20 endangered sea turtles flown to Florida to avoid freezing


In this photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, blood is drawn for analysis from a critically endangered Kemps ridley sea turtle Friday, Dec. 10, 2021, at the Florida Keys-based Turtle Hospital in Marathon, Fla. The reptile was one of 20 that were flown to the hospital after being rescued from Cape Cod Bay in a "cold-stunned" condition earlier this month. The turtles are to convalesce at the hospital in the subtropical Keys with the goal of releasing them in the future. 

(Bob Care/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)

MARATHON, Fla. (AP) — Twenty critically endangered juvenile Kemp’s ridley sea turtles were flown from New England to the subtropical Florida Keys to convalesce at the Marathon Turtle Hospital after being rescued from Cape Cod Bay’s frigid coastal waters.

Each of the turtles suffers from “cold stunning,” a hypothermic reaction that occurs when sea turtles are exposed to cold water for a prolonged time, according to hospital manager Bette Zirkelbach. They arrived Friday by private plane.

“These sea turtles are at the Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys to warm up just like the tourists that come to the Keys to warm up,” said Zirkelbach. “The Kemps ridley is the most critically endangered sea turtle in the world, so it’s important to help these little ones survive.”

The flight transport to Florida Keys Marathon International Airport was conducted in collaboration with Turtles Fly Too, a nonprofit group that engages general aviation pilots who donate their aircraft, fuel and time to provide emergency transportation for rescued sea turtles.

In this photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, staff from the Florida Keys-based Turtle Hospital, including, from left, Taylor Marsalis, Richie Moretti and Bette Zirkelbach, examine three of a group of 20 critically endangered Kemps ridley sea turtles that was flown to Marathon, Fla., Friday, Dec. 10, 2021, after being rescued from Cape Cod Bay in a "cold-stunned" condition earlier this month. The juvenile reptiles were transported to the warmer climate of the Florida Keys courtesy of "Turtles Fly Too," a nonprofit group of general aviation pilots who donate their aircraft, fuel and time to provide emergency transport for rescued sea turtles. (Bob Care/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)

Upon the turtles’ arrival at the hospital, staff assigned a dedicated number to each reptile, photographed them and documented their weight and swimming ability in a small pool to gauge their in-water respiration and swim strength.


In this photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, staff from the Florida Keys-based Turtle Hospital examine many of a group of 20 critically endangered Kemps ridley sea turtles that was flown to Marathon, Fla., Friday, Dec. 10, 2021, after being rescued from Cape Cod Bay in a "cold-stunned" condition earlier this month. The juvenile reptiles were transported to the warmer climate of the Florida Keys courtesy of "Turtles Fly Too," a nonprofit group of general aviation pilots who donate their aircraft, fuel and time to provide emergency transport for rescued sea turtles. (Bob Care/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)

Treatment over the next few months at the Turtle Hospital is expected to include broad-spectrum antibiotics, fluids, vitamins, a diet of mixed seafood and rehabilitation in water tanks at about 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius).

According to Zirkelbach, once the sea turtles are healthy enough, they will likely be released off the central Florida east coast near Cape Canaveral.

Online The Turtle Hospital: https://www.turtlehospital.org/

Cheetah cubs threatened by pet trade, 

global warming in Somaliland

Cheetah cubs rescued from poachers in Somaliland

Fri, December 10, 2021
By Katharine Houreld

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The two starving cheetah cubs squeak and tug at their string leashes in the white dust of Somaliland as a government vet pushes needles through the fluffy fur to drip-feed them liquid and nutrients.

Just around five months old, the baby cheetahs are dehydrated, stunted and so lacking in the calcium they would normally get from their mother's milk that they have problems walking. But at least they are alive.

The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) and the government of Somaliland - which broke away from Somalia in 1991 - have been rescuing trafficked cheetah cubs in the region for the past four years.

Only around 6,700 adult cheetahs are left in the wild worldwide, and the population is still declining, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Kidnapped cubs are often destined for the exotic pet trade in the Middle East but few people realise the suffering that entails. Four or five cheetah cubs die for each one that reaches the market, Dr. Laurie Marker, the head of CCF, said. Mothers are often killed.

Their first year, CCF received around 40 cubs in Somaliland, she added. Many didn't survive long. But by setting up safehouses and providing veterinary care, they've been able to cut deaths to almost zero, she said. Right now the organisation houses 67 cheetahs.

Droughts exacerbated by global warming are increasing pressure on the cheetahs, she said, as less grazing supports fewer herds of wild prey and farm animals. Farmers who once shrugged it off when a cheetah attacked one of their animals are now less able to shoulder losses, she said.

"If a predator eats their livestock, they are much more angry," she said. "They will go and track the mother down, where the cubs would be, and try to get money from the cubs to support the losses that they had."

