It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
As our planet warms, seas rise and catastrophic weather events become more frequent, action on climate change has never been more important. But how do you convince people who still don't believe that humans contribute to the warming climate?
New UBC research may offer some insight, examining biases towards climate information and offering tools to overcome these and communicate climate change more effectively.
Researchers examined 44 studies conducted over the past five years on the attentional and perceptual biases of climate change - the tendency to pay special attention to or perceive particular aspects of climate change. They identified a number of differences between people of different political orientations, finding that those who were more liberal tended to pay attention to the rising part of a global temperature graph. When the temperature increase was emphasized in red, these people were more likely to take actions on climate change, including signing petitions and donating money. Not so for conservatives, where this effect was absent.
The review explains cognitive reasons for a lack of actions on climate change, says Prof. Jiaying Zhao (she/her/hers), a Language Sciences member and senior author, along with her student Yu Luo (he/him/his). "Climate change is a problem of collective behaviours so to address it, you have to address behaviours first."
These biases include that liberals who were concerned about the climate were more accurate at identifying climate-related words (e.g., carbon) than neutral words (e.g., coffee) in a rapid visual presentation, while conservatives who weren't concerned were no better at seeing climate-related words over neutral words, suggesting that people with different political orientations show different attentional priorities to climate change information.
This is something with which Prof. Zhao, an associate professor in the department of psychology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, has personal experience. "Anything to do with climate change in the news catches my attention. Anything about the climate in the headlines - carbon, flooding, hurricanes - it draws my attention quickly." Everyone has biases, Prof. Zhao says, and she is working to correct her own, "but no one is immune." Indeed, the review noted people with higher numeracy or literacy skills are better at selectively analyzing information to confirm their prior beliefs.
Perceptual biases were highlighted as well: the review concluded that misperceptions of norms within a group can be a barrier to bipartisan climate policy making in the U.S., with one study showing that people often hold distorted perceptions of the degree of opposition from those outside their group, resulting in a false sense of polarization. Another study found that the perception of greenhouse gas emissions was often incorrect, with people not understanding how global warming works, or the emissions associated with things like a hamburger or a flight.
Prof. Zhao stresses the urgency of addressing these biases to spur actions on climate change. "It is an increasingly urgent global challenge and we need to do something about it fast." The authors suggest several communication tools to do so, including that communication of climate change should align with a target group's ideologies and values: for conservatives, this could include framing pro-environmental actions as benefiting the economy, building a more moral and caring community or benefiting future generations. Negative framing has been shown to be more effective, Prof. Zhao says, so pointing out the negative consequences to one's family of climate change could be an effective communication tool. "Regardless of your political orientation, if it's going to harm your children, every parent will want to take action."
Other tools include providing accurate information on social norms for both in-groups and out-groups, for instance, the actual percentage of conservatives who do not believe in anthropogenic climate change; and providing simple and understandable visualizations of the greenhouse gas emissions of individual actions and items.
Whichever communication tool is used, the authors advise targeting specific cognitive processes associated with the audience group to effectively persuade people. And further work is needed on how to translate information to personal action, they say. But the time to act is now, says Prof. Zhao, with the paper providing policy makers clues to, and solutions for, inaction. "I see an urgent need to call for collective climate actions. We're not doing enough to address climate change and this paper explains some of the reasons."
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New oil palm map to inform policy and landscape-level planning
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
IMAGE: THE EXTENT AND YEAR OF DETECTION OF OIL PALM PLANTATIONS ZOOMED INTO FOUR LOCATIONS: KRABI, THAILAND, JOHOR IN MALAYSIA, CENTRAL KALIMANTAN AND RIAU IN SOUTH SUMATRA, INDONESIA. view more
CREDIT: IMAGE PRODUCED USING QGIS
IIASA researchers have used Sentinel 1 satellite imagery from the European Space Agency to produce a map of the extent and year of detection of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand that will help policymakers and other stakeholders understand trends in oil palm expansion while also providing an accurate map for landscape-level planning.
