Even as air pollution declines, disparities in exposure remain

Though air pollution has declined by nearly 70 percent across much of the United States, new research showed that the most polluted places in 35 years ago are still the most polluted today. Photo by Etienne Laurent/EPA-EFE

July 31 (UPI) -- The amount of particulate matter in the air in the United States has declined significantly over the last several decades, but new research suggests disparities between the most and least polluted communities persist.

Dozens of studies have previously confirmed the reality of environmental inequity. Poorer communities and minority communities are more likely to be exposed to air pollution than those living in wealthier neighborhoods.

But until now, little analysis had been done to understand if and how those disparities change over time, researchers say.

For the new study, researchers at the University of Virginia combined 36-years worth of records on fine particulate matter, particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, with U.S. census data in order to rank communities from the least to the most polluted for each year between 1981 and 2016.


The data -- detailed Friday in the journal Science -- revealed a remarkable level of continuity. Across the 36-year timeline, the most polluted places remained the most polluted places.

"Our findings call attention to the scope, scale, and remarkable persistence of air pollution disparities in the United States," lead study author Jonathan Colmer, an assistant professor of economics at UVA, told UPI.

Studies suggest that each year dirty air sends some 5.5 million people around the world to an early grave. But in the United States, the number of deaths caused by air pollution has been steadily dropping. One study determined total air pollution deaths were reduced by half between 1990 and 2010.

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If there is a silver lining to the latest research, it is that communities rich and poor, black and white, have shared equally in the air pollution reductions measured over the last few decades.

"We found that pollution reductions were larger in areas that were more polluted in 1981 but these locations were starting from a much higher starting point," study co-author Jay Shimshack told UPI.

"Disadvantaged neighborhoods did not experience disproportionate reductions in fine particulate matter air pollution," said Shimshack, an associate professor of public policy and economics at UVA. "Broadly speaking, everywhere experienced a 60 to 70 percent reduction between 1981 and 2016."
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While air quality is better than it used to be, particulate matter pollution remains a serious environmental problem in many parts of the country, and the latest research suggests it's still a much bigger problem in poorer communities and communities of color.

Breathing dirty air can trigger and exacerbate a variety of health problems, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. The health problems made worse by pollution are many of the same problems that already disproportionately impact minority communities.

The authors of the latest study don't have specific policy prescriptions, but they hope to study the impacts of political advocacy and policy reforms on pollution in the near future.

"We still don't fully understand why disparities exist, let alone why they persist," Colmer said. "Better answers to these questions will lead to sharper policy recommendations."

For now, they said they hope that by simply detailing the problem, they can begin to plot a path for progress -- and inspire others to do the same.

"Federal and state guidelines aim for all people to enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental hazards and argue that no groups should bear a disproportionate share of pollution," Shimshack said. "On this front we are falling short."

Study of air quality in the U.S. shows income disparities still existby Bob Yirka, Science X Network, Phys.org

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A small team with members from the University of Virginia, Stanford University, and the U.S. Census Bureau has found that despite laws enacted to reduce unequal distribution of emissions of airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 µm in diameter (PM2.5) in the U.S., disparities remain. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group analyzed data over the past several decades to learn more about air quality in the U.S. Lala Ma, with the University of Kentucky, has published a Perspective piece on the work done by the team in the same journal issue.


Over the past several decades, lawmakers in the U.S. have responded to concerns about air pollution, particularly in areas around large cities. The result has been a host of new laws forcing pollution-producing entities to reduce emissions, including car makers. Because of such laws, pollution levels in the U.S. have fallen dramatically. In the late 1970s, researchers noted that poorer people were impacted more severely by air pollution than rich people. They lived closer to pollution-producing plants and often wound up downwind of such major polluters as coal fired power plants. The federal government took notice of these disparities, and in 1981, began requiring companies to add environmental justice as part of cost-benefit analyses when making business decisions. In this new effort, the researchers sought to find out if the establishment of such rules had any impact on air pollution disparities.

