IBM Brings Watson to Africa for Project Lucy

Using cognitive systems to tackle a continent’s grand challenges

Lucy is the name given to the earliest known human descendant, whose remains were discovered in Africa 40 years ago. Today, IBM Watson, the first cognitive computing system, is coming to Africa as part of a 10-year, $100 million initiative to address the fast-growing continent's greatest business and societal challenges. With "Project Lucy", IBM researchers in Africa, together with their business and academic partners, will use Watson and related cognitive technologies to learn and discover insights from Big Data and develop commercially viable solutions to Africa’s grand challenges in healthcare, education, water and sanitation, human mobility and agriculture.

"In the last decade, Africa has been a tremendous growth story, yet the continent's challenges, stemming from population growth, water scarcity, disease, low agricultural yield and other factors are impediments to inclusive economic growth," said Kamal Bhattacharya, director, IBM Research - Africa.

"With the ability to learn from emerging patterns and discover new correlations, Watson's cognitive capabilities hold enormous potential in Africa - helping it to achieve in the next two decades what today's developed markets have achieved over two centuries."

To get the big picture of these challenges and opportunities, IBM asked people from every African country to send in photos of their environments. The response was overwhelming: more than 1,200 photos from 930 participants tell a diverse technology and innovation story. The slideshow below is a selection that-illustrates this diversity and the mission of IBM Research – Africa. Contest winners will be named on February 28, 2014.

Nairobi is a city hard at work 24 hours every day. It is obvious when you look at the city at night from any of the vantage points. I shot this from the KICC helipad one night. Seven out of the world's 10 fastest growing economies will be African nations over the next ten years; Nairobi is rapidly emerging as one of Africa's business and technology hubs. Photo Mutua Matheka, Kenya City Lights.

ORIGINAL: IBM Research

‘Dangerous Degrees’: Climate change risks prosperity, security and health

ORIGINAL: TCKTCKTCK
TckTckTck 

August 8, 2013

Dry lake bed caused by prolonged drought in Australia, Creative Commons: Denis Fox, 2006

Today, three Australian leaders, each from different backgrounds, came together in hard hats and fluoro vests to launch a new report by The Climate Institute warning of the ways in which climate change risks the health, prosperity and security of the world.

Entitled “Dangerous Degrees: Risking Australians’ prosperity, security, and health,” the report was released by Dr. John Hewson, former Liberal Party leader; Professor Tony McMichael, Australia National University’s Climate Change Institute; and John Connor, CEO of The Climate Institute on August 8th at a scientific symposium.

The three had a grave warning for their audience at the report launch:

Carbon pollution in the atmosphere has risen by 40% since the start of the Industrial Revolution. It’s now at levels greater than at any time for least 800,000, possibly millions, of years. We are stumbling blindly into utterly uncharted territory where a few degrees make a world of difference.

The report’s conclusions, supported by a number of other recent studies, show that failure to take prompt action to contain emissions risks the future prosperity, security and health of Australians and the rest of the world. According to research in Nature last month, climate change is projected to cost the world economy $60 trillion. Earlier this week, a report by the Australian Senate said that extreme weather in Australia will intensify, and has already cost the national economy between $900 million and $4 billion annually.

Of important note in “Dangerous Degrees” is the conclusion that Australia is more exposed to climate risks than any other developed nation. If the world remains on track to reach a 3°C of warming by 2050 and 4°C by 2100, Australia could become a net importer of food by 2050 and lose 90% of its irrigated agriculture in the Murray–Darling Basin by 2100. Around 2,000 more temperature-related deaths are expected by mid-century, and around 10,000 more by 2100.

Professor Tony McMichael said:
The symptoms we already see in people beleaguered by bushfire, storms, floods, and drought are the early warming signs. The risks to physical and mental health, as well as community morale, mount with every year we fail to act decisively. Yet, there is still time to avoid much additional human suffering, to realise the health benefits of action, and to restore hope.

While the risks become clearer by the day, the Climate Institute says the political framework for climate action and adaptation remains insufficient to address the challenges ahead — a conclusion reinforced by the Australian Senate report, which says Australia is underprepared for the impacts of just a few degrees of warming. While closing the gap between danger and relative safety is still within reach, it is only possible if action begins now.

Delay in ambitious climate action means higher social, environmental, and economic costs, as well as fewer options. While Australia can count itself among the growing number of nations moving to cut emissions, the political statements made in the run-up to the nearing Australian election aim to water down several important climate policies.

Check out the global climate impacts infographic released with “Dangerous Degrees.”

Credit: The Climate Institute, 2013. Click to see the full size infographic via The Climate Institute.

The Plight of the Honeybees (Magazine Article Preview)

ORIGINAL: TIME
By Bryan Walsh

Aug. 19, 2013

Mass deaths in bee colonies may mean disaster for farmers--and your favorite foods 

Photograph by Hannah Whitaker for TIME

You can thank the Apis mellifera, better known as the Western honeybee, for 1 in every 3 mouthfuls you'll eat today. Honeybees — which pollinate crops like apples, blueberries and cucumbers — are the "glue that holds our agricultural system together," as the journalist Hannah Nordhaus put it in her 2011 book The Beekeeper's Lament. But that glue is failing. Bee hives are dying off or disappearing thanks to a still-unsolved malady called colony collapse disorder (CCD), so much so that commercial beekeepers are being pushed out of the business.

So what's killing the honeybees? Pesticides — including a new class called neonicotinoids — seem to be harming bees even at what should be safe levels. Biological threats like the Varroa mite are killing off colonies directly and spreading deadly diseases. As our farms become monocultures of commodity crops like wheat and corn — plants that provide little pollen for foraging bees — honeybees are literally starving to death. If we don't do something, there may not be enough honeybees to meet the pollination demands for valuable crops. But more than that, in a world where up to 100,000 species go extinct each year, the vanishing honeybee could be the herald of a permanently diminished planet.

