For Earth Day, 17 celebrated scientists on how to make a better world

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Seventeen top scientists and four acclaimed conservation organizations have called for radical action to create a better world for this and future generations. Compiled by 21 past winners of the prestigious Blue Planet Prize, a new paper recommends solutions for some of the world's most pressing problems including climate change, poverty, and mass extinction. The paper, entitled Environment and Development Challenges: The Imperative to Act, was recently presented at the UN Environment Program governing council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

 

 . The Blue Planet Prize is given for "outstanding achievements in scientific research and its application that have helped provide solutions to global environmental problems." Dubbed by some as the Nobel Prize for the environment, award winners have included such luminaries as environmentalist James Lovelock, biologist Paul Ehrlich, physicist Amory Lovins, economist Nicholas Stern, and climatologist James Hansen, all of whom have contributed to the report.

"The current system is broken," said climatologist Bob Watson, a Blue Planet winner in 2010 and the instigator of the report. "It is driving humanity to a future that is 3-5 degrees Celsius warmer than our species has ever known, and is eliminating the ecology that we depend on for our health, wealth and senses of self. We cannot assume that technological fixes will come fast enough. Instead we need human solutions. The good news is that they exist but decision makers must be bold and forward thinking to seize them."

The ambitious paper arrives only a few months before "Rio+20 Conference: The Future We Want," a global environmental meeting 20 years after the notable Rio Summit. However, expectations for real action at the Rio+20 summit have been dampened by the release of a draft agreement that lacks teeth and, according to critics, allows nations to once again make vague pledges that forestall actual action.

For their part, the Blue Planet laureates call on the world to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, switch out GDP (gross domestic product) for a more holistic measure of national well-being, decouple environmental destruction from consumption, drop subsidies for fossil fuels and environmentally destructive agricultural practices, put a market value on biodiversity and ecosystem services, work with grassroots movements to create bottom-up action, and finally address overpopulation.

"If we are to achieve our dream, the time to act is now, given the inertia in the socio-economic system, and that the adverse effects of climate change and loss of biodiversity cannot be reversed for centuries or are irreversible," the authors write.

Declaring that "the system is broken and our current pathway will not realize [the dream of a better world]" the authors point out that "civilization is faced with a perfect storm of problems driven by overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich, the use of environmentally malign technologies, and gross inequalities." Worsening the situation, according to the scientists and environmentalists, is the dangerous "myth" that "physical economies can grow forever."

A new economy for a new millennium

The current global economy must be re-fashioned from a growth model to a sustainable one that takes nature into account, argue the scientists.

"Since most goods and services sold today fail to bear the full environmental and social costs of production and consumption, we need to reach consensus on methodologies to price them properly," the scientists write.

Many of the world's natural resources are finite (minerals, fossil fuels, and water) and those that are renewable (forests, fish, and food) are easily exhausted when mismanaged and can even be destroyed entirely. Given this, according to the report, economists need to re-define the capital in question to reflect those that are nature-based and those that are human-based.

"Governments should recognize the serious limitations of GDP as a measure of economic activity and complement it with measures of the five forms of capital, built, financial, natural, human and social capital, i.e., a measure of wealth that integrates economic, environmental and social dimensions," the paper argues. The scientists admit that the transition will prove difficult, but it is necessary.

"There is an urgent need to break the link between production and consumption on the one hand and environmental destruction on the other. This can allow risking material living standards for a period that would allow us to overcome world poverty. Indefinite material growth on a planet with finite and often fragile natural resources will however, eventually be unsustainable," they write.

Still, while such action may require phasing out certain industries and economic practices, other green industries could fill in the gaps, providing jobs and stability.

"Costing environmental externalities could open new opportunities for green growth and green jobs," the researchers write, adding that "efficient resource use (e.g., energy or water) saves money for businesses and households. Valuing and creating markets for ecosystem services can provide new economic opportunities. A green economy will be a source of future employment and innovation."

What's standing in the way of such a transition? The report warns that the current alliances between governments and big corporations is undermining the ability of society to change business-as-usual practices.

"The international nature of much of the corporate sector involved in natural resource use means that even the governments of the countries in which they are headquartered have limited ability to influence their actions and decisions," they write, adding that the on-going dependence on fossil fuels "underlies many of the problems we face today."

To succeed, government must be transformed at all levels, the researchers contend.

"At the local level public hearings and social audits can bring the voices of marginalized groups into the forefront. At national level, parliamentary and press oversight are key. Globally, we must find better means to agree and implement measures to achieve collective goals."

