The Arctic—home to diverse wildlife and many cultures—is changing faster than any other part of the planet in the face of climate change. Melting sea ice is already contributing to rising ocean levels worldwide and opening up new areas of the ocean for risky oil drilling. And polar bears, which depend on that ice to hunt seals, rest, and breed, are now more vulnerable than ever.

The Columbia Climate Center, in partnership with WWF and Arctic 21, published a new report that asks experts to consider the effects on the Arctic in light of an international agreement that aims to limit climate change to between 1.5° and less than 2° s C. Unfortunately for the Arctic, even that limited increase could mean a change of roughly 4°C and even up to 5°C.

Already, the changes are impacting not only Arctic residents, but billions of people living in other parts of the world.

But there’s still time left to help the Arctic and the impacts of climate change. Ultimately, experts agreed on five important ways we can take action:

1. We need to fund research to help us all better understand what the Arctic might look like in the near future. That research should prepare us for multiple scenarios.

2. We need to develop technology to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Once we find out what works, that technology should be put to work immediately and on a large-scale.

3. We need to immediately help people who live in the Arctic to adapt, which may include relocating communities. Right now there’s little policy and infrastructure to help these people adapt so they’re going it alone.

4. We need to give scientists the tools to help us effectively understand and adapt to a changing Arctic. We should support an emerging pan-Arctic observing system, along with early warning components and development of Arctic system models to track Arctic change.

5. We need to create a unified voice for Arctic action with continued global talks and decision-making, especially when that work is forward-looking.

When the White House hosted the first ever Arctic Science Ministerial, leaders from around the world agreed to work collaboratively. Keeping that commitment will be important. The Arctic needs the best in science to create the most effective policy, and no one is going to be able to do it alone.

This blog post was originally posted here.

Just 38% of US schoolchildren were taught that climate change is linked to fossil fuels, with many teachers spending less than an hour a year on the subject.

Nearly two-thirds of schoolchildren in the US are taught lessons on climate change that do not rise to the level of a sound science education, according to new research on Thursday. The finding provide new evidence on the source of the confusion and denial surrounding global warming in American public life.

In the first national survey of classroom science teachers, researchers found there was short shrift given to the teaching of climate change in public middle and high schools in all 50 states.

The survey of 1,500 teachers, published in Science on Thursday, found most pupils spend only an hour or two in the course of an academic year learning about climate change in middle and high school – and much of what they are taught is confusing or simply wrong.

Only 38% of American schoolchildren were taught lessons that adhere to the scientific consensus that climate change is largely the result of the burning of fossil fuels, the researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the National Centre for Science Education found.

Some 30% of teachers spent less than an hour on climate change during the last academic year, the researchers found. In higher grades, much of that time was spent going over old material without introducing more advanced material.

Some 7% attributed recent warming to natural causes – which is simply wrong – while 4% of teachers avoided talking about the cause of climate change. Another 22% said their lessons mentioned the scientific consensus – but also that there was significant disagreement among scientists, which is also incorrect. 

The findings suggest that younger generations – those most likely to experience the havoc and stress of climate change in their lifetimes – are not getting the education to best serve their needs.

Eric Plutzer, a political scientist at Penn State, and a co-author of the study, said: “We don’t think that is good preparation for citizens to be effective in advocating for policies that are going to be critical to their own generation and their children and grandchildren.”

The lack of teaching and the mixed messages about climate change leave schoolchildren more susceptible to disinformation about climate change spread by political or corporate interests once they enter adulthood, the researchers said.

The energy industry has spent millions funding climate denial and supporting Republicans in Congress who deny global warming is occurring.

Indeed, the researchers found that many of the teachers themselves were confused about the causes of climate change. Only 30% of middle school teachers and 45% of high school teachers said that human activity was the main driver of climate change, the researchers found.

Their findings are in line with other studies which have found systemic failings in the teaching of climate change. A Stanford University study of science textbooks used in California public schools last year found misleading material.

Unlike other, more informal surveys, the researchers did not give much weight to the idea that the teachers faced political and parental pressure to avoid teaching the science. But politics remained a factor in how teachers decided to teach the material, Plutzer said. 

“Politics intrude in the same form it takes in the public debate, with teachers whether consciously or not aligning in much the same way as political groups do outside the classroom.”

However, the researchers said it would be unfair to heap the blame on teachers.

Climate science was not yet part of the testable curriculum for many schools – which means there were fewer guidelines available to teachers.

That also meant that teachers were inclined to spend more time teaching other material that students would encounter on standardized tests.