Somaliland is planning to open a national park where the cheetahs will be able to roam, Environmental Minister Shukri Ismail Haji, said.

But although the tiny breakaway region lies in the band most affected by climate change, it cannot access most environmental funding because hardly any world bodies recognise it as a separate country from Somalia, the minister said.

"We are an unrecognized government. The international funding we can get is very little as a result."

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

British plans to ban big-game hunting trophies


The last surviving male northern white rhino on the planet is seen at Ol Pejeta Conservancy near Nanyuki in Sudan on May 3, 2017. British officials announced Friday that rhinos would be included in a big-game trophy hunting ban. 

File Photo by Dai Kurokawa/EPA-EFE

Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Britain's environment ministry announced it plans to ban hunting trophies connected to thousands of species, including lions, rhinos, elephants and polar bears.

The ministry said Friday the ban will apply to imports of hunting trophies from endangered and threatened animals to Britain. It said the ban supports long-term species conservation and protects some of the world's most endangered and threatened animals.

It said a 60% decline in global wildlife over the past half-century was the reason for a change in British rules over wildlife trophies by big-game hunters.

"More animal species are now threatened with extinction than ever before in human history and we are appalled at the thought of hunters bringing back trophies and placing more pressure on some of our most iconic and endangered animals," Environment Secretary George Eustice said.

The ministry said the ban on imports of hunting trophies, one of the toughest in the world, will cover nearly 7,000 species. Officials said they received 44,000 responses on a 2019 ban that showed wide support from the public and conservation groups.

"The government's bill looks set to be the strongest ban in the world," Eduardo Gonçalves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, said in a statement from the ministry. "This is the leadership that we have been calling for to save endangered species and help bring this terrible trade to an end. Wildlife needs this ban."

Born Free's Head of Policy Mark Jones said considering the challenges of wild animals around the world, the policy change was a positive first step.

"The proposed ban will send a clear signal that [Britain] does not condone the brutal killing of threatened wild animals for this so-called 'sport' by [British] citizens. It is two years since the British public overwhelmingly called for an end to hunting trophy imports, so we urge the government to introduce and implement this legislation as quickly as possible."

 

This wondrous true adventure from the best-selling novel about a woman who raised a lioness and eventually set her free is beautifully photographed on the vast, golden savannas of central Africa. BORN FREE is a story of courage and love, nature and human nature, and a relationship unlike any other ever filmed. When game warden George Adamson (Bill Travers) is forced to kill a menacing lion and lioness, he and his wife Joy (Virginia McKenna) adopt their three cubs. Two are sent off to zoos, but the third is kept - a female they name Elsa - to which they have become particularly attached. When Elsa becomes a full-grown lioness, the Adamsons realize that she must be set free and taught to survive on her own. A year later the Adamsons return to the savanna and are surprised by a very special welcome from their old friend. © 1965, renewed 1993 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.

 

1. `Read [PDF] Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds (Story of ...

   https://sites.google.com/site/32fh65sf5b/hk5gj578fhj5h8323

   hk5gj578fhj5h8323 - Get book Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds (Story of Elsa, #1) by Joy Adamson read and download online. Full supports all version of your device, includes PDF, ePub and Kindle version. All books 

GREEN OUTSOURCING

New $1 billion Lego factory in Vietnam planned to be 100% powered by solar energy


Ryan General
Thu, December 9, 2021

Lego is responding to growing demands in Asia by investing $1 billion to build a toy factory in Vietnam.

Second site in Asia: In a recent press release, the Danish toy company revealed that it is erecting a new 44-hectare (109-acre) facility in Binh Duong Province, which is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Ho Chi Minh City.

The site, which will cater to consumers in the Southeast Asian region, will be the company’s sixth factory, in addition to the one in China, the one in Mexico and the three in Europe.

Construction is set to start in the latter half of 2022 with a 2024 target for the first toy production. Once built, the site is expected to generate up to 4,000 jobs over the following decade and a half.

“This investment will help us to bring the power of Lego play to future generations of children,” Lego’s Chief Operations Officer Carsten Rasmussen was quoted as saying. “We want to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow, and it is critical that we do so by acting in the most sustainable way possible.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Rasmussen said the company sees growth opportunities in Southeast Asia “above all” other regions.

“Our strategy is to have our manufacturing locally and adapt to changes in demand locally,” he noted. “It has really helped our resilience this year.”

Lego opened its largest Southeast Asian store at 3,165 square feet near the Universal Studios Globe in Sentosa, Singapore this year. It also opened Southeast Asia’s first Lego “retailtainment” in Jakarta.

Carbon neutral factory: The project, which is made possible through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Lego Group and Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park Joint Venture Company Limited (VSIP), is aiming for a facility that will “be the Lego Group’s first carbon neutral run factory.”

The two parties have committed to replacing the vegetation removed due to construction by planting 50,000 trees in Vietnam.

