New Year’s resolution? Look no further.

In 2015, Will Steffen pin-pointed climate change as a crucial threat to human society as it represents an interconnected system of feedbacks that are integrated with other boundaries at a global scale. 

In fact, large variations in climate would drive our planet out of the Holocene state. This is not surprising as climate mirrors the balance of the earth system’s energy: if the equilibrium is disrupted not only human but all life on the planet may be threatened.

As the planet warms up, atmospheric and ocean circulations change leading to variations both in the biogeochemical flows and in freshwater ecosystems. Nutrients and water availability, respectively driven by biogeochemical and freshwater flows, are the base of agriculture and food security. Climate change is happening and 350 ppm is already an outdated planetary boundary. 

On the 26^th of December, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 404.56 ppm

A vegetarian World

As this short documentary explains, livestock farming emissions make up a very significant portion of the total global emissions. A recent report by the FAO confirmed that over a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, calculated in CO2 equivalent, come from livestock. Moreover, there is a number of gases aside from carbon dioxide that could be augmenting the warming trend. In fact, livestock farming releases 37% of the world’s methane, 64% of ammonia and 65% of nitrous oxide purely through animal’s manure.

Apart from direct emissions, livestock farming causes a substantial amount of indirect emissions. In fact, deforestation, especially in Latin America, is largely held accountable as a driver of carbon release into the atmosphere. As land-cover is changed to allow for new land for pastures, forests are lost and peatlands are left to degrade leading to the emission of 17% of the total global green house gases.

If you care about the environment, should you be a vegetarian?

Peta is the most famous animal rights non-profit organization in the world. In a recent article, they explain how all meat-eaters should be held twice as much more responsible in terms of climate change than vegetarians and I happen to agree.

Let's talk numbers.

For every ton of tofu, 0.8 tons of CO2 are released into the atmosphere but for every ton of pork 6.1 tons of CO2 are emitted. Moreover, it takes almost 3500l of water more to produce a kg of pork than soybeans.

Some may argue that this is worth it because pork has more calories than soybeans so ultimately eating meat is more efficient. Guess what, I don’t agree.

Tofu only has 32% less calories than pork but it emits 87% less CO2.

Kristen tweeted this image from a recent article that featured on the World Economic forum:

Emissions of different types of food

By becoming a vegetarian in 2017, you alone could stop 1.5 tons of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere every year. If you want to get started, here are some links you might find useful: the Vegetarian Starter Kit and Meatless Mondays.

And on this note, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  

Have I turned too "sour"?

Not only as a geography nerd, but also as a nature lover, I spend a big proportion of my free time watching videos or reading blogs that discuss the human impact on the environment. Unfortunately, I have started to notice that an increasing amount of people have turned very sour in regards to the present and the future of our planet.

As Rachel says: "Our planet is beautiful, but it is being destroyed: polar ice caps are melting, forests are being cut down, water is being polluted.."  

While watching Rachel's video, facts and counter-arguments kept flashing in front of my eyes as I was appalled by her dramatic take on the topic. However, I soon realised my blog has turned just as sour. So I asked myself:

What's sweet about soybeans?

In this blog, I attempted to evaluate the different ways in which soy agriculture is challenging planetary boundaries, from freshwaters, to biogeochemical flows and land-system change.

My initial question set me off to understand whether soybeans are destroying the planet. As a result, I only took into consideration the impact of different crops on different planetary boundaries. For instance, soybeans pollute less freshwater than other corn and maize, but they can't produce nowhere near as much biodiesel. 

However, all this agriculture talk lead me to ignore the bigger question: 

Just like most human activities (soybean) agriculture is contributing to destroying our planet and of course nature and wildlife would be better off without it. 

But what's worse?

The world's growing population has to be fed somehow so maybe the sweet side of soybean agriculture is not necessarily comprising of its positive impacts on the environment, but rather the way in which soybean is not as bad as other types of food. 