The work by the team involved obtaining and analyzing 36 years of air pollution data compiled by government entities. They determined that air pollution of all kinds has been greatly reduced, including PM2.5. But they also concluded that those parts of the country that were the most polluted in the early 1980s were still the most polluted in the late 2000s. And those that were the least polluted were still the least polluted. They also found that income differences had remained roughly the same, as well. Thus, despite enacting legislation aimed at unfair distribution of air pollution, the poor were still more likely to live in areas that were the most heavily polluted, while the rich continued to breathe much cleaner air.


Explore further Fine-particle air pollution has decreased across the US, but poor and minority communities are still the most polluted

More information: Jonathan Colmer et al. Disparities in PM2.5 air pollution in the United States, Science (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz9353

Journal information: Science

'It's real.' Latinos, African Americans most likely to view pollution as a serious health threatby Kim Bojórquez

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Latinos and African Americans are more likely to view pollution as a serious health threat than other groups, according to a new statewide study by the Public Policy Institute of California.


"African Americans and Latinos are more likely than others to say that air and water pollution in their part of California are very serious health threats to themselves and their families," said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, in the study.

Two-thirds of Californians surveyed said air pollution is a very serious or somewhat serious threat.

In the study, 33% of Latinos and 29% of African Americans said air pollution is a very serious health threat in their part of the state compared to 12% of whites. An estimated 24% of Latinos and 20% of African Americans said polluted drinking water is a very serious health threat in their part of their state, compared to 8% of whites.

Latinos (89%) also were more likely to say they are willing to make major lifestyle changes to address global warming, compared to 74% of African Americans, 70% of Asian Americans and 62% of whites, the study showed.

When survey participants were asked if they were willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated by renewable sources like solar or wind energy, 54% of Asian Americans and 52% Latinos said they were willing to pay more, followed by 46% of African Americans and 42% of whites.

"Latinos care about climate change because they're at the front lines of climate change impacts and exposure to pollution," said Dr. Michael Mendez, author of the book, Climate Change from the Streets: How Conflict and Collaboration Strengthen the Environmental Justice Movement. "It's real. Those impacts, both economic and health impacts, are happening in Latino families."

Primarily in California's agricultural regions, according to Mendez, some Latinos' access to clean drinking water is affected by dilapidated and rotting pipes that are corrosive and contain contamination.

When it comes to air pollution, Latinos are "exposed through various forms of cumulative pollution sources, because there's a lot of noxious facilities in areas that they live and work," he said. Latino and Black communities near freeways are also affected by air pollution.

Mendez helped co-lead a task force on climate change, environment and public health for the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative's 21st Century Latino Agenda.

"More than 60% of Latinos in the U.S. reside in four key states that have historically experienced extreme events," according to the agenda. "This includes wildfires and droughts in California."

Overall, nearly half of Californians said the threat of wildfires was a "big problem" where they lived, the study showed.

Among Central Valley region residents, 16% said air pollution, vehicle emissions and smog were the most important environmental issues facing the state.

Residents living in the Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Orange/San Diego and Inland Empire regions were more likely to view global warming, climate change and greenhouse gases as the most important environmental issues facing the state.

The study found Latinos and African Americans were more likely to say stricter environmental laws and regulations were worth the cost. About 70% of Latinos and 65% of African Americans said stricter environmental laws and regulations in the state are worth the cost, according to the study.

When asked whether the state should take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions right away or wait until the state's economy and job sector improves, 56% of Latinos, 50% African Americans, 49% Asian Americans and 45% of whites said they should take action right away.

The report's findings are based on a survey of 1,561 Californians conducted between July 8-17.


Explore furtherPandemic poses greater risks, stresses for California racial minorities, poll finds

©2020 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.)
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Study shows devastating cost of failure to coordinate economic reopenings

by MIT Sloan School of Management JULY 31, 2020

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

New, peer-reviewed research published today by the Social Analytics Lab at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows the devastating cost of the current chaotic and uncoordinated reopening of states and cities across the US. The study, which used data from mobile phones, network connections through social media and census data, estimates that total welfare is reduced dramatically when reopening is not coordinated among states and regions.