The world's appetite for palm oil seems to know no bounds. We use it in everything from beauty products and food, to industrial processes and biofuels to fulfill our energy needs. This ever growing demand has caused oil palm production to more than double in the last two decades, a development which has in turn deeply impacted natural forest ecosystems and biodiversity, while also significantly contributing to climate change by releasing carbon from converted forests and peatlands into the atmosphere. Today, almost 90% of the world's oil palm production takes place in Southeast Asia. While oil palm is known to be the most efficient oil producing plant globally, yields vary dynamically with plantation stand age, management practices, and location. To understand trends in oil palm plantation expansion and for landscape-level planning, accurate maps are needed. To this end, IIASA researchers have provided a detailed map of oil palm extent in 2017 using *Sentinel 1 satellite imagery from the European Space Agency in a new paper published in Nature Scientific Data.
"We specifically wanted to determine the extent and age of oil palm plantations across Southeast Asia and see if we could use technologies such as Google Earth Engine and data mining algorithms to produce an accurate map of oil palm extent from Sentinel 1 radar data, which could potentially be operationalized into a near-real time oil palm detection system. In addition, we wanted to explore the possibility of using time series analysis to go backwards in time and determine the age at which the plantation can first be detected (i.e., when trees are around 2 to 3 years in age)," explains lead author Olga Danylo, a researcher with the IIASA Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group.
While oil palm extent has been mapped before, this paper uses Sentinel 1 satellite data in combination with other data sets to map extent, along with time series from the Landsat archive to derive the year of plantation detection (which is a proxy for productive age of the plantations). This additional information is valuable for examining questions related to oil palm expansion over the last two decades, as well as the ability to calculate yields from the age information. (Yields increase during the plant's youth phase in the first seven years, reach a plateau during the prime age of 7-15 years, and then slowly start to decline before palms are replaced at the age of 25-30 years.) Therefore, knowing the exact extent and age of plantations across a landscape is crucial for landscape-level planning to allow for both sustainable oil palm production and forest conservation.
The paper's key output is a 30 m resolution map of Southeast Asia that indicates if oil palm is present and the year of detection of the plantation - a brand new feature that allows for a better understanding of oil palm expansion in Southeast Asia. The oil palm extent map has an overall accuracy of 83%, which is comparable to other products. The largest area of oil palm can be found in Sumatra and Kalimantan, with expansions in all major regions since the year 2000. The maps shows that the largest relative expansions over the last decade have taken place in Kalimantan, insular Malaysia, and Thailand, but interestingly, the net oil palm plantation area, excluding milling facilities, roads, and other related infrastructure, might be significantly smaller than previously thought.
According to the researchers, the new map could furthermore support the calculation of estimates of greenhouse gas emissions and removals for specific regions, provide a means whereby official statistics can be independently verified, and could also be used in analyses related to determining the economic trade-offs in different types of land use. In addition, the oil palm map in combination with spatial information about estate boundaries could help to identify specific actors and their adherence to environmental legislation and compliance with sustainability standards.
"Buying certified palm oil (RSPO) is a means of avoiding tropical deforestation. Our map can inform which sites are eligible for RSPO certification and it can help policymakers such as the EU commission to make more accurate and directed policies in relation to palm oil by for instance excluding palm oil from certain (recently deforested) areas from biofuels in the EU," concludes coauthor Johannes Pirker, a guest researcher with the Agriculture, Forestry, and Ecosystem Services Research Group at IIASA
* The Sentinel-1 mission comprises a constellation of two polar-orbiting satellites, operating day and night performing C-band synthetic aperture radar imaging, enabling them to acquire imagery regardless of the weather. Sentinel 1 satellite imagery is particularly valuable in tropical countries which are covered by clouds nearly all year.
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Reference
Danylo, O., Pirker, J., Lemoine, G., Ceccherini, G., See, L., McCallum, I., Hadi, Kraxner, F., Achard, F., Fritz, S. (2021). A map of the extent and year of detection of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Nature Scientific Data DOI: 10.1038/s41597-021-00867-1
Contacts:
Researcher contact Olga Danylo Research Scholar Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group Advancing Systems Analysis Program Tel: +43 2236 807 248 danylo@iiasa.ac.at
Johannes Pirker Guest Research Scholar Agriculture, Forestry, and Ecosystem Services Research Group Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program pirker@iiasa.ac.at
About IIASA: The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. http://www.iiasa.ac.at
Factors that may predict next pandemic
Climate change associated with emerging disease spread
IMAGE: WORLD MAP INDICATING ZOONOTIC PATHOGEN DIVERSITY. RED = HIGH DIVERSITY, GREEN = LOW DIVERSITY view more
CREDIT: SINGH ET AL.
