based biodiversity loss. Modern agriculture has altered the face of the planet more than any other human activity.

The report urges efforts at restoration of land. Restoration can take multiple forms, including planting forests and shrubs or grazing livestock and growing crops between trees instead of clearing existing forests.

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UN Report Says Humanity Has Altered 70 Percent of the Earth’s Land, Putting the Planet on a ‘Crisis Footing’

Photo, posted June 20, 2010, courtesy of Nicholas A. Tonelli via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Lake Tuz Is Disappearing | Earth Wise

January 10, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Lake Tuz is Turkey’s second-largest lake and one of the world’s largest hypersaline lakes. Its high salt content makes it an ideal breeding ground for some migratory bird species, including flamingos, which are often present there in huge numbers in the spring and summer.

Now, Lake Tuz rarely spans an area much larger than a puddle. In some summers, it completely dries up. It did so this past summer, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of flamingos.

According to experts, Lake Tuz is a victim of climate change-induced drought, which has hit the region hard, and decades of harmful agricultural policies that exhausted the underground water supply.

Water in this region has become increasingly scarce. The Mediterranean Basin has already seen more frequent and intense droughts, and is considered a climate change hotspot.

According to new research, which was recently published in the journal Regional Environmental Change, Lake Tuz generally contained enough water in August for the lake to be considered permanent up until 2000. But between 2001 and 2016, something shifted. Water spanned less than 20% of the lake in every August except for one, and droughts became more frequent and intense. And in some years, the lake completely dried up.

What caused this change? According to the research team, Lake Tuz’s decline coincided with the excessive use of groundwater and surface water resources responsible for feeding the lake. Some streams were rerouted for agricultural purposes, while others were dammed. And when surface water sources dwindled, people turned to groundwater that historically fed the springs in Lake Tuz.

Lake Tuz may be on the brink of extinction.

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Impact of climate variability on the surface of Lake Tuz (Turkey), 1985–2016

Disappearing Lake Tuz

Photo, posted August 16, 2021, courtesy of Godot via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Coffee And Climate Change | Earth Wise

December 20, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world each day. Americans spend $80 billion dollars a year on coffee. Coffee in grown across 12.5 million largely smallholder farms in more than 50 countries. In other words, coffee is a big deal.

Like many things, coffee is subject to the effects of climate change. Many coffee-producing regions are experiencing changing climate conditions, which don’t only affect the yield and sustainability of the crop but have an impact on taste, aroma, and even dietary quality. Coffee drinkers care very much about these things.

New research at Tufts University and Montana State University looked at how coffee quality can be affected by shifts in environmental factors associated with climate change. The researchers looked at the effects of 10 prevalent environmental factors and management conditions associated with climate change and climate adaptation.

The most consistent trends were that farms at higher altitudes were associated with better coffee flavor and aroma, while too much light exposure was associated with a decrease in coffee quality. They also found that coffee quality is also susceptible to changes due to water stress and increases in temperature and carbon dioxide levels.

They evaluated current efforts to mitigate these effects, including shade management, selection of climate resistant coffee plants and pest management. The hope is that if we can understand the science of the changes to the environment, it will help farmers and other stakeholders to better manage coffee production in the face of increasing challenges. It will take a concerted effort to maintain coffee quality as the climate continues to change.

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Coffee and the Effects of Climate Change

Photo, posted May 22, 2009, courtesy of Olle Svensson via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Butterflies And Moths In A Changing World | Earth Wise

July 20, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Extinction is a part of life. Plant and animal species disappear all the time. In fact, approximately 98% of all the organisms that have ever existed on planet earth are now extinct. Earth’s so-called ‘normal’ rate of extinction is thought to be somewhere between 0.1 and 1 species per 10,000 species per 100 years.

But anthropogenic climate change is bringing about rapid change in nature. Put more simply, human activity is killing nature at an unprecedented rate. According to many scientists, the earth’s sixth mass extinction has already begun. Mass extinctions are defined as times when the Earth loses more than 75% of its species in a geologically short interval.

The changing climate puts immense pressure on species for change. According to a new study by researchers from the University of Helsinki and the Finnish Environment Institute, the few butterfly and moth species capable of adjusting to the changing climate by moving up their flight period and moving further north have fared the best.

In Finland, researchers compared temporal shifts in the flight period and spatial shifts in the northern range boundary of 289 moth and butterfly species, as well as changes in abundance over a roughly 20-year period.

