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)
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Implicit bias and concern about appearing racist predict teachers’ reluctance to discuss race and racism in the classroom
UMass Amherst research aims to help equip teachers to engage in crucial conversations
IMAGE: LINDA TROPP, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES AT UMASS AMHERST, CONDUCTS RESEARCH ON HOW MEMBERS OF DIFFERENT GROUPS EXPERIENCE CONTACT WITH EACH OTHER. HER GOAL IS TO ACHIEVE GREATER LEVELS OF SOCIAL EQUALITY AND JUSTICE.view more
CREDIT: UMASS AMHERST
Across the U.S., K-12 public school teachers face significant psychological barriers to discussing issues of race and racism with their students, according to new research by a University of Massachusetts social psychologist.
Linda Tropp, professor of psychological and brain sciences, examined how teachers’ implicit racial biases and concerns about appearing racist may affect their intentions and confidence about engaging their students in race talk. The findings were recently published online by the journal Social Psychology of Education.
“This research was done to try to understand what can sometimes get in the way of teachers’ best intentions to want to talk about race with their students,” says Tropp, who has extensive experience working in schools and seeking to support teachers in engaging students in conversations about race and other important and sensitive topics. “How do we equip teachers to engage in these conversations? What we’re hoping is that findings from this research can be used to inform future professional development programs for teachers, so that they feel more prepared to ‘go there’ with their students.”
Analyzing data from two large surveys, each including responses from more than 1,000 K-12 teachers, Tropp found that teachers’ implicit racial biases and their explicit fears of being perceived as racist both independently contributed to lower intentions to talk about race with their students. These psychological barriers are still evident, even after Tropp took into account numerous other variables such as teachers’ years of experience, their demographic characteristics, characteristics of the schools in which they teach and their own prior exposure to diversity training.
Recent teacher training and professional development programs have typically focused on educating teachers about implicit racial biases – that is, unconscious racial biases they may have and about which they may have limited awareness – without sufficiently addressing teachers’ conscious concerns about how they may be seen, or how their comments may be interpreted, Tropp explains.
“This is not just something unique to teachers, but something that we all experience in our society, where people are very quick to judge what we say,” Tropp says. “It’s understandable that we would have concerns about how what we say might be perceived or received by others.”
Tropp emphasizes that future training efforts need to consider how both implicit racial biases and conscious concerns about being seen as racist may curb teachers’ willingness to engage students in meaningful and productive conversations around race. Tropp’s paper states, “As we examine potential barriers to teachers’ engagement in race talk with students, we must also learn how to support teachers effectively when they are called upon to facilitate these discussions.”
In light of current political and social debates about race-related topics in school curricula, Tropp says it is increasingly urgent for teachers to discuss race in the classroom to help students process what they see and hear outside of the classroom. She notes, “By providing students with opportunities to engage in meaningful discussions about race, teachers can prepare them for respectful exchanges of perspectives with others and full participation as engaged citizens in an increasingly multifaceted and diverse society.”
IMAGE: X-RAY MICRO-COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY SCAN IMAGE OF MOREX (WILD-TYPE) AND EGT1 (MUTANT) ROOTS IN SOIL, SHOWING MAJOR DIFFERENCES IN SEMINAL ROOT GROWTH ANGLE. MUTANT ROOTS SHOW STEEPER ROOT PHENOTYPE COMPARED TO THE WILD-TYPEview more
CREDIT: DR. RICCARDO FUSI, UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM.
Scientists have discovered how to potentially design root systems to grow deeper by altering their angle growth to be steeper and reach the nutrients they need to grow, a discovery that could also help develop new ways to capture carbon in soil.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham and Bologna have discovered a key gene in barley and wheat that controls the angle of root growth. Steeper root angle helps bury carbon deeper in soil as well as improving resilience in crops to drought stress. Their findings have been published today in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Nottingham team have discovered how a new gene (called Enhanced Gravitropism 1 or EGT1) normally controls root angle by stiffening the core of growing root tips, making it more difficult to bend downwards. However, after this gene is disrupted, the team used X-ray micro CT imaging to reveal that every different type of root has a steeper angle.