URBAN SPACE STATION. Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid 2008

ORIGINAL: Urban Space Station
By Natalie Jeremijenko and Angel Borego Cubbero.
from Cesar Harada

Urban Space Station Sofia, MadridBy cesarharada.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/sets/72157606040182123/


The Urban Space Station is an open urban agriculture and parasite architecture project. Its objective is to enhance life quaility (air, water, temperature, food, waste, social cohesion...) in cities and in outer space mission by complementing human existence with fauna and flora.

This USS is the first prototype at ~40% of the "real one" designed by Natalie Jeremijenko (NYU) and Angel Borrego (OSS), performed by Cesar Harada (RCA).

You will find complete documentation about the open source project on our website :
urbanspacestation.org
Please contribute and feel free to use and modify the design.

A film by Cesar Harada :
cesarharada.com

'Colombia no está preparada para la locomotora minera'

ORIGINAL: El Espectador

Por: Viviana Londoño Calle 

6 Mayo 2013

La más completa investigación hecha por la Contraloría General 

Mientras la extracción de un gramo de oro implica gastar hasta 1.060 litros de agua, para producir arroz, papa o leche en la misma cantidad, se utilizan menos de 2 litros. 

Hace dos semanas, el ministro de Minas y Energía, Federico Renjifo, anunció que el Gobierno planea abrir las puertas a nuevas solicitudes mineras a finales de este mes. Según el ministro, hay notorios avances en la depuración de los títulos y el país estaría preparado de nuevo para permitir nuevas exploraciones.

Sin embargo, la más reciente investigación de la Contraloría General, que revela una completa radiografía de esta actividad en el país, advierte que más allá de la depuración de los títulos mineros otorgados hasta ahora (19.000 según el Ministerio de Minas), hay una serie de complejos retos con pocos los avances, que habría que resolver antes de reactivar la titulación minera, según el ente de control.

Uno de esos desafíos tiene que ver con las implicaciones ambientales de la minería de oro y de carbón a gran escala. El Espectador conoció el libro ‘Minería en Colombia. Fundamentos para superar el modelo extractivista’ que será presentado este lunes en la tarde y que confirma lo que vienen advirtiendo los expertos en medio ambiente, desde que el país se subió en la locomotora minera: los efectos ambientales por la extracción de estos materiales son serios, evidentes y además irreversibles.

• La generación de grandes cantidades de residuos, 
• la desaparición y contaminación de las aguas y del aire, 
• la pérdida del suelo y de la biodiversidad, 

son sólo algunos de los costos ambientales que representa la minería a gran escala, de acuerdo con la investigación.

Cifras de Catastro y Registro minero señalan que de los títulos otorgados en Colombia, el 43% es para la explotación de oro y el 25% para carbón. Estos dos materiales terminan en países extranjeros: el 99% del oro extraído es para exportación y lo mismo sucede con el 95% del carbón. Para la Contraloría, además de representar fuertes daños ambientales, se trata de un modelo que “no genera encadenamientos productivos y no dinamiza directamente la economía”.

Julio Fierro, uno de los investigadores del capítulo ambiental insiste en que “la apuesta de desarrollo económico basada en la minería permea todas las decisiones del Estado y el país no tiene la capacidad ni la fortaleza institucional”. Además –según el experto- preocupa la absoluta desaparición del Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible en la discusión del tema minero.

Minería vs agua

Extraer un gramo de oro implica gastar hasta 1.060 litros de agua. La misma cantidad de arroz, de papa o de leche se puede producir con menos de dos litros. Estos datos, que recoge la investigación, advierten sobre el alto consumo de agua para la actividad minera y la eventual competencia con la producción de alimentos. A esto se suma la contaminación de las aguas por mercurio o cianuro, utilizados para separar el oro de los minerales y por residuos tóxicos que acompañan los desechos mineros.

Consumo de Agua por Actividad

De acuerdo con el documento, “los yacimientos de extracción se caracterizan por contener oro en muy bajas concentraciones, lo cual implica la generación de grandes volúmenes de residuos”. Buena parte de estos residuos terminan contaminando las aguas y el ambiente y representando un riesgo para la salud pública. Por cada gramo de oro se pueden generar 

• 40 gramos de arsénico, 
• 10 gramos de cromo, 
• 170 gramos de plomo y 
• 50 gramos de zinc (ver gráfico).

Para la Contraloría, “un modelo de desarrollo basado en la extracción de minerales e hidrocarburos puede causar un impacto aún más fuerte debido a la contaminación de aguas y suelos, en particular en la zona de laderas andinas, poniendo en riesgo no sólo la diversidad, sino también la soberanía alimentaria, pues las especies químicas tóxicas liberadas pueden permanecer por muy largo plazo (decenas de miles de años) disponibles en el ambiente”. 

El mapa minero del país muestra –de acuerdo con los investigadores- que “los principales proyectos mineros de carbón están en zonas con alta susceptibilidad a la desertización y los de oro se ubica en zonas de alta montaña, fundamentales en la preservación de la oferta hídrica”.

Millones de residuos

Ciudades como Bogotá, Buenos Aires o Río de Janeiro generan alrededor de dos millones de toneladas de residuos al año. Un proyecto de minería de oro a gran escala puede generar en el mismo período hasta 70 veces más residuos y en el caso de carbón, hasta 12 veces más deshechos. 

Aún así, los efectos que en el largo plazo representan estos materiales no están contemplados en la normatividad. ¿Quién responde entonces?

MInerales tóxicos tras el oro.

Según datos de la investigación, de los 1.997 títulos para la explotación de metales reportados en 2010, sólo 194 de ellos contaban con licencia ambiental. Así las cosas, es evidente que será el país y no las empresas las que tendrán que responder por los pasivos ambientales a largo plazo.

