... want to be a scientist? All you need is a bucket lid, a length of rope, and a smart phone app.
Scientist Richard Kirby at Plymouth investigates how climate change affects phytoplankton in the oceans. One of the oldest and yet simplest methods to measure the density of phytoplankton in surface waters is to use a device called the Secchi disk, invented by the Jesuit Pietro Angelo Secchi in 1865. This is simply a plain white disk, usually made of plastic, that's lowered into the water until it can no longer be seen; this depth is read off from the line. The denser the plankton, the more turbid the water and the faster the disk disappears from view.
Kirby's team has developed an app to gather data from "citizen-scientists". Because of its simplicity, the Secchi method is well-suited for crowd-sourcing, and can be made quickly from easily-available materials. The group's aim is to get data on plankton density from throughout the world's oceans, far more than any single scientific group would be able to accomplish on its own.
Download the app for iPhone or Android from the Secchi App website.
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Germany's green energy revoluton
The terrain in North Germany is largely flat, and cycling in the countryside one can see it rolling on for miles. From almost any point one can also see the electricity-generating windmills keeping watch over the countryside. The building boom in windmills and solar panels is a result of the German government's plan to transition entirely towards renewable energy sources.
Soon after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the announcement was made that the country would shut down its remaining nuclear power plants. In the short term, as this commentary in Nature points out, this means that the country is more reliant on fossil fuels like coal and gas. But it rightly says that the Energiewende, or Energy Transition, is an experiment. There is a risk, after all, that renewable energy is not enough, and that anticipated improvements in technologies for the production and distribution of energy will not pan out.
Another commentary article, this one from the Economist, is less optimistic and more cautious. Much of the initial boom in building renewable energy plants and decentralizing energy production has been fueled by government grants and subsidies. Eventually, however, consumers will see their electricity bills go up. Remodeling the energy infrastructure changes patterns of supply and demand. On top of the technological challenges are the economic ones, that ultimately depend on human factors: how much citizens and businesses are willing to pay, and what politicians have the will to push through.
Soon after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the announcement was made that the country would shut down its remaining nuclear power plants. In the short term, as this commentary in Nature points out, this means that the country is more reliant on fossil fuels like coal and gas. But it rightly says that the Energiewende, or Energy Transition, is an experiment. There is a risk, after all, that renewable energy is not enough, and that anticipated improvements in technologies for the production and distribution of energy will not pan out.
Another commentary article, this one from the Economist, is less optimistic and more cautious. Much of the initial boom in building renewable energy plants and decentralizing energy production has been fueled by government grants and subsidies. Eventually, however, consumers will see their electricity bills go up. Remodeling the energy infrastructure changes patterns of supply and demand. On top of the technological challenges are the economic ones, that ultimately depend on human factors: how much citizens and businesses are willing to pay, and what politicians have the will to push through.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Environmentalist recants anti-GM position
Mark Lynas, an environmental activist and writer on subjects including climate change, publicly recanted his previous opposition to genetically-modified foods at a public lecture in the Oxford Farming Conference in January. People change their minds all the time, but his action surprised people because he was in the past deeply involved in activism against GM foods, even joining groups who attacked and uprooted GM crops in farms and research stations. In an interview, he describes how his former associates have reacted to his about-face:
Lynas's speech made the news internationally and, along with it, "all the hate started coming through". He found himself accused of being in the pay of Monsanto which, he says, "shows that people think I have no integrity and look at me with complete contempt".It wasn't an impulsive decision, however, but one based on his immersion in science and the scientific literature when researching his books on climate change. As he learned more about the science behind climate, he found himself arguing with climate-change deniers, and saw that he was looking at himself in the mirror:
My second climate book, Six Degrees, was so sciency that it even won the Royal Society science books prize, and climate scientists I had become friendly with would joke that I knew more about the subject than them. And yet, incredibly, at this time in 2008 I was still penning screeds in the Guardian attacking the science of GM – even though I had done no academic research on the topic, and had a pretty limited personal understanding. I don’t think I’d ever read a peer-reviewed paper on biotechnology or plant science even at this late stage.His speech is worth reading for people on either side of the fence, if only to have a peek into how people think on their other side....
Friday, March 30, 2012
Out of proportion: Carbon infographic from the Guardian
The Guardian newspaper has an infographic on the carbon footprint of countries around the world. It's a world map which distorts the size of different countries to represent relative population size, energy consumption, carbon emissions, and so on.
It's cool to see the familiar world map blobber and change as you click on the different buttons, but chilling to think about what it represents: how unequal is the human condition around the planet. It also shows very clearly how the affluent world hogs most of its resources and produces most of its pollution.
On most world maps you can't even see Singapore, but play around with this interactive graphic for a while and see when our little dot starts to pop.
It's cool to see the familiar world map blobber and change as you click on the different buttons, but chilling to think about what it represents: how unequal is the human condition around the planet. It also shows very clearly how the affluent world hogs most of its resources and produces most of its pollution.
On most world maps you can't even see Singapore, but play around with this interactive graphic for a while and see when our little dot starts to pop.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Planet Earths' debt ceiling
You may have not noticed it amid all the news on the economy, but on Tuesday we've gone into ecological debt for the year. 27 September was this year's Earth Overshoot Day (via Discover), the day when human consumption and waste emission for the year has exceeded the Earth's annual productivity and ability to absorb waste. The organization responsible for this announcement is the NGO Global Footprint Network, which seeks to raise awareness of environmental sustainability. They've issued a media packet explaining the concept here (pdf). The idea was originally mooted by the UK-based new economics foundation (they do their name in lowercase) in the 1980s as Ecological Debt Day.