In addition to the planned solar panels on the new factory’s roof, VSIP will build a solar project near the plant to produce 100% of its power needs.

The compound will also “accommodate electric vehicles and be outfitted with energy efficient production equipment.”

POLITICAL ECOLOGY; ENDEMIC ZOONOSES

Bird Flu Is Raging, Adding to the Risks for Food Inflation

Megan Durisin and Jasmine Ng, Bloomberg News

BC-Bird-Flu-Is-Raging-Adding-to-the-Risks-for-Food-Inflation , Megan Durisin and Jasmine Ng

(Bloomberg) -- The world’s poultry farmers are battling another grim spell of bird-flu cases, risking higher chicken prices and fewer free-range eggs.

More than 40 countries across Europe, Asia and Africa have seen outbreaks since May, according to World Organisation for Animal Health data. It’s threatening to drive food prices, which are near record levels, even higher and boost costs for households that are already suffering from surging prices for other commodities.   

Millions of birds were culled in Europe last winter due to the virus, whose highly pathogenic varieties can be deadly to poultry. Cases this year are rising earlier than usual, forcing countries like the U.K. to order birds indoors to shield them from the disease. The new wave of bird-flu risks making poultry even pricier, with European chicken output already hampered by labor shortages and high feed and energy costs, Rabobank’s Nan-Dirk Mulder said.

“It’s an additional factor that will impact food-price inflation,” said Mulder, a global poultry specialist. “It looks again like it’s a really high-pressure year for avian influenza in Europe and globally.”

A United Nations gauge of world meat prices has climbed 16% this year, and is at the highest seasonal level since 2014. Poultry production is largely adequate to meet global demand, but shipping hurdles and flu outbreaks in Europe and Asia are adding to supply challenges, the UN’s food agency said last month.

Farmers are now in a critical phase as cases of the virus typically peak from October to April. This year’s spread is showing “unprecedented genetic variability,” with a wide range of subtypes circulating in wild birds and on farms, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health. 

Bird Culling 

Poland, the continent’s largest chicken producer, has culled more than a million birds since early November. Danish turkeys and German geese have also been hit, and France recently reported an outbreak in egg-laying hens, after a massive outbreak on duck farms in early 2021. 

The number of birds affected remains a fraction of overall poultry production. But the risks could weigh on farmer sentiment and discourage expansion, Mulder said. Producers raising free-range hens may also be forced to sell eggs as lower-value barn-raised supply, if the birds are forced indoors for an extended period. 

The disease also disrupts trade flows, and the U.S. and Brazil -- which top the EU in chicken exports -- may grab further market share.

Europe has “tight supply and high prices,” Mulder said. “Taking into account that avian influenza is spreading now so fast over Europe, my view is that this will depress production further.”

UN chief: Climate change aggravates conflict and terrorism

EDITH M. LEDERER
Thu, December 9, 2021,

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Climate change is “an aggravating factor” for instability, conflict and terrorism, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.

The U.N. chief said the regions that are most vulnerable to climate change “also suffer from insecurity, poverty, weak governance and the scourge of terrorism.”

Guterres told a U.N. Security Council meeting on the link between climate change, conflict and terrorism that when climate disruptions hinder the ability of government institutions to provide public services, “it fuels grievances and mistrust towards authorities.”


And when the impact of climate change leads to people losing livelihoods, “the promises of protection, income and justice -- behind which terrorists sometimes hide their truce designs -- become more attractive,” he said.

In Africa’s Lake Chad basin region, Guterres said, the extremist group Boko Haram has been able to gain new recruits, “particularly from local communities disillusioned by a lack of economic opportunities and access to essential resources.”

“In central Mali, terrorist groups have exploited the growing tensions between herders and farmers to recruit new members from pastoralist communities, who often feel excluded and stigmatized,” the secretary-general said.

In Iraq and Syria, Islamic State extremists have “exploited water shortages and taken control of water infrastructure to impose its will on communities” he said, while in Somalia charcoal production has been a source of income for the al-Shabab extremist group.

Guterres said that “climate impacts compound conflicts and exacerbate fragility,” adding that U.N. peacekeeping or political missions are in eight of the 15 countries most exposed to climate risks. He did not name the countries.

The U.N. chief urged collective action to address the root causes of insecurity, stressing that “conflicts and terrorism do not take place in a vacuum.”

He urged increased investment to help developing countries adapt to the impact of climate change, saying developed countries must keep their promise to provide at least $100 billion a year to developing countries for climate action. He said these costs are expected to reach up to $300 billion a year by 2030.

Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum, whose country holds the Security Council presidency this month and chaired the meeting, said in Africa’s Sahel region, where his country is located, a key challenge is fighting terrorists whose “hateful acts on a daily basis are shaking the foundation of democratic states.”

“Among these challenges we also have climate change which by reducing access to resources is increasing poverty and all the scourges that go with that,” he said.