La debilidad de las licencias ambientales

“La reglamentación ambiental en Colombia no ha sido ajustada para prevenir, mitigar, corregir o compensar los impactos generados por la minería”, así define el documento de la Contraloría el débil control ambiental de los proyectos mineros en el país. Una de las falencias tiene que ver con las licencias ambientales: pese a que deberían ser la carta de navegación para que cualquier proyecto garantice los mínimos impactos, sólo son requeridas durante la etapa de explotación.

Mientras no tienen licencia –sin embargo- los proyectos adelantan vías, túneles, talas y diferentes actividades que aunque representan un claro impacto no tienen ningún tipo de control. Otro de los aspectos frente a los que llama la atención la investigación tiene que ver con la información que manejan las instituciones frente al tema minero. Todos los datos -incluso el estudio de impacto ambiental- lo proporcionan las mismas mineras. A la debilidad institucional se suma además la deficiencia de conocimientos técnicos y científicos frente a la extracción de minerales.

Entre las conclusiones de la investigación se destaca que el modelo actual de minería es una apuesta arriesgada que no incorpora los impactos ambientales. Según Fierro, “hay una apuesta económica por encima de todas las reglamentaciones ambientales, étnicas, tributarias y de ordenamiento territorial. Es una apuesta sin soportes y todos estos impactos sociales y ambientales no han sido tenidos en cuenta”.

Lo que implica explotar oro y carbón

Para los investigadores es evidente que los efectos ambientales son sólo algunos de las razones que justifican la declaratoria de una moratoria minera indefinida y la suspensión de los megaproyectos. Mantener cerrada la ventanilla minera, es una de las propuestas hasta que se plantee una nueva política minera que tenga en cuenta “el desarrollo integral, el respeto a la Constitución Nacional, la observancia de los derechos fundamentales de los ciudadanos”.

Esta tarde, la investigación, que recoge además otros temas gruesos como la renta minera, la normatividad de esta actividad y su relación con el conflicto armado, estará en manos del Ministerio de Minas y Energía, del de Ambiente, de los Congresistas y de todas las entidades de las que depende el futuro de la minería en el país.

Luis Jorge Garay, coordinador de la investigación es enfático al respecto: “lo que mostramos es que Colombia no está preparada para desarrollar una industria minera necesaria bajo criterios de respeto de los derechos, de conservación del medio ambiente y desarrollo integral”. Para Fierro, es claro que no debe haber minería en lugares ricos en biodiversidad y en cuencas frágiles y debe prohibirse en zonas de conflicto. “Si uno se imagina ese mapa, muy probablemente este no sea el país adecuado para basar su desarrollo en la minería”. 

Oro y mercurio.

Por: Viviana Londoño Calle

Fukushima Seeks Revival in Farming With No Soil

ORIGINAL: Bloomberg

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Kawauchi village in Fukushima, Japan, wondered how it would carry on farming following the nation's worst atomic disaster in 25 years and the radiation that followed. Now, it has figured out that farming can be done without soil. Bloomberg’s Yuriy Humber reports. (Source: Bloomberg)
"... 1% of the water, 25% of the fertilizer, 50 times more yield..."

Plague of Locusts Hits Egypt, Israel on High Alert

ORIGINAL: ScienceSpaceRobots

Egypt has been hit by a huge plague of locusts. The Week reports that there are estimated to be about 30 million locusts in the massive swarm. Crop damage has been reported in the region. Cairo residents set tires on fire to help keep the flying insects out of the city. Israel is also on high alert for the locust plague.

Locusts belong to the Acrididae class of insects. When the environmental conditions are right the insects can breed rapidly and form nomadic swarms that reach incredible numbers. The locust swarms can devour large fields of crops, which has lead to outbreaks of famine among humans in the past. A locust entry on National Geographic says the insects range in size from 0.5 to 3 inches (1.2 to 7.5 cm). The entry also says swarms of desert locusts can reach 460 square miles in size. 

Here is a video of the swarm: 

Posted on March 4, 2013

Switzerland Creates Secure Test Site for GM Crops

ORIGINAL: Science Magazine

by Jop de Vrieze

28 February 2013

Secure site. Switzerland will provide security for field trials of genetically modified crops at this research station near Zurich. Credit: Wikimedia

The Swiss government will create a permanently protected area on federal land for experiments with genetically modified (GM) crops. The goal is to enable researchers to run experimental trials without running the risk that the fields will be vandalized and to reduce costs associated with security.

In a paper published today in the journal Trends in Biotechnology, scientists from the Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon research station and the University of Zurich detail the plan, which was approved by the Swiss Parliament and officially announced on 7 February.

GM crops are controversial in Europe, and European law requires scientists to notify the public about the precise locations of the fields where they are running experiments. This has led to protests and sometimes vandalism at more than 100 European trials since 2010. One result is that the number of GM field experiments conducted in the European Union dropped from about 250 per year in the late 1990s to fewer than 50 in 2011, the researchers report. In Switzerland, researchers have submitted just six applications for field experiments with GM plants since the late 1990s; authorities rejected two in 1999 because "the social and environmental impacts compared to any possible economic benefits were clearly too high."

In a bid to make such experiments easier, the Swiss Federal Council approved spending €600,000 annually from 2014 to 2017 to create a protected field site of approximately three hectares at the Reckenholz research station, 10 kilometers north of Zurich. Researchers will initially use it to test GM wheat with resistance to powdery mildew, a fungal disease, but they could ultimately plant other crops such as potatoes.

The Reckenholz site is already being used for GM experiments and other types of research. In 2008, a group of more than 30 masked activists threatened researchers at a nearby field site and destroyed about one-third of their experimental plants. In 2009, the researchers used grant funds to install three surveillance cameras, build a double fence with barbed wire and motion sensors, and hire security guards who kept a day-round watch.

The study released today estimates that Swiss researchers running recent GM trials spent 78% of their research funds on security. Now, the Swiss government will carry those costs at the Reckenholz site, enabling researchers to use more of their grants for science.

