Overuse and Depletion – making WATER the new oil

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Overuse and Depletion – making WATER the new oil

60 Minutes VIDEO:  It’s been said that the wars of the 21st century may well be fought over water. The Earth’s population has more than doubled over the last 50 years and the demand for fresh water – to drink and to grow food – has surged along with it. But sources of water like rainfall, rivers, streams, reservoirs, certainly haven’t doubled. So where is all that extra water coming from? More and more, it’s being pumped out of the ground.  15 minute VIDEO that should change your approach

Water experts say groundwater is like a savings account – something you draw on in times of need. But savings accounts need to be replenished, and there is new evidence that so much water is being taken out, much of the world is in danger of a groundwater overdraft.

California is entering its fourth year of a record-breaking drought. Last year was the driest since the state started keeping records more than a hundred years ago. And yet, pay a visit to California’s Central Valley and out of that parched land you’ll see acre upon acre of corn, almond trees, pomegranates, tomatoes, grapes. And what makes them all possible: water. Where do you get water in a drought? You take it out of the savings account: groundwater.

More video: Water crisis on a global stage – China

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Climate change gives local agriculture a boost – tweak but true

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To be blunt, experts say that the New England food economy stands to benefit from the damage that global warming threatens to do to other parts of the country—especially because climate models don’t predict that the Northeast, unlike other regions, will see any significant decrease in annual rainfall. Drought in California is already causing crop failure there, while the vast scale of the farms in the Midwest makes it difficult for growers to be flexible and reactive enough to keep up with unpredictable weather patterns. David Wolfe, a professor at Cornell University who studies agriculture and climate change, said it’s likely that supermarket buyers—the folks who order the food that we see on shelves—will be glad to have local options at a time when, say, the tomato harvest in California can’t be relied on to deliver. “They might be thinking, ‘Well, we can’t count on those guys because every other year they have a problem with drought,’” Wolfe said.

EVENT: Carbon Sequestration via Grassland Restoration – at the Impact Hub

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EVENT: Carbon Sequestration via Grassland Restoration – at the Impact Hub

Learn about natural systems of Carbon Sequestration and how we can combat global warming from leading Boston experts.

Humans have “broken” many or most ecosystems on the planet. Is it possible that restoring some of these ecosystems to health would actually address the worst threat to human civilization we have yet faced, global warming? Impact Hub Boston will focus on Grassland Restoration as a tangible pathway available today to potentially reverse global warming by placing large amounts of carbon back into our soil. Carbon Sequestration, the theme of our series, is the process of storing atmospheric carbon for long periods of time. We’ll be exploring tangible examples of Carbon Sequestration with experts in distinct fields that have hands-on experience in applying these vital technologies.

Use biodiversity to combat climate change!

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Use biodiversity to combat climate change!

The biodiversity loss from which we all suffer is as serious as the more obvious climate problems. Ecosystem services is the new in-phrase, as more and more is discovered about how we benefit from the most obscure ecological connections with ourselves and others. Our continued destruction and degradation of natural habitat, driving extinction, means much less carbon storage and the loss of water from natural systems as well as our own. Our recent story on carbon emissions from tropical forests shows possibly the most prominent example, but Arctic and many other peat bogs must also be regarded as strategic.

Norway itself used to have 10% of its land covered by peat, 2 centuries ago, but like the rest of Europe, ditches and draining have left little of these rich carbon deposits. Professor Dag O. Hessen of the University of Oslo takes these as his example. They are an immense carbon sink, and they also function like a sponge to absorb large amounts of water. Peatlands can prevent flooding, and after the most recent floods it’s easy to understand what an important function that is, he stated at the meeting. Increasing temperatures in Norway are affecting aquatic biodiversity in mighty ways, according to his personal research. Our Red Sea example in the photograph is also liable to warming, with huge loss of habitats.

Of course, peat is not the only land to provide us with goods and services. Forest, both in the cold and coniferous north and in the equatorial heat, can provide magnificent biodiversity and sheltering amelioration of both temperature and humidity. The whole climate naturally depends on this enormous land area covered in trees. Not only animals, humans and plants rely on that service. Equally, the oceans and the freshwaters influence our whole world. Without their diverse species and vast influence on the atmosphere, we landlubbers can only despair of our faltering climate and food supplies.

Each nation, large or small, organizing its science, technology and policies in ways designed to account for climate change and biodiversity? The thought of Norway’s example should be politically useful to many, but meanwhile, our numerous articles on biodiversity are here, while climate change seems to influence most of our work recently, just as the Norwegians were saying.

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Food, Water & Climate dependent on soil biodiversity 

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The unbelievable underworld and its impact on us all!

A new study has pulled together research into the most diverse place on earth to demonstrate how the organisms below-ground could hold the key to understanding how the worlds ecosystems function and how they are responding to climate change.

Published in Nature, the paper by Professor Richard Bardgett from The University of Manchester and Professor Wim van der Putten of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, brings together new knowledge on this previously neglected area. The paper not only highlights the sheer diversity of life that lives below-ground, but also how rapid responses of soil organisms to climate change could have far reaching impacts on future ecosystems. The paper also explores how the below-ground world can be utilized for sustainable land management.

