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)
Thursday, November 04, 2021
In-person school during COVID-19 must address needs of underserved communities
NIH commentary highlights community engagement in research design and implementation
NIH/EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
WHAT:
Safe, in-person school during the COVID-19 pandemic requires research that involves community engagement in underserved or vulnerable areas of the United States, writes Alison Cernich, Ph.D., deputy director of NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and colleagues. Earlier studies on safety measures in schools (e.g., masking, physical distancing and symptom monitoring) were often conducted in affluent and ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. To address health disparities during the pandemic, NIH launched Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics – Underserved Populations (RADx-UP), which includes the Return to School Diagnostic Testing Approaches initiative. Projects from this initiative are also summarized in this special supplement of Pediatrics.
Without in-person schooling, many children miss out on social development, school-based meals, speech or occupational therapy and after school programs. Loss of such services disproportionately affects minorities, socially and economically disadvantaged children and children with disabilities or medical complexities. The return to school testing initiative addresses the needs of these communities by requiring a partnership between researchers and community members. Families, school staff and community members have communication channels to discuss testing preferences, test results and other questions with the research team.
Results from the initiative have already provided evidence-based strategies to help prevent infection, contain outbreaks, reduce the time needed for quarantine and to track viral variants in diverse school settings across the country. Ultimately, the goal of the initiative, which is coordinated with NIH, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, is to facilitate safe, in-person learning by providing community-tailored access to COVID-19 testing and safety measures.
WHO:
Alison Cernich, Ph.D., NICHD Deputy Director, is available for interviews.
REFERENCE:
Cernich AN, Lee S, and Bianchi DW. Building the evidence for safe return to school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pediatrics DOI: 10.1542/peds.2021-054268B (2021)
All data are for 2019, with Euros converted to dollars at 1.12 Euro/dollar. *The U.S. does not count organic farmers – 16,585 represents the number of organic farms, some of which have more than one farmer. Credit: Table: The Conversation, CC BY-ND Source: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, European Commission and USDA
Recent polls show that a majority of Americans are concerned about climate change and willing to make lifestyle changes to address it. Other surveys show that many U.S. consumers are worried about possible health risks of eating food produced with pesticides, antibiotics and hormones.
One way to address all of these concerns is to expand organic agriculture. Organic production generates fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional farming, largely because it doesn't use synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. And it prohibits using synthetic pesticides and giving hormones or antibiotics to livestock.
But the U.S. isn't currently setting the bar high for growing its organic sector. Across the Atlantic, Europe has a much more focused, aggressive strategy.
The EU'S Farm to Fork plan
The European Union's Farm to Fork strategy, often described as the heart of the European Green Deal, was adopted in 2020 and strengthened in October 2021. It sets forth ambitious 2030 targets: a 50% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, a 50% cut in pesticide use and a 20% cut in fertilizer use.
Recognizing that organic production can make important contributions to these goals, the policy calls for increasing the percentage of EU farmland under organic management from 8.1% to 25% by 2030. The European Parliament has adopted a detailed organic plan to achieve this goal.
Credit: Chart: The Conversation, CC BY-ND Source: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture
Today the U.S. is the world's largest organic marketplace, with US$51 billion in sales in 2019. But the EU is not far behind, at $46 billion, and if it achieves its Farm to Fork targets, it is likely to become the global leader.
And that ambition is reflected in national food policies. For example, in Copenhagen 88% of ingredients in meals served at the city's 1,000 public schools are organic. Similarly, in Italy school meals in more than 13,000 schools countrywide contain organic ingredients.
The U.S. strategy is technology-driven
In contrast with the EU, the U.S. has no plan at the national level for expanding organic production, or even a plan to make a plan.
Less than 1% of U.S. farmland—about 5.6 million acres (2.3 million hectares) is farmed according to national organic standards, compared with 36 million acres (14.6 million hectares) in the EU. This small sector doesn't produce enough organic food to meet consumer demand, so much of the organic food consumed in the U.S. is imported from nearly 45,000 foreign operations. While the U.S. government tracks imports of only 100 organic food products—a small sliver of what comes in—spending in 2020 on these items alone exceeded $2.5 billion.