But while all stakeholders must be involved, the scientists argue that grassroots movements, bottom-up activism, and local programs should be given more clout.

"There is a need to scale-up the grass roots actions by bringing together a complementary top-down and bottom-up approach to addressing these issues."

The climate crisis

In order to tackle global climate change, the paper recommends a dual strategy of drastically increasing energy-efficiency while deploying renewable energy and carbon capture on a massive scale.

"Generally, developing countries located in the tropical areas of the world can benefit most from solar energy technologies [...] In industrialized countries with very high energy consumption per capita, energy efficiency measures can be very effective," the authors write adding that in developing countries, "economic progress can be achieved by adopting early in their growth trajectory energy efficient technologies rather than adopting obsolete technologies that will generate problems that will have to be fixed later."

They note that clean energy could provide 75 percent of power in many parts of the world, and 90 percent in the tropics, by 2050.

"The main task is to scale-up, reduce costs and integrate renewables in future energy systems. Carefully developed, renewable energies can provide multiple benefits, including employment, energy security, human health, environment, and mitigation of climate change," the paper reads.


As for carbon capture and storage, the authors still hold out hope despite a number of difficulties: "the main task is to reduce costs and achieve rapid technology improvement," adding that, "a number of pilot projects around the world will, we hope, soon demonstrate their viability."

While the scientists acknowledge that adaptation to climate change impacts is a necessity, they write that "the most effective adaptation strategy is mitigation in order to limit the magnitude of climate change."

Interestingly, the researchers note that one can be a self-subscribed climate change denialist and still see the major benefits of clean energy.

"A transition to a low-carbon economy makes sense and makes money for many other compelling reasons [beyond mitigating climate change]. China, for example, is leading the global efficiency and clean-energy revolutions not because of international treaties and Conventions but to speed her own development and to improve public health and national security," the authors write.

Life on Earth

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions rapidly is the overall solution to climate change, but saving life on Earth from extinction is less clear-cut.

"Biodiversity—the variety of genes, populations, species, communities, ecosystems, and ecological processes that make up life on Earth—underpins ecosystem services, sustains humanity, is foundational to the resilience of life on Earth, and is integral to the fabric of all the world’s cultures," the paper's authors write. Biodiversity and ecosystem services also underpin the global economy, they note, though this has been almost wholly neglected by our current economic model.

"The benefits that ecosystems contribute to human well-being have historically been provided free of charge, and demand for them is increasing. Although the global economic value of ecosystem services may be difficult to measure, it almost certainly rivals or exceeds aggregate global gross domestic product, and ecosystem benefits frequently outweigh costs of their conservation," write the scientists.

They suggest a rapid move from "the resource exploitative method of conventional development to resource enrichment method of sustainable development" in the developing world. Currently, development in poorer countries usually implies large-scale industrial projects with massive environmental footprints: mining, logging, dams, fossil fuel exploitation, highway building etc.

"The value of ecosystem services and natural capital must be incorporated into national accounting and decision-making processes across all sectors of society, access to ecosystem benefits and costs of ecosystem conservation must be shared equitably, and biodiversity and ecosystem services must be seen as the most fundamental component of green economic development," the scientists write.

Boy in mokoro boat in Botswana. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs.

According to the paper, loss of ecosystem services will soon hit the global economy to the tune of $500 billion every year. Given this, the scientists call for all countries to adopt a "national inclusive wealth accounting system, including accounting for ecosystem services imported and exported, which could stimulate further approaches to ecosystem service marketplace development."

The authors also note that winning the battles on climate change and mass extinction aren't mutually exclusive, because what aids biodiversity will often mitigate global warming, and vice-versa. For example, the scientists throw their support behind the REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) program, which proposes to pay tropical nations to keep their forests standing.

Another issue that underlies the rest is overpopulation. The dramatic explosion of population over the past century has put increased strain on biodiversity, natural resources, food production, and the climate. Targeting overpopulation through non-draconian or compulsory means could provide a multitude of societal benefits in addition to lessening our overall environmental toll.

"The population issue should be urgently addressed by education and empowerment of women, including in the work-force and in rights, ownership and inheritance; health care of children and the elderly; and making modern contraception accessible to all," the scientists write.

The Blue Planet awardees argue that nations must stop seeing environmental issues as disconnected, stand-alone problems since, for example, protecting ecosystems, such as forests, will mitigate climate changes, lessen the difficult of climate adaptation, and preserve biodiversity, amid a host of other benefits.