Professor Bardgett explains: “The soil beneath our feet arguably represents the most diverse place on Earth. Soil communities are extremely complex with literally millions of species and billions of individual organisms within a single grassland or forest, ranging from microscopic bacteria and fungi through to larger organisms such as earthworms, ants and moles. Despite this plethora of life the underground world had been largely neglected by research, it certainly used to be a case of out of sight out of mind, although over the last decade we have seen a significant increase in work in this area.”

PESTICIDE exposure – two decade study re: farmer depression

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PESTICIDE exposure – two decade study re: farmer depression

Pesticides could make a farmer 80 to 90% more likely to suffer depression.

Earlier this fall, researchers from the National Institute of Health finished up a landmark 20-year study, a study that hasn’t received the amount of coverage it deserves. About 84,000 farmers and spouses of farmers were interviewed since the mid-1990s to investigate the connection between pesticides and depression, a connection that had been suggested through anecdotal evidence for far longer. We called up Dr. Freya Kamel, the lead researcher on the study, to find out what the team learned and what it all means. Spoiler: nothing good.

“There had been scattered reports in the literature that pesticides were associated with depression,” says Kamel. “We wanted to do a new study because we had more detailed data than most people have access to.” That excessive amount of data includes tens of thousands of farmers, with specific information about which pesticides they were using and whether they had sought treatment for a variety of health problems, from pesticide poisoning to depression. Farmers were surveyed multiple times throughout the 20-year period, which gives the researchers an insight into their health over time that no other study has.

Because the data is so excessive, the researchers have mined it three times so far, the most recent time in a study published just this fall. The first one was concerned with suicide, the second with depression amongst the spouses of farmers (Kamel says “pesticide applicators,” but most of the people applying pesticides are farmers), and the most recent with depression amongst the farmers themselves.

“I don’t think there’s anything surprising about the fact that pesticides would affect neurologic function.”

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Second-hand PESTICIDE exposure – Californians live with Strawberry fields forever

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The transition underscores the modern strawberry industry’s chemical dependence: growers rely on heavy amounts of some of the most dangerous pesticides – a class called fumigants – to deliver the fruit year-round at an affordable price for consumers. Because strawberries like to grow where people like to live, in the perpetual spring of coastal California, growers often use the pesticides near schools, homes and businesses.

The health and environmental problems that come with those pesticides have threatened the foundation of a $2.6bn industry that provides Americans with 9 out of 10 strawberries they eat.

Even as most of the developed world has moved on to other methods of farming, California’s strawberry growers have resisted the methyl bromide ban. Nearly a decade after the pesticide was supposed to be banned, the state’s strawberry growers have staved off the deadline by warning of financial ruin. Today, they use about 90% of all the methyl bromide in the developed world.

Meanwhile, strawberry growers and chemical companies have cycled from one potentially dangerous chemical to another to try to replace methyl bromide.

Strawberry growing can be an unforgiving business. The fruit is fragile and land is expensive, so growers pump the soil with fumigants to wipe out most life below the surface, a sort of insurance policy against future plagues.

We Need a New Food System Paradigm – UN nutrition conference explores

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We Need a New Food System Paradigm – UN nutrition conference explores

By 2050, the world’s population will reach 9 billion – and all will need nutritious diets. Yet despite the intrinsic relationship between the food we grow and the food we eat, the agriculture and nutrition sectors are only just now beginning to overcome decades of mutual isolation. The high rates of malnutrition among farming communities are a stark reminder that the link between agriculture and nutrition is not as it should be.

Today, we are starting to see the divide between agriculture and nutrition begin to close. But it’s fair to say that our food system is broken. All the time, money and effort spent on trying to make it work still doesn’t make the food system deliver everyone an optimal diet. Today, up to 805 million people are hungry and 2 billion are malnourished – and 70 percent of them live in rural areas, with many rapidly moving to already swollen cities.

At the same time, 1.4 billion are overweight and obese, fuelled by Western-style diets that are damaging the planet and our health. Climate change is increasing food insecurity – particularly for rural populations which are most vulnerable to erratic weather patterns and unpredictable planting and harvest cycles. And despite many not having enough to eat, globally we throw away a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food each year.

Obesity costs global economy $2 trillion each year

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Obesity costs global economy $2 trillion each year

A new report by McKinsey estimates that obesity is costing the global economy $2 trillion per year. That makes it nearly as damaging as armed conflict or smoking, according to the consultants.  

More than 2 billion people – or almost 30% of the global population – are currently considered overweight or obese, and the problem is expected to get worse.

Based on current trends, nearly half of the world’s adults will be overweight or obese by 2030.  "Obesity, which should be preventable, is now responsible for about 5% of all deaths worldwide,“ the report stated.

Smoking is considered the most expensive man-made burden on the economy with a cost of $2.1 trillion, followed closely by armed conflict.  The damage caused by obesity mainly comes from lost productivity due to disability and premature death, and higher healthcare costs.