GMO IS OMG BACKWARDS
GM wheat takes a 136,000-acre step forward

By Sean Pratt
WESTERN PRODUCER
Published: November 4, 2021

A total of 225 producers planted a drought-tolerant wheat developed by Bioceres Crop Solutions on 135,850 acres of land earlier this summer.
 Growers are expected to harvest about 200,000 tonnes of the HB4 wheat this growing season. 
| Twitter/@BioceresCropS photo

Hundreds of farmers in Argentina are growing genetically modified wheat this year.

A total of 225 producers planted a drought-tolerant wheat developed by Bioceres Crop Solutions on 135,850 acres of land earlier this summer.

Growers are expected to harvest about 200,000 tonnes of the HB4 wheat this growing season.

The drought-tolerance trait comes from sunflowers and is also being used in soybeans.

Bioceres believes its GM wheat will eventually account for one-third or 6.8 million acres of the country’s wheat crop.

The company says HB4 wheat delivers yields under drought conditions that are 20 percent better than varieties currently on the market.

Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel, director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers, wishes she had access to that technology on her farm near Mossbank, Sask., this year.

“That is exactly what we need here in Saskatchewan,” she said.

“We tend to have more dry years than we do wet years, so I would welcome that wholeheartedly.”

Her durum yields were less than half of normal this year due to an intensely hot and dry summer. Thirty kilometres to the south, farmers reported single-digit yields.

As international director for the Global Farmer Network, Nagel is happy for her counterparts in Argentina who are getting a new tool for combatting increasingly frequent droughts.

“As a competitor (though) I’m a bit disappointed it isn’t me that gets to grow it,” she said.

Ian Affleck, vice-president of plant biotechnology with CropLife Canada, said there isn’t much happening with GM wheat research in Canada.

“I haven’t heard of anything,” he said.

“Currently there are no field trials happening in Canada and nothing near commercialization.”

He doesn’t think life science companies have soured on GM crops, as evidenced by the Bioceres project. They are just using different breeding tools to achieve different objectives.

Jolly-Nagel wonders if there is more to it than that. She thinks seed technology companies and farm groups have indeed grown weary of the GM wheat battle.

“There is fatigue around trying to educate the government, the regulators, that this is acceptable and it’s required and it’s needed and we want it,” she said.

Jolly-Nagel was in favour of Monsanto commercializing its Roundup Ready wheat many years ago. But in 2004, the company threw in the towel due to consumer backlash and abandoned the project.

“Good grief, look at how many years ago that was and we still don’t have it,” she said.

Jolly-Nagel speaks to farmers around the world on a daily basis through the Global Farmer Network who are clamoring to get their hands on that kind of seed technology.

She thinks consumer resistance to GM crops is slowly dissipating and hopes that one day there will be a similar GM wheat crop coming to fields in the Canadian Prairies.

Affleck said HB4 wheat still isn’t considered fully commercialized despite the fact that it has moved beyond field trials into sizable acreage and production volumes.

That is because the crop is being grown in a tightly controlled closed-loop system while the industry awaits approval of the trait from Brazil and other key export markets.

Brazil consumes about half of Argentina’s wheat exports.

HB4 is the only GM wheat that currently has regulatory approval anywhere in the world, according to a database maintained by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Monsanto’s Roundup Ready wheat received food approval in the United States and Colombia many years ago but the company withdrew its regulatory applications in other regions of the world once it decided to shelve the product.

Genetic modification isn’t the only way to introduce drought tolerance in crops. Researchers are also using gene-editing techniques to accomplish that goal.

Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are proposing that many crops made through gene-editing breeding techniques would not be subject to regulation.

Gene editing is a technique that tweaks existing genes in a plant rather than introducing new ones from another species.

The proposals by the regulators has raised the ire of a collection of seven agriculture, food and consumer groups.

They sent a letter to Justin Trudeau calling on the Canadian prime minister to ensure those crops are subject to the same safety assessments as GM crops.