Bazoum expressed hope the Security Council would adopt a resolution that Niger and Ireland are co-sponsoring. It would recognize a link between ensuring international peace and security, which is the council's mandate, and the fight against terrorism and the effects of climate change.

He said the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin illustrate the interaction between the effects of climate change and peace and security.

“The consequences of this phenomenon -- and we still don’t know how widespread it is -- has led to the disintegration of the social fabric and the well-being of the populations forced into unbridled competition for access to resources” which are becoming rarer, Bazoum said.

The result is often inter-community conflicts and increased migration, and “even more worrying, this situation has contributed to feeding violent extremism and large-scale crime, leading some young people to join organized criminal and terrorist networks who previously enjoyed the riches and biodiversity of their regions.”

Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason said the Security Council has a responsibility “to break this vicious and self-reinforcing cycle.”

She urged support for what she called the “critical resolution,” saying: “This council must recognize and accept its role in the fight against climate change.”

“We need to integrate climate-related security risks into our conflict resolution, prevention and mediation efforts,” Byrne Nason said. “Doing so will help maintain international peace and security. Failure to do so is unconscionable.”

But Russia’s ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, whose country has veto power in the council, said: “For us, the connection between terrorism and climate change is not clear.”

He said the potential for work on this issue should be carried out in other U.N. bodies like the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council or the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. He said the Security Council should focus on “overcoming potential conflicts and future ones.”

House Democrats Reintroduce Bill To Ban Fracking, Oil Exports


Editor OilPrice.com
Fri, December 10, 2021

Two House Democrats reintroduced this week a bill targeting a ban on fracking, halting new fossil fuel power plants, and ending U.S. oil and gas exports, just as a group of Republicans introduced a bill aimed at protecting America’s energy security.

Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Senior Chief Deputy Whip and Chair of the Energy and Commerce Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee, and Congresswoman Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-CA) reintroduced this week their so-called Future Generations Protection Act of 2021, which, they say, “would help ensure a rapid shift away from fossil fuel to clean renewable energy.”

“The Future Generations Protection Act is a critical step in our transition to clean energy and reaching the United States target to reduce emissions by 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030,” Congresswoman Schakowsky said in a statement.

“As we continue to #CombatClimateChange the U.S. must transition away from dirty fossil fuels toward clean energy!” Schakowsky tweeted this week.

The bill is endorsed by a number of environmental organizations, including Food & Water Watch, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth, Center for Biological Diversity, Zero Hour, Progressive Democrats of America, Earthworks, and Climate Hawks Vote.

“This bill is the most comprehensive approach to achieving that necessary goal – by stopping fracking, putting a halt to new fossil fuel power plants, and ending the oil and gas exports that deepen global dependence on dirty forms of energy,” said Food & Water Watch Policy Director Mitch Jones.

The bill is reintroduced just as a group of Republican lawmakers introduced another bill that would protect the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves and shore up U.S. energy security.

“The SPR is not supposed to be tapped as a bailout for the President’s anti-fossil fuel agenda, which has led to the highest gas prices in seven years.” Republican Leader Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) said.

The bill would prevent the Secretary from “executing the first drawdown of petroleum products in the Reserve” except when there is a “severe energy supply interruption”, the text reads—even in the form of SPR loans—until the Secretary develops a plan to increase the percentage of federal lands leased for oil and gas production by the same percentage of oil set to be released from the SPR.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

Tropical forests can recover surprisingly quickly on deforested lands – and letting them regrow naturally is an effective and low-cost way to slow climate change


Robin Chazdon, Professor Emerita of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Catarina Conte Jakovac, Associate professor of Plant Science, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Lourens Poorter, Professor of Functional Ecology, Wageningen University, and Bruno Hérault, Tropical Forest Scientist, Forests & Societies Research Unit, Cirad
Thu, December 9, 2021, 12:03 PM·6 min read

A 32-year-old forest on former pastureland in northeastern Costa Rica. Robin Chazdon, CC BY-ND

Tropical forests are among the world’s best tools for fighting climate change and the loss of wild species. They store huge quantities of carbon, shelter thousands of plants and animals and are home to Indigenous peoples who sustain them. That’s why more than 100 world leaders pledged to halt deforestation by 2030 at the recent United Nations conference on climate change in Glasgow.

Many organizations and communities are working to restore native forests by reclaiming unproductive or abandoned land and carrying out costly tree-planting efforts. These efforts are designed to encourage the return of native plants and animals and to recover the ecological functions and goods that those forests once provided. But in many cases forests can recover naturally, with little or no human assistance.

We are forest ecologists and members of a collaborative research network that studies secondary forests – those that regrow naturally after an area has been cleared and cultivated or grazed. In a newly published study in the journal Science, our group pioneers an approach to forest recovery that provides insights from over 2,200 forest plots in naturally regrowing tropical forests across the American and West African tropics.

