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Scientists Call For Geoengineering Research | Earth Wise

April 18, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A group of more than 60 climate researchers has published an open letter calling for accelerated research into what is called solar radiation management. This means changing the amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the earth by adding various substances into the stratosphere or into the clouds in order to help cool down the planet.

This form of geoengineering is controversial to say the least. While such approaches would most likely be successful in cooling things down, such climate manipulation could have dangerous and unexpected consequences.

For their part, the scientists explicitly state that they do not support the use of solar radiation management or SRM. Their position is that our current level of knowledge is not sufficient to accurately assess potential risks and consequences. What they are advocating is for scientific research to be conducted to support the assessment of the potential effectiveness of various SRM techniques, to determine how these techniques would affect climate change under various greenhouse gas scenarios, and to determine the capabilities for detecting and attributing possible impacts of SRM interventions.

The letter was a response to a larger group of scientists and academics who called for a strict ban on geoengineering, saying that it could divert attention and resources from much-needed greenhouse gas reductions. The new letter claims that gaining additional knowledge about SRM is a critical part of making effective and ethical decisions about its implementation. They state that we have no right to ban the ability to search for a solution to the mess we created.

Opponents of such research are concerned that even pursuing it normalizes in the public eye what could potentially be a catastrophically dangerous activity.

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60 Scientists Call for Accelerated Research Into ‘Solar Radiation Management’ That Could Temporarily Mask Global Warming

Photo, posted February 11, 2006, courtesy of Janice Waltzer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Crops Threatened With Extinction | Earth Wise

January 4, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Crop variety and diversity are critically important for global food security as well as for the livelihoods of millions of people. This diversity entails both the different species of food crops as well as the so-called farmer varieties of crops that in many cases have been cultivated and safeguarded for millennia.

It is well-known that many of these crops and varieties have been rapidly disappearing, but data has been scarce on just how many have been lost, how many we are losing, and which ones are the most threatened going forward.

A new study utilizes a methodology known as the Varietal Threat Index, which was developed by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture. The study assessed about 600 farmers from seven Indian states, covering five different agroecological areas. The farmers were selected based on their knowledge of crops and varieties across the 17 study sites.

The farmers listed the crops and varieties grown in their households, noted their uses, and indicated their spread and abundance, including information on varieties grown during the previous ten years which were no longer grown.

The results of the study showed that while there is a significant diversity of landraces – which are local varieties of species developed over time – more than 50% are threatened. The trend is that crops and varieties mostly used for consumption are most often under threat, whereas varieties with multiple uses are less likely to be threatened.

Studies of this type can aid the development of targets and indicators to monitor the global status of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and help inform urgent priority conservation actions.

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More than half of surveyed crop varieties are under threat of extinction, according to study in India

Photo, posted February 21, 2014, courtesy of Atibordee Kongprepan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Mexico’s Wonder Plant

September 13, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In 1979, an American naturalist named Thomas Hallberg visiting a small town in Oaxaca, Mexico was amazed to find a type of local maize – or corn – that grew nearly 20 feet high in poor-quality soil even though the local farmers did not use any fertilizer.

The unique corn plant had aerial roots that grew a mucous-like gel just before harvest season. It seemed totally implausible, but the plant seemed to be fixing its own nitrogen: extracting it from the air and somehow making it useful to the plant.

In 1992, Hallberg returned with a group of Mexican scientists and collected samples to study in his lab. His research showed that the maize indeed received nitrogen from the air through its aerial roots. It took over 20 years to figure out what was going on in the plants. It turns out that bacteria that thrive in the low-oxygen environment of the maize’s mucus pulls nitrogen from the air and feeds it to the plant.

Scientists will probably spend years figuring out if a commercial application of this indigenous maize is viable. It isn’t guaranteed that the self-fertilizing trait of the plant can be bred into a commercial crop. But if it can, the payoff would be huge. Farmers spend more than $3 billion a year on corn fertilizer in the US alone.

A vexing problem is who should reap the financial benefits of the maize. The isolated village where the plant is grown has already signed an agreement to share in any such benefits. But there are other Oaxacan villages that also grow the plant.

Mexico’s wonder plant is likely to be caught up in the growing issue of biopiracy, which is the exploitation of indigenous knowledge and biological resources without permission.

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Indigenous Maize: Who Owns the Rights to Mexico’s ‘Wonder’ Plant?

Photo credit: ALLEN VAN DEYNZE/UC DAVIS

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Misconceptions About Electric Cars

February 8, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Tesla’s Model 3 was one of the best-selling cars in the United States last year, eclipsing all but a handful of sedans. This was the first time that an electric car had that honor and is indicative of how electric cars are finally becoming mainstream. A host of other new electric models from multiple manufacturers will be the entering the market over the next couple of years.

Despite all of this progress, there is still a great deal of misinformation about electric cars. A new study commissioned by Volkswagen revealed some of the widespread misconceptions about the vehicles.

Some people believe that electric cars can’t be driven through puddles. Nearly one in five people believe that electric cars slow down as the battery depletes. Many people believe that electric cars are fundamentally less safe than gas-powered cars.

More generally, people are unaware of how far current electric cars can drive on a charge. More and more models can go 200 and even over 300 miles between charging sessions. People also don’t know how quickly cars can charge up either. Fast chargers like Tesla’s Superchargers can add 200 miles worth of charge in about 20 minutes. And people don’t know what it costs to charge electric cars. In most places, it is only a fraction of what it costs to drive the same distance using gasoline.

Despite their limited knowledge about electric cars, the 2,000 people surveyed in Britain were positively disposed towards them with nearly 6 in 10 saying that they would like to own an electric car some day and would even consider one as their next vehicle.

Electric cars will become more familiar and less exotic as more and more of them are on our roads and highways.

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Major misconceptions prevent drivers from buying electric cars, study claims

Photo, posted April 6, 2018, courtesy of Brian Doyle via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/electric-cars-misconceptions-battery-charging-safety-volkswagen-study-results-a8700536.html

Science And False Beliefs

January 21, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There are sizeable numbers of people who hold to beliefs that run counter to overwhelming contrary evidence. Flat Earthers and Holocaust deniers are well-known examples and, more recently, people – some of them in high places – who reject the evidence for climate change.

New research published in the journal Open Mind by developmental psychologists at UC Berkeley suggest that feedback, rather than hard evidence, boosts people’s sense of certainty when learning new things or trying to tell right from wrong. People’s beliefs are more likely to be reinforced by the positive or negative reactions they are exposed to than by logic, reasoning, and scientific data.

People’s learning habits can limit one’s intellectual horizons. According to the study, if you think you know a lot about something, even though you don’t, you’re less likely to be curious enough to explore the topic further and will fail to learn how little you know.

This phenomenon plays out in social media and cable-news echo chambers and explains how some people are easily duped by charlatans. Receiving positive feedback for what they are saying can make people believe they know more than they actually do. This confidence makes them less likely to seek out and learn more information about the subject, as well as take into account contradicting opinions or facts.

Another factor is that what influences people’s certainty is that their confidence tends to depend on what they heard most recently rather than on long-term cumulative data. A few pieces of recent information tend to get much more attention than an extensive body of data. If a crazy theory is able to make a correct prediction a few times, people tend to get fixed in their belief in that theory and be less open to other information.

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Here’s Why People Advocate False Beliefs, Conspiracy Theories Despite Evidence

Photo, posted February 2, 2007, courtesy of Tim J. Keegan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.