"A comprehensive, integrated ecosystem approach is a powerful 'tool' for identifying, analyzing and resolving complicated environmental problems, rather than the piecemeal approaches to multifaceted environmental problems that don’t work," the researchers conclude.

A better world

The report doesn't sugarcoat the scale of the problems facing societies today nor the heavy-lifting it will take to transform the global economy, however they say the future will be far worse if action is not taken quickly and decisively.

Girl in Madagascar. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.

"In the face of an absolutely unprecedented emergency, society has no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilization," the scientists write. "Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us."

At the end of the tunnel, however, is a better world.

"We have a dream—a world without poverty—a world that is equitable—a world that respects human rights—a world with increased and improved ethical behavior regarding poverty and natural resources—a world that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable, where the challenges such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and social inequity have been successfully addressed."












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Warming takes toll on Utah snow, and it looks to get worse

What Bruce Tremper saw when he ventured into the Wasatch backcountry this spring surprised him.
Bare patches littered the winter landscape where he was used to seeing snow — even on high-elevation ridge tops.
In one of his last forecasts of the season for the Utah Avalanche Center, Tremper noted that this year might wind up being the worst for snowfall in the 67 years that records have been kept at the Alta Guard Station. It was certainly the worst in his 30-year experience of Utah snow seasons.
"I have never seen that before in April as far as I can remember," he said, recalling the recent trip up the canyon. "Last year, there was more snow on that same slope in July than there is this year in the first part of April."
While you could say Tremper’s is just one person’s observation, it echoes the theme of several recent scientific studies that paint a grim picture of Utah’s famed mountain powder.
Climate change is withering the spring snowpack in the Mountain West — the Wasatch Range included — the studies suggest.
That’s the trend discovered by Robert Gillies, Utah’s state climatologist, and colleagues at Utah State University. Their paper, soon to be published in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, showed a 9 percent increase in the amount of precipitation that fell as rain rather than snow.
It is the most detailed and comprehensive scientific look at snow/rain patterns in Utah so far.
"Our climate trend," Gillies said, "is changing in Utah."
He and co-authors Simon Wang and Marty Booth examined the state’s snow patterns with a variety of scientific measurements — with data points "up there in the millions," according to Gillies.
They relied on the statewide historical climate network, in addition to a comprehensive look at weather patterns and storm tracks. It gave them a way of double-, triple- and quadruple-checking their work.
And their findings also make sense in light of what is known about warming in Utah. According to the Utah Climate Center, during the past four decades global average temperatures have increased about 0.27 degree Fahrenheit each decade. Here in Utah, it’s warmed twice as much.
Why study the issue from so many perspectives? The scientists were determined to discover the real trends within global climate cycles that come and go.
In USU’s Utah Climate News this month, the problem is described as like trying to track the ebb and flow of tides when there are big waves coming in. In the case of the state’s snow patterns, the waves are comparable to big weather features like the El Niño, La Niña and the Arctic Oscillation.
But the Utah scientists found that if you correct for those "waves," it is clear that a bigger fraction of precipitation is falling as rain instead of snow.
In addition, they saw a trend that storms were fewer in number but greater in intensity.
Bigger, stronger computers have made it possible for climate scientists to begin zeroing in on smaller and smaller areas. And what Gillies found with the snow/rain mix echoes what other scientists have seen with a broader, regional focus.
At the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, Synte Peacock’s team has identified similar trends globally and in the Rockies. She, too, has a peer-reviewed paper slated to appear soon in the Journal of Climate that deals with the same trends.