Our research shows that tropical forests recover surprisingly quickly: They can regrow on abandoned lands and recover many of their old-growth features, such as soil health, tree attributes and ecosystem functions, in as little as 10 to 20 years. However, to support effective forest restoration and planning, it is important to understand how quickly different forest functions and attributes recover.

Cattle graze in pasture filled with tree stumps
Forests come back

Most forests around the world today have regrown after human and natural disturbances, including fires, floods, logging and clearance for agriculture. For example, forests recovered in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries and in the eastern U.S. from the early to mid-20th century. Today the northeastern U.S. has more forest cover than it did 100 to 200 years ago.

Now, across the world’s tropical regions, forests are regrowing on approximately 3 million square miles (8 million square kilometers) of former farm and ranch land. Scientists and policymakers widely agree that it is critical to protect these regrowing forests and prevent more destruction and conversion of old-growth forests.

Tropical forests are more than just trees – they are complex, dynamic networks of plants, animals and microbes. Forest recovery takes time and often has unpredictable outcomes and variable pathways. Recovery patterns differ between wet and dry tropical forests.

To date, this active research area emphasizes studies that examined how specific features of forests, such as the number of species they contain or tree biomass, change over time and space. We believe it is important to understand forest recovery as an integrated process that is shaped by local, landscape and historical conditions.

A multidimensional view of tropical forest recovery

Our study focused on 12 attributes that are essential components of healthy forests. They include:


Soil: How much organic carbon and nitrogen does it contain, and how compacted is it? Soil that is too densely compacted – for example, by the hooves of grazing cattle – is hard for plant roots to penetrate and doesn’t absorb water well, which can lead to erosion.


Ecosystem functioning: How does the abundance and size of trees change as the forest regrows? What is the role in forest regrowth of trees that have root associations with nitrogen-fixing bacteria? How does regrowth affect the average density of wood and the durability of leaf tissues?


Forest structure: How do maximum tree size, variation in tree size, and total biomass – the quantity of plant matter above ground in tree trunks, branches and leaves – change as forests regrow?


Diversity and composition of tree species: How do the numbers of tree species present and the diversity and abundance patterns of species change and become more similar to nearby old-growth forests?

To assess long-term recovery rates, we compared attributes across forests growing on farmlands that had been abandoned at different times and compared regrowing forests with neighboring old-growth forests. We developed a new modeling approach to estimate how quickly each attribute recovered.

Many of these attributes depend on one another. For example, if trees regrow quickly they may produce a lot of leaf litter, which will restore levels of organic carbon in the soil when it decomposes. We analyzed these connections by comparing how strongly forest attributes were associated with one another.

The forests we studied were in areas of low- to moderate-intensity land use, meaning that soils were not exhausted or eroded and quickly supported regrowing native vegetation. For example, in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest region, 10,425 square miles (2.7 million hectares) of forest regrew naturally from 1996 to 2015. There is much less potential for tropical forests to recover in areas where soils are heavily overworked and no neighboring forests remain.

Graphic showing how regrowing forests regain functions over time.

All of the forest attributes that we examined recovered within 120 years of regrowth. Some recovered 100% of their old-growth values in the first 20 years of regrowth.

For example, the soil attributes that we analyzed reached 90% of old-growth values within 10 years and 98% to 100% within 20 years. In other words, after 20 years of regrowth, soils in the forests contained virtually as much organic carbon and had similar bulk density as soils in old-growth forests.

This quick recovery reflects the fact that the soils at our study sites had not been heavily degraded when forest regrowth started. Ecosystem function attributes also bounced back quickly, with 82% to 100% recovery within 20 years.

Forest structure attributes, such as maximum tree diameter, recovered more slowly. On average they reached 96% of old-growth values after 80 years of regrowth. Tree species composition and above-ground biomass recovered after 120 years.

[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]

We identified a set of three attributes – maximum tree size, overall variation in tree size and the number of tree species in a forest – that, viewed together, provide a reliable snapshot of how well a forest is recovering. These three indicators are relatively easy to measure, and managers can use them to monitor forest restoration. It is now possible to monitor tree size and forest structure over large areas and time scales using data collected by satellites and drones.

The importance of natural regrowth

Our findings show that tropical forest regrowth is an effective and low-cost, nature-based strategy for promoting sustainable development, restoring ecosystems, slowing climate change and protecting biodiversity. And since regrown forests in areas where the land has not been heavily damaged quickly recover many of their key attributes, forest recovery doesn’t always require planting trees.

In our view, a range of suitable reforestation methods can be implemented, depending on local site conditions and local people’s needs. We recommend relying on natural regrowth wherever and whenever possible, and using active restoration planting when needed.

Masha van der Sande at Wageningen University and Dylan Craven at the Universidad Mayor in Chile contributed to the data compilation and analyses for this study.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Robin Chazdon, University of Connecticut; Bruno Hérault, Cirad; Catarina Conte Jakovac, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, and Lourens Poorter, Wag.