The move shows that legislators believe approved GM experiments "should be protected and that the research agenda should not be determined by vandals," writes Michael Winzeler, a co-author of the paper and a senior researcher at the Reckenholz station, in an e-mail to ScienceInsider.

The plan comes 5 years after two plant scientists of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, Peter Urwin and Howard Atkinson, called for protection of European transgenic crop research in a letter to Nature.

Atkinson says he is pleased with the Swiss plan: "You can't have a policy based on evidence if the data cannot be collected. This site will be good for that."

The Swiss government and public do not have a pro-GM reputation. In 2005, voters approved a 5-year moratorium on the commercial use of GM products, which has been extended until 2017. The moratorium includes an exception for scientific research.

"Still, that record suggests that there is no demand among Swiss citizens for GM plants on their plates, says Marianne Kuenzle, GM specialist at the environmental group Greenpeace Switzerland, which opposes GM technologies. "This field site is a waste of money. If you look at this symbolically, the fact that these studies will happen behind fences shows that there is no public acceptation of this technology." The group says it will scrutinize applications to perform GM crop trials and consider ways to prevent the establishment of the field site.

EuropaBio, the European association for bio-industries, says the Swiss move is both good and bad news. "The biotech industry welcomes this possibility to carry out research but laments that it has to happen under such conditions," the group wrote in a statement. "The need for protected field sites is a sad reflection of the power of anti-science groups, who prevent public and private research to be done in Europe."

Anne Glover, the European Commission's chief scientific adviser, says she strongly supports controlled field trials of GM plants. "[I]t is the only way we can gather evidence on any adverse impacts they may have on humans, animals and the environment as well as gauge their efficacy," she wrote in a statement. "Citizens deserve complete transparency, but they also deserve the possibility to use the best science available to meet some of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century."

Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?

ORIGINAL: Royal Society Publishing

Paul R. Ehrlich†? and Anne H. Ehrlich

+Author Affiliations

Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

e-mail: pre@stanford.edu

Abstract

Environmental problems have contributed to numerous collapses of civilizations in the past. Now, for the first time, a global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity.

1. Introduction

Virtually every past civilization has eventually undergone collapse, a loss of socio-political-economic complexity usually accompanied by a dramatic decline in population size [1]. Some, such as those of Egypt and China, have recovered from collapses at various stages; others, such as that of Easter Island or the Classic Maya, were apparently permanent [1,2]. All those previous collapses were local or regional; elsewhere, other societies and civilizations persisted unaffected. Sometimes, as in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, new civilizations rose in succession. In many, if not most, cases, overexploitation of the environment was one proximate or an ultimate cause [3].

But today, for the first time, humanity's global civilization—the worldwide, increasingly interconnected, highly technological society in which we all are to one degree or another, embedded—is threatened with collapse by an array of environmental problems. Humankind finds itself engaged in what Prince Charles described as ‘an act of suicide on a grand scale’ [4], facing what the UK's Chief Scientific Advisor John Beddington called a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental problems [5]. The most serious of these problems show signs of rapidly escalating severity, especially climate disruption. But other elements could potentially also contribute to a collapse: an accelerating extinction of animal and plant populations and species, which could lead to a loss of ecosystem services essential for human survival; land degradation and land-use change; a pole-to-pole spread of toxic compounds; ocean acidification and eutrophication (dead zones); worsening of some aspects of the epidemiological environment (factors that make human populations susceptible to infectious diseases); depletion of increasingly scarce resources [6,7], including especially groundwater, which is being overexploited in many key agricultural areas [8]; and resource wars [9]. These are not separate problems; rather they interact in two gigantic complex adaptive systems: the biosphere system and the human socio-economic system. The negative manifestations of these interactions are often referred to as ‘the human predicament’ [10], and determining how to prevent it from generating a global collapse is perhaps the foremost challenge confronting humanity.

The human predicament is driven by overpopulation, overconsumption of natural resources and the use of unnecessarily environmentally damaging technologies and socio-economic-political arrangements to service Homo sapiens’ aggregate consumption [11–17]. How far the human population size now is above the planet's long-term carrying capacity is suggested (conservatively) by ecological footprint analysis [18–20]. It shows that to support today's population of seven billion sustainably (i.e. with business as usual, including current technologies and standards of living) would require roughly half an additional planet; to do so, if all citizens of Earth consumed resources at the US level would take four to five more Earths. Adding the projected 2.5 billion more people by 2050 would make the human assault on civilization's life-support systems disproportionately worse, because almost everywhere people face systems with nonlinear responses [11,21–23], in which environmental damage increases at a rate that becomes faster with each additional person. Of course, the claim is often made that humanity will expand Earth's carrying capacity dramatically with technological innovation [24], but it is widely recognized that technologies can both add and subtract from carrying capacity. The plough evidently first expanded it and now appears to be reducing it [3]. Overall, careful analysis of the prospects does not provide much confidence that technology will save us [25] or that gross domestic product can be disengaged from resource use [26].

2. Do current trends portend a collapse?

What is the likelihood of this set of interconnected predicaments [27] leading to a global collapse in this century? There have been many definitions and much discussion of past ‘collapses’ [1,3,28–31], but a future global collapse does not require a careful definition. It could be triggered by anything from a ‘small’ nuclear war, whose ecological effects could quickly end civilization [32], to a more gradual breakdown because famines, epidemics and resource shortages cause a disintegration of central control within nations, in concert with disruptions of trade and conflicts over increasingly scarce necessities. In either case, regardless of survivors or replacement societies, the world familiar to anyone reading this study and the well-being of the vast majority of people would disappear.