Some of the teachers were also caught out by the rapid advances in climate science. Fewer than half of teachers reported receiving any training in climate science at university, said Josh Rosenau, policy director for the National Center for Science in Education and a co-author. “The scientific community has not made sure that teachers are kept up to date with those advances,” he said, adding that there should be continuing education programs on climate change for teachers.

This article was originally posted on the Guardian.

The classroom is the right place to start educating our citizens about the greatest challenge they will face.

The reality of climate change is here, and the science behind our warming planet is clear. July and August 2016 were the hottest months in recorded history. And last year was the hottest on record. Wildfires have scorched California. Thousand-year floods have devastated Louisiana. Temperatures are soaring. Sea levels are rising. Weather is more extreme. Greenhouse gases have been steadily increasing for decades.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

About 24 percent of all calories currently produced for human consumption are lost or wasted. This paper examines the implications of this amount of loss and waste, profiles a number of approaches for reducing it, and puts forth five recommendations for how to move forward on this issue. "Reducing Food Loss and Waste" is the second installment in the series that forms the foundation of the “World Resources Report 2013-14: Creating a Sustainable Food Future.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 32 percent of all food produced in the world was lost or wasted in 2009. This estimate is based on weight. When converted into calories, global food loss and waste amounts to approximately 24 percent of all food produced. Essentially, one out of every four food calories intended for people is not ultimately consumed by them.

Food loss and waste have many negative economic and environmental impacts. Economically, they represent a wasted investment that can reduce farmers’ incomes and increase consumers’ expenses. Environmentally, food loss and waste inflict a host of impacts, including unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions and inefficiently used water and land, which in turn can lead to diminished natural ecosystems and the services they provide.

Big inefficiencies suggest big savings opportunities. We estimate that if the current rate of food loss and waste were cut in half―from 24 percent to 12 percent―by the year 2050, the world would need about 1,314 trillion kilocalories (kcal) less food per year than it would in the business-as-usual global food requirements scenario described in The Great Balancing Act, the first installment of this World Resources Report working paper series. That savings--1,314 trillion kcal--is roughly 22 percent of the 6,000 trillion kcal per year gap between food available today and that needed in 2050. Thus, reducing food loss and waste could be one of the leading global strategies for achieving a sustainable food future.

In this paper, we profile a subset of approaches to reducing food loss and waste that experts suggest are particularly practical and cost-effective, that could be implemented relatively quickly, and that could achieve quick gains. We also recommend a number of cross-cutting strategies to further galvanize commitment to reducing food loss and waste.

Reducing Food Loss and Waste is the second in a series of working papers that we’ll roll out over the course of a year. Each subsequent paper will take a detailed look at a potential solution that could help achieve a sustainable food future. These installments will set the foundation for and culminate in the World Resources Report 2013-2014: Creating a Sustainable Food Future. To learn more about the series and sign up to receive updates, visit the World Resources Report website.

Read the report.

This blog post was originally posted here.

A new report makes a strong bottom-line case for more earth-friendly farming — and eating — practices. A more sustainable approach to our world’s food production could be a massive economic boon, a new report out this month claims.

Our planet has a very long way to go toward building a food system that is truly and genuinely sustainable, but that work, if done correctly, could come with a massive reward.

That’s the conclusion of a new report released this month by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, an international nonprofit hoping to make a strong bottom-line case for industries to take a more earth-friendly approach to their businesses.

In its flagship report, the commission appears to have done just that.

The report claims that taking a sustainable approach to the world’s food and agriculture challenges, like hunger, food waste and environmental degradation, could lead to new business opportunities totaling an annual $2.3 trillion — and 80 million new jobs — by 2030, based on an analysis of of industry reports and academic literature.

That economic impact would be a sevenfold return on an annual investment of $320 billion, according to the report.

[video: http://videos.vidible.tv/prod/2016-07/11/5783e9cd1c6899497d7adf09_853x480_v1.mp4?DHp_oQA71_V5AW6c6Pqq_Zb76eeoo2G6wOMtVW4-w1rEabuV0K4Nht9IVHL7WnoZ]

What exactly is meant by a sustainable approach that could achieve this, though? The approach considered by the report is one outlined by the United Nations’Sustainable Development Goals, or Global Goals, which were released last year with the aim of reducing poverty, hunger and inequality around the world by 2030.

The SDG agenda calls for significant shifts in how our food is produced, processed and sold, including growing and consuming more produce and meats that have a reduced environmental impact, embracing sustainable farming practices like low- and no-till agriculture and reducing food waste at both the production and retail level.

Such shifts, the report’s author Fraser Thompson said, aren’t just “pie-in-the-sky” daydreaming or, as some critics of the SDGs have put it, byproducts of a “worthless” “high school wish list.”