It sounds like a straightforward calculation of income minus expenditure, but the reality of course is quite complicated. Most of the parameters, such as crop productivity and human greenhouse gas emissions, have to be estimated, so the date is not an exact one. Despite the uncertainties, the calculated date is actually be on the more generous (to humans) end of the scale.
What's scarier is that the date has been moving forward every year: from sometime in early November in 2001, to late September now, about 3 days a year. Even scarier, this ignores the cumulative effect of previous times when we've gone into debt. This crisis mirrors the financial one: in some heavily indebted countries, politicians are happy to report when they've simply slowed down the rate of debt increase.
This is a good way of getting people's attention, because of all the headlines that the poor economy has been grabbing lately. Even non-economists, like myself, have become acquainted with concepts like debt ceilings, defaults, and bailouts (though what a "tranche" is still remains opaque to me). Environmentalists and sustainability scientists are also working on figuring out how to put an economic price on ecosystems and the environment, to make the importance of preserving the environment more "real" to those who think in dollars and cents, such as policymakers and industry. Examples include factoring in the cost of ecosystem services into environmental impact assessments, or selling carbon credits, or swapping habitat protection for debt forgiveness. All of these schemes have their critics, but I like to think of them as experiments in progress, as people try to figure out what's a workable way to account for the environmental impact of our economic decisions.
 |
| From Global Footprint Network website |
It sounds like a straightforward calculation of income minus expenditure, but the reality of course is quite complicated. Most of the parameters, such as crop productivity and human greenhouse gas emissions, have to be estimated, so the date is not an exact one. Despite the uncertainties, the calculated date is actually be on the more generous (to humans) end of the scale.
What's scarier is that the date has been moving forward every year: from sometime in early November in 2001, to late September now, about 3 days a year. Even scarier, this ignores the cumulative effect of previous times when we've gone into debt. This crisis mirrors the financial one: in some heavily indebted countries, politicians are happy to report when they've simply slowed down the rate of debt increase.
This is a good way of getting people's attention, because of all the headlines that the poor economy has been grabbing lately. Even non-economists, like myself, have become acquainted with concepts like debt ceilings, defaults, and bailouts (though what a "tranche" is still remains opaque to me). Environmentalists and sustainability scientists are also working on figuring out how to put an economic price on ecosystems and the environment, to make the importance of preserving the environment more "real" to those who think in dollars and cents, such as policymakers and industry. Examples include factoring in the cost of ecosystem services into environmental impact assessments, or selling carbon credits, or swapping habitat protection for debt forgiveness. All of these schemes have their critics, but I like to think of them as experiments in progress, as people try to figure out what's a workable way to account for the environmental impact of our economic decisions.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
"Moving Planet" event in Singapore, 24-25 Sep
Keen on cycling? "Moving Planet" is a "world-wide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis". The campaign is coming to Singapore, where organizers aim to encourage cycling to reduce the use of fossil fuels. It's on this weekend in Singapore (24th and 25th September), from 10 am to 10 pm at Youth Park in Orchard, and includes music performances and film screenings. The event is organized by local NGOs ECO Singapore and Xpose.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Semakau landfill "no dump"
Pulau Semakau has drawn international attention as the world's only landfill with a waiting list for visitors, as well as for its environmental credentials:
"... Semakau Landfill is the only active landfill that receives incinerated and industrial waste while supporting a thriving ecosystem, which includes more than 700 types of plants and animals and several endangered species."Read more at the New York Times. The article also highlights some criticisms of the landfill, including the risk that waste might leak through to the sea, and the pollution caused by incinerators.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Work on Bukit Timah Eco-Link begins
Two years ago, Cheng Puay blogged about the announcement of an ecological 'bridge' to be built across the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE) to connect Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and the Central Catchment area. Construction of the BKE 25 years ago had caused the two forested areas to be separated from each other, preventing animals from moving freely and making them run the risk of becoming roadkill.
Today the Straits Times reported that work on the Eco-Link@BKE has finally begun, at a projected cost of $17 million, to be completed around December 2013. It will certainly be an exciting experiment to see whether man-made forest corridors of this sort can be effective at allowing migration and genetic exchange between two forest fragments.
Incidentally, the previous blog post is the most often-visited post on this blog. Those who have read that article may hence be glad to have this update.
In other news, the ST today also reported on a growing poaching problem in forested areas around Singapore, including wild boar traps which have inadvertently maimed stray dogs. Nature aficionados who habitually walk through the undergrowth should watch out!
Today the Straits Times reported that work on the Eco-Link@BKE has finally begun, at a projected cost of $17 million, to be completed around December 2013. It will certainly be an exciting experiment to see whether man-made forest corridors of this sort can be effective at allowing migration and genetic exchange between two forest fragments.
Incidentally, the previous blog post is the most often-visited post on this blog. Those who have read that article may hence be glad to have this update.
In other news, the ST today also reported on a growing poaching problem in forested areas around Singapore, including wild boar traps which have inadvertently maimed stray dogs. Nature aficionados who habitually walk through the undergrowth should watch out!
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Who's a climate scientist?
Climate science researchers appear in a video produced and aired by the Australian satirical TV show Hungry Beast, titled "I'm a Climate Scientist." Among their reasons for doing so was to "[highlight] the issue of unqualified opinions on climate science by politicians, economists etc. in the media." (Source)
A sample of the lyrics:
A sample of the lyrics:
Who's a climate scientist?The video is embedded below, but warning: loud music and strong language. Via an article on scientist-turned-activist James Hansen in the Guardian.