The study showed, for example, that the contact patterns of people in a given region are significantly influenced by the policies and behaviors of people in other, sometimes distant regions. In one finding, it showed that when just one third of a state's social and geographic peer states adopt shelter in place policies, it creates a reduction in mobility equal to the state's own policy decisions. When states fail to coordinate in the presence of spillovers as large as those detected in the analyzes, total welfare is reduced by almost 70 percent.

As federal, state and local governments continue opening businesses and relaxing shelter-in-place orders nationwide, policymakers are doing so without quantitative evidence on how policies in one region affect mobility and social distancing in other regions. And while some states are coordinating on COVID policy at the level of "mega regions," most, unfortunately are not. This lack of coordination will have devastating effects on efforts to control COVID-19, according to the study.

"There have been many calls for a coordinated national pandemic response in the U.S. and around the world, but little hard evidence has quantified this need," said Sinan Aral, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a corresponding author of the study. "When we analyzed the data, we were shocked by the degree to which state policies affected outcomes in other states, sometimes at great distances. Travel and social influence over digital media make this pandemic much more interdependent than we originally thought. Our results suggest an immediate need for a nationally coordinated policy across states, regions and nations around the world."

Governors from all states and territories will convene virtually for the Summer meeting of The National Governor's Association on August 5. The MIT study not only assesses the impact of an uncoordinated reopening, but also gives governors a map with which to coordinate in the absence of national guidance. The research shows for all fifty states, which states affect each other the most and thus maps the states that should be coordinating. These maps are sometimes surprising because, as a result of digital social media, each state's success with social distancing is impacted by the policy decisions not just of geographically proximate states, but also of socially connected, but geographically distant states. For instance, Florida's social distancing was most affected by New York implementing a shelter-in-place policy due to social media influence and travel between the states, despite their physical distance. New Hampshire had a strong influence on adjacent Massachusetts, despite being a small state.

As the Governor's Association convenes, this research highlights the need for states across the country to coordinate, even if they are not near one another and the results suggest which states should be coordinating with which other states based on the strength of the spillovers between them.


Explore furtherImplementation of social distancing policies correlates with significant reduction in SARS-CoV-2 transmission

More information: David Holtz et al. Interdependence and the cost of uncoordinated responses to COVID-19, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2009522117

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by MIT Sloan School of Management

Fine-particle air pollution has decreased across the US, but poor and minority communities are still the most polluted

by Jonathan Colmer and Jay Shimshack, The Conversation

Fine particulate air pollution is referred to as PM2.5 because the particles are less than 2.5 microns in diameter – 40 times smaller than a grain of sand. Credit: Washington department of Ecology

Air pollution contributes to as many as 9 million premature deaths worldwide each year—twice as many as war, other violence, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Fine particulate matter air pollution is especially dangerous: Microscopic particles readily enter the lungs, bloodstream and brain, with health effects that include infant death, reduced life expectancy for adults, cancer, lung disease and heart disease.


Fine particle matter pollution concentrations in the United States have declined by roughly 70% since 1981. However, in a newly published study, we show that the areas that were most polluted in 1981 are still the most polluted today, and the least polluted areas in 1981 are still the least polluted today.

Areas that were whiter and richer in 1981 have become relatively less polluted over time. Areas that became whiter and richer between 1981 and 2016 have become relatively less polluted over time. In contrast, the neighborhoods and population groups that were most exposed to fine particle pollution 40 years ago—disproportionately low-income and minority communities—are still exposed to higher pollution levels.

As scholars who focus on environmental economics and public policy, we believe that the persistence of air pollution disparities matters. We care about who is advantaged and disadvantaged. In addition, our results have implications for environmental public policy. To the extent that policy aims to reduce pollution disparities, the job is far from finished.

Mapping pollution at a neighborhood scale

Researchers have known for decades that air pollution varies across locations due to economic activity, climate and other factors. It is also well documented that lower-income households, people of color and other disadvantaged communities are disproportionately exposed to air pollution. Since research shows that air pollution is associated with early death, lower educational attainment and lower lifetime earnings, these differences promote economic, health and social inequality.