I see this gap as a huge missed opportunity. President Biden has called for a "Buy American" strategy to bolster the U.S. economy, but today consumers are spending money on organic imports without reaping the environmental or economic benefits of having more land under organic management. More domestic production would improve soil and water quality and create jobs in rural areas.
Patrick Barbour, winner of a climate-friendly farming competition sponsored by the National Farmers Union of Scotland, explains steps he is taking on his organic sheep and cattle farm to reduce carbon emissions and deliver environmental benefits.
At the U.N. Food Systems Summit, many world leaders called for reforms to eradicate hunger, poverty and inequality, and address climate change. Food systems experts understand that global nutrition security depends on empowering women, eliminating corruption, addressing food waste, preserving biodiversity and embracing environmentally responsible production—including organic agriculture. Not on the list: increasing yields.
Addressing agriculture's role in climate change means changing how nations produce, process, transport, consume and waste food. I believe that when leaders call for cutting-edge, science-based solutions, they need to embrace and support a broad spectrum of science, including agroecology—sustainable farming that works with nature and reduces reliance on external inputs like fertilizers and pesticides.
The Biden-Harris administration could do this by developing a comprehensive plan to realize the untapped potential of organic agriculture, with clear goals and strategies to increase organic production and with it, the number of organic farmers. Consumers are ready to buy what U.S. organic farmers raise.Sri Lanka reverses organic farming drive as tea suffers
The New Zealand government is currently developing plans to address two crises—climate change and waste—and to embrace a circular economy. But it has no clear path for how to do this. The resulting muddle is watering down the potential of a circular economy to bring lasting change.
Public consultation is underway to develop an emissions reduction plan, following the Climate Change Commission's advice on carbon budgets towards New Zealand's 2050 net-zero target.
Both documents intend to move Aotearoa towards a circular economy—one that limits waste and pollution, keeps products in use, and regenerates natural systems to protect, not pillage, natural resources.
But the government's plans for circularity are fragmented, contradictory and uncoordinated. They fail to confront the business-as-usual drivers of the linear economy or to enhance collaboration.
New Zealand needs a dedicated Crown agency to champion a low-waste, low-emissions circular economy.
The need for circularity
New Zealand is one of the most wasteful countries in the OECD. Waste is not only a pollutant but the dead end of a linear supply chain that emits greenhouse gases at every step along the way.
Roughly half of global emissions come from producing and consuming stuff. Every bit of waste represents embodied emissions lost to the economy.
Circular practices preserve this embodied energy by keeping products and materials in use. This slows down global extraction of natural resources, from mining to tree-felling. The less is extracted, the more waste and emissions are reduced.
Currently, just 8.6% of the global economy is circular. This figure must double by 2032 to keep us on track to limit global warming to 1.5℃.
Doubling the circularity of New Zealand's economy would mean transforming production and consumption systems. Today, much of what we make and buy is inherently linear.
In a circular economy, products are built to last and designed for repair. Organics are composted to replenish soils. Business models favor sharing over individual ownership, and reuse over single use.
This seismic shift in economic direction demands coordination across sectors, strong leadership and a shared understanding of the circular model. The government must collaborate with those already practicing circularity and reconfigure the rules to wind down linear practices.
Lack of a whole-of-system approach
The consultation documents do not tell a shared circular economy story. The waste strategy focuses on end-of-product-life processes such as waste management, litter and recycling; the proposed emissions reduction plan discusses business models and innovation.
The waste proposal suggests the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) will eventually bind everything together in a "separate and broader circular economy strategy," but this risks creating a bigger tangle.
The confusion is not surprising. The government's work on circularity has been splintered between the Ministry for the Environment and MBIE. The agencies' organizational cultures and priorities differ and they have not connected their thinking for a whole-of-system approach.
Critical elements of the circular economy are falling through the cracks in the silos, particularly the part about economic transformation. Increasing corporate responsibility for waste is the hottest potato no one wants to touch.