I'm a climate scientist!
A penny-farthing cyclist?
Not a climate scientist!
A Fox News journalist? -- No!
A paleontologist? -- No!
A clean coal lobbyist? -- No!
A cashed-up alarmist? -- No!
Friday, June 24, 2011
Indigenous peoples opposed to Indonesian carbon swap
Forest-dwelling communities in the Indonesian state of Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, have expressed their objection to the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) agreements signed by Indonesia with other countries and non-governmental groups.
REDD schemes are designed to put an economic value on forested lands for biodiversity and ecosystems services, where previously the only ways to extract monetary value from them were logging and clearing land for agriculture. Under such schemes, many of which are bilateral, governments are paid money in exchange for preserving tracts of forest. (Example: UN-REDD programme in Indonesia)
To quote a forest reserve executive in Guyana: "We have a resource we would like to get money for. Either you pay us for biodiversity services or we will sell the forest to Malaysian logging companies." (source)
Indigenous peoples who claim customary use of forests have objected to them because they feel that their rights to the land have been overlooked in the process, displacing them from their livelihood and dwellings. It seems like there may be more than one indigenous organization making public statements against REDD programmes.
I've previously blogged about how deforested land is being 'swept under the carpet' due to poor oversight. Related concerns have been expressed about the tremendous potential for corruption that they bring. It seems obvious to state that corruption is possible when large sums of money are being given to a central government to pay for a rural commodity (ecosystem services) which is hard to define and which you can't take conventional delivery of.
REDD schemes are designed to put an economic value on forested lands for biodiversity and ecosystems services, where previously the only ways to extract monetary value from them were logging and clearing land for agriculture. Under such schemes, many of which are bilateral, governments are paid money in exchange for preserving tracts of forest. (Example: UN-REDD programme in Indonesia)
To quote a forest reserve executive in Guyana: "We have a resource we would like to get money for. Either you pay us for biodiversity services or we will sell the forest to Malaysian logging companies." (source)
Indigenous peoples who claim customary use of forests have objected to them because they feel that their rights to the land have been overlooked in the process, displacing them from their livelihood and dwellings. It seems like there may be more than one indigenous organization making public statements against REDD programmes.
I've previously blogged about how deforested land is being 'swept under the carpet' due to poor oversight. Related concerns have been expressed about the tremendous potential for corruption that they bring. It seems obvious to state that corruption is possible when large sums of money are being given to a central government to pay for a rural commodity (ecosystem services) which is hard to define and which you can't take conventional delivery of.
Friday, June 03, 2011
German nuclear shut-down - what next?
Germany has recently announced that it will shut down all its nuclear power plants by 2022. This comes in the wake of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, and election gains by the German Green Party in the key state of Baden-Württemburg. The Green Party is a major player in German politics, and supports the cause of denuclearization.
What does this mean for the politics of energy production in Europe and beyond? On the one hand, we want to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Existing sources will eventually run out, and the carbon dioxide released by burning them is believed to be the key factor driving climate change. On the other, are nuclear power and renewable energy may be inadequate to meet the shortfall. Nuclear power, in particular, is fraught with difficulties. Not only are people fearful of potential disastrous accidents ('Fukushima' may eventually become a cultural keyword in the same way that 'Chernobyl' is now), but there are practical concerns regarding the disposal of nuclear waste. If we forgo the nuclear option, will wind, solar, wave, and other so-called 'renewables' be enough?
This seems like a good time to introduce an important book on the issue, Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air, written by David McKay, a physicist at Cambridge University. The whole book is available for free online, in addition to a 10-page synopsis for those who want to get the gist of it quickly. An even shorter summary has been written by him for the BBC website.
McKay's analysis, which is essentially a straightforward, but necessary, accounting of the relevant figures and facts, shows that relying exclusively or heavily on renewable energy sources would be hugely disruptive and intrusive to both our existing way of life and, ironically, to the environment. The main fact is that wind farms, solar farms, and the like are not energy 'dense' - they require large tracts of land to produce the same amount of power as a conventional or nuclear power plant. Given existing levels of energy consumption (the book focuses on the UK but other industrialized nations are comparable), there would be hardly any land left for other purposes!
Wind farming projects around the world, for example, are already running into opposition from local citizens who find the windmills, and the electrical pylons required to connect them to the grid, hugely unsightly. Their constant whir is also a form of noise pollution. Biofuels and solar energy harvesting, two commonly-proposed alternatives, would possibly squeeze out farming and natural woodland. Even so, they would not yield very much. The figure below, from Without the Hot Air, shows to scale the quantity of land required for biofuels, wood harvesting, and other forms of renewable energy, required to meet the UK's current demand (the last five symbols in the legend are not to scale, but the rest are).
Therefore, if nuclear were out of the question entirely, it seems unlikely that renewable energy, in the state of technology that is available now, would be able to carry the day. Realistically speaking, it is likely that the Germans will find that after the closure of their nuclear plants, the supply of energy from renewables will not be able to keep up and they will be forced to revert in some degree to fossil fuel, or to importing energy from neighboring countries.
Nuclear energy is something even Singapore has to take into account. Even if our country decides that the risks are simply too high for our island-state, we still have to consider the possibility that neighboring countries will adopt nuclear power. It is important to have a frank discussion of the risks and realities now, than to be enveloped in doubt and fear later.