“Public trust is a major concern for the agriculture industry,” Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, said in a news release issued by the seven groups.

“Yet the government is about to dramatically cut transparency on GMOs by removing regulatory oversight for many new gene edited foods.”

Why the promise of nuclear fusion is no longer a pipe dream

Fusion – combining atomic nuclei to release energy – is a clean and safe way to power our homes and industry. This ‘holy grail’ of energy has eluded physicists for decades, but there are signs that a bright future could be on the horizon.

By Andy Ridgway
Published: 03rd November, 2021

It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.


Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.

But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.

“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.

Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.

Read more about nuclear fusion reactors:
UK scientists could have solved one of nuclear fusion’s biggest problems
Meet the renegades building a nuclear fusion reactor in your neighbourhood
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor

ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.

The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.

When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity.

Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.

In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.

A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.

One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat © Getty Images

The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.

“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.

The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.

“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.

Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.

Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.

Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.

At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.

The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.

“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”

This article first appeared in issue 369 of BBC Science Focus Magazine – find out how to subscribe here

Drone used in attack on US electrical grid last year, report reveals


A US intelligence report has revealed that a drone was used in an attempt to disable an electrical substation in Pennsylvania last year, in the first known attack of its kind

7 November 2021

By David Hambling

A modified consumer drone was used in an attack on an electrical substation in the US last year, according to a report from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and National Counterterrorism Center.

The report, which is being circulated to law enforcement agencies in the US, highlights the incident at a substation in Pennsylvania last year as the first known use of a drone to target energy infrastructure in the US. The location isn’t specifically identified, but the drone crashed without causing damage.

The drone was modified with a trailing tether supporting a length of copper wire. If the wire had come into contact with high-voltage equipment it could have caused a short circuit, equipment failures and possibly fires.



The device is similar in concept to ”blackout bombs” used by the US Air Force, which have no explosive but scatter masses of conductive filaments over electrical equipment. These were used to shut down 70 per cent of Serbia’s electricity generation capacity in 1999 during the Kosovo war.

Electrical substations are normally protected by fences and other barriers, but Zak Kallenborn at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism in Maryland says these may not be sufficient against drones.

“Counter-terrorism defences largely assume a ground-based attacker. Hence the fences and bollards everywhere,” says Kallenborn. “The defences are obsolete if terrorists can take to the air. Drones are cheap, and easy to use. Critical infrastructure facilities need to worry about attacks from any direction.”

Counter-drone jammers are deployed at some locations but cannot defend every electrical substation, due to both cost and limitations on where they can be used. Kallenborn notes that while such drones only carry a tiny payload compared to a car bomb, they can cause a disproportionate amount of damage by targeting vulnerable spots.

“Critical infrastructure owners and operators need to identify critical, sensitive components where small charges can cause significant harm to the facility’s operation,” says Kallenborn.

Article source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2296480-drone-used-in-attack-on-us-electrical-grid-last-year-report-reveals/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=technology

The quantum experiment that could prove reality doesn’t exist


We like to think that things are there even when we aren’t looking at them. But that belief might soon be overturned thanks to a new test designed to tell us if quantum weirdness persists in macroscopic objects

6 November 2021

By Thomas Lewton

THERE is an old philosophy question about a tree in a forest. If it falls with nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound? Ask a quantum physicist and they might say the sound was there – but you couldn’t be sure the tree was.

Quantum mechanics has long pushed the boundaries of our understanding of reality at its tiniest. Countless experiments have shown that particles spread out like waves, for instance, or seem be in more than one place at once. In the quantum world, we can only know the likelihood that something will appear in one place or another – until we look, at which point it assumes a definite position. This troubled Albert Einstein. “I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it,” he said.