Read more:

Organized crime is a top driver of global deforestation – along with beef, soy, palm oil and wood products

To conserve tropical forests and wildlife, protect the rights of people who rely on them

Robin Chazdon consults to the World Resources Institute's Global Restoration Initiative. She received funding from the US National Science Foundation, NASA Terrestrial Ecology Program, the University of Connecticut, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Blue Moon Foundation to support field research on forest regeneration in Costa Rica that produced data included in this study. She is a co-author of this publication in Science and other 2ndFOR Network publications that use data from her projects.

Bruno Hérault receives funding from FFEM the French Fund for Global Environment (Terri4Sol project), from DeSIRA the European programme for Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture (Cocoa4Future project) and from FCIAD the Ivorian Competitive Fund for Sustainable Agricultural Innovation (ForestInnov project).

Catarina Conte Jakovac receives funding from funding from Cnpq within the SinBiose program for Synthesis on Biodiversity and Ecosystem services. She is is part of the coordination team of the 2ndFOR network on secondary forests and is a member of the civil society organization Alliance for Restoration in the Amazon.

Lourens Poorter receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant 834775 and from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO-ALW.OP24). He is one of the coordinators of the 2ndFOR research network on secondary forests.

Plants are working harder to combat air pollution, study finds. But is it enough?



Alison Cutler
Fri, December 10, 2021

Plants could be the world’s universal currency to buy time against climate change, but will it be enough? A recent study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California found that plants are working harder to offset growing carbon emissions across the globe through high levels of photosynthesis.

It’s a good sign, researchers said in a news release about the study, since it helps understand ways to mitigate carbon emissions, but it’s not powerful enough to halt climate change.

The observational study, which was published in Nature on Dec. 8, used “terrestrial biosphere models” and estimates of the natural carbon cycle to evaluate the response of photosynthesis to carbon through history. Then, researchers used previous separate reports on the relationship between carbon and photosynthesis to decipher changes.

According to the researchers, plants are photosynthesizing, where they “suck carbon dioxide from the air and produce their own food,” at a rate 12% higher than they were between 1982 and 2020. During that time period, global carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere swelled by about 17%, the study indicated.

“This is a very large increase in photosynthesis, but it’s nowhere close to removing the amount of carbon dioxide we’re putting into the atmosphere,” Berkeley Lab scientist Trevor Keenan, lead author of the study, said in the release. “It’s not stopping climate change by any means, but it is helping us slow it down.”

There are certain challenges that come with measuring photosynthesis across the globe, the study pointed out, including weighing the photosynthesis rates of brush land versus large forests, and relying on specific methods of observation, including satellite observations or proxies, to determine an outcome.

While satellite images can tell researchers how much green is covering a mass of land and estimate the amount of leaves and plants that are contributing to the photosynthesis process, it might not account for the heightened photosynthesis process caused by carbon emissions, according to the release.

By using previous reports and determining which observations used overly-sensitive and under-sensitive estimates of carbon emissions on photosynthesis, the team was able to come up with a number.

“Our estimate of a 12% increase comes right in the middle of the other estimates,” Keenan said in the release. “And in the process of generating our estimate, it allowed us to re-examine the other estimates and understand why they were overly large or small. That gave us confidence in our results.”

The team used previous reports from the Global Carbon Project to flesh out the history of carbon emissions and its impact on photosynthesis.

According to recent data from the project, the world saw a record drop in carbon emissions during 2020, falling by 5.4%. In 2021, however, the use of coal and gas outgrew it’s drop from the year prior, and carbon emissions are set to rebound to 4.9%, the Global Carbon Project predicts.

Given that carbon dioxide lingers in the air for longer periods of time than other greenhouse gases, researchers from Berkeley Lab said it was critical to examine how it would be possible to offset the consequences of rising air pollution rates.

Keenan also added that researchers weren’t sure how long the higher production of photosynthesis in relation to growing carbon emission rates would last. At some point, Keenan said in a release, it could saturate.

“We don’t know what the future will hold as far as how plants will continue to respond to increasing carbon dioxide,” Keenan said.

California goes to war with food waste. Composting is its next climate crusade


James Rainey
Thu, December 9, 2021

Sharbel Eid, general manager, grabs a sample of finished compost at the Recology Blossom Valley Organics facility in Lamont, Calif. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Trash never dies. Sometimes it’s not even trash.

That’s the notion behind a state law that on Jan. 1 will require Californians to separate organic material from their other garbage. It's a landmark reform that aims to transform the state's throwaway culture — not just to ease pressure on landfills but to reduce the climate-warming fallout of our trashy norm.

Senate Bill 1383 mandates that Californians toss unused food, coffee grounds, egg shells, banana peels and other leftovers into bins they use for other “green” waste, such as garden trimmings, lawn clippings and leaves.