What does this mean for the politics of energy production in Europe and beyond? On the one hand, we want to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Existing sources will eventually run out, and the carbon dioxide released by burning them is believed to be the key factor driving climate change. On the other, are nuclear power and renewable energy may be inadequate to meet the shortfall. Nuclear power, in particular, is fraught with difficulties. Not only are people fearful of potential disastrous accidents ('Fukushima' may eventually become a cultural keyword in the same way that 'Chernobyl' is now), but there are practical concerns regarding the disposal of nuclear waste. If we forgo the nuclear option, will wind, solar, wave, and other so-called 'renewables' be enough?
This seems like a good time to introduce an important book on the issue, Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air, written by David McKay, a physicist at Cambridge University. The whole book is available for free online, in addition to a 10-page synopsis for those who want to get the gist of it quickly. An even shorter summary has been written by him for the BBC website.
McKay's analysis, which is essentially a straightforward, but necessary, accounting of the relevant figures and facts, shows that relying exclusively or heavily on renewable energy sources would be hugely disruptive and intrusive to both our existing way of life and, ironically, to the environment. The main fact is that wind farms, solar farms, and the like are not energy 'dense' - they require large tracts of land to produce the same amount of power as a conventional or nuclear power plant. Given existing levels of energy consumption (the book focuses on the UK but other industrialized nations are comparable), there would be hardly any land left for other purposes!
Wind farming projects around the world, for example, are already running into opposition from local citizens who find the windmills, and the electrical pylons required to connect them to the grid, hugely unsightly. Their constant whir is also a form of noise pollution. Biofuels and solar energy harvesting, two commonly-proposed alternatives, would possibly squeeze out farming and natural woodland. Even so, they would not yield very much. The figure below, from Without the Hot Air, shows to scale the quantity of land required for biofuels, wood harvesting, and other forms of renewable energy, required to meet the UK's current demand (the last five symbols in the legend are not to scale, but the rest are).
Therefore, if nuclear were out of the question entirely, it seems unlikely that renewable energy, in the state of technology that is available now, would be able to carry the day. Realistically speaking, it is likely that the Germans will find that after the closure of their nuclear plants, the supply of energy from renewables will not be able to keep up and they will be forced to revert in some degree to fossil fuel, or to importing energy from neighboring countries.
Nuclear energy is something even Singapore has to take into account. Even if our country decides that the risks are simply too high for our island-state, we still have to consider the possibility that neighboring countries will adopt nuclear power. It is important to have a frank discussion of the risks and realities now, than to be enveloped in doubt and fear later.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Hidden costs of bioethanol
Are biofuels really 'green' as they claim to be? This subject has come up before on this blog, usually on the side of 'no'.
A recent piece of correspondence to Nature (caution: paywall) from two scholars at the Federal University of Alagoas in Brazil points out the real costs associated with Brazil's experiment in sugarcane farming for bioethanol. Brazil was a pioneer in using sugar for vehicular fuel, decades before biofuels became fashionable in the rest of the world. They say that over 85% of the rainforest cover in the state of Alagoas in Brazil has been destroyed over the period of 35 years, since the beginning of the sugarcane to biofuel program. The loss of rainforest cover is thought to be responsible for landslides and flooding associated with heavy rains.
They call it "a dirty footprint in one of Brazil's poorest states." Biofuels gained popularity because they are supposedly 'renewable', as opposed to finite fossil fuels. Nothing comes for free, however, and this small planet we live on has only limited land available. For fuel crops to be grown, additional forested land has to be cleared, or land that would otherwise have grown food crops have to be converted. The former causes a net carbon gain to the atmosphere as well as a loss of biodiversity. The latter straitens the food supply, risking higher prices and endangering vulnerable populations.
There's no way to win!
A recent piece of correspondence to Nature (caution: paywall) from two scholars at the Federal University of Alagoas in Brazil points out the real costs associated with Brazil's experiment in sugarcane farming for bioethanol. Brazil was a pioneer in using sugar for vehicular fuel, decades before biofuels became fashionable in the rest of the world. They say that over 85% of the rainforest cover in the state of Alagoas in Brazil has been destroyed over the period of 35 years, since the beginning of the sugarcane to biofuel program. The loss of rainforest cover is thought to be responsible for landslides and flooding associated with heavy rains.
They call it "a dirty footprint in one of Brazil's poorest states." Biofuels gained popularity because they are supposedly 'renewable', as opposed to finite fossil fuels. Nothing comes for free, however, and this small planet we live on has only limited land available. For fuel crops to be grown, additional forested land has to be cleared, or land that would otherwise have grown food crops have to be converted. The former causes a net carbon gain to the atmosphere as well as a loss of biodiversity. The latter straitens the food supply, risking higher prices and endangering vulnerable populations.
There's no way to win!
Sunday, January 09, 2011
History of Amazon Basin Shaped by Andes
Here's something that has relevance to the name of this blog. The traditional model for the history of Amazonian biodiversity held that much of it weathered the Pleistocene period in forest fragments, or refugia, and from there spread out again to repopulate the basin when the climate again became amenable. These so-called diversity centers, however, have been shown to be artifacts of sampling, rather than a real biotic phenomenon, pushing back the origins of diversity in the Amazon to earlier periods of geological history.
A recent review in Science magazine synthesizes what is known about the geological and biological past of the Amazon, to reconstruct a scenario where the uplift of the Andes mountains, which are relatively young, is responsible in part for the present-day patterns of diversity in the basin. Prior to the Andes uplift (which began in the Paleogene after the end-Cretaceous 65 Mya, and continues to the present day), the geology of Amazonia was 'cratonic', i.e. it was dominated by the rocks of the continental center. The rising mountain range changed both the climate, e.g. by intensifying rainfall to the East of the range, and also the landscape, as sediment eroded off the mountain faces and came to be deposited in the basin below. Extensive, inland wetlands (the Pebas system) first appeared in correlation with intensified uplift and then disappeared, replaced by a riverine, fluvial landscape.
