Prairie Paradise

One of the implicit goals of ecosystem based management is to help foster communication and cooperation between natural resource stakeholders.  Part of its recent popularity is that it offers a potential way to diminish acrimonious and unproductive conflicts between stakeholders over how best to manage and use natural resources.  While the ecosystem based approach provides one potentially useful tool, the devil is always in the details.  Each management issue has its own unique historical, social,  political, and economic contingencies that can still make finding consensus difficult.  I think this story from the New York Times describes a good example of this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/us/vision-of-prairie-paradise-troubles-some-montana-ranchers.html?smid=pl-share

It describes a privately organized and  funded effort to create a prairie reserve in Montana, and the backlash and concern this has created among some local residents.  On the face of things the goals and actions of both sides seem very compatible with each other, and yet there is still an ample amount of distrust and resentment on both sides.  The article implies this has more to do with the social backgrounds of the people involved than anything else. 

A New Agriculture?

Although I am a big fan of fruits such as apples.....not to mention wine..... most of the world is fed through the cultivation of annual crops.  This annual bias in agriculture dates back to our very first efforts at domesticating wild plants.   Converting a perennial plant into an annual one is one sure pathway to increasing yield.  Why do you think that is?  However, from a broader sustainability perspective annual agriculture can create some potential problems such as fostering soil erosion and requiring intensive energy inputs.  Some have argued that we might be able to create perennial versions of our staple crops that would improve the overall sustainability of agricultural systems.  Wes Jackson is probably the undisputed leader of this perennialization movement.  Check out this interview with him that just appeared in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/opinion/bittman-now-this-is-natural-food.html?smid=pl-share

The picture above is of Jerry Glover, a prominent crop perennialization researcher.  A story about him (with more cool pictures) is here: http://libarts.wsu.edu/nexus/issues/2010/02/jerry-glover.asp

Conflicting Messages

On my way through the San Antonio airport the other day I noticed these advertising placards.  They seem to be sending two very different messages. The text of the Nature Conservancy ad talks about how climate change will irrevocably alter the planet. I was mostly amused by the juxtaposition, but I think these two ads illustrate the very real and profound challenges we face when developing policy approaches to mitigate and adapt to the consequences of climate change.  These policy decisions need to balance a whole range of sometimes conflicting interests.  Our policy actions also represent a collective  vision for what type of world we want to live in.  Reaching this collective vision is difficult, and it can be way too easy to fall into a depressingly polarized conceptual cul-de-sac.  Check out John Robinson's more uplifting approach forward:

It's us

The  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just issued its latest report on the state of scientific knowledge about climate change.  The report's main headline conclusion is that we are the principal cause of a significant and rapid warming of the planet.  If you paid attention to the last report this conclusion should come as no surprise.  There is plenty of dire predictions in the report, and a good deal to be pessimistic about, but as Andrew Revkin points out in his dot earth blog, one of the report's findings provides a significant measure of hope: 

By the mid-21st century the magnitudes of the projected changes are substantially affected by the choice of emissions scenario.

Not all is lost or preordained.  We can still shape our future.  The powerful combination of free enterprise, innovation, science, technology, and dynamic and responsive political systems created the climate quandary we are in.  It can also solve it, if we have the will.

While pondering those lofty issues, you might enjoy Revkin's carbon soundtrack:

What's in the water?

Agriculture increasingly relies on managed water systems to irrigate crops.  This is particularly so for crops in the relatively arid western U.S., where battles over limited water supplies have been long, bitter and notorious.  These conflicts only seem likely to increase as demand for water (from industry and urbanization as well as from agriculture) increases and supplies are potentially disrupted as a result of climate change.  This looming threat is spurring research to help make agriculture more water efficient as well as to expand the usability of low quality water.  This story in the Oregonian describes one of these projects taking place at OSU.   The research is investigating whether onion growers can safely use water that is contaminated with potentially harmful bacteria.