“It is important to stress that our business opportunities are based on currently available technologies where there is an existing model in operation in some part of the world,” Thompson told HuffPost by email. “We deliberately took this approach to ensure that the insights from the report were feasible for business.”

According to the report, these global shifts would have the bulk of their impact in developing countries — over 90 percent of the forecast job creation would take place on the continents of Africa and Asia due to the large share of arable land and high future consumption growth, Thompson said.

But there are significant opportunities for the U.S. to seize as well.

The three top areas for possible economic growth tied to a more sustainable food system in the U.S. are largely focused on the consumption side of the food value chain — reducing consumer food waste, reformulating food products to be healthier, and helping consumers switch their diets away from resource-intensive products like beef and toward other proteins like poultry, pork, fish and vegetarian diets.

There are already promising examples of the sort of sustainable practices the commission would like to see other industry leaders emulate in play throughout the world.

One of them Thompson named is Winnow, a London-based startup that is battling food waste through a “smart meter” that connects commercial kitchen operations to the cloud and allows chefs to record and analyze all the food that doesn’t get put to use.

Chefs then use that information to tweak their production practices and reduce their kitchens’ food waste by 50 percent or more. The company’s work was recognized with a Guardian Sustainable Business award earlier this year.

The key, Thompson argues, to harnessing the impressive windfall they’ve forecast will simply be scaling up ideas like Winnow’s kitchen meter. That will require buy-in from a broad swath of businesses and consumers alike.

BSDC chair Lord Mark Malloch-Brown told HuffPost by email he is hopeful the research presented in the report should help industry players connect the dots.

“It will require hard work by individual entrepreneurs and companies to translate this into specific businesses that earn financial returns in line with the economic opportunity we have identified,” Brown, former UN deputy secretary-general, wrote. “That’s hard long-term work but what we have sought to show is that the prize is worth the effort.”

Still, businesses have been slow to take action toward achieving the SDGs and consumers also appear skeptical, according to recent surveys.

According to Thompson, though, we don’t have much longer to wait before taking action toward meeting the world’s increasing food demands, which the UN has warned will grow by 60 percent in 2050.

“The challenges facing the food system in a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario should not be underestimated,” Thompson added. “Addressing the current undernourished population and the rapid demand for food and feed – and competing demand for fuel – will require a radical rethink of past practices.”

This article was originally posted on The Huffington Post​.

Increasing temperatures, rising sea levels and ocean acidification amplify extremes of climate change. Finding a solution to minimise the impact on coastal areas has become a priority. That’s why COP22 host nation Morocco has set up three complementary initiatives, including the Blue Belt, devoted to issues related to fisheries

The Blue Belt initiative stemmed from the Blue Growth concept, launched by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2013.

It aims to encourage sustainable fishing, from seas and lakes to consumers’ plates, to allow marine resources to renew themselves.

Better fishing practices lead to less food waste

“Morocco’s vessel monitoring system (VMS), available on all Moroccan boats, is a good management tool,” Abdelkrim Foutat, President, Moroccan Association of Shipowners told Euronews. “We can follow their units, knowing exactly the distance their ship, its exact location, the time it leaves port and when it returns.”

The Blue Belt initiative aims to better observe the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. The marine navigation buoy is one of the tools used by the National Institute of Fisheries Research off the south coast of Morocco.

“Our ambition is to enhance, improve and implement a coastal marine observation system,” Abdelmalek Faraj, General Director, Moroccan National Institute of Fisheries Research (INRH), told Euronews. “In Morocco we began by installing an oceanographic and meteorological buoy off Dakhla. We aim to install a network in the northwest African region with our partner countries.”

Cultivating a sustainable aquaculture to limit overfishing

“Our goal is to develop and strengthen aquaculture,” said Faraj. “It has a very significant potential, the fisheries sector’s fastest growth in recent years. However, our goal is sustainable development. So we want to encourage the development of seaweed farming and that’s why in Morocco we have several experimental projects you can see here today such as with macro algae.”

The seas and oceans cover two thirds of our planet. Its environment is perhaps fragile but it’s rich in unexploited opportunities.
 

This article was originally posted on Euronews.

A Proud Partnership- Mission Blue Applauds IUCN’s Motion to Protect 30% of  the Ocean By 2030!

“Planet at the Crossroads” was the theme at this year’s World Conservation Congress. Organized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), leaders took bold steps in confirming recommendations for 30% marine protection by 2030. Over 180 countries and 700 conservation groups were represented. 

Motion 53 came one week following President Obama’s historical expansion of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Countries are now being urged to designate this as a minimum for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Building fuller sustainability would include the reduction of at least 30% “extractive” activities including fishing, mining, and drilling. 