What has not been clear is how much air pollution disparities have changed over time. We wanted to understand particulate matter air pollution disparities in a more systematic way, for the entire U.S. over many years.

Until recently, the information needed to answer this question simply wasn't available. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency monitors levels of fine particle pollution, known as PM2.5, nationwide. But its monitors offer relatively sparse coverage and are concentrated in disproportionately urban locations.

In our study, we leverage newly available data that captures PM2.5 concentrations at more than 8.6 million distinct U.S. locations from 1981 through 2016. These data were constructed from satellite observations and pollution transport modeling, along with pollution monitor records. They provide a detailed year-by-year picture of fine particulate matter concentrations for each of the roughly 65,000 Census tract "neighborhoods" in the United States.
Fine particle air pollution moves from the lungs into the bloodstream and can have widespread health impacts throughout the body.

Persistent disparities

Our analysis shows that there has been some progress over the past 35 years in reducing gaps between the most polluted and least polluted locations. In 1981 PM2.5 concentrations in the most polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 34 micrograms per cubic meter. PM2.5 concentrations in the least polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 13 micrograms per cubic meter. The difference was 22 micrograms per cubic meter.

In 2016 PM2.5 concentrations in the most polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 10 micrograms per cubic meter. PM2.5 concentrations in the least polluted 10% of census tracts averaged 4 micrograms per cubic meter. The difference was 6 micrograms per cubic meter.

These reduced gaps likely imply that differences in pollution-induced health, wealth and productivity across locations are also declining. But while pollution gaps have declined for some disadvantaged communities, this hasn't been universal.

Next we wanted to see whether specific locations had more or less pollution than other locations, and whether the most polluted locations were the same through time. To explore these questions, we ranked each neighborhood from most polluted to least polluted for every year that we had data.

We then evaluated how these rankings changed between 1981 and 2016, and found that they remained remarkably persistent. The most polluted areas in 1981 remain the most polluted areas today, and the least polluted areas in 1981 remain the least polluted areas today. Communities that were disadvantaged in 1981 remain exposed to higher levels of pollution today. If anything, relative disparities have worsened for poorer and Hispanic communities.

A disproportionate share of the most polluted areas over the past 40 years are in Southern California, while the least polluted areas are more dispersed across the U.S. As an example, a child born in Los Angeles County in 2016 was exposed to 42% more fine particle pollution than the average child born in the United States, and 26% more pollution than a child born in New York City.

A few areas did see improvements or declines in their relative standing. Ohio, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and the Northeast Corridor became relatively less polluted from 1981 through 2016. California's Central and Imperial valleys, southwestern Arizona, southern Texas and portions of Arkansas and Oklahoma became relatively more polluted.

Fairness, equity and public policy

Our findings underline the scope, scale and persistence of air pollution disparities in the United States. But if particulate matter air quality has improved over time—which should translate into improvements in health, wealth and productivity for most Americans—why should we be concerned about relative disparities between some locations and others?

In our view, persistent disparities between the most and least polluted communities matter because fairness, equity and justice are relative concepts. We define them based on who is advantaged and who is disadvantaged at any given time. Pollution disparities translate into health, economic and social disparities.

For decades, federal and state environmental guidelines have aimed to provide all Americans with the same degree of protection from environmental hazards. The EPA's definition of environmental justice states that "no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences." On this front, our research suggests that the United States is falling short.


Explore furtherAir pollution 'greatest risk' to global life expectancy
Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
\

Climate change and COVID-19: The denial playbook is the same

by Augusta Wilson, Earth Institute at Columbia University

JULY 31, 2020

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The phrase "every disaster movie begins with a scientist being ignored" resonates more than ever as two disasters unfold: the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. One is occurring with horrifying rapidity and one more slowly; both would be far less damaging if scientific advice were heeded earlier.