Her group has animated the spring snow scenarios of the past and projected into the future with sophisticated computer models. The alarming results, illustrated in computer graphics, show that there will be years at a time during this century when the Rockies will probably be snow-free by March and April. Spring snowpack could disappear from the Wasatch as early as 2030, the models project.
"It shows," Peacock said, "that in the spring in the Rockies, where we’re used to consistent snow cover through the spring, it’s likely that’s going to be a thing of the past by 50 or 60 years from now."
Peacock pointed out that her projections about the future are based on a worst-case scenario of greenhouse-gas emissions, the human-caused factor of climate change. And, while some might suggest using more conservative projections, she points out that the observed trends in greenhouse-gas emissions — the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide, methane and other key gases in the atmosphere — have closely followed the rapid-warming trend that’s actually been observed in recent years.
In short, reality is tracking closely to what the worst-case computer models have estimated.
"Things would be very different if we reduced our CO2 emissions," Peacock said.
Brian McInerney, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service, has read the Utah Climate Center’s paper, and he agreed that the long-term trends point to less snow and more rain. Although he might not know exactly how that will pan out, he foresees changes ahead for all who rely on mountain snow.
"Our water supply and how we live in Utah is based on the Mountain snowpack," he said. "Without the winter snowpack we can’t live the way we do."
The snow "waits there until we need it," McInerney said. "Then it melts and we store it in our reservoirs until we’re ready to use it.
"If that changes," he wondered, "how do we handle that?"
At the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, General Manager Richard Bay says climate change impacts like this have been built into contingency plans even though it is unclear how the trend would affect the district’s ability to serve its 700,000 customers.
If the rain falls at higher elevations than where it’s traditionally fallen, then the district can rely on its reservoirs, such as Jordanelle and Deer Creek, Bay said. If it falls at lower elevations, then the district will look to groundwater storage.
Bay has heard the political arguments on both sides of the climate debate. But his take on the issue is purely practical. He calls the district’s approach "adaptive management."
"It’s hard to distinguish at this point what you can count on and what might happen," he said. "But that doesn’t matter when you’re a water manager because you still have to meet the demands of a growing population."

The man who made a forest

Way back in 1953, French author Jean Giono wrote the epic tale The Man Who Planted Trees. It seemed so real that readers thought the central character, Elzeard Bouffier , was a living individual until the author clarified he had created the person only to make his readers fall in love with trees. Assam's Jadav Payeng has never heard of Giono's book. But he could be Bouffier. He has single-handedly grown a sprawling forest on a 550-hectare sandbar in the middle of the Brahmaputra. It now has many endangered animals, including at least five tigers, one of which bore two cubs recently.

The place lies in Jorhat, some 350 km from Guwahati by road, and it wasn't easy for Sunday Times to access him. At one point on the stretch, a smaller road has to be taken for some 30 km to reach the riverbank. There, if one is lucky, boatmen will ferry you across to the north bank. A trek of another 7 km will then land you near Payeng's door. Locals call the place 'Molai Kathoni' (Molai's woods) after Payeng's pet name, Molai.
It all started way back in 1979 when floods washed a large number of snakes ashore on the sandbar. One day, after the waters had receded, Payeng , only 16 then, found the place dotted with the dead reptiles. That was the turning point of his life.
"The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage . I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested," says Payeng, now 47.
Leaving his education and home, he started living on the sandbar. Unlike Robinson Crusoe, Payeng willingly accepted a life of isolation. And no, he had no Man Friday. He watered the plants morning and evening and pruned them. After a few years, the sandbar was transformed into a bamboo thicket. "I then decided to grow proper trees. I collected and planted them. I also transported red ants from my village, and was stung many times. Red ants change the soil's properties . That was an experience," Payeng says, laughing.
Soon, there were a variety of flora and fauna which burst in the sandbar, including endangered animals like the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal tiger. "After 12 years, we've seen vultures. Migratory birds, too, have started flocking here. Deer and cattle have attracted predators," claims Payeng . He says locals recently killed a rhino which was seen in his forest at another forest in Sibsagar district.
Payeng talks like a trained conservationist. "Nature has made a food chain; why can't we stick to it? Who would protect these animals if we, as superior beings, start hunting them?"
The Assam state forest department learnt about Payeng's forest only in 2008 when a herd of some 100 wild elephants strayed into it after a marauding spree in villages nearby. They also destroyed Payeng's hutment . It was then that assistant conservator of forests Gunin Saikia met Payeng for the first time.
"We were surprised to find such a dense forest on the sandbar. Locals, whose homes had been destroyed by the pachyderms, wanted to cut down the forest, but Payeng dared them to kill him instead. He treats the trees and animals like his own children. Seeing this, we, too, decided to pitch in," says Saikia. "We're amazed at Payeng. He has been at it for 30 years. Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero."

Help from the government wasn't forthcoming, though. It was only last year that the social forestry division took up plantation work on a 200-hectare plot.
Meanwhile, Congress MP from Jorhat, Bijoy Krishna Handique, took interest and said he would moot a proposal to the Centre to declare the area a conservation reserve under provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Payeng would be happy.