The consultation documents propose few upstream policy interventions to trigger product redesign or new business models that reduce waste and emissions. Instead, they focus on using or disposing of waste after it's been produced, which presumes, rather than challenges, linear inefficiencies.
All the wrong circles
Despite responsibility being the central theme of the waste proposal, it makes nobody responsible for waste creation because it never analyzes where waste comes from. Instead, it emphasizes improved waste management and anti-littering laws. This lumps responsibility at the end of the pipe, on individuals and councils who cannot influence waste baked into the system further upstream.
Furthermore, product stewardship is ring-fenced to "end-of-life" activity, neutralizing its potential to redistribute responsibility further up product supply chains.
The emissions reduction plan does not fill this gap, apart from some promising initiatives for the construction sector. The connection it draws between circularity and climate abatement mostly relates to organic waste rather than overall production and consumption. Despite considering the potential for new business models to address climate change, product stewardship is barely mentioned.
Instead, it views circular innovation through the lens of the "bioeconomy," where waste-derived biomass is converted into bioenergy and new products. But a bioeconomy depends on continued waste generation, which is arguably non-circular. It also contradicts the waste proposal's suggestion to discourage waste-to-energy "downcycling" through levies.
A circular economy with no driver
The government cannot achieve circularity alone, but has no cogent plan for collaboration.
Supporting community groups and local enterprises does not appear a government priority. Both documents describe circularity and innovation as future states, yet many organizations already implement circular and zero-waste practices and are potential partners.
A Te Tiriti-based partnership is fundamental for economic transformation. The Climate Change Commission described the circular economy as aligned with a Māori worldview. Organizations like Para Kore show Māori leadership in advancing zero waste and circularity.
While the emissions reduction plan promises meaningful partnership with Māori, the waste proposal does not. This is a missed opportunity. New waste legislation could protect Māori decision-making rights and rangatiratanga over natural resources.
Rather than charting a clear path to a circular economy, the government is proliferating documents that perpetuate a business-as-usual approach where communities, councils and government run around in the wrong kinds of circles, cleaning up after industry.
The problem isn't a lack of good ideas. But these ideas aren't properly filtered or organized, important elements and key partners are missing and nobody's in the driver's seat.
Moving Aotearoa away from silos and towards a circular economy requires a dedicated Crown agency with a Te Tiriti-compliant governing structure. This agency could champion circularity, resource efficiency and conservation across the system, from resource extraction to product disposal.How seafood business models can incorporate circular economy principles
Uncovered: 100 years of coastal transformation on Mersea Island
by CITiZAN
Cleaning archaeological remains on the beach at Mersea. Credit: CITiZAN
A team of community archaeologists from CITiZAN (the Coastal and Intertidal Archaeological Network) working in partnership with the local community on Mersea Island, Essex, have lifted the lid on the origins of rapid destruction of the island's coastal environment. With funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and the support of Mersea Island Museum, a unique community-led pilot project is helping to shape climate action locally and has the potential to support change on a national and even international level.
The findings from this project are brought together in an online exhibition, Changing Minds, Changing Coasts.
Researchers brought together an evocative collection of over 300 historical photos from private collections, postcards, and five hours of oral history, alongside a series of historical maps, which were then analyzed against archaeological and ecological indicators of coastal change. This exceptional dataset reveals a timeline of major changes to the foreshore, highlighting when human interactions and natural events combined to transform the island's coastline.
Oliver Hutchison, CITiZAN Lead Archaeologist, said: "The photographs, memories and keen observations of the Mersea community uncovered the complex story of coastal change in a way we didn't think possible for a citizen science project undertaken during COVID-19 lockdown conditions. This community-created data set is absolutely vital in helping us to understand what might happen to our coasts in the coming century and crucially, what we can do to shape that future."