Rahul Bhosale, Assistant Professor from the School of Biosciences and the Future Food Beacon at the University of Nottingham, who co-led the research, explains: “Root angle controls how efficiently plants can capture water and nutrients. For instance, shallow roots best capture phosphate which accumulates in the top-soil region, while steeper roots are better for foraging for water and nitrate in deeper soil layers. Steeper roots are also important for helping bury carbon deeper into soil. Discovering genes like EGT1 and how they control root angle is critical for developing novel future crop varieties better able to capture nutrients and carbon.”
The international team includes researchers from the University of Adelaide, University of Bologna and Penn State University. The Nottingham team was funded by ARPA-E, BBSRC Discovery Fellowship, European Research Council, Royal Society and University of Nottingham Future Food Beacon awards.
Root angle is controlled by EGT1 in cereal crops employing a novel anti-gravitropic mechanism
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
25-Jul-2022
Straightening out kinky roots captures carbon and avoids drought stress
Researchers have discovered a new gene in barley and wheat that controls the angle of root growth in soil, opening the door to new cereal varieties with deeper roots that are less susceptible to drought and nutrient stress, thus mitigating the effects of
IMAGE: X-RAY MICROCT REVEALS THE ROOT 3D ARCHITECTURES OF WILD TYPE (LEFT) AND EGT1 MUTANT (RIGHT) BARLEY.view more
CREDIT: DR RICCARDO FUSI (UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM)
Researchers have discovered a new gene in barley and wheat that controls the angle of root growth in soil, opening the door to new cereal varieties with deeper roots that are less susceptible to drought and nutrient stress, thus mitigating the effects of climate change.
“The angle at which barley roots grow down into the soil enables them to capture water and nutrients from different soil layers,” said Dr Haoyu (Mia) Lou from the University of Adelaide’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine who was joint first author on the study.
“Shallow roots enable plants to capture phosphate and surface water, while deeper, straighter roots can stabilise yield by accessing deeper water and nitrate; they can also bury carbon deeper in the soil.”
Working alongside scientists from the UK, Italy, Germany and the USA the team identified a new gene called Enhanced Gravitropism 1 (EGT1) in barley.
“By identifying the genes that control root growth angle we can greatly aid efforts to develop crops that are better adapted to specific soil types and more resilient to fluctuating environmental conditions, helping to mitigate carbon burden and counter the effects of climate change,” said Dr Lou.
“We have found that mutants lacking function of the EGT1 gene exhibit a steeper growth angle in all classes of roots.
“Remarkably, the roots behave as if they are overly sensitive to gravity – they are unable to grow outwards from the plant, and instead grow straight down.”
Australian farmers face a wide range of risks, but they are particularly exposed to variability in climate which has a flow-on effect to commodity prices. Severe droughts are frequent and prolonged with eastern and south-eastern parts of the country particularly badly affected. Coupled with rising fertiliser costs and increased pressure to achieve sustainability, there is a pressing need to develop new crop varieties better able to capture nutrients, carbon and water.
Co-author Associate Professor Matthew Tucker, Deputy Director of the Waite Research Institute said: “These findings were made possible through exciting technologies such as X-ray CT, enabling root growth to be traced in soil. They could immediately help cereal breeders to select varieties with straighter roots from their genetic stocks, or aid in the development and deployment of new EGT1 alleles in the near future.”
Dr Haoyu (Mia) Lou, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide. Mobile: +61 (0)449 681 077, Email: haoyu.lou@adelaide.edu.au
Associate Professor Matthew Tucker, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide. Mobile: +61 (0)403 314 740, Email: Matthew.tucker@adelaide.edu.au
Crispin Savage, Acting Manager, News and Media, The University of Adelaide. Mobile: +61 (0)481 912 465, Email: crispin.savage@adelaide.edu.au
Trilobites- extinct marine arthropods that roamed the world’s oceans from about 520 million years ago until they went extinct 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period - may have grown in a similar fashion and reached ages that match those of extant crustaceans, a new study has found.
In a paper published in the journal Paleobiology, researchers from the University of British Columbia and Uppsala University show that the Ordovician trilobite Triarthrus eatoni, some 450 million years ago, reached a length of just above 4 cm in about 10 years, with a growth curve very similar to that of small, slow-growing crustaceans.