Waste haulers will divert the organic material away from traditional landfills to facilities that will turn the biological mishmash into products such as compost, mulch and natural gas.

In future years, individuals and businesses that don’t adequately separate their green waste can face fines of up to $500 daily. Cities that don't comply could be forced to pay as much as $10,000 a day per violation.

The state Legislature and then-Gov. Jerry Brown passed the law in 2016, seeking many benefits: reducing the flow of refuse to overburdened landfills and returning organics to the land, thereby improving soil quality, enhancing drought resistance, bolstering crops and, especially, reducing climate-warming gases.

A trailer dumps raw materials to be turned into compost at Recology Blossom Valley Organics last week. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The age-old practice of dumping backyard detritus and kitchen waste into landfills produces methane, a super-pollutant as much as 80 times more toxic than carbon dioxide and a potent — though not long-lasting — greenhouse gas. Its rapid dispersal into the atmosphere makes it particularly harmful, and it runs counter to the state's ambitions for tamping down global warming.

The new regimen represents the most dramatic shift in California's solid waste policy since the introduction of curbside recycling in the 1990s. The new law also requires supermarkets and other big food providers to divert as much as a quarter of edible food now destined for dumps to food banks to feed the needy. And it mandates that cities buy products such as mulch and compost, thereby creating new markets for the byproducts made from organic waste.

“What we are really talking about is not the waste stream, but the recycled stream,” said agronomist Bob Shaffer, a composting authority and advisor to organic farmers. “We are pleading with the public, ‘We need recycled food, to help with greening the land around us, to work on our atmospheric challenges, to provide a natural solution for soil health.’ ”

More fundamental change could be coming to the state's waste stream next year, when voters will consider a ballot measure that would require plastic manufacturers to ensure their products are recyclable or reusable. The hope is to sharply reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills or nature, particularly the ocean.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Still, more than half of the trash produced by Californians is organic material, especially kitchen scraps and garden waste, according to CalRecyle, the state agency spearheading the transition. The goal of the new state law is to reprocess 75% of the green waste by 2025. That means redirecting 17.7 million tons of organic material away from disposal, equivalent to the weight of more than 9.5 million cars.

The massive shift of green waste will require dozens of major public works improvements and the reeducation of residents and business people, to understand that most of what was once considered trash can be put to secondary uses.

Not all of the organics will be trucked away. Some food will be washed down garbage disposals and into the sewer system, where it will turn into methane and, in turn, potentially be recaptured and burned as fuel. A small fraction will be composted by homeowners or at community composting centers for reuse closer to the source. (Many environmentalists prefer this option because it doesn't require the use of pollution-spewing trucks to deliver green refuse to distant composting facilities.)

But most Californians probably will be too busy or distracted to reprocess their own green waste. They’ll depend on garbage companies to haul the leftovers away. And those haulers will need places to deposit the material, requiring the construction of anywhere from 50 to 150 large compost or anaerobic digestion centers, said Neil Edgar, executive director of the California Compost Coalition, a trade group that includes waste hauling companies.

Anaerobic digestion is a process that uses bacteria to break down the organic matter. When completed in sealed containers, the resulting gas can be harvested for fuel. Los Angeles County alone projects it could need a dozen anaerobic digestion plants, costing $840 million, to process 1.9 million tons of food waste a year.

“The work that’s needed is very deep and very wide,” Edgar said. “It’s monumental in scope.”

A tractor loads compost for a customer at Recology Blossom Valley Organics. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The new normal will mean more composting centers such as Blossom Valley Organics South, a 485-acre facility at the south end of the Central Valley, operated by the waste company Recology.

As many as 600 semi trucks will one day travel as far as 100 miles, sometimes more, from Los Angeles and other locales to dump as much as 3,750 tons of discarded food and yard waste daily at the composting center, not far from where State Route 99 and Interstate 5 split.

Massive conveyor belts and spinners shake the organics into continually smaller pieces, sifting out as much plastic, paper, branches and other contaminants as possible. The biodegradables then go into giant mounds, as much as 400 yards long and a dozen feet high.

It takes up to four months for microorganisms to break down the waste. Giant tilling machines turn the “windrows” to keep them oxygenated, as the 135-degree piles release clouds of steam. Gypsum, rice hulls, redwood dust and other amendments can be added to transform the heaps into finished compost.

Scientists have found that this kind of reconditioning of biological matter produces far less Earth-warming methane and carbon dioxide than landfilling. The atmospheric benefit is compounded when farmers put the compost onto their fields, often to feed “cover crops” such as mustard that help sink carbon back into the Earth.

“It’s like a no-brainer,” said Kate M. Scow, a soil scientist at UC Davis, who has measured how compost helps remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. “You can’t build carbon in the soil unless you feed carbon in. ... It’s a way of closing the loop.”