In the United States, the Trump administration has responded to the COVID-19 crisis using tactics it honed in the climate arena: ignoring or burying relevant scientific information, pushing misinformation, and silencing scientists who warn us of the dangers. This pervasive "see no evil, hear no evil" approach has handicapped the U.S.'s ability to respond to both of these unfolding crises.

From the start of the pandemic, scientists who spoke out about the increasing threat from COVID-19 were ignored and pushed out. The same thing has happened to climate scientists since the early days of the Trump administration. The mentality that climate change is a taboo subject has taken root so firmly that it filtered down from top-level political officials and is now enforced by lower-level career employees in scientific agencies.

In the early days of the administration, climate change information disappeared at an alarming rate from government websites. There was a considerable public outcry in late July when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appeared to cave to pressure from the administration and removed crucial coronavirus data from its website. This event parallels the Trump administration's behavior around climate change.

The similarities do not end there, as the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund and Columbia Law School's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law are documenting in our Silencing Science Tracker. We have found that limiting or interfering with scientists' ability to communicate publicly about their work is a frequent theme of the Trump administration. For example, the administration prevented a scientific expert from providing relevant testimony to Congress about the threats posed by climate change. It repeated this tactic when it blocked Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, from testifying to Congress about COVID-19.

Similarly, the administration prevented publication of politically unpalatable climate change research, and it has now done the same with COVID-19 research. The use of budget cuts to halt inconvenient research is another common tactic. The administration defunded politically undesirable research on climate change and has now cut funding for coronavirus research.
Other patterns include overruling or revising scientific conclusions because of political considerations and forbidding scientists to mention climate change or the pandemic.
This is far from a complete list of parallels. Unfortunately, when faced with inconvenient scientific research, the current administration only digs deeper into its toolkit of censorship and misinformation.

In April, policy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute wrote that accurate and transparent data is crucial to informed decision-making about both COVID and climate change, and to maintaining public trust. They wrote that to combat COVID and climate change effectively, it will be necessary to "ambitiously connect data across diverse global systems to make the right investments at the right time."

One of the first and most pressing tasks for the next administration will be to restore science to its rightful place and restore a culture of scientific integrity to institutions across the federal government. These are among the reasons why the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund has joined dozens of other organizations to promote pro-science measures for the next presidential term, written guides for federal scientists to understand existing scientific integrity protections, and supported expanding safeguards for federal scientists under the bipartisan Scientific Integrity Act.

Without the federal government re-prioritizing science, we cannot hope to effectively address both the COVID-19 and climate change crises we currently face.

Explore further

To counter COVID-19 misinformation, expert backs new approach to science learning

Provided by Earth Institute at Columbia University

Looking up to the Joneses: Consequences of the perceptions of white wealth

by Society for Personality and Social Psychology
JULY 30, 2020

Before the era of COVID-19, research suggested that premature deaths among white Americans were rising. Even before the era of COVID-19, these findings were surprising. As Dr. Cooley explains, "These trends were puzzling to us because white people, on average, have more wealth than other racial groups and are generally privileged in our society." As a result, Cooley and colleagues questioned whether factors other than income and education, known as objective indicators of status, may not buy happiness for white people. Instead, they investigated the role of social comparisons—or the desire to "keep up with the Joneses."


Their research indicates that white Americans tend to compare their own status to other white Americans—people they perceive as much wealthier than their selves; and, the greater the perceived disparity, the worse they feel—psychologically and physically—regardless of their objective status.

In one study, white and Black Americans (490 white people and 519 Black people) were asked to rank their own status on a ladder—selecting higher ladder rungs if they felt high status and lower rungs if they felt low status. Next, participants were asked to rank "the majority of their racial group" (i.e., white or Black people) on the same scale. The researchers followed with questions about participants' health, emotions, and wellbeing. A second study replicated their findings.

"Results revealed that white Americans tended to make upward status comparisons—in other words, they most often compared their status to other white people—people who they perceived as having higher status than the self" says Erin Cooley, one of the study's co-lead authors. "In contrast, Black Americans most often compared their status to other Black people—people who they perceived as doing worse than the self." And, among white Americans, larger upward comparisons were associated with feeling fewer positive emotions and having worse physical health.