They found that about 45% of species that either moved northward or advanced their flight period fared much better than the roughly 40% of species that did not respond in either way. On average, the populations of these poorly responding species declined. But the 15% of species that did both had the largest increase in abundance.

The ability to adapt to a changing climate is going to be vital for species survival.

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Butterflies and moths have difficulty adjusting to a rapidly changing climate

What is mass extinction and are we facing a sixth one?

Photo, posted August 16, 2017, courtesy of Tero Laakso via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Climate Change And Heat-Related Deaths | Earth Wise

July 14, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to a new study recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change, more than one-third of the world’s heat-related deaths each year are attributable to human-induced climate change.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK and the University of Bern in Switzerland analyzed data from 732 locations in 43 countries. They took observed temperatures and compared them with 10 computer models simulating a world without climate change. By applying this technique to their data, the researchers were able to calculate for the first time the actual contribution of anthropogenic climate change in increasing mortality risks due to heat.

The research team found that 37% of all heat-related deaths between 1991 and 2018 were attributable to the warming of the planet due to human activities. This percentage was highest in South America, Central America, and South-East Asia.

In the United States, 35% of heat deaths were found to be a result of climate change. New York had the most heat-related deaths at 141, and Honolulu had the highest percentage of heat deaths attributable to climate change at 82%.

But scientists caution that this is only a small portion of the climate’s overall impact. Many more people die from other extreme weather amplified by climate change, including severe storms, floods, and droughts. Heat-related death figures will grow exponentially as temperatures rise.

According to the research team, the study’s findings highlight the need to adopt stronger climate change mitigation strategies, and to implement interventions to protect people from the adverse consequences of heat exposure.

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Global warming already responsible for one in three heat-related deaths

Photo, posted April 14, 2017, courtesy of Karim Bench via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Insanely Cheap Energy | Earth Wise

June 11, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The International Energy Agency, founded in 1974, keeps track of the world’s energy systems and anticipates how they are likely to change over time. Policymakers around the world look to the agency’s annual World Energy Outlook publication for guidance.

In 2000, the agency made the prediction that by the year 2020, there would be a total of 18 gigawatts of photovoltaic solar power installed. Within seven years, that number was already too small.

The IEA was not the only source to miss the mark on solar power. The head of solar analysis at BloombergNEF in 2005 expected solar to eventually supply 1% of the world’s electricity. It is already 3% and Bloomberg now predicts that it will be 23% by 2050 and expects that to be an underestimate.

What has happened is that the world has unexpectedly gotten to the point where solar is the cheapest source of energy in most places. Over the past decade, every time solar production capacity has doubled, its cost has dropped by 28%.

Historically, a combination of groundbreaking research in Australia and intense Chinese industrial development led to the creation of a massive new industry. When Germany passed laws encouraging the use of solar power, suddenly there was massive global demand and a struggle to keep up with supply.

The industry had its fits and starts, and many players fell by the wayside. But at this point, solar technology continues to get better and cheaper. Market forces are pretty hard to beat and when solar technology can supply insanely cheap energy, it is going to be used in more and more places.

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‘Insanely cheap energy’: how solar power continues to shock the world

Photo, posted January 10, 2020, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Land Use Change And Flooding | Earth Wise

September 30, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Land use change refers to the conversion of a piece of land’s use by humans from one purpose to another. Land use change is commonly associated with biodiversity loss and increased greenhouse gas emissions. But how does land use change impact water cycles?

According to researchers from the University of Göttingen in Germany, IPB University, and BMKG (both in Indonesia), the expansion of monocultures, such as rubber and oil palm plantations, leads to more frequent and more severe flooding. The researchers explain the increase in flooding “with a complex interplay of ecohydrological and social processes, including soil degradation in monocultures, the expansion of oil palm plantations into wetlands, and the construction of flood protection dams.”

For the study, which was recently published in the journal Ecology & Society, the research team interviewed nearly 100 Indonesian farmers, villagers, and decision-makers in Sumatra. The team supplemented its research with data on precipitation, river and groundwater levels, soil properties, and regional mapping.

During large-scale land use change – like plantation expansions – newly-compacted soil causes rainwater to runoff as opposed to being absorbed. As more plantations are established in floodplains, the owners try to control flooding on their land by building barriers. But these dams often lead to increased flooding on neighboring lands. This understandably triggers social tensions between other farmers and plantation owners.