How likely is such a collapse to occur? No civilization can avoid collapse if it fails to feed its population. The world's success so far, and the prospective ability to feed future generations at least as well, has been under relatively intensive discussion for half a century [33–40]. Agriculture made civilization possible, and over the last 80 years or so, an industrial agricultural revolution has created a technology-dependent global food system. That system, humanity's single biggest industry, has generated miracles of food production. But it has also created serious long-run vulnerabilities, especially in its dependence on stable climates, crop monocultures, industrially produced fertilizers and pesticides, petroleum, antibiotic feed supplements and rapid, efficient transportation.

Despite those food production miracles, today at least two billion people are hungry or poorly nourished. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that increasing food production by some 70 per cent would be required to feed a 35 per cent bigger and still growing human population adequately by 2050 [41]. What are the prospects that H. sapiens can produce and distribute sufficient food? To do so, it probably will be necessary to accomplish many or all of the following tasks: severely limit climate disruption; restrict expansion of land area for agriculture (to preserve ecosystem services); raise yields where possible; put much more effort into soil conservation [3]; increase efficiency in the use of fertilizers, water and energy; become more vegetarian; grow more food for people (not fuel for vehicles); reduce food wastage; stop degradation of the oceans and better regulate aquaculture; significantly increase investment in sustainable agricultural and aquacultural research; and move increasing equity and feeding everyone to the very top of the policy agenda.

Most of these long-recommended tasks require changes in human behaviour thus far elusive. The problem of food wastage and the need for more and better agricultural research have been discussed for decades. So have ‘technology will save us’ schemes such as building ‘nuclear agro-industrial complexes’ [42], where energy would be so cheap that it could support a new kind of desert agriculture in ‘food factories’, where crops would be grown on desalinated water and precisely machine fertilized. Unhappily, sufficiently cheap energy has never been produced by nuclear power to enable large-scale agriculture to move in that direction. Nor has agriculture moved towards feeding people protein extracted from leaves or bacteria grown on petroleum [43, pp. 95–112]. None of these schemes has even resulted in a coordinated development effort. Meanwhile, growing numbers of newly well-off people have increased demand for meat [44], thereby raising global demand for feedgrains.

Perhaps even more critical, climate disruption may pose insurmountable biophysical barriers to increasing crop yields. Indeed, if humanity is very unlucky with the climate, there may be reductions in yields of major crops [45], although near-term this may be unlikely to affect harvests globally [46]. Nonetheless, rising temperatures already seem to be slowing previous trends of increasing yields of basic grains [45,47], and unless greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced, dangerous anthropogenic climate change [48] could ravage agriculture. Also, in addition to falling yields from many oceanic fish stocks because of widespread overfishing [49], warming and acidification of the oceans threaten the protein supply of some of the most nutritionally vulnerable people [50], especially those who cannot afford to purchase farmed fish.

Unfortunately, the agricultural system has complex connections with all the chief drivers of environmental deterioration. Agriculture itself is a major emitter of greenhouse gases and thus is an important cause of climate disruption as well as being exceptionally vulnerable to its consequences. More than a millennium of change in temperature and precipitation patterns is apparently now entrained [51], with the prospect of increasingly severe storms, droughts, heat waves and floods, all of which seem already evident and all of which threaten agricultural production.

Land is an essential resource for farming, and one facing multiple threats. In addition to the serious and widespread problems of soil degradation, sea-level rise (the most certain consequence of global warming) will take important areas out of production either by inundating them (a 1 m rise would flood 17.5% of Bangladesh [52]), exposing them to more frequent storm surges, or salinizing coastal aquifers essential for irrigation water. Another important problem for the food system is the loss of prime farmland to urbanization, a trend that seems certain to accelerate [53] as population growth steadily erodes the per capita supply of farmland.

The critical importance of substantially boosting the inadequate current action on the demographic problem can be seen in the time required to change the trajectory of population growth humanely and sensibly. We know from such things as the World War II mobilizations that many consumption patterns can be altered dramatically within a year, given appropriate incentives [54]. If food shortages became acute, then a rapid reaction would ensue as hunger became much more widespread. Food prices would rise, and diets would temporarily change (e.g. the number of meals consumed per day or amount of meat consumed) to compensate the shortage. Over the long term, however, expanding the global food supply and distributing it more equitably would be a slow and difficult process. Even though a major famine might well provoke investment in long-needed improvements in food production and distribution, they would take time to plan, test and implement.

Furthermore, agriculture is a leading cause of losses of biodiversity and thus of the critical ecosystem services supplied to agriculture itself (e.g. pollination, pest control, soil fertility, climate stability) and other human enterprises. Farming is also a principal source of global toxification, as has been clear since the days of Carson [55], exposing the human population to myriad subtle poisons. These pose further potential risks to food production.

Food may cause almost a third of greenhouse emissions -study

ORIGINAL: Reuters

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

Oct 30, 2012

• Food output makes up 19-29 pct of man-made greenhouse gas
• Cuts needed, from fertilisers to transport -CGIAR study
• Climate change may force shifts to alternative crops

OSLO, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Food production accounts for up to 29 percent of man-made greenhouse gases, twice the amount the United Nations has estimated comes from farming, a study published on Wednesday said.

Existing policies do not sufficiently encourage sustainable approaches to agriculture, or prepare the global agriculture sector for climate change. Photo: N. Palmer (CIAT)

Looking at emissions across the food system - including

• forest clearance, 
• fertiliser production and 
• transport 

- rather than just farming itself - agriculture research organisation CGIAR said much more work was needed to cut climate change emissions from food.

Its report, "Climate Change and Food Systems", estimated food production was responsible for between 19 and 29 percent of mankind's total greenhouse emissions, far above U.N. estimates of 14 percent based on a narrower definition of farming.

"From a food point of view (the U.N. approach) doesn't make sense," said Bruce Campbell, who heads the CGIAR research programme on climate change, agriculture and food security.

Many countries could make big cost savings by cutting emissions, he said. "There are good economic reasons to improve efficiency in agriculture, not just to cut greenhouse gas emissions."