Humans are creating or exacerbating the environmental conditions that could lead to further pandemics, new University of Sydney research finds.
Modelling from the Sydney School of Veterinary Science suggests pressure on ecosystems, climate change and economic development are key factors associated with the diversification of pathogens (disease-causing agents, like viruses and bacteria). This has potential to lead to disease outbreaks.
The research, by Dr Balbir B Singh, Professor Michael Ward, and Associate Professor Navneet Dhand, is published in the international journal, Transboundary and Emerging Diseases.
They found a greater diversity of zoonotic diseases (diseases transmitted between animals and humans) in higher income countries with larger land areas, more dense human populations, and greater forest coverage.
The study also confirms increasing population growth and density are major drivers in the emergence of zoonotic diseases. The global human population has increased from about 1.6 billion in 1900 to about 7.8 billion today, putting pressure on ecosystems.
Associate Professor Dhand said: "As the human population increases, so does the demand for housing. To meet this demand, humans are encroaching on wild habitats. This increases interactions between wildlife, domestic animals and human beings which increases the potential for bugs to jump from animals to humans."
"To date, such disease models have been limited, and we continue to be frustrated in understanding why diseases continue to emerge," said Professor Ward, an infectious diseases expert.
"This information can help inform disease mitigation and may prevent the next COVID-19."
Other zoonotic diseases that have recently devastated human populations include SARS, avian (H5N1) and swine (H1N1) flu, Ebola and Nipah - a bat-borne virus.
Factors predicting disease
The researchers discovered country-level factors predicting three categories of disease: zoonotic, emerging (newly discovered diseases, or those diseases that have increased in occurrence or occurred in new locations), and human.
Zoonotic diseases: land area, human population density, and area of forest. Areas with high zoonotic disease diversity include Europe, North America, Latin America, Australia, and China.
Emerging diseases: land area, human population density and the human development index. Areas with high emerging disease diversity include Europe, North America,
Human diseases: high per capita health expenditure, mean annual temperature, land area, human population density, human development index and rainfall. Areas with high human disease diversity include North America, Latin America, China and India.
"Countries within a longitude of -50 to -100 like Brazil, developed countries like United States and dense countries such as India were predicted to have a greater diversity of emerging diseases," Professor Ward said.
The researchers also noted weather variables, such as temperature and rainfall, could influence the diversity of human diseases. At warmer temperatures, there tend to be more emerging pathogens.
The analyses demonstrate that weather variables (temperature and rainfall) have the potential to influence pathogen diversity These factors combined confirm human development - including human-influenced climate change - not only damages our environment but is responsible for the emergence of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19.
Using data to help prevent outbreaks
"Our analysis suggests sustainable development is not only critical to maintaining ecosystems and slowing climate change; it can inform disease control, mitigation, or prevention," Professor Ward said.
"Due to our use of national-level data, all countries could use these models to inform their public health policies and planning for future potential pandemics."
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Methodology: The authors used 13,892 unique pathogen-country combinations and 49 socioeconomic and environmental variables to develop this model. Information from 190 countries was analysed using statistical models to identify drivers for emerging and zoonotic diseases.
Declaration: The authors would like to thank the Australian Government's Department of Education and Training for awarding a 2018 Endeavour Research Fellowship to the primary author of this research.
The authors acknowledge the data relied for this research is incomplete. Reasons include underreporting of some previously known and undiscovered pathogens, particularly in less developed countries. For some of the predictor variables, the latest data available had missing values because recent data had not been updated.
64% of global agricultural land at risk of pesticide pollution?
Asia and Europe revealed as having regions at high-risk of pesticide pollution
IMAGE: GLOBAL MAP REVEALS AREAS AT RISK OF PESTICIDE POLLUTION view more
CREDIT: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR FEDERICO MAGGI, DR FIONA TANG, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
The study, published in Nature Geoscience, produced a global model mapping pollution risk caused by 92 chemicals commonly used in agricultural pesticides in 168 countries.