Now, a new class of experiments is putting Einstein’s conviction to the test, seeing if quantum weirdness stretches beyond the tiny world of quarks, atoms and qubits into the everyday world of tables, chairs and, well, moons. “If you can go from one atom to two atoms to three to four to five to a thousand, is there any reason why it stops?” says Jonathan Halliwell at Imperial College London.

These experiments are not just investigating whether there is a hard boundary between the quantum and classical worlds, but also probing the true nature of reality. If the work goes as some theorists expect, it might just kick the legs out from under one of our most firmly held beliefs: that things exist regardless of whether we are looking at them. …



Published at Wed, 03 Nov 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Article source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25233590-800-the-quantum-experiment-that-could-prove-reality-doesnt-exist/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=physics
Posted in Science

CleanBC program that aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions wins award at COP26

CleanBC wins COP26 award

The Canadian Press - Nov 7, 2021  | Story: 350951

Photo: File photo

British Columbia's CleanBC program, which encourages a reduction in emissions across industry as a whole, has won an award at the United Nations COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

A Sunday news release from the province's environment ministry says the program was awarded most creative climate solution by the Under2 Coalition, a global alliance of state and regional governments committed to climate action in line with the 2015 Paris Accord.

It says the CleanBC program uses two complementary initiatives to encourage industries to reduce emissions.

The first uses a portion of the carbon tax paid by emitters to contribute to projects that reduce greenhouse gases in areas such as mining, pulp and paper, cement, agriculture, and oil and gas.

It says the second one reduces carbon tax costs if an industry can show they are among the lowest emitting in the world for their sector.

The ministry says B.C. has set greenhouse gas emissions targets for oil and gas of up to 38 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030.

Anxious about your impact? This N.W.T. man says he's been carbon neutral for 15 years

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

Carbon offsets, fossil fuel-free home key to Andrew

Robinson's neutrality

Liny Lamberink · CBC News · Posted: Nov 07, 2021 

Andrew Robinson says he became carbon neutral in 2007 by buying carbon offsets, but over the years he's been able to make other changes in his life to reduce the emissions he creates — like building a highly energy-efficient home and buying an electric bike. (Liny Lamberink/CBC)

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

Andrew Robinson, a stay-at-home dad and self-described "energy nerd" in the N.W.T., says he's been carbon neutral since 2007 — and it isn't as hard as people think. 

He started building an energy-efficient duplex in Yellowknife's Niven neighbourhood seven years ago that helped his family reduce their carbon footprint significantly. But he also pointed to a solution that's much easier than constructing a new house. 

"You can be carbon neutral just by buying carbon offsets," he said. 

Carbon offsetting is a way to "cancel out" carbon emissions that have been spewed into the atmosphere. They're a tool in the fight against climate change which have drawn some debate, and they work by letting emitters (including individuals, governments or businesses) fund and take credit for greenhouse gas reductions from a different project or activity elsewhere. 

"In some parts of the world, there's a lot more renewable resources and a lot less money," said Robinson. Because of that, he said, a $20 carbon offset can go a long way in a community that can't afford to install its own solar panels. 

Jacob Robinson, left, Rae Braden, centre, and Andrew Robinson, right, with a certificate for purchasing a Gold Standard carbon offset in 2020. (Submitted by Andrew Robinson)

Robinson co-authored a study, released in 2020 by Alternatives North, that said carbon offsets would be the "most immediate and affordable" way for the territory to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. 

But there are different schools of thought about whether offsets actually reduce emissions, and some experts say they can do more harm than good, while others say they can play a significant role in reducing emissions if properly managed. 

Dr. Courtney Howard, an emergency room physician at Stanton Territorial Hospital who ran in the Green Party's leadership race last year, told CBC News from The Conference of Parties (COP) in Scotland that part of the value of carbon offsets is that they make people aware of their own own carbon footprints. 

"It makes you go through the process of counting [what your carbon footprint is]. And we know that anything that gets measured, gets managed, and that can be a really important first step to decreasing your carbon footprint." 