The New Geopolitics of Global Warming

Climate change is already shaping conflicts around the world--and not for the better

Energy security and climate change present massive threats to global security, military planners say, with connections and consequences spanning the world.
Some scientists have linked the Arab Spring uprisings to high food prices caused by the failed Russian wheat crop in 2010, a result of an unparalleled heat wave. The predicted effects of climate change are also expected to hit developing nations particularly hard, raising the importance of supporting humanitarian response efforts and infrastructure improvements.
Here's a look at several geopolitical hotspots that will likely bear the unpredictable and dangerous consequences of climate change and current energy policies.
Yemen and the Middle East
The Middle East's oil reserves have served as the flashpoint for conflicts, and military leaders are keeping a close eye on Yemen these days, as the country suffers through instability related, in part, to water shortages, which are expected to worsen with climate change.
The region's major energy trade route runs just off the Yemeni shoreline, making it vulnerable to attack or blockade by pirates or other insurgent groups. "It's seven miles from the Yemen coast to the shipping lane. You can row out, and you don't even need an onboard motor," said Neil Morisetti, a rear admiral in Britain's Ministry of Defense and the U.K.'s climate and energy security envoy.
An energy-transport shutdown could cripple the global economy, he added.
The Arctic
Melting sea ice poses several unprecedented challenges to defense missions and the global economy, especially once year-round ice floes disappear - a scenario expected within decades.
"When that happens, the whole ball game changes," said Bob Corell, a lead researcher with the Global Environment & Technology Foundation who has headed the U.S. Office for the Global Energy Assessment and extensively studied the Arctic region.
Corell said Asian countries, including China and South Korea, are already plotting new navigation routes and building cargo ships that can push through seasonal ice. The shift would eliminate some travel that now passes through the Straits of Malacca, between Malaysia and Indonesia, where piracy remains active, but it could also enable Asia to take firm control of global trade.
The U.S. Navy is working on developing instruments that can withstand the harsh weather conditions, and planners anticipate an increased presence in the high Arctic.
Africa
Considering the extent of food and water scarcity throughout many parts of Africa, the continent is highly vulnerable to projected droughts associated with climate change, Corell said. Long-term drought in Sudan contributed to the ethnic cleansing in Darfur, he added. The conflict also exposed how poorly prepared the international community is to respond to such scenarios.
Expect this to play out again and again in the future, Corell warned. "There are going to be Darfur's all over the place."
Bangladesh and South Asia
Between increases in coastal flooding and the drying up of Himalayan glaciers, populations in south Asian countries are already facing disasters and a decline in freshwater supplies.
The Navy's Task Force Climate Change fears that floods or food shortages in Bangladesh could trigger mass migrations to India, increasing ethnic conflict and repression in the region as families compete for resources and survival.
Rippling beyond the subcontinent, the region's manufacturing supply chain, which produces electronics and vehicles for the rest of the world, was already disrupted by flooding in Thailand last year, added Morisetti.

As Climate Becomes Less Certain, So Does China's Ability to Grow Enough Food

Crop losses from climate-related challenges are already affecting the nation's ability to feed more than 1.3 billion Chinese