Interestingly, these data suggest that it is exactly because of this belief that white = wealth, that many white people feel as if they are falling behind.

Although their work illuminates psychological processes that may harm the health of white Americans, the authors also urge readers to consider two points: (1) these data were collected before the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) as clearly revealed by the pandemic, minority racial/ethnic groups—particularly African Americans and Latinx Americans—are disproportionately impacted by poor health outcomes and economic downturns.

"Due to racism and persistent racial inequities, there are many health disparities experienced by people of color in the United States including rates of heart disease and diabetes," says Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi, also a co-lead author of the research. Thus, while the authors think the current work represents an interesting psychological mechanism for white Americans, this work should not detract from the fact that structural racism in this country creates health and wealth inequalities along racial lines.


Explore furtherPerceived 'whiteness' of Middle Eastern Americans correlates with discrimination
More information: Erin Cooley et al, Investigating the Health Consequences for White Americans Who Believe White Americans Are Wealthy, Social Psychological and Personality Science (2020). DOI: 10.1177/1948550620905219
Journal information: Social Psychological and Personality Science


Provided by Society for Personality and Social Psychology
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A rebranding of 'freedom'?

by University of Chicago

According to recent Gallup polls, socialism is now more popular than capitalism among Democrats and young people, and support for "some form of socialism" among all Americans is at 43% (compared to 25% in 1942). Policies that went unmentioned or were declared out-of-bounds in elections four years ago—a federal jobs guarantee, single-payer health care, free college, massive tax hikes on the rich, and the Green New Deal—are commonplace in Democrats' 2020 campaigns.


However, in "Freedom Now," a new paper published by Alex Gourevitch and Corey Robin in Polity's May Symposium on the Challenges Facing Democrats, there is still no clear, unifying idea behind this political shift. "One has not heard anything on the order of Franklin Roosevelt's Commonwealth Club speech or Reagan's story of the free market," the authors write. If these policies are to have a chance of breaking through, they will need a grounding principle, or ideology name the enemy, organize the policies, orient the actions, state the destination, and provide the fuel for the movement.

Gourevitch and Robin propose that that idea is freedom. "While the left once understood freedom as emancipation from the economy, the right spent the twentieth century neutralizing and appropriating the idea of freedom by reinventing the economy as the true site of freedom."

To reclaim freedom as a value of the left, the authors believe the first place to start is the unfreedom of the workplace. "In nearly every capitalist country, one of the leading elements of the legal definition of employment is subordination to the will of a superior." That can mean that employees must urinate—or are forbidden to urinate. It can mean that they should be sexually appealing—or must not be sexually appealing. They may be told how to speak, what to say, whom to say it to, where to be, where to go, how to dress, when to eat, and what to read—all in the name of the job. "But isn't the worker free to leave a bad boss? Formally speaking, yes," the authors write. "But even if they are free to exit this workplace, they are not free to exit the workplace."

Reclaiming "freedom" names the problem that an increasing number of people face today: systemic unfreedom in the neoliberal economy. By confronting that unfreedom, the left can do more than identify, in a coherent and cohesive way, the myriad problems that individuals are currently facing. The authors find the seeds of that idea in Bernie Sanders's rhetoric about being "organizer in chief," and in proposals from the Warren and Sanders camps that would strengthen workers' right to strike and organize.

However, they note, "A real politics of freedom posits a belief in the capacity of people to revise the terms of their existence and a commitment to the institutions that make these collective revisions possible." In other words, freedom is best realized not through tending our own gardens but through disciplined commitment and collective struggle, in activities like mass strikes and party politics. "These democratic struggles are not simply expressions and experiences of freedom, though they are that. They are also the means to the freedoms people deserve."

Why some people won't wear face masks even if told to

More information: Alex Gourevitch et al, Freedom Now, Polity (2020). DOI: 10.1086/708919

Provided by University of Chicago

For urban conservation, local resident involvement is key

"Do not ask people to tolerate conservation, Instead, seek win-win scenarios for communities and biodiversity."

by Laura Arenschield, The Ohio State University
Credit: The Ohio State University

Conservation projects in cities are most likely to succeed when nearby residents are part of the planning and design process and feel ownership over the projects, researchers who spent seven years studying conservation in Cleveland say.


