January 2009 Entries
After the big banks, mortgage brokerage houses, insurance companies, automobile manufacturers and others, it was inevitable that we too consider joining the bailout queue...
This week’s Science carries two important articles. The first tackles the question of how much of carbonaceous aerosols in the South Asia and Indian Ocean’s atmospheric brown clouds can be attributed to either biomass (burning and cooking) or fossil fuel combustion. The second paper is a disturbing account of the rapid increase in the rate of tree mortality across the western United States.
STAP is hosting a workshop January 28-29 with a small group of high-level experts to analyze the potential of terrestrial ecosystems to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by pursuing aggressively the restoration of ecosystems on a planetary scale. While there will be a major focus on natural ecosystems this exercise will also include agricultural lands managed in ways to enhance soil carbon...
As far as human society is concerned, Darwin was definitely the most influential scientist in history. My entire training as a biologist was dominated by a burning sensation that instead of learning about life sciences, I was being prepared to join a privileged class of people who hold the ultimate knowledge about all that has to do with human beings, their systems and creations. Sounds wacky? Not really...
There have been many recent predictions of increases in the frequency of new emerging diseases affecting both people and animals. Chytridiomycosis, a lethal fungus implicated in the global amphibian decline phenomena, is one frightening example.
Most of the scenarios generated by models examining the effects of climate change on patterns of land use and agriculture revealed some combination of geographical winners and losers. While some countries would be cooking under extreme summer heat, others would be gaining with the projected expansion in the growing season, or with the opening of areas previously unsuited for cultivation.