Howard said people also tend to misjudge what their biggest carbon creators are. 

"We overweight recycling, and we tend to underweight things like heating and electricity," she said. 

"Most people at this COP will say, 'reduce as much as you can and then ... use offsets to make up the rest. So it's the bit to get you that extra little bit of the way to your goal. But it definitely isn't licence for us to just keep living the way we're living."

• Have questions about COP26 or climate science, policy or politics? Email us: ask@cbc.ca. Your input helps inform our coverage.

From 16 tonnes of carbon to 0.7

The most it's ever cost Robinson to offset a year's worth of carbon, he said, was $600.

"Back in the beginning, I was up around 16 tonnes of emissions because I was living in a house that wasn't very efficient, burning heating oil, and travelling. In that case, I flew to South Africa, which really pushed it up." 

Robinson said his family was able to whittle that down to 0.7 tonnes (or 700 kilograms) of carbon emissions last year. Those emissions came exclusively from their car, he said, because they stopped flying as a result of the pandemic but also because they made some big changes over the years like building their new energy-efficient home, installing a wood stove, and investing in electric bikes. 

Robinson's family shares the land, and the duplex, with a friend who was also interested in building a highly energy-efficient home in Yellowknife. (Eden Maury/CBC)

The only sources of carbon, now, are the family's vehicle and travel. 

"We have a motor canoe, with a three horsepower motor on the back, and we went out on the lake for a holiday this year and that used like 15 litres of fuel. It's like nothing," he said.

Robinson warned that it's important to find carbon offsets that are well-managed.

Last year, he said his family offset 1 tonne of emissions with The Gold Standard, and invested in a biomass energy project in Russia.

Heating 1,300 square feet with a wood stove

The home Robinson lives in with his family plays a significant role in their carbon-neutrality.

They bought the land with a friend, who shared their interest in building a "super" energy-efficient duplex that doesn't rely on fossil fuels. 

"Apart from the occasional barbecue, we don't have any fossil fuels on site here," he said. 

Robinson said he was surprised he could heat his unit of the duplex with a single wood stove. 'Once you [make] the house super insulated, super airtight, it works really well.' (Submitted by Andrew Robinson)

A house uses energy for two things — electricity and heat, explained Robinson. 

"We're lucky in Yellowknife that we get almost all our electricity from hydropower, which means it's not fossil fuels," he said. His 1,300-square-foot unit within the duplex is heated with a wood stove, while his neighbour's is heated with a pellet stove. 

The outer construction of the house has two walls, he said, with a layer of insulation in between. 

"Insulation is amazing stuff. We didn't really believe at first, that we could heat our house with just a wood stove," he said, noting that he originally thought he'd need a pellet boiler and in-floor heating to make it livable. 

Robinson shows off how thick the walls of his home are. The exterior of the home is actually made of two walls, with a layer of insulation in between, he explained. (Eden Maury/CBC)

"But once you made the house super insulated, super airtight, it works really well." 

Individual responsibility vs. confronting industry

Although Robinson has taken responsibility for his own carbon footprint, he said it's "not entirely fair" to put the onus on all individuals to do the same. 

"You're not in charge of everything that's in your life," he said. 

A recent study, noted Howard, shed light on how the fossil fuel industry has intentionally framed its narratives and advertising around personal responsibility. 

"They know that if they keep us looking at ourselves and self-flagellating constantly and silencing ourselves and feeling as though we're not able to speak up are not allowed to speak up in favour of systems change ... that we'll leave them alone." 

Personal responsibility does play an important role, she said.

"But we need to be really, really clear that there's no way we can get to the level of carbon reduction that we need without confronting industry, without completely changing our systems and our funding models."

Neutron star collisions probably make more gold than other cosmic smashups

Run-ins between black holes and neutron stars aren’t as prolific at making heavy elements

Collisions of two neutron stars (illustrated) probably produce more of the universe’s heavy elements than similar collisions of a black hole and neutron star.