The study examined risk to soil, the atmosphere, and surface and ground water.
The map also revealed Asia houses the largest land areas at high risk of pollution, with China, Japan, Malaysia, and the Philippines at highest risk. Some of these areas are considered "food bowl" nations, feeding a large portion of the world's population.
University of Sydney Research Associate and the study's lead author, Dr Fiona Tang, said the widespread use of pesticides in agriculture - while boosting productivity - could have potential implications for the environment, human and animal health.
"Our study has revealed 64 percent of the world's arable land is at risk of pesticide pollution. This is important because the wider scientific literature has found that pesticide pollution can have adverse impacts on human health and the environment," said Dr Tang.
Pesticides can be transported to surface waters and groundwater through runoff and infiltration, polluting water bodies, thereby reducing the usability of water resources.
"Although the agricultural land in Oceania shows the lowest pesticide pollution risk, Australia's Murray-Darling basin is considered a high-concern region both due to its water scarcity issues, and its high biodiversity," said co-author Associate Professor Federico Maggi from the School of Civil Engineering and the Sydney Institute of Agriculture.
"Globally, our work shows that 34 percent of the high-risk areas are in high-biodiversity regions, 19 percent in low-and lower-middle-income nations and five percent in water-scarce areas," said Dr Tang.
There is concern that overuse of pesticides will tip the balance, destabilise ecosystems and degrade the quality of water sources that humans and animals rely on to survive.
CAPTION
Global map reveals areas at risk of pesticide pollution
CREDIT
Associate Professor Federico Maggi, Dr Fiona Tang, University of Sydney
The future outlook
Global pesticide use is expected to increase as the global population heads towards an expected 8.5 billion by 2030.
"In a warmer climate, as the global population grows, the use of pesticides is expected to increase to combat the possible rise in pest invasions and to feed more people," said Associate Professor Maggi.
Dr Tang said: "Although protecting food production is essential for human development, reducing pesticide pollution is equivalently crucial to protect the biodiversity that maintains soil health and functions, contributing towards food security."
Co-author Professor Alex McBratney, Director of the Sydney Institute of Agriculture at the University of Sydney, said: "This study shows it will be important to carefully monitor residues on an annual basis to detect trends in order to manage and mitigate risks from pesticide use."
"We recommend a global strategy to transition towards a sustainable, global agricultural model that reduces food wastage while reducing the use of pesticides," said the authors of the paper.
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DISCLOSURE:
This research was supported by the University of Sydney's EnviroSphere research program. =The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare
Maternal exposure to chemicals linked to autistic-like behaviours in children
A new study by Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Health Sciences researchers - published today in the American Journal of Epidemiology - found correlations between increased expressions of autistic-like behaviours in pre-school aged children to gestational exposure to select environmental toxicants, including metals, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), phthalates, and bisphenol-A (BPA).
This population study measured the levels of 25 chemicals in blood and urine samples collected from 1,861 Canadian women during the first trimester of pregnancy. A follow up survey was conducted with 478 participants, using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) tool for assessing autistic-like behaviours in pre- school children.
The researchers found that higher maternal concentrations of cadmium, lead, and some phthalates in blood or urine samples was associated with increased SRS scores, and these associations were particularly strong among children with a higher degree of autistic-like behaviours. Interestingly, the study also noted that increased maternal concentrations of manganese, trans-Nonachlor, many organophosphate pesticide metabolites, and mono-ethyl phthalate (MEP) were most strongly associated with lower SRS scores.
The study's lead author, Josh Alampi, notes that this study primarily "highlights the relationships between select environmental toxicants and increased SRS scores. Further studies are needed to fully assess the links and impacts of these environmental chemicals on brain development during pregnancy."
The results were achieved by using a statistical analysis tool, called Bayesian quantile regression, that allowed investigators to determine which individual toxicants were associated with increased SRS scores in a more nuanced way than conventional methods.
