Ethiopia gave the world Coffea arabica, the species that produces most of the coffee we drink these days. Today, the country is the largest African producer of Arabica coffee. The crop is the backbone of the countryās economy ā some 15 million Ethiopians depend on it for a living.
But the effects of climate change ā higher temperatures and less rainfall ā could take a toll on the countryās ability to farm this treasured crop. Climate data shows that rainfall in Ethiopia has declined by almost 40 inches since the 1950s. And the frequency of droughts has increased in recent years, affecting coffee growing regions as well.
Ethiopia could lose from 39 to 59 percent of its current coffee-growing areas to climate change by the end of the century, according to a new study published in Nature Plants.
Ethiopian coffee farmers are āon the front lines of climate change,ā says Aaron Davis, a scientist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, and one of the studyās authors. He says many coffee farmers have told him that they are experiencing less frequent harvests.
Ethiopiaās Coffee Farmers Are āOn The Front Lines Of Climate Changeā
Boosting drilling and mining on America's protected federal lands can help the United States become not just independent, but "dominant" as a global energy force, according to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whose agency manages about one-fifth of U.S. territory.
Excerpt:
Boosting drilling and mining on America's protected federal lands can help the United States become not just independent, but "dominant" as a global energy force, according to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whose agency manages about one-fifth of U.S. territory.
In an interview with Reuters, Zinke outlined his approach to development and conservation in America's wildest spaces, and discussed how that philosophy was guiding his review of which national monuments created by past presidents should be rescinded or resized to make way for more business.
"There is a social cost of not having jobs," the former Montana Congressman and Navy Seal said in the interview on Friday. "Energy dominance gives us the ability to supply our allies with energy, as well as to leverage our aggressors, or in some cases our enemies, like Iran," he said.
Seagrasses in world heritage site not recovered years after heat wave
Massive seagrass beds in Western Australiaās Shark Bay ā a UNESCO World Heritage Site ā havenāt recovered much from the devastating heat wave of 2011, according to a new study demonstrating how certain vital ecosystems may change drastically in a warming climate.
The peer-reviewed study, published recently in Marine Ecology Progress Series, was led by Dr. Rob Nowicki, a Mote Marine Laboratory Postdoctoral Research Fellow who conducted the fieldwork while earning his doctorate from Florida International University (FIU). Dr. Michael Heithaus, Dean of FIUās College of Arts & Sciences, and colleagues from multiple institutions have studied Shark Bayās ecosystem for more than 20 years. The current study included partners from FIU, Deakin University in Australia and Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Shark Bay earned its World Heritage status, in part, because of its 1,853 square miles (4,800 square kilometers) of seagrass beds, which UNESCOās website calls the ārichest in the world.ā This vast, subtropical ecosystem hosts thousands of large sharks, other fish, sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins and a critical population of dugongs, plant-eating mammals related to manatees.
āWe were studying a relatively pristine ecosystem, but in summer 2011 we had the hottest water temperatures on record at the time, and we saw 70-90 percent losses of seagrasses at our study sites; no one expected it to be that bad,ā Nowicki said. āAfter our colleagues documented the losses, we wanted to know how much the ecosystem might recover over a few years. If you take a punch and get up quickly, youāre ready for the next punch. But our study has suggested this system took a punch, and in the short term, it has not gotten back up.ā
The researchers surveyed 63 sites in Shark Bay four times between 2012 and 2014 to assess seagrass recovery and changes. Before the heat wave, many sites were dominated by the temperate seagrass known as āwireweedā (Amphibolis antarctica), whose dense and tall thickets provide ample food and shelter for numerous species. The heat wave drastically thinned many wireweed beds, and in many places their rhizomes (underground stems) blackened and died, leaving bare sand.
Scientists are identifying planting spots that will be strongholds against climate change.
Now, climate change is forcing a different kind of evolution on the southern, most vulnerable, edge of the boreal forest. The giant, long-living pines are disappearing, replaced by more southern species like red maple as tree species across the country move in response to rapid changes in temperature and moisture brought on by 100 years worth of rising carbon levels in the atmosphere.