China, for instance, could sharply reduce emissions with more efficient manufacture of fertilisers. Britain could cut emissions by consuming lamb transported from more efficient farms in New Zealand rather than raising its own sheep.

Global changes in diet, shifting towards vegetarianism from meat, would also help. Growing crops to feed to cows, pigs or sheep takes up far more land and emits more greenhouse gases than producing crops for human consumption.

MAIZE, WHEAT, RICE

A separate report by the CGIAR climate programme indicated that climate change is likely to reduce yields of the three biggest crops judged by calorie production - maize, wheat and rice - in developing nations in coming decades.

That could force some farmers to make radical shifts to growing more heat-, flood- or drought-tolerant crops, according to the report, "Recalibrating Food Production in the Developing World".

More resilient crops including yam, barley, cowpea, millet, lentils, cassava and bananas could fill in the gaps caused by declining harvests of more sensitive crops, it said.

"The world's agricultural systems face an uphill struggle in feeding a projected nine to ten billion people by 2050. Climate change introduces a significant hurdle in this struggle," it said. The world population is now just above seven billion.

The study also said that global warming, blamed by a U.N. panel of climate experts mainly on the burning of fossil fuels, meant risks to food production far beyond fields.

"Every step of the food chain - from the seed to the farm to the cooking pot - is at risk," it said. Higher temperatures or floods could make it harder to store and transport food, for instance, meaning more outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. (Reporting By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Nos toca iniciar una nueva revolución industrial: gurú economía verde

ORIGINAL: El Tiempo

Por: JAVIER SILVA HERRERA

12 de Octubre del 2012

Foto: Carlos Ortega

Paul Ekins dice que Colombia tiene gran potencial para diseñar un modelo de desarrollo sostenible.

Paul Ekins dice que si una gran parte de la humanidad viviera como él lo hace, el mundo sería diferente. A lo mejor no habría tantos enigmas climáticos o dilemas ambientales por resolver. No tiene carro y prefiere moverse en bicicleta por Londres (Inglaterra), su ciudad desde hace más de 40 años. No es vegetariano recalcitrante, pero dice que come la menor cantidad de carne posible.

Estuvo en Colombia esta semana como una excepción a la regla, porque a menos de tener una gran justificación, no hace viajes muy largos en avión. Prefiere ir a donde alcance a llevarlo un tren. Usa la tecnología básica y calienta el agua de su casa con paneles solares. "Llevo una vida sencilla -dice este experto en energía y política ambiental-, aunque me gusta mucho la música y el teatro, tal vez en exceso, pero no creo que consumir mucho arte signifique una amenaza".

Ekins, profesor del University College de Londres (UCL) y director del Centro Británico de Investigación en Energía, participó en el V Congreso Internacional de Medioambiente que terminó esta semana en Bogotá, organizado por el Centro de Estudios Internacionales para el Desarrollo Sostenible (Ceid), con el apoyo de EL TIEMPO.

Él es uno de los seres humanos que más sabe de economía verde, una nueva estrategia que busca que las naciones impongan un modelo de crecimiento que genere riqueza, pero al tiempo reduzca los impactos ecológicos sobre los ecosistemas. Tanta fe le tiene Ekins a esta nueva vía, que considera que puede "y debe" dividir en dos el futuro del siglo XXI.

Usted dice que la economía verde es la próxima revolución industrial. ¿Por qué?

La revolución industrial cambió las bases de la economía, cambió las formas de producción, de consumo y de inversión. De una humanidad muy agrícola se pasó a una manufacturera; surgieron los combustibles fósiles y nació el carro, por ejemplo. La economía verde busca que se dejen de mirar los recursos naturales como activos infinitos. Ahora tenemos que comenzar una nueva revolución industrial que nos ponga a movernos de forma diferente, a usar nuevos recursos para cambiar la manera de hacer energía. Necesitamos pasar de una economía marrón o contaminante a una verde y que se mueve con el viento, el sol o las olas del mar.

¿La economía verde es una moda medioambiental pasajera o ya maduró?

No es una moda ni puede serlo; aquí las cosas no dependen de si es o no una tendencia, debe ser el modelo del futuro. No podemos esperar que los 7.000 millones de ciudadanos vivan como los californianos, sin restringir lujos o consumo. Toca cambiar. El énfasis debe ser la no destrucción del medio ambiente.

¿No cree que es un modelo excluyente, solo para países ricos?

Hoy, por el uso incorrecto de los recursos y la destrucción de los ecosistemas, los pobres no pueden acceder a energía, a comida adecuada, al agua potable. Precisamente lo que logra la economía verde es sostener los recursos de los cuales dependen las comunidades de escasos recursos y reducir sus carencias. Un ejemplo: a corto plazo, crear un botadero a cielo abierto es más barato que construir un relleno con tecnología de punta que maneje las basuras adecuadamente. Pero a largo plazo, sale más caro el botadero, que generará daños impagables al suelo, al agua y a la salud de la gente. Es todo lo contrario a un modelo excluyente.

Para pasar de la teoría a la realidad, ¿qué países se destacan, así sea parcialmente, como económicamente verdes?

En Alemania, el 20 por ciento de su energía es limpia; la hacen con turbinas eólicas. En Austria, esa misma producción de energía renovable llega al 40 por ciento. En Holanda, más del 85 por ciento de los residuos industriales son reciclados. En Taiwán, la industria recicla el 50 por ciento. En estos sitios se está pasando del modelo producir-usar-botar a uno que cierre el ciclo y sea producir-usar-botar y reusar.

¿Cuál debe ser la estrategia gubernamental para aplicar este modelo sostenible?

Impuestos ambientales para quienes contaminen y oportunidades para sectores que intenten ser limpios. Aplicar restricciones: obligar a que cada complejo de viviendas que se construya sea energéticamente eficiente, por ejemplo. E impulsar las innovaciones, la investigación y el desarrollo de nuevas tecnologías.