Conservation projects in cities also are more likely to be successful if they are tackled at a micro, neighborhood level, rather than approached as a city-wide project, the researchers believe.

The researchers made the case in a commentary article based on seven years of research studying the ecology of vacant land in Cleveland, published online Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications.

"By seeding vacant lots with native Ohio wildflowers, we sought to both beautify these spaces and support biodiversity," said Mary Gardiner, professor of entomology at The Ohio State University and senior author of the paper. "With this article, we wanted to highlight conservation is not successful when it creates conflict with local residents, and summarize best practices from the literature and our own experiences on the ground."

This study was part of a larger research project designed to understand the best ways to encourage biodiversity among beneficial insects such as bees, spiders and beetles in urban vacant lots.

When the project began in 2012, the researchers worked closely with city leaders, including members of the Cleveland City Council, the Cleveland Land Bank (an organization that manages the city's vacant properties), and others to identify neighborhoods—and vacant lots within those neighborhoods—for conservation projects. The team designed eight different conservation styles to be used over eight vacant lots in eight neighborhoods across Cleveland. In each neighborhood, vacant lots were cleaned and planted with different wildflowers that would support beneficial insects.

Then, they went door-to-door within a one-block radius of each of the 64 vacant lots in the study to talk with neighbors and make sure they were on board.

But that approach could have been improved, Gardiner said.

"That is asking people to accept something. It's not asking them to co-create it with you, which is a better strategy," she said. Also, she said, communication throughout the project duration is key and the group faced many challenges getting the word out about their conservation goals.


"Many living near our sites were short-term renters—the neighbors you would meet in year one, when you were establishing and planting, were not always the same neighbors present in year two. And so, people would notice our signs or the habitat and not know the back story and wouldn't feel like they were part of the decision-making process, which unfortunately disenfranchised some from the study."

Cleveland is a city of around 400,000 people; its population has declined in recent decades. The city covers about 84 square miles and has more than 27,000 vacant lots.

The project covered eight neighborhoods, with different conservation approaches in each area. That design was important for research purposes—it allowed the researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of each conservation approach, and to try to replicate approaches across one city. But the researchers emphasize that this research design is not ideal for conservation initiatives that might follow. A one-size-fits-all approach to conservation, even across one city, is unlikely to meet the needs of both residents and target species.

For example, the researchers mowed the edges of each vacant lot habitat, thinking that the residents might appreciate a border between their homes and a wild habitat that might feature tall flowers. But in some areas, residents thought that the teams had abandoned the lots partway through a mow job. Some residents appreciated the fencing that went around vacant lots; others thought it blocked them from accessing the habitats.

"We would advise conservation scientists in the future to focus on starting small in one particular community," said Katie Turo, first author of the paper and a doctoral student in Gardiner's lab. "And to recognize how important it is to invest in the community, develop objectives and continue to work with them to understand what's working and what's not working."

And while the researchers put up signs at each lot that included contact information, the scientists found that residents were most likely to talk with them—to complain, compliment the planting or ask questions—when they were on site.

"That was difficult, because many neighbors were working during the day when we were collecting data and managing the sites," Turo said. "We found that when we were able to stick around after 5 p.m., we were more likely to get feedback from residents. In the future though, we'd recommend that scientists avoid similar issues by partnering with sociologists who can help proactively gather community feedback."

The researchers cited a successful conservation project in Chicago, the Burnham Wildlife Corridor, which developed a migratory bird habitat, but which also invited community groups and residents to design their own project goals and habitat plans. That project was also designed in partnership with the Field Museum and Chicago Park District and built on 20 years of research into the local communities.

That local community buy-in matters: Conservation projects, Gardiner said, are more likely to be successful when the local community is excited about them and takes ownership. That means engaging residents throughout project conceptualization, implementation and assessment.