The present-day biota of the Amazon is very much terrestrial. Therefore, the disappearance of the extensive wetlands, which formerly fragmented the terrestrial forests, was a prerequisite for the appearance of modern Amazonian fauna and flora. Furthermore, diversity as measured today for both mammals and tree species is highest where the soils are of Andean origin (swept down by erosion and deposited by the rivers), as opposed to where the original cratonic soils remain at the surface. Perhaps the nutrient levels are linked to both forest productivity and resultant diversity, but the climate engendered by the topographic relief may also have a role in patterns of diversity.
This is very much a 'big picture' review, and is worth reading to think about how the literal shape of the Earth has a role in defining the life that dwells as a thin film on its surface.
 |
| Amazonia today. From Hoorn et al. 2010 (Link) |
A recent review in Science magazine synthesizes what is known about the geological and biological past of the Amazon, to reconstruct a scenario where the uplift of the Andes mountains, which are relatively young, is responsible in part for the present-day patterns of diversity in the basin. Prior to the Andes uplift (which began in the Paleogene after the end-Cretaceous 65 Mya, and continues to the present day), the geology of Amazonia was 'cratonic', i.e. it was dominated by the rocks of the continental center. The rising mountain range changed both the climate, e.g. by intensifying rainfall to the East of the range, and also the landscape, as sediment eroded off the mountain faces and came to be deposited in the basin below. Extensive, inland wetlands (the Pebas system) first appeared in correlation with intensified uplift and then disappeared, replaced by a riverine, fluvial landscape.
The present-day biota of the Amazon is very much terrestrial. Therefore, the disappearance of the extensive wetlands, which formerly fragmented the terrestrial forests, was a prerequisite for the appearance of modern Amazonian fauna and flora. Furthermore, diversity as measured today for both mammals and tree species is highest where the soils are of Andean origin (swept down by erosion and deposited by the rivers), as opposed to where the original cratonic soils remain at the surface. Perhaps the nutrient levels are linked to both forest productivity and resultant diversity, but the climate engendered by the topographic relief may also have a role in patterns of diversity.
This is very much a 'big picture' review, and is worth reading to think about how the literal shape of the Earth has a role in defining the life that dwells as a thin film on its surface.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Singapore Mangroves "Smelly, Dirty"?
Ron Yeo, who writes the nature blog The Tide Chaser, has written a paean to Singapore's under-appreciated mangrove swamps for The Online Citizen.
The mangrove habitat is a staple for school field trips and biodiversity classes, but being 'in the choir' (the one that is being preached to, in the idiom), I and maybe many of this blog's readers tend to forget that:
So I might add to what Yeo's suggests: if you care about nature in Singapore and spend time in our parks and forests, bring a camera and with just a little bit of luck you'll have some pretty pictures of flowers or animals to share online. Then you can answer the question "Singapore forests got anything to see, meh?", and show that appreciating nature is as much about how closely you look, as where you go. In this digitally-driven age, seeing it first on the computer screen might just be the 'hook' to bring people outdoors to see with their own eyes.
The mangrove habitat is a staple for school field trips and biodiversity classes, but being 'in the choir' (the one that is being preached to, in the idiom), I and maybe many of this blog's readers tend to forget that:
Dark, smelly, dirty, muddy, scary, mosquito infested, illegal immigrant infested… Ask the usual Singaporeans what they think of our mangroves, and these are some of the common responses. In fact, I even had a friend telling me that he did not like going to mangroves because he was afraid of snakes dropping down from the trees.Yeo suggests that we should get people to break from these preconceived notions and actually go to see it for themselves. But let's be honest, mangroves do smell funky, and even if you do manage to get your city slicker friends or family to take a trip down to see what all the fuss is about, they might still complain about the heat and remember mostly the mosquitoes, especially if your stories aren't captivating enough or the otters are a no-show. Singaporeans can be a hard lot to please, right?
So I might add to what Yeo's suggests: if you care about nature in Singapore and spend time in our parks and forests, bring a camera and with just a little bit of luck you'll have some pretty pictures of flowers or animals to share online. Then you can answer the question "Singapore forests got anything to see, meh?", and show that appreciating nature is as much about how closely you look, as where you go. In this digitally-driven age, seeing it first on the computer screen might just be the 'hook' to bring people outdoors to see with their own eyes.
Monday, December 13, 2010
"Natural Security" in a world of scarcity
The US military is starting to plan for potential future conflicts based on scarcity of natural resources such as water, arable land, mineral resources, and environmental degradation due to climate change. Policy makers have coined the term "natural security", and warn that these future scarcities can represent "triggers for conflict".
One would assume that the military would not have an ideological stance for or against acknowledging climate change, because there's no inherent reason to do so, if their mission is simply to protect their country's security interests. So it's interesting to watch the military essentially taking climate change into account in their plans, while some civilian politicians can still win votes by refusing to even consider the possibility that human activity can have global impact on the physical world that we live in.
One would assume that the military would not have an ideological stance for or against acknowledging climate change, because there's no inherent reason to do so, if their mission is simply to protect their country's security interests. So it's interesting to watch the military essentially taking climate change into account in their plans, while some civilian politicians can still win votes by refusing to even consider the possibility that human activity can have global impact on the physical world that we live in.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Bacterium using Arsenic instead of Phosphorus discovered
Mono Lake in California is one of the so-called 'soda lakes', not filled with fizzy pop but with caustic alkali and high salt concentrations. What could possibly live in these harsh conditions? Well, microbes, of course. What's more, arsenic concentrations in this like are at levels which would be toxic to most organisms. If we're going to look for weird life forms, Mono Lake would be the place to go!