DUJIADUN, China -- Liu Changxiong has been farming in this southwestern Chinese village for more than a decade, but his years of experience aren't of much use these days.
Last year, his corn seedlings withered at a time Liu expected would be rich in rain. It took twice as many days for his green onions to grow than Liu's estimates. But the 43-year-old farmer isn't the one to be blamed. Instead, experts say, his farming routine is being messed up by climate change.
Similar phenomena are happening across the nation. In north China, where wheat fields have dominated the landscape for centuries, the crop is becoming increasingly difficult to grow as the land gets drier and warmer. In southern China, droughts in recent years have replaced rainy seasons, drying up rice paddies on a large scale.
Experts are scrambling to understand the problems and to predict how serious they might become. Although forecasts for crop output vary, most agree that the future climate won't be as favorable to agriculture. While China's hunt for adaptation measures is on, little progress has been made so far.
That raises the question of whether 1.34 billion Chinese -- accounting for almost one-fifth of the world's population -- would be able to feed themselves. Currently, China produces slightly less grains than its people consume. Crop losses caused by extreme weather events, insect attacks and other problems associated with climate change are rocking the already delicate balance.
In 2011 alone, droughts claimed grains that could have been sufficient for nearly 60 million Chinese to eat for a whole year, official statistics show.
There is also the issue of rising crop production costs being driven higher by climate change. For one, as temperatures rise, many insects that used to be killed off by the cool of winter now live longer, forcing farmers to spray more pesticides. That increases food prices, and adds pressure on the lives of the poor.
Genetic engineering becomes less helpful
Worse yet, China is losing its ability to produce more. During the past decades, farmers here have enjoyed an explosion of productivity, thanks partly to genetically manipulated crops that are higher-yielding and resistant to pests and diseases. But today, that help is starting to fade away, as it is falling victim to climate change.
"In the 1970s, when we used genetic engineering technology to breed regionally adopted crops, we could enjoy its high yield for years; now that period is much shorter," said Pan Genxing, director of Agriculture and Climate Change Center at Nanjing Agriculture University.
What is defeating the technology, according to Pan, is that the environment in which the crops grow keeps changing due to climate change, making regionally adopted crops no longer a fit for the region they were designed to.
To be sure, not all the effects of climate change are an agricultural curse. For instance, the higher temperatures allow crops to grow in areas which were previously too cold, and lengthen the growing season and, for some crops, the number of times per year they can be harvested. But whether China can take advantage of those changes is another troubling question.
Along north China's Haihe River Basin, where crops can now grow twice a year thanks to warmer climate, local farmers still plant only once, for lack of water, says Mo Xingguo. He researches climate change and agricultural water use at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Experts say that other parts of northern China, which were to enjoy greater numbers of harvests per year as the climate gets warmer, confront the same obstacle. Irrigation there largely relies on groundwater, and to grow more crops would require pumping more water out of wells, an unlikely prospect in a land whose groundwater level in recent years has already dropped dangerously.
"The region's water resources simply can't afford more crop plantings," Mo said.
Less water and more damaging insects
And climate change is continuing to intensify that shortage. During the past half-century, the nation experienced less rainfall and declining river flows. At the same time, global warming is largely causing higher evaporation. Even in places that are relatively rich in water resources now, fears are rising that farmers would lose the essential resource to grow their crops.
That fear is acute in places like Linze County, an oasis city along the Silk Road. The rising temperature is causing glaciers, on which so much of the water supply in the oasis depends, to melt faster.
The glacier water is greening more fields now, but when the glaciers disappear, they will leave the city with a severe water deficit within five years, says a leading scientist at the Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Lin Erda, who is helping the locals offset that gap with water-saving agricultural technology.
Besides water deficit, other climate risks are coming into focus. Deep in the cornfields of northeast China's Jilin province, Ma Chunsen, an insect scientist at the Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, in recent years spotted more holes on maize stems, left by an undesirable visitor -- Asian corn borer.
Such insects are a natural part of the life in cornfields, but they had never bred more than once a year until nowadays, Ma said. Chilly springs in this major corn-growing region used to hold back the hatching of Asian corn borer. Today, that hold is loosening due to the temperature rise.
In addition to lengthening the period that invasive insects can live, scientists say temperature rise has caused outbreaks of insect attacks to happen more extensively. For instance, wheat aphids -- insects that feed on the juice of wheat -- have chewed their way into a larger scope of areas in northern regions than ever recorded.
While insects are taking a ride on climate change to invade fields, crops are becoming more vulnerable to such attacks. If the air's carbon dioxide content reaches twice the current level, as scientists expect to happen by the end of this century, chemicals of major crops like rice, wheat and corn would change, making those crops less able to defend against insects, says Ge Feng, an ecologist studying interaction among insects, crops and carbon dioxide.
'Later is better than never'
It is possible that the vulnerability is less significant in real-world conditions than in lab experiments, since the rise of carbon dioxide is a slow process and crops might be able to adapt to that change, Ge said. The more troubling possibility, he added, is if crops won't adapt to it, and farmers need to use more pesticides in the future.
But there might be a way other than pesticides to kill invasive insects. "If we understand how climate change is affecting crops, insects and the natural enemies of the insects, then we should be able to control insect attacks by adjusting crop planting timing, for instance," said Ma, the insect scientist.
Some steps have already been taken in recent years, including developing models to trace and predict attacks by some major insects like wheat aphids, he continued. But studies on other insects are essentially stymied for lack of money.
"To study all major invasive insect species would require about $2 million [in] research funds each year, but little investment has spent on the subject so far," said Ma. To continue his research, Ma says he has to squeeze money from other projects.
The lack of financial support comes against the background that more studies are needed in order to understand the impact of climate change. Scientists acknowledge that their attempts to use computers to project future agriculture risks are still crude. Some of those computer forecasts, for example, were found to contradict what is happening in the fields. Besides that, all of the previous research efforts didn't answer a core question.
"We have researches on the impact of increasing heat, declining rainfalls as well as other factors of climate change, but we still don't know how those factors altogether affect crops' production," said Pan, of Nanjing Agricultural University. "Agriculture is an ecosystem. We can't just add or deduct research results of each factor, and say that's what climate change has caused."
To draw a fuller picture, Pan has built an outdoor monitoring station where his team can follow all the changes in fields under the influence of climate change and then study their mutual impacts on crops production. Launched in 2009, it was the first study of its kind in China. Today, more programare under way, with rising government support.
The idea behind such support is that if scientists understand the role of climate change in crop production, they can suggest ways to solve it -- though translating scientific findings into practical tips that can be absorbed and put to use by the average farmer might take years.
"It is quite late already," Pan said, referring to China's fresh efforts to search for adaptation measures. "But later is better than never."