Soybeans are mainly used to feed animals to support western diet, which includes great quantities of meat. If livestock farming was substituted by soybean agriculture and we gave up meat completely in favour of a soy-based diet, could that save our planet?

Stay tuned to find out!

Soy-fuel: the future of renewables?

Biodiesel has recently received a considerable amount of interest as a potential substitute for petroleum-based fuels. Green marketing efforts have constructed a rather idyllic picture around them pushing the idea that biodiesel could be the solution to un-renewable energy sources and ultimately “solve” climate change.

                   Tweet by Ethanol Today

In this post, I will attempt to deconstruct such arguments and explore different views on the future of biodiesel by a number of experts.

 Soy-fuel

Processed soybean oil, thanks to its high levels of acreage, is one of the leading biofuel in the world. The so called “soy-fuel” was first promoted by the United Soybean Board as a more environmentally-friendly and efficient alternative to conventional fuels. In fact, the soybean is a feasible choice: it is already grown across most of central and eastern America, from Minnesota all the way down to Texas and  and it requires less nutrients than most other crops. 

Nevertheless, scientists have proved that soy cropland could be much less efficient in terms of fuel production than canola, sunflower or palm oil. In fact, an acre of soy cropland can produce up to 250l of biodiesel, whereas the same area of sunflower and palm oil can respectively output 317 l and 2271 l.

Land-use change: what about planetary boundaries?

Will Steffen's paper on planetary boundaries include high levels of land-system change as a possible threat to human society. However, the boundary is strictly concerned with the lost of forests in favour of agricultural land and does not include savannah, grassland or tundra habitats loss.    

Agricultural expansion is the second biggest killer of endangered species and threat to biodiversity so choosing such an inefficient crop that would require an ever increasing amount land is essentially self-destructing in terms of conservation. 

Moreover, providing for worldwide increasing demand for energy with soy-fuel would take up so much land that it could not only compromise biodiversity, but also food security.

Biofuels are a great alternative to petroleum-based fuels, but it’s jut not feasible to grow crops on land.. but where else could we grow them?

That’s right! UNDER THE SEA!

Micro-algae could also considered as feedstock for producing biofuels as explained by Jonathan Trent at his Ted-Talk.

Jonathan believes that biodiesel from micro-algae will be able to compete with other fuels without having to compete over land with agricultural activities. The process of producing fuels through alga is quite simple: underwater containers are filled with urban waste water and some micro-algae, which are left to grow as they use nutrients in the water and energy from the sun.

There are a number of advantages that are associated with Jonathan’s innovative idea.  

1.     Micro-algae have the potential to produce up to 19,000 l of biofuel per acre – as opposed to 250 l by soybean- so are the most effective source of fuel known yet.

2.     Algae grown in this process can also be employed to produce cosmetics, fertilizers, animal feed and last but not least they can be eaten by humans.

3.     The manufactory plants used in the process will be able to support aquaculture of luxury products like muscles.

The down-side of using algae for fuel production is that they require high inputs of fertilizers. A study by Maria Barbosa proved that only to support algae in europe, production would require 25mn tons of nitrogen. 

Nevertheless, the high nutrients input would not lead to eutrophication issues as algae are grown in an enclosed environment from which nutrients would not escape to contaminate the surroundings.

If you want to find out more about algae biofuels tweet Algae Biofuels and for any questions comment below!

How can we help the Giant Anteater?

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species uses a number of criteria, such as population size and geographic range, in order to predict which species are most threatened by a possibility of extinction. Nevertheless, up until recently, little attention was devoted to the hazards and the anthropogenic activities that jeopardize biodiversity all over the world.

A recent study by Maxwell published in Nature focuses on assessing different threats an the magnitude of their impacts on biodiversity.

Before I reveal his findings, what is the major threat to biodiversity?

I know what you are thinking- because that’s what I thought too before reading Maxwell’s article: here we go with some more climate change chat, carbon emission, green house gases,  no more polar bears etc.

Something to fit in the christmas mood..