A biodiverse foreshore
In the 1920s, Mersea was surrounded by vast, richly biodiverse marshlands. These mudbanks supported meadows of seagrass like eelgrass that played a vital role in reducing the impact of wave energy on the marshland
.Cudmore Grove cliffs, Mersea. Credit: Mersea Museum and CITiZAN
.Cudmore Grove, Mersea. Credit: Mersea Museum and CITiZAN
Cudmore Grove, Mersea. Credit: Mersea Museum and CITiZCudmore Grove cliffs, Mers
Post-war farming
In the 1940s, the use of fertilizer on farmlands in the post-war years polluted the Thames estuary, negatively impacting seagrasses on the foreshore. As the grasses died, the mudbanks became unstable and coastal erosion increased.
The Big Freeze
The winter of 1962-3 brought the Big Freeze, which covered the coast in snow killing billions of shellfish and affecting the livelihoods of the islanders.
Monkey Beach, Mersea. Credit: Mersea Museum - Hardy Weaver Collection and CITiZAN
Painting boats
During the 1960s, tributyltin, a new anti-fouling paint used on boat hulls, polluted the water further, threatening the dwindling numbers of native oysters and other shellfish.
This timeline of environmental changes demonstrates the impacts of the actions, technologies, and interactions of humans with the natural world at a local level. It shows that our actions have consequences for the ecosystems and biodiversity that support us. Living memories can be a powerful reminder of the need to be better prepared for the inevitable effects of climate change by working with nature to tackle coastal erosion. It also brings into sharp focus how information from coastal communities can and should be seen—a rich resource of data for climate action.
by German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Illustration of the general workflow of the r package enerscape. The energy landscape is computed starting from a raster of the digital elevation model and animal body mass using a locomotory model to calculate the energy costs of transport (ECOT). The ARC model (Pontzer, 2016) for legged, terrestrial animals is displayed as green lines, with blue circles showing the empirical data used for validation. Credit: German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Large land animals have a significant impact on the ecology and biodiversity of the areas they inhabit and traverse. If, for example, the routes and stopping places of cattle, horses, sheep, and also those of wolves or bears overlap with those of people, this often leads to conflicts. Knowing and being able to predict the movement patterns of animals is, therefore, of utmost relevance. This is not only necessary for nature and landscape protection, and to safeguard agriculture and forestry, but also for the safety of human travelers and the security of human infrastructures.
Example—the brown bear
The Abruzzo region of Italy, the location of the Sirente Velino Regional Park, is home to the endangered and therefore protected Marsican brown bear (Ursus arctos marsicanus). Recording the bears' patterns of movement in the 50,000 hectare, partly populated area is especially important for their own protection, but also for that of the people living there and the sensitive flora. Movement pattern maps can be used to determine the bears' roaming routes and places of refuge more effectively. These can then be adequately protected and, if necessary, adjusted.
Traditional methods are expensive
Traditional maps of animal movements are mostly based on long-term surveys of so-called telemetry data; this comes from individuals fitted with radio transmitters. This type of map-making is often time consuming and expensive, and lack of radio contact in some areas means that no data can be collected at all. That was also the case in the vast and isolated Sirente Velino national park.
Researchers developed an alternative
Researchers from iDiv, the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Aarhus University and the University of Oxford have developed software—named ENERSCAPE—with which maps can be created easily and cost-effectively. Dr. Emilio Berti is post-doctoral researcher with the Theory in Biodiversity Science research group at iDiv and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. As first author of the study he stressed: "What's special is that the software requires very little data as a basis." The energy an animal needs to expend to travel a certain distance is calculated, based on the weight of that animal and its general movement behavior. This energy expenditure is then integrated with the topographical information of an area. "From this information we can then create 'energy landscape maps' for individuals as well as for groups of animals. Our maps are calculated rather than measured and thus represent a cost-effective alternative to traditional maps. In particular applications, such as the conditions in the Italian national park, our method makes the creation of movement pattern maps actually possible at all," said Berti.
Software helps with the designation of protection zones
Using ENERSCAPE, the researchers found that bears choose paths that require less energy expenditure. These paths often lead through settlements, so that the bears encounter humans—which frequently ends fatally for the animals. The software also predicts, that bears wanting to save energy will tend to stay in valleys, far away from human settlements. Bear conflict as well as protection zones can now be identified using ENERSCAPE. Its maps can also be used to check whether landscape elements are still well-connected enough to enable the animals to move around the area sufficiently.