“T. eatoni lived in low-oxygen environments and, similarly to extant crustaceans exposed to hypoxic conditions, exhibited low growth rates compared with growth under more oxygenated conditions,” said Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of UBC’s Sea Around Us initiative and lead author of the study. “Low-oxygen environments make is more difficult for water-breathers to grow, and add to the difficulties of breathing through gills, which, as 2D surfaces, cannot keep up with the growth of their 3D bodies. Thus, under hypoxic conditions, they must remain small if they are to maintain the rest of their body functions.”
In the case of trilobites, their exopods —external branches on the upper part of their limbs— functioned as gills. Thus, these ancient animals had similar growth constraints to those of their modern counterparts.
To reach these conclusions, Pauly and his colleague from Uppsala University, paleontologist James Holmes, resorted to the analysis of length-frequency data, a method developed within fisheries science and marine biology for studying the growth of fish and invertebrates lacking the physical markings that indicate their age.
The information to perform their analysis was obtained from an earlier publication with information of the length frequency distribution of 295 exceptionally-preserved trilobite fossils collected at ‘Beecher’s Trilobite Bed’ in New York State.
After estimating the parameters of a growth model widely used in fisheries science, the von Bertalanffy growth function, the researchers compared their results with published data on the growth of extant crustaceans. They found that the growth parameters they estimated for Triarthrus eatoni were well within the range of recent, slow-growing crustaceans.
“These findings provide the first reasonable estimates of absolute growth in early animals using methods known to accurately characterize growth in comparable living species,” Holmes said. “They show us that nearly half-a-billion years ago, growth in marine arthropods like trilobites was similar to modern examples like crustaceans living in today’s oceans.”
IMAGE: A DEPICTION OF EARTH, FIRST WITHOUT AN INNER CORE; SECOND, WITH AN INNER CORE BEGINNING TO GROW, AROUND 550 MILLION YEARS AGO; THIRD, WITH AN OUTERMOST AND INNERMOST INNER CORE, AROUND 450 MILLION YEARS AGO. UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER RESEARCHERS USED PALEOMAGNETISM TO DETERMINE THESE TWO KEY DATES IN THE HISTORY OF THE INNER CORE, WHICH THEY BELIEVE RESTORED THE PLANET’S MAGNETIC FIELD JUST BEFORE THE EXPLOSION OF LIFE ON EARTH.view more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER ILLUSTRATION / MICHAEL OSADCIW
Approximately 1,800 miles beneath our feet, swirling liquid iron in the Earth’s outer core generates our planet’s protective magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is vital for life on Earth’s surface because it shields the planet from solar wind—streams of radiation from the sun.
About 565 million years ago, however, the magnetic field’s strength decreased to 10 percent of its strength today. Then, mysteriously, the field bounced back, regaining its strength just before the Cambrian explosion of multicellular life on Earth.
What caused the magnetic field to bounce back?
According to new research from scientists at the University of Rochester, this rejuvenation happened within a few tens of millions of years—rapid on geological timescales—and coincided with the formation of Earth’s solid inner core, suggesting that the core is likely a direct cause.
“The inner core is tremendously important,” says John Tarduno, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and dean of research for Arts, Sciences & Engineering at Rochester. “Right before the inner core started to grow, the magnetic field was at the point of collapse, but as soon as the inner core started to grow, the field was regenerated.”
In the paper, published in Nature Communications, the researchers determined several key dates in the inner core’s history, including a more precise estimate for its age. The research provides clues about the history and future evolution of Earth and how it became a habitable planet, as well as the evolution of other planets in the solar system.
Unlocking information in ancient rocks
Earth is composed of layers: the crust, where life is situated; the mantle, Earth’s thickest layer; the molten outer core; and the solid inner core, which is, in turn, composed of an outermost inner core and an innermost inner core.
Earth’s magnetic field is generated in its outer core, where swirling liquid iron causes electric currents, driving a phenomenon called the geodynamo that produces the magnetic field.
Because of the magnetic field’s relationship to Earth’s core, scientists have been trying for decades to determine how Earth’s magnetic field and core have changed throughout our planet’s history. They cannot directly measure the magnetic field due to the location and extreme temperatures of materials in the core. Fortunately, minerals that rise to Earth’s surface contain tiny magnetic particles that lock in the direction and intensity of the magnetic field at the time the minerals cool from their molten state.
