FROM the car advert urging you to enjoy a life “without restrictions” by driving an SUV with emissions 250 per cent above the EU target to the airline ad mocking people who holiday at home, why, in a warming world, are we surrounded by ads encouraging us to buy polluting, high-carbon products?Ending them would be an easy win for decision-makers looking to take rapid climate action.
China sent 18 warplanes, including fighters and bombers, into Taiwan’s air defence zone, prompting the island’s air force to scramble jets in response to the second-largest incursion so far this year.
Taipei’s defence ministry said the Chinese aircraft crossed into the island’s air defence zone on Friday, forcing the scrambling of Taiwanese aircraft and the deployment of air defence missile systems to track the Chinese planes.
Taiwan, which is claimed by China as its own territory, has complained of repeated such missions by Chinese aircraft, which have become a common occurrence over the past two years or so.
There was no immediate comment from China’s Defence Ministry.
However, a new study published Thursday in the journal Science offers some hope: the world’s rarest marine mammals aren’t doomed by a lack of genetic diversity, and can recover if illegal “gillnet” fishing ceases immediately.
“We’re trying to push back on this idea that there’s no hope, that nothing we do could save them at this point. It’s just not an accurate assumption,” lead author Jacqueline Robinson of the University of California San Francisco told AFP.
There are only 10 vaquitas left in the world, but a genetic analysis suggests the small porpoises aren’t necessarily doomed to extinction – so long as they stop getting ensnared in fishing nets, that is.
As the planet’s smallest marine mammals, vaquitas are especially vulnerable to entanglement in gill nets used in illegal fishing operations in Mexico’s Gulf of California, where they live. The metre-and-a-half-long porpoises weren’t known to science until the 1950s. Since then, they have become one of the world’s most endangered animals.
Marine biologists estimate that even at their most populous, vaquitas never numbered more than a few thousand individuals. By the 1990s, there were just hundreds left. Vaquitas’ naturally small population size reduced their genetic diversity, which researchers worried could lead to offspring that are less healthy than their parents.
“It’s cemented in people’s minds that low genetic diversity is a bad thing,” says Jacqueline Robinson at the University of California, San Francisco. “But our study is showing that reality is more nuanced than that.”
To find out if the few remaining vaquitas could rebuild their population, Robinson and her colleagues conducted an analysis of 20 vaquita genomes. The genome samples were primarily collected from deceased animals between 1985 and 2017. Because the samples were collected close in time from an evolutionary standpoint, Robinson says they are probably “extremely similar” to those of the surviving vaquitas.
Read more: Narwhals are thriving despite extremely low genetic diversity
The researchers then used a computer model to simulate future vaquita populations under different scenarios. They found that when vaquita deaths were reduced by 80 per cent, the species went extinct in more than half of the simulations. But when by-catch deaths completely halted, the species recovered in more than 90 per cent of the simulations.
“I was pleasantly surprised that the model showed that vaquitas have a good capacity to rebound if they are adequately protected,” says Robinson. “I didn’t expect [the results] to be that optimistic.”
While the model found moderate consequences from inbreeding, Robinson says “they’re very moderate and have far less of an impact compared to other factors, like the amount of gill-net fishing pressure”.
Alejandro Olivera at the Center for Biological Diversity in Mexico agrees that the results are “very good news”. Now that there is evidence that vaquitas’ small population size isn’t a certain death sentence, Olivera says this work could spur even more stringent protections for the marine mammals. “Now it’s hard science, it cannot be denied.”
The results give Robinson some hope, but not without pause. “There’s a chance that vaquitas could survive,” she says, “but it’s just contingent on human actions and decisions.”
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Of particular importance to wilderness values and their stewardship are changes to water, fire and biodiversity conservation.
Water. Climate change in western mountains is projected to decrease snow pack, increase winter flooding, and reduce summer stream flow, making it likely that critically important water supplies will decrease (13). Given this, the water that falls in wilderness headwaters will be increasingly important for surface and underground water recharge to municipal water systems, making protection of wilderness water quantity and quality particularly important.
Fire. Although climate change effects on precipitation will be variable and are uncertain, warmer temperatures, reflected in longer growing seasons, drier soils and drier fuels have already been implicated in an increase in the frequency, intensity and size of wildfires (14). If the risk of catastrophic fire increases, it will be more important than ever to move beyond exclusive reliance on traditional fire suppression to fire management policies that better balance the short and long term risks associated with fire.
Biodiversity conservation. Between 20% and 30% of plant and animal species are likely to be at an increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperatures exceed 2.7 to 4.5° F (15). Species distributions will shift and this, along with climate-induced changes to the physical environment, will result in protected area ecosystems that differ substantially from those of the past. Modeling suggests that more than 40% of the protected areas in Canada will experience a change in biome type (16).
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “What we’re understanding is that the human body is actually very sensitive to heat, and that suggests pretty much everybody’s at risk,” said Camilo Mora, the paper’s lead author. “It’s not just the elderly. It’s not just the poor. It’s everybody.”
“The attitude is: If it’s killing someone else, I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” he said. “This is coming at our doors right now.”
============================= “We are living on the surface of this planet … and with its climate and atmosphere. It has always been the task of mankind to find the right answer to the problem these conditions set us, and even today we cannot think that we have found a sufficient answer.”
Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
Quoted on p. 131
The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler by Heinz L. and Rowena R. Ansbacher, eds.
1956. Basic Books
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“Full of recent references and statistics, Harvesting the Biosphere adds to the growing chorus of warnings about the current trajectory of human activity on a finite planet, of which climate change is only one dimension.
“One can quibble with some assumptions or tweak Smil’s calculations, but the bottom line will not change, only the time it may take humanity to reach a crisis point.”
