Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

A white roof may look like a painted masterpiece to those who want to reduce urban heat. The National Center for Atmospheric Research recently completed a study demonstrating that white roofs can be an effective method for cooling. The study’s simulations provide an idealized view of different types of cities around the world and indicate that, if every roof were entirely painted white, the urban heat island effect could be reduced by 33 percent.

According to a new report released by a leading Canadian environmental group, the city of Vancouver, which will host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, would earn a bronze medal if fighting climate change were an Olympic sport. The report claims the event’s organizers have done a good job building energy efficient venues, but have fallen a tad short when it comes to offsetting carbon emissions surrounding the Winter Games. Environment is one of the three “official pillars” of the Olympic movement.

Just before athletes from around the world will have a chance to earn their gold, silver and bronze medals, athletes from Indianapolis and New Orleans will go after the Vince Lombardi trophy. And it is estimated that this year’s Super Bowl – which the NFL says is more environmentally responsible than in the past – will produce 310,000 pounds of carbon emissions. In addition, researchers claim the stadium in Miami will use 187,000 KW of electricity and the television sets of home viewers will consume roughly 10,004,603 KW of energy. And speaking of green, it is estimated that close to 54 million pounds of avocados will be consumed by guacamole loving fans.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The Department of Energy today announced grants of up to $78 million to support advanced research and development of biofuels and fueling infrastructure to replace petroleum products. "By harnessing the power of science and technology, we can bring new biofuels to the market and develop a cleaner and more sustainable transportation sector," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

But only a few days ago, researchers at Rice University blasted U.S. biofuels policy, noting that despite generous subsidies--amounting to $4 billion in 2008--biofuels have replaced a mere two percent of gasoline production. The cost to consumers for biofuel was almost $2 a gallon on top of the retail price for gasoline.

Further, the report claimed, "it is uncertain whether existing biofuels production provides any beneficial improvement over traditional gasoline" in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. And the biofuels create potential hazards to human health by impeding the natural breakdown of other toxic chemicals, such as benzene, in the groundwater.

So is U.S. biofuels policy nothing more than a biofolly? Yes and no if you believe the Rice University report (which was funded by Chevron, but is consistent with many other studies). The problem isn't with biofuels in principle, but with corn-based ethanol, which accounts for nearly all current U.S. biofuel production. Growing corn to make ethanol is of debateable value because it requires extensive energy and produces greenhouse gases from soil clearing and tillage.

But if we can transition to a next generation of biofuels, based on hardy weeds, crop residues, waste wood products (such as beetle-killed trees) or even algae, the environmental benefits begin to look far brighter. Unfortunately, the economics so far look a lot dimmer--which is where the DOE's research grants may come to the rescue.

Intriguingly, one Bay Area company--Cobalt Biofuels--yesterday announced with great fanfare the launch of a facility in Mountain View to begin producing biobutenol, a versatile fuel that can be blended with gasoline or diesel and converted into jet fuel or even plastics. The company claims cost breakthroughs that will allow it to produce the fuel for only $1.40 a gallon by 2012. Biobutenol delivers more energy than ethanol and is less polluting. And, most important from an environmental standpoint, Cobalt's feedstock isn't food crops but forest waste and mill residues.

Cobalt's claims, like so many before from the biofuels industry, may prove more than a tad optimistic. But DOE and Cobalt are on the right track by moving beyond traditional corn-based ethanol to greener biofuels.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Last month, NEXT100 described a simple but remarkable agricultural technique taking root in arid and impoverished West Africa--the cultivation of crops in pits, called zai holes, that store water and prevent erosion.

Now a team of Stanford-led experts report on another promising innovation in the region: Solar-powered pumps in the West African country of Benin are dramatically increasing farm yields and incomes for desperately poor rural families who get by on just a dollar a day.  

Malnutrition in the area is serious because water is scarce and the deep groundwater makes irrigation impractical without expensive and polluting diesel-powered pumps.

The Benin Solar Irrigation Project was made possible by assistance from an American NGO, the Solar Electric Light Fund, which promotes electrification of poor villages that are off the grid, mostly in Asia and Africa. In 2007, it began a program to electrify an entire district of northern Benin with photovoltaic panels to serve drip irrigation systems, schools, clinics and community centers.