How Will Warmer Oceans Affect Sea Life?

Experiments show that microscopic ocean plants and animals--the base of the food chain--will be impacted

Yes, the ocean is warming. On average, the global ocean is warmer by roughly 0.6 degrees Celsius at the surface and 0.1 degrees at depth. The analysis appears in the journal Nature Climate Change. 

The extra heat trapped by the pollution from more than a century's worth of coal and other fossil fuel burning is beginning to reach the briny deep. That will have impacts from the survival of sea life to global rates of rainfall. Climate change dead ahead.

OCEAN MICROCOSM: Researchers mimicked ocean conditions in four liter "microcosms" to determine how rising temperatures might affect the marine food chain. 

This June, the world's oceans reached 17 degrees Celsius, their highest average temperature since record keeping for these data began in the 19th century. And a new experiment suggests that those balmier waters might mean big changes for the marine food chain.

Marine ecologist Mary O'Connor of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill set up five four-liter "microcosms" of seawater filled with microorganisms from the Bogue Sound estuary on the North Carolina coast. Over the course of eight days last spring, the scientists then exposed the microcosms to varying degrees of warming and nutrient levels to mimic storm flow into an estuary.

Theoretically, increased nutrients and warmth should fuel the growth of tiny drifting plants known as phytoplankton—as evidenced by seasonal dead zones that form at the mouths of many rivers worldwide when the tiny plants bloom, die and, while decaying, suck up all the available oxygen in the seawater. But the researchers found that increasing temperatures, although initially enhancing the growth of phytoplankton, also allowed increased grazing by zooplankton (microscopic animals) and bacteria, according to the results published today in PLoS Biology.

"As temperature rises, the zooplankton start to grow faster than the phytoplankton," O'Connor explains. "The zooplankton are more abundant and faster-growing, and are able to eat all the phytoplankton in warmer water. This creates a bottleneck in the food chain that could have large implications for the ocean's food web."

Not only does that mean that there are fewer phytoplankton around to suck up carbon dioxide, but it could also mean less food for other grazers. But it does not necessarily mean that the zooplankton will gorge themselves to death; other research has shown that food webs with more animals (consumers) than plants (producers) is sustainable for at least five years. And higher on the food chain it is zooplankton, such as krill, that are feasted on by marine life ranging from fish to whales.

Boosting the number of zooplankton, however, means the overall mass of ocean life declines: the tiny animals metabolically burn 90 percent of the phytoplankton they consume, incorporating only 10 percent. All told, with a 6-degree Celsius rise in water temperature, total biomass in the warmest microcosm shrank by 50 percent, O'Connor reports.

This effect only holds, however, in areas that are rich in nutrients. In the experimental microcosms where the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus were kept low, those limits defined the relative abundance of plants and animals. And other factors—ocean acidity or salinity—could also play large roles. "The ultimate effect of temperature on zooplankton and consumers higher in the food chain will depend on other ocean conditions that affect resource availability," O'Connor says.

That could mean that nutrient-rich waters in places like the Arctic Ocean will begin to see this food chain shift as the seas continue to warm—and a consequent rise in the number of fish. "Our experiments and current theory suggest that warming in nutrient-rich areas should increase [the number of] fish," O'Connor says. "I think we can figure out how and where climate change may lead to greater fish productivity and where it might reduce fish productivity."

But even in the Arctic, there is typically a nutrient limit, says phytoplankton ecologist Michael Behrenfeld of Oregon State University. "It's a very interesting idea," he says. But an increase in fish harvests "might be a bridge too far with this. There are other factors that need to be considered."