Pew Charitable Trusts outlines some of the ways in which this might be accomplished: 

- States committing to designate at least 30 percent of their national waters as MPAs by 2030; 
- States engaging constructively in establishing MPAs in areas beyond national jurisdiction, through the development of a new global instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and through the adoption of new and existing proposals at the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources; and 
- IUCN State Members calling on the CBD Secretariat to initiate the process for achieving a post-Aichi target of 30 percent of coastal and marine areas fully protected by 2030.

Warming Seas

“Ocean warming may well turn out to be the greatest hidden challenge of our generation”, indicates Dan Laffoley, Marine Vice Chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas at IUCN and Mission Blue Board Member. A new IUCN report led by Laffoley illuminates the impacts of ocean warming on ecosystems and species, and on the every-day benefits derived from the ocean- it’s ‘goods and services’.  Protecting 30% of the ocean ensures resiliency to a changing climate. 

The new ocean protection goal marks a celebrated achievement towards a growing movement to conserve valuable marine biodiversity. Mission Blue and countless other ocean organizations advocated for the passage of this important motion. Over the past year, citizens and organizations across the planet have nominated marine environments especially deserving of protection – known as Hope Spots – for review by Mission Blue and IUCN. After rigorous scientific vetting and policy analysis, we recently announced the names of 14 new Hope Spots, which came directly from a concerned global community calling out for more ocean protection.

By allowing citizens to elect their own Hope Spots, Mission Blue and IUCN hope to meet the 30% goal of igniting broad public support for a global network of marine protected areas large enough to protect and restore the ocean’s health.

This article was originally posted here.

Report comparing past mass extinction events warns that hunting and killing of ocean’s largest species will disrupt ecosystems for millions of years.

Humanity is driving an unprecedented extinction of sealife unlike any in the fossil record, hunting and killing larger species in a way that will disrupt ocean ecosystems for millions of years, scientists have found.

A new analysis of the five mass extinction events millions of years ago discovered there was either no pattern to which marine species were lost, or smaller species were the ones that disappeared.

But today’s “sixth extinction” is unique in the way that the largest species, such as great white sharks, blue whales and southern bluefin tuna, are being pushed to the brink, due to humans’ tendency to fish for larger species more often than smaller ones.

The consequences, according to a study published in the journal Science on Wednesday, are devastating for the ecology of the world’s oceans.

“If this pattern goes unchecked, the future oceans would lack many of the largest species in today’s oceans,” said Jonathan Payne, associate professor and chair of geological sciences at Stanford University. “Many large species play critical roles in ecosystems and so their extinctions could lead to ecological cascades that would influence the structure and function of future ecosystems beyond the simple fact of losing those species.”

The danger is disproportionate to the percentage of threatened species, with the authors warning the loss of giants would “disrupt ecosystems for millions of years even at levels of taxonomic loss far below those of previous mass extinctions”.

The loss of larger species in the oceans could have knock-on effects on ecosystems, Payne said, citing the loss of very large predatory seasnails (Triton) from coral reefs, which appears to be one of the reasons behind the explosive growth in numbers of crown of thorns starfish, which eat coral.

Humans would be affected by such trends too, he said, as communities rely on coral reefs to attract tourism. He also pointed to the examples of tuna and cod, whose extinction would deprive people of an important source of income and protein.

To see how the current loss of species compared to previous extinctions, Payne and his team analysed a database of 2,497 groups of marine vertebrate and mollusc over the past 500 years, and compared it to the ancient past.

They found no precedent in the fossil record for today’s trend towards killing off larger-bodied species, with previous mass extinctions marked by either no association with body size or an association with smaller species.

“The link that we found between body size and extinction threat in the modern oceans is quite strong,” Payne told the Guardian.

Co-author Noel Heim, also at Stanford, said: “We see this over and over again. Humans enter into a new ecosystem, and the largest animals are killed off first. Marine systems have been spared up to now, because until relatively recently, humans were restricted to coastal areas and didn’t have the technology to fish in the deep ocean on an industrial scale.”

Fellow author Douglas McCauley said large body size was often linked with the need for larger ocean spaces to range in, so an increasing trend for governments to create very large marine protected areas could hold some hope for species.

“Historically marine protected areas have been small boutique affairs - more like the size of golf courses. In the past five years, however, the world has begun aggressively setting up very large marine protected areas.

“Recently Obama created the world’s largest protected area in Papahānaumokuākea, a protected area just over a million square kilometres in size. This is really good news as parks of this size will indeed provide meaningful protection for large vulnerable animals we highlight as being at risk.”

This article was originally posted on the Guardian.