A study of 86 eastern tree species published last week by Purdue University scientists found that many have already migrated west in response to increased rainfall in the central part of the country, and north in response to increased average temperatures.
Climate scientists predict that, even if global carbon emissions are held to the rates agreed upon in the Paris Climate Accord, then average temperatures will rise by two to four degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century. That means the pines of northern Minnesota would give way to a hardwood and grass ecosystem, said Lee Frelich, a University of Minnesota professor who studies climate change and forests.
The move was made during the International Coordinating Council of the Man and the Biosphere Programme meeting in ...
This is strange, but if we consider the purpose of a UN Biosphere Reserve, and then consider the agenda of the trump administration to degrade environmental protection and enhance use of land by extractive industries (oil, gas, coal, mining), ranchers and farmers, and to some extent, hunters, then the delisting makes logical sense. Logical, not right.
First, what is aĀ āBiosphere Reserve?ā The program is administered by UNESCO, through the UN. A biosphere reserve is an internationally designated protected area that is intendedĀ to demonstrate a balanced relationship between people and nature, and encourage sustainable development. This might be a better description, extracted from the EcoWatch article:
As detailed by the conservation nonprofit George Wright Society, the biosphere program was launched in the 1970s to establish internationally designated protected areas, help minimize the loss of biological diversity, raise awareness on how cultural diversity and biological diversity affect each other, and promote environmental sustainability.
Under all circumstances, ownership, management, governance of the biosphere reserve site remains with the country in which each site is located. There is no international governance, but there are guidelines associated with the biosphere reserve status.
Prior to this delisting, there were 47 biosphere reserve sites in the US. Here are maps telling us where they are, including the delisted ones:
The ones removed are located all over. Some appear to be in or close to areas where the oil and gas industry is interested in developing.
Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge - US Fish & Wildlife Service
Beaver Creek Experimental Watershed - US Forest Service
California Coast Ranges - University of California Natural Reserve System
Carolinian South-Atlantic - Non-Game and Heritage Trust (South Carolina)
Central Plains Experimental Range - USDA Agricultural Research Service
Coram Experimental Forest - US Forest Service
Desert Experimental Range - US Forest Service
Fraser Experimental Forest - US Forest Service
H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest - US Forest Service / Oregon State University
Hubbard Brook - US Forest Service
Konza Prairie Research Natural Area - Kansas State University
Land Between the Lakes - US Forest Service
Niwot Ridge Mountain Research Station - University of Colorado
Noatak National Preserve - National Park Service
Stanislas-Tuolumne Experimental Forest - US Forest Service
Three Sisters Wilderness - US Forest Service
Virgin Islands - National Park Service
The issue might be related to the alt-right, extreme right wing segments of our society. National Geographic (hereās the link to the article) suggests the following analysis:
Vernon Gilbert, a former UNESCO official and the head of the non-profit U.S. Biosphere Reserves Association, says that beginning in the late 1990s, some U.S. advocacy groups and politicians decried the program as a threat to U.S. property rights and sovereignty.
The blowback hamstrung the countryās participation in UNESCOās Man and the Biosphere Programme, which designates the reserves. A 2005 Congressional investigation into the affiliated U.S. program, spearheaded by Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA), didnāt help matters.
In recent years, Gilbert says that the U.S. has renewed participation in the program. However, after more than a decade of relative inaction, some of the U.S. reserves were behind on meeting UNESCO guidelines and review schedules, leading some to decide for now against maintaining the designation.
Then thereās this, from the infamous Alex Jones:
āNeither Congress, nor any state legislature, has ever voted to approve any of the 47 UN Biosphere Reserves in the United States. The management policy for millions of acres covered by these reserves is crafted by international committees of bureaucrats, none of whom is elected. To comply with āinternational obligations,ā the United States conforms its management policy and, in some cases. its law to accommodate the wishes of bureaucrats that are completely unknown to the people who are governed by the policies,ā Lamb insists.
