So long and thanks for everything

Insects are a fundamental part of life on earth in almost every way that you can think of: in their diversity, their sheer abundance, in the ecological roles they play, in the benefits and services they provide us. It should give you a sense of existential dread to learn that insects are going away. Well, they aren't going completely away. It is hard to imagine a world that is still vaguely hospitable to life that doesn't have insects. But two recent studies have shown that the overall abundance of insects has been crashing precipitously over just the last few decades. One of the studies found that the abundance of flying insects in German nature preserves has declined 75 percent in just 27 years. Another study found similar declines in a Puerto Rico rain forest, and documented how this has altered the broader rain forest ecosystem.

This longish NYT Magazine article looks at these studies, and the other evidence that we are in the midst of an "insect Apocalypse"

Three steps to a slimmer footprint

Growing crops is one of the principal ways that we alter the planet. Our global food system is a major driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, depletion of freshwater resources, and nutrient pollution. A recent report has looked at our options for limiting these impacts while at the same time ensuring that we can feed ourselves nutritious diets. Predictably, the authors of the report don't find a simple solution or a single magic bullet. But they outline some straightforward approaches that we can start trying. These include shifting diets towards healthier and less impactful mixes of food, improving farm practices partly through better technology, and by reducing food waste.  Check out the report here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0594-0

Oh, its about to get real

That's the basic conclusion from the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If we want to keep global warming to 1.5 Celsius above per-industrial levels (a goal set by the Paris Agreement in 2016) we will need to cut our emissions in half before 2030 and go carbon neutral by 2050. The report then lays out some of the stark consequences of not doing that such as communities and even some entire nations drowned by rising sea level, food shortages caused by prolonged droughts, and more frequent or intense natural disasters such as tropical storms and fires. Given what little we have so far done to avert disaster, even many optimistic people see those warnings as a fait accompli at this point. It still doesn't have to be. But perhaps more pragmatically, we need to act now to prevent things from getting even worse.

Read the report here: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

Going up the Country

The National Park System is one of America's great ideas. They have preserved a significant chunk of our natural history for us and future generations to enjoy. Despite the protections they have, National Parks are not immune from existential changes we are causing to the earth system during the Anthropocene.   This Washington Post article summarizes a recent scientific study that suggests that climate change has had a disprortionate impact on our national parks.  This is partly becauese many of our parks are in the arctic and the western US, two regions that have so far experienced the most dramatic climate changes.

Soil!

Our conversion of landscapes such as forests and wetlands into various forms of domesticated landscapes such as row crops, managed pastures, and cities has been a major source of our greenhouse gas emissions as well as contributing to the ongoing imbalance between carbon sequestration and carbon flow to the atmosphere and oceans. This long article in the New York Times explores the role that soils play in this as well as efforts and ideas for improving carbon storage in our agricultural soils.

https://nyti.ms/2HcQ6d2