A. SIMONNET/SONOMA STATE UNIV., LIGO, NSF (EDITED BY MIT NEWS)

By Emily Conover

NOVEMBER 3, 2021 AT 9:00 AM

The cosmic origins of elements heavier than iron are mysterious. One elemental birthplace came to light in 2017 when two neutron-rich dead stars collided and spewed out gold, platinum and other hefty elements (SN: 10/16/17). A few years later, a smashup of another neutron star and a black hole left scientists wondering which type of cosmic clash was the more prolific element foundry (SN: 6/29/21).

Now, they have an answer. Collisions of two neutron stars probably take the cake, scientists report October 25 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

To create heavy elements after either type of collision, neutron star material must be flung into space, where a series of nuclear reactions called the r-process can transform the material (SN: 4/22/16).

How much material escapes into space, if any, depends on various factors. For example, in collisions of a neutron star and black hole, the black hole has to be relatively small, or “there’s no hope at all,” says astrophysicist Hsin-Yu Chen of MIT. “It’s going to swallow the neutron star right away,” without ejecting anything.

Questions remain about both types of collisions, spotted via the ripples in spacetime that they kick up. So Chen and colleagues considered a range of possibilities for the properties of neutron stars and black holes, such as the distributions of their masses and how fast they spin. The team then calculated the mass ejected by each type of collision under those varied conditions. In most scenarios, the neutron star–black hole mergers made a smaller quantity of heavy elements than the neutron star duos — in one case only about a hundredth the amount.

Still, the ultimate element factory ranking remains up in the air. The scientists compared just these two types of collisions, not other possible sources of heavy elements such as exploding stars (SN: 7/7/21).


CITATIONS

H.-Y. Chen, S. Vitale and F. Foucart. The relative contribution to heavy metals production from binary neutron star mergers and neutron star–black hole mergers. Astrophysical Journal Letters. Published online October 25, 2021. doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac26c6.

 Where did the Big Bang happen?

Nov 3, 2021

Fermilab

People who encounter the theory of the Big Bang for the first time often ask “so where did it happen?” In this video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln tells us the answer – everywhere. Just as your mom told you, you can think of yourself as the center of the universe.

Antarctica Was Once a Land of Fire and Not Ice

Evelyn Blackwell

NYT 21 hours ago

 

Imagine the forests of Chilean Patagonia: wet and cold, dense with monkey puzzle trees and other hardy conifers. Now imagine it with dinosaurs walking around. And on fire.

This is what Antarctica was like 75 million years ago during the Cretaceous period, an era known by researchers as a “super fire world.” A paper published last month in Polar Research by Flaviana Jorge de Lima of the Federal University of Pernambuco and other scientists in Brazil proves that these conflagrations did not spare any continent, even one that is today notorious for its dry, inhospitable climate and largely vegetation-free landscape.

Although research on prehistoric wildfires — properly called “paleofires” — has been going on for decades, much of it has concentrated on the Northern Hemisphere. Antarctica was “first considered a region without high fires, but that changed,” said André Jasper of the University of Taquari Valley in Brazil. He’s an author on the paper and part of a group of researchers around the globe seeking evidence of fires that burned between 60 million and 300 million years ago.

“It’s really interesting for us because now we’re showing that not only the Northern Hemisphere was burning, but the Southern Hemisphere too,” he said. “It was global.”

Scientists can find evidence of paleofires by studying charred tree rings, by analyzing sediment in ancient lakes or by examining molecules in fossilized charcoal. For this paper, the researchers analyzed charcoal extracted from sediment on Antarctica’s James Ross Island in 2015 and 2016.

This charcoal is, on its face, nothing special.

“If you do a barbecue, you will have the same type of material,” Dr. Jasper said. But the team used imaging software and scanning electron microscopy to analyze these lustrous chunks, about the height of a quarter and several times as wide. They found something far more interesting than the remains of a cookout: homogenized cells and a pitted pattern that proved these fossils started their lives as ancient plants.