Whendee L. Silver, an ecosystem ecologist at UC Berkeley, has estimated that applying an inch of compost to just 5% of California’s rangelands would suck enough carbon out of the atmosphere to equal pulling 6 million cars off the road.

Silver emphasizes the importance of regular citizens participating, alleviating the helplessness many have felt in trying to confront the climate threat. “I want people to know that simple changes in their everyday activities (such as putting food, paper, and green waste in a green compost bin instead of a landfill bin) can contribute to slowing climate change,” Silver told a UC publication.

Some cities have been recycling their green waste for years. San Francisco blazed the trail in 1996 when it turned excess food from the city’s wholesale produce market into compost. By 2009, the city required all residents and businesses to place their food scraps in curbside green bins.

Then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom places a compostable pizza box on a collection bin before signing a mandatory recycling and composting ordinance at the Ferry Building in June 2009. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press )

The city now urges residents to compost just about anything from their kitchens: tea bags, vegetable peels, stale bread, nut shells, fruit pits and all manner of leftovers: steak bones, crab and oyster shells, salad dressings, pasta, vegetable oil, jam and cooked meats.

San Franciscans have become inveterate composters, with trucks now shipping up to 550 tons a day of yard and kitchen extras to a compost center near the Central Valley city of Tracy. San Francisco also recycles nearly that tonnage in cans, bottles and plastic, meaning the city now reprocesses nearly twice as much material as the 600 tons of trash that it landfills daily.

“When we put our banana peels, egg shells, and coffee grounds in a kitchen compost pail in San Francisco, it ends up in a vineyard or a farm that then becomes a carbon sink,” said Robert Reed, a Recology spokesman with an evangelical fervor for recycling.

The city has ambitious plans to go even further, with Mayor London Breed announcing Wednesday that it plans to cut landfill dumping an additional 50% (from 2015 levels) by 2030. That will require deeper behavioral changes, such as less wasteful buying of food and the reuse of wood and other building materials.

Most cities, particularly in Southern California, lag considerably behind San Francisco. SB 1383 requires them to pass ordinances by the end of the year adopting the state’s alternative waste goals. That, in turn, will require renegotiating contracts with private waste-hauling contractors and sometimes force the purchase of new bins and trucks for green waste.

Facilitating the collection of food scraps, Los Angeles and other cities have begun pilot programs to provide customers with kitchen pails.

“In some places, they have a back order to get the containers the organic waste goes into,” said Joanna Gin, a lawyer with Best Best & Krieger, who is helping cities navigate the new rules. “Some of them don’t anticipate getting the containers before the Jan. 1 deadline.”

CalRecyle suggests that many cities and counties will be able to put organic recycling in place with waste collection fee increases of 5% or less. In a survey, most cities said they expect to raise rates between 1% and 20%, with about one-fifth of cities predicting rates will jump even more.

The complications don’t stop there. Some cities fret, in particular, over the requirement that they buy back organic waste byproducts. A formula based on population dictates, for instance, that a city of 100,000 purchase 8,000 tons of mulch a year, or the equivalent in compost or reclaimed natural gas, said Gin.

Oceanside is already giving away compost to 1,000 residents, but that only gets the city one-third of the way to the amount of the reclaimed products it will be ordered to buy each year. "At the end of the day, there is only so much compost you can put on the ground," said Colleen Foster, the city's environmental officer. "We're going to have to find a place to store the rest."

CalRecyle notes that local governments have other procurement options, such as using biofuel to power buses or clean energy to heat public buildings.

Cities scrambling to meet all of the law’s requirements — and facing fines of up to $10,000 a day for failing to do so — raised an outcry. That led the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom to approve a stop-gap measure earlier this year, allowing cities to take until 2023 to come into compliance, if they file an action plan by March.

CalRecycle has signaled that it wants to promote voluntary cooperation and avoid fines, though it will have the power to go after laggards on Jan. 1. Those cities, in turn, can fine residents who fail to separate their green waste from their other trash, starting on Jan. 1, 2024. That will mean waste haulers or code enforcement officers peeping into trash bins to make sure green waste, recyclables and trash are kept separate. If they're not, the penalties can range from $50 to $100 for a first offense and increase up to $500 for third and subsequent failures.

Californians will pay a price if they confuse trash you can use with trash you should lose.

San Diego trash cans lined up for pickup. A councilmember wants voters to consider repealing the People's Ordinance that makes trash pickup a city responsibility. (Andrew Kleske / San Diego-Union-Tribune)

"We are at this very pivotal point in waste management, for a couple reasons," said Nick Lapis, advocacy director for the environmental group Californians Against Waste. "One is that for the first time we are tackling organic waste. And that happens just as public awareness and attention to plastic pollution is peaking. So these two massive shifts in how we think about waste are happening at the same time."

Times staff writer Jaclyn Cosgrove contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.