The results of his paper came to me as quite a surprise because he proved that the most serious threats to wildlife are over-exploitation and agriculture, while climate change only played a very minor role. 

In fact, rapid cropland expansion is threatening wildlife in dry savannah and grassland regions all over the world  and a total of 5407 species on the IUCN List are endangered by agricultural activities.

The role of soybean agriculture

I began to wonder the extent to which soybean agriculture is threatening biodiversity. Soybean agricultural expansion rate, associated with higher demand by the livestock industry, is unstoppable and possibly irreversible. The threats of this process need to be evaluated not only at a global scale, like Maxwell did, but also at a more regional scale in order to assess the gravity of the issue and propose more sustainable practices.

Barreto focused his research on the regional implications of soybean agriculture on the wildlife and ecosystems security in the Balsas municipality. By modeling future land-use change, he proved that by 2020 over 50% of the region and 13.4% of the areas currently covered by cerrado- dry savannah- will be exploited for agricultural purposes.

Map showing the expansion of agricultural land

As it is possible to see in the modeled map, habitats will become more fragmented and connectivity between ecosystems will decline. This is not only dangerous because it leads to higher competition over natural resources, leading to fewer species prevailing over the rest of wildlife, but also leads to a decline in breeding habitats. As a result, the population sizes of many endangered as well as currently not-endangered mammals and birds will rapidly decrease by 2020.

Birds such as the Rusty-backed Antwren and the Black-throated Saltor will decline in numbers as half of their population is bound to disappear within the next few years. The study also concludes that a third of local populations of Jaguars and Giant Anteaters, currently focal to great conservation efforts, will disappear by 2020.

The Giant Anteater

Why does the Giant Anteater never get ill?

Because he’s full of Antibodies

TheGiant Anteater is a highly adaptable mammal and it can not only be found in the cerrado, but also in forested areas thanks to its ability to climb trees. The presence of shelter is particularly important for this species, as they can dodge the hottest hours of the day and wait for the evening or the night to go hunting.

As woodlands are deforested and savannas are converted to cropland, the ability to hunt as well as rest becomes compromised, leading the Giant Anteater to its path to extinction. 

Table of the summary of Barreto's findings

 Conservation in Brazil

Despite having one of the highest concentration of wild species in the world, Brazil’s struggle between conservation and economic development remains an issue. A call for action by Barreto and his team is especially eye-opening as they explain that it is not the inherent processes of land-use change, but its current speed and scale that will cause major implications for conservation in the country.

The country has a whole cannot continue exploiting their natural resources in this manner, but what can be done?

The answer in itself is quite simple: understanding complexity. If scientists worked closer to local authorities to promote regional connectivity, they would be able to start building habitat networks across agricultural landscapes that would eventually benefit species across a variety of scales.

Habitat networks are crucial because one animal-like the Giant Anteater- could need to travel between three or four habitats just to survive. Further complexity is then added by trophic cascades, also called food chains. For instance, the Jaguar depends on the presence of its prey - the Anteater.

If conservation efforts are to be focused on rescuing the Jaguar, they will have to start considering landscapes as complex multi-dimensional matrixes of hunters, preys and habitats, rather than linear vectors of uni-spatial biodiversity.

Can we use planetary boundaries to rescue the Giant Anteater? 

Despite Maxwell's findings, Will Steffen only includes loss of forests and woodlands through land-system change as a threat to human society. However, land-system change at a local as well as global scale should be concerned with all systems not just forests. 

Diversity of interconnected habitats and species is crucial for biosphere integrity and it cannot be supported through a planetary boundary that effectively encourages afforestation as a geo-engeneering practice to counteract anthropogenic climate change. 

As a result, I believe the land-system change planet boundary should go back to it previous state as to when it was based on the maximum amount of land that could be converted to cropland, rather than the current boundary that is based on the maximum amount of forest that can be lost. There should also be some reccomendations as to how habitats surrounding the new cropland should be kept connected within a habitat network. 

If you are interested in finding out more about the Giant Anteater visit the WWF website and learn about their conservation strategies!