Using the charcoal, “it is possible to understand a little bit better the scenario of the fire, 75 million years ago,” Dr. Jasper said.

With increasingly sophisticated techniques, scientists can reconstruct ancient ecosystems and fire patterns with mounting precision, said Elisabeth Dietze, vice president of the International Paleofire Network, who was not affiliated with the study. She said that molecular markers in charcoal could tell scientists what kind of vegetation burned: For example, rounder, plated molecular shapes indicate woody biomass.

In 2010, researchers on King George Island first gathered evidence that ancient wildfires didn’t spare Antarctica. But the samples from that expedition were poorly preserved and researchers could only speculate that the charcoal stemmed from a coniferous tree. Researchers made a more accurate assessment of these new charred remains: They suspect they came from an Araucariaceae, an ancient family of conifers.

For paleofire researchers, the next big question about these ancient fires concerns causality. The Cretaceous period was marked by mass extinctions, fluctuating amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere and changes in the amount of vegetation covering the planet. Did fires cause these changes, or did the changes cause the fires? Understanding this super fire world helps researchers develop models for periods of rapid ecological change and increasing numbers of fires — like now.

“The more we know about the past and the linkages between the ecosystem and climate, the better prepared we are for the future,” said Cathy Whitlock of Montana State University, who was not affiliated with the study.

In some ways the era humans live in can’t compare to the Cretaceous: Back then, our continents, including Antarctica, were still forming. But it’s still notable that high-latitude regions were warm, forested, ice-free and prone to blazes — a direction in which we might be moving.

“Of course, this was millions of years ago, but now we have a driver,” Dr. Jasper said. “We are the driver. Nowadays we have humans putting fire on everything.”

Case in point: In 2018, researchers moved these charcoal samples from the National Museum of Brazil to a different laboratory. A few months later, the museum caught fire and the country lost countless relics. These ancient chunks of charcoal, used to unlock the secrets of deep time, were themselves nearly lost in flames.

Checkout latest world news below links :

Green transition creates new risks and rewards

by University of Exeter

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Different countries face different risks and opportunities as the world switches from fossil fuels to renewable energy, researchers say.

Green policies have traditionally been seen as costly to countries who implement them, while other nations can do nothing and "free-ride"—leading to global inaction on the climate crisis.

However, the research team—led by the universities of Exeter, Cambridge, the Open University and Cambridge Econometrics—say this is a "poor description" of today's reality.

Instead, they say the transition is already happening and, for many countries, embracing it is the best strategy to reduce costs.

As the world economy transforms, free-riding may now be the risky approach—not only environmentally but also economically.

According to the new study, the risks and opportunities vary dramatically between countries, depending on their degree of competitiveness in fossil fuel markets.

Countries fall into one of three categories—each with different incentives driven by the green transition.

Large fossil fuel importers like the EU and China will gain multiple benefits from decarbonizing.

Meanwhile, "large competitive fossil fuel exporters" like Saudi Arabia may avoid economic decline by flooding global markets with cut-price fossil fuels.

The third category—"large uncompetitive exporters" such as the US, Canada and Russia—could suffer due to stranded fossil fuel assets and lack of investment in new technological sectors.

However, the nations at the losing end can head off these impacts by diversifying their economies away from fossil fuels towards new technology sectors, including low-carbon exports.

"The costs and benefits of decarbonisation and related politics have been misunderstood and misrepresented for some time," said Dr. Jean-Francois Mercure, of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.

"In fact, the green transition is well under way, whether people realize it or not, and those politics are already at play.

"Decarbonising is traditionally seen as expensive, but it really depends on how much high-carbon industry each country has to lose, versus how much can be gained in new technological sectors."

Professor Jorge Viñuales, of the University of Cambridge and co-author of the study, said: "The prevailing narrative that, while others decarbonise, you can free-ride them to your benefit must be turned on its head.