"The relationships we discovered between these toxicants and SRS scores would not have been detected through the use of a means-based method of statistical analysis (such as linear regression)," noted Alampi. "Although quantile regression is not frequently used by investigators, it can be a powerful way to analyze complex population-based data."
The race is on, but cooling industry needsto accelerate net zero efforts
First-ever report shows cooling industry slow to join race to net zero emissions; New tools released to support industry to join the race to zero; Major cooling industry player Johnson Controls reinforces commitment to net zero cooling
IMAGE: COVER OF THE NEW REPORT FROM THE COOL COALITION AND PARTNERS. UNEP HELPED FORM THE COALITION IN RECOGNITION THAT ALMOST ONE-THIRD OF HUMANITY FACES DANGEROUS TEMPERATURES FOR MORE THAN 20... view more
CREDIT: UNEP / COOL COALITION
Paris, Nairobi, London, 29 March 2021 - Five major cooling suppliers are racing to net zero but they represent fewer than ten per cent of the 54 suppliers assessed in a new report, meaning the industry has a lot of work to do to catch up on climate action and reduce pollution from the sector, currently estimated at 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
With the world still falling short of meeting the Paris Agreement goals of holding global temperature rise this century to under 2 degrees C, and pursue 1.5 degrees C, action to reduce the climate impact of cooling will be essential.
According to the International Energy Agency, emissions from cooling are expected to double by 2030 and triple by 2100, driven by heat waves, population growth, urbanization, and a growing middle class. By 2050, space cooling alone will consume as much electricity as China and India today.
The UN has identified cooling as a key sector for action in its Race to Zero Breakthroughs, which are intended to galvanise action ahead of the next global climate meeting, COP26, which is due to take place later this year.
However, Cooling Suppliers: Who's Winning the Race to Net Zero (available at https://bit.ly/3sBhnt0), finds that 49 out of 54 companies assessed have yet to commit to ambitious net-zero targets, despite some efforts to reduce their emissions.
The report - released by the Race to Zero campaign, the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP), Carbon Trust and other partners in the UN Environment Programme-hosted Cool Coalition - assesses cooling firms against three key impact areas defined in the Cooling Climate Action Pathway.
These are:
Super-efficient equipment and appliances: Making super-efficient cooling equipment and smart appliances powered by zero-carbon energy the norm;
Ultra-low global warming potential refrigerants; and
Passive cooling: Widespread adoption of measures that avoid or reduce the need for mechanical cooling, including reductions in cooling loads, human-centric design and urban planning.
The report calls on cooling firms to show increased ambition to line up with net-zero commitments from over 100 governments and many other private sector actors.
One company that recently announced new commitments is Johnson Controls, a global leader for smart, healthy and sustainable buildings and producer of cooling equipment. The company has committed to moving its operations to net-zero emissions by 2040. Johnson Controls, which employs 100,000 people in more than 150 countries, is also a member of the Cool Coalition - a group of over 100 companies, governments, cities and organizations working to lower the climate impact of the cooling industry.
"Johnson Controls is proud of its recent commitment to achieve the most ambitious science-based targets by 2030 and net zero carbon emissions before 2040," said Clay Nesler, vice president global energy and sustainability at Johnson Controls. "Smart, healthy and sustainable cooling solutions are key to accelerating the race to zero for our company as well as our customers."
New tools to accelerate cooling action
To help other companies and countries join the race to net zero, Cool Coalition partners are also releasing a suite of products to guide their actions - with the support of K-CEP and the technical expertise of the Carbon Trust.
The report comes alongside the Pathway to Net Zero Cooling Action Plan for the COP26 Champions Team which highlights the areas where progress is needed. The action table has been endorsed by a range of leading organisations and institutions including CLASP, E3G, the Environmental Investigation Agency, IGSD, RMI, UN Environment Programme, University of Birmingham and the University of Oxford.
A 'Cool Calculator' scenario planning tool is also being launched to help companies and governments run simple calculations on key aspects of cooling decarbonization to enable them to identify the set of solutions that works best for them.
Additionally, the UK's Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has launched a net-zero cooling product guide that will allow companies, governments and consumers to cut their cooling footprint by choosing products that are energy-efficient and run on natural refrigerants with ultra-low Global Warming Potential.