ENERSCAPE is freely available and adaptable
The researchers' software ENERSCAPE is based on the widely used and openly accessible programming language 'R'. It has a modular structure and can therefore process animal movement and topographical data from a wide variety of ecosystem types. "This makes it possible for both researchers and wildlife managers to adapt the software to a wide variety of landscapes and animals," said Prof Fritz Vollrath from the Zoology Department of the University of Oxford and senior author of the study, emphasizing the special nature of ENERSCAPE. "This means that the number of maps of animal movement in landscapes will increase in just a short time. With significantly more cartographical data, the understanding of the behavioral ecology of a species in a certain habitat will also fundamentally change. This will primarily benefit nature conservation and, in particular, rewilding measures—the reintroduction of wild animals," said Vollrath.
More information:Emilio Berti et al, The r package enerscape : A general energy landscape framework for terrestrial movement ecology,Methods in Ecology and Evolution(2021).DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.13734
Last year, researcher Randi Grønnestad received a great deal of attention for her research carried out at the Granåsen Ski Centre in Trondheim, Norway. She found hormonal disorders and changes in the brains of bank voles in the area and linked them to fluorine-containing compounds called PFAS.
“Previously we showed that these PFAS most likely originate from the use of fluorinated glide wax,” said Grønnestad, who took her PhD from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Biology.
The fluorinated compounds end up in the environment at the popular ski area, and the substances never degrade and disappear. They are also linked to several adverse health effects in humans.
Bank voles can ingest PFAS through food, such as earthworms. The voles at Granåsen had higher levels of PFAS in their bodies along with higher levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in their brains. The male voles also had lower levels of the hormone testosterone.
Lab confirms effects on dopamine system
Grønnestad wasn’t satisfied with the fieldwork in Granåsen and the control area by Jonsvatnet, an area around Trondheim's drinking water reservoir where the Nordic ski traffic is considerably lower.
“Since the research results are from a field study where we can’t control all other variables that in theory could also affect the systems I studied, I wanted to reproduce the effects we found in Granåsen under controlled conditions in the lab,” says Grønnestad.
In the lab, the scientists were confident that no other environmental toxins would cause the effects they were measuring.
“In the lab experiment, we used laboratory mice that we fed with a feed mixture having the same amount and composition of PFAS added as we’d measured in the earthworms from Granåsen. The mice were exposed to this feed for 10 weeks. We also had a control group that was fed with the same food, but without the added PFAS mixture,” says Grønnestad.
The research group also found that the dopamine system was affected in the mice that received the PFAS mixture in their feed.
“We found significant effects on the levels of dopamine in the brain and on the genetic expression of enzymes that are important for producing dopamine, although it seems that slightly different molecular mechanisms were affected in the two studies,” says Grønnestad.
This difference indicates that the effects they measured in the dopaminergic system in the bank voles from Granåsen were due to PFAS exposure.
No change in testosterone
Unlike at Granåsen, however, the researchers found no changes in hormone levels in the laboratory mice.
“We saw no effects of PFAS exposure on the concentrations of testosterone, oestrogen, or 11-ketotestosterone in either sex,” says Grønnestad.
This could indicate that the apparent correlations between low testosterone levels and PFAS in the voles from the field study are due to other variables in nature that the researchers did not measure, rather than PFAS.
However, the scientists found a different disturbing effect of PFAS in the laboratory instead.
Larger livers indicate environmental toxins
“In the lab we discovered that male mice from the PFAS-exposed group had larger livers, relative to their body mass, than the control group did. The liver is a known indicator of toxicity for environmental toxins,” says Grønnestad.
Some studies suggest that males are more sensitive to the effects of PFAS exposure. In addition, the male mice had higher levels of PFAS in the liver than the female mice because they had eaten more food. They may thus simply have been exposed to higher concentrations of PFAS.
The research group is also investigating other effects on the liver, but these results are not yet ready. At this point, it appears that the composition of fatty acids in the liver has changed.