"As the economy transforms, if you do not decarbonise, you are shooting yourself in the foot.

"The key question is how to do it in the specific conditions of your country."

The study says the rapid replacement of fossil fuels with renewables will cause a "profound reorganization of industry value chains, international trade and geopolitics".

The researchers outline a structure of incentives that differ depending on countries' positions relative to the fossil fuel industry:

• Large importers including the EU, UK, China, India and Japan have a win-win scenario in which they can shed their dependence of foreign fuels and create jobs as they spend that money domestically instead and develop new technology at home. These countries are already rapidly transitioning.
• Economic conditions may lead large competitive exporters (some OPEC nations) to flood fossil fuel markets to avoid declining export volumes as the demand peaks and declines.
• Large uncompetitive exporters (the US, Canada, Russia and possibly some South American nations such as Brazil) would be unable to compete on price in this flooded market, suffering a double blow from declining demand and low oil and gas prices. However, unlike major importers, the fossil fuel industry is much more important for economic activity and jobs—reducing economic incentives or creating political barriers to decarbonise in the short run. Free-riding would mean exposing these sectors to structural change without a clear exit strategy. Countries in this situation should consider carefully how to reduce their exposure to stranded assets, and how to reap benefits from the transition which can be used to shield exposed workers.

The research suggests that unless this new geopolitical game is recognized and addressed, the world could become stuck in a deadlock in which some countries embrace the new technological wave, while others could become trapped in a vicious cycle of declining and obsolete fossil fuel-related industry, and ultimately, post-industrial decline.

The solution to industrial decline remains innovation in new sectors and economic diversification.

"The disruptive nature of the low-carbon transition makes untenable a macroeconomic strategy based on 'business-as-usual'," said Dr. Pablo Salas, from the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

"Supporting low-carbon innovation is the only way to maintain long-term competitiveness in a decarbonising economy."

The researchers stress that they are not advocating particular climate policies, but merely identifying the new global geopolitical situation ahead of the vital COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

Professor Neil Edwards, who led the UK Natural Environment Research Council-funded project from The Open University, which provided the climate modeling used for the work, said: "It remains a widely held belief that politicians have no motivation to enact the policies needed to protect the climate as laid out in the Paris Agreement.

"Our paper clearly shows there are strong political incentives and furthermore that change is under way."

Commenting on the choices facing countries such as the US, Canada and Russia, Cambridge Econometrics Chief Economist Hector Pollitt said: "We are predicting a bleak outlook that is conditional to policy-makers, businesses and people in those countries not changing their strategic behavior and decision-making.

"However, this bleak outlook can be turned around if they manage an orderly transition, support job creation in new sectors and facilitate the mobility of workers between the old and new industries."

Dr. Gregor Semieniuk, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and another co-author on the study, said: "Developing countries face the largest challenges to insert themselves into the low-carbon technology supply chain.

"Richer countries with high-cost fossil fuel supply but a diversified economy actually have the choice to participate fully in the low-carbon economy with appropriate industrial policy. They only have to manage to make that choice."

Dr. Mercure added: "Economic diversification away from fossil fuels is complex but necessary to protect economies from the volatility that usually occurs at the end of a technological era. We have to recognize that the end of the fossil fuel era is at our doorstep.

"We hope our paper helps to explain the current situation, and encourages global cooperation on the issue of climate change, to promote economic development worldwide."

The research was carried out by the University of Exeter, Cambridge Econometrics, the Open University, the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG), the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Macau.

The paper, published in the journal Nature Energy, is entitled: "Reframing incentives for climate policy action."Report: Affordable policy that could stop fossil fuels causing global warming

More information: Jean-Francois Mercure, Reframing incentives for climate policy action, Nature Energy (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-021-00934-2. www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00934-2

Journal information: Nature Energy 

Provided by University of Exeter