āThis reality is but a hint of what is in store for those governed by the rule of international law. Massive documents, such as the 1140-page āGlobal Biodiversity Assessment,ā the 300-page āAgenda 21,ā and the 410-page āOur Global Neighborhood,ā all paint a picture of the international law that is being devised to govern the world in the 21st century.ā (For more information visit www.eco.freedom.org .)
Trump reportedly told the mayor of a disappearing island town not to worry about rising sea levels.
Excerpt:
It began a week earlier, when CNN aired a story about Tangier, Va., which sits on Tangier Island, about 12 miles from both the Virginia and Maryland coasts in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. The small island, now only 1.3 square miles, shrinks by 15 feet each year, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, which points to coastal erosion and rising sea levels as the cause.
The islandās 450 residents, many of whom are descendants of its first settlers in the 17th century, are desperate. Scientists predict they will have to abandon the island in 50 years if nothing is done.
...
Trump thanked the mayor and the entire island of Tangier, where he received 87 percent of the votes, for their support. Then the conversation turned to the islandās plight.
āHe said we shouldnāt worry about rising sea levels,ā Eskridge said. āHe said that āyour island has been there for hundreds of years, and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more.āā
The elimination of the Office of International Climate and Technology is another sign of the Trump administrationās retreat on global warming policy.
Excerpt:
The Energy Department is closing an office that works with other countries to develop clean energy technology, another sign of the Trump administrationās retreat on climate-related activities after its withdrawal from the Paris agreement this month.
The 11 staff members of the Office of International Climate and Technology were told this month that their positions were being eliminated, according to current and former agency employees. The office was formed in 2010 to help the United States provide technical advice to other nations seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The small office also played a lead role preparing for the annual Clean Energy Ministerial, a forum in which the United States, China, India and other countries shared insights on how best to promote energy efficiency, electric vehicles and other solutions to climate change.
Word of the closing came right before Rick Perry, the energy secretary, attended the latest Clean Energy Ministerial meeting in Beijing on June 6 to 8, agency employees said.
Remember the last plastic straw you used? It may have simply ended up in a landfill. But thereās also a good chance that straw just began a very long journey. Maybe it tumbled out of a garbage truck, for example. The wind might have blown it to a site where rainwater washed it into some stream. Eventually, it might have floated down to the ocean. If that straw hitched a ride on an ocean current, it might have kept traveling. A new study finds that ocean currents send a surprising amount of plastic trash from the North Atlantic up into the Arctic.
Temperature changes around the globe are pushing human pathogens of all kinds into unexpected new areas, raising many new risks for people.
Excerpt:
While much attention has been paid to the direct physical threats from climate change, such as rising seas and searing drought, scientists are really only beginning to understand many of the potential disease implications. In part that's because as complex ecosystems shift in complex ways, the behavior response of the smallest cogs in those systems, such as insects and microbes, will be the hardest to predict.
Evidence suggests, for example, that moisture changes could alter the spread of the soil-borne fungi that give rise to the American Southwest's flu-like valley fever, but scientists can't yet say for sure. Infections that aerosolize, like tuberculosis, can linger longer and perhaps be transported easier in regions of the world projected to become more humid. New research suggests the spread of blood-sucking kissing bugs that contain parasites that carry Chagas Disease may well help that affliction spread into North America. Already millions of people worldwide, mostly in South America, suffer from chronic Chagas, which can lead to life-threatening heart damage and stroke.
But there also are plenty of pathogens whose courses already are being altered by fossil fuel emissions.
"So often so many of the things we talk about with climate change are 'this is going to be a problem in 2030 or 2050 or 2100,' and it sounds so far away," says Maloy. "But we're talking about things where our one-degree centigrade change in temperature is already enough to affect infections."
Nick Lyon is the highest-ranking state official to be charged in the crisis.
