Genetically modified corn losing resistance to major pest

Bt corn, one of the nation’s most widely produced crops, is thought to be losing its natural resistance to the western corn rootworm, a pest that feeds on the roots of corn and could potentially wreak economic havoc if it continues to spread.

Currently the infestations remain isolated, but concerns have been growing ever since Bt corn infestations have been discovered in four Midwestern states, a sign that the repeated planting of the corn strain – instead of being rotated with other crops – is enabling the insects’ resistance to the crop’s pest-fighting powers. Many farmers are foregoing rotation in order to cash in on the high corn prices.

Bt corn was introduced to farmers in 2003 and allowed growers to bring in bountiful harvests using fewer chemicals because the corn naturally produces a toxin that poisons the common pest.

Because of the corn farmers’ current – and most likely ongoing – practices, some scientists fear it could already be too late to prevent the rise of resistance. In addition, they’re also concerned about the problem becoming more widespread due to the rootworm larvae growing into adult beetles that can fly and migrate into new areas.

If rootworms do become resistant to Bt corn, it “could become the most economically damaging example of insect resistance to a genetically modified crop in the U.S.,” said Bruce Tabashnik, an entomologist at the University of Arizona. “It’s a pest of great economic significance — a billion-dollar pest.”

Gulf of Mexico dead zone predicted to be the largest ever recorded due to Mississippi River flooding

The dead zone area in the Gulf of Mexico is forecasted to grow to the size of New Hampshire, approximately 8,500 to 9,421 square miles, due to major flooding on the Mississippi river this spring. If this happens, it will be the largest recorded dead (hypoxic) zone in the Gulf of Mexico since it was first measured in 1985, according to NOAA scientists.

Hypoxic areas in seas and oceans is caused by excessive nutrient pollution, usually from agriculture run-off. This results in too little oxygen to support most marine life in bottom and near-bottom water. These dead zone areas, such as the Gulf one growing just off the coast of Louisiana and Texas,  are a threat to commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries.

“This ecological forecast is a good example of NOAA applied science,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “While there is some uncertainty regarding the size, position and timing of this year’s hypoxic zone in the Gulf, the forecast models are in overall agreement that hypoxia will be larger than we have typically seen in recent years.”

Researchers should know more about its size following a NOAA-supported monitoring survey led by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium between July 25 and August 6.

NOAA has been funding investigations and forecast development for the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico since 1990 and currently oversees the two national hypoxia programs authorized by the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act.

Rate of carbon release 10 times faster than previous period of rapid global warming

Based on core samples from 55.9 million years ago, when the earth last experienced a rapid period of global warming, our current rate of carbon release is nearly 10 times as fast. According to geologists, rate matters and this current rapid change may not allow sufficient time for the biological environment to adjust.

The past warming period, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), experienced a rapid increase in global temperatures over a time span of 20,000 years. Based on models developed at Penn State University, the outcome was a warming of from 9 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit and an acidification event in the oceans.

“Rather than the 20,000 years of the PETM which is long enough for ecological systems to adapt, carbon is now being released into the atmosphere at a rate 10 times faster,” said Lee R. Kump, professor of geosciences at Penn State. “It is possible that this is faster than ecosystems can adapt.”

Project Kaisei is on a mission to provide solutions to the Plastic Vortex

I’ve written before about Project Kaisei, a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the plastic debris floating in the world’s oceans. They’re organizing their next big expedition to the Plastic Vortex, which will involve testing a new solution developed by Ed Kosior, a renowned plastics expert, for treating ocean-based plastic waste. This system uses low heat, no oxygen, and allows for a wide variety of plastic waste to be processed into diesel fuel. It is feasible that this equipment can be used from a boat while at sea, but actual deployment at sea will depend on the volume of debris that will be estimated to be collected.

What is the Plastic Vortex?

Every year over 260 million tons of plastic are produced, much of it for one-time use and less than 5 percent of the world’s plastics are recycled. In many cases, plastic waste that is not incinerated or land-filled makes its way to the oceans. This floating plastic is a danger to marine life, and subsequently human life, because it may be entering our food chain (studies on this issue will be undertaken by the Project Kaisei Science Team and other researchers). One particular vast area of plastic waste is called the “Plastic Vortex,” or what is sometimes referred to as the “garbage patch,” and is within an area that is technically referred to as the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone.

Project Kaisei is currently holding a fund-raiser for this new venture. You can check out the details of this project on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/projectkaisei?sk=app_159415870778798. But hurry – there’s only four days left to go on their campaign.

Mass extinction of marine life may be on the horizon

Dead zones – areas of the seas and oceans that are lacking in oxygen and are suffering from increases of CO2, rising temperatures, nutrient run-off from agriculture and other factors - are rapidly growing in numbers and total area around the globe.

Professor Martin Kennedy from the University of Adelaide and Professor Thomas Wagner from Newcastle University, UK, have been studying these dead zones, or “greenhouse oceans.” They studied core samples from the Late Cretaceous Period (85 million years ago) across a 400,000-year timespan, and found evidence that points to a mass mortality in the oceans at a time when the Earth was going through a greenhouse effect. The mass extinction of marine life in our oceans during that prehistoric time is a warning that the same could happen again due to similarly high levels of greenhouse gases, according to their research.

“This could have a catastrophic, profound impact on the sustainability of life in our oceans, which in turn is likely to impact on the sustainability of life for many land-based species, including humankind,” he added.

What the geological records show, however, is a glimmer of hope attributed to a naturally occurring response to the greenhouse effect. After the phase when the oceans suffer a lack of oxygen, the concentration eventually improves, along with an increase in marine life. Carbon burial of the excess carbon ultimately contributes to CO2 removal from the atmosphere, cooling the planet and the ocean.