Stephen Running. “Approaching the Limits” Science 15 March 2013.
Book review. Harvesting the Biosphere: What we have taken from Nature. by Vaclav Smil . MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2012. 315 pp. $29, £19.95. ISBN 9780262018562.
NORTH PORT, Fla. (WWSB) – An 11-foot alligator was found dead on Wednesday by a hiker at Walton Ranch Preserve in North Port. The gator was found in the middle of a field. FWC says it had died from an apparent gunshot wound.
Russian TV pushing scenarios of missile strikes on European countries may stretch credibility, but also show the threats of the Ukraine war are both hyperbole and hypersonic.
Hosts and panelists on Russian state television have always peddled anti-western rhetoric but the discussions justifyingVladimir Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine have taken a more apocalyptic turn.
Last week, on the Russian program60 Minutes, lawmakerAleksey Zhuravlyov boastedabout the nation’s successful test of a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as he railed against British supportof Kyiv’s forces.
As a graphic showed Paris, London and Berlin being destroyed in 200 seconds or less if the weapon were fired from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, Zhuravlyov said, “one Sarmat missile and the British Isles will be no more.”
Global emissions from burning of coal, oil, natural gas are ‘on the wrong track,’ NOAA scientist says
By Nidhi Subbaraman
The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record high in April, according to measurements of the heat-trapping gas at an observatory high on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano. The level during the month averaged 420 parts per million, scientists said Thursday.
“This is the highest we’ve ever seen” since contemporaneous monitoring of atmospheric carbon dioxide began 64 years ago, Pieter Tans, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., said of the record. The past record at Mauna Loa was set last May, at 419 parts per million.
The uptick is part of a continuing decades-long rise in atmospheric carbon-dioxide levelsdriven by the burning of coal and other fossil fuels, according to the chemical…
IMAGE: IF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS CONTINUE TO RISE, AGRICULTURAL WATER SCARCITY IS PREDICTED TO INTENSIFY IN 84% OF CROPLAND FROM 2026 TO 2050. IN THIS FIGURE, DARKER BROWN HUES INDICATE GREATER WATER SCARCITY.view more CREDIT: LIU ET AL./EARTH’S FUTURE
WASHINGTON—Agricultural water scarcity is expected to increase in more than 80% of the world’s croplands by 2050, according to a new study in the AGU journal Earth’s Future.
The new study examines current and future water requirements for global agriculture and predicts whether the water levels available, either from rainwater or irrigation, will be sufficient to meet those needs under climate change. To do so, the researchers developed a new index to measure and predict water scarcity in agriculture’s two major sources: soil water that comes from rain, called green water, and irrigation from rivers, lakes and groundwater, called blue water. It’s the first study to apply this comprehensive index worldwide and predict global blue and green water scarcity as a result of climate change.
“As the largest user of both blue and green water resources, agricultural production is faced with unprecedented challenges,” said Xingcai Liu, an associate professor at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of the new study. “This index enables an assessment of agricultural water scarcity in both rainfed and irrigated croplands in a consistent manner.”
Mesfin Mekonnen, an assistant professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alabama who was not involved in the study, said the work is “very timely in underlining the impact of climate on water availability on crop areas.”
“What makes the paper interesting is developing a water scarcity indicator taking into account both blue water and green water,” he said. “Most studies focus on blue water resources alone, giving little consideration to the green water.”
The researchers find that under climate change, global agricultural water scarcity will worsen in up to 84% of croplands, with a loss of water supplies driving scarcity in about 60% of those croplands.
Sowing solutions
Changes in available green water, due to shifting precipitation patterns and evaporation caused by higher temperatures, are now predicted to impact about 16% of global croplands. Adding this important dimension to our understanding of water scarcity could have implications for agricultural water management. For example, Northeast China and the Sahel in Africa are predicted to receive more rain, which may help alleviate agricultural water scarcity. However, reduced precipitation in the midwestern U.S. and northwest India may lead to increases in irrigation to support intense farming.
The new index could help countries to assess the threat and causes of agricultural water scarcity and develop strategies to reduce the impact of future droughts.
Multiple practices help conserve agricultural water. Mulching reduces evaporation from the soil, no-till farming encourages water to infiltrate the ground and adjusting the timing of plantings can better align crop growth with changing rainfall patterns. Additionally, contour farming, where farmers till the soil on sloped land in rows with the same elevation, prevents water runoff and soil erosion.
“Longer term, improving irrigation infrastructure, for example in Africa, and irrigation efficiency would be effective ways to mitigate the effects of future climate change in the context of growing food demand,” Liu said.
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Notes for Journalists: This research study is published with open access and is freely available. Download a PDF copy of the paper here. Neither the paper nor this press release is under embargo.
Paper title:
“Global agricultural water scarcity assessment incorporating blue and green water availability under future climate change”
Author information:
Xingcai Liu (corresponding author), Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Duebendorf, Switzerland, and Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Wenfeng Liu, Center for Agricultural Water Research in China, College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
Qiuhong Tang, Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Bo Liu, International Economic & Technical Cooperation and Exchange Center, Ministry of Water Resources of China, Beijing, China
Yoshihide Wada, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
Hong Yang (corresponding author), Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Duebendorf, Switzerland
Contact information for the researchers: Xingcai Liu, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, and Chinese Academy of Sciences, xingcailiu@igsnrr.ac.cn (UTC+8 hours) Hong Yang, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, hong.yang@eawag.ch (UTC+2 hours)
“On May 6th, you will receive a reminder to make your call during the time slot that you chose. The reminder will include instructions for how to make the call and what to say on the call. When you receive the reminder, you’ll make your call immediately or as soon as possible.”
Although wolves were recently relisted in much of the U.S. through the courts, the gray wolf remains…