La Administración de Información Energética dice que el consumo de carbón y otros combustibles fósiles aumentará hasta 2030. 

¿Cuál es el futuro de las energías renovables si esa economía basada en contaminantes no frena por ahora?

Todo depende. Esos son los cálculos de hoy, hechos con el modelo actual. No sabemos si en 20 años haya tanta inversión en formas de producción sostenibles que el modelo comience a variar, al punto de que el carbón o el petróleo dejen de ser tan atractivos comercialmente. Dependemos de las decisiones políticas.

Uno de los beneficios teóricos de la economía verde es que crea millones de puestos de trabajo. ¿Cómo se produce este milagro?

En el momento en que se inventen nuevas tecnologías, se necesitarán más personas que manejen esas nuevas propuestas. Incluso habrá gente que deje de trabajar en actividades contaminantes y se pase a cubrir el nuevo modelo. La transición hacia una economía más verde podría generar entre 15 y 60 millones de empleos adicionales en el mundo en las próximas dos décadas, y sacar a millones de la pobreza.

¿Cuál es ese sector que se debe 'enverdecer' primero?

La agricultura, que debe ser mucho más orgánica, como lo está logrando Europa. Pero en general, todos los sectores deben incluir procesos menos impactantes, porque igual vamos a necesitar hierro, agua o madera.

¿Cuál energía renovable se podría desarrollar primero: eólica, solar, térmica o marina?

La energía de biomasa, que usa materia orgánica. Le seguiría la solar, que transforma la energía en electricidad. Detrás estaría la que se produce con las olas del mar.

¿Se podría vivir solo del sol?

Por supuesto. Solo el sol, en un día, nos aporta la energía que los humanos usamos y producimos de múltiples formas durante un año. Impensable todo lo que estamos desperdiciando; por eso, las tecnologías que la captan deben ser cada vez más eficientes, sobre todo para los países ubicados sobre el Ecuador, donde la energía solar está presente todos los días.

Estamos sacrificando la salud del planeta y la nuestra, por un consumo desaforado. ¿Cuál es el camino para cambiar ese enfoque tan impactante?

Logrando que las formas de consumo irresponsable sean gravadas o penalizadas. El consumo propio no es un problema hasta tanto no perjudiques a tu vecino. El uso excesivo u ofensivo de los recursos debe ser castigado con dinero.

Colombia debate si debe ser un país minero, pero es biodiverso y genera más del 70 por ciento de la energía eléctrica con agua. ¿Qué análisis le merece?

Colombia debe pensar en buscar alternativas energéticas. La energía hidráulica, aunque no produce emisiones de CO2, no se puede considerar limpia por el impacto ecológico que tiene. No pueden descuidar el Amazonas, y si se piensa hacer minería allí, deben obligarse a que esta cumpla exigencias ambientales muy altas. Creo que es uno de los países del mundo con mayor potencial para revolucionar su actual modelo.

JAVIER SILVA HERRERA

Redacción Vida de hoy

Más del 40 por ciento de los municipios no están preparados para emergencias ambientales

ORIGINAL: El Colombiano

Colprensa

11 de septiembre de 2012

Archivo |

Frente a los reiterados incendios forestales en Colombia, la Procuraduría General de la Nación, realizó un estudio para detectar la cantidad municipios que en el país no tienen la capacidad para enfrentar esta clase de tragedias ambientales.

El estudio por parte del Ministerio Público advierte que más del 40 por ciento de los municipios en el país se encuentran con una alarmante debilidad para atender emergencia ambientales, como los son los incendios forestales.

Para el procurador delegado para asuntos ambientales y agrarios, Oscar Darío Amaya, se están registrando de manera reiterativa en todo el país incendios forestales, para él “la situación es preocupante en algunas partes de Colombia”.

El estudio también indica, que más de 430 municipios no cuentan con cuerpo de bomberos, otro grupo considerable no tienen Defensa Civil, ni Cruz Roja y finalmente más de 150 municipios no han coordinado sus planes de atención a desastres con las autoridades ambientales. 

Cabe mencionar que el ministerio público, advirtió sobre esta situación en el mes de abril del año en curso, pero hoy 5 meses después no se observa ningún adelanto para prevenir una tragedia ambiental.

Entre tanto, la Procuraduría, recibiendo instrucción Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales de Colombia, Ideam, entidad encargada de medir la capacidad hídrica del país, emitió una circular a todas las entidades ambientales, recordando que este no es momento para reforestar. Los procesos de agricultura, la siembra y la reforestación deben ser aplazados hasta que haya suficiente capacidad de recurso hídrico.

Bye, bye a la Amazonia, II

ORIGINAL: El Tiempo

Por: MANUEL RODRíGUEZ BECERRA

11 de Agosto del 2012

"El Ministerio del Ambiente es un facilitador del crecimiento económico", afirmó el ministro del Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible, Frank Pearl, en la rendición de cuentas realizada en Santa Marta.

En la práctica, esta visión se ha materializado en su entusiasta defensa de la política minera, incluyendo las áreas estratégicas mineras. Y, aunque usted no lo crea, y como lo registró La Silla Vacía, la reciente declaración de estas áreas, con una extensión de 17,6 millones de hectáreas, fue propuesta conjuntamente por los ministros de Minas y de Medio Ambiente al presidente Santos, sin un estudio previo del Ministerio del Ambiente.

Igualmente grave, la argumentación del ministro Pearl a favor de las áreas estratégicas ha estado llena de inexactitudes. Afirmó que el otorgamiento de títulos mineros se congelará durante diez años, protegiéndose así una extensión de selva equivalente al tamaño de Kuwait. Pero omitió anotar que el objetivo central de las áreas estratégicas es el otorgamiento de concesiones especiales a la gran minería, durante ese período, y le faltó también aclarar que los cerca de mil títulos mineros solicitados y vigentes a la fecha de expedida la resolución en junio pasado serán tramitados por la agencia minera. Definitivamente: bye, bye a la Amazonia.