Mono Lake in California (Google Maps). View Larger Map
One such weird life form has just been discovered. It's a bacterium that uses arsenic in place of phosphorus in its biomolecules, including DNA. In intro biology we learn that all living things have DNA, and that DNA has a sugar-phosphate backbone along which the four bases (A, T, C, and G) are arranged. The phosphate groups in the backbone of DNA are supposedly universal, and it's hard to imagine how any organism could have a different chemistry for something so fundamental, but apparently such a creature does exist. In place of the phosphorus atoms in the phosphate groups, it has instead arsenic. Arsenic is an element that is in the same group as phosphorus, and so has the same chemical valence, and in theory can substitute for phosphorus because it can form similar chemical bonds. Until now such a scenario has seemed to be entirely in the realm of science fiction, but that appears now to be reality.
Using a combination of radioisotope labeling and spectroscopy, a team from NASA's Astrobiology Institute led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon (disclaimer: she was the TF for a class that I took two years ago) has shown that a strain of bacteria isolated from Mono Lake is capable of taking up arsenic, and further that the arsenic is localized in the biomolecules of the organism. This is an exciting discovery because it suggests that alternative chemistries of life are possible, and that organisms need not be limited to the canonical 'six fundamental elements of life': carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur, and hydrogen.
While this is a very important discovery, it is also crucial to emphasize what it is not, especially given the hype and publicity that this new piece of research has received. The fact that the work was done through the NASA Astrobiology Institute has led some to think that perhaps it has something to do with extraterrestrial life or new life forms. It is emphatically not the case: The bacterium is a member of the Halomonadaceae, a known family of the gamma-Proteobacteria. It is not part of the so-called 'shadow biosphere' (Wikipedia), which is the idea that alongside the canonical DNA/RNA/protein based life that we know of, there are 'organisms' based on fundamentally different chemistry (e.g. with some other form of information-coding molecules instead of DNA, or some other means of catalyzing biochemical reactions...). This discovery 'only' shows that one particular component of the highly-conserved basic biochemistry, namely the use of phosphorus in biomolecules like the nucleic acids, can be swapped out for an element with similar chemical properties. This is not a form of primitive life; if anything it represents an extreme form of specialization to an extreme habitat. Phosphorus is typically a highly limiting nutrient for life - this is why algae tend to form 'blooms' when phosphorus-containing fertilizers or detergents seep into water bodies - because the sudden influx of phosphorus allows a great burst of growth. In the case of this bacterium, called strain GFAJ-1, it is able to capitalize on the high arsenic concentration to replace some of its need for phosphorus.
Hence, not to detract from the excitement about this really cool piece of natural history, but these clarifications really needed to be made in the face of what was inevitably a lot of misunderstanding and misrepresentation in the popular press (with sensational headlines like "Alien life forms discovered?" and so on). What is exciting is certainly the fact that life like this has been discussed as a theoretical possibility for a long time, and is now finally known to be real.
Sources:
Even the geek-cool comic strip xkcd has gotten into the act:
Mono Lake in California (Google Maps). View Larger Map
One such weird life form has just been discovered. It's a bacterium that uses arsenic in place of phosphorus in its biomolecules, including DNA. In intro biology we learn that all living things have DNA, and that DNA has a sugar-phosphate backbone along which the four bases (A, T, C, and G) are arranged. The phosphate groups in the backbone of DNA are supposedly universal, and it's hard to imagine how any organism could have a different chemistry for something so fundamental, but apparently such a creature does exist. In place of the phosphorus atoms in the phosphate groups, it has instead arsenic. Arsenic is an element that is in the same group as phosphorus, and so has the same chemical valence, and in theory can substitute for phosphorus because it can form similar chemical bonds. Until now such a scenario has seemed to be entirely in the realm of science fiction, but that appears now to be reality.
Using a combination of radioisotope labeling and spectroscopy, a team from NASA's Astrobiology Institute led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon (disclaimer: she was the TF for a class that I took two years ago) has shown that a strain of bacteria isolated from Mono Lake is capable of taking up arsenic, and further that the arsenic is localized in the biomolecules of the organism. This is an exciting discovery because it suggests that alternative chemistries of life are possible, and that organisms need not be limited to the canonical 'six fundamental elements of life': carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur, and hydrogen.
While this is a very important discovery, it is also crucial to emphasize what it is not, especially given the hype and publicity that this new piece of research has received. The fact that the work was done through the NASA Astrobiology Institute has led some to think that perhaps it has something to do with extraterrestrial life or new life forms. It is emphatically not the case: The bacterium is a member of the Halomonadaceae, a known family of the gamma-Proteobacteria. It is not part of the so-called 'shadow biosphere' (Wikipedia), which is the idea that alongside the canonical DNA/RNA/protein based life that we know of, there are 'organisms' based on fundamentally different chemistry (e.g. with some other form of information-coding molecules instead of DNA, or some other means of catalyzing biochemical reactions...). This discovery 'only' shows that one particular component of the highly-conserved basic biochemistry, namely the use of phosphorus in biomolecules like the nucleic acids, can be swapped out for an element with similar chemical properties. This is not a form of primitive life; if anything it represents an extreme form of specialization to an extreme habitat. Phosphorus is typically a highly limiting nutrient for life - this is why algae tend to form 'blooms' when phosphorus-containing fertilizers or detergents seep into water bodies - because the sudden influx of phosphorus allows a great burst of growth. In the case of this bacterium, called strain GFAJ-1, it is able to capitalize on the high arsenic concentration to replace some of its need for phosphorus.