Excerpt:
Michigan's director of its Department of Health and Human Services, Nick Lyon, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office over the Flint water crisis.
Chief Medical Executive Dr. Eden Wells will be charged with obstruction of justice.
Lyon and Wells are the highest-ranking state officials to be charged in the crisis. The charges stem from an investigation led by Michigan's attorney general.
The involuntary manslaughter charge stems from an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, a type of pneumonia, that spread in the city following its switch in water source. According to the indictment, Lyon knew about the outbreak but failed to alert the public.
The Trump administration's latest budget includes millions in cuts to land and wildlife management programs. Critics say it would hurt rural America, which largely supported the president in November.
Excerpt:
Still subject to approval by Congress, the president's budget includes a roughly $1.4 billion cut to the Department of Interior and far deeper cuts to the Department of Agriculture: combined the two agencies own and manage more than 700 million acres of public lands, mostly in the West.
Here are three items of note in the Department of Interior budget alone that aren't generating much attention so far. But they could disproportionately hit rural communities, many of which tended to support President Trump in last year's election.
A proposed $12 million cut to rangeland management programs designed to rehabilitate grass and prairie lands important for cattle ranchers that depend on public lands for grazing.
A $14 million cut to wildlife management programs, which has already come under scrutiny in western states like Colorado, where revenues from hunting and fishing on public lands have been falling.
A proposed large cut to the popular Land and Water Conservation fund that's added scores of private lands into the protected federal public land system since 1964.
A curious decision by the new administration could open protected wilderness to energy exploration.
Excerpt:
In late April, field biologist Stanley Smith was catching up on emails at his desk in the College of Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, when he noticed a shocking note. It came from the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the Department of the Interior, and informed Smith that the public lands advisory council in southern Nevada that heās served on for years was suspended. Across the country, other regional advisors got similar notices.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had called for a review of more than 200 independent groups that advise his department on various issues, such as whether a historical site or natural feature should be designated a national monument. The day before Smith received his notification, President Trump signed an executive order asking the Interior to review 21 sites recently designated as national monuments. The review would cover patches of wilderness that received the distinction after 1996, like Mojave Trails in California and Bears Ears in Utah, and would assess whether public opinion was adequately taken into account prior to elevating their status.
The monument order itself was controversial. But the months-long suspension of the advisory groups means that while Zinkeās team is reconsidering the bounds ā and even existence ā of some national monuments, the teams specifically set up to provide local input will be out of commission. Called Resource Advisory Councils (RACs), the groups consist of representatives from varied backgrounds, such as oil and gas, ranching, tribal government, and academia.
Mike Quigley, an Arizona RAC member who works for a conservation group, said suspending the advisory councils now ācalls into question the administrationās sincerity in seeking public input.ā
Sandra Zellmer, a law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who specializes in public lands, is more blunt. She says the administration clearly āwants to talk more about economics and energy development and production than about sustainability.ā
President Trump isnāt a big believer in āman-made climate change.ā
Excerpt:
On Thursday, a group of scientists, including three working for the U.S. Geological Survey, published a paper that highlighted the link between sea-level rise and global climate change, arguing that previously studies may have underestimated the risk flooding poses to coastal communities.
However, three of the studyās authors say the Department of Interior, under which USGS is housed, deleted a line from the news release on the study that discussed the role climate change played in raising Earthās oceans.
āWhile we were approving the news release, they had an issue with one or two of the lines,ā said Sean Vitousek, a research assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. āIt had to do with climate change and sea-level rise.ā
Bears Ears National Monument in Utah boasts stretches of red-and-yellow sandstone so brilliant they appear to be ablaze and rock structures so precarious they appear to defy gravity.
Yes, trump wants the oil (including tar sands), gas, coal, uranium and other minerals that lie beneath some of the national monuments out west that trump has targeted in his Executive Order. HIs primary focus: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase, both in Utah. Others that are under review that could make extractors rich are the San Gabriels and the Carrizo Plain, both in California.
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