In order to reduce the negative impact of land use change on the water cycle, the research team suggests soil protection and improved planning – especially in floodplains – would be a good place to start.

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Land use change leads to increased flooding in Indonesia

Photo, posted October 8, 2018, courtesy of Artem Beliaikin via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Plant-Based Bottles | Earth Wise

June 30, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Single-use plastic soda and water bottles are a real problem. Every year, billions of them are produced – comprising nearly 300 million tons of plastic that mostly ends up in landfills or in the ocean. This discarded plastic ends up on remote islands, in the snow atop mountains, and in trenches in the deepest parts of ocean.

There has been increasing pressure on beverage companies to put an end to this environmental disaster, but the convenience and economy of disposable bottles is just too attractive.

These bottles are made of plastic derived from oil and once they are produced, they take decades or even centuries to decompose. Recycling them is a not-starter because it is cheaper to just make new ones.

A possible solution has emerged. A Dutch company called Avantium has found a way to take plant sugars and transform them into a plastic capable of standing up to carbonated beverages like soda and beer but that will also break down in as little as a year in a composter or 3 years if left exposed to the elements.

Coca Cola and Carlsberg are working with Avantium to develop new drink packaging based on their material that could be in stores as soon as 2023. The new packaging would be quite different from what we use today. Instead of a clear or tinted bottle, beverages would come inside a cardboard container with a liner made of plant-based plastic.

It may take a while for people to get used to the change, but we have already managed to get used to milk, juice and other liquids coming in cardboard containers instead of glass or plastic bottles. The benefits to the planet would make the effort well worthwhile.

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Plant-Based Bottles Could Degrade In One Year

Photo courtesy of Avantium.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Living In Extreme Heat | Earth Wise

June 3, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Global climate change has already left observable effects on the planet. Glaciers have shrunk, trees are flowering sooner, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and so on. Many effects of climate change that scientists had predicted in the past are now occurring. The loss of sea ice, intensifying heat waves, and accelerating sea level rise are some examples.

According to a new study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, climate change is going to affect humans earlier, harder, and more widely than previously projected. The research team found that one billion people will be either displaced or endure insufferable heat for every one degree Celsius rise in global temperatures.

Under a worst case climate scenario, land that one third of the world’s population currently calls home will be as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara desert within 50 years. Even under a more optimistic climate outlook, 1.2 billion people will still be exposed to temperatures outside the climate niche in which humans have thrived for at least 6,000 years.

The majority of the human population has always lived in regions where the average annual temperatures were between 43 degrees Fahrenheit and 82 degrees Fahrenheit. These are ideal temperatures for human health and for food production. But this temperature range is shrinking and shifting as a result of climate change.

The study’s authors predict there will be more change in the next 50 years than there has been in the past 6,000 years. They hope their findings will convince policymakers to accelerate their plans for emissions reductions and other climate mitigation strategies.

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Future of the human climate niche

One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study

Photo, posted November 22, 2008, courtesy of Ronnie Finger via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Why Choose Chicken Over Beef?

July 22, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Food production is a major driver of climate change. It’s responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. But the environmental impact of different foods varies greatly, and making seemingly insignificant changes can actually have significant impacts.

According to a first-ever national study of U.S. eating habits and their carbon footprints, choosing chicken over beef will cut your dietary carbon footprint in half.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey asked more than 16,000 participating Americans to name all the foods they consumed in the past 24 hours. The research team then calculated the carbon footprint of what people said they ate. If a respondent consumed broiled beef steak, for example, researchers calculated what the carbon footprint would have been had broiled chicken been consumed instead.

The study’s findings illustrate how making one simple substitution can significantly reduce a person’s dietary carbon footprint. A diet’s carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that result from the energy, fertilizer, land use, and other inputs necessary to produce food.

In general, animal-based foods have a bigger carbon footprint than plant-based foods. For example, producing beef uses 20 times the land and emits 20 times the emissions as growing beans (per gram of protein), and requires 10 times more resources than producing chicken.

According to the World Resources Institute, keeping the increase in global warming below 2°C will be impossible without limiting the global rise in meat consumption.

Last year, the EAT-Lancet Commission report found that a radical transformation of the global food system was needed because it’s threatening the stability of the climate.

Make a change – big or small – today.