Hence, not to detract from the excitement about this really cool piece of natural history, but these clarifications really needed to be made in the face of what was inevitably a lot of misunderstanding and misrepresentation in the popular press (with sensational headlines like "Alien life forms discovered?" and so on). What is exciting is certainly the fact that life like this has been discussed as a theoretical possibility for a long time, and is now finally known to be real.
Sources:
- The original paper as published in Science Express
- NASA press release
- Felisa's website
- Astrobiology Magazine
Even the geek-cool comic strip xkcd has gotten into the act:
 |
| Source: xkcd by Randall Munroe |
Monday, November 29, 2010
Indonesian forest plan under threat?
Indonesia is a testbed for so-called 'cash for carbon' plans (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD), where developing countries are given credits for reducing deforestation; this not only preserves valuable forest habitat for wildlife, but curbs carbon emissions from deforestation itself.
Greenpeace, however, has released a report that says Indonesia is planning to go ahead with massive forest clearance despite signing a new REDD agreement with Norway. According to the New York Times's coverage:
Tremendous disappointment, or 'more of the same'? How Indonesia handles this will certainly be watched closely. As with any current event it runs the risk of being swept under the carpet, or just sat upon until the media attention inevitably dissipates.
More coverage:
Greenpeace, however, has released a report that says Indonesia is planning to go ahead with massive forest clearance despite signing a new REDD agreement with Norway. According to the New York Times's coverage:
Greenpeace said that government documents show plans to bring 63 million hectares, or nearly 156 million acres, of land into production by 2030, including 80 percent of its peatland and half its forested orangutan habitat, to support expansion of industries including pulp, paper and palm oil.
At the same time, the group said, a push is on to rebrand the clearing of forests for plantations (which results in a net release of carbon into the atmosphere) as the replacement of degraded land with new trees (which takes carbon out of the atmosphere). This, they say, could effectively mean international funds would be subsidizing forest destruction.
Tremendous disappointment, or 'more of the same'? How Indonesia handles this will certainly be watched closely. As with any current event it runs the risk of being swept under the carpet, or just sat upon until the media attention inevitably dissipates.
More coverage:
- Greenpeace's original report, titled 'Protection Money'.
- Blogger Chris Lang in REDD-Monitor gives a brief account of recent REDD-related developments in Indonesia.
- The REDD-ALERT website describing various REDD initiatives around the world.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Singapore Index on Cities' Biodiversity endorsed in Nagoya
The Straits Times reports that the Singapore Index on Cities' Biodiversity (CBI) has been endorsed at a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya. This index is a 'scorecard' for cities, rating them on the basis of several criteria which account for the extent of their remaining native biodiversity, ecosystem services, education and recreational value, and governance/management of biodiversity. Singapore's National Parks Board (NParks) played a key role in formulating this index for the CBD.
Further information: Singapore Index webpage at CBD, NParks website
Further information: Singapore Index webpage at CBD, NParks website
Friday, October 15, 2010
Lost in the Clouds - Blog Action Day 2010 "Water"
Blog Action Day is an annual event on 15 Oct (since 2007) that brings together bloggers around the world to write on a certain topic of pressing importance. This year's theme is "Water", and it ties in well with something that I've been meaning to write about for some time.
A week ago, I was fortunate to hear Dan Janzen, the ecologist and conservationist known for his work in setting up the Guanacaste National Park in Costa Rica, speak in person. His talk was great - you could tell that he's a no-nonsense personality who speaks his mind and is frank about his opinions on conservation. One very small part of his talk was a series of three photographs that he showed, of one of the cloud-forest mountain peaks in that park. In the first picture, taken in the 1970s (if I remember right), it's shrouded in a permanent fog. The next picture, taken a few years later, shows much sparser wisps, and the most recent one is completely bone-dry. The sky is blue and totally clear. Rising temperatures have lowered humidity and lifted cloud cover above the level of the mountains. The cloud forest has lost its cloud.
When we think of water issues and the environment, we tend to think about pollution in rivers, about salinization of groundwater, or eutrophication in lakes. This is water that we can see flowing or pooled up, that people can drink from, swim in, and fight over. But that's just one part of the water cycle we all learn about as children, when we drew arrows in our textbooks going from the ocean to the fluffy white clouds and back down as rain to the green fields below. In cloud forests, declining humidity has a strong biotic impact. They have been implicated in population crashes of frogs and other animals. As the fog rolls across these peaks, though, they also drip into streams and rivulets that feed waterways down below: a direct impact of climate change on water availability for both nature and people.
It's not just something that only affects picturesque spots far away in the exotic tropics, either. A major part of the water supply to the state of California comes from the spring thaw of the snowpack on the mountains of the Sierra Nevada range, which form part of the mountainous backbone that runs up the Western half of North America. Winds blowing in humidity-laden air from the Pacific is forced up the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, where it condenses in the cold upper reaches of the mountains and falls as precipitation; in the wintertime this is in the form of snow that accumulates until the thaw. This is also why Nevada is such a dry place - it sits in the 'rain shadow' of the range. As temperatures rise, however, the quantity of condensation and precipitation will decline and likewise the water that can be supplied to the inhabitants of California, both human and non-human. This water stress will force choices to be made between serving people and preserving the environment, as described in my previous post.