To better constrain the age and growth of the inner core, Tarduno and his team used a CO2 laser and the lab’s superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer to analyze feldspar crystals from the rock anorthosite. These crystals have minute magnetic needles within them that are “perfect magnetic recorders,” Tarduno says.
By studying the magnetism locked in ancient crystals—a field known as paleomagnetism—the researchers determined two new important dates in the history of the inner core:
550 million years ago: the time at which the magnetic field began to renew rapidly after a near collapse 15 million years before that. The researchers attribute the rapid renewal of the magnetic field to the formation of a solid inner core that recharged the molten outer core and restored the magnetic field’s strength.
450 million years ago: the time at which the growing inner core’s structure changed, marking the boundary between the innermost and outermost inner core. These changes in the inner core coincide with changes around the same time in the structure of the overlying mantel, due to plate tectonics on the surface.
“Because we constrained the inner core’s age more accurately, we could explore the fact that the present-day inner core is actually composed of two parts,” Tarduno says. “Plate tectonic movements on Earth’s surface indirectly affected the inner core, and the history of these movements is imprinted deep within Earth in the inner core’s structure.”
Avoiding a Mars-like fate
Better understanding the dynamics and growth of the inner core and the magnetic field has important implications, not only in uncovering Earth’s past and predicting its future, but in unraveling the ways in which other planets might form magnetic shields and sustain the conditions necessary to harbor life.
Researchers believe that Mars, for example, once had a magnetic field, but the field dissipated, leaving the planet vulnerable to solar wind and the surface ocean-less. While it is unclear whether the absence of a magnetic field would have caused Earth to meet the same fate, “Earth certainly would’ve lost much more water if Earth’s magnetic field had not been regenerated,” Tarduno says. “The planet would be much drier and very different than the planet today.”
In terms of planetary evolution, then, the research emphasizes the importance of a magnetic shield and a mechanism to sustain it, he says.
“This research really highlights the need to have something like a growing inner core that sustains a magnetic field over the entire lifetime—many billions of years—of a planet.”
IMAGE: PPPL PRINCIPAL ENGINEER YUHU ZHAI WITH IMAGES OF A HIGH-TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNET, WHICH COULD IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF SPHERICAL TOKAMAK FUSION DEVICES.view more
CREDIT: COLLAGE BY KIRAN SUDARSANAN / PPPL OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found a way to build powerful magnets smaller than before, aiding the design and construction of machines that could help the world harness the power of the sun to create electricity without producing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
The scientists found a way to build high-temperature superconducting magnets that are made of material that conducts electricity with little or no resistance at temperatures warmer than before. Such powerful magnets would more easily fit within the tight space inside spherical tokamaks, which are shaped more like a cored apple than the doughnut-like shape of conventional tokamaks, and are being explored as a possible design for future fusion power plants.
Since the magnets could be positioned apart from other machinery in the spherical tokamak’s central cavity to corral the hot plasma that fuels fusion reactions, researchers could repair them without having to take anything else apart. “To do this, you need a magnet with a stronger magnetic field and a smaller size than current magnets,” said Yuhu Zhai, a principal engineer at PPPL and lead author of a paper reporting the results in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. “The only way you do that is with superconducting wires, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Fusion, the power that drives the sun and stars, combines light elements in the form of plasma — the hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei — that generates massive amounts of energy. Scientists are seeking to replicate fusion on Earth for a virtually inexhaustible supply of safe and clean power to generate electricity.
High-temperature superconducting magnets have several advantages over copper magnets. They can be turned on for longer periods than copper magnets can because they don’t heat up as quickly, making them better suited for use in future fusion power plants that will have to run for months at a time. Superconducting wires are also powerful, able to transmit the same amount of electrical current as a copper wire many times wider while producing a stronger magnetic field.
The magnets could also help scientists continue to shrink the size of tokamaks, improving performance and reducing construction cost. “Tokamaks are sensitive to the conditions in their central regions, including the size of the central magnet, or solenoid, the shielding, and the vacuum vessel,” said Jon Menard, PPPL’s deputy director for research. “A lot depends on the center. So if you can shrink things in the middle, you can shrink the whole machine and reduce cost while, in theory, improving performance.”