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Choosing chicken over beef cuts our carbon footprints a surprising amount

Photo, posted August 30, 2011, courtesy of Ken Hawkins via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Shipping And Invasive Species

May 7, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The increasing numbers of invasive species around the world are a major driver of biodiversity change and cause billions of dollars in economic damages annually. Climate change is a major factor in the spread of invasive species, but a new study by McGill University suggests that global shipping growth will far outweigh climate change in the spread of non-indigenous pests to new environments in the coming decades.

One of the most significant ways in which the disparate regions of the world are interconnected is via transportation networks. The global shipping network is the primary means by which materials and goods are moved worldwide, accounting for over 80% of world trade. And for this reason, the global shipping network is responsible for much of the introduction of non-indigenous species across the planet.

Living organisms are often transported through ballast water, which is taken up to stabilize cargo vessels. Other species are transported by biofouling, whereby they attach to the hulls of ships. Taken together, these two pathways account for anywhere between 60 and 90% of marine bioinvasions. (Terrestrial invaders are generally moved as a byproduct of shipping, for example by infesting wood packaging material).

The McGill study looked at trends in global shipping and how socioeconomic factors are driving change. For example, China’s share of global container throughput has gone from 1.4% in 1990 to 20.1% in 2013. So, the distribution and patterns of shipping have been changing dramatically and with it the spread of non-indigenous species.

Awareness of this issue is increasing. For example, there have been policy initiatives such as the International Ballast Water Management Convention that is an effort to control bio-invasions through measures such as ballast exchange. We need to take measures to limit the unintentional spread of species.

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Global forecasts of shipping traffic and biological invasions to 2050

Photo, posted December 3, 2009, courtesy of Roger W via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Whopping Change

April 10, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Burger King, the global hamburger fast food giant, recently made a huge announcement: Customers will soon have the option to select either a beef patty or a plant-based patty when ordering the iconic Whopper sandwich.

Burger King’s plant-based patty will be made by Impossible Foods, a California startup founded in 2011 with the explicit goal of decreasing the world’s reliance on animal agriculture. Impossible Foods signature product, the Impossible burger, has already debuted as a slider in White Castle’s 380 or so stores. It’s also being added to the menu at all 570 Red Robin locations. Other plant-based innovators, such as Beyond Meat, have also found some mainstream success. But the Impossible Whopper and the planned national roll-out at Burger King’s 7,200 locations is the biggest deal to date.

Impossible Foods’ major innovation comes from its use of heme, which is an iron-rich protein that in essence is what makes meat taste like meat. Impossible Foods cultivates heme directly from plants – soybean plant roots to be exact – and then mass produces it using yeast. This is then mixed with other plant-based ingredients to achieve the nutty texture of ground beef.

Meat production is one of the biggest single contributors to climate change. The Impossible burger represents a better choice for the environment. It requires 87% less water, 96% less land, and produces 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions when compared with beef burgers. At Burger King, the Impossible Whopper will have the same amount of protein as the regular Whopper, but 15% less fat and 90% less cholesterol.

Meatless continues to push into the mainstream.

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Behold the Beefless ‘Impossible Whopper’

Photo, posted November 27, 2018, courtesy of Sarah Stierch via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Australian Plastic Bag Ban

December 31, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Last summer, the two largest supermarket chains in Australia – Coles and Woolworth’s – decided to stop offering single-use disposable plastic bags to customers. The initial public reaction was decidedly negative. However, within just three months after the radical change, the country’s National Retail Association reported an 80% drop in the consumption of plastic bags nationwide.

In that three-month period, it is estimated that 1.5 billion bags have been prevented from use. Some retailers are reporting reduction rates as high as 90% in the use of the bags. The move by the big supermarkets has paved the way for smaller businesses to follow suit. The smaller businesses typically can’t afford to risk the wrath of their customers with a major change like this. Customers have to learn to bring their own bags or buy reusable bags at the store.

In much of Australia, the phase-out of plastic bags has been legislated, but the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney, the country’s largest city, has not enacted such legislation. So, supermarkets themselves are doing the work of getting rid of the bags.

The change has not been without hiccups. For the first couple of months after the plastic bag ban was put in place, Woolworth’s saw poor sales in its stores. However, customers eventually got used to the new way of doing things and sales levels returned.

Disposable plastic bags often find their way into the oceans where they break down into microparticles. Studies have shown that these plastic bits are ingested by a wide variety of marine life. For example, a UK study found that 100% of sea turtles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans as well as the Mediterranean Sea had plastic in their digestive systems.

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