Things have been rather quiet on this blog in the last month or so as I’ve been working hard on #phd2012, and I wanted to give a brief update lest you thought this particular mammoth had gone extinct. I’ll be defending my dissertation on July 5th, and am planning on live-streaming the public portion of my defense, so stay tuned for details!

Remember that post I wrote about the obligatory “What’s next?” I am very excited to report that I will be moving to Providence, RI in August to begin a position as a Voss Postdoctoral Fellow at the Environmental Change Initiative at Brown University. I am very excited about this position, which allows me to work jointly with two advisors from two different departments on an explicitly interdisciplinary project. I’ll be working with global change ecologist Dov Sax (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology) and paleoeclimatologist James Russell (Geological Sciences) on a…

Full Article at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606132308.htm#.T9A5yMN8-5s.reddit

A group of scientists from around the world is warning that population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation.

<snip>

The result of such a major shift in the biosphere would be mixed, Barnosky noted, with some plant and animal species disappearing, new mixes of remaining species, and major disruptions in terms of which agricultural crops can grow where.

The paper by 22 internationally known scientists describes an urgent need for better predictive models that are based on a detailed understanding of how the biosphere reacted in the distant past to rapidly changing conditions, including climate and human population growth.

<snip>

Coauthor Elizabeth Hadly from Stanford University said “we may already be past these tipping points in particular regions…

‘Water Crisis’ Looming, Hillary Clinton Warns

By JEREMY B. WHITE: March 22, 2012 International Business Times

Naomi Antony
Assistant news editor, SciDev.Net

It’s day one of Tech4Dev 2012, and the question on everyone’s lips is ­­- “What is an appropriate technology?”

I sat in on some fascinating presentations that aimed to answer this question by looking at water management technologies in India and Africa.

The one that provided the most food for thought was a talk by Ravinder Malik from the New Delhi branch of the International Water Management Institute.

Presenting research on the use of treadle pumps in the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, India, Malik broke the question down and asked “Who are technologies appropriate for, the promoters or the users?”

Treadle pumps use body weight and leg muscles to lift water from a depth of up to eight metres for use in irrigation. They were introduced in Bangladesh to great success in 1985, boosting crop productivity and helping to lift…

Whether or not you garden, it is interesting to think about which vegetables, fruits, and herbs require less water to irrigate. I had a hard time finding an official chart online, but with a little research, some advice from growers, and personal experience, I can offer the following. I discovered the organization Waterfootprint.org, and got the figures at the bottom from them. This whole issue is important in California where all of the produce below are grown in massive quantities, but it is just as relevant to those who rely on California farms for their food. If you are a gardener, I found this handy guide (takes a minute to load, but worth it) that goes over a bunch of irrigation basics for gardens, it is not focused on vegetable gardens specifically.

Think about this when you are
-at the market
-ordering from a menu
-planning your garden
-serving…

This year’s General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union included, for the first time, a session on the role and value of ‘prediction’ in hydrological sciences. The session took place on Monday, April 23rd and was attended by approx. 125 EGU2012-visitors. The room was filled well over capacity and unfortunately, some people were unable to attend as a result.

Six speakers elaborated on the theme of using hydrological predictions on different time-scales and for different types of decision. Ana Lopez reminded attendees that any prediction of future climate, either single-valued or probabilistic, is a product of a set of underlying assumptions and may be flawed as a result of those being incomplete or incorrect. Robust policy-making must therefore take these uncertainties into account. Jos Timmermans described the challenge of combining the presence of both scientific uncertainty and dynamic complexity in predictive modeling as well as an approach for doing this…

By Thomas Giambelluca

Anecdotal evidence suggests that, besides impacting biodiversity, the invasive tree Miconia calvescens is causing landslides and other soil erosion problems in Tahiti, where it has displaced native forest. As miconia takes hold in Hawai‘i, local scientists and environmental organizations have voiced concerns about its potential hydrological impacts: increased flooding, diminished groundwater supply, loss of topsoil, and siltation of coral reefs.

Miconia invasions lead to dense, monotypic stands with little or no ground-covering vegetation. Miconia’s large, dark leaves reduce light levels beneath the canopy, thereby inhibiting the germination and growth of other plant species. Large leaves also produce relatively large throughfall drops during and after rain events.

“Throughfall” refers to rainwater that reaches the forest floor. Some throughfall consists of raindrops that fall through the forest canopy without hitting any leaves or branches. The rest comes from drops that splash or drip from wetted vegetation. Water that drips…

El FRA convoca a tod@s los puertorriqueñ@s a darse cita este próximo jueves, 31 de mayo de 2012, a la Vista Preliminar en el Tribunal de Ponce a las 12:00 PM en solidaridad con los compañeros arrestados por defender valientemente el patrimonio agrícola de Puerto Rico. Este día se combate también el derecho a la libertad de expresión de tod@s los Puertorriqueños violentado por la enmienda al Articulo 208 A del código penal. Véase la columna abajo publicada en el periódico El Nuevo Día sobre cómo este artículo del Código Penal infringe el derecho a la libertad de expresión y por tanto, resulta inconstitucional.

¡¡Lo menos que podemos hacer por el compromiso de los compañer@s arrestados es solidarizarnos y continuar la lucha por rescate de las tierras agrícolas!!

Pendiente a manifestaciones creativas del FRA durante la mañana del jueves…
________________________________
8 de mayo de 2012

http://www.elnuevodia.com/voz-expresionciudadana-1251991.html

EXPRESIÓN CIUDADANA
Amaris…