En contraste con Minambiente, algunos miembros del alto gobierno y representantes de organizaciones campesinas, indígenas, de la producción agrícola, de la academia y de la Iglesia han enviado múltiples SOS al presidente Santos sobre los daños ambientales y sociales causados por diversas operaciones mineras -legales e ilegales- y sobre los enormes riesgos de su política para el futuro del país.

El ministro de Agricultura, Juan Camilo Restrepo, ha señalado en múltiples intervenciones que las áreas estratégicas y los títulos mineros concedidos cubren el 53% del territorio dedicado a la actividad agropecuaria, o con potencial para ella, lo que causaría 

• el deterioro de suelos productivos, 
• la afectación de los recursos hídricos y 
• la contaminación de las aguas y 
• de los productos agrícolas. 

Es una posición compartida por el presidente de la Federación Nacional de Cafeteros, quien ha advertido sobre los altos riesgos de la minería para el sector.

A su vez, Samuel Azout, director de la Agencia para la Superación de la Pobreza, en un intercambio de trinos con algún empresario, afirmó: "Explotación de carbón y petróleo, ¿qué traen? ¿Progreso? O ¿destrucción del suelo agrícola, apreciación de la moneda, prostitución, miseria? Tengo plena independencia de opinión y hablo desde el territorio, no desde el escritorio. Yo creo en resultados... y los resultados en el terreno no son de progreso, son de miseria".

Y la Conferencia Episcopal manifestó su profunda preocupación sobre "

• (i) la destrucción de la naturaleza selvática del país, pulmón del planeta; 
• (ii) la presencia de proyectos mineros en territorios de comunidades campesinas, indígenas y afrocolombianas sin el debido enfoque social y ambiental; y 
• (iii) la minería como detonante de conflictos ambientales y sociales generadores de nuevas violencias".

Son alertas efectuadas también por reconocidos académicos, como el economista canadiense Albert Berry, para quien Colombia es "uno los lugares menos propicios del mundo para la minería" por su historia de conflicto y de falta de justicia en el área rural.

Así, pues, el Minambiente, Frank Pearl, como "facilitador del crecimiento económico", se ha comprometido en la defensa de una cuestionada política minera y, a similitud del presidente Santos, ha hecho oídos sordos a los múltiples y autorizados clamores de sus colegas de gobierno y de otros sectores sobre sus actuales y futuros daños ambientales y sociales. No sobraría que F. Pearl revisara cuáles son las funciones que la ley le otorga como ministro de Ambiente.

Manuel Rodríguez Becerra

mrb@uniandes.edu.co

Farming and biodiversity can coexist, say Stanford researchers

ORIGINAL: Stanford News

BY MAX MCCLURE

Although bird species disappear with intensive agriculture, research in Costa Rica shows that forest intermingled with cultivated land rescues biodiversity.

The Yellow-billed Cacique will likely persist and thrive in low-intensity agriculture.
Photo: Daniel Karp 

To keep up with projected demand, farming output will need to double in the next few decades. This inconvenient fact is bad news for the environment as a whole, and biodiversity in particular. Large-scale, high-intensity agricultural production, scientists say, dramatically reduces variation between bird communities of different areas.

But Stanford scientists say there may be a way to increase agricultural land without substantially impacting biodiversity.

A new paper by biology graduate student Daniel Karp, with Stanford biology professors and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment fellows Gretchen Daily and Paul Ehrlich, shows that low-intensity tropical agriculture can maintain regional species differences at levels similar to those of intact forest. The study appears in today's issue of the journal Ecology Letters.

"It's one way of addressing a basic question," said Karp. "How can we feed people while preserving biodiversity?"

Animal farm

Karp was interested in "beta-diversity" – not the sheer number of species present in a region, but the differences between the sets of species that live in two different regions.

"The tropics have many more species total, which people know," said Karp. "But they also have a lot more beta-diversity," making Costa Rica an ideal place to study the ecological effects of agriculture.

The researchers found that "specialist" species that are adapted to particular food sources and environmental conditions disappear as land is converted to intensive agriculture. The process leaves the same population of "generalist" species in most converted lands, decreasing beta-diversity between formerly distinct regions.

"To a bird, high-intensity production is basically going to look the same no matter where it is," said Karp. "A melon plantation in the north of Costa Rica is going to look the same as a pineapple plantation in the south."

But agriculture on a small scale, or agriculture that leaves trees or other native species intermingled with crops, retains forest-like levels of beta-diversity.

The paper's data came from 10 years' worth of bird species monitoring from ornithologist Jim Zook, working with Daily and Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. His unique transects through different plots of Costa Rican land – some forested, some under heavy agricultural use and some in between – and years of patient monitoring have provided insight into the impacts of alternative agricultural strategies.

Services rendered

In a previous paper from the team, Zook's data showed that careful stewardship may allow agriculture and biodiversity to coexist and suggested that preservation may not need to be an all-or-nothing proposition.

Farms, for instance, rely on birds for pollination, fruit dispersal and pest control. More generally, the presence of intact, biodiverse lands near a farm guarantees society certain natural benefits, including water purification and nutrient cycling.

"If these birds are locked up in a preserve far from humans, you're not going to get any of those services as a farmer," Karp said.

Costa Rica is already one of the first nations to adopt a "payments for ecosystem services," or PES, scheme. Acknowledging the value of keeping undeveloped land near agricultural areas, the policy compensates farmers for leaving part of their lands out of production. The new biodiversity finding offers further support for the practice, as Daily has addressed previously.

"Reducing pressure from population growth and consumption are crucial for achieving sustainability," Karp said. "But we also need to start thinking about making smarter societies – in which we can grow food and preserve ecosystem services and species at the same time."

Media Contact

Daniel Karp, Biology: dkarp@stanford.edu

Max McClure, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-6737, maxmc@stanford.edu