"As consumers and producers of cooling look to reduce their carbon footprint, urgent action on both refrigerants and energy efficiency is needed," said Fionnuala Walravens, Senior Campaigner at EIA. "EIA's Pathway to net-zero cooling product list offers a range of climate-friendly solutions available now."
The EIA list also calls on governments to do more to support the uptake of sustainable cooling, by outlining cooling plans in their commitments under the Paris Agreement and looking at legislation to speed up the phasing out of hydrofluorocarbons - climate-warming refrigerants that are now being phased out under an international agreement known as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.
"The development and expansion of net-zero cooling is a critical part of our Race to Zero emissions," said Nigel Topping, UK High Level Champion for COP26. "In addition to technological breakthroughs and ambitious legislation, we also need sustainable consumer purchasing to help deliver wholesale systems change, and as such I welcome the EIA cooling products guide as an important contribution to accelerating the race."
Additional quotes:
"Efforts to race to net zero cooling present an incredible opportunity to meet ambitious climate, environment and development goals and unlock the clean energy transition" said David Aitken, Director, Innovation at the Carbon Trust. "These tools show how we can get there."
"From healthcare and agriculture, to transportation and buildings, the environmental performance of cooling impacts many sectors' pathways to zero carbon emissions," said Dan Hamza-Goodacre, K-CEP's Non-Executive Director. "We won't get to net zero without concerted and ambitious action on cooling."
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NOTES TO EDITORS
About the Race to Zero
Race To Zero is a global campaign to rally leadership and support from businesses, cities, regions, investors for a healthy, resilient, zero carbon recovery that prevents future threats, creates decent jobs, and unlocks inclusive, sustainable growth.
It mobilizes a coalition of leading net zero initiatives, representing 471 cities, 23 regions, 1,675 businesses, 85 of the biggest investors, and 569 universities. These 'real economy' actors join 120 countries in the largest ever alliance committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest. Collectively these actors now cover nearly 25% global CO2 emissions and over 50% GDP.
The objective is to build momentum around the shift to a decarbonized economy ahead of COP26, where governments must strengthen their contributions to the Paris Agreement. This will send governments a resounding signal that business, cities, regions and investors are united in meeting the Paris goals and creating a more inclusive and resilient economy.
About the Cool Coalition
The Cool Coalition is one of the official outcomes and "Transformation Initiatives" put forward by the Executive Office of the Secretary-General for the UN Climate Action Summit in New York. Hosted by UNEP, the Cool Coalition is a global multi-stakeholder network that connects a wide range of key actors from government, cities, international organizations, businesses, finance, academia, and civil society groups to facilitate knowledge exchange, advocacy and joint action towards a rapid global transition to efficient and climate-friendly cooling. For more information, visit http://www.coolcoalition.org
About the Carbon Trust
Established in 2001, the Carbon Trust works with businesses, governments and institutions around the world, helping them contribute to, and benefit from, a more sustainable future through carbon reduction, resource efficiency strategies, and commercialising low carbon businesses, systems and technologies.
About the Environmental Investigation Agency
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) investigates and campaigns against environmental crime and abuses. Our undercover investigations expose transnational wildlife crime, with a focus on elephants, pangolins and tigers, and forest crimes such as illegal logging and deforestation for cash crops such as palm oil; we work to safeguard global marine ecosystems by tackling plastic pollution, exposing illegal fishing and seeking an end to all whaling; and we address the threat of global warming by campaigning to curtail powerful refrigerant greenhouse gases and exposing related criminal trade.
About Johnson Controls:
At Johnson Controls (NYSE:JCI) we transform the environments where people live, work, learn and play. As the global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, our mission is to reimagine the performance of buildings to serve people, places and the planet.
With a history of more than 135 years of innovation, Johnson Controls delivers the blueprint of the future for industries such as healthcare, schools, data centers, airports, stadiums, manufacturing and beyond through its comprehensive digital offering OpenBlue. With a global team of 100,000 experts in more than 150 countries, Johnson Controls offers the world`s largest portfolio of building technology, software as well as service solutions with some of the most trusted names in the industry. For more information, visit http://www.johnsoncontrols.com or follow us @johnsoncontrols on Twitter.