To gauge the effectiveness of the investment, it worked with Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment to rigorously study the results of the irrigation program.

The researchers found that households with access to solar-powered irrigation were able to grow enough crops to consume several pounds of their own vegetables each week, a major upgrade of their diet, and earn another $7 to $8 from surplus crop sales each week. The payback time for the system was estimated at less than three years.

The program is also a huge boon to women, who traditionally tend the gardens, by cutting the time they spend watering by 50 percent, freeing them up to earn additional money.

"With the proper support," the researchers concluded, "successful widespread adoption of photovoltaic drip irrigation systems could be an important source of poverty alleviation and food security in the marginal environments common to sub-Saharan Africa."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Happy cows are proof that ignorance is bliss. They burp up huge amounts of methane--a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide--without a trace of guilt over their carbon hoofprint.

As consumers of dairy products and beef, however, human beings can't claim ignorance. The cows we raise are the single biggest source of methane emissions in the United States, according to the EPA.

Fortunately, a few people are doing something about it. Researchers at James Cook University in Australia have determined that feeding nutritious dried algae to cows in place of traditional feed can slash bovine emissions of methane by 20 to 40 percent, according to a recent article in The Australian.

"These algae are about 20 per cent protein, and carry a lot of other vitamins and minerals, including salt," James Cook University nutritionist Tony Parker told Stock and Land magazine (recommended bedtime reading). "The cattle we've got came up and hooked straight into it, so it seems they like it."

Independent studies show that dairy cows fed with bio-algae concentrates produce 20 percent more milk than other cows, with higher protein and fat content.

In a win-win-win, the algae can be grown in aquaculture farms along with seaweed to clean effluent waters of nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff. Left untreated, such pollutants cause eutrophication, harming fisheries and ocean reefs. So-called "algal turf scrubbers" are now a mainstay of modern bio-remediation.

"I like to call it the reef and beef project because it has far reaching implications that come full circle: starting with seaweed, taking in the beef and aquaculture industries, and extending back out to the sea to help conserve the Great Barrier Reef," Parker added.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Two years ago, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that water shortages and crop failures caused by global warming could afflict between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa this century.

The report didn't tell inhabitants of the continent anything they don't already know. According to the London Economist, in a story titled "A Catastrophe is Looming:"

This year's drought is the worst in east Africa since 2000, and possibly since 1991. Famine stalks the land. The failure of rains in parts of Ethiopia may increase the number needing food handouts by 5m, in addition to the 8m already getting them . . . The International Committee of the Red Cross says famine in Somalia is going to be worse than ever. . . . In fractious northern Uganda cereal output is likely to fall by half. Parts of South Sudan, Eritrea, the Central African Republic and Tanzania are suffering too.

In addition to drought, war and government mismanagement, African farmers also must make do with severely depleted soil, lean in organic matter and nutrients, that forms a tough crust.   No one's thumb seemed green enough to make plants grow under such conditions, until recently.

Now there's some remarkable cause for hope. Spearheaded by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), with the endorsement of the World Bank, farmers are using an innovative technique to restore production in eroded, denuded and abandoned farmlands in many arid parts of the continent.

In major stretches of the West Africa, ICRISAT is teaching farmers to dig compost-filled planting pits called zai holes, which hold water for long periods after sporadic rains fall. They prevent soil from blowing away and foster growth of deep-rooted vegetables and fruit trees like the Moringa.

Moringa leaves, said to be Niger's most popular vegetable, have "seven times as much Vitamin C as oranges, four times as much Vitamin A as carrots, four times as much calcium as milk, thrice as much potassium as is found in bananas and twice as much protein as is found in milk," according to ICRISAT.

One farmer in Burkina Faso, Yacouba Savadogo, has become world famous for his successful experiments growing sorghum and millet in zai pits. The manure in his pits attracted termites, which built tunnels that broke up the soil. Soon trees began sprouting from seeds in the manure; he nurtured them, and in return, they provided shade, cooled his land and prevented erosion, increasing yields.

"This is probably the largest environmental transformation in the Sahel, if not in Africa," said Chris Reij, a Dutch geographer who's been working in the region for decades. In Niger alone, he says, farmers have grown some 200 million trees. "There are fifteen to twenty times more trees than there were in 1975, which is completely opposite of what most people tend to believe."