“This is nature’s solution to the greenhouse effect and it could offer a possible solution for us,” said Professor Wagner. “If we are able to learn more about this effect and its feedbacks, we may be able to manage it, and reduce the present rate of warming threatening our oceans.”

Their research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

One-third of world’s food lost or wasted

Approximately 1.3 billion tons – or about one-third – of all the world’s food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, according to a new report compiled by The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK) for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Important facts about global food waste from the report include:

• Food waste is a much bigger problem in industrialized countries, where a significant amount of food is thrown away by households and retailers, usually still fit for consumption.

• In developing countries, food waste is attributed to financial, managerial and technical limitations in harvesting techniques, storage and cooling facilities in difficult climatic conditions, infrastructure, packaging and marketing systems.

• Fruits and vegetables have the highest rates of wastage.

To reduce food loss, the report recommends improving harvesting techniques and post-harvest logistics; re-thinking quality standards that over-emphasize appearance; and changing consumers’ attitudes to buy only within their means, instead of falling prey to the popular “2-for-1″ marketing promotions. Specifically, consumers fail to properly plan their food purchases and tend to discard food because it wasn’t consumed before the expiration date.

Report: Global Food Losses and Food Waste (PDF), May 2011

Effects from climate change in the Arctic taking place significantly faster than previously thought

The Arctic region is the part of globe that is warming up the fastest today compared with all other regions. Measurements of air temperature show that the most recent five-year period has been the warmest since 1880, when monitoring began. Other data, from tree rings among other things, show that the summer temperatures over the last decades have been the highest in 2,000 years. As a consequence, the snow cover in May and June has decreased by close to 20 percent. The winter season has also become almost two weeks shorter – in just a few decades. In addition, the temperature in the permafrost has increased by between half a degree and two degrees.

“The changes we see are dramatic. And they are not coincidental. The trends are unequivocal and deviate from the norm when compared with a longer term perspective,” says Terry Callaghan, a researcher at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and contributor to a new research report detailing the vast changes to the Arctic region, which was presented in Copenhagen last week.

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Green roofs save energy and protect environment

Green roofs – like the one pictured above at the Con Edison building in New York City – protect the environment by absorbing pollution and capturing rain water, which helps prevent runoff from clogging sewer systems.

Columbia University researchers have been studying the beneficial impact of green roofs, and note that if New York City’s 1 billion square feet of roofs were transformed into green roofs, it would be possible to keep more than 10 billion gallons of water a year out of the city sewer system, according to the study led by Stuart Gaffin, research scientist at Columbia’s Center for Climate Systems Research.

New York City, like other older urban centers, has a combined sewer system that carries storm water and wastewater. When sewer overflow happens during heavy rains, the system must discharge a mix of storm water and sewage into New York Harbor, the Hudson River, the East River and other waterways. The green roof is a more cost-effective way of preventing overflow of the city’s storm drains.

The green roof atop the Con Edison building holds 21,000 plants on a quarter of an acre and retains about 30 percent of rainwater. It saves energy by providing insulation – keeping the roof cool in the summer and the building warm during winter – and reducing urban air temperatures.  The Columbia University study concluded that based on the cost of building and maintaining a green roof it costs as little as 2 cents a year to capture each gallon of water.

Vatican science panel cites the urgent need to address glacier melt

A Pontifical Academy of Sciences working group of leading scientists issued a report on May 5, 2011 that emphasizes the need to properly address climate change, specifically pointing to the issue of glacial decline and the related consequences. The panel included some of the world’s leading climate and glacier scientists and was co-chaired by a Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego researcher.

The report, “Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene (pdf),” points out numerous examples of glacial decline around the world and the evidence linking that decline to human-caused changes in climate and air pollution. The authors emphasize the threat to the ways of life of people dependent upon glaciers and snow packs for water supplies. The report suggests immediate action to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to what changes are happening now and are projected to happen in the future. Specifically, it recommends pursuit of three measures: immediate reduction of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions; reduction of concentrations of warming air pollutants such as soot, ozone, methane and hydroflurocarbons by up to 50 percent; and preparation to adapt to climate changes that society will not be able to mitigate.

“The widespread loss of snow and ice in the mountain glaciers is one of the most visible changes attributable to global climate change. The disintegration of many small glaciers in the Himalayas is most disturbing to me since this region serves as the water tower of Asia and since both the greenhouse gases and air pollutants like soot and ozone contribute to the melting,” said Scripps Climate and Atmospheric Scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who has been a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences since 2004.

The scientists congregated at the Vatican from April 2-4, 2011 under the invitation of Chancellor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo of the pontifical academy. The report will be presented to Pope Benedict XVI.

U.S. corn belt experiencing rapidly depleting topsoil

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports that Iowa farms are rapidly losing topsoil, up to 12 times faster than government estimates. Their report is based on data accumulated by Iowa State University (ISU), whose methods provide an unprecedented degree of precision in monitoring soil erosion.

EWG provided additional data in their report based on aerial surveys they conducted over the affected regions, along with information gathered from interviews with Corn Belt experts, that indicate soil erosion and polluted runoff are likely far worse than even the disturbing ISU numbers suggest.

“What is happening on Iowa farm fields is shocking but goes largely unnoticed,” said Craig Cox, who manages EWG’s agriculture programs from its Ames, Iowa office. Cox is the lead author of Losing Ground.

“We’ve grown complacent thinking we have the soil erosion problem under control, but instead it looks as if we are losing ground in our decades-old fight against this most fundamental and damaging problem in agriculture,” Cox said.

See the full report here: “Losing Ground” by Environmental Working Group