For example, his own satellite-imagery research on the phytoplankton in the North Atlantic reveals that bloom starts in wintertime as a result of deep, nutrient-rich water welling up to the surface. Warming is diminishing that upwelling and therefore the availability of nutrients. "We see a decrease in blooms," Behrenfeld says. "How much can we use [four-liter] microcosms to extrapolate to natural systems, especially natural systems at longer timescales?"

Nevertheless, the experiment provides a glimpse of how the marine food chain might be transformed by climate change. "Worldwide, ocean waters are warming and will continue to warm by several degrees," O'Connor says. "By understanding the effects of temperature in these ideal conditions, we can begin to apply this model to natural systems."

Climate change made the drought worse, scientists say

Several scientists at NASA and the state climatologist say the record-setting heat and drought of last summer in Texas was made worse by climate change.
More than just providing bragging rights that Texas now holds the record for hottest summer ever recorded in the United States, that conclusion adds another layer of uncertainty for water planners.
James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Earth Institute titled his still unpublished climate analysis, “Perceptions of Climate Change: The New Climate Dice.”
“We conclude that extreme heat waves, such as that in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010, were ‘caused' by global warming, because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent rapid global warming,” he wrote in the paper that is still undergoing peer review. “We can say with a high degree of confidence that these extreme anomalies were a consequence of global warming.”
Some water utilities across the state are still struggling to meet demand because of the drought, which set the record for a single year. But many more are not ready for a repeat of the drought of the 1950s, which lasted seven years and is considered the worst long-term one on record. Adding climate change on top of that will make planning more difficult, as high temperatures mean more evaporation and less water going into rivers, reservoirs and aquifers.
“They don't know what to expect year to year.” said Tom Gallier, a former manager of the Bexar Metropolitan Water District who has run water utilities across the West. “That is a scary thought for an industry that specializes in thinking 50 or even 100 years out.”
The benchmark for water planning in Texas is the 1950s drought. The San Antonio Water System, Edwards Aquifer Authority and the state use those years to model what is considered the worst-case scenario and then plan accordingly.
The problem is that tree-ring studies, including one of post oaks near San Antonio and another of cypress trees across the state, show more severe droughts have occurred. Climate change is introducing the possibility that droughts will be more extreme.
Last summer is held up as evidence that that is already happening by state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon and Hansen, who is known for his outspokenness about human-caused emissions becoming the driving force in climate change.
Nielsen-Gammon said he took issue with how Hansen's paper could be interpreted to say that climate change was the only cause of the drought but that there was no doubt that the summer was hotter because of it.
Both scientists agree that the year would have been hot and dry no matter what, but that climate change made it worse.
“In other words, nature made it a record,” Nielson-Gammon wrote after reviewing Hansen's paper. “Climate change made it a phenomenal record.”
Even as the debate over climate change continues, water planners have to deal with the reality that future droughts are likely to be more severe than in the past 50 years.
But they can't do their job based on speculation, said Chuck Ahrens, SAWS' vice president of water resources.
“The gold standard is still the drought of record because that is what we know,” he said.
Ahrens points out San Antonio is uniquely situated between two aquifers and is thus less susceptible to the wilder and more frequent swings of rainfall and temperature that climate change might bring.
The limestone Edwards Aquifer to the north can fill up with just a few good rains, giving the city enough stored water in only a few weeks to last a year.
To help San Antonio make it through multiple dry years, SAWS pumps water into the sand of the Carrizo Aquifer to the south, filling it like an underground reservoir. Neither aquifer loses water to evaporation, like surface reservoirs.
SAWS' water plan shows that it can more than meet demand through 2060 even with a repeat of the drought of record, which is the extent of its planning horizon, according to Darren Thompson, SAWS' manager of water resources.
But other parts of Texas do not have such resources.
Spicewood, outside of Austin, ran out of water because it is dependent on wells drilled into a much less reliable aquifer than the Edwards.
The Lower Colorado River Authority will not provide water to rice farmers in South Texas this year because Lakes Travis and Buchanan are still too low, the first time farmers will be cut off by the LCRA.
Across the Panhandle, reservoirs went dry as increased temperatures accelerated evaporation, and rains have not been enough to refill them.
And that was just from a one-year drought.
The 2012 State Water Plan projects losses of $11.9 billion if a drought similar to the 1950s were to occur and projects in the plan are not funded. The estimated cost rises to $115.7 billion annually by 2060, with more than 1 million jobs lost.
So far, the Legislature has not funded the $53 billion plan, which covers only a quarter of the state's needs over the next 50 years.