The return of this ancient farming practice is transforming social relationships as well. ICRISAT notes that women, who have been allocated the most degraded lands, have been able to transform their holdings into productive farms and earn a living for the first time.

"By working with women to grow indigenous vegetable and fruit trees, we have not only restored the self-worth of women but also enabled them to better care for their children and families as well as make some money on top of it all," said Prof. Dov Pasternak, a scientist at ICRISAT.

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

The world's two largest polluters have agreed to work together to lessen their greenhouse gas emissions. A joint statement released this week claims that U.S. and Chinese scientists and engineers will join forces to speed the widespread use of electric cars, energy efficient buildings, and "coal-fired plants that don't pump out gases that cause global warming." The agreement left out how much each country will contribute to emissions cuts.

A recent University of Saskatchewan study asserts that roughly 12,800 years ago, it only took six months to turn Europe's climate from warm and sunny into an ice age. Researchers previously believed the freeze took place over a much longer period. Lead researcher William Patterson put the new findings into perspective by saying the temperature change would equate to "taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months."

Can you imagine an Italy without pasta? A report released by the British Meteorological Office can. The five-year study on the impact of global warming on eating habits in Europe predicts that increasing temperatures and decreasing rain will cause Italy's durum wheat crop to disappear in the second half of this century. The same report warns that Polish wheat and potato crops, French champagne and Spanish fruits and vegetables could also be at risk.

The Forest Service claims our nation's forests can be used as a "carbon sink" where trees absorb carbon dioxide to help slow global warming. Currently, forests store enough carbon to offset about 16 percent of the nation's fossil fuel emissions. But Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told the Senate Public Lands and Forestry Subcommittee that the number could change. "Disturbances such as fire and insects could dramatically change the role of forests, thereby emitting more carbon than currently sequestered by tree stands across the country," Tidwell said. 

Posted by: Kory Raftery

The Blanchard family runs an organic, sustainable ranch that few will ever view directly but many will try to imitate.  The ranch sits on the rugged Central California coast on the north end of the PG&E property that is home to Diablo Canyon Power Plant. It can only be seen from PG&E's Point Buchon Trail and select hiking spots within Montana de Oro State Park in San Luis Obispo County. 

But it is not just the location of the ranch that is out of the ordinary.  For the last two decades, Bob and son Bowman Blanchard have been implementing an alternative ranching practice known as managed or rotational grazing with their cows, sheep and goats. 

It's a practice overseen by the PG&E land stewardship program. The objectives of the program include proper care in the management of agricultural crops and livestock production and conservation of biological diversity. The Blanchards argue managed grazing not only sustains the environmental condition of the ranch but actually improves it by allowing land to rest and vegetation to recover. Many of their peers have contacted the Blanchards asking for advice on managing their lands and livestock.

This type of intricate managed grazing requires a rancher to divide the pasture into smaller spaces, or paddocks. Next, he or she grazes the animals on different paddocks during different periods and manages when they move from one to the next. 

"This method of managed grazing is all about disturbance, rest and the big picture," Bob Blanchard told me. "The disturbance of one species provides opportunity for another."

By disturbance, he means anything that changes or alters the landscape where he ranches or farms and provides an opportunity for reproduction of some sort. He sees disturbance when an animal ingests, masticates, ruminates, urinates and defecates.

"The manure is fertilizer and inoculates microbial activity in the soil. A cow pie is messy if you step in it but a reproductive opportunity to a fly," he said with a smile. "Fly larvae is a major source of protein to a Blackbird or Meadow Lark. Mature flies are food to the tree swallow and many other fly catching birds. Tromping and mashing turns excess plant litter into mulch that protects soil from erosion. Disturbance of the soil surface by hoof action plants the seeds of the next generation of grasses and forbs. Trails created by moving herds offer easier travel by all manner of critters from quail to coyotes --and predatory critters find great hunting opportunities along (those) trails." 

Managed grazing allows Blanchard to be concerned not just with his livestock but with  maintaining and improving the land on which they graze - adding to the successes of the award-winning PG&E land stewardship program on the acreage surrounding Diablo Canyon, and setting a worthy example to other ranchers.