In the grand scheme of things, though, the environment will bounce back in some form. The Sierra Nevada is a relatively young mountain range, formed by uplift less than 10 million years ago. As they rose up, they cut off the formerly extensive lakes inland in the Great Basin behind them from the rivers that had led from them to the coast. The lakes eventually dried up and disappeared, causing the extinction of their fauna, as did the freshwater fishes in the former rivers. As the mountains grew further, however, rivers once again flowed, fed by the precipitation intercepted by the range. The fishes that now populated them were instead secondary re-invasions of freshwater habitats by marine fishes. (Oversimplified version of a much more intricate and fascinating story.) Life went on even in the face of drastic change. What's different about this time, though, is the time scale. The environment is now changing in tens and hundreds of years instead of thousands and millions. It's a sobering thought to think that long after we humans disappear, some alien paleontologist looking through the fossil record of the former Earth would find our age to be one of the great Mass Extinctions in the history of life. We manage to slake our thirst, but at the same time have poisoned the well for everyone.
(Stay tuned for Blog Action Day updates at our partner blogs: Coastal Cleanup Singapore, Otterman Speaks, Wild Shores Singapore.)
A week ago, I was fortunate to hear Dan Janzen, the ecologist and conservationist known for his work in setting up the Guanacaste National Park in Costa Rica, speak in person. His talk was great - you could tell that he's a no-nonsense personality who speaks his mind and is frank about his opinions on conservation. One very small part of his talk was a series of three photographs that he showed, of one of the cloud-forest mountain peaks in that park. In the first picture, taken in the 1970s (if I remember right), it's shrouded in a permanent fog. The next picture, taken a few years later, shows much sparser wisps, and the most recent one is completely bone-dry. The sky is blue and totally clear. Rising temperatures have lowered humidity and lifted cloud cover above the level of the mountains. The cloud forest has lost its cloud.
When we think of water issues and the environment, we tend to think about pollution in rivers, about salinization of groundwater, or eutrophication in lakes. This is water that we can see flowing or pooled up, that people can drink from, swim in, and fight over. But that's just one part of the water cycle we all learn about as children, when we drew arrows in our textbooks going from the ocean to the fluffy white clouds and back down as rain to the green fields below. In cloud forests, declining humidity has a strong biotic impact. They have been implicated in population crashes of frogs and other animals. As the fog rolls across these peaks, though, they also drip into streams and rivulets that feed waterways down below: a direct impact of climate change on water availability for both nature and people.
It's not just something that only affects picturesque spots far away in the exotic tropics, either. A major part of the water supply to the state of California comes from the spring thaw of the snowpack on the mountains of the Sierra Nevada range, which form part of the mountainous backbone that runs up the Western half of North America. Winds blowing in humidity-laden air from the Pacific is forced up the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, where it condenses in the cold upper reaches of the mountains and falls as precipitation; in the wintertime this is in the form of snow that accumulates until the thaw. This is also why Nevada is such a dry place - it sits in the 'rain shadow' of the range. As temperatures rise, however, the quantity of condensation and precipitation will decline and likewise the water that can be supplied to the inhabitants of California, both human and non-human. This water stress will force choices to be made between serving people and preserving the environment, as described in my previous post.
In the grand scheme of things, though, the environment will bounce back in some form. The Sierra Nevada is a relatively young mountain range, formed by uplift less than 10 million years ago. As they rose up, they cut off the formerly extensive lakes inland in the Great Basin behind them from the rivers that had led from them to the coast. The lakes eventually dried up and disappeared, causing the extinction of their fauna, as did the freshwater fishes in the former rivers. As the mountains grew further, however, rivers once again flowed, fed by the precipitation intercepted by the range. The fishes that now populated them were instead secondary re-invasions of freshwater habitats by marine fishes. (Oversimplified version of a much more intricate and fascinating story.) Life went on even in the face of drastic change. What's different about this time, though, is the time scale. The environment is now changing in tens and hundreds of years instead of thousands and millions. It's a sobering thought to think that long after we humans disappear, some alien paleontologist looking through the fossil record of the former Earth would find our age to be one of the great Mass Extinctions in the history of life. We manage to slake our thirst, but at the same time have poisoned the well for everyone.
(Stay tuned for Blog Action Day updates at our partner blogs: Coastal Cleanup Singapore, Otterman Speaks, Wild Shores Singapore.)
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Human water security and threatened biodiversity co-occur
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| The Nile at the Aswan High Dam, which has dramatically altered the course and flow of the ancient river. (Source: NASA via Wikimedia Commons) |
It shouldn't be a surprise - bad news tends to come in threes. In this case, the three problems are: water security (the ability to ensure adequate water supply for a population), poverty, and threats to biodiversity. A recently-published research study in Nature (unfortunately behind a paywall) maps threats to water security and freshwater biodiversity. It has found that places with poorest water security and most threatened freshwater biodiversity overlap. That's easily understandable, because when water or land is a scarce resource, humans will engineer a way to protect their own interests. The richer the country, the better they are able to do so, and therefore affluent countries have relatively high water security. However, the methods they use - such as dams, diverting rivers into canals - put biodiversity at threat, therefore affluent countries (such as the US and in Europe) also have high threat levels to freshwater habitats.
They also point out that water issues do not respect national boundaries. Damming a river will affect human populations both upstream and downstream, regardless of what country they live in. The same applies for fish and plant populations, for example. Therefore, they propose that conservationists and policymakers should consider the watershed as the basic level of analysis, and not just individual rivers or tributaries. In the case of great rivers like the Amazon, these watersheds can be on the level of continents. Doing so will help to balance immediate human needs with the long-term stability of biodiversity and ecosystem health, which in the long run will benefit humans by the maintenance of ecosystem services.
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