About the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program
The Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP), a program of the ClimateWorks Foundation, is a philanthropic collaborative that works in tandem with the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol by helping developing countries transition to energy-efficient, climate-friendly, and affordable cooling solutions. K-CEP focuses on improving the energy efficiency of cooling in order to double the climate benefits and significantly increase the development benefits of the Kigali Amendment's efforts to phase down the production and use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert syste
Probing wet fire smoke in clouds: can water intensify the earth's warming?
One-of-a-kind instrument measures humidity's effects on smoke, filling a key data gap in predicting the scale and long-term impact of fire
IMAGE: THE NEW INSTRUMENT THAT SAMPLES SMOKE AND SCANS THE HUMIDITY WAS USED DURING THE RIO MEDIO FIRE ON AUG. 30. view more
CREDIT: PHOTO BY MANVENDRA DUBEY.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., March 29, 2021--A first-of-its-kind instrument that samples smoke from megafires and scans humidity will help researchers better understand the scale and long-term impact of fires--specifically how far and high the smoke will travel; when and where it will rain; and whether the wet smoke will warm the climate by absorbing sunlight.
"Smoke containing soot and other toxic particles from megafires can travel thousands of kilometers at high altitudes where winds are fast and air is dry," said Manvendra Dubey, a Los Alamos National Laboratory atmospheric scientist and co-author on a paper published last week in Aerosol Science and Technology. "These smoke-filled clouds can absorb much more sunlight than dry soot--but this effect on light absorption has been difficult to measure because laser-based techniques heat the particles and evaporate the water, which corrupt observations."
The new instrument circumvents this problem by developing a gentler technique that uses a low-power, light-emitting diode to measure water's effect on scattering and absorbtion by wildfire smoke and hence its growth. By sampling the smoke and scanning the humidity from dry to very humid conditions while measuring its optical properties, the instrument mimicks what happens during cloud and rain formation, and the effects of water are measured immediately. Laboratory experiments show for the first time that water coating the black soot-like material can enhance the light absorption by up to 20 percent.
The instrument will next be tested and the water effects probed in smoke from wildfires sampled at Los Alamos' Center for Aerosol-gas Forensics (CAFÉ). Los Alamos will be deploying instruments to Houston next year as part of the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) facility's Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER) campaign. Los Alamos's effort, called TRACER-CAT, will measure how water uptake by soot interacts with deep convective storms.
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Dubey worked with Christian M. Carrico of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology on a research team that included scientists from Los Alamos, New Mexico Tech, and Michigan Technological University and Aerodyne Research, Inc. The novel findings of experiments were performed by the Los Alamos Director's postdoctoral fellow Kyle Gorkowski and Department of Energy graduate fellow Tyler Capek.
Paper: "Humidified Single Scattering Albedometer (H-CAPS-PMSSA): Design, Data-Analysis, and Validation," Christian M. Carrico, Tyler J. Capek, Kyle J. Gorkowski, Jared T. Lam, Sabina Gulick, Jaimy Karacaoglu, James E. Lee, Charlotte Dungan, Allison C. Aiken, Timothy B. Onasch, Andrew Freedman, Claudio Mazzoleni, and Manvendra K. Dubey, Aerosol Science and Technology, volume 55, issue 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2021.1895430
Funding: This work was supported by the U.S. DOE, Office of Science, Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS) under the Visiting Faculty Program (VFP) for Carrico and Lam and the DOE Student Undergraduate Laboratory Intern Program for Lam and Karacaoglu. Capek was partially supported by a fellowship through a DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program. Additional support was provided by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research's Atmospheric System Research program. Research at Los Alamos National Laboratory's was supported by the DOE's Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) and Atmospheric System Research (ASR) Program, the Lab's Directed Research portion of the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program and Gorkowski as a Director's postdoctoral fellow.