These new magnets take advantage of a technique refined by Zhai and researchers at Advanced Conductor Technologies, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, in Tallahassee, Florida. The technique means that the wires do not need conventional epoxy and glass fiber insulation to ensure the flow of electricity. While simplifying construction, the technique also lowers costs. “The costs to wind the coils are much lower because we don’t have to go through the expensive and error-prone epoxy vacuum-impregnation process,” Zhai said. “Instead, you’re directly winding the conductor into the coil form.”
Moreover, “high-temperature superconducting magnets can help spherical tokamak design because the higher current density and smaller windings provide more space for support structure that helps the device withstand the high magnetic fields, enhancing operating conditions,” said Thomas Brown, a PPPL engineer who contributed to the research. “Also, the smaller, more powerful magnets give the machine designer more options to design a spherical tokamak with geometry that could enhance overall tokamak performance. We’re not quite there yet but we’re closer, and maybe close enough.”
This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (Small Business Innovation Research and Laboratory Directed Research and Development).
PPPL, on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, N.J., is devoted to creating new knowledge about the physics of plasmas — ultra-hot, charged gases — and to developing practical solutions for the creation of fusion energy. The Laboratory is managed by the University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science
LEIBNIZ INSTITUTE FOR TROPOSPHERIC RESEARCH (TROPOS)
IMAGE: MOBILE MEASUREMENTS - DURING THE RUN IN THE VILLAGE OF RETJE, DINARIC ALPS, SLOVENIA.view more
CREDIT: KRISTINA GLOJEK, UNIVERSITY OF NOVA GORICA
Ajdovščina/ Leipzig. Around 30 million people in Europe live in mountain valleys. A large part of this population is more affected by air pollution than previously assumed. This is the conclusion of a Slovenian-German research team from measurements in the Northern Dinaric Alps. Due to temperature inversions in winter, pollutants are trapped in the valleys to such an extent that soot and fine dust could reach alarming levels even in small villages, as they otherwise occur mainly in the centres of congested metropolises, write researchers from the Universities of Ljubljana, Molise and Nova Gorica and the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in the scientific journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP). With mobile measurements using an instrumented backpack by TROPOS, it had become possible to examine the pollutant distribution in more detail.
Wood combustion is responsible for more than half of the small particulate matter (PM2.5) in Europe, which is dangerous to health. According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), wood combustion is now the largest source of this pollutant. The promotion of wood as a "carbon dioxide-neutral" fuel, the rising costs of fossil fuels and several financial crises have led to significantly increasing use of wood as an alternative source. People are more likely to burn wood for household heating in small heating systems.
Air quality studies have so far mostly focused on cities. However, in the EU, the UK and the four EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, over a quarter of the population live in rural areas. To study the impact of wood burning on the air quality in such villages, the researchers took a closer look at a karst hollow in Slovenia. The hollow in the municipality of Loški Potok around the village of Retje is representative of many mountainous and hilly rural areas in Central and South-Eastern Europe with wood heating systems. The study area is located in a shallow karst depression with a topography that favors the formation of temperature inversions and cold air pools typical in many valleys and relief depressions in winter. In addition to two fixed measuring stations at the bottom of the hollow in the village and on a hill, mobile measurements with instruments aboard a backpack, in particular, provided crucial details on the distribution of air pollutants in space. With this backpack, the team walked the six-kilometre route through the valley three times a day in December 2017 and January 2018 – in the morning, at midday and in the evening. In 107 measurement tours, 642 kilometres were covered on foot.