Possible consequences
“The study results thus indicate that we’re seeing effects on brain chemistry and the composition of fatty acids in the liver of exposed mice with the same amount of PFAS that we found at Granåsen. This could have serious consequences,” says Grønnestad.
Exactly what biological effects the finding might have is difficult to say, she says. Further behavioural studies or long-term studies are needed to determine that.
Grønnestad mentions as possible examples that effects on animals’ dopaminergic systems could potentially lead to disturbances in regulating fear and anxiety, thermoregulatory processes and the ability to protect themselves. The changes could also impact their reproductive system.
Elevated or decreased levels of dopamine are also associated with mood swings and motor and cognitive changes.
Grønnestad is currently an advisor for air quality in the Trondheim municipality, Miljøenheten.
A red deer in the Alladale Wilderness Reserve. Credit: Dr. Chris Sandom
New research suggests that wild herbivore numbers are not unnaturally high in the UK or the rest of the World despite what many conservationists believe, with data implying that, if anything, they are much lower than expected for healthy ecosystems.
A study co-authored by Dr. Chris Sandom at the University of Sussex, suggests that at comparable levels of natural productivity there are typically less wild herbivores in Europe compared to Africa, where ecosystems are more intact.
The findings, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, challenge the commonly held perception that the density of wild grazing and browsing species is 'too high' and causing damage to ecosystems.
Dr. Sandom, senior lecturer in biology at the University of Sussex, worked on the study led by Dr. Camilla Fløjgaard and colleagues at Aarhus University, Denmark. He said: "Diverse and abundant large herbivore communities like red, roe and fallow deer aren't the enemy of conservation or restoration, the problem is the degraded ecosystems humans are forcing them to live in.
"Our research shows that, naturally, densities of large herbivores are likely to be much higher than is commonly perceived. This, combined with the diverse and abundant communities of predators and vegetation, is what intact ecosystems should look like.
"The problems we're seeing, like the lack of tree regeneration, are likely because few remaining trees mean there is a limited seed source. Dense cover of grass, heather, and bracken mean there are few places for trees to germinate. The absence of large predators disrupting grazing and browsing pressure mean the few saplings that do establish don't stand a chance. This combination of factors needs to be kept in mind when we think about nature recovery. We can't just blame the herbivores."
The findings show that many nature reserves outside of Africa are depleted in large-herbivore biomass. According to the authors, nature restoration in these places needs to be focused on restoring functional ecosystems that include diverse and abundant wild large herbivores. This may include reducing herbivore numbers in the short-term, but could see spectacular and beneficial returns in the future.
"Even though large herbivores have been wandering the landscape for millions of years, it seems that we have become accustomed to landscapes almost completely devoid of them, and we have come to accept this as the natural state of things," says Camilla Fløjgaard, from the Department of Ecoscience at Aarhus University.
The study comes at a crucial time for the planet, with the commencement of COP26 in Glasgow and the UN's Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, which runs until 2030. The global initiative is described as 'a rallying cry' for the protection and revival of ecosystems around the world, for the benefit of both people and nature.
The authors of the study believe that, where we can strive for large-scale nature-recovery we should be aiming to rewild large herbivores and allow nature to manage their numbers without setting predefined targets.
Rasmus Ejrnæs, senior researcher from Aarhus University, said: "Bringing back big animals is crucial to restoring self-sustaining ecosystems and conserving biodiversity, but it is not going to be easy. Large animals are troublesome, because they damage crops, disrupt traffic and generally just get in the way. It will require political commitment and careful physical planning, including fenced reserves."
Dr. Sandom said: "Herbivores are important because they help increase the diversity of nature as a whole by grazing and browsing, bark stripping and branch breaking, rooting and dunging, when they are in ecosystems that also include a mixed mosaic of vegetation types and large predators.
"In places, restoring nature may well involve reducing large herbivore numbers now, but this should be seen as an opportunity to restore the ecosystem to allow richer and more abundant nature across the board in the future, from plants to predators and including large herbivores.
More information:Camilla Fløjgaard et al, Exploring a natural baseline for large‐herbivore biomass in ecological restoration,Journal of Applied Ecology(2021).DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.14047