About Los Alamos National Laboratory (www.lanl.gov)
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is managed by Triad, a public service oriented, national security science organization equally owned by its three founding members: Battelle Memorial Institute (Battelle), the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS), and the Regents of the University of California (UC) for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns. LA-UR-21-22850
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy
Jordan's worsening water crisis a warning for the world
Stanford study reveals a deepening water crisis in Jordan - and a way forward
Dwindling water supplies and a growing population will halve per capita water use in Jordan by the end of this century. Without intervention, few households in the arid nation will have access to even 40 liters (10.5 gallons) of piped water per person per day.
Low-income neighborhoods will be the hardest hit, with 91 percent of households receiving less than 40 liters daily for 11 consecutive months per year by 2100.
Those are among the sobering predictions of a peer-reviewed paper by an international team of 17 researchers published March 29 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Jordan's deepening water crisis offers a glimpse of challenges that loom elsewhere as a result of climate change, population growth, intensifying water use, demographic shocks and heightened competition for water across boundaries, said study co-author and Stanford hydrologist Steve Gorelick, who directs the Global Freshwater Initiative at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. The World Health Organization estimates half of humanity may live in water-stressed areas by 2025, and the United Nations anticipates water scarcity could displace 700 million people by 2030.
In Jordan, flows in the region's biggest river system - the Jordan-Yarmouk - have declined as a result of upstream diversion in Israel and Syria. Groundwater levels in some areas have dropped by more than 1 meter per year, and a major aquifer along Jordan's boundary with Saudi Arabia is heavily pumped on both sides of the border.
Demand for water has climbed largely because of population growth punctuated by waves of refugees, including more than 1 million Syrian refugees in the past decade.
Extreme water scarcity and wide disparities in public water supplies are potent ingredients for conflict. Jordan's water situation - long deemed a crisis - is now on the brink of "boiling over" into instability, said lead study author Jim Yoon, a water security and resilience scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
"Jordan's unique role as a bastion of peace in the region makes these findings all the more cause for concern," said Yoon, who began work on the study as a PhD student at Stanford University.
The U.N. has committed to ensuring sustainable freshwater management and universal access to clean water and sanitation as one of its 17 sustainable development goals. But until now, analytic frameworks have been lacking, said Gorelick, who led the Jordan Water Project and its continuation, the FUSE Project (Food-water-energy for Urban Sustainable Environments).
The new predictions derive from a first-of-its-kind computer model of Jordan's freshwater system that simulates interactions among natural processes and human behaviors. Under a range of climate and socioeconomic scenarios, the researchers quantified the effects of maintaining status quo versus introducing measures such as fixing leaky pipes, eliminating water theft, raising tariffs for big water users and reallocating a quarter of water from farms to cities.
The team's modeling suggests efforts to simultaneously increase supply, slash demand and reform distribution are likely to deliver "exponential" improvements in national water security.
Access to Jordan's public water supply today is highly unequal, with wealthier households and firms often supplementing rationed municipal supplies with costly deliveries from private tanker truck operators. German economist and study co-author Christian Klassert said, "Avoiding large disparities in public water supply will be necessary to avoid water stress under growing water scarcity in Jordan and regions around the world."
The many facets of Jordan's water crisis make it an especially valuable place to explore the impacts of individual versus simultaneous interventions, Gorelick said. Now that a model exists for this complex environment, it can be adapted with relative ease to other regions.
The single most effective step Jordan can take is to increase supply through large-scale desalination. One proposal among many Jordan has pursued to this end since the 1960s would desalinate water from the Red Sea in the south, transport freshwater north to the capital city Amman and dispose of the leftover highly saline water in the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea.
While water policy debates often present selected supply and demand interventions as opposing alternatives, the authors write, suites of interventions in both modes actually work best in concert.
"You would think that any one of these interventions would have a greater impact. But it turns out you have to do everything," Gorelick said.
For a country whose economic output per person is less than one-tenth that of the U.S., the scale and cost of near-total reform of its water sector are particularly daunting. "In water-scarce regions where sustainability planning is most needed, it is challenging to think beyond how to distribute scarce freshwater tomorrow, next month, and to some extent, in the next several years," Gorelick said. "It's in these places where our long-term policy evaluations are most valuable."
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Read a blog post by Gorelick, Klassert and Yoon highlighting key points for policymakers.
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Germany's Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the Belmont Forum. Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and USAID provided additional funding.