"Do not ask people to tolerate conservation," she said. "Instead, seek win-win scenarios for communities and biodiversity."

Large Lot Program shows the power of private land stewardship in addressing urban vacancy

More information: Katherine J. Turo et al. The balancing act of urban conservation, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17539-0
Journal information: Nature Communications

How to improve climate modeling and prediction

by University of Copenhagen

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

We are changing the Earth system at a unprecedented speed without knowing the consequences in detail. Increasingly detailed, physics-based models are improving steadily, but an in-depth understanding of persisting uncertainties is still lacking. The two main challenges have been to obtain the necessary amount of detail in the models and to accurately predict how anthropogenic carbon dioxide disturbs the climate's intrinsic, natural variability. A path to surmounting both of these obstacles are now laid out in a comprehensive review published in Reviews of Modern Physics by Michael Ghil and Valerio Lucarini from the EU Horizon 2020 climate science project TiPES.


"We propose ideas to perform much more effective climate simulations than the traditional approach of relying exclusively on bigger and bigger models allows. And we show how to extract much more information at much higher predictive power from those models. We think it is a valuable, original and much more effective way than a lot of things that are being done," says Valerio Lucarini, professor in mathematics and statistics at the University of Reading, UK and at CEN, the Institute of meteorology, University of Hamburg, Germany.

Such an approach is urgently needed, because current climate models generally fail in performing two important tasks. First, they cannot reduce the uncertainty in determining the mean global temperature at the surface after a doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. This number is called equilibrium climate sensitivity, and in 1979, it was computed to 1.5 to 4 degrees Celsius. Since then, the uncertainty has grown. Today it is 1.5 to 6 degrees in spite of decades of improvement to numerical models and huge gains in computational power over the same period.

Second, climate models struggle to predict tipping points, which occur when a subsystem i.e. a sea current, an ice sheet, a landscape, an eco system suddenly and irrevocably shift from one state to another. These kind of events are well documented in historical records and pose a major threat to modern societies. Still, they are not predicted by the high-end climate models that the IPCC assessments rely upon.

These difficulties are grounded in the fact that mathematical methodology used in most high-resolution climate calculations does not adequately reproduce deterministically chaotic behavior nor the associated uncertainties in the presence of time-dependent forcing.

Chaotic behavior is intrinsic to the Earth system, as many physical, chemical, geological and biological processes range in timescales from microseconds to million of years, including cloud formation, sedimentation, weathering, ocean currents, wind patterns, moisture, photosynthesis etc. Apart from that, the system is forced mainly by solar radiation, which varies naturally over time, but also by anthropogenic changes to the atmosphere. Thus, the Earth system is highly complex, deterministically chaotic, stochastically perturbed and never in equilibrium.

"What we are doing is essentially extending deterministic chaos to a much more general mathematical framework, which provides the tools to determine the response of the climate system to all sorts of forcings, deterministic as well as stochastic," explains Michael Ghil, professor at Ecole Normale Supérieure and PSL University in Paris, France and at the University of California, Los Angeles, U.S..

The fundamental ideas are not that new. The theory was developed decades ago, but is a very difficult mathematical theory calling for multidisciplinary cooperation between experts in order to be implemented in climate models. Such interdisciplinary approaches have been slowly emerging, involving the climate science community as well as experts in applied mathematics, theoretical physics and dynamical systems theory. The authors hope the review paper will accelerate this tendency as it describes the mathematical tools needed for such work.

"We present a self-consistent understanding of climate change and climate variability in a well defined coherent framework. I think that is an important step in solving the problem. Because first of all you have to pose it correctly. So the idea is—if we use the conceptual tools we discuss extensively in our paper, we might hope to help climate science and climate modeling make a leap forward," says Valerio Lucarini.Much improved climate predictions from statistical mechanics

More information: Ghil et al., The physics of climate variability and climate change. Reviews of Modern Physics (2020). journals.aps.org/rmp/accepted/ … 16873abe98ea7deb542d

Journal information: Reviews of Modern Physics


Provided by University of Copenhagen