In addition to particulate matter, the team also examined one of its components: black carbon - colloquially also simply called "soot”.. Black cabon is produced by incomplete combustion of carbon-containing materials such as fossil fuels or wood. Among other things, carcinogenic substances adhere to the tiny soot particles. Black carbon is, therefore, considered a highly problematic component of particulate matter in terms of health. While the fixed measuring stations provided hourly concentrations of black carbon (eBC) of 1 to 40 micrograms per cubic metre and particulate matter concentrations (PM10) of 10 to 205 micrograms per cubic metre, the mobile measurements provided black carbon and PM2.5, but with levels more representative of the actual concentrations many people in the hollow were exposed to. These high levels of pollutants can be attributed to one effect that frequently occurs in the mountains in winter which proved to be particularly problematic: in the morning, the sun warms the upper parts of the relief depression faster than the lower parts - due to the morning fog that forms in the relief depression sheltered from the wind and prevents warming near the ground. The resulting temperature inversion acts like a lid on a pot: the exhaust gases and particles cannot escape upwards and concentrate at the bottom. In this study, several temperature inversion events occurred, during which the pedestrian level pollutant concentrations of soot (eBC) reached an average of 4.5 micrograms per cubic metre and of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) 48 micrograms per cubic metre, which is comparable to the centres of large metropolises where there is heavy traffic. These values are much larger than the European Union's annual limit (20 micrograms per cubic metre) and the World Health Organisation's (WHO) recommendations for the daily limit (15 micrograms per cubic metre). As measured by the EU Air Quality Index for fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), air quality was very poor during such temperature inversions. Overall, air quality was only moderate during the entire study period (December and January).
"During temperature inversions, pollutant levels in the hollow were highest in the early evening, reaching up to 22 micrograms per cubic metre for black carbon and 560 micrograms per cubic metre for particulate matter. This is the result of domestic wood burning, which increases when people come home after work, and the stable air layer at the bottom of the hollow. However, with some wind, both black carbon and particulate matter levels in the basin dropped to less than 1 and 12 micrograms per cubic metre, respectively, which is about four times lower than during a temperature inversion and in line with European regional background levels," reports Dr. Kristina Glojek who studied for her PhD at the University of Ljubljana. During morning and afternoon temperature inversions, in the village of Retje, people living on the lower part of the south-facing slopes were most exposed to the high concentrations of particulate matter, while in the early evening hours, when the inversion is limited to the bottom of the hollow, people there breathe in the highest levels of pollutants.
Such weather conditions are typical for hilly and mountainous regions. During the study, temperature inversions occurred on more than 70 per cent of all winter nights and mornings. "These very stable conditions prevent effective mixing of the air in the relief depression, which leads to increased pollutant levels. Therefore, during temperature inversions, particulate matter concentrations in the sink rise to levels comparable to those in larger European city centres and above the EU daily limit value (PM10 = 50 micrograms per cubic metre) as well as above the annual limit value and the WHO daily guideline values (PM2.5 = 20 and 15 micrograms per cubic metre, respectively)," emphasises Prof. Mira Pöhlker from TROPOS.
From the researchers' point of view, the example of the small relief depression in Slovenia points to a problem that is not limited to this region alone: "The pollutant concentrations measured during the temperature inversions in the rather sparsely populated small relief hollow are worrying, as similar conditions can be expected in numerous hilly and mountainous regions throughout Europe, where about 20 percent of the total population live, 30 percent of whom live in rural relief hollows comparable to the Retje site," emphasises Prof. Griša Močnik from the University of Nova Gorica.
In the view of the Slovenian-German research team, the results of this study highlight the importance of high-resolution measurements of air quality also in rural areas to monitor and aim to reduce the residential wood-burning pollution and its consequent health effects, especially in mountainous areas with limited atmospheric self-purification capacity. Therefore, they specifically propose:
1. to study pilot sites at smaller spatial scales that could help decision-makers to take effective action at the local level;
2. raising public awareness of the problem of air pollution from wood burning, including knowledge of the negative effects on health, energy efficiency, the economic costs of ineffective burning, the optimal use and regular maintenance of heating appliances, and the use of quality fuels (e.g. dry wood);
3. informing residents when weather conditions cause pollutants to concentrate in the valley and burning wood is not recommended;
4. identifying local major polluters as they may be the main cause of deterioration of local air quality;
5. to encourage retrofitting of existing stoves, centralizing combustion in district heating systems, improving energy retrofitting of buildings, and changing fuel if there is a better alternative are possible options to reduce pollution from wood burning.
It is also important to strongly involve the local population in the measures to reduce pollution emissions. Furthermore, everyone should be aware that there is not one universal solution to this complex problem. Rather, measures are needed at several levels, taking into account geographical and cultural specificities. Tilo Arnhold
